A general cry of horror burst from the crowd at the gate and on the walls. All was for a moment lost to sight in the whirl of waters. Then was first seen the snorting head of the poor horse rising from the stream. The animal was struggling in desperation to reach the land. Again were whirled upwards the forms of the cripple and the female, still tightly pressed within his arms; and then a rush of waters, more powerful than the son's frantic grasp, tore them asunder. Nothing now was visible but a floating body, which again disappeared in the eddying flood; and now again the form of the witchfinder rose above the mass of waters. His long arms were tossed aloft; his desperate cries were heard above the roaring of the torrent. "Mercy! mercy!" he screamed. "Save me from these flames! this stifling smoke. I burn, I burn!" As he shouted these last words of mad despair, the icy cold waters swept over him for ever. All had disappeared. Upon the boiling surface of the hurrying flood was now seen nothing more than spars and fragments of timber, remnants of the bridge, whirled up and down, and here and there, and dashing along the stream. Among the foremost of the crowd, who had pressed down the narrow lane leading to the water's edge, between the premises of the Benedictine monastery and the palace garden, eager to gain an unoccupied point whence they might watch the flight, stood "Gentle Gottlob." From under the small water-gate, the stone passage of which was partially flooded by the unusually rising waters, he had seen the frightful catastrophe which had accompanied the sweeping away of the bridge. He stood overwhelmed with grief at the fate of the poor woman, whom he had uselessly striven to save; his eye fixed upon the roaring waters, without seeing distinctly any thing but a sort of wild turmoil, which accorded well with his own troubled reflections; when a cry from the crowd, which still lingered on the spot, recalled him to himself. "Look, look!" cried several voices. "There it is again! It is a body!" On the dark surface of the waters, Gottlob saw a form whirled by the force of the current towards the water-gate. "It is the witch! it is the witch!" again cried the crowd, as the sackcloth garment of the unhappy Magdalena showed itself above the stream. In another moment Gottlob had rushed into the water, to seize the body as it was whirled past the water-gate, and was almost dashed against the stone-piles. "Touch her not!" screamed again the bystanders. "It is the witch! it is the witch!"