Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/316

 back into the light as fast as her feet would carry her. We found her standing there, breathing hard, and in a state of bewilderment. What was the matter? Had we not seen, she asked, those two burning eyes right ahead of us in the dark of the cave, one in green, the other in red fire, eyes fierce and terrible, like those of the devil?

One night I was sitting in the dining-room of the “Quinta,” reading. Mr. Perry was out. From my seat in the dining-room I looked into the “sala de las cabezas” and two further rooms behind it, which were but very dimly lighted. At the end of the suite a side door led into the apartments occupied by the Perry family. Suddenly I was startled by a piercing shriek, and saw Doña Carolina in a white night-robe, with a burning candle in her hand, her eyes wide open, her features expressing terrible fright, rushing out of that side door and running the whole length of that suite of rooms towards me. On the threshold of the dining-room, she fell headlong in a fainting fit. I rang for the servants, and we laid her upon a couch and sprinkled her face with water. When she had recovered consciousness, she looked about with a vague gaze, and then told me that, in passing from the sleeping-chamber of her children into her sitting-room, the ghost of her father had been standing in the door and held her by the sleeve of her dress. When she had become more composed she accepted my offer to conduct her back to her apartment. Leaning on my arm, she walked slowly with me through the “sala de las cabezas” and the adjoining rooms, and as we passed through her door, I saw at once what it was that “had held her sleeve.” It was the large old-fashioned door-handle in which the flowing sleeve had caught as she was passing through. I gently pushed her towards it, and the sleeve caught again. She started, but as, looking up, she saw me smile, she smiled,