THE HALL OF LIOT.
All through the small hours of the morning Estein sat on the poop
in silence. Helgi, wrapped in his cloak, threw himself on the deck
beside him and fell asleep with a lightened heart, while the long
ship, slipping down the sound with the tide, turned westwards into
the swell of the Atlantic.
Gloom had settled over Estein's mind. The pleasantest memories
were distorted by the ghost of that old blood feud; his murdered
brother called aloud for vengeance; in the wash of the waves and
the creaking of the timbers he heard the hermit recite again the
story of the burning, and through it all a voice cried, "Farewell!
farewell!"
The sun at that season rises early. With it the breeze freshened,
and one by one the sleeping figures in the waist woke, and began
to stir about the ship. Still their leader sat silent.
Helgi at length sat up with a start, and rubbed his eyes. He
looked at Estein, and smiled.
"Very much in love methinks," he said to himself.
At last Estein saw he was observed, and passing his hand across
his brow as if to sweep away his thoughts, asked wearily,--
"Where do we go now, Helgi?"
"Your spell needs a violent remedy, and I have that on my mind
that may cure it. What say you to letting Liot Skulison know that
he did not slay us all? There are here two others besides
ourselves who escaped the fate of Thorkel and our comrades, and
they think they owe Liot something. Does revenge seem sweet?"
"Then Liot is alive?"
"Ay, Thor has spared him for us. The Orkney-man who led us to you
has an ancient feud against the bairn-slayers, and he tells me
Liot and his men are feasting at his dwelling. Shall we fall upon
them to-night?"
"You are a good physician, Helgi. Battle and storm are the best
cures for such as I."
"I cannot give you a storm, I fear," laughed Helgi, "but you can
have fighting enough to-night. Liot keeps two hundred men and more
about him, and we have here some seventy all told."
"We have faced greater odds together, Helgi. Life does not seem so
fair to me now that I should shrink from odds of three to one. Let
us seek Liot wherever he is, and when we have found him, tell him
to arm as many men as he can muster. Then let our destiny weave
its web for us."
Helgi laughed again.
"That would be a good revenge--to let Liot slay the men of Estein,
a shipload at a time. If Odin wishes us to die, I shall try to
meet my fate stoutly, but I shall not help him in the slaying.
Nay, Estein, I can devise a better plan than yours."
Estein smiled for the first time since he had come on board.
"So long as it gives me a good fight with stout foes, and with you
at my side, I care not what plan you propose."
"There speaks yourself again!" cried Helgi; "and I think that ere
long you will meddle with my schemes. I will call Ketill and the
Orkneyman, and we four will hold council here."
Ketill, the broad-beamed captain of the ship--the same whose path
had been stopped by Atli--a man of few words and stout deeds, and
Grim, the Orkneyman, came up to the poop. There they deliberated
for long. Helgi was all for fire.
"Let us hear how the men of Liot will sing when they are warm."
Ketill gave a short laugh.
"I, too, am for burning," he said.
"We must catch them when they are drinking," said Grim. "When
Liot's feasts are over many men go to sleep in outhouses round the
hall, and we have not force enough here to surround them all at
once."
"I will have no more burnings," said Estein.
"When had we our last?" asked Helgi. "You speak as though we had
done naught but burn foes all our lives. We have never had a
burning before, Estein, and it is better to begin as the burners
than the burned."
"I have lately heard tell of another. It is no work for brave
men."
Helgi shrugged his shoulders.
"Let us drown them then," he said.
Ketill gave another short, gruff laugh.
"Nay, Ketill, I am not jesting; in truth I am in little humour for
that. If seventy brave men cannot clear a hall of two hundred
drinkers, what virtue lies in stout hearts and sharp swords? We
will enter the hall, you from one end and I from the other, and I
think the men of Liot Skulison will not have to complain of too
peaceful an evening."
"We must catch them, then, while they are feasting. Afterwards it
will be too late, with only seventy men," the wary Grim replied.
