could only save three pieces, with which she rushed on to her own
apartment, never again looking behind her, though the uproar
continued close to her very heels all the way up to her chamber
door; and trembling with dread, and commending herself to all the
saints, she at last threw herself on her bed once more in safety.
But next morning, on looking for the coals, she found three golden
rings in their stead bearing strange inscriptions, which no man
hath been able to decipher until this day. As to those she had
dropped at the castle gate, they were nowhere to be seen; and on
the fourth night the ghost comes again, and scolds her for
disobeying his orders, but admonishes her to preserve the three
rings safely, for if she lost one, a great misfortune would fall
upon the village, and the castle be rent violently--<i>item</i>,
but two of her race would ever be alive at the same time; if the
second were lost, her race would be reduced to direst poverty; and
if the third ring were lost, the race would disappear entirely
from the earth.
After this, when her knightly spouse returned from Jerusalem, and
she told him the wonderful story of the three rings, he had a
costly casket made for them, in which they were safely locked,
with a rose of Jericho placed above them, which he had himself
brought from the Holy Land; and this wonderful treasure has been
preserved by the Count's descendants with jealous care, even until
this day. I have said that no man could read the inscriptions on
the rings: they were all the same--the three as like as the leaves
of a trefoil. They were all large enough for the largest man's
thumb, and made of the purest crown gold: the shield was of a
circular form, bearing in the centre the figure of a Knight
Templar in full armour, with spur and shield, keeping watch before
the Temple at Jerusalem; but what the characters around the figure
signified, I leave unsaid, and many, I am thinking, will leave
unsaid likewise. [Footnote: It is a fact, that no one up to the
present time has been able to decipher this very remarkable
inscription, not even Silvestre de Sacy himself, to whom it was
sent some years ago. Dreger's reading, given in Daehnert's
Pomeranian Library, iv. p. 295, is manifestly wrong--<i>Ordo
Hierosolymitamis</i>. But two of the rings are forthcoming now;
and in fulfilment of the tradition, a tremendous rent really
followed the loss of the first in the old castle of Pansin, which
may yet be seen in this fine ruin, whose like is not to be found
in all Pomerania, nor, indeed, in the north of Germany. The two
remaining rings, with the rose of Jericho, are still to be seen in
the original casket, which is of curious and costly workmanship,
and this casket is again enclosed in another of iron, with strong
hoops and clasps. Should any of my readers desire to discover the
meaning of the inscription, he will do me the highest favour by
communicating the same to me.]
<i>In summa</i>.--When Diliana arrived with these rings, the poor
Dorothea lay again in the devil's fetters. She roared, and
screamed, and raged horribly, and tore her bed-clothes, and foamed
at the mouth, and even abused and reviled the beautiful young
virgin, who took, however, no heed thereof, but with permission of
the abbess laid the three rings upon the stomach of the sick nun,
who immediately became quite still, and so lay for a little while,
after which, with a loud roar, Satan went out of her, while the
windows clattered and the glasses rang upon the table. Then she
fell into a deep sleep, and on awakening remembered nothing of