The wild excitement of Herr Frederich was infecting him also, despite all his efforts at self-control. His cheeks were flushed, and he breathed deeply and pantingly between his teeth. The cripple was not slow to perceive these signs of growing passion, and he fanned the flame with new taunts and deeper reproaches.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried out yet again; "to think you could play with a soul and be safe! Was it then like a boar-spear with which your hand could have its own will? Oh, the wise wood-creature!"
He broke into shrill laughter and bitter, till all the forest resounded; and among the dark recesses of the pines it seemed that unseen lips joined in the evil peal of wicked scorn and merriment.
"Now," he cried, and in his voice was a new ring of triumph, "our kobold hath ruined not alone his own soul, lightly gotten and quickly lost, but hers which could by no means be satisfied with such a brutish, half-human thing as her husband. It is not a marvel that she must needs turn toward a human lover after—"
The knight sprang upon him with a face distorted with rage and jealousy, and caught the cripple by the throat. He dragged him from the saddle, and Herr Frederich was as helpless in the grasp of those powerful hands as if he were in the clutch of a lion. Albrecht dashed him to the earth. His head was grazed by a stone, and for an instant everything swam before his eyes. The thick-growing ferns closed over him like the waves of the sea, and then they were parted by the face of Albrecht, who stooped toward him.
"Thou art a craven and a liar!" Albrecht hissed between his set teeth.
Then again with strong hands he seized Herr Frederich, and lifted him out of the bracken as if to dash him again to earth.
With a moan and a mighty effort to speak, the cripple, swinging in air, flung at the knight one last bitter taunt.
"It is bravely done," he cried, "to kill the man your father maimed!"
The clutch of Albrecht relaxed instantly. He lowered the other until he could lean against his horse, and then stood confronted to him with a face which kept Von Zimmern silent.