Yet I thought that by this time we should have seen Sigurd, or maybe heard his voice from the tomb.

So now I dared to call softly: "Jarl Sigurd, here is one, a friend's son, who will learn what you will." My voice seemed to fill all the ring of mountains with echoes, but there was no answer.

All was still again when the last voice came back from the hillsides.
Then I went nearer yet, and passed to the waterside, where I could look slantwise across the doorway.

And again I called, and waited for an answer that did not come.
"It seems that I must go even to the door, and maybe into the mound," I said, whispering.
"Not inside," said Kolgrim, taking hold of my arm.
But I had grown bolder with the thought that the hero seemed not angry, and now I had set my heart on winning the sword of which the jarl had told me, and I thought that I dared go even inside the tomb to speak with Sigurd.
"Bide here, and I will go at least to the door," said I.
So I stepped boldly before it, standing on the heap of newly-fallen earth that had slipped from across it.

The posts and lintel of the door were of stone slabs such as lay everywhere on the hillsides, and I stood so close that I could touch them.