just finished and the chart lying rolled up on the table before me, when
suddenly the dog’s dismal howl rang through the ship, and looking up I
saw those same legs coming down the after companion. My hair fairly
stood on end, and yet to-day surely I was wide awake. I had only smoked
one pipe all day, and had not touched a drop of liquor. The same wan,
emaciated figure walked into the cabin, glanced inquiringly and
appealingly at me, and again there spread over his face that look of
utter disappointment as if he had sought something and failed to find
it, and again he disappeared. I rushed on deck to the mate and told him
all I had seen during the last two nights; but he made light of it, and
assured me I had been asleep or smoking too much. He did not like to
suggest that I had been drinking. Still, I could see that the thought
that came into his mind was ‘The old man has seen ’em again.’ I gave up
trying to convince him, but requested that the next night, from 8 to
8.30, he should sit with me in the cabin.
“How the next day passed I cannot tell. I only know that my thoughts
never left that ghostly visitant, and somehow I felt that the evening
would reveal something to me and the spell be broken. I made up my mind
I would speak to the thing, whatever it was, and I felt a sort of
security in the presence of the mate, who was a daring fellow and feared
neither man nor the devil. Neither rum nor tobacco passed my lips during
the next day, and eight o’clock found the mate and I sitting in the
cabin, and this time the chart lay open on the table beside us. Just as
eight bells struck the dog’s premonitory wail sounded, and looking up we
both saw the figure descending the cabin stairs. We both seemed frozen
to our seats, and the strange weirdness of the whole proceeding cast the
same spell over the mate and me alike, and we were both unable to move
or speak. Slowly the figure proceeded into the cabin and glanced around
without a word, but with the same expectant look on his face. His form
was even more wasted, his cheeks sunken and his eyes seemed almost out
of sight so deeply were they set in their sockets. As his eye fell on
the open chart a look of supreme joy fairly irradiated his features, and
advancing to the table he placed one long, bony finger on the chart,
held it for a moment and then again disappeared from our sight.
“For five minutes after he had left us we sat speechless. Then I managed
to say: ‘What do you think of that, Mr. Morris?’ ‘My God! sir, I don’t
know--it’s beyond me.’ Then my eyes fell on the open chart and there
where the finger had been was a tiny spot of blood, exactly on the point
of longitude 63 degrees west and latitude 37 degrees north. We were then
only about fifty miles distant from that position, and immediately there
came to me the determination to steer the ship there; so I laid her
course accordingly, and posted a lookout in the crow’s nest. At five
o’clock in the morning, just as the east began to grow gray, the lookout
called out: ‘Boat on the lee bow,’ and as we came up to it we found four
men in it--three dead and one with just a remnant of life left in him.
We sewed the three bodies in canvas and buried them in the ocean, and
then gave all our attention to restoring life to the poor emaciated
frame, which, I then recognized, was the very man who for three
successive nights had visited me in my cabin.
“By judicious and careful nursing life gradually came back to him, and
in four days’ time he was able to sit up and talk with me in the cabin.
It seems he commanded the ship Promise, and she had taken fire and been
destroyed, and all hands had to take to the boats. Ten were in the boats
at first, but their food had given out, and one by one he had seen them
die, and one by one he had cast the bodies overboard. Finally he lost
consciousness and knew not whether his three remaining companions were
dead or alive.
“Then he said he seemed in a dream to see a ship and tried to go to her
for help, but just as he would be going on board of her something would
seem to keep him back; three times in his dreams he tried to visit this
ship, and the last time there seemed to come to him a certain
satisfaction, and he felt that he had succeeded in his object. Turning
to my table, he said: ‘Let me take your chart; I’ll show you just where
we were.’
“‘Stop,’ said I, ‘don’t take that chart, it is an old one and all marked
over. Mark your position on this new one.’ He took my pencil and knife,
and carefully sharpened his pencil. Then, taking my dividers, he
measured his latitude and longitude and placed a pencil dot at a point
on the clean chart. As he lifted his hand he said: ‘Oh, excuse me,
captain, I cut my finger in sharpening the pencil and have left a drop
of blood on the chart.’
“‘Never mind,’ said I, ‘leave it there.’ And then I produced the old
chart and there, in an exactly corresponding place was the drop of blood
left by my ghostly visitor.”
