"Now you talk like fools," the young Viking said, "to think to revenge private wrongs in wartime. He would be a fine soldier who because he had a grudge against his chief would desert in time of battle and leave his comrades to fight alone. No knife could scrape off this shame."
They quailed so under that, that the Huntsman's green eyes became like the eyes of a Vinland elk at bay. Turning where Erlend stood silent, he struck again:
"You then,—if you have any power who call yourself the chief!"
Erlend laughed uneasily; his handsome face had turned painfully red. "It seems that I was mistaken in thinking that that name belonged to me," he answered.
Crimsoning, Alrek fell from his hill of scorn to the valley of abashment. "Erlend, I meant no—no disrespect toward you," he stammered. "I did not mean to step out of my place—" He was obliged to stop, for Erlend's hand closed over his mouth.
"What are you talking about?" the Amiable One said sternly. "That is in no way what I mean. What you did was to step into the place that belongs to you." He exerted some of his strength to keep his palm where he had put it. "Listen to me! I am unfit to have the rule over anything. Never did it come into my head that leaving would be disloyal. I should have done a nithing thing which the saga-men would never have forgotten. I know of no better happening than that you should come into your own in time to save me." He stretched out his other hand toward the assembled Champions. "You shouted before when I said that I should offer the chiefship back. I shall think your tongues of little value if you keep them between your teeth now!"
The eagerness with which Brand offered the first cheer seemed designed to make up for his blunder of the moment before. He was seconded by a deep roar from Gard, who had just come up with his burden on his back. After that, there was no separating the shouts that came; and they banged their tools against the ship in lieu of swords and shields.
When the racket had subsided, Erlend turned back to the Swordless with a smile that had yet a touch of haughtiness. "I shall take it as an insult to my pride if you ask me to keep what so plainly belongs to you," he said.
After a while Alrek looked up from the trenches his foot was digging in the sand. "I will accept it gladly, if Karlsefne will allow me to," he answered; and there was more cheering and all hands were stretched out to him.