Part 9 (1/2)
”When did he leave the island, then?” I asked. ”The next morning? But no one saw him go?”
”No,” answered d.i.c.k. ”I sailed him across the same night. About three o'clock of the morning he came and tapped softly upon my window, just as you did to-night. It was that which made me think you were Cullen come back. He bade me slip out to him without any noise, and together we carried my father's skiff down to the water. I sailed him across to St. Mary's. He made me swear never to tell a word of his climbing back into his room.”
”Oh, he made you swear that?”
”Yes, he said he would rip my heart out if I broke my oath. Well, I've kept it till to-night. No one knows but you. I got back to Tres...o...b..fore my father had stirred.”
”And Cullen?”
”A barque put out from St. Mary's to Cornwall with the first of the ebb in the morning. I suppose he persuaded the captain to take him.”
Parmiter's story set me thinking, and I climbed over the palisade after him without further objection. He came to a wall of planks; d.i.c.k set himself firmly against it and bent his shoulders.
”This is an outhouse,” said he. ”From my shoulders you can reach the roof. From the roof you can reach the window. You can force the catch of the window with a knife.”
”It will be an awkward business,” said I doubtfully, ”if I wake the house.”
”There is no fear of that,” answered d.i.c.k. ”With any other window I would not say no. The other rooms are separated only by a thin panelling of wood, and at one end of the house you can almost hear a mouse scamper at the other. Mr. Cullen's room, however, is a room built on, its inner wall is the outer wall of the house, it is the one room where you could talk secrets and run no risk of being overheard.”
”Very well,” said I slowly, for this speech too set me thinking. ”I will risk it. Come over early to-morrow, d.i.c.k. I shall cut an awkward figure without you do,” and getting on to his shoulder, I clambered up on to the roof of the outhouse. He handed my valise to me; I pushed back the catch of the window with the blade of my knife, lifted it, threw my leg over the sill and silently drew myself into the room. The room was very dark, but my eyes were now accustomed to the gloom. I could dimly discern a great four-poster bed. I shut the window without noise, set my valise in a corner, drew off my boots and lay down upon the bed.
CHAPTER VII
TELLS OF AN EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT IN CULLEN MAYLE'S BEDROOM
I was very tired, but in spite of my fatigue it was some while before I fell asleep. Parmiter had thrown a new light upon the business tonight, and by the help of that light I arrayed afresh my scanty knowledge. The strangeness of my position, besides, kept me in some excitement. Here was I quietly abed in a house where I knew no one; Clutterbuck might well talk about impertinence, and I could not but wonder what in the world I should find to say if d.i.c.k was late in the morning. Finally, there was the adventure of that night. I felt myself again slipping down the wet gra.s.s and dangling over the precipice. I heard again that unearthly screeching which had so frightened d.i.c.k and perplexed me, It perplexed me still. I could not for a moment entertain d.i.c.k's supposition of a spirit. This was the middle of the eighteenth century, you will understand, and I had come fresh from London. Ghosts and bogies might do very well for the island of Tresco, but Mr. Berkeley was not to be terrified with any such old-wives'
stories, and so Mr. Berkeley fell asleep.
At what precise hour the thing happened I do not know. The room was so dark that I could not have read my watch, even if I had looked at it, which I did not think to do. But at some time during that night I woke up quite suddenly with a clear sense that I had been waked up.
I sat up in my bed with my heart beating very quick; and then with as a little noise as I could I gathered myself up in the shadow of the bed-hangings, at the head. The fog was still thick about the house, so that hardly a glimmer of light came from the window. But there was some one in the room I knew, for I could hear a rustle as of stealthy movements. And then straight in front of me between the two posts of the bed-foot, I saw something white that wavered and swayed this way and that. Only an hour or so before I had been boasting to myself that I was London-bred and lived in the middle of the eighteenth century.
But none the less my hair stirred upon my head, and all the moisture dried up in my throat as I stared at that dim white thing wavering and swaying between the bed-posts. It was taller than any human being that I had seen. I remembered the weird screeching sound which I had heard in the hollow; I think that in my heart I begged d.i.c.k Parmiter's pardon for laughing at his fears; I know that I crouched back among the hangings and shuddered till the bed shook and shook again. And then it made a sound, and all the blood in my veins stood still. I thought that my heart would stop or my brain burst. For the sound was neither a screech like that which rose from the hollow, nor a groan, nor any ghostly noise. It was purely human, it was a kecking sound in the throat, such as one makes who gasps for breath. The white thing was a live thing of flesh and blood.
I sprang up on the bed and jumped to the foot of it. It was very dark in the room, but through the darkness, I could see, on a level with my face, the face of a woman. Her eyes were open and they stared into mine. I could see the whites of them; our heads were so near they almost touched.
Even then I did not understand. I wondered what it was on which she stood. I noticed a streak of white which ran straight up towards the ceiling from behind her head, and I wondered what that was. And then suddenly her body swung against my legs. She was standing on nothing whatever! Again the queer gasping coughing noise broke from her lips, and at last I understood it. It was a gasp of a woman strangling to death. That white stiff streak above her head--I knew what it was too.
I caught her by the waist and lifted her up till her weight rested upon my arm. With the other arm I felt about her neck. A thick soft scarf--silk it seemed to the touch--was knotted tightly round it, and the end of the scarf ran up to the cross-beam above the bed-posts. The scarf was the streak of white.
I fumbled at the knot with my fingers. It was a slip knot, and now that no weight kept it taut, it loosened easily. I slipped the noose back over her head and left it dangling. The woman I laid down upon the bed, where she lay choking and moaning.
I flung up the window and the cold fog poured into the room. I had no candle to light and nothing wherewith to light it. But I remembered that my foot had knocked against a chair to the right of the window, as I climbed into the room. I groped for the chair and set it to face the open night. Then I carried the woman to the window and placed her in the chair, and supported her so that she might not fall. Outside I could hear the surf booming upon the sand almost within arm's reach, and the air was brisk with the salt of the sea.
Such light as there was, glimmered upon the woman's face. I saw that she was young, little more than a girl indeed, with hair and eyes of an extreme blackness. She was of a slight figure as I knew from the ease with which I carried her, but tall. I could not doubt who it was, for one thing the white dress she wore was of some fine soft fabric, and even in that light it was easy to see that she was beautiful.
I held her thus with the cold salt air blowing upon her face, and in a little, she began to recover. She moved her hands upon her lap, and finally lifted one and held her throat with it.
”Very likely there will be some water in the room,” said I. ”If you are safe, if you will not fall, I will look for it.”