Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 6 | Page 4

left temple. "Cleves cut off my head and buried it under the hearth.
My body he cast into his well." At these words the head disappeared
and the voice was heard beneath the floor, "Take up my skull." The
watchers obeyed the call, and after digging a minute beneath the hearth
a fleshless head with a wound on the left temple came to view. Ward
took it into his hands, but in a twinkling it left them and reappeared on
the shoulders of the skeleton.
"I have long wanted to tell my fate," it resumed, "but could not until
one should be found brave enough to speak to me. I have appeared to
many, but you are the first who has commanded me to break my long
silence. Give my bones a decent burial. Write to my relative, Gilmore
Syms, of Columbus, Georgia, and tell him what I have revealed. I have
found peace." With a grateful gesture it extended its hand to Ward, who,
as he took it, shook like one with an ague, his wrist locked in its bony
clasp. As it released him it raised its hand impressively. A bluish light
burned at the doorway for an instant. The two men found themselves
alone.

THE HOUSE ACCURSED
Near Gallipolis, Ohio, there stood within a few years an old house of
four rooms that had been occupied by Herman Deluse. He lived there
alone, and, though his farming was of the crudest sort, he never
appeared to lack for anything. The people had an idea that the place
was under ban, and it was more than suspected that its occupant had
been a pirate. In fact, he called his place the Isle of Pines, after a
buccaneers' rendezvous in the West Indies, and made no attempt to
conceal the strange plunder and curious weapons that he had brought
home with him, but of money he never appeared to have much at once.
When it came his time to die he ended his life alone, so far as any
knew-- at least, his body was found in his bed, without trace of
violence or disorder. It was buried and the public administrator took
charge of the estate, locking up the house until possible relatives should
come to claim it, and the rustic jury found that Deluse "came to his
death by visitation of God."
It was but a few nights after this that the Rev. Henry Galbraith returned
from a visit of a month to Cincinnati and reached his home after a night
of boisterous storm. The snow was so deep and the roads so blocked
with windfalls that he put up his horse in Gallipolis and started for his
house on foot.
"But where did you pass the night?" inquired his wife, after the
greetings were over. "With old Deluse in the Isle of Pines," he
answered. "I saw a light moving about the house, and rapped. No one
came; so, as I was freezing, I forced open the door, built a fire, and lay
down in my coat before it. Old Deluse came in presently and I
apologized, but he paid no attention to me. He seemed to be walking in
his sleep and to be searching for something. All night long I could hear
his footsteps about the house, in pauses of the storm."
The clergyman's wife and son looked at each other, and a friend who
was present--a lawyer, named Maren--remarked, "You did not know
that Deluse was dead and buried?" The clergyman was speechless with
amazement. "You have been dreaming," said the lawyer. "Still, if you
like, we will go there to-night and investigate."
The clergyman, his son, and the lawyer went to the house about nine
o'clock, and as they approached it a noise of fighting came from within
--blows, the clink of steel, groans, and curses. Lights appeared, first at

one window, then at another. The men rushed forward, burst in the door,
and were inside--in darkness and silence. They had brought candles and
lighted them, but the light revealed nothing. Dust lay thick on the floor
except in the room where the clergyman had passed the previous night,
and the door that he had then opened stood ajar, but the snow outside
was drifted and unbroken by footsteps. Then came the sound of a fall
that shook the building. At the same moment it was noticed by the
other two men that young Galbraith was absent. They hurried into the
room whence the noise had come. A board was wrenched from the wall
there, disclosing a hollow that had been used for a hiding-place, and on
the floor lay young Galbraith with a sack of Spanish coins in his hand.
His father stooped to pick him up, but staggered back in horror, for