CHAPTER XIV.
HOW BERTALDA RETURNED HOME WITH THE KNIGHT.
The Black Valley lies deep within the mountains. What it is nowcalled we do not know. At that time the people of the country gaveit this appellation on account of the deep obscurity in which thelow land lay, owing to the shadows of the lofty trees, andespecially firs, that grew there. Even the brook which bubbledbetween the rocks wore the same dark hue, and dashed along with noneof that gladness with which streams are wont to flow that have theblue sky immediately above them. Now, in the growing twilight ofevening, it looked wild and gloomy between the heights. The knighttrotted anxiously along the edge of the brook, fearful at one momentthat by delay he might allow the fugitive to advance too far, and atthe next that by too great rapidity he might overlook her in caseshe were concealing herself from him. Meanwhile he had alreadypenetrated tolerably far into the valley, and might soon hope toovertake the maiden, if he were on the right track. The fear thatthis might not be the case made his heart beat with anxiety. Wherewould the tender Bertalda tarry through the stormy night, which wasso fearful in the valley, should he fail to find her? At length hesaw something white gleaming through the branches on the slope ofthe mountain. He thought he recognized Bertalda's dress, and heturned his course in that direction. But his horse refused to goforward; it reared impatiently; and its master, unwilling to lose amoment, and seeing moreover that the copse was impassable onhorseback, dismounted; and, fastening his snorting steed to anelm-tree, he worked his way cautiously through the bushes. The branchessprinkled his forehead and cheeks with the cold drops of the eveningdew; a distant roll of thunder was heard murmuring from the otherside of the mountains; everything looked so strange that he began tofeel a dread of the white figure, which now lay only a shortdistance from him on the ground. Still he could plainly see that itwas a female, either asleep or in a swoon, and that she was attiredin long white garments, such as Bertalda had worn on that day. Hestepped close up to her, made a rustling with the branches, and lethis sword clatter, but she moved not. "Bertalda!" he exclaimed, atfirst in a low voice, and then louder and louder--still she heardnot. At last, when he uttered the dear name with a more powerfuleffort, a hollow echo from the mountain-caverns of the valleyindistinctly reverberated "Bertalda!" but still the sleeper wokenot. He bent down over her; the gloom of the valley and theobscurity of approaching night would not allow him to distinguishher features.
Just as he was stooping closer over her, with a feeling of painfuldoubt, a flash of lightning shot across the valley, and he sawbefore him a frightfully distorted countenance, and a hollow voiceexclaimed: "Give me a kiss, you enamoured swain!"
Huldbrand sprang up with a cry of horror, and the hideous figurerose with him. "Go home!" it murmured; "wizards are on the watch. Gohome! or I will have you!" and it stretched out its long white armstoward him.
"Malicious Kuhleborn!" cried the knight, recovering himself, "Whatdo you concern me, you goblin? There, take your kiss!" And hefuriously hurled his sword at the figure. But it vanished likevapor, and a gush of water which wetted him through left the knightno doubt as to the foe with whom he had been engaged.
"He wishes to frighten me back from Bertalda," said he aloud tohimself; "he thinks to terrify me with his foolish tricks, and tomake me give up the poor distressed girl to him, so that he canwreak his vengeance on her. But he shall not do that, weak spirit ofthe elements as he is. No powerless phantom can understand what ahuman heart can do when its best energies are aroused." He felt thetruth of his words, and that the very expression of them hadinspired his heart with fresh courage. It seemed too as if fortunewere on his side, for he had not reached his fastened horse, when hedistinctly heard Bertalda's plaintive voice not far distant, andcould catch her weeping accents through the ever-increasing tumultof the thunder and tempest. He hurried swiftly in the direction ofthe sound, and found the trembling girl just attempting to climb thesteep, in order to escape in any way from the dreadful gloom of thevalley. He stepped, however, lovingly in her path, and bold andproud as her resolve had before been, she now felt only too keenlythe delight, that the friend whom she so passionately loved shouldrescue her from this frightful solitude, and that the joyous life inthe castle should be again open to her. She followed almostunresisting, but so exhausted with fatigue that the knight was gladto have brought her to his horse, which he now hastily unfastened,in order to lift the fair fugitive upon it; and then, cautiouslyholding the reins, he hoped to proceed through the uncertain shadesof the valley.
But the horse had become quite unmanageable from the wild apparitionof Kuhleborn. Even the knight would have had difficulty in mountingthe rearing and snorting animal, but to place the trembling Bertaldaon its back was perfectly impossible. They determined, therefore, toreturn home on foot. Drawing the horse after him by the bridle, theknight supported the tottering girl with his other hand. Bertaldaexerted all her strength to pass quickly through the fearful valley,but weariness weighed her down like lead, and every limb trembled,partly from the terror she had endured when Kuhleborn had pursuedher, and partly from her continued alarm at the howling of the stormand the pealing of the thunder through the wooded mountain.
At last she slid from the supporting arm of her protector, andsinking down on the moss, she exclaimed: "Let me lie here, my noblelord; I suffer the punishment due to my folly, and I must now perishhere through weariness and dread."
