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28 "Ay, so it seemed," returned Huldbrand.

"Why, then," laughed the maiden, "right foolish must she be to drive from her the man she loved–and, moreover, into a wood of evil fame! The forest and its mysteries might have waited long enough for me!"

Huldbrand smiled fondly at Undine.

"Yester morning," quoth he, "I set off on my enterprise. The morning was fair, and the red tints of sunrise caught the tree-stems and lay along the green turf. The leaves were whispering merrily together, and in my heart I could have laughed at the silly folk who were frightened at so beautiful a place. 'Full soon shall I have passed and repassed the wood,' said I to myself with confident gaiety, and ere I had had time to bethink myself of the matter I was deeply plunged into the thick glades, and could see no more the plain that lay behind me. Thereupon it came to my mind for the first time that I might easily lose my way in the forest, and that perchance this was the only peril the traveller had to face. So I paused awhile and looked round at the position of the sun, which meanwhile had risen higher in the heavens. As I looked I saw something black in the branches of a high oak. 'A bear, maybe,' I thought, and I felt for my sword. But it spoke with a human voice, all harsh and ugly, and called to me from above: 'Sir Malapert,' it cried, 'an I fail to nibble away the branches up here, what shall we have to roast you