“Already you have heard your sentence.  The fair words I spoke to Robert the Norman I spoke also to Alwin of England.  When I promised wealth and friendship and honor to Robert Sans-Peur, I promised them also to you.  Take the freedom and dignity which befit a man of your accomplishments and—­with one exception —­ask of me anything else you choose.”

With one exception!  Helga sprang forward and caught Leif’s hand imploringly in hers.  And Alwin, still upon his knee, reached out and grasped the chief’s mantle.

“Lord,” he cried, “you have been better to me, a hundredfold better, than I deserve!  Yet, would you be kinder still...  Lord, grant me this one boon, and take back all else that you have promised.”

The chief’s brawny hand touched Helga’s face caressingly.

“Do you still believe that I would rub salt on your wounds, if it were in my power to relieve you?” he reproached them.  “But one man in the world has the right to say where Helga shall be given in marriage; he is her father, Gilli of Trondhjem.  Already I have done him a wrong in permitting, by my carelessness, that one of thrall-estate should steal his daughter’s love.  In honor, I can do no less than guard the maiden safely until the time when he can dispose of her as pleases him.  I do not say that I will not use with him what influence I possess; yet I advise you against expecting anything favorable from the result.  I think you both know his mercy.”

CHAPTER XXX

FROM OVER The SEA

At night is joyful
He who is sure of travelling entertainment;
A ship’s yards are short;
Variable is an autumn night;
Many are the weather’s changes
In five days,
But more in a month. 

          Ha’vama’l

It developed, however, that the lovers’ chances for happiness did not hang upon so frail a thread as the mercy of Gilli of Trondhjem.  While the exploring vessel was still at sea, with the icy headlands of Greenland only just beginning to stand out clearly before her bow, unexpected tidings reached those on board.

Watching the chief, who stood by the steering oar, erect as the mast, his eyes piercing the distance ahead, Sigurd put an idle question.

“Can you tell anything yet concerning the drift-ice, foster-father?  And why do you steer the ship so close to the wind?”

Without turning his head, Leif answered shortly, “I am attending to my steering, foster-son.”

But as the jarl’s son was turning away, with a shrug of his shoulders for the rebuff, the chief added in the quick, curt tone that with him betrayed unwonted interest, “And I am looking at something else.  Where are your eyes that you cannot see anything remarkable?  Is that a rock or a ship which I see straight ahead?”

Sigurd’s aimless curiosity promptly found an object; yet after all the craning of his neck and squinting under his hand, he was obliged to confess that he saw nothing more remarkable than a rock.