Thus saying, he mounted his horse, and rode on before, through the forest roads, while the lady and her lover followed side by side. As they went on circling round the highest parts of the hills, the grey streaks gradually turned into crimson; the dim objects became more defined in the twilight of morning; a few far distant clouds at the edge of the sky, tossed into fantastic shapes, began to glow like the burning masses of a furnace; the crimson floated like the waves of a sea up towards the zenith; the fiery red next became mingled with bright streaks of gold; the forest world, just budding into light green, was seen below with its multitude of hills and dales, and rocks and streams; the air blew warm and sweet, and full of all the balm of spring; and a thousand birds burst forth on every tree, and carolled joyous hymns to the dawning day. Never broke there a brighter morning upon earth; never rose the sun in greater splendour; never was the air more balmy, or the voices of the birds more sweet. It seemed as if all were destined to afford to those two lovers the strongest, the strangest, the brightest contrast to the dark dull night of anxiety and emotion which they had passed within the palace they had just left behind them. It seemed to both as an image of the dawn of immortality after the tomb--anxiety, sorrow, danger, death, left behind, and brightness and splendour spread out before. Each instinctively drew in the rein as the sun's golden edge was raised above the horizon; each gazed in the countenance of the other, as if to see that no trace of the pestilence was there; and each held out the hand to grasp that of the being most loved on earth, and then they raised their eyes to Heaven in thankfulness and joy.