Page:The Allies Fairy Book.djvu/184

 studded with nests. Ulenspiegel, bending down to pick up an egg, saw a seagull flying towards him, uttering a cry. At this call, over a hundred came, uttering cries of distress, hovering over the head of Ulenspiegel, and over the neighbouring nests, but not daring to come too close to him.

“Ulenspiegel,” said Nele, “these birds are asking us to spare their eggs.”

Then, beginning to tremble, she said:

“I am afraid; the sun is setting, the sky is white, the stars are waking, this is the hour of spirits. See the red vapours that are rising from the ground! Thyl, my beloved, what monster of hell is opening his fiery jaws thus in the twilight? Look how the will-o’-the-wisps are dancing over Philipsland, where twice the bloodthirsty king put so many poor creatures to death to satisfy his cruel ambition; it is at night that the souls of poor men who fell in battle quit the cold Limbo of Purgatory, and come to warm themselves in the mild air of earth; this is the hour when we may ask anything of Christ, who is the God of good magicians.”

“The ashes of Claes lie on my heart,” said Ulenspiegel. “Would that Christ could show us those Seven, whose ashes, scattered on the wind, would make Flanders and the whole world happy.”

“Man of little faith,” said Nele, “the balm will enable you to see them.”

“Perhaps,” said Ulenspiegel, pointing at Sirius, “if some spirit should come down from that cold star.”

Whereupon a will-o’-the-wisp fluttering round him lighted on his finger, and the more he tried to shake it off the closer it clung.

Nele, going to the help of Ulenspiegel, also got a will-o’-the-wisp on her hand.

Then Ulenspiegel, striking at his, said:

“Answer! Art thou the soul of a ‘Beggar’ or of a