Even as he spoke, the last faint cry ended in a gurgling choke,—­and there was silence.

Instantly the scarf was slipped from Alwin’s mouth, and the living fetters unclasped themselves from his limbs.

“Thanks to me—­” Rolf was beginning.

The brief interval of silence was shattered by a cry from the sentinel on the river bank, followed either by an echo or an answering whoop from the opposite shore.  Rolf stretched himself along the branch, just in time to see the men below scatter in wildest confusion and plunge headlong into the thicket.

“In the Troll’s name!” he ejaculated.  “When dwarfs run like that, giants must be coming!”

Alwin had clambered to his feet, and stood with his head thrust up through the leafy roof.

“It is more out of the same nest!” he gasped.  “They are coming from the other bank, swarms of them ....There!  Some of them have landed...”

Rolf laughed his peculiar soft laugh of quiet enjoyment.  “By Thor, was there ever such a game!” he exclaimed.  “I can see them now; they are after the first lot like wolves after sheep—­No, Kark was the sheep!  These are the hunters after the wolves.  Hear them howl!”

“The last ones have climbed out of the water,” Alwin bent to report.  “Do they also follow?”

“As dogs follow deer.  Saw I never such sport!  When we can no longer hear them, it will be time for us to run a race of our own.”

Alwin made no answer, and they waited in silence.  Gradually distance drew soft folds over the sharp cries and muffled them, as women throw their cloaks over the sharp swords of brawlers in the hall.  Once again the drone and the chirping became audible about them, and the smile of the sunshine became visible in the air.  It occurred to Alwin that the peacefulness of nature was like the gentleness of the Wrestler; and there floated through his head the saying of a wrinkled old nurse of his childhood, “The English can die without flinching; the French can die with laughs on their lips; but only the Northmen can smile as they kill.”  When the last smothered shout was unmistakably dead, Rolf swung himself down from the bough; hung there for an instant, stretching himself comfortably and shaking the cramps out of his limbs, then let himself down to the ground; and Alwin followed.

The soft sod lay trampled and gashed by the grinding heels; and the lengthening shadows pointed dark fingers at the middle of the nook, where a shapeless thing of white and red was lying.

Rolf bent over it curiously.

“It must be that these people love killing for its own sake, to go to so much trouble over it,” he commented.  “Evidently it is not the excitement of fighting which they enjoy, but the pleasure of torturing.  I will not be sure but what they are trolls after all.”

“It was a devils’ deed,” Alwin said hoarsely.  He looked down at the ghastly heap with a shudder of loathing.  “And we are not without guilt who have permitted it.  It is of no consequence what sort of a man he was; he was a human being and of our kind,—­and they were fiends.  You need not tell me that we could not help it,” he added in fierce forestalling.  “Had he been Sigurd, we would have helped it or we would both have lain like that.”