nsen lost all self-control and shouted, "Take
him, I say!" And facing about to the Judge he said, "I will have you
know, sir, that I am here for Denmark and must be obeyed."

The guards stepped forward again, but the crowd closed around them
and pushed them back.

Seeing this, Jorgen Jorgensen grew purple with rage, and turning to
the people, he shouted at the full pitch of his voice, "Listen to me.
Some minutes past, I put a price on that man's head. I said I would
give you twenty thousand kroner. I was wrong. I will give you nothing
but your lives and liberty. You know what that means. You have bent
your necks under the yoke already, and you may have to do it again.
Arrest that man--arrest both men!"

"Stop!" cried the Judge.

"Those men are escaped prisoners," said Jorgen Jorgensen.

"And this is the Mount of Laws, and here is Althing," said the Judge;
"and prisoners or no prisoners, if they have anything to say, by the
ancient law of Iceland they may say it now."

"Pshaw! your law of Iceland is nothing to me," said Jorgen Jorgensen,
and turning to the crowd he cried, "In the name of the King of
Denmark I command you to arrest those men."

"And in the name of the King of Kings," said the Judge, turning after
him, "I command you to let them alone."

There was a dead hush for a moment, and then the Judge looked down at
Jason and said once more, "Why have you brought Michael Sunlocks
here! Speak!"

But before Jason could make answer, Jorgen Jorgensen had broken in
again:

"My guards are at Reykjavik," he cried, "and I am here alone. You are
traitors, all of you, and if there is no one else to arrest that
enemy of my country, I will do it myself. He shall go no further.
Step back from him."

So saying, he opened his cloak, drew a pistol from his belt and
cocked it. A shrill cry arouse from the crowd. The men on the Mount
stood quaking with fear, and Greeba flung herself over the restless
body of Michael Sunlocks.

But Jason did not move a feature.

"Old man," he said, looking up with eyes as steadfast as the sun into
Jorgensen's face, and pointing towards Sunlocks, "if you touch one
hair of this head, these hands will tear you to pieces."

Then one of the men who had stood near, a rough fellow with a big
tear-drop rolling down his tanned cheeks, stepped up to Jason's side,
and without speaking a word offered him his musket; but Jason calmly
pushed it back. There was dead silence once more. Jorgen Jorge