Читать книгу Ghost Stories and Mysteries - Ernest Favenc - Страница 5

MY STORY

(1875)

I have tried to relate the following adventure as plainly and truthfully as possible. That it appears simply wild and impossible, I well know; but I have herein related nothing but the facts.

It was in the year 1871 that three of us left the Cloncurry diggings, intending to push through to Port Darwin, prospecting as we went. We reached to within one hundred miles of the Roper River, when the strange event occurred which altered all our plans.

My two companions were named, respectively, Owen Davy and Charles Morton Hawthorne; my name is James Drummond. Davy was an old friend; Hawthorne a comparative stranger, a well made, handsome fellow, middle aged, with dark eyes of peculiar force and brilliancy. He had a habit of looking intently into your eyes when speaking, with a weird stern look that would, without doubt, confuse any man of nervous temperament. His face was marked with a scar extending in a diagonal direction across his upper lip; his mustache partly covered it, but you could trace the course of the seam by the unequal growth of the hair.

Davy and I had made his acquaintance by accident, about a fortnight before leaving the Cloncurry. He had expressed a great wish to join us when our proposed expedition was spoken of, and it ended in his accompanying us.

For the first few weeks we agreed together capitally; our new mate made himself an agreeable companion, and proved to be a good bush man. After a time, however, the novelty wore away, and he showed decided symptoms of laziness, besides assuming an authoritative, dictatorial tone, when any of our movements were under discussion. At last, beyond saddling his own horse in the morning, and perhaps making a languid attempt to light a fire, he fairly shirked all his share of the necessary work of the camp. Davy, a hot-tempered little Welshman, had had several quarrels with him; and one evening but for my interference they would have come to blows. The conviction was forced upon me that night that Hawthorne, in spite of his lordly airs and stern looking, black eyes, was at bottom but a coward. I could see the look of relief come upon his face when I stepped between and insisted upon the dispute ending; and many times afterwards I saw gleams of hatred in his eyes that showed the tiger cruelty he harbored within him. An older man than Davy, I had my temper more under control, and though I knew that Hawthorne disliked me, we managed to continue our intercourse with one another upon the terms of ordinary civility. In the days of good friendship, Hawthorne had contributed greatly to relieve the monotony of our journey by his brilliant and to a certain extent fascinating conversation; he evidently knew a good deal of the world, and of fast if not good society. He had often spoken mysteriously of being in possession of a wonderful secret, but his hints were always so vague, that Davy and I thought but little about the matter until after the strange event occurred that I am going to relate.

Davy and Hawthorne had ceased to speak to each other; the day’s journey was generally performed in a moody, discontented manner; and I was thinking of proposing to abandon all prospecting and make straight for Port Darwin, when the whole aspect of affairs was suddenly changed. We had been out between four and five weeks, our horses were still in capital condition, and our supply of rations good. Since leaving Bourketown we had not seen the face of a white man, we had met with but slight difficulties with the blacks, and were now we thought within about one hundred miles of the Roper River, without having found the slightest indication of payable gold. This was the state of affairs on the 31st of November, 1871, when we unsaddled for our midday camp on the bank of a small creek.

The country through which we had been travelling for the last three days had been of a poor, sandy description, covered with forest tea-trees and stunted ironbark. The ridges were badly grassed, but here and there, on small flats on the banks of the creeks, we got good picking for the horses; and it was on such a small flat, situated in the bend of a sandy creek, that we turned out on this particular day. After unpacking, Davy took the billies and went down to the creek to get water; he was some time away; when he came back he put the billies down, and said:

“I saw fresh horse tracks in the bed of the creek.”

Hawthorne, who was kneeling down lighting a fire, looked up eagerly, but did not speak.

“Many?” I asked.

“Seems only two,” he replied; “one of them has been rolling in the sand.”

“Who on earth can it be?” I conjectured. “People prospecting or looking for country, I suppose. But if so, there must be more tracks about, for they would have more than two horses.”

“They may have left or lost them higher up the creek; they seem to have come down, and cannot be far off, for the tracks were only made this morning.”

Hawthorne had not before spoken; he now remarked, in a strangely conciliatory tone, that “Davis was doubtless right—the horses must have come up the creek, and that if we followed the creek up, we should find the camp of their owners.”

