A Sea Queens Sailing | Page 4

I am Heidrek the Seafarer."
He turned away, and left us with some sign to his men; but Asbiorn stood still and spoke again to us.
"You bear a Scottish name," he said. "Have you no Scottish kin besides Melbrigda?"
I shook my head, whereon Dalfin spoke for me.
"Here," he said, "if it is just a matter of ransom, let us both go; and come to Belfast in a year's time, or six months' time, an you will. Then my father will pay chief's ransom for the two of us. My word as a prince on it."
"It is a new thing with us to take ransom, or the word of any man," answered Asbiorn doubtfully, yet as if the plan seemed good to him.
One of the men who followed him broke in on that,
"No use, Asbiorn. We cannot put into any Irish port in safety. And over there princes are thick as blackberries, and as poor as the brambles that bear them."
"Aye, and as prickly," said Dalfin. "Have you learned that also?"
The men laughed. One of them said that the Irishman's Danish speech was not bad, and that it was a pity--
"So it is," Asbiorn put in hastily. "I will speak to my father."
The old chief was back with his crew, settling the sharing of the plunder. His son took him aside, and their talk was long; and, as it seemed, not altogether peaceful. Soon the men began to gather round them, and those with us went to hear what was going on. So we were left alone for a moment.
"Men," I said, "save your lives as this chief bids you. Join him now, and leave him when you may."
"Do you join him?" said one in answer.
Not I."
"Neither do we. We live or die with you. What else should courtmen of the jarl's do?"
So said one of our Norsemen; but the eyes of the Scots were on the bleak hills, and for them the choice was harder, I think. They had no ties to us but those of common work and life together, and it was the old land that they must think of leaving. They said nothing, for until he has made up his mind a Scot will not answer.
They would have to decide directly, for now Heidrek was coming back to us. After him were a score or more of his men, and the rest were loading themselves with the plunder and starting one by one towards the haven, into which the two ships were just bearing up. They would be alongside the little wharf by the time the men reached it. Our own good longship lay there also, and I wondered what they would do with her. She was too good to burn.
Now Heidrek stood before me and looked at me, glowering, for a moment.
"Well," he said curtly, "do you join me? Mind you, I would not give every man the chance, but you and yours are men."
Before I could say aught, and it was on my mind to tell the pirate what I thought of him, if I spent my last breath in doing it, the courtman who had spoken with me just now answered for himself.
"We do what the young jarl does," he said; "we follow him."
"The choice was whether you would follow me or not," answered Heidrek coldly; "I will have no leader but myself."
Some of his wilder followers cried out now that we were wasting time, and that an end should be made, while a sword or two were drawn among them. It was the way in which Heidrek's crew were wont to deal with captives when they had no hope of ransom from them. That I and my men should join such a crew was not to be thought of, if for a moment I had half wondered if I ought to save the lives of these courtmen of ours by yielding. Both I and they would be shamed, even as Dalfin had said.
So I made no answer, and Heidrek was turning away with a shrug of his broad shoulders, while the men were only waiting his word to end the affair. Then Asbiorn, whose face was white and pitying as he looked at us, gripped his father by the arm and faced him.
"I will not have it thus," he said hoarsely. "The men are brave men, and it were shame to slay them. Give them to me."
Heidrek laughed at him in a strange way, but the men yelled and made a rush at us, sword in hand. Whereon Asbiorn swung his round shield into place from off his shoulder, and gripped his light axe and faced them. It was the lightness of that axe which had spared me; but the men knew, and feared it and the skill of the wielder, and they shrank