were spread over them; fox skins covered the benches, and wolf skins lay under foot.  The chief’s seat no longer boasted carven pillars or embroidered pillows, but it missed none of these when the great bear skin had been flung over the cushions of fragrant pine-needles.  And if the table-service was not so fine as the gilded vessels on Eric’s board, yet the fish and flesh and fowl that piled the trenchers, and the purple juice that brimmed the horns, had never been equalled in Greenland.

“Only to get such wine, the journey would be worth while,” Rolf murmured to the shield-maiden, beside whom he sat, when at last the business of eating was over and the pleasure of drinking had begun.  As he spoke he tilted his head back, with closed eyes and a beatific smile, and let the contents of his horn run slowly down his throat.

Even a woman might have had the sense to leave him undisturbed at such a moment; yet Helga bent forward and jogged his arm without compunction.

“Are you going to be forever swallowing?” she whispered, sharply.  “Look across the fire and tell me what Alwin is doing with his hands.  He has turned aside so that I cannot see.”

It was with a distinct bang that the Wrestler set down his empty cup, and in a distinct snarl that his answer came over his shoulder.  “Not a few men have been slain for such rudeness as that.  Why should I care what the Norman is doing?  Is it a time to be riding horseback or catching fish?  Since there is no babbling woman at his elbow, it is likely that he is drinking.”

But Helga’s hand did not loosen its hold upon his arm.

“Hush!” she entreated him.  “Something really is going to happen; he warned me of it.  Something of great importance.  You will act with no more than good will if you look and tell me what you see.”

Excitement is infectious; even through his sulks Rolf caught it, and leaning forward, he peered curiously over the flames.  The Norman sat in his usual place at the chief’s left hand.  It was evident that his thoughts were far away, for his drinking-horn stood forgotten at his elbow and he was humming absently as he worked.  His fingers were busy with a long splinter and a tuft of fox-hairs, that he was pulling carefully from the rug on which he sat.

Rolf’s eyes widened into positive alarm as he watched.  “He has the appearance of a crazy man!” he reported.  “Or it may be that he is making a charm and that is the weird song which he is mumbling.  See,—­he has finally drawn Leif’s attention upon him!”

“He is not acting without a purpose,” Helga persisted.  “He told me to watch him.  Look!  What is he doing now?”

Still humming, and with the leisurely air of one who works to please himself alone, the Norman completed his task and held the result up critically to the light.  It was nothing more nor less than a clumsy little fox-hair brush.  Leaning back on the bear skin the chief continued to gaze at it curiously.  But the pair across the fire suddenly turned to each other with a gasp of comprehension.