But Sintram sprang back, with a strong effort, into the circle of light made by the shining of the taper from above, and cried out, “Depart from me, unquiet spirit! I know well that I bear a name on me in which thou canst have no part.”
Little Master rushed in fear and rage into the passage, and, yelling, shut the iron door behind him. It seemed as if he could still be heard groaning and roaring.
Sintram climbed up the wall of the moat, and made a sign to his foster-father not to speak to him: he only said, “One of my best joys, yes, the very best, has been taken from me; but, by God’s help, I am not yet lost.”
In the earliest light of the following morning, he and Rolf stopped up the entrance to the perilous passage with huge blocks of stone.
CHAPTER 24
The long northern winter was at last ended, the fresh green leaves rustled merrily in the woods, patches of soft moss twinkled amongst the rocks, the valleys grew green, the brooks sparkled, the snow melted from all but the highest mountain-tops, and the bark which was ready to carry away Folko and Gabrielle danced on the sunny waves of the sea. The baron, now quite recovered, and strong and fresh as though his health had sustained no injury, stood one morning on the shore with his fair lady; and, full of glee at the prospect of returning to their home, the noble pair looked on well pleased at their attendants who were busied in lading the ship.
Then said one of them in the midst of a confused sound of talking: “But what has appeared to me the most fearful and the most strange thing in this northern land is the stone fortress on the Rocks of the Moon: I have never, indeed, been inside it, but when I used to see it in our huntings, towering above the tall fir-trees, there came a tightness over my breast, as if something unearthly were dwelling in it. And a few weeks ago, when the snow was yet lying hard in the valleys, I came unawares quite close upon the strange building. The young knight Sintram was walking alone on the ramparts as twilight came on, like the spirit of a departed knight, and he drew from the lute which he carried such soft, melancholy tones, and he sighed so deeply and sorrowfully. . . .”
The voice of the speaker was drowned in the noise of the crowd, and as he also just then reached the ship with his package hastily fastened up, Folko and Gabrielle could not hear the rest of his speech. But the fair lady looked on her knight with eyes dim with tears, and sighed: “Is it not behind those mountains that the Rocks of the Moon lie? The unhappy Sintram makes me sad at heart.”