But before he died he felt the need of confessing himself to Heaven; for he knew that the guilt of all those deaths was partly weighing on his soul; so he wrote the story out fair and truly for the eye of Heaven alone, as he intended it, telling of the burial place of all that evil gold, and laying upon it the curse of Holy Church to reinforce the curse it already bore. But as he wrote the last word, and leant back to rest after his labour, a spasm caught at his heart, and he sank down dead.... I was expecting the story to end here; but there was more of it. But before my father continued he lit the lamp and passed round the wine. We looked at each other, very quiet for a moment; then breathed deeply, and lifted our glasses. But I needn't repeat all the second part of the story, though it would show the wonderful fertility of my father's imagination. For the manuscript was found and passed on from one to another. And first this man and then that would seek for that hidden treasure. But the old curse and the new bore terrible fruit, for all who succeeded in touching the gold were smitten with plague or madness, or were beguiled unwittingly into some frightful crime which poisoned all their life with clinging bitterness and remorse. None escaped. And there beneath the earth, a temptation and a terror, that treasure still waited for any bold or holy enough to dare its menace or exorcise its spell. CHAPTER XI THE GHOST When my father lit the lamp for the second time there was more than one white face; for the story had been told with such a creepy emphasis that we had been lifted away from familiar things to an atmosphere of stealthy influences and subtle spells. For a couple of hours or more we had lived in the grip of a fatal and powerful curse. Something which wasn't of the earth we knew had caught us in its toils. We had moved in the company of men whose lives weren't their own, whose very shadows seemed like avenging spirits stalking in their wake. To look round once more upon the lighted room, to hear my father say cheerily, "Well, fill up again before you go," was to come back with an almost dizzying rush to common earth. But in a moment the room was once again full of clamour. Exclamations of delight and appeals for more rose spontaneously to the lips of most of us. But my father wouldn't indulge us further; and the glasses were raised and emptied, and my visitors were turned out into the cold night to make the best of their way back to the school.