Because it was Yule Eve, the long deserted temple on the plain was filled with light and sound. Fires blazed upon the floor; the row of gilded idols came out of the shadow and shone in all their splendor. The altars were reddened with the blood of slaughtered cattle; the tapestried walls had been spattered with it. The temple priest dipped a bunch of twigs into the br.i.m.m.i.n.g copper bowl, and sprinkled the sacrificial blood over the people who sat along the walls ... They raised the consecrated horns and drank the sacred toasts. To Odin! For victory and power. To Njord! To Frey! For peace and a good year ... Eric of Brattahlid laid his hands upon the atonement boar and made a solemn vow to render justice unto all men, whatsoever their transgressions. The others followed him in this, as in everything.

Because this was happening in the temple, Brattahlid, the source of light and good cheer, was dark and gloomy. In the great hall there was no illumination save the flickering firelight. Black shadows blotted out the corners and stretched across the ceiling. The long benches were emptied of all save Leif's followers and Thorhild's band of women. The men sat like a row of automatons, drinking steadily, in deep silence, with furtive glances toward their leader. Leif leaned back in his high-seat, neither speaking nor drinking, scowling down into the flames.

"He is angry because Eric keeps up the heathen sacrifice," the women whispered in each other's ears. "He has all of Eric's temper when he is angered. It would be as much as one's life were worth to go near him now." Shivering with nervousness, they crouched on the bench beside their mistress's seat.

Thorhild leaned on the arm of her chair, shading her brow with her hand that she might gaze at Leif unseen. Sometimes her eyes dwelt on his face, and sometimes they rested on the silver crucifix that shone on his breast; and so great was her tenderness for the one, that she embraced the other also in a look of yearning love.

When the house-thralls had cleared away the tables, they crept into a corner and stayed there, fearing even to go forward and replenish the sinking fire, though gusts of bitter cold came through the broken window behind them.

Little as they guessed it, something besides cold was coming through the hole in the window. Even while they shivered and nodded beneath it, a pair of gray Saxon eyes were sending keen glances through it, searching every corner.

As the eyes turned back to the outer darkness, Alwin's voice whispered with a long breath of relief: "I am certain they have not noticed that we have gone out."

From the darkness, Sigurd's voice interrupted softly: "Is Kark there?"

"I think he is still in his comer. The light is bad, and the flames are leaping between, but it seems to me that I can make him out."

They emerged from the shadow into the moonlight, and it became evident that Sigurd was shaking his head dubiously.

"It seems to me also that I heard the door creak after us, and saw a shadow slip past as we turned this corner. He is always on the watch; it might easily be that our going out aroused his suspicions so that he is hiding somewhere to track us. More than anything else in the world, is he desirous to catch you in some disobedience."

Alwin tramped on doggedly. To all appearances, the court was as deserted as a graveyard at midnight. Not even the whinny of a horse broke the stillness. They pa.s.sed into the shadow of a storehouse, and Alwin dived into, the recess under the steps and began to fumble for something hidden there. When he drew out a pair of skees and proceeded to put them on, Sigurd burst forth with increased vehemence.

"Alwin, I implore you to heed my advice. My mind tells me that nothing but evil can come of meddling with Skroppa. There will be no limit to Leif's anger if he--"

"I tell you he will not find out," Alwin answered over his shoulder.

"His mind is so full of Eric's ill-doings, that he will not notice my absence before I am back again. And to-night is the only night when I am not in danger of being spied upon by Eric's men. It is my only chance."

"Yet Kark--"

"Kark may go into the hands of the Trolls!"

"It is not unlikely that you will accompany him. You are doing a great sin. Harald Fairhair burned his son alive for meddling with witchcraft."

Although his toes were thrust into the straps of the runner-like skees, Alwin stamped with exasperation. "You need not tell me that again. I know as well as you that it is a sin. But will not penance make it right?"

"You will dishonor Leif's holy mission."

"I shall not cause any quarrel, nor offend anyone. What harm can I do?"

Sigurd laid his hands on his friend's shoulders and tried to see his face in the dark. "Give it up, comrade; I beseech you to give it up. If you should be discovered, I tell you that though a priest might win you a pardon from Heaven, no power on earth could make your peace with Leif Ericsson."

Alwin said slowly: "If he discovers what I have done, I will endure any punishment he chooses, because I owe him some obedience while I eat his bread and wear his clothes. But I am not his born thrall, so I will have my own way first. Urge me no more, brother; my mind is fixed."

Sigurd released him instantly. "I will say nothing further,--except that it is my intention to try my luck with you." Stooping into the recess, he drew out an-other pair of skees and began to fasten them on.

At the prospect of companionship, Alwin felt a rush of relief,--then a twinge of compunction.

