Tales of the Unexplainable
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Ernest Favenc: 1845-1908. Thius English born Australian explorer, poet, journalist, hostorian and fiction writer was an early Australian writer of fantasy and supernatural stories. This is a collection of amusing short-short stories which were published as a series entitled "Tales of the Unexplainable" (somewhat irregularly) in Saturday edition of Sydney's Evening News from September 1895 to March 1896. 1: Mrs Maunder's Vision 2: The Shadow of a Shadow 3: The Communicative Organ Grinder 4: An Unquiet Corpse 5: Rosita's Curse 6: Professor Dodo's Experiment 7: Gannon's Ghost 8: The Black Waterho

TALES OF THE

UNEXPLAINABLE

Ernest Favenc

Produced and edited by Terry Walker ("Pulpmeister")

December 2022

This collection of amusing short-short stories with "strange" themes ran (somewhat irregularly) in the Sydney daily newspaper Evening News under the heading "Tales of the Unexplainable", from September 1895 to March 1896. This is the first time they have been collected together in a single small volume, of some 26,500 words.

Contents

1: Mrs Maunder's Vision

2: The Shadow of a Shadow

3: The Communicative Organ Grinder

4: An Unquiet Corpse

5: Rosita's Curse

6: Professor Dodo's Experiment

7: Gannon's Ghost

8: The Black Waterhole

9: Brewsters Afflicted Dog

10: The Cataleptic

11: The Haunted Milk Bucket

12: The Black Gin's Curse

13: "Back in Ten Minutes"

14: Wicked Benson

15: The Invisible Horseman

16: Jonson's Flea-Bitten Grey

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1: Mrs. Maunders' Vision

Evening News (Sydney) 14 Sep 1895

WHEN Maunders got married and took his wife up to the new house he had had built on the small cattle station he owned, he anticipated some years of happiness and steady work. The seasons had been good, and things in their own small way were prospering with him. Their engagement had been one of long standing:, but their affection for each other had suffered no diminution from that fact; and Mary Maunders, herself country born and bred, settled down, contentedly enough to the quiet but familiar routine of domestic station life with the man of her choice.

Four years passed quietly and uneventfully. Their eldest child, a little girl, was a lusty little wench of the age of constant prattling, and Maunders himself was two or three stone heavier at least.

He was sitting in the verandah one evening contentedly smoking and wading through his last budget of newspapers, when he heard unusual sounds of commotion inside, and the little black girl who had been trained as nurse for the youngster, came to him with a troubled and scared look on her face, and confusedly explained that 'Missee Maunder' had suddenly been taken ill.

Rising hastily Maunders went in to see his wife. He found her in her room with a wild and terrified look on her face, so intent upon some awful vision of unspeakable horror that it was some time before he could restore her even to recognition of his presence.

'Oh, Dick!' she cried when he had somewhat calmed her, 'that awful, awful face that looked in! and then the waves— they seemed coming right in at the window, and then— they went back again, and carried the face with them.'

Poor Maunders listened in astonishment at this delirious outburst. What could it mean? His wife was always in perfect health, and in no way given to moods or fancies; a practical, sensible woman. He got her to go to bed, waited on her, and watched patiently by her until she seemed to sleep. But it was a restless, broken sleep, and, morning dawned and found him still sitting by the bedside, for all through the long night she had been, starting up and calling to him to keep that awful face away, and drag her out of the reach of the angry waves that swept around and surged up, and then fell back carrying that face of torment with them.

At daylight she seemed to find rest, and late in the morning woke apparently restored to her natural self. All she could tell her husband was that the vision of a face— the face of a Chinaman— had suddenly appeared to her. Not alone was it hideous in itself, but it was blotched and loathsome with disease, and in the dreadful eyes was an expression of most agonised suffering. Then great white-crested waves had come leaping around, and tossed the head about, and finally dragged it away.

Poor Maunders was fairly astray. That his quiet, unimaginative Mary should suddenly have taken to seeing visions, like a man in the horrors, was incredible; but he soothed her to the best of his ability, and stopped with her, and tended her all day long.

That night, however, the delirium was worse than ever, and Maunders dispatched his only stockman to the seaport town, with a led horse to bring up the doctor as speedily as possible.

All through the dark hours she raved of the haunting face and battled with the angry waves, and now, too, it was raging and consuming thirst that tormented her.

'Water, water! fresh, cold water!' was her one cry, in spite of the cool drinks her husband kept holding to her fevered lips. Late in the afternoon the stockman and the doctor arrived on tired-out horses. Maunders had written a description of the case, and the doctor came prepared with sedatives. But the attack appeared to have passed, for that night she slept naturally, and when the doctor left she seemed quite restored.

For many days Maunders felt strangely uncomfortable, and wondered greatly why this Chinese face should thus haunt his wife's dreams. He never employed Chinese, and she had never, in her remembrance, been frightened by one in childhood, or ever been brought much in contact with them. Gradually the feeling faded, and became only a disagreeable memory.

Work went on evenly once more, and Mrs. Maunders enjoyed her usual health again.

THE LAZY wavelets broke rhythmically on the untrodden beach. The day was hot, calm, and hazy. The primal forest growing beyond the fantastic and angular pandanus trees was lifeless and still. Nature and her family were having their siesta. On the smooth bosom of the sea, a short distance from the shore, floated some object but partially visible above the surface; the incoming tide was bringing it slowly nearer, for on this part of the Australian continent there was but a slight rise and fall, and even that was of uncertain height.

It was nearly sundown before the derelict touched bottom, floated over a small inequality, and grounded. It was wreckage of a sort. A hencoop, probably carelessly lashed, had been swept off the deck of a steamer. But this theory would not fit, for the coop carried a passenger, only he had been travelling, so to speak, steerage, underneath the water. The body of a dead man lay on the sand beneath the coop, lashed to it by two turns of a rope. When the man died the coop had turned turtle with his weight, and so borne its ghastly freight unseen to shore— to a shore where it was not likely to be found for some time, for the land there was lonely and uninhabited.

It was a spring tide that left it ashore, and there it lay untouched for weeks, save by the vicious red ants and the crabs that came at might from a patch of mangroves not far distant. In time a wandering lot of natives came by, and examined the flotsam cast there fry the sea. The body was shrunken and hideously disfigured, and they let the repulsive thing lie where the wavelets had bestowed their fatal gift to rot on.

A few nights afterwards two blacks were stricken down by sickness, and when the camp was shifted they left some dead behind. Again others sickened, and when they made back up the range Death walked with them through the northern jungle, amidst its close, unwholesome heat, and took toll of them, one by one— Death, too, in hideous guise, who smote his victims first with blindness and madness, and festering sores that made them tear their flesh, in agony intense. And, with the grim pursuer still always on their tracks, they wandered on and on, until a wretched remnant reached the country about Maunders's station, and as the quiet natives camped near the homestead were friendly to them they camped with them, and these, too, began to sicken and die.

When Maunders came home one evening he complained of having a headache and feeling feverish. He went to bed early, but day after day the feeling increased, until at last he took to his bed, and once more a hurried visit to the seaport was made for the doctor. The doctor wore a grave face when he called the sick man's wife to one side.

'Your husband, I am grieved to tell you, has smallpox, and appearances point to a most malignant type. How could he have caught it?'

She had heard of the sickness amongst the natives, and told him of it.

'Is he likely to have gone to the camp?'

'The black boy who goes out on the run with him sleeps there.'

'That must have been the source of infection. It is locking the stable door after the steed is stolen, but they must all be hunted away, and their camp burnt. The child must be kept away from him— and you?'

'I must nurse my husband,' she said resolutely.

The doctor looked gravely at her. 'You must,' he agreed. 'It is only good nursing will pull him through. Will you tell the man to get in fresh horses, and I will go back to town and bring out what is wanted— disinfectants and lymph, for I must vaccinate you all.'

So the blacks had to wander forth with their sick, and the cleansing fire swept their camp and blazed merrily amongst their frail bark gunyahs. But the pest had stayed its hand, and dogged their footsteps no more. They left it sitting at the side of the delirious white man, whose wife kept the spectre company.

The doctor returned and did all he could, and when he went back sat down to prepare a paper for a medical journal on an inexplicable and spontaneous outbreak of the worst form of smallpox amongst a tribe of natives in North Queensland.

ii

IT WAS before there was much restriction of Chinese immigration, and the Chowatta, a tramp steamer, was coming down the coast with 350 Coolies on board. When they left Hongkong they had another passenger who paid no passage money. Down in the fore-hold, roughly rigged up with tiers of bunks for the trip, the atmosphere was close and heavy with the smell of dirt, and oil, and opium. The dim lamps afforded but a murky light, just sufficient to show the recumbent, half naked forms packed around on the shelves.

One tossed and tumbled in incipient delirium and burning irritation. How delicious it would be to cool himself by a plunge in cold water, and the sick man got up and climbed up the steep, straight ladder on to the deck. It was a rough night, and a high sea was running, but the man with the smallpox rioting in his system noticed it not. He was no longer on the unsteady deck of the Chowatta, but standing on his sampan floating on the still water of the Pearl River.

The look-out turned round as he mounted the bulwark, and as a wave swirled up and received him, the cry of 'Man overboard!' was wafted aft. One of the stewards was on the poop, and cut the lashing of a hen-coop and threw it overboard to the drowning wretch as he vanished into the blackness. The sea was too high and the night too dark for a boat to be lowered, so the steamer was kept on her course.

The plunge under the cold waves restored the sufferer to his senses, and he battled strongly for life. As he struggled his beating hands struck something hard; it was the hen-coop, and to it he clung through the night of terror that followed. In the morning he found a loose piece of rope inside the coop, which had been empty on the trip, and had been made a receptacle for loose articles. With his last remaining strength he tied himself on to the coop, and then the fever fiend got him in his grasp again, and for two days and nights he drifted, drifted, suffering a raging hell of thirst and torture, with the salt of the sea encrusted on his sores. At last death was kind to him, and the coop yielded to the magnetic attraction of the land, and laid the pestilential gift on the sand, even as the Chowatta rounded the North Head with the yellow flag flying.

IN ONE of the Australian towns there is a young widow with an only child, living on slender means, who, when she meets a Chinaman in the street, shudders and avoids him.

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2: The Shadow of a Shadow

Evening News (Sydney) 21 Sept 1895

THE moon shone brightly through the many chinks of the old hut, in the walls of which were several gaps caused by the slabs having fallen down. Two travellers who were camped on the hard earthen floor for the night were suddenly aroused by a wailing sound that seemed to pass by their resting  place like the sigh of a breeze.

Both raised themselves on their elbows and listened. The wail came round once more, and as it swept by a passing gloom seemed to glide through the hut, as though the moon's light had been eclipsed for one brief instant...

The men were silent. Rising with one accord, they went to one of the gaps and looked out, for the sound was approaching once more. It came, it passed, and for an instant there was again a shade of gloom, and both men afterwards swore positively to seeing a plainly-defined shadow cross the broad path of moonlight. Not a shadowless man, but a shadow without the necessary substance to cast it.

The wail died down in the distance, and tlie men broke their silence.

'Rum sort o' thing, Jim. See that shadder?'

'My oath I did. And did yer hear what the thing cried out?'

'Sounded to me as if it was calling out, "Blind, blind."'

'Just what I took it to be.'

'Blame these old huts,' said the first speaker, as they returned to their blankets. 'A fellow never knows what he's going to get. If they're not chockful of fleas, why, it's ghosts as come moanin' around.'

When the men reached the next township, some thirty odd miles away, they told their tale. They were two fencers who had just finished a contract and were well known in the district as steady, decent men, not by any means given to romancing.

The story seized on the superstitious feelings of the townsmen, of which every man has a more or less sized share, the oldest inhabitant failing to recall any tragic story connected with the old hut and several excursions were made to test the truth of it by daring spookhunters. They all, with one exception, came back unsuccessful, the exception being a party of three, who, having loaded themselves up insideand out with whisky, returned with a richly-embroidered yarn of ghosts, devils, imps, and hobgoblins, sufficient to satisfy the yearnings of the wildest imagination.

In due time the story was forgotten, save by one man, who, having a theory of his own, had carefully noted the date of the vision of the shadow, and on the following year departed without beat of drum one morning of that date.

Although the moon's age was slightly different, it was old enough to give a good light, and the night was clear and still, and the inquirer after the supernatural slept restlessly, as a man would do who had exchanged a comfortable bed for a blanket on a hard floor. He was awakened by footsteps, not by the mysterious sounds heard by the former temporary occupants. A man's figure appeared at the doorless aperture, peered in, then entered.

'Who's that?' demanded the first tenant.

'Hell!' replied a voice, somewhat cracked and shaky. 'Who's that yourself? I'm not frightened of you, darn you.'

The ghost-seeker struck a match, and saw before him an old swagman, with a white, tobacco-stained beard, having the usual swag over one shoulder. He blinked at the sudden flare of light, then remarked:

'Dossing here, old man? What brought you out here? Don't look as though you were in the bluey line.'

'No; I came here to find out if this hut's haunted as they say it is.'

'Yes, that blessed yarn got in the papers, and as I was coming around this way, I thought I'd just go out of my road a bit to have a look myself; so I'll keep you company.'

And he threw his swag on the ground. At that moment a wail of downright agony, a cry of 'Blind! blind!' rang through the forest without, startling both the men in the hut.

On it came, and with it the gruesome darkening of the moonlight. The ghost-seeker had not recovered himself sufficiently to look out for the moving shadow the others averred they had seen; but on the second approach of the ghostly voice, now wailing loudly, as though knowing that there were listeners to shriek its torments to, he went to the open door and stepped out. There was no doubt of it— a shadow did cross the open space in front of the old hut. A shadow, it seemed to the watcher's excited fancy, like that of a man, stumbling along, holding both hands to his eyes.

He waited for the third repetition, and just as the weird shadow became visible he felt himself thrust on one side, and the old sundowner pushed past him, saying, 'He's come for me. I must go after him, and see what came of him.'

He went on and followed the invisible presence, and the ghost-seeker felt himself constrained to follow too and see the end. On through the silent forest they went, the viewless leader, the muttering old man, and the entranced spectator. On, on, a zig-zag course they kept, until at last they stopped.

The old man looked about still talking to himself, saying:

'He must'a bin about here, must'a bin here as he died.'

The supernatural voice had ceased, and presently the old man squatted down on the ground, with his back against a tree, and the other stooped over him and urged him to get up and return.

