THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

him by his name.
    ‘Christien! Is that you?’
    All without was intensely silent. He could hear the last gust of wind and rain moaning farther and farther away upon its wild course down the valley, and the pine trees shivering, like living things.
    ‘Christien!’ he said again, and his own voice seemed to echo strangely on his ear. ‘Speak! Is it you?’
    Still no one answered. He leaned out into the dark night; but could see nothing—not even the outline of the porch below. He began to think that his imagination had deceived him, when suddenly the strain burst forth again—this time, apparently in his own chamber.
    As he turned, expecting to find Christien at his elbow, the sounds broke off abruptly, and a sensation of intensest cold seized him in every limb—not the mere chill of nervous terror; not the mere physical result of exposure to wind and rain; but a deadly freezing of every vein, a paralysis of every nerve, an appalling consciousness that in a few moments more the lungs must cease to play, and the heart to beat! Powerless to speak or stir, he closed his eyes, and believed that he was dying.
    This strange faintness lasted but a few seconds. Gradually the vital warmth returned, and, with it, strength to close the window, and stagger to a chair. As he did so, he found the breast of his shirt all stiff and frozen, and the rain clinging in solid icicles upon his hair.
    He looked at his watch. It had stopped at twenty minutes before twelve. He took his thermometer from the chimney-piece, and found the mercury at seventy. Heavenly powers! How were these things possible in a temperature of seventy degrees, and with a large fire blazing on the hearth?
    He poured out half a tumbler of cognac, and drank it at a draught. Going to bed was out of the question. He felt that he dared not sleep—that he scarcely dared to think. All he could do, was to change his linen, pile on more logs, wrap himself in his blankets, and sit all night in an easy-chair before the fire.
    My brother had not long sat thus, however, before the warmth, and probably the nervous reaction, drew him off to sleep. In the morning he found himself lying on the bed, without being able to remember in the least how or when he reached it.
    It was again a glorious day. The rain and wind were gone, and the Silberhorn at the end of the valley lifted its head into an unclouded sky. Looking out upon the sunshine, he almost doubted the events of the night, and, but for the evidence of his watch, which still pointed to twenty minutes before twelve, would have been disposed to treat the whole matter as a dream. As it was, he attributed more than half his terrors to the prompting of an overactive and over-wearied brain. For all this, he still felt depressed and uneasy, and so very unwilling to pass another night at Lauterbrunnen that he made up his mind to proceed that morning to Interlaken. While he was yet loitering over his breakfast, and considering whether he should walk the seven miles of road, or hire a vehicle, a char came rapidly to the inn door, and a young man jumped out.
    ‘Why, Battisto!’ exclaimed my brother in astonishment, as he came into the room; ‘what brings you here today? Where is Stefano?’
    ‘I have left him at Interlaken, signor,’ replied the Italian.
    Something there was in his voice, something in his face, both strange and startling.
    ‘What is the matter?’ asked my brother, breathlessly. ‘He is not ill? No accident has happened?’
    Battisto shook his head, glanced furtively up and down the passage, and closed the door.
    ‘Stefano is well, signor; but—but a circumstance has occurred—a circumstance so strange! . . . Signor, do you believe in spirits?’
    ‘In spirits, Battisto?’
    ‘Ay, signor; for if ever the spirit of any man, dead or living, appealed to human ears, the spirit of Christien came to me last night at twenty minutes before twelve o’clock.’
    ‘At twenty minutes before twelve o’clock!’ repeated my