There sat the illustrious Maximilian, still clapping his hands.  Gratefully, yet with a passionate desire for fresh applause, the resolve to show him the very best which she could accomplish was strengthened.  But the next moment the blood faded from her slightly rouged cheeks, for Lienhard—­was it possible, was it imaginable?—­Lienhard Groland was not looking up at her!  Without moving his hands or vouchsafing her a single glance, he was gazing into the face of the little wearer of the laurel wreath, with whom he was eagerly talking.  He was under her thrall, body and soul.  Yet it could not be, she could not have seen distinctly.  She must look down once more, to correct the error.  She did so, and a torturing anguish seized her heart.  He was chatting with the child as before; nay, with still more warmth.  As he now saw nothing which was happening upon the rope, he had probably also failed to heed what she had performed, dared, accomplished, mainly for his sake, at the peril of her life, on the dizzy height.  His wife was still clapping her hands at his side, but Lienhard, as though deaf and blind to everything else, was gazing at the page which the miserable little elf was just giving him.  There was certainly writing on it—­perhaps a charm which rendered him subject to her.  How else could he have brought himself to overlook so unkindly herself and her art—­the best she had to bestow—­for the sake of this child?

Then, besides the keenest sorrow, a fierce, burning hate took possession of her soul.

She had not appealed to her saint for years; but now, in a brief, ejaculatory prayer, she besought her to drive this child from Lienhard, punish her with misery, suffering, and destruction.  A sharp pang which she had never before experienced pierced her to the heart.  The pure, sunny air which she inhaled on her lofty height seemed like acrid smoke, and forced tears into the eyes which had not wept for many a long day.

As, not knowing exactly what she was doing, with her ears deafened by the shouts of the crowd, among whom Lienhard now, with anxious suspense, watched her every movement, she again raised the rope and prepared to spring, she fancied that her narrow path rose higher and higher.  One more step, and suddenly, with Loui’s shriek of horror and the clown’s terrified “Jesus and Mary, she is falling!” ringing on the air, she felt as if the rope had parted directly in front of her.  Then a hurricane appeared to howl around her, bearing her away she knew not whither.  It seemed as though the tempest had seized the ends of the rope, and was dealing terrible blows with them upon her shoulders, her back, and her feet.  Meanwhile the little wearer of the wreath was lying on a black cloud opposite to her at Lienhard’s feet.

She still held the sheet in her hand, and was shouting to the angry elements the magic formulas which it contained.  Their power Kuni knew it—­had unchained them.  Lienhard’s deep voice mingled with her furious cries until the roar of the sea, on whose rocky shore the hurricane must have dashed her, drowned every other sound, and rolled over her, sometimes in scorching crimson, sometimes in icy crystal waves.  Then, for a long time, she saw and heard nothing more.