Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/246

 238 CHRONICLE OF THE saga vii. when they cast their eyes on the money, Leif said, " We need not look long at this silver, for here the one piece of money is better than the other; and this is the money we will have. Let a man come to be present at the counting it out." Thrand says that he thought Leif was the fittest man to do it upon his account. Leif and Karl thereupon went a short way from the tent, sat down, and counted and weighed the silver. Karl took the helmet off his head, and received in it the weighed silver. They saw a man coming to them who had a stick with an axe-head on it in his hand, a hat low upon his head, and a short green cloak. He was bare-legged, and had linen breeches on tied at the knee. He laid his stick down in the field, and went to Karl, and said, "Take care, KarlMeerske, that thou dost not hurt thyself against my axe-stick." Immediately a man came running, and calls with great haste to Leif Ossursson, telling him to come as quick as possible to Lagman Gille's tent; "for," says he, " Sigurd Thorlakson ran in just now into the mouth of the tent, and gave one of Gille's men a desperate wound." Leif rose up instantly, and went off to Gille's tent along -with his men. Karl remained sitting, and the Norway people stood around in all corners. Gaut immediately sprang up, and struck with a hand* axe over the heads of the people, and the stroke came on Karl's head ; but the wound was slight. Thord the Low seized the stick-axe, which lay in the field at his side, and struck the axe-blade right into Karl's scull. Many people now streamed out of Thrand's tent. Karl was carried away dead. Thrand was much grieved at this event, and offered money-mulcts for his relations ; but Leif and Gille, who had to pro- secute the business, would accept no mulct. Sigurd was banished the country for having wounded Gille's tent comrade, and Gaut and Thorer for the murder of Karl. The Norway people rigged out the vessel