as if shot and, with
bated breath, listened while Thomas continued:

"Since then, I've been as if bewitched. I haven't chanced across a bit
of game and I feel like a fool. Something happened to me about
twilight--the devil take it, one can't help believing in spirits.
Mother, I saw a beautiful horse, and no one was on it. If it had only
been a real horse, one that would fetch money! But I, like a fool, was
frightened when it galloped past me, with its flying mane and
clattering hoofs. But, before I'd made up my mind that it was a real
horse and that ghost stories were stupid stuff--heigho, it was gone."

"Nay, Thomas, take care! There's something in those stories after all.
Come, stand here, hold your hand over the fire and swear that you'll
keep quiet, and I'll tell you something."

"What do you happen to know?"

"More than your thick head can hold. I tell you there are spirits, and
the Lady of the Lake is lying on the bed in there."

"Mother, you've gone crazy."

"Take care! she's ordered me to cook some soup for her."

"And so the water-fairies eat soup. I'm not afraid of any creature that
eats cooked victuals. I'd like to take a look at the Lady of the Lake."

The old woman tried to keep him back, but he forced his way into the
room. When he beheld Irma, he stood still, as if rooted to the spot.
Suddenly he exclaimed:

"She's a woman like yourself, only she's much handsomer. If she were
the Lady of the Lake, she'd have swan's feet, as far as I know. Mother,
who is it?"

"I don't know."

"Then I'll ask her."

The old woman tried to restrain him, but Irma had already risen to her
feet. She looked about her with a vacant stare and opened her lips, but
could not speak.

"It's you!" cried Thomas suddenly. "That's splendid."

He wanted to seize her, but Zenza held him back.

"It's you!" he cried again. "You've lost your way and here you are;
that's splendid."

"Do you know me?"

"Why, who doesn't know you? you're the king's sweetheart and now
you're--"

Irma's loud shriek of despair drowned the last words of the brutal
fellow.

"Hurrah!" shouted Thomas. "Out with you, mother; and you, too, Esther.
I don't need either of you."

"Let her go! You shan't touch her," cried the mother.

"Shan't I? and who's to hinder me?"

The mother struggled with him, but he hurled her aside. Unable to think
of any other expedient, she seized the vessel of boiling broth and
swore that she would dash it in his f