Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/78

54 "There's a ghost in Ward C, sir."

"A ghost?"

"Yes, sir—there's that woman in Solly's cell again, sir."

It is no slight thing for the warder of a prison to rouse the governor in the middle of the night, or what is the same thing, at so early an hour as two a.m. It is well understood that there are occasions on which the governor must be roused. But the Commissioners have not distinctly stated whether the occasion of the presence of a ghost is one of them. Perhaps the omission has occurred because a ghost is so rare a visitor—even in a prison, which sees strange visitors—that the thing seemed scarcely worth providing against. Whatever may have been the governor's private opinion on the matter, he contented himself with saying, before he closed the window—

"Wait!—I'm coming!"

And he did come, slipping into some of his clothes with a degree of despatch which would have done credit to the schoolboy who delays his rising from bed until he hears the breakfast bell.

"Some more nonsense, Slater?"

That was the governor's drily-uttered observation as he joined the warder.

"Well, sir, you will see for yourself, sir, when we get there!"

Governor and warder started off together towards Ward C. As they moved over the pebbly path the warder, whose state of mind did not seem to be a state of perfect ease, endeavoured to explain.

"I've been in that ward a dozen times to-night, sir. I thought more than once that I heard the sound of