Part 2

The swelling on his right breast had broken. Van Rieten aimed the center line of the light at it and we saw it plainly. From his flesh, grown out of it, there protruded a head, such a head as the dried specimens Etcham had shown us, as if it were a miniature of the head of a Balunda fetish-man. It was black, shining black as the blackest African skin; it rolled the whites of its wicked, wee eyes and showed its microscopic teeth between lips repulsively negroid in their red fullness, even in so diminutive a face. It had crisp, fuzzy wool on its minikin skull, it turned malignantly from side to side and chittered incessantly in that inconceivable falsetto. Stone babbled brokenly against its patter.

Van Rieten turned from Stone and waked Etcham, with some difficulty. When he was awake and saw it all, Etcham stared and said not one word.

“You saw him slice off two swellings?” Van Rieten asked.

Etcham nodded, chokingly.

“Did he bleed much?” Van Rieten demanded.

“Ve’y little,” Etcham replied.

“You hold his arms,” said Van Rieten to Etcham.

He took up Stone’s razor and handed me the light. Stone showed no sign of seeing the light or of knowing we were there. But the little head mewled and screeched at us.

Van Rieten’s hand was steady, and the sweep of the razor even and true. Stone bled amazingly little and Van Rieten dressed the wound as if it had been a bruise or scrape.

Stone had stopped talking the instant the excrescent head was severed. Van Rieten did all that could be done for Stone and then fairly grabbed the light from me. Snatching up a gun he scanned the ground by the cot and brought the butt down once and twice, viciously.

We went back to our hut, but I doubt if I slept.

VI

Next day, near noon, in broad daylight, we heard the two voices from Stone’s hut. We found Etcham dropped asleep by his charge. The swelling on the left had broken, and just such another head was there miauling and spluttering. Etcham woke up and the three of us stood there and glared. Stone interjected hoarse vocables into the tinkling gurgle of the portent’s utterance.

Van Rieten stepped forward, took up Stone’s razor and knelt down by the cot. The atomy of a head squealed a wheezy snarl at him.

Then suddenly Stone spoke English.

“Who are you with my razor?”

Van Rieten started back and stood up.

Stone’s eyes were clear now and bright, they roved about the hut.

“The end,” he said; “I recognize the end. I seem to see Etcham, as if in life. But Singleton! Ah, Singleton! Ghosts of my boyhood come to watch me pass! And you, strange specter with the black beard, and my razor! Aroint ye all!”

“I’m no ghost, Stone,” I managed to say. “I’m alive. So are Etcham and Van Rieten. We are here to help you.”

“Van Rieten!” he exclaimed. “My work passes on to a better man. Luck go with you, Van Rieten.”

Van Rieten went nearer to him.

“Just hold still a moment, old man,” he said soothingly. “It will be only one twinge.”

“I’ve held still for many such twinges,” Stone answered quite distinctly. “Let me be. Let me die my own way. The hydra was nothing to this. You can cut off ten, a hundred, a thousand heads, but the curse you can not cut off, or take off. What’s soaked into the bone won’t come out of the flesh, any more than what’s bred there. Don’t hack me any more. Promise!”

His voice had all the old commanding tone of his boyhood and it swayed Van Rieten as it always had swayed everybody.

“I promise,” said Van Rieten.

Almost as he said the word Stone’s eyes filmed again.

Then we three sat about Stone and watched that hideous, gibbering prodigy grow up out of Stone’s flesh, till two horrid, spindling little black arms disengaged themselves. The infinitesimal nails were perfect to the barely perceptible moon at the quick, the pink spot on the palm was horridly natural. These arms gesticulated and the right plucked toward Stone’s blond beard.

“I can’t stand this,” Van Rieten exclaimed and took up the razor again.

Instantly Stone’s eyes opened, hard and glittering.

“Van Rieten break his word?” he enunciated slowly. “Never!”

“But we must help you,” Van Rieten gasped.

“I am past all help and all hurting,” said Stone. “This is my hour. This curse is not put on me; it grew out of me, like this horror here. Even now I go.”

