From a field a poor man was turning an ox into the main road, that he might drive the animal to his master's residence by daylight; the wolf swept by, and snapped furiously at the ox as he passed: and the beast, affrighted by the sudden appearance, gushing sound, and abrupt though evanescent attack of the infuriate monster, turned on the herdsman and gored him to death. On went the terrific wolf, with wilder and more frequent howlings, which were answered in a thousand tones from the rocks and caverns overlooking the valley through whose bosom he was now careering with whirlwind speed along. It was now two o'clock in the morning, and he had already described an immense circuit from the point where he had begun to deviate from a direct course. At a turning of the road, as he emerged from the valley, the monster encountered a party of village girls repairing with the produce of their dairies, and of their poultry-yards, to some still far distant town, which they had hoped to reach shortly after daybreak. Fair, gay, and smiling was the foremost maiden, as the bright moon and the silver starlight shone upon her countenance; but that sweet face, clad in the richest hues of health, was suddenly convulsed with horror, as the terrible Wehr-Wolf thundered by with appalling howls. For a few moments the foremost village maiden stood rooted to the spot in speechless horror: then, uttering a wild cry, she fell backward, rolled down a steep bank, and was ingulfed in the rapid stream that chafed and fretted along the side of the path. Her companions shrieked in agony of mind--the wail was echoed by a despairing cry from the drowning girl--a cry that swept frantically over the rippling waters; and, in another moment, she sank to rise no more! The breeze had by this time increased to a sharp wind, icy and cold, as it usually is, even in southern climes, when the dawn is approaching; and the gale now whistled through the branches of the evergreen wood in the neighborhood of Florence--that vicinity to which the Wehr-Wolf was at length returning! Still was his pace of arrow-like velocity--for some terrible power appeared to urge him on; and though his limbs failed not, though he staggered not in his lightning speed, yet did the foam at his mouth, the thick flakes of perspiration on his body, and the steam that enveloped him as in a dense vapor, denote how distressed the unhappy being in reality was. At last--at last a faint tinge was visible above the eastern horizon; gradually the light increased and put to flight the stars. But now the Oriental sky was to some extent obscured with clouds; and the Wehr-Wolf gnashed his teeth with rage, and uttered a savage howl, as if impatient of the delay of dawn. His speed began to relax; the infernal influence which had governed him for so many hours already grew less stern, less powerful, and as the twilight shone forth more plainly in proportion did the Wehr-Wolf's velocity diminish.