“I am glad that we are not now lying there without our clothes,” Alwin murmured.

And Rolf ejaculated under his breath, “Now it is certain that I would rather be the only human being in the land than be in company with such as these, granting them to be human.  For by Thor’s hammer, they have more the appearance of dwarfs than of men!”

They were not imposing, certainly, from all that could be seen of them through the leaves.  Two of their lean arms would not have made one of the Wrestler’s magnificent white limbs, and the tallest among them could not have reached above Alwin’s shoulders.  Skins were their only coverings; and the coarseness of their bristling black locks could have been equalled only in the mane of a wild horse.  Though two of the eight were furnished with bows and arrows, the rest carried only rudely-shaped stone hatchets, stuck in their belts.  When they began talking together, it was in a succession of grunts and growls and guttural sounds that bore more resemblance to animal noises than to human speech.

Rolf sniffed with contempt.  “Pah!  Vermin!  I think we could put the whole swarm to flight only by drawing our knives.”

But at that moment one of the number below raised his face so that Alwin caught a glimpse of the fierce beast-mouth and the small tricky eyes in the great sockets.  The Saxon lifted his eyebrows dubiously.

“I am far from certain how that attempt would end,” he answered.  “Though it is likely that it will have to be tried, if their intention is to settle here for the day, as it appears to be.”

The men of the stone hatchets had indeed settled themselves with every look of remaining.  Though one of the bowmen continued to pace the bank like a sentinel, his fellows sprawled themselves upon the turf in comfortable attitudes, carrying on their uncouth conversation with deep earnestness.

“We shall certainly have to stay here all day if we do not do something,” Rolf bent from his branch to whisper to his companion.  Alwin did not answer, for at that moment the harsh voices below ceased abruptly, and there ensued a hush of listening silence.

Up in the tree, Saxon gray eyes and Norse blue ones asked each other an anxious question; then answered it with decided head-shakes.  It was impossible that their whispers could have carried so far, or have penetrated the growl of those voices.  It must have been some noise from beyond.  They strained their ears, anxiously intent.

There was no trouble in hearing it this time; it rose shrill and piercing on the drowsy noon air, a man’s whistle, rapidly approaching from the direction of the Norse camp.

While Alwin listened with dilated eyes, Rolf’s lips shaped just one word:  “Kark!”

Almost without breathing they lay peering out between the leaves.  At the first sound, the men below had leaped to their feet and grasped their weapons.  Now, after a muttered word together, they drew apart noiselessly as shadows and vanished among the bushes, without so much as the snapping of a twig.  Smiling innocently in the sunlight, the little nook lay as peaceful and empty as before.