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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Famous Modern Ghost Stories, by Various,
+Edited by Emily Dorothy Scarborough
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Famous Modern Ghost Stories
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 22, 2005  [eBook #15143]
+Last Updated: March 16, 2015
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Karina Aleksandrova, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES
+
+Selected, with an Introduction by
+
+DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH, PH.D.
+
+     Lecturer in English, Columbia University
+
+     Author of _The Supernatural In Modern English Fiction_, _Fugitive
+     Verses_, _From A Southern Porch_, etc. Compiler of _Humorous Ghost
+     Stories_
+
+G.P. Putnam's Sons
+New York and London
+The Knickerbocker Press
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+To
+
+ASHLEY HORACE THORNDIKE, LITT. D.
+
+PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
+
+WHO GUIDED MY EARLIER STUDIES IN THE SUPERNATURAL
+
+
+
+
+The Imperishable Ghost
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Ghosts are the true immortals, and the dead grow more alive all the
+time. Wraiths have a greater vitality to-day than ever before. They are
+far more numerous than at any time in the past, and people are more
+interested in them. There are persons that claim to be acquainted with
+specific spirits, to speak with them, to carry on correspondence with
+them, and even some who insist that they are private secretaries to the
+dead. Others of us mortals, more reserved, are content to keep such
+distance as we may from even the shadow of a shade. But there's no
+getting away from ghosts nowadays, for even if you shut your eyes to
+them in actual life, you stumble over them in the books you read, you
+see them on the stage and on the screen, and you hear them on the
+lecture platform. Even a Lodge in any vast wilderness would have the
+company of spirits. Man's love for the supernatural, which is one of the
+most natural things about him, was never more marked than at present.
+You may go a-ghosting in any company to-day, and all aspects of
+literature, novels, short stories, poetry, and drama alike, reflect the
+shadeless spirit. The latest census of the haunting world shows a vast
+increase in population, which might be explained on various grounds.
+
+Life is so inconveniently complex nowadays, what with income taxes and
+other visitations of government, that it is hard for us to have the
+added risk of wraiths, but there's no escaping. Many persons of to-day
+are in the same mental state as one Mr. Boggs, told of in a magazine
+story, a rural gentleman who was agitated over spectral visitants. He
+had once talked at a séance with a speaker who claimed to be the spirit
+of his brother, Wesley Boggs, but who conversed only on blue suspenders,
+a subject not of vital interest to Wesley in the flesh. "Still," Mr.
+Boggs reflected, "I'm not so darn sure!" In answer to a suggestion
+regarding subliminal consciousness and dual personality as explanation
+of the strange things that come bolting into life, he said, "It's crawly
+any way you look at it. Ghosts inside you are as bad as ghosts outside
+you." There are others to-day who are "not so darn sure!"
+
+One may conjecture divers reasons for this multitude of ghosts in late
+literature. Perhaps spooks are like small boys that rush to fires,
+unwilling to miss anything, and craving new sensations. And we mortals
+read about them to get vicarious thrills through the safe _medium_ of
+fiction. The war made sensationalists of us all, and the drab
+everydayness of mortal life bores us. Man's imagination, always bigger
+than his environment, overleaps the barriers of time and space and
+claims all worlds as eminent domain, so that literature, which he has
+the power to create, as he cannot create his material surroundings,
+possesses a dramatic intensity, an epic sweep, unknown in actuality. In
+the last analysis, man is as great as his daydreams--or his nightmares!
+
+Ghosts have always haunted literature, and doubtless always will.
+Specters seem never to wear out or to die, but renew their tissue both
+of person and of raiment, in marvelous fashion, so that their number
+increases with a Malthusian relentlessness. We of to-day have the ghosts
+that haunted our ancestors, as well as our own modern revenants, and
+there's no earthly use trying to banish or exorcise them by such a
+simple thing as disbelief in them. Schopenhauer asserts that a belief in
+ghosts is born with man, that it is found in all ages and in all lands,
+and that no one is free from it. Since accounts vary, and our earliest
+antecedents were poor diarists, it is difficult to establish the
+apostolic succession of spooks in actual life, but in literature, the
+line reaches back as far as the primeval picture writing. A study of
+animism in primitive culture shows many interesting links between the
+past and the present in this matter. And anyhow, since man knows that
+whether or not he has seen a ghost, presently he'll be one, he's
+fascinated with the subject. And he creates ghosts, not merely in his
+own image, but according to his dreams of power.
+
+The more man knows of natural laws, the keener he is about the
+supernatural. He may claim to have laid aside superstition, but he isn't
+to be believed in that. Though he has discarded witchcraft and alchemy,
+it is only that he may have more time for psychical research; true, he
+no longer dabbles with ancient magic, but that is because the modern
+types, as the ouija board, entertain him more. He dearly loves to
+traffic with that other world of which he knows so little and concerning
+which he is so curious.
+
+Perhaps the war, or possibly an increase in class consciousness, or
+unionization of spirits, or whatever, has greatly energized the ghost in
+our day and given him both ambition and strength to do more things than
+ever. Maybe "pep tablets" have been discovered on the other side as
+well! No longer is the ghost content to be seen and not heard, to slink
+around in shadowy corners as apologetically as poor relations. Wraiths
+now have a rambunctious vitality and self-assurance that are
+astonishing. Even the ghosts of folks dead so long they have forgotten
+about themselves are yawning, stretching their skeletons, and starting
+out to do a little haunting. Spooky creatures in such a wide diversity
+are abroad to-day that one is sometimes at a loss to know what to do
+"gin a body meet a body." Ghosts are entering all sorts of activities
+now, so that mortals had better look alive, else they'll be crowded out
+of their place in the shade. The dead are too much with us!
+
+Modern ghosts are less simple and primitive than their ancestors, and
+are developing complexes of various kinds. They are more democratic than
+of old, and have more of a diversity of interests, so that mortals have
+scarcely the ghost of a chance with them. They employ all the agencies
+and mechanisms known to mortals, and have in addition their own methods
+of transit and communication. Whereas in the past a ghost had to stalk
+or glide to his haunts, now he limousines or airplanes, so that
+naturally he can get in more work than before. He uses the wireless to
+send his messages, and is expert in all manner of scientific lines.
+
+In fact, his infernal efficiency and knowledge of science constitute the
+worst terror of the current specter. Who can combat a ghost that knows
+all about a chemical laboratory, that can add electricity to his other
+shocks, and can employ all mortal and immortal agencies as his own?
+Science itself is supernatural, as we see when we look at it properly.
+
+Modern literature, especially the most recent, shows a revival of old
+types of ghosts, together with the innovations of the new. There are
+specters that take a real part in the plot complication, and those that
+merely cast threatening looks at the living, or at least, are content to
+speak a piece and depart. Some spirits are dumb, while others are highly
+elocutionary.
+
+Ghosts vary in many respects. Some are like the pallid shades of the
+past, altogether unlike the living and with an unmistakable spectral
+form--or lack of it. They sweep like mist through the air, or flutter
+like dead leaves in the gale--a gale always accompanying them as part of
+the stock furnishings. On the other hand, some revenants are so
+successfully made up that one doesn't believe them when they pridefully
+announce that they are wraiths. Some of them are, in fact, so alive that
+they don't themselves know they're dead. It's going to be a great shock
+to some of them one of these days to wake up and find out they're
+demised!
+
+Ghosts are more gregarious than in the past. Formerly a shade slunk off
+by himself, as if ashamed of his profession, as if aware of the lack of
+cordiality with which he would be received, knowing that mortals shunned
+and feared him, and chary even of associating with his fellow-shades. He
+wraithed all by himself. The specters of the past--save in scenes of the
+lower world,--were usually solitary creatures, driven to haunt mortals
+from very lonesomeness. Now we have a chance to study the mob psychology
+of ghosts, for they come in madding crowds whenever they like.
+
+Ghosts at present are showing an active interest not only in public
+affairs, but in the arts as well. At least, we now have pictures and
+writing attributed to them. Perhaps annoyed by some of the inaccuracies
+published concerning them--for authors have in the past taken advantage
+of the belief that ghosts couldn't write back--they have recently
+developed itching pens. They use all manner of utensils for expression
+now. There's the magic typewriter that spooks for John Kendrick Bangs,
+the boardwalk that Patience Worth executes for Mrs. Curran, and
+innumerable other specters that commandeer fountain pens and pencils and
+brushes to give their versions of infinity. There's a passion on the
+part of ghosts for being interviewed just now. At present
+book-reviewers, for instance, had better be careful, lest the wraiths
+take their own method of answering criticism. It isn't safe to speak or
+write with anything but respect of ghosts now. _De mortuis nil nisi
+bonum_, indeed! One should never make light of a shade.
+
+Modern ghosts have a more pronounced personality than the specters of
+the past. They have more strength, of mind as well as of body, than the
+colorless revenants of earlier literature, and they produce a more vivid
+effect on the beholder and the reader. They know more surely what they
+wish to do, and they advance relentlessly and with economy of effort to
+the effecting of their purpose, whether it be of pure horror, of beauty,
+or pathos of humor. We have now many spirits in fiction that are
+pathetic without frightfulness, many that move us with a sense of poetic
+beauty rather than of curdling horror, who touch the heart as well as
+the spine of the reader. And the humorous ghost is a distinctive shade
+of to-day, with his quips and pranks and haunting grin. Whatever a
+modern ghost wishes to do or to be, he is or does, with confidence and
+success.
+
+The spirit of to-day is terrifyingly visible or invisible at will. The
+dreadful presence of a ghost that one cannot see is more unbearable than
+the specter that one can locate and attempt to escape from. The
+invisible haunting is represented in this volume by Fitz-James O'Brien's
+_What Was It?_ one of the very best of the type, and one that has
+strongly influenced others. O'Brien's story preceded Guy de Maupassant's
+_Le Horla_ by several years, and must surely have suggested to
+Maupassant as to Bierce, in his _The Damned Thing_, the power of evil
+that can be felt but not seen.
+
+The wraith of the present carries with him more vital energy than his
+predecessors, is more athletic in his struggles with the unlucky wights
+he visits, and can coerce mortals to do his will by the laying on of
+hands as well as by the look or word. He speaks with more emphasis and
+authority, as well as with more human naturalness, than the earlier
+ghosts. He has not only all the force he possessed in life, but in many
+instances has an access of power, which makes man a poor protagonist for
+him. Algernon Blackwood's spirits of evil, for example, have a more
+awful potentiality than any living person could have, and their will to
+harm has been increased immeasurably by the accident of death. If the
+facts bear out the fear that such is the case in life as in fiction,
+some of our social customs will be reversed. A man will strive by all
+means to keep his deadly enemy alive, lest death may endow him with
+tenfold power to hurt. Dark discarnate passions, disembodied hates, work
+evil where a simple ghost might be helpless and abashed. Algernon
+Blackwood has command over the spirits of air and fire and wave, so that
+his pages thrill with beauty and terror. He has handled almost all known
+aspects of the supernatural, and from his many stories he has selected
+for this volume _The Willows_ as the best example of his ghostly art.
+
+Apparitions are more readily recognizable at present than in the past,
+for they carry into eternity all the disfigurements or physical
+peculiarities that the living bodies possessed--a fact discouraging to
+all persons not conspicuous for good looks. Freckles and warts, long
+noses and missing limbs distinguish the ghosts and aid in crucial
+identification. The thrill of horror in Ambrose Bierce's story, _The
+Middle Toe of the Right Foot_, is intensified by the fact that the dead
+woman who comes back in revenge to haunt her murderer, has one toe
+lacking as in life. And in a recent story a surgeon whose desire to
+experiment has caused him needlessly to sacrifice a man's life on the
+operating table, is haunted to death by the dismembered arm. Fiction
+shows us various ghosts with half faces, and at least one notable spook
+that comes in half. Such ability, it will be granted, must necessarily
+increase the haunting power, for if a ghost may send a foot or an arm or
+a leg to harry one person, he can dispatch his back-bone or his liver or
+his heart to upset other human beings simultaneously in a sectional
+haunting at once economically efficient and terrifying.
+
+_The Beast with Five Fingers_, for instance, has a loathsome horror that
+a complete skeleton or conventionally equipped wraith could not achieve.
+Who can doubt that a bodiless hand leaping around on its errands of evil
+has a menace that a complete six-foot frame could not duplicate? Yet, in
+Quiller-Couch's _A Pair of Hands_, what pathos and beauty in the thought
+of the child hands coming back to serve others in homely tasks! Surely
+no housewife in these helpless days would object to being haunted in
+such delicate fashion.
+
+Ghosts of to-day have an originality that antique specters lacked. For
+instance, what story of the past has the awful thrill in Andreyev's
+_Lazarus_, that story of the man who came back from the grave, living,
+yet dead, with the horror of the unknown so manifest in his face that
+those who looked into his deep eyes met their doom? Present-day writers
+skillfully combine various elements of awe with the supernatural, as
+madness with the ghostly, adding to the chill of fear which each concept
+gives. Wilbur Daniel Steele's _The Woman at Seven Brothers_ is an
+instance of that method.
+
+Poe's _Ligeia_, one of the best stories in any language, reveals the
+unrelenting will of the dead to effect its desire,--the dead wife
+triumphantly coming back to life through the second wife's body. Olivia
+Howard Dunbar's _The Shell of Sense_ is another instance of jealousy
+reaching beyond the grave. _The Messenger_, one of Robert W. Chambers's
+early stories and an admirable example of the supernatural, has various
+thrills, with its river of blood, its death's head moth, and the ancient
+but very active skull of the Black Priest who was shot as a traitor to
+his country, but lived on as an energetic and curseful ghost.
+
+_The Shadows on the Wall_, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman,--which one
+prominent librarian considers the best ghost story ever written,--is
+original in the method of its horrific manifestation. Isn't it more
+devastating to one's sanity to see the shadow of a revenge ghost cast on
+the wall,--to know that a vindictive spirit is beside one but
+invisible--than to see the specter himself? Under such circumstances,
+the sight of a skeleton or a sheeted phantom would be downright
+comforting.
+
+_The Mass of Shadows_, by Anatole France, is an example of the modern
+tendency to show phantoms in groups, as contrasted with the solitary
+habits of ancient specters. Here the spirits of those who had sinned for
+love could meet and celebrate mass together in one evening of the year.
+
+The delicate beauty of many of the modern ghostly stories is apparent in
+_The Haunted Orchard_, by Richard Le Gallienne, for this prose poem has
+an appeal of tenderness rather than of terror. And everybody who has
+had affection for a dog will appreciate the pathos of the little sketch,
+by Myla J. Closser, _At the Gate_. The dog appears more frequently as a
+ghost than does any other animal, perhaps because man feels that he is
+nearer the human,--though the horse is as intelligent and as much
+beloved. There is an innate pathos about a dog somehow, that makes his
+appearance in ghostly form more credible and sympathetic, while the
+ghost of any other animal would tend to have a comic connotation. Other
+animals in fiction have power of magic--notably the cat--but they don't
+appear as spirits. But the dog is seen as a pathetic symbol of
+faithfulness, as a tragic sufferer, or as a terrible revenge ghost. Dogs
+may come singly or in groups--Edith Wharton has five of different sorts
+in _Kerfol_--or in packs, as in Eden Phillpotts's _Another Little Heath
+Hound_.
+
+An illuminating instance of the power of fiction over human faith is
+furnished by the case of Arthur Machen's _The Bowmen_, included here.
+This story it is which started the whole tissue of legendry concerning
+supernatural aid given the allied armies during the war. This purely
+fictitious account of an angel army that saved the day at Mons was so
+vivid that its readers accepted it as truth and obstinately clung to
+that idea in the face of Mr. Machen's persistent and bewildered
+explanations that he had invented the whole thing. Editors wrote leading
+articles about it, ministers preached sermons on it, and the general
+public preferred to believe in the Mons angels rather than in Arthur
+Machen. Mr. Machen has shown himself an artist in the supernatural, one
+whom his generation has not been discerning enough to appreciate. Some
+of his material is painfully morbid, but his pen is magic and his
+inkwell holds many dark secrets.
+
+In this collection I have attempted to include specimens of a few of the
+distinctive types of modern ghosts, as well as to show the art of
+individual stories. Examples of the humorous ghosts are omitted here, as
+a number of them will be brought together in _Humorous Ghost Stories_,
+the companion volume to this. The ghost lover who reads these pages will
+think of others that he would like to see included--for I believe that
+readers are more passionately attached to their own favorite ghost tales
+than to any other form of literature. But critics will admit the
+manifest impossibility of bringing together in one volume all the famous
+examples of the art. Some of the well-known tales, particularly the
+older ones on which copyright has expired, have been reprinted so often
+as to be almost hackneyed, while others have been of necessity omitted
+because of the limitations of space.
+
+                                                                    D.S.
+
+NEW YORK,
+  March, 1921.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION: THE IMPERISHABLE GHOST
+
+THE WILLOWS
+    BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
+
+THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL
+    BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
+
+THE MESSENGER
+    BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+LAZARUS
+    BY LEONID ANDREYEV
+
+THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS
+    BY W. F. HARVEY
+
+THE MASS OF SHADOWS
+    BY ANATOLE FRANCE
+
+WHAT WAS IT?
+    BY FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN
+
+THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT
+    BY AMBROSE BIERCE
+
+THE SHELL OF SENSE
+    BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR
+
+THE WOMAN AT SEVEN BROTHERS
+    BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE
+
+AT THE GATE
+    BY MYLA JO CLOSSER
+
+LIGEIA
+    BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
+
+THE HAUNTED ORCHARD
+    BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
+
+THE BOWMEN
+    BY ARTHUR MACHEN
+
+A GHOST
+    BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+
+
+
+
+The Willows
+
+BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
+
+     From _The Listener_, by Algernon Blackwood. Published in America by
+     E.P. Dutton, and in England by Everleigh Nash, Ltd. By permission
+     of the publishers and Algernon Blackwood.
+
+
+I
+
+After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Buda-Pesth, the Danube
+enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters
+spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country
+becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low
+willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy
+blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may
+be seen in large straggling letters the word _Sümpfe_, meaning marshes.
+
+In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown
+islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes
+bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the
+sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows
+never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they
+remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on
+slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as
+grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the
+impression that the entire plain is moving and _alive_. For the wind
+sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves
+instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the
+branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their under-side turns
+to the sun.
+
+Happy to slip beyond the control of stern banks, the Danube here wanders
+about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the
+islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a
+shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing
+at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and
+forming new islands innumerable which shift daily in size and shape and
+possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates
+their very existence.
+
+Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon
+after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent
+and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about
+mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before
+sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving
+it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills
+of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend
+under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had then swept on
+the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman
+Carnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of
+Theben on a spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly
+from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.
+
+Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well into
+Hungary, and the muddy waters--sure sign of flood--sent us aground on
+many a shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belching
+whirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszóny) showed
+against the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse, flew
+at top speed under the gray walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of
+the Fliegende Brücke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and
+plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of islands, sand-banks, and
+swamp-land beyond--the land of the willows.
+
+The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps
+down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the
+scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings,
+and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor
+red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilization
+within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of human kind, the
+utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows,
+winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we
+allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held
+some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat
+audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of
+wonder and magic--a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who
+had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for
+those who had the imagination to discover them.
+
+Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless buffetings of a most
+tempestuous wind made us feel weary, and we at once began casting about
+for a suitable camping-ground for the night. But the bewildering
+character of the islands made landing difficult; the swirling flood
+carried us in-shore and then swept us out again; the willow branches
+tore our hands as we seized them to stop the canoe, and we pulled many a
+yard of sandy bank into the water before at length we shot with a great
+sideways blow from the wind into a backwater and managed to beach the
+bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay panting and laughing after our
+exertions on hot yellow sand, sheltered from the wind, and in the full
+blaze of a scorching sun, a cloudless blue sky above, and an immense
+army of dancing, shouting willow bushes, closing in from all sides,
+shining with spray and clapping their thousand little hands as though to
+applaud the success of our efforts.
+
+"What a river!" I said to my companion, thinking of all the way we had
+traveled from the source in the Black Forest, and how we had often been
+obliged to wade and push in the upper shallows at the beginning of June.
+
+"Won't stand much nonsense now, will it?" he said, pulling the canoe a
+little farther into safety up the sand, and then composing himself for a
+nap.
+
+I lay by his side, happy and peaceful in the bath of the
+elements--water, wind, sand, and the great fire of the sun--thinking of
+the long journey that lay behind us, and of the great stretch before us
+to the Black Sea, and how lucky I was to have such a delightful and
+charming traveling companion as my friend, the Swede.
+
+We had made many similar journeys together, but the Danube, more than
+any other river I knew, impressed us from the very beginning with its
+_aliveness_. From its tiny bubbling entry into the world among the
+pinewood gardens of Donaueschingen, until this moment when it began to
+play the great river-game of losing itself among the deserted swamps,
+unobserved, unrestrained, it had seemed to us like following the growth
+of some living creature. Sleepy at first, but later developing violent
+desires as it became conscious of its deep soul, it rolled, like some
+huge fluid being, through all the countries we had passed, holding our
+little craft on its mighty shoulders, playing roughly with us sometimes,
+yet always friendly and well-meaning, till at length we had come
+inevitably to regard it as a Great Personage.
+
+How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it told us so much of its
+secret life? At night we heard it singing to the moon as we lay in our
+tent, uttering that odd sibilant note peculiar to itself and said to be
+caused by the rapid tearing of the pebbles along its bed, so great is
+its hurrying speed. We knew, too, the voice of its gurgling whirlpools,
+suddenly bubbling up on a surface previously quite calm; the roar of its
+shallows and swift rapids; its constant steady thundering below all mere
+surface sounds; and that ceaseless tearing of its icy waters at the
+banks. How it stood up and shouted when the rains fell flat upon its
+face! And how its laughter roared out when the wind blew upstream and
+tried to stop its growing speed! We knew all its sounds and voices, its
+tumblings and foamings, its unnecessary splashing against the bridges;
+that self-conscious chatter when there were hills to look on; the
+affected dignity of its speech when it passed through the little towns,
+far too important to laugh; and all these faint, sweet whisperings when
+the sun caught it fairly in some slow curve and poured down upon it till
+the steam rose.
+
+It was full of tricks, too, in its early life before the great world
+knew it. There were places in the upper reaches among the Swabian
+forests, when yet the first whispers of its destiny had not reached it,
+where it elected to disappear through holes in the ground, to appear
+again on the other side of the porous limestone hills and start a new
+river with another name; leaving, too, so little water in its own bed
+that we had to climb out and wade and push the canoe through miles of
+shallows!
+
+And a chief pleasure, in those early days of its irresponsible youth,
+was to lie low, like Brer Fox, just before the little turbulent
+tributaries came to join it from the Alps, and to refuse to acknowledge
+them when in, but to run for miles side by side, the dividing line well
+marked, the very levels different, the Danube utterly declining to
+recognize the new-comer. Below Passau, however, it gave up this
+particular trick, for there the Inn comes in with a thundering power
+impossible to ignore, and so pushes and incommodes the parent river that
+there is hardly room for them in the long twisting gorge that follows,
+and the Danube is shoved this way and that against the cliffs, and
+forced to hurry itself with great waves and much dashing to and fro in
+order to get through in time. And during the fight our canoe slipped
+down from its shoulder to its breast, and had the time of its life among
+the struggling waves. But the Inn taught the old river a lesson, and
+after Passau it no longer pretended to ignore new arrivals.
+
+This was many days back, of course, and since then we had come to know
+other aspects of the great creature, and across the Bavarian wheat plain
+of Straubing she wandered so slowly under the blazing June sun that we
+could well imagine only the surface inches were water, while below there
+moved, concealed as by a silken mantle, a whole army of Undines,
+passing silently and unseen down to the sea, and very leisurely too,
+lest they be discovered.
+
+Much, too, we forgave her because of her friendliness to the birds and
+animals that haunted the shores. Cormorants lined the banks in lonely
+places in rows like short black palings; gray crows crowded the
+shingle-beds; storks stood fishing in the vistas of shallower water that
+opened up between the islands, and hawks, swans, and marsh birds of all
+sorts filled the air with glinting wings and singing, petulant cries. It
+was impossible to feel annoyed with the river's vagaries after seeing a
+deer leap with a splash into the water at sunrise and swim past the bows
+of the canoe; and often we saw fawns peering at us from the underbrush,
+or looked straight into the brown eyes of a stag as we charged full tilt
+round a corner and entered another reach of the river. Foxes, too,
+everywhere haunted the banks, tripping daintily among the driftwood and
+disappearing so suddenly that it was impossible to see how they managed
+it.
+
+But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything changed a little, and the
+Danube became more serious. It ceased trifling. It was halfway to the
+Black Sea, within scenting distance almost of other, stranger countries
+where no tricks would be permitted or understood. It became suddenly
+grown-up, and claimed our respect and even our awe. It broke out into
+three arms, for one thing, that only met again a hundred kilometers
+farther down, and for a canoe there were no indications which one was
+intended to be followed.
+
+"If you take a side channel," said the Hungarian officer we met in the
+Pressburg shop while buying provisions, "you may find yourselves, when
+the flood subsides, forty miles from anywhere, high and dry, and you may
+easily starve. There are no people, no farms, no fishermen. I warn you
+not to continue. The river, too, is still rising, and this wind will
+increase."
+
+The rising river did not alarm us in the least, but the matter of being
+left high and dry by a sudden subsidence of the waters might be serious,
+and we had consequently laid in an extra stock of provisions. For the
+rest, the officer's prophecy held true, and the wind, blowing down a
+perfectly clear sky, increased steadily till it reached the dignity of a
+westerly gale.
+
+It was earlier than usual when we camped, for the sun was a good hour or
+two from the horizon, and leaving my friend still asleep on the hot
+sand, I wandered about in desultory examination of our hotel. The
+island, I found, was less than an acre in extent, a mere sandy bank
+standing some two or three feet above the level of the river. The far
+end, pointing into the sunset, was covered with flying spray which the
+tremendous wind drove off the crests of the broken waves. It was
+triangular in shape, with the apex upstream.
+
+I stood there for several minutes, watching the impetuous crimson flood
+bearing down with a shouting roar, dashing in waves against the bank as
+though to sweep it bodily away, and then swirling by in two foaming
+streams on either side. The ground seemed to shake with the shock and
+rush while the furious movement of the willow bushes as the wind poured
+over them increased the curious illusion that the island itself actually
+moved. Above, for a mile or two, I could see the great river descending
+upon me: it was like looking up the slope of a sliding hill, white with
+foam, and leaping up everywhere to show itself to the sun.
+
+The rest of the island was too thickly grown with willows to make
+walking pleasant, but I made the tour, nevertheless. From the lower end
+the light, of course, changed, and the river looked dark and angry. Only
+the backs of the flying waves were visible, streaked with foam, and
+pushed forcibly by the great puffs of wind that fell upon them from
+behind. For a short mile it was visible, pouring in and out among the
+islands, and then disappearing with a huge sweep into the willows, which
+closed about it like a herd of monstrous antediluvian creatures crowding
+down to drink. They made me think of gigantic sponge-like growths that
+sucked the river up into themselves. They caused it to vanish from
+sight. They herded there together in such overpowering numbers.
+
+Altogether it was an impressive scene, with its utter loneliness, its
+bizarre suggestion; and as I gazed, long and curiously, a singular
+emotion began stir somewhere in the depths of me. Midway in my delight
+of the wild beauty, there crept unbidden and unexplained, a curious
+feeling of disquietude, almost of alarm.
+
+A rising river, perhaps, always suggests something of the ominous: many
+of the little islands I saw before me would probably have been swept
+away by the morning; this resistless, thundering flood of water touched
+the sense of awe. Yet I was aware that my uneasiness lay deeper far than
+the emotions of awe and wonder. It was not that I felt. Nor had it
+directly to do with the power of the driving wind--this shouting
+hurricane that might almost carry up a few acres of willows into the air
+and scatter them like so much chaff over the landscape. The wind was
+simply enjoying itself, for nothing rose out of the flat landscape to
+stop it, and I was conscious of sharing its great game with a kind of
+pleasurable excitement. Yet this novel emotion had nothing to do with
+the wind. Indeed, so vague was the sense of distress I experienced, that
+it was impossible to trace it to its source and deal with it
+accordingly, though I was aware somehow that it had to do with my
+realization of our utter insignificance before this unrestrained power
+of the elements about me. The huge-grown river had something to do with
+it too--a vague, unpleasant idea that we had somehow trifled with these
+great elemental forces in whose power we lay helpless every hour of the
+day and night. For here, indeed, they were gigantically at play
+together, and the sight appealed to the imagination.
+
+But my emotion, so far as I could understand it, seemed to attach itself
+more particularly to the willow bushes, to these acres and acres of
+willows, crowding, so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the eye
+could reach, pressing upon the river as though to suffocate it, standing
+in dense array mile after mile beneath the sky, watching, waiting,
+listening. And, apart quite from the elements, the willows connected
+themselves subtly with my malaise, attacking the mind insidiously
+somehow by reason of their vast numbers, and contriving in some way or
+other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty power, a power,
+moreover, not altogether friendly to us.
+
+Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way
+or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains
+overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises
+a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another,
+somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They
+stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole
+to exalt.
+
+With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far different,
+I felt. Some essence emanated from them that besieged the heart. A sense
+of awe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere by a vague terror.
+Their serried ranks growing everywhere darker about me as the shadows
+deepened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke in me the
+curious and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespassed here upon the
+borders of an alien world, a world where we were intruders, a world
+where we were not wanted or invited to remain--where we ran grave risks
+perhaps!
+
+The feeling, however, though it refused to yield its meaning entirely to
+analysis, did not at the time trouble me by passing into menace. Yet it
+never left me quite, even during the very practical business of putting
+up the tent in a hurricane of wind and building a fire for the stew-pot.
+It remained, just enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a most
+delightful camping-ground of a good portion of its charm. To my
+companion, however, I said nothing, for he was a man I considered devoid
+of imagination. In the first place, I could never have explained to him
+what I meant, and in the second, he would have laughed stupidly at me if
+I had.
+
+There was a slight depression in the center of the island, and here we
+pitched the tent. The surrounding willows broke the wind a bit.
+
+"A poor camp," observed the imperturbable Swede when at last the tent
+stood upright; "no stones and precious little firewood. I'm for moving
+on early to-morrow--eh? This sand won't hold anything."
+
+But the experience of a collapsing tent at midnight had taught us many
+devices, and we made the cosy gipsy house as safe as possible, and then
+set about collecting a store of wood to last till bedtime. Willow bushes
+drop no branches, and driftwood was our only source of supply. We hunted
+the shores pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the banks were crumbling as the
+rising flood tore at them and carried away great portions with a splash
+and a gurgle.
+
+"The island's much smaller than when we landed," said the accurate
+Swede. "It won't last long at this rate. We'd better drag the canoe
+close to the tent, and be ready to start at a moment's notice. _I_ shall
+sleep in my clothes."
+
+He was a little distance off, climbing along the bank, and I heard his
+rather jolly laugh as he spoke.
+
+"By Jove!" I heard him call, a moment later, and turned to see what had
+caused his exclamation; but for the moment he was hidden by the willows,
+and I could not find him.
+
+"What in the world's this?" I heard him cry again, and this time his
+voice had become serious.
+
+I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He was looking over the
+river, pointing at something in the water.
+
+"Good Heavens, it's a man's body!" he cried excitedly. "Look!"
+
+A black thing, turning over and over in the foaming waves, swept rapidly
+past. It kept disappearing and coming up to the surface again. It was
+about twenty feet from the shore, and just as it was opposite to where
+we stood it lurched round and looked straight at us. We saw its eyes
+reflecting the sunset, and gleaming an odd yellow as the body turned
+over. Then it gave a swift, gulping plunge, and dived out of sight in a
+flash.
+
+"An otter, by gad!" we exclaimed in the same breath, laughing.
+
+It _was_ an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it had looked exactly
+like the body of a drowned man turning helplessly in the current. Far
+below it came to the surface once again, and we saw its black skin, wet
+and shining in the sunlight.
+
+Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full of driftwood, another
+thing happened to recall us to the river bank. This time it really was a
+man, and what was more, a man in a boat. Now a small boat on the Danube
+was an unusual sight at any time, but here in this deserted region, and
+at flood time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real event. We
+stood and stared.
+
+Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or the refraction from the
+wonderfully illumined water, I cannot say, but, whatever the cause, I
+found it difficult to focus my sight properly upon the flying
+apparition. It seemed, however, to be a man standing upright in a sort
+of flat-bottomed boat, steering with a long oar, and being carried down
+the opposite shore at a tremendous pace. He apparently was looking
+across in our direction, but the distance was too great and the light
+too uncertain for us to make out very plainly what he was about. It
+seemed to me that he was gesticulating and making signs at us. His voice
+came across the water to us shouting something furiously but the wind
+drowned it so that no single word was audible. There was something
+curious about the whole appearance--man, boat, signs, voice--that made
+an impression on me out of all proportion to its cause.
+
+"He's crossing himself!" I cried. "Look, he's making the sign of the
+cross!"
+
+"I believe you're right," the Swede said, shading his eyes with his hand
+and watching the man out of sight. He seemed to be gone in a moment,
+melting away down there into the sea of willows where the sun caught
+them in the bend of the river and turned them into a great crimson wall
+of beauty. Mist, too, had begun to rise, so that the air was hazy.
+
+"But what in the world is he doing at nightfall on this flooded river?"
+I said, half to myself. "Where is he going at such a time, and what did
+he mean by his signs and shouting? D'you think he wished to warn us
+about something?"
+
+"He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably," laughed my
+companion. "These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish: you
+remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed
+here because it belonged to some sort of beings outside man's world! I
+suppose they believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons too.
+That peasant in the boat saw people on the islands for the first time in
+his life," he added, after a slight pause, "and it scared him, that's
+all." The Swede's tone of voice was not convincing, and his manner
+lacked something that was usually there. I noted the change instantly
+while he talked, though without being able to label it precisely.
+
+"If they had enough imagination," I laughed loudly--I remember trying to
+make as much _noise_ as I could--"they might well people a place like
+this with the old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all
+this region more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and
+elemental deities."
+
+The subject dropped and we returned to our stew-pot, for my friend was
+not given to imaginative conversation as a rule. Moreover, just then I
+remember feeling distinctly glad that he was not imaginative; his
+stolid, practical nature suddenly seemed to me welcome and comforting.
+It was an admirable temperament, I felt: he could steer down rapids like
+a red Indian, shoot dangerous bridges and whirlpools better than any
+white man I ever saw in a canoe. He was a grand fellow for an
+adventurous trip, a tower of strength when untoward things happened. I
+looked at his strong face and light curly hair as he staggered along
+under his pile of driftwood (twice the size of mine!), and I experienced
+a feeling of relief. Yes, I was distinctly glad just then that the Swede
+was--what he was, and that he never made remarks that suggested more
+than they said.
+
+"The river's still rising, though," he added, as if following out some
+thoughts of his own, and dropping his load with a gasp. "This island
+will be under water in two days if it goes on."
+
+"I wish the _wind_ would go down," I said. "I don't care a fig for the
+river."
+
+The flood, indeed, had no terrors for us; we could get off at ten
+minutes' notice, and the more water the better we liked it. It meant an
+increasing current and the obliteration of the treacherous shingle-beds
+that so often threatened to tear the bottom out of our canoe.
+
+Contrary to our expectations, the wind did not go down with the sun. It
+seemed to increase with the darkness, howling overhead and shaking the
+willows round us like straws. Curious sounds accompanied it sometimes,
+like the explosion of heavy guns, and it fell upon the water and the
+island in great flat blows of immense power. It made me think of the
+sounds a planet must make, could we only hear it, driving along through
+space.
+
+But the sky kept wholly clear of clouds, and soon after supper the full
+moon rose up in the east and covered the river and the plain of shouting
+willows with a light like the day.
+
+We lay on the sandy patch beside the fire, smoking, listening to the
+noises of the night round us, and talking happily of the journey we had
+already made, and of our plans ahead. The map lay spread in the door of
+the tent, but the high wind made it hard to study, and presently we
+lowered the curtain and extinguished the lantern. The firelight was
+enough to smoke and see each other's faces by, and the sparks flew about
+overhead like fireworks. A few yards beyond, the river gurgled and
+hissed, and from time to time a heavy splash announced the falling away
+of further portions of the bank.
+
+Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the far-away scenes and incidents of
+our first camps in the Black Forest, or of other subjects altogether
+remote from the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the actual
+moment more than was necessary--almost as though we had agreed tacitly
+to avoid discussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter nor
+the boatman, for instance, received the honor of a single mention,
+though ordinarily these would have furnished discussion for the greater
+part of the evening. They were, of course, distinct events in such a
+place.
+
+The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep the fire going, for the
+wind, that drove the smoke in our faces wherever we sat, helped at the
+same time to make a forced draught. We took it in turn to make foraging
+expeditions into the darkness, and the quantity the Swede brought back
+always made me feel that he took an absurdly long time finding it; for
+the fact was I did not care much about being left alone, and yet it
+always seemed to be my turn to grub about among the bushes or scramble
+along the slippery banks in the moonlight. The long day's battle with
+wind and water--such wind and such water!--had tired us both, and an
+early bed was the obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for
+the tent. We lay there, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion,
+peering about us into the dense willow bushes, and listening to the
+thunder of wind and river. The loneliness of the place had entered our
+very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our
+voices became a trifle unreal and forced; whispering would have been the
+fitting mode of communication, I felt, and the human voice, always
+rather absurd amid the roar of the elements, now carried with it
+something almost illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in church,
+or in some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not quite _safe_, to
+be overheard.
+
+The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept
+by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both,
+I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath
+the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world,
+an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of
+willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make
+use of it! Something more than the power of its mystery stirred in me as
+I lay on the sand, feet to fire, and peered up through the leaves at the
+stars. For the last time I rose to get firewood.
+
+"When this has burnt up," I said firmly, "I shall turn in," and my
+companion watched me lazily as I moved off into the surrounding
+shadows.
+
+For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed unusually receptive that
+night, unusually open to suggestion of things other than sensory. He too
+was touched by the beauty and loneliness of the place. I was not
+altogether pleased, I remember, to recognize this slight change in him,
+and instead of immediately collecting sticks, I made my way to the far
+point of the island where the moonlight on plain and river could be seen
+to better advantage. The desire to be alone had come suddenly upon me;
+my former dread returned in force; there was a vague feeling in me I
+wished to face and probe to the bottom.
+
+When I reached the point of sand jutting out among the waves, the spell
+of the place descended upon me with a positive shock. No mere "scenery"
+could have produced such an effect. There was something more here,
+something to alarm.
+
+I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched the whispering
+willows; I heard the ceaseless beating of the tireless wind; and, one
+and all, each in its own way, stirred in me this sensation of a strange
+distress. But the _willows_ especially: for ever they went on chattering
+and talking among themselves, laughing a little, shrilly crying out,
+sometimes sighing--but what it was they made so much to-do about
+belonged to the secret life of the great plain they inhabited. And it
+was utterly alien to the world I knew, or to that of the wild yet
+kindly elements. They made me think of a host of beings from another
+plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps, all discussing a
+mystery known only to themselves. I watched them moving busily together,
+oddly shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their myriad leaves even
+when there was no wind. They moved of their own will as though alive,
+and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the
+_horrible_.
+
+There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast army surrounding our
+camp, shaking their innumerable silver spears defiantly, formed all
+ready for an attack.
+
+The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid;
+for the wanderer, especially, camps have their "note" either of welcome
+or rejection. At first it may not always be apparent, because the busy
+preparations of tent and cooking prevent, but with the first
+pause--after supper usually--it comes and announces itself. And the note
+of this willow-camp now became unmistakably plain to me: we were
+interlopers, trespassers, we were not welcomed. The sense of
+unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watching. We touched the
+frontier of a region where our presence was resented. For a night's
+lodging we might perhaps be tolerated; but for a prolonged and
+inquisitive stay--No! by all the gods of the trees and the wilderness,
+no! We were the first human influences upon this island, and we were not
+wanted. _The willows were against us_.
+
+Strange thoughts like these, bizarre fancies, borne I know not whence,
+found lodgment in my mind as I stood listening. What, I thought, if,
+after all, these crouching willows proved to be alive; if suddenly they
+should rise up, like a swarm of living creatures, marshaled by the gods
+whose territory we had invaded, sweep towards us off the vast swamps,
+booming overhead in the night--and then _settle down_! As I looked it
+was so easy to imagine they actually moved, crept nearer, retreated a
+little, huddled together in masses, hostile, waiting for the great wind
+that should finally start them a-running. I could have sworn their
+aspect changed a little, and their ranks deepened and pressed more
+closely together.
+
+The melancholy shrill cry of a night bird sounded overhead, and suddenly
+I nearly lost my balance as the piece of bank I stood upon fell with a
+great splash into the river, undermined by the flood. I stepped back
+just in time, and went on hunting for firewood again, half laughing at
+the odd fancies that crowded so thickly into my mind and cast their
+spell upon me. I recall the Swede's remark about moving on next day, and
+I was just thinking that I fully agreed with him, when I turned with a
+start and saw the subject of my thoughts standing immediately in front
+of me. He was quite close. The roar of the elements had covered his
+approach.
+
+"You've been gone so long," he shouted above the wind, "I thought
+something must have happened to you."
+
+But there was that in his tone, and a certain look in his face as well,
+that conveyed to me more than his actual words, and in a flash I
+understood the real reason for his coming. It was because the spell of
+the place had entered his soul too, and he did not like being alone.
+
+"River still rising," he cried, pointing to the flood in the moonlight,
+"and the wind's simply awful."
+
+He always said the same things, but it was the cry for companionship
+that gave the real importance to his words.
+
+"Lucky," I cried back, "our tent's in the hollow. I think it'll hold all
+right." I added something about the difficulty of finding wood, in order
+to explain my absence, but the wind caught my words and flung them
+across the river, so that he did not hear, but just looked at me through
+the branches, nodding his head.
+
+"Lucky if we get away without disaster!" he shouted, or words to that
+effect; and I remember feeling half angry with him for putting the
+thought into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself. There was
+disaster impending somewhere, and the sense of presentiment lay
+unpleasantly upon me.
+
+We went back to the fire and made a final blaze, poking it up with our
+feet. We took a last look round. But for the wind the heat would have
+been unpleasant. I put this thought into words, and I remember my
+friend's reply struck me oddly: that he would rather have the heat, the
+ordinary July weather, than this "diabolical wind."
+
+Everything was snug for the night; the canoe lying turned over beside
+the tent, with both yellow paddles beneath her; the provision sack
+hanging from a willow stem, and the washed-up dishes removed to a safe
+distance from the fire, all ready for the morning meal.
+
+We smothered the embers of the fire with sand, and then turned in. The
+flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the branches and the stars and
+the white moonlight. The shaking willows and the heavy buffetings of the
+wind against our taut little house were the last things I remembered as
+sleep came down and covered all with its soft and delicious
+forgetfulness.
+
+
+II
+
+Suddenly I found myself lying awake, peering from my sandy mattress
+through the door of the tent. I looked at my watch pinned against the
+canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that it was past twelve
+o'clock--the threshold of a new day--and I had therefore slept a couple
+of hours. The Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind howled as
+before something plucked at my heart and made me feel afraid. There was
+a sense of disturbance in my immediate neighborhood.
+
+I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were swaying violently to and
+fro as the gusts smote them, but our little bit of green canvas lay
+snugly safe in the hollow, for the wind passed over it without meeting
+enough resistance to make it vicious. The feeling of disquietude did not
+pass however, and I crawled quietly out of the tent to see if our
+belongings were safe. I moved carefully so as not to waken my companion.
