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diff --git a/40386-8.txt b/40386-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0823cd5..0000000 --- a/40386-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6966 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wandering Ghosts, by F. Marion Crawford - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Wandering Ghosts - -Author: F. Marion Crawford - -Release Date: August 1, 2012 [EBook #40386] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERING GHOSTS *** - - - - -Produced by sp1nd, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -WANDERING GHOSTS - - -[Illustration: Logo] - -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - -NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO -SAN FRANCISCO - -MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED - -LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA -MELBOURNE - -THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. - -TORONTO - - -[Illustration: "What?... It's gone, man, the skull is gone!!"] - - -WANDERING GHOSTS - -BY F. MARION CRAWFORD - -AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "A ROMAN SINGER," ETC. - -_WITH FRONTISPIECE_ - -New York - -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - -1911 - -_All rights reserved_ - - -COPYRIGHT, 1894, -BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. - -COPYRIGHT, 1899, -BY STREET AND SMITH. - -COPYRIGHT, 1903, -BY F. MARION CRAWFORD - -AND - -BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. - -COPYRIGHT, 1905 AND 1908, -BY P. F. COLLIER AND SON. - -COPYRIGHT, 1911, -BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. - -Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1911. - -Norwood Press -J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. -Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. - - - - -CONTENTS - - PAGE -THE DEAD SMILE 1 - -THE SCREAMING SKULL 41 - -MAN OVERBOARD! 97 - -FOR THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE 165 - -THE UPPER BERTH 195 - -BY THE WATER OF PARADISE 235 - -THE DOLL'S GHOST 279 - - - - -THE DEAD SMILE - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -Sir Hugh Ockram smiled as he sat by the open window of his study, in the -late August afternoon; and just then a curiously yellow cloud obscured -the low sun, and the clear summer light turned lurid, as if it had been -suddenly poisoned and polluted by the foul vapours of a plague. Sir -Hugh's face seemed, at best, to be made of fine parchment drawn -skin-tight over a wooden mask, in which two eyes were sunk out of sight, -and peered from far within through crevices under the slanting, wrinkled -lids, alive and watchful like two toads in their holes, side by side and -exactly alike. But as the light changed, then a little yellow glare -flashed in each. Nurse Macdonald said once that when Sir Hugh smiled he -saw the faces of two women in hell--two dead women he had betrayed. -(Nurse Macdonald was a hundred years old.) And the smile widened, -stretching the pale lips across the discoloured teeth in an expression -of profound self-satisfaction, blended with the most unforgiving hatred -and contempt for the human doll. The hideous disease of which he was -dying had touched his brain. His son stood beside him, tall, white and -delicate as an angel in a primitive picture; and though there was deep -distress in his violet eyes as he looked at his father's face, he felt -the shadow of that sickening smile stealing across his own lips and -parting them and drawing them against his will. And it was like a bad -dream, for he tried not to smile and smiled the more. Beside him, -strangely like him in her wan, angelic beauty, with the same shadowy -golden hair, the same sad violet eyes, the same luminously pale face, -Evelyn Warburton rested one hand upon his arm. And as she looked into -her uncle's eyes, and could not turn her own away, she knew that the -deathly smile was hovering on her own red lips, drawing them tightly -across her little teeth, while two bright tears ran down her cheeks to -her mouth, and dropped from the upper to the lower lip while she -smiled--and the smile was like the shadow of death and the seal of -damnation upon her pure, young face. - -"Of course," said Sir Hugh very slowly, and still looking out at the -trees, "if you have made up your mind to be married, I cannot hinder -you, and I don't suppose you attach the smallest importance to my -consent----" - -"Father!" exclaimed Gabriel reproachfully. - -"No; I do not deceive myself," continued the old man, smiling terribly. -"You will marry when I am dead, though there is a very good reason why -you had better not--why you had better not," he repeated very -emphatically, and he slowly turned his toad eyes upon the lovers. - -"What reason?" asked Evelyn in a frightened voice. - -"Never mind the reason, my dear. You will marry just as if it did not -exist." There was a long pause. "Two gone," he said, his voice lowering -strangely, "and two more will be four--all together--for ever and ever, -burning, burning, burning bright." - -At the last words his head sank slowly back, and the little glare of the -toad eyes disappeared under the swollen lids; and the lurid cloud passed -from the westering sun, so that the earth was green again and the light -pure. Sir Hugh had fallen asleep, as he often did in his last illness, -even while speaking. - -Gabriel Ockram drew Evelyn away, and from the study they went out into -the dim hall, softly closing the door behind them, and each audibly drew -breath, as though some sudden danger had been passed. They laid their -hands each in the other's, and their strangely-like eyes met in a long -look, in which love and perfect understanding were darkened by the -secret terror of an unknown thing. Their pale faces reflected each -other's fear. - -"It is his secret," said Evelyn at last. "He will never tell us what it -is." - -"If he dies with it," answered Gabriel, "let it be on his own head!" - -"On his head!" echoed the dim hall. It was a strange echo, and some were -frightened by it, for they said that if it were a real echo it should -repeat everything and not give back a phrase here and there, now -speaking, now silent. But Nurse Macdonald said that the great hall would -never echo a prayer when an Ockram was to die, though it would give back -curses ten for one. - -"On his head!" it repeated quite softly, and Evelyn started and looked -round. - -"It is only the echo," said Gabriel, leading her away. - -They went out into the late afternoon light, and sat upon a stone seat -behind the chapel, which was built across the end of the east wing. It -was very still, not a breath stirred, and there was no sound near them. -Only far off in the park a song-bird was whistling the high prelude to -the evening chorus. - -"It is very lonely here," said Evelyn, taking Gabriel's hand nervously, -and speaking as if she dreaded to disturb the silence. "If it were dark, -I should be afraid." - -"Of what? Of me?" Gabriel's sad eyes turned to her. - -"Oh no! How could I be afraid of you? But of the old Ockrams--they say -they are just under our feet here in the north vault outside the chapel, -all in their shrouds, with no coffins, as they used to bury them." - -"As they always will--as they will bury my father, and me. They say an -Ockram will not lie in a coffin." - -"But it cannot be true--these are fairy tales--ghost stories!" Evelyn -nestled nearer to her companion, grasping his hand more tightly, and the -sun began to go down. - -"Of course. But there is the story of old Sir Vernon, who was beheaded -for treason under James II. The family brought his body back from the -scaffold in an iron coffin with heavy locks, and they put it in the -north vault. But ever afterwards, whenever the vault was opened to bury -another of the family, they found the coffin wide open, and the body -standing upright against the wall, and the head rolled away in a corner, -smiling at it." - -"As Uncle Hugh smiles?" Evelyn shivered. - -"Yes, I suppose so," answered Gabriel, thoughtfully. "Of course I never -saw it, and the vault has not been opened for thirty years--none of us -have died since then." - -"And if--if Uncle Hugh dies--shall you----" Evelyn stopped, and her -beautiful thin face was quite white. - -"Yes. I shall see him laid there too--with his secret, whatever it is." -Gabriel sighed and pressed the girl's little hand. - -"I do not like to think of it," she said unsteadily. "O Gabriel, what -can the secret be? He said we had better not marry--not that he forbade -it--but he said it so strangely, and he smiled--ugh!" Her small white -teeth chattered with fear, and she looked over her shoulder while -drawing still closer to Gabriel. "And, somehow, I felt it in my own -face--" - -"So did I," answered Gabriel in a low, nervous voice. "Nurse -Macdonald----" He stopped abruptly. - -"What? What did she say?" - -"Oh--nothing. She has told me things--they would frighten you, dear. -Come, it is growing chilly." He rose, but Evelyn held his hand in both -of hers, still sitting and looking up into his face. - -"But we shall be married, just the same--Gabriel! Say that we shall!" - -"Of course, darling--of course. But while my father is so very ill, it -is impossible----" - -"O Gabriel, Gabriel, dear! I wish we were married now!" cried Evelyn in -sudden distress. "I know that something will prevent it and keep us -apart." - -"Nothing shall!" - -"Nothing?" - -"Nothing human," said Gabriel Ockram, as she drew him down to her. - -And their faces, that were so strangely alike, met and touched--and -Gabriel knew that the kiss had a marvellous savour of evil, but on -Evelyn's lips it was like the cool breath of a sweet and mortal fear. -And neither of them understood, for they were innocent and young. Yet -she drew him to her by her lightest touch, as a sensitive plant shivers -and waves its thin leaves, and bends and closes softly upon what it -wants; and he let himself be drawn to her willingly, as he would if her -touch had been deadly and poisonous; for she strangely loved that half -voluptuous breath of fear, and he passionately desired the nameless evil -something that lurked in her maiden lips. - -"It is as if we loved in a strange dream," she said. - -"I fear the waking," he murmured. - -"We shall not wake, dear--when the dream is over it will have already -turned into death, so softly that we shall not know it. But until -then----" - -She paused, and her eyes sought his, and their faces slowly came nearer. -It was as if they had thoughts in their red lips that foresaw and -foreknew the deep kiss of each other. - -"Until then----" she said again, very low, and her mouth was nearer to -his. - -"Dream--till then," murmured his breath. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -Nurse Macdonald was a hundred years old. She used to sleep sitting all -bent together in a great old leathern arm-chair with wings, her feet in -a bag footstool lined with sheepskin, and many warm blankets wrapped -about her, even in summer. Beside her a little lamp always burned at -night by an old silver cup, in which there was something to drink. - -Her face was very wrinkled, but the wrinkles were so small and fine and -near together that they made shadows instead of lines. Two thin locks of -hair, that was turning from white to a smoky yellow again, were drawn -over her temples from under her starched white cap. Every now and then -she woke, and her eyelids were drawn up in tiny folds like little pink -silk curtains, and her queer blue eyes looked straight before her -through doors and walls and worlds to a far place beyond. Then she slept -again, and her hands lay one upon the other on the edge of the blanket; -the thumbs had grown longer than the fingers with age, and the joints -shone in the low lamplight like polished crab-apples. - -It was nearly one o'clock in the night, and the summer breeze was -blowing the ivy branch against the panes of the window with a hushing -caress. In the small room beyond, with the door ajar, the girl-maid who -took care of Nurse Macdonald was fast asleep. All was very quiet. The -old woman breathed regularly, and her indrawn lips trembled each time as -the breath went out, and her eyes were shut. - -But outside the closed window there was a face, and violet eyes were -looking steadily at the ancient sleeper, for it was like the face of -Evelyn Warburton, though there were eighty feet from the sill of the -window to the foot of the tower. Yet the cheeks were thinner than -Evelyn's, and as white as a gleam, and the eyes stared, and the lips -were not red with life; they were dead, and painted with new blood. - -Slowly Nurse Macdonald's wrinkled eyelids folded themselves back, and -she looked straight at the face at the window while one might count ten. - -"Is it time?" she asked in her little old, faraway voice. - -While she looked the face at the window changed, for the eyes opened -wider and wider till the white glared all round the bright violet, and -the bloody lips opened over gleaming teeth, and stretched and widened -and stretched again, and the shadowy golden hair rose and streamed -against the window in the night breeze. And in answer to Nurse -Macdonald's question came the sound that freezes the living flesh. - -That low-moaning voice that rises suddenly, like the scream of storm, -from a moan to a wail, from a wail to a howl, from a howl to the -fear-shriek of the tortured dead--he who has heard knows, and he can -bear witness that the cry of the banshee is an evil cry to hear alone in -the deep night. When it was over and the face was gone, Nurse Macdonald -shook a little in her great chair, and still she looked at the black -square of the window, but there was nothing more there, nothing but the -night, and the whispering ivy branch. She turned her head to the door -that was ajar, and there stood the girl in her white gown, her teeth -chattering with fright. - -"It is time, child," said Nurse Macdonald. "I must go to him, for it is -the end." - -She rose slowly, leaning her withered hands upon the arms of the chair, -and the girl brought her a woollen gown and a great mantle, and her -crutch-stick, and made her ready. But very often the girl looked at the -window and was unjointed with fear, and often Nurse Macdonald shook her -head and said words which the maid could not understand. - -"It was like the face of Miss Evelyn," said the girl at last, trembling. - -But the ancient woman looked up sharply and angrily, and her queer blue -eyes glared. She held herself by the arm of the great chair with her -left hand, and lifted up her crutch-stick to strike the maid with all -her might. But she did not. - -"You are a good girl," she said, "but you are a fool. Pray for wit, -child, pray for wit--or else find service in another house than Ockram -Hall. Bring the lamp and help me under my left arm." - -The crutch-stick clacked on the wooden floor, and the low heels of the -woman's slippers clappered after her in slow triplets, as Nurse -Macdonald got toward the door. And down the stairs each step she took -was a labour in itself, and by the clacking noise the waking servants -knew that she was coming, very long before they saw her. - -No one was sleeping now, and there were lights, and whisperings, and -pale faces in the corridors near Sir Hugh's bedroom, and now some one -went in, and now some one came out, but every one made way for Nurse -Macdonald, who had nursed Sir Hugh's father more than eighty years ago. - -The light was soft and clear in the room. There stood Gabriel Ockram by -his father's bedside, and there knelt Evelyn Warburton, her hair lying -like a golden shadow down her shoulders, and her hands clasped nervously -together. And opposite Gabriel, a nurse was trying to make Sir Hugh -drink. But he would not, and though his lips were parted, his teeth were -set. He was very, very thin and yellow now, and his eyes caught the -light sideways and were as yellow coals. - -"Do not torment him," said Nurse Macdonald to the woman who held the -cup. "Let me speak to him, for his hour is come." - -"Let her speak to him," said Gabriel in a dull voice. - -So the ancient woman leaned to the pillow and laid the feather-weight of -her withered hand, that was like a brown moth, upon Sir Hugh's yellow -fingers, and she spoke to him earnestly, while only Gabriel and Evelyn -were left in the room to hear. - -"Hugh Ockram," she said, "this is the end of your life; and as I saw you -born, and saw your father born before you, I am come to see you die. -Hugh Ockram, will you tell me the truth?" - -The dying man recognised the little faraway voice he had known all his -life, and he very slowly turned his yellow face to Nurse Macdonald; but -he said nothing. Then she spoke again. - -"Hugh Ockram, you will never see the daylight again. Will you tell the -truth?" - -His toad-like eyes were not yet dull. They fastened themselves on her -face. - -"What do you want of me?" he asked, and each word struck hollow upon the -last. "I have no secrets. I have lived a good life." - -Nurse Macdonald laughed--a tiny, cracked laugh, that made her old head -bob and tremble a little, as if her neck were on a steel spring. But Sir -Hugh's eyes grew red, and his pale lips began to twist. - -"Let me die in peace," he said slowly. - -But Nurse Macdonald shook her head, and her brown, moth-like hand left -his and fluttered to his forehead. - -"By the mother that bore you and died of grief for the sins you did, -tell me the truth!" - -Sir Hugh's lips tightened on his discoloured teeth. - -"Not on earth," he answered slowly. - -"By the wife who bore your son and died heartbroken, tell me the truth!" - -"Neither to you in life, nor to her in eternal death." - -His lips writhed, as if the words were coals between them, and a great -drop of sweat rolled across the parchment of his forehead. Gabriel -Ockram bit his hand as he watched his father die. But Nurse Macdonald -spoke a third time. - -"By the woman whom you betrayed, and who waits for you this night, Hugh -Ockram, tell me the truth!" - -"It is too late. Let me die in peace." - -The writhing lips began to smile across the set yellow teeth, and the -toad eyes glowed like evil jewels in his head. - -"There is time," said the ancient woman. "Tell me the name of Evelyn -Warburton's father. Then I will let you die in peace." - -Evelyn started back, kneeling as she was, and stared at Nurse Macdonald, -and then at her uncle. - -"The name of Evelyn's father?" he repeated slowly, while the awful -smile spread upon his dying face. - -The light was growing strangely dim in the great room. As Evelyn looked, -Nurse Macdonald's crooked shadow on the wall grew gigantic. Sir Hugh's -breath came thick, rattling in his throat, as death crept in like a -snake and choked it back. Evelyn prayed aloud, high and clear. - -Then something rapped at the window, and she felt her hair rise upon her -head in a cool breeze, as she looked around in spite of herself. And -when she saw her own white face looking in at the window, and her own -eyes staring at her through the glass, wide and fearful, and her own -hair streaming against the pane, and her own lips dashed with blood, she -rose slowly from the floor and stood rigid for one moment, till she -screamed once and fell straight back into Gabriel's arms. But the shriek -that answered hers was the fear-shriek of the tormented corpse, out of -which the soul cannot pass for shame of deadly sins, though the devils -fight in it with corruption, each for their due share. - -Sir Hugh Ockram sat upright in his deathbed, and saw and cried aloud: - -"Evelyn!" His harsh voice broke and rattled in his chest as he sank -down. But still Nurse Macdonald tortured him, for there was a little -life left in him still. - -"You have seen the mother as she waits for you, Hugh Ockram. Who was -this girl Evelyn's father? What was his name?" - -For the last time the dreadful smile came upon the twisted lips, very -slowly, very surely now, and the toad eyes glared red, and the parchment -face glowed a little in the flickering light. For the last time words -came. - -"They know it in hell." - -Then the glowing eyes went out quickly, the yellow face turned waxen -pale, and a great shiver ran through the thin body as Hugh Ockram died. - -But in death he still smiled, for he knew his secret and kept it still, -on the other side, and he would take it with him, to lie with him for -ever in the north vault of the chapel where the Ockrams lie uncoffined -in their shrouds--all but one. Though he was dead, he smiled, for he had -kept his treasure of evil truth to the end, and there was none left to -tell the name he had spoken, but there was all the evil he had not -undone left to bear fruit. - -As they watched--Nurse Macdonald and Gabriel, who held Evelyn still -unconscious in his arms while he looked at the father--they felt the -dead smile crawling along their own lips--the ancient crone and the -youth with the angel's face. Then they shivered a little, and both -looked at Evelyn as she lay with her head on his shoulder, and, though -she was very beautiful, the same sickening smile was twisting her young -mouth too, and it was like the foreshadowing of a great evil which they -could not understand. - -But by and by they carried Evelyn out, and she opened her eyes and the -smile was gone. From far away in the great house the sound of weeping -and crooning came up the stairs and echoed along the dismal corridors, -for the women had begun to mourn the dead master, after the Irish -fashion, and the hall had echoes of its own all that night, like the -far-off wail of the banshee among forest trees. - -When the time was come they took Sir Hugh in his winding-sheet on a -trestle bier, and bore him to the chapel and through the iron door and -down the long descent to the north vault, with tapers, to lay him by his -father. And two men went in first to prepare the place, and came back -staggering like drunken men, and white, leaving their lights behind -them. - -But Gabriel Ockram was not afraid, for he knew. And he went in alone and -saw that the body of Sir Vernon Ockram was leaning upright against the -stone wall, and that its head lay on the ground near by with the face -turned up, and the dried leathern lips smiled horribly at the dried-up -corpse, while the iron coffin, lined with black velvet, stood open on -the floor. - -Then Gabriel took the thing in his hands, for it was very light, being -quite dried by the air of the vault, and those who peeped in from the -door saw him lay it in the coffin again, and it rustled a little, like a -bundle of reeds, and sounded hollow as it touched the sides and the -bottom. He also placed the head upon the shoulders and shut down the -lid, which fell to with a rusty spring that snapped. - -After that they laid Sir Hugh beside his father, with the trestle bier -on which they had brought him, and they went back to the chapel. - -But when they saw one another's faces, master and men, they were all -smiling with the dead smile of the corpse they had left in the vault, so -that they could not bear to look at one another until it had faded away. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -Gabriel Ockram became Sir Gabriel, inheriting the baronetcy with the -half-ruined fortune left by his father, and still Evelyn Warburton lived -at Ockram Hall, in the south room that had been hers ever since she -could remember anything. She could not go away, for there were no -relatives to whom she could have gone, and, besides, there seemed to be -no reason why she should not stay. The world would never trouble itself -to care what the Ockrams did on their Irish estates, and it was long -since the Ockrams had asked anything of the world. - -So Sir Gabriel took his father's place at the dark old table in the -dining-room, and Evelyn sat opposite to him, until such time as their -mourning should be over, and they might be married at last. And -meanwhile their lives went on as before, since Sir Hugh had been a -hopeless invalid during the last year of his life, and they had seen him -but once a day for a little while, spending most of their time together -in a strangely perfect companionship. - -But though the late summer saddened into autumn, and autumn darkened -into winter, and storm followed storm, and rain poured on rain through -the short days and the long nights, yet Ockram Hall seemed less gloomy -since Sir Hugh had been laid in the north vault beside his father. And -at Christmastide Evelyn decked the great hall with holly and green -boughs, and huge fires blazed on every hearth. Then the tenants were all -bidden to a New Year's dinner, and they ate and drank well, while Sir -Gabriel sat at the head of the table. Evelyn came in when the port wine -was brought, and the most respected of the tenants made a speech to -propose her health. - -It was long, he said, since there had been a Lady Ockram. Sir Gabriel -shaded his eyes with his hand and looked down at the table, but a faint -colour came into Evelyn's transparent cheeks. But, said the grey-haired -farmer, it was longer still since there had been a Lady Ockram so fair -as the next was to be, and he gave the health of Evelyn Warburton. - -Then the tenants all stood up and shouted for her, and Sir Gabriel stood -up likewise, beside Evelyn. And when the men gave the last and loudest -cheer of all there was a voice not theirs, above them all, higher, -fiercer, louder--a scream not earthly, shrieking for the bride of Ockram -Hall. And the holly and the green boughs over the great chimney-piece -shook and slowly waved as if a cool breeze were blowing over them. But -the men turned very pale, and many of them set down their glasses, but -others let them fall upon the floor for fear. And looking into one -another's faces, they were all smiling strangely, a dead smile, like -dead Sir Hugh's. One cried out words in Irish, and the fear of death was -suddenly upon them all, so that they fled in panic, falling over one -another like wild beasts in the burning forest, when the thick smoke -runs along before the flame; and the tables were over-set, and drinking -glasses and bottles were broken in heaps, and the dark red wine crawled -like blood upon the polished floor. - -Sir Gabriel and Evelyn stood alone at the head of the table before the -wreck of the feast, not daring to turn to see each other, for each knew -that the other smiled. But his right arm held her and his left hand -clasped her right as they stared before them; and but for the shadows of -her hair one might not have told their two faces apart. They listened -long, but the cry came not again, and the dead smile faded from their -lips, while each remembered that Sir Hugh Ockram lay in the north vault, -smiling in his winding-sheet, in the dark, because he had died with his -secret. - -So ended the tenants' New Year's dinner. But from that time on Sir -Gabriel grew more and more silent, and his face grew even paler and -thinner than before. Often, without warning and without words, he would -rise from his seat, as if something moved him against his will, and he -would go out into the rain or the sunshine to the north side of the -chapel, and sit on the stone bench, staring at the ground as if he could -see through it, and through the vault below, and through the white -winding-sheet in the dark, to the dead smile that would not die. - -Always when he went out in that way Evelyn came out presently and sat -beside him. Once, too, as in summer, their beautiful faces came suddenly -near, and their lids drooped, and their red lips were almost joined -together. But as their eyes met, they grew wide and wild, so that the -white showed in a ring all round the deep violet, and their teeth -chattered, and their hands were like hands of corpses, each in the -other's, for the terror of what was under their feet, and of what they -knew but could not see. - -Once, also, Evelyn found Sir Gabriel in the chapel alone, standing -before the iron door that led down to the place of death, and in his -hand there was the key to the door; but he had not put it into the lock. -Evelyn drew him away, shivering, for she had also been driven in waking -dreams to see that terrible thing again, and to find out whether it had -changed since it had lain there. - -"I'm going mad," said Sir Gabriel, covering his eyes with his hand as -he went with her. "I see it in my sleep, I see it when I am awake--it -draws me to it, day and night--and unless I see it I shall die!" - -"I know," answered Evelyn, "I know. It is as if threads were spun from -it, like a spider's, drawing us down to it." She was silent for a -moment, and then she started violently and grasped his arm with a man's -strength, and almost screamed the words she spoke. "But we must not go -there!" she cried. "We must not go!" - -Sir Gabriel's eyes were half shut, and he was not moved by the agony of -her face. - -"I shall die, unless I see it again," he said, in a quiet voice not like -his own. And all that day and that evening he scarcely spoke, thinking -of it, always thinking, while Evelyn Warburton quivered from head to -foot with a terror she had never known. - -She went alone, on a grey winter's morning, to Nurse Macdonald's room in -the tower, and sat down beside the great leathern easy-chair, laying her -thin white hand upon the withered fingers. - -"Nurse," she said, "what was it that Uncle Hugh should have told you, -that night before he died? It must have been an awful secret--and yet, -though you asked him, I feel somehow that you know it, and that you know -why he used to smile so dreadfully." - -The old woman's head moved slowly from side to side. - -"I only guess--I shall never know," she answered slowly in her cracked -little voice. - -"But what do you guess? Who am I? Why did you ask who my father was? You -know I am Colonel Warburton's daughter, and my mother was Lady Ockram's -sister, so that Gabriel and I are cousins. My father was killed in -Afghanistan. What secret can there be?" - -"I do not know. I can only guess." - -"Guess what?" asked Evelyn imploringly, and pressing the soft withered -hands, as she leaned forward. But Nurse Macdonald's wrinkled lids -dropped suddenly over her queer blue eyes, and her lips shook a little -with her breath, as if she were asleep. - -Evelyn waited. By the fire the Irish maid was knitting fast, and the -needles clicked like three or four clocks ticking against each other. -And the real clock on the wall solemnly ticked alone, checking off the -seconds of the woman who was a hundred years old, and had not many days -left. Outside the ivy branch beat the window in the wintry blast, as it -had beaten against the glass a hundred years ago. - -Then as Evelyn sat there she felt again the waking of a horrible -desire--the sickening wish to go down, down to the thing in the north -vault, and to open the winding-sheet, and see whether it had changed; -and she held Nurse Macdonald's hands as if to keep herself in her place -and fight against the appalling attraction of the evil dead. - -But the old cat that kept Nurse Macdonald's feet warm, lying always on -the bag footstool, got up and stretched itself, and looked up into -Evelyn's eyes, while its back arched, and its tail thickened and -bristled, and its ugly pink lips drew back in a devilish grin, showing -its sharp teeth. Evelyn stared at it, half fascinated by its ugliness. -Then the creature suddenly put out one paw with all its claws spread, -and spat at the girl, and all at once the grinning cat was like the -smiling corpse far down below, so that Evelyn shivered down to her small -feet, and covered her face with her free hand, lest Nurse Macdonald -should wake and see the dead smile there, for she could feel it. - -The old woman had already opened her eyes again, and she touched her cat -with the end of her crutch-stick, whereupon its back went down and its -tail shrunk, and it sidled back to its place on the bag footstool. But -its yellow eyes looked up sideways at Evelyn, between the slits of its -lids. - -"What is it that you guess, nurse?" asked the young girl again. - -"A bad thing--a wicked thing. But I dare not tell you, lest it might not -be true, and the very thought should blast your life. For if I guess -right, he meant that you should not know, and that you two should marry, -and pay for his old sin with your souls." - -"He used to tell us that we ought not to marry----" - -"Yes--he told you that, perhaps--but it was as if a man put poisoned -meat before a starving beast, and said 'do not eat,' but never raised -his hand to take the meat away. And if he told you that you should not -marry, it was because he hoped you would; for of all men living or dead, -Hugh Ockram was the falsest man that ever told a cowardly lie, and the -cruelest that ever hurt a weak woman, and the worst that ever loved a -sin." - -"But Gabriel and I love each other," said Evelyn very sadly. - -Nurse Macdonald's old eyes looked far away, at sights seen long ago, and -that rose in the grey winter air amid the mists of an ancient youth. - -"If you love, you can die together," she said, very slowly. "Why should -you live, if it is true? I am a hundred years old. What has life given -me? The beginning is fire; the end is a heap of ashes; and between the -end and the beginning lies all the pain of the world. Let me sleep, -since I cannot die." - -Then the old woman's eyes closed again, and her head sank a little lower -upon her breast. - -So Evelyn went away and left her asleep, with the cat asleep on the bag -footstool; and the young girl tried to forget Nurse Macdonald's words, -but she could not, for she heard them over and over again in the wind, -and behind her on the stairs. And as she grew sick with fear of the -frightful unknown evil to which her soul was bound, she felt a bodily -something pressing her, and pushing her, and forcing her on, and from -the other side she felt the threads that drew her mysteriously: and when -she shut her eyes, she saw in the chapel behind the altar, the low iron -door through which she must pass to go to the thing. - -And as she lay awake at night, she drew the sheet over her face, lest -she should see shadows on the wall beckoning to her; and the sound of -her own warm breath made whisperings in her ears, while she held the -mattress with her hands, to keep from getting up and going to the -chapel. It would have been easier if there had not been a way thither -through the library, by a door which was never locked. It would be -fearfully easy to take her candle and go softly through the sleeping -house. And the key of the vault lay under the altar behind a stone that -turned. She knew the little secret. She could go alone and see. - -But when she thought of it, she felt her hair rise on her head, and -first she shivered so that the bed shook, and then the horror went -through her in a cold thrill that was agony again, like myriads of icy -needles boring into her nerves. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -The old clock in Nurse Macdonald's tower struck midnight. From her room -she could hear the creaking chains and weights in their box in the -corner of the staircase, and overhead the jarring of the rusty lever -that lifted the hammer. She had heard it all her life. It struck eleven -strokes clearly, and then came the twelfth, with a dull half stroke, as -though the hammer were too weary to go on, and had fallen asleep against -the bell. - -The old cat got up from the bag footstool and stretched itself, and -Nurse Macdonald opened her ancient eyes and looked slowly round the -room by the dim light of the night lamp. She touched the cat with her -crutch-stick, and it lay down upon her feet. She drank a few drops from -her cup and went to sleep again. - -But downstairs Sir Gabriel sat straight up as the clock struck, for he -had dreamed a fearful dream of horror, and his heart stood still, till -he awoke at its stopping, and it beat again furiously with his breath, -like a wild thing set free. No Ockram had ever known fear waking, but -sometimes it came to Sir Gabriel in his sleep. - -He pressed his hands to his temples as he sat up in bed, and his hands -were icy cold, but his head was hot. The dream faded far, and in its -place there came the master thought that racked his life; with the -thought also came the sick twisting of his lips in the dark that would -have been a smile. Far off, Evelyn Warburton dreamed that the dead smile -was on her mouth, and awoke, starting with a little moan, her face in -her hands, shivering. - -But Sir Gabriel struck a light and got up and began to walk up and down -his great room. It was midnight, and he had barely slept an hour, and in -the north of Ireland the winter nights are long. - -"I shall go mad," he said to himself, holding his forehead. He knew that -it was true. For weeks and months the possession of the thing had grown -upon him like a disease, till he could think of nothing without thinking -first of that. And now all at once it outgrew his strength, and he knew -that he must be its instrument or lose his mind--that he must do the -deed he hated and feared, if he could fear anything, or that something -would snap in his brain and divide him from life while he was yet alive. -He took the candlestick in his hand, the old-fashioned heavy candlestick -that had always been used by the head of the house. He did not think of -dressing, but went as he was, in his silk night clothes and his -slippers, and he opened the door. Everything was very still in the great -old house. He shut the door behind him and walked noiselessly on the -carpet through the long corridor. A cool breeze blew over his shoulder -and blew the flame of his candle straight out from him. Instinctively he -stopped and looked round, but all was still, and the upright flame -burned steadily. He walked on, and instantly a strong draught was behind -him, almost extinguishing the light. It seemed to blow him on his way, -ceasing whenever he turned, coming again when he went on--invisible, -icy. - -Down the great staircase to the echoing hall he went, seeing nothing but -the flaring flame of the candle standing away from him over the -guttering wax, while the cold wind blew over his shoulder and through -his hair. On he passed through the open door into the library, dark with -old books and carved bookcases; on through the door in the shelves, with -painted shelves on it, and the imitated backs of books, so that one -needed to know where to find it--and it shut itself after him with a -soft click. He entered the low-arched passage, and though the door was -shut behind him and fitted tightly in its frame, still the cold breeze -blew the flame forward as he walked. And he was not afraid; but his face -was very pale, and his eyes were wide and bright, looking before him, -seeing already in the dark air the picture of the thing beyond. But in -the chapel he stood still, his hand on the little turning stone tablet -in the back of the stone altar. On the tablet were engraved words: -"_Clavis sepulchri Clarissimorum Dominorum De Ockram_"--("the key to the -vault of the most illustrious lords of Ockram"). Sir Gabriel paused and -listened. He fancied that he heard a sound far off in the great house -where all had been so still, but it did not come again. Yet he waited at -the last, and looked at the low iron door. Beyond it, down the long -descent, lay his father uncoffined, six months dead, corrupt, terrible -in his clinging shroud. The strangely preserving air of the vault could -not yet have done its work completely. But on the thing's ghastly -features, with their half-dried, open eyes, there would still be the -frightful smile with which the man had died--the smile that haunted---- - -As the thought crossed Sir Gabriel's mind, he felt his lips writhing, -and he struck his own mouth in wrath with the back of his hand so -fiercely that a drop of blood ran down his chin, and another, and more, -falling back in the gloom upon the chapel pavement. But still his -bruised lips twisted themselves. He turned the tablet by the simple -secret. It needed no safer fastening, for had each Ockram been coffined -in pure gold, and had the door been open wide, there was not a man in -Tyrone brave enough to go down to that place, saving Gabriel Ockram -himself, with his angel's face and his thin, white hands, and his sad -unflinching eyes. He took the great old key and set it into the lock of -the iron door; and the heavy, rattling noise echoed down the descent -beyond like footsteps, as if a watcher had stood behind the iron and -were running away within, with heavy dead feet. And though he was -standing still, the cool wind was from behind him, and blew the flame of -the candle against the iron panel. He turned the key. - -Sir Gabriel saw that his candle was short. There were new ones on the -altar, with long candlesticks, and he lit one, and left his own burning -on the floor. As he set it down on the pavement his lip began to bleed -again, and another drop fell upon the stones. - -He drew the iron door open and pushed it back against the chapel wall, -so that it should not shut of itself, while he was within; and the -horrible draught of the sepulchre came up out of the depths in his face, -foul and dark. He went in, but though the fetid air met him, yet the -flame of the tall candle was blown straight from him against the wind -while he walked down the easy incline with steady steps, his loose -slippers slapping the pavement as he trod. - -He shaded the candle with his hand, and his fingers seemed to be made of -wax and blood as the light shone through them. And in spite of him the -unearthly draught forced the flame forward, till it was blue over the -black wick, and it seemed as if it must go out. But he went straight on, -with shining eyes. - -The downward passage was wide, and he could not always see the walls by -the struggling light, but he knew when he was in the place of death by -the larger, drearier echo of his steps in the greater space, and by the -sensation of a distant blank wall. He stood still, almost enclosing the -flame of the candle in the hollow of his hand. He could see a little, -for his eyes were growing used to the gloom. Shadowy forms were outlined -in the dimness, where the biers of the Ockrams stood crowded together, -side by side, each with its straight, shrouded corpse, strangely -preserved by the dry air, like the empty shell that the locust sheds in -summer. And a few steps before him he saw clearly the dark shape of -headless Sir Vernon's iron coffin, and he knew that nearest to it lay -the thing he sought. - -He was as brave as any of those dead men had been, and they were his -fathers, and he knew that sooner or later he should lie there himself, -beside Sir Hugh, slowly drying to a parchment shell. But he was still -alive, and he closed his eyes a moment, and three great drops stood on -his forehead. - -Then he looked again, and by the whiteness of the winding-sheet he knew -his father's corpse, for all the others were brown with age; and, -moreover, the flame of the candle was blown toward it. He made four -steps till he reached it, and suddenly the light burned straight and -high, shedding a dazzling yellow glare upon the fine linen that was all -white, save over the face, and where the joined hands were laid on the -breast. And at those places ugly stains had spread, darkened with -outlines of the features and of the tight-clasped fingers. There was a -frightful stench of drying death. - -As Sir Gabriel looked down, something stirred behind him, softly at -first, then more noisily, and something fell to the stone floor with a -dull thud and rolled up to his feet; he started back and saw a withered -head lying almost face upward on the pavement, grinning at him. He felt -the cold sweat standing on his face, and his heart beat painfully. - -For the first time in all his life that evil thing which men call fear -was getting hold of him, checking his heart-strings as a cruel driver -checks a quivering horse, clawing at his backbone with icy hands, -lifting his hair with freezing breath, climbing up and gathering in his -midriff with leaden weight. - -Yet presently he bit his lip and bent down, holding the candle in one -hand, to lift the shroud back from the head of the corpse with the -other. Slowly he lifted it. Then it clove to the half-dried skin of the -face, and his hand shook as if some one had struck him on the elbow, but -half in fear and half in anger at himself, he pulled it, so that it came -away with a little ripping sound. He caught his breath as he held it, -not yet throwing it back, and not yet looking. The horror was working in -him, and he felt that old Vernon Ockram was standing up in his iron -coffin, headless, yet watching him with the stump of his severed neck. - -While he held his breath he felt the dead smile twisting his lips. In -sudden wrath at his own misery, he tossed the death-stained linen -backward, and looked at last. He ground his teeth lest he should shriek -aloud. - -There it was, the thing that haunted him, that haunted Evelyn Warburton, -that was like a blight on all that came near him. - -The dead face was blotched with dark stains, and the thin, grey hair was -matted about the discoloured forehead. The sunken lids were half open, -and the candle light gleamed on something foul where the toad eyes had -lived. - -But yet the dead thing smiled, as it had smiled in life; the ghastly -lips were parted and drawn wide and tight upon the wolfish teeth, -cursing still, and still defying hell to do its worst--defying, cursing, -and always and for ever smiling alone in the dark. - -Sir Gabriel opened the winding-sheet where the hands were, and the -blackened, withered fingers were closed upon something stained and -mottled. Shivering from head to foot, but fighting like a man in agony -for his life, he tried to take the package from the dead man's hold. But -as he pulled at it the claw-like fingers seemed to close more tightly, -and when he pulled harder the shrunken hands and arms rose from the -corpse with a horrible look of life following his motion--then as he -wrenched the sealed packet loose at last, the hands fell back into their -place still folded. - -He set down the candle on the edge of the bier to break the seals from -the stout paper. And, kneeling on one knee, to get a better light, he -read what was within, written long ago in Sir Hugh's queer hand. - -He was no longer afraid. - -He read how Sir Hugh had written it all down that it might perchance be -a witness of evil and of his hatred; how he had loved Evelyn Warburton, -his wife's sister; and how his wife had died of a broken heart with his -curse upon her, and how Warburton and he had fought side by side in -Afghanistan, and Warburton had fallen; but Ockram had brought his -comrade's wife back a full year later, and little Evelyn, her child, had -been born in Ockram Hall. And next, how he had wearied of the mother, -and she had died like her sister with his curse on her. And then, how -Evelyn had been brought up as his niece, and how he had trusted that his -son Gabriel and his daughter, innocent and unknowing, might love and -marry, and the souls of the women he had betrayed might suffer another -anguish before eternity was out. And, last of all, he hoped that some -day, when nothing could be undone, the two might find his writing and -live on, not daring to tell the truth for their children's sake and the -world's word, man and wife. - -This he read, kneeling beside the corpse in the north vault, by the -light of the altar candle; and when he had read it all, he thanked God -aloud that he had found the secret in time. But when he rose to his feet -and looked down at the dead face it was changed, and the smile was gone -from it for ever, and the jaw had fallen a little, and the tired, dead -lips were relaxed. And then there was a breath behind him and close to -him, not cold like that which had blown the flame of the candle as he -came, but warm and human. He turned suddenly. - -There she stood, all in white, with her shadowy golden hair--for she had -risen from her bed and had followed him noiselessly, and had found him -reading, and had herself read over his shoulder. He started violently -when he saw her, for his nerves were unstrung--and then he cried out her -name in the still place of death: - -"Evelyn!" - -"My brother!" she answered softly and tenderly, putting out both hands -to meet his. - - - - -THE SCREAMING SKULL - - -I have often heard it scream. No, I am not nervous, I am not -imaginative, and I never believed in ghosts, unless that thing is one. -Whatever it is, it hates me almost as much as it hated Luke Pratt, and -it screams at me. - -If I were you, I would never tell ugly stories about ingenious ways of -killing people, for you never can tell but that some one at the table -may be tired of his or her nearest and dearest. I have always blamed -myself for Mrs. Pratt's death, and I suppose I was responsible for it in -a way, though heaven knows I never wished her anything but long life and -happiness. If I had not told that story she might be alive yet. That is -why the thing screams at me, I fancy. - -She was a good little woman, with a sweet temper, all things considered, -and a nice gentle voice; but I remember hearing her shriek once when she -thought her little boy was killed by a pistol that went off, though -every one was sure that it was not loaded. It was the same scream; -exactly the same, with a sort of rising quaver at the end; do you know -what I mean? Unmistakable. - -The truth is, I had not realised that the doctor and his wife were not -on good terms. They used to bicker a bit now and then when I was here, -and I often noticed that little Mrs. Pratt got very red and bit her lip -hard to keep her temper, while Luke grew pale and said the most -offensive things. He was that sort when he was in the nursery, I -remember, and afterward at school. He was my cousin, you know; that is -how I came by this house; after he died, and his boy Charley was killed -in South Africa, there were no relations left. Yes, it's a pretty little -property, just the sort of thing for an old sailor like me who has taken -to gardening. - -One always remembers one's mistakes much more vividly than one's -cleverest things, doesn't one? I've often noticed it. I was dining with -the Pratts one night, when I told them the story that afterwards made so -much difference. It was a wet night in November, and the sea was -moaning. Hush!