After a mournful pause, he added,—
“The hurricane is followed by a hurricane, each avalanche brings down another avalanche, but I shall be the last of my race. Why did not Gill hate every human face even as I do? What demon foe to the demon of Ingulf urged him into those fatal mines in search of a handful of gold?”
Spiagudry, who now returned with Gill’s skull, interrupted him: “Your Excellency is right; even gold, as Snorri Sturleson says, may often be bought at too high a price.”
“You remind me,” said the little man, “of a commission I have for you; here is an iron casket which I found upon yonder officer, all of whose property, as you see, did not fall into your possession; it is so firmly fastened, that it must contain gold,—the only thing precious in the eyes of men. You will give it to widow Stadt, in Thoctree village, to pay her for her son.”
He drew a small iron box from his reindeer-skin knapsack. Spiagudry received it with a low bow.
“Obey my orders faithfully,” said the little man, with a piercing glance; “remember that nothing can prevent two demons from meeting; I think you are even more of a coward than a miser, and you will answer to me for that box.”
“Oh, master, with my soul!”
“Not at all. With your flesh and bones.”
At this moment the outer door of the Spladgest echoed with a loud knock. The little man was amazed; Spiagudry tottered, and shaded his lamp with his hand.
“Who is there?” growled the little man. “And you, old villain, how you will shake when you hear the last trump sound, if you shiver so now!”