His eyes closed and we stood helpless, the adherent figure spouting shrill sentences.

In a moment Stone spoke again.

“You speak all tongues?” he asked thickly.

And the emergent minikin replied in sudden English:

“Yea, verily, all that you speak,” putting out its microscopic tongue, writhing its lips and wagging its head from side to side. We could see the thready ribs on its exiguous flanks heave as if the thing breathed.

“Has she forgiven me?” Stone asked in a muffled strangle.

“Not while the moss hangs from the cypresses,” the head squeaked. “Not while the stars shine on Lake Pontchartrain will she forgive.”

And then Stone, all with one motion, wrenched himself over on his side. The next instant he was dead.

When Singleton’s voice ceased the room was hushed for a space. We could hear each other breathing. Twombly, the tactless, broke the silence.

“I presume,” he said, “you cut off the little minikin and brought it home in alcohol.”

Singleton turned on him a stern countenance.

“We buried Stone,” he said, “unmutilated as he died.”

“But,” said the unconscionable Twombly, “the whole thing is incredible.”

Singleton stiffened.

“I did not expect you to believe it,” he said; “I began by saying that although I heard and saw it, when I look back on it I cannot credit it myself.”

1907

FLOKI’S BLADE

FLOKI’S BLADE

I

THORKELL VILGERDSON was not only reputed the handsomest youth in all Norway, but was famous as a redoubtable champion, who had unfailingly killed his man in every combat, and who was so skillful with weapons that he had never been seriously wounded in any of the countless affrays in which he had taken part. Therefore, although every one of the thirty-nine other men on the Sea-Raven hated him venomously, not one challenged him, or provoked him, or affronted him in any way, but all were most scrupulously civil.

They all hated him. The three chieftains, Halfdan Ingolfson, Kollgrim Erlendson, and Lodbrok Isleifson, who owned the ship and had planned the adventure, hated him because, to their incredulous amazement, they found themselves indubitably afraid of him. Their six thralls, Vifill, Ulf, Hundi, Kepp, Sokholf and Erp, hated him, even more than they hated their own masters, for his air of ineffable superiority. The twenty-six other Vikings hated him because they felt themselves his inferiors and were unwilling to acknowledge it, even in their thoughts. Most of all his four perfidious sham friends, Hrodmar Finngerdson, Sigurd Atlison, Gellir Kollskeggson and Bodvar Egilson, who had hatched the plot to lure him to his doom and put him out of the way, and had enticed him to join the expedition, hated him for his beauty, his grace, his jaunty demeanor and his vivacious wit. Attack him they dared not, and, sulking inwardly, they bided their time, outwardly suave and smiling, but with furtive winks at each other.

Their opportunity came after a storm which drove them, they knew not where or whither, for, in those times, stars were the mariners’ only guides. Throughout three nights and three days they saw neither star nor sun; in fact, could see barely two ships’ lengths through the driving scud and sluicing rain; and all that time they dared not set so much as a rag of sail, but, taking turns, every man of them, thralls, warriors and chieftains alike, with but brief snatches of uneasy sleep, labored mightily at the oars, to keep the ship head to gale, or bailed furiously to keep her afloat. So terrific was the tempest that Kollgrim, their acknowledged leader, was unwilling to relinquish the helm and clung to it until exhaustion compelled him to rest. Even when he signalled for a relief neither Halfdan nor Lodbrok showed any alacrity for undertaking his momentous task. As they hesitated, although only for an instant, Thorkell seized the tiller just as Kollgrim’s grasp loosened. So well did he steer, so completely did he justify his reputation as a seaman, that thereafter it was rather Kollgrim who acted as relief to him than he to Kollgrim: every man of them all, Kollgrim included, felt safer with Thorkell at the helm.

