The Grim Ghost (4 page)
Then he ordered torches to be lit…
Finally, he did a strange and brave thing… he sent all the slaves away so that he was alone in the house with the haunted garden.
Night fell. Dorus waited…
In Pliny’s garden, the old man sipped the last of his ale.
“And then?” Pertinax breathed.
“Then?”
“Did the ghost attack him?”
Pliny gave a secret smile. “I can’t remember,” he murmured.
“Can’t remember!” the boy cried. “Why not?”
Pliny shrugged. “Because my cup of ale is empty. I think I need another one.”
Pertinax groaned, but took the cup and ran into the scorching kitchen to fill it up.
A slave girl was stuffing dormice with sausage to roast in the oven.
Another was pulling snails from a bowl of red stuff to boil them.
“What’s that?” Pertinax asked.
“Blood,” the girl told him. “Snails taste better if you let them feed in a dish of blood for a few days.”
Pertinax hurried over to the larder and filled up the cup with ale. He wondered if there would be more blood in Pliny’s ghostly tale…
Pertinax dashed back into the garden and handed the cool ale to Pliny. The man supped it and said, “Look at the birds in the trees.”
“Birds? You were telling me about ghosts,” Pertinax groaned.
“The birds have no spirits – there are no ghost birds to haunt us. If there were, we would never sleep. We catch them, kill them and eat them. Imagine if their sprits wanted revenge!”
“Is that what the ghost in Dorus’s house wanted?” the boy asked. He wanted Pliny to get back to the story.
“No. The ghost wanted peace, not revenge,” Pliny replied and went on with his tale… That first night, Dorus sat at his seat by the window. He went on with his writing. “If you have an empty mind, devils rush in to fill it,” the teacher said to the empty room.
It was quiet and calm in the garden. But at the darkest hour, Dorus heard the faint rattle of chains.
The noise grew louder, closer, but still the teacher went on with his writing and ignored the sounds that were in the house and in the room.
At last, Dorus put down his pen and looked up. The ghost was there – the old man with the white beard and flowing hair.
The spirit made a sign for Dorus to come to it. Dorus picked up his pen and went on writing.
The ghost grew angry. Soon the chains were rattling over the teacher’s head. Dorus looked up and saw the figure signal for him to follow.
He picked up a torch and watched as the ghost wandered out into the garden. Dorus followed.
When the grey-haired spirit reached the middle of the garden, it faded and disappeared. Dorus placed a torch on the spot where it vanished. He went back inside the house, yawned and stretched. He decided it was time to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day.
Next morning, Dorus called on one of the city judges and told him his story. Workmen were sent to dig at the spot where the ghost had disappeared.
Soon their spades struck metal. Dorus watched as they scraped away the soil and uncovered rusty chains.
