lood streamed red on the deck--came there not over thee an untameable
longing to plunge into the strife? Didst thou not don harness and
take up arms?

DAGNY. Never! How canst thou think it? I, a woman!

HIORDIS. A woman, a woman,--who knows what a woman may do!--But one
thing thou canst tell me, Dagny, for that thou surely knowest: when a
man clasps to his breast the woman he loves--is it true that her blood
burns, that her bosom throbs--that she swoons in a shuddering ecstasy?

DAGNY (blushing). Hiordis, how canst thou----!

HIORDIS. Come, tell me----!

DAGNY. Surely thou thyself hast known it.

HIORDIS. Ay once, and only once; it was that night when Gunnar sat
with me in my bower; he crushed me in his arms till his byrnie burst,
and then, then----!

DAGNY (exclaiming). What! Sigurd----!

HIORDIS. Sigurd? What of Sigurd? I spoke of Gunnar--that night when
he bore me away----

DAGNY (collecting herself). Yes, yes, I remember--I know well----

HIORDIS. That was the only time; never, never again! I deemed I was
bewitched; for that Gunnar could clasp a woman---- (Stops and looks
at DAGNY.) What ails thee? Methinks thou turnest pale and red!

DARNY. Nay, nay!

HIORDIS (without noticing her). The merry viking-raid should have
been _my_ lot; it had been better for me, and--mayhap for all of us.
That were life, full and rich life! Dost thou not wonder, Dagny, to
find me here alive? Art not afraid to be alone with me in the hall?
Deem'st thou not that I must have died in all these years, and that
it is my ghost that stands at thy side?

DAGNY (painfully affected). Come--let us go--to the others.

HIORDIS (seizing her by the arm). No, stay! Seems it not strange
to thee, Dagny, that any woman can yet live after five such nights?

DAGNY. Five nights?

HIORDIS. Here in the north each night is a whole winter long.
(Quickly and with an altered expression.) Yet the place is fair
enough, doubt it not! Thou shalt see sights here such as thou hast
not seen in the halls of the English king. We shall be together as
sisters whilst thou bidest with me; we shall go down to the sea when
the storm begins once more; thou shalt see the billows rushing upon
the land like wild, white-maned horses--and then the whales far out
in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights!
Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back--to
speed before the skiff, and wake the