CHAPTER XXI

IN WHICH ALREK SWORD-BEARER FACES DEATH

Brand lay on the ground, shaking with great sobs; and Gard squatted, half sitting, half kneeling, his huge hand crushing to powder the shells he had picked up without knowing what he did. It spoke much for the lessons the two had learned that neither offered plans of rebellion or suggested escaping through the loophole of a trick. Dully, the Ugly One spoke to Alrek Sword-Bearer, where he stood as though turned to stone.

"Alrek, say that the lie did not make it any worse for you. Let me have that to remember."

Alrek answered without turning his eyes from the sullen water, wrinkled now with rain-drops: "It did not make it any worse for me.... I did you wrong in believing you guilty."

"Why was this so? If only we could have got away on the ship, it is not likely that you would ever have found it out," Brand sobbed passionately.

"I wish that I might have had one voyage on The Fire," Alrek said slowly. "More than anything else I like to stand on a ship when the wind is blowing under her wings, and feel how I am being carried forward into happenings of interest. I thought I had many such voyages before me, and that I should accomplish some things which the saga-men would think worth talking about. And I believed that I should die in a manner to leave honor behind me. Never did I guess in the deepest hiding-place of my mind that I should be put to death for causing the defeat of my chief--" His voice broke in uncontrollable revolt. "I can not believe that I was such a madman! It must be as he says, that the Huntsman laid a spell upon me. I can not believe that I would so lose my sense!"

"It is often said in Greenland that the Huntsman's eyes are capable of turning curses on whomsoever he will," Gard said heavily.

"It was seen by every one that he felt hatred against you," Brand added in his unsteady voice. "Ever since he saw that you had better sense than others, he has wished you evil."

Lifting his head out of his hands, Erlend spoke bravely: "It does not seem likely to me that Heaven would deal with you so unfairly. It is foolish to hurry ahead of one's luck. I have hope of getting rid of this trouble because of Karlsefne's love for you. Of his own accord he offered you mercy----"

"And I chose justice," the Sword-Bearer reminded him grimly. "Do you not see? I may not even ask for a pardon. It is a jest of the Fates,--a nithing jest!" It may be that his voice would have broken again if a great roar of thunder had not cut him short; the rapping of his fists was sharp upon the boulder at which he was staring down.

But, gradually, the control which seldom slipped far out of his grasp was gathered again into his hands. When once more it was quiet save for the rustle of the rain on the leaves, he spoke steadily: "I recollect how my father used to say that a soldier had a low mind who could not trust the chief he had chosen enough to follow him through some moves which he could not understand. Now it is certain that I can not see why Heaven has the wish to turn this against me, but I am not going to be so poor-spirited as to make a fuss about it. Let us go back now. Waiting will not help if death is fated to me."

It showed again the discipline they had gone through that although Brand's throat was rent anew with sobs and Gard's face became as white as was possible to its swarthiness, neither had any resistance to offer. Rising heavily, they followed their chief up the bank and along the wood-paths which always before they had traveled plan-laden and light-footed with hope.

Because of the rain, the tables under the trees were deserted; what sound of voices there was came from Karlsefne's booth. In wordless understanding the comrades walked toward it; only as they passed the empty booth of the Champions, Alrek spoke:

"It is likely that the band is loitering somewhere in the woods to talk about the fate of the ship. I am glad it happened so, unless they come back just as I am being fetched out. I give it into your hands, Erlend, to see that they do not behave foolishly."

Out of his tear-stained face, Erlend's honest blue eyes met his chief's fairly. "I will see that you have your way," he promised.

Alrek, walking in the middle, stretched out his arms and put one around Erlend's neck and one across the shoulders of Brand; and so they came across the rain-beaten green in silence. At the threshold, they paused to grasp one another's hands strongly and long; then the Sword-Bearer pushed wide the half-open door and they went in.

In the dignity of his high-seat Karlsefne sat, holding council with his chiefs. Snorri of Iceland occupied the seat of honor opposite him; and on his left was Gudrid, and on his right the burly and big-hearted Biorn Gudbrandsson, his hand still patting the shoulder of his foster-son who sat on the footstool before him, munching bread as though he would never leave off. That the excitement of Hallad's return had subsided, however, was evident since it was of something altogether different that the Lawman was speaking as the Champions entered.

"You need not get afraid that I undervalue your power of fighting," he was saying to the triple rank of sullen faces that lined the walls. "That one Northman is more than equal to one Skraelling--provided he can get within arm's reach of him--I do not deny. It would be a strange thing if Northmen could not fight, after the practise they have had! What I want to get into your heads is that you will never face them one to one, nor one to five, nor yet one to ten; but that they will always come in herds and shoals and swarms, as when the Lord sends a plague of creatures on a country. For I think it is as a plague they have come upon us. Here the All-Father had spread a Heaven-like land, and stored it with food and property for all. Here He brought us in peace to take as free gifts whatsoever we would. It might have been a never-emptied treasure-house for all our race, a peace-land for Northmen of all time. The trouble that has come into it is of our own bringing, brought in our blood as vermin are brought in ships. The hand of the Lord is against us; it is my advice that we bow before His wrath. Natures such as ours have no right to softer things than Greenland cold and Iceland rock. It is my ruling that when the spring comes we shall go back over the ocean."

