Ingolf stood by her side, waiting. Since she so much wished to see Hjor-Leif he would not oppose it, but he wished to follow her and be near her.
Helga had forgotten him, and why she sat there. For the moment she remembered nothing except that she was alone and had Hjor-Leif no more. There were times when this fact seemed incomprehensible. If Hjor-Leif was dead, why was she alive? She did not understand that. But so it was—she was alive. And die she could not. Death would not come to her, though she prayed for it to all imaginable Powers.
When Ingolf had stood for a while motionless by her side, he bent down over her and said quietly that he must go for a little to give his men orders. Helga started when he spoke to her, and looked hastily up at him with a terrified look in her eyes. Then she came to herself, remembered why she sat here, why Ingolf stood waiting for her, and she seized his hand. She sat for a while holding it convulsively in hers and moaning softly. Then she said in that strange, distant voice which quite seemed to have displaced her own: "Ingolf—I cannot, after all—let me just sit. I cannot rise. Ah, I can do nothing," she said, half-wailing, and hid her face in her hands.
Ingolf stood a little irresolute; then he bent over her and said softly: "I will come again and fetch you."
She nodded impatiently with her bowed head, as if begging him only to go—to go!
As soon as she no longer heard his steps she began a low, heart-rending wail. Ah, she had no hope now. Her heart was dead. But she lived, and could not die.
Ingolf went back to the ship, helped Hallveig and her boy on shore, and asked Hallveig to look to Helga while he went and buried Hjor-Leif. Then he told Vifel and several of his men to take spades and a bier and follow him. The others he set to work unloading the ship.
Ingolf was quite composed now. The stamp of the resolute firmness, which was the real expression of his character, was more distinct than ever before. He had reconciled himself to his brother's death as a healthy man reconciles himself to the inevitable. He had sought comfort in his faith, and had eradicated all despair from his mind, so that only a healthy, hardening, beneficial pain remained behind. He remembered the death-rune among the omens at the sacrificial feast; it had then pointed at Hjor-Leif. Yes, Fate shields a man till she strikes him—nothing can alter that. Against Fate even the bravest fight in vain. Not even Odin can shake the sentence of the Norns.
Such were Ingolf's thoughts as, with a composed mind, he went to carry out his last duty to his brother.