'The ghost, sir,' called back Jân-Ali-shân, 'thet's w'ot it is. Me and Budlu was watchin' for 'im, for 'e 's bin takin' away my charakter, sir, an' stealin' from the poor an' needy. But Master Jeremiah must a' seen 'im fust, thet's 'ow 'tis.'
'He was wide awake in his bed when I came in,' panted my Lady Greensleeves, 'talking about wicked men pretending, and I told him to go to sleep--he must have got up and dressed. Jerry! Jerry! Stop! Come back, do you hear!'
She might as well have called to the dead. The child's figure showed on another double, and before him--yes, before him, just rounding another bush was a ghostly figure in a white uniform.
'By Jove!' exclaimed Jack Raymond, ignoring his faint feeling of creepiness. 'There is some one. This is getting exciting. Come on! don't let him slip through.'
'Whoo hoop! gone away! Tantivy, tantivy, tantivy!' sang Jân-Ali-shân.
So round the Residency, and back towards the hospital where the valse à deux temps had been danced, Lesley, her green sleeves flying like flags, ran blindly, to pull up in a heap among the little group of balked faces, stopped by the wall of the half-sunk cellars below the marble dancing floor. A wall all garlanded down to the ground with bougainvillea and bignonia.
'He's here! the ghost's here!' wailed Jerry. 'I sor' him from the window when I was watchin', lest he should pull down the flag. Oh, Mr. Waymond, please catch him!'
Jack Raymond, who was feeling below the trailing-flowers, gave a short exclamation. 'There's a door here. Have you a match about you, Ellison?'
'Lord love you!' replied the loafer reproachfully, 'I ain't such a fool, sir, as to go ghost-'unting without a lucifer. Here you are, sir!'
The next instant, beneath the creepers that parted like a curtain, an open door showed in the match light; and in the darkness within was something.--What?--