“We shall go to him,” said my father slowly, “but he shall not return to us.”
The hunchback's eyes blinked and bated in the candlelight.
“You quote the Scriptures,” he said. “Is David in a grave?”
“He is not,” replied my father.
The hunchback seemed to advance like a duelist who parries the first thrust of his opponent. But my father met him with an even voice.
“Dillworth,” he said, “it was strange that no man ever saw your brother or the horse after the night he visited you in this house.”
“It was dark,” replied the man. “He rode from this door through the gap in the mountains into Maryland.”
“He rode from this door,” said my father slowly, “but not through the gap in the mountains into Maryland.”
The hunchback began to twist his fingers.
“Where did he ride then? A man and a horse could not vanish.”