[Illustration: "The token of Hilda!"]
ULRIC THE JARL:
A Story of the Penitent Thief.
BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.C.;
AND 26, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1899.
[ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.]
HAYMAN, CHRISTY AND LILLY, LTD.,
HATTON WORKS, 113-115, FARRINGDON ROAD, LONDON, E.C.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Around the Viking House-fire 7
II. The Going Out of the Ice 17
III. The Launching of "The Sword" 22
IV. The Ship "The Sword" and the Ice King 37
V. The Unknown Thing 45
VI. The Fall of the Ice King 53
VII. The Living Sand 60
VIII. The Saxon Shore 75
IX. The Taking of the Trireme 86
X. The Great Sacrifice of the Druids 96
XI. The Passing of Lars the Old 108
XII. Svein the Cunning Jarl 119
XIII. Hilda of the Hundred Years 127
XIV. The Jew and the Greek 136
XV. The Storm in the Middle Sea 149
XVI. The Dead God in Africa 165
XVII. The Murmuring of the Men 181
XVIII. The Evil Spirit on "The Sword" 193
XIX. In the Night and in the Fire 202
XX. Carmel and Esdraelon 214
XXI. The Rabbi from Nazareth 225
XXII. The Tomb Song of Sigurd 240
XXIII. In a Place Apart at Night 255
XXIV. The Passing of Oswald 266
XXV. The Messenger of the Procurator 276
XXVI. The Cunning of Julius 284
XXVII. The Lion and the Tiger 296
XXVIII. The Jarl and the Rabbi 307
XXIX. Beautiful as Aphrodite 318
XXX. The Javelin of Herod 330
XXXI. The Places of Sacrifice 340
XXXII. The Mob of Samaria 348
XXXIII. The House of Pontius the Spearman 359
XXXIV. The School of Gamaliel 371
XXXV. In the Court of the Women 382
XXXVI. The Secret Messenger 399
XXXVII. The House of Ben Ezra 411
XXXVIII. The Son of Abbas 422
XXXIX. The Passover Feast 438
XL. "A Little While" 448
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
"The token of Hilda!" Frontispiece
"Go forth into the sea, O sword!" 31
"Let him win it or perish!" 176
"O companion of Hilda!" 263
"O thou Jesus, of the sons of the gods!" 313
ULRIC THE JARL.
CHAPTER I.
AROUND THE VIKING HOUSE-FIRE.
In the Northland were the roots from which grew the great nations
which now rule the earth. The tribes were many, but the principal
representative and the absorbent of their thoughts and their traditions
may receive from us the general name of Saxons. These were the
swordsmen of the sea whom the Roman legionaries declared to be the
hardest fighters they had met, whether on land or water.
In the Northland were also the germs of political and religious
liberty, and here were to be found the first forms of our highest faith.
But the men of the old race sailed southward and then eastward, at the
first, taking their gods with them. Not until centuries later did they
march and conquer this far western world, but we, their children, still
devoutly believe that the great God came with them.
* * * * *
The landward slope of a vast gray granite headland was thickly
covered with towering pine trees. Beyond them, inland, lay a snowy
valley without woods, and beyond that arose a blue and misty range of
mountains. There were no trees upon the summit of the headland; only
bare rocks, storm worn and deeply furrowed, were uplifted to meet the
bitter wind that swept down over the flinty ice covering of the North
Sea from the yet colder winter which was manufacturing icebergs within
the arctic circle. Sheer down, hundreds of feet, the perpendicular
face of the cliff smote sharply the glittering level that stretched
away westerly over the sea to the horizon, while an arm of it pushed
in eastward over the fettered waters of a deep and gloomy fiord,
rock-bordered.
Here would evidently be a good harbor in summer, when the waters should
be free, but now it had a forbidding, dangerous look, and out of the
fiord poured continually a volume of roaring sound, the solemn organry
of the wind playing upon the icy and rocky reflectors.
There was another gigantic sea cliff at a distance of about a mile down
the shore, southerly. Between that and the headland the ice line curved
raggedly inward along the lines of a sheltered cove, which might at
another season provide a landing place. Midway, and at the head of the
cove, there lay, propped up on either side by timbers, the bare hull of
a well-made vessel. It was of goodly size, being over thirty paces in
length and of full six paces in width at its middle. At the prow and
at the stern it was high built, with short decks, under which was room
for stowage and for the sheltered sleeping of men. It was lower made
amidships, where were both seats and standing room for rowers, and on
either side were twenty thole pins. In appearance the hull was somewhat
flat-bottomed, but it had a keel. At the center arose a stout, high
mast, but upon it there was yet neither yard nor boom nor sail. Both
prow and stern were sharply made. Evident was it that she was new and
had never yet floated. Her outline was of much beauty, and all her
timbers and planks were heavy and strong, that she might battle with
rough seas and with the ice cakes of the spring breaking. From her prow
projected a beak of firmly clamped and tenoned oak, faced and pointed
with iron, that she might break not only the waves, but the ribs of
other ships. All around her and in some parts over her lay the white
snow, deeply drifted, but wherever the woodwork was uncovered there
could be seen much of skillful carving and smooth polishing.
