Benjamin West, The witch of Endor conjures up the ghost of Samuel
Three years ago I was on my way out to the East, and as an extra day inLondon was of some importance, I took the Friday evening mail-train toBrindisi instead of the usual Thursday morning Marseilles express. Manypeople shrink from the long forty-eight-hour train journey throughEurope, and the subsequent rush across the Mediterranean on thenineteen-knot Isis or Osiris; but there is really very littlediscomfort on either the train or the mail-boat, and unless there isactually nothing for me to do, I always like to save the extra day and ahalf in London before I say goodbye to her for one of my longer tramps.This time--it was early, I remember, in the shipping season, probablyabout the beginning of September--there were few passengers, and I had acompartment in the P. & 0. Indian express to myself all the way fromCalais. All Sunday I watched the blue waves dimpling the Adriatic, andthe pale rosemary along the cuttings; the plain white towns, with theirflat roofs and their bold 'duomos', and the grey-green gnarled oliveorchards of Apulia. The journey was just like any other. We ate in thedining-car as often and as long as we decently could. We slept afterluncheon; we dawdled the afternoon away with yellow-backed novels;sometimes we exchanged platitudes in the smoking-room, and it was therethat I met Alastair Colvin.
Colvin was a man of middle height, with a resolute, well-cut jaw; hishair was turning grey; his moustache was sun-whitened, otherwise he wasclean-shaven--obviously a gentleman, and obviously also a preoccupiedman. He had no great wit. When spoken to, he made the usual remarks inthe right way, and I dare say he refrained from banalities only becausehe spoke less than the rest of us; most of the time he buried himself inthe Wagon-lit Company's time-table, but seemed unable to concentrate hisattention on any one page of it. He found that I had been over theSiberian railway, and for a quarter of an hour he discussed it with me.Then he lost interest in it, and rose to go to his compartment. But hecame back again very soon, and seemed glad to pick up the conversationagain.
Of course this did not seem to me to be of any importance. Mosttravellers by train become a trifle infirm of purpose after thirty-sixhours' rattling. But Colvin's restless way I noticed in somewhat markedcontrast with the man's personal importance and dignity; especially illsuited was it to his finely made large hand with strong, broad, regularnails and its few lines. As I looked at his hand I noticed a long, deep,and recent scar of ragged shape. However, it is absurd to pretend that Ithought anything was unusual. I went off at five o'clock on Sundayafternoon to sleep away the hour or two that had still to be got throughbefore we arrived at Brindisi.
Once there, we few passengers transhipped our hand baggage, verified ourberths--there were only a score of us in all--and then, after an aimlessramble of half an hour in Brindisi, we returned to dinner at the HotelInternational, not wholly surprised that the town had been the death ofVirgil. If I remember rightly, there is a gaily painted hall at theInternational--I do not wish to advertise am-thine, but there is no otherplace in Brindisi at which to await the coming of the mails--and afterdinner I was looking with awe at a trellis overgrown with blue vines,when Colvin moved across the room to my table. He picked up Il Secolo,but almost immediately gave up the pretence of reading it. He turnedsquarely to me and said:
'Would you do me a favour?'
One doesn't do favours to stray acquaintances on Continental expresseswithout knowing something more of them than I knew of Colvin. But Ismiled in a noncommittal way, and asked him what he wanted. I wasn'twrong in part of my estimate of him; he said bluntly:
'Will you let me sleep in your cabin on the Osiris?' And he coloured alittle as he said it.
Now, there is nothing more tiresome than having to put up with astable-companion at sea, and I asked him rather pointedly:
'Surely there is room for all of us?' I thought that perhaps he had beenpartnered off with some mangy Levantine, and wanted to escape from him atall hazards.
Colvin, still somewhat confused, said: 'Yes; I am in a cabin by myself.But you would do me the greatest favour if you would allow me to shareyours.'
This was all very well, but, besides the fact that I always sleep betterwhen alone, there had been some recent thefts on board English liners,and I hesitated, frank and honest and self-conscious as Colvin was. Justthen the mail-train came in with a clatter and a rush of escaping steam,and I asked him to see me again about at on the boat when we started. Heanswered me curtly--I suppose he saw the mistrust in my manner--'I am amember of White's. I smiled to myself as he said it, but I remembered ina moment that the man--if he were really what he claimed to be, and Imake no doubt that he was--must have been sorely put to it before heurged the fact as a guarantee of his respectability to a total strangerat a Brindisi hotel.
