muttering continually under his breath. Legends of shape-changing
and black magic came into the young Viking's mind. As he watched
the old man pass to and fro in the firelight, and the huge,
distorted shadow sweep across and across the cell, he fancied once
or twice that he could see the beginnings of some horrid
transformation.

All of a sudden the hermit stopped and looked at him earnestly.

"Sing to me a song of battle!" he cried; and Estein saw that a
change had indeed taken place. A fit of gloom had given way to a
period of strange excitement, and the spirit of the sea-rover was
returned.

Estein composed his mind, and sang the song of the Battle of
Dunheath, beginning:--

"Many the chiefs who drank the mead
As the sun rose over the plain,
But small the band who bound their wounds
When the heath was dark again."

As the last words died away the hermit began to talk excitedly and
volubly, and in a strain new to his guest.

"I once sang such songs," he said. "I sailed the seas in my long
ship, and men feared my name--feared me, Andreas, the man of God.
I was a heathen then, as thou art; I worshipped the gods of the
North, and the hammer of Thor was my symbol on the ocean. I spared
none who stood in my way. These hands have dripped with the blood