Gudrid fell back in a half-swoon, and through the hall swelled a murmur like the rush of a rising wave. But the Lawman stretched forth his hand, the flash of his eyes like the gleam of ice in the moonlight; and the wave fell, sputtering and hissing, until it had smoothed out into silence.
Alrek Ingolfsson spoke only once, when they had finished pinioning his arms. "Like a sheep-killing dog!" he said under his breath; and his head sank beneath its weight of shame, and he did not raise it again but went away without looking into any one's face.
With the opening of the door came in the noise of rushing wind; then the door closed upon it, and throughout the length and breadth of the hall there was no sound save for the half-sobbing breaths of Gudrid struggling back from her swoon, and no motion until all at once the Lawman sank into his high-seat and covered his face with his mantle.
It is a strange thing that at the moment Karlsefne's eyes were covered, the veil fell from Gudrid's. Lighting on Hallad, her glance rested there dully for a while; then all at once it sharpened to more than ordinary keenness. Rising from her seat, she leveled one slender arm at the cowering figure.
"I think you did the slaying yourself!" she breathed.
At Hallad's recoil and Biorn's bewildered query, the Lawman looked up questioningly; and Gudrid put her other hand upon his shoulder and shook him in her passion of eagerness.
"Will you allow your kinsman to die because of your slowness? Promise life to this coward and he will confess guilt. I see it in his face."
But the Lawman had no need to speak, for this sudden focusing of all eyes upon Hallad lay bare his secret like a bolt from the skies, and struck him down at Gudrid's feet.
"It was the Huntsman who made me!" he screamed, and groveled shrieking it over and over. Gradually, his foster-father gathered from the broken words that the Huntsman had made it the one condition of his remaining alive and coming back to camp after his own departure, that he should break up the peace by a man-slaying; and he had used the stone hatchet, which he had stolen from Alrek's unconscious body, because that chanced to be his only weapon when a moment later he came unexpectedly upon the Skraelling.
But only Biorn, his foster-father, stayed to hear more. At the first cry, Karlsefne had crossed the booth in three strides and vanished through the door, and Gudrid had followed him, and the three Champions. And now the maids and the throng of men turned from Hallad and streamed out into the clearing air and across the green toward the Champions' booth, beyond which a knot of people stood under a pine-tree from whose outreaching bough dangled a grape-vine noose.