nd
called: "Ulrich!" There was somebody there, near the house, there could
be no doubt of that, and he opened the door and shouted: "Is it you,
Gaspard?" with all the strength of his lungs. But there was no reply,
no murmur, no groan, nothing. It was quite dark, and the snow looked
wan.

The wind had risen, that icy wind which cracks the rocks, and leaves
nothing alive on those deserted heights. It came in sudden gusts, more
parching and more deadly than the burning wind of the desert, and again
Ulrich shouted: "Gaspard! Gaspard! Gaspard!" Then he waited again.
Everything was silent on the mountain! Then he shook with terror, and
with a bound he was inside the inn. He shut and bolted the door, and
then fell into a chair, trembling all over, for he felt certain that
his comrade had called him at the moment of dissolution.

He was certain of that, as certain as one is of conscious life or of
taste when eating. Old Gaspard Hari had been dying for two days and
three nights somewhere, in some hole, in one of those deep, untrodden
ravines whose whiteness is more sinister than subterranean darkness. He
had been dying for two days and three nights and he had just then died,
thinking of his comrade. His soul, almost before it was released, had
taken its flight to the inn where Ulrich was sleeping, and it had
called him by that terrible and mysterious power which the spirits of
the dead possess. That voiceless soul had cried to the worn-out soul of
the sleeper; it had uttered its last farewell, or its reproach, or its
curse on the man who had not searched carefully enough.

And Ulrich felt that it was there, quite close to him, behind the wall,
behind the door which he had just fastened. It was wandering about,
like a night bird which skims a lighted window with his wings, and the
terrified young man was ready to scream with horror. He wanted to run
away, but did not dare go out; he did not dare, and would never dare in
the future, for that phantom would remain there day and night, round
the inn, as long as the old man's body was not recovered and deposited
in the consecrated earth of a churchyard.

Daylight came, and Kunsi recovered some of his courage with the return
of the bright sun. He prepared his meal, gave his dog some food, and
then remained motionless on a chair, tortured at heart as he thought of
the old man lying on the snow. Then, as soon as night once more covered
the mountains, new terrors assailed him. He now