That evening, as we cleared the red and green harbour-lights of Brindisi,Colvin explained. This is his story in his own words.
'When I was travelling in India some years ago, I made the acquaintanceof a youngish man in the Woods and Forests. We camped out together for aweek, and I found him a pleasant companion. John Broughton was alight-hearted soul when off duty, but a steady and capable man in any ofthe small emergencies that continually arise in that department. He wasliked and trusted by the natives, and though a trifle over-pleased withhimself when he escaped to civilization at Simla or Calcutta, Broughton'sfuture was well assured in Government service, when a fair-sized estatewas unexpectedly left to him, and he joyfully shook the dust of theIndian plains from his feet and returned to England. For five years hedrifted about London. I saw him now and then. We dined together aboutevery eighteen months, and I could trace pretty exactly the gradualsickening of Broughton with a merely idle life. He then set out on acouple of long voyages, returned as restless as before, and at last toldme that he had decided to marry and settle down at his place, BurnleyAbbey, which had long been empty. He spoke about looking after theproperty and standing for his constituency in the usual way. VivienWilde, his fiancée, had, I suppose, begun to take him in hand. She was apretty girl with a deal of fair hair and rather an exclusive manner;deeply religious in a narrow school, she was still kindly andhigh-spirited, and I thought that Broughton was in luck. He was quitehappy and full of information about his future.
'Among other things, I asked him about Burnley Abbey. He confessed thathe hardly knew the place. The last tenant, a man called Clarke, had livedin one wing for fifteen years and seen no one. He had been a miser and ahermit. It was the rarest thing for a light to be seen at the Abbey afterdark. Only the barest necessities of life were ordered, and the tenanthimself received them at the side-door. His one half-caste manservant,after a month's stay in the house, had abruptly left without warning, andhad returned to the Southern States. One thing Broughton complainedbitterly about: Clarke had wilfully spread the rumour among the villagersthat the Abbey was haunted, and had even condescended to play childishtricks with spirit-lamps and salt in order to scare trespassers away atnight. He had been detected in the act of this tomfoolery, but the storyspread, and no one, said Broughton, would venture near the house exceptin broad daylight. The hauntedness of Burnley Abbev was now, he said witha grin, part of the gospel of the countryside, but he and his young wifewere going to change all that. Would I propose myself any time I liked?I, of course, said I would, and equally, of course, intended to donothing of the sort without a definite invitation.
'The house was put in thorough repair, though not a stick of the oldfurniture and tapestry were removed. Floors and ceilings were relaid: theroof was made watertight again, and the dust of half a century wasscoured out. He showed me some photographs of the place. It was called anAbbey, though as a matter of fact it had been only the infirmary of thelong-vanished Abbey of Closter some five miles away. The larger part ofthis building remained as it had been in pre-Reformation days, but a winghad been added in Jacobean times, and that part of the house had beenkept in something like repair by Mr Clarke. He had in both the ground andfirst floors set a heavy timber door, strongly barred with iron, in thepassage between the earlier and the Jacobean parts of the house, and hadentirely neglected the former. So there had been a good deal of work tobe done.
'Broughton, whom I saw in London two or three times about this period,made a deal of fun over the positive refusal of the workmen to remainafter sundown. Even after the electric light had been put into everyroom, nothing would induce them to remain, though, as Broughton observed,electric light was death on ghosts. The legend of the Abbey's ghosts hadgone far and wide, and the men would take no risks. They went home inbatches of five and six, and even during the daylight hours there was aninordinate amount of talking between one and another, if either happenedto be out of sight of his companion. On the whole, though nothing of anysort or kind had been conjured up even by their heated imaginationsduring their five months' work upon the Abbey, the belief in the ghostswas rather strengthened than otherwise in Thurnley because of the men'sconfessed nervousness, and local tradition declared itself in favour ofthe ghost of an immured nun.
"Good old nun!" said Broughton.
