other a lifted spear! On her
white brow rested a glittering helmet,--her bosom heaved beneath a
corslet of pale gold--she fixed her divine, dark eyes full upon his face
and smiled! With a cry of wonder and ecstacy the old man fell back in
his sledge,--the reins dropped from his hands,--"The _Valkyrie_! the
_Valkyrie_!" he exclaimed.

A mere breathing space, and the shadow vanished,--the aurora came out
again in unbroken splendor--and the reindeer, feeling no restraint upon
them, and terrified by something in the air, or the ceaseless glitter,
of the lights in the sky, started off precipitately at full gallop. The
long reins trailed loosely over their backs, lashing their sides as they
ran--Gueldmar, recovering from his momentary awe and bewilderment, strove
to seize them, but in vain. He called, he shouted,--the frightened
animals were utterly beyond control, and dashed madly down the steep
road, swinging the sledge from side to side, and entangling themselves
more and more with the loose reins, till, irritated beyond endurance,
confused and blinded by the flash of the aurora and the dizzy whirl of
the swiftly falling snow, they made straight for a steep bank,--and
before the _bonde_ had time to realize the situation and jump from the
sledge--crash! down they went with a discordant jangle of bells, their
hoofs splitting a thin, sharp shelf of ice as they leaped
forward,--dragging the light vehicle after them, and twisting it over
and over till it was a mere wreck,--and throwing out its occupant head
foremost against a jagged stone.

Then more scared than ever, they strove to clamber out of the gully into
which they had recklessly sprung, but, foiled in these attempts, they
kicked, plunged, and reared,--trampling heedlessly over the human form
lying helpless among the shattered fragments of the sledge,--till tired
out at last, they stood motionless, panting with terror. Their antlered
heads cast fantastic patterns on the snow in the varying rose and azure
radiance that rippled from the waving ribbons of the aurora,--and close
to them, his slowly trickling life-blood staining the white ground,--his
hair and beard glittering in the light like frosted silver,--his eyes
fast closed as though he slept,--lay Olaf Gueldmar unconscious--dying.
The spear of the Valkyrie had fallen!

CHAPTER XXXII.

"Bury me not when I am dead--
Lay me not down in a dusty bed;
I could not bear the life down there,
Wi