Far down below I saw a half a dozen flares in the darkness; smattered, smeared flares of yellowish light and then all was blackness again. There came no report from weapons, the roaring of the surf drowning that. More by instinct than anything else to be on the scene of action, I made a quick step toward the path. Lanagan’s hand was on my arm.
“Wait,” he said, curtly. “This is no funeral of ours. Wait.”
He knelt down, arching his hands around his eyes and peering long and intently.
“Revenue officers,” he said. “We can’t monkey with them. Haven’t got them on my staff like Leslie and his men. They’ll be up.”
Revenue officers! A light began to dawn upon me.
The toot, toot of the engine came.
“Beat it, Norrie! Hold that train,” ordered Lanagan. “There may be some wounded here to rush to town. Quick!”
“On the floor they placed the figure they bore, a stalwart figure of a man.”
I was already off on the run past the Stockslager hut to the little platform where the train stopped. It was some distance away around the curve. As I stood there, with the rain pattering a monotonous tattoo on the planking, there came a sudden groan, a drawn-out, rasping groan, and I whirled toward the house; my body one quiver of gooseflesh. It came again, from up toward the roof; and as it came there was a breathing of light wind across my face. I laughed aloud; but nervously. Another light puff of wind, another long-drawn groan—loose shingles, or a loose piece of clapboarding, giving, evidently, just the slightest against a nail. The other end of the ghost mystery was cleared.