"Who can have any object in following the old woman?" I asked, turning to Sperver.
"The devil himself, perhaps," he replied.
We sat for some minutes, each one busied with his own reflections.
"I started on again," pursued Sebalt finally; "the tracks led up the mountain side amongst the fir-trees, and then turned off around the base of the Roche Fendue. When I saw this, I said to myself, 'Ah! you old hag! If there was much game of your sort, the sport of hunting would go to the dogs. It would be better to work as a galley slave!' We came—the two tracks and I—to the top of the Schneeberg. The wind had swept here and the snow was up to my waist, but I must get on! I reached the banks of the Steinbach torrent and there the Black Plague's foot-prints ceased. I stopped, and saw that after having tried up and down, the gentleman's boots had taken the direction of the Tiefenbach. This was a bad sign. I looked at the opposite bank, but there was no sign of a track there. The witch had waded either up or down the stream, to break the scent. Where should I go? To right or left? In my uncertainty, by Jove, I came back to Nideck."
"You have forgotten to tell the doctor about her breakfast."
"To be sure, monsieur! At the foot of the Roche Fendue, I saw she had lighted a fire; the snow was black around it; and I laid my hand on the spot, thinking that if it were still warm the Plague could not be far away, but it was as cold as ice. I noticed a snare in the bushes close by."
"A snare?"
"Yes; it seems the old creature knows how to manage traps. A hare had been caught in it; the impression of his body was still there where he had lain stretched out. The witch had lighted the fire to cook him; she knows a thing or two, you see!"
"Just to think," cried Sperver angrily, "that this old wretch should find meat to feed on, when so many honest people of our villages are starving for the want of a bit of bread! It infuriates me! If I only had her in my clutches—!"
He had no time to finish his sentence. The next moment, we were staring into each other's ashy faces, speechless and immovable. A howl—the howl of a wolf on a bitter winter's night—a cry that you must have heard to comprehend in the least, the agonized plaint of the savage beast,—was echoing through the Castle, and seemed not far from us. It rose from below, so fearfully distinct that we fancied the wild animal just outside our door.