onicles, far back in
the times when those of whom they kept record were half, if not wholly,
heathen, these same qualities could be discovered among her forbears.

Indeed, there was one woman of whom the saga told, a certain ancestress
named Saevuna, whereof it is written "that she was of all women the very
fairest, and that she drew the hearts of men with her wonderful eyes as
the moon draws mists from a marsh," who, in some ways, might have been
Stella herself, Stella unchristianized and savage.

This Saevuna's husband rebelled against the king of his country, and,
being captured, was doomed to a shameful death by hanging as a traitor.
Thereon, under pretence of bidding him farewell, she administered poison
to him, partaking of the same herself; "and," continues the saga, "they
both of them, until their pains overcame them, died singing a certain
ancient song which had descended in the family of one of them, and is
called the Song of the Over-Lord, or the Offering to Death. This song,
while strength and voice remained to them, it is the duty of this family
to say or sing, or so they hold it, in the hour of their death. But if
they sing it, except by way of learning its words and music from their
mothers, and escape death, it will not be for very long, seeing that
when once the offering is laid upon his altar, the Over-Lord considers
it his own, and, after the fashion of gods and men, takes it as soon as
he can. So sweet and strange was the singing of this Saevuna until she
choked that the king and his nobles came out to hear it, and all men
thought it a great marvel that a woman should sing thus in the very
pains of death. Moreover, they declared, many of them, that while the
song went on they could think of nothing else, and that strange and
wonderful visions passed before their eyes. But of this nobody can know
the truth for certain, as the woman and her husband died long ago."

"You see," said Mr. Fregelius, when he had finished translating the
passage aloud, "it is not wonderful that I thought it unlucky when I
heard that you had found Stella singing this same song upon the ship,
much as centuries ago her ancestress, Saevuna, sang it while she and her
husband died."

"At any rate, the omen fulfilled itself," answered Morris, with a sigh,
"and she, too, died with the song upon her lips, though I do not think
that it had anything to do with these things, which were fated to
befall."

"Well," said the clergyman,