Adventure Magazine Cover — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

922 the chapel wing, and only doing odd jobs as a couple of men from Tarnside could have done in a month!” “How long have they been gone?”’ ‘“That’s the mystery, sir,’ whispered Jacobs in a voice thick with excitement, his faded eyes alive with the fire of enthusiasm. ‘“That’s why I sent for you! J don’t believe they have gone!” “What? They’re here still and yet you don’t know it? Impossible!” cried Algy, though his eyes belied the incredulity of his words. “It’s impossible, Jacobs!”’ “Impossible or not, sir, I have reason to suspect that the varmints are séill here! Let me tell you all. It was soon after they arrived with all their traps and bags and vanloads of stuff—what stuff it was and what they used it on beats me—that the master grew more stingy than ever, and then one day dismissed every servant in the place except me. When there was any cleaning to be done extra he got in old Mrs. Simpson from the village. He even sent the Cains away from the lodge and put in one of those foreign beasts. “‘T was astonished that he still kept me on, but I’d been with him for so long that I think he disliked the idea of not having me to make him comfortable. But I knew my day was coming, and coming soon, for Ostermann hated the very sight of me. He said I pryed on him, and perhaps I was a bit curious to know what he and the master were after, and at first I thought it my duty to keep an eye on the workmen. Well, very soon he influenced the master to get rid of me; they had quite an argument over it, and it was finally settled that I could stay here in the daytime and sleep out at nights, and there was nothing for it but to obey. ‘‘A month ago the master told me that the workmen had gone away, and he and Mr. Ostermann seemed to allow me a little more freedom than they had done during the past six months, and I began to hope that the old state of things was coming back. But I was wrong. ‘““Two days after the master had told me that all the men had left I saw one of them crossing the shrubbery beneath my pantry window. A week after that I met another in the disused chapel wing, and the day I wrote to you I saw no less than five of them coming down the moor track, which, as you remember, Master Algy, leads nowhere but to the edge of the moor. Well, I remember Adventure how fond you were of that unhealthy spot, where the track ends in swamp “‘And where the finest specimens of moths were to be caught. I remember it too, Jacobs, and the nets and cases you used. to be everlastingly making for me, like the good old sport you were. But go on!” 73 “THERE isn’t much more to tell, x save that I overheard that Mr. Ostermann was to go to London and was to be away for a day or two. It was then that the idea came to me of sending for you. With him away and the coast fairly clear I thought we might probe the mystery of those infer—I beg your pardon, sir— those foreign workmen who appear and dis- appear like jumping jack-rabbits! Where are they? Not in the castle, I’ll take my oath; not in the village, that goes without saying; and not in any village within twenty miles of us, as I’ve taken pains to find out. And yet, where are they hidden? Where do they get food? How do they live?” Even in his excitement Algy could not help laughing at Jacobs’s puzzled expression and awed voice. ‘‘ You speak as though you had been seeing ghosts, Jacobs,” he said with a subdued laugh. ‘“‘Ghosts, sir?”’ said the man seriously. ‘“‘T’ve seen one ghost! Don’t think I mean those men—they’re real enough in all con- science. The ghost I saw was a rushing, flying, noiseless gray thing that swept past me in the darkness a week ago! It was a huge gray cloud—a monster bird—a ghoul! I told the master of it, and he laughed and said it was one of these new-fangled air- ships or something. I don’t believe it was, all the same. It was more like a giant. Iwas taking a midnight look round when I saw it: It scared me above a bit, I can tell you!” ‘Gray Ghost!’? murmured Brett softly, triumphantly. “Gray Ghost! Oh, if Icould but unravel it all! In what direction was the thing you saw traveling, Jacobs? Do you remember?” ‘“‘Tremember well. It disappeared over in that direction—going toward Berwick and the sea. It was more like a sea-wraith than anything else, and I remember thinking at the time that it would have passed at a little distance for a clump of floating fog—a fog like you get in seaport towns, thick and white and oddly-shaped. Do you say it was a ghost, sir?”’ ““Tt’s Ostermann’s airship; Gray Ghost is CO MICLOOKS CO