Project Gutenberg's The Vinland Champions, by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
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Title: The Vinland Champions
Author: Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
Release Date: October 18, 2012 [EBook #41098]
Language: English
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THE VINLAND CHAMPIONS
* * * * *
[Illustration: His eyes showed fire, while his voice was deep.]
THE VINLAND CHAMPIONS
BY OTTILIE A. LILJENCRANTZ
_ILLUSTRATED BY THE KINNEYS_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
MCMIV
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published. September, 1904_
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE ix
PART FIRST
THE BROOD OF THE WIND-RAVEN
CHAPTER
I. CONCERNING ALREK OF THE VIKING CAMPS 3
II. IN WHICH THE BOYS OF THE WIND-RAVEN CONSIDER THE CHANCES
OF FINDING A SKRAELLING 12
III. RELATING HOW ONE WAS FOUND ON THE CAPE OF THE CROSSES 21
IV. WHEREIN THE SWORD-BEARER IS FURTHER REMINDED THAT HE HAS
BROKEN THE LAW 33
V. THROUGH WHICH THE STORM-GIANT BLUSTERS 42
VI. ABOUT THE STRANGE FIND ON KEEL CAPE 52
VII. CONCERNING THORFINN KARLSEFNE, THE LAWMAN 66
PART SECOND
ALREK'S CHAMPIONS
VIII. AT THE HALL OF THE VINLAND CHAMPIONS 83
IX. ABOUT THE HUNTSMAN AND THE BOY WHO WAS DROWNED 94
X. THROUGH WHICH THE CHAMPIONS CHASE VINLAND ELK 108
XI. TELLING HOW TRADE WITH THE SKRAELLINGS CAME TO A MYSTERIOUS END 117
XII. IN WHICH THE CHAMPIONS FEEL THEIR IMPORTANCE 134
XIII. GIVING THE REASON WHY THE SKRAELLINGS FLED 144
XIV. SHOWING HOW DISGRACE CAME UPON ALREK THE CHIEF 149
PART THIRD
THE HUNTSMAN'S PREY
XV. ABOUT THE FIRE-THAT-RUNS-ON-THE-WAVES 163
XVI. PROVING THAT ALREK'S EMPTY HANDS WERE FULL OF POWER 176
XVII. SHOWING HOW THE CHAMPIONS BROKE A THREAD IN THE HUNTSMAN'S NET 188
XVIII. CONCERNING A GRIM BARGAIN BETWEEN THE LAWMAN AND ALREK 202
XIX. RELATING THE ADVENTURE WITH THE MEN OF THE FOREST 213
XX. SHOWING HOW THE HUNTSMAN BAGGED HIS GAME 226
XXI. IN WHICH ALREK SWORD-BEARER FACES DEATH 239
EPILOGUE 253
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
His eyes showed fire, while his voice was deep _Frontispiece_
Neither sound nor motion was on his blue lips 51
She ladled curds from her bowl into the gaping mouth 124
With no other weapon than his bare brown hands 182
PROLOGUE
It happened first in the history of the New World lands that the
Northman Biorn Herjulfsson saw them when he had lost his way in
journeying to Greenland. But he lacked the adventuresomeness to go
ashore and explore them.
Then Leif the Lucky, son of Eric the Red of Greenland, heard of the
omission and set out to remedy it. He rediscovered the lands and went
upon them and named them, after which he built booths at a place he
called Vinland and passed a winter there.
Next, Leif's brother Thorwald Ericsson came over the ocean; but his luck
was less for he was shipwrecked on one cape and killed on another, and
his men returned disheartened.
He was followed by the third brother, Thorstein; but this expedition had
no success whatever for they spent a whole summer in wandering in a
circle that landed them finally upon the west coast of Greenland
itself. And here Thorstein died of a plague, leaving his young wife
Gudrid to return to the hospitality of Leif at Brattahlid.
The explorer who came next and who did the most was Thorfinn Karlsefne
of Iceland. While he was visiting at Brattahlid he married Gudrid, the
widow of Thorstein, and she--together with others--talked to him so much
about the new lands that he resolved upon settling them. In the spring
of 1007 he set out from Greenland with three ships heavily laden and
came to Vinland and wakened the sleeping camp to new life.
This story begins on an autumn day in the second year of Karlsefne's
settlement, and on board the little ship called the Wind-Raven which he
had sent out at the beginning of summer to explore the eastern coast.
PART FIRST
THE BROOD OF THE WIND-RAVEN
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING ALREK OF THE VIKING CAMPS
For four days the Wind-Raven had drifted blindfold in a fog, and now the
fifth day had dawned with no prospect of release and the explorers were
hard put to it for amusement. On the after-deck the helmsman had sought
comfort in his ale horn; spread over the benches below, the two-score
men of the crew were killing time with chess games; and the twenty-odd
boys who completed the company had turned the forepart of the ship into
a swimming beach around which they sported with the zest of young seals.
On the murky waves their yellow heads bobbed like so many oranges. The
forecastle swarmed with them as they chased one another across it, their
wet bodies glimmering moth-like in the grayness. And the first two
benches were covered with those whom lack of breath had induced to pause
and burrow in the heaps of clothing scattered there.
The center of the group of loungers was a brown-haired brown-eyed
brown-cheeked boy relating with a grin of appreciation a story of Viking
horse-play. The laughter which applauded him ceased only when a lad with
a sword approached and set the laughers to dodging thrusts.
"Your noses are as blue as Gudrid's eyes," the newcomer scoffed,
sprinkling them with tosses of his dripping red mane. "Rouse up, Alrek
of Norway, and have a bout with me to set your blood to moving."
The brown-eyed boy looked around without enthusiasm; and from the others
rose a disparaging chorus:
"There are more chances that you will set your own blood to running----"
"Hallad once had the same belief in----" "Perhaps the water has blurred
the Red-Head's memory so he thinks it was he who won the dwarfs' sword
last winter."
The Red-Haired became also the Red-Cheeked; he was overgrown and
undisciplined and his temper appeared to be hung as loosely as his
limbs. "If you allow him to think," he cried, "that we twenty
Greenlanders are afraid to fight him because he was bred in a Viking
camp while we are farm-reared, I will challenge him where I stand." He
was swelling his chest as if to devote his next breath to defiance, when
he was prevented by Alrek of Norway himself.
"I will not fight you, but you may have your way about fencing," the
young Viking consented, rising leisurely and laying aside his cloak of
soldier scarlet. Emerging from its folds, it could be seen that besides
his brownness he was distinguished among his companions for the
soldierly erectness with which he bore his broad-shouldered thin-flanked
young body, and the compactness of the muscles that played under his
burnished skin with the strong grace of a young tiger's.
While he dug up his dwarf-made weapon from the mound of his clothing,
the Red One ran up to the forecastle and kicked clear of ropes and
garments a space in the center; and the loungers hitched themselves
around to face the deck, and joined in elbowing off the swimmers as they
came splashing in to see the sport.
Sport it unquestionably was at the beginning, for the camp-bred boy set
the tune to a tripping measure that made the graceful blades seem to be
kissing each other. Back and forth and up and down they went as in a
dance, parry answering thrust so evenly that the ear grew to anticipate
the clash and keep time to it as to music. But presently this very
forbearance nettled the farm-bred lad so that he broke the rhythm with
an unexpected stroke. Passing Alrek's guard, it opened a red wound upon
his brown breast. He accepted it with a grimace as good-humored as his
fencing, but his opponent was unwise enough to let fly a cry of triumph.
Alrek's expression changed. The next time the Greenlander made use of
that thrust, his blade was met with a force that jarred his arm to the
shoulder. Under the hurt of it, he struck spitefully. Alrek answered in
kind. Slowly, the even beat gave way to jerks of short sharp clatter,
separated by pauses during which the two worked around each other with
squaring mouths and kindling eyes.
With the beginning of the clatter, a short old man called Grimkel
One-Eye and a long young man known as Hjalmar Thick-Skull, sitting at
chess behind the mast, had put down their pieces to listen. Now, the
discord continuing, old Grimkel left his place and strolled forward to
the forecastle steps. Spying blood spots on the Greenlander's white
shoulders, he made Alrek of Norway a sign of warning. But the Viking boy
did not even see him.
Over the spectators such stillness had fallen that the scuffle and slap
of the bare feet upon the boards sounded with sickening distinctness.
The in-drawn breaths made a hiss when, more swiftly than eye could
follow, Alrek's blade described a new curve which the other's sword
could not meet. To save himself from being spitted, the Greenlander was
forced to leap backward. Leaping, his back came against the gunwale with
a crash which told that further retreat would be impossible. From the
watchers burst a cry, but no recollection relaxed the terrible
intentness of the young Viking's eyes as a second time he drew back his
arm to speed that lightning stroke. The Red One's rashness would have
been his bane if the old man had not sprung upon the deck and caught
Alrek's elbow.
"Do you remember that you are playing?" he growled.
If he needed an answer he had it in the savage force with which the boy
tore himself free, and the fierceness with which he whirled, before the
meaning of the words came home to him so that he lowered his point.
"You guess well," he muttered. "I had altogether forgotten." Half
angrily he turned back to the Greenlander. "Why, in the Fiend's name,
did you not remind me?"
Though much blood from his scratches was on the Red One's body and
little was in his cheeks, he still tried to swagger. "I am no coward,"
he proclaimed. But on the last word his voice broke so hysterically that
Grimkel thought it the part of kindness to interfere, and did so, his
kindness masking as usual under gruff severity.
"You are a fool, which is worse," the old man snapped, pushing him
roughly down the steps, while with his head he motioned those below to
disperse. "Go put on sense with your clothes. Get dressed, all of you.
If you do not do as I tell you, you will feel it." When he had shaken
his fist at them once or twice and finally seen himself obeyed, he
turned back where Alrek stood drying his weapon on a cloak he had
thrown around him. "You! Listen! I have a warning I want to speak to
you."
"You would do better to warn the Red-Head against stirring me up again,"
the young Viking returned, still half angrily; but the One-Eyed heard
him as a rock hears a wave-splash.
"Before now, I have reminded you that your father was an outlaw----"
"That you have!" Alrek assented. "Six times have I heard the tale since
I touched Greenland, though I lived eight years in the camps without
hearing it once! In Norway, men remember only that my father was the
bravest of the Earl's Vikings."
"In Iceland, they remember that before he became a Viking he was an
outlaw," the old man went on imperturbably, "and so like your father are
you in looks that every eye is watching to find his unruliness in you.
Now what I would tell you is that if you do not bridle this Viking
fierceness, you will ruin yourself with Karlsefne."
The boy uttered a sudden short laugh. "Is it possible that I could get
less honor with him?" he jeered; and polished awhile in tight-lipped
silence. At last he straightened to meet the other's gaze and his eyes
showed fire, while his voice was deep with resentment. "I am Karlsefne's
brother's son, but I get less praise from him than his thralls. He
notices his dogs more often than he notices me. It is difficult to know
what he expects of me. I believe that he hated my father."
Grimkel rubbed his bristly chin upon his palm. "It cannot be said that
Karlsefne has a fondness for outlaws. So great is his love for the law
that he was called 'the Lawman' before ever the chiefs who came with him
on this expedition chose him to be over-chief in Vinland. Yet neither
can it be said that he hated his brother. While they were young their
love was great toward each other; and when Ingolf, your father, broke
the Iceland law, Karlsefne gave half his property to pay the fine. And
when Ingolf died, Karlsefne brought you into his following----"
"Where he shows every day that he holds me in dishonor for being his
brother's son," Alrek finished.
The old man spat over the gunwale with explosive impatience.
"Simpleton! He holds you neither in honor nor dishonor--yet. He but
waits to see which you will earn."
Slowly, understanding dawned in the boy's face; turning away he stood
kicking at a pile of walrus-hide thongs coiled on the deck before him.
Grimkel concluded his plea earnestly; "You cannot say that this is
unfair. It lies with you to take whichever you want. For my part, I
believe that you will do him credit in every respect. It is because I
believe this, and because I loved your father in the days when he was
your height and I taught him spear-throwing, that I speak."
After a while, Alrek said gravely, "I take it as very friendly of you."
He said nothing further, finishing his rubbing in silence and in silence
descending the steps, but his advice-giver needed no more than one eye
to see that at last he understood the difficulties of his position.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH THE BOYS OF THE WIND-RAVEN CONSIDER THE CHANCES OF FINDING A
SKRAELLING
Meanwhile, something was happening aft. Over his horn the helmsman
discovered that a thin place in the fog vail was wearing into a hole,
through which could be seen a low coast ending far ahead in a cloud-like
hill.
"The Cape of the Crosses!" he broke the news, and the word was caught
and tossed along like a ball.
"The Cape of the Crosses! The last point we must touch at!" the men
cheered as they hurried to get up sail and put about for the opening
door.
And the twenty lads, busy settling beltfuls of knives over tunics of
deerskin, plunged into such eager anticipation of the joys of the
landing that it was no time at all before they were scuffling with the
Red One, whose smarting wounds made him particularly perverse. By the
time Alrek had got into _his_ tunic and buckled on the beautiful weapon
that gave him his nickname of "the Sword-Bearer," he was obliged to
weather a storm of nutshells in order to join the group. It took all the
persuasion of the stout comely fellow called Erlend the Amiable to bring
them back to peaceful discussion.
"We were talking of going ashore to-morrow and considering about whether
there is any good chance that Skraellings may be there now," he
explained, when he could make himself heard.
The subject attracted Alrek. Strolling over to the Amiable One's bench,
he stretched himself upon it and made his head comfortable on Erlend's
gay blue cloak. "Now it had fallen out of my mind," he mused, "that it
was here that the inhabitants killed Thorwald Ericsson, when he went up
on land and found three boats with three men hiding under each----"
"What is your tongue wagging about?" Ketil the Glib interrupted. "It was
not those men that killed him; he killed all of them but one, who
escaped in a boat. It was the host which that one brought back that
shot arrows into him until--" He was interrupted in his turn by a piece
of sail-cloth which the red-haired boy threw over his head.
"Gabbler! He knew that story before you had chipped the shell," the Red
One snubbed him. "Go on, Alrek, and say whether you think it is to be
expected that we will see any."
The Sword-Bearer shrugged his shoulders. "You should have the best
judgment about that, Brand Erlingsson, for you were visiting your
brother Rolf at Brattahlid when Thorwald's men brought back the tidings
of his death. You know whether or not it is their belief that
Skraellings live on the Cape."
The Red One--who, it appeared, answered also to the name of Brand
Erlingsson--replied earnestly. He said that Thorwald's men did not
believe that the creatures lived there, but that they inhabited the
mainland and only visited the Cape for clams or something; that the Cape
was no more than a thin land-neck, that ended in a kind of cross-bar
composed of a beach connecting two hills; and that it could not
possibly have anything of interest on it; whereas, if they could go on
to Keel Cape----
But there the shell shower recommenced, amid a protesting chorus; "Do
not let him get started--" "End his noise!" "He is always sputtering!"
And Strong Domar extinguished the last sputter by a wild whoop as he
tossed up his cap in celebration.
"However it stands, our chance for catching some there on a visit is as
good as Thorwald's! Luck be with us!" he shouted. Whereupon he tossed up
his neighbor's cap--being much given to good-natured jests of the
fists--and the jubilee would have been general if it had not suddenly
been discovered that Alrek was slowly shaking his head on its blue
pillow.
"Why not?" they paused to demand.
When he had taken his full time about chewing and swallowing a mouthful
of nuts, he told them; "Because we lack Thorwald's energy at the helm.
He went ashore so soon after he cast anchor that the men on the Cape did
not have time to get away. We shall remain quiet a whole night after we
come to anchor. If it should happen that any Skraellings are there,
they would have plenty of light to see us by, and the whole night to
escape in. Little danger is there that the Weathercock will break the
Lawman's order to keep peace with the inhabitants; but if Karlsefne is
to be any better off about news of them, he will find it needful to put
a shrewder man at the steering oar."
The celebration died in mid-air; no more chance was there of denying the
argument than of remedying the fact. What comfort they could get out of
blaming the helmsman, they took; then returned one by one to a gloomy
munching of nuts from the store under the benches. In the lull, Brand of
Greenland found opportunity to vent the rest of his dissatisfaction.
"Neither will any good come to us out of these trips, while the
Weathercock steers!" he burst out, shaking the hair from his bright
impatient eyes. "These five months, we have gone ashore only when there
was no chance for adventure to result from it; and so have I tired of
this trough that I could gnaw the edge of it as a horse gnaws his stall!
Sooner than I shall make another voyage under his leadership, I will
paddle back to Greenland in a skin-boat!"
The fact that they all agreed with him did not prevent them from jeering
through their mouthfuls. Even his loyal younger brother, Olaf the Fair,
showed a merry face under his yellow curls.
"You speak too small words! Say that you would build a dragon-ship and
have sole power over it," he mocked,--then scrambled discreetly out of
reach as Brand turned on him.
"Well--I _could_!" the Red One defied the universe. "King Half owned a
ship and headed a band when he was no more than twelve winters old----"
Jeers cut him short. "King Half! He will liken himself to Olaf
Tryggvasson next!" "You great donkey, you!" "No--calf, with the milk of
his kinsman's dairy-farm still in him!" cried the unoccupied mouths,
while the full ones grinned broadly.
Only Alrek, smiling up at the sky, said whimsically; "Give me leave to
travel with you when it is built, champion. I should like to be on a
ship that would come and go according to my will. For one thing, I
should like to go ashore to-night to see Thorwald Ericsson's grave. The
Huntsman told me once, when I laughed at his magic, that if ever I stood
beside a grave in the noon of night I should know what fear was. It has
long been in my mind to prove him a liar, but no other grave than
Thorwald's is in the new land. If we were on your ship now----"
"What is to be said against swimming?" inquired Gard the Ugly, from the
bench where he sat weaving fish-nets,--for it was a trace of the thrall
blood which was in him, that, although he was free, his great hands were
always busy with some service.
"Hallad, Biorn's foster-son, used that expedient once,--and it can not
be said that he is of a bold disposition even if he did go with the
Huntsman this summer. I am willing to try it. We can slip overboard
shortly after it becomes dark, and spend the time before midnight in
ranging over the beach,--I would give a ring to get the knots out of my
legs! Will you do it?"
Pulling himself up lazily, Alrek sat a while gazing ahead where a second
hazy mass, seemingly as far away as the horizon itself, was rapidly
pushing out from behind the Cape.
"Why not?" he responded at last. "Only, the swimming part is not to my
mind; I find that deerskin dries on me less easily than on deer. Because
of what has been told of the shallowness of the harbor, it is unlikely
that we shall anchor very near to land; so it is my advice that we take
the small boat. We can lower it with little trouble, if there is no
moon, while the men are aft drinking their ale."
He rose as he spoke, and Gard leaped up also and clapped him on the back
in token that it was a bargain; at which the scoffers quieted into a
semblance of interest, and Erlend regarded him with amusement.
"Suppose it does not happen that you get a chance to tell the Huntsman
of your experience?" he suggested. "I think it altogether unlikely that
he will return from his trip to the south country. Will the
entertainment be worth the exertion?"
Alrek gave him a poke between his well-padded ribs. "A man must risk
something if he wishes to avoid getting fat," he answered. Whereat the
Amiable One came in for his share of gibing; and during it, Gard put his
arm through the Sword-Bearer's and drew him forward to look at the land.
The land was worth looking at, certainly, as it revealed itself bit by
bit through the mellow haze of the sunset. Skimming toward it in the
path of a breeze, it was not long before the sickle-curve of a harbor
had drawn out from behind the Cape. Then the inner of the Cape hills
looked out from its hiding place beyond the seaward knoll. Next, a
streak of white beach unfolded itself between them. Finally the whole
began to take on color, gray giving way to grayish green and brown and
red, while the cold gleam along the water's edge warmed into faint
yellow.
So it lay motionless and soundless in the waning light, the sun fading
from it in a drowsy smile, as the helmsman ordered the sail to be
lowered and the anchor to be heaved overboard, and the little ship
settled into her berth with a groan of satisfaction.
CHAPTER III
RELATING HOW ONE WAS FOUND ON THE CAPE OF THE CROSSES
A means to while away a long evening,--that was how the pair looked upon
the trip as they rowed away from the ship's stem while the crew chatted
over their ale horns in the torchlight of the stern. Dreamily enjoying
the boat's motion and the rhythm of their oars, they swung through the
dusk in contented silence; and only once did their thoughts reach the
point of speech.
"He is knowing in all kinds of weird matters, your countryman the
Huntsman," Alrek said, reminiscently. "Do you remember the time that he
was lost in the unsettled places south of here, and, after looking for
him far and wide, we found him lying flat upon a rock, mumbling at the
sky? He said he was making stanzas to Thor, and that it was an answer
when a whale came ashore the next day----"
"If that is the cheer which Thor has to offer, may I never eat at his
house!" Gard grunted. "So starved was I that I ate a piece the size of
my head, and--excepting the time of my first storm at sea--it has never
happened to me before to be so sick! If Thor gives the Huntsman no
better help where he is now, it is likely to go hard with him. It is
said that the south country is more full of Skraellings than a goat of
fleas. He was a headstrong fool to go there with no more than three men
and one small boat."
Alrek lifted his shoulders indifferently. "If he never comes back, the
sea will be no salter for my tears," he answered; and relapsed into
silence which was not broken until their nearness to land obliged him to
ask a question about the steering.
If there was a moon, it had stayed sulking somewhere behind something,
leaving the world in a dusk which was equally far from light and from
darkness. Through the gloom they had been able to steal off with the
boat in chuckling security; now its glimmer was still sufficient to
guide them to a landing-place upon the pebble-strewn sand, which ran
like a shelf around the base of the seaward hill. Beaching their boat
they clambered up the slope, tripping more than once over the fist-big
stones which studded it, before they entered breathless and laughing
into the grove that crowned the crest.
"Who cares about seeing, so long as he can feel earth under him!" Gard
cried. And all at once he had dropped upon the leaf-covered ground and
was rolling over and over like a horse just freed from a tight girth,
while Alrek stretched his cramped muscles in a somersault.
Something in the fragrance of the damp leaf-mold seemed to intoxicate
them. Presently, both were whirling on their hands; and from that they
went to jumping, and from jumping to wrestling. The shadows had grown a
finger's length before they sank down to get their breath.
As the grove was nowhere very thick and the sea gale had winnowed the
leaves, they had not looked about them long before they made out the
objects which gave the Cape its name,--the two rude crosses of dead
bleached wood rising in the center of an open space by the sea. Around
it, fanlike pine-boughs swayed heavily, and that was all there was of
motion; and the only sound that broke its stillness was the splash of
waves on the sand below. Between the Crosses, a low mound rounded black
against the gray water. Their hearts gave a little throb as they
distinguished it--Thorwald's grave! Amid a chattering throng out in the
sunlight, those words had not conveyed much; but here--here they took on
meaning. Rising silently, the lads groped their way between the pines
until they stood beside it.
Into Gard's voice there came a note of awe. "Thorwald said this cape
looked to be a fine place to live in; I wonder how he likes it to be
dead here? Strangely still must it seem to him after the battle-din of
his life! And strange feelings must have been in his men's minds when
they sailed away and left him here, the only white man on this side of
the ocean."
"He must have found it lonesome to lie here by himself for four
winters," Alrek said very gently. "Surely, if he hears our voices, his
heart must welcome the sound. I tell you, Gard, I think I should not be
sorry if we found him sitting on his grave when we came back at
midnight. If we should tell him that we are his comrades' sons and
relate to him all the news, it may well be that he----"
Gard's hand fell on his arm. "Hush!" he entreated. "I do not care what
any one says on shipboard, but here--! Suppose he should be listening
and take you at your word! Brand says that sooner than go into a witch's
den as Leif's Englishman did, he would allow his arm to be hewn
off,--and a witch's temper is more to be depended upon than the temper
of a dead man. I am not eager to grasp his bony hand, if you are. Let us
go down to the beach--But first, I want to find that knife I dropped.
Will you feel around that bush-clump where I came down at the last leap,
while I look over the slope where I stumbled?"
"Certainly," Alrek consented; and picked his way over the uneven ground
to the spot where a clump of sumacs fringed the edge of the hill-crown
as it sloped down to the beach. Just before he stooped to feel for the
knife, however, he paused to look around.
Seaward, on his left, shone the far-away torches of the ship, a streak
of brightness on the gray. Below him stretched the beach, its farther
end lost in the looming shadow of a tree-crowned hill--he blinked and
leaned forward and blinked again. Out of that shadow, a light had seemed
to open on him like an eye! It did not come from the ship; he glanced
over his shoulder to reassure himself. It came from the hill across the
beach, a dim unwinking eye which up to this time some obstacle had
hidden.
For an instant he thought of ghost-fires, and cold trickled down his
spine; then came a recollection that smote every nerve like a cry,--the
Skraellings! Some had been trapped and had not yet escaped, and it was
going to fall to him to get sight of them! To succeed where all the rest
had failed! To be the one to give Karlsefne the information he wanted!
What wonder that all recollection of the knife--even of Gard--was wiped
off his brain like breath-mist off a shield; that he was obliged to
press his nails deep into his flesh to get a grip on his excitement!
"I shall wreck the chance if I go about it hotly," he admonished
himself. "It was Karlsefne's strong command that we do nothing to offend
them. I must steer it so that I see them without their seeing me,--and
it is unadvisable to be too slow in acting, either, or they will have
made their escape!" He put his body in motion even while his mind was
debating, but it did not render him less cautious. He did not let a
finger of him stray beyond the shadow of the pines, nor did he venture
upon the beach until he saw his way clear before him.
The only objects that offered shelter were the low hummocks, crested
with tufts of wiry grass, that stretched in a broken chain between the
heights. From link to link of this he crawled, unobtrusive as a serpent;
and when the links were wanting and gaps of glimmering sand lay before
him, he ran crouching with the light swiftness of a fox, holding his
breath in expectation of arrows hissing about his ears. None came,
however, and at last the shadow of the second knoll and its spreading
tree-crown fell over him like a canopy. There he paused to listen.
Once, an owl wailed tremulously from a distant tree; and once, it seemed
to him that he heard brush crackle as under a stealthy tread; then all
was silence and the swish of breaking waves. Laying hold of a gnarled
root that reached down like a writhen arm, he drew himself noiselessly
up the slope. Where it flattened to the crest, a clump of sassafras
shoots made a fragrant screen. When he had listened and found the quiet
still unbroken, he ventured to peer between the sprouts.
So long did he remain there without moving that the insects he had
startled began walking over him in restored confidence. The little nook
was empty. Except the patch of embers and a litter of clam shells, there
was no sign to prove that living things had ever been there. As a final
test, he hung his helmet upon his sword and showed it cautiously above
the bushes, and the decoy drew no arrows from the thicket beyond the
fire; the spot appeared to be genuinely deserted.
