“I must go, my kind hosts, and the greatest service that you can do me is to show me the shortest road there.”
“The shortest way to reach the place where you wish to go,” said the fisherman, “is to throw yourself from the top of the nearest rock into the next torrent.”
“Should I reach the same end,” quietly asked Ordener, “by preferring a useless death to a profitable danger?”
Braal shook his head, while his brother looked scrutinizingly at the young adventurer.
“I understand,” suddenly exclaimed the fisherman; “you want to earn the thousand crowns reward which the lord mayor offers for the head of this Iceland demon.”
Ordener smiled.
“Young sir,” added the fisherman, with deep emotion, “take my advice; give up your scheme. I am old and poor, and I would not sell the remnant of my life for a thousand crowns if I had but one day left.”
The woman, with a beseeching, compassionate look, watched the effect of her husband’s entreaties. Ordener made haste to reply: “It is a much higher motive which leads me to seek this robber whom you call a demon; it is for the sake of others, not my own—”
The mountaineer, who had not taken his eyes from Ordener, interrupted him.
“I understand you now. I know why you seek the demon of Iceland.”