"No, sweet friend, I will never leave you!" cried Huldbrand, vainlyendeavoring to restrain his furious steed; for, worse than before,it now began to foam and rear with excitement, until at last theknight was glad to keep the animal at a sufficient distance from theexhausted maiden lest her fears should be increased. But scarcelyhad he withdrawn a few paces with the wild steed, than she began tocall after him in the most pitiful manner, believing that he wasreally going to leave her in this horrible wilderness. He wasutterly at a loss what course to take. Gladly would he have giventhe excited beast its liberty and have allowed it to rush away intothe night and spend its fury, had he not feared that is this narrowdefile it might come thundering with its iron-shod hoofs over thevery spot where Bertalda lay.
In the midst of this extreme perplexity and distress, he heard withdelight the sound of a vehicle driving slowly down the stony roadbehind them. He called out for help; and a man's voice replied,bidding him have patience, but promising assistance; and soon after,two gray horses appeared through the bushes, and beside them thedriver in the white smock of a carter; a great white linen cloth wasnext visible, covering the goods apparently contained in the wagon.At a loud shout from their master, the obedient horses halted. Thedriver then came toward the knight, and helped him in restraininghis foaming animal.
"I see well," said he, "what ails the beast. When I first travelledthis way, my horses were no better. The fact is, there is an evilwater-spirit haunting the place, and he takes delight in this sortof mischief. But I have learned a charm; if you will let me whisperit in your horse's ear, he will stand at once just as quiet as mygray beasts are doing there."
"Try your luck then, only help us quickly!" exclaimed the impatientknight. The wagoner then drew down the head of the rearing chargerclose to his own, and whispered something in his ear. In a momentthe animal stood still and quiet, and his quick panting and reekingcondition was all that remained of his previous unmanageableness.Huldbrand had no time to inquire how all this had been effected. Heagreed with the carter that he should take Bertalda on his wagon,where, as the man assured him, there were a quantity of softcotton-bales, upon which she could be conveyed to castle Ringstetten, andthe knight was to accompany them on horseback. But the horseappeared too much exhausted by its past fury to be able to carry itsmaster so far, so the carter persuaded Huldbrand to get into thewagon with Bertalda. The horse could be fastened on behind. "We aregoing down hill," said he, "and that will make it light for my graybeasts."
The knight accepted the offer and entered the wagon with Bertalda;the horse followed patiently behind, and
the wagoner, steady andattentive, walked by the side.
In the stillness of the night, as its darkness deepened and thesubsiding tempest sounded more and more remote, encouraged by thesense of security and their fortunate escape, a confidentialconversation arose between Huldbrand and Bertalda. With flatteringwords he reproached her for her daring flight; she excused herselfwith humility and emotion, and from every word she said a gleamshone forth which disclosed distinctly to the lover that the belovedwas his. The knight felt the sense of her words far more than heregarded their meaning, and it was the sense alone to which hereplied. Presently the wagoner suddenly shouted with loud voice,--
"Up, my grays, up with your feet, keep together! remember who youare!"
The knight leaned out of the wagon and saw that the horses werestepping into the midst of a foaming stream or were already almostswimming, while the wheels of the wagon were rushing round andgleaming like mill-wheels, and the wagoner had got up in front, inconsequence of the increasing waters.
"What sort of a road is this? It goes into the middle of thestream." cried Huldbrand to his guide.
"Not at all, sir." returned the other, laughing, "it is just thereverse, the stream goes into the very middle of our road. Lookround and see how everything is covered by the water."
The whole valley indeed was suddenly filled with the surging flood,that visibly increased. "It is Kuhleborn, the evil water-spirit, whowishes to drown us!" exclaimed the knight. "Have you no charm,against him, my friend?"
"I know indeed of one," returned the wagoner, "but I cannot and maynot use it until you know who I am."
"Is this a time for riddles?" cried the knight. "The flood is everrising higher, and what does it matter to me to know who you are?"
"It does matter to you, though," said the wagoner, "for I amKuhleborn."
So saying, he thrust his distorted face into the wagon with a grin,but the wagon was a wagon no longer, the horses were not horses--allwas transformed to foam and vanished in the hissing waves, and eventhe wagoner himself, rising as a gigantic billow, drew down thevainly struggling horse beneath the waters, and then swelling higherand higher, swept over the heads of the floating pair, like someliquid tower, threatening to bury them irrecoverably.
Just then the soft voice of Undine sounded through the uproar, themoon emerged from the clouds, and by its light Undine was seen onthe heights above the valley. She rebuked, she threatened the floodsbelow; the menacing, tower-like wave vanished, muttering andmurmuring, the waters flowed gently away in the moonlight, and likea white dove, Undine flew down from the height, seized the knightand Bertalda, and bore them with her to a fresh, green, turfy spoton the hill, where with choice refreshing restoratives, shedispelled their terrors and weariness; then she assisted Bertalda tomount the white palfrey, on which she had herself ridden here, andthus all three returned back to castle Ringstetten.