"Sigurd, you must not do this thing. There is no reason why you should run this risk."

"There would be no reason why you should call me your friend if I did otherwise," Sigurd cut him short. "Do you think me a craven, to let you go alone where you might be tricked or murdered? Have you a weapon?"

"Leif will not allow me so much as a dagger, so to-night I borrowed from his table the old bra.s.s-hilted knife that Eric gave him in his boyhood.

It is unlikely that he will miss that. I have it here." Throwing back his cloak, he showed it thrust through his girdle.

"Come, then," said Sigurd curtly. "And have a care for your skees. You are not over-skilful yet."

He caught up the long staff that acts something like a balance-pole in skeeing, and darted away. Alwin followed, with an occasional prod of his staff into a shadow that seemed thicker than it should be. By a side-gate, they left the courtyard and struck out across the fields, where the snow was packed as hard as a road-bed. Noiseless as birds, and almost as swift, they skimmed along over the snow-clad plains and half-frozen marshes.

As was to have been expected, the young Viking was an expert. To see him shoot down a hillside at lightning speed, his skees as firmly parallel as though they were of one piece, his graceful body bending, balancing, steering, was to see the next best thing to flying. Alwin's runners threw him more than once, lapping one over the other as he was zigzagging up a slope, so that he tripped and rolled until a snow-bank stopped him.

As he regained his feet after one of these interruptions, he made some angry remark; but beyond this there was little said. It was a dreary night to be on an uncanny errand, with a chill in the air that seemed to freeze the heart. A fitful, spiteful wind drove the clouds like frightened sheep, and strove to blow out the pale patient moon.

Sometimes it seemed almost to succeed; suddenly, when they most needed light to guide their six-foot runners between the great boulders, the light would go out like a torch in the water. The gusts lay in wait for them at the corners, to leap out and lash their faces with a shriek that chattered their teeth. The lulls between the gusts were even worse; it seemed as though the whole world were holding its breath in dread. They held theirs, darting uneasy glances at the glacier wall glittering far ahead of them.

When a long, low wail smote their ears, their hearts leaped into their throats. They were travelling along the edge of a black ravine. Halting, they stood with suspended breath, staring down into the darkness.

The cry came again, yet more piercing; then suddenly it split into a hissing sound like a kettle boiling over. Alwin broke into a nervous laugh. "Cats!" he said.

But Sigurd stiffened as quickly as he had relaxed. "One of Skroppa's!

She swarms with them. See! Is not that a light down there?"

A sudden flicker there certainly was,--if it was not a ghost-fire. The last cloud scurried from before the face of the long-suffering moon; before the wind could bring up another fleecy flock, the pale light crept down into the hollow and revealed the dark outline of a cabin clinging among the rocks.

Alwin slipped out of his skees and made sure of his knife. "That, then, is her house. We will leave the skees here."

"Though you never were known to heed advice, I will offer you another piece," Sigurd answered. "We must go softly; and if we find the door unlocked, enter quickly and without knocking. Otherwise it is possible that we will stay outside and talk to the stones."

It was a tedious descent, yet somehow the time seemed plenty short enough before they stood at the threshold. The stillness at the bottom of the hollow was death-like; only the flickering light on the window spoke of life. Silently the door yielded to Alwin's touch.

Darkness and a dying fire were all that met their eyes. They thought the room empty, and took a step forward. Instantly the s.p.a.ce was alive with the green eyes of countless cats. The air was split with yowlings and spittings and hissing. Soft furry bodies bounced against them and bit and clawed around their legs. From the farthest corner came the lisping voice of a toothless old woman.

"Who dares interrupt my sleep when the visions of things I wish to know are pa.s.sing before me? Better would it be for him to put his hand into the mouth of the Fenriswolf."

Alwin said slowly, "It is the English thrall."

After a pause, the voice answered crossly, "I know no English thrall."

"How comes it, then, that more than a year ago you told something concerning him which made Egil Olafsson his mortal foe?"

Out of the darkness came a sudden cackling laugh. "That is true. I told the Black One that the maiden he loved would love an English thrall instead. And he wished to stick his sword through me!"

"Is that what you told him?" cried Alwin, in amazement.

Sigurd echoed the cry. Yet as their minds ran back over Egil's strange actions, they could not doubt that this was the key that unlocked their mystery.

From an invisible corner came a stir, a creak, and then the sound of feet lighting softly on the floor. A tiny figure appeared on the edge of the shadows beyond the dying fire. The light fell upon furry gray feet; and Alwin's first thought was that a monstrous cat had dropped down.

Then the flames leaped higher, and showed a furry cloak and a furry hood, and from its fuzzy depths protruding, a sharp yellow beak for a nose, and a hairy yellow peak for a chin. Of eyes, one saw nothing at all.