le and silent.

"Safely shall he sail the Firth," piped the thin voice. "Safely shall he
sit in Fareys. Safely shall he lie in white Gudruda's arms--_hee! hee!_
Think of it, lady!"

Then Swanhild shook like a birth-tree in the gale, and her face grew
ashen.

"I am content," she said.

"_Hee! hee!_ Brave lady! She is content! Ah, we sisters shall be merry.
Hearken: if I aid thee thus I may do no more. Thrice has the night-owl
come at thy call--now it must wing away. Yet things will be as I have
said; thine own wisdom shall guide the rest. Ere morn Brighteyes shall
stand in Atli's hall, ere spring he will be thy love, and ere autumn
Gudruda shall sit on the high seat in the hall of Middalhof the bride of
Ospakar. Draw nigh, give me thine arm, sister, that blood may seal our
bargain."

Swanhild drew near the toad, and, shuddering, stretched out her arm,
and then and there the red blood ran, and there they sealed their
sisterhood. And as the nameless deed was wrought, it seemed to Swanhild
as though fire shot through her veins, and fire surged before her eyes,
and in the fire a shape passed up weeping.

"It is done, Blood-sister," piped the voice; "now I must away in thy
form to be about thy tasks. Seat thee here before me--so. Now lay thy
brow upon my brow--fear not, it was thy mother's--life on death! curling
locks on corpse hair! See, so we change--we change. Now thou art the
Death-toad and I am Swanhild, Atli's wife, who shall be Eric's love."

Then Swanhild knew that her beauty had entered into the foulness of the
toad, and the foulness of the toad into her beauty, for there before her
stood her own shape and here she crouched a toad upon the floor.

"Away to work, away!" said a soft low voice, her own voice speaking from
her own body that stood before her, and lo! it was gone.

But Swanhild crouched, in the shape of a hag-headed toad, upon the
ground in her bower of Atli's hall, and felt wickedness and evil
longings and hate boil and seethe within her heart. She looked out
through her sunken horny eyes and she seemed to see strange sights. She
saw Atli, her lord, dead upon the grass. She saw a woman asleep, and
above her flashed a sword. She saw the hall of Middalhof red with blood.
She saw a great gulf in a mountain's heart, and men fell down it. And,
last, she saw a war-ship sailing fast out on the sea, afire, and vanish
there.

Now the witch-hag who wore Swanhild's loveliness stood upon the cliffs
of S