CHAPTER I_Wandering ghosts

WANDERING GHOSTS

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[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_

BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.

BY STREET AND SMITH.

BY F. MARION CRAWFORD

AND

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

BY P. F. COLLIER AND SON.

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.