Where the sea-beach was wildest, and the cliffs most steep and rugged, and close by the remains of three shattered oaks, haply marking where, in heathen times, human victims had been sacrificed, now stood Sintram, leaning, as if exhausted, on his drawn sword, and gazing intently on the dancing waves.

The moon had again shone forth; and as her pale beams fell on his motionless figure through the quivering branches of the trees, he might have been taken for some fearful idol-image.

Suddenly some one on the left half raised himself out of the high withered grass, uttered a faint groan, and again lay down.

Then between the two companions began this strange talk: "Thou that movest thyself so strangely in the grass, dost thou belong to the living or to the dead ?" "As one may take it.

I am dead to heaven and joy--I live for hell and anguish." "Methinks that I have heard thee before." "Oh, yes." "Art thou a troubled spirit?
and was thy life-blood poured out here of old in sacrifice to idols ?" "I am a troubled spirit; but no man ever has, or ever can, shed my blood.