At other places along the curve of the cove there were boats and ships,
larger and smaller. All were hauled up above high-water mark, and snow
was on them. The larger craft seemed to be stanch and seaworthy, but
not any of them were equal in size or in strength or in beauty to the
new warship.
Upon a straight line inland a hundred fathoms, as if the iron beak were
pointing at it, stood a long, low, irregular building of wood with high
ridged roofs, in which were wide holes at the ridges. From these holes,
as if they were instead of chimneys, columns of blue smoke were rising
to be whirled away by the wind. Stonework or brickwork was not to be
seen. Through the strong timber walls, under the projecting eaves, were
many openings, equally cut, window-like, for the entrance of light and
air on sunny days, but these all were now closed by wooden shutters,
some of which were braced from without. The timbers of the house walls
were cleanly hewn and skillfully fitted, and they were tightly calked
with moss and tempered clay. The roofs were of shingles riven from the
pine trees.
Beyond, landward, there were smaller, ruder structures for the shelter
of horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, and there were many ricks of hay
and straw and of yet unthreshed grain. In either direction around the
cove and scattered irregularly up the valley were a number of less
extensive buildings for the abode of men. Some of these were mere
huts, built ruggedly of timber and unhewn stone. From every roof was
there blue smoke rising to testify that there were no empty houses in
this seashore village of the vikings. Around the central cluster of
buildings there were palisades, but except for these there were no
signs of fortifications. It was as if there need be little fear of the
coming of any foeman.
Bitter and cold and strong was the windstorm that blew across the icy
sea and smote upon the swaying crowns of the pine forest and howled
among the bare boughs of the oaks. It came and knocked at the great
door in the front of the house pointed at by the beak which was the
forefinger of the ship.
The door swung open for a moment and then it closed, but in that moment
there rang out loud voices of rude song and the twanging of sonorous
harp strings. Also a great blast of fresh, pure air rushed eagerly
into the house, where it was much needed. Not but that the vast room,
low-walled, high-roofed, was fairly well ventilated in many other ways,
but the fire in the middle of its earthen floor was blazing vigorously,
and not all the smoke might readily escape at the round gap in the roof
ridge over it. Now and then, indeed, the wind blew rudely down through
that aperture and sent the smoke clouds eddying murkily among the
rafters.
But for the fire blaze and for sundry swinging cressets filled with
burning pine knots the great hall would have been gloomily dark, but
these lights were enough, in spite of the smoke clouds, to show many
things which told of what sort this place might be. So also might be
plainly noted the faces and the forms of the men who sat or stood
around the fire, or who lay upon the bearskins and the wolfskins that
were scattered here and there upon the earth floor and upon the wooden
settles along the walls.
A broad table ran across a raised dais at one end of the room, and on
this were not only pitchers and mugs of earthenware variously molded,
with many drinking horns, but there were also tankards and goblets and
salvers of silver, richly designed and graven by the artisans of other
lands than this. Of the articles of furniture for different uses some
few had an appearance of having been brought from far, but the great,
high-backed oaken throne chair behind the long table, at its center,
was rich with the grotesquely elaborate carvings of the old North
people. On the walls hung shields and arms and armor of many patterns.
The steel caps of the vikings hung side by side with visored helmets
that told of Greece and Rome and of lands yet further east. There were
many men in the room. Some of them were scarred old warriors, but there
were youths of all ages above mere boyhood. Likewise were there numbers
of women.
As central as was the fire itself were three figures which seemed to
attract and divide the attention of all the others. On the side of the
fire toward the door towered one who looked a very embodiment of the
warlike young manhood of the race of Odin. His blond beard and mustache
were full but not yet heavy. His complexion was fair, notwithstanding
its weather bronzing, and his steel-blue eyes seemed both to flash and
to laugh as he stood with folded arms and listened. His dress was
simple. His shoes, that arose above his ankles, were well made. Above
them were leggings of tanned leather, and he wore a tunic of thick,
blue woolen cloth. He was unarmed except for the slightly curved,
broad-bladed seax in its sheath that hung from his belt. Its blade
was not more than a cubit in length. It was sharp on one edge only,
and it was heavy. The steel hilt and the crosspiece were thick, for
a good grip. It was a weapon terrible to meet if it were in the hand
of an athlete like this--more than six feet in height, deep-chested,
lithe and quick of motion--and already the short seax had won for its
bearers, the Saxons, a dreaded name among all the peoples of the south
countries to which their swift keels had carried them.
At the left of the fire was a large, high-backed chair made of some
wood which had become almost black with age and smoke. It was not now
occupied, but in front of it stood the form of a woman, straight as a
pine and taller than any of the men around her. Her face was swarthy,
deeply marked, haughty, and her abundant hair fell disheveled down to
her waist, as white as the drifts upon the mountains. She was clad in
a robe of undyed, grayish wool, falling loosely to her feet. On these
were socks and buskins, but her lean, sinewy arms were bare as she
stretched them out, waving her gnarled old hands in time to the cadence
of a semimetrical recitation. She spoke in the old Norse tongue, with
a voice upon whose power and mellowness time seemed to have had little
effect. Every head in the hall bent toward her, as if her words were a
fascination to her hearers, and none willed to interrupt her.