Like a mighty bell tolling for a death, his voice echoed through the hall. For a time they seemed awed against their will; and here and there a man made the cross-sign. But presently the heavy voice of Hjalmar Thick-Skull was heard saying to his neighbor:

"A Viking voyage, comrade,--that is what it means! A Viking voyage from Norway before the grass comes up again!"

Quickly those around him caught up the words: "Viking voyages,--that is true!" "Hail to the Lawman!" "Ho for Norway!" "For England and the Danes!" "Ho for warrior-life again!" "Hail!" "Hail!" "Hail!" Their swelling cheers vied with the thunder pealing overhead.

To Alrek Ingolfsson, waiting with blood-marked lips held between his teeth, further delay was unbearable. Suddenly he made a step forward where Karlsefne's gaze would fall upon him from the high-seat. As he had expected, the Lawman spoke with frozen courtesy:

"The Chief of the Champions has a right to his place in the council. I give him greeting and ask him to come forward and take the place that belongs to him."

The Chief of the Champions went forward, but he did not take his place upon the bench. Standing before the footstool of the high-seat he spoke briefly:

"I thank you for your greeting, but I came to claim no right, but to render the pledge I made. It has happened that Hallad saw me kill the Skraelling, in that time which I lost out of my mind." He could not bring himself to meet Karlsefne's eyes when he had finished, but turned away and laid a hand on Gard's shoulder and hid his face on his arm.

Above the hubbub that rose, two voices made themselves heard, Gudrid's crying distressfully: "I do not believe it!" and Hallad's wailing: "Why do you betray yourself?" Then the Lawman spoke in a tone that silenced them both:

"Let Hallad tell what he has seen."

It is but justice to Hallad to say that he would have refused if he had dared; and not daring, he mingled his recital with pleas for mercy. But the terrible evidence had to come out at last.

When the tale was finished and the teller had sunk down in tears upon Biorn's footstool, Alrek lifted a face that seemed pale because such black misery was in his brown eyes.

"I ask you only to believe that when I said I was innocent, I did not know that I was guilty."

After a while the Lawman bent his head. "I believe that," he granted. But he granted no more; and his closed mouth was like a line graven on stone.

It was as though the wind had brought a breath from a glacier through the warm summer day. No man's heart but felt the chill; and gradually the whispers, even the motions, ceased and the room was as still as a Greenland winter.

Slowly the Lawman rose and stood before his high-seat, an awe-full figure as the light fell coldly on the chiseled beauty of his face and the iron of his hair and his beard.

"I believe that you did not know your guilt," he said, "but I believe also that you acted out your true nature when you did the slaying. What Hallad says about the Huntsman's spell-power is child's talk. No spell was on your father when he committed such crimes, and none was on you when you attacked the Skraelling on the Cape of the Crosses. I think now what I have thought always,--that you struck this blow in the Berserk madness which is like poison in your blood; even as you struck on the Cape, even as you would strike again though the welfare of a thousand men should hang on your peacefulness. The cause of a hundred you have already defeated because I pardoned you once; I dare not risk sparing you again. You offered me your life. I take it. There is a gallows ready where a pine-tree stands by the Skraelling's mound. It is my command that Lodin and Asgrim and the men beside them, put you into fetters and take you forth and hang you there."

Gudrid fell back in a half-swoon, and through the hall swelled a murmur like the rush of a rising wave. But the Lawman stretched forth his hand, the flash of his eyes like the gleam of ice in the moonlight; and the wave fell, sputtering and hissing, until it had smoothed out into silence.

Alrek Ingolfsson spoke only once, when they had finished pinioning his arms. "Like a sheep-killing dog!" he said under his breath; and his head sank beneath its weight of shame, and he did not raise it again but went away without looking into any one's face.

With the opening of the door came in the noise of rushing wind; then the door closed upon it, and throughout the length and breadth of the hall there was no sound save for the half-sobbing breaths of Gudrid struggling back from her swoon, and no motion until all at once the Lawman sank into his high-seat and covered his face with his mantle.

It is a strange thing that at the moment Karlsefne's eyes were covered, the veil fell from Gudrid's. Lighting on Hallad, her glance rested there dully for a while; then all at once it sharpened to more than ordinary keenness. Rising from her seat, she leveled one slender arm at the cowering figure.

"I think you did the slaying yourself!" she breathed.

