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104 undergone through Kühleborn's pursuit, and partly because of her continued alarm at the howling of the storm and the pealing of the thunder in the wooded mountains.

And, at the last, she could no more. She slid down from the knight's supporting arm and sank on the moss.

"Leave me here, my noble lord," cried she; "I must needs suffer the penalty of my folly and die here in weariness and fear."

"Nay, nay, sweet friend," quoth he, "say not so, for desert thee I will not." And so saying he endeavoured all the more to curb his furious horse, who, rearing and plunging worse than before, must now be kept at some distance from Bertalda lest he might increase her discomfiture. So the knight withdrew a few paces, but no sooner had he gone than she called after him in most piteous sort as though in truth he were going to leave her in this solitary wilderness. What course to take he knew not; he was utterly at a loss. Gladly enough would he have given the excited beast his liberty to gallop away into the night and so exhaust his terror. Yet he feared that in this narrow defile he might come thundering with his iron-shod hoofs over the very spot where Bertalda lay.

Now he was in this sore distress and perplexity, when he heard with unspeakable relief the sound of a waggon driven slowly down the stony road behind