"We must assist ourselves, then, as we best can," said Drost Peter. "We can stay here until the duke has passed. Although every royal castellan will stand by us, yet the fewer we are the better: we must avoid publicity."
"But, should the pirates impede our progress, we must cut our way through the pack," remarked Thorstenson. "I take upon me to crack the algrev's neck, and perhaps those of a couple of his scoundrels. Yet, however, we are only two-men-and-a-half strong."
"You may safely reckon us as three whole men, and a little more, stern sir knight," said Skirmen, strutting bravely: "what I want in length, I can make up for, perhaps, in another shape. At any rate, you and my master alone may well pass for three doughty men."
"No bragging, Skirmen," said Drost Peter, interrupting his squire. "Off now, and get under the stone trough, by the roadside yonder, and bring us word, as soon as you see them. They cannot do otherwise than cross the brook."
Skirmen leapt from his norback, and left it to graze in the wood. He then ran to the post indicated, and the two knights took their seats on the hillock.
"Ah, could we only catch the algrev!" broke out Sir Thorstenson, vehemently.
"That is a matter of secondary importance, my noble knight," observed Drost Peter. "In our anxiety to secure a freebooter, let us not forget the far more important object for which we are here."
"You are right," said Thorstenson: "in thinking of the infernal viking, I had almost forgotten everything else. Respecting the duke, it is rather a dangerous undertaking. If we allow him to cross the Sound, we may chance to have him in our power; but, if it so happen, it is then extremely doubtful whether we are not doing exactly that which the king and the friends of the country would prevent. Think you not that such apparent violence, towards so powerful a vassal, would give a vent for the general dissatisfaction, and arm every traitor in the country?"
"It is a hazardous but necessary step," replied Drost Peter; "and, after what we have now seen, is nowise unjust. Besides, if this exalted personage is in league with the country's open enemies, and even with outlawed criminals, like Niels Breakpeace, we should be quite justified were we to seize him on the spot. Were that possible, we shall not exceed our authority one single step."
"Could we but lay hold of the algrev at the same time, it would not so much matter," began Sir Thorstenson, after a pause, his eyes flashing with passion. "Since the cursed sea-hound is so saucy as to risk himself on land, before our very eyes, I can scarcely refrain from giving him chase, even before we deal with the other. It were shame and a scandal should the notorious algrev be permitted to pass through Zealand, instead of being hanged on a gallows by the way. There is scarcely a sea-town in Denmark that he has not plundered: he has committed more atrocities in the world than he has hairs on his curly head."