The Thrall of Leif the Lucky
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Ottilie A. Liljencrantz >> The Thrall of Leif the Lucky
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With glad applause, they hailed Leif's proclamation from under the
budding maple-tree:
"Four weeks from to-day, if the season continues to be a forward one, it
is likely that the pack-ice around the mouth of Eric's Fiord will be
sufficiently broken to let us through. Four weeks from to-day, God
willing, we will set sail for Greenland."
The camp entered upon a period of bustling activity. Carpenters fell to
work on the re-furnishing of the ship, until all the quiet bay echoed
with their pounding. With infinite labor, the great logs were floated
down the river and hauled on board. Porters toiled to and from the shore
with loads of grain-sacks and wine-kegs. The packers in the store-houses
buzzed over the wealth of fruit like so many bees. Even Kark the
Indolent caught the infection, and clashed his pots and kettles with
joyful energy.
"A little time more, and the death-wolf shall claim his due," he sang
over his work. "Only a little time more, and the death-wolf shall claim
his due!"
On the morning of the last day in Vinland, Robert the Norman wrote the
last word in the grotesque exploring record and laid down the brush
forever.
"That ends the matter, chief," he said slowly.
They sat in the larger of the sleeping-houses, as they had sat on that
December night when the work was begun. But now a flood of yellow
sunlight fell through the open door, and a flowering pink bush flattened
its sweet face against the window.
Leif regarded him with dull, absent eyes. "Yes, it is ended," he said,
reluctantly; and was silent for so long that the young man looked up in
surprise.
An odd expression of something like regret was on the chief's face. As
he met his companion's glance, he laughed a short harsh laugh that had
in it less of mirth than of scorn.
"It is ended," he repeated. "And though I know no better than yourself
why it is that I am such a fool, yet I find myself full of sorrow
because it is finished. I feel that I have lost out of my life something
that was dear to me." He relapsed into another frowning silence; when he
came out of it, it was only to motion toward the door. "No sense is in
this," he said, savagely; "yet the mood has me, hand and foot. I am in
no temper to talk of anything. To-night we will speak of your reward. Go
now and spend the rest of the day as best pleases you."
He did not look up as his follower obeyed: he sat brooding over the
great white roll as though it were the dead body of some one whom he had
loved.
Out in the blithe spring sunshine, the men stood around in little
groups, making hilarious plans for the day's sport. The preparations for
the departure being completed, a day of untrammelled freedom lay before
them; and what pastime is so dull that it is not given a zest and a
relish by the thought that it is engaged in for the last time? In
uproarious good spirits, they whetted their knives for a last hunt, and
called friendly challenges across to each other. Inviting them to a
wrestling bout, Rolf's voice rose loudest of all; but though much
laughter and some gibing came in response, there were no acceptances.
When the Norman came out of the booth, the Wrestler ceased his
proclamations and strolled to meet his friend with a welcoming smile.
"Now I think Leif has behaved well," he said, heartily, "to remember
that the last day in such a place as Vinland the Good is far too
precious to be wasted on monkish tasks. Sigurd will get angry with
himself that he did not wait longer for your coming."
A shade of disappointment fell over the Norman's face.
"Where has Sigurd gone?" he asked. "He swam out to an island in the bay
where he has a favorite fishing-place he cannot bear to leave without
another visit."
"And Helga? Where is she?"
The Wrestler looked at him in surprise. "She has gone into the woods
somewhere, with Tyrker; but surely you would not be so mad as to accost
her, even were she before you."
Alwin answered with an odd smile. "A man who is about to die will do
many things that would be madness in a man who has life before him," he
said. His eyes gazed into his friend's eyes with sombre meaning. "I
finished the records this morning."
"You finished the records this morning?" Rolf repeated incredulously.
A note of impatience sharpened the other's voice. "I fail to understand
what there is in that which surprises you. Certainly you must have heard
Leif say, last night, that a hundred words more would end the work. And
it was your own judgment that Kark would wait no longer than its
completion--"
Rolf struck the tree they leaned against, with sudden vehemence. "The
snake!" he cried. "That, then, is why he showed his fangs at me this
morning in such a jeering smile. Yet, how could I believe that a man of
your wit would allow such a thing to come to pass? With a mouthful of
words you could have persuaded Leif that there was a host of things
which he had forgotten. You could have prolonged the task--"
Alwin shook his head with stern though quiet decision.
