The lord of Nideck was in a dying state.
What can science do in presence of the great mortal strife between
Death and Life? At the supreme hour, when the invisible wrestlers are
writhed together body to body and limb to limb, panting, each in turn
overthrowing and overthrown, what avails the healing art? One can but
watch, and tremble, and listen!
At times the struggle seems suspended--a truce has sounded; Life has
retired into her hold. She is resting; she is collecting the courage of
despair. But the relentless enemy beats at the gates; he bursts in; then
Life springs to the rescue, and again grapples with her adversary. The
strife is renewed with fresh fuel added to the fire of mortal energy as
the fatal issue draws closer and nearer.
And the exhausted patient, himself the field of battle, weltering in the
cold sweat of death, the eye set and the arm powerless, can do nothing
for himself. His breathing, sometimes short, broken, and distressing,
sometimes long, deep, laboured, and heavy, indicates the varying phases
of this dreadful struggle.
The bystanders watch each other's faces, and they think, "The day will
come when we in our turns shall be the field of the same strife, and
victorious Death will bear us away into the grave, his den, as the spider
carries away the fly." But the true life, the only life, the soul,
spreading her immortal wings, will speed her flight to another world,
with the exulting cry, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished my
course. I have kept the faith!" And Death, disappointed of its prey, will
look up at the emancipated being, unable to follow, and holding in its
clutches only a cold and decaying corpse, soon to be a handful of dust.
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" O best and
only consolation, the hope and belief in the final triumph of justice,
the certainty of immortal life through Jesus Christ the Saviour! Cruel
indeed is he who would rob man of the chief brightness and glory of life!
Towards midnight the Count of Nideck seemed almost gone; the agony of
death was at hand; the broken, weakened pulse indicated the sinking of
the vital powers; then, it might return to a more active state; but there
seemed no hope.
My only duty left was to stay and see this unhappy man die.
I was exhausted with fatigue and anxiety; whatever art could do I had
tried.
I told Sperver to sit up, and close his master's eyes in death. The poor
faithful fellow was in the utmost distress; he reproached himself with
his involuntary cry--"Count of Nideck--what are you doing?" and tore his
hair in bitter repentance.
I went away alone to Hugh Lupus's tower, having had scarcely any time to
take food, but I did not feel the want of it.
There was a bright fire on the hearth; I threw myself dressed upon the
bed, and sleep soon came to relieve my weight of apprehension--that heavy
sleep broken by the consciousness that you may any minute be awoke by
tears and lamentations.
I was sleeping thus, with my face turned towards the fire, and as it
often happens, the flame fitfully rising, and falling threw a fluttering,
flickering light like those of ruddy flapping wings against the walls,
and wearied still more my dropping eyelids.
Lost in a dreamy slumber, I was half opening my eyes to see the cause of
these alternate lights and shadows, but the strangest sight surprised me.
Close by the hearth, hardly revealed by the feeble light of a few dying
embers, I recognised with dismay the dark profile of the Black Plague!
She sat upon a low stool, and was evidently warming herself.
At first I thought myself deceived by my senses, which would have been
natural enough after the exciting scenes of the last few days; I raised
myself upon my elbow, gazing with my eyes starting with fear and horror.
It was she indeed! I lay horrified, for there she sat calm and immovable,
with her hands clasped over her skinny knees, just as I had seen her in
the snow, with her long scraggy neck outstretched, her hooked nose, her
compressed lips.
How had the Black Pest got here? How had she found her way into this high
tower crowning the dangerous precipices? Everything that Sperver had told
me of this mysterious being seemed to be coming true! And now the
unaccountable behaviour of Lieverlé, growling so fiercely against the
wall, seemed clear as the daylight. I huddled myself close up into the
alcove, hardly daring to breathe, and staring upon this motionless
profile just as a mouse out of its hole fixes its paralysed stare upon
the cat that is watching for it.
The old woman stirred no more than the rock-hewn pillars on each side of
the hearthstone, and her lips were mumbling inarticulate sounds.
My heart was palpitating, my fears increased momentarily during the long
silence, made more startling by the motionless supernatural figure that
sat there before me.
This had lasted a quarter of an hour when, the fire catching a splinter
of fir-wood, a flash of light broke out, the shaving twisted and flamed,
and a few rays of light flared to the end of the room.
