Sperver, turning round awe-stricken, his countenance pale as ashes, pointed to the mountain, and murmured low—­

“Listen—­there’s the witch!”

And the count still crouching motionless, but with his head now raised in the attitude of attention, his neck outstretched, his eyes burning, seemed to understand the meaning of that distant voice, lost amidst the passes and peaks of the Schwartzwald, and a kind of fearful joy gleamed in his savage features.

At this moment, Sperver, unable or unwilling to restrain himself any longer, cried in a voice broken with emotion—­

“Count of Nideck—­what are you doing?”

The count fell back thunderstruck.  We rushed into the room to his help.  It was time.  The third attack had commenced, and it was terrible to witness!

CHAPTER IX.

The lord of Nideck was in a dying state.

What can science do in presence of the great mortal strife between Death and Life?  At the supreme hour, when the invisible wrestlers are writhed together body to body and limb to limb, panting, each in turn overthrowing and overthrown, what avails the healing art?  One can but watch, and tremble, and listen!

At times the struggle seems suspended—­a truce has sounded; Life has retired into her hold.  She is resting; she is collecting the courage of despair.  But the relentless enemy beats at the gates; he bursts in; then Life springs to the rescue, and again grapples with her adversary.  The strife is renewed with fresh fuel added to the fire of mortal energy as the fatal issue draws closer and nearer.

And the exhausted patient, himself the field of battle, weltering in the cold sweat of death, the eye set and the arm powerless, can do nothing for himself.  His breathing, sometimes short, broken, and distressing, sometimes long, deep, laboured, and heavy, indicates the varying phases of this dreadful struggle.

The bystanders watch each other’s faces, and they think, “The day will come when we in our turns shall be the field of the same strife, and victorious Death will bear us away into the grave, his den, as the spider carries away the fly.”  But the true life, the only life, the soul, spreading her immortal wings, will speed her flight to another world, with the exulting cry, “I have fought the good fight.  I have finished my course.  I have kept the faith!” And Death, disappointed of its prey, will look up at the emancipated being, unable to follow, and holding in its clutches only a cold and decaying corpse, soon to be a handful of dust.  “O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?” O best and only consolation, the hope and belief in the final triumph of justice, the certainty of immortal life through Jesus Christ the Saviour!  Cruel indeed is he who would rob man of the chief brightness and glory of life!

Towards midnight the Count of Nideck seemed almost gone; the agony of death was at hand; the broken, weakened pulse indicated the sinking of the vital powers; then, it might return to a more active state; but there seemed no hope.