For The White Christ Part 2

The count started in astonishment.

"Tell me, Dane!" he cried; "how do you know my name? Not by chance did you lie in the Seine Mouth!"

"True, thrall; I can swear to that," answered Hroar, and he laughed.

"Be certain I would not risk King Sigfrid's longs.h.i.+ps thus far south without sure gain. It is no harm to speak truth to a man who is doomed,--dead men tell no tales. May you have joy of your answer!"

"I laugh at death. Now tell me, Dane!"

"Know then, my merry thrall, that tidings of your sailing flew to Nordmannia straight from the hall of your king. Sigfrid had word from Wittikind the Saxon, and he from well-wishers across the Rhine. Not all your king's foes dwell without his borders. Some speak Frankish for mother-tongue--"

"You lie! No Frank is traitor."

Hroar only laughed and answered jeeringly: "Maybe a little bird told how Earl Roland should sail south from the Seine with the Frank king's daughter,--a little bird in Frankish plumage. He sang a golden song for me. Your s.h.i.+p rides deep with her cargo, and Frisian thralls fetch a good price at the Gardariki fair.--But I would see your princess. If she is young and comely, I may have other use for her than to grind meal."

At the brutal words, fury seized upon Roland. His eyes blazed, and rage lent sudden strength to his tottering frame.

"Heathen dog!" he gasped; "never shall your eyes look on Rothada!"

Before Hroar could guard or leap aside, the Frank's sword swung overhead and whirled down upon his helmet like a sledge. Had the casque been of common make, Hroar would have met his fate on the spot. As it was, the blow beat a great dint in the gilded steel and sent the sea-king reeling backward, stunned and blinded. A dozen vikings sprang between to s.h.i.+eld him, but Roland's sword dropped at their feet. Faint from loss of blood, and utterly spent by that last great blow, the count swayed forward. Darkness shut out from him the ring of shouting heathen. He fell swooning upon the heap of corpses.

"A champion! a champion! The Frank has won his freedom!" cried the vikings, and they pressed about to raise the fallen warrior. Heedless of their own wounds, they sought to bind up his injuries. Their warlike but generous natures yielded homage to the hero who had met overwhelming odds without dismay and had struck a berserk blow even when falling.

They forgot the boasted cruelty of their leader.

Never before had the sea-king suffered such a helmet stroke. For several moments he stood dazed, blinking at the stars which flashed before his eyes, while his head hummed like a kettle. Then his vision cleared, and he saw what his men were about. Into their midst he sprang, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth like a wolf.

"Aside, dogs!" he yelled. "Give me my thrall. I will tear out his lying tongue!"

The Danes gave back before the threatening dagger of their chief, and he sprang upon his victim with a yell of triumph. The Frank should pay dearly for that blow!

Some of the milder vikings muttered against the deed. This Frank was no whining coward, no low-born outlander, but a fair-haired hero, such as the Sigurds and Beowulfs of the olden days.

At the best, the Danes bore little love for the cruel Jutland champion whom King Sigfrid had set over them. So now they murmured openly. But Hroar was no less fearless than he was cruel. Regardless of their protests, he turned the fallen Frank upon his back. No wolf ever fell upon his prey with fiercer greed.

Already he had set about his deed, when a cry of surprise from his followers caused him to look up. The crowd had opened, and through the midst of the warriors came a little child-maid, the like of whom the brutal Dane had never seen. Utterly lost to self in her fear for her kinsman, the girl advanced with outstretched arms, her tender eyes full of reproach, her pure young face aglow with spiritual light. Had she been Skuld, youngest of the Norns, the Dane could not have been more astonished. He glared at the child in dull wonder. Could this be Freya's maid,--Gifion, G.o.ddess of Innocence and Maidenhood? At the thought, he started back, a superst.i.tious dread clutching at his heart.

But when the first shock of surprise had pa.s.sed, he perceived the Frankish fas.h.i.+on of the girl's double tunic and the circlet that marked her rank.

"Sp.a.w.n of Loki!" he snarled. "It's only the Frank king's daughter."

"I am Rothada, and Karl the King is my father," said the girl, with simple dignity. "Are you not the Dane count?"

Hroar scowled a.s.sent.

"Speak," he said.

The girl's courage began to falter before the ferocity of the sea-king's stare, and, shuddering, she gazed about her at the heaps of dead and wounded warriors. But she saw friendly looks upon many of the viking faces, and forgot her fears once more in the thought of her fellow-captives.

"I come to offer ransom," she said,--"wergild for all who yet live. My father will pay for every one,--Frank and Frisian alike."

"Doubtless!" sneered Hroar. "But we will talk of that in Nordmannia before King Sigfrid. Wittikind may have a word to say in the matter.

One thrall at least I keep as my share of the loot. Stand aside while I put my mark on him."

For the second time the Dane turned to his victim. But Rothada was quicker than he. With a piteous cry for mercy, she flung herself upon Roland and sought to s.h.i.+eld him from the knife with her own slender body. The sight would have melted any heart that held the slightest trace of n.o.bleness. It stirred the vikings to open mutiny. They renewed their protests, with deeper menace in their tones, and when Hroar bent and grasped the maiden roughly by the shoulder, one of the foremost swung up his sword.

"Stay, Hroar!" he commanded. "I am not used to looking on at foul deeds. You must first pluck out my eyes before you take the Frank's tongue."

"Ay, and mine!" growled a second viking.

