"Who is it, cloaked and hooded, that stands gray and silent by thy side?" he continued in the same low voice, as though he had not heard me. "It looks even as one whom I have known in the long ago. Speak, dim spectre! Who art thou?"
I looked behind me, there was no one there save the wondering Indian girl.
With a shout that resounded through the forest, he dragged himself to a sitting position, horror stamped upon every feature of his face.
"It is Sir Samuel Morton!" he shouted in an unearthly voice. "Back! I slew thee, but it was in fair fight. Why comest thou here to torment me? Go! I said," and he fell back trembling upon the ground.
"'Tis no one, Count," I said soothingly. "Be calm—It is only the creation of thy fevered brain that thou seest."
But with straight, unseeing eyes, already fixed in death, he stared past me.
"'Tis ever thus," he groaned, "ever I see rise around me the shadowy faces of those whom I have slain. They flock about with leering looks and outstretched fingers, taunting me as I lie thus. If there be a hell, as the lying priests would have us believe, it would be torture enough to listen through countless ages to their gibes, and to see about me their staring faces," and he lay back exhausted, with panting tongue.
"Water," he moaned—"would that I had but one drink of water."
I cast my steel cap towards the motionless girl.
"Bring him some water, Winona," I said.