The Thrall of Leif the Lucky Part 39

Her lover gazed at her hungrily. "Gladly would I give every gift that Leif has lavished on me, if I might take you in my arms and kiss away the smart of those drops."

A fierce gleam narrowed Helga's starry eyes. "Before we part," she said between her teeth, "you shall kiss my eyes once for every tear they have shed; and you shall kiss my mouth three times for farewell,--though every man in Greenland should wish to prevent it."

Suddenly she hid her face against his shoulder with a little cry of despair.

"But you must never come near me after I am married!" she breathed. "The moment after my eyes had fallen upon your face, I should turn upon my husband and kill him."

"If it had not happened that I had already slain him," Alwin murmured.

Then he said, more steadily, "This is useless talk, sweetheart. Tell me the thought which comforted you. At least it will be a joy to me to cherish in my heart what you have treasured in your brain."

Helga looked out over the tumbling water with eyes grown wide and thoughtful.

"I will not be so hopeful as to call it a comfort yet," she said, "too vague is its shape for that. It is a faint plan which I have built on my knowledge of Gilli's nature. As well as I, you know that he cares for nothing but what is gainful for him. Now if I could manage to make myself so ugly that no chief would care to make offers for me... is it not likely that my father would cease to value me and be even glad to get rid of me, to you? I would disfigure myself in no such way that the ugliness would be lasting," she rea.s.sured him, hastily. "But if I should weep my eyes red and my cheeks pale, and cut off my hair... It would all come right in time; you would not mind the waiting?"

Alwin looked at her with a touch of wonder.

"And you would go ugly for me?" he asked. "Hide your beauty and become a jest where you have always been a queen, for no other reason than to sink so low that I might reach up and pluck you? Would you think it worth while to do that for me?"

But his meaning was lost on Helga's simplicity. She gathered only that he thought the scheme possible, and hope bloomed like roses in her cheeks.

"Oh, comrade, do you indeed think favorably of the plan?" she whispered, eagerly. "I had not the heart to hope much from it; everything has failed us so. If you think it in the least likely to succeed, I will cut off my hair this instant."

In spite of his misery, Alwin laughed a little.

"Do you then imagine that the gold of your hair and the red of your cheeks is all that makes you fair?" he asked. "No, dear one, I think it would be easier to make Gilli generous than you ugly. No man who had eyes to look into your eyes, and ears to hear your voice, could be otherwise than eager to lay down his life to possess you. Trust to no such rootless trees, comrade. And do not raise your face toward me like that either; for, in honor, I may not kiss you, and and you are not ugly yet, sweetheart."

Shouts from those around them recalled the lovers to themselves. The returning boat was almost upon them; and from among her burly crew the wan faces of several strangers looked up, while a swooning woman was seen to lie in the bow. Her face, though pinched and pallid, was also fair and lovable, and Helga momentarily forgot disappointment in pity.

"Bring her here and lay her upon my cus.h.i.+ons," she said to the men who carried the woman on board. Wrapping the limp form in her own cloak, the s.h.i.+eld-maiden pulled off such of the sodden garments as she could, poured wine down the stranger's throat, and strove energetically to chafe some returning warmth into the benumbed limbs.

While the boat hastened back to bring off the rest of the unfortunates, those of the first load whom wine and hope had sufficiently revived, explained the disaster.

The wrecked s.h.i.+p belonged to Thorir of Trondhjem; and that merchant and his wife Gudrid and fourteen sailors made up her company. On the voyage from Nidaros to Greenland with a cargo of timber, their vessel had gone to pieces on a submerged reef, and they had been just able to reach that most inhospitable of rocks and cling there like flies, frozen, wind-battered, and drenched. The waves, in a moment of repentance, had thrown a little of their timber back to them, and this had been their only shelter; and their only food some coa.r.s.e lichens and a few sea-birds' eggs.

It was little wonder that when Leif had brought the last load on board, and drowned their past woes in present comforts, the starved creatures were almost ready to embrace his knees with thankfulness.

"It seems to me that we should be called 'the Lucky,' and you 'the Good,'" Thorir said, as the two chiefs stood on the forecastle, watching the anchor and the sail both rising with joyful alacrity. "Without your aid, we could not have lived a day longer."

And Gudrid, opening her eyes to see Helga's fair face bending over her to put a wine cup to her lips, murmured faintly, "A Valkyria could not look more beautiful to me than you do. Tell me what you are called, that I may know what name to love you by."

"I am called Helga, Gilli's daughter," the s.h.i.+eld-maiden answered, with just an edge of bitterness on the last words.

Gudrid's gentle eyes opened wide with wonder and alarm.

"Not Helga the Fair of Trondhjem," she gasped, "who fled from Gilli to his kinsfolk in Greenland? Alas, my unfortunate child!"

In the eagerness in which she clasped her hands, the wine-cup fell clanging from Helga's hold. "Is he dead?" she cried, imploringly. "Only tell me that, and I will serve you all the rest of my life! Is Gilli dead?"

But Gudrid had sunk back in another faint. She lay with her eyes closed, moaning and murmuring to herself.

