though another might have paid no heed to this, I, with the remembrance
of last night fresh in my mind, wondered if he was by any chance there
on an errand from Hodulf. I thought that, were I he, I should surely
send someone to know, at least, if the fisher went out last night after
I had spoken with him. So I loitered about until the man went away,
which he did slowly, passing close to me, and looking at the boats
carefully, as if he would remember them. Then I went and asked the men
to whom he had been speaking what he wanted. They said that they
wondered that he had not spoken to me, for he had been asking about my
father and of his ship, and if he took any passenger with him this
voyage. It would seem that he wanted to sail with us, from all he said.

Certainly he had begun by asking whose boats these were, and wondered
that a merchant should go fishing at all, when there was no need for him
to do so. Also he had asked if Grim had been out last night, and they
had of course told him that he had not, for neither boat had been
shifted from the berth she had been given when we came in at dusk.

"Ah," he had said, "well did I wot that your merchant would do no night
work," and so made a jest of the matter, saying that in his country it
were below the state of a merchant to have aught to do with a thrall's
work. He was certainly a Norseman, and they thought that I should find
him with my father. Now I thought otherwise, and also I saw that all was
known. This man was a spy of Hodulf's, and would go straight back to his
master. My father must hear of this at once; and I hurried back to the
ship, and took him aside and told him. And as I did so his face grew
grey under the tan that sea and wind had given it, and I knew not
altogether why.

"Tell Arngeir to come to me," he said; "I am going to the jarl. Tell no