Several other maidens followed her example, and, as these withdrew, the old crone twisted her mouth into a smile, and repeated the same hideous confidential wink towards the lady.
Hildegardis could not understand what attracted her in the jests and tales of the bronze-coloured woman; but so it was, that in her whole life she had never bestowed such attention on the words of any one.
Still the old woman went on and on, and already the night looked dark without the windows, but the attendants who still remained with Hildegardis had sunk into a deep sleep, and had lighted none of the wax tapers in the apartment.
Then, in the dusky gloom, the dark old crone rose from the low seat on which she had been sitting, as if she now felt herself well at ease, advanced towards Hildegardis, who sat as if spell-bound with terror, placed herself beside her on the purple couch, and embracing her in her long dry arms with a hateful caress, whispered a few words in her ear.
It seemed to the lady as if she uttered the names of Froda and Edwald, and from them came the sound of a flute, which, clear and silvery as were its tones, seemed to lull her into a trance.

She could indeed move her limbs, but only to follow those sounds, which, like a silver network, floated round the hideous form of the old woman.

She moved from the chamber, and Hildegardis followed her through all her slumbering maidens, still singing softly as she went, "Ye maidens, ye maidens, I wander by night." Without the castle, accompanied by squire and groom, stood the gigantic Bohemian warrior; he laid on the shoulders of the crone a bag of gold so heavy that she sank half whimpering, half laughing, on the ground; then lifted the entranced Hildegardis on his steed, and galloped with her silently into the ever-deepening gloom of night.
"All ye noble lords and knights, who yesterday contended gallantly for the prize of victory and the hand of the peerless Hildegardis, arise, arise! saddle your steeds, and to the rescue! The peerless Hildegardis is carried away!" Thus proclaimed many a herald through castle and town in the bright red dawn of the following day; and on all sides rose the dust from the tread of knights and noble squires along those roads by which so lately, in the evening twilight, Hildegardis in proud repose had gazed on her approaching suitors.
Two of them, well known to us, remained inseparably together, but they knew as little as the others whether they had taken the right direction, for how and when the adored lady could have disappeared from her apartments was still to the whole castle a fearful and mysterious secret.
Edwald and Froda rode as long as the sun moved over their heads, unwearied as he; and now, when he sank in the waves of the river, they thought to win the race from him, and still spurred on their jaded steeds.

But the noble animals staggered and panted, and the knights were constrained to grant them some little refreshment in a grassy meadow.
Secure of bringing them back at their first call, their masters removed both bit and curb, that they might be refreshed with the green pasture, and with the deep blue waters of the Maine, while they themselves reposed under the shade of a neighbouring thicket of alders.

And deep in the cool, dark shade, there shone, as it were, a mild but clear sparkling light, and checked the speech of Froda, who at that moment was beginning to tell his friend the tale of his knightly service to his sovereign lady, which had been delayed hitherto, first by Edwald's sadness, and then by the haste of their journey.