Right on the brink of the great gulf sat Gudruda. One stroke and all would be ended. Eric had gone; there was no eye to see—none save the Grey Wolf’s; there was no tongue to tell the deed that might be done. Who could call her to account? The Gods! Who were the Gods? What were the Gods? Were they not dreams? There were no Gods save the Gods of Evil—the Gods she knew and communed with.
“Grey Wolf, Grey Wolf! what is thy rede?”
There sat Gudruda, laughing in the triumph of her joy, with the sunset-glow shining on her beauty, and there, behind her, Swanhild crept—crept like a fox upon his sleeping prey.
Now she is there—
“I hear thee, Grey Wolf! Back to my breast, Grey Wolf!”
Surely Gudruda heard something? She half turned her head, then again fell to calling aloud to the waters:
“Eric! beloved Eric!—ah! is there ever a light like the light of thine eyes—is there ever a joy like the joy of thy kiss?”
Swanhild heard, and her springs of mercy froze. Hate and fury entered into her. She rose upon her knees and gathered up her strength:
“Seek, then, thy joy in Goldfoss,” she cried aloud, and with all her force she thrust.
Gudruda fell a fathom or more, then, with a cry, she clutched wildly at a little ledge of rock, and hung there, her feet resting on the shelving bank. Thirty fathoms down swirled and poured and rolled the waters of the Golden Falls. A fathom above, red in the red light of evening, lowered the pitiless face of Swanhild. Gudruda looked beneath her and saw. Pale with agony she looked up and saw, but she said naught.