“Malicious Kuehleborn!” cried the knight, recovering himself.  “Hey, ’tis you, you goblin?  There, take your kiss!” And he furiously hurled his sword at the figure.  But it vanished like vapor, and a gush of water which wetted him through left the knight in no doubt as to the foe with whom he had been engaged.  “He wishes to frighten me back from Bertalda,” said he aloud to himself; “he thinks to terrify me with his foolish tricks, and to make me give up the poor distressed girl to him so that he can wreak his vengeance on her.  But he shall not do that, weak spirit of the elements as he is.  No powerless phantom may understand what a human heart can do when its best energies are aroused.”  He felt the truth of his words, and that the very expression of them had inspired his heart with fresh courage.

It seemed too as if fortune were on his side, for he had not reached his fastened horse when he distinctly heard Bertalda’s plaintive voice not far distant, and could catch her weeping accents through the ever increasing tumult of the thunder and tempest.  He hurried swiftly in the direction of the sound, and found the trembling girl just attempting to climb the steep in order to escape in any way from the dreadful gloom of the valley.  He stepped, however, lovingly in her path, and, bold and proud as her resolve had been before, she now felt only too keenly the delight that the friend whom she so passionately loved should rescue her from this frightful solitude, and that the joyous life in the castle should be again open to her.  She followed almost unresisting, but so exhausted with fatigue that the knight was glad to lead her to his horse, which he now hastily unfastened in order to lift the fair fugitive upon it; and then, cautiously holding the reins, he hoped to proceed through the uncertain shades of the valley.

But the horse had become quite unmanageable from the wild apparition of Kuehleborn.  Even the knight would have had difficulty in mounting the rearing and snorting animal, but to place the trembling Bertalda on its back was perfectly impossible.  They determined therefore to return home on foot.  Leading the horse after him by the bridle, the knight supported the tottering girl with his other hand.  Bertalda exerted all her strength to pass quickly through the fearful valley, but weariness weighed her down like lead and every limb trembled, partly from the terror she had endured when Kuehleborn had pursued her, and partly from her continued alarm at the howling of the storm and the pealing of the thunder through the wooded mountain.

At last she slid from the supporting arm of her protector, and, sinking down on the moss, exclaimed, “Let me lie here, my noble lord; I suffer the punishment due to my folly, and I must now perish here anyhow through weariness and dread.”