"You know very well that we want you for a guide. That is all you are worth. In a fight, you would only be in the way—unless indeed you could contrive to get out of the way."
"Then you would not expect me to fight against my master and his people?"
"Nobody was ever so foolish as to expect you to fight, more or less, I should think. No, your business would be to pilot us to Erlingsen's, and answer truly all our questions about their ways and doings."
"Surprise them in their sleep!" muttered Hund. "Wake them up with the light of their own burning roofs! And they would know me by that light! They would point me out to the bishop;—they would find time in their hurry to mark me for the monster they might well think me!"
"Yes; you would be in the front, of course," observed the pirate. "But there is one comfort for you—if you are so earnest to see the bishop, as you told me you were, my plan is the best. When once we lock him down on board our schooner, you can have him all to yourself. You can confess your sins to him the whole day long; for nobody else will want a word with either of you. You can show him your enchanted island, down in the fiord, and see if he can lay the ghost for you."
In desperation Hund, unarmed as he was, threw himself upon the pirate.
Hund sprang to his feet in an agony of passion. The well-armed pirate was up as soon as he. Rolf drew back two paces, to be out of sight, if by chance they should look up, and armed himself with a heavy stone. He heard the pirate say—
"You can try to run away, if you like; I shall shoot you through the head before you have gone five yards. And you may refuse to return with me; and then I shall know how to report of you to my captain. I shall tell him that you are lying at the bottom of this lake—if it has a bottom—with a stone tied round your neck, like a drowned wild cat. I hope you may chance to find your enemy there, to make the place the pleasanter."