“The forest, said you?” cried one. “It swarms with wolves, Sigurd, and where the wolves are not, the robbers lurk.”
Sigurd smiled scornfully. “It is wolves and robbers I go to seek,” he said.
“If thou wilt go,” they said then, “we will go with thee.”
“No!” cried Sigurd. “I go alone. Let him who loves me remain here and guard my lady. I can trust you to be true to a lady—but ye have yet to learn to be loyal to a prince.”
At this many hung their heads and were silent.
Sigurd meanwhile put on his armour, and turned hurriedly to bid farewell to his wife. The hero’s voice trembled as he prayed Heaven to guard over her.
They all accompanied him to the courtyard, where, quickly mounting, he departed, and rode slowly forward into the forest.
Sigurd rode slowly forward into the forest, and as he entered it he turned for one last look at the brave old castle which held within its walls the joy of his life—and a soft voice at his ear whispered “Return!”
Yet he halted not, nor did his courage waver, for another voice, louder than the other, cried “Onward!” It seemed like his brother’s voice, as he had known it years ago, before troubles came, and when as merry boys the two lived with but one heart between them. And at the sound he put spurs to his horse and plunged into the wood.
Gloomy indeed was this forest of lonely pines, which rocked and groaned in the wind, and in which a dim twilight deepening often into black darkness reigned on every hand. And gloomier still were those distant cries which rose ever and again above the tempest, and caused even the brave horse to shiver as he heard them.