My companion rode on for a few minutes without speaking. "Come, Sperver, explain yourself more clearly! I confess I don't understand you in the least."
"The hag that you saw down there is the cause of all our misfortunes. It is she who is slowly killing the Count."
"How is that possible? How can she exercise such an influence?"
"I cannot tell you. But one thing is certain: on the first day of the Count's attack, at the very moment even, you have only to climb up to the signal-tower and you will see the Black Plague crouching like a dark speck in the long stretch of snow between the Tübingen Forest and the Castle of Nideck. Every day she comes a little nearer, and at her approach, the Count's attacks grow worse; sometimes when the trembling fits come upon him, he says to me, 'Gideon, she is coming.' I hold his arms and try to quiet him, but he keeps muttering with staring eyes, 'She is coming! Oh, oh! She is coming!' Then I climb the tower and survey the landscape. You know I have a keen eye, Gideon. At last, amid the distant mists, between sky and earth, I distinguish a black speck. The next morning the speck has grown larger; the Count starts up in his bed with chattering teeth. On the second day we can see the old creature distinctly, almost within rifle-shot on the plain; and then it is that the Count's jaws become set like a vice, his eyes roll in his head, and he utters terrible cries. Ah, the cursed witch! A score of times I have brought my carbine to bear on her, but the poor Count has prevented me from drawing the trigger, crying, 'No, Sperver; shed no blood!' Poor man! He is sparing the creature who is killing him by inches; he is nothing but skin and bones."
My good friend Gideon was too much taken up with the vision of the hag to be brought back to calm reason. Moreover, who can define the exact limits of the possible? Do we not each day see the realm of reality extend itself more widely? These hidden influences, these unseen bonds, this world of magnetism that some proclaim with all the ardor of the fanatic, and others deny with scorn and ridicule,—who can say that all these forces will not some day revolutionize our universe? It is easy to arrogate to yourself a claim to superior knowledge in the face of such general ignorance. I confined myself, therefore, to begging Sperver to moderate his anger, and beyond all things not to fire upon the Black Plague, warning him that it would very probably bring grave misfortune upon himself.
"Bah! I will risk all that!" he exclaimed; "the worst they could do would be to hang me."
"But that would be a good deal for an honest man to suffer."
"As well die one way as another. In this case, you are suffocated, that's all. I would as lief die that way as to receive a blow on my head, or a stroke of apoplexy, or give up smoking, drinking, and a good digestion."
"My dear Gideon, that sounds odd, coming from a graybeard."
"Graybeard or not, that is the way I look at it. I always keep a bullet in my rifle at the service of the witch; from time to time, I renew the priming, and if ever the occasion offers—" He finished his sentence by an expressive gesture.