+A curious excitement was on me.
+
+I was halfway out, kneeling on all fours, when my eye first took in that
+the tops of the bushes opposite, with their moving tracery of leaves,
+made shapes against the sky. I sat back on my haunches and stared. It
+was incredible, surely, but there, opposite and slightly above me, were
+shapes of some indeterminate sort among the willows, and as the branches
+swayed in the wind they seemed to group themselves about these shapes,
+forming a series of monstrous outlines that shifted rapidly beneath the
+moon. Close, about fifty feet in front of me, I saw these things.
+
+My first instinct was to waken my companion that he too might see them,
+but something made me hesitate--the sudden realization, probably, that I
+should not welcome corroboration; and meanwhile I crouched there staring
+in amazement with smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying to
+myself that I was _not_ dreaming.
+
+They first became properly visible, these huge figures, just within the
+tops of the bushes--immense bronze-colored, moving, and wholly
+independent of the swaying of the branches. I saw them plainly and
+noted, now I came to examine them more calmly, that they were very much
+larger than human, and indeed that something in their appearance
+proclaimed them to be _not human_ at all. Certainly they were not merely
+the moving tracery of the branches against the moonlight. They shifted
+independently. They rose upwards in a continuous stream from earth to
+sky, vanishing utterly as soon as they reached the dark of the sky. They
+were interlaced one with another, making a great column, and I saw their
+limbs and huge bodies melting in and out of each other, forming this
+serpentine line that bent and swayed and twisted spirally with the
+contortions of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude, fluid shapes,
+passing up the bushes, _within_ the leaves almost--rising up in a living
+column into the heavens. Their faces I never could see. Unceasingly they
+poured upwards, swaying in great bending curves, with a hue of dull
+bronze upon their skins.
+
+I stared, trying to force every atom of vision from my eyes. For a long
+time I thought they _must_ every moment disappear and resolve themselves
+into the movements of the branches and prove to be an optical illusion.
+I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I
+understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed. For the
+longer I looked the more certain I became that these figures were real
+and living, though perhaps not according to the standards that the
+camera and the biologist would insist upon.
+
+Far from feeling fear, I was possessed with a sense of awe and wonder
+such as I have never known. I seemed to be gazing at the personified
+elemental forces of this haunted and primeval region. Our intrusion had
+stirred the powers of the place into activity. It was we who were the
+cause of the disturbance, and my brain filled to bursting with stories
+and legends of the spirits and deities of places that have been
+acknowledged and worshiped by men in all ages of the world's history.
+But, before I could arrive at any possible explanation, something
+impelled me to go farther out, and I crept forward on to the sand and
+stood upright. I felt the ground still warm under my bare feet; the wind
+tore at my hair and face; and the sound of the river burst upon my ears
+with a sudden roar. These things, I knew, were real, and proved that my
+senses were acting normally. Yet the figures still rose from earth to
+heaven, silent, majestically, in a great spiral of grace and strength
+that overwhelmed me at length with a genuine deep emotion of worship. I
+felt that I must fall down and worship--absolutely worship.
+
+Perhaps in another minute I might have done so, when a gust of wind
+swept against me with such force that it blew me sideways, and I nearly
+stumbled and fell. It seemed to shake the dream violently out of me. At
+least it gave me another point of view somehow. The figures still
+remained, still ascended into heaven from the heart of the night, but my
+reason at last began to assert itself. It must be a subjective
+experience, I argued--none the less real for that, but still subjective.
+The moonlight and the branches combined to work out these pictures upon
+the mirror of my imagination, and for some reason I projected them
+outwards and made them appear objective. I knew this must be the case,
+of course. I was the subject of a vivid and interesting hallucination. I
+took courage, and began to move forward across the open patches of sand.
+By Jove, though, was it all hallucination? Was it merely subjective? Did
+not my reason argue in the old futile way from the little standard of
+the known?
+
+I only know that great column of figures ascended darkly into the sky
+for what seemed a very long period of time, and with a very complete
+measure of reality as most men are accustomed to gauge reality. Then
+suddenly they were gone!
+
+And, once they were gone and the immediate wonder of their great
+presence had passed, fear came down upon me with a cold rush. The
+esoteric meaning of this lonely and haunted region suddenly flamed up
+within me and I began to tremble dreadfully. I took a quick look
+round--a look of horror that came near to panic--calculating vainly ways
+of escape; and then, realizing how helpless I was to achieve anything
+really effective, I crept back silently into the tent and lay down again
+upon my sandy mattress, first lowering the door-curtain to shut out the
+sight of the willows in the moonlight, and then burying my head as
+deeply as possible beneath the blankets to deaden the sound of the
+terrifying wind.
+
+
+III
+
+As though further to convince me that I had not been dreaming, I
+remember that it was a long time before I fell again into a troubled and
+restless sleep; and even then only the upper crust of me slept, and
+underneath there was something that never quite lost consciousness, but
+lay alert and on the watch.
+
+But this second time I jumped up with a genuine start of terror. It was
+neither the wind nor the river that woke me, but the slow approach of
+something that caused the sleeping portion of me to grow smaller and
+smaller till at last it vanished altogether, and I found myself sitting
+bolt upright--listening.
+
+Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little patterings. They had
+been coming, I was aware, for a long time, and in my sleep they had
+first become audible. I sat there nervously wide awake as though I had
+not slept at all. It seemed to me that my breathing came with
+difficulty, and that there was a great weight upon the surface of my
+body. In spite of the hot night, I felt clammy with cold and shivered.
+Something surely was pressing steadily against the sides of the tent and
+weighing down upon it from above. Was it the body of the wind? Was this
+the pattering rain, the dripping of the leaves? The spray blown from
+the river by the wind and gathering in big drops? I thought quickly of a
+dozen things.
+
+Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my mind: a bough from the
+poplar, the only large tree on the island, had fallen with the wind.
+Still half caught by the other branches, it would fall with the next
+gust and crush us, and meanwhile its leaves brushed and tapped upon the
+tight canvas surface of the tent. I raised the loose flap and rushed
+out, calling to the Swede to follow.
+
+But when I got out and stood upright I saw that the tent was free. There
+was no hanging bough; there was no rain or spray; nothing approached.
+
+A cold, gray light filtered down through the bushes and lay on the
+faintly gleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky directly overhead,
+and the wind howled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave out any
+glow, and I saw the east reddening in streaks through the trees. Several
+hours must have passed since I stood there before, watching the
+ascending figures, and the memory of it now came back to me horribly,
+like an evil dream. Oh, how tired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging
+wind! Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless night was on me, my
+nerves were tingling with the activity of an equally tireless
+apprehension, and all idea of repose was out of the question. The river
+I saw had risen further. Its thunder filled the air, and a fine spray
+made itself felt through my thin sleeping shirt.
+
+Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidences of anything to cause
+alarm. This deep, prolonged disturbance in my heart remained wholly
+unaccounted for.
+
+My companion had not stirred when I called him, and there was no need to
+waken him now. I looked about me carefully, noting everything: the
+turned-over canoe; the yellow paddles--two of them, I'm certain; the
+provision sack and the extra lantern hanging together from the tree;
+and, crowding everywhere about me, enveloping all, the willows, those
+endless, shaking willows. A bird uttered its morning cry, and a string
+of duck passed with whirring flight overhead in the twilight. The sand
+whirled, dry and stinging, about my bare feet in the wind.
+
+I walked round the tent and then went out a little way into the bush, so
+that I could see across the river to the farther landscape, and the same
+profound yet indefinable emotion of distress seized upon me again as I
+saw the interminable sea of bushes stretching to the horizon, looking
+ghostly and unreal in the wan light of dawn. I walked softly here and
+there, still puzzling over that odd sound of infinite pattering, and of
+that pressure upon the tent that had wakened me. It _must_ have been the
+wind, I reflected--the wind beating upon the loose, hot sand, driving
+the dry particles smartly against the taut canvas--the wind dropping
+heavily upon our fragile roof.
+
+Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise increased appreciably.
+
+I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how the coast line had
+altered in the night, and what masses of sand the river had torn away. I
+dipped my hands and feet into the cool current, and bathed my forehead.
+Already there was a glow of sunrise in the sky and the exquisite
+freshness of coming day. On my way back I passed purposely beneath the
+very bushes where I had seen the column of figures rising into the air,
+and midway among the clumps I suddenly found myself overtaken by a sense
+of vast terror. From the shadows a large figure went swiftly by. Some
+one passed me, as sure as ever man did....
+
+It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me forward
+again, and once out in the more open space, the sense of terror
+diminished strangely. The winds were about and walking, I remember
+saying to myself; for the winds often move like great presences under
+the trees. And altogether the fear that hovered about me was such an
+unknown and immense kind of fear, so unlike anything I had ever felt
+before, that it woke a sense of awe and wonder in me that did much to
+counteract its worst effects; and when I reached a high point in the
+middle of the island from which I could see the wide stretch of river,
+crimson in the sunrise, the whole magical beauty of it all was so
+overpowering that a sort of wild yearning woke in me and almost brought
+a cry up into the throat.
+
+But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes wandered from the plain
+beyond to the island round me and noted our little tent half hidden
+among the willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me, compared to
+which my terror of the walking winds seemed as nothing at all.
+
+For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of
+the landscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different
+view, but that an alteration had apparently been effected in the
+relation of the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent.
+Surely the bushes now crowded much closer--unnecessarily, unpleasantly
+close. _They had moved nearer_.
+
+Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing imperceptibly
+nearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows had come closer during
+the night. But had the wind moved them, or had they moved of themselves?
+I recalled the sound of infinite small patterings and the pressure upon
+the tent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake in terror. I
+swayed for a moment in the wind like a tree, finding it hard to keep my
+upright position on the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here of
+personal agency, of deliberate intention, of aggressive hostility, and
+it terrified me into a sort of rigidity.
+
+Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea was so bizarre, so absurd,
+that I felt inclined to laugh. But the laughter came no more readily
+than the cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so receptive to such
+dangerous imaginings brought the additional terror that it was through
+our minds and not through our physical bodies that the attack would
+come, and was coming.
+
+The wind buffeted me about, and, very quickly it seemed, the sun came up
+over the horizon, for it was after four o'clock, and I must have stood
+on that little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew, afraid to come down
+at close quarters with the willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the
+tent, first taking another exhaustive look round and--yes, I confess
+it--making a few measurements. I paced out on the warm sand the
+distances between the willows and the tent, making a note of the
+shortest distance particularly.
+
+I crawled stealthily into my blankets. My companion, to all appearances,
+still slept soundly, and I was glad that this was so. Provided my
+experiences were not corroborated, I could find strength somehow to deny
+them, perhaps. With the daylight I could persuade myself that it was all
+a subjective hallucination, a fantasy of the night, a projection of the
+excited imagination.
+
+Nothing further came to disturb me, and I fell asleep almost at once,
+utterly exhausted, yet still in dread of hearing again that weird sound
+of multitudinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my heart
+that had made it difficult to breathe.
+
+
+IV
+
+The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavy
+sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just
+time to bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent
+door.
+
+"River still rising," he said, "and several islands out in midstream
+have disappeared altogether. Our own island's much smaller."
+
+"Any wood left?" I asked sleepily.
+
+"The wood and the island will finish to-morrow in a dead heat," he
+laughed, "but there's enough to last us till then."
+
+I plunged in from the point of the island, which had indeed altered a
+lot in size and shape during the night, and was swept down in a moment
+to the landing place opposite the tent. The water was icy, and the banks
+flew by like the country from an express train. Bathing under such
+conditions was an exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night
+seemed cleansed out of me by a process of evaporation in the brain. The
+sun was blazing hot; not a cloud showed itself anywhere; the wind,
+however, had not abated one little jot.
+
+Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede's words flashed
+across me, showing that he no longer wished to leave posthaste, and had
+changed his mind. "Enough to last till to-morrow"--he assumed we should
+stay on the island another night. It struck me as odd. The night before
+he was so positive the other way. How had the change come about?
+
+Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with heavy
+splashings and clouds of spray which the wind brought into our
+frying-pan, and my fellow-traveler talked incessantly about the
+difficulty the Vienna-Pesth steamers must have to find the channel in
+flood. But the state of his mind interested and impressed me far more
+than the state of the river or the difficulties of the steamers. He had
+changed somehow since the evening before. His manner was different--a
+trifle excited, a trifle shy, with a sort of suspicion about his voice
+and gestures. I hardly know how to describe it now in cold blood, but at
+the time I remember being quite certain of one thing, viz., that he had
+become frightened!
+
+He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke his pipe. He
+had the map spread open beside him, and kept studying its markings.
+
+"We'd better get off sharp in an hour," I said presently, feeling for an
+opening that must bring him indirectly to a partial confession at any
+rate. And his answer puzzled me uncomfortably: "Rather! If they'll let
+us."
+
+"Who'll let us? The elements?" I asked quickly, with affected
+indifference.
+
+"The powers of this awful place, whoever they are," he replied, keeping
+his eyes on the map. "The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in
+the world."
+
+"The elements are always the true immortals," I replied, laughing as
+naturally as I could manage, yet knowing quite well that my face
+reflected my true feelings when he looked up gravely at me and spoke
+across the smoke:
+
+"We shall be fortunate if we get away without further disaster."
+
+This was exactly what I had dreaded, and I screwed myself up to the
+point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist
+to extract the tooth; it _had_ to come anyhow in the long run, and the
+rest was all pretense.
+
+"Further disaster! Why, what's happened?"
+
+"For one thing--the steering paddle's gone," he said quietly.
+
+"The steering paddle gone!" I repeated, greatly excited, for this was
+our rudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder was suicide. "But
+what----"
+
+"And there's a tear in the bottom of the canoe," he added, with a
+genuine little tremor in his voice.
+
+I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in his face
+somewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and on this burning
+sand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending round us. I got up
+to follow him, for he merely nodded his head gravely and led the way
+towards the tent a few yards on the other side of the fireplace. The
+canoe still lay there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs
+uppermost, the paddles, or rather, _the_ paddle, on the sand beside her.
+
+"There's only one," he said, stooping to pick it up. "And here's the
+rent in the base-board."
+
+It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had clearly noticed
+_two_ paddles a few hours before, but a second impulse made me think
+better of it, and I said nothing. I approached to see.
+
+There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the canoe where a
+little slither of wood had been neatly taken clean out; it looked as if
+the tooth of a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length, and
+investigation showed that the hole went through. Had we launched out in
+her without observing it we must inevitably have foundered. At first the
+water would have made the wood swell so as to close the hole, but once
+out in midstream the water must have poured in, and the canoe, never
+more than two inches above the surface, would have filled and sunk very
+rapidly.
+
+"There, you see, an attempt to prepare a victim for the sacrifice," I
+heard him saying, more to himself than to me, "two victims rather," he
+added as he bent over and ran his fingers along the slit.
+
+I began to whistle--a thing I always do unconsciously when utterly
+nonplused--and purposely paid no attention to his words. I was
+determined to consider them foolish.
+
+"It wasn't there last night," he said presently, straightening up from
+his examination and looking anywhere but at me.
+
+"We must have scratched her in landing, of course," I stopped whistling
+to say, "The stones are very sharp----"
+
+I stopped abruptly, for at that moment he turned round and met my eye
+squarely. I knew just as well as he did how impossible my explanation
+was. There were no stones, to begin with.
+
+"And then there's this to explain too," he added quietly, handing me the
+paddle and pointing to the blade.
+
+A new and curious emotion spread freezingly over me as I took and
+examined it. The blade was scraped down all over, beautifully scraped,
+as though someone had sand-papered it with care, making it so thin that
+the first vigorous stroke must have snapped it off at the elbow.
+
+"One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing," I said feebly,
+"or--or it has been filed by the constant stream of sand particles blown
+against it by the wind, perhaps."
+
+"Ah," said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, "you can explain
+everything!"
+
+"The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near the
+bank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled," I called out
+after him, absolutely determined to find an explanation for everything
+he showed me.
+
+"I see," he shouted back, turning his head to look at me before
+disappearing among the willow bushes.
+
+Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think
+my first thought took the form of "One of us must have done this thing,
+and it certainly was not I." But my second thought decided how
+impossible it was to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either
+of us had done it. That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen
+similar expeditions, could have knowingly had a hand in it, was a
+suggestion not to be entertained for a moment. Equally absurd seemed the
+explanation that this imperturbable and densely practical nature had
+suddenly become insane and was busied with insane purposes.
+
+Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fear
+actively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the
+clear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in his
+_mind_--that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he
+did not speak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto
+unmentionable events--waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected,
+and, I thought, expected very soon. This grew up in my mind
+intuitively--I hardly knew how.
+
+I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the
+measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows
+formed in the sand, I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and
+of various depths and sizes, varying from that of a teacup to a large
+bowl. The wind, no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters,
+just as it was for lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water.
+The rent in the canoe was the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable;
+and, after all, it _was_ conceivable that a sharp point had caught it
+when we landed. The examination I made of the shore did not assist this
+theory, but all the same I clung to it with that diminishing portion of
+my intelligence which I called my "reason." An explanation of some kind
+was an absolute necessity, just as some working explanation of the
+universe is necessary--however absurd--to the happiness of every
+individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and face the problems
+of life. The simile seemed to me at the time an exact parallel.
+
+I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede joined me at
+the work, though under the best conditions in the world the canoe could
+not be safe for traveling till the following day. I drew his attention
+casually to the hollows in the sand.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I know. They're all over the island. But _you_ can
+explain them, no doubt!"
+
+"Wind, of course," I answered without hesitation. "Have you never
+watched those little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl
+everything into a circle? This sand's loose enough to yield, that's
+all."
+
+He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I watched him
+surreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he was watching me. He
+seemed, too, to be always listening attentively to something I could not
+hear, or perhaps for something that he expected to hear, for he kept
+turning about and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, and out
+across the water where it was visible through the openings among the
+willows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear and held it there for
+several minutes. He said nothing to me, however, about it, and I asked
+no questions. And meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe with the skill
+and address of a red Indian, I was glad to notice his absorption in the
+work, for there was a vague dread in my heart that he would speak of the
+changed aspect of the willows. And, if he had noticed _that_, my
+imagination could no longer be held a sufficient explanation of it.
+
+At length, after a long pause, he began to talk.
+
+"Queer thing," he added in a hurried sort of voice, as though he wanted
+to say something and get it over. "Queer thing, I mean, about that otter
+last night."
+
+I had expected something so totally different that he caught me with
+surprise, and I looked up sharply.
+
+"Shows how lonely this place is. Otters are awfully shy things--"
+
+"I don't mean that, of course," he interrupted. "I mean--do you
+think--did you think it really was an otter?"
+
+"What else, in the name of Heaven, what else?"
+
+"You know, I saw it before you did, and at first it seemed--so _much_
+bigger than an otter."
+
+"The sunset as you looked upstream magnified it, or something," I
+replied.
+
+He looked at me absently a moment, as though his mind were busy with
+other thoughts.
+
+"It had such extraordinary yellow eyes," he went on half to himself.
+
+"That was the sun too," I laughed, a trifle boisterously. "I suppose
+you'll wonder next if that fellow in the boat----"
+
+I suddenly decided not to finish the sentence. He was in the act again
+of listening, turning his head to the wind, and something in the
+expression of his face made me halt. The subject dropped, and we went on
+with our caulking. Apparently he had not noticed my unfinished sentence.
+Five minutes later, however, he looked at me across the canoe, the
+smoking pitch in his hand, his face exceedingly grave.
+
+"I _did_ rather wonder, if you want to know," he said slowly, "what that
+thing in the boat was. I remember thinking at the time it was not a man.
+The whole business seemed to rise quite suddenly out of the water."
+
+I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this time there was
+impatience and a strain of anger too, in my feeling.
+
+"Look here now," I cried, "this place is quite queer enough without
+going out of our way to imagine things! That boat was an ordinary boat,
+and the man in it was an ordinary man, and they were both going
+downstream as fast as they could lick. And that otter _was_ an otter, so
+don't let's play the fool about it!"
+
+He looked steadily at me with the same grave expression. He was not in
+the least annoyed. I took courage from his silence.
+
+"And for heaven's sake," I went on, "don't keep pretending you hear
+things, because it only gives me the jumps, and there's nothing to hear
+but the river and this cursed old thundering wind."
+
+"You _fool_!" he answered in a low, shocked voice, "you utter fool.
+That's just the way all victims talk. As if you didn't understand just
+as well as I do!" he sneered with scorn in his voice, and a sort of
+resignation. "The best thing you can do is to keep quiet and try to hold
+your mind as firm as possible. This feeble attempt at self-deception
+only makes the truth harder when you're forced to meet it."
+
+My little effort was over, and I found nothing more to say, for I knew
+quite well his words were true, and that I was the fool, not _he_. Up to
+a certain stage in the adventure he kept ahead of me easily, and I think
+I felt annoyed to be out of it, to be thus proved less psychic, less
+sensitive than himself to these extraordinary happenings, and half
+ignorant all the time of what was going on under my very nose. _He knew_
+from the very beginning, apparently. But at the moment I wholly missed
+the point of his words about the necessity of there being a victim, and
+that we ourselves were destined to satisfy the want. I dropped all
+pretense thenceforward, but thenceforward likewise my fear increased
+steadily to the climax.
+
+"But you're quite right about one thing," he added, before the subject
+passed, "and that is that we're wiser not to talk about it, or even to
+think about it, because what one _thinks_ finds expression in words, and
+what one _says_, happens."
+
+That afternoon, while the canoe dried and hardened, we spent trying to
+fish, testing the leak, collecting wood, and watching the enormous flood
+of rising water. Masses of driftwood swept near our shores sometimes,
+and we fished for them with long willow branches. The island grew
+perceptibly smaller as the banks were torn away with great gulps and
+splashes. The weather kept brilliantly fine till about four o'clock, and
+then for the first time for three days the wind showed signs of abating.
+Clouds began to gather in the southwest, spreading thence slowly over
+the sky.
+
+This lessening of the wind came as a great relief, for the incessant
+roaring, banging, and thundering had irritated our nerves. Yet the
+silence that came about five o'clock with its sudden cessation was in a
+manner quite as oppressive. The booming of the river had everything its
+own way then: it filled the air with deep murmurs, more musical than the
+wind noises, but infinitely more monotonous. The wind held many notes,
+rising, falling, always beating out some sort of great elemental tune;
+whereas the river's song lay between three notes at most--dull pedal
+notes, that held a lugubrious quality foreign to the wind, and somehow
+seemed to me, in my then nervous state, to sound wonderfully well the
+music of doom.
+
+It was extraordinary, too, how the withdrawal suddenly of bright
+sunlight took everything out of the landscape that made for
+cheerfulness; and since this particular landscape had already managed to
+convey the suggestion of something sinister, the change of course was
+all the more unwelcome and noticeable. For me, I know, the darkening
+outlook became distinctly more alarming, and I found myself more than
+once calculating how soon after sunset the full moon would get up in the
+east, and whether the gathering clouds would greatly interfere with her
+lighting of the little island.
+
+With this general hush of the wind--though it still indulged in
+occasional brief gusts--the river seemed to me to grow blacker, the
+willows to stand more densely together. The latter, too, kept up a sort
+of independent movement of their own, rustling among themselves when no
+wind stirred, and shaking oddly from the roots upwards. When common
+objects in this way become charged with the suggestion of horror, they
+stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance;
+and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the
+darkness a bizarre _grotesquerie_ of appearance that lent to them
+somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very
+ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us. The
+forces of the region drew nearer with the coming of night. They were
+focusing upon our island, and more particularly upon ourselves. For
+thus, somehow, in the terms of the imagination, did my really
+indescribable sensations in this extraordinary place present themselves.
+
+I had slept a good deal in the early afternoon, and had thus recovered
+somewhat from the exhaustion of a disturbed night, but this only served
+apparently to render me more susceptible than before to the obsessing
+spell of the haunting. I fought against it, laughing at my feelings as
+absurd and childish, with very obvious physiological explanations, yet,
+in spite of every effort, they gained in strength upon me so that I
+dreaded the night as a child lost in a forest must dread the approach of
+darkness.
+
+The canoe we had carefully covered with a waterproof sheet during the
+day, and the one remaining paddle had been securely tied by the Swede to
+the base of a tree, lest the wind should rob us of that too. From five
+o'clock onwards I busied myself with the stew-pot and preparations for
+dinner, it being my turn to cook that night. We had potatoes, onions,
+bits of bacon fat to add flavour, and a general thick residue from
+former stews at the bottom of the pot; with black bread broken up into
+it the result was most excellent, and it was followed by a stew of plums
+with sugar and a brew of strong tea with dried milk. A good pile of wood
+lay close at hand, and the absence of wind made my duties easy. My
+companion sat lazily watching me, dividing his attentions between
+cleaning his pipe and giving useless advice--an admitted privilege of
+the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in
+re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for
+driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable things had
+passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the
+gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was now fully a
+third smaller than when we first landed.
+
+The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard his voice calling to me
+from the bank, where he had wandered away without my noticing. I ran up.
+
+"Come and listen," he said, "and see what you make of it." He held his
+hand cupwise to his ear, as so often before.
+
+"_Now_ do you hear anything?" he asked, watching me curiously.
+
+We stood there, listening attentively together. At first I heard only
+the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent
+surface. The willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then a sound
+began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar sound--something like the
+humming of a distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the
+darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated
+at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell
+nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much
+as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky,
+repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as
+it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as I listened.
+
+"I've heard it all day," said my companion. "While you slept this
+afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down, but could
+never get near enough to see--to localize it correctly. Sometimes it was
+overhead, and sometimes it seemed under the water. Once or twice, too, I
+could have sworn it was not outside at all, but _within myself_--you
+know--the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed to come."
+
+I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to his words. I listened
+carefully, striving to associate it with any known familiar sound I
+could think of, but without success. It changed in direction, too,
+coming nearer, and then sinking utterly away into remote distance. I
+cannot say that it was ominous in quality, because to me it seemed
+distinctly musical, yet I must admit it set going a distressing feeling
+that made me wish I had never heard it.
+
+"The wind blowing in those sand-funnels," I said, determined to find an
+explanation, "or the bushes rubbing together after the storm perhaps."
+
+"It comes off the whole swamp," my friend answered. "It comes from
+everywhere at once." He ignored my explanations. "It comes from the
+willow bushes somehow----"
+
+"But now the wind has dropped," I objected "The willows can hardly make
+a noise by themselves, can they?"
+
+His answer frightened me, first because I had dreaded it, and secondly,
+because I knew intuitively it was true.
+
+"It is _because_ the wind has dropped we now hear it. It was drowned
+before. It is the cry, I believe of the----"
+
+I dashed back to my fire, warned by a sound of bubbling that the stew
+was in danger, but determined at the same time to escape from further
+conversation. I was resolute, if possible, to avoid the exchanging of
+views. I dreaded, too, that he would begin again about the gods, or the
+elemental forces, or something else disquieting, and I wanted to keep
+myself well in hand for what might happen later. There was another night
+to be faced before we escaped from this distressing place, and there was
+no knowing yet what it might bring forth.
+
+"Come and cut up bread for the pot," I called to him, vigorously
+stirring the appetizing mixture. That stew-pot held sanity for us both,
+and the thought made me laugh.
+
+He came over slowly and took the provision sack from the tree, fumbling
+in its mysterious depths, and then emptying the entire contents upon the
+ground-sheet at his feet.
+
+"Hurry up!" I cried; "it's boiling."
+
+The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that startled me. It was
+forced laughter, not artificial exactly, but mirthless.
+
+"There's nothing here!" he shouted, holding his sides.
+
+"Bread, I mean."
+
+"It's gone. There is no bread. They've taken it!"
+
+I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Everything the sack had contained
+lay upon the ground-sheet, but there was no loaf.
+
+The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. Then
+I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound of
+my own laughter also made me understand his. The strain of psychical
+pressure caused it--this explosion of unnatural laughter in both of us;
+it was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief; it was a temporary
+safety valve. And with both of us it ceased quite suddenly.
+
+"How criminally stupid of me!" I cried, still determined to be
+consistent and find an explanation. "I clean forgot to buy a loaf at
+Pressburg. That chattering woman put everything out of my head, and I
+must have left it lying on the counter or----"
+
+"The oatmeal, too, is much less than it was this morning," the Swede
+interrupted.
+
+Why in the world need he draw attention to it? I thought angrily.
+
+"There's enough for to-morrow," I said, stirring vigorously, "and we can
+get lots more at Komorn or Gran. In twenty-four hours we shall be miles
+from here."
+
+"I hope so--to God," he muttered, putting the things back into the sack,
+"unless we're claimed first as victims for the sacrifice," he added
+with a foolish laugh. He dragged the sack into the tent, for safety's
+sake, I suppose, and I heard him mumbling on to himself, but so
+indistinctly that it seemed quite natural for me to ignore his words.
+
+Our meal was beyond question a gloomy one, and we ate it almost in
+silence, avoiding one another's eyes, and keeping the fire bright. Then
+we washed up and prepared for the night, and, once smoking, our minds
+unoccupied with any definite duties, the apprehension I had felt all day
+long became more and more acute. It was not then active fear, I think,
+but the very vagueness of its origin distressed me far more than if I
+had been able to ticket and face it squarely. The curious sound I have
+likened to the note of a gong became now almost incessant, and filled
+the stillness of the night with a faint, continuous ringing rather than
+a series of distinct notes. At one time it was behind and at another
+time in front of us. Sometimes I fancied it came from the bushes on our
+left, and then again from the clumps on our right. More often it hovered
+directly overhead like the whirring of wings. It was really everywhere
+at once, behind, in front, at our sides and over our heads, completely
+surrounding us. The sound really defies description. But nothing within
+my knowledge is like that ceaseless muffled humming rising off the
+deserted world of swamps and willows.
+
+We sat smoking in comparative silence, the strain growing every minute
+greater. The worst feature of the situation seemed to me that we did not
+know what to expect, and could therefore make no sort of preparation by
+way of defense. We could anticipate nothing. My explanations made in the
+sunshine, moreover, now came to haunt me with their foolish and wholly
+unsatisfactory nature, and it was more and more clear to me that some
+kind of plain talk with my companion was inevitable, whether I liked it
+or not. After all, we had to spend the night together, and to sleep in
+the same tent side by side. I saw that I could not get along much longer
+without the support of his mind, and for that, of course, plain talk was
+imperative. As long as possible, however, I postponed this little
+climax, and tried to ignore or laugh at the occasional sentences he
+flung into the emptiness.
+
+Some of these sentences, moreover, were confoundedly disquieting to me,
+coming as they did to corroborate much that I felt myself:
+corroboration, too--which made it so much more convincing--from a
+totally different point of view. He composed such curious sentences, and
+hurled them at me in such an inconsequential sort of way, as though his
+main line of thought was secret to himself, and these fragments were the
+bits he found it impossible to digest. He got rid of them by uttering
+them. Speech relieved him. It was like being sick.
+
+"There are things about us, I'm sure, that make for disorder,
+disintegration, destruction, _our_ destruction," he said once, while the
+fire blazed between us. "We've strayed out of a safe line somewhere."
+
+And another time, when the gong sounds had come nearer, ringing much
+louder than before, and directly over our heads, he said, as though
+talking to himself:
+
+"I don't think a phonograph would show any record of that. The sound
+doesn't come to me by the ears at all. The vibrations reach me in
+another manner altogether, and seem to be within me, which is precisely
+how a fourth dimension sound might be supposed to make itself heard."
+
+I purposely made no reply to this, but I sat up a little closer to the
+fire and peered about me into the darkness. The clouds were massed all
+over the sky and no trace of moonlight came through. Very still, too,
+everything was, so that the river and the frogs had things all their own
+way.
+
+"It has that about it," he went on, "which is utterly out of common
+experience. It is _unknown_. Only one thing describes it really: it is a
+non-human sound; I mean a sound outside humanity."
+
+Having rid himself of this indigestible morsel, he lay quiet for a time;
+but he had so admirably expressed my own feeling that it was a relief to
+have the thought out, and to have confined it by the limitation of words
+from dangerous wandering to and fro in the mind.
+
+The solitude of that Danube camping-place, can I ever forget it? The
+feeling of being utterly alone on an empty planet! My thoughts ran
+incessantly upon cities and the haunts of men. I would have given my
+soul, as the saying is, for the "feel" of those Bavarian villages we had
+passed through by the score; for the normal, human commonplaces,
+peasants drinking beer, tables beneath the trees, hot sunshine, and a
+ruined castle on the rocks behind the red-roofed church. Even the
+tourists would have been welcome.
+
+Yet what I felt of dread was no ordinary ghostly fear. It was infinitely
+greater, stranger, and seemed to arise from some dim ancestral sense of
+terror more profoundly disturbing than anything I had known or dreamed
+of. We had "strayed," as the Swede put it, into some region or some set
+of conditions where the risks were great, yet unintelligible to us;
+where the frontiers of some unknown world lay close about us. It was a
+spot held by the dwellers in some outer space, a sort of peephole whence
+they could spy upon the earth, themselves unseen, a point where the veil
+between had worn a little thin. As the final result of too long a
+sojourn here, we should be carried over the border and deprived of what
+we called "our lives," yet by mental, not physical, processes. In that
+sense, as he said, we should be the victims of our adventure--a
+sacrifice.
+
+It took us in different fashion, each according to the measure of his
+sensitiveness and powers of resistance. I translated it vaguely into a
+personification of the mightily disturbed elements, investing them with
+the horror of a deliberate and malefic purpose, resentful of our
+audacious intrusion into their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw
+it into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass on some ancient
+shrine, some place where the old gods still held sway, where the
+emotional forces of former worshipers still clung, and the ancestral
+portion of him yielded to the old pagan spell.
+
+At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men, kept clean by the winds
+from coarsening human influences, a place where spiritual agencies were
+within reach and aggressive. Never, before or since, have I been so
+attacked by indescribable suggestions of a "beyond region," of another
+scheme of life, another evolution not parallel to the human. And in the
+end our minds would succumb under the weight of the awful spell, and we
+should be drawn across the frontier into _their_ world.
+
+Small things testified to this amazing influence of the place, and now
+in the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted by the
+mind. The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to
+distort every indication: the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying
+boatman making signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed
+of its natural character, and revealed in something of its other
+aspect--as it existed across the border in that other region. And this
+changed aspect I felt was new not merely to me, but to the race. The
+whole experience whose verge we touched was unknown to humanity at all.
+It was a new order of experience, and in the true sense of the word
+_unearthly_.
+
+"It's the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces one's courage to
+zero," the Swede said suddenly, as if he had been actually following my
+thoughts. "Otherwise imagination might count for much. But the paddle,
+the canoe, the lessening food----"
+
+"Haven't I explained all that once?" I interrupted viciously.
+
+"You have," he answered dryly; "you have indeed."
+
+He made other remarks too, as usual, about what he called the "plain
+determination to provide a victim"; but, having now arranged my thoughts
+better, I recognized that this was simply the cry of his frightened soul
+against the knowledge that he was being attacked in a vital part, and
+that he would be somehow taken or destroyed. The situation called for a
+courage and calmness of reasoning that neither of us could compass, and
+I have never before been so clearly conscious of two persons in me--the
+one that explained everything, and the other that laughed at such
+foolish explanations, yet was horribly afraid.
+
+Meanwhile, in the pitchy night the fire died down and the woodpile grew
+small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the darkness
+consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the
+circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind
+set the billows shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome
+sound a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken only by the gurgling
+of the river and the humming in the air overhead.
+
+We both missed, I think, the shouting company of the winds.
+
+At length, at a moment when a stray puff prolonged itself as though the
+wind were about to rise again, I reached the point for me of saturation,
+the point where it was absolutely necessary to find relief in plain
+speech, or else to betray myself by some hysterical extravagance that
+must have been far worse in its effect upon both of us. I kicked the
+fire into a blaze, and turned to my companion abruptly. He looked up
+with a start.
+
+"I can't disguise it any longer," I said; "I don't like this place, and
+the darkness, and the noises, and the awful feelings I get. There's
+something here that beats me utterly. I'm in a blue funk, and that's the
+plain truth. If the other shore was--different, I swear I'd be inclined
+to swim for it!"
+
+The Swede's face turned very white beneath the deep tan of sun and wind.
+He stared straight at me and answered quietly, but his voice betrayed
+his huge excitement by its unnatural calmness. For the moment, at any
+rate, he was the strong man of the two. He was more phlegmatic, for one
+thing.
+
+"It's not a physical condition we can escape from by running away," he
+replied, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing some grave disease; "we must
+sit tight and wait. There are forces close here that could kill a herd
+of elephants in a second as easily as you or I could squash a fly. Our
+only chance is to keep perfectly still. Our insignificance perhaps may
+save us."
+
+I put a dozen questions into my expression of face, but found no words.
+It was precisely like listening to an accurate description of a disease
+whose symptoms had puzzled me.
+
+"I mean that so far, although aware of our disturbing presence, they
+have not _found_ us--not 'located' us, as the Americans say," he went
+on. "They're blundering about like men hunting for a leak of gas. The
+paddle and canoe and provisions prove that. I think they _feel_ us, but
+cannot actually see us. We must keep our minds quiet--it's our minds
+they feel. We must control our thoughts, or it's all up with us."
+
+"Death you mean?" I stammered, icy with the horror of his suggestion.
+
+"Worse--by far," he said. "Death, according to one's belief, means
+either annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but
+it involves no change of character. _You_ don't suddenly alter just
+because the body's gone. But this means a radical alteration, a complete
+change, a horrible loss of oneself by substitution--far worse than
+death, and not even annihilation. We happen to have camped in a spot
+where their region touches ours where the veil between has worn
+thin"--horrors! he was using my very own phrase, my actual words--"so
+that they are aware of our being in their neighborhood."
+
+"But _who_ are aware?" I asked.
+
+I forgot the shaking of the willows in the windless calm, the humming
+overhead, everything except that I was waiting for an answer that I
+dreaded more than I can possibly explain.
+
+He lowered his voice at once to reply, leaning forward a little over the
+fire, an indefinable change in his face that made me avoid his eyes and
+look down upon the ground.
+
+"All my life," he said, "I have been strangely, vividly conscious of
+another region--not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet
+wholly different in kind--where great things go on unceasingly, where
+immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes
+compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the
+destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as dust
+in the balance; vast purposes, I mean, that deal directly with the soul,
+and not indirectly with mere expressions of the soul--"
+
+"I suggest just now--" I began, seeking to stop him, feeling as though I
+was face to face with a madman. But he instantly overbore me with his
+torrent that _had_ to come.
+
+"You think," he said, "it is the spirits of the elements, and I thought
+perhaps it was the old gods. But I tell you now it is--_neither_. These
+would be comprehensible entities, for they have relations with men,
+depending upon them for worship or sacrifice, whereas these beings who
+are now about us have absolutely nothing to do with mankind, and it is
+mere chance that their space happens just at this spot to touch our
+own."
+
+The mere conception, which his words somehow made so convincing, as I
+listened to them there in the dark stillness of that lonely island, set
+me shaking a little all over. I found it impossible to control my
+movements.
+
+"And what do you propose?" I began again.
+
+"A sacrifice, a victim, might save us by distracting them until we could
+get away," he went on, "just as the wolves stop to devour the dogs and
+give the sleigh another start. But--I see no chance of any other victim
+now."
+
+I stared blankly at him. The gleam in his eyes was dreadful. Presently
+he continued.
+
+"It's the willows, of course. The willows _mask_ the others, but the
+others are feeling about for us. If we let our minds betray our fear,
+we're lost, lost utterly." He looked at me with an expression so calm,
+so determined, so sincere, that I no longer had any doubts as to his
+sanity. He was as sane as any man ever was. "If we can hold out through
+the night," he added, "we may get off in the daylight unnoticed, or
+rather, _undiscovered_."
+
+"But you really think a sacrifice would----"
+
+That gong-like humming came down very close over our heads as I spoke,
+but it was my friend's scared face that really stopped my mouth.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, holding up his hand. "Do not mention them more
+than you can help. Do not refer to them _by name_. To name is to reveal:
+it is the inevitable clue, and our only hope lies in ignoring them, in
+order that they may ignore us."
+
+"Even in thought?" He was extraordinarily agitated.
+
+"Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their world. We
+must keep them _out of our minds_ at all costs if possible."
+
+I raked the fire together to prevent the darkness having everything its
+own way. I never longed for the sun as I longed for it then in the awful
+blackness of that summer night.
+
+"Were you awake all last night?" he went on suddenly.
+
+"I slept badly a little after dawn," I replied evasively, trying to
+follow his instructions, which I knew instinctively were true, "but the
+wind, of course--"
+
+"I know. But the wind won't account for all the noises."
+
+"Then you heard it too?"
+
+"The multiplying countless little footsteps I heard," he said, adding,
+after a moment's hesitation, "and that other sound--"
+
+"You mean above the tent, and the pressing down upon us of something
+tremendous, gigantic?"
+
+He nodded significantly.
+
+"It was like the beginning of a sort of inner suffocation?" I said.
+
+"Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of the atmosphere had been
+altered--had increased enormously, so that we should be crushed."
+
+"And _that_," I went on, determined to have it all out, pointing upwards
+where the gong-like note hummed ceaselessly, rising and falling like
+wind. "What do you make of that?"
+
+"It's _their_ sound," he whispered gravely. "It's the sound of their
+world, the humming in their region. The division here is so thin that it
+leaks through somehow. But, if you listen carefully, you'll find it's
+not above so much as around us. It's in the willows. It's the willows
+themselves humming, because here the willows have been made symbols of
+the forces that are against us."
+
+I could not follow exactly what he meant by this, yet the thought and
+idea in my mind were beyond question the thought and idea in his. I
+realized what he realized, only with less power of analysis than his. It
+was on the tip of my tongue to tell him at last about my hallucination
+of the ascending figures and the moving bushes, when he suddenly thrust
+his face again close into mine across the firelight and began to speak
+in a very earnest whisper. He amazed me by his calmness and pluck, his
+apparent control of the situation. This man I had for years deemed
+unimaginative, stolid!
+
+"Now listen," he said. "The only thing for us to do is to go on as
+though nothing had happened, follow our usual habits, go to bed, and so
+forth; pretend we feel nothing and notice nothing. It is a question
+wholly of the mind, and the less we think about them the better our
+chance of escape. Above all, don't _think_, for what you think happens!"
+
+"All right," I managed to reply, simply breathless with his words and
+the strangeness of it all; "all right, I'll try, but tell me one thing
+more first. Tell me what you make of those hollows in the ground all
+about us, those sand-funnels?"
+
+"No!" he cried, forgetting to whisper in his excitement. "I dare not,
+simply dare not, put the thought into words. If you have not guessed I
+am glad. Don't try to. _They_ have put it into my mind; try your hardest
+to prevent their putting it into yours."
+
+He sank his voice again to a whisper before he finished, and I did not
+press him to explain. There was already just about as much horror in me
+as I could hold. The conversation came to an end, and we smoked our
+pipes busily in silence.
+
+Then something happened, something unimportant apparently, as the way is
+when the nerves are in a very great state of tension, and this small
+thing for a brief space gave me an entirely different point of view. I
+chanced to look down at my sand-shoe--the sort we used for the
+canoe--and something to do with the hole at the toe suddenly recalled
+to me the London shop where I had bought them, the difficulty the man
+had in fitting me, and other details of the uninteresting but practical
+operation. At once, in its train, followed a wholesome view of the
+modern skeptical world I was accustomed to move in at home. I thought of
+roast beef and ale, motor-cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen
+other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The
+effect was immediate and astonishing even to myself. Psychologically, I
+suppose, it was simply a sudden and violent reaction after the strain of
+living in an atmosphere of things that to the normal consciousness must
+seem impossible and incredible. But, whatever the cause, it momentarily
+lifted the spell from my heart, and left me for the short space of a
+minute feeling free and utterly unafraid. I looked up at my friend
+opposite.
