SEBALT TRACKS THE PLAGUE.
Sperver's face wore a look of supreme indignation; Sebalt's one of
bitter irony. The master of the hounds, whose melancholy appearance had
struck me during my first days at Nideck, was as thin as a rail; he wore
a leather jacket fastened at the waist by a belt, from which hung a
hunting-knife with a bone handle; long leather gaiters reached above his
knees, and his horn hung at his elbow from a shoulder belt that went
from right to left across his chest. On his head was a broad-brimmed hat
with a heron's plume in the band, and his profile, terminating in a
yellowish beard, suggested that of a goat.
"Yes," continued Sperver; "I have some news for you!"
He threw himself into a chair, burying his face in his hands, while
Sebalt quietly drew his trumpet over his head and laid it on the table.
"Come, Sebalt," cried Gideon, "speak out!"
"The witch is roaming about the Castle."
This information would have failed to interest me had it not been for
the interview with Marie Lagoutte; but now it made a deep impression
upon me. There was some mysterious connection between the Lord of Nideck
and this horrid creature, the nature of which was an enigma to me. I
felt that I must solve it at all costs.
"One moment, gentlemen! one moment!" I said to Sperver and his comrade;
"first of all, I want to know where this Black Plague comes from."
Sperver stared at me in astonishment.
"Heaven only knows!" he cried.
"At precisely what time does she come within sight of Nideck?"
"I told you before! Just a week before Christmas every year."
"And she stays?"
"From a fortnight to three weeks."
"Is she ever seen except at that time, either going or coming?"
"No."
"Then we shall have to catch her!" I exclaimed. "This is not natural!
We must find out what she wants, who she is, and where she comes from."
"Catch her!" said the master of the hounds, with an odd smile. "Catch
her, indeed!" and he shook his head meaningly.
"My dear Gaston," began Sperver, "your suggestion is all well enough,
but it is easier said than done. If I could send a bullet after her,
that would be another matter, for I can always come within gunshot of
her, but this the Count forbids; and as to taking her otherwise, you
might as well try to catch a squirrel by the tail. Listen to Sebalt's
story, and you shall see for yourself."
The person thus addressed, sitting on the end of the table with his legs
crossed, looked at me and began:
"This morning, as I was coming down the Altenberg, I followed the hollow
Nideck road. The snow was on a level with its edges. I was going along,
thinking of nothing in particular, when a foot-track caught my eye; it
was deep, and went straight across the path; the creature had come down
one side of the bank and gone up on the other. It wasn't a hare's foot,
for that makes hardly any mark in the snow; nor the cloven hoof of the
wild boar, nor a wolf's paw either; it was a deep hole. I stopped and
brushed away the snow that was collecting round it. It was the Black
Plague's track!"
"How do you know that?"
"How do I know it? I know the old hag's footprint better than her
figure, for I always go along with my eyes on the ground. I can
recognize any one in the country around by his foot-tracks, and a child
couldn't have mistaken this one."
"What was there about it so very different from any other?"
"It is no larger than your hand; it is finely shaped, the heel a trifle
long, the outline clean, and the great toe lies close to the others, as
if they were pressed into a slipper. It is a beautiful foot. Twenty
years ago, monsieur, I should have fallen in love with such a foot!
Every time I come across one like it, it makes a great impression on me.
Heavens! how can such a foot belong to the Black Plague?" And the good
fellow fixed his eyes on the floor with a dismal air.
"Well, Sebalt, go on!" said Sperver impatiently.
"To be sure! Well, I recognized the track, and I set out to follow it. I
was in hopes of catching the witch in her den, but you shall hear what a
dance she led me. I climbed up the roadside, only two gunshots from
Nideck, and struck off into the bushes, keeping the trail always on my
right; it ran along the edge of the Rhethal. Suddenly it jumped over the
ditch into the woods. I kept on, but happening to glance a little to the
left of it, I discovered another track that had been following the Black
Plague's. I stopped; 'Could it be Sperver's? or Kasper Trumpf's? or any
of the other people's?' I asked myself. I stooped over and examined it
closely, and you can fancy my surprise when I saw that it belonged to
nobody in this part of the country. I know every footprint from here to
Tuebingen, and it was none of these. The owner must have come from a
distance. The boot--for it was a kind of soft, well-made boot, with a
spur that left a little rowelled line in the snow behind it--instead of
being rounded at the end, was square; the sole, thin and without nails,
bent at every step. The pace was short and hurried, like that of a man
from twenty to twenty-five. I noticed the stitches in the leather at
this glance, and I have never seen finer."
"Who could it have been?"
Sperver shrugged his shoulders and remained silent.
"Who can have any object in following the old woman?" I asked, turning
to Sperver.
"The devil himself, perhaps," he replied.
We sat for some minutes, each one busied with his own reflections.
"I started on again," pursued Sebalt finally; "the tracks led up the
mountain side amongst the fir-trees, and then turned off around the base
of the Roche Fendue. When I saw this, I said to myself, 'Ah! you old
hag! If there was much game of your sort, the sport of hunting would go
to the dogs. It would be better to work as a galley slave!' We came--the
two tracks and I--to the top of the Schneeberg. The wind had swept here
and the snow was up to my waist, but I must get on! I reached the banks
of the Steinbach torrent and there the Black Plague's foot-prints
ceased. I stopped, and saw that after having tried up and down, the
gentleman's boots had taken the direction of the Tiefenbach. This was a
bad sign. I looked at the opposite bank, but there was no sign of a
track there. The witch had waded either up or down the stream, to break
the scent. Where should I go? To right or left? In my uncertainty, by
Jove, I came back to Nideck."
