which all the
rats came out of their holes and followed him; he led them straight to
the river, into which they ran and were drowned. On his return he
asked for the promised reward, which was refused him, apparently on
account of the facility with which he had exterminated the rats. The
next day, which was a fete day, he chose the moment when the elder
inhabitants of the burgh were at church, and by means of another flute
which he began to play, all the boys in the town above the age of
fourteen, to the number of a hundred and thirty, assembled around him:
he led them to the neighboring mountain, named Kopfelberg, under which
is a sewer for the town, and where criminals are executed; these boys
disappeared and were never seen afterwards.

A young girl, who had followed at a distance, was witness of the
matter, and brought the news of it to the town.

They still show a hollow in this mountain, where they say that he made
the boys go in. At the corner of this opening is an inscription, which
is so old that it cannot now be deciphered; but the story is
represented on the panes of the church windows; and it is said, that
in the public deeds of this town it is still the custom to put the
dates in this manner--_Done in the year ----, after the disappearance
of our children._[299]

If this recital is not wholly fabulous, as it seems to be, we can only
regard this man as a spectre and an evil genius, who, by God's
permission, punished the bad faith of the burghers in the persons of
their children, although innocent of their parents' fault. It might
be, that a man could have some natural secret to draw the rats
together and precipitate them into the river; but only diabolical
malice would cause so many innocent children to perish, out of revenge
on their fathers.

Julius Caesar[300] having entered Italy, and wishing to pass the
Rubicon, perceived a man of more than ordinary stature, who began to
whistle. Several soldiers having run to listen to him, this spectre
seized the trumpet of one of them, and began to sound the alarm, and
to pass the river. Caesar at that moment, without further deliberation,
said, "Let us go where the presages of the gods and the injustice of
our enemies call upon us to advance."

The Emperor Trajan[301] was extricated from the town of Antioch by a
phantom, which made him go out at a widow, in the midst of that
terrible earthquake which overthrew almost all the town. The
philosopher Simonides[302