"Why Mose!" I cried in amazement, "what on earth are you doing here?"
He responded without raising his head.
"I"s aftah a snake, sah. I see a big fat gahtah snake a-lopin" into dis yere hole, an" he"s skulkin" dar now thinkin" like he gwine to fool me.
But he cayn"t do dat, sah. I"s got "im by de tail, an" I"ll fotch "im out."
He drew forth as he spoke a huge black and yellow snake, writhing and hissing, and proceeded to smash its head with a stone. I shut my eyes during the operation and when I opened them again I saw to my horror that he was stuffing the carca.s.s in the front of his shirt.
"Good heavens, Mose!" I cried, aghast. "What are you going to do with that?"
"Boil it into oil, sah, to scar de witches off."
Inquiry at the house that night brought out the fact that this was one of Mose"s regular occupations. Snake"s oil was in general favor among the negroes as a specific against witches, and Mose was the chief purveyor of the lotion. Taken all in all he was about as queer a human being as I have ever come across, and I fancy, had I been a psychologist instead of a lawyer, I might have found him an entertaining study.
I heard about this time some fresh rumors in regard to Radnor; one--and it came pretty straight--that he"d just lost a hundred dollars at poker.
A hundred dollars may not sound like a very big loss in these days of bridge, but it was large for that place, and it represented to Radnor exactly two months" pay. As overseer of the plantation, the Colonel paid him six hundred dollars a year, a little enough sum considering the work he did. Rad had nothing in his own right; aside from his salary he was entirely dependent on his father, and it struck me as more than foolish for a young man who was contemplating marriage to throw away two months"
earnings in a single game of poker. The conviction crossed my mind that perhaps after all Polly was wise to delay.
I heard another rumor however which was graver than the poker affair; it was only a rumor, and when traced to its source turned out to be nothing more tangible than somebody"s hazarded guess, but without the slightest cause the same suspicion had already presented itself to me. And that was, that the ha"nt was a very flesh and blood woman. Radnor was clearly in some sort of trouble; he was moody and irritable, so sharp with the farm hands that several of them left, and unusually taciturn with the Colonel and me. To make matters worse Polly Mathers was treating him with marked indifference, and openly bestowing her smiles upon Mattison; what the trouble was I could only conjecture, but I feared that she too had been hearing rumors.
The ha"nt stories had been repeated and exaggerated until they contained no semblance of truth. By this time, not only the laurel walk was haunted, but the spring-hole as well; and it soon became a region of even greater fear than the deserted cabins. The "spring-hole" was a natural cavity in the side of a hill a half mile or so back from the house. It was out of this cavity that the underground stream flowed which fed the pools, and furnished such valuable irrigation to the place. All that part of Virginia is undermined with limestone caverns, and my uncle"s was by no means the only plantation that could boast the distinction of a private cave. The entrance was half hidden among rugged piled-up boulders dripping with moisture; and was not inviting. I remembered chasing a rabbit into this cavern when I was a boy, and though it would have been an easy matter to follow him, I preferred to stay outside in the sunshine. The spring-hole, then, was haunted. This did not strike me as strange. I rather wondered that it had not been from the first; it was a likely place for ghosts. But the thing which did surprise me, was the fact that it was Mose who brought the news.
We were sitting on the portico after supper one night--it was almost dark and the glow from our cigars was the one visible point in the scenery--when Mose came bounding across the lawn with his peculiar loping run and fairly groveled at Radnor"s feet, his teeth chattering with fear.
"I"s seen de ha"nt, Ma.r.s.e Rad; de sho nuff ha"nt all dressed in black an" risin" outen de spring-hole."
"You fool!" Radnor cried. "Get on your feet and behave yourself."
"It was de debbil," Mose chattered. "His face was black an" his eyes was fire."
"You"ve been drinking, Mose," Radnor said sharply. "Get off to the quarters where you belong, and don"t let me see you again until you are sober," and he shunted the fellow out of the way before he had time to say any more.
