The wind soughing all day in the pine-trees, and the weird, sweet music of the elfin harps which belated wanderers heard sounding to lure them on into blinder depths of the wood, seemed to sing the same song; but its mystery human ears might not fathom, and scarcely could human will resist its spell. In the tempest the bugles of the Wild Huntsman pealed shrilly through the storm, and the retainers at Castle Rittenberg crossed themselves at the sound almost as openly as did the damsels; but there was less danger in this than in the heavenly sweet strains which beguiled the wayfarer into forgetfulness of home and of dear ones until he joined himself to the soulless folk of the forest, and was heard of no more. It was music of this sort, more sweet than words might tell, faint on the air as the breath of a sigh or yet again swelling full and strong as a blast from the horns when the hunt is rushing through the wood, that had of late been heard around the castle. Delicious, enervating, seductive and yet pleading, the strange melodies had seemed to surround the towers, as if throngs of invisible musicians floated in the air to bring their heavenly minstrelsy to the Countess Erna. There had indeed been more than one token that something mysterious was forward in the forest; and although the priest of Rittenberg frowned upon all talk of the wood-spirits and their doings, the folk of the castle whispered under their breath many a wild surmise. Mayhap it was of these things that the Countess Erna dreamed as one spring morning she sat by her open lattice, albeit she had before her a parchment from which she might be reading. From below arose the noise of horses' hoofs, the cries of grooms and pages, the clatter of spurs upon the stone pavement, and all the sounds that betoken the preparation of a troop to leave the castle. So little did she heed, however, that she seemed not to hear. So motionless was she that the doves which had perched upon the wide window-ledge in perfect fearlessness had ceased to regard her at all, and preened themselves in the sun with soft, full-throated cooings, contrasting oddly with the clamor which arose from below.