Page:The Wanderer's Necklace (1914).pdf/57

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great storm caught us at Odin's temple, where we were forced to shelter. Then, fearing that you would grow frightened, we started, and lost our way."

"Is it so?" I answered. "Surely Steinar would have known this road even in the dark. But what matter, since I have found you?"

"Aye, he knew as soon as we saw this grave mound. But Steinar was telling me that some ghost haunts it, and I begged him to stay awhile, since there is nothing I desire so much as to see a ghost, who believe little in such things. So he stayed, though he says he fears the dead more than the living. Freydisa, they tell me that you are very wise. Cannot you show me this ghost?"

"The spirit does not ask my leave to appear, lady," answered Freydisa in her quiet voice. "Still, at times it does appear, for I have seen it twice. So let us bide here a little on the chance."

Then she went forward a few steps and began to mutter to herself.

Some minutes later the clouds broke and the great moon was seen riding low down in a clear sky, illumining the grave mound and all the plain, save where we stood in the shadow of the mount.

"Do you see aught?" asked Freydisa presently. "If not, let us be gone, for when the Wanderer comes at all it is at the rising of the moon."

Steinar and Iduna answered, "No," but I, who did see something, said:

"Look yonder among the shadows. Mayhap it is a wolf stirring. Nay, it is a man. Look, Iduna."

"I look and find nothing," she answered.

"Look again," I said. "He reaches the top of the