"Then I shall descend into the vault, and scatter the ghosts with holy water."

The countess's face glowed with fervor as she exclaimed:

"Holy father, I shall accompany you."

"No, countess; no one shall accompany me but my sacristan."

"The sacristan! A man! He shall not put his foot in this house!" cried the countess, excitedly.

The pastor, in a soothing voice, explained to her that his sacristan was almost as much a part of the Church as himself; moreover, that he was absolutely necessary on this occasion for the performance of the exorcism; in fact, without him the ceremony could not take place, seeing that the sacred vessel containing the holy water, the crucibulum and lanterns, should be carried before him to give all due effect to the religious rite.

Under these circ.u.mstances Countess Theudelinde gave her consent, on the condition that the obnoxious male intruder should not enter the castle itself. Still more, the pastor promised to watch in the greenhouse after the castle gates were locked.

According to these arrangements, when it began to get dark, Father Mahok arrived, bringing with him his sacristan, a man of about forty, with a closely shaved mustache and a very copper-colored face. The pastor left him in the greenhouse, and proceeded himself to the dining-room, where the countess was awaiting him for supper. No one ate a morsel. The pastor had no appet.i.te, neither had the countess, nor her companion. The air was too full of the coming event to allow of such a gross thing as eating.

After supper the countess withdrew to her room, and Herr Mahok went to the greenhouse, where the sacristan had made himself comfortable with wine and meat, and had kept up the fires in the oven. The servants had been kept in ignorance of what was going on; they had never heard the midnight ma.s.s, nor the wild shrieks and infamous songs of the inhabitants of the vault, and the countess would not allow the ears of her innocent handmaidens to be polluted with such horrors. Therefore, every one in the castle slept. The pastor watched alone. At first Herr Mahok tried to pa.s.s the long hours of the night in reading his prayers, but as his habitual hour for sleep drew near he had to fight a hard battle with his closing eyelids. He was afraid that if he slumbered his imagination would reproduce the countess's dream, to which, be it said, he did not give credence; at the same time, he did not wholly doubt. Generally, he found that his breviary provoked sleep, and now he thought it better to close the book, and try what conversation with the sacristan would do as a means to keep awake.

The clerk's discourse naturally turned upon ghostly appearances; he told stories of a monk without a head, of spirits that appeared on certain nights in the year, of hobgoblins and witches, all of which he had either seen with his own eyes or had heard of from persons whose veracity was unimpeachable.

"Folly! lies!" said the excellent pastor; but he could not help a creeping sensation coming over him. If he could even have smoked, it would have strengthened his nerves; but smoking was forbidden in the castle. The countess would have smelled it, as the giant in the old fairy tale smelled human flesh.

When the sacristan found that all his wonderful tales of ghosts and hobgoblins were considered lies, he thought it was no use tiring himself talking, and as soon as he ceased sleep began to fall upon his eyelids. Seated upon a stool, his head leaning against the wall, his mouth open, he slept profoundly, to the envy, if not the admiration, of the good pastor, who would willingly have followed his example.

Soon some very unmusical sounds made themselves heard. The sacristan snored in all manner of keys, in all variations of nasal discord, which so jarred on the pastor's nerves that he several times shook the sleeper to awake him, with the result that he slept again in no time.

At last the clock on the castle tower chimed twelve. Herr Mahok struck the sacristan a good blow on his shoulder.

"Get up!" he said. "I did not bring you here to sleep."

The clerk rubbed his eyes, already drunk with sleep. The pastor took his snuff-box to brighten himself up with a pinch of snuff, when suddenly both men were roused out of all the torpor of sleep by other means. Just as the last beat of the clock had finished striking the unearthly ma.s.s began to be intoned in the vault below. Through the profound silence of the night was heard the voice of the priest singing the Latin ma.s.s, with the responses of the choir, accompanied by some instrument that sounded like an organ, but which had a shriller tone, and seemed to be a parody of the same.

Over the whole body of Herr Mahok crept a ghostly shiver.

"Do you hear it?" he asked the sacristan, in a whisper.

"Hear it? Who could help hearing it? Ma.s.s is saying somewhere."

"Here, under us, in the vault."

"Who can it be?"

"The devil! All good spirits praise the Lord," stammered the worthy pastor, making the sign of the cross three times.

