Jason remembered that the old woman was deaf, and gathering that she alone had nursed him, and that no one else had seen him since his attack, except her deaf husband and a druggist from the High Street who had bled him, he smiled and was satisfied.
"Lord bless me, how he mends," said the hearty old woman, and she gave him the look of an affectionate dog.
"And now, good soul, I am hungry and must make up for all this fasting," said Jason.
"Ay, ay, and that you must, lad," said the old woman, and off she went to cook him something to eat.
But his talk of hunger had been no more than a device to get rid of her, for he knew that the kind creature would try to restrain him from rising. So when she was gone he stumbled to his feet, feeling very weak and dazed, and with infinite struggle and sweat tugged on his clothes—for they had been taken off—and staggered out into the streets.
It was night, and the clouds hung low as if snow might be coming, but the town seemed very light, as with bonfires round about it and rockets shot into the air, and very noisy, too, as with guns fired and music played, so that Jason's watery eyes felt dazzled, and his singing ears were stunned. But he walked on, hardly knowing which way he was going, and hearing only as sounds at sea the voices that called to him from the doors of the drinking-shops, until he came out at the bridge to the Thingvellir road. And there, in the sombre darkness, he was overtaken by the three Danes who had spoken to him before.
"So your courage failed you at the last moment—I watched you and saw how it was. Ah, don't be afraid, we are your friends, and you are one of us. Let us play at hide-and-seek no longer."
"They say he is going down the fiord in search of his wife's father. Take care he does not slip away. Old Jorgen is coming back. Good-night."
So saying, without once turning their faces towards Jason's face, they strode past him with an indifferent air. Then Jason became conscious that Government House was ablaze with lights, that some of its windows were half down, that sounds of music and dancing came from within, and that on the grass plat in front, which was lit by torches men and women in gay costumes were strolling to and fro, in pairs.
And turning from the bridge towards the house he saw a man go by on horseback in the direction of the sea, and remembered in a dull way that just there and at that hour he had seen Michael Sunlocks ride past him in the dusk.