Occult Review/Explorers’ Ghost Stories

Being True Ghost Stories from Labrador, Borneo, New Guinea, the Himalayas, the Alps, and the Pacific Ocean Genuinely true ghost stories are hard to come by, as anyone who takes the trouble to track them to their origin may know. They have a way of becoming less convincing, less impressive, the nearer one draws to their source. Often enough they evaporate completely. A true ghost story, honestly told, always thrills; and some of the best I have found in books of travel and exploration, where the traveller, bent upon quite other matters and probably not even interested in otherworldly things, has come across a queer happening and set it down honestly and faithfully. Having read several such experiences in books of this kind, I have jotted them down. They may interest others as they did me.

The narrators, as a rule, are hardheaded men, who have warmed both hands at the fires of life. Most of them have looked bright-eyed danger in the face without blinking. They have been “up against it” in a thousand ways. They hold life cheap. Their books, respectively, prove them men of courage and resource. And when men of this stamp tell a queer story and vouch for its veracity, the story is usually impressive. Not all of the tales I shall quote from are, strictly speaking, ghost stories, but all are interesting, suggestive, and, to say the least, mighty queer. They happened both on sea and land. To take a sea experience first:

It is described in A Gypsy of the Horn, where Rex Clements tells of his voyage in a windjammer round the world some twenty years ago. The queer incident may be found on page 129 et seq. , and it occurred in the Pacific, soon after leaving Chatham Island. The weather for days had been severe, even terrible, but the ship at last had run into calmer water.

“One dark, moonless night,” says the author, “just before we got clear of the ‘Forties’, with a fresh breeze blowing, and the ship running quietly along under t’gallant’sls, there occurred a most uncanny experience.

“It was about four bells in the middle watch, the ‘churchyard watch,’ as the four hours after midnight is called, that it happened. We, of the mate’s watch, were on deck, the men for’ard, Burton and I under the break, and Mr. Thomas pacing the poop above our heads. Suddenly, apparently close aboard on the port hand, there came howling out of the darkness a most frightful, wailing cry, ghastly in its agony and intensity. Not of overpowering volume⁠—a score of men shouting together could have raised as loud a hail⁠—it was the indescribable calibre and agony of the shriek that almost froze the blood in our veins.”

All rushed to the rail, mate and men too, and stared into the blackness to windward. “The starbowlines, tired men asleep in their bunks below, poured up on deck, If ever men were horror-struck, we were. Even the Old Man was awakened by it, and came up on deck to see. All listened, eyes strained. A moment or two passed⁠—then the appalling scream rang out again, rising to the point of almost unbearable torture and dying crazily away in broken whimperings.⁠ ⁠… No one said a word. All stood like stones, peering into the gloom. The sound was not repeated.⁠ ⁠… Slowly, at length, like men emerging from a trance, we moved and spoke.⁠ ⁠… The men sat up all night, unable to sleep.⁠ ⁠…”

Many guesses, the author goes on to say, were hazarded as to the explanation of the awful, terrifying cry, but none of them seemed satisfactory to anybody. The cry of a whale was suggested, “but I never heard a whale utter any sounds with its throat,” is the writer’s comment. Some sea-monster that only rarely comes to the surface? “More unlikely still.” The scream of seals, or of sea-lions, on an island beach? Yet the nearest land was Easter Island, 600 miles to the north! The shriek, moreover, as all who heard it agreed, was “so human.” Was it a shipwrecked boat’s crew?

The uncanny sound was never explained. Its effect upon all concerned, from the captain downwards, lasted for days. “In bare words,” adds the author finally, “it doesn’t sound very terrible, but it made that night a night of terror, and even now it sends a shiver through me to think of it.”

A sound that keeps the crew of a windjammer out of their beds all night and put the fear of God into the ship’s officers as well, to say nothing of the Old Man, may well have been of a fairly convincing nature! The incident, taken out of its full context, and apart from the atmosphere of an enthralling book, loses, of course, something of its impressiveness. It has, however, the true ring about it. That cry was heard by a large number of hardheaded men; it scared them badly; and explanation there was none.

