I had scarcely accomplished this, when I heard
the sound of feet outside my door, a bolt
withdrawn, the handle turned. My barricade would
obstruct the doorway for some few minutes: but
for some few minutes only. I had just time to
swing myself from the window-sill by my hands,
to get both feet round the plank, to slide to the
ground, to fly like the wind, to raise the postern
latch, when the crash of falling table and chairs
reached my ears. I ran—I know not in which
direction up one street, and down another, on,
on, fancying I heard the sound of feet behind
me; no soul visible, to right or left. At last,
breathless and exhausted, down by the river's
side, I came to a soldiers' guard-house. A
sentry was at the door; there was the ruddy
light of the men's pipes and of a lantern
within. No haven was ever more grateful to
shipwrecked mariner. I fell down upon the
step; the sergeant and his men came and
stared, demanded with oaths what I wanted,
and, as I could not speak at first, declared
I was drunk. Then, as in half-inarticulate
phrase I poured out my strange tale, they
changed their minds, and declared I was mad.
But as I was an amusing rather than a
dangerous lunatic, and served to beguile the tedious
hours of the night, they let me remain among
them; asked the same stupid questions over and
over again; laughed their horse-laughs; and
spat and spat all around me, until daybreak.
Then they directed me to the cathedral, and I
left them. One of the sacristans was unlocking
the doors as I got there. I found my knapsack
untouched, in the dusky corner of the
confessional; there, utterly worn out, at last,
with the excitement of that eventful night, I
leaned back, in the grey morning light, and fell
asleep.

The sun was high when I awoke; the feet of
the devout were shuffling in to their morning
orisons. I shouldered my knapsack and crept
away. My head ached; my limbs felt chill and
numb. Had I been dreaming? Were they no more
than mere shadows of the brain, which had left
behind them so deep and terrible an impression?
I met a sacristan—not the one whom I remembered
the night before—as I was going out. I
stopped to question him. Did he know
anything of two fair-haired women who had been
at vespers last evening? I described them. He
stared at me, and shook his head. In the
crowds who came there daily, how could he tell
whom I meant? I left him, and entered a
humble little gasthaus hard by, where, for a
few groschen, I broke my fast. Here I
made the same inquiries. I even essayed to
tell my story; but I saw that, like the soldiers,
the people thought me wandering in my
wits. They told me, rather derisively, that I
had better tell my story to the police. But how
could I hope to be believed, unsupported as my
extraordinary statement was, by any proof
whatsoever? If I could not test the reality of these
events to my own absolute satisfaction, was it
likely that others would regard them as anything
but the creations of an excited imagination?
I wandered for a couple of hours through
the city, trying to find my way to the house,
the exterior of which I felt certain I should
recognise. I could not even trace the road I had
taken, and, at last, I gave it up. The conviction
slowly and reluctantly grew up in me that
I was suffering from the effects of a vivid
nightmare. Its impression remained painfully strong
on my mind for many days (I left Cologne
the same afternoon); and, indeed, for some
weeks, I never fell asleep without a dread of
living over again those terrible hours. But
"no ill dreams disturbed my rest;" and
since the effect of all things must wear out in
time, as months rolled on the memory of my
night in Cologne became to me no more than
a remarkable experience of the strange
phantasmagoria which the mind may conjure up, and
invest with every appearance of reality, when
volition is removed. I drew over and over
again, in my sketch-book, the heads of those two
sisters, as they had appeared to me; and I
wrote down, with extreme particularity, every
word they had said, and every small circumstance
of my dream.

One winter's evening in the following year I
again passed through Cologne, on my road
home. I was a richer man now than I had
been eighteen months ago; my foot was on the
first rung of the ladder, for I had painted a picture
which had sold well. It was no longer
necessary for me to carry about my worldly
possessions on my back, or to seek out the poorest
gasthaus. The steamer landed me, with other
passengers, on the quay, hard by a handsome
hotel. I resolved to patronise it. The evening
was cold; but all along the quay, outside the
hotel, in the court-yard, groups of people were
standing, and talking with a slow heavy
power of speech, betokening that the native
mind was moved by some topic of more than
common interest. I caught a word here and
there which roused my curiosity. I asked the
kelner who showed me to my little room what
the subject of such general public interest was?
An execution, he replied; adding that executions
were rare events there, now, and that unusual
interest had been excited by this one, from the
fact that the persons who had suffered the
extreme penalty of the law were two sisters,
murderesses, whose crimes had long escaped
undetected.

I must have turned white instantly, for the
man looked at me with some surprise.

"Did you ever see these women?" I
managed at last to stammer out.

"No, mein Herr. I could not leave the
hotel, to attend either the trial or execution.
But there is an officer in the Speise-saal who
can tell you everything about them, for he saw
them in prison, and commanded the troops in
the Platz to day."

I said no more to the man, but went down to
the coffee-room, a few minutes later, with my
sketch-book in my hand. At one of the small
round tables a middle-aged Prussian officer was