“‘I hear roaring overhead,’ she answered. ‘I hear in the trees like great bats squeaking.’
“‘Give me your hand,’ said I.
“We heard many noises as we passed. Once as there uprose a whiteness before us, she cried aloud.
“‘Nay,’ said I, ‘do not untie thy hand from mine,’ and soon we were crossing fallen snow. But ever and again she started back from fear.
“‘When you draw back my arm,’ I said, angry, ‘you loosen a weal on my shoulder.’
“Thereafter she ran by my side, like a fawn beside its mother.
“‘We will cross the valley and gain the stream,’ I said. ‘That will lead us on its ice as on a path deep into the forest. There we can join the outlaws. The wolves are driven from this part. They have followed the driven deer.’
“We came directly on a large gleam that shaped itself up among flying grains of snow.
“‘Ah!’ she cried, and she stood amazed.
“Then I thought we had gone through the bounds into faery realm, and I was no more a man. How did I know what eyes were gleaming at me between the snow, what cunning spirits in the draughts of air? So I waited for what would happen, and I forgot her, that she was there. Only I could feel the spirits whirling and blowing about me.