While on the subject of queer noises, whether auditory hallucinations or otherwise, two other cases are worth mentioning, both of them in high mountains:

The first is told by the famous rock-climber, George D. Abraham, the author of many thrilling books of mountain adventure, and the hero of more than one escape. He was in a hut on the Dôm, 9,400 feet up, with a couple of porters. “Just at twilight,” he writes, “a curious thing happened. We were all sitting round the cold stove, wrapped in blankets, when a terribly human yell, as of pain, sounded outside quite close to the hut, and just for the moment it caused the bravest of us to shudder. Two of us wrenched open the snowed-up door, fully expecting to revive someone in distress. However, nothing was visible but dense snow clouds, and no human traces could be seen near the hut.⁠ ⁠… The two porters were in a state of collapse and did little but mutter ‘Geister! Geister!’ with other expressions in patois signifying that the whole party was doomed. Nothing would suffice but that they must descend to the valley at once and leave me (with my guide] to finish the climb, which they felt now would be our last.” The porters were seen down into safety, while the author and his guide spent a cold and sleepless night in the hut, but did not hear the yell again, nor ascertain what caused it. No disaster followed, at any rate, beyond the minor one that the porters’ heavy loads had to be borne by others.

The story has its interest. Mountains guides and porters are not, as a rule, superstitious in the ghostly sense, although certain mountains, certain peaks rather, may enjoy an atmosphere that is malignant in their minds. The Matterhorn, until conquered, most certainly was haunted for the local peasants, this being due partly to its believed inaccessibility and terrifying rockfalls, and partly, no doubt, to its dangerous and menacing aspect. It is no longer haunted now, Whynper having, if at an awful price, laid its evil spirit. In the case just described, it is significant that more than one man heard the strange cry, the same remark applying also to the shriek heard by the windjammers crew. What one man hears may easily be set down as hallucination, but a collective hallucination is more difficult to accept. Mountains, on the other hand, are notorious for strange noises: wind, ice splitting off, rocks falling, snow settling (the dull boom of a snowfield settling is an unpleasant sound), to say nothing of the tricks that echo may play. Experienced climbers, on the other hand, are familiar with these odd sounds and could hardly ascribe them to a human yell.

Captain Gault Macgowan, F.R.G.S. and his wife, climbing in the Western Himalayas, have a similar tale to tell, though in this case it was a mysterious rifle shot that undoubtedly saved their lives. The account must be condensed, although such condensation robs it of much interesting and exciting detail. Macgowan and his wife, for certain reasons, left their main party and undertook a very harebrained (his own word!) climb on their own account. As the day was closing in they found themselves amid a waste of these immense and desolate mountains, in freezing cold, without provisions or shelter, lost at a great height. For hours they had adventured recklessly among gaping crevasses, along knife-edge crests, and across steep couloirs ending in a sheer drop into empty space. Both were exhausted, cold, hungry, when, having descended at grave risk a dangerous gradient, they reached a mighty crevasse impossible to cross. Turning to reclimb the awful slope, the smooth rocks they had slithered down, proved unnegotiable. Unable to get up or down, they found themselves stuck. “Nearby was a hollow in the rocks. We crept into it and gazed at each other helplessly. It looked as if this was the end.”

Their predicament seemed hopeless, and a night at such an elevation, without food or dry clothing, must have ended in death.

“Suddenly across the snowy spaces, came the sharp crack of a rifle-shot! Imagine our relief! We realized at once that the shikari was somewhere near us, and blessed him for his wisdom in firing the gun⁠—our only means of communication. My wife turned the glasses in the direction of the shot, and in two moments we had picked up the main party⁠—four tiny black dots away across the glacier, high up on the opposite side of the valley. She took off her coat and waved it frantically, and we shouted our loudest in chorus. Had they seen us⁠ ⁠… ?”

Several hours later, after some perilous scrambling in the deepening twilight, the two parties met and danger was over. “We congratulated the shikari on his forethought in firing the gun, for it had undoubtedly been the means of saving our lives. To our amazement, however, the man indignantly denied having fired his rifle. He seemed hurt that we should accuse him of doing so without permission, and declared that he had heard no shot, the porters verifying his statement. Thereupon I counted the ammunition. It was untouched; the rifle was clean! There was no alternative but to believe that Providence had taken a hand on our behalf, and the porters assured us emphatically that God had saved our lives.”

The story invites none but rather obvious comment perhaps. Of the three incidents described, that of the windjammer is the most convincing. A characteristic belonging to them all is noticeable, and perhaps significant: that the strange sounds were heard by men in a state of physical exhaustion. The ship’s crew, after weeks of battling with terrific weather, were worn out, and climbers, at the end of a long day which has started probably before dawn, are in a condition of severe bodily fatigue. Nerves and muscles are both weary.

