hers, and answered, "These battlers
of frost and fighters of hunger! I can understand how the dominant races
have come down out of the north to empire. Strong to venture, strong to
endure, with infinite faith and infinite patience, is it to be wondered
at?"

Frona glanced at him in eloquent silence.

"'_We smote with our swords_,'" he chanted; "'_to me it was a joy like
having my bright bride by me on the couch.' 'I have marched with my
bloody sword, and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought; the
fire passed over the dwellings of men; we slept in the blood of those who
kept the gates_.'"

"But do you feel it, Vance?" she cried, her hand flashing out and resting
on his arm.

"I begin to feel, I think. The north has taught me, is teaching me. The
old thing's come back with new significance. Yet I do not know. It
seems a tremendous egotism, a magnificent dream."

"But you are not a negro or a Mongol, nor are you descended from the
negro or Mongol."

"Yes," he considered, "I am my father's son, and the line goes back to
the sea-kings who never slept under the smoky rafters of a roof or
drained the ale-horn by inhabited hearth. There must be a reason for the
dead-status of the black, a reason for the Teuton spreading over the
earth as no other race has ever spread. There must be something in race
heredity, else I would not leap at the summons."

"A great race, Vance. Half of the earth its heritage, and all of the
sea! And in threescore generations it has achieved it all--think of it!
threescore generations!--and to-day it reaches out wider-armed than ever.
The smiter and the destroyer among nations! the builder and the
law-giver! Oh, Vance, my love is passionate, but God will forgive, for
it is good. A great race, greatly conceived; and if to perish, greatly
to perish! Don't you remember:

"'_Trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing; groans that ancient tree, and
the Jotun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of Hel, until
the fire of Surt has consumed the tree. Hrym steers from the east, the
waters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in jotun-rage. The worm heats
the water, and the eagle screams; the pale of beak tears carcases; the
ship Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the south comes with flickering flame;
shines from his sword the Val-god's sun_.'"

Swaying there like a furred Valkyrie above the final carnage of men and
gods, she touched his imagination, and the blood surged exultin