“Ah!” said Thibault, “that explains why you feared my Lord Baron’s dogs.”
“When we have dealings with men, we are forbidden to speak anything but the truth, and the whole truth; it is for them to accept or refuse.”
“You have boasted to me of the power that I should acquire; tell me, now, in what that power will consist?”
“It will be such that even the most powerful king will not be able to withstand it, since his power is limited by the human and the possible.”
“Shall I be rich?”
“So rich, that you will come in time to despise riches, since, by the mere force of your will, you will obtain not only what men can only acquire with gold and silver, but also all that superior beings get by their conjurations.”
“Shall I be able to revenge myself on my enemies?”
“You will have unlimited power over everything which is connected with evil.”
“If I love a woman, will there again be a possibility of my losing her?”
“As you will have dominion over all your fellow creatures, you will be able to do with them what you like.”
“There will be no power to enable them to escape from the trammels of my will?”
“Nothing, except death, which is stronger than all.”
“And I shall only run the risk of death myself on one day out of the three hundred and sixty-five?”
“On one day only; during the remaining days nothing can harm you, neither iron, lead, nor steel, neither water, nor fire.”
“And there is no deceit, no trap to catch me, in your words?”
“None, on my honour as a wolf!”
“Good,” said Thibault, “then let it be so; a wolf for four and twenty hours, for the rest of the time the monarch of creation! What am I to do? I am ready.”
“Pick a holly-leaf, tear it in three pieces with your teeth, and throw it away from you, as far as you can.”
Thibault did as he was commanded.
Having torn the leaf in three pieces, he scattered them on the air, and although the night till then had been a peaceful one, there was immediately heard a loud peal of thunder, while a tempestuous whirlwind arose, which caught up the fragments and carried them whirling away with it.
“And now, brother Thibault,” said the wolf, “take my place, and good luck be with you! As was my case just a year ago, so you will have to become a wolf for four and twenty hours; you must endeavour to come out of the ordeal as happily as I did, thanks to you, and then you will see realised all that I have promised you. Meanwhile, I will pray the lord of the cloven hoof that he will protect you from the teeth of the Baron’s hounds, for, by the devil himself, I take a genuine interest in you, friend Thibault.”
And then it seemed to Thibault that he saw the black wolf grow larger and taller, that it stood up on its hind legs and finally walked away in the form of a man, who made a sign to him with his hand as he disappeared.
We say it seemed to him, for Thibault’s ideas, for a second or two, became very indistinct. A feeling of torpor passed over him, paralysing his power of thought. When he came to himself, he was alone. His limbs were imprisoned in a new and unusual form; he had, in short, become in every respect the counterpart of the black wolf that a few minutes before had been speaking to him. One single white hair on his head alone shone in contrast to the remainder of the sombre coloured fur; this one white hair of the wolf was the one black hair which had remained to the man.
Thibault had scarcely had time to recover himself when he fancied he heard a rustling among the bushes, and the sound of a low, muffled bark. … He thought of the Baron and his hounds, and trembled. Thus metamorphosed into the black wolf, he decided that he would not do what his predecessor had done, and wait till the dogs were upon him. It was probably a bloodhound he had heard, and he would get away before the hounds were uncoupled. He made off, striking straight ahead, as is the manner of wolves, and it was a profound satisfaction to him to find that in his new form he had tenfold his former strength and elasticity of limb.
“By the devil and his horns!” the voice of the Lord of Vez was now heard to say to his new huntsman a few paces off, “you hold the leash too slack, my lad; you have let the bloodhound give tongue, and we shall never head the wolf back now.”
“I was in fault, I do not deny it, my Lord; but as I saw it go by last evening only a few yards from this spot, I never guessed that it would take up its quarters for the night in this part of the wood and that it was so close to us as all that.”
“Are you sure it is the same one that has got away from us so often?”
“May the bread I eat in your service choke me, my lord, if it is not the same black wolf that we were chasing last year when poor Marcotte was drowned.”
“I should like finely to put the dogs on its track,” said the Baron, with a sigh.
“My lord has but to give the order, and we will do so, but he will allow me to observe that we have still two good hours of darkness before us, time enough for every horse we have to break its legs.”
“That may be, but if we wait for the day, l’Eveillé, the fellow will have had time to get ten leagues away.”
“Ten leagues at least,” said l’Eveillé, shaking his head.
“I have got this cursed black wolf on my brain,” added the Baron, “and I have such a longing to have its skin, that
