"Steinar and Iduna do not return. I am afraid for them," I said at last
to Freydisa.

"Then why do you not go to seek them?" she asked with a little laugh.

"I think I will," I said.

"If so, I will come with you, Olaf, for you still need a nurse, though,
for my part, I hold that the lord Steinar and the lady Iduna can guard
themselves as well as most folk. No, I am wrong. I mean that the lady
Iduna can guard herself and the lord Steinar. Now, be not angry. Here's
your cloak."

So we started, for I was urged to this foolish journey by some impulse
that I could not master. There were two ways of reaching Odin's Mount;
one, the shorter, over the rocks and through the forest land. The other,
the longer, ran across the open plain, between the many earth tombs of
the dead who had lived thousands of years before, and past the great
mound in which it was said that a warrior of long ago, who was named the
Wanderer, lay buried. Because of the darkness we chose this latter road,
and presently found ourselves beneath the great mass of the Wanderer's
Mount. Now the darkness was intense, and the lightning grew rare, for
the hail and rain had ceased and the storm was rolling away.

"My counsel is," said Freydisa, "that we wait here until the moon rises,
which it should do soon. When the wind has driven away the clouds it
will show us our path, but if we go on in this darkness we shall fall
into some pit. It is not cold to-night, and you will take no harm."

"No, indeed," I answered, "for now I am as strong again as ever I was."