“My friends! My friends!” interposed pointed-nose. “Why quarrel over this absurd trigorgon? You are both wrong. The castle is haunted by a thith, a terribly dangerous thith. All over the land they say it’s a thith.”
“Who say?” questioned the big harvester.
“They say,” replied pointed-nose.
“Bother they, and all they say,” shouted the big harvester, forgetting his grammar. “It’s a trigorgon!”
“It’s a thith!” shrieked pointed-nose.
And now began a tremendous uproar in which everybody took part, some agreeing with the big harvester, some with red-ears, and some with pointed-nose. A few who disbelieved in both the trigorgon and the thith stood disdainfully to one side, but suddenly they too began to quarrel violently among themselves as to whether the castle was haunted by a mistophant, a winged bogus, a bristly whiskeroarer or an ugsome vrish. So bitter grew the strife that presently red-ears and pointed-nose fell to fisticuffs and were separated with great difficulty by their fellow-harvesters.
“A treasure!” said Hugh to himself. “Ah, if I could but find it, I would ransom Jocelyn and the comrades.” And with an uneasy heart, he thought of the trigorgon, the thith, the winged bogus, the snarling whiskeroarer, the mistophant, and the vrish.
How terrible it would be to meet creatures so awful that no human being had dared to see them! But Jocelyn and the comrades whom he had failed in their hour of peril on the moor, what of them? They were prisoners in the land of the foe; with the treasure of the castle he could ransom them—was he to fail them again?
All at once the runaway young soldier threw back his shoulders bravely and lifted his eyes to the sky. He would seek the treasure on the morrow’s morn.
The sun was shining brightly, a cold dew was still glistening on the leaves, and the villagers had gathered by the public well to speed Hugh on his way. Shaking their heads doubtfully and mournfully, they watched him go swinging down the road and disappear into the trees upon the hill. Presently the glint of his blue smock began to be seen here and there along the climbing path, close by the summit of the mount. A little anxious time passed, and suddenly there rang from the ruin a long, wild howl.