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_The Ghost in the Tower_
_The Ghost in the Tower_
_An Episode in Jacobia_
BY EARL H. REED
[Illustration]
Privately Printed
1921
Copyright, 1921
by Earl H. Reed
[Illustration: “HIGH UP ON ONE OF THE HILLS OF JACOBIA”]
_The Ghost in the Tower_
A ghost never makes the mistake of appearing before more than one
person at a time. There may be much logic in this, for the element
of mystery, which is one of the essential attributes to comfortable
ghostly existence, would be destroyed if that existence should
be established at some one time and place by a preponderance of
unimpeachable testimony.
There is a ghost in my friend Jacobs’ water tower over in Michigan, or
at least there was one there last Christmas eve. To me he was visible
most of the time during a long interview I had with him, and to me he
had all of the elements of reality. Nobody who reads this narrative
will be in a position to dispute his existence, for, so far as I know,
he and I were the only occupants of the tower at the time. If my
nebulous friend should choose to make himself known to somebody else,
it may furnish material for discussion and comparison of experiences in
the future, but in the meantime controversy is quite useless.
To those who do not live in the world of romance and errant fancy, the
winter landscapes along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan offer few
allurements. The sweeping miles of piled and broken ice, the bleak and
desolate bluffs, with their pale brows--fringed with naked trees--in
moody relief against the dull skies, that are flecked with the white
forms of the roving winter gulls, seem to repel every thought except
that of hoped for creature comforts in some human habitation beyond.
If it were not for these distant aureoles of hope--mirages though they
often are--how gray and dreary the world would be.
Notwithstanding a love of Nature in her sterner moods, it was not for
this that I journeyed to my friend’s country retreat in the winter
time. I knew that warm hearted hospitality awaited me in the little
farm house, nestled among the knolls back of the bluffs.
High up on one of the hills of “Jacobia,” the tower bares its lofty
brow to the blasts of the gales. The huge structure seems calmly
to defy the winter winds whistling through its upper casements and
pounding against its sturdy sides. The swirling snows envelop its
weather scarred top in the darkness, and an atmosphere of loneliness
and isolation seems to pervade the great bulk, silhouetted against the
flying legions of shredded and angry clouds, scudding across the gloomy
and storm embattled skies at night.
The storm that had lasted all day subsided during the evening, and the
skies cleared, although a mournful wind still moved over the drifted
snows. The genial glow of the Yule Tide spirit was in the little farm
house. The small evergreen tree that stood in the front room had been
cut on the bluffs and brought through the storm during the day. Its
candle-lighted branches had been divested of the conventional gauze
bags of popcorn, nuts and candy, much of which was now scattered over
the floors, and the little ones, in whose hearts lived the happy
illusions of childhood, had hung long stockings about in places where
they thought that the expected Patron Saint would be most apt to find
them. Their melodious saxophone band had become silent, and their tired
loving mother had got them off to bed.
Melancholy reflections, that sometimes creep into older minds with
Christmas memories of years that are gone, led me out over the
moon-silvered hills for a walk.
There was a weird charm in the cold shadowed forest and the strange
stillness of the sheltered hillsides. A subtle witchery brooded over
the familiar landscapes in their robes of white. I spent some time in
a dark nook listening to a sad old owl, located somewhere up among the
grapevine tangles and sassafras trees on a hill about a quarter of a
mile away. Periodically he sent forth his loud and dismal wail into
the darkness. Like a wild cry of mockery to the world of a soul in
torment, the sepulchral notes echoed through the woods and mingled with
the low moanings of the wind rhythms among the dead clinging leaves and
bare branches.
It was nearly midnight when I approached the tower on my way back. Many
times during my visits the thought had occurred to me that it was an
ideal habitation for a ghost. The maze of timbers, water pipes, wires,
and open winding stairways that led up to various landings in the
successive octagonal rooms, on the way to the upper chamber of the tall
edifice, seemed to provide a perfect environment for a discriminating
specter. There was every facility for concealment, and for sudden and
vivid apparition when desired. The height of the vast interior would
permit of majestic upward sweeps of a wraithy shape into the darkness
above, and dissolution into the overhanging gloom. The arrangement of
the stairways would enable a phantom to await the coming of whoever was
to be haunted, upon any one of the floors, without being visible from
the one above or below it.
Architects have probably never studied construction with reference to
the needs and convenience of ghosts, but if the builder of the tower
had considered these things carefully he could not have designed
arrangements more satisfactory from a spectral standpoint.
[Illustration: THE SAD OLD OWL]
I found the door leading into the big room on the ground floor
unfastened and it was creaking sadly on its hinges. I opened it,
stepped inside to light my pipe, and had just thrown the match aside
when I noticed a tiny ascending wisp of something that looked like
smoke at the base of one of the large wall stanchions near the first
stairway. Thinking that it probably came from the dropped match I went
toward it to make sure that it was quite extinguished. To my surprise
the little wisp of vapor increased in volume as it ascended. There was
a patch of moonlight on the floor, and a dim diffused light in the room
that enabled me to make out various objects. The rising vapor seemed
faintly luminous. I could not account for its strange visibility by
the direction of the moonlight entering through the high window. The
pale misty wreaths were slowly expanding in wavy convolutions and
disappearing through the open steps of the stairway along the opposite
wall that led to the floor above.
