I believe she
was asleep again. Poor Fatima, who saw nothing before us but to return
to our room with all its terrors, here began to sob violently, which
roused our friend once more, and she became full of pity.

"'You poor children!' she said, 'I'm so sleepy. I cannot get up and
go after the ghost now; besides, one might meet somebody. But you may
get into bed if you like; there's plenty of room, and nothing to
frighten you.'

"In we both crept, most willingly. She gave us the long tail of her
hair, and said, 'If you want me, pull. But go to sleep, if you
can!'--and, before she had well finished the sentence, her eyes closed
once more. In such good company a snoring ghost seemed a thing hardly
to be realized. We held the long plait between us, and, clinging to it
as drowning men to a rope, we soon slept also.

"When we returned to our room next day, there was no snoring to be
heard, and in the full sunshine of a summer morning our fright seemed
so completely a thing of the past, that I persuaded myself to suggest
that it might have been 'fancy' (Kate had already expressed her
deliberate opinion to this effect), to which Fatima, whose convictions
were of a more resolute type than mine, replied, 'What's the use of
trying to believe what's not true? I heard it; and shall know that I
heard it, if I live till I'm a hundred.'

"In all correct ghost stories, when the hero comes down in the
morning, valiant, but exhausted from the terrors of the night, to
breakfast, his host invariably asks him how he slept. When we came
down, we found Kate and the Irishman alone together in the
breakfast-room. Now it certainly was in keeping with our adventure
when he stepped forward, and, bowing profoundly, asked how we had
passed the night; but, in spite of the gravity of his face, there was
a twinkle in the big brown eyes which showed us that we were being
made fun of; and I felt slightly indignant with our friend, who had
faithfully promised not to betray us to Miss Lucy, and might, I
thought, have saved us from the ridicule of the Irishman. The rest of
the company began to assemble, however, and to our relief the subject
was dropped. But though the Irishman kept our secret, we had every
reason to suspect that he did not forget it; he looked terribly
roguish through breakfast, and was only kept in order by Kate's severe
glances.

"'Always breathe through the nose,' he suddenly began. 'It moderates
the severity of the air, is less t