As it chanced, though, all came out as we had expected for the first part of our long march. We avoided the shore of the Kattegat lest we stumble upon other clans of shell-fish eaters, and reached the Skagen Rock and made the passage to the land beyond in safety. Then we took up the march toward the south.
For days we travelled, finding abundant game and suffering no hardships worth the mentioning. As we progressed the climate became warmer, the trees changed more to oak and beech, and we were more and more rejoiced that we had left the now far distant village where was so little life. Then came some apprehension, when we discovered signs of human beings in the trails we came upon, and we moved more cautiously. We could but guess what manner of men these might be. There were stories of tribes upon this borderland who were most ferocious and merciless and who spared none of those whom they might at any time overcome.
We were moving slowly along a broad space between dense forests on either side, one afternoon, when there broke out suddenly from all about us such a fierce and hideous yelling as I had never heard, and from the depths of the wood leaped out a dozen times our number of wild gaunt creatures, better armed than we, who did not hesitate or parley, but sent their arrows upon us in a cloud. More than half of us fell beneath that furious volley, and others went down a moment later before the spears and axes. Crazed, I transfixed one of the savages with my spear as they crowded murderously in upon us, and, even as I did so, saw another sink his axe into the head of one of the women with us. They would spare none. As I thought this, in that brief instant, it brought me comfort. Freya was in my mind. I fought desperately, but what of it? A spear entered my body. Of those who had left the shell-bed country not one remained alive!
CHAPTER X
THE LAKE-DWELLERS
Little fingers were fumbling about my face and there came the sound of a prattling voice close beside me. I opened my eyes and looked into the face of a child who was trying to arouse me, tugging valiantly at my hair and chattering away in great delight. Next I heard a laugh and turned upon my couch to see, on the other side of the hut, a woman, brown-haired and blue-eyed, who was looking cheerfully upon the babe and me, pausing only a moment to turn a cake browning before a fire flaming brightly on a broad slab of stone. She was pleasant to look upon, and I lay content, as my drowsiness passed away and my head became more clear.
“You slept deeply,” she said. “The babe was trying to rouse you.”
I looked upon the child again and caught him in my arms and drew him down toward me. He was a sturdy little one and struggled joyously, and my heart went out toward him. The woman laughed again. I now knew who I was, and where it was that I had awakened. The woman was my mate, Elka, and the little child my son. There were none fairer nor finer than these in the village above the waters of the lake which lay between the great forest and the mountains.
I could hear the plashing of the slight waves underneath us as they washed against the piles. There was the smell which comes from fish in the depths, and through the open window space in the wall of the dwelling came the fragrant odour of the growing and blooming things of the land. It was very pleasant. I arose and went out upon the platform which jutted forth over the water.
It was a pleasant scene. From where I stood a narrow pathway, made of a series of two hewed planks laid on piles extending well above the water, reached to the sloping shore nearly half an hundred yards away. From thence the slope rose into a green valley which broadened into almost a plain, and there were fenced fields almost as far as I could see, though there were no dwellings. In the fields, though it was yet early morning, I could see men and women moving, and there were animals in some of them as well. On either side of the valley save at the far end rose mountains, not very lofty and covered high up with verdure; but turning and looking over the broad blue lake toward the southeast, I could see great peaks the summits of which were clad in snow, warm as it was in the valley and in the lake village. Further rose peaks still higher, and to the southwest were mountains also snow-clad which the rising sun was turning to a glory of pink and flashing yellow. It was all wonderful and good for the eyes. It seemed to me there could be no fairer place, but I did not linger to gaze long. Little, indeed, I thought upon it, for I was hungry and turned into my cabin that I might eat. What is better than eating?
The meal was all prepared for me, and it was good. There was a fish cooked on the coals and the brown loaf my mate had made, and there were nuts and little apples. What more could fisherman or hunter ask? I ate, as did my mate, and as she ate she often tucked little mouthfuls into the mouth of the eager babe. We were untroubled, for was not our village at peace, and was not the wild game abundant, and did not the fishing yield, and were not the crops flourishing as were the tamed animals?