"We have taken fright easily," said Olaf, as if angry with himself for being thus startled. "My heart beats like a hammer, and I will bide here till I can do better than that."
Yet he spoke in a whisper; and I saw no reason to try to answer him if I could. Then he walked on, keeping to the right, where the ground is high, at the hill foot, but still skirting the water's edge. Then I saw something beside the reeds, and went aside to see what it was; and, as I thought, it was a canoe that some fisher had left. There was a paddle still in it, and a bow net set on hoops, such as we were wont to use for eels and tench.
"Here is how Gunnhild might find food," I thought, but it was not likely.
Ottar stood and looked into it with me, but the king had walked on.
Now it grew darker as we followed him, and Ottar tripped and fell, and I lost him, though I could hear him close behind me as he broke a branch now and then in passing.
The king stayed in a clear place that I remembered well. Great trees stood round, and it was pleasant to sit there and look out over the water on a summers noonday.
"Where is Ottar?" he said, when I stood by him.
"Close behind me. I heard him even now," I answered. "Let us go back, my king. There is nought here."
"Aye, we will go back now," he said. "But Ottar is before me."
"Listen," I said, "the scald is behind us. I lost him in the dark."