“Well,” said the old chief at last, “you have made a good fight, if foolish.  You shall have your chance.  Which of you will join me?”

“Tell us who you are first,” said Dalfin; “that is only fair.”

“I am Heidrek the Seafarer, and this is Asbiorn, my son.  Mayhap you have heard of us before.”

I had done so.  One of the men in our group had fled to us from Banff a year ago, after just such a raid as this.  I heard him groan as the name was spoken.

Heidrek heard also, and laughed shortly.

“It seems that I am known,” he said.  “Well, make your choice.  The other choice is death, of course.  I can leave no one to say that I am collecting goods from this shore.”

“Kill me, then,” said Dalfin, while I made no answer.

Two of our men cried that they would join him, and their bonds were cut by Heidrek’s followers.  One of them set himself by my side and spoke to me at once.

“There are worse things than going on the Viking path, Malcolm, son of my jarl,” he said earnestly.  “Blame me not.”

I turned my head from him.  Maybe I was wrong, but it seemed like treachery.  Yet, after all, save myself there was not one left of our line, and he was deserting no one.  Both these two were single men.

Young Asbiorn heard the man name me, and he came a pace nearer.

“So you are the son of the chief here,” he said quietly.  “What is your name and rank?  Will anyone ransom you?”

“I am the youngest son—­I am worth nothing to any man,” I said.

“He is Malcolm, the jarl’s best-loved son,” said that man of ours who had asked my pardon.  “Maybe his mother’s folk will ransom him.  His grandfather is Melbrigda, the Scots jarl over yonder.”

He pointed across the hills where the smoke hung among the heather, and at that old Heidrek laughed, while the men at his heels chuckled evilly.  For some reason of their own, which, maybe, was not far to seek, they were certain that Melbrigda could find ransom for no one at this time, if he would.  Asbiorn turned to our guest, seeing, no doubt, that he was not of the house carles.  The great gold torque on his neck seemed to shine all the more brightly by reason of the blackened mail and cloak that half hid it.

“My name?” said Dalfin, with a flash of pride in his gray eyes.  “It is Dalfin, prince of Maghera, in Ireland, of the line of the Ulster kings.  Kill me, and boast that once you slew a prince.  No need to say that I was bound when you did it.”

He spoke the Danish of Waterford and Dublin well enough.

Asbiorn flushed, with some sort of manly shame, as I believe, and even old Heidrek frowned uneasily.  To have the deed they threatened set in all its shame before them was a new thing to them.

“Let the prince go, chief,” I said, seeing this look.  “He is a guest, and if this is some old feud with my father of which I have not heard, he does not come into it.  He is a guest of the house.”