--if you don't speak you will hear it now.... - -Do you hear the tide? Gloomy sound, isn't it? Sometimes, about this time -of year--hallo!--there it is! Don't be frightened, man--it won't eat -you--it's only a noise, after all! But I'm glad you've heard it, -because there are always people who think it's the wind, or my -imagination, or something. You won't hear it again to-night, I fancy, -for it doesn't often come more than once. Yes--that's right. Put another -stick on the fire, and a little more stuff into that weak mixture you're -so fond of. Do you remember old Blauklot the carpenter, on that German -ship that picked us up when the _Clontarf_ went to the bottom? We were -hove to in a howling gale one night, as snug as you please, with no land -within five hundred miles, and the ship coming up and falling off as -regularly as clockwork--"Biddy te boor beebles ashore tis night, poys!" -old Blauklot sang out, as he went off to his quarters with the -sail-maker. I often think of that, now that I'm ashore for good and all. - -Yes, it was on a night like this, when I was at home for a spell, -waiting to take the _Olympia_ out on her first trip--it was on the next -voyage that she broke the record, you remember--but that dates it. -Ninety-two was the year, early in November. - -The weather was dirty, Pratt was out of temper, and the dinner was bad, -very bad indeed, which didn't improve matters, and cold, which made it -worse. The poor little lady was very unhappy about it, and insisted on -making a Welsh rarebit on the table to counteract the raw turnips and -the half-boiled mutton. Pratt must have had a hard day. Perhaps he had -lost a patient. At all events, he was in a nasty temper. - -"My wife is trying to poison me, you see!" he said. "She'll succeed some -day." I saw that she was hurt, and I made believe to laugh, and said -that Mrs. Pratt was much too clever to get rid of her husband in such a -simple way; and then I began to tell them about Japanese tricks with -spun glass and chopped horsehair and the like. - -Pratt was a doctor, and knew a lot more than I did about such things, -but that only put me on my mettle, and I told a story about a woman in -Ireland who did for three husbands before any one suspected foul play. - -Did you never hear that tale? The fourth husband managed to keep awake -and caught her, and she was hanged. How did she do it? She drugged them, -and poured melted lead into their ears through a little horn funnel when -they were asleep.... No--that's the wind whistling. It's backing up to -the southward again. I can tell by the sound. Besides, the other thing -doesn't often come more than once in an evening even at this time of -year--when it happened. Yes, it was in November. Poor Mrs. Pratt died -suddenly in her bed not long after I dined here. I can fix the date, -because I got the news in New York by the steamer that followed the -_Olympia_ when I took her out on her first trip. You had the _Leofric_ -the same year? Yes, I remember. What a pair of old buffers we are coming -to be, you and I. Nearly fifty years since we were apprentices together -on the _Clontarf_. Shall you ever forget old Blauklot? "Biddy te boor -beebles ashore, poys!" Ha, ha! Take a little more, with all that water. -It's the old Hulstkamp I found in the cellar when this house came to me, -the same I brought Luke from Amsterdam five-and-twenty years ago. He had -never touched a drop of it. Perhaps he's sorry now, poor fellow. - -Where did I leave off? I told you that Mrs. Pratt died suddenly--yes. -Luke must have been lonely here after she was dead, I should think; I -came to see him now and then, and he looked worn and nervous, and told -me that his practice was growing too heavy for him, though he wouldn't -take an assistant on any account. Years went on, and his son was killed -in South Africa, and after that he began to be queer. There was -something about him not like other people. I believe he kept his senses -in his profession to the end; there was no complaint of his having made -bad mistakes in cases, or anything of that sort, but he had a look about -him---- - -Luke was a red-headed man with a pale face when he was young, and he -was never stout; in middle age he turned a sandy grey, and after his son -died he grew thinner and thinner, till his head looked like a skull with -parchment stretched over it very tight, and his eyes had a sort of glare -in them that was very disagreeable to look at. - -He had an old dog that poor Mrs. Pratt had been fond of, and that used -to follow her everywhere. He was a bull-dog, and the sweetest tempered -beast you ever saw, though he had a way of hitching his upper lip behind -one of his fangs that frightened strangers a good deal. Sometimes, of an -evening, Pratt and Bumble--that was the dog's name--used to sit and look -at each other a long time, thinking about old times, I suppose, when -Luke's wife used to sit in that chair you've got. That was always her -place, and this was the doctor's, where I'm sitting. Bumble used to -climb up by the footstool--he was old and fat by that time, and could -not jump much, and his teeth were getting shaky. He would look steadily -at Luke, and Luke looked steadily at the dog, his face growing more and -more like a skull with two little coals for eyes; and after about five -minutes or so, though it may have been less, old Bumble would suddenly -begin to shake all over, and all on a sudden he would set up an awful -howl, as if he had been shot, and tumble out of the easy-chair and trot -away, and hide himself under the sideboard, and lie there making odd -noises. - -Considering Pratt's looks in those last months, the thing is not -surprising, you know. I'm not nervous or imaginative, but I can quite -believe he might have sent a sensitive woman into hysterics--his head -looked so much like a skull in parchment. - -At last I came down one day before Christmas, when my ship was in dock -and I had three weeks off. Bumble was not about, and I said casually -that I supposed the old dog was dead. - -"Yes," Pratt answered, and I thought there was something odd in his tone -even before he went on after a little pause. "I killed him," he said -presently. "I could not stand it any longer." - -I asked what it was that Luke could not stand, though I guessed well -enough. - -"He had a way of sitting in her chair and glaring at me, and then -howling." Luke shivered a little. "He didn't suffer at all, poor old -Bumble," he went on in a hurry, as if he thought I might imagine he had -been cruel. "I put dionine into his drink to make him sleep soundly, and -then I chloroformed him gradually, so that he could not have felt -suffocated even if he was dreaming. It's been quieter since then." - -I wondered what he meant, for the words slipped out as if he could not -help saying them. I've understood since. He meant that he did not hear -that noise so often after the dog was out of the way. Perhaps he thought -at first that it was old Bumble in the yard howling at the moon, though -it's not that kind of noise, is it? Besides, I know what it is, if Luke -didn't. It's only a noise, after all, and a noise never hurt anybody -yet. But he was much more imaginative than I am. No doubt there really -is something about this place that I don't understand; but when I don't -understand a thing, I call it a phenomenon, and I don't take it for -granted that it's going to kill me, as he did. I don't understand -everything, by long odds, nor do you, nor does any man who has been to -sea. We used to talk of tidal waves, for instance, and we could not -account for them; now we account for them by calling them submarine -earthquakes, and we branch off into fifty theories, any one of which -might make earthquakes quite comprehensible if we only knew what they -are. I fell in with one of them once, and the inkstand flew straight up -from the table against the ceiling of my cabin. The same thing happened -to Captain Lecky--I dare say you've read about it in his "Wrinkles." -Very good. If that sort of thing took place ashore, in this room for -instance, a nervous person would talk about spirits and levitation and -fifty things that mean nothing, instead of just quietly setting it down -as a "phenomenon" that has not been explained yet. My view of that -voice, you see. - -Besides, what is there to prove that Luke killed his wife? I would not -even suggest such a thing to any one but you. After all, there was -nothing but the coincidence that poor little Mrs. Pratt died suddenly in -her bed a few days after I told that story at dinner. She was not the -only woman who ever died like that. Luke got the doctor over from the -next parish, and they agreed that she had died of something the matter -with her heart. Why not? It's common enough. - -Of course, there was the ladle. I never told anybody about that, and it -made me start when I found it in the cupboard in the bedroom. It was -new, too--a little tinned iron ladle that had not been in the fire more -than once or twice, and there was some lead in it that had been melted, -and stuck to the bottom of the bowl, all grey, with hardened dross on -it. But that proves nothing. A country doctor is generally a handy man, -who does everything for himself, and Luke may have had a dozen reasons -for melting a little lead in a ladle. He was fond of sea-fishing, for -instance, and he may have cast a sinker for a night-line; perhaps it was -a weight for the hall clock, or something like that. All the same, when -I found it I had a rather queer sensation, because it looked so much -like the thing I had described when I told them the story. Do you -understand? It affected me unpleasantly, and I threw it away; it's at -the bottom of the sea a mile from the Spit, and it will be jolly well -rusted beyond recognising if it's ever washed up by the tide. - -You see, Luke must have bought it in the village, years ago, for the man -sells just such ladles still. I suppose they are used in cooking. In any -case, there was no reason why an inquisitive housemaid should find such -a thing lying about, with lead in it, and wonder what it was, and -perhaps talk to the maid who heard me tell the story at dinner--for that -girl married the plumber's son in the village, and may remember the -whole thing. - -You understand me, don't you? Now that Luke Pratt is dead and gone, and -lies buried beside his wife, with an honest man's tombstone at his head, -I should not care to stir up anything that could hurt his memory. They -are both dead, and their son, too. There was trouble enough about Luke's -death, as it was. - -How? He was found dead on the beach one morning, and there was a -coroner's inquest. There were marks on his throat, but he had not been -robbed. The verdict was that he had come to his end "by the hands or -teeth of some person or animal unknown," for half the jury thought it -might have been a big dog that had thrown him down and gripped his -windpipe, though the skin of his throat was not broken. No one knew at -what time he had gone out, nor where he had been. He was found lying on -his back above high-water mark, and an old cardboard bandbox that had -belonged to his wife lay under his hand, open. The lid had fallen off. -He seemed to have been carrying home a skull in the box--doctors are -fond of collecting such things. It had rolled out and lay near his head, -and it was a remarkably fine skull, rather small, beautifully shaped and -very white, with perfect teeth. That is to say, the upper jaw was -perfect, but there was no lower one at all, when I first saw it. - -Yes, I found it here when I came. You see, it was very white and -polished, like a thing meant to be kept under a glass case, and the -people did not know where it came from, nor what to do with it; so they -put it back into the bandbox and set it on the shelf of the cupboard in -the best bedroom, and of course they showed it to me when I took -possession. I was taken down to the beach, too, to be shown the place -where Luke was found, and the old fisherman explained just how he was -lying, and the skull beside him. The only point he could not explain -was why the skull had rolled up the sloping sand toward Luke's head -instead of rolling downhill to his feet. It did not seem odd to me at -the time, but I have often thought of it since, for the place is rather -steep. I'll take you there to-morrow if you like--I made a sort of cairn -of stones there afterward. - -When he fell down, or was thrown down--whichever happened--the bandbox -struck the sand, and the lid came off, and the thing came out and ought -to have rolled down. But it didn't. It was close to his head, almost -touching it, and turned with the face toward it. I say it didn't strike -me as odd when the man told me; but I could not help thinking about it -afterward, again and again, till I saw a picture of it all when I closed -my eyes; and then I began to ask myself why the plaguey thing had rolled -up instead of down, and why it had stopped near Luke's head instead of -anywhere else, a yard away, for instance. - -You naturally want to know what conclusion I reached, don't you? None -that at all explained the rolling, at all events. But I got something -else into my head, after a time, that made me feel downright -uncomfortable. - -Oh, I don't mean as to anything supernatural! There may be ghosts, or -there may not be. If there are, I'm not inclined to believe that they -can hurt living people except by frightening them, and, for my part, I -would rather face any shape of ghost than a fog in the Channel when it's -crowded. No. What bothered me was just a foolish idea, that's all, and I -cannot tell how it began, nor what made it grow till it turned into a -certainty. - -I was thinking about Luke and his poor wife one evening over my pipe and -a dull book, when it occurred to me that the skull might possibly be -hers, and I have never got rid of the thought since. You'll tell me -there's no sense in it, no doubt; that Mrs. Pratt was buried like a -Christian and is lying in the churchyard where they put her, and that -it's perfectly monstrous to suppose her husband kept her skull in her -old bandbox in his bedroom. All the same, in the face of reason, and -common sense, and probability, I'm convinced that he did. Doctors do all -sorts of queer things that would make men like you and me feel creepy, -and those are just the things that don't seem probable, nor logical, nor -sensible to us. - -Then, don't you see?--if it really was her skull, poor woman, the only -way of accounting for his having it is that he really killed her, and -did it in that way, as the woman killed her husbands in the story, and -that he was afraid there might be an examination some day which would -betray him. You see, I told that too, and I believe it had really -happened some fifty or sixty years ago. They dug up the three skulls, -you know, and there was a small lump of lead rattling about in each one. -That was what hanged the woman. Luke remembered that, I'm sure. I don't -want to know what he did when he thought of it; my taste never ran in -the direction of horrors, and I don't fancy you care for them either, do -you? No. If you did, you might supply what is wanting to the story. - -It must have been rather grim, eh? I wish I did not see the whole thing -so distinctly, just as everything must have happened. He took it the -night before she was buried, I'm sure, after the coffin had been shut, -and when the servant girl was asleep. I would bet anything, that when -he'd got it, he put something under the sheet in its place, to fill up -and look like it. What do you suppose he put there, under the sheet? - -I don't wonder you take me up on what I'm saying! First I tell you that -I don't want to know what happened, and that I hate to think about -horrors, and then I describe the whole thing to you as if I had seen it. -I'm quite sure that it was her work-bag that he put there. I remember -the bag very well, for she always used it of an evening; it was made of -brown plush, and when it was stuffed full it was about the size of--you -understand. Yes, there I am, at it again! You may laugh at me, but you -don't live here alone, where it was done, and you didn't tell Luke the -story about the melted lead. I'm not nervous, I tell you, but sometimes -I begin to feel that I understand why some people are. I dwell on all -this when I'm alone, and I dream of it, and when that thing -screams--well, frankly, I don't like the noise any more than you do, -though I should be used to it by this time. - -I ought not to be nervous. I've sailed in a haunted ship. There was a -Man in the Top, and two-thirds of the crew died of the West Coast fever -inside of ten days after we anchored; but I was all right, then and -afterward. I have seen some ugly sights, too, just as you have, and all -the rest of us. But nothing ever stuck in my head in the way this does. - -You see, I've tried to get rid of the thing, but it doesn't like that. -It wants to be there in its place, in Mrs. Pratt's bandbox in the -cupboard in the best bedroom. It's not happy anywhere else. How do I -know that? Because I've tried it. You don't suppose that I've not tried, -do you? As long as it's there it only screams now and then, generally at -this time of year, but if I put it out of the house it goes on all -night, and no servant will stay here twenty-four hours. As it is, I've -often been left alone and have been obliged to shift for myself for a -fortnight at a time. No one from the village would ever pass a night -under the roof now, and as for selling the place, or even letting it, -that's out of the question. The old women say that if I stay here I -shall come to a bad end myself before long. - -I'm not afraid of that. You smile at the mere idea that any one could -take such nonsense seriously. Quite right. It's utterly blatant -nonsense, I agree with you. Didn't I tell you that it's only a noise -after all when you started and looked round as if you expected to see a -ghost standing behind your chair? - -I may be all wrong about the skull, and I like to think that I am--when -I can. It may be just a fine specimen which Luke got somewhere long ago, -and what rattles about inside when you shake it may be nothing but a -pebble, or a bit of hard clay, or anything. Skulls that have lain long -in the ground generally have something inside them that rattles, don't -they? No, I've never tried to get it out, whatever it is; I'm afraid it -might be lead, don't you see? And if it is, I don't want to know the -fact, for I'd much rather not be sure. If it really is lead, I killed -her quite as much as if I had done the deed myself. Anybody must see -that, I should think. As long as I don't know for certain, I have the -consolation of saying that it's all utterly ridiculous nonsense, that -Mrs. Pratt died a natural death and that the beautiful skull belonged to -Luke when he was a student in London. But if I were quite sure, I -believe I should have to leave the house; indeed I do, most certainly. -As it is, I had to give up trying to sleep in the best bedroom where the -cupboard is. - -You ask me why I don't throw it into the pond--yes, but please don't -call it a "confounded bugbear"--it doesn't like being called names. - -There! Lord, what a shriek! I told you so! You're quite pale, man. Fill -up your pipe and draw your chair nearer to the fire, and take some more -drink. Old Hollands never hurt anybody yet. I've seen a Dutchman in Java -drink half a jug of Hulstkamp in a morning without turning a hair. I -don't take much rum myself, because it doesn't agree with my rheumatism, -but you are not rheumatic and it won't damage you. Besides, it's a very -damp night outside. The wind is howling again, and it will soon be in -the southwest; do you hear how the windows rattle? The tide must have -turned too, by the moaning. - -We should not have heard the thing again if you had not said that. I'm -pretty sure we should not. Oh yes, if you choose to describe it as a -coincidence, you are quite welcome, but I would rather that you should -not call the thing names again, if you don't mind. It may be that the -poor little woman hears, and perhaps it hurts her, don't you know? -Ghost? No! You don't call anything a ghost that you can take in your -hands and look at in broad daylight, and that rattles when you shake it. -Do you, now? But it's something that hears and understands; there's no -doubt about that. - -I tried sleeping in the best bedroom when I first came to the house, -just because it was the best and the most comfortable, but I had to give -it up. It was their room, and there's the big bed she died in, and the -cupboard is in the thickness of the wall, near the head, on the left. -That's where it likes to be kept, in its bandbox. I only used the room -for a fortnight after I came, and then I turned out and took the little -room downstairs, next to the surgery, where Luke used to sleep when he -expected to be called to a patient during the night. - -I was always a good sleeper ashore; eight hours is my dose, eleven to -seven when I'm alone, twelve to eight when I have a friend with me. But -I could not sleep after three o'clock in the morning in that room--a -quarter past, to be accurate--as a matter of fact, I timed it with my -old pocket chronometer, which still keeps good time, and it was always -at exactly seventeen minutes past three. I wonder whether that was the -hour when she died? - -It was not what you have heard. If it had been that I could not have -stood it two nights. It was just a start and a moan and hard breathing -for a few seconds in the cupboard, and it could never have waked me -under ordinary circumstances, I'm sure. I suppose you are like me in -that, and we are just like other people who have been to sea. No natural -sounds disturb us at all, not all the racket of a square-rigger hove to -in a heavy gale, or rolling on her beam ends before the wind. But if a -lead pencil gets adrift and rattles in the drawer of your cabin table -you are awake in a moment. Just so--you always understand. Very well, -the noise in the cupboard was no louder than that, but it waked me -instantly. - -I said it was like a "start." I know what I mean, but it's hard to -explain without seeming to talk nonsense. Of course you cannot exactly -"hear" a person "start"; at the most, you might hear the quick drawing -of the breath between the parted lips and closed teeth, and the almost -imperceptible sound of clothing that moved suddenly though very -slightly. It was like that. - -You know how one feels what a sailing vessel is going to do, two or -three seconds before she does it, when one has the wheel. Riders say the -same of a horse, but that's less strange, because the horse is a live -animal with feelings of its own, and only poets and landsmen talk about -a ship being alive, and all that. But I have always felt somehow that -besides being a steaming machine or a sailing machine for carrying -weights, a vessel at sea is a sensitive instrument, and a means of -communication between nature and man, and most particularly the man at -the wheel, if she is steered by hand. She takes her impressions directly -from wind and sea, tide and stream, and transmits them to the man's -hand, just as the wireless telegraph picks up the interrupted currents -aloft and turns them out below in the form of a message. - -You see what I am driving at; I felt that something started in the -cupboard, and I felt it so vividly that I heard it, though there may -have been nothing to hear, and the sound inside my head waked me -suddenly. But I really heard the other noise. It was as if it were -muffled inside a box, as far away as if it came through a long-distance -telephone; and yet I knew that it was inside the cupboard near the head -of my bed. My hair did not bristle and my blood did not run cold that -time. I simply resented being waked up by something that had no -business to make a noise, any more than a pencil should rattle in the -drawer of my cabin table on board ship. For I did not understand; I just -supposed that the cupboard had some communication with the outside air, -and that the wind had got in and was moaning through it with a sort of -very faint screech. I struck a light and looked at my watch, and it was -seventeen minutes past three. Then I turned over and went to sleep on my -right ear. That's my good one; I'm pretty deaf with the other, for I -struck the water with it when I was a lad in diving from the foretopsail -yard. Silly thing to do, it was, but the result is very convenient when -I want to go to sleep when there's a noise. - -That was the first night, and the same thing happened again and several -times afterward, but not regularly, though it was always at the same -time, to a second; perhaps I was sometimes sleeping on my good ear, and -sometimes not. I overhauled the cupboard and there was no way by which -the wind could get in, or anything else, for the door makes a good fit, -having been meant to keep out moths, I suppose; Mrs. Pratt must have -kept her winter things in it, for it still smells of camphor and -turpentine. - -After about a fortnight I had had enough of the noises. So far I had -said to myself that it would be silly to yield to it and take the skull -out of the room. Things always look differently by daylight, don't they? -But the voice grew louder--I suppose one may call it a voice--and it got -inside my deaf ear, too, one night. I realised that when I was wide -awake, for my good ear was jammed down on the pillow, and I ought not to -have heard a fog-horn in that position. But I heard that, and it made me -lose my temper, unless it scared me, for sometimes the two are not far -apart. I struck a light and got up, and I opened the cupboard, grabbed -the bandbox and threw it out of the window, as far as I could. - -Then my hair stood on end. The thing screamed in the air, like a shell -from a twelve-inch gun. It fell on the other side of the road. The night -was very dark, and I could not see it fall, but I know it fell beyond -the road. The window is just over the front door, it's fifteen yards to -the fence, more or less, and the road is ten yards wide. There's a -quickset hedge beyond, along the glebe that belongs to the vicarage. - -I did not sleep much more that night. It was not more than half an hour -after I had thrown the bandbox out when I heard a shriek outside--like -what we've had to-night, but worse, more despairing, I should call it; -and it may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn that the -screams came nearer and nearer each time. I lit a pipe, and walked up -and down for a bit, and then took a book and sat up reading, but I'll be -hanged if I can remember what I read nor even what the book was, for -every now and then a shriek came up that would have made a dead man turn -in his coffin. - -A little before dawn some one knocked at the front door. There was no -mistaking that for anything else, and I opened my window and looked -down, for I guessed that some one wanted the doctor, supposing that the -new man had taken Luke's house. It was rather a relief to hear a human -knock after that awful noise. - -You cannot see the door from above, owing to the little porch. The -knocking came again, and I called out, asking who was there, but nobody -answered, though the knock was repeated. I sang out again, and said that -the doctor did not live here any longer. There was no answer, but it -occurred to me that it might be some old countryman who was stone deaf. -So I took my candle and went down to open the door. Upon my word, I was -not thinking of the thing yet, and I had almost forgotten the other -noises. I went down convinced that I should find somebody outside, on -the doorstep, with a message. I set the candle on the hall table, so -that the wind should not blow it out when I opened. While I was drawing -the old-fashioned bolt I heard the knocking again. It was not loud, and -it had a queer, hollow sound, now that I was close to it, I remember, -but I certainly thought it was made by some person who wanted to get in. - -It wasn't. There was nobody there, but as I opened the door inward, -standing a little on one side, so as to see out at once, something -rolled across the threshold and stopped against my foot. - -I drew back as I felt it, for I knew what it was before I looked down. I -cannot tell you how I knew, and it seemed unreasonable, for I am still -quite sure that I had thrown it across the road. It's a French window, -that opens wide, and I got a good swing when I flung it out. Besides, -when I went out early in the morning, I found the bandbox beyond the -thickset hedge. - -You may think it opened when I threw it, and that the skull dropped out; -but that's impossible, for nobody could throw an empty cardboard box so -far. It's out of the question; you might as well try to fling a ball of -paper twenty-five yards, or a blown bird's egg. - -To go back, I shut and bolted the hall door, picked the thing up -carefully, and put it on the table beside the candle. I did that -mechanically, as one instinctively does the right thing in danger -without thinking at all--unless one does the opposite. It may seem odd, -but I believe my first thought had been that somebody might come and -find me there on the threshold while it was resting against my foot, -lying a little on its side, and turning one hollow eye up at my face, as -if it meant to accuse me. And the light and shadow from the candle -played in the hollows of the eyes as it stood on the table, so that they -seemed to open and shut at me. Then the candle went out quite -unexpectedly, though the door was fastened and there was not the least -draught; and I used up at least half a dozen matches before it would -burn again. - -I sat down rather suddenly, without quite knowing why. Probably I had -been badly frightened, and perhaps you will admit there was no great -shame in being scared. The thing had come home, and it wanted to go -upstairs, back to its cupboard. I sat still and stared at it for a bit, -till I began to feel very cold; then I took it and carried it up and set -it in its place, and I remember that I spoke to it, and promised that it -should have its bandbox again in the morning. - -You want to know whether I stayed in the room till daybreak? Yes, but I -kept a light burning, and sat up smoking and reading, most likely out of -fright; plain, undeniable fear, and you need not call it cowardice -either, for that's not the same thing. I could not have stayed alone -with that thing in the cupboard; I should have been scared to death, -though I'm not more timid than other people. Confound it all, man, it -had crossed the road alone, and had got up the doorstep and had knocked -to be let in. - -When the dawn came, I put on my boots and went out to find the bandbox. -I had to go a good way round, by the gate near the highroad, and I found -the box open and hanging on the other side of the hedge. It had caught -on the twigs by the string, and the lid had fallen off and was lying on -the ground below it. That shows that it did not open till it was well -over; and if it had not opened as soon as it left my hand, what was -inside it must have gone beyond the road too. - -That's all. I took the box upstairs to the cupboard, and put the skull -back and locked it up. When the girl brought me my breakfast she said -she was sorry, but that she must go, and she did not care if she lost -her month's wages. I looked at her, and her face was a sort of greenish, -yellowish white. I pretended to be surprised, and asked what was the -matter; but that was of no use, for she just turned on me and wanted to -know whether I meant to stay in a haunted house, and how long I -expected to live if I did, for though she noticed I was sometimes a -little hard of hearing, she did not believe that even I could sleep -through those screams again--and if I could, why had I been moving about -the house and opening and shutting the front door, between three and -four in the morning? There was no answering that, since she had heard -me, so off she went, and I was left to myself. I went down to the -village during the morning and found a woman who was willing to come and -do the little work there is and cook my dinner, on condition that she -might go home every night. As for me, I moved downstairs that day, and I -have never tried to sleep in the best bedroom since. After a little -while I got a brace of middle-aged Scotch servants from London, and -things were quiet enough for a long time. I began by telling them that -the house was in a very exposed position, and that the wind whistled -round it a good deal in the autumn and winter, which had given it a bad -name in the village, the Cornish people being inclined to superstition -and telling ghost stories. The two hard-faced, sandy-haired sisters -almost smiled, and they answered with great contempt that they had no -great opinion of any Southern bogey whatever, having been in service in -two English haunted houses, where they had never seen so much as the -Boy in Gray, whom they reckoned no very particular rarity in -Forfarshire. - -They stayed with me several months, and while they were in the house we -had peace and quiet. One of them is here again now, but she went away -with her sister within the year. This one--she was the cook--married the -sexton, who works in my garden. That's the way of it. It's a small -village and he has not much to do, and he knows enough about flowers to -help me nicely, besides doing most of the hard work; for though I'm fond -of exercise, I'm getting a little stiff in the hinges. He's a sober, -silent sort of fellow, who minds his own business, and he was a widower -when I came here--Trehearn is his name, James Trehearn. The Scotch -sisters would not admit that there was anything wrong about the house, -but when November came they gave me warning that they were going, on the -ground that the chapel was such a long walk from here, being in the next -parish, and that they could not possibly go to our church. But the -younger one came back in the spring, and as soon as the banns could be -published she was married to James Trehearn by the vicar, and she seems -to have had no scruples about hearing him preach since then. I'm quite -satisfied, if she is! The couple live in a small cottage that looks -over the churchyard. - -I suppose you are wondering what all this has to do with what I was -talking about. I'm alone so much that when an old friend comes to see -me, I sometimes go on talking just for the sake of hearing my own voice. -But in this case there is really a connection of ideas. It was James -Trehearn who buried poor Mrs. Pratt, and her husband after her in the -same grave, and it's not far from the back of his cottage. That's the -connection in my mind, you see. It's plain enough. He knows something; -I'm quite sure that he does, by his manner, though he's such a reticent -beggar. - -Yes, I'm alone in the house at night now, for Mrs. Trehearn does -everything herself, and when I have a friend the sexton's niece comes in -to wait on the table. He takes his wife home every evening in winter, -but in summer, when there's light, she goes by herself. She's not a -nervous woman, but she's less sure than she used to be that there are no -bogies in England worth a Scotchwoman's notice. Isn't it amusing, the -idea that Scotland has a monopoly of the supernatural? Odd sort of -national pride, I call that, don't you? - -That's a good fire, isn't it? When driftwood gets started at last -there's nothing like it, I think. Yes, we get lots of it, for I'm sorry -to say there are still a great many wrecks about here. It's a lonely -coast, and you may have all the wood you want for the trouble of -bringing it in. Trehearn and I borrow a cart now and then, and load it -between here and the Spit. I hate a coal fire when I can get wood of any -sort. A log is company, even if it's only a piece of a deck-beam or -timber sawn off, and the salt in it makes pretty sparks. See how they -fly, like Japanese hand-fireworks! Upon my word, with an old friend and -a good fire and a pipe, one forgets all about that thing upstairs, -especially now that the wind has moderated. It's only a lull, though, -and it will blow a gale before morning. - -You think you would like to see the skull? I've no objection. There's no -reason why you shouldn't have a look at it, and you never saw a more -perfect one in your life, except that there are two front teeth missing -in the lower jaw. - -Oh yes--I had not told you about the jaw yet. Trehearn found it in the -garden last spring when he was digging a pit for a new asparagus bed. -You know we make asparagus beds six or eight feet deep here. Yes, yes--I -had forgotten to tell you that. He was digging straight down, just as he -digs a grave; if you want a good asparagus bed made, I advise you to -get a sexton to make it for you. Those fellows have a wonderful knack at -that sort of digging. - -Trehearn had got down about three feet when he cut into a mass of white -lime in the side of the trench. He had noticed that the earth was a -little looser there, though he says it had not been disturbed for a -number of years. I suppose he thought that even old lime might not be -good for asparagus, so he broke it out and threw it up. It was pretty -hard, he says, in biggish lumps, and out of sheer force of habit he -cracked the lumps with his spade as they lay outside the pit beside him; -the jawbone of a skull dropped out of one of the pieces. He thinks he -must have knocked out the two front teeth in breaking up the lime, but -he did not see them anywhere. He's a very experienced man in such -things, as you may imagine, and he said at once that the jaw had -probably belonged to a young woman, and that the teeth had been complete -when she died. He brought it to me, and asked me if I wanted to keep it; -if I did not, he said he would drop it into the next grave he made in -the churchyard, as he supposed it was a Christian jaw, and ought to have -decent burial, wherever the rest of the body might be. I told him that -doctors often put bones into quicklime to whiten them nicely, and that -I supposed Dr. Pratt had once had a little lime pit in the garden for -that purpose, and had forgotten the jaw. Trehearn looked at me quietly. - -"Maybe it fitted that skull that used to be in the cupboard upstairs, -sir," he said. "Maybe Dr. Pratt had put the skull into the lime to clean -it, or something, and when he took it out he left the lower jaw behind. -There's some human hair sticking in the lime, sir." - -I saw there was, and that was what Trehearn said. If he did not suspect -something, why in the world should he have suggested that the jaw might -fit the skull? Besides, it did. That's proof that he knows more than he -cares to tell. Do you suppose he looked before she was buried? Or -perhaps--when he buried Luke in the same grave---- - -Well, well, it's of no use to go over that, is it? I said I would keep -the jaw with the skull, and I took it upstairs and fitted it into its -place. There's not the slightest doubt about the two belonging together, -and together they are. - -Trehearn knows several things. We were talking about plastering the -kitchen a while ago, and he happened to remember that it had not been -done since the very week when Mrs. Pratt died. He did not say that the -mason must have left some lime on the place, but he thought it, and -that it was the very same lime he had found in the asparagus pit. He -knows a lot. Trehearn is one of your silent beggars who can put two and -two together. That grave is very near the back of his cottage, too, and -he's one of the quickest men with a spade I ever saw. If he wanted to -know the truth, he could, and no one