Sigurd’s merry laugh rang out.  “Now that is having a cloak to wear on both sides, according to the weather!  If only Eric were so minded—­”

“Is Eric the ruler in Greenland?” Alwin interrupted.  All this while he had been looking from one to the other, listening attentively.

The two sons of Greenland chiefs answered “No!” in one breath.  Sigurd raised quizzical eyebrows.

“I admit that he is not the ruler in name, Greenland being a republic, but in fact—?”

They let him go on without contradiction.

“Thus it stands, Alwin.  Eric the Red was the first to settle in Greenland, therefore he owns the most land.  Besides Brattahlid, he owns many fishing stations; and he also has stations on several islands where men gather eggs for him and get what drift-wood there is.  And not only is he the richest man, but he is also the highest-born, for his father’s father was a jarl of Jaederan; and so—­”

It is to be feared that Alwin lost some of this.  He broke in suddenly:  “Now I know where it is that I have heard the name of Eric the Red!  It has haunted me for days.  In the trader’s booth in Norway a minstrel sang a ballad of ‘Eric the Red and his Dwarf-Cursed Sword.’  Know you of it?”

He was answered by the involuntary glances that the others cast toward the chief.

Rolf said with a shrug:  “It is bondmaids’ gabble.  There is little need to say that a dwarf cursed Eric’s sword, to explain how it comes that he has been three times exiled for manslaughter, and driven from Norway to Iceland and from Iceland to Greenland.  He quarrelled and slew wherever he settled, because he has a temper like that of the dragon Fafnir.”

A faint red tinged Egil’s dark cheeks.  “Nevertheless, Skroppa’s prophecy has come true,” he muttered, “that after the blade was once sheathed in the new soil of Greenland, it would bring no more ill-luck.”

“Skroppa!” cried Alwin.  But he got no further, for Sigurd’s hand was clapped over his mouth.

“Lower your voice when you speak that name, comrade,” the Silver-Tongued warned him.

“Do not speak it at all,” Egil interrupted brusquely.  “The English girl is coming aft.  It is likely she brings some message from Helga.”

They faced about eagerly.  Editha’s smooth brown head was indeed to be seen threading its way between the noisy groups.  They agreed that it was time they heard from the shield-maiden.  For her to take advantage of her womanhood, and turn the forecastle into a woman’s-house, and forbid their approach, was something unheard-of and outrageous.

“It would be treating her as she deserves if we should refuse to go now when she sends for us,” Egil growled, though without any apparent intention of carrying out the threat.

To the extreme amusement of his fellows, Sigurd began to settle his ornaments and rearrange his long locks.

“It may be that she accepts my invitation to play chess.  Leif spoke with her for a long time this afternoon; it is likely that he roused her from her black mood.”