at his own wild dagger
had given him this strange and spectre-like aspect, as he could not deny
to himself.

"Who has done that to you?" asked Folko, yet more grave and solemn. "And
what terror makes your disordered hair stand on end?"

Sintram knew not what to answer. He felt as if a judgment were coming
on him, and a shameful degrading from his knightly rank. Suddenly Folko
drew him away from the shield, and taking him towards the rattling
window, he asked: "Whence comes this tempest?"

Still Sintram kept silence. His limbs began to tremble under him; and
Gabrielle, pale and terrified, whispered, "O Folko, my knight, what has
happened? Oh, tell me; are we come into an enchanted castle?"

"The land of our northern ancestors," replied Folko with solemnity, "is
full of mysterious knowledge. But we may not, for all that, call its
people enchanters; still this youth has cause to watch himself narrowly;
he whom the evil one has touched by so much as one hair of his head..."

Sintram heard no more; with a deep groan he staggered out of the room.
As he left it, he met old Rolf, still almost benumbed by the cold and
storms of the night. Now, in his joy at again seeing his young master,
he did not remark his altered appearance; but as he accompanied him to
his sleeping-room he said, "Witches and spirits of the tempest must
have taken up their abode on the sea-shore. I am certain that such wild
storms never arise without some devilish arts."

Sintram fell into a fainting-fit, from which Rolf could with difficulty
recover him sufficiently to appear in the great hall at the mid-day
hour. But before he went down, he caused a shield to be brought, saw
himself therein, and cut close round, in grief and horror, the rest of
his long black hair, so that he made himself look almost like a monk;
and thus he joined the others already assembled round the table.
They all looked at him with surprise; but old Biorn rose up and said
fiercely, "Are you going to betake yourself to the cloister, as well as
the fair lady your mother?"

A commanding look from the Baron of Montfaucon checked any further
outbreak; and as if in apology, Biorn added, with a forced smile, "I was
only thinking if any accident had befallen him, like Absalom's, and if
he had been obliged to save himself from being strangled by parting with
all his hair."

"You should not jest with holy things," answered the baron severely,
and all were silent. No sooner was the rep