United States or Equatorial Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They told me two days ago, but this is the first chance I could find. But even before I saw him, I thought it right to see you and thank you for your wondrous goodness. Sigurd has told me how they carried Alwin to you in the night, and you received him and sheltered him, and " Egil silenced her with a rough gesture. "I kept my oath of friendship; speak no further of it.
Alwin turned on his companion in sudden excitement. "It is likely that Leif is already here!" Sigurd laughed. "Do you think it advisable for me to climb a tree?" They stepped out of the shadow into the light of the leaping flames.
It was a beautiful world, full of the shifting charms of color and of motion, of the joy of sun and wind; but Alwin found it a wearily busy world for him. Since he was not needed at the oars, they gave him the odds and ends of drudgery about the ship. He cleared the decks, and plied the bailing-scoop, and stood long tedious watches.
Gunnlaug Starkadsson returned this morning from visiting his wife, and she says that last night the old man's horse threw him so that his head hit against a stone, and it caused his death." She made an impressive pause; but Alwin stalked along in silence, grinding his heels deep into the snow. "Do you not see what that means?" she asked, impatiently.
She snatched the reins from Alwin, but Tyrker caught her arm. "Certain it is that you would be injured. If you insist, the thrall shall go. He looks as though he would run well." "But what message?" Alwin began. Helga tried to stamp in her stirrups. "Will you stand there and talk? Go!" They were fast runners in those days, by all accounts.
As he put down the curious gilded vessel, he said in the soft voice that matched his face so well and his body so ill: "If you have a boon to ask of your foster-father, comrade, it is my advice that you forget all such pagan errors as that story of the curse. Egil, here, came near being spitted on Leif's sword for merely mentioning Skroppa's name." Alwin recognized the name with a start.
Instinctively his hand went to his knife; but it fell away the next instant in a very different gesture, as Helga's voice whispered in his ear: "Alwin, it is I! I have waited for you since the first noise of the landing. I have a hush, you must not do that! I have need of my lips to speak with No, no! Listen; I wish to warn you " "And I must tell you what has just occurred."
A murmur rose from the three watchers. Helga's hand moved toward her knife. Rolf shook his head gently. "Fair play," he reminded her; and she fell back. Tossing away his broken blade, Egil folded his arms across his breast and waited in scornful silence; but in a moment Alwin also was empty-handed. "I do no murder," he panted. "Man to man we will finish it."
It was well that the moon was shining at that moment. "Alwin!" he shouted. The yellow face was close to the thrall's unconscious shoulder; one evil claw-like hand was almost at his cheek. What she would have done, she alone knew. While his cry was still in the air, Sigurd pulled his companion away and through the door. Up the steep they went like cats.
Kark was not deferential, even toward his superiors; there was barely enough discretion in his roughness to save him from offending. Among those of his own station, he dispensed even with discretion. And he had looked upon Alwin with unfriendly eyes ever since Leif's first manifestation of interest in his English property.
Word Of The Day