Directly after breakfast I went away alone.  I wanted to get rid of an awful weight which oppressed me.  I walked rapidly, for the morning was cold.  I had scarcely reached the park gates, however, when a hand touched me.  I turned and saw Kaffar.

“I hope your solitary walk is pleasant,” he said, revealing his white teeth.

“Thank you,” I replied coldly.

I thought he was going to leave me, but he kept close by my side, as if he wanted to say something.  I did not encourage him to speak, however; I walked rapidly on in silence.

“Temple Hall is a curious place,” he said.

“Very,” I replied.

“So different from Egypt—­ah, so different.  There the skies are bright, the trees are always green.  There the golden sandhills stretch away, the palm trees wave, the Nile sweeps majestic.  There the cold winds scarcely ever blow, and the people’s hearts are warm.”

“I suppose so.”

“There are mysteries there, as in Temple Hall, Mr. Blake; but mysteries are sometimes of human origin.”

As he said this, he leered up into my face, as if to read my thoughts; but I governed my features pretty well, and thus, I think, deceived him.

“Perhaps you know this?” he said.

“No,” I replied.  “I am connected with no mysteries.”

“Not with the appearance of the ghost last night?”

I looked at him in astonishment.  The insinuation was so far from true that for the moment I was too surprised to speak.

He gave a fierce savage laugh, and clapped his hands close against my face.  “I knew I was right,” he said; and then, before I had time to reply, he turned on his heel and walked away.

Things were indeed taking curious turns, and I wondered what would happen next.  What motive, I asked, could Kaffar have in connecting me with the ghost, and what was the plot which was being concocted?  There in the broad daylight the apparition seemed very unreal.  The servants, alone in the hall at midnight, perhaps talking about the traditional ghost, could easily have frightened themselves into the belief that they had seen it.  Or perhaps one of their fellow-servants sought to play them a trick, and ran away when they saw what they had done.  I would sift a little deeper.  I immediately retraced my steps to the house, where meeting Tom, I asked him to let me have Simon Slowden and a couple of dogs, as I wanted to shoot a few rabbits.  This was easily arranged, and soon after Simon and I were together.  Away on the open moors there was no fear of eavesdroppers; no one could hear what we said.

“Simon,” I said, after some time, “have you thought any more of the wonderful ghost that you saw last night?”

Instantly his face turned pale, and he shuddered as if in fear.  At any rate, the ghost was real to him.

“Yer honour,” he said, “I don’t feel as if I can talk about her.  I’ve played in ‘Amlet, yer honour, along with Octavius Bumpus’s travellin’ theatre, and I can nail a made-up livin’ ghost in a minnit; but this ghost didn’t look made up.  There was no blood, yer honour; she looked as if she ’ad bin waccinated forty times.”