Michael
Sunlocks, and vowed that the Sulphur Mines of Krisuvik should see the
worst and last of him.

He heard of Jason, too, that he was not dead, as they had supposed,
but alive, and that he had been sent to the Mines for attempting the
life of Sunlocks. That attempt seemed to him to come of a natural
passion, and as often as he spoke of it he warmed up visibly, not out
of any human tenderness towards Jason, but with a sense of wild
triumph over Sunlocks. And the more he thought of Jason, the firmer
grew his resolve to take him out of the Sulphur Mines and place him
by his side, not that his old age needed a stay, not that he was a
lonely old man, and Jason was his daughter's son, but only because
Jason hated Sunlocks and would crush him if by chance he rose again.

With such thoughts uppermost he went down to Krisuvik, and there his
bitter purpose met with a shock. He found Jason the sole ally of
Michael Sunlocks, his friend, his defender and champion against
tyranny. It was then that he ordered the ruthless punishment of
Sunlocks, that he should be nailed by his right hand to a log of
driftwood, with meat and drink within sight but out of reach of him,
and a huge knife by his side. And when Jason had liberated Sunlocks
from this inhuman cruelty, and the two men, dearest foes and
deadliest friends, were brought before him for their punishment, the
gall of Jorgen's fate seemed to suffocate him. "Strap them up
together," he cried, "leg to leg and arm to arm." Thus he thought to
turn their love to hate; but he kept his own counsel, and left the
Sulphur Mines without saying what evil dream had brought him there,
or confessing to his Danish officers the relation wherein this other
prisoner stood to him, for secrecy is the chain-armor of the tyrant.

Back in Reykjavik he comforted himself with the assurance that
Michael Sunlocks must die. "There was death in his face," he thought,
"and he cannot last a month longer. Besides, he will fall to fighting
with the other, and the other will surely kill him. Blind fools, both
of them!"

In this mood he made ready for Thingvellir, and set out with all his
people. Since the revolution, he had kept a bodyguard of five and
twenty men, and with this following he was crossing the slope of the
Basket Hill, behind the capital, when he saw half a score of the
guards from Krisuvik riding at a gallop from the direction of
Hafnafiord. They were the men who had been sent in pursuit of Re