Hroar stood erect and glared at the daring men. But neither gave way before his terrible look. They had the backing of their fellows. The sea-king saw this, yet his hand went to the hilt of his heavy sword.

The fight was averted, none too soon, by a scarred old berserk.

"Bear wisdom to Urd!" he called scoffingly. "Hroar bickers with his wolves, while the Norse hawks swoop upon him."

At the warning, every Dane aboard the trade-s.h.i.+p wheeled about and stared seaward. The harsh alarm of a war-horn, braying over the water, was not needed to explain the situation. A bowshot away they saw their second longs.h.i.+p surging at full speed up the estuary. A fountain of white spray spouted from under its forefoot, and the boiling sea alongside, threshed to foam by the oar-blades, told that every bench was full, every rower pulling to the utmost of his strength. Not without cause! Close in the Dane's wake the three longs.h.i.+ps of the outer estuary came gliding over the water in swift pursuit. Each lay far over under the pressure of its great square sail, and from the mail-clad crews packed along the fighting gangway behind the weather bulwarks, rose jeers and grim laughter at the efforts of the Danes to escape.

"Norse!" shouted Hroar. "Thor! they mean to attack us! Aboard s.h.i.+p and man the oars--yet stay! First scuttle the trader. We leave no booty for the fiordmen!"

"They strike sail!" cried the old berserk. "Wait a little. They do not swing the red s.h.i.+eld. It may be a jest."

"A bitter jest-- Ho! the foremost comes on alone. Aboard s.h.i.+p, all, and stand ready to cast off. I wait the Norse earl here."

CHAPTER III

Thou the bane of thy brothers wast, The chief of thy kin,--whence curse of Hel Awaits thee, good as thy wits may be!

BEOWULF.

At the alarm of the Danes, the trembling heart of the little princess leaped with joy. But the sudden hope gave way as quickly to renewed terror. Why should the cruel sea-count linger on the trade-s.h.i.+p alone if not to carry out his ferocious revenge? Closer than ever the girl clasped the senseless warrior in her arms, until the blood from his wounded head seeped warm through her silken kirtle, and the bell-like rim of his helmet bruised her tender bosom.

Breathless, she listened to the rush and outcry of the vikings as with their wounded fellows they poured back into the longs.h.i.+p. Then, in the lull which followed, she could hear the smothered wail of her tiring-woman, crouched in the cubby beneath her. Gaining courage from the silence, she at last ventured to raise her head. She saw Hroar at the farther bulwark, gazing intently down the estuary. He did not move, and Rothada rose timidly to look around.

The second Dane s.h.i.+p was coming about only a few yards astern; but its crew, like the crew of its consort, were far too intent on watching the Norse s.h.i.+p to give heed to the little maiden. Even the Frisian sailors had ceased to cower, and were lined along the bulwarks forward, full of eager hope that the approaching longs.h.i.+p might bring them a change of masters. Hroar's cruelty was only too well known throughout Frisia.

Rothada also gazed at the stately prow of the stranger and joined in the longing of her fellow-captives that the new-comers would seize the trade-s.h.i.+p for their own. But the little maiden's faith gave her still fairer hopes than those cherished by the Frisians. To her girlish innocence, deliverance now seemed certain. She had only to appeal to the Norse count, and he would accept ransom for all. Tears of grat.i.tude shone in her violet eyes as she stooped to bind up with deft fingers such of Roland's wounds as the Danes had failed to stanch.

Her task ended, the girl started up again to gaze over into the Norse s.h.i.+p as it glided alongside. The vessel swarmed with huge warriors, whose superiority to the Danes both in discipline and armor was so striking that even the convent-bred maiden could not but perceive the difference. Against such men, even had the odds been reversed, the Danes could not have hoped to hold their own.

When Rothada comprehended this, she clasped her hands in joy and looked eagerly about for the Norse leader. A small blue banner, emblazoned with a gold star, fluttered on the longs.h.i.+p's stern, and Rothada's first thought was that the blond viking at the helm beneath it must be the sea-king. But then, standing alone in the vessel's prow, she saw a warrior whom even she could not but recognize as the Norse leader. His round casque, though wingless, was of blue steel and rimmed with a gold band in whose front sparkled a garnet star. Even more beautiful was the young sea-king's serk, or coat, of ring-mail, which s.h.i.+mmered in the sun like ice. His small round s.h.i.+eld differed from the usual Norse and Frankish patterns both in the greater convexity of its shape and in the material of its face,--a disc of hammered steel. Its bluish surface, polished like a mirror, was traced with gold damascening both on the boss and on the thickened rim.

Yet with all the young sea-king's splendid war-gear, so slight and boyish did he appear in contrast to his followers that Rothada at first thought he could be little older than herself. But when he stepped forward and answered Hroar's hail, it was with a haughtiness of tone and bearing far other than childlike.

Even as he spoke, the Northman sprang upon the bulwark of his s.h.i.+p and, great as was the distance which yet separated the vessels, leaped for the trade-s.h.i.+p's deck. With a cry of astonishment, Hroar sprang sideways from before him, down upon the smooth surface of the bales of goods in the after hold; while high above the water the leaper's bright figure flashed through the air and shot in over the bulwark. Lightly as a panther, the Northman struck the deck and turned instantly to confront the Dane. But Hroar stood motionless, overcome with wonder at the daring leap, and did not seek to regain the deck.

Seeing that there was no danger of immediate attack, the Northman lowered his s.h.i.+eld and looked about with keen glances at the slaughtered Franks and Danes.