"You are not to give it me for nothing," said he. "I will show you something very pretty. There must be many treasures in the mountain. I know one, but it is not the right one; and I should so like to find the right one!" Ekkehard's attention was roused. "Show me what thou knowest." Audifax pointed downwards; and Ekkehard going out of the court-yard followed him down the hill. On the back of the mountain, where one beholds the fir-clad Hohenstoffeln and Hohenhöwen, Audifax quitted the path, and went into the bushes, towards a high wall of grey rocks. Audifax pushed aside the opposing branches, and tearing away the moss, showed him a yellow vein, as broad as a finger, running through the grey stone. The boy then managed to break off a bit of the yellow substance, which stuck in the chinks of the rock, like petrified drops. In the bright gold-coloured mass, small opal crystals, in reddish white globules, were scattered. Closely examining it, Ekkehard looked at the detached piece, which was unknown to him. It was no precious stone; the learned men in later years, gave it the name of Natrolith. "Do you see now, that I know something?" said Audifax. "But what shall I do with it?" enquired Ekkehard. "That you must know better than I. You can have them polished, and adorn your great books with them. Will you now give me the spell?" Ekkehard could not help laughing at the boy. "Thou oughtest to become a miner," he said, turning to go. But Audifax held him fast by his garment. "No, you must first teach me something out of your book." "What shall I teach you?" "The most powerful charm." An inclination to allow himself an innocent joke, now came into Ekkehard's serious mind. "Come along with me then, and thou shalt have the most powerful charm." Joyfully Audifax went with him. Then Ekkehard laughingly told him the following words out of Virgil: "Auri sacra fames, quid non mortalia cogis pectora?" With stubborn patience, Audifax repeated the foreign words, over and over again, until he had fixed them in his memory. "Please to write it down, that I may wear it on me," he now entreated. Ekkehard wishing to complete the joke, wrote the words on a thin strip of parchment, and gave it to the boy; who gleefully hiding it in his breast-pocket, again kissed his garment, and then darted off; with innumerable mad gambols, outrivalling the merriest of his goats. "This child holds Virgil in greater honour, than the Duchess," thought Ekkehard to himself. At noon-tide Audifax was again sitting on his rock; but this time there were no tears glistening in his timid eyes. For the first time, after a long while, his pipe was taken out, and the wind carried its notes into the valley, where they reached his friend Hadumoth; who came over at once, and gaily asked him: "Shall we make soap-bubbles again?"