ting
across his mind, he saw something white glimmer through the branches on
the ascent of the mountain. He thought he recognized Bertalda's robe;
and he directed his course towards it. But his horse refused to go
forward; he reared with a fury so uncontrollable, and his master was so
unwilling to lose a moment, that (especially as he saw the thickets were
altogether impassable on horseback) he dismounted, and, having fastened
his snorting steed to an elm, worked his way with caution through the
matted underwood. The branches, moistened by the cold drops of the
evening dew, struck against his forehead and cheeks; distant thunder
muttered from the further side of the mountains; and everything put on
so strange an appearance, that he began to feel a dread of the white
figure, which now lay at a short distance from him upon the ground.
Still, he could see distinctly that it was a female, either asleep or
in a swoon, and dressed in long white garments such as Bertalda had worn
the past day. Approaching quite near to her, he made a rustling with the
branches and a ringing with his sword; but she did not move.

"Bertalda!" he cried, at first low, then louder and louder; yet she
heard him not. At last, when he uttered the dear name with an energy yet
more powerful, a hollow echo from the mountain-summits around the valley
returned the deadened sound, "Bertalda!" Still the sleeper continued
insensible. He stooped down; but the duskiness of the valley, and the
obscurity of twilight would not allow him to distinguish her features.
While, with painful uncertainty, he was bending over her, a flash of
lightning suddenly shot across the valley. By this stream of light he
saw a frightfully distorted visage close to his own, and a hoarse voice
reached his ear:

"You enamoured swain, give me a kiss!" Huldbrand sprang upon his feet
with a cry of horror, and the hideous figure rose with him.

"Go home!" it cried, with a deep murmur: "the fiends are abroad. Go
home! or I have you!" And it stretched towards him its long white arms.

"Malicious Kuhleborn!" exclaimed the knight, with restored energy; "if
Kuhleborn you are, what business have you here?--what's your will, you
goblin? There, take your kiss!" And in fury he struck his sword at the
form. But it vanished like vapour; and a rush of water, which wetted
him through and through, left him in no doubt with what foe he had been
engaged.

"He wishes to frighten me back from my pursuit