Where the sea-beach was wildest, and the cliffs most steep and rugged,
and close by the remains of three shattered oaks, haply marking where,
in heathen times, human victims had been sacrificed, now stood Sintram,
leaning, as if exhausted, on his drawn sword, and gazing intently on
the dancing waves. The moon had again shone forth; and as her pale beams
fell on his motionless figure through the quivering branches of the
trees, he might have been taken for some fearful idol-image. Suddenly
some one on the left half raised himself out of the high withered
grass, uttered a faint groan, and again lay down. Then between the two
companions began this strange talk:
“Thou that movest thyself so strangely in the grass, dost thou belong to
the living or to the dead?”
“As one may take it. I am dead to heaven and joy--I live for hell and
anguish.”
“Methinks that I have heard thee before.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Art thou a troubled spirit? and was thy life-blood poured out here of
old in sacrifice to idols?”
“I am a troubled spirit; but no man ever has, or ever can, shed my
blood. I have been cast down--oh, into a frightful abyss!”
“And didst thou break there thy neck?”
“I live,--and shall live longer than thou.”
“Almost thou seemest to me the crazy pilgrim with the dead men’s bones.”
“I am not he, though often we are companions,--ay, walk together right
near and friendly. But to you be it said, he thinks me mad. If sometimes
I urge him, and say to him, ‘Take!’ then he hesitates and points
upwards towards the stars. And again, if I say, ‘Take not!’ then, to a
certainty, he seizes on it in some awkward manner, and so he spoils
my best joys and pleasures. But, in spite of this, we remain in some
measure brothers in arms, and, indeed, all but kinsmen.”
“Give me hold of thy hand, and let me help thee to get up.”
“Ho, ho! my active young sir, that might bring you no good. Yet, in
fact, you have already helped to raise me. Give heed awhile.”
Wilder and ever wilder were the strugglings on the ground; thick clouds
hurried over the moon and the stars, on a long unknown wild journey; and
Sintram’s thoughts grew no less wild and stormy, while far and near an
awful howling could be heard amidst the trees and the grass. At length
the mysterious being arose from the ground. As if with a fearful
curiosity, the moon, through a rent in the clouds, cast a beam upon
Sintram’s companion, and made clear to the shuddering youth that the
little Master stood, by him.
“Avaunt!” cried he, “I will listen no more to thy evil stories about the
knight Paris: they would end by driving me quite mad.”
“My stories about Paris are not needed for that!” grinned the little
Master. “It is enough that the Helen of thy heart should be journeying
towards Montfaucon. Believe me, madness has thee already, head and
heart. Or wouldest thou that she should remain? For that, however, thou
must be more courteous to me than thou art now.”
Therewith he raised his voice towards the sea, as if fiercely rebuking
it, so that Sintram could not but shudder and tremble before the dwarf.
But he checked himself, and grasping his sword-hilt with both hands, he
said, contemptuously: “Thou and Gabrielle! what acquaintance hast thou
with Gabrielle?”
“Not much,” was the reply. And the little Master might be seen to quake
with fear and rage as he continued: “I cannot well bear the name of
thy Helen; do not din it in my ears ten times in a breath. But if the
tempest should increase? If the waves should swell, and roll on till
they form a foaming ring round the whole coast of Norway? The voyage to
Montfaucon must in that case be altogether given up, and thy Helen would
remain here, at least through the long, long, dark winter.”
“If! if!” replied Sintram, with scorn. “Is the sea thy bond-slave? Are
the storms thy fellow-workmen?”
“They are rebels, accursed rebels,” muttered the little Master in his
red beard. “Thou must lend me thy aid, sir knight, if I am to subdue
them; but thou hast not the heart for it.”
“Boaster, evil boaster!” answered the youth; “what dost thou ask of me?”
“Not much, sir knight; nothing at all for one who has strength and
ardour of soul. Thou needest only look at the sea steadily and keenly
for one half-hour, without ever ceasing to wish with all thy might that
it should foam and rage and swell, and never again rest till winter has
laid its icy hold upon your mountains. Then winter is enough to hinder
Duke Menelaus from his voyage to Montfaucon. And now give me a lock
of your black hair, which is blowing so wildly about your head, like
ravens’ or vultures’ wings.”
The youth drew his sharp dagger, madly cut off a lock of his hair,
threw it to the strange being, and now gazed, as he desired, powerfully
wishing, on the waves of the sea. And softly, quite softly, did the
waters stir themselves, as one whispers in troubled dreams who would
gladly rest and cannot. Sintram was on the point of giving up, when in
the moonbeams a ship appeared, with white-swelling sails, towards the
south. Anguish came over him, that Gabrielle would soon thus quickly
sail away; he wished again with all his power, and fixed his eyes
intently on the watery abyss. “Sintram,” a voice might have said to
him--“ah, Sintram, art thou indeed the same who so lately wert gazing on
the moistened heaven of the eyes of Gabrielle?”
And now the waters heaved more mightily, and the howling tempest swept
over the ocean; the breakers, white with foam, became visible in the
moonlight. Then the little Master threw the lock of Sintram’s hair up
towards the clouds, and, as it was blown to and fro by the blast of
wind, the storm burst in all its fury, so that sea and sky were covered
with one thick cloud, and far off might be heard the cries of distress
from many a sinking vessel.
But the crazy pilgrim with the dead men’s bones rose up in the midst of
the waves, close to the shore, gigantic, tall, fearfully rocking; the
boat in which he stood was hidden from sight, so mightily raged the
waves round about it.
“Thou must save him, little Master--thou must certainly save him,” cried
Sintram’s voice, angrily entreating, through the roaring of the winds
and waves. But the dwarf replied, with a laugh: “Be quite at rest for
him; he will be able to save himself. The waves can do him no harm.
Seest thou? They are only begging of him, and therefore they jump up so
boldly round him; and he gives them bountiful alms--very bountiful, that
I can assure thee.”
In fact, as it seemed, the pilgrim threw some bones into the sea, and
passed scatheless on his way. Sintram felt his blood run cold with
horror, and he rushed wildly towards the castle. His companion had
either fled or vanished away.