Then looking steadily into my face the mate solemnly added: “I can’t
explain this, sir, perhaps you can; but I can tell you on my honor it is
God’s own truth that I have told you.”
THE GHOST OF WASHINGTON.
It was early on Christmas morning when John Reilly wheeled away from a
picturesque little village where he had passed the previous night, to
continue his cycling tour through eastern Pennsylvania. To-day his
intention was to stop at Valley Forge, and then to ride on up the
Schuylkill Valley, visiting in turn the many points of historical
interest that lay along his route. Valley Forge, his road map indicated,
was but a short distance further on. All around him were the hills and
fields and roads over which Washington and his half-starved army had
foraged and roamed throughout the trying winter of 1777-8--one hundred
and twenty-six years ago.
It was a beautiful Christmas day, truly, and, as he wheeled along, young
Reilly’s thoughts were almost equally divided between the surrounding
pleasant scenery and the folks at home, who, he knew very well, were
assembling at just about the present time around a heavily laden
Christmas tree in the front parlor. The sun rose higher and higher and
Reilly pedaled on down the valley, passing every now and then quaint,
pleasant-looking farmhouses, many of which, no doubt, had been built
anterior to the period which had given the vicinity its history.
Arriving, finally, at a place where the road forked off in two
directions, Reilly was puzzled which way to go on. There happened to be
a dwelling close by. Accordingly he dismounted, left his wheel leaning
against a gate-post at the side of the road, and walked up a wretchedly
flagged walk leading to the house, with the idea of getting instructions
from its inmates.
Situated in the center of an unkempt field of rank grass and weeds, the
building lay back from the highway probably one hundred and fifty feet.
It was long and low in shape, containing but one story and having what
is termed a gabled roof, under which there must have been an attic of no
mean size. On coming close to the house, a fact Reilly had not noticed
from the road became plainly evident. It was deserted. He saw that the
roof and side shingles were in wretched condition; that the window
sashes and frames as well as the doors and door frames were missing from
the openings in the side walls where once they had been, and that the
entire side of the house, including that part of the stone foundation
which showed above the ground, was full of cracks and seams. At first on
the point of turning back, he concluded to see what the interior was
like anyway.
Accordingly he went inside. Glancing around the large dust-filled room
he had entered his gaze at first failed to locate any object of the
least interest. A rickety appearing set of steps went up into the attic
from one side of the apartment and over in one corner was a large open
fireplace, from the walls of which much of the brickwork had become
loosened and fallen out. Reilly had started up the steps toward the
attic, when happening to look back for an instant, his attention was
attracted to a singular-looking, jug-shaped bottle no larger than a
vinegar cruet, which lay upon its side on the hearth of the fireplace,
partly covered up by debris of loose bricks and mortar. He hastened back
down the steps and crossed the room, taking the bottle up in his hand
and examining it with curiosity. Being partly filled with a liquid of
some kind or other the bottle was very soon uncorked and held under the
young man’s nose. The liquid gave forth a peculiar, pungent and inviting
odor. Without further hesitation Reilly’s lips sought the neck of the
bottle. It is hardly possible to describe the pleasure and satisfaction
his senses experienced as he drank.
While the fluid was still gurgling down his throat a heavy hand was
placed most suddenly on his shoulder and his body was given a violent
shaking. The bottle fell to the floor and was broken into a hundred
pieces.
“Hello!” said a rough voice almost in Reilly’s ear. “Who are you,
anyway? And what are you doing within the lines? A spy, I’ll be bound.”