+
+"You damned old pagan!" I cried, laughing aloud in his face. "You
+imaginative idiot! You superstitious idolator! You----"
+
+I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old horror. I tried to
+smother the sound of my voice as something sacrilegious. The Swede, of
+course, heard it too--that strange cry overhead in the darkness--and
+that sudden drop in the air as though something had come nearer.
+
+He had turned ashen white under the tan. He stood bolt upright in front
+of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring at me.
+
+"After that," he said in a sort of helpless, frantic way, "we must go!
+We can't stay now; we must strike camp this very instant and go on--down
+the river."
+
+He was talking, I saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by abject
+terror--the terror he had resisted so long, but which had caught him at
+last.
+
+"In the dark?" I exclaimed, shaking with fear after my hysterical
+outburst, but still realizing our position better than he did. "Sheer
+madness! The river's in flood, and we've only got a single paddle.
+Besides, we only go deeper into their country! There's nothing ahead for
+fifty miles but willows, willows, willows!"
+
+He sat down again in a state of semi-collapse. The positions, by one of
+those kaleidoscopic changes nature loves, were suddenly reversed, and
+the control of our forces passed over into my hands. His mind at last
+had reached the point where it was beginning to weaken.
+
+"What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?" he whispered, with the
+awe of genuine terror in his voice and face.
+
+I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took both his hands in mine,
+kneeling down beside him and looking straight into his frightened eyes.
+
+"We'll make one more blaze," I said firmly, "and then turn in for the
+night. At sunrise we'll be off full speed for Komorn. Now, pull yourself
+together a bit, and remember your own advice about _not thinking
+fear_!"
+
+He said no more, and I saw that he would agree and obey. In some
+measure, too, it was a sort of relief to get up and make an excursion
+into the darkness for more wood. We kept close together, almost
+touching, groping among the bushes and along the bank. The humming
+overhead never ceased, but seemed to me to grow louder as we increased
+our distance from the fire. It was shivery work!
+
+We were grubbing away in the middle of a thickish clump of willows where
+some driftwood from a former flood had caught high among the branches,
+when my body was seized in a grip that made me half drop upon the sand.
+It was the Swede. He had fallen against me, and was clutching me for
+support. I heard his breath coming and going in short gasps.
+
+"Look! By my soul!" he whispered, and for the first time in my
+experience I knew what it was to hear tears of terror in a human voice.
+He was pointing to the fire, some fifty feet away. I followed the
+direction of his finger, and I swear my heart missed a beat.
+
+There, in front of the dim glow, _something was moving_.
+
+I saw it through a veil that hung before my eyes like the gauze
+drop-curtain used at the back of a theater--hazily a little. It was
+neither a human figure nor an animal. To me it gave the strange
+impression of being as large as several animals grouped together, like
+horses, two or three, moving slowly. The Swede, too, got a similar
+result, though expressing it differently, for he thought it was shaped
+and sized like a clump of willow bushes, rounded at the top, and moving
+all over upon its surface--"coiling upon itself like smoke," he said
+afterwards.
+
+"I watched it settle downwards through the bushes," he sobbed at me.
+"Look, by God! It's coming this way! Oh, oh!"--he gave a kind of
+whistling cry. "_They've found us_."
+
+I gave one terrified glance, which just enabled me to see that the
+shadowy form was swinging towards us through the bushes, and then I
+collapsed backwards with a crash into the branches. These failed, of
+course, to support my weight, so that with the Swede on the top of me we
+fell in a struggling heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what was
+happening. I was conscious only of a sort of enveloping sensation of icy
+fear that plucked the nerves out of their fleshly covering, twisted them
+this way and that, and replaced them quivering. My eyes were tightly
+shut; something in my throat choked me; a feeling that my consciousness
+was expanding, extending out into space, swiftly gave way to another
+feeling that I was losing it altogether, and about to die.
+
+An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the Swede
+had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way
+he caught at me in falling.
+
+But it was this pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me: it caused
+me to _forget them_ and think of something else at the very instant when
+they were about to find me. It concealed my mind from them at the moment
+of discovery, yet just in time to evade their terrible seizing of me. He
+himself, he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and that was what
+saved him.
+
+I only know that at a later time, how long or short is impossible to
+say, I found myself scrambling up out of the slippery network of willow
+branches, and saw my companion standing in front of me holding out a
+hand to assist me. I stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he
+had twisted for me. Nothing came to me to say, somehow.
+
+"I lost consciousness for a moment or two," I heard him say. "That's
+what saved me. It made me stop thinking about them."
+
+"You nearly broke my arm in two," I said, uttering my only connected
+thought at the moment. A numbness came over me.
+
+"That's what saved _you_!" he replied. "Between us, we've managed to set
+them off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It's
+gone--for the moment at any rate!"
+
+A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time spread to
+my friend too--great healing gusts of shaking laughter that brought a
+tremendous sense of relief in their train. We made our way back to the
+fire and put the wood on so that it blazed at once. Then we saw that the
+tent had fallen over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground.
+
+We picked it up, and during the process tripped more than once and
+caught our feet in sand.
+
+"It's those sand-funnels," exclaimed the Swede, when the tent was up
+again and the firelight lit up the ground for several yards about us.
+"And look at the size of them!"
+
+All round the tent and about the fireplace where we had seen the moving
+shadows there were deep funnel-shaped hollows in the sand, exactly
+similar to the ones we had already found over the island, only far
+bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and wide enough in some instances
+to admit the whole of my foot and leg.
+
+Neither of us said a word. We both knew that sleep was the safest thing
+we could do, and to bed we went accordingly without further delay,
+having first thrown sand on the fire and taken the provision sack and
+the paddle inside the tent with us. The canoe, too, we propped in such a
+way at the end of the tent that our feet touched it, and the least
+motion would disturb and wake us.
+
+In case of emergency, too, we again went to bed in our clothes, ready
+for a sudden start.
+
+
+V
+
+It was my firm intention to lie awake all night and watch, but the
+exhaustion of nerves and body decreed otherwise, and sleep after a while
+came over me with a welcome blanket of oblivion. The fact that my
+companion also slept quickened its approach. At first he fidgeted and
+constantly sat up, asking me if I "heard this" or "heard that." He
+tossed about on his cork mattress, and said the tent was moving and the
+river had risen over the point of the island; but each time I went out
+to look I returned with the report that all was well, and finally he
+grew calmer and lay still. Then at length his breathing became regular
+and I heard unmistakable sounds of snoring--the first and only time in
+my life when snoring has been a welcome and calming influence.
+
+This, I remember, was the last thought in my mind before dozing off.
+
+A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found the blanket over my face.
+But something else besides the blanket was pressing upon me, and my
+first thought was that my companion had rolled off his mattress on to my
+own in his sleep. I called to him and sat up, and at the same moment it
+came to me that the tent was _surrounded_. That sound of multitudinous
+soft pattering was again audible outside, filling the night with horror.
+
+I called again to him, louder than before. He did not answer, but I
+missed the sound of his snoring, and also noticed that the flap of the
+tent door was down. This was the unpardonable sin. I crawled out in the
+darkness to hook it back securely, and it was then for the first time I
+realized positively that the Swede was not there. He had gone.
+
+I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation, and the
+moment I was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of humming that
+surrounded me completely and came out of every quarter of the heavens at
+once. It was that same familiar humming--gone mad! A swarm of great
+invisible bees might have been about me in the air. The sound seemed to
+thicken the very atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with
+difficulty.
+
+But my friend was in danger, and I could not hesitate.
+
+The dawn was just about to break, and a faint whitish light spread
+upwards over the clouds from a thin strip of clear horizon. No wind
+stirred. I could just make out the bushes and river beyond, and the pale
+sandy patches. In my excitement I ran frantically to and fro about the
+island, calling him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the first
+words that came into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, and
+the humming muffled it, so that the sound only traveled a few feet round
+me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong, tumbling over roots,
+and scraping my face as I tore this way and that among the preventing
+branches.
+
+Then, quite unexpectedly, I came out upon the island's point and saw a
+dark figure outlined between the water and the sky. It was the Swede.
+And already he had one foot in the river! A moment more and he would
+have taken the plunge.
+
+I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about his waist and dragging
+him shorewards with all my strength. Of course he struggled furiously,
+making a noise all the time just like that cursed humming, and using the
+most outlandish phrases in his anger about "going _inside_ to Them," and
+"taking the way of the water and the wind," and God only knows what more
+besides, that I tried in vain to recall afterwards, but which turned me
+sick with horror and amazement as I listened. But in the end I managed
+to get him into the comparative safety of the tent, and flung him
+breathless and cursing upon the mattress, where I held him until the fit
+had passed.
+
+I think the suddenness with which it all went and he grew calm,
+coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming
+and pattering outside--I think this was almost the strangest part of the
+whole business perhaps. For he just opened his eyes and turned his tired
+face up to me so that the dawn threw a pale light upon it through the
+doorway, and said, for all the world just like a frightened child:
+
+"My life, old man--it's my life I owe you. But it's all over now anyhow.
+They've found a victim in our place!"
+
+Then he dropped back upon his blankets and went to sleep literally under
+my eyes. He simply collapsed, and began to snore again as healthily as
+though nothing had happened and he had never tried to offer his own life
+as a sacrifice by drowning. And when the sunlight woke him three hours
+later--hours of ceaseless vigil for me--it became so clear to me that he
+remembered absolutely nothing of what he had attempted to do, that I
+deemed it wise to hold my peace and ask no dangerous questions.
+
+He woke naturally and easily, as I have said, when the sun was already
+high in a windless hot sky, and he at once got up and set about the
+preparation of the fire for breakfast. I followed him anxiously at
+bathing, but he did not attempt to plunge in, merely dipping his head
+and making some remark about the extra coldness of the water.
+
+"River's falling at last," he said, "and I'm glad of it."
+
+"The humming has stopped too," I said.
+
+He looked up at me quietly with his normal expression. Evidently he
+remembered everything except his own attempt at suicide.
+
+"Everything has stopped," he said, "because----"
+
+He hesitated. But I knew some reference to that remark he had made just
+before he fainted was in his mind, and I was determined to know it.
+
+"Because 'They've found another victim'?" I said, forcing a little
+laugh.
+
+"Exactly," he answered, "exactly! I feel as positive of it as though--as
+though--I feel quite safe again, I mean," he finished.
+
+He began to look curiously about him. The sunlight lay in hot patches
+on the sand. There was no wind. The willows were motionless. He slowly
+rose to feet.
+
+"Come," he said; "I think if we look, we shall find it."
+
+He started off on a run, and I followed him. He kept to the banks,
+poking with a stick among the sandy bays and caves and little
+back-waters, myself always close on his heels.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed presently, "ah!"
+
+The tone of his voice somehow brought back to me a vivid sense of the
+horror of the last twenty-four hours, and I hurried up to join him. He
+was pointing with his stick at a large black object that lay half in the
+water and half on the sand. It appeared to be caught by some twisted
+willow roots so that the river could not sweep it away. A few hours
+before the spot must have been under water.
+
+"See," he said quietly, "the victim that made our escape possible!"
+
+And when I peered across his shoulder I saw that his stick rested on the
+body of a man. He turned it over. It was the corpse of a peasant, and
+the face was hidden in the sand. Clearly the man had been drowned but a
+few hours before, and his body must have been swept down upon our island
+somewhere about the hour of the dawn--_at the very time the fit had
+passed_.
+
+"We must give it a decent burial, you know."
+
+"I suppose so," I replied. I shuddered a little in spite of myself, for
+there was something about the appearance of that poor drowned man that
+turned me cold.
+
+The Swede glanced up sharply at me, and began clambering down the bank.
+I followed him more leisurely. The current, I noticed, had torn away
+much of the clothing from the body, so that the neck and part of the
+chest lay bare.
+
+Halfway down the bank my companion suddenly stopped and held up his hand
+in warning; but either my foot slipped, or I had gained too much
+momentum to bring myself quickly to a halt, for I bumped into him and
+sent him forward with a sort of leap to save himself. We tumbled
+together on to the hard sand so that our feet splashed into the water.
+And, before anything could be done, we had collided a little heavily
+against the corpse.
+
+The Swede uttered a sharp cry. And I sprang back as if I had been shot.
+
+At the moment we touched the body there arose from its surface the loud
+sound of humming--the sound of several hummings--which passed with a
+vast commotion as of winged things in the air about us and disappeared
+upwards into the sky, growing fainter and fainter till they finally
+ceased in the distance. It was exactly as though we had disturbed some
+living yet invisible creatures at work.
+
+My companion clutched me, and I think I clutched him, but before either
+of us had time properly to recover from the unexpected shock, we saw
+that a movement of the current was turning the corpse round so that it
+became released from the grip of the willow roots. A moment later it had
+turned completely over, the dead face uppermost, staring at the sky. It
+lay on the edge of the main stream. In another moment it would be swept
+away.
+
+The Swede started to save it, shouting again something I did not catch
+about a "proper burial" and then abruptly dropped upon his knees on the
+sand and covered his eyes with his hands. I was beside him in an
+instant.
+
+I saw what he had seen.
+
+For just as the body swung round to the current the face and the exposed
+chest turned full towards us, and showed plainly how the skin and flesh
+were indented with small hollows, beautifully formed, and exactly
+similar in shape and kind to the sand-funnels that we had found all over
+the island.
+
+"Their mark!" I heard my companion mutter under his breath. "Their awful
+mark!"
+
+And when I turned my eyes again from his ghastly face to the river, the
+current had done its work, and the body had been swept away into
+midstream and was already beyond our reach and almost out of sight,
+turning over and over on the waves like an otter.
+
+
+
+The Shadows on the Wall
+
+BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
+
+     From _The Wind in the Rose-bush_, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.
+     Copyright by Harper and Brothers. By permission of the publishers
+     and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.
+
+
+"Henry had words with Edward in the study the night before Edward died,"
+said Caroline Glynn.
+
+She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity. Rebecca Ann Glynn
+gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the
+corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline
+to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one
+beauty of the family. The latter was beautiful still, with a large,
+splendid, full-blown beauty, she filled a great rocking-chair with her
+superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gently back and forth, her black
+silks whispering and her black frills fluttering. Even the shock of
+death--for her brother Edward lay dead in the house--could not disturb
+her outward serenity of demeanor.
+
+But even her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister
+Caroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror and
+distress in response.
+
+"I think Henry might have controlled his temper, when poor Edward was so
+near his end," she said with an asperity which disturbed slightly the
+roseate curves of her beautiful mouth.
+
+"Of course he did not _know_," murmured Rebecca Ann in a faint tone.
+
+"Of course he did not know it," said Caroline quickly. She turned on her
+sister with a strange, sharp look of suspicion. Then she shrank as if
+from the other's possible answer.
+
+Rebecca gasped again. The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham, was now
+sitting up straight in her chair; she had ceased rocking, and was eyeing
+them both intently with a sudden accentuation of family likeness in her
+face.
+
+"What do you mean?" said she impartially to them both. Then she, too,
+seemed to shrink before a possible answer. She even laughed an evasive
+sort of laugh.
+
+"Nobody means anything," said Caroline firmly. She rose and crossed the
+room toward the door with grim decisiveness.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Brigham.
+
+"I have something to see to," replied Caroline, and the others at once
+knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform in the
+chamber of death.
+
+"Oh," said Mrs. Brigham.
+
+After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca.
+
+"Did Henry have many words with him?" she asked.
+
+"They were talking very loud," replied Rebecca evasively.
+
+Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She still sat
+up straight, with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead,
+between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn hair.
+
+"Did you--ever hear anything?" she asked in a low voice with a glance
+toward the door.
+
+"I was just across the hall in the south parlor, and that door was open
+and this door ajar," replied Rebecca with a slight flush.
+
+"Then you must have----"
+
+"I couldn't help it."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Most of it."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"The old story."
+
+"I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was living on
+here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father left him."
+
+Rebecca nodded, with a fearful glance at the door.
+
+When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed. "I know how he
+felt," said she. "It must have looked to him as if Edward was living at
+his expense, but he wasn't."
+
+"No, he wasn't."
+
+"And Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will,
+and Henry ought to have remembered it."
+
+"Yes, he ought."
+
+"Did he say hard things?"
+
+"Pretty hard, from what I heard."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and he
+thought he had better go away."
+
+"What did Edward say?"
+
+"That he would stay here as long as he lived and afterward, too, if he
+was a mind to, and he would like to see Henry get him out; and then----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Then he laughed."
+
+"What did Henry say?"
+
+"I didn't hear him say anything, but----"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I saw him when he came out of this room."
+
+"He looked mad?"
+
+"You've seen him when he looked so."
+
+Emma nodded. The expression of horror on her face had deepened.
+
+"Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched
+him?"
+
+"Yes. Don't!"
+
+Then Caroline reentered the room; she went up to the stove, in which a
+wood fire was burning--it was a cold, gloomy day of fall--and she warmed
+her hands, which were reddened from recent washing in cold water.
+
+Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door, which
+was still ajar; it did not easily shut, being still swollen with the
+damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it together with a sharp
+thud, which jarred the house. Rebecca started painfully with a
+half-exclamation. Caroline looked at her disapprovingly.
+
+"It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebecca," she said.
+
+Mrs. Brigham, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it
+ought to be fixed, it shut so hard.
+
+"It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days," replied
+Caroline.
+
+"I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to
+Edward," said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice.
+
+"Hush," said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door.
+
+"Nobody can hear with the door shut. I say again I think Henry ought to
+be ashamed of himself. I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having
+words with poor Edward the very night before he died. Edward was enough
+sight better disposition than Henry, with all his faults."
+
+"I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross to Henry
+that last night. I don't know but he did from what Rebecca overheard."
+
+"Not so much cross, as sort of soft, and sweet, and aggravating,"
+sniffed Rebecca.
+
+"What do you really think ailed Edward?" asked Emma in hardly more than
+a whisper. She did not look at her sister.
+
+"I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach, and had
+spasms, but what do you think made him have them?"
+
+"Henry called it gastric trouble. You know Edward has always had
+dyspepsia."
+
+Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment. "Was there any talk of
+an--examination?" said she.
+
+Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.
+
+"No," said she in a terrible voice. "No."
+
+The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground of
+terrified understanding through their eyes.
+
+The old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and a push from
+without made the door shake ineffectually. "It's Henry," Rebecca sighed
+rather than whispered. Mrs. Brigham settled herself, after a noiseless
+rush across the floor, into her rocking-chair again, and was swaying
+back and forth with her head comfortably leaning back, when the door at
+last yielded and Henry Glynn entered. He cast a covertly sharp,
+comprehensive glance at Mrs. Brigham with her elaborate calm; at Rebecca
+quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her
+face and only one small uncovered reddened ear as attentive as a dog's,
+and at Caroline sitting with a strained composure in her armchair by the
+stove. She met his eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear,
+and defiance of the fear and of him.
+
+Henry Glynn looked more like this sister than the others. Both had the
+same hard delicacy of form and aquilinity of feature. They confronted
+each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose
+marble lineaments emotions were fixed for all eternity.
+
+Then Henry Glynn smiled and the smile transformed his face. He looked
+suddenly years younger, and an almost boyish recklessness appeared in
+his face. He flung himself into a chair with a gesture which was
+bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance. He leaned
+his head back, flung one leg over the other, and looked laughingly at
+Mrs. Brigham.
+
+"I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year," he said.
+
+She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the corners. She
+was susceptible to praise.
+
+"Our thoughts to-day ought to belong to the one of us who will _never_
+grow older," said Caroline in a hard voice.
+
+Henry looked at her, still smiling. "Of course, we none of us forget
+that," said he, in a deep, gentle voice; "but we have to speak to the
+living, Caroline, and I have not seen Emma for a long time, and the
+living are as dear as the dead."
+
+"Not to me," said Caroline.
+
+She rose and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebecca also rose and
+hurried after her, sobbing loudly.
+
+Henry looked slowly after them.
+
+"Caroline is completely unstrung," said he.
+
+Mrs. Brigham rocked. A confidence in him inspired by his manner was
+stealing over her. Out of that confidence she spoke quite easily and
+naturally.
+
+"His death was very sudden," said she.
+
+Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving.
+
+"Yes," said he, "it was very sudden. He was sick only a few hours."
+
+"What did you call it?"
+
+"Gastric."
+
+"You did not think of an examination?"
+
+"There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his
+death."
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her very
+soul. Her flesh prickled with cold, before an inflection of his voice.
+She rose, tottering on weak knees.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Henry in a strange, breathless voice.
+
+Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing which she had
+to do--some black for the funeral--and was out of the room. She went up
+to the front chamber which she occupied. Caroline was there. She went
+close to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at each
+other.
+
+"Don't speak, don't, I won't have it!" said Caroline finally in an awful
+whisper.
+
+"I won't," replied Emma.
+
+That afternoon the three sisters were in the study.
+
+Mrs. Brigham was hemming some black material. At last she laid her work
+on her lap.
+
+"It's no use, I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have a light,"
+said she.
+
+Caroline, who was writing some letters at the table, turned to Rebecca,
+in her usual place on the sofa.
+
+"Rebecca, you had better get a lamp," she said.
+
+Rebecca started up; even in the dusk her face showed her agitation.
+
+"It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet," she said in a
+piteous, pleading voice like a child's.
+
+"Yes, we do," returned Mrs. Brigham peremptorily. "I can't see to sew
+another stitch."
+
+Rebecca rose and left the room. Presently she entered with a lamp. She
+set it on the table, an old-fashioned card-table which was placed
+against the opposite wall from the window. That opposite wall was taken
+up with three doors; the one small space was occupied by the table.
+
+"What have you put that lamp over there for?" asked Mrs. Brigham, with
+more of impatience than her voice usually revealed. "Why didn't you set
+it in the hall, and have done with it? Neither Caroline nor I can see if
+it is on that table."
+
+"I thought perhaps you would move," replied Rebecca hoarsely.
+
+"If I do move, we can't both sit at that table. Caroline has her paper
+all spread around. Why don't you set the lamp on the study table in the
+middle of the room, then we can both see?"
+
+Rebecca hesitated. Her face was very pale. She looked with an appeal
+that was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline.
+
+"Why don't you put the lamp on this table, as she says?" asked Caroline,
+almost fiercely. "Why do you act so, Rebecca?"
+
+Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle of the room
+without another word. Then she seated herself on the sofa and placed a
+hand over her eyes as if to shade them, and remained so.
+
+"Does the light hurt your eyes, and is that the reason why you didn't
+want the lamp?" asked Mrs. Brigham kindly.
+
+"I always like to sit in the dark," replied Rebecca chokingly. Then she
+snatched her handkerchief hastily from her pocket and began to weep.
+Caroline continued to write, Mrs. Brigham to sew.
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Brigham as she sewed glanced at the opposite wall. The
+glance became a steady stare. She looked intently, her work suspended in
+her hands. Then she looked away again and took a few more stitches, then
+she looked again, and again turned to her task. At last she laid her
+work in her lap and stared concentratedly. She looked from the wall
+round the room, taking note of the various objects. Then she turned to
+her sisters.
+
+"What _is_ that?" said she.
+
+"What?" asked Caroline harshly.
+
+"That strange shadow on the wall," replied Mrs. Brigham.
+
+Rebecca sat with her face hidden; Caroline dipped her pen in the
+inkstand.
+
+"Why don't you turn around and look?" asked Mrs. Brigham in a wondering
+and somewhat aggrieved way.
+
+"I am in a hurry to finish this letter," replied Caroline shortly.
+
+Mrs. Brigham rose, her work slipping to the floor, and began walking
+round the room, moving various articles of furniture, with her eyes on
+the shadow.
+
+Then suddenly she shrieked out:
+
+"Look at this awful shadow! What is it? Caroline, look, look! Rebecca,
+look! What is it?"
+
+All Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone. Her handsome face was
+livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow.
+
+Then after a shuddering glance at the wall Rebecca burst out in a wild
+wail.
+
+"Oh, Caroline, there it is again, there it is again!"
+
+"Caroline Glynn, you look!" said Mrs. Brigham. "Look! What is that
+dreadful shadow?"
+
+Caroline rose, turned, and stood confronting the wall.
+
+"How should I know?" she said.
+
+"It has been there every night since he died!" cried Rebecca.
+
+"Every night?"
+
+"Yes; he died Thursday and this is Saturday; that makes three nights,"
+said Caroline rigidly. She stood as if holding her calm with a vise of
+concentrated will.
+
+"It--it looks like--like--" stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intense
+horror.
+
+"I know what it looks like well enough," said Caroline. "I've got eyes
+in my head."
+
+"It looks like Edward," burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear.
+"Only----"
+
+"Yes, it does," assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken tone
+matched her sisters', "only--Oh, it is awful! What is it, Caroline?"
+
+"I ask you again, how should I know?" replied Caroline. "I see it there
+like you. How should I know any more than you?"
+
+"It _must_ be something in the room," said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildly
+around.
+
+"We moved everything in the room the first night it came," said Rebecca;
+"it is not anything in the room."
+
+Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury. "Of course it is something
+in the room," said she. "How you act! What do you mean talking so? Of
+course it is something in the room."
+
+"Of course it is," agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline
+suspiciously. "It must be something in the room."
+
+"It is not anything in the room," repeated Rebecca with obstinate
+horror.
+
+The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered. He began to speak,
+then his eyes followed the direction of the others. He stood staring at
+the shadow on the wall.
+
+"What is that?" he demanded in a strange voice.
+
+"It must be due to something in the room," Mrs. Brigham said faintly.
+
+Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamut of
+emotions. Horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly he
+began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the
+furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the
+shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.
+
+"It must be something in the room!" he declared in a voice which seemed
+to snap like a lash.
+
+His face changed, the inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident upon
+his face, until one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood
+close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs.
+Brigham clutched Caroline's hand. They both stood in a corner out of his
+way. For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal.
+He moved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not
+affect the shadow he flung it to the floor.
+
+Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed.
+
+"What an absurdity," he said easily. "Such a to-do about a shadow."
+
+"That's so," assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried to
+make natural. As she spoke she lifted a chair near her.
+
+"I think you have broken the chair that Edward was fond of," said
+Caroline.
+
+Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouth
+was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair with a show of
+anxiety.
+
+"Just as good as ever," he said pleasantly. He laughed again, looking at
+his sisters. "Did I scare you?" he said. "I should think you might be
+used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to the
+bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look--queer, like--and I
+thought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like to
+without any delay."
+
+"You don't seem to have succeeded," remarked Caroline dryly, with a
+slight glance at the wall.
+
+Henry's eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.
+
+"Oh, there is no accounting for shadows," he said, and he laughed again.
+"A man is a fool to try to account for shadows."
+
+Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kept
+his back to the wall--as did, indeed, the others.
+
+Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca brought up
+the rear. She could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so.
+
+"I can't sit in that room again this evening," she whispered to Caroline
+after supper.
+
+"Very well; we will sit in the south room," replied Caroline. "I think
+we will sit in the south parlor," she said aloud; "it isn't as damp as
+the study, and I have a cold."
+
+So they all sat in the south room with their sewing. Henry read the
+newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table. About nine
+o'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study. The three
+sisters looked at one another. Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustling
+skirts compactly round her, and began tiptoeing toward the door.
+
+"What are you going to do?" inquired Rebecca agitatedly.
+
+"I am going to see what he is about," replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously.
+
+As she spoke she pointed to the study door across the hall; it was ajar.
+Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow
+swollen beyond the limit with curious speed. It was still ajar and a
+streak of light showed from top to bottom.
+
+Mrs. Brigham folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with its
+swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a
+slow toddle across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her eye
+at the crack.
+
+In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated
+eyes. Caroline sewed steadily. What Mrs. Brigham, standing at the crack
+in the study door, saw was this:
+
+Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow
+must be between the table on which the lamp stood and the wall, was
+making systematic passes and thrusts with an old sword which had
+belonged to his father all over and through the intervening space. Not
+an inch was left unpierced. He seemed to have divided the space into
+mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury
+and calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow
+remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself cold with horror.
+
+Finally Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as if
+to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall threateningly. Mrs. Brigham
+toddled back across the hall and shut the south room door behind her
+before she related what she had seen.
+
+"He looked like a demon," she said again. "Have you got any of that old
+wine in the house, Caroline? I don't feel as if I could stand much
+more."
+
+"Yes, there's plenty," said Caroline; "you can have some when you go to
+bed."
+
+"I think we had all better take some," said Mrs. Brigham. "Oh, Caroline,
+what----"
+
+"Don't ask; don't speak," said Caroline.
+
+"No, I'm not going to," replied Mrs. Brigham; "but----"
+
+Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south parlor was
+deserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the light
+before he came upstairs. They had been gone about an hour when he came
+into the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the study. He set it
+on the table, and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His face was
+terrible, his fair complexion showed livid, and his blue eyes seemed
+dark blanks of awful reflections.
+
+Then he took up the lamp and returned to the library. He set the lamp on
+the center table and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again he studied
+the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with none of his
+former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the
+south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned to the
+study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon
+the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brigham and the
+other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him.
+
+The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in the south
+room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study until
+Henry carried a lamp in there after the others had retired for the
+night. He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before
+the light.
+
+The next morning at breakfast Henry Glynn announced that he had to go to
+the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise. He
+very seldom left home, and just now his practice had been neglected on
+account of Edward's death.
+
+"How can you leave your patients now?" asked Mrs. Brigham wonderingly.
+
+"I don't know how to, but there is no other way," replied Henry easily.
+"I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford."
+
+"Consultation?" inquired Mrs. Brigham.
+
+"I have business," replied Henry.
+
+Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighboring
+city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation.
+
+After he had gone, Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that, after all, Henry
+had not said that he was going to consult with Doctor Mitford, and she
+thought it very strange.
+
+"Everything is very strange," said Rebecca with a shudder.
+
+"What do you mean?" inquired Caroline.
+
+"Nothing," replied Rebecca.
+
+Nobody entered the study that day, nor the next. The third day Henry was
+expected home, but he did not arrive and the last train from the city
+had come.
+
+"I call it pretty queer work," said Mrs. Brigham. "The idea of a doctor
+leaving his patients at such a time as this, and the idea of a
+consultation lasting three days! There is no sense in it, and _now_ he
+has not come. I don't understand it, for my part."
+
+"I don't either," said Rebecca.
+
+They were all in the south parlor. There was no light in the study; the
+door was ajar.
+
+Presently Mrs. Brigham rose--she could not have told why; something
+seemed to impel her--some will outside her own. She went out of the
+room, again wrapping her rustling skirts round that she might pass
+noiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study.
+
+"She has not got any lamp," said Rebecca in a shaking voice.
+
+Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took the only remaining
+lamp in the room, and followed her sister. Rebecca had risen, but she
+stood trembling, not venturing to follow.
+
+The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it; it was on the south
+door on the other side of the house from the study. Rebecca, after
+hesitating until the bell rang the second time, went to the door; she
+remembered that the servant was out.
+
+Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study. Caroline set the lamp on
+the table. They looked at the wall, and there were two shadows. The
+sisters stood clutching each other, staring at the awful things on the
+wall. Then Rebecca came in, staggering, with a telegram in her hand.
+"Here is--a telegram," she gasped. "Henry is--dead."
+
+
+
+The Messenger
+
+BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    Little gray messenger,
+    Robed like painted Death,
+    Your robe is dust.
+    Whom do you seek
+    Among lilies and closed buds
+      At dusk?
+
+    Among lilies and closed buds
+      At dusk,
+    Whom do you seek,
+    Little gray messenger,
+    Robed in the awful panoply
+    Of painted Death?
+                                                                  R.W.C.
+
+     From _The Mystery of Choice_, by Robert W. Chambers. Published,
+     1897, by D. Appleton and Company. Copyright by Robert W. Chambers.
+     By permission of Robert W. Chambers.
+
+
+
+
+        All-wise,
+    Hast thou seen all there is to see with thy two eyes?
+      Dost thou know all there is to know, and so,
+        Omniscient,
+    Darest thou still to say thy brother lies?
+                                                                  R.W.C.
+
+
+I
+
+"The bullet entered here," said Max Fortin, and he placed his middle
+finger over a smooth hole exactly in the center of the forehead.
+
+I sat down upon a mound of dry seaweed and unslung my fowling piece.
+
+The little chemist cautiously felt the edges of the shot-hole, first
+with his middle finger, and then with his thumb.
+
+"Let me see the skull again," said I.
+
+Max Fortin picked it up from the sod.
+
+"It's like all the others," he repeated, wiping his glasses on his
+handkerchief. "I thought you might care to see one of the skulls, so I
+brought this over from the gravel pit. The men from Bannalec are digging
+yet. They ought to stop."
+
+"How many skulls are there altogether?" I inquired.
+
+"They found thirty-eight skulls; there are thirty-nine noted in the
+list. They lie piled up in the gravel pit on the edge of Le Bihan's
+wheat field. The men are at work yet. Le Bihan is going to stop them."
+
+"Let's go over," said I; and I picked up my gun and started across the
+cliffs, Portin on one side, Môme on the other.
+
+"Who has the list?" I asked, lighting my pipe. "You say there is a
+list?"
+
+"The list was found rolled up in a brass cylinder," said the chemist. He
+added: "You should not smoke here. You know that if a single spark
+drifted into the wheat--"
+
+"Ah, but I have a cover to my pipe," said I, smiling.
+
+Fortin watched me as I closed the pepper-box arrangement over the
+glowing bowl of the pipe. Then he continued:
+
+"The list was made out on thick yellow paper; the brass tube has
+preserved it. It is as fresh to-day as it was in 1760. You shall see
+it."
+
+"Is that the date?"
+
+"The list is dated 'April, 1760.' The Brigadier Durand has it. It is not
+written in French."
+
+"Not written in French!" I exclaimed.
+
+"No," replied Fortin solemnly, "it is written in Breton."
+
+"But," I protested, "the Breton language was never written or printed in
+1760."
+
+"Except by priests," said the chemist.
+
+"I have heard of but one priest who ever wrote the Breton language," I
+began.
+
+Fortin stole a glance at my face.
+
+"You mean--the Black Priest?" he asked.
+
+I nodded.
+
+Fortin opened his mouth to speak again, hesitated, and finally shut his
+teeth obstinately over the wheat stem that he was chewing.
+
+"And the Black Priest?" I suggested encouragingly. But I knew it was
+useless; for it is easier to move the stars from their courses than to
+make an obstinate Breton talk. We walked on for a minute or two in
+silence.
+
+"Where is the Brigadier Durand?" I asked, motioning Môme to come out of
+the wheat, which he was trampling as though it were heather. As I spoke
+we came in sight of the farther edge of the wheat field and the dark,
+wet mass of cliffs beyond.
+
+"Durand is down there--you can see him; he stands just behind the mayor
+of St. Gildas."
+
+"I see," said I; and we struck straight down, following a sun-baked
+cattle path across the heather.
+
+When we reached the edge of the wheat field, Le Bihan, the mayor of St.
+Gildas, called to me, and I tucked my gun under my arm and skirted the
+wheat to where he stood.
+
+"Thirty-eight skulls," he said in his thin, high-pitched voice; "there
+is but one more, and I am opposed to further search. I suppose Fortin
+told you?"
+
+I shook hands with him, and returned the salute of the Brigadier Durand.
+
+"I am opposed to further search," repeated Le Bihan, nervously picking
+at the mass of silver buttons which covered the front of his velvet and
+broadcloth jacket like a breastplate of scale armor.
+
+Durand pursed up his lips, twisted his tremendous mustache, and hooked
+his thumbs in his saber belt.
+
+"As for me," he said, "I am in favor of further search."
+
+"Further search for what--for the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked.
+
+Le Bihan nodded. Durand frowned at the sunlit sea, rocking like a bowl
+of molten gold from the cliffs to the horizon. I followed his eyes. On
+the dark glistening cliffs, silhouetted against the glare of the sea,
+sat a cormorant, black, motionless, its horrible head raised toward
+heaven.
+
+"Where is that list, Durand?" I asked.
+
+The gendarme rummaged in his despatch pouch and produced a brass
+cylinder about a foot long. Very gravely he unscrewed the head and
+dumped out a scroll of thick yellow paper closely covered with writing
+on both sides. At a nod from Le Bihan he handed me the scroll. But I
+could make nothing of the coarse writing, now faded to a dull brown.
+
+"Come, come, Le Bihan," I said impatiently, "translate it, won't you?
+You and Max Fortin make a lot of mystery out of nothing, it seems."
+
+Le Bihan went to the edge of the pit where the three Bannalec men were
+digging, gave an order or two in Breton, and turned to me.
+
+As I came to the edge of the pit the Bannalec men were removing a square
+piece of sailcloth from what appeared to be a pile of cobblestones.
+
+"Look!" said Le Bihan shrilly. I looked. The pile below was a heap of
+skulls. After a moment I clambered down the gravel sides of the pit and
+walked over to the men of Bannalec. They saluted me gravely, leaning on
+their picks and shovels, and wiping their sweating faces with sunburned
+hands.
+
+"How many?" said I in Breton.
+
+"Thirty-eight," they replied.
+
+I glanced around. Beyond the heap of skulls lay two piles of human
+bones. Beside these was a mound of broken, rusted bits of iron and
+steel. Looking closer, I saw that this mound was composed of rusty
+bayonets, saber blades, scythe blades, with here and there a tarnished
+buckle attached to a bit of leather hard as iron.
+
+I picked up a couple of buttons and a belt plate. The buttons bore the
+royal arms of England; the belt plate was emblazoned with the English
+arms and also with the number "27."
+
+"I have heard my grandfather speak of the terrible English regiment, the
+27th Foot, which landed and stormed the fort up there," said one of the
+Bannalec men.
+
+"Oh!" said I; "then these are the bones of English soldiers?"
+
+"Yes," said the men of Bannalec.
+
+Le Bihan was calling to me from the edge of the pit above, and I handed
+the belt plate and buttons to the men and climbed the side of the
+excavation.
+
+"Well," said I, trying to prevent Môme from leaping up and licking my
+face as I emerged from the pit, "I suppose you know what these bones
+are. What are you going to do with them?"
+
+"There was a man," said Le Bihan angrily, "an Englishman, who passed
+here in a dog-cart on his way to Quimper about an hour ago, and what do
+you suppose he wished to do?"
+
+"Buy the relics?" I asked, smiling.
+
+"Exactly--the pig!" piped the mayor of St. Gildas. "Jean Marie Tregunc,
+who found the bones, was standing there where Max Fortin stands, and do
+you know what he answered? He spat upon the ground, and said: 'Pig of an
+Englishman, do you take me for a desecrator of graves?'"
+
+I knew Tregunc, a sober, blue-eyed Breton, who lived from one year's end
+to the other without being able to afford a single bit of meat for a
+meal.
+
+"How much did the Englishman offer Tregunc?" I asked.
+
+"Two hundred francs for the skulls alone."
+
+I thought of the relic hunters and the relic buyers on the battlefields
+of our civil war.
+
+"Seventeen hundred and sixty is long ago," I said.
+
+"Respect for the dead can never die," said Fortin.
+
+"And the English soldiers came here to kill your fathers and burn your
+homes," I continued.
+
+"They were murderers and thieves, but--they are dead," said Tregunc,
+coming up from the beach below, his long sea rake balanced on his
+dripping jersey.
+
+"How much do you earn every year, Jean Marie?" I asked, turning to shake
+hands with him.
+
+"Two hundred and twenty francs, monsieur."
+
+"Forty-five dollars a year," I said. "Bah! you are worth more, Jean.
+Will you take care of my garden for me? My wife wished me to ask you. I
+think it would be worth one hundred francs a month to you and to me.
+Come on, Le Bihan--come along, Fortin--and you, Durand. I want somebody
+to translate that list into French for me."
+
+Tregunc stood gazing at me, his blue eyes dilated.
+
+"You may begin at once," I said, smiling, "if the salary suits you?"
+
+"It suits," said Tregunc, fumbling for his pipe in a silly way that
+annoyed Le Bihan.
+
+"Then go and begin your work," cried the mayor impatiently; and Tregunc
+started across the moors toward St. Gildas, taking off his
+velvet-ribboned cap to me and gripping his sea rake very hard.
+
+"You offer him more than my salary," said the mayor, after a moment's
+contemplation of his silver buttons.
+
+"Pooh!" said I, "what do you do for your salary except play dominoes
+with Max Portin at the Groix Inn?"
+
+Le Bihan turned red, but Durand rattled his saber and winked at Max
+Fortin, and I slipped my arm through the arm of the sulky magistrate,
+laughing.
+
+"There's a shady spot under the cliff," I said; "come on, Le Bihan, and
+read me what is in the scroll."
+
+In a few moments we reached the shadow of the cliff, and I threw myself
+upon the turf, chin on hand, to listen.
+
+The gendarme, Durand, also sat down, twisting his mustache into
+needlelike points. Fortin leaned against the cliff, polishing his
+glasses and examining us with vague, near-sighted eyes; and Le Bihan,
+the mayor, planted himself in our midst, rolling up the scroll and
+tucking it under his arm.
+
+"First of all," he began in a shrill voice, "I am going to light my
+pipe, and while lighting it I shall tell you what I have heard about the
+attack on the fort yonder. My father told me; his father told him."
+
+He jerked his head in the direction of the ruined fort, a small, square
+stone structure on the sea cliff, now nothing but crumbling walls. Then
+he slowly produced a tobacco pouch, a bit of flint and tinder, and a
+long-stemmed pipe fitted with a microscopical bowl of baked clay. To
+fill such a pipe requires ten minutes' close attention. To smoke it to a
+finish takes but four puffs. It is very Breton, this Breton pipe. It is
+the crystallization of everything Breton.
+
+"Go on," said I, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"The fort," said the mayor, "was built by Louis XIV, and was dismantled
+twice by the English. Louis XV restored it in 1730. In 1760 it was
+carried by assault by the English. They came across from the island of
+Groix--three shiploads, and they stormed the fort and sacked St. Julien
+yonder, and they started to burn St. Gildas--you can see the marks of
+their bullets on my house yet; but the men of Bannalec and the men of
+Lorient fell upon them with pike and scythe and blunderbuss, and those
+who did not run away lie there below in the gravel pit now--thirty-eight
+of them."
+
+"And the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked, finishing my cigarette.
+
+The mayor had succeeded in filling his pipe, and now he began to put his
+tobacco pouch away.
+
+"The thirty-ninth skull," he mumbled, holding the pipe stem between his
+defective teeth--"the thirty-ninth skull is no business of mine. I have
+told the Bannalec men to cease digging."
+
+"But what is--whose is the missing skull?" I persisted curiously.
+
+The mayor was busy trying to strike a spark to his tinder. Presently he
+set it aglow, applied it to his pipe, took the prescribed four puffs,
+knocked the ashes out of the bowl, and gravely replaced the pipe in his
+pocket.
+
+"The missing skull?" he asked.
+
+
+"Yes," said I, impatiently.
+
+The mayor slowly unrolled the scroll and began to read, translating from
+the Breton into French. And this is what he read:
+
+
+                                        "ON THE CLIFFS OF ST. GILDAS,
+                                           APRIL 13, 1760.
+
+"On this day, by order of the Count of Soisic, general in chief of the
+Breton forces now lying in Kerselec Forest, the bodies of thirty-eight
+English soldiers of the 27th, 50th, and 72d regiments of Foot were
+buried in this spot, together with their arms and equipments."
