Now I halted before I lifted my head above the skyline, and listened with a fear on me lest I should hear the sound of running feet, and I was the more careful because I knew that the snow which lay white and deep on all the open land might deaden any sounds thereof. But I heard nothing save the wail of the wind overhead as it rose in gusts. I wondered if Thorgils would be able to bide in this little cove, or must needs put out to seek some other haven. There seemed to be a swell setting into it.
So I crept yet farther up the path, crouching behind a point of rock, and thence I saw a dark line on the snow that seemed to promise a road, and that must surely lead to some house or village. I went forward to it with all caution, and with my head over my shoulder, as they say, but I saw no man. This track led east and west, and was well trodden by cattle, but there were few footprints of men on it, so far as I could see. So I turned into it, going ever away from the ship, and hurrying. I had a thought that I heard shouts behind me, but there was more wind here on the heights than I had felt on the sea, or it was rising, and it sung strangely round the bare points of rock that jutted up everywhere. Maybe it was but that.
Inland I could see no sign of house or hut where I might find food at least, but the cloud wrack had drifted across the moon, and I could not see far now. It was a desolate coast, all unlike our own.
Then I came to a place where the track crossed stony ground and was lost in gathered snow. When I was across that I had lost the road altogether, and had only the line of the cliffs to guide me to what shelter I could not tell. And now a few flakes of snow fluttered round me, and I held on hopelessly, thinking that surely I should come to some place that would give me a lee of rock that I could creep under.
Then the snow swooped down on me heavily, with a whirl and rush of wind from the sea, and I tried to hurry yet more from the chill. Then I was sure that I heard voices calling after me, and I ran, not rightly knowing where to go, but judging that the coastline would lead me to some fishers' village in the end. There seemed no hope from the land I had seen.
Again the voices came--nay, but there was one voice only, and it called me by my name: "Oswald, Oswald!"
I stopped and listened, for I thought of Thorgils. But the voice was silent, and again I pressed on in the blinding snow, and at once it came, wailing:
"Oswald, Oswald!"
It was behind me now and close at hand, and I turned with my hand on my sword hilt. But there was nothing. Only the snow whirled round me, and the wind sung in the rocks. I called softly, but there was no answer, and I was called no more as I stood still.
"Oswald, Oswald!"