which none of us understood a syllable but old Wenzel. Emerich and I
would have spoken to him, but the woodman stopped us with a strange
sign. Count Theodore had taken the relic of some saint from a
pocket-book which he carried in his breast, and was, in Russian
fashion as I think, confessing his sins over it; while his sister sat
silent and motionless by the fire, with livid face and clasped hands.
It was burning low, but I saw the woodman's face darken. He stepped to
the corner and took down his gun, as I believed, to take the last shot
at the wolves; but Count Theodore was in his way. He levelled it for
an instant at the prostrate man, and before I could speak or
interpose, the report, followed by a faint shrill shriek from the
Russian, rang through the hut. We rushed to him, but the count was
dead. A bullet had gone right through the heart.

'My gun has shot the count, and the wolves will leave us now,' said
Wenzel coolly. 'I heard him say in his prayers that a Finn, now in the
Siberian mines, had vowed to send them on him and his company wherever
he went.'

As the woodman spoke, he handed to Count Emerich, with a hoarse
whisper, a bloody pocket-book, taken from the dead body, and turning
to Juana, said something loud and threatening to her in the Russian
tongue; at which the lady only bowed her head, seeming of all in the
hut to be the least surprised or concerned at the death of her
brother. As for us, the complicated horrors of the night had left us
stunned and stupified till the rapid diminution of the wolfish din,
the sounds of shots and voices, and the glare of flambeaux lighting up
the forest, brought most of us to the window. The wolves were scouring
away in all directions, there was a grayness in the eastern sky, for
Christmas-day was breaking; and from all sides the count and my