Davy, who at any other time would have opposed any proposition emanating from Hawthorne, on principle, now seemed struck by the altered tone of Hawthorne, and agreed with him that it might be as well to spend the rest of the day as proposed; I gave my consent to the proposed vote, and in an evil hour we started on our fatal errand.

Davy and Hawthorne went to gather the horses together when our meal was over; they found two strange horses had joined in with them—a bay and a chestnut, —both poor and saddle-marked. As we expected to overtake the owners of them, we drove them on with our spare horses.

We proceeded about five miles up the creek, the country getting more broken and barren. Small white sandy hills, covered with low wattle scrub, and here and there huge piles of granite boulders, were on either side of the creek. The creek itself had grown considerably deeper and narrower during the last two miles, the bed of it being full of holes of white, milky looking water. The tracks of the two horses were plainly to be seen the whole way, crossing and recrossing the creek.

Hawthorne was riding ahead, Davy and I were driving the horses after him; presently we saw him pull up, beckon to us, and then point ahead. We looked, and saw in the distance a rough humpy. We drove the horses up to within a few hundred yards, and then left them, to feed about; the three of us rode on to the camp. No fire was burning; a few crows rose up as we approached, and flew away, cawing loudly. Davy rode his horse up close to the gunyah and peered through the boughs.

“There’s someone asleep inside,” he said, and dismounted; Hawthorne and I did the same. Davy entered the rude place unceremoniously.

“Asleep, mate!” he called out.

No answer. “Hi!” he cried; then stooped and looked into the sleeper’s face.

“By God, he’s dead!”

Hawthorne and I crowded in, and saw a man lying upon a blanket spread over some dried grass, his head pillowed upon some articles of clothing folded neatly up. He was lying upon his back, his eyes half open, no trace of decomposition visible; life seemed to have but lately fled. Lifting my eyes from the dead man, I happened to notice Hawthorne and was startled by the look of combined joy and recognition visible in his face. Again I looked upon the corpse, and the dread fancy seized me that the dead and senseless body was aware of the evil glance directed upon it, and that a fearful, haunted, terrified look was now visible in the glazed eyeballs. I could stay no longer; calling to Davy, I hurried outside, Hawthorne, with a half concealed smile, following.

What were we to do? was our next question. Examine the camp, and see if we could find any clue as to his name, was the unanimous opinion. We did so. Outside the humpy were a riding saddle and a pack saddle, also a bridle and halter; inside were some ration bags, containing a little flour, tea, and sugar, an empty phial labelled “Laudanum,” a quart pot with some tea leaves in it, and a pint pot smelling strongly of laudanum. That the man had poisoned himself was self evident; his body was well nourished, and free from any marks of violence. We next removed the articles of clothing from underneath his head, and in the pockets found about thirteen pounds in notes and silver, and two horse receipts in favor of George Seamore; underneath the pillow, as though pushed underneath, was a Letts’ Diary, scribbled all over with writing in pencil; there were also such slight articles as tobacco, pipe, and matches. We then carefully examined the body, and made perfectly certain of the absence of life. He had been a tall man, with a fine determined face, fair chestnut beard, and gray eyes; the eyelids would not remain closed, and the eyes still seemed to me to wear a startled, shrinking look.

We now unpacked our horses, arranged our own camp, and proceeded to dig a grave, this of course being easy with our prospecting tools. That task finished, it was growing dark, and we carried the body to the grave. I had a prayer book in my swag, and read a part of the burial service over the body; the sandy soil had proved easy digging, and the grave was about four feet deep. The body was laid at the bottom, rolled in the blanket on which we found it lying. We filled in the grave just as it fell dark; I can see the whole scene before me as I write, the desolate looking hills, an unnaturally large red moon rising from behind them, and making the fantastic looking piles of boulders show black and grim against its light, my two companions and myself standing silent beside the mound of earth, ere we turned away.

Now, during the time that we had been digging the grave, Hawthorne left us and went down to the camp where the body was then lying; soon afterwards I called to him to ask him to bring some water when he came back. Receiving no answer, I went down myself, being thirsty from digging; on passing through the camp I saw Hawthorne inside the bough humpy bending over the body, making what looked like mesmeric passes. I called out sharply to know what he was doing; he started, and stammered out that he was only making sure that there were no indications of breathing. I said crossly that there seemed to be no occasion for that, and he went back to the grave.

