During the progress of these events, Brother Rhine, the state of mind and general feelings of the three witches may be better imagined than described. They wept, they howled, they tore what hair they had, they used language with which I will not sully my lips, and manifested every token of frantic rage and consternation. Charms and incantations they would have tried, but they knew well enough that they had no power whatever over things or beings in my sacred waters. The swans only laughed at their wild fury and strange gesticulations, and the old women remained upon the bank, perfectly helpless. Once more their plans against the owl and his mannikins had utterly failed; and they saw the destruction of the army which they had taken so much pains to raise, without the smallest power to avert the catastrophe which again dashed their fondest hopes to the ground. At the conclusion of the scene which had terminated so disagreeably to themselves, the witches, having nearly {212}exhausted themselves with their rage, calmed down a little, and began to look at each other and wonder what they should do next. This, however, was not a matter long left within their own choice; even as they stood, the heavens grew dark with a mysterious and unnatural darkness, low mutterings of distant thunder were heard, and the wind wailed mournfully as it swept across the river and through the trees of the adjoining wood in which stood the castle of the mannikins. A deep and distant terror seized upon the three witches as these things occurred; they felt, somehow or other, that those were near against whom their magic arts were powerless, and that some wonderful and awful Presence was at hand which they could neither withstand nor avoid. Trembling in every limb, they cowered upon the bank, shivering as if with cold, their teeth chattering, their eyes ready to start out of their heads with fright, and their hearts beating with that fear of coming judgment which wickedness always brings sooner or later to hearts that conceive and practise it. Some internal and inscrutable feeling seemed to warn them that their hour of punishment was near, and that retribution was at hand--retribution for all the pain and misery which they had caused to others ever since they first sold themselves to work evil instead of endeavouring to lead good and pious lives, and to be a comfort instead of a plague and torment to their fellow-creatures.