So he put it back into the casket and took out an emerald. This, too, was graven with deeply cut runes.
"One of them," said Ulric, "is like the runes that Hilda showed me in the sand by the sea, but it is alone. I care not until there are three. It is green and wonderful. O Hilda of the hundred years, would that I could show to thee this jewel of the old gods!"
The lamp burned low and it was flickering. Without the gale roared loudly and the waves beat against the sides of the ship with a groaning sound. There was no voice but of the wind and of the surges. The curtains in the cabin swayed to and fro, as did the cresset of the lamp.
"Hilda! Hilda!" murmured Ulric, but he saw her not, and even his thought of her was confused in his mind. The saga woman was tall and dark, but not so tall and fairer was this thought which came before his eyes as if he were in a dream:
"So beautiful! So beautiful!" he said. "Her eyes are like stars and her hair is a cloud of shining curls. Her lips are like the ruby of the temple. I think she is one of the Hebrew maidens that Ben Ezra saith excel all others. I will go to that land and find her, for it must be that she also is of the daughters of the gods. And now I can see Hilda, and her hair is white, but her eyes are shut. Therefore I know that they have carried her to the tomb that was made in the rock of Odin. I shall see her no more until I get to Asgard. If this is her hand upon my head, she should speak, for I love her well."
He listened, and the lamp went out, but no voice came; and he lay down upon his couch, but a fire was kindling in his heart.
"Lysias loveth Sapphira," he thought, "but thus did I never feel before. The Hebrew maiden! I would Ben Ezra had not told me of her, for now I can have no other. I had thought that my love would be blue-eyed and a daughter of Odin. Shall I not be content if I find that she is dark, and that she is a daughter of this Jehovah, the god of the Jews? I will go on and I will see what she will say to me."
Then he slept, and The Sword swept onward swiftly toward the sunrise.