There was something uncanny in this and while I had often joked with my
friend Jacobs about a possible ghost in the tower, and had read many
thrilling tales of specters, both benignant and malign, I never had
an idea that I would ever be confronted with a situation that would
suggest the actual presence of anything of the kind. I had always
prided myself upon freedom from superstition, but I distinctly felt a
cold chill between my shoulder blades, as if an icy hand had suddenly
been placed there, and was conscious of a slight nervous flutter and a
clammy feeling. Just then something dropped on one of the upper floors
and rolled across it. It had probably been displaced by a gust of wind
somewhere far up in the tower but this inference did not help matters
any, and, although I knew of no reason for it, I concluded that my
nerves must have got into difficulties among themselves and refused to
continue their normal functions.
I began to consider the advisability of a cautious retirement from the
scene, thinking that a good night’s rest would probably correct the
state of mind that made such a medley of unpleasant sensations possible.
Just as I was about to leave I distinctly heard the words, “Good
Evening!” uttered in a thin, quiet voice. I looked around the room but
could see nobody. “Here I am, up here,” continued the voice. I saw what
appeared to be the face of a very pleasant and dignified old man, who
seemed to be sitting on the stairs near the top of the room, just above
the wreaths of disappearing vapor. The smoky waves apparently continued
through the stairway and enveloped all of him except the head--or
rather he seemed gradually to materialize out of the wreaths, for the
head was the only part of the apparition that bore any semblance to
reality. There were misty forms suggesting the shoulders, but they
faded off down into the cloudy lines, which now seemed to have ceased
rising and were slowly waving to and fro, as if they were suspended
from something above and were being gently swayed by a current of air.
“Good evening,” I replied, not without some trepidation. “I hope I have
not intruded. I had no idea that there was anybody here when I came in.”
“There isn’t anybody here but you,” continued the strange voice, “for
according to your standards I am nobody at all; I am a ghost, but
you needn’t be at all alarmed. If you’ll go over and make yourself
comfortable on that empty box near the other wall we can have a nice
little visit. I have not appeared to a mortal for a long time and it’s
a relief to have somebody to talk to. Since I’ve been haunting this
tower I’ve stayed in a little crypt I have down under it. I ooze up
through that small hole that you see near the base of that stanchion,
and I was just coming up when you happened in. It takes me some little
time to get properly settled up here, or I would have made my presence
known before. I am not quite settled yet, but as you evidently intended
to leave I thought I had better make myself known before it was too
late. Otherwise I would have had to wait until some other Christmas
eve, for that’s the only time I ever visualize. I’ll tell you the
reason of this later. Just remain quiet where you are and excuse me. I
won’t be gone more than a few minutes.”
With that the nebulous shape above the stairs changed somewhat. It
became a little lighter and the face was more distinct. The wraithy
vapor lengthened out and all of it, with the head at its upper end,
drifted silently up through the stairway hole into the gloom above as
gently and softly as the smoke from a pipe.
Naturally I was now much interested. The clammy and creepy feeling,
that had come over me at first, had entirely ceased. I was enmeshed
in what seemed a supernatural web that presented fascinating
possibilities. I looked at my watch which I held in the bright moonbeam
from the window and saw that it was exactly midnight. At that moment
I heard an unearthly sound that I judged was issuing from the top of
the tower. It was a loud prolonged wail that ended in a dismal shriek
and a high treble, and was repeated three times. I repressed a slight
return of the creepy feeling, resumed my seat on the box, and patiently
awaited further developments. Heavy thumping noises became audible from
the big water pipes in the tower and reverberated away through
the underground routes of the smaller pipes. It occurred to me that
the ghost might have decided to take a plunge in the large tank in the
upper part of the structure, or was preparing to pull it all down, or
something of that kind, and I did not feel that I wanted to be among
the debris. To use a favorite expression of one of my English friends,
all this was “getting a bit thick.” I was again apprehensive and was
tempted to slip quietly away, but was somewhat reassured when I saw
the vapory wisps stealing back through the stairway opening. I was
surprised to see them trail on down, becoming fainter and thinner, and
disappear into the little hole at the base of the stanchion.
[Illustration: “THERE WAS A SORT OF INDEFINABLE REMOTENESS AND
ALOOFNESS ABOUT HIM”]
In the course of a few minutes the wraithy waves reappeared and I soon
saw the kindly old face peering over at me from above the high stairway
rail.
There was a sort of indefinable remoteness and aloofness about
him--something abstract and far away--that seemed to discourage any
familiarity, and I waited for him to speak first, as I felt embarrassed
and in doubt as to how further conversation was to be conducted.
