At first I thought it was mortal—human—for its shape was that of a man. With an exclamation of thankfulness I endeavoured to approach it. But try as I might, I could not get near it. It did not walk, it did not glide, it did not fly. It simply melted in the mist, yet always visible, always retreating. That was the horror of the Thing.
My flesh creeped. I felt an icy cold through every pore of my skin. With awful insistence it was borne in upon me I was in the presence of the dead. Yet I was powerless. I could utter no cry. I could not even stop myself. On, on I went following that melting receding thing, until suddenly my foot stumbled on a sand-hill. Then It became mist with the mist, and I saw It no more. I scrambled up the hill and wept like a child.
How I reached the Beach Farm I cannot tell. I stumbled, blind with terror into the lamplight of the kitchen. I almost fell into Mrs. Jarzil’s arms. She uttered no word of surprise, but sat there staring at my terror-stricken face and quivering limbs, silent and unsympathetic. At last she spoke.
“You have seen the Sand-Walker?”
“In God’s name what is it?”
“God has nothing to do with the Sand-Walker,” she replied. “It is wholly of hell.”
I could speak no more that night. By help of some raw spirit I managed to pull myself together sufficiently to scramble into bed. The very sheets were a comfort to me; at all events they were between me and It.
I was utterly exhausted, and for a few hours I slept. I awoke suddenly with every nerve on the stretch, every sense acute almost beyond bearing. Mrs. Jarzil was vociferating in the kitchen, and sobbing between whiles. Then, as surely as I am a man and a Christian, I heard three loud knocks upon the window-pane. Mrs. Jarzil turned her imprecations into prayer. In her deep voice she boomed out verses from the Psalms: “Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.”
I could stand it no longer. I flung myself out of bed, wrapped the coverlet around me, and rushed into the kitchen. Mrs. Jarzil was kneeling. Her face poured with perspiration. She paused as I appeared. There were three loud knocks at the door.
“What—O God, what is it?” I cried.
“The Sand-Walker.”
Then she prayed again: “I will abide in Thy tabernacle for ever. I will trust in the cover of Thy wings.”
I made for the door, but Mrs. Jarzil seized me by the arm. “Don’t let him in, don’t let him in. He wants me. It is Amber, I tell you. It is Amber.”
“Amber! The Sand-Walker!”
“Yes, yes. He is the Sand-Walker. He wants me—down on the Beaches. If you open the door I am bound to go. He draws me; he compels me. But the Lord is my strength, and shall prevail against the powers of hell.”
I had to prevent her from unbarring the door. She flung herself upon it and fumbled with the lock in frenzy. I dragged her back fearful lest she should admit the thing outside. Gradually she grew more calm, until at last she stood before me with a composure almost as terrible to behold as had been her frenzy.
“I have resisted the Devil, and he is fled!” she said. “You can go to bed now, Mr. Trossall. You will be disturbed no more. There will be no more knocking, no—more—knocking.” She caught up the candle to go. I detained her till I took a light from it. Then I went to bed. I kept the light burning all night, but there was no more knocking.
Next morning not a word passed between us about what had occurred. I ate my breakfast and drove off to my business. In the main street I met Abraham. I hailed him.
“Is there no other place where I can find a lodging?” I asked him.
“Ah! so you have been on the Beaches?”
“Yes. I was there yesterday evening.”
“You have seen the Sand-Walker?”
“For God’s sake don’t speak of it,” I said. For it terrified me even in the open day—here with the sunshine hot upon me. “And you have heard the knocking?”
“Yes, I have heard everything—seen everything; let that suffice. Can I find another lodging, I ask you?”
“No; there is none other in the district. But why need you fear? It is she—not you, the Sand-Walker wants, ay, and he’ll get her one night.”
“You know this Sand-Walker, as you call him, is Amber.”
“All Gartholm knows that. He has been walking for a year past now on the Beaches. No one would go there now for any money you could offer them—at least not after sun-down. I warned you, you remember.”