It is not too much to say that his disappointment brought him near to
tears. "They must have run away as soon as darkness fell," he muttered.
And pushing into the open, he sent the shells flying before a savage
kick. "What Troll's luck!"
As the words left his lips, the flying shells uncovered a peculiar
bowl-shaped basket woven of reeds. He stooped to it curiously; then,
even as his fingers closed on the rim, he took another step forward,
staring at the bushes that hedged the further side of the open space.
"It appears that some one has plunged through here in a hurry," he told
himself. "The branches are bent as if--Odin!"
There was no need of finishing his thought. His eyes had the answer
before them, a shaggy figure crouching among the bushes, so motionless
that it might have passed for one of them. An instant he also stood
motionless, staring back at the eyes that he could feel without seeing;
then Viking training flashed two thoughts to his brain,--that the
creature was aiming at him from the darkness, and that he must lose no
time in advancing. Clutching his sword-hilt, he sprang forward.
After that there was no chance for reflection. For a second the blade
stuck; and in the delay a copper-colored arm shot out and fastened on
his wrist, while the other copper-colored arm brandished a stone hatchet
over his head. With his left hand he caught that arm and held it off;
and they swayed, panting, in the firelight that gave him his first
glimpse of the foe all sailors yarned about,--the bristling black hair
and wide-rimmed beast-bright eyes, and the skin of unearthly hue showing
under the animal hides of the covering. Under the copper-colored skin,
the muscles were like copper wire. Strong as he was, Alrek could not
twist aside that wrist above his head. He gave up trying, presently, and
limited his efforts to freeing his sword-arm. Putting all his force into
the wrench, he succeeded at last in loosing it and shooting forth his
weapon--and that was all that he had to do! At the bare sight of it,
darting glittering from its sheath like lightning from a cloud, the
Skraelling uttered a yell of terror, dropped the hatchet from his hand
and his hands from their hold, and flung himself backward into the
darkness. There was a crackling of brush, the spat of bare feet upon
sand, and then--silence.
Gradually the Sword-Bearer's amazement gave way to amusement. "He
thought it was magic,--here is a joke of the Fates!" he breathed. "If
Thorwald had but shown them steel, it is likely that he could have put
the whole host to flight! Never could I have wrested the hatchet from
him. Now it is likely that my kinswoman Gudrid will open her eyes when
I show her this!" Bending over the embers, he examined the weapon with
deep interest; the edge was knife-sharp. "It would have cleft me as if
it cut cheese!" he muttered; and was laughing in somewhat unsteady
congratulation when the sound of feet scrambling up the slope
straightened him to greet Gard.
For a space the Ugly One stared about him, blinking in the firelight;
then the eagerness of his swarthy face gave way to bitterest reproach.
"You scared them away before I had a chance to see them?" he cried.
"Slipped away, because my back was turned, and got all the sport for
yourself? Never would I have believed it of you! Never----"
Alrek threw up his hands in honest compunction. "Gard, I beg of you to
forgive me! It is the truth that when I saw the light, I forgot that you
were alive. And I feared the Skraellings would get away before I could
see them. I intended only to creep up and look, without--" He broke off
and stood with his mouth open, staring at the other.
Involuntarily, Gard whirled to dart a glance over his shoulder; and
finding nothing, cried out, sharply; "What ails you? Have you got out of
your wits?"
Alrek regained his self-control with a short laugh. "I think I have," he
answered. "Do you know another thing besides yourself that I forgot? I
forgot Karlsefne's command to keep the peace."
CHAPTER IV
WHEREIN THE SWORD-BEARER IS FURTHER REMINDED THAT HE HAS BROKEN THE LAW
The return to the Wind-Raven was even fuller of thought than the
departure from it had been; though once Gard broke out in lamentation:
"If you had only allowed me to have part in the fun, _I_ should have
remembered."
Although his shoulders remained square-set against the gray of the
night, Alrek's silence was so full of skepticism that the other blushed
and hastened to speak of something else:
"Why are you so bold as to tell of this? It seems to me sufficient to
say only that you found the hatchet on the ground."
"The Weathercock must be warned," Alrek said briefly. "Do you not see
that this Skraelling may bring back a host, as happened to Thorwald?"
Apparently Gard saw, for he did not speak again. The silence lasted
unbroken until they glided under the ship's prow, and a chorus of
suppressed greetings came down to them.
"Hail, explorers! What luck?" "It seems that your stay was short--" "Was
Thorwald lacking in hospitality?" the voices laughed, while the hands
reached down to pull them aboard and assist in raising the boat.
When at last the pair stood on deck, however, the tune changed. "Now
there are tidings in their faces!" cried the boy who, from the quality
of his temper, was known as the Bull. "News! Let us have it out of
them!" Whereupon the group made a fence across the way, every picket in
it crying, "Give up your news!"
Gard waved them off crossly. "I have none," he growled.
Alrek gazed back at them as though they really were boards in a fence.
"Where is the Weathercock?" he inquired of the Amiable One. "Has he
drunk the wits out of him yet?"
"Such as they are, I think he has them still about him," Erlend
answered. "But will you not tell us----"
The Sword-Bearer shook his head as he pulled away from the other's
ringed hand. "The jest is not good enough to bear two tellings. Come
after me if you want to hear it." Whereupon the line instantly became a
column, marching at his heels as he walked aft.
On the after-deck, the helmsman who was known among his followers as the
Weathercock, was droning a song over his ale horn. He was a fat
bald-headed man with a heavy doughlike face and a grizzled beard that
bristled like wiry beach-grass from his plucking at it while he sang.
His listeners greeted the appearance of the lads with much cordiality;
but he took the interruption very ungraciously indeed.
"It may well be that the reason boys always come at the wrong time is
because there is no right time for such hindrances," he snapped. "Which
of you wants what of me?"
The oncoming wave fell back a little, leaving the Sword-Bearer stranded
before the helmsman. He said, saluting, "I want to tell you that when
you go upon the Cape to-morrow you must go in war clothes. I have been
ashore and seen a Skraelling; and I think he has gone to call his
people to arms."
"What!" cried all the men in chorus; and those on the outer edge leaned
forward, palms curved around their ears. Only the Weathercock sat
squinting in a dull man's attempt at sharpness.
"What kind of jest is this?" he sneered at last.
Alrek drew the stone hatchet from his belt. "One of the proofs that it
is not a jest is this."
There were more exclamations, while a dozen hands snatched at it; but
old Grimkel bent forward and pinned his eye upon the Sword-Bearer.
"How did you get it?" he demanded. "You did not fail to remember----"
The boy's lips curved into a rueful smile as he met the look. "I
remember now," he said slowly, "and I remembered up to the time I saw
the Skraelling. But when I came upon him suddenly----"
"You attacked him?" It was the helmsman who screamed that, his doughlike
face reddening to the very nose-end.
Alrek regarded him with critical brown eyes. "You prove a good guesser,"
he said politely.
From all sides went up exclamations of dismay; while from the
Weathercock went up smoke and flames as though Hekla itself had broken
loose.
"You--you--you good-for-nothing-wolf's-whelp-gone-mad!" he sputtered.
"What do you mean by standing there so quietly when your mad-dog temper
has brought discredit upon my leadership which would otherwise have got
me great fame with the Lawman? One thing after another, worse and worse,
will be caused by this! The Skraellings may be surrounding us even as we
speak; and we shall be forced to share your disobedience or else get
killed--or, it may be, both fight and get killed, since when Karlsefne
finds how his orders have been regarded--But the first result of this
will be that we will not go ashore to-morrow nor any other time--Ale!
Faste! Hjalmar! Up with the anchor and out with the sail----"
As cries of protest arose, he beat them down with his short fat arms.
"You shall not set foot upon land, you pack of ravening curs! Not until
you get to camp,--and then I hope you will have reason to wish--Ah, to
think that when we get to camp I must tell this instead of the report I
had expected to give!" He struck his fists together until it seemed as
if he might forget the Sword-Bearer's free birth and lay them on him in
blows. "Why did I not remember that you had outlaw blood under your fair
speaking, and keep you under my heel! But you shall pay for your liberty
now. You shall be tied with walrus thongs and thrown into the foreroom,
and kept there without food or drink until we reach Vinland! Take him
hence,--do you hear my words? Lodin! Grimkel!"
He broke off to tug at his belt, which unwonted exertion was rendering
distressfully snug; and in the interval the protests of the young
Greenlanders burst forth anew, expressing unreservedly what they thought
of him for taking away their chance of going ashore. When he turned on
them, his thick neck rumbling volcano-like, they even gave back curse
for curse; until--what with their racket and his bawling and the running
to and fro of the sailors--the after-deck of the Wind-Raven presented a
lively appearance.
The only quiet person on it was the culprit. Saluting with ironical
ceremony, he yielded to the touch of Grimkel's hand upon his shoulder;
and they proceeded to the little room under the fore-deck, which served
on extraordinary occasions for a dungeon and on ordinary ones as a
storeroom for bales of fur and ale-casks and kegs of salted fish.
"If I could learn to feed my stomach through my nose, I should not
starve however long I stayed here," Alrek observed with an expressive
grimace as they entered.
The hand on his shoulder shook him roughly. "You deserve to starve," the
old man snapped. "I have the heart to pound you! After I had warned you
how the Lawman is holding you in the balance!" He jammed into its
bracket the torch he carried, and sent a barrel out of his way with a
thundering kick.
Somehow, the heat of his elder's concern moved the boy to an affectation
of unconcern. Holding out his wrists for the rope, he replied that if
Karlsefne had been watching him for two years, it was time he found out
something.
Grimkel jerked at the thongs with a growl for every knot. "You will find
out something when you come before him! Have you got it into your mind
that you have prevented him from fulfilling what lies nearest his heart?
Since the time when he was making ready for his journey at Leif
Ericsson's house in Greenland, he has counted on strengthening the
settlement by making friends of the Skraellings; and planned to get
knowledge from their experience of the country, and riches by trading
with them. And he has condemned Thorwald's short-sightedness in
attacking them, and commanded how they should be received with gifts and
fair words--Oh, it is impossible that the Fates will allow a wise man to
be balked by a boy's folly!"
"If it is impossible why do you trouble yourself over it?" Alrek
suggested; then went on to request that the hatchet be carefully
preserved for him.
Grimkel, bending over to fasten the ankle-bonds, straightened stiffly in
awful silence. But before his exasperation could escape through his
lips, a waking thrill ran along the Wind-Raven's spine; a voice called
him to lend a hand with the sail, and he was obliged to wheel and stamp
away.
With him went the torch; so that the darkness of the foreroom became a
black wall, upon which a gray square like a patch showed where the low
doorway opened into the night. Gradually, the outside hubbub died away
until the only sound that came in was the creaking of ropes and the
sail's dull boom.
Left to himself, the boy left off feigning; and turned and grappled with
his trouble. Breast to breast they struggled, while the gray square
melted shade by shade into cold light; and when the square was gilded by
the morning sun, they were struggling still.
Trying to shake off his thoughts, the Sword-Bearer flung his fettered
body about in a kind of frenzy. "If I stay three days like this, I shall
go out of my wits!" he cried to himself. "To lose all my chance with him
is bad enough, but to sit here and think about it--! I shall become mad
if I cannot move about and forget it for a while!"
CHAPTER V
THROUGH WHICH THE STORM GIANT BLUSTERS
A stooping black shape against the sunshine, Hjalmar Thick-Skull came
through the doorway and began to paw over bales and boxes in search of
extra oars.
"Your luck is great, young one," he remarked. "You would not be sitting
quiet if you were outside. Perhaps you think, because you see sun
through the door, that the whole sky is like that; but you should see
the clouds ahead of us! The only thing equally black is the
Weathercock's face since he finds that he must put into the Keel harbor
after all. And on top of it the wind has failed, and he has commanded
all hands to the oars----"
Rising to his fettered feet, Alrek held out his bound hands. "Here are
mine! Take your knife to the knots."
The Thick-Skulled gaped over his shoulder. "Why--why--he did not mean
you."
"Have I not hands?" the Sword-Bearer demanded. "With a troll's strength
in them this morning! Certainly he meant me."
He strove to speak carelessly while his fingers were twitching, but some
breathlessness must have betrayed him. Scratching his tow mane and
staring as he scratched, Hjalmar began slowly to grin. After a little,
Alrek laughed also and spoke in frank appeal:
"Do me this good turn, shipmate, that I may stretch myself some while.
If he did not mean me, yet might you easily have mistaken him. You can
tell him so when he makes a fuss,--it is not likely that he will notice
me until the storm is over. You know it is a saying that 'the wolf
allays the strife of the swine.'"
After a while, the Thick-Skulled stooped, grinning, and laid his knife
against the thongs. "Behold what a good thing it is to have a reputation
for dulness!" he said. "But see to it that you bear me out by giving
good service at the oar."
The Sword-Bearer stretched his arms with a sigh of relief. "Only let me
get at it!" he breathed, and plunged into the air like a fish into the
water.
True enough! Though sunshine lay bright on the Wind-Raven's decks and
blue sky was above her, before her--like the entrance to another
world--sagged a canopy of slate-colored clouds. Swollen with rain, they
hung low over the shore-line of forest and dune and darkened all the
distant water save where, here and there, streaks of white gleamed like
monsters' bared teeth. Full of ominous warning was the calm that had
fallen on land and sea, robbing the sail so that it hung like a live
thing gasping for breath.
"If he did not put into the harbor he would be likely to share the fate
of Thorwald Ericsson, and be cast ashore in the same place, and likewise
with a broken keel," Alrek commented after a look at the sky; then laid
hold of his oar and bent himself almost to the bottom of the boat in the
relief of spending his energy.
Perhaps his appreciation of a small favor touched the Fates in their
woman hearts, for presently they extended it. When the Wind-Raven's
brood had brought her safely behind the wooded bar that lay across the
harbor mouth like a screen in front of a door, the helmsman gave out
word that since they were plainly storm-bound for the night, at least,
they would not deny themselves the comfort of a camp on land, but would
proceed immediately ashore. Ashore! the Sword-Bearer could scarcely
believe his good fortune, until Brand dared to lean over and poke him in
congratulation.
"I knew the Old One would take care not to have his fat jolted," he
whispered; "and he can not leave you behind. Your luck will last until
we come back again."
"Until we come back again!" Alrek repeated as though it were a toast,
and threw himself resolutely into the work of the hour.
There was field for action. They had barely reached the shore and found
refuge in a hollow below a wooded knoll when the tempest burst upon
them, rushing through the forest with a swelling roar that rose above
the thunder of the breakers. After that every minute of the day was a
battle--a fight over the tent canvas which the wind threatened to pick
up and carry off like a kerchief with all of them hanging to it in a
fringe; a skirmish for fuel through forests into which sand from the
dunes beyond was rushing like yellow swarms with biting mouths; a
contest over the fire, blown out or struck out with lances of glittering
rain; a struggle to hear or be heard through the thundering downpour, to
see the very food in their hands through the suddenly fallen darkness--a
battle between giants and pygmies!
Exhausted yet exhilarated, as after a day at the sword-game, the band
fell over from eating to sleeping. When the lightning tore apart the
darkness and disclosed the deserted ship reeling in terror upon the
twisting black water, they only laughed and burrowed deeper, falling
asleep to the thunder of breakers booming along the shore as to a
lullaby from a mother's lips.
The ocean was still booming when they awoke, late the next day, and the
wind was still blustering in the tree tops. The leader, with his mind
reaching out toward Vinland fires and Vinland fare, cursed peevishly;
but the juniors of his following greeted the delay with open rejoicing.
"Here is our chance to see the land!" Brand cried, shaking out his ruddy
locks like fiery banners. "Let us take it before anything gets it away
from us. I will wager a ring that I will beat any one to the top of this
steep!"
So promptly did they respond that although he won his wager, the next
boy was only a step behind; and none of the twenty was more than a pace
in the rear. Once on the crest, they streamed, whooping, into the grove
of oak and pine and sassafras which they had seen from the water, lying
along the bay shore like a ragged rich-hued mat.
Raggedness showed more plainly than richness, upon a nearer approach,
though nothing could take away the beauty of coloring where pines spread
their ever-living green over the windy crests and the oak trees on the
slopes had turned yellow and russet and red without losing a leaf. But
it was no such forest as Vinland boasted; compared with Vinland trees
the growth was stunted and there was not enough underbrush to give it
even the wildness of a thicket,--only tangles of rose briar and berry
bramble where the ridges sank into hollows cupping reed-fringed ponds.
Perhaps the best that could be said for it was that its endless
undulations kept curiosity awake. Passing over them was like breasting
billows; one gained a height only to behold another deep.
After a while, it stirred Alrek to restlessness. When it was suggested
that they should stop at one of the ponds for a duck hunt, he objected.
"Who knows what the next ridge may be hiding?" he said obstinately. "Let
us find out first what lies before us."
"What but the ocean?" Erlend asked in surprise. "That can not be far
away now; the sand wastes between the trees are getting much wider."
But Alrek was already moving on, dealing blows of his hatchet at the
trees on either side of him. "Do as you like," he answered over his
shoulder. "I shall not stop until I come to the end."
Erlend sent him a glance of surprise; but the others had caught the
fever of his mood so that they dashed after him in a cheering charge.
Their run did not keep up long, however, for the walking was momently
becoming harder. In the next hollow the pond had been smothered beneath
a sand blanket, and the bushes were strangling in sand. In the next
there were no bushes at all, only mats and tufts of wiry grass. On the
slopes the trees became fewer, the sand piled between them like drifted
snow; in one place it had buried a clump so that only their tops showed,
bush-like, above the creamy surface.
"There you can see what kind of place this would be to set up a
landmark," Njal of Greenland observed, pointing at them. "In twenty
years more it is likely the whole forest will be covered and the man who
comes then will say that we lied because we told of trees being here. I
doubt if we would be able to find much of the keel that Thorwald set
up----"
"Then do not let us spend time looking for it," Alrek finished. And so
completely had his mood taken possession of them, that they consented
without argument; plodding on doggedly over the dunes that had become
like yellow snow-banks, bare of a single tree, rounding in absolute
baldness against the gray of the sky.
Gradually, feverish expectancy grew in them all. It was as though the
vast shifting mass were a living monster, whose depredations they had
seen, whose lair they were now approaching. They stopped in a hushed
group when the last dune revealed the beach sweeping down to the water.
The scarred and furrowed ocean was another monster, still growling and
showing his tusks at the wind giant.
Northward, the ocean was all they saw. Westward, they saw it over a
yellow waste as the dunes sloped down to the Cape point. Southward, lay
the land over which they had come; beyond it, the bay in which their
ship rode at anchor. Eastward, unbroken drifts, unspotted beach--their
silence ended in a cry:
"Yonder! Yonder is something washed ashore!"
All saw it, so plainly did it show against the sand,--something dark and
motionless which the waves had flung up there out of their way. So large
did it loom in the strange light that, as they went plunging and
floundering toward it, some declared it to be a whale; and others, an
overturned boat.
[Illustration: Neither sound nor motion was on his blue lips.]
But the light on the Wonderstrand is a wondrous light. When they had
raced over some hundred yards of beach, the dark object--instead of
growing larger--dwindled suddenly from whale size and boat size to the
size of a human body. Involuntarily, they slackened their pace and a
whisper went around: "It is one of the Skraellings, overtaken by the
storm!"
Only Alrek shook his head and pressed forward. "That is no animal hide
wrapping him," he said.
A dozen yards more brought him to the side of the stark form; he bent
over it--and remained bent as though petrified with astonishment. When
the others had reached him and looked, their voices went from them in a
cry of amazement:
"The Huntsman!"
And the Huntsman's gigantic figure it was, sea-drenched and
wave-battered, kelp snarled about his feet, starfish tangled in his
hair. As he had lain upon the rock that winter day, so he lay here upon
the sand,--flat on his back with his hands clasped over his breast;
though now his eyes were closed, and neither sound nor motion was on his
blue lips.
Doubting their senses, the explorers stared at him and then up and down
the shore. Never was scene more yawningly empty; between the sweep of
sand and the stretch of water he lay as though fallen from the sky.
CHAPTER VI
ABOUT THE STRANGE FIND ON KEEL CAPE
"I would give much if he had not died until he had told us how he came
hither," Gard remarked, presently.
"And what he was employing himself about in the north of Vinland when he
set out to explore the country south of it!" Brand cried; while the Glib
One added:
"Yes, and how it went with Hallad and the others he had with him!"
Then they became aware that Erlend's handsome brown face--three shades
browner than his hair--was turned toward them in reproach. "It may be
that Alrek will get the belief that a Greenlander's loyalty to his
countrymen is somewhat shallow," he suggested.
In those days, disloyalty to a comrade was held a contemptible thing.
Two of the three reddened; and Brand bent his tongue to apology.
"He knows that we care as much as any one. Eric of Brattahlid had the
Huntsman for his steward, because they found pleasure in talking evil
together about Christianity; but that was all the friend I ever heard of
his having. It is understood that we will do him the favor to bury him,
however."
Gard the Practical rubbed his ear. "That will not be easy unless we
carry him far inland," he said. "If I am not much mistaken, this sand
will move about like snow,--and I have heard that if dead men come
uncovered and sleep cold, they are wont to get up and walk around to
warm themselves."
A dozen of them crossed themselves involuntarily; and the Strong One
squared his magnificent shoulders.
"Quickly will I proclaim my choice to carry him to the bay!"
"That would best be left unsaid until we see how heavy he is," Alrek
advised. "Raise his other shoulder, Domar, and let us see how--One thing
is that he is not yet stiff. Wait! What is this on his neck?" With his
finger, he followed a cord running from the grizzled beard across the
motionless breast to lose itself in the shelter of the rigidly clasped
hands. "It is a deerskin bag."
"I know he did not have it on when he went south!" Harald Grettirsson
cried, excitedly.
And a chorus added; "Here is something of importance!"--"Something of
value!" "To think of it then--" "Yes, to grasp it when he was drowning!"
Sitting back on his heels, Alrek gazed down at the figure curiously. "He
has grasped the bag too close to move, but it would be possible to pry a
finger into the top and see what is inside,--if you would allow it? He
is your countryman." He glanced inquiringly at them as they stooped
around him, their hands grasping their knees.
The Greenlanders looked down at him; then around at one another; then
Brand spoke under his breath; "If you dare----"
"Dare?" Alrek's mouth curved disdainfully. Picking out the cord-ends
from between the chill palms, he undid the knot that fastened the mouth
of the bag and inserted a thumb and forefinger. "A chain," he said as
they closed upon something; then, as they began to draw it out, "What a
chain!"
All echoed him: "_What_ a chain!"
For it was of shining gold, set here and there with a rough-cut gem;
while its girth was that of his largest finger, and it unfolded itself
coil after coil to the length of his arm. What a keepsake to bring out
of a waste peopled only by wild men! Devouring it with hungry eyes, they
drew closer; and Rane Thin-Nose put out a hand to feel of it, at the
same time sending an apologetic glance toward the rigid face.
As he did so, the drawn eyelids rose slowly and silently as curtains;
and the Huntsman's small evil eyes looked back at him. Rane's hand was
withdrawn as though it had encountered fire; and the circle fell back,
screaming. Even the Sword-Bearer was startled enough to drop the chain,
as the eyes rolled in his direction and remained turned on him in a
baleful glare.
Through the blue lips came a voice, so faint that it seemed to be one of
the smothered voices which cry through the roar of the surf; "You would
rob me?"
At that the circle rallied indignantly, shouting, "We would _not_!" "It
was our intention--" "You need not reproach us for--" "We thought----"
"Put it back."
Alrek hesitated, his face coloring with resentment. Then he asked
himself of what use it was to argue with a piece of driftwood, and gave
up justification with a shrug. While the rest spent their breath
wrathfully, he complied in silence. When the last knot was tied--and not
before--the eyes left him to roll around the circle.
"Swear--" the voice said faintly.
Before the glare they shrank in spite of themselves, fluttering like
birds around a snake; until Erlend said, with quiet haughtiness:
"There is no need for us to swear that we will not rob you."
The voice was so faint that they barely made out the words; "Swear--to
keep it secret. On the edge of your blades!"
"I suppose he has the right to ask it," Erlend gave judgment after a
while. "It was his secret and we thrust ourselves in. It seems to me
that it is his right?" He looked at the Sword-Bearer with questioning
eyebrows.
No one ever disputed the decisions of the Amiable One in matters of
honor. Alrek answered by unsheathing his sword, with another shrug of
his shoulders.
Drawing each a knife from his belt, they grasped them by the blades so
that the sharp edges cut red grooves in their bare palms. Holding the
knives aloft thus, they spoke the oath together; the Huntsman's eyes
telling them off, one by one. When he had come to the last--little Olaf
the Fair twisting his face to keep back tears of pain--his eyes stopped
and settled slowly into their unwinking stare; but that they were less
dull than fish-eyes, his stark figure would have differed little from
the myriad fish bodies strewed upon the sand.
Though they rattled their weapons blusteringly in putting them up, a
kind of panic chill crept over the band. The stare was so awful in its
dumb evilness; and the scene was so weirdly desolate,--the stretch of
bleak sky, the sweep of naked shore, and the breakers' unending boom out
of which stifled voices seemed trying vainly to call. The lad who was
called the Hare--alike for fleetness and for timidity--voiced the
feeling in a quavering outburst:
"Let us leave him! I do not believe he is alive at all. I believe a
troll hides in him and uses his mouth to speak with. I know evil will
come of this. Let us leave him." He plucked nervously at Alrek's coat.
"Come on!"
Alrek was strung high enough to be irritated by the clutch. "Keep off!"
he ordered, jerking himself free. "It is no lie about you that you are
cowardly, if you would desert a shipmate!" Then regaining possession of
his cloak, he regained possession of his temper, and spoke quietly; "If
we get some big branches and make a litter with our mantles, it will not
be difficult to get him to the bay. It seemed to me that you were all
eager in having him alive to tell you news?"
If it had not been for that hope, it is doubtful if the twenty would
have toiled to bring such a burden over the sand-hills; and it is
certain that the sailors had this end in view as they rubbed the
Huntsman's limbs and poured ale down his throat. Had they been polishing
a knife or oiling a lock, they could scarcely have been more
business-like or less tender.
"As soon as he gets strength to talk he should be able to tell tidings
worth hearing," they said to one another when at last they left him
rolled in skins and went about their preparations for returning to the
ship, a rift having come in the gray toward the west.
The main difference between their attitude and that of their juniors was
that they felt merely dislike for the Huntsman, while for the
one-and-twenty he had the fascination of fear. To them, his eyes were
twin demons keeping guard from their cave doors over the treasure bag
below. It is safe to say that they never lost him out of their minds
through all the bustle of going on board and resettling themselves, as
they awaited a surer sign of the Storm King's reformation.
