After a while he said carelessly, "Obliged, chief? How came that? Could not his value outweigh his crime?"

Smothering a yawn, Leif rose to his feet and stood looking down at his follower, while he buckled his cloak around him. "Yes," he said, slowly; "yes, his value might have outweighed his crime,--but not his deceit. It was not only because he broke my strictest orders that I slew him; it was because, while pretending to submit to me, he was in truth scheming to get the better of me. And because he and his hot-headed friend, Sigurd Haraldsson, had the ambition to penetrate the state of my feelings and handle me as you handle your writing-brush there. Is it to be expected that a man would take it well to be fooled by a pair of boys?"

The Norman sat for a long time staring at a huge furry skin that hung on the wall in front of him. It shook sometimes in the draught; and when the light flickered over it, it looked like some quivering shapeless animal, crouching to spring upon him out of the shadow. After a while, he laughed harshly.

"If he was simple enough to expect that he could play with you and then survive the discovery of his trick, he deserved to die, for nothing more than his folly," he said, bitterly.

He straightened himself suddenly and drew a long breath as though to speak further. But at that moment the chief turned and left the booth.

While the Southerner stood looking after him, a sound like a smothered laugh came from the corner where Kark slept. Alwin wheeled toward it; but before he could take a step, Rolf's arm stretched out from his bunk by the high seat and caught his friend's belt in a vise.

"It is unnecessary to soil your hands with snake's blood, just now," he said, gently. "Besides serpent's fangs, the thrall has also serpent's cunning in his ugly head. He knows that Leif will not, for any reason tongue can name, injure the man who is writing down his history. Wait until the records are finished; then it will be time to act."

He pulled his comrade down on the bunk beside him, and held him there until the sleep of utter weariness had taken him into its safe-keeping.

CHAPTER XXVIII

"THINGS THAT ARE FATED"

The fir withers That stands on a fenced field; Neither bark nor foliage shelters it; Thus is a man Whom no one loves; Why should he live long?

Ha'vama'l

In a chain of lengthening golden days and softening silver nights, the spring came.

The instinct which brings animals out of their dens to roam in the sunlight, awoke in the Nors.e.m.e.n's b.r.e.a.s.t.s and made them restless in the midst of plenty. The instinct which sets birds to nest-building amid the young green, turned the rovers' hearts toward their ice-bound home.

With glad applause, they hailed Leif's proclamation from under the budding maple-tree:

"Four weeks from to-day, if the season continues to be a forward one, it is likely that the pack-ice around the mouth of Eric's Fiord will be sufficiently broken to let us through. Four weeks from to-day, G.o.d willing, we will set sail for Greenland."

The camp entered upon a period of bustling activity. Carpenters fell to work on the re-furnishing of the ship, until all the quiet bay echoed with their pounding. With infinite labor, the great logs were floated down the river and hauled on board. Porters toiled to and from the sh.o.r.e with loads of grain-sacks and wine-kegs. The packers in the store-houses buzzed over the wealth of fruit like so many bees. Even Kark the Indolent caught the infection, and clashed his pots and kettles with joyful energy.

"A little time more, and the death-wolf shall claim his due," he sang over his work. "Only a little time more, and the death-wolf shall claim his due!"

On the morning of the last day in Vinland, Robert the Norman wrote the last word in the grotesque exploring record and laid down the brush forever.

"That ends the matter, chief," he said slowly.

They sat in the larger of the sleeping-houses, as they had sat on that December night when the work was begun. But now a flood of yellow sunlight fell through the open door, and a flowering pink bush flattened its sweet face against the window.

Leif regarded him with dull, absent eyes. "Yes, it is ended," he said, reluctantly; and was silent for so long that the young man looked up in surprise.

An odd expression of something like regret was on the chief's face. As he met his companion's glance, he laughed a short harsh laugh that had in it less of mirth than of scorn.

"It is ended," he repeated. "And though I know no better than yourself why it is that I am such a fool, yet I find myself full of sorrow because it is finished. I feel that I have lost out of my life something that was dear to me." He relapsed into another frowning silence; when he came out of it, it was only to motion toward the door. "No sense is in this," he said, savagely; "yet the mood has me, hand and foot. I am in no temper to talk of anything. To-night we will speak of your reward. Go now and spend the rest of the day as best pleases you."

He did not look up as his follower obeyed: he sat brooding over the great white roll as though it were the dead body of some one whom he had loved.

Out in the blithe spring sunshine, the men stood around in little groups, making hilarious plans for the day's sport. The preparations for the departure being completed, a day of untrammelled freedom lay before them; and what pastime is so dull that it is not given a zest and a relish by the thought that it is engaged in for the last time? In uproarious good spirits, they whetted their knives for a last hunt, and called friendly challenges across to each other. Inviting them to a wrestling bout, Rolf's voice rose loudest of all; but though much laughter and some gibing came in response, there were no acceptances.

When the Norman came out of the booth, the Wrestler ceased his proclamations and strolled to meet his friend with a welcoming smile.