An hour or two before sunset of the long northern day the storm blew itself out, the sky cleared, and the wind slackened and shifted to a fair breeze. They stepped their mast, hoisted their yard, set a full sail, and, Halfdan at the tiller, and Lodbrok on lookout at the prow, the rest feasted. Champing and munching unhurriedly they despatched a vast quantity of food, washed down with copious drafts of mead. When no one could swallow another mouthful, Sigurd took the helm and Bodvar the lookout’s place, and, while Halfdan and Lodbrok ate, the rest disposed themselves to sleep, most of them to larboard, on the spare oars and coils of rope, under the rowing-benches.

During the brief northern night Sigurd and Bodvar set the Sea-Raven on a true course by a whole skyful of brilliant constellations, but, before dawn, they saw the stars hidden all round the horizon and gradually higher up, until only a few showed blurredly directly overhead; so that, when the sleepers waked, they found themselves enveloped in dense fog, and, soon after dawn, the wind slackened until they had to man the oars to keep headway on the ship. The weary thralls and Kollgrim roused last. After Kollgrim waked Thorkell was the only sleeper and he slept heavily, exhausted by his overexertion at the tiller.

Eyeing him as he lay on a coil of rope, Hrodmar and Gellir beckoned Sigurd and Bodvar. They resigned their posts to willing reliefs and picked their way amidships over and among the resting men and toiling rowers. Kollgrim, Lodbrok and Halfdan joined them and the seven conferred. All conned Thorkell and all agreed that he was fast asleep and far from rousing. Then the three chieftains beckoned their six thralls and instructed them. Erp and Ulf took convenient lengths of ratline and knotted in each a clean-running noose. Vifill paired with Hundi and Sokholf with Kepp, each pair choosing a length of light rope, thicker than a big man’s thumb. Cautiously the six crawled towards Thorkell, every man aboard, except a few sleepers and such oarsmen as were abaft of Thorkell’s position, watching their approach with malicious relish. Hundi and Vifill slipped their rope under Thorkell’s knees; Kepp and Sokholf took a turn with theirs round his ankles, Ulf and Erp each noosed a wrist: when all six were ready they looked towards Kollgrim, and, at his nod, the two nooses tightened and the ropes were knotted fast round Thorkell’s knees and ankles. Even that did not waken him and, as Erp and Ulf pulled their cords and dragged his arms wide, his four pretended friends sprang on him, turned him on his face, and, after a violent struggle, for, even with knees and ankles lashed, Thorkell fought like a wildcat, they pinioned his arms behind him and turned him once more face upward, trussed and helpless.

Then they gloated over him, told him what they really thought of him, and insulted him to their hearts’ content. Halfdan, who was an acclaimed skald, composed and chanted over him an impromptu drapa of triumph. Even the thralls expressed their envious malignity. Gellir proposed to run him through and Bodvar to throw him overboard. But Kollgrim demurred. The thirty-four freemen had taken oath to a pledge of mutual fellowship, as was customary in all Viking voyages, and he pointed out that they were bound, all of them, by their oath and must keep its letter, if not its spirit.

Lodbrok thereupon suggested that they set him adrift, bound as he was, in their smallest boat, which had been half stove during the storm and was presumably leaky; putting into it with him a small hide flask of water and one smoked fish. Then they could accuse him of wilful desertion.

By then it was nearer noon than sunrise, but no sight of the sun had they had, nor could any man, in that fog, conjecture the sun’s place in the sky. Their outlook was all gray mist and smooth groundswell, for there was not a catspaw of breeze.

From the boat they took its sail, mast and oars; but they did not search it carefully. In it they laid a leather flask of water and two little smoked fish. In it they laid Thorkell, trussed as he was, but, as they launched the boat, Kollgrim cut the ropes at his knees and ankles.

As boat and ship drifted apart his enemies mocked him, their grinning faces peering between and over the shields which lined the low rail.

“Hoist your sail!” Bodvar jeered at him, “and make for Norway or Iceland, as you prefer. You are about as far from the one as from the other. You have no worse or better chance, either way.”

“Hope you relish your provender!” Gellir called.

“You’ll need both oars soon,” Hrodmar shrilled, “and I don’t see either.”

