But though I searched most diligently, scrutinizing the vines, the brush, the ground, I saw no sign of her, and I was making my way back, sorely puzzled, to the oak, when suddenly I heard a quick rustling among the leaves, such as a bird might make, and turning sharply, beheld, not more than a child's throw, in the gloomy shades of that thick, dark forest, the bent, crouching form of that hideous hag, a wild-eyed, savage-featured she-fiend!
The memory of poor Brother Martin, the terror of my harmless, innocent Bernice, moved me to such anger as never before or since overcame my patience and moderation.
"Thou witch, or devil, whatever thou art," I yelled at her in my passion as I pulled out of the ground a stone as large as my clenched fists, "it is in mine temper to crush thee where thou standest, polluting these holy grounds, thou pestilence!"
With that she rushed forward fiercely for a few steps as though with clawlike hands and fanglike teeth she would rend me to pieces; but now that my blood was on fire, I quailed not, whereat she suddenly stopped, the more especially as my hand was drawn back ready to hurl the stone should she come any nigher.
As she stood there glowering and glaring at me, snarling and choking for the world like some angry beast, I marveled not that the others had been terror-stricken at such a forbidding shape. Again I commanded, drawing up my figure to its full height, "Begone thou vile beast ere I forget myself and slay thee as I would a snake!" and with that I advanced on her, my face distorted with such anger—for the passions are ever destroyers of comeliness—I doubt not she knew, if, indeed she had a mind for knowing, that I meant my threats.
I was but a few paces from her, when she made a spiteful sweep at my face with one of her talons that would have sadly marred me had I been reached, and then, bent and crouching, she slunk away sullenly, still snarling and muttering inarticulate sounds. I stood there until her evil shape was swallowed up by the woods, and then I first knew I was shaking like a leaf and that I was as wet as though I had just come out of the Cocalico.
In this frame I walked back slowly to my Kammer, so sick at heart with forebodings of evil I dared not think of, which not all the joy of having had Bernice in my arms could make me forget.