“I am very sorry if you have had any unpleasant sensations after what
has just happened,” he began, after a few vague vibrations of the
cloudy veil, that might have been shifted slightly to insure comfort
on the stairway, “but it was necessary for me to float to the top of
the tower at exactly midnight for a manifestation, and I retired into
the crypt below for a moment afterwards to partake of a light draught
from a phantom flagon that I keep there. Like the widow’s cruse of oil
mentioned in the scriptures, my flagon is always full, and you will
at once perceive that in my immaterial state I enjoy some priceless
advantages. My flagon affords me much consolation. The contents might
seem a little musty to you if you were down there, but I assure you
that the liquid was once of the very highest quality. I found it here
when I came. Evidently something was once kept in that flagon that had
highly reactive qualities--something like the kick of a mad bull--but
this element had long been latent when I found it. I hope that you are
perfectly comfortable down there. If you feel cold I can easily warm
you up with some sensations that you probably have never experienced.”
I assured him that I was quite contented and did not require any more
sensations than I was having, and begged him not to worry about me at
all.
“You probably would like to know something about me and how I happen to
be haunting this tower,” he continued. “It’s quite a long story, but I
think you’ll enjoy it. If there are any points in the narration that
appear obscure to you, or any that you wish particularly to discuss,
please don’t hesitate to interrupt me, as it’s no trouble to talk about
my experiences, and there’s plenty of time, as long as we finish before
daylight. If we should forget ourselves, and too much light should
come, I may fade away quietly and become silent, but don’t be surprised
or offended in any way, for if circumstances permit we can easily meet
again and continue our little talk.
“My earthly name was Emric Szapolyai, and I died in Hungary in 1489.
Measured by your standards that was a long time ago, but among the
spirit fraternity time does not cut any particular figure, so, as far
as my relationships in the abstract world are concerned, I might just
as well have died hundreds of years before that or hundreds of years
later.
“You may have difficulty at first in pronouncing my last name
correctly, but if you sneeze slightly and try to say ‘Apollonaris’
while you are doing it, you will probably get it. I notice that a great
many people in the material world are doing this now. Sometimes they
get it and sometimes they don’t.”
“But how is it,” I asked, “that you speak modern English so fluently,
if you were a Hungarian and died so long ago, before we had any modern
English?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he replied. “One of the great advantages
of a spiritual existence is the ability of perfect adaptation to
any language that is used by the person to whom a visualization is
accorded. You have undoubtedly seen instances of this at seances
conducted by spiritual mediums. While they are mostly ignorant fakes
and their methods entirely irregular, you have no doubt observed that
Julius Caesar, who only talked Latin when he was alive, and Napoleon,
who only talked Corsican and bad French, always speak the language or
dialect peculiar to the region in which the seance is conducted.
“Up to three or four years ago probably no two spirits were more
popular or more imposed upon. They were called on hundreds of times
every night by mediums all over the world. They used every known tongue
from Choctaw to Chinese, and the funny part of it was that they seemed
to like it.
“They talked with a pronounced Scotch dialect in Glasgow, their tongues
became thick in Cork, and down among the negro spiritualists in Alabama
you would think that they were both born in Dahomy and died in Mobile.
“They have been latent now for some time. The recent war in Europe has
clouded them over and rendered them quite obsolete. Nobody will have
to listen to the stories of their exploits when they were alive for
a good many years. The mediums are now invoking an entirely new class
of spirits, and they are beseeching such peaceful shades as Charles
Dickens, Victor Hugo and Edgar Allen Poe to come forth, and lots of
people are asking for the late Czar of Russia. They all want to know
what really happened to him. Even the spiritual fraternity has become
very tired of Caesar and Napoleon. I know both of these shades well and
have no more trouble in communicating with them than I have with you.
Don’t give yourself any further uneasiness regarding spirit language.
“I hope you will pardon my digression. We must get back to Hungary. I
was one of the Magyar generals who fought in the wars of King Mathias
Corvinus. For many years I was a baron, but afterwards I became a duke
and had special privileges over quite a large domain. It will interest
you to know that I happen to haunt this tower for the reason that its
builder used my old baronial tower in Hungary as a model, and I will
tell you later how I happened to discover it. It looked so familiar and
so much like home that I concluded to make it my headquarters as long
as it stands.
“It was my custom to keep sentinels posted in the top of my old tower
who watched for small parties of travelers and single wayfarers on
the roads crossing my lands. When they appeared my horsemen would go
out and relieve them of two thirds of the money and other valuables
that they happened to have with them. They would then be provided with
a token which they could show to the minions of neighboring vassals
of the king, over whose lands they might have occasion to pass, and
these tokens would insure immunity from further high financing--to
use a modern expression. We always respected these tokens from other
domains, so you see the system enabled the traveling public to retain
quite a decent portion of gold and worldly goods, considering the
opportunities offered to business enterprise. We were called robber
barons at that time, and the term may sound a little harsh, but we were
universally respected throughout the country. Nowadays our practices
would be called mild profiteering, and leaving the wayfarers a third of
their pelf when there was a chance to get it all would be considered
magnanimous charity.
