"Steinar and Iduna do not return. I am afraid for them," I said at last to Freydisa.
"Then why do you not go to seek them?" she asked with a little laugh.
"I think I will," I said.
"If so, I will come with you, Olaf, for you still need a nurse, though, for my part, I hold that the lord Steinar and the lady Iduna can guard themselves as well as most folk. No, I am wrong. I mean that the lady Iduna can guard herself and the lord Steinar. Now, be not angry. Here's your cloak."
So we started, for I was urged to this foolish journey by some impulse that I could not master. There were two ways of reaching Odin's Mount; one, the shorter, over the rocks and through the forest land. The other, the longer, ran across the open plain, between the many earth tombs of the dead who had lived thousands of years before, and past the great mound in which it was said that a warrior of long ago, who was named the Wanderer, lay buried. Because of the darkness we chose this latter road, and presently found ourselves beneath the great mass of the Wanderer's Mount. Now the darkness was intense, and the lightning grew rare, for the hail and rain had ceased and the storm was rolling away.
"My counsel is," said Freydisa, "that we wait here until the moon rises, which it should do soon. When the wind has driven away the clouds it will show us our path, but if we go on in this darkness we shall fall into some pit. It is not cold to-night, and you will take no harm."
"No, indeed," I answered, "for now I am as strong again as ever I was."
So we stayed till the lightning, flashing for the last time, showed us a man and a woman standing quite close to us, although we had not heard them because of the wind. They were Steinar and Iduna, talking together eagerly, with their faces very near to each other. At the same moment they saw us. Steinar said nothing, for he seemed confused, but Iduna ran to us and said: "Thanks be to the gods who send you, Olaf. The great storm caught us at Odin's temple, where we were forced to shelter. Then, fearing that you would grow frightened, we started, and lost our way."
"Is it so?" I answered. "Surely Steinar would have known this road even in the dark. But what matter, since I have found you?"