on our course that we don’t know what to do, he being off his head
and unfit to tell us. By dead reckoning we are but three hundred
miles from Funchal, so I take it that it is best that we should
push on there, get Mr. V. into hospital, and wait in the Bay until
you come. There’s a sailing-ship due from Falmouth to Funchal in a
few days’ time, as I understand. This goes by the brig _Marian_ of
Falmouth, and five pounds is due to the master,
“Yours respectfully,
“JNO. HINES.”
She was a wonderful woman that, only a chit of a girl fresh from school,
but as quiet and strong as a man. She said nothing--only pressed her
lips together tight, and put on her bonnet.
“You are going out?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Can I be of use?”
“No; I am going to the doctor’s.”
“To the doctor’s?”
“Yes. To learn how to nurse a small-pox case.”
She was busy at that all the evening, and next morning we were off with
a fine ten-knot breeze in the barque _Rose of Sharon_ for Madeira. For
five days we made good time, and were no great way from the island; but
on the sixth there fell a calm, and we lay without motion on a sea of
oil, heaving slowly, but making not a foot of way.
At ten o’clock that night Emily Vansittart and I stood leaning on the
starboard railing of the poop, with a full moon shining at our backs,
and casting a black shadow of the barque, and of our own two heads, upon
the shining water. From the shadow a broadening path of moonshine
stretched away to the lonely skyline, flickering and shimmering in the
gentle heave of the swell. We were talking with bent heads, chatting of
the calm, of the chances of wind, of the look of the sky, when there
came a sudden plop, like a rising salmon, and there, in the clear light,
John Vansittart sprang out of the water and looked up at us.
I never saw anything clearer in my life than I saw that man. The moon
shone full upon him, and he was but three oars’ length away. His face
was more puffed than when I had seen him last, mottled here and there
with dark scabs, his mouth and eyes open as one who is struck with some
overpowering surprise. He had some white stuff streaming from his
shoulders, and one hand was raised to his ear, the other crooked across
his breast. I saw him leap from the water into the air, and in the dead
calm the waves of his coming lapped up against the sides of the vessel.
Then his figure sank back into the water again, and I heard a rending,
crackling sound like a bundle of brushwood snapping in the fire on a
frosty night. There were no signs of him when I looked again, but a
swift swirl and eddy on the still sea still marked the spot where he had
been. How long I stood there, tingling to my finger-tips, holding up an
unconscious woman with one hand, clutching at the rail of the vessel
with the other, was more than I could afterwards tell. I had been noted
as a man of slow and unresponsive emotions, but this time at least I was
shaken to the core. Once and twice I struck my foot upon the deck to be
certain that I was indeed the master of my own senses, and that this was
not some mad prank of an unruly brain. As I stood, still marvelling, the
woman shivered, opened her eyes, gasped, and then standing erect with
her hands upon the rail, looked out over the moonlit sea with a face
which had aged ten years in a summer night.
“You saw his vision?” she murmured.
“I saw something.”
“It was he! It was John! He is dead!”
I muttered some lame words of doubt.
“Doubtless he died at this hour,” she whispered. “In hospital at
Madeira. I have read of such things. His thoughts were with me. His
vision came to me. Oh, my John, my dear, dear, lost John!”
She broke out suddenly into a storm of weeping, and I led her down into
her cabin, where I left her with her sorrow. That night a brisk breeze
blew up from the east, and in the evening of the next day we passed the
two islets of Los Desertos, and dropped anchor at sundown in the Bay of
Funchal. The _Eastern Star_ lay no great distance from us, with the
quarantine flag flying from her main, and her Jack half-way up her peak.
“You see,” said Mrs. Vansittart quickly. She was dry-eyed now, for she
had known how it would be.
That night we received permission from the authorities to move on board
the _Eastern Star_. The captain, Hines, was waiting upon deck with
confusion and grief contending upon his bluff face as he sought for
words with which to break this heavy tidings, but she took the story
from his lips.
“I know that my husband is dead,” she said. “He died yesterday night,
about ten o’clock, in hospital at Madeira, did he not?”
The seaman stared aghast. “No, marm, he died eight days ago at sea, and
we had to bury him out there, for we lay in a belt of calm, and could
not say when we might make the land.”
