et, and Michael Sunlocks was out on the sea in search of
themselves.

And when the snow had ceased to fall, and the frost that followed had
hardened it, and the country, now white instead of black, was again
fit to travel upon, it was found that the priest was unwilling to
start. Then it appeared that downright drinking had been his sole
recreation and his only bane; that the most serious affairs of night
and day had always submitted to this great business; that in the
interval of waiting for the passing of the snow, finding himself with
a few kroner at command, he had begun on his favorite occupation, and
that he now was too deeply immersed therein to be disturbed in less
than a week.

Once again the seamen railed at their guide, as well as at the whole
race of Icelanders, but Adam was all for lenity towards the priest
and hope for themselves.

"My faithful companions," he said, "be not dismayed by any of these
disasters, but let us put our whole trust in God. If it be our
fortune to end our days in this desolate land, we are as near heaven
here as at home. Yet let us use all honest efforts to save our
natural lives, and we are not yet so far past hope of doing so but
that I see a fair way by which we may effect it."

With that they set out again alone, and within an hour they had
fallen on the second mischance of their journey, for failing to find
the pass that would have led them across country through Thingvellir,
they kept close by the sea line in the direction of the Smoky Point.

Now these misadventures, first with the mother and child, next with
the Sheriffs, and then with the guides, though they kept back Adam
and his company from that quick deliverance which they would have
found in meeting with the messengers of Michael Sunlocks or with
Michael Sunlocks himself, yet brought them in the end in the way of
the only persons who are important to this story. For pursuing their
mistaken way by the line of sea they came upon the place called
Krisuvik. It was a grim wilderness of awful things, not cold and dead
and dumb like the rest of that haggard land, but hot and alive with
inhuman fire and clamorous with devilish noises. A wide ashen plain
within a circle of hills whereon little snow could rest for the
furnace that raged beneath the surface; shooting with shrill whistles
its shafts of hot steam from a hundred fumeroles; bubbling up in a
thousand jets of boiling water; hissing from a score of green
cauldron