"Towards midnight the wind died down, and the big windows that had been rattling all the evening were quiet. I got up to see if anything was going on outside. The night was as black as a bottle of ink, and I went back to my armchair. I took another look at the sick man and I saw that he hadn't stirred; then I went on knitting. After a few minutes, I fell slowly, slowly to sleep. My chair was as soft as down and the room was very warm; I couldn't keep awake.

"I had been asleep about an hour, when a draught of cold air woke me. I opened my eyes, and what did I see? The long, middle window was wide open, the curtains were drawn, and the Count was standing upright on the window-sill!"

"The Count?"

"Yes."

"Impossible! He cannot move!"

"I couldn't believe my eyes; but, nevertheless, I saw him as plainly as I see you this minute. He held a torch in his hand, and the air was so still that its flame never wavered."

I stared at Marie Lagoutte, stupefied.

"At first," she went on, "when I saw the master in this extraordinary position, it made such an effect on me that I wanted to scream; but then I thought, 'Perhaps he is walking in his sleep; if you cry out and wake him he will fall and be dashed to pieces.' So I kept still and watched him, as you can fancy. He raised his torch slowly, and then he lowered it, and he did this three times, like a man making signals to some one; then he threw it down on to the ramparts, closed the window, and drew the curtains; he pa.s.sed before me without appearing to see me, and got into bed again muttering Heaven knows what."

"Are you certain you saw all this, madame?"

"Perfectly!"

"It is strange!"

"Yes, I know it, but it is true! Goodness, how astonished I was for a moment! Then, when I saw him go back to bed again and cross his hands over his breast as if nothing had happened, I said to myself, 'Marie Anne, you have had a bad dream; that is the only explanation of it!' and I went over to the window. But the torch was still burning; it had fallen into a bush a little to the left of the third gate, and you could see it glowing like a spark. There was no denying it!"

Marie Lagoutte looked at me for some minutes without speaking.

"You can imagine, monsieur, that there was no more sleep for me that night. I was on tenter-hooks; every moment I thought I heard something behind my chair. I wasn't afraid, but I was uneasy; it worried me. This morning, at the first signs of day, I ran to wake up Offenloch, and I sent him to the Count's bedside. As I went along the corridor I noticed that the first torch on the right was missing from its ring. I went down the stairs, and I found it in the little path that leads to the Black Forest. See! here it is!"

And she took from under her ap.r.o.n the end of a torch, which she laid on the table. I was thunderstruck. How could this man, whom but the night before I had seen so weak and exhausted, have risen from his bed, walked to the window, and opened and closed the heavy sash? What did this midnight signal mean? Wide awake as I was, it seemed to me as if I, too, had witnessed the strange scene, and my thoughts reverted involuntarily to the Black Plague. I roused myself at last from introspection, and I saw Marie Lagoutte had risen and was about to depart.

"Madame," I said, as I moved with her to the door, "you have acted wisely in telling me this, and I thank you heartily for doing so. You have told no one else of this adventure?"

"No one, monsieur. Such things are only to be confided to the priest and doctor."

"Ah! I see you are a very sensible person."

These words were exchanged on my threshold. At this moment, Sperver appeared at the end of the gallery, followed by his friend Sebalt.

"Ho, Gaston!" he cried, hurrying up; "I have news for you!"

"Well, well!" I exclaimed; "more news. The Old Harry is most certainly taking a hand in our affairs."

Marie Lagoutte had disappeared. The steward and his comrade entered the Tower.

CHAPTER VIII.

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!