“Hew’d we with the Hanger! 
  Hard upon the time ’t was
  When in Gothlandia going
  To give death to the serpent.”

Rolf had declined to go hunting, on the plea of his horse’s lameness.  Now, as he sat working and humming, he was presumably thinking up some other diversion,—­and the frequent glances he sent toward the thrall seemed to indicate that the latter was to be concerned in it.

Finally Rolf called to Alwin:  “Ho there, Englishman!  Come hither and tell me what you think of this for a weapon.”

It needed no urging to make Alwin exchange a broom for a sword.  He came and lifted the great blade, and made passes in the air, and examined the hilt of brass-studded wood.

“Saw I never a finer weapon,” he admitted.  “The hilt fits to one’s hand better than those gold things on Sigurd Haraldsson’s sword.  What is it called?” For in those days a good blade bore a name as certainly as a horse or a ship.

Rolf answered, in his soft voice:  “It is called ‘The Biter.’  And it has bitten not a few,—­but it is fitting that others should speak of that.  Since the handle fits your grasp so well, will you not hold it a little longer, while I borrow Long Lodin’s weapon here, and we try each other’s skill?” He made a motion to rise, then checked himself and hesitated:  “Or it may be,” he added gently, “that you do not care to strive against one as strong as I?”

“Now, by St. Dunstan, you need not spare me thus!” Alwin cried hotly.  “Never have I turned my back on a challenge; and never will I, while the red blood runs in my veins.  Get your weapon quickly.”  He shook the big blade in the air, and threw himself into a posture of defence.

But the Wrestler made no move to imitate him.  He remained sitting and slowly shaking his head.

“Those are fine words, and I say nothing against your sincerity; but my appetite has changed.  I will tell you what we will do instead.  When your work is done, we will betake ourselves across the river to Thorgrim Svensson’s camp and see the horse-fight he is going to have.  He has a black stallion of Keingala’s breed, named Flesh-tearer, that it is not necessary to prod with a stick.  When he stands on his hind legs and bites, you would swear he had as many feet as Odin’s gray Sleipnir.  Do you not think that would be good entertainment?”

For a moment Alwin did not know what to think.  He did not believe that Rolf was afraid of him; and if the challenge was withdrawn, surely that ended the matter.  A horse fight?  He had enjoyed no such spectacle as that since the Michaelmas Day when his father had the great bear-baiting in the pit at his English castle.  And a ramble through the sun and the wind, a taste of liberty—!

“It seems to me that it would be very enjoyable,” he agreed.  He started eagerly to finish his work, when a thought caught him like a lariat and whirled him back.  “I am forgetting the yoke upon my neck, for the first time in a twelvemonth!  Is it allowed a dog of a slave to seek entertainment?”