Alwin drew away in disgust from the touch of his ill-smelling garments.  As he did so, his eye fell upon Kark, who had laid hold of Thorwald’s companion and was talking rapidly in his ear.

The new-comer was not an amiable-looking man.  Above his gigantic body was a lowering face that showed a capacity for slyness or viciousness, whichever better served his turn.  As Kark talked to him, his brow grew blacker and he plucked savagely at his knife-hilt.  It dawned upon Alwin then that he must be Kark’s father, the steward Thorhall of whom Valbrand had spoken.

“In which case it is likely that something is about to happen,” he told himself, and tried to communicate the news to Sigurd.  But Thorwald stood between them, still pressing Leif’s hand.

When the hunter had passed on down the line of the crew, Thorhall came forward and greeted Leif with great civility.  Only as he was retiring his eye appeared to fall upon Alwin for the first time; he stopped in pained surprise.

“What is this I see, chief?  You have got another bowerman in place of my son, whom your father gave to you?  It must be that Kark has done something which you dislike.  Tell me what it is, and I will slay him with my own hand.”

Again Valbrand looked sideways at his master, as if to remind him that he had warned him of this.  Tyrker began to fumble at his beard with shaking hands, and to blink across at Eric.  This time they had attracted the Red One’s attention.  His palm was curved around his ear that he might not lose a word; his eyes were fastened upon Leif.

The guardsman’s face was as inscrutable as the side of his goblet.  “If Kark had deserved to be slain, he would not be living now.  He is less accomplished than this man, therefore I changed them.”

The steward bent his head in apparent submission.  “Now, as always, you are right.  Rather than a boorish Odin-man, better is it to have a man of accomplishments,—­even though he be a hound of a Christian.”  He turned away, as one quite innocent of the barb in his words.

An audible murmur passed down the line of Leif’s men.  No one doubted that this was Thorhall’s trap to avenge the slights upon his son.  Would the chief let this also pass by?  Though their faces remained set to the front, their eyes slid around to watch him.

Leif drew himself up haughtily and also very quietly.  “It is unadvisable for you to speak such words to me,” he said.  “I also am a Christian.”

Flint had struck steel.  Eric leaped to his feet in a blaze.

“Say that again!”

Thorwald and a dozen of the guests shook their heads frantically at him, but Leif repeated the declaration.

Crash!  Down went Eric’s goblet, to shiver into a thousand pieces on the table edge.  With a furious curse he flung himself back in his chair, and leaned there, panting and glaring.