unmistakably, and at last he heard the conference come to an end.
The door closed, the party seemed to go away, and then whispering
began in the room below him.

"The woman has come in!" he said to himself, with a start of
excitement. "Helgi, this matter needs your attention."

His bed, the outermost of the two, consisted merely of a coarse
mattress laid so far back in the loft that the edge of the
flooring hid all view of the room below. Very softly he proceeded
to throw off the blankets and crawl quietly towards the edge, till
he had gone far enough to get a clear sight of the fire. There he
lay, and smiled to himself at the prospect below.

The fire had been raked up to burn brightly, and Jomar, as before,
lay fast asleep beside it; but between Helgi and the blaze stood
the old seer and the hooded and cloaked form of a woman. Her face
was hidden, but her back, the watcher thought, promised well. She
was tall, and seemed young, and her movements, as she held out her
hands to the flames, or half turned to address the old man, had
grace and the marks of good birth. They talked so low that Helgi
could catch nothing they said, and even the quality of the girl's
voice only reached him in snatches.

"A pleasant voice, methinks," he said to himself. "Atli, this
booty must be shared."

She seemed to be telling a narrative to Atli, who, with folded
arms and deep attention that sometimes passed into suppressed
emotion, looked intently at her, and frequently broke in with some