And he sat down again upon the stone, and covered his face with his hands.
And when about midnight the two came, Halfred pointed towards the heavens--
"There are so many thousand thousand stars, but they are all dumb to me. Unceasingly, for seven days and nights, have I asked myself, and asked the stars, wherefore have the Gods allowed this awful thing to happen? Is it a crime that I vowed a vow, such as many which are vowed in the north? Hundreds of women had heard it without resentment. Is it my crime that Dame Harthild was differently minded? And it was no lie that I bore love to her, on that night. Love's fulness truly it was not--as Sudha named it. That may be. Never knew I love's fulness. And be it so. If the Gods hate me for an evil deed, wherefore do they not punish me alone? Wherefore let others--so many others--suffer and atone for _my_ sin? Wherefore should King Hartstein perish, and many other princes, and thousands of men from all coasts and islands? Wherefore should Dame Harthild perish, whom they would have avenged, and our unborn son? How have all these sinned? Answer me, ye two, if ye know more than do I and the stars?"
But his blood brethren were silent, and Halfred continued--
"Yet there must be Gods! Who has else bound the giants, calmed the sea, levelled the earth, arched the heavens, and strewn the stars? Who else guides the battle? and how, after death, come mighty heroes to Valhalla, and the evil to the dark serpent hell? For that awful fearful thought which already from afar has come darkly into my mind, that perhaps no Gods live! I will think it no more. There must be Gods. I cannot cannot think otherwise, and my throbbing brain is driven to frenzy. And if there are Gods, they must be also good, and wise, and mighty, and just. Else it would be indeed yet more frightful to think that beings, mightier and wiser than mankind, delighted in the misery of men, like an evil urchin who for sport impales a captured beetle. This, therefore, one dare not think,--neither, indeed,--that there are no Gods, or that there are evil Gods. And therefore will I in devout submission endure this awful calamity, waiting till, in the course of years, I guess this riddle also. So hard an one was never yet set before me. But ye, ye faithful ones, who stood by me to the death, and spared not your own kindred, and have lost your nearest through me; ye will I never forsake, all my life long; and great gratitude will I bear ye, and my dearest shall ye be for evermore. For ye alone will I live."