So they were bound and fettered.

After that the Earl fell asleep; but when all men slept, Grim spoke to Helgi, and said, “Away would I get if I could”.

“Let us try some trick then,” says Helgi.

Grim sees that there lies an axe edge up, so Grim crawled thither, and gets the bowstring which bound him cut asunder against the axe, but still he got great wounds on his arms.

Then he set Helgi loose, and after that they crawled over the ship’s side, and got on shore, so that neither Hacon nor his men were ware of them.  Then they broke off their fetters and walked away to the other side of the island.  By that time it began to dawn.  There they found a ship, and knew that there was come Kari Solmund’s son.  They went at once to meet him, and told him of their wrongs and hardships, and showed him their wounds, and said the Earl would be then asleep.

“Ill is it,” said Karl, “that ye should suffer such wrongs for wicked men; but what now would be most to your minds?”

“To fall on the Earl,” they say, “and slay him.”

“This will not be fated,” says Kari; “but still ye do not lack heart, but we will first know whether he is there now.”

After that they fared thither, and then the Earl was up and away.

Then Kari sailed in to Hlada to meet the Earl, and brought him the Orkney scatts; so the Earl said—­

“Hast thou taken Njal’s sons into thy keeping?”

“So it is, sure enough,” says Kari.

“Wilt thou hand Njal’s sons over to me?” asks the Earl.

“No, I will not,” said Kari.

“Wilt thou swear this,” says the Earl, “that thou wilt not fall on me with Njal’s sons?”

Then Eric, the Earl’s son, spoke and said—­

“Such things ought not to be asked.  Kari has always been our friend, and things should not have gone as they have, had I been by.  Njal’s sons should have been set free from all blame, but they should have had chastisement who had wrought for it.  Methinks now it would be more seemly to give Njal’s sons good gifts for the hardships and wrongs which have been put upon them, and the wounds they have got.”

“So it ought to be, sure enough,” says the Earl, “but I know not whether they will take an atonement.”

Then the Earl said that Kari should try the feeling of Njal’s sons as to an atonement.

After that Kari spoke to Helgi, and asked whether he would take any amends from the Earl or not.

“I will take them,” said Helgi, “from his son Eric, but I will have nothing to do with the Earl.”

Then Kari told Eric their answer.

“So it shall be,” says Eric.  “He shall take the amends from me if he thinks it better; and tell them this too, that I bid them to my house, and my father shall do them no harm.”

This bidding they took, and went to Eric’s house, and were with him till Kari was ready to sail west across the sea to meet Earl Sigurd.