CHAPTER XIX.

HOW THE KNIGHT HULDBRAND WAS BURIED.

FATHER HEILMANN had returned to the castle as soon as the death of the lord of Ringstetten was made known in the neighborhood; and he arrived at the very hour when the monk, who had married the unfortunate couple, was hurrying from the door, overcome with dismay and horror.

When Father Heilmann was informed of this, he replied: "It is all well; and now come the duties of my office, in which I have no need of an assistant."

He then began to console the bride, now become a widow, small as was the advantage her worldly and light-minded spirit derived from his kindness.

with a secret dread, started back, or on one side; and, owing to their movements, the others, next to whom the white stranger now came, were terrified still more, so as to produce almost a complete disarrangement of the funeral train. Some of the military escort ventured to address the figure, and attempt to remove it from the procession, but it seemed to vanish from under their hands, and yet was immediately seen advancing again, with slow and solemn step, among the followers of the body. At last, in consequence of the shrinking away of the attendants, it came close behind Bertalda. It now moved so slowly that the widow was not aware of its presence, and it walked meekly on behind, neither suffering nor creating disturbance.

The old fisherman, on the other hand, This continued until they came to the though severely afflicted, was far more re-churchyard, where the procession formed a signed in regard to the fate of his son-in-law circle round the open grave. Then it was and the calamity of his daughter; and while that Bertalda perceived her unbidden comBertalda could not refrain from accusing Un-panion, and prompted half by anger and half dine as a murderess and sorceress, the old by terror, she commanded her to depart from man calmly said: "The event, after all, could not have happened otherwise. I see nothing in it but the judgment of God; and no one, I am sure, could have his heart more pierced by the death of Huldbrand, than she who was obliged to accomplish his doom, poor forsaken Undine!"

the

the knight's place of final rest. But the veiled female, shaking her head with a gentle refusal, raised her hands toward Bertalda, in lowly supplication, by which she was greatly moved, and could not but remember with tears how Undine had shown such sweetness of spirit on the Danube, when she held out to her the coral necklace.

He then assisted in arranging the funeral solemnities as suited the rank of the de- Father Heilmann now motioned with his ceased. The knight was to be interred in hand, and gave order for all to observe pera village churchyard, in whose consecrated fect stillness, that over the body, whose ground were the graves of his ancestors; a mound was wellnigh formed, they might place which they, as well as himself, had en- breathe a prayer of silent devotion. Berdowed with rich privileges and gifts. His talda knelt, without speaking; and all knelt, shield and helmet lay upon his coffin, ready even the grave-diggers, who had now finto be lowered with it into the grave, for Lord ished their work. But when they rose from Huldbrand, of Ringstetten, had died the last this breathing of the heart, the white stranger of his race; the mourners began their sor- had disappeared. On the spot where she had rowful march, lifting the melancholy wail kneeled, a little spring of silver brightness of their dirges amid the calm, unclouded was gushing out from the green turf, and it heaven; Father Heilmann preceded the pro- kept swelling and flowing onward, with a low cession, bearing a lofty crucifix, while Ber- murmur, till it almost encircled the mound talda followed in her misery, supported by of the knight's grave; it then continued its her aged father. course, and emptied itself into a calm lake, While proceeding in this manner, they which lay by the side of the consecrated suddenly saw, in the midst of the dark-hab-ground. Even to this day the inhabitants ited mourning females in the widow's train, of the village point out the spring; and they a snow-white figure, closely veiled, and wring- cannot but cherish the belief that it is the ing its hands in the wild vehemence of sor- poor deserted Undine, who in this manner Those next to whom it moved, seized | still fondly encircles her beloved in her arms.

row.

TALES

FROM THE

ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS.

TRANSLATED BY

THE REV. EDWARD FORSTER.

INTRODUCTION.

Colonel Capper, in his "Observations on the Passage to India," observes: “The Arabian Nights' contain much curious and useful observation. They are universally read and admired throughout Asia by all ranks of men, both old and young. Considered, therefore, as an original work, descriptive as they are of the manners and customs of the East in general, and of the Arabians in particular, they surely must be thought to merit the attention of the curious. Nor are they, in my opinion, destitute of merit in other respects; for, although the extravagance of some of the stories is carried too far, yet on the whole one cannot help admiring the fancy and invention of the author in striking out such a variety of pleasing incidents, pleasing I will call them, because they have frequently afforded me much amusement; nor do I envy any man his feelings who is above being pleased with them. But before any person decides upon the merit of these books he should be an eyewitness of the effect they produce on those who best understand them. I have more than once seen the Arabians in the desert, sitting round a fire, listening to these stories with such attention and pleasure as totally to forget the fatigue and hardship with which an instant before they were entirely overcome."

The great Orientalist, Silvester de Sacy, in his essay on the "Thousand and One Nights," says:

"The literature of the East possesses no other works which could have obtained in Europe such celebrity and favor as has been accorded to 'Pilpay's Fables' and the stories of The Thousand and One Nights.' They have been translated into almost every language, and their readers have been legion. Their unequalled popularity is not, however, surprising, for they are at once calculated to charm and instruct they possess for the youthful reader an indescribable fascination, and even the reader of riper years may turn to them at times to find relaxation and amusement. The vaunted antiquity and wisdom of the laws of Menoo, the oracular and sententious obscurity of the sacred books of the Chinese, the majestic and almost inspired eloquence of the Koran, the lofty epic of Valmiki, the sublime songs of Homer himself, or the transcendent meditations of Plato, all these grand monuments of the human mind cannot rival in the foregoing respect these two books, which have, moreover, occasioned no revolution in the world, and have neither caused blood to flow, nor armed sect against sect and nation against nation. .