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!"