The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy Part 20

I remembered my flask, and uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the stopper with difficulty, clutched the mouth with my teeth and drank. After that I was sane and collected. Now I could hear people tramping on the ground outside, and see the flash of lanterns. In another moment a porter, whose silver b.u.t.tons gleamed in the darkness, was pulling me through the window.

"Hurt?"

"No, not I. But if any one else is, I'm a doctor."

"Here's a doctor, sir," he yelled to a gray-headed man near by. Then he stood still, wondering what he should do next. I perceived in the near distance the lights of a station.

"Is that Dover?"

"No, sir; Dover Priory. Dover's a mile further on. There was a goods wagon got derailed on the siding just beyond the home signal, and it blocked the down line, and the driver of the express ran right into it, although the signal was against him--ran right into it, 'e did."

Other people were crawling out of the carriages now, and suddenly there seemed to be scores of spectators, and much shouting and running about. The engine lay on its side, partly overhanging a wrecked wagon.

Immense clouds of steam issued from it, hissing above the roar of the wind. The tender was twisted like a patent hairpin in the middle. The first coach, a luggage-van, stood upright, and seemed scarcely damaged. The second coach, the small, old-fashioned vehicle which happily I had abandoned at Sittingbourne, was smashed out of resemblance to a coach. The third one, from which I had just emerged, looked fairly healthy, and the remaining three had not even left the rails.

All ran to the smashed coach.

"There were two pa.s.sengers in that coach," said the guard, who, having been at the rear of the train, was unharmed.

"Are you counting me?" I asked. "Because I changed carriages at Sittingbourne."

"Praise G.o.d for that, sir!" he answered. "There's only one, then--a tall, severe-looking gent--in the first-cla.s.s compartment."

Was it joy or sorrow that I felt at the thought of that man buried somewhere in the shapeless ma.s.s of wood and iron? It certainly was not unmixed sorrow. On the contrary, I had a distinct feeling of elation at the thought that I was probably rid forever of this haunter of my peace, this menacing and mysterious existence which (if instinctive foreboding was to be trusted) had been about to cross and thwart and blast my own.

The men hammered and heaved and chopped and sawed, and while they were in the midst of the work some one took me by the sleeve and asked me to go and attend to the engine-driver and stoker, who were being carried into a waiting-room at the station. It is symptomatic of the extraordinary confusion which reigns in these affairs that till that moment the question of the fate of the men in charge of the train had not even entered my mind, though I had of course noticed that the engine was overturned. In the waiting-room it was discovered that two local doctors had already arrived. I preferred to leave the engine-driver to them. He was unconscious as he lay on a table. The stoker, by his side, kept murmuring in a sort of delirium:

"Bill, 'e was all dazed like--'e was all dazed like. I told him the signal wasn't off. I shouted to him. But 'e was all dazed like."

I returned to the train full of a horrible desire to see with my own eyes a certain corpse. Bit by bit the breakdown gang had removed the whole of the centre part of the shattered carriage. I thrust myself into the group, and--we all looked at each other. n.o.body, alive or dead, was to be found.

"He, too, must have got out at Sittingbourne," I said at length.

"Ay!" said the guard.

My heard swam, dizzy with dark imaginings and unspeakable suspicions.

"He has escaped; he is alive!" I muttered savagely, hopelessly. It was as if a doom had closed inevitably over me. But if my thoughts had been legible and I had been asked to explain this att.i.tude of mine towards a person who had never spoken to me, whom I had seen but thrice, and whose ident.i.ty was utterly unknown, I could not have done so. I had no reasons. It was intuition.

Abruptly I straightened myself, and surveying the men and the background of ruin lighted by the fitful gleams of lanterns and the pale glitter of a moon half-hidden by flying clouds, I shouted out:

"I want a cab. I have to catch the Calais boat. Will somebody please direct me!"

No one appeared even to hear me. The mental phenomena which accompany a railway accident, even a minor one such as this, are of the most singular description. I felt that I was growing angry again. I had a grievance because not a soul there seemed to care whether I caught the Calais boat or not. That, under the unusual circ.u.mstances, the steamer would probably wait did not occur to me. Nor did I perceive that there was no real necessity for me to catch the steamer. I might just as well have spent the night at the Lord Warden, and proceeded on my journey in the morning. But no! I must hurry away instantly!

Then I thought of the jewel-box.

"Where's my jewel-box?" I demanded vehemently from the guard, as though he had stolen it.

He turned to me.

"What's that you're carrying?" he replied.

All the time I had been carrying the jewel-box. At the moment of the collision I must have instinctively clutched it, and my grasp had not slackened. I had carried it to the waiting-room and back without knowing that I was doing so!

This sobered me once more. But I would not stay on the scene. I was still obsessed by the desire to catch the steamer. And abruptly I set off walking down the line. I left the crowd and the confusion and the ruin, and hastened away bearing the box.

I think that I must have had no notion of time, and very little notion of s.p.a.ce. For I arrived at the harbour without the least recollection of the details of my journey thither. I had no memory of having been accosted by any official of the railway, or even of having encountered any person at all. Fortunately it had ceased to rain, and the wind, though still strong, was falling rapidly.

Except for a gatekeeper, the bleak, exposed pier had the air of being deserted. The lights of the town flickered in the distance, and above them rose dimly the gaunt outlines of the fortified hills. In front was the intemperate and restless sea. I felt that I was at the extremity of England, and on the verge of unguessed things. Now, I had traversed about half the length of the lonely pier, which seems to curve right out into the unknown, when I saw a woman approaching me in the opposite direction. My faculties were fatigued with the crowded sensations of that evening, and I took no notice of her. Even when she stopped to peer into my face I thought nothing of it, and put her gently aside, supposing her to be some dubious character of the night hours. But she insisted on speaking to me.

"You are Carl Foster," she said abruptly. The voice was harsh, trembling, excited, yet distinguished.

"Suppose I am?" I answered wearily. How tired I was!

"I advise you not to go to Paris."

I began to arouse my wits, and I became aware that the woman was speaking with a strong French accent. I searched her face, but she wore a thick veil, and in the gloom of the pier I could only make out that she had striking features, and was probably some forty years of age. I stared at her in silence.

"I advise you not to go to Paris," she repeated.

"Who are you?"

"Never mind. Take my advice."

"Why? Shall I be robbed?"

"Robbed!" she exclaimed, as if that was a new idea to her. "Yes," she said hurriedly. "Those jewels might be stolen."

"How do you know that I have jewels?"

"Ah! I--I saw the case."

"Don't trouble yourself, madam; I shall take particular care not to be robbed. But may I ask how you have got hold of my name?"

I had vague ideas of an ingenious plan for robbing me, the particulars of which this woman was ready to reveal for a consideration.

She ignored my question.

"Listen!" she said quickly. "You are going to meet a lady in Paris. Is it not so?"

"I must really--"

"Take advice. Move no further in that affair."

I attempted to pa.s.s her, but she held me by the sleeve. She went on with emphasis:

"Rosetta Rosa will never be allowed to sing in 'Carmen' at the Opera Comique. Do you understand?"

"Great Scott!" I said, "I believe you must be Carlotta Deschamps."