The Outlaws | Page 7

near to them that the
brightness of His throne dimmed the stars, and the angels of vengeance
descended upon the mountain heights. And below them the flames of
the underworld fluttered up to the outer curve of the earth and licked
greedily at this last refuge of a race crushed by sin and woe.
* * *
ÊÊ Autumn came, and with it came storm. Tord went out alone into the
woods to tend the traps and snares, while Berg remained at home to
mend his clothes. The boy's path led him up a wooded height along
which the falling leaves danced in circles in the gust. Again and again
the feeling came to him that some one was walking behind him. He
turned several times, then went on again when he had seen that it was
only the wind and the leaves. He threatened the rustling circles with his
fist, and kept on his way. But he had not silenced the sounds of his
vision. At first it was the little dancing feet of elfin children; then it was
the hissing of a great snake moving up behind him. Beside the snake
there came a wolf, a tall, gray creature, waiting for the moment when
the adder should strike at his feet to spring upon his back. Tord
hastened his steps, but the visions hastened with him. When they
seemed but two steps behind him, ready for the spring, he turned. There
was nothing there, as he had known all the time. He sat down upon a
stone to rest. The dried leaves played about his feet. The leaves of all
the forest trees were there: the little yellow birch leaves, the red-tinged
mountain ash leaves, the dried, black-brown foliage of the elm, the
bright red aspen leaves, and the yellow-green fringes of the willows.
Faded and crumpled, broken, and scarred, they were but little like the
soft, tender shoots of green that had unrolled from the buds a few
months ago.
ÊÊ "Ye are sinners," said the boy. "All of us are sinners. Nothing is
pure in the eyes of God. Ye have already been shriveled up in the name
of His wrath."
ÊÊ Then he went on again, while the forest beneath him waved like a

sea in storm, altho it was still and calm on the path around him. But he
heard something he had never heard before. The wood was full of
voices. Now it was like a whispering, now a gentle plaint, now a loud
threat, or a roaring curse. It laughed, and it moaned. It was as the voice
of hundreds. This unknown something that threatened and excited, that
whistled and hissed, a something that seemed to be, and yet was not,
almost drove him mad. He shivered in deadly terror, as he had shivered
before, the day that he lay on the floor of his cave, and heard his
pursuers rage over him through the forest. He seemed to hear again the
crashing of the branches, the heavy footsteps of the men, the clanking
of their arms, and their wild, bloodthirsty shouts.
ÊÊ It was not alone the storm that roared about him. There was
something else in it, something yet more terrible; there were voices he
could not understand, sounds as of a strange speech. He had heard
many a mightier storm than this roar through the rigging. But he had
never heard the wind playing on a harp of so many strings. Every tree
seemed to have its own voice, every ravine had another song, the loud
echo from the rocky wall shouted back in its own voice. He knew all
these tones, but there were other stranger noises with them. And it was
these that awoke a storm of voices within his own brain.
ÊÊ He had always been afraid when alone in the darkness of the wood.
He loved the open sea and the naked cliffs. Ghosts and spirits lurked
here in the shadows of the trees.
ÊÊ Then suddenly he knew who was speaking to him in the storm. It
was God, the Great Avenger, the Lord of all justice. God pursued him
because of his comrade. God demanded that he should give up the
murderer of the monk to vengeance.
ÊÊ Tord began to speak aloud amid the storm. He told God what he
wanted to do, but that he could not do it. He had wanted to speak to the
Giant and to beg him make his peace with God. But he could not find
the words; embarrassment tied his tongue. "When I learned that the
world is ruled by a God of Justice," he cried, "I knew that he was a lost
man. I have wept through the night for my friend. I know that