Traveller Mr. Wraxall researches a Swedish manor's archives and becomes fascinated by its ferocious ancestor, Count Magnus de la Gardie. In the church mausoleum, Wraxall discovers the Count's "Black Pilgrimage" to Chorazin and inadvertently unseals the Count's copper sarcophagus. Soon, two shapes—one tall in a broad hat, one short and hooded with an inhuman limb—shadow him across Europe. Fleeing to England proves futile: the pursuers arrive, and Wraxall meets a nameless, harrowing end.