Who would win? The fierce beast or the patient beast? Who would be the
master in this fight? There was death in it. Look, the whole snow was
red, the roofs of Leyden were red, and red the heavens; in the deep hues
of the sunset they seemed bathed in blood, while about her the shouts of
the backers and factions transformed themselves into a fierce cry as
of battling peoples. All voices mingled in that cry--voices of hope, of
agony, and of despair; but she could not interpret them. Something told
her that the interpretation and the issue were in the mind of God alone.

Perhaps she swooned, perhaps she slept and dreamed this dream; perhaps
the sharp rushing air overcame her. At the least Lysbeth's eyes closed
and her mind gave way. When they opened and it returned again their
sledge was rushing past the winning post. But in front of it travelled
another sledge, drawn by a gaunt grey horse, which galloped so hard
that its belly seemed to lie upon the ice, a horse driven by a young man
whose face was set like steel and whose lips were as the lips of a trap.

Could that be the face of her cousin Pieter van de Werff, and, if so,
what passion had stamped that strange seal thereon? She turned herself
in her seat and looked at him who drove her.

Was this a man, or was it a spirit escaped from doom? Blessed Mother of
Christ! what a countenance! The eyeballs starting and upturned, nothing
but the white of them to be seen; the lips curled, and, between, two
lines of shining fangs; the lifted points of the mustachios touching the
high cheekbones. No--no, it was neither a spirit nor a man, she knew now
what it was; it was the very type and incarnation of the Spanish Wolf.

Once more she seemed to faint, while in her ears there rang the