rian walked over
to the Enchanter, who sat fuming with anger and impatience, and offered
to go with him. The Knight bade Florian mount the horse which he was
holding; and amid the cat-calls and hooting of the pages, master and boy
galloped away.

All day long they rode, and when it was near the end of the afternoon
Florian found himself at the edge of a wild and desolate moor. Within
the great circle of the horizon, under the pale sky, not a tree, not a
house, not a shepherd's hut even was to be seen--nothing but the great
barren waste rolling, rising and falling to the very edge of the world.
Lower and lower sank the sun; it grew cold, and a blue mist fell.
Twilight came, a green, mysterious twilight.

Suddenly, from a hillock of the moor, Florian beheld afar the enchanted
dwelling. A great sunken marsh lay before him, beginning at the foot of
the little hill and stretching away, league after league, till its
farther shore was hidden in the gathering darkness. The autumn wind
stirred the dead sedges at its brim, and though the dying twilight was
still gleaming in the sky, the great bog had caught little of its glow,
and lay full of coiling blue mists, pale quagmires, and islands of
mysterious darkness. A dreadful moaning cry, uttered by some demon of
the moor, sounded through the mist, chilling the blood in Florian's
veins; and as if in answer to the cry, thousands upon thousands of
will-o'-the-wisps appeared, darting and dancing. In the very heart of this
terrible marsh a great black rock uprose, and on this rock, its turrets
and battlements outlined against the burning face of the moon, stood the
castle. Ghostly lights, now green, now blue, flickered in its windows.

The Enchanter reined up his horse at the brink of the mire, and cried,--

"List! List!
Will-o'-the-Wisp,
Lend me your light."

Scarcely had the last word fallen from the Enchanter's mouth, when the
dancing witch-fires hurried toward him from all sides of the marsh. Soon
a pale road leading across the bog to the castle stood revealed, an
enchanted road which melted away behind the riders as smoke melts into
the winter air. To the very gates of his castle did the ghost-fires
accompany the Enchanter; then, rising swiftly high into the air, they
fled like startled birds, in every direction.

Doors opened of their own will, strange goblins and ghostly creatures
passed, and bright, whirling globes of fire fled hissing across the
castle courtyard.