with a frozen, nameless fear. He had never a doubt that they were
the dead arisen. The foremost that met his eyes were Theodoric
and Arthur; the next, grim Rudolf, father of a dynasty of
emperors. There, leaning on their swords, the three gazed down on
him, armoured, armed, majestic, serious, guarding the empty
grave, which to the child, who knew nothing of its history,
seemed a bier; and at the feet of Theodoric, who alone of them
all looked young and merciful, poor little desperate Findelkind
fell with a piteous sob, and cried, "I am not mad! Indeed,
indeed, I am not mad!"

He did not know that these grand figures were but statues of
bronze. He was quite sure they were the dead, arisen, and meeting
there, around that tomb on which the solitary kneeling knight
watched and prayed, encircled, as by a wall of steel, by these
his comrades. He was not frightened, he was rather comforted and
stilled, as with a sudden sense of some deep calm and certain
help.

Findelkind, without knowing that he was like so many
dissatisfied poets and artists much bigger than himself, dimly
felt in his little tired mind how beautiful and how gorgeous and
how grand the world must have been when heroes and knights like
these had gone by in its daily sunshine and its twilight storms.
No wonder Findelkind of Arlberg had found his pilgrimage so fair,
when if he had needed any help he had only had to kneel and clasp
these firm, mailed limbs, these strong cross-hilted swords, in
the name of Christ and of the poor.

Theodoric seemed to look down on him with benignant eyes from