When we thought it time to leave for the midnight services, our brother's little ones being long before with all their unquenched curiosity packed to bed, we started, as usual, in single file for the Kloster, Sonnlein lagging a few steps behind me.
We had almost reached the Kloster confines when, while our way was yet under the dark shadows of the overhanging trees that shut out the stars, I heard a scuffling noise behind me, and turning quickly saw Sonnlein in the grasp of some dark shape that was striving against all his squirming and fighting to drag him into the thick woods. Without a thought I hurled my pilgrim staff, with all my strength, lance-like into the bushes 'gainst the beast or being hanging over my boy, and then for a moment closed my eyes with an awful fear my staff might crush him; but it had hardly left my hand when a piercing cry of agony cleft the air, and then, retreating from us, came fainter and fainter a moaning and snarling as when some desperate beast receives a mortal wound.
We found Sonnlein lying limp and almost lifeless by the way, and as we gathered about him and one of us struck a light from our tinder box, I saw my boy's throat was scratched and torn and bleeding, but happily not profusely.
"'Twas such a devil's cry we heard when we saw the comet, dost remember?" whispered Brother Jephune hoarsely, for the matter had startled us greatly.
"What wast, Sonnlein?" I asked him now that he had come somewhat to his senses and was on his feet, for beyond the choking and fright he seemed not much hurt.
"'Twas some beast with great claws caught me by the throat so I could not cry for help," he replied all in a quiver.
"Well, it hath gone now; no doubt my staff struck it right fairly. Get on my back while I carry thee; we must make haste else shall we be late," said I, first marking the spot with my eyes where I had hurled my staff.
Great was the surprise of our dear brothers when we filed silently into the Saal, Sonnlein having come down from my back, for we arrived wholly unannounced. After the loving greetings were exchanged over and over, our superintendent ordered a general love feast in Peniel for the following Sabbath to celebrate our safe return and to listen to our report, we having kept an exact diary of our pilgrimage. A full account of the whole journey was written from this diary and the doings of each of us, except Sonnlein, which he minded not in the least, being too young for such older weakness. This account was then handed over to our superintendent and became the property of the Brotherhood.
After the events of this pilgrimage were over, we each resumed his usual work and devotions as calmly as though we had not been so long away, only that the day after we arrived I easily found the bushes into which I had with such unchristian violence hurled my staff. I found my traveling comrade lying full length in the depths of the wayside thicket. The iron point was reddish like as if with blood, but I could find no ghastly trail of blood leading away from the staff, but after close examination of the soft earth I did find what I believed were the prints of a woman's shoes, for I knew they were not those made by Sonnlein.
Could it be that our old enemy, the witch, had done this thing? Who or what was this baleful influence that hung over our sacred Kloster like some foul miasma? Did this being merely embody the evil that must ever be present in all earthly things? Whence came it? No matter how I turned it over and over in my mind I could not solve the mystery. So far, though our paths had frequently come close to the other, they had not yet crossed in direct conflict, and yet I felt, and even longed, that some day I should come face to face with the sphinx and either she or I be destroyed. There had never seemed any disposition to seek direct injury to me, and yet of all our Brotherhood I apparently was chosen to witness most of her hellish manifestations. Why? I could not tell, for surely I knew not I had ever wittingly injured any one.