"I will make no more soap-bubbles," said Audifax, and resumed his pipe-blowing; but after a while, he looked about carefully, and then drawing Hadumoth quite close to him, he whispered in her ear, his eyes glistening strangely: "I have been to see the holy man. This night we will seek the treasure. Thou must go with me." Hadumoth readily promised. In the servants' hall, the supper was finished; and now they all rose from their benches at the same time, and arranged themselves in a long file. At the bottom stood Audifax and Hadumoth, and it was the latter who used to say the prayers, before these rough, but well-meaning folks. Her voice was rather trembling this time. Before the table had been cleared, two shadows glided out, by the yet unlocked gate. They belonged to Hadumoth and Audifax; the latter going on before. "The night will be cold," he said to his companion, throwing a long-haired goat's skin over her. On the southern side where the mountain wall is steepest, there was an old rampart. Here Audifax stopped, as it afforded them a shelter against the keen night-wind of autumn. He stretched out his arm and said: "I think this must be the place. We have yet to wait a long time, till midnight." Hadumoth said nothing. The two children sat down side by side. The moon had risen, and sent her trembling light, through airy, scattered cloudlets. In the castle some windows were lighted up; they were again reading out of their Virgil. Everything was quiet and motionless around; only at rare intervals, the hoarse shriek of an owl was heard. After a long while, Hadumoth timidly said: "How will it be, Audifax?" "I don't know," was the answer. "Somebody will come and bring it; or the earth will open, and we must descend; or ..." "Be quiet, I am frightened." After another long interval, during which Hadumoth had slumbered peacefully, her head resting on Audifax's bosom,--the latter, rubbing his eyes hard, to drive away sleepiness, now awakened his companion. "Hadumoth," said he, "the night is long, wilt thou not tell me something?" "Something evil has come into my mind," replied she. "There was once a man, who went out in the early morning, at sunrise, to plough his field; and there he found the gold-dwarf, standing in a furrow and grinning at him, who spoke thus: 'take me with you. He who does not seek us, shall have us; but he who seeketh us, we strangle him ...' Audifax, I am so frightened." "Give me thy hand," said Audifax, "and have courage." The lights on the castle had all died out. The hollow bugle-notes of the watchman on the tower, announced midnight. Then Audifax knelt down, and Hadumoth, beside him. The former had taken off his wooden shoe from his right foot, so that the naked sole touched the dark earth. The parchment strip he held in his hand, and with a clear firm voice he pronounced the words, the meaning of which he did not understand, "Auri sacra fames, quid non mortalia cogis pectora."