They are honest folk enough, and will put us on the great road.

They must be close to it." That seemed so likely that we left the brook and began to draw nearer to the fire, the voices growing plainer every moment, though we could see no man as yet.
Now, all of a sudden, every voice was silent, and we stopped, thinking we were heard perhaps; though it did seem strange to me that no dogs were about a camp of traders.

I was just about to call out that we were friends, when there began a low, even beating, as of a drum of some sort, and then suddenly a wild howl that sounded like a war cry of maddened men, and after that a measured tramping of feet that went swiftly and in time to a chant, the like of which I had never heard before, and which made me grasp Harek by the arm.
"What, in Odin's name, is this ?" r said, whispering.
"Somewhat uncanny," answered the scald.

"Let us get back to the horses and leave this place." Then we turned back, and Kolgrim's foot lit on a stone that rolled from under it, and he fell heavily with a clatter of weapons on the scattered rocks of the stream bank.
There was a howl from the firelight, and the chanting stopped, and voices cried in the uncouth tongue angrily, and there came a pattering of unshod feet round us in the thickness, with a word or two that seemed as if of command, and then silence, but for stealthy footfalls drawing nearer to us.

And I liked it not.
We pulled Kolgrim up, and went on upstream, drawing our swords, though I yet thought of nothing but tin merchants whom we had disturbed in some strange play of their own.