“I know you did. But nevertheless I went, you see. And this Sand-Walker saved my life. For he led me back to the sand hills when I had lost myself hopelessly in the fog.”
“It’s not you he wants, I tell you, it’s she.”
“Why does he want her?” I asked.
The man’s tone was very strange.
“Ask of the quicksands!” he replied; and with that disappeared in a hurry. I was getting quite accustomed to this, and would have been surprised had he taken his leave in anything approaching a rational manner.
Now, you may perhaps hardly credit it, but I tossed a shilling then and there to decide my action in the immediate future. “Heads I go, tails I stay.”
The coin spun up in the sunlight. Tails it was. So I was to remain, and in that devil-haunted house. Well, at all events I was doing a brisk trade. There was some comfort in that.
During the next ten days I drove for miles over the district, and did uncommonly well everywhere. I found that the legend of the Beach Farm was universally familiar, and they all shook their heads very gravely indeed when they learned that I lodged there. In fact, I am not at all sure that this was not of assistance to me rather than otherwise. I became an object of intense interest, and, no doubt, of sympathy had I known it.
After that terrible night, there was a lull in the torment of the Sand-Walker. Occasionally it rapped at the door or the window, but that was all. As for me I walked no more on the Beaches.
But the time was near at hand when the Devil would have his own. It came one evening about six o’clock. There had been heavy rain, and the marshy lands were flooded and the mists were thick around. Overhead all was opaque and grey, and the ground was sodden under foot. I was anxious to get home, and Tilly was doing all she knew.
“On arrival I looked after her as was my wont, first and foremost. When I had made her comfortable for the night I returned to the kitchen. To my surprise I found Mrs. Jarzil in conversation with a girl, in whom from Abraham’s description, meagre though it had been, I had no difficulty in recognising his Venus of the Fen. She was certainly pretty. I agreed with Abraham there. She was crying bitterly, whilst her mother raged at her. They both stopped short as I entered—a sense of delicacy, no doubt.
“Whatever is the matter?” I asked, surveying the pair of them.
“Oh, sir, you are mother’s new lodger, aren’t you?” said the girl. “Master Abraham told me as she had one. Do please ask her to hear reason, do, I implore you, sir.”
“I will allow no one to interfere with my private affairs,” said Mrs. Jarzil, stamping her foot. “If you are wise you will not seek to make public your disgrace.”
“There is no disgrace. I have done nothing to be ashamed of, I tell you.”
“No disgrace? No disgrace in allowing yourself to be beguiled by that man—to be fooled by his good looks and soft speeches?”
“What do you mean, mother? I have nothing to do with Mr. Amber.”
“Liar, you ran away with him. What more could you have to do with him, I should like to know?”
Lottie’s spirit rose, and with it the colour to her cheeks. “I ran away with him? Indeed I did nothing of the kind. It was you who made me run away. You treated me so cruelly that I determined to go into service in London. I was sick to death of your scolding, and your preaching and praying, and this dismal house, and these horrible mists, and never a soul to speak t
o, sick to death of it I tell you. That’s why I went. Mr. Amber indeed!” (this with a toss of her head). “I have more taste than to take up with the likes of him. I met him as he was leaving here. I was walking, and he offered me a lift—”
“Abr’am saw you; Abr’am saw you both!” interrupted her mother savagely. “He told me you had eloped with the man.”
“That was a lie. I parted from Mr. Amber at the London railway station. From that time to this I have never set eyes upon him. For my own sake I made him promise to hold his tongue.”
“He did—he did!” cried Mrs. Jarzil, wildly. “God help him and me, he did. He returned here, but he said nothing—made no explanation. I believed he had ruined you. Now, oh now, I see it all. And you have ruined me.”
“Oh, mother, what do you mean?”
“Why did you not let him speak? Oh, why did you not write and explain? I believed—I thought he had robbed me of you—and I revenged myself upon him.