Leif, biting sharply at his thick mustache, as he was wont to do when excited, turned sharply on Thorir.

"What is the reason of this?" he demanded. "What are these tidings concerning my kinswoman, which your wife hesitates to speak? Is Gilli of Trondhjem dead?"

Thorir answered with great haste and politeness, "No, no; naught so bad as that. Naught but what I expect can be easily remedied. But it appears that when Gilli attempted to follow his daughter to Greenland, last fall, he suffered a s.h.i.+pwreck and the loss of much valuable property, barely escaping with his life. From this he drew the rash conclusion that his daughter had become a misfortune to him, as some foreknowing woman had once said she would. And he declared that since the maiden preferred her poorer kinsfolk in Greenland, she might stay with them; and--"

The words burst rapturously from Helga's lips: "And he disowned me?"

Thorir stared at her in astonishment. "Yes," he said, pityingly.

It was just as well that he had not attempted a longer answer, for he never would have finished it. Madness seemed suddenly to fall upon the s.h.i.+p. In the face of her disinheritance, the s.h.i.+eld-maiden was radiant.

Down in the waist of the s.h.i.+p, two youths who had caught the words threw up their hats with cheers. Leif Ericsson himself laughed loudly, and snapped his fingers in derision.

"A mighty revenge!" he said. "My kinswoman could have received no greater kindness at the churl's hands. Could she have accomplished it by a dagger-thrust, I doubt not that she would have let his base blood run from her veins long ere this."

He turned to where Helga stood watching him, her heart in her eyes, and pulled her toward him and kissed her.

"You chose between honor and riches, kinswoman," he said, "but while there is a ring in my pouch you shall never lack property; you have behaved like a true Norse maiden, and I am free now to say that I honor you for it. Go the way your heart desires, without further hindrance."

Helga stayed to press his hand to her cheek; then, before them all, without a thought of shame, she went the way that ended in her lover's arms.

They stood side by side in the gilded prow, and he kissed her eyes twice for every tear they had shed; and he kissed her mouth thrice three times, and not a man in the whole world rose up to prevent him. Side by side, they stood in the flying bow, a divinely modelled figure-head, gilded by the light of love.

CONCLUSION

As the sun's last beams were fading from the mountain tops, the exploring vessel dropped anchor before Eric's s.h.i.+p-sheds and the eager groups that had gathered on the sh.o.r.e at the first signal. Not only idlers made up the throng, but the Red One himself was there, and Thorwald and every soul from Brattahlid; and with them half the high-born men of Greenland, who had lived for the last month as Eric's guests, that they might be on hand for this occasion. They shoved and jostled each other like schoolboys, as they crowded down to meet the first boat-load.

The ten sailors who stepped ash.o.r.e were a prosperous looking band. Their arms were full of queer pets; their pouches were stuffed with samples of wood and samples of wheat, and with nuts and with raisins. All were sleek and fat with a year's good living, and all jubilant with happiness and a sense of their own importance. Even while their arms were clasping their sweethearts' necks, they began to hint at their brave adventures and to boast of the grain and the timber and the wine. The home-keepers heard just enough to set their curiosity leaping and dancing with eagerness for more. And each succeeding boat-load of burly heroes worked their enthusiasm to a higher pitch.

Then, gradually, the song ran into a minor key, as Thorir's pitiful crew landed upon the sand. Haggard and worn and almost too weak to walk, they clung to the brawny arms of their rescuers; and the horrors of their privations were written in pitiless letters on Gudrid's fair white face.

The rejoicing and laughter sank into wondering questions and pitiful murmuring.

While Thorir told the Red One briefly of their sufferings, the throng listened as to their favorite ballad, and shuddered and suffered with him. Then, in words that still rang with joy and grat.i.tude, Thorir told of their rescue by Leif Ericsson.

Strongly speeding arrows need only aim to make them reach their target.

Flights of wildest enthusiasm had been going up on every side. Now Thorir gave these a mark and an aim. Curiosity and triumph, pity and rejoicing, all merged into one great impulse and rose in a pa.s.sion of hero-wors.h.i.+p. Toward the boat that was bringing the Lucky One to land, they turned, face and heart, and laid their homage at his feet. Never had Greenland glaciers heard such a tumult of acclaim as when the throng cheered and stamped and clashed their weapons.

It was a supreme moment. Leif's bronzed face was white, as he stood waiting for the noise to subside that he might answer them. Yet never had his bearing been statelier than when at last he stepped forward and faced them.

"I give you many thanks for your favor, friends," he said, courteously.

"It is more than I could have expected, and I give you many thanks for it. But I think it right to remind you that I am not one of those men who trust in their own strength alone. What I have done I have been able to do by the help of my G.o.d whom you reject. To Him I give the thanks and the glory."

In that humility which is higher than pride, he raised the silver crucifix from his breast and bent his head before it. Out of the hush that followed, a man's voice rang strongly,--the voice of one of Greenland's foremost chiefs.

"Hail to the G.o.d of Leif Ericsson! The G.o.d that helped him must be all-powerful. Henceforth I will believe that He and no one else is the only G.o.d. Hail to the Cross!"