At the moment, he turned to look back. Erica could not now help watching him, and she cast a glance homewards too. They were so high up the mountain that the fiord and its shores were in full view; and more;—for the river was seen in its windings from the very skirts of the mountain to the fiord, and the town of Saltdalen standing on its banks. In short, the whole landscape to the west lay before them, from Sulitelma to the point of the horizon where the islands and rocks melted into the sea.
The stranger had picked up an eagle’s feather in his walk; and he now pointed with it to the tiny cove in which Erlingsen’s farm might be seen, looking no bigger than an infant’s toy, and said, “Do you leave an enemy there, or is Hund now your friend?”
“Hund is nobody’s friend, unless he happens to be yours,” Erica replied, perceiving at once that her companion belonged to the pirates. “Hund is everybody’s enemy; and, above all, he is an enemy to himself. He is a wretched man.”
“The bishop will cure that,” said the stranger. “He is coward enough to call in the bishop to cure all. When comes the bishop?”
“Next week.”
“What day, and what hour?”
Erica did not choose to gratify so close a curiosity as this. She did not reply; and while silent, was not sorry to hear the distant sound of cattle-bells, and Erlingsen’s cattle-bells too. The stranger did not seem to notice the sound, even though quickening his pace to suit Erica’s, who pressed on faster when she believed protection was at hand. And yet the next thing the stranger said brought her to a full stop.—He said he thought a part of Hund’s business with the bishop would be to get him to disenchant the fiord, so that boats might not be spirited away almost before men’s eyes; and that a rower and his skiff might not sink like lead one day, and the man be heard the second day, and seen the third, so that there was no satisfactory knowledge as to whether he was really dead. Erica stopped, and her eager looks made the inquiry which her lips could not speak. Her eagerness put her companion on his guard, and he would explain no further than by saying that the fiord was certainly enchanted, and that strange tales were circulating all round its shores—very striking to a stranger;—a stranger had nothing more to do with the wonders of a country than to listen to them. He wanted to turn the conversation back to Hund. Having found out that he was at Erlingsen’s, he next tried to discover what he had said and done since his arrival. Erica told the little there was to tell—that he seemed full of sorrow and remorse. She told this in hope of a further explanation about drowned men being seen alive; but the stranger stopped when the bells were heard again, and a woman’s voice singing, nearer still. He complimented Erica on her courage, and turned to go back the way he came.
“Stay,” said Erica. “Do come to the dairy, now you are so near.”
The man walked away rapidly.
“My master is here close at hand; he will be glad to see a stranger,” she said, following him, with the feeling that her only chance of hearing something of Rolf was departing. The stranger did not turn, but only walked faster and with longer strides down the slope.