Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/124

 from the cumbrous coil of mortal mould, and resuming his spirit shape, he shot up high in the air, like an arrow from a bow, and descried the fair fugitive in the far distance, just at the moment when her courser was about to pass the limits of his dominions. Furious, the Gnome seized on a couple of clouds that were peaceably sailing past him, and dashing them against each other, sent after the perfidious fair one a terrible flash of lightning, which splintered to atoms an oak that had marked the barrier for a thousand years. That barrier, however, Emma had already passed; and, as beyond it Rubezahl was powerless, the cloud dispersed in a light mist.

After having desperately dashed to and fro, here and there, in the upper air, venting to the four winds his rage, Rubezahl, o’erladen with grief, returned to the castle, and wandered through its vast and lone apartments, which re-echoed to his groans and cries. Then he sought once more the garden, whose beauties had no longer any charm for him; one single trace of his faithless mistress’s footsteps, which he discovered in the soft gravel, was of deeper interest to him than all the splendid flowers and fruits around. There was not a spot which did not remind him of happiness, now fled; here, there, everywhere, as she conversed with Brinhilda, as she played with her lapdog, as she