"You see," he said, "I have done more than we agreed to do. For King John of Luxemburg, although he was blind, kept on fighting and perished gloriously. But Jurand can stand no more and will perish like a dog behind the fence."
At this he again felt that shortness of breath that had seized him on his way to Jurand, also a weight on his head as of a heavy iron helmet, but this only lasted a second. Then he drew a deep breath and said: "Ah! My time has also come. You were the only one I had; but now I have none. But if I lived longer, I vow to you, O little son, that I would also place upon your grave that hand which killed you, or perish myself. The murderer who killed you is still alive...."
Here his teeth clinched and such an intense cramp seized him that he could not speak for some time. Then he began again, but in a broken voice: "Yes, your murderer still lives, but I will cut him to pieces ... and others with him, and I will inflict upon them tortures even worse than death itself...."
Then be ceased.
In a moment he rose again and approaching the coffin, he began to speak in quiet tones, "Now I take leave of you ... and look into your face for the last time; perhaps I shall be able to see in your face whether you are pleased with my promises.... The last time."
Then he uncovered Rotgier's face, but suddenly he retreated.
"You are smiling, ..." he said, "but you are smiling terribly...."
In fact, the frozen corpse, which was covered with the mantle, had thawed. It may be from the heat of the burning candles, it had begun to decompose with extraordinary rapidity, and the face of the young count looked indeed terrible. The enormously swollen, and livid mouth looked something monstrous, the blue and swollen curled lips had the appearance of a grinning smile.
Zygfried covered that terrible human mask as quickly as possible.
Then he took the lantern and left the chapel. Here again, for the third time, he felt shortness of breath; he entered the house and threw himself upon his hard bed of the Order and lay for a time motionless. He thought he would fall asleep, when suddenly a strange feeling overpowered him; it seemed to him that he would never again be able to sleep, and that if he remained in that house death would soon follow.
Zygfried, in his extreme weariness, and without hope of sleep, was not afraid of death; on the contrary he regarded it as an exceedingly great relief. But he had no wish to submit himself to it that evening. So he sat up in his bed and cried: "Give me time till to-morrow."