"No, I have had enough of lying," he said. "Not for my life, nor for
Helga's love, will I carry this deceit further. Such a smothering fog
has it become around me, that I can neither see nor breathe through its
choking folds... But let us leave off this talk. Since it is likely that
my limbs will have a long rest after to-night, let us spend to-day
roving about in search of what sport we can find. If I may not pass my
last day with the man and woman that I hold dearest, still you are next
in my love; you will accompany me, will you not?"
"Wherever you choose," Rolf assented.
They set forth as silently as on that spring morning, two years before,
when they had set out from the Norwegian camp to witness Thorgrim
Svensson's horse-fight. Now, as then, the air was golden with spring
sunshine, and the whole world seemed a-throb with the pure joy of
living. There was gladness in the chirp of the birds, and content in the
drone of the insects; and all the squirrels in the place seemed to be
gadding on joyful errands, for one could not turn a corner that a group
of them did not scatter from before his feet. So common a thing as a
dewdrop caught in a cobweb became more beautiful than jewel-spangled
lace. The rustling of the quail in the brush, even the glimpse of a
coiled snake basking on a sunny spot of earth, was fraught with interest
because it spoke of life, glad and fearless and free.
They visited the nook on the bluff, screened once more in fragrant,
rustling greenness; then descended to the river and walked along its
bank, mile after mile. Here and there, they turned aside and threaded
their way through the thicket to take a last look at the scene of some
fondly recollected hunt, or to inspect some of the traps which they
remembered to be there. But when in one snare they found a wretched
little rabbit, still alive but frantic with terror, Alwin laid a
detaining hand on Rolf's knife.
"Let him go," he said, shortly. "You have no need of him, and his life
is all he has. Let him keep it,--for my sake."
He did not stay to watch the white dot of a tall go bobbing away over
the ferns. He hurried on rather shamefaced; and when Rolf overtook him,
they walked another mile without speaking.
Along in the middle of the forenoon they reached a point on the river
where the banks no longer rose in bluffs but lay in grassy slopes,
fringed with drooping trees. The sun was hot overhead, and their clothes
were heavy upon their backs. Rolf suggested that they stop long enough
for a swim.
"That will do as well as anything," Alwin assented. But when the
delicious coolness of the water had closed about him, and he felt its
velvet softness on his dusty skin, he decided that it was the best thing
they could have done. The lounge upon the grassy bank, while they dried
themselves in the sun, was dreamily pleasant. Even after he had gathered
sufficient energy to get into his clothes again, Alwin lingered lazily,
waiting for his companion to make the first move toward departure.
"This is a restful spot," he said, gazing up at the sky through the
network of interlacing branches. "It gives one the feeling that it is so
far away that no human foot has ever trod it before, and that none will
ever come again when we have left."
From the ant-hill which he was idly spearing with grass-blades, Rolf
looked up to smile. "Then your feelings are not to be trusted, comrade,"
he said; "for there are few spots on the river which our men have more
frequented. Even that lazy hound of a thrall comes here almost daily to
look at the quail-traps in yonder thicket, that being the one food which
he likes well enough to make an exertion for. Would that he would visit
them to-day!"
Alwin did not seem to hear him. His eyes were still intent on the
swaying tree-tops. "It is a fair land to be alive in," he said,
dreamily; "yet, I cannot help wondering how it will be to be dead here.
Does it not seem to you that if my spirit comes out of its grave at
night and finds none but wolves and bears to call to, it will experience
a loneliness far worse than the pangs of death? Think of it! In this
whole land, not one human spirit! To wander through the grove and the
camp, and find only emptiness and silence forever!"
His body stiffened suddenly, and he flung his arms high above his head
and clenched his hands in agony.
"God!" he cried. "What have I done to make me deserving of such a doom?
Why could I not have died when Leif cut me down? Why could I not have
been buried where human feet would pass over me, and human voices fall
on my ear at night?" He flung himself over on his face and lay there
motionless.
Rolf laid a hand on his comrade's shoulder, and for once his voice was
honestly kind. "It is hard to know what to say to you, Alwin, my friend.
You who have borne trials so manfully have a right to a better fate.
