Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 1).djvu/181

Rh staircase, when he heard the door of his son's room opened; he stood still, and a ghastly pale figure in a dusky green coarse doublet, descended towards him, his gun was slung over his shoulder, his hair in wild disorder, his eyes dim, "Oh heaven!" exclaimed the father, "I think I see a spirit, and it is you my son!"—He tottered, and trembling was compelled to sit down on the stairs. "Is it you in reality?"—"It is myself," answered Edmond in a hollow voice. "How?" said the old man, "thus, in this figure? thus ill? in this dress? you look though as like a Camisard, as if you were one of them."—"It is so too," answered the son, "I am now going up into the mountains to them."

The father started up violently, he seized his son powerfully in his arms, and thus carried him with supernatural strength into the saloon; he placed him in an armchair, took the candle, looked at him scrutinizingly and examined his whole