The other cases of queer or ghostly happenings I have jotted down from my reading are, I think, of a more interesting and significant kind, more convincing, at any rate. Two of them combine visual with audible experiences; the tangible being, however, not included, touch being, perhaps, the rarest of qualities met with in a ghost story, or the sense most difficult to affect. When all three senses are impressed, to say nothing of smell and taste, the result may be considered highly interesting, though not necessarily more evidential.

Commander H. G. Stoker, D.S.O., R.N. , gives a curious account of a visible appearance in his book Straws in the Wind, when he describes his escape with two companions from the Turkish Prison Camp at Hissar, in the centre of Asia Minor and 130 miles from the nearest sea. The characteristic of physical exhaustion and intense nervous strain is again noticeable, as will be seen. Captain Stoker, of course, was in charge of the famous submarine AE2 during the war, whose exploits were well known⁠—a man of great daring and resource. Two officer friends of his on the submarine had lost their lives some eighteen months before the uncanny experience to be described: during the escape, as he frankly tells us, he mistook his two companions in flight for these two dead men, addressing them as such even in daylight, “while realizing the absurdity of the obsession and recognizing it was an hallucination.” The overwrought condition of mind and nerves is frankly admitted, yet the visible appearance, the ghost, which was seen by him when in this state, was seen by his two escaping pals as well. Here is the point of interest in this curious account. We hear much about “extended telepathy” nowadays. Did Commander Stoker’s strong personality transfer a visual hallucination of his own to the receptive minds of his two companions? He goes into little detail concerning it, merely giving a straightforward description of what occurred. He mentions, however, that the whole time the ghostly figure was visible⁠—several hours⁠—he kept the fact to himself. It was later that he discovered from a spontaneous remark of his companions that they both had seen the figure too. The appearance, he declares, differed wholly from the obsession of his dead officer friends of the submarine. This latter he recognized as a pure hallucination.

To come, then, to his “queer” tale:

With two companions they escaped from the Prison Camp and got a fair start before their absence could be noticed, and in due course, after breathless experiences and hairbreadth risks, they reached the Taurus Mountains on their way to the sea. Only one Pass was feasible, it was strictly guarded, sentries armed to the teeth prowled over its narrow neck, watch fires gleamed. One of their party would reconnoitre, and then the three of them would crawl past just out of reach of the dangerous fires. It was very dark, a wild night, a gale of wind whistling through the crags. The sense of danger, prolonged over several hours, was intense; another step and they might be challenged, shot at sight; but the storm muffled the noise of their stumbling among the rough stones, and the sentries did not stray further than need be from their fires. Hunger, thirst, physical exhaustion, nervous and mental strain, all were severe. They moved in single file.

“In the middle of the night [ p. 271] I felt⁠—not suddenly nor surprisedly⁠—that we were not three men struggling along in line, but four. There was a fourth man at the end of our line, in the correct position for a fourth man to be. When we stopped for a few moments’ rest, he did not join us, but remained in the darkness, out of sight; yet as soon as we rose and resumed our march, he dropped into place forthwith. He never spoke, nor did he go ahead to lead us. His attitude seemed just that of the true and loyal friend who says: ‘I cannot help, but when danger is at hand remember always that I am here, to stand⁠—or fall⁠—with you.’ ”

The face is not seen, it will be noticed; no sound of footsteps stumbling among the rocks is audible; there is no detailed description of the figure, beyond that it is that of a man; nor is any attempt at speech recorded, either between the author and the ghostly appearance, nor between the author, again, and his two companions.

This mysterious fourth man stayed by them, following in line, until the worst was over and the dangerous pass had been successfully negotiated. The escaped prisoners reached the plain and breathed more freely. “I turned and looked behind,” writes the author. “The fourth man had disappeared. I made no mention of him to the other two.⁠ ⁠… A couple of hours later, drinking hot cocoa in a safe hiding-place, one of my companions made a quiet remark about the fourth man. They had both seen him. We had all three been sensible of his presence throughout the most trying part of the night; we all three agreed that the moment he left us was when we felt we had put the danger behind.⁠ ⁠… I cannot exaggerate,” he adds, “how real his presence was, how content one felt⁠—despite the mystery of it⁠—that he should be there, what a strength and comfort his presence seemed to be.⁠ ⁠… From the time he left us luck turned against us.” Not long after, indeed, the whole party were recaptured and imprisoned again.

