The Thrall of Leif the Lucky Part 36

His body stiffened suddenly, and he flung his arms high above his head and clenched his hands in agony.

"G.o.d!" he cried. "What have I done to make me deserving of such a doom?

Why could I not have died when Leif cut me down? Why could I not have been buried where human feet would pa.s.s over me, and human voices fall on my ear at night?" He flung himself over on his face and lay there motionless.

Rolf laid a hand on his comrade's shoulder, and for once his voice was honestly kind. "It is hard to know what to say to you, Alwin, my friend.

You who have borne trials so manfully have a right to a better fate.

There is only one thing which I can offer you: choose what man you will--so long as he be no one with whom I have sworn friendship--and I promise you that before we sail to-morrow, I will pick a quarrel with him and slay him; so that, if worst comes, your spirit shall have at least one ghost for company. I--"

He did not finish his sentence. Suddenly his touch upon Alwin's arm became an iron grip, that dragged the Saxon to his feet.

"Look!" the Wrestler gasped, as he pulled him behind the great oak in whose shelter they had been lying. "Look! Are those ghosts, or devils?"

Half-dazed, Alwin could do no more than stare along the pointing finger.

On the opposite bank, some hundred yards below their point of observation, stood two long-haired, skin-clad men. Another pair had already plunged into the river and were nearly half-way across. And as the white men gazed, four more beings crashed out of the underbrush and joined their companions.

"Praise the Saint who hung leaves upon the trees as thick as curtains!"

Rolf breathed in his comrade's ear. "Up with you, for your life! And make no rustling about it either."

With the agility of cats they went up the great bole, and the kind leaves closed behind them.

"Is it your opinion that they are ghosts, or devils?" Alwin asked, when each had stretched himself along a branching limb and begun a curious peering through c.h.i.n.ks in the enveloping foliage. "It has always been in my mind that ghosts were white and devils black, while these creatures appear to be of the color of bronze."

"We shall see more of them before the game is over," Rolf returned. "The first ones are even now coming to land."

As he spoke, the two s.h.a.ggy swimmers clambered out of the water, like dripping spaniels, on the very spot that the white men's bodies had pressed less than an hour before.

"I am glad that we are not now lying there without our clothes," Alwin murmured.

And Rolf e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed under his breath, "Now it is certain that I would rather be the only human being in the land than be in company with such as these, granting them to be human. For by Thor's hammer, they have more the appearance of dwarfs than of men!"

They were not imposing, certainly, from all that could be seen of them through the leaves. Two of their lean arms would not have made one of the Wrestler's magnificent white limbs, and the tallest among them could not have reached above Alwin's shoulders. Skins were their only coverings; and the coa.r.s.eness of their bristling black locks could have been equalled only in the mane of a wild horse. Though two of the eight were furnished with bows and arrows, the rest carried only rudely-shaped stone hatchets, stuck in their belts. When they began talking together, it was in a succession of grunts and growls and guttural sounds that bore more resemblance to animal noises than to human speech.

Rolf sniffed with contempt. "Pah! Vermin! I think we could put the whole swarm to flight only by drawing our knives."

But at that moment one of the number below raised his face so that Alwin caught a glimpse of the fierce beast-mouth and the small tricky eyes in the great sockets. The Saxon lifted his eyebrows dubiously.

"I am far from certain how that attempt would end," he answered. "Though it is likely that it will have to be tried, if their intention is to settle here for the day, as it appears to be."

The men of the stone hatchets had indeed settled themselves with every look of remaining. Though one of the bowmen continued to pace the bank like a sentinel, his fellows sprawled themselves upon the turf in comfortable att.i.tudes, carrying on their uncouth conversation with deep earnestness.

"We shall certainly have to stay here all day if we do not do something," Rolf bent from his branch to whisper to his companion. Alwin did not answer, for at that moment the harsh voices below ceased abruptly, and there ensued a hush of listening silence.

Up in the tree, Saxon gray eyes and Norse blue ones asked each other an anxious question; then answered it with decided head-shakes. It was impossible that their whispers could have carried so far, or have penetrated the growl of those voices. It must have been some noise from beyond. They strained their ears, anxiously intent.

There was no trouble in hearing it this time; it rose shrill and piercing on the drowsy noon air, a man's whistle, rapidly approaching from the direction of the Norse camp.

While Alwin listened with dilated eyes, Rolf's lips shaped just one word: "Kark!"

Almost without breathing they lay peering out between the leaves. At the first sound, the men below had leaped to their feet and grasped their weapons. Now, after a muttered word together, they drew apart noiselessly as shadows and vanished among the bushes, without so much as the snapping of a twig. Smiling innocently in the sunlight, the little nook lay as peaceful and empty as before.

Nearer and nearer came the whistler; until the crunching of his feet could be heard upon the dead leaves. Rolf pushed the hair out of his eyes, and settled himself to watch with a sigh of almost child-like pleasure.

