Three Ghost Stories | Page 7

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. I ran 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
of, "For God's sake, clear the way!"
Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together,
in an agonised manner, 'Below there! Look out! Look out!' It stands waving to me. It
rings my little bell--"
I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was here, and you went
to the door?"
"Twice."
"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes were on the bell, and
my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living man, it did NOT ring at those times.
No, nor at any other time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical
things by the station communicating with you."
He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir. I have never confused
the spectre's ring with the man's. The ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it
derives from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't
wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it."
"And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?"
"It WAS there."'
"Both times?"
He repeated firmly: "Both times."
"Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?"
He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but arose. I opened the door,
and stood on the step, while he stood in the doorway. There was the Danger-light. There
was the dismal mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls of the cutting.
There were the stars above them.
"Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face. His eyes were prominent
and strained, but not very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had
directed them earnestly towards the same spot.
"No," he answered. "It is not there."
"Agreed," said I.

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was thinking how best to
improve this advantage, if it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in
such a matter-of-course way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact
between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.
"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what troubles me so dreadfully
is the question, What does the spectre mean?"
I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.
"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by
times turning them on me. "What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is danger
overhanging somewhere on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not