Having sent an account of the incident to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Commander Stoker received the following reply: “It is the same experience as Shackleton’s sledge party, which had an extra man. One of you was probably mediumistic (without knowing it). Many are. Some friend took advantage of the fact.”

In The Lure of the Labrador Wild, one of the most poignantly moving adventure books ever written, a very interesting case of otherworldly intervention in human affairs is given. The volume describes with intense vividness the Leonidas Hubbard Expedition (1905) across Labrador, ending in Hubbard, its leader, being starved to death in the most distressing circumstances. Had the ghostly intervention been obeyed his life would unquestionably have been saved.

The Expedition was on its way back, making as fast as their exhausted, half-starved condition would allow for Grand Lake, where a cache of food lay waiting for them. Winter was setting in with its awful cold. They had been living on soup made out of boots, decayed partridge, anything and everything that would yield the tiniest amount of sustenance in fact, for many days, and travelling over the roughest sort of country at the same time. Exhaustion had reduced them all to skeletons, and death was close. To work the canoe at all was almost beyond their strength, and they had no idea what river they were on, nor where it led. Finally the question was faced: Should they desert the river and cut across country in the last hope of making Grand Lake and the buried food?

There was a long discussion. The chances across country were against them, for Hubbard could hardly walk by this time, and the other two were feeble and emaciated; yet the river was against them too, for a long stretch of dangerous rapids lay ahead, and the men had no strength to deal with difficult water. An upset meant certain death. Besides, where was the river leading them? The discussion, a very keen but very friendly one, led to no decision, but Hubbard himself was in favour of the cross-country venture, desperate though it was. And Hubbard was leader of the expedition. In the end they decided to sleep on it.

The third member of this desperate party was George Elson, a half-breed Cree Indian from James Bay, engaged for the expedition by the Hudson Bay Company Post at Missanambie, Ontario. He was a stalwart in every sense of the term; a fine fellow, calm, cheerful, companionable, faithful, a man of character. He was, in addition, a man of immense experience. It was through this Indian that the “otherworldly intervention” came⁠—a dream.

The morning following the discussion the three men renewed the fateful talk, in the course of which George announced:

“I had a strange dream about it last night, fellus,” he said quietly. He was asked to tell it.

“It was a strange dream,” he repeated, and hesitated. Hubbard urged him to go on.

“Well,” he said, “I dreamed the Lord stood before me, very beautiful and bright, and He had a mighty kind look on His face. And He said to me: ‘George, don’t leave this river. Just stick to it and it will take you out to Grand Lake, where you’ll find the cache with lots of grub, and then you’ll be all right and safe. I can’t spare you any more fish, George, and if you leave this river you won’t get any more. Just stick to this river and I’ll take you out safe. The Lord was all smilin’ and bright, and He looked at me very pleasant. Then He went away, and I dreamed we went right down the river, and came out in Grand Lake, near where we had left it coming up. And we found the cache and all the grub we wanted, and had a fine time.”

Dillon Wallace, member of the expedition and the author of the book describing it, adds: “It was quite evident that George was greatly impressed by his dream. I give it here simply for what it is worth. At the same time, I cannot help characterizing it as remarkable, not to say extraordinary; for none of us had the faintest suspicion that the river we were on emptied into Grand Lake at all, much less that its mouth was near the point where we left the lake on our way up. But I myself attached no importance to the dream at the time, whatever I may think now.”

Hubbard himself, an intensely religious man, also disregarded the dream, which, if obeyed, would have saved his life. He admitted it was “unusual,” but it did not turn him from his strong instinct to leave the river and cut across country. ‘It isn’t possible, you know,” he said to George, “for this river to empty into Grand Lake. We were talking about leaving the river last night, and you had it on your mind.” Thus he explained the dream.

“Maybe,” admitted the Indian, “but it was a mighty strange dream, and we’d better think about it before we leave the river. Stick to the canoe, Hubbard, that’s what I say.”

In the end Hubbard, too weak to move, sent Wallace and George across country, he himself remaining with what food there was in the little tent. The two men, after terrible privations, reached the cache of food, but when, later, they arrived with help at the tent, they found Hubbard dead beside his diary. The river emptied into Grand Lake after all. The few entries the dying Hubbard made in his diary during the last awful solitude are among the most moving and poignant imaginable.

