CHAPTER XVI
THE GHOST
The next evening, at about the same hour, the young officer,
after convincing himself that every one in the Château des
Noires-Fontaines had gone to bed, opened his door softly, went
downstairs holding his breath, reached the vestibule, slid back
the bolts of the outer door noiselessly, and turned round to
make sure that all was quiet. Reassured by the darkened windows,
he boldly opened the iron gate. The hinges had probably been
oiled that day, for they turned without grating, and closed as
noiselessly as they had opened behind Roland, who walked rapidly
in the direction of Pont d'Ain at Bourg.
He had hardly gone a hundred yards before the clock at Saint-Just
struck once; that of Montagnac answered like a bronze echo. It
was half-past ten o'clock. At the pace the young man was walking
he needed only twenty minutes to reach the Chartreuse; especially
if, instead of skirting the woods, he took the path that led direct
to the monastery. Roland was too familiar from youth with every
nook of the forest of Seillon to needlessly lengthen his walk
ten minutes. He therefore turned unhesitatingly into the forest,
coming out on the other side in about five minutes. Once there,
he had only to cross a bit of open ground to reach the orchard
wall of the convent. This took barely another five minutes.
At the foot of the wall he stopped, but only for a few seconds.
He unhooked his cloak, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it over
the wall. The cloak off, he stood in a velvet coat, white leather
breeches, and top-boots. The coat was fastened round the waist
by a belt in which were a pair of pistols. A broad-brimmed hat
covered his head and shaded his face.
With the same rapidity with which he had removed his garment
that might have hindered his climbing the wall, he began to scale
it. His foot readily found a chink between the stones; he sprang
up, seizing the coping, and was on the other side without even
touching the top of the wall over which he bounded. He picked
up his cloak, threw it over his shoulder, hooked it, and crossed
the orchard to a little door communicating with the cloister.
The clock struck eleven as he passed through it. Roland stopped,
counted the strokes, and slowly walked around the cloister, looking
and listening.
He saw nothing and heard no noise. The monastery was the picture
of desolation and solitude; the doors were all open, those of
the cells, the chapel, and the refectory. In the refectory, a
vast hall where the tables still stood in their places, Roland
noticed five or six bats circling around; a frightened owl flew
through a broken casement, and perched upon a tree close by,
hooting dismally.
"Good!" said Roland, aloud; "I'll make my headquarters here; bats
and owls are the vanguards of ghosts."
The sound of that human voice, lifted in the midst of this solitude,
darkness and desolation, had something so uncanny, so lugubrious
about it, that it would have caused even the speaker to shudder,
had not Roland, as he himself said, been inaccessible to fear. He
looked about for a place from which he could command the entire
hall. An isolated table, placed on a sort of stage at one end of
the refectory, which had no doubt been used by the superior of
the convent to take his food apart from the monks, to read from
pious books during the repast, seemed to Roland best adapted to
his needs. Here, backed by the wall, he could not be surprised
from behind, and, once his eye grew accustomed to the darkness,
he could survey every part of the hall. He looked for a seat,
and found an overturned stool about three feet from the table,
probably the one occupied by the reader or the person dining
there in solitude.
Roland sat down at the table, loosened his cloak to insure greater
freedom of movement, took his pistols from his belt, laid one
on the table, and striking three blows with the butt-end of the
other, he said, in a loud voice: "The meeting is open; the ghosts
can appear!"
Those who have passed through churches and cemeteries at night have
often experienced, without analyzing it, the supreme necessity of
speaking low and reverently which attaches to certain localities.
Only such persons can understand the strange impression produced
on any one who heard it by that curt, mocking voice which now
disturbed the solitude and the shadows. It vibrated an instant
in the darkness, which seemed to quiver with it; then it slowly
died away without an echo, escaping by all the many openings made
by the wings of time.
As he had expected, Roland's eyes had accustomed themselves to
the darkness, and now, by the pale light of the rising moon,
whose long, white rays penetrated the refectory through the broken
windows, he could see distinctly from one end to the other of
the vast apartment. Although Roland was as evidently without
fear internally as externally, he was not without distrust, and
his ear caught the slightest sounds.
He heard the half-hour strike. In spite of himself the sound
startled him, for it came from the bell of the convent. How was
it that, in this ruin where all was dead, a clock, the pulse of
time, was living?
"Oh! oh!" said Roland; "that proves that I shall see something."
The words were spoken almost in an aside. The majesty of the
place and the silence acted upon that heart of iron, firm as
the iron that had just tolled the call of time upon eternity.
The minutes slowly passed, one after the other. Perhaps a cloud
was passing between earth and moon, for Roland fancied that the
shadows deepened. Then, as midnight approached, he seemed to
hear a thousand confused, imperceptible sounds, coming no doubt
from the nocturnal universe which wakes while the other sleeps.
Nature permits no suspension of life, even for repose. She created
her nocturnal world, even as she created her daily world, from
the gnat which buzzes about the sleeper's pillow to the lion
prowling around the Arab's bivouac.
