ely. With one hand he plucked the knife from his
belt and cast it into the chief's lap; with the other, he tore his tunic
open from neck to belt.

"I have asked no mercy," he said, proudly.

Leif made no motion to pick up the weapon. Instead, a glint of something
like dry humor touched his keen eyes.

"No," he said, quietly. "You have asked nothing of what you should have
asked. You have even failed to ask whether or not you have deceived me."

With her dagger half drawn, Helga paused to stare at him.

"You--knew--?" she gasped.

Leif smiled a dry fine smile. "I have known since the day on which
Tyrker was lost," he said. "And I had suspected the truth since the
night of the day upon which we sailed from Greenland."

He made a gesture toward the shield-maiden that was half mocking and
half stern. "You showed little honor to my judgment, kinswoman, when you
took it for granted I should not know that love alone could cause a
woman to behave as you have done. Or did you think I had not heard to
whom your heart had been given? That my ears only had been dead to the
love tale which every servant-maid in Brattahlid rolled like honey on
her tongue? Or did you imagine that I knew you so little as to think you
capable of loving one man in the winter and another in the spring? Even
had the Norman borne no resemblance to the Englishman, still would I--"

"But..." Helga stammered, "but--I thought that you thought--Rolf said
that Sigurd--"

For perhaps the first time in his life, Rolf's cheeks burned with
mortification as a derisive snap of the chief's fingers fell upon his
ear.

"Sigurd! Your playmate! With whom you have quarrelled and made up since
there were teeth in your head! By Peter, if it were not that the joke
appears to lie wholly on my side, I could find it in my heart to punish
the four of you without mercy, for no other crime than your opinion of
my intelligence!"

Alwin took a hesitating step forward. He had been standing where his
first defiance had left him, a light of comprehension dawning in his
face; and also a spark of resentment kindling in his eyes.

Now he said slowly, "It is not your anger which appears strange to us,
chief. It is the slowness of your justice. That knowing all this time of
our deceit, you have yet remained quiet. That you have allowed us to
live in dreams, and led us on to behave ourselves like fools! We have
been no better than mice under the cat's paw." He glanced at Helga's