H Rider Haggard - Wanderer's Necklace Read online

  Then I answered, "Why, of course, a bear is dead; see its skull, also pieces of its hide?"

  "There!" exclaimed Ragnar. "Our family prophet has settled the matter. Let us go home."

  "Olaf said that /a/ bear was dead," answered Steinar, hesitating.

  Ragnar, who had already swung himself round in his quick fashion, spoke back over his shoulder:

  "Isn't that enough for you? Do you want to hunt a skull or the raven sitting on it? Or is this, perchance, one of Olaf's riddles? If so, I am too cold to guess riddles just now."

  "Yet I think there is one for you to guess, brother," I said gently, "and it is: Where is the live bear hiding? Can't you see that there were two bears on that ice-head, and that one has killed and eaten the other?"

  "How do you know that?" asked Ragnar.

  "Because I saw the slot of the second as we passed the birch wood yonder. It has a split claw on the left forefoot and the others are all worn by the ice."

  "Then why in Odin's name did you not say so before?" exclaimed Ragnar angrily.

  Now I was ashamed to confess that I had been dreaming, so I answered at hazard:

  "Because I wished to look upon the sea and the floating ice. See what wondrous colours they take in this light!"

  When he heard this, Steinar burst out laughing till tears came into his blue eyes and his broad shoulders shook. But Ragnar, who cared nothing for scenery or sunsets, did not laugh. On the contrary, as was usual with him when vexed, he lost his temper and swore by the more evil of the gods. Then he turned on me and said:

  "Why not tell the truth at once, Olaf? You are afraid of this beast, and that's why you let us come on here when you knew it was in the wood. You hoped that before we got back there it would be too dark to hunt."

  At this taunt I flushed and gripped the shaft of my long hunting spear, for among us Northmen to be told that he was afraid of anything was a deadly insult to a man.

  "If you were not my brother----" I began, then checked myself, for I was by nature easy-tempered, and went on: "It is true, Ragnar, I am not so fond of hunting as you are. Still, I think that there will be time to fight this bear and kill or be killed by it, before it grows dark, and if not I will return alone to-morrow morning."

  Then I pulled my horse round and rode ahead. As I went, my ears being very quick, I heard the other two talking together. At least, I suppose that I heard them; at any rate, I know what they said, although, strangely enough, nothing at all comes back to me of their tale of an attack upon a ship or of what then I did or did not do.

  "It is not wise to jeer at Olaf," said Steinar, "for when he is stung with words he does mad things. Don't you remember what happened when your father called him 'niddering' last year because Olaf said it was not just to attack the ship of those British men who had been driven to our coast by weather, meaning us no harm?"

  "Aye," answered Ragnar. "He leapt among them all alone as soon as our boat touched her side, and felled the steersman. Then the British men shouted out that they would not kill so brave a lad, and threw him into the sea. It cost us that ship, since by the time we had picked him up she had put about and hoisted her large sail. Oh, Olaf is brave enough, we all know that! Still, he ought to have been born a woman or a priest of Freya who only offers flowers. Also, he knows my tongue and bears no malice."

  "Pray that we get him home safe," said Steinar uneasily, "for if not there will be trouble with your mother and every other woman in the land, to say nothing of Iduna the Fair."

  "Iduna the Fair would live through it," answered Ragnar, with a hard laugh. "But you are right; and, what is more, there will be trouble among the men also, especially with my father and in my own heart. After all there is but one Olaf."

  At this moment I held up my hand, and they stopped talking.

  CHAPTER II

  THE SLAYING OF THE BEAR

  Leaping from their horses, Ragnar and Steinar came to where I stood, for already I had dismounted and was pointing to the ground, which just here had been swept clear of snow by the wind.

  "I see nothing," said Ragnar.

  "But I do, brother," I answered; "who study the ways of wild things while you think I am asleep. Look, that moss has been turned over; for it is frozen underneath and pressed up into little mounds between the bear's claws. Also that tiny pool has gathered in the slot of the paw; it is its very shape. The other footprints do not show because of the rock."

  Then I went forward a few paces behind some bushes and called out: "Here runs the track, sure enough, and, as I thought, the brute has a split claw; the snow marks it well. Bid the thrall stay with the horses and come you."

  They obeyed, and there on the white snow which lay beyond the bush we saw the track of the bear stamped as if in wax.

  "A mighty beast," said Ragnar. "Never have I seen its like."

  "Aye," exclaimed Steinar, "but an ill place to hunt it in," and he looked doubtfully at the rough gorge, covered with undergrowth, that some hundred yards farther on became dense birch forest. "I think it would be well to ride back to Aar, and return to-morrow morning with all whom we can gather. This is no task for three spears."

  By this time I, Olaf, was springing from rock to rock up the gorge, following the bear's track. For my brother's taunts rankled in me and I was determined that I should kill this beast or die and thus show Ragnar that I feared no bear. So I called back to them over my shoulder:

  "Aye, go home, it is wisest; but I go on for I have never yet seen one of these white ice-bears alive."

