ping and waking, I know not. But this was his
dream or his vision; that the Hostage was standing over him, and she as
he had seen her but yesterday, bright-haired and ruddy-cheeked and white-
skinned, kind of hand and soft of voice, and she said to him:
"Hallblithe, look on me and hearken, for I have a message for thee." And
he looked and longed for her, and his soul was ravished by the sweetness
of his longing, and he would have leapt up and cast his arms about her,
but sleep and the dream bound him, and he might not. Then the image
smiled on him and said: "Nay, my love, lie still, for thou mayst not
touch me: here is but the image of the body which thou desirest. Hearken
then. I am in evil plight, in the hands of strong-thieves of the sea,
nor know I what they will do with me, and I have no will to be shamed; to
be sold for a price from one hand to another, yet to be bedded without a
price, and to lie beside some foe-man of our folk, and he to cast his
arms about me, will I, will I not: this is a hard case. Therefore to-
morrow morning at daybreak while men sleep, I think to steal forth to the
gunwale of the black ship and give myself to the gods, that they and not
these runagates may be masters of my life and my soul, and may do with me
as they will: for indeed they know that I may not bear the strange
kinless house, and the love and caressing of the alien house-master, and
the mocking and stripes of the alien house-mistress. Therefore let the
Hoary One of the sea take me and look to my matters, and carry me to life
or death, which-so he will. Thin now grows the night, but lie still a
little yet, while I speak another word.

"Maybe we shall meet alive again, and maybe not: and if not, though we
have never yet lain in one bed together, yet I would have thee remember
me: yet not so that my image shall come between thee and thy
speech-friend and bed-fellow of the kindred, that shall lie where I was
to have lain. Yet again, if I live and thou livest, I have been told and
have heard that by one way or other I am like to come to the Glittering
Plain, and the Land of Living Men. O my beloved, if by any way thou
mightest come thither also, and we might meet there, and we two alive,
how good it were! Seek that land then, beloved! seek it, whether or no
we once more behold the House of the Rose, or tread the floor of the
Raven dwelling. And now must even this image of me sunder from thee.
Farewell!"

Therewith was