Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/152

144 would have fallen to the ground, if he had not been able to save himself by clutching at the table. Without waiting to be questioned, he said:

“Oh, Señor! I fear my master has been murdered, for ever since yesterday morning I have heard these noises in the house, sometimes in one room, sometimes in another, but louder and more often here than anywhere else. All the servants have run away, and I could not have stayed another night in the house if you had not come Holy Virgin! hear that again.”

With this exclamation the man rolled from the table to the floor, and I had a difficulty in keeping myself upright, for the sounds that were distinctly audible were enough, in the absence of visible agency to produce them, to chill any man’s blood. Groans and cries, mingled with the same peculiar metallic sounds I have already mentioned, filled the room. Mindanho was even more agitated than I, but he was the first to recover himself sufficiently to propose that we should examine the other rooms. The examination was of no avail, though the sounds were much fainter in them than in that we had left. We then returned to the room which had been occupied by my uncle, but we found all quiet there now. José told us that this was as it always was. It began with the same sounds, and went on increasing more and more, till it at last died away, as it had now, only it lasted longer at one time than at another.

I must acknowledge that I had heard so much of spiritual manifestations, rappings, and so forth, in Germany, that, in spite of my reason, my imagination had assented to the possibility that the respectable persons who had declared themselves to have been witnesses of the phenomena might not have been mistaken. Now, when these inexplicable sounds were still ringing in my ears, I found myself more ready to admit the existence of supernatural causes, especially as there was no darkness to shroud the actors in any trickery. I walked out of the house, followed by Mindanho, and sat down in the broad sunshine to reflect on the occurrence, and consider what it was best to do.

I have always found that there is something in brilliant sunshine which is opposed to superstitious beliefs of a vulgar kind and degrading to the intellect. I could readily enough admit the possibility of the existence of invisible spirits in the atmosphere surrounding us, but not that they could enter into such puerile extravagances as those imputed to them. As I sat there, revolving in my mind the cause of what I had heard, the idea that the sounds had been produced by spiritual agency—which, from the impossibility of discovering any material cause, had made its way into my mind—gradually faded out, and I determined on remaining there till I had discovered the real cause. Besides, I could not leave before I had learnt the fate of my uncle. Till this moment it had not occurred to me to ask Mindanho his opinion of the origin of the noises we had heard, and when I did I found he had quite made up his mind that it was the work of the devil. He gave his opinion with an air of such profound conviction that his solution of the difficulty was the true one, that I saw I had only my own understanding to rely upon in discovering an explanation of what we had heard. I had read your Walter Scott’s works, and I remembered the tricks which were practised at the house of that old royalist—I forget his name, but I think the house was called Woodstock. There was nothing alike in the two things, but it suggested the question whether, supposing my uncle had been murdered, there were not those interested in driving me away that they might appropriate his property to their own uses. The idea was a great relief to me, and I did not at once see how untenable it was, or, perhaps, it would be nearer the truth to say, that I was so glad to grasp at anything like a natural solution of the matter, that I wilfully closed my understanding against the consideration of objections; but when I came to discuss with Mindanho the probable fate of my uncle, these objections made themselves heard. His opinion with respect to my uncle’s disappearance was, that if the brigands had really taken him away, his life was safe, as he was so well known in the country, and, besides, being a foreigner was also a strong circumstance in favour of his safety. The only person who could possibly benefit by his master’s murder was José, and it would be very easy to find out if the brigands had really been there; if they had not, he would be inclined to suspect him of knowing something more about the cause of the disturbance than he acknowledged. To satisfy himself on this point, he first ascertained from José the cottages to which the women servants had gone—all except one, who, he said, had gone away with the brigands. Mindanho was not long before he returned to tell me the result of his inquiries, which was that José had told the truth so far as the robbers were concerned, for the latter had all made their escape while they were trying to force their master to confess where his money was, and had not returned to the house till the following day, when they were obliged to leave it again on account of the dreadful noises they heard there. Apart from the confirmation their statement gave of the truth of José’s tale with respect to the brigands having actually been there, it tended to relieve him from suspicion, inasmuch as it showed that the noises were not prepared for the purpose of frightening me. When I recalled, too, to my recollection the horror and fright expressed in the man’s face the moment the noises began, I found it impossible to doubt that he was really under the influence of those passions; by no effort of the imagination could I bring myself to admit that they were simulated, though I had all the will to do so.

You will see, then, that all my cogitations and inquiries up to this point left me without any clue to the discovery of the mystery.

Feeling that any occupation away from the place for a few hours, would strengthen me for the searching inquiry I had mentally decided on making, I proposed to Mindanho that we should spend that day in trying to ascertain the direction taken by the brigands who had carried off my uncle.

He did not attempt to oppose my wishes, and went in search of somebody who could lend us