When they had gone, I pushed the corpse aside and got up to go and search for the girl. I had not much hope of finding her; I knew the fate of girls in sacked towns. The sword was loose now, I pulled it out easily. I had never used such a weapon and tried slashing at some of the bodies I passed. The thing was heavy and hard to handle, but I discovered the balance and began to get the feel of it as I walked, thus gaining some much-needed confidence. As it happened, I was not attacked. Most of the fighting was going on in the lower streets, round the harbour forts, which appeared to be holding out. When I saw anyone I took cover, and in the general con- fusion escaped observation. The High House was almost burnt out already, only the shell still standing. Smoke and flames spouted towards the sky, the whole interior was incandescent. I approached as close as I could, but was driven back by the smoke and the intense heat. It was quite impossible to get inside. In any case, nobody could have survived in such an inferno. My face was scorched, sparks were smouldering in my hair, I crushed them out with my hands.
I came upon her by chance, not far away, lying face down on the stones. A little blood had trickled out of her mouth. Her neck had an unnatural twist; a living girl could not have turned her head at that angle: the neck was broken. She had been dragged by the hair, hands which had twisted it into a sort of rope had dulled its silvery brightness. On her back blood was still fresh in places, wet and bright red; in other places it had caked black on the white flesh. I looked particularly at one arm, on which the circular marks of teeth stood out clearly. The bones of the forearm were broken, the sharp pointed ends of bone projected at the wrist through the torn tissue. I felt I had been defrauded: I alone should have done the breaking with tender love; I was the only person entitled to inflict wounds. I leaned forward and touched her cold skin.
I went to look in at the cottage window, taking care not to go near enough to be seen from inside. A lot of people were crowded into a small smoky room, firelight flickering red on their faces, reminding me of a medieval picture of hell. At first I could not make out any words; they were all talking at once. I recognized one woman, unusually tall, handsome in a forbidding way; I had seen her at the High House. Now she was with a man she called father who sat just inside the window. Because he was so close to me, his was the first voice I understood. He was relating the legend of the fjord, how every year at the winter solstice a beautiful girl had to be sacrificed to the dragon that lived in its depths. The other voices gradually became silent when he began describing the rite itself. 'We untie her as soon as we get her up there on the rock. She must struggle a bit, otherwise the dragon might think we'd palmed off a dead girl on him. The water foams down below. The monster's great scaly coils appear. Then we hurl her down. The whole fjord becomes a maelstrom, blood and foam flying in all directions.'
A lively discussion of the sacrifice followed, different people speaking in turn. They might have been talking about a football match between their team and a rival town. Somebody said: 'We haven't so many good-looking girls to spare. Why should we give one of them to the dragon? Why not sacrifice a stranger, some foreign girl who means nothing to any of us?' The tone of voice suggested that the speaker referred to a special person, whose identity was known to all present. The father started raising objections, but was silenced by his daughter, who called out her agreement, launching into a vicious tirade of which I only caught isolated phrases. 'Pale girls who look as pure as if they were made of glass . . . smash them to smithereens. . . . And I
