discovering the ruins of the church illuminated with a resplendent blaze;
the vast portal and the yawning ogives cast floods of light far as the
distant woods. It was not, it could not be, an accidental conflagration.
Besides, I could see, through the stone trefoils, shadows of superhuman
size flitting through the nave, apparently performing, with a sort of
rhythm, some mysterious ceremony. I threw my window abruptly open;
at the same instant, a loud blast broke forth in the ruins, and rang again
through all the echoes of the valley; after which, I saw issuing from the
church a double file of horsemen bearing torches and blowing horns, some
dressed in red, others draped in black, with plumes waving over their
heads. This strange procession followed, still in the same order, amid the
same dazzling light and the same clangor of trumpets, the shaded path that
skirts the edge of the meadows. Having reached the little bridge, it
stopped; I saw the torches rise, wave, and cast showers of sparks; the
horns sounded a weird and prolonged blast; then suddenly every light
disappeared, every noise ceased, and the valley was again wrapped in the
darkness and the deep silence of the night. That is what I saw and heard.
You who have just arrived from Germany, did you meet the Black Huntsman?
No? Hang yourself, then!




CHAPTER II.

HUNTING A WILD MAN.

_16th September._