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"Ay, lord, you had the laugh of me," Kolgrim said, grinning uneasily. Then the king nodded gaily to him and asked who Thord was. "This is my master in sea craft," said Odda. "Verily I fear him as I have feared no man since I was at school. But he cured the seasickness of me." "Maybe I forgot the sickness when I sent landsmen to sea in all haste," said the king.
"So," said Harald, knitting his brows suddenly, "we have two kings in the room, as it seems; and you dare choose another instead of me." "Not so, King Harald," Kolgrim answered, with all respect; "I chose between the jarl and my king. If there is peace between you and the jarl, I suppose we are all your men." Now Harald's face was growing black, and I could see that his anger was rising.
At first I feared that he had been in some way slain because of his terror; but when I came near, I saw that his shoulders heaved as if he wept. Then I stood over him, treading softly. "Kolgrim," I said. At that he looked up, and a great light came into his face, and he sprang to his feet and threw his arms round me, weeping, yet with a strong man's weeping that does but come from bitter grief.
"Let us draw him inside this house, and then he will be safe till daylight unless the trolls come back and we cannot hold this doorway till the sun rises." "They are men, not trolls," I said, pointing to the slain who lay between us and the fire in a lane where Kolgrim had charged through them, "else had we not slain them thus." "One knows not what Sigurd's sword will not bite," he said.
But indeed there is nought to fear; there is no fever or aught that another might take from her." Then I grew fairly anxious, for this was more than I had looked for. I knew that it was likely that she would soon be missed and sought for; yet I could not think of leaving her to that chance, with the bridge broken moreover. I gave the bridle to Kolgrim then to hold.
Then it was plain that my comrade must needs fall worn out before long, and I knew what I was looking on at. It was the dance of the pixies, in truth the dance that ends but with the death of him who has broken in on their revels and I would that I and Harek had been slain rather with Kolgrim by the stream yonder.
So it came to pass that next day, very early, we rode away, taking Harek and Kolgrim and this man Dudda with us, well armed and mounted and full of hope, across the southward ridge that looks down over the fens of the meeting of Tone and Parret, where they are widest and wildest. No Danes had crossed them yet, and when I saw what they were like I thought that they never could do so.
We ran to an overhanging rock on the hillside and crept beneath it, while the thunder crashed and the lightning struck from side to side of the firth, and smote the wind-swept water that was white with foam. "Master," said Kolgrim, "the Jarl Sigurd is wroth; he repents the sword gift." But I did not think that he had aught to do with this.
We pulled Kolgrim up, and went on upstream, drawing our swords, though I yet thought of nothing but tin merchants whom we had disturbed in some strange play of their own. Doubtless they would take us for outlaws.
By and by, while we were talking, having got through my grumble, Kolgrim came along the shore with some Saxon noble whom he had met; and this stranger was asking questions about each ship that he passed.
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