“He nodded sympathetically. ‘I think I can help you,’ he said. ‘I do not wish to make any promises, but I think I can help.’
“He stepped forward and seized one of the remaining bars in his hairy hand. I saw the muscles of his enormous arms contract, and a hard, set expression come into his face. Merely to loosen the bar took a tremendous effort, and for a moment I did not think that he could possibly succeed. But slowly the bar gave way and then he literally tore it from its fastenings.
“A sudden sense of unspeakable joy possessed me. I hurled myself forward and nearly succeeded in wriggling free; but I could not quite pass my hips through. Henriquez was not discouraged. He beamed encouragement, and set himself the task of loosening the last bar. He succeeded in tearing the coat from my back, but the bar stuck.
“He backed away, still smiling. He seemed bracing himself for a titanic effort. He advanced again and took the last bar firmly between his two hands. He pulled and pulled. The bar gave way and bent outward; then it came away with a loud retching sound that I feared would bring the jailer on a run. I struggled through the window and collapsed in Henriquez’s arms. I could not stand. I was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and I had evidently sprained my hips, for when I moved it gave me exquisite pain.
“‘I can’t walk, Henry,” I said. ‘What shall I do?’
“‘Have no fear, my lad,” responded Henriquez. ‘I have carried heavier than you. There is an American ship in the bay and if we hurry I can put you on board before dawn. What do you say?’
“I nodded a silent approval. Henriquez laughed and lifted me on his huge shoulders. He made as if he would pick up the discarded bottle, but then he wavered and kicked it aside with the toe of his boot. ‘The president would have been very angry,’ he chuckled.
“With rapid steps he left the courtyard and proceeded cautiously along a white road. No doubt he found me heavy, for he stopped from time to time to mop his brow with his coat-sleeve. ‘The president,’ he kept muttering, ‘would never have understood.’
“‘Stop there!’ A blue-coated sentry stood on a muddy embankment and challenged Henriquez with leveled gun. Henriquez stood very still in the center of the road and whistled. ‘Don’t you know me?’ he vociferated. ‘I’m on official business. Let me pass.’
“The sentry scowled. ‘What have you got on your back?’ he asked.
“I heard Henriquez curse under his breath. ‘Mind your own business, my friend,’ he said, ‘and let me pass. It is evident that you do not who I am!’
“‘You are a traitor to the president,’ said the sentry. ‘You carry upon your back the rebel traitor who calls himself an American.’
“Henriquez suddenly crouched in the road. I felt his body grow taut beneath me. The muscles of his great arms tightened. He hissed through his teeth.
“Cautiously he advanced a few paces toward the embankment. ‘Stop!’ ordered the sentry. But Henriquez did not stop. He dropped me like a leaden weight and sprang forward.
“I rolled into a muddy ditch and lay still. My whole body was one great wound. My teeth were knocking together like billiard balls. I heard a brief gasp, and then a torrent of frightened words issued from beneath the embankment. ‘I thought you were a man! For heaven’s sake pity me! I didn’t know—I didn’t, so help me God! Please don’t! I beg you on my knees to pity me!’
“There followed the sounds of a scuffle, terminating in a prolonged scream : ‘Ah-h-h-h!’
“Another moment and Henriquez was picking me up. ‘It’s all right now, lad,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I had to drop you, but it was the only way!’
“We passed through gray, deserted orchards and along horribly muddy roads. Once a shot rang out behind us. A tremor passed over my friend’s huge form and he whistled through his teeth.
“‘Another guard!’ he muttered. ‘The president was unduly cautious. But I can not blame him. He suspects all rebels, and there are so many attacks upon his life.’
“Henriquez was breathing so heavily that I urged him to rest, but he only grunted and plunged doggedly forward.
“I can assure you that we were welcome on board the American ship. We were toasted and treated like kings, but it took some time to discover that Henriquez had been shot through the chest. He was a sly dog, was Henriquez. And his wound didn’t bleed! Even the captain did not suspect. But he collapsed in the arms of the mate when he attempted to leave the ship.”
