Part 20 (2/2)

”Two things I feared,” replied Estein. ”One that you might do that; the other, that a troop of as villainous-looking knaves as you now are yourself might hive out of the wood behind you. But how did you escape last night, and how came you here?”

”Those are the questions I would ask of you,” said Helgi; ”but one story at a time, and shortly this is mine--a tale, Estein, that for credit to its teller, yoked with truthfulness, I will freely back against yours or ever I hear it.”

”I doubt it not,” replied his friend, with a smile; ”you have the look of one who is high in favour with himself.”

”As I ought!” cried Helgi. ”But hear me, and gibe not before the end. I left that hall, accursed of the G.o.ds, and over full, I fear, of drunken men, in the manner you witnessed. My counterfeit of drunkenness was so exceedingly lifelike, that even when I got outside I felt my head buzz round in the fresh air and my legs sway more than is their wont. 'Friend Helgi,' I said to myself, 'you have drunk not one horn too few if you value your life at its proper worth.' Upon that I applied a handful of snow to my face, and thereupon, on counting my fingers, was able to get within one of the customary number--erring, if I remember rightly, upon the generous side, as befitted my disposition. But to get on to the moving part of my adventures--Where do you take me now?”

”'Tis all right,” replied Estein, ”I take you to supper and a fire. They come in my story.”

”Lead on then,” said Helgi. ”To continue my tale: I walked with much a.s.surance up to the gateway, singing, I remember, the song of Odin and the Jotun to prove the clearness of my head. There I found a sentinel who, it seemed, had lately been sharing in the hospitality of King Bue. Certain it is that he was more than half drunk, and so fast asleep that he woke not even at my singing, and I had to prod him with the hilt of my sword to arouse the sluggard.”

”Then you woke him!” exclaimed Estein, between amus.e.m.e.nt and surprise.

”How else could I pa.s.s? The man leaned so heavily upon the gate, that wake him I must, for I liked not to slay a sleeping man, even though he stood upon his feet. He looked upon me like a startled cow, and said, 'You are a cursed Norseman.' 'It would seem so, indeed,' I replied, and thereupon ran him through with my blade and opened the gate. Then a plan both humorous and ingenious came upon my mind, for my wits were strangely sharp. I laid the man out under the shadow of the fence, where he could not well be seen save by such as had more clearness of vision than becomes the guests of so hospitable a monarch as King Bue, and having stripped him of his coat and put it round mine own shoulders, I took his place and awaited your coming.”

”Singing all the while?” said Estein.

”Softly and to myself,” replied Helgi; ”for what is becoming enough in a guest is not always so well suited to a sentinel.

There I stood, stamping my feet and beating my arms upon my breast to keep the cold away, till I began to think that something was amiss.”

”Then while I was scaling the wall at one end of the court, you were guarding the gate at the other!” exclaimed Estein.

”So it would appear now, though I pledge you my word I had no thought of such a thing as I watched that gate last night. In truth, what I had done began to seem to me so plainly the best thing to do, that I thought you would surely follow my movements in your mind--so far as drink allowed you, and come straightway to the gate in full confidence of finding me on duty. I see now that your plan had its merits, though I still maintain that mine was the better.”

”Saving only in so far as it left me at the trysting-place alone,”

said Estein.

”And me to s.h.i.+ver at the gate,” answered Helgi, with a laugh.

”Well, after a time, which seemed long enough, though doubtless a shorter s.p.a.ce than I thought, the hall door opened, and men rushed out with much needless uproar. Then, I must confess, I e'en left my post with all the haste I could, and concealed me in the outbuildings of a small house close without the gate. The door was open, but it was so pitch black inside that I knew they could not see me, though them I saw plainly enough as they stopped at the gate.”

”Who were they?” asked Estein.

”The black traitor Thorar, and with him some ten or twelve others, doubtless all the sober men at the feast. It took them but a short s.p.a.ce to find the dead sentinel; and thereupon Thorar, who seemed almost beside himself with anger, sent the others off in haste to intercept our road to Ketill, while he himself ran to collect a force from the village. Then I bethought me it was well to have company on the road, so I even joined myself to my pursuers.

Luckily they went not by the open glade, but kept a path well shaded and very dark, and for the best part of an hour we must have run together through the wood.

”At last we reached a solitary woodman's house, and there for a brief s.p.a.ce we paused to inquire of the good man whether he had seen us pa.s.s that way. It was a wise inquiry, and the answer was such as an entirely sober man might have reasonably expected. The woodman was in the village at the feast, and his wife, good woman, had been in bed for the last two hours, and strangely enough had not seen us. So our brisk lads started off at the run again. But there we parted company, for I was tired of chasing myself, and the woman had a pleasant voice, and, so far as I could see, a comely countenance.”

Estein laughed aloud. ”My story will seem a tame narrative after this,” he exclaimed.

”Did not I say so,” said Helgi. ”Well, I fell behind, and presently was knocking up the good woman again, for I said to myself, 'These dogs will not surely come to this house a second time, and a night in the cold woods is not to my liking.' So to make a long story short, I wrought so upon the tender heart of the woodman's wife that, Norseman as I was, she gave me shelter and bed, and promised to send me off in the morning before her husband returned.”

”As most wives would,” interposed Estein.

Helgi laughed. ”Fate had decided otherwise,” he continued. ”Even as I was eating my morning meal, the goodwife waiting on me most courteously, the door opened and the husband entered. I saw from the man's ugly look that all his wife's wiles were lost upon him; but the dog was a cowardly dog, and feared the game he thirsted to fix his treacherous teeth in. He had nothing for it but to equip me with this great sheep-skin coat and cap, and a stout bow and sheaf of arrows; and then, after a most kindly parting with his goodwife, I made him set me on my way to Ketill. He liked not the job over much, yet he dared not refuse, and so we started. I shrewdly suspected, from my memory of the way I had come overnight, that he was leading me back to King Bue's hall, and meant on our parting to put a horde of his rascally fellows in my way. I cared little, however, for I had mine own ending for our walk. When we had gone a little way I stopped and said to him,--

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