"We can choose our hour," said Estein; "and whatever plan we fall
on, it seems we must be in time."
Helgi laughed lightly.
"I thought you would leave us little say, Estein, when once you
were aroused," he said. "'Tis all the same to me. Fire, sword, or
water--choose what you will, you will always find me by your side;
and if you must go to Valhalla, why, I will blithely bear you
company."
"Fire were better," said Ketill, shaking his head.
The day was still young when the council of war came to an end,
and as they had more than sufficient time to reach the hall of
Liot before night, the bows were turned to the open sea, that they
might better escape observation. Once they had got some miles from
land they turned southwards, and striking the sail, to make as
little mark as they could, moved slowly under oars alone. All day
the long ship rolled in a great ground-swell, the western cliffs
of Orkney now hidden by a wall of water, and now glinting in the
sunshine as they rose from trough to crest, and right ahead the
distant Scottish coast drawing gradually nearer. As the afternoon
wore on they turned landwards again, and towards evening found
themselves coasting a mountainous island lying to the south of
Hrossey.
"What do men call this?" asked Helgi.
"They call it Haey, the high island, and it is on a bay to the
south of it that Liot Skulison dwells," answered Grim, their pilot
for the time.
They drew closer and closer to the land, until a towering line of
cliffs rose for more than a thousand feet right above their heads.
It was a stern and sombre coast, unbroken by any bays or inland
glimpses, and gloomy and terrible in the fading light. The great
oily swell broke into spouts of foam at the cliff-foot, and all
along the face of the precipice they could see innumerable sea-fowl
clinging to the rock.
Gradually, as they sailed along this hostile land, a light sea-fog
began to gather. The leaders of the hazardous expedition watched
it closing in upon them with growing apprehension.
"What say you, Grim?" said Helgi; "can you take us to Liot in this
mist?"
Grim looked round him doubtfully.
"Methinks I can take you there," he said, "but I fear we shall be
too late, we can move but slowly; and with only seventy men, I
doubt we shall do little when the men of Liot have left the
feast."
Estein had been standing in silence near the tiller. At these
words he turned and cried fiercely,--
"Who talks of doing little? Liot or I shall fall to-night, though
the blackness of death were round us. Think you I have come to sit
here idly in a fog? Tell your men to row like valiant Vikings,
Ketill, and not like timorous women."
The respect due to rank in Norway was little more than the proud
Norseman chose to pay, and it was with small deference to his
prince that Ketill answered,--
"You are fey, I think, Estein. I shall not lose my ship that you
may the sooner feed the fishes."
"Are you, too, afraid? By the hammer of Thor! I think you are in
league with Liot. I shall make these cravens row."
"That you will not," replied Ketill.
In an instant both swords were half-drawn. The men within earshot
were too much surprised at this sudden change from Estein's usual
manner to his followers to do more than look in astonishment at
the dispute, and in another instant the blades would have clashed,
when Helgi rushed between them.
"What is this?" he cried. "Are you possessed of evil spirits, that
you would quarrel on the eve of battle? Remember, Ketill, that
Estein is your prince; and Estein, my brother, what ails you? You
are under a spell indeed. Would that I had slain the witch ere you
parted. You can gain nothing by wrecking the ship, and this fog is
too dense to row a race off such a coast as this."
Perhaps it was the allusion to the "witch" that brought Estein to
his senses, for his eyes suddenly softened.
"I was wrong, Ketill," he said. "The wrath of the gods is upon me,
and I am not myself."
He turned away abruptly, and gazed moodily into the fog; while
Ketill, with the look of one who is dealing with a madman, left
the poop.
"It is ill sailing with a bewitched leader," he muttered.
The idea that Estein was under a spell took rapid hold of the
superstitious crew. They told each other that this was no earthly
mist that had fallen on them, and listening to the break of the
sea on the cliffs, they talked low of wizards and sea-monsters,
and heard strange voices in the sound of the surge. Then they
became afraid to row at more than a snail's pace, and sometimes
almost stopped altogether. In vain Helgi went amongst them, and
urged that Grim knew these waters so well that there was little
danger, in vain he pointed to the hope of booty and revenge ahead;
even as he spoke there was a momentary break in the mist, and they
saw the towering cliff so close above them that his words were
wasted.
