XI
The next day at sunrise they were there. Helga was supported by her brother to shore on the slender landing-plank. When she stood on the shore before Hjor-Leif’s point and looked over towards the houses, her strength failed her for the second time. She could do no more. She leant against her brother to save herself from falling. He put his arm round her and led her to a stone where she could sit and recover her strength. There she sat down, and remained sitting, staring out over the sea, that lay resplendent in the glow of sunrise, but her eyes saw nothing. A light morning breeze played with her hair and gently caressed her pale face.
Ingolf stood by her side, waiting. Since she so much wished to see Hjor-Leif he would not oppose it, but he wished to follow her and be near her.
Helga had forgotten him, and why she sat there. For the moment she remembered nothing except that she was alone and had Hjor-Leif no more. There were times when this fact seemed incomprehensible. If Hjor-Leif was dead, why was she alive? She did not understand that. But so it was—she was alive. And die she could not. Death would not come to her, though she prayed for it to all imaginable Powers.
When Ingolf had stood for a while motionless by her side, he bent down over her and said quietly that he must go for a little to give his men orders. Helga started when he spoke to her, and looked hastily up at him with a terrified look in her eyes. Then she came to herself, remembered why she sat here, why Ingolf stood waiting for her, and she seized his hand. She sat for a while holding it convulsively in hers and moaning softly. Then she said in that strange, distant voice which quite seemed to have displaced her own: “Ingolf—I cannot, after all—let me just sit. I cannot rise. Ah, I can do nothing,” she said, half-wailing, and hid her face in her hands.
Ingolf stood a little irresolute; then he bent over her and said softly: “I will come again and fetch you.”
She nodded impatiently with her bowed head, as if begging him only to go—to go!
As soon as she no longer heard his steps she began a low, heart-rending wail. Ah, she had no hope now. Her heart was dead. But she lived, and could not die.
Ingolf went back to the ship, helped Hallveig and her boy on shore, and asked Hallveig to look to Helga while he went and buried Hjor-Leif. Then he told Vifel and several of his men to take spades and a bier and follow him. The others he set to work unloading the ship.
Ingolf was quite composed now. The stamp of the resolute firmness, which was the real expression of his character, was more distinct than ever before. He had reconciled himself to his brother’s death as a healthy man reconciles himself to the inevitable. He had sought comfort in his faith, and had eradicated all despair from his mind, so that only a healthy, hardening, beneficial pain remained behind. He remembered the death-rune among the omens at the sacrificial feast; it had then pointed at Hjor-Leif. Yes, Fate shields a man till she strikes him—nothing can alter that. Against Fate even the bravest fight in vain. Not even Odin can shake the sentence of the Norns.
Such were Ingolf’s thoughts as, with a composed mind, he went to carry out his last duty to his brother.
There had been an old agreement between him and Hjor-Leif that, if Ingolf died first, Hjor-Leif should inter him in a funeral barrow with exact observation of all the ritual of the Ase-religion. In return, Ingolf had pledged himself, if he were the survivor, to bury Hjor-Leif in the ground without any kind of solemnity. All that Hjor-Leif wished, when he no longer lived, was to be buried in a dry spot, at the depth of a man’s stature, and to lie there with clean earth round him. It was no more than reasonable that he should have his will, though Ingolf in his inmost heart felt a strong impulse to inter him in a barrow and to do him all the honour which became a chieftain.
The birds were singing in the dewy morning when the sailcloth with which Vifel had covered Hjor-Leif was lifted. Their song sounded all at once piercingly in Ingolf’s ears. He stood for a while and looked at his brother’s decomposed remains. He had seen many dead men, without being specially moved thereby. But now his self-control deserted him a moment. He wept. When he had grown calm again he made the sign of the Hammer over the body, and said softly, as though to himself: “A mean fate here befell a good man, that a serf should cause his death, and so it will happen to each one who will not sacrifice to the gods.”
Hjor-Leif’s corpse was laid on the bier, and Ingolf covered it with his cloak. Then he went on ahead up to the point to seek for a burying-place. Step by step the men carried his brother’s body after him.
Ingolf quickly found a place towards the south and the sun. The grave was dug, and Hjor-Leif was lowered into it, wrapped in his brother’s cloak. Then they cast clean earth over him, and trampled it well down.
Ingolf remained standing by the grave till his men had gone. Then he spoke for the last time to his sworn brother. “Hjor-Leif,” he said with emotion and in a natural tone, as though he were quite sure of being heard, “if no duty had bound me to life, I would have followed you in death. The days are poor without you, brother. But I comfort myself with the thought that we shall meet again in Valhalla, and that you by that time will have made your peace with the gods.”
When Ingolf had spoken, he took a thunder-stone which hung on a chain round his neck, a gift from his mother, of whom he had an indistinct memory, pressed it deep down in the earth, and covered it up. Nothing in his eye was so sacred as this lucky stone. Therefore he gave it to his brother to take with him on the way.
Ingolf found his sister where he had left her. She sat in the same attitude; not once had she moved since he left her. Her wailing had died away. She sat silent. And when he laid his hand on her shoulder she did not start, only turned her head quietly, and looked up wearily at him. She tried to rise, but had become stiff from sitting in the same position. It was some time before she could stand and walk. Ingolf led her gently over the shore, up the point, to Hjor-Leif’s grave. At the grave she remained standing motionless, clinging to his arm, and gazing down at the brown scar in the earth. For the first time since she had heard of Hjor-Leif’s death her eyes filled with tears. She loosed her hold of Ingolf’s arm and asked him impatiently to leave her.
When Ingolf had gone, she threw herself on the grave, pressed her face down in the loose earth, and lay there weeping, silently and ceaselessly. Now she could weep....
Long after Helga had wept all power of weeping out of her soul she remained lying there, with her arms thrown out as though clinging to the earth. Then at last she fell asleep, worn out with sorrow and fatigue.
When she woke again it was evening. She rose and looked around her in alarm, suddenly afraid lest any one should see her lying thus. As she stood there and looked around her, she perceived a black round patch on the greensward a little distance off. There had burnt the fire, which about a year ago she had sat gazing at from Ingolf’s point.... Ah, that red fire....
And now it was quenched... quenched for ever.
Helga sat down, looking alternately at the grave and the burnt patch. Now and then her eyes filled with tears. But she could weep no more.
Later in the evening Hallveig came silently and sat down by her side. They did not speak. Hallveig wept now and then. Helga sat motionless, gazing before her with eyes that scorched and burned, but seeing nothing.
The two women remained sitting there the whole night. When sunrise streaked the horizon next day they rose quietly and went silently homeward to the houses.