Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  By this time the last boatload of the rescued reached the barque and began to ascend the side. As the first man reached the deck, Bruce seized the captain’s elbow, and, almost too agitated to speak coherently, pointed to him.

  “There he is! The man in your cabin!”

  The rest of the rescued crew having reached the deck, the captain immediately sought out the captain of the lost vessel, in order, if possible, to elicit some explanation of the mate’s extraordinary adventure.

  After receiving a general account of the misfortunes and privations which the castaways had undergone, the captain asked:

  “Who is that dark man with a full beard, rather tall, about my own weight and build, who came aboard with you in the last boat, wearing no hat?”

  The other thought for a moment, and then asked:

  “Do you mean the man who got aboard first?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, he’s a passenger — we had only three — and a very good fellow, but rather excitable, I think.”

  “Now my first mate,” said the captain, “isn’t excitable at all, as a general thing, but he has been extraordinarily excited to-day. Some few hours ago he came and reported a strange man in my cabin — this cabin, in fact — and, singularly enough, although we searched the ship and found nobody, we found that writing on this slate.” He handed it across the table.

  The rescued captain glanced at it.

  “Steer to the north-west,” he read. “Well, I can’t, for the life of me, remember whose it is but it strikes me I have seen a handwriting like that before.”

  “I haven’t,” replied the captain, “nor any one on my ship, seemingly. But the strange thing is that I did steer north-west when I saw this, and found you; and, a stranger thing still, that directly the man I just spoke to you about stepped aboard, my first mate swore he was the man he saw in my cabin!”

  The captains stared at one another for a moment, and then the newcomer, slightly changing colour, said:

  “This is the most remarkable coincidence I ever heard of, I shouldn’t have thought an idle dream worth mentioning if you hadn’t told me what you have. That passenger has been all along in a most down-hearted, desponding state until this morning, and till then I don’t believe he slept for the last fortnight. This morning he fell into a very deep sleep indeed, with his head against a chest, and, although a man fell over him, he didn’t wake. This lasted for, I should say, two hours and a half or three hours, when he woke in the most light-hearted temper imaginable, and began telling every one that we should be picked up by a barque in an hour or two for certain. His manner was so very different from what it had previously been, and he described the barque which was coming with so much exactness, that we feared the poor fellow’s head was getting a little out of bearings with his sufferings. When you hove in sight — just the kind of barque he had been describing — I confess I was almost as much startled as I was delighted, but I put it down to coincidence, which I suppose it is. But about that writing?”

  “Ah,” said the captain, “about that writing. Do you think you could fetch your excitable friend here?”

  Yes he could, and he did. The passenger came down the ladder, laughing and chatting volubly like a light-hearted schoolboy.

  “Captain, you’re a brick. I don’t think I need say how glad I was to meet you and your ship, eh? Ha, ha! You’re a capital lot of fellows, and I’m sure we can’t thank you enough. I don’t recollect ever having been aboard your ship before, but everything seems very familiar. Who’s your first mate? I believe I’ve met him somewhere, but he won’t have anything to say to me.”

  “Very glad to have been of service, I’m sure,” replied the captain. “By the bye, we were just having a little discussion, which perhaps you can help us to settle. Do you mind writing something on that slate?” And he handed him the slate still bearing the caligraphic efforts of the ship’s company.

  “Certainly. What a collection of autographs! What shall I write?”

  “Well, suppose you write what the others have written: ‘Steer to the north-west.’”

  The light-hearted passenger did so. Then taking up his own slate, upon which still remained the mysterious message of the morning, the captain placed them side by side. The hand-writings were identical. The sentences were fac-similes of each other, every turn, every twist of every letter the same exactly!

  The passenger was as much astonished as the other two. And when the captain related the occurrences of the morning, and was corroborated by his mate, his bewilderment was beyond words. He could offer no explanation whatever, and could only relate that he seemed to have fallen asleep without any previous feeling of drowsiness, and had awoke with the strongest possible conviction, for which he could in no way account, that a rescue would shortly be effected by a barque sailing from the south-east, the very shape and rig of the barque being impressed upon his mind as distinctly as inexplicably.

  THE WRAITH OF FRANCIS TANTUM

  MANY cases are on record of the appearance, or supposed appearance, at about the time of death, of a person’s form to some near friend or relative, and, in some cases, to several. Indeed, there can scarcely be a family in which such an occurrence has not, at some time or another, been said to have taken place.

  An explanation of these phenomena is suggested by much of what we know of hypnotism. We know that a man gifted with a peculiar degree of will power can, by exerting it to a full and often exhausting extent, cause varying impressions to be produced upon the brain of another person, with whom he is said to be en rapport. It thereupon suggests itself that a person in the throes of that change of state which we call death, undergoes a certain paroxysm in which the whole powers and faculties of the body are put upon a sudden and momentary tension; and admitting, which it is reasonable to do, that his mind is probably at that time fixed upon some very dear absent friend or relative, it is easy to conceive that the sudden tension of those faculties, among others, with which the hypnotist produces certain effects upon the mind of his subject, might well produce upon the person on whom the mind is fixed the most unstudied and involuntary impression from the dying person which is possible to the senses, namely, the appearance of his form as, according to recollection, it was in times past ordinarily seen; not the presence of that form, it will be understood, but the impression upon the sensorium of such presence, the impression being at times conveyed to the auditory sense, as well as to the sight, just as the hypnotist conveys deceptive impressions to any of the senses.

