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diff --git a/old/10624-0.txt b/old/10624-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9993e01 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10624-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7473 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Three John Silence Stories, by Algernon Blackwood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Three John Silence Stories + +Author: Algernon Blackwood + +Release Date: January 7, 2004 [eBook #10624] +[Most recently updated: June 21, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Dave Morgan and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE JOHN SILENCE STORIES *** + + + + +Three John Silence Stories + +by Algernon Blackwood + + +Contents + + Case I: A Psychical Invasion + Case II: Ancient Sorceries + Case III: The Nemesis of Fire + + + + +To +M.L.W. +The Original of John Silence +and +My Companion in Many Adventures + + + + +CASE I: A PSYCHICAL INVASION + +I + +“And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particular +case?” asked Dr. John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at +the Swedish lady in the chair facing him. + +“Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism—” + +“Oh, please—that dreadful word!” he interrupted, holding up a finger +with a gesture of impatience. + +“Well, then,” she laughed, “your wonderful clairvoyant gift and your +trained psychic knowledge of the processes by which a personality may +be disintegrated and destroyed—these strange studies you’ve been +experimenting with all these years—” + +“If it’s only a case of multiple personality I must really cry off,” +interrupted the doctor again hastily, a bored expression in his eyes. + +“It’s not that; now, please, be serious, for I want your help,” she +said; “and if I choose my words poorly you must be patient with my +ignorance. The case I know will interest you, and no one else could +deal with it so well. In fact, no ordinary professional man could deal +with it at all, for I know of no treatment nor medicine that can +restore a lost sense of humour!” + +“You begin to interest me with your ‘case,’” he replied, and made +himself comfortable to listen. + +Mrs. Sivendson drew a sigh of contentment as she watched him go to the +tube and heard him tell the servant he was not to be disturbed. + +“I believe you have read my thoughts already,” she said; “your +intuitive knowledge of what goes on in other people’s minds is +positively uncanny.” + +Her friend shook his head and smiled as he drew his chair up to a +convenient position and prepared to listen attentively to what she had +to say. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorb +the real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed, for +by this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the +living thoughts that lay behind the broken words. + +By his friends John Silence was regarded as an eccentric, because he +was rich by accident, and by choice—a doctor. That a man of independent +means should devote his time to doctoring, chiefly doctoring folk who +could not pay, passed their comprehension entirely. The native nobility +of a soul whose first desire was to help those who could not help +themselves, puzzled them. After that, it irritated them, and, greatly +to his own satisfaction, they left him to his own devices. + +Dr. Silence was a free-lance, though, among doctors, having neither +consulting-room, bookkeeper, nor professional manner. He took no fees, +being at heart a genuine philanthropist, yet at the same time did no +harm to his fellow-practitioners, because he only accepted +unremunerative cases, and cases that interested him for some very +special reason. He argued that the rich could pay, and the very poor +could avail themselves of organised charity, but that a very large +class of ill-paid, self-respecting workers, often followers of the +arts, could not afford the price of a week’s comforts merely to be told +to travel. And it was these he desired to help: cases often requiring +special and patient study—things no doctor can give for a guinea, and +that no one would dream of expecting him to give. + +But there was another side to his personality and practice, and one +with which we are now more directly concerned; for the cases that +especially appealed to him were of no ordinary kind, but rather of that +intangible, elusive, and difficult nature best described as psychical +afflictions; and, though he would have been the last person himself to +approve of the title, it was beyond question that he was known more or +less generally as the “Psychic Doctor.” + +In order to grapple with cases of this peculiar kind, he had submitted +himself to a long and severe training, at once physical, mental, and +spiritual. What precisely this training had been, or where undergone, +no one seemed to know,—for he never spoke of it, as, indeed, he +betrayed no single other characteristic of the charlatan,—but the fact +that it had involved a total disappearance from the world for five +years, and that after he returned and began his singular practice no +one ever dreamed of applying to him the so easily acquired epithet of +quack, spoke much for the seriousness of his strange quest and also for +the genuineness of his attainments. + +For the modern psychical researcher he felt the calm tolerance of the +“man who knows.” There was a trace of pity in his voice—contempt he +never showed—when he spoke of their methods. + +“This classification of results is uninspired work at best,” he said +once to me, when I had been his confidential assistant for some years. +“It leads nowhere, and after a hundred years will lead nowhere. It is +playing with the wrong end of a rather dangerous toy. Far better, it +would be, to examine the causes, and then the results would so easily +slip into place and explain themselves. For the sources are accessible, +and open to all who have the courage to lead the life that alone makes +practical investigation safe and possible.” + +And towards the question of clairvoyance, too, his attitude was +significantly sane, for he knew how extremely rare the genuine power +was, and that what is commonly called clairvoyance is nothing more than +a keen power of visualising. + +“It connotes a slightly increased sensibility, nothing more,” he would +say. “The true clairvoyant deplores his power, recognising that it adds +a new horror to life, and is in the nature of an affliction. And you +will find this always to be the real test.” + +Thus it was that John Silence, this singularly developed doctor, was +able to select his cases with a clear knowledge of the difference +between mere hysterical delusion and the kind of psychical affliction +that claimed his special powers. It was never necessary for him to +resort to the cheap mysteries of divination; for, as I have heard him +observe, after the solution of some peculiarly intricate problem— + +“Systems of divination, from geomancy down to reading by tea-leaves, +are merely so many methods of obscuring the outer vision, in order that +the inner vision may become open. Once the method is mastered, no +system is necessary at all.” + +And the words were significant of the methods of this remarkable man, +the keynote of whose power lay, perhaps, more than anything else, in +the knowledge, first, that thought can act at a distance, and, +secondly, that thought is dynamic and can accomplish material results. + +“Learn how to _think_,” he would have expressed it, “and you have +learned to tap power at its source.” + +To look at—he was now past forty—he was sparely built, with speaking +brown eyes in which shone the light of knowledge and self-confidence, +while at the same time they made one think of that wondrous gentleness +seen most often in the eyes of animals. A close beard concealed the +mouth without disguising the grim determination of lips and jaw, and +the face somehow conveyed an impression of transparency, almost of +light, so delicately were the features refined away. On the fine +forehead was that indefinable touch of peace that comes from +identifying the mind with what is permanent in the soul, and letting +the impermanent slip by without power to wound or distress; while, from +his manner,—so gentle, quiet, sympathetic,—few could have guessed the +strength of purpose that burned within like a great flame. + +“I think I should describe it as a psychical case,” continued the +Swedish lady, obviously trying to explain herself very intelligently, +“and just the kind you like. I mean a case where the cause is hidden +deep down in some spiritual distress, and—” + +“But the symptoms first, please, my dear Svenska,” he interrupted, with +a strangely compelling seriousness of manner, “and your deductions +afterwards.” + +She turned round sharply on the edge of her chair and looked him in the +face, lowering her voice to prevent her emotion betraying itself too +obviously. + +“In my opinion there’s only one symptom,” she half whispered, as though +telling something disagreeable—“fear—simply fear.” + +“Physical fear?” + +“I think not; though how can I say? I think it’s a horror in the +psychical region. It’s no ordinary delusion; the man is quite sane; but +he lives in mortal terror of something—” + +“I don’t know what you mean by his ‘psychical region,’” said the +doctor, with a smile; “though I suppose you wish me to understand that +his spiritual, and not his mental, processes are affected. Anyhow, try +and tell me briefly and pointedly what you know about the man, his +symptoms, his need for help, my peculiar help, that is, and all that +seems vital in the case. I promise to listen devotedly.” + +“I am trying,” she continued earnestly, “but must do so in my own words +and trust to your intelligence to disentangle as I go along. He is a +young author, and lives in a tiny house off Putney Heath somewhere. He +writes humorous stories—quite a genre of his own: Pender—you must have +heard the name—Felix Pender? Oh, the man had a great gift, and married +on the strength of it; his future seemed assured. I say ‘had,’ for +quite suddenly his talent utterly failed him. Worse, it became +transformed into its opposite. He can no longer write a line in the old +way that was bringing him success—” + +Dr. Silence opened his eyes for a second and looked at her. + +“He still writes, then? The force has not gone?” he asked briefly, and +then closed his eyes again to listen. + +“He works like a fury,” she went on, “but produces nothing”—she +hesitated a moment—“nothing that he can use or sell. His earnings have +practically ceased, and he makes a precarious living by book-reviewing +and odd jobs—very odd, some of them. Yet, I am certain his talent has +not really deserted him finally, but is merely—” + +Again Mrs. Sivendson hesitated for the appropriate word. + +“In abeyance,” he suggested, without opening his eyes. + +“Obliterated,” she went on, after a moment to weigh the word, “merely +obliterated by something else—” + +“By some one else?” + +“I wish I knew. All I can say is that he is haunted, and temporarily +his sense of humour is shrouded—gone—replaced by something dreadful +that writes other things. Unless something competent is done, he will +simply starve to death. Yet he is afraid to go to a doctor for fear of +being pronounced insane; and, anyhow, a man can hardly ask a doctor to +take a guinea to restore a vanished sense of humour, can he?” + +“Has he tried any one at all—?” + +“Not doctors yet. He tried some clergymen and religious people; but +they know so little and have so little intelligent sympathy. And most +of them are so busy balancing on their own little pedestals—” + +John Silence stopped her tirade with a gesture. + +“And how is it that you know so much about him?” he asked gently. + +“I know Mrs. Pender well—I knew her before she married him—” + +“And is she a cause, perhaps?” + +“Not in the least. She is devoted; a woman very well educated, though +without being really intelligent, and with so little sense of humour +herself that she always laughs at the wrong places. But she has nothing +to do with the cause of his distress; and, indeed, has chiefly guessed +it from observing him, rather than from what little he has told her. +And he, you know, is a really lovable fellow, hard-working, +patient—altogether worth saving.” + +Dr. Silence opened his eyes and went over to ring for tea. He did not +know very much more about the case of the humorist than when he first +sat down to listen; but he realised that no amount of words from his +Swedish friend would help to reveal the real facts. A personal +interview with the author himself could alone do that. + +“All humorists are worth saving,” he said with a smile, as she poured +out tea. “We can’t afford to lose a single one in these strenuous days. +I will go and see your friend at the first opportunity.” + +She thanked him elaborately, effusively, with many words, and he, with +much difficulty, kept the conversation thenceforward strictly to the +teapot. + +And, as a result of this conversation, and a little more he had +gathered by means best known to himself and his secretary, he was +whizzing in his motor-car one afternoon a few days later up the Putney +Hill to have his first interview with Felix Pender, the humorous writer +who was the victim of some mysterious malady in his “psychical region” +that had obliterated his sense of the comic and threatened to wreck his +life and destroy his talent. And his desire to help was probably of +equal strength with his desire to know and to investigate. + +The motor stopped with a deep purring sound, as though a great black +panther lay concealed within its hood, and the doctor—the “psychic +doctor,” as he was sometimes called—stepped out through the gathering +fog, and walked across the tiny garden that held a blackened fir tree +and a stunted laurel shrubbery. The house was very small, and it was +some time before any one answered the bell. Then, suddenly, a light +appeared in the hall, and he saw a pretty little woman standing on the +top step begging him to come in. She was dressed in grey, and the +gaslight fell on a mass of deliberately brushed light hair. Stuffed, +dusty birds, and a shabby array of African spears, hung on the wall +behind her. A hat-rack, with a bronze plate full of very large cards, +led his eye swiftly to a dark staircase beyond. Mrs. Pender had round +eyes like a child’s, and she greeted him with an effusiveness that +barely concealed her emotion, yet strove to appear naturally cordial. +Evidently she had been looking out for his arrival, and had outrun the +servant girl. She was a little breathless. + +“I hope you’ve not been kept waiting—I think it’s _most_ good of you to +come—” she began, and then stopped sharp when she saw his face in the +gaslight. There was something in Dr. Silence’s look that did not +encourage mere talk. He was in earnest now, if ever man was. + +“Good evening, Mrs. Pender,” he said, with a quiet smile that won +confidence, yet deprecated unnecessary words, “the fog delayed me a +little. I am glad to see you.” + +They went into a dingy sitting-room at the back of the house, neatly +furnished but depressing. Books stood in a row upon the mantelpiece. +The fire had evidently just been lit. It smoked in great puffs into the +room. + +“Mrs. Sivendson said she thought you might be able to come,” ventured +the little woman again, looking up engagingly into his face and +betraying anxiety and eagerness in every gesture. “But I hardly dared +to believe it. I think it is really too good of you. My husband’s case +is so peculiar that—well, you know, I am quite sure any _ordinary_ +doctor would say at once the asylum—” + +“Isn’t he in, then?” asked Dr. Silence gently. + +“In the asylum?” she gasped. “Oh dear, no—not yet!” + +“In the house, I meant,” he laughed. + +She gave a great sigh. + +“He’ll be back any minute now,” she replied, obviously relieved to see +him laugh; “but the fact is, we didn’t expect you so early—I mean, my +husband hardly thought you would come at all.” + +“I am always delighted to come—when I am really wanted, and can be of +help,” he said quickly; “and, perhaps, it’s all for the best that your +husband is out, for now that we are alone you can tell me something +about his difficulties. So far, you know, I have heard very little.” + +Her voice trembled as she thanked him, and when he came and took a +chair close beside her she actually had difficulty in finding words +with which to begin. + +“In the first place,” she began timidly, and then continuing with a +nervous incoherent rush of words, “he will be simply delighted that +you’ve really come, because he said you were the only person he would +consent to see at all—the only doctor, I mean. But, of course, he +doesn’t know how frightened I am, or how much I have noticed. He +pretends with me that it’s just a nervous breakdown, and I’m sure he +doesn’t realise all the odd things I’ve noticed him doing. But the main +thing, I suppose—” + +“Yes, the main thing, Mrs. Pender,” he said, encouragingly, noticing +her hesitation. + +“—is that he thinks we are not alone in the house. That’s the chief +thing.” + +“Tell me more facts—just facts.” + +“It began last summer when I came back from Ireland; he had been here +alone for six weeks, and I thought him looking tired and queer—ragged +and scattered about the face, if you know what I mean, and his manner +worn out. He said he had been writing hard, but his inspiration had +somehow failed him, and he was dissatisfied with his work. His sense of +humour was leaving him, or changing into something else, he said. There +was something in the house, he declared, that”—she emphasised the +words—“prevented his feeling funny.” + +“Something in the house that prevented his feeling funny,” repeated the +doctor. “Ah, now we’re getting to the heart of it!” + +“Yes,” she resumed vaguely, “that’s what he kept saying.” + +“And what was it he _did_ that you thought strange?” he asked +sympathetically. “Be brief, or he may be here before you finish.” + +“Very small things, but significant it seemed to me. He changed his +workroom from the library, as we call it, to the sitting-room. He said +all his characters became wrong and terrible in the library; they +altered, so that he felt like writing tragedies—vile, debased +tragedies, the tragedies of broken souls. But now he says the same of +the sitting-room, and he’s gone back to the library.” + +“Ah!” + +“You see, there’s so little I can tell you,” she went on, with +increasing speed and countless gestures. “I mean it’s only very small +things he does and says that are queer. What frightens me is that he +assumes there is some one else in the house all the time—some one I +never see. He does not actually say so, but on the stairs I’ve seen him +standing aside to let some one pass; I’ve seen him open a door to let +some one in or out; and often in our bedrooms he puts chairs about as +though for some one else to sit in. Oh—oh yes, and once or twice,” she +cried—“once or twice—” + +She paused, and looked about her with a startled air. + +“Yes?” + +“Once or twice,” she resumed hurriedly, as though she heard a sound +that alarmed her, “I’ve heard him running—coming in and out of the +rooms breathless as if something were after him—” + +The door opened while she was still speaking, cutting her words off in +the middle, and a man came into the room. He was dark and clean-shaven, +sallow rather, with the eyes of imagination, and dark hair growing +scantily about the temples. He was dressed in a shabby tweed suit, and +wore an untidy flannel collar at the neck. The dominant expression of +his face was startled—hunted; an expression that might any moment leap +into the dreadful stare of terror and announce a total loss of +self-control. + +The moment he saw his visitor a smile spread over his worn features, +and he advanced to shake hands. + +“I hoped you would come; Mrs. Sivendson said you might be able to find +time,” he said simply. His voice was thin and needy. “I am very glad to +see you, Dr. Silence. It is ‘Doctor,’ is it not?” + +“Well, I am entitled to the description,” laughed the other, “but I +rarely get it. You know, I do not practise as a regular thing; that is, +I only take cases that specially interest me, or—” + +He did not finish the sentence, for the men exchanged a glance of +sympathy that rendered it unnecessary. + +“I have heard of your great kindness.” + +“It’s my hobby,” said the other quickly, “and my privilege.” + +“I trust you will still think so when you have heard what I have to +tell you,” continued the author, a little wearily. He led the way +across the hall into the little smoking-room where they could talk +freely and undisturbed. + +In the smoking-room, the door shut and privacy about them, Fender’s +attitude changed somewhat, and his manner became very grave. The doctor +sat opposite, where he could watch his face. Already, he saw, it looked +more haggard. Evidently it cost him much to refer to his trouble at +all. + +“What I have is, in my belief, a profound spiritual affliction,” he +began quite bluntly, looking straight into the other’s eyes. + +“I saw that at once,” Dr. Silence said. + +“Yes, you saw that, of course; my atmosphere must convey that much to +any one with psychic perceptions. Besides which, I feel sure from all +I’ve heard, that you are really a soul-doctor, are you not, more than a +healer merely of the body?” + +“You think of me too highly,” returned the other; “though I prefer +cases, as you know, in which the spirit is disturbed first, the body +afterwards.” + +“I understand, yes. Well, I have experienced a curious disturbance +in—not in my physical region primarily. I mean my nerves are all right, +and my body is all right. I have no delusions exactly, but my spirit is +tortured by a calamitous fear which first came upon me in a strange +manner.” + +John Silence leaned forward a moment and took the speaker’s hand and +held it in his own for a few brief seconds, closing his eyes as he did +so. He was not feeling his pulse, or doing any of the things that +doctors ordinarily do; he was merely absorbing into himself the main +note of the man’s mental condition, so as to get completely his own +point of view, and thus be able to treat his case with true sympathy. A +very close observer might perhaps have noticed that a slight tremor ran +through his frame after he had held the hand for a few seconds. + +“Tell me quite frankly, Mr. Pender,” he said soothingly, releasing the +hand, and with deep attention in his manner, “tell me all the steps +that led to the beginning of this invasion. I mean tell me what the +particular drug was, and why you took it, and how it affected you—” + +“Then you know it began with a drug!” cried the author, with +undisguised astonishment. + +“I only know from what I observe in you, and in its effect upon myself. +You are in a surprising psychical condition. Certain portions of your +atmosphere are vibrating at a far greater rate than others. This is the +effect of a drug, but of no ordinary drug. Allow me to finish, please. +If the higher rate of vibration spreads all over, you will become, of +course, permanently cognisant of a much larger world than the one you +know normally. If, on the other hand, the rapid portion sinks back to +the usual rate, you will lose these occasional increased perceptions +you now have.” + +“You amaze me!” exclaimed the author; “for your words exactly describe +what I have been feeling—” + +“I mention this only in passing, and to give you confidence before you +approach the account of your real affliction,” continued the doctor. +“All perception, as you know, is the result of vibrations; and +clairvoyance simply means becoming sensitive to an increased scale of +vibrations. The awakening of the inner senses we hear so much about +means no more than that. Your partial clairvoyance is easily explained. +The only thing that puzzles me is how you managed to procure the drug, +for it is not easy to get in pure form, and no adulterated tincture +could have given you the terrific impetus I see you have acquired. But, +please proceed now and tell me your story in your own way.” + +“This _Cannabis indica_,” the author went on, “came into my possession +last autumn while my wife was away. I need not explain how I got it, +for that has no importance; but it was the genuine fluid extract, and I +could not resist the temptation to make an experiment. One of its +effects, as you know, is to induce torrential laughter—” + +“Yes: sometimes.” + +“—I am a writer of humorous tales, and I wished to increase my own +sense of laughter—to see the ludicrous from an abnormal point of view. +I wished to study it a bit, if possible, and—” + +“Tell me!” + +“I took an experimental dose. I starved for six hours to hasten the +effect, locked myself into this room, and gave orders not to be +disturbed. Then I swallowed the stuff and waited.” + +“And the effect?” + +“I waited one hour, two, three, four, five hours. Nothing happened. No +laughter came, but only a great weariness instead. Nothing in the room +or in my thoughts came within a hundred miles of a humorous aspect.” + +“Always a most uncertain drug,” interrupted the doctor. “We make very +small use of it on that account.” + +“At two o’clock in the morning I felt so hungry and tired that I +decided to give up the experiment and wait no longer. I drank some milk +and went upstairs to bed. I felt flat and disappointed. I fell asleep +at once and must have slept for about an hour, when I awoke suddenly +with a great noise in my ears. It was the noise of my own laughter! I +was simply shaking with merriment. At first I was bewildered and +thought I had been laughing in dreams, but a moment later I remembered +the drug, and was delighted to think that after all I had got an +effect. It had been working all along, only I had miscalculated the +time. The only unpleasant thing _then_ was an odd feeling that I had +not waked naturally, but had been wakened by some one +else—deliberately. This came to me as a certainty in the middle of my +noisy laughter and distressed me.” + +“Any impression who it could have been?” asked the doctor, now +listening with close attention to every word, very much on the alert. + +Pender hesitated and tried to smile. He brushed his hair from his +forehead with a nervous gesture. + +“You must tell me all your impressions, even your fancies; they are +quite as important as your certainties.” + +“I had a vague idea that it was some one connected with my forgotten +dream, some one who had been at me in my sleep, some one of great +strength and great ability—of great force—quite an unusual +personality—and, I was certain, too—a woman.” + +“A good woman?” asked John Silence quietly. + +Pender started a little at the question and his sallow face flushed; it +seemed to surprise him. But he shook his head quickly with an +indefinable look of horror. + +“Evil,” he answered briefly, “appallingly evil, and yet mingled with +the sheer wickedness of it was also a certain perverseness—the +perversity of the unbalanced mind.” + +He hesitated a moment and looked up sharply at his interlocutor. A +shade of suspicion showed itself in his eyes. + +“No,” laughed the doctor, “you need not fear that I’m merely humouring +you, or think you mad. Far from it. Your story interests me exceedingly +and you furnish me unconsciously with a number of clues as you tell it. +You see, I possess some knowledge of my own as to these psychic +byways.” + +“I was shaking with such violent laughter,” continued the narrator, +reassured in a moment, “though with no clear idea what was amusing me, +that I had the greatest difficulty in getting up for the matches, and +was afraid I should frighten the servants overhead with my explosions. +When the gas was lit I found the room empty, of course, and the door +locked as usual. Then I half dressed and went out on to the landing, my +hilarity better under control, and proceeded to go downstairs. I wished +to record my sensations. I stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth so as +not to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics to the entire +household.” + +“And the presence of this—this—?” + +“It was hanging about me all the time,” said Pender, “but for the +moment it seemed to have withdrawn. Probably, too, my laughter killed +all other emotions.” + +“And how long did you take getting downstairs?” + +“I was just coming to that. I see you know all my ‘symptoms’ in +advance, as it were; for, of course, I thought I should never get to +the bottom. Each step seemed to take five minutes, and crossing the +narrow hall at the foot of the stairs—well, I could have sworn it was +half an hour’s journey had not my watch certified that it was a few +seconds. Yet I walked fast and tried to push on. It was no good. I +walked apparently without advancing, and at that rate it would have +taken me a week to get down Putney Hill.” + +“An experimental dose radically alters the scale of time and space +sometimes—” + +“But, when at last I got into my study and lit the gas, the change came +horridly, and sudden as a flash of lightning. It was like a douche of +icy water, and in the middle of this storm of laughter—” + +“Yes; what?” asked the doctor, leaning forward and peering into his +eyes. + +“—I was overwhelmed with terror,” said Pender, lowering his reedy voice +at the mere recollection of it. + +He paused a moment and mopped his forehead. The scared, hunted look in +his eyes now dominated the whole face. Yet, all the time, the corners +of his mouth hinted of possible laughter as though the recollection of +that merriment still amused him. The combination of fear and laughter +in his face was very curious, and lent great conviction to his story; +it also lent a bizarre expression of horror to his gestures. + +“Terror, was it?” repeated the doctor soothingly. + +“Yes, terror; for, though the Thing that woke me seemed to have gone, +the memory of it still frightened me, and I collapsed into a chair. +Then I locked the door and tried to reason with myself, but the drug +made my movements so prolonged that it took me five minutes to reach +the door, and another five to get back to the chair again. The +laughter, too, kept bubbling up inside me—great wholesome laughter that +shook me like gusts of wind—so that even my terror almost made me +laugh. Oh, but I may tell you, Dr. Silence, it was altogether vile, +that mixture of fear and laughter, altogether vile! + +“Then, all at once, the things in the room again presented their funny +side to me and set me off laughing more furiously than ever. The +bookcase was ludicrous, the arm-chair a perfect clown, the way the +clock looked at me on the mantelpiece too comic for words; the +arrangement of papers and inkstand on the desk tickled me till I roared +and shook and held my sides and the tears streamed down my cheeks. And +that footstool! Oh, that absurd footstool!” + +He lay back in his chair, laughing to himself and holding up his hands +at the thought of it, and at the sight of him Dr. Silence laughed, too. + +“Go on, please,” he said, “I quite understand. I know something myself +of the hashish laughter.” + +The author pulled himself together and resumed, his face growing +quickly grave again. + +“So, you see, side by side with this extravagant, apparently causeless +merriment, there was also an extravagant, apparently causeless terror. +The drug produced the laughter, I knew; but what brought in the terror +I could not imagine. Everywhere behind the fun lay the fear. It was +terror masked by cap and bells; and I became the playground for two +opposing emotions, armed and fighting to the death. Gradually, then, +the impression grew in me that this fear was caused by the invasion—so +you called it just now—of the ‘person’ who had wakened me: she was +utterly evil; inimical to my soul, or at least to all in me that wished +for good. There I stood, sweating and trembling, laughing at everything +in the room, yet all the while with this white terror mastering my +heart. And this creature was putting—putting her—” + +He hesitated again, using his handkerchief freely. + +“Putting what?” + +“—putting ideas into my mind,” he went on glancing nervously about the +room. “Actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the usual +current and inject her own. How mad that sounds! I know it, but it’s +true. It’s the only way I can express it. Moreover, while the operation +terrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished filled me afresh +with laughter at the clumsiness of men by comparison. Our ignorant, +bungling methods of teaching the minds of others, of inculcating ideas, +and so on, overwhelmed me with laughter when I understood this superior +and diabolical method. Yet my laughter seemed hollow and ghastly, and +ideas of evil and tragedy trod close upon the heels of the comic. Oh, +doctor, I tell you again, it was unnerving!” + +John Silence sat with his head thrust forward to catch every word of +the story which the other continued to pour out in nervous, jerky +sentences and lowered voice. + +“You saw nothing—no one—all this time?” he asked. + +“Not with my eyes. There was no visual hallucination. But in my mind +there began to grow the vivid picture of a woman—large, dark-skinned, +with white teeth and masculine features, and one eye—the left—so +drooping as to appear almost closed. Oh, such a face—!” + +“A face you would recognise again?” + +Pender laughed dreadfully. + +“I wish I could forget it,” he whispered, “I only wish I could forget +it!” Then he sat forward in his chair suddenly, and grasped the +doctor’s hand with an emotional gesture. + +“I _must_ tell you how grateful I am for your patience and sympathy,” +he cried, with a tremor in his voice, “and—that you do not think me +mad. I have told no one else a quarter of all this, and the mere +freedom of speech—the relief of sharing my affliction with another—has +helped me already more than I can possibly say.” + +Dr. Silence pressed his hand and looked steadily into the frightened +eyes. His voice was very gentle when he replied. + +“Your case, you know, is very singular, but of absorbing interest to +me,” he said, “for it threatens, not your physical existence but the +temple of your psychical existence—the inner life. Your mind would not +be permanently affected here and now, in this world; but in the +existence after the body is left behind, you might wake up with your +spirit so twisted, so distorted, so befouled, that you would be +_spiritually insane_—a far more radical condition than merely being +insane here.” + +There came a strange hush over the room, and between the two men +sitting there facing one another. + +“Do you really mean—Good Lord!” stammered the author as soon as he +could find his tongue. + +“What I mean in detail will keep till a little later, and I need only +say now that I should not have spoken in this way unless I were quite +positive of being able to help you. Oh, there’s no doubt as to that, +believe me. In the first place, I am very familiar with the workings of +this extraordinary drug, this drug which has had the chance effect of +opening you up to the forces of another region; and, in the second, I +have a firm belief in the reality of supersensuous occurrences as well +as considerable knowledge of psychic processes acquired by long and +painful experiment. The rest is, or should be, merely sympathetic +treatment and practical application. The hashish has partially opened +another world to you by increasing your rate of psychical vibration, +and thus rendering you abnormally sensitive. Ancient forces attached to +this house have attacked you. For the moment I am only puzzled as to +their precise nature; for were they of an ordinary character, I should +myself be psychic enough to feel them. Yet I am conscious of feeling +nothing as yet. But now, please continue, Mr. Pender, and tell me the +rest of your wonderful story; and when you have finished, I will talk +about the means of cure.” + +Pender shifted his chair a little closer to the friendly doctor and +then went on in the same nervous voice with his narrative. + +“After making some notes of my impressions I finally got upstairs again +to bed. It was four o’clock in the morning. I laughed all the way up—at +the grotesque banisters, the droll physiognomy of the staircase window, +the burlesque grouping of the furniture, and the memory of that +outrageous footstool in the room below; but nothing more happened to +alarm or disturb me, and I woke late in the morning after a dreamless +sleep, none the worse for my experiment except for a slight headache +and a coldness of the extremities due to lowered circulation.” + +“Fear gone, too?” asked the doctor. + +“I seemed to have forgotten it, or at least ascribed it to mere +nervousness. Its reality had gone, anyhow for the time, and all that +day I wrote and wrote and wrote. My sense of laughter seemed +wonderfully quickened and my characters acted without effort out of the +heart of true humour. I was exceedingly pleased with this result of my +experiment. But when the stenographer had taken her departure and I +came to read over the pages she had typed out, I recalled her sudden +glances of surprise and the odd way she had looked up at me while I was +dictating. I was amazed at what I read and could hardly believe I had +uttered it.” + +“And why?” + +“It was so distorted. The words, indeed, were mine so far as I could +remember, but the meanings seemed strange. It frightened me. The sense +was so altered. At the very places where my characters were intended to +tickle the ribs, only curious emotions of sinister amusement resulted. +Dreadful innuendoes had managed to creep into the phrases. There was +laughter of a kind, but it was bizarre, horrible, distressing; and my +attempt at analysis only increased my dismay. The story, as it read +then, made me shudder, for by virtue of these slight changes it had +come somehow to hold the soul of horror, of horror disguised as +merriment. The framework of humour was there, if you understand me, but +the characters had turned sinister, and their laughter was evil.” + +“Can you show me this writing?” + +The author shook his head. + +“I destroyed it,” he whispered. “But, in the end, though of course much +perturbed about it, I persuaded myself that it was due to some +after-effect of the drug, a sort of reaction that gave a twist to my +mind and made me read macabre interpretations into words and situations +that did not properly hold them.” + +“And, meanwhile, did the presence of this person leave you?” + +“No; that stayed more or less. When my mind was actively employed I +forgot it, but when idle, dreaming, or doing nothing in particular, +there she was beside me, influencing my mind horribly—” + +“In what way, precisely?” interrupted the doctor. + +“Evil, scheming thoughts came to me, visions of crime, hateful pictures +of wickedness, and the kind of bad imagination that so far has been +foreign, indeed impossible, to my normal nature—” + +“The pressure of the Dark Powers upon the personality,” murmured the +doctor, making a quick note. + +“Eh? I didn’t quite catch—” + +“Pray, go on. I am merely making notes; you shall know their purport +fully later.” + +“Even when my wife returned I was still aware of this Presence in the +house; it associated itself with my inner personality in most intimate +fashion; and outwardly I always felt oddly constrained to be polite and +respectful towards it—to open doors, provide chairs and hold myself +carefully deferential when it was about. It became very compelling at +last, and, if I failed in any little particular, I seemed to know that +it pursued me about the house, from one room to another, haunting my +very soul in its inmost abode. It certainly came before my wife so far +as my attentions were concerned. + +“But, let me first finish the story of my experimental dose, for I took +it again the third night, and underwent a very similar experience, +delayed like the first in coming, and then carrying me off my feet when +it did come with a rush of this false demon-laughter. This time, +however, there was a reversal of the changed scale of space and time; +it shortened instead of lengthened, so that I dressed and got +downstairs in about twenty seconds, and the couple of hours I stayed +and worked in the study passed literally like a period of ten minutes.” + +“That is often true of an overdose,” interjected the doctor, “and you +may go a mile in a few minutes, or a few yards in a quarter of an hour. +It is quite incomprehensible to those who have never experienced it, +and is a curious proof that time and space are merely forms of +thought.” + +“This time,” Pender went on, talking more and more rapidly in his +excitement, “another extraordinary effect came to me, and I experienced +a curious changing of the senses, so that I perceived external things +through one large main sense-channel instead of through the five +divisions known as sight, smell, touch, and so forth. You will, I know, +understand me when I tell you that I _heard_ sights and _saw_ sounds. +No language can make this comprehensible, of course, and I can only +say, for instance, that the striking of the clock I saw as a visible +picture in the air before me. I saw the sounds of the tinkling bell. +And in precisely the same way I heard the colours in the room, +especially the colours of those books in the shelf behind you. Those +red bindings I heard in deep sounds, and the yellow covers of the +French bindings next to them made a shrill, piercing note not unlike +the chattering of starlings. That brown bookcase muttered, and those +green curtains opposite kept up a constant sort of rippling sound like +the lower notes of a wood-horn. But I only was conscious of these +sounds when I looked steadily at the different objects, and thought +about them. The room, you understand, was not full of a chorus of +notes; but when I concentrated my mind upon a colour, I heard, as well +as saw, it.” + +“That is a known, though rarely obtained, effect of _Cannabis indica_,” +observed the doctor. “And it provoked laughter again, did it?” + +“Only the muttering of the cupboard-bookcase made me laugh. It was so +like a great animal trying to get itself noticed, and made me think of +a performing bear—which is full of a kind of pathetic humour, you know. +But this mingling of the senses produced no confusion in my brain. On +the contrary, I was unusually clear-headed and experienced an +intensification of consciousness, and felt marvellously alive and +keen-minded. + +“Moreover, when I took up a pencil in obedience to an impulse to +sketch—a talent not normally mine—I found that I could draw nothing but +heads, nothing, in fact, but one head—always the same—the head of a +dark-skinned woman, with huge and terrible features and a very drooping +left eye; and so well drawn, too, that I was amazed, as you may +imagine—” + +“And the expression of the face—?” + +Pender hesitated a moment for words, casting about with his hands in +the air and hunching his shoulders. A perceptible shudder ran over him. + +“What I can only describe as—_blackness_,” he replied in a low tone; +“the face of a dark and evil soul.” + +“You destroyed that, too?” queried the doctor sharply. + +“No; I have kept the drawings,” he said, with a laugh, and rose to get +them from a drawer in the writing-desk behind him. + +“Here is all that remains of the pictures, you see,” he added, pushing +a number of loose sheets under the doctor’s eyes; “nothing but a few +scrawly lines. That’s all I found the next morning. I had really drawn +no heads at all—nothing but those lines and blots and wriggles. The +pictures were entirely subjective, and existed only in my mind which +constructed them out of a few wild strokes of the pen. Like the altered +scale of space and time it was a complete delusion. These all passed, +of course, with the passing of the drug’s effects. But the other thing +did not pass. I mean, the presence of that Dark Soul remained with me. +It is here still. It is real. I don’t know how I can escape from it.” + +“It is attached to the house, not to you personally. You must leave the +house.” + +“Yes. Only I cannot afford to leave the house, for my work is my sole +means of support, and—well, you see, since this change I cannot even +write. They are horrible, these mirthless tales I now write, with their +mockery of laughter, their diabolical suggestion. Horrible? I shall go +mad if this continues.” + +He screwed his face up and looked about the room as though he expected +to see some haunting shape. + +“This influence in this house induced by my experiment, has killed in a +flash, in a sudden stroke, the sources of my humour, and though I still +go on writing funny tales—I have a certain name you know—my inspiration +has dried up, and much of what I write I have to burn—yes, doctor, to +burn, before any one sees it.” + +“As utterly alien to your own mind and personality?” + +“Utterly! As though some one else had written it—” + +“Ah!” + +“And shocking!” He passed his hand over his eyes a moment and let the +breath escape softly through his teeth. “Yet most damnably clever in +the consummate way the vile suggestions are insinuated under cover of a +kind of high drollery. My stenographer left me of course—and I’ve been +afraid to take another—” + +John Silence got up and began to walk about the room leisurely without +speaking; he appeared to be examining the pictures on the wall and +reading the names of the books lying about. Presently he paused on the +hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and turned to look his patient +quietly in the eyes. Pender’s face was grey and drawn; the hunted +expression dominated it; the long recital had told upon him. + +“Thank you, Mr. Pender,” he said, a curious glow showing about his +fine, quiet face; “thank you for the sincerity and frankness of your +account. But I think now there is nothing further I need ask you.” He +indulged in a long scrutiny of the author’s haggard features drawing +purposely the man’s eyes to his own and then meeting them with a look +of power and confidence calculated to inspire even the feeblest soul +with courage. “And, to begin with,” he added, smiling pleasantly, “let +me assure you without delay that you need have no alarm, for you are no +more insane or deluded than I myself am—” + +Pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile. + +“—and this is simply a case, so far as I can judge at present, of a +very singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if you +perhaps understand what I mean—” + +“It’s an odd expression; you used it before, you know,” said the author +wearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis, and +deeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at once +indicate the lunatic asylum. + +“Possibly,” returned the other, “and an odd affliction, too, you’ll +allow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to those +moderns, perhaps, who recognise the freedom of action under certain +pathogenic conditions between this world and another.” + +“And you think,” asked Pender hastily, “that it is all primarily due to +the _Cannabis_? There is nothing radically amiss with myself—nothing +incurable, or—?” + +“Due entirely to the overdose,” Dr. Silence replied emphatically, “to +the drug’s direct action upon your psychical being. It rendered you +ultra-sensitive and made you respond to an increased rate of vibration. +And, let me tell you, Mr. Pender, that your experiment might have had +results far more dire. It has brought you into touch with a somewhat +singular class of Invisible, but of one, I think, chiefly human in +character. You might, however, just as easily have been drawn out of +human range altogether, and the results of such a contingency would +have been exceedingly terrible. Indeed, you would not now be here to +tell the tale. I need not alarm you on that score, but mention it as a +warning you will not misunderstand or underrate after what you have +been through. + +“You look puzzled. You do not quite gather what I am driving at; and it +is not to be expected that you should, for you, I suppose, are the +nominal Christian with the nominal Christian’s lofty standard of +ethics, and his utter ignorance of spiritual possibilities. Beyond a +somewhat childish understanding of ‘spiritual wickedness in high +places,’ you probably have no conception of what is possible once you +break-down the slender gulf that is mercifully fixed between you and +that Outer World. But my studies and training have taken me far outside +these orthodox trips, and I have made experiments that I could scarcely +speak to you about in language that would be intelligible to you.” + +He paused a moment to note the breathless interest of Pender’s face and +manner. Every word he uttered was calculated; he knew exactly the value +and effect of the emotions he desired to waken in the heart of the +afflicted being before him. + +“And from certain knowledge I have gained through various experiences,” +he continued calmly, “I can diagnose your case as I said before to be +one of psychical invasion.” + +“And the nature of this—er—invasion?” stammered the bewildered writer +of humorous tales. + +“There is no reason why I should not say at once that I do not yet +quite know,” replied Dr. Silence. “I may first have to make one or two +experiments—” + +“On me?” gasped Pender, catching his breath. + +“Not exactly,” the doctor said, with a grave smile, “but with your +assistance, perhaps. I shall want to test the conditions of the +house—to ascertain, impossible, the character of the forces, of this +strange personality that has been haunting you—” + +“At present you have no idea exactly who—what—why—” asked the other in +a wild flurry of interest, dread and amazement. + +“I have a very good idea, but no proof rather,” returned the doctor. +“The effects of the drug in altering the scale of time and space, and +merging the senses have nothing primarily to do with the invasion. They +come to any one who is fool enough to take an experimental dose. It is +the other features of your case that are unusual. You see, you are now +in touch with certain violent emotions, desires, purposes, still active +in this house, that were produced in the past by some powerful and evil +personality that lived here. How long ago, or why they still persist so +forcibly, I cannot positively say. But I should judge that they are +merely forces acting automatically with the momentum of their terrific +original impetus.” + +“Not directed by a living being, a conscious will, you mean?” + +“Possibly not—but none the less dangerous on that account, and more +difficult to deal with. I cannot explain to you in a few minutes the +nature of such things, for you have not made the studies that would +enable you to follow me; but I have reason to believe that on the +dissolution at death of a human being, its forces may still persist and +continue to act in a blind, unconscious fashion. As a rule they +speedily dissipate themselves, but in the case of a very powerful +personality they may last a long time. And, in some cases—of which I +incline to think this is one—these forces may coalesce with certain +non-human entities who thus continue their life indefinitely and +increase their strength to an unbelievable degree. If the original +personality was evil, the beings attracted to the left-over forces will +also be evil. In this case, I think there has been an unusual and +dreadful aggrandisement of the thoughts and purposes left behind long +ago by a woman of consummate wickedness and great personal power of +character and intellect. Now, do you begin to see what I am driving at +a little?” + +Pender stared fixedly at his companion, plain horror showing in his +eyes. But he found nothing to say, and the doctor continued— + +“In your case, predisposed by the action of the drug, you have +experienced the rush of these forces in undiluted strength. They wholly +obliterate in you the sense of humour, fancy, imagination,—all that +makes for cheerfulness and hope. They seek, though perhaps +automatically only, to oust your own thoughts and establish themselves +in their place. You are the victim of a psychical invasion. At the same +time, you have become clairvoyant in the true sense. You are also a +clairvoyant victim.” + +Pender mopped his face and sighed. He left his chair and went over to +the fireplace to warm himself. + +“You must think me a quack to talk like this, or a madman,” laughed Dr. +Silence. “But never mind that. I have come to help you, and I can help +you if you will do what I tell you. It is very simple: you must leave +this house at once. Oh, never mind the difficulties; we will deal with +those together. I can place another house at your disposal, or I would +take the lease here off your hands, and later have it pulled down. Your +case interests me greatly, and I mean to see you through, so that you +have no anxiety, and can drop back into your old groove of work +tomorrow! The drug has provided you, and therefore me, with a shortcut +to a very interesting experience. I am grateful to you.” + +The author poked the fire vigorously, emotion rising in him like a +tide. He glanced towards the door nervously. + +“There is no need to alarm your wife or to tell her the details of our +conversation,” pursued the other quietly. “Let her know that you will +soon be in possession again of your sense of humour and your health, +and explain that I am lending you another house for six months. +Meanwhile I may have the right to use this house for a night or two for +my experiment. Is that understood between us?” + +“I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart,” stammered Pender, +unable to find words to express his gratitude. + +Then he hesitated for a moment, searching the doctor’s face anxiously. + +“And your experiment with the house?” he said at length. + +“Of the simplest character, my dear Mr. Pender. Although I am myself an +artificially trained psychic, and consequently aware of the presence of +discarnate entities as a rule, I have so far felt nothing here at all. +This makes me sure that the forces acting here are of an unusual +description. What I propose to do is to make an experiment with a view +of drawing out this evil, coaxing it from its lair, so to speak, in +order that it may _exhaust itself through me_ and become dissipated for +ever. I have already been inoculated,” he added; “I consider myself to +be immune.” + +“Heavens above!” gasped the author, collapsing on to a chair. + +“Hell beneath! might be a more appropriate exclamation,” the doctor +laughed. “But, seriously, Mr. Pender, this is what I propose to do—with +your permission.” + +“Of course, of course,” cried the other, “you have my permission and my +best wishes for success. I can see no possible objection, but—” + +“But what?” + +“I pray to Heaven you will not undertake this experiment alone, will +you?” + +“Oh, dear, no; not alone.” + +“You will take a companion with good nerves, and reliable in case of +disaster, won’t you?” + +“I shall bring two companions,” the doctor said. + +“Ah, that’s better. I feel easier. I am sure you must have among your +acquaintances men who—” + +“I shall not think of bringing men, Mr. Pender.” + +The other looked up sharply. + +“No, or women either; or children.” + +“I don’t understand. Who will you bring, then?” + +“Animals,” explained the doctor, unable to prevent a smile at his +companion’s expression of surprise—“two animals, a cat and a dog.” + +Pender stared as if his eyes would drop out upon the floor, and then +led the way without another word into the adjoining room where his wife +was awaiting them for tea. + +II + +A few days later the humorist and his wife, with minds greatly +relieved, moved into a small furnished house placed at their free +disposal in another part of London; and John Silence, intent upon his +approaching experiment, made ready to spend a night in the empty house +on the top of Putney Hill. Only two rooms were prepared for occupation: +the study on the ground floor and the bedroom immediately above it; all +other doors were to be locked, and no servant was to be left in the +house. The motor had orders to call for him at nine o’clock the +following morning. + +And, meanwhile, his secretary had instructions to look up the past +history and associations of the place, and learn everything he could +concerning the character of former occupants, recent or remote. + +The animals, by whose sensitiveness he intended to test any unusual +conditions in the atmosphere of the building, Dr. Silence selected with +care and judgment. He believed (and had already made curious +experiments to prove it) that animals were more often, and more truly, +clairvoyant than human beings. Many of them, he felt convinced, +possessed powers of perception far superior to that mere keenness of +the senses common to all dwellers in the wilds where the senses grow +specially alert; they had what he termed “animal clairvoyance,” and +from his experiments with horses, dogs, cats, and even birds, he had +drawn certain deductions, which, however, need not be referred to in +detail here. + +Cats, in particular, he believed, were almost continuously conscious of +a larger field of vision, too detailed even for a photographic camera, +and quite beyond the reach of normal human organs. He had, further, +observed that while dogs were usually terrified in the presence of such +phenomena, cats on the other hand were soothed and satisfied. They +welcomed manifestations as something belonging peculiarly to their own +region. + +He selected his animals, therefore, with wisdom so that they might +afford a differing test, each in its own way, and that one should not +merely communicate its own excitement to the other. He took a dog and a +cat. + +The cat he chose, now full grown, had lived with him since kittenhood, +a kittenhood of perplexing sweetness and audacious mischief. Wayward it +was and fanciful, ever playing its own mysterious games in the corners +of the room, jumping at invisible nothings, leaping sideways into the +air and falling with tiny moccasined feet on to another part of the +carpet, yet with an air of dignified earnestness which showed that the +performance was necessary to its own well-being, and not done merely to +impress a stupid human audience. In the middle of elaborate washing it +would look up, startled, as though to stare at the approach of some +Invisible, cocking its little head sideways and putting out a velvet +pad to inspect cautiously. Then it would get absent-minded, and stare +with equal intentness in another direction (just to confuse the +onlookers), and suddenly go on furiously washing its body again, but in +quite a new place. Except for a white patch on its breast it was coal +black. And its name was—Smoke. + +“Smoke” described its temperament as well as its appearance. Its +movements, its individuality, its posing as a little furry mass of +concealed mysteries, its elfin-like elusiveness, all combined to +justify its name; and a subtle painter might have pictured it as a wisp +of floating smoke, the fire below betraying itself at two points +only—the glowing eyes. + +All its forces ran to intelligence—secret intelligence, the wordless +incalculable intuition of the Cat. It was, indeed, _the_ cat for the +business in hand. + +The selection of the dog was not so simple, for the doctor owned many; +but after much deliberation he chose a collie, called Flame from his +yellow coat. True, it was a trifle old, and stiff in the joints, and +even beginning to grow deaf, but, on the other hand, it was a very +particular friend of Smoke’s, and had fathered it from kittenhood +upwards so that a subtle understanding existed between them. It was +this that turned the balance in its favour, this and its courage. +Moreover, though good-tempered, it was a terrible fighter, and its +anger when provoked by a righteous cause was a fury of fire, and +irresistible. + +It had come to him quite young, straight from the shepherd, with the +air of the hills yet in its nostrils, and was then little more than +skin and bones and teeth. For a collie it was sturdily built, its nose +blunter than most, its yellow hair stiff rather than silky, and it had +full eyes, unlike the slit eyes of its breed. Only its master could +touch it, for it ignored strangers, and despised their pattings—when +any dared to pat it. There was something patriarchal about the old +beast. He was in earnest, and went through life with tremendous energy +and big things in view, as though he had the reputation of his whole +race to uphold. And to watch him fighting against odds was to +understand why he was terrible. + +In his relations with Smoke he was always absurdly gentle; also he was +fatherly; and at the same time betrayed a certain diffidence or +shyness. He recognised that Smoke called for strong yet respectful +management. The cat’s circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate +pretences perhaps shocked the dog’s liking for direct, undisguised +action. Yet, while he failed to comprehend these tortuous feline +mysteries, he was never contemptuous or condescending; and he presided +over the safety of his furry black friend somewhat as a father, loving, +but intuitive, might superintend the vagaries of a wayward and talented +child. And, in return, Smoke rewarded him with exhibitions of +fascinating and audacious mischief. + +And these brief descriptions of their characters are necessary for the +proper understanding of what subsequently took place. + +With Smoke sleeping in the folds of his fur coat, and the collie lying +watchful on the seat opposite, John Silence went down in his motor +after dinner on the night of November 15th. + +And the fog was so dense that they were obliged to travel at quarter +speed the entire way. + + +It was after ten o’clock when he dismissed the motor and entered the +dingy little house with the latchkey provided by Pender. He found the +hall gas turned low, and a fire in the study. Books and food had also +been placed ready by the servant according to instructions. Coils of +fog rushed in after him through the open door and filled the hall and +passage with its cold discomfort. + +The first thing Dr. Silence did was to lock up Smoke in the study with +a saucer of milk before the fire, and then make a search of the house +with Flame. The dog ran cheerfully behind him all the way while he +tried the doors of the other rooms to make sure they were locked. He +nosed about into corners and made little excursions on his own account. +His manner was expectant. He knew there must be something unusual about +the proceeding, because it was contrary to the habits of his whole life +not to be asleep at this hour on the mat in front of the fire. He kept +looking up into his master’s face, as door after door was tried, with +an expression of intelligent sympathy, but at the same time a certain +air of disapproval. Yet everything his master did was good in his eyes, +and he betrayed as little impatience as possible with all this +unnecessary journeying to and fro. If the doctor was pleased to play +this sort of game at such an hour of the night, it was surely not for +him to object. So he played it, too; and was very busy and earnest +about it into the bargain. + +After an uneventful search they came down again to the study, and here +Dr. Silence discovered Smoke washing his face calmly in front of the +fire. The saucer of milk was licked dry and clean; the preliminary +examination that cats always make in new surroundings had evidently +been satisfactorily concluded. He drew an arm-chair up to the fire, +stirred the coals into a blaze, arranged the table and lamp to his +satisfaction for reading, and then prepared surreptitiously to watch +the animals. He wished to observe them carefully without their being +aware of it. + +Now, in spite of their respective ages, it was the regular custom of +these two to play together every night before sleep. Smoke always made +the advances, beginning with grave impudence to pat the dog’s tail, and +Flame played cumbrously, with condescension. It was his duty, rather +than pleasure; he was glad when it was over, and sometimes he was very +determined and refused to play at all. + +And this night was one of the occasions on which he was firm. + +The doctor, looking cautiously over the top of his book, watched the +cat begin the performance. It started by gazing with an innocent +expression at the dog where he lay with nose on paws and eyes wide open +in the middle of the floor. Then it got up and made as though it meant +to walk to the door, going deliberately and very softly. Flame’s eyes +followed it until it was beyond the range of sight, and then the cat +turned sharply and began patting his tail tentatively with one paw. The +tail moved slightly in reply, and Smoke changed paws and tapped it +again. The dog, however, did not rise to play as was his wont, and the +cat fell to parting it briskly with both paws. Flame still lay +motionless. + +This puzzled and bored the cat, and it went round and stared hard into +its friend’s face to see what was the matter. Perhaps some inarticulate +message flashed from the dog’s eyes into its own little brain, making +it understand that the programme for the night had better not begin +with play. Perhaps it only realised that its friend was immovable. But, +whatever the reason, its usual persistence thenceforward deserted it, +and it made no further attempts at persuasion. Smoke yielded at once to +the dog’s mood; it sat down where it was and began to wash. + +But the washing, the doctor noted, was by no means its real purpose; it +only used it to mask something else; it stopped at the most busy and +furious moments and began to stare about the room. Its thoughts +wandered absurdly. It peered intently at the curtains; at the shadowy +corners; at empty space above; leaving its body in curiously awkward +positions for whole minutes together. Then it turned sharply and stared +with a sudden signal of intelligence at the dog, and Flame at once rose +somewhat stiffly to his feet and began to wander aimlessly and +restlessly to and fro about the floor. Smoke followed him, padding +quietly at his heels. Between them they made what seemed to be a +deliberate search of the room. + +And, here, as he watched them, noting carefully every detail of the +performance over the top of his book, yet making no effort to +interfere, it seemed to the doctor that the first beginnings of a faint +distress betrayed themselves in the collie, and in the cat the +stirrings of a vague excitement. + +He observed them closely. The fog was thick in the air, and the tobacco +smoke from his pipe added to its density; the furniture at the far end +stood mistily, and where the shadows congregated in hanging clouds +under the ceiling, it was difficult to see clearly at all; the +lamplight only reached to a level of five feet from the floor, above +which came layers of comparative darkness, so that the room appeared +twice as lofty as it actually was. By means of the lamp and the fire, +however, the carpet was everywhere clearly visible. + +The animals made their silent tour of the floor, sometimes the dog +leading, sometimes the cat; occasionally they looked at one another as +though exchanging signals; and once or twice, in spite of the limited +space, he lost sight of one or other among the fog and the shadows. +Their curiosity, it appeared to him, was something more than the +excitement lurking in the unknown territory of a strange room; yet, so +far, it was impossible to test this, and he purposely kept his mind +quietly receptive lest the smallest mental excitement on his part +should communicate itself to the animals and thus destroy the value of +their independent behaviour. + +They made a very thorough journey, leaving no piece of furniture +unexamined, or unsmelt. Flame led the way, walking slowly with lowered +head, and Smoke followed demurely at his heels, making a transparent +pretence of not being interested, yet missing nothing. And, at length, +they returned, the old collie first, and came to rest on the mat before +the fire. Flame rested his muzzle on his master’s knee, smiling +beatifically while he patted the yellow head and spoke his name; and +Smoke, coming a little later, pretending he came by chance, looked from +the empty saucer to his face, lapped up the milk when it was given him +to the last drop, and then sprang upon his knees and curled round for +the sleep it had fully earned and intended to enjoy. + +Silence descended upon the room. Only the breathing of the dog upon the +mat came through the deep stillness, like the pulse of time marking the +minutes; and the steady drip, drip of the fog outside upon the +window-ledges dismally testified to the inclemency of the night beyond. +And the soft crashings of the coals as the fire settled down into the +grate became less and less audible as the fire sank and the flames +resigned their fierceness. + +It was now well after eleven o’clock, and Dr. Silence devoted himself +again to his book. He read the words on the printed page and took in +their meaning superficially, yet without starting into life the +correlations of thought and suggestions that should accompany +interesting reading. Underneath, all the while, his mental energies +were absorbed in watching, listening, waiting for what might come. He +was not over-sanguine himself, yet he did not wish to be taken by +surprise. Moreover, the animals, his sensitive barometers, had +incontinently gone to sleep. + +After reading a dozen pages, however, he realised that his mind was +really occupied in reviewing the features of Pender’s extraordinary +story, and that it was no longer necessary to steady his imagination by +studying the dull paragraphs detailed in the pages before him. He laid +down his book accordingly, and allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the +features of the Case. Speculations as to the meaning, however, he +rigorously suppressed, knowing that such thoughts would act upon his +imagination like wind upon the glowing embers of a fire. + +As the night wore on the silence grew deeper and deeper, and only at +rare intervals he heard the sound of wheels on the main road a hundred +yards away, where the horses went at a walking pace owing to the +density of the fog. The echo of pedestrian footsteps no longer reached +him, the clamour of occasional voices no longer came down the side +street. The night, muffled by fog, shrouded by veils of ultimate +mystery, hung about the haunted villa like a doom. Nothing in the house +stirred. Stillness, in a thick blanket, lay over the upper storeys. +Only the mist in the room grew more dense, he thought, and the damp +cold more penetrating. Certainly, from time to time, he shivered. + +The collie, now deep in slumber, moved occasionally,—grunted, sighed, +or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm, +black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of his +sleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head and +body joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin nose +and a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed the secret. + +Dr. Silence watched him, and felt comfortable. The collie’s breathing +was soothing. The fire was well built, and would burn for another two +hours without attention. He was not conscious of the least nervousness. +He particularly wished to remain in his ordinary and normal state of +mind, and to force nothing. If sleep came naturally, he would let it +come—and even welcome it. The coldness of the room, when the fire died +down later, would be sure to wake him again; and it would then be time +enough to carry these sleeping barometers up to bed. From various +psychic premonitions he knew quite well that the night would not pass +without adventure; but he did not wish to force its arrival; and he +wished to remain normal, and let the animals remain normal, so that, +when it came, it would be unattended by excitement or by any straining +of the attention. Many experiments had made him wise. And, for the +rest, he had no fear. + +Accordingly, after a time, he did fall asleep as he had expected, and +the last thing he remembered, before oblivion slipped up over his eyes +like soft wool, was the picture of Flame stretching all four legs at +once, and sighing noisily as he sought a more comfortable position for +his paws and muzzle upon the mat. + + +It was a good deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon +his chest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A +soft touch on the cheek woke him. Something was patting him. + +He sat up with a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair +of brilliant eyes, half green, half black. Smoke’s face lay level with +his own; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon his chest. + +The lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence +saw in a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with +its front paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt +them prodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted +his cheek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its +back; the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching +sharply. The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the +instant he realised this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and +sprang up with a quick turn to face the empty room behind him. By some +curious instinct, his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude of +defence in front of him, as though to ward off something that +threatened his safety. Yet nothing was visible. Only shapes of fog hung +about rather heavily in the air, moving slightly to and fro. + +His mind was now fully alert, and the last vestiges of sleep gone. He +turned the lamp higher and peered about him. Two things he became aware +of at once: one, that Smoke, while excited, was _pleasurably_ excited; +the other, that the collie was no longer visible upon the mat at his +feet. He had crept away to the corner of the wall farthest from the +window, and lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurked +plainly something of alarm. + +Something in the dog’s behaviour instantly struck Dr. Silence as +unusual, and, calling him by name, he moved across to pat him. Flame +got up, wagged his tail, and came over slowly to the rug, uttering a +low sound that was half growl, half whine. He was evidently perturbed +about something, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort +when his attention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other +four-footed companion, the cat. + +And what he saw filled him with something like amazement. + +Smoke had jumped down from the back of the arm-chair and now occupied +the middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff as +ramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrow +space, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds of +pleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to make +expressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened legs and arched back +made it appear larger than usual, and the black visage wore a smile of +beatific joy. Its eyes blazed magnificently; it was in an ecstasy. + +At the end of every few paces it turned sharply and stalked back again +along the same line, padding softly, and purring like a roll of little +muffled drums. It behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against +the ankles of some one who remained invisible. A thrill ran down the +doctor’s spine as he stood and stared. His experiment was growing +interesting at last. + +He called the collie’s attention to his friend’s performance to see +whether he too was aware of anything standing there upon the carpet, +and the dog’s behaviour was significant and corroborative. He came as +far as his master’s knees and then stopped dead, refusing to +investigate closely. In vain Dr. Silence urged him; he wagged his tail, +whined a little, and stood in a half-crouching attitude, staring +alternately at the cat and at his master’s face. He was, apparently, +both puzzled and alarmed, and the whine went deeper and deeper down +into his throat till it changed into an ugly snarl of awakening anger. + +Then the doctor called to him in a tone of command he had never known +to be disregarded; but still the dog, though springing up in response, +declined to move nearer. He made tentative motions, pranced a little +like a dog about to take to water, pretended to bark, and ran to and +fro on the carpet. So far there was no actual fear in his manner, but +he was uneasy and anxious, and nothing would induce him to go within +touching distance of the walking cat. Once he made a complete circuit, +but always carefully out of reach; and in the end he returned to his +master’s legs and rubbed vigorously against him. Flame did not like the +performance at all: that much was quite clear. + +For several minutes John Silence watched the performance of the cat +with profound attention and without interfering. Then he called to the +animal by name. + +“Smoke, you mysterious beastie, what in the world are you about?” he +said, in a coaxing tone. + +The cat looked up at him for a moment, smiling in its ecstasy, blinking +its eyes, but too happy to pause. He spoke to it again. He called to it +several times, and each time it turned upon him its blazing eyes, drunk +with inner delight, opening and shutting its lips, its body large and +rigid with excitement. Yet it never for one instant paused in its short +journeys to and fro. + +He noted exactly what it did: it walked, he saw, the same number of +paces each time, some six or seven steps, and then it turned sharply +and retraced them. By the pattern of the great roses in the carpet he +measured it. It kept to the same direction and the same line. It +behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against something solid. +Undoubtedly, there was something standing there on that strip of +carpet, something invisible to the doctor, something that alarmed the +dog, yet caused the cat unspeakable pleasure. + +“Smokie!” he called again, “Smokie, you black mystery, what is it +excites you so?” + +Again the cat looked up at him for a brief second, and then continued +its sentry-walk, blissfully happy, intensely preoccupied. And, for an +instant, as he watched it, the doctor was aware that a faint uneasiness +stirred in the depths of his own being, focusing itself for the moment +upon this curious behaviour of the uncanny creature before him. + +There rose in him quite a new realisation of the mystery connected with +the whole feline tribe, but especially with that common member of it, +the domestic cat—their hidden lives, their strange aloofness, their +incalculable subtlety. How utterly remote from anything that human +beings understood lay the sources of their elusive activities. As he +watched the indescribable bearing of the little creature mincing along +the strip of carpet under his eyes, coquetting with the powers of +darkness, welcoming, maybe, some fearsome visitor, there stirred in his +heart a feeling strangely akin to awe. Its indifference to human kind, +its serene superiority to the obvious, struck him forcibly with fresh +meaning; so remote, so inaccessible seemed the secret purposes of its +real life, so alien to the blundering honesty of other animals. Its +absolute poise of bearing brought into his mind the opium-eater’s words +that “no dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself +with the mysterious”; and he became suddenly aware that the presence of +the dog in this foggy, haunted room on the top of Putney Hill was +uncommonly welcome to him. He was glad to feel that Flame’s dependable +personality was with him. The savage growling at his heels was a +pleasant sound. He was glad to hear it. That marching cat made him +uneasy. + +Finding that Smoke paid no further attention to his words, the doctor +decided upon action. Would it rub against his leg, too? He would take +it by surprise and see. + +He stepped quickly forward and placed himself upon the exact strip of +carpet where it walked. + +But no cat is ever taken by surprise! The moment he occupied the space +of the Intruder, setting his feet on the woven roses midway in the line +of travel, Smoke suddenly stopped purring and sat down. If lifted up +its face with the most innocent stare imaginable of its green eyes. He +could have sworn it laughed. It was a perfect child again. In a single +second it had resumed its simple, domestic manner; and it gazed at him +in such a way that he almost felt Smoke was the normal being, and _his_ +was the eccentric behaviour that was being watched. It was consummate, +the manner in which it brought about this change so easily and so +quickly. + +“Superb little actor!” he laughed in spite of himself, and stooped to +stroke the shining black back. But, in a flash, as he touched its fur, +the cat turned and spat at him viciously, striking at his hand with one +paw. Then, with a hurried scutter of feet, it shot like a shadow across +the floor and a moment later was calmly sitting over by the +window-curtains washing its face as though nothing interested it in the +whole world but the cleanness of its cheeks and whiskers. + +John Silence straightened himself up and drew a long breath. He +realised that the performance was temporarily at an end. The collie, +meanwhile, who had watched the whole proceeding with marked +disapproval, had now lain down again upon the mat by the fire, no +longer growling. It seemed to the doctor just as though something that +had entered the room while he slept, alarming the dog, yet bringing +happiness to the cat, had now gone out again, leaving all as it was +before. Whatever it was that excited its blissful attentions had +retreated for the moment. + +He realised this intuitively. Smoke evidently realised it, too, for +presently he deigned to march back to the fireplace and jump upon his +master’s knees. Dr. Silence, patient and determined, settled down once +more to his book. The animals soon slept; the fire blazed cheerfully; +and the cold fog from outside poured into the room through every +available chink and crannie. + +For a long time silence and peace reigned in the room and Dr. Silence +availed himself of the quietness to make careful notes of what had +happened. He entered for future use in other cases an exhaustive +analysis of what he had observed, especially with regard to the effect +upon the two animals. It is impossible here, nor would it be +intelligible to the reader unversed in the knowledge of the region +known to a scientifically trained psychic like Dr. Silence, to detail +these observations. But to him it was clear, up to a certain point—for +the rest he must still wait and watch. So far, at least, he realised +that while he slept in the chair—that is, while his will was +dormant—the room had suffered intrusion from what he recognised as an +intensely active Force, and might later be forced to acknowledge as +something more than merely a blind force, namely, a distinct +personality. + +So far it had affected himself scarcely at all, but had acted directly +upon the simpler organisms of the animals. It stimulated keenly the +centres of the cat’s psychic being, inducing a state of instant +happiness (intensifying its consciousness probably in the same way a +drug or stimulant intensifies that of a human being); whereas it +alarmed the less sensitive dog, causing it to feel a vague apprehension +and distress. + +His own sudden action and exhibition of energy had served to disperse +it temporarily, yet he felt convinced—the indications were not lacking +even while he sat there making notes—that it still remained near to +him, conditionally if not spatially, and was, as it were, gathering +force for a second attack. + +And, further, he intuitively understood that the relations between the +two animals had undergone a subtle change: that the cat had become +immeasurably superior, confident, sure of itself in its own peculiar +region, whereas Flame had been weakened by an attack he could not +comprehend and knew not how to reply to. Though not yet afraid, he was +defiant—ready to act against a fear that he felt to be approaching. He +was no longer fatherly and protective towards the cat. Smoke held the +key to the situation; and both he and the cat knew it. + +Thus, as the minutes passed, John Silence sat and waited, keenly on the +alert, wondering how soon the attack would be renewed, and at what +point it would be diverted from the animals and directed upon himself. + +The book lay on the floor beside him, his notes were complete. With one +hand on the cat’s fur, and the dog’s front paws resting against his +feet, the three of them dozed comfortably before the hot fire while the +night wore on and the silence deepened towards midnight. + +It was well after one o’clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned +the lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. +Then Smoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. It neither +stretched, washed nor turned: it listened. And the doctor, watching it, +realised that a certain indefinable change had come about that very +moment in the room. A swift readjustment of the forces within the four +walls had taken place—a new disposition of their personal equations. +The balance was destroyed, the former harmony gone. Smoke, most +sensitive of barometers, had been the first to feel it, but the dog was +not slow to follow suit, for on looking down he noted that Flame was no +longer asleep. He was lying with eyes wide open, and that same instant +he sat up on his great haunches and began to growl. + +Dr. Silence was in the act of taking the matches to re-light the lamp +when an audible movement in the room behind him made him pause. Smoke +leaped down from his knee and moved forward a few paces across the +carpet. Then it stopped and stared fixedly; and the doctor stood up on +the rug to watch. + +As he rose the sound was repeated, and he discovered that it was not in +the room as he first thought, but outside, and that it came from more +directions than one. There was a rushing, sweeping noise against the +window-panes, and simultaneously a sound of something brushing against +the door—out in the hall. Smoke advanced sedately across the carpet, +twitching his tail, and sat down within a foot of the door. The +influence that had destroyed the harmonious conditions of the room had +apparently moved in advance of its cause. Clearly, something was about +to happen. + +For the first time that night John Silence hesitated; the thought of +that dark narrow hall-way, choked with fog, and destitute of human +comfort, was unpleasant. He became aware of a faint creeping of his +flesh. He knew, of course, that the actual opening of the door was not +necessary to the invasion of the room that was about to take place, +since neither doors nor windows, nor any other solid barriers could +interpose an obstacle to what was seeking entrance. Yet the opening of +the door would be significant and symbolic, and he distinctly shrank +from it. + +But for a moment only. Smoke, turning with a show of impatience, +recalled him to his purpose, and he moved past the sitting, watching +creature, and deliberately opened the door to its full width. + +What subsequently happened, happened in the feeble and flickering light +of the solitary candle on the mantlepiece. + +Through the opened door he saw the hall, dimly lit and thick with fog. +Nothing, of course, was visible—nothing but the hat-stand, the African +spears in dark lines upon the wall and the high-backed wooden chair +standing grotesquely underneath on the oilcloth floor. For one instant +the fog seemed to move and thicken oddly; but he set that down to the +score of the imagination. The door had opened upon nothing. + +Yet Smoke apparently thought otherwise, and the deep growling of the +collie from the mat at the back of the room seemed to confirm his +judgment. + +For, proud and self-possessed, the cat had again risen to his feet, and +having advanced to the door, was now ushering some one slowly into the +room. Nothing could have been more evident. He paced from side to side, +bowing his little head with great _empressement_ and holding his +stiffened tail aloft like a flag-staff. He turned this way and that, +mincing to and fro, and showing signs of supreme satisfaction. He was +in his element. He welcomed the intrusion, and apparently reckoned that +his companions, the doctor and the dog, would welcome it likewise. + +The Intruder had returned for a second attack. + +Dr. Silence moved slowly backwards and took up his position on the +hearthrug, keying himself up to a condition of concentrated attention. + +He noted that Flame stood beside him, facing the room, with body +motionless, and head moving swiftly from side to side with a curious +swaying movement. His eyes were wide open, his back rigid, his neck and +jaws thrust forward, his legs tense and ready to leap. Savage, ready +for attack or defence, yet dreadfully puzzled and perhaps already a +little cowed, he stood and stared, the hair on his spine and sides +positively bristling outwards as though a wind played through it. In +the dim firelight he looked like a great yellow-haired wolf, silent, +eyes shooting dark fire, exceedingly formidable. It was Flame, the +terrible. + +Smoke, meanwhile, advanced from the door towards the middle of the +room, adopting the very slow pace of an invisible companion. A few feet +away it stopped and began to smile and blink its eyes. There was +something deliberately coaxing in its attitude as it stood there +undecided on the carpet, clearly wishing to effect some sort of +introduction between the Intruder and its canine friend and ally. It +assumed its most winning manners, purring, smiling, looking +persuasively from one to the other, and making quick tentative steps +first in one direction and then in the other. There had always existed +such perfect understanding between them in everything. Surely Flame +would appreciate Smoke’s intention now, and acquiesce. + +But the old collie made no advances. He bared his teeth, lifting his +lips till the gums showed, and stood stockstill with fixed eyes and +heaving sides. The doctor moved a little farther back, watching +intently the smallest movement, and it was just then he divined +suddenly from the cat’s behaviour and attitude that it was not only a +single companion it had ushered into the room, but _several_. It kept +crossing over from one to the other, looking up at each in turn. It +sought to win over the dog to friendliness with them all. The original +Intruder had come back with reinforcements. And at the same time he +further realised that the Intruder was something more than a blindly +acting force, impersonal though destructive. It was a Personality, and +moreover a great personality. And it was accompanied for the purposes +of assistance by a host of other personalities, minor in degree, but +similar in kind. + +He braced himself in the corner against the mantelpiece and waited, his +whole being roused to defence, for he was now fully aware that the +attack had spread to include himself as well as the animals, and he +must be on the alert. He strained his eyes through the foggy +atmosphere, trying in vain to see what the cat and dog saw; but the +candlelight threw an uncertain and flickering light across the room and +his eyes discerned nothing. On the floor Smoke moved softly in front of +him like a black shadow, his eyes gleaming as he turned his head, still +trying with many insinuating gestures and much purring to bring about +the introductions he desired. + +But it was all in vain. Flame stood riveted to one spot, motionless as +a figure carved in stone. + +Some minutes passed, during which only the cat moved, and then there +came a sharp change. Flame began to back towards the wall. He moved his +head from side to side as he went, sometimes turning to snap at +something almost behind him. They were advancing upon him, trying to +surround him. His distress became very marked from now onwards, and it +seemed to the doctor that his anger merged into genuine terror and +became overwhelmed by it. The savage growl sounded perilously like a +whine, and more than once he tried to dive past his master’s legs, as +though hunting for a way of escape. He was trying to avoid something +that everywhere blocked the way. + +This terror of the indomitable fighter impressed the doctor enormously; +yet also painfully; stirring his impatience; for he had never before +seen the dog show signs of giving in, and it distressed him to witness +it. He knew, however, that he was not giving in easily, and understood +that it was really impossible for him to gauge the animal’s sensations +properly at all. What Flame felt, and saw, must be terrible indeed to +turn him all at once into a coward. He faced something that made him +afraid of more than his life merely. The doctor spoke a few quick words +of encouragement to him, and stroked the bristling hair. But without +much success. The collie seemed already beyond the reach of comfort +such as that, and the collapse of the old dog followed indeed very +speedily after this. + +And Smoke, meanwhile, remained behind, watching the advance, but not +joining in it; sitting, pleased and expectant, considering that all was +going well and as it wished. It was kneading on the carpet with its +front paws—slowly, laboriously, as though its feet were dipped in +treacle. The sound its claws made as they caught in the threads was +distinctly audible. It was still smiling, blinking, purring. + +Suddenly the collie uttered a poignant short bark and leaped heavily to +one side. His bared teeth traced a line of whiteness through the gloom. +The next instant he dashed past his master’s legs, almost upsetting his +balance, and shot out into the room, where he went blundering wildly +against walls and furniture. But that bark was significant; the doctor +had heard it before and knew what it meant: for it was the cry of the +fighter against odds and it meant that the old beast had found his +courage again. Possibly it was only the courage of despair, but at any +rate the fighting would be terrific. And Dr. Silence