Now as I had nothing to lose by speaking, I cried to the earl concerning the one matter that troubled me.
"Earl Ulfkytel, I pray you forgive my poor folk if they fought for me when you took the boat."
"They knew not why it was taken," he answered quietly. "I sent a messenger before I gave sentence. But I should not have blamed them had they fought, knowing all."
Then a rough man who tended the boat called out:
"Ho, Lord Earl, are these murderers to go forth with gold on arm and hand?" for we had been stripped of naught but our arms, and I suppose the man coveted these things.
But the earl answered:
"Which is the murderer? I know not. When his time comes stripped he will be of life itself. Let the men be," and then in a moment he asked one by him; "what weapons had Lodbrok when he came?"
"Only a dagger," answered the thane to whom he spoke. "Or so men say."
"That is true," I said plainly.
"Give the men their daggers," then said the earl; and when one told him that we should use them on each other, he answered: