Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/148

 then been plucked out, so that the body had collapsed amid a mess of broken plaster.

"It's Bill Spiker, sir," said the sailor. "He's dead! He was a good gunner, sir, too. We wanted Spiker, sir, to fight the French—and he's dead!" And the sailor broke off blubbering.

Just then they all became aware of a moaning overhead.

"What's that?" said Mipps, beginning to giggle.

Indeed the uncanny atmosphere of the vicarage that morning had upset them all.

"I'm sure I don't know," said the captain, "for I've had my fill of horrors. I don't mind blood and I don't mind fighting, but these mysteries are horrible. What the devil is that moaning?"

"That'll be Job Mallet, captain's bo'sun," said the sailor.

"Or Rash, the sick schoolmaster," said Doctor Syn.

But Mipps said nothing; he had left the room and was now out in the passage, suffering from another attack of giggles.

"Damn that sexton's body and soul!" ejaculated the captain; "his giggling gives one the creeps. What's tickling him now?"

"Unstrung," muttered the vicar, as he followed the captain up the dark stairs to the bedroom.

There in the bed, last night occupied by Mr. Rash, lay the fat bo'sun on his back, with his face gagged up