Meantime, Lopez had compelled old Rahel to rise.

Everything must be ready, when Ulrich returned.  In his impatience he had gone to the door, and when he saw Adam hurrying up the glade with the child, ran anxiously to meet them, thinking that some accident had happened to Ulrich.

“Back, back!” shouted the smith, and Ruth, releasing her hand from his, also motioned and shrieked “Back, back!”

The doctor obeyed the warning, and stopped; but he had scarcely turned, when several dogs appeared at the mouth of the ravine through which the party had come the day before, and directly after Count Frohlinger, on horseback, burst from the thicket.

The nobleman sat throned on his spirited charger, like the sun-god Siegfried.  His fair locks floated dishevelled around his head, the steam rising from the dripping steed hovered about him in the fresh winter air like a light cloud.  He had opened and raised his arms, and holding the reins in his left hand, swung his hunting spear with the right.  On perceiving Lopez, a clear, joyous, exultant “Hallo, Halali!” rang from his bearded lips.

To-day Count Frohlinger was not hunting the stag, but special game, a Jew.

The chase led to the right cover, and how well the hounds had done, how stoutly Emir, his swift hunter, had followed.

This was a morning’s work indeed!

“Hallo, Halali!” he shouted exultingly again, and ere the fugitives had escaped from the clearing, reached the doctor’s side, exclaiming: 

“Here is my game; to your knees, Jew!”

The count had far outstripped his attendants, and was entirely alone.

As Lopez stood still with folded arms, paying no heed to his command, he turned the spear, to strike him with the handle.

Then, for the first time in many years, the old fury awoke in Adam’s heart; and rushing upon the count like a tiger, he threw his powerful arms around his waist, and ere he was aware of the attack, hurled him from his horse, set his knee on his breast, snatched the hammer from his belt, and with a mighty blow struck the dog that attacked him, to the earth.  Then he again swung the iron, to crush the head of his hated foe.  But Lopez would not accept deliverance at such a price, and cried in a tone of passionate entreaty: 

“Let him go, Adam, spare him.”

As he spoke, he clung to the smith’s arm, and when the latter tried to release himself from his grasp, said earnestly: 

“We will not follow their example!”

Again the hammer whizzed high in the air, and again the Jew clung to the smith’s arm, this time exclaiming imperiously: 

“Spare him, if you are my friend!”

What was his strength in comparison with Adam’s?  Yet as the hammer rose for the third time, he again strove to prevent the terrible deed, seizing the infuriated man’s wrist, and gasping, as in the struggle he fell on his knees beside the count:  “Think of Ulrich!  This man’s son was the only one, the only one in the whole monastery, who stood by Ulrich, your child—­in the monastery—­he was—­his friend—­among so many.  Spare him—­Ulrich!  For Ulrich’s sake, spare him!”