"Here," said the jailer to the new-comer, and the door was shut to heavily. Immediately Erastus felt himself embraced by delicate female arms. "Father, dear father," he heard as if an angel's voice murmured in his ear. He turned around and Lydia nestled to his heart. In his joy he raised his arms as if to enfold her to himself; but stepped backwards.
"What took thee to the Holtermann?" he asked in a stern voice. She looked up into his face with an honest gaze.
"Father I did not wish any evil, or do any evil. I let myself be enticed thither by the message of the Italian clergyman, which thou hast already heard about, but found nobody there but the herb picking woman, and because I disturbed her in her witch's work, she turned three wretches loose on me, who hunted me down, so that I fell into the Heidenloch. Father Werner found me there, he brought me in spite of a broken foot home again, the good true man!"
Never before in his whole lifetime had the pure clear eyes of his daughter been such a comfort to him as at that present moment. Words were not necessary, it was plainly legible in this childish look that Lydia had no conception of the wickedness which she was otherwise said to have committed. Consoled he drew her to his heart.
"The Kurfürst has then permitted thee to keep me company, my poor scared bird," said Erastus tenderly stroking the maiden's fair hair. "How pale and ill thou dost look after all thy fright."
Lydia did not contradict her father. If he only would believe that she was there to keep him company. But Erastus was horrified, as he noticed after a closer look at his only treasure, the feverishly red cheeks of his child and counted her rapidly beating and tremulous pulse. "Lie down Lydia, thou requirest rest," he said gravely, "an illness seems to be coming on." The poor child obeyed. But however carefully the physician avoided disturbing her, sleep would not come to her. Finally she determined, as her father must in course of time learn what took place, to relieve her heart. Mute and cold did the bowed down father listen to the account given by his weeping maiden.
"They are learned in the old dispensation," he said to himself, "they root out their enemies with their entire seed." Then he stooped over Lydia and kissed her pure forehead. "That thou art here my child," he said gently to her, "proves the Kurfürst's favour. Should wickedness however obtain the mastery, we shall die united."
Lydia tenderly wound her arms round his neck and after having heartily kissed her father she fell into a deep sound sleep, whilst the physician moved to his heart's core lay still on his couch, thinking to whom he might apply, to remove his child out of the reach of that dreadful man. "If however there is no escape, she must from the outset at the first examination declare herself guilty," Erastus concluded in silence, "thus she will escape at least the disgrace and torture of the rack. God of Justice, forgive us this negation of the truth. We are too weak, to withstand this temptation ... I acknowledge thy handiwork," he added in deep grief "Thou wouldest free me from my error by bitter means." Thus spake the prisoner full of repentance, for he had himself in a firm belief in allegiance to the devil, and witchcraft, written a book on the Influences of Demons, and sanctioned the violence of the authorities, alas that he could not recall it. "Let it be to thee, as thou hast said." And the strong man pressed his face to his pillow and wept bitterly.
After a while he fancied he heard hammering and the sound of a chisel on the outside wall. For a time all was still and then it began anew. He rose quietly so as not to wake Lydia and stepped up to the window. He was right, it was no deception, the knocking began again and this time seemed much closer. But the wall was too thick, he could only have looked out by creeping over to the ledge of the window. His heart beat with expectation. He had friends after all who worked to set him free. After a time it seemed to him as if he heard whispering near his window. But the whispering ceased on his opening the casement. Still he heard the breaking away of small stones from the wall, and could plainly distinguish two voices below; then all was again quiet and his attentive ear only heard the nightwind howling round the thick Tower, and the knotty branches of the old chestnuts as they creaked and groaned. Shivering the disappointed prisoner returned to his bed, utterly uncertain whether he would dare venture on an attempt at flight, if on the morrow an occasion presented itself. On his own account he would never have done so, but on account of the danger to which his child was exposed, he would have willingly exposed himself to the calumny of his enemies, in case Lydia could only escape the widely extended jaws of the horrible monster who had already seized her with his claws. He listened for a long time on his couch, as sleep had forsaken him, to hear whether the knocking were renewed, but he heard nothing but the sighing of the wind as it died away. At every blast the valley re-echoed the deep and melancholy moan, with which the old trees answered the wind, and then the howling of the storm sank into a low wail, as the human heart consorts its own grief with outer nature, so did these sounds resemble to the prisoner in the Tower the agonized screams of some poor wretch undergoing the torture, from whom the first torments call forth wild shrieks, but who in the end is only able to moan in a low tone. The night had already given way to the pale light of the approaching day, as finally a heavy sleep took pity on the sorely tried father.