“HE WAS CONVINCED NOW HE HAD SEEN A SPECTRE AND NOTHING ELSE.”
When a few months more had gone over their heads it is no wonder that
the time began to seem a little longer.
Tom spent more time now alone by himself at the outlook station on the
hilltop. I really ought not to say “alone,” however, when so faithful a
companion as puss was with him.
Brandy and he had built a sun shelter here, and as there was always a
little breeze blowing it was delightful enough to sit under cover and
read or write. He read his Shakespeare till he had it well nigh by
heart, and used to spend hours in reciting. Often of an evening too he
used to delight his dusky companion by reading nearly a whole play. This
was a pleasant way of spending the time. But he thought of another, and
one which Ginger Brandy became quite enamoured of. This was simply the
good old-fashioned game of draughts; and over this they spent many a
quiet and pleasant evening. It was very easy to make a board, and
anything did duty as men--slices of vegetables, for instance.
Although it fell dark shortly after sunset in this island, it must not
be supposed they wanted light. No; for from the fat of the animals
killed for food they made excellent candles, the wicks being composed of
a kind of pith from rushes that grew plentifully near the water’s edge.
In the mornings Brandy went hunting in the woods or over the hills with
his master, then he would go by himself to the hut to get dinner ready,
and prepare to have a delightful hour or two before retiring. But it
soon grew a habit with Tom to spend the afternoon with pussy at the
outlook.
But, alas! he swept the horizon in vain for any signs of the coming
ship.
One afternoon a sharp thunder-storm kept him longer at his station than
usual. But the sun went down, and darkness came on apace, before he had
recognized that it was so late. It would be impossible now to find his
way down through the woods until the moon should rise. Brandy would
certainly be anxious about him; but there was no help for it, wait he
must.
Happily the moon was nearly a full one, when it did rise he would have
plenty of light.
But waiting here was certainly lonesome.
He began to think of home, and before many minutes he was in dreamland.
And the spirit of his dreams flew away with him far over the sea, far
over the wild mountain lands of Ecuador, across Colombia, and across the
wide Atlantic to the dear old farm of Craigielea; and he found himself,
as he thought, walking towards the house from the pine-wood, with little
laughing ’Theena by his side. ’Theena was not a whit bigger, nor did she
seem a day older, than when he had left her. Nor was his mother, father,
and uncle at all astonished to see him, but simply made room for him at
the fireside, as in the days of yore; and he sat as of old at his
sister’s feet, with her loving fingers entwined in his hair.
How long he had slept he could not tell. He awoke with a start at last;
for the cat had sprung on his shoulder, and was growling low and
ominously. The moon was very high now, and suddenly escaping from a
cloud shone full on the figure of a man, or--was it a spectre?
An unaccountable feeling of superstitious dread seized him, and he
trembled in every limb. The figure was tall, and as well as could be
made out dressed in skins, but with naked brown arms and feet. The face
was almost black, and a short dark beard curled round cheeks and chin.
Next instant he or _it_ had glided silently behind a tree.
Tom forced a laugh to relieve his mind.
“I have been dreaming,” he said aloud.
But surely there must have been something there, else why had the cat
growled?
For the first time in his life, as far as he could remember, he
experienced something akin to genuine fear as he set out to walk
homewards through the woods.
The clouds were very high to-night, which gave the moon the appearance
of being exceedingly far away. The whole sky, partially overcast with
these soft-looking feathery clouds, had little rifts of deep dark blue
between, and it was only when the moon escaped into one of these that
everything could be seen distinctly.
But a hundred times at least during his journey through that wild forest
Tom started, as he thought he saw that strange skin-clad man lurking
among the bushes.
What a relief it was to his feelings when he got clear at last of the
weird-looking trees, whose very shadows to-night seemed to enter his
soul! And, look, yonder was Brandy bounding joyfully to meet him.
“O, sah, sah, I’se so glad you come. I tink you lost. I tink I nebber,
nebber see you no more. And de drefful man, sah! O, he scare poor Brandy
a’most to def, sah.”
“The man, Brandy! What, you have seen him too? Then it was no
apparition.”
