seemed--odd that they
shouldn't, but they did not. Because Cappen Varra did, he had no reason
to be afraid; therefore he was doubly safe, and it was but a matter of
talking the troll into giving him some fire. If indeed there was a troll
here, and not some harmless fisherman.

He whistled gaily, wrung some of the water from his cloak and ruddy
hair, and started along the beach. In the sleety gloom, he could just
see a hewn-out path winding up one of the cliffs and he set his feet on
it.

At the top of the path, the wind ripped his whistling from his lips. He
hunched his back against it and walked faster, swearing as he stumbled
on hidden rocks. The ice-sheathed ground was slippery underfoot, and the
cold bit like a knife.

Rounding a crag, he saw redness glow in the face of a steep bluff. A
cave mouth, a fire within--he hastened his steps, hungering for warmth,
until he stood in the entrance.

"_Who comes?_"

It was a hoarse bass cry that rang and boomed between walls of rock;
there was ice and horror in it, for a moment Cappen's heart stumbled.
Then he remembered the amulet and strode boldly inside.

"Good evening, mother," he said cheerily.

The cave widened out into a stony hugeness that gaped with tunnels
leading further underground. The rough, soot-blackened walls were hung
with plundered silks and cloth-of-gold, gone ragged with age and damp;
the floor was strewn with stinking rushes, and gnawed bones were heaped
in disorder. Cappen saw the skulls of men among them. In the center of
the room, a great fire leaped and blazed, throwing billows of heat
against him; some of its smoke went up a hole in the roof, the rest
stung his eyes to watering and he sneezed.

The troll-wife crouched on the floor, snarling at him. She was quite the
most hideous thing Cappen had ever seen: nearly as tall as he, she was
twice as broad and thick, and the knotted arms hung down past bowed
knees till their clawed fingers brushed the ground. Her head was
beast-like, almost split in half by the tusked mouth, the eyes wells of
darkness, the nose an ell long; her hairless skin was green and cold,
moving on her bones. A tattered shift covered some of her monstrousness,
but she was still a nightmare.

"Ho-ho, ho-ho!" Her laughter roared out, hungry and hollow as the surf
around the island. Slowly, she shuffled closer. "So my dinner comes
walking in to greet me, ho, ho, ho! Welcome, sweet flesh, welcome, good
marrow-filled bones, co