Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/13

 seemed to be animated with a hundred voices, which I took for the echo of the woodlands; but what was my astonishment, when I heard the second verse begun, before we had done with the first. "What can this be?" cried I to Alfonso. "Ah! my Lord," answered the poor fellow trembling; "I'm sure this wood is haunted by a thousand devils that want to break our necks."

I now descried a beaten road before us. Impelled by an agony of fear, I so violently spurred my horse, that he run off in full spread, while poor Alfonso, entangled in the bushes, cried after, without being able to overtake me. In less than a minute I got so far as to hear nothing more, and having constantly tried to check the rapid course of my horse, he strayed from the road into a thick covert. The sky had cleared up, and still my situation was comfortless. A thousand times I called Alfonso, but nobody answered. While looking out for a path, I perceived several lights, at a distance, whith like mephitic fires, disappeared gradually; there was one, however, whose gleam ap-