From these chances it was best to save the king, who was our
care, and at once. She heard me very bravely to the end.
"So let it be," she said, sighing. "You will suffer the treasure to
go with him?"
"That is as you will, lady," I said; "it is yours. Was it the wish
of Thorwald that it should pass to the mound with him?"
She glanced at me, half proudly and half as in some rebuke.
"Thorwald would ask for naught but his arms," she said. "The
treasure was mine, for he did but hoard to give. I would set him
forth as became Odin's champion. He was no gold lover."
"Should it not be, then, as he would have wished?" I said. "Let him
pass to the depths with his war gear, and so through Aegir's halls
to the place of Odin, as a warrior, and unburdened with the gold he
loved not at all."
She looked sharply at me, and shrank away a little, half turning
from me.
"Is the treasure so dear to you men after all?" she asked coldly.
That angered me for the moment, and I felt my face flush red, but I
held myself in.
"No," I answered as coldly. "These arms you have given us are all
the treasure we need or could ask. They are a warrior's treasure,
and mayhap we hold them as dear as did Thorwald. What else may lie
in those chests we do not know or care, save only for one reason.
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