Shortly after this occurrence the officers of the San Geronimo garrison began to request transfers, and the social set that had been formed in and near the castle was broken up. Gradually the troops thinned away, and although the works were kept in moderate repair and occasionally enlarged, the regular force was finally withdrawn, and even the solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late,--a theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was that kind of a Spanish governor. An American officer, who took up his home in San Geronimo after the occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost, and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of the grim relics of mediaevalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the apartments, have probably induced the spectre to take up his quarters elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.