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A Case Of Metaphantasmia
by
“Yes, I dare say,” Minver put in. “But if they all amount to the same thing in the end, what difference would it make?”
“It would perhaps establish the identity of good and evil,” Wanhope suggested.
“Oh, the sinners are convinced of that already,” Minver said, while Rulledge glanced quickly from one to the other.
The stranger looked rather dazed, and Rulledge said: “Well, I don’t suppose that was the conclusion of the whole matter?”
“Oh no,” the stranger answered, “that was only the beginning of the conclusion. I didn’t go to sleep at once, though I felt so much at peace. In fact, Melford beat me, and I could hear him far in advance, steaming and whistling away, in a style that I recalled as characteristic, over a space of intervening years that I hadn’t definitely summed up yet. It made me think of a night near Narragansett Bay, where two friends of mine and I had had a mighty good dinner at a sort of wild club-house, and had hurried into our bunks, each one so as to get the start of the others, for the fellows that were left behind knew they had no chance of sleep after the first began to get in his work. I laughed, and I suppose I must have gone to sleep almost simultaneously, for I don’t recollect anything afterwards till I was wakened by a kind of muffled bellow, that I remembered only too well. It was the unfailing sign of Melford’s nightmare.
“I was ready to swear, and I was ashamed for the fellow who had no more self-control than that: when a fellow snores, or has a nightmare, you always think first off that he needn’t have had it if he had tried. As usual, I knew Melford didn’t know what his nightmare was about, and that made me madder still, to have him bellowing into the air like that, with no particular aim. All at once there came a piercing scream from the stateroom, and then I knew that the girl there had heard Melford and been scared out of a year’s growth.”
The stranger made a little break, and Wanhope asked, “Could you make out what she screamed, or was it quite inarticulate?”
“It was plain enough, and it gave me a clew, somehow, to what Melford’s nightmare was about. She was calling out, ‘Help! help! help! Burglars!’ till I thought she would raise the roof of the car.”
“And did she wake anybody?” Rulledge inquired.
“That was the strange part of it. Not a soul stirred, and after the first burst the girl seemed to quiet down again and yield the floor to Melford, who kept bellowing steadily away. I was so furious that I reached out across the aisle to shake him, but the attempt was too much for me. I lost my balance and fell out of my berth onto the floor. You may imagine the state of mind I was in. I gathered myself up and pulled Melford’s curtains open and was just going to fall on him tooth and nail, when I was nearly taken off my feet again by an apparition: well, it looked like an apparition, but it was a tall fellow in his nighty–for it was twenty years before pajamas–and he had a small dark lantern in his hand, such as we used to carry in those days so as to read in our berths when we couldn’t sleep. He was gritting his teeth, and growling between them: ‘Out o’ this! Out o’ this! I’m going to shoot to kill, you blasted thieves!’ I could see by the strange look in his eyes that he was sleep-walking, and I didn’t wait to see if he had a pistol. I popped in behind the curtains, and found myself on top of another fellow, for I had popped into the wrong berth in my confusion. The man started up and yelled: ‘Oh, don’t kill me! There’s my watch on the stand, and all the money in the house is in my pantaloons pocket. The silver’s in the sideboard down-stairs, and it’s plated, anyway.’ Then I understood what his complaint was, and I rolled onto the floor again. By that time every man in the car was out of his berth, too, except Melford, who was devoting himself strictly to business; and every man was grabbing some other, and shouting, ‘Police!’ or ‘Burglars!’ or ‘Help!’ or ‘Murder!’ just as the fancy took him.”