Is anything wrong?' The answer
came back, both ways, 'All well.'"
Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I
showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of
sight, and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate
nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have
often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the
nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon
themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen for a
moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and
to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires!"
That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for
a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires, he
who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. But
he would beg to remark that he had not finished.
I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my arm:--
"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this
Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were brought
along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood.
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