Groping in the direction of the gusts, his feet came upon stairs. So low and
narrow was the entrance, he had to turn sideways and stoop; but when he had
burrowed through a thickness of wall he was able to stand upright; and again
he found stairs leading somewhere.

Down, these led down. He had never been so low before. And what a storm there
must be outside! Against these walls the thunders of: the sea grew so loud he
could no longer hear the tramp of his own feet descending.

And now the wind came at him in great gusts; first came the great boom of the
sea, and then a blast of air. The way twisted and circled, making his head
giddy for a fall; his feet slipped on the steepness and slime of the descent,
and at each turn the sound grew more appalling, and the driving force of the
wind more and more like the stroke of a man's fist.

Presently the shock of it threw him from his standing, so that he had to lie
down and slide feet foremost, clinging with his eyelids and nails to break the
violence of his descent. And now the air was so full of thunder that his teeth
shook in their sockets, and his bones jarred in his flesh. The darkness
growled and roared;the wind kept lifting him backwards--the force of it seemed
almost to flay the skin off: his face; and still he went on, throwing his full
weight against the air ahead.

Then for a moment he felt himself letting go altogether: solid walls slipping
harshly past him in the darkness, he fell; and came headlong, crashed and
bruised, to a standstill.

At first his brain was all in a mist; then, raising himself, he saw a dim blue
light falling through a low vaulted chamber. At the end of it sat old Jarl,
like adamant in slumber. His head was down on his breast, buried in a great