'I'm a-going to stop here,' he replied. 'Come daylight, p'raps I ll find Ibid.' This was all that could be got out i of him.

Suddenly the other asked, 'What do you know about this?'

'Know about it? Why, I knows all fltoont it. Just you listen and I'll tell yon. You can't see in the dark, but I'm a boko' (one-eyed) 'and it was Bill Simmons as made me so. It was nigh upon thirty yeans ago, and I could make good wages anywhere, and one night we was having a bit of a jamboree, and Bill was there, and he was one of the nastiest-tempered fellows in his drink as ever you came across. Bill got on to me, and presently he got my monkey up, and I gives him the lie straight out

' "Say that again," he shouts; "call me a blooming liar again, and I'll split y're skull open."

'Of course, I ups and calls him no end of a thundering liar, and what does the cur do but let drive at me with one of them big, heavy tumblers. It caught me fair in the eye, and smashed all to bits, etna a piece of it cut right into my eyeball.

'The other fellows bandaged me up, and took me to the doctor, and he said I must go to the hospital; and they took me there. Some of 'em went for Bill, but he never seemed sorry; said it served me jolly well right for calling such names, and he'd never given any provocation, and paid out a lot of slack of that kind. I had to stop weeks in the hospital, and while I was there he cleared out of the district: and you bet he didn't give any address where to find him. When I came out, t'other eye was a bit bandy— doctor says as how it was for sympathy. Queer sort of sympathy, it seemed to me.

'Well, all my bad luck set in then. First of all, a young woman as was going to marry me went back on me— says as how she never could abide a man with one eye; didn't seem natural like. Beside, that dead eye of mine would give her the jim-jams— always reminded her of an old horse her father had who took fright at some washing hanging out and smashed the cart. I told her as how I didn't intend to take fright at no washing; but she wouldn't have it at any price, and I got left. A few of the people who knew what a good workman I had been gave me an odd job, but it was poor truck, and gradually I had to drift about, travelling, getting anything I could do. So years went on, and I never clapped my one eye on Bill Simmons, until one blazing hot day I come to that old hut where you was camped. It was sound enough then, and there was a shepherd there with a flock of sheep. But there was no sheep about when I came there— only a man with his eyes tied up lying groaning on the bunk, and my colonial! if it wasn't Bill Simmons, blind as a bat with sandy blight. I knowed him by his snarly voice, with which he cussed me for letting the light in.

' "I say, damn you, whoever you are," he said, "will you go into the head station and tell 'em as I'm stone blind with the sandy, and 'the sheep's all over the country, and they must send out and get 'em together 'fore the dogs get among 'em?"

' "No, I'm hanged if I will," says I. "My name's Jim Donnelly, who you made a boko of years ago with chucking a glass at him, and you just about ruined me. you cur."

' "Jim Donnelly, are you?" he said. "Yes, I am, and you can just lie on your bunk and swear until somebody comes out from the station. If you wasn't as you are I'd take it out of your hide."

'He lay quiet for a bit; then he said: ' "I'm sorry, Jim Donnelly," in a humble kind of voice, and I thought he was going to cry small; but he burst out as savage as a meat-axe, "as I didn't knock both of your cussed, squinting eyes out when I was at it!"

'This got my hair off at once. "You'll repent those words, Bill," I says.

' "I repent 'em! When I get right I'll follow you up and just wallop the soul out of your carcass."

'Well, he kept on raving and abusing of me, and I got madder and madder as I thought of all the years of my life wasted through that wretch lying there blaspheming at me; but I kept cool. I cooked myself a feed of the best in the hut. How he did swear when he heard me opening his pickles and jam.

'When I'd finished, I says, 'Now, Bill Simmons, you want bringing down off your perch a bit— a peg lower will suit you,' so I went over to him and just took the bandage off his eyes. What a scream he gave, just like the way that ghost shrieked.

' "You've blinded me," he cried, putting his hands up to his eyes; but there was a. devil in me, and I only laughed at him. I took all the things out of the hut, as I thought he could find and make fresh bandages of, and emptied all the water away; then I went and sat down on the bundle and smoked his tobacco until sundown.

"He'd stopped raving after a bit, and when it was dark I heard him calling in a very pitiful voice 'Jim Donnelly! Jim! for the Lord's sake bring me a little water to wash my eyes, the lids is all glued together."

I would not answer him, though I felt sorry, so after a while he fell to cursing me agin, and presently he got up and I heard him groping his blind way out. He'd got his boots off, and was feeling for the track to the waterhole with his naked feet. He passed close to me, but I made never a move, although I was beginning to think better of it, and making up my mind that I would doctor his eyes up again and leave him.

' "Blast you, Jim Donnelly," he kept saying as he stumbled along. "May a blind shadder haunt you all your days.'

By and bye he gets off the track, and then he comes to grief agin a stump, and gets so outrageous mad over this that he muddled himself up together, and finally got on a sheep track and started to follow that I calls out to I him as he's wrong, but he was so busy swearing that he didn't hear me, so after letting him go on a bit I started after him meaning to bring him back, but being boko of one eye and not seeing well out of the other, I come to grief myself over a stump, and bringing my head agin a tree, and lay there stunned like for a bit. When I picked myself up Bill Simmons was nowhere in sight and I never set eyes on him again, no more did anybody else, although I looked high and low. He must have lost himself altogether, and wandered in the blazing sun next day till he died of thirst, and being without a hat.

'I heard of this yer yarn about, them fencer chaps seeing a shadder at this hut as called out it was blind, so I thought I'd just check up to see if Bill had been found; that's to say his bones or whatever left of him. Now, as it's pretty well daylight, we'll have a look round for 'em, they're dead sure to be about here somewheres.'

The two looked for the bones of Bill without successs, until the sun got high, then the ghost seeker tried to induce Donnelly to return to the hut, but without avail. The old fellow announced his intention of staying there until he found Bill's bones or died there.

When the ghost seeker got back to the township, and told of the success of his adventure he became a temporary hero, much to the jealousy of the oldest identity, who now professed to have remembered all about the mysterious disappearance of Bill Simmons, and predicted that the dead body of Donnelly would be found beside the bones of the lost man.

It wasn't, however, for when some curious people went out they found neither the old sundowner nor the swag he had left in the hut; nor has the wailing shadow ever been heard again, nor the bones of the bad-tempered Bill Simmons found.

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3: The Communicative Organ Grinder

Evening News (Sydney) 28 Sep 1895

MY mate and I were camped out west, about as far out as men had got in those days, and we had decided to turn back the next morning. I was awakened from a sound sleep by my companion Nickoll suddenly starting up and exclaiming 'Did you hear that?'  I listened, but could not hear a sound, and said so.

'Keep still,' he replied, 'I want to make sure that it is only my fancy.'

I listened silently, and presently, to my astonishment, heard something like a cracked concertina, or a crazy old barrel-organ, grinding out a wheezy tune.

'By Jove, there must be somebody camped near here,' I exclaimed.

'Not at all,' returned Nickoll quietly, 'that organ's ground by no mortal hands.'

'I thought they, went in for harps up there,' I answered.

'What tune was it trying to play?' he asked; ignoring my flippancy.

'It sounded like an attempt at "When Other Lips and Other Hearts".'

'Ah, then its right enough. I shall never get in again.'

'Tommyrot! Men get their cranks into their heads, and then they work it out themselves. It was a queer noise certainly, but I've no doubt it can be explained away in the morning.'

'I can explain it. It's my death warning.'

'Well, I know nothing about that, but you won't make me believe that there's a spectral old organ grinder knocking about out here.'

'Are you sleepy?'

'No.'

'Then I'll tell you the yarn. I was in London at the time, and had overworked myself. I was lodging in one of the suburbs, and used to work in my room. I was translating at the time, and the work was as hard as the pay was poor. I was terribly worried by an old organ grinder, who used to come daily and strum his wretched old instrument underneath my window. "When Other Lips" is not an especially joyful air at any time, but when it is ground over and over again by a cracked organ the agony is excruciating. The fellow did not exactly stand beneath my window, but at the house next door to me,  and the people used to encourage him by throwing him down coppers wrapped in paper.

'I tried my best to get rid of him. I once threw down a packet of chocolate creams with tartar emetic in them, and, by Jove, I was afraid I had poisoned him for good, for he was absent for two whole days. I tried him with copper coins made hot, and he burnt his ringers and swore, but came back. I threw him a bad shilling, in the hope that he'd try to pass it; but I suppose he mistrusted me, for nothing came of it. Then I took to sending in next door asking them out of charity to me to refrain from their daily dole.

'They were French people lodging there, and they affected to misunderstand my letter, for I received a reply written in what might be called Franco-English, stating "that they fully comprehended my noble sympathy on behalf of their distressed countryman, and if I sent in any contributions they would gladly add them to their small mite."

'This was maddening. I wrote them a letter in excellent French; but it was of no avail. You know how little things worry and distress a man when he is off the track, and what between insomnia and work, the persecution of this old grinder had become a monomania with me. Of course, I had told the police about the nuisance, and once or twice the men on the beat moved him on; but they did it in a perfunctory manner, and I feel pretty sore now that they were tipped by the people next door. How I finished my work I don't know, but I did; but still I would be kept awake with this atrocious "When Other Lips" ringing in my ears, I fancy, until daylight.

'There was a mystery about it, and I felt I should go mad if I did not solve it I was talking one day to a friend of mine who did some confidential clerical work in the police department. He noticed my nervous manner, and I told him the cause. He seemed somewhat struck by my narrative, and I did not see him for a day or two; then I received a note asking me to call and see him. I found two strangers with him, whose occupations were unmistakeable. One was a police inspector, the other a French detective. I was told, politely enough, that my story fitted in with some secret correspondence that had been going on lately between the London and Paris heads of the police, and would I describe the man and the occupants of the next house, or lodgers, there.

'I could not describe them, for I had never seen them. If they went out at all it was at night The Frenchman smiled. As for the organ grinder, I gave an accurate description of the fiend, and his habits and customs.

' "Has he lost two fingers on his left hand?"

'A thought struck me. When I threw Mm the hot coins he had picked them up with his right hand and burnt it; then he turned the handle with his left, and I noticed something wrong with it. Now it struck me that it was he had lost two fingers. I told that to them.

' "We shall want your assistance, but you need not show in the matter," said the police inspector, and I agreed to what was explained to me.

'Now, I own I could not at another time have given a poor devil away, but at this time my brain was in a state of abnormal irritation, and I certainly was not responsible for my actions as regards the organ grinder.

'To make a long story short, the organ grinder was a desperate communist escaped from New Caledonia. The French detective had an extradition warrant for him; but he had heard since coming to London that fade ex-communist was in communication with others who were badly wanted, and he was anxious to bag the whole. Through my occupation of the neighboring house the capture was effected neatly. And cleverly. Of course, the papers thrown down wrapped round the money contained cipher messages, and my friend the organ grinder was caught red-handed picking one up, which was just what the French detective aimed at doing. It afforded the link in the chain connecting him with the men in the other house, who were easily taken.'

Nickoll ceased and gazed dreamily into the fire which, for company's sake, we had made to burn up.

'Go ahead,' I said, 'that's not the end.'

'No; the bearing lies in the postscript. Before starting with his extradited prisoners, the French official paid me a visit.

' "See here," he said, "you have done me a good turn. This quick and complete capture means much for me, and I will try and repay it. When we handcuffed that organ grinder I saw him cast a villainous look up at your window. Believe me, my friend, he knows you, and guesses you had a hand in it although your name was never mentioned. Now I know the scoundrel, and a bigger devil's name does not figure in our list. If ever he gets free again he'll put a knife in you, believe me. He has no special enmity against me. He recognises that it was my business. But you were an outsider. He will go out to Noumea for life, and will be kept at it pretty hard; but who knows what may happen? If he escapes a second time I will warn you, no matter where you are, it is as well to be on your guard. It is the least I can do, and I am sure to hear of it Now, can you give me a permanent address which will always find you?"

'I reflected. I had almost made up my mind to return to Australia, which I had foolishly quitted in search of better fortune at the Cape, some years before. I mode it up on the spot, and gave him a permanent address with a friend resident in Sydney.

' "Good," he said, as he took it down. 'I will cable you. What is a pound or two to me compared with what you have done?"

' "By the way," he said, halting at the door. "Our dear friend made this remark: 'Tell that damned Englishman that he shall hear that tune I tormented him with so, just before he dies. He has sent me back to hell, and if I die first I'll come and play it to him just before he goes there.' Bah! for all that hell business. But the dog meant something."

And the detective left.

'And is that the end?'

'That is the end of one chapter of my story so far. You will probably see the epilogue.'

I did not answer, and soon fell asleep.

The next morning, while Nickoll was after the horses, I searched round about for any clue to the strange noise, but found none. We started home, and arrived there without any mishap.

Then Nickoll and I drifted apart. Six months afterwards we met in Sydney. Naturally, after the manner of bushmen, we adjourned somewhere for a drink and a yarn.

'Well, old man,' I said. 'I'm heartily glad to see you again, for, by all the rules of the game, you ought to be a corpse now. You remember the ghostly organ grinder out west?'

'Don't!' he replied, and turned, I thought, a little pale. 'That story is not finished even yet. After we parted I came into a little money, and had to come down here to settle the business. What do you think I found awaiting me amongst other letters? A cablegram from the French detective stating that our mutual friend had again effected his escape. From information I have subsequently gained it was on the same hour that we heard the infernal tune out there. Naturally, I kept a lookout, and also found that the Sydney police had received notice from Noumea, and a full description of the man.

'One day, turning a corner,  I came right against him. He was well got up, but the recognition was mutual and instantaneous. I expected an attack, and was on my guard for a stab; but he saw that I was a bigger man, and prepared. Muttering a curse, he turned back. His chance had not arrived. At that moment a sergeant of police turned the corner, the very man, luckily, from whom I had been making inquiries concerning this escapee.

' "There's your man," I said, pointing to him. "Quick!"

' "By God, it is!" he answered, and sprang forward. I heard his whistle sound, and there was a scuffle, and the usual crowd closed in. I stood where I was. Presently the ring parted, and I saw my friend led away in handcuffs for the second time. The sergeant's hand was bleeding, and the other policeman had a knife in his hand. That is the end of another chapter.'

THIS happened three years ago. I know that Nickoll is well, but have not met him since.

