That night they buried Grimhild in the snow; and Thorstan Red took the sickness. He told Gudrid of it when they were in bed. He held her closely in his arms and spoke with passion: "My love, I am sick, and it may go hard with me. Remember now what I say—that the thing which I may be is not I. Be not afraid of it. You have had the best I could be—and it was you who made me. Remember what we have been, and think of me as dead already. And when I am dead, take my body back to Ericsfrith."
She clung to him, but not with tears. Tears were denied her now. The cold had mastered even them. For now she knew what must come.
XXI
The Greenland sickness took mainly the same course, varying with the patient's personal quality. It began with a high fever, intense surface irritation; there ensued violent rheumatic pains, mental alienation, delirium, madness and death. It was characteristic, as has been said, that the sufferer turned from his kind, and turned markedly from whom he knew best.
Thorstan made his preparations carefully, and instructed Gudrid. As a wife who may be allowed a last word with her husband condemned to die, she took and gave her kisses. The time was too great for tears, the heart too faint for strong embraces. All she could do she did. She would obey him, she would not show herself; but she would be always at hand. She sat mostly at the head of his bed in the wall, hidden by a curtain, but ready to fetch and carry; to bring him food which Thorstan Black could give him; hot stones for his feet, hot rags to ease the pain in his limbs. He hardly opened his eyes, hardly ever groaned; but when the fever ran high he talked incessantly, in fierce and rapid whispers—and she heard told over again the week of rapture and dream under the snow in the empty ship. She suffered greatly under this affliction, both by the memories it evoked and the knowledge that such things could never be again. Her modesty might have been offended; but Thorstan Black was very kind to her. He used to go gently away when the sufferer began to speak, and would contrive his returns so as not to intrude on any privacy. Her heart was full of gratitude to the black-bearded giant, so huge and so gentle.
The fever seemed to eat Thorstan up; he became so thin that his cheeks sank away into hollows, and his bones stuck out so sharply that the skin cracked. Gudrid began to have horror of him. She thought that her lover was dead, and that this was some terrible mock-image of him sent there to haunt her. She seemed to become younger as he grew more like an old man. She was afraid to be left alone with him. Love had been frightened out of her, and even pity scarce dared to be there. She could not believe that this was the man who had so keenly loved and worshipped her body, and by his music had uplifted her soul. She had seen Thore die and had been compassionate to the end. She remembered how she had kissed him in the very article of death, and shuddered as she thought of kissing this living corpse. Her eyes besought Thorstan Black not to leave her, and he rarely did—for by this time her husband's weakness was such that, whatever he may have said in his fever, he could hardly be heard.
Towards the end—as Thorstan Black knew it must be—he persuaded Gudrid to lie down at night while he kept watch by the bed. And so she did. The poor girl was worn out, and went to sleep almost at once.
About midnight she was awakened. Thorstan Black stood by the bed with a taper. She gaped at him, cold to the bones.
"Come, my dear," he said. "He is asking for you." She said nothing. Then in the silence she heard her husband's voice, calling "Gudrid, Gudrid, Gudrid." She fell trembling, and knew not what she said. Thorstan Black put his cloak over her, and helped her out of bed. Her knees shook. "Is he dead? Is he dead? Oh, don't leave me. I'm frightened—he looks so strange—don't leave me, Thorstan."
"No, my dear, I won't leave you," he said, and put his arm round her, for she seemed about to fall. "Come," he said, "I'll take you, and stay by you."