“It was fastened by bolts on every corner until I drew them,” the Shepherd Priest answered.
Dusting his hands upon his cloak in an unconscious habit from his youth, he came back to the moonlight and began to give further directions for the carrying out of the plan he had made, his quiet tones as well-fitted to seem the voice of a priest preparing a sinner for death as the voice of a man guiding a brother man to life.
“For much talking I have now no time, but everything lies on your understanding this much. Listen then, my son! So soon as the door closes upon me, let yourself down through the opening,—I will keep the guard in talk to cover any noise you may make. The door at the back you will find ajar, and an oak’s shadow screens the entrance from without. That oak clump, and the shadow of the wall, will make it easy for you to reach the western gate, where a man stands guard whose love for you has got in his eyes so that he will not be able to see you as you pass. When you reach the lane outside—But it will turn out that I reach that before you do, since my road need not be so roundabout—”
Upon his speech fell the sound of Visbur’s great fist on the door. He broke off to lay hands upon the song-maker’s shoulders and press him down upon his knees. It was a benediction that he was saying over the prisoner when the door opened and the brass-bound head was thrust in. Its owner said gruffly:
“Good luck go with your prayers, since for love of my soul I let you up to him! But I love my body also, father; and the risk to that gets greater the longer you stay.”
“I was even now coming,” the priest answered, turning; and Visbur lost no time in fastening up behind him.
As one trying to rouse himself out of a stupor, Randvar arose and stood shaking back his hair and opening and shutting his hands. As one in a dream, he heard the old man’s unsteady steps following the guard’s rapid descent, heard the gentle voice pleading with the gruff one. Then of a sudden his wandering glance fell upon the black gap in the floor—the loop-hole in what had seemed a dead wall. Like the leap of flame through smoke leapt his blood through his dulness, parching his throat, roaring in his ears. Now it was to restrain frantic eagerness that he crushed his lip between his teeth as he swung himself swiftly through the opening.
A fur-bale that had been placed at the bottom of the now empty vat received him without noise. Drawing himself up to the top of the wall which the vat’s side made, he balanced there until on the darkness shrouding him he had found the thread of silver light. Using hands, then, in place of eyes, he climbed out and groped his way between bales and boxes and barrels to the door that had been set ajar, drew it open and stepped through it into the moonlight, and then stepped aside into the shadow of a giant oak that grew there.
Lifting the damp hair on his forehead, the night wind met him freshly. As to meet the lips of a woman, he lifted his burning face and spread wide his arms. For that long a space, his heart sang a song of wild exulting.
For that long—but for no longer. Around the great bole of the oak, looming dark beyond a silver sea, he glimpsed the silent mass of Brynhild’s bower. Brynhild! And this should have been their wedding-day!