'I asked him whether in general he believed in the possibility of ghosts,and, rather to my surprise, he said that he couldn't say he entirelydisbelieved in them. A man in India had told him one mornang in camp thathe believed that his mother was dead in England, as her vision had cometo his tent the night before. He had not been alarmed, but had saidnothing, and the figure vanished again. As a matter of fact, the nextpossible dak-walla brought on a telegram announcing the mother's death."There the thing was," said Broughton. But at Thurnley he was practicalenough. He roundly cursed the idiotic selfishness of Clarke, whose sillyantics had caused all the inconvenience. At the same time, he couldn'trefuse to sympathize to some extent with the ignorant workmen. "My ownidea," said he, "is that if a ghost ever does come in one's way, oneought to speak to it."
'I agreed. Little as I knew of the ghost world and its conventions, I hadalways remembered that a spook was in honour bound to wait to be spokento. It didn't seem much to do, and I felt that the sound of one's ownvoice would at any rate reassure oneself as to one's wakefulness. Butthere are few ghosts outside Europe--few, that is, that a white man cansee--and I had never been troubled with any. However, as I have said, Itold Broughton that I agreed.
'So the wedding took place, and I went to it in a tall hat which I boughtfor the occasion, and the new Mrs Broughton smiled very nicely at meafterwards. As it had to happen, I took the Orient Express that eveningand was not in England again for nearly six months. Just before I cameback I got a letter from Broughton. He asked if I could see him in Londonor come to Thurnley, as he thought I should be better able to help himthan anyone else he knew. His wife sent a nice message to me at the end,so I was reassured about at least one thing. I wrote from Budapest that Iwould come and sec him at Thurnley two days after my arrival in London,and as I sauntered out of the Pannonia into the Kerepesi Utcza to post myletters, I wondered of what earthly service I could be to Broughton. Ihad been out with him after tiger on foot, and I could imagine few menbetter able at a pinch to manage their own business. However, I hadnothing to do, so after dealing with some small accumulations of businessduring my absence, I packed a kit-bag and departed to Euston.
'I was met by Broughton's great limousine at Thurnley Road station, andafter a drive of nearly seven miles we echoed through the sleepy streetsof Thurnley village, into which the main gates of the park thrustthemselves, splendid with pillars and spreadeagles and tom-cats rampantatop of them. I never was a herald, but I know that the Broughtons havethe right to supporters--Heaven knows why! From the gates a quadrupleavenue of beech-trees led inwards for a quarter of a mile. Beneath them aneat strip of fine turf edged the road and ran back until the poison ofthe dead beech-leaves killed it under the trees. There were manywheel-tracks on the road, and a comfortable little pony trap jogged pastme laden with a country parson and his wife and daughter. Evidently therewas some garden party going on at the Abbey. The road dropped away to theright at the end of the avenue, and I could see the Abbey across a widepasturage and a broad lawn thickly dotted with guests.
'The end of the building was plain. It must have been almost mercilesslyaustere when it was first built, but time had crumbled the edges andtoned the stone down to an orange-lichened grey wherever it showed behindits curtain of magnolia, jasmine, and ivy. Further on was thethree-storied Jacobean house, tall and handsome. There had not been theslightest attempt to adapt the one to the other, but the kindly ivy hadglossed over the touching-point. There was a tall flèche in the middle ofthe building, surmounting a small bell tower. Behind the house there rosethe mountainous verdure of Spanish chestnuts all the way up the hill.
'Broughton had seen me coming from afar, and walked across from his otherguests to welcome me before turning me over to the butler's care. Thisman was sandy-haired and rather inclined to be talkative. He could,however, answer hardly any questions about the house; he had, he said,only been there three weeks. Mindful of what Broughton had told me, Imade no enquiries about ghosts, though the room into which I was shownmight have justified anything. It was a very large low room with oakbeams projecting from the white ceiling. Every inch of the walls,including the doors, was covered with tapestry, and a remarkably fineItalian fourpost bedstead, heavily draped, added to the darkness anddignity of the place. All the furniture was old, well made and dark.Underfoot there was a plain green pile carpet, the only new thing aboutthe room except the electric light fittings and the jugs and basins. Eventhe looking-glass on the dressing-table was an old pyramidal Venetianglass set in heavy repoussé frame of tarnished silver.
