But ask
the poor benighted Earth, wherefore she looks so dark! Bid her again
smile as she was wont to do! Old man, she cannot smile; and now that
the gentle compassionate Moon has disappeared behind the clouds with her
only funeral veil, she cannot even weep. And in this hour of darkness
all that is wild and mad wakes up. So, stop me not, I tell thee, stop me
not! Hurra, behind, behind the pale Moon!" His voice changed to a hoarse
murmur at these last words, storm-like. He tore away from the trembling
old man, and rushed through the forest. Rolf knelt down and prayed, and
wept silently.

CHAPTER 12

Where the sea-beach was wildest, and the cliffs most steep and rugged,
and close by the remains of three shattered oaks, haply marking where,
in heathen times, human victims had been sacrificed, now stood Sintram,
leaning, as if exhausted, on his drawn sword, and gazing intently on
the dancing waves. The moon had again shone forth; and as her pale beams
fell on his motionless figure through the quivering branches of the
trees, he might have been taken for some fearful idol-image. Suddenly
some one on the left half raised himself out of the high withered
grass, uttered a faint groan, and again lay down. Then between the two
companions began this strange talk:

"Thou that movest thyself so strangely in the grass, dost thou belong to
the living or to the dead?"

"As one may take it. I am dead to heaven and joy--I live for hell and
anguish."

"Methinks that I have heard thee before."

"Oh, yes."

"Art thou a troubled spirit? and was thy life-blood poured out here of
old in sacrifice to idols?"

"I am a troubled spirit; but no man ever has, or ever can, shed my
blood. I have been cast down--oh, into a frightful abyss!"

"And didst thou break there thy neck?"

"I live,--and shall live longer than thou."

"Almost thou seemest to me the crazy pilgrim with the dead men's bones."

"I am not he, though often we are companions,--ay, walk together right
near and friendly. But to you be it said, he thinks me mad. If sometimes
I urge him, and say to him, 'Take!' then he hesitates and points
upwards towards the stars. And again, if I say, 'Take not!' then, to a
certainty, he seizes on it in some awkward manner, and so he spoils
my best joys and pleasures. But, in spite of this, we remain in some
measure brothers in arms, and, indeed, all but kinsmen."

"Give me hold of thy hand, and let me help thee to get up."