ds, that was clothed with grey moss.

Then he moved to the right and searched, peering behind stones and
birch-bushes, till presently he held up his hand and whistled. They
passed along the slope and found him standing by a little stream of
water which welled from beneath a great rock.

"Here is the place," the man said.

"I see no place," answered Swanhild.

"Still, it is there, lady," and he climbed on to the rock, drawing her
after him. At the back of it was a hole, almost overgrown with moss.
"Here is the path," he said again.

"Then it is one that I have no mind to follow," answered Swanhild.
"Gizur, go thou with the man and see if his tale is true. I will stay
here till ye come back."

Then the thrall let himself down into the hole and Gizur went after him.
But Swanhild sat there in the shadow of the rock, her chin resting on
her hand, and waited. Presently, as she sat, she saw two men ride round
the base of the fell, and strike off to the right towards a turf-booth
which stood the half of an hour's ride away. Now Swanhild was the
keenest-sighted of all women of her day in Iceland, and when she looked
at these two men she knew one of them for Jon, Eric's thrall, and she
knew the horse also--it was a white horse with black patches, that Jon
had ridden for many years. She watched them go till they came to the
booth, and it seemed to her that they left their horses and entered.

Swanhild waited upon the side of the fell for nearly two hours in all.
Then, hearing a noise above her, she looked up, and there, black with
dirt and wet with water, was Gizur, and with him was the thrall.

"What luck, Gizur?" she asked.

"This, Swanhild: Eric may hold Mosfell no more, for we have found a way
to bolt the fox."

"That is good news, then," said Swanhild. "Say on."

"Yonder hole, Swanhild, leads to the cleft above, having been cut
through the cliff by fire, or perhaps by water. Now up that cleft a man
may climb, though hardly, as by a difficult stair, till he comes to the
flat crest of the fell. Then, crossing the crest, on the further side,
perhaps six fathoms below him, he sees that space of rock where is
Eric's cave; but he cannot see the cave itself, because the brow of the
cliff hangs over. And so it is that, if any come from the cave on to the
space of rock, it will be an easy matter to roll stones upon them from
above and crush them."

Now when Swanhild heard this she laughed aloud.

"Eric shall mock us no