fall Hiordis or the rest.

DAGNY. Yes, I will follow them. Thou hast a kind thought even for
Hiordis; I thank thee.

SIGURD. Go, go, Dagny!

DAGNY. I go; but be thou at ease as to Hiordis; she has gilded
armour in her bower, and will know how to shield herself.

SIGURD. That deem I too; but go thou nevertheless; guide thy
father's course; watch over all--and over Gunnar's wife!

DAGNY. Trust to me. Farewell, till we meet again.

(She follows the others.)

SIGURD. 'Tis the first time, foster-brother, that I stand weaponless
whilst thou art in danger. (Listens.) I hear shouts and sword-strokes;
--they are already at the hall. (Goes towards the right, but stops and
recoils in astonishment.) Hiordis! Comes she hither!

(HIORDIS enters, clad in a short scarlet kirtle, with gilded armour:
helmet, hauberk, arm-plates, and greaves. Her hair is flying
loose; at her back hangs a quiver, and at her belt a small shield.
She has in her hand the bow strung with her hair.)

HIORDIS (hastily looking behind her, as though in dread of something
pursuing her, goes close up to SIGURD, seizes him by the arm, and
whispers:) Sigurd, Sigurd, canst thou see it?

SIGURD. What? Where ?

HIORDIS. The wolf there--close behind me; it does not move; it
glares at me with its two red eyes. It is my wraith,[1], Sigurd!
Three times has it appeared to me; that bodes that I shall surely
die to-night!

[1] The word "wraith" is here used in an obviously inexact sense;
but the wraith seemed to be the nearest equivalent in English
mythology to the Scandinavian "fylgie," an attendant spirit, often
regarded as a sort of emanation from the person it accompanied, and
sometimes (as in this case) typifying that person's moral attributes.

SIGURD. Hiordis, Hiordis!

HIORDIS. It has sunk into the earth! Yes, yes, now it has warned me.

SIGURD. Thou art sick; come, go in with me.

HIORDIS. Nay, here will I bide; I have but little time left.

SIGURD. What has befallen thee?

HIORDIS. What has befallen? That know I not; but true was it what
thou said'st to-day, that Gunnar and Dagny stand between us; we must
away from them and from life: then can we be together!

SIGURD. We? Ha, thou meanest----!

HIORDIS (with dignity). I have been homeless in this world from that
day thou didst take another to wife. That was ill done of thee! All
good gifts may a man give his faithful frien