Among several voices that seemed to talk with Jomar, his ear all at once caught a woman’s.  Even the approach of an enemy could not have made him more alert.  He listened keenly and, with a sensible feeling of disappointment, heard the door close, the noise cease, and Jomar’s steps quietly cross the floor again.  This time, however, they went right to the other end of the room, and an inner door opened.  He thought he caught Atli’s tones answering his sullen servant, and presently he heard two men come out and go to the outer door.  Again, with a blast of cold draught, it opened, and the talk began a second time.  His curiosity was keenly excited; he could pick out a woman’s voice most unmistakably, and at last he heard the conference come to an end.  The door closed, the party seemed to go away, and then whispering began in the room below him.

“The woman has come in!” he said to himself, with a start of excitement.  “Helgi, this matter needs your attention.”

His bed, the outermost of the two, consisted merely of a coarse mattress laid so far back in the loft that the edge of the flooring hid all view of the room below.  Very softly he proceeded to throw off the blankets and crawl quietly towards the edge, till he had gone far enough to get a clear sight of the fire.  There he lay, and smiled to himself at the prospect below.

The fire had been raked up to burn brightly, and Jomar, as before, lay fast asleep beside it; but between Helgi and the blaze stood the old seer and the hooded and cloaked form of a woman.  Her face was hidden, but her back, the watcher thought, promised well.  She was tall, and seemed young, and her movements, as she held out her hands to the flames, or half turned to address the old man, had grace and the marks of good birth.  They talked so low that Helgi could catch nothing they said, and even the quality of the girl’s voice only reached him in snatches.

“A pleasant voice, methinks,” he said to himself.  “Atli, this booty must be shared.”

She seemed to be telling a narrative to Atli, who, with folded arms and deep attention that sometimes passed into suppressed emotion, looked intently at her, and frequently broke in with some 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.