________________

4: An Unquiet Corpse

Evening News 5 Oct 1895

'SOU-WEST you'll pick up the road from Watervale,' said the man in charge of the repairing party on the overland telegraph line, addressing two travellers with led pack horses; 'but it's almighty rough across there, and I'd advise you to go back to Watervale, and follow the road, You'll find it shorter in the end.'

'Don't like turning back,' said one of the men, 'and our horses are pretty fresh, and shod.'

'Oh, it's not stones so much as sand ridges— white sand and pine scrub. However, you'd better turn out here, and start to-morrow morning, for there's only one place where you can reckon on water, and that's a creek about half way.'

'What came of the old loony who was knocking about here six months ago?' said one of the line-men, addressing the crowd in general as they sat eating their meal that evening.

'Never heard,' returned another; 'but there was some yarn about his tracks having been seen going out the way you fellows are going; and another yarn about his horses having turned up at Watervale, but I never heard the rights of it.'

Next morning the two men started, and towards sundown came to the creek they had been told about. It was a desolate looking spot enough; a bare sandy creek, where a trickle of water down the centre of the bed, cut its way between white sand ridges, whereon gaunt angular pine trees threw their naked arms about. There was a little grass on the edge of the bank, and the travellers soon turned their tired horses out for it had been, heavy travelling all day.

'What's that half-way up the ridge there, Jack?' said one of them.

'Blessed if at does not look like a rag of an old tent. Let's go up and see.'

It was the tattered rags of an old tent which the wind had blown into ribbons, and the late owner sat with his back to a tree as if complacently, contemplating the wreck of his property. He had been dead some months, and the summer heat had dried him to a mummy.

'What the devil's that round his neck?' said Alf to his mate, as they stood and surveyed the relic.

They went forward and found a surcingle round the neck of the corpse, like a running noose, the end of the surcingle having been passed through the buckle and pulled nearly taut.

'Looks as if he'd been hanged and then let down again,' said Jack, glancing up the tree.

There was a suspicious bough handily situated just overhead. They found a pack-saddle and a riding saddle in the camp, and a few of the rest of the impedimenta a man generally carries in outside country; but the dogs had been at work, and the leather had been damaged by the weather.

'I suppose it's the old loony the men spoke of, whoever he was. I reckon we had better bury him in the morning; it's too late to-night' said Jack.

'What on earth did he want to come and die here for?' grumbled Alf, who seemed to look upon it rather in the light of a personal affront.

'I suppose he couldn't pick and choose his own place, could he?' retorted Jack. 'Although for the matter of that I don't see what he had to die of about here. It's not a cheerful spot certainly, but there's no occasion for a man to die on that account.

The men cooked and ate their meal, and soon were fast asleep. '

Jack woke up in the middle of the night and looked around, and listened to hear which way the horses were making. It, was bright moonlight and if the place looked cheerless by day, it looked far more so at night The white bare sand and the sombre trees, with their black shadows, did not combine to make up a lively picture. A wind was wailing too, and made a melancholy sound, amongst the pine boughs. Jack's attention was drawn by the flapping of the old tent on the ridge. He looked that way, started, jumped up, and stared with might and main. He glanced at Alf, but he was sleeping soundly. What he thought he saw was a dark figure leaping and waving its arms about under the tree where the corpse lay.

'Must be a moving bough,' muttered Jack. 'Any way, I'll go and see without waking Alf.'

Buckling on his belt and revolver, he went noiselessly to the spot and' came on to a strange sight. The corpse had got up, and was indulging in strange and unbecoming antics— springing in the air; and trying to throw the end of the surcingle that was round its neck over the branch overhead.

At last it gave up, and moaned so miserably that Jack felt sorry for it; he was a soft-hearted fellow.

'What's the matter, old man?' he said.

'Matter!' groaned the corpse. 'Why I've got to roost out here on this ridge without any rest until I've hanged myself.'

'What do you want to hang yourself for? I should have thought you had no need to do that.' (Jack told me this yarn himself, and said he felt as cool as a cucumber all through the interview.)

'You don't understand,' returned the corpse. 'All our family have hanged themselves. My father, my grandfather, and my uncle Bill. My cousin Ned was hanged by the hangman. Now, my uncle Bill was a cantankerous old curmudgeon, who always disliked me, and before he did it he wrote a letter about his property, and in it he said, "I mistrust my nephew Frank (that's me); when the time comes he'll go back on his family, see if he don't."

'And then the old maligner went and did it.

'Now, I felt very hurt about this, and it rather preyed upon me, so one day I made an attempt to prove old uncle Bill a liar, but I was cut down and reprimanded by a magistrate, and altogether made a mess of it. I tried another time; same result. Same result again a third time, and I was getting about tired of it. Then I made up my mind to come out away back somewhere where a man could have a fair show. I got a hankering after the telegraph posts, but I didn't think it quite fair, because those chaps on the line were very sociable, so I came out here, and, would you believe it that very day I started I was taken bad with the fever.

'You know what the fever is, how it takes it out of a man's knees and neck and backbone, and everything else. How I managed to get here, I don't know; but somehow I did, and here I had to camp. I was bad, and a bit off my head for a few days, and when I was able to get about I found that my horses had come to the conclusion that it was a God-forgotten kind of place, and had cleared out Then it struck me that now was my chance. Here was I, all alone, no one to cut me down; I'd show Uncle Bill if I was going to go back on the family. And then, then—'  (Here the corpse yelled in agony.)

'I was too weak, too gone in the joints, to throw that blessed surcingle over the branch! I tried, and tried, and tried, and at last one day I made a sort of a cast of it and half choked myself, and being so weak I fell down under the tree, and died.'

The corpse was silent for awhile.

'Ever since then,' went on the defunct, 'I've been tormented by old Uncle Bill coming and jeering at me, and night after night I've tried to do it properly and failed, and never a soul has come to this day to help me. Now,' went on the corpse, in a coaxing tone, 'would you mind giving me a hand. Just a pull on the surcingle, you know; throw it over the limb first.'

Jack took up the surcingle and considered. There could be no harm in hanging a dead man who wanted it so badly. The corpse took up his position, and he threw the surcingle over the limb, but it fell too short for him to grasp.

'Wait a minute,' he said, 'I will go and get one of our's and buckle on.'

Jack went to the camp, and got a surcingle. Alf was still snoring, and the dead man was awaiting him with a heavenly smile of expectation on his face.

'Now, then,' said Jack, 'say when you're ready.'

'Ready!' cried the corpse.

'Up you go,' said Jack, and half way up to the limb he went. Jack took a turn and a couple of half-hitches round a handy sapling, then, saying 'Good-night' went back to his camp, and slept soundly until morning.

THE TWO travellers got up at daylight. Alf went after the horses, which had gone down the creek in a different direction. Jack got breakfast ready, and glanced at the place of his midnight adventure, but there was nothing hanging on the tree, so he came to the conclusion that it was a nightmare, and made up his mind to say nothing about it. Presently Alf returned with the horses, and they had breakfast.

'Suppose we'd better go and bury that chap,' growled Alf. 'Good job it's soft digging.'

Jack assented, and they started. Arrived at the spot Alf looked round and started.

No wonder! The body lay under the limb, the head a little distance off, and over the branch dangled the empty noose. Evidently the defunct's neck had not stood the strain. Jack kept silence; then Alf strode over to where the second surcingle was fastened to the sapling, and examined it.

'Blowed if he didn't come down and get my surcingle,' he muttered as he recognised his initials marked on it. He unbuckled it and marched off, saying to Jack as he did so, 'Look here, if that fellow could get up last night and hang himself with my surcingle, he can just bury himself as well.'

____________________

5: Rosita's Curse

Evening News (Sydney) 12 Oct 1895

IT WAS a hot, tropical night, and a soft, drizzling rain was falling. The sea was calm, with a long, lazy swell, and in the north-west there was a constant mutter of thunder, with an incessant gleam of distant lightning. There was no inducement to stop on deck, and very little to go below. The steamer was built more for cargo than passenger traffic, and, in point of fact, there were only two passengers on board— myself and a Portuguese officer from Goa on his way to Macau.

He was a heavy swell, and no wonder, for his name was Dona Miguel Francisco de Paula da Rocha, and he came on board at Bombay in a meteor-like uniform that made one wink to look at him. However, he had the sense to put on Christian-like garments when we got to sea, and, apart from the little foibles natural to his country, turned out to be a decent enough fellow. Moreover, he had been so long in the East that he could speak tolerable English, and, all things considered, we got on pretty well.

We were between Singapore and Hongkong on the particular night I speak of, and so far had made a very fair passage. I knocked my pipe out at last and went below. The lowered lights of a couple of lamps illuminated the saloon but dimly, and I stumbled over the recumbent forms of the sleeping cabin boys, and used some strong language.

'What is the matter?' asked the Dom, as I passed the open door of his cabin, and we exchanged a few remarks on the closeness of the night and the difficulty of getting any sleep. I took a pillow, and went to lie down, on one of the transoms, and lay there for some time, while the churn of the screw and the beat of the pistons wound themselves up in a sort of a rhyme in my brain and I dozed off.

Presently I awoke, and turning restlessly on to my side, saw that the opposite transom was occupied.

'The Dam must have found his cabin too close, like myself,' I thought, and then I saw that it was not the Dom, but a stranger. I got up, and looked, curiously across at my silent companion. He was dressed in a blue tunic, his black hair was cut short, and he had either bandages or a white handkerchief bound around the lower part of his face. We had been too long at sea for the man to be a stowaway or a deserter from Goa. I thought I would rouse up one of the boys and draw attention to the strange presence; but Dom Miguel heard me moving, and came to the door of his cabin.

'Who's that fellow asleep on the transom?' I asked. He peered, across the table, and then s gave a start, and took two or three steps forward. He clutched my arm, and as he gazed his grasp grew positively painful.

'Pedro!' he cried at last, and at the exclamation the figure on the transom rose and looked back at him. Such a face of horror was turned towards us that I don't wonder that the Dom fell down in a faint, with a yell of terror. I know I shouldn't like to have a living corpse look at me so vindictively.

I saved the Dom from a heavy fall, and as I was bending over him the purser came out, and asked what the row was about I told him I didn't know, but that a stranger was camped on one of the transoms, and Dom Miguel had recognised him and got a fright.

'There's no one on the transom, man,' said the purser, and turned the nearest lamp up. There was no one there.

'He must nave slipped away,' I said. 'Help me to get Dom Miguel back to his cabin.'

We roused him somewhat and did so, and just at that moment there was a sharp order and a bustle on deck. Then a roar swept up, and the steamer heeled over, and the sound went hurtling to leeward. The purser and I were both nearly capsized, but Miguel was safe in his bunk. As we were going out to see what all the uproar was about he opened his eyes, and I saw that he wanted to speak to me. I held on, for we had a good list, and stooping down heard him ask if 'it had gone.' I told him 'the man was gone,' and went out to the cabin, where the purser was hunting the boys round, shutting portholes and making all fast.

We had been struck by the outer edge of a typhoon; the sea, was getting up rapidly, and by morning we were steaming head to wind, playing seesaw beautifully.

Dom Miguel was up next morning, although, as a rule, he was only a fair weather sailor, but he said nothing about the night's work, only expressed some anxiety to know our exact position.

The skipper would not leave the bridge, but the chief officer was down for a short spell, and gave him the desired information. He turned more sallow than ever, and shortly after spent to his cabin. We had an ineffective search after the strange man, and I had to stand. some chaff about it, but there was no mistake about the fright the Dom got.

About 12 he sent for me, and I went into his cabin to see him. His first question was as to our position. I told him that we were in much the same place, and would be until the wind fell, as we were only keeping her head to wind and sea. He groaned, and suddenly sat up in his bunk. '

'And we shall stop here,' he cried, vehemently. 'Why did I ever come back to this cursed coast? Listen to me, you have time before tiffin. That man you saw last night lies drowned at the bottom of this sea. He went down with a shot at his heels years ago.

'I was around here when I was little more than a boy— a smooth-faced cadet—' and here he stroked his long moustache fondly. 'I came from Goa in a gunboat commanded by my uncle, a Da Rocha. He was a man of violent temper, and self-willed to a degree, which had kept him back in his professsion, or he would have been given something better than a paltry little gunboat, but there were so many stories of his cruelty whispered about that even his influential friends could not advance him. This made his temper worse, and the men on the gunboat could not call their souls their own. I was in charge of a small party of ten soldiers and their wives, going round to Macau, to be stationed there for some time.

'One of the soldiers— Pedro, the man you saw last night— had married a very beautiful girl. I don't know of what descent she was, but she was a half-breed of some sort. She had eyes like midnight, and a form as curved and rounded as a Greek statue's. My uncle had his wicked eye on her, but she scorned and avoided him. Then poor Pedro came in for it. Now, I might have asserted myself a little, but you see how young I was, and I could not go against my uncle, as I was under his command on board; so, between one pretext and another, poor Pedro soon found himself in irons below.

'But his wife never left him, and there was not a man on board could have made her, for she had the eyes of a wild beast when roused, and a knife as sharp as its claw.

'Now, Pedro was brought up on deck for an airing one day, and a squall struck us as he was stumbling up and down with the aid of his wife, and put the vessel right over, like Last night. Pedro fell heavily, and broke his jaw against some iron work.

'The surgeon then plucked up enough spirit to interfere, and insisted that the man's irons should be taken off, and tie should be put in hospital. This was done, and the poor fellow was a little better off. Now, for what happened I can only account by supposing that my uncle's temper and his passion for this girl had so Increased that he was not responsible for what he did. Rosita tended her injured husband, and one morning leaving him sleeping she went away to rest herself. My uncle and the surgeon went below, and what passed between them I do not know, but that surgeon was as guilty as my wretched uncle. All I know is this, that when I came on deck shortly afterwards Pedro was on deck, apparently a corpse, and the sailmaker busy stitching canvas round him.

'The captain said something to his officers about a catching disease; the body was laid on a hatch, the engines stopped, the hatch tilted, and poor Pedro went overboard.

'Almost before the noise of the plunge died away his wife was on deck, knife in hand. The stoppage of the engines had aroused her.

' "Devils!" she said, glaring round, "what have you done with my husband?"

' "Your husband, Rosita, died suddenly, and it was necessary for the safety of the crew that he should be buried immediately."

'So spoke the surgeon. She gave him one look of awful contempt then turned to the captain.

