The bedroom of the two younger brothers was exactly opposite that of Nicodemus, who took the bed of the absent Benedict. Two or three times in the night he got up, and went to listen at Wally's door; she talked and wandered a good deal, and once Nicodemus could clearly understand that she was speaking of a vulture. "Ah," thought he, "she too will have seen the vulture when she came up, and the fright comes back to her in her dreams."
Early in the morning, before breakfast even, the restless Leander was up and out; he did not come home till nearly mid-day.
"Well, how is she getting on?" he asked as he came in.
"Just the same; she doesn't come to herself at all, and she's always in dread of people who, she thinks, want to take her away."
Leander scratched his head behind his ear. "Then I can't shoot yet. Only think now--there's the vulture outside still sitting on the roof."
"Never!"
"Ay, when I went out this morning, I couldn't see him anywhere; then I thought, he's flown away, and I went after him for nearly three hours. Then when I get home, there he is, sitting quietly on the roof again."
"Well," said Nicodemus, "that's a thing that might make one really uneasy, if one happened to be superstitious."
"Ay, indeed. One might almost think of the phantom maidens of Murzoll, and that they meant to play me a rogue's trick."
"God be praised!" said a rough deep voice, and Benedict the second brother, who had been away on a journey, now walked in.