“The saints!  I hope so,” I said, but one who stood near him whispered to him to hold his peace, so I cried out:  “0 friend!  I hold this world and all therein so cheap now, that I see not anything in it but shame which can any longer anger me; wherefore speak:  out.”

“Then, Sir Florian, men say that at your christening some fiend took on him the likeness of a priest and strove to baptize you in the Devil’s name, but God had mercy on you so that the fiend could not choose but baptize you in the name of the most holy Trinity:  and yet men say that you hardly believe any doctrine such as other men do, and will at the end only go to Heaven round about as it were, not at all by the intercession of our Lady; they say too that you can see no ghosts or other wonders, whatever happens to other Christian men.”

I smiled.  “Well, friend, I scarcely call this a disadvantage, moreover what has it to do with the matter in hand?”

How was this in Heaven’s name?  We had been quite still, resting while this talk was going on, but we could hear the hawks chattering from the rocks, we were so close now.

And my heart sunk within me, there was no reason why this should not be true; there was no reason why anything should not be true.

“This, Sir Florian,” said the knight again, “how would you feel inclined to fight if you thought that everything about you was mere glamour; this earth here, the rocks, the sun, the sky?  I do not know where I am for certain, I do not know that it is not midnight instead of undem:  I do not know if I have been fighting men or only simulacra but I think, we all think, that we have been led into some devil’s trap or other, and- and may God forgive me my sins!  I wish I had never been born.”

There now! he was weeping — they all wept — how strange it was to see those rough, bearded men blubbering there, and snivelling till the tears ran over their armour and mingled with the blood, so that it dropped down to the earth in a dim, dull, red rain.

My eyes indeed were dry, but then so was my heart; I felt far worse than weeping came to, but nevertheless I spoke cheerily.

“Dear friends, where are your old men’s hearts gone to now?  See now!  This is a punishment for our sins, is it?  Well, for our forefathers’ sins or our own?  If the first, 0 brothers, be very sure that if we bear it manfully God will have something very good in store for us hereafter; but if for our sins, is it not certain that He cares for us yet, for note that He suffers the wicked to go their own ways pretty much; moreover brave men, brothers, ought to be the masters of simulacra come, is it so hard to die once for all?”

Still no answer came from them, they sighed heavily only.  I heard the sound of more than one or two swords as they rattled back to the scabbards:  nay, one knight, stripping himself of surcoat and hauberk, and drawing his dagger, looked at me with a grim smile, and said, “Sir Florian, do so!” Then he drew the dagger across his throat and he fell back dead.