As most assuredly there had been no one else in the vicinity of the
building when he had entered it and with equal certainty no one had come
down the steps from the attic, Reilly was naturally surprised and
mystified by this unexpected assault. He struggled instinctively to
break loose from the unfriendly grasp, and when he finally succeeded he
twisted his body around so that he faced across the room. Immediately he
made the remarkable discovery that there were four other persons in the
apartment--three uncouth-looking fellows habited in fantastic but ragged
garments, and a matronly-looking woman, the latter standing over a
washtub which had been elevated upon two chairs in a corner near the
fireplace. To all appearance the woman had been busy at her work and had
stopped for the moment to see what the men were going to do; her waist
sleeves were rolled up to the shoulders and her arms dripped with water
and soapsuds. Over the tops of the tubs, partly filled with water, there
were visible the edges of several well-soaked fabrics. Too add to his
astonishment he noticed that in the chimney-place, which a moment before
was falling apart, but now seemed to be clean and in good condition, a
cheerful fire burned, and that above the flames was suspended an iron
pot, from which issued a jet of steam. He noticed also that the entire
appearance of the room had undergone a great change. Everything seemed
to be in good repair, tidy and neat; the ceilings, the walls and the
door; even the stairway leading to the attic. The openings in the walls
were fitted with window sashes and well-painted doors. The apartment
had, in fact, evolved under his very eyesight from a state of absolute
ruin into one of excellent preservation.
All of this seemed so weird and uncanny, that Reilly stood for a moment
or two in the transformed apartment, utterly dumbfounded, with his mouth
wide open and his eyes all but popping out of his head. He was brought
to his senses by the fellow who had shaken him growling out:
“Come! Explain yourself!”
“An explanation is due me,” Reilly managed to gasp.
“Don’t bandy words with the rascal, Harry,” one of the other men spoke
up. “Bring him along to headquarters.”
Thereupon, without further parley, the three men marched Reilly in
military fashion into the open air and down to the road. Here he picked
up at the gate-post his bicycle, while they unstacked a group of three
old-fashioned-looking muskets located close by. When the young man had
entered the house a few minutes before, this stack of arms had not been
there. He could not understand it. Neither could he understand, on
looking back at the building as he was marched off down the road, the
mysterious agency that had transformed its dilapidated exterior, just as
had been the interior, into a practically new condition.
While they trudged along, the strangers exhibited a singular interest in
the wheel Reilly pushed at his side, running their coarse hands over the
frame and handle-bar, and acting on the whole as though they never
before had seen a bicycle. This in itself was another surprise. He had
hardly supposed there were three men in the country so totally
unacquainted with what is a most familiar piece of mechanism everywhere.
At the same time that they were paying so much attention to the wheel,
Reilly in turn was studying with great curiosity his singular-looking
captors. Rough, unprepossessing appearing fellows they were, large of
frame and unshaven, and, it must be added, dirty of face. What remained
of their very ragged clothing, he had already noticed, was of a most
remarkable cut and design, resembling closely the garments worn by the
Continental militiamen in the War of Independence. The hats were broad,
low of crown, and three-cornered in shape; the trousers were
buff-colored and ended at the knees, and the long, blue spike-tailed
coats were flapped over at the extremities of the tails, the flaps being
fastened down with good-sized brass buttons. Leather leggings were
strapped around cowhide boots, through the badly worn feet of which, in
places where the leather had cracked open, the flesh, unprotected by
stockings, could be seen. Dressed as he was, in a cleanly, gray cycling
costume, Reilly’s appearance, most assuredly, was strongly in contrast
to that of his companions.
After a brisk walk of twenty minutes, during which they occasionally met
and passed by one or two or perhaps a group of men clothed and outfitted
like Reilly’s escorts, the little party followed the road up a slight
incline and around a well-wooded bend to the left, coming quite
suddenly, and to the captive, very unexpectedly, to what was without
doubt a military encampment; a village, in fact, composed of many rows
of small log huts. Along the streets, between the buildings, muskets
were stacked in hundreds of places. Over in one corner, on a slight
eminence commanding the road up which they had come, and cleverly hidden
from it behind trees and shrubbery, the young man noticed a battery of
field pieces. Wherever the eye was turned on this singular scene were
countless numbers of soldiers all garmented in three-cornered hats,
spike-tailed coats and knee breeches, walking lazily hither and thither,
grouped around crackling fires, or parading up and down the streets in
platoons under the guidance of ragged but stern-looking officers.
Harry stopped the little procession of four in front of one of the
larger of the log houses. Then, while they stood there, the long blast
from a bugle was heard, followed by the roll of drums. A minute or two
afterward, several companies of militia marched up and grounded their
arms, forming three sides of a hollow square around them, the fourth
and open side being toward the log house. Directly succeeding this
maneuver there came through the doorway of the house and stepped up the
center of the square, stopping directly in front of Reilly, a
dignified-looking person, tall and straight and splendidly proportioned
of figure, and having a face of great nobility and character.