There is only one thing which I can offer you: choose what man you
will--so long as he be no one with whom I have sworn friendship--and I
promise you that before we sail to-morrow, I will pick a quarrel with
him and slay him; so that, if worst comes, your spirit shall have at
least one ghost for company. I--"
He did not finish his sentence. Suddenly his touch upon Alwin's arm
became an iron grip, that dragged the Saxon to his feet.
"Look!" the Wrestler gasped, as he pulled him behind the great oak in
whose shelter they had been lying. "Look! Are those ghosts, or devils?"
Half-dazed, Alwin could do no more than stare along the pointing finger.
On the opposite bank, some hundred yards below their point of
observation, stood two long-haired, skin-clad men. Another pair had
already plunged into the river and were nearly half-way across. And as
the white men gazed, four more beings crashed out of the underbrush and
joined their companions.
"Praise the Saint who hung leaves upon the trees as thick as curtains!"
Rolf breathed in his comrade's ear. "Up with you, for your life! And
make no rustling about it either."
With the agility of cats they went up the great bole, and the kind
leaves closed behind them.
"Is it your opinion that they are ghosts, or devils?" Alwin asked, when
each had stretched himself along a branching limb and begun a curious
peering through chinks in the enveloping foliage. "It has always been in
my mind that ghosts were white and devils black, while these creatures
appear to be of the color of bronze."
"We shall see more of them before the game is over," Rolf returned. "The
first ones are even now coming to land."
As he spoke, the two shaggy swimmers clambered out of the water, like
dripping spaniels, on the very spot that the white men's bodies had
pressed less than an hour before.
"I am glad that we are not now lying there without our clothes," Alwin
murmured.
And Rolf ejaculated under his breath, "Now it is certain that I would
rather be the only human being in the land than be in company with such
as these, granting them to be human. For by Thor's hammer, they have
more the appearance of dwarfs than of men!"
They were not imposing, certainly, from all that could be seen of them
through the leaves. Two of their lean arms would not have made one of
the Wrestler's magnificent white limbs, and the tallest among them could
not have reached above Alwin's shoulders. Skins were their only
coverings; and the coarseness of their bristling black locks could have
been equalled only in the mane of a wild horse. Though two of the eight
were furnished with bows and arrows, the rest carried only rudely-shaped
stone hatchets, stuck in their belts. When they began talking together,
it was in a succession of grunts and growls and guttural sounds that
bore more resemblance to animal noises than to human speech.
Rolf sniffed with contempt. "Pah! Vermin! I think we could put the whole
swarm to flight only by drawing our knives."
But at that moment one of the number below raised his face so that Alwin
caught a glimpse of the fierce beast-mouth and the small tricky eyes in
the great sockets. The Saxon lifted his eyebrows dubiously.
"I am far from certain how that attempt would end," he answered. "Though
it is likely that it will have to be tried, if their intention is to
settle here for the day, as it appears to be."
The men of the stone hatchets had indeed settled themselves with every
look of remaining. Though one of the bowmen continued to pace the bank
like a sentinel, his fellows sprawled themselves upon the turf in
comfortable attitudes, carrying on their uncouth conversation with deep
earnestness.
"We shall certainly have to stay here all day if we do not do
something," Rolf bent from his branch to whisper to his companion. Alwin
did not answer, for at that moment the harsh voices below ceased
abruptly, and there ensued a hush of listening silence.
Up in the tree, Saxon gray eyes and Norse blue ones asked each other an
anxious question; then answered it with decided head-shakes. It was
impossible that their whispers could have carried so far, or have
penetrated the growl of those voices. It must have been some noise from
beyond. They strained their ears, anxiously intent.
There was no trouble in hearing it this time; it rose shrill and
piercing on the drowsy noon air, a man's whistle, rapidly approaching
from the direction of the Norse camp.
While Alwin listened with dilated eyes, Rolf's lips shaped just one
word: "Kark!"
Almost without breathing they lay peering out between the leaves. At the
first sound, the men below had leaped to their feet and grasped their
weapons. Now, after a muttered word together, they drew apart
noiselessly as shadows and vanished among the bushes, without so much as
the snapping of a twig. Smiling innocently in the sunlight, the little
nook lay as peaceful and empty as before.
Nearer and nearer came the whistler; until the crunching of his feet
could be heard upon the dead leaves. Rolf pushed the hair out of his
eyes, and settled himself to watch with a sigh of almost child-like
pleasure.
"Here is sport! Here is a chess game where the pieces are not of ivory.
I would not have missed this for a gold chain!" he told his companion.
