He seemed to have gone mad, and Albrecht shuddered and crossed himself at the sight of fury so demoniacal. The cripple shivered and trembled with excitement; the tears gathered in his eyes, and the foam specked his lips. The knight's own eyes were dim, as he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the other's arm.
"I have indeed much for which to ask thy forgiveness," Albrecht said; "but I was, as thou hast said, only a kobold, and what could I know better than the rest of my race, save what thou didst teach me? Meseemeth that if thou hadst but cumbered somewhat to teach me mercy in my callow youth, all soulless as I was I might perchance have learned somewhat of it."
"Oh, without doubt!" retorted Von Zimmern scornfully, as he shook off the hand which lay pleadingly upon his arm; "but that was reason enough why I should not teach. I was willing to suffer if thereby I could the better compass my revenge in the end."
"And yet," interposed Albrecht, inquiringly, "when my marriage was about to take place, thou didst all but prevent it when thou gavest to the countess a ring by which she might know kobolds from men?"
"Yea," Herr Frederich replied, grinding his teeth; "for a moment the thought of your present bliss was too much for me. I saw you look on your bride with longing and delight, and I thought of mine from whom I had been stolen. To see you so blest was a trial too great for even my patience; and for a moment I was so weak that had you not interfered, I had spoiled all, and cheated myself of the vengeance wrought out by all those years of waiting and suffering. I thank you for that!"
There was silence in the wood for a moment while the two confronted each other with piercing eyes. Overhead the wind soughed in the pine tops, and to the mind of Von Zimmern the sound brought the memory of the many long, weary days and nights he had listened to this wail in the tree-tops of the Neiderwasser valley. A new frown of hate came over his black face.
"Year after year," he burst out, "I pined in that cursed slavery, and longed and longed for those I had left behind; and you offered me nixies, and promised that I should be free to return to my own when I had married you to a mortal wife."
"And that promise was kept," Albrecht responded.
"Kept!" the other echoed with fierce scorn. "You kept it when all that I loved was gone. You set me free to seek a row of graves; to carry my miserable, broken body about the world alone. God's blood!" he went on, dashing the spurs into the bleeding flanks of his steed and still reining the animal back with a strong hand; "at the grave of my wife I took new oaths of vengeance, and I hastened back to keep them. It was not hard! The folk of the wood were eager to help me by bringing the count and the lady alone together in the forest, and he already had the work of winning—"
"Silence!" broke in Albrecht, in a voice of thunder.