Page:Mashi and Other Stories.djvu/41

Rh at my bedside, and the reply came: "It is I. I have come to look for that skeleton of mine."

It seemed absurd to show any fear before the creature of my own imagination; so, clutching my pillow a little more tightly, I said in a casual sort of way: "A nice business for this time of night! Of what use will that skeleton be to you now?"

The reply seemed to come almost from my mosquito-curtain itself. "What a question! In that skeleton were the bones that encircled my heart; the youthful charm of my six-and-twenty years bloomed about it. Should I not desire to see it once more?"

"Of course," said I, "a perfectly reasonable desire. Well, go on with your search, while I try to get a little sleep."

Said the voice: "But I fancy you are lonely. All right; I'll sit down a while, and we will have a little chat. Years ago I used to sit by men and talk to them. But during the last thirty-five years I have only moaned in the wind in the burning-places of the dead. I would talk once more with a man as in the old times."

I felt that some one sat down just near my curtain. Resigning myself to the situation, I replied