'After a few minutes' cleaning up, I went downstairs and out upon thelawn, where I greeted my hostess. The people gathered there were of theusual country type, all anxious to be pleased and roundly curious as tothe new master of the Abbey. Rather to my surprise, and quite to mypleasure, I rediscovered Glenham, whom I had known well in old days inBarotseland: he lived quite close, as, he remarked with a grin. I oughtto have known. "But," he added, "I don't live in a place like this." Heswept his hand to the long, low lines of the Abbey in obvious admiration,and then, to my intense interest, muttered beneath his breath, "ThankGod!" He saw that I had overheard him, and turning to me said decidedly,"Yes, 'thank God' I said, and I meant it. I wouldn't live at the Abbeyfor all Broughton's money."
'"But surely," I demurred, "you know that old Clarke was discovered inthe very act of setting light to his bug-a-boos?"
'Glenham shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I know about that. But there issomething wrong with the place still. All I can say is that Broughton isa different man since he has lived here. I don't believe that he willremain much longer. But--you're staying here?--well, you'll hear allabout it tonight. There's a big dinner, I understand." Be conversationturned off to old reminiscences, and Glenham soon after had to go.
'Before I went to dress that evening I had twenty minutes' talk withBroughton in his library. There was no doubt that the man was altered,gravely altered. He was nervous and fidgety, and I found him looking atme only when my eye was off him. I naturally asked him what he wanted ofme. I told him I would do anything I could, but that I couldn't conceivewhat he lacked that I could provide. He said with a lustreless smile thatthere was, however, something, and that he would tell me the followingmorning. It struck me that he was somehow ashamed of himself and perhapsashamed of the part he was asking me to play. However, I dismissed thesubject from my mind and went up to dress in my palatial room. As I shutthe door a draught blew out the Queen of Sheba from the wall, and Inoticed that the tapestries were not fastened to the wall at the bottom.I have always held very practical views about spooks, and it has oftenseemed to me that the slow waving in firelight of loose tapestry upon awall would account for ninety-nine per cent of the stories one hears.Certainly the dignified undulation of this lady with her attendants andhuntsmen--one of whom was untidily cutting the throat of a fallow deerupon the very steps on which King Solomon, a grey-faced Flemish noblemanwith the order of the Golden Fleece, awaited his fair visitor--gavecolour to my hypothesis.
'Nothing much happened at dinner. The people were very much like those ofthe garden party. A young woman next to me seemed anxious to know whatwas being read in London. As she was far more familiar than I with themost recent magazines and literary supplements, I found salvation inbeing myself instructed in the tendencies of modern fiction. All trueart, she said, was shot through and through with melancholy. How vulgarwere the attempts at wit that marked so many modern books! From thebeginning of literature it had always been tragedy that embodied thehighest attainment of every age. To call such works morbid merely beggedthe question. No thoughtful man--she looked sternly at me through thesteel rim of her glasses--could fail to agree with me. Of course, as onewould, I immediately and properly said that I slept with Pett Ridge andJacobs under my pillow at night, and that if Jorrocks weren't quite solarge and cornery, I would add him to the company. She hadn't read any ofthem, so I was saved--for a time. But I remember grimly that she saidthat the dearest wish of her life was to be in some awful andsoul-freezing situation of horror, and I remember that she dealt hardlywith the hero of Nat Paynter's vampire story, between nibbles at herbrown-bread ice. She was a cheerless soul, and I couldn't help thinkingthat if there were many such in the neighbourhood, it was not surprisingthat old Glenham had been stuffed with some nonsense or other about theAbbey. Yet nothing could well have been less creeps than the glitter ofsilver and glass, and the subdued lights and cackle of conversation allround the dinner-table.
'After the ladies had gone I found myself talking to the rural dean. Hewas a thin, earnest man, who at once turned the conversation to oldClarke's buffooneries. But, he said, Mr Broughton had introduced such anew and cheerful spirit, not only into the Abbey, but, he might say, intothe whole neighbourhood, that he had great hopes that the ignorantsuperstitions of the past were from henceforth destined to oblivion.Thereupon his other neighbour, a portly gentleman of independent meansand position, audibly remarked "Amen", which damped the rural dean, andwe talked of partridges past, partridges present, and pheasants to come.At the other end of the table Broughton sat with a couple of his friends,red-faced hunting men. Once I noticed that they were discussing me, but Ipaid no attention to it at the time. I remembered it a few hours later.
