after I had spoken with him.  So I loitered about until the man went away, which he did slowly, passing close to me, and looking at the boats carefully, as if he would remember them.  Then I went and asked the men to whom he had been speaking what he wanted.  They said that they wondered that he had not spoken to me, for he had been asking about my father and of his ship, and if he took any passenger with him this voyage.  It would seem that he wanted to sail with us, from all he said.

Certainly he had begun by asking whose boats these were, and wondered that a merchant should go fishing at all, when there was no need for him to do so.  Also he had asked if Grim had been out last night, and they had of course told him that he had not, for neither boat had been shifted from the berth she had been given when we came in at dusk.

“Ah,” he had said, “well did I wot that your merchant would do no night work,” and so made a jest of the matter, saying that in his country it were below the state of a merchant to have aught to do with a thrall’s work.  He was certainly a Norseman, and they thought that I should find him with my father.  Now I thought otherwise, and also I saw that all was known.  This man was a spy of Hodulf’s, and would go straight back to his master.  My father must hear of this at once; and I hurried back to the ship, and took him aside and told him.  And as I did so his face grew grey under the tan that sea and wind had given it, and I knew not altogether why.

“Tell Arngeir to come to me,” he said; “I am going to the jarl.  Tell no one, but go home and say to mother that I shall be with her in an hour.  Then come back and work here.”

Then he and Arngeir went to Sigurd, and told him all from the beginning.  And when the jarl heard, he was glad for the safety of the queen and of Havelok, but he said that there was no doubt that Denmark was no place for Grim any longer.

“That is my thought also,” said my father; “but now am I Havelok’s foster-father, and for him I can make a home across the sea, where I will train him up for the time that shall surely come, when he shall return and take his father’s kingdom.”

“That is well,” the jarl said, “but you have little time.  What Hodulf will do one cannot say, but he may come here with his men behind him to force me to give you up, and the town will be searched for Havelok, and both he and the queen will be lost.”

“If that is so,” my father answered, “we have time enough.  Two hours for the spy to reach his master; one hour for Hodulf to hear him, and to bethink himself; an hour for gathering his men; and four hours, at the least, in which to get here.  Eight hours, at the least, have we, and the tide serves in six.  I had thought of waiting till dark, but that is of no use now.  We may as well go, for there are true men here, who will wait to welcome him who flies when he comes again.”

“This is a sore wrench for you and yours, good friend and faithful,” Sigurd said, “but it must be.  Nevertheless I can make your loss as little as it may be.  You shall sell all that is yours to me at your own price, that you may have the means to make a new home well, wherever you may choose.”