Author: H. Rider Haggard
Category: Adventure
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It was midnight, I know not on what day, since all these things comeback to me in vivid scenes, as flashes of lightning show a landscape,but are separated from each other by dense darkness. Freydisa and Istood by the Wanderer's grave, and at our feet lay digging tools, twolamps, and tinder to light them. We were setting about our grim task atdead of night, for fear lest the priests should stay us. Also, I did notwish the people to know that I had done this thing.
"Here is work for a month," I said doubtfully, looking up at the greatmass of the mound.
"Nay," replied Freydisa, "since I can show you the door of the grave,and perchance the passage still stands. Yet, will you really enterthere?"
"Why not, Freydisa? Must I bear to be taunted by the woman I am to wed?Surely it would be better to die and have done. Let the ghost slay me ifhe will. It comes upon me that if so I shall be spared trouble."
"No bridegroom's talk," said Freydisa, "however true it may be. Yet,young Olaf, do you take heart, since I think that this ghost has nodesire for your blood. I am wise in my own fashion, Olaf, and much ofthe past comes to me, if little of the future, and I believe that thisWanderer and you have more to do with each other than we can guess.It may be even that this task is appointed to you and that all thesehappenings, which are but begun, work to an end unseen. At the least,try your fortune, and if you die--why, I who was your nurse from yourmother's knee, love you well enough to die with you. Together we'lldescend to Hela's halls, there to seek out the Wanderer and learn hisstory."
Then, throwing her arms about my neck, she drew me to her and kissed meon the brow.
"I was not your mother, Olaf," she went on, "but, to be honest, I wouldhave been could I have had my fancy though, strangely enough, I neverfelt thus towards Ragnar, your brother. Now, why do you make me talkfoolishness? Come hither, and I will show you the entrance to the grave;it is where the sun first strikes upon it."
Then she led me to the east of the mound, where, not more than eight orten feet from its base, grew a patch of bushes. Among these bushes wasa little hollow, as though at this spot the earth had sunk in. Here, ather bidding, I began to dig, and with her help worked for the half of anhour or more in silence, till at length my spade struck against a stone.
"It is the door-stone," said Freydisa. "Dig round it."
So I dug till I made a hole at the edge of the stone large enough for aman to creep through. After this we paused to rest a while and to allowthe air within the mound to purify.
"Now," she said, "if you are not afraid, we will enter."
"I am afraid," I answered. Indeed, the terror which struck me thenreturns, so that even as I write I feel fear of the dead man who lay,and for aught I know still lies, within that grave. "Yet," I added,"never will I face Iduna more without the necklace, if it can be found."
So we struck sparks on to the tinder, and from them lit the two lampsof seal oil. Then I crept into the hole, Freydisa following me, to findmyself in a narrow passage built of rough stones and roofed with flatslabs of water-worn rock. This tunnel, save for a little dry soil thathad sifted into it through the cracks between the stones, was quiteclear. We crawled along it without difficulty till we came to the tombchamber, which was in the centre of the mound, but at a higher levelthan the entrance. For the passage sloped upwards, doubtless to allowfor drainage. The huge stones with which it was lined and roofed over,were not less than ten feet high and set on end side by side. One ofthese upright stones was that designed for the door. Had it been inplace, we could not have entered the chamber without great labour andthe help of many men; but, as it chanced, either it had never been setup after the burial, or this was done so hastily that it had fallen.
"We are in luck's way," said Freydisa, when she noticed this. "No,I will go first, who know more of ghosts than you do, Olaf. If theWanderer strikes, let him strike me," and she clambered over the fallenslab.
Presently she called back, saying:
"Come; all is quiet here, as it should be in such a place."
I followed her, and sliding down the end of the stone--which I rememberscratched my elbow and made it bleed--found myself in a little roomabout twelve feet square. In this place there was but one thing to beseen: what appeared to be the trunk of a great oak tree, some nine feetin length, and, standing on it, side by side, two figures of bronzeunder a foot in height.
"The coffin in which the Wanderer lies and the gods he worshipped," saidFreydisa.
Then she took up first one and next the other of the bronze figures andwe examined them in the light of the lamps, although I feared to touchthem. They were statues of a man and a woman.
