down I will pay you."

Now there were a dozen idlers gathered by this time, and seeing
that the trader hesitated, I called to one, who seemed to be a
forester by his staff and green jerkin, and bade him fetch the
sheriff, if he could find him. I would have the matter settled
here. Whereon the slaver gave in.

"Well, then," he grumbled, "I hold you answerable for him. Take
him, and get your money ready.

"Let him free," he said, turning to his men.

That they did with somewhat more readiness than one would have
expected. The Dane shook himself and looked round him. And then,
without a word of warning, he sprang straight at the slaver and
wrested his whip from him. Then he swung him round by the collar of
his leather jerkin, and lashed him in spite of the sword which the
man drew. The idlers shouted, and Werbode laughed, while the two
men had all they could do to prevent the other slaves from breaking
away; or else they themselves had no reason to object to seeing
their master tasting his own sauce.

The heavy plaits of the whiplash curled round the legs of the
trader, and he writhed. They caught his short sword and twitched it
from his hand, to send it flying among the gathering crowd, and
then the man lay down and howled for mercy. But the thralls of the
crowd were only too pleased with the sport, and as I and Werbode
did not interfere, to do so was no one else's business.

At last the Dane held his hand, and left his tyrant groaning. He
broke the whip stock and twisted the thong from the end of the
fragment. Then he tied it round the neck of the slaver, and rose up
and saluted me in the way of the Danish courtman.

"Whither, lord?" he asked, quite coolly. "I am ready."

"Better go back to the sheriffs," I said. "Maybe we shall have to
answer for this, and we will tell him first."

"No," he said, with the ghost of a smile; "you will not set eyes on
this man again. What I told you is true. He has no more right to me
than the thrall who found me; less, maybe, for I suppose the thrall
would have taken me to his lord, who had some claim on me for a
castaway."

The crowd closed in round the slaver, and the other slaves raised a
sort of wretched cheer as we went away. Soon we turned the corner
of the street and came to the outskirts of the fair again, and none
had followed us. There the decent folk stared at us and our ragged
follower somewhat, and a thought came to me.

"Comrade," I said, for I could not mind