's breast--he felt his muscles thrilling with
a strength they had not known before. His nerves, stretched tense as
harp-strings, were vibrating to a new tune. His blood spun through his
veins till his ears roared with the rush of it. Never had he conceived
of such savage exultation as that which mastered him at that instant.
The knowledge that he could kill filled him with a sense of power
that was veritably royal. He felt physically larger. It was the joy of
battle, the horrid exhilaration of killing, the animal of the race, the
human brute suddenly aroused and dominating every instinct and tradition
of centuries of civilization. The fight still was going forward.

Wilbur could hear the sounds of it, though from where he stood all sight
was shut off by the smoke of the burning house. As he turned about,
knife in hand, debating what next he should do, a figure burst down upon
him, shadowy and distorted through the haze.

It was Moran, but Moran as Wilbur had never seen her before. Her eyes
were blazing under her thick frown like fire under a bush. Her arms were
bared to the elbow, her heavy ropes of hair flying and coiling from her
in all directions, while with a voice hoarse from shouting she sang,
or rather chanted, in her long-forgotten Norse tongue, fragments of old
sagas, words, and sentences, meaningless even to herself. The fury of
battle had exalted her to a sort of frenzy. She was beside herself with
excitement. Once more she had lapsed back to the Vikings and sea-rovers
of the tenth century--she was Brunhilde again, a shield-maiden, a
Valkyrie, a Berserker and the daughter of Berserkers, and like them she
fought in a veritable frenzy, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, every
sense exalted, every force doubled, insensible to pain, deaf to all
reason.

Her dirk uplifted, she rushed upon Wilbur, never once pausing in her
chant. Wilbur shouted a warning to her as she came on, puzzled beyond
words, startled back to a consciousness of himself again by this
insensate attack.

"Moran! Moran!" he called. "What is it--you're wrong! It-s I. It's
Wilbur--your mate, can't you see?"

Moran could not see--blind to friend or foe, as she was deaf to reason,
she struck at him with all the strength of her arm. But there was no
skill in her fighting now. Wilbur dropped his own knife and gripped
her right wrist. She closed with him upon the instant, clutching at his
throat with her one free hand; and as he felt her strength--do