“In return for these privileges from the crown it was my custom to send
a wagon load of Turk’s heads to the King about once a month, and this
was a source of great gratification to him. I was enabled to collect
the trophies by frequent sorties with my forces against small bodies
of Turks that were constantly hovering along our frontiers and making
sudden forays into our territory.
“After King Mathias defeated Frederick of Austria, who had had the
impudence to proclaim himself King of Hungary, and who intended to
exterminate all of us if he was successful, Mathias moved his army
against the Turks. This war was successful, and after the capture of
Jaicza in Bosnia by assault, I was placed in charge of the conquered
districts and made a duke. After this we had another war with Frederick
and I was one of the generals commanding the army that captured Vienna
after a short siege in 1487.
“The Magyars were a wonderful people. There was a man named Kinisi in
our army when we were attacked by the Turks under Ali Bey. In the heat
of the battle he rushed among the enemy and rescued a fallen friend.
We were getting badly worsted in this battle, but this signal act of
bravery inspired the Magyars and the Turks were almost annihilated. In
the midst of the rejoicing over the victory, Kinisi was seen holding
the body of a Turk by his teeth, and two others in his arms, and
executing the Hungarian national dance. I mention this as a sample of
his hardihood and originality for the reason that I have asked his
shade to visit me in this tower, and it may happen that he will appear
to you if conditions permit. Kinisi was what the world calls an honest
man--that is to say he would never pick up anything that was too hot
to hold, or take anything that was out of his reach. My reason for
inviting my spiritual confrère here may seem a little queer to you.
“Although our mutual friend Henry Jacobs, who owns this tower, does not
know me at all, and I have never appeared to him, I have had a great
liking for him, and have much appreciated his unconscious hospitality.
All unbeknown I have accompanied him on many of his business trips
to various places, particularly to the Island of Manhattan that I
happen to know a great deal about, as will appear later, and am quite
familiar with his affairs. While he is perfectly able to take care of
himself, I feel that under the circumstances I have a sort of spiritual
responsibility, so to speak.
“I confess that, although I am a ghost, and loneliness might naturally
be considered my specialty, I am at times a little too lonely and it
would be nice and sociable to have an old ghostly friend with me. We
might think it best for Kinisi to go out after somebody we didn’t like
sometime, and you may depend upon it, that if he starts, he will not
come back alone. There will be other shades with him. He is one of the
best terrifiers I ever knew. I have known him to frighten people so
that they have jumped off the tops of high buildings, and he has caused
many sudden exits from the material world.
[Illustration: LOOKING NORTH FROM THE TOWER TOP IN JACOBIA]
“I have been sensible of this moral obligation and this is one of the
reasons why I wanted to talk with you tonight. I am sorry that our
friend Jacobs has never happened to be up here at an opportune time. I
always make it a point to be somewhere up stairs in the tower during
the night before Christmas. Perhaps you might mention this to him and
I may have the pleasure of talking with him next year, unless for some
reason I should be called away.”
“But what happened after the victory over the Turks?” I asked, seeing
that my pale friend was somewhat inclined to wander in his narrative.
“Oh yes, excuse me. After our triumph over Ali Bey we had no serious
trouble with the Turks for some time, but one night when I was
asleep in my tower a bloody gang of these dogs came and I was hacked
into pieces with a dozen scimitars. It is the custom of spirits to
wear a semblance of their earthly apparel at the time of passing
into the immaterial sphere--merely as a recognition of absurd human
conventions--and that accounts for what appears to you to be a night
cap on my head. The light, wavy lines leading away from my face suggest
the gown I was wearing when my mortal remains were tossed into the
depression back of my tower. All this happened on Christmas eve. It is
a rule with many of the spiritual fraternity to visualize but once a
year. I usually select this anniversary for such few appearances as I
care to make, unless the occasion is something very special.
“I haunted Ali Bey for a long time after that little episode at the
tower, and with the help of Kinisi, who subsequently joined me, we put
him in the way of meeting a very unpleasant end. We scared him out of
bed and into a big mosque for religious protection one night. Women
were not allowed in mosques, as Mohammedan females were supposed to
have no souls, but we knew that one of the members of Ali Bey’s harem
was in there, who had fled in disguise the day before, and she got him
with a knife that she had carried for use in case she was caught. I
often talked with him after he became a shade, and eventually we became
quite good friends. He wanted to go back after the girl but Kinisi and
I persuaded him to let her alone.
“After we left Ali Bey I returned and haunted my tower for some years,
but there was so much going on there I didn’t approve of, that I got
tired of it after a while and went over into Dalmatia, and from there
to the Adriatic. I established myself on board a ship that lay in the
harbor and haunted the forecastle for over two years. I moved to the
Captain’s cabin after that, and was on the upper deck at night much of
the time. The captain was a very agreeable sort of a fellow although
he was a bloody pirate, but I never liked the first mate. I chased him
and four offensive members of the crew into the sea one night in a gale
off the coast of Barbary. I visualized to them separately, and as they
were very superstitious they went easily.
