rasse. Like
Alexander, I was tired to death when I threw myself into bed; but
I had hardly been asleep for an hour or so when I became aware of
something like a bright light shining on my closed eyelids. I opened my
eyes--and, fancy my horror--close beside my bed stood a tall, attenuated
figure, with a face as pale as death, and frightfully distorted,
staring at me fixedly with glassy-looking spectral eyes! A white shirt
was hanging from the shoulders of this figure, so that its breast was
bare, and seemed to be bloody. In its left hand it had a branched
candlestick, with two lighted wax candles; and in its right, a tall
glass full of water. Speechlessly, I kept my eyes riveted on this
spectral being as it began swinging the lights and the glass in wide
circles, uttering horrible, whimpering sounds as it did so. Like
Alexander, I was seized by "ghost terror." Slower and slower the
spectre swung the lights and the water-glass, till they came to a stop.
Then I fancied I could hear a sort of low, whispering singing in the
room, and, with a curious sardonic sort of laugh, the figure went
slowly away, out of the door. It was long before I could summon up
courage to get up and hurriedly bolt the door, which I found I had
neglected to do the night before when I went to bed. Often and often,
when I was serving in the field, I have found some stranger standing
beside me when I awoke; but that never frightened me at all, so that I
was firmly persuaded there was something supernatural about the affair
in this instance. Well, I was going downstairs next morning to talk to
the landlady about what had happened in the night. As I came out on to
the landing the opposite door opened and a tall attenuated figure,
muffled up in a white dressing-gown, came out meeting me. At the first
glance I recognized the deadly white face and the sunken, glassy eyes I
had seen at my bedside in the night. And, although I knew, now, that,
if the ghost appeared again it was kickable, still, I felt a sort of
echo of the terror which had been on me in the night, and was starting
off downstairs as fast as I could. But the individual barred my
passage, took me politely by the hand and said, in a kindly manner,
with a good-tempered smile on his face:

"'"Good-morning, dear neighbour. I trust you had a quiet night, and
that nothing disturbed you?"'

"'I told him what had happened without a moment's hesitation; adding
that I felt pretty certain he had been the