  The birthplace and early residence of William Howitt was at the village (one would, nowadays, considering its growth of population, call it the town) of Heanor, in Derbyshire. Heanor lies about nine miles from Derby town north-easterly, on the road to Mansfield, and about five miles almost due east of Belper. Of Howitt himself it is scarcely necessary to speak. Born of an old Quaker family resident at Heanor for many generations, his life and his writings, as well as those of his wife, are well known; although, perhaps, less so to-day than they were twenty years ago.

  Of his mother Mr. Howitt always retained the kindest memories. Her maiden name had been Tantum, and her family was of good standing in the county. She had two brothers, Richard and Francis. Francis — whose age at the time when the occurrence to be related took place was twenty — was a great favourite of hers. He lived at Heanor Hall, and was on very friendly terms with the family of Mr. E. Miller Mundy, M.P. for the county, and was a frequent visitor at this gentleman’s house, Shipley Hall, a mile or two from Heanor.

  William Howitt was born in 1789, and it was shortly after this event, and while approaching her convalescence, that Mrs. Howitt’s adventure happened.

  The afternoon was warm, clear, and sunny, and the patient was enjoying the breath of the new summer air which came in at her open window, and listening dreamily to the busy chirrup of the thousand birds in the trees between the window and the road. For fear of draughts, however, the curtains at her bed-foot had been drawn close, and she c
ould see nothing of the changing tints of the leaves as they rustled in the breeze; could but hear the lazy step of the carrier’s horse as he passed on up the village street toward the Admiral Rodney, at the corner of the Shipley Road, without the possibility of inspecting from the window the variety of his load and speculating as to its different destinations. Now and again the sound of footsteps quietly crushing the dust of the road would increase, and again become fainter, as some passenger left or approached the village — the house was the end one — and these sounds, with the occasional addition of the subdued low of the “far kine,” were all of the outside world that Mrs. Howitt was conscious of.

  The old hall clock below sleepily buzzed out four.

  It had occurred to her to send for a book, and she was about to pull the bell-cord for that purpose when she heard dull, muffled footsteps on the landing outside, and at the door a knock of a similarly subdued sound; then the door opened, and the footsteps approached the foot of the bed, where the curtains parted slowly and the face of Francis Tantum, her brother, appeared; wearing an expression, however, very solemn and mournful in contrast to his usual laughing, rollicking air.

  “Why, Frank,” exclaimed Mrs. Howitt, “you rather startled me. Come round and sit down; I want to talk to you.”

  Then the curtains closed and the face vanished. Footsteps again, and the door opened and shut. Then all was quiet. He had gone.

  “Frank!” cried Mrs. Howitt.

  No reply.

  She hastily rang the bell, and her maid, who had been at the foot of the staircase, entered.

  “Run after Mr. Tantum, and ask him to come back. He has just gone downstairs.”

  The maid’s eyes widened. “He hasn’t gone down stairs lately, ma’am,” she said. “I’ve been at the stairfoot picking up a paper full of pins I dropped, and nobody passed me.”

  “But I saw him myself; he came in here,” replied Mrs. Howitt; “go down and look for him.” And the girl went.

  Nobody had seen Mr. Frank Tantum. The road lay straight and clear along and from the front of the house, but there was no sign in either direction of his retreating figure. The hall clock had struck four while the maid was looking for the pins, and it was barely five minutes past, so that he could scarcely have got out of sight. No one had opened the door that day to him. The gardener, who was digging at the corner of the garden facing the road, had neither seen him arrive nor leave. The maid returned to the house to inquire further in the kitchen.

  Mrs. Howitt was lying in her bed still listening. The merriment of the birds and the whispering of the trees still went on. Then these suddenly became supplemented by others, unusual in quiet Heanor — the noise of men running, news passed quickly from mouth to mouth in breathless snatches, rapid feet hurrying past toward the village. What was it?

  A vague, shapeless fear seized her. Sitting up in bed, she pulled violently and long at the bell rope but although women’s feet were heard ascending the stairs, they stopped outside the door, and there was whispering. Why didn’t they come in? She called.

  Presently her nurse entered, wearing a hastily-assumed and ineffectual air of serenity.

  “What’s the matter? Why didn’t you come? What are all the people running for?”

  “Nothing, ma’am. Oh no, nothing at all. Now, do lie down again, or you’ll be ill. It is only boys playing. Will you have a cup of tea?”

  “Tell me what it is! I know something has happened,” replied Mrs. Howitt, attempting to rise; “tell me what it is, I tell you!”

  “Oh, dear, dear ma’am, do keep quiet,” said the agitated nurse, “it isn’t — I don’t think it’s anything very bad. I’ll call and fetch some one,” and the help of others of the household was enlisted to attempt to soothe the patient’s agitation.

  But she would not rest content except she were told what had happened; and by degrees the terrible news was broken to her.

