The words were followed by such an appalling howl, that all who were in the cemetery fled, and the place was left utterly deserted. Almost at the same moment, the hounds, having recovered the scent, came leaping in over the wall, followed by the Baron, streaming with sweat as he rode his horse, which was covered with foam and blood.
The dogs made straight for the bramble bush, and began worrying something hidden there.
“Halloo! halloo!! halloo!!!” cried the Lord of Vez, in a voice of thunder, as he leapt from his horse, not caring if there was anyone or not to look after it, and drawing out his hunting-knife, he dashed towards the vault, forcing his way through the hounds. He found them fighting over a fresh and bleeding wolf-skin, but the body had disappeared.
There was no mistake as to its being the skin of the werewolf that they had been hunting, for with the exception of one white hair, it was entirely black.
What had become of the body? No one ever knew. Only as from this time forth Thibault was never seen again, it was generally believed that the former sabot-maker and no other was the werewolf.
Furthermore, as the skin had been found without the body, and, as, from the spot where it was found a peasant reported to have heard someone speak the words: “O God! take my life! I give it gladly, if only by my death I may give back life to her whom I have killed,” the priest declared openly that Thibault, by reason of his sacrifice and repentance, had been saved!
And what added to the consistency of belief in this tradition was, that every year on the anniversary of Agnelette’s death, up to the time when the Monasteries were all abolished at the Revolution, a monk from the Abbey of the Premonstratensians at Bourg-Fontaine, which stands half a league from Préciamont, was seen to come and pray beside her grave.
Such is the history of the black wolf, as it was told me by old Mocquet, my father’s keeper.
Endnotes
-
See Mémoires. ↩
Colophon
The Wolf-Leader
was published in by
Alexandre Dumas.
It was translated from French in by
Alfred Allinson.
This ebook was produced for
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by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on a transcription produced in by
Chuck Greif and Distributed Proofreaders
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Satire on the Trial of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt,
a painting completed in by
Cornelis Saftleven.
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League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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