Near the narrowest part of the peninsula a man was plunging along in the [darkness], trusting solely to the sight of his pony, for his own eyes could see nothing. Two long hours he had been groping his way from the Mount of Laws, and he was still within one short mile of it. But at last he saw help at hand in his extremity, for a man on foot approached him out of the gloom. He took him for a farmer of those parts, and hailed him with hearty cheer.
"Good man," he said, "put me on the right path for Reykjavik, and you shall have five kroner, and welcome."
But scarcely had he spoken when he recognized the man he had met, and the man recognized him. The one was Jason, and the other Jorgen Jorgensen.
Jorgen Jorgensen thought his hour had come, for, putting his hand to his weapon, he remembered that he had not reloaded it since he had shot at Jason, and so he flung it away. But the old tiger was not to be subdued. "Come," he said, out of the black depths of his heart, "let us have done. What is it to be?"
Then Jason stepped back, and said, "That is the way to Reykjavik—over the stream and through the first chasm on the left."
At this, Jorgen Jorgensen seemed to catch his breath. He tried to speak and could not.
"No," said Jason. "It may be weakness, it may be folly, it may be madness, but you were my mother's father, God pity her and forgive you, and not even at the price of my brother's life will I have your blood on my hands. Go!"
Jorgen Jorgensen touched his horse and rode on, with his gray, dishonored head deep in his breast. And, evil man as he was, surely his cold heart was smitten with shame.