"Well, that's the best joke I've heard to-day. You, of all men, to
be taken in by a mere superstition."

"But, my dear friend, I heard them," said Krail. "I swear I actually
heard them! And I--well, I admit to you, even though you may laugh at me
for being a superstitious fool--I somehow anticipate that something
uncanny is about to happen to me."

"You're going to die, like all the rest of them, I suppose," laughed his
friend, as they descended the dusty, winding road that led to the
palm-lined promenade of the quiet little Mediterranean watering-place.

CHAPTER XXIV

"WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK"

On their left were several white villas, before which pink and scarlet
geraniums ran riot, with spreading mimosas golden with their feathery
blossom, for Ospedaletti makes a frantic, if vain, bid for popularity as
a winter-resort. Its deadly dullness, however, is too well known to the
habitue of the Riviera; and its casino, which never obtained a licence,
imparts to it the air of painful effort at gaiety.

"Well," remarked the shabby man as they passed along and out upon the
sea-road in the direction of Bordighera, "I always looked upon what the
people at Auchterarder said regarding the Whispers as a mere myth. But
now, having heard them with my own ears, how can I have further doubt?"

"I've listened in the Castle ruins a good many times, my dear Krail,"
replied the other, "but I've never heard anything more exciting than an
owl. Indeed, Lady Heyburn and I, when there was so much gossip about the
strange noises some two years ago, set to work to investigate. We went
there at least a dozen times, but without result; only both of us caught
bad colds."

"Well," exclaimed Krail, "I used to ridicule the weird stories I heard
in the village about the Devil's Whisper, and all that. But by mere
chance I happened to be at the spot one bright night, and I heard
distinct whisperings, just as had been described to me. They gave me a
very creepy feeling, I can assure you."

"Bosh! Now, do you believe in ghosts, you man-of-the-world that you are,
my dear Felix?"

"No. Most decidedly I don't."

"Then what you've heard is only in imagination, depend upon it. The
supernatural doesn't exist in Glencardine, that's quite certain,"
declared Flockart. "The fact is that there's so much tradition and
legendary lore connected with the old place, and its early owners were
such a set of bold and defiant robbers, that for generations the