e walked on, keeping to the right, where the
ground is high, at the hill foot, but still skirting the water's
edge. Then I saw something beside the reeds, and went aside to see
what it was; and, as I thought, it was a canoe that some fisher had
left. There was a paddle still in it, and a bow net set on hoops,
such as we were wont to use for eels and tench.

"Here is how Gunnhild might find food," I thought, but it was not
likely.

Ottar stood and looked into it with me, but the king had walked on.

Now it grew darker as we followed him, and Ottar tripped and fell,
and I lost him, though I could hear him close behind me as he broke
a branch now and then in passing.

The king stayed in a clear place that I remembered well. Great
trees stood round, and it was pleasant to sit there and look out
over the water on a summers noonday.

"Where is Ottar?" he said, when I stood by him.

"Close behind me. I heard him even now," I answered. "Let us go
back, my king. There is nought here."

"Aye, we will go back now," he said. "But Ottar is before me."

"Listen," I said, "the scald is behind us. I lost him in the dark."

"Nay, but I heard him in front of me even as you came," the king
said.

And when we stood still we could hear the scald where I thought;
but also we heard footsteps and breaking branches before us.

We could see anything that was not in shadow pretty plainly; and
now Olaf whispered to me:

"Someone is forward, and coming nearer. Get your sword loose."

At that there came a cry like the moor hen's from the thicket
before us, and in a moment, with a great shout and crashing, there
broke out on us many men, and I was down and held fast before I
could draw on them. I saw Olaf draw the long dagger that hung ready
to his right hand, and smite backwards over his shoulder in the
face of a man who was pinioning him from behind, and the man
shrieked and reeled backward into the bushes, hands to face. And
then Olaf cried, "We are beset," and was borne down.

Then the men tied us roughly with belts, and stood round us.

I looked every moment to see the rush of Ottar into the midst,
sword in hand; and saw that it would go hard with him, for all the
men were armed, and some wore mail that rattled as they moved. But
he came not; and I wondered if he too were taken, or if he had
turned craven and had fled, a thought that I put from me as sorely
wronging the brave scald; and then wondered how long it would take
hi