Alwin said slowly:  “If he discovers what I have done, I will endure any punishment he chooses, because I owe him some obedience while I eat his bread and wear his clothes.  But I am not his born thrall, so I will have my own way first.  Urge me no more, brother; my mind is fixed.”

Sigurd released him instantly.  “I will say nothing further,—­except that it is my intention to try my luck with you.”  Stooping into the recess, he drew out an-other pair of skees and began to fasten them on.

At the prospect of companionship, Alwin felt a rush of relief,—­then a twinge of compunction.

“Sigurd, you must not do this thing.  There is no reason why you should run this risk.”

“There would be no reason why you should call me your friend if I did otherwise,” Sigurd cut him short.  “Do you think me a craven, to let you go alone where you might be tricked or murdered?  Have you a weapon?”

“Leif will not allow me so much as a dagger, so to-night I borrowed from his table the old brass-hilted knife that Eric gave him in his boyhood.  It is unlikely that he will miss that.  I have it here.”  Throwing back his cloak, he showed it thrust through his girdle.

“Come, then,” said Sigurd curtly.  “And have a care for your skees.  You are not over-skilful yet.”

He caught up the long staff that acts something like a balance-pole in skeeing, and darted away.  Alwin followed, with an occasional prod of his staff into a shadow that seemed thicker than it should be.  By a side-gate, they left the courtyard and struck out across the fields, where the snow was packed as hard as a road-bed.  Noiseless as birds, and almost as swift, they skimmed along over the snow-clad plains and half-frozen marshes.

As was to have been expected, the young Viking was an expert.  To see him shoot down a hillside at lightning speed, his skees as firmly parallel as though they were of one piece, his graceful body bending, balancing, steering, was to see the next best thing to flying.  Alwin’s runners threw him more than once, lapping one over the other as he was zigzagging up a slope, so that he tripped and rolled until a snow-bank stopped him.

As he regained his feet after one of these interruptions, he made some angry remark; but beyond this there was little said.  It was a dreary night to be on an uncanny errand, with a chill in the air that seemed to freeze the heart.  A fitful, spiteful wind drove the clouds like frightened sheep, and strove to blow out the pale patient moon.  Sometimes it seemed almost to succeed; suddenly, when they most needed light to guide their six-foot runners between the great boulders, the light would go out like a torch in the water.  The gusts lay in wait for them at the corners, to leap out and lash their faces with a shriek that chattered their teeth.  The lulls between the gusts were even worse; it seemed as though the whole world were holding its breath in dread.  They held theirs, darting uneasy glances at the glacier wall glittering far ahead of them.