else would ever be the wiser unless -he chose to tell. In a quiet village like ours, people don't go and -spend the night in the churchyard to see whether the sexton potters -about by himself between ten o'clock and daylight. - -What is awful to think of, is Luke's deliberation, if he did it; his -cool certainty that no one would find him out; above all, his nerve, for -that must have been extraordinary. I sometimes think it's bad enough to -live in the place where it was done, if it really was done. I always put -in the condition, you see, for the sake of his memory, and a little bit -for my own sake, too. - -I'll go upstairs and fetch the box in a minute. Let me light my pipe; -there's no hurry! We had supper early, and it's only half-past nine -o'clock. I never let a friend go to bed before twelve, or with less than -three glasses--you may have as many more as you like, but you shan't -have less, for the sake of old times. - -It's breezing up again, do you hear? That was only a lull just now, and -we are going to have a bad night. - -A thing happened that made me start a little when I found that the jaw -fitted exactly. I'm not very easily startled in that way myself, but I -have seen people make a quick movement, drawing their breath sharply, -when they had thought they were alone and suddenly turned and saw some -one very near them. Nobody can call that fear. You wouldn't, would you? -No. Well, just when I had set the jaw in its place under the skull, the -teeth closed sharply on my finger. It felt exactly as if it were biting -me hard, and I confess that I jumped before I realised that I had been -pressing the jaw and the skull together with my other hand. I assure you -I was not at all nervous. It was broad daylight, too, and a fine day, -and the sun was streaming into the best bedroom. It would have been -absurd to be nervous, and it was only a quick mistaken impression, but -it really made me feel queer. Somehow it made me think of the funny -verdict of the coroner's jury on Luke's death, "by the hand or teeth of -some person or animal unknown." Ever since that I've wished I had seen -those marks on his throat, though the lower jaw was missing then. - -I have often seen a man do insane things with his hands that he does -not realise at all. I once saw a man hanging on by an old awning stop -with one hand, leaning backward, outboard, with all his weight on it, -and he was just cutting the stop with the knife in his other hand when I -got my arms round him. We were in mid-ocean, going twenty knots. He had -not the smallest idea what he was doing; neither had I when I managed to -pinch my finger between the teeth of that thing. I can feel it now. It -was exactly as if it were alive and were trying to bite me. It would if -it could, for I know it hates me, poor thing! Do you suppose that what -rattles about inside is really a bit of lead? Well, I'll get the box -down presently, and if whatever it is happens to drop out into your -hands that's your affair. If it's only a clod of earth or a pebble, the -whole matter would be off my mind, and I don't believe I should ever -think of the skull again; but somehow I cannot bring myself to shake out -the bit of hard stuff myself. The mere idea that it may be lead makes me -confoundedly uncomfortable, yet I've got the conviction that I shall -know before long. I shall certainly know. I'm sure Trehearn knows, but -he's such a silent beggar. - -I'll go upstairs now and get it. What? You had better go with me? Ha, -ha! do you think I'm afraid of a bandbox and a noise? Nonsense! - -Bother the candle, it won't light! As if the ridiculous thing -understood what it's wanted for! Look at that--the third match. They -light fast enough for my pipe. There, do you see? It's a fresh box, just -out of the tin safe where I keep the supply on account of the dampness. -Oh, you think the wick of the candle may be damp, do you? All right, -I'll light the beastly thing in the fire. That won't go out, at all -events. Yes, it sputters a bit, but it will keep lighted now. It burns -just like any other candle, doesn't it? The fact is, candles are not -very good about here. I don't know where they come from, but they have a -way of burning low occasionally, with a greenish flame that spits tiny -sparks, and I'm often annoyed by their going out of themselves. It -cannot be helped, for it will be long before we have electricity in our -village. It really is rather a poor light, isn't it? - -You think I had better leave you the candle and take the lamp, do you? I -don't like to carry lamps about, that's the truth. I never dropped one -in my life, but I have always thought I might, and it's so confoundedly -dangerous if you do. Besides, I am pretty well used to these rotten -candles by this time. - -You may as well finish that glass while I'm getting it, for I don't mean -to let you off with less than three before you go to bed. You won't -have to go upstairs, either, for I've put you in the old study next to -the surgery--that's where I live myself. The fact is, I never ask a -friend to sleep upstairs now. The last man who did was Crackenthorpe, -and he said he was kept awake all night. You remember old Crack, don't -you? He stuck to the Service, and they've just made him an admiral. Yes, -I'm off now--unless the candle goes out. I couldn't help asking if you -remembered Crackenthorpe. If any one had told us that the skinny little -idiot he used to be was to turn out the most successful of the lot of -us, we should have laughed at the idea, shouldn't we? You and I did not -do badly, it's true--but I'm really going now. I don't mean to let you -think that I've been putting it off by talking! As if there were -anything to be afraid of! If I were scared, I should tell you so quite -frankly, and get you to go upstairs with me. - - * * * * * - -Here's the box. I brought it down very carefully, so as not to disturb -it, poor thing. You see, if it were shaken, the jaw might get separated -from it again, and I'm sure it wouldn't like that. Yes, the candle went -out as I was coming downstairs, but that was the draught from the leaky -window on the landing. Did you hear anything? Yes, there was another -scream. Am I pale, do you say? That's nothing. My heart is a little -queer sometimes, and I went upstairs too fast. In fact, that's one -reason why I really prefer to live altogether on the ground floor. - -Wherever that shriek came from, it was not from the skull, for I had the -box in my hand when I heard the noise, and here it is now; so we have -proved definitely that the screams are produced by something else. I've -no doubt I shall find out some day what makes them. Some crevice in the -wall, of course, or a crack in a chimney, or a chink in the frame of a -window. That's the way all ghost stories end in real life. Do you know, -I'm jolly glad I thought of going up and bringing it down for you to -see, for that last shriek settles the question. To think that I should -have been so weak as to fancy that the poor skull could really cry out -like a living thing! - -Now I'll open the box, and we'll take it out and look at it under the -bright light. It's rather awful to think that the poor lady used to sit -there, in your chair, evening after evening, in just the same light, -isn't it? But then--I've made up my mind that it's all rubbish from -beginning to end, and that it's just an old skull that Luke had when he -was a student; and perhaps he put it into the lime merely to whiten it, -and could not find the jaw. - -I made a seal on the string, you see, after I had put the jaw in its -place, and I wrote on the cover. There's the old white label on it -still, from the milliner's, addressed to Mrs. Pratt when the hat was -sent to her, and as there was room I wrote on the edge: "A skull, once -the property of the late Luke Pratt, M.D." I don't quite know why I -wrote that, unless it was with the idea of explaining how the thing -happened to be in my possession. I cannot help wondering sometimes what -sort of hat it was that came in the bandbox. What colour was it, do you -think? Was it a gay spring hat with a bobbing feather and pretty -ribands? Strange that the very same box should hold the head that wore -the finery--perhaps. No--we made up our minds that it just came from the -hospital in London where Luke did his time. It's far better to look at -it in that light, isn't it? There's no more connection between that -skull and poor Mrs. Pratt than there was between my story about the lead -and---- - -Good Lord! Take the lamp--don't let it go out, if you can help it--I'll -have the window fastened again in a second--I say, what a gale! There, -it's out! I told you so! Never mind, there's the firelight--I've got the -window shut--the bolt was only half down. Was the box blown off the -table? Where the deuce is it? There! That won't open again, for I've put -up the bar. Good dodge, an old-fashioned bar--there's nothing like it. -Now, you find the bandbox while I light the lamp. Confound those -wretched matches! Yes, a pipe spill is better--it must light in the -fire--I hadn't thought of it--thank you--there we are again. Now, -where's the box? Yes, put it back on the table, and we'll open it. - -That's the first time I have ever known the wind to burst that window -open; but it was partly carelessness on my part when I last shut it. -Yes, of course I heard the scream. It seemed to go all round the house -before it broke in at the window. That proves that it's always been the -wind and nothing else, doesn't it? When it was not the wind, it was my -imagination. I've always been a very imaginative man: I must have been, -though I did not know it. As we grow older we understand ourselves -better, don't you know? - -I'll have a drop of the Hulstkamp neat, by way of an exception, since -you are filling up your glass. That damp gust chilled me, and with my -rheumatic tendency I'm very much afraid of a chill, for the cold -sometimes seems to stick in my joints all winter when it once gets in. - -By George, that's good stuff! I'll just light a fresh pipe, now that -everything is snug again, and then we'll open the box. I'm so glad we -heard that last scream together, with the skull here on the table -between us, for a thing cannot possibly be in two places at the same -time, and the noise most certainly came from outside, as any noise the -wind makes must. You thought you heard it scream through the room after -the window was burst open? Oh yes, so did I, but that was natural enough -when everything was open. Of course we heard the wind. What could one -expect? - -Look here, please. I want you to see that the seal is intact before we -open the box together. Will you take my glasses? No, you have your own. -All right. The seal is sound, you see, and you can read the words of the -motto easily. "Sweet and low"--that's it--because the poem goes on "Wind -of the Western sea," and says, "blow him again to me," and all that. -Here is the seal on my watch-chain, where it's hung for more than forty -years. My poor little wife gave it to me when I was courting, and I -never had any other. It was just like her to think of those words--she -was always fond of Tennyson. - -It's of no use to cut the string, for it's fastened to the box, so I'll -just break the wax and untie the knot, and afterward we'll seal it up -again. You see, I like to feel that the thing is safe in its place, and -that nobody can take it out. Not that I should suspect Trehearn of -meddling with it, but I always feel that he knows a lot more than he -tells. - -You see, I've managed it without breaking the string, though when I -fastened it I never expected to open the bandbox again. The lid comes -off easily enough. There! Now look! - -What? Nothing in it? Empty? It's gone, man, the skull is gone! - - * * * * * - -No, there's nothing the matter with me. I'm only trying to collect my -thoughts. It's so strange. I'm positively certain that it was inside -when I put on the seal last spring. I can't have imagined that: it's -utterly impossible. If I ever took a stiff glass with a friend now and -then, I would admit that I might have made some idiotic mistake when I -had taken too much. But I don't, and I never did. A pint of ale at -supper and half a go of rum at bedtime was the most I ever took in my -good days. I believe it's always we sober fellows who get rheumatism and -gout! Yet there was my seal, and there is the empty bandbox. That's -plain enough. - -I say, I don't half like this. It's not right. There's something wrong -about it, in my opinion. You needn't talk to me about supernatural -manifestations, for I don't believe in them, not a little bit! Somebody -must have tampered with the seal and stolen the skull. Sometimes, when I -go out to work in the garden in summer, I leave my watch and chain, on -the table. Trehearn must have taken the seal then, and used it, for he -would be quite sure that I should not come in for at least an hour. - -If it was not Trehearn--oh, don't talk to me about the possibility that -the thing has got out by itself! If it has, it must be somewhere about -the house, in some out-of-the-way corner, waiting. We may come upon it -anywhere, waiting for us, don't you know?--just waiting in the dark. -Then it will scream at me; it will shriek at me in the dark, for it -hates me, I tell you! - -The bandbox is quite empty. We are not dreaming, either of us. There, I -turn it upside down. - -What's that? Something fell out as I turned it over. It's on the floor, -it's near your feet, I know it is, and we must find it. Help me to find -it, man. Have you got it? For God's sake, give it to me, quickly! - -Lead! I knew it when I heard it fall. I knew it couldn't be anything -else by the little thud it made on the hearth-rug. So it was lead after -all, and Luke did it. - -I feel a little bit shaken up--not exactly nervous, you know, but badly -shaken up, that's the fact. Anybody would, I should think. After all, -you cannot say that it's fear of the thing, for I went up and brought it -down--at least, I believed I was bringing it down, and that's the same -thing, and by George, rather than give in to such silly nonsense, I'll -take the box upstairs again and put it back in its place. It's not that. -It's the certainty that the poor little woman came to her end in that -way, by my fault, because I told the story. That's what is so dreadful. -Somehow, I had always hoped that I should never be quite sure of it, but -there is no doubting it now. Look at that! - -Look at it! That little lump of lead with no particular shape. Think of -what it did, man! Doesn't it make you shiver? He gave her something to -make her sleep, of course, but there must have been one moment of awful -agony. Think of having boiling lead poured into your brain. Think of -it. She was dead before she could scream, but only think of--oh! there -it is again--it's just outside--I know it's just outside--I can't keep -it out of my head!--oh!--oh! - - * * * * * - -You thought I had fainted? No, I wish I had, for it would have stopped -sooner. It's all very well to say that it's only a noise, and that a -noise never hurt anybody--you're as white as a shroud yourself. There's -only one thing to be done, if we hope to close an eye to-night. We must -find it and put it back into its bandbox and shut it up in the cupboard, -where it likes to be. I don't know how it got out, but it wants to get -in again. That's why it screams so awfully to-night--it was never so bad -as this--never since I first---- - -Bury it? Yes, if we can find it, we'll bury it, if it takes us all -night. We'll bury it six feet deep and ram down the earth over it, so -that it shall never get out again, and if it screams, we shall hardly -hear it so deep down. Quick, we'll get the lantern and look for it. It -cannot be far away; I'm sure it's just outside--it was coming in when I -shut the window, I know it. - -Yes, you're quite right. I'm losing my senses, and I must get hold of -myself. Don't speak to me for a minute or two; I'll sit quite still and -keep my eyes shut and repeat something I know. That's the best way. - -"Add together the altitude, the latitude, and the polar distance, divide -by two and subtract the altitude from the half-sum; then add the -logarithm of the secant of the latitude, the cosecant of the polar -distance, the cosine of the half-sum and the sine of the half-sum minus -the altitude"--there! Don't say that I'm out of my senses, for my memory -is all right, isn't it? - -Of course, you may say that it's mechanical, and that we never forget -the things we learned when we were boys and have used almost every day -for a lifetime. But that's the very point. When a man is going crazy, -it's the mechanical part of his mind that gets out of order and won't -work right; he remembers things that never happened, or he sees things -that aren't real, or he hears noises when there is perfect silence. -That's not what is the matter with either of us, is it? - -Come, we'll get the lantern and go round the house. It's not -raining--only blowing like old boots, as we used to say. The lantern is -in the cupboard under the stairs in the hall, and I always keep it -trimmed in case of a wreck. - -No use to look for the thing? I don't see how you can say that. It was -nonsense to talk of burying it, of course, for it doesn't want to be -buried; it wants to go back into its bandbox and be taken upstairs, poor -thing! Trehearn took it out, I know, and made the seal over again. -Perhaps he took it to the churchyard, and he may have meant well. I -daresay he thought that it would not scream any more if it were quietly -laid in consecrated ground, near where it belongs. But it has come home. -Yes, that's it. He's not half a bad fellow, Trehearn, and rather -religiously inclined, I think. Does not that sound natural, and -reasonable, and well meant? He supposed it screamed because it was not -decently buried--with the rest. But he was wrong. How should he know -that it screams at me because it hates me, and because it's my fault -that there was that little lump of lead in it? - -No use to look for it, anyhow? Nonsense! I tell you it wants to be -found--Hark! what's that knocking? Do you hear it? -Knock--knock--knock--three times, then a pause, and then again. It has a -hollow sound, hasn't it? - -It has come home. I've heard that knock before. It wants to come in and -be taken upstairs, in its box. It's at the front door. - -Will you come with me? We'll take it in. Yes, I own that I don't like to -go alone and open the door. The thing will roll in and stop against my -foot, just as it did before, and the light will go out. I'm a good deal -shaken by finding that bit of lead, and, besides, my heart isn't quite -right--too much strong tobacco, perhaps. Besides, I'm quite willing to -own that I'm a bit nervous to-night, if I never was before in my life. - -That's right, come along! I'll take the box with me, so as not to come -back. Do you hear the knocking? It's not like any other knocking I ever -heard. If you will hold this door open, I can find the lantern under the -stairs by the light from this room without bringing the lamp into the -hall--it would only go out. - -The thing knows we are coming--hark! It's impatient to get in. Don't -shut the door till the lantern is ready, whatever you do. There will be -the usual trouble with the matches, I suppose--no, the first one, by -Jove! I tell you it wants to get in, so there's no trouble. All right -with that door now; shut it, please. Now come and hold the lantern, for -it's blowing so hard outside that I shall have to use both hands. That's -it, hold the light low. Do you hear the knocking still? Here goes--I'll -open just enough with my foot against the bottom of the door--now! - -Catch it! it's only the wind that blows it across the floor, that's -all--there's half a hurricane outside, I tell you! Have you got it? The -bandbox is on the table. One minute, and I'll have the bar up. There! - -Why did you throw it into the box so roughly? It doesn't like that, you -know. - -What do you say? Bitten your hand? Nonsense, man! You did just what I -did. You pressed the jaws together with your other hand and pinched -yourself. Let me see. You don't mean to say you have drawn blood? You -must have squeezed hard, by Jove, for the skin is certainly torn. I'll -give you some carbolic solution for it before we go to bed, for they say -a scratch from a skull's tooth may go bad and give trouble. - -Come inside again and let me see it by the lamp. I'll bring the -bandbox--never mind the lantern, it may just as well burn in the hall, -for I shall need it presently when I go up the stairs. Yes, shut the -door if you will; it makes it more cheerful and bright. Is your finger -still bleeding? I'll get you the carbolic in an instant; just let me see -the thing. - -Ugh! There's a drop of blood on the upper jaw. It's on the eye-tooth. -Ghastly, isn't it? When I saw it running along the floor of the hall, -the strength almost went out of my hands, and I felt my knees bending; -then I understood that it was the gale, driving it over the smooth -boards. You don't blame me? No, I should think not! We were boys -together, and we've seen a thing or two, and we may just as well own to -each other that we were both in a beastly funk when it slid across the -floor at you. No wonder you pinched your finger picking it up, after -that, if I did the same thing out of sheer nervousness, in broad -daylight, with the sun streaming in on me. - -Strange that the jaw should stick to it so closely, isn't it? I suppose -it's the dampness, for it shuts like a vice--I have wiped off the drop -of blood, for it was not nice to look at. I'm not going to try to open -the jaws, don't be afraid! I shall not play any tricks with the poor -thing, but I'll just seal the box again, and we'll take it upstairs and -put it away where it wants to be. The wax is on the writing-table by the -window. Thank you. It will be long before I leave my seal lying about -again, for Trehearn to use, I can tell you. Explain? I don't explain -natural phenomena, but if you choose to think that Trehearn had hidden -it somewhere in the bushes, and that the gale blew it to the house -against the door, and made it knock, as if it wanted to be let in, -you're not thinking the impossible, and I'm quite ready to agree with -you. - -Do you see that? You can swear that you've actually seen me seal it this -time, in case anything of the kind should occur again. The wax fastens -the strings to the lid, which cannot possibly be lifted, even enough to -get in one finger. You're quite satisfied, aren't you? Yes. Besides, I -shall lock the cupboard and keep the key in my pocket hereafter. - -Now we can take the lantern and go upstairs. Do you know? I'm very much -inclined to agree with your theory that the wind blew it against the -house. I'll go ahead, for I know the stairs; just hold the lantern near -my feet as we go up. How the wind howls and whistles! Did you feel the -sand on the floor under your shoes as we crossed the hall? - -Yes--this is the door of the best bedroom. Hold up the lantern, please. -This side, by the head of the bed. I left the cupboard open when I got -the box. Isn't it queer how the faint odour of women's dresses will hang -about an old closet for years? This is the shelf. You've seen me set the -box there, and now you see me turn the key and put it into my pocket. So -that's done! - - * * * * * - -Good-night. Are you sure you're quite comfortable? It's not much of a -room, but I daresay you would as soon sleep here as upstairs to-night. -If you want anything, sing out; there's only a lath and plaster -partition between us. There's not so much wind on this side by half. -There's the Hollands on the table, if you'll have one more nightcap. No? -Well, do as you please. Good-night again, and don't dream about that -thing, if you can. - - * * * * * - -The following paragraph appeared in the _Penraddon News_, 23rd November, -1906: - - - "MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF A RETIRED SEA CAPTAIN - - "The village of Tredcombe is much disturbed by the strange death of - Captain Charles Braddock, and all sorts of impossible stories are - circulating with regard to the circumstances, which certainly seem - difficult of explanation. The retired captain, who had successfully - commanded in his time the largest and fastest liners belonging to - one of the principal transatlantic steamship companies, was found - dead in his bed on Tuesday morning in his own cottage, a quarter of - a mile from the village. An examination was made at once by the - local practitioner, which revealed the horrible fact that the - deceased had been bitten in the throat by a human assailant, with - such amazing force as to crush the windpipe and cause death. The - marks of the teeth of both jaws were so plainly visible on the skin - that they could be counted, but the perpetrator of the deed had - evidently lost the two lower middle incisors. It is hoped that this - peculiarity may help to identify the murderer, who can only be a - dangerous escaped maniac. The deceased, though over sixty-five - years of age, is said to have been a hale man of considerable - physical strength, and it is remarkable that no signs of any - struggle were visible in the room, nor could it be ascertained how - the murderer had entered the house. Warning has been sent to all - the insane asylums in the United Kingdom, but as yet no information - has been received regarding the escape of any dangerous patient. - - "The coroner's jury returned the somewhat singular verdict that - Captain Braddock came to his death 'by the hands or teeth of some - person unknown.' The local surgeon is said to have expressed - privately the opinion that the maniac is a woman, a view he deduces - from the small size of the jaws, as shown by the marks of the - teeth. The whole affair is shrouded in mystery. Captain Braddock - was a widower, and lived alone. He leaves no children." - - -[_Note_.--Students of ghost lore and haunted houses will find the -foundation of the foregoing story in the legends about a skull which is -still preserved in the farm-house called Bettiscombe Manor, situated, I -believe, on the Dorsetshire coast.] - - - - -MAN OVERBOARD! - - -Yes--I have heard "Man overboard!" a good many times since I was a boy, -and once or twice I have seen the man go. There are more men lost in -that way than passengers on ocean steamers ever learn of. I have stood -looking over the rail on a dark night, when there was a step beside me, -and something flew past my head like a big black bat--and then there was -a splash! Stokers often go like that. They go mad with the heat, and -they slip up on deck and are gone before anybody can stop them, often -without being seen or heard. Now and then a passenger will do it, but he -generally has what he thinks a pretty good reason. I have seen a man -empty his revolver into a crowd of emigrants forward, and then go over -like a rocket. Of course, any officer who respects himself will do what -he can to pick a man up, if the weather is not so heavy that he would -have to risk his ship; but I don't think I remember seeing a man come -back when he was once fairly gone more than two or three times in all my -life, though we have often picked up the life-buoy, and sometimes the -fellow's cap. Stokers and passengers jump over; I never knew a sailor to -do that, drunk or sober. Yes, they say it has happened on hard ships, -but I never knew a case myself. Once in a long time a man is fished out -when it is just too late, and dies in the boat before you can get him -aboard, and--well, I don't know that I ever told that story since it -happened--I knew a fellow who went over, and came back dead. I didn't -see him after he came back; only one of us did, but we all knew he was -there. - -No, I am not giving you "sharks." There isn't a shark in this story, and -I don't know that I would tell it at all if we weren't alone, just you -and I. But you and I have seen things in various parts, and maybe you -will understand. Anyhow, you know that I am telling what I know about, -and nothing else; and it has been on my mind to tell you ever since it -happened, only there hasn't been a chance. - -It's a long story, and it took some time to happen; and it began a good -many years ago, in October, as well as I can remember. I was mate then; -I passed the local Marine Board for master about three years later. She -was the _Helen B. Jackson_, of New York, with lumber for the West -Indies, four-masted schooner, Captain Hackstaff. She was an -old-fashioned one, even then--no steam donkey, and all to do by hand. -There were still sailors in the coasting trade in those days, you -remember. She wasn't a hard ship, for the Old Man was better than most -of them, though he kept to himself and had a face like a monkey-wrench. -We were thirteen, all told, in the ship's company; and some of them -afterwards thought that might have had something to do with it, but I -had all that nonsense knocked out of me when I was a boy. I don't mean -to say that I like to go to sea on a Friday, but I _have_ gone to sea on -a Friday, and nothing has happened; and twice before that we have been -thirteen, because one of the hands didn't turn up at the last minute, -and nothing ever happened either--nothing worse than the loss of a light -spar or two, or a little canvas. Whenever I have been wrecked, we had -sailed as cheerily as you please--no thirteens, no Fridays, no dead men -in the hold. I believe it generally happens that way. - -I daresay you remember those two Benton boys that were so much alike? It -is no wonder, for they were twin brothers. They shipped with us as boys -on the old _Boston Belle_, when you were mate and I was before the mast. -I never was quite sure which was which of those two, even then; and when -they both had beards it was harder than ever to tell them apart. One was -Jim, and the other was Jack; James Benton and John Benton. The only -difference I ever could see was, that one seemed to be rather more -cheerful and inclined to talk than the other; but one couldn't even be -sure of that. Perhaps they had moods. Anyhow, there was one of them that -used to whistle when he was alone. He only knew one tune, and that was -"Nancy Lee," and the other didn't know any tune at all; but I may be -mistaken about that, too. Perhaps they both knew it. - -Well, those two Benton boys turned up on board the _Helen B. Jackson_. -They had been on half a dozen ships since the _Boston Belle_, and they -had grown up and were good seamen. They had reddish beards and bright -blue eyes and freckled faces; and they were quiet fellows, good workmen -on rigging, pretty willing, and both good men at the wheel. They managed -to be in the same watch--it was the port watch on the _Helen B._, and -that was mine, and I had great confidence in them both. If there was any -job aloft that needed two hands, they were always the first to jump into -the rigging; but that doesn't often happen on a fore-and-aft schooner. -If it breezed up, and the jibtopsail was to be taken in, they never -minded a wetting, and they would be out at the bowsprit end before there -was a hand at the downhaul. The men liked them for that, and because -they didn't blow about what they could do. I remember one day in a -reefing job, the downhaul parted and came down on deck from the peak of -the spanker. When the weather moderated, and we shook the reefs out, the -downhaul was forgotten until we happened to think we might soon need it -again. There was some sea on, and the boom was off, and the gaff was -slamming. One of those Benton boys was at the wheel, and before I knew -what he was doing, the other was out on the gaff with the end of the new -downhaul, trying to reeve it through its block. The one who was steering -watched him, and got as white as cheese. The other one was swinging -about on the gaff end, and every time she rolled to leeward, he brought -up with a jerk that would have sent anything but a monkey flying into -space. But he didn't leave it until he had rove the new rope, and he got -back all right. I think it was Jack at the wheel; the one that seemed -more cheerful, the one that whistled "Nancy Lee." He had rather have -been doing the job himself than watch his brother do it, and he had a -scared look; but he kept her as steady as he could in the swell, and he -drew a long breath when Jim had worked his way back to the peak-halliard -block, and had something to hold on to. I think it was Jim. - -They had good togs, too, and they were neat and clean men in the -forecastle. I knew they had nobody belonging to them ashore--no mother, -no sisters, and no wives; but somehow they both looked as if a woman -overhauled them now and then. I remember that they had one ditty bag -between them, and they had a woman's thimble in it. One of the men said -something about it to them, and they looked at each other; and one -smiled, but the other didn't. Most of their clothes were alike, but they -had one red guernsey between them. For some time I used to think it was -always the same one that wore it, and I thought that might be a way to -tell them apart. But then I heard one asking the other for it, and -saying that the other had worn it last. So that was no sign either. The -cook was a West Indiaman, called James Lawley; his father had been -hanged for putting lights in cocoanut trees where they didn't belong. -But he was a good cook, and knew his business; and it wasn't -soup-and-bully and dog's-body every Sunday. That's what I meant to say. -On Sunday the cook called both those boys Jim, and on weekdays he called -them Jack. He used to say he must be right sometimes if he did that, -because even the hands on a painted clock point right twice a day. - -What started me to trying for some way of telling the Bentons apart was -this. I heard them talking about a girl. It was at night, in our watch, -and the wind had headed us off a little rather suddenly, and when we had -flattened in the jibs, we clewed down the topsails, while the two Benton -boys got the spanker sheet aft. One of them was at the helm. I coiled -down the mizzen-topsail downhaul myself, and was going aft to see how -she headed up, when I stopped to look at a light, and leaned against the -deck-house. While I was standing there, I heard the two boys talking. It -sounded as if they had talked of the same thing before, and, as far as I -could tell, the voice I heard first belonged to the one who wasn't quite -so cheerful as the other--the one who was Jim when one knew which he -was. - -"Does Mamie know?" Jim asked. - -"Not yet," Jack answered quietly. He was at the wheel. "I mean to tell -her next time we get home." - -"All right." - -That was all I heard, because I didn't care to stand there listening -while they were talking about their own affairs; so I went aft to look -into the binnacle, and I told the one at the wheel to keep her so as -long as she had way on her, for I thought the wind would back up again -before long, and there was land to leeward. When he answered, his voice, -somehow, didn't sound like the cheerful one. Perhaps his brother had -relieved the wheel while they had been speaking, but what I had heard -set me wondering which of them it was that had a girl at home. There's -lots of time for wondering on a schooner in fair weather. - -After that I thought I noticed that the two brothers were more silent -when they were together. Perhaps they guessed that I had overheard -something that night, and kept quiet when I was about. Some men would -have amused themselves by trying to chaff them separately about the girl -at home, and I suppose whichever one it was would have let the cat out -of the bag if I had done that. But, somehow, I didn't like to. Yes, I -was thinking of getting married myself at that time, so I had a sort of -fellow-feeling for whichever one it was, that made me not want to chaff -him. - -They didn't talk much, it seemed to me; but in fair weather, when there -was nothing to do at night, and one was steering, the other was -everlastingly hanging round as if he were waiting to relieve the wheel, -though he might have been enjoying a quiet nap for all I cared in such -weather. Or else, when one was taking his turn at the lookout, the other -would be sitting on an anchor beside him. One kept near the other, at -night more than in the daytime. I noticed that. They were fond of -sitting on that anchor, and they generally tucked away their pipes under -it, for the _Helen B._ was a dry boat in most weather, and like most -fore-and-afters was better on a wind than going free. With a beam sea we -sometimes shipped a little water aft. We were by the stern, anyhow, on -that voyage, and that is one reason why we lost the man. - -We fell in with a southerly gale, southeast at first; and then the -barometer began to fall while you could watch it, and a long swell began -to come up from the south'ard. A couple of months earlier we might have -been in for a cyclone, but it's "October all over" in those waters, as -you know better than I. It was just going to blow, and then it was to -rain, that was all; and we had plenty of time to make everything snug -before it breezed up much. It blew harder after sunset, and by the time -it was quite dark it was a full gale. We had shortened sail for it, but -as we were by the stern we were carrying the spanker close reefed -instead of the storm trysail. She steered better so, as long as we -didn't have to heave to. I had the first watch with the Benton boys, and -we had not been on deck an hour when a child might have seen that the -weather meant business. - -The Old Man came up on deck and looked round, and in less than a minute -he told us to give her the trysail. That meant heaving to, and I was -glad of it; for though the _Helen B._ was a good vessel enough, she -wasn't a new ship by a long way, and it did her no good to drive her in -that weather. I asked whether I should call all hands, but just then the -cook came aft, and the Old Man said he thought we could manage the job -without waking the sleepers, and the trysail was handy on deck already, -for we hadn't been expecting anything better. We were all in oilskins, -of course, and the night was as black as a coal mine, with only a ray of -light from the slit in the binnacle shield, and you couldn't tell one -man from another except by his voice. The Old Man took the wheel; we got -the boom amidships, and he jammed her into the wind until she had hardly -any way. It was blowing now, and it was all that I and two others could -do to get in the slack of the downhaul, while the others lowered away at -the peak and throat, and we had our hands full to get a couple of turns -round the wet sail. It's all child's play on a fore-and-after compared -with reefing topsails in anything like weather, but the gear of a -schooner sometimes does unhandy things that you don't expect, and those -everlasting long halliards get foul of everything if they get adrift. I -remember thinking how unhandy that particular job was. Somebody -unhooked the throat-halliard block, and thought he had hooked it into -the head-cringle of the trysail, and sang out to hoist away, but he had -missed it in the dark, and the heavy block went flying into the lee -rigging, and nearly killed him when it swung back with the weather roll. -Then the Old Man got her up in the wind until the jib was shaking like -thunder; then he held her off, and she went off as soon as the headsails -filled, and he couldn't get her back again without the spanker. Then the -_Helen B._ did her favourite trick, and before we had time to say much, -we had a sea over the quarter and were up to our waists, with the -parrels of the trysail only half becketed round the mast, and the deck -so full of gear that you couldn't put your foot on a plank, and the -spanker beginning to get adrift again, being badly stopped, and the -general confusion and hell's delight that you can only have on a -fore-and-after when there's nothing really serious the matter. Of -course, I don't mean to say that the Old Man couldn't have steered his -trick as well as you or I or any other seaman; but I don't believe he -had ever been on board the _Helen B_. before, or had his hand on her -wheel till then; and he didn't know her ways. I don't mean to say that -what happened was his fault. I don't know whose fault it was. Perhaps -nobody was to blame. But I knew something happened somewhere on board -when we shipped that sea, and you'll never get it out of my head. I -hadn't any spare time myself, for I was becketing the rest of the -trysail to the mast. We were on the starboard tack, and the -throat-halliard came down to port as usual, and I suppose there were at -least three men at it, hoisting away, while I was at the beckets. - -Now I am going to tell you something. You have known me, man and boy, -several voyages; and you are older than I am; and you have always been a -good friend to me. Now, do you think I am the sort of man to think I -hear things where there isn't anything to hear, or to think I see things -when there is nothing to see? No, you don't. Thank you. Well now, I had -passed the last becket, and I sang out to the men to sway away, and I -was standing on the jaws of the spanker-gaff, with my left hand on the -bolt-rope of the trysail, so that I could feel when it was board-taut, -and I wasn't thinking of anything except being glad the job was over, -and that we were going to heave her to. It was as black as a -coal-pocket, except that you could see the streaks on the seas as they -went by, and abaft the deck-house I could see the ray of light from the -binnacle on the captain's yellow oilskin as he stood at the wheel--or, -rather, I might have seen it if I had looked round at that minute. But -I didn't look round. I heard a man whistling. It was "Nancy Lee," and I -could have sworn that the man was right over my head in the crosstrees. -Only somehow I knew very well that if anybody could have been up there, -and could have whistled a tune, there were no living ears sharp enough -to hear it on deck then. I heard it distinctly, and at the same time I -heard the real whistling of the wind in the weather rigging, sharp and -clear as the steam-whistle on a Dago's peanut-cart in New York. That was -all right, that was as it should be; but the other wasn't right; and I -felt queer and stiff, as if I couldn't move, and my hair was curling -against the flannel lining of my sou'wester, and I thought somebody had -dropped a lump of ice down my back. - -I said that the noise of the wind in the rigging was real, as if the -other wasn't, for I felt that it wasn't, though I heard it. But it was, -all the same; for the captain heard it, too. When I came to relieve the -wheel, while the men were clearing up decks, he was swearing. He was a -quiet man, and I hadn't heard him swear before, and I don't think I did -again, though several queer things happened after that. Perhaps he said -all he had to say then; I don't see how he could have said anything -more. I used to think nobody could swear like a Dane, except a -Neapolitan or a South American; but when I had heard the Old Man, I -changed my mind. There's nothing afloat or ashore that can beat one of -your quiet American skippers, if he gets off on that tack. I didn't need -to ask him what was the matter, for I knew he had heard "Nancy Lee," as -I had, only it affected us differently. - -He did not give me the wheel, but told me to go forward and get the -second bonnet off the staysail, so as to keep her up better. As we -tailed on to the sheet when it was done, the man next me knocked his -sou'wester off against my shoulder, and his face came so close to me -that I could see it in the dark. It must have been very white for me to -see it, but I only thought of that afterwards. I don't see how any light -could have fallen upon it, but I knew it was one of the Benton boys. I -don't know what made me speak to him. "Hullo, Jim! Is that you?" I -asked. I don't know why I said Jim, rather than Jack. - -"I am Jack," he answered. - -We made all fast, and things were much quieter. "The Old Man heard you -whistling 'Nancy Lee,' just now," I said, "and he didn't like it." - -It was as if there were a white light inside his face, and it was -ghastly. I know his teeth chattered. But he didn't say anything, and the -next minute he was somewhere in the dark trying to find his sou'wester -at the foot of the mast. - -When all was quiet, and she was hove to, coming to and falling off her -four points as regularly as a pendulum, and the helm lashed a little to -the lee, the Old Man turned in again, and I managed to light a pipe in -the lee of the deck-house, for there was nothing more to be done till -the gale chose to moderate, and the ship was as easy as a baby in its -cradle. Of course the cook had gone below, as he might have done an hour -earlier; so there were supposed to be four of us in the watch. There was -a man at the lookout, and there was a hand by the wheel, though there -was no steering to be done, and I was having my pipe in the lee of the -deck-house, and the fourth man was somewhere about decks, probably -having a smoke, too. I thought some skippers I had sailed with would -have called the watch aft, and given them a drink after that job, but it -wasn't cold, and I guessed that our Old Man wouldn't be particularly -generous in that way. My hands and feet were red-hot, and it would be -time enough to get into dry clothes when it was my watch below; so I -stayed where I was, and smoked. But by and by, things being so quiet, I -began to wonder why nobody moved on deck; just that sort of restless -wanting to know where every man is that one sometimes feels in a gale of -wind on a dark night. So when I had finished my pipe, I began to move -about. I went aft, and there was a man leaning over the wheel, with his -legs apart and both hands hanging down in the light from the binnacle, -and his sou'wester over his eyes. Then I went forward, and there was a -man at the lookout, with his back against the foremast, getting what -shelter he could from the staysail. I knew by his small height that he -was not one of the Benton boys. Then I went round by the weather side, -and poked about in the dark, for I began to wonder where the other man -was. But I couldn't find him, though I searched the decks until I got -right aft again. It was certainly one of the Benton boys that was -missing, but it wasn't like either of them to go below to change his -clothes in such warm weather. The man at the wheel was the other, of -course. I spoke to him. - -"Jim, what's become of your brother?" - -"I am Jack, sir." - -"Well, then, Jack, where's Jim? He's not on deck." - -"I don't know, sir." - -When I had come up to him he had stood up from force of instinct, and -had laid his hands on the spokes as if he were steering, though the -wheel was lashed; but he still bent his face down, and it was half -hidden by the edge of his sou'wester, while he seemed to be staring at -the compass. He spoke in a very low voice, but that was natural, for -the captain had left his door open when he turned in, as it was a warm -night in spite of the storm, and there was no fear of shipping any more -water now. - -"What put it into your head to whistle like that, Jack? You've been at -sea long enough to know better." - -He said something, but I couldn't hear the words; it sounded as if he -were denying the charge. - -"Somebody whistled," I said. - -He didn't answer, and then, I don't know why, perhaps because the Old -Man hadn't given us a drink, I cut half an inch off the plug of tobacco -I had in my oilskin pocket, and gave it to him. He knew my tobacco was -good, and he shoved it into his mouth with a word of thanks. I was on -the weather side of the wheel. - -"Go forward and see if you can find Jim," I said. - -He started a little, and then stepped back and passed behind me, and was -going along the weather side. Maybe his silence about the whistling had -irritated me, and his taking it for granted that because we were hove to -and it was a dark night, he might go forward any way he pleased. Anyhow, -I stopped him, though I spoke good-naturedly enough. - -"Pass to leeward, Jack," I said. - -He didn't answer, but crossed the deck between the binnacle and the -deck-house to the lee side. She was only falling off and coming to, and -riding the big seas as easily as possible, but the man was not steady on -his feet and reeled against the corner of the deck-house and then -against the lee rail. I was quite sure he couldn't have had anything to -drink, for neither of the brothers were the kind to hide rum from their -shipmates, if they had any, and the only spirits that were aboard were -locked up in the captain's cabin. I wondered whether he had been hit by -the throat-halliard block and was hurt. - -I left the wheel and went after him, but when I got to the corner of the -deck-house I saw that he was on a full run forward, so I went back. I -watched the compass for a while, to see how far she went off, and she -must have come to again half a dozen times before I heard voices, more -than three or four, forward; and then I heard the little West Indies -cook's voice, high and shrill above the rest: - -"Man overboard!" - -There wasn't anything to be done, with the ship hove to and the wheel -lashed. If there was a man overboard, he must be in the water right -alongside. I couldn't imagine how it could have happened, but I ran -forward instinctively. I came upon the cook first, half dressed in his -shirt and trousers, just as he had tumbled out of his bunk. He was -jumping into the main rigging, evidently hoping to see the man, as if -any one could have seen anything on such a night, except the -foam-streaks on the black water, and now and then the curl of a breaking -sea as it went away to leeward. Several of the men were peering over the -rail into the dark. I caught the cook by the foot, and asked who was -gone. - -"It's Jim Benton," he shouted down to me. "He's not aboard this ship!" - -There was no doubt about that. Jim Benton was gone; and I knew in a -flash that he had been taken off by that sea when we were setting the -storm trysail. It was nearly half an hour since then; she had run like -wild for a few minutes until we got her hove to, and no swimmer that -ever swam could have lived as long as that in such a sea. The men knew -it as well as I, but still they stared into the foam as if they had any -chance of seeing the lost man. I let the cook get into the rigging and -joined the men, and asked if they had made a thorough search on board, -though I knew they had and that it could not take long, for he wasn't on -deck, and there was only the forecastle below. - -"That sea took him over, sir, as sure as you're born," said one of the -men close beside me. - -We had no boat that could have lived in that, sea, of course, and we all -knew it. I offered to put one over, and let her drift astern two or -three cables' lengths by a line, if the men thought they could haul me -aboard again; but none of them would listen to that, and I should -probably have been drowned if I had tried it, even with a life-belt; for -it was a breaking sea. Besides, they all knew as well as I did that the -man could not be right in our wake. I don't know why I spoke again. - -"Jack Benton, are you there? Will you go if I will?" - -"No, sir," answered a voice; and that was all. - -By that time the Old Man was on deck, and I felt his hand on my shoulder -rather roughly, as if he meant to shake me. - -"I'd reckoned you had more sense, Mr. Torkeldsen," he said. "God knows I -would risk my ship to look for him, if it were any use; but he must have -gone half an hour ago." - -He was a quiet man, and the men knew he was right, and that they had -seen the last of Jim Benton when they were bending the trysail--if -anybody had seen him then. The captain went below again, and for some -time the men stood around Jack, quite near him, without saying -anything, as sailors do when they are sorry for a man and can't help -him; and then the watch below turned in again, and we were three on -deck. - -Nobody can understand that there can be much consolation in a funeral, -unless he has felt that blank feeling there is when a man's gone -overboard whom everybody likes. I suppose landsmen think it would be -easier if they didn't have to bury their fathers and mothers and -friends; but it wouldn't be. Somehow the funeral keeps up the idea of -something beyond. You may believe in that something just the same; but a -man who has gone in the dark, between two seas, without a cry, seems -much more beyond reach than if he were still lying on his bed, and had -only just stopped breathing. Perhaps Jim Benton knew that, and wanted to -come back to us. I don't know, and I am only telling you what happened, -and you may think what you like. - -Jack stuck by the wheel that night until the watch was over. I don't -know whether he slept afterwards, but when I came on deck four hours -later, there he was again, in his oilskins, with his sou'wester over his -eyes, staring into the binnacle. We saw that he would rather stand -there, and we left him alone. Perhaps it was some consolation to him to -get that ray of light when everything was so dark. It began to rain, -too, as it can when a southerly gale is going to break up, and we got -every bucket and tub on board, and set them under the booms to catch the -fresh water for washing our clothes. The rain made it very thick, and I -went and stood under the lee of the staysail, looking out. I could tell -that day was breaking, because the foam was whiter in the dark where the -seas crested, and little by little the black rain grew grey and steamy, -and I couldn't see the red glare of the port light on the water when she -went off and rolled to leeward. The gale had moderated considerably, and -in another hour we should be under way again. I was still standing there -when Jack Benton came forward. He stood still a few minutes near me. The -rain came down in a solid sheet, and I could see his wet beard and a -corner of his cheek, too, grey in the dawn. Then he stooped down and -began feeling under the anchor for his pipe. We had hardly shipped any -water forward, and I suppose he had some way of tucking the pipe in, so -that the rain hadn't floated it off. Presently he got on his legs again, -and I saw that he had two pipes in his hand. One of them had belonged to -his brother, and after looking at them a moment I suppose he recognized -his own, for he put it in his mouth, dripping with water. Then he looked -at the other fully a minute without moving. When he had made up his -mind, I suppose, he quietly chucked it over the lee rail, without even -looking round to see whether I was watching him. I thought it was a -pity, for it was a good wooden pipe, with a nickel ferrule, and somebody -would have been glad to have it. But I didn't like to make any remark, -for he had a right to do what he pleased with what had belonged to his -dead brother. He blew the water out of his own pipe, and dried it -against his jacket, putting his hand inside his oilskin; he filled it, -standing under the lee of the foremast, got a light after wasting two or -three matches, and turned the pipe upside down in his teeth, to keep the -rain out of the bowl. I don't know why I noticed everything he did, and -remember it now; but somehow I felt sorry for him, and I kept wondering -whether there was anything I could say that would make him feel better. -But I didn't think of anything, and as it was broad daylight I went aft -again, for I guessed that the Old Man would turn out before long and -order the spanker set and the helm up. But he didn't turn out before -seven bells, just as the clouds broke and showed blue sky to -leeward--"the Frenchman's barometer," you used to call it. - -Some people don't seem to be so dead, when they are dead, as others are. -Jim Benton was like that. He had been on my watch, and I couldn't get -used to the idea that he wasn't about decks with me. I was always -expecting to see him, and his brother was so exactly like him that I -often felt as if I did see him and forgot he was dead, and made the -mistake of calling Jack by his name; though I tried not to, because I -knew it must hurt. If ever Jack had been the cheerful one of the two, as -I had always supposed he had been, he had changed very much, for he grew -to be more silent than Jim had ever been. - -One fine afternoon I was sitting on the main-hatch, overhauling the -clockwork of the taffrail-log, which hadn't been registering very well -of late, and I had got the cook to bring me a coffee-cup to hold the -small screws as I took them out, and a saucer for the sperm oil I was -going to use. I noticed that he didn't go away, but hung round without -exactly watching what I was doing, as if he wanted to say something to -me. I thought if it were worth much, he would say it anyhow, so I didn't -ask him questions; and sure enough he began of his own accord before -long. There was nobody on deck but the man at the wheel, and the other -man away forward. - -"Mr. Torkeldsen," the cook began, and then stopped. - -I supposed he was going to ask me to let the watch break out a barrel -of flour, or some salt horse. - -"Well, doctor?" I asked, as he didn't go on. - -"Well, Mr. Torkeldsen," he answered, "I somehow want to ask you whether -you think I am giving satisfaction on this ship, or not?" - -"So far as I know, you are, doctor. I haven't heard any complaints from -the forecastle, and the captain has said nothing, and I think you know -your business, and the cabin-boy is bursting out of his clothes. That -looks as if you are giving satisfaction. What makes you think you are -not?" - -I am not good at giving you that West Indies talk, and shan't try; but -the doctor beat about the bush awhile, and then he told me he thought -the men were beginning to play tricks on him, and he didn't like it, and -thought he hadn't deserved it, and would like his discharge at our next -port. I told him he was a d----d fool, of course, to begin with; and -that men were more apt to try a joke with a chap they liked than with -anybody they wanted to get rid of; unless it was a bad joke, like -flooding his bunk, or filling his boots with tar. But it wasn't that -kind of practical joke. The doctor said that the men were trying to -frighten him, and he didn't like it, and that they put things in his -way that frightened him. So I told him he was a d----d fool to be -frightened, anyway, and I wanted to know what things they put in his -way. He gave me a queer answer. He said they were spoons and forks, and -odd plates, and a cup now and then, and such things. - -I set down the taffrail-log on the bit of canvas I had put under it, and -looked at the doctor. He was uneasy, and his eyes had a sort of hunted -look, and his yellow face looked grey. He wasn't trying to make trouble. -He was in trouble. So I asked him questions. - -He said he could count as well as anybody, and do sums without using his -fingers, but that when he couldn't count any other way, he did use his -fingers, and it always came out the same. He said that when he and the -cabin-boy cleared up after the men's meals there were more things to -wash than he had given out. There'd be a fork more, or there'd be a -spoon more, and sometimes there'd be a spoon and a fork, and there was -always a plate more. It wasn't that he complained of that. Before poor -Jim Benton was lost they had a man more to feed, and his gear to wash up -after meals, and that was in the contract, the doctor said. It would -have been if there were twenty in the ship's company; but he didn't -think it was right for the men to play tricks like that. He kept his -things in good order, and he counted them, and he was responsible for -them, and it wasn't right that the men should take more things than they -needed when his back was turned, and just soil them and mix them up with -their own, so as to make him think-- - -He stopped there, and looked at me, and I looked at him. I didn't know -what he thought, but I began to guess. I wasn't going to humour any such -nonsense as that, so I told him to speak to the men himself, and not -come bothering me about such things. - -"Count the plates and forks and spoons before them when they sit down to -table, and tell them that's all they'll get; and when they have -finished, count the things again, and if the count isn't right, find out -who did it. You know it must be one of them. You're not a green hand; -you've been going to sea ten or eleven years, and don't want any lessons -about how to behave if the boys play a trick on you." - -"If I could catch him," said the cook, "I'd have a knife into him before -he could say his prayers." - -Those West India men are always talking about knives, especially when -they are badly frightened. I knew what he meant, and didn't ask him, but -went on cleaning the brass cog-wheels of the patent log, and oiling the -bearings with a feather. "Wouldn't it be better to wash it out with -boiling water, sir?" asked the cook in an insinuating tone. He knew that -he had made a fool of himself, and was anxious to make it right again. - -I heard no more about the odd platter and gear for two or three days, -though I thought about his story a good deal. The doctor evidently -believed that Jim Benton had come back, though he didn't quite like to -say so. His story had sounded silly enough on a bright afternoon, in -fair weather, when the sun was on the water, and every rag was drawing -in the breeze, and the sea looked as pleasant and as harmless as a cat -that has just eaten a canary. But when it was toward the end of the -first watch, and the waning moon had not risen yet, and the water was -like still oil, and the jibs hung down flat and helpless like the wings -of a dead bird--it wasn't the same then. More than once I have started -then and looked round when a fish jumped, expecting to see a face -sticking out of the water with its eyes shut. I think we all felt -something like that at the time. - -One afternoon we were putting a fresh service on the jib-sheet-pennant. -It wasn't my watch, but I was standing by, looking on. Just then Jack -Benton came up from below, and went to look for his pipe under the -anchor. His face was hard and drawn, and his eyes were cold like steel -balls. He hardly ever spoke now, but he did his duty as usual, and -nobody had to complain of him, though we were all beginning to wonder -how long his grief for his dead brother was going to last like that. I -watched him as he crouched down, and ran his hand into the hiding-place -for the pipe. When he stood up, he had two pipes in his hand. - -Now, I remembered very well seeing him throw one of those pipes away, -early in the morning after the gale; and it came to me now, and I didn't -suppose he kept a stock of them under the anchor. I caught sight of his -face, and it was greenish white, like the foam on shallow water, and he -stood a long time looking at the two pipes. He wasn't looking to see -which was his, for I wasn't five yards from him as he stood, and one of -those pipes had been smoked that day, and was shiny where his hand had -rubbed it, and the bone mouthpiece was chafed white where his teeth had -bitten it. The other was water-logged. It was swelled and cracking with -wet, and it looked to me as if there were a little green weed on it. - -Jack Benton turned his head rather stealthily as I looked away, and then -he hid the thing in his trousers pocket, and went aft on the lee side, -out of sight. The men had got the sheet-pennant on a stretch to serve -it, but I ducked under it and stood where I could see what Jack did, -just under the fore-staysail. He couldn't see me, and he was looking -about for something. His hand shook as he picked up a bit of half-bent -iron rod, about a foot long, that had been used for turning an eye-bolt, -and had been left on the main-hatch. His hand shook as he got a piece of -marline out of his pocket, and made the water-logged pipe fast to the -iron. He didn't mean it to get adrift either, for he took his turns -carefully, and hove them taut and then rode them, so that they couldn't -slip, and made the end fast with two half-hitches round the iron, and -hitched it back on itself. Then he tried it with his hands, and looked -up and down the deck furtively, and then quietly dropped the pipe and -iron over the rail, so that I didn't even hear the splash. If anybody -was playing tricks on board, they weren't meant for the cook. - -I asked some questions about Jack Benton, and one of the men told me -that he was off his feed, and hardly ate anything, and swallowed all the -coffee he could lay his hands on, and had used up all his own tobacco -and had begun on what his brother had left. - -"The doctor says it ain't so, sir," said the man, looking at me shyly, -as if he didn't expect to be believed; "the doctor says there's as much -eaten from breakfast to breakfast as there was before Jim fell -overboard, though there's a mouth less and another that eats nothing. I -says it's the cabin-boy that gets it. He's bu'sting." - -I told him that if the cabin-boy ate more than his share, he must work -more than his share, so as to balance things. But the man laughed -queerly, and looked at me again. - -"I only said that, sir, just like that. We all know it ain't so." - -"Well, how is it?" - -"How is it?" asked the man, half-angry all at once. "I don't know how it -is, but there's a hand on board that's getting his whack along with us -as regular as the bells." - -"Does he use tobacco?" I asked, meaning to laugh it out of him, but as I -spoke, I remembered the water-logged pipe. - -"I guess he's using his own still," the man answered, in a queer, low -voice. "Perhaps he'll take some one else's when his is all gone." - -It was about nine o'clock in the morning, I remember, for just then the -captain called to me to stand by the chronometer while he took his fore -observation. Captain Hackstaff wasn't one of those old skippers who do -everything themselves with a pocket watch, and keep the key of the -chronometer in their waistcoat pocket, and won't tell the mate how far -the dead reckoning is out. He was rather the other way, and I was glad -of it, for he generally let me work the sights he took, and just ran -his eye over my figures afterwards. I am bound to say his eye was pretty -good, for he would pick out a mistake in a logarithm, or tell me that I -had worked the "Equation of Time" with the wrong sign, before it seemed -to me that he could have got as far as "half the sum, minus the -altitude." He was always right, too, and besides he knew a lot about -iron ships and local deviation, and adjusting the compass, and all that -sort of thing. I don't know how he came to be in command of a -fore-and-aft schooner. He never talked about himself, and maybe he had -just been mate on one of those big steel square-riggers, and something -had put him back. Perhaps he had been captain, and had got his ship -aground, through no particular fault of his, and had to begin over -again. Sometimes he talked just like you and me, and sometimes he would -speak more like books do, or some of those Boston people I have heard. I -don't know. We have all been shipmates now and then with men who have -seen better days. Perhaps he had been in the Navy, but what makes me -think he couldn't have been, was that he was a thorough good seaman, a -regular old windjammer, and understood sail, which those Navy chaps -rarely do. Why, you and I have sailed with men before the mast who had -their master's certificates in their pockets--English Board of Trade -certificates, too--who could work a double altitude if you would lend -them a sextant and give them a look at the chronometer, as well as many -a man who commands a big square-rigger. Navigation ain't everything, nor -seamanship either. You've got to have it in you, if you mean to get -there. - -I don't know how our captain heard that there was trouble forward. The -cabin-boy may have told him, or the men may have talked outside his door -when they relieved the wheel at night. Anyhow, he got wind of it, and -when he had got his sight that morning, he had all hands aft, and gave -them a lecture. It was just the kind of talk you might have expected -from him. He said he hadn't any complaint to make, and that so far as he -knew everybody on board was doing his duty, and that he was given to -understand that the men got their whack, and were satisfied. He said his -ship was never a hard ship, and that he liked quiet, and that was the -reason he didn't mean to have any nonsense, and the men might just as -well understand that, too. We'd had a great misfortune, he said, and it -was nobody's fault. We had lost a man we all liked and respected, and he -felt that everybody in the ship ought to be sorry for the man's brother, -who was left behind, and that it was rotten lubberly childishness, and -unjust and unmanly and cowardly, to be playing schoolboy tricks with -forks and spoons and pipes, and that sort of gear. He said it had got to -stop right now, and that was all, and the men might go forward. And so -they did. - -It got worse after that, and the men watched the cook, and the cook -watched the men, as if they were trying to catch each other; but I think -everybody felt that there was something else. One evening, at -supper-time, I was on deck, and Jack came aft to relieve the wheel while -the man who was steering got his supper. He hadn't got past the -main-hatch on the lee side, when I heard a man running in slippers that -slapped on the deck, and there was a sort of a yell and I saw the -coloured cook going for Jack, with a carving knife in his hand. I jumped -to get between them, and Jack turned round short, and put out his hand. -I was too far to reach them, and the cook jabbed out with his knife. But -the blade didn't get anywhere near Benton. The cook seemed to be jabbing -it into the air again and again, at least four feet short of the mark. -Then he dropped his right hand, and I saw the whites of his eyes in the -dusk, and he reeled up against the pin-rail, and caught hold of a -belaying-pin with his left. I had reached him by that time, and grabbed -hold of his knife-hand, and the other, too, for I thought he was going -to use the pin; but Jack Benton was standing staring stupidly at him, as -if he didn't understand. But instead, the cook was holding on because he -couldn't stand, and his teeth were chattering, and he let go of the -knife, and the point stuck into the deck. - -"He's crazy!" said Jack Benton, and that was all he said; and he went -aft. - -When he was gone, the cook began to come to, and he spoke quite low, -near my ear. - -"There were two of them! So help me God, there were two of them!" - -I don't know why I didn't take him by the collar, and give him a good -shaking; but I didn't. I just picked up the knife and gave it to him, -and told him to go back to his galley, and not to make a fool of -himself. You see, he hadn't struck at Jack, but at something he thought -he saw, and I knew what it was, and I felt that same thing, like a lump -of ice sliding down my back, that I felt that night when we were bending -the trysail. - -When the men had seen him running aft, they jumped up after him, but -they held off when they saw that I had caught him. By and by, the man -who had spoken to me before told me what had happened. He was a stocky -little chap, with a red head. - -"Well," he said, "there isn't much to tell. Jack Benton had been eating -his supper with the rest of us. He always sits at the after corner of -the table, on the port side. His brother used to sit at the end, next -him. The doctor gave him a thundering big piece of pie to finish up -with, and when he had finished he didn't stop for a smoke, but went off -quick to relieve the wheel. Just as he had gone, the doctor came in from -the galley, and when he saw Jack's empty plate he stood stock still -staring at it; and we all wondered what was the matter, till we looked -at the plate. There were two forks in it, sir, lying side by side. Then -the doctor grabbed his knife, and flew up through the hatch like a -rocket. The other fork was there all right, Mr. Torkeldsen, for we all -saw it and handled it; and we all had our own. That's all I know." - -I didn't feel that I wanted to laugh when he told me that story; but I -hoped the Old Man wouldn't hear it, for I knew he wouldn't believe it, -and no captain that ever sailed likes to have stories like that going -round about his ship. It gives her a bad name. But that was all anybody -ever saw except the cook, and he isn't the first man who has thought he -saw things without having any drink in him. I think, if the doctor had -been weak in the head, as he was afterwards, he might have done -something foolish again, and there might have been serious trouble. But -he didn't. Only, two or three times, I saw him looking at Jack Benton in -a queer, scared way, and once I heard him talking to himself. - -"There's two of them! So help me God, there's two of them!" - -He didn't say anything more about asking for his discharge, but I knew -well enough that if he got ashore at the next port we should never see -him again, if he had to leave his kit behind him, and his money, too. He -was scared all through, for good and all; and he wouldn't be right again -till he got another ship. It's no use to talk to a man when he gets like -that, any more than it is to send a boy to the main truck when he has -lost his nerve. - -Jack Benton never spoke of what happened that evening. I don't know -whether he knew about the two forks, or not; or whether he understood -what the trouble was. Whatever he knew from the other men, he was -evidently living under a hard strain. He was quiet enough, and too -quiet; but his face was set, and sometimes it twitched oddly when he was -at the wheel, and he would turn his head round sharp to look behind him. -A man doesn't do that naturally, unless there's a vessel that he thinks -is creeping up on the quarter. When that happens, if the man at the -wheel takes a pride in his ship, he will almost always keep glancing -over his shoulder to see whether the other fellow is gaining. But Jack -Benton used to look round when there was nothing there; and what is -curious, the other men seemed to catch the trick when they were -steering. One day the Old Man turned out just as the man at the wheel -looked behind him. - -"What are you looking at?" asked the captain. - -"Nothing, sir," answered the man. - -"Then keep your eye on the mizzen-royal," said the Old Man, as if he -were forgetting that we weren't a square-rigger. - -"Ay, ay, sir," said the man. - -The captain told me to go below and work up the latitude from the -dead-reckoning, and he went forward of the deck-house and sat down to -read, as he often did. When I came up, the man at the wheel was looking -round again, and I stood beside him and just asked him quietly what -everybody was looking at, for it was getting to be a general habit. He -wouldn't say anything at first, but just answered that it was nothing. -But when he saw that I didn't seem to care, and just stood there as if -there were nothing more to be said, he naturally began to talk. - -He said that it wasn't that he saw anything, because there wasn't -anything to see except the spanker sheet just straining a little, and -working in the sheaves of the blocks as the schooner rose to the short -seas. There wasn't anything to be seen, but it seemed to him that the -sheet made a queer noise in the blocks. It was a new manilla sheet; and -in dry weather it did make a little noise, something between a creak and -a wheeze. I looked at it and looked at the man, and said nothing; and -presently he went on. He asked me if I didn't notice anything peculiar -about the noise. I listened awhile, and said I didn't notice anything. - -Then he looked rather sheepish, but said he didn't think it could be his -own ears, because every man who steered his trick heard the same thing -now and then,--sometimes once in a day, sometimes once in a night, -sometimes it would go on a whole hour. - -"It sounds like sawing wood," I said, just like that. - -"To us it sounds a good deal more like a man whistling 'Nancy Lee.'" He -started nervously as he spoke the last words. "There, sir, don't you -hear it?" he asked suddenly. - -I heard nothing but the creaking of the manilla sheet. It was getting -near noon, and fine, clear weather in southern waters,--just the sort of -day and the time when you would least expect to feel creepy. But I -remembered how I had heard that same tune overhead at night in a gale of -wind a fortnight earlier, and I am not ashamed to say that the same -sensation came over me now, and I wished myself well out of the _Helen -B._, and aboard of any old cargo-dragger, with a windmill on deck, and -an eighty-nine-forty-eighter for captain, and a fresh leak whenever it -breezed up. - -Little by little during the next few days life on board that vessel came -to be about as unbearable as you can imagine. It wasn't that there was -much talk, for I think the men were shy even of speaking to each other -freely about what they thought. The whole ship's company grew silent, -until one hardly ever heard a voice, except giving an order and the -answer. The men didn't sit over their meals when their watch was below, -but either turned in at once or sat about on the forecastle, smoking -their pipes without saying a word. We were all thinking of the same -thing. We all felt as if there were a hand on board, sometimes below, -sometimes about decks, sometimes aloft, sometimes on the boom end; -taking his full share of what the others got, but doing no work for it. -We didn't only feel it, we knew it. He took up no room, he cast no -shadow, and we never heard his footfall on deck; but he took his whack -with the rest as regular as the bells, and--he whistled "Nancy Lee." It -was like the worst sort of dream you can imagine; and I daresay a good -many of us tried to believe it was nothing else sometimes, when we stood -looking over the weather rail in fine weather with the breeze in our -faces; but if we happened to turn round and look into each other's eyes, -we knew it was something worse than any dream could be; and we would -turn away from each other with a queer, sick feeling, wishing that we -could just for once see somebody who didn't know what we knew. - -There's not much more to tell about the _Helen B. Jackson_, so far as I -am concerned. We were more like a shipload of lunatics than anything -else when we ran in under Morro Castle and anchored in Havana. The cook -had brain fever, and was raving mad in his delirium; and the rest of the -men weren't far from the same state. The last three or four days had -been awful, and we had been as near to having a mutiny on board as I -ever want to be. The men didn't want to hurt anybody; but they wanted to -get away out of that ship, if they had to swim for it; to get away from -that whistling, from that dead shipmate who had come back, and who -filled the ship with his unseen self! I know that if the Old Man and I -hadn't kept a sharp lookout, the men would have put a boat over quietly -on one of those calm nights, and pulled away, leaving the captain and -me and the mad cook to work the schooner into harbour. We should have -done it somehow, of course, for we hadn't far to run if we could get a -breeze; and once or twice I found myself wishing that the crew were -really gone, for the awful state of fright in which they lived was -beginning to work on me too. You see I partly believed and partly -didn't; but, anyhow, I didn't mean to let the thing get the better of -me, whatever it was. I turned crusty, too, and kept the men at work on -all sorts of jobs, and drove them to it until they wished I was -overboard, too. It wasn't that the Old Man and I were trying to drive -them to desert without their pay, as I am sorry to say a good many -skippers and mates do, even now. Captain Hackstaff was as straight as a -string, and I didn't mean those poor fellows should be cheated out of a -single cent; and I didn't blame them for wanting to leave the ship, but -it seemed to me that the only chance to keep everybody sane through -those last days was to work the men till they dropped. When they were -dead tired they slept a little, and forgot the thing until they had to -tumble up on deck and face it again. That was a good many years ago. Do -you believe that I can't hear "Nancy Lee" now, without feeling cold down -my back? For I heard it, too, now and then, after the man had explained -why he was always looking over his shoulder. Perhaps it was -imagination. I don't know. When I look back it seems to me that I only -remember a long fight against something I couldn't see, against an -appalling presence, against something worse than cholera or Yellow Jack -or the plague--and, goodness knows, the mildest of them is bad enough -when it breaks out at sea. The men got as white as chalk, and wouldn't -go about decks alone at night, no matter what I said to them. With the -cook raving in his bunk, the forecastle would have been a perfect hell, -and there wasn't a spare cabin on board. There never is on a -fore-and-after. So I put him into mine, and he was more quiet there, and -at last fell into a sort of stupor as if he were going to die. I don't -know what became of him, for we put him ashore alive and left him in the -hospital. - -The men came aft in a body, quiet enough, and asked the captain if he -wouldn't pay them off, and let them go ashore. Some men wouldn't have -done it, for they had shipped for the voyage, and had signed articles. -But the captain knew that when sailors get an idea into their heads, -they're no better than children; and if he forced them to stay aboard, -he wouldn't get much work out of them, and couldn't rely on them in a -difficulty. So he paid them off, and let them go. When they had gone -forward to get their kits, he asked me whether I wanted to go, too, and -for a minute I had a sort of weak feeling that I might just as well. But -I didn't, and he was a good friend to me afterwards. Perhaps he was -grateful to me for sticking to him. - -When the men went off he didn't come on deck; but it was my duty to -stand by while they left the ship. They owed me a grudge for making them -work during the last few days, and most of them dropped into the boat -without so much as a word or a look, as sailors will. Jack Benton was -the last to go over the side, and he stood still a minute and looked at -me, and his white face twitched. I thought he wanted to say something. - -"Take care of yourself, Jack," said I. "So long!" - -It seemed as if he couldn't speak for two or three seconds; then his -words came thick. - -"It wasn't my fault, Mr. Torkeldsen. I swear it wasn't my fault!" - -That was all; and he dropped over the side, leaving me to wonder what he -meant. - -The captain and I stayed on board, and the ship-chandler got a West -India boy to cook for us. - -That evening, before turning in, we were standing by the rail having a -quiet smoke, watching the lights of the city, a quarter of a mile off, -reflected in the still water. There was music of some sort ashore, in a -sailors' dance-house, I daresay; and I had no doubt that most of the men -who had left the ship were there, and already full of jiggy-jiggy. The -music played a lot of sailors' tunes that ran into each other, and we -could hear the men's voices in the chorus now and then. One followed -another, and then it was "Nancy Lee," loud and clear, and the men -singing "Yo-ho, heave-ho!" - -"I have no ear for music," said Captain Hackstaff, "but it appears to me -that's the tune that man was whistling the night we lost the man -overboard. I don't know why it has stuck in my head, and of course it's -all nonsense; but it seems to me that I have heard it all the rest of -the trip." - -I didn't say anything to that, but I wondered just how much the Old Man -had understood. Then we turned in, and I slept ten hours without opening -my eyes. - -I stuck to the _Helen B. Jackson_ after that as long as I could stand a -fore-and-after; but that night when we lay in Havana was the last time I -ever heard "Nancy Lee" on board of her. The spare hand had gone ashore -with the rest, and he never came back, and he took his tune with him; -but all those things are just as clear in my memory as if they had -happened yesterday. - -After that I was in deep water for a year or more, and after I came home -I got my certificate, and what with having friends and having saved a -little money, and having had a small legacy from an uncle in Norway, I -got the command of a coastwise vessel, with a small share in her. I was -at home three weeks before going to sea, and Jack Benton saw my name in -the local papers, and wrote to me. - -He said that he had left the sea, and was trying farming, and he was -going to be married, and he asked if I wouldn't come over for that, for -it wasn't more than forty minutes by train; and he and Mamie would be -proud to have me at the wedding. I remembered how I had heard one -brother ask the other whether Mamie knew. That meant, whether she knew -he wanted to marry her, I suppose. She had taken her time about it, for -it was pretty nearly three years then since we had lost Jim Benton -overboard. - -I had nothing particular to do while we were getting ready for sea; -nothing to prevent me from going over for a day, I mean; and I thought -I'd like to see Jack Benton, and have a look at the girl he was going to -marry. I wondered whether he had grown cheerful again, and had got rid -of that drawn look he had when he told me it wasn't his fault. How could -it have been his fault, anyhow? So I wrote to Jack that I would come -down and see him married; and when the day came I took the train and -got there about ten o'clock in the morning. I wish I hadn't. Jack met me -at the station, and he told me that the wedding was to be late in the -afternoon, and that they weren't going off on any silly wedding trip, he -and Mamie, but were just going to walk home from her mother's house to -his cottage. That was good enough for him, he said. I looked at him hard -for a minute after we met. When we had parted I had a sort of idea that -he might take to drink, but he hadn't. He looked very respectable and -well-to-do in his black coat and high city collar; but he was thinner -and bonier than when I had known him, and there were lines in his face, -and I thought his eyes had a queer look in them, half shifty, half -scared. He needn't have been afraid of me, for I didn't mean to talk to -his bride about the _Helen B. Jackson._ - -He took me to his cottage first, and I could see that he was proud of -it. It wasn't above a cable's length from high-water mark, but the tide -was running out, and there was already a broad stretch of hard, wet sand -on the other side of the beach road. Jack's bit of land ran back behind -the cottage about a quarter of a mile, and he said that some of the -trees we saw were his. The fences were neat and well kept, and there was -a fair-sized barn a little way from the cottage, and I saw some -nice-looking cattle in the meadows; but it didn't look to me to be much -of a farm, and I thought that before long Jack would have to leave his -wife to take care of it, and go to sea again. But I said it was a nice -farm, so as to seem pleasant, and as I don't know much about these -things, I daresay it was, all the same. I never saw it but that once. -Jack told me that he and his brother had been born in the cottage, and -that when their father and mother died they leased the land to Mamie's -father, but had kept the cottage to live in when they came home from sea -for a spell. It was as neat a little place as you would care to see: the -floors as clean as the decks of a yacht, and the paint as fresh as a -man-o'-war. Jack always was a good painter. There was a nice parlour on -the ground floor, and Jack had papered it and had hung the walls with -photographs of ships and foreign ports, and with things he had brought -home from his voyages: a boomerang, a South Sea club, Japanese straw -hats, and a Gibraltar fan with a bull-fight on it, and all that sort of -gear. It looked to me as if Miss Mamie had taken a hand in arranging it. -There was a brand-new polished iron Franklin stove set into the old -fireplace, and a red table-cloth from Alexandria embroidered with those -outlandish Egyptian letters. It was all as bright and homelike as -possible, and he showed me everything, and was proud of everything, and -I liked him the better for it. But I wished that his voice would sound -more cheerful, as it did when we first sailed in the _Helen B._, and -that the drawn look would go out of his face for a minute. Jack showed -me everything, and took me upstairs, and it was all the same: bright and -fresh and ready for the bride. But on the upper landing there was a door -that Jack didn't open. When we came out of the bedroom I noticed that it -was ajar, and Jack shut it quickly and turned the key. - -"That lock's no good," he said, half to himself. "The door is always -open." - -I didn't pay much attention to what he said, but as we went down the -short stairs, freshly painted and varnished so that I was almost afraid -to step on them, he spoke again. - -"That was his room, sir. I have made a sort of store-room of it." - -"You may be wanting it in a year or so," I said, wishing to be pleasant. - -"I guess we won't use his room for that," Jack answered in a low voice. - -Then he offered me a cigar from a fresh box in the parlour, and he took -one, and we lit them, and went out; and as we opened the front door -there was Mamie Brewster standing in the path as if she were waiting for -us. She was a fine-looking girl, and I didn't wonder that Jack had been -willing to wait three years for her. I could see that she hadn't been -brought up on steam-heat and cold storage, but had grown into a woman by -the sea-shore. She had brown eyes, and fine brown hair, and a good -figure. - -"This is Captain Torkeldsen," said Jack. "This is Miss Brewster, -captain; and she is glad to see you." - -"Well, I