After peering at him curiously for awhile, as though trying to divine his wishes, his shrewd old foster-father put aside the chess-board on which they had been playing, and hobbled over and laid a soothing hand on the girl’s arm.

“Speak you of Gilli?” he inquired.  “Tell to us how he has ill-treated you.”

It was only very slightly that the pause had cooled Helga’s valor.

“He has treated me like a horse that traders deck out in costly things, and parade up and down for men to see and offer money for,” she answered hotly.

Though they knew Gilli’s conduct was entirely within the law, and there was not a man there who might not have done the same thing, they all grunted contemptuously.  Tyrker stroked his beard, with an-other sidelong glance at his foster-son, as he said, cautiously: 

“So? Aber,—­how have you managed it from him to escape?”

“Little was there to manage.  As I told you, he loaded me with precious things; after which he left me to sit at home with his weak-minded wife, while he went on a trading voyage, as was his wont.  A horse brought me to Nidaros; gold bought me a passage with Arnor Gunnarsson, and his ship brought me into Eric’s Fiord.”

Then, for the first time, Leif spoke.  His words leaped out like wolves eager for a victim.

“Do not stop there!  Tell how you passed from his ship into mine.  Tell whom you found in Eric’s Fiord who became a traitor for your gold.”

She answered him bravely:  “No one, kinsman.  No one received so much as a ring from me.  May the Giant take me if I lie!  I swam the distance between the ships under the cover of darkness, and—­”

His voice crashed through hers like a thunder-peal:  “Who kept the watch on board, last night?”

Half a dozen men started in sudden consternation; but they were spared the peril of a reply, for Sigurd Haraldsson stepped out of the throng and stood at Helga’s side.

“I kept the watch last night, foster-father,” he said, quietly.  “Let none of your men suffer in life or limb.  It was I who received her on board, while it was the others’ turn to sleep; and I alone who hid her in the foreroom.”

Those who had hoped that Leif’s love for his foster-son might outweigh his anger, gauged but poorly the force of the resentment he had been holding back.  At this offer of a victim which it was free to accept, his anger could no more be restrained than an unchained torrent.  It burst out in a stream of denunciation that bent Sigurd’s handsome head and lashed the blood into his cheeks.  Coward and traitor were the mildest of its reproaches; contempt and eternal displeasure were the least of its dooms.  Though Helga besought with eyes and hands, the torrent thundered on with a fury that even the ire of Eric had never surpassed.

Only a lack of breath brought it finally to an end.  The chief dashed himself back into his chair, and leaned there, panting and darting fiery glances from under his scowling brows,—­now at Rolf and the Norman, now at Helga, and again at the motionless figure of Sigurd Haraldsson, silently awaiting his pleasure.  When he spoke again, it was with the suddenness of a blow.