hat must surely lead to some house or village.
I went forward to it with all caution, and with my head over my
shoulder, as they say, but I saw no man. This track led east and
west, and was well trodden by cattle, but there were few footprints
of men on it, so far as I could see. So I turned into it, going
ever away from the ship, and hurrying. I had a thought that I heard
shouts behind me, but there was more wind here on the heights than
I had felt on the sea, or it was rising, and it sung strangely
round the bare points of rock that jutted up everywhere. Maybe it
was but that.

Inland I could see no sign of house or hut where I might find food
at least, but the cloud wrack had drifted across the moon, and I
could not see far now. It was a desolate coast, all unlike our own.

Then I came to a place where the track crossed stony ground and was
lost in gathered snow. When I was across that I had lost the road
altogether, and had only the line of the cliffs to guide me to what
shelter I could not tell. And now a few flakes of snow fluttered
round me, and I held on hopelessly, thinking that surely I should
come to some place that would give me a lee of rock that I could
creep under.

Then the snow swooped down on me heavily, with a whirl and rush of
wind from the sea, and I tried to hurry yet more from the chill.
Then I was sure that I heard voices calling after me, and I ran,
not rightly knowing where to go, but judging that the coastline
would lead me to some fishers' village in the end. There seemed no
hope from the land I had seen.

Again the voices came--nay, but there was one voice only, and it
called me by my name: "Oswald, Oswald!"

I stopped and listened, for I thought of Thorgils. But the voice
was silent, and again I pressed on in the blinding snow, and at
once it came, wailing:

"Oswald, Oswald!"

It was behind me now and close at hand, and I turned with my hand
on my sword hilt. But there was nothing. Only the snow whirled
round me, and the wind sung in the rocks. I called softly, but
there was no answer, and I was called no more as I stood still.

"Oswald, Oswald!"

I had turned to go on my way when it came this time, and now I
could have sworn that I knew the voice, though whose it was I could
not say.

"Who calls me," I cried, facing round.

Then a chill that was not of cold wind and snow fell on me, for
there was silence, and into my mind crept the knowledge of where I
had last heard that