“Yes, unhappy ghost, I may dare thy livid terrors now. My son, thy proxy, is by my side, pure and shameless, brave and trustworthy. He shall carry thy sword to the holy soil and dye it ‘deep in Paynim blood.’ Then thou and I may rest in peace.”
“Father, I see nought.”
“Not there, between those pillars?”
“What is it?”
“A dead man, with a sword wound in his open breast, which he displays. His eyes live, yea, and the wound lives.”
“No, father, there is nothing.”
“Then go and stand between those pillars, and prove it to me to be void.”
Hubert hesitated. He would sooner have fought a hundred boyish battles with fist, quarterstaff, or even deadly weapons—but this—
“Ah, thou darest not. Nay, I blame thee not, yet thou didst say there was nothing.”
Hubert could not resist that pleading tone in which the sire seemed to ask release from his own delusion. He went with determined step, and stood on the indicated spot.