"Hark! Don't you hear little Emma weeping there again? She has not been properly buried beneath the ground, she wants to come out. Hush! hush! Don't go, don't go, then perhaps she will stop crying."
Outside the tempest was shaking the trees.
"Oh, oh! There's a knocking at the door! They have come for me. They want to kill me. They are bringing little Emma. Oh, do not let them in! Tell them that I am not here! Lock the door!—--Father, father, don't leave me."
It was hideous to see the expression of despair on the round childish face all covered with sweat. They are wont to paint little children in the shape of angels. If it should ever occur to a painter to paint a four-year-old child as a devil, as a fallen accursed spirit, it might be such a face as his was.
"Oh, God, have mercy upon him, and take him to Thee," sobbed the grandfather, hiding his face on the table. He could not endure to look upon the superhuman torments of the child, while the weak, helpless father cried in the bitterness of his heart, "it is my only son, my dearest, fairest hope."
The child made as if it would fly or hide itself. It leaped up in its bed incessantly, and saw hideous shapes around it and raved about them, and writhed and struggled like one attacked by a serpent.
"Come, my daughter, come, my son!" sobbed old Benjamin, going down upon his knees. "Kneel beside me, let us pray for him; if our sins are ripe for punishment, let the punishment fall upon our heads, not upon the child's."
And the three elders knelt down beside the bed, and held each other by the hand and wept, and called upon God, and prayed Him to heal the child.
At that moment three violent blows from a clenched fist were heard upon the door. The dogs ran howling to the other end of the courtyard, and a shrill piping voice uttered the words:
"Death! death!"