Well, sir, maybe you won’t believe it, and maybe you will, but about a year after the two was hitched together a funny thing happened. One day morning I went outdoors, and see something on the sand beside No. 18. My eyes stuck out like a fifer’s thumb when I recognised what it was. It was a plum new red wheelbarrow!
CHAPTER VII
THE EX-MEDIUM’S ADVENTURE: THE INVOLUNTARY SUICIDE
Warmed by his copious draughts of wine, stimulated by the comradeship of his fellow-adventurers, and his stomach packed to the top corner with rich foods, Professor Vango left Coffee John’s, rejoicing in a brave disregard for the troubles that had been for so long pursuing him. His superstitious terrors had subsided, and for a while he was a man again.
Clay Street was empty, and stretched black and narrow to the water-front. Below him lay the wholesale commercial quarter of the town with its blocks of deserted warehouses, silent and dark. It was a part of San Francisco almost unknown to the ex-medium, and now, at midnight, obscure and bewildering, a place of possibilities. He was for adventures, and he decided to seek them in the inscrutable region of the docks.
He stepped boldly down the street, but it was not long before the echoes of his footsteps struck him chill with dread. The packing-cases upon the curb cast shadows where fearsome things might lurk. He began to watch with a roving eye the crossings and alleys, from which some form might come upon him unawares, and he cast sharp glances over his shoulder for the appearance of the spirit that had cowed him. The thought of Mrs. Higgins brought him back to his old torture. He felt as though she were always round the next corner.
He had almost reached East Street, when he yielded to his qualms and bolted into the warmth and light of the Bowsprit Saloon to drown his forebodings in two schooners of steam beer. So disappeared Coffee John’s luck-dime, and with it the stimulating effects of his exordium. Vango’s short glow of comfort was, however, but a respite, for shortly after midnight the bar closed, and he was sent forth again into the perilous night.
He was pacing up and down the stone arcade of the Ferry Building, dismally anticipating the prospect of walking the city streets alone with his curse, when it occurred to him that he might possibly make his way to Oakland. Oakland was less strenuous; it was calm, sober, respectable, free from the distressing torments of San Francisco. Many a time he had met Mrs. Higgins upon the dock behind the waiting-room, and he knew the way well. He dodged slyly up the wagon-track, round the corner of the baggage-room, to the slip where the steamer Piedmont was waiting to set out on her last trip. As he came to the apron a few belated commuters were running for the boat. He joined them without being observed, and was hurried aboard by a warning from the deck-hands. Just as he reached the bib the bridge was drawn up, the hawsers cast off, and with a deep roaring whistle the vessel started, gathered way, and, urged by the jingle-bell, shot out of the slip into the waters of the Bay.
The crowds went forward, upstairs, to the protection of the cabin, but Professor Vango stayed by the after-rail alone, where a chain was stretched across the open stern. A ragged mist lay upon the harbour, hanging to the surface of the water like a blanket, torn open sometimes by a passing gust of wind and closing up to a thicker fog beyond. High in the air, it was clearer, and the stars shone bright.
The thumping paddle-wheels, the phosphorescent waves, and the fey obscurity of the night wrought heavily upon Vango’s emotion, and the fumes of alcohol mingled in his brain. He was not happy; things went round a bit, and he had hard work controlling his thoughts. He longed for the gay cheerfulness of the saloon above, but he felt a need of the sharp night air to revive him, first. He watched the stairway suspiciously, feeling sure that the ghost of Mrs. Higgins, if she were to appear, would come that way.
In point of fact, a woman did soon descend from the upper deck, and stood at the bottom of the stairs in some uncertainty, gazing about her. She was a heavy, middle-aged blonde, in a long black cape and veil, the type of a thousand weak, impressionable widows, and, in the dusk, through the glaze of Vango’s eyes, a passable counterfeit of the late lamented Mrs. Higgins. She soon perceived him, and came forward a few steps, while he retreated as far away, putting her off with futile gestures. Curious at this exhibition, the woman walked up to him with a question on her lips.