Page 37 - The English Carnival 7
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“This,” he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing over his shoulder
with hollow eyes, “was just a year ago. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered
from the surprise and shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing
at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again.” He stopped, with
a fixed look at me.
“Did it cry out?”
“No. It was silent.”
“Did it wave its arm?”
“No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the face. Like this.”
Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of mourning. I have
seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.
“Did you go up to it?”
“I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me
faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone.”
“But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?”
He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving a ghastly nod each
time:—
“That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my
side, what looked like a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I saw it
just in time to signal the driver, Stop! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train
drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. Iran after it, and, as I went along,
heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one
of the compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us.”
Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at which he pointed
to himself.
“True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you.”
I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind
and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail. He resumed. “Now, sir,
mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled. The spectre came back a week ago. Ever
since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts.”
“At the light?”
“At the Danger light.”
“What does it seem to do?”
He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation
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The Englsih Carnival-8
