"Yea," and I turned and left her, following the course of the stream
upwards, and as I went I heard her low singing that almost broke my
heart for its sadness.
And I went painfully because of my weakness, and because also of the
great stones; and sometimes I went along a spot of earth where the
river had been used to flow in flood-time, and which was now bare of
everything but stones; and the sun, now risen high, poured down on
everything a great flood of fierce light and scorching heat, and burnt
me sorely, so that I almost fainted.
But about noontide I entered a wood close by the stream, a beech-wood,
intending to rest myself; the herbage was thin and scattered there,
sprouting up from amid the leaf-sheaths and nuts of the beeches, which
had fallen year after year on that same spot; the outside boughs swept
low down, the air itself seemed green when you entered within the
shadow of the branches, they over-roofed the place so with tender
green, only here and there showing spots of blue.
But what lay at the foot of a great beech tree but some dead knight in
armour, only the helmet off? A wolf was prowling round about it, who
ran away snarling when he saw me coming.
So I went up to that dead knight, and fell on my knees before him,
laying my head on his breast, for it was Arnald. He was quite cold,
but had not been dead for very long; I would not believe him dead, but
went down to the stream and brought him water, tried to make him
drink-what would you? He was as dead as Swanhilda: neither came there
any answer to my cries that afternoon but the moaning of the wood
doves in the beeches. So then I sat down and took his head on my
knees, and closed the eyes, and wept quietly while the sun sank lower.
But a little after sunset I heard a rustle through the leaves, that
was not the wind, and looking up my eyes met the pitying eyes of that
maiden.
Something stirred rebelliously within me; I ceased weeping, and said:
"It is unjust, unfair: What right had Swanhilda to live? Did not God
give her up to us? How much better was he than ten Swanhildas?