over him, and so hard that you couldn't break it
into a smile about his mouth without a pickaxe."

"He will drink no wine," said Ishmael.

"But why does he not eat Christian food?"
asked Hans the Hunter. "Run there no
savoury four-legged meats among us that he
should sit at his grave's side eating pulse and
grain? Is yonder leathern bag that you come
down to market with a larder for a man, or a
full nosebag for a mule?"

"It is certain that he will eat no meat," said
Ishmael.

The landlord's wife set venison and wine
before the lad, and he fell to with a stout relish.
Greta, the landlord's pretty daughter, poured
him out his wine, and her eyes sparkled more
than the wine she held to him when he took the
cup into his hand together with her horny little
fingers. The villagers chattered and bantered
one another, and the great fire of pine-logs
blazed the more cheerily for the wail of wintry
wind that came down the narrow valley.
Ishmael's heart, opened by wine and meat and
warmth and fellowship, rejoiced as his eye
followed Greta, daughter and servant of the house.
Ever afoot and astir, her eyes twinkled with a
malicious satisfaction when she disappointed
him by answering instantly some toper's
summons, after she had flushed his cheek by sitting
down for half a minute at his side. A splash of
rain came with the bitter wind outside, and a
pained cry as of a name came on its wail—
"Ishmael! Ishmael!"

"That is Kerli's voice!" said the lad. "He
does not see me on the mountain path, and already
the shadow of the mountain falls on us. It will
be sunset on the plains before I reach the hut."

"Nay, foolish lad," said Greta, "it was but
the plash of the rain and the wail of the wind.
Kerli's voice cannot be heard from yonder peak,
three miles away."

"Ishmael! Ishmael!" came again the plaintive
cry upon the wind. In another minute
Ishmael was outside the door of The Heart's
Content, staff in hand and leathern bag on
shoulder, with his face set to the little bridge
over the ravine between the high road and the
steep rolling slopes at the foot of the Death's
Head Mountain.

"'Tis a fine lad," said Christopher, when he
was gone. "And 'tis a pot of money the old
conjuror must have up there. Ishmael never
comes down to market without a gold piece in
his hand. 'Tis a fine lad, a fine lad, Greta, for
a son-in-law."

"And 'tis a fine home to take a wife to," said
the wife of Christopher. "Inside the very
Death's Head up at Kerli's Peak!"

"But he will bring Kerli down to us, mother."

Every man's chair scraped the floor, all male
eyes opened in horror, and every woman crossed
herself at Greta's threat.

"He will bring the mountain itself down on
us ere he do that," said Doctor Martin. "Never
fear. He brought with him the darkest and
stormiest night of the year when he passed by
our houses while we were abed, three years ago,
and went without stopping for bit or sup up
yonder mountain. When the lad Ishmael came
down the mountain to us the next day a gaunt
limping boy, with great black eyes that frightened
all the village, we thought he was a hill
devil abroad by daylight."

"Well-a-day! well-a-day!" said Greta's
mother. "But the evening is dark as night, and
the rain has turned to hail, and, through the
howls of the wind, is not that thunder rolling
down from Kerli's Peak? Alas, dear lad! He
has a weary climb to a chill home, God bless him!"

Greta put her arm about her mother's neck,
and for a minute or two the guests of the inn
silently hearkened to the rising storm.

Through the storm Ishmael was battling his
way up by a familiar track. When he came
into the oak wood, lightning blazed among the
trees, and, after the flash, came through the darkness
screams of the wind through rock clefts
and among the leafless oaks. Ishmael, wet to
the skin, struggled still upward across the boggy
ground. Once when his foot slipped he seized
a soft knoll of the earth before him, when in a
lurid flash of lightning it looked like the head
of a dark Jewess stretched horribly large in
death across the mountain moor; it seemed to
be the face of his dead mother that he had
grasped by the mouth, and that distilled a black
ooze as his fingers sunk into it. Ishmael climbed
on, but, as he mounted, the storm seemed to wrap
him round more closely. Terrible shapes and
sounds were in the air that night. Kerli had
never practised magic on the mountain. For
Ishmael alone of all the world Kerli's heart
remained warm. Not of his own battle with
storm and terror Ishmael thought, but of Kerli,
whom also they environed, against whom he
vaguely feared that they were raised. But when
he reached the ban forest the storm was rolling
down the mountain sides, and twilight hues
were in the clear upper sky. He cleaved his
way between the pines and larches, and came
out upon the bare rock, where, not far below the
topmost snows of the mountain, rugged blocks of
granite formed the shape of that which, seen from
below, gave to the hill its name of Death's
Head Mountain. In the cavern that from afar
looked like a way between the open jaws of
death, Ishmael sought his friend. Upon its
floor there were the living embers of a fire, but
the old man was gone. Ishmael calling his
name aloud, climbed among all the hollows of
the rock, and sought in vain for tracks on the
hard upper snow. The fiercest fury of the storm
was rolling down into the valley. The echoes
of its thunder broke more faintly through the
upper air. Was it delusion of the sense that
made the boy stand with turned ear listening
intently as a hunted deer? "Ishmael! Ishmael!"
It was a faint wail among the echoes that might
be the wailing of the wind for any ear but his.
With an answering shout the youth turned in
pursuit, eager to plunge again into the storm
that was already beyond reach, that had passed
over the village, and was now pouring through
the gorge at the foot of the deep valley.