THE GHOST FACE.
The tide was at ebb; but I walked down the shore until I could see,
faint and ashen, the curled crests of the breakers and the foam
writhing upon the sand. I began to make along to the northward.
There came a flash of lightning glimmering upon the face of the high
cliff. It was followed a little after by another, a blinding flash; and
so continued intermittent. Presently a sort of hoarse rolling sound
came to me above the clamour of the breakers. It waxed louder as I
proceeded, and soon I knew what it was: the sound of waters falling
from a blow-hole high up on the lofty cliff.
But, as I drew nearer, for the fourth time that night terror laid hold
on me. For, as a flash of lightning fell upon the waterfall, _from
above it there looked forth that frightful visage which had struck
terror to the heart of every man on board the “Tiger”_!
I beheld the thing but for a moment; yet the horror of it was more than
I could bear. A dizziness came over me, and I sank down in a swound.
* * * * *
It was early morning when I came to myself. A tumultuous and thundrous
sound was in my ears. It was the clamour of the great waterfall, joined
with the roaring of the sea.
A wind was sprung up, a high and rocking wind, that came in flurries,
and swept round and round and in and out the bends and indentations of
the cliff, to leap howling upon the giant headland. The sea, risen high
upon the shore, gnashed and foamed in great breakers. But the sky was
cloudless blue, and the firmament clear like crystal.
My face was wet with the flying scud; my clothes had dried upon me.
I felt fresh and vigorous, as after deep sleep. I lay recalling the
grisly happenings of the night; and, on the thought of the ghost face,
a shadow and a chill came over me--yea, even in the warmth and light of
the sun!
Yet, on a sudden, I took another kind of thought. Getting to my feet, I
looked directly upon the cliff above the waterfall, and there was the
face--ay, even as I expected! For now I knew what it really was: _a
sculptured face, vast and horrible, hewed out of the rock!_
Yet even so, scarce I could bear to look upon it. It was vast; it was
prodigious; it was a hellish thing! Never hideous gargoyle, never
infernal ghost, or chimera seen in dreams, looked with an aspect so
frightful and malign!
Who, I wondered, had conceived it, and whose hand had wrought it? And
immediately I remembered those wondrous works of sculpture on the
walls of Ambrose’s cell. Ambrose was the man!
This, then, was what had scared us on board the ship near out of our
wits, and, no doubt, many another ship’s company besides; a sculptured
face, the phantasm of a mind diseased, a nightmare made stone! And, by
the same token, I perceived, what we had taken for flowing white robes
of the figure _was nothing else but flowing water, the water falling
from the blow-hole beneath the visage from the high cliff_.
As to the illumination, that did not stumble me. I had made it my
play-game often, when a child, to cast a light reflected on a mirror;
so an arc of the strange white light,[C] cast upon a mirror, and
reflected upon the face and falling water, might well have served to
create that ghostly appearance.
But where was the mirror? There was a cave near by; I stepped to it,
and entered in. ’Twas deep and dark; but I felt about the walls of it,
and sure enough found the mirror. It stood set up against the rock,
wrapped in a canvas case.
Thus, then, the great mystery stood revealed. A chance, albeit a
wondrous chance, had unmasked the trickery; for, if the lightning
had not fallen, as it did, directly upon the face, and in that very
moment of time, ’tis a thousand to one I had never seen it. For, on
removing a little to one side, I found that the face was no longer to
be descried. ’Twas the same when I essayed the other way. The thing
appeared only by direct observation.
By means of this ghostly scarecrow, I apprehend, Doctor Copicus had
sought to preserve his island inviolate of strangers, frighting away
any ships (save those he wanted), which happened to wander near,
scattering reports and rumours of terror, building on the superstitions
of the sea. But why he should have employed the thing to terrify us,
whom, by means of Ouvery, he had enticed hither, I could not at first
understand.
However, casting back my thoughts upon past events, I saw the fact: in
suborning Ouvery to the work, Doctor Copicus, no doubt, had given him
a sign to show forth on his returning in our ship; which sign being
wanting at our coming to the island, he had been deceived as to what we
were.