the fire is
well banked?" she asked; "Gretchen, look again; if not, put it all out
with water! Come, let us read the Gospel of St. John." They all knelt
down and the lady of the house began: "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." There was a terrible
clap of thunder. All started; then there was a terrible scream and noise
up the stairs. "For God's sake! Is something burning?" cried Frau von
S., and sank down with her face on the chair. The door burst open and in
rushed the wife of Aaron the Jew, pale as death, with her hair wildly
disheveled, dripping with rain. She threw herself on her knees before
the Baron. "Justice!" she cried, "Justice! My husband is murdered!" and
she fell in a faint.

It was only too true, and the ensuing investigation proved that Aaron
the Jew had lost his life by a single blow on the temples delivered by
some blunt instrument, probably a staff. On his left temple was the blue
mark; beyond that there was no other injury. The statement of the Jewess
and her servant, Samuel, ran thus: Three days ago Aaron had gone out in
the afternoon to buy cattle and had said at the time that he would
probably be gone overnight, because there were still several bad debtors
in B. and S., on whom he would call for payment; in this case he would
spend the night with the butcher, Solomon, in B. When he did not return
home the next day his wife had become greatly worried and had finally
set out at three o'clock in the afternoon with her servant and the big
butcher dog. At the house of Solomon the Jew, no one knew anything about
Aaron; he had not been there at all. Then they had gone to all the
peasants with whom they knew Aaron had intended to transact some
business. Only two had seen him, and those on the very day when he had
left home. Meanwhile it had become very late. Her great anxiety drove
the woman back home, where she cherished a faint hope of finding
her husband after all. They had been overtaken by the storm in the
Forest of Brede and had sought shelter under a great beech on the
mountain side. In the meantime the dog had been running about and acting
strangely, and had, in spite of repeated calling, finally run off into
the woods. Suddenly, during a lightning flash, the woman had seen
something white beside her on the moss. It was her husband's staff, and
almost at the same moment the dog had broken through the shrubbery with
something in his mouth; it was her hus