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.
