. You have done me a service which I shall never forget
while my mind lives in me."

Leaning back against the bear skin to stretch his arms again and yawn,
he added thoughtfully, "Your accomplishments have remedied my misfortune
that last winter I was obliged to kill a youth who was of great value to
me."

The scribe sat thrusting his legs out before him and working the fingers
of his cramped hand, in a stupor of weariness. He awoke suddenly and,
through the flickering light of the one remaining torch, shot a stealthy
glance at the chief's face.

After a while he said carelessly, "Obliged, chief? How came that? Could
not his value outweigh his crime?"

Smothering a yawn, Leif rose to his feet and stood looking down at his
follower, while he buckled his cloak around him. "Yes," he said, slowly;
"yes, his value might have outweighed his crime,--but not his deceit. It
was not only because he broke my strictest orders that I slew him; it
was because, while pretending to submit to me, he was in truth scheming
to get the better of me. And because he and his hot-headed friend,
Sigurd Haraldsson, had the ambition to penetrate the state of my
feelings and handle me as you handle your writing-brush there. Is it to
be expected that a man would take it well to be fooled by a pair of
boys?"

The Norman sat for a long time staring at a huge furry skin that hung on
the wall in front of him. It shook sometimes in the draught; and when
the light flickered over it, it looked like some quivering shapeless
animal, crouching to spring upon him out of the shadow. After a while,
he laughed harshly.

"If he was simple enough to expect that he could play with you and then
survive the discovery of his trick, he deserved to die, for nothing more
than his folly," he said, bitterly.

He straightened himself suddenly and drew a long breath as though to
speak further. But at that moment the chief turned and left the booth.

While the Southerner stood looking after him, a sound like a smothered
laugh came from the corner where Kark slept. Alwin wheeled toward it;
but before he could take a step, Rolf's arm stretched out from his bunk
by the high seat and caught his friend's belt in a vise.

"It is unnecessary to soil your hands with snake's blood, just now," he
said, gently. "Besides serpent's fangs, the thrall has also serpent's
cunning in his ugly head. He knows that Leif will not, for any reason
tongue can name, injure the man who is wri