door, he had even an impulse of admiration. This, the state
guest-chamber, was not without softening details. It was large and high
and weather-proof, and boasted three windows. The box-like straw-filled
beds, that were built against the wall, were spread with snowy linen and
covers of eiderdown. The long brass-bound chests that stood on either
side the door were piled with furs until they offered the softest and
warmest of resting-places. A score of Leif's rich dresses, hanging from
a row of nails, covered the bare walls as with a gorgeous tapestry. The
table was provided with graceful bronze water-pitchers and wash-basins
of silver, and was littered over with silver scissors and gold-mounted
combs and bright-hilted knives, and a medley of costly trinkets. Near
the table stood a great carved arm-chair.

At the sight of the man who leaned against its flaming red cushions of
eiderdown, Alwin forgot his admiration. The chief's eyebrows made a
bushy line across his nose. The young bowerman knew, without words, why
he had been sent for. He stopped where he was, a pace within the door,
angry and embarrassed.

After a while, Leif said sternly: "You are very silent now, but it
appears to me that I heard your voice loud enough in the hall last
night."

"It was only that I was accusing Thorhall of a trick that he tried to
put upon me. He allowed me to go up to the loft above the provision
house without telling me that the flooring had been taken up, so that
they might pour the new mead into the vat in the room below. In one more
step I should have fallen through the opening and been drowned. It is
plain he did it to avenge Kark. I should have burst if I had not told
him so."