d, "Jarl Sigurd has given me the sword!"

Kolgrim gazed in wonder. There was no speck of dust on the broad
blade as I drew it, and the waving lines of the dwarf-wrought steel
and gold-inlaid runes were clear and bright along its middle for
half its length. For the mound was very dry, and they had covered
all the chamber with peat before piling the earth over it.

"Let us go back to Jarl Einar; he will fear for us," I said,
sheathing the sword and girding it to me.

So we went across the meadow, and even as we went a blast of cold
wind came from, over the mountains, and with it whirled the black
thunderclouds of the storm that had been gathering all day. We ran
to an overhanging rock on the hillside and crept beneath it, while
the thunder crashed and the lightning struck from side to side of
the firth, and smote the wind-swept water that was white with foam.

"Master," said Kolgrim, "the Jarl Sigurd is wroth; he repents the
sword gift."

But I did not think that he had aught to do with this. For, as any
hill-bred man could tell, the storm had been brewing in the heat,
and was bound to come, and would pass to and fro among the hills
till it was worn out.

Nevertheless, when it passed away in pouring rain that swept like a
hanging sheet of moving mist down the glens from the half-hidden
mountains, and the sun shone out brightly again over the clear-cut
purple hillsides and rippling water, I looked at the mound in
wonder. For it was closed. We had sought shelter in a place near
that whence we saw the mound in coming, and could see the fallen
side, though not the doorway, looking across its front. And now the
slope of the bank seemed to have been made afresh, as on the day
when Sigurd had been closed in, years ago. None could say, save
those who had seen it, where the opening into the grave-chamber
might be.

Now both the opening and closing of Sigurd's grave mound seem very
strange to me. Thord and the scalds will have it that he himself
wrought both. As for me, I know not. In after days I told this to
Alfred the king when he wondered at my sword, and he said that he
thought an earthquake opened and washing rain closed the mound, but
that it happened strangely for me. I cannot gainsay his wise words,
and I will leave the matter so.

Thereafter Kolgrim and I went back to Einar, who yet waited for us.
Glad was he to see us return in safety; but both he and Thord were
speechless when they saw the jarl's sword girt t