The man, who wore a long and formal beard, was wrapped in what seemedto be a shroud, through an opening in which appeared his hands. In theright hand was a scourge with a handle, and in the left a crook such asa shepherd might use, only shorter. On his head was what I took to be ahelmet, a tall peaked cap ending in a knob, having on either side of ita stiff feather of bronze, and in front, above the forehead, a snake,also of bronze.
The woman was clad in a straight and narrow robe, cut low beneath herbreast. Her face was mild and beautiful, and in her right hand sheheld a looped sceptre. Her hair descended in many long plaits on to hershoulders. For head-dress she wore two horns, supporting between them aburnished disc of gold like to that of the moon when it is full.
"Strange gods!" I muttered.
"Aye," answered Freydisa, "yet maybe true ones to those who worshipthem. But we will talk of these later; now for their servant."
Then she dropped the figures into a pouch at her side, and began toexamine the trunk of the oak tree, of which the outer sap wood had beenturned to tinder by age, leaving the heart still hard as iron.
"See," she said, pointing to a line about four inches from the top, "thetree has been sawn in two length-ways and the lid laid on. Come, help."
Then she took an iron-shod staff which we had brought with us, andworked its sharp point into the crack, after which we both rested ourweight upon the staff. The lid of the coffin lifted quite easily, forit was not pegged down, and slid of its own weight over the side ofthe tree. In the cavity beneath was a form covered with a purple cloakstained as though by salt water. Freydisa lifted the cloak, and therelay the Wanderer as he had been placed a thousand or more of yearsbefore our time, as perfect as he had been in the hour of his death, forthe tannin from the new-felled tree in which he was buried had preservedhim.
Breathless with wonder, we bent down and examined him by the light ofthe lamps. He was a tall, spare man, to all appearance of between fiftyand sixty years of age. His face was thin and fine; he wore a short,grizzled beard; his hair, so far as it could be seen beneath his helmet,was brown and lightly tinged with grey.
"Does he call anyone to your mind?" asked Freydisa.
"Yes, I think so, a little," I replied. "Who is it, now? Oh! I know, mymother."
"That is strange, Olaf, since to me he seems much like what you mightbecome should you live to his years. Yet it was through your mother'sline that Aar came to your race many generations gone, for this much isknown. Well, study him hard, for, look you, now that the air has got tohim, he melts away."
Melt he did, indeed, till presently there was nothing left save a skullpatched here and there with skin and hair. Yet I never forgot thatface; indeed, to this hour I see it quite clearly. When at length it hadcrumbled, we turned to other things, knowing that our time in the gravemust be measured by the oil in the simple lamps we had. Freydisa lifteda cloth from beneath the chin, revealing a dinted breastplate of richarmour, different from any of our day and land, and, lying on it, sucha necklace as we had seen upon the ghost, a beauteous thing of inlaidgolden shells and emerald stones shaped like beetles.
"Take it for your Iduna," said Freydisa, "since it is for her sake thatwe break in upon this great man's rest."
I seized the precious thing and tugged at it, but the chain was stoutand would not part. Again I tugged, and now it was the neck of theWanderer that b
roke, for the head rolled from the body, and the goldchain came loose between the two.
"Let us be going," said Freydisa, as I hid away the necklace. "The oilin the lamps burns low, and even I do not care to be left here in thedark with this mighty one whom we have robbed."
"There's his armour," I said. "I'd have that armour; it is wonderful."
"Then stop and get it by yourself," she answered, "for my lamp dies."
"At least, I will take the sword," I exclaimed, and snatched at the beltby which it was girt about the body. The leather had rotted, and it cameaway in my hand.
Holding it, I clambered over the stone after Freydisa, and followed herdown the passage. Before we reached the end of it the lamps went out, sothat we must finish our journey in the dark. Thankful enough were bothof us when we found ourselves safe in the open air beneath the familiarstars.
"Now, how comes it, Freydisa," I asked, when we had got our breathagain, "that this Wanderer, who showed himself so threateningly upon thecrest of his grave, lies patient as a dead sheep within it while we robhis bones?"
"Because we were meant to take it, as I think, Olaf. Now, help me tofill in the mouth of that hole roughly--I will return to finish thisto-morrow--and let us away to the hall. I am weary, and I tell you,Olaf, that the weight of things to come lies heavy on my soul. I thinkwisdom dwells with that Wanderer's bones. Yes, and foresight of thefuture and memories of the past."