d that we would stand by one another
through whatever might come, and that the first chance of escape
was to be taken, be it what it might.

All the while that we talked thus the noise of the men who drank
grew wilder and more foolish. It was a cask of our old heather ale
which they had broached, and that is potent, if to the unwary it
seems harmless enough. Once or twice Asbiorn called to the noisiest
to be still, but they heeded him little.

Soon, however, the noise ceased, and we thought that most of the
men slept. After that was no sound but the wash of the waves, and
the hum of the sail, and the creak of the great steering oar as
Asbiorn met the luff of the ship across the long, smooth sweep of
the waves.

We, too, grew drowsy, for the cabin was close and warm beneath the
sunny decks. All that could be said was said, and so we slept, if
it were but uneasily.

Chapter 2: Men Of Three Kingdoms.

I was roused before long by a tapping on the deck overhead, which
came now and again as if Asbiorn, who was steering still, was
beating time to some air. So he was, for soon he began to whistle
softly, and then to hum to himself. I will not say that the music
was much; but he sat barely a fathom from the open hatch, and
presently the words he sang caught my ear. They were of no song I
had ever heard, and they seemed to have little meaning in them. I
listened idly, and the next thing was that I knew, with a great
leap of my heart, that what he sang, or pretended to sing, was
meant for myself. It could only be so, for he sang of the Orkney
Isles to the east of us, and of a boat, and of two men who could
win thereto if they dared to try.

"Listen, Dalfin," I said, and my comrade started up eagerly.

Asbiorn heard the movement, and he seemed to lean toward the hatch.

"Jarl's son," he hummed, "come under the hatch and listen. Is it in
your mind to get away from us?"

I set my head through the little square opening carefully, and
looked round. There was a bale of canvas, plunder from our ship
sheds, across the break of the deck, and I could not be seen by the
men, while Asbiorn was alone at the helm. It was almost as light as
day, with the strange shadowless brightness of our northern June,
when the glow of the sunset never leaves the sky till it blends
with that of sunrise.

"Your boat is towing aft," he said, still singing, as one may say.
"It is shame to keep chiefs in thralldom thus; and I will not do
it.