CHAPTER XVI.
THE GHOST IN THE GARDEN.
Theplace selected in which to keep my watch had, I imagine, been intended by the builder for a coal-cellar; but from the fact that the walls of thick cement were set around with shelves, partitioned into squares, I concluded that some subsequent tenant had seen fit to turn it into a wine-cellar. One entered from the garden, and passing down a few stone steps, came to a wooden door like that of a coal-cellar or tool-house, opening upon a short passage, the walls of which were evenly cemented. At the end of this passage another door—of iron this time, and fitted with a patent lock—had been added; and, as it did not seem likely that anyone would trouble to protect garden tools or coals by the addition of an extra door, such as one sees in a strong room or on a safe, the presumption was, as I say, that the place had been intended for the storage or the laying down of wine. But whatever its purpose, it made aserviceable sentry-box, for by leaving the two doors open I could command a view of the garden. Seeing by the light of a vesta, which I struck on entering, that a naked gas-jet was fixed to the wall, and finding that the gas was laid on, I lit it for a moment or two while I had time to look round. Had I chosen to keep the inner door shut, I could have left the light burning all night, and with no fear of its gleam being seen from outside. But in that case I could not have kept the necessary eye upon the garden; so, after I had turned an empty champagne case into a somewhat uneasy and uncomfortable seat, I put out the light, and, opening both doors wide, sat down to commence my watch.
One!
Two!
Three!
"Three o'clock and a wet night!" I said to myself, yawning wearily. "The policeman, whom I've just heard pass, isn't likely to get wet feet, judging by the thickness of the boots he's wearing. I wonder how he manages to walk like that? One might think he did it purposely, towarn the gentle burglar to lie low while law-and-order is passing. First of all comes his heel with aflick, and then the flat of his foot with aflack, like the double beat of a flail.Flick-flack, flick-flack, flick-flack!
"But perhaps I'm blaming the poor man without a cause. It may be that it is only because we hear the policeman's tramp, sounding and echoing on an empty pavement, that we think it peculiar; and possibly my own footfalls could as readily be recognised were they heard at night, when other sounds are still.
"Now he's stopped. Trying a door or window perhaps. Now he's on the move again.Flick-flack, flick-flack, flick-flack!It seems to me that, listening here as I am, I could locate his whereabouts all down the street. All down the street, did I say? Yes, and down the next street, and the street after that, if one wished to do so. I'm sure I don't. All I want now is to see this thing through, and to get home to a cold bath and a bed. And it won't be long now, for very likely that is Robert's last beat down this way for the night—or, rather, for the morning.
"Was that something stirring at theend of the garden? Another cat, I expect. How that other brute made me jump—creeping in upon me so stealthily that I didn't know it was there, till I saw its horrible eyes, glaring at me like a ghost out of the dark!
"Here's another yawn coming. Y-a-a-a-a-ow!
"There's another yawn gone, and I seem to see quite a procession of yawns looming up before me. What a queer place it is—this thread of territory, which I call 'Half-Awake-Land'! It's a sort of boundary line—no more—between Dream-Land and Waking-Land, and as one can't stand on a boundary line, any more than one can stand on a stretched thread, I keep tumbling in and out, first into Dream-Land and then into Waking-Land all the time. One of the funny things about Half-Awake-Land is that all one's thoughts turn into pictures.
"When I yawned a few minutes ago, I said to myself that I saw 'quite a procession of yawns looming up before me,' and then, as I say, my thoughts turned into pictures, and the earth, as far as ever I could see, seemed to have as many cracks or crevasses in it as a newly ploughed field has furrows.As I looked each crack yawned open, like the huge mouth of some rude person who gapes in your face, without having the decency even to gape behind his hand, so that the world seemed to wrinkle away to the horizon's edge in a thousand opened mouths.
"Then all of a sudden I saw a great Sleep-Sea in front of me. All the waves upon it were yawns, and they came rolling in upon me, one after the other, till I feared I was going to be carried off my feet by a bigger yawn than any of the others, and so washed away and drowned.
"What a farrago of nonsense, half-soliloquy, half sleep-talking, I've been thinking or speaking—I hardly know which. Hullo! Nodding again! This won't do! If it hadn't been that I'm sitting up, instead of lying down, I should have dropped right off to sleep that time. I was nearly off my seat, as it was. It was the forward lurching of my head and body which woke me, and the jerk seemed sharp enough to snap one's backbone at the neck, not to speak of making one's heart jump inside one, like a frightened frog. What tricks one's brain plays in a moment's snatched sleep! Threeseconds ago I was awake and talking about one's thoughts turning into pictures when one is half-awake and half-asleep. After that I reminded myself that I must keep awake, lest the Dumpling should steal in upon me unawares. Then I suppose that for a second's space I dropped off; and again the thought turned into a picture in my brain. I was sitting, just as I am now, looking at the incandescent burner of that lamp-post in the side street to the right of the garden. And that reminds me. It's a strong light, and if I don't get a little farther back it is just possible that I might be seen by anybody who looked over the wall at the garden's end. That's better! No one could see me here; I'm well in the shadow. Yes, I was sitting here, blinking, as I say, at the incandescent light on the lamp-post, and as I sat I saw a black object, like the crouched figure of a man, creeping along in the shadow of the wall. It was the over-wrought brain playing tricks again—projecting out of itself the picture of the person of whom one had been thinking, so that one could easily believe that what one saw was the actual flesh-and-blood person himself. I'm morally sure I shall fall asleep in dead earnest if I sithere any longer. I think I'll steal outside for a moment or two, if only to stretch my legs, and to shake off the drowsiness which is coming over me."
Very lightly and on tip-toe I crept out—to receive a sudden, sickening, crushing blow, which brought me blinded, and with the blood running down into my eyes and mouth, to my knees.