A contemptuous murmur rose from the Norsemen.
"Let us begin by hanging this man," said Ketill, "and then fire, fire through the country!"
"I shall see first whether he has spoken the truth," answered
Estein. "Bind him, and bring him on."
The man was bound and guarded, and the march was continued. Early the next morning two men were found together in a cottage, and they told the same tale.
"Little glory is there in marching against such a people," said
Estein. "Bind them, and hasten on."
About an hour later the little army emerged from a hillside forest, and saw below them a small merchant town. The rude wooden houses straggled along the edge of a great frozen lake, whose snow-powdered surface stretched for miles and miles in an unbroken sheet of dazzling whiteness. Between the shores and the outskirts of the woodlands lay a wide sweep of cultivated country. Everywhere a thin coating of snow covered the ground, and the air was sharp enough to make the breath of the men rise like a cloud of steam as they marched in battle order down the slope.
"There are men in the town!" cried Helgi suddenly. "I see the glint of the sun on weapons. Thanks be to the gods, we shall have a fight!"
"Ay, they are coming out," said Estein. "Halt! we shall take advantage of the slope, and await them here."
The men halted, and grasped their weapons, and in expectant silence their leaders watched a small troop defile out of the town.
"Call you that an army?" growled Ketill. "There are barely a score of them."