CHAPTER XXVIII.THE GHOST FACE.
Thetide was at ebb; but I walked down the shore until I could see, faint and ashen, the curled crests of the breakers and the foam writhing upon the sand. I began to make along to the northward.
There came a flash of lightning glimmering upon the face of the high cliff. It was followed a little after by another, a blinding flash; and so continued intermittent. Presently a sort of hoarse rolling sound came to me above the clamour of the breakers. It waxed louder as I proceeded, and soon I knew what it was: the sound of waters falling from a blow-hole high up on the lofty cliff.
But, as I drew nearer, for the fourth time that night terror laid hold on me. For, as a flash of lightning fell upon the waterfall,from above it there looked forth that frightful visage which had struck terror to the heart of every man on board the “Tiger”!
I beheld the thing but for a moment; yet the horror of it was more than I could bear. A dizziness came over me, and I sank down in a swound.
It was early morning when I came to myself. A tumultuous and thundrous sound was in my ears. It was the clamour of the great waterfall, joined with the roaring of the sea.
A wind was sprung up, a high and rocking wind, that came in flurries, and swept round and round and in and out the bends and indentations of the cliff, to leap howling upon the giant headland. The sea, risen high upon the shore, gnashed and foamed in great breakers. But the sky was cloudless blue, and the firmament clear like crystal.
My face was wet with the flying scud; my clothes had dried upon me. I felt fresh and vigorous, as after deep sleep. I lay recalling the grisly happenings of the night; and, on the thought of the ghost face, a shadow and a chill came over me—yea, even in the warmth and light of the sun!
Yet, on a sudden, I took another kind of thought. Getting to my feet, I looked directly upon the cliff above the waterfall, and there was the face—ay, even as I expected! For now I knew what it really was:a sculptured face, vast and horrible, hewed out of the rock!
Yet even so, scarce I could bear to look upon it. It was vast; it was prodigious; it was a hellish thing! Never hideous gargoyle, never infernal ghost, or chimera seen in dreams, looked with an aspect so frightful and malign!
Who, I wondered, had conceived it, and whose hand had wrought it? And immediately I remembered those wondrous works of sculptureon the walls of Ambrose’s cell. Ambrose was the man!
This, then, was what had scared us on board the ship near out of our wits, and, no doubt, many another ship’s company besides; a sculptured face, the phantasm of a mind diseased, a nightmare made stone! And, by the same token, I perceived, what we had taken for flowing white robes of the figurewas nothing else but flowing water, the water falling from the blow-hole beneath the visage from the high cliff.
As to the illumination, that did not stumble me. I had made it my play-game often, when a child, to cast a light reflected on a mirror; so an arc of the strange white light,[C]cast upon a mirror, and reflected upon the face and falling water, might well have served to create that ghostly appearance.
But where was the mirror? There was a cave near by; I stepped to it, and entered in. ’Twas deep and dark; but I felt about the walls of it, and sure enough found the mirror. It stood set up against the rock, wrapped in a canvas case.
Thus, then, the great mystery stood revealed. A chance, albeit a wondrous chance, had unmasked the trickery; for, if the lightning had not fallen, as it did, directly upon the face, and in that very moment of time, ’tis a thousand to oneI had never seen it. For, on removing a little to one side, I found that the face was no longer to be descried. ’Twas the same when I essayed the other way. The thing appeared only by direct observation.
By means of this ghostly scarecrow, I apprehend, Doctor Copicus had sought to preserve his island inviolate of strangers, frighting away any ships (save those he wanted), which happened to wander near, scattering reports and rumours of terror, building on the superstitions of the sea. But why he should have employed the thing to terrify us, whom, by means of Ouvery, he had enticed hither, I could not at first understand.
However, casting back my thoughts upon past events, I saw the fact: in suborning Ouvery to the work, Doctor Copicus, no doubt, had given him a sign to show forth on his returning in our ship; which sign being wanting at our coming to the island, he had been deceived as to what we were.