THE MIDNIGHT GUEST.
Jomar had returned early in the day, and they found him already
wrapped up in his bear-skin fast asleep before the fire.
"Gave he my warning to Ketill?" Estein asked Atli.
"Assuredly," replied the old man; "I have never known him fail me,
little though he may have liked the errand."
"And what said Ketill? Had they been attacked? What news brought
Jomar back?"
"Let us wake the knave, and ask him," said Helgi; and suiting the
action to the word, he drove one foot sufficiently hard into the
sleeper's side to rouse him with a start.
"What said friend Ketill?" Helgi went on, careless of the man's
ugly look; "sent he back any message?"
Jomar answered with a dark scowl, regarding him steadily for a
minute as if to make sure who he was, and then he snapped back
shortly,--
"He said he had lost a dog that answered to the name of Helgi, and
would be well pleased if the beast had died of the mange in the
wood," and without another word he rolled over and closed his eyes
again.
"'Dog!'" cried Helgi. "Hound, I will beat one dog as it deserves!"
In another instant the Jemtlander would have suffered for his
temerity, had not Atli seized the angry Norseman's arm,
exclaiming,--
"Peace, Helgi Sigvaldson! Wouldst thou strike my servant in mine
own house? The man loves not Norsemen, yet has he saved thy
foster-brother's life, and likely, too, those of Ketill and all
his company."
"Tell us, Atli," interposed Estein, "what he said on his return."
"Little he told even me," replied Atli, "save that he had seen
Ketill for the briefest possible space, and then returned
straightway home."
"Did he hear aught of the twenty good men who followed us to King
Bue's hall?"
It was Jomar himself who replied, though without turning over or
looking at the speaker.
"Would you have me save them, too, from their fate? I heard naught
of them, and wish only to hear of their deaths. Too many enemies
have I helped already."
Helgi was about to reply hotly, but Atli checked him with a
gesture, whispering,--
"Will not his deeds atone for his words?"
Low as he spoke, Jomar caught the words, and muttered loud enough
to be heard,--
"Would that my words might become my deeds."
Nothing about the mysterious old man had impressed Estein more
than his extraordinary influence over this strange disciple or
servant, for he seemed to be partly both; and that one who so
loathed and hated the Norsemen could be made to serve his enemies
at a word, seemed to point to a power beyond the ken of ordinary
man. Helgi, too, was evidently struck, for he looked askance from
one to the other, and then fell silent.
By sunrise next morning, the foster-brothers arranged to start for
Ketill under Jomar's guidance, and little time was lost in getting
to bed. They went up to the loft by the ladder, heard Atli open a
door and evidently enter some inner room, then being very drowsy
after the cold air, shortly fell asleep.
Yet the night was not to pass without incident. Helgi knew not how
long he had been asleep, when he woke with a shiver, to find that
his blankets had slipped off him. He gathered them over him again,
and then lay for a few minutes listening to the rising wind. As it
beat up in mournful gusts and soughed through the pines, he said
to himself, "The frost has left at last, and thankful am I for
that." He was just dropping off to sleep again, when his attention
was startled into wakefulness by a knock at the outer door. It was
repeated twice, and then he heard Jomar rise with much growling,
and go softly across the floor. There followed a parley apparently
through a closed door, which ended in a bolt shooting back, and
the door opening with a whistle of wind. So far he had been in
that half-waking state when things produce a confused and almost
monstrous impression, but suddenly his wits were startled into
quickness. Among several voices that seemed to talk with Jomar,
his ear all at once caught a woman's. Even the approach of an
enemy could not have made him more alert. He listened keenly and,
with a sensible feeling of disappointment, heard the door close,
the noise cease, and Jomar's steps quietly cross the floor again.
This time, however, they went right to the other end of the room,
and an inner door opened. He thought he caught Atli's tones
answering his sullen servant, and presently he heard two men come
out and go to the outer door. Again, with a blast of cold draught,
it opened, and the talk began a second time. His curiosity was
keenly excited; he could pick out a woman's voice most
unmistakably, and at last he heard the conference come to an end.
The door closed, the party seemed to go away, and then whispering
began in the room below him.
"The woman has come in!" he said to himself, with a start of
excitement. "Helgi, this matter needs your attention."
His bed, the outermost of the two, consisted merely of a coarse
mattress laid so far back in the loft that the edge of the
flooring hid all view of the room below. Very softly he proceeded
to throw off the blankets and crawl quietly towards the edge, till
he had gone far enough to get a clear sight of the fire. There he
lay, and smiled to himself at the prospect below.
The fire had been raked up to burn brightly, and Jomar, as before,
lay fast asleep beside it; but between Helgi and the blaze stood
the old seer and the hooded and cloaked form of a woman. Her face
was hidden, but her back, the watcher thought, promised well. She
was tall, and seemed young, and her movements, as she held out her
hands to the flames, or half turned to address the old man, had
grace and the marks of good birth. They talked so low that Helgi
could catch nothing they said, and even the quality of the girl's
voice only reached him in snatches.
"A pleasant voice, methinks," he said to himself. "Atli, this
booty must be shared."
She seemed to be telling a narrative to Atli, who, with folded
arms and deep attention that sometimes passed into suppressed
emotion, looked intently at her, and frequently broke in with some
whispered question.
The Viking had not been watching very long when the girl's voice
rose a little as she said something earnestly, and Atli, with a
slight movement and a warning frown, glanced up at the loft and
pointed with one finger straight at where Helgi lay. Instantly he
dropped his head, and as quickly as he dared crawled back to bed
again. There was silence for a moment, but apparently they
suspected nothing, for the whispered talk went on again.