“Don’t you wish you had a bailer!” Sigurd shouted.

Soon he saw only fog.

He eyed the dirty water sloshing about in the dory’s bilge. The boat was not leaking rapidly, but it was leaking. No water had lapped over the gunwales and the big groundswells were long and smooth. Of air there was not a breath. For the time being he had only the leaks to fear. And, in the bow, jammed under the tiny fore-thwart in the triangular cubby-hole, he saw a small wooden scoop-bailer. It meant more to him than the two little fish and the leather water-bottle under the after thwart.

He conned the edges of the gunwales and thwarts. He saw two sharp splinters. The larger and sharper was where he could not use it; but, painfully and with great exertion, he wriggled, hunched and wrenched himself until he brought the cords which bound his wrists against the other splinter. With efforts distressing at once, and not long afterwards agonizing, he sawed the rope against the splinter. Panting, a jelly of exhaustion, shivering and sweating, he all but fainted; but he found fresh energy every time he glanced at the bilge-water.

At last, just as hope and strength together were failing him, the cord parted. A few jerks and twists of his arms and hands and they were free. He shook himself, beat his arms against his chest and sprang upon the bailer. To his great satisfaction it was not long before no deftness could scoop it up half full; the boat was not leaking too fast for him.

As the dense fog and breathless calm continued to brood over the waters and the slow groundswell even abated, his cockleshell kept afloat not only all that day and night, but throughout the two following days and nights. But the third night after he had been set adrift found him near exhaustion. More than half his time was occupied in bailing and his muscles ached. He was afraid to sleep for fear of foundering before he woke. Once, in spite of himself, he fell deeply asleep and roused to find the gunwales almost awash, so that the most desperate fury of bailing barely sufficed to save him. In the flurry of effort his remaining fish went overboard in a scoopful of water, unheeded. His flask he had emptied by dusk of the second day, control himself all he could.

As the slow dawn whitened the fog after the short arctic night he thought he was delirious, for he seemed to hear the roar of surf on rocks and not far off.

Then, suddenly, all at once, the fog thinned, sunrays lanced the last wisps of it, the air cleared, he saw the sun plain, saw the sky cloudless, saw the horizon all round and beheld, close to him and opposite the just-risen sun, a rocky coast.

Instantly he realized that his enemies had been vastly in error as to the position of the Sea-Raven and had set him adrift only a few leagues east of Iceland. In spite of his buzzing head, his parched mouth, his shivering and trembling limbs, his general faintness, he felt new vigor infused all through him. With his pitiful beechen scoop he alternately bailed and paddled. The current, he felt, was drawing him towards the cliffs. He saw a headland close. With his bailer he strove to guide the skiff towards it. The currents were kind and towards that headland he drifted. He saw no beach, but many flat-topped rocks just awash, some hardly wet by the lazy surges. Between them and him he saw no broken water. If his boat dashed into or scraped against a rock he might leap to it without a ducking.

Actually he had the luck to achieve just that and saw his boat stove and smashed after he had firm footing on almost dry basalt.

He stood in his doublet, hose and brogues, with only his inner girdle, without belt, mantle, sword, dagger, or even belt-knife. Everything on him was damp from the fog and the splashing of his long bailing; but, though his teeth chattered in the chilly morning air, doubly chilly to him after the milder temperature out at sea, he was not the half-frozen waif he would have been if he had had to swim ashore.

To his left, to southwards, the cliffs seemed beaten by the surf. Before him, to westwards, he thought he espied a bit of beach not far ahead. To his right, northwards, he seemed to descry a headland afar across a fiord. He walked westwards, swaying, tottering, stumbling, even staggering, but keeping his feet. Gulls and other sea-fowl wheeled and screamed above and about him. Not a hundred paces from his landing-place he came upon a little rill trickling down a nook in the cliff. He knelt and scooped up a handful of icy water. Then he lay beside the rivulet and counted a slow hundred between each handful of the water and the next. Before his thirst was entirely quenched he stood up.