am," said Miss Mamie, "for Jack has often talked to us about -you, captain." - -She put out her hand, and took mine and shook it heartily, and I suppose -I said something, but I know I didn't say much. - -The front door of the cottage looked toward the sea, and there was a -straight path leading to the gate on the beach road. There was another -path from the steps of the cottage that turned to the right, broad -enough for two people to walk easily, and it led straight across the -fields through gates to a larger house about a quarter of a mile away. -That was where Mamie's mother lived, and the wedding was to be there. -Jack asked me whether I would like to look round the farm before dinner, -but I told him I didn't know much about farms. Then he said he just -wanted to look round himself a bit, as he mightn't have much more chance -that day; and he smiled, and Mamie laughed. - -"Show the captain the way to the house, Mamie," he said. "I'll be along -in a minute." - -So Mamie and I began to walk along the path, and Jack went up toward the -barn. - -"It was sweet of you to come, captain," Miss Mamie began, "for I have -always wanted to see you." - -"Yes," I said, expecting something more. - -"You see, I always knew them both," she went on. "They used to take me -out in a dory to catch codfish when I was a little girl, and I liked -them both," she added thoughtfully. "Jack doesn't care to talk about his -brother now. That's natural. But you won't mind telling me how it -happened, will you? I should so much like to know." - -Well, I told her about the voyage and what happened that night when we -fell in with a gale of wind, and that it hadn't been anybody's fault, -for I wasn't going to admit that it was my old captain's, if it was. But -I didn't tell her anything about what happened afterwards. As she didn't -speak, I just went on talking about the two brothers, and how like they -had been, and how when poor Jim was drowned and Jack was left, I took -Jack for him. I told her that none of us had ever been sure which was -which. - -"I wasn't always sure myself," she said, "unless they were together. -Leastways, not for a day or two after they came home from sea. And now -it seems to me that Jack is more like poor Jim, as I remember him, than -he ever was, for Jim was always more quiet, as if he were thinking." - -I told her I thought so, too. We passed the gate and went into the next -field, walking side by side. Then she turned her head to look for Jack, -but he wasn't in sight. I shan't forget what she said next. - -"Are you sure now?" she asked. - -I stood stock-still, and she went on a step, and then turned and looked -at me. We must have looked at each other while you could count five or -six. - -"I know it's silly," she went on, "it's silly, and it's awful, too, and -I have got no right to think it, but sometimes I can't help it. You see -it was always Jack I meant to marry." - -"Yes," I said stupidly, "I suppose so." - -She waited a minute, and began walking on slowly before she went on -again. - -"I am talking to you as if you were an old friend, captain, and I have -only known you five minutes. It was Jack I meant to marry, but now he is -so like the other one." - -When a woman gets a wrong idea into her head, there is only one way to -make her tired of it, and that is to agree with her. That's what I did, -and she went on talking the same way for a little while, and I kept on -agreeing and agreeing until she turned round on me. - -"You know you don't believe what you say," she said, and laughed. "You -know that Jack is Jack, right enough; and it's Jack I am going to -marry." - -Of course I said so, for I didn't care whether she thought me a weak -creature or not. I wasn't going to say a word that could interfere with -her happiness, and I didn't intend to go back on Jack Benton; but I -remembered what he had said when he left the ship in Havana: that it -wasn't his fault. - -"All the same," Miss Mamie went on, as a woman will, without realising -what she was saying, "all the same, I wish I had seen it happen. Then I -should know." - -Next minute she knew that she didn't mean that, and was afraid that I -would think her heartless, and began to explain that she would really -rather have died herself than have seen poor Jim go overboard. Women -haven't got much sense, anyhow. All the same, I wondered how she could -marry Jack if she had a doubt that he might be Jim after all. I suppose -she had really got used to him since he had given up the sea and had -stayed ashore, and she cared for him. - -Before long we heard Jack coming up behind us, for we had walked very -slowly to wait for him. - -"Promise not to tell anybody what I said, captain," said Mamie, as girls -do as soon as they have told their secrets. - -Anyhow, I know I never did tell any one but you. This is the first time -I have talked of all that, the first time since I took the train from -that place. I am not going to tell you all about the day. Miss Mamie -introduced me to her mother, who was a quiet, hard-faced old New England -farmer's widow, and to her cousins and relations; and there were plenty -of them, too, at dinner, and there was the parson besides. He was what -they call a Hard-shell Baptist in those parts, with a long, shaven upper -lip and a whacking appetite, and a sort of superior look, as if he -didn't expect to see many of us hereafter--the way a New York pilot -looks round, and orders things about when he boards an Italian -cargo-dragger, as if the ship weren't up to much anyway, though it was -his business to see that she didn't get aground. That's the way a good -many parsons look, I think. He said grace as if he were ordering the men -to sheet home the topgallant-sail and get the helm up. After dinner we -went out on the piazza, for it was warm autumn weather; and the young -folks went off in pairs along the beach road, and the tide had turned -and was beginning to come in. The morning had been clear and fine, but -by four o'clock it began to look like a fog, and the damp came up out of -the sea and settled on everything. Jack said he'd go down to his cottage -and have a last look, for the wedding was to be at five o'clock, or soon -after, and he wanted to light the lights, so as to have things look -cheerful. - -"I will just take a last look," he said again, as we reached the house. -We went in, and he offered me another cigar, and I lit it and sat down -in the parlour. I could hear him moving about, first in the kitchen and -then upstairs, and then I heard him in the kitchen again; and then -before I knew anything I heard somebody moving upstairs again. I knew he -couldn't have got up those stairs as quick as that. He came into the -parlour, and he took a cigar himself, and while he was lighting it I -heard those steps again overhead. His hand shook, and he dropped the -match. - -"Have you got in somebody to help?" I asked. - -"No," Jack answered sharply, and struck another match. - -"There's somebody upstairs, Jack," I said. "Don't you hear footsteps?" - -"It's the wind, captain," Jack answered; but I could see he was -trembling. - -"That isn't any wind, Jack," I said; "it's still and foggy. I'm sure -there's somebody upstairs." - -"If you are so sure of it, you'd better go and see for yourself, -captain," Jack answered, almost angrily. - -He was angry because he was frightened. I left him before the fireplace, -and went upstairs. There was no power on earth that could make me -believe I hadn't heard a man's footsteps overhead. I knew there was -somebody there. But there wasn't. I went into the bedroom, and it was -all quiet, and the evening light was streaming in, reddish through the -foggy air; and I went out on the landing and looked in the little back -room that was meant for a servant-girl or a child. And as I came back -again I saw that the door of the other room was wide open, though I knew -Jack had locked it. He had said the lock was no good. I looked in. It -was a room as big as the bedroom, but almost dark, for it had shutters, -and they were closed. There was a musty smell, as of old gear, and I -could make out that the floor was littered with sea-chests, and that -there were oilskins and such stuff piled on the bed. But I still -believed that there was somebody upstairs, and I went in and struck a -match and looked round. I could see the four walls and the shabby old -paper, an iron bed and a cracked looking-glass, and the stuff on the -floor. But there was nobody there. So I put out the match, and came out -and shut the door and turned the key. Now, what I am telling you is the -truth. When I had turned the key, I heard footsteps walking away from -the door inside the room. Then I felt queer for a minute, and when I -went downstairs I looked behind me, as the men at the wheel used to look -behind them on board the _Helen B._ - -Jack was already outside on the steps, smoking. I have an idea that he -didn't like to stay inside alone. - -"Well?" he asked, trying to seem careless. - -"I didn't find anybody," I answered, "but I heard somebody moving -about." - -"I told you it was the wind," said Jack contemptuously. "I ought to -know, for I live here, and I hear it often." - -There was nothing to be said to that, so we began to walk down toward -the beach. Jack said there wasn't any hurry, as it would take Miss Mamie -some time to dress for the wedding. So we strolled along, and the sun -was setting through the fog, and the tide was coming in. I knew the -moon was full, and that when she rose the fog would roll away from the -land, as it does sometimes. I felt that Jack didn't like my having heard -that noise, so I talked of other things, and asked him about his -prospects, and before long we were chatting as pleasantly as possible. - -I haven't been at many weddings in my life, and I don't suppose you -have, but that one seemed to me to be all right until it was pretty near -over; and then, I don't know whether it was part of the ceremony or not, -but Jack put out his hand and took Mamie's and held it a minute, and -looked at her, while the parson was still speaking. - -Mamie turned as white as a sheet and screamed. It wasn't a loud scream, -but just a sort of stifled little shriek, as if she were half frightened -to death; and the parson stopped, and asked her what was the matter, and -the family gathered round. - -"Your hand's like ice," said Mamie to Jack, "and it's all wet!" - -She kept looking at it, as she got hold of herself again. - -"It don't feel cold to me," said Jack, and he held the back of his hand -against his cheek. "Try it again." - -Mamie held out hers, and touched the back of his hand, timidly at -first, and then took hold of it. - -"Why, that's funny," she said. - -"She's been as nervous as a witch all day," said Mrs. Brewster severely. - -"It is natural," said the parson, "that young Mrs. Benton should -experience a little agitation at such a moment." - -Most of the bride's relations lived at a distance, and were busy people, -so it had been arranged that the dinner we'd had in the middle of the -day was to take the place of a dinner afterwards, and that we should -just have a bite after the wedding was over, and then that everybody -should go home, and the young couple would walk down to the cottage by -themselves. When I looked out I could see the light burning brightly in -Jack's cottage, a quarter of a mile away. I said I didn't think I could -get any train to take me back before half-past nine, but Mrs. Brewster -begged me to stay until it was time, as she said her daughter would want -to take off her wedding dress before she went home; for she had put on -something white with a wreath that was very pretty, and she couldn't -walk home like that, could she? - -So when we had all had a little supper the party began to break up, and -when they were all gone Mrs. Brewster and Mamie went upstairs, and Jack -and I went out on the piazza to have a smoke, as the old lady didn't -like tobacco in the house. - -The full moon had risen now, and it was behind me as I looked down -toward Jack's cottage, so that everything was clear and white, and there -was only the light burning in the window. The fog had rolled down to the -water's edge, and a little beyond, for the tide was high, or nearly, and -was lapping up over the last reach of sand within fifty feet of the -beach road. - -Jack didn't say much as we sat smoking, but he thanked me for coming to -his wedding, and I told him I hoped he would be happy, and so I did. I -daresay both of us were thinking of those footsteps upstairs, just then, -and that the house wouldn't seem so lonely with a woman in it. By and by -we heard Mamie's voice talking to her mother on the stairs, and in a -minute she was ready to go. She had put on again the dress she had worn -in the morning. - -Well, they were ready to go now. It was all very quiet after the day's -excitement, and I knew they would like to walk down that path alone now -that they were man and wife at last. I bade them good-night, although -Jack made a show of pressing me to go with them by the path as far as -the cottage, instead of going to the station by the beach road. It was -all very quiet, and it seemed to me a sensible way of getting married; -and when Mamie kissed her mother good-night, I just looked the other -way, and knocked my ashes over the rail of the piazza. So they started -down the straight path to Jack's cottage, and I waited a minute with -Mrs. Brewster, looking after them, before taking my hat to go. They -walked side by side, a little shyly at first, and then I saw Jack put -his arm round her waist. As I looked he was on her left and I saw the -outline of the two figures very distinctly against the moonlight on the -path; and the shadow on Mamie's right was broad and black as ink, and it -moved along, lengthening and shortening with the unevenness of the -ground beside the path. - -I thanked Mrs. Brewster, and bade her good-night; and though she was a -hard New England woman, her voice trembled a little as she answered, but -being a sensible person, she went in and shut the door behind her as I -stepped out on the path. I looked after the couple in the distance a -last time, meaning to go down to the road, so as not to overtake them; -but when I had made a few steps I stopped and looked again, for I knew I -had seen something queer, though I had only realised it afterwards. I -looked again, and it was plain enough now; and I stood stock-still, -staring at what I saw. Mamie was walking between two men. The second man -was just the same height as Jack, both being about a half a head taller -than she; Jack on her left in his black tail-coat and round hat, and the -other man on her right--well, he was a sailor-man in wet oilskins. I -could see the moonlight shining on the water that ran down him, and on -the little puddle that had settled where the flap of his sou'wester was -turned up behind: and one of his wet, shiny arms was round Mamie's -waist, just above Jack's. I was fast to the spot where I stood, and for -a minute I thought I was crazy. We'd had nothing but some cider for -dinner, and tea in the evening, otherwise I'd have thought something had -got into my head, though I was never drunk in my life. It was more like -a bad dream after that. - -I was glad Mrs. Brewster had gone in. As for me, I couldn't help -following the three, in a sort of wonder to see what would happen, to -see whether the sailor-man in his wet togs would just melt away into the -moonshine. But he didn't. - -I moved slowly, and I remembered afterwards that I walked on the grass, -instead of on the path, as if I were afraid they might hear me coming. I -suppose it all happened in less than five minutes after that, but it -seemed as if it must have taken an hour. Neither Jack nor Mamie seemed -to notice the sailor. She didn't seem to know that his wet arm was round -her, and little by little they got near the cottage, and I wasn't a -hundred yards from them when they reached the door. Something made me -stand still then. Perhaps it was fright, for I saw everything that -happened just as I see you now. - -Mamie set her foot on the step to go up, and as she went forward, I saw -the sailor slowly lock his arm in Jack's, and Jack didn't move to go up. -Then Mamie turned round on the step, and they all three stood that way -for a second or two. She cried out then--I heard a man cry like that -once, when his arm was taken off by a steam-crane--and she fell back in -a heap on the little piazza. - -I tried to jump forward, but I couldn't move, and I felt my hair rising -under my hat. The sailor turned slowly where he stood, and swung Jack -round by the arm steadily and easily, and began to walk him down the -pathway from the house. He walked him straight down that path, as -steadily as Fate; and all the time I saw the moonlight shining on his -wet oilskins. He walked him through the gate, and across the beach road, -and out upon the wet sand, where the tide was high. Then I got my breath -with a gulp, and ran for them across the grass, and vaulted over the -fence, and stumbled across the road. But when I felt the sand under my -feet, the two were at the water's edge; and when I reached the water -they were far out, and up to their waists; and I saw that Jack Benton's -head had fallen forward on his breast, and his free arm hung limp beside -him, while his dead brother steadily marched him to his death. The -moonlight was on the dark water, but the fog-bank was white beyond, and -I saw them against it; and they went slowly and steadily down. The water -was up to their armpits, and then up to their shoulders, and then I saw -it rise up to the black rim of Jack's hat. But they never wavered; and -the two heads went straight on, straight on, till they were under, and -there was just a ripple in the moonlight where Jack had been. - -It has been on my mind to tell you that story, whenever I got a chance. -You have known me, man and boy, a good many years; and I thought I would -like to hear your opinion. Yes, that's what I always thought. It wasn't -Jim that went overboard; it was Jack, and Jim just let him go when he -might have saved him; and then Jim passed himself off for Jack with us, -and with the girl. If that's what happened, he got what he deserved. -People said the next day that Mamie found it out as they reached the -house, and that her husband just walked out into the sea, and drowned -himself; and they would have blamed me for not stopping him if they'd -known that I was there. But I never told what I had seen, for they -wouldn't have believed me. I just let them think I had come too late. - -When I reached the cottage and lifted Mamie up, she was raving mad. She -got better afterwards, but she was never right in her head again. - -Oh, you want to know if they found Jack's body? I don't know whether it -was his, but I read in a paper at a Southern port where I was with my -new ship that two dead bodies had come ashore in a gale down East, in -pretty bad shape. They were locked together, and one was a skeleton in -oilskins. - - - - -FOR THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE - - -We had dined at sunset on the broad roof of the old tower, because it -was cooler there during the great heat of summer. Besides, the little -kitchen was built at one corner of the great square platform, which made -it more convenient than if the dishes had to be carried down the steep -stone steps, broken in places and everywhere worn with age. The tower -was one of those built all down the west coast of Calabria by the -Emperor Charles V. early in the sixteenth century, to keep off the -Barbary pirates, when the unbelievers were allied with Francis I. -against the Emperor and the Church. They have gone to ruin, a few still -stand intact, and mine is one of the largest. How it came into my -possession ten years ago, and why I spend a part of each year in it, are -matters which do not concern this tale. The tower stands in one of the -loneliest spots in Southern Italy, at the extremity of a curving rocky -promontory, which forms a small but safe natural harbour at the southern -extremity of the Gulf of Policastro, and just north of Cape Scalea, the -birthplace of Judas Iscariot, according to the old local legend. The -tower stands alone on this hooked spur of the rock, and there is not a -house to be seen within three miles of it. When I go there I take a -couple of sailors, one of whom is a fair cook, and when I am away it is -in charge of a gnome-like little being who was once a miner and who -attached himself to me long ago. - -My friend, who sometimes visits me in my summer solitude, is an artist -by profession, a Scandinavian by birth, and a cosmopolitan by force of -circumstances. We had dined at sunset; the sunset glow had reddened and -faded again, and the evening purple steeped the vast chain of the -mountains that embrace the deep gulf to eastward and rear themselves -higher and higher toward the south. It was hot, and we sat at the -landward corner of the platform, waiting for the night breeze to come -down from the lower hills. The colour sank out of the air, there was a -little interval of deep-grey twilight, and a lamp sent a yellow streak -from the open door of the kitchen, where the men were getting their -supper. - -Then the moon rose suddenly above the crest of the promontory, flooding -the platform and lighting up every little spur of rock and knoll of -grass below us, down to the edge of the motionless water. My friend -lighted his pipe and sat looking at a spot on the hillside. I knew that -he was looking at it, and for a long time past I had wondered whether he -would ever see anything there that would fix his attention. I knew that -spot well. It was clear that he was interested at last, though it was a -long time before he spoke. Like most painters, he trusts to his own -eyesight, as a lion trusts his strength and a stag his speed, and he is -always disturbed when he cannot reconcile what he sees with what he -believes that he ought to see. - -"It's strange," he said. "Do you see that little mound just on this side -of the boulder?" - -"Yes," I said, and I guessed what was coming. - -"It looks like a grave," observed Holger. - -"Very true. It does look like a grave." - -"Yes," continued my friend, his eyes still fixed on the spot. "But the -strange thing is that I see the body lying on the top of it. Of course," -continued Holger, turning his head on one side as artists do, "it must -be an effect of light. In the first place, it is not a grave at all. -Secondly, if it were, the body would be inside and not outside. -Therefore, it's an effect of the moonlight. Don't you see it?" - -"Perfectly; I always see it on moonlight nights." - -"It doesn't seem to interest you much," said Holger. - -"On the contrary, it does interest me, though I am used to it. You're -not so far wrong, either. The mound is really a grave." - -"Nonsense!" cried Holger, incredulously. "I suppose you'll tell me what -I see lying on it is really a corpse!" - -"No," I answered, "it's not. I know, because I have taken the trouble to -go down and see." - -"Then what is it?" asked Holger. - -"It's nothing." - -"You mean that it's an effect of light, I suppose?" - -"Perhaps it is. But the inexplicable part of the matter is that it makes -no difference whether the moon is rising or setting, or waxing or -waning. If there's any moonlight at all, from east or west or overhead, -so long as it shines on the grave you can see the outline of the body on -top." - -Holger stirred up his pipe with the point of his knife, and then used -his finger for a stopper. When the tobacco burned well he rose from his -chair. - -"If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go down and take a look at it." - -He left me, crossed the roof, and disappeared down the dark steps. I did -not move, but sat looking down until he came out of the tower below. I -heard him humming an old Danish song as he crossed the open space in the -bright moonlight, going straight to the mysterious mound. When he was -ten paces from it, Holger stopped short, made two steps forward, and -then three or four backward, and then stopped again. I know what that -meant. He had reached the spot where the Thing ceased to be -visible--where, as he would have said, the effect of light changed. - -Then he went on till he reached the mound and stood upon it. I could see -the Thing still, but it was no longer lying down; it was on its knees -now, winding its white arms round Holger's body and looking up into his -face. A cool breeze stirred my hair at that moment, as the night wind -began to come down from the hills, but it felt like a breath from -another world. - -The Thing seemed to be trying to climb to its feet, helping itself up by -Holger's body while he stood upright, quite unconscious of it and -apparently looking toward the tower, which is very picturesque when the -moonlight falls upon it on that side. - -"Come along!" I shouted. "Don't stay there all night!" - -It seemed to me that he moved reluctantly as he stepped from the mound, -or else with difficulty. That was it. The Thing's arms were still round -his waist, but its feet could not leave the grave. As he came slowly -forward it was drawn and lengthened like a wreath of mist, thin and -white, till I saw distinctly that Holger shook himself, as a man does -who feels a chill. At the same instant a little wail of pain came to me -on the breeze--it might have been the cry of the small owl that lives -among the rocks--and the misty presence floated swiftly back from -Holger's advancing figure and lay once more at its length upon the -mound. - -Again I felt the cool breeze in my hair, and this time an icy thrill of -dread ran down my spine. I remembered very well that I had once gone -down there alone in the moonlight; that presently, being near, I had -seen nothing; that, like Holger, I had gone and had stood upon the -mound; and I remembered how, when I came back, sure that there was -nothing there, I had felt the sudden conviction that there was something -after all if I would only look behind me. I remembered the strong -temptation to look back, a temptation I had resisted as unworthy of a -man of sense, until, to get rid of it, I had shaken myself just as -Holger did. - -And now I knew that those white, misty arms had been round me too; I -knew it in a flash, and I shuddered as I remembered that I had heard the -night owl then too. But it had not been the night owl. It was the cry of -the Thing. - -I refilled my pipe and poured out a cup of strong southern wine; in less -than a minute Holger was seated beside me again. - -"Of course there's nothing there," he said, "but it's creepy, all the -same. Do you know, when I was coming back I was so sure that there was -something behind me that I wanted to turn round and look? It was an -effort not to." - -He laughed a little, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and poured -himself out some wine. For a while neither of us spoke, and the moon -rose higher, and we both looked at the Thing that lay on the mound. - -"You might make a story about that," said Holger after a long time. - -"There is one," I answered. "If you're not sleepy, I'll tell it to you." - -"Go ahead," said Holger, who likes stories. - - * * * * * - -Old Alario was dying up there in the village behind the hill. You -remember him, I have no doubt. They say that he made his money by -selling sham jewellery in South America, and escaped with his gains when -he was found out. Like all those fellows, if they bring anything back -with them, he at once set to work to enlarge his house, and as there are -no masons here, he sent all the way to Paola for two workmen. They were -a rough-looking pair of scoundrels--a Neapolitan who had lost one eye -and a Sicilian with an old scar half an inch deep across his left cheek. -I often saw them, for on Sundays they used to come down here and fish -off the rocks. When Alario caught the fever that killed him the masons -were still at work. As he had agreed that part of their pay should be -their board and lodging, he made them sleep in the house. His wife was -dead, and he had an only son called Angelo, who was a much better sort -than himself. Angelo was to marry the daughter of the richest man in the -village, and, strange to say, though the marriage was arranged by their -parents, the young people were said to be in love with each other. - -For that matter, the whole village was in love with Angelo, and among -the rest a wild, good-looking creature called Cristina, who was more -like a gipsy than any girl I ever saw about here. She had very red lips -and very black eyes, she was built like a greyhound, and had the tongue -of the devil. But Angelo did not care a straw for her. He was rather a -simple-minded fellow, quite different from his old scoundrel of a -father, and under what I should call normal circumstances I really -believe that he would never have looked at any girl except the nice -plump little creature, with a fat dowry, whom his father meant him to -marry. But things turned up which were neither normal nor natural. - -On the other hand, a very handsome young shepherd from the hills above -Maratea was in love with Cristina, who seems to have been quite -indifferent to him. Cristina had no regular means of subsistence, but -she was a good girl and willing to do any work or go on errands to any -distance for the sake of a loaf of bread or a mess of beans, and -permission to sleep under cover. She was especially glad when she could -get something to do about the house of Angelo's father. There is no -doctor in the village, and when the neighbours saw that old Alario was -dying they sent Cristina to Scalea to fetch one. That was late in the -afternoon, and if they had waited so long, it was because the dying -miser refused to allow any such extravagance while he was able to speak. -But while Cristina was gone matters grew rapidly worse, the priest was -brought to the bedside, and when he had done what he could he gave it as -his opinion to the bystanders that the old man was dead, and left the -house. - -You know these people. They have a physical horror of death. Until the -priest spoke, the room had been full of people. The words were hardly -out of his mouth before it was empty. It was night now. They hurried -down the dark steps and out into the street. - -Angelo, as I have said, was away, Cristina had not come back--the simple -woman-servant who had nursed the sick man fled with the rest, and the -body was left alone in the flickering light of the earthen oil lamp. - -Five minutes later two men looked in cautiously and crept forward toward -the bed. They were the one-eyed Neapolitan mason and his Sicilian -companion. They knew what they wanted. In a moment they had dragged from -under the bed a small but heavy iron-bound box, and long before any one -thought of coming back to the dead man they had left the house and the -village under cover of the darkness. It was easy enough, for Alario's -house is the last toward the gorge which leads down here, and the -thieves merely went out by the back door, got over the stone wall, and -had nothing to risk after that except the possibility of meeting some -belated countryman, which was very small indeed, since few of the people -use that path. They had a mattock and shovel, and they made their way -here without accident. - -I am telling you this story as it must have happened, for, of course, -there were no witnesses to this part of it. The men brought the box down -by the gorge, intending to bury it until they should be able to come -back and take it away in a boat. They must have been clever enough to -guess that some of the money would be in paper notes, for they would -otherwise have buried it on the beach in the wet sand, where it would -have been much safer. But the paper would have rotted if they had been -obliged to leave it there long, so they dug their hole down there, close -to that boulder. Yes, just where the mound is now. - -Cristina did not find the doctor in Scalea, for he had been sent for -from a place up the valley, halfway to San Domenico. If she had found -him, he would have come on his mule by the upper road, which is smoother -but much longer. But Cristina took the short cut by the rocks, which -passes about fifty feet above the mound, and goes round that corner. The -men were digging when she passed, and she heard them at work. It would -not have been like her to go by without finding out what the noise was, -for she was never afraid of anything in her life, and, besides, the -fishermen sometimes come ashore here at night to get a stone for an -anchor or to gather sticks to make a little fire. The night was dark, -and Cristina probably came close to the two men before she could see -what they were doing. She knew them, of course, and they knew her, and -understood instantly that they were in her power. There was only one -thing to be done for their safety, and they did it. They knocked her on -the head, they dug the hole deep, and they buried her quickly with the -iron-bound chest. They must have understood that their only chance of -escaping suspicion lay in getting back to the village before their -absence was noticed, for they returned immediately, and were found half -an hour later gossiping quietly with the man who was making Alario's -coffin. He was a crony of theirs, and had been working at the repairs in -the old man's house. So far as I have been able to make out, the only -persons who were supposed to know where Alario kept his treasure were -Angelo and the one woman-servant I have mentioned. Angelo was away; it -was the woman who discovered the theft. - -It is easy enough to understand why no one else knew where the money -was. The old man kept his door locked and the key in his pocket when he -was out, and did not let the woman enter to clean the place unless he -was there himself. The whole village knew that he had money somewhere, -however, and the masons had probably discovered the whereabouts of the -chest by climbing in at the window in his absence. If the old man had -not been delirious until he lost consciousness, he would have been in -frightful agony of mind for his riches. The faithful woman-servant -forgot their existence only for a few moments when she fled with the -rest, overcome by the horror of death. Twenty minutes had not passed -before she returned with the two hideous old hags who are always called -in to prepare the dead for burial. Even then she had not at first the -courage to go near the bed with them, but she made a pretence of -dropping something, went down on her knees as if to find it, and looked -under the bedstead. The walls of the room were newly whitewashed down to -the floor, and she saw at a glance that the chest was gone. It had been -there in the afternoon, it had therefore been stolen in the short -interval since she had left the room. - -There are no carabineers stationed in the village; there is not so much -as a municipal watchman, for there is no municipality. There never was -such a place, I believe. Scalea is supposed to look after it in some -mysterious way, and it takes a couple of hours to get anybody from -there. As the old woman had lived in the village all her life, it did -not even occur to her to apply to any civil authority for help. She -simply set up a howl and ran through the village in the dark, screaming -out that her dead master's house had been robbed. Many of the people -looked out, but at first no one seemed inclined to help her. Most of -them, judging her by themselves, whispered to each other that she had -probably stolen the money herself. The first man to move was the father -of the girl whom Angelo was to marry; having collected his household, -all of whom felt a personal interest in the wealth which was to have -come into the family, he declared it to be his opinion that the chest -had been stolen by the two journeyman masons who lodged in the house. He -headed a search for them, which naturally began in Alario's house and -ended in the carpenter's workshop, where the thieves were found -discussing a measure of wine with the carpenter over the half-finished -coffin, by the light of one earthen lamp filled with oil and tallow. The -search party at once accused the delinquents of the crime, and -threatened to lock them up in the cellar till the carabineers could be -fetched from Scalea. The two men looked at each other for one moment, -and then without the slightest hesitation they put out the single light, -seized the unfinished coffin between them, and using it as a sort of -battering ram, dashed upon their assailants in the dark. In a few -moments they were beyond pursuit. - -That is the end of the first part of the story. The treasure had -disappeared, and as no trace of it could be found the people naturally -supposed that the thieves had succeeded in carrying it off. The old man -was buried, and when Angelo came back at last he had to borrow money to -pay for the miserable funeral, and had some difficulty in doing so. He -hardly needed to be told that in losing his inheritance he had lost his -bride. In this part of the world marriages are made on strictly -business principles, and if the promised cash is not forthcoming on the -appointed day the bride or the bridegroom whose parents have failed to -produce it may as well take themselves off, for there will be no -wedding. Poor Angelo knew that well enough. His father had been -possessed of hardly any land, and now that the hard cash which he had -brought from South America was gone, there was nothing left but debts -for the building materials that were to have been used for enlarging and -improving the old house. Angelo was beggared, and the nice plump little -creature who was to have been his turned up her nose at him in the most -approved fashion. As for Cristina, it was several days before she was -missed, for no one remembered that she had been sent to Scalea for the -doctor, who had never come. She often disappeared in the same way for -days together, when she could find a little work here and there at the -distant farms among the hills. But when she did not come back at all, -people began to wonder, and at last made up their minds that she had -connived with the masons and had escaped with them. - - * * * * * - -_I paused and emptied my glass._ - -_"That sort of thing could not happen anywhere else," observed Holger, -filling his everlasting pipe again. "It is wonderful what a natural -charm there is about murder and sudden death in a romantic country like -this. Deeds that would be simply brutal and disgusting anywhere else -become dramatic and mysterious because this is Italy and we are living -in a genuine tower of Charles V. built against genuine Barbary -pirates."_ - -_"There's something in that" I admitted. Holger is the most romantic man -in the world inside of himself, but he always thinks it necessary to -explain why he feels anything._ - -_"I suppose they found the poor girl's body with the box," he said -presently._ - -_"As it seems to interest you," I answered, "I'll tell you the rest of -the story."