Page 36 - The English Carnival 7

seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, ‘Look out! Look out!’

And then again, ‘Halloa! Below there! Look out!’ I caught up my lamp, turned it on red,
and ran towards the figure, calling, ‘What’s wrong? What has happened?

Where?’ It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it

that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had
my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone.”

“Into the tunnel?” said I.

“No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and held my lamp above
my head, and saw the figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing
down the walls and trickling through the arch. I ran out again faster than I had run in
(for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red
light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and

I came down again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, ‘An alarm has been
given. Is anything wrong?’ The answer came back, both ways, ‘All well.’ ”Resisting the
slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure
must be a deception of his sense of sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of
the delicate nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often

troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction,
and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. “As to an imaginary cry,” said
I, “do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so
low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires.”

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while, and he ought
to know something of the wind and the wires,—he who so often passed long winter

nights there, alone and watching. But he would beg to remark that he had not finished.
I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my arm,— “Within six

hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within
ten hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot
where the figure had stood.”

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It was not to be
denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress
his mind. But it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur,

and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be sure
I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection to
bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making
the ordinary calculations of life.

He again begged to remark that he had not finished. I again begged his pardon for being
betrayed into interruptions.

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