With the sunset, the rift in the gray widened. Thrym, the giant who
herds the clouds, drove the hulking masses northward, lagging from their
own weight. In the clearing west, the sun dropped golden behind a jagged
bar; and while the rosy glory of it was still in the southern sky, the
moon looked out of the east. To a rousing cheer, the Wind-Raven shook
out her storm-beaten plumage and skimmed away over the silvering waves.
The change was so grateful that Alrek was able to shake off depression
one time more; while the loungers on the benches were noisy with
satisfaction.
"Never was there a better time to experience the Wonderstrands!" they
jubilated afresh, as the curving stretch of shining dunes pushed itself
into their vision.
Passing that curve was little less than an experience; for the bend of
the shore made it ever appear as though a cape lay just ahead, yet the
cape ever receded as they approached, a flying point that could never be
caught.
"Certainly it makes the world seem a place of strange wonders!" Faste
the Fat marveled, when they had sat a long time watching it in silent
fascination. "It makes one curious about everything. If the Huntsman
would only speak now and tell us what he has seen, this would be a good
time to amuse ourselves with a tale."
"How do you know that he has seen anything?" sneered a harsh
voice--harsh for all its faintness--from the pile of skins upon the
forecastle.
They wheeled so eagerly that the ship rocked under them. "Are you ready
to tell the tidings you have seen?" "Will you tell us about--?" "Tell
about the south country, Huntsman." "Did you see any Skraellings?" "No,
tell us first how you came here--" "Yes, your adventure--" "Yes, yes!"
"We beg of you--" "Go on! Go on!"
They were all speaking at once now, boys and men, and their greed proved
their downfall. For, the clamor reaching the helmsman on the after-deck,
he descended with unusual agility and waddled toward them.
"If you are going to talk to any one, you talk to me, your chief," he
commanded; "and tell me what you have done with the boat and the men I
lent you."
The Huntsman's manners gained little at sight of his superior. "I do not
see that _I_ have done anything with them," he answered sullenly,
"because the boat went to pieces on a sand-bar and Rann drew Svipdag
and Black Thord down to her. It is seen that I saved you the best man of
the three."
"Four men were in the boat when you started out on that foolish trip,"
the helmsman caught him up. "Biorn's foster-son is worth speaking about;
what have you done with him?"
The blood settled in the Huntsman's sunken cheeks as water in a hollow.
"Is the boy of so much importance that I must carve his rune on a
separate stick?" he snarled. "What else could he be than drowned? Is it
likely that Valkyrias came down for him? I think you are a fool. If
Freydis, Eric's daughter, had not married you for your wealth and sent
you out here after more, you would never have had manhood to set foot on
a ship. _You_ my chief! You can think what you like; I will not answer
you another word." He flung himself over on his face in one of the black
sulks no man had ever yet sounded; his officer's threats might as well
have been addressed to the mast.
At last the fat helmsman was forced to pause to take in breath, standing
puffing and glaring and tugging at his belt. And it was this
unpropitious moment which his roving eyes took to remind him of Alrek's
existence. The Sword-Bearer felt the gaze when it fell, and shut one eye
in an expressive wink at Brand; nor were his forebodings without
foundation.
The helmsman let his recovered breath go from him in a snort. "You! What
are you doing here? Did I not order that you should be shut up for the
rest of the voyage?"
Alrek unclosed his eye to gaze out of the pair in respectful surprise.
"I?" he inquired. "Was it not your intention to free me when you ordered
all hands to the oars?"
Before the Weathercock found adequate words he had stamped three times
in uncouth capers of rage; when he did find them, however, they came
with such force that they burst the buckle off his belt.
"Go back!" he wound up in a bellow. "Go back, and do not dare come forth
again until I haul you before Karlsefne. If I were your chief, I would
hang you!"
For once, exasperation got the better of Alrek's soldier training. He
looked the fat figure up and down as he arose. "You would not need to
take the trouble," he retorted. "If you were my chief, I would hang
myself."
He heard applauding laughter from his mates as he walked away,
simultaneously with a roar from the helmsman, and after that a confusion
of sounds; but his mind was too full of bitterness to leave any room for
curiosity. It roused him with a start when the solitude in which Fat
Faste was reinstalling him was disturbed by a second consignment of
captives,--Brand with torn clothes and flashing eyes; at his heels,
little Olaf striving to quench a bleeding nose as he panted with
unquenched partizanship; back of him Gard the Ugly, made uglier by a
swollen lip; and behind the three, Strong Domar, a purple lump on his
forehead and breathless delight in his voice as he shouted the
explanation over the others' heads:
"I knocked him down, Alrek, as sure as I stand here! He tried to cuff
Brand for laughing at you, and I laid him flat before Lodin could lay
hold of me,--and he will have to come before Karlsefne with a black eye!
Think of it!"
Apparently Alrek did think of it, for he stared for the space of a
minute before he spoke. "You struck your chief!" he repeated at last.
The Strong One chortled with relish. "_And_ blacked his eye! It will be
shut tight, I know it will,--and he thinks so much about making a fine
appearance before the Lawman! And maybe his nose will swell also, and--"
He broke off abruptly as the meaning of Alrek's expression came home to
him; and his freckled face reddened. "Now I forgot that you are
soldier-bred. I suppose that in the Earl's camp they would not call it a
jest to knock down a chief?"
The Sword-Bearer leaned back on his bale of fur with a long-drawn yawn.
"They would not be likely to call it anything," he said drily, "for it
could not happen there at all."
As he said nothing more in congratulation, it was rather a sulky group
that the torches left to darkness when the last walrus-hide knot was
tied.
CHAPTER VII
CONCERNING THORFINN KARLSEFNE, THE LAWMAN
And that night was as long as two nights; and the sunrise into which it
melted lasted until noon; and the day which finally grew out of that
sunrise had no end whatever! Apparently, the Weathercock had managed to
tie walrus thongs around Time's ankles also.
Glimpses of banks, caught through the doorway, showed when they turned
from the highroad of the ocean up the river-lane which led into the
Vinland bay; but the banks kept on unraveling like witch's weaving that
has no end. They had turned their attention from watching the landscape
to robbing a fish keg, when the drone of voices on the deck above broke
suddenly into shouts:
"A boat! Coming from behind that island!" "Who--" "--thralls, the two in
white--" "But the man in blue?" "Karlsefne is wont to wear blue----"
"By the Hammer, I believe it is the Lawman himself!"
If cheers rose from the forecastle, silence fell on the foreroom. Eager
as they were to reach camp, to run upon this portion of it in midstream
was little less than startling. The face of every Greenlander confirmed
Domar's fervent gasp:
"Now I am thankful that Karlsefne is not my chief!"
Into Alrek's quiet came a kind of constraint. "Other men wear blue
mantles," he suggested. "Hold your tongues and listen."
Crouching on rope-coils and piles of fur, they held their breath as well
as their tongues while they tried to separate the tumult into meanings;
the scuffle of feet on the deck above was like a blur over all other
sounds. But finally the feet rushed down the steps; there was a lull in
which could be heard the sound of oars backing water; then, through the
quiet a new voice, deep and kindly:
"Greeting and welcome, friends! Tell me before anything else if you are
all here, sound and whole?"
The prisoners' mouths shaped one word as they gazed into one another's
faces: "Karlsefne!"
How thinly and sputteringly the Weathercock's voice fell on their ears
after that! "All here, Lawman! And all sound,--saving this eye of mine
which has met with a mishap of which I will tell you later."
Very likely he rambled on with his wonted long windedness, but the five
eavesdropping in the foreroom heard no more. The throng that had surged
forward receded noisily; and through the rift the prisoners had a
glimpse of the gunwale and a sinewy blue-clad form rising beside the fat
helmsman like a tree beside a bush, a towering might-full figure with a
face of rugged beauty framed in locks of iron gray. Even after the rift
had closed up again they crouched motionless, staring at the shifting
backs and straining their ears for tones of that deep voice,
until--jangling through it like clattering pottery--came the helmsman's
lament:
"But ask not what success we have had, Lawman, for I will tell you
without delay that the plan you had most at heart has been marred past
mending! By no fault of mine, but through the blood-thirstiness of your
brother's son; who has not only thrown your commands aside, but has
kindled outlawry in the heart of every boy on board, who would otherwise
be obedient to my----"
Brand got on his bound feet--no one knows how--and on them got to the
door.
"That is not true, though you or others say it!" he shouted; and when
his leader stopped out of sheer amazement and every one turned, gaping,
he followed his voice through the door. "We endure him altogether
against our will. To obey him is a disgrace to all with manhood in them.
Domar made his eye black----"
"Yes, that is true," bellowed Domar. Followed by Gard and little Olaf,
he in his turn worked his way to the door, where a sudden lurch of the
ship caught them and rolled them in a struggling heap almost to
Karlsefne's feet; when the crew began to laugh and the Weathercock began
to accuse and the rebels began to deny.
Looking after them Alrek's lips curled in soldier scorn; that gave way
to amusement when the clamor ended abruptly at a single word from the
deep voice, and he had a glimpse of Brand's fiery locks drooping like
captured flags. But after a moment, he turned and stretching his bound
arms across a cask, hid his face upon them.
"Whatever they do, they can not serve him so badly as I have done.
Certainly I can find no fault with his act if he hangs me up like a
sheep-killing dog, for little better has my service been," he murmured;
and lay there with his face hidden until the jar of Hjalmar's heavy foot
brought him suddenly upright.
"Karlsefne sends for you," the Thick-Skulled announced in his wonted
roar; then, coming close to cut the thongs, he spoke in hoarse whispers;
"Hear great wonders! Your luck has not quite shown its heels, after all.
It has happened that the Lawman also has seen the Skraellings! The day
after you met the one on the Cape, a host of them appeared before the
Vinland booths,--to see, it is likely, if the others had your mind
toward them. But Karlsefne made so plain his good intentions that they
went away after doing nothing worse than stare. And yesterday they came
again, with bundles of fur which they traded with much friendliness. It
is his belief that they also have young fire-heads among them so that
they understand how little value is to be put upon----"
Stretching out his freed arms, the Sword-Bearer gripped Hjalmar's hand
to the point of crushing. "You make my heart merry in my breast!" he
breathed.
"Yes, certainly; I am in high spirits also," Hjalmar assented, returning
the pressure. "It is an exceedingly useful thing for you. But see to it
that you bear yourself boldly as a hawk; and keep it all the time before
his mind that no real harm has been done."
Alrek began suddenly to laugh. "It may be that I would better tell him
that he owes me thanks for sending the Skraellings to him?"
"That might have no small power," the Thick-Skulled responded gravely;
and Alrek laughed again, as he caught at the huge shoulder to steady
himself in rising upon his stiff legs.
If the shoulder had been Grimkel's, the mouth belonging to it would have
advised differently. During all the time that the helmsman was bewailing
the evils to come out of such rashness, and Karlsefne was courteously
explaining how luck had warded off such evils, the old seaman's weather
eye had scanned the sky of his chief's face with deepening gravity. Now
his speculations broke out into words.
"If the boy tries to make light of his disobedience because it ended
luckily, the Lawman will spare him neither in words nor deeds," he
muttered to himself; and the impulse came to him to try to push through
the crowd pressing him mast-ward and impart this prognostication to the
Sword-Bearer. But even as he moved to carry out his kindly intention,
the boy's erect red-cloaked figure appeared in the doorway of the
foreroom and it was too late to do anything.
Though his dress of blue was merchant garb and the staff in his hand was
a farmer's symbol, the face of Karlsefne was the face of a law-giver.
Above the beard of iron gray his mouth showed firm-lipped as a mouth of
stone, and the gaze of the steel-bright eyes under the bushy brows was
such as none with guilt in their hearts might sustain. Meeting it, the
Sword-Bearer's eyes fell and the blood was drawn to his cheeks, and he
came forward and bent his knee before the Lawman.
Hard as measured steel were Karlsefne's measured words: "For a long time
I have been watching to know whether you deserved favor or starkness,
and held my hand from you lest it deal unjustly. I thought, long ago,
that I smelled hot blood which would one day break out and sweep away
all bounds. Now that day has come, and the worst things I have thought
of you are proved the true things."
As he bowed his head under the rebuke, Alrek's teeth cut a blood-line on
his lip; but he attempted no defense. For the space of a second it
seemed to Grimkel that the Lawman's face showed surprise.
Yet his voice was even sterner when he spoke again. "They are no less
true things because good fortune has enabled me to ward off the damage
which would otherwise have been caused by your deed. If you are at all
versed in camp ways, you know that this happening does not make you any
less liable to punishment."
Rising from his knee, the young Sword-Bearer faced him without fear. "My
fate is for you to decide over, kinsman, according to your pleasure,"
he said with soldier submissiveness.
Then there was no question whatever about Karlsefne's surprise. After a
moment's silence, he spoke slowly; "I think it best to hear first from
your own mouth about this happening."
"I have no excuse why you should withhold your anger from me, yet I
would not have you believe that I wished the thing to happen," Alrek
answered. "When I set out for the light, my one thought was to get honor
with you by finding out the news you wanted; and I think I should have
remembered your order if the Skraelling had been where I first looked
for him. But after I had given him up I saw him suddenly, hiding in the
shadow; and something in me cried out that he was aiming and--and I have
not been wont to jump backward when I saw a foe. Yet I ask you to
believe that I wished least of anything to hinder your plans."
A while the steel-keen eyes probed him; but he did not flinch. "That is
not in every respect as the helmsman relates the story," Karlsefne
remarked at last.
"That is very likely," Alrek replied, "for the helmsman knows nothing
whatever about the matter." Whereupon the helmsman let his stored-up
breath go from him in a snort.
A dozen seamen endeavored suddenly to hide laughter under fits of
coughing; but the Lawman said gravely: "Nevertheless, I now see that
there is truth in the other things he told me about your behavior toward
him;" then turned away and stood a long time pondering, his hands
gripping his silver-shod staff, his half-closed eyes resting on the
group of gaping boys. And gazing at them, he seemed to forget the
Sword-Bearer in a new problem.
"Here are more rebels," he said to the helmsman, with a sweep of his
staff. "Little order will there be in camp if they are turned loose on
it in no better state of mind. How is it your intention to deal with
them?"
The Weathercock shifted his weight peevishly; he was tired of standing;
and his mind was upset within him; and he wanted besides to get back to
his ale horn. "Since they are free-born, it seems that I can not even
give them the flogging they deserve," he snapped, "but if they were
thralls, I would drown them."
"It may be then that you would be willing that I should offer them to
come under my rule?" Karlsefne suggested; and went on to say more in an
undertone.
Astonishment opened the helmsman's eyes at first; then, slowly, he
wrinkled into a fat smile. At last he reached out and grasped
Karlsefne's hand.
"If you will rid me of the twenty plagues, who are turning me thin, I
will feel as though you had given me twenty marks of gold," he declared.
Whereupon the Lawman turned to the group of blank faces.
"Now this is my offer to you," he said, "that you part from the rest of
the Greenlanders and form yourselves into a band and build your own
booth and choose one of your own number to rule over you."
The faces lighted in ecstasy,--then gloomed in unbelief. Brand spoke for
all when he inquired timidly:
"Is this a _punishment_?"
"It is not a reward," Karlsefne answered; and for a moment his gaze
sharpened so that the Red One winced under it. "If I did not believe
that it is because you know no better that you act thus, there would be
hard things in store for you. I take this way to show you why lawfulness
is needful. Yet is there no trick to it; all I have promised shall be
fulfilled,--and more. You shall have your own table if you can furnish
it; your own boat if you can build it; in every way like men----"
They thought his pause the end, and burst into jubilant chorus; "It will
not take us long to know what to answer to this!"
But he raised his hand for silence. "Answer nothing until you have heard
the whole. If you form yourselves upon the manner of men, so must you
also bear men's burdens. You must furnish your share of hunters and
fishers and of workers in the fields; and you must do your share of
guarding against outside foes or lawlessness within. Even as Thorvard,
here, and Snorri and Biorn, answer to me for the behavior of their
following, so must your chief answer for you----"
"Yes! Yes!" they cried eagerly.
But he lifted his hand again; his measured tones became like tolling
bells. "Think well! I speak not in jest. If you accept, I take you in
grim earnest. You may not have men's liberty without men's care, and I
shall hold you like men to your word though the matter cause death
itself. Think well!"
They did pause; his manner was impressive enough to insure that. But in
a moment, Brand flung back his red locks daringly.
"Much should we lack in manhood if we would refuse a fair offer! Take
our word!"
Every one of the twenty echoed him wildly. "Take our word!"
"It is taken," Karlsefne said gravely; then bent his gaze on the Red
One. "It appears likely that you will be the chosen head, since you seem
always to speak for your comrades?"
Brand flushed with delight. But before he could answer, Domar spoke
bluntly:
"I do not see in what Brand is above the rest of us Greenlanders. I
raise my voice for Alrek Ingolfsson."
"Alrek Ingolfsson, by all means!" Erland seconded; and Brand joined him
generously.
In another moment, all were shouting, "Alrek! Alrek!"
Plainly, this was something the Lawman had not expected. "Alrek?" he
repeated in surprise. "Yet I do not know that it would not be a
punishment to answer for such a band!" Turning, he looked again where
the Sword-Bearer stood with folded arms, awaiting his sentence.
Perhaps with mouth firm-set and troubled eyes he looked more than ever
like his father. Old Grimkel's watchful gaze saw the Lawman's hardness
break up like Greenland ice before a warm land wind. Taking a slow step
forward, he laid his hands upon the square young shoulders and looked
long into the brown young face.
"Since you left in the spring," he said, "a son was born to me, but I
swear I do not love him more than I love you when that look is on you,
bringing back my brother and my boyhood and the time before our ways
parted." His voice softened to very grave gentleness. "Since you did not
mean offense toward me, I will take none; and you shall accept this
chiefship and use it to prove what nature is in you. All I have of love
and honor lies ready for your gaining,--it will not gladden you more
than me if you are strong enough to take them. Will you accept the
test?"
He held out his hand, and the Sword-Bearer grasped it in both of his and
looked him full in the face, his eyes in a golden glow. "I accept the
test,--and I give you thanks for it from the bottom of my heart," he
said.
END OF PART FIRST
PART SECOND
ALREK'S CHAMPIONS
CHAPTER VIII
AT THE HALL OF THE VINLAND CHAMPIONS
"Whether you think so or not, I know that Gudrid would not keep milk in
a fish-pail," the Bull's voice rose above the racket.
There was not a little racket to surmount, for it was rising time at the
new band's new booth. In the high-seat that had been built for him
midway the length of the hall, the red-cloaked chief occupied the
interval before breakfast with rune-carving; but that was the only
employment which was being carried on in silence. Whistling boys were
lacing their high boots along the benches right and left of the
high-seat; grumbling boys were just turning out of the bunks behind
those benches; jeering boys were throwing bedclothes at the sluggards,
and disputing boys were clattering bowls and trenchers on the tables
which stood on either side the fire. One of these table-boys was the
short and chesty Bull, sniffing hostilely at the milk he was pouring;
and the head of the division was Brand, the long and loose-jointed.
Over a platter of cold venison, he frowned on his scullions. "Gudrid has
nothing to do with this house," he snubbed the faultfinder; then, in
peremptory aside, "Olaf, keep that door shut! Do you think it is warm
outside?"
"Do you think that any one who eats your cooking needs to be told that
Gudrid did not do it?" retorted the Bull, refusing to be snubbed.
A sigh came out of Erlend's handsome mouth as he looked up from hunting
a lost button among the pine branches of the floor. "Ah, Gudrid! After
that last meal she invited me to take in their booth, eating here has
been like living on seaweed!"
Brand's frown took on an edge of scorn. "Fussers! Go and live in
Gudrid's house! It may be that she would allow you to crawl into the
cradle with the baby. Yesterday the grumbling was because I put my head
out of the door to look at a dog-fight and the bread got a little
burned. If I were as womanish as the rest of you, I would braid my hair
and put on skirts!"
Still bending over his rune-carving, the young chief spoke with a drawl:
"Here is something worth a hearing! Is it in truth your opinion that
there is the most manfulness in you?"
Surprise took the head-cook a little aback; then defiance took him a
long way forward, flourishing his red mane. "Yes, I think so. You also
found fault with the bread, for all your Viking training. I think I am
the most hardy man here."
When Alrek's knife had cut another rune upon his stick, he straightened
deliberately. "Yesterday," he explained, "Karlsefne gave the chiefs the
advice to pick out each week five men who should have it for their sole
service to keep the camp in fire-wood----"
A prolonged groan interrupted him; of all the burdens of housekeeping,
fuel-getting weighed the most heavily.
"----and he bade me send the hardiest man in our booth. I intended Domar
to go, but now I see that Brand Erlingsson is the man to do it."
"Hail to the chief!" yelled Strong Domar. And Brand's flame of defiance
sank in ashes of sulkiness; and from the others came shouts of laughter.
"He will wish he was back at kitchen work!" "Tree-chopping is the least
interesting--" "And the weather is such that wood lasts the shortest
time--" "Still Karlsefne is lacking payment--" "Never will we get to
cutting timber for the ship!"
The Hare made a pettish flourish with the knife he was using to trim
away the rags from his garments. "Who wants to prepare for anything so
far in the future? Why will you, Olaf, open that door? What I should be
glad of is a chance to exercise myself for the spring games. Since we
began this way of living, I have not had one race worth talking about."
"I should be thankful if we could get a chance to go north where the big
game is," Erlend said with a disapproving glance at the empty walls.
"All the booty we have to show is the Skraelling hatchet, and Alrek has
the habit of carrying that in his belt. Many hunting journeys will be
required to make this booth equal to the others in outfittings. Let
your eyes run over it and then think of Karlsefne's!"
Thinking, they were silent for a little, gazing around at the great room
which even in the fire-glow showed so baldly white with newness.
Karlsefne's walls were decorated with bears' heads and eagles' claws and
antler-racks of shining weapons; and Karlsefne's benches were covered
with rich furs, and his high-seat had velvet cushions stuffed with
eider-down.
"Alrek, when is it your intention to take the time to get furnishings?"
Erlend besought.
The chief shook his brown head steadily. "Not until we get out of the
debt which we got into to build this booth," he answered, and closed the
opening discussion by putting aside his rune-stick and rising. "Now it
seems to me that you are all looking too far into the future. I should
be content if I could get something to eat. Who has gone after the fish?
And what is the reason that he is not back again?"
As head-cook, Brand answered him, though sulkily: "Gard has gone after
the fish, and it is high time that he was back again."
"That is what I have been trying to do, look for him," little Olaf the
Fair spoke up for the first time, in aggrieved tones. And secure at last
from interference, he flung the door open to the nipping January wind.
"No, I see nothing of him--but I do hear the snow crunch!"
"It is certainly time," Brand blustered.
Nevertheless he bent his lank length over the fire with recovered
good-humor; and greater alacrity came into the movements of those who
were not yet dressed, while those who were, turned toward the door,
gibes at each tongue's end.
The nature of their greeting changed, however, when Gard the Ugly had
stamped into the room and they saw the size of the catch swinging at his
side. Waking, their sleeping appetites cried out in alarm:
"Only three!" "Go into the hands of the Troll--" "--gone long enough to
get thirty!" "What in the Fiend's name has come to the fishing?"
Tossing his fish to the clamoring cooks, Gard was a long time pulling
off his fur-lined gloves before he answered: "Nothing has come to the
fishing."
"What has come to _you_ then?" Brand demanded.
After a while Gard said gruffly: "I forgot to take any more."
"_Forgot!_" echoed the chorus; and Erlend laid his plump hands on the
Ugly One's shoulders and shook him good-naturedly.
"Are you asleep?" he inquired.
Gard pushed off his brown cloak and with it his questioner. "Since I can
feel your grasp, I am not asleep. I think I have seen Hallad's ghost."
"What!" cried the chorus; and Domar, mistaking it for a joke, burst into
his uproarious laugh. He stopped abruptly when he found that he was
alone, and Gard spoke without further interruption:
"It happened that the first set of lines I stopped at had been robbed,
so I was obliged to go across the river, which is what makes me rather
late. Over there I had pulled up three fish when I heard a noise on the
bank and looked around. Some evergreen trees hang down their branches
there, and they are white with snow; he had on a white cloak that mixed
him with them, at first. But suddenly I saw him looking out at me, as
near as that bowl. His eyes were very wide open, and his face was white
as milk. It may be that he would have spoken to me, but I did not wait
to see."
"And therein you showed sense," Domar breathed in sympathy. But again he
was on the unpopular side, for Ketil began to hoot:
"If you had waited, it is most likely you would have found out that you
are a simpleton. Why should Hallad be dressed in white like a slave? He
wore green when he went on his death-journey. Is it likely that Ran
keeps new cloaks for drowned people?"
"Certainly, I think you are asleep after all!" Erlend laughed; which was
the signal for a flight of chaff until Brand at his fish-fork endangered
the peace by scoffing:
"I think you are lying."
To have said that to some of the band would have been to bring on a
fight to the death, and many caught breath apprehensively before they
remembered that this was one of the points about which Gard's
thrall-blood gave him feelings different from theirs. He answered
without resentment:
"I am not apt to lie when nothing is to be gained by it. I call Thor as
witness that I have spoken the truth!" His oath he directed toward the
chief, who had returned to his high-seat and from there listened
intently to what passed.
But in the very act of nodding, Alrek Sword-Bearer broke off to ponder;
and in the midst of pondering, he began to grin. "If you want to know my
belief," he said, "it is that you saw the Weathercock's thrall, Tunni."
Instantly the chorus seconded him. "That is certainly the truth of the
matter!" "Their hair is of the same color--" "--the branches hid its
shortness--" "and explains the slaves' cloak----"
"And explains why his look was fear-full," Alrek added, "if, as I think,
it was he who robbed the lines to save himself the trouble of going
farther. He would think his hide in danger of a flogging----"
"Which it will get!" roared Gard; whereupon the chorus redoubled its
delighted jeering.
This one time, however, the Ugly One's patience had a limit. Gradually
his swarthy face turned mottled red; slowly a gleam came into the dull
eyes above the high cheek-bones. Suddenly his voice rumbled through
theirs: "If any of you tell this so that outsiders make derision, you
will feel the edge of my knife."
They knew then that they had gone as far as was safe. When each one of
them had spoken one gibe more to show that he dared to, there was a
lull, of which Erlend the Amiable took advantage to make a tactful
suggestion.
"I shall think those fish are ghosts if I do not get some of them
between my teeth before long," he observed. And lo! ghosts and threats
were, of a sudden, things of the past.
"Get to your places," commanded the head-cook, sweeping them aside that
he might place before his chief the first portion of the crisp and rosy
dish, savory with garlic and sweet with its own freshness.
