“Lo! I whet my knife for his blood!”
“Our Lord”—exclaimed a tall and stalwart man-at-arms—“Our Lord Adrian doth rise from the dead to convict thee of the murder of thy brother! Miscreant, canst thou deny it?”
The four ancient Esquires said not a word, but each of them raised his dagger, they seized the Scholar Aldarin, with one firm grasp, their eyes were fixed upon his visage in one stern glare, their instruments of vengeance gleamed over his head, and with silent determination, they awaited the command to strike and kill.
The Azure Knight stayed their hands.
“Onward, brave soldiers”—he cried—“onward to the tomb of the race of Albarone. There will we administer the Ordeal to the old man, there, beneath the shadow of the Demon of our Race, shall he swear that he is guiltless. Onward—bearers of the corse—in the name of the Winged Leopard, onward!”
Raising the bier upon their shoulders, with the corse still sitting grimly erect, the ancient Esquires advanced toward the Mound, led onward by the Unknown Knight, while in the rear, surrounded by men-at-arms, walked the Scholar Aldarin, his head drooped low, and his arms folded across his breast.
He said no word, he uttered no sound of entreaty, but his keen gray eyes, half-buried by his contracting brows, seemed all aflame with the intensity of his thoughts.
The Mound, with all its ponderous outline, lighted by the lamps burning on the summit, now began to appear more clearly through the gloom.
At first it seemed like some vast pile of rocks, heaped on high by a giant-hand, and then, as the men-at-arms drew near and nearer, it gradually assumed a definite form, rising like a pyramid, its three sides fashioned into steps of living rock, while from the fourth, arose the dark figure of stone, towering far, far above, its arms wildly outspread, its face looking down upon the tomb, as its vacant eyes seemed fixing their weird and terrible glance upon the faces of the dead.
The strange procession reached the mound, they ascended twenty steps of stone, and the bearers of the corse found themselves standing upon the summit, from the centre of which arose a solid block of stone, some thirty feet in length and seven in width, while it was but four feet in height.