Australian Tales and Adventures.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2058, 22 April 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Australian Tales and Adventures.

No. fi, THE TRIPLE GHOST

By Alexander Montgomery

"What d’ye think, though, ol a triphghost ?” It was Jack Mirtin who put the q testion, as he leant overtbe fence of the home paddock at Karamilla station, one blazing Sunday forenoon in December. Jack—hit local capacity of stockman to the contrary notwithstanding—was a gentleman; there oonld be no doubt of that. Good educa tion—good manner? —good heart—but not that important something which is to tersely yclept “ballast," and for lack of which—to carry the figure further—the argosy of Jack’s existence had suffered greiveus and repeated damage, if not actual shipwreck. But, by a natural compensation, it is not seldom given to these flighty souls to take the world more easily than their fellows, and thus it was that Mr. John Martin, “ yarning" there, that morning, with an old blue shirt on bin back and an archaio “ cabbage-tree " over bis good-natured countenance, was as cheerful as if be bad not been the eon of an aristocratic Lincolnshire rector, and brother to half-a-dozen high bred young women in far-away England. If Jack was cheerful, however, his story was not, and the smile of incredulity upon the faces of his listeners soon gave way to that look of breathless fixity which tells of the power of the born rncontnir. All this was Jack, and, as I was myself one of the listeners aforesaid, I can testify that the story made a deep impression on me at the time. It may not likewise affect you, but at anyrate here it is. “ It was six years ago," said Martin, and just after I’d bad that cropper over the wire fence at Carmichael’s on tbe.’Goulbnrn. As I've told you before, I was pretty well smashed np on that occasion, and as soon as 1 could be moved I was sent down to the hospital in Sydney. Here I pulled round at a rate that astonished the doctors—who, between ourselves, don’t know everything yet, and so in less than a month 1 was able to get about again pretty well. Then I bethought me ol a follow who bad coma into a bit ol money while he was working with me on Carmichael's station. Either a Swede or a Norwegian he was—with Halk lijorren tor bis name. A decidedly queer fish be was, too, but not a bad sort in the main, and so, as be and I had been pretty friendly, I thought I’d look him up and pay him a visit. 1 knew his place was on the coast, and I thought s spell in the sea-air would be just the thing for me. “ Well, to out matters short, another week found me abont a hundred miles up to the northward, at a place called—l think— Whandamo. That's something like it, anyhow ; and it don't matter muoh, for it was a miserable dog-hole enough stuck in the middle of a scrub-covered flat, bordered on one side by low sandhills. Beyond these sandhills was the sea, and, about a mile off along the coast, Mr. Halk Bjorren was domiciled in a hut that looked as if it had been built from the limbers of a wreck. As indeed, perhaps it had, for there had been a good few ships driven ashore thereabouts, from time to time, and the Whandamo people had some curious talcs about the ghosts of the drowned, and so forth. At these, of course, 1 laughed—but not for long I “ I’m not nervous, and I'm not superstitious, but before a week went over my head 1 got the biggest fright that ever befell me in my life. “Well, I fossicked Bjorren out, and though he omitted the trifling formality of saying that I was welcome, ho made mi fni it, which was better. Indeed, he was a man who never said much at any time—a strange, tall, lanky, long-noeed, wide-eyed creature, who always suggested to me a sort of Scandinavian version of Lytton's Riocabocca, and who was not without a fair share of Riccaboooa’s learning either. 1 know he was well read in the classics, for one thing. Indeed if it had not been for his books, I don't know what he’d have done with himself. He didn't seem to employ himself in anything but mooning about the shore, and, as he didn’t volunteer any information on the point, I didn’t ask him any questions. “ A dreary shore it was; nothing bnt sand and scrub as far as the eye could reach. Put me a good deal in mind of old Lincolnshire; but, as you may guess, I didn’t like it any the worse lor that, and so lot a couple ol days 1 wandered about, thinking of old times, and trying to fancy that if I topped the sandhills I should see the spire of Lincoln Cathedral looming far across the fens. “ Well, I think it was the fourth night I’d been at the place, there was a lull moon. I was wandering abont with Bjorren’s gun on my arm when I saw her rising out of the sea, like bnt that's what everybody gushes about, so I’ll just let it alone. I trill say, though, that when she was fairly op it was easy to see that she was no Lincolnshire moon, or wasn’t shining through Lincolnshire air at anyrate. 