oken voice. 'Let us fly from this
Court to the hills and be happy.'

"But the Princess shook her head sadly, and said: 'Alas! It is
impossible. I am betrothed to the King of the Two Sicilies.'

"Then Franz mastered himself once more, and said: 'Of course, it is
impossible. I was mad.'

"The Princess kissed her hand to him and fled.

"At that moment Franz heard a noise in the nave of the chapel; he looked
over the gallery of the organ loft, and saw sidling away in the darkness
the dim figure of a deformed man.

"That night Princess Kunigmunde had a strange dream. She thought she was
transported into a beautiful southern country where the azure sky seemed
to scintillate with the dust of myriads and myriads of diamonds, and to
sparkle with sunlight like dancing wine. The low blue hills were bare
and sparsely clothed with delicate trees, and the fields, sprinkled
with innumerable red, yellow, white and purple flowers, were bright as
fabulous Persian carpets. On a grassy knoll before her the rosy columns
of a temple shone in the gleaming dust of the atmosphere. Beside her
there was a running stream, on the bank of which grew a bay-tree.
There was a chirping of grasshoppers in the air, a noise of bees, and a
delicious warm smell of burnt grass and thyme and mint.

"Near the stream a man was standing; he was an ordinary man, and yet he
seemed to tower above the landscape without being unusually tall; his
hair was bright as gold, and his eyes, more lustrous still, reflected
the silvery blue sky and shone like opals. In his hands he held a
golden lyre, and around him a warm golden cloud seemed to rise, on a
transparent aura of light, like the glow of the sunset. In front of him
there stood a creature of the woods, a satyr, with pointed ears, cloven
hoofs, and human eyes, in his hairy hands holding a flute made out of a
reed.

"Presently the satyr breathed on his flute and a wonderful note trembled
in the air, soft, low, and liquid. The note was followed by others, and
a stillness fell upon Nature; the birds ceased to sing, the grasshoppers
were still, the bees paused. All Nature was listening and the Princess
was conscious in her dream that there were others besides herself
listening, unseen shapes and sightless phantoms; a crowd, a multitude of
attentive ghosts, that were hidden from her sight. The melody rose and
swelled in stillness; it was melting and ravishing and bold with a human
audacity. As she listened it remin