There was an eager scrambling of feet, a joyful clattering of
brass-hilted knives, a flurry of half-spoken requests; and after that
all noise gave way to a pleasant munching sound, enforced now and then
by a contented sigh or a long-drawn "Ah--h!" of satisfaction.
A mumble of applause greeted the Bull when, having licked the last
morsel from his fingers and pushed back his bowl, he looked around to
say, stretching: "I should like to see the man who could make me go back
to the old way of living!"
CHAPTER IX
ABOUT THE HUNTSMAN AND THE BOY WHO WAS DROWNED
To keep such a band supplied with food was an occupation in itself.
"Certainly I begin to believe there is truth in the things women say
about a boy's stomach being like the bottomless horn which Thor tried to
drink dry!" Brand jested. With his week of fuel-duty far behind him and
a day's hunting immediately before him, it was a light heart that beat
under his deerskin tunic as he followed his chief and the Ugly One out
of the booth door.
On the threshold the hunters paused to call back in mock admonition:
"See to it this time that the meat is hung where the dogs can not get
it--" "Watch Njal, if you do not want the cheese cut with the garlic
knife--" "Put a bone in the Bull's mouth! If the Skraellings should
come while he is bellowing like that, they would get more scared than
they were at Karlsefne's bull."
Then Brand shut the door upon the counter-chaff, and the three began to
burrow for their skees in the pile beside the house.
Trees--such trees as Greenland never dreamed of--rose snow-laden behind
the booth, and before it a sweep of snow-buried meadow sloped away to
beaches of white sand; for the little settlement was built across a neck
of land that reached down between a river and a great lake-like bay. But
the lads went neither forward nor back when at last they were shod for
the trip, but turned to their left and moved across the camp toward the
river bank.
It was so early in the day that no wind had yet arisen to stir the
fleecy snow-blanket which the night had spread, and to look up a sunbeam
was to look up a track of swirling star-dust. From the provision shed
next their booth the first camp dog to leave night quarters had only
just emerged, yawning, and dragging his hind legs after him. Passing the
great log-built sleeping houses with gray banners flying from every
smoke hole, they caught a rattle of dishes and a hum of jovial voices
which told pleasantly of the breakfast hour. Farther on, they overtook
the thralls carrying the pails of milk to the dairy, and had--for a wink
of time--a glimpse of Gudrid herself. Looking out to hurry the milkers
she stood an instant in the dairy door, tall and straight and
deep-bosomed, carrying her baby on her hip as though he were a doll. For
all the white matron's cap upon her sunny locks, her face showed young
and flower-fresh as she turned to smile at them. When they had lost
sight of her, Brand spoke reflectively:
"Women are as helpless in hardships as a rowan tree in the open; but if
they must be in the world, let them be like that."
"It is a good thing to be in a country where there are but seven women,"
Gard assented.
What Alrek would have said no one knows; for they reached just then a
corner of the last booth, and rounding it, encountered Karlsefne
returning from an early search for a favorite hound which he now carried
in his arms, badly torn by fighting.
As he was coming out of the snow-mantled grove, so he might have been
coming out of the finest trading booth in Norway, so splendid were his
garments of blue, so rich the silvery furs that bordered them. On the
iron of his hair and his beard and his bushy brows, the morning light
was sparkling like rime frost; and a glint of kindly humor lighted his
deep-set eyes as they fell upon the approaching three.
"I salute the Chief of the Vinland Champions and his men!" he greeted
them. "We old bones need to look to ourselves when young blood is on the
trail so early."
Drawing up his soldierly form in salute, the Sword-Bearer replied that
young blood had need to stir early when it had young appetites to
provide for.
"That is true," the Lawman assented; then added politely: "Yours is
certainly a hard-working household, chief. I hope your debt to me does
not lie heavy on your shoulders?"
Involuntarily the Champions of Vinland exchanged wistful glances, and
their chief paused to consider his answer.
"Why, the truth of the case is this," he said at last. "It is only a
little time that is left over after we have got the food and fuel which
are needed to keep us going; and since we have to spend that time in
working out our debt to you, there is left no chance whatever to employ
ourselves with accomplishments or skin-hunting. That some have found
this hard can not be denied, yet it should not be thought either that
our knees are in any way weakening under us."
"Ah?" said Karlsefne, and stood a while stroking the head of the hound
that had just strength enough to lick his hand. Presently he spoke with
much graciousness: "It is an old saying that 'necessities should be
taken into consideration.' Let us therefore look upon the debt as paid.
In a short time to come you will find your hands full with
ship-building. I expect that your boat will stand to Vinland's aid and
strengthen us greatly, when it is ready."
So unexpected was the turn that for a time it took their breath away,
but at last their chief recovered enough of his to answer gratefully:
"To let the matter rest so would be a great help for us, Karlsefne. If
we do not serve Vinland well, it will not be for lack of trying."
"That is well-spoken, as was to be expected from you," Karlsefne made
courteous return; whereupon they shook hands all around with the
ceremony which becomes a dealing between chiefs.
After they had parted from the Lawman, however, and were skimming
through the grove which was the back dooryard of the little settlement,
dignity gave way to delight. Reaching the trail that zigzagged up the
bluff, they streaked down it cheering, and cheering slid far along the
sparkling track of the river.
Though black rifts yawned here and there in the middle of the stream,
the ice within a hundred paces of the shores was as solid as a rock and
as smooth-carpeted as a floor, a shining temptation to any with red
blood in his veins. From sliding they went to racing, cleaving the air
like swallows. There is no knowing when they would have stopped if they
had not been halted, on turning a bend in the river, by the sight of
smoke curling up from behind in a low white bank ahead of them.
In the same breath Brand cried: "Skraellings!" and Gard cried,
"Dwarfs!" At which Alrek repeated the last word with lifted eyebrows:
"_Dwarfs?_"
Somewhat shamefacedly, Gard explained himself: "I said that in jest. It
came into my mind how Biorn Herjulfsson's men used to think that this
land was inhabited by them. But the rocks are not large enough here. It
is more likely to be Skraellings."
"It is most likely to be some of our own hunters," Alrek dissented, "but
it lies on our shoulders to investigate. We will leave our skees on the
ice and creep close to the bank and listen; the tongue they speak, and
their voices, will tell us something. If they are Skraellings, remember
to behave well toward them, but on no account allow them to get hold of
your knives. Karlsefne would blame the man strongly who should give them
a weapon."
The plan was simple enough to carry out, for the shore was flat at the
river's edge. With a sudden freak of perverseness, Brand decided that
doffing his skees was unnecessary, and edged his way up sidewise, the
six-foot runners threatening more than once to trip his neighbor. But
they did not have to get very close to hear, as the place was still and
the voices loud.
Their first expression was disappointment, for the language spoken was
nothing more novel than Norse, and the voice was the hoarse one of the
vagabond Greenlander known as Faste the Fat.
"----they are contented with no better excitement than hunting," he was
saying.
"And to get only such wealth as is to be got from trading with
Skraellings," added the grumble of Ale the Greedy.
In the faces of the eavesdroppers disappointment began to give place to
curiosity.
"Better two followers like you than twenty cinder-biters," returned a
third voice, harsh and sneering for all the flattery of the words. "I
have not brought my news forward in the hall because I do not want the
chiefs to take the power out of my hands. I have told only men who----"
Snap! Snap! Recognizing the Huntsman, Brand had moved involuntarily; and
his cumbersome foot-gear came in contact with a bush and the dry twigs
broke. Before the lads could more than straighten, the giant form of
Thorhall appeared at the top of the bank, his knife bare in his hand.
"Prying again!" he snarled, in his small eyes so evil a look that Gard's
fingers began instinctively to shape runes against charm-spells, and
Alrek's deliberate voice became fiercely swift as at a challenge.
"A man must be doing something which he expects to have pried into who
makes his council-hall in the wastes," he retorted. "We thought the
smoke must be from a Skraelling cook-fire, and crept up to see."
The Huntsman tossed his knife back to its case, and his anger sheathed
itself in contempt. "If a man in the wastes is unable to escape the
meddling of fools, what would he not have to endure who remained in
camp?"
To that there did not appear to be any satisfactory answer; and as he
remained standing with folded arms, plainly awaiting their departure,
there did not seem to be any adequate reason for staying. The only
revenge they could take was to move away in the most deliberate manner
possible and mutter scathing comment to one another, feeling all the
while his eyes like knife-blades in their backs.
"It has something to do with that bag of his." "He is trying to get
another ship-load of fools to accompany him south--" "If he thinks the
Weathercock will lend him another boat--" "None but the scum will listen
to him--" "I wonder if Ale and the Fat One were ashamed to show
themselves?" "Let us turn around suddenly when we get to this bend and
see if they are not all looking after us."
Agreeing, they reached the bend and turned,--but it was a day of
surprises. Though each boy would have taken oath that he felt that gaze
on him as he wheeled, neither Huntsman nor followers were anywhere to be
seen. And as they stood staring, Gard uttered a smothered cry and flung
out his arm in another direction, toward the middle of the stream.
Through a broken place in the ice not twenty paces away, two claw-like
hands were reaching up; as the trio gazed, a head followed, covered with
carrot-yellow hair which hung in dripping points about two starting eyes
set in a ghastly blue-white face. Finally a white-cloaked body raised
itself over the edge of the ice and stood before them.
Whether it would retreat or advance none waited to see. With a yell of
"Hallad!" Gard was off up the river at a deer's pace, the others at his
heels. When he came to another place where the bank was flat, he turned
his long toes up it and plunged into the forest, the others still
following.
Guiding six-foot runners in and out between trees, however, is less
easy; and before long they were forced to moderate their speed. As soon
as they did that, Alrek's wonted coolness was able to overtake him. He
stopped disgustedly.
"We are simpletons to run. Hallad would do us no harm."
Gard devoted the only breath he had to triumph: "You do not claim that
it is Tunni, now!"
"It is Hallad," the Red One agreed in a gasp. "If we could cut off his
head and put it between his feet, that would make him rest quiet."
The Ugly One shook his black mane. "You forget that a wave-covered man
can not be dug up again. It is said to be a sign that they have been
received well when drowned men come back after their death; yet Hallad
has scarcely the look of one who has been well entertained----"
"He was always wanting something different from what he had," Brand
sniffed.
"However that is, it is unlikely that he has come back to make trouble,"
Alrek said. "That is only done by men who were unruly before their
death. Hallad had less spirit than a wood-goat when he was alive. I
think we were fools to run."
"If you had been that kind of a fool on the Cape of the Crosses,
you would have made more by it," Gard muttered in rare
resentfulness,--though he was not rash enough to speak so that his chief
could hear him.
The Sword-Bearer on his side knew better than to ask over. Instead he
said: "This is the first time I have been in this part of the country. I
wonder what kind of game they have here," and moved leisurely away where
a treeless space left a white page crossed and recrossed with woodland
runes.
Preferring to discuss their last adventure before they sought a new one,
the other two sat down to wait for him. But they were hardly settled
before his whistled call brought them again to their feet.
They found him kneeling beside a trench-like trail, testing with his
bared hands the condition of the snow that had fallen back into it.
"If this were a five days' journey north, I should declare them elk
tracks," he said. "Snorri of Iceland shot many a one of them up there,
last winter, which he thought greatly superior to any we have in Norway.
I would give my head for another elk hunt." He remained gazing at the
trail in pleased retrospection, which moved the two Greenlanders to say
enviously that they had never seen an elk.
"You will find it sport when you do," the Sword-Bearer assured them.
Then he came out of his musing and arose, once more Alrek the Chief,
brief and purposeful. "They can scarcely be less than deer's, however;
and they were made this morning. It is easier to find tracks than to
find what made them, as it is one thing to sight land across drift-ice
and another to land on it; but we shall have poor luck if we can not get
our meat out of this."
Instinctively they fell again under his leadership, straightening as he
rose and turning their runners in the direction he was facing.
"Certainly the snow could not be in better condition," Brand gave tacit
assent, and reassured himself of the safety of the quiver at his back.
"I knew that we should have luck to-day, because I heard a wolf howl
last night," Gard added, with a hitch to his belt.
Then they glided away, single file, under the white arches spanning the
white aisles.
CHAPTER X
THROUGH WHICH THE CHAMPIONS CHASE VINLAND ELK
Through the forest and out like flitting shadows, pausing only to make
sure that the trail they were following was fresher than any of those
which crossed it. Over a pond and across a bog and zigzag up a
hill,--they had not grazed a stone or snapped a twig; it seemed that
every stride must bring them in sight of the game. Then, on the other
side of the slope, Alrek blundered. Descending at lightning speed, he
turned his head to look behind, and in so doing unconsciously
straightened his body ever so little from the required bend. In a breath
he was seated on the snow while his skees finished the coast without
him, at the bottom dashing noisily against a stone. Instantly, from
somewhere in the white distance, came like an echo the sound of crashing
timber, a sound which passed so quickly that if only one had heard it
he might have doubted his ears.
All three had heard it, however; and the two who reached the bottom
still shod looked scathingly upon the third as he came plunging down,
breaking through the crust to his knees wherever it covered a hollow.
"I advise you to tie yourself on," one of them jeered; and the other one
gibed: "Would you like to hold to my cloak in going down the next hill?"
If he would, the Sword-Bearer did not admit it; but it was something
that he was reduced to silence. They swung after him in high feather
when he was once more on his runners and off across the valley.
Beyond the next rise there was a plain, fringed by a thicket; and there
in the packed and trampled snow and the gnawed branches and peeled bark
they found yet more tangible proof of what they had lost.
"We should have got a herd if nobody had spoiled it," Gard grunted.
Before Brand also could voice his reproach, Alrek--darting here and
there among the trees in search of the new trail--uttered his low
whistle and was off like a hare. Like hounds after hare they were after
him, and Vinland trees looked their first upon real skee-running.
Speed, not silence, was the object now. More than once their iron-shod
staffs rang sharply against the rocks as they thrust out the poles to
change their course, rudder-like. Finding coasting too slow now, they
took the last half of each hill at a leap. And when a plain stretched
its smooth surface before them, or a frozen pond or a marsh, their speed
was the speed of a deer at his best.
And now the hunted were far from their best. The holes which their sharp
hoofs had at first cut so cleanly through the crust were becoming
haggled. Farther on, the trail itself that had been so straight began to
show the wavering of the panic-stricken. At last the hunters came to a
place where a wisp of bloody foam stained the white. Only a rigid
economy of breath kept back a cheer, and they put the energy saved into
fresh speed.
A jump over a pile of boulders, a spurt over a low knoll, and there in
the open space beyond was the prey, six panting froth-flecked
creatures, stricken staring with terror.
"But what in the Troll's name are they?" cried Gard and Brand together,
at sight of the huge, shaggy, ungainly bodies with antlers like shovels
and enormous noses like nothing they had ever seen in their lives.
At the same instant Alrek answered them with the glad cry: "Vinland
elk!"
The next instant he had added a command to halt, checking his own
advance by a thrust of his skee-staff into the snow, and following that
act by casting it aside and swiftly unslinging his bow: "Be on your
guard! They have not deer's tempers."
Even as he spoke, the bull in the lead flung up his mighty antlered head
and, while the other five moved on, wheeled and faced the foe, like a
chief covering his people's retreat.
Alrek paid him the tribute of an admiring murmur, but the withdrawal of
the five set the Greenlanders wild with exasperation.
"Charge him!" "Finish him!" "Get him out of the way!" they cried
savagely, and started forward even before their arrows were on their
bow-strings.
The only thing they knew clearly after that was that the Vinland elk did
not wait to be charged. Gard, who was a length ahead, had suddenly a
glimpse of eyes like balls of green fire; something which had looked as
fixed as a boulder became, lightning-quick, a hurtling mass descending
on him, and he had a vision of terrible sharp-edged forefeet that could
mangle a man to jelly.
Dropping his weapons, he turned to run, but lapped his skees and fell
headlong. Falling, he uttered a hoarse cry as he saw Brand's hastily
aimed arrow bury itself harmlessly in the animal's flank. Then, as he
rolled backward, he caught sight of Alrek and regained hope.
Only the Sword-Bearer's brown cheeks, flaming crimson, showed his
excitement; the rock beside him was no steadier than the arm that held
his bow. Drawing back the string with all his strength, he sent an arrow
through the shaggy neck where it joins the body; and the great beast
fell forward on his knees and died without a quiver.
As the animal sank, Gard arose, breathing curses on his own awkwardness
while he snatched up his scattered weapons, his eyes fixed greedily on
the five disappearing over a ridge. And Brand cried fiercely: "There is
as much ahead, and more besides!" and leaped forward. And Alrek plucked
forth another arrow and drew himself up to spring over the dead forester
lying high before him--drew himself up and then paused and hesitated,
gazing down at the mighty shape. As nobly warrior-like as he had made
his desperate charge, so nobly warrior-like he lay in his death, a
leader who had given his life to save his people.
Slowly the young Viking stretched forth his hand. "Stop!" he ordered.
Poised in mid-air, as it were, they looked over their shoulders at him,
crying impatiently: "What is the matter?"
This time the Chief of the Champions gave his gesture authority. "Come
back. To kill them also would be a low-minded act. He took his
death-wound to save them. We have all we need. Come back."
An instant they balanced there, gazing at the white ridge over which
the last dark form was disappearing. Then the obedience bred in the
bones of Gard the Thrall-Born turned him back to his master.
"You are the chief," he muttered.
At the same time Brand the Red made up his mind. "Though you should
spend all your breath, you would not hinder me from going!" he cried,
and sprang forward.
The arrow which Alrek had drawn forth was still in his hand; in the
grasp of his other hand was his bow. Fitting the shaft on the string, he
spoke his warning:
"It is unlikely that you will do any hunting for some time if you do not
come back."
As a flame to a dry leaf, so was a threat to Brand's temper. Hissing
defiance, it flared up, and he redoubled his speed.
Above the creak of his skees he heard at the same instant two
sounds,--Gard's voice crying: "Would you kill him?" and the twang of
Alrek's bow-string. Then his right arm dropped at his side with an arrow
through it. His chief had foretold truly that he would do no more
hunting for some time. It was as much in rage as pain that he caught at
the shaft, cursing.
Gard's relief took the form of boisterous laughter; but the
Sword-Bearer, as soon as he could make himself heard, spoke gravely:
"If you think you paid too much for your big words, you have only your
own foolishness to thank for making the bargain."
Coming slowly back to them, still holding his arm, Brand's face was as
white as it had been that day on shipboard; but there was no less of a
swagger in his bearing. "Who says I paid too much?" he panted. "I shall
say what I choose though you shoot into me every arrow of your quiver.
_I_ find no fault with the bargain!"
Alrek's gravity yielded to one of his short sudden laughs. "Now if you
are satisfied, it is certain that I am," he said, and studied the Red
One with twinkling eyes. Amusement was still alight in them when he
stepped forward and held out his hand, yet there was also in his manner
a new cordiality. "It has never happened to me before to meet a sprout
to equal you," he declared. "I foretell that I shall certainly kill you
some time, but I promise that I will carve runes about you afterward."
"How do you know that it will be you who does the rune-carving?" Brand
retorted; but at the same time he yielded his palm with flattered
willingness. A little later he even yielded his wounded arm that the
hand which put the shaft in might cut it out again.
Twilight never gathered in upon a more contented party than these three
weary hunters, sprawled luxuriously on the fragrant heaps of evergreen
boughs around the leaping fire, fed to repletion on the daintiest food
they knew, pouring their hearts out in discussion of the day's
adventures. They fell asleep wrangling over the placing of the antlers
on the booth wall.
CHAPTER XI
TELLING HOW TRADE WITH THE SKRAELLINGS CAME TO A MYSTERIOUS END
The antlers were finally hung over the high-seat, while the hide made a
blanket for the bunk below, and the effect was so imposing that every
Champion went fur-mad as soon as he saw them. For a month afterward, it
took all the chief's authority to keep the fuel pile supplied and cooks
at their post. Every lad not told off--and told sternly off--for public
service or private drudgery, spent his days in ranging the country in
search of spoil, and his nights in dreaming of hunts wherein each dead
tree should turn out to be the den of a hibernating bear which he would
slay with valorous ease and bring home to deck the high-seat, even as
Leif the Lucky had done before him.
The way in which they did finally come into possession of a bearskin,
however, was really more dream-like than their dream.
Nothing could have been more peaceful than the beginning of the
happening, in the women's room of Karlsefne's booth. Loafing after the
noonday meal, Erlend the Amiable had stretched his plump length over the
cushions of a bench. At one end of the fire, the long-kirtled forms of
Gudrid and her women moved to and fro before their looms. At the other,
where the firelight lay brightest, the Sword-Bearer was playing wolf
with the baby,--a game evoking so much rumbling growling and squealing
laughter that presently it took precedence of the conversation.
"You are spoiling him, Kinsman Alrek," Gudrid said, looking around the
edge of her loom with a smile which belied her reproach.
The prettiest of the bondmaids gave her braids a pettish flirt. "That is
so," she confirmed. "Yesterday, when it happened that I was at the door
trying to talk to Hauk Votsson, I was obliged to turn around and growl
between every two words or the child would have deafened us. I do not
know what Hauk thought of me."
"If you wish, I will ask him," Erlend offered,--a piece of flippancy
which cost him his comfort, as to save his ears he was obliged to take
to instant flight around the looms.
But Alrek, sitting back on his heels, shaking back his long hair,
remained intent upon the cradle. "It is the greatest fun," he said, "to
see the cub try to frown at me. His eyebrows are like the fuzz on a
chicken, yet he tries to make them look like his namesake's, before a
laugh gets the better of him. Watch now!"
Small Snorri had been there but seven months; he was still wonderfully
new. The maid and Erlend left their chase, and Gudrid came from her
loom, and together they watched breathlessly the knitting of the downy
brows above the blue eyes, and the slow dawning of the unwilling smile,
brighter and brighter, until in each soft cheek a dimple broke.
"He is going to be in every respect like his father!" Gudrid cried,
falling on her knees beside him. And she was smothering him with kisses,
and the others were looking on sympathetically, when the door was flung
open before little Olaf the Fair, rosy and breathless.
"Where is Alrek?" he panted. "I want--Oh! Alrek! What do you think I
have seen?"
"Hallad?" shrieked the three bondmaids together.
"Skraellings! Black as crowberries. Crossing the open space west of
here. With big packs on their backs. I was up in that tree by the
wheat-shed, watching for Brand to slip on the slide I had made to get
revenge on him for cuffing me, and--" His voice was lost in the babel of
exclamations that came from the bondmaids and from the men peering
around the hall door.
Gudrid rose from beside the cradle with a gesture of authority. "Too
much noise is here. Since Karlsefne is away it behooves us to be
especially careful how we behave. Run, some one of you, to the
Icelanders' booth. I know that Snorri is not there, but if it happen
that Biorn is, ask him to get a following together and stand ready to
receive the wild men. And since it is likely that they will want to buy
the same dairy wares as before, Melkorka, you may have charge--but
there! Tch! Your heedlessness is such that you would give them three
times as much as they required. I shall have to portion, it out myself.
The child I will leave with you, Roswitha--No, you would forget him if a
man so much as looked through the door at you! Kinsman!" She laid a
white hand on Alrek's brown one as he would have moved past her. "He is
more fond of you than of any one, and I would trust you before a hundred
girls,--so long as you keep his fingers away from that hatchet in your
belt. Will you not stay with him the little while that I must be in the
dairy?"
Stay with a baby while the long-looked-forward-to trading went on
without him! Frowning involuntarily, the Sword-Bearer hesitated,--and
during that pause the Fate who was spinning his life-thread sat with
suspended breath, so much hung on his answer.
It can not be denied that it came somewhat grudgingly when it did come.
"Why--if it _will_ be a _little_ while, kinswoman," he stipulated,
turning back.
Gudrid waited to hear no more; with the last word she was off, sweeping
the maids like chaff before her. Erlend and Olaf had long since
vanished; and now the men could be heard clattering out of the great
next room that was their headquarters.
From the green behind the booths came the clamor of barking dogs and the
thud of running feet accompanied by excited voices, now far away, now
just outside the door. Gradually the scattered chatter blended into a
hum; the hum rose higher and higher; then fell suddenly in a hush so
deep that it seemed to the Sword-Bearer he could hear the pat of bare
feet and the rustle of boughs put aside; and his fancy conjured up a
picture of dark forms with bright-eyed shaggy heads bent under shaggier
packs, emerging single file from the white depths of the forest.
Directly after, the sound of strange guttural voices speaking words he
had never heard told him that some part of his vision was correct.
"Oh, you great hindrance!" he sighed to the tyrant in the cradle.
But as even while he complained, he obeyed the command of the chubby
fists by picking up the soft little body as gently as a woman would have
done, and tossing and dandling it in his strong brown hands as no woman
could have done, the tyrant was in no way cast down but clung to him
confidingly, catching his breath with squeals of delight and winding up
by burying both fists in the brown mane with a rapture of gurgling
laughter.
So Gudrid found them when she came in, the color of haste in her fair
face; and her smile was very lovely as she took her baby from his guard.
"Whether you are like your father or not, Alrek my kinsman, you have a
good disposition," she said; then went on swiftly: "I hurried because I
want to remind you of something. I beg of you, do not forget that
Karlsefne has forbidden any weapon whatever to be traded to the
hatchet-men, no matter what loose property they offer for it. Do not
forget, or let your men forget."
Alrek's glance reassured her. "I will remember," he said quietly.
"Then go quickly! They have only just opened their packs." She gave him
a little shove, but she might have saved herself the trouble for he was
out of the door at a bound.
Coming out into the gathering was like coming upon some strange
new-world fair. Everywhere over the white of the snow-covered earth,
against the gray of the snow-filled sky, the Northmen's gay cloaks made
rings of bright color around the dark fur-clad forms of the wild men.
Everywhere the sounds of fair-time had vanquished the stillness of the
forest,--the hails of eager barterers, the boasts of jubilant
purchasers, even the familiar din of fighting dogs wherever a Norse
hound and one of Skraelling breed were able to find a spot free from
interfering boot-toes.
On the step before the dairy door, the yellow heads of the three pretty
bondmaids showed above a hedge of bristling black locks; the love of
trading, so long denied, getting the better of any fear they might have
felt of their uncouth customers. As Alrek looked, Roswitha with one hand
delivered a cheese ball into a copper-colored palm and with the other
drew in a magnificent wolf-skin; while Melkorka, her saucy Irish face
twinkling with mischief, ladled curds from her bowl into the gaping
mouth of an enormous Skraelling, standing before her with half-shut eyes
and an air of solemn content.
[Illustration: She ladled curds from her bowl into the gaping mouth.]
"If only we could build cows as well as ships out of timber!" the
Sword-Bearer wished as he watched them with a grin.
