Again, the light approached. It came nearer to him than it had yet come. The supreme moment had arrived. He already felt himself being dipped in the stream, with no one to rescue him. Ah! the horror of being killed by one of the devil's angels.
Here he remembered Pierre Merlin's advice: "Turn your coat sleeves inside out and put on your garment so." Without a moment's hesitation he divested himself of his coat. As he was turning the sleeves, the object of his dread disappeared. A sigh of relief escaped him.
In a minute, he had bounded over the stream and gate into the road. He put on his coat, and was proceeding towards his home, when he perceived the cause of his fears. It was simply a ray of light coming through the windows of the guardian's house. He could see it now. A woman was standing on a chair with a small lamp in her hand seeking for something on a shelf. As she moved the lamp, the reflection on the trees moved also.
He began to laugh. "The feu bellanger, forsooth. How old Pierre would have smiled if he had beheld him taking off his coat. But the ghost, that was what puzzled him."
The ghost came bounding over the wicket and passed by him.
It was a white dog.
This adventure had taught him a great lesson. What could he say now, he, the educated and civilized young man? No wonder if the people who had been accustomed to hear strange tales from their earliest infancy, believed in them.
He went home, determined to deal leniently with Pierre in the future.
"I must have been in a dreadful state of mind to have acted thus," he thought. "I have done more than I ever meant to do."
When he came home, he was quite cheerful. He did not say that he had seen a ghost, neither did he tell the spouses Merlin that he had nearly been attacked by the feu bellanger.