“By your words,” replied the stranger, “I am sure that you are the man I want; but your stature--Hans of Iceland is a giant. You cannot be he.” “You are the first who ever doubted it to my face.” “What! can it be?” And the stranger approached the little man. “But I always heard that Hans of Iceland was of colossal height.” “Add my renown to my height, and you will see that I am taller than Mount Hecla.” “Indeed! Tell me, I pray, are you really Hans, a native of Klipstadur in Iceland?” “It is not in words that I should answer that question,” said the little man, rising; and the look which he cast at the rash stranger made him start back several paces. “Confine yourself, I beg, to answering it by that glance,” he replied in a voice of entreaty, casting a look toward the exit, which showed his regret that he had ever entered; “I came here in your interests alone.” Upon entering the hall, the new-comer, having but a glimpse of the person whom he accosted, had retained his self-possession; but when the master of Arbar rose, with his tigerish visage, his thick-set limbs, his bloody shoulders, but half concealed by a skin still green, his huge hands armed with claws, and his fiery eyes, the bold stranger shuddered, like an ignorant traveller who thinks he is handling an eel and feels the sting of a viper. “My interests?” repeated the monster. “Have you come to tell me of some spring which I may poison, some village I may burn, or some Munkholm musketeer I may slaughter?” “Perhaps. Listen: The miners of Norway are in a state of revolt. You know what disaster follows in the train of revolt.” “Yes,--murder, rape, sacrilege, fire, and pillage.” “All these I offer you.” The little man laughed. “I should not wait for you to offer them.” The brutal sneer accompanying these words made the stranger again shudder. He went on, however:-- “In the name of the miners, I offer you the command of the insurrection.” The small man was silent for an instant. All at once his dark countenance assumed an expression of infernal malice. “Does the offer really come from them?” said he. This question seemed to embarrass the new-comer; but as he was sure that he was unknown to his terrible interlocutor, he readily recovered himself. “Why have the miners rebelled?” “To throw off the burden of the royal protectorate.” “Only for that?” replied the other in the same mocking tone. “They also wish to free the prisoner of Munkholm.” “Is this the sole purpose of the movement?” repeated the small man in a voice which confused the stranger. “I know of no other,” he stammered. “Oh, you know of no other!” These words were pronounced in the same sarcastic tone. The stranger, to hide the embarrassment which they caused him, hastily drew from beneath his cloak a heavy purse which he flung at the monster’s feet. “Here is your pay as commander-in-chief.” The small man spurned the purse with his foot.