Suddenly a voice whispered in his ear: "Go! Go!"
And he looked around him and saw the very image of death, a skeleton mounted upon a skeleton horse, pressing closely beside him, with his white rattling bones.
"Is it you?" asked Zygfried.
"Yes it is. Go! Go!"
But at that moment he glanced to the other side and observed that he had another companion there. Stirrup to stirrup rode a form, appearing somewhat like a human being but for his face and head. It had the head of an animal, with raised long pointed ears, covered with black shaggy hair.
"Who are you?" asked Zygfried.
But the being, instead of replying, showed its teeth and growled.
Zygfried closed his eyes, but in a moment he heard a louder clattering of bones and the voice speaking to him in the same ear: "Time! Time! Hurry on, go!"
"I go!" he replied.
But that last reply came from his breast and seemed to have been uttered by somebody else. Then, impelled as it were by an external unconquerable power, he dismounted and took off his high knight's saddle, and then the bridle. His companions also dismounted, and did not leave him for a moment. They left the middle of the road and went toward the margin of the wood. There, the black being bent down a branch of a tree and assisted him in fastening to it the strap of the bridle.
"Hurry!" whispered Death.
"Hurry!" whistled some voices from the tops of the trees.
Zygfried, who was like one plunged in deep sleep, drew through the buckle the other end of the strap so as to form a noose. Then he stepped upon the saddle which he had placed in front of the tree, and adjusted the noose upon his neck.
"Push back the saddle! ... Already! Ah!"
The saddle, which he pushed with his feet, rolled away several paces and the body of the unfortunate Knight of the Cross hung heavily. It seemed to him, only for a short moment, that he heard a kind of smothering, snorting and roaring, and that abominable vampire threw itself upon him, shook him and then began to tear his breast with its teeth to rend his heart. Then, as the light of his eyes was about extinguished he yet saw something else; for lo, death dissolved into a whitish cloud, which slowly approached him, embraced him, and finally surrounded and covered all with a dismal and impenetrable veil.
At that moment the storm broke with great fury. Thunder roared in the middle of the road with such a terrible crash that it seemed as though the earth was shaken to its very foundations. The whole forest bent under the tempest. The noise of whistling, hissing, howling, creaking of the trunks, and cracking of the broken branches, filled the depths of the woods. The tempest-driven sheets of rain hid the world from sight. Only at short intervals, when lit up by blood-colored lightning, could be seen the wild dangling body of Zygfried by the roadside.