*CHAPTER XVI*
*THE GHOSTLY VISITANT*
A few moments later the two men were startled by the sound of a humanvoice, trolling out the words of some German folk-song, and approachingfrom the same quarter towards the clearing.
"This is our man," exclaimed Keane, as he removed the screen from thefire and stirred the dying embers into a cheerful blaze, piling on moredried twigs, so that the trees about the glade seemed to dance likefairies.
"Some woodman or peasant returning from a party," observed Sharpe.
"I wonder where his cottage is," replied his friend; "it must besomewhere in the neighbourhood."
"We must welcome him to a belated supper. Perhaps this good Rhine winewill open his lips still more, and he may tell us something about thebirds of the Schwarzwald."
"Particularly the phantom-bird," facetiously observed Keane with asmile.
Nearer and nearer came the stranger, breaking occasionally into snatchesof song, as though he would frighten away the goblins and weirdcreatures of the forest, for of the superstitious peoples of Europe, thepeasantry of the Black Forest are most given to credulous beliefs.Perhaps this is because no other district of Europe is so rich in quaintlegend, folklore and ghostly tradition.
Now and then the approaching stranger would stop his singing to addresssome remark to a companion; evidently some beast of burden trudgingbeside him. The next moment the figure of a man, leading a pack-horsethrough the forest, suddenly emerged upon the clearing. Catching asight of the dancing flames which mounted skyward as one of the airmenstirred the fire into life, and beholding the dark figures of the twostrangers, the newcomer, suddenly stopped, apparently half-terrified bythe sudden apparition.
"Geistlich!" he muttered, staring with wide-open eyes towards the suddenflame.
"Guten abend, freund!" exclaimed Keane, wishing to draw the man intoconversation.
The man's fears departed as soon as he discovered that he was addressedby human beings like himself, for in his first wild flight of fancy hefeared it was far otherwise, and that he had suddenly come upon one ofthose forbidden glades, where the sprites and goblins dance after dark.
"Guten abend!" he replied, and, being asked to join the company, madehaste to do so, reining in his loaded horse and tethering him to atree-stump close by.
"'Tis late to travel these lonely woods, friend," said Keane inexcellent German.
"Yes, 'tis late, but the moon will soon be up, and then, why, 'twill bebetter footing," replied the stranger, whose full, round face andlonging eyes were already directed towards a wicker-covered bottle,which seemed to hold something good, so that he smacked his lips once ortwice, and in fancy he was already draining the sweet nectar which thebottle contained.
"Have you far to go?" asked Sharpe.
"Why, yes, 'tis another seven miles to my cottage in the woods."
"Then stay with us an hour until the moon shall rise and clear away thegoblins of the Schwarzwald," urged Keane, who, by this time, had beenable to examine the stranger's face by the light of the fire, and toread it like a book.
"A simple, credulous fellow, a true peasant of the Schwarzwald,untouched by the outer world," he told himself. "He should be useful tous." Then, passing to him the wicker-covered bottle, he said:--
"Good Rhine wine from Bacharach, Hans. Taste it!"
"Ach, from Bacharach on the Rhine, Comes the finest sort of wine,"
exclaimed the stranger in the rude dialect of the Black Forest, and hisround eyes sparkled as he clutched the bottle, raised it to his lips,and drank half a pint without stopping to take breath.
"'Tis a long time since I tasted such rich and luscious wine,gentlemen," said the peasant, handing back the bottle.
"Pray be seated and rest awhile," urged his companions, and nothingloath to keep such excellent company, Hans, if such was really his name,sat down by the fire.
"Pray, what brings you to the lonely Schwarzwald, gentlemen? Have youcome to hunt for the wild boar, or to fish the mountain streams?" heasked, "for I can show you where the biggest fish are to be found, andwhere the wild pig rears her litters."
"Butterflies and birds, especially birds," replied Keane, pointing tohis nets, and his neat little boxes for packing specimens.
"Birds? Ach, there is one bird which sometimes flies in these partswhich you will never catch," said the peasant, speaking in loweredtones, as though half-frightened by his own words.
