CHAPTER XVI. THE GHOST
The next evening, at about the same hour, the young officer, afterconvincing himself that every one in the Chateau des Noires-Fontaineshad gone to bed, opened his door softly, went downstairs holding hisbreath, reached the vestibule, slid back the bolts of the outer doornoiselessly, and turned round to make sure that all was quiet. Reassuredby the darkened windows, he boldly opened the iron gate. The hingeshad probably been oiled that day, for they turned without grating,and closed as noiselessly as they had opened behind Roland, who walkedrapidly in the direction of Pont d'Ain at Bourg.
He had hardly gone a hundred yards before the clock at Saint-Just struckonce; that of Montagnac answered like a bronze echo. It was half-pastten o'clock. At the pace the young man was walking he needed only twentyminutes to reach the Chartreuse; especially if, instead of skirting thewoods, he took the path that led direct to the monastery. Roland wastoo familiar from youth with every nook of the forest of Seillonto needlessly lengthen his walk ten minutes. He therefore turnedunhesitatingly into the forest, coming out on the other side in aboutfive minutes. Once there, he had only to cross a bit of open ground toreach the orchard wall of the convent. This took barely another fiveminutes.
At the foot of the wall he stopped, but only for a few seconds. Heunhooked 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, andtop-boots. The coat was fastened round the waist by a belt in which werea pair of pistols. A broad-brimmed hat covered his head and shaded hisface.
With the same rapidity with which he had removed his garment that mighthave hindered his climbing the wall, he began to scale it. His footreadily found a chink between the stones; he sprang up, seizing thecoping, and was on the other side without even touching the top of thewall over which he bounded. He picked up his cloak, threw it overhis shoulder, hooked it, and crossed the orchard to a little doorcommunicating with the cloister. The clock struck eleven as he passedthrough it. Roland stopped, counted the strokes, and slowly walkedaround the cloister, looking and listening.
He saw nothing and heard no noise. The monastery was the picture ofdesolation and solitude; the doors were all open, those of the cells,the chapel, and the refectory. In the refectory, a vast hall where thetables still stood in their places, Roland noticed five or six batscircling around; a frightened owl flew through a broken casement, andperched upon a tree close by, hooting dismally.
"Good!" said Roland, aloud; "I'll make my headquarters here; bats andowls 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 aboutit, that it would have caused even the speaker to shudder, had notRoland, as he himself said, been inaccessible to fear. He looked aboutfor a place from which he could command the entire hall. An isolatedtable, placed on a sort of stage at one end of the refectory, which hadno doubt been used by the superior of the convent to take his food apartfrom the monks, to read from pious books during the repast, seemed toRoland best adapted to his needs. Here, backed by the wall, he couldnot be surprised from behind, and, once his eye grew accustomed to thedarkness, he could survey every part of the hall. He looked for a seat,and found an overturned stool about three feet from the table, probablythe one occupied by the reader or the person dining there in solitude.
Roland sat down at the table, loosened his cloak to insure greaterfreedom of movement, took his pistols from his belt, laid one on thetable, 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 haveoften experienced, without analyzing it, the supreme necessity ofspeaking low and reverently which attaches to certain localities. Onlysuch persons can understand the strange impression produced on anyone who heard it by that curt, mocking voice which now disturbed thesolitude and the shadows. It vibrated an instant in the darkness, whichseemed 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 thedarkness, and now, by the pale light of the rising moon, whose long,white rays penetrated the refectory through the broken windows, he couldsee distinctly from one end to the other of the vast apartment. AlthoughRoland was as evidently without fear internally as externally, he wasnot without distrust, and his ear caught the slightest sounds.
He heard the half-hour strike. In spite of himself the sound startledhim, for it came from the bell of the convent. How was it that, in thisruin 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 andthe silence acted upon that heart of iron, firm as the iron that hadjust tolled the call of time upon eternity. The minutes slowly passed,one after the other. Perhaps a cloud was passing between earth andmoon, for Roland fancied that the shadows deepened. Then, as midnightapproached, he seemed to hear a thousand confused, imperceptible sounds,coming no doubt from the nocturnal universe which wakes while the othersleeps. Nature permits no suspension of life, even for repose. Shecreated her nocturnal world, even as she created her daily world, fromthe gnat which buzzes about the sleeper's pillow to the lion prowlingaround the Arab's bivouac.
