sacrifice, in the uncertain moonlight. He looked
down again, to see after his faithful Skovmark. Fear had likewise most
wondrously changed him. On the ground in the middle of the road were
lying dead men's bones, and hideous lizards were crawling about; and, in
defiance of the wintry season, poisonous mushrooms were growing up all
around.

"Can this be still my horse on which I am riding?" said the knight to
himself, in a low voice; "and can that trembling beast which runs at my
side be my dog?"

Then some one called after him, in a yelling voice, "Stop! stop! Take me
also with you!"

Looking round, Sintram perceived a small, frightful figure with horns,
and a face partly like a wild boar and partly like a bear, walking along
on its hind-legs, which were those of a horse; and in its hand was a
strange, hideous weapon, shaped like a hook or a sickle. It was the
being who had been wont to trouble him in his dreams; and, alas! it was
also the wretched little Master himself, who, laughing wildly, stretched
out a long claw towards the knight.

The bewildered Sintram murmured, "I must have fallen asleep; and now my
dreams are coming over me!"

"Thou art awake," replied the rider of the little horse, "but thou
knowest me also in thy dreams. For, behold! I am Death." And his
garments fell from him, and there appeared a mouldering skeleton, its
ghastly head crowned with serpents; that which he had kept hidden under
his mantle was an hour-glass with the sand almost run out. Death held
it towards the knight in his fleshless hand. The bell at the neck of the
little horse gave forth a solemn sound. It was a passing bell.

"Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" prayed Sintram; and full of
earnest devotion he rode after Death, who beckoned him on.

"He has thee not yet! He has thee not yet!" screamed the fearful fiend.
"Give thyself up to me rather. In one instant,--for swift are thy
thoughts, swift is my might,--in one instant thou shalt be in Normandy.
Helen yet blooms in beauty as when she departed hence, and this very
night she would be thine." And once again he began his unholy praises of
Gabrielle's loveliness, and Sintram's heart glowed like wild-fire in his
weak breast.

Death said nothing more, but raised the hour-glass in his right hand
yet higher and higher; and as the sand now ran out more quickly, a soft
light streamed from the glass over Sintram's countenance, and then it
seemed to him as if eternity in al