"Do you stay here and rest," he said; "I will search for a verdant spot. But do not stir from here, for out of the ice-fields you will never find your road back to the happy valley."
Scarcely had he gone than Sorrow felt her frozen blood revive, and the terrible woe in her breast seemed to yield. First she leaned on her hand and peeped out, then she knelt and breathed on her numbed fingers, then she stepped outside. There towered blocks of ice; here snow was spread in endless extent. She knew that the snow covered the island and the ice-blocks the sea, and it was over the ice-blocks she must wander, for otherwise she could not get across it. She began to slip through the cracks and crevices, to jump from one block to another, following the sunbeams that alone marked a track for her. She did not rest when night came for fear she should be pursued. Twice she went round the island without knowing it, in her senseless fear; but at last the sun led her out of the ice-bound world and across the first green blades of grass. Then she sank down for very weariness. How she found her road back to the mountain gorge she never knew. She entered it trembling. If he was already here, he from whom she had fled, then she was lost. After her wanderings upon the ice, this road seemed to be quite easy, and her fearful glances around were not directed to the masses of water that poured down yet more wildly than when she had first come here, and which seemed to threaten her tender form at every moment, as though they would sweep her away like a leaf. Trembling in every limb, and with chattering teeth, Sorrow entered the dreadful cave.
It was dark, and the confusion of voices sounded painfully through the vaults. Suddenly she felt herself surrounded on all sides, and held by her hands and clothes.
"I will not let you go before you liberate me," a voice sounded at her ear.
"Give me back happiness," moaned another.
"Make me well again," cried a third.
"We are but echoes of the woes of earth," they cried; "but you shall hear us, though you stay here forever."
"But I cannot help you," wailed Sorrow.
"Yes," they shrieked; "you can bring woe, but you will not free us. Revenge! revenge!"