Instantly all were pressing around him, kissing his gauntleted hands, or begging to be allowed only to touch the famous weapon that had fought so well for the oppressed. Some would even have knelt at his feet; but the brave man drew back, and said simply—
“Kneel to God, friends, not to a poor sinner like me, and pray to Him to be with me this night when I go forth to fight with the powers of evil. And now,” added he, in a lighter tone, “tell me my road, that I may go quickly to this haunted spot, and see if I can meet there anything uglier than myself; for I trow this demon (if he be one) hath as good cause to be scared at my face as I at his.”
The peasants laughed at the great captain’s rough jest on his own ugliness; and he, stamping on his memory the directions given him by old Pierre, rode off toward the dreaded spot, watched by the group as if he were entering a lion’s den.
On fair ground, six miles would have been a trifle to such a horse and rider; but the high-roads of that age were on a par with the dirtiest country lane of our time, and the byways far worse, and Bertrand knew better than to tire his steed on the eve of such a combat by putting it to speed over bad ground. So perplexing, too, were the paths he followed, that, in spite of the directions given him, he was forced to halt and look about at every turn, so that, though the sun was still high when he started, it was growing dark when he at last neared the Haunted Circle.
Whether from the deepening gloom or the ghastly associations of this evil spot, or both combined, it seemed to the bold intruder that he had never seen so ghostly a place. The broken path, barely wide enough for one man, wound steeply up through a tangled mass of black, shadowy thickets, the over-arching boughs of which took weird and spectral forms in the dim twilight. Here a monstrous snake reared up to enfold him; there a demon’s clawed hand clutched at him as he passed; and, farther on, the gaping jaws of a wolf menaced him, or the thick, clumsy head of a huge black bear. The night wind moaned drearily through the dark tree-tops above, the hoarse rush of the unseen river came sullenly through the tomb-like silence from below, and the boding shriek of a raven from the deeper shadows seemed to claim as its prey the rash mortal who had dared to brave a power that was not of earth.
On went the bold Breton, fearless as ever, through the deepening blackness and the threatening phantoms, till all at once the matted boughs around him seemed to melt away, and he stood on the edge of a bare, open space—the famous Haunted Circle itself.
There it was at last, that spot of fearful memories, revealed in all its terrors by the bursting of the full moon through the gloom that had veiled it till then.
The minstrel’s grim legend had described it truly enough. It was a circular clearing rather more than a hundred yards across, shut in on all sides by tall, dark trees, and in the centre stood a low mound of crumbling stones, overgrown with weeds and long grass—the pagan altar, no doubt, of the ballad.
Bold as he was, Bertrand felt his heart beat quicker as he set foot on the haunted ground; but he rallied his courage, and, stepping into the circle, was about to smite the ruined altar with his axe, according to the form prescribed for summoning the haunting spirit, when a fearful cry, half shriek and half roar, broke from the gloomy thickets, and into the ring came leaping, with frantic bounds, and gestures more frantic still, a figure that made even Du Guesclin’s brave blood run cold.
It was a tall form in full armour, with closed visor and drawn sword, just as the peasants had described it; but the armour was stained with mould, and red with rust from helm to heel, giving to the spectre, in the fitful moonlight, an aspect horribly suggestive of being steeped in blood. In place of plumes there clung to the helmet a bunch of weeds clotted with earth, as if he had torn them up by the roots in bursting from his grave; and the glistening scales of a dead snake twined about his neck made around it a foul and corpse-like rainbow.