That luminous jet was sufficient to show me that the creature was clothed
in an old dress of rich purple silk as stiff as cardboard, with a violet
pattern; there was a massive bracelet upon her left wrist, and a gold
arrow stuck through her thick grey hair twisted over the back of her
head. It was like an apparition out of the ages past.
Still the Plague could have had no hostile intentions towards me, or
she might easily have taken advantage of my sleep to have put them in
execution.
That thought was beginning to give me some confidence, when suddenly she
rose from her seat and with slow steps approached my bed, holding in her
hand a torch which she had just lighted. I then observed that her eyes
were fixed and haggard.
I made an effort to rise and cry aloud, but not a muscle of my body would
obey my wishes, not a breath came to my lips; and the old woman, bending
over me between the curtains, fixed her stony stare upon me with a
strange unearthly smile. I wanted to call for help, I wanted to drive her
from me, but her petrifying stare seemed to fascinate and paralyse me,
just as that of the serpent fixes the little bird motionless before it.
During this speechless contemplation minutes seemed like hours. What was
she about to do? I was ready for any event.
Suddenly she turned her head, went round upon her heel, listened, strode
across the room, and opened the door.
At last I recovered a little courage; an effort of the will brought me to
my feet as if I were acted on by a spring; I darted after her footsteps;
she with one hand was holding her torch on high, and with the other kept
the door open.
I was about to seize her by the hair, when at the end of the long
gallery, under the Gothic archway of the castle leading to the ramparts,
I saw--a tall figure.
It was the Count of Nideck!
The Count of Nideck, whom I had thought a dying man, clad in a huge
wolf-skin thrown with its upper jaw projecting grimly over his eyes like
a visor, the formidable claws hanging over each shoulder, and the tail
dragging behind him along the flags.
He wore stout heavy shoes, a silver clasp gathered the wolf-skin round
his neck, and his whole aspect, but for the ice-cold deathly expression
of his face, proclaimed the man born for command--the master!
In the presence of such an imposing personage my ideas became vague and
confused. Flight was no longer possible, yet I had the presence of mind
to throw myself into the embrasure of the window.
The count entered my room with his eyes fixed on the old woman and his
features unrelaxed. They spoke to one another in hoarse whispers, so low
that I could not distinguish a word. But there was no mistaking their
gestures. The woman was pointing to the bed.
They approached the fireplace on tiptoe. There in the dark shadow of the
recess at its side the Black Plague, with a horrible smile, unrolled a
large bag.
As soon as the count saw the bag he made a bound towards the bed and
kneeled upon it with one knee; there was a shaking of the curtains, his
body disappeared beneath their folds, and I could only see one leg still
resting on the floor, and the wolf's tail undulating irregularly from
side to side.
They seemed to be acting a murder in ghastly pantomime. No real scene,
however frightful, could have agitated me more than this mute
representation of some horrible deed.
Then the old woman ran to his assistance, carrying the bag with her.
Again the curtains shook and the shadows crossed the walls; but the most
horrible of all was that I fancied I saw a pool of blood creeping across
the floor and slowly reaching the hearth. But it was only the snow that
had clung to the count's boots, and was melting in the heat.
I was still gazing upon this dark stream, feeling my dry tongue cleave to
the roof of my mouth, when there was a great movement; the old woman and
the count were stuffing the sheets of the bed into the sack, they were
thrusting and stamping them in with just the same haste as a dog
scratching at a hole, then the lord of Nideck flung this unshapely bundle
over his shoulder and made for the door; a sheet was dragging behind him,
and the old woman followed him torch in hand. They went across the court.
My knees were almost giving way under me; they knocked together for fear.
I prayed for strength.
In a couple of minutes I was on their footsteps, dragged forward by a
sudden irresistible impulse.
I crossed the court at a run, and was just going to enter the door of the
tower when I perceived a deep but narrow pit at my feet, down which went
a winding staircase, and there far below I could see the torch describing
a spiral course around the stone rail like a little star; at last it was
lost in the distance.
Now I also descended the first steps of this newly-discovered staircase,
directing my course after this distant light; suddenly it vanished. The
old woman and the count had reached the bottom of the precipice.
Supported by the stone rail I continued my descent, safe to be able to
mount again if I found my further progress stopped.