“Revenged yourself?” I cried. I began to have an inkling of what was coming. But Mrs. Jarzil paid no heed to me. She shook Lottie furiously.”
“Do you know what your silence has cost me?” (She was beside herself now). “It has cost me my soul—my soul, I say. Oh, why did you let me believe him guilty? I killed him. I murdered him for your sake. It was not vengeance, it was not justice, it was crime—crime and evil.”
“You—killed—Mr. Amber?”
“Yes; I killed him. I swore he should pay for what he had done. His own curiosity did for him. I played upon it. I lured him to the quicksands.”
“The quicksands?” I repeated, horrified.
“I placed a lantern on the brink of the most dangerous of them,” the woman continued, feverishly. “He used habitually to walk on the Beaches at dark. His curiosity did the rest. He had to see what that light was. I knew he would. It was the last light he ever saw in this world. Yes, you call it murder. It was murder. But it was your fault—your fault. And now he walks, and taps at the door for me. He wants me; he wants me. I thought I had justice on my side—that I was avenging your disgrace; and I fought with my soul; oh, how I fought! But now—I see he is right. It is I who must now be punished. I must go. I must go. Oh, God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Lottie lay stretched on the floor. She had fainted. I placed myself between her mother and the door. I dared not let her out.
“Where would you go?” I cried, seizing her by the arm and frustrating a desperate effort to get away. She was fairly demented, and seemed possessed of strength almost demoniacal.
“To the Beaches—to my death. Let me go—let me go. An eye for an eye, I say—a tooth for a tooth. That is the law of God. Hark! Listen! He calls—he calls me.” (I could hear nothing but the howling of the wind.) “I must go, I must go, I must—”
She was too quick for me. Before I had time to stop her she was away into the desolate night. I rushed after her. In her present condition there was no knowing what she might do. Clearly her mind was unhinged. I could hardly see for the rain. It was nearly dark too. But on through the mire and the mist I went. I jostled up against a man. It was Abraham. I remembered it was he who had caused all this, and with the thought I lost control of myself. I gripped him by the throat.
“You dog—you liar! Lottie the girl has come back!”
“I—I—I know!” he gasped. “I was coming up to see her. Leave me alone. What do you mean by this?”
“You deserve it, and more, you villain. You know well the girl did not go with Amber. You lied to her mother; you made her think so. You were in love with her yourself. The man’s death lies at your door more than at hers. She has gone to the Beaches—to her death, I tell you—unless she is stopped.”
Then I realised that I was wasting time. I hastened on, regretting deeply that my feelings had so got the better of me just then.
It was blowing half a gale, though it was not till I had crossed the sandhills that I realised it. Then the full blast of the wind struck me. It was as much as I could do to keep my feet. I could not see the woman anywhere, though I peered into the gloom until my head swam. Not a sign of her or any living creature could I see. There was nothing but the roar of the wind and the sea, and the swish of the driving rain.
Then I thought I heard a cry—a faint cry. I ploughed my way down in the direction whence I fancied it came. I became aware that Abraham had followed me. He was close behind me. Together we groped blindly on.
“He’ll get her this time!” shouted the man.
“Come on! Come on!” I roared at him. “Yonder she is.”
“And yonder the Sand-Walker.”
The wretch hung back. Then a gust of wind, more concentrated and more fierce than before, seemed to rend an opening in the fog. Two shadows could be seen fluttering along—one a man of unusual height, the other a woman, reeling and swaying. She followed the Thing. As we gazed, a light appeared in the distance, radiant as a star. Its brilliance grew, and spread far and wide through the fog. The tall figure moved up to and past the light—the other following, always following.
She staggered and flung up her arms, and a wild and despairing cry rang out above the elements. And the light gradually died away, and the wind howled on, driving the mists across the sinking figure.
Slowly she sank into the sand, deeper and deeper. One last terrible moan reached us where we were, then she disappeared. For the moment the storm seemed to hush. Then all was darkness.
THE UNDERGROUND GHOST, by John Berwick Harwood
Originally published in Major Peter (1866).
