f compunction.

"Sigurd, you must not do this thing. There is no reason why you should
run this risk."

"There would be no reason why you should call me your friend if I did
otherwise," Sigurd cut him short. "Do you think me a craven, to let you
go alone where you might be tricked or murdered? Have you a weapon?"

"Leif will not allow me so much as a dagger, so to-night I borrowed from
his table the old brass-hilted knife that Eric gave him in his boyhood.
It is unlikely that he will miss that. I have it here." Throwing back
his cloak, he showed it thrust through his girdle.

"Come, then," said Sigurd curtly. "And have a care for your skees. You
are not over-skilful yet."

He caught up the long staff that acts something like a balance-pole in
skeeing, and darted away. Alwin followed, with an occasional prod of his
staff into a shadow that seemed thicker than it should be. By a
side-gate, they left the courtyard and struck out across the fields,
where the snow was packed as hard as a road-bed. Noiseless as birds, and
almost as swift, they skimmed along over the snow-clad plains and
half-frozen marshes.

As was to have been expected, the young Viking was an expert. To see him
shoot down a hillside at lightning speed, his skees as firmly parallel
as though they were of one piece, his graceful body bending, balancing,
steering, was to see the next best thing to flying. Alwin's runners
threw him more than once, lapping one over the other as he was
zigzagging up a slope, so that he tripped and rolled until a snow-bank
stopped him.

As he regained his feet after one of these interruptions, he made some
angry remark; but beyond this there was little said. It was a dreary
night to be on an uncanny errand, with a chill in the air that seemed to
freeze the heart. A fitful, spiteful wind drove the clouds like
frightened sheep, and strove to blow out the pale patient moon.
Sometimes it seemed almost to succeed; suddenly, when they most needed
light to guide their six-foot runners between the great boulders, the
light would go out like a torch in the water. The gusts lay in wait for
them at the corners, to leap out and lash their faces with a shriek that
chattered their teeth. The lulls between the gusts were even worse; it
seemed as though the whole world were holding its breath in dread. They
held theirs, darting uneasy glances at the glacier wall glittering far
ahead of them.

When a long, low wail smote their ears, thei