, either asleep or in a swoon, and that she was attired
in long white garments, such as Bertalda had worn on that day. He
stepped close up to her, made a rustling with the branches, and let
his sword clatter, but she moved not. "Bertalda!" he exclaimed, at
first in a low voice, and then louder and louder--still she heard
not. At last, when he uttered the dear name with a more powerful
effort, a hollow echo from the mountain-caverns of the valley
indistinctly reverberated "Bertalda!" but still the sleeper woke
not. He bent down over her; the gloom of the valley and the
obscurity of approaching night would not allow him to distinguish
her features.

Just as he was stooping closer over her, with a feeling of painful
doubt, a flash of lightning shot across the valley, and he saw
before him a frightfully distorted countenance, and a hollow voice
exclaimed: "Give me a kiss, you enamoured swain!"

Huldbrand sprang up with a cry of horror, and the hideous figure
rose with him. "Go home!" it murmured; "wizards are on the watch. Go
home! or I will have you!" and it stretched out its long white arms
toward him.

"Malicious Kuhleborn!" cried the knight, recovering himself, "What
do you concern me, you goblin? There, take your kiss!" And he
furiously hurled his sword at the figure. But it vanished like
vapor, and a gush of water which wetted him through left the knight
no doubt as to the foe with whom he had been engaged.

"He wishes to frighten me back from Bertalda," said he aloud to
himself; "he thinks to terrify me with his foolish tricks, and to
make me give up the poor distressed girl to him, so that he can
wreak his vengeance on her. But he shall not do that, weak spirit of
the elements as he is. No powerless phantom can understand what a
human heart can do when its best energies are aroused." He felt the
truth of his words, and that the very expression of them had
inspired his heart with fresh courage. It seemed too as if fortune
were on his side, for he had not reached his fastened horse, when he
distinctly heard Bertalda's plaintive voice not far distant, and
could catch her weeping accents through the ever-increasing tumult
of the thunder and tempest. He hurried swiftly in the direction of
the sound, and found the trembling girl just attempting to climb the
steep, in order to escape in any way from the dreadful gloom of the
valley. He stepped, however, lovingly in her path, and bold and
proud as her resolve had befo