Twenty-Five Ghost Stories
up. I had just picked our location on it, and was thinking that in a
week more I should be at home, surrounded by those near and dear to me,
and relating to them the story of my great good fortune.
“It was always my custom to work up my latitude and longitude about four
o’clock in the afternoon, and then after supper pick off her position on
the chart, have a smoke and perhaps just before retiring a nip of grog,
and then at 8.30 o’clock, as regular as a clock, I would turn in.
“I am a great smoker, and this day I had been smoking all the afternoon,
besides having had two or three nips. We had a dog on board whom we
called ‘Bosun,’ who had been out with us all the voyage, and who was
afraid of nothing. He had endeared himself to every man on board, and
when Bosun ‘took water’ something very serious was in the wind. This
night as I sat in the cabin I heard a most dismal howl from Bosun, and
called out to the mate to know what was the matter with the dog. He
replied that he ‘reckoned some of the men had been teasing him,’ and the
occurrence soon passed from my mind.
“Suddenly I saw someone coming down the after companion way into the
cabin. I supposed at first it was the mate and wondered that he had not
first spoken to me, but then I noticed that he wore clothes I had never
seen on the mate, and as he advanced into the cabin I saw his face. It
was the face of a man I had never seen in my life. He was thin and pale
and haggard, and as he advanced he looked about the cabin and at the
rolled up chart on the table. There seemed to be an appeal in his eyes,
and then there swept over his face a look of intense disappointment, and
before I could move or speak, he had vanished from my sight.
“Now I am a very practical man, and I at once straightened myself in my
chair and said to myself: ‘Well, old man, you have smoked one too many
pipes to-day, or else you have had one drink too much, for you have been
asleep in your chair and seen a ghost.’ I was quite satisfied that I
had had a dream, especially as I called to the mate and asked him if he
had seen anyone come below. He said no; that he had not left the deck
for the last hour, and the man at the wheel, directly in front of the
door, was sure no one had entered the cabin, so I convinced myself that
I had had a very vivid dream--though I could not help thinking of the
matter all through the next day.
“At eight o’clock the next evening I sat in the same place with my work
just finished and the chart lying rolled up on the table before me, when
suddenly the dog’s dismal howl rang through the ship, and looking up I
saw those same legs coming down the after companion. My hair fairly
stood on end, and yet to-day surely I was wide awake. I had only smoked
one pipe all day, and had not touched a drop of liquor. The same wan,
emaciated figure walked into the cabin, glanced inquiringly and
appealingly at me, and again there spread over his face that look of
utter disappointment as if he had sought something and failed to find
it, and again he disappeared. I rushed on deck to the mate and told him
all I had seen during the last two nights; but he made light of it, and
assured me I had been asleep or smoking too much. He did not like to
suggest that I had been drinking. Still, I could see that the thought
that came into his mind was ‘The old man has seen ’em again.’ I gave up
trying to convince him, but requested that the next night, from 8 to
8.30, he should sit with me in the cabin.
“How the next day passed I cannot tell. I only know that my thoughts
never left that ghostly visitant, and somehow I felt that the evening
would reveal something to me and the spell be broken. I made up my mind
I would speak to the thing, whatever it was, and I felt a sort of
security in the presence of the mate, who was a daring fellow and feared
neither man nor the devil. Neither rum nor tobacco passed my lips during
the next day, and eight o’clock found the mate and I sitting in the
cabin, and this time the chart lay open on the table beside us. Just as
eight bells struck the dog’s premonitory wail sounded, and looking up we
both saw the figure descending the cabin stairs. We both seemed frozen
to our seats, and the strange weirdness of the whole proceeding cast the
same spell over the mate and me alike, and we were both unable to move
or speak. Slowly the figure proceeded into the cabin and glanced around
without a word, but with the same expectant look on his face. His form
was even more wasted, his cheeks sunken and his eyes seemed almost out
of sight so deeply were they set in their sockets. As his eye fell on
the open chart a look of supreme joy fairly irradiated his features, and
advancing to the table he placed one long, bony finger on the chart,
held it for a moment and then again disappeared from our sight.
“For five minutes after he had left us we sat speechless. Then I managed
to say: ‘What do you think of that, Mr. Morris?’ ‘My God! sir, I don’t
know--it’s beyond me.’ Then my eyes fell on the open chart and there
where the finger had been was a tiny spot of blood, exactly on the point
of longitude 63 degrees west and latitude 37 degrees north. We were then
only about fifty miles distant from that position, and immediately there
came to me the determination to steer the ship there; so I laid her
course accordingly, and posted a lookout in the crow’s nest. At five
o’clock in the morning, just as the east began to grow gray, the lookout
called out: ‘Boat on the lee bow,’ and as we came up to it we found four
men in it--three dead and one with just a remnant of life left in him.
We sewed the three bodies in canvas and buried them in the ocean, and
then gave all our attention to restoring life to the poor emaciated
frame, which, I then recognized, was the very man who for three
successive nights had visited me in my cabin.