  Francis Tantum had been murdered in the village street!

  This was the manner of the crime. Francis Tantum had dined with Mr. Miller Mundy at Shipley Hall. At that time the fashion of late dinners had not taken hold of the country gentry so far from London as Heanor, and by half-past three Frank Tantum’s horse was saddled and waiting for him, and a few minutes later he was riding merrily away. Mr. Mundy’s port was good, and his guest had just drunk enough of it to raise his ordinarily high spirits and put him in the humour for fun with everybody. So he joked the porter at the lodge, threw a sixpence for the porter’s children to scramble for, and went on his way rejoicing.

  He took the direct road for Heanor Hall, which crossed the main Heanor street at right angles in the village, nearly half a mile from the Howitt’s residence.

  The way was rough and dusty, and as he neared Heanor, whistling and lashing out at an occasional fly as it approached his horse’s ears, and came in sight of the Admiral Rodney, standing at the corner of the road, a fancy struck him that a glass of ale would be suitable to the occasion. So, reining up outside the inn, he called for it.

  The Admiral Rodney was kept by a respectable and comely widow — Mrs. Horrocks — whose son, Richard, a quiet, and, to all appearances, well-conducted young man of twenty, helped her in the business. The son answered Francis Tantum’s call, and the latter, who knew every living creature for ten miles round, and was a universal favourite, greeted him with:

  “A glass of ale, Dick, a glass of ale. Come along, Dick! quick, quick!” and laughingly hit him across the shoulders with his riding whip.

  Richard Horrocks rushed into the house, and seizing a carving knife, sprang at Tantum and stabbed him dead off his horse.

  The villagers ran and caught him as he fell, and, as they raised him, the church clock struck. It was four o’clock.

  It was almost by a miracle that Horrocks escaped the crowd, who would have torn him to pieces. He was apprehended and tried at Derby Assizes, but, in view of the circumstances of the case, humanity prevailed in a way only too rare in those days of death for sheep-stealing, and he was convicted of manslaughter only, and served six months’ imprisonment. His mother died, and he returned and lived a quiet life at the inn, always, however, remaining an object of aversion to the people of Heanor.

  For many years after these occurrences the Heanor bells were tolled on the anniversary of Francis Tantum’s death, and always at four o’clock in the afternoon. Who shall imagine the feelings of Richard Horrocks as he listened?

  THE APPARITION OF LIEUTENANT COLT

  THE narrative here set forth is completely testified to in a manner which puts it as an unvarnished matter of fact beyond all doubt. The prayer book and the original letter referred to are in the possession of Captain G. F. Russell Colt, the younger brother of the late Lieutenant Colt.

  On the 28th of March, 1854, war was declared by Great Britain against Russia, and afterward — not at all as soon as should have been the case — troops began to leave our shores for Varna, and later for the Crimea. The succeeding tale of blunder and delay, official incompetence, and nobly endured privation and suffering, is too well known to need more than a passing allusion, as is that of the hard fights of the Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, and Traktir, which led up to the final bombardment and fall of Sebastopol.

  Among the thousands of good soldiers who left England to do their duty in that bloody conflict was Lieutenant Colt, of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, a young man of only nineteen, the eldest son of his family. While lying before Sebastopol he, in common with so many other hardly-spared men, became stricken with illness, and it was noticed that his letters home assumed a rather low-spirited character. His younger brother, Mr. (afterwards Captain) G. F. Russell Colt, was his most frequent correspondent, and in response to one of these letters jocularly told him to cheer up, but that if anything very unpleasant did happen, he had better appear to him somewhere; preferably in the well-known old bedroom at Inveresk House, where they had so often enjoyed a surreptitious pipe and a chat together; because telegraphic communication with the Cr
imea was not complete, and otherwise the news would be long in reaching Scotland. Inveresk House was their father’s residence, near Musselburgh, Midlothian, and Mr. Russell Colt was at this time staying there during his school holidays.

  News had arrived slowly from the Crimea through the summer and early autumn of 1855. On the 7th of June the Mamelon had been taken; on the 18th an unsuccessful attack had been made on the Malakhoff and the Redan; on the 28th good Lord Raglan, the British commander, had died of cholera; on the 16th of August, the French and Sardinians had heavily defeated the Russians at the Bridge of Traktir; and toward the end of August there was talk of the final attack.

  At Inveresk, the 8th of September, 1855, was a dull, cheerless, rainy day. Mr. Colt went to bed that night at about the usual time. His bed-room, the one he had mentioned in his letter to his brother Oliver (which letter had now been despatched about a fortnight, and was almost forgotten), was a singular old room, long and narrow, with a door at one end, near which was the bed, and a window at the other.

  He slept soundly until shortly after two o’clock, when he awoke with a sudden shock. He sat up and looked about him, and there, kneeling at his bed-side, but facing toward the window at the far end of the room, waxily pale and transparent, was the distinct figure of his brother Oliver — his brother Oliver, who was fifteen hundred miles away, fighting in the Crimea. Bright and distinct, although surrounded by what seemed a phosphorescent haze, there it knelt, motionless, looking toward the window.