'By eleven all the guests were gone, and Broughton, his wife, and I werealone together under the fine plaster ceiling of the Jacobeandrawing-room. Mrs Broughton talked about one or two of the neighbours,and then, with a smile, said that she knew I would excuse her, shookhands with me, and went off to bed. I am not very good at analysingthings, but I felt that she talked a little uncomfortably and with asuspicion of effort, smiled rather conventionally, and was obviously gladto go. These things seem trifling enough to repeat, but I had throughoutthe faint feeling that everything was not square. Under thecircumstances, this was enough to set me wondering what on earth theservice could be that I was to render--wondering also whether the wholebusiness were not some ill-advised jest in order to make me come downfrom London for a mere shooting-party.
'Broughton said little after she had gone. But he was evidentlylabouring to bring the conversation round to the so-called haunting ofthe Abbey. As soon as I saw this, of course I asked him directly aboutit. He then seemed at once to lose interest in the matter. There was nodoubt about it: Broughton was somehow a changed man, and to my mind hehad changed in no way for the better. Mrs Broughton seemed no sufficientcause. He was clearly very fond of her, and she of him. I reminded himthat he was going to tell me what I could do for him in the morning,pleaded my journey, lighted a candle, and went upstairs with him. At theend of the passage leading into the old house he grinned weakly and said,"Mind, if you sec a ghost, do talk to it; you said you would." He stoodirresolutely a moment and then turned away. At the door of hisdressing-room he paused once more: "I'm here," he called out, "if youshould want anything. Good night," and he shut his door.
'I went along the passage to my room, undressed, switched on a lampbeside my bed, read a few pages of The Jungle Book, and then, more thanready for sleep, turned the light off and went fast asleep.
'Three hours later I woke up. There was not a breath of wind outside.There was not even a flicker of light from the fireplace. As I lay there,an ash tinkled slightly as it cooled, but there was hardly a gleam of thedullest red in the grate. An owl cried among the silent Spanish chesnutson the slope outside. I idly reviewed the events of the day, hoping thatI should fall off to sleep again before I reached dinner. But at the endI seemed as wakeful as ever. There was no help for it. I must read myJungle Book again till I felt ready to go off, so I fumbled for the pearat the end of the cord that hung down inside the bed, and I switched onthe bedside lamp. The sudden glory dazzled me for a moment. I felt undermy pillow for my hook with half-shut eyes. Then, growing used to thelight, I happened to look down to the foot of my bed.
'I can never tell you really what happened then. Nothing I could everconfess in the most abject words could even faintly picture to you what Ifelt. I know that my heart stopped dead, and my throat shutautomatically. In one instinctive movement I crouched back up against thehead-boards of the bed, staring at the horror. The movement set my heartgoing again, and the sweat dripped from every pore. I am not aparticularly religious man, but I had always believed that God wouldnever allow any supernatural appearance to present itself to man in sucha guise and in such circumstances that harm, either bodily or mental,could result to him. I can only tell you that at that moment both my lifeand my reason rocked unsteadily on their seats.'
The other Osiris passengers had gone to bed. Only he and I remainedleaning over the starboard railing, which rattled uneasily now and thenunder the fierce vibration of the over-engined mail-boat. Far over, therewere the lights of a few fishing-smacks riding out the night, and a greatrush of white combing and seething water fell out and away from usoverside.
At last Colvin went on:
'Leaning over the foot of my bed, looking at me, was a figure swathed ina rotten and tattered veiling. This shroud passed over the head, but leftboth eyes and the right side of the face bare. It then followed the lineof the arm down to where the hand grasped the bed-end. The face was notentirely that of a skull, though the eyes and the flesh of the face weretotally gone. There was a thin, dry skin drawn tightly over the features,and there was some skin left on the hand. One wisp of hair crossed theforehead. It was perfectly still. I looked at it, and it looked at me,and my brains turned dry and hot in my head. I had still got the pear ofthe electric lamp in my hand, and I played idly with it; only I dared notturn the light out again. I shut my eyes, only to open them in a hideousterror the same second. Be thing had not moved. My heart was thumping,and the sweat cooled me as it evaporated. Another cinder tinkled in thegrate, and a panel creaked in the wall.
