Page:Tales of the Wild and the Wonderful (1825).djvu/172

 tention. Now he had even determined to return, when a voice whispered close to him, “Fool! hast thou not already used the magic balls, and dost thou only dread the toil of labouring for them?” He paused. The moon shone brilliantly out from a dark cloud, and lighted up the tranquil roof of the forester’s humble dwelling. William saw Catherine’s window shine in the silvery ray, and he stretched out his arms towards it, and again directed his steps towards his home. Then the voice rose whisperingly again around him, and, “Hence!—to thy work!—away!” it murmured; while a strong gust of wind brought to his ear the stroke of the second quarter. “To my work,” he repeated; “ay; it is cowardly to return half way—foolish to give up the great object, when, for a lesser, I have already perhaps risked my salvation. I will finish.”

He strode rapidly forward. The wind drove the fugitive clouds over the moon, and William entered the deep darkness of the forest. Now he stood upon the cross road; the magic circle was drawn; the skulls and bones of the dead laid in order around it; the moon buried herself deeper in the cloudy mass, and left the glimmering coals, at intervals fanned into a blaze by the fitful gusts of wind, alone to lighten the midnight deed, with