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"I, too, am for burning," he said. "We must catch them when they are drinking," said Grim. "When Liot's feasts are over many men go to sleep in outhouses round the hall, and we have not force enough here to surround them all at once." "I will have no more burnings," said Estein. "When had we our last?" asked Helgi. "You speak as though we had done naught but burn foes all our lives.
"To prove yourself a man; to accept the destiny you cannot alter; and in time, Estein, to be a king. Are these things nothing?" Helgi seldom spoke so gravely, and Estein for a time stood silent. Then he exclaimed, "You are right, Helgi; I have acted as a beaten child. Henceforth I shall try to look on my fate, I cannot say merrily, but at least with a steady eye."
That is your creed tell me, is it not?" "I have thought of these things, Osla," said Estein gravely. "I have thought of them at night when the stars shone and the wind sighed in the trees. When I look upon my home and see the reapers in the fields, and hear the maidens singing at their work, I would sometimes be willing to turn hermit like your father, and sit in the sun for ever.
Every now and then, as he spoke of some particular act of treachery, or of his hardships and hurried flight, an angry murmur rose from his audience, and a weapon here and there clashed sternly. Estein alone seemed unmoved. He stood listlessly at the back, apparently hardly hearing what was going on, his thoughts returning despite himself to their melancholy groove.
The woodman was in the village at the feast, and his wife, good woman, had been in bed for the last two hours, and strangely enough had not seen us. So our brisk lads started off at the run again. But there we parted company, for I was tired of chasing myself, and the woman had a pleasant voice, and, so far as I could see, a comely countenance." Estein laughed aloud.
"Here they come!" cried Helgi. "And here come those who will reach us before them," said another man. He was right. A swarm of men were already running down the slope, and it was clear that they must reach the boat first. Estein sprang on board. "Push off!" he cried; "we will row along the shore to meet them." "Well thought of," said Helgi; "'tis lucky we have one cool head with us."
"I like not this country," said Ulf. "What think you is it?" "The Hjaltland islands, I should think, from what men tell of them," Estein suggested. "The Orkneys more likely," said Thorolf, who had sailed in those seas before. Far astern one other vessel was making towards them. "Which ship is that, Ulf?" asked Estein. "One of our fleet, think you?"
To-day and perhaps to-morrow, and it may be for four days or more, he will sit in his cell or on the grass before the door, speaking never a word, and hardly answering when I talk to him. Pay no heed to him; he means no inhospitality." "I fear he likes me not," said Estein. "He came here to escape men, you say, and now he has to entertain a stranger and a Viking." "It is not that," she said.
Thorkel, leaning over the side of his vessel, told a tale of buffetings by night and day such as Estein and his crew had undergone. That morning he said they had descried Estein's ship just as the day broke, and almost immediately afterwards ten long ships were spied lying at anchor in an island bay. For a time they hoped to slip by them unseen. The fates, however, were against them.
Then Estein turned to his men and said, "We are of one mind, are we not? We fight while we may, and then let Odin do with us what he wills." Without waiting for the shout of approval that followed his words, he sprang to the bow, and raising his voice, cried, "We are ready for you, Liot and Osmund. When you get on board you can take what you find here." From another ship a man shouted,
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