"You have forgotten to tell the doctor about her breakfast."
"To be sure, monsieur! At the foot of the Roche Fendue, I saw she had
lighted a fire; the snow was black around it; and I laid my hand on the
spot, thinking that if it were still warm the Plague could not be far
away, but it was as cold as ice. I noticed a snare in the bushes close
by."
"A snare?"
"Yes; it seems the old creature knows how to manage traps. A hare had
been caught in it; the impression of his body was still there where he
had lain stretched out. The witch had lighted the fire to cook him; she
knows a thing or two, you see!"
"Just to think," cried Sperver angrily, "that this old wretch should
find meat to feed on, when so many honest people of our villages are
starving for the want of a bit of bread! It infuriates me! If I only had
her in my clutches--!"
He had no time to finish his sentence. The next moment, we were staring
into each other's ashy faces, speechless and immovable. A howl--the howl
of a wolf on a bitter winter's night--a cry that you must have heard to
comprehend in the least, the agonized plaint of the savage beast,--was
echoing through the Castle, and seemed not far from us. It rose from
below, so fearfully distinct that we fancied the wild animal just
outside our door.
We often hear quoted, as the most terrible of sounds, the roar of the
lion, as he rends the silence of approaching night in the immensity of
the desert. But if the parched and burning sands of Africa have their
voice, like the sound of the autumn tempest growling among the crags of
the forest, so, too, have the vast, snowy plains of the North their
characteristic cry, that accords so well with the dreary winter
landscape, where all is sleeping, and not even a dead leaf rustles to
disturb the perfect stillness; and this cry,--it is the howl of the
wolf!
Rousing himself with difficulty, Sperver sprang from his chair, rushed
to the window, and stared down at the foot of the Tower.
"Can a wolf have fallen into the moat?" he cried.
But the howls came from within the Castle. Then turning to us:
"Gaston! Sebalt!" he cried, "come on!"
We flew down the stairs four steps at a time, and rushed into the
armory. Sperver drew his hunting-knife, and Sebalt followed his example;
they preceded me along the gallery. The cries were guiding us towards
the chamber of the sick man. Sperver spoke no more, and hurried his
steps. I felt a shudder pass over me; something forewarned us that an
abominable scene was about to transpire before our eyes.
As we approached the Count's apartment, we found the whole household
afoot--hunters, kennel-keepers, and scullions, running this way and
that, and asking each other, "What is the matter? where are the cries
coming from?" Without waiting for anything, we dashed into the corridor
which led to the Count's chamber, and in the vestibule we encountered
the good Marie Lagoutte, who alone had had the courage to proceed there
before us. She was holding in her arms the young Countess, who had
fainted, and was hurrying her away as rapidly as she could. So agitated
was I at this pathetic sight that for the moment I forgot the Count, and
I sprang forward to Odile's aid; but Marie Lagoutte begged me to hurry
to the Count, as her mistress was only in a faint and would soon revive,
when she would be terribly distressed if I were not at her father's
bedside. Realizing that in spite of my preferences my first duty was to
my patient, I reluctantly quitted them, and hastened to overtake my
companions.
We reached the Count's room. The howls were coming from within.
[Illustration: "THEN HE WOULD RESUME HIS FRIGHTFUL CRIES."]
We stared at one another, trying in vain to explain the presence of such
a guest. Our ideas were in utter confusion. Sperver threw open the door,
and with his hunting-knife tightly grasped, started to enter the room;
but he paused on the threshold, motionless as a stone. I glanced over
his shoulder, and the sight that presented itself to my gaze froze
the blood in my veins. The Count of Nideck, crouching on all-fours on
the bed, his head bent forward and his eyes glowing fiercely, was
uttering these terrible howls. He was the wolf! That low forehead, that
long, pointed face, that bristling beard, that long, thin body, and
those wasted limbs,--the expression, the cry, the attitude,--all bespoke
the savage beast beneath a human mask. At times he would stop for a
second to listen, and the tall curtains of the bed would tremble like
leaves. Then he would resume his frightful cries.
Sperver, Sebalt, and I stood nailed to the floor; we held our breath.
Suddenly the Count stopped; like the hunted animal that sniffs the
breeze, he raised his head and listened. Far, far away beneath the
lofty arches of the snow-clad pines, a cry was heard; feeble at first,
it seemed to grow louder as it was prolonged, and soon it rose clear and
strong above the roaring of the storm. It was the she-wolf answering its
mate.
Sperver, turning towards me with livid face, his arm pointing to the
mountain, cried:
"Listen, it is the witch!"
The Count, motionless, with raised head and extended neck, his mouth
wide open, and eyeballs glowing like coals, seemed to understand the
meaning of the distant voice, lost in the midst of the deserted gorges
of the Black Forest, and a certain savage joy gleamed in his face. At
this moment Sperver cried in a broken voice:
"Count of Nideck! What are you doing?"
The Count fell backwards as if thunderstruck. We rushed into the room to
his assistance. The third attack had begun, and it was terrible to
witness.