Two other capital true ghost stories carry us from bleak and frozen Labrador to the genial heat of the Tropics⁠—Borneo and New Guinea. Most of the European houses in Borneo, to take that first, are “berhantu” (haunted) according to the natives, and the following ghost story is told by Oscar Cook, late District Officer, North Borneo Civil Service, in his enchanting volume, Borneo: Stealer of Hearts. The Commissioner at a place called Tengilan met his death suddenly by drowning, and Cook was summoned to replace him temporarily as Acting District Officer. It was in 1917. Cook was invited to stay with another official in a comfortable little European house, which had been inhabited formerly by an Englishman named G. This man G. , some years before, entangled by drink and a native woman, had died in the room, in the very bed indeed, Cook now occupied. Cook himself knew nothing of this, and his host did not mention it.

After a long talk about the immediate business in hand, the two men separated for bed at 10:30. Cook heard his host moving about in his room; they called good night to each other through the thin wooden walls; then Cook put his lamp out. He heard the clock strike eleven.

“Then I fell asleep,” he writes. “Suddenly, I was wide awake, but not with a start. No sound or presence had aroused me. I was simply wide awake. I was not strung up nor excited. I turned over and looked at my watch⁠—it was after 1 a.m. (I have somewhat condensed the following account of what happened.⁠—<b epub:type="z3998:personal-name">A.B.</b>) I closed my eyes and was about to fall asleep again when I heard footsteps coming up the steps that led from the garden to the front door.

“I listened. Slowly the footsteps mounted the stairs. Then I heard the catch of the low wooden gate pulled back, and the creak of the doors being opened. Down the full length of the veranda came the footsteps, and passed into the dining-room. Whoever was walking kept straight on, for I heard the noise of the doors that shut off this room from the passage leading to the kitchen being opened, and the footsteps went along this passage. Then they halted.

“A clear and decisive voice then called out: ‘Boy!’ It was a voice I did not recognize. No answer came. Again the voice rang out, but in a sharper, more impatient tone: ‘Boy!’ Again there was no reply. After a brief silence, the footsteps then descended the stairs that led from the passage to the kitchen. They halted on the bottom step. ‘Boy!’ the voice called out angrily. There was no answer. Another silence followed. Then the footsteps came back up the stairs, passed along the passage again, across the dining-room, and out into the veranda. The creak of the gate reached me and I heard the closing of the latch. Down the steps the footsteps clumped, and out into the garden. Then silence⁠ ⁠… I fell asleep, wondering who it was⁠ ⁠…”

At breakfast next morning Cook asked his host what he was doing, walking all over the house during the night. “So you heard it too!” was the rejoinder, with relief. “I never moved all night long.”

Cook stared at his host, an unimaginative man, a long-headed, shrewd planter, a man of facts and figures, and an utter scoffer at ghostly things. “Well,” he asked, “what about it then?”

“It was <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G. ,” his host went on, “calling for a drink. I’ve often been disturbed by him. <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G. was the man here before my predecessor. He died in your room⁠—on your bed. The Doctor visited him one day, hearing he was ill. He gave him five minutes to live. Old <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G. just managed to sit up in bed, smiled, and asked for gin. He smoked a moment, chatted a bit, the gasper dropped from his lips⁠—he was dead! He’s buried in the garden, just on the slope of the hill below your window. My predecessor saw him, and one night even shot him. Well, there it is! My predecessor saw and shot him; I, too, have seen him; you’ve heard him. It’s there, and it happens, and it’s always the same. Now, get on with your tea, and we’ll go and look at the grave. I always inspect it twice a month, and put a coolie to clean and tend it.”

Captain <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A. W. Monckton, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">F.R.G.S., <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">F.Z.S. , tells a first-rate and most circumstantial ghost story in his widely read volume, <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate</i>. It is indexed as “Spooks in Samarai,” and occurs on page 109. It is admirably told and as convincing as anything well can be. “I tell the story for what it is worth,” he writes, sandwiching it in among other adventures of a most enthralling description. “I leave my readers who are interested in psychical research to form what opinion they choose. All I say is that the story, as related, is absolutely true.” And, indeed, it has the ring of sincerity and truth all through it.

The author was staying alone in the house of a man named Moreton, at Samarai, Moreton living elsewhere at the time; he was Resident Magistrate of the Eastern Division.

