was dark, small rain was falling, and the air was
chill. Itzig rushed down the steps. A trembling voice called out after
him, "The police are in the house; they are breaking open the
room-door." He heard no more; a horrible dread filled his soul. Thought
after thought passed through his brain with delirious rapidity. He felt
his pocket, in which he had for the last week kept a large sum of money.
It was not the hour of departure of any train that would take him to the
sea, and at all the stations he would be watched for. He ran along
through narrow streets in remote parts of the town, turning back
whenever he got near a lamp, his pace increasingly rapid, his thoughts
increasingly confused. At last his strength failed him, and he cowered
down in a corner to collect himself. But soon he heard a watchman's
hollow horn sound near him. Here, too, was danger. Again he rushed
onward to the one and only place that stood out clearly defined in his
thoughts--the place he shuddered at, yet turned to as a last refuge. As
he neared the inn he saw a dark shadow at the door. The little lawyer
had often stood there in the dark, waiting for Veitel's return. Was he
standing there now and waiting? The wretched fugitive started back, then
approached--the door was free; he stepped in, but the shadow rose again
behind him and stood at the door. Veitel took off his boots and crept up
stairs, groped in the dark for a room door, opened it with trembling
hand, and took down a bunch of keys from the wall, with which he hurried
to the gallery, hearing, as if at a great distance, the long-drawn
breath of sleeping men. He stood at the door of the staircase; a violent
shudder convulsed him as he went down step after step. When he first put
his foot into the water he heard a lamentable groan. He clung to the
banisters as that other had done, and looked down. Again there was a
groan, and he now found out it was only his own breathing. He felt the
depth of the water with his foot. It had risen since that time--it was
higher than his knee, but he found a footing and stood safely in the
stream.

The night was dark, the rain still came down, the mist hung thick over
the houses--a gable, a paling peeping out here and there; the water
rushed along, the only sound to break the silence of the night, and in
this man's ear it roared like thunder. He felt all the torments of the
lost while wading on and groping for his way. He had to cling to the
slippery palings