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Then the darkness covered all up again. That was the first flash.

But in that instant of time he caught sight of a strange figure crouching at the end of the hut without being able to make out what it really was.

Great drops were beginning to patter on the roof. Christian lighted a rush, and seeing Maitre Bernard with his hands convulsively clutching the edge of his box of heather, and his face covered with beads of cold sweat, he cried–

“Why! Master Bernard! what is the matter with you?”

But, without answering, he merely pointed to the figure huddled up in the corner; it was an old woman, so very advanced in extreme old age, so yellow and wrinkled, with such a hooked nose, fingers so skinny, and lips so lean, that she looked like an old owl with all its feathers gone. There were only a few hairs left on the back of her head; the rest of her skull was as bare of covering as an egg. A threadbare ragged linen gown covered her poor skeleton figure. She was sightless, and the expression of her face was one of constant reverie.

Christian, noticing my uncle’s inquiring look, turned his head and said quietly–

“It’s old Irmengarde, the old teller of legends. She is waiting to die till the old tower falls into the torrent.”

Uncle Bernard, stupefied, looked at the woodman; he did not seem inclined to joke; on the contrary, he looked serious.

“Come, Christian,” said the good man, “you mean to have your joke.”

“Joke! no indeed, old and feeble as you see her, that old woman knows everything; the spirit of the ruins is in her. She was living when the old lords of the castle lived.”

Now my old uncle was very nearly falling backwards at this astounding disclosure.

“But what do you mean?” he cried; “the castle of Nideck has been down these thousand years!”

“What if it was two thousand years?” said the woodman, making the sign of the cross as a new flash lighted up the valley; “what does that prove? The spirit of the ruins lives in her. A hundred and eight years Irmengarde has lived with this spirit in her. Before her it was in old Edith of Haslach; before Edith in some other–“

“Do you believe that?”

“Do I believe it! It is as sure, Master Bernard, as that the sun will be back in three hours’ time. Death is night, life is day. After night comes day, then night again, and so on without end. The sun is the soul of the sky, the great spirit that is in us all, and the souls of the saints are like the stars which shine in the night, and which will never cease to return.”

Bernard Hertzog replied not another word, but having risen, he began suspiciously to consider the aspect of that aged woman, who sat still in a niche carved out of the rock. He noticed above the niche some rough carving on the stone representing three trees with their branches touching, and forming a sort of crown; lower down were three toads cut in the granite. Three trees are the arms of the Tribocci (dreien buechen), three toads are the arms of the Merovingian kings.

What was the surprise of the old chronicler! Covetousness now took the place of alarm.

“Here,” thought he, “is the oldest monument of the Frankish race in Gaul. That old woman reminds me of some fallen queen, left here a relic of ages long gone by. But how am I to carry the niche away?”

He began to consider.

Then was heard far away in the woods the trampling of the hoofs of many cattle and deep bellowing. The rain fell faster; the flashes of lightning, like flights of frightened birds in the dark, touched each other by the tips of their wings; one never waited for another to be gone, and the rolling of the thunder became incessant and terrible.