out afterwards. Kettle of the Mark caught hold of him, and
dragged him out, he asked carefully after his father-in-law Njal,
but the steward told him the whole truth. Then Kettle said,
“Great grief hath been sent on us, when we have had to share such
ill-luck together.”
Skarphedinn saw how his father laid him down, and how he laid
himself out, and then he said, “Our father goes early to bed, and
that is what was to be looked for, for he is an old man.”
Then Skarphedinn, and Kari, and Grim, caught the brands as fast
as they dropped down, and hurled them out at them, and so it went
on awhile. Then they hurled spears in at them, but they caught
them all as they flew, and sent them back again.
Then Flosi bade them cease shooting, “for all feats of arms will
go hard with us when we deal with them; ye may well wait till the
fire overcomes them.”
So they do that, and shoot no more.
Then the great beams out of the roof began to fall, and
Skarphedinn said, “Now must my father be dead, and I have neither
heard groan nor cough from him.”
Then they went to the end of the hall, and there had fallen down
a crossbeam inside which was much burnt in the middle.
Kari spoke to Skarphedinn, and said, “Leap thou out here, and I
will help thee to do so, and I will leap out after thee, and then
we shall both get away if we set about it so, for hitherward
blows all the smoke.”
“Thou shalt leap first,” said Skarphedinn; “but I will leap
straightway on thy heels.”
“That is not wise,” says Kari, “for I can get out well enough
elsewhere, though it does not come about here.”
“I will not do that,” says Skarphedinn; “leap thou out first, but
I will leap after thee at once.”
“It is bidden to every man,” says Kari, “to seek to save his life
while he has a choice, and I will do so now; but still this
parting of ours will be in such wise that we shall never see one
another more; for if I leap out of the fire, I shall have no mind
to leap back into the fire to thee, and then each of us will have
to fare his own way.”
“It joys me, brother-in-law,” says Skarphedinn, “to think that if
thou gettest away thou wilt avenge me.”
Then Kari took up a blazing bench in his hand, and runs up along
the crossbeam, then he hurls the bench out at the roof, and it
fell among those who were outside.
Then they ran away, and by that time all Kari’s upper clothing
and his hair were a-b1aze, then he threw himself down from the
roof, and so crept along with the smoke.
Then one man said who was nearest, “Was that a man that leapt out
at the roof?”
“Far from it,” says another; “more likely it was Skarphedinn who
hurled a firebrand at us.”
