As he walked along the line of torch-bearers to the door of the king's hall, the peril of their situation, supposing treachery were really intended, came suddenly home to Estein's mind. It was too late to turn back, even had his pride allowed him to think of taking such a course. He could only resolve to warn his men, and, so far as he could, keep them together and near him. Even as he was still turning the matter over in his mind, he found himself at the hall door, where an officer of the court, dressed with barbaric splendour, ushered him into the drinking-room. A discordant chorus of outlandish voices, raised by a hundred guests or more, bade him welcome. He walked up to his seat by the king, and on the spur of the moment could hit on no plan of communicating with his men. Helgi followed him to the dais, and with him he just found time to exchange a word.

"Drink little, and watch!" he whispered.

"Have you then seen him too?" Helgi replied, in the same anxious tone. Estein looked at him in surprise, and Helgi, coming close beside him, added rapidly,--

"The last torch-bearer but one was the man we captured in the forest and freed this morning, and methinks I see another of our prisoners even now. King Bue's hird-men [Footnote: Bodyguard.]

both, sent--" he had to turn away abruptly, and Estein finished the sentence under his breath,--

"Sent to trap us."

He took his seat, and glancing round the hall saw his twenty followers scattered here and there among the crowd of guests.

"Fool!" he thought, "I have walked into the trap like a child in arms. The whole country has been prepared against our coming, the people told to leave their houses, and the king's own hird-men set as decoys in our path. Can this be the meaning of the Runes?"

Yet there was no actual proof of treachery, and he could only watch and listen. And certainly there was noise enough to be heard. Never among the most hardened drinkers of their own country had the foster-brothers seen such an orgie. The king, a foolish- looking old man, evidently completely under Thorar's influence, became very soon in a maudlin condition; man after man around them grew rapidly more and more drunk; and all the time they themselves were plied with ale so a.s.siduously that their suspicions grew stronger. So far as his followers were concerned, Estein was helpless. He glanced round the hall now and then, and could see them quickly succ.u.mbing to the Jemtland hospitality. Personally he found it hard to refuse to pledge the frequent toasts shouted at him, but at last, when the men near him had got in such a state that their observation was dulled, he placed his drinking-horn on his lap and thrust his dagger through the bottom. Then, by keeping it always off the table, he was able to let the liquor run through as fast as it was filled, and always drain an empty cup. Helgi had adopted a different device. His head lay on his arms, and in reply to all calls to drink he merely uttered incoherent shouts, while every now and then Estein could see that he would shake with laughter.

Suspicious though he was, it came as a shock to Estein to hear his worst fears suddenly confirmed. Tongues had been freely loosed, and listening carefully to what was said, he heard the mutterings of the chief next him take a coherent form.

"Ay, little they know," he was saying to himself. "Let them drink, let them drink. Dogs of Nors.e.m.e.n, they came hither to harry our country, and here they shall stay. Ay, they shall never drink again, and King Hakon shall look for his son in vain."

Then the man lost his balance, and rolled off his seat under the board. He had been placed between Estein and Helgi, and now Estein was able to lean over to his foster-brother, and, under pretence of trying to make him drink, whispered in his ear,--

"Go out by the far door, and await me outside the court on the farthest side from the entrance."

Helgi lay still for a minute, and then rising to his feet, muttered something about "strong ale and fresh air," and staggered down the hall with a well-feigned semblance of drunkenness.

Thorar was sitting opposite, touched with drink a little, but still alert and sober enough. He glanced sharply at Estein; but the Viking, looking him full in the face, laughed noisily and cried,--

"Helgi's head seems hardly so strong as his hand, Thorar!"

For once the lawman was overreached, and with a laugh he drained his horn and answered,--

"I had thought better of you Nors.e.m.e.n."

The hardest part of the business now remained. To go out in the same way he knew would excite suspicion; if he delayed too long, search would be made for Helgi; and there sat Thorar facing him.

He knew that if he could once get rid of him, he had little to fear from any of the others; and as he thought hard for a plan, the king, who had for some time been fast asleep, suddenly solved the difficulty. He woke with a start, saw that the drink was coming to an end, and cried with drunken ardour,--

"More ale, more ale, Thorar! Estein drinks not!"

Thorar glanced round and saw that no one but himself was capable of going on the errand. Twice he called aloud on servants by their names, but there came no answer. Then with a frown he rose and walked down the hall.

