The Norsemen in the West, R. M. Ballantyne [best books to read all time .txt] 📗

It is not easy to conceive the state of alarm that prevailed in the settlement of the Norsemen when it came to be known that little Snorro and Olaf were lost. The terrible fact did not of course break on them all at once.

For some hours after the two adventurers had left home, Dame Gudrid went briskly about her household avocations, humming tunefully one of her native Icelandic airs, and thinking, no doubt, of Snorro. Astrid, assisted by Bertha, went about the dairy operations, gossiping of small matters in a pleasant way, and, among other things, providing Snorro’s allowance of milk. Thora busied herself in the preparation of Snorro’s little bed; and Freydissa, whose stern nature was always softened by the sight of the child, constructed, with elaborate care, a little coat for Snorro’s body. Thus Snorro’s interests were being tenderly cared for until the gradual descent of the sun induced the remark, that “Olaf must surely have taken a longer walk than usual that day.”

“I must go and meet them,” said Gudrid, becoming for the first time uneasy.

“Let me go with you,” said Bertha.

“Come, child,” returned Gudrid.

In passing the spot where the little bear had been cut up and skinned, they saw Hake standing with Biarne.

“Did you say that Olaf took the track of the woodcutters?” asked Gudrid.

“Ay, that was their road at starting,” answered Biarne. “Are they not later than usual?”

“A little. We go to meet them.”

“Tell Olaf that I have kept the bear’s claws for him,” said Biarne.

The two women proceeded a considerable distance along the woodcutters’ track, chatting, as they went, on various subjects, but, not meeting the children, they became alarmed and walked on in silence.

Suddenly Gudrid stopped.

“Bertha,” said she, “let us not waste time. If the dear children have strayed a little out of the right road, it is of the utmost importance to send men to search and shout for them before it begins to darken. Come, we will return.”

Being more alarmed than she liked to confess, even to herself, Gudrid at once walked rapidly homewards, and, on approaching the huts, quickened her pace to a run.

“Quick, Swend, Hake, Biarne!” she cried; “the children must have lost their way—haste you to search for them before the sun goes down. Shout as ye go. It will be ill to find them after dark, and if they have to spend the night in the woods, I fear me they will—”

“Don’t fear anything, Gudrid,” said Biarne kindly. “We will make all haste, and doubtless shall find them rambling in the thickets near at hand.—Go, Hake, find Karlsefin, and tell him that I will begin the search at once with Swend, while he gets together a few men.”

Cheered by Biarne’s hearty manner, Gudrid was a little comforted, and returned to the house to complete her preparation of Snorro’s supper, while Hake gave the alarm to Karlsefin, who, accompanied by Leif and a body of men, at once went off to scour the woods in every direction.

Of course they searched in vain, for their attention was at first directed to the woods near home, in which it was naturally enough supposed that Olaf might have lost his way in returning. Not finding them there, Karlsefin became thoroughly alive to the extreme urgency of the case, and the necessity for a thorough and extended plan of search.

“Come hither, Hake,” said he. “This may be a longer business than we thought for. Run back to the huts, call out all the men except the home-guards. Let them come prepared for a night in the woods, each man with a torch, and one meal in his pouch at least—”

“Besides portions for the twenty men already out,” suggested Hake.

“Right, right, lad, and tell them to meet me at the Pine Ridge.—Away! If ever thy legs rivalled the wind, let them do so now.”

Hake sprang off at a pace which appeared satisfactory even to the anxious father.

In half an hour Karlsefin was joined at the Pine Ridge by all the available strength of the colony, and there he organised and despatched parties in all directions, appointing the localities they were to traverse, the limits of their search, and the time and place for the next rendezvous. This last was to be on the identical ridge whence poor Olaf had taken his departure into the unknown land. Karlsefin knew well that it was his favourite haunt, and intended to search carefully up to it, never dreaming that the boy would go beyond it after the strict injunctions he had received not to do so, and the promises he had made.

“I’m not so sure as you seem to be that Olaf has not gone beyond the ridge,” observed Leif to Karlsefin, after the men had left them.

“Why not?” asked the latter. “He is a most trustworthy boy.”

“I know it—who should know it so well as his own father?” returned Leif; “but he is very young. I have known him give way to temptation once or twice before now. He may have done it again.”

“I trust not,” said Karlsefin; “but come, let us make direct for the ridge, while the others continue the search; we can soon ascertain whether he has wandered beyond it. I know his favourite tree. Doubtless his footsteps will guide us.”

