When they were ready to proceed, Faste came to bid them farewell and begged Orm to take with him his scribe, who was going to Kiev with a basket of heads. The great Prince, he explained, liked to be reminded that his town chieftains served him zealously, and was always pleased to receive evidence of their zeal in the shape of the heads of the more dangerous criminals. Lately it had become difficult to ensure a safe passage to Kiev, and he was reluctant to neglect so good an opportunity as this of sending his gift. The scribe was a young man, a native of Kiev; besides the heads, he carried a sheepskin on which were written the names of the former owners of the heads, together with an account of their misdeeds.
In view of the hospitality that Faste had shown him, Orm felt unable to deny him this request, though he was unwilling to comply with it. The heads awoke unpleasant memories in him, for he had received a present in that shape once before; he recalled, also, that his own head had been sold to King Sven, though the transaction had never been completed. Accordingly he regarded this basket as likely to bring bad luck with it, and all his men thought the same. It was, besides, noticeable in the summer heat that the heads were beginning to age, and before they had gone far the men began to complain of their stink. The scribe sat by his basket as though smelling nothing; he understood the Northmen’s tongue, however, and after a while suggested that the basket should be tied to a rope and allowed to trail in the water. This proposal won general approval; so the basket was tied firmly to a rope’s end and heaved overboard. They had, by this time, set sail again and were making good speed; and later that day Blackhair cried that the basket had detached itself and disappeared.
“The best course for you now, scribe,” said Toke, “is to jump overboard and fish for your treasure; for if you arrive without it, I fear things may go somewhat ill for you.”
The scribe, though vexed at this occurrence, appeared not to be greatly alarmed by it. The sheepskin, he explained, was more important than the heads; as long as he still had the former, he could manage without the latter. There were only nine of them, and he doubted not that he would be able to borrow substitutes from public officials in Kiev with whom he was friendly; for there were always plenty of malefactors in their custody awaiting execution.
“We are taught to be merciful, after the example of God,” he said, “and therefore think it good to help one another when we are in distress. And one head is as good as another.”
“Then you are Christians in this land?” said Orm.
“In Kiev,” replied the scribe, “for the great Prince has so commanded us, and we think it best to comply with his wishes.”
They reached a place where two rivers joined. Their course lay along the right-hand fork, which was called Ulla, and it was now that the hard rowing began. For here the current soon became stronger and the river narrower, and often they found themselves unable to make progress and had to haul the ship ashore and drag her forward along the bank. They had to toil long and strenuously, so that even the strongest among them felt it, and regretted the good days they had spent on the Dvina. At last they reached a place where Spof ordered them to bring the ship ashore, though they were making good progress and it was yet early in the day; for this, he said, was the great portage.
The ground here was scattered with various kinds of timber, left by travelers ascending or descending—broken planks, rollers, and a type of rough runner. Some of them were still usable, and the men axed others from fallen trees. They drew the ship up on the bank and after a great deal of carpentry managed to fasten runners down both sides of the keel. While they were thus occupied, some men were seen to come out of the forest a little farther up the river and stand there uncertainly watching them. Spof appeared pleased when he saw them; he waved to them, held up a tankard, and shouted the two words that he knew of their language: “oxen” and “silver.” The men came nearer and were offered drink, which they accepted; and Orm was now able to make use of Faste’s scribe, who was able to interpret between him and the strangers. They had oxen they were prepared to hire out, but only ten, though Spof wanted more. These oxen, the men explained, were grazing deep in the forest where robbers and tax-collectors would be less likely to find them, but they would be back with them in three days. They asked only a small price for the use of them, and begged that they might be paid in sailcloth instead of silver, as their women liked the striped woof; but in the event of any ox dying, they wanted to be given good compensation. Orm found their demands reasonable, and thought them the first honest people he had dealt with on this voyage.
All the men now set busily to work chopping and carpentering, and in a short time they had built a broad wagon, with strong rounds of oak to serve as wheels. Upon this they piled the portageale and made it fast, together with most of the other things from the ship.
The strangers then returned with the oxen as they had promised; and when everything was ready, two oxen were harnessed to the wagon and the rest to the ship.
“If we had six more oxen,” said Spof, “all would be well; as things are, we shall have to help with the dragging ourselves. But we must be thankful that we have got any help at all, for to drag a ship up the great portage without oxen is the worst task that a man could be faced with.”
When the dragging began, some of the men walked ahead to lift fallen trees out of the way and smooth the track. Then came the wagon. They guided the oxen cautiously, lest anything should give way; and when the wheels began to smoke, they greased the axles with pork and pitch. Then came the ship, with many men harnessed to the ropes beside the oxen. Where the track led downhill, or over grassland and moss, the oxen were able to manage without assistance; but where it led uphill, the men had to lend all their strength, and where the going was rough, rollers had to be placed beneath the runners. The ox-drivers spoke to their beasts the whole time, and sometimes sang to them, so that they dragged willingly, but when Orm’s men spoke to them, using the words they used to address oxen at home, they received no response, because these oxen could not understand what they were saying. This surprised the men greatly; it showed, they said, that oxen were far wiser beasts than they had hitherto supposed, for here was evidence that they possessed a characteristic in common with men—namely, that they could not understand the speech of foreigners.
The men grew weary with the heat and toil and the business of changing the rollers; but they kept bravely on, for it was a great incentive to them to see the wagon with the portage-ale moving ahead of them, and they did all they could to keep pace with it. As soon as they pitched camp for the night, they all cried loudly for portage-ale; but Spof said that this first day’s work had been light, and that Faste’s mead was reward enough for it. They drank of this, grumbling, and soon fell asleep; but the next day’s work proved more arduous, as Spof had told them it would. Before the afternoon was far advanced, many of the men began to flag; but Orm and Toke cheered them with words of encouragement, sometimes lending a hand themselves with the dragging so that the men might be stimulated by their example. When evening came on this day, Spof at last said that the time had come for the portage-ale to be opened. They breached a cask and gave a good measure to every man; and although they had all tasted the same brew in the Gotland Vi, they declared unanimously that they had not until this moment appreciated its quality to the full, and that the labor they had undergone had been well worth while. Orm ordered that the ox-drivers, too, should have their share; they accepted this offer willingly, and at once became drunk and sang noisily, for they were only accustomed to thin mead.
On the third day they soon came to a lake, long and narrow between asses’-backs, and here their task was lightened. The wagon and the oxen proceeded by land, but they launched the ship into the lake, with her runners still on her keel, and, favored by a mild breeze, sailed down the water, encamping at length on the farther shore. On a hill not far from their camping-ground lay a village with rich pastures below it; here they saw fat cattle being driven in from their grazing, though it was yet a good while before evening. The village, which appeared to be large, was curiously fortified, for, though it was surrounded by a high rampart of earth and stone, this was broken in places by a stockade of rough logs which did not look difficult to scale.