Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/154

146 room above that which had been used by my uncle, and there was a strong and peculiarly disagreeable odour in the room which I had not perceived before; but on the whole, the noises were fainter this day than during the night.

I spent the whole day in examining every part of the house, including the wine cellar and out-houses, and even drew a ground plan of the different rooms, to make quite sure that there was not even a closet capable of concealing anybody which I had not visited. I had not eaten a mouthful the whole day, and this, I suppose, joined to the depressing effects of the terror caused by the horrible sounds that had been ringing in my ears for so many hours, made me feel so intensely cold that I drew my chair to the fire, for the sake of the warmth. I had before ordered José to let it out, but now I offered no objection to his heaping on the fuel as much as he pleased; and I must acknowledge that he did this with as much zeal as if he derived gratification from obeying his master’s commands not to suffer it to go out.

The exhaustion produced by excitement, and the want of food and sleep, was such, that in spite of the sounds—which, though faint, were constantly audible—I fell asleep before the fire. It is not, of course, possible for me to tell how long I may have slept, but this I can affirm, that I woke with the suddenness with which I should have started up had the shriek, which was still echoing through the house, been uttered in my ears. I was standing like one stupefied, listening to the screams, which came more and more faintly, when suddenly there rose, seemingly from the very midst of the fire, a succession of screams so loud, so shrill, and expressive of such intense pain, and this time in a woman’s voice, that I could bear it no longer, and fell down insensible.

Of what happened after this I have no knowledge; I can barely remember being brought on board your vessel, but I know now that I have been stabbed in several places, and that the doctor says mine is the most extraordinary instance of recovery he ever saw or read of. I have questioned the Mexican who came aboard with me as my attendant, but he can tell me nothing of the person who engaged him to wait upon me. He says he was waiting at the port, when a gentleman came up and asked him which was the vessel that had entered four or five days before, and brought several passengers, and he pointed out this one. The same person then asked him if he would like to make a voyage in her, to wait upon a gentleman, who had been wounded by brigands, and who would pay him handsomely for his services. Having answered that he would like it very well, his questioner brought him on board, and bought two tickets, which he gave to him, with twenty dollars, to buy what he wanted for the voyage, and then took him to an inn on the outskirts of the town, where he gave me in his charge, with instructions to take me to the ship in which he had taken our passage.

I have nothing more to tell you; and I would rather you would not ask me for an explanation of what I heard in my uncle’s house, for I can give you none. I have tried my utmost to account for the noises, and am as much at a loss now as at first to imagine what produced them.”

We sailors have the reputation of being more credulous than the generality of people, but I think without sufficient reason. I can safely say that I did not believe for a single instant that anything supernatural was concerned in the production of the sounds spoken of by Mr. Van Hoogen; at the same time, I am bound to say, that having had a great deal of conversation with him coming out, he had impressed the firm conviction on my mind that he was not the man to be led away by his imagination; and I could not help sharing his opinion that the sounds he had heard were expressive of real pain, however impossible it was to account for their being heard there.

During the voyage, and after he had told me all this, we had many conversations on the subject; and as he improved in health, the sort of awe with which he had at first spoken of it seemed to wear away. I was not at all surprised, therefore, to hear him say, when we shook hands as he was leaving the ship, that he would return with me to Mexico.

On arriving at Vera Cruz, business compelled me to remain on board till the second day, but as soon as this was transacted, I and Van Hoogen, attended by a sailor with a couple of handspikes, set off for the house in which he had been wounded, he having in the meantime, with Mindanho’s assistance, done what was necessary with the officials of the town to establish his claim to inherit any property belonging to his uncle, in the event of that gentleman not again making his appearance, which he had not yet done. We rode straight to the house, the road to it being too well remembered by Van Hoogen to render it necessary that we should pause to make inquiries. Short as was the time which had passed since he was last there, we found that it had been sufficient for the country people to reduce the place to a perfect wreck. All the rooms were empty, and everything that could be moved had been carried away. We lost no time in beginning our examination, which, minute as it was, had led to no discovery, when the sailor I had brought with me came running in to tell us that part of the foundation of the house had given way. I must mention here that not requiring his assistance in-doors, I had directed him, with Van Hoogen’s permission, to root up some fine shrubs which grew under the walls of the house, and take them on board ship. While doing this, the earth had sunk in with him, shrub and all, and he had scrambled out as fast as he could to come and tell us. The hole was amply large enough to allow of our passing through it, but the stench which issued from it was so powerful that we were obliged to draw back. We waited a considerable time thinking it would clear away with the admission of fresh air, but finding that it continued as bad as ever, we fetched three men from the nearest village to dig away the earth so as to enlarge the opening. These began by removing a portion of a mound of earth opposite the opening, and so close to the wall of the house that