Now their native air surrounds them. The fir trees of the Black Forest scent the air, the waves of the Neckar gleam below them, and, bathed in the full moon's silvery splendour, there lies at their feet the Staufenburg, the cradle of the lofty imperial race. Barbarossa raised his hand to bless its battlements and pinnacles, but still he held on his way northwards. The Spessart forests rustled beneath him in the darkness of the night, not a moonbeam pierced their thickly-leaved summits. But there gleamed the waters of the Kinzig, the walls of Gelashausen in its gently flowing stream, and over on the mountain's brow shone the aged Emperor's favourite castle, with the high oriel window, and Gela's deserted lattice. Barbarossa bent over his horse's neck, and cast a look of recognition on the scene of his early happiness. Soon they hovered above the high-road, and then over the familiar forest with its spreading "Emperor's oak." The old man's head was still bent forward, as if his eye would pierce the whispering tree-tops. A sound of clear bells greeted his ear. Below in the convent they called to midnight prayer, and these tones, which had once well-nigh broken his heart, acted now as a spell to bring back the old loved images. His breast heaved as of yore in mingled joy and grief, and "Gela, my Gela!" was the cry that started from his lips and reached the convent in whose vaults the loved one slumbered. But still the steeds held on their unhalting course over Thuringia's golden plain to the Kyffhaeuser Mountain, within which Frederick Barbarossa must hold council to-night with his faithful ones about the people of Germany and their future. The castle, which in bygone days had so often opened its hospitable gates to him and his court, within whose halls many a gladsome feast had been held, of whose magnificence and splendour old chronicles tell us--this castle still kept watch over the land with unbroken pinnacles, but Barbarossa knocked not at its gate. Gently the horses sank to the earth, and halted at a hidden door in the mountain side. The Emperor struck the stone with his sword, so that a loud echo answered from the hollow interior. Then the rocky door opened, and Barbarossa and his faithful warriors entered the spacious hall of the Kyffhaeuser Mountain. The rock had not long closed behind them when a gentle tapping was heard, the magic gate swung open, and the lovely Gela entered, arrayed in bridal attire as she had been laid in the tomb. The hand of death had touched her heart, but had not quenched her love. When Frederick's cry reached her ear, she had opened her eyes as out of a deep sleep, and had left the vault to seek her beloved with the swiftness of a spirit's tread. Now she stands before him in unchanged grace and beauty.