I myself was tolerably certain that Mose had not been drinking; that, at least, was not in the list of his peculiar vices. He appeared to be thoroughly frightened--if not, he was a most consummate actor. In the light of what I already knew, I was considerably puzzled by this fresh manifestation. The Colonel fretted and fumed up and down the veranda, muttering something about these fool n.i.g.g.e.rs all being alike. He had bragged considerably about Mose"s immunity in respect to ha"nts, and I think he was rather dashed at his favorite"s falling-off. I held my peace, and Radnor returned in a few minutes.
"Rad," said the Colonel, "this thing"s going too far. The whole place is infested with ghosts; they"ll be invading the house next and we won"t have a servant left on the place. Can"t you do something to stop it?"
Radnor shrugged his shoulders and said that it was a pretty tough job to lay a ghost when there were twenty n.i.g.g.e.rs on the place, but that he would see what he could do; and he presently drifted off again.
That same night about ten o"clock I was reading before going to bed, when a knock sounded on the door, and Radnor appeared. He was unusually restless and ill at ease. He referred in a jesting fashion to the ha"nt, discussed some neighborhood gossip, and finally quite abruptly inquired:
"Arnold, can you lend me some money?"
"Yes," I said, "I think so; how much do you want?"
"A hundred dollars if you can spare it. Fact is I"m a little hard up, and I"ve got a bill to meet. I have some money invested but I can"t put my hands on it just this minute. I"ll pay you in a week or so as soon as I get some cash--I wouldn"t ask you, only my father is so blamed reluctant about paying my salary ahead of time."
I wrote out a check and handed it to him.
"Rad," I said, "you"re perfectly welcome to the money; I"m glad to accommodate you, but if you"ll excuse my mentioning it, I think you ought to pull up a bit on this poker business. You don"t earn so much that if you"re thinking of getting married you can afford to throw any of it away.--I"m only speaking for your good; it"s no affair of mine," I added as I saw his face flush.
He hesitated a moment with the check in his hand; I know that he wanted to give it back, but he was evidently too hard pressed.
"Oh, keep the money!" I said. "I don"t want to pry into your private affairs, only," I laughed, "I do want to see you win out ahead of Mattison, and I"m afraid you"re not going about it the right way."
"Thank you, Arnold," he returned, "I want to win a great deal more than you want me to--and if it"s gambling you"re afraid of, you can ease your mind, for I"ve sworn off. It"s not a poker debt I want this money for tonight; I wouldn"t be so secretive about the business, only it concerns another person more than me."
"Radnor," I said, "I heard an ugly rumor the other day. I heard that the ghost was a live woman who was living in the deserted cabins under your connivance. I didn"t believe it, but just the same it is not a story which you can afford to have even whispered."
Radnor raised his head sharply.
"Ah, I see!" His eyes wavered a moment and then fixed themselves miserably on my face. "Has--has Polly Mathers heard that?"
"Yes," I returned, "I fancy she has."
He struck the table with a quick flash of anger.
"It"s a d.a.m.ned lie! And it comes from Jim Mattison."
And now as to the events which followed during the night. I"ve repeated them so many times to so many different persons that it is difficult for me to recall just what were my original sensations. I went to bed but I didn"t go to sleep; this ha"nt business was getting on my nerves almost as badly as the Patterson-Pratt case. After a time I heard someone let himself softly out of the house; I knew well that it was Radnor and I didn"t get up to look. I didn"t want the appearance even to myself of spying upon him. After three quarters of an hour or so I was suddenly startled alert by hearing the squeak-squeak of a whippletree out on the lawn. It was the Colonel"s buckboard which stood in need of oiling; I recognized the sound. Curiosity was too much for me this time. I slipped out of bed and hurried to the window. It was pretty dark outside, but there was a faint glimmer of starlight.
