The Outlaws | Page 9

his keen eyes searching in Tord's face. "Go
to the priest yourself, and tell him the truth. You must go back again
among mankind."
ÊÊ "What does it help if I go alone? The spirits of the dead follow me
because of your sin. Do you not see how I tremble before you? You
have lifted your hand against God himself. What crime is like unto
yours? Why did you tell me about the just God? It is you yourself who
compel me to betray you. Spare me this sin. Go to the priest yourself."
He sank down on his knees before Berg.
ÊÊ The murderer laid his hand on his head and looked at him. He
measured his sin by the terror of his comrade, and it grew and grew to
monstrous size. He saw himself in conflict with the Will that rules the
world. Remorse entered his heart.
ÊÊ "Woe unto me that I did what I did," he said. "And is not this
miserable life, this life we lead here in terror, and in deprivation, is it
not atonement enough? Have I not lost home and fortune? Have I not
lost friends, and all the joys that make the life of a man? What more?"
ÊÊ As he heard him speak thus, Tord sprang up in wild terror. "You
can repent!" he cried. "My words move your heart? Oh, come with me,
come at once. Come, let us go while there is yet time."
ÊÊ Berg the Giant sprang up also. "You Ñ did it Ñ?"
ÊÊ "Yes, yes, yes. I have betrayed you. But come quickly. Come now,
now that you can repent. We must escape. We will escape."

ÊÊ The murderer stooped to the ground where the battle-ax of his
fathers lay at his feet. "Son of a thief," he hissed. "I trusted you Ñ I
loved you."
ÊÊ But when Tord saw him stoop for the ax, he knew that it was his
own life that was in peril now. He tore his own ax from his girdle, and
thrust at Berg before the latter could rise. The Giant fell headlong to the
floor, the blood spurting out over the cave. Between the tangled masses
of hair Tord saw the great, yawning, red wound of an ax thrust.
ÊÊ Then the peasants stormed into the cave. They praised his deed and
told him that he should receive full pardon.
ÊÊ Tord looked down at his hands, as if he saw there the fetters that
had drawn him on to kill the man he loved. Like the chains of the
Fenrir wolf, they were woven out of empty air. They were woven out of
the green light amid the reeds, out of the play of shadows in the woods,
out of the song of the storm, out of the rustling of the leaves, out of the
magic vision of dreams. And he said aloud: "God is great."
ÊÊ He crouched beside the body, spoke amid his tears to the dead, and
begged him to awake. The villagers made a litter of their spears, on
which to carry the body of the free peasant to his home. The dead man
aroused awe in their souls, they softened their voices in his presence.
When they raised him to the bier, Tord stood up, shook the hair from
his eyes, and spoke in a voice that trembled:
ÊÊ "Tell Unn, for whose sake Berg the Giant became a murderer, that
Tord the fisherman, whose father plunders wrecks, and whose mother
is a witch Ñ tell her that Tord slew Berg because Berg had taught him
that justice is the cornerstone of the world."
2 RTEXTR*ch

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