"I say, stab me. Then, if the fellows hear you sing or say something spiteful of me, and I disregard it, they will not mind so much the ill-natured things you say of them."
Grettir considered a moment, and then, remembering that he had heard of something ridiculous that had once occurred to Haflid, he composed a verse about it and shouted it derisively at Haflid as he walked away.
"Just listen to him," said Haflid to the men. "Now he is slandering and insulting me. He is an ill-conditioned cur, so ill-conditioned that I will not stoop to take notice of his insolence. And if you take my advice you will disregard him as I do."
"Well," said the men, "if you shrug your shoulders and pay no regard to his bark, why should we?"
So Haflid, by his tact, smoothed over this difficulty, and averted a danger from Grettir's head.
The weather slowly began to mend, and the sun shone out between the clouds; but the wind was still strong, and the leak gained on the ship, for her bottom was rotten. Now that the sun shone, the poor women who had been aboard and under cover during the gale, crawled forth and came to the side where the boat was, and where was a little shelter, and there sat sewing; whilst Grettir still lay, like a dog in his hutch, within. Then the men began to laugh, and say that Grettir had found suitable company at last—he was not a man among men, but a milksop among women. This was turning the tables on him, and this roused him. Out he came crawling from his den, and ran aft to where the men were baling, and asked to be given the buckets. The way in which it was done was for one to go down into the hold into the water, and fill a tub or cask and hoist it over his head to another man, who carried it up on deck and poured it over the bulwarks. Grettir swung himself down into the hold, and filled and heaved so fast that there had to be two men set to carry up the baling casks, and then two more, four in all attending to him. At one time he even kept eight going, so vigorously did he work;—but then he was fresh, and they exhausted.
When the men saw what a strong, active fellow Grettir was, they praised him greatly, and Grettir, unaccustomed to praise, was delighted and worked on vigorously, and thenceforth was of the utmost assistance in the ship.
They still had bad weather, thick mist, in which they drifted and lost their bearings, and one night unawares they ran suddenly on a rock, and the rotten bottom of the ship was crushed in. They had the utmost difficulty in rescuing their goods and getting the boat ready; but fortunately they were able to put all the women and the loose goods into the boat, man her, and row off before the ship went to pieces. They came to a sandy island, ran the boat ashore, and disembarked in the cold and wet and darkness.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RED ROVERS.