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Page 14
Lennox was bound to confess that he entertained no personal fear.
They still argued, and the clock struck midnight. Then the sailor
made a suggestion.
"Since you're so infernally obstinate, I'll do this. We'll toss up,
and the winner can have the fun. That's fair to both."
The other agreed; he tossed a coin, and May called "tails," and won.
He was jubilant, while Henry showed a measure of annoyance. The
other consoled him.
"It's better so, old man. You're highly strung and nervy, and a
poet and all that sort of thing. I'm no better than a prize ox,
and don't know what nerves mean. I can sleep anywhere, anyhow.
If you can sleep in a submarine, you bet you can in a nice, airy
Elizabethan room, even if it is haunted. But it's not; that's the
whole point. There's not a haunted room in the world. Get me
your service revolver, like a good chap."
Henry was silent, and Tom rose to make ready for his vigil.
"I'm dog-tired, anyhow," he said. "Nothing less than Queen
Elizabeth herself will keep me awake, if it does appear."
Then the other surprised him.
"Don't think I want to go back on it. You've won the right to make
the experiment--if we ignore Uncle Walter. But--well, you'll laugh,
yet, on my honor, Tom, I've got a feeling I'd rather you didn't.
It isn't nerves. I'm not nervy any more than you are. I'm not
suggesting that I go now, of course. But I do ask you to think
better of it and chuck the thing."
"Why?"
"Well, one can't help one's feelings. I do feel a rum sort of
conviction at the bottom of my mind that it's not good enough. I
can't explain; there are no words for it that I know, but it's
growing on me. Intuition, perhaps."
"Intuition of what?"
"I can't tell you. But I ask you not to go."
"You were going if you'd won the toss?"
"I know."
"Then your growing intuition is only because I won it. Hanged if
I don't think you want to funk me, old man!"
"I couldn't do that. But it's different me going and you going.
I've got nothing to live for. Don't think I'm maudlin, or any rot
of that sort; but you know all about the past. I've never
mentioned it to you, and, of course, you haven't to me; and I never
should have. But I will now. I loved Mary with all my heart and
soul, Tom. She didn't know how much, and probably I didn't either.
But that's done, and no man on earth rejoices in her great happiness
more than I do. And no man on earth is going to be a better or a
truer friend to you and her than, please God, I shall be. But that
being so, can't you see the rest? My life ended in a way when the
dream of my life ended. I attach no importance to living for
itself, and if anything final happened to me it wouldn't leave a
blank anywhere. You're different. In sober honesty you oughtn't
to run into any needless danger--real or imaginary. I'm thinking
of Mary only when I say that--not you."
"But I deny the danger."
"Yes; only you might listen. So did I, but I deny it no longer. The
case is altered when I tell you in all seriousness--when I take
my oath if you like--that I do believe now there is something in
this. I don't say it's supernatural, and I don't say it isn't; but
I do feel deeply impressed in my mind now, and it's growing stronger
every minute, that there's something here out of the common and
really infernally dangerous."
The other looked at him in astonishment.
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