"Ho, ho! my active young sir, that might bring you no good. Yet, in
fact, you have already helped to raise me. Give heed awhile."

Wilder and ever wilder were the strugglings on the ground; thick clouds
hurried over the moon and the stars, on a long unknown wild journey; and
Sintram's thoughts grew no less wild and stormy, while far and near an
awful howling could be heard amidst the trees and the grass. At length
the mysterious being arose from the ground. As if with a fearful
curiosity, the moon, through a rent in the clouds, cast a beam upon
Sintram's companion, and made clear to the shuddering youth that the
little Master stood, by him.

"Avaunt!" cried he, "I will listen no more to thy evil stories about the
knight Paris: they would end by driving me quite mad."

"My stories about Paris are not needed for that!" grinned the little
Master. "It is enough that the Helen of thy heart should be journeying
towards Montfaucon. Believe me, madness has thee already, head and
heart. Or wouldest thou that she should remain? For that, however, thou
must be more courteous to me than thou art now."

Therewith he raised his voice towards the sea, as if fiercely rebuking
it, so that Sintram could not but shudder and tremble before the dwarf.
But he checked himself, and grasping his sword-hilt with both hands, he
said, contemptuously: "Thou and Gabrielle! what acquaintance hast thou
with Gabrielle?"

"Not much," was the reply. And the little Master might be seen to quake
with fear and rage as he continued: "I cannot well bear the name of
thy Helen; do not din it in my ears ten times in a breath. But if the
tempest should increase? If the waves should swell, and roll on till
they form a foaming ring round the whole coast of Norway? The voyage to
Montfaucon must in that case be altogether given up, and thy Helen would
remain here, at least through the long, long, dark winter."

"If! if!" replied Sintram, with scorn. "Is the sea thy bond-slave? Are
the storms thy fellow-workmen?"

"They are rebels, accursed rebels," muttered the little Master in his
red beard. "Thou must lend me thy aid, sir knight, if I am to subdue
them; but thou hast not the heart for it."

"Boaster, evil boaster!" answered the youth; "what dost thou ask of me?"

"Not much, sir knight; nothing at all for one who has strength and
ardour of soul. Thou needest only look at the sea steadily and keenly
for one half-hour, without ever ceasing to wish with all t