' "Liar and murderer," she cried, with blazing, eyes. "He was well, and better when I left him. You have killed him and thrown him overboard; but you will never gain your end, for I will follow him." With knife uplifted for whoever should attempt to stay her she sprang on to the bulwark, and stood there holding on by a stay, while she cursed us all. Such a curse! It rings in my ears yet. It was levelled at everyone on the ship, and the ship itself. Suddenly, while we all listened awestruck, a flash of light gleamed past me, and my uncle fell; next moment she sprang into the sea. Her last act had been to hurl her knife with unerring aim straight into the captain's heart.'

Dom Miguel ceased speaking for a while.

'Now, I will tell you the great crime. That poor man was alive when he was cast overboard. He had been drugged. I saw him open his eyes before the canvas was sewn over his face.'

I was silent after this strange narration. What could I say after what I had seen the night before? Dom Miguel went on—

'We reached Macau an safety, and the gunboat returned in charge of the first lieutenant. She was never heard of again. Sickness carried off every one of the soldiers and their families before the year was out, and I am the sole survivor. I believe we are now in the same place, and last night Pedro came up from his ocean grave to tell me to be ready. I am ready. I want you to see to my effects, and deliver them and these letters to the Portuguese Consul at Hongkong. Now, good-bye.'

I was quite at a loss for anything to say. I took the letters, promised compliance with his wishes, and left him.

The captain managed to get down to tiffin, and to our surprise Dom Miguel in full uniform, ablaze with orders and ribands, put in an appearance. The captain, a taciturn man, stared, but said nothing. There was too much ducking and diving to stay long at table, and when we rose I went up on the bridge with the captain.

It was wild chaos all around, about as tempestuous a sea as I ever saw. We were shipping seas over the bows with nearly every plunge, and there seemed no sign of the turmoil of wind and water abating. Presently we saw Dom Miguel come put and ascend the poop. The captain made some remark about the figure he cut in his gay uniform on that reeling deck, when the quartermaster let her fall off; a huge sea raced along our side, just curling over the bulwarks, then seemed to spring up over the quarter and shatter itself on the poop. As the steamer dived, the water rushed on to the main deck in two cataracts adown the companion ladders, but Dom Miguel was gone; nor in that tumultuous sea could we catch one glimpse of him.

At sundown the typhoon had blown itself out.

________________________

6: Professor Dodo's Experiment

Evening News (Sydney) 2 Nov 1895

I SUPPOSE no man ever had a more devoted admirer than Professor Dodo had in myself. I metaphorically sat at his feet and drank in learning through my ears. He was a very taking man, absorbed in scientific research; but what attracted me most was the fact that he was a daring experimentalist.

At that time I was a young man, living at home with my family, and, like most young men, apt to make a fool of myself by going in for extremes of hero-worship. Just at that period it was Professor Dodo.

For some time, however, he had been somewhat more reticent and uncommunicative than usual. Whatever it was that he was engaged on, he did not invite me to share his confidence. The professor, however, had one weakness, common, as I know now, to the greatest of men, but as I then thought a weakness far beneath him. It was a consuming jealousy of Dr. Panto, a man who could not possibly aspire to rival him. Be that as it may; Panto and he were mortal enemies.

One evening the professor came to our house in a wonderfully pleasant frame of mind. I could tell at once that the experiment, whatever it was, that he had been engaged upon, had turned out a success. I was suffering from an attack of neuralgia at the time, and he soon noticed it.

'I will send you something that will quickly relieve you,' he said as he left, and in about half an hour's time his man came round with a bottle of medicine and a note telling me how to use it. True enough, it relieved my pain speedily, and I slept soundly throughout the night. In fact, next morning I felt stronger and more active than I had done for a long time. I went to see the professor, and on his inquiring after my health I told him how I felt.

'You've run down a bit, my boy,' he said, 'I am not a professional M.D., but still I can give you something that will make a new man of you.' Afterwards I understood the fiendish meaning of those words.

I thanked him cordially, and he sent me the medicine, with instructions how to use it. Certainly it was a wonderful invigorative, and seemed to- put the most uncommon strength into my limbs. At the same time, I did not feel up to much brain work, and what I did was with great exertion. One evening the professor strolled up to ask after me.

'I noticed that you were a little feverish to-day,' he said, 'so I have brought round a soothing draught which will give you a sound night's rest. Take half when, you go to bed, and go early. You will probably wake in some three hours, then take the other half. In the morning you won't know yourself.'

We shook hands, and I followed his advice, and fell off to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. Then I dreamt a strange dream. I saw before me a boundless sea— a sea that seemed to stretch further than our earthly one, as though I was high up in the air and bad a more extended view. Gigantic creatures of strange and awful shape swam and floated on this great sea, and fought and devoured each other, until it all passed from my view, and there was nothing but mud— mud everywhere— and through, it and over it crawled horrible reptiles of all kinds; and these, too, fought and devoured each other. I awoke with a start of horror, and struck a light; it was half past 12.

I hastily drank the remainder of the draught and went back into bed, trusting that I would nave no more dreams of that description. There was one strange thing which did not strike me at the time, for I fell asleep at once, but when I got into bed, instead of doing it in the ordinary manner, I leaped lightly on the bed from the floor and then laid myself down.

At once I was in a forest so dense, so thick and high, that it made twilight underneath. But that did not matter, for I was one of a band of apes who sported amid the upper branches. How we frisked and fought and swung ourselves about, and watched the great beasts struggling in combat underneath; and pelted them with dead limbs, and then marched away to some other part, and there met with other apes, and battled for the new territory. Oh! it was a mad life; until one day, chasing one of my fellows, a branch broke with me, and I fell clear eight on to the ground.

I was awake; sitting up in my bed, with my heart beating fast. Was this the sound sleep promised me? The day had just commenced, a summer morning, and I got out of bed, intend

I must get into the fresh air. I sat down on the edge of the bed to dress, and quite unconsciously picked up my sock with my toes instead of my hand. I started as I did so, and looked at my foot.

Good God! It was not my foot It was long, narrow, and the great toe was like a thumb. My hands! They, too, were altered. I rushed to the glass, and at the first glimpse I turned to see who was looking over my shoulder. No one! I was gazing at what purported to be my own reflection, but surely that ape-like countenance was not mine? It was, though. It was myself, and not myself. I shuddered with disgust.

This, then, was the experiment he had been employed on. This the hell-brew he had been administering to me! I grew quite calm, for I saw the necessity for it. I would go at once to the villain. Scarcely any one was stirring, and I could depart unobserved. If he refused to undo his devilish work I would kill him first and myself afterwards. I would not live like I was.

I dressed myself, and with some trouble got my boots on; then I started on my errand of vengeance.

What a lovely morning it was, and what a miserable wretch I felt As I crossed the park an irresistible impulse made me leap up and, catching hold of a branch, swing myself up into a tree and sit on a limb; then I remembered myself, and dropped to the ground. Fortunately no one was about to witness this wild antic.

I reached the professor's house just as a sleepy servant was opening the door. Pushing past her, I went straight up to his room, which I knew well.  Evidently he expected me, for he was awake and sitting up in bed.

'How do you find yourself?' he asked, sneeringly.

'The question is how will you find yourself directly,' I replied.

'Then your visit is—'

'To choke the life out of you and then kill myself.'

'Indeed! And what good will that do? The whole of my experiment, and its success— Its success, mark you!—is written down and deposited in a safe place. You may kill me, but the record remains. You may kill yourself, but your body and skeleton remain as a proof of my success, which will stamp me the most wonderful scientist in the world's history.'

'I will drown myself from a steamer.'

His face changed, and I saw his hand steal underneath the pillow, but with my ape-like agility I had the revolver from his hand, and sent it crashing through the window. Then I took him by the throat, and shook him soundly. The madman would have shot me for my skeleton.

'Now,' I said, 'will you restore me to my natural shape?'

'On one condition. Allow yourself to be photographed in all the different positions I want, and then I will do it.'

'Never.'

'Remember. If you kill me, you kill the only man who can restore your form. Reflect.'

'I have reflected,' I returned, as a bright thought flashed through me. 'I am going now to Dr. Panto. I will allow him to photograph me, and exhibit me if he likes. I will swear that you had nothing whatever to do with it; that you are a humbug and an impostor; and Dr. Panto shall claim the successful experiment, and reap all the honor and glory of it. Good morning.'

What a howl of anguish burst from that bed!

'You mean it?' he yelled.

'Mean it! Do you suppose a man in my position sticks at trifles?'

'I will do it,' he said feebly, and in a broken tone.

He went to his laboratory, and presently returned with certain drugs, which he told me how to use.

'Now, mark me,' I said, as I left. 'Before I take these I am going to write to Dr. Panto a detailed account of your experiment and its success. This will be sealed up to be opened after my death, so that should you have given me poison you will not gain by it.'

'One thing,' he said humbly, 'have you any sign of a tail coming?'

I withered him with a look, and left. It was still early, and I regained my home without observation. The charm worked backwards, and I arose a man once more.

Dodo died soon afterwards from sheer disappointment. But we did not speak in the interim.

__________________

7. Gannon's Ghost

Evening News (Sydney) 16 Nov 1895

'GHOSTS do come back,' said Jim, indulging in the luxury of lighting his pipe at the slush lamp, a thing to make one shudder.

'Old Gannon came back, as most people know. Old Gannon died some years after his daughter Mary got married. You knew Mary Gannon, of course?'

'No, I didn't,' I replied wearily, seeing that Jim was going in for one of his complicated yarns, which, at any rate, might send me to sleep.

'Mary Gannon was a nice girl, barring a slight cast in one eye and a habit of coughing at meal times. She married Tom Davis, and he was not a bad fellow, either, only he couldn't smoke without spitting—'

'Oh, hang it all, shut up!' I said. 'Tell us about old Gannon's ghost.'

'Old Gannon's ghost, eh? He was a terror; and the strange thing was that there was no reason for his coming back, so everybody thought until afterwards. He had been well and properly buried in a nice, dry grave, and what he wanted to leave it for no one could make out. However, the first night it happened Tom Davis, who was living in the old man's house, which had been left to them, went out into the verandah for his usual smoke after tea, while Mary put the things away. They had one little boy, about 3 years old, and he went out with his father to be out of Mary's way—'

'Confound it, keep out of Mary's way yourself, and tell us about the ghost.'

'Just what I'm coming to. The youngster being out there with Tom suddenly said— "Why, there's granpa." Sure enough, when Tom looked, there was the old man, just like life, leaning against the fence.

'Poor Tom was a terrible simpleton, for, without a word of preparation to his wife, he said— "Why, Mary, here's father come back."

'Of course, she came straight out on to the verandah, and as soon, as she saw her dead and buried father, gave one scream and fainted. Then the youngster cried out at seeing its mother fall, and. with one thing and another Tom had his hands full, so that he never saw how the old man disappeared.

'That was the first time old Gannon's ghost was seen.'

'I hope he was more interesting the next time,' I yawned.

'He was, you may take your oath. He didn't come and lean against the fence quietly, but took to walking round the house and swearing like a bullock-driver. The worst of it was that no one could understand him. They could tell it was swearing, and bad swearing, too, by the emphasis the old man threw into it, but as to what language it was— why, there was not a soul could guess. Now, old Gannon, as everybody knew, had never learnt any language in his life, so where he'd been acquiring foreign tongues during the time he had been buried was the mystery.

'All the people from round about I used to come to see the old apparition gabbling out swear words, and bring every foreigner they could lay hands on, but the only one they had any success with was a Hindoo hawker. He said, and whether he lied or not I can't say, but what he stated was to the effect that he had seen the same sort of thing before in his own country, and it was not old Gannon's ghost at all, but something or another in his appearance who might have come from anywhere— Central Africa, or Lapland, or any other outlandish place. He didn't express any opinion as to the cause of such strange procedure on the part of a disembodied spirit; only asserted that such things had been known in his country, and that, so far as he knew, there was no cure for it.

'Now, this roused all the woman and daughter in Mrs. Davis, who commenced to abuse the Hindoo hawker, asking him if he supposed that she did not know her own dear, blessed father, and could imagine that he would allow any kind of heathen, black or white— and here she threw great force and expression into her language— to steal his body? That, if such things did happen in the hawker's country, why, she had no great opinion of it as a place to live in, although it was quite good enough for him.

'She began to get hysterical, and all the while the shindy was on the ghost of old Gannon kept stumping around swearing volubly, so you can imagine the confusion.'

Here Jim paused, and started his pipe again at the slush lamp. I was commencing to get interested.

'Well, this tireless old ghost began to get a nuisance, and although Mary Davis entreated him to go back to his grave and rest there quiet he paid no attention to her at all. At last the thing attracted so much attention, and began to bring such crowds of people, that Davis had a fence put round the place and made a charge for admission, and the ghost brought in a tidy income, which smoothed things over, and the Davis family began to get proud and uppish.

'Then came their downfall.

'As I said before, the ghost had attracted so much, attention that many people who had studied this kind of thing came to see it, and amongst them a very clever man with at least twelve letters after his name, and he stopped there some days trying to find out the truth.

'One night— the ghost, of coarse, only walked at night— he suddenly struck his forehead, and said some words of gibberish to the ghost, and, to everyone's astonishment, the spectre stopped, and the two entered into an animated conversation, and finally shook hands. You can imagine now everybody crowded round and stared at this scene.

' "Now," said the eminent man, turning to Mrs. Davis, "I can explain this thing. This is your father's ghost, and yet it isn't. Now, have you ever had any blacks about here?"

' "No,' replied Mrs. Davis, indignantly. "Father never could abear them, and, besides, they've been all dead years and years ago."

' "Ah! I thought so. Just you dig up your father's body, and you will find that you have put him in an ancient native burying ground. The old man evidently didn't like this, and attempted to get up and come and tell you so; but some old blackfellow made an effort to 'jump up white-fellow' at the same time, and the result was that things have got terribly mixed."

'Here the eminent man with twelve letters after his name paused, and Mrs. Davis, as she thought of the Hindoo hawker, burst into tears.

'The scientist went on: "I have been, studying native dialects of late, and fortunately was able to recognise a few words. The result is as you see. I have ascertained your father's wishes, and those are, that he should be dug up again and buried elsewhere. If you do that I am convinced that he will rest in peace." With this the eminent scientist departed.'

I was just going to sleep when Jim commenced again, and woke me up.