+
+The mayor paused and glanced at me reflectively.
+
+"Go on, Le Bihan," I said.
+
+"With them," continued the mayor, turning the scroll and reading on the
+other side, "was buried the body of that vile traitor who betrayed the
+fort to the English. The manner of his death was as follows: By order of
+the most noble Count of Soisic, the traitor was first branded upon the
+forehead with the brand of an arrowhead. The iron burned through the
+flesh and was pressed heavily so that the brand should even burn into
+the bone of the skull. The traitor was then led out and bidden to
+kneel. He admitted having guided the English from the island of Groix.
+Although a priest and a Frenchman, he had violated his priestly office
+to aid him in discovering the password to the fort. This password he
+extorted during confession from a young Breton girl who was in the habit
+of rowing across from the island of Groix to visit her husband in the
+fort. When the fort fell, this young girl, crazed by the death of her
+husband, sought the Count of Soisic and told how the priest had forced
+her to confess to him all she knew about the fort. The priest was
+arrested at St. Gildas as he was about to cross the river to Lorient.
+When arrested he cursed the girl, Marie Trevec----"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, "Marie Trevec!"
+
+"Marie Trevec," repeated Le Bihan; "the priest cursed Marie Trevec, and
+all her family and descendants. He was shot as he knelt, having a mask
+of leather over his face, because the Bretons who composed the squad of
+execution refused to fire at a priest unless his face was concealed. The
+priest was l'Abbé Sorgue, commonly known as the Black Priest on account
+of his dark face and swarthy eyebrows. He was buried with a stake
+through his heart."
+
+Le Bihan paused, hesitated, looked at me, and handed the manuscript back
+to Durand. The gendarme took it and slipped it into the brass cylinder.
+
+"So," said I, "the thirty-ninth skull is the skull of the Black
+Priest."
+
+"Yes," said Fortin. "I hope they won't find it."
+
+"I have forbidden them to proceed," said the mayor querulously. "You
+heard me, Max Fortin."
+
+I rose and picked up my gun. Môme came and pushed his head into my hand.
+
+"That's a fine dog," observed Durand, also rising.
+
+"Why don't you wish to find his skull?" I asked Le Bihan. "It would be
+curious to see whether the arrow brand really burned into the bone."
+
+"There is something in that scroll that I didn't read to you," said the
+mayor grimly. "Do you wish to know what it is?"
+
+"Of course," I replied in surprise.
+
+"Give me the scroll again, Durand," he said; then he read from the
+bottom: "I, l'Abbé Sorgue, forced to write the above by my executioners,
+have written it in my own blood; and with it I leave my curse. My curse
+on St. Gildas, on Marie Trevec, and on her descendants. I will come back
+to St. Gildas when my remains are disturbed. Woe to that Englishman whom
+my branded skull shall touch!"
+
+"What rot!" I said. "Do you believe it was really written in his own
+blood?"
+
+"I am going to test it," said Fortin, "at the request of Monsieur le
+Maire. I am not anxious for the job, however."
+
+"See," said Le Bihan, holding out the scroll to me, "it is signed,
+'L'Abbé Sorgue.'"
+
+I glanced curiously over the paper.
+
+"It must be the Black Priest," I said. "He was the only man who wrote in
+the Breton language. This is a wonderfully interesting discovery, for
+now, at last, the mystery of the Black Priest's disappearance is cleared
+up. You will, of course, send this scroll to Paris, Le Bihan?"
+
+"No," said the mayor obstinately, "it shall be buried in the pit below
+where the rest of the Black Priest lies."
+
+I looked at him and recognized that argument would be useless. But still
+I said, "It will be a loss to history, Monsieur Le Bihan."
+
+"All the worse for history, then," said the enlightened Mayor of St.
+Gildas.
+
+We had sauntered back to the gravel pit while speaking. The men of
+Bannalec were carrying the bones of the English soldiers toward the St.
+Gildas cemetery, on the cliffs to the east, where already a knot of
+white-coiffed women stood in attitudes of prayer; and I saw the somber
+robe of a priest among the crosses of the little graveyard.
+
+"They were thieves and assassins; they are dead now," muttered Max
+Fortin.
+
+"Respect the dead," repeated the Mayor of St. Gildas, looking after the
+Bannalec men.
+
+"It was written in that scroll that Marie Trevec, of Groix Island, was
+cursed by the priest--she and her descendants," I said, touching Le
+Bihan on the arm. "There was a Marie Trevec who married an Yves Trevec
+of St. Gildas----"
+
+"It is the same," said Le Bihan, looking at me obliquely.
+
+"Oh!" said I; "then they were ancestors of my wife."
+
+"Do you fear the curse?" asked Le Bihan.
+
+"What?" I laughed.
+
+"There was the case of the Purple Emperor," said Max Fortin timidly.
+
+Startled for a moment, I faced him, then shrugged my shoulders and
+kicked at a smooth bit of rock which lay near the edge of the pit,
+almost embedded in gravel.
+
+"Do you suppose the Purple-Emperor drank himself crazy because he was
+descended from Marie Trevec?" I asked contemptuously.
+
+"Of course not," said Max Fortin hastily.
+
+"Of course not," piped the mayor. "I only--Hellow! what's that you're
+kicking?"
+
+"What?" said I, glancing down, at the same time involuntarily giving
+another kick. The smooth bit of rock dislodged itself and rolled out of
+the loosened gravel at my feet.
+
+"The thirty-ninth skull!" I exclaimed. "By jingo, it's the noddle of the
+Black Priest! See! there is the arrowhead branded on the front!"
+
+The mayor stepped back. Max Fortin also retreated. There was a pause,
+during which I looked at them, and they looked anywhere but at me.
+
+"I don't like it," said the mayor at last, in a husky, high voice. "I
+don't like it! The scroll says he will come back to St. Gildas when his
+remains are disturbed. I--I don't like it, Monsieur Darrel--"
+
+"Bosh!" said I; "the poor wicked devil is where he can't get out. For
+Heaven's sake, Le Bihan, what is this stuff you are talking in the year
+of grace 1896?"
+
+The mayor gave me a look.
+
+"And he says 'Englishman.' You are an Englishman, Monsieur Darrel," he
+announced.
+
+"You know better. You know I'm an American."
+
+"It's all the same," said the Mayor of St. Gildas, obstinately.
+
+"No, it isn't!" I answered, much exasperated, and deliberately pushed
+the skull till it rolled into the bottom of the gravel pit below.
+
+"Cover it up," said I; "bury the scroll with it too, if you insist, but
+I think you ought to send it to Paris. Don't look so gloomy, Fortin,
+unless you believe in werewolves and ghosts. Hey! what the--what the
+devil's the matter with you, anyway? What are you staring at, Le Bihan?"
+
+"Come, come," muttered the mayor in a low, tremulous voice, "it's time
+we got out of this. Did you see? Did you see, Fortin?"
+
+"I saw," whispered Max Fortin, pallid with fright.
+
+The two men were almost running across the sunny pasture now, and I
+hastened after them, demanding to know what was the matter.
+
+"Matter!" chattered the mayor, gasping with exasperation and terror.
+"The skull is rolling up hill again," and he burst into a terrified
+gallop, Max Fortin followed close behind.
+
+I watched them stampeding across the pasture, then turned toward the
+gravel pit, mystified, incredulous. The skull was lying on the edge of
+the pit, exactly where it had been before I pushed it over the edge. For
+a second I stared at it; a singular chilly feeling crept up my spinal
+column, and I turned and walked away, sweat starting from the root of
+every hair on my head. Before I had gone twenty paces the absurdity of
+the whole thing struck me. I halted, hot with shame and annoyance, and
+retraced my steps.
+
+There lay the skull.
+
+"I rolled a stone down instead of the skull," I muttered to myself. Then
+with the butt of my gun I pushed the skull over the edge of the pit and
+watched it roll to the bottom; and as it struck the bottom of the pit,
+Môme, my dog, suddenly whipped his tail between his legs, whimpered, and
+made off across the moor.
+
+"Môme!" I shouted, angry and astonished; but the dog only fled the
+faster, and I ceased calling from sheer surprise.
+
+"What the mischief is the matter with that dog!" I thought. He had never
+before played me such a trick.
+
+Mechanically I glanced into the pit, but I could not see the skull. I
+looked down. The skull lay at my feet again, touching them.
+
+"Good heavens!" I stammered, and struck at it blindly with my gunstock.
+The ghastly thing flew into the air, whirling over and over, and rolled
+again down the sides of the pit to the bottom. Breathlessly I stared at
+it, then, confused and scarcely comprehending, I stepped back from the
+pit, still facing it, one, ten, twenty paces, my eyes almost starting
+from my head, as though I expected to see the thing roll up from the
+bottom of the pit under my very gaze. At last I turned my back to the
+pit and strode out across the gorse-covered moorland toward my home. As
+I reached the road that winds from St. Gildas to St. Julien I gave one
+hasty glance at the pit over my shoulder. The sun shone hot on the sod
+about the excavation. There was something white and bare and round on
+the turf at the edge of the pit. It might have been a stone; there were
+plenty of them lying about.
+
+
+II
+
+When I entered my garden I saw Môme sprawling on the stone doorstep. He
+eyed me sideways and flopped his tail.
+
+"Are you not mortified, you idiot dog?" I said, looking about the upper
+windows for Lys.
+
+Môme rolled over on his back and raised one deprecating forepaw, as
+though to ward off calamity.
+
+"Don't act as though I was in the habit of beating you to death," I
+said, disgusted. I had never in my life raised whip to the brute. "But
+you are a fool dog," I continued. "No, you needn't come to be babied and
+wept over; Lys can do that, if she insists, but I am ashamed of you, and
+you can go to the devil."
+
+Môme slunk off into the house, and I followed, mounting directly to my
+wife's boudoir. It was empty.
+
+"Where has she gone?" I said, looking hard at Môme, who had followed me.
+"Oh! I see you don't know. Don't pretend you do. Come off that lounge!
+Do you think Lys wants tan-colored hairs all over her lounge?"
+
+I rang the bell for Catherine and Fine, but they didn't know where
+"madame" had gone; so I went into my room, bathed, exchanged my somewhat
+grimy shooting clothes for a suit of warm, soft knickerbockers, and,
+after lingering some extra moments over my toilet--for I was particular,
+now that I had married Lys--I went down to the garden and took a chair
+out under the fig-trees.
+
+"Where can she be?" I wondered, Môme came sneaking out to be comforted,
+and I forgave him for Lys's sake, whereupon he frisked.
+
+"You bounding cur," said I, "now what on earth started you off across
+the moor? If you do it again I'll push you along with a charge of dust
+shot."
+
+As yet I had scarcely dared think about the ghastly hallucination of
+which I had been a victim, but now I faced it squarely, flushing a
+little with mortification at the thought of my hasty retreat from the
+gravel pit.
+
+"To think," I said aloud, "that those old woman's tales of Max Fortin
+and Le Bihan should have actually made me see what didn't exist at all!
+I lost my nerve like a schoolboy in a dark bedroom." For I knew now that
+I had mistaken a round stone for a skull each time, and had pushed a
+couple of big pebbles into the pit instead of the skull itself.
+
+"By jingo!" said I, "I'm nervous; my liver must be in a devil of a
+condition if I see such things when I'm awake! Lys will know what to
+give me."
+
+I felt mortified and irritated and sulky, and thought disgustedly of Le
+Bihan and Max Fortin.
+
+But after a while I ceased speculating, dismissed the mayor, the
+chemist, and the skull from my mind, and smoked pensively, watching the
+sun low dipping in the western ocean. As the twilight fell for a moment
+over ocean and moorland, a wistful, restless happiness filled my heart,
+the happiness that all men know--all men who have loved.
+
+Slowly the purple mist crept out over the sea; the cliffs darkened; the
+forest was shrouded.
+
+Suddenly the sky above burned with the afterglow, and the world was
+alight again.
+
+Cloud after cloud caught the rose dye; the cliffs were tinted with it;
+moor and pasture, heather and forest burned and pulsated with the
+gentle flush. I saw the gulls turning and tossing above the sand bar,
+their snowy wings tipped with pink; I saw the sea swallows sheering the
+surface of the still river, stained to its placid depths with warm
+reflections of the clouds. The twitter of drowsy hedge birds broke out
+in the stillness; a salmon rolled its shining side above tidewater.
+
+The interminable monotone of the ocean intensified the silence. I sat
+motionless, holding my breath as one who listens to the first low rumor
+of an organ. All at once the pure whistle of a nightingale cut the
+silence, and the first moonbeam silvered the wastes of mist-hung waters.
+
+I raised my head.
+
+Lys stood before me in the garden.
+
+When we had kissed each other, we linked arms and moved up and down the
+gravel walks, watching the moonbeams sparkle on the sand bar as the tide
+ebbed and ebbed. The broad beds of white pinks about us were atremble
+with hovering white moths; the October roses hung all abloom, perfuming
+the salt wind.
+
+"Sweetheart," I said, "where is Yvonne? Has she promised to spend
+Christmas with us?"
+
+"Yes, Dick; she drove me down from Plougat this afternoon. She sent her
+love to you. I am not jealous. What did you shoot?"
+
+"A hare and four partridges. They are in the gun room. I told Catherine
+not to touch them until you had seen them."
+
+Now I suppose I knew that Lys could not be particularly enthusiastic
+over game or guns; but she pretended she was, and always scornfully
+denied that it was for my sake and not for the pure love of sport. So
+she dragged me off to inspect the rather meager game bag, and she paid
+me pretty compliments, and gave a little cry of delight and pity as I
+lifted the enormous hare out of the sack by his ears.
+
+"He'll eat no more of our lettuce," I said attempting to justify the
+assassination.
+
+"Unhappy little bunny--and what a beauty! O Dick, you are a splendid
+shot, are you not?"
+
+I evaded the question and hauled out a partridge.
+
+"Poor little dead things'" said Lys in a whisper; "it seems a
+pity--doesn't it, Dick? But then you are so clever----"
+
+"We'll have them broiled," I said guardedly, "tell Catherine."
+
+Catherine came in to take away the game, and presently 'Fine Lelocard,
+Lys's maid, announced dinner, and Lys tripped away to her boudoir.
+
+I stood an instant contemplating her blissfully, thinking, "My boy,
+you're the happiest fellow in the world--you're in love with your wife'"
+
+I walked into the dining-room, beamed at the plates, walked out again;
+met Tregunc in the hallway, beamed on him; glanced into the kitchen,
+beamed at Catherine, and went up stairs, still beaming.
+
+Before I could knock at Lys's door it opened, and Lys came hastily out.
+When she saw me she gave a little cry of relief, and nestled close to my
+breast.
+
+"There is something peering in at my window," she said.
+
+"What!" I cried angrily.
+
+"A man, I think, disguised as a priest, and he has a mask on. He must
+have climbed up by the bay tree."
+
+I was down the stairs and out of doors in no time. The moonlit garden
+was absolutely deserted. Tregunc came up, and together we searched the
+hedge and shrubbery around the house and out to the road.
+
+"Jean Marie," said I at length, "loose my bulldog--he knows you--and
+take your supper on the porch where you can watch. My wife says the
+fellow is disguised as a priest, and wears a mask."
+
+Tregunc showed his white teeth in a smile. "He will not care to venture
+in here again, I think, Monsieur Darrel."
+
+I went back and found Lys seated quietly at the table.
+
+"The soup is ready, dear," she said. "Don't worry; it was only some
+foolish lout from Bannalec. No one in St. Gildas or St. Julien would do
+such a thing."
+
+I was too much exasperated to reply at first, but Lys treated it as a
+stupid joke, and after a while I began to look at it in that light.
+
+Lys told me about Yvonne, and reminded me of my promise to have Herbert
+Stuart down to meet her.
+
+"You wicked diplomat!" I protested. "Herbert is in Paris, and hard at
+work for the Salon."
+
+"Don't you think he might spare a week to flirt with the prettiest girl
+in Finistere?" inquired Lys innocently.
+
+"Prettiest girl! Not much!" I said.
+
+"Who is, then?" urged Lys.
+
+I laughed a trifle sheepishly.
+
+"I suppose you mean me, Dick," said Lys, coloring up.
+
+"Now I bore you, don't I?"
+
+"Bore me? Ah, no, Dick."
+
+After coffee and cigarettes were served I spoke about Tregunc, and Lys
+approved.
+
+"Poor Jean! He will be glad, won't he? What a dear fellow you are!"
+
+"Nonsense," said I; "we need a gardener; you said so yourself, Lys."
+
+But Lys leaned over and kissed me, and then bent down and hugged
+Môme--who whistled through his nose in sentimental appreciation.
+
+"I am a very happy woman," said Lys.
+
+"Môme was a very bad dog to-day," I observed.
+
+"Poor Môme!" said Lys, smiling.
+
+When dinner was over and Môme lay snoring before the blaze--for the
+October nights are often chilly in Finistere--Lys curled up in the
+chimney corner with her embroidery, and gave me a swift glance from
+under her dropping lashes.
+
+"You look like a schoolgirl, Lys," I said teasingly. "I don't believe
+you are sixteen yet."
+
+She pushed back her heavy burnished hair thoughtfully. Her wrist was as
+white as surf foam.
+
+"Have we been married four years? I don't believe it," I said.
+
+She gave me another swift glance and touched the embroidery on her knee,
+smiling faintly.
+
+"I see," said I, also smiling at the embroidered garment. "Do you think
+it will fit?"
+
+"Fit?" repeated Lys. Then she laughed
+
+"And," I persisted, "are you perfectly sure that you--er--we shall need
+it?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Lys. A delicate color touched her cheeks and neck. She
+held up the little garment, all fluffy with misty lace and wrought with
+quaint embroidery.
+
+"It is very gorgeous," said I; "don't use your eyes too much, dearest.
+May I smoke a pipe?"
+
+"Of course," she said selecting a skein of pale blue silk.
+
+For a while I sat and smoked in silence, watching her slender fingers
+among the tinted silks and thread of gold.
+
+Presently she spoke: "What did you say your crest is, Dick?"
+
+"My crest? Oh, something or other rampant on a something or other----"
+
+"Dick!"
+
+"Dearest?"
+
+"Don't be flippant."
+
+"But I really forget. It's an ordinary crest; everybody in New York has
+them. No family should be without 'em."
+
+"You are disagreeable, Dick. Send Josephine upstairs for my album."
+
+"Are you going to put that crest on the--the--whatever it is?"
+
+"I am; and my own crest, too."
+
+I thought of the Purple Emperor and wondered a little.
+
+"You didn't know I had one, did you?" she smiled.
+
+"What is it?" I replied evasively.
+
+"You shall see. Ring for Josephine."
+
+I rang, and, when 'Fine appeared, Lys gave her some orders in a low
+voice, and Josephine trotted away, bobbing her white-coiffed head with a
+"Bien, Madame!"
+
+After a few minutes she returned, bearing a tattered, musty volume, from
+which the gold and blue had mostly disappeared.
+
+I took the book in my hands and examined the ancient emblazoned covers.
+
+"Lilies!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Fleur-de-lis," said my wife demurely.
+
+"Oh!" said I, astonished, and opened the book.
+
+"You have never before seen this book?" asked Lys, with a touch of
+malice in her eyes.
+
+"You know I haven't. Hello! What's this? Oho! So there should be a de
+before Trevec? Lys de Trevec? Then why in the world did the Purple
+Emperor----"
+
+"Dick!" cried Lys.
+
+"All right," said I. "Shall I read about the Sieur de Trevec who rode to
+Saladin's tent alone to seek for medicine for St. Louise? Or shall I
+read about--what is it? Oh, here it is, all down in black and
+white--about the Marquis de Trevec who drowned himself before Alva's
+eyes rather than surrender the banner of the fleur-de-lis to Spain? It's
+all written here. But, dear, how about that soldier named Trevec who was
+killed in the old fort on the cliff yonder?"
+
+"He dropped the de, and the Trevecs since then have been Republicans,"
+said Lys--"all except me."
+
+"That's quite right," said I; "it is time that we Republicans should
+agree upon some feudal system. My dear, I drink to the king!" and I
+raised my wine glass and looked at Lys.
+
+"To the king," said Lys, flushing. She smoothed out the tiny garment on
+her knees; she touched the glass with her lips; her eyes were very
+sweet. I drained the glass to the king.
+
+After a silence I said: "I will tell the king stories. His majesty shall
+be amused."
+
+"His majesty," repeated Lys softly.
+
+"Or hers," I laughed. "Who knows?"
+
+"Who knows?" murmured Lys; with a gentle sigh.
+
+"I know some stories about Jack the Giant-Killer," I announced. "Do
+you, Lys?"
+
+"I? No, not about a giant-killer, but I know all about the werewolf, and
+Jeanne-la-Flamme, and the Man in Purple Tatters, and--O dear me, I know
+lots more."
+
+"You are very wise," said I. "I shall teach his majesty, English."
+
+"And I Breton," cried Lys jealously.
+
+"I shall bring playthings to the king," said I--"big green lizards from
+the gorse, little gray mullets to swim in glass globes, baby rabbits
+from the forest of Kerselec----"
+
+"And I," said Lys, "will bring the first primrose, the first branch of
+aubepine, the first jonquil, to the king--my king."
+
+"Our king," said I; and there was peace in Finistere.
+
+I lay back, idly turning the leaves of the curious old volume.
+
+"I am looking," said I, "for the crest."
+
+"The crest, dear? It is a priest's head with an arrow-shaped mark on the
+forehead, on a field----"
+
+I sat up and stared at my wife.
+
+"Dick, whatever is the matter?" she smiled. "The story is there in that
+book. Do you care to read it? No? Shall I tell it to you? Well, then: It
+happened in the third crusade. There was a monk whom men called the
+Black Priest. He turned apostate, and sold himself to the enemies of
+Christ. A Sieur de Trevec burst into the Saracen camp, at the head of
+only one hundred lances, and carried the Black Priest away out of the
+very midst of their army."
+
+"So that is how you come by the crest," I said quietly; but I thought of
+the branded skull in the gravel pit, and wondered.
+
+"Yes," said Lys. "The Sieur de Trevec cut the Black Priest's head off,
+but first he branded him with an arrow mark on the forehead. The book
+says it was a pious action, and the Sieur de Trevec got great merit by
+it. But I think it was cruel, the branding," she sighed.
+
+"Did you ever hear of any other Black Priest?"
+
+"Yes. There was one in the last century, here in St. Gildas. He cast a
+white shadow in the sun. He wrote in the Breton language. Chronicles,
+too, I believe. I never saw them. His name was the same as that of the
+old chronicler, and of the other priest, Jacques Sorgue. Some said he
+was a lineal descendant of the traitor. Of course the first Black Priest
+was bad enough for anything. But if he did have a child, it need not
+have been the ancestor of the last Jacques Sorgue. They say he was so
+good he was not allowed to die, but was caught up to heaven one day,"
+added Lys, with believing eyes.
+
+I smiled.
+
+"But he disappeared," persisted Lys.
+
+"I'm afraid his journey was in another direction," I said jestingly, and
+thoughtlessly told her the story of the morning. I had utterly
+forgotten the masked man at her window, but before I finished I
+remembered him fast enough, and realized what I had done as I saw her
+face whiten.
+
+"Lys," I urged tenderly, "that was only some clumsy clown's trick. You
+said so yourself. You are not superstitious, my dear?"
+
+Her eyes were on mine. She slowly drew the little gold cross from her
+bosom and kissed it. But her lips trembled as they pressed the symbol of
+faith.
+
+
+III
+
+About nine o'clock the next morning I walked into the Groix Inn and sat
+down at the long discolored oaken table, nodding good-day to Marianne
+Bruyere, who in turn bobbed her white coiffe at me.
+
+"My clever Bannalec maid," said I, "what is good for a stirrup-cup at
+the Groix Inn?"
+
+"Schist?" she inquired in Breton.
+
+"With a dash of red wine, then," I replied.
+
+She brought the delicious Quimperle cider, and I poured a little
+Bordeaux into it. Marianne watched me with laughing black eyes.
+
+"What makes your cheeks so red, Marianne?" I asked. "Has Jean Marie been
+here?"
+
+"We are to be married, Monsieur Darrel," she laughed.
+
+"Ah! Since when has Jean Marie Tregunc lost his head?"
+
+"His head? Oh, Monsieur Darrel--his heart, you mean!"
+
+"So I do," said I. "Jean Marie is a practical fellow."
+
+"It is all due to your kindness--" began the girl, but I raised my hand
+and held up the glass.
+
+"It's due to himself. To your happiness, Marianne"; and I took a hearty
+draught of the schist. "Now," said I, "tell me where I can find Le Bihan
+and Max Fortin."
+
+"Monsieur Le Bihan and Monsieur Fortin are above in the broad room. I
+believe they are examining the Red Admiral's effects."
+
+"To send them to Paris? Oh, I know. May I go up, Marianne?"
+
+"And God go with you," smiled the girl.
+
+When I knocked at the door of the broad room above little Max Fortin
+opened it. Dust covered his spectacles and nose; his hat, with the tiny
+velvet ribbons fluttering, was all awry.
+
+"Come in, Monsieur Darrel," he said; "the mayor and I are packing up the
+effects of the Purple Emperor and of the poor Red Admiral."
+
+"The collections?" I asked, entering the room. "You must be very careful
+in packing those butterfly cases; the slightest jar might break wings
+and antennas, you know."
+
+Le Bihan shook hands with me and pointed to the great pile of boxes.
+
+"They're all cork lined," he said, "but Fortin and I are putting felt
+around each box. The Entomological Society of Paris pays the freight."
+
+The combined collection of the Red Admiral and the Purple Emperor made a
+magnificent display.
+
+I lifted and inspected case after case set with gorgeous butterflies and
+moths, each specimen carefully labelled with the name in Latin. There
+were cases filled with crimson tiger moths all aflame with color; cases
+devoted to the common yellow butterflies; symphonies in orange and pale
+yellow; cases of soft gray and dun-colored sphinx moths; and cases of
+grayish nettle-bed butterflies of the numerous family of Vanessa.
+
+All alone in a great case by itself was pinned the purple emperor, the
+Apatura Iris, that fatal specimen that had given the Purple Emperor his
+name and quietus.
+
+I remembered the butterfly, and stood looking at it with bent eyebrows.
+
+Le Bihan glanced up from the floor where he was nailing down the lid of
+a box full of cases.
+
+"It is settled, then," said he, "that madame, your wife, gives the
+Purple Emperor's entire Collection to the city of Paris?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Without accepting anything for it?"
+
+"It is a gift," I said.
+
+"Including the purple emperor there in the case? That butterfly is
+worth a great deal of money," persisted Le Bihan.
+
+"You don't suppose that we would wish to sell that specimen, do you?" I
+answered a trifle sharply.
+
+"If I were you I should destroy it," said the mayor in his high-pitched
+voice.
+
+"That would be nonsense," said I, "like your burying the brass cylinder
+and scroll yesterday."
+
+"It was not nonsense," said Le Bihan doggedly, "and I should prefer not
+to discuss the subject of the scroll."
+
+I looked at Max Portin, who immediately avoided my eyes.
+
+"You are a pair of superstitious old women," said I, digging my hands
+into my pockets; "you swallow every nursery tale that is invented."
+
+"What of it?" said Le Bihan sulkily; "there's more truth than lies in
+most of 'em."
+
+"Oh!" I sneered, "does the Mayor of St. Gildas and St. Julien believe in
+the loup-garou?"
+
+"No, not in the loup-garou."
+
+"In what, then--Jeanne-la-Flamme?"
+
+"That," said Le Bihan with conviction, "is history."
+
+"The devil it is!" said I; "and perhaps, Monsieur the mayor, your faith
+in giants is unimpaired?"
+
+"There were giants--everybody knows it," growled Max Fortin.
+
+"And you a chemist!" I observed scornfully.
+
+"Listen, Monsieur Darrel," squeaked Le Bihan; "you know yourself that
+the Purple Emperor was a scientific man. Now suppose I should tell you
+that he always refused to include in his collection a Death's
+Messenger?"
+
+"A what?" I exclaimed.
+
+"You know what I mean--that moth that flies by night; some call it the
+Death's Head, but in St. Gildas we call it 'Death's Messenger.'"
+
+"Oh!" said I, "you mean that big sphinx moth that is commonly known as
+the 'death's-head moth.' Why the mischief should the people here call it
+death's messenger?"
+
+"For hundreds of years it has been known as death's messenger in St.
+Gildas," said Max Fortin. "Even Froissart speaks of it in his
+commentaries on Jacques Sorgue's _Chronicles_. The book is in your
+library."
+
+"Sorgue? And who was Jacques Sorgue? I never read his book."
+
+"Jacques Sorgue [Transcriber's note: the original reads "Sorque"] was the
+son of some unfrocked priest--I forget. It was during the crusades."
+
+"Good Heavens!" I burst out, "I've been hearing of nothing but crusades
+and priests and death and sorcery ever since I kicked that skull into
+the gravel pit, and I am tired of it, I tell you frankly. One would
+think we lived in the dark ages. Do you know what year of our Lord it
+is, Le Bihan?"
+
+"Eighteen hundred and ninety-six," replied the mayor.
+
+"And yet you two hulking men are afraid of a death's-head moth."
+
+"I don't care to have one fly into the window," said Max Fortin; "it
+means evil to the house and the people in it."
+
+"God alone knows why he marked one of his creatures with a yellow
+death's head on the back," observed Le Bihan piously, "but I take it
+that he meant it as a warning; and I propose to profit by it," he added
+triumphantly.
+
+"See here, Le Bihan," I said; "by a stretch of imagination one can make
+out a skull on the thorax of a certain big sphinx moth. What of it?"
+
+"It is a bad thing to touch," said the mayor wagging his head.
+
+"It squeaks when handled," added Max Fortin.
+
+"Some creatures squeak all the time," I observed, looking hard at Le
+Bihan.
+
+"Pigs," added the mayor.
+
+"Yes, and asses," I replied. "Listen, Le Bihan: do you mean to tell me
+that you saw that skull roll uphill yesterday?"
+
+The mayor shut his mouth tightly and picked up his hammer.
+
+"Don't be obstinate," I said; "I asked you a question."
+
+"And I refuse to answer," snapped Le Bihan. "Fortin saw what I saw; let
+him talk about it."
+
+I looked searchingly at the little chemist.
+
+"I don't say that I saw it actually roll up out of the pit, all by
+itself," said Fortin with a shiver, "but--but then, how did it come up
+out of the pit, if it didn't roll up all by itself?"
+
+"It didn't come up at all; that was a yellow cobblestone that you
+mistook for the skull again," I replied. "You were nervous, Max."
+
+"A--a very curious cobblestone, Monsieur Darrel," said Fortin.
+
+"I also was a victim to the same hallucination," I continued, "and I
+regret to say that I took the trouble to roll two innocent cobblestones
+into the gravel pit, imagining each time that it was the skull I was
+rolling."
+
+"It was," observed Le Bihan with a morose shrug.
+
+"It just shows," said I, ignoring the mayor's remark, "how easy it is to
+fix up a train of coincidences so that the result seems to savor of the
+supernatural. Now, last night my wife imagined that she saw a priest in
+a mask peer in at her window----"
+
+Fortin and Le Bihan scrambled hastily from their knees, dropping hammer
+and nails.
+
+"W-h-a-t--what's that?" demanded the mayor.
+
+I repeated what I had said. Max Fortin turned livid.
+
+"My God!" muttered Le Bihan, "the Black Priest is in St. Gildas!"
+
+"D-don't you--you know the old prophecy?" stammered Fortin; "Froissart
+quotes it from Jacques Sorgue:
+
+    "'When the Black Priest rises from the dead,
+    St. Gildas folk shall shriek in bed;
+    When the Black Priest rises from his grave,
+    May the good God St. Gildas save!'"
+
+"Aristide Le Bihan," I said angrily, "and you, Max Fortin, I've got
+enough of this nonsense! Some foolish lout from Bannalec has been in St.
+Gildas playing tricks to frighten old fools like you. If you have
+nothing better to talk about than nursery legends I'll wait until you
+come to your senses. Good-morning." And I walked out, more disturbed
+than I cared to acknowledge to myself.
+
+The day had become misty and overcast. Heavy, wet clouds hung in the
+east. I heard the surf thundering against the cliffs, and the gray gulls
+squealed as they tossed and turned high in the sky. The tide was
+creeping across the river sands, higher, higher, and I saw the seaweed
+floating on the beach, and the lancons springing from the foam, silvery
+threadlike flashes in the gloom. Curlew were flying up the river in twos
+and threes; the timid sea swallows skimmed across the moors toward some
+quiet, lonely pool, safe from the coming tempest. In every hedge field
+birds were gathering, huddling together, twittering restlessly.
+
+When I reached the cliffs I sat down, resting my chin on my clenched
+hands. Already a vast curtain of rain, sweeping across the ocean miles
+away, hid the island of Groix. To the east, behind the white semaphore
+on the hills, black clouds crowded up over the horizon. After a little
+the thunder boomed, dull, distant, and slender skeins of lightning
+unraveled across the crest of the coming storm. Under the cliff at my
+feet the surf rushed foaming over the shore, and the lancons jumped and
+skipped and quivered until they seemed to be but the reflections of the
+meshed lightning.
+
+I turned to the east. It was raining over Groix, it was raining at
+Sainte Barbe, it was raining now at the semaphore. High in the storm
+whirl a few gulls pitched; a nearer cloud trailed veils of rain in its
+wake; the sky was spattered with lightning; the thunder boomed.
+
+As I rose to go, a cold raindrop fell upon the back of my hand, and
+another, and yet another on my face. I gave a last glance at the sea,
+where the waves were bursting into strange white shapes that seemed to
+fling out menacing arms toward me. Then something moved on the cliff,
+something black as the black rock it clutched--a filthy cormorant,
+craning its hideous head at the sky.
+
+Slowly I plodded homeward across the somber moorland, where the gorse
+stems glimmered with a dull metallic green, and the heather, no longer
+violet and purple, hung drenched and dun-colored among the dreary rocks.
+The wet turf creaked under my heavy boots, the black-thorn scraped and
+grated against knee and elbow. Over all lay a strange light, pallid,
+ghastly, where the sea spray whirled across the landscape and drove into
+my face until it grew numb with the cold. In broad bands, rank after
+rank, billow on billow, the rain burst out across the endless moors, and
+yet there was no wind to drive it at such a pace.
+
+Lys stood at the door as I turned into the garden, motioning me to
+hasten; and then for the first time I became conscious that I was soaked
+to the skin.
+
+"However in the world did you come to stay out when such a storm
+threatened?" she said. "Oh, you are dripping! Go quickly and change; I
+have laid your warm underwear on the bed, Dick."
+
+I kissed my wife, and went upstairs to change my dripping clothes for
+something more comfortable.
+
+When I returned to the morning room there was a driftwood fire on the
+hearth, and Lys sat in the chimney corner embroidering.
+
+"Catherine tells me that the fishing fleet from Lorient is out. Do you
+think they are in danger, dear?" asked Lys, raising her blue eyes to
+mine as I entered.
+
+"There is no wind, and there will be no sea," said I, looking out of the
+window. Far across the moor I could see the black cliffs looming in the
+mist.
+
+"How it rains!" murmured Lys; "come to the fire, Dick."
+
+I threw myself on the fur rug, my hands in my pockets, my head on Lys's
+knees.
+
+"Tell me a story," I said. "I feel like a boy of ten."
+
+Lys raised a finger to her scarlet lips. I always waited for her to do
+that.
+
+"Will you be very still, then?" she said.
+
+"Still as death."
+
+"Death," echoed a voice, very softly.
+
+"Did you speak, Lys?" I asked, turning so that I could see her face.
+
+"No; did you, Dick?"
+
+"Who said 'death'?" I asked, startled.
+
+"Death," echoed a voice, softly.
+
+I sprang up and looked about. Lys rose too, her needles and embroidery
+falling to the floor. She seemed about to faint, leaning heavily on me,
+and I led her to the window and opened it a little way to give her air.
+As I did so the chain lightning split the zenith, the thunder crashed,
+and a sheet of rain swept into the room, driving with it something that
+fluttered--something that flapped, and squeaked, and beat upon the rug
+with soft, moist wings.
+
+We bent over it together, Lys clinging to me, and we saw that it was a
+death's-head moth drenched with rain.
+
+The dark day passed slowly as we sat beside the fire, hand in hand, her
+head against my breast, speaking of sorrow and mystery and death. For
+Lys believed that there were things on earth that none might understand,
+things that must be nameless forever and ever, until God rolls up the
+scroll of life and all is ended. We spoke of hope and fear and faith,
+and the mystery of the saints; we spoke of the beginning and the end, of
+the shadow of sin, of omens, and of love. The moth still lay on the
+floor quivering its somber wings in the warmth of the fire, the skull
+and ribs clearly etched upon its neck and body.
+
+"If it is a messenger of death to this house," I said, "why should we
+fear, Lys?"
+
+"Death should be welcome to those who love God," murmured Lys, and she
+drew the cross from her breast and kissed it.
+
+"The moth might die if I threw it out into the storm," I said after a
+silence.
+
+"Let it remain," sighed Lys.
+
+Late that night my wife lay sleeping, and I sat beside her bed and read
+in the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue. I shaded the candle, but Lys grew
+restless, and finally I took the book down into the morning room, where
+the ashes of the fire rustled and whitened on the hearth.
+
+The death's-head moth lay on the rug before the fire where I had left
+it. At first I thought it was dead, but when I looked closer I saw a
+lambent fire in its amber eyes. The straight white shadow it cast across
+the floor wavered as the candle flickered.
+
+The pages of the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue were damp and sticky; the
+illuminated gold and blue initials left flakes of azure and gilt where
+my hand brushed them.
+
+"It is not paper at all; it is thin parchment," I said to myself; and I
+held the discolored page close to the candle flame and read, translating
+laboriously:
+
+"I, Jacques Sorgue, saw all these things. And I saw the Black Mass
+celebrated in the chapel of St. Gildas-on-the-Cliff. And it was said by
+the Abbé Sorgue, my kinsman: for which deadly sin the apostate priest
+was seized by the most noble Marquis of Plougastel and by him condemned
+to be burned with hot irons, until his seared soul quit its body and fly
+to its master the devil. But when the Black Priest lay in the crypt of
+Plougastel, his master Satan came at night and set him free, and carried
+him across land and sea to Mahmoud, which is Soldan or Saladin. And I,
+Jacques Sorgue, traveling afterward by sea, beheld with my own eyes my
+kinsman, the Black Priest of St. Gildas, borne along in the air upon a
+vast black wing, which was the wing of his master Satan. And this was
+seen also by two men of the crew."
+
+I turned the page. The wings of the moth on the floor began to quiver. I
+read on and on, my eyes blurring under the shifting candle flame. I read
+of battles and of saints, and I learned how the Great Soldan made his
+pact with Satan, and then I came to the Sieur de Trevec, and read how he
+seized the Black Priest in the midst of Saladin's tents and carried him
+away and cut off his head first branding him on the forehead. "And
+before he suffered," said the Chronicle, "he cursed the Sieur de Trevec
+and his descendants, and he said he would surely return to St. Gildas.
+'For the violence you do to me, I will do violence to you. For the evil
+I suffer at your hands, I will work evil on you and your descendants.
+Woe to your children, Sieur de Trevec!'" There was a whirr, a beating of
+strong wings, and my candle flashed up as in a sudden breeze. A humming
+filled the room; the great moth darted hither and thither, beating,
+buzzing, on ceiling and wall. I flung down my book and stepped forward.
+Now it lay fluttering upon the window sill, and for a moment I had it
+under my hand, but the thing squeaked and I shrank back. Then suddenly
+it darted across the candle flame; the light flared and went out, and at
+the same moment a shadow moved in the darkness outside. I raised my eyes
+to the window. A masked face was peering in at me.
+
+Quick as thought I whipped out my revolver and fired every cartridge,
+but the face advanced beyond the window, the glass melting away before
+it like mist, and through the smoke of my revolver I saw something creep
+swiftly into the room. Then I tried to cry out, but the thing was at my
+throat, and I fell backward among the ashes of the hearth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When my eyes unclosed I was lying on the hearth, my head among the cold
+ashes. Slowly I got on my knees, rose painfully, and groped my way to a
+chair. On the floor lay my revolver, shining in the pale light of early
+morning. My mind clearing by degrees, I looked, shuddering, at the
+window. The glass was unbroken. I stooped stiffly, picked up my revolver
+and opened the cylinder. Every cartridge had been fired. Mechanically I
+closed the cylinder and placed the revolver in my pocket. The book, the
+Chronicles of Jacques Sorgue, lay on the table beside me, and as I
+started to close it I glanced at the page. It was all splashed with
+rain, and the lettering had run, so that the page was merely a confused
+blur of gold and red and black. As I stumbled toward the door I cast a
+fearful glance over my shoulder. The death's-head moth crawled shivering
+on the rug.
+
+
+IV
+
+The sun was about three hours high. I must have slept, for I was aroused
+by the sudden gallop of horses under our window. People were shouting
+and calling in the road. I sprang up and opened the sash. Le Bihan was
+there, an image of helplessness, and Max Fortin stood beside him
+polishing his glasses. Some gendarmes had just arrived from Quimperle,
+and I could hear them around the corner of the house, stamping, and
+rattling their sabres and carbines, as they led their horses into my
+stable.
+
+Lys sat up, murmuring half-sleepy, half-anxious questions.
+
+"I don't know," I answered. "I am going out to see what it means."
+
+"It is like the day they came to arrest you," Lys said, giving me a
+troubled look. But I kissed her and laughed at her until she smiled too.
+Then I flung on coat and cap and hurried down the stairs.
+
+The first person I saw standing in the road was the Brigadier Durand.
+
+"Hello!" said I, "have you come to arrest me again? What the devil is
+all this fuss about, anyway?"
+
+"We were telegraphed for an hour ago," said Durand briskly, "and for a
+sufficient reason, I think. Look there, Monsieur Darrel!"
+
+He pointed to the ground almost under my feet.
+
+"Good heavens!" I cried, "where did that puddle of blood come from?"
+
+"That's what I want to know, Monsieur Darrel. Max Fortin found it at
+daybreak. See, it's splashed all over the grass, too. A trail of it
+leads into your garden, across the flower beds to your very window, the
+one that opens from the morning room. There is another trail leading
+from this spot across the road to the cliffs, then to the gravel pit,
+and thence across the moor to the forest of Kerselec. We are going to
+mount in a minute and search the bosquets. Will you join us? Bon Dieu!
+but the fellow bled like an ox. Max Fortin says it's human blood, or I
+should not have believed it."
+
+The little chemist of Quimperle came up at that moment, rubbing his
+glasses with a colored handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, it is human blood," he said, "but one thing puzzles me: the
+corpuscles are yellow. I never saw any human blood before with yellow
+corpuscles. But your English Doctor Thompson asserts that he has----"
+
+"Well, it's human blood, anyway--isn't it?" insisted Durand,
+impatiently.
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Max Fortin.
+
+"Then it's my business to trail it," said the big gendarme, and he
+called his men and gave the order to mount.
+
+"Did you hear anything last night?" asked Durand of me.
+
+"I heard the rain. I wonder the rain did not wash away these traces."
+
+"They must have come after the rain ceased. See this thick splash, how
+it lies over and weighs down the wet grass blades. Pah!"
+
+It was a heavy, evil-looking clot, and I stepped back from it, my throat
+closing in disgust.
+
+"My theory," said the brigadier, "is this: Some of those Biribi
+fishermen, probably the Icelanders, got an extra glass of cognac into
+their hides and quarreled on the road. Some of them were slashed, and
+staggered to your house. But there is only one trail, and yet--and yet,
+how could all that blood come from only one person? Well, the wounded
+man, let us say, staggered first to your house and then back here, and
+he wandered off, drunk and dying, God knows where. That's my theory."
