THE WANDERER'S NECKLACE (Medieval Adventure Novel). Henry Rider Haggard

your mother, Olaf," she went on, "but, to be honest, I would have been could I have had my fancy though, strangely enough, I never felt thus towards Ragnar, your brother. Now, why do you make me talk foolishness? Come hither, and I will show you the entrance to the grave; it is where the sun first strikes upon it."

      Then she led me to the east of the mound, where, not more than eight or ten feet from its base, grew a patch of bushes. Among these bushes was a little hollow, as though at this spot the earth had sunk in. Here, at her bidding, I began to dig, and with her help worked for the half of an hour or more in silence, till at length my spade struck against a stone.

      "It is the door-stone," said Freydisa. "Dig round it."

      So I dug till I made a hole at the edge of the stone large enough for a man to creep through. After this we paused to rest a while and to allow the air within the mound to purify.

      "Now," she said, "if you are not afraid, we will enter."

      "I am afraid," I answered. Indeed, the terror which struck me then returns, so that even as I write I feel fear of the dead man who lay, and for aught I know still lies, within that grave. "Yet," I added, "never will I face Iduna more without the necklace, if it can be found."

      So we struck sparks on to the tinder, and from them lit the two lamps of seal oil. Then I crept into the hole, Freydisa following me, to find myself in a narrow passage built of rough stones and roofed with flat slabs of water-worn rock. This tunnel, save for a little dry soil that had sifted into it through the cracks between the stones, was quite clear. We crawled along it without difficulty till we came to the tomb chamber, which was in the centre of the mound, but at a higher level than the entrance. For the passage sloped upwards, doubtless to allow for drainage. The huge stones with which it was lined and roofed over, were not less than ten feet high and set on end side by side. One of these upright stones was that designed for the door. Had it been in place, we could not have entered the chamber without great labour and the help of many men; but, as it chanced, either it had never been set up after the burial, or this was done so hastily that it had fallen.

      "We are in luck's way," said Freydisa, when she noticed this. "No, I will go first, who know more of ghosts than you do, Olaf. If the Wanderer strikes, let him strike me," and she clambered over the fallen slab.

      Presently she called back, saying:

      "Come; all is quiet here, as it should be in such a place."

      I followed her, and sliding down the end of the stone—which I remember scratched my elbow and made it bleed—found myself in a little room about twelve feet square. In this place there was but one thing to be seen: what appeared to be the trunk of a great oak tree, some nine feet in length, and, standing on it, side by side, two figures of bronze under a foot in height.

      "The coffin in which the Wanderer lies and the gods he worshipped," said Freydisa.

      Then she took up first one and next the other of the bronze figures and we examined them in the light of the lamps, although I feared to touch them. They were statues of a man and a woman.

      The man, who wore a long and formal beard, was wrapped in what seemed to be a shroud, through an opening in which appeared his hands. In the right hand was a scourge with a handle, and in the left a crook such as a shepherd might use, only shorter. On his head was what I took to be a helmet, a tall peaked cap ending in a knob, having on either side of it a stiff feather of bronze, and in front, above the forehead, a snake, also of bronze.

      The woman was clad in a straight and narrow robe, cut low beneath her breast. Her face was mild and beautiful, and in her right hand she held a looped sceptre. Her hair descended in many long plaits on to her shoulders. For head-dress she wore two horns, supporting between them a burnished disc of gold like to that of the moon when it is full.

      "Strange gods!" I muttered.

      "Aye," answered Freydisa, "yet maybe true ones to those who worship them. But we will talk of these later; now for their servant."

      Then she dropped the figures into a pouch at her side, and began to examine the trunk of the oak tree, of which the outer sap wood had been turned to tinder by age, leaving the heart still hard as iron.

      "See," she said, pointing to a line about four inches from the top, "the tree has been sawn in two length-ways and the lid laid on. Come, help."

      Then she took an iron-shod staff which we had brought with us, and worked its sharp point into the crack, after which we both rested our weight upon the staff. The lid of the coffin lifted quite easily, for it was not pegged down, and slid of its own weight over the side of the tree. In the cavity beneath was a form covered with a purple cloak stained as though by salt water. Freydisa lifted the cloak, and there lay the Wanderer as he had been placed a thousand or more of years before our time, as perfect as he had been in the hour of his death, for the tannin from the new-felled tree in which he was buried had preserved him.

      Breathless with wonder, we bent down and examined him by the light of the lamps. He was a tall, spare man, to all appearance of between fifty and sixty years of age. His face was thin and fine; he wore a short, grizzled beard; his hair, so far as it could be seen beneath his helmet, was brown and lightly tinged with grey.

      "Does he call anyone to your mind?" asked Freydisa.

      "Yes, I think so, a little," I replied. "Who is it, now? Oh! I know, my mother."

      "That is strange, Olaf, since to me he seems much like what you might become should you live to his years. Yet it was through your mother's line that Aar came to your race many generations gone, for this much is known. Well, study him hard, for, look you, now that the air has got to him, he melts away."

      Melt he did, indeed, till presently there was nothing left save a skull patched here and there with skin and hair. Yet I never forgot that face; indeed, to this hour I see it quite clearly. When at length it had crumbled, we turned to other things, knowing that our time in the grave must be measured by the oil in the simple lamps we had. Freydisa lifted a cloth from beneath the chin, revealing a dinted breastplate of rich armour, different from any of our day and land, and, lying on it, such a necklace as we had seen upon the ghost, a beauteous thing of inlaid golden shells and emerald stones shaped like beetles.

      "Take it for your Iduna," said Freydisa, "since it is for her sake that we break in upon this great man's rest."

      I seized the precious thing and tugged at it, but the chain was stout and would not part. Again I tugged, and now it was the neck of the Wanderer that broke, for the head rolled from the body, and the gold chain came loose between the two.

      "Let us be going," said Freydisa, as I hid away the necklace. "The oil in the lamps burns low, and even I do not care to be left here in the dark with this mighty one whom we have robbed."

      "There's his armour," I said. "I'd have that armour; it is wonderful."

      "Then stop and get it by yourself," she answered, "for my lamp dies."

      "At least, I will take the sword," I exclaimed, and snatched at the belt by which it was girt about the body. The leather had rotted, and it came away in my hand.

      Holding it, I clambered over the stone after Freydisa, and followed her down the passage. Before we reached the end of it the lamps went out, so that we must finish our journey in the dark. Thankful enough were both of us when we found ourselves safe in the open air beneath the familiar stars.

      "Now, how comes it, Freydisa," I asked, when we had got our breath again, "that this Wanderer, who showed himself so threateningly upon the crest of his grave, lies patient as a dead sheep within it while we rob his bones?"

      "Because we were meant to take it, as I think, Olaf. Now, help me to fill in the mouth of that hole roughly—I will return to finish this to-morrow—and let us away to the hall. I am weary, and I tell you, Olaf, that the weight of things to come lies heavy on my soul. I think wisdom dwells with that Wanderer's bones. Yes, and foresight of the future and memories of the past."

      CHAPTER IV

       IDUNA WEARS THE