"Jarl Sigurd, here is one, a friend's son, who will learn what you
will."

My voice seemed to fill all the ring of mountains with echoes, but
there was no answer. All was still again when the last voice came
back from the hillsides.

Then I went nearer yet, and passed to the waterside, where I could
look slantwise across the doorway. And again I called, and waited
for an answer that did not come.

"It seems that I must go even to the door, and maybe into the
mound," I said, whispering.

"Not inside," said Kolgrim, taking hold of my arm.

But I had grown bolder with the thought that the hero seemed not
angry, and now I had set my heart on winning the sword of which the
jarl had told me, and I thought that I dared go even inside the
tomb to speak with Sigurd.

"Bide here, and I will go at least to the door," said I.

So I stepped boldly before it, standing on the heap of newly-fallen
earth that had slipped from across it. The posts and lintel of the
door were of stone slabs such as lay everywhere on the hillsides,
and I stood so close that I could touch them. The doorway was not
so high that I could see into it without stooping, for it was
partly choked with the fallen earth, and I bent to look in. But I