"Let us try some trick then," says Helgi.
Grim sees that there lies an axe edge up, so Grim crawled thither, and gets the bowstring which bound him cut asunder against the axe, but still he got great wounds on his arms.
Then he set Helgi loose, and after that they crawled over the ship's side, and got on shore, so that neither Hacon nor his men were ware of them. Then they broke off their fetters and walked away to the other side of the island. By that time it began to dawn. There they found a ship, and knew that there was come Kari Solmund's son. They went at once to meet him, and told him of their wrongs and hardships, and showed him their wounds, and said the Earl would be then asleep.
"Ill is it," said Karl, "that ye should suffer such wrongs for wicked men; but what now would be most to your minds?"
"To fall on the Earl," they say, "and slay him."
"This will not be fated," says Kari; "but still ye do not lack heart, but we will first know whether he is there now."
After that they fared thither, and then the Earl was up and away.
Then Kari sailed in to Hlada to meet the Earl, and brought him the Orkney scatts; so the Earl said—
"Hast thou taken Njal's sons into thy keeping?"
"So it is, sure enough," says Kari.