Soon I came to the last step; I looked around me, and discovered on my
left hand a narrow streak of moonlight shining under a low door, through
the nettles and brambles; I kicked a way through these obstacles,
clearing the snow away with my feet, and then found that I was at the
very foot of the keep--Hugh's donjon tower.
Who would have supposed that such a hole would have led up into the
castle? Who had shown it to the old woman? I did not stay to satisfy
myself on these points.
The vast plain lay spread before me bathed in a light almost equal to
that of day. On the right lay extended wide the dark line of the Black
Forest with its craggy rocks, its gullies, its passes stretching away as
far as the sight could reach.
The night air was keen and sharp, but perfectly calm, and I felt myself
awakened to the highest degree, almost as if my senses were volatilised
by the still and ice-cold air.
My first examination of the horizon was for the figures of the count
and his strange companion. I soon distinguished their tall dark forms
standing out sharply against the star-spangled purple heavens. I nearly
overtook them at the bottom of the ravine.
The count was moving with deliberate steps, the imaginary winding-sheet
dragging slowly after him. There was an automatic precision in the
movements of both.
I kept six or eight yards behind them down the hollow road to the
Altenberg, now in the shade, now in the full light, for the moon was
shining with astonishing brilliancy. A few clouds floated idly across the
zenith, seeming to want to clasp her in their long arms, but she ever
eluded their grasp, and her rays, keen as a blade of steel, cut me to the
marrow of my bones.
I could have wished to turn back, but some invisible power impelled me
onwards to follow this funeral procession in pantomime. Even to this day
I fancy still I can see the rough mountain path through the Black Forest,
I can hear the crisp snow crackling under foot, and the dead leaves
rustling in the light north wind; I can see myself following those two
silent beings, but I cannot understand what mysterious power drew me in
their footsteps.
At last we reach the forest, and advance amongst the tall bare-branched,
beeches; the dark shadows of their higher boughs intersect the lower
branches, and fall broken upon the snow-encumbered road. Sometimes I
fancy I can hear steps behind me; I turn sharply round, but can see no
one.
We had just reached the long rocky ridge that forms the crest of the
Altenberg; behind it flows the torrent of the Schnéeberg, but in winter
no current is visible; scarcely does a mere thread of its blue waters
trickle under the thick crust of ice. Here the deep solitude is broken by
no murmuring brooks, no warblings of birds, no thunder of the waterfall.
In the vast unbroken solitudes the awful silence is terrible.
The Count of Nideck and the old woman found a gap in the face of the
rock, up which they mounted straight with marvellous celerity, whilst I
had to pull myself up by the help of the bushes.
Hardly had they reached the ridge of the crags, which came almost to a
point, when I was within three yards of them, and I beheld beyond a
dreadful precipice of which I could not see the bottom. At the left hung
in the air like a vast sheet the fall of the Schnéeberg, a mass of ice.
That resemblance to an immense wave taking the precipice at one bound,
bearing trees on its breast, fringed with the bushes, and winding out the
long ivy sprays, which exhibit in their delicate tracery the form of the
rigid glassy billow; that mere semblance of movement amidst the stillness
and immovableness of death, and the presence of those two speechless
creatures pursuing their ghastly work with automatic precision, added to
the terror with which I already trembled.
Nature herself seemed to shrink with horror.
The count had laid down his burden; the old woman and he took it up
together, swung it for a moment over the edge of the precipice, then the
long shroud floated over the abyss, and the imaginary murderers in
silence bent forward to see it fall.
That long white sheet floating in the air is still present before my
eyes. It descends, it falls like a wild swan shot in the clouds,
spreading its wide wings, the long neck thrown back, whirling down to
earth to die.
The white burden disappeared in the dark depths of the precipice.
At last the cloud which I had long seen threatening to cover the moon's
bright disc veiled her in its steel-blue folds, and her rays ceased to
shine.
The old woman, holding the count by the hand and dragging him forward
with hurried steps, came for a moment into view.
The cloud had overshadowed the moon, and I could not move out of their
way without danger of falling over the precipice.
After a few minutes, during which I lay as close as I could, there was a
rift in the cloud. I looked out again. I stood alone on the point of the
peak with the snow up to my knees.
Full of horror and apprehension, I descended from my perilous position,
and ran to the castle in as much consternation as if I had been guilty of
some great crime.
As for the lord of Nideck and his companion, I lost sight of them.