"Lord, Lord!" she muttered—"'tis a man of men,—he rejoiceth in his strength, even as the lion,—and of what avail shall the curse of the wicked avail against the soul that is firmly established!"
Güldmar heard her not—he was looking towards a low pallet bed, on which lay, extended at full length, an apparently insensible form.
"Has she been long thus?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Since last night," replied the woman—no other than Mr. Dyceworthy's former servant, Ulrika. "She wakened suddenly, and bade me send for you. To-day she has not spoken."
The bonde sighed somewhat impatiently. He approached the now blazing pine-logs, and as he drew off his thick fur driving-gloves, and warmed his hands at the cheerful blaze, Ulrika again fixed her dull eyes upon him with something of wonder and reluctant admiration. Presently she trimmed an oil-lamp, and set it, burning dimly, on the table. Then she went to the bed and bent over it,—after a pause of several minutes, she turned and made a beckoning sign with her finger. Güldmar advanced a little,—when a sudden eldritch shriek startled him back, almost curdling the blood in his veins. Out of the deep obscurity, like some gaunt spectre rising from the tomb, started a face, wrinkled, cadaverous, and distorted by suffering,—a face in which the fierce, fevered eyes glittered with a strange and dreadful brilliancy—the face of Lovisa Elsland, stern, forbidding, and already dark with the shadows of approaching death. She stared vacantly at Güldmar, whose picturesque head was illumined by the ruddy glow of the fire—and feebly shaded her eyes as though she saw something that hurt them. Ulrika raised her on her tumbled pillow, and saying, in cold, unmoved tones—"Speak now, for the time is short," she once more beckoned the bonde imperatively.
He approached slowly.
"Lovisa Elsland," he began in distinct tones, addressing himself to that ghastly countenance still partly shaded by one hand. "I am here—Olaf Güldmar. Dost thou know me?"
At the sound of his voice, a strange spasm contorted the withered features of the dying woman. She bent her head as though to listen to some far-off echo, and held up her skinny finger as though enjoining silence.
"Know thee!" she babbled whisperingly. "How should I not know the brown-haired Olaf! Olaf of the merry eye—Olaf, the pride of the Norse maiden?" She lifted herself in a more erect attitude, and stretching out her lean arms, went on as though chanting a monotonous recitative. "Olaf, the wanderer over wild seas,—he comes and goes in his ship that sails like a white bird on the sparkling waters—long and silent are the days of his absence—mournful are the Fjelds and Fjords without the smile of Olaf—Olaf the King!"
She paused, and Güldmar regarded her in pitying wonder. Her face changed to a new expression—one of wrath and fear.