The cold chills chased one another down Reilly’s back. His limbs swayed
and tottered beneath his weight. He had never experienced another such
sensation of mingled astonishment and fright.
He was in the presence of General Washington. Not a phantom Washington,
either, but Washington in the flesh and blood; as material and earthly a
being as ever crossed a person’s line of vision. Reilly, in his time,
had seen so many portraits, marble busts and statues of the great
commander that he could not be mistaken. Recovering the use of his
faculties, which for the moment he seemed to have lost, Reilly did the
very commonplace thing that others before him have done when placed
unexpectedly in remarkable situations. He pinched himself to make sure
that he was in reality wide awake and in the natural possession of his
senses. He felt like pinching the figure in front of him also, but he
could not muster up the courage to do that. He stood there trying to
think it all out, and as his thoughts became less stagnant, his fright
dissolved under the process of reasoning his mind pursued. To reason a
thing out, even though an explanation can only be obtained by leaving
much of the subject unaccounted for, tends to make one bolder and less
shaky in the knees.
The series of strange incidents which he was experiencing had been
inaugurated in the old-fashioned dwelling he had visited after
information concerning the roads. And everything had been going along in
a perfectly normal way up to, the very moment when he had taken a drink
from the bottle found in the fireplace. But from that precise time
everything had gone wrongly. Hence the inference that the drinking of
the peculiar liquid was accountable in some way or other for his
troubles. There was a supernatural agency in the whole thing. That much
must be admitted. And whatever that agency was, and however it might be
accounted for, it had taken Reilly back into a period of time more than
a hundred years ago, and landed him, body and soul, within the lines of
the patriot forces wintering at Valley Forge. He might have stood there,
turning over and over in his mind, pinching himself and muttering, all
the morning, had not the newcomer ceased a silent but curious inspection
of his person, and asked: “Who are you, sir?”
“John Reilly, at your pleasure,” the young man replied, adding a
question on his own account: “And who are you, sir?”
Immediately he received a heavy thump on his back from Harry’s hard
fist.
“It is not for you to question the general,” the ragged administrator of
the blow exclaimed.
“And it is not for you to be so gay,” Reilly returned, angrily, giving
the blow back with added force.
“Here, here!” broke in the first questioner. “Fisticuffs under my very
nose! No more of this, I command you both.” To Harry he added an extra
caution: “Your zeal in my behalf will be better appreciated by being
less demonstrative. Blows should be struck only on the battlefield.” To
Reilly he said, with a slight smile hovering over his face, “My name is
Washington. Perhaps you may have heard of me?”
To this Reilly replied: “I have, indeed, and heard you very well spoken
of, too.” Emboldened by the other’s smile, he ventured another question:
“I think my reckoning of the day and year is badly at fault. An hour ago
I thought the day was Christmas day. How far out of the way did my
calculation take me, sir?”
“The day is indeed Christmas day, and the year is, as you must know, the
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven.”
Reilly again pinched himself.
“Why do you bring this man to me?” Washington now inquired, turning to
Harry and his companions.
“He is a spy, sir,” said Harry.
“That is a lie!” Reilly indignantly interpolated. “I have done nothing
to warrant any such charge.”
“We found him in the Widow Robin’s house, pouring strong liquor down his
throat.”
“I had gone inside after information concerning the roads----”
“Which he was getting from a bottle, sir.”
“If drinking from a bottle of necessity constitutes being a spy, I fear
our camp is already a hotbed,” Washington somewhat sagely remarked,
casting his eye around slyly at his officers and men. “Tell me,” he went
on, with sudden sternness, looking Reilly through and through, as though
to read his very thoughts, “is the charge true? Do you come from Howe?”
“The charge is not true, sir. I come from no one. I simply am making a
tour of pleasure through this part of the country on my bicycle.”
“With the country swarming with the men from two hostile armies, any
kind of a tour, save one of absolute necessity, seems ill-timed.”
“When I set out I knew nothing about any armies. The fact is, sir----”
Reilly started to make an explanation, but he checked himself on
realizing that the telling of any such improbable yarn would only
increase the hazardousness of his position.