'You would have thought that when the Davis family heard all the rights of the case they would have at once acted on the scientist's advice, but, unfortunately, they had grown avaricious, and kept the poor old ghost still running around on account of the income he brought in. However, the truth got about, and the public commenced to buck. Moreover, those who had come at first turned rusty, and demanded their money back. Said that they had come to see old Gannon's ghost, not that of a common blackfellow so they had to dig old Gannon up, and—'

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8: The Black Waterhole

Evening News (Sydney) 30 Nov 1895

'THE story of the Black Waterhole,' said Tom Donovan, 'is firmly believed in by every man, woman, and child around that part, I don't say but what I feel inclined to put some faith in it myself. However, I'll tell you the truth of it, and you can judge for yourselves, only all l tell you has been well authenticated.

'The Black Waterhole is on the Koramang River; a rare old place about there for the worst kind of selectors. Smart fellows the youngsters are, too, so far as regards the bush, but as ignorant of the outer world as it is possible for any one to be at the end of the nineteenth century. The only books they read are the penny cowboy and detective novels, and they implicitly believe that such fustian heroes really exist in America.

'One day one of these budding Premiers of Federated Australia was fishing in the Black Waterhole when he saw something rise up out of the water and look at him. Look at him hard, with such a look that his heart sank down to his belt and his knees got what he called the 'ager' in them— meaning ague. However, he was able to cut and run for it, which he did. When asked to describe the appearance he could not do so. It was a man's head— it was a calf's head— it was a snake's head— here somebody asked if it was not a donkey's head; but the matter was too serious for joking, for the Black Waterhole was one of the best holes in the river, and if that was haunted it would be a bad look-out.

'At last some bold spirits volunteered to go and recover the fishing line, and four started. Three stopped behind for various reasons, so the fourth found himself alone when, he reached the waterhole, and did not fancy the position at all. However, he took his courage in both hands, and proceeded, to pull the line up. Something was on the end, probably a turtle; but when he hauled it up he saw something that he dared not touch. It was the hand of a man— such a hand! It had come away from the arm at the wrist; it was bleached and rotten and corrupted, but— and the young fellow noticed it at once— the hand was clenched round the line. The hook had not caught by chance in this awful hand. But the dead hand had clutched the line, and become detached from the body.

'The young fellow kept his nerve, and walked home holding the ghastly thing by the line. Arrived there the neighbors assembled to hear has tale, and the youthful hero told it with many embellishments. How he felt the hand haul at the line, and then pull hard against him, &c.

' "The police will have to be informed," said old Philaster. "There's a body in that hole where the hand came from."

' "Let it stop there," returned a neighbor; "we don't want the police poking about here for days, prying into things that don't concern them."

" 'That's true," echoed several others. But old Philaster insisted that the police must be informed, otherwise it would look suspicious if the thing leaked out, which it was sure to do, sooner or later.

'So the police were informed, and the drowned hand, still clutching the line, passed over to them. Then the highly disagreeable of task of searching for the body was proceeded with, and the horrid thing at last found, brought ashore, and recognised by the young fisherman as the horror that rose up out of the water and stared at him.

'Now came the question, who was the deceased, and how did he come in the waterhole? And that question neither the police nor any one else was able to answer.

'It was three years afterwards, and, things about the Black Waterhole had much altered for the better. The selections had been fenced for the most part; and the face of the country, on account of the clearing of the timber, entirely altered in appearance.

'Two troopers with a prisoner rode to the Black Waterhole one midday, and turned out for a short spell. The man was a horse thief, who had been caught after a long chase; they put leg irons on him as soon as he dismounted.

'When they had prepared their food, and given him some with a pannikin of tea, he looked tip.

' "What place do you call this?" he asked, sullenly.

' "The Black Waterhole,' answered one of the tippers, shortly, for their prisoner was not a man to rouse their sympathy.

' "The Black Waterhole," he repeated. "The country was different when I was here last."

' "Yes. Three of us camped here about four years ago, and one is here still. No, thanky, no tea for me," and he emptied the pannikin on the ground.

' "What's the meaning of this?' asked the trooper.

' "Leary's dead, I believe, so I can do him no harm if I tell the story. When we camped here I was mortal sick, and that was the reason we stopped two days here camped, for I could not ride. Leary was a swell, down on his luck, and Bardie was the same; both had come up country for a spell to get away from their debts in town, I suppose. I had been breaking, and we met accidentally, and travelled together.

' "In the afternoon of the day we stopped here they had, a row, and came to blows, but Bardie was much the better man, and the fight did not last long, but I was too weak to interfere. It was something about a woman, I think. Next morning, after we had had breakfast, I got up to try and use my legs a bit. Bardie was sitting on the bank fishing, and as I staggered up I saw Leary sneak up behind, and suddenly shove him in the river. Bardie could not swim, and when I saw that it was murder I crept behind a tree, for I knew Leary would not let me live if he knew I had witnessed it. I suppose in his struggles Bardie got further away from the bank, for, presently I saw Leary pick up a big stone and hurl it at something in the water; then he commenced to run up and down the bank, calling to me. When I came up he shouted, "Bardie is drowning; he fell into the lagoon, and I can't swim."

' "I'm too weak to go in," I said.

Just then Bardie came up for the last time, looking awful.

' "Do something," cried Leary; "throw him the fishing line," I took the line the man-had been using, and he caught it, but as soon as we put a strain on it, it broke, and he went down, for good."

'There was a pause.

' "That's not the end of it," said the trooper.

' "So far as I am concerned, it is," replied the prisoner.

' "What became of Leary?"

' "He went to Coolgardie with the first rush, and I heard died of fever. We parted as soon as possible, you bet."

' "Bardie has been out of that hole some three years, and it has been; flooded half a dozen times since, so you can drink your tea."

' "How was he found?" asked the prisoner.

' "He caught hold of a boy's fishing line, and his hand came off, and came up holding on to the line. Then they found the body."

'The prisoner stared at him with a white face.

' "It's true,' went on the trooper; "the hand catching the line is in spirits in Sydney. But you have solved the mystery, and if you make a proper confession when we get in, and give a good description of Leary, it may do you good. Leary may not be dead, after all."

'LEARY was very much alive, and had done well at Coolgardie. He was back in Sydney under another name, swelling round the bars. He was tracked down without much difficulty, for he had a tattoo mark on. his hand, made when he was a boy at sea.

'One day the inspector who had the warrant for his arrest, and had purposely made friends with him, remarked to him that, if he would walk as far as the Central, he had a curious thing to show him. Leary complied, and when there the inspector took him into a room where, on a small scale, there; was a museum like that of Scotland! Yard.

' "What do you think of this?" he asked, holding up the glass jar containing the hand, from the Black Waterhole.

'Leary fell back, every line in his face crying guilt.

' "His hand," he murmured. "Bardie's hand!" and the next minute the handcuffs were on him.'

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9: Brewster's Afflicted Dog

Evening News (Sydney) 28 Dec 1895

'I ONLY found out what ailed the dog by accident,' said Jim. 'You see, it was this way. The dog was not an ordinary dog, but it possessed another identity, a what-do-you-call-it? An astral body, or something of that sort. Quite unexpectedly this poor dog's being would be projected into space somewhere, and then the form that was left could do nothing but sit on end and howl until the spirit returned. This was rough on the dog, and also on Brewster, for he was continually having to fight people for kicking his dog because the brute howled so. Sometimes, too, the astral dog would come back and sit down and jeer at his own body and refuse to go inside, and that body could do nothing in return but howl; so the dog lived in considerable hot water.

'Now, there happened to be on the station a young fellow, horse-breaking, who was just the ordinary kind of bush hand, without a spark of imagination, and he and Brewster were always at loggerheads about the afflicted dog. His name was Cotten, and he particularly disliked being kept awake by the howls of the dog. One night the dog was perfectly quiet, strange to say, and—'

'How did you find out about the dog's astral body, Jim?' I asked.

'Well this way— it was the only theory that seemed feasible, and, as the dog never contradicted it, I came to the conclusion that it was true. However, the dog, although the actual cause of the trouble, was not the chief actor in it. Cotten and Brewster had to go out together early that morning after the quiet night I spoke about, and Brewster hunted high and low for his afflicted dog and found him not. He accused Cotten of having made away with the animal, and they came to high words, and called each other the usual number of scarlet liars. They went away together still quarrelling; but only one came back, and that was Cotten. He told a fairy tale that when they were out together they saw two dogs racing through the scrub. The first one didn't try to dodge trees or anything, but seemed to let the trees pass through his body; the other one in pursuit had to slew about all roads, and lost, ground.

' "There's my dog!" cried Brewster, and started after him as hard as he could lick. Cotten was not such a fool as to go pelting through a thick gidea and brigalow scrub after another man's dog, so he waited where he was, but Brewster did not come back, so he came home. Next morning we turned out to look for Brewster, and, true enough, we found him with a broken leg.

'He was very bad for some time, but at last he began to pull around; but Cotten had to keep away from him, the sight of him excited him so. He declared that Cotten had been up to some tricks with his dog, and blamed him for his broken leg.

'Now, I believe Cotten was quite right in what he saw, or said that he saw, and could no more have invented the yarn than he could have flown; as I said, he hadn't a spark of imagination— he couldn't even tell a decent lie without being found out. The afflicted dog turned up about a week after the accident, miserably poor and thin; but he seemed to have no life in him, and there was a vacant look in his eyes, and, in my opinion, his astral body bad succeeded in giving him the slip for good.

'Brewster gradually got better, and at last was able to hop about on crutches. Certainly, he confirmed what Cotten had related, but, at the same time, he seemed to think that Cotten had cast some unholy spell on the dog, which, at any rate, proved that Brewster had imagination, for the idea, of Cotten knowing anything about "unholy spells" was too immense. The only thing Cotten knew about "spells," that I can think of. was when he wrote a letter once a year, and used to put his head down on the table, and stretch his tongue out and curl it round, while he asked somebody if  r-a-n-e-s spelt reins.'

'Oh, hang it, Jim! What the deuce has Cotten's spelling to do with Brewster's dog?'

'Nothing, I admit But, at any rate, the dog pined away and died— that is to say, that empty frame of the dog died; and then the tragedy happened.

'You see, Brewster's leg had not set well, and he was bound to limp for the rest of his life, and that made him cranky, and— between ourselves— a bit off his chump, and this dislike of Cotten had become a regular craze, until at last the place became unbearable, and the owner told them that, one must leave. Brewster was the best main of the two. before this accident, but what with that and his cranky temper he was mot much good, so he had to go.

'You can imagine that this did not improve his feelings towards Cotten, and when he had his cheque and his horses were brought in, he broke out and threatened Cotten, who sat with has mouth open all the time, not half understanding what it was all about. He was very bitter, and just as he was riding away he forgot himself and whistled to his dog, not remembering that the dog was dead.

'The Chinese cook swore that when Brewster whistled, a dog, just like his, came from somewhere and trotted off at the horse's heels. None of the rest of us saw it.'

'I am glad to hear you admit that, Jim.'

'Brewster went away and five days afterwards Cotten's horse came home without Cotten on his back. Of course, we ran the tracks back until dark without success, and had to give it up until the next morning. For although we tried tracking with firesticks and matches we made no fist of it, and had to give it up. There was, of course, no suspicion of foul play, for Cotten had been riding a green colt; and anything might have happened. We camped where we were, and to the middle of the night we were aroused by a most doleful howl.

' "Hang the Dingos!" said one fellow.

' "Dingos?" said another; "them's no dingos; that's Brewster's dog!"

'We all of us listened intently. Sure enough, when the howl went up again, we all recognised it as the howl of Brewster's dog. The dog we knew had been dead for weeks. I tell you it was a very unpleasant camp for the rest of the night.  In the morning we started off on the tracks at the first glimmer, and about 10 o'clock we found poor Cotten dead as a herring.

'What's worse, though, he had been killed. It was no accident. There had been a fight and Cotten had been stabbed with a sheath knife.

'Of course everybody said "Brewster!" and with good reason, as it afterwards turned, out

'One of us went back for the tray buggy the rations were carried on, and Cotten's body was taken in and the police sent for.

'Of course they could do nothing but  agree with us that it was probably Brewster; but the question was to find Brewster.

'Now, you may think us very stupid, but none of us thought of connecting the howling of that dog that night with the disappearance of Brewster, and it was not till a dog came and howled round the quarters all one night that we thought anything about it. Then Dick Mathers said to me at breakfast, "Do you remember that dog howling that  night we were tracking Cotten?"

' "Of course I did."

' "Well, it's my opinion that it was the same dog as was round here last night. Do you think, if we could get leave to go out and camp there, we could fix that spot?"

' "I am pretty well sure of it."

' "Then, let's go."

'To make a long story short we went, and while we were trying to get the right direction, there came the howl again. There was a very fair moon, so Dick and I started after it, and presently, an, a bit of an opening, we came to the spot . A dog was certainly sitting there howling, but he seemed to vanish as we came up; but there was something else that did not vanish, and that was the body of Brewster, hanging to a tree.'

Jim paused, and I was just going to say good night, when he spoke again.

'I just want to ask you a question. There's that there astral dog still wandering about somewhere, and I want to know what's become of him? The other dog is a skeleton long ago, so he can't get back there. Has he got to wander around forever?'

'He shouldn't have been such a fool as to project himself out of the other body,' I said. 'It's his look-out anyhow. I suppose the story is true?'

'Quite true,' said Jim, as he went off into the sleep of innocence.

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10: The Cataleptic

Evening News (Sydney) 4 Jan 1896

'WHAT'S the name that they call it when a man goes stiff and dead-like, and can't move or speak? Dog—something, isn't it?' asked Jim.

'Catalepsy, I suppose you mean.'

'Ah! I knew it was something either about a dog or a cat. Well, we had a fellow out west who used to go that way— or, at least, he did once on that station. It gave us all a turn, I can tell you, when, we woke up one morning and found him in his bunk as dead as a doornail, to all appearance. It was blazing hot weather, so there was nothing to do but bury him as soon as possible. Some of the fellows started to knock up a coffin, and two of us dig a grave in the softest patch we could find.

Now, there was a fellow on the place putting in time as store and book keeper. He had been pretty fast in his day, and gone to the dogs. He had been brought up as a doctor, but had never passed, for he did something disgraceful, and had to clear out; so he got lower and lower, until at last the boss, who knew something about his people, took him on to the station, to knock about there for a year or two, and see if he would steady down a bit.

Young Pills had looked at Lanty— that was the name of the man — and pronounced him a corpse; but when we had the grave dug and the coffin made, and everything ready including a prayer-book, Pills went and had. another look at Lanty, and he said, "I don't believe this man's dead at all; he's in a cataleptic (yes, I remember now, that's the word) trance." He called the boss over, and he pointed out a lot of things that should have happened if Lanty had been a real corpse, but as they hadn't happened it showed he was only a sham corpse.