“We roved over the Mediterranean and captured considerable booty.
We were making new shades constantly. After the victims were thrown
overboard, or had walked the plank, they would generally ooze back in
the bilge water seepage in the hold so as to enable them to haunt the
crew, which they did with a vengeance. They were mostly Spaniards and
as a rule I found them quite pleasant.
“I was with the Mediterranean corsairs several years. I visualized
before Sidi ben Musa on board a large brigantine that he had just
captured with his galleys off the coast of Naples, and I was with him
during the rest of his earthly career. He conducted numerous important
enterprises. He once organized an expedition to capture the pope that
would have been successful were it not for the fact that his men did
not know the pope by sight and bundled a cardinal into their boat
instead. This happened on the outskirts of the little village of Piano
d’Orno not far from Rome. Sidi was one of the great terrors of the sea
and wielded a baneful power on the Mediterranean during his lifetime.
After he became a shade my association with him beguiled many dull
periods.
“After Sidi’s time there was a celebrated sea robber on the Ægean who
was called Red Beard. Sidi and I were with him four years. He was
thick set and bullet headed. His heavy jutting lips, cruel eyes, and
long fiery red whiskers gave him a rough and wild look. He was an
excellent and formidable pirate. Wherever there was wealth to loot,
involving wholesale massacre, he was always equal to the situation. It
was estimated that he and his men killed over three thousand people
and captured over four tons of gold during his lifetime. He had a most
profitable career, but he finally came to grief and was captured by a
war vessel of the Knights of Rhodes. He was rushed down a scuttle into
the hold of the Christian ship, where he was subjected to misery and
abuse with others of his crew. The ship was fighting its way in the
teeth of a howling gale to the lee of some island and it was a wild
night on board. The roaring and whistling of the wind, the howls and
curses of the prisoners, the creaking of timbers and cordage, and the
piercing shrieks of the galley slaves as the knotted thongs bit into
their flesh to spur them to greater effort, naturally made conditions
extremely unpleasant for those who were alive. The ship finally
anchored. Red Beard succeeded in twisting out of his manacles and
escaped into the sea. We went with him to the shore about a mile away,
where he crept up to a fishing hut and recuperated. In a few days he
set out for Egypt in a merchant ship as a common sailor. He became a
shade in a brawl in Alexandria and Sidi and I met him soon afterwards.
He joined us and we went to my tower for a long rest.
“Red Beard informed us, after he was translated, that during his
earthly existence he had led a double life. There were long periods
during which his professional activities were suspended. He had a
castle on an island in the Ægean Sea where he lived in great splendor
and was known as the ‘Freckled Duke of Patmos.’ Nobody there suspected
that he was Red Beard the pirate.
“We found Kinisi waiting for us at my tower and we remained there for
many years. The place acquired a bad reputation among mortals. Nobody
who was alive was allowed to be there more than one night, and after
several years visits to it were considered foolhardy and were entirely
discontinued. When anybody tried to sleep there Red Beard and Sidi
would appear before them and brandish big smoky knives and hop up and
down, I would wave long white things in the background, and Kinisi
would fly toward them with a rush and suddenly fade. The invaders were
never able to stand much of this and would usually jump through the
windows into the gully in the rear, so after a while we had peace and
privacy there.
“I hope I am not boring you with this long recital, but in order that
you may understand and appreciate some points that I intend to bring
out later it is necessary to go into all this historical data.”
“You are not boring me at all. On the contrary your story is of the
greatest interest,” I replied, “but why did you spend practically all
of your time with that swaggering Turk eater and those two pirates
when one of your evident talents could have undoubtedly found more
respectable society?”
“It does seem funny to you, don’t it? Kinisi and I were special
friends in life and naturally the intimacy continued afterwards. As
to the pirates, that was just a little fantasy of mine. I always had
a penchant for making new acquaintances, and, until lately, I always
liked the sea. It happened that, outside of the land wars that were
generally going on, the pirates were in those times producing more
shades than anybody else, not only from among themselves, but from
the sea faring public, and I found that by remaining with them I
could constantly mingle with new specters that were congenial. I was
stationed at the ‘port of entry’--so to speak, and could select my
new associates as my fancy dictated. I consorted with a lot of other
pirates in a spiritual way, as you will hear later on. You see my
experiences in conducting the affairs of my tower when I was alive
naturally predisposed me to association with those of that ilk in my
disembodied state.
“I am inclined, if you will pardon me, to resent politely your
implication that pirates were not respectable society. The live ones
are much thicker now than they were then; they move in the very best
circles, and sit at highly polished desks, instead of going out into
the storms, fighting and killing clean for what they want. In our days
a pirate was a gentleman adventurer, and everybody he hadn’t robbed
thought well of him until he was captured and in chains, or killed,
just as in the present day a pirate may be a ‘shrewd operator’ and a
‘successful business man’ until they get him, but we shall not discuss
the ethics of piracy just now, for I am afraid our time will be
exhausted before we get to what I would really like to talk about. With
your permission I now return to the little company in my tower.