“Beg pardon sir; you’d like to go underground this morning, Missis thought. Large party, sir, in the Dolphin room, going down at eleven; and our Cheshire mines are thought very curious, particularly Setton Bassett, sir. Supply half Europe, they do, sir; and uncommon pretty the galleries look by torch-light. Very celebrated mine, ours, sir, and worth notice; and only half-a-crown charge for each person, when many go at one time with the guides. Shall I say you’ll go, sir?”
I should have had some curiosity, in any case, to explore one of those noted Cheshire salt-mines, which, if dwarfish in their proportions, when compared with those of Poland, are still worth visiting; but in the present case, though the waiter did not know it, since he did not know me, there was an especial attraction for me to accept his invitation. The mine was the property of my mother’s uncle, and might one day be my own; might, that is, if three healthy cousins should die off before my delicate and ailing self. Still there was enough of contingent ownership in the thing, to give it an interest in my eyes. I was what is called a rising junior at the bar; but overwork and late hours had combined to sap what was a weakly constitution from the first. My health had given way, after a struggle, and symptoms of consumption, which fell disease was hereditary in my family, had at last begun to manifest themselves. The doctors were peremptory in ordering me to a warm climate, for at least a couple of years, and I had chosen Malta as the place of my reluctant exile. My passage was taken on board the Astarte, a fine steamer plying between Liverpool and the principal Mediterranean ports. When I reached Liverpool, however, on the eve of the day of sailing, I found to my annoyance, that a vexatious delay must intervene. Some accident had happened, while in the Mersey, to the Astarte’s machinery, and it would take five, or more probably six days, to repair the damage. There was nothing for it but to wait; my berth was taken, and my fare paid; and thus it fell out that, after killing time by a short tour through the more accessible parts of North Wales, I thought I would visit Setton Bassett, and behold with my own eyes that famous salt-mine, of which as much had been talked in our family, as though it had been one of the seven wonders of the world. I was not on the best of terms with my uncle, so I had put up at the little inn incognito.
I stood at the sitting-room window, after the waiter left me, looking out at the dull gray of the No
vember sky and the yellowing pastures of the dairy county. There was no rain, but also no gleam of sunshine; and the still waters of the mere within rifle-shot of the hotel—the pike-fishing in which attracted many an angler to the district—looked as dark as lead. The canal, with the green and red barges sleeping on its weedy surface; the marshy meadows; the ugly factory chimneys, peeping out among the bare tree-tops afar off—these things made up anything but an enlivening prospect. My mind wandered off to the orange-groves and cloudless skies of Malta, to the pleasant voyage up the storied Mediterranean— I was a good sailor, and had no dread of sea-sickness to dash the enjoyment of the trip—and then my thoughts strayed back to my abandoned chambers in Hare Court, Temple. It had not been without a pang that I had wrenched myself away from law and equity, musty black-letter commentaries and brand new reports; and I sighed involuntarily as I thought how I had been forced to drop behind in the race of life, and to yield the palm to others. But life itself was in the balance, and I had no choice in the matter.
“Only waiting for you, sir,” said the napkin-bearing attendant, jerking the door open, and poking the fire as waiters will, when no other exercise for their restless activity presents itself. I declare that I had forgotten the salt-mine, the proposed excursion, and my own consent to make one among the pilgrims. But I could not be always reading yesterday’s newspaper; and I had seen Llangollen and Valle Crucis and Rows of Chester, and the castles of Chirk and Bran; and however little attractive the dive might prove, it would be as well to have seen the family salt-mine, while a couple of hours at least would thus be got rid of. It was Saturday; and on Monday at noon, the splendid screw steamship Astarte, with her freight and passengers, was to drop down to the Mersey, and carry me along with her. I had but two days, therefore, to kill, and this underground exploring would answer as well as anything else. I put on my great-coat, therefore, and followed William the waiter.
The Sixth Ghost Story Megapack Page 44
