ture in the abyss appeared to him now as a
pandemonium of immitigable torture, deceptively decked out to allure
him to his ruin.

"Dahlsjoe told him he must stay at home for a few days, so as to shake
off the sickness which he seemed to have fallen into. And during this
time Ulla's affection, which now streamed bright and clear from her
candid, child-like heart, drove away the memory of his fateful
adventure in the mine-depths. Joy and happiness brought him back to
life, and to belief in his good fortune, and in the impossibility of
its being ever interfered with by any evil power.

"When he went down the pit again, everything appeared quite different
to what it used to be. The most glorious veins lay clear and distinct
before his eyes. He worked twice as zealously as before; he forgot
everything else. When he got to the surface again, it cost him an
effort of thought to remember about Pehrson Dahlsjoe, about his Ulla,
even. He felt as if divided into two halves, as if his better self, his
real personality, went down to the central point of the earth, and
there rested in bliss in the queen's arms, whilst _he_ went to his
darksome dwelling in Falun. When Ulla spoke of their love, and the
happiness of their future life together, he would begin to talk of the
splendours of the depths, and the inestimably precious treasures that
lay hidden there, and in so doing would get entangled in such
wonderful, incomprehensible sayings, that alarm and terrible anxiety
took possession of the poor child, who could not divine why Elis should
be so completely altered from his former self. He kept telling the
Captain, and Dahlsjoe himself, with the greatest delight, that he had
discovered the richest veins and the most magnificent trap-runs, and
when these turned out to be nothing but unproductive rock, he would
laugh contemptuously and say that none but he understood the secret
signs, the significant writing, fraught with hidden meaning, which the
queen's own hand had inscribed on the rocks, and that it was sufficient
to understand those signs without bringing to light what they
indicated.

"The old Captain looked sorrowfully at Elis, who spoke, with wild
gleaming eyes, of the glorious paradise which glowed down in the depths
of the earth. 'That terrible old Torbern has been at him,' he whispered
in Dahlsjoe's ear.

"'Pshaw! don't believe these miners' yarns,' cried Dahlsjoe. 'He's a
deep-thinking serious fellow, and love has turned