THE BANSHEE
"What does it mean, anyway?" Warde asked, as he followed Roy,
breathless and in suspense. "What are we going to do? Has he got
some--some--accomplice--"
"Follow me," was all that Roy said.
"The troop--if we're in danger--"
"Never mind the troop; follow me."
Silently Roy sped along into an overgrown cross street, cutting through
the doorless wreck of the Y. M. C. A. shack, over the litter within, and
out on the opposite side. A tall, spectral shadow soon confronted them,
whence emanated that ghostly voice, loud and beseeching, as they
approached. Their nearness to it dispelled any thought of its being the
inanimate sounds of wind-stirred wreckage or of some unknown living
creature. It moaned and cried like no voice they had ever heard before.
Yet it was strangely human. The crying of that fleeing, bewildered
apparition was silent now, and there seemed a note of gloomy solace in
the low, plaintive strain.
"Come ahead," said Roy resolutely, "follow me. Not scared, are you?"
He ascended the narrow, metal ladder of the windmill, Warde following.
Upon the top was a tiny platform, and here he turned on his flashlight.
Crouched in a heap was their friend Blythe. He was in a state of frantic
agitation, his whole form trembling like a leaf. His head was bowed; he
clutched something in his two hands. From it dangled a cord. Several
burned matches lay near him and wisps and little masses of woven straw
littered the miniature aerial platform.
Roy turned his light above to that part of the superstructure which
revolved with the wind, enabling the winged wheel to keep in favorable
position for revolving. The moaning voice was very near now, within
arm's reach almost, and at that close range was divested of its ghostly
suggestiveness.
"Look," Roy whispered, directing his light upward. There upon the
movable framework was something that looked like a cigar-box. It was so
placed as always to catch the breeze from the revolving fan.
"I know what it is," said Roy; "hold this light while I take it down."
He seemed to know that there was no peace for that distracted, crouching
figure, as long as the weird voice from that compact little mechanism
was audible. He stood upon the framework and, reaching up, dislodged the
harmless box. A last dying wail accompanied his act. Then the big winged
fan revolved silently above them in the dark night.
"Blythey," cried Roy gently; "look up. It's just Warde and me. What's
the matter? Tell us, can't you? What's the trouble?"
"I've got her--I can see her--she called me--" was all Blythe could say.
"Did you hear her call--loud? I knew--I came--no--_no!_" he fairly
screamed, as Warde tried to lift his head and discover what he held. "I
came back--back to life--I was dead--you would have buried me--can't you
see I'm alive--you--scouts--"
His head shook, he clutched at his breast, the hand which Roy tried to
grasp trembled and was like ice. The two scouts saw that there was no
use talking with him. The wretched creature was out of his senses.
Huddling in a posture of abject terror he clutched the object which he
held tighter against his breast, his head bowed and shaking, his whole
form in convulsion.
"Do you know where you are, Blythey?" Warde asked.
"In the lower field--where they're making hay," Blythe answered.
They tried no more at questioning him.
"We want you to come with us, Blythey," Roy said. His voice was
friendly, kindly, albeit he was himself disturbed and fearful. For
neither of the boys knew what this pathetic, demon-haunted creature
might do next.
"We're your friends," Warde added. "Can't you get up and come with
us--and go to bed. Don't you remember all about camp-fire, and Pee-wee,
and all the fun we had? There isn't any voice now, it's gone away."
But for all their kindness and resolve to help him, they felt certain
qualms, both of conscience and of fear. The all too conclusive proof
that he was a fugitive and that his hands and disordered brain were red
with blood were strengthened by this uncanny adventure.
To them the vision that he had seen, the voice that had lured him and
brought him to this pitiful state were the face and voice of his
victim--a woman. He had seen her, as such wretched, remorseful creatures
ever do....
The big fan revolving silently above them in the brisk wind seemed
almost to bespeak a kind of quiet satisfaction that it had brought his
crime back home to him, and laid him low there upon that ghostly tower.
It was not without a feeling of relief that the two scouts heard the
cheering voices of their comrades approaching through the darkness. They
had been aroused, no doubt, by the piercing scream of Blythe.
"I'll go down," said Roy; "you stay up here, don't leave him alone."
At the foot of the ladder the leader of the Silver Foxes waited for the
members of the troop. It was good to see them approach. In the darkness
he could just distinguish their hurriedly donned and incomplete raiment.
He saw their looks of fear and inquiry, saw the almost panic agitation
in Pee-wee's round face and sleepy eyes.
"It's all right," Roy said, trying to control his jerky, nervous speech.
"Where's Warde?"
"Shh, he's all right--Blythe--Blythe is up there--he's in a kind of
fit--he's crazy--he's the--he's the one, all right--he's Darrell--shh,
_wait_--don't go up. Do you see this? It's one of those banshees
Harry Donnelle told us about--the kind the soldiers used to put up in
the windmills in Flanders. That's what's been making the noise. It sort
of--you know--spoke to him--that's what I think...."
If Roy had remembered some of the sprightly tales which their friend
Lieutenant Donnelle had brought from France, he might have saved himself
and his companion much fearful perplexity on that dark momentous night.
Or if they had ever been in Holland or Flanders they might have known of
those novel toys, the handiwork of ingenious youngsters, that moan and
wail and even pour forth their uncanny laughter when strategically
placed on the tops of windmills. American soldier boys, chafing under
enforced idleness in trenches and dugouts, would often beguile their
time making these miniature calliopes to catch the wind. And it is not
out of reason to surmise that many a warrior in the war-torn regions was
startled and confounded by the aerial lamentations of these harmless
little boxes of wires and crude whistles.
A cigar box, a few strips of wire, and some odds and ends of willow wood
suffice for the manufacture of the Flanders banshee. There is now an
American banshee with all modern improvements (patent not applied for)
invented and controlled by Pee-wee Harris. But that is not a part of the
present story.