on the pistol in his belt.

"Yes," said Hund, trembling; "the bird saw it. Did you see it?"

"See what?"

"The water-sprite, Uldra. Before you throw me in to the water-sprite,
we will see which is the strongest." And in desperation, Hund, unarmed
as he was, threw himself upon the pirate, sprang at his throat, and both
wrestled with all their force. Rolf could not but look; and he saw that
the pirate had drawn forth his pistol, and that all would be over with
Hund in a moment if he did not interfere. He stood forward between the
two pine stems on the ridge of the rock, and uttered very loud the
mournful cry which had so terrified his enemies at Vogel islet. The
combatants flew asunder as if parted by a flash of lightning. Both
looked up to the point whence the sound had come, and there they saw
what they supposed to be Rolf's spectre pointing at them, and the eyes
staring as when looking up from the waters of the fiord. How could
these guilty and superstitious men doubt that it was Rolf's spectre
which, rising through the centre of the tarn, had caused the late
commotion in its waters? Away they fled, at first in different
directions; but it amused Rolf to observe that, rather than be alone,
Hund turned to follow the track of the tyrant who had just been
threatening and insulting him, and driving him to struggle for his life.

"Ay," thought Rolf, "it is his conscience that makes me so much more
terrible to him than that ruffian. I never hurt a hair of his head; and
yet, through his conscience, my face is worse than the blasting
lightning to his eyes.--When will all the people hereabouts find out, as
my mistress said when I was a boy,--when will people find out that the
demons and sprites they live in fear of all come out of their own heads
and hearts? Here, in Hund's case, is guilt shaping out visions
whichever way he turns. Not one of his ghost-stories is there for
months past, but I am at the bottom of; and that only through his
consciousness of hating and wanting to injure me. Then, in the opposite
case--of one as innocent as the whitest flower in all this pasture--in
my Erica's case, the ghosts she sees are all from passions that leave
her heart pure, but bewilder her eyes. It is the fear that she was
early made subject to, and the grief that she feels for her mother, that
create demons and sprites for her. The day may come, if I can make her
happy enough, when I may convince her that, for all she n