"By valour or guile I shall see that maiden's face," he said to
himself, as he lay revolving possible schemes in his mind.
At last the whispering stopped, and Atli's step crossed the room
and passed into the inner apartment. The door closed behind him,
and then saying to himself, "Now or never, my friend," Helgi
quietly slipped into his sheep-skin coat, and stepping softly so
as not to disturb Estein or the seer, came boldly down the ladder.
The girl's look, as he turned at the foot and faced her, stuck in
his mind for long after. Consternation and her sense of the
ludicrous were having such an obvious struggle in every feature,
that after looking straight into her face for a moment, he fairly
burst into a silent convulsion of laughter that shook him till he
had to steady himself by a rung of the ladder. So infectious was
it, that after the briefest conflict, consternation fled the
field, a little smile appeared, and then a merrier, and in a
moment she was laughing with him. And certainly for a man commonly
most careful of his appearance, he cut a comical enough figure,
with his shoeless feet and tangled hair, and the great ill-fitting
sheep-skin coat huddled round him to hide the poverty beneath.
"I fear my habit pleases not your eye," he said at last, striving
to control his countenance.
"It is--" she began, and then her gravity for an instant forsook
her again. "It is highly befitting," she said, more soberly and a
little shyly.
"In truth, a garb to win a maiden's heart; but I recked not of my
clothing, I was in such haste to see the maid," said Helgi boldly.
She looked at him with some surprise, and just a sufficient touch
of dignity to check the dash of his advances. He saw the change,
and quickly added,--
"To be quite honest with you, I knew not indeed that you were
here, and feeling cold I came down to warm me. I should ask your
pardon."
"Not so," she said; "how could you know that I was here? I have
only just arrived."
"And I," replied Helgi, "leave early in the morning, though now I
would fain stay longer. So you will soon forget the man in the
sheepskin coat who so alarmed you."
"But not the coat," she said demurely, her blue eyes lighting up
again. Helgi's vanity was a little stung, but he answered gaily,--
"I then will remember your face, and you--"
At that instant a door opened, and turning suddenly he saw Atli
come from behind a great bearskin that concealed the entrance to
his inner chamber. The old man's face grew dark with displeased
surprise, yet he hesitated for an instant, as if uncertain what to
do. Then he came up to the girl and said,--
"Thy chamber is ready for thee." To Helgi he added, "I would speak
with thee, Helgi."
The girl at once left the fire, and followed him back to the other
room. As she turned away, Helgi said,--
"Farewell, lady."
"Farewell," she answered frankly, with a smile, and went out with
Atli.
"A bold raid and a lucky one," said the Viking complacently to
himself. "A fairer face and brighter eyes I never saw before. Who
can she be? Like enough some lady come to hear the spaeman's
mystic jargon, and swallow potions or mutter spells at his
bidding. I am in two minds about turning wizard myself, if such
visitors be common. Methinks I could give her as wise a rede as
Atli. But it is strange how she came here; she is not of this
country, I'll be sworn."
His reflections were cut short by the entrance of Atli.
"Helgi," said the old man, still speaking very low, "thou hast
seen that which ought to have remained hidden from thee."
"But which was well worthy of the seeing," said Helgi.
"Speak not so lightly," replied the old man sternly, and with that
air of mystery he could make so impressive. "Thou knowest not what
things are behind the veil, or how much may hang upon a word. I
charge thee strictly that thou sayest no word of this to Estein;
there are matters that should not come to the ears of kings."
"I shall say nothing to any one," Helgi answered more soberly.
"That is well said," replied Atli. "Sleep now, for the dawn draws
nigh, and the way is long."
Helgi had just got back to the loft and was throwing off his coat
again, when Estein suddenly rose on his elbow and looked at him,
and for a minute he felt like a criminal caught in the act.
"Have I been dreaming, Helgi?" said his foster-brother,
"or--or--where have you been?"
"To warm myself at the fire," replied Helgi readily.
"Spoke you with any one?"
"Ay; Atli heard me and came to see whether perchance a thief had
come in to carry away his two Norsemen."
"Then I only dreamt," said Estein, passing his hand across his
eyes. "I thought I heard the voice of a girl; but when I woke more
fully, it was gone, indeed. It sounded like--but it was my dream;"
and lying down again, he closed his eyes.
"Should I tell him?" thought Helgi; "nay, I promised Atli, and
after all this is mine own adventure."
By the time the day had fairly broken, they were away under
Jomar's guidance.
"Remember, Estein, my rede," said Atli, as they departed.
"When the snows melt," cried Estein in reply; "and I think I shall
not have long to wait."
It was a raw, grey, blustering morning, with no smell of frost in
the air, but rather every sign of thaw, and the old man, after
watching the two tall mail-clad figures stride off with their
dwarfish guide hastening in front, closed the door, and turned
with a grave and weary look back to the fire.
Hardly had he come in when the inner door opened, and the girl
entered hastily.
"Who was that other man?" she asked. "I saw but his back, and
yet--" she stopped with a little confusion, for Atli was regarding
her with a look of keen surprise.
"Knowest thou him?" he asked. "Where hast thou seen him before?"
"Nay," she answered, with an affectation of indifference, as if
ashamed of her curiosity, "I only wondered who he might be."
"He is a certain trader from Norway, whom men call Estein," said
Atli, still looking at her curiously.
"I know not the name," she said; and then adding with a slight
shiver, "How cold this country is," she turned abruptly and left
the room again.
The old man remained lost in thought. "Strange, passing strange,"
he muttered, pressing his hand to his forehead. "Can she have seen
him? Or can it be--"
His eyes suddenly brightened, and he began to pace the room.