'My reason failed me. For twenty minutes, or twenty seconds. I was ableto think of nothing else but this awful figure, till there came, hurtlingthrough the empty channels of my senses, the remembrance that Broughtonand his friends had discussed me furtively at dinner. Be dim possibilityof its being a hoax stole gratefully into my unhappy mind, and oncethere, one's pluck came creeping back along a thousand tiny veins. Myfirst sensation was one of blind unreasoning thankfulness that my brainwas going to stand the trial. I am not a timid man, but the best of usneeds some human handle to steady him in time of extremity, and in thisfaint but growing hope that after all it might be only a brutal hoax, Ifound the fulcrum that I needed. At last I moved.
'How I managed to do it I cannot tell you, but with one spring towardsthe foot of the bed I got within arm's-length and struck out one fearfulblow with my fist at the thing. It crumbled under it, and my hand was cutto the bone. With a sickening revulsion after my terror. I droppedhalf-fainting across the end of the bed. So it was merely a foul trickafter all. No doubt the trick had been played many a tame before: nodoubt Broughton and his friends had had some large bet among themselvesas to what I should do when I discovered the gruesome thing. From mystate of abject terror I found myself transported into an insensateanger. I shouted curses upon Broughton. I daved rather than climbed overthe bed-end on to the sofa. I tore at the robed skeleton--how well thewhole thing had been carried out, I thought--I broke the skull againstthe floor, and stamped upon its dry bones. I flung the head away underthe bed, and rent the brittle bones of the trunk in pieces. I snapped thethin thigh-bones across my knee, and flung them in different directions.The shin-bones I set up against a stool and broke with my heel. I ragedlike a Berserker against the loathly thing, and stripped the ribs fromthe backbone and slung the breastbone against the cupboard. My furyincreased as the work of destruction went on. I tore the frail rottenveil into twenty pieces, and the dust went up over everything, over theclean blotting-paper and the silver inkstand. At last my work was done.There was but a raffle of broken bones and strips of parchment andcrumbling wool. Then, picking up a piece of the skull--it was the checkand temple bone of the right side, I remember--I opened the door and wentdown the passage to Broughton's dressing-room. I remember still how mysweat-dripping pyjamas clung to me as I walked. At the door I kicked andentered.
'Broughton was in bed. He had already turned the light on and seemedshrunken and horrified. For a moment he could hardly pull himselftogether. Then I spoke. I don't know what I said. Only I know that from aheart full and over-full with hatred and contempt, spurred on by shame ofmy own recent cowardice, I let my tongue run on. He answered nothing. Iwas amazed at my own fluency. My hair still clung lankily to my wettemples, my hand was bleeding profusely, and I must have looked a strangesight. Broughton huddled himself up at the head of the bed just as I had.Still he made no answer, no defence. He seemed preoccupied with somethingbesides my reproaches, and once or twice moistened his lips with histongue. But he could say nothing though he moved his hands now and then,just as a baby who cannot speak moves its hands.
'At last the door into Mrs Broughton's room opened and she came in, whiteand terrified. "What is it? What is it? Oh, in God's name! what is it?"she cried again and again, and then she went up to her husband and sat onthe bed in her night-dress, and the two faced me. I told her what thematter was. I spared her husband not a word for her presence there. Yethe seemed hardly to understand. I told the pair that I had spoiled theircowardly joke for them. Broughton looked up.
'"I have smashed the foul thing into a hundred pieces," I said.Broughton licked his lips again and his mouth worked. "By God!" Ishouted, "it would serve you right if I thrashed you within an inch ofyour life. I will take care that not a decent man or woman of myacquaintance ever speaks to you again. And there," I added, throwing thebroken piece of the skull upon the floor beside his bed, "there is asouvenir for you, of your damned work tonight!"
