“You’re going to die, like all the rest of them, I suppose,” laughed his friend, as they descended the dusty, winding road that led to the palm-lined promenade of the quiet little Mediterranean watering-place.

CHAPTER XXIV

“WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK”

On their left were several white villas, before which pink and scarlet geraniums ran riot, with spreading mimosas golden with their feathery blossom, for Ospedaletti makes a frantic, if vain, bid for popularity as a winter-resort.  Its deadly dullness, however, is too well known to the habitue of the Riviera; and its casino, which never obtained a licence, imparts to it the air of painful effort at gaiety.

“Well,” remarked the shabby man as they passed along and out upon the sea-road in the direction of Bordighera, “I always looked upon what the people at Auchterarder said regarding the Whispers as a mere myth.  But now, having heard them with my own ears, how can I have further doubt?”

“I’ve listened in the Castle ruins a good many times, my dear Krail,” replied the other, “but I’ve never heard anything more exciting than an owl.  Indeed, Lady Heyburn and I, when there was so much gossip about the strange noises some two years ago, set to work to investigate.  We went there at least a dozen times, but without result; only both of us caught bad colds.”

“Well,” exclaimed Krail, “I used to ridicule the weird stories I heard in the village about the Devil’s Whisper, and all that.  But by mere chance I happened to be at the spot one bright night, and I heard distinct whisperings, just as had been described to me.  They gave me a very creepy feeling, I can assure you.”

“Bosh!  Now, do you believe in ghosts, you man-of-the-world that you are, my dear Felix?”

“No.  Most decidedly I don’t.”

“Then what you’ve heard is only in imagination, depend upon it.  The supernatural doesn’t exist in Glencardine, that’s quite certain,” declared Flockart.  “The fact is that there’s so much tradition and legendary lore connected with the old place, and its early owners were such a set of bold and defiant robbers, that for generations the peasantry have held it in awe.  Hence all sorts of weird and terrible stories have been invented and handed down, until the present age believes them to be based upon fact.”

“But, my dear friend, I actually heard the Whispers—­heard them with my own ears,” Krail asserted.  “I happened to be about the place that night, trying to get a peep into the library, where Goslin and the old man were, I believe, busy at work.  But the blinds fitted too closely, so that I couldn’t see inside.  The keeper and his men were, I knew, down in the village; therefore I took a stroll towards the ruins, and, as it was a beautiful night, I sat down in the courtyard to have a smoke.  Then, of a sudden, I heard low voices quite distinctly.  They startled me, for not until they fell upon my ears did I recall the stories told to me weeks before.”