The whole region was pitch black, half the night was over, there was no sign of life anywhere.

But slumber was no dweller in that darkness, the terrible voice of God drove it far away from the eyes of men—Heaven was thundering as if it would have smashed this nebulous star of ours here below into fragments. Who could sleep at such a time?

One thunderbolt followed hard upon another. Whenever the crashing uproar ceased for an instant one could hear the ringing of bells, which the superstitious peasantry set a-going to charm away the terrifying tempest.

At such times every soul of man prays silently in its quiet place of rest. Not a single light is burning in any of the windows, the awakened sleeper lies with fast-closed eyes beneath his coverlet, all his sins rise up before him, all his sins and their punishment—death!

In one house, and one house only, nobody has gone to rest. Every living thing there is wakeful, from the master of the house to the watch-dog. It is the squire's house. All its windows are lit up and all its doors are locked.

In the room looking out upon the garden, the mother is alone with the sick child.

The child is delirious, he is gabbling terrible things, his features wear a different expression every instant.

And his mother understands every word of that mortal fever-born nightmare; she guesses at every thought which underlies all those varying expressions of countenance, the sight of whose horrible contortions are enough to make even the heart of a strong man break down.

How she must suffer!

He who takes poison dies a terrible death, his veins burst asunder one by one; his nerves and muscles strain and crack, his very marrow seems to be on fire. But, oh! what is all that compared to the death of a poisoned soul! A remedy may be found perhaps for bodily venom, but there is no remedy against spiritual venom. The grave may close upon the former, but never upon the latter. Both here and hereafter recollection and reprobation wait upon it.

God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children even to the fourth generation. They graft the evil qualities of their blood upon their sons; one generation passes on its wickedness to the next; man is vitiated when he is born; he sins as soon as he is conscious of his existence and he dies accursed.

The sweat streamed from the child's temples; for the last three days he has had the mark of death upon him.

The doctors say he may live, but if he lives he will be weak-witted.

What a future for a four-year-old child! A burden to the world, a burden to himself, to live on for years after the mind is dead! To be an idiot for ever! It would be good for him if he could be made away with, surely.

Will God take him? Or is it the Divine Will that he should live on as an example of a living curse, as a witness of the Almighty's chastising arm?

Does he bear so much suffering by way of ransom for the sins of his father, his mother, and his grandfather?—or must the years of punishment be as many as the years of sin?

Who will be merciful enough to put an end to his sufferings?

His mother sits silent and watchful at the head of the bed.

No, she cannot do it!

After all she is his mother. The roots of that young flower are still but half detached from the soil of her heart. Death would be a benefit to him. Perchance it might be easier to forget him if he were under the sod. But man who does not endow with life, must not distribute death. Man must wait till the last of his allotted days has come.

And yet only a few words would bring it to pass.

The "death-bird" has whispered the magic spell, and Death will obey the summons.

Yet she lacks the courage to summon him at a time when the very foundations of the earth are trembling at the voice of Heaven's thunder!

Poor woman!

It is a marvel that she also is not mad. She cannot even weep now though her bosom heaves tumultuously—it were not good for a man to know her secret thoughts at this moment.

"They are calling me, they are calling me," stammers the child.... "Men without heads ... they are running after me ... the black dog is scratching up the ground ... the hand of the dead body is sticking out.... Poor Emma!"

The poor lady, all trembling, rose from her seat, very softly lest she should make a noise, she gets up, she cannot blow out the night lamp on the table, her breath is too feeble for that, she puts it out by casting it out of the room.

Then she approaches the window in the darkness to see whether the curtains are closely drawn, or whether anyone can look into the room from the outside. What a flashing past there was of fiery eyes amid the darkness of the night—Hah! What a blinding flash that was!—And then black darkness again.—No, nobody could see her—nobody—.

Can she make up her mind?

She goes slowly back to the bed. The lad is moaning fearfully. He is babbling dreadful words and his throat rattles painfully. "How blue...? her mouth ... how bloody ... her forehead ... poor little Emma."

The lady bends down over the bed. The ghost of a pale little face comes into sight now and then as the lightning flashes quiver past the windows.

Can she make up her mind?

"Poor little Emma," wails the lad.

This last pathetic wail was too much for her. The unhappy woman crossed herself three times and, in a dry, half-suffocated voice exclaimed: "Don't bury me, Neddy, little Emma won't cry!"

The lad uttered a cry like the scream of a wild bird when it is shot through the heart—then he drew a long deep sigh and was quite still.

"Oh!" cried the desperate mother, as if suddenly throwing off the oppressive influence of some magic trance, "help, help!" and like a mad creature she rushed towards the bell-rope which hung beside the hearth.

She seized the golden tassel, the bell rang out like a ghostly chime, when suddenly a fearful crash was heard, a thunderbolt came down the chimney, zig-zagging through the room like a fiery serpent, fusing the metal of the bell in its passage and flashing down the bell-rope to the golden tassel with a blinding glare, finally vanishing with a dull crackling sound.

The whole family rushed at once to the scene of this fearful crash.

With ghastly, frightened faces they came rushing in one by one, huddled up in sheets and counterpanes or whatever else came first to hand, like so many spectres in white mourning.

In the room lay two corpses, the mother and the child.

Bitter lamentations resounded through the house.

The father and the grandfather came hurrying along.

Howling and screaming like some wild beast never seen before, the father flung himself upon his dead, turning frantically from the mother to the child, and from the child to the mother, kissing and squeezing them constantly. And then he pressed them to his bosom and literally howled like one beyond the reach of the mercy of God.

But the grandfather groped his way along in silence, looking in his white nightdress and his dishevelled silvery locks like some spectral thing.

He could not speak. His palsied tongue could not utter a single cry for the relief of his agony. He knelt down in front of the dead bodies and raised his eyes aloft. Oh! how he strove to give expression to his grief, to utter one word, if only one, which might pierce Heaven itself. But he could not. He was dumb, his mouth moved as if it would speak, but his tongue was tied.

Oh! how much this family must have sinned, to suffer so much.