HALLGERD
Bah—here's a bleached assault….
RANNVEIG
Oh, lonesome thing,
To be forgot and left in such a night.
What is there now—are terrors surging still?
ORMILD
I know not what has gone: when the men came
I hid in the far cowhouse. I think I swooned….
And then I followed the shadow. Who is dead?
RANNVEIG
Go to the bower: the women will care for you.
(ORMILD totters up the hall from pillar to pillar.)
ASTRID (entering by the dais door)
Now they have found the weather-ropes and lashed them
Over the carven ends of the beams outside:
They bear on them, they tighten them with levers,
And soon they'll tear the high roof off the hall.
GUNNAR
Get back and bolt the women into the bower.
(ASTRID takes ORMILD, who has just reached her, and goes out with
her by the dais door, which closes after them.)
Hallgerd, go in: I shall be here thereafter.
HALLGERD
I will not stir. Your mother had best go in.