HKB
Helgi looked at him and said--
"Thou lookest like an unlucky man, and the man who will not take thee in will have the best of it."
"Would that the worst might befall you from me," says Hrapp.
"I am the man," says Helgi, "to avenge me on thee for this as time rolls on."
Then Hrapp turned to Thrain Sigfus' son, and bade him shelter him.
"What hast thou on thy hand?" says Thrain.
"I have burnt a shrine under the Earl's eyes, and slain some men, and now he will be here speedily, for he has joined in the hue and cry himself."
"It hardly beseems me to do this," says Thrain, "when the Earl has done me so much good."
Then he showed Thrain the precious things which he had borne out of the shrine, and offered to give him the goods, but Thrain said he could not take them unless he gave him other goods of the same worth for them.
"Then," said Hrapp, "here will I take my stand, and here shall I be slain before thine eyes, and then thou wilt have to abide by every man's blame."
Then they see the Earl and his band of men coming, and then Thrain took Hrapp under his safeguard, and let them shove off the boat, and put out to his ship.
Then Thrain said, "Now this will be thy best hiding place, to knock out the bottoms of two casks, and then thou shalt get into them".
So it was done, and he got into the casks, and then they were lashed together, and lowered over-board.
Then comes the Earl with his band to Njal's sons, and asked if Hrapp had come there.
They said that he had come.
The Earl asked whither he had gone thence.
They said they had not kept eyes on him, and could not say.
"He," said the Earl, "should have great honour from me who would tell me where Hrapp was."
Then Grim said softly to Helgi--
"Why should we not say. What know I whether Thrain will repay us with any good?"
"We should not tell a whit more for that," says Helgi, "when his life lies at stake."
"Maybe," said Grim, "the Earl will turn his vengeance on us, for he is so wroth that some one will have to fall before him."
"That must not move us," says Helgi, "but still we will pull our ship out, and so away to sea as soon as ever we get a wind."
So they rowed out under an isle that lay there, and wait there for a fair breeze.
The Earl went about among the sailors, and tried them all, but they, one and all, denied that they knew aught of Hrapp.
Then the Earl said, "Now we will go to Thrain, my brother-in-arms, and he will give Hrapp up, if he knows anything of him".
After that they took a long-ship and went off to the merchant ship.
Thrain sees the Earl coming, and stands up and greets him kindly. The Earl took his greeting well and spoke thus--
"We are seeking for a man whose name is Hrapp, and he is an Icelander. He has done us all kind of ill; and now we will ask you to be good enough to give him up, or to tell us where he is."
"Ye know, Lord," said Thrain, "that I slew your outlaw, and then put my life in peril, and for that I had of you great honour."
"More honour shalt thou now have," says the Earl.
Now Thrain thought within himself, and could not make up his mind how the Earl would take it, so he denies that Hrapp is there, and bade the Earl to look for him. He spent little time on that, and went on land alone, away from other men, and was then very wroth, so that no man dared to speak to him.
"Show me to Njal's sons," said the Earl, "and I will force them to tell me the truth."
Then he was told that they had put out of the harbour.