audible on his right, not ten paces from him. He
straightened up as if moved by a spring.

At the same moment a shade appeared on the threshold of the vast hall.
This shade resembled the ancient statues lying on the tombs. It was
wrapped in an immense winding-sheet which trailed behind it.

For an instant Roland doubted his own eyes. Had the preoccupation of his
mind made him see a thing which was not? Was he the dupe of his senses,
the sport of those hallucinations which physicians assert, but cannot
explain? A moan, uttered by the phantom, put his doubts to flight.

"My faith!" he cried in a burst of laughter, "now for a tussle, friend
ghost!"

The spectre paused and extended a hand toward the young officer.
"Roland! Roland!" said the spectre in a muffled voice, "it would be a
pity not to follow to the grave those you have sent there."

And the spectre, without hastening its step, continued on its way.

Roland, astounded for an instant, came down from the stage, and
resolutely followed the ghost. The path was difficult, encumbered with
stones, benches awry, and over-turned tables. And yet, through all
these obstacles, an invisible channel seemed open for the spectre, which
pursued its way unchecked.

Each time it passed before a window, the light from with out, feeble
as it was, shone upon the winding-sheet and the ghost, outlining the
figure, which passed into the obscurity to reappear and vanish again at
each succeeding one, Roland, his eyes fixed upon the figure, fearing to
lose sight of it if he diverted his gaze from it, dared not look at the
path, apparently so easy to the spectre, yet bristling with obstacles
for him. He stumbled at every step. The ghost was gaining upon him. It
reached the door opposite to that by which it had entered. Roland saw
the entrance to a dark passage. Feeling that the ghost would escape him,
he cried: "Man or ghost, robber or monk, halt or I fire!"

"A dead body cannot be killed twice, and death has no power over the
spirit," replied the ghost in its muffled voice.

"Who are you?"

"The Shade of him you tore violently from the earth."

The young officer burst into that harsh, nervous laugh, made more
terrible by the darkness around him.

"Faith!" said he, "if you have no further indications to give me, I
shall not trouble myself to discover you."

"Remember the fountain at Vaucluse," said the Shade, in a voice so faint
the words seemed to escape his lips like a sigh ra