The black head nodded emphatically.
“Can they last two days?”
Another nod.
“A week?”
Fridtjof the Bold took refuge in sullenness. “They can last two weeks as easily as one. How much longer are you going to keep me from food?” She was free after that to do anything she liked, for their excitement was so great that they forgot her existence. Those whose fluency was not hampered by their feelings, relieved their minds by cursing. Those whose anger could be vented only in action, made after the blundering serf. And the few who were boldest turned and bearded the son of Lodbrok himself.
“How much longer must we endure this?”... “Think of the game we are missing!”... “There is little need to remind me. My naked fists could batter the stones from their places—“... “In a week more, it is possible that England may be won!”... “What do you care for their wretched land, chief?”...
“Chief, how much longer must we lie here?”
When that question was finally out, every man heaved a sigh of relief, straightening in his place like a dog that is pricking his ears, and there was a pause.
A fell look came into the Jotun’s face as he gazed back at them; and for a time it seemed that he would either answer with his fist or not at all. But at length he began to speak in a voice as keen and hard as his sword.
“You know my temper, and that I must have my will. Always I have thought it shame that my kinsman’s odal should lie in English hands, and now I have made up my mind to put an end to it. You know that I am in no way greedy for property. When I obtain the victory, you shall have every acre and every stick on it to burn or plunder or keep, as best pleases you. But I do not want to reproach myself longer with my neglect; and whether it take two weeks or whether it take twenty—” He interrupted himself to bend forward, shading his eyes with his hands. “If I am not much mistaken,” he said in quite another voice, “yonder is Brass Borgar at last! Yonder, near those oak-trees.”