Page:Poet Lore, volume 28, 1917.djvu/531

 but on that night, he was so shaky that he could hardly stand on his feet, and his teeth chattered with fear! My dead sister noticed how he looked,—he was almost ready to collapse, and she said, “Husband, are you ill?”

“Nothing is the matter with me,” he answered, “and, don’t let me frighten you, Frantisko, but I received a warning down below.”

For an instant, she was always light-hearted,—my sister began to laugh. But she looked at her husband again, and seeing that he was fairly beside himself, a cold chill broke over her, and she shivered with fear. Then she asked him, seriously: “What did you see?” “The miner’s apparition!” answered her husband. “Where?” she questioned. ( here seats herself.) “I was digging,” he continued, “and the work fell off easily. I wasn’t suspecting anything, and sung half-aloud as I worked, the miner’s song, to the patron saint, Barbara. I was alone; my companions were working elsewhere. All about me, silence. Ahead of me, empty space, with darkness every where. All at once, I felt as though a miner’s lamp were dimly lighting it. I gazed ahead steadily, and saw the figure of a mining superintendent. He was dressed like an engineer, but was a stranger, entirely unknown to us. A strange thing happened. He was standing in a broad shaft of light, illumined as though the bright light of day shone on him. I took off my cap to greet him, and said, ‘Good Day!’ I thought he would come nearer. But just then, he raised his finger as though in warning, and vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. I was seized with uncontrollable terror. The pickaxe dropped from my fingers. I called wildly to my companions, they ran up to ask what had happened.

“‘Has some one noticed a strange engineer?’ I asked. ‘No sign of one!’ they answered. I felt a cold frost running over me. ‘Then it must have been the miner’s guardian angel,’ I said to myself, ‘coming to give me warning.’ And when I had told all to my fellow workmen, they looked at one another, and whispered, ‘The spirit that haunts the mines!’

“I shook till my teeth chattered as though I had a heavy chill, and ran out into the sunlight. Never before have I believed in underground apparitions, but this time, I actually saw one!”

Brouzda.—Well then, there really must be some truth in these rumours. But he should have taken warning, since he believed it himself. It is said, that when a spirit appears in the mines, the