The words burst rapturously from Helga’s lips:  “And he disowned me?”

Thorir stared at her in astonishment.  “Yes,” he said, pityingly.

It was just as well that he had not attempted a longer answer, for he never would have finished it.  Madness seemed suddenly to fall upon the ship.  In the face of her disinheritance, the shield-maiden was radiant.  Down in the waist of the ship, two youths who had caught the words threw up their hats with cheers.  Leif Ericsson himself laughed loudly, and snapped his fingers in derision.

“A mighty revenge!” he said.  “My kinswoman could have received no greater kindness at the churl’s hands.  Could she have accomplished it by a dagger-thrust, I doubt not that she would have let his base blood run from her veins long ere this.”

He turned to where Helga stood watching him, her heart in her eyes, and pulled her toward him and kissed her.

“You chose between honor and riches, kinswoman,” he said, “but while there is a ring in my pouch you shall never lack property; you have behaved like a true Norse maiden, and I am free now to say that I honor you for it.  Go the way your heart desires, without further hindrance.”

Helga stayed to press his hand to her cheek; then, before them all, without a thought of shame, she went the way that ended in her lover’s arms.

They stood side by side in the gilded prow, and he kissed her eyes twice for every tear they had shed; and he kissed her mouth thrice three times, and not a man in the whole world rose up to prevent him.  Side by side, they stood in the flying bow, a divinely modelled figure-head, gilded by the light of love.

CONCLUSION

As the sun’s last beams were fading from the mountain tops, the exploring vessel dropped anchor before Eric’s ship-sheds and the eager groups that had gathered on the shore at the first signal.  Not only idlers made up the throng, but the Red One himself was there, and Thorwald and every soul from Brattahlid; and with them half the high-born men of Greenland, who had lived for the last month as Eric’s guests, that they might be on hand for this occasion.  They shoved and jostled each other like schoolboys, as they crowded down to meet the first boat-load.

The ten sailors who stepped ashore were a prosperous looking band.  Their arms were full of queer pets; their pouches were stuffed with samples of wood and samples of wheat, and with nuts and with raisins.  All were sleek and fat with a year’s good living, and all jubilant with happiness and a sense of their own importance.  Even while their arms were clasping their sweethearts’ necks, they began to hint at their brave adventures and to boast of the grain and the timber and the wine.  The home-keepers heard just enough to set their curiosity leaping and dancing with eagerness for more.  And each succeeding boat-load of burly heroes worked their enthusiasm to a higher pitch.