As for Tostig the Red, he had become stern and moody, smiling not at all, and he told the rest of the vikings that Ulric, the son of Brander, was still his jarl, and that as Ulric, to his thinking, would have directed in any case, so would he order.
"That will be well for us," they said.
"I have been troubled in my mind," he told them. "I think that I may yet slay many Romans at the side of the son of Odin. I myself saw that Jewish god of his that healed him of his hurts. I heard his words and they were good to hear, although I understood him not very well. If he is to be the captain of the host, over the jarl, I am contented. But never yet did I see a better sword than is our jarl."
"Nor did we," they answered him. "We will surely return with thee to the Middle Sea, and our treasure shall go with thine to the making of many great keels and the gathering of the swordsmen of the North."
All things seemed going well with them, but there was, nevertheless, a shadow upon the ship, and when the sun was setting Tostig the Red sat upon the after deck sharpening his seax upon a stone and now and then gazing backward toward the east.
"Would I were with him this hour," he said in a low, sad voice. "How shall the years go by with me henceforth if I am never again to see the face of my jarl?"