"Go, then," said Estein; "here will I bide."

The man stamped his foot wrathfully, and turned sharply away as
though he would leave him. Then he turned back and answered,--

"The gods curse you and him! See you this path opening ahead of
us? Follow that with all the speed you can make, and I, fool that
I am for my pains, shall turn back and bring him after you if he
is to be found. Stare not at me, but hasten! I shall overtake you
ere long."

With that he started off under the shadow of the stockade, and
Estein, after a moment's deliberation, turned into the path. Never
before had he felt himself so completely the football of fortune.
Destiny seemed to kick him here and there in no gentle manner, and
to no purpose that he could fathom. As he stumbled through the
blackness of the tortuous forest path, he tried to connect one
thing with another, and find some meaning in the token that had
brought him here. Evidently the sender was so far from being in
league with his foes that he made a kind of contrary current,
eddying him one way just when fate seemed to have driven him
another. To add to his perplexities, the disappearance of Helgi
had now come to trouble his mind; he had heard no outcry or alarm,
his foster-brother had time enough to have easily reached the
rendezvous before him, and he felt as he walked like a man in a
maze.

Suddenly there came a crash of branches at his side, a man stepped
out of the trees, and before he had time to draw a weapon, the
sharp, impatient voice of his guide exclaimed,--