Olaf the Glorious | Page 8

anxious surprise, wondering if in truth the stranger had come to buy him, so that he might carry him off to the wicked Queen Gunnhild.
"I will give you two silver marks for him," said Sigurd, "and that is the value of a full grown man slave."
Reas demurred, looking at Olaf as if regretting that the lad was not more presentable.
"No," he said at last. "You will not find such a thrall as he in every day's march. If he were but a little cleaner you would see that he is a very pretty boy. Look at his eyes--keen as a young snake's! Why, no woman's eyes are more beautiful! Look at his skin, there where his kirtle is torn. Is it not fair? And he is skilled in many feats. My own son Rekoni is not more clever than he. He can run for half a day without being wearied. He can climb the highest pine tree in Rathsdale--as he did last seed time to harry a bluejay's nest; and no seamew can swim more lightly on the water."
"As to his climbing," said Sigurd, with a curious look in his blue eyes, "I do not doubt that he will some day climb much higher than you list. But swimming is of little avail where there is no sea. And if he runs so well there is all the more danger of his running away. I think you will be well paid if I give you two silver marks. But since you set so high a value on him for his beauty and his skill, then I give you in addition this little ring of gold for your good wife's wearing. What say you?"
"It is a bargain!" said Reas, eagerly grasping the ring that Sigurd took from his belt pouch; "and you may take the lad at once."
Olaf drew back to the far corner of the pig sty. There was a frown on his brow, and his blue eyes flashed in quick anger.
"I will not go!" he said firmly, and he made a rapid movement to leap over the barrier; but he forgot the wound in his arm, and the pain of it made him so awkward that Reas caught him by his wrists and held him there until Sigurd, springing from his horse, came and put an iron chain round the lad's neck. Then the two men forcibly drew him to the gate of the pig sty. So, when Reas had opened the gate, Sigurd, who was a very powerful man, caught Olaf in his arms and carried him to the horse's side, and, holding the end of the chain, mounted. Olaf struggled a little to free himself, but finding the chain secure about his neck, resolved to await a better chance of escape. Then Sigurd gave Reas the two silver marks in payment of his purchase, and urged his horse to a quick walk, dragging Olaf behind him.
Very soon Reas and his straggling farmstead were hidden from sight behind a clump of tall pine trees. Then Sigurd halted at the side of a little stream.
"You have done well," he said to Olaf, "in thus coming away with seeming unwillingness. But do not suppose that I value you so lightly as did your late master, who thinks, foolish man, that you are no better than many another bond slave whom he might buy in the marketplace. Had Reas exacted an hundred gold marks instead of two paltry marks of silver, I should willingly have given him them."
"And why?" asked Olaf with a frown. "Is it that you think to take me west to Norway, and cast me like a young goat among wolves? I had thought when you so blandly spoke to me yesternight that you were a man of honour. Haply Queen Gunnhild would reward you well if you should deliver me into her clutches. But this you shall never do!"
"Rash boy," said Sigurd as he stroked his horse's mane, "do you not recognize a friend when you meet one? Or is friendship so strange to you that you take all men to be your enemies?"
"Enmity comes so often in the guise of friendship," said Olaf, "that it is well to be wary. I had been wiser last night if I had refused to speak with you."
"The time will soon come," said Sigurd, "when you will not be sorry that you so spoke. But I will warn you that it may go very ill with you if you tell your story to all strangers as you told it to me."
Olaf was perplexed. He looked into the man's face and saw only kindness there, and yet there was something very suspicious in the stranger's eagerness to possess him.
"If you are indeed my friend," said the boy, "why do you keep