Well, those are the main facts about the death of John Vansittart, and
his appearance to his wife somewhere about lat. 35 N. and long. 15 W. A
clearer case of a wraith has seldom been made out, and since then it has
been told as such, and put into print as such, and endorsed by a learned
society as such, and so floated off with many others to support the
recent theory of telepathy. For myself, I hold telepathy to be proved,
but I would snatch this one case from amid the evidence, and say that I
do not think that it was the wraith of John Vansittart, but John
Vansittart himself whom we saw that night leaping into the moonlight out
of the depths of the Atlantic. It has ever been my belief that some
strange chance--one of those chances which seem so improbable and yet so
constantly occur--had becalmed us over the very spot where the man had
been buried a week before. For the rest, the surgeon tells me that the
leaden weight was not too firmly fixed, and that seven days bring about
changes which fetch a body to the surface. Coming from the depth to
which the weight would have sunk it, he explains that it might well
attain such a velocity as to carry it clear of the water. Such is my own
explanation of the matter, and if you ask me what then became of the
body, I must recall to you that snapping, crackling sound, with the
swirl in the water. The shark is a surface feeder and is plentiful in
those parts.
XII
THE LIFT
Flight-Commander Stangate should have been happy. He had come safely
through the war without a hurt, and with a good name in the most heroic
of services. He had only just turned thirty, and a great career seemed
to lie ahead of him. Above all, beautiful Mary MacLean was walking by
his side, and he had her promise that she was there for life. What could
a young man ask for more? And yet there was a heavy load upon his heart.
He could not explain it himself, and endeavoured to reason himself out
of it. There was the blue sky above him, the blue sea in front, the
beautiful gardens with their throngs of happy pleasure-seekers around.
Above all, there was that sweet face turned upon him with questioning
concern. Why could he not raise himself to so joyful an environment? He
made effort after effort, but they were not convincing enough to deceive
the quick instinct of a loving woman.
“What is it, Tom?” she asked anxiously. “I can see that something is
clouding you. Do tell me if I can help you in any way.”
He laughed in shame-faced fashion.
“It is such a sin to spoil our little outing,” he said. “I could kick
myself round these gardens when I think of it. Don’t worry, my darling,
for I know the cloud will roll off. I suppose I am a creature of nerves,
though I should have got past that by now. The Flying Service is
supposed either to break you or to warrant you for life.”
“It is nothing definite, then?”
“No, it is nothing definite. That’s the worst of it. You could fight it
more easily if it was. It’s just a dead, heavy depression here in my
chest and across my forehead. But do forgive me, dear girl! What a brute
I am to shadow you like this.”
“But I love to share even the smallest trouble.”
“Well, it’s gone--vamosed--vanished. We will talk about it no more.”
She gave him a swift, penetrating glance.
“No, no, Tom; your brow shows, as well as feels. Tell me, dear, have you
often felt like this? You really look very ill. Sit here, dear, in the
shade and tell me of it.”
They sat together in the shadow of the great latticed Tower which reared
itself six hundred feet high beside them.
“I have an absurd faculty,” said he; “I don’t know that I have ever
mentioned it to any one before. But when imminent danger is threatening
me I get these strange forebodings. Of course it is absurd to-day in
these peaceful surroundings. It only shows how queerly these things
work. But it is the first time that it has deceived me.”
“When had you it before?”
“When I was a lad it seized me one morning. I was nearly drowned that
afternoon. I had it when the burglar came to Morton Hall and I got a
bullet through my coat. Then twice in the war when I was overmatched and
escaped by a miracle, I had this strange feeling before ever I climbed
into my machine. Then it lifts quite suddenly, like a mist in the
sunshine. Why, it is lifting now. Look at me! Can’t you see that it is
so?”
She could indeed. He had turned in a minute from a haggard man to a
laughing boy. She found herself laughing in sympathy. A rush of high
spirits and energy had swept away his strange foreboding and filled his
whole soul with the vivid, dancing joy of youth.
“Thank goodness!” he cried. “I think it is your dear eyes that have done
it. I could not stand that wistful look in them. What a silly, foolish
nightmare it all has been! There’s an end for ever in my belief in
presentiments. Now, dear girl, we have just time for one good turn
before luncheon. After that the gardens get so crowded that it is
hopeless to do anything. Shall we have a side show, or the great wheel,
or the flying boat, or what?”
“What about the Tower?” she asked, glancing upwards. “Surely that
glorious air and the view from the top would drive the last wisps of
cloud out of your mind.”
He looked at his watch.
“Well, it’s past twelve, but I suppose we could do it all in an hour.
But it doesn’t seem to be working. What about it, conductor?”
The man shook his head and pointed to a little knot of people who were
assembled at the entrance.
“They’ve all been waiting, sir. It’s hung up, but the gear is being
overhauled, and I expect the signal every minute. If you join the others
I promise it won’t be long.”
