there and then
fall upon the valleys like a snowstorm.

But when winter comes? To begin at the beginning: the outlaw's
life--never more! I have made my last effort; had it been successful,
men would have wondered at me. It has failed, and vengeance is loose. I
cannot gather another force in Norway!

All over? Thus far and no farther? No! The Danes sail, but we will sail
with them! This night, this very night we will raise our yards and
follow them to the open sea.

But whither shall we turn our prows? To Denmark? We may raise no third
force in Denmark. Start out again as merchant? No! Serve in foreign
lands? No! Crusade? No! Hither and no farther! Sigurd, the end has come!

[_Almost sobbing._] Death! The thought sprang up in my mind as a door
swings open, clashing upon its hinges; light, air, receive me! [_He
draws his sword._] No; I will fall fighting in the cause I have lived
for--my men shall have a leader!

Is there no chance of victory? no trick? Can I not get them ashore? Can
I not get them in the toils? try them in point-blank fight, man to man,
all the strength of despair fighting with me? Ah, could they but hear
me, could I but find some high place and speak to them; tell them how
clear as the sun is my right, how monstrous the wrongs I have borne,
what a crime is theirs in withstanding me! You murder not me alone, but
thousands upon thousands of thoughts for my fatherland's welfare; I have
carried nothing out, I have not sown the least grain, or laid one stone
upon another to witness that I have lived. Ah, I have strength for
better things than strife; it was the desire to work that drove me
homewards; it was impatience that wrought me ill! Believe me, try me,
give me but half what Harald Gille promised me, even less; I ask but
very little, if I may still live and strive to accomplish something!
Jesus, my God, it was ever the little that thou didst offer me, and
that I ever scorned!

Where am I? I stand upon my own grave, and hear the great bell ring. I
tremble as the tower beneath its stroke, for where now are the aims that
were mine? The grave opens its mouth and makes reply. But life lies
behind me like a dried-up stream, and these eighteen years are lost as
in a desert. The sign, the sign that was with me from my birth! In lofty
flight I have followed it hither with all the strength of my soul, and
here I am struck by the arrow of death. I fall, and behold the rocks
beneath, upon which I shall be cr