the wages of sin was death--why the
avenger that was promised had not come to smite down the wicked and
save the just?

VI.

In this valley of the Loberg there is a long peninsula of rock
stretching between the western bank of the lake and the river called
the Oxara. It begins in a narrow neck where is a pass for one horse
only, and ends in a deep pool over a jagged precipice, with a mighty
gorge of water falling from the opposite ravine. It is said that this
awful place was used in ancient days for the execution of women who
had killed their children, and of men who had robbed the widow and
the orphan.

Near the narrowest part of the peninsula a man was plunging along in
the darkness, trusting solely to the sight of his pony, for his own
eyes could see nothing. Two long hours he had been groping his way
from the Mount of Laws, and he was still within one short mile of it.
But at last he saw help at hand in his extremity, for a man on foot
approached him out of the gloom. He took him for a farmer of those
parts, and hailed him with hearty cheer.

"Good man," he said, "put me on the right path for Reykjavik, and you
shall have five kroner, and welcome."

But scarcely had he spoken when he recognized the man he had met, and
the man recognized him. The one was Jason, and the other Jorgen
Jorgensen.

Jorgen Jorgensen thought his hour had come, for, putting his hand to
his weapon, he remembered that he had not reloaded it since he had
shot at Jason, and so he flung it away. But the old tiger was not to
be subdued. "Come," he said, out of the black depths of his heart,
"let us have done. What is it to be?"

Then Jason stepped back, and said, "That is the way to
Reykjavik--over the stream and through the first chasm on the left."

At this, Jorgen Jorgensen seemed to catch his breath. He tried to
speak and could not.

"No," said Jason. "It may be weakness, it may be folly, it may be
madness, but you were my mother's father, God pity her and forgive
you, and not even at the price of my brother's life will I have your
blood on my hands. Go!"

Jorgen Jorgensen touched his horse and rode on, with his gray,
dishonored head deep in his breast. And, evil man as he was, surely
his cold heart was smitten with shame.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GOSPEL OF LOVE.

No Althing was held in Iceland in that year of the great eruption of
Skaptar. The dread visitation lasted six long months, from the end of
June to the beginnin