“I am sharpening Leif’s blade,” Kark struck in; he had indeed drawn a knife and sharpening-stone from his girdle.  “It is not becoming for me to leave the chief’s work for another task.”

The argument was unassailable.  To the unlucky man-of-all-work the steersman’s anger naturally reverted.

“Then you, idle dog that you are!  What is it that keeps you?  Would you have him attend on Leif and do your work as well?  You may choose one of two conditions:  go instantly or have your back cut into ribbons.”

If he had not added that, it is possible that Alwin would have obeyed; but to yield in the face of a threat, that was too low for his stiff-necked pride to stoop.  The earl-born answered haughtily, “Have your will,—­and I will have mine.”

If he had had any idea that they would not go so far, it was quickly dashed out of him.  One moment of struggle and confusion, and he found himself stripped to the waist, his hands bound to the mast, a man standing over him with a knotted thong of walrus hide.  All Sigurd’s furious eloquence could not restrain the storm of sickening blows.

On the other hand, if they had had the notion that their victim’s obstinacy would run from him with his blood, they also were mistaken.  The red drops came, but no sign of weakening.  At last, with the subsiding of his anger, Valbrand ordered him to be set free.

“The same shall overtake you if you are disobedient to me again,” was all he said.

Stripped and bloody, dizzy with pain and blind with rage, Alwin staggered forward, caught at Sigurd to save himself from falling, and looked unsteadily about him.  When he found what he sought, his wits were cleared as a foggy night by lightning.  With a hoarse cry, he caught up a fragment of broken oar and struck Kark over the head so that he fell stunned upon the deck, blood reddening his colorless face.

“In the Troll’s name!” Valbrand swore, after a moment of utter stupefaction.

Alwin laughed between his teeth at Sigurd’s despairing glance, and waited to feel the steersman’s knife between his ribs.  Instead, he was dragged aft to where the chief sat on the deck beside the steering-oar.

Leif was deep in consultation with his shrewd old foster-father.  Without pausing in his argument, he sent an impatient glance over his shoulder; when it fell upon the gory young madman, he turned sharply and faced the group.

Alwin was in the mood to suffer torture with a smile.  The more outrageous Valbrand depicted him, the better he was pleased.  Leif made no comment whatever, but sat pulling at his long mustaches and eying them from under his bushy brows.

When the steersman had finished, he asked, “Is Kark slain?”

Glancing back, Valbrand saw the bowerman sitting up and feeling of his wounds.  “Except a lump on his head, I do not think he is worse than before,” he answered.

“So,” said Leif with an accent of relief.  “Then it is not worth while to say much.  If he had been killed, his father would have taken it ill; and that would have displeased Eric and hurt my mission.  It would have become necessary for me to slay this boy to satisfy them.  Now it is of little importance.”