“How shall I greet thee, Swanhild, who would never have seen thy face again if I might have had my will?  Knowest thou that yesternight, as we laboured in yonder Firth, we saw a shape walking the waters to lead us to our doom?  How shall I greet thee, Swanhild, who art a witch and evil?”

“And knowest thou, Eric, that yesternight I woke from sleep, having dreamed that thou didst lie upon the shore, and thus I saved thee alive, as perchance I have saved thee aforetime?  If thou didst see a shape walking the waters it was that shape which led thee here.  Hadst thou sailed on, not only those thou mournest, but Skallagrim and thou thyself had now been numbered with the lost.”

“Better so than thus,” said Brighteyes.  “Knowest thou also, Swanhild, that when last night my life came back again in Atli’s hall, methought that Atli’s wife leaned over me and kissed me on the lips?  That was an ill dream, Swanhild.”

“Some had found it none so ill, Eric,” she made answer, looking on him strangely.  “Still, it was but a dream.  Thou didst dream that Atli’s wife breathed back the breath of life into thy pale lips—­be sure of it thou didst but dream.  Ah, Eric, fear me no more; forget the evil that I have wrought in the blindness and folly of my youth.  Now things are otherwise with me.  Now I am a wedded wife and faithful hearted to my lord.  Now, if I still love thee, it is with a sister’s love.  Therefore forget my sins, remember only that as children we played upon the Iceland fells.  Remember that, as boy and girl, we rode along the marshes, while the sea-mews clamoured round our heads.  The world is cold, Eric, and few are the friends we find in it; many are already gone, and soon the friendless dark draws near.  So put me not away, my brother and my friend; but, for a little space, whilst thou art here in Atli’s hall, let us walk hand in hand as we walked long years ago in Iceland, gathering up the fifa-bloom, and watching the midnight shadows creep up the icy joekul’s crest.”

Thus Swanhild spoke to him most sweetly, in a low voice of music, while the tears gathered in her eyes, talking ever of Iceland that he loved, and of days long dead, till Eric’s heart softened in him.

“Almost do I believe thee, Swanhild,” he said, stretching out his hand; “but I know thus:  that thou art never twice in the same mood, and that is beyond my measuring.  Thou hast done much evil and thou hast striven to do more; also I love not those who seem to walk the seas o’ nights.  Still, hold thou to this last saying of thine and there shall be peace between us while I bide here.”

She touched his hand humbly and turned to go.  But as she went Eric spoke again:  “Say, Swanhild, hast thou tidings from Iceland yonder?  I have heard no word of Asmund or of Gudruda for two long years and more.”

She stood still, and a dark shadow that he could not see flitted across her face.

“I have few tidings, Eric,” she said, turning, “and those few, if I may trust them, bad enough.  For this is the rumour that I have heard:  that Asmund the Priest, my father, is dead; that Groa, my mother, is dead—­how, I know not; and, lastly, that Gudruda the Fair, thy love, is betrothed to Ospakar Blacktooth and weds him in the spring.”