“Fancy or no fancy, I could not help connecting it with him; nor yet resist the temptation to go back that way and seek for an explanation of it.
“I did not go far till I found it. Oh, Heavens! What a sight!
“I saw—”
“The Headless Horseman!” exclaims a voice from the outer circle of the spectators, causing one and all to turn suddenly in that direction.
“The Headless Horseman!” respond fifty others, in a simultaneous shout.
Is it mockery, this seeming contempt of court?
There is no one who takes it in this sense; for by this time every individual in the assemblage has become acquainted with the cause of the interruption. It is the Headless Horseman himself seen out upon the open plain, in all his fearful shape!
“Yonder he goes—yonder! yonder!”
“No, he’s coming this way! See! He’s making straight for the Fort!”
The latest assertion seems the truer; but only for an instant. As if to contradict it, the strange equestrian makes a sudden pause upon the prairie, and stands eyeing the crowd gathered around the tree.