"You shoot badly, knaves!" shouted Helmer. "Is that the way to hold a cross-bow? Come but nearer, and I will teach ye to handle it!" he continued, letting go the oar and brandishing his sword over his uncovered head, as he stood in the stern of the boat. "As surely as St. Anna hath given me my strength again, it shall not fare a hair better with ye than with my departed brothers-in-law." Another cross-bow bolt whistled over his head, but without injuring a hair of it--another split the gunwale and broke the tiller. Helmer seized the harmless bolt, and just as he was about to be overtaken, flung it back with all his might whence it came. It whistled past both the cross-bowmen, but hit Henrik Gullandsfar on the forehead, and the merchant fell backwards without life sufficient to utter a cry.
"Death and misfortune! 'Twas Helmer Blaa who threw!" cried one of the provost's men. "The devil a bit will I fight with him.--Let's be off!"
The provost's men and the cross-bow shooters now took to flight down the stream with the body of Gullandsfar. Sir Helmer again seized the one oar, and the two bold fugitives rowed unmolested up to Sorretslóv lake. Here they sprang ashore on the green sward, leaving the boat to float back with the current.
"We have got thus far on dry land," said Helmer, looking around him; "we are without the town paling, and are scarce a hundred paces distant from the king's castle. When the king hears of our exploits, perhaps he will say, it was bravely done, but will cause us to be bound and thrown into the tower, according to strict law, and there we may be suffered to lie until his council and the bishops are agreed whether we are to be punished with death or only with imprisonment for life."
"Would you scare me, Sir Helmer?" exclaimed Canute, in dismay. "As soon as we reach the king's castle yonder, we surely stand under the king's protection."
"But here he is on the bishop's preserve as well as we. We have forgotten that in our hurry," observed Helmer; "the sixteen villages in this neighbourhood belong to the little Roskild bishop. Bishop law and church law are valid here; and this I know beforehand, the king will not swerve a hair's-breadth from what is lawful for our sake, even though we were his best friends, and had saved his life an hundred times over."
"Death and confusion! What shall we do then? In that case we were mad should we take refuge with him here?"
"So I think, countryman! But help us he shall, whether he will it or no. Knowest thou the two white horses here in the meadow? Look! how they dance in the tether and snort towards the dawn."
"The king's tournament prancers!--the very apple of his eye! Every knights' squire knows them. You have surely not lost your wits, Sir Helmer! What would you be at?"
"Thou shalt soon see," said Helmer, approaching the starting and rearing steeds. "So! ho! old fellows! stand still!--if we have risked our lives for the king, he can doubtless lend us a pair of horses. Had I my good Arab it should fly with us both faster than the wind. The pepper 'prentice I answer for," he continued, still enticing the horses. "I have soused and pumelled him so soundly, that he will do no mischief again in a hurry, if there is life in him yet--and I dare wager my head it was the right one. If thou hast made an end of Berner Kopmand, countryman, I answer for Henrik Gullandsfar, and the archbishop hath gone to the devil; there is now no great danger astir, and the king needs us no longer here. I am no great lover of trial and imprisonment, seest thou? and if the king does not need my life, I know of one who will give me a kiss for saving it.--So ho, there! That's right, my lad!--a noble animal, by my soul! I desert not from the service to run home to my young wife,--that none shall say of me. Do thou like me, countryman! I will now ride on the king's prancer as his bridesman to Sweden, to perform what I have neglected. If thou wilt come with me, come then!" Meanwhile Helmer had caught one of the spirited steeds. In an instant he was upon its back, and galloped away over hedge and ditch with the swiftness of a deer. The Drost's squire did not long hesitate; he was soon seated on the back of the other, and followed Sir Helmer at a brisk gallop.