After our supper was finished I tried to decipher the writing in the diary, but it was too illegible to read without a great deal of trouble, so I put it away under my head when I turned in. From the little that I had been able to make out, it seemed to be an account of the life of the man whom we had just buried, written by himself during his last hours. We talked for some time of the strange affair, dropping off to sleep one by one; we were sleeping round the fire, having been too busy to pitch our tent.

About the middle of the night, the moon then shining very brightly overhead, I was awakened by feeling something moving beneath my head; on lifting my head I saw Hawthorne feeling with his hand underneath my pillow. Angrily, I asked him what he was doing. He made no reply at first, but glared savagely at me, looking straight into my eyes, and seeming as though he would awe me by the very fierceness of his gaze; but my nerves were strong, and I looked back boldly and defiantly, and saw his eyes drop baffled; but his strange superhuman look had affected me more than I was then aware of.

“I was feeling for your matches, mine are all used; I am sorry that I disturbed you,” he said.

I handed him my match-box without a word, and he went back to his blankets and lit his pipe. After a short time I again fell asleep, first feeling for the dead man’s diary, as I felt certain that that was the object of Hawthorne’s search; it was there where I had placed it. Once more was I disturbed; Davy shook me by the shoulder, and called me by name. I raised myself and looked around. The cold breath of the coming dawn was making itself felt; the moon sinking low in the west gave but a dim half light, and threw long shadows of the I stunted trees upon the white sandy soil around us; a few tall gum trees on the bank of the creek standing out white and spectral like. Davy was standing beside my bed, evidently greatly excited. “What do you think,” he said in a frightened whisper; “Hawthorne has gone away with the dead man!”

I stared at him in astonishment. “I saw him, saw him go, and as I live, the dead man rode with him.”

My courage has been put to the test in many lands, and I do not think I have been found wanting; but I must confess that when this weird communication was whispered into my ear in the ghastly failing moonlight, in the desert far from our fellow men, I felt a thrill of abject fear run through me. I laid my hand upon my companion’s shoulder, and at the human contact the cowardly superstitious feeling that I had weakly given way to left me.

“What can you mean? How could he take a dead man with him?” I asked.

“I tell you that I saw them go. Listen! Can you hear anything?” We both listened, holding our breath, but the dead silence was unbroken; not even the scream of a curlew or the howl of a native dog could be heard.

“No,” said Davy, “they are out of hearing now. A short time ago I awoke and thought that I heard the horses galloping about in their hobbles away down the creek. I put on my boots, and taking my revolver, went down to see what was up, as I thought the blacks might be knocking about. When I got near where the horses were I heard a strange noise, and was on the point of turning back to call you, but changed my mind, and went a little closer, sneaking along under cover as much as possible. I saw two men amongst the horses, catching and saddling some of them, saw them mount and come straight towards where I was hidden. I had my revolver ready to fire, when I saw that it was Hawthorne and—” He pointed towards the grave.

“The man could not have been dead.”

“What time is it?” said Davy, in reply. I looked round; the dawn in the east was growing bright and clear.

“Half-past four or so,” I said, and stooped for my watch.

“And what time was it when we buried the man?” my companion went on.

“About six o’clock.”

“Say then that he was in a trance when we buried him, would not the weight of earth have killed him? Would he not have been suffocated in less than an hour?

I could only answer, “Yes.” “But,” I was going on to say, “could not Hawthorne have dug him up directly we went to sleep;” and then I remembered that I had seen Hawthorne in the camp in the middle of the night.

I looked for the book, and found it still under my pillow. I told Davy of the occurrence; he was on his knees, busy making up the fire; the bright cherry blaze seemed partly to scare away the dismal horrors that lingered round the haunted camp.

All Hawthorne’s things were gone; he and his unearthly companion must have carried them down to the horses. We both shuddered at the thought of the living corpse moving about the silent tamp, and stepping perhaps over our sleeping bodies. Our horses were all there, Hawthorne’s four and the two strangers being away.

“Shall we track them up?” I asked, when we were ready to start.

“No, no!” said Davy. “Let us get away from here. I don’t feel myself; I feel quite nervous and cowed.”

