voices saying----"Melitta, are you never coming? Get down from Bella. Do you not see that I am chained to this place? Oh, you darling, you sweetest, you most lovely of women! Melitta, sweet one! a kiss, one single kiss! And you are going, going now--but what is that? Away, brown witch! No, no--you are not Melitta." Oswald raised himself on his elbow and stared, drunk with sleep, into the brown face that was bending over him. "What do you want?" "No harm done, my dear young gentleman! Saw the young gentleman lying there; did not know if dead or asleep. 'Tis dangerous to sleep in the forest so near the swamp, if one is not accustomed to it from childhood up." Oswald, who had in the mean time recovered himself entirely, examined the woman more closely and recognized in her one of the many gypsy women who infest that country, telling fortunes, hawking trifles, playing on the jewsharp, begging, or more frequently stealing. Thus they go from fair to fair, and from village to village. This one might have been twenty-five or thirty years old, as far as one could judge from the fire of her black eyes, the round, half-naked arms, and the firm carriage of her tall, slender form; but wind and weather, hunger and sorrow, perhaps also evil passions, had made sad havoc with the once good-looking face. The features were too sharply marked, the eyes too deeply sunk, and even the abundant bluish-black hair showed already here and there many a silvery streak. And yet it was a pity she did not rather display the thick tresses in their graceful windings than the rags of red stuff, which she had wrapped, turban-fashion, around her well-shaped head. Her dress was poor and much patched, her feet quite bare. Oswald now also noticed that an oddly shaped instrument was hanging on one of the trees, and a variety of quaint tools were lying about. A donkey, adorned with a red feather and a bright-colored blanket, was wandering thoughtfully through the trees and enjoying now and then a mouthful of the rich, hard grass. "Are you quite alone, my good woman?" asked Oswald. "No; I have my boy here, the Cziko; he is gone into the wood to fetch water; this here is fit only for frogs and toads." "And how did you get to this secluded spot?" "Know the place for years. Always stop here when I come to this country. Cheaper lodgings here than in the tavern, my good gentleman." "Then you can show me the way to Berkow, I suppose. Is it far from here?" "Not far at all. The boy, the Cziko, shall show you."