They had hardly reached the group when the steel face of the lift
rolled aside--a sign that there was hope in the future. The motley crowd
drifted through the opening and waited expectantly upon the wooden
platform. They were not numerous, for the gardens are not crowded until
the afternoon, but they were fair samples of the kindly, good-humoured
north-country folk who take their annual holiday at Northam. Their faces
were all upturned now, and they were watching with keen interest a man
who was descending the steel framework. It seemed a dangerous,
precarious business, but he came as swiftly as an ordinary mortal upon a
staircase.
“My word!” said the conductor, glancing up. “Jim has got a move on this
morning.”
“Who is he?” asked Commander Stangate.
“That’s Jim Barnes, sir, the best workman that ever went on a scaffold.
He fair lives up there. Every bolt and rivet are under his care. He’s a
wonder, is Jim.”
“But don’t argue religion with him,” said one of the group.
The attendant laughed.
“Ah, you know him, then,” said he. “No, don’t argue religion with him.”
“Why not?” asked the officer.
“Well, he takes it very hard, he does. He’s the shining light of his
sect.”
“It ain’t hard to be that,” said the knowing one. “I’ve heard there are
only six folk in the fold. He’s one of those who picture heaven as the
exact size of their own back street conventicle and every one else left
outside it.”
“Better not tell him so while he’s got that hammer in his hand,” said
the conductor, in a hurried whisper. “Hallo, Jim, how goes it this
morning?”
The man slid swiftly down the last thirty feet, and then balanced
himself on a cross-bar while he looked at the little group in the lift.
As he stood there, clad in a leather suit, with his pliers and other
tools dangling from his brown belt, he was a figure to please the eye of
an artist. The man was very tall and gaunt, with great straggling limbs
and every appearance of giant strength. His face was a remarkable one,
noble and yet sinister, with dark eyes and hair, a prominent hooked
nose, and a beard which flowed over his chest. He steadied himself with
one knotted hand, while the other held a steel hammer dangling by his
knee.
“It’s all ready aloft,” said he. “I’ll go up with you if I may.” He
sprang down from his perch and joined the others in the lift.
“I suppose you are always watching it,” said the young lady.
“That is what I am engaged for, miss. From morning to night, and often
from night to morning, I am up here. There are times when I feel as if I
were not a man at all, but a fowl of the air. They fly round me, the
creatures, as I lie out on the girders, and they cry to me until I find
myself crying back to the poor soulless things.”
“It’s a great charge,” said the Commander, glancing up at the wonderful
tracery of steel outlined against the deep blue sky.
“Aye, sir, and there is not a nut nor a screw that is not in my
keeping. Here’s my hammer to ring them true and my spanner to wrench
them tight. As the Lord over the earth, so am I--even I--over the
Tower, with power of life and power of death, aye of death and of life.”
The hydraulic machinery had begun to work and the lift very slowly
ascended. As it mounted, the glorious panorama of the coast and bay
gradually unfolded itself. So engrossing was the view that the
passengers hardly noticed it when the platform stopped abruptly between
stages at the five hundred foot level. Barnes, the workman, muttered
that something must be amiss, and springing like a cat across the gap
which separated them from the trellis-work of metal he clambered out of
sight. The motley little party, suspended in mid-air, lost something of
their British shyness under such unwonted conditions and began to
compare notes with each other. One couple, who addressed each other as
Dolly and Billy, announced to the company that they were the particular
stars of the Hippodrome bill, and kept their neighbours tittering with
their rather obvious wit. A buxom mother, her precocious son, and two
married couples upon holiday formed an appreciative audience.
“You’d like to be a sailor, would you?” said Billy the comedian, in
answer to some remark of the boy. “Look ’ere, my nipper, you’ll end up
as a blooming corpse if you ain’t careful. See ’im standin’ at the edge.
At this hour of the morning I can’t bear to watch it.”
“What’s the hour got to do with it?” asked a stout commercial traveller.
“My nerves are worth nothin’ before midday. Why, lookin’ down there, and
seem’ those folks like dots, puts me all in a twitter. My family is all
alike in the mornin’.”
“I expect,” said Dolly, a high-coloured young woman, “that they’re all
alike the evening before.”
There was a general laugh, which was led by the comedian.
“You got it across that time, Dolly. It’s K.O. for Battling Billy--still
senseless when last heard of. If my family is laughed at I’ll leave the
room.”
“It’s about time we did,” said the commercial traveller, who was a
red-faced, choleric person. “It’s a disgrace the way they hold us up.
