terrible before his soul. He saw himself at variance with the Will
which rules the world. Repentance entered his heart.

"Woe to me that I have done what I have done," he said. "That which
awaits me is too hard to meet voluntarily. If I give myself up to
the priests, they will torture me for hours; they will roast me
with slow fires. And is not this life of misery, which we lead in
fear and want, penance enough? Have I not lost lands and home? Do I
not live parted from friends and everything which makes a man's
happiness? What more is required?"

When he spoke so, Tord sprang up wild with terror. "Can you
repent?" he cried. "Can my words move your heart? Then come
instantly! How could I believe that! Let us escape! There is still
time."

Berg Rese sprang up, he too. "You have done it, then--"

"Yes, yes, yes! I have betrayed you! But come quickly! Come, as you
can repent! They will let us go. We shall escape them!"

The murderer bent down to the floor, where the battle-axe of his
ancestors lay at his feet. "You son of a thief!" he said, hissing
out the words, "I have trusted you and loved you."

But when Tord saw him bend for the axe, he knew that it was now a
question of his own life. He snatched his own axe from his belt and
struck at Berg before he had time to raise himself. The edge cut
through the whistling air and sank in the bent head. Berg Rese fell
head foremost to the floor, his body rolled after. Blood and brains
spouted out, the axe fell from the wound. In the matted hair Tord
saw a big, red, gaping hole from the blow of an axe.

The peasants came rushing in. They rejoiced and praised the deed.

"You will win by this," they said to Tord.

Tord looked down at his hands as if he saw there the fetters with
which he had been dragged forward to kill him he loved. They were
forged from nothing. Of the rushes' green light, of the play of the
shadows, of the song of the storm, of the rustling of the leaves,
of dreams were they created. And he said aloud: "God is great."

But again the old thought came to him. He fell on his knees beside
the body and put his arm under him head.

"Do him no harm," he said. "He repents; he is going to the Holy
Sepulchre. He is not dead, he is but a prisoner. We were just ready
to go when he fell. The white monk did not want him to repent, but
God, the God of justice, loves repentance."

He lay beside the body, talked to it, wept and begged the dead man
to awake. The pe