The most evident proof was in the hands of the law: before the awful deed had been accomplished, the hand that directed it had been betrayed.
And perhaps the terrible butchery was now in its last stage. They were torturing the victims! Pouring upon them the hellish vengeance of wounded wild beasts! Tearing them limb from limb! Looking with their hands that dripped with blood among the documents for the letter with five seals.
Already all was betrayed! Fever shook his every limb. Why that great stillness outside? What secret could this monstrous night hide that it kept such silence as this?
Suddenly the silence was broken by a wild creature's howl.
No it was no animal. Only a man could howl so, when agony had changed him to a mad beast, who in the fury of his pain had forgotten human voice.
The noise sounded first in the distance, beyond the garden of the castle, but presently approached, and a figure of horror ran howling down the street.
A figure of horror indeed!
A man, white from head to foot.
All his clothes, every finger of his hand, was white: every hair of his head, his beard, moustache, his whole face was white, glistening, shining white, and as he ran he left white footsteps behind him.
Was it a spirit?