Undine

He could say no more, for Undine's hand was over his lips, and her voice was beseeching him to be silent.

Meanwhile Bertalda sat quietly in the ship, thinking of all the strange things that had happened. As she sat thus thinking, she unfastened a golden necklace which the knight had given to her, and holding it in her hand over the side of the bark she drew it carelessly through the water. Then dreamily she watched it as it gleamed and glistened in the light of the setting sun.

All at once a huge white hand came up out of the river, seized the necklace, and disappeared with it below the water.

Bertalda shrieked in terror, and a mocking laugh answered her cry.

Then could the anger of the knight no longer be concealed. He sprang up, shouting to the water spirits to claim no kinship with him, but to come and learn from his sword-thrusts how much he hated them.

The maiden meanwhile wept for her lost necklace. But Undine had thrust her hand into the water, and was murmuring strange words to herself, stopping from time to time to say to her husband, 'Chide me not here, Huldbrand, chide me not here, lest you lose me for ever.'

And, indeed, though the knight shook with rage, yet he spoke no word of reproach to his wife.

At length Undine drew out the hand which she had been holding under the water, and in it she held a coral necklace of wondrous beauty.

'Take it and weep no longer,' she said in her gentle voice, and she held the necklace out toward Bertalda. 'I have had it brought to me from the palaces below the sea. Grieve no longer for the one which you have lost.'

But the knight saw in the necklace only another sign of Undine's strange dealings with the water spirits. He sprang between Bertalda and his wife and snatched from Undine's hand the beautiful necklace, flinging it far away into the river. Then in his passion he turned to his wife, and cried, 'Go and abide with your kindred! You are a witch, go, dwell with those who are as you are, and take with you your gifts! Go, trouble us no more!'

Undine looked at Huldbrand. Tears were in her blue eyes, and she wept as a little blameless child might weep.

'Alas, beloved,' she sighed, 'farewell! No harm shall touch you while I have power to shield you from evil. Alas, alas! why have you sent me hence?'

She seemed to glide as she spoke over the edge of the bark, and be drawn down into the river. And the little waves lapped against the boat and seemed to sob as they whispered, 'Alas, alas!'