The high table at which they sat was lit by two great torches set on stands. While Thorar was still going down the room, Estein, with a deliberately clumsy movement, upset and extinguished the one nearest him. Casting a look over his shoulder, he saw the lawman leave the hall at the far end; and then he rose to his feet, and making an affectation of relighting the extinguished torch from the other, put the second out, and in the sudden half- darkness that ensued, slipped under the board, and ran on his hands and feet for the door at that end of the hall. No one about seemed to notice his departure, but just as he carefully opened the door he thought he saw with the corner of his eye a man slip out at the far end.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HOUSE IN THE FOREST.

Coming from the warmth and light of the hall, the night outside struck sharp and bitterly cold. A thin cloud hid the moon, but there was quite light enough to see that the snow-covered court was deserted. Only in the shadows of the paling and the end of the house was it possible for a man to be concealed, and before he stepped away from the door Estein ran his eye carefully along both. He could see nothing, and had just stepped forward a pace, when noiselessly as a phantom a dark form appeared round the corner of the hall, and without pausing an instant came straight up to him. He saw only that the man was small, and wrapped in a cloak of fur; his sword flashed, and he was almost in the act of striking when the figure held up a hand and stopped.

"Who art thou?" said Estein in a low voice, coming forward a step as he spoke, and holding his sword ready to smite on the instant.

"Estein Hakonson," replied the other in the same tone, "waste not your blows on friends. Remember the Runes, and follow me. There is little time for words now."

He turned as he spoke, and looking over his shoulder to see that Estein followed him, started for the stockade. For an instant Estein hesitated.

"Are you mad?" exclaimed the man; "or do you wish to die here like a dog?"

"Lead on," replied Estein, and still holding his naked sword he followed him across the court.

The man went swiftly up to the paling, and taking an axe from under his cloak drove it hard into the wood as high above his head as he could reach. Then with the agility of a cat he drew himself up by it, seized the top of the fence, and sat there astride.

"Quick! quick!" he whispered. "Sheathe that sword, and stand not like a fool looking at me."

Estein, though a much heavier man, was active and lithe, and his guide, as he watched him mount, muttered,--

"That is better; we have a chance yet."

They dropped on the other side, and whispering to Estein to follow, the man turned to the wood and was about to plunge in, when his companion seized his arm, and said,--

"I trysted here with my foster brother. Till he comes I must wait."

The Jemtlander turned on him savagely and answered,--

"Think you I have to succour you of my own pleasure? Never had I less joy in doing anything. If your brother be not here now he will never come at all. I was not told to risk my life for him.

Come on!"

"Go, then," said Estein; "here will I bide."

The man stamped his foot wrathfully, and turned sharply away as though he would leave him. Then he turned back and answered,--

"The G.o.ds curse you and him! See you this path opening ahead of us? Follow that with all the speed you can make, and I, fool that I am for my pains, shall turn back and bring him after you if he is to be found. Stare not at me, but hasten! I shall overtake you ere long."

With that he started off under the shadow of the stockade, and Estein, after a moment's deliberation, turned into the path. Never before had he felt himself so completely the football of fortune.

Destiny seemed to kick him here and there in no gentle manner, and to no purpose that he could fathom. As he stumbled through the blackness of the tortuous forest path, he tried to connect one thing with another, and find some meaning in the token that had brought him here. Evidently the sender was so far from being in league with his foes that he made a kind of contrary current, eddying him one way just when fate seemed to have driven him another. To add to his perplexities, the disappearance of Helgi had now come to trouble his mind; he had heard no outcry or alarm, his foster-brother had time enough to have easily reached the rendezvous before him, and he felt as he walked like a man in a maze.

Suddenly there came a crash of branches at his side, a man stepped out of the trees, and before he had time to draw a weapon, the sharp, impatient voice of his guide exclaimed,--

"Is this all the way you have made? Your foster-brother has escaped, or has by this time been captured, I care not which. I saw him not."

"But supposing I were more careful of his safety?" Estein demanded, with a note of anger in his voice.

"Push on!" replied the other. "The alarm is raised, and neither you nor Helgi can be found, so perchance he has not yet suffered for his folly. I came not out to hear you talk."

He started off as he spoke, and Estein, perceiving the hopelessness of further search, followed him with a heart little lightened.