or my bird,--I should not
complain,--my own time is short." His former anger calmed a little--the
brooding irritation of his mind became gradually soothed.

"Rose of my heart!" he whispered, tenderly apostrophizing the memory of
his wife,--that lost jewel of love, whose fair body lay enshrined in the
king's tomb by the Fjord. "Wrongfully done to death as thou wert, and
brief time as we had for loving;--in spite of thy differing creed, I
feel that I shall meet thee soon! Yes--in the world beyond the stars,
they will bring thee to me in Valhalla,--wheresoever thou art, thou wilt
not refuse to come! The gods themselves cannot unfasten the ties of love
between us!"

As he half thought, half uttered, these words, the reindeer again
stopped abruptly, rearing their antlered heads and panting heavily.
Hark! what was that? A clear, far-reaching note of music seemingly
wakened from the waters of the Fjord and rising upwards, upwards, with
bell-like distinctness! Gueldmar leaned from his motionless sledge and
listened in awe--it was the same sound he had before heard as he stood
by Lovisa Elsland's death-bed--and was in truth nothing but a strong
current of wind blowing through the arched and honeycombed rocks by the
sea, towards the higher land,--creating the same effect as though one
should breathe forcibly through a pipe-like instrument of dried and
hollow reeds,--and being rendered more resonant by the intense cold, it
bore a striking similarity to the full blast of a war-trumpet. For the
worshipper of Odin, it had a significant and supernatural meaning,--and
he repeated his former action--that of drawing the knife from his girdle
and kissing the hilt. "If Death is near me," he said in a loud voice, "I
bid it welcome! The gods know that I am ready!"

He waited as though expecting some answer--but there was a brief,
absolute silence. Then, with a wild shriek and riotous uproar, the
circling tempest,--before uncertain and vacillating in its
wrath,--pounced, eagle-like, downward and grasped the mountains in its
talons,--the strong pines rocked backwards and forwards as though bent
by Herculean hands, crashing their frosted branches madly together:--the
massive clouds in the sky opened and let fall their burden of snow. Down
came the large fleecy flakes, twisting dizzily round and round in a
white waltz to the whirl of the wind--faster--faster--heavier and
thicker, till there seemed no clear space in the air. Gueldmar urged on