Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/22

 blood, and was proclaimed the winner, and stepped up to the foot of the Mount that the daughter of the Governor might buckle about him the champion's belt. The girl went through her function listlessly, her eyes wandering to where the fair-haired giant sat apart. Then the Westmann islander called for drink that he might treat the losing men; and having drunk himself, he began to swagger afresh, saying that they might find him the strongest and lustiest man that day at Thingvellir, and he would bargain to throw him over his back. As he spoke he strutted by the bottom of the Mount, and the man who sat there lifted his head and looked at him. Something in the glance arrested Patriksen, and he stopped.

"This seems to be a lump of a lad," he said. "Let us see what we can do with him."

And at that he threw his long arms about the stalwart fellow, squared his broad hips before him, thrust down his head into his breast until his red neck was as thick as a bullock's, and threw all the strength of his body into his arms that he might lift the man out of his seat. But he moved him not an inch. With feet that held the earth like the hoofs of an ox, the young man sat unmoved.

Then those who had followed at the islander's heels for the liquor he was spending first stared in wonderment at his failure, and next laughed in derision of his bragging, and shouted to know why, before it was too late, the young man had not taken a bout at the wrestling, for that he who could hold his seat so must be the strongest-limbed man between the fells and the sea. Hearing this, Patriksen tossed his head in anger, and said it was not yet too late, that if he took home the champion's belt it should be no rue-bargain to master or man from sea to sea, and, buckled though it was, it should be his who could take it from its place.

At that word the young fellow rose, and then it was seen that his right arm was useless, being broken between the elbow and the wrist, and bound with a kerchief above the wound. Nothing loth for this infirmity, he threw his other arm about the waist of the islander, and the two men closed for a fall. Patriksen had the first grip, and he swung to it, thinking straightway to lay his adversary by the heels; but the young man held his feet, and then, pushing one leg between the legs of the islander, planting the other knee into his stomach, thrusting his head beneath his chin, he knuckled his left hand under the islander's rib, pulled towards him, pushed from him,