He was brought out of his reverie by the appearance of a shadow on the
snow at his feet. Though he had not heard the faintest sound of an
approach, he looked up to find a wild man as dark as the shadow and
almost as tall standing at his side. Over the Skraelling's left shoulder
and arm was hung a bearskin which took the Viking's breath to look at;
his right arm he was stretching toward Alrek's sword, a glitter of
indescribable craftiness in his beady eyes. It was so like the stories
that the Irish monks told of the wiles of the Evil One that Alrek's
recoil had in it even a touch of superstitious fear.
"No," he said severely. "No!" And without further parley, he turned and
hastened in the direction in which Brand's red locks glowed between the
gray of cap and cloak, like fire amid ashes.
"I want to know at once that you have remembered not to trade them any
weapons," he demanded with an urgent hand on the Red One's arm.
Once Brand would have shaken off that hand resentfully; now he looked
around with affectionate impudence. "Which are you the more anxious to
know,--that I have remembered or that I have not traded?" he parried.
The Sword-Bearer let his hand fall with a breath of relief. "Since you
can make light of the matter, I know that no harm has been done; if you
had been disobedient, you would have hurled the news at me like a spear.
I trust you to keep on remembering it."
Brand made him a salute of mock deference. "I will heed your orders in
this as in everything," he mouthed the formal phrase of submission.
"Now I hope you will do better than that," his chief returned; then
hailed the Hare, scudding past, and bade him summon every member of the
band to immediate council.
When at last they were all before him, and he had obtained from them
individually an assurance that the order was still unbroken, he
delivered the command over again with all the weight he could bring to
bear.
They received the reminder as insult added to injury.
"I do not think I stand in need of telling when already for my poorest
spear I have refused three wolf-skins!" the Bull cried, wagging his
yellow head; while Ketil the Glib mocked openly:
"Behold the caution! Lose no time in punishing Erlend who has traded
them a brooch with a pin as long as my finger."
Even small Olaf sniffed rebelliously. "If I had known _that_ was all you
were going to say, I doubt if I would have come. I thought you were
going to offer us your red cloak to trade with."
"My red cloak?" Alrek repeated.
Forty eyes fastened themselves wistfully on the garment, while at least
ten voices answered: "Of course it is not to be expected--" "Yet you
could buy the most costly furnishings--" "They would like it better than
curds even--" "Njal got the finest gray fur only for a kerchief with one
stripe of red." "Think if this were cut in strips!" "Another cloak would
keep you equally warm--" "Karlsefne would give you a king's mantle for
the asking----"
Shaking his head, Alrek folded the stained drapery to him with both
arms. "You show too much generosity! I can tell you that you would not
get this though it would buy all the fur in Vinland. My father gave it
to me at the time of my first Viking voyage; while one thread holds to
another, I shall wear it." Then he unfolded his arms with a gesture more
encouraging. "But it may be that we shall not fare so ill, for I have
hit upon another plan. I have a suit of feasting-clothes of red
velvet----"
Not one of the twenty waited to hear more; after the Hare the band was
off like the tail after a comet. The Sword-Bearer considered himself
lucky that he reached the booth in time to secure one sleeve for his own
ventures.
After that the trading was like trading in a dream. Even after the first
recklessness had passed and they had cut the velvet into strips no wider
than their thumbs, the same sizes of skins were given in exchange.
Erlend, the first to run out of purchase money, was made custodian of
the spoils; and the rapidity with which the pile grew behind him in what
remained of the short afternoon was enough to heat cooler blood. By the
falling of twilight, Alrek announced the whimsical determination to try
if he could not capture the bearskin itself with what remained of his
red sleeve and the foot of a red stocking which he had found.
Because of the failing light, quenched early by a gentle fall of snow,
the trading had ceased before he started. Here and there, where light
streamed out through open doors, the forest men stooped in groups,
packing for departure all wares not previously bound around their heads
or bestowed in their stomachs. From group to group he went without
finding the tall Skraelling, until suddenly he caught a glimpse of him
passing the last door in the line, the door of their own booth. It
looked as though the great skin was still draping his shoulders, so
Alrek started leisurely toward him and reached the wheat shed this side
of the Champions' booth. Then he slipped on Olaf's slide and fell,
striking his head against a great oak root.
That was the last thing he remembered,--and he did not remember that for
some time. The next thing he was conscious of was sitting in his
high-seat in the booth, in silence and alone. The flickering firelight
that showed him the stretch of empty benches revealed gradually to his
bewildered eyes a dark huddled shape on the white surface of the table
in front of him. What it was or how it got there, he knew no more than
what he was doing there himself. He wondered dully if the Huntsman could
have put a spell upon him, until--like a wind-breath through a fog--came
the recollection that a sailor had once told him of having had a similar
experience, and that it had been caused by striking his head in falling
through a hatchway on the ship. Moving his head, the Sword-Bearer found
it as sore as an unhealed wound, and that part of his problem was
solved. But where had he been, and why was the booth empty at this time
of day? It was a relief to have the door open upon Gard's hulking
long-armed figure, powdered with glistening snow.
When the Ugly One had taken three steps beyond the threshold, he saw the
chief in the high-seat and stopped with a loud exclamation.
Alrek grinned faintly. "Your surprise is no greater than mine. I should
be thankful if you would tell me how I got here. No," as Gard made a
gesture of unbelief, "I declare myself in earnest. I suppose I fell and
struck my head somewhere. Do you know where I have been? And why the
booth is empty?"
When he had come around the fire and looked curiously at the
Sword-Bearer, Gard's doubts were laid. "The proof of this is that the
left side of your face is scratched and dirty," he said. "It is likely
that you fell on Olaf's slide. You were going in that direction, the
last I saw of you. I forgot you after the screech."
"What screech?"
"The yell that started the Skraellings, of course."
"What Skraellings?"
"_What_ Skraellings!" Gard echoed; but Alrek's memory had stirred.
"I remember! They were here trading. I came out of the women's house and
saw them--" He got upon his feet. "Are they gone?"
Gard began to laugh. "You _are_ addled! I should have thought the racket
sufficient to wake Thorwald in his grave. It is certain that they are
gone! At the first note of the yell they dropped their packs and plunged
into the woods, howling like trolls. What frightened them this time, no
one knows. Erlend and Brand followed, and also some of the other men of
the band, but the creatures seemed to melt and vanish. The men are only
just coming back. That is why no one is here yet to get the meal."
Coming down to the fire, Alrek kicked the logs about, partly to mend the
burning, partly to vent his irritation. "Never have I heard of a fall so
foolishly timed. I could give my head another knock--What is this? Fur?"
He stretched his hand toward the table. "A bearskin? What a--_the
bearskin the Skraelling offered for my sword?_" Memory came back like a
rush of fire, lighting the dark corners of his mind, flaming from his
eyes as he turned upon the slouching figure. "How did it come here?"
Gard began to speak with unwonted swiftness: "It is true, I forgot to
tell you that I bought it myself. You must recollect that things were
not so dear at the end of the trading. I gave only a piece of your tunic
and--and my ring with the red stone. I would not have parted with that
ring for anything less. He liked very much to get it, and put it on his
finger as soon--" He broke off as Alrek's hands fell upon his shoulders,
forcing him down on his knees where the fire could light his face. For
the moment they were neither comrade and comrade, nor chief and
follower, but master and thrall.
The Sword-Bearer's low voice seemed a hiss between his teeth. "Swear to
me that you gave no weapon for it! Take oath on the cross of my sword
hilt!"
Gard reached out even eagerly. "I take oath on the cross, so help me
Frey and Njord and Odin!"
After a while Alrek's hands relaxed their grasp. It was some time before
his eyes loosened their hold, but at last they also released the Ugly
One and fell away, back to the fur. "It is good that you are able to
swear to it," he said grimly.
Brushing from his knee the ashes into which he had been forced, the Ugly
One grunted. "Do you think I am a fool like Brand? Even if I did not
care for your orders, would I not be apt to heed Karlsefne's?"
"It is a good thing that you do," the chief said again.
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH THE CHAMPIONS FEEL THEIR IMPORTANCE
Smiling, Gudrid drew out the head she had thrust through the booth door
at Erlend's urgent invitation. "It is as splendid as can be in every
way. I do not wonder that you want to give a feast to display it."
A little consciousness was in Erlend's laugh as he shut the door and
walked beside her through the grove. "It is not altogether to display
it," he protested. "In a few weeks the spring games will be held; it is
the custom of every one to give a feast at that season. I tell you we
are going to show some great feats. We exercise ourselves every
afternoon. They are practising now in an open place which the chief
found in the woods. That is where I am going."
Pausing, Gudrid drew higher on her hip her accustomed burden, a bundle
wrapped in white rabbit-skins from which looked forth a little rosy
face. "Is Alrek there?" she asked. "Then I think I will try my luck in
that direction, if so be they will allow a woman to come near?"
"I think they will not mind your coming if you go right away again,"
Erlend concluded after some consideration.
Apparently she felt equal to the risk, for she entered with him the
broad trough-like path trodden through the snow of the grove. "I go only
for a walk," she said. "We have been too much shut in the house, the
child and I, since that frightful trading day."
It seemed to the Amiable One that she shivered as she spoke, so he
observed politely: "It is a bad thing that you were made sick by it.
Melkorka says that you even saw a ghost."
"Melkorka blunders much in her speaking and blundered twice as much in
her hearing," Gudrid answered. "I said only that I got so full of fear
that I expected to see ghosts. Sitting alone in the house with the
child, it came into my head what might happen if the Skraellings should
turn an evil side, with Karlsefne away and that good-natured Biorn not
expecting evil. And the more I thought, the stranger the noises outside
seemed to me and the stranger shapes the shadows took, until once I was
so sure that one was a Skraelling stealing in upon me that I bent over
and covered the cradle with my body,--and just then came that cry!" She
pressed her hand to her ear at the recollection.
Erlend smiled indulgently. "Now did you think it so terrible? It is
likely that one of them looked into the cattle-shed and saw the bull--"
The glance her blue eyes sent over her shoulder silenced him even before
her words. "It would be a strange wonder if you could tell me news about
it! Was I not here at the time the bull frightened them? I heard how
they screamed then, and it was as different from this screech as day
from night. In this cry there were death-sounds and no life-sounds. My
foster-mother, Halldis, was knowing in weird matters. I know of what I
speak, though all men think otherwise. And I know enough to wish to
forget the mishap. Let us not talk of it any more. I wish to enjoy this
fine weather."
It was a day to be enjoyed. Beyond the network of brown branches the sky
was dazzling blue, with here and there a fleecy cloud. Dazzling white,
snow lay in the curves of the boughs and filled the hollows of the
ground; though on the ridges where the bright sun touched, the brown
earth showed through. Everywhere, the wind was moistly, sweetly fresh.
"I do not wonder that it makes you kick up your heels like young
horses," Gudrid laughed, when she came at last to the level treeless
space in whose middle six Champions leaped and wrestled, while ten more
lounged at one side, applauding or hissing the wrestlers as their
critical judgment decided.
At sight of Erlend, the ten waved their hands in careless greeting; at
sight of the kirtled figure of Gudrid, they sat up in unmistakable
disapproval; and a long lean wrestler with a mane of red hair stamped
petulantly when he was obliged to retire from the field to the bordering
trees where his tunic and cloak awaited him.
"Though no more than seven women are in Vinland, a man can not get away
from them though he go into the heart of a wood," he sputtered.
"Hush! She will hear you," muttered Gard, who stood beside him;
whereupon the Red One's voice rose in exasperation:
"I do not care whether she hears me or not! Will you keep to what
concerns you? I have told you before this that I am able to pay the
price of my deeds."
From under the tunic he was about to pull down over his head, Gard
looked at him irefully. "And I have told you," he retorted, "that one
can not always tell what the price of his deed will be."
"I do not care _what_ it is!" bellowed Brand.
Harald Grettirsson turned on them with a grin. "What ails you two that
you have done nothing but quarrel since the trading day? Cool off a
little," he jeered, and suddenly ran into them so that they were jostled
off the high ground into a hollow and sank in snow up to their waists.
Foreseeing vengeance, Grettirsson took promptly to his heels, and the
desertion of the three completed the interruption begun by the
appearance of Gudrid's blue hood.
Gudrid took her departure with tactful promptness. "Now you need not
trouble yourself to hunt for fine words," she forestalled the somewhat
embarrassed greeting of her young kinsman. "I am well versed in the
Viking laws about keeping women out; we have no other intention than to
go directly back, the Frowner and I."
Cordial as his relations with his kinswoman were, the chief could not
ask her to alter her decision; but he reached out and took the bundle
off her hip. "The Frowner is not a woman," he corrected. "I think he
will like the noise better than the rattling of his string of shark's
teeth. I will see to it that he comes to no harm."
The mother yielded him doubtfully. "But do you know for certain that you
will?" she demurred. "If he should get his hand on the hatchet in your
belt--"
"Why, he would be able to do more than I can," Alrek finished for her.
"I have been unable to find my hatchet for weeks."
Gudrid consented to smile. "I took for granted it was there. Then I will
certainly leave him, for I should like him to be outdoors some while
longer. I will send a thrall--a man-thrall--to fetch him."
But it came about that small Snorri Thorfinnsson was returned to his
mother by no such humble individual. With the shortening of the light
and the lengthening of the shadows, Karlsefne the Lawman came through
the wood on his way campward from a day's outing. Coming out in the open
where a dozen Champions were fencing with a mighty clash and clatter, he
would have apologized for the intrusion and kept on his way; but
reaching the tree before which the red-cloaked chief sprawled on a great
rug, drawling comment, he heard from the rabbit-skin bundle at the
chiefs side a squeal of laughter which brought him to a standstill.
"What have we here?" he asked in surprise.
Rising to greet him, Alrek looked down at the bundle with a laugh. "It
is likely that your son is going to make a Berserker, Karlsefne," he
answered. "The more noise the swords make, the louder he laughs."
The smile dawning on the Lawman's lips faded as his glance passed from
the rabbit-skin bundle to the rug on which it lay. After a little he
said gravely: "This is an unusually fine bearskin which you have, my
young kinsman. I want to ask if it is the one the Skraellings brought,
on that last trading day of which so much has been told?"
It was so plain that the same misgiving was in his mind which had first
risen to Alrek's, that the Sword-Bearer breathed a prayer of
thankfulness that he had lost no time in making sure of Gard's good
faith. He replied readily: "It is the same one, Karlsefne. One of my men
had such luck in trading that he bought it when the price was lower than
it had been."
"Nevertheless, I should like much to know what he paid for it," said the
Lawman.
"Willingly," answered Alrek the Chief. "He paid a large piece of the red
cloth which we had been trading with, and a ring with a red stone. The
Skraelling liked the ring so well that he put it on as soon as he bought
it."
The Lawman's gaze became less unswervingly direct; presently its
sharpness was softened by a twinkle. "Now if all the Northmen of the new
lands continue to show such merchant talent, Vinland will soon be as
great a trading place as Iceland," he laughed.
Then, as if to remove any lingering doubt of his friendliness, he added
that their taste in selecting a practising place was excellent; and that
it appeared that they were doing good work in it; and that, if they
would allow it, he should be glad to remain a while and look on. When
permission had been graciously accorded, he sat down on the rug between
the chief and the rabbit-skin bundle and showed himself the most
inspiring audience the band had ever performed before.
Under the stimulus of his applause, Njal the Jumper achieved a mark a
finger's length higher than any he had made before; while Brand the
Wrestler felt such power swell in his great limbs that for a time he
seriously considered the idea of challenging Karlsefne himself. Later,
he was glad that he had not, for when they stopped to rest and came and
stood around the bearskin, Karlsefne borrowed Alrek's dwarf-made sword
and rose up, towering and sinewy and straight as a pine, and showed them
some feats that he had learned in the East,--the real East where the sun
is so hot that all people are as brown as roasted fowls, and the rich
eat snow for a luxury. Baring a knotted arm as lean as a spear-shaft, he
did things that furnished them fireside gossip for the rest of the cold
weather.
When at last he had set the Frowner on his shoulder, and he and the
Champions had parted in a glow of good-fellowship, Erlend said warmly:
"Biorn Gudbrandsson is an open-handed chief, and Snorri of Iceland is
shrewder than most men; but the one surpassing others in high-mindedness
and knowing everything is Thorfinn Karlsefne. I think it an honor to our
feast that he has consented to come to it."
CHAPTER XIII
GIVING THE REASON WHY THE SKRAELLINGS FLED
It happened, however, that Thorfinn Karlsefne did not get back from his
spring exploring trip in time for the games. Inspecting all the
self-sown wheat-fields and natural vineyards in the vicinity, he had
been gone a week; and the light of the momentous day had faded into
twilight and the dusk in its turn had melted into moonlight, silvering
the forest like a frost, before he came through it with his men.
Meeting a ray of light from the last booth in the line and catching from
the same source a faint note of revelry, he spoke smilingly to his
partner, Snorri of Iceland: "I recollect now that we have missed great
happenings. It is likely that if the light were good enough we should
find heads and limbs strewed like pebbles over the plain."
"What witches' stuff this moonlight is!" Snorri laughed in return. "As
you spoke, it almost seemed to me as if I saw an arm down there." He
nodded his head toward the ravine along whose brink they were walking;
and old Grimkel, behind him, followed the motion with his one eye and
grunted:
"I see what you mean,--yonder where the moon strikes. It has the look of
an arm."
Still moving forward, Karlsefne also glanced down into the black pool of
shadow. From the dark slope, something like a snag stood out so that the
moonlight caught it and gave it a weird resemblance to a human hand with
fingers wide-spread in the air. Looking down at it, he came slowly to a
standstill. Presently, while the chat behind him ceased in surprise, he
grasped a wiry bush on the brink and let himself over the edge until he
could touch with his staff the dark mass from which the snag stood out.
Using the staff like a pitchfork, he flung off the layers of sodden pine
branches heaped there and bent to look again. Then he saw that the
reason it looked like an arm was because an arm was what it was, lean
and brown, outflung from a stark body lying face downward in the brush.
Those waiting above heard his voice rise awfully from the shadow: "It is
a Skraelling who has been murdered! Fetch torches!"
Waiting for the lights to be brought, the men stood looking dumbly at
one another and at the snag-like arm, in every mind the same thought.
Once Karlsefne's deep tones interpreted their silence, tolling heavily
through the darkness:
"I do not know who has done this deed, but I know that in slaying this
one man he has taken the lives of more men than tongue can number. If
ever the Skraellings come again it will be to make warfare, and to save
our lives we shall be forced to take more of theirs; and so it will go
on through ages yet unborn, until a white face--which I had striven to
make a sign of friendliness--will become to the wild men a token of
bloodshed." A moment his voice rang out in terrible wrath: "Behold how
the heedlessness of one man can overthrow the wisdom of a hundred!"
Daring no answer, they awaited in silence the arrival of the torches.
But when at last the lights had been brought and handed down, and they
had descended after them, at least four spoke at once:
"It is the Skraelling who offered the bear's hide!"
"By Odin," cried a fifth, "I saw him walking in this direction shortly
before the time of the scream! He must have fallen over the bank and
lain all this while under the snow that was coming down."
"What has become of the hide, however?" pondered Hjalmar Thick-Skull,
before memory recalled to him whose booth the great skin was even now
gracing as its chiefest treasure.
"It must be that they bought it just before he was slain," Grimkel
struck in hastily.
But the Lawman took the torch from him and held it to each brown hand in
turn. "No ring with a red stone is on any of the fingers," he said.
Immediately after, Hjalmar, holding the other torch, uttered an
exclamation: "Here is what slew him!" and they all crowded forward to
look,--and looking, stood dumfounded.
The Thick-Skulled said wonderingly: "Now I have several times heard it
said that men believe Brand the Red gave the Skraelling a weapon for the
skin, but no man guessed that a weapon had been given in this way."
CHAPTER XIV
SHOWING HOW DISGRACE CAME UPON ALREK THE CHIEF
It was as though all the troubles of Vinland were gathered around that
dark heap in the ravine, and all the pleasures were gathered around the
Champions' hospitable fire. Built of juniper fagots whose sweetness
blended with the fragrance of the pine branches carpeting the floor, it
filled the air with the spicy aroma of Yule-tide; and Yule-tide cheer
was on the long tables on either side the hearth, and Yule-tide mirth
was on the faces above the board. Every leap of the flames revealed some
new treasure of claw or hide or antler; and at each admiring tribute
from their guests the Champions' hearts swelled with pride, so that they
were obliged to relieve the pressure by echoing at the top of their
lungs the song Rane was singing to chords from a home-made harp. The
only flaw in their content was that Karlsefne was not there to see
their glory. When an uproar among the dogs outside announced the arrival
of a guest, they left everything to fix eager eyes on the opening door.
The form that strode in out of the moonlight was Karlsefne's, followed
by Snorri of Iceland, but the breath they had thought to spend in cheers
went out in gasps as the dancing firelight showed his face. Stopping
just within the threshold, he stood gripping his silver-shod staff in
both hands before him, like a bar in the way of his wrath.
From the high-seat, the young chief saluted him with troubled mien: "We
bid you welcome, Karlsefne, and take it as an honor that you have come.
I hope your journey has been according to your pleasure, and that
nothing has happened which you dislike?" He made a sign that Erlend, in
his feasting clothes of blue-and-silver, should act as master of
ceremonies and conduct the distinguished guest to the seat prepared for
him.
The Lawman did not appear to heed the invitation. "I give you thanks for
your greeting," he said, "but I will not conceal it from you that
something has happened. Before this feast goes any further, I want to
put some questions to your men."
From some instinctive foreboding, Alrek glanced hastily across at Gard.
Finding the Ugly One's dark face as lowering as a storm cloud, while
Brand's beside him was aflash with excitement, the trouble in the young
chief's eyes deepened. Yet he answered steadily: "You are over-chief in
Vinland, Karlsefne, and must have your way about everything. Yet will
you not first take the seat of honor----"
"I will accept no hospitality here until this matter is cleared," the
Lawman grimly cut him short; then turned upon the Ugly One. "I want to
ask Gard Eldirsson what he paid the Skraelling for the skin yonder on
the high-seat?"
As he had given it each time before, Gard muttered his answer, without
looking up: "I gave him a piece of red cloth and a ring with a red stone
in it. He liked so well to get the ring that he put it on his finger as
soon as he got it."
Crack! the staff Karlsefne was gripping broke under the strain; it
seemed that his voice also must break from his control. "It was not seen
that he wore it to-day," he was beginning; when Brand arose, pushing
back his goblet and bowl with a loud clatter.
"If what you mean is that you have met that Skraelling and seen a knife
in his belt instead of a ring on his hand," he said, "I will spare you
the trouble of asking further by declaring that I traded it to him
myself. Gard lies when he says that he bought the skin. It happened that
from behind a tree he saw me give the weapon; and because he expected
that Alrek would slay me for daring it, he sought to save trouble by
making up the ring-story before I got a good chance to tell what I had
done. I gave him no thanks for it, as I do not lack the boldness to
stand behind any deed I do. I held my tongue only because I could not
speak without bringing him into trouble. Now I will hold it no longer,
and you may do what you like when my chief is through with me." He
flashed his leader his glance of affectionate insolence, and grinned at
the look he got in return. But before Alrek could answer, Karlsefne
spoke:
"You would have me believe that your chief does not know of this
matter?"
The Red One tossed his long locks with a flourish which suggested that
he was enjoying the excitement of the moment. "No more than the bench
before you," he answered. "He himself had started out to make an offer
for the skin, but he slipped on the ice and muddled his wits so that he
did not even hear the yell or know how he got into the booth, until he
found himself there with the fur before him----"
"Was it you who brought the fur into the booth?" Karlsefne interrupted
him.
But Gard took the answer out of Brand's mouth: "No, it was I who did
that. When the wild men began yelling and running, I saw Brand drop the
skin and run after them; and I picked it up and brought it into the
booth before I followed him. When I came back, Alrek was sitting there
and asked me where he had been." He turned toward the high-seat as
though he would address a word of apology to him who sat there, but the
pause was shattered by an unpleasant laugh from Snorri of Iceland.
"I call Loke as witness," he ejaculated, "that though I have dealt with
men in France and men in England and all that are nearer than those, I
have never seen given such a running-over measure of lies!"
"They are like saplings drifted ashore that one picks up for their good
shape and finds to be worm-eaten," Karlsefne responded; and the violence
of the anger he was holding back shook his towering frame and vibrated
through his deep voice. "Yet should it be kept in mind that these two
lied in order to assist a comrade. Only Alrek Ingolfsson lied for
himself."
In his place Alrek the Chief arose, his lips forming a question; but
Karlsefne stayed it with uplifted hand.
"I will make it plain that I do not wish to tempt you to further
falsehood. I tell you openly that I know you to be the man who slew the
Skraelling----"
"Slew?" repeated Alrek Sword-Bearer.
And "Slew!" cried the chorus of Champions; then divided into scattered
cries: "It was his death-yell--" "They took it as a warning--" "The next
time they come, it will be in war-clothes."
Hearing this last, Brand hammered the table with his fist. "Now I know
who killed him!" he cried joyfully. "It was Thorhall the Huntsman! More
than anything else he wanted to break off trade with the Skraellings and
stir the camp to discontent----"
"Now your tongue goes faster than your mind," the Iceland chief
interrupted him. "That trading day the Huntsman spent with me, setting
traps in the wood far north of here."
Brand shot his arrows desperately: "Then it was Ale the Greedy! Or Fat
Faste!"
But from the quarter where the Greenland guests sat, rose resentful
cries: "Faste was off all day fishing with me--" "I myself saw Ale in
the group before the Lawman's door!" "You take too much upon yourself!"
"Remember that the spoils were found in your booth!"
The Red One stood with empty quiver. And Gard left his place and went
and laid clumsy hands upon the Lawman's cloak.
"I swear that it was not Alrek but I who brought the skin into the
booth. I take oath that I am telling the truth this time," he said.
"_This_ time!" the Lawman repeated, so that the blood was rasped into
Gard's swarthy face.
"Nay, it was to help Brand that I lied before," he pleaded.
"And this time it is to help Alrek!" Karlsefne finished. "Learn, boy,
once and for all, that you can not spend your wealth and have it also in
your pouch. Learn now and forever that your word buys nothing when the
pouch of your honor is empty." Casting him off as he would have spoken
further, he turned upon the red-cloaked figure of the Sword-Bearer,
standing rigidly erect before the high-seat. "Too long, Alrek
Ingolfsson, have you hidden behind this shield; show now the boldness
which should be in your blood. That you lied because you wished to keep
my good opinion, I can guess. That you fell not upon the Skraelling
treacherously nor yet in greed of his property, I do you the justice to
believe. It may even be that he gave provocation to your mad temper by
seizing your weapon. I expect that you will acknowledge yourself guilty
and submit to me."
Their glances clashed like blades as Alrek turned his high-borne head.
