Page:St Andrews Ghost Stories (1921).djvu/33

Rh held a very large rosary, and he lent on a stout cudgel.

"As I advanced he retreated backwards, always beckoning to me—and I followed lamp in hand. I had to follow—could not help myself. Do you know the way a serpent can fascinfascinate [sic] or hypnotise its prey before it devours them?

"Yes," I said, "I have seen the snakes at the Zoo do that trick."

"Well, sir, I was hypnotised like that—precisely like that. He beckoned and I followed.

"Suddenly I saw a little door in the corner of the kitchen standing open—a door I had never noticed before. The shadowy vision backed towards it. Still I followed. Then he entered its portals. As I advanced he grew more and more transparent, and finally melted away, and the heavy door shut upon him with a tremendous crash and rattle. The lamp fell from my trembling hand and was shattered to fragments on the stone floor. I was in pitch darkness—silence reigned—I don't remember how I got out to the light again.

"Next morning early I got in some workmen and took them down to the kitchen, direct to the corner where the door was through which the apparition vanished the previous night.

"Zounds, sir, there was no door there—only the white plastered wall. I was dumbfoundered. 'Mrs Trombone,' I said to the cook, 'where the devil is that door gone?'"

"'The door, sir,' said the cook, 'there ain't no door there that I ever saw.'

"'Trombone,' I replied, 'don't tell falsehoods—you're a fool.'

"I made the men set to work and tear down the plaster and stuff, and, egad, sir, in an hour we found the door—a thick oak, nail studded, iron clamped old door. It took some time to force it open, and then down three steps we found ourselves in a chamber with mighty thick walls and with a flagged floor, about six feet square, lit by a small slit of a window.

"'Tear up the flags,' I said.

"They did so, and there was only earth below.

"'Dig down,' I said, 'dig like thunder,'

"In about an hour we came to a huge flag with a ring in