Page:Undine (Lumley).djvu/62

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as if it were green glass, and the smooth surface of the earth were round as a globe ; and within it I saw crowds of gobiius, who were pursuing their pastime and nnikiug themselves merry with silver and gold. They were tum- bling and rolling about, heads up and heads down ; they pelted one another in sport with the precious metals, and with irritating malice blew gold-dust in one another's eyes. My odious companion ordered the others to reach him up a vast quantity of gold ; this he shewed to me with a laugh, and then Hung it again ringing and chinking down the measureless abyss.

"After this contemptuous disregard of gold, he held up the piece I had given him, shewing it to his brother goblins below ; and they laughed immoderately at a coin so worth- less, and hissed me. At last, raising their fingers all smutched with ore, they pointed them at me in scorn ; and wilder and wilder, and thicker and thicker, and madder and mad- der, the crowd were clambering up to where I sat gazing at these wonders. Then terror seized me, as it had before seized my horse. I drove my spurs into his sides; and how far he rushed with me through the forest, during this second of wy wild heats, it is impossible to say.

"At last, when I had now come to a dead halt again, the cool of evening was around me. I caught the gleam of a white footpath through the branches of the trees; and I^resuming it would lead me out of the forest toward the city, I w as desirous of working my way into it. But a face perfectly white and indistinct, with features ever changing, kept thrusting itself out and peering at me between the leaves. I tried to avoid it ; but, wherever I went, there too appeared the unearthly face. I was mad- dened with rage at this interruption, and determined to drive my steed at the appearance full tilt; when such a cloud of white foam came rushing upon me and my horse, that we were almost blinded, and glad to turn about and escape. Thus, from step to step, it forced us on, and ever