I’ll write to the company.”
“Where’s the bell-push?” said Billy. “I’m goin’ to ring.”
“What for--the waiter?” asked the lady.
“For the conductor, the chauffeur, whoever it is that drives the old bus
up and down. Have they run out of petrol, or broke the mainspring, or
what?”
“We have a fine view, anyhow,” said the Commander.
“Well, I’ve had that,” remarked Billy. “I’m done with it, and I’m for
getting on.”
“I’m getting nervous,” cried the stout mother. “I do hope there is
nothing wrong with the lift.”
“I say, hold on to the slack of my coat, Dolly. I’m going to look over
and chance it. Oh, Lord, it makes me sick and giddy! There’s a horse
down under, and it ain’t bigger than a mouse. I don’t see any one
lookin’ after us. Where’s old Isaiah the prophet who came up with us?”
“He shinned out of it mighty quick when he thought trouble was coming.”
“Look here,” said Dolly, looking very perturbed, “this is a nice thing,
I don’t think. Here we are five hundred foot up, and stuck for the day
as like as not. I’m due for the _matinée_ at the Hippodrome. I’m sorry
for the company if they don’t get me down in time for that. I’m billed
all over the town for a new song.”
“A new one! What’s that, Dolly?”
“A real pot o’ ginger, I tell you. It’s called ‘On the Road to Ascot.’
I’ve got a hat four foot across to sing it in.”
“Come on, Dolly, let’s have a rehearsal while we wait.”
“No, no; the young lady here wouldn’t understand.”
“I’d be very glad to hear it,” cried Mary MacLean. “Please don’t let me
prevent you.”
“The words were written to the hat. I couldn’t sing the verses without
the hat. But there’s a nailin’ good chorus to it:
“‘If you want a little mascot
When you’re on the way to Ascot,
Try the lady with the cartwheel hat.’”
She had a tuneful voice and a sense of rhythm which set every one
nodding. “Try it now all together,” she cried; and the strange little
haphazard company sang it with all their lungs.
“I say,” said Billy, “that ought to wake somebody up. What? Let’s try a
shout all together.”
It was a fine effort, but there was no response. It was clear that the
management down below was quite ignorant or impotent. No sound came back
to them.
The passengers became alarmed. The commercial traveller was rather less
rubicund. Billy still tried to joke, but his efforts were not well
received. The officer in his blue uniform at once took his place as
rightful leader in a crisis. They all looked to him and appealed to him.
“What would you advise, sir? You don’t think there’s any danger of it
coming down, do you?”
“Not the least. But it’s awkward to be stuck here all the same. I think
I could jump across on to that girder. Then perhaps I could see what is
wrong.”
“No, no, Tom; for goodness’ sake, don’t leave us!”
“Some people have a nerve,” said Billy. “Fancy jumping across a
five-hundred-foot drop!”
“I dare say the gentleman did worse things in the war.”
“Well, I wouldn’t do it myself--not if they starred me in the bills.
It’s all very well for old Isaiah. It’s his job, and I wouldn’t do him
out of it.”
Three sides of the lift were shut in with wooden partitions, pierced
with windows for the view. The fourth side, facing the sea, was clear.
Stangate leaned as far as he could and looked upwards. As he did so
there came from above him a peculiar sonorous metallic twang, as if a
mighty harp-string had been struck. Some distance up--a hundred feet,
perhaps--he could see a long brown corded arm, which was working
furiously among the wire cordage above. The form was beyond his view,
but he was fascinated by this bare sinewy arm which tugged and pulled
and sagged and stabbed.
“It’s all right,” he said, and a general sigh of relief broke from his
strange comrades at his words. “There is some one above us setting
things right.”
“It’s old Isaiah,” said Billy, stretching his neck round the corner. “I
can’t see him, but it’s his arm for a dollar. What’s he got in his
hand? Looks like a screwdriver or something. No, by George, it’s a
file.”
As he spoke there came another sonorous twang from above. There was a
troubled frown upon the officer’s brow.
“I say, dash it all, that’s the very sound our steel hawser made when it
parted, strand by strand, at Dixmude. What the deuce is the fellow
about? Hey, there! what are you trying to do?”
The man had ceased his work and was now slowly descending the iron
trellis.
“All right, he’s coming,” said Stangate to his startled companions.
“It’s all right, Mary. Don’t be frightened, any of you. It’s absurd to
suppose he would really weaken the cord that holds us.”