  "Now it is Olaf who taunts in his turn," said Ragnar with a laugh. Then they both sprang after me, but always I kept ahead of them.

  For the half of a mile or more they followed me out of the scrub into the birch forest, where the snow, lying on the matted boughs of the trees and especially of some firs that were mingled with the birch, made the place gloomy in that low light. Always in front of me ran the huge slots of the bear till at length they brought me to a little forest glade, where some great whirling wind had torn up many trees which had but a poor root-hold on a patch of almost soilless rock.

  These trees lay in confusion, their tops, which had not yet rotted, being filled with frozen snow. On the edge of them I paused, having lost the track. Then I went forward again, casting wide as a hound does, while behind came Ragnar and Steinar, walking straight past the edge of the glade, and purposing to meet me at its head. This, indeed, Ragnar did, but Steinar halted because of a crunching sound that caught his ear, and then stepped to the right between two fallen birches to discover its cause. Next moment, as he told me afterwards, he stood frozen, for there behind the boughs of one of the trees was the huge white bear, eating some animal that it had killed. The beast saw him, and, mad with rage at being disturbed, for it was famished after its long journey on the floe, reared itself up on its hind legs, roaring till the air shook. High it towered, its hook-like claws outstretched.

  Steinar tried to spring back, but caught his foot, and fell. Well for him was it that he did so, for otherwise the blow which the bear struck would have crushed him to a pulp. The brute did not seem to understand where he had gone--at any rate, it remained upreared and beating at the air. Then a doubt took it, its huge paws sank until it sat like a begging dog, sniffing the wind. At this moment Ragnar came back shouting, and hurled his spear. It stuck in the beast's chest and hung there. The bear began to feel for it with its paws, and, catching the shaft, lifted it to its mouth and champed it, thus dragging the steel from its hide.

  Then it bethought it of Steinar, and, sinking down, discovered him, and tore at the birch tree under which he had crept till the splinters flew from its trunk. Just then I reached it, having seen all. By now the bear had its teeth fixed in Steinar's shoulder, or, rather, in his leathern garment, and was dragging him from under the tree. When it saw me it reared itself up again, lifting Steinar and holding him to its breast with one paw. I went mad at the sight, and charged it, driving my spear deep into its throat. With its other paw
it struck the weapon from my hand, shivering the shaft. There it stood, towering over us like a white pillar, and roared with pain and fury, Steinar still pressed against it, Ragnar and I helpless.

  "He's sped!" gasped Ragnar.

  I thought for a flash of time, and--oh! well do I remember that moment: the huge beast foaming at the jaws and Steinar held to its breast as a little girl holds a doll; the still, snow-laden trees, on the top of one of which sat a small bird spreading its tail in jerks; the red light of evening, and about us the great silences of the sky above and of the lonely forest beneath. It all comes back to me--I can see it now quite clearly; yes, even the bird flitting to another twig, and there again spreading its tail to some invisible mate. Then I made up my mind what to do.

  "Not yet!" I cried. "Keep it in play," and, drawing my short and heavy sword, I plunged through the birch boughs to get behind the bear. Ragnar understood. He threw his cap into the brute's face, and then, after it had growled at him awhile, just as it dropped its great jaws to crunch Steinar, he found a bough and thrust it between them.

  By now I was behind the bear, and, smiting at its right leg below the knee, severed the tendon. Down it came, still hugging Steinar. I smote again with all my strength, and cut into its spine above the tail, paralysing it. It was a great blow, as it need to be to cleave the thick hair and hide, and my sword broke in the backbone, so that, like Ragnar, now I was weaponless. The forepart of the bear rolled about in the snow, although its after half was still.

  Then once more it seemed to bethink itself of Steinar, who lay unmoving and senseless. Stretching out a paw, it dragged him towards its champing jaws. Ragnar leapt upon its back and struck at it with his knife, thereby only maddening it the more. I ran in and grasped Steinar, whom the bear was again hugging to its breast. Seeing me, it loosed Steinar, whom I dragged away and cast behind me, but in the effort I slipped and fell forward. The bear smote at me, and its mighty forearm--well for me that it was not its claws--struck me upon the side of the head and sent me crashing into a tree-top to the left. Five paces I flew before my body touched the boughs, and there I lay quiet.

  I suppose that Ragnar told me what passed after this while I was senseless. At least, I know that the bear began to die, for my spear had pierced some artery in its throat, and all the talk which followed, as well as though I heard it with my ears. It roared and roared, vomiting blood and stretching out its claws after Steinar as Ragnar dragged him away. Then it laid its head flat upon the snow and died. Ragnar looked at it and muttered:

  "Dead!"

  Then he walked to that top of the fallen tree in which I lay, and again muttered: "Dead! Well, Valhalla holds no braver man than Olaf the Skald."

  Next he went to Steinar and once again exclaimed, "Dead!"

  For so he looked, indeed, smothered in the blood of the bear and with his garments half torn off him. Still, as the words passed Ragnar's lips he sat up, rubbed his eyes and smiled as a child does when it awakes.

  "Are you much hurt?" asked Ragnar.

