“During his eruptive period he probably acted no worse than a great many other humans would with the same opportunities--he was one of the results of a bad system--the point of a much aggravated protuberance that had to be lanced. We all realize that history has finally demonstrated that autocracy is wrong. We greatly envy you who live in an age that is beholding the dawn of cohesive democracy, and the passing of conditions that have made it possible for one man to hold the destiny of millions in the hollow of his hand. Bill will be forgiven--but after he is projected.
“One night Kinisi and I were alone in the belfry. Out in the moonlight we saw Sidi ben Musa, Red Beard, Morgan, Teach and Kidd, lined up among the tombstones in the church yard. They appeared to be making unfamiliar movements. I asked Kinisi what he thought they were doing and he replied that they seemed to be kicking themselves, and that they had been acting that way every night for a week. He thought that, like the robins in autumn, they had flocked and were preparing to migrate.
“These shades, who, in life, had been relentless highwaymen of the seas--blood bespattered, remorseless, steeped in murder, arson, theft and unnamable crimes--the heels of whose boots had dripped with human gore on a thousand decks--held their spectral hands aloft and were aghast when they realized the pitiful inconsequence and puny achievement of their futile careers.
[Illustration: “MY OLD TOWER IN HUNGARY”]
“There was a big storm one night and we never saw them again. The valiant and hardy little band may have drifted out over the sea with the heavy off-shore wind and rolling mists, and may now be peacefully haunting the scenes of their former tame profiteering and modest killings, where spiritual life is not as strenuous as we found it in the twentieth century Gomorrah that we contemplated from the belfry of Trinity.
“Kinisi wanted to stay with Waters for a while longer, but I had had enough of modern money centers. I left one night in a freight car that was loaded with light wines and moving westward. Although it was marked for Atchison, Kansas, I had no difficulty in turning it up into Michigan, to where I seemed impelled by some unaccountable instinct. I may say incidentally that many wandering freight cars with spirits on board are now being diverted over strange routes by ghostly direction, and much of the present freight confusion is due to that cause. That was several years ago, and, so far as I know, the car is still at Benton Harbor.