whispered question.

The Viking had not been watching very long when the girl's voice
rose a little as she said something earnestly, and Atli, with a
slight movement and a warning frown, glanced up at the loft and
pointed with one finger straight at where Helgi lay. Instantly he
dropped his head, and as quickly as he dared crawled back to bed
again. There was silence for a moment, but apparently they
suspected nothing, for the whispered talk went on again.

"By valour or guile I shall see that maiden's face," he said to
himself, as he lay revolving possible schemes in his mind.

At last the whispering stopped, and Atli's step crossed the room
and passed into the inner apartment. The door closed behind him,
and then saying to himself, "Now or never, my friend," Helgi
quietly slipped into his sheep-skin coat, and stepping softly so
as not to disturb Estein or the seer, came boldly down the ladder.

The girl's look, as he turned at the foot and faced her, stuck in
his mind for long after. Consternation and her sense of the
ludicrous were having such an obvious struggle in every feature,
that after looking straight into her face for a moment, he fairly
burst into a silent convulsion of laughter that shook him till he
had to steady himself by a rung of the ladder. So infectious was
it, that after the briefest conflict, consternation fled the
field, a little smile appeared, and then a merrier, and in a
moment she was laughing with him. And certainly for a man commonly
most careful of his appearance, he cut a comical enough figure,
with his shoeless feet and tangled hair, and the great ill-fitting