+
+"A very good one," said I calmly. "And you are going to trail him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?"
+
+"At once. Will you come?"
+
+"Not now. I'll gallop over by-and-bye. You are going to the edge of the
+Kerselec forest?"
+
+"Yes; you will hear us calling. Are you coming, Max Fortin? And you, Le
+Bihan? Good; take the dog-cart."
+
+The big gendarme tramped around the corner to the stable and presently
+returned mounted on a strong gray horse, his sabre shone on his saddle;
+his pale yellow and white facings were spotless. The little crowd of
+white-coiffed women with their children fell back as Durand touched
+spurs and clattered away followed by his two troopers. Soon after Le
+Bihan and Max Fortin also departed in the mayor's dingy dog-cart.
+
+"Are you coming?" piped Le Bihan shrilly.
+
+"In a quarter of an hour," I replied, and went back to the house.
+
+When I opened the door of the morning room the death's-head moth was
+beating its strong wings against the window. For a second I hesitated,
+then walked over and opened the sash. The creature fluttered out,
+whirred over the flower beds a moment, then darted across the moorland
+toward the sea. I called the servants together and questioned them.
+Josephine, Catherine, Jean Marie Tregunc, not one of them had heard the
+slightest disturbance during the night. Then I told Jean Marie to saddle
+my horse, and while I was speaking Lys came down.
+
+"Dearest," I began, going to her.
+
+"You must tell me everything you know, Dick," she interrupted, looking
+me earnestly in the face.
+
+"But there is nothing to tell--only a drunken brawl, and some one
+wounded."
+
+"And you are going to ride--where, Dick?"
+
+"Well, over to the edge of Kerselec forest. Durand and the mayor, and
+Max Fortin, have gone on, following a--a trail."
+
+"What trail?"
+
+"Some blood."
+
+"Where did they find it?"
+
+"Out in the road there." Lys crossed herself.
+
+"Does it come near our house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How near?"
+
+"It comes up to the morning room window," said I, giving in.
+
+Her hand on my arm grew heavy. "I dreamed last night----"
+
+"So did I--" but I thought of the empty cartridges in my revolver, and
+stopped.
+
+"I dreamed that you were in great danger, and I could not move hand or
+foot to save you; but you had your revolver, and I called out to you to
+fire----"
+
+"I did fire!" I cried excitedly.
+
+"You--you fired?"
+
+I took her in my arms. "My darling," I said "something strange has
+happened--something that I cannot understand as yet. But, of course,
+there is an explanation. Last night I thought I fired at the Black
+Priest."
+
+"Ah!" gasped Lys.
+
+"Is that what you dreamed?"
+
+"Yes, yes, that was it! I begged you to fire----"
+
+"And I did."
+
+Her heart was beating against my breast. I held her close in silence.
+
+"Dick," she said at length, "perhaps you killed the--the thing."
+
+"If it was human I did not miss," I answered grimly. "And it was human,"
+I went on, pulling myself together, ashamed of having so nearly gone to
+pieces. "Of course it was human! The whole affair is plain enough. Not a
+drunken brawl, as Durand thinks; it was a drunken lout's practical joke,
+for which he has suffered. I suppose I must have filled him pretty full
+of bullets, and he has crawled away to die in Kerselec forest. It's a
+terrible affair; I'm sorry I fired so hastily; but that idiot Le Bihan
+and Max Fortin have been working on my nerves till I am as hysterical as
+a schoolgirl," I ended angrily.
+
+"You fired--but the window glass was not shattered," said Lys in a low
+voice.
+
+"Well, the window was open, then. And as for the--the rest--I've got
+nervous indigestion, and a doctor will settle the Black Priest for me,
+Lys."
+
+I glanced out of the window at Tregunc waiting with my horse at the
+gate.
+
+"Dearest, I think I had better go to join Durand and the others."
+
+"I will go, too."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Yes, Dick."
+
+"Don't, Lys."
+
+"I shall suffer every moment you are away."
+
+"The ride is too fatiguing, and we can't tell what unpleasant sight you
+may come upon. Lys, you don't really think there is anything
+supernatural in this affair?"
+
+"Dick," she answered gently, "I am a Bretonne." With both arms around my
+neck, my wife said, "Death is the gift of God. I do not fear it when we
+are together. But alone--oh, my husband, I should fear a God who could
+take you away from me!"
+
+We kissed each other soberly, simply, like two children. Then Lys
+hurried away to change her gown, and I paced up and down the garden
+waiting for her.
+
+She came, drawing on her slender gauntlets. I swung her into the saddle,
+gave a hasty order to Jean Marie, and mounted.
+
+Now, to quail under thoughts of terror on a morning like this, with Lys
+in the saddle beside me, no matter what had happened or might happen
+was impossible. Moreover, Môme came sneaking after us. I asked Tregunc
+to catch him, for I was afraid he might be brained by our horses' hoofs
+if he followed, but the wily puppy dodged and bolted after Lys, who was
+trotting along the highroad. "Never mind," I thought; "if he's hit he'll
+live, for he has no brains to lose."
+
+Lys was waiting for me in the road beside the Shrine of Our Lady of St.
+Gildas when I joined her. She crossed herself, I doffed my cap, then we
+shook out our bridles and galloped toward the forest of Kerselec.
+
+We said very little as we rode. I always loved to watch Lys in the
+saddle. Her exquisite figure and lovely face were the incarnation of
+youth and grace; her curling hair glistened like threaded gold.
+
+Out of the corner of my eye I saw the spoiled puppy Môme come bounding
+cheerfully alongside, oblivious of our horses' heels. Our road swung
+close to the cliffs. A filthy cormorant rose from the black rocks and
+flapped heavily across our path. Lys's horse reared, but she pulled him
+down, and pointed at the bird with her riding crop.
+
+"I see," said I; "it seems to be going our way. Curious to see a
+cormorant in a forest, isn't it?"
+
+"It is a bad sign," said Lys. "You know the Morbihan proverb: 'When the
+cormorant turns from the sea, Death laughs in the forest, and wise
+woodsmen build boats.'"
+
+"I wish," said I sincerely, "that there were fewer proverbs in
+Brittany."
+
+We were in sight of the forest now; across the gorse I could see the
+sparkle of gendarmes' trappings, and the glitter of Le Bihan's
+silver-buttoned jacket. The hedge was low and we took it without
+difficulty, and trotted across the moor to where Le Bihan and Durand
+stood gesticulating.
+
+They bowed ceremoniously to Lys as we rode up.
+
+"The trail is horrible--it is a river," said the mayor in his squeaky
+voice. "Monsieur Darrel, I think perhaps madame would scarcely care to
+come any nearer."
+
+Lys drew bridle and looked at me.
+
+"It is horrible!" said Durand, walking up beside me; "it looks as though
+a bleeding regiment had passed this way. The trail winds and winds about
+here in the thickets; we lose it at times, but we always find it again.
+I can't understand how one man--no, nor twenty--could bleed like that!"
+
+A halloo, answered by another, sounded from the depths of the forest.
+
+"It's my men; they are following the trail," muttered the brigadier.
+"God alone knows what is at the end!"
+
+"Shall we gallop back, Lys?" I asked.
+
+"No; let us ride along the western edge of the woods and dismount. The
+sun is so hot now, and I should like to rest for a moment," she said.
+
+"The western forest is clear of anything disagreeable," said Durand.
+
+"Very well," I answered; "call me, Le Bihan, if you find anything."
+
+Lys wheeled her mare, and I followed across the springy heather, Môme
+trotting cheerfully in the rear.
+
+We entered the sunny woods about a quarter of a kilometer from where we
+left Durand. I took Lys from her horse, flung both bridles over a limb,
+and, giving my wife my arm, aided her to a flat mossy rock which
+overhung a shallow brook gurgling among the beech trees. Lys sat down
+and drew off her gauntlets. Môme pushed his head into her lap, received
+an undeserved caress, and came doubtfully toward me. I was weak enough
+to condone his offense, but I made him lie down at my feet, greatly to
+his disgust.
+
+I rested my head on Lys's knees, looking up at the sky through the
+crossed branches of the trees.
+
+"I suppose I have killed him," I said. "It shocks me terribly, Lys."
+
+"You could not have known, dear. He may have been a robber,
+and--if--not--did--have you ever fired your revolver since that day four
+years ago when the Red Admiral's son tried to kill you? But I know you
+have not."
+
+"No," said I, wondering. "It's a fact, I have not. Why?"
+
+"And don't you remember that I asked you to let me load it for you the
+day when Yves went off, swearing to kill you and his father?"
+
+"Yes, I do remember. Well?"
+
+"Well, I--I took the cartridges first to St. Gildas chapel and dipped
+them in holy water. You must not laugh, Dick," said Lys gently, laying
+her cool hands on my lips.
+
+"Laugh, my darling!"
+
+Overhead the October sky was pale amethyst, and the sunlight burned like
+orange flame through the yellow leaves of beech and oak. Gnats and
+midges danced and wavered overhead; a spider dropped from a twig halfway
+to the ground and hung suspended on the end of his gossamer thread.
+
+"Are you sleepy, dear?" asked Lys, bending over me.
+
+"I am--a little; I scarcely slept two hours last night," I answered.
+
+"You may sleep, if you wish," said Lys, and touched my eyes caressingly.
+
+"Is my head heavy on your knees?"
+
+"No, Dick."
+
+I was already in a half doze; still I heard the brook babbling under the
+beeches and the humming of forest flies overhead. Presently even these
+were stilled.
+
+The next thing I knew I was sitting bolt upright, my ears ringing with a
+scream, and I saw Lys cowering beside me, covering her white face with
+both hands.
+
+As I sprang to my feet she cried again and clung to my knees. I saw my
+dog rush growling into a thicket, then I heard him whimper, and he came
+backing out, whining, ears flat, tail down. I stooped and disengaged
+Lys's hand.
+
+"Don't go, Dick!" she cried. "O God, it's the Black Priest!"
+
+In a moment I had leaped across the brook and pushed my way into the
+thicket. It was empty. I stared about me; I scanned every tree trunk,
+every bush. Suddenly I saw him. He was seated on a fallen log, his head
+resting in his hands, his rusty black robe gathered around him. For a
+moment my hair stirred under my cap; sweat started on forehead and cheek
+bone; then I recovered my reason, and understood that the man was human
+and was probably wounded to death. Ay, to death; for there at my feet,
+lay the wet trail of blood, over leaves and stones, down into the little
+hollow, across to the figure in black resting silently under the trees.
+
+I saw that he could not escape even if he had the strength, for before
+him, almost at his very feet, lay a deep, shining swamp.
+
+As I stepped forward my foot broke a twig. At the sound the figure
+started a little, then its head fell forward again. Its face was masked.
+Walking up to the man, I bade him tell where he was wounded. Durand and
+the others broke through the thicket at the same moment and hurried to
+my side.
+
+"Who are you who hide a masked face in a priest's robe?" said the
+gendarme loudly.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"See--see the stiff blood all over his robe," muttered Le Bihan to
+Fortin.
+
+"He will not speak," said I.
+
+"He may be too badly wounded," whispered Le Bihan.
+
+"I saw him raise his head," I said, "my wife saw him creep up here."
+
+Durand stepped forward and touched the figure.
+
+"Speak!" he said.
+
+"Speak!" quavered Fortin.
+
+Durand waited a moment, then with a sudden upward movement he stripped
+off the mask and threw back the man's head. We were looking into the eye
+sockets of a skull. Durand stood rigid; the mayor shrieked. The skeleton
+burst out from its rotting robes and collapsed on the ground before us.
+From between the staring ribs and the grinning teeth spurted a torrent
+of black blood, showering the shrinking grasses; then the thing
+shuddered, and fell over into the black ooze of the bog. Little bubbles
+of iridescent air appeared from the mud; the bones were slowly engulfed,
+and, as the last fragments sank out of sight, up from the depths and
+along the bank crept a creature, shiny, shivering, quivering its wings.
+
+It was a death's-head moth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I wish I had time to tell you how Lys outgrew superstitions--for she
+never knew the truth about the affair, and she never will know, since
+she has promised not to read this book. I wish I might tell you about
+the king and his coronation, and how the coronation robe fitted. I wish
+that I were able to write how Yvonne and Herbert Stuart rode to a boar
+hunt in Quimperle, and how the hounds raced the quarry right through the
+town, overturning three gendarmes, the notary, and an old woman. But I
+am becoming garrulous and Lys is calling me to come and hear the king
+say that he is sleepy. And his highness shall not be kept waiting.
+
+
+THE KING'S CRADLE SONG
+
+      Seal with a seal of gold
+      The scroll of a life unrolled;
+    Swathe him deep in his purple stole;
+    Ashes of diamonds, crystalled coal,
+      Drops of gold in each scented fold.
+
+    Crimson wings of the Little Death,
+    Stir his hair with your silken breath;
+    Flaming wings of sins to be,
+    Splendid pinions of prophecy,
+      Smother his eyes with hues and dyes,
+    While the white moon spins and the winds arise,
+      And the stars drip through the skies.
+
+      Wave, O wings of the Little Death!
+      Seal his sight and stifle his breath,
+    Cover his breast with the gemmed shroud pressed;
+    From north to north, from west to west,
+      Wave, O wings of the Little Death!
+    Till the white moon reels in the cracking skies,
+      And the ghosts of God arise.
+
+
+
+Lazarus
+
+BY LEONID ANDREYEV
+
+TRANSLATED BY ABRAHAM YARMOLINSKY
+
+     From _Lazarus and the Gentleman from San Francisco_. Published by
+     The Stratford Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+I
+
+When Lazarus left the grave, where, for three days and three nights he
+had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and returned alive to his
+dwelling, for a long time no one noticed in him those sinister oddities,
+which, as time went on, made his very name a terror. Gladdened
+unspeakably by the sight of him who had been returned to life, those
+near to him caressed him unceasingly, and satiated their burning desire
+to serve him, in solicitude for his food and drink and garments. And
+they dressed him gorgeously, in bright colors of hope and laughter, and
+when, like to a bridegroom in his bridal vestures, he sat again among
+them at the table, and again ate and drank, they wept, overwhelmed with
+tenderness. And they summoned the neighbors to look at him who had risen
+miraculously from the dead. These came and shared the serene joy of the
+hosts. Strangers from far-off towns and hamlets came and adored the
+miracle in tempestuous words. Like to a beehive was the house of Mary
+and Martha.
+
+Whatever was found new in Lazarus' face and gestures was thought to be
+some trace of a grave illness and of the shocks recently experienced.
+Evidently, the destruction wrought by death on the corpse was only
+arrested by the miraculous power, but its effects were still apparent;
+and what death had succeeded in doing with Lazarus' face and body, was
+like an artist's unfinished sketch seen under thin glass. On Lazarus'
+temples, under his eyes, and in the hollows of his cheeks, lay a deep
+and cadaverous blueness; cadaverously blue also were his long fingers,
+and around his fingernails, grown long in the grave, the blue had become
+purple and dark. On his lips the skin, swollen in the grave, had burst
+in places, and thin, reddish cracks were formed, shining as though
+covered with transparent mica. And he had grown stout. His body, puffed
+up in the grave, retained its monstrous size and showed those frightful
+swellings, in which one sensed the presence of the rank liquid of
+decomposition. But the heavy corpse-like odor which penetrated Lazarus'
+graveclothes and, it seemed, his very body, soon entirely disappeared,
+the blue spots on his face and hands grew paler, and the reddish cracks
+closed up, although they never disappeared altogether. That is how
+Lazarus looked when he appeared before people, in his second life, but
+his face looked natural to those who had seen him in the coffin.
+
+In addition to the changes in his appearance, Lazarus' temper seemed to
+have undergone a transformation, but this circumstance startled no one
+and attracted no attention. Before his death Lazarus had always been
+cheerful and carefree, fond of laughter and a merry joke. It was because
+of this brightness and cheerfulness, with not a touch of malice and
+darkness, that the Master had grown so fond of him. But now Lazarus had
+grown grave and taciturn, he never jested, himself, nor responded with
+laughter to other people's jokes; and the words which he uttered, very
+infrequently, were the plainest, most ordinary, and necessary words, as
+deprived of depth and significance, as those sounds with which animals
+express pain and pleasure, thirst and hunger. They were the words that
+one can say all one's life, and yet they give no indication of what
+pains and gladdens the depths of the soul.
+
+Thus, with the face of a corpse which for three days had been under the
+heavy sway of death, dark and taciturn, already appallingly transformed,
+but still unrecognized by anyone in his new self, he was sitting at the
+feasting table, among friends and relatives, and his gorgeous nuptial
+garments glittered with yellow gold and bloody scarlet. Broad waves of
+jubilation, now soft, now tempestuously sonorous surged around him; warm
+glances of love were reaching out for his face, still cold with the
+coldness of the grave; and a friend's warm palm caressed his blue, heavy
+hand. And music played the tympanum and the pipe, the cithara and the
+harp. It was as though bees hummed, grasshoppers chirped and birds
+warbled over the happy house of Mary and Martha.
+
+
+II
+
+One of the guests incautiously lifted the veil. By a thoughtless word he
+broke the serene charm and uncovered the truth in all its naked
+ugliness. Ere the thought formed itself in his mind, his lips uttered
+with a smile:
+
+"Why dost thou not tell us what happened yonder?"
+
+And all grew silent, startled by the question. It was as if it occurred
+to them only now that for three days Lazarus had been dead, and they
+looked at him, anxiously awaiting his answer. But Lazarus kept silence.
+
+"Thou dost not wish to tell us,"--wondered the man, "is it so terrible
+yonder?"
+
+And again his thought came after his words. Had it been otherwise, he
+would not have asked this question, which at that very moment oppressed
+his heart with its insufferable horror. Uneasiness seized all present,
+and with a feeling of heavy weariness they awaited Lazarus' words, but
+he was silent, sternly and coldly, and his eyes were lowered. And as if
+for the first time, they noticed the frightful blueness of his face and
+his repulsive obesity. On the table, as though forgotten by Lazarus,
+rested his bluish-purple wrist, and to this all eyes turned, as if it
+were from it that the awaited answer was to come. The musicians were
+still playing, but now the silence reached them too, and even as water
+extinguishes scattered embers, so were their merry tunes extinguished in
+the silence. The pipe grew silent; the voices of the sonorous tympanum
+and the murmuring harp died away; and as if the strings had burst, the
+cithara answered with a tremulous, broken note. Silence.
+
+"Thou dost not wish to say?" repeated the guest, unable to check his
+chattering tongue. But the stillness remained unbroken, and the
+bluish-purple hand rested motionless. And then he stirred slightly and
+everyone felt relieved. He lifted up his eyes, and lo! straightway
+embracing everything in one heavy glance, fraught with weariness and
+horror, he looked at them,--Lazarus who had arisen from the dead.
+
+It was the third day since Lazarus had left the grave. Ever since then
+many had experienced the pernicious power of his eye, but neither those
+who were crushed by it forever, nor those who found the strength to
+resist in it the primordial sources of life,--which is as mysterious as
+death,--never could they explain the horror which lay motionless in the
+depth of his black pupils. Lazarus looked calmly and simply with no
+desire to conceal anything, but also with no intention to say anything;
+he looked coldly, as he who is infinitely indifferent to those alive.
+Many carefree people came close to him without noticing him, and only
+later did they learn with astonishment and fear who that calm stout man
+was, that walked slowly by, almost touching them with his gorgeous and
+dazzling garments. The sun did not cease shining, when he was looking,
+nor did the fountain hush its murmur, and the sky overhead remained
+cloudless and blue. But the man under the spell of his enigmatical look
+heard no more the fountain and saw not the sky overhead. Sometimes, he
+wept bitterly, sometimes he tore his hair and in frenzy called for help;
+but more often it came to pass that apathetically and quietly he began
+to die, and so he languished many years, before everybody's very eyes,
+wasted away, colorless, flabby, dull, like a tree, silently drying up in
+a stony soil. And of those who gazed at him, the ones who wept madly,
+sometimes felt again the stir of life; the others never.
+
+"So thou dost not wish to tell us what thou hast seen yonder?" repeated
+the man. But now his voice was impassive and dull, and deadly gray
+weariness showed in Lazarus' eyes. And deadly gray weariness covered
+like dust all the faces, and with dull amazement the guests stared at
+each other and did not understand wherefore they had gathered here and
+sat at the rich table. The talk ceased. They thought it was time to go
+home, but could not overcome the flaccid lazy weariness which glued
+their muscles, and they kept on sitting there, yet apart and torn away
+from each other, like pale fires scattered over a dark field.
+
+But the musicians were paid to play and again they took their
+instruments and again tunes full of studied mirth and studied sorrow
+began to flow and to rise. They unfolded the customary melody but the
+guests hearkened in dull amazement. Already they knew not wherefore is
+it necessary, and why is it well, that people should pluck strings,
+inflate their cheeks, blow in thin pipes, and produce a bizarre,
+many-voiced noise.
+
+"What bad music," said someone.
+
+The musicians took offense and left. Following them, the guests left one
+after another, for night was already come. And when placid darkness
+encircled them and they began to breathe with more ease, suddenly
+Lazarus' image loomed up before each one in formidable radiance: the
+blue face of a corpse, grave-clothes gorgeous and resplendent, a cold
+look, in the depths of which lay motionless an unknown horror. As though
+petrified, they were standing far apart, and darkness enveloped them,
+but in the darkness blazed brighter and brighter the supernatural vision
+of him who for three days had been under the enigmatical sway of death.
+For three days had he been dead: thrice had the sun risen and set, but
+he had been dead; children had played, streams murmured over pebbles,
+the wayfarer had lifted up hot dust in the highroad,--but he had been
+dead. And now he is again among them,--touches them,--looks at
+them,--looks at them! and through the black discs of his pupils, as
+through darkened glass, stares the unknowable Yonder.
+
+
+III
+
+No one was taking care of Lazarus, for no friends no relatives were left
+to him, and the great desert which encircled the holy city, came near
+the very threshold of his dwelling. And the desert entered his house,
+and stretched on his couch, like a wife and extinguished the fires. No
+one was taking care of Lazarus. One after the other, his sisters--Mary
+and Martha--forsook him. For a long while Martha was loath to abandon
+him, for she knew not who would feed him and pity him, she wept and
+prayed. But one night, when the wind was roaming in the desert and with
+a hissing sound the cypresses were bending over the roof, she dressed
+noiselessly and secretly left the house. Lazarus probably heard the door
+slam; it banged against the side-post under the gusts of the desert
+wind, but he did not rise to go out and to look at her that was
+abandoning him. All the night long the cypresses hissed over his head
+and plaintively thumped the door, letting in the cold, greedy desert.
+
+Like a leper he was shunned by everyone, and it was proposed to tie a
+bell to his neck, as is done with lepers, to warn people against sudden
+meetings. But someone remarked, growing frightfully pale, that it would
+be too horrible if by night the moaning of Lazarus' bell were suddenly
+heard under the windows,--and so the project was abandoned.
+
+And since he did not take care of himself, he would probably have
+starved to death, had not the neighbors brought him food in fear of
+something that they sensed but vaguely. The food was brought to him by
+children; they were not afraid of Lazarus, nor did they mock him with
+naive cruelty, as children are wont to do with the wretched and
+miserable. They were indifferent to him, and Lazarus answered them with
+the same coldness; he had no desire to caress the black little curls,
+and to look into their innocent shining eyes. Given to Time and to the
+Desert, his house was crumbling down, and long since had his famishing,
+lowing goats wandered away to the neighboring pastures. And his bridal
+garments became threadbare. Ever since that happy day, when the
+musicians played, he had worn them unaware of the difference of the new
+and the worn. The bright colors grew dull and faded; vicious dogs and
+the sharp thorn of the Desert turned the tender fabric into rags.
+
+By day, when the merciless sun slew all things alive, and even scorpions
+sought shelter under stones and writhed there in a mad desire to sting,
+he sat motionless under the sunrays, his blue face and the uncouth,
+bushy beard lifted up, bathing in the fiery flood.
+
+When people still talked to him, he was once asked:
+
+"Poor Lazarus, does it please thee to sit thus and to stare at the
+sun?"
+
+And he had answered:
+
+"Yes, it does."
+
+So strong, it seemed, was the cold of his three days' grave, so deep the
+darkness, that there was no heat on earth to warm Lazarus, nor a
+splendor that could brighten the darkness of his eyes. That is what came
+to the mind of those who spoke to Lazarus, and with a sigh they left
+him.
+
+And when the scarlet, flattened globe would lower, Lazarus would set out
+for the desert and walk straight toward the sun, as though striving to
+reach it. He always walked straight toward the sun and those who tried
+to follow him and to spy upon what he was doing at night in the desert,
+retained in their memory the black silhouette of a tall stout man
+against the red background of an enormous flattened disc. Night pursued
+them with her horrors, and so they did not learn of Lazarus' doings in
+the desert, but the vision of the black on red was forever branded on
+their brain. Just as a beast with a splinter in its eye furiously rubs
+its muzzle with its paws, so they too foolishly rubbed their eyes, but
+what Lazarus had given was indelible, and Death alone could efface it.
+
+But there were people who lived far away, who never saw Lazarus and knew
+of him only by report. With daring curiosity, which is stronger than
+fear and feeds upon it, with hidden mockery, they would come to Lazarus
+who was sitting in the sun and enter into conversation with him. By
+this time Lazarus' appearance had changed for the better and was not so
+terrible. The first minute they snapped their fingers and thought of how
+stupid the inhabitants of the holy city were; but when the short talk
+was over and they started homeward, their looks were such that the
+inhabitants of the holy city recognized them at once and said:
+
+"Look, there is one more fool on whom Lazarus has set his eye,"--and
+they shook their heads regretfully, and lifted up their arms.
+
+There came brave, intrepid warriors, with tinkling weapons; happy youths
+came with laughter and song; busy tradesmen, jingling their money, ran
+in for a moment, and haughty priests leaned their crosiers against
+Lazarus' door, and they were all strangely changed, as they came back.
+The same terrible shadow swooped down upon their souls and gave a new
+appearance to the old familiar world.
+
+Those who still had the desire to speak, expressed their feelings thus:
+
+"All things tangible and visible grew hollow, light, and
+transparent,--similar to lightsome shadows in the darkness of night;
+
+"for, that great darkness, which holds the whole cosmos, was dispersed
+neither by the sun or by the moon and the stars, but like an immense
+black shroud enveloped the earth and, like a mother, embraced it;
+
+"it penetrated all the bodies, iron and stone,--and the particles of
+the bodies, having lost their ties, grew lonely; and it penetrated into
+the depth of the particles, and the particles of particles became
+lonely;
+
+"for that great void, which encircles the cosmos, was not filled by
+things visible: neither by the sun, nor by the moon and the stars, but
+reigned unrestrained, penetrating everywhere, severing body from body,
+particle from particle;
+
+"in the void hollow trees spread hollow roots threatening a fantastic
+fall; temples, palaces, and horses loomed up and they were hollow; and
+in the void men moved about restlessly but they were light and hollow
+like shadows;
+
+"for, Time was no more, and the beginning of all things came near their
+end: the building was still being built, and builders were still
+hammering away, and its ruins were already seen and the void in its
+place; the man was still being born, but already funeral candles were
+burning at his head, and now they were extinguished, and there was the
+void in place of the man and of the funeral candles.
+
+"and wrapped by void and darkness the man in despair trembled in the
+face of the Horror of the Infinite."
+
+Thus spake the men who had still a desire to speak. But, surely, much
+more could have told those who wished not to speak, and died in
+silence.
+
+
+IV
+
+At that time there lived in Rome a renowned sculptor. In clay, marble,
+and bronze he wrought bodies of gods and men, and such was their beauty,
+that people called them immortal. But he himself was discontented and
+asserted that there was something even more beautiful, that he could not
+embody either in marble or in bronze. "I have not yet gathered the
+glimmers of the moon, nor have I my fill of sunshine," he was wont to
+say, "and there is no soul in my marble, no life in my beautiful
+bronze." And when on moonlit nights he slowly walked along the road,
+crossing the black shadows of cypresses, his white tunic glittering in
+the moonshine, those who met him would laugh in a friendly way and say:
+
+"Art thou going to gather moonshine, Aurelius? Why then didst thou not
+fetch baskets?"
+
+And he would answer, laughing and pointing to his eyes:
+
+"Here are the baskets wherein I gather the sheen of the moon and the
+glimmer of the sun."
+
+And so it was: the moon glimmered in his eyes and the sun sparkled
+therein. But he could not translate them into marble and therein lay the
+serene tragedy of his life.
+
+He was descended from an ancient patrician race, had a good wife and
+children, and suffered from no want.
+
+When the obscure rumor about Lazarus reached him, he consulted his wife
+and friends and undertook the far journey to Judea to see him who had
+miraculously risen from the dead. He was somewhat weary in those days
+and he hoped that the road would sharpen his blunted senses. What was
+said of Lazarus did not frighten him: he had pondered much over Death,
+did not like it, but he disliked also those who confused it with life.
+
+    "In this life,--life and beauty;
+    beyond,--Death, the enigmatical"--
+
+thought he, and there is no better thing for a man to do than to delight
+in life and in the beauty of all things living. He had even a
+vainglorious desire to convince Lazarus of the truth of his own view and
+restore his soul to life, as his body had been restored. This seemed so
+much easier because the rumors, shy and strange, did not render the
+whole truth about Lazarus and but vaguely warned against something
+frightful.
+
+Lazarus had just risen from the stone in order to follow the sun which
+was setting in the desert, when a rich Roman attended by an armed slave,
+approached him and addressed him in a sonorous tone of voice:
+
+"Lazarus!"
+
+And Lazarus beheld a superb face, lit with glory, and arrayed in fine
+clothes, and precious stones sparkling in the sun. The red light lent to
+the Roman's face and head the appearance of gleaming bronze--that also
+Lazarus noticed. He resumed obediently his place and lowered his weary
+eyes.
+
+"Yes, thou art ugly, my poor Lazarus,"--quietly said the Roman, playing
+with his golden chain; "thou art even horrible, my poor friend; and
+Death was not lazy that day when thou didst fall so heedlessly into his
+hands. But thou art stout, and, as the great Cæsar used to say, fat
+people are not ill-tempered; to tell the truth, I don't understand why
+men fear thee. Permit me to spend the night in thy house; the hour is
+late, and I have no shelter."
+
+Never had anyone asked Lazarus' hospitality.
+
+"I have no bed," said he.
+
+"I am somewhat of a soldier and I can sleep sitting," the Roman
+answered. "We shall build a fire."
+
+"I have no fire."
+
+"Then we shall have our talk in the darkness, like two friends. I think
+thou wilt find a bottle of wine."
+
+"I have no wine."
+
+The Roman laughed.
+
+"Now I see why thou art so somber and dislikest thy second life. No
+wine! Why, then we shall do without it: there are words that make the
+head go round better than the Falernian."
+
+By a sign he dismissed the slave, and they remained all alone. And again
+the sculptor started speaking, but it was as if, together with the
+setting sun, life had left his words; and they grew pale and hollow, as
+if they staggered on unsteady feet, as if they slipped and fell down,
+drunk with the heavy lees of weariness and despair. And black chasms
+grew up between the words--like far-off hints of the great void and the
+great darkness.
+
+"Now I am thy guest, and thou wilt not be unkind to me, Lazarus!"--said
+he. "Hospitality is the duty even of those who for three days were dead.
+Three days, I was told, thou didst rest in the grave. There it must be
+cold ... and that is whence comes thy ill habit of going without fire
+and wine. As to me, I like fire; it grows dark here so rapidly.... The
+lines of thy eyebrows and forehead are quite, quite interesting: they
+are like ruins of strange palaces, buried in ashes after an earthquake.
+But why dost thou wear such ugly and queer garments? I have seen
+bridegrooms in thy country, and they wear such clothes--are they not
+funny--and terrible.... But art thou a bridegroom?"
+
+The sun had already disappeared, a monstrous black shadow came running
+from the east--it was as if gigantic bare feet began rumbling on the
+sand, and the wind sent a cold wave along the backbone.
+
+"In the darkness thou seemest still larger, Lazarus, as if thou hast
+grown stouter in these moments. Dost thou feed on darkness, Lazarus? I
+would fain have a little fire--at least a little fire, a little fire. I
+feel somewhat chilly, your nights are so barbarously cold.... Were it
+not so dark, I should say that thou wert looking at me, Lazarus. Yes, it
+seems to me, thou art looking.... Why, thou art looking at me, I feel
+it,--but there thou art smiling."
+
+Night came, and filled the air with heavy blackness.
+
+"How well it will be, when the sun will rise to-morrow anew.... I am a
+great sculptor, thou knowest; that is how my friends call me. I create.
+Yes, that is the word ... but I need daylight. I give life to the cold
+marble, I melt sonorous bronze in fire, in bright hot fire.... Why didst
+thou touch me with thy hand?"
+
+"Come"--said Lazarus--"Thou art my guest."
+
+And they went to the house. And a long night enveloped the earth.
+
+The slave, seeing that his master did not come, went to seek him, when
+the sun was already high in the sky. And he beheld his master side by
+side with Lazarus: in profound silence were they sitting right under the
+dazzling and scorching sunrays and looking upward. The slave began to
+weep and cried out:
+
+"My master, what has befallen thee, master?"
+
+The very same day the sculptor left for Rome. On the way Aurelius was
+pensive and taciturn, staring attentively at everything--the men, the
+ship, the sea, as though trying to retain something. On the high sea a
+storm burst upon them, and all through it Aurelius stayed on the deck
+and eagerly scanned the seas looming near and sinking with a thud.
+
+At home his friends were frightened at the change which had taken place
+in Aurelius, but he calmed them, saying meaningly:
+
+"I have found it."
+
+And without changing the dusty clothes he wore on his journey, he fell
+to work, and the marble obediently resounded under his sonorous hammer.
+Long and eagerly worked he, admitting no one, until one morning he
+announced that the work was ready and ordered his friends to be
+summoned, severe critics and connoisseurs of art. And to meet them he
+put on bright and gorgeous garments, that glittered with yellow
+gold--and--scarlet byssus.
+
+"Here is my work," said he thoughtfully.
+
+His friends glanced and a shadow of profound sorrow covered their faces.
+It was something monstrous, deprived of all the lines and shapes
+familiar to the eye, but not without a hint at some new, strange image.
+
+On a thin, crooked twig, or rather on an ugly likeness of a twig rested
+askew a blind, ugly, shapeless, outspread mass of something utterly and
+inconceivably distorted, a mad leap of wild and bizarre fragments, all
+feebly and vainly striving to part from one another. And, as if by
+chance, beneath one of the wildly-rent salients a butterfly was chiseled
+with divine skill, all airy loveliness, delicacy, and beauty, with
+transparent wings, which seemed to tremble with an impotent desire to
+take flight.
+
+"Wherefore this wonderful butterfly, Aurelius?" said somebody
+falteringly.
+
+"I know not"--was the sculptor's answer.
+
+But it was necessary to tell the truth, and one of his friends who loved
+him best said firmly:
+
+"This is ugly, my poor friend. It must be destroyed. Give me the
+hammer."
+
+And with two strokes he broke the monstrous man into pieces, leaving
+only the infinitely delicate butterfly untouched.
+
+From that time on Aurelius created nothing. With profound indifference
+he looked at marble and bronze, and on his former divine works, where
+everlasting beauty rested. With the purpose of arousing his former
+fervent passion for work and, awakening his deadened soul, his friends
+took him to see other artists' beautiful works,--but he remained
+indifferent as before, and the smile did not warm up his tightened lips.
+And only after listening to lengthy talks about beauty, he would retort
+wearily and indolently:
+
+"But all this is a lie."
+
+And by the day, when the sun was shining, he went into his magnificent,
+skilfully built garden and having found a place without shadow, he
+exposed his bare head to the glare and heat. Red and white butterflies
+fluttered around; from the crooked lips of a drunken satyr, water
+streamed down with a splash into a marble cistern, but he sat
+motionless and silent,--like a pallid reflection of him who, in the
+far-off distance, at the very gates of the stony desert, sat under the
+fiery sun.
+
+
+V
+
+And now it came to pass that the great, deified Augustus himself
+summoned Lazarus. The imperial messengers dressed him gorgeously, in
+solemn nuptial clothes, as if Time had legalized them, and he was to
+remain until his very death the bridegroom of an unknown bride. It was
+as though an old, rotting coffin had been gilt and furnished with new,
+gay tassels. And men, all in trim and bright attire, rode after him, as
+if in bridal procession indeed, and those foremost trumpeted loudly,
+bidding people to clear the way for the emperor's messengers. But
+Lazarus' way was deserted: his native land cursed the hateful name of
+him who had miraculously risen from the dead, and people scattered at
+the very news of his appalling approach. The solitary voice of the brass
+trumpets sounded in the motionless air, and the wilderness alone
+responded with its languid echo.
+
+Then Lazarus went by sea. And his was the most magnificently arrayed and
+the most mournful ship that ever mirrored itself in the azure waves of
+the Mediterranean Sea. Many were the travelers aboard, but like a tomb
+was the ship, all silence and stillness, and the despairing water sobbed
+at the steep, proudly curved prow. All alone sat Lazarus exposing his
+head to the blaze of the sun, silently listening to the murmur and
+splash of the wavelets, and afar seamen and messengers were sitting, a
+vague group of weary shadows. Had the thunder burst and the wind
+attacked the red sails, the ships would probably have perished, for none
+of those aboard had either the will or the strength to struggle for
+life. With a supreme effort some mariners would reach the board and
+eagerly scan the blue, transparent deep, hoping to see a naiad's pink
+shoulder flash in the hollow of an azure wave, or a drunken gay centaur
+dash along and in frenzy splash the wave with his hoof. But the sea was
+like a wilderness, and the deep was dumb and deserted.
+
+With utter indifference did Lazarus set his feet on the street of the
+eternal city. As though all her wealth, all the magnificence of her
+palaces built by giants, all the resplendence, beauty, and music of her
+refined life were but the echo of the wind in the wilderness, the
+reflection of the desert quicksand. Chariots were dashing, and along the
+streets were moving crowds of strong, fair, proud builders of the
+eternal city and haughty participants in her life; a song sounded;
+fountains and women laughed a pearly laughter; drunken philosophers
+harangued, and the sober listened to them with a smile; hoofs struck the
+stone pavements. And surrounded by cheerful noise, a stout, heavy man
+was moving, a cold spot of silence and despair, and on his way he sowed
+disgust, anger, and vague, gnawing weariness. Who dares to be sad in
+Rome, wondered indignantly the citizens, and frowned. In two days the
+entire city already knew all about him who had miraculously risen from
+the dead, and shunned him shyly.
+
+But some daring people there were, who wanted to test their strength,
+and Lazarus obeyed their imprudent summons. Kept busy by state affairs,
+the emperor constantly delayed the reception, and seven days did he who
+had risen from the dead go about visiting others.
+
+And Lazarus came to a cheerful Epicurean, and the host met him with
+laughter on his lips:
+
+"Drink, Lazarus, drink!"--shouted he. "Would not Augustus laugh to see
+thee drunk!"
+
+And half-naked drunken women laughed, and rose petals fell on Lazarus'
+blue hands. But then the Epicurean looked into Lazarus' eyes, and his
+gaiety ended forever. Drunkard remained he for the rest of his life;
+never did he drink, yet forever was he drunk. But instead of the gay
+reverie which wine brings with it, frightful dreams began to haunt him,
+the sole food of his stricken spirit. Day and night he lived in the
+poisonous vapors of his nightmares, and death itself was not more
+frightful than her raving, monstrous forerunners.
+
+And Lazarus came to a youth and his beloved, who loved each other and
+were most beautiful in their passions. Proudly and strongly embracing
+his love, the youth said with serene regret:
+
+"Look at us, Lazarus, and share our joy. Is there anything stronger
+than love?"
+
+And Lazarus looked. And for the rest of their life they kept on loving
+each other, but their passion grew gloomy and joyless, like those
+funeral cypresses whose roots feed on the decay of the graves and whose
+black summits in a still evening hour seek in vain to reach the sky.
+Thrown by the unknown forces of life into each other's embraces, they
+mingled tears with kisses, voluptuous pleasures with pain, and they felt
+themselves doubly slaves, obedient slaves to life, and patient servants
+of the silent Nothingness. Ever united, ever severed, they blazed like
+sparks and like sparks lost themselves in the boundless Dark.
+
+And Lazarus came to a haughty sage, and the sage said to him:
+
+"I know all the horrors thou canst reveal to me. Is there anything thou
+canst frighten me with?"
+
+But before long the sage felt that the knowledge of horror was far from
+being the horror itself, and that the vision of Death, was not Death.
+And he felt that wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity,
+for Infinity knows them not. And it vanished, the dividing-line between
+knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, top and bottom, and the
+shapeless thought hung suspended in the void. Then the sage clutched his
+gray head and cried out frantically:
+
+"I cannot think! I cannot think!"
+
+Thus under the indifferent glance for him, who miraculously had risen
+from the dead, perished everything that asserts life, its significance
+and joys. And it was suggested that it was dangerous to let him see the
+emperor, that it was better to kill him and, having buried him secretly,
+to tell the emperor that he had disappeared no one knew whither. Already
+swords were being whetted and youths devoted to the public welfare
+prepared for the murder, when Augustus ordered Lazarus to be brought
+before him next morning, thus destroying the cruel plans.
+
+If there was no way of getting rid of Lazarus, at least it was possible
+to soften the terrible impression his face produced. With this in view,
+skillful painters, barbers, and artists were summoned, and all night
+long they were busy over Lazarus' head. They cropped his beard, curled
+it, and gave it a tidy, agreeable appearance. By means of paints they
+concealed the corpse-like blueness of his hands and face. Repulsive were
+the wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his old face, and they were
+puttied, painted, and smoothed; then, over the smooth background,
+wrinkles of good-tempered laughter and pleasant, carefree mirth were
+skillfully painted with fine brushes.
+
+Lazarus submitted indifferently to everything that was done to him. Soon
+he was turned into a becomingly stout, venerable old man, into a quiet
+and kind grandfather of numerous offspring. It seemed that the smile,
+with which only a while ago he was spinning funny yarns, was still
+lingering on his lips, and that in the corner of his eye serene
+tenderness was hiding, the companion of old age. But people did not dare
+change his nuptial garments, and they could not change his eyes, two
+dark and frightful glasses through which looked at men, the unknowable
+Yonder.
+
+
+VI
+
+Lazarus was not moved by the magnificence of the imperial palace. It was
+as though he saw no difference between the crumbling house, closely
+pressed by the desert, and the stone palace, solid and fair, and
+indifferently he passed into it. And the hard marble of the floors under
+his feet grew similar to the quicksand of the desert, and the multitude
+of richly dressed and haughty men became like void air under his glance.
+No one looked into his face, as Lazarus passed by, fearing to fall under
+the appalling influence of his eyes; but when the sound of his heavy
+footsteps had sufficiently died down, the courtiers raised their heads
+and with fearful curiosity examined the figure of a stout, tall,
+slightly bent old man, who was slowly penetrating into the very heart of
+the imperial palace. Were Death itself passing, it would be faced with
+no greater fear: for until then the dead alone knew Death, and those
+alive knew Life only--and there was no bridge between them. But this
+extraordinary man, although alive, knew Death, and enigmatical,
+appalling, was his cursed knowledge. "Woe," people thought, "he will
+take the life of our great, deified Augustus," and they sent curses
+after Lazarus, who meanwhile kept on advancing into the interior of the
+palace.