“He died?” I asked.
Talbot threw away his cigar and laughed. “Nothing could kill Henriquez—not even a bullet. But I never saw him again. He slipped overboard that night and swam ashore.”
“Did the president forgive him?” I asked.
Talbot grunted. “Henriquez was the president,” he replied.
I stared.
“But that isn’t all of my story,” he continued. “I said nothing could kill him. You can’t kill a ghost. Henriquez was assassinated before I escaped from prison. You may have read about him in the papers.”
“And you mean to say—?” I stammered.
“A rather unusual story, isn’t it?” grinned Talbot. “Of course none of the conventional magazines would take it. They detest the unusual and amazing in fiction. But you can mention my name and perhaps some civilized editor will run it. You know, it’s beastly exhilarating to be carried on the back of a ghost!”
A FIGHT WITH A GHOST, by Q.E.D.
Taken from Twenty-Five Ghost Stories (1904).
“No, I never believed much in ghosts,” said the doctor. “But I was always rather afraid of them.”
“Have you ever seen one?” asked one of the other men.
The doctor took his cigar out of his mouth and contemplated the ash for a moment or two before replying. “I have had some rather startling experiences,” he said, after a pause, during which the rest of us exchanged glances, for the doctor has seen many things and is not averse to talking about them in congenial company. “Would you care about hearing one of them? It gives me the cold shivers now to speak of it.” We nodded, and the doctor, taking a sip as an antidote to the shivers, began:
“You remember George Carson, who played for the ’Varsity some years ago; big chap, with a light mustache? Well, I saw a good deal of him before he married, while he was reading for the bar in town. It was just after he became engaged to Miss Stonor, who is now Mrs. Carson, that he asked me to go down to a place which his people had taken in the country. Miss Stonor was to be there and he wanted me to meet her. I could not go down for Christmas Day, as I had promised to be with my people. But as I had been working a bit too hard, and wanted a few days’ rest, I decided to run down for a few days about the New Year.
“Woodcote was a pleasant enough place to look at. There were two packs of hounds within easy distance, and it was not far enough from a station to cut you off completely from the morning papers. The Carsons had been lucky, I thought, in coming across such a good house at such a moderate figure. For, as George told me, the owner had been obliged to go abroad for his health, and was anxious not to leave the place empty all the winter. It was an old house, with big gables and preposterous corners all over the place, and you couldn’t walk ten paces along any of the passages without tumbling up or down stairs. But it had been patched from time to time and, among other improvements, a big billiard-room had been built out at the back. A country house in the winter without a billiard-room, when the frost stops hunting, is just—well, not even a gilded prison. The party was a small one; besides George and his father and mother, there were only a couple of Misses Carson, who, being somewhere in the early teens, didn’t count, and Miss Stonor, who, of course, counted a good deal, and, lastly, myself.
“Miss Stonor ought to have been happy, for George Carson, besides being an excellent fellow all around, was by no means a bad match, being an only son with considerable expectations. But, somehow or other, she did not strike
me as looking either very well or very happy. She gave me the impression of having something on her mind, which made her alternately nervous and listless. George, I fancied, noticed it, and was puzzled by it, for I caught him several times watching her with an anxious and inquiring look, but, as I was not there as a doctor, of course it was no business of mine, though I discovered the reason before I left Woodcote.
