hen she trembled. Was it the power of song and of prayer that
worked in her, or was she shuddering at the cold morning twilight that
was approaching? What were her feelings? She raised herself up, and
wanted to stop the horse and to alight; but the Christian priest held
her back with all his strength, and sang a pious song, as if that
would have the power to loosen the charm that turned her into the
hideous semblance of a frog. And the horse gallopped on more wildly
than ever; the sky turned red, the first sunbeam pierced through the
clouds, and as the flood of light came streaming down, the frog
changed its nature. Helga was again the beautiful maiden with the
wicked, demoniac spirit. He held a beautiful maiden in his arms, but
was horrified at the sight: he swung himself from the horse, and
compelled it to stand. This seemed to him a new and terrible sorcery;
but Helga likewise leaped from the saddle, and stood on the ground.
The child's short garment reached only to her knee. She plucked the
sharp knife from her girdle, and quick as lightning she rushed in upon
the astonished priest.

"Let me get at thee!" she screamed; "let me get at thee, and plunge
this knife in thy body! Thou art pale as straw, thou beardless slave!"

She pressed in upon him. They struggled together in a hard strife, but
an invisible power seemed given to the Christian captive. He held her
fast; and the old oak tree beneath which they stood came to his
assistance; for its roots, which projected over the ground, held fast
the maiden's feet that had become entangled in it. Quite close to them
gushed a spring; and he sprinkled Helga's face and neck with the fresh
water, and commanded the unclean spirit to come forth, and blessed her
in the Christian fashion; but the water of faith has no power when the
well-spring of faith flows not from within.

And yet the Christian showed his power even now, and opposed more than
the mere might of a man against the evil that struggled within the
girl. His holy action seemed to overpower her: she dropped her hands,
and gazed with frightened eyes and pale cheeks upon him who appeared
to her a mighty magician learned in secret arts; he seemed to her to
speak in a dark Runic tongue, and to be making cabalistic signs in the
air. She would not have winked had he swung a sharp knife or a
glittering axe against her; but she trembled when he signed her with
the sign of the cross on her brow and her bosom, and she sat th