_ - -_The moon had risen high by this time; the outline of the Thing on the -mound was clearer to our eyes than before._ - - * * * * * - -The village very soon settled down to its small, dull life. No one -missed old Alario, who had been away so much on his voyages to South -America that he had never been a familiar figure in his native place. -Angelo lived in the half-finished house, and because he had no money to -pay the old woman-servant she would not stay with him, but once in a -long time she would come and wash a shirt for him for old acquaintance' -sake. Besides the house, he had inherited a small patch of ground at -some distance from the village; he tried to cultivate it, but he had no -heart in the work, for he knew he could never pay the taxes on it and on -the house, which would certainly be confiscated by the Government, or -seized for the debt of the building material, which the man who had -supplied it refused to take back. - -Angelo was very unhappy. So long as his father had been alive and rich, -every girl in the village had been in love with him; but that was all -changed now. It had been pleasant to be admired and courted, and invited -to drink wine by fathers who had girls to marry. It was hard to be -stared at coldly, and sometimes laughed at because he had been robbed of -his inheritance. He cooked his miserable meals for himself, and from -being sad became melancholy and morose. - -At twilight, when the day's work was done, instead of hanging about in -the open space before the church with young fellows of his own age, he -took to wandering in lonely places on the outskirts of the village till -it was quite dark. Then he slunk home and went to bed to save the -expense of a light. But in those lonely twilight hours he began to have -strange waking dreams. He was not always alone, for often when he sat on -the stump of a tree, where the narrow path turns down the gorge, he was -sure that a woman came up noiselessly over the rough stones, as if her -feet were bare; and she stood under a clump of chestnut trees only half -a dozen yards down the path, and beckoned to him without speaking. -Though she was in the shadow he knew that her lips were red, and that -when they parted a little and smiled at him she showed two small sharp -teeth. He knew this at first rather than saw it, and he knew that it was -Cristina, and that she was dead. Yet he was not afraid; he only wondered -whether it was a dream, for he thought that if he had been awake he -should have been frightened. - -Besides, the dead woman had red lips, and that could only happen in a -dream. Whenever he went near the gorge after sunset she was already -there waiting for him, or else she very soon appeared, and he began to -be sure that she came a little nearer to him every day. At first he had -only been sure of her blood-red mouth, but now each feature grew -distinct, and the pale face looked at him with deep and hungry eyes. - -It was the eyes that grew dim. Little by little he came to know that -some day the dream would not end when he turned away to go home, but -would lead him down the gorge out of which the vision rose. She was -nearer now when she beckoned to him. Her cheeks were not livid like -those of the dead, but pale with starvation, with the furious and -unappeased physical hunger of her eyes that devoured him. They feasted -on his soul and cast a spell over him, and at last they were close to -his own and held him. He could not tell whether her breath was as hot as -fire or as cold as ice; he could not tell whether her red lips burned -his or froze them, or whether her five fingers on his wrists seared -scorching scars or bit his flesh like frost; he could not tell whether -he was awake or asleep, whether she was alive or dead, but he knew that -she loved him, she alone of all creatures, earthly or unearthly, and her -spell had power over him. - -When the moon rose high that night the shadow of that Thing was not -alone down there upon the mound. - -Angelo awoke in the cool dawn, drenched with dew and chilled through -flesh, and blood, and bone. He opened his eyes to the faint grey light, -and saw the stars still shining overhead. He was very weak, and his -heart was beating so slowly that he was almost like a man fainting. -Slowly he turned his head on the mound, as on a pillow, but the other -face was not there. Fear seized him suddenly, a fear unspeakable and -unknown; he sprang to his feet and fled up the gorge, and he never -looked behind him until he reached the door of the house on the -outskirts of the village. Drearily he went to his work that day, and -wearily the hours dragged themselves after the sun, till at last he -touched the sea and sank, and the great sharp hills above Maratea turned -purple against the dove-coloured eastern sky. - -Angelo shouldered his heavy hoe and left the field. He felt less tired -now than in the morning when he had begun to work, but he promised -himself that he would go home without lingering by the gorge, and eat -the best supper he could get himself, and sleep all night in his bed -like a Christian man. Not again would he be tempted down the narrow way -by a shadow with red lips and icy breath; not again would he dream that -dream of terror and delight. He was near the village now; it was half an -hour since the sun had set, and the cracked church bell sent little -discordant echoes across the rocks and ravines to tell all good people -that the day was done. Angelo stood still a moment where the path -forked, where it led toward the village on the left, and down to the -gorge on the right, where a clump of chestnut trees overhung the narrow -way. He stood still a minute, lifting his battered hat from his head and -gazing at the fast-fading sea westward, and his lips moved as he -silently repeated the familiar evening prayer. His lips moved, but the -words that followed them in his brain lost their meaning and turned into -others, and ended in a name that he spoke aloud--Cristina! With the -name, the tension of his will relaxed suddenly, reality went out and the -dream took him again, and bore him on swiftly and surely like a man -walking in his sleep, down, down, by the steep path in the gathering -darkness. And as she glided beside him, Cristina whispered strange, -sweet things in his ear, which somehow, if he had been awake, he knew -that he could not quite have understood; but now they were the most -wonderful words he had ever heard in his life. And she kissed him also, -but not upon his mouth. He felt her sharp kisses upon his white throat, -and he knew that her lips were red. So the wild dream sped on through -twilight and darkness and moonrise, and all the glory of the summer's -night. But in the chilly dawn he lay as one half dead upon the mound -down there, recalling and not recalling, drained of his blood, yet -strangely longing to give those red lips more. Then came the fear, the -awful nameless panic, the mortal horror that guards the confines of the -world we see not, neither know of as we know of other things, but which -we feel when its icy chill freezes our bones and stirs our hair with the -touch of a ghostly hand. Once more Angelo sprang from the mound and -fled up the gorge in the breaking day, but his step was less sure this -time, and he panted for breath as he ran; and when he came to the bright -spring of water that rises halfway up the hillside, he dropped upon his -knees and hands and plunged his whole face in and drank as he had never -drunk before--for it was the thirst of the wounded man who has lain -bleeding all night long upon the battle-field. - -She had him fast now, and he could not escape her, but would come to her -every evening at dusk until she had drained him of his last drop of -blood. It was in vain that when the day was done he tried to take -another turning and to go home by a path that did not lead near the -gorge. It was in vain that he made promises to himself each morning at -dawn when he climbed the lonely way up from the shore to the village. It -was all in vain, for when the sun sank burning into the sea, and the -coolness of the evening stole out as from a hiding-place to delight the -weary world, his feet turned toward the old way, and she was waiting for -him in the shadow under the chestnut trees; and then all happened as -before, and she fell to kissing his white throat even as she flitted -lightly down the way, winding one arm about him. And as his blood -failed, she grew more hungry and more thirsty every day, and every day -when he awoke in the early dawn it was harder to rouse himself to the -effort of climbing the steep path to the village; and when he went to -his work his feet dragged painfully, and there was hardly strength in -his arms to wield the heavy hoe. He scarcely spoke to any one now, but -the people said he was "consuming himself" for love of the girl he was -to have married when he lost his inheritance; and they laughed heartily -at the thought, for this is not a very romantic country. At this time, -Antonio, the man who stays here to look after the tower, returned from a -visit to his people, who live near Salerno. He had been away all the -time since before Alario's death and knew nothing of what had happened. -He has told me that he came back late in the afternoon and shut himself -up in the tower to eat and sleep, for he was very tired. It was past -midnight when he awoke, and when he looked out the waning moon was -rising over the shoulder of the hill. He looked out toward the mound, -and he saw something, and he did not sleep again that night. When he -went out again in the morning it was broad daylight, and there was -nothing to be seen on the mound but loose stones and driven sand. Yet he -did not go very near it; he went straight up the path to the village and -directly to the house of the old priest. - -"I have seen an evil thing this night," he said; "I have seen how the -dead drink the blood of the living. And the blood is the life." - -"Tell me what you have seen," said the priest in reply. - -Antonio told him everything he had seen. - -"You must bring your book and your holy water to-night," he added. "I -will be here before sunset to go down with you, and if it pleases your -reverence to sup with me while we wait, I will make ready." - -"I will come," the priest answered, "for I have read in old books of -these strange beings which are neither quick nor dead, and which lie -ever fresh in their graves, stealing out in the dusk to taste life and -blood." - -Antonio cannot read, but he was glad to see that the priest understood -the business; for, of course, the books must have instructed him as to -the best means of quieting the half-living Thing for ever. - -So Antonio went away to his work, which consists largely in sitting on -the shady side of the tower, when he is not perched upon a rock with a -fishing-line catching nothing. But on that day he went twice to look at -the mound in the bright sunlight, and he searched round and round it for -some hole through which the being might get in and out; but he found -none. When the sun began to sink and the air was cooler in the shadows, -he went up to fetch the old priest, carrying a little wicker basket with -him; and in this they placed a bottle of holy water, and the basin, and -sprinkler, and the stole which the priest would need; and they came down -and waited in the door of the tower till it should be dark. But while -the light still lingered very grey and faint, they saw something moving, -just there, two figures, a man's that walked, and a woman's that flitted -beside him, and while her head lay on his shoulder she kissed his -throat. The priest has told me that, too, and that his teeth chattered -and he grasped Antonio's arm. The vision passed and disappeared into the -shadow. Then Antonio got the leathern flask of strong liquor, which he -kept for great occasions, and poured such a draught as made the old man -feel almost young again; and he got the lantern, and his pick and -shovel, and gave the priest his stole to put on and the holy water to -carry, and they went out together toward the spot where the work was to -be done. Antonio says that in spite of the rum his own knees shook -together, and the priest stumbled over his Latin. For when they were yet -a few yards from the mound the flickering light of the lantern fell upon -Angelo's white face, unconscious as if in sleep, and on his upturned -throat, over which a very thin red line of blood trickled down into his -collar; and the flickering light of the lantern played upon another face -that looked up from the feast--upon two deep, dead eyes that saw in -spite of death--upon parted lips redder than life itself--upon two -gleaming teeth on which glistened a rosy drop. Then the priest, good old -man, shut his eyes tight and showered holy water before him, and his -cracked voice rose almost to a scream; and then Antonio, who is no -coward after all, raised his pick in one hand and the lantern in the -other, as he sprang forward, not knowing what the end should be; and -then he swears that he heard a woman's cry, and the Thing was gone, and -Angelo lay alone on the mound unconscious, with the red line on his -throat and the beads of deathly sweat on his cold forehead. They lifted -him, half-dead as he was, and laid him on the ground close by; then -Antonio went to work, and the priest helped him, though he was old and -could not do much; and they dug deep, and at last Antonio, standing in -the grave, stooped down with his lantern to see what he might see. - -His hair used to be dark brown, with grizzled streaks about the temples; -in less than a month from that day he was as grey as a badger. He was a -miner when he was young, and most of these fellows have seen ugly -sights now and then, when accidents have happened, but he had never seen -what he saw that night--that Thing which is neither alive nor dead, that -Thing that will abide neither above ground nor in the grave. Antonio had -brought something with him which the priest had not noticed. He had made -it that afternoon--a sharp stake shaped from a piece of tough old -driftwood. He had it with him now, and he had his heavy pick, and he had -taken the lantern down into the grave. I don't think any power on earth -could make him speak of what happened then, and the old priest was too -frightened to look in. He says he heard Antonio breathing like a wild -beast, and moving as if he were fighting with something almost as strong -as himself; and he heard an evil sound also, with blows, as of something -violently driven through flesh and bone; and then the most awful sound -of all--a woman's shriek, the unearthly scream of a woman neither dead -nor alive, but buried deep for many days. And he, the poor old priest, -could only rock himself as he knelt there in the sand, crying aloud his -prayers and exorcisms to drown these dreadful sounds. Then suddenly a -small iron-bound chest was thrown up and rolled over against the old -man's knee, and in a moment more Antonio was beside him, his face as -white as tallow in the flickering light of the lantern, shovelling the -sand and pebbles into the grave with furious haste, and looking over the -edge till the pit was half full; and the priest said that there was much -fresh blood on Antonio's hands and on his clothes. - - -_I had come to the end of my story. Holger finished his wine and leaned -back in his chair._ - -_"So Angelo got his own again," he said. "Did he marry the prim and -plump young person to whom he had been betrothed?"_ - -_"No; he had been badly frightened. He went to South America, and has -not been heard of since."_ - -_"And that poor thing's body is there still, I suppose," said Holger. -"Is it quite dead yet, I wonder?"_ - -_I wonder, too. But whether it be dead or alive, I should hardly care to -see it, even in broad daylight. Antonio is as grey as a badger, and he -has never been quite the same man since that night._ - - - - -THE UPPER BERTH - -CHAPTER I - - -Somebody asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation -was beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy -curtains, the wine had got into those brains which were liable to become -heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did -something to rouse our oppressed spirits, the meeting would soon come to -its natural conclusion, and we, the guests, would speedily go home to -bed, and most certainly to sleep. No one had said anything very -remarkable; it may be that no one had anything very remarkable to say. -Jones had given us every particular of his last hunting adventure in -Yorkshire. Mr. Tompkins, of Boston, had explained at elaborate length -those working principles, by the due and careful maintenance of which -the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad not only extended its -territory, increased its departmental influence, and transported live -stock without starving them to death before the day of actual delivery, -but, also, had for years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who -bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the corporation -aforesaid was really able to transport human life without destroying it. -Signor Tombola had endeavoured to persuade us, by arguments which we -took no trouble to oppose, that the unity of his country in no way -resembled the average modern torpedo, carefully planned, constructed -with all the skill of the greatest European arsenals, but, when -constructed, destined to be directed by feeble hands into a region where -it must undoubtedly explode, unseen, unfeared, and unheard, into the -illimitable wastes of political chaos. - -It is unnecessary to go into further details. The conversation had -assumed proportions which would have bored Prometheus on his rock, which -would have driven Tantalus to distraction, and which would have impelled -Ixion to seek relaxation in the simple but instructive dialogues of Herr -Ollendorff, rather than submit to the greater evil of listening to our -talk. We had sat at table for hours; we were bored, we were tired, and -nobody showed signs of moving. - -Somebody called for cigars. We all instinctively looked towards the -speaker. Brisbane was a man of five-and-thirty years of age, and -remarkable for those gifts which chiefly attract the attention of men. -He was a strong man. The external proportions of his figure presented -nothing extraordinary to the common eye, though his size was about the -average. He was a little over six feet in height, and moderately broad -in the shoulder; he did not appear to be stout, but, on the other hand, -he was certainly not thin; his small head, was supported by a strong and -sinewy neck; his broad, muscular hands appeared to possess a peculiar -skill in breaking walnuts without the assistance of the ordinary -cracker, and seeing him in profile, one could not help remarking the -extraordinary breadth of his sleeves, and the unusual thickness of his -chest. He was one of those men who are commonly spoken of among men as -deceptive; that is to say, that though he looked exceedingly strong he -was in reality very much stronger than he looked. Of his features I need -say little. His head is small, his hair is thin, his eyes are blue, his -nose is large, he has a small moustache and a square jaw. Everybody -knows Brisbane, and when he asked for a cigar everybody looked at him. - -"It is a very singular thing," said Brisbane. - -Everybody stopped talking. Brisbane's voice was not loud, but possessed -a peculiar quality of penetrating general conversation, and cutting it -like a knife. Everybody listened. Brisbane, perceiving that he had -attracted their general attention, lit his cigar with great equanimity. - -"It is very singular," he continued, "that thing about ghosts. People -are always asking whether anybody has seen a ghost. I have." - -"Bosh! What, you? You don't mean to say so, Brisbane? Well, for a man of -his intelligence!" - -A chorus of exclamations greeted Brisbane's remarkable statement. -Everybody called for cigars, and Stubbs, the butler, suddenly appeared -from the depths of nowhere with a fresh bottle of dry champagne. The -situation was saved; Brisbane was going to tell a story. - -I am an old sailor, said Brisbane, and as I have to cross the Atlantic -pretty often, I have my favourites. Most men have their favourites. I -have seen a man wait in a Broadway bar for three-quarters of an hour for -a particular car which he liked. I believe the bar-keeper made at least -one-third of his living by that man's preference. I have a habit of -waiting for certain ships when I am obliged to cross that duck-pond. It -may be a prejudice, but I was never cheated out of a good passage but -once in my life. I remember it very well; it was a warm morning in June, -and the Custom House officials, who were hanging about waiting for a -steamer already on her way up from the Quarantine, presented a -peculiarly hazy and thoughtful appearance. I had not much luggage--I -never have. I mingled with a crowd of passengers, porters, and -officious individuals in blue coats and brass buttons, who seemed to -spring up like mushrooms from the deck of a moored steamer to obtrude -their unnecessary services upon the independent passenger. I have often -noticed with a certain interest the spontaneous evolution of these -fellows. They are not there when you arrive; five minutes after the -pilot has called "Go ahead!" they, or at least their blue coats and -brass buttons, have disappeared from deck and gangway as completely as -though they had been consigned to that locker which tradition -unanimously ascribes to Davy Jones. But, at the moment of starting, they -are there, clean shaved, blue coated, and ravenous for fees. I hastened -on board. The _Kamtschatka_ was one of my favourite ships. I say was, -because she emphatically no longer is. I cannot conceive of any -inducement which could entice me to make another voyage in her. Yes, I -know what you are going to say. She is uncommonly clean in the run aft, -she has enough bluffing off in the bows to keep her dry, and the lower -berths are most of them double. She has a lot of advantages, but I won't -cross in her again. Excuse the digression. I got on board. I hailed a -steward, whose red nose and redder whiskers were equally familiar to me. - -"One hundred and five, lower berth," said I, in the businesslike tone -peculiar to men who think no more of crossing the Atlantic than taking -a whiskey cocktail at down-town Delmonico's. - -The steward took my portmanteau, greatcoat, and rug. I shall never -forget the expression of his face. Not that he turned pale. It is -maintained by the most eminent divines that even miracles cannot change -the course of nature. I have no hesitation in saying that he did not -turn pale; but, from his expression, I judged that he was either about -to shed tears, to sneeze, or to drop my portmanteau. As the latter -contained two bottles of particularly fine old sherry presented to me -for my voyage by my old friend Snigginson van Pickyns, I felt extremely -nervous. But the steward did none of these things. - -"Well, I'm d----d!" said he in a low voice, and led the way. - -I supposed my Hermes, as he led me to the lower regions, had had a -little grog, but I said nothing and followed him. 105 was on the port -side, well aft. There was nothing remarkable about the state-room. The -lower berth, like most of those upon the _Kamtschatka_, was double. -There was plenty of room; there was the usual washing apparatus, -calculated to convey an idea of luxury to the mind of a North American -Indian; there were the usual inefficient racks of brown wood, in which -it is more easy to hang a large-sized umbrella than the common -tooth-brush of commerce. Upon the uninviting mattresses were carefully -folded together those blankets which a great modern humourist has aptly -compared to cold buckwheat cakes. The question of towels was left -entirely to the imagination. The glass decanters were filled with a -transparent liquid faintly tinged with brown, but from which an odour -less faint, but not more pleasing, ascended to the nostrils, like a -far-off sea-sick reminiscence of oily machinery. Sad-coloured curtains -half closed the upper berth. The hazy June daylight shed a faint -illumination upon the desolate little scene. Ugh! how I hate that -state-room! - -The steward deposited my traps and looked at me as though he wanted to -get away--probably in search of more passengers and more fees. It is -always a good plan to start in favour with those functionaries, and I -accordingly gave him certain coins there and then. - -"I'll try and make yer comfortable all I can," he remarked, as he put -the coins in his pocket. Nevertheless, there was a doubtful intonation -in his voice which surprised me. Possibly his scale of fees had gone up, -and he was not satisfied; but on the whole I was inclined to think that, -as he himself would have expressed it, he was "the better for a glass." -I was wrong, however, and did the man injustice. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -Nothing especially worthy of mention occurred during that day. We left -the pier punctually, and it was very pleasant to be fairly under way, -for the weather was warm and sultry, and the motion of the steamer -produced a refreshing breeze. Everybody knows what the first day at sea -is like. People pace the decks and stare at each other, and occasionally -meet acquaintances whom they did not know to be on board. There is the -usual uncertainty as to whether the food will be good, bad, or -indifferent, until the first two meals have put the matter beyond a -doubt; there is the usual uncertainty about the weather, until the ship -is fairly off Fire Island. The tables are crowded at first, and then -suddenly thinned. Pale-faced people spring from their seats and -precipitate themselves towards the door, and each old sailor breathes -more freely as his seasick neighbour rushes from his side, leaving him -plenty of elbow-room and an unlimited command over the mustard. - -One passage across the Atlantic is very much like another, and we who -cross very often do not make the voyage for the sake of novelty. Whales -and icebergs are indeed always objects of interest, but, after all, one -whale is very much like another whale, and one rarely sees an iceberg at -close quarters. To the majority of us the most delightful moment of the -day on board an ocean steamer is when we have taken our last turn on -deck, have smoked our last cigar, and having succeeded in tiring -ourselves, feel at liberty to turn in with a clear conscience. On that -first night of the voyage I felt particularly lazy, and went to bed in -105 rather earlier than I usually do. As I turned in, I was amazed to -see that I was to have a companion. A portmanteau, very like my own, lay -in the opposite corner, and in the upper berth had been deposited a -neatly folded rug, with a stick and umbrella. I had hoped to be alone, -and I was disappointed; but I wondered who my room-mate was to be, and I -determined to have a look at him. - -Before I had been long in bed he entered. He was, as far as I could see, -a very tall man, very thin, very pale, with sandy hair and whiskers and -colourless grey eyes. He had about him, I thought, an air of rather -dubious fashion; the sort of man you might see in Wall Street, without -being able precisely to say what he was doing there--the sort of man who -frequents the Café Anglais, who always seems to be alone and who drinks -champagne; you might meet him on a racecourse, but he would never appear -to be doing anything there either. A little over-dressed--a little odd. -There are three or four of his kind on every ocean steamer. I made up -my mind that I did not care to make his acquaintance, and I went to -sleep saying to myself that I would study his habits in order to avoid -him. If he rose early, I would rise late; if he went to bed late I would -go to bed early. I did not care to know him. If you once know people of -that kind, they are always turning up. Poor fellow! I need not have -taken the trouble to come to so many decisions about him, for I never -saw him again after that first night in 105. - -I was sleeping soundly when I was suddenly waked by a loud noise. To -judge from the sound, my room-mate must have sprung with a single leap -from the upper berth to the floor. I heard him fumbling with the latch -and bolt of the door, which opened almost immediately, and then I heard -his footsteps as he ran at full speed down the passage, leaving the door -open behind him. The ship was rolling a little, and I expected to hear -him stumble or fall, but he ran as though he were running for his life. -The door swung on its hinges with the motion of the vessel, and the -sound annoyed me. I got up and shut it, and groped my way back to my -berth in the darkness. I went to sleep again; but I have no idea how -long I slept. - -When I awoke it was still quite dark, but I felt a disagreeable -sensation of cold, and it seemed to me that the air was damp. You know -the peculiar smell of a cabin which has been wet with sea-water. I -covered myself up as well as I could and dozed off again, framing -complaints to be made the next day, and selecting the most powerful -epithets in the language. I could hear my room-mate turn over in the -upper berth. He had probably returned while I was asleep. Once I thought -I heard him groan, and I argued that he was sea-sick. That is -particularly unpleasant when one is below. Nevertheless I dozed off and -slept till early daylight. - -The ship was rolling heavily, much more than on the previous evening, -and the grey light which came in through the porthole changed in tint -with every movement according as the angle of the vessel's side turned -the glass seawards or skywards. It was very cold--unaccountably so for -the month of June. I turned my head and looked at the porthole, and saw -to my surprise that it was wide open and hooked back. I believe I swore -audibly. Then I got up and shut it. As I turned back I glanced at the -upper berth. The curtains were drawn close together; my companion had -probably felt cold as well as I. It struck me that I had slept enough. -The state-room was uncomfortable, though, strange to say, I could not -smell the dampness which had annoyed me in the night. My room-mate was -still asleep--excellent opportunity for avoiding him, so I dressed at -once and went on deck. The day was warm and cloudy, with an oily smell -on the water. It was seven o'clock as I came out--much later than I had -imagined. I came across the doctor, who was taking his first sniff of -the morning air. He was a young man from the West of Ireland--a -tremendous fellow, with black hair and blue eyes, already inclined to be -stout; he had a happy-go-lucky, healthy look about him which was rather -attractive. - -"Fine morning," I remarked, by way of introduction. - -"Well," said he, eyeing me with an air of ready interest, "it's a fine -morning and it's not a fine morning. I don't think it's much of a -morning." - -"Well, no--it is not so very fine," said I. - -"It's just what I call fuggly weather," replied the doctor. - -"It was very cold last night, I thought," I remarked. "However, when I -looked about, I found that the porthole was wide open. I had not noticed -it when I went to bed. And the state-room was damp, too." - -"Damp!" said he. "Whereabouts are you?" - -"One hundred and five--" - -To my surprise the doctor started visibly, and stared at me. - -"What is the matter?" I asked. - -"Oh--nothing," he answered; "only everybody has complained of that -state-room for the last three trips." - -"I shall complain, too," I said. "It has certainly not been properly -aired. It is a shame!" - -"I don't believe it can be helped," answered the doctor. "I believe -there is something--well, it is not my business to frighten passengers." - -"You need not be afraid of frightening me," I replied. "I can stand any -amount of damp. If I should get a bad cold, I will come to you." - -I offered the doctor a cigar, which he took and examined very -critically. - -"It is not so much the damp," he remarked. "However, I dare say you will -get on very well. Have you a room-mate?" - -"Yes; a deuce of a fellow, who bolts out in the middle of the night, and -leaves the door open." - -Again the doctor glanced curiously at me. Then he lit the cigar and -looked grave. - -"Did he come back?" he asked presently. - -"Yes. I was asleep, but I waked up, and heard him moving. Then I felt -cold and went to sleep again. This morning I found the porthole open." - -"Look here," said the doctor quietly, "I don't care much for this ship. -I don't care a rap for her reputation. I tell you what I will do. I have -a good-sized place up here. I will share it with you, though I don't -know you from Adam." - -I was very much surprised at the proposition. I could not imagine why he -should take such a sudden interest in my welfare. However, his manner, -as he spoke of the ship, was peculiar. - -"You are very good, doctor," I said. "But, really, I believe even now -the cabin could be aired, or cleaned out, or something. Why do you not -care for the ship?" - -"We are not superstitious in our profession, sir," replied the doctor, -"but the sea makes people so. I don't want to prejudice you, and I don't -want to frighten you, but if you will take my advice you will move in -here. I would as soon see you overboard," he added earnestly, "as know -that you or any other man was to sleep in 105." - -"Good gracious! Why?" I asked. - -"Just because on the three last trips the people who have slept there -actually have gone overboard," he answered gravely. - -The intelligence was startling and exceedingly unpleasant, I confess. I -looked hard at the doctor to see whether he was making game of me, but -he looked perfectly serious. I thanked him warmly for his offer, but -told him I intended to be the exception to the rule by which every one -who slept in that particular state-room went overboard. He did not say -much, but looked as grave as ever, and hinted that, before we got -across, I should probably reconsider his proposal. In the course of time -we went to breakfast, at which only an inconsiderable number of -passengers assembled. I noticed that one or two of the officers who -breakfasted with us looked grave. After breakfast I went into my -state-room in order to get a book. The curtains of the upper berth were -still closely drawn. Not a sound was to be heard. My room-mate was -probably still asleep. - -As I came out I met the steward whose business it was to look after me. -He whispered that the captain wanted to see me, and then scuttled away -down the passage as if very anxious to avoid any questions. I went -toward the captain's cabin, and found him waiting for me. - -"Sir," said he, "I want to ask a favour of you." - -I answered that I would do anything to oblige him. - -"Your room-mate has disappeared," he said. "He is known to have turned -in early last night. Did you notice anything extraordinary in his -manner?" - -The question, coming as it did in exact confirmation of the fears the -doctor had expressed half an hour earlier, staggered me. - -"You don't mean to say he has gone overboard?" I asked. - -"I fear he has," answered the captain. - -"This is the most extraordinary thing--" I began. - -"Why?" he asked. - -"He is the fourth, then?" I explained. In answer to another question -from the captain, I explained, without mentioning the doctor, that I had -heard the story concerning 105. He seemed very much annoyed at hearing -that I knew of it. I told him what had occurred in the night. - -"What you say," he replied, "coincides almost exactly with what was told -me by the room-mates of two of the other three. They bolt out of bed and -run down the passage. Two of them were seen to go overboard by the -watch; we stopped and lowered boats, but they were not found. Nobody, -however, saw or heard the man who was lost last night--if he is really -lost. The steward, who is a superstitious fellow, perhaps, and expected -something to go wrong, went to look for him this morning, and found his -berth empty, but his clothes lying about, just as he had left them. The -steward was the only man on board who knew him by sight, and he has -been searching everywhere for him. He has disappeared! Now, sir, I want -to beg you not to mention the circumstance to any of the passengers; I -don't want the ship to get a bad name, and nothing hangs about an -ocean-goer like stories of suicides. You shall have your choice of any -one of the officers' cabins you like, including my own, for the rest of -the passage. Is that a fair bargain?" - -"Very," said I; "and I am much obliged to you. But since I am alone, and -have the state-room to myself, I would rather not move. If the steward -will take out that unfortunate man's things, I would as lief stay where -I am. I will not say anything about the matter, and I think I can -promise you that I will not follow my room-mate." - -The captain tried to dissuade me from my intention, but I preferred -having a state-room alone to being the chum of any officer on board. I -do not know whether I acted foolishly, but if I had taken his advice I -should have had nothing more to tell. There would have remained the -disagreeable coincidence of several suicides occurring among men who had -slept in the same cabin, but that would have been all. - -That was not the end of the matter, however, by any means. I -obstinately made up my mind that I would not be disturbed by such tales, -and I even went so far as to argue the question with the captain. There -was something wrong about the state-room, I said. It was rather damp. -The porthole had been left open last night. My room-mate might have been -ill when he came on board, and he might have become delirious after he -went to bed. He might even now be hiding somewhere on board, and might -be found later. The place ought to be aired and the fastening of the -port looked to. If the captain would give me leave, I would see that -what I thought necessary were done immediately. - -"Of course you have a right to stay where you are if you please," he -replied, rather petulantly; "but I wish you would turn out and let me -lock the place up, and be done with it." - -I did not see it in the same light, and left the captain, after -promising to be silent concerning the disappearance of my companion. The -latter had had no acquaintances on board, and was not missed in the -course of the day. Towards evening I met the doctor again, and he asked -me whether I had changed my mind. I told him I had not. - -"Then you will before long," he said, very gravely. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -We played whist in the evening, and I went to bed late. I will confess -now that I felt a disagreeable sensation when I entered my state-room. I -could not help thinking of the tall man I had seen on the previous -night, who was now dead, drowned, tossing about in the long swell, two -or three hundred miles astern. His face rose very distinctly before me -as I undressed, and I even went so far as to draw back the curtains of -the upper berth, as though to persuade myself that he was actually gone. -I also bolted the door of the state-room. Suddenly I became aware that -the porthole was open, and fastened back. This was more than I could -stand. I hastily threw on my dressing-gown and went in search of Robert, -the steward of my passage. I was very angry, I remember, and when I -found him I dragged him roughly to the door of 105, and pushed him -towards the open porthole. - -"What the deuce do you mean, you scoundrel, by leaving that port open -every night? Don't you know it is against the regulations? Don't you -know that if the ship heeled and the water began to come in, ten men -could not shut it? I will report you to the captain, you blackguard, for -endangering the ship!" - -I was exceedingly wroth. The man trembled and turned pale, and then -began to shut the round glass plate with the heavy brass fittings. - -"Why don't you answer me?" I said roughly. - -"If you please, sir," faltered Robert, "there's nobody on board as can -keep this 'ere port shut at night. You can try it yourself, sir. I ain't -a-going to stop hany longer on board o' this vessel, sir; I ain't, -indeed. But if I was you, sir, I'd just clear out and go and sleep with -the surgeon, or something, I would. Look 'ere, sir, is that fastened -what you may call securely, or not, sir? Try it, sir, see if it will -move a hinch." - -I tried the port, and found it perfectly tight. - -"Well, sir," continued Robert, triumphantly, "I wager my reputation as a -A1 steward that in 'arf an hour it will be open again; fastened back, -too, sir, that's the horful thing--fastened back!" - -I examined the great screw and the looped nut that ran on it. - -"If I find it open in the night, Robert, I will give you a sovereign. It -is not possible. You may go." - -"Soverin' did you say, sir? Very good, sir. Thank ye, sir. Good-night, -sir. Pleasant reepose, sir, and all manner of hinchantin' dreams, sir." - -Robert scuttled away, delighted at being released. Of course, I thought -he was trying to account for his negligence by a silly story, intended -to frighten me, and I disbelieved him. The consequence was that he got -his sovereign, and I spent a very peculiarly unpleasant night. - -I went to bed, and five minutes after I had rolled myself up in my -blankets the inexorable Robert extinguished the light that burned -steadily behind the ground-glass pane near the door. I lay quite still -in the dark trying to go to sleep, but I soon found that impossible. It -had been some satisfaction to be angry with the steward, and the -diversion had banished that unpleasant sensation I had at first -experienced when I thought of the drowned man who had been my chum; but -I was no longer sleepy, and I lay awake for some time, occasionally -glancing at the porthole, which I could just see from where I lay, and -which, in the darkness, looked like a faintly luminous soup-plate -suspended in blackness. I believe I must have lain there for an hour, -and, as I remember, I was just dozing into sleep when I was roused by a -draught of cold air, and by distinctly feeling the spray of the sea -blown upon my face. I started to my feet, and not having allowed in the -dark for the motion of the ship, I was instantly thrown violently across -the state-room upon the couch which was placed beneath the porthole. I -recovered myself immediately, however, and climbed upon my knees. The -porthole was again wide open and fastened back! - -Now these things are facts. I was wide awake when I got up, and I -should certainly have been waked by the fall had I still been dozing. -Moreover, I bruised my elbows and knees badly, and the bruises were -there on the following morning to testify to the fact, if I myself had -doubted it. The porthole was wide open and fastened back--a thing so -unaccountable that I remember very well feeling astonishment rather than -fear when I discovered it. I at once closed the plate again, and screwed -down the loop nut with all my strength. It was very dark in the -state-room. I reflected that the port had certainly been opened within -an hour after Robert had at first shut it in my presence, and I -determined to watch it, and see whether it would open again. Those brass -fittings are very heavy and by no means easy to move; I could not -believe that the clump had been turned by the shaking of the screw. I -stood peering out through the thick glass at the alternate white and -grey streaks of the sea that foamed beneath the ship's side. I must have -remained there a quarter of an hour. - -Suddenly, as I stood, I distinctly heard something moving behind me in -one of the berths, and a moment afterwards, just as I turned -instinctively to look--though I could, of course, see nothing in the -darkness--I heard a very faint groan. I sprang across the state-room, -and tore the curtains of the upper berth aside, thrusting in my hands to -discover if there were any one there. There was some one. - -I remember that the sensation as I put my hands forward was as though I -were plunging them into the air of a damp cellar, and from behind the -curtains came a gust of wind that smelled horribly of stagnant -sea-water. I laid hold of something that had the shape of a man's arm, -but was smooth, and wet, and icy cold. But suddenly, as I pulled, the -creature sprang violently forward against me, a clammy, oozy mass, as it -seemed to me, heavy and wet, yet endowed with a sort of supernatural -strength. I reeled across the state-room, and in an instant the door -opened and the thing rushed out. I had not had time to be frightened, -and quickly recovering myself, I sprang through the door and gave chase -at the top of my speed, but I was too late. Ten yards before me I could -see--I am sure I saw it--a dark shadow moving in the dimly lighted -passage, quickly as the shadow of a fast horse thrown before a dogcart -by the lamp on a dark night. But in a moment it had disappeared, and I -found myself holding on to the polished rail that ran along the bulkhead -where the passage turned towards the companion. My hair stood on end, -and the cold perspiration rolled down my face. I am not ashamed of it -in the least: I was very badly frightened. - -Still I doubted my senses, and pulled myself together. It was absurd, I -thought. The Welsh rarebit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had been -in a nightmare. I made my way back to my state-room, and entered it with -an effort. The whole place smelled of stagnant sea-water, as it had when -I had waked on the previous evening. It required my utmost strength to -go in, and grope among my things for a box of wax lights. As I lighted a -railway reading lantern which I always carry in case I want to read -after the lamps are out, I perceived that the porthole was again open, -and a sort of creeping horror began to take possession of me which I -never felt before, nor wish to feel again. But I got a light and -proceeded to examine the upper berth, expecting to find it drenched with -sea-water. - -But I was disappointed. The bed had been slept in, and the smell of the -sea was strong; but the bedding was as dry as a bone. I fancied that -Robert had not had the courage to make the bed after the accident of the -previous night--it had all been a hideous dream. I drew the curtains -back as far as I could and examined the place very carefully. It was -perfectly dry. But the porthole was open again. With a sort of dull -bewilderment of horror I closed it and screwed it down, and thrusting -my heavy stick through the brass loop, wrenched it with all my might, -till the thick metal began to bend under the pressure. Then I hooked my -reading lantern into the red velvet at the head of the couch, and sat -down to recover my senses if I could. I sat there all night, unable to -think of rest--hardly able to think at all. But the porthole remained -closed, and I did not believe it would now open again without the -application of a considerable force. - -The morning dawned at last, and I dressed myself slowly, thinking over -all that had happened in the night. It was a beautiful day and I went on -deck, glad to get out into the early, pure sunshine, and to smell the -breeze from the blue water, so different from the noisome, stagnant -odour of my state-room. Instinctively I turned aft, towards the -surgeon's cabin. There he stood, with a pipe in his mouth, taking his -morning airing precisely as on the preceding day. - -"Good-morning," said he quietly, but looking at me with evident -curiosity. - -"Doctor, you were quite right," said I. "There is something wrong about -that place." - -"I thought you would change your mind," he answered, rather -triumphantly. "You have had a bad night, eh? Shall I make you a -pick-me-up? I have a capital recipe." - -"No, thanks," I cried. "But I would like to tell you what happened." - -I then tried to explain as clearly as possible precisely what had -occurred, not omitting to state that I had been scared as I had never -been scared in my whole life before. I dwelt particularly on the -phenomenon of the porthole, which was a fact to which I could testify, -even if the rest had been an illusion. I had closed it twice in the -night, and the second time I had actually bent the brass in wrenching it -with my stick. I believe I insisted a good deal on this point. - -"You seem to think I am likely to doubt the story," said the doctor, -smiling at the detailed account of the state of the porthole. "I do not -doubt it in the least. I renew my invitation to you. Bring your traps -here, and take half my cabin." - -"Come and take half of mine for one night," I said. "Help me to get at -the bottom of this thing." - -"You will get to the bottom of something else if you try," answered the -doctor. - -"What?" I asked. - -"The bottom of the sea. I am going to leave this ship. It is not canny." - -"Then you will not help me to find out--" - -"Not I," said the doctor, quickly. "It is my business to keep my wits -about me--not to go fiddling about with ghosts and things." - -"Do you really believe it is a ghost?" I enquired, rather -contemptuously. But as I spoke I remembered very well the horrible -sensation of the supernatural which had got possession of me during the -night. The doctor turned sharply on me. - -"Have you any reasonable explanation of these things to offer?" he -asked. "No; you have not. Well, you say you will find an explanation. I -say that you won't, sir, simply because there is not any." - -"But, my dear sir," I retorted, "do you, a man of science, mean to tell -me that such things cannot be explained?" - -"I do," he answered stoutly. "And, if they could, I would not be -concerned in the explanation." - -I did not care to spend another night alone in the state-room, and yet I -was obstinately determined to get at the root of the disturbances. I do -not believe there are many men who would have slept there alone, after -passing two such nights. But I made up my mind to try it, if I could not -get any one to share a watch with me. The doctor was evidently not -inclined for such an experiment. He said he was a surgeon, and that in -case any accident occurred on board he must be always in readiness. He -could not afford to have his nerves unsettled. Perhaps he was quite -right, but I am inclined to think that his precaution was prompted by -his inclination. On enquiry, he informed me that there was no one on -board who would be likely to join me in my investigations, and after a -little more conversation I left him. A little later I met the captain, -and told him my story. I said that, if no one would spend the night with -me, I would ask leave to have the light burning all night, and would try -it alone. - -"Look here," said he, "I will tell you what I will do. I will share your -watch myself, and we will see what happens. It is my belief that we can -find out between us. There may be some fellow skulking on board, who -steals a passage by frightening the passengers. It is just possible that -there may be something queer in the carpentering of that berth." - -I suggested taking the ship's carpenter below and examining the place; -but I was overjoyed at the captain's offer to spend the night with me. -He accordingly sent for the workman and ordered him to do anything I -required. We went below at once. I had all the bedding cleared out of -the upper berth, and we examined the place thoroughly to see if there -was a board loose anywhere, or a panel which could be opened or pushed -aside. We tried the planks everywhere, tapped the flooring, unscrewed -the fittings of the lower berth and took it to pieces--in short, there -was not a square inch of the state-room which was not searched and -tested. Everything was in perfect order, and we put everything back in -its place. As we were finishing our work, Robert came to the door and -looked in. - -"Well, sir--find anything, sir?" he asked, with a ghastly grin. - -"You were right about the porthole, Robert," I said, and I gave him the -promised sovereign. The carpenter did his work silently and skilfully, -following my directions. When he had done he spoke. - -"I'm a plain man, sir," he said. "But it's my belief you had better just -turn out your things, and let me run half a dozen four-inch screws -through the door of this cabin. There's no good never came o' this cabin -yet, sir, and that's all about it. There's been four lives lost out o' -here to my own remembrance, and that in four trips. Better give it up, -sir--better give it up!" - -"I will try it for one night more," I said. - -"Better give it up, sir--better give it up! It's a precious bad job," -repeated the workman, putting his tools in his bag and leaving the -cabin. - -But my spirits had risen considerably at the prospect of having the -captain's company, and I made up my mind not to be prevented from going -to the end of the strange business. I abstained from Welsh rarebits and -grog that evening, and did not even join in the customary game of whist. -I wanted to be quite sure of my nerves, and my vanity made me anxious to -make a good figure in the captain's eyes. