stion; then answered it with decided head-shakes. It was
impossible that their whispers could have carried so far, or have
penetrated the growl of those voices. It must have been some noise from
beyond. They strained their ears, anxiously intent.

There was no trouble in hearing it this time; it rose shrill and
piercing on the drowsy noon air, a man's whistle, rapidly approaching
from the direction of the Norse camp.

While Alwin listened with dilated eyes, Rolf's lips shaped just one
word: "Kark!"

Almost without breathing they lay peering out between the leaves. At the
first sound, the men below had leaped to their feet and grasped their
weapons. Now, after a muttered word together, they drew apart
noiselessly as shadows and vanished among the bushes, without so much as
the snapping of a twig. Smiling innocently in the sunlight, the little
nook lay as peaceful and empty as before.

Nearer and nearer came the whistler; until the crunching of his feet
could be heard upon the dead leaves. Rolf pushed the hair out of his
eyes, and settled himself to watch with a sigh of almost child-like
pleasure.

"Here is sport! Here is a chess game where the pieces are not of ivory.
I would not have missed this for a gold chain!" he told his companion.
"Imagine Kark's face when they spring out upon him! So intent is his
mind upon your death, that he could walk into a pit with open eyes. You
can never be sufficiently thankful, Alwin of England, that the Fate
which destroys your enemy, gives you also the privilege of sitting by
and watching the fun."

Uncertainty was on Alwin's face, as he gazed down through the branches
and saw the thrall's white tunic suddenly appear among the green bushes.

He said slowly, "I do not dispute that it looks like the hand of
fate--and it is true that he is my enemy--that it is his life or mine--"

A wild yell of alarm cut him short. One by one the lean brown men were
gliding out of the bushes and forming in a silent circle around the
thrall. They offered him no harm; they did not even touch him; yet the
apparition of their shrivelled bodies in their animal-hides, with their
beast-faces looking out from under their bristling black locks, was
enough to try stouter nerves than Kark's. Shriek after shriek of maddest
terror rent the air.

Rolf smiled gently as he heard it. "About this time our friend below is
beginning to distinguish between death-wolves and death-foxes," he
observed.

Glancing at