understood, too, +that he dared not interfere. Flame must fight his own enemies in his +own way. + +But the cat, too, had heard that dreadful bark; and it, too, had +understood. This was more than it had bargained for. Across the dim +shadows of that haunted room there must have passed some secret signal +of distress between the animals. Smoke stood up and looked swiftly +about him. He uttered a piteous meow and trotted smartly away into the +greater darkness by the windows. What his object was only those endowed +with the spirit-like intelligence of cats might know. But, at any rate, +he had at last ranged himself on the side of his friend. And the little +beast meant business. + +At the same moment the collie managed to gain the door. The doctor saw +him rush through into the hall like a flash of yellow light. He shot +across the oilcloth, and tore up the stairs, but in another second he +appeared again, flying down the steps and landing at the bottom in a +tumbling heap, whining, cringing, terrified. The doctor saw him slink +back into the room again and crawl round by the wall towards the cat. +Was, then, even the staircase occupied? Did _They_ stand also in the +hall? Was the whole house crowded from floor to ceiling? + +The thought came to add to the keen distress he felt at the sight of +the collie’s discomfiture. And, indeed, his own personal distress had +increased in a marked degree during the past minutes, and continued to +increase steadily to the climax. He recognised that the drain on his +own vitality grew steadily, and that the attack was now directed +against himself even more than against the defeated dog, and the too +much deceived cat. + +It all seemed so rapid and uncalculated after that—the events that took +place in this little modern room at the top of Putney Hill between +midnight and sunrise—that Dr. Silence was hardly able to follow and +remember it all. It came about with such uncanny swiftness and terror; +the light was so uncertain; the movements of the black cat so difficult +to follow on the dark carpet, and the doctor himself so weary and taken +by surprise—that he found it almost impossible to observe accurately, +or to recall afterwards precisely what it was he had seen or in what +order the incidents had taken place. He never could understand what +defect of vision on his part made it seem as though the cat had +duplicated itself at first, and then increased indefinitely, so that +there were at least a dozen of them darting silently about the floor, +leaping softly on to chairs and tables, passing like shadows from the +open door to the end of the room, all black as sin, with brilliant +green eyes flashing fire in all directions. It was like the reflections +from a score of mirrors placed round the walls at different angles. Nor +could he make out at the time why the size of the room seemed to have +altered, grown much larger, and why it extended away behind him where +ordinarily the wall should have been. The snarling of the enraged and +terrified collie sounded sometimes so far away; the ceiling seemed to +have raised itself so much higher than before, and much of the +furniture had changed in appearance and shifted marvellously. + +It was all so confused and confusing, as though the little room he knew +had become merged and transformed into the dimensions of quite another +chamber, that came to him, with its host of cats and its strange +distances, in a sort of vision. + +But these changes came about a little later, and at a time when his +attention was so concentrated upon the proceedings of Smoke and the +collie, that he only observed them, as it were, subconsciously. And the +excitement, the flickering candlelight, the distress he felt for the +collie, and the distorting atmosphere of fog were the poorest possible +allies to careful observation. + +At first he was only aware that the dog was repeating his short +dangerous bark from time to time, snapping viciously at the empty air, +a foot or so from the ground. Once, indeed, he sprang upwards and +forwards, working furiously with teeth and paws, and with a noise like +wolves fighting, but only to dash back the next minute against the wall +behind him. Then, after lying still for a bit, he rose to a crouching +position as though to spring again, snarling horribly and making short +half-circles with lowered head. And Smoke all the while meowed +piteously by the window as though trying to draw the attack upon +himself. + +Then it was that the rush of the whole dreadful business seemed to turn +aside from the dog and direct itself upon his own person. The collie +had made another spring and fallen back with a crash into the corner, +where he made noise enough in his savage rage to waken the dead before +he fell to whining and then finally lay still. And directly afterwards +the doctor’s own distress became intolerably acute. He had made a half +movement forward to come to the rescue when a veil that was denser than +mere fog seemed to drop down over the scene, draping room, walls, +animals and fire in a mist of darkness and folding also about his own +mind. Other forms moved silently across the field of vision, forms that +he recognised from previous experiments, and welcomed not. Unholy +thoughts began to crowd into his brain, sinister suggestions of evil +presented themselves seductively. Ice seemed to settle about his heart, +and his mind trembled. He began to lose memory—memory of his identity, +of where he was, of what he ought to do. The very foundations of his +strength were shaken. His will seemed paralysed. + +And it was then that the room filled with this horde of cats, all dark +as the night, all silent, all with lamping eyes of green fire. The +dimensions of the place altered and shifted. He was in a much larger +space. The whining of the dog sounded far away, and all about him the +cats flew busily to and fro, silently playing their tearing, rushing +game of evil, weaving the pattern of their dark purpose upon the floor. +He strove hard to collect himself and remember the words of power he +had made use of before in similar dread positions where his dangerous +practice had sometimes led; but he could recall nothing consecutively; +a mist lay over his mind and memory; he felt dazed and his forces +scattered. The deeps within were too troubled for healing power to come +out of them. + +It was glamour, of course, he realised afterwards, the strong glamour +thrown upon his imagination by some powerful personality behind the +veil; but at the time he was not sufficiently aware of this and, as +with all true glamour, was unable to grasp where the true ended and the +false began. He was caught momentarily in the same vortex that had +sought to lure the cat to destruction through its delight, and +threatened utterly to overwhelm the dog through its terror. + +There came a sound in the chimney behind him like wind booming and +tearing its way down. The windows rattled. The candle flickered and +went out. The glacial atmosphere closed round him with the cold of +death, and a great rushing sound swept by overhead as though the +ceiling had lifted to a great height. He heard the door shut. Far away +it sounded. He felt lost, shelterless in the depths of his soul. Yet +still he held out and resisted while the climax of the fight came +nearer and nearer.... He had stepped into the stream of forces awakened +by Pender and he knew that he must withstand them to the end or come to +a conclusion that it was not good for a man to come to. Something from +the region of utter cold was upon him. + +And then quite suddenly, through the confused mists about him, there +slowly rose up the Personality that had been all the time directing the +battle. Some force entered his being that shook him as the tempest +shakes a leaf, and close against his eyes—clean level with his face—he +found himself staring into the wreck of a vast dark Countenance, a +countenance that was terrible even in its ruin. + +For ruined it was, and terrible it was, and the mark of spiritual evil +was branded everywhere upon its broken features. Eyes, face and hair +rose level with his own, and for a space of time he never could +properly measure, or determine, these two, a man and a woman, looked +straight into each other’s visages and down into each other’s hearts. + +And John Silence, the soul with the good, unselfish motive, held his +own against the dark discarnate woman whose motive was pure evil, and +whose soul was on the side of the Dark Powers. + +It was the climax that touched the depth of power within him and began +to restore him slowly to his own. He was conscious, of course, of +effort, and yet it seemed no superhuman one, for he had recognised the +character of his opponent’s power, and he called upon the good within +him to meet and overcome it. The inner forces stirred and trembled in +response to his call. They did not at first come readily as was their +habit, for under the spell of glamour they had already been +diabolically lulled into inactivity, but come they eventually did, +rising out of the inner spiritual nature he had learned with so much +time and pain to awaken to life. And power and confidence came with +them. He began to breathe deeply and regularly, and at the same time to +absorb into himself the forces opposed to him, and to _turn them to his +own account_. By ceasing to resist, and allowing the deadly stream to +pour into him unopposed, he used the very power supplied by his +adversary and thus enormously increased his own. + +For this spiritual alchemy he had learned. He understood that force +ultimately is everywhere one and the same; it is the motive behind that +makes it good or evil; and his motive was entirely unselfish. He +knew—provided he was not first robbed of self-control—how vicariously +to absorb these evil radiations into himself and change them magically +into his own good purposes. And, since his motive was pure and his soul +fearless, they could not work him harm. + +Thus he stood in the main stream of evil unwittingly attracted by +Pender, deflecting its course upon himself; and after passing through +the purifying filter of his own unselfishness these energies could only +add to his store of experience, of knowledge, and therefore of power. +And, as his self-control returned to him, he gradually accomplished +this purpose, even though trembling while he did so. + +Yet the struggle was severe, and in spite of the freezing chill of the +air, the perspiration poured down his face. Then, by slow degrees, the +dark and dreadful countenance faded, the glamour passed from his soul, +the normal proportions returned to walls and ceiling, the forms melted +back into the fog, and the whirl of rushing shadow-cats disappeared +whence they came. + +And with the return of the consciousness of his own identity John +Silence was restored to the full control of his own will-power. In a +deep, modulated voice he began to utter certain rhythmical sounds that +slowly rolled through the air like a rising sea, filling the room with +powerful vibratory activities that whelmed all irregularities of lesser +vibrations in its own swelling tone. He made certain sigils, gestures +and movements at the same time. For several minutes he continued to +utter these words, until at length the growing volume dominated the +whole room and mastered the manifestation of all that opposed it. For +just as he understood the spiritual alchemy that can transmute evil +forces by raising them into higher channels, so he knew from long study +the occult use of sound, and its direct effect upon the plastic region +wherein the powers of spiritual evil work their fell purposes. Harmony +was restored first of all to his own soul, and thence to the room and +all its occupants. + +And, after himself, the first to recognise it was the old dog lying in +his corner. Flame began suddenly uttering sounds of pleasure, that +“something” between a growl and a grunt that dogs make upon being +restored to their master’s confidence. Dr. Silence heard the thumping +of the collie’s tail against the floor. And the grunt and the thumping +touched the depth of affection in the man’s heart, and gave him some +inkling of what agonies the dumb creature had suffered. + +Next, from the shadows by the window, a somewhat shrill purring +announced the restoration of the cat to its normal state. Smoke was +advancing across the carpet. He seemed very pleased with himself, and +smiled with an expression of supreme innocence. He was no shadow-cat, +but real and full of his usual and perfect self-possession. He marched +along, picking his way delicately, but with a stately dignity that +suggested his ancestry with the majesty of Egypt. His eyes no longer +glared; they shone steadily before him, they radiated, not excitement, +but knowledge. Clearly he was anxious to make amends for the mischief +to which he had unwittingly lent himself owing to his subtle and +electric constitution. + +Still uttering his sharp high purrings he marched up to his master and +rubbed vigorously against his legs. Then he stood on his hind feet and +pawed his knees and stared beseechingly up into his face. He turned his +head towards the corner where the collie still lay, thumping his tail +feebly and pathetically. + +John Silence understood. He bent down and stroked the creature’s living +fur, noting the line of bright blue sparks that followed the motion of +his hand down its back. And then they advanced together towards the +corner where the dog was. + +Smoke went first and put his nose gently against his friend’s muzzle, +purring while he rubbed, and uttering little soft sounds of affection +in his throat. The doctor lit the candle and brought it over. He saw +the collie lying on its side against the wall; it was utterly +exhausted, and foam still hung about its jaws. Its tail and eyes +responded to the sound of its name, but it was evidently very weak and +overcome. Smoke continued to rub against its cheek and nose and eyes, +sometimes even standing on its body and kneading into the thick yellow +hair. Flame replied from time to time by little licks of the tongue, +most of them curiously misdirected. + +But Dr. Silence felt intuitively that something disastrous had +happened, and his heart was wrung. He stroked the dear body, feeling it +over for bruises or broken bones, but finding none. He fed it with what +remained of the sandwiches and milk, but the creature clumsily upset +the saucer and lost the sandwiches between its paws, so that the doctor +had to feed it with his own hand. And all the while Smoke meowed +piteously. + +Then John Silence began to understand. He went across to the farther +side of the room and called aloud to it. + +“Flame, old man! come!” + +At any other time the dog would have been upon him in an instant, +barking and leaping to the shoulder. And even now he got up, though +heavily and awkwardly, to his feet. He started to run, wagging his tail +more briskly. He collided first with a chair, and then ran straight +into a table. Smoke trotted close at his side, trying his very best to +guide him. But it was useless. Dr. Silence had to lift him up into his +own arms and carry him like a baby. For he was blind. + +III + +It was a week later when John Silence called to see the author in his +new house, and found him well on the way to recovery and already busy +again with his writing. The haunted look had left his eyes, and he +seemed cheerful and confident. + +“Humour restored?” laughed the doctor, as soon as they were comfortably +settled in the room overlooking the Park. + +“I’ve had no trouble since I left that dreadful place,” returned Pender +gratefully; “and thanks to you—” + +The doctor stopped him with a gesture. + +“Never mind that,” he said, “we’ll discuss your new plans afterwards, +and my scheme for relieving you of the house and helping you settle +elsewhere. Of course it must be pulled down, for it’s not fit for any +sensitive person to live in, and any other tenant might be afflicted in +the same way you were. Although, personally, I think the evil has +exhausted itself by now.” + +He told the astonished author something of his experiences in it with +the animals. + +“I don’t pretend to understand,” Pender said, when the account was +finished, “but I and my wife are intensely relieved to be free of it +all. Only I must say I should like to know something of the former +history of the house. When we took it six months ago I heard no word +against it.” + +Dr. Silence drew a typewritten paper from his pocket. + +“I can satisfy your curiosity to some extent,” he said, running his eye +over the sheets, and then replacing them in his coat; “for by my +secretary’s investigations I have been able to check certain +information obtained in the hypnotic trance by a ‘sensitive’ who helps +me in such cases. The former occupant who haunted you appears to have +been a woman of singularly atrocious life and character who finally +suffered death by hanging, after a series of crimes that appalled the +whole of England and only came to light by the merest chance. She came +to her end in the year 1798, for it was not this particular house she +lived in, but a much larger one that then stood upon the site it now +occupies, and was then, of course, not in London, but in the country. +She was a person of intellect, possessed of a powerful, trained will, +and of consummate audacity, and I am convinced availed herself of the +resources of the lower magic to attain her ends. This goes far to +explain the virulence of the attack upon yourself, and why she is still +able to carry on after death the evil practices that formed her main +purpose during life.” + +“You think that after death a soul can still consciously direct—” +gasped the author. + +“I think, as I told you before, that the forces of a powerful +personality may still persist after death in the line of their original +momentum,” replied the doctor; “and that strong thoughts and purposes +can still react upon suitably prepared brains long after their +originators have passed away. + +“If you knew anything of magic,” he pursued, “you would know that +thought is dynamic, and that it may call into existence forms and +pictures that may well exist for hundreds of years. For, not far +removed from the region of our human life is another region where float +the waste and drift of all the centuries, the limbo of the shells of +the dead; a densely populated region crammed with horror and +abomination of all descriptions, and sometimes galvanised into active +life again by the will of a trained manipulator, a mind versed in the +practices of lower magic. That this woman understood its vile commerce, +I am persuaded, and the forces she set going during her life have +simply been accumulating ever since, and would have continued to do so +had they not been drawn down upon yourself, and afterwards discharged +and satisfied through me. + +“Anything might have brought down the attack, for, besides drugs, there +are certain violent emotions, certain moods of the soul, certain +spiritual fevers, if I may so call them, which directly open the inner +being to a cognisance of this astral region I have mentioned. In your +case it happened to be a peculiarly potent drug that did it. + +“But now, tell me,” he added, after a pause, handing to the perplexed +author a pencil drawing he had made of the dark countenance that had +appeared to him during the night on Putney Hill—“tell me if you +recognise this face?” + +Pender looked at the drawing closely, greatly astonished. He shuddered +a little as he looked. + +“Undoubtedly,” he said, “it is the face I kept trying to draw—dark, +with the great mouth and jaw, and the drooping eye. That is the woman.” + +Dr. Silence then produced from his pocket-book an old-fashioned woodcut +of the same person which his secretary had unearthed from the records +of the Newgate Calendar. The woodcut and the pencil drawing were two +different aspects of the same dreadful visage. The men compared them +for some moments in silence. + +“It makes me thank God for the limitations of our senses,” said Pender +quietly, with a sigh; “continuous clairvoyance must be a sore +affliction.” + +“It is indeed,” returned John Silence significantly, “and if all the +people nowadays who claim to be clairvoyant were really so, the +statistics of suicide and lunacy would be considerably higher than they +are. It is little wonder,” he added, “that your sense of humour was +clouded, with the mind-forces of that dead monster trying to use your +brain for their dissemination. You have had an interesting adventure, +Mr. Felix Pender, and, let me add, a fortunate escape.” + +The author was about to renew his thanks when there came a sound of +scratching at the door, and the doctor sprang up quickly. + +“It’s time for me to go. I left my dog on the step, but I suppose—” + +Before he had time to open the door, it had yielded to the pressure +behind it and flew wide open to admit a great yellow-haired collie. The +dog, wagging his tail and contorting his whole body with delight, tore +across the floor and tried to leap up upon his owner’s breast. And +there was laughter and happiness in the old eyes; for they were clear +again as the day. + + + + +CASE II: ANCIENT SORCERIES + +I + +There are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons, with +none of the characteristics that invite adventure, who yet once or +twice in the course of their smooth lives undergo an experience so +strange that the world catches its breath—and looks the other way! And +it was cases of this kind, perhaps, more than any other, that fell into +the wide-spread net of John Silence, the psychic doctor, and, appealing +to his deep humanity, to his patience, and to his great qualities of +spiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of the +strangest complexity, and of the profoundest possible human interest. + +Matters that seemed almost too curious and fantastic for belief he +loved to trace to their hidden sources. To unravel a tangle in the very +soul of things—and to release a suffering human soul in the process—was +with him a veritable passion. And the knots he untied were, indeed, +after passing strange. + +The world, of course, asks for some plausible basis to which it can +attach credence—something it can, at least, pretend to explain. The +adventurous type it can understand: such people carry about with them +an adequate explanation of their exciting lives, and their characters +obviously drive them into the circumstances which produce the +adventures. It expects nothing else from them, and is satisfied. But +dull, ordinary folk have no right to out-of-the-way experiences, and +the world having been led to expect otherwise, is disappointed with +them, not to say shocked. Its complacent judgment has been rudely +disturbed. + +“Such a thing happened to _that_ man!” it cries—“a commonplace person +like that! It is too absurd! There must be something wrong!” + +Yet there could be no question that something did actually happen to +little Arthur Vezin, something of the curious nature he described to +Dr. Silence. Outwardly or inwardly, it happened beyond a doubt, and in +spite of the jeers of his few friends who heard the tale, and observed +wisely that “such a thing might perhaps have come to Iszard, that +crack-brained Iszard, or to that odd fish Minski, but it could never +have happened to commonplace little Vezin, who was fore-ordained to +live and die according to scale.” + +But, whatever his method of death was, Vezin certainly did not “live +according to scale” so far as this particular event in his otherwise +uneventful life was concerned; and to hear him recount it, and watch +his pale delicate features change, and hear his voice grow softer and +more hushed as he proceeded, was to know the conviction that his +halting words perhaps failed sometimes to convey. He lived the thing +over again each time he told it. His whole personality became muffled +in the recital. It subdued him more than ever, so that the tale became +a lengthy apology for an experience that he deprecated. He appeared to +excuse himself and ask your pardon for having dared to take part in so +fantastic an episode. For little Vezin was a timid, gentle, sensitive +soul, rarely able to assert himself, tender to man and beast, and +almost constitutionally unable to say No, or to claim many things that +should rightly have been his. His whole scheme of life seemed utterly +remote from anything more exciting than missing a train or losing an +umbrella on an omnibus. And when this curious event came upon him he +was already more years beyond forty than his friends suspected or he +cared to admit. + +John Silence, who heard him speak of his experience more than once, +said that he sometimes left out certain details and put in others; yet +they were all obviously true. The whole scene was unforgettably +cinematographed on to his mind. None of the details were imagined or +invented. And when he told the story with them all complete, the effect +was undeniable. His appealing brown eyes shone, and much of the +charming personality, usually so carefully repressed, came forward and +revealed itself. His modesty was always there, of course, but in the +telling he forgot the present and allowed himself to appear almost +vividly as he lived again in the past of his adventure. + +He was on the way home when it happened, crossing northern France from +some mountain trip or other where he buried himself solitary-wise every +summer. He had nothing but an unregistered bag in the rack, and the +train was jammed to suffocation, most of the passengers being +unredeemed holiday English. He disliked them, not because they were his +fellow-countrymen, but because they were noisy and obtrusive, +obliterating with their big limbs and tweed clothing all the quieter +tints of the day that brought him satisfaction and enabled him to melt +into insignificance and forget that he was anybody. These English +clashed about him like a brass band, making him feel vaguely that he +ought to be more self-assertive and obstreperous, and that he did not +claim insistently enough all kinds of things that he didn’t want and +that were really valueless, such as corner seats, windows up or down, +and so forth. + +So that he felt uncomfortable in the train, and wished the journey were +over and he was back again living with his unmarried sister in +Surbiton. + +And when the train stopped for ten panting minutes at the little +station in northern France, and he got out to stretch his legs on the +platform, and saw to his dismay a further batch of the British Isles +debouching from another train, it suddenly seemed impossible to him to +continue the journey. Even _his_ flabby soul revolted, and the idea of +staying a night in the little town and going on next day by a slower, +emptier train, flashed into his mind. The guard was already shouting +“_en voiture_” and the corridor of his compartment was already packed +when the thought came to him. And, for once, he acted with decision and +rushed to snatch his bag. + +Finding the corridor and steps impassable, he tapped at the window (for +he had a corner seat) and begged the Frenchman who sat opposite to hand +his luggage out to him, explaining in his wretched French that he +intended to break the journey there. And this elderly Frenchman, he +declared, gave him a look, half of warning, half of reproach, that to +his dying day he could never forget; handed the bag through the window +of the moving train; and at the same time poured into his ears a long +sentence, spoken rapidly and low, of which he was able to comprehend +only the last few words: “_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_.” + +In reply to Dr. Silence, whose singular psychic acuteness at once +seized upon this Frenchman as a vital point in the adventure, Vezin +admitted that the man had impressed him favourably from the beginning, +though without being able to explain why. They had sat facing one +another during the four hours of the journey, and though no +conversation had passed between them—Vezin was timid about his +stuttering French—he confessed that his eyes were being continually +drawn to his face, almost, he felt, to rudeness, and that each, by a +dozen nameless little politenesses and attentions, had evinced the +desire to be kind. The men liked each other and their personalities did +not clash, or would not have clashed had they chanced to come to terms +of acquaintance. The Frenchman, indeed, seemed to have exercised a +silent protective influence over the insignificant little Englishman, +and without words or gestures betrayed that he wished him well and +would gladly have been of service to him. + +“And this sentence that he hurled at you after the bag?” asked John +Silence, smiling that peculiarly sympathetic smile that always melted +the prejudices of his patient, “were you unable to follow it exactly?” + +“It was so quick and low and vehement,” explained Vezin, in his small +voice, “that I missed practically the whole of it. I only caught the +few words at the very end, because he spoke them so clearly, and his +face was bent down out of the carriage window so near to mine.” + +“‘_À cause du sommeil et à cause des chats’?_” repeated Dr. Silence, as +though half speaking to himself. + +“That’s it exactly,” said Vezin; “which, I take it, means something +like ‘because of sleep and because of the cats,’ doesn’t it?” + +“Certainly, that’s how I should translate it,” the doctor observed +shortly, evidently not wishing to interrupt more than necessary. + +“And the rest of the sentence—all the first part I couldn’t understand, +I mean—was a warning not to do something—not to stop in the town, or at +some particular place in the town, perhaps. That was the impression it +made on me.” + +Then, of course, the train rushed off, and left Vezin standing on the +platform alone and rather forlorn. + +The little town climbed in straggling fashion up a sharp hill rising +out of the plain at the back of the station, and was crowned by the +twin towers of the ruined cathedral peeping over the summit. From the +station itself it looked uninteresting and modern, but the fact was +that the mediaeval position lay out of sight just beyond the crest. And +once he reached the top and entered the old streets, he stepped clean +out of modern life into a bygone century. The noise and bustle of the +crowded train seemed days away. The spirit of this silent hill-town, +remote from tourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under +the autumn sun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. Long before he +recognised this spell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on +tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met +over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a +deprecating and modest demeanour that was in itself an apology for +intruding upon the place and disturbing its dream. + +At first, however, Vezin said, he noticed very little of all this. The +attempt at analysis came much later. What struck him then was only the +delightful contrast of the silence and peace after the dust and noisy +rattle of the train. He felt soothed and stroked like a cat. + +“Like a cat, you said?” interrupted John Silence, quickly catching him +up. + +“Yes. At the very start I felt that.” He laughed apologetically. “I +felt as though the warmth and the stillness and the comfort made me +purr. It seemed to be the general mood of the whole place—then.” + +The inn, a rambling ancient house, the atmosphere of the old coaching +days still about it, apparently did not welcome him too warmly. He felt +he was only tolerated, he said. But it was cheap and comfortable, and +the delicious cup of afternoon tea he ordered at once made him feel +really very pleased with himself for leaving the train in this bold, +original way. For to him it had seemed bold and original. He felt +something of a dog. His room, too, soothed him with its dark panelling +and low irregular ceiling, and the long sloping passage that led to it +seemed the natural pathway to a real Chamber of Sleep—a little dim +cubby hole out of the world where noise could not enter. It looked upon +the courtyard at the back. It was all very charming, and made him think +of himself as dressed in very soft velvet somehow, and the floors +seemed padded, the walls provided with cushions. The sounds of the +streets could not penetrate there. It was an atmosphere of absolute +rest that surrounded him. + +On engaging the two-franc room he had interviewed the only person who +seemed to be about that sleepy afternoon, an elderly waiter with +Dundreary whiskers and a drowsy courtesy, who had ambled lazily towards +him across the stone yard; but on coming downstairs again for a little +promenade in the town before dinner he encountered the proprietress +herself. She was a large woman whose hands, feet, and features seemed +to swim towards him out of a sea of person. They emerged, so to speak. +But she had great dark, vivacious eyes that counteracted the bulk of +her body, and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous +and alert. When he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low +chair against the sunlight of the wall, and something at once made him +see her as a great tabby cat, dozing, yet awake, heavily sleepy, and +yet at the same time prepared for instantaneous action. A great mouser +on the watch occurred to him. + +She took him in with a single comprehensive glance that was polite +without being cordial. Her neck, he noticed, was extraordinarily supple +in spite of its proportions, for it turned so easily to follow him, and +the head it carried bowed so very flexibly. + +“But when she looked at me, you know,” said Vezin, with that little +apologetic smile in his brown eyes, and that faintly deprecating +gesture of the shoulders that was characteristic of him, “the odd +notion came to me that really she had intended to make quite a +different movement, and that with a single bound she could have leaped +at me across the width of that stone yard and pounced upon me like some +huge cat upon a mouse.” + +He laughed a little soft laugh, and Dr. Silence made a note in his book +without interrupting, while Vezin proceeded in a tone as though he +feared he had already told too much and more than we could believe. + +“Very soft, yet very active she was, for all her size and mass, and I +felt she knew what I was doing even after I had passed and was behind +her back. She spoke to me, and her voice was smooth and running. She +asked if I had my luggage, and was comfortable in my room, and then +added that dinner was at seven o’clock, and that they were very early +people in this little country town. Clearly, she intended to convey +that late hours were not encouraged.” + +Evidently, she contrived by voice and manner to give him the impression +that here he would be “managed,” that everything would be arranged and +planned for him, and that he had nothing to do but fall into the groove +and obey. No decided action or sharp personal effort would be looked +for from him. It was the very reverse of the train. He walked quietly +out into the street feeling soothed and peaceful. He realised that he +was in a _milieu_ that suited him and stroked him the right way. It was +so much easier to be obedient. He began to purr again, and to feel that +all the town purred with him. + +About the streets of that little town he meandered gently, falling +deeper and deeper into the spirit of repose that characterised it. With +no special aim he wandered up and down, and to and fro. The September +sunshine fell slantingly over the roofs. Down winding alleyways, +fringed with tumbling gables and open casements, he caught fairylike +glimpses of the great plain below, and of the meadows and yellow copses +lying like a dream-map in the haze. The spell of the past held very +potently here, he felt. + +The streets were full of picturesquely garbed men and women, all busy +enough, going their respective ways; but no one took any notice of him +or turned to stare at his obviously English appearance. He was even +able to forget that with his tourist appearance he was a false note in +a charming picture, and he melted more and more into the scene, feeling +delightfully insignificant and unimportant and unselfconscious. It was +like becoming part of a softly coloured dream which he did not even +realise to be a dream. + +On the eastern side the hill fell away more sharply, and the plain +below ran off rather suddenly into a sea of gathering shadows in which +the little patches of woodland looked like islands and the stubble +fields like deep water. Here he strolled along the old ramparts of +ancient fortifications that once had been formidable, but now were only +vision-like with their charming mingling of broken grey walls and +wayward vine and ivy. From the broad coping on which he sat for a +moment, level with the rounded tops of clipped plane trees, he saw the +esplanade far below lying in shadow. Here and there a yellow sunbeam +crept in and lay upon the fallen yellow leaves, and from the height he +looked down and saw that the townsfolk were walking to and fro in the +cool of the evening. He could just hear the sound of their slow +footfalls, and the murmur of their voices floated up to him through the +gaps between the trees. The figures looked like shadows as he caught +glimpses of their quiet movements far below. + +He sat there for some time pondering, bathed in the waves of murmurs +and half-lost echoes that rose to his ears, muffled by the leaves of +the plane trees. The whole town, and the little hill out of which it +grew as naturally as an ancient wood, seemed to him like a being lying +there half asleep on the plain and crooning to itself as it dozed. + +And, presently, as he sat lazily melting into its dream, a sound of +horns and strings and wood instruments rose to his ears, and the town +band began to play at the far end of the crowded terrace below to the +accompaniment of a very soft, deep-throated drum. Vezin was very +sensitive to music, knew about it intelligently, and had even ventured, +unknown to his friends, upon the composition of quiet melodies with +low-running chords which he played to himself with the soft pedal when +no one was about. And this music floating up through the trees from an +invisible and doubtless very picturesque band of the townspeople wholly +charmed him. He recognised nothing that they played, and it sounded as +though they were simply improvising without a conductor. No definitely +marked time ran through the pieces, which ended and began oddly after +the fashion of wind through an Aeolian harp. It was part of the place +and scene, just as the dying sunlight and faintly breathing wind were +part of the scene and hour, and the mellow notes of old-fashioned +plaintive horns, pierced here and there by the sharper strings, all +half smothered by the continuous booming of the deep drum, touched his +soul with a curiously potent spell that was almost too engrossing to be +quite pleasant. + +There was a certain queer sense of bewitchment in it all. The music +seemed to him oddly unartificial. It made him think of trees swept by +the wind, of night breezes singing among wires and chimney-stacks, or +in the rigging of invisible ships; or—and the simile leaped up in his +thoughts with a sudden sharpness of suggestion—a chorus of animals, of +wild creatures, somewhere in desolate places of the world, crying and +singing as animals will, to the moon. He could fancy he heard the +wailing, half-human cries of cats upon the tiles at night, rising and +falling with weird intervals of sound, and this music, muffled by +distance and the trees, made him think of a queer company of these +creatures on some roof far away in the sky, uttering their solemn music +to one another and the moon in chorus. + +It was, he felt at the time, a singular image to occur to him, yet it +expressed his sensation pictorially better than anything else. The +instruments played such impossibly odd intervals, and the crescendos +and diminuendos were so very suggestive of cat-land on the tiles at +night, rising swiftly, dropping without warning to deep notes again, +and all in such strange confusion of discords and accords. But, at the +same time a plaintive sweetness resulted on the whole, and the discords +of these half-broken instruments were so singular that they did not +distress his musical soul like fiddles out of tune. + +He listened a long time, wholly surrendering himself as his character +was, and then strolled homewards in the dusk as the air grew chilly. + +“There was nothing to alarm?” put in Dr. Silence briefly. + +“Absolutely nothing,” said Vezin; “but you know it was all so +fantastical and charming that my imagination was profoundly impressed. +Perhaps, too,” he continued, gently explanatory, “it was this stirring +of my imagination that caused other impressions; for, as I walked back, +the spell of the place began to steal over me in a dozen ways, though +all intelligible ways. But there were other things I could not account +for in the least, even then.” + +“Incidents, you mean?” + +“Hardly incidents, I think. A lot of vivid sensations crowded +themselves upon my mind and I could trace them to no causes. It was +just after sunset and the tumbled old buildings traced magical outlines +against an opalescent sky of gold and red. The dusk was running down +the twisted streets. All round the hill the plain pressed in like a dim +sea, its level rising with the darkness. The spell of this kind of +scene, you know, can be very moving, and it was so that night. Yet I +felt that what came to me had nothing directly to do with the mystery +and wonder of the scene.” + +“Not merely the subtle transformations of the spirit that come with +beauty,” put in the doctor, noticing his hesitation. + +“Exactly,” Vezin went on, duly encouraged and no longer so fearful of +our smiles at his expense. “The impressions came from somewhere else. +For instance, down the busy main street where men and women were +bustling home from work, shopping at stalls and barrows, idly gossiping +in groups, and all the rest of it, I saw that I aroused no interest and +that no one turned to stare at me as a foreigner and stranger. I was +utterly ignored, and my presence among them excited no special interest +or attention. + +“And then, quite suddenly, it dawned upon me with conviction that all +the time this indifference and inattention were merely feigned. +Everybody as a matter of fact was watching me closely. Every movement I +made was known and observed. Ignoring me was all a pretence—an +elaborate pretence.” + +He paused a moment and looked at us to see if we were smiling, and then +continued, reassured— + +“It is useless to ask me how I noticed this, because I simply cannot +explain it. But the discovery gave me something of a shock. Before I +got back to the inn, however, another curious thing rose up strongly in +my mind and forced my recognition of it as true. And this, too, I may +as well say at once, was equally inexplicable to me. I mean I can only +give you the fact, as fact it was to me.” + +The little man left his chair and stood on the mat before the fire. His +diffidence lessened from now onwards, as he lost himself again in the +magic of the old adventure. His eyes shone a little already as he +talked. + +“Well,” he went on, his soft voice rising somewhat with his excitement, +“I was in a shop when it came to me first—though the idea must have +been at work for a long time subconsciously to appear in so complete a +form all at once. I was buying socks, I think,” he laughed, “and +struggling with my dreadful French, when it struck me that the woman in +the shop did not care two pins whether I bought anything or not. She +was indifferent whether she made a sale or did not make a sale. She was +only pretending to sell. + +“This sounds a very small and fanciful incident to build upon what +follows. But really it was not small. I mean it was the spark that lit +the line of powder and ran along to the big blaze in my mind. + +“For the whole town, I suddenly realised, was something other than I so +far saw it. The real activities and interests of the people were +elsewhere and otherwise than appeared. Their true lives lay somewhere +out of sight behind the scenes. Their busy-ness was but the outward +semblance that masked their actual purposes. They bought and sold, and +ate and drank, and walked about the streets, yet all the while the main +stream of their existence lay somewhere beyond my ken, underground, in +secret places. In the shops and at the stalls they did not care whether +I purchased their articles or not; at the inn, they were indifferent to +my staying or going; their life lay remote from my own, springing from +hidden, mysterious sources, coursing out of sight, unknown. It was all +a great elaborate pretence, assumed possibly for my benefit, or +possibly for purposes of their own. But the main current of their +energies ran elsewhere. I almost felt as an unwelcome foreign substance +might be expected to feel when it has found its way into the human +system and the whole body organises itself to eject it or to absorb it. +The town was doing this very thing to me. + +“This bizarre notion presented itself forcibly to my mind as I walked +home to the inn, and I began busily to wonder wherein the true life of +this town could lie and what were the actual interests and activities +of its hidden life. + +“And, now that my eyes were partly opened, I noticed other things too +that puzzled me, first of which, I think, was the extraordinary silence +of the whole place. Positively, the town was muffled. Although the +streets were paved with cobbles the people moved about silently, +softly, with padded feet, like cats. Nothing made noise. All was +hushed, subdued, muted. The very voices were quiet, low-pitched like +purring. Nothing clamorous, vehement or emphatic seemed able to live in +the drowsy atmosphere of soft dreaming that soothed this little +hill-town into its sleep. It was like the woman at the inn—an outward +repose screening intense inner activity and purpose. + +“Yet there was no sign of lethargy or sluggishness anywhere about it. +The people were active and alert. Only a magical and uncanny softness +lay over them all like a spell.” + +Vezin passed his hand across his eyes for a moment as though the memory +had become very vivid. His voice had run off into a whisper so that we +heard the last part with difficulty. He was telling a true thing +obviously, yet something that he both liked and hated telling. + +“I went back to the inn,” he continued presently in a louder voice, +“and dined. I felt a new strange world about me. My old world of +reality receded. Here, whether I liked it or no, was something new and +incomprehensible. I regretted having left the train so impulsively. An +adventure was upon me, and I loathed adventures as foreign to my +nature. Moreover, this was the beginning apparently of an adventure +somewhere deep within me, in a region I could not check or measure, and +a feeling of alarm mingled itself with my wonder—alarm for the +stability of what I had for forty years recognised as my ‘personality.’ + +“I went upstairs to bed, my mind teeming with thoughts that were +unusual to me, and of rather a haunting description. By way of relief I +kept thinking of that nice, prosaic noisy train and all those +wholesome, blustering passengers. I almost wished I were with them +again. But my dreams took me elsewhere. I dreamed of cats, and +soft-moving creatures, and the silence of life in a dim muffled world +beyond the senses.” + +II + +Vezin stayed on from day to day, indefinitely, much longer than he had +intended. He felt in a kind of dazed, somnolent condition. He did +nothing in particular, but the place fascinated him and he could not +decide to leave. Decisions were always very difficult for him and he +sometimes wondered how he had ever brought himself to the point of +leaving the train. It seemed as though some one else must have arranged +it for him, and once or twice his thoughts ran to the swarthy Frenchman +who had sat opposite. If only he could have understood that long +sentence ending so strangely with “_à cause du sommeil et à cause des +chats_.” He wondered what it all meant. + +Meanwhile the hushed softness of the town held him prisoner and he +sought in his muddling, gentle way to find out where the mystery lay, +and what it was all about. But his limited French and his +constitutional hatred of active investigation made it hard for him to +buttonhole anybody and ask questions. He was content to observe, and +watch, and remain negative. + +The weather held on calm and hazy, and this just suited him. He +wandered about the town till he knew every street and alley. The people +suffered him to come and go without let or hindrance, though it became +clearer to him every day that he was never free himself from +observation. The town watched him as a cat watches a mouse. And he got +no nearer to finding out what they were all so busy with or where the +main stream of their activities lay. This remained hidden. The people +were as soft and mysterious as cats. + +But that he was continually under observation became more evident from +day to day. + +For instance, when he strolled to the end of the town and entered a +little green public garden beneath the ramparts and seated himself upon +one of the empty benches in the sun, he was quite alone—at first. Not +another seat was occupied; the little park was empty, the paths +deserted. Yet, within ten minutes of his coming, there must have been +fully twenty persons scattered about him, some strolling aimlessly +along the gravel walks, staring at the flowers, and others seated on +the wooden benches enjoying the sun like himself. None of them appeared +to take any notice of him; yet he understood quite well they had all +come there to watch. They kept him under close observation. In the +street they had seemed busy enough, hurrying upon various errands; yet +these were suddenly all forgotten and they had nothing to do but loll +and laze in the sun, their duties unremembered. Five minutes after he +left, the garden was again deserted, the seats vacant. But in the +crowded street it was the same thing again; he was never alone. He was +ever in their thoughts. + +By degrees, too, he began to see how it was he was so cleverly watched, +yet without the appearance of it. The people did nothing _directly_. +They behaved _obliquely_. He laughed in his mind as the thought thus +clothed itself in words, but the phrase exactly described it. They +looked at him from angles which naturally should have led their sight +in another direction altogether. Their movements were oblique, too, so +far as these concerned himself. The straight, direct thing was not +their way evidently. They did nothing obviously. If he entered a shop +to buy, the woman walked instantly away and busied herself with +something at the farther end of the counter, though answering at once +when he spoke, showing that she knew he was there and that this was +only her way of attending to him. It was the fashion of the cat she +followed. Even in the dining-room of the inn, the be-whiskered and +courteous waiter, lithe and silent in all his movements, never seemed +able to come straight to his table for an order or a dish. He came by +zigzags, indirectly, vaguely, so that he appeared to be going to +another table altogether, and only turned suddenly at the last moment, +and was there beside him. + +Vezin smiled curiously to himself as he described how he began to +realize these things. Other tourists there were none in the hostel, but +he recalled the figures of one or two old men, inhabitants, who took +their _déjeuner_ and dinner there, and remembered how fantastically +they entered the room in similar fashion. First, they paused in the +doorway, peering about the room, and then, after a temporary +inspection, they came in, as it were, sideways, keeping close to the +walls so that he wondered which table they were making for, and at the +last minute making almost a little quick run to their particular seats. +And again he thought of the ways and methods of cats. + +Other small incidents, too, impressed him as all part of this queer, +soft town with its muffled, indirect life, for the way some of the +people appeared and disappeared with extraordinary swiftness puzzled +him exceedingly. It may have been all perfectly natural, he knew, yet +he could not make it out how the alleys swallowed them up and shot them +forth in a second of time when there were no visible doorways or +openings near enough to explain the phenomenon. Once he followed two +elderly women who, he felt, had been particularly examining him from +across the street—quite near the inn this was—and saw them turn the +corner a few feet only in front of him. Yet when he sharply followed on +their heels he saw nothing but an utterly deserted alley stretching in +front of him with no sign of a living thing. And the only opening +through which they could have escaped was a porch some fifty yards +away, which not the swiftest human runner could have reached in time. + +And in just such sudden fashion people appeared, when he never expected +them. Once when he heard a great noise of fighting going on behind a +low wall, and hurried up to see what was going on, what should he see +but a group of girls and women engaged in vociferous conversation which +instantly hushed itself to the normal whispering note of the town when +his head appeared over the wall. And even then none of them turned to +look at him directly, but slunk off with the most unaccountable +rapidity into doors and sheds across the yard. And their voices, he +thought, had sounded so like, so strangely like, the angry snarling of +fighting animals, almost of cats. + +The whole spirit of the town, however, continued to evade him as +something elusive, protean, screened from the outer world, and at the +same time intensely, genuinely vital; and, since he now formed part of +its life, this concealment puzzled and irritated him; more—it began +rather to frighten him. + +Out of the mists that slowly gathered about his ordinary surface +thoughts, there rose again the idea that the inhabitants were waiting +for him to declare himself, to take an attitude, to do this, or to do +that; and that when he had done so they in their turn would at length +make some direct response, accepting or rejecting him. Yet the vital +matter concerning which his decision was awaited came no nearer to him. + +Once or twice he purposely followed little processions or groups of the +citizens in order to find out, if possible, on what purpose they were +bent; but they always discovered him in time and dwindled away, each +individual going his or her own way. It was always the same: he never +could learn what their main interest was. The cathedral was ever empty, +the old church of St. Martin, at the other end of the town, deserted. +They shopped because they had to, and not because they wished to. The +booths stood neglected, the stalls unvisited, the little _cafés_ +desolate. Yet the streets were always full, the townsfolk ever on the +bustle. + +“Can it be,” he thought to himself, yet with a deprecating laugh that +he should have dared to think anything so odd, “can it be that these +people are people of the twilight, that they live only at night their +real life, and come out honestly only with the dusk? That during the +day they make a sham though brave pretence, and after the sun is down +their true life begins? Have they the souls of night-things, and is the +whole blessed town in the hands of the cats?” + +The fancy somehow electrified him with little shocks of shrinking and +dismay. Yet, though he affected to laugh, he knew that he was beginning +to feel more than uneasy, and that strange forces were tugging with a +thousand invisible cords at the very centre of his being. Something +utterly remote from his ordinary life, something that had not waked for +years, began faintly to stir in his soul, sending feelers abroad into +his brain and heart, shaping queer thoughts and penetrating even into +certain of his minor actions. Something exceedingly vital to himself, +to his soul, hung in the balance. + +And, always when he returned to the inn about the hour of sunset, he +saw the figures of the townsfolk stealing through the dusk from their +shop doors, moving sentry-wise to and fro at the corners of the +streets, yet always vanishing silently like shadows at his near +approach. And as the inn invariably closed its doors at ten o’clock he +had never yet found the opportunity he rather half-heartedly sought to +see for himself what account the town could give of itself at night. + +“—_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_”—the words now rang in his +ears more and more often, though still as yet without any definite +meaning. + +Moreover, something made him sleep like the dead. + +III + +It was, I think, on the fifth day—though in this detail his story +sometimes varied—that he made a definite discovery which increased his +alarm and brought him up to a rather sharp climax. Before that he had +already noticed that a change was going forward and certain subtle +transformations being brought about in his character which modified +several of his minor habits. And he had affected to ignore them. Here, +however, was something he could no longer ignore; and it startled him. + +At the best of times he was never very positive, always negative +rather, compliant and acquiescent; yet, when necessity arose he was +capable of reasonably vigorous action and could take a strongish +decision. The discovery he now made that brought him up with such a +sharp turn was that this power had positively dwindled to nothing. He +found it impossible to make up his mind. For, on this fifth day, he +realised that he had stayed long enough in the town and that for +reasons he could only vaguely define to himself it was wiser _and +safer_ that he should leave. + +And he found that he could not leave! + +This is difficult to describe in words, and it was more by gesture and +the expression of his face that he conveyed to Dr. Silence the state of +impotence he had reached. All this spying and watching, he said, had as +it were spun a net about his feet so that he was trapped and powerless +to escape; he felt like a fly that had blundered into the intricacies +of a great web; he was caught, imprisoned, and could not get away. It +was a distressing sensation. A numbness had crept over his will till it +had become almost incapable of decision. The mere thought of vigorous +action—action towards escape—began to terrify him. All the currents of +his life had turned inwards upon himself, striving to bring to the +surface something that lay buried almost beyond reach, determined to +force his recognition of something he had long forgotten—forgotten +years upon years, centuries almost ago. It seemed as though a window +deep within his being would presently open and reveal an entirely new +world, yet somehow a world that was not unfamiliar. Beyond that, again, +he fancied a great curtain hung; and when that too rolled up he would +see still farther into this region and at last understand something of +the secret life of these extraordinary people. + +“Is this why they wait and watch?” he asked himself with rather a +shaking heart, “for the time when I shall join them—or refuse to join +them? Does the decision rest with me after all, and not with them?” + +And it was at this point that the sinister character of the adventure +first really declared itself, and he became genuinely alarmed. The +stability of his rather fluid little personality was at stake, he felt, +and something in his heart turned coward. + +Why otherwise should he have suddenly taken to walking stealthily, +silently, making as little sound as possible, for ever looking behind +him? Why else should he have moved almost on tiptoe about the passages +of the practically deserted inn, and when he was abroad have found +himself deliberately taking advantage of what cover presented itself? +And why, if he was not afraid, should the wisdom of staying indoors +after sundown have suddenly occurred to him as eminently desirable? +Why, indeed? + +And, when John Silence gently pressed him for an explanation of these +things, he admitted apologetically that he had none to give. + +“It was simply that I feared something might happen to me unless I kept +a sharp look-out. I felt afraid. It was instinctive,” was all he could +say. “I got the impression that the whole town was after me—wanted me +for something; and that if it got me I should lose myself, or at least +the Self I knew, in some unfamiliar state of consciousness. But I am +not a psychologist, you know,” he added meekly, “and I cannot define it +better than that.” + +It was while lounging in the courtyard half an hour before the evening +meal that Vezin made this discovery, and he at once went upstairs to +his quiet room at the end of the winding passage to think it over +alone. In the yard it was empty enough, true, but there was always the +possibility that the big woman whom he dreaded would come out of some +door, with her pretence of knitting, to sit and watch him. This had +happened several times, and he could not endure the sight of her. He +still remembered his original fancy, bizarre though it was, that she +would spring upon him the moment his back was turned and land with one +single crushing leap upon his neck. Of course it was nonsense, but then +it haunted him, and once an idea begins to do that it ceases to be +nonsense. It has clothed itself in reality. + +He went upstairs accordingly. It was dusk, and the oil lamps had not +yet been lit in the passages. He stumbled over the uneven surface of +the ancient flooring, passing the dim outlines of doors along the +corridor—doors that he had never once seen opened—rooms that seemed +never occupied. He moved, as his habit now was, stealthily and on +tiptoe. + +Half-way down the last passage to his own chamber there was a sharp +turn, and it was just here, while groping round the walls with +outstretched hands, that his fingers touched something that was not +wall—something that moved. It was soft and warm in texture, +indescribably fragrant, and about the height of his shoulder; and he +immediately thought of a furry, sweet-smelling kitten. The next minute +he knew it was something quite different. + +Instead of investigating, however,—his nerves must have been too +overwrought for that, he said,—he shrank back as closely as possible +against the wall on the other side. The thing, whatever it was, slipped +past him with a sound of rustling and, retreating with light footsteps +down the passage behind him, was gone. A breath of warm, scented air +was wafted to his nostrils. + +Vezin caught his breath for an instant and paused, stockstill, half +leaning against the wall—and then almost ran down the remaining +distance and entered his room with a rush, locking the door hurriedly +behind him. Yet it was not fear that made him run: it was excitement, +pleasurable excitement. His nerves were tingling, and a delicious glow +made itself felt all over his body. In a flash it came to him that this +was just what he had felt twenty-five years ago as a boy when he was in +love for the first time. Warm currents of life ran all over him and +mounted to his brain in a whirl of soft delight. His mood was suddenly +become tender, melting, loving. + +The room was quite dark, and he collapsed upon the sofa by the window, +wondering what had happened to him and what it all meant. But the only +thing he understood clearly in that instant was that something in him +had swiftly, magically changed: he no longer wished to leave, or to +argue with himself about leaving. The encounter in the passage-way had +changed all that. The strange perfume of it still hung about him, +bemusing his heart and mind. For he knew that it was a girl who had +passed him, a girl’s face that his fingers had brushed in the darkness, +and he felt in some extraordinary way as though he had been actually +kissed by her, kissed full upon the lips. + +Trembling, he sat upon the sofa by the window and struggled to collect +his thoughts. He was utterly unable to understand how the mere passing +of a girl in the darkness of a narrow passage-way could communicate so +electric a thrill to his whole being that he still shook with the +sweetness of it. Yet, there it was! And he found it as useless to deny +as to attempt analysis. Some ancient fire had entered his veins, and +now ran coursing through his blood; and that he was forty-five instead +of twenty did not matter one little jot. Out of all the inner turmoil +and confusion emerged the one salient fact that the mere atmosphere, +the merest casual touch, of this girl, unseen, unknown in the darkness, +had been sufficient to stir dormant fires in the centre of his heart, +and rouse his whole being from a state of feeble sluggishness to one of +tearing and tumultuous excitement. + +After a time, however, the number of Vezin’s years began to assert +their cumulative power; he grew calmer, and when a knock came at length +upon his door and he heard the waiter’s voice suggesting that dinner +was nearly over, he pulled himself together and slowly made his way +downstairs into the dining-room. + +Every one looked up as he entered, for he was very late, but he took +his customary seat in the far corner and began to eat. The trepidation +was still in his nerves, but the fact that he had passed through the +courtyard and hall without catching sight of a petticoat served to calm +him a little. He ate so fast that he had almost caught up with the +current stage of the table d’hôte, when a slight commotion in the room +drew his attention. + +His chair was so placed that the door and the greater portion of the +long _salle à manger_ were behind him, yet it was not necessary to turn +round to know that the same person he had passed in the dark passage +had now come into the room. He felt the presence long before he heard +or saw any one. Then he became aware that the old men, the only other +guests, were rising one by one in their places, and exchanging +greetings with some one who passed among them from table to table. And +when at length he turned with his heart beating furiously to ascertain +for himself, he saw the form of a young girl, lithe and slim, moving +down the centre of the room and making straight for his own table in +the corner. She moved wonderfully, with sinuous grace, like a young +panther, and her approach filled him with such delicious bewilderment +that he was utterly unable to tell at first what her face was like, or +discover what it was about the whole presentment of the creature that +filled him anew with trepidation and delight. + +“Ah, Ma’mselle est de retour!” he heard the old waiter murmur at his +side, and he was just able to take in that she was the daughter of the +proprietress, when she was upon him, and he heard her voice. She was +addressing him. Something of red lips he saw and laughing white teeth, +and stray wisps of fine dark hair about the temples; but all the rest +was a dream in which his own emotion rose like a thick cloud before his +eyes and prevented his seeing accurately, or knowing exactly what he +did. He was aware that she greeted him with a charming little bow; that +her beautiful large eyes looked searchingly into his own; that the +perfume he had noticed in the dark passage again assailed his nostrils, +and that she was bending a little towards him and leaning with one hand +on the table at this side. She was quite close to him—that was the +chief thing he knew—explaining that she had been asking after the +comfort of her mother’s guests, and now was introducing herself to the +latest arrival—himself. + +“M’sieur has already been here a few days,” he heard the waiter say; +and then her own voice, sweet as singing, replied— + +“Ah, but M’sieur is not going to leave us just yet, I hope. My mother +is too old to look after the comfort of our guests properly, but now I +am here I will remedy all that.” She laughed deliciously. “M’sieur +shall be well looked after.” + +Vezin, struggling with his emotion and desire to be polite, half rose +to acknowledge the pretty speech, and to stammer some sort of reply, +but as he did so his hand by chance touched her own that was resting +upon the table, and a shock that was for all the world like a shock of +electricity, passed from her skin into his body. His soul wavered and +shook deep within him. He caught her eyes fixed upon his own with a +look of most curious intentness, and the next moment he knew that he +had sat down wordless again on his chair, that the girl was already +half-way across the room, and that he was trying to eat his salad with +a dessert-spoon and a knife. + +Longing for her return, and yet dreading it, he gulped down the +remainder of his dinner, and then went at once to his bedroom to be +alone with his thoughts. This time the passages were lighted, and he +suffered no exciting contretemps; yet the winding corridor was dim with +shadows, and the last portion, from the bend of the walls onwards, +seemed longer than he had ever known it. It ran downhill like the +pathway on a mountain side, and as he tiptoed softly down it he felt +that by rights it ought to have led him clean out of the house into the +heart of a great forest. The world was singing with him. Strange +fancies filled his brain, and once in the room, with the door securely +locked, he did not light the candles, but sat by the open window +thinking long, long thoughts that came unbidden in troops to his mind. + +IV + +This part of the story he told to Dr. Silence, without special coaxing, +it is true, yet with much stammering embarrassment. He could not in the +least understand, he said, how the girl had managed to affect him so +profoundly, and even before he had set eyes upon her. For her mere +proximity in the darkness had been sufficient to set him on fire. He +knew nothing of enchantments, and for years had been a stranger to +anything approaching tender relations with any member of the opposite +sex, for he was encased in shyness, and realised his overwhelming +defects only too well. Yet this bewitching young creature came to him +deliberately. Her manner was unmistakable, and she sought him out on +every possible occasion. Chaste and sweet she was undoubtedly, yet +frankly inviting; and she won him utterly with the first glance of her +shining eyes, even if she had not already done so in the dark merely by +the magic of her invisible presence. + +“You felt she was altogether wholesome and good!” queried the doctor. +“You had no reaction of any sort—for instance, of alarm?” + +Vezin looked up sharply with one of his inimitable little apologetic +smiles. It was some time before he replied. The mere memory of the +adventure had suffused his shy face with blushes, and his brown eyes +sought the floor again before he answered. + +“I don’t think I can quite say that,” he explained presently. “I +acknowledged certain qualms, sitting up in my room afterwards. A +conviction grew upon me that there was something about her—how shall I +express it?—well, something unholy. It is not impurity in any sense, +physical or mental, that I mean, but something quite indefinable that +gave me a vague sensation of the creeps. She drew me, and at the same +time repelled me, more than—than—” + +He hesitated, blushing furiously, and unable to finish the sentence. + +“Nothing like it has ever come to me before or since,” he concluded, +with lame confusion. “I suppose it was, as you suggested just now, +something of an enchantment. At any rate, it was strong enough to make +me feel that I would stay in that awful little haunted town for years +if only I could see her every day, hear her voice, watch her wonderful +movements, and sometimes, perhaps, touch her hand.” + +“Can you explain to me what you felt was the source of her power?” John +Silence asked, looking purposely anywhere but at the narrator. + +“I am surprised that you should ask me such a question,” answered +Vezin, with the nearest approach to dignity he could manage. “I think +no man can describe to another convincingly wherein lies the magic of +the woman who ensnares him. I certainly cannot. I can only say this +slip of a girl bewitched me, and the mere knowledge that she was living +and sleeping in the same house filled me with an extraordinary sense of +delight. + +“But there’s one thing I can tell you,” he went on earnestly, his eyes +aglow, “namely, that she seemed to sum up and synthesise in herself all +the strange hidden forces that operated so mysteriously in the town and +its inhabitants. She had the silken movements of the panther, going +smoothly, silently to and fro, and the same indirect, oblique methods +as the townsfolk, screening, like them, secret purposes of her +own—purposes that I was sure had _me_ for their objective. She kept me, +to my terror and delight, ceaselessly under observation, yet so +carelessly, so consummately, that another man less sensitive, if I may +say so”—he made a deprecating gesture—“or less prepared by what had +gone before, would never have noticed it at all. She was always still, +always reposeful, yet she seemed to be everywhere at once, so that I +never could escape from her. I was continually meeting the stare and +laughter of her great eyes, in the corners of the rooms, in the +passages, calmly looking at me through the windows, or in the busiest +parts of the public streets.” + +Their intimacy, it seems, grew very rapidly after this first encounter +which had so violently disturbed the little man’s equilibrium. He was +naturally very prim, and prim folk live mostly in so small a world that +anything violently unusual may shake them clean out of it, and they +therefore instinctively distrust originality. But Vezin began to forget +his primness after awhile. The girl was always modestly behaved, and as +her mother’s representative she naturally had to do with the guests in +the hotel. It was not out of the way that a spirit of camaraderie +should spring up. Besides, she was young, she was charmingly pretty, +she was French, and—she obviously liked him. + +At the same time, there was something indescribable—a certain +indefinable atmosphere of other places, other times—that made him try +hard to remain on his guard, and sometimes made him catch his breath +with a sudden start. It was all rather like a delirious dream, half +delight, half dread, he confided in a whisper to Dr. Silence; and more +than once he hardly knew quite what he was doing or saying, as though +he were driven forward by impulses he scarcely recognised as his own. + +And though the thought of leaving presented itself again and again to +his mind, it was each time with less insistence, so that he stayed on +from day to day, becoming more and more a part of the sleepy life of +this dreamy mediaeval town, losing more and more of his recognisable +personality. Soon, he felt, the Curtain within would roll up with an +awful rush, and he would find himself suddenly admitted into the secret +purposes of the hidden life that lay behind it all. Only, by that time, +he would have become transformed into an entirely different being. + +And, meanwhile, he noticed various little signs of the intention to +make his stay attractive to him: flowers in his bedroom, a more +comfortable arm-chair in the corner, and even special little extra +dishes on his private table in the dining-room. Conversations, too, +with “Mademoiselle Ilsé” became more and more frequent and pleasant, +and although they seldom travelled beyond the weather, or the details +of the town, the girl, he noticed, was never in a hurry to bring them +to an end, and often contrived to interject little odd sentences that +he never properly understood, yet felt to be significant. + +And it was these stray remarks, full of a meaning that evaded him, that +pointed to some hidden purpose of her own and made him feel uneasy. +They all had to do, he felt sure, with reasons for his staying on in +the town indefinitely. + +“And has M’sieur not even yet come to a decision?” she said softly in +his ear, sitting beside him in the sunny yard before _déjeuner_, the +acquaintance having progressed with significant rapidity. “Because, if +it’s so difficult, we must all try together to help him!” + +The question startled him, following upon his own thoughts. It was +spoken with a pretty laugh, and a stray bit of hair across one eye, as +she turned and peered at him half roguishly. Possibly he did not quite +understand the French of it, for her near presence always confused his +small knowledge of the language distressingly. Yet the words, and her +manner, and something else that lay behind it all in her mind, +frightened him. It gave such point to his feeling that the town was +waiting for him to make his mind up on some important matter. + +At the same time, her voice, and the fact that she was there so close +beside him in her soft dark dress, thrilled him inexpressibly. + +“It is true I find it difficult to leave,” he stammered, losing his way +deliciously in the depths of her eyes, “and especially now that +Mademoiselle Ilsé has come.” + +He was surprised at the success of his sentence, and quite delighted +with the little gallantry of it. But at the same time he could have +bitten his tongue off for having said it. + +“Then after all you like our little town, or you would not be pleased +to stay on,” she said, ignoring the compliment. + +“I am enchanted with it, and enchanted with you,” he cried, feeling +that his tongue was somehow slipping beyond the control of his brain. +And he was on the verge of saying all manner of other things of the +wildest description, when the girl sprang lightly up from her chair +beside him, and made to go. + +“It is _soupe à l’onion_ to-day!” she cried, laughing back at him +through the sunlight, “and I must go and see about it. Otherwise, you +know, M’sieur will not enjoy his dinner, and then, perhaps, he will +leave us!” + +He watched her cross the courtyard, moving with all the grace and +lightness of the feline race, and her simple black dress clothed her, +he thought, exactly like the fur of the same supple species. She turned +once to laugh at him from the porch with the glass door, and then +stopped a moment to speak to her mother, who sat knitting as usual in +her corner seat just inside the hall-way. + +But how was it, then, that the moment his eye fell upon this ungainly +woman, the pair of them appeared suddenly as other than they were? +Whence came that transforming dignity and sense of power that enveloped +them both as by magic? What was it about that massive woman that made +her appear instantly regal, and set her on a throne in some dark and +dreadful scenery, wielding a sceptre over the red glare of some +tempestuous orgy? And why did this slender stripling of a girl, +graceful as a willow, lithe as a young leopard, assume suddenly an air +of sinister majesty, and move with flame and smoke about her head, and +the darkness of night beneath her feet? + +Vezin caught his breath and sat there transfixed. Then, almost +simultaneously with its appearance, the queer notion vanished again, +and the sunlight of day caught them both, and he heard her laughing to +her mother about the _soupe à l’onion_, and saw her glancing back at +him over her dear little shoulder with a smile that made him think of a +dew-kissed rose bending lightly before summer airs. + +And, indeed, the onion soup was particularly excellent that day, +because he saw another cover laid at his small table, and, with +fluttering heart, heard the waiter murmur by way of explanation that +“Ma’mselle Ilsé would honour M’sieur to-day at _déjeuner_, as her +custom sometimes is with her mother’s guests.” + +So actually she sat by him all through that delirious meal, talking +quietly to him in easy French, seeing that he was well looked after, +mixing the salad-dressing, and even helping him with her own hand. And, +later in the afternoon, while he was smoking in the courtyard, longing +for a sight of her as soon as her duties were done, she came again to +his side, and when he rose to meet her, she stood facing him a moment, +full of a perplexing sweet shyness before she spoke— + +“My mother thinks you ought to know more of the beauties of our little +town, and _I_ think so too! Would M’sieur like me to be his guide, +perhaps? I can show him everything, for our family has lived here for +many generations.” + +She had him by the hand, indeed, before he could find a single word to +express his pleasure, and led him, all unresisting, out into the +street, yet in such a way that it seemed perfectly natural she should +do so, and without the faintest suggestion of boldness or immodesty. +Her face glowed with the pleasure and interest of it, and with her +short dress and tumbled hair she looked every bit the charming child of +seventeen that she was, innocent and playful, proud of her native town, +and alive beyond her years to the sense of its ancient beauty. + +So they went over the town together, and she showed him what she +considered its chief interest: the tumble-down old house where her +forebears had lived; the sombre, aristocratic-looking mansion where her +mother’s family dwelt for centuries, and the ancient market-place where +several hundred years before the witches had been burnt by the score. +She kept up a lively running stream of talk about it all, of which he +understood not a fiftieth part as he trudged along by her side, cursing +his forty-five years and feeling all the yearnings of his early manhood +revive and jeer at him. And, as she talked, England and Surbiton seemed +very far away indeed, almost in another age of the world’s history. Her +voice touched something immeasurably old in him, something that slept +deep. It lulled the surface parts of his consciousness to sleep, +allowing what was far more ancient to awaken. Like the town, with its +elaborate pretence of modern active life, the upper layers of his being +became dulled, soothed, muffled, and what lay underneath began to stir +in its sleep. That big Curtain swayed a little to and fro. Presently it +might lift altogether.... + +He began to understand a little better at last. The mood of the town +was reproducing itself in him. In proportion as his ordinary external +self became muffled, that inner secret life, that was far more real and +vital, asserted itself. And this girl was surely the high-priestess of +it all, the chief instrument of its accomplishment. New thoughts, with +new interpretations, flooded his mind as she walked beside him through +the winding streets, while the picturesque old gabled town, softly +coloured in the sunset, had never appeared to him so wholly wonderful +and seductive. + +And only one curious incident came to disturb and puzzle him, slight in +itself, but utterly inexplicable, bringing white terror into the +child’s face and a scream to her laughing lips. He had merely pointed +to a column of blue smoke that rose from the burning autumn leaves and +made a picture against the red roofs, and had then run to the wall and +called her to his side to watch the flames shooting here and there +through the heap of rubbish. Yet, at the sight of it, as though taken +by surprise, her face had altered dreadfully, and she had turned and +run like the wind, calling out wild sentences to him as she ran, of +which he had not understood a single word, except that the fire +apparently frightened her, and she wanted to get quickly away from it, +and to get him away too. + +Yet five minutes later she was as calm and happy again as though +nothing had happened to alarm or waken troubled thoughts in her, and +they had both forgotten the incident. + +They were leaning over the ruined ramparts together listening to the +weird music of the band as he had heard it the first day of his +arrival. It moved him again profoundly as it had done before, and +somehow he managed to find his tongue and his best French. The girl +leaned across the stones close beside him. No one was about. Driven by +some remorseless engine within he began to stammer something—he hardly +knew what—of his strange admiration for her. Almost at the first word +she sprang lightly off the wall and came up smiling in front of him, +just touching his knees as he sat there. She was hatless as usual, and +the sun caught her hair and one side of her cheek and throat. + +“Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried, clapping her little hands softly in his +face, “so very glad, because that means that if you like me you must +also like what I do, and what I belong to.” + +Already he regretted bitterly having lost control of himself. Something +in the phrasing of her sentence chilled him. He knew the fear of +embarking upon an unknown and dangerous sea. + +“You will take part in our real life, I mean,” she added softly, with +an indescribable coaxing of manner, as though she noticed his +shrinking. “You will come back to us.” + +Already this slip of a child seemed to dominate him; he felt her power +coming over him more and more; something emanated from her that stole +over his senses and made him aware that her personality, for all its +simple grace, held forces that were stately, imposing, august. He saw +her again moving through smoke and flame amid broken and tempestuous +scenery, alarmingly strong, her terrible mother by her side. Dimly this +shone through her smile and appearance of charming innocence. + +“You will, I know,” she repeated, holding him with her eyes. + +They were quite alone up there on the ramparts, and the sensation that +she was overmastering him stirred a wild sensuousness in his blood. The +mingled abandon and reserve in her attracted him furiously, and all of +him that was man rose up and resisted the creeping influence, at the +same time acclaiming it with the full delight of his forgotten youth. +An irresistible desire came to him to question her, to summon what +still remained to him of his own little personality in an effort to +retain the right to his normal self. + +The girl had grown quiet again, and was now leaning on the broad wall +close beside him, gazing out across the darkening plain, her elbows on +the coping, motionless as a figure carved in stone. He took his courage +in both hands. + +“Tell me, Ilsé,” he said, unconsciously imitating her own purring +softness of voice, yet aware that he was utterly in earnest, “what is +the meaning of this town, and what is this real life you speak of? And +why is it that the people watch me from morning to night? Tell me what +it all means? And, tell me,” he added more quickly with passion in his +voice, “what you really are—yourself?” + +She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyelids, her +growing inner excitement betraying itself by the faint colour that ran +like a shadow across her face. + +“It seems to me,”—he faltered oddly under her gaze—“that I have some +right to know—” + +Suddenly she opened her eyes to the full. “You love me, then?” she +asked softly. + +“I swear,” he cried impetuously, moved as by the force of a rising +tide, “I never felt before—I have never known any other girl who—” + +“Then you _have_ the right to know,” she calmly interrupted his +confused confession, “for love shares all secrets.” + +She paused, and a thrill like fire ran swiftly through him. Her words +lifted him off the earth, and he felt a radiant happiness, followed +almost the same instant in horrible contrast by the thought of death. +He became aware that she had turned her eyes upon his own and was +speaking again. + +“The real life I speak of,” she whispered, “is the old, old life +within, the life of long ago, the life to which you, too, once +belonged, and to which you still belong.” + +A faint wave of memory troubled the deeps of his soul as her low voice +sank into him. What she was saying he knew instinctively to be true, +even though he could not as yet understand its full purport. His +present life seemed slipping from him as he listened, merging his +personality in one that was far older and greater. It was this loss of +his present self that brought to him the thought of death. + +“You came here,” she went on, “with the purpose of seeking it, and the +people felt your presence and are waiting to know what you decide, +whether you will leave them without having found it, or whether—” + +Her eyes remained fixed upon his own, but her face began to change, +growing larger and darker with an expression of age. + +“It is their thoughts constantly playing about your soul that makes you +feel they watch you. They do not watch you with their eyes. The +purposes of their inner life are calling to you, seeking to claim you. +You were all part of the same life long, long ago, and now they want +you back again among them.” + +Vezin’s timid heart sank with dread as he listened; but the girl’s eyes +held him with a net of joy so that he had no wish to escape. She +fascinated him, as it were, clean out of his normal self. + +“Alone, however, the people could never have caught and held you,” she +resumed. “The motive force was not strong enough; it has faded through +all these years. But I”—she paused a moment and looked at him with +complete confidence in her splendid eyes—“I possess the spell to +conquer you and hold you: the spell of old love. I can win you back +again and make you live the old life with me, for the force of the +ancient tie between us, if I choose to use it, is irresistible. And I +do choose to use it. I still want you. And you, dear soul of my dim +past”—she pressed closer to him so that her breath passed across his +eyes, and her voice positively sang—“I mean to have you, for you love +me and are utterly at my mercy.” + +Vezin heard, and yet did not hear; understood, yet did not understand. +He had passed into a condition of exaltation. The world was beneath his +feet, made of music and flowers, and he was flying somewhere far above +it through the sunshine of pure delight. He was breathless and giddy +with the wonder of her words. They intoxicated him. And, still, the +terror of it all, the dreadful thought of death, pressed ever behind +her sentences. For flames shot through her voice out of black smoke and +licked at his soul. + +And they communicated with one another, it seemed to him, by a process +of swift telepathy, for his French could never have compassed all he +said to her. Yet she understood perfectly, and what she said to him was +like the recital of verses long since known. And the mingled pain and +sweetness of it as he listened were almost more than his little soul +could hold. + +“Yet I came here wholly by chance—” he heard himself saying. + +“No,” she cried with passion, “you came here because I called to you. I +have called to you for years, and you came with the whole force of the +past behind you. You had to come, for I own you, and I claim you.” + +She rose again and moved closer, looking at him with a certain +insolence in the face—the insolence of power. + +The sun had set behind the towers of the old cathedral and the darkness +rose up from the plain and enveloped them. The music of the band had +ceased. The leaves of the plane trees hung motionless, but the chill of +the autumn evening rose about them and made Vezin shiver. There was no +sound but the sound of their voices and the occasional soft rustle of +the girl’s dress. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He +scarcely realised where he was or what he was doing. Some terrible +magic of the imagination drew him deeply down into the tombs of his own +being, telling him in no unfaltering voice that her words shadowed +forth the truth. And this simple little French maid, speaking beside +him with so strange authority, he saw curiously alter into quite +another being. As he stared into her eyes, the picture in his mind grew +and lived, dressing itself vividly to his inner vision with a degree of +reality he was compelled to acknowledge. As once before, he saw her +tall and stately, moving through wild and broken scenery of forests and +mountain caverns, the glare of flames behind her head and clouds of +shifting smoke about her feet. Dark leaves encircled her hair, flying +loosely in the wind, and her limbs shone through the merest rags of +clothing. Others were about her, too, and ardent eyes on all sides cast +delirious glances upon her, but her own eyes were always for One only, +one whom she held by the hand. For she was leading the dance in some +tempestuous orgy to the music of chanting voices, and the dance she led +circled about a great and awful Figure on a throne, brooding over the +scene through lurid vapours, while innumerable other wild faces and +forms crowded furiously about her in the dance. But the one she held by +the hand he knew to be himself, and the monstrous shape upon the throne +he knew to be her mother. + +The vision rose within him, rushing to him down the long years of +buried time, crying aloud to him with the voice of memory +reawakened.... And then the scene faded away and he saw the clear +circle of the girl’s eyes gazing steadfastly into his own, and she +became once more the pretty little daughter of the innkeeper, and he +found his voice again. + +“And you,” he whispered tremblingly—“you child of visions and +enchantment, how is it that you so bewitch me that I loved you even +before I saw?” + +She drew herself up beside him with an air of rare dignity. + +“The call of the Past,” she said; “and besides,” she added proudly, “in +the real life I am a princess—” + +“A princess!” he cried. + +“—and my mother is a queen!” + +At this, little Vezin utterly lost his head. Delight tore at his heart +and swept him into sheer ecstasy. To hear that sweet singing voice, and +to see those adorable little lips utter such things, upset his balance +beyond all hope of control. He took her in his arms and covered her +unresisting face with kisses. + +But even while he did so, and while the hot passion swept him, he felt +that she was soft and loathsome, and that her answering kisses stained +his very soul.... And when, presently, she had freed herself and +vanished into the darkness, he stood there, leaning against the wall in +a state of collapse, creeping with horror from the touch of her +yielding body, and inwardly raging at the weakness that he already +dimly realised must prove his undoing. + +And from the shadows of the old buildings into which she disappeared +there rose in the stillness of the night a singular, long-drawn cry, +which at first he took for laughter, but which later he was sure he +recognised as the almost human wailing of a cat. + +V + +For a long time Vezin leant there against the wall, alone with his +surging thoughts and emotions. He understood at length that he had done +the one thing necessary to call down upon him the whole force of this +ancient Past. For in those passionate kisses he had acknowledged the +tie of olden days, and had revived it. And the memory of that soft +impalpable caress in the darkness of the inn corridor came back to him +with a shudder. The girl had first mastered him, and then led him to +the one act that was necessary for her purpose. He had been waylaid, +after the lapse of centuries—caught, and conquered. + +Dimly he realised this, and sought to make plans for his escape. But, +for the moment at any rate, he was powerless to manage his thoughts or +will, for the sweet, fantastic madness of the whole adventure mounted +to his brain like a spell, and he gloried in the feeling that he was +utterly enchanted and moving in a world so much larger and wilder than +the one he had ever been accustomed to. + +The moon, pale and enormous, was just rising over the sea-like plain, +when at last he rose to go. Her slanting rays drew all the houses into +new perspective, so that their roofs, already glistening with dew, +seemed to stretch much higher into the sky than usual, and their gables +and quaint old towers lay far away in its purple reaches. + +The cathedral appeared unreal in a silver mist. He moved softly, +keeping to the shadows; but the streets were all deserted and very +silent; the doors were closed, the shutters fastened. Not a soul was +astir. The hush of night lay over everything; it was like a town of the +dead, a churchyard with gigantic and grotesque tombstones. + +Wondering where all the busy life of the day had so utterly disappeared +to, he made his way to a back door that entered the inn by means of the +stables, thinking thus to reach his room unobserved. He reached the +courtyard safely and crossed it by keeping close to the shadow of the +wall. He sidled down it, mincing along on tiptoe, just as the old men +did when they entered the _salle à manger_. He was horrified to find +himself doing this instinctively. A strange impulse came to him, +catching him somehow in the centre of his body—an impulse to drop upon +all fours and run swiftly and silently. He glanced upwards and the idea +came to him to leap up upon his window-sill overhead instead of going +round by the stairs. This occurred to him as the easiest, and most +natural way. It was like the beginning of some horrible transformation +of himself into something else. He was fearfully strung up. + +The moon was higher now, and the shadows very dark along the side of +the street where he moved. He kept among the deepest of them, and +reached the porch with the glass doors. + +But here there was light; the inmates, unfortunately, were still about. +Hoping to slip across the hall unobserved and reach the stairs, he +opened the door carefully and stole in. Then he saw that the hall was +not empty. A large dark thing lay against the wall on his left. At +first he thought it must be household articles. Then it moved, and he +thought it was an immense cat, distorted in some way by the play of +light and shadow. Then it rose straight up before him and he saw that +it was the proprietress. + +What she had been doing in this position he could only venture a +dreadful guess, but the moment she stood up and faced him he was aware +of some terrible dignity clothing her about that instantly recalled the +girl’s strange saying that she was a queen. Huge and sinister she stood +there under the little oil lamp; alone with him in the empty hall. Awe +stirred in his heart, and the roots of some ancient fear. He felt that +he must bow to her and make some kind of obeisance. The impulse was +fierce and irresistible, as of long habit. He glanced quickly about +him. There was no one there. Then he deliberately inclined his head +toward her. He bowed. + +“Enfin! M’sieur s’est donc décidé. C’est bien alors. J’en suis +contente.” + +Her words came to him sonorously as through a great open space. + +Then the great figure came suddenly across the flagged hall at him and +seized his trembling hands. Some overpowering force moved with her and +caught him. + +“On pourrait faire un p’tit tour ensemble, n’est-ce pas? Nous y allons +cette nuit et il faut s’exercer un peu d’avance pour cela. Ilsé, Ilsé, +viens donc ici. Viens vite!” + +And she whirled him round in the opening steps of some dance that +seemed oddly and horribly familiar. They made no sound on the stones, +this strangely assorted couple. It was all soft and stealthy. And +presently, when the air seemed to thicken like smoke, and a red glare +as of flame shot through it, he was aware that some one else had joined +them and that his hand the mother had released was now tightly held by +the daughter. Ilsé had come in answer to the call, and he saw her with +leaves of vervain twined in her dark hair, clothed in tattered vestiges +of some curious garment, beautiful as the night, and horribly, +odiously, loathsomely seductive. + +“To the Sabbath! to the Sabbath!” they cried. “On to the Witches’ +Sabbath!” + +Up and down that narrow hall they danced, the women on each side of +him, to the wildest measure he had ever imagined, yet which he dimly, +dreadfully remembered, till the lamp on the wall flickered and went +out, and they were left in total darkness. And the devil woke in his +heart with a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid. + +Suddenly they released his hands and he heard the voice of the mother +cry that it was time, and they must go. Which way they went he did not +pause to see. He only realised that he was free, and he blundered +through the darkness till he found the stairs and then tore up them to +his room as though all hell was at his heels. + +He flung himself on the sofa, with his face in his hands, and groaned. +Swiftly reviewing a dozen ways of immediate escape, all equally +impossible, he finally decided that the only thing to do for the moment +was to sit quiet and wait. He must see what was going to happen. At +least in the privacy of his own bedroom he would be fairly safe. The +door was locked. He crossed over and softly opened the window which +gave upon the courtyard and also permitted a partial view of the hall +through the glass doors. + +As he did so the hum and murmur of a great activity reached his ears +from the streets beyond—the sound of footsteps and voices muffled by +distance. He leaned out cautiously and listened. The moonlight was +clear and strong now, but his own window was in shadow, the silver disc +being still behind the house. It came to him irresistibly that the +inhabitants of the town, who a little while before had all been +invisible behind closed doors, were now issuing forth, busy upon some +secret and unholy errand. He listened intently. + +At first everything about him was silent, but soon he became aware of +movements going on in the house itself. Rustlings and cheepings came to +him across that still, moonlit yard. A concourse of living beings sent +the hum of their activity into the night. Things were on the move +everywhere. A biting, pungent odour rose through the air, coming he +knew not whence. Presently his eyes became glued to the windows of the +opposite wall where the moonshine fell in a soft blaze. The roof +overhead, and behind him, was reflected clearly in the panes of glass, +and he saw the outlines of dark bodies moving with long footsteps over +the tiles and along the coping. They passed swiftly and silently, +shaped like immense cats, in an endless procession across the pictured +glass, and then appeared to leap down to a lower level where he lost +sight of them. He just caught the soft thudding of their leaps. +Sometimes their shadows fell upon the white wall opposite, and then he +could not make out whether they were the shadows of human beings or of +cats. They seemed to change swiftly from one to the other. The +transformation looked horribly real, for they leaped like human beings, +yet changed swiftly in the air immediately afterwards, and dropped like +animals. + +The yard, too, beneath him, was now alive with the creeping movements +of dark forms all stealthily drawing towards the porch with the glass +doors. They kept so closely to the wall that he could not determine +their actual shape, but when he saw that they passed on to the great +congregation that was gathering in the hall, he understood that these +were the creatures whose leaping shadows he had first seen reflected in +the windowpanes opposite. They were coming from all parts of the town, +reaching the appointed meeting-place across the roofs and tiles, and +springing from level to level till they came to the yard. + +Then a new sound caught his ear, and he saw that the windows all about +him were being softly opened, and that to each window came a face. A +moment later figures began dropping hurriedly down into the yard. And +these figures, as they lowered themselves down from the windows, were +human, he saw; but once safely in the yard they fell upon all fours and +changed in the swiftest possible second into—cats—huge, silent cats. +They ran in streams to join the main body in the hall beyond. + +So, after all, the rooms in the house had not been empty and +unoccupied. + +Moreover, what he saw no longer filled him with amazement. For he +remembered it all. It was familiar. It had all happened before just so, +hundreds of times, and he himself had taken part in it and known the +wild madness of it all. The outline of the old building changed, the +yard grew larger, and he seemed to be staring down upon it from a much +greater height through smoky vapours. And, as he looked, half +remembering, the old pains of long ago, fierce and sweet, furiously +assailed him, and the blood stirred horribly as he heard the Call of +the Dance again in his heart and tasted the ancient magic of Ilsé +whirling by his side. + +Suddenly he started back. A great lithe cat had leaped softly up from +the shadows below on to the sill close to his face, and was staring +fixedly at him with the eyes of a human. “Come,” it seemed to say, +“come with us to the Dance! Change as of old! Transform yourself +swiftly and come!” Only too well he understood the creature’s soundless +call. + +It was gone again in a flash with scarcely a sound of its padded feet +on the stones, and then others dropped by the score down the side of +the house, past his very eyes, all changing as they fell and darting +away rapidly, softly, towards the gathering point. And again he felt +the dreadful desire to do likewise; to murmur the old incantation, and +then drop upon hands and knees and run swiftly for the great flying +leap into the air. Oh, how the passion of it rose within him like a +flood, twisting his very entrails, sending his heart’s desire flaming +forth into the night for the old, old Dance of the Sorcerers at the +Witches’ Sabbath! The whirl of the stars was about him; once more he +met the magic of the moon. The power of the wind, rushing from +precipice and forest, leaping from cliff to cliff across the valleys, +tore him away.... He heard the cries of the dancers and their wild +laughter, and with this savage girl in his embrace he danced furiously +about the dim Throne where sat the Figure with the sceptre of +majesty.... + +Then, suddenly, all became hushed and still, and the fever died down a +little in his heart. The calm moonlight flooded a courtyard empty and +deserted. They had started. The procession was off into the sky. And he +was left behind—alone. + +Vezin tiptoed softly across the room and unlocked the door. The murmur +from the streets, growing momentarily as he advanced, met his ears. He +made his way with the utmost caution down the corridor. At the head of +the stairs he paused and listened. Below him, the hall where they had +gathered was dark and still, but through opened doors and windows on +the far side of the building came the sound of a great throng moving +farther and farther into the distance. + +He made his way down the creaking wooden stairs, dreading yet longing +to meet some straggler who should point the way, but finding no one; +across the dark hall, so lately thronged with living, moving things, +and out through the opened front doors into the street. He could not +believe that he was really left behind, really forgotten, that he had +been purposely permitted to escape. It perplexed him. + +Nervously he peered about him, and up and down the street; then, seeing +nothing, advanced slowly down the pavement. + +The whole town, as he went, showed itself empty and deserted, as though +a great wind had blown everything alive out of it. The doors and +windows of the houses stood open to the night; nothing stirred; +moonlight and silence lay over all. The night lay about him like a +cloak. The air, soft and cool, caressed his cheek like the touch of a +great furry paw. He gained confidence and began to walk quickly, though +still keeping to the shadowed side. Nowhere could he discover the +faintest sign of the great unholy exodus he knew had just taken place. +The moon sailed high over all in a sky cloudless and serene. + +Hardly realising where he was going, he crossed the open market-place +and so came to the ramparts, whence he knew a pathway descended to the +high road and along which he could make good his escape to one of the +other little towns that lay to the northward, and so to the railway. + +But first he paused and gazed out over the scene at his feet where the +great plain lay like a silver map of some dream country. The still +beauty of it entered his heart, increasing his sense of bewilderment +and unreality. No air stirred, the leaves of the plane trees stood +motionless, the near details were defined with the sharpness of day +against dark shadows, and in the distance the fields and woods melted +away into haze and shimmering mistiness. + +But the breath caught in his throat and he stood stockstill as though +transfixed when his gaze passed from the horizon and fell upon the near +prospect in the depth of the valley at his feet. The whole lower slopes +of the hill, that lay hid from the brightness of the moon, were aglow, +and through the glare he saw countless moving forms, shifting thick and +fast between the openings of the trees; while overhead, like leaves +driven by the wind, he discerned flying shapes that hovered darkly one +moment against the sky and then settled down with cries and weird +singing through the branches into the region that was aflame. + +Spellbound, he stood and stared for a time that he could not measure. +And then, moved by one of the terrible impulses that seemed to control +the whole adventure, he climbed swiftly upon the top of the broad +coping, and balanced a moment where the valley gaped at his feet. But +in that very instant, as he stood hovering, a sudden movement among the +shadows of the houses caught his eye, and he turned to see the outline +of a large animal dart swiftly across the open space behind him, and +land with a flying leap upon the top of the wall a little lower down. +It ran like the wind to his feet and then rose up beside him upon the +ramparts. A shiver seemed to run through the moonlight, and his sight +trembled for a second. His heart pulsed fearfully. Ilsé stood beside +him, peering into his face. + +Some dark substance, he saw, stained the girl’s face and skin, shining +in the moonlight as she stretched her hands towards him; she was +dressed in wretched tattered garments that yet became her mightily; rue +and vervain twined about her temples; her eyes glittered with unholy +light. He only just controlled the wild impulse to take her in his arms +and leap with her from their giddy perch into the valley below. + +“See!” she cried, pointing with an arm on which the rags fluttered in +the rising wind towards the forest aglow in the distance. “See where +they await us! The woods are alive! Already the Great Ones are there, +and the dance will soon begin! The salve is here! Anoint yourself and +come!” + +Though a moment before the sky was clear and cloudless, yet even while +she spoke the face of the moon grew dark and the wind began to toss in +the crests of the plane trees at his feet. Stray gusts brought the +sounds of hoarse singing and crying from the lower slopes of the hill, +and the pungent odour he had already noticed about the courtyard of the +inn rose about him in the air. + +“Transform, transform!” she cried again, her voice rising like a song. +“Rub well your skin before you fly. Come! Come with me to the Sabbath, +to the madness of its furious delight, to the sweet abandonment of its +evil worship! See! the Great Ones are there, and the terrible +Sacraments prepared. The Throne is occupied. Anoint and come! Anoint +and come!” + +She grew to the height of a tree beside him, leaping upon the wall with +flaming eyes and hair strewn upon the night. He too began to change +swiftly. Her hands touched the skin of his face and neck, streaking him +with the burning salve that sent the old magic into his blood with the +power before which fades all that is good. + +A wild roar came up to his ears from the heart of the wood, and the +girl, when she heard it, leaped upon the wall in the frenzy of her +wicked joy. + +“Satan is there!” she screamed, rushing upon him and striving to draw +him with her to the edge of the wall. “Satan has come. The Sacraments +call us! Come, with your dear apostate soul, and we will worship and +dance till the moon dies and the world is forgotten!” + +Just saving himself from the dreadful plunge, Vezin struggled to +release himself from her grasp, while the passion tore at his reins and +all but mastered him. He shrieked aloud, not knowing what he said, and +then he shrieked again. It was the old impulses, the old awful habits +instinctively finding voice; for though it seemed to him that he merely +shrieked nonsense, the words he uttered really had meaning in them, and +were intelligible. It was the ancient call. And it was heard below. It +was answered. + +The wind whistled at the skirts of his coat as the air round him +darkened with many flying forms crowding upwards out of the valley. The +crying of hoarse voices smote upon his ears, coming closer. Strokes of +wind buffeted him, tearing him this way and that along the crumbling +top of the stone wall; and Ilsé clung to him with her long shining +arms, smooth and bare, holding him fast about the neck. But not Ilsé +alone, for a dozen of them surrounded him, dropping out of the air. The +pungent odour of the anointed bodies stifled him, exciting him to the +old madness of the Sabbath, the dance of the witches and sorcerers +doing honour to the personified Evil of the world. + +“Anoint and away! Anoint and away!” they cried in wild chorus about +him. “To the Dance that never dies! To the sweet and fearful fantasy of +evil!” + +Another moment and he would have yielded and gone, for his will turned +soft and the flood of passionate memory all but overwhelmed him, +when—so can a small thing alter the whole course of an adventure—he +caught his foot upon a loose stone in the edge of the wall, and then +fell with a sudden crash on to the ground below. But he fell towards +the houses, in the open space of dust and cobblestones, and fortunately +not into the gaping depth of the valley on the farther side. + +And they, too, came in a tumbling heap about him, like flies upon a +piece of food, but as they fell he was released for a moment from the +power of their touch, and in that brief instant of freedom there +flashed into his mind the sudden intuition that saved him. Before he +could regain his feet he saw them scrabbling awkwardly back upon the +wall, as though bat-like they could only fly by dropping from a height, +and had no hold upon him in the open. Then, seeing them perched there +in a row like cats upon a roof, all dark and singularly shapeless, +their eyes like lamps, the sudden memory came back to him of Ilsé’s +terror at the sight of fire. + +Quick as a flash he found his matches and lit the dead leaves that lay +under the wall. + +Dry and withered, they caught fire at once, and the wind carried the +flame in a long line down the length of the wall, licking upwards as it +ran; and with shrieks and wailings, the crowded row of forms upon the +top melted away into the air on the other side, and were gone with a +great rush and whirring of their bodies down into the heart of the +haunted valley, leaving Vezin breathless and shaken in the middle of +the deserted ground. + +“Ilsé!” he called feebly; “Ilsé!” for his heart ached to think that she +was really gone to the great Dance without him, and that he had lost +the opportunity of its fearful joy. Yet at the same time his relief was +so great, and he was so dazed and troubled in mind with the whole +thing, that he hardly knew what he was saying, and only cried aloud in +the fierce storm of his emotion.... + +The fire under the wall ran its course, and the moonlight came out +again, soft and clear, from its temporary eclipse. With one last +shuddering look at the ruined ramparts, and a feeling of horrid wonder +for the haunted valley beyond, where the shapes still crowded and flew, +he turned his face towards the town and slowly made his way in the +direction of the hotel. + +And as he went, a great wailing of cries, and a sound of howling, +followed him from the gleaming forest below, growing fainter and +fainter with the bursts of wind as he disappeared between the houses. + +VI + +“It may seem rather abrupt to you, this sudden tame ending,” said +Arthur Vezin, glancing with flushed face and timid eyes at Dr. Silence +sitting there with his notebook, “but the fact is—er—from that moment +my memory seems to have failed rather. I have no distinct recollection +of how I got home or what precisely I did. + +“It appears I never went back to the inn at all. I only dimly recollect +racing down a long white road in the moonlight, past woods and +villages, still and deserted, and then the dawn came up, and I saw the +towers of a biggish town and so came to a station. + +“But, long before that, I remember pausing somewhere on the road and +looking back to where the hill-town of my adventure stood up in the +moonlight, and thinking how exactly like a great monstrous cat it lay +there upon the plain, its huge front paws lying down the two main +streets, and the twin and broken towers of the cathedral marking its +torn ears against the sky. That picture stays in my mind with the +utmost vividness to this day. + +“Another thing remains in my mind from that escape—namely, the sudden +sharp reminder that I had not paid my bill, and the decision I made, +standing there on the dusty highroad, that the small baggage I had left +behind would more than settle for my indebtedness. + +“For the rest, I can only tell you that I got coffee and bread at a +café on the outskirts of this town I had come to, and soon after found +my way to the station and caught a train later in the day. That same +evening I reached London.” + +“And how long altogether,” asked John Silence quietly, “do you think +you stayed in the town of the adventure?” + +Vezin looked up sheepishly. + +“I was coming to that,” he resumed, with apologetic wrigglings of his +body. “In London I found that I was a whole week out in my reckoning of +time. I had stayed over a week in the town, and it ought to have been +September 15th,—instead of which it was only September 10th!” + +“So that, in reality, you had only stayed a night or two in the inn?” +queried the doctor. + +Vezin hesitated before replying. He shuffled upon the mat. + +“I must have gained time somewhere,” he said at length—“somewhere or +somehow. I certainly had a week to my credit. I can’t explain it. I can +only give you the fact.” + +“And this happened to you last year, since when you have never been +back to the place?” + +“Last autumn, yes,” murmured Vezin; “and I have never dared to go back. +I think I never want to.” + +“And, tell me,” asked Dr. Silence at length, when he saw that the +little man had evidently come to the end of his words and had nothing +more to say, “had you ever read up the subject of the old witchcraft +practices during the Middle Ages, or been at all interested in the +subject?” + +“Never!” declared Vezin emphatically. “I had never given a thought to +such matters so far as I know—” + +“Or to the question of reincarnation, perhaps?” + +“Never—before my adventure; but I have since,” he replied +significantly. + +There was, however, something still on the man’s mind that he wished to +relieve himself of by confession, yet could only with difficulty bring +himself to mention; and it was only after the sympathetic tactfulness +of the doctor had provided numerous openings that he at length availed +himself of one of them, and stammered that he would like to show him +the marks he still had on his neck where, he said, the girl had touched +him with her anointed hands. + +He took off his collar after infinite fumbling hesitation, and lowered +his shirt a little for the doctor to see. And there, on the surface of +the skin, lay a faint reddish line across the shoulder and extending a +little way down the back towards the spine. It certainly indicated +exactly the position an arm might have taken in the act of embracing. +And on the other side of the neck, slightly higher up, was a similar +mark, though not quite so clearly defined. + +“That was where she held me that night on the ramparts,” he whispered, +a strange light coming and going in his eyes. + + +It was some weeks later when I again found occasion to consult John +Silence concerning another extraordinary case that had come under my +notice, and we fell to discussing Vezin’s story. Since hearing it, the +doctor had made investigations on his own account, and one of his +secretaries had discovered that Vezin’s ancestors had actually lived +for generations in the very town where the adventure came to him. Two +of them, both women, had been tried and convicted as witches, and had +been burned alive at the stake. Moreover, it had not been difficult to +prove that the very inn where Vezin stayed was built about 1700 upon +the spot where the funeral pyres stood and the executions took place. +The town was a sort of headquarters for all the sorcerers and witches +of the entire region, and after conviction they were burnt there +literally by scores. + +“It seems strange,” continued the doctor, “that Vezin should have +remained ignorant of all this; but, on the other hand, it was not the +kind of history that successive generations would have been anxious to +keep alive, or to repeat to their children. Therefore I am inclined to +think he still knows nothing about it. + +“The whole adventure seems to have been a very vivid revival of the +memories of an earlier life, caused by coming directly into contact +with the living forces still intense enough to hang about the place, +and, by a most singular chance, too, with the very souls who had taken +part with him in the events of that particular life. For the mother and +daughter who impressed him so strangely must have been leading actors, +with himself, in the scenes and practices of witchcraft which at that +period dominated the imaginations of the whole country. + +“One has only to read the histories of the times to know that these +witches claimed the power of transforming themselves into various +animals, both for the purposes of disguise and also to convey +themselves swiftly to the scenes of their imaginary orgies. +Lycanthropy, or the power to change themselves into wolves, was +everywhere believed in, and the ability to transform themselves into +cats by rubbing their bodies with a special salve or ointment provided +by Satan himself, found equal credence. The witchcraft trials abound in +evidences of such universal beliefs.” + +Dr. Silence quoted chapter and verse from many writers on the subject, +and showed how every detail of Vezin’s adventure had a basis in the +practices of those dark days. + +“But that the entire affair took place subjectively in the man’s own +consciousness, I have no doubt,” he went on, in reply to my questions; +“for my secretary who has been to the town to investigate, discovered +his signature in the visitors’ book, and proved by it that he had +arrived on September 8th, and left suddenly without paying his bill. He +left two days later, and they still were in possession of his dirty +brown bag and some tourist clothes. I paid a few francs in settlement +of his debt, and have sent his luggage on to him. The daughter was +absent from home, but the proprietress, a large woman very much as he +described her, told my secretary that he had seemed a very strange, +absent-minded kind of gentleman, and after his disappearance she had +feared for a long time that he had met with a violent end in the +neighbouring forest where he used to roam about alone. + +“I should like to have obtained a personal interview with the daughter +so as to ascertain how much was subjective and how much actually took +place with her as Vezin told it. For her dread of fire and the sight of +burning must, of course, have been the intuitive memory of her former +painful death at the stake, and have thus explained why he fancied more +than once that he saw her through smoke and flame.” + +“And that mark on his skin, for instance?” I inquired. + +“Merely the marks produced by hysterical brooding,” he replied, “like +the stigmata of the _religieuses_, and the bruises which appear on the +bodies of hypnotised subjects who have been told to expect them. This +is very common and easily explained. Only it seems curious that these +marks should have remained so long in Vezin’s case. Usually they +disappear quickly.” + +“Obviously he is still thinking about it all, brooding, and living it +all over again,” I ventured. + +“Probably. And this makes me fear that the end of his trouble is not +yet. We shall hear of him again. It is a case, alas! I can do little to +alleviate.” + +Dr. Silence spoke gravely and with sadness in his voice. + +“And what do you make of the Frenchman in the train?” I asked +further—“the man who warned him against the place, _à cause du sommeil +et à cause des chats?_ Surely a very singular incident?” + +“A very singular incident indeed,” he made answer slowly, “and one I +can only explain on the basis of a highly improbable coincidence—” + +“Namely?” + +“That the man was one who had himself stayed in the town and undergone +there a similar experience. I should like to find this man and ask him. +But the crystal is useless here, for I have no slightest clue to go +upon, and I can only conclude that some singular psychic affinity, some +force still active in his being out of the same past life, drew him +thus to the personality of Vezin, and enabled him to fear what might +happen to him, and thus to warn him as he did. + +“Yes,” he presently continued, half talking to himself, “I suspect in +this case that Vezin was swept into the vortex of forces arising out of +the intense activities of a past life, and that he lived over again a +scene in which he had often played a leading part centuries before. For +strong actions set up forces that are so slow to exhaust themselves, +they may be said in a sense never to die. In this case they were not +vital enough to render the illusion complete, so that the little man +found himself caught in a very distressing confusion of the present and +the past; yet he was sufficiently sensitive to recognise that it was +true, and to fight against the degradation of returning, even in +memory, to a former and lower state of development. + +“Ah yes!” he continued, crossing the floor to gaze at the darkening +sky, and seemingly quite oblivious of my presence, “subliminal +up-rushes of memory like this can be exceedingly painful, and sometimes +exceedingly dangerous. I only trust that this gentle soul may soon +escape from this obsession of a passionate and tempestuous past. But I +doubt it, I doubt it.” + +His voice was hushed with sadness as he spoke, and when he turned back +into the room again there was an expression of profound yearning upon +his face, the yearning of a soul whose desire to help is sometimes +greater than his power. + + + + +CASE III: THE NEMESIS OF FIRE + +I + +By some means which I never could fathom, John Silence always contrived +to keep the compartment to himself, and as the train had a clear run of +two hours before the first stop, there was ample time to go over the +preliminary facts of the case. He had telephoned to me that very +morning, and even through the disguise of the miles of wire the thrill +of incalculable adventure had sounded in his voice. + +“As if it were an ordinary country visit,” he called, in reply to my +question; “and don’t forget to bring your gun.” + +“With blank cartridges, I suppose?” for I knew his rigid principles +with regard to the taking of life, and guessed that the guns were +merely for some obvious purpose of disguise. + +Then he thanked me for coming, mentioned the train, snapped down the +receiver, and left me, vibrating with the excitement of anticipation, +to do my packing. For the honour of accompanying Dr. John Silence on +one of his big cases was what many would have considered an empty +honour—and risky. Certainly the adventure held all manner of +possibilities, and I arrived at Waterloo with the feelings of a man who +is about to embark on some dangerous and peculiar mission in which the +dangers he expects to run will not be the ordinary dangers to life and +limb, but of some secret character difficult to name and still more +difficult to cope with. + +“The Manor House has a high sound,” he told me, as we sat with our feet +up and talked, “but I believe it is little more than an overgrown +farmhouse in the desolate heather country beyond D——, and its owner, +Colonel Wragge, a retired soldier with a taste for books, lives there +practically alone, I understand, with an elderly invalid sister. So you +need not look forward to a lively visit, unless the case provides some +excitement of its own.” + +“Which is likely?” + +By way of reply he handed me a letter marked “Private.” It was dated a +week ago, and signed “Yours faithfully, Horace Wragge.” + +“He heard of me, you see, through Captain Anderson,” the doctor +explained modestly, as though his fame were not almost world-wide; “you +remember that Indian obsession case—” + +I read the letter. Why it should have been marked private was difficult +to understand. It was very brief, direct, and to the point. It referred +by way of introduction to Captain Anderson, and then stated quite +simply that the writer needed help of a peculiar kind and asked for a +personal interview—a morning interview, since it was impossible for him +to be absent from the house at night. The letter was dignified even to +the point of abruptness, and it is difficult to explain how it managed +to convey to me the impression of a strong man, shaken and perplexed. +Perhaps the restraint of the wording, and the mystery of the affair had +something to do with it; and the reference to the Anderson case, the +horror of which lay still vivid in my memory, may have touched the +sense of something rather ominous and alarming. But, whatever the +cause, there was no doubt that an impression of serious peril rose +somehow out of that white paper with the few lines of firm writing, and +the spirit of a deep uneasiness ran between the words and reached the +mind without any visible form of expression. + +“And when you saw him—?” I asked, returning the letter as the train +rushed clattering noisily through Clapham Junction. + +“I have not seen him,” was the reply. “The man’s mind was charged to +the brim when he wrote that; full of vivid mental pictures. Notice the +restraint of it. For the main character of his case psychometry could +be depended upon, and the scrap of paper his hand has touched is +sufficient to give to another mind—a sensitive and sympathetic +mind—clear mental pictures of what is going on. I think I have a very +sound general idea of his problem.” + +“So there may be excitement, after all?” + +John Silence waited a moment before he replied. + +“Something very serious is amiss there,” he said gravely, at length. +“Some one—not himself, I gather,—has been meddling with a rather +dangerous kind of gunpowder. So—yes, there may be excitement, as you +put it.” + +“And my duties?” I asked, with a decidedly growing interest. “Remember, +I am your ‘assistant.’” + +“Behave like an intelligent confidential secretary. Observe everything, +without seeming to. Say nothing—nothing that means anything. Be present +at all interviews. I may ask a good deal of you, for if my impressions +are correct this is—” + +He broke off suddenly. + +“But I won’t tell you my impressions yet,” he resumed after a moment’s +thought. “Just watch and listen as the case proceeds. Form your own +impressions and cultivate your intuitions. We come as ordinary +visitors, of course,” he added, a twinkle showing for an instant in his +eye; “hence, the guns.” + +Though disappointed not to hear more, I recognised the wisdom of his +words and knew how valueless my impressions would be once the powerful +suggestion of having heard his own lay behind them. I likewise +reflected that intuition joined to a sense of humour was of more use to +a man than double the quantity of mere “brains,” as such. + +Before putting the letter away, however, he handed it back, telling me +to place it against my forehead for a few moments and then describe any +pictures that came spontaneously into my mind. + +“Don’t deliberately look for anything. Just imagine you see the inside +of the eyelid, and wait for pictures that rise against its dark +screen.” + +I followed his instructions, making my mind as nearly blank as +possible. But no visions came. I saw nothing but the lines of light +that pass to and fro like the changes of a kaleidoscope across the +blackness. A momentary sensation of warmth came and went curiously. + +“You see—what?” he asked presently. + +“Nothing,” I was obliged to admit disappointedly; “nothing but the +usual flashes of light one always sees. Only, perhaps, they are more +vivid than usual.” + +He said nothing by way of comment or reply. + +“And they group themselves now and then,” I continued, with painful +candour, for I longed to see the pictures he had spoken of, “group +themselves into globes and round balls of fire, and the lines that +flash about sometimes look like triangles and crosses—almost like +geometrical figures. Nothing more.” + +I opened my eyes again, and gave him back the letter. + +“It makes my head hot,” I said, feeling somehow unworthy for not seeing +anything of interest. But the look in his eyes arrested my attention at +once. + +“That sensation of heat is important,” he said significantly. + +“It was certainly real, and rather uncomfortable,” I replied, hoping he +would expand and explain. “There was a distinct feeling of +warmth—internal warmth somewhere—oppressive in a sense.” + +“That is interesting,” he remarked, putting the letter back in his +pocket, and settling himself in the corner with newspapers and books. +He vouchsafed nothing more, and I knew the uselessness of trying to +make him talk. Following his example I settled likewise with magazines +into my corner. But when I closed my eyes again to look for the +flashing lights and the sensation of heat, I found nothing but the +usual phantasmagoria of the day’s events—faces, scenes, memories,—and +in due course I fell asleep and then saw nothing at all of any kind. + +When we left the train, after six hours’ travelling, at a little +wayside station standing without trees in a world of sand and heather, +the late October shadows had already dropped their sombre veil upon the +landscape, and the sun dipped almost out of sight behind the moorland +hills. In a high dogcart, behind a fast horse, we were soon rattling +across the undulating stretches of an open and bleak country, the keen +air stinging our cheeks and the scents of pine and bracken strong about +us. Bare hills were faintly visible against the horizon, and the +coachman pointed to a bank of distant shadows on our left where he told +us the sea lay. Occasional stone farmhouses, standing back from the +road among straggling fir trees, and large black barns that seemed to +shift past us with a movement of their own in the gloom, were the only +signs of humanity and civilisation that we saw, until at the end of a +bracing five miles the lights of the lodge gates flared before us and +we plunged into a thick grove of pine trees that concealed the Manor +House up to the moment of actual arrival. + +Colonel Wragge himself met us in the hall. He was the typical army +officer who had seen service, real service, and found himself in the +process. He was tall and well built, broad in the shoulders, but lean +as a greyhound, with grave eyes, rather stern, and a moustache turning +grey. I judged him to be about sixty years of age, but his movements +showed a suppleness of strength and agility that contradicted the +years. The face was full of character and resolution, the face of a man +to be depended upon, and the straight grey eyes, it seemed to me, wore +a veil of perplexed anxiety that he made no attempt to disguise. The +whole appearance of the man at once clothed the adventure with gravity +and importance. A matter that gave such a man cause for serious alarm, +I felt, must be something real and of genuine moment. + +His speech and manner, as he welcomed us, were like his letter, simple +and sincere. He had a nature as direct and undeviating as a bullet. +Thus, he showed plainly his surprise that Dr. Silence had not come +alone. + +“My confidential secretary, Mr. Hubbard,” the doctor said, introducing +me, and the steady gaze and powerful shake of the hand I then received +were well calculated, I remember thinking, to drive home the impression +that here was a man who was not to be trifled with, and whose +perplexity must spring from some very real and tangible cause. And, +quite obviously, he was relieved that we had come. His welcome was +unmistakably genuine. + +He led us at once into a room, half library, half smoking-room, that +opened out of the low-ceilinged hall. The Manor House gave the +impression of a rambling and glorified farmhouse, solid, ancient, +comfortable, and wholly unpretentious. And so it was. Only the heat of +the place struck me as unnatural. This room with the blazing fire may +have seemed uncomfortably warm after the long drive through the night +air; yet it seemed to me that the hall itself, and the whole atmosphere +of the house, breathed a warmth that hardly belonged to well-filled +grates or the pipes of hot air and water. It was not the heat of the +greenhouse; it was an oppressive heat that somehow got into the head +and mind. It stirred a curious sense of uneasiness in me, and I caught +myself thinking of the sensation of warmth that had emanated from the +letter in the train. + +I heard him thanking Dr. Silence for having come; there was no +preamble, and the exchange of civilities was of the briefest +description. Evidently here was a man who, like my companion, loved +action rather than talk. His manner was straightforward and direct. I +saw him in a flash: puzzled, worried, harassed into a state of alarm by +something he could not comprehend; forced to deal with things he would +have preferred to despise, yet facing it all with dogged seriousness +and making no attempt to conceal that he felt secretly ashamed of his +incompetence. + +“So I cannot offer you much entertainment beyond that of my own +company, and the queer business that has been going on here, and is +still going on,” he said, with a slight inclination of the head towards +me by way of including me in his confidence. + +“I think, Colonel Wragge,” replied John Silence impressively, “that we +shall none of us find the time hangs heavy. I gather we shall have our +hands full.” + +The two men looked at one another for the space of some seconds, and +there was an indefinable quality in their silence which for the first +time made me admit a swift question into my mind; and I wondered a +little at my rashness in coming with so little reflection into a big +case of this incalculable doctor. But no answer suggested itself, and +to withdraw was, of course, inconceivable. The gates had closed behind +me now, and the spirit of the adventure was already besieging my mind +with its advance guard of a thousand little hopes and fears. + +Explaining that he would wait till after dinner to discuss anything +serious, as no reference was ever made before his sister, he led the +way upstairs and showed us personally to our rooms; and it was just as +I was finishing dressing that a knock came at my door and Dr. Silence +entered. + +He was always what is called a serious man, so that even in moments of +comedy you felt he never lost sight of the profound gravity of life, +but as he came across the room to me I caught the expression of his +face and understood in a flash that he was now in his most grave and +earnest mood. He looked almost troubled. I stopped fumbling with my +black tie and stared. + +“It is serious,” he said, speaking in a low voice, “more so even than I +imagined. Colonel Wragge’s control over his thoughts concealed a great +deal in my psychometrising of the letter. I looked in to warn you to +keep yourself well in hand—generally speaking.” + +“Haunted house?” I asked, conscious of a distinct shiver down my back. + +But he smiled gravely at the question. + +“Haunted House of Life more likely,” he replied, and a look came into +his eyes which I had only seen there when a human soul was in the toils +and he was thick in the fight of rescue. He was stirred in the deeps. + +“Colonel Wragge—or the sister?” I asked hurriedly, for the gong was +sounding. + +“Neither directly,” he said from the door. “Something far older, +something very, very remote indeed. This thing has to do with the ages, +unless I am mistaken greatly, the ages on which the mists of memory +have long lain undisturbed.” + +He came across the floor very quickly with a finger on his lips, +looking at me with a peculiar searchingness of gaze. + +“Are you aware yet of anything—odd here?” he asked in a whisper. +“Anything you cannot quite define, for instance. Tell me, Hubbard, for +I want to know all your impressions. They may help me.” + +I shook my head, avoiding his gaze, for there was something in the eyes +that scared me a little. But he was so in earnest that I set my mind +keenly searching. + +“Nothing yet,” I replied truthfully, wishing I could confess to a real +emotion; “nothing but the strange heat of the place.” + +He gave a little jump forward in my direction. + +“The heat again, that’s it!” he exclaimed, as though glad