Advancing toward him, he beheld a figure of threatening aspect. He grasped the knife in his belt--"If there's only one, and no other's lying in wait, I'm man enough to defend myself," thought he.
The figure advanced, greeting him from afar. The voice was that of a woman. Could Walpurga have--No, that were impossible.
The figure halted. Hansei advanced toward it and said: "Oh! is it you, Esther, out on the road so late?"
"And is this you, Hansei?" said Black Esther, laughing heartily. "I thought it was some drunken fellow, because I heard you, a great way off, talking to yourself. But, of course, now you're lonely enough, I suppose."
"Do you walk in the woods so late at night, and all alone?"
"I must go alone, if no one goes with me," said Black Esther, with a laugh that fell harshly upon the silent night. There was a pause. Hansei could hear the beating of his heart. Perhaps it was caused by his rapid walking.
"I must go home," said he, at last. "Good-night."
Laying her hand on his shoulder, Black Esther said:
"Hansei, I'm not used to begging and, if it were day, I'd rather starve than ask you for anything. But now, you've a good heart and are doing well; give me something, or lend it to me. I'll give it back to you again." She spoke so persuasively that Hansei trembled. Her hand still rested upon him; he was about to feel in his pocket for the crown thaler he had saved from the priest, when he suddenly pushed her hand from his shoulder, and said: "I'll give you something another time." He then ran off toward home. Her shrill laughter rang in his ears, and it sounded as if hundreds of voices were answering from the rocks. His hair stood on end and he felt, by turns, as if shivering with cold and burning with fever. She must surely have been one of the forest demons, who had merely assumed the form of Black Esther. And there really were such beings, for the old forest inspector had, on his deathbed, confessed to having seen one. They wander about when the moon is at its full. Instead of wearing clothes, they merely wind their long hair about their bodies, and on such a night as this, when the mother is away from her child, they can--
Hansei had never before run so fast, or found the road by the lake so long, as on this very night.