oft.
"The others are asleep," I thought. The head remained in the opening,
listening. The wretch seemed to suspect something. My heart galloped
and the blood coursed through my veins. I dared not even breathe. A few
moments passed thus. Then, suddenly, the man seemed to make up his
mind. He let himself down into the loft with the same caution as on
the preceding night. On the instant a terrible cry, short, piercing,
blood-curdling, resounded through the house. "We've got him!"

The whole house shook from cellar to attic; cries, struggles, and hoarse
shouts, coupled with muttered oaths, filled the loft. The man roared
like, a wild beast, and his opponents breathed painfully as they
battled with his terrible strength. Then there was a crash that made the
flooring creak, and I heard nothing more but a gritting of teeth and a
rattle of chains. "A light here!" cried the formidable Madoc. And as the
sulphur burned, illuminating the place with its bluish light, I vaguely
distinguished the forms of the three officials kneeling above the
prostrate man. One of them was holding him by the throat, another had
sunk his knees into his chest, and Madoc encircled his wrists with
handcuffs hard enough to crush them. The man, in his shirt sleeves as
before, seemed inert, save that one of his powerful legs, naked from the
knee to the ankle, raised up from time to time and struck the floor with
a convulsive movement. His eyes were literally starting from his head,
and his lips were covered with a bloody foam. Scarcely had I lighted the
taper when the officials exclaimed, thunderstruck: "Our Dean!" All three
got up and stood staring at each other, white with astonishment. The
bloodshot eyes of the murderer turned on Madoc. He tried to speak, and
after a moment I heard him murmur: "What a terrible dream! My God, what
a terrible dream!" Then he sighed and became motionless.

I approached to take a look at him. It was indeed the man who had given
us advice on the road to Heidelberg. Perhaps he had had a presentiment
that we would be the means of his destruction, for people do sometimes
have these terrible borebodings. As he did not stir, and a tiny stream
of blood flowed on the dusty floor, Madoc, rousing himself from his
stupor, bent over him and tore away his shirt; we then saw that he
had stabbed himself to the heart with his great knife. "Ho! ho!" cried
Madoc, with a sinister smile, "our Dean has cheated the gallows. You
others stay here