“Brave friend,” said he, “Heaven bless you for your aid. For four hours I accept thy deliverance and borrow my freedom. If before then I have not returned, call me a coward and a knave.”
“Speak not of borrowing, my lord,” said the man. “Heaven forbid I should require again the poor life thou thyself didst give me.”
“Peace!” said Sigurd, quickly casting off his armour and covering himself in the monk’s garb.
In a few moments the exchange was made. Then Sigurd, grasping the hand of his brave deliverer, pulled the hood low over his face, and stepped to the door and knocked. The guard without unlocked the door, and as he did so the robber, crouching in a distant corner of the dungeon; clanked his arms and sighed.
“Ha, ha! brave monk,” said the guard to Sigurd, laughingly. “This villain likes not your news, ’tis clear. You have done your task, the headsman shall soon do his.”
Sigurd said nothing, but, with head bent and hands clasped, walked slowly from the cell and on towards the gate.
Here no man stopped him, but some more devout than the rest rendered obeisance, and crossed themselves as he passed.
Once out of the castle Sigurd breathed freely, and with thankful heart quickened his pace through the fast emptying streets in the direction of Niflheim.
A double care now pressed on him. The first on account of his brother’s danger, the other lest he himself, in his efforts to save the king, should be detained, and so unable to keep faith with the brave man he had left in his place in the dungeon.
He therefore pressed on with all speed, unheeded by passers-by, to whom the sight of a monk hurrying on some mission of mercy was no strange thing.