e, but let him excite
himself to the highest pitch with pictures of the pleasing future,
until they had acquired almost the complexion of fact and the truth of
reality for his distracted imagination. When he had exhausted himself,
the wily tempter resumed--

"Oh yes, I know it all. I know where the treasure is. I can put your
finger on it if I like. I was present when the old man buried it in
the----"

"You present!" exclaimed Ulric, his hair standing on end with horror,
for he had no doubts of the truth of the mysterious stranger's
statements,--"you present!"

"Yes," resumed the pilgrim; "I was present."

"But he is full a hundred years dead and buried," continued the Count.

"No matter for that, no matter for that," replied the guest abruptly;
"many and many a time have we drunk and feasted and revelled together
in this vault--ay, in this very vault."

The Count knew not what to think, still less what to reply to this
information. He could not fail to perceive its improbability, drunk as
he was, but still he could not, for the life of him, discredit it.

"But," added the pilgrim, "trouble not yourself with that at present
which you have not the power to comprehend, and speculate not on my
proceedings, but listen to my words, and follow my advice, if you will
that I should serve you in the matter."

The Count was silent when the stranger proceeded.

"This is Walpurgis night," he said. "All the spirits of earth and sea
and sky are now abroad on their way to the Brocken. Hell is broke
loose, you know, for its annual orgies on that mountain. When the
castle clock tolls twelve go you into the chapel, and proceed to the
graves of your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and your
great-great-grandfather; take from their coffins the bones of their
skeletons--take them all, mind ye. One by one you must then remove
them into the moonlight, outside the walls of the building, and there
lay them softly on the bit of green sward which faces to the south.
This done, you must next place them in the order in which they lay in
their last resting-place. When you have completed that task, you must
return to the chapel, and in their coffins you will find the
treasures of your forefathers. No one has power over an atom of them,
until the bones of those who in spirit keep watch and ward over them
shall have been removed from their guardianship. So long as they rest
on them, or oversee them, to the dead they belong. It is a glori