"You will become also as thin as bubbles if you wait for Kark to cook your food," he answered, lightly. "I bring the chief the bad tidings that he has lost his thrall." Pushing his companion gently aside, he walked over to where the Lucky One sat. "It will sound like an old woman's tale to you, chief," he warned him; "yet this is nothing but the truth."
While the skin-pullers abandoned their contest and dropped cross-legged upon the hide to listen, and the outlying circle picked up its drinking horns and crept closer, he related the whole experience, simply and quite truthfully, from beginning to end.
From all sides, exclamations of amazement and horror broke out when he had finished. Only the chief sat regarding him in silence, a skeptical pucker lifting the corner of his mouth.
Leif said finally, "Truth came from your mouth when you foretold that this would appear to me as strange as the tales old women tell. Until within the last month we have passed through that district almost daily; and never yet have we found aught betokening the presence of human beings. That they should thus appear to you—"
"They came like the monsters in a dream, and vanished like them," Rolf declared.
"Saving in the fact that dream monsters do not leave mangled bodies behind them," Leif reminded him; and his eyes narrowed with an unpleasant shrewdness. "Rolf Erlingsson," he advised, "confess that they are the dreams you liken them to. That Kark was no favorite with you or your friend"—he nodded toward the Norman—"was seen by everybody. Confess that it was by the sword of one of you that the thrall met his death."
For once the Wrestler's face lost its gentleness. His huge frame stiffened haughtily, as he drew himself up.
"Leif Ericsson," he returned, fiercely, "when—for love of good or fear of ill—have you ever known me to lie?"
The chief looked at him incredulously.
"You will swear to the truth of the tale?"