' "Why couldn't you have found this out before?" said the boss. "Here we've got a grave and a coffin steady for nothing; I've a good mind to utilise them on you."

'Pills said at wasn't his fault, as no one could tell at first, and perhaps the man might die after all.

' "And, how long1 before be comes to, or dies?"

' "You must have somebody always with him, and at the first sign of life he must be helped to sit up, and, if possible, got to swallow something. When he, begins to smell you can bury him."

'So one of us sat by Lanty all that day, and we had some weak brandy and water ready for him against his waking up.

'When night came on we put a young galoot of a stringybarker on to take the first watch— a real myall, who'd never seen a town bigger than Dustburra in his life. He was to call on of us at once if anything happened, and he did with a vengeance.

'Seems this youngster got nervous like when we all went to sleep and, left him all alone with a dead man, as he supposed, for he knew nothing about cataleptic trances, and after a bit he got looking at the brandy and water, and wondering if it would give him a little Dutch courage. The man was dead, and would never want it. He took hold of the pannikin, and was about to drink it, when a deep sigh startled him. He looked round. Lanty was sitting up in his bunk, looking at him, with a ghastly smile.

' "That's mine," he said, indicating the brandy and water. Next moment that young greenhider was racing down the paddock, yelling "Fire! Blacks! Murder!  Help!" and all manner of things.

'We woke up with a start, and without troubling about the young fool, who fell over a stump and lay there until daylight, we turned to and fixed Lanty up, and some of us went to put the coffin out of sight and filled the  grave up, for fear it should hurt his feelings. He had a good quiet sleep for the rest of the night, and in the morning he told us of his experiences.

'He said that even though he was lying there without being able to stir, he knew all that was passing; that it was something worse than awful when we were going to bury him, and that, as for Pills, he would never forget his stoping his premature burial.

'Lanty got round soon enough, and Pills warned him that if he went on to a strange station he must tell them that he was liable to these seizures, or he would be whipped underground before he knew, where he was.

'In the course of time Lanty shifted to the next station as boundary rider, where, of course, they knew all about him. He said goodbye to Pills before he left, and almost cried as he remarked, 'I shall send, for you if anything goes wrong again.  Then he went away sobbing.

'Some time after that we were mustering, and Pills came with us for a bit of a change. We were camped about fifteen  miles from the station that Lanty was boundary-riding  on, and just towards one morning we were awakened by a great shout of "Help!"

'We all sat up and listened. I remember the scene well, for the morning star was shining like a moon in the grey dawn to the east.

'Suddenly Pills cried out, "Did you hear  that?" We listened, but heard nothing but the horse-bells. "There it is again," he cried, "Don't you hear it?  He's crying out, 'They are going to bury me alive. Come quick!'  It is Lanty calling. Come, Jim, to the horses."

'Now, I will say this of those ne'er-do-well chaps, that when there is any trouble on, and a little bit of daredevil work to do, they are all there.

'Pills collared the first horse he came to and I took another, and we jumped on them bare-backed, and he was for racing off like that. I said,  "No, we shall make more haste in reality by going up for our saddles." So we went back to camp, saddled up, and then the race began. Fortunately, it was a splendid road— all level country, and only two gates. How Pills did go it! The sun was only just over the trees when we were in sight of the station.

'Now, luckily I remembered where two men who had died on the station at different times had been buried, and I guessed that they would naturally bury Lanty in the same place, so I told Pills to follow me and made straight for there instead  of going to the station. Lucky we did. The grave was dug, the men were there, and just taking the coffin out of the cart.

' "Stop!  Stop!" yelled Pills, galloping up and jumping off his horse. "The man's not dead!"

' "How do you know?" said the super.

' "I must see him first.  Take the lid off."  One of the men put the blade of his shovel in the frail coffin, and up came the lid. There lay poor Lanty, sure enough, and he had all his clothes on including an old coat that he always used to wear on account of the handiness of all the pockets.

' "Now, didn't you say that if he began to smell we could bury him, when he got into this state?" asked the super.

' "I did," returned Pills

' "Well, smell him then."

'There was no doubt about it, a very strong odour of decomposition came from the open coffin.

Pills knelt down and put his hand on Lanty's forehead.

' "Feel that," he said to the super. "Does that feel like a dead man?"

'The super felt Lanty's forehead,  and seemed puzzled.  "It does not,"  he said.

' "Lift him out of the coffin."  We did so.

' "Take his coat off, Jim," said Pills to me, as he held the body up in a sitting position.

'I did so, and stepped aside to lay it out on the dray. Then I dropped to it all.

' "When did you fellows kill?" I asked.

' "Four days ago," said the super. "But what has that to do with it?"

' "Everything. If you chaps had taken his coat off you would have found out where the smell came from. He had some old dog baits in his pocket, and I turned them out on the tail of the dray."

'Well, to wind up. Lanty got right again, and says that he knew everything that went on, and he felt that his only chance was Pills, so he yelled out for him. Strange to say, Pills pulled himself up with a jerk. He finished his studies, passed his examination, and has now a first-rate practice in Sydney; and Lanty, who is frightened to leave him, is his coachman.'

'Jim, you seem to have an intimate acquaintance with all kinds of spooks. Did you ever come across the ghost of a barbed-wire fence or a galvanised iron bucket?'

'Can't say in one act. But I'll overhaul my memory on the subject.'

______________________

11: The Haunted Milk Bucket

Evening News (Sydney) 11 Jan 1896

'IT'S a queer thing,' remarked Jim, 'but after you asked me that question  last night, I fell to thanking about it, and I distinctly remember a very strange thing that happened about a galvanised iron bucket.'

'You mean to say,' I interrupted, 'that you stopped awake and made one up.'

'No fear.  This is perfectly true, and I'll tell you of a man, who you must know, too, was there. You remember Tom Sweeney?'

'No, I don't,' I said.

'His brother married an elder sister of Bill Burke, and, as you remember, Burke was breaking out on the Paroo at the time you passed down with cattle— or it might have been the year before or the year after, I'm not sure which. Anyhow, you must know him.'

'I'll be hanged if I do, and who is it, Burke or Sweeney, that I ought to know? And which saw the ghost of the bucket, Burke or Sweeney?'

'It is Sweeney you ought to know. I only mentioned Burke in order to bring him back to your remembrance. I never said that either of them saw the ghost of a bucket I said that something strange happened about a bucket. Anyhow, I remember that Sweeney broke his neck before you came up on the station, so I suppose you couldn't have known him. He was there, at any rate, and was the cause of what happened.

Ringfield was in charge then. I suppose you won't deny knowing him? He was going to get married, and wanted a lot of heifers broken in, so that there should be plenty of milk and butter on the station when he brought his wife up. Now, there's no fun in breaking heifers in. If they're not choking themselves in the bail, they're kicking the leg-rope off and knocking the bucket into smithereens. Moreover, between, ourselves, Ringfield knew as much about cattle as he did about giraffes, and instead of picking out nice, quiet, lazy-going Shorthorns, he pitched on bald-faced carts of things, who'd yell and squeal and lie down in the bail, and kick blazes out of creation. Naturally, everyone, was in a bad temper; for we had to get up in the morning, and give the doctor a hand, and we generally cussed everything— Ringfield's future wife included. The time came when be started down to get married, and he was to be away for three weeks. Said Sweeney that night—'

'Was that after he broke has neck?' I asked.

'No; how the deuce could it be? No; it was before. And he said, "Look here, lads, I'm sick of man-handling those brutes; let's let them rip, and go out to the old Durham bulls camp and bring in the same number of decent, quiet heifers. There's a lot of good ones there, with young calves. I saw them there this morning. Bet you two to one that Ringfield will never know the difference."

'We all thought it a splendid joke, and the next morning we turned the heifers out, and they were just as glad to go as we were to get rid of them. That evening we had a nice lot of quiet, packed heifers in the yard, and in a few days some of them would walk into the bail without roping, and by the time the three weeks were over the whole of them were like old milkers.

'Now, we had a young sneak of a jackeroo on the station. I've had a lot of experience with jackeroos, and I've found them all sorts. Some as wild as you can make 'em,  up to any larks; others sneaks, and I must say that, although I'm a Tamworth native myself, I prefer the imported men. You can do something with them, but the other sort think that because they are born in the country they must know everything, and their conceit is something stinking, that's what it is. This young whelp had never been out of Sydney before, and he'd been sent up by the firm who owned the station, being a relation of one of the partners. But I'm getting away £nom my story

'Tuou have run' off the iai]s a bit'

'Yes; it's a bad fhabit of mine, I admit. Ringfield came up with his bride, and she turned out a nice, quiet, sensible body, who had been brought up on a station, and knew all about it. Ringfield took her down to the milking-yard one morning, and, would you believe it, that duffer didn't know that those were not the same heifers, and explained to her how he had picked them all out himself against her arrival, and what splendid milkers they had turned out. What does that young fool of a jackeroo do, but blurt out the whole truth might in front of Mrs Ringfield, making a regular fool of her husband. Did you ever bear of such a thing?'

Jim started has pipe again his disgust at the remembrance, then he proceeded.

'Ringfield, of course, was very mad at being made to Hook so small before his bride, and when he toad pumped the jackeroo dry, and found out that it was Sweeney who originated the proceeding, he had it in for him. Now, I do not believe that Ringfield ever anticipated what happened. It was simply done out of spite, but he never meant it would be serious.

' "Sweeney,"he said one day, "Miss. Ringifield has taken a fancy to that tewwn colt. You might try him with a skirt.  See how he stands it."

'Sweeney wnhistled. "I might as well try to break in the devil to a skirt, Mr, Ringfield," replied he. "Why, that brown colt can kick a mosquito off his ear nine times out of ten. He'll never carry a lady."

' "Oh well, if you are frightened of him, that's another thing. I've heard you blow that you could ride anything with a tail."

'Now, this got Sweeney jumping mad as, of course, it was meant to do, and he asked me to catch a horse and come out with him to the One-mile Plain, and he'd try the colt with a skirt. So we went, and Sweeney took a red blanket with him for a dummy skirt. When we got on the plain he tacked this under his leg and let it flap, and, my oath! that brown colt did go it! He never shifted Sweeney, though, and he kept him going right across the plain. There was one tree grew right in the middle of that plain, and— would you credit it?— just when they were close to it the colt put his foot into a hole, stood on his head, pitched Sweeney against the tree, and fell over on his back. There they lay, quiet as possible, the two of them, with the red blanket lake like a sheet of blood, between them.

'I pulled the horse off Sweeney, but both their necks were broken, and I could do nothing but cover poor Sweeney up with the red blanket, and ride hell-for-leather into the station.

'You may imagine what Ringfield felt like, but the worst was to come.  Next morning the milk was taken to the little lean-to used as a dairy, and Mrs Ringfield, who had taken the dairy under her charge, went down to strain the milk into the dishes.  Suddenly there was a shriek that could be heard all over the station, and when they ran into the dairy, theee was Mrs  Ringfield in a dead faint on the floor, an empty bucket beside her, and— a dish full of blood on tbe table.'

Jim paused.

'Now, this is a solemn fact! It was the same bucket Sweeney used when breaking in the heifers, and you could milk into that bucket pure, sweet milk, but when you tarned it out into the dish— it was blood.

'They tried everything— scraping, and scalding, amd scrubbing, till the bucket shone like silver inside. It was all of no avail, and, what is more, the two heifers Sweeney had broken in would not let themselves be milked into any other bucket. They would kick, and bellow, and buck if you tried it on, quiet as they generally were. So they had to be turned out again.'

'What became of the bucket, Jim?'

'It was taken away down to an old hut on the river where travellers used to camp, but it very soon had some holes punched in the bottom, for a yarn got about that the water dipped up in it turned to blood before it was carried to the hut.'

_______________

12: The Black Gin's Curse

Evening News (Sydney) 25 Jan 1896

FAR away in the north west of New South Wales there was a cattle station, then one of the most outside ones existing. There was, as usual, much friction amongst the two races at first, but in time this cooled down, and the blacks were allowed to come in and hang about the station unmolested.

There was a married stockman on the place, his wife acting as cook. They had one little girl about six years old; and both parents were intensely fond of her, the man especially. She was also a great pet of all hands on the station. Instead of going ragged and barefooted like most sturdy station children,' she was always neatly dressed, and wore shoes and socks.

One day she was missed. Search was made for her everywhere without avail, and the parents were in despair, the father especially so. Next morning the search, was renewed, some of the blacks being enlisted in the work.

Dick the stockman, the child's father, went off by himself, and did not return until night. He spoke to no one, but sullenly sat himself down and ate some food and drank some tea. After a smoke he went down the paddock, and returned with a horse belonging to himself, which could be easily caught. He said he was going to camp out all night, and took his carbine with him to fire off shots that perhaps she might hear if yet alive, so nobody thought anything about it, and he left unquestioned.

Next morning he returned about 10 o'clock. He hung his horse up, and on his wife going to the door to meet him he handed her one of their child's little shoes.

'I found that in a blacks' camp yesterday, and I went out last night, watched them to see that they did not shift camp, and at daylight shot as many as I could of the wretches. They have killed her.'

The woman staggered against the doorpost, and regarded her husband with eyes of horror and affright.

'Oh, God! what have you done?' she cried, wringing her hands. 'An old gin brought Mary in late last night, and she is now asleep inside. The gin carried Mary in here in her arms, for when they found her she had taken off her shoes. The child was lame, so the old woman carried her in, at first on her back, and then, when the child got sleepy, in her arms.'

The man made no answer, but, unslinging the fatal carbine, walked away and threw it far into the lagoon the station was formed on. Meanwhile the wife hastily unsaddled the horse and let the animal go.

Dick came back and entered, but never spoke, and never kissed his sleeping child, but sat down sullenly on a sawn log near the fireplace and leaned his chin on his hands. His wife asked if he would have some food, but he shook his head, and resumed his quiet, sullen demeanor. The poor woman did not know what to do; if she held her tongue the affair might blow over and never be found out But it was destined to be, and in a strange fashion.

About midday there came a shrill cry from outside. There stood the old gin, naked, shining, and shrivelled. She waved her lean, arms aloft and commenced to shriek out what was evidently a fell denunciation of the bloody deed, and to call down a curse on the doers.

