Three Ghost Stories | Page 6

the door, and
sat down by the fire.
"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated,
and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, "that you shall not have to ask me
twice what troubles me. I took you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles
me."
"That mistake?"
"No. That some one else."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know."
"Like me?"
"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is
waved,--violently waved. This way."
I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating, with the
utmost passion and vehemence, "For God's sake, clear the way!"
"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry,
'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else
standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice
seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!' And then attain, '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.
"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