f the rushing
flood. The more eager of the crowd soon mounted on to those parts of the
town-walls that flanked the gate, and watched, with excited gesture, and
shouts of wonder or terror, the desperate course of the cripple.

Pressing his mother in his arms, with his body stretched forward in wild
impatience upon the struggling horse, Black Claus had urged his way into
the middle of the stream. The bridge shook fearfully beneath the burden:
he heeded it not. It cracked and groaned still louder than the roaring
of the stream: he heard it not. He strove to dash on against the almost
resistless force of the sweeping current. His eye was strained upon the
first point of the dry path on the highway beyond. Before him lay, at a
short distance, the road towards the castle of Saaleck, up the mountain
side. Halfway up the height stood, embowered in trees, the chapel he
sought to reach--the sanctuary of refuge for the condemned. That was his
haven--there his wretched mother would be in safety. He pressed her more
tightly to his breast, and shouted wildly. His shout was followed by a
loud fearful crash, a roaring of waters, and a straining of breaking
timbers. In another instant, the centre of the bridge was fiercely borne
away by the torrent, and all was wild confusion around him.

A general cry of horror burst from the crowd at the gate and on the
walls. All was for a moment lost to sight in the whirl of waters. Then
was first seen the snorting head of the poor horse rising from the
stream. The animal was struggling in desperation to reach the land.
Again were whirled upwards the forms of the cripple and the female,
still tightly pressed within his arms; and then a rush of waters, more
powerful than the son's frantic grasp, tore them asunder. Nothing now
was visible but a floating body, which again disappeared in the eddying
flood; and now again the form of the witchfinder rose above the mass of
waters. His long arms were tossed aloft; his desperate cries were heard
above the roaring of the torrent.

"Mercy! mercy!" he screamed. "Save me from these flames! this stifling
smoke. I burn, I burn!"

As he shouted these last words of mad despair, the icy cold waters swept
over him for ever.

All had disappeared. Upon the boiling surface of the hurrying flood was
now seen nothing more than spars and fragments of timber, remnants of
the bridge, whirled up and down, and here and there, and dashing along
the stream.

Among the fore