“Well,” replied Olof, who so seldom found any one to talk to in the solitude of his mountain home, that he was quite delighted at securing the attention of the handsome stranger, “this is what she said when she woke up at day-break. ‘The great iarl is going forth to the hunt. To the hunt the iarl and his suite are departing.’ The iarl, you know, is the Baron de Waldemora!”
“Ah, ah! He has really gone hunting. But your aunt may have heard that.”
“Yes, but the rest, you will see: ‘The iarl will leave his soul at the house; at the house he will leave his soul’—wait, wait until I think of the rest;—she sang it—I know the air, the air will remind me of the words.”
And Olof began to sing the oracle to an air that might have brought the devil, in person, to the spot.
“‘And when the iarl shall return to the house, when he returns to the house to rejoin his soul, the soul of the iarl will no longer be there.’”
Just as the young Dalecarlian had finished these mysterious words, a sleigh, advancing at great speed, began rapidly to gain upon them, and the resounding voice of the coachman cried imperiously, “Room! room!” At the same time he whipped savagely his four horses, who had been terrified, while still at a distance, by the odor of the bears brought by Christian. They had left the mountain, and were on a narrow road running along the edge of a gorge, and which led to the lake. Christian, fearing that they would be upset unless he should get out of the way, and seeing no means of accomplishing this unless by pitching headlong into the stream at the bottom of the gorge, whipped the danneman’s horse so as to get forward and reach a place where there would be room for the other vehicle to pass; but, just as he had succeeded in drawing a little to the right, the brutal coachman of the advancing sleigh urged forward his fiery horses, the two vehicles grazed, and were upset simultaneously.
Christian found himself on the earth with Olof and his four bears, and so effectually buried in the snow piled up along the edge of the road, that it took him some time to discover whereabouts, and in what company, he had been interred in this fashion. The first voice that struck upon his ear, the first face that rejoiced his sight, were the face and voice of the illustrious Professor Stangstadius. The learned man had not been at all injured; but he was furious, and, making his first attack upon Christian, who was not masked, and with whom, as he arose, he found himself face to face, he overwhelmed him with insults, and threatened him with divine vengeance and the maledictions of the universe.
“There, there, gently, gently!” replied Christian, helping him to get up upon his unequal legs once more; “you have no bones broken, Monsieur Professor, God be praised! I call the universe and heaven to witness how glad I am! But, if it is you who drive your equipage so crazily, I must say that you are not very considerate of people whose horses are not as good as yours. There now, leave me alone,” he added, quietly pushing away the geologist, who was attempting to seize him by the collar, “or else, the first time I meet you on the lake, I will leave you to freeze there, instead of bruising my shoulders by carrying you.”
The professor, without seeking to recognize Christian, continued declaiming, to prove to him that it was his fault that the accident had happened, when Christian, who was only thinking of picking up his game and Olof, noticed, in the midst of the four bears, a man of lofty stature, stretched out and motionless, with his face to the earth. At the same time, a young man, dressed in black, and pale with terror, came from the opposite bank, where he had been thrown, and running forward, cried:
“The baron! Where is the baron?”