“For the sake of brevity I shall omit details of our stay there and
many important incidents of piratical history with which I and my
incorporeal friends were more or less identified. We sojourned for
awhile in Algiers and other places along the North African coasts,
where the pirate nests were numerous. These financial centers were
in a flourishing state of prosperity. The Mediterranean yielded rich
harvests to skilfully conducted enterprises at that time, mostly from
Spanish sources.
“In 1643, I think it was, we all drifted into the forecastle of a ship
that was bound for the West Indies. The Spanish Main was the paradise
of the bloody buccaneers, and the home of the far famed ‘Jolly Roger,’
that floated in congenial airs from the masts of sinister looking ships
that roved the wide waters and gathered their fruitful spoils. We
anticipated a long period of ghostly entertainment.
“We amused ourselves on the way over by keeping the captain and crew in
a turmoil of apprehension. We muddled the compass, made phantom marlin
spikes dance on the deck, and rattled the ropes at night when there was
no wind. We made all sorts of bewildering noises on board, but were
careful not to terrify anybody to such an extent as to cause a shortage
in the crew. There was plenty of rum on the ship and the uncanny
episodes were attributed to other spirits than us. We remained latent
most of the time, but Kinisi insisted on visualizing in the captain’s
cabin several nights just after eight bells struck, and he came very
near causing the ship to be turned back. The tough old skipper didn’t
care how many spooks infested the forcastle but he didn’t fancy them in
his part of the vessel.
“These things may all appear childish to you, but you must remember
that we of the spirit world have a superfluity of time on our hands and
that we look at everything from a standpoint entirely our own. All
folly is dependent upon the point of view.
“When we arrived at Tortugas we found the whole island aflame with
excitement over the exploit of a prominent buccaneer named Pierre
le Grand, who had just bagged a big Spanish galleon containing
fifty thousand pieces-of-eight, and was being overwhelmed with
congratulations.
“We drifted among many famous freebooters at Tortugas and
Barbados--Alvarez, Hooper, Lolonais and others--all of whom were
hunting noble quarry and doing a profitable business. The treasure
laden galleons bound for Spain were rich picking. Tons of bullion and
millions of pieces-of-eight were garnered from the highways of the sea.
The proceeds were spent in riotous dissipation and orgies by the merry
buccaneers on shore and the rum dealers eventually acquired the greater
part of the spoils.
“The folds of the black flag rose and fell on the long oily swells,
and the West Indian sea floors were littered with sunken timbers and
Spanish skeletons. Those were days of frenzied finance on the Caribbean.
“At Jamaica we had the pleasure of falling in with Captain Henry
Morgan, who was one of the most renowned sea financiers of the
seventeenth century, and we all settled on board his ship.
“While Captain Morgan had to endure much opprobium from the world I
know him to have been a gentleman and a perfectly honest man, for
he always divided the profits of his expeditions with fairness and
exactitude among his associates. This is something that is seldom done
now days, except as a matter of policy, or under compulsion, and I
think it is worth while to note it.
“We went with Morgan and his fleet on his famous expedition for
the capture of Panama. We weighed anchor off the cape of Tibur on
December 16th, 1670, and came to the island of St. Catherine three
days later. The island was taken with little loss. We found few
pieces-of-eight, but a much needed supply of powder. On the night of
the 24th I visualized before Captain Morgan in his cabin. We had a
long conversation, and I was able to give him much valuable advice
and information which he deeply appreciated. I faded when seven bells
struck just before dawn, and after he became a shade some years later
he told me he had always considered that interview a most pleasurable
experience.
“I shall not consume time by describing the toilsome ascent of the
Chagres river in small boats, the historic march overland, the final
victorious battle, and the capture and sack of the rich Spanish city,
for all this is embalmed in the annals of heroic achievement in which
the world records its worship of success.
“We left Panama February 24th, 1671 with one hundred and seventy-five
beasts of burden, carrying the profits of the enterprise, consisting of
gold, silver, and valuable merchandise. We had six hundred prisoners
to be held for ransom, and this brought forth much wealth that had
been secreted when the city was taken. Notwithstanding the necessary
misery and lamentations of these hostages, it was a merry throng of
adventurers that wound in triumph through the forest pathways back to
the headwaters of the Chagres.
“The Captain left the prisoners and a rebellious portion of his
followers at the mouth of the river and we sailed to Jamaica, where he
settled down to the life of a quiet gentleman. As he was wealthy he
commanded respect and nobody questioned his record. Upon his transition
into the immaterial state a few years afterward we had the good fortune
to have him join our party, and we found him in every way delightful.
“Our ghostly little company was later augmented by the addition of
Captain Teach, and no more blood-thirsty sea rover ever scuttled
a ship, cut a throat, or blew open a treasure safe. He was of the
roaring, ranting type that gives the tinge of the melodramatic to
piratical annals. He had a black beard of inordinate length that
reached from up around his eyes to his waist, and he used to twist it
into tails with bits of ribbon and fix it up around his ears.