"You can decide over my life, but I will never acknowledge that," he
said. "May the gallows take my body if I knew aught of the happening
until your own lips told of it. I say, moreover, that it is unjustly
done to accuse me of it only because others have juggled with the truth
and because it looks as though mine were the hand which had brought the
spoils hither."
That, at least, did not lack boldness. Flinging the broken staff from
him, Karlsefne made a stride forward; the veins of his forehead swelled
out white against purple. "This case has not yet been fully tried," he
said. "I have not told that those are my only reasons. Another proof is
this, which my own hand took from the Skraelling's head into which it
had bitten so deeply that not even his fall down the bank had dislodged
it." From his belt, where his cloak had hidden it, he drew forth the
stone hatchet, discolored with dark stains.
To Alrek of Norway it was like a trick of magic; his jaw fell and he
recoiled against the high-seat. "My hatchet!" he breathed.
Then the sheeted lightning of Karlsefne's eyes was loosed upon him.
"Tempt me with no more defiance lest I forget that I am a Lawman and
strike you dead where you stand! Recollect that I also am of Viking
stock, and tempt me not! Come down from the seat in which you were never
worthy to sit; put off the cloak whose soldierliness you have disgraced;
unbuckle the sword you can not be trusted to wear."
It was as though the Viking blood in Ingolf's son were a tiger that had
been wakened by a blow. Straightening with a terrible inarticulate cry,
he leaped to the floor and over the fire, his sword gleaming in his hand
before they knew he had drawn it.
But the Lawman's might-full figure neither gave back nor moved; the
blaze of his eyes neither weakened nor swerved. Tiger-like, the boy's
eyes wavered and fell aside; he halted, uncertain.
Karlsefne's voice was as the voice of thunder: "I am over-chief in
Vinland."
The flesh defied, but the soldier-drilled spirit heard. Slowly, Alrek
put up hands that shook from passion and unfastened the clasp on his
shoulder. With a soft sound the drapery fell and lay like a blood-pool
around his feet. Slowly and yet more slowly, he changed his hold upon
his weapon and extended it as it had never gone before--hilt forward.
Receiving it, the Lawman finished the sentence amid deathlike stillness:
"Hereafter, wear no color of soldiers, nor carry any more weapons than
the beasts whose uncontrol you show. You, Champions of Vinland, get you
another chief." Signing to Snorri to open the door he left the booth,
the Icelander following.
Spellbound, the revelers remained without sound or motion, until Brand
flung himself at the feet of Ingolfs son, thrusting into the brown hand
one of his own knives.
"You foretold that you should kill me some time," he whispered, and
bared his breast for the blow.
Those who saw the eyes the Viking bent upon him, believed that he would
do it; it was seen that his fingers closed upon the haft. Then suddenly
they thrust it from him with such force that its owner was thrown
backward.
"Keep away," he said hoarsely. "Keep away!" With hands flung out to keep
them off, he walked past them; and the door opened upon him and the
night swallowed him up.
PART THIRD
THE HUNTSMAN'S PREY
CHAPTER XV
ABOUT THE-FIRE-THAT-RUNS-ON-THE-WAVES
Where an arm of the big Vinland bay met a narrow river so far inland
that it was hard to tell when bay ended and river began, the band of
Vinland Champions was at work. Before the invasion of their young
voices, the stillness of the primeval forest had taken flight; and the
age-old trees had fallen victim to the greed of their young hands even
as the old-world cities were falling before the might of the young
North. On the river bank, sweating in the June sun, some of them were
toiling to bring a great log down to the stream which was to float it on
to the building place. Along the edge of the clearing, others were busy
lopping from the fallen monarchs their green crowns. And the song of
axes, ringing from the depths of the cool shade, told of conquests still
in progress. This last task, however, was so nearly completed that in
the intervals of their work the choppers talked of the untrimmed logs
as though they were already in the form of a ship.
"What we stand in need of is red paint for that hull--" "If Gudrid will
only make the sail--" "--so long as we get gilding for the dragon's
head, I do not care--" "The dragon's head will be a weapon in itself!"
"I expect the wild men will run at sight of it!" "There will not be many
to equal this ship when it is done."
Lowering his ax to moisten his palms, Brand cast his bright impatient
eyes around severely. "If ever it is done," he supplemented. "At this
rate, it is the summer which will be finished first. If we had worked as
we should have done, it would be completed now."
"Then why did you not work as you should have done?" laughed Ketil the
Glib.
And Erlend, pausing to take a gauzy fanged fly off his neck, observed:
"Certainly I think you ought to be the last one to make a fuss. Every
time I have told you off to work on it, you have preferred to go
hunting, or even help Karlsefne's men with the fence."
"What difference what I prefer?" the Red One retorted. "You are the
chief; it is your duty to see that work is done as it is necessary."
The difficulty of answering that, left Erlend rubbing his plump neck in
silence; and in the pause Brand returned to work, swinging the ax over
his shoulder with a forcefulness which brought it near to smashing the
head of a man who had just appeared in the underbrush behind him.
"It is my advice that you see what you are doing," the man spoke in a
harsh voice which they recognized.
It was but faintly that Brand was apologetic as he glanced around. "Why
do you creep up like a cat if you are not willing to risk something?" he
inquired, and aimed another stroke.
But for once Thorhall the Huntsman did not dismiss them in contempt.
Breast-high in saplings he lingered, regarding them with curiosity; when
he had swallowed the irritation attendant upon dodging, he spoke
politely: "My excuse is that if the leaves had not muffled my steps, I
should have missed hearing tidings of great interest. I ask of you to
tell me what all this is about a ship?"
"How does that concern you?" muttered Gard the Ugly.
Erlend, however, lowered his ax readily. That there should be any one
willing to listen to the ship-plan who had not already heard it as many
times as he would endure, seemed too good for belief. Feigning that his
ax edge needed attention, he drew out a sharpening-stone; and while he
plied it, he talked happily.
The ship, he said, was to be so long and so wide, with a fore-deck to
shelter the provisions, but nothing so womanish as a cabin. The mast was
to be that pine-tree yonder, and the sail was to be woven by Gudrid,
Karlsefne's wife--that is, they were going to ask her to do it for
them--and he thought the colors would be red and yellow, and the name
would probably be The-Fire-That-Runs-On-The-Waves. It sounded very well
as he told it; gradually Brand's blade also became silent, and Ketil and
Harald and half a dozen others crept nearer to listen with kindling eyes
that now and again shot triumphant glances at the Huntsman.
It was something of a triumph to make him who was usually so sneering
listen so respectfully. When the recital was finished, he was even
flattering.
"Certainly you are foremost among youths in energy! Where is it your
intention to voyage when The Fire is built?"
Gard, who alone had kept on working, gave his tree a resounding blow.
"How does that concern you?" he demanded a second time. "You will not be
invited to take the steering oar."
Now any one can see that it is bad manners to insult a man who is
complimenting you. Eight glances fixed the Ugly One angrily, while
Erlend spoke in mild reproof:
"What is the need of talking in that way?" he asked him; then, to the
Huntsman: "If the ship is done before the summer is, we are going
against the Skraellings. It comes like a piece of luck that there is
enmity between us; otherwise I do not know whom we could fight."
"Since it is unadvisable to do what we want and fight Karlsefne," Brand
added vindictively; and there was a murmur of acquiescence.
The Huntsman's eyes, trained to detect prey in the very darkness, went
from one to another of the young faces. "Now that is a strange way to
speak of the Lawman," he remarked.
The answers rose in his face like a covey of birds: "How else would you
expect us to speak?" "--after the way he behaved toward Alrek
Ingolfsson--" "I think he deserves worse words--" "To my backbone I hate
him!"
Parting the sapling screen, the Huntsman came out and seated himself on
a prostrate tree, as though he found the field worthy of his attention.
"Yet it is a foolish way after all," he began, "for only see how Alrek's
bane has been Erlend's good fortune----"
The Amiable One's handsome brown face flushed. "We have given no thanks
on that score, nor shall give any," he answered hastily. "I have seen
Alrek only once since the day that bad luck overtook him, and then I
dared not speak to him; but the first chance I get, I shall offer the
chiefship back."
The murmur which greeted that was almost a cheer; only Thorall made a
sound of dissent.
"Now do you act after the manner of boys rather than of men," he said.
"Pity Alrek Ingolfsson you may if you will, but in so doing you should
not undervalue the leader you have got in his----"
"Now what trap are you baiting?" grumbled Gard, at the same instant that
Erlend interrupted.
"I beg of you to leave that and give us instead your advice how the
Skraellings may be found. You, more than any other, know the secrets of
the south country."
Some of the band drew breath rather quickly as their chief said that,
and looked to see the Huntsman rise in offense; but again he surprised
them. Re-crossing his legs and settling his broad back against a stump,
he did nothing worse than to sit gazing away at the sunshine of the
open. His voice was still amiable when at last he spoke:
"It would be useless to deny that many wonders may be told of the south
country. I will begin by telling you that it contains bigger game than
Skraellings and--" his hand strayed to the deerskin cord looping his
neck and ending in the breast of his stained green tunic--"and more
valuable things than furs." He paused to cough, and no one moved for
fear of breaking the spell. He recovered himself with a covert smile.
"It may be that I will even do better than telling you. What should you
say if I would show you the paths that lead to the treasure? I have some
thought of going south myself this summer----"
Gard answered with an unexpectedness that made them jump: "I should say
that we were rabbit-brained if we allowed you to lead us anywhere!
Because Erlend is caught with your chaff, it is not proved that you can
trap us all. I would not follow you a pace. To your face I tell you that
I believe it was your hand that slew the Skraelling, though your body
was further off than could be seen by a raven hovering in the sky!" He
broke off and began making rune-signs with his fingers, as the small
eyes turned toward him.
But it was not the Huntsman's anger which he had to reckon with, but the
resentment of those who feared to lose a tidbit from their watering
mouths.
"Hold your tongue!" "You know that is an old woman's story--" "For what
purpose should you interfere?" "You are not all of us!" the mouths
growled, while the elbows belonging to them made themselves felt
admonishingly in his ribs.
Erlend spoke with unprecedented severity. "You have no right to show
enmity toward a man who is behaving well toward you. You may take your
choice either to go off by yourself or else sit down and keep quiet like
the rest of us."
Nine times out of ten, Gard would have subsided in sulky submission; but
this was the tenth time. Moving toward the bush whereon his cap and bow
and quiver hung as on a rack, he sent the Huntsman a glance of such
hatred as springs from fear.
"I choose the best company," he said; and gathering up his things, he
slung his ax over his shoulder and slouched away. Those at work in the
clearing refrained from addressing him when they saw the expression of
his swarthy face; and those toiling on the river bank agreed with polite
alacrity when he deigned to growl in passing that the day was unbearably
hot.
It was, moreover, easier to assent to that remark than to deny it. Far
and near, blue water and green land were ablaze with sun. When the Ugly
One had forded the river and plowed through the treeless meadows where
Karlsefne's cattle stood knee-deep in the reed-fringed pools, his linen
clothes were wet on his body; and he gave up a vague plan to spend his
unexpected holiday in fishing.
"There will be fewer chances of the juice drying in my skull if I go to
that wood place where the red berries grow," he decided, and struck
across the grove toward the camp to leave his burden in the booth.
The camp was not so easily entered as of old, for now there rose around
the twelve huts a fence of mighty logs with sharpened tops; and at each
of the three gates there stood a man on guard. Yet neither was the watch
strict enough to justify the precautions of Strong Domar who chanced to
hold this post. With his joyous bellow, he promptly barred the passage
with his spear until the newcomer had answered a catechism that began by
asking his age and ended by demanding a list of the things he had eaten
for breakfast. The Ugly One's patience had run as dry as the Strong
One's power of invention, by the time he was permitted to make his
exasperated entrance. Repulsing a pack of affectionate hounds, he
stamped across the clover-sprinkled grass and would have stamped into
the booth if he had not glimpsed through the open door a figure that had
come to seem, almost as much as Hallad's, to belong to another
world,--the gaunt form of Alrek the Exile, rummaging in the chest which
had been his treasure-box in the days of his prosperity and still
remained reverently untouched. Evidently he had known that at this hour
the booth would be empty, for there was no watchfulness in his ears; he
neither heard nor saw when his comrade stopped on the threshold and
stood gazing at him.
It seemed to Gard that he had never seen so great a change in any one.
From the unkempt brown hair to the black cloak that hung about his heels
in rusty rags, he was as different from what he had been as November
from June. His face showed the change most of all, for no glow of red
was left in the brown, and his eyes were like cinders out of which the
fire had died. From Gard's throat there burst suddenly a dry sob; and
before the Swordless could move, his one-time follower was kneeling
before him, clutching at his tattered cloak.
"Alrek! Come back and let me make it up to you. I can not sleep at night
with thinking what I brought upon you. I beg you to come back!"
When he had stood a while looking down at him, Alrek spoke with
suppressed scorn: "Are you still trying to spend your money and keep it
too? You do not want to bear the burden of your deed, yet you knew when
you slew him that some one must suffer for it----"
"I slay him? I did not! I did not! I only told that lie----"
"So that I repeated it and became also a liar. I would not believe you
though you swore with your hand on the Boar's head. You tried to take
back the weapon which Brand gave, and the Skraelling resisted and you
struck--with my hatchet which you had found where it dropped when I
fell. I tell you I would not believe you though you took oath on the
Cross. Let go my cloak and get away from me. If you had more than a
dog's wit you would know better than to talk of making it up to me; you
would know that I am disgraced forever. Let go my cloak before I kick
you away as I would a dog." Freeing himself, he was gone. Gard reached
the door only in time to see him pass out of the gate, Domar eagerly
saluting; then the forest took him again into its silent keeping.
Thrusting his hands through his belt, the Ugly One leaned against the
casing and spoke heavily to the hound that had left a noonday nap to
come and fawn upon him. "It is likely that we have low minds as he says,
Fafnir.... Yet, for all he says, we are faithful.... We do not lay it up
against a friend if it happen that he ill-use us...." Seeing the
bristles begin suddenly to rise along the hound's spine, he looked up to
find Thorhall the Huntsman swinging past over the grass. He finished
with a sound very like the one coming from the dog's great throat: "And
both of us can tell a foe when we see him!"
CHAPTER XVI
PROVING THAT ALREK'S EMPTY HANDS WERE FULL OF POWER
"A sail is not a small thing to ask for," Gudrid observed,--then raised
a finger hastily as Erlend would have pleaded his cause. "You will put
me in the most disobliging temper if you wake the child! As far off as
the table I heard him crying, and came and found that it had happened as
I suspected, that Roswitha had slipped out and left him. And he would
not be quieted unless I got a cord and looped it around his feet and let
him hold the ends and play at driving horses while he went to sleep!"
She laid a hand on the Amiable One's silken sleeve, and another on the
arm of Brand Erlingsson, and drew them gently off the dangerous ground
out into the great back dooryard where the four households of Vinland
sat in that contented idleness which follows the evening meal.
Roundabout the grassy space the stockade rose in grim foreboding; but
the three gates opened wide upon shadowy grove and silvered meadow, and
their three guards left their posts at will to bandy jests with their
comrades at the long tables under the trees. Over the juice of the
Vinland grape the men were lounging contentedly, while the cook-fires
sank into red embers, and the moon sailed up from the tree-tops and
floated free in the blue above them.
"It is certainly a night to bewitch one into promising anything! You
choose your time well," Gudrid said with a little shake of the sleeves
she was holding.
Brand moved his arm away abruptly; there was a limit to the liberties
which even one who was asking a favor could endure. Erlend, however, was
always affable.
"That will be seen if you grant our request," he answered. "It could not
take you long, Gudrid, if you are such a weaver as you consider
yourself. And I promise you that you should not lose by it, for we would
bring you back a fine present from our journey. The ship is well begun
now. We delayed about the sail as late as possible in the hope that
Alrek would come back and do the asking for us. We know that his favor
is no less with you because trouble has come on his hands."
Gudrid's face lost some of its wonted sweet serenity. "Alas, my
kinsman!" she sighed. "I wish my favor could do something useful for
him. I can tell you that even the child is full of longing for him. Time
and again, when he hears a step that is like Alrek's, he turns his eyes
toward the door and cries when it is not his kinsman who comes in."
The three walked a little way in silence; Erlend frowning perplexedly at
the ground, Brand kicking the heads off the clovers in the sullen
discomfort which this subject always aroused in him. Presently Gudrid
came slowly to a standstill.
"I am going yonder to speak with Jorund, Siggeir's wife," she said. "I
do not say that I will not do your weaving for you, but I must see first
how it goes with my dairy work. In the meanwhile, I wish you luck with
your undertaking."
"That is no worse than a promise," Erlend returned blandly, "for if you
do in truth wish us luck, you will help us all you can." And they
departed from her in high feather to tell their comrades of the boon
granted.
Standing where they had left her, Gudrid pondered a while whether she
really would cross the grass to the spot where Jorund and the two other
Greenland women gossiped beside a door-step, or whether she would go
into the booth where Karlsefne sat with his chiefs over a chart. There
was a matter of cheeses that she particularly wished to discuss with
Jorund, and yet it would be interesting to hear whether the Lawman had
seen any trace of Skraellings in his trip that day. Considering, she put
a hand up to finger her amber necklace, as was her habit, and made the
discovery that it was not there. She took her hand away with a gesture
of impatience.
"Now will Karlsefne laugh at me, for he has always said that this would
happen if I allowed Snorri to play with it! I remember that it was by
the river, where I sat with him this afternoon. I gave it to him to
bite, and then it happened that he dropped it to reach out for the boat
which Biorn was rowing past; and Biorn called to me, and I forgot to
pick it up again. Tch! What a stupid business! It is in my mind to slip
out and get it before any one notices that it is gone. The exact spot is
known to me."
Going over to the western gate, she looked out toward the shining river.
Less than a dozen trees dotted the space between her and the little
knoll on the bank where she had rested, and the moon made it almost as
bright as day. She gathered up her trailing kirtle with prompt decision.
"Any Skraelling small enough to hide in those shadows, is not big enough
to be afraid of," she said, and passed out quickly with her firm light
step.
That anything besides Skraellings might lurk in the shadows, she seemed
to forget. Reaching the bank, she sent one look of admiration out over
the radiant river, then bent her gaze to the foot of the tree among
whose roots her fingers were swiftly feeling. To look up into the
branches she had no thought whatever.
Yet not ten paces from her, Death lay along a bough,--Death in a tawny
body with eyes like fire and a tail like a serpent, noiselessly lashing
the air as the graceful form crouched for a spring.
The first warning she had was when a voice she knew spoke sharply from
the shadows before her: "Lie down on your face!" The catastrophe came
only a breath after the warning. As she threw herself forward, something
leaped over her and met something else in mid-air. There was the jar of
heavy bodies striking the earth, a crackle of breaking twigs, and the
silver stillness was profaned by a horrible sound of snarling and
long-drawn gasps.
Clutching at the tree-trunk, she tried to pull herself to her feet; but
the two struggled on the very skirt of her robe and held her pinioned.
Only over her shoulder she caught a glimpse of the giant cat, where it
lay on its back, clutching in its claws the boy who knelt on its lashing
body with no other weapon against the gaping jaws than his bare brown
hands. It seemed to her that she shrieked, and it is certain that she
swooned; for the next thing she knew, she lay on her face in the grass
with Alrek bending toward her.
"It is over," he said briefly, and dragged a heavy weight from her
skirt.
Pulling herself to her feet, she leaned dizzily against a tree, staring
down at the strange monster that had the shape of a cat and the size of
a hound.
"You choked him?" she whispered.
The Swordless One nodded. "There was no other way. Last week I saw him
leap down upon a deer and suck the blood from its throat. I thought then
that my hands on _his_ throat would be my only chance if ever we had
dealings together. Yet I did not think that he would come so near the
wall."
"It is God's miracle that you also chanced to be near it," she breathed.
"It is not all chance," he answered. "I have been here more than one
night since they began to set the tables under the trees. Torchlight
attracts other things besides sharks. It is like watching the red lights
of the North, to watch the cook-fires shine on the branches; and when
the men sing over their wine, the sound reaches out here so that it is
almost the same as though I were among--" He came slowly to
self-consciousness, and turned away and gave his attention to sopping
with his ragged cloak the blood trickling from his torn limbs.
[Illustration: With no other weapon than his bare brown hands.]
The sight of wounds brought Gudrid instantly to her capable self. "Tch,"
she said; and tearing her apron into strips, she put his hands aside and
fell to work with skilful swiftness. For a little, nothing was said
between them.
Yet it was not of the bleeding flesh that either was thinking in the
silence. More than once, Alrek insisted that the work was done and tried
to pull away from her and escape; and as her fingers flew, her mind went
even faster, seeking some means by which to bind up the bleeding spirit
as well. Suddenly, with her eyes on the empty brown hands that were yet
so full of power, the way was opened to her.
Looking up from where she knelt beside him, she spoke courageously:
"Kinsman, there is little need that I should tell you what you know by
yourself,--that although Karlsefne would grant you a pardon in payment
for this help, he would not give you his faith, which is what you want."
Though he had not flinched from the touch of her hand on his wounds,
the boy winced under her words. "I want neither his faith nor his
pardon!" he said between his teeth. "I beg you to let me go."
"Not until you have heard me," she answered. "I have said this to show
you that I am not speaking soft lies, but the truth. Now I am going to
tell you more truth; the right-minded thing for you to do is to come
back to the band and live as one of the men, until some twist of the
thread brings your rank back to you."
She worked a while after that without looking up, for she could feel his
glance beating down upon her. After a time he said huskily:
"It is of no use ... I am dishonored...."
At that she raised her eyes with a hint of scorn. "It is true then that
you did slay the Skraelling?"
He looked at her sorrowfully. "I had thought that you would believe in
me, kinswoman."
"Why, so I did," she answered, "until I heard you say that you were
dishonored. For if you did not touch the deed, how could it stain you?"
Rising up, she laid her palms upon his breast and made him give her eye
for eye. "Did it make your hands helpless because no sword was in them
to-night?" she challenged him. "I think I have never seen weapons more
powerful; nor was your eye less quick to see my peril, nor your heart
less brave to help me,--nay, you were twice brave that you came with
empty hands! Will you belie the courage and honor which you know you
have, because you lack the red cloth and the bit of steel that are the
runes which stand for them? If you will, you are not the Alrek
Ingolfsson that I had wished my child would be like."
Looking into his eyes she saw a fire, long quenched, kindle and burn;
and her palms on his breast felt the deep breath he drew; nor did he
have any words of disproof. Discreet as she was bold, she asked for no
words of assent. Leaving him, she went and tried to lift the forepart of
the limp body.
"Get this upon your back," she said. "The Champions will become glad at
this."
Silently he obeyed, drawing the dangling paws over his shoulder so that
the long body hung down his back like a tawny cloak. Slowly he followed
after as she turned and led the way toward the gate,--until they were
within two spear-lengths of it and a hubbub of voices and laughter came
out to them like a puff of wind. Then gradually his pace slackened, and
she looked around to find that his face was flooded with painful color.
She had the impulse to reach out and catch hold of him; but it was the
impulse which came to her lips that she acted on, speaking as quietly as
she would have spoken to her child had he ventured too near the edge of
a cliff: "I do not know whether it is to your mind to enter the camp
with me, but it is the truth that I shall hear enough of my foolishness
without having you lead me home as well as save me. If I slip through
this gate, as I came, will you use the east one, which is also nearer
your own booth?"
Then she knew that she had guessed aright, for once more he moved
forward, and under his breath he answered: "Yes."
By the time she had gained the center of the green, she knew also that
he had kept his word. Suddenly a joyous uproar went up from the tableful
of Vinland Champions, and some were rolled off the benches in the haste
of others to get on their feet; and crossing the moonlit space beyond
them, she saw a soldierly young figure with a mass of yellow fur
swinging from his shoulder--saw him and then lost him in the throng that
closed, cheering, about him.
Her firm sweet mouth relaxed happily. "That is the first step toward a
good outcome," she said. "If the Fates have any justice in their
breasts, they will attend to the rest." And from afar she beamed
brightly on the group, even as the moon above was beaming upon her.
CHAPTER XVII
SHOWING HOW THE CHAMPIONS BROKE A THREAD IN THE HUNTSMAN'S NET
Over the boulders between which the narrow trail wound down to the
building place on the beach, Thorhall's green eyes stared in surprise.
After a three days' scouting trip, he had taken a roundabout way
campward in order to get a glimpse of the vessel in whose progress he
was interested, but it appeared that here was more change than he had
anticipated.
Grown to all its graceful outlines the ship still waited on its rollers,
high enough up on the shelving beach to rest immune from the whims of
the tide. Around it and in it and under it the band worked as usual,
whistling and wrangling amiably. But a pace to the right, where a rock
humped through the gravel offered chance for a forge, there was a
feature new to the scene,--a brown-haired young smith hammering
vigorously at a bar of glowing iron. If he did not whistle as he
hammered, yet he worked as steadily as though he had always stood there;
and above the hum could be heard Brand's voice, speaking with eager
deference:
"Alrek, is it your opinion that a bolt is needed here, or will it be
sufficient to tie this plank?"
While Ingolf's son made brief answer between the strokes of his hammer,
the Huntsman descended the rest of the trail in scowling cogitation.
When the noise of question and answer had subsided, he came out suddenly
upon the beach.
"Hail to the chief!" he said.
If the salute was designed to ask a question as well as offer greeting,
it served its purpose. The brown-haired smith did not even turn his
head; it was still Erlend the Amiable who answered to the title,
straightening quickly to give back nod for nod.
"Thorhall! Now I am glad you are back to release us from our promise to
let no one know the secret of the south country. Tell Alrek without
delay about the treasure-land you have found."
There was delay, however, in the manner in which the Huntsman moved
forward, paused to look at whatever addition in the boat interested
him, paused to unwind a fetter of seaweed bubbles from his ankle, and
finally seated himself on a boulder and studied the smith intently.
"Have you come back for good?" he inquired.
Before Alrek could speak, Gard--working behind him--answered by a jeer:
"Some may have cause to think that he has come back for ill."
In the interests of peace Erlend raised his voice: "I beg of you, Gard,
to turn fox for a while and go down the beach and dig enough clams to
fill your cloak-skirt; so that we shall be fed, when noontime comes,
without going back to the camp."
It seemed to the Huntsman that there was something suspicious in the
docility with which Gard obeyed, somewhat as though he felt that he was
leaving a sentinel behind him. The small eyes continued their study of
the smith, as an angler might study a fish while he was considering what
spear to employ. After a silence, which no one ventured to break, he
spoke bluntly:
"The country south and west of here is inhabited by dwarfs. By that I do
not mean merely people who are small-shaped, but the Northern race that
is skilled in metal-work. You remember that Tyrfing was forged by such?
Now I think you have yourself a sword--I ask you not to blame me! I did
not mean to press that wound. But at least it serves to make plain to
you whom I mean. In this land, they live in caverns of the gold-bearing
mountains of which the south and west country is full. I think I have
described to you their homes?"
