22 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. I- 
defence of the traffic, when, on a sudden, the 
attention of both was roused by a sound as of 
footsteps rapidly approaching the door, which 
was immediately burst open by a heavy blow. A 
piercing shriek came from the mother, who 
rushed into the adjoining bedroom ; the daughter 
started, and turned towards the cause of the noise 
and her mother’s fright, and saw what she after- 
wards described as the phantom of a negro slave 
lying on the floor, which turned its ghastly head 
and glared for a moment upon her with white 
protruding eyeballs. A figure in black entered 
as she fled screaming after her mother. When 
the two terrified women ventured at length to 
glance into the room from which they had been 
scared, all was quiet; the red glow from the 
grate showed everything to be as they left it. 
What could this be except an apparition of the 
captain with his negro slave, and the old gentle- 
man himself in black pursuing them ? 
‘ The mystery of that phantom head,’ the Pro- 
fessor would conclude in tragic tones, ‘ is known 
to me alone. -The goodly resolves I had made 
some time previously, after my visit to the tower 
staircase, to intrude no more into the portals of 
anatomical science, had vanished : the determina- 
tion to cut my chosen profession, once and for 
all, had wavered. Rallied by my fellow-pupils, 
and excited by some articles in a cyclopaedia to 
which we had access, my anatomical passion soon 
