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!"

CHAPTER V

THROUGH WHICH THE STORM GIANT BLUSTERS

A stooping black shape against the sunshine, Hjalmar Thick-Skull came through the doorway and began to paw over bales and boxes in search of extra oars.

"Your luck is great, young one," he remarked. "You would not be sitting quiet if you were outside. Perhaps you think, because you see sun through the door, that the whole sky is like that; but you should see the clouds ahead of us! The only thing equally black is the Weathercock's face since he finds that he must put into the Keel harbor after all. And on top of it the wind has failed, and he has commanded all hands to the oars——"

Rising to his fettered feet, Alrek held out his bound hands. "Here are mine! Take your knife to the knots."

The Thick-Skulled gaped over his shoulder. "Why—why—he did not mean you."

"Have I not hands?" the Sword-Bearer demanded. "With a troll's strength in them this morning! Certainly he meant me."

He strove to speak carelessly while his fingers were twitching, but some breathlessness must have betrayed him. Scratching his tow mane and staring as he scratched, Hjalmar began slowly to grin. After a little, Alrek laughed also and spoke in frank appeal:

"Do me this good turn, shipmate, that I may stretch myself some while. If he did not mean me, yet might you easily have mistaken him. You can tell him so when he makes a fuss,—it is not likely that he will notice me until the storm is over. You know it is a saying that 'the wolf allays the strife of the swine.'"

After a while, the Thick-Skulled stooped, grinning, and laid his knife against the thongs. "Behold what a good thing it is to have a reputation for dulness!" he said. "But see to it that you bear me out by giving good service at the oar."

The Sword-Bearer stretched his arms with a sigh of relief. "Only let me get at it!" he breathed, and plunged into the air like a fish into the water.

True enough! Though sunshine lay bright on the Wind-Raven's decks and blue sky was above her, before her—like the entrance to another world—sagged a canopy of slate-colored clouds. Swollen with rain, they hung low over the shore-line of forest and dune and darkened all the distant water save where, here and there, streaks of white gleamed like monsters' bared teeth. Full of ominous warning was the calm that had fallen on land and sea, robbing the sail so that it hung like a live thing gasping for breath.

"If he did not put into the harbor he would be likely to share the fate of Thorwald Ericsson, and be cast ashore in the same place, and likewise with a broken keel," Alrek commented after a look at the sky; then laid hold of his oar and bent himself almost to the bottom of the boat in the relief of spending his energy.

Perhaps his appreciation of a small favor touched the Fates in their woman hearts, for presently they extended it. When the Wind-Raven's brood had brought her safely behind the wooded bar that lay across the