The Signal-Man

The CampfireThe openingFree

"Halloa! Below there!"

That's what I shouted, standing on the edge of a steep cutting, looking down at the railway line far below. It was evening. The sun was low, and the man at the bottom, standing at the door of his little signal box, looked up the line toward the black mouth of a tunnel instead of up at me.

That was the first strange thing. The voice came from above him. He turned toward the tunnel.

Then he saw me, and I asked him if there was a path down. He didn't answer at once. He just looked at me. Then he pointed with his flag, and I found a zigzag path cut into the rock and went down.

It was a dreary place. The cutting was so deep and narrow that only a strip of sky showed overhead. Wet stone walls on both sides. At one end, a red signal light. At the other end, the tunnel, gloomy and black, with a cold wind coming out of it, smelling of earth.

He was a pale man with a dark beard and heavy eyebrows. And when I came close to him, he stepped back, and kept his eyes on me as if he were afraid of me.

I asked him what was wrong.

He said, quietly, "I was doubtful whether I had seen you before."

Where?

He pointed to the red light by the tunnel.

"There?"

"Yes."

"My good fellow," I said, "I have never been there in my life."

"I think I may be sure of that," he said. "Yes. I am sure I may."