1 was always fond of speculating abont the moon, and as I strolled slowly along, 1 was gazing steadily at her big red on, when there suddenly rang out behind me a shriek so blood-curdling that I started violently and dropped the gun into a pool of sea-water. Nor did I think of picking it up, for when I turned round, I saw a sight that drove everything else cleanout of my bead. Within about thne hundred yards of me, and running in my direction, was a woman. A small, slightframed woman, she seemed, with long, dark clothes and naked feet. I could see them twinkle white along the sand as she ran. No I—she was a tall woman, with a white dress, and what seemed to be a knife in her hand. No I I said to myself a second timewondering with a swift flash of the mind if my senses were leaving me—as I now saw no woman at all, but a nmn, within a hundred yards of me and still tunning on. A tall roughly-dressed man, with what appeared to be a tomahawk in his left hand—l saw bis face distinctly—white as death and fringed with a ragged beard that blew over bis shoulder as he came. “Helplessly 1 gazed at him, until when he was, or seemed to be, about fifty yards from me, he quickly shifted the tomahawk from his left hand to his right. That broke the spell 1 There was something so natural and human in the action that my wits came back to ms in a moment, and down I stooped for the gun. I couldn't shoot with it now, I knew, but I eould use it as a club. Well, boys, I didn’t have to use it at all. " hen I stood up with it grasped by the muzzle in both hands—the man was gone 1’ —and Jack, with true dramatic art, came here to a dead pause and began slowly to cut up tobacco. “ Gone ?” I asked. " Run away again, do you mean 7" “ No. sit 1 Gone I—disappeared I—vanished 1" “ Come, oome, Jack I” I said, laughing. “ That’s the stereotyped sort of thing, yon know I You should have finished things off with more ariginality I" “ Han’t it strike you," said Jack, gravely, that it’s just because I’m tailing the truth that I haven’t finished ofLauan say, in a leu stereotyped I staffing you, as ws say buMHßpßnlng would have

been easier than lo give mailers a mors original turn." " Perhaps you had some 1 hard stuff ’ with you, and raw double? ’ said Hilly Anderson, the red nosed little cook, who wan a thirsty soul, and spoke according to bis lights. “ S iw //■' >'!'•, you mean I" put iu the storeman. who was the wit ol the station—- “ though that’s but a h-m- insinuation " Martin shook his head. "No boys," he said. " Strange to say. 1 hadn't at that time tasted any Fquorfor over lour months. If I wtsn t downright out ol my mind tor about thirty seconds—for it all passed in that lime —I saw i x to’ly whut 1 tell you, and exactly nt I t« 1 yoj.’ " Wo a there nothing tbit could have con-ceal-d the figure?" I askid. • Nothing. Flat as the palm ol your hand for half a mile on every side of mo. But bear me out 1" and, having lighted bis pipe, Jaak bitched himself further upon the fence and. went cn—- “ I cannot dosetibo to you how I felt. It seemed to me as if the whole scene around me had suddenly turned unreal and ghastly. The very moon seemed to have changed into some awful thing—some fearful personality, it you understand me—that kept glaring downwards on me as 1 made the best of my way back to the but. (I re ! saw something that wasn't at all calculated to steady my nerves. Bjorren was asleep, and apparently dreaming—tome awful dream, by the look of him. His —very long and shaggy it was- was the pillow, and his face was perspiration. He kicked about, struggled, and at last he cried out that made me start once more. ‘ The axe I” he said—’ the tomahawk 1 My God I she'* down I ’ I went over sod shook him till ba woke. ' What’s the matter, old min ?' I said. • Have you been dreaming ? ’ He sat op, shuddering and wiping the damp from bis face. ‘ Dreaming I’ he said. ‘ Yis, thank God it was only a dream I ’ Then, when he bad oome round a hit, be told me his dream ; and—you may believe me or not, lads, said Jack, slowly and deliberately—" but this is what be told me." “ He thought first, be said, that he saw far back into the early times of the colony, and that three persons, a man and two women, occupied the very hut we were in. It seemed to be known to him at the same time that these were the sole survivors of a shipwreck, and that the man had built the hut ont of wreckage. The man, too, be seemed to know, bad formed an attachment to the younger of the two women, and thus aroused the deadly jealousy of the other, who was his wife. And now, as the dreamer saw them, a quarrel arose. A quarrel which grew.more and mora eavage, until the injured wife snatched up a