Horror! Was he asleep? Did he dream? No. From the tower half-way down the hill came the first stroke of midnight, assuring him that he was awake. With an icy shudder, chained to the spot, he continued to gaze at a ghastly spectacle, clearly outlined upon the gloomy background by the light of the street lamp a block above.
He saw it moving—a human skeleton with uplifted arm and flowing shroud, all ghastly white, all too real to be mistaken, from the gleaming skull to the fluttering robe. He saw it approaching nearer and nearer—gliding swiftly and noiselessly through the air, above the middle of the street. He tried to move, but could not,—his eyes refused to leave the hideous sight. He saw it coming, closer and closer. It would pass below him, not a hundred feet away.
Determined that will and courage should conquer doubt and fear, summoning all his strength of nerve, he pressed closer to the window, so close that his face fairly touched the glass—and he saw a human skeleton soaring through the air.
Now, Malcolm Joyce was not easily frightened. No one had ever accused him of cowardice, and they who knew him readily believed his statement that he enjoyed solitude. Yet, as he stood there in the darkness, his eyes fixed upon the vanishing figure, he felt somehow that he should welcome company, particularly the company of another not easily frightened. So strong was this impression of the occasional disadvantage of solitude that without delay he relighted the gas and stepped before the mirror. The deathly pallor and agitation that confronted him was bewildering.
As he tried to calm himself and change the current of his thoughts he recalled the "spook test" of an old hunter whom he had met in New South Wales.
This test consisted in asking oneself three questions: "Are you awake, are you sober, are you sane?" By the time these queries are propounded and answered, the ghost on trial will have proved itself an illusion.
Without hesitation Joyce answered the first two questions—he was unquestionably awake and sober. But was he in his right mind? He picked up a paper and read for a moment, but failed to grasp a single idea! He turned the page. He could read, but he could not understand! He jumped up, dazed, frightened, trembling, perspiring. Was his mind giving way under the strain it had undergone? Once more he looked at the first page of the paper before him. It was "London Punch"! He was sane!
Hardly had he satisfied himself of the success of his test, when the familiar signals of two passing cars again sounded in his ears. With the air of a man convinced that the cause of fear and suffering has been groundless, he lighted a fresh cigar, stepped briskly to the window, and, puffing slowly and regularly, calmly watched the course of the diverging cars. As the distance between them increased, he followed the one going down-hill until it had reached a point nearly two blocks distant, and then turned his attention to the summit over which the other had already disappeared.
As he sharply watched the critical spot his anxiety decreased as, after some moments, no signs of the unearthly sight appeared.
Of course, he reasoned, while the object he had beheld some ten or fifteen minutes before might never appear again, it still might have been a ghost. A sensation akin to doubt stole over him.