"Ha! What bird is that?" asked the others.
"Hist!" exclaimed Hans, raising his forefinger, and looking guardedlyaround. "It is the phantom-bird!"
"The phantom-bird?" echoed the two airmen, who could scarcely believetheir eyes and ears, as they earnestly regarded this solemn, frightened,half-childish man, who had evidently seen the very thing they had comeso far to find, but who believed it to be something supernatural.
The two Englishmen glanced at each other. Had they really found someonewho could enlighten them about this mysterious aeroplane, for he couldcertainly be referring to nothing else? And at that moment Keaneblessed his lucky star, which had led him to choose these wild forestregions for their jumping-off ground. Still, they must not appear toocurious, lest they should betray the reason of their presence here.
Keane shook his head as, with an apparently incredulous laugh, and asympathetic motion of the hand, he would banish all tales of ghostlyvisitants to the realm of limbo. This only had the effect of egging onthe speaker to tell his tale, however.
"Ach, Himmel!" he exclaimed. "Es war geistlich!"
"Did you see it, then?"
"Ya, das hab ich!" returned the other.
"Was it in the day or the night-time when you saw it?" asked Sharpe.
"It was night, about this time, and there was but a half-moon above thetree tops."
"Were you very much frightened, Hans?"
"Yes, I was scared to death almost. I thought the old man of themountains had come for me. I had been to market to sell my littlewooden-clocks, and near this very place the huge grey phantom birdswooped down, then circled round and round and disappeared there, overthere!" and the peasant, his eyes almost starting out of his head withterror, pointed away to the east.
"Bah! It was no bird, it was an aeroplane, Hans. You should not havebeen frightened," exclaimed Keane, who had been taking particular noteof the direction in which the mysterious machine had disappeared.
"Yes, a ghost-aeroplane!" iterated the Schwarzwalder. "There has neverbeen anything like it before."
"Did anybody else see it?" queried Sharpe, passing the bottle once againto Hans, who stayed but a moment to wipe his lips with his sleeve, andto take another deep drink of the wine.
"Ja, it was seen by Jacob Stendahl the same night, not far from thisvery place."
"And who is Jacob Stendahl?" asked Keane.
"He is the woodcutter whose cottage is down by the stream, two milesaway. That path leads to his house. He was terrified; he said it wasan evil omen, and next morning his little Gretchen died."
"And what happened to you, Hans?" asked Sharpe.
"That same night my sow farrowed, and all the litter were dead nextmorning," replied the peasant gravely.
A deep silence followed this last remark, and the Schwarzwalder broodedover his misfortune, and lamented to himself the loss of his fine litterof young pigs.
The two airmen felt certain now that Hans had really seen the mysteriousaeroplane, and they plied him with a dozen further questions as to thenoise it made in passing, and the speed at which it travelled, andwhether anyone else had seen or heard of it. To some of their questionsHans could give no coherent answer. He said, however, that very fewpeople lived in this part of the forest, and parts of it were seldom ornever trodden by human foot. He had spoken to one or two about it, andthey also had either seen or heard of it from someone else, and thegeneral opinion amongst the Schwarzwalders in that part, was, that itwas one of the dead German a
irmen, whose spirit came to visit the spotin a ghost-aeroplane.
"Which of the German aces is it, then, that revisits this place, do theythink?" asked Keane.
"Some say that it is the ghost of Immelmann, who used to come herebefore the war to hunt the wild boar; others say that it is the spiritof Richthofen, but I cannot say," replied Hans.
On the question of speed and noise, however, the peasant declared thathe was certain.
"It must have been a ghost-aeroplane," he said, "because it was silent,and its speed was like the passing of a spirit when it leaves the body."
A deep silence followed these words, but at the end of a few minutesHans, pointing to the east, said:--
"Look, friends, the moon is rising already. It is getting lighter, and Imust go."
Then, untethering his pack-horse, he thanked the strangers for theirhospitality, gave them the direction and situation of his cottage, wherethey would be welcome, should they care to visit him during their stayin the Schwarzwald, and, bidding them adieu, started off on his journeythrough the forest.