A Sea Queens Sailing | Page 6

had no mind to pass from the cramped cabin, if one may call the forepeak so much, to the deck where the foemen sat and made merry with the stores they had taken from us. The wind was steady and light, and they had naught to do but rest and eat their supper. Asbiorn steered, and was alone on the after deck. The two other ships were not to be seen, and I suppose that they outsailed ours, for she had never been of the swiftest, though staunch and seaworthy in any weather. We were heading due north as if we would make the Faroe Islands, leaving the Orkneys to the starboard.
I wondered if Heidrek had his lair in that far-off spot, whence we should have not the slightest chance of escape in the days to come; but I could say nothing to my comrades. Men of the crew sat just outside the low doorway, with their backs against the bulkhead, as if set there to overhear what we might say.
I looked among them for those two men of ours who had been ready to join Heidrek as their one chance of life, but I could not see them. Perhaps this was no wonder, as it is likely that they were drafted to the other ships in order to keep them apart from us. It was certainly the safest thing to do.
Asbiorn himself seemed to have some thought of this sort with regard to us seven presently. Before sunset, he called some of the men and bade them bring Dalfin and myself and shut us into the after cabin, under his own feet, as he sat at the steering oar. Two of my men were to be left in the fore peak, for they were unhurt and could be shut in safely, while the other three were set amidships, with men of the crew round them. These three had some slight hurts, and a man set about caring for them, roughly but skilfully enough.
But what I chiefly noticed as we were led aft, was that the ale was passing freely, and, as I should have thought, too often for good seamanship. That, however, was not my business, if it did seem to explain why Asbiorn separated us. Seven desperate men might do much among a helpless crowd, once they had snatched the arms they could reach from those who had forgotten to guard them.
The young chief paid no heed to us as we passed into the darkness of the low cabin. The door was closed and barred after us, and we were left to our own devices, though in a few minutes some man on the after deck took off the little square hatch cover which let the light into the place. It was half full of plunder of all sorts, and there was barely room, if soft stowage, for us.
"Well," I said to Dalfin, "if we can sleep, let us do so. I know that every word we speak can be heard on deck."
Whereon he answered me in Erse, and I could understand him well, for the old tongues of Scot of Ireland and Scot of Caithness are the same, if ages have wrought some changes in the way of speaking them here and there.
"Let these Danes make what they can of that," he said. "It will take a man born to the Gaelic to catch aught of it through yon hole, if he thinks he understands it in the open."
So in the Erse we spoke for a little while, and it was a hopeless talk at best. Only we agreed that we would stand by one another through whatever might come, and that the first chance of escape was to be taken, be it what it might.
All the while that we talked thus the noise of the men who drank grew wilder and more foolish. It was a cask of our old heather ale which they had broached, and that is potent, if to the unwary it seems harmless enough. Once or twice Asbiorn called to the noisiest to be still, but they heeded him little.
Soon, however, the noise ceased, and we thought that most of the men slept. After that was no sound but the wash of the waves, and the hum of the sail, and the creak of the great steering oar as Asbiorn met the luff of the ship across the long, smooth sweep of the waves.
We, too, grew drowsy, for the cabin was close and warm beneath the sunny decks. All that could be said was said, and so we slept, if it were but uneasily.

Chapter 2
: Men Of Three Kingdoms.
I was roused before long by a tapping on the deck overhead, which came now and again as if Asbiorn, who was steering still,