(_She throws the tissue on the ground, and goes out by
the dais door._)

ODDNY (_lifting one of the pieces_)
O me! A wonder has vanished.

STEINVOR
What is a wonder less? She has done finely,
Setting her worth above dead marvels and shows.

(_The deep menacing baying of the hound is heard near
at hand. A woman's cry follows it._)

They come, they come! Let us flee by the bower!

(_Starting up, she stumbles in the tissue and sinks upon it. The
others rise._)

You are leaving me--will you not wait for me--
Take, take me with you.

(_Mingled cries of women are heard._)

GUNNAR (_outside_)
Samm, it is well: be still.
Women, be quiet; loose me; get from my feet,
Or I will have the hound to wipe me clear.

STEINVOR (_recovering herself_)
Women are sent to spy.

(_The sound of a door being opened is heard. GUNNAR enters from
the left, followed by three beggar-women, BIARTEY, JOFRID, and
GUDFINN. They hobble and limp, and are swathed in shapeless,
nameless rags which trail about their feet; BIARTEY'S left sleeve
is torn completely away, leaving her arm bare and mud-smeared;
the others' skirts are torn, and JOFRID'S gown at the neck;
GUDFINN wears a felt hood buttoned under her chin; the others'
faces are almost hid in falling tangles of grey hair. Their faces
are shriveled and weather-beaten, and BIARTEY'S mouth is
distorted by two front teeth that project like tusks._)

GUNNAR
Get in to the light.
Yea, has he mouthed ye?... What men send ye here?
Who are ye? Whence come ye? What do ye seek?
I think no mother ever suckled you:
You must have dragged your roots up in waste places
One foot at once, or heaved a shoulder up--

BIARTEY (_interrupting him_)
Out of the bosoms of cairns and standing stones.
I am Biartey: she is Jofrid: she is Gudfinn:
We are lone women known to no man now.
We are not sent: we come.

GUNNAR
Well, you come.
You appear by night, rising under my eyes
Like marshy breath or shadows on the wall;
Yet the hound scented you like any evil
That feels upon the night for a way out.
And do you, then, indeed wend alone?
Came you from the West or the sky-covering North
Yet saw no thin steel moving in the dark?

BIARTEY
Not West, not North: we slept upon the East,
Arising in th