of my +corroboration. “And how would you describe it, perhaps?” he asked +quickly, with a hand on the door knob. + +“It doesn’t seem like ordinary physical heat,” I said, casting about in +my thoughts for a definition. + +“More a mental heat,” he interrupted, “a glowing of thought and desire, +a sort of feverish warmth of the spirit. Isn’t that it?” + +I admitted that he had exactly described my sensations. + +“Good!” he said, as he opened the door, and with an indescribable +gesture that combined a warning to be ready with a sign of praise for +my correct intuition, he was gone. + +I hurried after him, and found the two men waiting for me in front of +the fire. + +“I ought to warn you,” our host was saying as I came in, “that my +sister, whom you will meet at dinner, is not aware of the real object +of your visit. She is under the impression that we are interested in +the same line of study—folklore—and that your researches have led to my +seeking acquaintance. She comes to dinner in her chair, you know. It +will be a great pleasure to her to meet you both. We have few +visitors.” + +So that on entering the dining-room we were prepared to find Miss +Wragge already at her place, seated in a sort of bath-chair. She was a +vivacious and charming old lady, with smiling expression and bright +eyes, and she chatted all through dinner with unfailing spontaneity. +She had that face, unlined and fresh, that some people carry through +life from the cradle to the grave; her smooth plump cheeks were all +pink and white, and her hair, still dark, was divided into two glossy +and sleek halves on either side of a careful parting. She wore +gold-rimmed glasses, and at her throat was a large scarab of green +jasper that made a very handsome brooch. + +Her brother and Dr. Silence talked little, so that most of the +conversation was carried on between herself and me, and she told me a +great deal about the history of the old house, most of which I fear I +listened to with but half an ear. + +“And when Cromwell stayed here,” she babbled on, “he occupied the very +rooms upstairs that used to be mine. But my brother thinks it safer for +me to sleep on the ground floor now in case of fire.” + +And this sentence has stayed in my memory only because of the sudden +way her brother interrupted her and instantly led the conversation on +to another topic. The passing reference to fire seemed to have +disturbed him, and thenceforward he directed the talk himself. + +It was difficult to believe that this lively and animated old lady, +sitting beside me and taking so eager an interest in the affairs of +life, was practically, we understood, without the use of her lower +limbs, and that her whole existence for years had been passed between +the sofa, the bed, and the bath-chair in which she chatted so naturally +at the dinner table. She made no allusion to her affliction until the +dessert was reached, and then, touching a bell, she made us a witty +little speech about leaving us “like time, on noiseless feet,” and was +wheeled out of the room by the butler and carried off to her apartments +at the other end of the house. + +And the rest of us were not long in following suit, for Dr. Silence and +myself were quite as eager to learn the nature of our errand as our +host was to impart it to us. He led us down a long flagged passage to a +room at the very end of the house, a room provided with double doors, +and windows, I saw, heavily shuttered. Books lined the walls on every +side, and a large desk in the bow window was piled up with volumes, +some open, some shut, some showing scraps of paper stuck between the +leaves, and all smothered in a general cataract of untidy foolscap and +loose-half sheets. + +“My study and workroom,” explained Colonel Wragge, with a delightful +touch of innocent pride, as though he were a very serious scholar. He +placed arm-chairs for us round the fire. “Here,” he added +significantly, “we shall be safe from interruption and can talk +securely.” + +During dinner the manner of the doctor had been all that was natural +and spontaneous, though it was impossible for me, knowing him as I did, +not to be aware that he was subconsciously very keenly alert and +already receiving upon the ultra-sensitive surface of his mind various +and vivid impressions; and there was now something in the gravity of +his face, as well as in the significant tone of Colonel Wragge’s +speech, and something, too, in the fact that we three were shut away in +this private chamber about to listen to things probably strange, and +certainly mysterious—something in all this that touched my imagination +sharply and sent an undeniable thrill along my nerves. Taking the chair +indicated by my host, I lit my cigar and waited for the opening of the +attack, fully conscious that we were now too far gone in the adventure +to admit of withdrawal, and wondering a little anxiously where it was +going to lead. + +What I expected precisely, it is hard to say. Nothing definite, +perhaps. Only the sudden change was dramatic. A few hours before the +prosaic atmosphere of Piccadilly was about me, and now I was sitting in +a secret chamber of this remote old building waiting to hear an account +of things that held possibly the genuine heart of terror. I thought of +the dreary moors and hills outside, and the dark pine copses soughing +in the wind of night; I remembered my companion’s singular words up in +my bedroom before dinner; and then I turned and noted carefully the +stern countenance of the Colonel as he faced us and lit his big black +cigar before speaking. + +The threshold of an adventure, I reflected as I waited for the first +words, is always the most thrilling moment—until the climax comes. + +But Colonel Wragge hesitated—mentally—a long time before he began. He +talked briefly of our journey, the weather, the country, and other +comparatively trivial topics, while he sought about in his mind for an +appropriate entry into the subject that was uppermost in the thoughts +of all of us. The fact was he found it a difficult matter to speak of +at all, and it was Dr. Silence who finally showed him the way over the +hedge. + +“Mr. Hubbard will take a few notes when you are ready—you won’t +object,” he suggested; “I can give my undivided attention in this way.” + +“By all means,” turning to reach some of the loose sheets on the +writing table, and glancing at me. He still hesitated a little, I +thought. “The fact is,” he said apologetically, “I wondered if it was +quite fair to trouble you so soon. The daylight might suit you better +to hear what I have to tell. Your sleep, I mean, might be less +disturbed, perhaps.” + +“I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” John Silence replied with his +gentle smile, taking command as it were from that moment, “but really +we are both quite immune. There is nothing, I think, that could prevent +either of us sleeping, except—an outbreak of fire, or some such very +physical disturbance.” + +Colonel Wragge raised his eyes and looked fixedly at him. This +reference to an outbreak of fire I felt sure was made with a purpose. +It certainly had the desired effect of removing from our host’s manner +the last signs of hesitancy. + +“Forgive me,” he said. “Of course, I know nothing of your methods in +matters of this kind—so, perhaps, you would like me to begin at once +and give you an outline of the situation?” + +Dr. Silence bowed his agreement. “I can then take my precautions +accordingly,” he added calmly. + +The soldier looked up for a moment as though he did not quite gather +the meaning of these words; but he made no further comment and turned +at once to tackle a subject on which he evidently talked with +diffidence and unwillingness. + +“It’s all so utterly out of my line of things,” he began, puffing out +clouds of cigar smoke between his words, “and there’s so little to tell +with any real evidence behind it, that it’s almost impossible to make a +consecutive story for you. It’s the total cumulative effect that is +so—so disquieting.” He chose his words with care, as though determined +not to travel one hair’s breadth beyond the truth. + +“I came into this place twenty years ago when my elder brother died,” +he continued, “but could not afford to live here then. My sister, whom +you met at dinner, kept house for him till the end, and during all +these years, while I was seeing service abroad, she had an eye to the +place—for we never got a satisfactory tenant—and saw that it was not +allowed to go to ruin. I myself took possession, however, only a year +ago. + +“My brother,” he went on, after a perceptible pause, “spent much of his +time away, too. He was a great traveller, and filled the house with +stuff he brought home from all over the world. The laundry—a small +detached building beyond the servants’ quarters—he turned into a +regular little museum. The curios and things I have cleared away—they +collected dust and were always getting broken—but the laundry-house you +shall see tomorrow.” + +Colonel Wragge spoke with such deliberation and with so many pauses +that this beginning took him a long time. But at this point he came to +a full stop altogether. Evidently there was something he wished to say +that cost him considerable effort. At length he looked up steadily into +my companion’s face. + +“May I ask you—that is, if you won’t think it strange,” he said, and a +sort of hush came over his voice and manner, “whether you have noticed +anything at all unusual—anything queer, since you came into the house?” + +Dr. Silence answered without a moment’s hesitation. + +“I have,” he said. “There is a curious sensation of heat in the place.” + +“Ah!” exclaimed the other, with a slight start. “You _have_ noticed it. +This unaccountable heat—” + +“But its cause, I gather, is not in the house itself—but outside,” I +was astonished to hear the doctor add. + +Colonel Wragge rose from his chair and turned to unhook a framed map +that hung upon the wall. I got the impression that the movement was +made with the deliberate purpose of concealing his face. + +“Your diagnosis, I believe, is amazingly accurate,” he said after a +moment, turning round with the map in his hands. “Though, of course, I +can have no idea how you should guess—” + +John Silence shrugged his shoulders expressively. “Merely my +impression,” he said. “If you pay attention to impressions, and do not +allow them to be confused by deductions of the intellect, you will +often find them surprisingly, uncannily, accurate.” + +Colonel Wragge resumed his seat and laid the map upon his knees. His +face was very thoughtful as he plunged abruptly again into his story. + +“On coming into possession,” he said, looking us alternately in the +face, “I found a crop of stories of the most extraordinary and +impossible kind I had ever heard—stories which at first I treated with +amused indifference, but later was forced to regard seriously, if only +to keep my servants. These stories I thought I traced to the fact of my +brother’s death—and, in a way, I think so still.” + +He leant forward and handed the map to Dr. Silence. + +“It’s an old plan of the estate,” he explained, “but accurate enough +for our purpose, and I wish you would note the position of the +plantations marked upon it, especially those near the house. That one,” +indicating the spot with his finger, “is called the Twelve Acre +Plantation. It was just there, on the side nearest the house, that my +brother and the head keeper met their deaths.” + +He spoke as a man forced to recognise facts that he deplored, and would +have preferred to leave untouched—things he personally would rather +have treated with ridicule if possible. It made his words peculiarly +dignified and impressive, and I listened with an increasing uneasiness +as to the sort of help the doctor would look to me for later. It seemed +as though I were a spectator of some drama of mystery in which any +moment I might be summoned to play a part. + +“It was twenty years ago,” continued the Colonel, “but there was much +talk about it at the time, unfortunately, and you may, perhaps, have +heard of the affair. Stride, the keeper, was a passionate, hot-tempered +man but I regret to say, so was my brother, and quarrels between them +seem to have been frequent.” + +“I do not recall the affair,” said the doctor. “May I ask what was the +cause of death?” Something in his voice made me prick up my ears for +the reply. + +“The keeper, it was said, from suffocation. And at the inquest the +doctors averred that both men had been dead the same length of time +when found.” + +“And your brother?” asked John Silence, noticing the omission, and +listening intently. + +“Equally mysterious,” said our host, speaking in a low voice with +effort. “But there was one distressing feature I think I ought to +mention. For those who saw the face—I did not see it myself—and though +Stride carried a gun its chambers were undischarged—” He stammered and +hesitated with confusion. Again that sense of terror moved between his +words. He stuck. + +“Yes,” said the chief listener sympathetically. + +“My brother’s face, they said, looked as though it had been scorched. +It had been swept, as it were, by something that burned—blasted. It +was, I am told, quite dreadful. The bodies were found lying side by +side, faces downwards, both pointing away from the wood, as though they +had been in the act of running, and not more than a dozen yards from +its edge.” + +Dr. Silence made no comment. He appeared to be studying the map +attentively. + +“I did not see the face myself,” repeated the other, his manner somehow +expressing the sense of awe he contrived to keep out of his voice, “but +my sister unfortunately did, and her present state I believe to be +entirely due to the shock it gave to her nerves. She never can be +brought to refer to it, naturally, and I am even inclined to think that +the memory has mercifully been permitted to vanish from her mind. But +she spoke of it at the time as a face swept by flame—blasted.” + +John Silence looked up from his contemplation of the map, but with the +air of one who wished to listen, not to speak, and presently Colonel +Wragge went on with his account. He stood on the mat, his broad +shoulders hiding most of the mantelpiece. + +“They all centred about this particular plantation, these stories. That +was to be expected, for the people here are as superstitious as Irish +peasantry, and though I made one or two examples among them to stop the +foolish talk, it had no effect, and new versions came to my ears every +week. You may imagine how little good dismissals did, when I tell you +that the servants dismissed themselves. It was not the house servants, +but the men who worked on the estate outside. The keepers gave notice +one after another, none of them with any reason I could accept; the +foresters refused to enter the wood, and the beaters to beat in it. +Word flew all over the countryside that Twelve Acre Plantation was a +place to be avoided, day or night. + +“There came a point,” the Colonel went on, now well in his swing, “when +I felt compelled to make investigations on my own account. I could not +kill the thing by ignoring it; so I collected and analysed the stories +at first hand. For this Twelve Acre Wood, you will see by the map, +comes rather near home. Its lower end, if you will look, almost touches +the end of the back lawn, as I will show you tomorrow, and its dense +growth of pines forms the chief protection the house enjoys from the +east winds that blow up from the sea. And in olden days, before my +brother interfered with it and frightened all the game away, it was one +of the best pheasant coverts on the whole estate.” + +“And what form, if I may ask, did this interference take?” asked Dr. +Silence. + +“In detail, I cannot tell you, for I do not know—except that I +understand it was the subject of his frequent differences with the head +keeper; but during the last two years of his life, when he gave up +travelling and settled down here, he took a special interest in this +wood, and for some unaccountable reason began to build a low stone wall +around it. This wall was never finished, but you shall see the ruins +tomorrow in the daylight.” + +“And the result of your investigations—these stories, I mean?” the +doctor broke in, anxious to keep him to the main issues. + +“Yes, I’m coming to that,” he said slowly, “but the wood first, for +this wood out of which they grew like mushrooms has nothing in any way +peculiar about it. It is very thickly grown, and rises to a clearer +part in the centre, a sort of mound where there is a circle of large +boulders—old Druid stones, I’m told. At another place there’s a small +pond. There’s nothing distinctive about it that I could mention—just an +ordinary pine-wood, a very ordinary pine-wood—only the trees are a bit +twisted in the trunks, some of ’em, and very dense. Nothing more. + +“And the stories? Well, none of them had anything to do with my poor +brother, or the keeper, as you might have expected; and they were all +odd—such odd things, I mean, to invent or imagine. I never could make +out how these people got such notions into their heads.” + +He paused a moment to relight his cigar. + +“There’s no regular path through it,” he resumed, puffing vigorously, +“but the fields round it are constantly used, and one of the gardeners +whose cottage lies over that way declared he often saw moving lights in +it at night, and luminous shapes like globes of fire over the tops of +the trees, skimming and floating, and making a soft hissing sound—most +of ’em said that, in fact—and another man saw shapes flitting in and +out among the trees, things that were neither men nor animals, and all +faintly luminous. No one ever pretended to see human forms—always +queer, huge things they could not properly describe. Sometimes the +whole wood was lit up, and one fellow—he’s still here and you shall see +him—has a most circumstantial yarn about having seen great stars lying +on the ground round the edge of the wood at regular intervals—” + +“What kind of stars?” put in John Silence sharply, in a sudden way that +made me start. + +“Oh, I don’t know quite; ordinary stars, I think he said, only very +large, and apparently blazing as though the ground was alight. He was +too terrified to go close and examine, and he has never seen them +since.” + +He stooped and stirred the fire into a welcome blaze—welcome for its +blaze of light rather than for its heat. In the room there was already +a strange pervading sensation of warmth that was oppressive in its +effect and far from comforting. + +“Of course,” he went on, straightening up again on the mat, “this was +all commonplace enough—this seeing lights and figures at night. Most of +these fellows drink, and imagination and terror between them may +account for almost anything. But others saw things in broad daylight. +One of the woodmen, a sober, respectable man, took the shortcut home to +his midday meal, and swore he was followed the whole length of the wood +by something that never showed itself, but dodged from tree to tree, +always keeping out of sight, yet solid enough to make the branches sway +and the twigs snap on the ground. And it made a noise, he declared—but +really”—the speaker stopped and gave a short laugh—“it’s too absurd—” + +“_Please!_” insisted the doctor; “for it is these small details that +give me the best clues always.” + +“—it made a crackling noise, he said, like a bonfire. Those were his +very words: like the crackling of a bonfire,” finished the soldier, +with a repetition of his short laugh. + +“Most interesting,” Dr. Silence observed gravely. “Please omit +nothing.” + +“Yes,” he went on, “and it was soon after that the fires began—the +fires in the wood. They started mysteriously burning in the patches of +coarse white grass that cover the more open parts of the plantation. No +one ever actually saw them start, but many, myself among the number, +have seen them burning and smouldering. They are always small and +circular in shape, and for all the world like a picnic fire. The head +keeper has a dozen explanations, from sparks flying out of the house +chimneys to the sunlight focusing through a dewdrop, but none of them, +I must admit, convince me as being in the least likely or probable. +They are most singular, I consider, most singular, these mysterious +fires, and I am glad to say that they come only at rather long +intervals and never seem to spread. + +“But the keeper had other queer stories as well, and about things that +are verifiable. He declared that no life ever willingly entered the +plantation; more, that no life existed in it at all. No birds nested in +the trees, or flew into their shade. He set countless traps, but never +caught so much as a rabbit or a weasel. Animals avoided it, and more +than once he had picked up dead creatures round the edges that bore no +obvious signs of how they had met their death. + +“Moreover, he told me one extraordinary tale about his retriever +chasing some invisible creature across the field one day when he was +out with his gun. The dog suddenly pointed at something in the field at +his feet, and then gave chase, yelping like a mad thing. It followed +its imaginary quarry to the borders of the wood, and then went in—a +thing he had never known it to do before. The moment it crossed the +edge—it is darkish in there even in daylight—it began fighting in the +most frenzied and terrific fashion. It made him afraid to interfere, he +said. And at last, when the dog came out, hanging its tail down and +panting, he found something like white hair stuck to its jaws, and +brought it to show me. I tell you these details because—” + +“They are important, believe me,” the doctor stopped him. “And you have +it still, this hair?” he asked. + +“It disappeared in the oddest way,” the Colonel explained. “It was +curious looking stuff, something like asbestos, and I sent it to be +analysed by the local chemist. But either the man got wind of its +origin, or else he didn’t like the look of it for some reason, because +he returned it to me and said it was neither animal, vegetable, nor +mineral, so far as he could make out, and he didn’t wish to have +anything to do with it. I put it away in paper, but a week later, on +opening the package—it was gone! Oh, the stories are simply endless. I +could tell you hundreds all on the same lines.” + +“And personal experiences of your own, Colonel Wragge?” asked John +Silence earnestly, his manner showing the greatest possible interest +and sympathy. + +The soldier gave an almost imperceptible start. He looked distinctly +uncomfortable. + +“Nothing, I think,” he said slowly, “nothing—er—I should like to rely +on. I mean nothing I have the right to speak of, perhaps—yet.” + +His mouth closed with a snap. Dr. Silence, after waiting a little to +see if he would add to his reply, did not seek to press him on the +point. + +“Well,” he resumed presently, and as though he would speak +contemptuously, yet dared not, “this sort of thing has gone on at +intervals ever since. It spreads like wildfire, of course, mysterious +chatter of this kind, and people began trespassing all over the estate, +coming to see the wood, and making themselves a general nuisance. +Notices of man-traps and spring-guns only seemed to increase their +persistence; and—think of it,” he snorted, “some local Research Society +actually wrote and asked permission for one of their members to spend a +night in the wood! Bolder fools, who didn’t write for leave, came and +took away bits of bark from the trees and gave them to clairvoyants, +who invented in their turn a further batch of tales. There was simply +no end to it all.” + +“Most distressing and annoying, I can well believe,” interposed the +doctor. + +“Then suddenly, the phenomena ceased as mysteriously as they had begun, +and the interest flagged. The tales stopped. People got interested in +something else. It all seemed to die out. This was last July. I can +tell you exactly, for I’ve kept a diary more or less of what happened.” + +“Ah!” + +“But now, quite recently, within the past three weeks, it has all +revived again with a rush—with a kind of furious attack, so to speak. +It has really become unbearable. You may imagine what it means, and the +general state of affairs, when I say that the possibility of leaving +has occurred to me.” + +“Incendiarism?” suggested Dr. Silence, half under his breath, but not +so low that Colonel Wragge did not hear him. + +“By Jove, sir, you take the very words out of my mouth!” exclaimed the +astonished man, glancing from the doctor to me and from me to the +doctor, and rattling the money in his pocket as though some explanation +of my friend’s divining powers were to be found that way. + +“It’s only that you are thinking very vividly,” the doctor said +quietly, “and your thoughts form pictures in my mind before you utter +them. It’s merely a little elementary thought-reading.” + +His intention, I saw, was not to perplex the good man, but to impress +him with his powers so as to ensure obedience later. + +“Good Lord! I had no idea—” He did not finish the sentence, and dived +again abruptly into his narrative. + +“I did not see anything myself, I must admit, but the stories of +independent eye-witnesses were to the effect that lines of light, like +streams of thin fire, moved through the wood and sometimes were seen to +shoot out precisely as flames might shoot out—in the direction of this +house. There,” he explained, in a louder voice that made me jump, +pointing with a thick finger to the map, “where the westerly fringe of +the plantation comes up to the end of the lower lawn at the back of the +house—where it links on to those dark patches, which are laurel +shrubberies, running right up to the back premises—that’s where these +lights were seen. They passed from the wood to the shrubberies, and in +this way reached the house itself. Like silent rockets, one man +described them, rapid as lightning and exceedingly bright.” + +“And this evidence you spoke of?” + +“They actually reached the sides of the house. They’ve left a mark of +scorching on the walls—the walls of the laundry building at the other +end. You shall see ’em tomorrow.” He pointed to the map to indicate the +spot, and then straightened himself and glared about the room as though +he had said something no one could believe and expected contradiction. + +“Scorched—just as the faces were,” the doctor murmured, looking +significantly at me. + +“Scorched—yes,” repeated the Colonel, failing to catch the rest of the +sentence in his excitement. + +There was a prolonged silence in the room, in which I heard the +gurgling of the oil in the lamp and the click of the coals and the +heavy breathing of our host. The most unwelcome sensations were +creeping about my spine, and I wondered whether my companion would +scorn me utterly if I asked to sleep on the sofa in his room. It was +eleven o’clock, I saw by the clock on the mantelpiece. We had crossed +the dividing line and were now well in the movement of the adventure. +The fight between my interest and my dread became acute. But, even if +turning back had been possible, I think the interest would have easily +gained the day. + +“I have enemies, of course,” I heard the Colonel’s rough voice break +into the pause presently, “and have discharged a number of servants—” + +“It’s not that,” put in John Silence briefly. + +“You think not? In a sense I am glad, and yet—there are some things +that can be met and dealt with—” + +He left the sentence unfinished, and looked down at the floor with an +expression of grim severity that betrayed a momentary glimpse of +character. This fighting man loathed and abhorred the thought of an +enemy he could not see and come to grips with. Presently he moved over +and sat down in the chair between us. Something like a sigh escaped +him. Dr. Silence said nothing. + +“My sister, of course, is kept in ignorance, as far as possible, of all +this,” he said disconnectedly, and as if talking to himself. “But even +if she knew she would find matter-of-fact explanations. I only wish I +could. I’m sure they exist.” + +There came then an interval in the conversation that was very +significant. It did not seem a real pause, or the silence real silence, +for both men continued to think so rapidly and strongly that one almost +imagined their thoughts clothed themselves in words in the air of the +room. I was more than a little keyed up with the strange excitement of +all I had heard, but what stimulated my nerves more than anything else +was the obvious fact that the doctor was clearly upon the trail of +discovery. In his mind at that moment, I believe, he had already solved +the nature of this perplexing psychical problem. His face was like a +mask, and he employed the absolute minimum of gesture and words. All +his energies were directed inwards, and by those incalculable methods +and processes he had mastered with such infinite patience and study, I +felt sure he was already in touch with the forces behind these singular +phenomena and laying his deep plans for bringing them into the open, +and then effectively dealing with them. + +Colonel Wragge meanwhile grew more and more fidgety. From time to time +he turned towards my companion, as though about to speak, yet always +changing his mind at the last moment. Once he went over and opened the +door suddenly, apparently to see if any one were listening at the +keyhole, for he disappeared a moment between the two doors, and I then +heard him open the outer one. He stood there for some seconds and made +a noise as though he were sniffing the air like a dog. Then he closed +both doors cautiously and came back to the fireplace. A strange +excitement seemed growing upon him. Evidently he was trying to make up +his mind to say something that he found it difficult to say. And John +Silence, as I rightly judged, was waiting patiently for him to choose +his own opportunity and his own way of saying it. At last he turned and +faced us, squaring his great shoulders, and stiffening perceptibly. + +Dr. Silence looked up sympathetically. + +“Your own experiences help me most,” he observed quietly. + +“The fact is,” the Colonel said, speaking very low, “this past week +there have been outbreaks of fire in the house itself. Three separate +outbreaks—and all—in my sister’s room.” + +“Yes,” the doctor said, as if this was just what he had expected to +hear. + +“Utterly unaccountable—all of them,” added the other, and then sat +down. I began to understand something of the reason of his excitement. +He was realising at last that the “natural” explanation he had held to +all along was becoming impossible, and he hated it. It made him angry. + +“Fortunately,” he went on, “she was out each time and does not know. +But I have made her sleep now in a room on the ground floor.” + +“A wise precaution,” the doctor said simply. He asked one or two +questions. The fires had started in the curtains—once by the window and +once by the bed. The third time smoke had been discovered by the maid +coming from the cupboard, and it was found that Miss Wragge’s clothes +hanging on the hooks were smouldering. The doctor listened attentively, +but made no comment. + +“And now can you tell me,” he said presently, “what your own feeling +about it is—your general impression?” + +“It sounds foolish to say so,” replied the soldier, after a moment’s +hesitation, “but I feel exactly as I have often felt on active service +in my Indian campaigns: just as if the house and all in it were in a +state of siege; as though a concealed enemy were encamped about us—in +ambush somewhere.” He uttered a soft nervous laugh. “As if the next +sign of smoke would precipitate a panic—a dreadful panic.” + +The picture came before me of the night shadowing the house, and the +twisted pine trees he had described crowding about it, concealing some +powerful enemy; and, glancing at the resolute face and figure of the +old soldier, forced at length to his confession, I understood something +of all he had been through before he sought the assistance of John +Silence. + +“And tomorrow, unless I am mistaken, is full moon,” said the doctor +suddenly, watching the other’s face for the effect of his apparently +careless words. + +Colonel Wragge gave an uncontrollable start, and his face for the first +time showed unmistakable pallor. + +“What in the world—?” he began, his lip quivering. + +“Only that I am beginning to see light in this extraordinary affair,” +returned the other calmly, “and, if my theory is correct, each month +when the moon is at the full should witness an increase in the activity +of the phenomena.” + +“I don’t see the connection,” Colonel Wragge answered almost savagely, +“but I am bound to say my diary bears you out.” He wore the most +puzzled expression I have ever seen upon an honest face, but he +abhorred this additional corroboration of an explanation that perplexed +him. + +“I confess,” he repeated, “I cannot see the connection.” + +“Why should you?” said the doctor, with his first laugh that evening. +He got up and hung the map upon the wall again. “But I do—because these +things are my special study—and let me add that I have yet to come +across a problem that is not natural, and has not a natural +explanation. It’s merely a question of how much one knows—and admits.” + +Colonel Wragge eyed him with a new and curious respect in his face. But +his feelings were soothed. Moreover, the doctor’s laugh and change of +manner came as a relief to all, and broke the spell of grave suspense +that had held us so long. We all rose and stretched our limbs, and took +little walks about the room. + +“I am glad, Dr. Silence, if you will allow me to say so, that you are +here,” he said simply, “very glad indeed. And now I fear I have kept +you both up very late,” with a glance to include me, “for you must be +tired, and ready for your beds. I have told you all there is to tell,” +he added, “and tomorrow you must feel perfectly free to take any steps +you think necessary.” + +The end was abrupt, yet natural, for there was nothing more to say, and +neither of these men talked for mere talking’s sake. + +Out in the cold and chilly hall he lit our candles and took us +upstairs. The house was at rest and still, every one asleep. We moved +softly. Through the windows on the stairs we saw the moonlight falling +across the lawn, throwing deep shadows. The nearer pine trees were just +visible in the distance, a wall of impenetrable blackness. + +Our host came for a moment to our rooms to see that we had everything. +He pointed to a coil of strong rope lying beside the window, fastened +to the wall by means of an iron ring. Evidently it had been recently +put in. + +“I don’t think we shall need it,” Dr. Silence said, with a smile. + +“I trust not,” replied our host gravely. “I sleep quite close to you +across the landing,” he whispered, pointing to his door, “and if you—if +you want anything in the night you will know where to find me.” + +He wished us pleasant dreams and disappeared down the passage into his +room, shading the candle with his big muscular hand from the draughts. + +John Silence stopped me a moment before I went. + +“You know what it is?” I asked, with an excitement that even overcame +my weariness. + +“Yes,” he said, “I’m almost sure. And you?” + +“Not the smallest notion.” + +He looked disappointed, but not half as disappointed as I felt. + +“Egypt,” he whispered, “Egypt!” + +II + +Nothing happened to disturb me in the night—nothing, that is, except a +nightmare in which Colonel Wragge chased me amid thin streaks of fire, +and his sister always prevented my escape by suddenly rising up out of +the ground in her chair—dead. The deep baying of dogs woke me once, +just before the dawn, it must have been, for I saw the window frame +against the sky; there was a flash of lightning, too, I thought, as I +turned over in bed. And it was warm, for October oppressively warm. + +It was after eleven o’clock when our host suggested going out with the +guns, these, we understood, being a somewhat thin disguise for our true +purpose. Personally, I was glad to be in the open air, for the +atmosphere of the house was heavy with presentiment. The sense of +impending disaster hung over all. Fear stalked the passages, and lurked +in the corners of every room. It was a house haunted, but really +haunted; not by some vague shadow of the dead, but by a definite though +incalculable influence that was actively alive, and dangerous. At the +least smell of smoke the entire household quivered. An odour of +burning, I was convinced, would paralyse all the inmates. For the +servants, though professedly ignorant by the master’s unspoken orders, +yet shared the common dread; and the hideous uncertainty, joined with +this display of so spiteful and calculated a spirit of malignity, +provided a kind of black doom that draped not only the walls, but also +the minds of the people living within them. + +Only the bright and cheerful vision of old Miss Wragge being pushed +about the house in her noiseless chair, chatting and nodding briskly to +every one she met, prevented us from giving way entirely to the +depression which governed the majority. The sight of her was like a +gleam of sunshine through the depths of some ill-omened wood, and just +as we went out I saw her being wheeled along by her attendant into the +sunshine of the back lawn, and caught her cheery smile as she turned +her head and wished us good sport. + +The morning was October at its best. Sunshine glistened on the +dew-drenched grass and on leaves turned golden-red. The dainty +messengers of coming hoar-frost were already in the air, a search for +permanent winter quarters. From the wide moors that everywhere swept up +against the sky, like a purple sea splashed by the occasional grey of +rocky clefts, there stole down the cool and perfumed wind of the west. +And the keen taste of the sea ran through all like a master-flavour, +borne over the spaces perhaps by the seagulls that cried and circled +high in the air. + +But our host took little interest in this sparkling beauty, and had no +thought of showing off the scenery of his property. His mind was +otherwise intent, and, for that matter, so were our own. + +“Those bleak moors and hills stretch unbroken for hours,” he said, with +a sweep of the hand; “and over there, some four miles,” pointing in +another direction, “lies S—— Bay, a long, swampy inlet of the sea, +haunted by myriads of seabirds. On the other side of the house are the +plantations and pine-woods. I thought we would get the dogs and go +first to the Twelve Acre Wood I told you about last night. It’s quite +near.” + +We found the dogs in the stable, and I recalled the deep baying of the +night when a fine bloodhound and two great Danes leaped out to greet +us. Singular companions for guns, I thought to myself, as we struck out +across the fields and the great creatures bounded and ran beside us, +nose to ground. + +The conversation was scanty. John Silence’s grave face did not +encourage talk. He wore the expression I knew well—that look of earnest +solicitude which meant that his whole being was deeply absorbed and +preoccupied. Frightened, I had never seen him, but anxious often—it +always moved me to witness it—and he was anxious now. + +“On the way back you shall see the laundry building,” Colonel Wragge +observed shortly, for he, too, found little to say. “We shall attract +less attention then.” + +Yet not all the crisp beauty of the morning seemed able to dispel the +feelings of uneasy dread that gathered increasingly about our minds as +we went. + +In a very few minutes a clump of pine trees concealed the house from +view, and we found ourselves on the outskirts of a densely grown +plantation of conifers. Colonel Wragge stopped abruptly, and, producing +a map from his pocket, explained once more very briefly its position +with regard to the house. He showed how it ran up almost to the walls +of the laundry building—though at the moment beyond our actual view—and +pointed to the windows of his sister’s bedroom where the fires had +been. The room, now empty, looked straight on to the wood. Then, +glancing nervously about him, and calling the dogs to heel, he proposed +that we should enter the plantation and make as thorough examination of +it as we thought worth while. The dogs, he added, might perhaps be +persuaded to accompany us a little way—and he pointed to where they +cowered at his feet—but he doubted it. “Neither voice nor whip will get +them very far, I’m afraid,” he said. “I know by experience.” + +“If you have no objection,” replied Dr. Silence, with decision, and +speaking almost for the first time, “we will make our examination +alone—Mr. Hubbard and myself. It will be best so.” + +His tone was absolutely final, and the Colonel acquiesced so politely +that even a less intuitive man than myself must have seen that he was +genuinely relieved. + +“You doubtless have good reasons,” he said. + +“Merely that I wish to obtain my impressions uncoloured. This delicate +clue I am working on might be so easily blurred by the thought-currents +of another mind with strongly preconceived ideas.” + +“Perfectly. I understand,” rejoined the soldier, though with an +expression of countenance that plainly contradicted his words. “Then I +will wait here with the dogs; and we’ll have a look at the laundry on +our way home.” + +I turned once to look back as we clambered over the low stone wall +built by the late owner, and saw his straight, soldierly figure +standing in the sunlit field watching us with a curiously intent look +on his face. There was something to me incongruous, yet distinctly +pathetic, in the man’s efforts to meet all far-fetched explanations of +the mystery with contempt, and at the same time in his stolid, +unswerving investigation of it all. He nodded at me and made a gesture +of farewell with his hand. That picture of him, standing in the +sunshine with his big dogs, steadily watching us, remains with me to +this day. + +Dr. Silence led the way in among the twisted trunks, planted closely +together in serried ranks, and I followed sharp at his heels. The +moment we were out of sight he turned and put down his gun against the +roots of a big tree, and I did likewise. + +“We shall hardly want these cumbersome weapons of murder,” he observed, +with a passing smile. + +“You are sure of your clue, then?” I asked at once, bursting with +curiosity, yet fearing to betray it lest he should think me unworthy. +His own methods were so absolutely simple and untheatrical. + +“I am sure of my clue,” he answered gravely. “And I think we have come +just in time. You shall know in due course. For the present—be content +to follow and observe. And think, steadily. The support of your mind +will help me.” + +His voice had that quiet mastery in it which leads men to face death +with a sort of happiness and pride. I would have followed him anywhere +at that moment. At the same time his words conveyed a sense of dread +seriousness. I caught the thrill of his confidence; but also, in this +broad light of day, I felt the measure of alarm that lay behind. + +“You still have no strong impressions?” he asked. “Nothing happened in +the night, for instance? No vivid dreamings?” + +He looked closely for my answer, I was aware. + +“I slept almost an unbroken sleep. I was tremendously tired, you know, +and, but for the oppressive heat—” + +“Good! You still notice the heat, then,” he said to himself, rather +than expecting an answer. “And the lightning?” he added, “that +lightning out of a clear sky—that flashing—did you notice _that_?” + +I answered truly that I thought I had seen a flash during a moment of +wakefulness, and he then drew my attention to certain facts before +moving on. + +“You remember the sensation of warmth when you put the letter to your +forehead in the train; the heat generally in the house last evening, +and, as you now mention, in the night. You heard, too, the Colonel’s +stories about the appearances of fire in this wood and in the house +itself, and the way his brother and the gamekeeper came to their deaths +twenty years ago.” + +I nodded, wondering what in the world it all meant. + +“And you get no clue from these facts?” he asked, a trifle surprised. + +I searched every corner of my mind and imagination for some inkling of +his meaning, but was obliged to admit that I understood nothing so far. + +“Never mind, you will later. And now,” he added, “we will go over the +wood and see what we can find.” + +His words explained to me something of his method. We were to keep our +minds alert and report to each other the least fancy that crossed the +picture-gallery of our thoughts. Then, just as we started, he turned +again to me with a final warning. + +“And, for your safety,” he said earnestly, “imagine _now_—and for that +matter, imagine always until we leave this place—imagine with the +utmost keenness, that you are surrounded by a shell that protects you. +Picture yourself inside a protective envelope, and build it up with the +most intense imagination you can evoke. Pour the whole force of your +thought and will into it. Believe vividly all through this adventure +that such a shell, constructed of your thought, will and imagination, +surrounds you completely, and that nothing can pierce it to attack.” + +He spoke with dramatic conviction, gazing hard at me as though to +enforce his meaning, and then moved forward and began to pick his way +over the rough, tussocky ground into the wood. And meanwhile, knowing +the efficacy of his prescription, I adopted it to the best of my +ability. + +The trees at once closed about us like the night. Their branches met +overhead in a continuous tangle, their stems crept closer and closer, +the brambly undergrowth thickened and multiplied. We tore our trousers, +scratched our hands, and our eyes filled with fine dust that made it +most difficult to avoid the clinging, prickly network of branches and +creepers. Coarse white grass that caught our feet like string grew here +and there in patches. It crowned the lumps of peaty growth that stuck +up like human heads, fantastically dressed, thrusting up at us out of +the ground with crests of dead hair. We stumbled and floundered among +them. It was hard going, and I could well conceive it impossible to +find a way at all in the night-time. We jumped, when possible, from +tussock to tussock, and it seemed as though we were springing among +heads on a battlefield, and that this dead white grass concealed eyes +that turned to stare as we passed. + +Here and there the sunlight shot in with vivid spots of white light, +dazzling the sight, but only making the surrounding gloom deeper by +contrast. And on two occasions we passed dark circular places in the +grass where fires had eaten their mark and left a ring of ashes. Dr. +Silence pointed to them, but without comment and without pausing, and +the sight of them woke in me a singular realisation of the dread that +lay so far only just out of sight in this adventure. + +It was exhausting work, and heavy going. We kept close together. The +warmth, too, was extraordinary. Yet it did not seem the warmth of the +body due to violent exertion, but rather an inner