That is what I asked myself in affright, as I stood in the vacant room, gazing at the clock, which pointed to midnight, and seemed to say to me that it was too late to hope for my mistress’s return. Yet, after all the arrangements we had just made, after the sacrifices that had been offered and accepted, was it likely that she was deceiving me? The burgomaster turned pale as if he had received a mortal wound. A peal of thunder seemed to echo in his ears--the thunder which had shattered the temple of Jerusalem, whose priest he was!
“We are all threatened,” answered the tiger, “by a fierce enemy which has lately come into this forest. It is a most tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as a tree trunk. _Spasm_ of the tongue sometimes occurs after injuries of the head implicating either the centre or the trunk of the hypoglossal nerve. It may also appear as a reflex condition in infective affections of the teeth and gums, or as a manifestation of some general disease of the central nervous system.
No. I tried to get rid of my first supposition. The walls fell, the veil was rent and revealed the place of execution. Golgotha lay before him.
It has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. Not one of us is safe while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us.” He heard the rustling wings of the departing guardian angel of Ammergau. High above, in terrible solitude, towered the cross, but it was empty--he who should hang upon it--had vanished!
Grey clouds gathered around the desolate scene.