So we started, first inspecting the grave, which we found empty. We pushed on during the ensuing few days; and in my spare hours I managed to make out the blurred manuscript. The history revealed by it coincided so strangely with the scene that we had witnessed, that we could doubt the evidence of our senses no longer. It was so unheard of and incredible, and it brought back all the horrors of that night so forcibly and vividly, that our only wish was to reach a settlement of fellow beings, in hope that our minds would cease to dwell and brood upon what we had seen.

In a little more than a fortnight we reached the overland telegraph line, and following it along, we came to a working party; and then Davy fell sick and could not travel. He rapidly grew worse; everybody was most kind, but we could do but little. I could see the end not very far off.

I was watching by his side one evening, when he turned and spoke to me.

“I have told you all that I want you to do for me, excepting one thing, old fellow, and that is that when I die that you will watch over my grave for at least a week; promise that you will save me from that horrible fiend; make sure of it before you leave me.”

I pressed his hand, and told him, “Yes.”

“Good-bye, old friend; it’s hard to die like this, but I feel easier since your promise.”

That night he died, and I was left alone, the sole possessor of the horrible secret. I dared not tell the others, for they would only have laughed at me; but I determined not to break my word to the dead.

We buried him the next morning near the line; all hands knocked off work, and attended; and then my watch commenced.

They thought me mad thus to carry out a whim of my dead comrade’s; and had they known against what I sought to guard his body, they would have been sure of my insanity; but I did not tell then. With snatches of broken rest during the day time, I kept my promise for more than a week, until all semblance of life must have departed from the body underground; and then, when my time expired and I could relinquish my armed watch (for man or ghoul, living being or ghost, I had determined that he should not make an attempt unscathed), I left poor Davy in his lonely grave, with the silent messages that had travelled so many thousand miles flashing past his resting place, and hastened to port. I went to Melbourne to recruit, and for a while forgot to a certain extent my hideous experience; until, after three years, I found myself here in Brisbane, and the other day it was all brought home to me again.

My resolution is taken—I will keep the story secret no longer. In a few days, if I live, I shall leave the colony, and if the body of that poor wretch found no peace in the wilderness, perhaps the depths of the sea will be more kind to me, when my time comes.

GEORGE SEAMORE’S MANUSCRIPT

I stayed about a week longer in London; and then, at the repeated request of my parents, hastened down to spend Christmas with them in Devonshire. I left fully persuaded that Fanny Berrimore was beginning to love me, as well as I loved her; and my visits had been as frequent as I could consistently make them. Christmas seemed to me but a weary time; and my absent manner was a great source of wonderment to my friends, to whom of course I had not confided any of my late adventures.

I told Fanny that I could not possibly return under a month; but after about a three week’s stay at home I was troubled with a strange dream, in which Hawthorne bore a prominent part. My mind, only too ready to receive an idea that would send me back to Miss Berrimore, accepted this as a sign that my presence was wanted in London; and without in any way excusing my sudden change of purpose, I started next morning for town. Arrived at my rooms, I only stayed long enough to change my clothes, and then I bent my steps towards Grace-street. The servant, knowing me as an old visitor there, admitted me without hesitation; and I hastened upstairs to her sitting-room. Waiting but to give a light knock, to which I received no answer, I opened the door, and saw Hawthorne and Fanny Berrimore standing by the fire-place, she apparently leaning against his shoulder, as he encircled her waist with his right arm, whilst with his left hand he appeared to be caressing her face. My entrance had been unnoticed. For a moment I stood a spectator; and then with a deadly curse, sprang upon Hawthorne. He turned at the noise, and a look of fear paled his face, as he released his embrace of Fanny, who sank into a chair. The next moment we were engaged in a hand to hand struggle. He stood no chance with me, and in a few moments was stretched bleeding at my feet, my last blow having cut his upper lip quite open.

“Shall I kill you, you dog?” I muttered savagely, as I glared down upon him where he lay, afraid to rise; then I turned to look at Fanny; she was sitting with her head bowed down between her hands, in the same attitude almost as when I saw her after telling her of her brother’s death; and but for the wrath boiling within me, I might have been touched by the graceful drooping attitude, and the remembrance of her desolate condition. But contempt alone predominated; I felt utter scorn for them both; and spurning my prostrate enemy with my foot, as unworthy of me, I left them both without another word.

