The Searchlight on the Castle
Ethel suddenly interrupted herself. “See!” she called to Will and grandma, “see, Morgana smiles to us again! See the light yonder, behind Helia!”
Just then the searchlight illumined the top of the Gothic portal. The Morgana window glittered through the night.
“Do not stir, I entreat you!” Ethel said to Helia. “The window throws a halo around you!”
Indeed, they could see the dark profile of Helia in relief against the glittering background. She was superb, standing upright, with her head raised proudly, and one hand grasping a ratline of the mast. She looked as if she were wielding an immense lance, like a warrior-woman of heroic days.
CHAPTER IV
THE LITTLE DUKE
The next day, as they entered the Hall of the Ancestors, grandma dropped the duke’s arm to seat herself in a great chair. But the chair was in carved wood and very hard. Decidedly, this was a feudal castle, and much less comfortable than a Chicago home.
Ethel thanked the little Adalbert with a big kiss. The child, accompanied by his father, had been the guide of Ethel and grandma. He had climbed up and down steps too high for him; but Ethel gave him her hand; and the child explained and mentioned names, as he showed mosaics and statues in the crypt. “My grandfather, Amalfrid IX, my ancestor Enguerrand, Lady Rhodaïs, Bertha, St. Morgana”;—one would have said he was the familiar genius of the place, a little wandering soul of the dead, doing to the living the honors of the past.
When they issued forth from these gloomy vaults, Adalbert hastened to go off and play with Sœurette behind the pillars of the great hall.