Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/145

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 137 room, in which there were doors at each end. The SAGA vn - day the earl should depart Thorkel was to accompany him to the other feast ; and Thorkel sent men before, who should examine the road they had to travel that day. The spies came back, and said to Thorkel they had discovered three ambushes. " And we think," said they, " there is deceit on foot." When Thorkel heard this he lengthened out his preparations for the jour- ney, and gathered people about him. The earl told him to get ready, as it was time to be on horseback. Thorkel answered, that he had many things to put in order first, and went out and in frequently. There was a fire upon the floor. At last he went in at one door, followed by an Iceland man from Eastfiord, called Halvard, who locked the door after him. Thorkel went in between the fire and the place where the earl was sitting. The earl asked, " Art thou ready at last, Thorkel?" Thorkel answers, " Now I am ready;" and struck the earl upon the head so that he fell upon the floor. Then said the Icelander, " I never saw people so foolish as not to drag the earl out of the fire ; " and took a stick, which he set under the earl's neck, and put him upright on the bench. Thorkel and his two comrades then went in all haste out of the other door opposite to that by which they went in, and Thorkel' s men were standing without fully armed. The earl's men now went in, and took hold of the earl. He was already dead, so nobody thought of avenging him : and also the whole was done so quickly ; for no- body expected such a deed from Thorkel, and all supposed that there really was, as before related, a friendship fixed between the earl and Thorkel. The most who were within were unarmed, and they were partly Thorkel' s good friends ; and to this may be added, that fate had decreed a longer life to Thorkel. When Thorkel came out, he had not fewer men with