The band answered even rapturously: "Never shall I forget it!" "No
king's palace could--" "I wish Alrek had heard--" "Tell over about that
one with the golden roof--" "Yes, good Thorhall!" "Yes!" "Yes!"
It did not appear that Thorhall heard them; as a hawk might watch a coop
for the appearance of the chickens, he was watching Alrek's mouth for
the first word of doubt.
None came. Slowly, the smith's blows became further between. Presently
he rested his hammer on the rock and his elbow on the hammer handle.
"That is of the greatest interest," he said thoughtfully. "And it comes
to my mind to wonder if it could have been your dwarfs that Rolf
Erlingsson saw when he was here with Leif the Lucky? He said those
creatures were low as junipers, while Skraellings are most of them of
good height--Yet he said also that they were poor and mean-looking! Your
dwarfs must be as rich as Hnoss herself." He ended uncertainly.
But the Huntsman leaned back and smote his great knee with rare
enthusiasm. "Now your comrades are right in valuing your wit above
others!" he said. "Never had the thought come to me before, yet it is
twice as likely as not. So cunning are they, that it would be altogether
according to their custom to disguise themselves like Skraellings when
they had the wish to spy upon strangers. It cannot be said that they
have a fondness for strangers. You know that it was a dwarf who caused
my wreck at Keel Cape?"
"No, that is a story you have not told us," the band cried eagerly.
He looked at them indulgently. "Now it is not much of a tale. The
beginning of it is that I pried too deep into an old long-beard's
secrets, so that I had to run for my life. I should be feasting on
boar-flesh in Valhalla now, if I had not left the boat with its stem
toward the water and the oars in the row-locks; for we were no more than
out of sight of land when the dwarf-man reached the shore." He paused to
glance around the group. "I suppose you remember how King Skiold blew
upon a passing ship so that the boom fell over and killed Eystein where
he stood by the steering oar?" he inquired.
While they nodded impatiently, Alrek spoke in confirmation: "I believe
that to be true, because once I met a Finnish sailor who could change
the wind by turning his cap."
"You have seen so much of the world," the Huntsman said admiringly,
"that it would become a great misfortune if you should lose this chance
of seeing more wonders. To go on relating,--the dwarf used the same
trick, though a little differently. Instead of blowing, he raised a gale
only by flapping his cloak; and the water rose behind us in a sea-wall.
I had often wondered what it would be like to be at the spot where a
storm begins, and that time I found out. The water rose behind us with a
roar, and swept us along past the entrance to the Vinland bay until we
struck the Keel bar, and the boat went to pieces and the other three
went down and Thor saved me. Hallad felt very unwilling to drown. You
remember I had on only one boot when you found me? I can remember
feeling something pull at the other so that I thought a shark had me and
gave it a strong kick off. Now I know that it was Hallad clutching at
it. I suppose it was because he got bitter that I did not help him, that
he comes back to haunt me."
"That would be in every respect like Hallad," Brand said scornfully. "He
was always wont to expect some one to look out for him. Thorhall, will
you not let us see that chain again, that Alrek may get it clear before
his mind what great things are in store for us?"
It appeared from his manner that there was nothing Thorhall would not do
to oblige them. "Willingly," he answered, and straightway undid the bag
around his neck. Dropping their tools, they came and stood around him in
so cosy a circle that the Ugly One, far down the beach, took one fist
out of the oozy gravel it was raking to shake it at them, and never
knew that the other hand had turned up a clam until a jet of water
struck him in the face.
If the necklace had sparkled in the gray light of the Wonderstrands, it
may be imagined what it did here in the sun. Some of the gems encrusting
it were blue as the bay before them, and some were like pearls in which
a fire had been kindled, and some were like nothing less than stars. The
Huntsman let Alrek reach out and take it for himself, and the young
Viking drew a quick breath of pleasure as he felt its weight.
"Now I have seen booty taken from kings' palaces, but never anything to
match this," he said. "It was without doubt the luck of our lives that
we found you that day on the Wonderstrands. I remember overhearing you
say to Faste that the reason you would not bring your news forward in
the hall was because you did not want the chiefs to take the power out
of your hands. I suppose the reason you share the secret with us is
because we can give the help of a ship?"
Erlend looked up in surprise, the necessity of a reason for the
Huntsman's cordiality not having before occurred to him. The Huntsman
looked out from under roughened brows, though he kept his words smooth.
"Now you do less than justice to your comrades' valor and
accomplishments," he began. But he stopped as he saw one of Alrek's eyes
close in good-humored derision.
"When is it your intention to sail?" the Swordless brought him back to
the point.
The Huntsman reached out and took back his chain. "That you must ask
your chief," he answered; and spite was so evident in his use of the
title, that the Amiable One hastened to answer before he could be asked:
"I think it will take about five days more to finish the outfittings,
and then two to stock it with food. If a fair wind blows on it, we can
surely sail on the tenth day."
Slowly Alrek lowered the hammer he had raised to return to his work. "It
must be that you are forgetting the Skraellings," he said. "Because the
hunters have seen nothing of them, proves little; Leif Ericsson's men
saw nothing of the dwarfs until they were upon them. It is a sure sign,
when a slain man is found lying on his face, that he will be revenged.
Any day it may happen that they come; and if we should be away hunting
gold while our camp-mates fought for their lives, we should get little
fame though we brought back----"
The Huntsman rose to his gigantic height. "Are you the chief?" he
snarled.
That was the third time he had pressed the wound; the flame in Alrek's
cheeks sent sparks to his eyes as he wheeled.
"No, I am not the chief," he answered squarely, "but I have the right of
every free man to make my voice heard in deciding matters, and I can
tell you that it is going to be heard though you weave all the spells
you know."
Perhaps the Huntsman did try to weave a spell, for he turned at once
toward those who had so far obeyed his every move like snake-charmed
birds. "What of you?" he hissed. "Will you put off this chance for
treasure, to fight for the Lawman who disbelieved your oaths and showed
disrespect to your high-seat?"
And the chorus answered him loudly: "No!"
And Brand made himself conspicuous by his fierceness. "Let the
Skraellings cut blood-eagles in Karlsefne!"
It is likely that he wished directly after that he had kept still, for
instead of praise, it brought him a look of scathing contempt from the
Swordless.
"Now you talk like fools," the young Viking said, "to think to revenge
private wrongs in wartime. He would be a fine soldier who because he had
a grudge against his chief would desert in time of battle and leave his
comrades to fight alone. No knife could scrape off this shame."
They quailed so under that, that the Huntsman's green eyes became like
the eyes of a Vinland elk at bay. Turning where Erlend stood silent, he
struck again:
"You then,--if you have any power who call yourself the chief!"
Erlend laughed uneasily; his handsome face had turned painfully red. "It
seems that I was mistaken in thinking that that name belonged to me," he
answered.
Crimsoning, Alrek fell from his hill of scorn to the valley of
abashment. "Erlend, I meant no--no disrespect toward you," he stammered.
"I did not mean to step out of my place--" He was obliged to stop, for
Erlend's hand closed over his mouth.
"What are you talking about?" the Amiable One said sternly. "That is in
no way what I mean. What you did was to step into the place that belongs
to you." He exerted some of his strength to keep his palm where he had
put it. "Listen to me! I am unfit to have the rule over anything. Never
did it come into my head that leaving would be disloyal. I should have
done a nithing thing which the saga-men would never have forgotten. I
know of no better happening than that you should come into your own in
time to save me." He stretched out his other hand toward the assembled
Champions. "You shouted before when I said that I should offer the
chiefship back. I shall think your tongues of little value if you keep
them between your teeth now!"
The eagerness with which Brand offered the first cheer seemed designed
to make up for his blunder of the moment before. He was seconded by a
deep roar from Gard, who had just come up with his burden on his back.
After that, there was no separating the shouts that came; and they
banged their tools against the ship in lieu of swords and shields.
When the racket had subsided, Erlend turned back to the Swordless with a
smile that had yet a touch of haughtiness. "I shall take it as an insult
to my pride if you ask me to keep what so plainly belongs to you," he
said.
After a while Alrek looked up from the trenches his foot was digging in
the sand. "I will accept it gladly, if Karlsefne will allow me to," he
answered; and there was more cheering and all hands were stretched out
to him.
All but two, that is; shifting uneasily from one foot to the other,
Brand and Gard the Ugly stood aside nor dared make any advances.
The Swordless himself hesitated when finally he came to them, and his
face caught some of their embarrassed color; but at last he put out his
hand. They gripped it eagerly, and there was more cheering.
Under cover of it the Huntsman turned and stalked away; and what had
been angry suspicion as he descended the trail, was angry certainty as
he stamped up it.
CHAPTER XVIII
CONCERNING A GRIM BARGAIN BETWEEN THE LAWMAN AND ALREK
"And I will seek out Gudrid, whose counsel is good in everything," Alrek
said as he and Erlend rose from the morning meal at the table under the
trees, "if so be you give me leave to be late to the work."
"If so be you need leave from me, you have it for anything you do,"
Erlend answered.
Then the Amiable One and all the Champions not bound to kitchen-posts
took their leisurely way through the cool green forest to the waiting
ship; and Alrek the Swordless turned in the opposite direction and
strolled past the empty tables and groups of trencher-laden thralls
toward Karlsefne's booth.
Before the door-step small Snorri tumbled about in the clover, shouting
lustily for his mother to come and play with him; which seemed to Alrek
so good a reason for expecting her prompt arrival that he troubled
himself to go no further. Stretching his lithe length on the grass, he
changed the cries into laughter by butting the crier over on his back
each time he opened his mouth; and the maneuver was crowned with
immediate success. After a very little time, Gudrid appeared in the
door, a piece of sewing in her hand, inquiry in her blue eyes.
"Oh! That is why he stopped screaming!" she said with an accent of
relief. "So long as he is crying, I know that he is safe. Now you are a
lazy-goer, kinsman, to be lying on the grass when every one else is at
work."
Shaking the clovers from his hair, Alrek sat up,--he would have stood up
if it were not that the Frowner had crept across his feet. "I wait only
to ask your advice, kinswoman, about a way to speak alone with
Karlsefne. For two days I have looked in vain for a chance. I want to
get his justice."
Coming out of the doorway, Gudrid seated herself on the step, and sat
absently stabbing holes in her work with her bronze needle. "Justice is
a heavy weapon to challenge unless you are sure that you stand very
firm on your legs, kinsman," she said at last.
He answered: "I stand very firm," and the sternness of his voice was in
singular contrast to the gentleness of his hand as he stretched it out
to steady the Frowner in his upward progress.
Watching them, Gudrid's pucker of anxiety smoothed into a fond smile.
"Now certainly I know that you are guiltless," she said. "I have only to
see your behavior toward the child to be sure of that." She did not
continue her assurances for Alrek's mouth had curved into amiable
derision.
"Why, that proves nothing," he said.
Gudrid's foot stirred the clovers. "I will give you the satisfaction of
knowing that Karlsefne has made me the same answer. Sometimes it seems
to me that a man's wit is like a bat, which disdains the good daylight
to go about in, but must show its skill by finding its way in the dark!
I can even guess that this very boldness of yours, which causes me to
believe in you, will seem to the Lawman to be but another trick of your
outlaw blood. Remember how they say in Greenland that a seal who tries
to swim against too strong a current has often to turn back and be
caught by the hunters. Kinsman, kinsman"--she put out her hand and
pressed his shoulder--"be very sure of your strength!"
"Yes," he said, and bent his head to touch his lips to her fingers.
More than the words, the rare caress told her that his mood was no light
one; and she warned no more. Rising, she spoke quietly: "I will do the
only thing I can to give you help. Karlsefne is making the round of the
meadows where the men are haying. I did not send his noon-meal with
him--because I did not think it fitting that he should eat old bread,
and the new is not yet out of the oven--but I had the intention to send
it out to him by a thrall. Now if you choose you may carry it, and so
get him apart for your purpose."
"That will serve well, and I give you thanks," Alrek answered.
Nodding, she went swiftly in to hurry the baking; and Alrek arose and
setting the Frowner upon his shoulder paced to and fro in the sunshine
that had settled over the camp like a golden spell, subduing the bustle
of morning activity to a drowsy drone.
Lulled by the hum and the slow motion, Snorri's yellow head began to
nod, swaying and bobbing until it rested heavily upon the brown locks of
his bearer. Gudrid received a bundle of sweet warm limpness in return
for the basket and skin of ale which she finally brought out.
"It is not unlike gathering up a jellyfish," she laughed as she took
him.
But Alrek's smile was faint in response. He had been thinking as he
paced, and the gravity of what he was about to do was full upon him.
"I give you thanks," he said a second time, gently, and left her.
Outside, in the great free world beyond the wall, it seemed to him that
everything was coaxing for a smile. The reach of woodland into which the
grove deepened was alluring with the song of hidden brooks and spicy
with the breath of pines and hospitable with berry thickets, black and
red and blue as the river to which the wood finally gave way. The elms
of the bank flaunted wreathing grape-vines; the rushes at the edge
sported dragon-flies like living jewels,--flashing in the sunlight, the
river itself was one broad smile. Dull anger took possession of him when
he found his spirits too heavy to rise in response.
"It may be that I should become a coward if this went on," he murmured.
"I was not any too quick about making up my mind."
And when, a little further on, he came to a finger of the stream and saw
on one of the mossy stepping-stones a water-snake struggling with a frog
which was only half swallowed, he made no move to release the victim.
"Better to die whole than to live crippled," he told himself grimly, and
kept on his way.
It seemed a very short way now before he came to the broad sunny valley
whose fragrant basin was strewed with ripening hay, which men were
tossing amid jests and laughter as became a crop planted without toil
and raised without care. Spying him, they shouted greetings of
good-humored banter; and he raised his hand mechanically, as his eyes
roved to and fro seeking the blue-clad figure of the Lawman. It formed
no part of the groups scattered over the valley, nor was it anywhere
alone in the open--Ah, yonder it was in the shade of the spreading
willow that rose solitary in the middle of the meadow! A smile twisted
Alrek's lips as he moved forward.
"I wonder," he mused, "if it is a bad omen that I find him ready under a
tree."
At least his luck was good enough so that he found the Lawman alone,
sitting where two rocks made a seat beneath the willow; nor did he turn
away when he saw who it was coming toward him through the sunshine. Over
the fist upon which his bearded chin was resting, he watched the
approach immovably.
When Alrek had come up and saluted him, he answered: "I shall know
better how to receive you when I hear your purpose in taking this
service on yourself."
"Gudrid allowed me to do this that I might speak alone with you," Alrek
made brief explanation.
It seemed that Karlsefne's challenging gaze relaxed a little. "There is
the greatest reason why Gudrid should wish to aid you," he said, "and
scarcely am I out of your debt. I should be glad to hear that your
errand hither is to ask a pardon from my gratefulness."
Sliding the ale-skin to the ground, the boy straightened proudly; but
before he could answer, Karlsefne spoke on, unclenching his hand to pass
it before his eyes:
"As you came toward me, you looked even as your father looked when he
came to the Assembly Plain to hear the judges condemn him for his
crimes; and now as then I hate the deeds and love the doer so that the
two feelings are like two fires raging within me." Taking away his hand
he showed the stern beauty of his face aglow with feeling, as some lofty
rock under the touch of a red Northern light. "I beg of you to throw
yourself upon my mercy. Defiance has gathered like drift-ice in your
breast, shutting out all that would come through to bring you good.
Break from it before it shuts you in forever. I beg of you to yield and
give me the joy of trusting you again."
Ending, his deep voice held a note of yearning love that made the boy's
heart swell strangely in his breast. He had to speak hardly and shortly
in order to be able to speak at all.
"Hard is it to know how to answer, for you offer me what I do not need.
I came here to get your justice. If I broke your order, I deserve an
evil death; if I did not, it is my right to live unshamed. If you know
that it is I who slew the Skraelling, I ask you to have me placed
against this tree and shot."
As a Northern light fades from a rock and leaves no warmth behind, so
the glow faded from the Lawman's face. "Do you like it so well to die?"
he asked.
"Sooner would I die than live as I have lived since your doom," Alrek
answered.
Silence settled heavily upon them. When a great fly boomed out of the
sunlit space and hung for a wink of time at the boy's ear, the sound
seemed thunder-loud. But at last the Lawman spoke, his voice as hard as
clanging iron:
"Not many men would go so far as to deal with me by force and
overbearing, but you play the game as well as is to be expected of your
father's son. Though I am sure of your guilt, you are right in believing
that I am not sure enough to take your life when you lay it in my hand.
And since it is proved that I am not sure, I may not punish you at all.
It is well played. There are two choices before you,--the one is to let
matters stand as they are now, so that your life is safe and the future
is yours to redeem your credit in; the other is to get back your honors
as you demand, with the condition that if ever this case comes again
before my high-seat and so much as a feather's weight more of evidence
is given against you, I shall declare your life to be forfeit."
The long safe way is seldom the way of youth; one must have traveled far
and fallen often to make that choice. The young Viking answered without
hesitation: "I will take my honors and the risk."
Rising, the Lawman made him a chief's salute. "So be it," he said.
"To-night in the hall, even as I took them from you, I will give them
back before all eyes. In this and whatever follows, it shall be as you
have chosen." He lifted his hand as the boy would have thanked him.
In obedience to the gesture, the Chief of the Champions halted and bowed
before him in silence; but his brown head was carried high when he
walked away, and his eyes were two radiant suns of hope.
CHAPTER XIX
RELATING THE ADVENTURE WITH THE MEN OF THE FOREST
Like dew on a fresh berry a silver gauze of mist lay over the fresh day,
and the birds' answers to the sun were still far-between and sleepy, as
Hjalmar Thick-Skull came out of the bayward gate and sauntered down the
meadow-slope to the beach. Of late he had given over fishing in the
river for fishing in the bay, where a flat island lay like a lily-pad on
the water. With his tackle on his shoulder and a song on his lips, he
came down where his boat was waiting and sent a careless glance around
the horizon. Then the song was changed to a cry, and he went back up the
slope in long bounds, deafening the man at the gate as he burst in upon
him.
"Skraellings! Around the long point they are coming in shoals!"
Staring, the guards stammered the words after him; but an Icelander who
was passing caught them up with a roar and started on a run for
Karlsefne's booth. The hounds lying under the trees leaped up and raced
beside him, barking; out of every door that he passed uncombed heads
were thrust, shouting questions. In the draft of a breath, the news had
spread like fire.
Reaching the Chief of the Champions where he stood in his doorway, he
sheathed the sword that he was polishing with so much pride and took a
step toward the gate; then, bethinking himself of a quicker way to
verify the report, he turned and made for a great pine-tree standing on
a little knoll. With a run and a leap he went up the trunk, and
clambered from one great bough to the next as though they were steps,
until his head came out through the last layer of needles.
The Thick-Skulled had spoken truly. The bright plain of the bay was
specked with dark skin-boats; eastward around the longest of the capes,
they were like a dark tide rolling in upon the land. Something seemed to
tighten in the Sword-Bearer's throat; and he was about to turn and let
himself down swiftly to the bough below, when his eye was caught by a
movement up the river bank, the passing of something dark athwart the
green of a bush. Drawing his head down under the green roof, he hung by
his arms, gazing intently. There was no open anywhere for the Thing to
cross, and just that dark streak flitting through the bush-tops told
nothing--and yonder was a white streak behind it! And beyond that a dark
one! His hands tightened on the branch so that it crackled. Unless motes
were dancing before his eyes, the bush was alive with the fleeting
wisps, shapeless, soundless, but bearing down upon the camp. His heart
seemed to turn over in his body, and he dropped like an ape from limb to
limb.
Descending into the camp was like falling from the peacefulness of a
masthead into the roar of the ocean. Wrangling and stamping about, the
men were struggling into their shirts of ring-mail. Hammering on their
shields to get attention, the chiefs were shouting orders. Bearing
messages and distributing weapons, thralls rushed back and forth,
followed by the yelping of dogs and the screaming of bondwomen from the
doorways. It took main force on the part of the Champions' leader to
get them aside and make them understand that it was not the enemy before
them against whom they were to turn their blades.
"The number of those in the boats is so many times greater than we, that
no men can be spared from the front," he concluded swiftly. "To find out
what these Things are, and defend the gates against them, will be our
share. And it is likely that much depends upon our getting into position
without loss of time. Olaf and the Hare, I appoint to be my messengers;
and I want to give Olaf a message now, while the Hare goes after my
ring-shirt." Drawing the Fair One aside, he spoke forcefully in his ear
until he yielded reluctant obedience and darted away in the direction of
the pastures.
It may be admitted that reluctance was in most faces when a little later
they turned their backs upon the uproar of the camp and stole out into
the loneliness of the grove. Over their shield-rims, their eyes rolled
apprehensively as their chief spread them into a broad crescent covering
both gates, and led them warily forward. When the first high ground
gained failed to reveal anything, they jumped at the idea that he had
been mistaken in his spying, that the sun had dazzled his eyes, that
what he had seen was but a line of low-flying swallows. They were urging
it eagerly at the very instant that he was justified.
All at once it was as though every twig in the undergrowth ahead had
turned into a bow, and the bow had shot an arrow at them. The rattle on
their iron helmets was like the pelting of hail. If their bodies had not
been armored, they would have gone down as grain before a scythe.
Alrek's voice rang out strongly: "Skraellings! Under cover! Make ready
for their charge!"
In a flash they had leaped backward, behind trees, bushes, boulders,
anything. The sunbeams broke into jagged lightnings as the bright swords
sprang from the scabbards.
But no flesh appeared from the thicket beyond. The grove remained empty
and silent as a grave. It shattered the stillness startlingly when Njal
screamed:
"If they are Skraellings, why do they not come out and show themselves?"
Then, without pausing for reply, he added another shout: "Those in the
boats have landed!"
From the camp behind them swelled a din of Skraelling yells answered by
Norse battle-cries, enforced at regular intervals by the hoarse barking
of the leaders.
Njal cried shrilly: "_That_ is the way in which Skraellings fight! These
are trolls! Let us get loose from their net and turn back."
Only Alrek's uplifted spear stayed the rush. "I think you will find my
weapon sharp if you do," he warned. "Whether they be men or trolls, we
must take heart as we can and hold them from the gates. I urge you all
to grip your swords and manfully hold your ground. They can not do you
harm while you are under cover."
But it was not their bodies that they were afraid with, but their minds
which had raised up specters. The sunlit space seemed all at once a
cloak for shapes of horror. Dreading with every breath that the cloak
would be drawn aside, their eyes shrank from what it might reveal as
their flesh would not have shrunk from knives. They spoke as with one
voice:
"This is jugglery and trickery only! We will go back where men fight
against men!"
"You will not," spoke Alrek the Chief between his teeth. But even as he
said it, he saw the hopelessness of expecting to hold them quiet, and
made his last move. Throwing aside his spear he leaped out in front of
them, brandishing his sword. "If you must move--move forward!" he cried.
"You are nithings unless you follow my fate!"
Even then it is not certain that they would have obeyed if Brand had not
redeemed much by promptly advancing to his chief's side.
"_I_ follow!" he shouted; and Erlend and Gard were only a step behind
him.
At that, the rest turned like sheep and came after, dodging from cover
to cover, clambering, stumbling, ducking, jumping, lashing their courage
with a fury of yelling.
Before the cold stillness had chilled them again, they saw the foe.
Rising from behind boulders, slipping around trees, gliding through
bushes, came creatures with gaudy-colored bodies naked as earthworms,
and bristling black heads feathered like monstrous birds; so like and
yet so hideously unlike the Skraellings, that Gard cried "Forest
devils!" and the band turned with one impulse for flight. But behind
them, across the ground they believed they had cleared, in the space
between them and the gates, stretched another line. Out of their frenzy
of fear, sprang a frenzy of hate; and they leaped upon the creatures
with drawn swords and the others met them, brandishing stone hatchets.
For a time it was a wild game of dodging, with death as a penalty for
awkwardness. Whether they were men or demons, the hatchet-bearers showed
a dread of steel which kept them hovering beyond arm's reach whenever
they were not darting at an opening. But at last the hungry swords
tasted the flesh they craved, and their wielders' shouts of triumph
stirred the rest to exulting excitement.
"We will wipe them out like flies!" Alrek cried.
Even as the words left his lips, he made a startling discovery. Laying
low the figure in front of him, he glanced over his shoulder to make
sure that there was no one behind him; and turned back to find a man
standing on the very spot that he had cleared. Striking him down, he
whirled to see another hideous shape in the place that--a breath
before--he had made empty.
At the same instant, Brand cried wildly: "It seems to me that they must
rise from the dead since no matter how many one kills, there is always
the same number confronting him."
Into Alrek's throat came the sense of choking which had seized him in
the tree-top when he beheld that dark tide rolling in upon the land.
Something seemed to mock in his ear: "It will be like killing the flies
of the air one by one!" Then blotting out this came the wonder that
Brand's voice should seem so far away; and he risked a glance around the
grove, and his heart stood still.
In their mad charge, the Champions had broken their line; until now no
two fought shoulder to shoulder but each stood alone, his back against a
tree or a rock, a circle of hatchet-men around him. Even while their
chief looked, three Champions were tempted into making dashes which
carried them still wider apart. It would not be long before they would
be lost to one another's sight, and the swarms would close in around
them--He opened his mouth to send forth a frantic recall.
But the fiend-cunning of the black eyes watching him seemed to read his
purpose on his lips. Suddenly the shapes around him raised an unearthly
howl, which those on all sides caught up and kept up until the din was
like a wall through which no sound could come or go.
Alrek's hands continued to fight from instinct, but his brain became
numb. The horror long hovering over him settled lead-like upon him.
"They _are_ trolls!" he told himself; and his strength began to ooze out
of him in icy droops.
He did not turn his head when above the din rose a roar even more
appalling than the yells. When the creatures around him dropped their
weapons to fly frantically this way and that, he remained standing where
they had left him, plucking at an arrow which had pierced his arm below
his mail. Gazing wonderingly, he saw a huge milk-white bull with mouth
afoam and eyes like red flame come snorting out of the thicket, pausing
now to paw up the earth before him, now to throw back his horned head
with a terrific bellow.
Then, in a flash, his wits came back to him. Memory reminded him that
his own lips had bidden Olaf drive the animal from the pasture for their
re-enforcement; and sense told him that--even as he had hoped it might
happen--the hatchet-bearers had taken the apparition to be the white
man's god, come to his people's aid. Leaning back against the tree, he
began to shake with laughter which was half weeping.