At Hallad's recoil and Biorn's bewildered query, the Lawman looked up questioningly; and Gudrid put her other hand upon his shoulder and shook him in her passion of eagerness.

"Will you allow your kinsman to die because of your slowness? Promise life to this coward and he will confess guilt. I see it in his face."

But the Lawman had no need to speak, for this sudden focusing of all eyes upon Hallad lay bare his secret like a bolt from the skies, and struck him down at Gudrid's feet.

"It was the Huntsman who made me!" he screamed, and groveled shrieking it over and over. Gradually, his foster-father gathered from the broken words that the Huntsman had made it the one condition of his remaining alive and coming back to camp after his own departure, that he should break up the peace by a man-slaying; and he had used the stone hatchet, which he had stolen from Alrek's unconscious body, because that chanced to be his only weapon when a moment later he came unexpectedly upon the Skraelling.

But only Biorn, his foster-father, stayed to hear more. At the first cry, Karlsefne had crossed the booth in three strides and vanished through the door, and Gudrid had followed him, and the three Champions. And now the maids and the throng of men turned from Hallad and streamed out into the clearing air and across the green toward the Champions' booth, beyond which a knot of people stood under a pine-tree from whose outreaching bough dangled a grape-vine noose.

The loop was empty, for Alrek Sword-Bearer stood below, freed of his bonds, his head bent over Gudrid's hands; and Karlsefne was speaking with a quiver in his deep voice:

"I will make this up to you a hundredfold. My smiths shall build you another ship and a finer one, and you shall furnish it from my stores and have the rule over it and take it where you choose. My own son shall have no larger share in my property and my honor and my love."

Alrek lifted his brown eyes, glowing golden like the sunshine filtering through the rain-washed air; through lips not yet steady, he answered: "The debt will be more than paid."

Suddenly Karlsefne laid a hand upon his shoulder and spoke so that all around could hear: "I will call no voyage unlucky which has brought me to know a man with so high a mind and so brave a heart. I look on this as a proof that good intentions will get the victory over evil in the most unexpected way; and I will take it as an omen that the good which I have tried to get out of this land for my countrymen will come to them yet in some way which I can not now see. We will go back neither bitterly nor despairingly, but giving thanks for the good we have received and cherishing hope for the future. Now, it is my offer and will that every one in hearing shall come to-night to the best feast I can make, in honor of the Chief of the Vinland Champions and his men."

It is a good thing that he intended to stop there for not another word could be heard, such jubilating and weapon-clatter went up; and the Champions took their chief upon their shoulders and bore him back in triumph, followed by a cheering train.

THE END

EPILOGUE

These are the rest of the sayings about this expedition.

All the ships came safely to Greenland except the vessel of Biorn Gudbrandsson, which was driven out into the ocean that stretches between Greenland and Iceland and there came into a worm-filled sea. By the time Biorn had discovered their danger, the ship was worm-eaten beneath them; and it was seen that the only way was to go down into their long-boat which was coated with seal tar. Since the boat was too small to hold more than half of them, they cast lots for the places; and it fell to Biorn and half of the men to go down in safety, while the other half remained with the sinking vessel. No one thought of making any fuss about this save the boy who had come with Biorn from Iceland. When he saw the others go down into the boat, he began to whimper:

"Do you intend, Biorn, to leave me here?"

Biorn glanced up at him absently. "So it seems," he answered.

The boy began to sob. "You did not promise my father that you would part from me like this, when I left Iceland with you," he said. "You promised that we should always share the same fate."

Biorn made the men a sign that they were not yet to cast the boat loose. Big-hearted kindliness was in his voice as always.

"So be it," he answered. "It shall not remain this way, since you are so eager for life. Do you come down here and I will go up on the ship."

It may be imagined that the young Icelander lost little time obeying. When he had come down, the chief went back upon the vessel; and the two parties separated. In time, the men of the long-boat came to Dublin in Ireland, where they told this story; but it is believed by most people that Biorn and those with him went down in the sea of worms, for they were never heard of again.

It is but little more than this which is known about the fate of the Huntsman and his followers. One time, traders came back to Greenland with the tale that Thorhall had been shipwrecked in Ireland, and that his men had been made thralls of and grievously misused, and that he had met his death there. No one ever got other tidings than these.

Better luck went with Thorfinn Karlsefne and Gudrid and those in their following, for the summer after they had landed in Greenland they went home to Iceland, and lived there in great splendor and happiness; and many famous men and high-minded women have descended from them.

Best luck of all, the foretelling of Karlsefne has come true; and despite delays and hindrances, his countrymen have found a peace-land and a never-emptied treasure-house not only in Vinland the Good but in the whole of the new-world country which those who are alive to-day call America the Free.

* * * * *

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End of Project Gutenberg's The Vinland Champions, by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz