asked himself, might Bertalda fare, should he fail to find her, throughout the stormy night which lowered so threateningly over the valley? At length something white gleaming through the branches on the slope of the mountain caught his eye, and he thought he recognised Bertalda's dress. But when he turned in that direction his horse refused to advance and reared furiously; and the knight, because he was unwilling to lose a moment, and also because he saw that the brushwood opened no passage for him on horseback, dismounted. Fastening his snorting and terrified horse to an elm-tree, he worked his way cautiously through the bushes. On his forehead and cheeks the branches shed the cold drops of evening dew; distant thunder growled beyond the mountains; and all looked so wild that he began to feel a dread of the white figure, now lying only a short distance from him on the ground. Still right plainly he could see that it was a woman, either asleep or in a swoon, and that she wore long white robes such as Bertalda had worn that day. Close to her he stepped, rustled the branches, and let his sword fall with a clatter. She did not move.
"Bertalda!" he cried, first softly, then louder and louder. She did not hear. At last, in answer to a yet louder appeal to her name, a hollow echo from the mountain caverns repeated "Bertalda!" But the sleeper awoke not. He bent over her, but the gloom of the ravine and the darkness of coming night did not allow him to recognise her features.