“The second night after my arrival—we had been playing, I remember, a family pool; the rest had gone upstairs to bed—George and I adjourned to a sort of study, which he had arranged upstairs, for a final smoke and a chat before turning in. The study was next to his bedroom, and parted off from it by curtains. As we were settling down I missed my pipe, and remembered that I had laid it down in the billiard-room. On principle I never smoke another man’s pipe, so I lit a candle, the house being in darkness, and started away in search of my own. The house looked awfully weird by the flickering light of a solitary candle, and the stairs creaked in a particularly gruesome way behind me, just for all the world as though someone were following at my heels. I found my pipe where I had expected in the billiard-room, and came back in perhaps a little more hurry than was absolutely necessary. Which, perhaps, explains why I stumbled in the uncertain light over a couple of unforeseen stairs, and dropped my candle. Of course it went out, but after a little groping I found it. Having no matches with me I was obliged to feel my way along the banisters, for it was so dark that I could not see my hand in front of me. And as I slowly advanced, sliding my hand along the broad balustrade at my side, it suddenly slid over something cold and clammy, which was not balustrade at all; for, stopping dead, and closing my fingers round it for an instant, I felt that I was holding another hand, a skinny, bony hand, which writhed itself slowly from my grasp. And though I could hear nothing and see nothing, I was yet conscious that something was brushing past me and going up the stairs.
“‘Hi—what’s that? Who are you?’ I called.
“There was no answer.
“I admit that I was in a regular funk. I must have shown it in my face.
“‘What’s the matter?’ asked George, as I blundered into his study.
“‘Oh, nothing,’ I answered; ‘dropped my candle and lost the way.’
“‘But who were you talking to?’
“‘I was only swearing at the candle,’ I replied.
“‘Oh! I thought perhaps you had seen—somebody,’ replied George.
“Somehow I did not like to tell him the truth, for fear he would laugh at my nervousness. But I determined to keep an eye on my liver, and take a couple of weeks’ complete rest. That night I woke up several times with the feeling of that confounded hand under my own—a clammy hand which writhed as my fingers closed upon it.
“The next morning after breakfast I was in the billiard-room practicing strokes while Carson was over at the stables. Presently the door opened, and Miss Stonor looked in.
“‘Come in,’ I said; ‘George will be back from the stables in a few minutes. Meanwhile we can have fifty up.’
“‘I wanted to speak to you,’ she said.
“She was looking very tired and ill, and I began to think I should not have an uninterrupted holiday after all.
“‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ she asked, having closed the door and come up to the table, where she stood leaning with both her hands upon it.
“‘No,’ I replied, missing an easy carrom as I remembered my experience of last night, ‘but I believe in fancy.’
“‘And, supposing then that a person fancied he saw things, is there any remedy?’
“‘What do you mean, Miss Stonor?’ I replied, looking at her in some surprise. ‘Do you mean that you fancy—’
“I stopped, for Miss Stonor turned away, sat down on one of the easy-chairs by the wall, and burst into tears.
“‘Oh! please help me’ she sobbed; ‘I believe I am going mad.’
“I laid down my cue and went over to her.
“‘Look here, Miss Stonor,’ I said, taking her hand, which was hot and feverish, ‘I am a doctor, and a friend of George. Now tell me all about it, and I’ll do my best to set it right.’
“She was in a more or less hysterical condition, and her words were freely punctuated by sobs. But gradually I managed to elicit from her that nearly every night since she came to Woodcote she had been awakened in some mysterious way, and had seen a horrible face looking at her from over the top of a screen which stood by the door of her bedroom. As soon as she moved the face disappeared, which convinced her that the apparition existed only in her imagination. That seemed to distress her even more than if she had believed it to be a genuine ghost, for she thought her brain was giving way.
“I told her that she was only suffering from a very common symptom of nervous disorder, as indeed it was, and promised to send a groom into the village to get a prescription made up for her. And, having made me promise to breathe no word to anyone on the subject, more especially to George, she went away relieved. Nevertheless, I was not quite certain that I had made a correct diagnosis of the case. You see I had been rather upset myself not many hours before. George was longer than I expected at the stable, and I was just going to find him when at the door I met Mrs. Carson.
“‘Can you spare me one moment?’ she said, as I held open the door for her. ‘I wanted to find you alone.’
“‘Certainly, Mrs. Carson, with pleasure; an hour, if you wish,’ I replied.
“‘It is so convenient, you know, to have a doctor in the house,’ she said, with a nervous laugh. ‘Now I want you to prescribe me a sleeping draught. My nerves are rather out of order, and—I don’t sleep as I should.’