"There is witchcraft here," they said; and Ketill was as obstinate
as the rest. The ship crept under the cliffs with hardly any way
on at all, and Helgi, in despair, saw the golden hour slipping by.
"Oh, for two more good ships," he thought: "then we could wait
till daylight, and fall upon them when we pleased."
Estein had again fallen a prey to his thoughts. In his gloomy
fatalism he thought that the wrath of the gods pursued him for the
neglect of his duty to his murdered brother, and he submitted to
the failure of this adventure as the beginning of his punishment.
The fighting fire died out, the longing for action was choked, and
in their place what was as nearly a spell as can fall on mortal
men had fallen on him. His devoted friend fumed impatiently beside
him as the fog grew denser and the hours went slowly by, and
bitterly he cursed the enchantress of the Holy Isle.
"He talks of the gods," he said to himself. "This is no work of
theirs; it is the magic of that island witch, may the trolls take
her!"
"The fog lifts!" cried Grim from his post at the tiller.
The men heard the cry, and ceasing their awestruck talk, looked
eagerly at the fast-widening rifts in the white shroud. Ghost-like
wreaths detached themselves, flitted by the ship, and then
dissipated in thin air. The summer night sky with its pale stars
appeared in lakes above, and below, the fog rose from the water
like steam. Presently the great cliffs came out clear and terrible
in the midnight dusk, and the men cried that the spell was broken.
Over Estein came the greatest change. As the fog lifted, the light
returned to his eye, and he turned eagerly to Grim.
"Where are we now? Have we yet time to catch Liot at his feast?"
The pilot shook his head.
"It will take us full two hours to reach the bay where Liot
dwells, and the feast, I fear, will have ended even now, for the
hour is late."
Helgi's face fell, and he muttered a deep imprecation as he turned
to Estein.
"What think you?" he asked; "shall we run for some distant bay,
and return to-morrow night?"
"I have come to meet Liot to-night," Estein replied, and turning
away he paced the deck in deep thought.
Helgi's cheerfulness returned in an instant. He hummed an air, and
leaning against the bulwark awaited the march of events with his
usual careless philosophy.
"The men were right," he thought; "it was a magic mist. The spell
has lifted with the fog. It wants but a brisk fight now to cure
him."
A grim smile stole over Estein's face, and presently he stopped
beside Grim, and said,--
"Know you where Liot sleeps in this hall of his?"
"Ay; I was forced to follow him for two years, and I know well his
sleeping chamber."
"Can you lead us to it in the dark?"
Grim looked at him doubtfully before answering.
"I think so," he said at length.
"But are you sure?"
The pilot looked round him.
"The night is light," said he, "and there will still be some fire
in the hall. But it will be a dangerous venture."
Estein turned impatiently.
"Methinks you have little feud with Liot," he said, and went over
to where Helgi stood.
"Well?" asked Helgi.
"I have a plan."
"Have you resolved on a burning? This cursed fog has made me cold,
and a fire would like me well."
"You have heard my rede on burnings, Helgi. My scheme is to carry
off Liot in his sleep. They will keep no watch. The very dogs will
be drunk, and I think it will not be so difficult as it seems.
Will you come with me into Liot's hall?"
Helgi's blue eyes opened wide, and he laughed as he said,--
"There has never been your match for enterprise in the north,
Estein. Your plans seem all so chosen that your foes may have the
greatest chance to slay you. Are we to leave you in Liot's place?"
"I asked if you would follow me."
"You know the answer to that already. But why trouble with Liot's
carcass? Surely it were easier to slay him where he lies."
"I like not a midnight murder, and Liot and I have not yet decided
who is the better man. That is a trial which I would fain make,
and then we can see what the gods would do with me."
