"At last I stopped, much vexed, and asked, 'What do you want, with
your shrieks? Take another gold coin; take two if you will, only let
me alone.'
"He began his odious smirking again, and snarled, 'It's not gold, it's
not gold that I want, young gentleman; I have rather more of that than
I can use: you shall see.'
"All at once the surface of the ground became transparent; it looked
like a smooth globe of green glass, and within it I saw a crowd of
goblins at play with silver and gold. Tumbling about, head over heels
they pelted each other in sport, making a toy of the precious metals,
and powdering their faces with gold dust. My ugly companion stood half
above, half below the surface; he made the others reach up to him
quantities of gold, and showed it to me laughing, and then flung it
into the fathomless depths beneath. He displayed the piece of gold I
had given him to the goblins below, who held their sides with laughing
and hissed at me in scorn. At length all their bony fingers pointed at
me together; and louder and louder, closer and closer, wilder and
wilder grew the turmoil, as it rose toward me, till not my horse only,
but I myself was terrified; I put spurs into him, and cannot tell how
long I may have scoured the forest this time.
"When at last I halted, the shades of evening had closed in. Through
the branches I saw a white footpath gleaming and hoped it must be a
road out of the forest to the town. I resolved to work my way thither;
but lo! an indistinct, dead-white face, with ever-changing features,
peeped at me through the leaves; I tried to avoid it, but wherever I
went, there it was.
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