But Roland, the camp watcher, the sentinel of the desert, Roland, thehunter, the soldier, knew all those sounds; they were powerless todisturb him.
Then, mingling with these sounds, the tones of the clock, chiming thehour, vibrated above his head. This time it was midnight. Roland countedthe twelve strokes, one after the other. The last hung, quivering uponthe air, like a bird with iron wings, then slowly expired, sad andmournful. Just then the young man, thought he heard a moan. He listenedin the direction whence it came. Again he heard it, this time nearer athand.
He rose, his hands resting upon the table, the butt-end of a pistolbeneath each palm. A rustle like that of a sheet or a gown trailingalong the grass was audible on his right, not ten paces from him. Hestraightened 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 waswrapped in an immense winding-sheet which trailed behind it.
For an instant Roland doubted his own eyes. Had the preoccupation of hismind made him see a thing which was not? Was he the dupe of his senses,the sport of those hallucinations which physicians assert, but cannotexplain? A moan, uttered by the phantom, put his doubts to flight.
"My faith!" he cried in a burst of laughter, "now for a tussle, friendghost!"
The spectre paused and extended a hand toward the young officer."Roland! Roland!" said the spectre in a muffled voice, "it would be apity 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, andresolutely followed the ghost. The path was difficult, encumbered withstones, benches awry, and over-turned tables. And yet, through allthese obstacles, an invisible channel seemed open for the spectre, whichpursued its way unchecked.
Each time it passed before a window, the light from with out, feebleas it was, shone upon the winding-sheet and the ghost, outlining thefigure, which passed into the obscurity to reappear and vanish again ateach succeeding one, Roland, his eyes fixed upon the figure, fearing tolose sight of it if he diverted his gaze from it, dared not look at thepath, apparently so easy to the spectre, yet bristling with obstaclesfor him. He stumbled at every step. The ghost was gaining upon him. Itreached the door opposite to that by which it had entered. Roland sawthe 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 p
ower over thespirit," 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 moreterrible by the darkness around him.
"Faith!" said he, "if you have no further indications to give me, Ishall not trouble myself to discover you."
"Remember the fountain at Vaucluse," said the Shade, in a voice so faintthe words seemed to escape his lips like a sigh rather than articulatespeech.
For an instant Roland felt, not his heart failing him, but the sweatpouring from his forehead. Making an effort over himself, he regainedhis voice and cried, menacingly: "For a last time, apparition orreality, 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 fromhim. Roland was a sure shot; he had himself loaded his pistols, and onlya 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 thepassage, Roland fired. The flash illumined the corridor like lightning,down which the spectre passed with unfaltering, unhastening steps. Thenall was blacker than before. The ghost vanished in the darkness. Rolanddashed after him, changing his other pistol from the left hand to theright. But short as his stop had been, the ghost had gained ground.Roland saw him at the end of the passage, this time distinctly outlinedagainst the gray background of the night. He redoubled his pace, and ashe crossed the threshold of the passage, he fancied that the ghost wasplunging into the bowels of the earth. But the torso still remainedvisible.
"Devil or not," cried Roland, "I follow you!"
He fired a second shot, which filled the cavernous space, into which theghost had disappeared, with flame and smoke.
When the smoke had cleared away, Roland looked vainly around. He wasalone. He sprang into the cistern howling with rage. He sounded thewalls with the butt-end of his pistol, he stamped on the ground; buteverywhere, earth and stone gave back the sound of solid objects. Hetried to pierce the darkness, but it was impossible. The faint moonlightthat 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 bubblingclose at hand. Realizing that further search would be useless, heemerged from the cavern. Drawing a powder-horn and two balls from hispocket, he loaded his pistols hastily. Then he took the path along whichhe had just come, found the dark passage, then the vast refectory, andagain took his place at the end of the silent hall and waited.
But the hours of the night sounded successively, until the first gleamof dawn cast its pallid light upon the walls of the cloister.
"Well," muttered Roland, "it's over for to-night. Perhaps I shall bemore fortunate the next time."
Twenty minutes later he re-entered the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines.