We left Dalfin to tend her, and brought the bedstead and canvas with all speed, and so lifted her on it.  Then Bertric went back into the house and brought thence a blue cloak which lay where she had fallen, and covered her with it, for the night was chill now.  It was her own, and with it he brought a light helm made of steel bands and transparent horn between them, which must have fallen from her head.

Maybe this maiden was of twenty years, or less, and to me, at least, who had no sisters as had the others, she seemed beautiful altogether.  I know that had she faced us in life in the entry of the chamber, clad as she was in her mail and helm, I had been sure that she was a Valkyria, sent hither by Odin to choose the hero yonder for his halls.

“She is long in coming round,” said Bertric presently.  “It may be as well to close up that chamber before she sees it open, lest she take us for common robbers, and be terrified.”

Dalfin laughed a little.

“Helm and mail and fear should not go together,” he said.

“She will wake without thought of what she has tried to be,” answered Bertric.  “Get the place closed, Malcolm, anywise.”

Now Dalfin and I went together, and set back the timbers in their places.  But they would not bide there properly, and I took up the hammer we had used to take them down, and drove one or two of the upper nails again lightly, Dalfin kneeling and holding the ends below.  Whether the sharp click of the iron roused the girl or not I cannot say, but I had not driven more than three before I heard a little cry behind me, and turned to see if there was anything amiss.

The girl was sitting up, and seeming not to heed Bertric at all—­for he was behind her and supporting her—­was looking at us two with wide eyes of fear and wonder.  And when I turned of a sudden, she set her hands together and held them out toward me as if she prayed, and cried to me: 

“Asa Thor!  Asa Thor! will you leave me?  Is there no place in Freya’s hall—­in Gladsheim—­for a maiden, if to Asgard she may not come?”

I had no answer.  For the moment I thought that she saw some vision of the Asir beyond my ken, and then knew that it was indeed to myself that she spoke.  For I stood at the door of the house of the dead, with Thor’s weapon—­the hammer—­in my hand, and she wandered in her mind with the weakness that comes after a swoon.

“Hush, lady, hush,” said Bertric in a wonderfully gentle voice.  “It is not Thor whom you see, but only a friend.”

But seeing that I made no answer, nor moved, for I was at a loss altogether, she turned to Dalfin, who still knelt beside me, watching her in blank amaze.  The Norse gods were all but unknown to him, save perhaps as he had heard their names now and then from the Irish Danes.

“You must be Freyr, you other of the greeters of the slain.  Speak for me, I pray you, to the hammer bearer, that I may go whither my grandfather is gone, if so be that I am dead.”