“One night,” runs the account, “in Moreton’s house, I had a curious and uncanny experience. I was sitting at the table, writing a long dispatch which engaged all my attention; my table was in the middle of the room, and on my right and left hand respectively there were two doors, one opening on to the front and the other on to the back veranda of the house. Both doors were closed and fastened with ordinary wooden latches, which could not possibly open of their own accord as a spring lock might do. The floor of the room was made of heavy teakwood boards, nailed down; the floor of the veranda being constructed of laths of palm, laced together with native string.

“As I wrote, I became conscious that both doors were wide open, and⁠—hardly thinking what I was doing⁠—I got up, closed them both, and went on writing. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps upon the coral path leading up to the house; they came across the squeaky palm veranda, my door opened, and the footsteps went across the room and⁠—as I raised my eyes from my dispatch⁠—the other door opened, and the footsteps passed across the veranda and down again on to the coral. I paid very little attention to this at first, having my mind full of the subject of which I was writing, but half thought that either Poruma or Giorgi (trusted personal servants), both of whom were in the kitchen, had passed through the room. However, I again rose and absentmindedly shut both doors for the second time.

“Some time later, once more the footsteps came, crash crash on the coral, squeak squeak on the veranda; again my door opened and the squeak changed to the tramp of booted feet on the boarded floor. As I looked to see who it was, the tramp passed close behind my chair and across the room to the door, which opened, and then again the tramp changed to the squeak and the squeak to the crash on the coral. I was, by this time, getting very puzzled, but after a little thought I decided my imagination was playing me tricks, and that I had not really closed the doors when I thought I had. I made certain, however, that I did close them this time, and went on with my work again. Once more, the whole thing was repeated, only this time I rose from the table, took my lamp in my hand, and gazed hard at the places on the floor from which the sound came, but could see nothing.”

Captain Monckton then describes how he went on to the veranda and bawled to the two servants in the kitchen, asking who was playing tricks, and, before they could answer, steps again sounded in his room behind him. Poruma, hearing the; steps, was surprised. “I didn’t know you had anyone with you,” he observed, whereupon his master repeated what had happened. “Someone keeps opening my door,” he said, “and walking about. I want him caught.” Anyone who has read the book will know that Captain Monckton’s orders generally were obeyed, without delay too! But Poruma, the old servant, replied: “No one would dare to enter the Government compound and play tricks on the Resident Magistrate.” His master insisted angrily that the fellow, whoever he might be, must be caught. “I mean to get to the bottom of this fooling,” he said, repeating his order. He sent to the Guard House and got the gatekeeper, also the gaoler and all his warders, finally to the ship as well for her men. The gatekeeper, an honest fellow, swore that the gate had been locked as usual at 10 p.m., before which hour none but Government people had passed in.

A search under Captain Monckton’s instructions was at once organized. There were only three rooms, furnished with Spartan simplicity. They were soon examined. Four men with lanterns were placed under the house, which was raised about four feet from the ground on piles. Other men were stationed back and front. Then the Captain searched the house once more himself. “Tt was impossible,” he adds, “for a mouse to have passed unseen.” This done, he shut the doors of his room, and sat inside with Poruma and Giorgi. They waited in silence a few minutes.

“Presently, exactly the same thing occurred once more. Through that line of men came the footsteps; through my room in precisely the same manner came the tread of a heavily-booted man, then went on to the palm veranda, where⁠—in the now brilliant illumination⁠—we could see the depression at the spots from which the sound came, as though a man were stepping there. [The italics are my own.⁠—<b epub:type="z3998:personal-name">A.B.</b>]

“Well,” I asked my men, “what do you make of it?”

“No man living could have passed unseen,” was Poruma’s reply. “It’s either the spirit of a dead man, or a devil.”

Whatever Captain Monckton may have thought, and he offers no opinion or explanation, he moved to the ship for the night and slept on board. Nothing of the sort ever happened again, and a year later the house was pulled down. Before this, however, the author had sat up in it on purpose with a man named Armit, Health Officer and Collector of Customs, but the investigation produced no results. Armit, on this occasion, mentioned that Moreton, the former occupant, had once or twice hinted at something queer having happened. Moreton himself was, therefore, interviewed on the subject. His reply was interesting: “One night,” he admitted, “sleeping in the hammock on the veranda, I heard footsteps. They wakened me. I called out angrily, ‘Who’s making the racket?’ There was no reply, but my hammock was banged violently against the wall. I said nothing about it to anyone, for I was alone at the time, and I didn’t want to be laughed at.”