"To fight an enemy and capture him afterwards is common enough,
but to capture him first and then fight him seems the act of a
madman," answered Helgi.
"Then I am a madman," replied Estein, and with that he turned away
and walked forward to consult Ketill.
He was impelled by his creed of morbid fatalism to seek this test,
whereby his fate might be sharply decided. He longed, too, for
action, and the idea, once held, fascinated him. But to all others
on board he seemed merely the victim of some insidious magic. That
he was under a spell Helgi had no manner of doubt.
"A fair fight," he thought, "is always manlier than a secret
slaying, but not Odin himself would fly away with the foe who had
slain two shiploads of his followers, and afterwards challenge him
to single combat. It is as if he should catch a thief who had
stolen half his goods, and then throw dice with him for the rest.
But all spells act most banefully at night, they say; doubtless in
the morning Estein will rest content with giving him a fitting
burial--if he catches him."
And at the thought he laughed aloud.
"May I die in bed like a woman," he said to himself, "if this be
not the strangest way of fishing for a Viking!"
Ketill was at first for stoutly refusing the adventure; but Helgi,
whose convictions sat lightly on him compared with his attachment
to Estein, persuaded him to consent.
"Are you afraid?" he asked, and that question left no room for the
proud Viking to hesitate.
It was about two hours after midnight when the long ship, stealing
under the shadow of the cliffs, turned into a small bay. It lay
open to the south, guarded on either side by a precipitous
headland, and withdrawn from the tideway and the swell of the
western ocean. In the weird grey light of that June night the men
could see a valley opening out of great inland hills on to a more
level strip of moorland at the head of the bay. On a spit of sandy
beach lay three warships, and on the slope of the hill to the left
stood a small township of low buildings, clustering round the
higher drinking-hall of Liot Skulison.
In dead silence they hugged the shore as closely as their pilot
dared.
"We are as close inshore as we can win," he said at length in a
low voice.
The boat was stealthily launched, and into it as many men as it
would hold were crowded.
"Keep the rowers on their benches, we may have little time to get
away," said Ketill in a gruff whisper to his forecastle man, whom
he left in command of the ship.
"We have little wish to be caught."
"Push off, men, and remember he who speaks above a whisper I shall
think is tired of life."
The oars dipped and the boat crept slowly landwards.
"You know the landing, Grim?"
Grim, who sat at the tiller, merely nodded; and presently the bows
grated on a strip of gravel beach.
"The trolls take you!" muttered Ketill. "Could you not have told
us to slacken speed? The dead could hear a landing like this."
"'Tis all right yet, Ketill," whispered Estein. "We are too far
from the hall."
"By the hammer of Thor!" growled the black-bearded captain, whose
temper was ever of the shortest, "these men splash like cattle."
One by one they stepped ashore, and then the party was divided.
One man was left in charge of the boat; Ketill with three others
went round to where the long ships lay; while Estein, Helgi, and
Grim, with six picked men, cautiously approached the hall.
They crossed a strip of rising heather and struck a sharp slope of
turf. Close above them loomed a dark mass of building, and the
silence was unbroken save by the stealthy fall of their footsteps.
Grim led the way, then came Estein, then Helgi, and the others
followed in single file.
Warily they came up to the end of the hall, and under the door
there was a brief pause. Estein gave his final instructions in a
whisper, and then quickly pushing open the door, he stepped in.
Helgi, Grim, and one man followed, while the other five waited
outside with their weapons in their hands.
These old Norse drinking-halls were long and high rooms, with
great fires down the middle, and beside them long lines of benches
for the guests. All down the sides the sleeping chambers opened,
and over these hung the arms of the warriors.