“I dun know nuffin’, sah. I was bend down near de fire to makee he burn
up more bright, den I hear a footstep. I look up plenty quick, and
dere--O, it was drefful, sah, dat hairy man, all same’s one big baboon!”
“Which way did he go?”
“Round by de ruins, sah. Den I see him run to de forest, O, ebber so
fast! I tink he one ghost, sah. Den I tink plaps he hab murder you, and
I turn pale wid fear.”
“Come along anyhow,” said Tom, “and give me some dinner. I am famishing,
and food will banish fear; though, Brandy, I think it would take a good
deal to make you turn pale.”
Hardly anything else was thought about that night except the apparition;
and lest he should come again at midnight, Tom loaded his rifle and kept
it handy by his couch.
Days wore by, and nothing more was seen of the hairy man, and Tom began
to think it must after all have been a baboon. Brandy and he went to the
woods together as usual; but after this somehow neither cared to stay
alone at the outlook station, and they were always at home by nightfall.
One evening, however,--a clear and starlit one it was, with everything
easily seen at a considerable distance--Tom was taking a last look
round before turning in, when he saw that figure again crossing the
plain not a hundred yards away.
He followed slowly. He seemed impelled to follow. The figure glided on
silently far in front, and finally disappeared in the orange grove where
the graves were.
While following the strange figure Tom had experienced no fear; but
immediately it disappeared the same unaccountable feeling of
apprehension stole over him, and he retraced his steps to the hut, nor
would he have gazed behind him for all the world.
He was convinced now in his own mind that he had seen a spectre and
nothing else.
Curiosity led Brandy and him to visit the orange grove next day,
nevertheless.
What they saw almost took their breath away for a moment.
The grave had been opened, the skeletons taken up and thrown on one
side, and quite a quantity of earth excavated from the bed in which they
had lain.
“No spectre has done this,” said Tom as soon as he had recovered the
power of speech.
“Look, marster,” said Brandy; “it is de ebil man. He hab drefful claws.”
The sides of the grave really did appear to have been clawed at, and
this only deepened the mystery.
Tom touched nothing; he even obliterated the marks of their footsteps,
and left the skeletons as they were.
“Was the creature who had done this deed a ghoul?” he could not help
thinking as he walked silently back to the hut with Ginger Brandy.
“Brandy,” he said that afternoon, “let us have an early dinner
to-night.”
“Sartinly, sah. But--”
“But what, my friend?”
“Dere am sumfing strange in your eye, sah. You is goin’ to de grabe
after dinner to watch?”
“You have guessed aright, Brandy. I am going to the grave to watch. Be
this creature man or beast, fiend or ghoul, I shall get to the bottom of
the mystery to-night.”
“Brandy go too?”
“No, you must stop in the hut; and you must keep Black Tom in too. The
cat might spoil all.”
“I stay at home den, marster. But I dreffully frightened.”
“There is no occasion to be frightened, Brandy. Say your prayers, and
nothing will happen to you or to me.”
“O, I pray, sah, fo’ true. I pray all de time you away; but I dreffully
aflaid all de same.”
The moon would not rise to-night till past twelve, and there was little
likelihood of the creature visiting the orange grove before then.
But soon after ten o’clock Tom, with revolver in belt, left the hut, and
betook himself across the plain to the little grove of trees where the
now unburied skeletons lay.
The tree that overshadowed the place afforded ample room for
concealment, so he climbed well up and sat down to watch.
Would the ghoul appear?
How very long the time seemed!
The silence was intense to-night, for not a breath of air was stirring
among the leaves. The moan of the restless sea was distinctly audible.
And at intervals strange voice-sounds came from the woods, and from the
lonesome far-off hills; sounds that perhaps birds or beasts emitted, and
which it was difficult to locate exactly, for at times they appeared to
come from the very sky itself. But they made Tom feel very eerie, and
more than once he repented of his rashness, and wished he had not
undertaken so lonely a vigil.
At long last the moon rose red and rosy over the mountains, and soon its
light glimmered through the orange trees and fell in patches on and
around the grave.
Tom placed his hand on his revolver, and sat on his perch as silent as
the leaves themselves.