“Where shall we go, then?” Alwin asked, as they glided out of the gate in the dim light of an Arctic winter day.  “It may be that to go over that road again might become a misfortune.  Once I saw Kark looking after us with a grin which I would have knocked off his face if I had not been in a hurry.”

Sigurd instantly faced toward the snow-crusted hills that lay between them and Eric’s Fiord.  “Then to-day it will be useful to go in another direction, so that any suspicions he has may go to sleep again.  If Thorhall had been at home, he would have overtaken you before this.  His green eyes are well fitted for spying.”

Perhaps it was this reference to green eyes that recalled to Alwin the scene of the foretelling.  Perhaps it had never gone very far out of his mind.

After they had swung along a while in silent enjoyment of the swift motion and the answering tingle in their blood, he said abruptly:  “It may be that there was some truth at her tongue-roots, after all.”

Sigurd made a sly move with his staff, so that the other suddenly tripped and fell headlong; whereupon he said gravely:  “Lo, I believe so too, for behold, already it has come true that ’I see your body lying on the ground.’”

Alwin consented to laugh, as he picked himself up and untangled his runners; but he was too much in earnest to be turned aside.

“I do not mean in regard to that,” he said, when they were once more in motion.  “I mean what she told concerning some new untrodden land.”

Sigurd became instantly attentive, as though the reference had been much in his own mind also.

“It has occurred to me that perhaps she was speaking of that western land you told me of.  It might he that this would be a way out of my difficulties.  If I could escape to that land with Helga, so would I at once save her and gain my freedom.”

Sigurd’s eyes brightened, then gloomed again.  “Yes,—­but that ‘if’ is like a mile-wide rift in the ice.  You can never get over it.”

“It might be that I could get around it.  I tell you I shall go out of my wits if I cannot see some trail to follow, no matter how faint it is.  Tell me what else you know of this land.”

They were starting down a slope at the speed of the wind, but Sigurd suddenly leaped into the air with a cheer; and cheered again as he landed, right-side up and unstaggered, at the bottom of the hill.

“By Michael, I will do better than that!  I will take you to talk with one of Biorn’s own men.  One is visiting Aran Bow-Bender now, across the fiord.  I heard Brand Knutsson say so last week.”

“By my troth, Sigurd,” Alwin cried eagerly, “when things come to one’s hand like that, I believe it is a sign that he should try his luck with them!  Would we have time to go there to-day?”