Escape to the mountains to-night! Exchange my ships for freedom! There are herds of horses on the mountains: we will climb up there and then fall upon the valleys like a snowstorm.
But when winter comes? To begin at the beginning: the outlaw's life--never more! I have made my last effort; had it been successful, men would have wondered at me. It has failed, and vengeance is loose. I cannot gather another force in Norway!
All over? Thus far and no farther? No! The Danes sail, but we will sail with them! This night, this very night we will raise our yards and follow them to the open sea.
But whither shall we turn our prows? To Denmark? We may raise no third force in Denmark. Start out again as merchant? No! Serve in foreign lands? No! Crusade? No! Hither and no farther! Sigurd, the end has come!
[Almost sobbing.] Death! The thought sprang up in my mind as a door swings open, clashing upon its hinges; light, air, receive me! [He draws his sword.] No; I will fall fighting in the cause I have lived for--my men shall have a leader!
Is there no chance of victory? no trick? Can I not get them ashore? Can I not get them in the toils? try them in point-blank fight, man to man, all the strength of despair fighting with me? Ah, could they but hear me, could I but find some high place and speak to them; tell them how clear as the sun is my right, how monstrous the wrongs I have borne, what a crime is theirs in withstanding me! You murder not me alone, but thousands upon thousands of thoughts for my fatherland's welfare; I have carried nothing out, I have not sown the least grain, or laid one stone upon another to witness that I have lived. Ah, I have strength for better things than strife; it was the desire to work that drove me homewards; it was impatience that wrought me ill! Believe me, try me, give me but half what Harald Gille promised me, even less; I ask but very little, if I may still live and strive to accomplish something! Jesus, my God, it was ever the little that thou didst offer me, and that I ever scorned!
Where am I? I stand upon my own grave, and hear the great bell ring. I tremble as the tower beneath its stroke, for where now are the aims that were mine? The grave opens its mouth and makes reply. But life lies behind me like a dried-up stream, and these eighteen years are lost as in a desert. The sign, the sign that was with me from my birth! In lofty flight I have followed it hither with all the strength of my soul, and here I am struck by the arrow of death. I fall, and behold the rocks beneath, upon which I shall be crushed. Have I, then, seen a-wrong? Ah, how the winds and currents of my life stood yonder, where it was warm and fruitful, while I toiled up where it grew ever colder, and my ship is now clasped by the drifting icebergs; a moment yet, and it must sink. Then let it sink, and all will be over. [On his knees.] But in thy arms, All-Merciful, I shall find peace!
What miracle is this? For in the hour I prayed the prayer was granted! Peace, perfect peace! [Rises.] Then will I go to-morrow to my last battle as to the altar; peace shall at last be mine for all my longings.
[Holds his head bowed and covered by his hands. As he, after a time, slowly removes them, he looks around.]
How this autumn evening brings reconciliation to my soul! Sun and wave and shore and sea flow all together, as in the thought of God all others; never yet has it seemed so fair to me! Yet it is not mine to reign over this lovely land. How greatly I have done it ill! But how has it all come so to pass? for in my wanderings I saw thy mountains in every sky, I yearned for home as a child longs for Christmas, yet I came no sooner, and when at last I came--I gave thee wound upon wound.