m this, that we would both share the same fate."

After that they both went back into the house.

"What counsel shall we now take," said Bergthora.

"We will go to our bed," says Njal, "and lay us down; I have long
been eager for rest."

Then she said to the boy Thord, Kari's son, "Thee will I take
out, and thou shalt not burn in here."

"Thou hast promised me this, grandmother," says the boy, "that we
should never part so long as I wished to be with thee; but
methinks it is much better to die with thee and Njal than to live
after you."

Then she bore the boy to her bed, and Njal spoke to his steward
and said, "Now thou shalt see where we lay us down, and how I
lay us out, for I mean not to stir an inch hence, whether reek or
burning smart me, and so thou wilt be able to guess where to look
for our bones,"

He said he would do so.

There had been an ox slaughtered and the hide lay there. Njal
told the steward to spread the hide over them, and he did so.

So there they lay down both of them in their bed, and put the boy
between them. Then they signed themselves and the boy with the
cross, and gave over their souls into God's hand, and that was
the last word that men heard them utter.

Then the steward took the hide and spread it over them, and went
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 cross-beam inside which was much burnt in the middl