Again Rolf’s voice became fairly caressing in its gentleness.  “Willingly will I endure your struggles if it pleases you to employ your strength that way, comrade; yet I tell you that it would be wiser for you to spare yourself.  I shall not let you go, whatever you do; whereas if you lie quietly, I will permit you to move where you can see what is going on.  It looks as though it would become interesting.”

It did indeed.  At that moment, wearying perhaps of the howls, the brown men began to make experiments with a view toward changing the tune.  Closing in upon the thrall, they commenced to feel of his clothing and his shaven head, and to pinch him tentatively between their lean fingers.

A redoubling of his outcries caused a spasm of frantic writhing in Alwin’s fettered body, but Rolf’s manner was as serene as before.

“See now what you are missing by your head-strongness,” he reproved his captive.  “It is seldom that men have the opportunity to sit, as we sit, and learn from the experience of another what would have been their fate had their fortune been equally bad.  Such great luck is it that I get almost afraid for your ingratitude.  It will be a great mercy if some god does not punish you for your thanklessness...  By Thor!  In his terror the fool has attacked them...  Ah!”

From below came a sudden snarl, a sudden savage yell, the noise of struggling bodies, and then a shriek of another kind from Kark, no longer a cry of mere apprehension, but a sharp piercing scream of bodily agony.

“Let me go!” Alwin panted through his muffled jaws.  “It is a nithing deed for us—­to permit the death of one of our number—­so.  Let me go, Rolf—­he is a human being.  Let me go!”

A man of wood could not have been more relentless than Rolf; a man of stone could hardly have been less moved.

He argued the matter amiably:  “It is true that by some mistake or other Kark wears a man’s shape,” he admitted; “yet it is easily seen that in every other respect he is a dog.  Indeed I think there are few dogs that have less of courage and loyalty.  Take the matter sensibly, comrade.  If you cannot rejoice in the death of your enemy, at least consider what interest it is thus to study the habits of dwarfs.  The cur who was useless during his life, will be honored by serving a good purpose in his death.  Leif will think it of great importance to learn how these creatures are disposed toward white men.  They have the most unusual methods of amusing themselves.  Now they are doing things to his ears—­” Renewed shrieks for help and mercy drowned the remainder of his words, and called forth fresh exertions from Alwin.

But when at last the Fearless One ceased, and lay spent and panting against the brawny chest, he became aware that the cries were growing fainter.

“Though they have in no way hurried the matter, I believe that he is almost dead now,” Rolf comforted his captive.