But Roland, the camp watcher, the sentinel of the desert, Roland,
the hunter, the soldier, knew all those sounds; they were powerless
to disturb him.
Then, mingling with these sounds, the tones of the clock, chiming
the hour, vibrated above his head. This time it was midnight.
Roland counted the twelve strokes, one after the other. The last
hung, quivering upon the air, like a bird with iron wings, then
slowly expired, sad and mournful. Just then the young man, thought
he heard a moan. He listened in the direction whence it came.
Again he heard it, this time nearer at hand.
He rose, his hands resting upon the table, the butt-end of a
pistol beneath each palm. A rustle like that of a sheet or a
gown trailing along the grass was audible on his right, not ten
paces from him. He straightened up as if moved by a spring.
At the same moment a shade appeared on the threshold of the vast
hall. This shade resembled the ancient statues lying on the tombs.
It was wrapped in an immense winding-sheet which trailed behind it.
For an instant Roland doubted his own eyes. Had the preoccupation
of his mind made him see a thing which was not? Was he the dupe
of his senses, the sport of those hallucinations which physicians
assert, but cannot explain? A moan, uttered by the phantom, put
his doubts to flight.
"My faith!" he cried in a burst of laughter, "now for a tussle,
friend ghost!"
The spectre paused and extended a hand toward the, young officer.
"Roland! Roland!" said the spectre in a muffled voice, "it would
be a pity not to follow to the grave those you have sent there."
And the spectre, without hastening its step, continued on its way.
Roland, astounded for an instant, came down from the stage, and
resolutely followed the ghost. The path was difficult, encumbered
with stones, benches awry, and over-turned tables. And yet, through
all these obstacles, an invisible channel seemed open for the
spectre, which pursued its way unchecked.
Each time it passed before a window, the light from with out,
feeble as it was, shone upon the winding-sheet and the ghost,
outlining the figure, which passed into the obscurity to reappear
and vanish again at each succeeding one, Roland, his eyes fixed
upon the figure, fearing to lose sight of it if he diverted his
gaze from it, dared not look at the path, apparently so easy to
the spectre, yet bristling with obstacles for him. He stumbled
at every step. The ghost was gaining upon him. It reached the
door opposite to that by which it had entered. Roland saw the
entrance to a dark passage. Feeling that the ghost would escape
him, he cried: "Man or ghost, robber or monk, halt or I fire!"
"A dead body cannot be killed twice, and death has no power over
the spirit," replied the ghost in its muffled voice.
"Who are you?"
"The Shade of him you tore violently from the earth."
The young officer burst into that harsh, nervous laugh, made more
terrible by the darkness around him.
"Faith!" said he, "if you have no further indications to give
me, I shall not trouble myself to discover you."
"Remember the fountain at Vaucluse," said the Shade, in a voice
so faint the words seemed to escape his lips like a sigh rather
than articulate speech.
For an instant Roland felt, not his heart failing him, but the
sweat pouring from his forehead. Making an effort over himself,
he regained his voice and cried, menacingly: "For a last time,
apparition or reality, I warn you that, if you do not stop, I
shall fire!"
The Shade did not heed him, but continued on its way.
Roland paused an instant to take aim. The spectre was not ten
paces from him. Roland was a sure shot; he had himself loaded
his pistols, and only a moment before he had looked to the charge
to see that it was intact.
As the spectre passed, tall and white, beneath the gloomy vault
of the passage, Roland fired. The flash illumined the corridor
like lightning, down which the spectre passed with unfaltering,
unhastening steps. Then all was blacker than before. The ghost
vanished in the darkness. Roland dashed after him, changing his
other pistol from the left hand to the right. But short as his
stop had been, the ghost had gained ground. Roland saw him at
the end of the passage, this time distinctly outlined against
the gray background of the night. He redoubled his pace, and
as he crossed the threshold of the passage, he fancied that the
ghost was plunging into the bowels of the earth. But the torso
still remained visible.
"Devil or not," cried Roland, "I follow you!"
He fired a second shot, which filled the cavernous space, into
which the ghost had disappeared, with flame and smoke.
When the smoke had cleared away, Roland looked vainly around.
He was alone. He sprang into the cistern howling with rage. He
sounded the walls with the butt-end of his pistol, he stamped
on the ground; but everywhere, earth and stone gave back the
sound of solid objects. He tried to pierce the darkness, but
it was impossible. The faint moonlight that filtered into the
cistern died out at the first steps.
"Oh!" cried Roland, "a torch! a torch!"
No one answered. The only sound to be heard was the spring bubbling
close at hand. Realizing that further search would be useless,
he emerged from the cavern. Drawing a powder-horn and two balls
from his pocket, he loaded his pistols hastily. Then he took
the path along which he had just come, found the dark passage,
then the vast refectory, and again took his place at the end
of the silent hall and waited.
But the hours of the night sounded successively, until the first
gleam of dawn cast its pallid light upon the walls of the cloister.
"Well," muttered Roland, "it's over for to-night. Perhaps I shall
be more fortunate the next time."
Twenty minutes later he re-entered the Château des Noires-Fontaines.
