saw them this morning in the stable. They are
splendid animals."

The horsemen galloped away at full speed, and the curtain in the
turret-window dropped.

CHAPTER VII.

Several uneventful days followed. My life at Nideck was becoming dull
and monotonous. Every morning there was the doleful bugle-call of the
huntsman, whose occupation was gone; then came a visit to the count;
after that breakfast, with Sperver's interminable speculations upon the
Black Plague, the incessant gossiping and chattering of Marie Lagoutte,
Maitre Tobias, and all that pack of idle servants, who had nothing to do
but eat and drink, smoke, and go to sleep. The only man who had any kind
of individual existence was Knapwurst, who sat buried up to the tip of
his red nose in old chronicles all the day long, careless of the cold so
long as there was anything left to find out in his curious researches.

My weariness of all this may easily be imagined. Ten times had Sperver
taken me over the stables and the kennels; the dogs were beginning to
know me. I knew by heart all the coarse pleasantries of the major-domo
over his bottles and Marie Lagoutte's invariable replies. Sebalt's
melancholy was infecting me; I would gladly have blown a little on his
horn to tell the mountains of my _ennui_, and my eyes were incessantly
directed towards Fribourg.

Still the disorder of Yeri-Hans, lord of Nideck, was taking its usual
course, and this gave my only occupation any serious interest. All the
particulars which Sperver had made me acquainted with appeared clearly
before me; sometimes the count, waking up with a start, would half rise,
and supported on his elbow, with neck outstretched and haggard eyes,
would mutter, "She is coming, she is coming!"

Then Gideon would shake his head and ascend the signal-tower, but neither
right nor left could the Black Plague be discovered.

After long reflection upon this strange malady I had come to the
conclusion that the sufferer was insane. The strange influence that the
old hag exercised over him, his alternate phases of madness and lucidity,
all confirmed me in this view.

Medical men who have given especial attention to the subject of mental
aberrations are well aware that periodical madness is of not unfrequent
occurrence. In some cases the illness appears several times in the year,
in others at only particular seasons of the year. I know at Fribourg an
old lady who for thirty years past has regularly pres