I walked home quietly enough—my rage was too deep for any outward demonstration. All ideas of Hawthorne’s pretensions to infernal knowledge—for such it really amounted to— were lost sight of in the jealousy I felt in the discovery of Fanny’s duplicity. I could not help brooding over it; for like most men of ordinary sluggish temper, when once aroused, my passions were both deep and permanent. My dislike to Hawthorne had been scarcely augmented by the late event. Fanny seemed to be in my eyes the most guilty of the two; perhaps the thrashing I had inflicted upon my apparently successful rival before Miss Berrimore’s face had something to do with the almost pitying contempt I now felt for him.

The next morning I was on my way back to Devonshire, and moodily sulked there for about three months. Then, as the spring was dawning upon the earth, I took a fresh resolution, and returned once more to London, determined to drown all saddening reminiscences in a burst of dissipation.

A day or two after my arrival, my wayward steps led me into Grace-street, but I saw nothing of Miss Berrimore; again and again I loitered about there and the old place in Farringdon street, but she never came. Thinking that she must have changed her place of abode, I one day knocked at the door, and enquired for her. The same servant that formerly lived there answered my knock; and in reply to my enquiry for Miss Berrimore, stared at me amazedly.

“Did you not know, sir; I thought that she was a friend of yours.”

“Know! Know what?”

“She is dead.”

“Dead!” and the sharp pang that I felt told me how well I must have loved her.

“When did she die?”

“Just about a month ago, sir. She caught a cold one day; and after being ill for about a fortnight, she was suddenly taken worse, and died.”

“Was there anybody with her—any of her friends?”

“No, sir, I don’t think anybody came near her until just before she was taken worse; and then a tall gentleman came here, and used to enquire how she was nearly every day.”

“Tall with dark eyes and hair?”

“Yes, sir; and asked me if I had seen you lately—if you had been to call on Miss Berrimore, that’s to say.”

“Did he see her?”

“Not while she was alive; but after she was dead he went with the doctor, and he seemed very much cut up; and afterwards, in the evening, he came again before she was screwed down in her coffin.”

I left the street after getting all the information I could from the woman. Hawthorne, then, had dared to come back, and death had stepped in and robbed him of his prey. But what was the meaning of his visiting the dead body? and a horrible fear struck chill to my heart. I went to Kensal Green Cemetery, where she was buried, and finding but a very plain and simple stone, had a pretty and ornamental tomb erected, for in her grave I had buried all animosity that I had harbored against her.

Three months dragged slowly on. I was an aimless, moody man, praying to meet my enemy, but finding him not; nor could I gain any information of his whereabouts. I one day fancied that I saw him at a distance, but could not come up with him in time to be certain.

About a week afterwards I was leaning moodily over the parapet of London Bridge one night. The hour was late, and the streets almost deserted; the night was dark and cloudy; occasional squalls of drifting rain came up the river. I stood there for some time looking at the lights of the town and the shipping, at the dark water running beneath my feet, listening to the chiming of the clocks, and weakly giving way to melancholy and despondent feelings. I was perfectly sober, and my brain clear. A solitary policeman was watching me a short distance away, as though he thought that I meditated suicide. A female figure hastily approaching from the opposite side brushed close to me, almost touching me; a strange thrill passed through me, an unrestrainable impulse made me spring after her; I overtook her just as she passed underneath a lamp; it was her!—the woman over whose body I had had a tomb erected in Kensal Green Cemetery was by my side! My exclamation of surprise and horror seemed not to affect her in the least; she kept on her way, and I by her side. The policeman looked keenly at us; he little thought that it was a dead woman who passed him. Some merry party came along, chatting and laughing loudly; how their mirth would have been checked had they known that the nice-looking girl—as I heard one loudly remark about her— had stepped forth from among the buried. She never looked at me as I kept up with her, but steadily pursued her way. I dropped a little behind, as the joyous thought came into my brain that by following her I might find Hawthorne. What an account should he render to me!

