Page:Weird Tales volume 28 number 02.djvu/109

Rh I wheeled about.

"What is it? Damn it all, haven't you any sense, almost scaring a man to death?"

He pointed a shaking finger toward the window.

"There! I swear I saw him. It was my granddad, but oh, how disfigured!"

He threw himself upon the bed and began sobbing. The shock had completely unnerved him.

"Forgive me, old man," I pleaded; "I was too quick. Pull yourself together and we may yet get to the bottom of things tonight."

When he had finished dressing we left the house. There was no moon out, and it was pitch-dark.

LED the way, and soon we came to within ten yards of the little gray crypt. I stationed Remson behind a tree with instructions to just use his eyes, and I took up my stand on the other side of the vault, after making sure that the door into it was closed and locked. For the greater part of an hour we waited without results, and I was about ready to call it off when I perceived a white figure flitting between the trees about fifty feet away.

Slowly it advanced, straight toward us, and as it drew closer I looked, not at it, but through it. The wind was blowing strongly, yet not a fold in the long shroud quivered. Just outside the vault it paused and looked around. Even knowing as I did about what to expect, it was a decided shock when I looked into the eyes of the old Holroyd, deceased these past five years. I heard a gasp and knew that Remson had seen, too, and recognized. Then the spirit, ghost, or whatever it was, passed into the crypt through the crack between the door and the jamb, a space not one-sixteenth of an inch wide.

 