"Who knows what a dead chief of might cannot work?" Thord said. "I think it certain that Sigurd is angry for some reason; and little luck shall we have if we do not appease his spirit."
Then the jarl looked troubled, as well he might, for to go near the mound that held an angry ghost was no light matter. It lay far up the firth, Thord said, and the ships could not go so far. But Einar was very brave, and when he had thought for a little while he said:
"Well, then, I will take boat and go to Sigurd's mound and see if he ails aught. Will any man come with me, however?"
I liked not the errand, as may be supposed, but I could not leave my foster father to go alone.
"I will be with you," I said. "Will not Thord come also?"
"Ay," the grim Orkney man answered.
Now all our crew were listening to us, and I looked down the long gangways by chance, and when I did so no man would meet my eye. They feared lest they should be made to go to this haunted place, as it seemed--all but one man, who sat on the mast step swinging his feet. This was Kolgrim the Tall, the captain of the fore deck, a young man and of few words, but a terrible swordsman, and knowing much of sea craft. And when this man saw that I looked at him, he nodded a little and smiled, for he had been a friend of mine since I had first come to Einar.
"Two men to row the boat will be enough, jarl," I said. "Kolgrim yonder will come with us."
"Well," the jarl answered, "maybe four of us are enough. We shall not fright Sigurd with more, and maybe would find it hard to get them to come."
So he called Kolgrim, and he said that he would go with us, and went to get the boat alongside without more words.