The noble lady had just unbuckled her knight’s armour with her own
fair hands,--on the field of battle alone were pages or esquires bidden
handle Montfaucon’s armour,--and now she was throwing over his shoulders
his mantle of blue velvet embroidered with gold, when the door opened
gently, and Sintram entered the room, humbly greeting them. Gabrielle
received him kindly, as she was wont, but suddenly turning pale, she
looked away and said:
“O Sintram, what has happened to you? And how can one single night have
so fearfully altered you?”
Sintram stood still, thunderstruck, and feeling as if he himself did
not know what had befallen him. Then Folko took him by the hand, led him
towards a bright polished shield, and said very earnestly, “Look here at
yourself, young knight!”
At the first glance Sintram drew back horrified. He fancied that he saw
the little Master before him with that single upright feather sticking
out of his cap; but he at length perceived that the mirror was only
showing him his own image and none other, and that his own wild dagger
had given him this strange and spectre-like aspect, as he could not deny
to himself.
“Who has done that to you?” asked Folko, yet more grave and solemn. “And
what terror makes your disordered hair stand on end?”
Sintram knew not what to answer. He felt as if a judgment were coming
on him, and a shameful degrading from his knightly rank. Suddenly Folko
drew him away from the shield, and taking him towards the rattling
window, he asked: “Whence comes this tempest?”
Still Sintram kept silence. His limbs began to tremble under him; and
Gabrielle, pale and terrified, whispered, “O Folko, my knight, what has
happened? Oh, tell me; are we come into an enchanted castle?”
“The land of our northern ancestors,” replied Folko with solemnity, “is
full of mysterious knowledge. But we may not, for all that, call its
people enchanters; still this youth has cause to watch himself narrowly;
he whom the evil one has touched by so much as one hair of his head...”
Sintram heard no more; with a deep groan he staggered out of the room.
As he left it, he met old Rolf, still almost benumbed by the cold and
storms of the night. Now, in his joy at again seeing his young master,
he did not remark his altered appearance; but as he accompanied him to
his sleeping-room he said, “Witches and spirits of the tempest must
have taken up their abode on the sea-shore. I am certain that such wild
storms never arise without some devilish arts.”
Sintram fell into a fainting-fit, from which Rolf could with difficulty
recover him sufficiently to appear in the great hall at the mid-day
hour. But before he went down, he caused a shield to be brought, saw
himself therein, and cut close round, in grief and horror, the rest of
his long black hair, so that he made himself look almost like a monk;
and thus he joined the others already assembled round the table.
They all looked at him with surprise; but old Biorn rose up and said
fiercely, “Are you going to betake yourself to the cloister, as well as
the fair lady your mother?”
A commanding look from the Baron of Montfaucon checked any further
outbreak; and as if in apology, Biorn added, with a forced smile, “I was
only thinking if any accident had befallen him, like Absalom’s, and if
he had been obliged to save himself from being strangled by parting with
all his hair.”
“You should not jest with holy things,” answered the baron severely,
and all were silent. No sooner was the repast ended, than Folko and
Gabrielle, with a grave and courteous salutation, retired to their
apartments.