Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf

by George W. M. Reynolds

At this moment a loud, a piercing, and an agonizing cry burst from the interior of the cell.

“The knave has overheard me, and would fain strike terror to your hearts!” exclaimed the chief judge; then in a still louder tone, he commanded the turnkey to open the door of the dungeon. But when the man approached, so strange, so awful, so appalling were the sounds which came from the interior of the cell, that he threw down the key in dismay and rushed from the dreadful vicinity.

“My lord, I implore you to pause!” said the procurator fiscal, trembling from head to foot.

“Would you have me render myself ridiculous in the eyes of all Florence?” demanded the chief judge sternly.

Yet, so strange were now the noises which came from the interior of the dungeon—so piercing the cries of agony—so violent the rustling and tossing on the stone floor, that for the first time this bold functionary entertained a partial misgiving, as if he had indeed gone too far. But to retreat was impossible; and, with desperate resolution, the chief judge picked up the key and thrust it into the lock.

His assistants, the procurator fiscal, and the sbirri drew back with instinctive horror, as the bolts groaned in the iron work which held them; the chain fell with a clanking sound; and as the door was opened, the horrible monster burst forth from the dungeon with a terrific howl. Yells and cries of despair reverberated through the long corridor: and those sounds were for an instant broken by that of the falling of a heavy body.

’Twas the chief judge, hurled down and dashed violently against the rough uneven masonry, by the mad careering of the Wehr-Wolf as the monster burst from his cell. On, on he sped, with the velocity of lightning, along the corridor, giving vent to howls of the most horrifying description.

Fainting with terror, the assistant judges, the procurator fiscal, and the sbirri were for a few moments so overcome by the appalling scene they had just witnessed, that they thought not of raising the chief judge, who lay motionless on the pavement. But at length some of the police-officers so far recovered themselves as to be able to devote attention to that high functionary—it was, however, too late—his skull was fractured by the violence with which he had been dashed against the rough wall, and his brains were scattered on the pavement. Those who now bent over his disfigured corpse exchanged looks of unutterable horror.

In the meantime the Wehr-Wolf had cleared the corridor, rapid as an arrow shot from the bow; he sprung, bounding up a flight of steep stone stairs as if the elastic air bore him on, and rushing through an open door, burst suddenly upon the crowd that was so anxiously waiting to behold the procession issue thence.

Terrific was the yell that the multitude sent forth—a yell formed of a thousand combining voices, so long, so loud, so wildly agonizing, that never had the welkin rung with so appalling an ebullition of human misery before! Madly rushed the wolf amidst the people, dashing them aside, overturning them, hurling them down, bursting through the mass too dense to clear a passage of its own accord, and making the scene of horror more horrible still by mingling his hideous howlings with the cries—the shrieks—the screams that escaped from a thousand tongues.