"Yes, I was scared to death almost. I thought the old man of the mountains had come for me. I had been to market to sell my little wooden-clocks, and near this very place the huge grey phantom bird swooped down, then circled round and round and disappeared there, over there!" and the peasant, his eyes almost starting out of his head with terror, pointed away to the east.
"Bah! It was no bird, it was an aeroplane, Hans. You should not have been frightened," exclaimed Keane, who had been taking particular note of the direction in which the mysterious machine had disappeared.
"Yes, a ghost-aeroplane!" iterated the Schwarzwalder. "There has never been anything like it before."
"Did anybody else see it?" queried Sharpe, passing the bottle once again to Hans, who stayed but a moment to wipe his lips with his sleeve, and to take another deep drink of the wine.
"Ja, it was seen by Jacob Stendahl the same night, not far from this very place."
"And who is Jacob Stendahl?" asked Keane.
"He is the woodcutter whose cottage is down by the stream, two miles away. That path leads to his house. He was terrified; he said it was an evil omen, and next morning his little Gretchen died."
"And what happened to you, Hans?" asked Sharpe.
"That same night my sow farrowed, and all the litter were dead next morning," replied the peasant gravely.
A deep silence followed this last remark, and the Schwarzwalder brooded over his misfortune, and lamented to himself the loss of his fine litter of young pigs.