“Well?” Washington questioned, in a tone of growing suspicion.
“I certainly did not know that your army or any other army was
quartered in this vicinity.” Reilly hesitated for lack of something
further to say. “You see,” he finally added, prompted by a happy idea,
“I rode my wheel from New York.”
“You may have come from New York, though it is hard to believe you came
on that singular-looking machine so great a distance. Where is the horse
which drew the vehicle?”
Reilly touched his bicycle. “This is the horse, sir, just as it is; the
vehicle,” he said.
“The man is crazy!” Harry exclaimed. Washington only looked the
incredulity he felt, and this time asked a double question.
“How can the thing be balanced without it be held upright by a pair of
shafts from a horse’s back, and how is the motive power acquired?”
For an answer Reilly jumped upon the wheel, and at a considerable speed
and in a haphazard way pedaled around the space within the hollow square
of soldiers. Hither and thither he went, at one second nearly wheeling
over the toes of the line of astonished, if not frightened, militiamen;
at the next, bearing suddenly down on Harry and his companions and
making them dance and jump about most alertly to avoid a collision. Even
the dignified Washington was once or twice put to the necessity of
dodging hurriedly aside when his equilibrium was threatened. Reilly
eventually dismounted, doing so with assumed clumsiness by stopping the
wheel at Harry’s back and falling over heavily against the soldier.
Harry tumbled to the ground, but Reilly dexterously landed on his feet.
At once he began offering a profusion of apologies.
“You did that by design!” Harry shouted, jumping to his feet. His face
was red with anger and he shook his fist threateningly at the bicyclist.
Washington commanded the man to hold his peace. Then to Reilly he
expressed a great surprise at his performance and a desire to know more
about the bicycle. The young man thereupon described the machine
minutely, lifting it into the air and spinning the wheels to illustrate
how smoothly they rotated.
“I can see it is possible to ride the contrivance with rapidity. It has
been put together with wonderful ingenuity,” Washington said, when
Reilly had replaced the wheel on the ground.
“And you, sir, it is but a toy,” an officer spoke up. “Put our friend on
his bundle of tin and race him against one of our horsemen and he would
make a sorry showing.”
Reilly smiled. “I bear the gentleman no ill-will for his opinion,” he
said. “Still, I should like to show him by a practical test of the
subject that his ignorance of it is most profound.”
“You would test the speed of the machine against that of a horse?”
Washington said, in amazement.
“I would, sir. You have a good road yonder. With your permission and a
worthy opponent I would make the test at once.”
“But, sir, the man is a spy,” Harry broke in. “Would it not be better to
throw a rope around his neck and give him his deserts?”
“The charge is by no means proven,” Washington replied. “Nor can it be
until a court martial convenes this afternoon. And I see no reason why
we may not in the meantime enjoy the unique contest which has been
suggested. It will make a pleasant break in the routine of camp life.”
A murmur of approval went up from the masses of men by whom they were
surrounded. While they had been talking it seemed as though everybody in
the camp not already on the scene had gathered together behind the
square of infantry.
“Then, sir,” Harry said, with some eagerness, “I would like to be the
man to ride the horse. There is no better animal than mine anywhere. And
I understand his tricks and humors quite well enough to put him to his
best pace.”
“I confess I have heard you well spoken of as a horseman,” Washington
said. “Be away with you! Saddle and bridle your horse at once.”
It was the chain of singular circumstances narrated above which brought
John Reilly into the most remarkable contest of his life. He had entered
many bicycle races at one time or other, always with credit to himself
and to the club whose colors he wore. And he had every expectation of
making a good showing to-day. Yet a reflection of the weird conditions
which had brought about the present contest took away some of his
self-possession when a few minutes later he was marched over to the
turnpike and left to his own thoughts, while the officers were pacing
out a one mile straightaway course down the road.
After the measurements had been taken, two unbroken lines of soldiers
were formed along the entire mile; a most evident precaution against
Reilly leaving the race course at any point to escape across the fields.
Washington came up to him again, when the preparations were completed,
to shake his hand and whisper a word or two of encouragement in his ear.
Having performed these kindly acts he left to take up a position near
the point of finish.