He started from his seat, and, running close up to Errington, laid one meagre hand on his chest.
"How strong you are, how broad and brave," he exclaimed with a sort of childish admiration. "And can you not be generous too?"
Errington looked down upon him compassionately. He had learned enough from his incoherent talk to clear up what had seemed a mystery. The scandalous reports concerning Olaf Güldmar were incorrect,--he had evidently laid the remains of his wife in the shell-cavern, for some reason connected with his religious belief, and Thelma's visits to the sacred spot were now easy of comprehension. No doubt it was she who placed fresh flowers there every day, and kept the little lamp burning before the crucifix as a sign of the faith her departed mother had professed, and which she herself followed. But who was Sigurd, and what was he to the Güldmars? Thinking this, he replied to the dwarf's question by a counter-inquiry.
"How shall I be generous, Sigurd? Tell me! What can I do to please you?"
Sigurd's wild blue eyes sparkled with pleasure.
"Do!" he cried. "You can go away, swiftly, swiftly, over the seas, and the Altenfjord need know you no more! Spread your white sails!" and he pointed excitedly up to the tall tapering masts of the Eulalie. "You are king here. Command and you are obeyed! Go from us, go! What is there here to delay you? Our mountains are dark and gloomy,--the fields are wild and desolate,--there are rocks, glaciers and shrieking torrents that hiss like serpents gliding into the sea! Oh, there must be fairer lands than this one,--lands where oceans and sky are like twin jewels set in one ring,--where there are sweet flowers and fruits and bright eyes to smile on you all day--yes! for you are as a god in your strength and beauty--no woman will be cruel to you! Ah! say you will go away!" and Sigurd's face was transfigured into a sort of pained beauty as he made his appeal. "That is what I came to seek you for,--to ask you to set sail quickly and go, for why should you wish to destroy me? I have done you no harm as yet. Go!--and Odin himself shall follow your path with blessings!"
He paused, almost breathless with his own earnest pleading. Errington was silent. He considered the request a mere proof of the poor creature's disorder. The very idea that Sigurd seemed to entertain of his doing him any harm, showed a reasonless terror and foreboding that was simply to be set down as caused by his unfortunate mental condition. To such an appeal there could be no satisfactory reply. To sail away from the Altenfjord and its now most fascinating attractions, because a madman asked him to do so, was a proposition impossible of acceptance, so Sir Philip said nothing. Sigurd, however, watching his face intently, saw, or thought he saw, a look of resolution in the Englishman's clear, deep grey eyes,--and with the startling quickness common to many whose brains, like musical instruments, are jarred, yet not quite unstrung, he grasped the meaning of that expression instantly.