Ghost Stories and Mysteries. Ernest Favenc
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