Then Eric ran down the hall, and, putting out his strength, tore the Baresark from them.
“This then is thy peacefulness, thou wolf!” Eric cried. “Thou art drunk!”
“Ay,” growled Skallagrim, “ale is many a man’s doom.”
“Have a care that it is not thine and mine, then!” said Eric. “Go, sleep; and know that, if I see thee thus once more, I see thee not again.”
But after this men jeered no more at Skallagrim Lambstail, Eric’s thrall.
CHAPTER XI
HOW SWANHILD BID FAREWELL TO ERIC
Now all this while Asmund sat deep in thought; but when, at length, men were sunk in sleep, he took a candle of fat and passed to the shut bed where Swanhild slept alone. She lay on her bed, and her curling hair was all about her. She was awake, for the light gleamed in her blue eyes, and on a naked knife that was on the bed beside her, half hidden by her hair.
“What wouldst thou, foster-father?” she asked, rising in the couch. Asmund closed the curtains, then looked at her sternly and spoke in a low voice:
“Thou art fair to be so vile a thing, Swanhild,” he said. “Who now would have dreamed that heart of thine could talk with goblins and with were-wolves—that those eyes of thine could bear to look on murder and those white hands find strength to do the sin?”
She held up her shapely arms and, looking on them, laughed. “Would that they had been fashioned in a stronger mould,” she said. “May they wither in their woman’s weakness! else had the deed been done outright. Now my crime is as heavy upon me and nothing gained by it. Say what fate for me, foster-father—the Stone of Doom and the pool where faithless women lie? Ah, then might Gudruda laugh indeed, and I will not live to hear that laugh. See,” and she gripped the dagger at her side: “along this bright edge runs the path to peace and freedom, and, if need be, I will tread it.”