Page:St Andrews Ghost Stories (1921).djvu/11

Rh "Well, my guide somehow or other suddenly became possessed of a huge great candlestick with a lighted candle in it, about three feet high, which lit up the vaulted passage.

"'We now stand in the monk's sub-way,' he said.

"'Indeed, and who may you be? Are you a man or a ghost?'

"The queer figure turned. 'I am human,' he said, 'do not fear me. I was a monk years ago, now I am reincarnate—time and space are nothing whatever to me. I only arrived a short while ago from Naples to meet you here.'

"Good heavens, Ashton," I said, "is this all true?"

"Absolutely true, my dear fellow," said Ashton. "I was in my sound senses, not hypnotised or anything of that sort, I assure you. On and on we went, the little man with his big candle leading the way, and I following. Two or three times the sub-way narrowed, and we had a tight squeeze to get through, I can tell you."

"What a rum place," I interjected.

"Yes, it was that," said Ashton, "but it got still rummer as we went up and down more stairs, and then popped through a hole into a lower gallery, and I noticed side passages branching off in several different directions.

"'Walk carefully and look where you tread,' said my monkish guide. 'There are pitfalls here; be very wary.'

"Then I noticed at my feet a deep, rock-hewn pit about two feet wide right across the passage. 'What is that for?' I asked. 'To trap intruders and enemies,' said the little monk. Look down. I did so, and I saw at the bottom, in a pool of water, a whitened skull and a number of bones. We passed four or five such shafts in our progress."

"Pon my word, this beats me altogether," I interpolated.

"It would have beaten me altogether if I had fallen into one of those traps," said Ashton. "Suddenly the close, damp, fungus sort of air changed and I smelt a sweet fragrant odour. 'I smell incense,' I said to the monk.

"'It is the wraith, or ghost, of a smell,' he said. 'There has been no incense hereaway since 1546. There are ghosts of sounds and smells, just as there are ghosts of people. We are