m, and before him was a
little table, heavy and carved, whereon were vessels for food,
empty now save for dust that showed that they had been full. And
across his knees was his sword, golden hilted, with a great yellow
cairngorm in the pommel, and with gold-wrought patterns from end to
end of the scabbard--such a sword as I had never seen before. His
right hand held the hilt, and his left rested on the shield's rim
beside him; and so Sigurd slept with his head bowed on his breast,
waiting for Ragnaroek and the last great fight of all.

The light seemed to grow stronger as I looked, or my eyes grew used
to it, and then I saw that the narrow chamber was full of things,
though I minded them afterwards, for now I was as in a dream,
noting only the jarl himself. Costly stuffs were on the floor, and
mail and helms and more weapons. Gold work there was also, and in
one corner lay the dried-up body of a great wolf hound, coiled as
in sleep where it had been chained. Another had been tied by the
passage doorway, where I had stepped on it; and below a spar that
stood across a corner lay a tumbled heap of feathers that had been
a falcon.

Many more things there were maybe, but this I saw at last--that the
jarl's right foot rested on the skull of a man whose teeth had been
long and tusk-like. It was the head of the Scot whose teeth had
been his death.

Now the sword drew my eyes, for Einar bade me ask for it, else I
think I had gone softly hence without a word, so peaceful seemed
the dead. And as I looked again, I saw that the hand holding the
hilt was dry and brown and shrunken, so that one might see all the
bones through the skin, and at first I was afraid to ask.

At last I said, and my mouth was dry:

"Jarl Einar, your brother, bids me ask for sword Helmbiter, great
Sigurd. Let me take it, that he may know how you rest in peace."

But Sigurd stirred not nor spoke; and slowly I put out my hand on
the sword to take it very gently, but his grasp was yet firm on it.
Then, as I bent to see if it had tightened when I would draw the
sword away, I could see beneath the helm the face of the dead,
shrunken indeed and brown, but as of one at rest and beyond anger.

Once more then I took the jarl's sword in my right hand, and raised
his hand with my left, putting my own weapon by against the wall.
And then the hilt slipped from the half-open fingers, and the sword
was mine, and my hand held the jarl's. And it seemed to me that he