It seemed to little Olaf the Fair that there was something peculiar
about the bearing of all the Champions, when a while later he met them
back near the gates. Their greetings came in voices of unsteady
shrillness, and their eyes were strangely bright. He said, pouting:
"I do not know whether you mean that the fight went against you or that
you got the victory, but I warn you that I shall dislike it if you
upbraid me for fetching the bull there so soon. I have got scolded
enough by the men in camp. It appears that they spent the first part of
the battle in running away from arrows, and they had only just got to
work with their swords when I came through with the Bellower and sent
the Skraellings flying to their boats. I thought the Icelanders would
have thrashed me. I shall not take it well if you also find fault----"
Their shaking high-pitched laughter drowned his voice.
"We will try to excuse you," Alrek said in a drawl that was still rather
unsteady; whereat there was another outburst; and they swept clamoring
shrilly through the gate.
Inside the wall it looked at the first glance like a trading day, with
shining-shirted groups scattered everywhere across the green, each man
flourishing some kind of weapon while he talked at the top of his great
lungs. But at a second glance the resemblance was less, for no fair-time
mood was in the mien of Karlsefne and his chiefs where they stood under
the council-tree, wiping the paste of sweat and blood from their faces;
and here and there men were writhing on the earth while the sharp knives
of comrades cut arrow-heads out of their flesh. And suddenly the
likeness ceased altogether, as four men came through the bayward gate,
each pair carrying between them the body of a dead Icelander. Silence
touched each group the four passed; and through the hush, Karlsefne's
voice clanged out like a bell, vibrating with wrath:
"I wonder at it that you have control enough left to hold your teeth
over your tongues when the dead are borne past! Up to this time you have
run mad like wolves that have tasted blood. I suppose the strange thing
is not that you have broken the peace-bands at last but that I was able
to hold your beast-cravings so long in check. It is all I can find to
lessen the gall of my defeat."
So long as he stood before them, fixing them with his eyes like swords,
they remained silent; but the booth door had no more than closed behind
him than the excitement leaked out again. In a little while it was
running as high as ever, as the men boasted of the great feats they had
been on the verge of achieving, and vowed exulting vows about what they
would do at the next meeting. It was plain indeed that the peace-bands
which had held their swords in their scabbards were snapped forever.
CHAPTER XX
SHOWING HOW THE HUNTSMAN BAGGED HIS GAME
The next day, under a storm-charged sky, the camp lay storm-charged. In
the doorways, men stood talking restlessly, with now and again an
outburst of sharp wrangling; out on the green, others refreshed their
knowledge of spear-throwing; around the tables, still others plied
sharpening stones upon ax blades which would never be used for trees.
Setting forth with their last load of outfittings for the ship, the
Champions shouted a battle-song in the face of the muttering thunder:
"And as the foeman's ships drew near
The dreadful din you well might hear;
Savage Berserks roaring mad,
And champions fierce in wolf-skins clad,
Howling like wolves; and clanking jar
Of many a mail-clad man of war,"
"Let us not try to settle in another place until we are off our feet on
account of old age," Brand spoke with energy. "Karlsefne says truly
that Norsemen are too wolf-like to endure it when they are penned like
sheep. Let us live like Fridtjof the Bold, with the ship for our hall
and the sky for our roof."
"And strike where we choose," Erlend added. "There is no good reason why
we should never make warfare against any but dwarfs. I have heard it
said that fine things are to be found in Ireland----"
"And in England--" "And in Rolf's country--" "And the East--" cried a
chorus; and each began at once to urge the merits of his particular
choice amid an eager clamor that was interrupted only by their arrival
at the path which wound down between the boulders.
There, however, the interruption was final. Glancing over the boulders,
the first boy shrieked: "What!" the second one: "Where--?" then, all
together, they roared: "The ship!" and tumbled one over the other and
out upon the beach. Save for the rollers which lay where they had left
them, not a vestige was to be seen of The-Fire-That-Runs-On-The-Waves.
Some of them cried: "The tide!" while others cried: "Skraellings!" And
one detachment went swarming up the trees of the bank to sweep the
length and breadth of the bay; and the other, drawing swords, raced
along the shore to explore the crescent curves with which it was
scalloped. But neither party brought back any news to the third group,
that seemed as yet unable to do more than stand staring at the rollers
and ejaculating. The clue came from a peevish voice on the bank above
them:
"I think you have little reason to boast of your eyesight if it has not
yet told you that I am here." Above the rocks a thin face rose, wanly
white in the glare of the lightning that was shivering across the sky.
Shrieking: "Hallad!" the band whirled up the beach like wind-driven
sand; and their chief had taken several steps to follow them before he
pulled himself up and turned around to face the intruder firmly.
"This looks to be an evil happening, if any one thinks you to be of
importance, which I do not. No fault of ours is it that you were
drowned. Why do you not stay under the water with the other dead men?"
The colorless lips showed a curl. "Dead men! Do you think that if I had
a ghost's power I would allow Thorhall to bind me, and stay up here to
be made a gazing-stock----"
"Thorhall!" Alrek repeated; and he came a step nearer, so that Brand and
Erlend and the Ugly One, pausing in their flight to look around for him,
took courage and came a little way back. "I do not know why it did not
come to my mind sooner that the Huntsman had a hand in this matter. Yet
he would scarcely be able to do it alone."
"There was little need to. After such a stirring-up as took place
yesterday, men might be expected to be ready for any fun. There were no
less than twenty of them with him, and their spirits scraped the sky.
Had it not happened that their humor was so good, it is likely they
would have killed me when they found out that I had followed them here,
instead of doing no more than tie me so that I should not give the alarm
too soon. They left at daybreak. I managed it to pull one arm free and
slide down on the ground and get some sleep, but the thongs are like
red-hot irons upon my ankles. Fetch your knife up here as quickly as you
can, and free me."
Alrek was taking another step toward him, when the expostulations of his
comrades brought him again to a standstill. "If you are not drowned,
what is the reason?" he inquired.
The claw-like hands beat the rock fretfully. "One reason is because I
never fell into the water. Whether Thorhall told you so or not, I was
not with him when he was wrecked on the Cape. Two days before that, he
had deserted me in the south country because I was overlong in getting
back to the boat after an exploring trip. It had happened twice before
that I was rather late, and he pretended to think that this time also it
was carelessness. It is the truth that I had hurt my leg and could not
get back earlier. It took me three weeks after that to make my way here.
By that time he had got home and told every one that I was dead; and he
took it so ill that I should belie him that he would have made it the
truth if I had not run away. The time you saw me climbing out of the
ice-hole which I had fallen through, was one time when I barely got
away from him. After that, however, it was less difficult; for when he
saw how you ran from me, he was willing that I should stay alive so long
as I remained dead. The reason I have the appearance of a dead man is
because I can not, more than others, get fat and color-full on fish and
raw eggs and water." He broke off impatiently: "Is it not clear to you
yet, you blocks of peat?"
The Champions looked at one another doubtfully. It sounded reasonable,
and yet----
"You have always made it a point that your foster-father, Biorn, should
help you out of difficulties. What is the reason that you did not go to
him with this one?" Brand demanded.
At least, Hallad's temper was alive; it sparkled in his hollow
eye-sockets. "As well go to Biorn's dogs because they have teeth! It
seems to me that you have been fooled enough to be able to understand
that the glance of Thorhall's sly green eyes has more power in it than
Biorn's blundering fist."
Though it is a strange thing, it is true that for the time being they
had forgotten the ship. Of one accord they started forward as it came
back to them.
"You know how much of the story is true--" "--what he did intend--"
"Give us your opinion whither he has gone----"
"I--will--not--tell--you--one--thing--until--you--come--up--here--
and--release--me," Hallad's thin lips bit off his decision.
Alrek set forth his counter-condition. "If you will allow me to prick
your skin with my sword so that I see blood come out of your flesh, I
will believe that you are not a ghost."
One of the skeleton-like arms was stretched over the rock before he had
finished. Drawing his sword, he went forward and scratched a cross upon
it; the lines were instantly blurred with blood. Without more ado, he
climbed up the bank and around the boulder and cut the bands, and the
ghost returned his hand-clasp with most unghostlike pressure,--after
which he sank down upon the bank to rub his chafed ankles.
"It was like his spitefulness to tie them so tight," he whimpered. "And
besides this, I am starved. If there are any tidings you want to know,
you would better be quick about asking, before I take myself where I can
get some curds and bread."
From their answer it appeared that they had several things to ask. "Tell
us where he is going with our ship--" "Tell us how much truth there was
in the dwarf-story--" "No, about his purpose in sharing his secret----"
While one of Hallad's hands continued rubbing his ankles, the other one
scratched his head. "Now if he has gabbled about dwarfs, it does not
appear to me that he did share his secret. Certainly I did not see any
dwarfs, nor hear of any. One day when Thord and I had staid with the
boat and he and Swipdag had gone far inland, he came back with a gold
chain; and they both said that they had seen Asbrandsson, the
Broadwicker's Champion whom Snorri Godi outlawed from Iceland many years
ago. Where a story passes through many mouths it is likely to become
somewhat chewed, and it may be that they were lying then also; but they
told how Asbrandsson related about a settlement which white men from
Ireland had made further south. He dwelt among them, he said; but it
seemed that they lived too quietly and sang too many priest-songs to
please him well, and therefore he would like to come to Vinland if so be
that Karlsefne the Lawman would admit a fellow of his bad fame. As a
present to get him good-will, he sent the Lawman a chain by Thorhall;
but that Thorhall put it to other uses is easily guessed. It is less
easy to know whither he intends taking the ship. It may be that he has
gone south; and it may be, as I said before, that the story of White
Man's Land is also a lie."
They loosed mouthfuls of angry denunciations. "But why take so much
trouble to make up a story--" "What aid was it expected that we should
give?" "Why did he not give the message to the Lawman?"
"Now are you so witless that I do not wonder he found pleasure in
fooling you," Hallad snapped as he got painfully upon his feet. "How
would he have got booty if he had told Karlsefne, who would have
forbidden fighting between the settlements? It is likely that he made up
the dwarf-story because he thought it unadvisable to trust you with the
truth. And the reason he stood in need of you was because it was
necessary that he should have some one to fight under him, and until
yesterday the men would not listen to him. It is not certain, however,
that he would not have taken the ship alone anyway, after Alrek got back
to the chieftainship. It appears that the Sword-Bearer's power is
greater than the Huntsman liked."
Alrek straightened from the boulder against which he was leaning, and
put out his hand as Hallad turned and planted a foot higher up the path.
"There is one question more--about the man who killed the first
Skraelling. Do you know who that is?"
Pausing with one foot up and one foot down, Hallad looked at them
strangely. "Do you not all know?" he asked at last.
They cried in one triumphant breath: "It _was_ the Huntsman!"
"The Huntsman?" Hallad repeated, and amazement was too plain in his
voice to be mistaken. After a minute, he grasped a down-hanging root and
pulled himself up to the next step, and would have departed without
another word if Alrek had not reached up and clasped him around the
ankle.
"What do you mean by that?" the Sword-Bearer asked him. "If it was not
Thorhall, who was it? I shall not let you go until you tell me." He
gripped the raw ankle harder than he knew; Hallad gave a great gasp of
mingled pain and anger.
"I have not as yet said too much, but I think I need not spare you since
you challenge me! It was you yourself; my own eyes saw you. It happened
that I was hiding behind a wood-pile in the hope that I could slip into
one of the booths and get a weapon for myself. I saw you fall, and I saw
the Skraelling lean over you and make a grab at your sword; whereupon
you leaped up and buried the hatchet in his head, and he toppled over
into the hollow--Now there is no need of your looking at me in that
manner! I would not have spoken if you had not dared me. I will say
nothing about it anywhere else. I----"
But it is not likely that Alrek heard; he stood as though turned to
stone, gazing at the speaker out of horror-widened eyes. "You saw ... me
... do it?" he breathed.
Looking down upon him, Hallad's face was red and regretful. Although it
was plain that no great boldness was in his spirit, it was also clear
that his mind was not ill-intentioned. "A great mishap was this that you
should ask me," he stammered. "I suppose it was the knock on your head
that caused you to forget. But I thought that--Of what use was it to dig
it up again! I had the intention to say nothing to any one. It seems
most likely to me that the Huntsman put a spell upon you; his eyes are
more than equal to it. You need not be so sensitive as to blame. So long
as Karlsefne has pardoned you and given you your honors back, your fate
does not depend on this----"
Through his speech, the voices of Gard and Brand and Erlend broke
shrilly: "You flung back his pardon!" "You bought your honors--" "You
pledged your life on your guiltlessness!"
Out of stiff lips, Alrek confirmed it: "I pledged my life."
Hallad turned, wailing, and ran up the bank and into the forest; and the
four comrades were left to face it together.
CHAPTER XXI
IN WHICH ALREK SWORD-BEARER FACES DEATH
Brand lay on the ground, shaking with great sobs; and Gard squatted,
half sitting, half kneeling, his huge hand crushing to powder the shells
he had picked up without knowing what he did. It spoke much for the
lessons the two had learned that neither offered plans of rebellion or
suggested escaping through the loophole of a trick. Dully, the Ugly One
spoke to Alrek Sword-Bearer, where he stood as though turned to stone.
"Alrek, say that the lie did not make it any worse for you. Let me have
that to remember."
Alrek answered without turning his eyes from the sullen water, wrinkled
now with rain-drops: "It did not make it any worse for me.... I did you
wrong in believing you guilty."
"Why was this so? If only we could have got away on the ship, it is not
likely that you would ever have found it out," Brand sobbed
passionately.
"I wish that I might have had one voyage on The Fire," Alrek said
slowly. "More than anything else I like to stand on a ship when the wind
is blowing under her wings, and feel how I am being carried forward into
happenings of interest. I thought I had many such voyages before me, and
that I should accomplish some things which the saga-men would think
worth talking about. And I believed that I should die in a manner to
leave honor behind me. Never did I guess in the deepest hiding-place of
my mind that I should be put to death for causing the defeat of my
chief--" His voice broke in uncontrollable revolt. "I can not believe
that I was such a madman! It must be as he says, that the Huntsman laid
a spell upon me. I can not believe that I would so lose my sense!"
"It is often said in Greenland that the Huntsman's eyes are capable of
turning curses on whomsoever he will," Gard said heavily.
"It was seen by every one that he felt hatred against you," Brand added
in his unsteady voice. "Ever since he saw that you had better sense
than others, he has wished you evil."
Lifting his head out of his hands, Erlend spoke bravely: "It does not
seem likely to me that Heaven would deal with you so unfairly. It is
foolish to hurry ahead of one's luck. I have hope of getting rid of this
trouble because of Karlsefne's love for you. Of his own accord he
offered you mercy----"
"And I chose justice," the Sword-Bearer reminded him grimly. "Do you not
see? I may not even ask for a pardon. It is a jest of the Fates,--a
nithing jest!" It may be that his voice would have broken again if a
great roar of thunder had not cut him short; the rapping of his fists
was sharp upon the boulder at which he was staring down.
But, gradually, the control which seldom slipped far out of his grasp
was gathered again into his hands. When once more it was quiet save for
the rustle of the rain on the leaves, he spoke steadily: "I recollect
how my father used to say that a soldier had a low mind who could not
trust the chief he had chosen enough to follow him through some moves
which he could not understand. Now it is certain that I can not see why
Heaven has the wish to turn this against me, but I am not going to be so
poor-spirited as to make a fuss about it. Let us go back now. Waiting
will not help if death is fated to me."
It showed again the discipline they had gone through that although
Brand's throat was rent anew with sobs and Gard's face became as white
as was possible to its swarthiness, neither had any resistance to offer.
Rising heavily, they followed their chief up the bank and along the
wood-paths which always before they had traveled plan-laden and
light-footed with hope.
Because of the rain, the tables under the trees were deserted; what
sound of voices there was came from Karlsefne's booth. In wordless
understanding the comrades walked toward it; only as they passed the
empty booth of the Champions, Alrek spoke:
"It is likely that the band is loitering somewhere in the woods to talk
about the fate of the ship. I am glad it happened so, unless they come
back just as I am being fetched out. I give it into your hands, Erlend,
to see that they do not behave foolishly."
Out of his tear-stained face, Erlend's honest blue eyes met his chief's
fairly. "I will see that you have your way," he promised.
Alrek, walking in the middle, stretched out his arms and put one around
Erlend's neck and one across the shoulders of Brand; and so they came
across the rain-beaten green in silence. At the threshold, they paused
to grasp one another's hands strongly and long; then the Sword-Bearer
pushed wide the half-open door and they went in.
In the dignity of his high-seat Karlsefne sat, holding council with his
chiefs. Snorri of Iceland occupied the seat of honor opposite him; and
on his left was Gudrid, and on his right the burly and big-hearted Biorn
Gudbrandsson, his hand still patting the shoulder of his foster-son who
sat on the footstool before him, munching bread as though he would never
leave off. That the excitement of Hallad's return had subsided, however,
was evident since it was of something altogether different that the
Lawman was speaking as the Champions entered.
"You need not get afraid that I undervalue your power of fighting," he
was saying to the triple rank of sullen faces that lined the walls.
"That one Northman is more than equal to one Skraelling--provided he can
get within arm's reach of him--I do not deny. It would be a strange
thing if Northmen could not fight, after the practise they have had!
What I want to get into your heads is that you will never face them one
to one, nor one to five, nor yet one to ten; but that they will always
come in herds and shoals and swarms, as when the Lord sends a plague of
creatures on a country. For I think it is as a plague they have come
upon us. Here the All-Father had spread a Heaven-like land, and stored
it with food and property for all. Here He brought us in peace to take
as free gifts whatsoever we would. It might have been a never-emptied
treasure-house for all our race, a peace-land for Northmen of all time.
The trouble that has come into it is of our own bringing, brought in our
blood as vermin are brought in ships. The hand of the Lord is against
us; it is my advice that we bow before His wrath. Natures such as ours
have no right to softer things than Greenland cold and Iceland rock. It
is my ruling that when the spring comes we shall go back over the
ocean."
Like a mighty bell tolling for a death, his voice echoed through the
hall. For a time they seemed awed against their will; and here and there
a man made the cross-sign. But presently the heavy voice of Hjalmar
Thick-Skull was heard saying to his neighbor:
"A Viking voyage, comrade,--that is what it means! A Viking voyage from
Norway before the grass comes up again!"
Quickly those around him caught up the words: "Viking voyages,--that is
true!" "Hail to the Lawman!" "Ho for Norway!" "For England and the
Danes!" "Ho for warrior-life again!" "Hail!" "Hail!" "Hail!" Their
swelling cheers vied with the thunder pealing overhead.
To Alrek Ingolfsson, waiting with blood-marked lips held between his
teeth, further delay was unbearable. Suddenly he made a step forward
where Karlsefne's gaze would fall upon him from the high-seat. As he had
expected, the Lawman spoke with frozen courtesy:
"The Chief of the Champions has a right to his place in the council. I
give him greeting and ask him to come forward and take the place that
belongs to him."
The Chief of the Champions went forward, but he did not take his place
upon the bench. Standing before the footstool of the high-seat he spoke
briefly:
"I thank you for your greeting, but I came to claim no right, but to
render the pledge I made. It has happened that Hallad saw me kill the
Skraelling, in that time which I lost out of my mind." He could not
bring himself to meet Karlsefne's eyes when he had finished, but turned
away and laid a hand on Gard's shoulder and hid his face on his arm.
Above the hubbub that rose, two voices made themselves heard, Gudrid's
crying distressfully: "I do not believe it!" and Hallad's wailing: "Why
do you betray yourself?" Then the Lawman spoke in a tone that silenced
them both:
"Let Hallad tell what he has seen."
It is but justice to Hallad to say that he would have refused if he had
dared; and not daring, he mingled his recital with pleas for mercy. But
the terrible evidence had to come out at last.
When the tale was finished and the teller had sunk down in tears upon
Biorn's footstool, Alrek lifted a face that seemed pale because such
black misery was in his brown eyes.
"I ask you only to believe that when I said I was innocent, I did not
know that I was guilty."
After a while the Lawman bent his head. "I believe that," he granted.
But he granted no more; and his closed mouth was like a line graven on
stone.
It was as though the wind had brought a breath from a glacier through
the warm summer day. No man's heart but felt the chill; and gradually
the whispers, even the motions, ceased and the room was as still as a
Greenland winter.
Slowly the Lawman rose and stood before his high-seat, an awe-full
figure as the light fell coldly on the chiseled beauty of his face and
the iron of his hair and his beard.
"I believe that you did not know your guilt," he said, "but I believe
also that you acted out your true nature when you did the slaying. What
Hallad says about the Huntsman's spell-power is child's talk. No spell
was on your father when he committed such crimes, and none was on you
when you attacked the Skraelling on the Cape of the Crosses. I think now
what I have thought always,--that you struck this blow in the Berserk
madness which is like poison in your blood; even as you struck on the
Cape, even as you would strike again though the welfare of a thousand
men should hang on your peacefulness. The cause of a hundred you have
already defeated because I pardoned you once; I dare not risk sparing
you again. You offered me your life. I take it. There is a gallows ready
where a pine-tree stands by the Skraelling's mound. It is my command
that Lodin and Asgrim and the men beside them, put you into fetters and
take you forth and hang you there."
Gudrid fell back in a half-swoon, and through the hall swelled a murmur
like the rush of a rising wave. But the Lawman stretched forth his hand,
the flash of his eyes like the gleam of ice in the moonlight; and the
wave fell, sputtering and hissing, until it had smoothed out into
silence.
Alrek Ingolfsson spoke only once, when they had finished pinioning his
arms. "Like a sheep-killing dog!" he said under his breath; and his head
sank beneath its weight of shame, and he did not raise it again but went
away without looking into any one's face.
With the opening of the door came in the noise of rushing wind; then the
door closed upon it, and throughout the length and breadth of the hall
there was no sound save for the half-sobbing breaths of Gudrid
struggling back from her swoon, and no motion until all at once the
Lawman sank into his high-seat and covered his face with his mantle.
It is a strange thing that at the moment Karlsefne's eyes were covered,
the veil fell from Gudrid's. Lighting on Hallad, her glance rested there
dully for a while; then all at once it sharpened to more than ordinary
keenness. Rising from her seat, she leveled one slender arm at the
cowering figure.
"I think you did the slaying yourself!" she breathed.
At Hallad's recoil and Biorn's bewildered query, the Lawman looked up
questioningly; and Gudrid put her other hand upon his shoulder and
shook him in her passion of eagerness.
"Will you allow your kinsman to die because of your slowness? Promise
life to this coward and he will confess guilt. I see it in his face."
But the Lawman had no need to speak, for this sudden focusing of all
eyes upon Hallad lay bare his secret like a bolt from the skies, and
struck him down at Gudrid's feet.
"It was the Huntsman who made me!" he screamed, and groveled shrieking
it over and over. Gradually, his foster-father gathered from the broken
words that the Huntsman had made it the one condition of his remaining
alive and coming back to camp after his own departure, that he should
break up the peace by a man-slaying; and he had used the stone hatchet,
which he had stolen from Alrek's unconscious body, because that chanced
to be his only weapon when a moment later he came unexpectedly upon the
Skraelling.
But only Biorn, his foster-father, stayed to hear more. At the first
cry, Karlsefne had crossed the booth in three strides and vanished
through the door, and Gudrid had followed him, and the three Champions.
And now the maids and the throng of men turned from Hallad and streamed
out into the clearing air and across the green toward the Champions'
booth, beyond which a knot of people stood under a pine-tree from whose
outreaching bough dangled a grape-vine noose.
The loop was empty, for Alrek Sword-Bearer stood below, freed of his
bonds, his head bent over Gudrid's hands; and Karlsefne was speaking
with a quiver in his deep voice:
"I will make this up to you a hundredfold. My smiths shall build you
another ship and a finer one, and you shall furnish it from my stores
and have the rule over it and take it where you choose. My own son shall
have no larger share in my property and my honor and my love."
Alrek lifted his brown eyes, glowing golden like the sunshine filtering
through the rain-washed air; through lips not yet steady, he answered:
"The debt will be more than paid."
Suddenly Karlsefne laid a hand upon his shoulder and spoke so that all
around could hear: "I will call no voyage unlucky which has brought me
to know a man with so high a mind and so brave a heart. I look on this
as a proof that good intentions will get the victory over evil in the
most unexpected way; and I will take it as an omen that the good which I
have tried to get out of this land for my countrymen will come to them
yet in some way which I can not now see. We will go back neither
bitterly nor despairingly, but giving thanks for the good we have
received and cherishing hope for the future. Now, it is my offer and
will that every one in hearing shall come to-night to the best feast I
can make, in honor of the Chief of the Vinland Champions and his men."
It is a good thing that he intended to stop there for not another word
could be heard, such jubilating and weapon-clatter went up; and the
Champions took their chief upon their shoulders and bore him back in
triumph, followed by a cheering train.
THE END
EPILOGUE
These are the rest of the sayings about this expedition.
All the ships came safely to Greenland except the vessel of Biorn
Gudbrandsson, which was driven out into the ocean that stretches between
Greenland and Iceland and there came into a worm-filled sea. By the time
Biorn had discovered their danger, the ship was worm-eaten beneath them;
and it was seen that the only way was to go down into their long-boat
which was coated with seal tar. Since the boat was too small to hold
more than half of them, they cast lots for the places; and it fell to
Biorn and half of the men to go down in safety, while the other half
remained with the sinking vessel. No one thought of making any fuss
about this save the boy who had come with Biorn from Iceland. When he
saw the others go down into the boat, he began to whimper:
"Do you intend, Biorn, to leave me here?"
Biorn glanced up at him absently. "So it seems," he answered.
The boy began to sob. "You did not promise my father that you would part
from me like this, when I left Iceland with you," he said. "You promised
that we should always share the same fate."
Biorn made the men a sign that they were not yet to cast the boat loose.
Big-hearted kindliness was in his voice as always.
"So be it," he answered. "It shall not remain this way, since you are so
eager for life. Do you come down here and I will go up on the ship."
It may be imagined that the young Icelander lost little time obeying.
When he had come down, the chief went back upon the vessel; and the two
parties separated. In time, the men of the long-boat came to Dublin in
Ireland, where they told this story; but it is believed by most people
that Biorn and those with him went down in the sea of worms, for they
were never heard of again.
It is but little more than this which is known about the fate of the
Huntsman and his followers. One time, traders came back to Greenland
with the tale that Thorhall had been shipwrecked in Ireland, and that
his men had been made thralls of and grievously misused, and that he had
met his death there. No one ever got other tidings than these.
Better luck went with Thorfinn Karlsefne and Gudrid and those in their
following, for the summer after they had landed in Greenland they went
home to Iceland, and lived there in great splendor and happiness; and
many famous men and high-minded women have descended from them.
Best luck of all, the foretelling of Karlsefne has come true; and
despite delays and hindrances, his countrymen have found a peace-land
and a never-emptied treasure-house not only in Vinland the Good but in
the whole of the new-world country which those who are alive to-day call
America the Free.
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