“Only a snake,” said the goblin. Zora trembled.
“Will you promise me that Hilda will never trouble me again?”
“I promise,” said the goblin, with one of her merriest laughs, as loud and hoarse as the song of a frog.
Just then a sigh was heard not far from the place where Zora stood. “There is some one here: we are watched,” she whispered. But Gerula thought it the howling of the wind; for she was busily musing over the charm she was about to obtain of her cousins, the gnomes, and her eyes and ears were not as sharp as usual.
She took from the ground her crooked staff.
“Hush,” said she; “if the sky were to fall on your head, you are not to speak; for now begins the charm.”
Then she drew a circle three times on the ground, with her staff, and said in low tones,—
“Hither, ye cousins, that come at my call:
The princess is young and fair;
Mix me a charm that shall bring her to woe
Spin me your vilest snare.”
A mist arose, in which Zora could see dim figures, one after another. Zora held her breath. Gerula muttered again in low tones,—
“Hilda is gentle, and dreams of no guile;
The little gnomes sit and weep;
‘Make her,—if must be,—a snowy wee lamb,
In the fold with her father’s sheep.’”