Vandrad the Viking | Page 4

too read the stars?"
"Not one day, Helgi, not one instant of time. We are in the hands of the gods. This serves but to while away a long night."
"Norsemen should not read the stars," said Helgi. "These things are for Finns and Lapps, and the poor peoples who fear us."
"I wished to know what Odin thought of Helgi Sigvaldson," said Estein with a smile.
Helgi laughed lightly as he answered,--
"I know what Odin thinks of you, Estein--a foolish man and fey."
Estein stepped forward a pace, and leaning over the side gazed for a while into the darkness. Helgi too was silent, but his blue eyes danced and his heart beat high as his thoughts flew ahead of the ship to the clash of arms and the shout of victory.
"There remains but me," said Estein at length. "Hakon has no other son."
"And you have five brothers to avenge; the sword should not rust long in your scabbard, Estein."
"Twice I have made the Danes pay a dear atonement for Eric. I cannot punish Thor because he suffered Harald to drown, but if ever in my life it be my fate to meet Thord the Tall, Snaekol Gunnarson, or Thorfin of Skapstead, there shall be but one man left to tell of our meeting."
"The burners of Olaf have long gone out of Norway, have they not?"
"I was but a child when my brother was burned like a fox in his hole at Laxafiord. The burners knew my father too well to bide at home and welcome him; and since then no man has told aught of them, save that Thord the Tall at one time raided much in England, and boasted widely of the burning. He perchance forgot that Hakon had other sons.
"But now, Helgi, we must sleep while we may; nights may come when we shall want it."
For six days and six nights they sailed with a favouring wind over an empty ocean. On the seventh day land was sighted on the starboard bow.
"Can that be England?" asked old Ulf, Estein's forecastle man, a hairy, hugely muscular Viking from the far northern fiords.
"The coast of Scotland more likely," said Helgi. "Shall we try our luck, Estein?"
"I should like to spill a little Scottish blood, and mayhap carry off a maid or two," said Thorolf Hauskoldson, a young giant from the upland dales.
"It may be but a waste of time," Estein replied. "We had best make for England while this wind holds."
"I like not the look of the sky," said Ulf, gazing round him with a frowning brow.
The wind had been dropping off for some time, and along the eastern horizon the settled sky was giving place to heavy clouds. For a short time Estein hesitated, but as the outlook grew more threatening and the wind beat in flaws and gusts, now from one quarter, now from another, the Vikings changed their course and ran under oars and sails for the shelter of the land. Little shelter it promised as they drew nearer: a dark, inhospitable line of precipices stretched north and south as far as the eye could reach, and even from a long distance they could see white flashes breaking at the cliff foot. Again they changed their course; and then, with a dull hum of approaching rain, a south-easterly storm broke over them, and there was nothing for it but to turn and run before the gale.
"I read the stars too well," said Estein grimly between his teeth, clinging to the straining tiller, and watching the rollers rising higher. "And the first part of Atli's prophecy has come true."
"Winds, war, and women make a Viking's luck," replied Helgi; "this is but the first part of the rede."
At night the gale increased, the fleet was scattered over the North Sea, and next morning from Estein's ship only two other black hulls could be seen running before the tempest. Another wild day passed, and it was not till the evening that the weather moderated. Little by little the great seas began to calm, and the drifts of stinging rain ceased. In their wake the stars struggled through the cloud wrack, and towards morning the wind sank altogether.

CHAPTER II.
THE BAIRN-SLAYERS.
At earliest dawn eyes were strained to catch a glimpse of something that might tell them where they were. None of the men on Estein's ship had been in those seas more than two or three times at most, and the vaguest conjectures were rife when, as the light was slowly gaining, Ulf raised a cry of land ahead.
"Land to the right!" cried Helgi, a moment later.
"Land to the left!" exclaimed Estein; "and we are close on it, methinks."
When the morning fully broke they found themselves lying off a wide-mouthed sound, that bent and narrowed among low, lonely- looking islands. Only on the more distant