“It’s Bill Spiker, sir,” said the sailor. “He’s dead! He was a good gunner, sir, too. We wanted Spiker, sir, to fight the French—and he’s dead!” And the sailor broke off blubbering.
Just then they all became aware of a moaning overhead.
“What’s that?” said Mipps, beginning to giggle.
Indeed the uncanny atmosphere of the vicarage that morning had upset them all.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the captain, “for I’ve had my fill of horrors. I don’t mind blood and I don’t mind fighting, but these mysteries are horrible. What the devil is that moaning?”
“That’ll be Job Mallet, captain’s bo’sun,” said the sailor.
“Or Rash, the sick schoolmaster,” said Doctor Syn.
But Mipps said nothing; he had left the room and was now out in the passage, suffering from another attack of giggles.
“Damn that sexton’s body and soul!” ejaculated the captain; “his giggling gives one the creeps. What’s tickling him now?”
“Unstrung,” muttered the vicar, as he followed the captain up the dark stairs to the bedroom.
There in the bed, last night occupied by Mr. Rash, lay the fat bo’sun on his back, with his face gagged up and covered with a nightcap. Dreadful moans he was making as he lay there.
The captain pulled the bedclothes off, and discovered that the faithful fellow was tied to the bed. Grateful he looked, though troubled, when the captain cut his bonds and pulled him up; and he owned in a shamefaced manner that he never had endured such a horrible night in his life, and that Parson Syn (saving his presence) must be the foul fiend himself to be able to sleep in such a devil-haunted house.
Doctor Syn went downstairs and fetched the brandy bottle, and administered a good dose to the bo’sun, and also to the other seamen who had followed them upstairs.
“And where’s the schoolmaster got to?” said the captain.
“He’s gone.”
“Gone?” they all repeated together.
“Aye, sir, gone! And if ever a man has gone body and soul, I declares he has; for I solemnly and soberly declares that I seed him hoisted up and removed downstairs by a couple of horrible light-faces.”
“Light-faces?” roared the captain.
“Yes, sir, coves with faces all a-shine. Why, I wouldn’t settle down and live within a hundred miles of Romney Marsh for a thousand guineas a year pension, I wouldn’t; for talk about devils, the place stinks of them!”
“Now, look here, my man,” said the captain, “just pull yourself in a brace or two and tell me what happened.”
“Why, so I will,” said the bo’sun, “for queer, most queer it be.”
XXI
The Bo’sun’s Story
“Nothing happened, sir, for some hour or so after you left, and then things made up for lost time, as ’twere, and came fast and quick. I was sitting outside this here room with the door on the jar—outside I was, ’cos I couldn’t bear the sight of that schoolmaster’s face. I think you’ll own yourself, sir, that it wasn’t just exactly wot you might call ‘a pleasant evening face’ especially, a-battered about as it was. Poor Bill Spiker and Morgan Walters here was asleep downstairs, for we’d agreed that I should stand first watch.
“Well, the boys had brought us over our allowance of rum from the barn, and we’d all had a drop, though I kept most of mine to the end of my watch, thinking to use it for a nightcap, as ’twere, but the little drop I did get was making me feel very drowsy, and I began to think the next hour would never go, when I could wake up Bill Spiker. Presently I hears a noise of galloping horses. I goes to the window on the stairs there, and looks out. Right along the road I could see those same riders with lit-up faces wot I’d seed the night before last. I know it was them, ’cos I could see their faces, you understand, when quite sudden I was seized from behind and pulled over backwards down the stairs. I fought the best I could, but there was a sort of overpowering smell upon a kerchief wot had been pulled over my mouth, and I was lifted up on four men’s shoulders, as it seemed. I couldn’t see anything of their faces, but as I went up the stairway on their shoulders I just remember a-seein’ that schoolmaster a-comin’ down in the same fashion as I was a-goin’ up, only that he only required two to hold him. Now, whether this was because I was heavier, I don’t know, or whether ’cos he was only a-comin’ down while I was a-goin’ up, or whether the things wot had got hold of me was real or sham, as ’twere, but certain am I the two things wot had the schoolmaster—and things I must call ’em, though they was a bit like men—had got the same shiny faces all alight, just like wot them demon riders had; and then I don’t remember nothing else till I was woke up by hearin’ a sort of horrible shriek downstairs which I thought was just a dream, but now suppose was poor Bill a-voicin’ his last opinion in this world, as ’twere. After that I went to sleep again; then I was waked up again by a sort of groanin’, which I finds was myself, and then in comes you after a long time and lets me go, as ’twere, and that’s all I knows, so help me God, sir; but quite enough for one night, as I thinks you’ll agree.”
Morgan Walters then gave his version of what happened in the night, which bore out certain points of the bo’sun’s story.
He had soon fallen into a deep sleep, but was awakened with a feeling that something was wrong. He tried to move but couldn’t; indeed, he could scarcely breathe. The only things that he could see were two dark forms moving about the room, but their faces were lit up by a curious light. These two things passed out
