Leaning back against the bear skin to stretch his arms again and yawn, he added thoughtfully, “Your accomplishments have remedied my misfortune that last winter I was obliged to kill a youth who was of great value to me.”

The scribe sat thrusting his legs out before him and working the fingers of his cramped hand, in a stupor of weariness.  He awoke suddenly and, through the flickering light of the one remaining torch, shot a stealthy glance at the chief’s face.

After a while he said carelessly, “Obliged, chief?  How came that?  Could not his value outweigh his crime?”

Smothering a yawn, Leif rose to his feet and stood looking down at his follower, while he buckled his cloak around him.  “Yes,” he said, slowly; “yes, his value might have outweighed his crime,—­but not his deceit.  It was not only because he broke my strictest orders that I slew him; it was because, while pretending to submit to me, he was in truth scheming to get the better of me.  And because he and his hot-headed friend, Sigurd Haraldsson, had the ambition to penetrate the state of my feelings and handle me as you handle your writing-brush there.  Is it to be expected that a man would take it well to be fooled by a pair of boys?”

The Norman sat for a long time staring at a huge furry skin that hung on the wall in front of him.  It shook sometimes in the draught; and when the light flickered over it, it looked like some quivering shapeless animal, crouching to spring upon him out of the shadow.  After a while, he laughed harshly.

“If he was simple enough to expect that he could play with you and then survive the discovery of his trick, he deserved to die, for nothing more than his folly,” he said, bitterly.

He straightened himself suddenly and drew a long breath as though to speak further.  But at that moment the chief turned and left the booth.

While the Southerner stood looking after him, a sound like a smothered laugh came from the corner where Kark slept.  Alwin wheeled toward it; but before he could take a step, Rolf’s arm stretched out from his bunk by the high seat and caught his friend’s belt in a vise.

“It is unnecessary to soil your hands with snake’s blood, just now,” he said, gently.  “Besides serpent’s fangs, the thrall has also serpent’s cunning in his ugly head.  He knows that Leif will not, for any reason tongue can name, injure the man who is writing down his history.  Wait until the records are finished; then it will be time to act.”

He pulled his comrade clown on the bunk beside him, and held him there until the sleep of utter weariness had taken him into its safe-keeping.

CHAPTER XXVIII

“THINGS THAT ARE FATED”

The fir withers
That stands on a fenced field;
Neither bark nor foliage shelters it;
Thus is a man
Whom no one loves;
Why should he live long? 

          Ha’vama’l