"Here is sport! Here is a chess game where the pieces are not of ivory.

I would not have missed this for a gold chain!" he told his companion.

"Imagine Kark's face when they spring out upon him! So intent is his mind upon your death, that he could walk into a pit with open eyes. You can never be sufficiently thankful, Alwin of England, that the Fate which destroys your enemy, gives you also the privilege of sitting by and watching the fun."

Uncertainty was on Alwin's face, as he gazed down through the branches and saw the thrall's white tunic suddenly appear among the green bushes.

He said slowly, "I do not dispute that it looks like the hand of fate--and it is true that he is my enemy--that it is his life or mine--"

A wild yell of alarm cut him short. One by one the lean brown men were gliding out of the bushes and forming in a silent circle around the thrall. They offered him no harm; they did not even touch him; yet the apparition of their shrivelled bodies in their animal-hides, with their beast-faces looking out from under their bristling black locks, was enough to try stouter nerves than Kark's. Shriek after shriek of maddest terror rent the air.

Rolf smiled gently as he heard it. "About this time our friend below is beginning to distinguish between death-wolves and death-foxes," he observed.

Glancing at his comrade for a response to his amus.e.m.e.nt, his expression changed. "What is it your intention to do?" he demanded sharply.

Alwin had drawn himself into a sitting posture; and with one hand was tugging at the handle of his knife. He flushed shamefacedly at the question, nor did he look up as he answered it.

"I am going down to help the beast," he said. "I cannot remedy it if I am a fool. I do not deny that Kark is a cur; yet he is white, as we are; and alone. I cannot watch his murder."

He brought his knife out with a jerk; and putting it between his teeth, prepared to turn and descend.

Before he could make the move, Rolf had swung down from the limb above and landed beside him. Under his weight the boughs creaked so loudly that, but for the cover of Kark's cries, the pair must surely have been discovered.

The Wrestler spoke without drawling or gentleness: "Either you are a child or a silly fool. Do you understand that it is your enemy that they are ridding you of? What is it to you if he is chopped to pieces? You shall not stir one finger to aid him."

Forgetful of the dagger between his teeth, Alwin opened his mouth angrily. The weapon slipped from his lips and fell, a shining streak along the tree-trunk, and buried itself noiselessly in the soft sod between the roots. The next instant, a scarf from Rolf's neck was wound around the Saxon's jaws; one of the Wrestler's iron arms reached about him and gathered him up against the broad chest; one of the Wrestler's great hands closed around his wrists like fetters of iron; and a muscular leg bent itself backward over his legs like a hoop of steel. As well fight against steel or iron!

Again Rolf's voice became fairly caressing in its gentleness. "Willingly will I endure your struggles if it pleases you to employ your strength that way, comrade; yet I tell you that it would be wiser for you to spare yourself. I shall not let you go, whatever you do; whereas if you lie quietly, I will permit you to move where you can see what is going on. It looks as though it would become interesting."

It did indeed. At that moment, wearying perhaps of the howls, the brown men began to make experiments with a view toward changing the tune.

Closing in upon the thrall, they commenced to feel of his clothing and his shaven head, and to pinch him tentatively between their lean fingers.

A redoubling of his outcries caused a spasm of frantic writhing in Alwin's fettered body, but Rolf's manner was as serene as before.

"See now what you are missing by your head-strongness," he reproved his captive. "It is seldom that men have the opportunity to sit, as we sit, and learn from the experience of another what would have been their fate had their fortune been equally bad. Such great luck is it that I get almost afraid for your ingrat.i.tude. It will be a great mercy if some G.o.d does not punish you for your thanklessness... By Thor! In his terror the fool has attacked them... Ah!"

From below came a sudden snarl, a sudden savage yell, the noise of struggling bodies, and then a shriek of another kind from Kark, no longer a cry of mere apprehension, but a sharp piercing scream of bodily agony.

"Let me go!" Alwin panted through his m.u.f.fled jaws. "It is a nithing deed for us--to permit the death of one of our number--so. Let me go, Rolf--he is a human being. Let me go!"

A man of wood could not have been more relentless than Rolf; a man of stone could hardly have been less moved.

He argued the matter amiably: "It is true that by some mistake or other Kark wears a man's shape," he admitted; "yet it is easily seen that in every other respect he is a dog. Indeed I think there are few dogs that have less of courage and loyalty. Take the matter sensibly, comrade. If you cannot rejoice in the death of your enemy, at least consider what interest it is thus to study the habits of dwarfs. The cur who was useless during his life, will be honored by serving a good purpose in his death. Leif will think it of great importance to learn how these creatures are disposed toward white men. They have the most unusual methods of amusing themselves. Now they are doing things to his ears--"

Renewed shrieks for help and mercy drowned the remainder of his words, and called forth fresh exertions from Alwin.

But when at last the Fearless One ceased, and lay spent and panting against the brawny chest, he became aware that the cries were growing fainter.