"Imagine Kark's face when they spring out upon him! So intent is his
mind upon your death, that he could walk into a pit with open eyes. You
can never be sufficiently thankful, Alwin of England, that the Fate
which destroys your enemy, gives you also the privilege of sitting by
and watching the fun."
Uncertainty was on Alwin's face, as he gazed down through the branches
and saw the thrall's white tunic suddenly appear among the green bushes.
He said slowly, "I do not dispute that it looks like the hand of
fate--and it is true that he is my enemy--that it is his life or mine--"
A wild yell of alarm cut him short. One by one the lean brown men were
gliding out of the bushes and forming in a silent circle around the
thrall. They offered him no harm; they did not even touch him; yet the
apparition of their shrivelled bodies in their animal-hides, with their
beast-faces looking out from under their bristling black locks, was
enough to try stouter nerves than Kark's. Shriek after shriek of maddest
terror rent the air.
Rolf smiled gently as he heard it. "About this time our friend below is
beginning to distinguish between death-wolves and death-foxes," he
observed.
Glancing at his comrade for a response to his amusement, his expression
changed. "What is it your intention to do?" he demanded sharply.
Alwin had drawn himself into a sitting posture; and with one hand was
tugging at the handle of his knife. He flushed shamefacedly at the
question, nor did he look up as he answered it.
"I am going down to help the beast," he said. "I cannot remedy it if I
am a fool. I do not deny that Kark is a cur; yet he is white, as we are;
and alone. I cannot watch his murder."
He brought his knife out with a jerk; and putting it between his teeth,
prepared to turn and descend.
Before he could make the move, Rolf had swung down from the limb above
and landed beside him. Under his weight the boughs creaked so loudly
that, but for the cover of Kark's cries, the pair must surely have been
discovered.
The Wrestler spoke without drawling or gentleness: "Either you are a
child or a silly fool. Do you understand that it is your enemy that they
are ridding you of? What is it to you if he is chopped to pieces? You
shall not stir one finger to aid him."
Forgetful of the dagger between his teeth, Alwin opened his mouth
angrily. The weapon slipped from his lips and fell, a shining streak
along the tree-trunk, and buried itself noiselessly in the soft sod
between the roots. The next instant, a scarf from Rolf's neck was wound
around the Saxon's jaws; one of the Wrestler's iron arms reached about
him and gathered him up against the broad chest; one of the Wrestler's
great hands closed around his wrists like fetters of iron; and a
muscular leg bent itself backward over his legs like a hoop of steel. As
well fight against steel or iron!
Again Rolf's voice became fairly caressing in its gentleness. "Willingly
will I endure your struggles if it pleases you to employ your strength
that way, comrade; yet I tell you that it would be wiser for you to
spare yourself. I shall not let you go, whatever you do; whereas if you
lie quietly, I will permit you to move where you can see what is going
on. It looks as though it would become interesting."
It did indeed. At that moment, wearying perhaps of the howls, the brown
men began to make experiments with a view toward changing the tune.
Closing in upon the thrall, they commenced to feel of his clothing and
his shaven head, and to pinch him tentatively between their lean
fingers.
A redoubling of his outcries caused a spasm of frantic writhing in
Alwin's fettered body, but Rolf's manner was as serene as before.
"See now what you are missing by your head-strongness," he reproved his
captive. "It is seldom that men have the opportunity to sit, as we sit,
and learn from the experience of another what would have been their fate
had their fortune been equally bad. Such great luck is it that I get
almost afraid for your ingratitude. It will be a great mercy if some god
does not punish you for your thanklessness... By Thor! In his terror the
fool has attacked them... Ah!"
From below came a sudden snarl, a sudden savage yell, the noise of
struggling bodies, and then a shriek of another kind from Kark, no
longer a cry of mere apprehension, but a sharp piercing scream of bodily
agony.
"Let me go!" Alwin panted through his muffled jaws. "It is a nithing
deed for us--to permit the death of one of our number--so. Let me go,
Rolf--he is a human being. Let me go!"
A man of wood could not have been more relentless than Rolf; a man of
stone could hardly have been less moved.
