towards the chapel door, where he had left
his companion. But, horror upon horror! as he looked he saw the long,
loose, dark outer garment fall from the limbs of the pilgrim. He saw
his form dilate and expand in height and in breadth, until his head
seemed to touch the pale crescent moon, and his bulk shut out from
view all beyond itself. He saw his eyes firing and flaming like globes
of lurid light, and he saw his hair and beard converted into one mass
of living flame. The fiend stood revealed in all his hideous
deformity.

His hands were stretched forth to fasten on the hapless Count, who,
with vacillating step, like the bird under the eye of the basilisk,
involuntarily, though with a perfect consciousness of his awful
situation, and the fearful fate which awaited him, every moment drew
nearer and nearer to him. The victim reached the chapel door--he felt
all the power of that diabolical fascination--another step and he
would be in the grasp of the fiend who grinned to clutch him. But the
fair boy who spoke from the grave suddenly appeared once more, and,
flinging himself between the wretched Count and the door, obstructed
his further progress.

"Avaunt, foul fiend!" spake the child, and his voice was like a
trumpet-note; "avaunt to hell! He is no longer thine. Thou hast no
power over him. Your hellish plot has failed. He is free, and shall
live and repent."

As he said this he threw his arms around Ulric, and the Count became,
as it were, at once surrounded by a beatific halo, which lighted up
the chapel like day. The fiend fled howling like a wild beast
disappointed of its prey.

The remains of his ancestors were again replaced in their coffins by
the Count, long ere the morning broke, and on their desecrated graves
he poured forth a flood of repentant tears. With the dawn of day he
quitted the castle of Rheineck. It is said that he traversed the land
in the garb of a lowly mendicant, subsisting on the alms of the
charitable, and it is likewise told that he did penance at every holy
shrine from Cologne to Rome, whither he was bound to obtain absolution
for his sins. Years afterwards he was found dead at the foot of the
ancient altar in the ruined chapel. The castle went to ruin, and for
centuries nought ever dwelt within its walls save the night-birds and
the beasts of prey.

Of the original structure the ruins of one old tower are all that now
remain. It is still firmly believed by the peasants of the
neigh