"Why," he answered, "I don't know that it is. But your folk would pay no ransom, and it would seem foolish if I had let you go offhand. Not but what your folk have not proved their wisdom, for they have got rid of us pretty cheaply. Odin! how they swarmed on us!"
"Ay," growled Thrond. "I did not dream that so many men could be gathered in so few hours; but they fought anyhow, and it was only a matter of numbers. Well, the place is good enough, and it is but a question of more ships next time."
"Why did not you try an escape when we were all busy in the fight?" asked Thorleif, turning to me. "I have lost more than one captive in that way."
I told him, and he looked kindly enough at me, and smiled in his grim way.
"You were right in saying that a Saxon's word was good, Thrond," he said.
"I am sorry we can in no way send you back now. Your cousin did his best to win his folk to peace--and fought well when he could not. Nay, he is not hurt, so far as I know."
"Let me swim ashore, if there is no other way," I said, with a dull despair on me.
Thorleif looked at the sea and frowned.
"I could not do it myself," he said. "There is a swift current round yon headland. See, it is setting us eastward even now."
But I did not wait to hear any more; I shook my shoes off, and over I went. The wake of the swift vessel closed over my head as the men shouted, and when I came to the surface I looked back once. It seemed that Thorleif was preventing the men from sending a shower of arrows after me, but in those few moments a long space of water had widened between us; and I doubt whether they would have hit me, for I could have dived.