"Thanks! thanks!" was his rapturous exclamation; "a thousand times thanks, my own, my ... Hallo! what is this? Whence come you?" These latter words were addressed to the Black Lady, as, to his utter astonishment, she alighted from the cloud right in his path. Eva shrieked, and hid her face in his bosom.
"I am the Baon Ri Dhuv," said the enchantress, trying to look dignified, and to smooth away the scowl that had darkened her visage since she perceived his companion,—"the Queen of the South!"
"And what can the Baon Ri Dhuv, the Queen of the South, want with Conla, a shepherd of the north?"
"Young man, mock me not," replied she, frowning most awfully: "you know not, but you may be made to feel, my power. Listen to me," continued she in a milder tone, and putting on what she intended to be a most amiable and engaging look; but which gave her coarse lineaments a still more grotesque hideousness, that almost made the young shepherd laugh in her face, despite the secret dread he felt creeping on his heart. "I am the ruler of a vast tract of country; I have a vast army to do my will; nay, more, I have dominion over the elements in their fiercest rage, and spirits obey my bidding. I am rich beyond counting. You smile, and believe not. Look here!"
As she spoke, she struck the ground three times with her foot, muttering rapidly to herself, when up sprang close to her, a tall tree of the purest gold, the glittering branches laden with jewels beyond all price. Seizing one of these, a magnificent emerald, and pulling it off the branch, again she stamped her foot, and the tree disappeared, leaving the jewel in her hands.
"Here," continued she, putting it into Conla's passive hand, "here is earnest of my wealth; leave that weak girl, and come with me to wealth and happiness!"
Conla had hitherto been kept dumb by the strange scene before him; but now, rousing himself, he looked at his Eva, and meeting her gaze of deep, whole-hearted, confiding affection, he dashed the glittering jewel on the ground, and cried,
"Away, sorceress! I spurn your gifts, your accursed power, yourself! With Eva will I live or die!"
The face of the Black Lady showed horrible in the pale moonlight, as, with a withering scowl of hatred and vengeance, she again spoke:
"You shall not die, insolent wretch! You shall live in agonies to which death were mercy; ay, and she, too,—that worthless thing you prefer to me,—she, too, shall suffer!"