"Nom du diable!" breathed Sigurd. Yet the longer he thought of it, the more clearly he saw it. By and by, he drew a breath of relief that ended in a laugh. "And he thinks to make me envious by putting my Norman friend before me! Do you see? He in-tends it as a punishment. By Saint Michael, it seems almost too amusing to be true!"
CHAPTER XXV
"WHERE NEVER MAN STOOD BEFORE"
Wit is needful
To him who travels far:
At home all is easy.
Ha'vama'l
Four days of threading fog-thickets and ploughing over watery wastes, and the stanch little vessel pushed her way into sight of the first of the unknown lands. It towered up ahead like a storm-cloud, bleak and barren-looking as Greenland itself. From its inhospitable heights and glaciers gleaming coldly in the sunshine, they knew it at once for the last-seen land of Biorn's narrative.
"It looks to me like a good omen that we are to begin where Biorn left off," Rolf observed to one of the men engaged in lowering the ship's boat.
The fellow was a stalwart Icelander who had every current superstition at his tongue's end, and was even accredited with the gift of second sight. He hunched his shoulders sceptically, as he bent over the ropes.
"It is my opinion that good omens have little to do with this land," he returned. "It bears every resemblance to the Giant Country which Thor visited."
"I believe it is Helheim itself," quavered Kark.