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.