'Broughton saw the bone, and in a moment it was his turn to frighten me.He squealed like a hare caught in a trap. He screamed and screamed tillMrs Broughton, almost as bewildered as myself, held on to him and coaxedhim like a child to be quiet. But Broughton--and as he moved I thoughtthat ten minutes ago I perhaps looked as terribly ill as he did--thrusther from him, and scrambled out of the bed on to the floor, and stillscreaming put out his hand to the hone. It had blood on it from my hand.He paid no attention to me whatever. In truth I said nothing. This was anew turn indeed to the horrors of the evening. He rose from the floorwith the bone in his hand and stood silent. He seemed to be listening."Time, time, perhaps," he muttered, and almost at the same moment fell atfull length on the carpet, cutting his head against the fender. The boneflew from his hand and came to rest near the door. I picked Broughton up,haggard and broken, with blood over his face. He whispered hoarsely andquickly, "Listen. listen!" We listened.
'After ten seconds' utter quiet, I seemed to hear something. I could notbe sure, but at last there was no doubt. There was a quiet sound as ofone moving along the passage. Little regular steps came towards us overthe hard oak flooring. Broughton moved to where his wife sat, white andspeechless, on the bed, and pressed her face into his shoulder.
'Then, the last thing that I could see as he turned the light out, hefell forward with his own head pressed into the pillow of the bed.Something in their company, something in their cowardice, helped me, andI faced the open doorway of the room, which was outlined fairly clearlyagainst the dimly lighted passage. I put out one hand and touched MrsBroughton's shoulder in the darkness. But at the last moment I toofailed. I sank on my knees and put my face in the bed. Only we all heard.The footsteps came to the door, and there they stopped. Be piece of bonewas lying a yard inside the door. There was a rustle of moving stuff, andthe thing was in the room. Mrs Broughton was silent: I could hearBroughton's voice praying, muffled an the pillow: I was cursing my owncowardice. Then the steps moved out again on the oak boards of thepassage, and I heard the sounds dying away. In a flash of remorse I wentto the door and looked out. At the end of the corridor I thought I sawsomething that moved away. A moment later the passage was empty. I stoodwith my forehead against the jamb of the door almost physically sick.
'"You can turn the light on," I said, and there was an answering flare.There was no bone at my feet. Mrs Broughton had fainted. Broughton wasalmost useless, and it took me ten minutes to bring her to. Broughtononly said one thing worth remembering. For the most part he went onmuttering prayers. But I was glad afterwards to recollect that he hadsaid that thing. He said in a colourless voice, half as a question, halfas a reproach, "You didn't speak to her."
'We spent the remainder of the night together. Mrs Broughton actuallyfell off into in a kind of sleep before dawn, but she suffered sohorribly in her dreams that I shook her into consciousness again. Neverwas dawn so long in coming. Three or four times Broughton spoke tohimself. Mrs Broughton would then just tighten her hold on his arm, butshe could say nothing. As for me, I can honestly say that I grew worse asthe hours passed and the light strengthened. The two violent reactionshad battered down my steadiness of view, and I felt that the foundationsof my life had been built upon the sand. I said nothing, and afterbinding up my hand with a towel, I did not move. It was better so. Theyhelped me and I helped them, and we all three knew that our reason hadgone very near to ruin that night. At last, when the light came in prettystrongly, and the birds outside were chattering and singing, we felt thatwe must do something. Yet we never moved. You might have thought that weshould particularly dislike being found as we were by the servants: yetnothing of that kind mattered a straw, and an overpowering listlessnessbound us as we sat, until Chapman, Broughton's man, actually knocked andopened the door. None of us moved. Broughton, speaking hardly andstiffly, said, "Chapman you can come back in five minutes." Chapman, wasa discreet man, but it would have made no difference to us if he hadcarried his news to the "room" at once.
'We looked at each other and I said I must go back. I meant to waitoutside till Chapman returned. I simply dared not re-enter my bedroomalone. Broughton roused himself and said that he would come with me. MrsBroughton agreed to remain in her own room for five minutes if the blindswere drawn up and all the doors left open.
'So Broughton and I, leaning stiffly one against the other, went down tomy room. By the morning light that filtered past the blinds we could seeour way, and I released the blinds. There was nothing wrong in the roomfrom end to end, except smears of my own blood on the end of the bed, onthe sofa, and on the carpet where I had torn the thing to pieces.'
Colvin had finished his story. There was nothing to say. Seven bellsstuttered out from the fo'c'sle, and the answering cry wailed through thedarkness. I took him downstairs.
'Of course I am much better now, but it is a kindness of you to let mesleep in your cabin.'
THE END
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