Saga of Halfred the Sigskald Part 13

"Choose--If ye believe that there are G.o.ds, then I will strike ye down like this too forward comrade.

"But if ye renounce the G.o.ds, then may ye live, and depart, and bear witness everywhere that there are no G.o.ds.

"Are there G.o.ds?" shouted the maniac, drawing near to the trembling men.

"No, my lord; there are no G.o.ds," cried the men, and fell upon their knees.

"Then go--and leave me alone to my own will."

Quickly the seamen descended into the larger boat on the left.

Halfred, however, stuck the hammer in his belt, and strode with rapid steps. .h.i.ther and thither upon the deck, and set fire to mast and sail, and purple clothing and carved work, and to the neck of the Swan on the prow-wailing, the wind pa.s.sed once more through the curved wings of the Swan.

The strong south wind fanned the crackling flames; quickly was the s.h.i.+p, on all sides, wrapped in a glowing blaze. The sails streamed like fiery wings from the mast.

Silently, with folded arms, Halfred sat upon the upper deck, his eyes rigidly fixed upon the flower mound.

Swift as an arrow flew the burning s.h.i.+p before the wind. The fire had rapidly consumed the dried wood gra.s.s, and Thora's form and face were fully visible. Then Halfred saw how the scorching flames seized upon Thora's long floating golden hair. "That was the last thing," he said to me, "that I saw for a long time."

In unutterable anguish he sprang up, and rushed all along the burning s.h.i.+p, straight through the flames, to Thora, He sprang upon the flower mound to embrace the body.

Then he felt a frightful blow upon his head, and left eye. The half burned mast had fallen with a crash upon him; he was dashed upon his face among the flowers and the flames, and darkness closed over him.

CHAPTER XVI.

When Halfred again awoke he lay in the bottom of a small boat, which drove over the open sea.

His hammer lay at his right hand. A cruise of water stood at his left hand. Two oars were in the stem of the boat.

Halfred started up to look around him.

Then he perceived that he could only see with difficulty what was on his left side. He felt for his left eye, and found a bleeding cavity. A splinter of the mast had struck it out, and a stabbing pain beat through his brain, which he said never again left him as long as he lived.

He looked at his body. In charred rags his burnt clothing hung upon him. Far in the distance he saw a craft which he recognized as the larger boat of the Singing Swan.

The Singing Swan herself had disappeared; but away to the south there lay a cloud of vapour and smoke over the sea.

The boat in which Halfred stood he recognised as the smaller boat of the Singing Swan. Evidently his sailing comrades had dragged the half-burned maniac from the burning s.h.i.+p, and saved him.

They had abandoned him to the G.o.ds whom he had blasphemed, and in whom they believed, to be saved by them, or perish. But no more fellows.h.i.+p would they have with a man stricken by the heaviest of curses--madness.

For mad Halfred was, from the hour when he sprang into the flames, and the mast struck him, until shortly before his death.

Therefore could he only tell me very little of all that in the meantime happened either to, or through him.

But what he did tell me, here I faithfully write down.

But many many years must he have wandered in madness.

He told me, moreover, that he saw only before his eyes how Thora fell from the mast; and how the flames seized her head and hair. And that he could only think one single thought. "There are no G.o.ds. Were there G.o.ds I must have slain them.

"So must I slay all human beings who believe in G.o.ds; for blotted out from the earth shall be the name and remembrance of the G.o.ds."

And he could not die until he had slain the last man who still believed in the G.o.ds.

And thus he journeyed all about, everywhere, in his small s.h.i.+p; landed in bays and upon islands, lived upon game which he hunted, or upon domestic animals which he found in the fields, upon roots and wild berries from the woods, upon eggs of sea-birds, and mussels from the rocks.

And often the storm waves broke high over his boat, and shattered her planks. But she sank not, nor was he drowned.

And one day he saw he was wholly naked, the last charred rags had fallen from him. He was chilled, and when he met a wolf in the wood, he ran after him so long that he overtook him, slew him with his hammer, took off his skin, and hung it round his loins.

And thus he roamed and sailed, half naked, all about the north. And none recognised in the maniac Berseker, Halfred Sigskald, the son of Oski.

And he told me that when he chanced upon mankind, whither they were many or few, he sprang upon them, and shouted to them his question.

"Are there G.o.ds?"

And if they said "Yes," or as the most did, gave him no answer, then he slew them all with his hammer. But if they said "No," as also many did--for it was already rumoured throughout the whole north, that a naked giant wandered through all lands with this question, whom the people called "G.o.d destroyer"--or if they took to flight, then he let them live.

And often, from dread, the peasants and the women gave him fruit, bread, milk, and other food. Many however bound themselves in a league to go out and slay him, as a wild beast. But they could not stand before the fury and strength of the maniac. He killed the bold, the timorous fled.

He slept hardly at all at night, therefore they could not surprise him in his sleep.

Once, when he spent the night in the bam of a peasant, who had previously renounced the G.o.ds, with all his household, the people from the court barricaded the straw-filled bam, and set fire to it. But Halfred burst through the roof, dashed through the flames and arrows, which could not pierce his body, and slew them all with his hammer.

And this maniac wandering endured many years.

And sea storms, and burning suns, and autumn frosts, and winter ice, beat upon Halfred's half-naked body.

And his hair and beard stood out like a mane around him.

But no longer dark, as when of yore he trod, as a wooer. King Harstein's courts--but snow white. In a single night--the night when Thora died--his hair had become white.

CHAPTER XVII.

And after many years he came sailing in his rotten boat over the seas which play around the island of Caledonia. He landed, seized his hammer, and strode upwards to a steep rocky hill, on which sheep and goats were grazing.

It was early morning, in the time when roses begin to bloom.

Mist floated over the sea, and upon the cliffs.