+
+Already did the emperor know who Lazarus was, and prepared to meet him.
+But the monarch was a brave man, and felt his own tremendous,
+unconquerable power, and in his fatal duel with him who had miraculously
+risen from the dead he wanted not to invoke human help. And so he met
+Lazarus face to face:
+
+"Lift not thine eyes upon me, Lazarus," he ordered. "I heard thy face is
+like that of Medusa and turns into stone whomsoever thou lookest at.
+Now, I wish to see thee and to have a talk with thee, before I turn into
+stone,"--added he in a tone of kingly jesting, not devoid of fear.
+
+Coming close to him, he carefully examined Lazarus' face and his strange
+festal garments. And although he had a keen eye, he was deceived by his
+appearance.
+
+"So. Thou dost not appear terrible, my venerable old man. But the worse
+for us, if horror assumes such a respectable and pleasant air. Now let
+us have a talk."
+
+Augustus sat, and questioning Lazarus with his eye as much as with
+words, started the conversation:
+
+"Why didst thou not greet me as thou enteredst?"
+
+Lazarus answered indifferent:
+
+"I knew not it was necessary."
+
+"Art thou a Christian?"
+
+"No."
+
+Augustus approvingly shook his head.
+
+"That is good. I do not like Christians. They shake the tree of life
+before it is covered with fruit, and disperse its odorous bloom to the
+winds. But who art thou?"
+
+With a visible effort Lazarus answered:
+
+"I was dead."
+
+"I had heard that. But who art thou now?"
+
+Lazarus was silent, but at last repeated in a tone of weary apathy:
+
+"I was dead."
+
+"Listen to me, stranger," said the emperor, distinctly and severely
+giving utterance to the thought that had come to him at the beginning,
+"my realm is the realm of Life, my people are of the living, not of the
+dead. Thou art here one too many. I know not who thou art and what thou
+sawest there; but, if thou liest, I hate thy lies, and if thou tellst
+the truth, I hate thy truth. In my bosom I feel the throb of life; I
+feel strength in my arm, and my proud thoughts, like eagles, pierce the
+space. And yonder in the shelter of my rule, under the protection of
+laws created by me, people live and toil and rejoice. Dost thou hear the
+battle-cry, the challenge men throw into the face of the future?"
+
+Augustus, as in prayer, stretched forth his arms and exclaimed
+solemnly:
+
+"Be blessed, O great and divine Life!"
+
+Lazarus was silent, and with growing sternness the emperor went on:
+
+"Thou art not wanted here, miserable remnant, snatched from under
+Death's teeth, thou inspirest weariness and disgust with life; like a
+caterpillar in the fields, thou gloatest on the rich ear of joy and
+belchest out the drivel of despair and sorrow. Thy truth is like a rusty
+sword in the hands of a nightly murderer,--and as a murderer thou shalt
+be executed. But before that, let me look into thine eyes. Perchance,
+only cowards are afraid of them, but in the brave they awake the thirst
+for strife and victory; then thou shalt be rewarded, not executed....
+Now, look at me, Lazarus."
+
+At first it appeared to the deified Augustus that a friend was looking
+at him,--so soft, so tenderly fascinating was Lazarus' glance. It
+promised not horror, but sweet rest and the Infinite seemed to him a
+tender mistress, a compassionate sister, a mother. But stronger and
+stronger grew its embraces, and already the mouth, greedy of hissing
+kisses, interfered with the monarch's breathing, and already to the
+surface of the soft tissues of the body came the iron of the bones and
+tightened its merciless circle,--and unknown fangs, blunt and cold,
+touched his heart and sank into it with slow indolence.
+
+"It pains," said the deified Augustus, growing pale. "But look at me,
+Lazarus, look."
+
+It was as though some heavy gates, ever closed, were slowly moving
+apart, and through the growing interstice the appalling horror of the
+Infinite poured in slowly and steadily. Like two shadows there entered
+the shoreless void and the unfathomable darkness; they extinguished the
+sun, ravished the earth from under the feet, and the roof from over the
+head. No more did the frozen heart ache.
+
+"Look, look, Lazarus," ordered Augustus tottering.
+
+Time stood still, and the beginning of each thing grew frightfully near
+to its end. Augustus' throne just erected, crumbled down, and the void
+was already in the place of the throne and of Augustus. Noiselessly did
+Rome crumble down, and a new city stood on its site and it too was
+swallowed by the void. Like fantastic giants, cities, states, and
+countries fell down and vanished in the void darkness--and with
+uttermost indifference did the insatiable black womb of the Infinite
+swallow them.
+
+"Halt!"--ordered the emperor.
+
+In his voice sounded already a note of indifference, his hands dropped
+in languor, and in the vain struggle with the onrushing darkness his
+fiery eyes now blazed up, and now went out.
+
+"My life thou hast taken from me, Lazarus,"--said he in a spiritless,
+feeble voice.
+
+And these words of hopelessness saved him. He remembered his people,
+whose shield he was destined to be, and keen salutary pain pierced his
+deadened heart. "They are doomed to death," he thought wearily. "Serene
+shadows in the darkness of the Infinite," thought he, and horror grew
+upon him. "Frail vessels with living seething blood with a heart that
+knows sorrow and also great joy," said he in his heart, and tenderness
+pervaded it.
+
+Thus pondering and oscillating between the poles of Life and Death, he
+slowly came back to life, to find in its suffering and in its joys a
+shield against the darkness of the void and the horror of the Infinite.
+
+"No, thou hast not murdered me, Lazarus," said he firmly, "but I will
+take thy life. Be gone."
+
+That evening the deified Augustus partook of his meats and drinks with
+particular joy. Now and then his lifted hand remained suspended in the
+air, and a dull glimmer replaced the bright sheen of his fiery eye. It
+was the cold wave of Horror that surged at his feet. Defeated, but not
+undone, ever awaiting its hour, that Horror stood at the emperor's
+bedside, like a black shadow all through his life; it swayed his nights,
+but yielded the days to the sorrows and joys of life.
+
+The following day, the hangman with a hot iron burned out Lazarus' eyes.
+Then he was sent home. The deified Augustus dared not kill him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lazarus returned to the desert, and the wilderness met him with hissing
+gusts of wind and the heat of the blazing sun. Again he was sitting on a
+stone, his rough, bushy beard lifted up; and the two black holes in
+place of his eyes looked at the sky with an expression of dull terror.
+Afar-off the holy city stirred noisily and restlessly, but around him
+everything was deserted and dumb. No one approached the place where
+lived he who had miraculously risen from the dead, and long since his
+neighbors had forsaken their houses. Driven by the hot iron into the
+depth of his skull, his cursed knowledge hid there in an ambush. As
+though leaping out from an ambush it plunged its thousand invisible eyes
+into the man,--and no one dared look at Lazarus.
+
+And in the evening, when the sun, reddening and growing wider, would
+come nearer and nearer the western horizon, the blind Lazarus would
+slowly follow it. He would stumble against stones and fall, stout and
+weak as he was; would rise heavily to his feet and walk on again; and on
+the red screen of the sunset his black body and outspread hands would
+form a monstrous likeness of a cross.
+
+And it came to pass that once he went out and did not come back. Thus
+seemingly ended the second life of him who for three days had been under
+the enigmatical sway of death, and rose miraculously from the dead.
+
+
+
+The Beast with Five Fingers
+
+BY W.F. HARVEY
+
+     From _The New Decameron_, by Various Hands. Copyright, 1919, by
+     Robert M. McBride and Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+When I was a little boy I once went with my father to call on Adrian
+Borlsover. I played on the floor with a black spaniel while my father
+appealed for a subscription. Just before we left my father said, "Mr.
+Borlsover, may my son here shake hands with you? It will be a thing to
+look back upon with pride when he grows to be a man."
+
+I came up to the bed on which the old man was lying and put my hand in
+his, awed by the still beauty of his face. He spoke to me kindly, and
+hoped that I should always try to please my father. Then he placed his
+right hand on my head and asked for a blessing to rest upon me. "Amen!"
+said my father, and I followed him out of the room, feeling as if I
+wanted to cry. But my father was in excellent spirits.
+
+"That old gentleman, Jim," said he, "is the most wonderful man in the
+whole town. For ten years he has been quite blind."
+
+"But I saw his eyes," I said. "They were ever so black and shiny; they
+weren't shut up like Nora's puppies. Can't he see at all?"
+
+And so I learnt for the first time that a man might have eyes that
+looked dark and beautiful and shining without being able to see.
+
+"Just like Mrs. Tomlinson has big ears," I said, "and can't hear at all
+except when Mr. Tomlinson shouts."
+
+"Jim," said my father, "it's not right to talk about a lady's ears.
+Remember what Mr. Borlsover said about pleasing me and being a good
+boy."
+
+That was the only time I saw Adrian Borlsover. I soon forgot about him
+and the hand which he laid in blessing on my head. But for a week I
+prayed that those dark tender eyes might see.
+
+"His spaniel may have puppies," I said in my prayers, "and he will never
+be able to know how funny they look with their eyes all closed up.
+Please let old Mr. Borlsover see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adrian Borlsover, as my father had said, was a wonderful man. He came of
+an eccentric family. Borlsovers' sons, for some reason, always seemed to
+marry very ordinary women, which perhaps accounted for the fact that no
+Borlsover had been a genius, and only one Borlsover had been mad. But
+they were great champions of little causes, generous patrons of odd
+sciences, founders of querulous sects, trustworthy guides to the bypath
+meadows of erudition.
+
+Adrian was an authority on the fertilization of orchids. He had held at
+one time the family living at Borlsover Conyers, until a congenital
+weakness of the lungs obliged him to seek a less rigorous climate in the
+sunny south coast watering-place where I had seen him. Occasionally he
+would relieve one or other of the local clergy. My father described him
+as a fine preacher, who gave long and inspiring sermons from what many
+men would have considered unprofitable texts. "An excellent proof," he
+would add, "of the truth of the doctrine of direct verbal inspiration."
+
+Adrian Borlsover was exceedingly clever with his hands. His penmanship
+was exquisite. He illustrated all his scientific papers, made his own
+woodcuts, and carved the reredos that is at present the chief feature of
+interest in the church at Borlsover Conyers. He had an exceedingly
+clever knack in cutting silhouettes for young ladies and paper pigs and
+cows for little children, and made more than one complicated wind
+instrument of his own devising.
+
+When he was fifty years old Adrian Borlsover lost his sight. In a
+wonderfully short time he had adapted himself to the new conditions of
+life. He quickly learned to read Braille. So marvelous indeed was his
+sense of touch that he was still able to maintain his interest in
+botany. The mere passing of his long supple fingers over a flower was
+sufficient means for its identification, though occasionally he would
+use his lips. I have found several letters of his among my father's
+correspondence. In no case was there anything to show that he was
+afflicted with blindness and this in spite of the fact that he exercised
+undue economy in the spacing of lines. Towards the close of his life the
+old man was credited with powers of touch that seemed almost uncanny: it
+has been said that he could tell at once the color of a ribbon placed
+between his fingers. My father would neither confirm nor deny the story.
+
+
+I
+
+Adrian Borlsover was a bachelor. His elder brother George had married
+late in life, leaving one son, Eustace, who lived in the gloomy Georgian
+mansion at Borlsover Conyers, where he could work undisturbed in
+collecting material for his great book on heredity.
+
+Like his uncle, he was a remarkable man. The Borlsovers had always been
+born naturalists, but Eustace possessed in a special degree the power of
+systematizing his knowledge. He had received his university education in
+Germany, and then, after post-graduate work in Vienna and Naples, had
+traveled for four years in South America and the East, getting together
+a huge store of material for a new study into the processes of
+variation.
+
+He lived alone at Borlsover Conyers with Saunders his secretary, a man
+who bore a somewhat dubious reputation in the district, but whose
+powers as a mathematician, combined with his business abilities, were
+invaluable to Eustace.
+
+Uncle and nephew saw little of each other. The visits of Eustace were
+confined to a week in the summer or autumn: long weeks, that dragged
+almost as slowly as the bath-chair in which the old man was drawn along
+the sunny sea front. In their way the two men were fond of each other,
+though their intimacy would doubtless have been greater had they shared
+the same religious views. Adrian held to the old-fashioned evangelical
+dogmas of his early manhood; his nephew for many years had been thinking
+of embracing Buddhism. Both men possessed, too, the reticence the
+Borlsovers had always shown, and which their enemies sometimes called
+hypocrisy. With Adrian it was a reticence as to the things he had left
+undone; but with Eustace it seemed that the curtain which he was so
+careful to leave undrawn hid something more than a half-empty chamber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two years before his death Adrian Borlsover developed, unknown to
+himself, the not uncommon power of automatic writing. Eustace made the
+discovery by accident. Adrian was sitting reading in bed, the forefinger
+of his left hand tracing the Braille characters, when his nephew noticed
+that a pencil the old man held in his right hand was moving slowly along
+the opposite page. He left his seat in the window and sat down beside
+the bed. The right hand continued to move, and now he could see plainly
+that they were letters and words which it was forming.
+
+"Adrian Borlsover," wrote the hand, "Eustace Borlsover, George
+Borlsover, Francis Borlsover Sigismund Borlsover, Adrian Borlsover,
+Eustace Borlsover, Saville Borlsover. B, for Borlsover. Honesty is the
+Best Policy. Beautiful Belinda Borlsover."
+
+"What curious nonsense!" said Eustace to himself.
+
+"King George the Third ascended the throne in 1760," wrote the hand.
+"Crowd, a noun of multitude; a collection of individuals--Adrian
+Borlsover, Eustace Borlsover."
+
+"It seems to me," said his uncle, closing the book, "that you had much
+better make the most of the afternoon sunshine and take your walk now."
+"I think perhaps I will," Eustace answered as he picked up the volume.
+"I won't go far, and when I come back I can read to you those articles
+in _Nature_ about which we were speaking."
+
+He went along the promenade, but stopped at the first shelter, and
+seating himself in the corner best protected from the wind, he examined
+the book at leisure. Nearly every page was scored with a meaningless
+jungle of pencil marks: rows of capital letters, short words, long
+words, complete sentences, copy-book tags. The whole thing, in fact, had
+the appearance of a copy-book, and on a more careful scrutiny Eustace
+thought that there was ample evidence to show that the handwriting at
+the beginning of the book, good though it was was not nearly so good as
+the handwriting at the end.
+
+He left his uncle at the end of October, with a promise to return early
+in December. It seemed to him quite clear that the old man's power of
+automatic writing was developing rapidly, and for the first time he
+looked forward to a visit that combined duty with interest.
+
+But on his return he was at first disappointed. His uncle, he thought,
+looked older. He was listless too, preferring others to read to him and
+dictating nearly all his letters. Not until the day before he left had
+Eustace an opportunity of observing Adrian Borlsover's new-found
+faculty.
+
+The old man, propped up in bed with pillows, had sunk into a light
+sleep. His two hands lay on the coverlet, his left hand tightly clasping
+his right. Eustace took an empty manuscript book and placed a pencil
+within reach of the fingers of the right hand. They snatched at it
+eagerly; then dropped the pencil to unloose the left hand from its
+restraining grasp.
+
+"Perhaps to prevent interference I had better hold that hand," said
+Eustace to himself, as he watched the pencil. Almost immediately it
+began to write.
+
+"Blundering Borlsovers, unnecessarily unnatural, extraordinarily
+eccentric, culpably curious."
+
+"Who are you?" asked Eustace, in a low voice.
+
+"Never you mind," wrote the hand of Adrian.
+
+"Is it my uncle who is writing?"
+
+"Oh, my prophetic soul, mine uncle."
+
+"Is it anyone I know?"
+
+"Silly Eustace, you'll see me very soon."
+
+"When shall I see you?"
+
+"When poor old Adrian's dead."
+
+"Where shall I see you?"
+
+"Where shall you not?"
+
+Instead of speaking his next question, Borlsover wrote it. "What is the
+time?"
+
+The fingers dropped the pencil and moved three or four times across the
+paper. Then, picking up the pencil, they wrote:
+
+"Ten minutes before four. Put your book away, Eustace. Adrian mustn't
+find us working at this sort of thing. He doesn't know what to make of
+it, and I won't have poor old Adrian disturbed. _Au revoir_."
+
+Adrian Borlsover awoke with a start.
+
+"I've been dreaming again," he said; "such queer dreams of leaguered
+cities and forgotten towns. You were mixed up in this one, Eustace,
+though I can't remember how. Eustace, I want to warn you. Don't walk in
+doubtful paths. Choose your friends well. Your poor grandfather----"
+
+A fit of coughing put an end to what he was saying, but Eustace saw that
+the hand was still writing. He managed unnoticed to draw the book away.
+"I'll light the gas," he said, "and ring for tea." On the other side of
+the bed curtain he saw the last sentences that had been written.
+
+"It's too late, Adrian," he read. "We're friends already; aren't we,
+Eustace Borlsover?"
+
+On the following day Eustace Borlsover left. He thought his uncle looked
+ill when he said good-by, and the old man spoke despondently of the
+failure his life had been.
+
+"Nonsense, uncle!" said his nephew. "You have got over your difficulties
+in a way not one in a hundred thousand would have done. Every one
+marvels at your splendid perseverance in teaching your hand to take the
+place of your lost sight. To me it's been a revelation of the
+possibilities of education."
+
+"Education," said his uncle dreamily, as if the word had started a new
+train of thought, "education is good so long as you know to whom and for
+what purpose you give it. But with the lower orders of men, the base and
+more sordid spirits, I have grave doubts as to its results. Well,
+good-by, Eustace, I may not see you again. You are a true Borlsover,
+with all the Borlsover faults. Marry, Eustace. Marry some good, sensible
+girl. And if by any chance I don't see you again, my will is at my
+solicitor's. I've not left you any legacy, because I know you're well
+provided for, but I thought you might like to have my books. Oh, and
+there's just one other thing. You know, before the end people often lose
+control over themselves and make absurd requests. Don't pay any
+attention to them, Eustace. Good-by!" and he held out his hand. Eustace
+took it. It remained in his a fraction of a second longer than he had
+expected, and gripped him with a virility that was surprising. There
+was, too, in its touch a subtle sense of intimacy.
+
+"Why, uncle!" he said, "I shall see you alive and well for many long
+years to come."
+
+Two months later Adrian Borlsover died.
+
+
+II
+
+Eustace Borlsover was in Naples at the time. He read the obituary notice
+in the _Morning Post_ on the day announced for the funeral.
+
+"Poor old fellow!" he said. "I wonder where I shall find room for all
+his books."
+
+The question occurred to him again with greater force when three days
+later he found himself standing in the library at Borlsover Conyers, a
+huge room built for use, and not for beauty, in the year of Waterloo by
+a Borlsover who was an ardent admirer of the great Napoleon. It was
+arranged on the plan of many college libraries, with tall, projecting
+bookcases forming deep recesses of dusty silence, fit graves for the old
+hates of forgotten controversy, the dead passions of forgotten lives. At
+the end of the room, behind the bust of some unknown eighteenth-century
+divine, an ugly iron corkscrew stair led to a shelf-lined gallery.
+Nearly every shelf was full.
+
+"I must talk to Saunders about it," said Eustace. "I suppose that it
+will be necessary to have the billiard-room fitted up with book cases."
+
+The two men met for the first time after many weeks in the dining-room
+that evening.
+
+"Hullo!" said Eustace, standing before the fire with his hands in his
+pockets. "How goes the world, Saunders? Why these dress togs?" He
+himself was wearing an old shooting-jacket. He did not believe in
+mourning, as he had told his uncle on his last visit; and though he
+usually went in for quiet-colored ties, he wore this evening one of an
+ugly red, in order to shock Morton the butler, and to make them thrash
+out the whole question of mourning for themselves in the servants' hall.
+Eustace was a true Borlsover. "The world," said Saunders, "goes the same
+as usual, confoundedly slow. The dress togs are accounted for by an
+invitation from Captain Lockwood to bridge."
+
+"How are you getting there?"
+
+"I've told your coachman to drive me in your carriage. Any objection?"
+
+"Oh, dear me, no! We've had all things in common for far too many years
+for me to raise objections at this hour of the day."
+
+"You'll find your correspondence in the library," went on Saunders.
+"Most of it I've seen to. There are a few private letters I haven't
+opened. There's also a box with a rat, or something, inside it that
+came by the evening post. Very likely it's the six-toed albino. I didn't
+look, because I didn't want to mess up my things but I should gather
+from the way it's jumping about that it's pretty hungry."
+
+"Oh, I'll see to it," said Eustace, "while you and the Captain earn an
+honest penny."
+
+Dinner over and Saunders gone, Eustace went into the library. Though the
+fire had been lit the room was by no means cheerful.
+
+"We'll have all the lights on at any rate," he said, as he turned the
+switches. "And, Morton," he added, when the butler brought the coffee,
+"get me a screwdriver or something to undo this box. Whatever the animal
+is, he's kicking up the deuce of a row. What is it? Why are you
+dawdling?"
+
+"If you please, sir, when the postman brought it he told me that they'd
+bored the holes in the lid at the post-office. There were no breathin'
+holes in the lid, sir, and they didn't want the animal to die. That is
+all, sir."
+
+"It's culpably careless of the man, whoever he was," said Eustace, as he
+removed the screws, "packing an animal like this in a wooden box with no
+means of getting air. Confound it all! I meant to ask Morton to bring me
+a cage to put it in. Now I suppose I shall have to get one myself."
+
+He placed a heavy book on the lid from which the screws had been
+removed, and went into the billiard-room. As he came back into the
+library with an empty cage in his hand he heard the sound of something
+falling, and then of something scuttling along the floor.
+
+"Bother it! The beast's got out. How in the world am I to find it again
+in this library!"
+
+To search for it did indeed seem hopeless. He tried to follow the sound
+of the scuttling in one of the recesses where the animal seemed to be
+running behind the books in the shelves, but it was impossible to locate
+it. Eustace resolved to go on quietly reading. Very likely the animal
+might gain confidence and show itself. Saunders seemed to have dealt in
+his usual methodical manner with most of the correspondence. There were
+still the private letters.
+
+What was that? Two sharp clicks and the lights in the hideous candelabra
+that hung from the ceiling suddenly went out.
+
+"I wonder if something has gone wrong with the fuse," said Eustace, as
+he went to the switches by the door. Then he stopped. There was a noise
+at the other end of the room, as if something was crawling up the iron
+corkscrew stair. "If it's gone into the gallery," he said, "well and
+good." He hastily turned on the lights, crossed the room, and climbed up
+the stair. But he could see nothing. His grandfather had placed a little
+gate at the top of the stair, so that children could run and romp in the
+gallery without fear of accident. This Eustace closed, and having
+considerably narrowed the circle of his search, returned to his desk by
+the fire.
+
+How gloomy the library was! There was no sense of intimacy about the
+room. The few busts that an eighteenth-century Borlsover had brought
+back from the grand tour, might have been in keeping in the old library.
+Here they seemed out of place. They made the room feel cold, in spite of
+the heavy red damask curtains and great gilt cornices.
+
+With a crash two heavy books fell from the gallery to the floor; then,
+as Borlsover looked, another and yet another.
+
+"Very well; you'll starve for this, my beauty!" he said. "We'll do some
+little experiments on the metabolism of rats deprived of water. Go on!
+Chuck them down! I think I've got the upper hand." He turned once again
+to his correspondence. The letter was from the family solicitor. It
+spoke of his uncle's death and of the valuable collection of books that
+had been left to him in the will.
+
+"There was one request," he read, "which certainly came as a surprise to
+me. As you know, Mr. Adrian Borlsover had left instructions that his
+body was to be buried in as simple a manner as possible at Eastbourne.
+He expressed a desire that there should be neither wreaths nor flowers
+of any kind, and hoped that his friends and relatives would not consider
+it necessary to wear mourning. The day before his death we received a
+letter canceling these instructions. He wished his body to be embalmed
+(he gave us the address of the man we were to employ--Pennifer, Ludgate
+Hill), with orders that his right hand was to be sent to you, stating
+that it was at your special request. The other arrangements as to the
+funeral remained unaltered."
+
+"Good Lord!" said Eustace; "what in the world was the old boy driving
+at? And what in the name of all that's holy is that?"
+
+Someone was in the gallery. Someone had pulled the cord attached to one
+of the blinds, and it had rolled up with a snap. Someone must be in the
+gallery, for a second blind did the same. Someone must be walking round
+the gallery, for one after the other the blinds sprang up, letting in
+the moonlight.
+
+"I haven't got to the bottom of this yet," said Eustace, "but I will do
+before the night is very much older," and he hurried up the corkscrew
+stair. He had just got to the top when the lights went out a second
+time, and he heard again the scuttling along the floor. Quickly he stole
+on tiptoe in the dim moonshine in the direction of the noise, feeling as
+he went for one of the switches. His fingers touched the metal knob at
+last. He turned on the electric light.
+
+About ten yards in front of him, crawling along the floor, was a man's
+hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment. It was moving quickly,
+in the manner of a geometer caterpillar, the fingers humped up one
+moment, flattened out the next; the thumb appeared to give a crab-like
+motion to the whole. While he was looking, too surprised to stir, the
+hand disappeared round the corner. Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw
+it, but he could hear it as it squeezed its way behind the books on one
+of the shelves. A heavy volume had been displaced. There was a gap in
+the row of books where it had got in. In his fear lest it should escape
+him again, he seized the first book that came to his hand and plugged it
+into the hole. Then, emptying two shelves of their contents, he took the
+wooden boards and propped them up in front to make his barrier doubly
+sure.
+
+"I wish Saunders was back," he said; "one can't tackle this sort of
+thing alone." It was after eleven, and there seemed little likelihood of
+Saunders returning before twelve. He did not dare to leave the shelf
+unwatched, even to run downstairs to ring the bell. Morton the butler
+often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were
+fastened, but he might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At
+last he heard steps down below.
+
+"Morton!" he shouted; "Morton!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Has Mr. Saunders got back yet?"
+
+"Not yet, sir."
+
+"Well, bring me some brandy, and hurry up about it. I'm up here in the
+gallery, you duffer."
+
+"Thanks," said Eustace, as he emptied the glass. "Don't go to bed yet,
+Morton. There are a lot of books that have fallen down by accident;
+bring them up and put them back in their shelves."
+
+Morton had never seen Borlsover in so talkative a mood as on that night.
+"Here," said Eustace, when the books had been put back and dusted, "you
+might hold up these boards for me, Morton. That beast in the box got
+out, and I've been chasing it all over the place."
+
+"I think I can hear it chawing at the books, sir. They're not valuable,
+I hope? I think that's the carriage, sir; I'll go and call Mr.
+Saunders."
+
+It seemed to Eustace that he was away for five minutes, but it could
+hardly have been more than one when he returned with Saunders. "All
+right, Morton, you can go now. I'm up here, Saunders."
+
+"What's all the row?" asked Saunders, as he lounged forward with his
+hands in his pockets. The luck had been with him all the evening. He was
+completely satisfied, both with himself and with Captain Lockwood's
+taste in wines. "What's the matter? You look to me to be in an absolute
+blue funk."
+
+"That old devil of an uncle of mine," began Eustace--"oh, I can't
+explain it all. It's his hand that's been playing old Harry all the
+evening. But I've got it cornered behind these books. You've got to help
+me catch it."
+
+"What's up with you, Eustace? What's the game?"
+
+"It's no game, you silly idiot! If you don't believe me take out one of
+those books and put your hand in and feel."
+
+"All right," said Saunders; "but wait till I've rolled up my sleeve. The
+accumulated dust of centuries, eh?" He took off his coat, knelt down,
+and thrust his arm along the shelf.
+
+"There's something there right enough," he said. "It's got a funny
+stumpy end to it, whatever it is, and nips like a crab. Ah, no, you
+don't!" He pulled his hand out in a flash. "Shove in a book quickly. Now
+it can't get out."
+
+"What was it?" asked Eustace.
+
+"It was something that wanted very much to get hold of me. I felt what
+seemed like a thumb and forefinger. Give me some brandy."
+
+"How are we to get it out of there?"
+
+"What about a landing net?"
+
+"No good. It would be too smart for us. I tell you, Saunders, it can
+cover the ground far faster than I can walk. But I think I see how we
+can manage it. The two books at the end of the shelf are big ones that
+go right back against the wall. The others are very thin. I'll take out
+one at a time, and you slide the rest along until we have it squashed
+between the end two."
+
+It certainly seemed to be the best plan. One by one, as they took out
+the books, the space behind grew smaller and smaller. There was
+something in it that was certainly very much alive. Once they caught
+sight of fingers pressing outward for a way of escape. At last they had
+it pressed between the two big books.
+
+"There's muscle there, if there isn't flesh and blood," said Saunders,
+as he held them together. "It seems to be a hand right enough, too. I
+suppose this is a sort of infectious hallucination. I've read about such
+cases before."
+
+"Infectious fiddlesticks!" said Eustace, his face white with anger;
+"bring the thing downstairs. We'll get it back into the box."
+
+It was not altogether easy, but they were successful at last. "Drive in
+the screws," said Eustace, "we won't run any risks. Put the box in this
+old desk of mine. There's nothing in it that I want. Here's the key.
+Thank goodness, there's nothing wrong with the lock."
+
+"Quite a lively evening," said Saunders. "Now let's hear more about your
+uncle."
+
+They sat up together until early morning. Saunders had no desire for
+sleep. Eustace was trying to explain and to forget: to conceal from
+himself a fear that he had never felt before--the fear of walking alone
+down the long corridor to his bedroom.
+
+
+III
+
+"Whatever it was," said Eustace to Saunders on the following morning, "I
+propose that we drop the subject. There's nothing to keep us here for
+the next ten days. We'll motor up to the Lakes and get some climbing."
+
+"And see nobody all day, and sit bored to death with each other every
+night. Not for me thanks. Why not run up to town? Run's the exact word
+in this case, isn't it? We're both in such a blessed funk. Pull yourself
+together Eustace, and let's have another look at the hand."
+
+"As you like," said Eustace; "there's the key." They went into the
+library and opened the desk. The box was as they had left it on the
+previous night.
+
+"What are you waiting for?" asked Eustace.
+
+"I am waiting for you to volunteer to open the lid. However, since you
+seem to funk it, allow me. There doesn't seem to be the likelihood of
+any rumpus this morning, at all events." He opened the lid and picked
+out the hand.
+
+"Cold?" asked Eustace.
+
+"Tepid. A bit below blood-heat by the feel. Soft and supple too. If it's
+the embalming, it's a sort of embalming I've never seen before. Is it
+your uncle's hand?"
+
+"Oh, yes, it's his all right," said Eustace. "I should know those long
+thin fingers anywhere. Put it back in the box, Saunders. Never mind
+about the screws. I'll lock the desk, so that there'll be no chance of
+its getting out. We'll compromise by motoring up to town for a week. If
+we get off soon after lunch we ought to be at Grantham or Stamford by
+night."
+
+"Right," said Saunders; "and to-morrow--Oh, well, by to-morrow we shall
+have forgotten all about this beastly thing."
+
+If when the morrow came they had not forgotten, it was certainly true
+that at the end of the week they were able to tell a very vivid ghost
+story at the little supper Eustace gave on Hallow E'en.
+
+"You don't want us to believe that it's true, Mr. Borlsover? How
+perfectly awful!"
+
+"I'll take my oath on it, and so would Saunders here; wouldn't you, old
+chap?"
+
+"Any number of oaths," said Saunders. "It was a long thin hand, you
+know, and it gripped me just like that."
+
+"Don't Mr. Saunders! Don't! How perfectly horrid! Now tell us another
+one, do. Only a really creepy one, please!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Here's a pretty mess!" said Eustace on the following day as he threw a
+letter across the table to Saunders. "It's your affair, though. Mrs.
+Merrit, if I understand it, gives a month's notice."
+
+"Oh, that's quite absurd on Mrs. Merrit's part," Saunders replied. "She
+doesn't know what she's talking about. Let's see what she says."
+
+
+"DEAR SIR," he read, "this is to let you know that I must give you a
+month's notice as from Tuesday the 13th. For a long time I've felt the
+place too big for me, but when Jane Parfit, and Emma Laidlaw go off
+with scarcely as much as an 'if you please,' after frightening the wits
+out of the other girls, so that they can't turn out a room by themselves
+or walk alone down the stairs for fear of treading on half-frozen toads
+or hearing it run along the passages at night, all I can say is that
+it's no place for me. So I must ask you, Mr. Borlsover, sir, to find a
+new housekeeper that has no objection to large and lonely houses, which
+some people do say, not that I believe them for a minute, my poor mother
+always having been a Wesleyan, are haunted.
+
+                                "Yours faithfully,
+                                     ELIZABETH MERRIT.
+
+
+"P.S.--I should be obliged if you would give my respects to Mr.
+Saunders. I hope that he won't run no risks with his cold."
+
+
+"Saunders," said Eustace, "you've always had a wonderful way with you in
+dealing with servants. You mustn't let poor old Merrit go."
+
+"Of course she shan't go," said Saunders. "She's probably only angling
+for a rise in salary. I'll write to her this morning."
+
+"No; there's nothing like a personal interview. We've had enough of
+town. We'll go back to-morrow, and you must work your cold for all it's
+worth. Don't forget that it's got on to the chest, and will require
+weeks of feeding up and nursing."
+
+"All right. I think I can manage Mrs. Merrit."
+
+But Mrs. Merrit was more obstinate than he had thought. She was very
+sorry to hear of Mr. Saunders's cold, and how he lay awake all night in
+London coughing; very sorry indeed. She'd change his room for him
+gladly, and get the south room aired. And wouldn't he have a basin of
+hot bread and milk last thing at night? But she was afraid that she
+would have to leave at the end of the month.
+
+"Try her with an increase of salary," was the advice of Eustace.
+
+It was no use. Mrs. Merrit was obdurate, though she knew of a Mrs.
+Handyside who had been housekeeper to Lord Gargrave, who might be glad
+to come at the salary mentioned.
+
+"What's the matter with the servants, Morton?" asked Eustace that
+evening when he brought the coffee into the library. "What's all this
+about Mrs. Merrit wanting to leave?"
+
+"If you please, sir, I was going to mention it myself. I have a
+confession to make, sir. When I found your note asking me to open that
+desk and take out the box with the rat, I broke the lock as you told me,
+and was glad to do it, because I could hear the animal in the box making
+a great noise, and I thought it wanted food. So I took out the box, sir,
+and got a cage, and was going to transfer it, when the animal got away."
+
+"What in the world are you talking about? I never wrote any such note."
+
+"Excuse me, sir, it was the note I picked up here on the floor on the
+day you and Mr. Saunders left. I have it in my pocket now."
+
+It certainly seemed to be in Eustace's handwriting. It was written in
+pencil, and began somewhat abruptly.
+
+"Get a hammer, Morton," he read, "or some other tool, and break open the
+lock in the old desk in the library. Take out the box that is inside.
+You need not do anything else. The lid is already open. Eustace
+Borlsover."
+
+"And you opened the desk?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and as I was getting the cage ready the animal hopped out."
+
+"What animal?"
+
+"The animal inside the box, sir."
+
+"What did it look like?"
+
+"Well, sir, I couldn't tell you," said Morton nervously; "my back was
+turned, and it was halfway down the room when I looked up."
+
+"What was its color?" asked Saunders; "black?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, a grayish white. It crept along in a very funny way, sir.
+I don't think it had a tail."
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"I tried to catch it, but it was no use. So I set the rat-traps and kept
+the library shut. Then that girl Emma Laidlaw left the door open when
+she was cleaning, and I think it must have escaped."
+
+"And you think it was the animal that's been frightening the maids?"
+
+"Well, no, sir, not quite. They said it was--you'll excuse me, sir--a
+hand that they saw. Emma trod on it once at the bottom of the stairs.
+She thought then it was a half-frozen toad, only white. And then Parfit
+was washing up the dishes in the scullery. She wasn't thinking about
+anything in particular. It was close on dusk. She took her hands out of
+the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller towel,
+when she found that she was drying someone else's hand as well, only
+colder than hers."
+
+"What nonsense!" exclaimed Saunders.
+
+"Exactly, sir; that's what I told her; but we couldn't get her to stop."
+
+"You don't believe all this?" said Eustace, turning suddenly towards the
+butler.
+
+"Me, sir? Oh, no, sir! I've not seen anything."
+
+"Nor heard anything?"
+
+"Well, sir, if you must know, the bells do ring at odd times, and
+there's nobody there when we go; and when we go round to draw the blinds
+of a night, as often as not somebody's been there before us. But as I
+says to Mrs. Merrit, a young monkey might do wonderful things, and we
+all know that Mr. Borlsover has had some strange animals about the
+place."
+
+"Very well, Morton, that will do."
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Saunders when they were alone. "I mean
+of the letter he said you wrote."
+
+"Oh, that's simple enough," said Eustace. "See the paper it's written
+on? I stopped using that years ago, but there were a few odd sheets and
+envelopes left in the old desk. We never fastened up the lid of the box
+before locking it in. The hand got out, found a pencil, wrote this note,
+and shoved it through a crack on to the floor where Morton found it.
+That's plain as daylight."
+
+"But the hand couldn't write?"
+
+"Couldn't it? You've not seen it do the things I've seen," and he told
+Saunders more of what had happened at Eastbourne.
+
+"Well," said Saunders, "in that case we have at least an explanation of
+the legacy. It was the hand which wrote unknown to your uncle that
+letter to your solicitor, bequeathing itself to you. Your uncle had no
+more to do with that request than I. In fact, it would seem that he had
+some idea of this automatic writing, and feared it."
+
+"Then if it's not my uncle, what is it?"
+
+"I suppose some people might say that a disembodied spirit had got your
+uncle to educate and prepare a little body for it. Now it's got into
+that little body and is off on its own."
+
+"Well, what are we to do?"
+
+"We'll keep our eyes open," said Saunders, "and try to catch it. If we
+can't do that, we shall have to wait till the bally clockwork runs
+down. After all, if it's flesh and blood, it can't live for ever."
+
+For two days nothing happened. Then Saunders saw it sliding down the
+banister in the hall. He was taken unawares, and lost a full second
+before he started in pursuit, only to find that the thing had escaped
+him. Three days later, Eustace, writing alone in the library at night,
+saw it sitting on an open book at the other end of the room. The fingers
+crept over the page, feeling the print as if it were reading; but before
+he had time to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was
+pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on
+to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him
+in an expression of scornful derision.
+
+"I know what I'll do," he said. "If I only get it into the open I'll set
+the dogs on to it."
+
+He spoke to Saunders of the suggestion.
+
+"It's jolly good idea," he said; "only we won't wait till we find it out
+of doors. We'll get the dogs. There are the two terriers and the
+under-keeper's Irish mongrel that's on to rats like a flash. Your
+spaniel has not got spirit enough for this sort of game." They brought
+the dogs into the house, and the keeper's Irish mongrel chewed up the
+slippers, and the terriers tripped up Morton as he waited at table; but
+all three were welcome. Even false security is better than no security
+at all.
+
+For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught, not by the
+dogs, but by Mrs. Merrit's gray parrot. The bird was in the habit of
+periodically removing the pins that kept its seed and water tins in
+place, and of escaping through the holes in the side of the cage. When
+once at liberty Peter would show no inclination to return, and would
+often be about the house for days. Now, after six consecutive weeks of
+captivity, Peter had again discovered a new means of unloosing his bolts
+and was at large, exploring the tapestried forests of the curtains and
+singing songs in praise of liberty from cornice and picture rail.
+
+"It's no use your trying to catch him," said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as
+she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk with a step-ladder.
+"You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs.
+Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when
+he fancies he's hungry. You're far too softhearted."
+
+"Well, sir, I see he's right out of reach now on that picture rail, so
+if you wouldn't mind closing the door, sir, when you leave the room,
+I'll bring his cage in to-night and put some meat inside it. He's that
+fond of meat, though it does make him pull out his feathers to suck the
+quills. They _do_ say that if you cook--"
+
+"Never mind, Mrs. Merrit," said Eustace, who was busy writing. "That
+will do; I'll keep an eye on the bird."
+
+There was silence in the room, unbroken but for the continuous whisper
+of his pen.
+
+"Scratch poor Peter," said the bird. "Scratch poor old Peter!"
+
+"Be quiet, you beastly bird!"
+
+"Poor old Peter! Scratch poor Peter, do."
+
+"I'm more likely to wring your neck if I get hold of you." He looked up
+at the picture rail, and there was the hand holding on to a hook with
+three fingers, and slowly scratching the head of the parrot with the
+fourth. Eustace ran to the bell and pressed it hard; then across to the
+window, which he closed with a bang. Frightened by the noise the parrot
+shook its wings preparatory to flight, and as it did so the fingers of
+the hand got hold of it by the throat. There was a shrill scream from
+Peter as he fluttered across the room, wheeling round in circles that
+ever descended, borne down under the weight that clung to him. The bird
+dropped at last quite suddenly, and Eustace saw fingers and feathers
+rolled into an inextricable mass on the floor. The struggle abruptly
+ceased as finger and thumb squeezed the neck; the bird's eyes rolled up
+to show the whites, and there was a faint, half-choked gurgle. But
+before the fingers had time to loose their hold, Eustace had them in his
+own.
+
+"Send Mr. Saunders here at once," he said to the maid who came in answer
+to the bell. "Tell him I want him immediately."
+
+Then he went with the hand to the fire. There was a ragged gash across
+the back where the bird's beak had torn it, but no blood oozed from the
+wound. He noticed with disgust that the nails had grown long and
+discolored.
+
+"I'll burn the beastly thing," he said. But he could not burn it. He
+tried to throw it into the flames, but his own hands, as if restrained
+by some old primitive feeling, would not let him. And so Saunders found
+him pale and irresolute, with the hand still clasped tightly in his
+fingers.
+
+"I've got it at last," he said in a tone of triumph.
+
+"Good; let's have a look at it."
+
+"Not when it's loose. Get me some nails and a hammer and a board of some
+sort."
+
+"Can you hold it all right?"
+
+"Yes, the thing's quite limp; tired out with throttling poor old Peter,
+I should say."
+
+"And now," said Saunders when he returned with the things, "what are we
+going to do?"
+
+"Drive a nail through it first, so that it can't get away; then we can
+take our time over examining it."
+
+"Do it yourself," said Saunders. "I don't mind helping you with
+guinea-pigs occasionally when there's something to be learned; partly
+because I don't fear a guinea-pig's revenge. This thing's different."
+
+"All right, you miserable skunk. I won't forget the way you've stood by
+me."
+
+He took up a nail, and before Saunders had realised what he was doing
+had driven it through the hand, deep into the board.
+
+"Oh, my aunt," he giggled hysterically, "look at it now," for the hand
+was writhing in agonized contortions, squirming and wriggling upon the
+nail like a worm upon the hook.
+
+"Well," said Saunders, "you've done it now. I'll leave you to examine
+it."
+
+"Don't go, in heaven's name. Cover it up, man, cover it up! Shove a
+cloth over it! Here!" and he pulled off the antimacassar from the back
+of a chair and wrapped the board in it. "Now get the keys from my pocket
+and open the safe. Chuck the other things out. Oh, Lord, it's getting
+itself into frightful knots! and open it quick!" He threw the thing in
+and banged the door.
+
+"We'll keep it there till it dies," he said. "May I burn in hell if I
+ever open the door of that safe again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Merrit departed at the end of the month. Her successor certainly
+was more successful in the management of the servants. Early in her rule
+she declared that she would stand no nonsense, and gossip soon withered
+and died. Eustace Borlsover went back to his old way of life. Old habits
+crept over and covered his new experience. He was, if anything, less
+morose, and showed a greater inclination to take his natural part in
+country society.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if he marries one of these days," said
+Saunders. "Well, I'm in no hurry for such an event. I know Eustace far
+too well for the future Mrs. Borlsover to like me. It will be the same
+old story again: a long friendship slowly made--marriage--and a long
+friendship quickly forgotten."
