Ornulf!
HIORDIS AND SEVERAL MEN. To arms! to arms!
DAGNY (simultaneously). My father!
SIGURD (as if seized by a foreboding). Ornulf----! Ah, Gunnar, Gunnar!
GUNNAR (draws his sword). Up all my men! Vengeance for Egil's death!
(ORNULF enters, with EGIL in his arms.)
GUNNAR (with a shriek). Egil!
ORNULF. Here I bring thee little Egil.
ALL (one to another). Egil! Egil alive!
GUNNAR (letting his sword fall). Woe is me! what have I done?
DAGNY. Oh, Thorolf, my brother!
SIGURD. I knew it! I knew it!
ORNULF (setting EGIL down). There, Gunnar, hast thou thy pretty
boy again.
EGIL. Father! Old Ornulf would not do me ill, as thou saidst when
I went away.
ORNULF (to HIORDIS). Now have I atoned for thy father; now surely
there may be peace between us.
HIORDIS (with repressed emotion). Mayhap!
GUNNAR (as if waking up). Is it a ghastly dream that maddens me!
Thou--thou bringest Egil home!
ORNULF. As thou seest; but in truth he has been near his death.
GUNNAR. That I know.
ORNULF. And hast no more joy in his return?
GUNNAR. Had he come sooner, I had been glad indeed. But tell me
all that has befallen!
ORNULF. That is soon done. Kare the Peasant was plotting evil
against you; with other caitiffs he fared southward after Egil.
GUNNAR. Kare! (To himself.
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