Part 5 (1/2)
”There's the address.”
”What address?” I asked.
”Of the cemetery where those bones you are going to break are to be found. You go in by the side gate, and ask any of the grave-diggers where--”
”You infernal scoundrel!” I shrieked, ”this is my room. I have bought and paid for it, and I intend to have it. Do you hear?”
His response was merely the clapping of his hands together, and in a stage-whisper, leaning towards me, he said:
”Bravo! Bravo! You are great. I think you could do Lear. Say those last words again, will you?”
His calmness was too much for me, and I lost all control of myself.
Picking up the water-bottle, I hurled it at him with all the force at my command. It crashed through him and struck the mirror over the wash-stand, and as the shattered gla.s.s fell with a loud noise to the floor the door to my state-room opened, and the captain of the s.h.i.+p, flanked by the room steward and the doctor, stood at the opening.
”What's all this about?” said the captain, addressing me.
”I have engaged this room for myself alone,” I said, trembling in my rage, ”and I object to that person's presence.” Here I pointed at the intruder.
”What person's presence?” demanded the captain, looking at the spot where the haunting thing sat grinning indecently.
”What person?” I roared, forgetting the situation for the moment.
”Why, him--it--whatever you choose to call it. He's settled down here, and has been black-guarding me for twenty minutes, and, d.a.m.n it, captain, I won't stand it!”
”It's a clear case,” said the captain, with a sigh, turning and addressing the doctor. ”Have you a strait-jacket?”
”Thank you, captain,” said I, calming down. ”It's what he ought to have, but it won't do any good. You see, he's not a material thing.
He's buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, and so the strait-jacket won't help us.”
Here the doctor stepped into the room and took me gently by the arm.
”Take off your clothes,” he said, ”and lie down. You need quiet.”
”I?” I demanded, not as yet realizing my position. ”Not by a long shot. Fire _him_ out. That's all I ask.”
”Take off your clothes and get into that bed,” repeated the doctor, peremptorily. Then he turned to the captain and asked him to detail two of his sailors to help him. ”He's going to be troublesome,” he added, in a whisper. ”Mad as a hatter.”
I hesitate, in fact decline, to go through the agony of what followed again by writing of it in detail. Suffice it to say that the doctor persisted in his order that I should undress and go to bed, and I, conscious of the righteousness of my position, fought this determination, until, with the a.s.sistance of the steward and the two able-bodied seamen detailed by the captain at the doctor's request, I was forcibly unclad and thrown into the lower berth and strapped down. My wrath knew no bounds, and I spoke my mind as plainly as I knew how. It is a terrible thing to be sane, healthy, fond of deck-walking, full of life, and withal unjustly strapped to a lower berth below the water-line on a hot day because of a little beast of a c.o.c.kney ghost, and I fairly howled my sentiments.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”I WAS FORCIBLY UNCLAD”]
On the second day from Liverpool two maiden ladies in the room next mine made representations to the captain which resulted in my removal to the steerage. They couldn't consent, they said, to listen to the shrieks of the maniac in the adjoining room.
And then, when I found myself lying on a cot in the steerage, still strapped down, who should appear but my little spectre.
”Well,” he said, sitting on the edge of the cot, ”what do you think of it now, eh? Ain't I a shover from Shoverville on the Push?”
”It's all right,” I said, contemptuously. ”But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Spook: when I die and have a ghost of my own, that ghost will seek you out, and, by thunder, if it doesn't thrash the life out of you, I'll disown it!”
It seemed to me that he paled a bit at this, but I was too tired to gloat over a little thing like that, so I closed my eyes and went to sleep. A few days later I was so calm and rational that the doctor released me, and for the remainder of my voyage I was as free as any other person on board, except that I found myself constantly under surveillance, and was of course much irritated by the notion that my s.p.a.cious stateroom was not only out of my reach, but probably in the undisputed possession of the c.o.c.kney ghost.