+
+
+IV
+
+But Eustace Borlsover did not follow the advice of his uncle and marry.
+He was too fond of old slippers and tobacco. The cooking, too, under
+Mrs. Handyside's management was excellent, and she seemed, too, to have
+a heaven-sent faculty in knowing when to stop dusting.
+
+Little by little the old life resumed its old power. Then came the
+burglary. The men, it was said, broke into the house by way of the
+conservatory. It was really little more than an attempt, for they only
+succeeded in carrying away a few pieces of plate from the pantry. The
+safe in the study was certainly found open and empty, but, as Mr.
+Borlsover informed the police inspector, he had kept nothing of value in
+it during the last six months.
+
+"Then you're lucky in getting off so easily, sir," the man replied. "By
+the way they have gone about their business, I should say they were
+experienced cracksmen. They must have caught the alarm when they were
+just beginning their evening's work."
+
+"Yes," said Eustace, "I suppose I am lucky."
+
+"I've no doubt," said the inspector, "that we shall be able to trace
+the men. I've said that they must have been old hands at the game. The
+way they got in and opened the safe shows that. But there's one little
+thing that puzzles me. One of them was careless enough not to wear
+gloves, and I'm bothered if I know what he was trying to do. I've traced
+his finger-marks on the new varnish on the window sashes in every one of
+the downstairs rooms. They are very distinct ones too."
+
+"Right hand or left, or both?" asked Eustace.
+
+"Oh, right every time. That's the funny thing. He must have been a
+foolhardy fellow, and I rather think it was him that wrote that." He
+took out a slip of paper from his pocket. "That's what he wrote, sir.
+'I've got out, Eustace Borlsover, but I'll be back before long.' Some
+gaol bird just escaped, I suppose. It will make it all the easier for us
+to trace him. Do you know the writing, sir?"
+
+"No," said Eustace; "it's not the writing of anyone I know."
+
+"I'm not going to stay here any longer," said Eustace to Saunders at
+luncheon. "I've got on far better during the last six months than ever I
+expected, but I'm not going to run the risk of seeing that thing again.
+I shall go up to town this afternoon. Get Morton to put my things
+together, and join me with the car at Brighton on the day after
+to-morrow. And bring the proofs of those two papers with you. We'll run
+over them together."
+
+"How long are you going to be away?"
+
+"I can't say for certain, but be prepared to stay for some time. We've
+stuck to work pretty closely through the summer, and I for one need a
+holiday. I'll engage the rooms at Brighton. You'll find it best to break
+the journey at Hitchin. I'll wire to you there at the Crown to tell you
+the Brighton address."
+
+The house he chose at Brighton was in a terrace. He had been there
+before. It was kept by his old college gyp, a man of discreet silence,
+who was admirably partnered by an excellent cook. The rooms were on the
+first floor. The two bedrooms were at the back, and opened out of each
+other. "Saunders can have the smaller one, though it is the only one
+with a fireplace," he said. "I'll stick to the larger of the two, since
+it's got a bathroom adjoining. I wonder what time he'll arrive with the
+car."
+
+Saunders came about seven, cold and cross and dirty. "We'll light the
+fire in the dining-room," said Eustace, "and get Prince to unpack some
+of the things while we are at dinner. What were the roads like?"
+
+"Rotten; swimming with mud, and a beastly cold wind against us all day.
+And this is July. Dear old England!"
+
+"Yes," said Eustace, "I think we might do worse than leave dear old
+England for a few months."
+
+They turned in soon after twelve.
+
+"You oughtn't to feel cold, Saunders," said Eustace, "when you can
+afford to sport a great cat-skin lined coat like this. You do yourself
+very well, all things considered. Look at those gloves, for instance.
+Who could possibly feel cold when wearing them?"
+
+"They are far too clumsy though for driving. Try them on and see," and
+he tossed them through the door on to Eustace's bed, and went on with
+his unpacking. A minute later he heard a shrill cry of terror. "Oh,
+Lord," he heard, "it's in the glove! Quick, Saunders, quick!" Then came
+a smacking thud. Eustace had thrown it from him. "I've chucked it into
+the bathroom," he gasped, "it's hit the wall and fallen into the bath.
+Come now if you want to help." Saunders, with a lighted candle in his
+hand, looked over the edge of the bath. There it was, old and maimed,
+dumb and blind, with a ragged hole in the middle, crawling, staggering,
+trying to creep up the slippery sides, only to fall back helpless.
+
+"Stay there," said Saunders. "I'll empty a collar box or something, and
+we'll jam it in. It can't get out while I'm away."
+
+"Yes, it can," shouted Eustace. "It's getting out now. It's climbing up
+the plug chain. No, you brute, you filthy brute, you don't! Come back,
+Saunders, it's getting away from me. I can't hold it; it's all slippery.
+Curse its claw! Shut the window, you idiot! The top too, as well as the
+bottom. You utter idiot! It's got out!" There was the sound of
+something dropping on to the hard flagstones below, and Eustace fell
+back fainting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a fortnight he was ill.
+
+"I don't know what to make of it," the doctor said to Saunders. "I can
+only suppose that Mr. Borlsover has suffered some great emotional shock.
+You had better let me send someone to help you nurse him. And by all
+means indulge that whim of his never to be left alone in the dark. I
+would keep a light burning all night if I were you. But he _must_ have
+more fresh air. It's perfectly absurd this hatred of open windows."
+
+Eustace, however, would have no one with him but Saunders. "I don't want
+the other men," he said. "They'd smuggle it in somehow. I know they
+would."
+
+"Don't worry about it, old chap. This sort of thing can't go on
+indefinitely. You know I saw it this time as well as you. It wasn't half
+so active. It won't go on living much longer, especially after that
+fall. I heard it hit the flags myself. As soon as you're a bit stronger
+we'll leave this place; not bag and baggage, but with only the clothes
+on our backs, so that it won't be able to hide anywhere. We'll escape it
+that way. We won't give any address, and we won't have any parcels sent
+after us. Cheer up, Eustace! You'll be well enough to leave in a day or
+two. The doctor says I can take you out in a chair to-morrow."
+
+"What have I done?" asked Eustace. "Why does it come after me? I'm no
+worse than other men. I'm no worse than you, Saunders; you know I'm not.
+It was you who were at the bottom of that dirty business in San Diego,
+and that was fifteen years ago."
+
+"It's not that, of course," said Saunders. "We are in the twentieth
+century, and even the parsons have dropped the idea of your old sins
+finding you out. Before you caught the hand in the library it was filled
+with pure malevolence--to you and all mankind. After you spiked it
+through with that nail it naturally forgot about other people, and
+concentrated its attention on you. It was shut up in the safe, you know,
+for nearly six months. That gives plenty of time for thinking of
+revenge."
+
+Eustace Borlsover would not leave his room, but he thought that there
+might be something in Saunders's suggestion to leave Brighton without
+notice. He began rapidly to regain his strength.
+
+"We'll go on the first of September," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The evening of August 31st was oppressively warm. Though at midday the
+windows had been wide open, they had been shut an hour or so before
+dusk. Mrs. Prince had long since ceased to wonder at the strange habits
+of the gentlemen on the first floor. Soon after their arrival she had
+been told to take down the heavy window curtains in the two bedrooms,
+and day by day the rooms had seemed to grow more bare. Nothing was left
+lying about.
+
+"Mr. Borlsover doesn't like to have any place where dirt can collect,"
+Saunders had said as an excuse. "He likes to see into all the corners of
+the room."
+
+"Couldn't I open the window just a little?" he said to Eustace that
+evening. "We're simply roasting in here, you know."
+
+"No, leave well alone. We're not a couple of boarding-school misses
+fresh from a course of hygiene lectures. Get the chessboard out."
+
+They sat down and played. At ten o'clock Mrs. Prince came to the door
+with a note. "I am sorry I didn't bring it before," she said, "but it
+was left in the letter-box."
+
+"Open it, Saunders, and see if it wants answering."
+
+It was very brief. There was neither address nor signature.
+
+
+"Will eleven o'clock to-night be suitable for our last appointment?"
+
+
+"Who is it from?" asked Borlsover.
+
+"It was meant for me," said Saunders. "There's no answer, Mrs. Prince,"
+and he put the paper into his pocket. "A dunning letter from a tailor; I
+suppose he must have got wind of our leaving."
+
+It was a clever lie, and Eustace asked no more questions. They went on
+with their game.
+
+On the landing outside Saunders could hear the grandfather's clock
+whispering the seconds, blurting out the quarter-hours.
+
+"Check!" said Eustace. The clock struck eleven. At the same time there
+was a gentle knocking on the door; it seemed to come from the bottom
+panel.
+
+"Who's there?" asked Eustace.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Mrs. Prince, is that you?"
+
+"She is up above," said Saunders; "I can hear her walking about the
+room."
+
+"Then lock the door; bolt it too. Your move, Saunders."
+
+While Saunders sat with his eyes on the chessboard, Eustace walked over
+to the window and examined the fastenings. He did the same in Saunders's
+room and the bathroom. There were no doors between the three rooms, or
+he would have shut and locked them too.
+
+"Now, Saunders," he said, "don't stay all night over your move. I've had
+time to smoke one cigarette already. It's bad to keep an invalid
+waiting. There's only one possible thing for you to do. What was that?"
+
+"The ivy blowing against the window. There, it's your move now,
+Eustace."
+
+"It wasn't the ivy, you idiot. It was someone tapping at the window,"
+and he pulled up the blind. On the outer side of the window, clinging to
+the sash, was the hand.
+
+"What is it that it's holding?"
+
+"It's a pocket-knife. It's going to try to open the window by pushing
+back the fastener with the blade."
+
+"Well, let it try," said Eustace. "Those fasteners screw down; they
+can't be opened that way. Anyhow, we'll close the shutters. It's your
+move, Saunders. I've played."
+
+But Saunders found it impossible to fix his attention on the game. He
+could not understand Eustace, who seemed all at once to have lost his
+fear. "What do you say to some wine?" he asked. "You seem to be taking
+things coolly, but I don't mind confessing that I'm in a blessed funk."
+
+"You've no need to be. There's nothing supernatural about that hand,
+Saunders. I mean it seems to be governed by the laws of time and space.
+It's not the sort of thing that vanishes into thin air or slides through
+oaken doors. And since that's so, I defy it to get in here. We'll leave
+the place in the morning. I for one have bottomed the depths of fear.
+Fill your glass, man! The windows are all shuttered, the door is locked
+and bolted. Pledge me my uncle Adrian! Drink, man! What are you waiting
+for?"
+
+Saunders was standing with his glass half raised. "It can get in," he
+said hoarsely; "it can get in! We've forgotten. There's the fireplace in
+my bedroom. It will come down the chimney."
+
+"Quick!" said Eustace, as he rushed into the other room; "we haven't a
+minute to lose. What can we do? Light the fire, Saunders. Give me a
+match, quick!"
+
+"They must be all in the other room. I'll get them."
+
+"Hurry, man, for goodness' sake! Look in the bookcase! Look in the
+bathroom! Here, come and stand here; I'll look."
+
+"Be quick!" shouted Saunders. "I can hear something!"
+
+"Then plug a sheet from your bed up the chimney. No, here's a match." He
+had found one at last that had slipped into a crack in the floor.
+
+"Is the fire laid? Good, but it may not burn. I know--the oil from that
+old reading-lamp and this cotton-wool. Now the match, quick! Pull the
+sheet away, you fool! We don't want it now."
+
+There was a great roar from the grate as the flames shot up. Saunders
+had been a fraction of a second too late with the sheet. The oil had
+fallen on to it. It, too, was burning.
+
+"The whole place will be on fire!" cried Eustace, as he tried to beat
+out the flames with a blanket. "It's no good! I can't manage it. You
+must open the door, Saunders, and get help."
+
+Saunders ran to the door and fumbled with the bolts. The key was stiff
+in the lock.
+
+"Hurry!" shouted Eustace; "the whole place is ablaze!"
+
+The key turned in the lock at last. For half a second Saunders stopped
+to look back. Afterwards he could never be quite sure as to what he had
+seen, but at the time he thought that something black and charred was
+creeping slowly, very slowly, from the mass of flames towards Eustace
+Borlsover. For a moment he thought of returning to his friend, but the
+noise and the smell of the burning sent him running down the passage
+crying, "Fire! Fire!" He rushed to the telephone to summon help, and
+then back to the bathroom--he should have thought of that before--for
+water. As he burst open the bedroom door there came a scream of terror
+which ended suddenly, and then the sound of a heavy fall.
+
+
+
+The Mass of Shadows
+
+BY ANATOLE FRANCE
+
+     From _Mother of Pearl_, by Anatole France. Copyright by John Lane
+     Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+This tale the sacristan of the church of St. Eulalie at Neuville
+d'Aumont told me, as we sat under the arbor of the White Horse, one fine
+summer evening, drinking a bottle of old wine to the health of the dead
+man, now very much at his ease, whom that very morning he had borne to
+the grave with full honors, beneath a pall powdered with smart silver
+tears.
+
+"My poor father who is dead" (it is the sacristan who is speaking,) "was
+in his lifetime a grave-digger. He was of an agreeable disposition, the
+result, no doubt, of the calling he followed, for it has often been
+pointed out that people who work in cemeteries are of a jovial turn.
+Death has no terrors for them; they never give it a thought. I, for
+instance, monsieur, enter a cemetery at night as little perturbed as
+though it were the arbor of the White Horse. And if by chance I meet
+with a ghost, I don't disturb myself in the least about it, for I
+reflect that he may just as likely have business of his own to attend to
+as I. I know the habits of the dead, and I know their character.
+Indeed, so far as that goes, I know things of which the priests
+themselves are ignorant. If I were to tell you all I have seen, you
+would be astounded. But a still tongue makes a wise head, and my father,
+who, all the same, delighted in spinning a yarn, did not disclose a
+twentieth part of what he knew. To make up for this he often repeated
+the same stories, and to my knowledge he told the story of Catherine
+Fontaine at least a hundred times.
+
+"Catherine Fontaine was an old maid whom he well remembered having seen
+when he was a mere child. I should not be surprised if there were still,
+perhaps, three old fellows in the district who could remember having
+heard folks speak of her, for she was very well known and of excellent
+reputation, though poor enough. She lived at the corner of the Rue aux
+Nonnes, in the turret which is still to be seen there, and which formed
+part of an old half-ruined mansion looking on to the garden of the
+Ursuline nuns. On that turret can still be traced certain figures and
+half-obliterated inscriptions. The late curé of St. Eulalie, Monsieur
+Levasseur, asserted that there are the words in Latin, _Love is stronger
+than death_, 'which is to be understood,' so he would add, 'of divine
+love.'
+
+"Catherine Fontaine lived by herself in this tiny apartment. She was a
+lace-maker. You know, of course, that the lace made in our part of the
+world was formerly held in high esteem. No one knew anything of her
+relatives or friends. It was reported that when she was eighteen years
+of age she had loved the young Chevalier d'Aumont-Cléry, and had been
+secretly affianced to him. But decent folk didn't believe a word of it,
+and said it was nothing but a tale concocted because Catherine
+Fontaine's demeanor was that of a lady rather than that of a working
+woman, and because, moreover, she possessed beneath her white locks the
+remains of great beauty. Her expression was sorrowful, and on one finger
+she wore one of those rings fashioned by the goldsmith into the
+semblance of two tiny hands clasped together. In former days folks were
+accustomed to exchange such rings at their betrothal ceremony. I am sure
+you know the sort of thing I mean.
+
+"Catherine Fontaine lived a saintly life. She spent a great deal of time
+in churches, and every morning, whatever might be the weather, she went
+to assist at the six o'clock Mass at St. Eulalie.
+
+"Now one December night, whilst she was in her little chamber, she was
+awakened by the sound of bells, and nothing doubting that they were
+ringing for the first Mass, the pious woman dressed herself, and came
+downstairs and out into the street. The night was so obscure that not
+even the walls of the houses were visible, and not a ray of light shone
+from the murky sky. And such was the silence amid this black darkness,
+that there was not even the sound of a distant dog barking, and a
+feeling of aloofness from every living creature was perceptible. But
+Catherine Fontaine knew well every single stone she stepped on, and, as
+she could have found her way to the church with her eyes shut, she
+reached without difficulty the corner of the Rue aux Nonnes and the Rue
+de la Paroisse, where the timbered house stands with the tree of Jesse
+carved on one of its massive beams. When she reached this spot she
+perceived that the church doors were open, and that a great light was
+streaming out from the wax tapers. She resumed her journey, and when she
+had passed through the porch she found herself in the midst of a vast
+congregation which entirely filled the church. But she did not recognize
+any of the worshipers and was surprised to observe that all of these
+people were dressed in velvets and brocades, with feathers in their
+hats, and that they wore swords in the fashion of days gone by. Here
+were gentlemen who carried tall canes with gold knobs, and ladies with
+lace caps fastened with coronet-shaped combs. Chevaliers of the Order of
+St. Louis extended their hands to these ladies, who concealed behind
+their fans painted faces, of which only the powdered brow and the patch
+at the corner of the eye were visible! All of them proceeded to take
+their places without the slightest sound, and as they moved neither the
+sound of their footsteps on the pavement, nor the rustle of their
+garments could be heard. The lower places were filled with a crowd of
+young artisans in brown jackets, dimity breeches, and blue stockings,
+with their arms round the waists of pretty blushing girls who lowered
+their eyes. Near the holy water stoups peasant women, in scarlet
+petticoats and laced bodices, sat upon the ground as immovable as
+domestic animals, whilst young lads, standing up behind them, stared out
+from wide-open eyes and twirled their hats round and round on their
+fingers, and all these sorrowful countenances seemed centred irremovably
+on one and the same thought, at once sweet and sorrowful. On her knees,
+in her accustomed place, Catherine Fontaine saw the priest advance
+toward the altar, preceded by two servers. She recognized neither priest
+nor clerks. The Mass began. It was a silent Mass, during which neither
+the sound of the moving lips nor the tinkle of the bell was audible.
+Catherine Fontaine felt that she was under the observation and the
+influence also of her mysterious neighbor, and when, scarcely turning
+her head, she stole a glance at him, she recognized the young Chevalier
+d'Aumont-Cléry, who had once loved her, and who had been dead for five
+and forty years. She recognized him by a small mark which he had over
+the left ear, and above all by the shadow which his long black eyelashes
+cast upon his cheeks. He was dressed in his hunting clothes, scarlet
+with gold lace, the very clothes he wore that day when he met her in St.
+Leonard's Wood, begged of her a drink, and stole a kiss. He had
+preserved his youth and good looks. When he smiled, he still displayed
+magnificent teeth. Catherine said to him in an undertone:
+
+"'Monseigneur, you who were my friend, and to whom in days gone by I
+gave all that a girl holds most dear, may God keep you in His grace! O,
+that He would at length inspire me with regret for the sin I committed
+in yielding to you; for it is a fact that, though my hair is white and I
+approach my end, I have not yet repented of having loved you. But, dear
+dead friend and noble seigneur, tell me, who are these folk, habited
+after the antique fashion, who are here assisting at this silent Mass?'
+
+"The Chevalier d'Aumont-Cléry replied in a voice feebler than a breath,
+but none the less crystal clear:
+
+"'Catherine, these men and women are souls from purgatory who have
+grieved God by sinning as we ourselves sinned through love of the
+creature, but who are not on that account cast off by God, inasmuch as
+their sin, like ours, was not deliberate.
+
+"'Whilst separated from those whom they loved upon earth, they are
+purified in the cleansing fires of purgatory, they suffer the pangs of
+absence, which is for them the most cruel of tortures. They are so
+unhappy that an angel from heaven takes pity upon their love-torment. By
+the permission of the Most High, for one hour in the night, he reunites
+each year lover to loved in their parish church, where they are
+permitted to assist at the Mass of Shadows, hand clasped in hand. These
+are the facts. If it has been granted to me to see thee before thy
+death, Catherine, it is a boon which is bestowed by God's special
+permission.'
+
+"And Catherine Fontaine answered him:
+
+"'I would die gladly enough, dear, dead lord, if I might recover the
+beauty that was mine when I gave you to drink in the forest.'
+
+"Whilst they thus conversed under their breath, a very old canon was
+taking the collection and proffering to the worshipers a great copper
+dish, wherein they let fall, each in his turn, ancient coins which have
+long since ceased to pass current: écus of six livres, florins, ducats
+and ducatoons, jacobuses and rose-nobles, and the pieces fell silently
+into the dish. When at length it was placed before the Chevalier, he
+dropped into it a louis which made no more sound than had the other
+pieces of gold and silver.
+
+"Then the old canon stopped before Catherine Fontaine, who fumbled in
+her pocket without being able to find a farthing. Then, being unwilling
+to allow the dish to pass without an offering from herself, she slipped
+from her finger the ring which the Chevalier had given her the day
+before his death, and cast it into the copper bowl. As the golden ring
+fell, a sound like the heavy clang of a bell rang out, and on the stroke
+of this reverberation the Chevalier, the canon, the celebrant, the
+servers, the ladies and their cavaliers, the whole assembly vanished
+utterly; the candles guttered out, and Catherine Fontaine was left alone
+in the darkness."
+
+Having concluded his narrative after this fashion, the sacristan drank a
+long draught of wine, remained pensive for a moment, and then resumed
+his talk in these words:
+
+"I have told you this tale exactly as my father has told it to me over
+and over again, and I believe that it is authentic, because it agrees in
+all respects with what I have observed of the manners and customs
+peculiar to those who have passed away. I have associated a good deal
+with the dead ever since my childhood, and I know that they are
+accustomed to return to what they have loved.
+
+"It is on this account that the miserly dead wander at night in the
+neighborhood of the treasures they conceal during their life time. They
+keep a strict watch over their gold; but the trouble they give
+themselves, far from being of service to them, turns to their
+disadvantage; and it is not a rare thing at all to come upon money
+buried in the ground on digging in a place haunted by a ghost. In the
+same way deceased husbands come by night to harass their wives who have
+made a second matrimonial venture, and I could easily name several who
+have kept a better watch over their wives since death than they ever did
+while living.
+
+"That sort of thing is blameworthy, for in all fairness the dead have no
+business to stir up jealousies. Still I do but tell you what I have
+observed myself. It is a matter to take into account if one marries a
+widow. Besides, the tale I have told you is vouchsafed for in the
+manner following:
+
+"The morning after that extraordinary night Catherine Fontaine was
+discovered dead in her chamber. And the beadle attached to St. Eulalie
+found in the copper bowl used for the collection a gold ring with two
+clasped hands. Besides, I'm not the kind of man to make jokes. Suppose
+we order another bottle of wine?..."
+
+
+
+
+What Was It?
+
+BY FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN
+
+
+It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence, that I approach the
+strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose
+detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared
+to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all
+such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief.
+I have, after mature consideration resolved to narrate, in as simple and
+straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under
+my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the annals of
+the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.
+
+I live at No. ---- Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some
+respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the
+reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence,
+surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green
+enclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a
+fountain, and a few fruit trees ragged and unpruned, indicate that this
+spot in past days was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with fruits and
+flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.
+
+The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a large spiral
+staircase winding through its center, while the various apartments are
+of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since
+by Mr. A----, the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw
+the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr.
+A----, as everyone knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after, of
+a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease reached
+this country and was verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street
+that No. ---- was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the widow of
+its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a caretaker and his
+wife, placed there by the house agent into whose hands it had passed for
+the purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that they were
+troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any visible
+agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms
+were, during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands.
+Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight,
+accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the gliding of
+viewless hands along the massive balusters. The caretaker and his wife
+declared they would live there no longer. The house agent laughed,
+dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and
+supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood caught up the
+story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several
+persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always before the bargain was
+closed they heard the unpleasant rumors and declined to treat any
+further.
+
+It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a
+boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move further up
+town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. ---- Twenty-sixth Street.
+Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of
+boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she
+had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which
+she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons,--a
+sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that
+they would leave,--all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would
+accompany her in her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.
+
+Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with
+our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our house is
+situated, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, is one of the pleasantest
+localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses, running down
+nearly to the Hudson, form, in the summer time, a perfect avenue of
+verdure. The air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does,
+straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the
+ragged garden which surrounded the house, although displaying on washing
+days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece of greensward to
+look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our
+cigars in the dusk, and watched the fireflies flashing their dark
+lanterns in the long grass.
+
+Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. ---- than we
+began to expect ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with
+eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the
+boarders, who had purchased Mrs. Crowe's _Night Side of Nature_ for his
+own private delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire
+household for not having bought twenty copies. The man led a life of
+supreme wretchedness while he was reading this volume. A system of
+espionage was established, of which he was the victim. If he
+incautiously laid the book down for an instant and left the room, it was
+immediately seized and read aloud in secret places to a select few. I
+found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I
+was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had
+once written a story the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or
+a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large
+drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and everyone was prepared
+for an immediate clanking of chains and a spectral form.
+
+After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost
+dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the
+remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself. Once
+the black butler asseverated that his candle had been blown out by some
+invisible agency while he was undressing himself for the night; but as I
+had more than once discovered this colored gentleman in a condition when
+one candle must have appeared to him like two, thought it possible that,
+by going a step further in his potations, he might have reversed this
+phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he ought to have beheld one.
+
+Things were in this state when an accident took place so awful and
+inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare
+memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was
+over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my
+evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed
+between the Doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We
+both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret, and respected it. We
+enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvelous
+intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless feeling of
+existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole
+universe,--in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would
+not surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will
+never--never taste.
+
+Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in
+secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly
+smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While
+smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and
+calmest channels of thought. We talked of the East, and endeavored to
+recall the magical panorama of its glowing scenery. We criticized the
+most sensuous poets,--those who painted life ruddy with health, brimming
+with passion, happy in the possession of youth and strength and beauty.
+If we talked of Shakespeare's _Tempest_, we lingered over Ariel, and
+avoided Caliban. Like the Guebers, we turned our faces to the East, and
+saw only the sunny side of the world.
+
+This skillful coloring of our train of thought produced in our
+subsequent visions a corresponding tone. The splendors of Arabian
+fairyland dyed our dreams. We paced the narrow strip of grass with the
+tread and port of kings. The song of the _Rana arborea_, while he clung
+to the bark of the ragged plum-tree, sounded like the strains of divine
+musicians. Houses, walls, and streets melted like rain clouds, and
+vistas of unimaginable glory stretched away before us. It was a
+rapturous companionship. We enjoyed the vast delight more perfectly
+because, even in our most ecstatic moments, we were conscious of each
+other's presence. Our pleasures, while individual, were still twin,
+vibrating and moving in musical accord.
+
+On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the Doctor and myself
+drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large
+meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which
+burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy
+tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings;
+we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the
+currents of our thought. They would _not_ flow through the sun-lit
+channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable
+reason, they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a
+continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we
+flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay
+bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden
+palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk,
+and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper
+vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision.
+Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged
+in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the
+human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible,
+when Hammond suddenly said to me. "What do you consider to be the
+greatest element of terror?"
+
+The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew.
+Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once did, a woman
+floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly lifted arms, and
+awful, upturned face, uttering, as she drifted, shrieks that rent one's
+heart while we, spectators, stood frozen at a window which overhung the
+river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to
+save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her
+disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible, encountered
+floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for it suggests
+a huge terror, the proportions of which are veiled. But it now struck
+me, for the first time, that there must be one great and ruling
+embodiment of fear,--a King of Terrors, to which all others must
+succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe
+its existence?
+
+"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the
+subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any
+other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague
+definition."
+
+"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to
+experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human
+mind;--something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation
+hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in
+Brockden Brown's novel of _Wieland_ is awful; so is the picture of the
+Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer's _Zanoni_; but," he added, shaking
+his head gloomily, "there is something more horrible still than those."
+
+"Look here, Hammond," I rejoined, "let us drop this kind of talk, for
+Heaven's sake! We shall suffer for it, depend on it."
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me to-night," he replied, "but my
+brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as
+if I could write a story like Hoffman, to-night, if I were only master
+of a literary style."
+
+"Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I'm off to bed.
+Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it is!
+Good-night, Hammond."
+
+"Good-night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."
+
+"To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters."
+
+We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly
+and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book,
+over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon
+as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the
+other side of the room. It was Goudon's _History of Monsters_,--a
+curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which,
+in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable
+companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas
+until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of
+the tube, I composed myself to rest.
+
+The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained
+alight did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner. I
+desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the
+darkness, and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded
+themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on
+my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be
+blackness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me.
+While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical
+inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A
+Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest,
+and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat,
+endeavoring to choke me.
+
+I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The
+suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every nerve to
+its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had
+time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two
+muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with all the
+strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands
+that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to
+breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity.
+Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature
+of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp
+slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire
+nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder,
+neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair
+of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not
+confine,--these were a combination of circumstances to combat which
+required all the strength, skill, and courage that I possessed.
+
+At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant
+under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with
+my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I
+rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting
+in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was
+apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I
+remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a
+large yellow silk pocket handkerchief. I felt for it instantly; it was
+there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the
+creature's arms.
+
+I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to
+turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was
+like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a
+certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the
+capture alone and unaided.
+
+Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the
+floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to
+reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding
+the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's length of
+the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay.
+Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full
+flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.
+
+I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the
+instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with
+terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the
+inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. _I
+saw nothing_! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a breathing,
+panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a
+throat as warm, as apparently fleshy, as my own; and yet, with this
+living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and
+all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld
+nothing! Not even an outline,--a vapor!
+
+I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found
+myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination
+in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.
+
+It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled
+fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, like my
+own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone,--and
+yet utterly invisible!
+
+I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful
+instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening
+my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength
+in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force
+that I felt the creature shivering with agony.
+
+Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon
+as he beheld my face--which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to
+look at--he hastened forward, crying, "Great heaven, Harry! what has
+happened?"
+
+"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried, "come here. O, this is awful! I have been
+attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I can't
+see it,--I can't see it!"
+
+Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my
+countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled
+expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my
+visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human
+being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. _Now_, I can
+understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would
+seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision,
+should have appeared ludicrous. _Then_, so great was my rage against the
+mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead
+where they stood.
+
+"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried again, despairingly, "for God's sake come to
+me. I can hold the--the thing but a short while longer. It is
+overpowering me. Help me! Help me!"
+
+"Harry," whispered Hammond, approaching me, "you have been smoking too
+much opium."
+
+"I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision," I answered, in the
+same low tone. "Don't you see how it shakes my whole frame with its
+struggles? If you don't believe me, convince yourself. Feel it,--touch
+it."
+
+Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry
+of horror burst from him. He had felt it!
+
+In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of cord,
+and was the next instant winding it and knotting it about the body of
+the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.
+
+"Harry," he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved
+his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, "Harry, it's all safe now.
+You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired. The Thing can't move."
+
+I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.
+
+Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible,
+twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were, he
+beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a
+vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe.
+Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which
+I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and
+one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was
+not daunted.
+
+The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were
+witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself,--who
+beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,--who beheld
+me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was
+over,--the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,
+when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled
+from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door and
+could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still
+incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to
+satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged
+of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the
+existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were
+incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a
+solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was
+this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us--conquering our fearful
+repugnance to touch the invisible creature--lifted it from the ground,
+manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of
+a boy of fourteen.
+
+"Now my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature
+suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident proof that here is
+a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good
+enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively."
+
+I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so
+calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of
+scientific pride in the affair, which dominated every other feeling.
+
+The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given
+signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was a dull sound of a
+heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A
+deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed
+itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed from the
+room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.
+
+We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular
+breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the
+bedclothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement.
+Then Hammond spoke.
+
+"Harry, this is awful."
+
+"Ay, awful."
+
+"But not unaccountable."
+
+"Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred
+since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God
+grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!"
+
+"Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but
+which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with
+terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a
+piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical
+coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to
+be totally invisible. It is not _theoretically impossible_, mind you, to
+make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light,--a glass so
+pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass
+through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We
+do not see the air, and yet we feel it."
+
+"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances.
+Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. _This_ thing has a heart
+that palpitates,--a will that moves it,--lungs that play, and inspire
+and respire."
+
+"You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,"
+answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,'
+invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round
+the table,--warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal
+life."
+
+"What? Do you think, then, that this thing is----"
+
+"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I
+will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."
+
+We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside
+of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently
+wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it
+slept.
+
+The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on
+the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had
+to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary
+prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could
+be induced to set foot in the apartment.
+
+The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in
+which the bedclothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was
+something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand
+indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty
+which themselves were invisible.
+
+Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to
+discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general
+appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our
+hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human.
+There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,
+however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet
+felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a
+smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk, as shoemakers trace
+the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value.
+Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.
+
+A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of
+Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes.
+But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the
+setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mold. Another thought.
+Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs,--that was evident
+by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do
+with it what we would. Doctor X---- was sent for; and after the worthy
+physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded
+to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled
+to remove the fetters from the creature's body, and a modeler was busily
+engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In five
+minutes more we had a mold, and before evening a rough facsimile of the
+Mystery. It was shaped like a man--distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but
+still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height,
+and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its
+face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustav Doré, or
+Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible. There
+is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to _Un Voyage où il vous
+plaira_, which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but
+does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I should fancy a ghoul
+might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh.
+
+Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to
+secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It
+was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was
+equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the
+world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's
+destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would
+undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day
+after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left
+the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself
+with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our
+answer was, "We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature
+with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On
+you the responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer.
+Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even
+approach the Mystery.
+
+The most singular part of the affair was that we were entirely ignorant
+of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of
+nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never
+touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes
+toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.
+
+Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations
+of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly
+ceased. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of
+sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on, I felt
+miserable. I could not sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was
+pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.
+
+At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in
+the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened
+to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that
+viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to
+Doctor X----, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.
+
+As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have
+drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come
+to my knowledge.
+
+
+
+The Middle Toe of the Right Foot
+
+BY AMBROSE BIERCE
+
+     From _Can Such Things Be?_ by Ambrose Bierce. Copyright by the
+     Neale Publishing Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+I
+
+It is well known that the old Manton house is haunted. In all the rural
+district near about, and even in the town of Marshall, a mile away, not
+one person of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it; incredulity is
+confined to those opinionated persons who will be called "cranks" as
+soon as the useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual demesne
+of the Marshall _Advance_. The evidence that the house is haunted is of
+two kinds; the testimony of disinterested witnesses who have had ocular
+proof, and that of the house itself. The former may be disregarded and
+ruled out on any of the various grounds of objection which may be urged
+against it by the ingenious; but facts within the observation of all are
+material and controlling.
+
+In the first place the Manton house has been unoccupied by mortals for
+more than ten years, and with its outbuildings is slowly falling into
+decay--a circumstance which in itself the judicious will hardly venture
+to ignore. It stands a little way off the loneliest reach of the
+Marshall and Harriston road, in an opening which was once a farm and is
+still disfigured with strips of rotting fence and half covered with
+brambles overrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with the
+plow. The house itself is in tolerably good condition, though badly
+weather-stained and in dire need of attention from the glazier, the
+smaller male population of the region having attested in the manner of
+its kind its disapproval of dwelling without dwellers. It is two stories
+in height, nearly square, its front pierced by a single doorway flanked
+on each side by a window boarded up to the very top. Corresponding
+windows above, not protected, serve to admit light and rain to the rooms
+of the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow pretty rankly all about, and a
+few shade trees, somewhat the worse for wind, and leaning all in one
+direction, seem to be making a concerted effort to run away. In short,
+as the Marshall town humorist explained in the columns of the _Advance_,
+"the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted is the only
+logical conclusion from the premises." The fact that in this dwelling
+Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and
+cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to
+another part of the country, has no doubt done its share in directing
+public attention to the fitness of the place for supernatural phenomena.
+
+To this house, one summer evening, came four men in a wagon. Three of
+them promptly alighted, and the one who had been driving hitched the
+team to the only remaining post of what had been a fence. The fourth
+remained seated in the wagon. "Come," said one of his companions,
+approaching him, while the others moved away in the direction of the
+dwelling--"this is the place."
+
+The man addressed did not move. "By God!" he said harshly, "this is a
+trick, and it looks to me as if you were in it."
+
+"Perhaps I am," the other said, looking him straight in the face and
+speaking in a tone which had something of contempt in it. "You will
+remember, however, that the choice of place was with your own assent
+left to the other side. Of course if you are afraid of spooks--"
+
+"I am afraid of nothing," the man interrupted with another oath, and
+sprang to the ground. The two then joined the others at the door, which
+one of them had already opened with some difficulty, caused by rust of
+lock and hinge. All entered. Inside it was dark, but the man who had
+unlocked the door produced a candle and matches and made a light. He
+then unlocked a door on their right as they stood in the passage. This
+gave them entrance to a large, square room that the candle but dimly
+lighted. The floor had a thick carpeting of dust, which partly muffled
+their footfalls. Cobwebs were in the angles of the walls and depended
+from the ceiling like strips of rotting lace making undulatory movements
+in the disturbed air. The room had two windows in adjoining sides, but
+from neither could anything be seen except the rough inner surfaces of
+boards a few inches from the glass. There was no fireplace, no
+furniture; there was nothing: besides the cobwebs and the dust, the four
+men were the only objects there which were not a part of the structure.
+
+Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of the candle. The one
+who had so reluctantly alighted was especially spectacular--he might
+have been called sensational. He was of middle age, heavily built, deep
+chested, and broad shouldered. Looking at his figure, one would have
+said that he had a giant's strength; at his features, that he would use
+it like a giant. He was clean shaven, his hair rather closely cropped
+and gray. His low forehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes, and
+over the nose these became vertical. The heavy black brows followed the
+same law, saved from meeting only by an upward turn at what would
+otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these,
+glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain color, but
+obviously enough too small. There was something forbidding in their
+expression, which was not bettered by the cruel mouth and wide jaw. The
+nose was well enough, as noses go; one does not expect much of noses.
+All that was sinister in the man's face seemed accentuated by an
+unnatural pallor--he appeared altogether bloodless.
+
+The appearance of the other men was sufficiently commonplace; they were
+such persons as one meets and forgets that he met. All were younger than
+the man described, between whom and the eldest of the others, who stood
+apart, there was apparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at
+each other.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the man holding the candle and keys, "I believe
+everything is right. Are you ready, Mr. Rosser?"
+
+The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled.
+
+"And you, Mr. Grossmith?"
+
+The heavy man bowed and scowled.
+
+"You will be pleased to remove your outer clothing."
+
+Their hats, coats, waistcoats, and neckwear were soon removed and thrown
+outside the door, in the passage. The man with the candle now nodded,
+and the fourth man--he who had urged Grossmith to leave the
+wagon--produced from the pocket of his overcoat two long,
+murderous-looking bowie-knives, which he drew now from their leather
+scabbards.
+
+"They are exactly alike," he said, presenting one to each of the two
+principals--for by this time the dullest observer would have understood
+the nature of this meeting. It was to be a duel to the death.
+
+Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the candle and
+tested the strength of the blade and handle across his lifted knee. Their
+persons were then searched in turn, each by the second of the other.
+
+"If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith," said the man holding the
+light, "you will place yourself in that corner."
+
+He indicated the angle of the room farthest from the door, whither
+Grossmith retired, his second parting from him with a grasp of the hand
+which had nothing of cordiality in it. In the angle nearest the door Mr.
+Rosser stationed himself, and after a whispered consultation his second
+left him, joining the other near the door. At that moment the candle was
+suddenly extinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This may have
+been done by a draught from the opened door; whatever the cause, the
+effect was startling.
+
+"Gentlemen," said a voice which sounded strangely unfamiliar in the
+altered condition affecting the relations of the senses--"gentlemen, you
+will not move until you hear the closing of the outer door."
+
+A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the inner door; and
+finally the outer one closed with a concussion which shook the entire
+building.
+
+A few minutes afterward a belated farmer's boy met a light wagon which
+was being driven furiously toward the town of Marshall. He declared that
+behind the two figures on the front seat stood a third, with its hands
+upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who appeared to struggle vainly
+to free themselves from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was
+clad in white, and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed the
+haunted house. As the lad could boast a considerable former experience
+with the supernatural thereabouts his word had the weight justly due to
+the testimony of an expert. The story (in connection with the next day's
+events) eventually appeared in the _Advance_, with some slight literary
+embellishments and a concluding intimation that the gentlemen referred
+to would be allowed the use of the paper's columns for their version of
+the night's adventure. But the privilege remained without a claimant.
+
+
+II
+
+The events that led up to this "duel in the dark" were simple enough.
+One evening three young men of the town of Marshall were sitting in a
+quiet corner of the porch of the village hotel, smoking and discussing
+such matters as three educated young men of a Southern village would
+naturally find interesting. Their names were King, Sancher, and Rosser.
+At a little distance, within easy hearing, but taking no part in the
+conversation, sat a fourth. He was a stranger to the others. They
+merely knew that on his arrival by the stage-coach that afternoon he had
+written in the hotel register the name of Robert Grossmith. He had not
+been observed to speak to anyone except the hotel clerk. He seemed,
+indeed, singularly fond of his own company--or, as the _personnel_ of
+the _Advance_ expressed it, "grossly addicted to evil associations." But
+then it should be said in justice to the stranger that the _personnel_
+was himself of a too convivial disposition fairly to judge one
+differently gifted, and had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in an
+effort at an "interview."
+
+"I hate any kind of deformity in a woman," said King, "whether natural
+or--acquired. I have a theory that any physical defect has its
+correlative mental and moral defect."
+
+"I infer, then," said Rosser, gravely, "that a lady lacking the moral
+advantage of a nose would find the struggle to become Mrs. King an
+arduous enterprise."
+
+"Of course you may put it that way," was the reply; "but, seriously, I
+once threw over a most charming girl on learning quite accidentally that
+she had suffered amputation of a toe. My conduct was brutal if you like,
+but if I had married that girl I should have been miserable for life and
+should have made her so."
+
+"Whereas," said Sancher, with a light laugh, "by marrying a gentleman of
+more liberal view she escaped with a parted throat."
+
+"Ah, you know to whom I refer. Yes, she married Manton, but I don't know
+about his liberality; I'm not sure but he cut her throat because he
+discovered that she lacked that excellent thing in woman, the middle toe
+of the right foot."
+
+"Look at that chap!" said Rosser in a low voice, his eyes fixed upon the
+stranger.
+
+That chap was obviously listening intently to the conversation.
+
+"Damn his impudence!" muttered King--"what ought we to do?"
+
+"That's an easy one," Rosser replied, rising. "Sir," he continued,
+addressing the stranger, "I think it would be better if you would remove
+your chair to the other end of the veranda. The presence of gentlemen is
+evidently an unfamiliar situation to you."
+
+The man sprang to his feet and strode forward with clenched hands, his
+face white with rage. All were now standing. Sancher stepped between the
+belligerents.
+
+"You are hasty and unjust," he said to Rosser; "this gentleman has done
+nothing to deserve such language."
+
+But Rosser would not withdraw a word. By the custom of the country and
+the time there could be but one outcome to the quarrel.
+
+"I demand the satisfaction due to a gentleman," said the stranger, who
+had become more calm. "I have not an acquaintance in this region.
+Perhaps you, sir," bowing to Sancher, "will be kind enough to represent
+me in this matter."
