The colorless lips showed a curl. "Dead men! Do you think that if I had a ghost's power I would allow Thorhall to bind me, and stay up here to be made a gazing-stock——"
"Thorhall!" Alrek repeated; and he came a step nearer, so that Brand and Erlend and the Ugly One, pausing in their flight to look around for him, took courage and came a little way back. "I do not know why it did not come to my mind sooner that the Huntsman had a hand in this matter. Yet he would scarcely be able to do it alone."
"There was little need to. After such a stirring-up as took place yesterday, men might be expected to be ready for any fun. There were no less than twenty of them with him, and their spirits scraped the sky. Had it not happened that their humor was so good, it is likely they would have killed me when they found out that I had followed them here, instead of doing no more than tie me so that I should not give the alarm too soon. They left at daybreak. I managed it to pull one arm free and slide down on the ground and get some sleep, but the thongs are like red-hot irons upon my ankles. Fetch your knife up here as quickly as you can, and free me."
Alrek was taking another step toward him, when the expostulations of his comrades brought him again to a standstill. "If you are not drowned, what is the reason?" he inquired.
The claw-like hands beat the rock fretfully. "One reason is because I never fell into the water. Whether Thorhall told you so or not, I was not with him when he was wrecked on the Cape. Two days before that, he had deserted me in the south country because I was overlong in getting back to the boat after an exploring trip. It had happened twice before that I was rather late, and he pretended to think that this time also it was carelessness. It is the truth that I had hurt my leg and could not get back earlier. It took me three weeks after that to make my way here. By that time he had got home and told every one that I was dead; and he took it so ill that I should belie him that he would have made it the truth if I had not run away. The time you saw me climbing out of the ice-hole which I had fallen through, was one time when I barely got away from him. After that, however, it was less difficult; for when he saw how you ran from me, he was willing that I should stay alive so long as I remained dead. The reason I have the appearance of a dead man is because I can not, more than others, get fat and color-full on fish and raw eggs and water." He broke off impatiently: "Is it not clear to you yet, you blocks of peat?"
The Champions looked at one another doubtfully. It sounded reasonable, and yet——
"You have always made it a point that your foster-father, Biorn, should help you out of difficulties. What is the reason that you did not go to him with this one?" Brand demanded.
At least, Hallad's temper was alive; it sparkled in his hollow eye-sockets. "As well go to Biorn's dogs because they have teeth! It seems to me that you have been fooled enough to be able to understand that the glance of Thorhall's sly green eyes has more power in it than Biorn's blundering fist."
Though it is a strange thing, it is true that for the time being they had forgotten the ship. Of one accord they started forward as it came back to them.
"You know how much of the story is true—" "—what he did intend—" "Give us your opinion whither he has gone——"