e shouted into the ear of the sufferer,
unnecessarily loud: "I will speak with the Doctor, Friend Engelhardt.
This is the Doctor's business. In one way or another he will get you a
soul!"

But the little lawyer suddenly wrapped himself closer in his shawl. He
was as cold as ice. Ordinarily very few impressions remained in his
memory, but he still remembered clearly the death of the attendant
Schwindt--and how Michael Petroff had come to his room and whispered
mysteriously in his ear: "The attendant is dead. Engelhardt has taken
his soul, don't you see!" So now he was horrified at the thought that
Engelhardt might perhaps demand _his_ soul, and there was nothing that
he feared more than death.

Death dwelt in his confused sick brain as a figure that was invisible
all but the hands. Suddenly, Oh so suddenly, it would stand near him,
close by his side. And a horrible chill would stream forth from the
dread form, and all the flowers, white with frost, would die, and the
millions of swift little birds would fall frozen through the air, and
he himself would be changed into a little heap of snow.

The lawyer drew in his head, so that his thin gray beard pushed out
above his scarf, and gazed timidly at Michael Petroff with his little
mouse-like eyes and shivered.

Michael Petroff looked at him in astonishment. "What is the matter, my
dear fellow?" he drawled, smilingly. "Are you afraid! Why should you
be, I wonder? I shall go at once to Dr. Maerz and explain to him what
Engelhardt requires. From what I know of him, he will not delay, and so
everything will be attended to. I would gladly place my own soul at
your disposal. Friend Engelhardt, but I still need it myself---I have a
mission to fulfil, you know--I am Napoleon, and I fight a battle every
day, I am--" But here he paused suddenly and listened.

"The Doctor is coming! Don't you hear him?" he whispered. "He will be
here immediately--"

Dr. Maerz had come into the ward. He could be heard speaking with some
one in the corridor, and the three men in the shoemaker's room
listened. The Doctor's voice was the only one which had the power to
change the current of their thoughts and to give them hopes, great
hopes, indefinite though they were. It affected them somewhat as a
voice affects wanderers, who believe that they are lost in a solitary
wilderness. And yet Dr. Maerz did not talk much, but he had become a
master of the art of listening, and would pay attention for hou