Already it had begun to grow dark, so that when they reached the ridge it was necessary to kindle the torches before anything could be ascertained.

“Here are the footsteps,” cried Karlsefin, after a brief search.

Leif, who was searching in another direction, hurried towards his friend, torch in hand.

“See, there is Olaf’s footprint on that soft ground,” said Karlsefin, moving slowly along, with the torch held low, “but there is no sign of Snorro’s little feet. Olaf always carried him—yet—ah! here they are on this patch of sand, look. They had halted here—probably to rest; perhaps to change Snorro’s position. I’ve lost them again—no! here they are, but only Olaf’s. He must have lifted the child again, no doubt.”

“Look here,” cried Leif, who had again strayed a little from his friend. “Are not these footsteps descending the ridge?”

Karlsefin hastily examined them.

“They are,” he cried, “and then they go down towards the wood—ay, into it. Without doubt Olaf has broken his promise; but let us make sure.”

A careful investigation convinced both parents that the children had entered that part of the forest, and that therefore all search in any other direction was useless. Karlsefin immediately re-ascended the ridge, and, putting both hands to his mouth, gave the peculiar halloo which had been agreed upon as the signal that some of the searchers had either found the children or fallen upon their tracks.

“You’ll have to give them another shout,” said Leif.

Karlsefin did so, and immediately after a faint and very distant halloo came back in reply.

“That’s Biarne,” observed Karlsefin, as they stood listening intently. “Hist! there is another.”

A third and fourth halloo followed quickly, showing that the signal had been heard by all; and in a very short time the searchers came hurrying to the rendezvous, one after another.

“Have you found them?” was of course the first eager question of each, followed by a falling of the countenance when the reply “No” was given. But there was a rising of hope again when it was pointed out that they must certainly be in some part of the tract of dense woodland just in front of them. There were some there, however—and these were the most experienced woodsmen—who shook their heads mentally when they gazed at the vast wilderness, which, in the deepening gloom, looked intensely black, and the depths of which they knew must be as dark as Erebus at that hour. Still, no one expressed desponding feelings, but each spoke cheerfully and agreed at once to the proposed arrangement of continuing the search all night by torchlight.

When the plan of search had been arranged, and another rendezvous fixed, the various parties went out and searched the live-long night in every copse and dell, in every bush and brake, and on every ridge and knoll that seemed the least likely to have been selected by the lost little ones as a place of shelter. But the forest was wide. A party of ten times their number would have found it absolutely impossible to avoid passing many a dell and copse and height and hollow unawares. Thus it came to pass that although they were once or twice pretty near the cave where the children were sleeping, they did not find it. Moreover, the ground in places was very hard, so that, although they more than once discovered faint tracks, they invariably lost them again in a few minutes. They shouted lustily, too, as they went along, but to two such sleepers as Olaf and Snorro in their exhausted condition, their wildest shouts were but as the whisperings of a sick mosquito.

Gradually the searchers wandered farther and farther away from the spot, until they were out of sight and hearing.

We say sight and hearing, because, though the children were capable of neither at that time, there was in that wood an individual who was particularly sharp in regard to both. This was a scout of a party of natives who chanced to be travelling in that neighbourhood at the time. The man—who had a reddish-brown body partially clad in a deer-skin, glittering black eyes, and very stiff wiry black hair, besides uncommonly strong and long white teeth, in excellent order—chanced to have taken up his quarters for the night under a tree on the top of a knoll. When, in the course of his slumbers, he became aware of the fact that a body of men were going about the woods with flaring torches and shouting like maniacs, he awoke, not with a start, or any such ridiculous exclamation as “Ho!” “Ha!” or “Hist!” but with the mild operation of opening his saucer-like eyes until they were at their widest. No evil resulting from this cautious course of action, he ventured to raise his head an inch off the ground—which was his rather extensive pillow—then another inch and another, until he found himself resting on his elbow and craning his neck over a low bush. Being almost black, and quite noiseless, he might have been mistaken for a slowly-moving shadow.

Gradually he gained his knees, then his feet, and then, peering into space, he observed Biarne and Krake, with several others, ascending the knoll.

For the shadow to sink again to its knees, slope to its elbows, recline on its face, and glide into the heart of a thick bush and disappear, did not seem at all difficult or unnatural. At any rate that is what it did, and there it remained observing all that passed.

“Ho! hallo! Olaf! Snorro!