“‘Ah,’ I said, ‘do you see faces—and such like things when you wake?’
“‘How do you know?’ she asked quickly.
“‘Oh, I inferred from the other symptoms. We doctors have to observe all kinds of little things.’
“‘Well, of course, I know it is only fancy; but it is just as bad as if it were real. I assure you it is making me quite ill; and I didn’t like to mention it to Mr. Carson or to George. They would think I was losing my head.’
“I gave Mrs. Carson the same prescription as I had written for Miss Stonor, though by that time the conviction had grown upon me that there was something wrong which could not be cured by medicine. However, I decided to say nothing to George about the matter at present. For I could hardly utilize the confidence which had been placed in me by Miss Stonor and Mrs. Carson. And my own experience of the night before would scarcely have appeared convincing to him. But I determined that on the next day—which was Sunday—I would invent an excuse for staying at home from church and make some explorations in the house. There was obviously some mystery at work which wanted clearing up.
“We all sat up rather late that night. There seemed to be a general disinclination to go to bed. We stayed all together in the billiard-room until nearly midnight, and then loitered about in the hall, talking in an aimless sort of fashion. But at last Mrs. Carson said good-night, with a confidential nod to me, and Miss Stonor murmured, ‘So many thanks; I’ve got it,’ and they both went upstairs. George and I parted in the corridor above. Our rooms were opposite each other.
“I did not begin undressing at once, but sat down and tried to piece together some theory to account for the uncanniness of things. But the more I thought, the more perplexing it became. There was no doubt whatever that I had put my hand on something extremely alive and extremely unpleasant the night before. The bare recollection of it made me shudder. What living thing could possibly be creeping about the house in the dark? It was a man’s hand. Of that I was certain from the size of it. George Carson was out of the question, for he was in his room all the time. Nor was it likely that Mr. Carson, senior, would steal about his own house in his socks and refuse to answer when spoken to. The only other man in the house was an eminen
tly respectable-looking butler; and his hand, as I had noted particularly when he poured out my wine at dinner, was plump and soft, whereas the mysterious hand on the balustrade was thin and bony. And then, what was the real explanation of the face which had appeared to the two ladies? Indigestion might have explained either singly. Extraordinary coincidences do sometimes occur, but it seemed too extraordinary that a couple of ladies—one old and one young—should suffer from the same indigestion in the same house, at the same time, and with the same symptoms. On the whole, I did not feel at all comfortable, and looked carefully in all the cupboards and recesses, as well as under the bed, before starting to undress. Then I went to the door, intending to lock it. Just as my hand was upon the key, I heard a soft step in the corridor outside, accompanied by a sound which was something between a sigh and a groan. Very faint, but quite unmistakable, and, under the circumstances, discomposing. It might, of course, be George. Anyhow, I decided to look and see. I turned the handle gently and opened the door. There was nothing to be seen in the corridor. But on the opposite side I could see a door open, and George’s head peeping round the corner.
“‘Hullo!’ he said.
“‘Hullo!’ I replied.
“‘Was that you walking up the passage?’ he asked.
“‘No,’ I answered, ‘I thought it might be you.’
“‘Then who the devil was it?’ he said. ‘I’ll swear I heard someone.’
“There was silence for a few moments. I was wondering whether I had better tell him of the fright I had already had, when he spoke again:
“‘I say, just come here for a bit, old fellow; I want to speak to you.’
“I stepped across the passage, and we went together into the little study which adjoined his bedroom.
“‘Look here,’ he said, poking up the fire, which was burning low, ‘doesn’t it strike you that there is something very odd about this house?’
“‘You mean—’
“‘Well, I wouldn’t say anything about it to the master or Miss Stonor for fear of frightening them. All the same, scarcely a night passes but I hear curious footsteps on the stairs. You’ve heard them yourself, haven’t you?’
The 7th Ghost Story Page 4
