Skarphedinn laughed at that, and said—­

“Hear ye what the old man says?  He is not without his doubts.”

“When was it that thou spokest thus before?” asks Kari.

“When I slew Sigmund the white,” says Skarphedinn, “Gunnar of Lithend’s kinsman.”

“For what?” asks Kari.

“He had slain Thord Freedmanson, my foster-father.”

Njal went home, but they fared up into the Redslips, and bided there; thence they could see the others as soon as ever they rode from the east out of the dale.

There was sunshine that day and bright weather.

Now Thrain and his men ride down out of the Dale along the river bank.

Lambi Sigurd’s son said—­

“Shields gleam away yonder in the Redslips when the sun shines on them, and there must be some men lying in wait there.”

“Then,” says Thrain, “we will turn our way lower down the Fleet, and then they will come to meet us if they have any business with us.”

So they turn down the Fleet.  “Now they have caught sight of us,” said Skarphedinn, “for lo! they turn their path elsewhither, and now we have no other choice than to run down and meet them.”

“Many men,” said Kari, “would rather not lie in wait if the balance of force were not more on their side than it is on ours; they are eight, but we are five.”

Now they turn down along the Fleet, and see a tongue of ice bridging the stream lower down and mean to cross there.

Thrain and his men take their stand upon the ice away from the tongue, and Thrain said—­

“What can these men want?  They are five, and we are eight.”

“I guess,” said Lambi Sigurd’s son, “that they would still run the risk though more men stood against them.”

Thrain throws off his cloak, and takes off his helm.

Now it happened to Skarphedinn, as they ran down along the Fleet, that his shoe-string snapped asunder, and he stayed behind.

“Why so slow, Skarphedinn?” quoth Grim.

“I am tying my shoe,” he says.

“Let us get on ahead,” says Kari; “methinks he will not be slower than we.”

So they turn off to the tongue, and run as fast as they can.  Skarphedinn sprang up as soon as he was ready, and had lifted his axe, “the ogress of war,” aloft, and runs right down to the Fleet.  But the Fleet was so deep that there was no fording it for a long way up or down.

A great sheet of ice had been thrown up by the flood on the other side of the Fleet as smooth and slippery as glass, and there Thrain and his men stood in the midst of the sheet.