rom the clouds, whose
immense masses of vapour coursed over the moon with the swiftness of
thought; the lake roared beneath the wind that swept the foam from its
waves; while the trees of this narrow peninsula groaned from root to
topmost branch as they bowed and swung above the torrent.

"Undine! in God's name, Undine!" cried the two men in an agony. No
answer was returned. And now, regardless of everything else, they
hurried from the cottage, one in this direction, the other in that,
searching and calling.

CHAPTER 2

The longer Huldbrand sought Undine beneath the shades of night, and
failed to find her, the more anxious and confused he became. The
impression that she was a mere phantom of the forest gained a new
ascendency over him; indeed, amid the howling of the waves and the
tempest, the crashing of the trees, and the entire change of the once
so peaceful and beautiful scene, he was tempted to view the whole
peninsula, together with the cottage and its inhabitants, as little
more than some mockery of his senses. But still he heard afar off the
fisherman's anxious and incessant shouting, "Undine!" and also his aged
wife, who was praying and singing psalms.

At length, when he drew near to the brook, which had overflowed its
banks, he perceived by the moonlight, that it had taken its wild course
directly in front of the haunted forest, so as to change the peninsula
into an island.

"Merciful God!" he breathed to himself, "if Undine has ventured a step
within that fearful wood, what will become of her? Perhaps it was all
owing to her sportive and wayward spirit, because I would give her no
account of my adventures there. And now the stream is rolling between
us, she may be weeping alone on the other side in the midst of spectral
horrors!"

A shuddering groan escaped him; and clambering over some stones and
trunks of overthrown pines, in order to step into the impetuous current,
he resolved, either by wading or swimming, to seek the wanderer on the
further shore. He felt, it is true, all the dread and shrinking awe
creeping over him which he had already suffered by daylight among the
now tossing and roaring branches of the forest. More than all, a tall
man in white, whom he knew but too well, met his view, as he stood
grinning and nodding on the grass beyond the water. But even monstrous
forms like this only impelled him to cross over toward them, when the
thought rushed upon him that Undine might be