y passenger with him this
voyage. It would seem that he wanted to sail with us, from all he said.

Certainly he had begun by asking whose boats these were, and wondered
that a merchant should go fishing at all, when there was no need for him
to do so. Also he had asked if Grim had been out last night, and they
had of course told him that he had not, for neither boat had been
shifted from the berth she had been given when we came in at dusk.

"Ah," he had said, "well did I wot that your merchant would do no night
work," and so made a jest of the matter, saying that in his country it
were below the state of a merchant to have aught to do with a thrall's
work. He was certainly a Norseman, and they thought that I should find
him with my father. Now I thought otherwise, and also I saw that all was
known. This man was a spy of Hodulf's, and would go straight back to his
master. My father must hear of this at once; and I hurried back to the
ship, and took him aside and told him. And as I did so his face grew
grey under the tan that sea and wind had given it, and I knew not
altogether why.

"Tell Arngeir to come to me," he said; "I am going to the jarl. Tell no
one, but go home and say to mother that I shall be with her in an hour.
Then come back and work here."

Then he and Arngeir went to Sigurd, and told him all from the beginning.
And when the jarl heard, he was glad for the safety of the queen and of
Havelok, but he said that there was no doubt that Denmark was no place
for Grim any longer.

"That is my thought also," said my father; "but now am I Havelok's
foster-father, and for him I can make a home across the sea, where I
will train him up for the time that shall surely come, when he shall
return and take his father's kingdom."

"That is well," the jarl said, "but you have little time. What Hodulf
will do one cannot say, but he may come here with his men behind him to
force me to give you up, and the town will be searched for Havelok, and
both he and the queen will be lost."

"If that is so," my father answered, "we have time enough. Two hours for
the spy to reach his master; one hour for Hodulf to hear him, and to
bethink himself; an hour for gathering his men; and four hours, at the
least, in which to get here. Eight hours, at the least, have we, and the
tide serves in six. I had thought of waiting till dark, but that is of
no use now. We may as well go, for there are true men here, who will
wait to welcome hi