The Count of Nideck

ng 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

's plume in the band, and his profile, terminati

Sperver; "I have

e in his hands, while Sebalt quietly drew his

" cried Gideon

roaming abou

ut now it made a deep impression upon me. There was some mysterious connection between the Lord of Nideck

Sperver and his comrade; "first of all, I wan

ed at me in

ly knows!"

ime does she come wi

Just a week before C

she s

tnight to t

ept at that time, eit

N

"This is not natural! We must find out what sh

unds, with an odd smile. "Catch her, i

fter her, that would be another matter, for I can always come within gunshot of her, but this the Count forbids; and as to taking

on the end of the table with his le

ck 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

you kn

I always go along with my eyes on the ground. I can recognize any one in the c

ut it so very diffe

essed 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,

o on!" said Sper

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 Tübingen, and it was none of these. The owner

ld it ha

his shoulders and

following the old woman?"

mself, perhap

s, each one busied wit

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,

to tell the doctor a

was black around it; and I laid my hand on the spot, thinking that if it were still warm the Pl

sna

in it; the impression of his body was still there where he had lain stretched ou

t to feed on, when so many honest people of our villages are starving for the

f 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 echoi

ands 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,

prang from his chair, rushed to the window

fallen into the

rom within the Castl

alt!" he cri

ple; they preceded me along the gallery. The cries were guiding us towards the chamber of the sick man. Sperver spoke no more, and hur

e 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 ai

s room. The howls wer

RESUME HIS FR

der, 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 brist

e, 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

with livid face, his arm poi

it is t

oals, seemed to understand the meaning of the distant voice, lost in the midst of the deserted gorges of th

deck! What a

rushed into the room to his assistance. The third