"Whoa, Jennie Loo; whoa!" I heard Rad"s voice scarcely above a whisper, and I saw the outline of the cart plainly with Rad driving, and either some person or some large bundle on the seat beside him. It was on the side farthest from me, and was too vague to be distinguished. He made a wide detour of the house across the gra.s.s, and struck the driveway at the foot of the lawn; the reason for this manoeuvre was evident--the gravel drive from the stables pa.s.sed directly under the Colonel"s window. I went back to bed half worried, half relieved. I strongly suspected that this was the end of the ghost; but I could not help puzzling over the part that Radnor had played in the little comedy--if comedy it were. The stories that I had heard about some of his disreputable a.s.sociates returned to my mind with unpleasant emphasis.
I had gradually dozed off, when half waking, half sleeping, I heard the patter of bare feet on the veranda floor. The impression was not distinct enough to arouse me, and I have never been perfectly sure that I was not dreaming. I do not know how much time elapsed after this--I was sound asleep--when I was suddenly startled awake by a succession of the most horrible screams I have ever heard. In an instant I was on my feet in the middle of the floor. Striking a match and lighting a candle, I grabbed an umbrella--it was the only semblance of a weapon anywhere at hand--and dashed into the hall. The Colonel"s door was flung open at the same instant, and he appeared on the threshold, revolver in hand.
"Eh, Arnold, what"s happened?" he cried.
"I don"t know," I gasped, "I"m going down to see."
We tumbled down stairs at such a rate that the candle went out, and we groped along in total darkness toward the rear of the house from where the sounds were coming. The cries had died down by this time into a horrible inarticulate wail, half animal, half human. I recognized the tones with a cold thrill; it was Mose. We found him groveling on the floor of the little pa.s.sage that led from the dining-room to the serving room. I struck a light and we bent over him. I hated to look, expecting from the noise he was making to find him lying in a pool of blood. But he was entirely whole; there was no blood visible and we could find no broken bones. Apparently there was nothing the matter beyond fear, and of that he was nearly dead. He crawled to the Colonel and clung to his feet chattering an unintelligible gibberish. His eyes rolling wildly in the dim light, showed an uncanny yellow gleam. I could see where he got his name.
The Colonel"s own nerves were beginning to a.s.sert themselves and with an oath he cuffed the fellow back to a state of coherence.
"Stand up, you blithering fool, and tell us what you mean by raising such a fuss."
Mose finally found his tongue but we still could make nothing of his story. He had been out "prospectin" "round," and when he came in to go to bed--the house servants slept in a wing over the rear gallery--he met the ha"nt face to face standing in the dining-room doorway. He was so tall that his head reached the ceiling and he was so thin that you could see right through him. At the remembrance Mose began to shiver again.
We propped him up with some whiskey and sent him off to bed still twittering with terror.
The Colonel was bent on routing out Radnor to share the excitement and I with some difficulty restrained him, knowing full well that Rad was not in the house. We made a search of the premises to a.s.sure ourselves that there was nothing tangible about Mose"s ha"nt; but I was in such a hurry to get the Colonel safely upstairs again, that our search was somewhat cursory. We both overlooked the little office that opened off the dining-room. In spite of my manoeuvres the Colonel entered the library first and discovered that the French window was open; he laid no stress on this however, supposing that Mose was the guilty one. He bolted it with unusual care, and I with equal care slipped back and unbolted it. I finally persuaded him that Mose"s ha"nt was merely the result of a fevered imagination fed on a two weeks" diet of ghost stories, and succeeded in getting him back to bed without discovering Radnor"s absence. I lay awake until I heard the sound of carriage wheels returning across the lawn, and, a few minutes later, footsteps enter the house and tip-toe upstairs. Then as daylight was beginning to show in the east I finally fell asleep, worn out with puzzling my head for an explanation which should cover at once Rad"s nocturnal drive and Mose"s ha"nt.
CHAPTER VI
WE SEND FOR A DETECTIVE
I slept late the next morning, and came down stairs to find the Colonel pacing the length of the dining-room, his head bent, a worried frown upon his brow. He came to a sudden halt at my appearance and regarded me a moment without speaking. I could see that something of moment had happened, but I could fathom nothing of its nature from his expression.