Weird and wild was the chant of the old saga woman, and the fire in
her piercing black eyes brightened and dulled or almost went out as she
sang on, from myth to myth, of the mystical symbolisms of the intensely
poetic and imaginative North. Gods and demigods and goddesses, heroes
and heroines, earth forces and spiritual powers, dwarf and giant, gnome
and goblin, fate maidens, werewolves, serpent lore, the nether frost
fires, the long night of the utter darkness, the twilight of the gods,
the eternal hall of the slain, the city of Asgard--long and wonderful
was the saga song of the white-haired woman who had, it was said, seen
the ice of more than fivescore winters float out of the North Sea.
She ceased speaking and sank back into the chair as if all life had
gone out of her. Rigid and motionless she sat, and there was no light
in her eyes, but none went near her, nor did any speak. There was
indeed a momentary outburst of approval, but it hushed itself. Even a
fierce laugh that came to the lips of the tall young warrior died away
half uttered.
Almost at the same moment another sound began to fill the hall. It
came, at the first, from a large harp that stood a few paces back from
the fire. Over the strings of this harp were wandering the long, bony
fingers of a pair of gigantic hands, while behind it, on a low stool,
swayed and twisted a form whose breadth of shoulder and length of arm
were out of all proportion to its height. The head was bald except for
a fringe of reddish-gray hair above the ears. The face was scarred and
seamed to distortion, the right eye having been extinguished by a sword
stroke which, by its furrow, must have half cloven the frontal bone.
Age was indicated by the tangled gray beard which floated down below
the belt, but not in the powerful, rich-toned voice of the harper, for
the smoke seemed to eddy and the fire to dance as the harp twanged more
loudly, and then there came to join it a burst of stormy song--a song
of battles on the land and on the sea; a song of the mighty deeds done
by the warriors of old time; a song of fierce and stirring incitement
to the performance of similar feats by those who listened.
The harp grew then more softly musical, for he sang of the blue waves
and the sunny shores of the southern seas; of their islands of beauty;
of their harbors of peace and their cities of splendor; of temples and
castles; of gold and silver and gems; but he seemed to drift beyond all
these into a song of something beautiful, which yet was vague and far
away and indescribable. His thought and word concerning it became like
a refrain, until the minds of all who heard were filled with ideas of
the dim and unattainable glory of the land of heroes, the city of the
gods, the return of the White One, and the rising of the sun that will
never set. Like deep answering unto deep were the last utterances of
harp and harper, and as they suddenly ceased the tall young warrior
stepped forward two paces and cried loudly:
"O Hilda! wise woman of the hundred winters, if this is indeed to be
thy last----"
"I shall go out with the spring flood," she said, interrupting him,
"but thou wilt be upon the sea when they lay me in the cleft between
the rocks."
"I will go forth as thou sayest," he responded. "Am I not of the sons
of the gods? I will sail as my father sailed and as Oswald has sung. I
will crush, like him, the galleys of the Romans. I will look upon the
cities of the east and of the south. I am of Odin's line. I will go
out in the good ship _The Sword_, and will sail until I see the hero
god and the city of the gods and the land of the living sun."
Loud now rang the shouts of approval from the bearded vikings as they
sprang to their feet and began to crowd around their young leader.
"Go, O Ulric, son of Odin! Sail on into the sunset and the farther
sea!" came trumpetlike from the white lips of Hilda.
Low sounds arose, too, from the strings of the harp, but the door swung
suddenly open and upon the threshold stood a man garbed in wolfskins.
"Hael, Ulric the Jarl!" he shouted, and there were many exclamations
here and there around the room.
"Hael, Wulf the Skater!" heartily responded Ulric. "What bringest thou?"
"Good tidings!" replied Wulf, joyously, stepping forward. "I came down
the mountain slide and across the fiord. No other foot will cross
it this season. During days the ice hath weakened and now the wind
is changing southerly. There is already a rift in the sky. O son of
Brander the Brave, be thou ready for the spring outing!"
"Odin!" shouted Ulric. "Keels for the open sea! Hael to the cruise of
_The Sword_! Hael to the bright south! And I, Ulric the Jarl, I of the
sons of the gods, I will go out and I will not return until I have
looked into the face of one of the gods. And he will know me, and he
will take me by the hand, and he will bid me walk with him into the
city of the living sun!"
Glad were the hearts of all the vikings as they heard, and with one
accord they shouted loudly:
"Hael to Ulric the Jarl! Hael to the cruise of _The Sword_! We are his
men and with him we will go!"
Long had been the winter and slow had been the coming of the change for
which men waited. Welcome was Wulf the Skater, but Oswald's fingers
were slowly busy among the strings of his harp, and they found strange
sounds which came out one by one.
"The message of the harp!" muttered Hilda. "It is like the moaning of
the sea in the fiord in the long night."