The king still stared wildly before him. "Sorceress! she-devil!" he at length shouted madly, "if thou art leagued with my deadly foes, thou shalt be the first to fall by this sword." And he sprang, with phrensied violence, to seize her by the throat; but his hand grasped only her loose kerchief, whilst his uplifted sword rattled against the lamp, which fell, extinguished, on the floor; and at the same moment he heard a shriek, and a hollow sound like the closing of a large chest-lid. The girl had suddenly disappeared. The king raved wildly, and laid his sword about him in the darkness. A dreadful anguish overwhelmed him; and he would have called out, but was unable. He groped for the door, but could not find it; and then rushed madly against a wooden partition, which gave way, when the house seemed to fall about him. A cold breeze now met him. He stumbled, and fancied he had fallen into some frightful murder-den. His senses became bewildered, and he saw before him all the hideous forms he most dreaded. The pale Fru Ingeborg, with raised dagger, nodded at him with her lean, skeleton head; her blind, crazy father danced around him with wild laughter, groping at random for his prey; and the terrible Stig Andersen stood threatening him, whichever way he turned, with the same fearful look of revenge as when he denounced him at the Thing of Viborg. A cold perspiration stood on his forehead. The ground seemed to shake under him; and he reeled forward, without knowing where, till he stumbled over a stone, and tore his face among thorns. This recalled his senses, and he now found himself in the midst of a wild thicket in the forest. The faint starlight shone dubiously, and he looked despairingly around him. There was no house to be seen, and the apparition of the girl occurred to him like a frightful dream. He now recovered his voice. "Am I mad or bewitched?" he exclaimed. "Rané, Rané! where art thou?" He heard a rustling among the bushes, and Rané stood, terrified, before him. "The rood protect us, sire!" stammered the astonished chamberlain: "how have you come hither? and whither has the house vanished? I fancied I heard you calling from the thicket, and sprang towards the sound: I then rushed wildly into the cursed elfin-moss, but could find no traces of the house." "It is devilry and sorcery," said the king: "if thou, too, hadst not seen both the girl and the house, I could have sworn I had been dreaming, or was mad. Where are the horses?" "Close by, sire. I hear them snorting and pawing." "Away!" cried the king: "lead me from this infernal spot. I am mad or bewitched, and while I remain here I am less than a man." "Shall I bring the horses, sire?" "Nay, do not leave me! Lead me to them. Give me thy hand, Rané!" And he grasped the chamberlain's hand convulsively. "Thou art still true to me? thou art not in league with my murderers, and wilt not basely betray thy king and master's life?"