He placed his noble lady under the charge of his retainers, and leaping into the saddle, he hastened, followed by the grateful smiles of Gabrielle, along the valley towards the stone fortress.
Sintram was seated near the drawbridge, touching the strings of the lute, and shedding some tears on the golden chords, almost as Montfaucon's esquire had described him.

Suddenly a cloudy shadow passed over him, and he looked up, expecting to see a flight of cranes in the air; but the sky was clear and blue.

While the young knight was still wondering, a long bright spear fell at his feet from a battlement of the armoury turret.
"Take it up,--make good use of it! thy foe is near at hand! Near also is the downfall of thy dearest happiness." Thus he heard it distinctly whispered in his ear; and it seemed to him that he saw the shadow of the little Master glide close by him to a neighbouring cleft in the rock.
But at the same time also, a tall, gigantic, haggard figure passed along the valley, in some measure like the departed pilgrim, only much, very much, larger, and he raised his long bony arm fearfully threatening, then disappeared in an ancient tomb.
At the very same instant Sir Folko of Montfaucon came swiftly as the wind up the Rocks of the Moon, and he must have seen something of those strange apparitions, for as he stopped close behind Sintram, he looked rather pale, and asked low and earnestly: "Sir knight, who are those two with whom you were just now holding converse here ?" "The good God knows," answered Sintram; "I know them not." "If the good God does but know!" cried Montfaucon: "but I fear me that He knows very little more of you or your deeds." "You speak strangely harsh words," said Sintram.

"Yet ever since that evening of misery,--alas! and even long before,--I must bear with all that comes from you.

Dear sir, you may believe me, I know not those fearful companions; I call them not, and I know not what terrible curse binds them to my footsteps.