“By judicious and careful nursing life gradually came back to him, and
in four days’ time he was able to sit up and talk with me in the cabin.
It seems he commanded the ship Promise, and she had taken fire and been
destroyed, and all hands had to take to the boats. Ten were in the boats
at first, but their food had given out, and one by one he had seen them
die, and one by one he had cast the bodies overboard. Finally he lost
consciousness and knew not whether his three remaining companions were
dead or alive.
“Then he said he seemed in a dream to see a ship and tried to go to her
for help, but just as he would be going on board of her something would
seem to keep him back; three times in his dreams he tried to visit this
ship, and the last time there seemed to come to him a certain
satisfaction, and he felt that he had succeeded in his object. Turning
to my table, he said: ‘Let me take your chart; I’ll show you just where
we were.’
“‘Stop,’ said I, ‘don’t take that chart, it is an old one and all marked
over. Mark your position on this new one.’ He took my pencil and knife,
and carefully sharpened his pencil. Then, taking my dividers, he
measured his latitude and longitude and placed a pencil dot at a point
on the clean chart. As he lifted his hand he said: ‘Oh, excuse me,
captain, I cut my finger in sharpening the pencil and have left a drop
of blood on the chart.’
“‘Never mind,’ said I, ‘leave it there.’ And then I produced the old
chart and there, in an exactly corresponding place was the drop of blood
left by my ghostly visitor.”
Then looking steadily into my face the mate solemnly added: “I can’t
explain this, sir, perhaps you can; but I can tell you on my honor it is
God’s own truth that I have told you.”
THE GHOST OF WASHINGTON.
It was early on Christmas morning when John Reilly wheeled away from a
picturesque little village where he had passed the previous night, to
continue his cycling tour through eastern Pennsylvania. To-day his
intention was to stop at Valley Forge, and then to ride on up the
Schuylkill Valley, visiting in turn the many points of historical
interest that lay along his route. Valley Forge, his road map indicated,
was but a short distance further on. All around him were the hills and
fields and roads over which Washington and his half-starved army had
foraged and roamed throughout the trying winter of 1777-8--one hundred
and twenty-six years ago.
It was a beautiful Christmas day, truly, and, as he wheeled along, young
Reilly’s thoughts were almost equally divided between the surrounding
pleasant scenery and the folks at home, who, he knew very well, were
assembling at just about the present time around a heavily laden
Christmas tree in the front parlor. The sun rose higher and higher and
Reilly pedaled on down the valley, passing every now and then quaint,
pleasant-looking farmhouses, many of which, no doubt, had been built
anterior to the period which had given the vicinity its history.
Arriving, finally, at a place where the road forked off in two
directions, Reilly was puzzled which way to go on. There happened to be
a dwelling close by. Accordingly he dismounted, left his wheel leaning
against a gate-post at the side of the road, and walked up a wretchedly
flagged walk leading to the house, with the idea of getting instructions
from its inmates.
Situated in the center of an unkempt field of rank grass and weeds, the
building lay back from the highway probably one hundred and fifty feet.
It was long and low in shape, containing but one story and having what
is termed a gabled roof, under which there must have been an attic of no
mean size. On coming close to the house, a fact Reilly had not noticed
from the road became plainly evident. It was deserted. He saw that the
roof and side shingles were in wretched condition; that the window
sashes and frames as well as the doors and door frames were missing from
the openings in the side walls where once they had been, and that the
entire side of the house, including that part of the stone foundation
which showed above the ground, was full of cracks and seams. At first on
the point of turning back, he concluded to see what the interior was
like anyway.
Accordingly he went inside. Glancing around the large dust-filled room
he had entered his gaze at first failed to locate any object of the
least interest. A rickety appearing set of steps went up into the attic
from one side of the apartment and over in one corner was a large open
fireplace, from the walls of which much of the brickwork had become
loosened and fallen out. Reilly had started up the steps toward the
attic, when happening to look back for an instant, his attention was
attracted to a singular-looking, jug-shaped bottle no larger than a
vinegar cruet, which lay upon its side on the hearth of the fireplace,
partly covered up by debris of loose bricks and mortar. He hastened back
down the steps and crossed the room, taking the bottle up in his hand
and examining it with curiosity. Being partly filled with a liquid of
some kind or other the bottle was very soon uncorked and held under the
young man’s nose. The liquid gave forth a peculiar, pungent and inviting
odor. Without further hesitation Reilly’s lips sought the neck of the
bottle. It is hardly possible to describe the pleasure and satisfaction
his senses experienced as he drank.
While the fluid was still gurgling down his throat a heavy hand was
placed most suddenly on his shoulder and his body was given a violent
shaking. The bottle fell to the floor and was broken into a hundred
pieces.
“Hello!” said a rough voice almost in Reilly’s ear. “Who are you,
anyway? And what are you doing within the lines? A spy, I’ll be bound.”
As most assuredly there had been no one else in the vicinity of the
building when he had entered it and with equal certainty no one had come