“I can say soothly that you will not have to bear it much longer, Lord Dale,” he reassured. “My own eyes saw that—” He ended in a howl as a half-gnawed sheep-bone from the warrior’s hand struck him with a force that knocked him sprawling among the ashes.
“Do not trouble yourself to answer until you are questioned,” the Scar-Cheek recommended briefly. And a round of laughter followed the poor scapegoat as he picked himself up, groaning, and crept away into the shadow. In the restlessness of their inactivity, and this swift breaking into passages of growling and tooth-play whenever, in their narrow confines, they chanced to jostle each other, they were like nothing so much as a pack of caged wolves.
Into the den, a few minutes later, the daughter of Frode came on her difficult mission. Her face was so ghastly that the man who first caught sight of it did not recognize her, and snatched up his weapon as against an enemy. It was the Scar-Cheek who offered the first welcome in a jovial shout. “The hawk escaped from the cage! Well done, champion! Did you batter a way out with your mighty fists? Did you get fretful and slay the Englishman? Leave off your bashfulness and tell us your deeds of valor!” A score of hands were stretched forth to draw the boy into the circle; a score of horns were held out for his refreshment.
To all of them Randalin yielded silently,—silently accepting the cup which was nearest, in order to gain time by sipping its contents. She realized that only a manner of perfect unconcern could carry her through, yet she felt herself shaking with excitement.
Rothgar sat up on the great skin with a gesture of some cordiality. “Hail to you, Fridtjof Frodesson!” he said. “Your escape is a thing that gladdens me. I did not like the thought of starving you, and I hope your father will overlook the unfriendliness of it.”
The Scar-Cheek, who had been scanning her critically where she stood before them, drinking, gave a pitying grunt. “By the crooked horn, boy, you must have had naught but ill luck since the time of Scoerstan! No more meat is on you than a raven could eat; and the night I was in the Englishman’s hall, you had the appearance of having been under a lash. Your guardian spirit must have gone astray.”