And in the twinkling of an eye had rushed like a storm up the rocky ascent, and fallen upon the luckless lovers.
Truda, white and cold with anguish, stood rooted to the spot, and now the raging fury sprang upon her also. “Now it is thy turn,” she hissed out. “Ah! hast thou lied, and blasphemed, and dallied here with thy lover? A pretty ransom thou art, and much that creditor of mine will care to get thee now! Hence go all my chances of safety! But at least thou, accursed creature, shalt never be a witness of my defeat!” And lifting the staff with which she wrought her wicked spells, she struck her daughter across the face with it. But Truda never felt the blow. Beneath her fiendish mother’s curse she had turned to stone; the rock folded her, as it were, in its inflexible arms, and to this day bears, as a witness of the terrible deed, the form of a maiden.
But where, as she fled through the night from his vengeance, the Arch-Enemy’s stroke fell upon Mother Gundelheind, that the legend forbears to say.
[XVIII]
THE WATER-SNAKE
