But if we can get him back again ere that, all may be well.

I will let you forth to lead him hither if he will listen to your voice." From the room whence the sick man had appeared a frightened face looked forth, and a half-tipsy old crone whimpered out: "The fault was none of mine.

I had but just dropped asleep for a moment.

But when a man has the strength of ten what can one poor old woman do ?" Without paying any heed to this creature, the watchman and the mother of the plague-stricken man, together with Dorcas, who hurriedly told her tale as they moved, ran down the dark staircase and out into the street.

There, a little way off, was the tall spectre-like figure, still hugging in bearlike embrace the hapless Frederick, and dancing the while a most weird and fantastic dance, chanting some awful words which none could rightly catch, but the burden of which was, "The dance of death! the dance of death! None who dances here with me will dance with any other!" "For Heaven's sake release him from that embrace!" cried the mother, who knew that her son was smitten to death.