If Hansei, at that moment, could have laid hands on the Hansei of an hour ago he would have strangled him.
The mist had become so thick that it was almost like a drizzling rain. The forest seemed to be growing vaster, and a path was nowhere to be found.
"You've lost your way, and it serves you right," said Hansei, speaking to himself. "You're no longer fit to be with decent men, you good-for-nothing wretch. It's only a pity that your wife and child are innocent sufferers by it--"
Two men in one were lost in the mist. Hansei cursed and swore at himself, but soon grew frightened, for his mind became filled with stories of the evil spirits that lead the solitary traveler up and down hill, and round and about, through the livelong night. He was about to turn back. It would be easier to find the way to Windenreuthe.
"Wait, you accursed devil," said he, addressing the invisible companion who had thus advised him; "all you want is to get me back there again. No, you shan't catch me."
He again tried to strike a light and, this time, with success. Just as he drew the first puff, he heard the tones of the bell, and pressed his hand to his forehead, for it seemed to him as if the clapper of the bell were striking against his head.
"That's the vesper bell of the chapel by the lake. The sounds seem so near. Can I be on this side? No, it's the mist that makes it sound so."
Uncovering his head, and clinging with both hands to the staff which now stood firmly planted in the ground, he cast aside all other thoughts and breathed a silent prayer.
While praying, he could not help thinking: O God! I can still pray, although I could so far forget myself and go astray.
The immortal words which an inspired mind drew from the depths of the human heart and its never-ending struggles, thousands of years ago, have been, and still are, the source of blessings innumerable. They are a guide to the lonely wanderer who has lost his way in the mist and darkness of the forest, and lead him back to the right path. The bell utters its sounds and, though it does not speak in words, it yet fills the soul with those immortal words which serve as a staff to the weary and a guide to the blind. When Hansei finished his prayer, the bell was still tolling, and it seemed to him as if the whole village, every soul in it,--and above all, his wife and child--were calling to him. And now he found the path. He descended the stony bed of a dried mountain current which led into the valley. He had gone far out of his way, for when he descended the mountain, he found himself back of the Chamois inn. Evil desires, fright, devotion, and losing his way had made him both hungry and thirsty.