Vandrad the Viking Part 8

"Farewell!" he said again.

She turned her face away.

"I feared you would tire of us," she said, her voice sinking very low.

"Never, Osla, never! but fate has been too strong for me. They wait for me now, and I must leave you."

"Farewell, Vandrad!" she said, looking up, and he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"Osla!" he cried, drawing her towards him. She yielded an instant, and then suddenly broke free and started away.

"Farewell!" she said again, and her voice sounded like a sob.

He did not trust himself to answer, but turned and hurried to the boat.

They pushed off in silence, the oars dipped in the quiet sound, and Estein left the Holy Isle.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HALL OF LIOT.

All through the small hours of the morning Estein sat on the p.o.o.p 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 pa.s.sing 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 p.o.o.p. 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.