Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 26, 2025
Two days elapsed before Mr. Stanton again came to me; in the interval the Scin-Laeca did not reappear. I had mustered all my courage, all my common-sense, noted down all the weak points of the false evidence against me, and felt calm and supported by the strength of my innocence.
"Fiend or spectre, or mere delusion of my own brain," cried I, "there can be no compact between thee and me. I despise thy malice, I reject thy services; I accept no conditions to escape from the one or to obtain the other." "You may give a different answer when I ask again." The Scin-Laeca slowly waned, and, fading first into a paler shadow, then vanished. I rejoiced at the reply I had given.
Prominent amongst them all was that assertion of the madman, which had made me shudder when repeated to me: he had been guided to the murder and to all the subsequent proceedings by the luminous shadow of the beautiful youth, the Scin-Laeca to which I had pledged myself.
"And is it thus," she said at last, "that I see the first-born of Godwin the fortunate, for whom so often I have tasked the thunder, and watched the setting sun? for whom my runes have been graven on the bark of the elm, and the Scin-laeca been called in pale splendour from the graves of the dead?"
"It rises in the midst of the flame, pale as the mist on the mountain, and vast as the giants of old; with the saex, and the spear, and the shield, of the sons of Woden. Thou hast seen the Scin-laeca," continued Hilda, looking full on the face of the Earl. "If thou deceivest me not," began Harold, doubting still. "Deceive thee! not to save the crown of the Saxon dare I mock the might of the dead.
I have read in Scandinavian legends of an apparition called the Scin-Laeca, or shining corpse. It is supposed in the northern superstition, sometimes to haunt sepulchres, sometimes to foretell doom.
"Take up the light." I took it. The Scin-Laeca glided along the wall towards the threshold, and motioned me to open the door. I did so. The Shadow flitted on through the corridor. I followed, with hushed footsteps, down a small stair into Forman's study. In all my subsequent proceedings, about to be narrated, the Shadow guided me, sometimes by voice, sometimes by sign.
I stood in the midst of the circle, and within the circle also, close by my side, stood the Scin-Laeca, no longer reflected on the wall, but apart from it, erect, rounded into more integral and distinct form, yet impalpable, and from it there breathed an icy air.
Mutely I turned towards the Scin-Laeca, and the expression of its face was menacing and terrible; my will became yet more compelled to the control imposed upon it, and my lips commenced the formula again whispered into my ear, when I heard distinctly a voice of warning and of anguish, that murmured "Hold!" I knew the voice; it was Lilian's.
"Says Hilda this?" said the Earl, thoughtfully. "So say the Vala, the rune, and the Scin-laeca! and such is the doom that now darkens the brow of Haco! Seest thou not that the hand of death is in the hush of the smileless lip, and the glance of the unjoyous eye?" "Nay, it is but the thought born to captive youth, and nurtured in solitary dreams. Thou hast seen Hilda? and Edith, my mother?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking