Orm said that this was, indeed, good news, though he doubted whether the Patzinaks would think so. He stood for a while pondering.
“I shall not demand ransom for these prisoners,” he said, “and no man in the ship shall lose by this, but only I myself. But they shall not be released until the boys are freed.”
“You are a great chieftain,” said Toke, “and must act like one. But in this you are being generous to men who do not deserve such treatment. For it was they who attacked us in the first place, and not we them.”
“You do not know Felimid,” said Orm. “He is worth much generosity. This matter shall be settled the way I wish it.”
So he and Toke fetched a sack of silver and carried it between them to the waiting Patzinaks. When they saw what the sack contained, the Patzinaks ran around measuring each other’s hats, to find the biggest, but Felimid grew vexed at this and took off his own hat and ordered that the silver should be measured out in that; nor did they dare to say that it should be otherwise.
Then men were sent to search among the pieces of timber that lay on the ground at the beginning of the dragging-tracks, and returned shortly with a plank. This was placed across a stone and axed so that it weighed evenly on either side. Then Blackhair sat on one end of it. The Patzinaks lay saddlebags across the other end, and into these Toke poured silver from the sack until Black-hair’s end was lifted from the ground. All the Patzinaks, said Felimid, agreed that this business of the weighing had been carried out in a chieftainlike manner, for they realized that if Blackhair had taken his clothes off before sitting on the plank, Orm would thereby have saved silver, and nobody could have complained that he was acting dishonorably.
When the weighing was completed, Toke went back to the ship with the silver that remained, and Orm said to Felimid: “I have enjoyed a deal of luck since I started on this voyage, and not the least of it was that I met you. When we rode from your camp, you gave us friendship-gifts, and now I have one to offer you in return. You see these men?”
Toke had freed his prisoners, and Felimid and his men stared at them in amazement.
“They are the men who rode out to fish for silver,” said Orm. “My men went on a similar errand, and captured them at the fishing-place. But I give them back to you free of ransom, though I doubt not that many men would think me foolish to do so. But I have no wish to haggle with you, Felimid.”
“You are worth all your luck,” said Felimid, “and that is a great deal.”
“I shall bring the great hounds with me, none the less,” said Blackhair, “the next time I pass this way. And that may not be long hence, for now that I have been weighed in silver I consider myself a full man.”
“Be sure you have dancing-girls washed in milk ready to greet us,” said Glad Ulf, “at least as pretty as the ones we saw today.”
Felimid scratched behind his ear. “That is all you think me capable of,” he said, “to provide dancing-girls for you on your return. I shall choose the ugliest I can find, and have them steeped in horse-droppings, lest you foolish children should take it into your heads to steal them from old Felimid, after all the pains he has taken to train them.”
They said farewell to the master jester and his Patzinaks and returned to the ship. Then they weighed anchor and started on their homeward voyage. The wounded among them seemed to be on the way to recovery, and even Olof Summerbird, who was the worst hurt, was in good heart. The men pulled at their oars with a will, though they knew they had a long row ahead of them against the current. Sone’s seven sons were the merriest of all, though they had the bodies of their two dead brothers aboard, intending to bury them at their first camp, with the men who had been killed by the bees. Toke thought that this had, indeed, been a strange voyage, for they had come a long way and won a great treasure, and yet Red-Jowl had not left her sheath. He thought, though, they might find themselves somewhat busier on the way home, with so much gold aboard. Ulf and Blackhair sat happily on the deck, telling the other men of all that had happened to them while they had been prisoners of the Patzinaks. Orm alone wore a thoughtful face.
“Do you regret having let those prisoners go without ransom?” asked Toke.
“No,” replied Orm. “What troubles me is that my luck has been too good, so that I begin to fear that all may not be as it should be at home. It would be good to know how things are there.”
CHAPTER NINE
CONCERNING THEIR JOURNEY HOME, AND HOW OLOF SUMMERBIRD VOWED TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN
THEY buried their dead, in ground where their bodies would not be disturbed, and journeyed up the great river without adventure, getting good help from wind and sail. Olof Summerbird remained sorely sick; he had no appetite for food, and his wound healed slowly, so that there was talk among them of putting in at Kiev in order that men skilled in medicine might examine him. But he himself would not hear of this, being as anxious as Orm and the others to reach home swiftly. The men rowed past the city without complaint, for they all now regarded themselves as rich men and had no desire to hazard their silver among foreigners.
When they reached the Beaver River, and the rowing became hard, Blackhair took his turn with the others, saying that he was henceforth to be treated as a grown man. The work was heavy for him, but, though his hands were skinned, he did not desist until the time came for him to be relieved. For this he won praise even from Spof, who seldom said an approving word about anyone.
At the portage they found plenty of oxen, in the village where they had bespoken them, so that this time they had less difficulty in dragging the ship overland. When they reached the Dregovites’ village, where the bees and bears were, they rested for three days at their old camping-ground and sent messengers to the village to beg the wise old women to come and look at Olof’s wound, which had been made worse by the bumping of the ship during the drag. They came willingly, examined the wound, opened it, and dripped into it a juice made of crushed ants and wormwood, which made him scream aloud with the pain. This, the crones said, was a good sign; the worse he shrieked, the better the medicine. They smeared it with a salve of beaver’s fat, and gave him a bitter drink, which greatly strengthened him.
Then they returned to their village and came back with a great quantity of fresh hay and two plump young women. The crones undressed Olof, washed him in birch sap, and bedded him in the hay with a bearskin under him and one of the two young women on either side of him to keep him warm; then they gave him more of the bitter drink and covered the three of them with oxhides. He fell asleep almost immediately, and slept thus for two nights and a day in great warmth; and as soon as he awoke, the young women cried that his health was returning to him. The crones were richly paid for this; and the young women, too, were well rewarded, though they steadfastly refused to perform the same service for any of the other men.
Olof Summerbird recovered swiftly after this. By the time they reached the city of the Polotjans, his wound was healed, and he was able to eat and drink as well as the best of them. Here the chieftains visited Faste again and told him what had happened to his scribe, but the news did not appear to trouble him greatly.
In this town the men felt as though at home. They remained there for three days, drinking and love-making, to the profit and delight of all the people there. Then, as the leaves were beginning to fall, they rowed down at their leisure to the mouth of the Dvina, reaching the sea just as the first frost-nights came.