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"I shall arrest him in the King's name, when the King signs the warrant," said Bernhoff; "But he is one of Sergius Thord's followers, and at the present juncture it might be unwise to touch any member of that particularly inflammable body." Perousse frowned. "Sergius Thord ought to have been hanged or shot years ago " "Then why did not you hang or shoot him?" enquired Bernhoff.
Now Thord's voice was rough with long years of speaking against the wash of the waves, and the thunder of wind in sail and rigging, and the roll and creak of oars; and as he said this, every one turned towards him, for a silence had fallen on the crowd of folk who watched Neot the king's cousin and his strife with Odda.
He had trusted the man in many ways and found him honest. One trifling proof of this was perhaps the main reason of Thord's further reliance upon him; he had fulfilled his half-suggested promise to bring the sunshine of prosperity into the hard-working, and more or less sordid life of the little dancing-girl, Pequita.
Taking the paper, the monarch touched it tenderly with his lips before opening it. In all the blind stupefaction of his own grief, he was struck by the fact that there was something strained and unnatural about Thord's appearance, something wild and forced even in his expression of sorrow.
Then Thord's face glowered under his helm, and he pointed to the ship that was farthest from the bridge, and therefore likely to be the first to start away when the tide was full. It was my own ship, which they had got afloat. "Thor's hammer smite them!" he growled; "they have launched the old keel without finishing her painting just as I left her. How are we to stay their going off with her?"
"Sergius," he said, "my task is finished my confession made! The next Order of this meeting must come from you!" Thord looked at him amazedly. "From me? Are you not the King?" "Only so long as the People desire it!" replied the monarch gently; "And are you not the representative of the People?" Thord's chest heaved. Burning tears stood in his eyes.
Thord's appearance on the same ship in which he and Lotys were passengers, seemed to him quite simple and natural, Thord's death moved him to a certain grave compassion, but the whole swift circumstance had been so dreamlike, that he had no time to think of it, or regret it, and the only active consciousness his mind held was that he and Lotys were journeying to 'the other side'; that 'other side' which he now felt so near and sure, that he could almost declare he saw the living presence of the woman he loved arisen from the dead and standing near him!
"So should my still poorer sisters," she replied; "And it is for those who have least comfort, that comfort should be provided. I am perfectly well and happy where I am!" Remembering her fixed ideas on this point, there was an uneasy sense of trouble in Thord's mind as he ventured again on what he feared would be a fruitless errand.
"Then Mord took Thorgeir by the hand and named two witnesses to bear witness, 'that Thorgeir Thofir's son hands me over a suit for manslaughter against Flosi Thord's son, to plead it for the slaying of Helgi Njal's son, with all those proofs which have to follow the suit.
Hoskuld sent some handsome presents to Thord Yeller, and bade him not be angry over this, seeing that in law they had no claim on Thord's money, inasmuch as Vigdis had brought no true charges against Thord, or any such as justified desertion by her.
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