d upon her.

"You see it is all an error," she cried: "a cruel, cruel error."

"No, Greeba, it is not all an error," he answered. "It is not an
error that you deceived me--and lied to me."

At that word her tears fell back, and the fire of her heart was in
her eyes in an instant. "You say that, do you?" she cried. "Ah, then,
perhaps there has been yet another error than you think of--the error
of throwing him away for sake of you. He is noble, and simple, and
true. His brave heart is above all suspicion. God pity him, and
forgive me!"

Then for the first time that day since the six Fairbrothers had left
the house, the calmness of Michael Sunlocks forsook him, and in a
stern voice, with a look of fierce passion in his face, he cried,
"Let me never, never meet that man. Five years ago I came here to
save him, but now if we ever come face to face it will be the hour of
his death or mine."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FALL OF MICHAEL SUNLOCKS.

When the Fairbrothers, in the first days after their coming to
Iceland, started inquiries touching the position and influence of
Michael Sunlocks, thinking thereby to make sure of their birds in the
bush before parting with their bird in the hand, they frequented a
little drinking-shop in the Cheapstead where sailors of many nations
congregated, Danes, Icelanders, Norwegians, English, and Irish.
Hearing there what satisfied their expectations, their pride began to
swell, and as often as Michael Sunlocks was named with honor they
blew up their breasts like bantams and said he was their brother, so
to speak, and had been brought up in the same house with them since
he was a slip of a brat of two or three. And if any who heard them
glanced them over with doubtful eyes they straightway broke into
facetious stories concerning the boyhood of Sunlocks, showing all
their wondrous kindness to him as big brothers towards a little one.

Now these trifling events were of grave consequence to the fortunes
of the Fairbrothers, and the fate of Michael Sunlocks, at two great
moments. The first of the two was when Thurstan broke into open
rebellion against Jacob. Then, with a sense of his wise brother's
pitiable blunderheadedness, the astute Thurstan went off to the same
drinking-shop to console himself with drink, and there he was
addressed, when he was well and comfortably drunk, by a plausible
person who spoke an unknown tongue. The end of that conference was
nevertheless an idea firmly