The leader smiled tolerantly. He wore on his long body fine clothes of scarlet leather, and on his thin lips the semblance of a perpetual smile.
“Everything grows big in your eyes,” he observed. “There! I think I see gray cloth among those green bushes. It were best to ride on until we come where he may see that there are too many of us to withstand; then one of us can dismount and approach him with the message.”
The youngest of the riders laughed again, this time somewhat sarcastically. “No one is better fitted to take that task on him than yourself, Olaf, Thorgrim’s son. For what else did you spend your fosterhood in France but to get smooth manners to use in rough places?”
“Yes, yes! By all means, Olaf is the man!” the others chorussed, a hint of malice in their promptness.
If Thorgrim’s French-reared son read the sign, it made no difference in the confidence of his bearing. He answered that if it was their wish he would certainly undertake the errand, and immediately swung from his saddle as gaining the green bushes, they came into view of the wearer of the gray kirtle.
Prone on the earth’s broad bosom the young noble had thrown himself and lay with his head pillowed on his folded arms, a figure of utter abandon. Only at the clink of spur and bridle-chain did he turn upon his side and fling back a mass of blood-red hair from a face of startling pallor. What look came into it when he beheld the horsemen, they were not near enough to tell. By the time Olaf stood before him, his teeth were showing a snarl.
“Well, dog, you have tracked your quarry,” he said. “No wonder your trainers set store by you! What is the rest of your master’s bidding?”
Olaf laughed lightly. “Certainly, Jarl’s son, you should be a scald; you speak so glibly in figures. Starkad sends you orders to turn back and take your place again in the following.”
Starkad’s son drew himself slowly into a sitting posture. Then of a sudden his body was convulsed with laughter,—laughter mocking as the mirth of a devil.
“Who am I that I should stand in the way of the Jarl’s will?” he gasped between his paroxysms, and shaking with them rose to his feet.