The hall of Liot was very dark and still. A ghostly flicker of
light struggled through the narrow windows, and on the fires the
embers slowly died. Beside the benches slumbered the forms of some
of the heaviest drinkers, and once or twice they nearly stumbled
over these. Grim came up beside Estein and led him about half-way
down the hall. There he stopped and pointed to a door. There were
no words; the others closed up and loosened their daggers in their
sheaths. Estein stepped back softly to the fire and lifted up a
log, one end of which still glowed brightly, and then he pushed
open the door. The chamber was dark as a wolf's mouth as he groped
for the bed. So cautiously he stepped that the heavy breathing of
the sleeper only broke the silence, and very carefully he went
forward and thrust the log so close to the unconscious slumberer
that he could clearly read his features. Then he placed it against
the wall, and gave one whispered order. In an instant a mantle was
twisted round Liot's mouth, his hands and feet were bound, and ere
he was thoroughly awake, he was mounted on the shoulders of his
foes, forming one of a singular procession that hurried through
the hall of Liot Skulison.
Grim, who walked first, had almost reached the door, when from the
blackest of the shadows a man stepped suddenly across his path.
For an instant the pilot's heart stood still. Then he saw that he
had only to deal with a half-awakened drinker, and as his mouth
was framing a question, Grim's dagger flashed, and with a cry the
man fell heavily on the floor. Instantly there arose such a chorus
of barking as might have wakened the dead.
"The dogs are sobering," said Helgi.
"Hasten!" cried Estein. "The men will be on us."
They hurried through the door, and bearing their captive on their
shoulders, the whole party broke into a run.
"The dogs are after us!" cried one.
"Turn and kill them," said Estein.
Three men stopped, and with a few sweeping sword slashes scattered
the yelping crowd; but even as they were driving them off, they
could see that men were coming out of the hall and outhouses.
"Where is Ketill?" cried Estein, as they reached the boat.
The man in charge had seen nothing of him.
"May werewolves seize him!" exclaimed Helgi. "He has had time
enough to tear the long ships plank from plank."
"We have no time to wait for him; it is his fault if he be left,"
said Grim.
"That knowledge would doubtless comfort him," replied Estein; "but
nevertheless I shall wait."
"Here they come!" cried Helgi.
"And here come those who will reach us before them," said another
man.
He was right. A swarm of men were already running down the slope,
and it was clear that they must reach the boat first.
Estein sprang on board.
"Push off!" he cried; "we will row along the shore to meet them."
"Well thought of," said Helgi; "'tis lucky we have one cool head
with us."
The pursuers at first either failed to see Ketill's party, or
mistook them for their own men, for they continued their headlong
rush straight to the water, firing arrows and darts as they ran.
Then they saw the manoeuvre, and turned with loud cries along the
shore. The boat had got a start by this time; the rowers bent
their backs and made her spring like a live thing, and the still
water rose in oily waves from the bow. But fast as they pulled,
the men on shore ran faster.
"By all the gods, we are too late!" cried Helgi.
"They take to the water!" said Estein. "Pull, men, pull! Oh, 'tis
a night worth living for!"
The four swimmers stoutly struck out for dear life, to a splashing
accompaniment of darts and stones.
"By the hammer of Thor! they will be struck as we take them on
board," exclaimed Helgi. "Friend Ketill makes a generous mark."
"Round them!" said Estein. "Get between them and the shore."
Grim pressed the tiller hard down, and circling round the swimmers
they were presently hauling them in on the sheltered side. Then
the crowd on shore set off for their ships. Ketill, dripping with
water, and bleeding from an arrow wound on the shoulder, watched
them with a grim smile.
"They will find their ships ready for sea," he said.
As he spoke a tongue of flame shot up from one of the long ships,
and Estein turned to him in surprise.
"Then you set them on fire?"
"Ay," replied Ketill; "we slew some guards--who thereby learned
not to sleep at their posts--and made such holes in the ships as
will take them two days to patch. Then I bethought me it were well
to have a burning, if it were only of a long ship; so we kindled
three great fires, one for each vessel, and if the men of Liot
feel cold to-night, it will not be my fault. But have you got
Liot?"
"Here he is," said Estein, pointing to the pinioned captive.
Ketill laughed loud and long.
"Estein," he cried, "I ask your pardon. You may be under a spell,
but you have given us a merry night's work. We have earned a long
drink."