“We were all with him on board his big ship, the ‘Great Allen’ mounting
forty guns, the name of which he afterwards changed to the ‘Queen
Anne’s Revenge.’ He was a hard drinker and we agreed that we had never
seen a more turbulent and desperate character. For years he terrorized
the sea from the Carolinas to Trinidad.
“One night we witnessed the capture of a Yankee vessel bound from
New York to Jamaica, under command of a Captain Taylor. The pirates
streamed over the larboard quarter of the fated ship, but they met
with unexpected resistance. The attackers were nearly all disembodied
when suddenly, with blood curdling shrieks, Teach bounded over the
side on to the deck into the midst of the pirates, and Taylor’s shade
told us afterwards that he had never seen a more horrible object.
Lighted tapers hung from the rim of his broad black hat that revealed
the whites of the gleaming eyes, the gnashing teeth, frightful red
mouth, and flying masses of black whiskers. He waved a huge cutlass
and a brace of pistols hung on his breast. With demonic howls and
yells this fiendish figure plunged among the Yankees. Encouraged by
this sudden apparition the pirates rallied and the ship was soon
theirs. The dead were heaved overboard. From them we soon learned all
of the particulars of the fight, and they were most dramatic.
Teach used to burn pots of brimstone in his cabin to make his crew
think he was the devil, and many of them believed it. He kept a big
green parrot in a cage on the deck of his ship. In the midst of the
smoke and din of battle the raucous voice of the ill-omened bird
would be heard above the roar of the conflict, yelling, ‘Go it!--Go
it!--Pieces-of-Eight!--Pieces-of-Eight!’
[Illustration: “WITH DEMONIC HOWLS AND YELLS THIS FIENDISH FIGURE
PLUNGED AMONG THE YANKEES”
(_From “The Book of Pirates”_)]
“Teach once marooned a lot of his men, after an unusually rich capture,
so as to avoid paying their share of the profits. He put them on a
small desert island and, with loud curses and imprecations, sailed
away. Some of them were subsequently rescued and accomplished his
transition. When we met him afterwards he was much subdued but eager
to square accounts with his old enemies--another illustration of the
survival of a ruling passion under conditions that would seem to
discourage its activity.
“Our party now consisted of Kinisi, Sidi ben Musa, Red Beard, Morgan,
Teach and myself, and you will admit that this was quite a formidable
troop of specters. We spent many years together which I shall pass
over, as there were no events of especial interest--merely a long lapse
of spiritual quiet.
“In 1818 we were all in New York and had the honor of meeting the shade
of Captain William Kidd one night on the steps of the sub-treasury.
The Captain had been hanged in England as a pirate in 1701 and for
over forty years his bones had rattled in an iron cage, suspended from
a gibbet near the Thames. He informed us that he at one time buried
considerable treasure in the neighborhood of the Island of Manhattan,
and his object in staying in the vicinity was to haunt people who were
constantly digging to find his gold.
“He seemed exceedingly good natured and charitable in his ideas. He
wanted somebody to find the money who would devote it to some great
benevolent use, that in a way would wipe out the foul stains of its
acquirement. Doubtless you have noticed that nowadays many senile and
repentant, successful and therefore honorable gentlemen are heaving
great masses of gold into public benefactions to ease similar pangs of
avenging conscience.
“We all assured Kidd that it was foolish to think of such things--that
conscience was only a form of fear--that no stains were as fleeting as
those upon gold, and that there was no odor in the world that could
cling to it, not even that of sanctity.
[Illustration: “IN THE MIDST OF THAT WEB OF BELIAL WAS A CHRISTIAN
SPIRE”]
“For years we helped Kidd guard his idle capital. All sorts of men
came after it. Several times Kinisi and Kidd visualized when the wrong
people were getting too close to the big iron chests. They could
of course only do this at night. In the day time all we could do was to
keep the dirt falling back into the hole until it became dark. Teach
wanted to let the diggers get the hole well opened and then tumble
them in and cover them up, the way he used to do when he had somebody
help him dig a treasure hole. He always shot the digger and left him
in there with the chest so as to insure future secrecy. Many business
secrets are made safe now on the same principle but the method is more
indirect.
“The years rolled on and there were many changes on the lower end of
the island. Clusters of robber baron towers projected into the sky. The
narrow streets became deep canyons through which ran streams of gold,
and among them were congregated the mad hordes of avarice, including
some of the most expert malefactors in the world.
“At the head of the principal canyon the tall steeple of Trinity Church
stood like a monolith to the memory of Christianity, for in the midst
of that web of Belial was a Christian spire. The money changers had
engulfed the temple and its mission had become a mockery.
“We met many interesting spirits in the church yard. Countless suicide
shades flocked to the island from all over the country, for it was here
that the tentacles of the octopi centered that had felled them. In
life they had been tortured, crushed and driven to despair by organized
rapacity and chicanery. Feeble salutes from among the sunken timbers of
long lost galleons may greet these gray files as they drift away into
time’s obscurities.
