hael Sunlocks was marched out of his prison and taken off
towards the Bursting-sand desert between a line of guards. There was
a great throng to bid adieu to him, and to groan at the power that
sent him. His face was pale, but his bodily strength was good. His
step was firm and steady, and gave hardly a hint of his blindness.
His farewell of those who crowded upon him was simple and manly.

"Good-bye," he said, "and though with my eyes I cannot see you, I can
see you with my heart, and that is the better sight whereof death
alone can rob me. No doubt you have much to forgive to me; so forgive
it to me now, for we shall meet no more."

There was many a sob at that word, but the two who would have been
most touched by it were not there to hear it, for Greeba and old Adam
were busy with their own enterprise, as we shall learn hereafter.

When Michael Sunlocks was landed at Grimsey, he was offered first as
bondman for life, or prisoner-slave to the largest bonder there, a
grasping old miser named Jonsson, who, like Jorgen himself, had never
allowed his bad conscience to get the better of him. But Jonsson
looked at Sunlocks with a curl of the lip and said, "What's the use
of a blind man?" So the end of all was that Sunlocks was put in
charge of the priest of the island. The priest was to take him into
his house, to feed, clothe and attend to him, and report his
condition twice a year to the Governor at Reykjavik. For such
service to the State, the good man was to receive an annual stipend
of one hundred kroner. And all arrangements being made, the escort
that had brought Michael Sunlocks the ten days' journey over the
desert, set their faces back towards the capital.

Michael Sunlocks was then on the edge of the habitable world. There
was no attempt to confine him, for his home was an island bound by a
rocky coast; he was blind and, therefore, helpless; and he could not
step out a thousand yards alone without the danger of walking over a
precipice into the sea. So that with all his brave show of liberty,
he was as much in fetters as if his feet had been enchained to the
earth beneath them.

The priest, who was in truth his jailer, was one who has already been
heard of in this history, being no other than the Sigfus Thomsson
(titled Sir from his cure of souls) who was banished from his
chaplaincy at Reykjavik six and twenty years before for marrying
Stephen Orry to Rachael, the daughter of the Governor-General
Jorgensen