"I offered him free, gratis, and for nothing to this high and haughty miss; but she tossed her curls and declined my civility," answered Tom.
"There would be no fun in that," Yaspard said in an aside; and Signy remarked, "Brodhor is worth a great deal to me, and he ought to be worth a lot to his captors. Just put a price on him that I am able to pay, and you shall have it."
"Bravo!" shouted the boys in chorus.
"Do you then absolutely refuse my princely offer?" Tom asked her, and the little girl replied boldly—
"Yes. I'd be ashamed to take him for nothing."
"The lads of Lunda," answered he loftily, "don't make bargains with ladies. If you won't take my offer you're 'out of it,' miss! Now, Sir Viking, let me tell you under what condition I will set you free. You shall give me your royal word—on the faith of a Viking—that you will give me your assistance in a deed of high emprise which I have vowed to perform."
"Why, Harry," exclaimed Bill, "you could not have said that in a more booky way yourself!"
"I haven't got another word of the sort in my vocabulary, so must return to my usual style, gentlemen," said Tom. "The long and the short of it is, when I was a prisoner at Trullyabister, I discovered that I was not the only poor wretch whom the ogre had nabbed. There are others——"
"Oh, goloptious!" shouted Yaspard, interrupting Tom without the least ceremony. "You have found out the very thing I meant to tell you. I meant to ask you fellows to help me."
"Then it would seem," said Dr. Holtum, smiling—for he had had a private talk with Tom, and had come to a conclusion of his own—"that Yaspard's 'knightly quest' and Tom's 'deed of high emprise' are one and the same. You have my approval, boys; only let me warn you to be very wary, for if you do not succeed you will have no support from any one, and may find yourselves in an awkward fix."