“Lives Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” said a broken and shrill voice close by his bedside, “to say there is that which he dares not!”
The evil conscience and the shaken nerves of Front-de-Boeuf heard, in this strange interruption to his soliloquy, the voice of one of those demons, who, as the superstition of the times believed, beset the beds of dying men to distract their thoughts, and turn them from the meditations which concerned their eternal welfare. He shuddered and drew himself together; but, instantly summoning up his wonted resolution, he exclaimed, “Who is there?—what art thou, that darest to echo my words in a tone like that of the night-raven?—Come before my couch that I may see thee.”
“I am thine evil angel, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” replied the voice.
“Let me behold thee then in thy bodily shape, if thou be’st indeed a fiend,” replied the dying knight; “think not that I will blench from thee.—By the eternal dungeon, could I but grapple with these horrors that hover round me, as I have done with mortal dangers, heaven or hell should never say that I shrunk from the conflict!”
“Think on thy sins, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” said the almost unearthly voice, “on rebellion, on rapine, on murder!—Who stirred up the licentious John to war against his grey-headed father—against his generous brother?”
“Be thou fiend, priest, or devil,” replied Front-de-Boeuf, “thou liest in thy throat!—Not I stirred John to rebellion—not I alone—there were fifty knights and barons, the flower of the midland counties—better men never laid lance in rest—And must I answer for the fault done by fifty?—False fiend, I defy thee! Depart, and haunt my couch no more—let me die in peace if thou be mortal—if thou be a demon, thy time is not yet come.”