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.