Then Mehetabel cried, "Iver, here am I!"
"Where are you, Mehetabel?" came the question through the silvery haze and the twinkling willow-shoots.
"Answer him, by Thor's Stone," said Jonas.
Again she hesitated and passed her hand over her face.
"Answer him," whispered Jonas. "If you are true, do as I say. If false, be silent."
"By Thor's Stone," called Mehetabel.
Then all the sound heard was that of the young man brushing his way through the rushes and willow boughs.
In the terror, the agony overmastering her, she had lost all independent power of will. She was as a piece of mechanism in the hands of Jonas. His strong, masterful mind dominated her, beat down for a time all opposition. She knew that to summon Iver was to call him to a fearful struggle, perhaps to his death, and yet the faculty of resistance was momentarily gone from her. She tried to collect her thoughts. She could not. She strove to think what she ought to do, she was unable to frame a thought in her mind that whirled and reeled.
Bideabout stooped and picked up a gun he had been carrying, and had dropped on the turf when he laid hold of his wife.
Now he placed the barrel across the anvil stone, with the muzzle directed whence came the sound of the advance of Iver.