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -The captain was one of those splendidly tough and cheerful specimens of -seafaring humanity whose combined courage, hardihood, and calmness in -difficulty leads them naturally into high positions of trust. He was not -the man to be led away by an idle tale, and the mere fact that he was -willing to join me in the investigation was proof that he thought there -was something seriously wrong, which could not be accounted for on -ordinary theories, nor laughed down as a common superstition. To some -extent, too, his reputation was at stake, as well as the reputation of -the ship. It is no light thing to lose passengers overboard, and he knew -it. - -About ten o'clock that evening, as I was smoking a last cigar, he came -up to me, and drew me aside from the beat of the other passengers who -were patrolling the deck in the warm darkness. - -"This is a serious matter, Mr. Brisbane," he said. "We must make up our -minds either way--to be disappointed or to have a pretty rough time of -it. You see I cannot afford to laugh at the affair, and I will ask you -to sign your name to a statement of whatever occurs. If nothing happens -to-night, we will try it again to-morrow and next day. Are you ready?" - -So we went below, and entered the state-room. As we went in I could see -Robert the steward, who stood a little further down the passage, -watching us, with his usual grin, as though certain that something -dreadful was about to happen. The captain closed the door behind us and -bolted it. - -"Supposing we put your portmanteau before the door," he suggested. "One -of us can sit on it. Nothing can get out then. Is the port screwed -down?" - -I found it as I had left it in the morning. Indeed, without using a -lever, as I had done, no one could have opened it. I drew back the -curtains of the upper berth so that I could see well into it. By the -captain's advice I lighted my reading lantern, and placed it so that it -shone upon the white sheets above. He insisted upon sitting on the -portmanteau, declaring that he wished to be able to swear that he had -sat before the door. - -Then he requested me to search the stateroom thoroughly, an operation -very soon accomplished, as it consisted merely in looking beneath the -lower berth and under the couch below the porthole. The spaces were -quite empty. - -"It is impossible for any human being to get in," I said, "or for any -human being to open the port." - -"Very good," said the captain, calmly. "If we see anything now, it must -be either imagination or something supernatural." - -I sat down on the edge of the lower berth. - -"The first time it happened," said the captain, crossing his legs and -leaning back against the door, "was in March. The passenger who slept -here, in the upper berth, turned out to have been a lunatic--at all -events, he was known to have been a little touched, and he had taken his -passage without the knowledge of his friends. He rushed out in the -middle of the night, and threw himself overboard, before the officer who -had the watch could stop him. We stopped and lowered a boat; it was a -quiet night, just before that heavy weather came on; but we could not -find him. Of course his suicide was afterwards accounted for on the -ground of his insanity." - -"I suppose that often happens?" I remarked, rather absently. - -"Not often--no," said the captain; "never before in my experience, -though I have heard of it happening on board of other ships. Well, as I -was saying, that occurred in March. On the very next trip--What are you -looking at?" he asked, stopping suddenly in his narration. - -I believe I gave no answer. My eyes were riveted upon the porthole. It -seemed to me that the brass loop-nut was beginning to turn very slowly -upon the screw--so slowly, however, that I was not sure it moved at all. -I watched it intently, fixing its position in my mind, and trying to -ascertain whether it changed. Seeing where I was looking, the captain -looked too. - -"It moves!" he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction. "No, it does not," he -added, after a minute. - -"If it were the jarring of the screw," said I, "it would have opened -during the day; but I found it this evening jammed tight as I left it -this morning." - -I rose and tried the nut. It was certainly loosened, for by an effort I -could move it with my hands. - -"The queer thing," said the captain, "is that the second man who was -lost is supposed to have got through that very port. We had a terrible -time over it. It was in the middle of the night, and the weather was -very heavy; there was an alarm that one of the ports was open and the -sea running in. I came below and found everything flooded, the water -pouring in every time she rolled, and the whole port swinging from the -top bolts--not the porthole in the middle. Well, we managed to shut it, -but the water did some damage. Ever since that the place smells of -sea-water from time to time. We supposed the passenger had thrown -himself out, though the Lord only knows how he did it. The steward kept -telling me that he cannot keep anything shut here. Upon my word--I can -smell it now, cannot you?" he enquired, sniffing the air suspiciously. - -"Yes--distinctly," I said, and I shuddered as that same odour of -stagnant sea-water grew stronger in the cabin. "Now, to smell like this, -the place must be damp," I continued, "and yet when I examined it with -the carpenter this morning everything was perfectly dry. It is most -extraordinary--hallo!" - -My reading lantern, which had been placed in the upper berth, was -suddenly extinguished. There was still a good deal of light from the -pane of ground glass near the door, behind which loomed the regulation -lamp. The ship rolled heavily, and the curtain of the upper berth swung -far out into the state-room and back again. I rose quickly from my seat -on the edge of the bed, and the captain at the same moment started to -his feet with a loud cry of surprise. I had turned with the intention of -taking down the lantern to examine it, when I heard his exclamation, -and immediately afterwards his call for help. I sprang towards him. He -was wrestling with all his might with the brass loop of the port. It -seemed to turn against his hands in spite of all his efforts. I caught -up my cane, a heavy oak stick I always used to carry, and thrust it -through the ring and bore on it with all my strength. But the strong -wood snapped suddenly, and I fell upon the couch. When I rose again the -port was wide open, and the captain was standing with his back against -the door, pale to the lips. - -"There is something in that berth!" he cried, in a strange voice, his -eyes almost starting from his head. "Hold the door, while I look--it -shall not escape us, whatever it is!" - -But instead of taking his place, I sprang upon the lower bed, and seized -something which lay in the upper berth. - -It was something ghostly, horrible beyond words, and it moved in my -grip. It was like the body of a man long drowned, and yet it moved, and -had the strength of ten men living; but I gripped it with all my -might--the slippery, oozy, horrible thing--the dead white eyes seemed to -stare at me out of the dusk; the putrid odour of rank sea-water was -about it, and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead face. -I wrestled with the dead thing; it thrust itself upon me and forced me -back and nearly broke my arms; it wound its corpse's arms about my neck, -the living death, and overpowered me, so that I, at last, cried aloud -and fell, and left my hold. - -As I fell the thing sprang across me, and seemed to throw itself upon -the captain. When I last saw him on his feet his face was white and his -lips set. It seemed to me that he struck a violent blow at the dead -being, and then he, too, fell forward upon his face, with an -inarticulate cry of horror. - -The thing paused an instant, seeming to hover over his prostrate body, -and I could have screamed again for very fright, but I had no voice -left. The thing vanished suddenly, and it seemed to my disturbed senses -that it made its exit through the open port, though how that was -possible, considering the smallness of the aperture, is more than any -one can tell. I lay a long time upon the floor, and the captain lay -beside me. At last I partially recovered my senses and moved, and -instantly I knew that my arm was broken--the small bone of the left -forearm near the wrist. - -I got upon my feet somehow, and with my remaining hand I tried to raise -the captain. He groaned and moved, and at last came to himself. He was -not hurt, but he seemed badly stunned. - -Well, do you want to hear any more? There is nothing more. That is the -end of my story. The carpenter carried out his scheme of running half a -dozen four-inch screws through the door of 105; and if ever you take a -passage in the _Kamtschatka_, you may ask for a berth in that -state-room. You will be told that it is engaged--yes--it is engaged by -that dead thing. - -I finished the trip in the surgeon's cabin. He doctored my broken arm, -and advised me not to "fiddle about with ghosts and things" any more. -The captain was very silent, and never sailed again in that ship, though -it is still running. And I will not sail in her either. It was a very -disagreeable experience, and I was very badly frightened, which is a -thing I do not like. That is all. That is how I saw a ghost--if it was a -ghost. It was dead, anyhow. - - - - -BY THE WATERS OF PARADISE - - -I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the fact -argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning words by -heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I believe my remembrance of events -depends much more upon the events themselves than upon my possessing any -special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I am too imaginative, and -the earliest impressions I received were of a kind to stimulate the -imagination abnormally. A long series of little misfortunes, connected -with each other so as to suggest a sort of weird fatality, so worked -upon my melancholy temperament when I was a boy that, before I was of -age, I sincerely believed myself to be under a curse, and not only -myself, but my whole family, and every individual who bore my name. - -I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and all his -predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man. It is a very old -house, and the greater part of it was originally a castle, strongly -fortified, and surrounded by a deep moat supplied with abundant water -from the hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of the fortifications have -been destroyed, and the moat has been filled up. The water from the -aqueduct supplies great fountains, and runs down into huge oblong basins -in the terraced gardens, one below the other, each surrounded by a broad -pavement of marble between the water and the flower-beds. The waste -surplus finally escapes through an artificial grotto, some thirty yards -long, into a stream, flowing down through the park to the meadows -beyond, and thence to the distant river. The buildings were extended a -little and greatly altered more than two hundred years ago, in the time -of Charles II., but since then little has been done to improve them, -though they have been kept in fairly good repair, according to our -fortunes. - -In the gardens there are terraces and huge hedges of box and evergreen, -some of which used to be clipped into shapes of animals, in the Italian -style. I can remember when I was a lad how I used to try to make out -what the trees were cut to represent, and how I used to appeal for -explanations to Judith, my Welsh nurse. She dealt in a strange mythology -of her own, and peopled the gardens with griffins, dragons, good genii -and bad, and filled my mind with them at the same time. My nursery -window afforded a view of the great fountains at the head of the upper -basin, and on moonlight nights the Welshwoman would hold me up to the -glass, and bid me look at the mist and spray rising into mysterious -shapes, moving mystically in the white light like living things. - -"It's the Woman of the Water," she used to say; and sometimes she would -threaten that, if I did not go to sleep, the Woman of the Water would -steal up to the high window and carry me away in her wet arms. - -The place was gloomy. The broad basins of water and the tall evergreen -hedges gave it a funereal look, and the damp-stained marble causeways by -the pools might have been made of tombstones. The grey and -weather-beaten walls and towers without, the dark and massively -furnished rooms within, the deep, mysterious recesses and the heavy -curtains, all affected my spirits. I was silent and sad from my -childhood. There was a great clock-tower above, from which the hours -rang dismally during the day and tolled like a knell in the dead of -night. There was no light nor life in the house, for my mother was a -helpless invalid, and my father had grown melancholy in his long task of -caring for her. He was a thin, dark man, with sad eyes; kind, I think, -but silent and unhappy. Next to my mother, I believe he loved me better -than anything on earth, for he took immense pains and trouble in -teaching me, and what he taught me I have never forgotten. Perhaps it -was his only amusement, and that may be the reason why I had no nursery -governess or teacher of any kind while he lived. - -I used to be taken to see my mother every day, and sometimes twice a -day, for an hour at a time. Then I sat upon a little stool near her -feet, and she would ask me what I had been doing, and what I wanted to -do. I dare say she saw already the seeds of a profound melancholy in my -nature, for she looked at me always with a sad smile, and kissed me with -a sigh when I was taken away. - -One night, when I was just six years old, I lay awake in the nursery. -The door was not quite shut, and the Welsh nurse was sitting sewing in -the next room. Suddenly I heard her groan, and say in a strange voice. -"One--two--one--two!" I was frightened, and I jumped up and ran to the -door, barefooted as I was. - -"What is it, Judith?" I cried, clinging to her skirts. I can remember -the look in her strange dark eyes as she answered. - -"One--two leaden coffins, fallen from the ceiling!" she crooned, working -herself in her chair. "One--two--a light coffin and a heavy coffin, -falling to the floor!" - -Then she seemed to notice me, and she took me back to bed and sang me to -sleep with a queer old Welsh song. - -I do not know how it was, but the impression got hold of me that she -had meant that my father and mother were going to die very soon. They -died in the very room where she had been sitting that night. It was a -great room, my day nursery, full of sun when there was any; and when the -days were dark it was the most cheerful place in the house. My mother -grew rapidly worse, and I was transferred to another part of the -building to make place for her. They thought my nursery was gayer for -her, I suppose; but she could not live. She was beautiful when she was -dead, and I cried bitterly. - -"The light one, the light one--the heavy one to come," crooned the -Welshwoman. And she was right. My father took the room after my mother -was gone, and day by day he grew thinner and paler and sadder. - -"The heavy one, the heavy one--all of lead," moaned my nurse, one night -in December, standing still, just as she was going to take away the -light after putting me to bed. Then she took me up again, and wrapped me -in a little gown, and led me away to my father's room. She knocked, but -no one answered. She opened the door, and we found him in his easy-chair -before the fire, very white, quite dead. - -So I was alone with the Welshwoman till strange people came, and -relations, whom I had never seen; and then I heard them saying that I -must be taken away to some more cheerful place. They were kind people, -and I will not believe that they were kind only because I was to be very -rich when I grew to be a man. The world never seemed to be a very bad -place to me, nor all the people to be miserable sinners, even when I was -most melancholy. I do not remember that any one ever did me any great -injustice, nor that I was ever oppressed or ill-treated in any way, even -by the boys at school. I was sad, I suppose, because my childhood was so -gloomy, and, later, because I was unlucky in everything I undertook, -till I finally believed I was pursued by fate, and I used to dream that -the old Welsh nurse and the Woman of the Water between them had vowed to -pursue me to my end. But my natural disposition should have been -cheerful, as I have often thought. - -Among lads of my age I was never last, or even among the last, in -anything; but I was never first. If I trained for a race, I was sure to -sprain my ankle on the day when I was to run. If I pulled an oar with -others, my oar was sure to break. If I competed for a prize, some -unforseen accident prevented my winning it at the last moment. Nothing -to which I put my hand succeeded, and I got the reputation of being -unlucky, until my companions felt it was always safe to bet against me, -no matter what the appearances might be. I became discouraged and -listless in everything. I gave up the idea of competing for any -distinction at the University, comforting myself with the thought that I -could not fail in the examination for the ordinary degree. The day -before the examination began I fell ill; and when at last I recovered, -after a narrow escape from death, I turned my back upon Oxford, and went -down alone to visit the old place where I had been born, feeble in -health and profoundly disgusted and discouraged. I was twenty-one years -of age, master of myself and of my fortune; but so deeply had the long -chain of small unlucky circumstances affected me, that I thought -seriously of shutting myself up from the world to live the life of a -hermit, and to die as soon as possible. Death seemed the only cheerful -possibility in my existence, and my thoughts soon dwelt upon it -altogether. - -I had never shown any wish to return to my own home since I had been -taken away as a little boy, and no one had ever pressed me to do so. The -place had been kept in order after a fashion, and did not seem to have -suffered during the fifteen years or more of my absence. Nothing earthly -could affect those old grey walls that had fought the elements for so -many centuries. The garden was more wild than I remembered it; the -marble causeways about the pools looked more yellow and damp than of -old, and the whole place at first looked smaller. It was not until I had -wandered about the house and grounds for many hours that I realised the -huge size of the home where I was to live in solitude. Then I began to -delight in it, and my resolution to live alone grew stronger. - -The people had turned out to welcome me, of course, and I tried to -recognise the changed faces of the old gardener and the old housekeeper, -and to call them by name. My old nurse I knew at once. She had grown -very grey since she heard the coffins fall in the nursery fifteen years -before, but her strange eyes were the same, and the look in them woke -all my old memories. She went over the house with me. - -"And how is the Woman of the Water?" I asked, trying to laugh a little. -"Does she still play in the moonlight?" - -"She is hungry," answered the Welshwoman, in a low voice. - -"Hungry? Then we will feed her." I laughed. But old Judith turned very -pale, and looked at me strangely. - -"Feed her? Ay--you will feed her well," she muttered, glancing behind -her at the ancient housekeeper, who tottered after us with feeble steps -through the halls and passages. - -I did not think much of her words. She had always talked oddly, as -Welshwomen will, and though I was very melancholy I am sure I was not -superstitious, and I was certainly not timid. Only, as in a far-off -dream, I seemed to see her standing with the light in her hand and -muttering, "The heavy one--all of lead," and then leading a little boy -through the long corridors to see his father lying dead in a great -easy-chair before a smouldering fire. So we went over the house, and I -chose the rooms where I would live; and the servants I had brought with -me ordered and arranged everything, and I had no more trouble. I did not -care what they did, provided I was left in peace, and was not expected -to give directions; for I was more listless than ever, owing to the -effects of my illness at college. - -I dined in solitary state, and the melancholy grandeur of the vast old -dining-room pleased me. Then I went to the room I had selected for my -study, and sat down in a deep chair, under a bright light, to think, or -to let my thoughts meander through labyrinths of their own choosing, -utterly indifferent to the course they might take. - -The tall windows of the room opened to the level of the ground upon the -terrace at the head of the garden. It was in the end of July, and -everything was open, for the weather was warm. As I sat alone I heard -the unceasing plash of the great fountains, and I fell to thinking of -the Woman of the Water. I rose, and went out into the still night, and -sat down upon a seat on the terrace, between two gigantic Italian -flower-pots. The air was deliciously soft and sweet with the smell of -the flowers, and the garden was more congenial to me than the house. Sad -people always like running water and the sound of it at night, though I -cannot tell why. I sat and listened in the gloom, for it was dark below, -and the pale moon had not yet climbed over the hills in front of me, -though all the air above was light with her rising beams. Slowly the -white halo in the eastern sky ascended in an arch above the wooded -crests, making the outline of the mountains more intensely black by -contrast, as though the head of some great white saint were rising from -behind a screen in a vast cathedral, throwing misty glories from below. -I longed to see the moon herself, and I tried to reckon the seconds -before she must appear. Then she sprang up quickly, and in a moment more -hung round and perfect in the sky. I gazed at her, and then at the -floating spray of the tall fountains, and down at the pools, where the -water-lilies were rocking softly in their sleep on the velvet surface -of the moonlit water. Just then a great swan floated out silently into -the midst of the basin, and wreathed his long neck, catching the water -in his broad bill, and scattering showers of diamonds around him. - -Suddenly, as I gazed, something came between me and the light. I looked -up instantly. Between me and the round disc of the moon rose a luminous -face of a woman, with great strange eyes, and a woman's mouth, full and -soft, but not smiling, hooded in black, staring at me as I sat still -upon my bench. She was close to me--so close that I could have touched -her with my hand. But I was transfixed and helpless. She stood still for -a moment, but her expression did not change. Then she passed swiftly -away, and my hair stood up on my head, while the cold breeze from her -white dress was wafted to my temples as she moved. The moonlight, -shining through the tossing spray of the fountain, made traceries of -shadow on the gleaming folds of her garments. In an instant she was -gone, and I was alone. - -I was strangely shaken by the vision, and some time passed before I -could rise to my feet, for I was still weak from my illness, and the -sight I had seen would have startled any one. I did not reason with -myself, for I was certain that I had looked on the unearthly, and no -argument could have destroyed that belief. At last I got up and stood -unsteadily, gazing in the direction in which I thought the figure had -gone; but there was nothing to be seen--nothing but the broad paths, the -tall, dark evergreen hedges, the tossing water of the fountains and the -smooth pool below. I fell back upon the seat and recalled the face I had -seen. Strange to say, now that the first impression had passed, there -was nothing startling in the recollection; on the contrary, I felt that -I was fascinated by the face, and would give anything to see it again. I -could retrace the beautiful straight features, the long dark eyes and -the wonderful mouth, most exactly in my mind, and, when I had -reconstructed every detail from memory, I knew that the whole was -beautiful, and that I should love a woman with such a face. - -"I wonder whether she is the Woman of the Water!" I said to myself. Then -rising once more I wandered down the garden, descending one short flight -of steps after another, from terrace to terrace by the edge of the -marble basins, through the shadow and through the moonlight; and I -crossed the water by the rustic bridge above the artificial grotto, and -climbed slowly up again to the highest terrace by the other side. The -air seemed sweeter, and I was very calm, so that I think I smiled to -myself as I walked, as though a new happiness had come to me. The -woman's face seemed always before me, and the thought of it gave me an -unwonted thrill of pleasure, unlike anything I had ever felt before. - -I turned, as I reached the house, and looked back upon the scene. It had -certainly changed in the short hour since I had come out, and my mood -had changed with it. Just like my luck, I thought, to fall in love with -a ghost! But in old times I would have sighed, and gone to bed more sad -than ever, at such a melancholy conclusion. To-night I felt happy, -almost for the first time in my life. The gloomy old study seemed -cheerful when I went in. The old pictures on the walls smiled at me, and -I sat down in my deep chair with a new and delightful sensation that I -was not alone. The idea of having seen a ghost, and of feeling much the -better for it, was so absurd that I laughed softly, as I took up one of -the books I had brought with me and began to read. - -That impression did not wear off. I slept peacefully, and in the morning -I threw open my windows to the summer air, and looked down at the -garden, at the stretches of green and at the coloured flower-beds, at -the circling swallows, and at the bright water. - -"A man might make a paradise of this place," I exclaimed. "A man and a -woman together!" - -From that day the old castle no longer seemed gloomy, and I think I -ceased to be sad; for some time, too, I began to take an interest in the -place, and to try and make it more alive. I avoided my old Welsh nurse, -lest she should damp my humour with some dismal prophecy, and recall my -old self by bringing back memories of my dismal childhood. But what I -thought of most was the ghostly figure I had seen in the garden that -first night after my arrival. I went out every evening and wandered -through the walks and paths; but, try as I might, I did not see my -vision again. At last, after many days, the memory grew more faint, and -my old moody nature gradually overcame the temporary sense of lightness -I had experienced. The summer turned to autumn, and I grew restless. It -began to rain. The dampness pervaded the gardens, and the outer halls -smelled musty, like tombs; the grey sky oppressed me intolerably. I left -the place as it was and went abroad, determined to try anything which -might possibly make a second break in the monotonous melancholy from -which I suffered. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -Most people would be struck by the utter insignificance of the small -events which, after the death of my parents influenced my life and made -me unhappy. The gruesome forebodings of a Welsh nurse, which chanced to -be realised by an odd coincidence of events, should not seem enough to -change the nature of a child, and to direct the bent of his character in -after years. The little disappointments of schoolboy life, and the -somewhat less childish ones of an uneventful and undistinguished -academic career, should not have sufficed to turn me out at -one-and-twenty years of age a melancholic, listless idler. Some weakness -of my own character may have contributed to the result, but in a greater -degree it was due to my having a reputation for bad luck. However, I -will not try to analyse the causes of my state, for I should satisfy -nobody, least of all myself. Still less will I attempt to explain why I -felt a temporary revival of my spirits after my adventure in the garden. -It is certain that I was in love with the face I had seen, and that I -longed to see it again; that I gave up all hope of a second visitation, -grew more sad than ever, packed up my traps, and finally went abroad. -But in my dreams I went back to my home, and it always appeared to me -sunny and bright, as it had looked on that summer's morning after I had -seen the woman by the fountain. - -I went to Paris. I went further, and wandered about Germany. I tried to -amuse myself, and I failed miserably. With the aimless whims of an idle -and useless man, came all sorts of suggestions for good resolutions. One -day I made up my mind that I would go and bury myself in a German -university for a time, and live simply like a poor student. I started -with the intention of going to Leipzic, determined to stay there until -some event should direct my life or change my humour, or make an end of -me altogether. The express train stopped at some station of which I did -not know the name. It was dusk on a winter's afternoon, and I peered -through the thick glass from my seat. Suddenly another train came -gliding in from the opposite direction, and stopped alongside of ours. I -looked at the carriage which chanced to be abreast of mine, and idly -read the black letters painted on a white board swinging from the brass -handrail: "BERLIN--COLOGNE--PARIS." Then I looked up at the window -above. I started violently and the cold perspiration broke out upon my -forehead. In the dim light, not six feet from where I sat, I saw the -face of a woman, the face I loved, the straight, fine features, the -strange eyes, the wonderful mouth, the pale skin. Her head-dress was a -dark veil which seemed to be tied about her head and passed over the -shoulders under her chin. As I threw down the window and knelt on the -cushioned seat, leaning far out to get a better view, a long whistle -screamed through the station, followed by a quick series of dull, -clanking sounds; then there was a slight jerk, and my train moved on. -Luckily the window was narrow, being the one over the seat, beside the -door, or I believe I would have jumped out of it then and there. In an -instant the speed increased, and I was being carried swiftly away in the -opposite direction from the thing I loved. - -For a quarter of an hour I lay back in my place, stunned by the -suddenness of the apparition. At last one of the two other passengers, a -large and gorgeous captain of the White Königsberg Cuirassiers, civilly -but firmly suggested that I might shut my window, as the evening was -cold. I did so, with an apology, and relapsed into silence. The train -ran swiftly on for a long time, and it was already beginning to slacken -speed before entering another station when I roused myself, and made a -sudden resolution. As the carriage stopped before the brilliantly -lighted platform, I seized my belongings, saluted my fellow-passengers, -and got out, determined to take the first express back to Paris. - -This time the circumstances of the vision had been so natural that it -did not strike me that there was anything unreal about the face, or -about the woman to whom it belonged. I did not try to explain to myself -how the face, and the woman, could be travelling by a fast train from -Berlin to Paris on a winter's afternoon, when both were in my mind -indelibly associated with the moonlight and the fountains in my own -English home. I certainly would not have admitted that I had been -mistaken in the dusk, attributing to what I had seen a resemblance to my -former vision which did not really exist. There was not the slightest -doubt in my mind, and I was positively sure that I had again seen the -face I loved. I did not hesitate, and in a few hours I was on my way -back to Paris. I could not help reflecting on my ill-luck. Wandering as -I had been for many months, it might as easily have chanced that I -should be travelling in the same train with that woman, instead of going -the other way. But my luck was destined to turn for a time. - -I searched Paris for several days. I dined at the principal hotels; I -went to the theatres; I rode in the Bois de Boulogne in the morning, and -picked up an acquaintance, whom I forced to drive with me in the -afternoon. I went to mass at the Madeleine, and I attended the services -at the English Church. I hung about the Louvre and Notre Dame. I went -to Versailles. I spent hours in parading the Rue de Rivoli, in the -neighbourhood of Meurice's corner, where foreigners pass and re-pass -from morning till night. At last I received an invitation to a reception -at the English Embassy. I went, and I found what I had sought so long. - -There she was, sitting by an old lady in grey satin and diamonds, who -had a wrinkled but kindly face and keen grey eyes that seemed to take in -everything they saw, with very little inclination to give much in -return. But I did not notice the chaperon. I saw only the face that had -haunted me for months, and in the excitement of the moment I walked -quickly towards the pair, forgetting such a trifle as the necessity for -an introduction. - -She was far more beautiful than I had thought, but I never doubted that -it was she herself and no other. Vision or no vision before, this was -the reality, and I knew it. Twice her hair had been covered, now at last -I saw it, and the added beauty of its magnificence glorified the whole -woman. It was rich hair, fine and abundant, golden, with deep ruddy -tints in it like red bronze spun fine. There was no ornament in it, not -a rose, not a thread of gold, and I felt that it needed nothing to -enhance its splendour; nothing but her pale face, her dark strange -eyes, and her heavy eyebrows. I could see that she was slender, too, but -strong withal, as she sat there quietly gazing at the moving scene in -the midst of the brilliant lights and the hum of perpetual conversation. - -I recollected the detail of introduction in time, and turned aside to -look for my host. I found him at last. I begged him to present me to the -two ladies, pointing them out to him at the same time. - -"Yes--uh--by all means--uh--" replied his Excellency, with a pleasant -smile. He evidently had no idea of my name, which was not to be wondered -at. - -"I am Lord Cairngorm," I observed. - -"Oh--by all means," answered the Ambassador, with the same hospitable -smile. "Yes--uh--the fact is, I must try and find out who they are; such -lots of people, you know." - -"Oh, if you will present me, I will try and find out for you," said I, -laughing. - -"Ah, yes--so kind of you--come along," said my host. - -We threaded the crowd, and in a few minutes we stood before the two -ladies. - -"'Lowmintrduce L'd Cairngorm," he said; then, adding quickly to me, -"Come and dine to-morrow, won't you?" He glided away with his pleasant -smile, and disappeared in the crowd. - -I sat down beside the beautiful girl, conscious that the eyes of the -duenna were upon me. - -"I think we have been very near meeting before," I remarked, by way of -opening the conversation. - -My companion turned her eyes full upon me with an air of enquiry. She -evidently did not recall my face, if she had ever seen me. - -"Really--I cannot remember," she observed, in a low and musical voice. -"When?" - -"In the first place, you came down from Berlin by the express, ten days -ago. I was going the other way, and our carriages stopped opposite each -other. I saw you at the window." - -"Yes--we came that way, but I do not remember--" She hesitated. - -"Secondly," I continued, "I was sitting alone in my garden last -summer--near the end of July--do you remember? You must have wandered in -there through the park; you came up to the house and looked at me--" - -"Was that you?" she asked, in evident surprise. Then she broke into a -laugh. "I told everybody I had seen a ghost; there had never been any -Cairngorms in the place since the memory of man. We left the next day, -and never heard that you had come there; indeed, I did not know the -castle belonged to you." - -"Where were you staying?" I asked. - -"Where? Why, with my aunt, where I always stay. She is your neighbour, -since it _is_ you." - -"I--beg your pardon--but then--is your aunt Lady Bluebell? I did not -quite catch--" - -"Don't be afraid. She is amazingly deaf. Yes. She is the relict of my -beloved uncle, the sixteenth or seventeenth Baron Bluebell--I forget -exactly how many of them there have been. And I--do you know who I am?" -She laughed, well knowing that I did not. - -"No," I answered frankly. "I have not the least idea. I asked to be -introduced because I recognised you. Perhaps--perhaps you are a Miss -Bluebell?" - -"Considering that you are a neighbour, I will tell you who I am," she -answered. "No; I am of the tribe of Bluebells, but my name is Lammas, -and I have been given to understand that I was christened Margaret. -Being a floral family, they call me Daisy. A dreadful American man once -told me that my aunt was a Bluebell and that I was a Harebell--with two -l's and an e--because my hair is so thick. I warn you, so that you may -avoid making such a bad pun." - -"Do I look like a man who makes puns?" I asked, being very conscious of -my melancholy face and sad looks. - -Miss Lammas eyed me critically. - -"No; you have a mournful temperament. I think I can trust you," she -answered. "Do you think you could communicate to my aunt the fact that -you are a Cairngorm and a neighbour? I am sure she would like to know." - -I leaned towards the old lady, inflating my lungs for a yell. But Miss -Lammas stopped me. - -"That is not of the slightest use," she remarked. "You can write it on a -bit of paper. She is utterly deaf." - -"I have a pencil," I answered, "but I have no paper. Would my cuff do, -do you think?" - -"Oh yes!" replied Miss Lammas, with alacrity; "men often do that." - -I wrote on my cuff: "Miss Lammas wishes me to explain that I am your -neighbour, Cairngorm." Then I held out my arm before the old lady's -nose. She seemed perfectly accustomed to the proceeding, put up her -glasses, read the words, smiled, nodded, and addressed me in the -unearthly voice peculiar to people who hear nothing. - -"I knew your grandfather very well," she said. Then she smiled and -nodded to me again, and to her niece, and relapsed into silence. - -"It is all right," remarked Miss Lammas. "Aunt Bluebell knows she is -deaf, and does not say much, like the parrot. You see, she knew your -grandfather. How odd, that we should be neighbours! Why have we never -met before?" - -"If you had told me you knew my grandfather when you appeared in the -garden, I should not have been in the least surprised," I answered -rather irrelevantly. "I really thought you were the ghost of the old -fountain. How in the world did you come there at that hour?" - -"We were a large party, and we went out for a walk. Then we thought we -should like to see what your park was like in the moonlight, and so we -trespassed. I got separated from the rest, and came upon you by -accident, just as I was admiring the extremely ghostly look of your -house, and wondering whether anybody would ever come and live there -again. It looks like the castle of Macbeth, or a scene from the opera. -Do you know anybody here?" - -"Hardly a soul. Do you?" - -"No. Aunt Bluebell said it was our duty to come. It is easy for her to -go out; she does not bear the burden of the conversation." - -"I am sorry you find it a burden," said I. "Shall I go away?" - -Miss Lammas looked at me with a sudden gravity in her beautiful eyes, -and there was a sort of hesitation about the lines of her full, soft -mouth. - -"No," she said at last, quite simply, "don't go away. We may like each -other, if you stay a little longer--and we ought to because we are -neighbours in the country." - -I suppose I ought to have thought Miss Lammas a very odd girl. There is, -indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover that they live -near each other, and that they ought to have known each other before. -But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the -girl's amusing manner which would have struck any one else as being -singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural -enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when -I met her at last, and could talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, -the man of ill-luck in everything, the whole meeting seemed too good to -be true. I felt again that strange sensation of lightness which I had -experienced after I had seen her face in the garden. The great rooms -seemed brighter, life seemed worth living; my sluggish, melancholy blood -ran faster, and filled me with a new sense of strength. I said to myself -that without this woman I was but an imperfect being, but that with her -I could accomplish everything to which I should set my hand. Like the -great Doctor, when he thought he had cheated Mephistopheles at last, I -could have cried aloud to the fleeting moment, _Verweile doch du bist -so schön_! - -"Are you always gay?" I asked suddenly. "How happy you must be!" - -"The days would sometimes seem very long if I were gloomy," she answered -thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I find life very pleasant, and I tell it -so." - -"How can you 'tell life' anything?" I enquired. "If I could catch my -life and talk to it, I would abuse it prodigiously, I assure you." - -"I dare say. You have a melancholy temper. You ought to live out of -doors, dig potatoes, make hay, shoot, hunt, tumble into ditches, and -come home muddy and hungry for dinner. It would be much better for you -than moping in your rook tower, and hating everything." - -"It is rather lonely down there," I murmured apologetically, feeling -that Miss Lammas was quite right. - -"Then marry, and quarrel with your wife," she laughed. "Anything is -better than being alone." - -"I am a very peaceable person. I never quarrel with anybody. You can try -it. You will find it quite impossible." - -"Will you let me try?" she asked, still smiling. - -"By all means--especially if it is to be only a preliminary canter," I -answered rashly. - -"What do you mean?" she enquired, turning quickly upon me. - -"Oh--nothing. You might try my paces with a view to quarrelling in the -future. I cannot imagine how you are going to do it. You will have to -resort to immediate and direct abuse." - -"No. I will only say that if you do not like your life, it is your own -fault. How can a man of your age talk of being melancholy, or of the -hollowness of existence? Are you consumptive? Are you subject to -hereditary insanity? Are you deaf, like Aunt Bluebell? Are you