A long while they stood thus in silence, till under Murgh’s dreadful gaze Hugh’s brain began to swim.  He looked about him, seeking some natural thing to feed his eyes.  Lo! yonder was that which he might watch, a hare crouching in its form not ten paces distant.  See, out of the reeds crept a great red fox.  The hare smelt or saw, and leaped away.  The fox sprang at it, too late, for the white fangs closed emptily behind its scut.  Then with a little snarl of hungry rage it turned and vanished into the brake.

The hare and the fox, the dead reeds, the rising sun, the snow—­oh, who had told him of these things?

Ah! he remembered now, and that memory set the blood pulsing in his veins.  For where these creatures were should be more besides Grey Dick and himself and the Man of many names.

He looked toward Murgh to see that he had bent himself and with his gloved hand was drawing lines upon the snow.  Those lines when they were done enclosed the shape of a grave!

“Archer,” said Murgh, “unsheath your axe and dig.”

As though he understood, Dick obeyed, and began to hollow out a grave in the soft and boggy soil.

Hugh watched him like one who dreams, wondering who was destined to fill that grave.  Presently a sound behind caused him to turn his head.

Oh! certainly he was mad, for there over the rise not a dozen yards away came the beautiful ghost of Eve Clavering, clad in her red cloak.  With her was another ghost, that of old Sir Andrew Arnold, blood running down the armour beneath his robe and in his hand the hilt of a broken sword.

Hugh tried to speak, but his lips were dumb, nor did these ghosts take any heed of him, for their eyes were fixed elsewhere.  To Murgh they went and stood before him silent.  For a while he looked at them, then asked in his cold voice: 

“Who am I, Eve Clavering?”

“The Man who came to visit me in my dream at Avignon and told me that I should live,” she answered slowly.

“And who say you that I am, Andrew Arnold, priest of Christ the God?”

“He whom I visited in my youth in far Cathay,” answered the old knight in an awed whisper.  “He who sat beside the pool behind the dragon-guarded doors and was named Gateway of the Gods.  He who showed to me that we should meet again in such a place and hour as this.”

“Whence come you now, priest and woman, and why?”

“We come from Avignon.  We fled thence from one who would have done this maiden grievous wrong.  He followed us.  Not an hour gone he overtook us with his knaves.  He set them on to seize this woman, hanging back himself.  Old as I am I slew them both and got my death in it,” and he touched the great wound in his side with the hilt of the broken sword.  “Our horses were the better; we fled across the swamp for Blythburgh, he hunting us and seeking my life and her honour.  Thus we found you as it was appointed.”