We watched
them with fear, doubting if they were of this world."
"Why?"
"They had horns, and tails, and huge ears."
"They say the wood is haunted by wood demons."
"Then thou wert afraid to follow?"
"We dare fight men, we fear none who breathe; but we shrink from
Satan and his hosts. Still we sent a flight of arrows, and they
vanished."
"Was the distance near enough to do execution?"
"Scarcely, had they been men; it mattered not if they were what
they appeared to be."
Strange to say, the idea that the foe had been masquerading for the
purpose of frightening them, never struck our Normans.
"When they had gone, we approached the spot," continued the aged
knight of Senville, "and found foot marks in the snow, which, from
the previous fall, lay lightly on the ground, for the storm of
tonight had hardly set in. There were marks of one of our parties,
and we saw by torchlight strange footprints, as if they had been
tracked by two or three daring foes--we thought we distinguished
hoof marks."
A terrible silence fell upon the whole assembly, as the idea that
they had been contending with demons, and not with mortals, fell
upon them, and perhaps the bravest would have hesitated to enter
the forest that night, however dire the need.
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