I am going away now at once." His explanation had a strange effect.

The dwarf drew nearer, twirled himself rapidly round three times as though waltzing; then, holding his torch a little to one side, turned up his thin, pale countenance, and, fixing his gaze on Sir Philip, studied every feature of his face with absorbing interest.

Then he burst into a violent fit of laughter.
"At last--at last ?" he cried in fluent English.

"Going now?
Going, you say?
Never! never! You will never go away any more.

No, not without something stolen! The dead have summoned you here! Their white bony fingers have dragged you across the deep! Did you not hear their voices, cold and hollow as the winter wind, calling, calling you, and saying, 'Come, come, proud robber, from over the far seas; come and gather the beautiful rose of the northern forest'?
Yes, Yes! You have obeyed the dead--the dead who feign sleep, but are ever wakeful;--you have come as a thief in the golden midnight, and the thing you seek is the life of Sigurd! Yes--yes! it is true.