“Ho!” said Thormod; “hold your peace for a while, and we will see what sort of pupil he had.”

Then he rose up and took his axe, and bade me take Halfden’s, which I did, not over willingly maybe, while Halfden stood by, smiling.

“I will not harm you,” said Thormod shortly, seeing that I was not over eager.  “See here!”

His ale horn stood on the low table where we had been sitting, and now he placed it on the gunwale, going from under the awning.  The men who sat along the decks looked up at him and were still.

Then he heaved up the axe with both hands and whirled it, bringing it down with such force that I looked to see both horn and gunwale shorn through.  But so skilful was he that he stayed that mighty stroke so that the keen edge of the axe rested on the horn’s rim without marking it, and all the men who were watching cried out: 

“Skoal {viii} to Thormod the axeman!”

“So,” said he; “now stand up and guard a stroke or two; only strike not as yet, for maybe your axe would go too far,” and he smiled grimly, as in jest.

But I had learned that same trick from the jarl.

Now Lodbrok had told me that when one has a stronger axeman to deal with than one’s self the first thing is to guard well.  So he had spent long hours in teaching me guard after guard, until I could not fail in them.

“I am ready,” I said, standing out before him.

Thormod feinted once or twice, then he let fly at me, striking with the flat of his axe, as one does when in sport or practice.  So I guarded that stroke as the jarl had taught me; and as I did so the men shouted: 

“Well done, Saxon!”

“No need to go further,” said Thormod, dropping his axe and grasping his wrist with his left hand; for that parry was apt to be hard on the arm of the man who smote and met it.  “That is the jarl’s own parry, and many an hour must he have spent in teaching you.  It is in my mind that he holds that he owes you his life.”

And from that time Thormod looked at me in a new way, as I felt.

Halfden was well pleased, and shouted: 

“Nay, Thormod; your turn to guard now; let Wulfric smite at you!”

“No, by Thor, that will I not,” he said; “he who taught to guard has doubtless taught to strike, and I would not have my head broken, even in play!”

Now he sat down, and I said, mindful of Lodbrok’s words: 

“It seems to me that I have been well taught by the jarl.”

“Aye, truly,” said Thormod; “he has taught you more than you think.”

Halfden would have me keep his axe, but I told him of that one which the jarl had made for me, and straightway he sent the boat for it, and when it came read the runes thereon.

“Now this says that you are right, Thormod!  Here has my father written ’Life for life’—­tell us how that was!”

So I said that it was my good fortune to cast him the line that saved his boat, and that was all.  But they made as much of that as did Lodbrok himself.  And when the men came from our ship, they brought that tale from our men also; so that they made me most welcome, and I was almost fain to get away from them.