The boy's lips curved into a rueful smile as he met the look. "I remember now," he said slowly, "and I remembered up to the time I saw the Skraelling. But when I came upon him suddenly——"
"You attacked him?" It was the helmsman who screamed that, his doughlike face reddening to the very nose-end.
Alrek regarded him with critical brown eyes. "You prove a good guesser," he said politely.
From all sides went up exclamations of dismay; while from the Weathercock went up smoke and flames as though Hekla itself had broken loose.
"You—you—you good-for-nothing-wolf's-whelp-gone-mad!" he sputtered. "What do you mean by standing there so quietly when your mad-dog temper has brought discredit upon my leadership which would otherwise have got me great fame with the Lawman? One thing after another, worse and worse, will be caused by this! The Skraellings may be surrounding us even as we speak; and we shall be forced to share your disobedience or else get killed—or, it may be, both fight and get killed, since when Karlsefne finds how his orders have been regarded—But the first result of this will be that we will not go ashore to-morrow nor any other time—Ale! Faste! Hjalmar! Up with the anchor and out with the sail——"
As cries of protest arose, he beat them down with his short fat arms. "You shall not set foot upon land, you pack of ravening curs! Not until you get to camp,—and then I hope you will have reason to wish—Ah, to think that when we get to camp I must tell this instead of the report I had expected to give!" He struck his fists together until it seemed as if he might forget the Sword-Bearer's free birth and lay them on him in blows. "Why did I not remember that you had outlaw blood under your fair speaking, and keep you under my heel! But you shall pay for your liberty now. You shall be tied with walrus thongs and thrown into the foreroom, and kept there without food or drink until we reach Vinland! Take him hence,—do you hear my words? Lodin! Grimkel!"
He broke off to tug at his belt, which unwonted exertion was rendering distressfully snug; and in the interval the protests of the young Greenlanders burst forth anew, expressing unreservedly what they thought of him for taking away their chance of going ashore. When he turned on them, his thick neck rumbling volcano-like, they even gave back curse for curse; until—what with their racket and his bawling and the running to and fro of the sailors—the after-deck of the Wind-Raven presented a lively appearance.
The only quiet person on it was the culprit. Saluting with ironical ceremony, he yielded to the touch of Grimkel's hand upon his shoulder; and they proceeded to the little room under the fore-deck, which served on extraordinary occasions for a dungeon and on ordinary ones as a storeroom for bales of fur and ale-casks and kegs of salted fish.
"If I could learn to feed my stomach through my nose, I should not starve however long I stayed here," Alrek observed with an expressive grimace as they entered.