The hard spirit of the fierce lord of the castle was now quite broken, and he watched with increased humility every look of Folko and Gabrielle.But they withdrew more and more into the happy solitude of their own apartments, where they enjoyed, in the midst of the sharp winter, a bright spring-tide of happiness.The wounded condition of Folko did not hinder the evening delights of songs and music and poetry--but rather a new charm was added to them when the tall, handsome knight leant on the arm of his delicate lady, and they thus, changing as it were their deportment and duties, walked slowly through the torch-lit halls, scattering their kindly greetings like flowers among the crowds of men and women.
All this time little or nothing was heard of poor Sintram.The last wild outbreak of his father had increased the terror with which Gabrielle remembered the self-accusations of the youth; and the more resolutely Folko kept silence, the more did she bode some dreadful mystery.Indeed, a secret shudder came over the knight when he thought on the pale, dark-haired youth.Sintram's repentance had bordered on settled despair; no one knew even what he was doing in the fortress of evil report on the Rocks of the Moon.Strange rumours were brought by the retainers who had fled from it, that the evil spirit had obtained complete power over Sintram, that no man could stay with him, and that the fidelity of the dark mysterious castellan had cost him his life.
Folko could hardly drive away the fearful suspicion that the lonely young knight was become a wicked magician.
And perhaps, indeed, evil spirits did flit about the banished Sintram, but it was without his calling them up.In his dreams he often saw the wicked enchantress Venus, in her golden chariot drawn by winged cats, pass over the battlements of the stone fortress, and heard her say, mocking him, 'Foolish Sintram, foolish Sintram! hadst thou but obeyed the little Master! Thou wouldst now be in Helen's arms, and the Rocks of the Moon would be called the Rocks of Love, and the stone fortress would be the garden of roses.Thou wouldst have lost thy pale face and dark hair,--for thou art only enchanted, dear youth,--and thine eyes would have beamed more softly, and thy cheeks bloomed more freshly, and thy hair would have been more golden than was that of Prince Paris when men wondered at his beauty.Oh, how Helen would have loved thee!" Then she showed him in a mirror, how, as a marvellously beautiful knight, he knelt before Gabrielle, who sank into his arms blushing as the morning.When he awoke from such dreams, he would seize eagerly the sword and scarf given him by his lady,--as a shipwrecked man seizes the plank which is to save him; and while the hot tears fell on them, he would murmur to himself, "There was, indeed, one hour in my sad life when I was worthy and happy."Once he sprang up at midnight after one of these dreams, but this time with more thrilling horror; for it had seemed to him that the features of the enchantress Venus had changed towards the end of her speech, as she looked down upon him with marvellous scorn, and she appeared to him as the hideous little Master.The youth had no better means of calming his distracted mind than to throw the sword and scarf of Gabrielle over his shoulders, and to hasten forth under the solemn starry canopy of the wintry sky.He walked in deep thought backwards and forwards under the leafless oaks and the snow-laden firs which grew on the high ramparts.
Then he heard a sorrowful cry of distress sound from the moat; it was as if some one were attempting to sing, but was stopped by inward grief.Sintram exclaimed, "Who's there?" and all was still.When he was silent, and again began his walk, the frightful groanings and moanings were heard afresh, as if they came from a dying person.