On we went, the dead and the living, until she turned down a narrow blind lane, reached a door in a wall at the side, opened it with a key she took from her pocket, and passed in; before she could re-close it I had pushed in, too—into a small courtyard, high buildings rising in the gloomy night all round. She seemed scarcely to notice my intrusion, but hurried on into one of the houses, I still keeping close behind her—into a dark passage and up a narrow stairway; from thence I followed her into a lighted room, where three men were sitting. They took no notice of either of us. A hasty glance assured me that Hawthorne was not amongst them. She opened a door leading into an inner room. I saw a man sitting in a lounging chair, his back towards me. She went up and handed a note to him; I followed, for I saw who it was—at last, I had him! He read the letter through, I standing quietly behind his chair, my heart leaping gladly. He tore the note up, laughing lightly.

“Well, Nelly, you have—” He turned as he spoke, and saw me. His exclamation of fear and terrified retreat was, oh, such music to me! The next instant he called loudly for help, for he saw murder in my face. The men from the other room rushed in, but before they could come I had hurled him half strangled on the floor, and was standing over him with a hastily snatched up decanter in my hand. “Order them back!” I cried, as they were rushing at me, “or your life pays the forfeit first! I’ll beat your brains out! quick!”

“Back! back!” he cried in an agonised voice. “Don’t kill me, Seamore!”

“Send them out of the room.”

He did so.

“Now, what have you done to her?” I pointed to Fanny, who was sitting on a sofa in the old attitude I knew, the bowed down head and clasped hands.

“What shall I do? what do you want?”

“Remove your power from over her, if you can; give her back to me.”

“I cannot; she will die again if my influence is removed. She knows you no more; her name now is Nelly Hotham.”

“I care not whether she lives or dies, so that she is no longer your victim. I will give you but a few moments to make your mind up. Consent or—”

“I consent to anything,” he said, cowering and shrinking.

“If I swear not to take your life, nor ever again to seek it, you will relinquish any hold you may have over her mind or spirit, and allow me to take her away wherever I like?”

“I will; never again will I seek to interfere with her.”

“Then I spare your life. I do not trust your word, but I do your cowardice. If you dare to break your bond, I will find you, no matter where you hide yourself. I fear no more the punishment that I should incur through murdering you, than I do you yourself.”

“She will die, as I told you; but you shall have your wish.” He turned to “Nelly,” as he called her.

“Nelly, go with this gentleman, and do whatever he tells you. You will never see me again.” He made two or three quick passes with his hand—for I had allowed him to rise,—though I kept between him and the door, which I had locked. She looked at me dreamily, and shook her head as though confused; then she advanced and took my hand, and looked long into my face.

“Do you know him?” said Hawthorne.

“I do—that is, I think that I remember him, and will go with him.”

I turned to Hawthorne again. “Before I leave you, you must tell me one thing—was Miss Berrimore untrue; or was it some devilish trick of yours that misled me that day?”

“She was always true to you; and on the day that you interrupted us she was under mesmeric influence,” he sullenly replied. “But,” he went on, “it was your desertion that killed her; she could not recall anything that passed that day, after she awoke, and believed that she had given you no cause to leave her without explanation.”

I took Fanny away, and have never seen Hawthorne since, though the last glimpse I caught of him, standing looking at me with deadly hate, is still present to my imagination. His prediction was true—Fanny sank slowly, and died about three weeks after I rescued her from Hawthorne. I visited her constantly in the home that I found for her. She had lost all distinct remembrance of her past life; me she remembered more by some mysterious influence that I appeared to possess over her, than by reason of our being formerly acquainted. Of Hawthorne she never spoke at all; by some means he had bound her over to keep a silence that she dreaded to break.

At last she died, painlessly and quietly, and I buried her in the same cemetery where her body was even then supposed to be resting. I let her sleep under her assumed name of Nelly Hotham, and I watched over her grave for many weeks.

How Hawthorne first obtained possession of her body in order to bring her back to life I never could learn. Now she is safe. Since then I have wandered far and wide, but have never heard of him. Were it not for the want of physical courage, his power would be immeasurable; for I am at last convinced that he claimed no more than he could accomplish. Of my own life I am weary. I have found in this solitude a place where I think my body will meet with no worse fate than to moulder and decay, unnoticed and unburied. This is my birthday, and in a few hours my life will be spent; and hundreds of miles from my fellow men, I will render back my soul, in the hope of at last finding peace.

THE END OF THE MANUSCRIPT

The reason I leave here, the reason that I now make this public, is that the other day I met the man whom we buried, the man called, I believe, George Seamore, face to face in the street, and he turned and followed me.