“Husband,” she said, “it is in my mind that we are in danger in this place; for I cannot sleep by reason of a dream that will come to me so soon as my eyes are closed.”
“You are overtired with the voyage,” Havelok told her gently; and then he asked her what the dream was.
“It seems that I see you attacked by a boar and many foxes, and hard pressed, and then that a bear and good hounds help you. Yet we have to flee to a great tree, and there is safety. Then come two lions, and they obey you.”
“I think that is a dream that comes of waves, and the foam that has followed us, and the shrill wind in the rigging, and the humming of the sail, sweet wife; and the tree is the tall mast maybe, and the lions are the surges that you saw along this shore, where is no danger.”
So she was content; and then all in the house slept.
[CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAST OF GRIFFIN OF WALES.]
Maybe it was about an hour before midnight when the first waking came to any of us, and then it was Biorn himself who was roused by footsteps that stayed at the doorway itself, after coming across the garth, and then a voice that was strange to him which bade him open. At once he caught up his axe and went to the door, and asked quietly who was there.
“Open at once,” said the man who was without; “we must speak with you.”
“Go hence, I pray you, and wait for morning,” said the sheriff. “Here are guests of the jarl’s, and they must not be disturbed.”
“Open, or we will open for ourselves,” was the answer. “We have no time to stay here talking.”