“Look at these mighty hands,” he cried passionately, “look at me! Will there be any braver there? Will any outstrip me in the race for gold and all those things they seem to need out there? Am I not great as they who went away to-day? Yet they have conquered that vast world. But a little time—think! but a little waiting—and no more cold or hunger—fear or death. The little harvest and the fish now caught will give ye food for all the while I stay. And when I come again, yea we shall wait God’s word—But when the ice comes down we shall leave it rotting in its bins and go away to happiness. Come! come to our marriage!” And so they went away with arms entwined, and, singing, came to blind Agra, who married them. III TO THE LAND OF THE BRAVE Then came the day he was to go. They gathered up that money, yet lying on the shore, and put it in his scrip, and all was ready—he in his wolfskin—she in her stole; yet she trembled as with palsy in his arms. “What? Hast thou changed?” he laughed. “Ah, ah,” she sighed, “thou art my husband now! I am a wife!” Tears would not flow she was so terrified. No sob rose in her throat. She only trembled in his arms. “Ah, this is not the lady of my dreams,” he said. “Come! come! Out with thy shears. Give me a tress for talisman, as the ladies of our Vikings did, and send me forth. Let me not stay. Call me a coward that I go. Come! come!” “I cannot bid thee go,” she breathed; “my heart will not. Yea, we are poor and hungry here, sometimes, but stay with us thy kindred, who love thee and will stand with thee when dark days come. There thou wilt be alone! A stranger in a land of strangers. Life is a hard thing here—yea—but stay and share it with us—make it not harder. Thou art brave—the bravest on the earth to me. That is why God hath left thee to care for us—of all those who are dead. Seest thou not His hand in this?” “Yea.” “Then must thou obey.” “I see it not as thou. I see and hear God’s will in this longing for another land—in the coming of the travellers to tell me of it.” Her face grew solemn. “I did not think of that. How shallow is my thought! And selfish. I fear all selfish. Because I wish for thee to stay, my heart sees in each wish to go a sin against the God. And yet—and yet—it does not seem His will. Oh, husband, if it is, canst thou not make it plain to me who have little thoughts—thou with thy eagle thought?” “Nay—nay,” and he caressed her fondly. “I have made thee sad. What? A sad bride? Even under the glacier? It shall not be!” But yet, the while she nestled in his arms, she begged: “Yet, love, speak to my soul and make all plain to me.” “We will obey the God, my splendid one. I go now but to find a nest for thee and these when God Himself doth make this land impossible.”