heat of the mind that +laid glowing hands of fire upon the heart and set the brain in a kind +of steady blaze. When my companion found himself too far in advance, he +waited for me to come up. The place had evidently been untouched by +hand of man, keeper, forester or sportsman, for many a year; and my +thoughts, as we advanced painfully, were not unlike the state of the +wood itself—dark, confused, full of a haunting wonder and the shadow of +fear. + +By this time all signs of the open field behind us were hid. No single +gleam penetrated. We might have been groping in the heart of some +primeval forest. Then, suddenly, the brambles and tussocks and +stringlike grass came to an end; the trees opened out; and the ground +began to slope upwards towards a large central mound. We had reached +the middle of the plantation, and before us stood the broken Druid +stones our host had mentioned. We walked easily up the little hill, +between the sparser stems, and, resting upon one of the ivy-covered +boulders, looked round upon a comparatively open space, as large, +perhaps, as a small London Square. + +Thinking of the ceremonies and sacrifices this rough circle of +prehistoric monoliths might have witnessed, I looked up into my +companion’s face with an unspoken question. But he read my thought and +shook his head. + +“Our mystery has nothing to do with these dead symbols,” he said, “but +with something perhaps even more ancient, and of another country +altogether.” + +“Egypt?” I said half under my breath, hopelessly puzzled, but recalling +his words in my bedroom. + +He nodded. Mentally I still floundered, but he seemed intensely +preoccupied and it was no time for asking questions; so while his words +circled unintelligibly in my mind I looked round at the scene before +me, glad of the opportunity to recover breath and some measure of +composure. But hardly had I time to notice the twisted and contorted +shapes of many of the pine trees close at hand when Dr. Silence leaned +over and touched me on the shoulder. He pointed down the slope. And the +look I saw in his eyes keyed up every nerve in my body to its utmost +pitch. + +A thin, almost imperceptible column of blue smoke was rising among the +trees some twenty yards away at the foot of the mound. It curled up and +up, and disappeared from sight among the tangled branches overhead. It +was scarcely thicker than the smoke from a small brand of burning wood. + +“Protect yourself! Imagine your shell strongly,” whispered the doctor +sharply, “and follow me closely.” + +He rose at once and moved swiftly down the slope towards the smoke, and +I followed, afraid to remain alone. I heard the soft crunching of our +steps on the pine needles. Over his shoulder I watched the thin blue +spiral, without once taking my eyes off it. I hardly know how to +describe the peculiar sense of vague horror inspired in me by the sight +of that streak of smoke pencilling its way upwards among the dark +trees. And the sensation of increasing heat as we approached was +phenomenal. It was like walking towards a glowing yet invisible fire. + +As we drew nearer his pace slackened. Then he stopped and pointed, and +I saw a small circle of burnt grass upon the ground. The tussocks were +blackened and smouldering, and from the centre rose this line of smoke, +pale, blue, steady. Then I noticed a movement of the atmosphere beside +us, as if the warm air were rising and the cooler air rushing in to +take its place: a little centre of wind in the stillness. Overhead the +boughs stirred and trembled where the smoke disappeared. Otherwise, not +a tree sighed, not a sound made itself heard. The wood was still as a +graveyard. A horrible idea came to me that the course of nature was +about to change without warning, had changed a little already, that the +sky would drop, or the surface of the earth crash inwards like a broken +bubble. Something, certainly, reached up to the citadel of my reason, +causing its throne to shake. + +John Silence moved forward again. I could not see his face, but his +attitude was plainly one of resolution, of muscles and mind ready for +vigorous action. We were within ten feet of the blackened circle when +the smoke of a sudden ceased to rise, and vanished. The tail of the +column disappeared in the air above, and at the same instant it seemed +to me that the sensation of heat passed from my face, and the motion of +the wind was gone. The calm spirit of the fresh October day resumed +command. + +Side by side we advanced and examined the place. The grass was +smouldering, the ground still hot. The circle of burned earth was a +foot to a foot and a half in diameter. It looked like an ordinary +picnic fireplace. I bent down cautiously to look, but in a second I +sprang back with an involuntary cry of alarm, for, as the doctor +stamped on the ashes to prevent them spreading, a sound of hissing rose +from the spot as though he had kicked a living creature. This hissing +was faintly audible in the air. It moved past us, away towards the +thicker portion of the wood in the direction of our field, and in a +second Dr. Silence had left the fire and started in pursuit. + +And then began the most extraordinary hunt of invisibility I can ever +conceive. + +He went fast even at the beginning, and, of course, it was perfectly +obvious that he was following something. To judge by the poise of his +head he kept his eyes steadily at a certain level—just above the height +of a man—and the consequence was he stumbled a good deal over the +roughness of the ground. The hissing sound had stopped. There was no +sound of any kind, and what he saw to follow was utterly beyond me. I +only know, that in mortal dread of being left behind, and with a biting +curiosity to see whatever there was to be seen, I followed as quickly +as I could, and even then barely succeeded in keeping up with him. + +And, as we went, the whole mad jumble of the Colonel’s stories ran +through my brain, touching a sense of frightened laughter that was only +held in check by the sight of this earnest, hurrying figure before me. +For John Silence at work inspired me with a kind of awe. He looked so +diminutive among these giant twisted trees, while yet I knew that his +purpose and his knowledge were so great, and even in hurry he was +dignified. The fancy that we were playing some queer, exaggerated game +together met the fact that we were two men dancing upon the brink of +some possible tragedy, and the mingling of the two emotions in my mind +was both grotesque and terrifying. + +He never turned in his mad chase, but pushed rapidly on, while I panted +after him like a figure in some unreasoning nightmare. And, as I ran, +it came upon me that he had been aware all the time, in his quiet, +internal way, of many things that he had kept for his own secret +consideration; he had been watching, waiting, planning from the very +moment we entered the shade of the wood. By some inner, concentrated +process of mind, dynamic if not actually magical, he had been in direct +contact with the source of the whole adventure, the very essence of the +real mystery. And now the forces were moving to a climax. Something was +about to happen, something important, something possibly dreadful. +Every nerve, every sense, every significant gesture of the plunging +figure before me proclaimed the fact just as surely as the skies, the +winds, and the face of the earth tell the birds the time to migrate and +warn the animals that danger lurks and they must move. + +In a few moments we reached the foot of the mound and entered the +tangled undergrowth that lay between us and the sunlight of the field. +Here the difficulties of fast travelling increased a hundredfold. There +were brambles to dodge, low boughs to dive under, and countless tree +trunks closing up to make a direct path impossible. Yet Dr. Silence +never seemed to falter or hesitate. He went, diving, jumping, dodging, +ducking, but ever in the same main direction, following a clean trail. +Twice I tripped and fell, and both times, when I picked myself up +again, I saw him ahead of me, still forcing a way like a dog after its +quarry. And sometimes, like a dog, he stopped and pointed—human +pointing it was, psychic pointing, and each time he stopped to point I +heard that faint high hissing in the air beyond us. The instinct of an +infallible dowser possessed him, and he made no mistakes. + +At length, abruptly, I caught up with him, and found that we stood at +the edge of the shallow pond Colonel Wragge had mentioned in his +account the night before. It was long and narrow, filled with dark +brown water, in which the trees were dimly reflected. Not a ripple +stirred its surface. + +“Watch!” he cried out, as I came up. “It’s going to cross. It’s bound +to betray itself. The water is its natural enemy, and we shall see the +direction.” + +And, even as he spoke, a thin line like the track of a water-spider, +shot swiftly across the shiny surface; there was a ghost of steam in +the air above; and immediately I became aware of an odour of burning. + +Dr. Silence turned and shot a glance at me that made me think of +lightning. I began to shake all over. + +“Quick!” he cried with excitement, “to the trail again! We must run +around. It’s going to the house!” + +The alarm in his voice quite terrified me. Without a false step I +dashed round the slippery banks and dived again at his heels into the +sea of bushes and tree trunks. We were now in the thick of the very +dense belt that ran around the outer edge of the plantation, and the +field was near; yet so dark was the tangle that it was some time before +the first shafts of white sunlight became visible. The doctor now ran +in zigzags. He was following something that dodged and doubled quite +wonderfully, yet had begun, I fancied, to move more slowly than before. + +“Quick!” he cried. “In the light we shall lose it!” + +I still saw nothing, heard nothing, caught no suggestion of a trail; +yet this man, guided by some interior divining that seemed infallible, +made no false turns, though how he failed to crash headlong into the +trees has remained a mystery to me ever since. And then, with a sudden +rush, we found ourselves on the skirts of the wood with the open field +lying in bright sunshine before our eyes. + +“Too late!” I heard him cry, a note of anguish in his voice. “It’s +out—and, by God, it’s making for the house!” + +I saw the Colonel standing in the field with his dogs where we had left +him. He was bending double, peering into the wood where he heard us +running, and he straightened up like a bent whip released. John Silence +dashed passed, calling him to follow. + +“We shall lose the trail in the light,” I heard him cry as he ran. “But +quick! We may yet get there in time!” + +That wild rush across the open field, with the dogs at our heels, +leaping and barking, and the elderly Colonel behind us running as +though for his life, shall I ever forget it? Though I had only vague +ideas of the meaning of it all, I put my best foot forward, and, being +the youngest of the three, I reached the house an easy first. I drew +up, panting, and turned to wait for the others. But, as I turned, +something moving a little distance away caught my eye, and in that +moment I swear I experienced the most overwhelming and singular shock +of surprise and terror I have ever known, or can conceive as possible. + +For the front door was open, and the waist of the house being narrow, I +could see through the hall into the dining-room beyond, and so out on +to the back lawn, and there I saw no less a sight than the figure of +Miss Wragge—running. Even at that distance it was plain that she had +seen me, and was coming fast towards me, running with the frantic gait +of a terror-stricken woman. She had recovered the use of her legs. + +Her face was a livid grey, as of death itself, but the general +expression was one of laughter, for her mouth was gaping, and her eyes, +always bright, shone with the light of a wild merriment that seemed the +merriment of a child, yet was singularly ghastly. And that very second, +as she fled past me into her brother’s arms behind, I smelt again most +unmistakably the odour of burning, and to this day the smell of smoke +and fire can come very near to turning me sick with the memory of what +I had seen. + +Fast on her heels, too, came the terrified attendant, more mistress of +herself, and able to speak—which the old lady could not do—but with a +face almost, if not quite, as fearful. + +“We were down by the bushes in the sun,”—she gasped and screamed in +reply to Colonel Wragge’s distracted questionings,—“I was wheeling the +chair as usual when she shrieked and leaped—I don’t know exactly—I was +too frightened to see—Oh, my God! she jumped clean out of the +chair—_and ran_! There was a blast of hot air from the wood, and she +hid her face and jumped. She didn’t make a sound—she didn’t cry out, or +make a sound. She just ran.” + +But the nightmare horror of it all reached the breaking point a few +minutes later, and while I was still standing in the hall temporarily +bereft of speech and movement; for while the doctor, the Colonel and +the attendant were half-way up the staircase, helping the fainting +woman to the privacy of her room, and all in a confused group of dark +figures, there sounded a voice behind me, and I turned to see the +butler, his face dripping with perspiration, his eyes starting out of +his head. + +“The laundry’s on fire!” he cried; “the laundry building’s a-caught!” + +I remember his odd expression “a-caught,” and wanting to laugh, but +finding my face rigid and inflexible. + +“The devil’s about again, s’help me Gawd!” he cried, in a voice thin +with terror, running about in circles. + +And then the group on the stairs scattered as at the sound of a shot, +and the Colonel and Dr. Silence came down three steps at a time, +leaving the afflicted Miss Wragge to the care of her single attendant. + +We were out across the front lawn in a moment and round the corner of +the house, the Colonel leading, Silence and I at his heels, and the +portly butler puffing some distance in the rear, getting more and more +mixed in his addresses to God and the devil; and the moment we passed +the stables and came into view of the laundry building, we saw a +wicked-looking volume of smoke pouring out of the narrow windows, and +the frightened women-servants and grooms running hither and thither, +calling aloud as they ran. + +The arrival of the master restored order instantly, and this retired +soldier, poor thinker perhaps, but capable man of action, had the +matter in hand from the start. He issued orders like a martinet, and, +almost before I could realise it, there were streaming buckets on the +scene and a line of men and women formed between the building and the +stable pump. + +“Inside,” I heard John Silence cry, and the Colonel followed him +through the door, while I was just quick enough at their heels to hear +him add, “the smoke’s the worst part of it. There’s no fire yet, I +think.” + +And, true enough, there was no fire. The interior was thick with smoke, +but it speedily cleared and not a single bucket was used upon the floor +or walls. The air was stifling, the heat fearful. + +“There’s precious little to burn in here; it’s all stone,” the Colonel +exclaimed, coughing. But the doctor was pointing to the wooden covers +of the great cauldron in which the clothes were washed, and we saw that +these were smouldering and charred. And when we sprinkled half a bucket +of water on them the surrounding bricks hissed and fizzed and sent up +clouds of steam. Through the open door and windows this passed out with +the rest of the smoke, and we three stood there on the brick floor +staring at the spot and wondering, each in our own fashion, how in the +name of natural law the place could have caught fire or smoked at all. +And each was silent—myself from sheer incapacity and befuddlement, the +Colonel from the quiet pluck that faces all things yet speaks little, +and John Silence from the intense mental grappling with this latest +manifestation of a profound problem that called for concentration of +thought rather than for any words. + +There was really nothing to say. The facts were indisputable. + +Colonel Wragge was the first to utter. + +“My sister,” he said briefly, and moved off. In the yard I heard him +sending the frightened servants about their business in an excellently +matter-of-fact voice, scolding some one roundly for making such a big +fire and letting the flues get over-heated, and paying no heed to the +stammering reply that no fire had been lit there for several days. Then +he dispatched a groom on horseback for the local doctor. + +Then Dr. Silence turned and looked at me. The absolute control he +possessed, not only over the outward expression of emotion by gesture, +change of colour, light in the eyes, and so forth, but also, as I well +knew, over its very birth in his heart, the masklike face of the dead +he could assume at will, made it extremely difficult to know at any +given moment what was at work in his inner consciousness. But now, when +he turned and looked at me, there was no sphinx-expression there, but +rather the keen triumphant face of a man who had solved a dangerous and +complicated problem, and saw his way to a clean victory. + +“_Now_ do you guess?” he asked quietly, as though it were the simplest +matter in the world, and ignorance were impossible. + +I could only stare stupidly and remain silent. He glanced down at the +charred cauldron-lids, and traced a figure in the air with his finger. +But I was too excited, or too mortified, or still too dazed, perhaps, +to see what it was he outlined, or what it was he meant to convey. I +could only go on staring and shaking my puzzled head. + +“A fire-elemental,” he cried, “a fire-elemental of the most powerful +and malignant kind—” + +“A what?” thundered the voice of Colonel Wragge behind us, having +returned suddenly and overheard. + +“It’s a fire-elemental,” repeated Dr. Silence more calmly, but with a +note of triumph in his voice he could not keep out, “and a +fire-elemental enraged.” + +The light began to dawn in my mind at last. But the Colonel—who had +never heard the term before, and was besides feeling considerably +worked up for a plain man with all this mystery he knew not how to +grapple with—the Colonel stood, with the most dumfoundered look ever +seen on a human countenance, and continued to roar, and stammer, and +stare. + +“And why,” he began, savage with the desire to find something visible +he could fight—“why, in the name of all the blazes—?” and then stopped +as John Silence moved up and took his arm. + +“There, my dear Colonel Wragge,” he said gently, “you touch the heart +of the whole thing. You ask ‘Why.’ That is precisely our problem.” He +held the soldier’s eyes firmly with his own. “And that, too, I think, +we shall soon know. Come and let us talk over a plan of action—that +room with the double doors, perhaps.” + +The word “action” calmed him a little, and he led the way, without +further speech, back into the house, and down the long stone passage to +the room where we had heard his stories on the night of our arrival. I +understood from the doctor’s glance that my presence would not make the +interview easier for our host, and I went upstairs to my own +room—shaking. + +But in the solitude of my room the vivid memories of the last hour +revived so mercilessly that I began to feel I should never in my whole +life lose the dreadful picture of Miss Wragge running—that dreadful +human climax after all the non-human mystery in the wood—and I was not +sorry when a servant knocked at my door and said that Colonel Wragge +would be glad if I would join them in the little smoking-room. + +“I think it is better you should be present,” was all Colonel Wragge +said as I entered the room. I took the chair with my back to the +window. There was still an hour before lunch, though I imagine that the +usual divisions of the day hardly found a place in the thoughts of any +one of us. + +The atmosphere of the room was what I might call electric. The Colonel +was positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingering +an unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused and +ready for action. He hated this mystery. It was poisonous to his +nature, and he longed to meet something face to face—something he could +gauge and fight. Dr. Silence, I noticed at once, was sitting before the +map of the estate which was spread upon a table. I knew by his +expression the state of his mind. He was in the thick of it all, knew +it, delighted in it, and was working at high pressure. He recognised my +presence with a lifted eyelid, and the flash of the eye, contrasted +with his stillness and composure, told me volumes. + +“I was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot in +all this business,” he said without looking up, “when he asked that you +should join us so that we can all work together.” And, while signifying +my assent, I caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calm +speech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so +charged with the strange, virile personality behind it and that seemed +to inspire us with his own confidence as by a process of radiation. + +“Mr. Hubbard,” he went on gravely, turning to the soldier, “knows +something of my methods, and in more than one—er—interesting situation +has proved of assistance. What we want now”—and here he suddenly got up +and took his place on the mat beside the Colonel, and looked hard at +him—“is men who have self-control, who are sure of themselves, whose +minds at the critical moment will emit positive forces, instead of the +wavering and uncertain currents due to negative feelings—due, for +instance, to fear.” + +He looked at us each in turn. Colonel Wragge moved his feet farther +apart, and squared his shoulders; and I felt guilty but said nothing, +conscious that my latent store of courage was being deliberately hauled +to the front. He was winding me up like a clock. + +“So that, in what is yet to come,” continued our leader, “each of us +will contribute his share of power, and ensure success for my plan.” + +“I’m not afraid of anything I can _see_,” said the Colonel bluntly. + +“I’m ready,” I heard myself say, as it were automatically, “for +anything,” and then added, feeling the declaration was lamely +insufficient, “and everything.” + +Dr. Silence left the mat and began walking to and fro about the room, +both hands plunged deep into the pockets of his shooting-jacket. +Tremendous vitality streamed from him. I never took my eyes off the +small, moving figure; small yes,—and yet somehow making me think of a +giant plotting the destruction of worlds. And his manner was gentle, as +always, soothing almost, and his words uttered quietly without emphasis +or emotion. Most of what he said was addressed, though not too +obviously, to the Colonel. + +“The violence of this sudden attack,” he said softly, pacing to and fro +beneath the bookcase at the end of the room, “is due, of course, partly +to the fact that tonight the moon is at the full”—here he glanced at me +for a moment—“and partly to the fact that we have all been so +deliberately concentrating upon the matter. Our thinking, our +investigation, has stirred it into unusual activity. I mean that the +intelligent force behind these manifestations has realised that some +one is busied about its destruction. And it is now on the defensive: +more, it is aggressive.” + +“But ‘it’—what is ‘it’?” began the soldier, fuming. “What, in the name +of all that’s dreadful, _is_ a fire-elemental?” + +“I cannot give you at this moment,” replied Dr. Silence, turning to +him, but undisturbed by the interruption, “a lecture on the nature and +history of magic, but can only say that an Elemental is the active +force behind the elements,—whether earth, air, water, _or fire_,—it is +impersonal in its essential nature, but can be focused, personified, +ensouled, so to say, by those who know how—by magicians, if you +will—for certain purposes of their own, much in the same way that steam +and electricity can be harnessed by the practical man of this century. + +“Alone, these blind elemental energies can accomplish little, but +governed and directed by the trained will of a powerful manipulator +they may become potent activities for good or evil. They are the basis +of all magic, and it is the motive behind them that constitutes the +magic ‘black’ or ‘white’; they can be the vehicles of curses or of +blessings, for a curse is nothing more than the thought of a violent +will perpetuated. And in such cases—cases like this—the conscious, +directing will of the mind that is using the elemental stands always +behind the phenomena—” + +“You think that my brother—!” broke in the Colonel, aghast. + +“Has nothing whatever to do with it—directly. The fire-elemental that +has here been tormenting you and your household was sent upon its +mission long before you, or your family, or your ancestors, or even the +nation you belong to—unless I am much mistaken—was even in existence. +We will come to that a little later; after the experiment I propose to +make we shall be more positive. At present I can only say we have to +deal now, not only with the phenomenon of Attacking Fire merely, but +with the vindictive and enraged intelligence that is directing it from +behind the scenes—vindictive and enraged,”—he repeated the words. + +“That explains—” began Colonel Wragge, seeking furiously for words he +could not find quickly enough. + +“Much,” said John Silence, with a gesture to restrain him. + +He stopped a moment in the middle of his walk, and a deep silence came +down over the little room. Through the windows the sunlight seemed less +bright, the long line of dark hills less friendly, making me think of a +vast wave towering to heaven and about to break and overwhelm us. +Something formidable had crept into the world about us. For, +undoubtedly, there was a disquieting thought, holding terror as well as +awe, in the picture his words conjured up: the conception of a human +will reaching its deathless hand, spiteful and destructive, down +through the ages, to strike the living and afflict the innocent. + +“But what is its object?” burst out the soldier, unable to restrain +himself longer in the silence. “Why does it come from that plantation? +And why should it attack us, or any one in particular?” Questions began +to pour from him in a stream. + +“All in good time,” the doctor answered quietly, having let him run on +for several minutes. “But I must first discover positively what, or +who, it is that directs this particular fire-elemental. And, to do +that, we must first”—he spoke with slow deliberation—“seek to +capture—to confine by visibility—to limit its sphere in a concrete +form.” + +“Good heavens almighty!” exclaimed the soldier, mixing his words in his +unfeigned surprise. + +“Quite so,” pursued the other calmly; “for in so doing I think we can +release it from the purpose that binds it, restore it to its normal +condition of latent fire, and also”—he lowered his voice perceptibly +—“also discover the face and form of the Being that ensouls it.” + +“The man behind the gun!” cried the Colonel, beginning to understand +something, and leaning forward so as not to miss a single syllable. + +“I mean that in the last resort, before it returns to the womb of +potential fire, it will probably assume the face and figure of its +Director, of the man of magical knowledge who originally bound it with +his incantations and sent it forth upon its mission of centuries.” + +The soldier sat down and gasped openly in his face, breathing hard; but +it was a very subdued voice that framed the question. + +“And how do you propose to make it visible? How capture and confine it? +What d’ye mean, Dr. John Silence?” + +“By furnishing it with the materials for a form. By the process of +materialisation simply. Once limited by dimensions, it will become +slow, heavy, visible. We can then dissipate it. Invisible fire, you +see, is dangerous and incalculable; locked up in a form we can perhaps +manage it. We must betray it—to its death.” + +“And this material?” we asked in the same breath, although I think I +had already guessed. + +“Not pleasant, but effective,” came the quiet reply; “the exhalations +of freshly spilled blood.” + +“Not human blood!” cried Colonel Wragge, starting up from his chair +with a voice like an explosion. I thought his eyes would start from +their sockets. + +The face of Dr. Silence relaxed in spite of himself, and his +spontaneous little laugh brought a welcome though momentary relief. + +“The days of human sacrifice, I hope, will never come again,” he +explained. “Animal blood will answer the purpose, and we can make the +experiment as pleasant as possible. Only, the blood must be freshly +spilled and strong with the vital emanations that attract this peculiar +class of elemental creature. Perhaps—perhaps if some pig on the estate +is ready for the market—” + +He turned to hide a smile; but the passing touch of comedy found no +echo in the mind of our host, who did not understand how to change +quickly from one emotion to another. Clearly he was debating many +things laboriously in his honest brain. But, in the end, the +earnestness and scientific disinterestedness of the doctor, whose +influence over him was already very great, won the day, and he +presently looked up more calmly, and observed shortly that he thought +perhaps the matter could be arranged. + +“There are other and pleasanter methods,” Dr. Silence went on to +explain, “but they require time and preparation, and things have gone +much too far, in my opinion, to admit of delay. And the process need +cause you no distress: we sit round the bowl and await results. Nothing +more. The emanations of blood—which, as Levi says, is the first +incarnation of the universal fluid—furnish the materials out of which +the creatures of discarnate life, spirits if you prefer, can fashion +themselves a temporary appearance. The process is old, and lies at the +root of all blood sacrifice. It was known to the priests of Baal, and +it is known to the modern ecstasy dancers who cut themselves to produce +objective phantoms who dance with them. And the least gifted +clairvoyant could tell you that the forms to be seen in the vicinity of +slaughter-houses, or hovering above the deserted battlefields, +are—well, simply beyond all description. I do not mean,” he added, +noticing the uneasy fidgeting of his host, “that anything in our +laundry-experiment need appear to terrify us, for this case seems a +comparatively simple one, and it is only the vindictive character of +the intelligence directing this fire-elemental that causes anxiety and +makes for personal danger.” + +“It is curious,” said the Colonel, with a sudden rush of words, drawing +a deep breath, and as though speaking of things distasteful to him, +“that during my years among the Hill Tribes of Northern India I came +across—personally came across—instances of the sacrifices of blood to +certain deities being stopped suddenly, and all manner of disasters +happening until they were resumed. Fires broke out in the huts, and +even on the clothes, of the natives—and—and I admit I have read, in the +course of my studies,”—he made a gesture toward his books and heavily +laden table,—“of the Yezidis of Syria evoking phantoms by means of +cutting their bodies with knives during their whirling dances—enormous +globes of fire which turned into monstrous and terrible forms—and I +remember an account somewhere, too, how the emaciated forms and pallid +countenances of the spectres, that appeared to the Emperor Julian, +claimed to be the true Immortals, and told him to renew the sacrifices +of blood ‘for the fumes of which, since the establishment of +Christianity, they had been pining’—that these were in reality the +phantoms evoked by the rites of blood.” + +Both Dr. Silence and myself listened in amazement, for this sudden +speech was so unexpected, and betrayed so much more knowledge than we +had either of us suspected in the old soldier. + +“Then perhaps you have read, too,” said the doctor, “how the Cosmic +Deities of savage races, elemental in their nature, have been kept +alive through many ages by these blood rites?” + +“No,” he answered; “that is new to me.” + +“In any case,” Dr. Silence added, “I am glad you are not wholly +unfamiliar with the subject, for you will now bring more sympathy, and +therefore more help, to our experiment. For, of course, in this case, +we only want the blood to tempt the creature from its lair and enclose +it in a form—” + +“I quite understand. And I only hesitated just now,” he went on, his +words coming much more slowly, as though he felt he had already said +too much, “because I wished to be quite sure it was no mere curiosity, +but an actual sense of necessity that dictated this horrible +experiment.” + +“It is your safety, and that of your household, and of your sister, +that is at stake,” replied the doctor. “Once I have _seen_, I hope to +discover whence this elemental comes, and what its real purpose is.” + +Colonel Wragge signified his assent with a bow. + +“And the moon will help us,” the other said, “for it will be full in +the early hours of the morning, and this kind of elemental-being is +always most active at the period of full moon. Hence, you see, the clue +furnished by your diary.” + +So it was finally settled. Colonel Wragge would provide the materials +for the experiment, and we were to meet at midnight. How he would +contrive at that hour—but that was his business. I only know we both +realised that he would keep his word, and whether a pig died at +midnight, or at noon, was after all perhaps only a question of the +sleep and personal comfort of the executioner. + +“Tonight, then, in the laundry,” said Dr. Silence finally, to clinch +the plan; “we three alone—and at midnight, when the household is asleep +and we shall be free from disturbance.” + +He exchanged significant glances with our host, who, at that moment, +was called away by the announcement that the family doctor had arrived, +and was ready to see him in his sister’s room. + +For the remainder of the afternoon John Silence disappeared. I had my +suspicions that he made a secret visit to the plantation and also to +the laundry building; but, in any case, we saw nothing of him, and he +kept strictly to himself. He was preparing for the night, I felt sure, +but the nature of his preparations I could only guess. There was +movement in his room, I heard, and an odour like incense hung about the +door, and knowing that he regarded rites as the vehicles of energies, +my guesses were probably not far wrong. + +Colonel Wragge, too, remained absent the greater part of the afternoon, +and, deeply afflicted, had scarcely left his sister’s bedside, but in +response to my inquiry when we met for a moment at tea-time, he told me +that although she had moments of attempted speech, her talk was quite +incoherent and hysterical, and she was still quite unable to explain +the nature of what she had seen. The doctor, he said, feared she had +recovered the use of her limbs, only to lose that of her memory, and +perhaps even of her mind. + +“Then the recovery of her legs, I trust, may be permanent, at any +rate,” I ventured, finding it difficult to know what sympathy to offer. +And he replied with a curious short laugh, “Oh yes; about that there +can be no doubt whatever.” + +And it was due merely to the chance of my overhearing a fragment of +conversation—unwillingly, of course—that a little further light was +thrown upon the state in which the old lady actually lay. For, as I +came out of my room, it happened that Colonel Wragge and the doctor +were going downstairs together, and their words floated up to my ears +before I could make my presence known by so much as a cough. + +“Then you must find a way,” the doctor was saying with decision; “for I +cannot insist too strongly upon that—and at all costs she must be kept +quiet. These attempts to go out must be prevented—if necessary, by +force. This desire to visit some wood or other she keeps talking about +is, of course, hysterical in nature. It cannot be permitted for a +moment.” + +“It shall not be permitted,” I heard the soldier reply, as they reached +the hall below. + +“It has impressed her mind for some reason—” the doctor went on, by way +evidently of soothing explanation, and then the distance made it +impossible for me to hear more. + +At dinner Dr. Silence was still absent, on the public plea of a +headache, and though food was sent to his room, I am inclined to +believe he did not touch it, but spent the entire time fasting. + +We retired early, desiring that the household should do likewise, and I +must confess that at ten o’clock when I bid my host a temporary +good-night, and sought my room to make what mental preparation I could, +I realised in no very pleasant fashion that it was a singular and +formidable assignation, this midnight meeting in the laundry building, +and that there were moments in every adventure of life when a wise man, +and one who knew his own limitations, owed it to his dignity to +withdraw discreetly. And, but for the character of our leader, I +probably should have then and there offered the best excuse I could +think of, and have allowed myself quietly to fall asleep and wait for +an exciting story in the morning of what had happened. But with a man +like John Silence, such a lapse was out of the question, and I sat +before my fire counting the minutes and doing everything I could think +of to fortify my resolution and fasten my will at the point where I +could be reasonably sure that my self-control would hold against all +attacks of men, devils, or elementals. + +III + +At a quarter before midnight, clad in a heavy ulster, and with +slippered feet, I crept cautiously from my room and stole down the +passage to the top of the stairs. Outside the doctor’s door I waited a +moment to listen. All was still; the house in utter darkness; no gleam +of light beneath any door; only, down the length of the corridor, from +the direction of the sick-room, came faint sounds of laughter and +incoherent talk that were not things to reassure a mind already half +a-tremble, and I made haste to reach the hall and let myself out +through the front door into the night. + +The air was keen and frosty, perfumed with night smells, and +exquisitely fresh; all the million candles of the sky were alight, and +a faint breeze rose and fell with far-away sighings in the tops of the +pine trees. My blood leaped for a moment in the spaciousness of the +night, for the splendid stars brought courage; but the next instant, as +I turned the corner of the house, moving stealthily down the gravel +drive, my spirits sank again ominously. For, yonder, over the funereal +plumes of the Twelve Acre Plantation, I saw the broken, yellow disc of +the half-moon just rising in the east, staring down like some vast +Being come to watch upon the progress of our doom. Seen through the +distorting vapours of the earth’s atmosphere, her face looked weirdly +unfamiliar, her usual expression of benignant vacancy somehow a-twist. +I slipped along by the shadows of the wall, keeping my eyes upon the +ground. + +The laundry-house, as already described, stood detached from the other +offices, with laurel shrubberies crowding thickly behind it, and the +kitchen-garden so close on the other side that the strong smells of +soil and growing things came across almost heavily. The shadows of the +haunted plantation, hugely lengthened by the rising moon behind them, +reached to the very walls and covered the stone tiles of the roof with +a dark pall. So keenly were my senses alert at this moment that I +believe I could fill a chapter with the endless small details of the +impression I received—shadows, odour, shapes, sounds—in the space of +the few seconds I stood and waited before the closed wooden door. + +Then I became aware of some one moving towards me through the +moonlight, and the figure of John Silence, without overcoat and +bareheaded, came quickly and without noise to join me. His eyes, I saw +at once, were wonderfully bright, and so marked was the shining pallor +of his face that I could hardly tell when he passed from the moonlight +into the shade. + +He passed without a word, beckoning me to follow, and then pushed the +door open, and went in. + +The chill air of the place met us like that of an underground vault; +and the brick floor and whitewashed walls, streaked with damp and +smoke, threw back the cold in our faces. Directly opposite gaped the +black throat of the huge open fireplace, the ashes of wood fires still +piled and scattered about the hearth, and on either side of the +projecting chimney-column were the deep recesses holding the big twin +cauldrons for boiling clothes. Upon the lids of these cauldrons stood +the two little oil lamps, shaded red, which gave all the light there +was, and immediately in front of the fireplace there was a small +circular table with three chairs set about it. Overhead, the narrow +slit windows, high up the walls, pointed to a dim network of wooden +rafters half lost among the shadows, and then came the dark vault of +the roof. Cheerless and unalluring, for all the red light, it certainly +was, reminding me of some unused conventicle, bare of pews or pulpit, +ugly and severe, and I was forcibly struck by the contrast between the +normal uses to which the place was ordinarily put, and the strange and +medieval purpose which had brought us under its roof tonight. + +Possibly an involuntary shudder ran over me, for my companion turned +with a confident look to reassure me, and he was so completely master +of himself that I at once absorbed from his abundance, and felt the +chinks of my failing courage beginning to close up. To meet his eye in +the presence of danger was like finding a mental railing that guided +and supported thought along the giddy edges of alarm. + +“I am quite ready,” I whispered, turning to listen for approaching +footsteps. + +He nodded, still keeping his eyes on mine. Our whispers sounded hollow +as they echoed overhead among the rafters. + +“I’m glad you are here,” he said. “Not all would have the courage. Keep +your thoughts controlled, and imagine the protective shell round +you—round your inner being.” + +“I’m all right,” I repeated, cursing my chattering teeth. + +He took my hand and shook it, and the contact seemed to shake into me +something of his supreme confidence. The eyes and hands of a strong man +can touch the soul. I think he guessed my thought, for a passing smile +flashed about the corners of his mouth. + +“You will feel more comfortable,” he said, in a low tone, “when the +chain is complete. The Colonel we can count on, of course. Remember, +though,” he added warningly, “he may perhaps become +controlled—possessed—when the thing comes, because he won’t know how to +resist. And to explain the business to such a man—!” He shrugged his +shoulders expressively. “But it will only be temporary, and I will see +that no harm comes to him.” + +He glanced round at the arrangements with approval. + +“Red light,” he said, indicating the shaded lamps, “has the lowest rate +of vibration. Materialisations are dissipated by strong light—won’t +form, or hold together—in rapid vibrations.” + +I was not sure that I approved altogether of this dim light, for in +complete darkness there is something protective—the knowledge that one +cannot be seen, probably—which a half-light destroys, but I remembered +the warning to keep my thoughts steady, and forbore to give them +expression. + +There was a step outside, and the figure of Colonel Wragge stood in the +doorway. Though entering on tiptoe, he made considerable noise and +clatter, for his free movements were impeded by the burden he carried, +and we saw a large yellowish bowl held out at arms’ length from his +body, the mouth covered with a white cloth. His face, I noted, was +rigidly composed. He, too, was master of himself. And, as I thought of +this old soldier moving through the long series of alarms, worn with +watching and wearied with assault, unenlightened yet undismayed, even +down to the dreadful shock of his sister’s terror, and still showing +the dogged pluck that persists in the face of defeat, I understood what +Dr. Silence meant when he described him as a man “to be counted on.” + +I think there was nothing beyond this rigidity of his stern features, +and a certain greyness of the complexion, to betray the turmoil of the +emotions that were doubtless going on within; and the quality of these +two men, each in his own way, so keyed me up that, by the time the door +was shut and we had exchanged silent greetings, all the latent courage +I possessed was well to the fore, and I felt as sure of myself as I +knew I ever could feel. + +Colonel Wragge set the bowl carefully in the centre of the table. + +“Midnight,” he said shortly, glancing at his watch, and we all three +moved to our chairs. + +There, in the middle of that cold and silent place, we sat, with the +vile bowl before us, and a thin, hardly perceptible steam rising +through the damp air from the surface of the white cloth and +disappearing upwards the moment it passed beyond the zone of red light +and entered the deep shadows thrown forward by the projecting wall of +chimney. + +The doctor had indicated our respective places, and I found myself +seated with my back to the door and opposite the black hearth. The +Colonel was on my left, and Dr. Silence on my right, both half facing +me, the latter more in shadow than the former. We thus divided the +little table into even sections, and sitting back in our chairs we +awaited events in silence. + +For something like an hour I do not think there was even the faintest +sound within those four walls and under the canopy of that vaulted +roof. Our slippers made no scratching on the gritty floor, and our +breathing was suppressed almost to nothing; even the rustle of our +clothes as we shifted from time to time upon our seats was inaudible. +Silence smothered us absolutely—the silence of night, of listening, the +silence of a haunted expectancy. The very gurgling of the lamps was too +soft to be heard, and if light itself had sound, I do not think we +should have noticed the silvery tread of the moonlight as it entered +the high narrow windows and threw upon the floor the slender traces of +its pallid footsteps. + +Colonel Wragge and the doctor, and myself too for that matter, sat thus +like figures of stone, without speech and without gesture. My eyes +passed in ceaseless journeys from the bowl to their faces, and from +their faces to the bowl. They might have been masks, however, for all +the signs of life they gave; and the light steaming from the horrid +contents beneath the white cloth had long ceased to be visible. + +Then presently, as the moon rose higher, the wind rose with it. It +sighed, like the lightest of passing wings, over the roof; it crept +most softly round the walls; it made the brick floor like ice beneath +our feet. With it I saw mentally the desolate moorland flowing like a +sea about the old