  "I think not," he answered doubtfully, "save that I feel sore and my head swims. I have had a bad dream." Then his eyes fell on the bear, and he added: "Oh, I remember now; it was no dream. Where is Olaf?"

  "Supping with Odin," answered Ragnar and pointed to me.

  Steinar rose to his feet, staggered to where I lay, and stared at me stretched there as white as the snow, with a smile upon my face and in my hand a spray of some evergreen bush which I had grasped as I fell.

  "Did he die to save me?" asked Steinar.

  "Aye," answered Ragnar, "and never did man walk that bridge in better fashion. You were right. Would that I had not mocked him."

  "Would that I had died and not he," said Steinar with a sob. "It is borne in upon my heart that it were better I had died."

  "Then that may well be, for the heart does not lie at such a time. Also it is true that he was worth both of us. There was something more in him than there is in us, Steinar. Come, lift him to my back, and if you are strong enough, go on to the horses and bid the thrall bring one of them. I follow."

  Thus ended the fight with the great white bear.

  Some four hours later, in the midst of a raging storm of wind and rain, I was brought at last to the bridge that spanned the moat of the Hall of Aar, laid like a corpse across the back of one of the horses. They had been searching for us at Aar, but in that darkness had found nothing. Only, at the head of the bridge was Freydisa, a torch in her hand. She glanced at me by the light of the torch.

  "As my heart foretold, so it is," she said. "Bring him in," then turned and ran to the house.

  They bore me up between the double ranks of stabled kine to where the great fire of turf and wood burned at the head of the hall, and laid me on a table.

  "Is he dead?" asked Thorvald, my father, who had come home that night; "and if so, how?"

  "Aye, father," answered Ragnar, "and nobly. He dragged Steinar yonder from under the paws of the great white bear and slew it with his sword."

  "A mighty deed," muttered my father. "Well, at least he comes home in honour."

  But my mother, whose favourite son I was, lifted up her voice and wept. Then they took the clothes from off me, and, while all watched, Freydisa, the skilled woman, examined my hurts. She felt my head and looked into my eyes, and laying her ear upon my breast, listened for the beating of my heart.

  Presently she rose, and, turning, said slowly:

  "Olaf is not dead, though near to death. His pulses flutter, the light of life still burns in his eyes, and though the blood runs from his ears, I think the skull is not broken."

  When she heard these words, Thora, my mother, whose heart was weak, fainted for joy, and my father, untwisting a gold ring from his arm, threw it to Freydisa.

  "First the cure," she said, thrusting it away with her foot. "Moreover, when I work for love I take no pay."

  Then they washed me, and, having dressed my hurts, laid me on a bed near the fire that warmth might come back to me. But Freydisa would not suffer them to give me anything save a little hot milk which she poured down my throat.

  For three days I lay like one dead; indeed, all save my mother held Freydisa wrong and thought that I was dead. But on the fourth day I opened my eyes and took food, and after that fell into a natural sleep. On the morning of the sixth day I sat up and spoke many wild and wandering words, so that they believed I should only live as a madman.

  "His mind is gone," said my mother, and wept.

  "Nay," answered Freydisa, "he does but return from a land where they speak another tongue. Thorvald, bring hither the bear-skin."

  It was brought and hung on a frame of poles at the end of the niche in which I slept, that, as was usual among northern people, opened out of the hall. I stared at it for a long while. Then my memory came back and I asked:

  "Did the great beast kill Steinar?"

  "No," answered my mother, who sat by me. "Steinar was sore hurt, but escaped and now is well again."

  "Let me see him with my own eyes," I said.

  So he was brought, and I looked on him. "I am glad you live, my brother," I said, "for know in this long sleep of mine I have dreamed that you were dead"; and I stretched out my wasted arms towards him, for I loved Steinar better than any other man.

  He came and kissed me on the brow, saying:

  "Aye, thanks to you, Olaf, I live to be your brother and your thrall till the end."

  "My brother always, not my thrall," I muttered, for I was growing tired. Then I went to sleep again.

  Three days later, when my strength began to return, I sent for Steinar and said:

  "Brother, Iduna the Fair, whom you have never seen, my betrothed, must wonder how it fares with me, for the tale of this hurt of mine will have reached Lesso. Now, as there are reasons why Ragnar cannot go, and as I would send no mean man, I pray you to do me a favour. It is that you will take a boat and sail to Lesso, carrying with you as a present from me to Athalbrand's daughter the skin of
that white bear, which I trust will serve her and me as a bed-covering in winter for many a year to come. Tell her, thanks be to the gods and to the skill of Freydisa, my nurse, I live who all thought must die, and that I trust to be strong and well for our marriage at the Spring feast which draws on. Say also that through all my sickness I have dreamed of none but her, as I trust that sometimes she may have dreamed of me."

  "Aye, I'll go," answered Steinar, "fast as horses' legs and sails can carry me," adding with his pleasant laugh: "Long have I desired to see this Iduna of yours, and to learn whether she is as beautiful as you say; also what it is in her that Ragnar hates."

  "Be careful that you do not find her too beautiful," broke in Freydisa, who, as ever, was at my side.