"But it seems that the evil spirits praise the Lord as well as the good ones," returned the clerk.

This a.s.sertion of his was, however, quickly contradicted, for in the middle of the next psalm a diabolical chorus struck in wildly, and the air resounded with--

"Come, dearest, come to me, Come, I am at home; Two gypsies play for me.

And here I dance alone."

Then followed shrieks of laughter, in which women's shrill cackle mingled with the hoa.r.s.e roar of men and the wildest discord, as if h.e.l.l itself were let loose.

The poor priest, who had trembled at the pious psalms, nearly fell to the ground on hearing this pandemonium. A cold sweat broke out all over him; he knew now that the countess was right, and that this was, in truth, the work of the evil one.

"Michael," he said, his teeth chattering with fear, "have you heard--"

"I must be stone deaf if I didn't--such an infernal din!" replied the other. "All the spirits of h.e.l.l are holding a Sabbath--"

Just then there was the tinkle of a bell. The tumult subsided, and the voice of the celebrant was once more heard intoning ma.s.s.

"What shall we do?" asked Herr Mahok.

"What shall we do? Descend into the vault and exorcise the evil spirits."

"What!" cried the priest. "Alone?"

"Alone!" repeated Michael, with religious fervor. "Are we alone when we come in the name of the Lord of armies? Besides, we are two. If I were a priest, and if I were invested with the stole, had I the right to wear the three-cornered hat, I should go into the vault, carrying the holy water, and with the words, 'Apage Satanas,' I would drive before me all the legions of h.e.l.l itself."

The excellent pastor felt ashamed that his ignorant sacristan should possess greater faith, and show more courage in this combat with the powers of darkness, than himself; still, fear predominated over his shame.

"I would willingly face these demons," he said, in a somewhat hesitating manner, "were it not that the gout has suddenly seized my right foot. I am not able to walk."

"But consider what a scandal it will be if we, who have heard the spirits, have not pluck enough to send them packing."

"But my foot, Michael; I cannot move my foot."

"Well, then, I will carry you on my back. You can hold the holy water and I will take the lantern."

There was no way out of this friendly offer. The pastor commended his soul to G.o.d, and, taking heart, resolved to fight the demons below, armed only with the holy insignia of his office. The good man, however, did not mount, like Anchises on the back of aeneas, without much inward misgiving.

"You will be careful, Michael; you will not let me fall?" he said, in a somewhat quavering voice.

"Don't be afraid, pastor," returned the sacristan, as he stooped and raised the pastor on his shoulders. "Now, forward!" he cried, taking the lantern in his hands, while Herr Mahok carried the vessels necessary for the exorcism.

A cold blast of air saluted them as they issued from the greenhouse and crossed the large hall of the castle, which the glimmering light from the small lantern only faintly illumined. Half of it remained in darkness; but on the side of the wall where hung the portraits of the armed knights an occasional gleam showed Herr Mahok the faces of the countess's warlike ancestors, who had done in their day good service against the Turks. They looked at him, he thought, somewhat contemptuously, and seemed to say, "What sort of man is this, who goes to fight pickaback?"

Michael stopped before a strong iron door in the centre of the hall.

This was the entrance to the subterranean vaults and cellars underneath the castle. And now the pastor suddenly remembered he had left the key of this gate in the greenhouse. There was nothing for it but to retrace their steps. Just as they reached the threshold, however, Michael suggested that something very hard was pressing against his side. Could it be the key which was, after all, in his reverence's pocket? This suggestion proved correct, and once more he had to run the gantlet of the old crusaders and their contemptuous superiority.

The key creaked as it turned in the lock, and a heavy, damp smell struck upon them as they pa.s.sed through the iron gate.

"Leave the door open," said the pastor, with an eye to securing a safe retreat.

And now they began to descend the steps, Herr Mahok remarking that his horse was not too sure-footed. He tottered in going down the steps so much that the pastor, in his fright, caught him with his left hand tightly by the collar, while he pressed the other more closely round his throat, a proceeding which Michael resented by calling out, in a strangled voice:

"Reverend sir, don't squeeze me so; I am suffocating!"

"What was that?"

A black object whizzed past them, circling round their heads. A bat, the well-known attendant upon ghosts!