The Phantom of Bogue Holauba | Page 8

semblance of a man--began to patrol the
banks of Bogue Holauba, and beat its breast and tear its hair and bewail
its woes in pantomime, and set the whole country-side aghast, for
always disasters follow its return."
"And how do you account for that phase?" asked Gordon, obviously
steadying his voice by an effort of the will.
"The apparition always shows up at low water,--the disasters are
usually typhoid," replied the physician.
"Mr. Keene died from malaria,"
Geraldine murmured musingly.
The two men glanced significantly at each other. Then Rigdon resumed:
"I mustered the hardihood on one occasion to row up to the bank of
Bogue Holauba for a closer survey. The thing vanished on my approach.
There was a snag hard by, fast anchored in the bottom of the Bogue. It
played slackly to and fro with the current, but I could not see any way
by which it or its shadow could have produced the illusion."
"Is this what you had to tell me?" demanded Geraldine pertinently. "I
knew all that already."
"No, no," replied the Doctor reluctantly. "Will you tell it, Mr. Gordon,
or shall I?"
"You, by all means, if you will," said Gordon gloomily. "God knows I
should be glad never to speak of it."

"Well," Rigdon began slowly, "Mr. Gordon was made by his cousin
Jasper Keene not only the executor of his will, but the repository of a
certain confession, which he may destroy or make public as he sees
proper. It seems that in Mr. Keene's gay young days, running wild in
his vacation from college on a secluded plantation, he often lacked
congenial companionship, and he fell in with an uncouth fellow of a
lower social grade, who led him into much detrimental adventure.
Among other incidents of very poor fun, the two were notable in
hectoring and guying the old Polish trader, who, when drunk on mean
whisky as he often was, grew violent and antagonistic. He went very
far in his denunciations one fatal night, and by way of playing him a
trick in return, they set his boat adrift by cutting the rope that tied the
craft to a tree on the bank. The confession states that they supposed the
owner was then aboard and would suffer no greater hardship than
having to use the sweeps with considerable energy to row her in to a
landing again. They were genuinely horrified when he came running
down the bank, both arms out-stretched, crying out that his all, his all
was floating away on that tumultutius, merciless tide. Before any skiff
could be launched, before any effort could be made to reach the
trading-boat, she suddenly disappeared. The Mississippi was at flood
height, and it was thought that the boat struck some drifting obstruction,
swamped, and went down in deep water. The agents in this disaster
were never suspected, but as soon as Jasper Keene had come of age,
and had command of any means of his own, his first act was to have an
exhaustive search made for the old fellow, with a view of financial
restitution. But the owner of the trading-boat had died, spending his last
years in the futile effort to obtain the insurance money. As the little he
had left was never claimed, no representative could profit by the
restitution that Jasper Keene had planned, and he found what
satisfaction he could in giving it secretly to an old man's charity. Then
the phantom began to take his revenge. He appeared on the banks of
Bogue Holauba, and straightway the only child of the mansion
sickened and died. Mr. Keene's first wife died after the second
apparition. Either it was the fancy of an ailing man, or perhaps the
general report, but he notes that the spectre was bewailing its woes
along the banks of Bogue Holauba when Jasper Keene himself was
stricken by an illness which from the first he felt was fatal."

"I remember--I remember it was said at the time," Geraldine barely
whispered.
"And now to the question: he leaves it to Mr. Gordon as his kinsman,
solicitous of the family repute, to judge whether this confession should
be made public or destroyed."
"Does he state any reasons for making it public?" demanded Geraldine,
taking the document and glancing through its pages.
"Yes; as an expiation of his early misdeeds toward this man and, if any
such thing there be, to placate the spirit of his old enemy; and lastly
better to secure his peace with his Maker."
"And which do you say!" Geraldine turned an eager, spirited face
toward Gordon, his dejected attitude and countenance distinctly seen in
the light from the lamp within the parlor, on a table close to the
window.
"I frankly admit that the publication of that confession would