"Is this all the way you have made? Your foster-brother has
escaped, or has by this time been captured, I care not which. I
saw him not."

"But supposing I were more careful of his safety?" Estein
demanded, with a note of anger in his voice.

"Push on!" replied the other. "The alarm is raised, and neither
you nor Helgi can be found, so perchance he has not yet suffered
for his folly. I came not out to hear you talk."

He started off as he spoke, and Estein, perceiving the
hopelessness of further search, followed him with a heart little
lightened.

"If they have not found him yet," he thought, "he has perhaps
escaped. But why did he not wait for me? If he had been alive, he
surely would have met me."

For some time he followed his mysterious guide in melancholy
silence. There was only room for them to walk in single file, and
it took him some trouble to keep up. Sometimes it seemed to him
that they would leave the path and go straight through the
trackless depths of the wood, with a quickness and assurance that
astonished him. Then again they would apparently fall upon a path
for a time, and perhaps break into a trot while the ground was
clear.

At last they came into a long, open glade, where a stream brawled