"Hear me, Lord Erick," began Bothwell, alike astonished and offended at the rejection of a suit, which he secretly thought was somewhat degrading to himself.
"I know all thou wouldst urge," said Erick, shaking his hand; "but this may not, cannot be; for thou art a man too gay and gallant to mate with one of our timid Norwegian maidens."
The inexplicable smile that spread over the Earl's face, shewed there was more in his mind than the honest Norseman could read. He was about to speak, when Sueno approached bearing in his hand a dead bird, and having great alarm powerfully depicted in his usually unmeaning face.
"Oh, Sir Erick—Sir Erick—what think you? last night Konrad of Saltzburg shot this cock in the Wood Demon's oak!"
"Now, heaven forefend!" exclaimed the Castellan, sinking back in grief and alarm. "Then, Sueno, thou needst search no more. God save thee, poor Konrad!"
"How—how, wherefore?" asked Bothwell; "what has happened?"
"We shall never behold him more. He hath assuredly been spirited away," replied Rosenkrantz in great tribulation; for in the existence of all those elementary beings incident to Norse superstition, he believed devoutly as in the gospel; "he hath been spirited away, and enclosed Heaven alone knoweth where—perhaps in a rock or tree close beside us here—perhaps in an iceberg at the pole"——
"Amen!" thought Bothwell, who would have laughed had he dared; "I would that the Captain of Bergen were keeping him company!"
"O Sueno! thou rememberest how it fared with thy brother Rolf, when he stole acorns from that very tree?"
"Yes—yes—as he crossed the Fiord in the moonlight, a great hand arose from the water, and drew down his boat to the bottom—and so he perished. Poor Rolf!"