The next train that passed had to stop, as a young woman died suddenly as the train entered the tunnel. Six or seven months later, the specter had appeared again, covering its face in its hands, as if mourning. A few hours later, the accident happened. The signalman telegraphed both ends of the line to find out what the danger was, but he received all-clear messages in reply. The signalman had rushed to the stranger, but the moment he approached the figure vanished. The figure first appeared a year earlier, and the appearance presaged a horrific train collision in the tunnel. The signalman explains how an apparition has been visiting him, a figure standing near the red danger light. Before he leaves, the signalman asks if the narrator said "Below there!" because the words were conveyed to him from some supernatural source. The narrator agrees to come the next day to hear what is troubling the man. At two points he looks at the telegraph bell and then at the red danger light above the tunnel, even though there is no coming train or telegraph message, nor sound from the bell. ![]() The narrator notices that the signalman attends to his telegraph and flagging duties with exactness, though the man looks ill at ease. Inside the signalman's box, the two men have a conversation. ![]() The signalman eventually looks up and shows the narrator a zigzag path he takes to the bottom. The narrator notices something strange about the way the man looks into the abyss. ![]() The signalman, rather than look up, stares into the train tunnel. " The Signalman" opens with an unnamed narrator calling "Halloa! Below there!" to a signalman standing at the bottom of a steep rail cutting.
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