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.