then he plunged again into a troubled sleep , haunted by a dark figure of a man on a black horse who watched his every movement with a cold animosity and something that hovered very near the edge of fear ; and behind that dark figure he had always known to be there but had never overtly acknowledged , even to aunt pol , the maimed and ugly face he had briefly seen or imagined in the fight with rundorig loomed darkly , like the hideous fruit of an unspeakable evil tree .