house, the treeless expanse of lonely hills, the +nearer copses, sombre and mysterious in the night. The plantation, too, +in particular I saw, and imagined I heard the mournful whisperings that +must now be a-stirring among its tree-tops as the breeze played down +between the twisted stems. In the depth of the room behind us the +shafts of moonlight met and crossed in a growing network. + +It was after an hour of this wearing and unbroken attention, and I +should judge about one o’clock in the morning, when the baying of the +dogs in the stableyard first began, and I saw John Silence move +suddenly in his chair and sit up in an attitude of attention. Every +force in my being instantly leaped into the keenest vigilance. Colonel +Wragge moved too, though slowly, and without raising his eyes from the +table before him. + +The doctor stretched his arm out and took the white cloth from the +bowl. + +It was perhaps imagination that persuaded me the red glare of the lamps +grew fainter and the air over the table before us thickened. I had been +expecting something for so long that the movement of my companions, and +the lifting of the cloth, may easily have caused the momentary delusion +that something hovered in the air before my face, touching the skin of +my cheeks with a silken run. But it was certainly not a delusion that +the Colonel looked up at the same moment and glanced over his shoulder, +as though his eyes followed the movements of something to and fro about +the room, and that he then buttoned his overcoat more tightly about him +and his eyes sought my own face first, and then the doctor’s. And it +was no delusion that his face seemed somehow to have turned dark, +become spread as it were with a shadowy blackness. I saw his lips +tighten and his expression grow hard and stern, and it came to me then +with a rush that, of course, this man had told us but a part of the +experiences he had been through in the house, and that there was much +more he had never been able to bring himself to reveal at all. I felt +sure of it. The way he turned and stared about him betrayed a +familiarity with other things than those he had described to us. It was +not merely a sight of fire he looked for; it was a sight of something +alive, intelligent, something able to evade his searching; it was _a +person_. It was the watch for the ancient Being who sought to obsess +him. + +And the way in which Dr. Silence answered his look—though it was only +by a glance of subtlest sympathy—confirmed my impression. + +“We may be ready now,” I heard him say in a whisper, and I understood +that his words were intended as a steadying warning, and braced myself +mentally to the utmost of my power. + +Yet long before Colonel Wragge had turned to stare about the room, and +long before the doctor had confirmed my impression that things were at +last beginning to stir, I had become aware in most singular fashion +that the place held more than our three selves. With the rising of the +wind this increase to our numbers had first taken place. The baying of +the hounds almost seemed to have signalled it. I cannot say how it may +be possible to realise that an empty place has suddenly become—not +empty, when the new arrival is nothing that appeals to any one of the +senses; for this recognition of an “invisible,” as of the change in the +balance of personal forces in a human group, is indefinable and beyond +proof. Yet it is unmistakable. And I knew perfectly well at what given +moment the atmosphere within these four walls became charged with the +presence of other living beings besides ourselves. And, on reflection, +I am convinced that both my companions knew it too. + +“Watch the light,” said the doctor under his breath, and then I knew +too that it was no fancy of my own that had turned the air darker, and +the way he turned to examine the face of our host sent an electric +thrill of wonder and expectancy shivering along every nerve in my body. + +Yet it was no kind of terror that I experienced, but rather a sort of +mental dizziness, and a sensation as of being suspended in some remote +and dreadful altitude where things might happen, indeed were about to +happen, that had never before happened within the ken of man. Horror +may have formed an ingredient, but it was not chiefly horror, and in no +sense ghostly horror. + +Uncommon thoughts kept beating on my brain like tiny hammers, soft yet +persistent, seeking admission; their unbidden tide began to wash along +the far fringes of my mind, the currents of unwonted sensations to rise +over the remote frontiers of my consciousness. I was aware of thoughts, +and the fantasies of thoughts, that I never knew before existed. +Portions of my being stirred that had never stirred before, and things +ancient and inexplicable rose to the surface and beckoned me to follow. +I felt as though I were about to fly off, at some immense tangent, into +an outer space hitherto unknown even in dreams. And so singular was the +result produced upon me that I was uncommonly glad to anchor my mind, +as well as my eyes, upon the masterful personality of the doctor at my +side, for there, I realised, I could draw always upon the forces of +sanity and safety. + +With a vigorous effort of will I returned to the scene before me, and +tried to focus my attention, with steadier thoughts, upon the table, +and upon the silent figures seated round it. And then I saw that +certain changes had come about in the place where we sat. + +The patches of moonlight on the floor, I noted, had become curiously +shaded; the faces of my companions opposite were not so clearly visible +as before; and the forehead and cheeks of Colonel Wragge were +glistening with perspiration. I realised further, that an extraordinary +change had come about in the temperature of the atmosphere. The +increased warmth had a painful effect, not alone on Colonel Wragge, but +upon all of us. It was oppressive and unnatural. We gasped figuratively +as well as actually. + +“You are the first to feel it,” said Dr. Silence in low tones, looking +across at him. “You are in more intimate touch, of course—” + +The Colonel was trembling, and appeared to be in considerable distress. +His knees shook, so that the shuffling of his slippered feet became +audible. He inclined his head to show that he had heard, but made no +other reply. I think, even then, he was sore put to it to keep himself +in hand. I knew what he was struggling against. As Dr. Silence had +warned me, he was about to be obsessed, and was savagely, though +vainly, resisting. + +But, meanwhile, a curious and whirling sense of exhilaration began to +come over me. The increasing heat was delightful, bringing a sensation +of intense activity, of thoughts pouring through the mind at high +speed, of vivid pictures in the brain, of fierce desires and lightning +energies alive in every part of the body. I was conscious of no +physical distress, such as the Colonel felt, but only of a vague +feeling that it might all grow suddenly too intense—that I might be +consumed—that my personality as well as my body, might become resolved +into the flame of pure spirit. I began to live at a speed too intense +to last. It was as if a thousand ecstasies besieged me— + +“Steady!” whispered the voice of John Silence in my ear, and I looked +up with a start to see that the Colonel had risen from his chair. The +doctor rose too. I followed suit, and for the first time saw down into +the bowl. To my amazement and horror I saw that the contents were +troubled. The blood was astir with movement. + +The rest of the experiment was witnessed by us standing. It came, too, +with a curious suddenness. There was no more dreaming, for me at any +rate. + +I shall never forget the figure of Colonel Wragge standing there beside +me, upright and unshaken, squarely planted on his feet, looking about +him, puzzled beyond belief, yet full of a fighting anger. Framed by the +white walls, the red glow of the lamps upon his streaming cheeks, his +eyes glowing against the deathly pallor of his skin, breathing hard and +making convulsive efforts of hands and body to keep himself under +control, his whole being roused to the point of savage fighting, yet +with nothing visible to get at anywhere—he stood there, immovable +against odds. And the strange contrast of the pale skin and the burning +face I had never seen before, or wish to see again. + +But what has left an even sharper impression on my memory was the +blackness that then began crawling over his face, obliterating the +features, concealing their human outline, and hiding him inch by inch +from view. This was my first realisation that the process of +materialisation was at work. His visage became shrouded. I moved from +one side to the other to keep him in view, and it was only then I +understood that, properly speaking, the blackness was not upon the +countenance of Colonel Wragge, but that something had inserted itself +between me and him, thus screening his face with the effect of a dark +veil. Something that apparently rose through the floor was passing +slowly into the air above the table and above the bowl. The blood in +the bowl, moreover, was considerably less than before. + +And, with this change in the air before us, there came at the same time +a further change, I thought, in the face of the soldier. One-half was +turned towards the red lamps, while the other caught the pale +illumination of the moonlight falling aslant from the high windows, so +that it was difficult to estimate this change with accuracy of detail. +But it seemed to me that, while the features—eyes, nose, mouth—remained +the same, the life informing them had undergone some profound +transformation. The signature of a new power had crept into the face +and left its traces there—an expression dark, and in some unexplained +way, terrible. + +Then suddenly he opened his mouth and spoke, and the sound of this +changed voice, deep and musical though it was, made me cold and set my +heart beating with uncomfortable rapidity. The Being, as he had +dreaded, was already in control of his brain, using his mouth. + +“I see a blackness like the blackness of Egypt before my face,” said +the tones of this unknown voice that seemed half his own and half +another’s. “And out of this darkness they come, they come.” + +I gave a dreadful start. The doctor turned to look at me for an +instant, and then turned to centre his attention upon the figure of our +host, and I understood in some intuitive fashion that he was there to +watch over the strangest contest man ever saw—to watch over and, if +necessary, to protect. + +“He is being controlled—possessed,” he whispered to me through the +shadows. His face wore a wonderful expression, half triumph, half +admiration. + +Even as Colonel Wragge spoke, it seemed to me that this visible +darkness began to increase, pouring up thickly out of the ground by the +hearth, rising up in sheets and veils, shrouding our eyes and faces. It +stole up from below—an awful blackness that seemed to drink in all the +radiations of light in the building, leaving nothing but the ghost of a +radiance in their place. Then, out of this rising sea of shadows, +issued a pale and spectral light that gradually spread itself about us, +and from the heart of this light I saw the shapes of fire crowd and +gather. And these were not human shapes, or the shapes of anything I +recognised as alive in the world, but outlines of fire that traced +globes, triangles, crosses, and the luminous bodies of various +geometrical figures. They grew bright, faded, and then grew bright +again with an effect almost of pulsation. They passed swiftly to and +fro through the air, rising and falling, and particularly in the +immediate neighbourhood of the Colonel, often gathering about his head +and shoulders, and even appearing to settle upon him like giant insects +of flame. They were accompanied, moreover, by a faint sound of +hissing—the same sound we had heard that afternoon in the plantation. + +“The fire-elementals that precede their master,” the doctor said in an +undertone. “Be ready.” + +And while this weird display of the shapes of fire alternately flashed +and faded, and the hissing echoed faintly among the dim rafters +overhead, we heard the awful voice issue at intervals from the lips of +the afflicted soldier. It was a voice of power, splendid in some way I +cannot describe, and with a certain sense of majesty in its cadences, +and, as I listened to it with quickly beating heart, I could fancy it +was some ancient voice of Time itself, echoing down immense corridors +of stone, from the depths of vast temples, from the very heart of +mountain tombs. + +“I have seen my divine Father, Osiris,” thundered the great tones. “I +have scattered the gloom of the night. I have burst through the earth, +and am one with the starry Deities!” + +Something grand came into the soldier’s face. He was staring fixedly +before him, as though seeing nothing. + +“Watch,” whispered Dr. Silence in my ear, and his whisper seemed to +come from very far away. + +Again the mouth opened and the awesome voice issued forth. + +“Thoth,” it boomed, “has loosened the bandages of Set which fettered my +mouth. I have taken my place in the great winds of heaven.” + +I heard the little wind of night, with its mournful voice of ages, +sighing round the walls and over the roof. + +“Listen!” came from the doctor at my side, and the thunder of the voice +continued— + +“I have hidden myself with you, O ye stars that never diminish. I +remember my name—in—the—House—of—Fire!” + +The voice ceased and the sound died away. Something about the face and +figure of Colonel Wragge relaxed, I thought. The terrible look passed +from his face. The Being that obsessed him was gone. + +“The great Ritual,” said Dr. Silence aside to me, very low, “the Book +of the Dead. Now it’s leaving him. Soon the blood will fashion it a +body.” + +Colonel Wragge, who had stood absolutely motionless all this time, +suddenly swayed, so that I thought he was going to fall,—and, but for +the quick support of the doctor’s arm, he probably would have fallen, +for he staggered as in the beginning of collapse. + +“I am drunk with the wine of Osiris,” he cried,—and it was half with +his own voice this time—“but Horus, the Eternal Watcher, is about my +path—for—safety.” The voice dwindled and failed, dying away into +something almost like a cry of distress. + +“Now, watch closely,” said Dr. Silence, speaking loud, “for after the +cry will come the Fire!” + +I began to tremble involuntarily; an awful change had come without +warning into the air; my legs grew weak as paper beneath my weight and +I had to support myself by leaning on the table. Colonel Wragge, I saw, +was also leaning forward with a kind of droop. The shapes of fire had +vanished all, but his face was lit by the red lamps and the pale, +shifting moonlight rose behind him like mist. + +We were both gazing at the bowl, now almost empty; the Colonel stooped +so low I feared every minute he would lose his balance and drop into +it; and the shadow, that had so long been in process of forming, now at +length began to assume material outline in the air before us. + +Then John Silence moved forward quickly. He took his place between us +and the shadow. Erect, formidable, absolute master of the situation, I +saw him stand there, his face calm and almost smiling, and fire in his +eyes. His protective influence was astounding and incalculable. Even +the abhorrent dread I felt at the sight of the creature growing into +life and substance before us, lessened in some way so that I was able +to keep my eyes fixed on the air above the bowl without too vivid a +terror. + +But as it took shape, rising out of nothing as it were, and growing +momentarily more defined in outline, a period of utter and wonderful +silence settled down upon the building and all it contained. A hush of +ages, like the sudden centre of peace at the heart of the travelling +cyclone, descended through the night, and out of this hush, as out of +the emanations of the steaming blood, issued the form of the ancient +being who had first sent the elemental of fire upon its mission. It +grew and darkened and solidified before our eyes. It rose from just +beyond the table so that the lower portions remained invisible, but I +saw the outline limn itself upon the air, as though slowly revealed by +the rising of a curtain. It apparently had not then quite concentrated +to the normal proportions, but was spread out on all sides into space, +huge, though rapidly condensing, for I saw the colossal shoulders, the +neck, the lower portion of the dark jaws, the terrible mouth, and then +the teeth and lips—and, as the veil seemed to lift further upon the +tremendous face—I saw the nose and cheek bones. In another moment I +should have looked straight into the eyes— + +But what Dr. Silence did at that moment was so unexpected, and took me +so by surprise, that I have never yet properly understood its nature, +and he has never yet seen fit to explain in detail to me. He uttered +some sound that had a note of command in it—and, in so doing, stepped +forward and intervened between me and the face. The figure, just +nearing completeness, he therefore hid from my sight—and I have always +thought purposely hid from my sight. + +“The fire!” he cried out. “The fire! Beware!” + +There was a sudden roar as of flame from the very mouth of the pit, and +for the space of a single second all grew light as day. A blinding +flash passed across my face, and there was heat for an instant that +seemed to shrivel skin, and flesh, and bone. Then came steps, and I +heard Colonel Wragge utter a great cry, wilder than any human cry I +have ever known. The heat sucked all the breath out of my lungs with a +rush, and the blaze of light, as it vanished, swept my vision with it +into enveloping darkness. + +When I recovered the use of my senses a few moments later I saw that +Colonel Wragge with a face of death, its whiteness strangely stained, +had moved closer to me. Dr. Silence stood beside him, an expression of +triumph and success in his eyes. The next minute the soldier tried to +clutch me with his hand. Then he reeled, staggered, and, unable to save +himself, fell with a great crash upon the brick floor. + +After the sheet of flame, a wind raged round the building as though it +would lift the roof off, but then passed as suddenly as it came. And in +the intense calm that followed I saw that the form had vanished, and +the doctor was stooping over Colonel Wragge upon the floor, trying to +lift him to a sitting position. + +“Light,” he said quietly, “more light. Take the shades off.” + +Colonel Wragge sat up and the glare of the unshaded lamps fell upon his +face. It was grey and drawn, still running heat, and there was a look +in the eyes and about the corners of the mouth that seemed in this +short space of time to have added years to its age. At the same time, +the expression of effort and anxiety had left it. It showed relief. + +“Gone!” he said, looking up at the doctor in a dazed fashion, and +struggling to his feet. “Thank God! it’s gone at last.” He stared round +the laundry as though to find out where he was. “Did it control me—take +possession of me? Did I talk nonsense?” he asked bluntly. “After the +heat came, I remember nothing—” + +“You’ll feel yourself again in a few minutes,” the doctor said. To my +infinite horror I saw that he was surreptitiously wiping sundry dark +stains from the face. “Our experiment has been a success and—” + +He gave me a swift glance to hide the bowl, standing between me and our +host while I hurriedly stuffed it down under the lid of the nearest +cauldron. + +“—and none of us the worse for it,” he finished. + +“And fires?” he asked, still dazed, “there’ll be no more fires?” + +“It is dissipated—partly, at any rate,” replied Dr. Silence cautiously. + +“And the man behind the gun,” he went on, only half realising what he +was saying, I think; “have you discovered _that?_” + +“A form materialised,” said the doctor briefly. “I know for certain now +what the directing intelligence was behind it all.” + +Colonel Wragge pulled himself together and got upon his feet. The words +conveyed no clear meaning to him yet. But his memory was returning +gradually, and he was trying to piece together the fragments into a +connected whole. He shivered a little, for the place had grown suddenly +chilly. The air was empty again, lifeless. + +“You feel all right again now,” Dr. Silence said, in the tone of a man +stating a fact rather than asking a question. + +“Thanks to you—both, yes.” He drew a deep breath, and mopped his face, +and even attempted a smile. He made me think of a man coming from the +battlefield with the stains of fighting still upon him, but scornful of +his wounds. Then he turned gravely towards the doctor with a question +in his eyes. Memory had returned and he was himself again. + +“Precisely what I expected,” the doctor said calmly; “a fire-elemental +sent upon its mission in the days of Thebes, centuries before Christ, +and tonight, for the first time all these thousands of years, released +from the spell that originally bound it.” + +We stared at him in amazement, Colonel Wragge opening his lips for +words that refused to shape themselves. + +“And, if we dig,” he continued significantly, pointing to the floor +where the blackness had poured up, “we shall find some underground +connection—a tunnel most likely—leading to the Twelve Acre Wood. It was +made by—your predecessor.” + +“A tunnel made by my brother!” gasped the soldier. “Then my sister +should know—she lived here with him—” He stopped suddenly. + +John Silence inclined his head slowly. “I think so,” he said quietly. +“Your brother, no doubt, was as much tormented as you have been,” he +continued after a pause in which Colonel Wragge seemed deeply +preoccupied with his thoughts, “and tried to find peace by burying it +in the wood, and surrounding the wood then, like a large magic circle, +with the enchantments of the old formulae. So the stars the man saw +blazing—” + +“But burying what?” asked the soldier faintly, stepping backwards +towards the support of the wall. + +Dr. Silence regarded us both intently for a moment before he replied. I +think he weighed in his mind whether to tell us now, or when the +investigation was absolutely complete. + +“The mummy,” he said softly, after a moment; “the mummy that your +brother took from its resting place of centuries, and brought +home—here.” + +Colonel Wragge dropped down upon the nearest chair, hanging +breathlessly on every word. He was far too amazed for speech. + +“The mummy of some important person—a priest most likely—protected from +disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time. For +they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it in the +tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after ages upon +any one who dared to molest it. In this case it was an elemental of +fire.” + +Dr. Silence crossed the floor and turned out the lamps one by one. He +had nothing more to say for the moment. Following his example, I folded +the table together and took up the chairs, and our host, still dazed +and silent, mechanically obeyed him and moved to the door. + +We removed all traces of the experiment, taking the empty bowl back to +the house concealed beneath an ulster. + +The air was cool and fragrant as we walked to the house, the stars +beginning to fade overhead and a fresh wind of early morning blowing up +out of the east where the sky was already hinting of the coming day. It +was after five o’clock. + +Stealthily we entered the front hall and locked the door, and as we +went on tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the Colonel, peering at us over +his candle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready the +digging should be begun that very day. + +Then I saw him steal along to his sister’s room and disappear. + +IV + +But not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect of +a revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followed +the intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleep +of the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. A touch on the shoulder woke +me, and I saw Dr. Silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out. + +“Come,” he said, “it’s tea-time. You’ve slept the best part of a dozen +hours.” + +I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat and +talked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter +than usual. + +“Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We’re going out to +unearth this mummy at once,” he said; “and there’s no reason we should +not get away by the morning train.” + +“I’m ready to go tonight, if you are,” I said honestly. + +But Dr. Silence shook his head. + +“I must see this through to the end,” he said gravely, and in a tone +that made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He +went on talking while I dressed. + +“This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and none +of them are cases to trifle with,” he explained, “for the mummies of +important people—kings, priests, magicians—were laid away with +profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected, +as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against +destruction. + +“The general belief,” he went on, anticipating my questions, “held, of +course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka,—the +owner’s spirit,—but it is not improbable that the magical embalming was +also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body +preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of +earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful +guardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And any one who dared to +remove the mummy, or especially to unwind it—well,” he added, with +meaning, “you have seen—and you will see.” + +I caught his face in the mirror while I struggled with my collar. It +was deeply serious. There could be no question that he spoke of what he +believed and knew. + +“The traveller-brother who brought it here must have been haunted too,” +he continued, “for he tried to banish it by burial in the wood, making +a magic circle to enclose it. Something of genuine ceremonial he must +have known, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the +still flaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. Only he +did not know enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy’s guardian +was a fire-force. Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, +it can be released by it.” + +“Then that awful figure in the laundry?” I asked, thrilled to find him +so communicative. + +“Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind its +agent, the elemental, and most likely thousands of years old.” + +“And Miss Wragge—?” I ventured once more. + +“Ah, Miss Wragge,” he repeated with increased gravity, “Miss Wragge—” + +A knock at the door brought a servant with word that tea was ready, and +the Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down. The thread was +broken. Dr. Silence moved to the door and signed to me to follow. But +his manner told me that in any case no real answer would have been +forthcoming to my question. + +“And the place to dig in,” I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity, +“will you find it by some process of divination or—?” + +He paused at the door and looked back at me, and with that he left me +to finish my dressing. + +It was growing dark when the three of us silently made our way to the +Twelve Acre Plantation; the sky was overcast, and a black wind came out +of the east. Gloom hung about the old house and the air seemed full of +sighings. We found the tools ready laid at the edge of the wood, and +each shouldering his piece, we followed our leader at once in among the +trees. He went straight forward for some twenty yards and then stopped. +At his feet lay the blackened circle of one of the burned places. It +was just discernible against the surrounding white grass. + +“There are three of these,” he said, “and they all lie in a line with +one another. Any one of them will tap the tunnel that connects the +laundry—the former Museum—with the chamber where the mummy now lies +buried.” + +He at once cleared away the burnt grass and began to dig; we all began +to dig. While I used the pick, the others shovelled vigorously. No one +spoke. Colonel Wragge worked the hardest of the three. The soil was +light and sandy, and there were only a few snake-like roots and +occasional loose stones to delay us. The pick made short work of these. +And meanwhile the darkness settled about us and the biting wind swept +roaring through the trees overhead. + +Then, quite suddenly, without a cry, Colonel Wragge disappeared up to +his neck. + +“The tunnel!” cried the doctor, helping to drag him out, red, +breathless, and covered with sand and perspiration. “Now, let me lead +the way.” And he slipped down nimbly into the hole, so that a moment +later we heard his voice, muffled by sand and distance, rising up to +us. + +“Hubbard, you come next, and then Colonel Wragge—if he wishes,” we +heard. + +“I’ll follow you, of course,” he said, looking at me as I scrambled in. + +The hole was bigger now, and I got down on all-fours in a channel not +much bigger than a large sewer-pipe and found myself in total darkness. +A minute later a heavy thud, followed by a cataract of loose sand, +announced the arrival of the Colonel. + +“Catch hold of my heel,” called Dr. Silence, “and Colonel Wragge can +take yours.” + +In this slow, laborious fashion we wormed our way along a tunnel that +had been roughly dug out of the shifting sand, and was shored up +clumsily by means of wooden pillars and posts. Any moment, it seemed to +me, we might be buried alive. We could not see an inch before our eyes, +but had to grope our way feeling the pillars and the walls. It was +difficult to breathe, and the Colonel behind me made but slow progress, +for the cramped position of our bodies was very severe. + +We had travelled in this way for ten minutes, and gone perhaps as much +as ten yards, when I lost my grasp of the doctor’s heel. + +“Ah!” I heard his voice, sounding above me somewhere. He was standing +up in a clear space, and the next moment I was standing beside him. +Colonel Wragge came heavily after, and he too rose up and stood. Then +Dr. Silence produced his candles and we heard preparations for striking +matches. + +Yet even before there was light, an indefinable sensation of awe came +over us all. In this hole in the sand, some three feet under ground, we +stood side by side, cramped and huddled, struck suddenly with an over +whelming apprehension of something ancient, something formidable, +something incalculably wonderful, that touched in each one of us a +sense of the sublime and the terrible even before we could see an inch +before our faces. I know not how to express in language this singular +emotion that caught us here in utter darkness, touching no sense +directly, it seemed, yet with the recognition that before us in the +blackness of this underground night there lay something that was mighty +with the mightiness of long past ages. + +I felt Colonel Wragge press in closely to my side, and I understood the +pressure and welcomed it. No human touch, to me at least, has ever been +more eloquent. + +Then the match flared, a thousand shadows fled on black wings, and I +saw John Silence fumbling with the candle, his face lit up grotesquely +by the flickering light below it. + +I had dreaded this light, yet when it came there was apparently nothing +to explain the profound sensations of dread that preceded it. We stood +in a small vaulted chamber in the sand, the sides and roof shored with +bars of wood, and the ground laid roughly with what seemed to be tiles. +It was six feet high, so that we could all stand comfortably, and may +have been ten feet long by eight feet wide. Upon the wooden pillars at +the side I saw that Egyptian hieroglyphics had been rudely traced by +burning. + +Dr. Silence lit three candles and handed one to each of us. He placed a +fourth in the sand against the wall on his right, and another to mark +the entrance to the tunnel. We stood and stared about us, instinctively +holding our breath. + +“Empty, by God!” exclaimed Colonel Wragge. His voice trembled with +excitement. And then, as his eyes rested on the ground, he added, “And +footsteps—look—footsteps in the sand!” + +Dr. Silence said nothing. He stooped down and began to make a search of +the chamber, and as he moved, my eyes followed his crouching figure and +noted the queer distorted shadows that poured over the walls and +ceiling after him. Here and there thin trickles of loose sand ran +fizzing down the sides. The atmosphere, heavily charged with faint yet +pungent odours, lay utterly still, and the flames of the candles might +have been painted on the air for all the movement they betrayed. + +And, as I watched, it was almost necessary to persuade myself forcibly +that I was only standing upright with difficulty in this little +sand-hole of a modern garden in the south of England, for it seemed to +me that I stood, as in vision, at the entrance of some vast rock-hewn +Temple far, far down the river of Time. The illusion was powerful, and +persisted. Granite columns, that rose to heaven, piled themselves about +me, majestically uprearing, and a roof like the sky itself spread above +a line of colossal figures that moved in shadowy procession along +endless and stupendous aisles. This huge and splendid fantasy, borne I +knew not whence, possessed me so vividly that I was actually obliged to +concentrate my attention upon the small stooping figure of the doctor, +as he groped about the walls, in order to keep the eye of imagination +on the scene before me. + +But the limited space rendered a long search out of the question, and +his footsteps, instead of shuffling through loose sand, presently +struck something of a different quality that gave forth a hollow and +resounding echo. He stooped to examine more closely. + +He was standing exactly in the centre of the little chamber when this +happened, and he at once began scraping away the sand with his feet. In +less than a minute a smooth surface became visible—the surface of a +wooden covering. The next thing I saw was that he had raised it and was +peering down into a space below. Instantly, a strong odour of nitre and +bitumen, mingled with the strange perfume of unknown and powdered +aromatics, rose up from the uncovered space and filled the vault, +stinging the throat and making the eyes water and smart. + +“The mummy!” whispered Dr. Silence, looking up into our faces over his +candle; and as he said the word I felt the soldier lurch against me, +and heard his breathing in my very ear. + +“The mummy!” he repeated under his breath, as we pressed forward to +look. + +It is difficult to say exactly why the sight should have stirred in me +so prodigious an emotion of wonder and veneration, for I have had not a +little to do with mummies, have unwound scores of them, and even +experimented magically with not a few. But there was something in the +sight of that grey and silent figure, lying in its modern box of lead +and wood at the bottom of this sandy grave, swathed in the bandages of +centuries and wrapped in the perfumed linen that the priests of Egypt +had prayed over with their mighty enchantments thousands of years +before—something in the sight of it lying there and breathing its own +spice-laden atmosphere even in the darkness of its exile in this remote +land, something that pierced to the very core of my being and touched +that root of awe which slumbers in every man near the birth of tears +and the passion of true worship. + +I remember turning quickly from the Colonel, lest he should see my +emotion, yet fail to understand its cause, turn and clutch John Silence +by the arm, and then fall trembling to see that he, too, had lowered +his head and was hiding his face in his hands. + +A kind of whirling storm came over me, rising out of I know not what +utter deeps of memory, and in a whiteness of vision I heard the magical +old chauntings from the Book of the Dead, and saw the Gods pass by in +dim procession, the mighty, immemorial Beings who were yet themselves +only the personified attributes of the true Gods, the God with the Eyes +of Fire, the God with the Face of Smoke. I saw again Anubis, the +dog-faced deity, and the children of Horus, eternal watcher of the +ages, as they swathed Osiris, the first mummy of the world, in the +scented and mystic bands, and I tasted again something of the ecstasy +of the justified soul as it embarked in the golden Boat of Ra, and +journeyed onwards to rest in the fields of the blessed. + +And then, as Dr. Silence, with infinite reverence, stooped and touched +the still face, so dreadfully staring with its painted eyes, there rose +again to our nostrils wave upon wave of this perfume of thousands of +years, and time fled backwards like a thing of naught, showing me in +haunted panorama the most wonderful dream of the whole world. + +A gentle hissing became audible in the air, and the doctor moved +quickly backwards. It came close to our faces and then seemed to play +about the walls and ceiling. + +“The last of the Fire—still waiting for its full accomplishment,” he +muttered; but I heard both words and hissing as things far away, for I +was still busy with the journey of the soul through the Seven Halls of +Death, listening for echoes of the grandest ritual ever known to men. + +The earthen plates covered with hieroglyphics still lay beside the +mummy, and round it, carefully arranged at the points of the compass, +stood the four jars with the heads of the hawk, the jackal, the +cynocephalus, and man, the jars in which were placed the hair, the nail +parings, the heart, and other special portions of the body. Even the +amulets, the mirror, the blue clay statues of the Ka, and the lamp with +seven wicks were there. Only the sacred scarabaeus was missing. + +“Not only has it been torn from its ancient resting-place,” I heard Dr. +Silence saying in a solemn voice as he looked at Colonel Wragge with +fixed gaze, “but it has been partially unwound,”—he pointed to the +wrappings of the breast,—“and—the scarabaeus has been removed from the +throat.” + +The hissing, that was like the hissing of an invisible flame, had +ceased; only from time to time we heard it as though it passed +backwards and forwards in the tunnel; and we stood looking into each +other’s faces without speaking. + +Presently Colonel Wragge made a great effort and braced himself. I +heard the sound catch in his throat before the words actually became +audible. + +“My sister,” he said, very low. And then there followed a long pause, +broken at length by John Silence. + +“It must be replaced,” he said significantly. + +“I knew nothing,” the soldier said, forcing himself to speak the words +he hated saying. “Absolutely nothing.” + +“It must be returned,” repeated the other, “if it is not now too late. +For I fear—I fear—” + +Colonel Wragge made a movement of assent with his head. + +“It shall be,” he said. + +The place was still as the grave. + +I do not know what it was then that made us all three turn round with +so sudden a start, for there was no sound audible to my ears, at least. + +The doctor was on the point of replacing the lid over the mummy, when +he straightened up as if he had been shot. + +“There’s something coming,” said Colonel Wragge under his breath, and +the doctor’s eyes, peering down the small opening of the tunnel, showed +me the true direction. + +A distant shuffling noise became distinctly audible coming from a point +about half-way down the tunnel we had so laboriously penetrated. + +“It’s the sand falling in,” I said, though I knew it was foolish. + +“No,” said the Colonel calmly, in a voice that seemed to have the ring +of iron, “I’ve heard it for some time past. It is something alive—and +it is coming nearer.” + +He stared about him with a look of resolution that made his face almost +noble. The horror in his heart was overmastering, yet he stood there +prepared for anything that might come. + +“There’s no other way out,” John Silence said. + +He leaned the lid against the sand, and waited. I knew by the masklike +expression of his face, the pallor, and the steadiness of the eyes, +that he anticipated something that might be very terrible—appalling. + +The Colonel and myself stood on either side of the opening. I still +held my candle and was ashamed of the way it shook, dripping the grease +all over me; but the soldier had set his into the sand just behind his +feet. + +Thoughts of being buried alive, of being smothered like rats in a trap, +of being caught and done to death by some invisible and merciless force +we could not grapple with, rushed into my mind. Then I thought of +fire—of suffocation—of being roasted alive. The perspiration began to +pour from my face. + +“Steady!” came the voice of Dr. Silence to me through the vault. + +For five minutes, that seemed fifty, we stood waiting, looking from +each other’s faces to the mummy, and from the mummy to the hole, and +all the time the shuffling sound, soft and stealthy, came gradually +nearer. The tension, for me at least, was very near the breaking point +when at last the cause of the disturbance reached the edge. It was +hidden for a moment just behind the broken rim of soil. A jet of sand, +shaken by the close vibration, trickled down on to the ground; I have +never in my life seen anything fall with such laborious leisure. The +next second, uttering a cry of curious quality, it came into view. + +And it was far more distressingly horrible than anything I had +anticipated. + +For the sight of some Egyptian monster, some god of the tombs, or even +of some demon of fire, I think I was already half prepared; but when, +instead, I saw the white visage of Miss Wragge framed in that round +opening of sand, followed by her body crawling on all fours, her eyes +bulging and reflecting the yellow glare of the candles, my first +instinct was to turn and run like a frantic animal seeking a way of +escape. + +But Dr. Silence, who seemed no whit surprised, caught my arm and +steadied me, and we both saw the Colonel then drop upon his knees and +come thus to a level with his sister. For more than a whole minute, as +though struck in stone, the two faces gazed silently at each other: +hers, for all the dreadful emotion in it, more like a gargoyle than +anything human; and his, white and blank with an expression that was +beyond either astonishment or alarm. She looked up; he looked down. It +was a picture in a nightmare, and the candle, stuck in the sand close +to the hole, threw upon it the glare of impromptu footlights. + +Then John Silence moved forward and spoke in a voice that was very low, +yet perfectly calm and natural. + +“I am glad you have come,” he said. “You are the one person whose +presence at this moment is most required. And I hope that you may yet +be in time to appease the anger of the Fire, and to bring peace again +to your household, and,” he added lower still so that no one heard it +but myself, “_safety to yourself_.” + +And while her brother stumbled backwards, crushing a candle into the +sand in his awkwardness, the old lady crawled farther into the vaulted +chamber and slowly rose upon her feet. + +At the sight of the wrapped figure of the mummy I was fully prepared to +see her scream and faint, but on the contrary, to my complete +amazement, she merely bowed her head and dropped quietly upon her +knees. Then, after a pause of more than a minute, she raised her eyes +to the roof and her lips began to mutter as in prayer. Her right hand, +meanwhile, which had been fumbling for some time at her throat suddenly +came away, and before the gaze of all of us she held it out, palm +upwards, over the grey and ancient figure outstretched below. And in it +we beheld glistening the green jasper of the stolen scarabaeus. + +Her brother, leaning heavily against the wall behind, uttered a sound +that was half cry, half exclamation, but John Silence, standing +directly in front of her, merely fixed his eyes on her and pointed +downwards to the staring face below. + +“Replace it,” he said sternly, “where it belongs.” + +Miss Wragge was kneeling at the feet of the mummy when this happened. +We three men all had our eyes riveted on what followed. Only the reader +who by some remote chance may have witnessed a line of mummies, freshly +laid from their tombs upon the sand, slowly stir and bend as the heat +of the Egyptian sun warms their ancient bodies into the semblance of +life, can form any conception of the ultimate horror we experienced +when the silent figure before us moved in its grave of lead and sand. +Slowly, before our eyes, it writhed, and, with a faint rustling of the +immemorial cerements, rose up, and, through sightless and bandaged +eyes, stared across the yellow candlelight at the woman who had +violated it. + +I tried to move—her brother tried to move—but the sand seemed to hold +our feet. I tried to cry—her brother tried to cry—but the sand seemed +to fill our lungs and throat. We could only stare—and, even so, the +sand seemed to rise like a desert storm and cloud our vision ... + +And when I managed at length to open my eyes again, the mummy was lying +once more upon its back, motionless, the shrunken and painted face +upturned towards the ceiling, and the old lady had tumbled forward and +was lying in the semblance of death with her head and arms upon its +crumbling body. + +But upon the wrappings of the throat I saw the green jasper of the +sacred scarabaeus shining again like a living eye. + +Colonel Wragge and the doctor recovered themselves long before I did, +and I found myself helping them clumsily and unintelligently to raise +the frail body of the old lady, while John Silence carefully replaced +the covering over the grave and scraped back the sand with his foot, +while he issued brief directions. + +I heard his voice as in a dream; but the journey back along that +cramped tunnel, weighted by a dead woman, blinded with sand, suffocated +with heat, was in no sense a dream. It took us the best part of half an +hour to reach the open air. And, even then, we had to wait a +considerable time for the appearance of Dr. Silence. We carried her +undiscovered into the house and up to her own room. + +“The mummy will cause no further disturbance,” I heard Dr. Silence say +to our host later that evening as we prepared to drive for the night +train, “provided always,” he added significantly, “that you, and yours, +cause it no disturbance.” + +It was in a dream, too, that we left. + +“You did not see her face, I know,” he said to me as we wrapped our +rugs about us in the empty compartment. And when I shook my head, quite +unable to explain the instinct that had come to me not to look, he +turned toward me, his face pale, and genuinely sad. + +“Scorched and blasted,” he whispered. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE JOHN SILENCE STORIES *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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