The men who had gathered at the outcry were awestruck. Dick alone kept his composure. He walked quietly up to her, pointed to himself, and stood with bent head, as though willing to stand the whole brunt of it; but she heeded him not. In her fell wrath she heeded him no more than if he had been invisible. She pointed to each one present; she pointed to the sky, as though praying no rain should ever fall on the accursed place; at the cattle and horses visible in the paddock, as though beseeching that a pestilence should smite them. And after having got through a most comprehensive and Old Testament kind of curse, spat on the ground, turned away, and her gaunt shadow disappeared amongst the trees.

Then Dick confessed what he had done, and announced his intention of going at once and giving himself up. All efforts of his wife and friends were vain. He ate a good meal and rode off to the nearest township. He was committed for trial but never tried, as he was found to be insane with a suicidal tendency, and sent to, the asylum during her Majesty's pleasure.

While there a strange disease came on him. It was not leprosy, but a kind of death In life that made its appearance. The doctors could make nothing of it, and only found an analogy in one or two doubtful historical cases. His body emitted an offensive smell, growing worse and worse as his emaciated form, grew more loathsome day after day, until at last when death relieved him he was nothing but a corpse that looked as though it had been buried for days and. days.

And the station? There, too, the curse wrought its fell spell, but not on the human beings. The cattle felt its evil influence, and died strangely and in a mysterious manner. The sky was brass year after year, and there was a strange tale got round that on the home lagoon there floated a carbine— a carbine that should have gone down like any stone, but still it refused to sink.

The owners tried to sell the place; but its unlucky name had got about, and it had to be abandoned, and is now a desolate region of pine scrub.

Thus was the gin's curse accomplished.

________________

13: "Back In Ten Minutes"

Evening News (Sydney) 1 Feb 1896

'THERE are no flies on me,' said Jim, 'when ghosts are around. I don't know why I should have been especially picked out for this sort of thing, but somehow I seem to have come across more adventures of this kind than most men. Did I ever tell you about the ghost who was always "back in ten minutes"?'

'No, he must have been a punctual sort of ghost.'

'That's just what he wasn't, and that's just what made him so fidgety and restless. Did you ever know a man who wrote up on a card on his office door, "Back in ten minutes", who was back under half an hour? No, the most unpunctual man in the world is the man who is coming back in ten minutes.

'This ghost adventure did not happen to me, but to a kind of distant relation of my brother's.'

'How was it he was not a distant relation of yours as well?'

'This way. This fellow's name was Withers, and my brother married a second cousin of his; so, although I cannot quite fix the relationship, it can have nothing to do with me, unless,' mused Jim, 'it comes through old Bowles, he being stepfather to Withers, and having once known my father well. I remember old Bowles as a boy, because he never used to speak without clearing his throat first?'

'Here, Jim. Back in ten minutes.'

'Right. Withers was in a bank or the Lands Office, or somewhere or other, and he had a great chum called Lomley, who was an accountant and general kind of agent. One day he went up to see Lomley, as was his custom when he got out at half past 4, and there was a card with the legend on it, "Back in ten minutes," so Withers waited the ten minutes, but deuce a sign of Lomley. Just as he was turning away up came a nice-looking, elderly lady, and stopped at Lomley's door and read the card.

' "Have you been waiting long, sir?" she asked Withers.

' "Neatly a quarter of an hour, madam."

' "Then its no good my waiting,' she said, and taking out her card, case, she wrote something on a card and pushed it underneath the door.

She'd scarcely gone before up came a red-faced man, and he asked Withers the same question. Then the man swore, and he too wrote something on a card, pushed it under the door, gave the door a terrific kick, and stumped off. Thinking it no good waiting, Withers followed his example.

'Next afternoon Withers, having in vain waited at his diggings all the evening expecting Lomley to turn up, went once more to the office. There was the card still, "Back in ten minutes," and there was the elderly lady and the red-faced man, and the latter was more furious than ever.

'He banged at the door, and shouted through the keyhole, "Hie! Lomley, you're in there all the time. You know you are. I can see your coat tail through the keyhole quite plain. I wouldn't skulk in a corner if I were you. Come out and show yourself. It's more than ten minutes since yesterday afternoon."

'Just then Withers noticed that the old lady was crying nervously, so he got the red-faced man to desist, and took the old lady downstairs and put her in a cab, for she was quite hysterics.

' "Oh, sir," she said, "do you think that Mr. Lomley has run away, for if he has I'm ruined," and she began to cry, and Withers, who was very soft-hearted, assured her that Lomley must be sick with typhoid, and had forgotten to send in, or he had been run over by a tram and had both legs cut off, or been bitten by a shark, which would account for it all. He had a happy knack of cheering people up had Withers.

'When he got back he found the red-faced man dancing a combination of a can-can and a war-dance on the landing.

' "Look here, sir!" he snouted, "if you come across that scoundrel Lomley, just you tell him that I've gone to get a warrant out for him. You know me?"

' "I'm hanged if I do," replied Withers.

' "Well, he does, at any rate. Tell him that Jonas Thresher has taken a warrant out for him," and he went down three stairs at a time.

' "Lomley seems to have  got into a mess somehow, but I hope he has not made away with any of that poor old lady's money."

So thought Withers, as he waited on the landing, and he determined to wait for a bit, as, if Lomley had been up to any hanky panky tricks, he would probably come in when he saw the coast clear.

'It was winter time, and dusk soon after 5, and Withers was just thinking what a fool he was hanging round there in the cold, when, sure enough, he saw Lomley coming along the corridor.

' "You're a pretty fellow," he said when he got close, "there's been half Sydney up here looking for you."

' "Couldn't help it," returned Lomley in a queer, hoarse whisper.  "Had an important engagement on; bound to keep it."

He took the latchkey out of his pocket: and opened the office door. It was much lighter inside the office, and Withers noticed that his friend's neck was discolored.

' "What's up with your throat,' he asked.

'Lomley pulled out his handkerchief and fastened it round his neck. "Got bad cold,' he said in the same hoarse whisper, "had mustard plaster on."

Now it didn't look a bit like the back of a mustard plaster, even if it was usual to put one round one's throat, but Withers said nothing about it.

' "Look here, old man," he went on, "there's been two people here, wanting to see you badly. One, a very nice old lady, and the other, a regular firebrand, who has gone to get out a warrant for you, said his name was Jonas Thresher."

'Lomley laughed somewhere down the pit of his stomach.

' "That's just what I came back for,' he said. "If you see the old lady, her name is Mrs. Bransher, you tell her that her money is all right— or nearly so. It was paid into her account yesterday in the Bank of New South Wales. As for Jonas Thresher, just you tell him to serve his warrant on me halfway between Manly and Narrabeen, on the left hand side of the road. Remember!"

'And he leaned over and stared hard at Withers.

' "Here," cried Withers, jumping up, "don't make such horrid faces at me!" for Lomley's eyes were bulging out of his head, and his tongue was lolling out all swollen.

'Withers stepped back in alarm, and found himself in the cold, dark corridor again, and the door of the office was fast shut and locked. You may be sure that Withers lost no time in getting home.

'Next morning he informed the police, and they searched the bush and found Lomley hanging from a tree, having been dead two days. His affairs we're all abroad, and it was either suicide or bolt with him. Withers did not know what to do about the old lady, as he didn't want his experience to be made known. So he wrote her an anonymous letter, telling her where her money was; but he feels quite certain in his own mind that it was the red-faced man's money Lomley had paid in to make up the old lady's that he had embezzled.

'The worst of it was that the room was haunted ever after. No matter who took it, it was always the same. Every one who came on business always saw a card up, "Back in ten minutes."

'Now this was outrageous. A lawyer took the rooms, his clients came, saw the notice "Back in ten minutes," went away, came back, same old notice, left in disgust for another lawyer— just the same with everybody else. Could do no business, no matter what time people came; always they saw "Back in ten minutes" written on a card in beautiful round hand, for Lomley wrote a splendid hand. So there was nothing left but to let the room as a storeroom at half price.'

'There's a moral in that story, Jim,' I said, 'that Sydney people might take home. If you stick up "Back in ten minutes," mind—'

'You come back in ten minutes, or it might end in you hanging yourself,' interrupted Jim.

_____________________

14: Wicked Benson

Evening News (Sydney) 29 Feb 1896

'I ONCE knew a ghost,' said Jim, 'who had the most disagreeable habit of any ghost I ever came across.'

'Whose ghost was it?'

'Ah! that was the question. Some said one thing, some another, but, at any rate, it turned out to be wicked Benson's, and this spectre cost the owners of the station a lot of money, for they had to shift the homestead in consequence of it.'

'What was the objectionable habit?'

'Used to pull the bedclothes off you at night. On a cold night it was very nasty to wake up shivering, and find your blankets in a heap on the floor. It used to come into the men's hut after a hard day's work, when they were all fast asleep, just shout 2 o'clock in the morning, and yell out, "Now then, daylight! Tumble up!" And off would go the blankets right and left. But that was not by any means the worst of it. Once there was a governess going up to the next station, and they didn't tell her about the ghost, for fear of frightening her, so in the middle of the night there was an awful shriek, and, when they rushed in, there was the poor girl sobbing and crying, vowing that, a man had come in and pulled the bed-clothes off her, and then she went off into hysterics. Fortunately the super, of that time was a married man, and his wife managed to calm the girl down, although she never believed that it was a ghost that did it.

'Then the bank manager's wife, who came out an a visit frorn the township, had a like experience, and there was war to the knife over it.

'At last, the owners determined to shift the homestead, things were getting so unpleasant, so it was done, and only a few old huts, not worth worrying about, were left. The ghost must have had a lonely time of it, for his only relaxation was when a chance traveller came along and camped there for the night. He had great sport once, I believe, when two swaggies camped there, and each one accused the other of pulling the blanket off him, until at last they came to blows. Many a blowhard went there determined to find out all about it, but they all failed, until at last one man succeeded. This is how he managed it. He was an ingenious fellow with a mechanical turn, and he set to work and fixed up a complicated arrangement of lanterns— dark lanterns— with slides that worked easily. And these he connected with thin wire so that, if the lanterns were solidly fixed down, one pull would open the lot. He rigged up his machinery in the day time, and then, when night came on, went to bed in the middle of all his lanterns. Of course he stayed awake, and about 12 o'clock felt the first tug at his blankets; he pulled his string, and immediately there were bars of light all over the place.

'Here! I say! Hang it, this is not the rules of the game. You've blinded me,' said a voice.

'Ah! ah! my boy,' said the man. 'Come out into the light; let's see who you are?'

Now this fellow was a plucky fellow, I know, because I was splitting with his brother once, and his brother, the one who married long Kelly's sister, he told me a story about him; at least, I think it was about him. Anyhow, when he saw the object that came out into the light, he nearly took to his heels. It was a nasty, vicious-looking monkey, with a leer on him like a wicked old man. However, he pulled himself together, and said, in as sfeady a voice as he could command:

'Who the devil are you?'

'I'm old Benson; used to be called "Wicked Benson" when I was alive.'

'Who, or what, were you when you were alive?'

'You see, it was this way,' said the monkey, stealing out a sneaking paw towards Teddy's blankets.

'Stop that,' said Teddy, 'or I'll say my prayers.'

'No; don't do that it's only force of habit; I can't help it Mortmayne was my partner on this station— Benson and Mortmayne. He was a young fellow, with some money, who had been knocking about in the East— Malay Peninsula and those places— and I persuaded him to buy a share in this station and settle down, which he did. He had a monkey with him, and, somehow, this monkey took a great fancy to me, and I taught him all manner of tricks.'

'Pulling bedclothes off, for instance,' said Teddy.

'Yes, that was his chief accomplishment. Mortmayne and I did not agree long. Although he was a new-chum, he soon found out that he had been had— that he had paid double the value of the run— so there was constant quarrelling between us, but just then Mortmayne fell ill. Now, although under pretence of completing some improvements, I had received and given a receipt for the money, the transfer of Mortmayne's share had never been properly completed, and it struck me that if he died and I found the receipt amongst his papers and destroyed it, why I owned the whole place again. One day when he was asleep I searched his papers and found my receipt; then I was determined that his illness should be fatal. He had malarial fever, and I started the monkey to annoy him, pulling his bedclothes off two or three times a night. This, of course, put him into a nervous fever, and he grew rapidly worse. He begged me to chain the monkey up, and let him have a night's sleep, but somehow that monkey was always getting loose, and up to his old pranks at once. He entreated me to send for the doctor, and I pretended to; but the doctor was always fifty miles away, attending to a man with a broken leg, or something of that sort I kept all the men away from him, and Insisted on nurising him myself, I was so devoted to him. One day I had left him by himself for an hour or two, and when I came in he was gone. I tell you I gave a jump. Poor fellow! he had managed to crawl out, intending, I suppose, to find one of the men and get help, but the exertion had been too much for him, and I found him lying a short distance away in a dead faint I carried him back, but I could see that bis end was near.

'Just before he died he mustered up enough strength to curse me horribly. He prayed that, after I died, when my time came, I might wander about this place in the shape of a monkey; pulling the bedclothes off people, and playing other impish tricks. Then he called me a murderer, and other hard names, and died.  I was in great distress, you may be sure, and called the men in at once, sent for the doctor, and did everything a man should do.

'To cut it short, I destroyed the receipt, wrote home to this people telling them of his death, and how sorry I was; forwarded all his useless traps, and £5 4s 6d he had on him.

'He had no friends out here; but his sister came out to see his grave, and to look after some money he bad in the bank here. Now, unfortanatedy for me, tie tad money in the frank which I knew nothing of, and there was enough to divert suspicion, for his folk were wealthy, and did not miss a thousand or two. In fact, I overreached myself, for I should have done better to make friends and nursed him well.

'I showed his sister the unsigned transfer, but somehow she did not seem to Take me, and, as for the monkey, she refused to have anything whatever to do with him. What she said in the township I don't know, but it was then I got the name of 'Wicked Benson,' and I tell you I tried to deserve it. I shot the monkey one day, and the next my horse stumbled and broke my neck. Ever since I've been at this game, and I'm about tired of it. There is, however, one thing can by done that would release me. If the owners of the station would hunt up the papers, find out the then value of the property, and pay Mortmaynes back half the value I might get a spell from this.'

Teddy burst out laughing.

'Well, you are the greenest old ghost I ever came across. Is it likely that they will take that trouble to get rid of two or three thousand pounds for your sake? Their title is not likely to be disputed on the strength of a monkey's ghost. If that's all there is to depend on, old man, you must enjoy yourself as you are, as best you can.'

