ogether, and lowered overboard.

Then comes the earl with his band to Njal's sons, and asked if
Hrapp had come there.

They said that he had come.

The earl asked whither he had gone thence?

They said they had not kept eyes on him, and could not say.

"He," said the earl, "should have great honour from me who would
tell me where Hrapp was."

Then Grim said softly to Helgi, "Why should we not say, What know
I whether Thrain will repay us with any good?"

"We should not tell a whit more for that," says Helgi, "when his
life lies at stake."

"May be," said Grim, "the earl will turn his vengeance on us,
for he is so wroth that some one will have to fall before him."

"That must not move us," says Helgi, "but still we will pull our
ship out, and so away to sea as soon as ever we get a wind."

So they rowed out under an isle that lay there, and wait there
for a fair breeze.

The earl went about among the sailors, and tried them all, but
they, one and all, denied that they knew aught of Hrapp.

Then the earl said, "Now we will go to Thrain, my brother in
arms, and he will give Hrapp up, if he knows anything of him."

After that they took a long-ship and went off to the merchant
ship.

Thrain sees the earl coming, and stands up and greets him kindly.
The earl took his greeting well and spoke thus, -- "We are
seeking for a man whose name is Hrapp, and he is an Icelander.
He has done us all kind of ill; and now we will ask you to be
good enough to give him up, or to tell us where he is."

"Ye know, lord," said Thrain, "that I slew your outlaw, and
then put my life in peril, and for that I had of you great
honour."

"More honour shalt thou now have," says the earl.

Now Thrain thought within himself, and could not make up his mind
how the earl would take it, so he denies that Hrapp is here, and
bade the earl to look for him. He spent little time on that, and
went on land alone, away from other men, and was then very wroth,
so that no man dared to speak to him.

"Shew me to Njal's sons," said the earl, "and I will force them
to tell me the truth."

Then he was told that they had put out of the harbour.

"Then there is no help for it," says the earl, "but still there
were two water-casks alongside of Thrain's ship, and in them a
man may well have been hid, and if Thrain has hidden him, there
he must be; and now we will go a second time to see Thrain."

Thrain sees that the earl means to put off again a