Then he scanned the rocks for birds’ nests. He saw many; but, of the scores of eggs he broke, but one was eatable. This he sipped and slowly swallowed its contents. He felt new life all over him.

Not stumbling now he stepped heedfully forward. He felt strangely large and light and whatever he gazed at looked dim and vague. But he felt really able to walk. He rounded a jutting elbow of the cliff.

Before him, irradiated by the slant sunrays, he saw three handsome young noblewomen, walking arm in arm. All were bareheaded, each with a forehead-ribbon round her flowing hair. The middlemost was tall, full-contoured, with very black locks. She was enveloped in a crimson mantle. The girl on her right was of medium height, slender, with glossy brown tresses and wore a mantle of dark blue. The third was small and very lovely, her hair golden, her cheeks pink, her eyes blue, all set off by a mantle of bright grass-green.

Thorkell thought them norns come to escort him to Valhalla. A cloud, gray and then inky black, swept between him and his outlook. He felt himself topple.

II

When Thorkell came to himself he was in bed in the pitch dark. He felt about him and found that he was in a sort of bunk, a wall on his right hand and, on his left, a polished board. He ran his hand along its upper edge. He was rather deep down in his berth and under him was an infinity of yielding feather-bed. He was well covered with warm quilts. He tried to stretch, but the space was too short for him. He composed himself and slept again.

When he woke the second time it was daylight and he saw by his bunk a tall, spare, elderly noblewoman, severe-looking, hatchet-faced, with a lean and stringy neck and gray hair. She was clad in garments of undyed wool of the usual rusty brown.

“Son,” she warned him, “you must not try to speak. Drink this slowly.”

And, as he weakly tried to raise himself in the wall-bed, she supported him with her right arm, at the same time holding to his lips with her left hand a silver goblet. Thorkell tasted a delicious posset, compounded of milk, mead, honey, barley-meal, and of other ingredients unknown to him. He swallowed most of it, fell back among his down pillows and slept again at once.

His third waking was again in full daylight. He felt more like himself. He saw that his bed occupied most of one side of a fair-sized room, wainscoted in dark wood and with a low ceiling, similarly panelled. Opposite his bunk stood a high, narrow table. In the wall by the foot of his bunk was a low doorway, its door shut. In the opposite wall was a window, whose contracted casements had small panes of fish-gut membrane, stretched across wooden lattices. The panes were bright with the glare of brilliant sunshine full on them and much light filtered through, so that the room was well-lighted. By his bed, facing the window, in one of the two chairs, sat a tall, magnificently dignified, elderly man, gray-haired, ruddy of complexion, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a reddish-brown mantle of fine wool. He wore a gold neck-chain from which hung a large, flat, oval gold amulet-case.

“Son,” he said, “you must not yet attempt to speak. Hearken and remember. You are housed at Hofstadir, on Revdarfiord, by Faskrudness, on the east coast of Iceland. I, Thorstein Vilgerdson, am master of Hofstadir. We know nothing of you except that my daughter and my two nieces found you early in the morning, day before yesterday, on the strand by Faskrudness. My wife has been caring for you and she now tells me that you will soon be able to be up and about. Only after you are well and strong will I permit you to tell your story. Meanwhile you are our guest. Do as I bid you. Be silent, compose your mind, repose yourself, and help my wife to restore you to strength and vigor. When you are yourself we shall talk again. Now sleep.”

Thorkell was compliantly mute and his host rose and left him.

Two mornings later Thorkell woke to find Thorstein again seated by his bed. And he saw, on the table opposite his bed, a tray with a goblet and a hunch of bread on it.

“Son,” the old man queried, “are you entirely awake?”

After Thorkell’s affirmation Thorstein said:

“My wife judges that you are now sufficiently recovered to tell your story. But you had best first fortify yourself with some food.”

And he himself rose and fetched the tray from the table. Thorkell acquiesced and swallowed a few mouthfuls. Then he settled himself back on his pillows, his host resumed his armchair, and Thorkell began his story by naming himself.