that invaded our solitude. What followed I cannot clearly remember. The
succeeding horror almost obliterated it. I woke as a grey dawn stole
into the cave. The damsel had disappeared; but in the shrubbery, at the
mouth of the cave, stood a strange horrible object. It looked like an
open coffin set up on one end; only that the part for the head and
neck was defined from the shoulder-part. In fact, it was a rough
representation of the human frame, only hollow, as if made of decaying
bark torn from a tree.

It had arms, which were only slightly seamed, down from the
shoulder-blade by the elbow, as if the bark had healed again from the
cut of a knife. But the arms moved, and the hand and the fingers were
tearing asunder a long silky tress of hair. The thing turned round--it
had for a face and front those of my enchantress, but now of a pale
greenish hue in the light of the morning, and with dead lustreless eyes.
In the horror of the moment, another fear invaded me. I put my hand to
my waist, and found indeed that my girdle of beech-leaves was gone.
Hair again in her hands, she was tearing it fiercely. Once more, as she
turned, she laughed a low laugh, but now full of scorn and derision; and
then she said, as if to a companion with whom she had been talking while
I slept, "There he is; you can take him now." I lay still, petrified
with dismay and fear; for I now saw another figure beside her, which,
although vague and indistinct, I yet recognised but too well. It was the
Ash-tree. My beauty was the Maid of the Alder! and she was giving
me, spoiled of my only availing defence, into the hands of bent his
Gorgon-head, and entered the cave. I could not stir. He drew near me.
His ghoul-eyes and his ghastly face fascinated me. He came stooping,
with the hideous hand outstretched, like a beast of prey. I had given
myself up to a death of unfathomable horror, when, suddenly, and just as
he was on the point of seizing me, the dull, heavy blow of an axe
echoed through the wood, followed by others in quick repetition. The
Ash shuddered and groaned, withdrew the outstretched hand, retreated
backwards to the mouth of the cave, then turned and disappeared amongst
the trees. The other walking Death looked at me once, with a careless
dislike on her beautifully moulded features; then, heedless any more
to conceal her hollow deformity, turned her frightful back and likewise
vanished amid the green obscurity without. I lay and wept. The Maid o