knife and attacked her rival, who rushed screaming out of the but. Across the moonlit sands she fled—after bet the maddened avenger with a knife, and after her in turn the faithless husband with a tomahawk." " Rapidly the second gained upon the first, and the third upon both, until the banted woman was overtaken, and threw herself down upon her knees, screaming wildly tor meroy. She did not receive it I The fury with the knife flung herself upon her rival, and, holding her down by main strength—cut her throat I It was the work of a moment, but, before the murderess could rise to her feet again, the husband arrived upon the spot, and, shifting the tomahawk from hie left hand to his right, he drove it fiercely into bis wife’s i.kull, Down she went beside her victim, and lay there as motionless—and as dead—as a log. The man, too, remained as motionless, after he had struck the blow, as it be bad been turned into stone. For a lew moments, that is; then he flung the tomahawk far away across the sand, and, turning round, made for the hut like a madman. Arrived there, be lost not a moment, bnt, frantic with horror and remorse, climbed upon the roof, made aline fast to the rude chimney, and hung himself! " Such was Bjorren's dream," went on Jaek, after a pause, *• and I leave you to guess what effect it-bad upon me, coming after what I'd seen. And what was more, lads, when morning camo we examined the outside of the chimney, and found, sure enough, a piece of rotten old quarter-inch made fast around it. It might have been the remains of the line the murderer banged himself with, or it might not. You can form your own opinion; all I know is that I've described the matter exactly as it occurred, and that I cleared out of the accursed place that very day. As for Bjorren, concluded Jack, getting down eff the fenoe to depart, " be may be there yet, for all I know. Ho was just the aort cf chap to euit euoh ghostly work, bnt one each fright in a lifetime's enough for this individual. Why, to this day, I can’t bear the sight ol the tall moon.” ' This was true enough. We bad all noticed and laugbad at the peculiarity in question, though whether it hao its origin in the manner described is a point whioh 1 have never—whatever yon, reader, may do—been able to settle to my own satisfaction. A subsequent occurrence, however, induced me to think it possible that the whole story was the morbid emanation ol a brain trembling—though wa knew it not—on the verge of insanity. Not is this supposition invalidated by the art wi'.h which the tale was told, since it is a matter of oommon experience that lunatios will sometimes exhibit, in some particular mental direction, a skill and address almost beyond the capabilities of the eane. »»*•*** In the month of February 75, or abont fourteen months after bearing the story I have here reproduced, I was on my way to the Wannarailla country, in Queensland, and bad got as far as Jelligap, on the Macdonald River, Just before dark, I was smoking my pipe at the door of the little hotel, when two troopers galloped into the township and pulled up lor a drink. Their horses ehowed the marks of a hard ride, and there was soon a little crowd round the hotel door, to know what was (he matter. The general opinion inclined to bushranger?, and it was with something like disgust that the Jelligapians learned it was only a lunatic the troopers were alter. A man on Colonel Masterman’e Varnna elation had, it appeared, suddenly gone out of his mind, and, after firing twice at the overseer, had mounted his horse and taken to the bush. “ We’re bound to have him before moping, though," said one of the constable#. "He was seen taking the track to Donnelly eFork and that’s as good as a rat trap to him.” And so it proved. About eight next morning the troopers rode into the township again with the lunatic—still on bis own horse, but bound and handcuffed—between them. Something in the poor oreature’efaoe struck me ae being familiar. I went closer. Good God I —it wan Jack Martin I “Jack!" I cried. “Jack Martin—yon know me, don’t you, old fellow 7” He laughed cheerfully. “ Oh, yea," ha said. " I know you quite well. You’re the Angel Gabriel. What have yon done with your wings, though ? Exeuse my not raising my bat, but you see"—with a glance at hi* bonds—" there are serious mechanical difficulties in the way 1" “ Where are you taking him ?’’ I aeked the troopers. “ Magistrate and doctors, first, sir—than I suppose, to Brisbane Asylum?" And to Brisbane Asylum poor Jaek went; but be didn’t stay there long. Three weeks afterward* 1 was in Brisbane, and called to eee him. “Martin?” said the clerk, toning vm the leaves of the book. “ Martin, John. Ah, here it isl Admitted, 23 February; dkd, 27th. Four davs afterward*, yon eee." I did eee ; and saw, too, that it wu kettea to.