Spirits, part 3

66 10 0
                                    

However, he neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen, but in order to keep calm and collected, tried to pass the sounds off to himself as something else. The noise increased and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked up, saw, and recognized the ghost exactly as it has been described to him: it stood before him, beckoning with a finger, like a person who calls another. Athenodorus in reply made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and threw his eyes again upon his papers; the ghost then rattled it chains over the head of the philosopher, who looked upon this, and seeing it beckoning as before, immediately arose, and, light in hand, followed it. The ghost slowly stalked along, as if encumbered with its chains, and, turning into the area of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus, being thus deserted, made a mark with some grass and leaves on the spot where the spirit left him. The next day he gave information to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. This was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man in chains was found there; for the body, having lain a considerable time in the ground, was putrefied and moldered, away from the fetters. The bones, being collected together, were publicly buried, and thus after the ghost was appeared by the proper ceremonies, the house was haunted no more.

Supernatural the book of monsters, demons, spirits and ghoulsWhere stories live. Discover now