not Brighteyes whom
she bids Gizur slay.

Then Gizur, Ospakar's son, lifts the sword, and the faint starlight
struggling into the chamber gathers and gleams upon the blade. Thrice he
lifts it, and thrice it draws it back. Then with an oath he strikes--and
drives it home with all his strength!

From the bed beneath there comes one long sigh and a sound as of limbs
trembling against the bed-gear. Then all is still.

"It is done!" he says faintly.

Swanhild puts down her hand once more. Lo! it is wet and warm. Then she
bends herself and looks, and behold! the dead eyes of Gudruda glare up
into her eyes. She can see them plainly, but none know what she read
there. At the least it was something that she loved not, for she reels
back against the panelling, then falls upon the floor.

Presently, while Gizur stands as one in a dream, she rises, saying:
"I am avenged of the death of Atli. Let us hence!--ah! let us hence
swiftly! Give me thy hand, Gizur, for I am faint!"

So Gizur gives her his hand and they pass thence. Presently they stand
in the store-room, and there lies Skallagrim, still plunged in his
drunken sleep.

"Must I do more murder?" asks Gizur hoarsely.

"Nay," Swanhild says. "I am sick with blood. Leave the knave."

They pass out by the casement into the yard and so on till they find
their horses.

"Lift me, Gizur; I can no more," says Swanhild.

He lifts her to the saddle.

"Whither away?" he asks.

"To Coldback, Gizur, and thence to cold Death."

Thus did Gudruda, Eric's bride and Asmund's daughter, the fairest woman
who ever lived in Iceland, die on her marriage night by the hand of
Gizur, Ospakar's son, and through the hate and witchcraft of Swanhild
the Fatherless, her half-sister.

XXX

HOW THE DAWN CAME

The dawn broke over Middalhof. Slowly the light gathered in the empty
hall, it crept slowly into the little chamber where Eric slept, and
Gudruda slept also with a deeper sleep.

Now the two women came from their chamber at the far end of the hall,
and drew near the hearth, shivering, for the air was cold. They knelt
by the fire, blowing at the embers till the sticks they cast upon them
crackled to a blaze.

"It seems that Gudruda is not yet gone," said one to the other. "I
thought she should ride away with Eric before the dawn."

"Newly wed lie long abed!" laughed the other.

"I am glad to see the blessed light," said the first woman, "for last
night I dreamed that on