Wicked Benson looked mournful, but admitted the justice of the remark.

'One thing more,' said Teddy. 'Why did that light racket disturb you so?'

'I'm not exactly handsome you see, and object to being seen, and you fixed it up so that I had to cross the light somewhere to get away.'

'Good night. Benson; don't worry me any more,' and Teddy went to sleep.

'There's no moral in that story, Jim, for what had the people who were so annoyed ever done to the defunct Mortmayne?'

'That's true,' replied Jim.

________________

15: The Invisible Horseman

Evening News (Sydney) 7 March 1896

THE moon was full and about half-way to the zenith, and the tall trees on either hand threw black shadows across the bridle track I was riding along. The shadows were abrupt and strongly marked. Presently I heard the sound of a horse's footfall following me, and glanced round to see who it was who was overtaking me. To my surprise, I could see no one, although the footfall had sounded quite close, and appeared to be travelling smartly. Twice this occurred, and I began to fancy that I was encouraging a hallucination, when the station lights came in sight, and I rode gladly on, for a nasty superstitious feeling was beginning to creep over me.

The station was owned by a widow— doubly bereaved— for six months after the death of her husband her only son, a promising young fellow of about 18 or 19, was killed by his house falling on him only three miles from the station. I was living on a neighboring station, so rode up to the bachelors' quarters as a matter of course, and unsaddled and turned my horse out. A hearty welcome, a nip of Mackay, and a rough but plentiful feed, soon drove all thoughts of the supernatural out of my brain.

I told the boys, however, what queer fancies had come into my head on the road, and was astonished to see that they took it gravely and seriously.

'That sound has been heard before,' said Doyle, the oldest man there. 'It was on just such a moonlight night as this that young Murdoch was killed, and at the very place where you heard the footfall. He was cantering along, with the Mack boy riding behind, when his horse tripped and rolled right over on top of him. Killed him instantly.

'And is it only on moonlight nights like this that he walks?'

'So they say; but that is not all the yarn. It was on that same night that Mrs. Murdoch— you know what a severe woman she is—  found out that pretty little Maggie, the girl she brought up with her half-servant, half-companion, was likely to become a mother. She got in a terrible state, and when Maggie, in her shame and terror, confessed that young Murdoch was the man, she nearly went mad. Late as it was, she had the horses put in the buggy, and told me to drive Maggie over to the township— she would not have her on the place another night. I protested, but it was useless, and when we got about three miles away, for that bridle track is a short cut on to the road, there was the dead body of the man who had sworn to marry her and save her good name, lying in the moonlight on the dusty track.

'I don't want to go through that scene over again, I can assure you. The black boy had ridden in and raised an alarm, and some men came out to bring the body in. I managed to quieten the girl somewhat and pushed on to the township; but next morning she was in, a raging fever, and what with that and having a dead child born prematurely, poor Maggie nearly died too. She recovered, however, and went away somewhere— nobody knew where. Ever since the clatter of a horse can be heard coming along that bridle track on moonlight nights. I don't know whether Mrs. Murdoch has heard of it or not, but I expect she has.'

MRS. MURDOCH soon left the station which had such bitter memories for her. Doyle and the other fellows had wandered off one by one, until at last there were none of the old hands left. The superintendent had occasion to hire a married couple, and procured one in the neighbouring township. The man was a surly ill-conditioned lout, whilst the woman was neat and tidy, with the remains of past prettiness on her sad and worn face; they were without children. They had not been there long before it was found out that he was in the habit of beating his wife, and being tackled by one of the other men about it, he showed up a cur. But this did not help the poor woman, who probably received extra punishment on the quiet in consequence of the man's interference.

The story of the ghostly footfall had of course been handed down, and it was noticed that often of a moonlight night the poor silent woman would steal out and walk along the ghost's pad, as it was called. One night, when it was almost as clear as day, one of the men, smoking in the verandah of the men's hut, saw the woman steal out along the ghost's pad. Shortly afterwards he noticed the husband slink after her, and, fearing he meant mischief, the man, who was the same one who had interfered before, went after him.

The woman was standing looking expectantly along the road, when her husband went up to her, and, putting his hand on her shoulder, told her roughly to go home. She shrank away from, him and he lifted his fist. At that moment the watcher heard the approach of the invisible horse and rider.  Whether the woman really saw anything or not it was not possible to tell; but she lifted her hands up and her face was transformed with joy. As for the husband, he gave one glance in that direction, then took to his heels and ran home.

'After that the woman was free to wander out to the ghost's pad whenever she liked, but it did not alter her husband's behavior to her when on the station. It was about 12 o'clock one night when the whole homestead was awakened by a shriek of mortal terror. It came from the room off the kitchen where the couple slept. Hastening there they found the woman with her face bruised and bleeding from a blow, standing half-dressed in the middle of the room and the man extended on the floor senseless.

'The tale told by the woman was that her husband had quarrelled with and struck her. That then something, she knew not what, had come between them, and her husband had fallen to the floor, uttering the cry they had heard. When the man came to his senses he could tell nothing, excepting that he admitted having struck his wife and being immediately felled by what, he said, was a red hot fist. Strange to say, there was now visible a distinct burn on his temple where he said he had been struck.

'The story was very strange. The poor woman had not the strength to strike such a blow, and the man could not have inflicted it himself. The mystery was never solved, but the man became different after that; less violent, but more taciturn and sullen. Some months after that a distant shot heard in the middle of the night roused one or two sleepers whose rest was light, but nobody took the trouble to rise and investigate the matter. In the morning the husband waited on the super., and told him that he had accidentally shot his wife during the night.

'His story ran that he had followed his wife, suspecting that these visits of hers to the ghost's pad were only a screen for covering an illicit love affair. He saw his wife seated on a log beside a young man or boy, who had his arm round her waist. That he took aim and fired at this man, and that the bullet passed through the man and struck his wife.

The body of the one-time pretty Maggie was found at the place he described, and buried by the side of young Murdoch. And from that date the tramp of the ghostly horse was heard no more.

The author of her death persisted in his story up to the minute that the bolt was drawn and he dropped into eternity. He avowed that the youth embracing his wife was no being of this earth, for the charge had no effect on him at him. And the doctor who had examined the corpse of the murdered woman told a strange story that few could believe.

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16: Jonson's Flea-bitten Grey

Evening News (Sydney) 28 March 1896

DO you remember that grey horse of Jonson's? said Jim. Maybe it was not in your time; at any rate his was the only ghost-horse I ever saw or spoke to. Moreover, he was a very exceptional horse. In the first place he was said to be one hundred years old. Now you know the average age of a horse I suppose? This horse, this flea-bitten grey of Jonson's had just succeeded to his hundredth birthday when Jonson came in to possession of him.

Greys get flea bitten with age, and this horse was about the worst flea-bitten horse you ever clapped your eyes on. In point of fact, he need not have been called a grey at all, except as a matter of courtesy, and you must be civil to a horse occasionally. Now, as I stated before, when Jonson got this horse he was just one hundred years old.

How do you know that? This way. Jonson's brother married Sally Parsons; he was a man I never liked, because, although be was a hard smoker, he never carried any matches with him. What has Sally Parsons's husband to do with it? Come to think of it, I don't know, I was only refreshing my memory a bit.

Jonson got the horse from his father, and his father got the horse from his father, and as both of them each lived for fifty . years, that made 100, didn't it, when Jonson got the horse— Anyhow, that's how he reckoned it.

When I knew Jonson he was boundary-riding, and, like these men often do, he got gloomy and out of sorts; used to be always talking to himself. Most of these fellows who live all alone get queer that way. One day he came to me and said: 'Jim, what is the best thing to do with that horse?'

'Keep him till he dies or sell him; his keep doesn't cost you anything.'

'Now,' he replied, scarcely heeding me. 'I ask you, as a white man, is it natural for a horse to live over 100 yeans. I tell you it's preying upon me, and either that horse or myself must succumb under the strain. Which is It to be?'

'Don't be a fool, Jonson,' I said. 'Go home and let the horse be.'

He left me, remarking that there was bound to be trouble between him and the horse soon, and I did not see anything more of him for some time. About three weeks afterwards he came to me again, and sat down by the fire; it was winter time.

'I had to do it,' he remarked, as he knocked his pipe out, 'I tried all I knew to get that horse to talk, but it was no good.'

'To get him to talk! Do horses generally talk, then?'

'No, not as a rule, but a horse 100 years old ought to be able to. Just fancy all he could remember about the colony. Why he would have made my fortune. Think I was going to lose that. Not me.'

'So you killed him?'

'Yes, it was necessary, there was nothing else to be done.'

'Why necessary?'

'I keep telling you. That horse would not talk. He used to grin at me, and try and express his ideas that way. But I couldn't understand him. No, that horse mistook his vocation. He was meant for a man.'

'Well, Jonson, you're simply a common-place kind of idiot. You could have got a fiver for that horse, old as he was.'

'Perhaps I am. Never mind, that horse had to talk or die; and he was obstinate— and died.'

Jonson got up, kicked my dog, and started home.

I knew what was the matter with him after I had meditated over his case a bit. The ghost of his horse was haunting him, and making things lively. Now listen, I love ghosts; they are twelve-fig tobacco to me; so I thought I would go and camp with Jonson for a few days, and find out what was really the matter. Jonson had a dog, a bad dog in every day. He could eat strychnine bait without a wink.

This dog and the flea-bitten grey had never been friends. The dog considered the horse too old, and the horse thought the dog too young. I have my suspicions that the dog prompted Jonson to the killing of the horse, but I couldn't bring it home to him. This dog was quite altered. He would constantly start and shiver, and give little yelps and howls. Jonson used to kick him for it, and when I found out the real cause I actually pitied the dog, bad as he was.

The shade of that old horse used to come round and worry the life out of that dog. He'd insist on his listening to his yarns, and when the dog did not laugh in the right place, he'd suddenly materialise himself, and kick the dog. The dog never had a chance, for before he could get a bite in the horse was a ghost again. One second he was a materialised horse, kicking a dog, hard; the next he was a spectre, and it's no good biting a spectre. What between, the materialised kicks outside and Jonson's kicks inside, it was not a fair deal at all.

I made up my mind to interview this ghost and try and induce him to stop his visits, for Jonson was getting decidedly loony. So, one moonlight night I went outside about the time that Jonson said the horse usually came. The ghost turned up to time, but for a long time he would only grin at me, and go off into a horse laugh. At last I asked him what the joke was.

'I'm laughing at that fool, Jonson,' he said. 'The ass thought I was 100 years old when he killed me.'

'Well, everybody thought so,' I said, on behalf of Jonson. 'Didn't you belong to his grandfather?'

'Bah! I wasn't 20 when he killed me. Besides, Jonson never had a grandfather.'

'But he must have had some sort of a grandfather,' I suggested.

'Yes, if you put it that way, of course he had, but I don't suppose he was anything to blow about, or that he ever owned a horse in his life. But what do you want interfering here for? I'm enjoying myself, which is more than I did when I was alive.'

'I tried my best to get Jonson to let you alone,' I replied. 'He was a bit off before, but if you keep this racket up I'm quite sure he'll go clean cranky.'

'Serve him right; but can you suggest any other kind of amusement?'

I thought for a bit, and then his kicking the dog put an idea into my head. 'You could have had great fun on the road,' I said. 'You could materialise yourself and eat up the bread and sugar and salt in the travellers' camps, and have all manner of high jinks.'

'Never thought of it,' said the ghost. 'Tell Jonson I won't worry him any more, but that I shall have an occasional kick at that dog.'

As he spoke he gradually faded away.

I went back and told Jonson of my success. He was very grateful; owned up that the ghost horse had been preying on his nerves, and that he felt like a new man.

In spite of all that, the ungrateful brute turned dog on me in the end.

I told you that Jonson's brother married Sally Parsons. I knew she had something to do with the yarn, and this is where she comes in. She and her husband were the first to see the horse. They were driving home one night in a spring cart, and it was bright moonlight. Jack Jonson had a drop or two in him, and he suddenly saw two horses in front of him.

'Why, dash my buttons!' he said, 'I'm not so bad as all that. Wake up, Sally!' for Sally was nodding.

Sally opened her eyes, but there was no horse there, and she called him a drunken hog, and wished she'd never married him, when she had plenty of better offers, and cried and went to sleep once more. There was the horse again.

Jack Jonson rubbed his eyes.

'Dash my buttons,' he said again, 'if it isn't Teddy's old grey.'

As I say, he had a drop in him, and before that horse could dematerialise himself he'd given him a stinging cut with the whip. The old grey rattled his heels against the horse in the shafts, and nearly knocked the whole caboodle over.

Sally woke up, and gave Jack a bit of her tongue for driving over a stump, and they quarrelled all the way home, so much so, that when Sally's baby was. born, folks said it used to neigh like a horse in its cradle.

This game continued, everybody driving along that, road on a moonlight night would see two horses instead of one, or three instead of two, as the case, might be. When they got home and told the story to their wives they were accused of being mops and brooms; and the whole of the married population in the district were soon at loggerheads. How that wicked old ghost must have chuckled.

Now, most of them recognised the spectral appearance as Jonson's flea-bitten grey, and, in consequence, there was much indignation against Jonson for killing the horse, which, as the nuisance increased, came to a head, and a large number of people interviewed Jonson, to inform him that he must either get rid of the ghost or go himself.

Then it was that he played dog on me. He told them that it was all my fault, and that I had invited the ghost of the old grey to play these tricks, so they transferred their attentions to me.

I did my best, I begged and entreated that old shade to give up his tricks, but it was no use. He said he was enjoying himself, and meant to keep it up; so I had to come away. I was sorry, too, for it was a splendid district for ghosts. What became of the dog? Oh, he died. Whether Jonson killed him or the horse kicked him to death I don't know.

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Table of Contents

- 1: Mrs Maunder's Vision
- 2: The Shadow of a Shadow
- 3: The Communicative Organ Grinder
- 4: An Unquiet Corpse
- 5: Rosita's Curse
- 6: Professor Dodo's Experiment
- 7: Gannon's Ghost
- 8: The Black Waterhole
- 9: Brewsters Afflicted Dog
- Unnamed
- 11: The Haunted Milk Bucket
- 12: The Black Gin's Curse
- 13: "Back in Ten Minutes"
- 14: Wicked Benson
- 15: The Invisible Horseman
- 16: Jonson's Flea-Bitten Grey