A pair of high boots appeared from above. Then came the leathern
breeches, the belt with its dangling tools, the muscular form, and,
finally, the fierce, swarthy, eagle face of the workman. His coat was
off and his shirt open, showing the hairy chest. As he appeared there
came another sharp snapping vibration from above. The man made his way
down in leisurely fashion, and then, balancing himself upon the
cross-girder and leaning against the side piece, he stood with folded
arms, looking from under his heavy black brows at the huddled passengers
upon the platform.
“Hallo!” said Stangate. “What’s the matter?”
The man stood impassive and silent, with something indescribably
menacing in his fixed, unwinking stare.
The flying officer grew angry.
“Hallo! Are you deaf?” he cried. “How long do you mean to have us stuck
here?”
The man stood silent. There was something devilish in his appearance.
“I’ll complain of you, my lad,” said Billy, in a quivering voice. “This
won’t stop here, I can promise you.”
“Look here!” cried the officer. “We have ladies here and you are
alarming them. Why are we stuck here? Has the machinery gone wrong?”
“You are here,” said the man, “because I have put a wedge against the
hawser above you.”
“You fouled the line! How dared you do such a thing! What right have you
to frighten the women and put us all to this inconvenience? Take that
wedge out this instant, or it will be the worse for you.”
The man was silent.
“Do you hear what I say? Why the devil don’t you answer? Is this a joke
or what? We’ve had about enough of it, I tell you.”
Mary MacLean had gripped her lover by the arm in agony of sudden panic.
“Oh, Tom!” she cried. “Look at his eyes--look at his horrible eyes! The
man is a maniac.”
The workman stirred suddenly into sinister life. His dark face broke
into writhing lines of passion, and his fierce eyes glowed like embers,
while he shook one long arm in the air.
“Behold,” he cried, “those who are mad to the children of this world are
in very truth the Lord’s anointed and the dwellers in the inner temple.
Lo, I am one who is prepared to testify even to the uttermost, for of a
verity the day has now come when the humble will be exalted and the
wicked will be cut off in their sins!”
“Mother! Mother!” cried the little boy, in terror.
“There, there! It’s all right, Jack,” said the buxom woman, and then, in
a burst of womanly wrath, “What d’you want to make the child cry for?
You’re a pretty man, you are!”
“Better he should cry now than in the outer darkness. Let him seek
safety while there is yet time.”
The officer measured the gap with a practised eye. It was a good eight
feet across, and the fellow could push him over before he could steady
himself. It would be a desperate thing to attempt. He tried soothing
words once more.
“See here, my lad, you’ve carried this joke too far. Why should you wish
to injure us? Just shin up and get that wedge out, and we will agree to
say no more about it.”
Another rending snap came from above.
“By George, the hawser is going!” cried Stangate. “Here! Stand aside!
I’m coming over to see to it.”
The workman had plucked the hammer from his belt, and waved it furiously
in the air.
“Stand back, young man! Stand back! Or come--if you would hasten your
end.”
“Tom, Tom, for God’s sake, don’t spring! Help! Help!”
The passengers all joined in the cry for aid. The man smiled malignantly
as he watched them.
“There is no one to help. They could not come if they would. You would
be wiser to turn to your own souls that ye be not cast to the burning.
Lo, strand by strand the cable snaps which holds you. There is yet
another, and with each that goes there is more strain upon the rest.
Five minutes of time, and all eternity beyond.”
A moan of fear rose from the prisoners in the lift. Stangate felt a cold
sweat upon his brow as he passed his arm round the shrinking girl. If
this vindictive devil could only be coaxed away for an instant he would
spring across and take his chance in a hand-to-hand fight.
“Look here, my friend! We give you best!” he cried. “We can do nothing.
Go up and cut the cable if you wish. Go on--do it now, and get it over!”
“That you may come across unharmed. Having set my hand to the work, I
will not draw back from it.”
Fury seized the young officer.
“You devil!” he cried. “What do you stand there grinning for? I’ll give
you something to grin about. Give me a stick, one of you.”
The man waved his hammer.
“Come, then! Come to judgment!” he howled.
“He’ll murder you, Tom! Oh, for God’s sake, don’t! If we must die, let
us die together.”
“I wouldn’t try it, sir,” cried Billy. “He’ll strike you down before you
get a footing. Hold up, Dolly, my dear! Faintin’ won’t ’elp us. You
speak to him, miss. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”
“Why should you wish to hurt us?” said Mary. “What have we ever done to
you? Surely you will be sorry afterwards if we are injured. Now do be
kind and reasonable and help us to get back to the ground.”