For the space of an hour the dreadful chase went on, Graf Hermann rooted to the spot with horror, overcome by a sense of helplessness.  There in the centre he stood, the pivot round which circled the infernal hunt, unable to stay the relentless riders as with bony hands rattling against their skeleton steeds they encouraged them to charge, gore, and trample the hapless stranger, whose cries of agony were drowned by shrieks of fiendish glee and the incessant cracking of whips.  Overcome at last by terror, the count fell senseless, his eyes dazed by the still whirling spectres and their flying quarry.  When at last he slowly awaked from his swoon he looked around, fearing to see again the hideous spectacle.  All but the stranger, however, had vanished.  Graf Hermann shuddered as he looked upon him, and only with difficulty could he summon sufficient courage to address him.  Indeed, it was only after the unwonted action of crossing himself that he could speak.

“Who and what are you?” he asked in a hushed tone.  But the stranger made no reply, except to sigh mournfully.  Again the count asked the question, and again received but a sigh for answer.

“Then in the name of the Most High God I conjure you, speak!” he said the third time.

The stranger turned to him, as if suddenly released from bonds.

“By the power of God’s holy name the spell is broken at last.  Listen now to me!”

He beckoned Hermann to his side and in strange, stern tones he related the following: 

“I am your ancestor.  Like you, I loved the chase beyond everything in life—­beyond our holy faith or the welfare of any human being, man, woman, or child.  To all that stood in my path I showed no mercy.  There came a time when famine visited the land.  The harvest was destroyed by blight and the people starved.  In their extremity they broke into my forests; famished with hunger, they destroyed and carried off the game.  Beside myself with rage, I swore that they should suffer for it—­that for every head of game destroyed I would exact a human life.  I kept my oath.  Arming my retainers, servants, and huntsmen, I seized my presumptuous vassals in the dead of night, and dragging them to the castle, I flung them into the deepest dungeons.  There for three days I let them starve—­for three days also I kept my hounds without food.  Meantime my huntsmen had caught a great number of the largest and strongest deer in the forests.  At the end of three days the unfortunate wretches were brought out, diminished now by a full hundred.  My ready retainers bound them naked to the stags.  My best steeds were saddled.  Then the kennels were thrown open and the famished hounds rushed forth like a host of demons.  Off went the deer like the wind, each with his human burden, the dogs following, and then the horsemen, shouting with glee at the new sport.  By nightfall not a stag or his rider was left alive.  The hounds in their fury worried and tore at both man and beast, and the last unfortunate wretch met a hideous death on this spot where we now stand.”