Under the little hill whereon the palace stands we rode presently, and I suppose that we were taken for a train of belated chapmen, or that the guards saw we were headed by monks, and would not trouble us. Maybe, however, the disorder of the palace had put an end for the time to much care in watching, but at any rate we passed without challenge. And so we came to the riverside track which should lead us to the end of our journey, and, as I hoped with all my heart, to the end of our quest. Already I could see the trees under which the cart stood. Out of the southwest came one of those showers which had been about all day, and which had not yet quite cleared off from the hills round us. It drew across the face of the moon, which had been sending our long shadows before us as if they were in as great haste as we, and for a few minutes we stayed in the dark to let it pass. And as it passed there came what men sometimes hold as a marvel. The rain left us, passing ahead of us like a dark wall, and the moon shone out suddenly from the cloud's edge, and then across the land leaped a great white rainbow, perfect and bright, so that one could dimly see the seven colours which should be in its span. And one end rested on the river bank close under the place where the cart stood among the trees, and the other was away beyond the forest, eastward somewhere. "Lo," said the monk who had bidden us come, "yonder is the sign of hope, leading us as it were the pillar of fire of Holy Writ!" "Men say there is ever treasure hidden under the end of a rainbow," said the reeve; "but never yet did I meet with a man who had found it. Yet I have never seen the like of this. I have heard that they may be seen at night." And so said another and another; for indeed men look to their feet rather than to the sky at night, and thereby miss the things they might see. But a strange thought came to my mind, and I spoke it. "Under the end of that pillar does indeed lie the treasure we seek. See, it is not on the wood, but on the river bank. We searched not there, comrade." "Ay, we shall find it there," Erling answered. "It is Bifrost--Allfather's bridge. He takes his son home across it." The rainbow faded and passed to the north and east with the rain, and it went across the land through which Ethelbert had ridden so gaily but a few days agone. Sometimes I love to think that its end rested here and there on house or village or church which had been the happier for the bright presence of the king, and betimes I think that a strange fancy for a rough warrior like myself. Yet I had ridden with Ethelbert, and the thoughts he set in the minds of men are not as common thoughts. I hold that once I rode and spoke with a very saint.