“When I did get back into the house, it was twilight and, inside, as dark as a black cat’s belly. Downstairs, in the kitchen, I lighted one of the candles and held it before me in one hand, the other being occupied with the captain’s luggage. Then I went through the first floor into the large hall where the stairs went up to the floor above.
“In the light of my candle at the landing I saw that the door into the bedroom was closed again, as it had been the only room in the house where the door was shut when we first went up there together—the captain who didn’t believe in ghosts and I, who did, over there.... No sir, of course not; I don’t believe in ’em, not on this side of the Atlantic. But, in the woods, at Is-Sur-Tille at night, that’s different.
“And it must be worse, since they hung those men there ... and with Captain Bott who thought the bed of a dead bride was a handsome billet. He was sure hard-boiled, that guy. I hated him for it.
“When I left him to go for the candles, that door had been open. When I returned, it was closed. I didn’t like to open it again. But he was alone there in the dark in that bedroom. I knew that if I waited for him to come to open the door, stumbling across chairs and things, he sure would cuss me out—that’s the hell of being a private and a servant to an officer; no white man likes it—so, finally, I opened the door, with the hand which held the candle.
“Everything seemed as before, but so quiet. My ears were straining for sound like they used to do at the sudden cessation of barrage-firing. But I heard nothing, nothing at all. And the place smelled moldy. It smelled dead. It was a fine room for a ghost. I thought of it then.
“And, as I stepped across the threshold, I noticed that that other door in the room, probably that of a closet, was open. It had been closed. I thought perhaps that the captain had opened it while I was gone. It wasn’t so dark when I left him as when I returned, and maybe he would ’a’ been snooping around a bit, out of curiosity, perhaps. I’m not curious like that. But Captain Bott was hard-boiled. And he didn’t believe in ghosts....
“All these things I’m telling you about what I saw and thought and felt, they wouldn’t hardly listen to at the court martial inquiry....
“I don’t know how long it was from the time I lighted the candle in the kitchen downstairs until I stood with it in the doorway of the bedroom of the dead bride. Not very long, probably, because the melting candle grease was just beginning to run hot onto my fingers when I turned to glance toward the bed, wondering why the captain had kept so damned quiet. It wasn’t like him.
“And there he was, lying across the bed on his back, the tips of his shoes just touching the floor. Asleep? No. I don’t know how I knew he wasn’t asleep ... the court martial inquiry kept asking me that....