"But mayhap it does concern you, though," said the guide; "for I am
Kuhleborn."

Thus speaking he thrust his head into the waggon, and laughed with a
distorted visage. But the waggon remained a waggon no longer; the
grey horses were horses no longer; all was transformed to foam--all
sank into the waters that rushed and hissed around them; while the
waggoner himself, rising in the form of a gigantic wave, dragged the
vainly-struggling courser under the waters, then rose again huge as a
liquid tower, swept over the heads of the floating pair, and was on
the point of burying them irrecoverably beneath it. Then the soft
voice of Undine was heard through the uproar; the moon emerged from
the clouds; and by its light Undine was seen on the heights above the
valley. She rebuked, she threatened the floods below her. The
menacing and tower-like billow vanished, muttering and murmuring; the
waters gently flowed away under the beams of the moon; while Undine,
like a hovering white dove, flew down from the hill, raised the
knight and Bertalda, and bore them to a green spot, where, by her
earnest efforts, she soon restored them and dispelled their terrors.
She then assisted Bertalda to mount the white palfrey on which she
had herself been borne to the valley; and thus all three returned
homeward to Castle Ringstetten.




CHAPTER 8