vaulted chamber. At the end of it
sat old Jarl, like adamant in slumber. His head was down on his breast,
buried in a great burning bush of hair and beard; his hands, gripping
the arms of his iron throne, had twisted them like wire; and the weight
of his feet where they rested had hollowed a socket in the stone floor
for them to sink into.

All his hair and his armour shone with a red-and-blue flame; and the
light of him struck the vaulting and the floor like the rays of a torch
as it burns. Over his head a dark tunnel, bored in the solid rock,
reached up a hollow throat seawards. But not by that way came the wind
and the sound of the sea; it was old Jarl himself, breathing peacefully
in his sleep, waiting for the hour which should call his strength to
life.

Young Duke Jarl ran swiftly across the chamber, and struck old Jarl's
knees, crying, "Wake, Jarl! or the castle will be taken!" But the
sleeper did not stir. Then he climbed the iron bars of the Duke's chair,
and reaching high, caught hold of the red beard. "Forefather!" he cried,
"wake, or the castle will be betrayed!"

But still old Duke Jarl snored a drowsy hurricane. Then little Jarl
sprang upon his knee, and seizing him by the head, pulled to move its
dead weight, and finding he could not, struck him full on the mouth,
crying, "Jarl, Jarl, old thunderbolt! wake, or you will betray the
castle!"

At that old Jarl hitched himself in his seat, and "Humph!" cried he,
drawing in a deep breath.

In rushed the wind whistling from the sea, and down it rushed whistling
from the way by which little Jarl had come; like the wings of cranes
flying homewards in spring, so it whistled when old Jarl drew in his
breath.

Off his knee dropped little Ninth Jarl, buffeted speechless to earth.
And old Jarl, letting go one breath, settled himself back to slumber.

Far up overhead, at the darkening-in of night, the besiegers saw the
eyes of the castle flash red for an instant, and shut again; then they
heard the castle-rock bray out like a great trumpet, and they trembled,
crying, "That is old Jarl's warhorn; he is awake out of slumber!"

They had reason enough to fear; for suddenly upon their ships-of-war
there crashed, as though out of the bowels of the earth, a black wind
and sandblast; and coming, it took the reefed sails and rigging, and
snapped the masts and broke every vessel from its moorings, and drove
all to wreck and ruin against the great mole that had been buil