The figure was poorly clad in a doublet of serge much the worse for
wear, and the moonlight showed a strangely haggard face and soiled
and torn raiment. Yet there was an air of dignity about the
mysterious visitor which showed to the astonished boy that he must
at some time have been in better circumstances, and lying quite
still Bertram watched his movements with breathless attention.

With a quick, scared glance round him, as though afraid that even
the silence might be the silence of treachery, the gaunt figure
advanced with covert eagerness across the floor, leaving the door
wide open behind him, as if to be ready for him should he desire to
fly; and precipitating himself upon a ewer of cold water standing
upon the floor, he drank and drank and drank as though he would
never cease.

Plainly he was consumed by the most raging thirst. Bertram had
never seen anything but an exhausted horse after a burning summer's
chase in the forest drink in such a fashion. And as he watched, all
fear left him in a moment, for certainly no phantom could drink dry
this great ewer of spring water; and if he had only a creature of
flesh and blood to deal with, why, then there was certainly no
cause for fear.

In place of dread and terror, a great pity welled up in the
generous heart of the boy. He had all the hatred for oppression and
the chivalrous desire to help the oppressed that seem born in the
hearts of the sons of British birth. Who and what manner of man
this was he did not know; but he was evidently some poor hunted
creature, going in very fear of his life, and as such the boy
pitied him from the very ground of his heart, and would gladly have