A mile is indeed a very short distance when traversed at such a pace. The finishing flag was already but a few hundred feet further on. Reilly realized that it was time now to go to the front. He gritted his teeth together with determination and bent his head down even further toward his front wheel. Then his feet began to move so quickly that there was only visible an indistinct blur at the sides of his crank shaft. At this very second, with a face marked with rage and hatred, Harry brought his horse suddenly across the road to thet part of it which he had been warned to avoid.
It is hard to tell what kept Reilly from being run into and trampled under foot. An attempt at back pedaling, a sudden twist of the handle-bar, a lurch to one side that almost threw him from his seat. Then, in the fraction of a second he was over on the other side of the road, pushing ahead of the mare almost as though she were standing still. The outburst of alarm from the throats of the soldiers changed when they saw that Reilly had not been injured; first into a shout of indignation at the dastardly attempt which had been made to run him down, and then into a roar of delight when the bicyclist breasted the flag a winner of the race by twenty feet.
As he crossed the line Reilly caught a glimpse of Washington. He stood close to the flag and was waving his hat in the air with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. Reilly went on down the road slackening his speed as effectively as he could. But before it was possible to entirely stop his wheel’s momentum the noisy acclamations in his rear ceased with startling suddenness. He turned in his saddle and looked back. As sure as St. Peter he had the road entirely to himself. There wasn’t a soldier or the ghost of a soldier in sight.
As soon as he could he turned his bicycle about and rode slowly back along the highway, now so singularly deserted, looking hither and thither in vain for some trace of the vanished army. Even the flag which had been stuck into the ground at the end of the one-mile race course was gone. The breeze had died out again and the air was tranquil and warm. In the branches of a nearby tree two sparrows chirped and twittered peacefully. Reilly went back to the place where the camp had been. He found there only open fields on one side of the road and a clump of woodland on the other. He continued on down the little hill up which Harry and his companions had brought him a few hours previously and followed the road on further, coming finally to the fork in it near which was located the old farmhouse wherein he had been taken captive. The house was, as it had been when he had previously entered it, falling apart from age and neglect. When he went inside he found lying on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace a number of pieces of broken glass.
COPYRIGHT INFO
The 7th Ghost Story MEGAPACK® is copyright © 2016 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
The MEGAPACK® ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
“You Can’t Kill a Ghost,” by Frank Belknap Long, originally appeared in Weird Tales, August 1928. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
“A Friendly Exorcise,” by Talmage Powell, originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, March 1968. Copyright © 1968 by Talmage Powell. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
“Cousin Kelly,” by Fletcher Flora, originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1967. Copyright © 1968 by Fletcher Flora. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
“I Had a Hunch, and…”, by Talmage Powell, originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May 1959. Copyright © 1959, renewed 1987 by Talmage Powell. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
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