On the other side of the fire Kark sat cross-legged upon the ground, skinning rabbits from a heap that had just been brought in by the trappers.  He looked up with an impudent grin.

“It is a good thing if your fortunes have mended at last, Sigurd Jarlsson.  It did not appear that the Norman brought you much luck in return for your support.”  He glanced toward that part of the table where the black locks of Robert the Fearless shone, sleek as a blackbird’s wing, in the morning sun.  “The Southerner has an overbearing face,” he added.  “It reminds me of someone I hate, though I cannot think who.”

Sigurd’s fiery impulse to cuff him was cooled by a sudden frost.  He said as carelessly as possible:  “You are a churlish fool; but it is likely you have seen Robert Sans-Peur in Nidaros.  He was there shortly before we came away.”

The thrall assented with a nod, but his interest seemed to have taken another turn, for after a while he said absently:  “You will call me fool again when I tell you who the Norman made me think of at first.  No other than that pig-headed English thrall that Leif killed last winter,—­if it were not that one is black and the other was white, and one is living and the other dead.”

He commenced to grin over his work, a veritable image of malice, quite unconscious that Sigurd’s eyes were blazing down upon his head.  By and by he broke into a discordant roar.

“Too great fun is it to keep silent over!  What can it matter, now that Hot-Head is dead?  Ah, that was a fine revenge!” He squinted boldly up into Sigurd’s face, though he did not raise his voice to be heard beyond.  “Did you know that it was not Thorhall the steward who found the knife that betrayed the English-man?  Did you dream of that, Jarl’s son?  Did you know that it was I who followed you out of the hall that night, and listened to you from the shadows, and followed your trail the next sunrise, until I came upon the knife at Skroppa’s very door?  You never suspected that, Jarl’s son.  I was too cunning to let you put your teeth into me.  Thorhall you could do no harm—­”

“Wretched spy!  Do you boast of your deed?” the young Viking interrupted hotly.  “What is to hinder my biting now?” He had leaped the flames, and his hand was on the other’s throat before he finished speaking.

But the thrall fought him off with unusual boldness.

“It is unadvisable for you to injure Leif’s property, Sigurd Haraldsson,” he panted.  “My life is of value to him now.  You are not yet out of disgrace.  It would be unadvisable for you to offend him again.”

However contemptible its present mouthpiece, that was the truth.  Sigurd paused, even while his fingers twitched with passion.  While he hesitated, a shout of summons from Valbrand decided the matter.  Loosening his hold, the young warrior vented his rage in one savage kick and hastened to join his comrades.

Twelve brawny Vikings with twelve short swords at their sides and twelve long knives in their belts, they stood forth, headed by Valbrand of the Flint-Face and—­by Tyrker!  The little German had left off the longest of his fur tunics; a very long knife indeed garnished his waist, and he used a spear for a staff.  Yet none of these preparations made him appear very formidable.  Sigurd stared at him in amazement.