Chapter 10

yourself, seem to hate. Look yonder," and she pointed to the distant heavens inflamed now with the lightning's play. "Those are also flaming brands, but their beginnings are from above and they point out another way--and now farewell!"

Long after she had disappeared, Hartmut stood on the same spot as if rooted to the ground. He had answered no word, made no comment, only gazed where she had pointed, with fixed, hopeless eyes.

Flash after flash of lightning was now rending the heavens and the whole landscape was enveloped in a lurid glare which reflected itself in that little sheet of water so like the Burgsdorf fish pond; the long reeds and grasses swayed and bent above the water and the mist from the meadow rose above it all.

Under just such long, waving grass the boy had lain long ago and dreamed of the day when he should mount like the falcon from which his race had taken their name, always higher and higher into boundless freedom toward the sun, and now on a similar spot the sentence had fallen upon him like a judgment from heaven, and the will-o'-the-wisp on this lowering autumn night seemed in its spectral flashes to dance over the grave of false hopes and falser aspirations. The falcon had not mounted to the skies, the earth had held him fast. He had felt for some time that the intoxicating cup of freedom and of life which his mother's hand had poured for him was poisoned; there were for him no cherished memories to guard--he dare not venture to think of his father.

Darker and darker grew the heavens with their heavy, storm laden clouds, and wilder and fiercer was the struggle between those giant figures which were riven at every flash only to come together again with greater fury, and brighter and more vivid grew that mighty flame as it mounted higher and higher in the inky firmament.