He argued the matter amiably: "It is true that by some mistake or other
Kark wears a man's shape," he admitted; "yet it is easily seen that in
every other respect he is a dog. Indeed I think there are few dogs that
have less of courage and loyalty. Take the matter sensibly, comrade. If
you cannot rejoice in the death of your enemy, at least consider what
interest it is thus to study the habits of dwarfs. The cur who was
useless during his life, will be honored by serving a good purpose in
his death. Leif will think it of great importance to learn how these
creatures are disposed toward white men. They have the most unusual
methods of amusing themselves. Now they are doing things to his ears--"
Renewed shrieks for help and mercy drowned the remainder of his words,
and called forth fresh exertions from Alwin.
But when at last the Fearless One ceased, and lay spent and panting
against the brawny chest, he became aware that the cries were growing
fainter.
"Though they have in no way hurried the matter, I believe that he is
almost dead now," Rolf comforted his captive.
Even as he spoke, the last faint cry ended in a gurgling choke,--and
there was silence.
Instantly the scarf was slipped from Alwin's mouth, and the living
fetters unclasped themselves from his limbs.
"Thanks to me--" Rolf was beginning.
The brief interval of silence was shattered by a cry from the sentinel
on the river bank, followed either by an echo or an answering whoop from
the opposite shore. Rolf stretched himself along the branch, just in
time to see the men below scatter in wildest confusion and plunge
headlong into the thicket.
"In the Troll's name!" he ejaculated. "When dwarfs run like that, giants
must be coming!"
Alwin had clambered to his feet, and stood with his head thrust up
through the leafy roof.
"It is more out of the same nest!" he gasped. "They are coming from the
other bank, swarms of them ....There! Some of them have landed..."
Rolf laughed his peculiar soft laugh of quiet enjoyment. "By Thor, was
there ever such a game!" he exclaimed. "I can see them now; they are
after the first lot like wolves after sheep--No, Kark was the sheep!
These are the hunters after the wolves. Hear them howl!"
"The last ones have climbed out of the water," Alwin bent to report. "Do
they also follow?"
"As dogs follow deer. Saw I never such sport! When we can no longer hear
them, it will be time for us to run a race of our own."
Alwin made no answer, and they waited in silence. Gradually distance
drew soft folds over the sharp cries and muffled them, as women throw
their cloaks over the sharp swords of brawlers in the hall. Once again
the drone and the chirping became audible about them, and the smile of
the sunshine became visible in the air. It occurred to Alwin that the
peacefulness of nature was like the gentleness of the Wrestler; and
there floated through his head the saying of a wrinkled old nurse of his
childhood, "The English can die without flinching; the French can die
with laughs on their lips; but only the Northmen can smile as they
kill." When the last smothered shout was unmistakably dead, Rolf swung
himself down from the bough; hung there for an instant, stretching
himself comfortably and shaking the cramps out of his limbs, then let
himself down to the ground; and Alwin followed.
The soft sod lay trampled and gashed by the grinding heels; and the
lengthening shadows pointed dark fingers at the middle of the nook,
where a shapeless thing of white and red was lying.
Rolf bent over it curiously.
"It must be that these people love killing for its own sake, to go to so
much trouble over it," he commented. "Evidently it is not the excitement
of fighting which they enjoy, but the pleasure of torturing. I will not
be sure but what they are trolls after all."
"It was a devils' deed," Alwin said hoarsely. He looked down at the
ghastly heap with a shudder of loathing. "And we are not without guilt
who have permitted it. It is of no consequence what sort of a man he
was; he was a human being and of our kind,--and they were fiends. You
need not tell me that we could not help it," he added in fierce
forestalling. "Had he been Sigurd, we would have helped it or we would
both have lain like that."
Rolf shrugged his shoulders resignedly as they turned away. "Have it as
you choose," he assented. "At least you cannot deny that you were
helpless; let that console you. May the gallows take my body if you are
not the most thankless man ever I met! Here are you rid of your enemy,
and at the moment when he was most a hindrance to you, and not only do
you reap the reward of the deed, but you bear no dangerous
responsibility--"
He was checked by a glimpse of the face Alwin turned toward him. Pride
and loathing, passion and sternness, were all mingled in its expression.
The Saxon said slowly, "Heaven's mercy on the soul that reaps the reward
of this deed! Easier would it be to suffer these tortures a hundredfold
increased. Profit by such a deed, Rolf Erlingsson! Do you think that I
would live a life that sprang from such a death? To cleanse my hand from
the stain of such a murder, though the blood had but spattered on it, I
would hew it off at the wrist."
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