“We kept our little party well together and we had to be somewhat
exclusive. There were many lady shades. They seemed fascinated with
Teach and floated after him wherever he went. He had a peculiarly
devilish and swashbuckling air about him, and a subtle suggestion of
original sin that lured them on.
“The shade of an old money shark, who used to burn his warehouses and
send out rotten ships to stormy seas for the insurance, and who had
once sold his grandmother to a medical college, kindly offered us the
hospitality of his crypt during the day time, provided we would agree
that it would in some way benefit him later. He complained that just
before he was translated he had been ‘trimmed’ and ‘ironed out,’ as
he expressed it. Some skunks had high financed him and had filched
practically all his gold by what he considered ‘dishonorable methods.’
We extended our heartfelt sympathy and moved in.
“At night we usually congregated in the belfry of Trinity, or down the
street in the sub-treasury. We enjoyed being there, and Red Beard and
Teach liked to float through the small crevices and air pipes into the
big steel vaults and fondle the gold. The vast piles of bonds and paper
money did not seem to interest them.
“One night when we were out on the steps back of the Washington statue
we saw a shade drifting up and down Wall street in a hazy, dreamy,
uncertain sort of way. He looked queer. Evidently he had been portly,
and had worn a gray suit, a mess of side whiskers and a straw hat when
he had passed into the immaterial world. We made ourselves known to
him. We learned that he had been translated early that afternoon and he
was trying to find out what the market had done since.
“His name had been Waters and he had been shot by a woman for
some reason that he did not explain. We invited him up into the
sub-treasury, and while he seemed even more anxious than Red Beard and
Teach to get his hands on the gold, he floated blissfully back and
forth among the currency and bond stacks so long that we had difficulty
in getting him out through one of the pipes and over to the church
yard before dawn. We were only able to do this by assuring him that he
could go in and mingle with the money every night forever, if it lasted
that long, and he replied that he never had suspected that heaven was
so fine as all that. We thought that anybody who could regard that
neighborhood as heaven was an abnormal optimist, and in the material
world he would need immediate medical attention, but then you know some
people are that way. After we had heard Water’s history we knew that
there was no heaven anywhere that he could ever break into.
“The second night after it had happened, he took us up to what had been
his office in one of the robber baron towers on Broad street, in which
he had been shot. We found his partner there, a man named Rivetts, who
was looting the safe and fixing the accounts so that Waters’ estate
would come out at the small end of the horn. Waters visualized and
haunted Rivetts so effectually that he jumped through the nineteenth
story window into the street, to the great delight of Teach who
regarded it as one of the best jokes he had ever known.
“Waters told us that when he was translated he was long a big block of
U. S. Steel and short a lot of Reading, and some hyenas were trying to
shake him out of the Steel and run him in on the Reading. He pulled
over and studied with feverish avidity a basket full of paper tape,
from what he called a ticker in the corner, and declared that if he had
lived another two days he would have had all their hides on his back
yard fence. You may know what some of these expressions mean. To us
they seemed technical and confusing, but we gathered that death had
deprived Waters of a ship load of pieces-of-eight and we felt very
sorry for him.
“After that he took us around to dozens of offices at night. We saw
the daylight haunts of swivel chair buccaneers, whose quarter decks
were mahogany desks, and who preyed upon the vitals of the country of
their birth, and the nests of merciless super-piratical combinations
that mulcted mankind by impounding the necessities of life. We went
to a building on lower Broadway where Waters said there were huge
vaults full of the products of the most highly refined rascality in
existence. He took us to the vaults of several food trusts, corporation
attorneys, and banks, and showed us various documents and other
evidence of wholesale plunder and remorseless nation-wide robbery that
would have taken our breaths away if we had had any. It was a sort of a
travelogue--a sight seeing tour in a region of unbelievable iniquity.
We were indeed in shark infested waters.
“It occurs to you no doubt that the word buccaneers and other sea terms
that I am using, pertain, properly speaking, to nautical financeering
only, but it is not out of place to apply them to similar professional
activities on land, for it really makes little difference to a genuine
pirate, or to those he despoils, whether he stands on a wooden deck or
on an oriental office rug.
“After these nocturnal rounds among the robbers’ roosts it was our
custom to assemble in the belfry, where Waters would deliver thrilling
talks on the methods of the ‘Wizards of Finance’ and the ‘Kings of the
Street’, as he called them. These meetings were necessarily open, and
many stranger shades often hovered about and listened. Hosts of evil
spirits moved in the surrounding gloom and mocked with sepulchral and
mephitic laughter when Walters dilated upon famous financial atrocities
in which some of them had been participants.
“We naturally had a professional interest in Waters’ tales of present
day freebooting, and for several nights he held us spell bound.”
At this point I asked my shadowy friend on the stairway if he didn’t
think it rather incongruous, or at least in bad taste, for the shades
of such a malodorous bevy of professional villains as he had with him,
to hold spiritual convocations in a church belfry.