A hollow laugh from unseen lips answered him. He looked around, suddenly checking his horse with a wrench of the bridle which wellnigh threw the good steed upon its haunches. He was silent an instant, as if he waited for some one to call out in mockery. There was no sound save the panting of his steed, the murmur of the soft wind in the tree-tops, and the distant hoarse cry of a heron scared by the fowler and fleeing toward the deeper recesses of the forest. Albrecht put his hand upon his forehead like a man who awakens. "I know ye, kobold crew!" he cried. "Ye shall not conquer. I defy ye, for I have a soul." Then again he struck the spurs into the horse's flanks and flew onward toward Rittenberg. The dread that Erna might indeed be lost forever beset him like a flame, and he did not pause even on the steep below the castle gate. As if urged on by the furies he flew up the hill, and dashed into the courtyard spattered with foam from his horse's bridle. He threw his rein to a servitor, and hastened to his chamber. He dashed his cap, its heron-plume torn and ragged from his wild ride through the wood, upon the rush-strewn floor, and with great strides he began to pace to and fro. He was confused by the emotions with which he struggled. Never in the months since he became a man had so fierce a rush of contending passions swept through his mind, and he was dizzied by their force. Below in the courtyard he heard light laughter, and a snatch of song which one of his men-at-arms had taught some serving-wench; and the sounds carried him back to the wild, free life of the forest. For a moment it seemed to him that he would gladly give up all that he had won could he but be once more the gay, soulless Albrecht who had come to Rittenberg; so strong was the rush of the old memory, the desire for the old lawless, jocund kobold life, that he was ready to curse the day that brought him to the castle and gave him a human bride. Yet the thought of Erna and the passionate love for her which filled his heart were too strong to be overcome, even by the swelling disquiet of his soul. He could not yet think first of the high spiritual blessings which the gift of a soul made possible to him, since ever the image of his bride rose before his mind as the chief desire of his life.