"Is that a steamer out there--out by the head?" asked Oscar.
"Undoubtedly it is a steamer," replied Helga.
"The 'Laura' is a day late--she was due to arrive yesterday."
"Then it's the 'Laura' to a certainty."
The sun had now risen, but Oscar shivered as with cold. "I must be a miserable coward, Helga, for the sight of a mail-ship frightens me," he said.
But Helga only laughed and held up a warning hand. "We'll not talk of that to-day, Oscar--not to-day at all events. Look!" she cried, pointing to the line of moving forms on the brown streak of road that ran through the plain of black lava. "Look at your tribe down yonder. Don't you feel like Mahomet going back to Mecca? Or like Jacob going up to the Mount of Gilead with his flocks and his herds and----"
"And his wives?" said Oscar.
"Yes, and his wives," laughed Helga, and then both laughed together.
They put heels to their ponies again and Helga sang to herself as they swung along.
"What a fool I am," thought Oscar. "Why should I meet misfortune before it comes? And why should I trouble so much about Thora? Isn't Helga as greatly to be pitied? In the wretched tangle of our fate hers is the knot that can never be untied. Yet how happy she looks! Why shouldn't I be happy?"