"That is no worse than a promise," Erlend returned blandly, "for if you do in truth wish us luck, you will help us all you can." And they departed from her in high feather to tell their comrades of the boon granted.
Standing where they had left her, Gudrid pondered a while whether she really would cross the grass to the spot where Jorund and the two other Greenland women gossiped beside a door-step, or whether she would go into the booth where Karlsefne sat with his chiefs over a chart. There was a matter of cheeses that she particularly wished to discuss with Jorund, and yet it would be interesting to hear whether the Lawman had seen any trace of Skraellings in his trip that day. Considering, she put a hand up to finger her amber necklace, as was her habit, and made the discovery that it was not there. She took her hand away with a gesture of impatience.
"Now will Karlsefne laugh at me, for he has always said that this would happen if I allowed Snorri to play with it! I remember that it was by the river, where I sat with him this afternoon. I gave it to him to bite, and then it happened that he dropped it to reach out for the boat which Biorn was rowing past; and Biorn called to me, and I forgot to pick it up again. Tch! What a stupid business! It is in my mind to slip out and get it before any one notices that it is gone. The exact spot is known to me."
Going over to the western gate, she looked out toward the shining river. Less than a dozen trees dotted the space between her and the little knoll on the bank where she had rested, and the moon made it almost as bright as day. She gathered up her trailing kirtle with prompt decision.
"Any Skraelling small enough to hide in those shadows, is not big enough to be afraid of," she said, and passed out quickly with her firm light step.
That anything besides Skraellings might lurk in the shadows, she seemed to forget. Reaching the bank, she sent one look of admiration out over the radiant river, then bent her gaze to the foot of the tree among whose roots her fingers were swiftly feeling. To look up into the branches she had no thought whatever.
Yet not ten paces from her, Death lay along a bough,—Death in a tawny body with eyes like fire and a tail like a serpent, noiselessly lashing the air as the graceful form crouched for a spring.
The first warning she had was when a voice she knew spoke sharply from the shadows before her: "Lie down on your face!" The catastrophe came only a breath after the warning. As she threw herself forward, something leaped over her and met something else in mid-air. There was the jar of heavy bodies striking the earth, a crackle of breaking twigs, and the silver stillness was profaned by a horrible sound of snarling and long-drawn gasps.
Clutching at the tree-trunk, she tried to pull herself to her feet; but the two struggled on the very skirt of her robe and held her pinioned. Only over her shoulder she caught a glimpse of the giant cat, where it lay on its back, clutching in its claws the boy who knelt on its lashing body with no other weapon against the gaping jaws than his bare brown hands. It seemed to her that she shrieked, and it is certain that she swooned; for the next thing she knew, she lay on her face in the grass with Alrek bending toward her.