longer called her to myself MY white lady.
Whenever a choice was necessary, I always chose the path which seemed to
lead downwards.

At length I began to find that these regions were inhabited. From behind
a rock a peal of harsh grating laughter, full of evil humour, rang
through my ears, and, looking round, I saw a queer, goblin creature,
with a great head and ridiculous features, just such as those described,
in German histories and travels, as Kobolds. "What do you want with me?"
I said. He pointed at me with a long forefinger, very thick at the root,
and sharpened to a point, and answered, "He! he! he! what do YOU
want here?" Then, changing his tone, he continued, with mock
humility--"Honoured sir, vouchsafe to withdraw from thy slaves the
lustre of thy august presence, for thy slaves cannot support its
brightness." A second appeared, and struck in: "You are so big, you keep
the sun from us. We can't see for you, and we're so cold." Thereupon
arose, on all sides, the most terrific uproar of laughter, from voices
like those of children in volume, but scrannel and harsh as those of
decrepit age, though, unfortunately, without its weakness. The whole
pandemonium of fairy devils, of all varieties of fantastic ugliness,
both in form and feature, and of all sizes from one to four feet, seemed
to have suddenly assembled about me. At length, after a great babble of
talk among themselves, in a language unknown to me, and after seemingly
endless gesticulation, consultation, elbow-nudging, and unmitigated
peals of laughter, they formed into a circle about one of their number,
who scrambled upon a stone, and, much to my surprise, and somewhat to
my dismay, began to sing, in a voice corresponding in its nature to his
talking one, from beginning to end, the song with which I had brought
the light into the eyes of the white lady. He sang the same air too;
and, all the time, maintained a face of mock entreaty and worship;
accompanying the song with the travestied gestures of one playing on
the lute. The whole assembly kept silence, except at the close of every
verse, when they roared, and danced, and shouted with laughter, and
flung themselves on the ground, in real or pretended convulsions of
delight. When he had finished, the singer threw himself from the top
of the stone, turning heels over head several times in his descent; and
when he did alight, it was on the top of his head, on which he hopped
about, making the most grotesqu