Before and below her lay the village, then the deep gulf of the valley opening toward the distant plain. All at once the Princess beheld Babylan and his men! Up the road leading along the side of the higher crest they were mounting. Ever and anon, on lesser slopes of the winding road, they galloped their steeds.
Now crept despair into the heart of the brave Leoline even as the bitter cold of a winter’s night creeps into a room when sinks the fire. And in her heart she beheld the helpless Norbert in the hands of his enemy, her people flying, pursued, to the caverns in the mountain, and her village laid low.
But of whom could she now seek aid? Along the snow-crested ridge nearer and nearer rode the wicked King.
Suddenly Leoline recalled to mind the Giant of the Mountain. Turning her face toward the mountain peak, she lifted her arms to it and cried aloud:—
“O Giant of the Mountain, O Giant of the Snows, help us in our need!”
Loud and clear rang the cry of Leoline through the mountain air and was followed by a silence.
A breeze shook the branches of the dwarfed pines; a bird sang.
Then, suddenly, a far high murmur trembled to a roar, a roar loud and terrible enough to drown all the sounds of the world, and from the snow-capped ridge above the road there flowed and rolled down on Babylan and his men a mighty avalanche. Huge stones were there in it, glistening ice and snow, brown earth and uprooted pines. Sweeping over the road, the mass poured over the precipice into the valley-depth a league below.
Such was the end of the wicked Babylan.
Now it came to pass that, because his horse had gone lame, one of Babylan’s men had fallen behind and, as a consequence, had escaped the avalanche. Upon this fellow the mountaineers quickly fell and were about to do him a mischief when the horseman cried:—