While they were yet disputing, whether they had or had not the right of imprisoning the murderer, the squire rushed out of the door, with his drawn sword in his hand, and none dared to stop him.
As soon as he found himself in the open air, he concealed his sword under his mantle, slouched his hat over his brow, and mingled in the throng which surrounded the house, and had thrust the guard aside. It appeared, even to him, somewhat doubtful and improbable that persons might thus be slain with perfect impunity at the gaming table; what he had heard respecting perpetual imprisonment in the bishop's city, still sounded very unpleasantly in his ear, and he thought it most advisable to decamp as soon as possible; but in order not to excite suspicion, he walked on quietly, and whistled a blithe drinking song. "There's desperate work in the house between the pepper 'prentices and the king's men," he said aloud, "the devil take me if I stand here gaping any longer." As soon as he was fairly out of the crowd, he quickened his steps and hastened down past the Catsound towards the old strand. He went onward without knowing whither, and often looked behind to see whether any one pursued him. He saw lights in all the houses on the strand--mirth and song resounded, contrary to usage, in many quarters of the generally quiet town, in defiance of the strict regulations of the bishop and archbishop; but all was gloomy and still at Axelhuus. He pursued his way along the level shore, and approached the church of St. Nicholas. In the churchyard he saw a crowd of people assembled. A strange, half devout, half seditious murmur, was heard in the crowd, and a solemn council appeared to be held. He hastened past the sullen muttering assemblage, and reached the ferry opposite Bremen-island. Here all the great warehouses were desolate and deserted; he sat down quite breathless on the quay to recover himself, and think of the means of escape. It was past midnight. The moon shone upon the broad stream and the tall warehouses on Bremen island. He felt oppressed by the death-like stillness around him. The wild scene of the murder in the alehouse was now solemnly and fearfully present to his imagination--he heard his heart beat; he wiped the blood from off his sword, and put it into the sheath. He perceived spots of blood upon his clothes, and was about to go down to the water to wash them out, but he now heard a sound near him like the gasping of a dying man; he looked around him with uneasiness, but no human being was to be seen. The singular sound still fell on his ear, and mingled with his vivid recollection of the death-rattle of the slain Rostocker. He had felt no dread of the living adversary,--now he shuddered at the thought of the dead. The hair of the fugitive squire stood on end; he hastily started off from the quay, and would have fled further; but he now distinctly heard that the sound which terrified him proceeded from the sea-shore. The faint ray of the moon now lit up the beach, on which he beheld a man lying stretched at full length. "The pepper 'prentice! What became of him?"--he heard the voice gasp forth, and recognised its tones. "Our Lady be merciful to us! Sir Helmer! what hath happened you?" exclaimed Canute, aghast, and hasted down to the half-expiring knight, who was utterly exhausted by fighting and swimming, and whom, with much difficulty, he raised on his legs, and in some degree restored to consciousness. His drenched clothes were rent and bloody; his long brown locks clung to his swollen cheeks, and in his left hand, which was convulsively clenched, he held a thick tuft of reddish hair. "Look! look!" he said, "it was all I got hold of, the rest the devil hath taken. He twined round me like a water-snake. He bit and tore like the devil. The stream put an end to our embrace, it had well nigh put an end to my life, I perceive."
"Our Lady and St. George help you, noble sir!" said the squire, crossing himself, as he reached him a small flask. "Take something to strengthen your heart after that joust! If you have fought with the evil one at the bottom of the sea you have surely had to stand a hard encounter."
"I hope it was the right one," said Helmer, and drained the flask, "Thanks, countryman! it hath helped me! Now I have got my strength again. I ail nothing in reality; my limbs are sound; I am but a little bruised, and dizzy in my head."
"But what in all the world have you been about? Have you been seeking the pepper 'prentice, or Satan himself, at the bottom of the sea, and know not rightly yourself whether you found him?"
"I was hard pressed for time, thou must know. The king rode quietly past the beach. I was somewhat wrath with him, I must needs confess. I was on the way to the bishop's dungeon, on account of my having taken the balista a little in hand; but then I caught a sight of that devil of a pepper 'prentice; he stood not a yard from me in a boat, and would have pushed past us; it seemed to me that he stared after the king, and fumbled with his hand in his breast, as if after a dagger. Whether it was the right rascal or not, there was not time to discover. The fellow looked confoundedly suspicious, and one pepper 'prentice, more or less, of what consequence was it, when the king's life was in question? so I jumped into the boat. Ere I wast fully sensible of it I had the fellow by the throat, and had tumbled blithely with him into the stream."
"Have you sent the pepper 'prentice down to his home, noble sir?" said Canute with restored cheerfulness, and somewhat proudly,--"then I have sent a bottle-nosed Hanse grocer to hell, from an ale tavern. None can say we have been idle here in Copenhagen. We serve the king as well as we can--although we may have come a little out of the way he sent us. If you only have but hit on the right man! your exploit was far more daring and dangerous than mine, noble sir! But in two particulars I have been more lucky, however; I know I hit on the right person, and know also I mastered the rascal to some purpose. It was he who would have hung us in the morning, and who would have taken the king's life, had he had power and courage to do so."
"The Rostocker! Berner Kopmand?"
"The same! He now lies dead as a herring, in the ale-house; he will never be laid in Christian ground, if my honest friend the herald is in the right. But come, sir!--if you can bestir yourself, let's get out of the bishop's town, and the sooner the better! If the provost or the bishop's men pounce on us, we shall not 'scape from their dungeons all our life-time."
With some difficulty the wounded knight followed the squire, and they soon reached the east gate at the end of East Street. The gate was shut, but its lock and bolts had been forced in the insurrection. The fugitives opened it without difficulty, and entered into the large grass-grown marketplace, where the Halland vegetable vendors especially had their landing-places and stalls. Meanwhile, Sir Helmer felt weaker at every step. With the help of the squire he dragged himself with difficulty to the chapel by St. Anna's bridge; here he sank down powerless before the chapel door;--all grew dark before his eyes, and he was near falling into a swoon.