"Now I think Leif has behaved well," he said, heartily, "to remember that the last day in such a place as Vinland the Good is far too precious to be wasted on monkish tasks. Sigurd will get angry with himself that he did not wait longer for your coming."

A shade of disappointment fell over the Norman's face.

"Where has Sigurd gone?" he asked. "He swam out to an island in the bay where he has a favorite fishing-place he cannot bear to leave without another visit."

"And Helga? Where is she?"

The Wrestler looked at him in surprise. "She has gone into the woods somewhere, with Tyrker; but surely you would not be so mad as to accost her, even were she before you."

Alwin answered with an odd smile. "A man who is about to die will do many things that would be madness in a man who has life before him," he said. His eyes gazed into his friend's eyes with sombre meaning. "I finished the records this morning."

"You finished the records this morning?" Rolf repeated incredulously.

A note of impatience sharpened the other's voice. "I fail to understand what there is in that which surprises you. Certainly you must have heard Leif say, last night, that a hundred words more would end the work. And it was your own judgment that Kark would wait no longer than its completion--"

Rolf struck the tree they leaned against, with sudden vehemence. "The snake!" he cried. "That, then, is why he showed his fangs at me this morning in such a jeering smile. Yet, how could I believe that a man of your wit would allow such a thing to come to pa.s.s? With a mouthful of words you could have persuaded Leif that there was a host of things which he had forgotten. You could have prolonged the task--"

Alwin shook his head with stern though quiet decision.

"No, I have had enough of lying," he said. "Not for my life, nor for Helga's love, will I carry this deceit further. Such a smothering fog has it become around me, that I can neither see nor breathe through its choking folds... But let us leave off this talk. Since it is likely that my limbs will have a long rest after to-night, let us spend to-day roving about in search of what sport we can find. If I may not pa.s.s my last day with the man and woman that I hold dearest, still you are next in my love; you will accompany me, will you not?"

"Wherever you choose," Rolf a.s.sented.

They set forth as silently as on that spring morning, two years before, when they had set out from the Norwegian camp to witness Thorgrim Svensson's horse-fight. Now, as then, the air was golden with spring sunshine, and the whole world seemed a-throb with the pure joy of living. There was gladness in the chirp of the birds, and content in the drone of the insects; and all the squirrels in the place seemed to be gadding on joyful errands, for one could not turn a corner that a group of them did not scatter from before his feet. So common a thing as a dewdrop caught in a cobweb became more beautiful than jewel-spangled lace. The rustling of the quail in the brush, even the glimpse of a coiled snake basking on a sunny spot of earth, was fraught with interest because it spoke of life, glad and fearless and free.

They visited the nook on the bluff, screened once more in fragrant, rustling greenness; then descended to the river and walked along its bank, mile after mile. Here and there, they turned aside and threaded their way through the thicket to take a last look at the scene of some fondly recollected hunt, or to inspect some of the traps which they remembered to be there. But when in one snare they found a wretched little rabbit, still alive but frantic with terror, Alwin laid a detaining hand on Rolf's knife.

"Let him go," he said, shortly. "You have no need of him, and his life is all he has. Let him keep it,--for my sake."

He did not stay to watch the white dot of a tall go bobbing away over the ferns. He hurried on rather shamefaced; and when Rolf overtook him, they walked another mile without speaking.

Along in the middle of the forenoon they reached a point on the river where the banks no longer rose in bluffs but lay in gra.s.sy slopes, fringed with drooping trees. The sun was hot overhead, and their clothes were heavy upon their backs. Rolf suggested that they stop long enough for a swim.

"That will do as well as anything," Alwin a.s.sented. But when the delicious coolness of the water had closed about him, and he felt its velvet softness on his dusty skin, he decided that it was the best thing they could have done. The lounge upon the gra.s.sy bank, while they dried themselves in the sun, was dreamily pleasant. Even after he had gathered sufficient energy to get into his clothes again, Alwin lingered lazily, waiting for his companion to make the first move toward departure.

"This is a restful spot," he said, gazing up at the sky through the network of interlacing branches. "It gives one the feeling that it is so far away that no human foot has ever trod it before, and that none will ever come again when we have left."

From the ant-hill which he was idly spearing with gra.s.s-blades, Rolf looked up to smile. "Then your feelings are not to be trusted, comrade,"

he said; "for there are few spots on the river which our men have more frequented. Even that lazy hound of a thrall comes here almost daily to look at the quail-traps in yonder thicket, that being the one food which he likes well enough to make an exertion for. Would that he would visit them to-day!"

Alwin did not seem to hear him. His eyes were still intent on the swaying tree-tops. "It is a fair land to be alive in," he said, dreamily; "yet, I cannot help wondering how it will be to be dead here.

Does it not seem to you that if my spirit comes out of its grave at night and finds none but wolves and bears to call to, it will experience a loneliness far worse than the pangs of death? Think of it! In this whole land, not one human spirit! To wander through the grove and the camp, and find only emptiness and silence forever!"