t by Orkneys from Waterford, where we
wintered," he answered. "And I have been over sure that no mishap
might be in a long six months."

"What of the voyage?--let us speak of this hereafter," said Hubba.

And Halfden, wearily, as one who had lost all interest in his own
doings, told him that it had been good, and that Thormod would give
him the full tale of plunder.

Then came a chief from the ship whose face I knew, though he was
not of our crew. It was that Rorik whose ship the Bosham bell had
sunk, and who had been saved by Halfden's boats. He knew me, after
scanning me idly for a moment, and greeted me, asking why I was not
at Reedham to make that feast of which Halfden was ever speaking,
and so passed on.

So we went up to the great hall in silence, sorely cast down; and
that was Halfden's homecoming.

Little joy was there on the high place at the feast that night,
though at the lower tables the men of our crew (for so I must ever
think of those whose leader I had been for a little while, with
Halfden) held high revelling with their comrades. Many were the
tales they told, and when a tale of fight and victory was done, the
scald would sing it in verse that should be kept and sung by the
winter fire till new deeds brought new songs to take its place.

Presently Halfden rose up, after the welcome cup had gone round and
feasting was done, and the ale and mead began to flow, and he
beckoned me to come with him. Hubba would have come also, but
Ingvar held him back.

"Let Wulfric have his say first," he growled; and I thanked him in
my mind for his thought.

So we went to the inner chamber, where Osritha would sit with her
maidens, and Halfden said:

"This matter is filling all my thoughts so that I am but a gloomy
comrade at the board. Tell me all, and then what is done is done.
One may not fight against the Norn maidens {xiv}."

There I told him all my story, and he remembered how I had told
him, laughing, of Beorn's jealousy at first. And when my tale was
nearly done Osritha crept from her bower and came and sat beside
Halfden, pushing her hand into his, and resting her head on his
shoulder.

Then I ended quickly, saying that Ingvar had done justice on Beorn.
And at that remembrance the maiden shivered, and Halfden's face
showed that he knew what the man's fate was like to have been at
the great jarl's hands.

"So, brother," he said, when I left off speaking, "had I gone to
Reedham there would have b