poor, -like--lots of people? Have you been crossed in love? Have you lost the -world for a woman, or any particular woman for the sake of the world? -Are you feebleminded, a cripple, an outcast? Are you--repulsively ugly?" -She laughed again. "Is there any reason in the world why you should not -enjoy all you have got in life?" - -"No. There is no reason whatever, except that I am dreadfully unlucky, -especially in small things." - -"Then try big things, just for a change," suggested Miss Lammas. "Try -and get married, for instance, and see how it turns out." - -"If it turned out badly, it would be rather serious." - -"Not half so serious as it is to abuse everything unreasonably. If -abuse is your particular talent, abuse something that ought to be -abused. Abuse the Conservatives--or the Liberals--it does not matter -which, since they are always abusing each other. Make yourself felt by -other people. You will like it, if they don't. It will make a man of -you. Fill your mouth with pebbles, and howl at the sea, if you cannot do -anything else. It did Demosthenes no end of good, you know. You will -have the satisfaction of imitating a great man." - -"Really, Miss Lammas, I think the list of innocent exercises you -propose--" - -"Very well--if you don't care for that sort of thing, care for some -other sort of thing. Care for something, or hate something. Don't be -idle. Life is short, and though art may be long, plenty of noise answers -nearly as well." - -"I do care for something--I mean somebody," I said. - -"A woman? Then marry her. Don't hesitate." - -"I do not know whether she would marry me," I replied. "I have never -asked her." - -"Then ask her at once," answered Miss Lammas. "I shall die happy if I -feel I have persuaded a melancholy fellow-creature to rouse himself to -action. Ask her, by all means, and see what she says. If she does not -accept you at once, she may take you the next time. Meanwhile, you will -have entered for the race. If you lose, there are the 'All-aged Trial -Stakes,' and the 'Consolation Race.'" - -"And plenty of selling races into the bargain. Shall I take you at your -word, Miss Lammas?" - -"I hope you will," she answered. - -"Since you yourself advise me, I will. Miss Lammas, will you do me the -honour to marry me?" - -For the first time in my life the blood rushed to my head and my sight -swam. I cannot tell why I said it. It would be useless to try to explain -the extraordinary fascination the girl exercised over me, or the still -more extraordinary feeling of intimacy with her which had grown in me -during that half-hour. Lonely, sad, unlucky as I had been all my life, I -was certainly not timid, nor even shy. But to propose to marry a woman -after half an hour's acquaintance was a piece of madness of which I -never believed myself capable, and of which I should never be capable -again, could I be placed in the same situation. It was as though my -whole being had been changed in a moment by magic--by the white magic of -her nature brought into contact with mine. The blood sank back to my -heart, and a moment later I found myself staring at her with anxious -eyes. To my amazement she was as calm as ever, but her beautiful mouth -smiled, and there was a mischievous light in her dark-brown eyes. - -"Fairly caught," she answered. "For an individual who pretends to be -listless and sad you are not lacking in humour. I had really not the -least idea what you were going to say. Wouldn't it be singularly awkward -for you if I had said 'Yes'? I never saw anybody begin to practise so -sharply what was preached to him--with so very little loss of time!" - -"You probably never met a man who had dreamed of you for seven months -before being introduced." - -"No, I never did," she answered gaily. "It smacks of the romantic. -Perhaps you are a romantic character after all. I should think you were, -if I believed you. Very well; you have taken my advice, entered for a -Stranger's Race and lost it. Try the All-aged Trial Stakes. You have -another cuff, and a pencil. Propose to Aunt Bluebell; she would dance -with astonishment, and she might recover her hearing." - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -That was how I first asked Margaret Lammas to be my wife, and I will -agree with any one who says I behaved very foolishly. But I have not -repented of it, and I never shall. I have long ago understood that I was -out of my mind that evening, but I think my temporary insanity on that -occasion has had the effect of making me a saner man ever since. Her -manner turned my head, for it was so different from what I had expected. -To hear this lovely creature, who, in my imagination, was a heroine of -romance, if not of tragedy, talking familiarly and laughing readily was -more than my equanimity could bear, and I lost my head as well as my -heart. But when I went back to England in the spring, I went to make -certain arrangements at the Castle--certain changes and improvements -which would be absolutely necessary. I had won the race for which I had -entered myself so rashly, and we were to be married in June. - -Whether the change was due to the orders I had left with the gardener -and the rest of the servants, or to my own state of mind, I cannot tell. -At all events, the old place did not look the same to me when I opened -my window on the morning after my arrival. There were the grey walls -below me, and the grey turrets flanking the huge building; there were -the fountains, the marble causeways, the smooth basins, the tall box -hedges, the water-lilies and the swans, just as of old. But there was -something else there, too--something in the air, in the water, and in -the greenness that I did not recognise--a light over everything by which -everything was transfigured. The clock in the tower struck seven, and -the strokes of the ancient bell sounded like a wedding chime. The air -sang with the thrilling treble of the song-birds, with the silvery music -of the plashing water, and the softer harmony of the leaves stirred by -the fresh morning wind. There was a smell of new-mown hay from the -distant meadows, and of blooming roses from the beds below, wafted up -together to my window. I stood in the pure sunshine and drank the air -and all the sounds and the odours that were in it; and I looked down at -my garden and said, "It is Paradise, after all. I think the men of old -were right when they called heaven a garden, and Eden a garden inhabited -by one man and one woman, the Earthly Paradise." - -I turned away, wondering what had become of the gloomy memories I had -always associated with my home. I tried to recall the impression of my -nurse's horrible prophecy before the death of my parents--an impression -which hitherto had been vivid enough. I tried to remember my own self, -my dejection, my listlessness, my bad luck, and my petty -disappointments. I endeavoured to force myself to think as I used to -think, if only to satisfy myself that I had not lost my individuality. -But I succeeded in none of these efforts. I was a different man, a -changed being, incapable of sorrow, of ill-luck, or of sadness. My life -had been a dream, not evil, but infinitely gloomy and hopeless. It was -now a reality, full of hope, gladness, and all manner of good. My home -had been like a tomb; to-day it was Paradise. My heart had been as -though it had not existed; to-day it beat with strength and youth, and -the certainty of realised happiness. I revelled in the beauty of the -world, and called loveliness out of the future to enjoy it before time -should bring it to me, as a traveller in the plains looks up to the -mountains, and already tastes the cool air through the dust of the road. - -Here, I thought, we will live and live for years. There we will sit by -the fountain towards evening and in the deep moonlight. Down those paths -we will wander together. On those benches we will rest and talk. Among -those eastern hills we will ride through the soft twilight, and in the -old house we will tell tales on winter nights, when the logs burn high, -and the holly berries are red, and the old clock tolls out the dying -year. On these old steps, in these dark passages and stately rooms, -there will one day be the sound of little pattering feet, and laughing -child-voices will ring up to the vaults of the ancient hall. Those tiny -footsteps shall not be slow and sad as mine were, nor shall the childish -words be spoken in an awed whisper. No gloomy Welshwoman shall people -the dusky corners with weird horrors, nor utter horrid prophecies of -death and ghastly things. All shall be young, and fresh, and joyful, and -happy, and we will turn the old luck again, and forget that there was -ever any sadness. - -So I thought, as I looked out of my window that morning and for many -mornings after that, and every day it all seemed more real than ever -before, and much nearer. But the old nurse looked at me askance, and -muttered odd sayings about the Woman of the Water. I cared little what -she said, for I was far too happy. - -At last the time came near for the wedding. Lady Bluebell and all the -tribe of Bluebells, as Margaret called them, were at Bluebell Grange, -for we had determined to be married in the country, and to come straight -to the Castle afterwards. We cared little for travelling, and not at -all for a crowded ceremony at St. George's in Hanover Square, with all -the tiresome formalities afterwards. I used to ride over to the Grange -every day, and very often Margaret would come with her aunt and some of -her cousins to the Castle. I was suspicious of my own taste, and was -only too glad to let her have her way about the alterations and -improvements in our home. - -We were to be married on the thirtieth of July, and on the evening of -the twenty-eighth Margaret drove over with some of the Bluebell party. -In the long summer twilight we all went out into the garden. Naturally -enough, Margaret and I were left to ourselves, and we wandered down by -the marble basins. - -"It is an odd coincidence," I said; "it was on this very night last year -that I first saw you." - -"Considering that it is the month of July," answered Margaret, with a -laugh, "and that we have been here almost every day, I don't think the -coincidence is so extraordinary, after all." - -"No, dear," said I, "I suppose not. I don't know why it struck me. We -shall very likely be here a year from to-day, and a year from that. The -odd thing, when I think of it, is that you should be here at all. But my -luck has turned. I ought not to think anything odd that happens now that -I have you. It is all sure to be good." - -"A slight change in your ideas since that remarkable performance of -yours in Paris," said Margaret. "Do you know, I thought you were the -most extraordinary man I had ever met." - -"I thought you were the most charming woman I have ever seen. I -naturally did not want to lose any time in frivolities. I took you at -your word, I followed your advice, I asked you to marry me, and this is -the delightful result--what's the matter?" - -Margaret had started suddenly, and her hand tightened on my arm. An old -woman was coming up the path, and was close to us before we saw her, for -the moon had risen, and was shining full in our faces. The woman turned -out to be my old nurse. - -"It's only old Judith, dear--don't be frightened," I said. Then I spoke -to the Welshwoman: "What are you about, Judith? Have you been feeding -the Woman of the Water?" - -"Ay--when the clock strikes, Willie--my lord, I mean," muttered the old -creature, drawing aside to let us pass, and fixing her strange eyes on -Margaret's face. - -"What does she mean?" asked Margaret, when we had gone by. - -"Nothing, darling. The old thing is mildly crazy, but she is a good -soul." - -We went on in silence for a few moments, and came to the rustic bridge -just above the artificial grotto through which the water ran out into -the park, dark and swift in its narrow channel. We stopped, and leaned -on the wooden rail. The moon was now behind us, and shone full upon the -long vista of basins and on the huge walls and towers of the Castle -above. - -"How proud you ought to be of such a grand old place!" said Margaret, -softly. - -"It is yours now, darling," I answered. "You have as good a right to -love it as I--but I only love it because you are to live in it, dear." - -Her hand stole out and lay on mine, and we were both silent. Just then -the clock began to strike far off in the tower. I counted the -strokes--eight--nine--ten--eleven--I looked at my -watch--twelve--thirteen--I laughed. The bell went on striking. - -"The old clock has gone crazy, like Judith," I exclaimed. Still it went -on, note after note ringing out monotonously through the still air. We -leaned over the rail, instinctively looking in the direction whence the -sound came. On and on it went. I counted nearly a hundred, out of sheer -curiosity, for I understood that something had broken and that the thing -was running itself down. - -Suddenly there was a crack as of breaking wood, a cry and a heavy -splash, and I was alone, clinging to the broken end of the rail of the -rustic bridge. - -I do not think I hesitated while my pulse beat twice. I sprang clear of -the bridge into the black rushing water, dived to the bottom, came up -again with empty hands, turned and swam downwards through the grotto in -the thick darkness, plunging and diving at every stroke, striking my -head and hands against jagged stones and sharp corners, clutching at -last something in my fingers, and dragging it up with all my might. I -spoke, I cried aloud, but there was no answer. I was alone in the pitchy -blackness with my burden, and the house was five hundred yards away. -Struggling still, I felt the ground beneath my feet, I saw a ray of -moonlight--the grotto widened, and the deep water became a broad and -shallow brook as I stumbled over the stones and at last laid Margaret's -body on the bank in the park beyond. - -"Ay, Willie, as the clock struck!" said the voice of Judith, the Welsh -nurse, as she bent down and looked at the white face. The old woman must -have turned back and followed us, seen the accident, and slipped out by -the lower gate of the garden. "Ay," she groaned, "you have fed the Woman -of the Water this night, Willie, while the clock was striking." - -I scarcely heard her as I knelt beside the lifeless body of the woman I -loved, chafing the wet white temples, and gazing wildly into the -wide-staring eyes. I remember only the first returning look of -consciousness, the first heaving breath, the first movement of those -dear hands stretching out towards me. - - -That is not much of a story, you say. It is the story of my life. That -is all. It does not pretend to be anything else. Old Judith says my luck -turned on that summer's night, when I was struggling in the water to -save all that was worth living for. A month later there was a stone -bridge above the grotto, and Margaret and I stood on it, and looked up -at the moonlit Castle, as we had done once before, and as we have done -many times since. For all those things happened ten years ago last -summer, and this is the tenth Christmas Eve we have spent together by -the roaring logs in the old hall, talking of old times; and every year -there are more old times to talk of. There are curly-headed boys, too, -with red-gold hair and dark-brown eyes like their mother's, and a little -Margaret, with solemn black eyes like mine. Why could she not look like -her mother, too, as well as the rest of them? - -The world is very bright at this glorious Christmas time, and perhaps -there is little use in calling up the sadness of long ago, unless it be -to make the jolly firelight seem more cheerful, the good wife's face -look gladder, and to give the children's laughter a merrier ring, by -contrast with all that is gone. Perhaps, too, some sad-faced, listless, -melancholy youth, who feels that the world is very hollow, and that life -is like a perpetual funeral service, just as I used to feel myself, may -take courage from my example, and having found the woman of his heart, -ask her to marry him after half an hour's acquaintance. But, on the -whole, I would not advise any man to marry, for the simple reason that -no man will ever find a wife like mine, and being obliged to go further, -he will necessarily fare worse. My wife has done miracles, but I will -not assert that any other woman is able to follow her example. - -Margaret always said that the old place was beautiful, and that I ought -to be proud of it. I dare say she is right. She has even more -imagination than I. But I have a good answer and a plain one, which is -this--that all the beauty of the Castle comes from her. She has breathed -upon it all, as the children blow upon the cold glass window-panes in -winter; and as their warm breath crystallises into landscapes from -fairyland, full of exquisite shapes and traceries upon the blank -surface, so her spirit has transformed every grey stone of the old -towers, every ancient tree and hedge in the gardens, every thought in my -once melancholy self. All that was old is young, and all that was sad is -glad, and I am the gladdest of all. Whatever heaven may be, there is no -earthly paradise without woman, nor is there anywhere a place so -desolate, so dreary, so unutterably miserable that a woman cannot make -it seem heaven to the man she loves, and who loves her. - -I hear certain cynics laugh, and cry that all that has been said before. -Do not laugh, my good cynic. You are too small a man to laugh at such a -great thing as love. Prayers have been said before now by many, and -perhaps you say yours, too. I do not think they lose anything by being -repeated, nor you by repeating them. You say that the world is bitter, -and full of the Waters of Bitterness. Love, and so live that you may be -loved--the world will turn sweet for you, and you shall rest like me by -the Waters of Paradise. - - - - -THE DOLL'S GHOST - - -It was a terrible accident, and for one moment the splendid machinery of -Cranston House got out of gear and stood still. The butler emerged from -the retirement in which he spent his elegant leisure, two grooms of the -chambers appeared simultaneously from opposite directions, there were -actually housemaids on the grand staircase, and those who remember the -facts most exactly assert that Mrs. Pringle herself positively stood -upon the landing. Mrs. Pringle was the housekeeper. As for the head -nurse, the under nurse, and the nursery maid, their feelings cannot be -described. The head nurse laid one hand upon the polished marble -balustrade and stared stupidly before her, the under nurse stood rigid -and pale, leaning against the polished marble wall, and the nursery-maid -collapsed and sat down upon the polished marble step, just beyond the -limits of the velvet carpet, and frankly burst into tears. - -The Lady Gwendolen Lancaster-Douglas-Scroop, youngest daughter of the -ninth Duke of Cranston, and aged six years and three months, picked -herself up quite alone, and sat down on the third step from the foot of -the grand staircase in Cranston House. - -"Oh!" ejaculated the butler, and he disappeared again. - -"Ah!" responded the grooms of the chambers, as they also went away. - -"It's only that doll," Mrs. Pringle was distinctly heard to say, in a -tone of contempt. - -The under nurse heard her say it. Then the three nurses gathered round -Lady Gwendolen and patted her, and gave her unhealthy things out of -their pockets, and hurried her out of Cranston House as fast as they -could, lest it should be found out upstairs that they had allowed the -Lady Gwendolen Lancaster-Douglas-Scroop to tumble down the grand -staircase with her doll in her arms. And as the doll was badly broken, -the nursery-maid carried it, with the pieces, wrapped up in Lady -Gwendolen's little cloak. It was not far to Hyde Park, and when they had -reached a quiet place they took means to find out that Lady Gwendolen -had no bruises. For the carpet was very thick and soft, and there was -thick stuff under it to make it softer. - -Lady Gwendolen Douglas-Scroop sometimes yelled, but she never cried. It -was because she had yelled that the nurse had allowed her to go -downstairs alone with Nina, the doll, under one arm, while she steadied -herself with her other hand on the balustrade, and trod upon the -polished marble steps beyond the edge of the carpet. So she had fallen, -and Nina had come to grief. - -When the nurses were quite sure that she was not hurt, they unwrapped -the doll and looked at her in her turn. She had been a very beautiful -doll, very large, and fair, and healthy, with real yellow hair, and -eyelids that would open and shut over very grown-up dark eyes. Moreover, -when you moved her right arm up and down she said "Pa-pa," and when you -moved the left she said "Ma-ma," very distinctly. - -"I heard her say 'Pa' when she fell," said the under nurse, who heard -everything. "But she ought to have said 'Pa-pa.'" - -"That's because her arm went up when she hit the step," said the head -nurse. "She'll say the other 'Pa' when I put it down again." - -"Pa," said Nina, as her right arm was pushed down, and speaking through -her broken face. It was cracked right across, from the upper corner of -the forehead, with a hideous gash, through the nose and down to the -little frilled collar of the pale green silk Mother Hubbard frock, and -two little three-cornered pieces of porcelain had fallen out. - -"I'm sure it's a wonder she can speak at all, being all smashed," said -the under nurse. - -"You'll have to take her to Mr. Puckler," said her superior. "It's not -far, and you'd better go at once." - -Lady Gwendolen was occupied in digging a hole in the ground with a -little spade, and paid no attention to the nurses. - -"What are you doing?" enquired the nursery-maid, looking on. - -"Nina's dead, and I'm diggin' her a grave," replied her ladyship -thoughtfully. - -"Oh, she'll come to life again all right," said the nursery-maid. - -The under nurse wrapped Nina up again and departed. Fortunately a kind -soldier, with very long legs and a very small cap, happened to be there; -and as he had nothing to do, he offered to see the under nurse safely to -Mr. Puckler's and back. - - -Mr. Bernard Puckler and his little daughter lived in a little house in a -little alley, which led out off a quiet little street not very far from -Belgrave Square. He was the great doll doctor, and his extensive -practice lay in the most aristocratic quarter. He mended dolls of all -sizes and ages, boy dolls and girl dolls, baby dolls in long clothes, -and grown-up dolls in fashionable gowns, talking dolls and dumb dolls, -those that shut their eyes when they lay down, and those whose eyes had -to be shut for them by means of a mysterious wire. His daughter Else was -only just over twelve years old, but she was already very clever at -mending dolls' clothes, and at doing their hair, which is harder than -you might think, though the dolls sit quite still while it is being -done. - -Mr. Puckler had originally been a German, but he had dissolved his -nationality in the ocean of London many years ago, like a great many -foreigners. He still had one or two German friends, however, who came on -Saturday evenings, and smoked with him and played picquet or "skat" with -him for farthing points, and called him "Herr Doctor," which seemed to -please Mr. Puckler very much. - -He looked older than he was, for his beard was rather long and ragged, -his hair was grizzled and thin, and he wore horn-rimmed spectacles. As -for Else, she was a thin, pale child, very quiet and neat, with dark -eyes and brown hair that was plaited down her back and tied with a bit -of black ribbon. She mended the dolls' clothes and took the dolls back -to their homes when they were quite strong again. - -The house was a little one, but too big for the two people who lived in -it. There was a small sitting-room on the street, and the workshop was -at the back, and there were three rooms upstairs. But the father and -daughter lived most of their time in the workshop, because they were -generally at work, even in the evenings. - -Mr. Puckler laid Nina on the table and looked at her a long time, till -the tears began to fill his eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles. He -was a very susceptible man, and he often fell in love with the dolls he -mended, and found it hard to part with them when they had smiled at him -for a few days. They were real little people to him, with characters and -thoughts and feelings of their own, and he was very tender with them -all. But some attracted him especially from the first, and when they -were brought to him maimed and injured, their state seemed so pitiful to -him that the tears came easily. You must remember that he had lived -among dolls during a great part of his life, and understood them. - -"How do you know that they feel nothing?" he went on to say to Else. -"You must be gentle with them. It costs nothing to be kind to the little -beings, and perhaps it makes a difference to them." - -And Else understood him, because she was a child, and she knew that she -was more to him than all the dolls. - -He fell in love with Nina at first sight, perhaps because her beautiful -brown glass eyes were something like Else's own, and he loved Else first -and best, with all his heart. And, besides, it was a very sorrowful -case. Nina had evidently not been long in the world, for her complexion -was perfect, her hair was smooth where it should be smooth, and curly -where it should be curly, and her silk clothes were perfectly new. But -across her face was that frightful gash, like a sabre-cut, deep and -shadowy within, but clean and sharp at the edges. When he tenderly -pressed her head to close the gaping wound, the edges made a fine -grating sound, that was painful to hear, and the lids of the dark eyes -quivered and trembled as though Nina were suffering dreadfully. - -"Poor Nina!" he exclaimed sorrowfully. "But I shall not hurt you much, -though you will take a long time to get strong." - -He always asked the names of the broken dolls when they were brought to -him, and sometimes the people knew what the children called them, and -told him. He liked "Nina" for a name. Altogether and in every way she -pleased him more than any doll he had seen for many years, and he felt -drawn to her, and made up his mind to make her perfectly strong and -sound, no matter how much labour it might cost him. - -Mr. Puckler worked patiently a little at a time, and Else watched him. -She could do nothing for poor Nina, whose clothes needed no mending. The -longer the doll doctor worked, the more fond he became of the yellow -hair and the beautiful brown glass eyes. He sometimes forgot all the -other dolls that were waiting to be mended, lying side by side on a -shelf, and sat for an hour gazing at Nina's face, while he racked his -ingenuity for some new invention by which to hide even the smallest -trace of the terrible accident. - -She was wonderfully mended. Even he was obliged to admit that; but the -scar was still visible to his keen eyes, a very fine line right across -the face, downwards from right to left. Yet all the conditions had been -most favourable for a cure, since the cement had set quite hard at the -first attempt and the weather had been fine and dry, which makes a great -difference in a dolls' hospital. - -At last he knew that he could do no more, and the under nurse had -already come twice to see whether the job was finished, as she coarsely -expressed it. - -"Nina is not quite strong yet," Mr. Puckler had answered each time, for -he could not make up his mind to face the parting. - -And now he sat before the square deal table at which he worked, and Nina -lay before him for the last time with a big brown paper box beside her. -It stood there like her coffin, waiting for her, he thought. He must put -her into it, and lay tissue paper over her dear face, and then put on -the lid, and at the thought of tying the string his sight was dim with -tears again. He was never to look into the glassy depths of the -beautiful brown eyes any more, nor to hear the little wooden voice say -"Pa-pa" and "Ma-ma." It was a very painful moment. - -In the vain hope of gaining time before the separation, he took up the -little sticky bottles of cement and glue and gum and colour, looking at -each one in turn, and then at Nina's face. And all his small tools lay -there, neatly arranged in a row, but he knew that he could not use them -again for Nina. She was quite strong at last, and in a country where -there should be no cruel children to hurt her she might live a hundred -years, with only that almost imperceptible line across her face to tell -of the fearful thing that had befallen her on the marble steps of -Cranston House. - -Suddenly Mr. Puckler's heart was quite full, and he rose abruptly from -his seat and turned away. - -"Else," he said unsteadily, "you must do it for me. I cannot bear to see -her go into the box." - -So he went and stood at the window with his back turned, while Else did -what he had not the heart to do. - -"Is it done?" he asked, not turning round. "Then take her away, my dear. -Put on your hat, and take her to Cranston House quickly, and when you -are gone I will turn round." - -Else was used to her father's queer ways with the dolls, and though she -had never seen him so much moved by a parting, she was not much -surprised. - -"Come back quickly," he said, when he heard her hand on the latch. "It -is growing late, and I should not send you at this hour. But I cannot -bear to look forward to it any more." - -When Else was gone, he left the window and sat down in his place before -the table again, to wait for the child to come back. He touched the -place where Nina had lain, very gently, and he recalled the softly -tinted pink face, and the glass eyes, and the ringlets of yellow hair, -till he could almost see them. - -The evenings were long, for it was late in the spring. But it began to -grow dark soon, and Mr. Puckler wondered why Else did not come back. She -had been gone an hour and a half, and that was much longer than he had -expected, for it was barely half a mile from Belgrave Square to Cranston -House. He reflected that the child might have been kept waiting, but as -the twilight deepened he grew anxious, and walked up and down in the dim -workshop, no longer thinking of Nina, but of Else, his own living child, -whom he loved. - -An undefinable, disquieting sensation came upon him by fine degrees, a -chilliness and a faint stirring of his thin hair, joined with a wish to -be in any company rather than to be alone much longer. It was the -beginning of fear. - -He told himself in strong German-English that he was a foolish old man, -and he began to feel about for the matches in the dusk. He knew just -where they should be, for he always kept them in the same place, close -to the little tin box that held bits of sealing-wax of various colours, -for some kinds of mending. But somehow he could not find the matches in -the gloom. - -Something had happened to Else, he was sure, and as his fear increased, -he felt as though it might be allayed if he could get a light and see -what time it was. Then he called himself a foolish old man again, and -the sound of his own voice startled him in the dark. He could not find -the matches. - -The window was grey still; he might see what time it was if he went -close to it, and he could go and get matches out of the cupboard -afterwards. He stood back from the table, to get out of the way of the -chair, and began to cross the board floor. - -Something was following him in the dark. There was a small pattering, as -of tiny feet upon the boards. He stopped and listened, and the roots of -his hair tingled. It was nothing, and he was a foolish old man. He made -two steps more, and he was sure that he heard the little pattering -again. He turned his back to the window, leaning against the sash so -that the panes began to crack, and he faced the dark. Everything was -quite still, and it smelt of paste and cement and wood-filings as usual. - -"Is that you, Else?" he asked, and he was surprised by the fear in his -voice. - -There was no answer in the room, and he held up his watch and tried to -make out what time it was by the grey dusk that was just not darkness. -So far as he could see, it was within two or three minutes of ten -o'clock. He had been a long time alone. He was shocked, and frightened -for Else, out in London, so late, and he almost ran across the room to -the door. As he fumbled for the latch, he distinctly heard the running -of the little feet after him. - -"Mice!" he exclaimed feebly, just as he got the door open. - -He shut it quickly behind him, and felt as though some cold thing had -settled on his back and were writhing upon him. The passage was quite -dark, but he found his hat and was out in the alley in a moment, -breathing more freely, and surprised to find how much light there still -was in the open air. He could see the pavement clearly under his feet, -and far off in the street to which the alley led he could hear the -laughter and calls of children, playing some game out of doors. He -wondered how he could have been so nervous, and for an instant he -thought of going back into the house to wait quietly for Else. But -instantly he felt that nervous fright of something stealing over him -again. In any case it was better to walk up to Cranston House and ask -the servants about the child. One of the women had perhaps taken a fancy -to her, and was even now giving her tea and cake. - -He walked quickly to Belgrave Square, and then up the broad streets, -listening as he went, whenever there was no other sound, for the tiny -footsteps. But he heard nothing, and was laughing at himself when he -rang the servants' bell at the big house. Of course, the child must be -there. - -The person who opened the door was quite an inferior person, for it was -a back door, but affected the manners of the front, and stared at Mr. -Puckler superciliously under the strong light. - -No little girl had been seen, and he knew "nothing about no dolls." - -"She is my little girl," said Mr. Puckler tremulously, for all his -anxiety was returning tenfold, "and I am afraid something has happened." - -The inferior person said rudely that "nothing could have happened to her -in that house, because she had not been there, which was a jolly good -reason why;" and Mr. Puckler was obliged to admit that the man ought to -know, as it was his business to keep the door and let people in. He -wished to be allowed to speak to the under nurse, who knew him; but the -man was ruder than ever, and finally shut the door in his face. - -When the doll doctor was alone in the street, he steadied himself by the -railing, for he felt as though he were breaking in two, just as some -dolls break, in the middle of the backbone. - -Presently he knew that he must be doing something to find Else, and that -gave him strength. He began to walk as quickly as he could through the -streets, following every highway and byway which his little girl might -have taken on her errand. He also asked several policemen in vain if -they had seen her, and most of them answered him kindly, for they saw -that he was a sober man and in his right senses, and some of them had -little girls of their own. - -It was one o'clock in the morning when he went up to his own door -again, worn out and hopeless and broken-hearted. As he turned the key in -the lock, his heart stood still, for he knew that he was awake and not -dreaming, and that he really heard those tiny footsteps pattering to -meet him inside the house along the passage. - -But he was too unhappy to be much frightened any more, and his heart -went on again with a dull regular pain, that found its way all through -him with every pulse. So he went in, and hung up his hat in the dark, -and found the matches in the cupboard and the candlestick in its place -in the corner. - -Mr. Puckler was so much overcome and so completely worn out that he sat -down in his chair before the work-table and almost fainted, as his face -dropped forward upon his folded hands. Beside him the solitary candle -burned steadily with a low flame in the still warm air. - -"Else! Else!" he moaned against his yellow knuckles. And that was all he -could say, and it was no relief to him. On the contrary, the very sound -of the name was a new and sharp pain that pierced his ears and his head -and his very soul. For every time he repeated the name it meant that -little Else was dead, somewhere out in the streets of London in the -dark. - -He was so terribly hurt that he did not even feel something pulling -gently at the skirt of his old coat, so gently that it was like the -nibbling of a tiny mouse. He might have thought that it was really a -mouse if he had noticed it. - -"Else! Else!" he groaned right against his hands. - -Then a cool breath stirred his thin hair, and the low flame of the one -candle dropped down almost to a mere spark, not flickering as though a -draught were going to blow it out, but just dropping down as if it were -tired out. Mr. Puckler felt his hands stiffening with fright under his -face; and there was a faint rustling sound, like some small silk thing -blown in a gentle breeze. He sat up straight, stark and scared, and a -small wooden voice spoke in the stillness. - -"Pa-pa," it said, with a break between the syllables. - -Mr. Puckler stood up in a single jump, and his chair fell over backwards -with a smashing noise upon the wooden floor. The candle had almost gone -out. - -It was Nina's doll voice that had spoken, and he should have known it -among the voices of a hundred other dolls. And yet there was something -more in it, a little human ring, with a pitiful cry and a call for help, -and the wail of a hurt child. Mr. Puckler stood up, stark and stiff, and -tried to look round, but at first he could not, for he seemed to be -frozen from head to foot. - -Then he made a great effort, and he raised one hand to each of his -temples, and pressed his own head round as he would have turned a -doll's. The candle was burning so low that it might as well have been -out altogether, for any light it gave, and the room seemed quite dark at -first. Then he saw something. He would not have believed that he could -be more frightened than he had been just before that. But he was, and -his knees shook, for he saw the doll standing in the middle of the -floor, shining with a faint and ghostly radiance, her beautiful glassy -brown eyes fixed on his. And across her face the very thin line of the -break he had mended shone as though it were drawn in light with a fine -point of white flame. - -Yet there was something more in the eyes, too; there was something -human, like Else's own, but as if only the doll saw him through them, -and not Else. And there was enough of Else to bring back all his pain -and to make him forget his fear. - -"Else! my little Else!" he cried aloud. - -The small ghost moved, and its doll-arm slowly rose and fell with a -stiff, mechanical motion. - -"Pa-pa," it said. - -It seemed this time that there was even more of Else's tone echoing -somewhere between the wooden notes that reached his ears so distinctly, -and yet so far away. Else was calling him, he was sure. - -His face was perfectly white in the gloom, but his knees did not shake -any more, and he felt that he was less frightened. - -"Yes, child! But where? Where?" he asked. "Where are you, Else?" - -"Pa-pa!" - -The syllables died away in the quiet room. There was a low rustling of -silk, the glassy brown eyes turned slowly away, and Mr. Puckler heard -the pitter-patter of the small feet in the bronze kid slippers as the -figure ran straight to the door. Then the candle burned high again, the -room was full of light, and he was alone. - -Mr. Puckler passed his hand over his eyes and looked about him. He could -see everything quite clearly, and he felt that he must have been -dreaming, though he was standing instead of sitting down, as he should -have been if he had just waked up. The candle burned brightly now. There -were the dolls to be mended, lying in a row with their toes up. The -third one had lost her right shoe, and Else was making one. He knew -that, and he was certainly not dreaming now. He had not been dreaming -when he had come in from his fruitless search and had heard the doll's -footsteps running to the door. He had not fallen asleep in his chair. -How could he possibly have fallen asleep when his heart was breaking? He -had been awake all the time. - -He steadied himself, set the fallen chair upon its legs, and said to -himself again very emphatically that he was a foolish old man. He ought -to be out in the streets looking for his child, asking questions, and -enquiring at the police stations, where all accidents were reported as -soon as they were known, or at the hospitals. - -"Pa-pa!" - -The longing, wailing, pitiful little wooden cry rang from the passage, -outside the door, and Mr. Puckler stood for an instant with white face, -transfixed and rooted to the spot. A moment later his hand was on the -latch. Then he was in the passage, with the light streaming from the -open door behind him. - -Quite at the other end he saw the little phantom shining clearly in the -shadow, and the right hand seemed to beckon to him as the arm rose and -fell once more. He knew all at once that it had not come to frighten him -but to lead him, and when it disappeared, and he walked boldly towards -the door, he knew that it was in the street outside, waiting for him. He -forgot that he was tired and had eaten no supper, and had walked many -miles, for a sudden hope ran through and through him, like a golden -stream of life. - -And sure enough, at the corner of the alley, and at the corner of the -street, and out in Belgrave Square, he saw the small ghost flitting -before him. Sometimes it was only a shadow, where there was other light, -but then the glare of the lamps made a pale green sheen on its little -Mother Hubbard frock of silk; and sometimes, where the streets were dark -and silent, the whole figure shone out brightly, with its yellow curls -and rosy neck. It seemed to trot along like a tiny child, and Mr. -Puckler could almost hear the pattering of the bronze kid slippers on -the pavement as it ran. But it went very fast, and he could only just -keep up with it, tearing along with his hat on the back of his head and -his thin hair blown by the night breeze, and his horn-rimmed spectacles -firmly set upon his broad nose. - -On and on he went, and he had no idea where he was. He did not even -care, for he knew certainly that he was going the right way. - -Then at last, in a wide, quiet street, he was standing before a big, -sober-looking door that had two lamps on each side of it, and a polished -brass bell-handle, which he pulled. - -And just inside, when the door was opened, in the bright light, there -was the little shadow, and the pale green sheen of the little silk -dress, and once more the small cry came to his ears, less pitiful, more -longing. - -"Pa-pa!" - -The shadow turned suddenly bright, and out of the brightness the -beautiful brown glass eyes were turned up happily to his, while the rosy -mouth smiled so divinely that the phantom doll looked almost like a -little angel just then. - -"A little girl was brought in soon after ten o'clock," said the quiet -voice of the hospital doorkeeper. "I think they thought she was only -stunned. She was holding a big brown-paper box against her, and they -could not get it out of her arms. She had a long plait of brown hair -that hung down as they carried her." - -"She is my little girl," said Mr. Puckler, but he hardly heard his own -voice. - -He leaned over Else's face in the gentle light of the children's ward, -and when he had stood there a minute the beautiful brown eyes opened and -looked up to his. - -"Pa-pa!" cried Else, softly, "I knew you would come!" - -Then Mr. Puckler did not know what he did or said for a moment, and what -he felt was worth all the fear and terror and despair that had almost -killed him that night. But by and by Else was telling her story, and the -nurse let her speak, for there were only two other children in the room, -who were getting well and were sound asleep. - -"They were big boys with bad faces," said Else, "and they tried to get -Nina away from me, but I held on and fought as well as I could till one -of them hit me with something, and I don't remember any more, for I -tumbled down, and I suppose the boys ran away, and somebody found me -there. But I'm afraid Nina is all smashed." - -"Here is the box," said the nurse. "We could not take it out of her arms -till she came to herself. Should you like to see if the doll is broken?" - -And she undid the string cleverly, but Nina was all smashed to pieces. -Only the gentle light of the children's ward made a pale green sheen in -the folds of the little Mother Hubbard frock. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wandering Ghosts, by F. 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