+
+Sancher accepted the trust--somewhat reluctantly it must be confessed,
+for the man's appearance and manner were not at all to his liking. King,
+who during the colloquy had hardly removed his eyes from the stranger's
+face and had not spoken a word, consented with a nod to act for Rosser,
+and the upshot of it was that, the principals having retired, a meeting
+was arranged for the next evening. The nature of the arrangements has
+been already disclosed. The duel with knives in a dark room was once a
+commoner feature of Southwestern life than it is likely to be again. How
+thin a veneering of "chivalry" covered the essential brutality of the
+code under which such encounters were possible we shall see.
+
+
+III
+
+In the blaze of a midsummer noonday the old Manton house was hardly true
+to its traditions. It was of the earth, earthy. The sunshine caressed it
+warmly and affectionately, with evident disregard of its bad reputation.
+The grass greening all the expanse in its front seemed to grow, not
+rankly, but with a natural and joyous exuberance, and the weeds
+blossomed quite like plants. Full of charming lights and shadows and
+populous with pleasant-voiced birds, the neglected shade trees no longer
+struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath their burdens of sun
+and song. Even in the glassless upper windows was an expression of peace
+and contentment, due to the light within. Over the stony fields the
+visible heat danced with a lively tremor incompatible with the gravity
+which is an attribute of the supernatural.
+
+Such was the aspect under which the place presented itself to Sheriff
+Adams and two other men who had come out from Marshall to look at it.
+One of these men was Mr. King, the sheriff's deputy; the other, whose
+name was Brewer, was a brother of the late Mrs. Manton. Under a
+beneficent law of the State relating to property which has been for a
+certain period abandoned by an owner whose residence cannot be
+ascertained, the sheriff was legal custodian of the Manton farm and
+appurtenances thereunto belonging. His present visit was in mere
+perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which Mr. Brewer
+had an action to get possession of the property as heir to his deceased
+sister. By a mere coincidence, the visit was made on the day after the
+night that Deputy King had unlocked the house for another and very
+different purpose. His presence now was not of his own choosing: he had
+been ordered to accompany his superior, and at the moment could think of
+nothing more prudent than simulated alacrity in obedience to the
+command.
+
+Carelessly opening the front door, which to his surprise was not locked,
+the sheriff was amazed to see, lying on the floor of the passage into
+which it opened, a confused heap of men's apparel. Examination showed it
+to consist of two hats, and the same number of coats, waistcoats, and
+scarves all in a remarkably good state of preservation, albeit somewhat
+defiled by the dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equally
+astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not of record. With a new and
+lively interest in his own actions the sheriff now unlatched and pushed
+open a door on the right, and the three entered. The room was apparently
+vacant--no; as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light
+something was visible in the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human
+figure--that of a man crouching close in the corner. Something in the
+attitude made the intruders halt when they had barely passed the
+threshold. The figure more and more clearly defined itself. The man was
+upon one knee, his back in the angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated
+to the level of his ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the
+fingers spread and crooked like claws; the white face turned upward on
+the retracted neck had an expression of unutterable fright, the mouth
+half open, the eyes incredibly expanded. He was stone dead. Yet with the
+exception of a bowie-knife, which had evidently fallen from his own
+hand, not another object was in the room.
+
+In thick dust that covered the floor were some confused footprints near
+the door and along the wall through which it opened. Along one of the
+adjoining walls, too, past the boarded-up windows was the trail made by
+the man himself in reaching his corner. Instinctively in approaching the
+body the three men followed that trail. The sheriff grasped one of the
+outthrown arms; it was as rigid as iron, and the application of a gentle
+force rocked the entire body without altering the relation of its parts.
+Brewer, pale with excitement, gazed intently into the distorted face.
+"God of mercy!" he suddenly cried, "it is Manton!"
+
+"You are right," said King, with an evident attempt at calmness: "I knew
+Manton. He then wore a full beard and his hair long, but this is he."
+
+He might have added: "I recognized him when he challenged Rosser. I told
+Rosser and Sancher who he was before we played him this horrible trick.
+When Rosser left this dark room at our heels, forgetting his outer
+clothing in the excitement, and driving away with us in his shirt
+sleeves--all through the discreditable proceedings we knew with whom we
+were dealing, murderer and coward that he was!"
+
+But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his better light he was
+trying to penetrate the mystery of the man's death. That he had not once
+moved from the corner where he had been stationed; that his posture was
+that of neither attack nor defense; that he had dropped his weapon; that
+he had obviously perished of sheer horror of something that he
+_saw_--these were circumstances which Mr. King's disturbed intelligence
+could not rightly comprehend.
+
+Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew to his maze of doubt, his
+gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of one who ponders
+momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day
+and in the presence of living companions, affected him with terror. In
+the dust of years that lay thick upon the floor--leading from the door
+by which they had entered, straight across the room to within a yard of
+Manton's crouching corpse--were three parallel lines of
+footprints--light but definite impressions of bare feet, the outer ones
+those of small children, the inner a woman's. From the point at which
+they ended they did not return; they pointed all one way. Brewer, who
+had observed them at the same moment, was leaning forward in an attitude
+of rapt attention, horribly pale.
+
+"Look at that!" he cried, pointing with both hands at the nearest print
+of the woman's right foot, where she had apparently stopped and stood.
+"The middle toe is missing--it was Gertrude!"
+
+Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister to Mr. Brewer.
+
+
+
+The Shell of Sense
+
+BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR
+
+     From Harper's Magazine, December, 1908. By permission of Harper and
+     Brothers and Olivia Howard Dunbar.
+
+
+It was intolerably unchanged, the dim, dark-toned room. In an agony of
+recognition my glance ran from one to another of the comfortable,
+familiar things that my earthly life had been passed among. Incredibly
+distant from it all as I essentially was. I noted sharply that the very
+gaps that I myself had left in my bookshelves still stood unfilled; that
+the delicate fingers of the ferns that I had tended were still stretched
+futilely toward the light; that the soft agreeable chuckle of my own
+little clock, like some elderly woman with whom conversation has become
+automatic, was undiminished.
+
+Unchanged--or so it seemed at first. But there were certain trivial
+differences that shortly smote me. The windows were closed too tightly;
+for I had always kept the house very cool, although I had known that
+Theresa preferred warm rooms. And my work-basket was in disorder; it was
+preposterous that so small a thing should hurt me so. Then, for this was
+my first experience of the shadow-folded transition, the odd alteration
+of my emotions bewildered me. For at one moment the place seemed so
+humanly familiar, so distinctly my own proper envelope, that for love of
+it I could have laid my cheek against the wall; while in the next I was
+miserably conscious of strange new shrillnesses. How could they be
+endured--and had I ever endured them?--those harsh influences that I now
+perceived at the window; light and color so blinding that they obscured
+the form of the wind, tumult so discordant that one could scarcely hear
+the roses open in the garden below?
+
+But Theresa did not seem to mind any of these things. Disorder, it is
+true, the dear child had never minded. She was sitting all this time at
+my desk--at _my_ desk--occupied, I could only too easily surmise how. In
+the light of my own habits of precision it was plain that that sombre
+correspondence should have been attended to before; but I believe that I
+did not really reproach Theresa, for I knew that her notes, when she did
+write them, were perhaps less perfunctory than mine. She finished the
+last one as I watched her, and added it to the heap of black-bordered
+envelopes that lay on the desk. Poor girl! I saw now that they had cost
+her tears. Yet, living beside her day after day, year after year, I had
+never discovered what deep tenderness my sister possessed. Toward each
+other it had been our habit to display only a temperate affection, and I
+remember having always thought it distinctly fortunate for Theresa,
+since she was denied my happiness, that she could live so easily and
+pleasantly without emotions of the devastating sort.... And now, for the
+first time, I was really to behold her.... Could it be Theresa, after
+all, this tangle of subdued turbulences? Let no one suppose that it is
+an easy thing to bear, the relentlessly lucid understanding that I then
+first exercised; or that, in its first enfranchisement, the timid vision
+does not yearn for its old screens and mists.
+
+Suddenly, as Theresa sat there, her head, filled with its tender
+thoughts of me, held in her gentle hands, I felt Allan's step on the
+carpeted stair outside. Theresa felt it, too,--but how? for it was not
+audible. She gave a start, swept the black envelopes out of sight, and
+pretended to be writing in a little book. Then I forgot to watch her any
+longer in my absorption in Allan's coming. It was he, of course, that I
+was awaiting. It was for him that I had made this first lonely,
+frightened effort to return, to recover.... It was not that I had
+supposed he would allow himself to recognize my presence, for I had long
+been sufficiently familiar with his hard and fast denials of the
+invisible. He was so reasonable always, so sane--so blindfolded. But I
+had hoped that because of his very rejection of the ether that now
+contained me I could perhaps all the more safely, the more secretly,
+watch him, linger near him. He was near now, very near,--but why did
+Theresa, sitting there in the room that had never belonged to her,
+appropriate for herself his coming? It was so manifestly I who had
+drawn him, I whom he had come to seek.
+
+The door was ajar. He knocked softly at it "Are you there, Theresa?" he
+called. He expected to find her, then, there in my room? I shrank back,
+fearing, almost, to stay.
+
+"I shall have finished in a moment," Theresa told him, and he sat down
+to wait for her.
+
+No spirit still unreleased can understand the pang that I felt with
+Allan sitting almost within my touch. Almost irresistibly the wish beset
+me to let him for an instant feel my nearness. Then I checked myself,
+remembering--oh, absurd, piteous human fears!--that my too unguarded
+closeness might alarm him. It was not so remote a time that I myself had
+known them, those blind, uncouth timidities. I came, therefore, somewhat
+nearer--but I did not touch him. I merely leaned toward him and with
+incredible softness whispered his name. That much I could not have
+forborne; the spell of life was still too strong in me.
+
+But it gave him no comfort, no delight. "Theresa!" he called, in a voice
+dreadful with alarm--and in that instant the last veil fell, and
+desperately, scarce believingly, I beheld how it stood between them,
+those two.
+
+She turned to him that gentle look of hers.
+
+"Forgive me," came from him hoarsely. "But I had suddenly the
+most--unaccountable sensation. Can there be too many windows open? There
+is such a--chill--about."
+
+"There are no windows open," Theresa assured him. "I took care to shut
+out the chill. You are not well, Allan!"
+
+"Perhaps not." He embraced the suggestion. "And yet I feel no illness
+apart from this abominable sensation that persists--persists....
+Theresa, you must tell me: do I fancy it, or do you, too,
+feel--something--strange here?"
+
+"Oh, there is something very strange here," she half sobbed. "There
+always will be."
+
+"Good heavens, child, I didn't mean that!" He rose and stood looking
+about him. "I know, of course, that you have your beliefs, and I respect
+them, but you know equally well that I have nothing of the sort!
+So--don't let us conjure up anything inexplicable."
+
+I stayed impalpably, imponderably near him. Wretched and bereft though I
+was, I could not have left him while he stood denying me.
+
+"What I mean," he went on, in his low, distinct voice, "is a special, an
+almost ominous sense of cold. Upon my soul, Theresa,"--he paused--"if I
+_were_ superstitious, if I _were_ a woman, I should probably imagine it
+to seem--a presence!"
+
+He spoke the last word very faintly, but Theresa shrank from it
+nevertheless.
+
+"_Don't_ say that, Allan!" she cried out. "Don't think it, I beg of you!
+I've tried so hard myself not to think it--and you must help me. You
+know it is only perturbed, uneasy spirits that wander. With her it is
+quite different. She has always been so happy--she must still be."
+
+I listened, stunned, to Theresa's sweet dogmatism. From what blind
+distances came her confident misapprehensions, how dense, both for her
+and for Allan, was the separating vapor!
+
+Allan frowned. "Don't take me literally, Theresa," he explained; and I,
+who a moment before had almost touched him, now held myself aloof and
+heard him with a strange untried pity, new born in me. "I'm not speaking
+of what you call--spirits. It's something much more terrible." He
+allowed his head to sink heavily on his chest. "If I did not positively
+know that I had never done her any harm, I should suppose myself to be
+suffering from guilt, from remorse.... Theresa, you know better than I,
+perhaps. Was she content, always? Did she believe in me?"
+
+"Believe in you?--when she knew you to be so good!--when you adored
+her!"
+
+"She thought that? She said it? Then what in Heaven's name ails
+me?--unless it is all as you believe, Theresa, and she knows now what
+she didn't know then, poor dear, and minds----"
+
+"Minds what? What do you mean, Allan?"
+
+I, who with my perhaps illegitimate advantage saw so clear, knew that he
+had not meant to tell her: I did him that justice, even in my first
+jealousy. If I had not tortured him so by clinging near him, he would
+not have told her. But the moment came, and overflowed, and he did tell
+her--passionate, tumultuous story that it was. During all our life
+together, Allan's and mine, he had spared me, had kept me wrapped in the
+white cloak of an unblemished loyalty. But it would have been kinder, I
+now bitterly thought, if, like many husbands, he had years ago found for
+the story he now poured forth some clandestine listener; I should not
+have known. But he was faithful and good, and so he waited till I, mute
+and chained, was there to hear him. So well did I know him, as I
+thought, so thoroughly had he once been mine, that I saw it in his eyes,
+heard it in his voice, before the words came. And yet, when it came, it
+lashed me with the whips of an unbearable humiliation. For I, his wife,
+had not known how greatly he could love.
+
+And that Theresa, soft little traitor, should, in her still way, have
+cared too! Where was the iron in her, I moaned within my stricken
+spirit, where the steadfastness? From the moment he bade her, she turned
+her soft little petals up to him--and my last delusion was spent. It was
+intolerable; and none the less so that in another moment she had,
+prompted by some belated thought of me, renounced him. Allan was hers,
+yet she put him from her; and it was my part to watch them both.
+
+Then in the anguish of it all I remembered, awkward, untutored spirit
+that I was, that I now had the Great Recourse. Whatever human things
+were unbearable, I had no need to bear. I ceased, therefore, to make
+the effort that kept me with them. The pitiless poignancy was dulled,
+the sounds and the light ceased, the lovers faded from me, and again I
+was mercifully drawn into the dim, infinite spaces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There followed a period whose length I cannot measure and during which I
+was able to make no progress in the difficult, dizzying experience of
+release. "Earth-bound" my jealousy relentlessly kept me. Though my two
+dear ones had forsworn each other, I could not trust them, for theirs
+seemed to me an affectation of a more than mortal magnanimity. Without a
+ghostly sentinel to prick them with sharp fears and recollections, who
+could believe that they would keep to it? Of the efficacy of my own
+vigilance, so long as I might choose to exercise it, I could have no
+doubt, for I had by this time come to have a dreadful exultation in the
+new power that lived in me. Repeated delicate experiment had taught me
+how a touch or a breath, a wish or a whisper, could control Allan's
+acts, could keep him from Theresa. I could manifest myself as palely, as
+transiently, as a thought. I could produce the merest necessary flicker,
+like the shadow of a just-opened leaf, on his trembling, tortured
+consciousness. And these unrealized perceptions of me he interpreted, as
+I had known that he would, as his soul's inevitable penance. He had come
+to believe that he had done evil in silently loving Theresa all these
+years, and it was my vengeance to allow him to believe this, to prod
+him ever to believe it afresh.
+
+I am conscious that this frame of mind was not continuous in me. For I
+remember, too, that when Allan and Theresa were safely apart and
+sufficiently miserable I loved them as dearly as I ever had, more dearly
+perhaps. For it was impossible that I should not perceive, in my new
+emancipation, that they were, each of them, something more and greater
+than the two beings I had once ignorantly pictured them. For years they
+had practiced a selflessness of which I could once scarcely have
+conceived, and which even now I could only admire without entering into
+its mystery. While I had lived solely for myself, these two divine
+creatures had lived exquisitely for me. They had granted me everything,
+themselves nothing. For my undeserving sake their lives had been a
+constant torment of renunciation--a torment they had not sought to
+alleviate by the exchange of a single glance of understanding. There
+were even marvelous moments when, from the depths of my newly informed
+heart, I pitied them--poor creatures, who, withheld from the infinite
+solaces that I had come to know, were still utterly within that
+
+                            Shell of sense
+    So frail, so piteously contrived for pain.
+
+Within it, yes; yet exercising qualities that so sublimely transcended
+it. Yet the shy, hesitating compassion that thus had birth in me was
+far from being able to defeat the earlier, earthlier emotion. The two, I
+recognized, were in a sort of conflict; and I, regarding it, assumed
+that the conflict would never end; that for years, as Allan and Theresa
+reckoned time, I should be obliged to withhold myself from the great
+spaces and linger suffering, grudging, shamed, where they lingered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It can never have been explained, I suppose, what, to devitalized
+perception such as mine, the contact of mortal beings with each other
+appears to be. Once to have exercised this sense-freed perception is to
+realize that the gift of prophecy, although the subject of such frequent
+marvel, is no longer mysterious. The merest glance of our sensitive and
+uncloyed vision can detect the strength of the relation between two
+beings, and therefore instantly calculate its duration. If you see a
+heavy weight suspended from a slender string, you can know, without any
+wizardry, that in a few moments the string will snap; well, such, if you
+admit the analogy, is prophecy, is foreknowledge. And it was thus that I
+saw it with Theresa and Allan. For it was perfectly visible to me that
+they would very little longer have the strength to preserve, near each
+other, the denuded impersonal relation that they, and that I, behind
+them, insisted on; and that they would have to separate. It was my
+sister, perhaps the more sensitive, who first realized this. It had now
+become possible for me to observe them almost constantly, the effort
+necessary to visit them had so greatly diminished; so that I watched
+her, poor, anguished girl, prepare to leave him. I saw each reluctant
+movement that she made. I saw her eyes, worn from self-searching; I
+heard her step grown timid from inexplicable fears; I entered her very
+heart and heard its pitiful, wild beating. And still I did not
+interfere.
+
+For at this time I had a wonderful, almost demoniacal sense of disposing
+of matters to suit my own selfish will. At any moment I could have
+checked their miseries, could have restored happiness and peace. Yet it
+gave me, and I could weep to admit it, a monstrous joy to know that
+Theresa thought she was leaving Allan of her own free intention, when it
+was I who was contriving, arranging, insisting.... And yet she
+wretchedly felt my presence near her; I am certain of that.
+
+A few days before the time of her intended departure my sister told
+Allan that she must speak with him after dinner. Our beautiful old house
+branched out from a circular hall with great arched doors at either end;
+and it was through the rear doorway that always in summer, after dinner,
+we passed out into the garden adjoining. As usual, therefore, when the
+hour came, Theresa led the way. That dreadful daytime brilliance that in
+my present state I found so hard to endure was now becoming softer. A
+delicate, capricious twilight breeze danced inconsequently through
+languidly whispering leaves. Lovely pale flowers blossomed like little
+moons in the dusk, and over them the breath of mignonette hung heavily.
+It was a perfect place--and it had so long been ours, Allan's and mine.
+It made me restless and a little wicked that those two should be there
+together now.
+
+For a little they walked about together, speaking of common, daily
+things. Then suddenly Theresa burst out:
+
+"I am going away, Allan. I have stayed to do everything that needed to
+be done. Now your mother will be here to care for you, and it is time
+for me to go."
+
+He stared at her and stood still. Theresa had been there so long, she so
+definitely, to his mind, belonged there. And she was, as I also had
+jealously known, so lovely there, the small, dark, dainty creature, in
+the old hall, on the wide staircases, in the garden.... Life there
+without Theresa, even the intentionally remote, the perpetually
+renounced Theresa--he had not dreamed of it, he could not, so suddenly,
+conceive of it.
+
+"Sit here," he said, and drew her down beside him on a bench, "and tell
+me what it means, why you are going. Is it because of something that I
+have been--have done?"
+
+She hesitated. I wondered if she would dare tell him. She looked out and
+away from him, and he waited long for her to speak.
+
+The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the
+leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and
+sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon,
+the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater--a moment when
+anything can happen, anything be believed in. To me, watching,
+listening, hovering, there came a dreadful purpose and a dreadful
+courage. Suppose for one moment, Theresa should not only feel, but _see_
+me--would she dare to tell him then?
+
+There came a brief space of terrible effort, all my fluttering,
+uncertain forces strained to the utmost. The instant of my struggle was
+endlessly long and the transition seemed to take place outside me--as
+one sitting in a train, motionless, sees the leagues of earth float by.
+And then, in a bright, terrible flash I knew I had achieved it--I had
+_attained visibility_. Shuddering, insubstantial, but luminously
+apparent, I stood there before them. And for the instant that I
+maintained the visible state I looked straight into Theresa's soul.
+
+She gave a cry. And then, thing of silly, cruel impulses that I was, I
+saw what I had done. The very thing that I wished to avert I had
+precipitated. For Allan, in his sudden terror and pity, had bent and
+caught her in his arms. For the first time they were together; and it
+was I who had brought them.
+
+Then, to his whispered urging to tell the reason of her cry, Theresa
+said:
+
+"Frances was here. You did not see her, standing there, under the
+lilacs, with no smile on her face?"
+
+"My dear, my dear!" was all that Allan said. I had so long now lived
+invisibly with them, he knew that she was right.
+
+"I suppose you know what it means?" she asked him, calmly.
+
+"Dear Theresa," Allan said, slowly, "if you and I should go away
+somewhere, could we not evade all this ghostliness? And will you come
+with me?"
+
+"Distance would not banish her," my sister confidently asserted. And
+then she said, softly: "Have you thought what a lonely, awesome thing it
+must be to be so newly dead? Pity her, Allan. We who are warm and alive
+should pity her. She loves you still,--that is the meaning of it all,
+you know--and she wants us to understand that for that reason we must
+keep apart. Oh, it was so plain in her white face as she stood there.
+And you did not see her?"
+
+"It was your face that I saw," Allan solemnly told her--oh, how
+different he had grown from the Allan that I had known!--"and yours is
+the only face that I shall ever see." And again he drew her to him.
+
+She sprang from him. "You are defying her, Allan!" she cried. "And you
+must not. It is her right to keep us apart, if she wishes. It must be as
+she insists. I shall go, as I told you. And, Allan, I beg of you, leave
+me the courage to do as she demands!"
+
+They stood facing each other in the deep dusk, and the wounds that I had
+dealt them gaped red and accusing. "We must pity her," Theresa had said.
+And as I remembered that extraordinary speech, and saw the agony in her
+face, and the greater agony in Allan's, there came the great irreparable
+cleavage between mortality and me. In a swift, merciful flame the last
+of my mortal emotions--gross and tenacious they must have been--was
+consumed. My cold grasp of Allan loosened and a new unearthly love of
+him bloomed in my heart.
+
+I was now, however, in a difficulty with which my experience in the
+newer state was scarcely sufficient to deal. How could I make it plain
+to Allan and Theresa that I wished to bring them together, to heal the
+wounds that I had made?
+
+Pityingly, remorsefully, I lingered near them all that night and the
+next day. And by that time had brought myself to the point of a great
+determination. In the little time that was left, before Theresa should
+be gone and Allan bereft and desolate, I saw the one way that lay open
+to me to convince them of my acquiescence in their destiny.
+
+In the deepest darkness and silence of the next night I made a greater
+effort than it will ever be necessary for me to make again. When they
+think of me, Allan and Theresa, I pray now that they will recall what I
+did that night, and that my thousand frustrations and selfishnesses may
+shrivel and be blown from their indulgent memories.
+
+Yet the following morning, as she had planned, Theresa appeared at
+breakfast dressed for her journey. Above in her room there were the
+sounds of departure. They spoke little during the brief meal, but when
+it was ended Allan said:
+
+"Theresa, there is half an hour before you go. Will you come upstairs
+with me? I had a dream that I must tell you of."
+
+"Allan!" She looked at him, frightened, but went with him. "It was of
+Frances you dreamed," she said, quietly, as they entered the library
+together.
+
+"Did I say it was a dream? But I was awake--thoroughly awake. I had not
+been sleeping well, and I heard, twice, the striking of the clock. And
+as I lay there, looking out at the stars, and thinking--thinking of you,
+Theresa,--she came to me, stood there before me, in my room. It was no
+sheeted specter, you understand; it was Frances, literally she. In some
+inexplicable fashion I seemed to be aware that she wanted to make me
+know something, and I waited, watching her face. After a few moments it
+came. She did not speak, precisely. That is, I am sure I heard no sound.
+Yet the words that came from her were definite enough. She said: 'Don't
+let Theresa leave you. Take her and keep her.' Then she went away. Was
+that a dream?"
+
+"I had not meant to tell you," Theresa eagerly answered, "but now I
+must. It is too wonderful. What time did your clock strike, Allan?"
+
+"One, the last time."
+
+"Yes; it was then that I awoke. And she had been with me. I had not seen
+her, but her arm had been about me and her kiss was on my cheek. Oh. I
+knew; it was unmistakable. And the sound of her voice was with me."
+
+"Then she bade you, too----"
+
+"Yes, to stay with you. I am glad we told each other." She smiled
+tearfully and began to fasten her wrap.
+
+"But you are not going--_now!_" Allan cried. "You know that you cannot,
+now that she has asked you to stay."
+
+"Then you believe, as I do, that it was she?" Theresa demanded.
+
+"I can never understand, but I know," he answered her. "And now you will
+not go?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am freed. There will be no further semblance of me in my old home, no
+sound of my voice, no dimmest echo of my earthly self. They have no
+further need of me, the two that I have brought together. Theirs is the
+fullest joy that the dwellers in the shell of sense can know. Mine is
+the transcendent joy of the unseen spaces.
+
+
+
+The Woman at Seven Brothers
+
+BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE
+
+     From _Land's End_, by Wilbur Daniel Steele. Copyright, 1908, by
+     Harper and Brothers. By permission of the publishers and Wilbur
+     Daniel Steele.
+
+
+I tell you sir, I was innocent. I didn't know any more about the world
+at twenty-two than some do at twelve. My uncle and aunt in Duxbury
+brought me up strict; I studied hard in high school, I worked hard after
+hours, and I went to church twice on Sundays, and I can't see it's right
+to put me in a place like this, with crazy people. Oh yes, I know
+they're crazy--you can't tell _me._ As for what they said in court about
+finding her with her husband, that's the Inspector's lie, sir, because
+he's down on me, and wants to make it look like my fault.
+
+No, sir, I can't say as I thought she was handsome--not at first. For
+one thing, her lips were too thin and white, and her color was bad. I'll
+tell you a fact, sir; that first day I came off to the Light I was
+sitting on my cot in the store-room (that's where the assistant keeper
+sleeps at the Seven Brothers), as lonesome as I could be, away from home
+for the first time, and the water all around me, and, even though it
+was a calm day, pounding enough on the ledge to send a kind of a
+_woom-woom-woom_ whining up through all that solid rock of the tower.
+And when old Fedderson poked his head down from the living-room with the
+sunshine above making a kind of bright frame around his hair and
+whiskers, to give me a cheery, "Make yourself to home, son!" I remember
+I said to myself: "_He's_ all right. I'll get along with _him_. But his
+wife's enough to sour milk." That was queer, because she was so much
+under him in age--'long about twenty-eight or so, and him nearer fifty.
+But that's what I said, sir.
+
+Of course that feeling wore off, same as any feeling will wear off
+sooner or later in a place like the Seven Brothers. Cooped up in a place
+like that you come to know folks so well that you forget what they _do_
+look like. There was a long time I never noticed her, any more than
+you'd notice the cat. We used to sit of an evening around the table, as
+if you were Fedderson there, and me here, and her somewhere back there,
+in the rocker, knitting. Fedderson would be working on his
+Jacob's-ladder, and I'd be reading. He'd been working on that
+Jacob's-ladder a year, I guess, and every time the Inspector came off
+with the tender he was so astonished to see how good that ladder was
+that the old man would go to work and make it better. That's all he
+lived for.
+
+If I was reading, as I say, I daren't take my eyes off the book, or
+Fedderson had me. And then he'd begin--what the Inspector said about
+him. How surprised the member of the board had been, that time, to see
+everything so clean about the light. What the Inspector had said about
+Fedderson's being stuck here in a second-class light--best keeper on the
+coast. And so on and so on, till either he or I had to go aloft and have
+a look at the wicks.
+
+He'd been there twenty-three years, all told, and he'd got used to the
+feeling that he was kept down unfair--so used to it, I guess, that he
+fed on it, and told himself how folks ashore would talk when he was dead
+and gone--best keeper on the coast--kept down unfair. Not that he said
+that to me. No, he was far too loyal and humble and respectful, doing
+his duty without complaint, as anybody could see.
+
+And all that time, night after night, hardly ever a word out of the
+woman. As I remember it, she seemed more like a piece of furniture than
+anything else--not even a very good cook, nor over and above tidy. One
+day, when he and I were trimming the lamp, he passed the remark that his
+_first_ wife used to dust the lens and take a pride in it. Not that he
+said a word against Anna, though. He never said a word against any
+living mortal; he was too upright.
+
+I don't know how it came about; or, rather, I _do_ know, but it was so
+sudden, and so far away from my thoughts, that it shocked me, like the
+world turned over. It was at prayers. That night I remember Fedderson
+was uncommon long-winded. We'd had a batch of newspapers out by the
+tender, and at such times the old man always made a long watch of it,
+getting the world straightened out. For one thing, the United States
+minister to Turkey was dead. Well, from him and his soul, Fedderson got
+on to Turkey and the Presbyterian college there, and from that to
+heathen in general. He rambled on and on, like the surf on the ledge,
+_woom-woom-woom_, never coming to an end.
+
+You know how you'll be at prayers sometimes. My mind strayed. I counted
+the canes in the chair-seat where I was kneeling; I plaited a corner of
+the table-cloth between my fingers for a spell, and by and by my eyes
+went wandering up the back of the chair.
+
+The woman, sir, was looking at me. Her chair was back to mine, close,
+and both our heads were down in the shadow under the edge of the table,
+with Fedderson clear over on the other side by the stove. And there were
+her two eyes hunting mine between the spindles in the shadow. You won't
+believe me, sir, but I tell you I felt like jumping to my feet and
+running out of the room--it was so queer.
+
+I don't know what her husband was praying about after that. His voice
+didn't mean anything, no more than the seas on the ledge away down
+there. I went to work to count the canes in the seat again, but all my
+eyes were in the top of my head. It got so I couldn't stand it. We were
+at the Lord's prayer, saying it singsong together, when I had to look up
+again. And there her two eyes were, between the spindles, hunting mine.
+Just then all of us were saying, "Forgive us our trespasses--" I thought
+of it afterward.
+
+When we got up she was turned the other way, but I couldn't help seeing
+her cheeks were red. It was terrible. I wondered if Fedderson would
+notice, though I might have known he wouldn't--not him. He was in too
+much of a hurry to get at his Jacob's-ladder, and then he had to tell me
+for the tenth time what the Inspector'd said that day about getting him
+another light--Kingdom Come, maybe, he said.
+
+I made some excuse or other and got away. Once in the store-room, I sat
+down on my cot and stayed there a long time, feeling queerer than
+anything. I read a chapter in the Bible, I don't know why. After I'd got
+my boots off I sat with them in my hands for as much as an hour, I
+guess, staring at the oil-tank and its lopsided shadow on the wall. I
+tell you, sir, I was shocked. I was only twenty-two remember, and I was
+shocked and horrified.
+
+And when I did turn in, finally, I didn't sleep at all well. Two or
+three times I came to, sitting straight up in bed. Once I got up and
+opened the outer door to have a look. The water was like glass, dim,
+without a breath of wind, and the moon just going down. Over on the
+black shore I made out two lights in a village, like a pair of eyes
+watching. Lonely? My, yes! Lonely and nervous. I had a horror of her,
+sir. The dinghy-boat hung on its davits just there in front of the door,
+and for a minute I had an awful hankering to climb into it, lower away,
+and row off, no matter where. It sounds foolish.
+
+Well, it seemed foolish next morning, with the sun shining and
+everything as usual--Fedderson sucking his pen and wagging his head over
+his eternal "log," and his wife down in the rocker with her head in the
+newspaper, and her breakfast work still waiting. I guess that jarred it
+out of me more than anything else--sight of her slouched down there,
+with her stringy, yellow hair and her dusty apron and the pale back of
+her neck, reading the Society Notes. _Society Notes_! Think of it! For
+the first time since I came to Seven Brothers I wanted to laugh.
+
+I guess I did laugh when I went aloft to clean the lamp and found
+everything so free and breezy, gulls flying high and little whitecaps
+making under a westerly. It was like feeling a big load dropped off your
+shoulders. Fedderson came up with his dust-rag and cocked his head at
+me.
+
+"What's the matter, Ray?" said he.
+
+"Nothing," said I. And then I couldn't help it. "Seems kind of out of
+place for society notes," said I, "out here at Seven Brothers."
+
+He was the other side of the lens, and when he looked at me he had a
+thousand eyes, all sober. For a minute I thought he was going on
+dusting, but then he came out and sat down on a sill.
+
+"Sometimes," said he, "I get to thinking it may be a mite dull for her
+out here. She's pretty young, Ray. Not much more'n a girl, hardly."
+
+"Not much more'n a _girl!_" It gave me a turn, sir, as though I'd seen
+my aunt in short dresses.
+
+"It's a good home for her, though," he went on slow. "I've seen a lot
+worse ashore, Ray. Of course if I could get a shore light----"
+
+"Kingdom Come's a shore light."
+
+He looked at me out of his deep-set eyes, and then he turned them around
+the light-room, where he'd been so long.
+
+"No," said he, wagging his head. "It ain't for such as me."
+
+I never saw so humble a man.
+
+"But look here," he went on, more cheerful. "As I was telling her just
+now, a month from yesterday's our fourth anniversary, and I'm going to
+take her ashore for the day and give her a holiday--new hat and
+everything. A girl wants a mite of excitement now and then, Ray."
+
+There it was again, that "girl." It gave me the fidgets, sir. I had to
+do something about it. It's close quarters for last names in a light,
+and I'd taken to calling him Uncle Matt soon after I came. Now, when I
+was at table that noon I spoke over to where she was standing by the
+stove, getting him another help of chowder.
+
+"I guess I'll have some, too, _Aunt_ Anna," said I, matter of fact.
+
+She never said a word nor gave a sign--just stood there kind of
+round-shouldered, dipping the chowder. And that night at prayers I
+hitched my chair around the table, with its back the other way.
+
+You get awful lazy in a lighthouse, some ways. No matter how much
+tinkering you've got, there's still a lot of time and there's such
+a thing as too much reading. The changes in weather get monotonous,
+too, by and by; the light burns the same on a thick night as it
+does on a fair one. Of course there's the ships, north-bound,
+south-bound--wind-jammers, freighters, passenger-boats full of
+people. In the watches at night you can see their lights go by, and
+wonder what they are, how they're laden, where they'll fetch up,
+and all. I used to do that almost every evening when it was my first
+watch, sitting out on the walk-around up there with my legs hanging
+over the edge and my chin propped on the railing--lazy. The Boston
+boat was the prettiest to see, with her three tiers of port-holes
+lit, like a string of pearls wrapped round and round a woman's
+neck--well away, too, for the ledge must have made a couple of
+hundred fathoms off the Light, like a white dog-tooth of a breaker,
+even on the darkest night.
+
+Well, I was lolling there one night, as I say, watching the Boston boat
+go by, not thinking of anything special, when I heard the door on the
+other side of the tower open and footsteps coming around to me.
+
+By and by I nodded toward the boat and passed the remark that she was
+fetching in uncommon close to-night. No answer. I made nothing of that,
+for oftentimes Fedderson wouldn't answer, and after I'd watched the
+lights crawling on through the dark a spell, just to make conversation I
+said I guessed there'd be a bit of weather before long.
+
+"I've noticed," said I, "when there's weather coming on, and the wind in
+the northeast, you can hear the orchestra playing aboard of her just
+over there. I make it out now. Do you?"
+
+"Yes. Oh--yes--! _I hear it all right!_"
+
+You can imagine I started. It wasn't him, but _her_.
+And there was something in the way she said that speech,
+sir--something--well--unnatural. Like a hungry animal snapping
+at a person's hand.
+
+I turned and looked at her sidewise. She was standing by the railing,
+leaning a little outward, the top of her from the waist picked out
+bright by the lens behind her. I didn't know what in the world to say,
+and yet I had a feeling I ought not to sit there mum.
+
+"I wonder," said I, "what that captain's thinking of, fetching in so
+handy to-night. It's no way. I tell you, if 'twasn't for this light,
+she'd go to work and pile up on the ledge some thick night----"
+
+She turned at that and stared straight into the lens. I didn't like the
+look of her face. Somehow, with its edges cut hard all around and its
+two eyes closed down to slits, like a cat's, it made a kind of mask.
+
+"And then," I went on, uneasy enough--"and then where'd all their music
+be of a sudden, and their goings-on and their singing----"
+
+"And dancing!" She clipped me off so quick it took my breath.
+
+"D-d-dancing?" said I.
+
+"That's dance-music," said she. She was looking at the boat again.
+
+"How do you know?" I felt I had to keep on talking.
+
+Well, sir--she laughed. I looked at her. She had on a shawl of some
+stuff or other that shined in the light; she had it pulled tight around
+her with her two hands in front at her breast, and I saw her shoulders
+swaying in tune.
+
+"How do I _know_?" she cried. Then she laughed again, the same kind of a
+laugh. It was queer, sir, to see her, and to hear her. She turned, as
+quick as that, and leaned toward me. "Don't you know how to dance, Ray?"
+said she.
+
+"N-no," I managed, and I was going to say "_Aunt Anna_," but the thing
+choked in my throat.
+
+I tell you she was looking square at me all the time with her two eyes
+and moving with the music as if she didn't know it. By heavens, sir, it
+came over me of a sudden that she wasn't so bad-looking, after all. I
+guess I must have sounded like a fool.
+
+"You--you see," said I, "she's cleared the rip there now, and the
+music's gone. You--you hear?"
+
+"Yes," said she, turning back slow. "That's where it stops every
+night--night after night--it stops just there--at the rip."
+
+When she spoke again her voice was different. I never heard the like of
+it, thin and taut as a thread. It made me shiver, sir.
+
+"I hate 'em!" That's what she said. "I hate 'em all. I'd like to see 'em
+dead. I'd love to see 'em torn apart on the rocks, night after night. I
+could bathe my hands in their blood, night after night."
+
+And do you know, sir, I saw it with my own eyes, her hands moving in
+each other above the rail. But it was her voice, though. I didn't know
+what to do, or what to say, so I poked my head through the railing and
+looked down at the water. I don't think I'm a coward, sir, but it was
+like a cold--ice-cold--hand, taking hold of my beating heart.
+
+When I looked up finally, she was gone. By and by I went in and had a
+look at the lamp, hardly knowing what I was about. Then, seeing by my
+watch it was time for the old man to come on duty, I started to go
+below. In the Seven Brothers, you understand, the stair goes down in a
+spiral through a well against the south wall and first there's the door
+to the keeper's room and then you come to another, and that's the
+living-room, and then down to the store-room. And at night, if you don't
+carry a lantern, it's as black as the pit.
+
+Well, down I went, sliding my hand along the rail, and as usual I
+stopped to give a rap on the keeper's door, in case he was taking a nap
+after supper. Sometimes he did.
+
+I stood there, blind as a bat, with my mind still up on the walk-around.
+There was no answer to my knock. I hadn't expected any. Just from habit,
+and with my right foot already hanging down for the next step, I reached
+out to give the door one more tap for luck.
+
+Do you know, sir, my hand didn't fetch up on anything. The door had been
+there a second before, and now the door wasn't there. My hand just went
+on going through the dark, on and on, and I didn't seem to have sense or
+power enough to stop it. There didn't seem any air in the well to
+breathe, and my ears were drumming to the surf--that's how scared I was.
+And then my hand touched the flesh of a face, and something in the dark
+said, "Oh!" no louder than a sigh.
+
+Next thing I knew, sir, I was down in the living-room, warm and
+yellow-lit, with Fedderson cocking his head at me across the table,
+where he was at that eternal Jacob's-ladder of his.
+
+"What's the matter, Ray?" said he. "Lord's sake, Ray!"
+
+"Nothing," said I. Then I think I told him I was sick. That night I
+wrote a letter to A.L. Peters, the grain-dealer in Duxbury, asking for a
+job--even though it wouldn't go ashore for a couple of weeks, just the
+writing of it made me feel better.
+
+It's hard to tell you how those two weeks went by. I don't know why, but
+I felt like hiding in a corner all the time. I had to come to meals, but
+I didn't look at her, though, not once, unless it was by accident.
+Fedderson thought I was still ailing and nagged me to death with advice
+and so on. One thing I took care not to do, I can tell you, and that was
+to knock on his door till I'd made certain he wasn't below in the
+living-room--though I was tempted to.
+
+Yes, sir; that's a queer thing, and I wouldn't tell you if I hadn't set
+out to give you the truth. Night after night, stopping there on the
+landing in that black pit, the air gone out of my lungs and the surf
+drumming in my ears and sweat standing cold on my neck--and one hand
+lifting up in the air--God forgive me, sir! Maybe I did wrong not to
+look at her more, drooping about her work in her gingham apron, with her
+hair stringing.
+
+When the Inspector came off with the tender, that time, I told him I
+was through. That's when he took the dislike to me, I guess, for he
+looked at me kind of sneering and said, soft as I was, I'd have to put
+up with it till next relief. And then, said he, there'd be a whole
+house-cleaning at Seven Brothers, because he'd gotten Fedderson the
+berth at Kingdom Come. And with that he slapped the old man on the back.
+
+I wish you could have seen Fedderson, sir. He sat down on my cot as if
+his knees had given 'way. Happy? You'd think he'd be happy, with all his
+dreams come true. Yes, he was happy, beaming all over--for a minute.
+Then, sir, he began to shrivel up. It was like seeing a man cut down in
+his prime before your eyes. He began to wag his head.
+
+"No," said he. "No, no; it's not for such as me. I'm good enough for
+Seven Brothers, and that's all, Mr. Bayliss. That's all."
+
+And for all the Inspector could say, that's what he stuck to. He'd
+figured himself a martyr so many years, nursed that injustice like a
+mother with her first-born, sir; and now in his old age, so to speak,
+they weren't to rob him of it. Fedderson was going to wear out his life
+in a second-class light, and folks would talk--that was his idea. I
+heard him hailing down as the tender was casting off:
+
+"See you to-morrow, Mr. Bayliss. Yep. Coming ashore with the wife for a
+spree. Anniversary. Yep."
+
+But he didn't sound much like a spree. They _had_, robbed him, partly,
+after all. I wondered what _she_ thought about it. I didn't know till
+night. She didn't show up to supper, which Fedderson and I got
+ourselves--had a headache, be said. It was my early watch. I went and
+lit up and came back to read a spell. He was finishing off the
+Jacob's-ladder, and thoughtful, like a man that's lost a treasure. Once
+or twice I caught him looking about the room on the sly. It was
+pathetic, sir.
+
+Going up the second time, I stepped out on the walk-around to have a
+look at things. She was there on the seaward side, wrapped in that silky
+thing. A fair sea was running across the ledge and it was coming on a
+little thick--not too thick. Off to the right the Boston boat was
+blowing, _whroom-whroom!_ Creeping up on us, quarter-speed. There was
+another fellow behind her, and a fisherman's conch farther offshore.
+
+I don't know why, but I stopped beside her and leaned on the rail. She
+didn't appear to notice me, one way or another. We stood and we stood,
+listening to the whistles, and the longer we stood the more it got on my
+nerves, her not noticing me. I suppose she'd been too much on my mind
+lately. I began to be put out. I scraped my feet. I coughed. By and by I
+said out loud:
+
+"Look here, I guess I better get out the fog-horn and give those fellows
+a toot."
+
+"Why?" said she, without moving her head--calm as that.
+
+"_Why?_" It gave me a turn, sir. For a minute I stared at her. "Why?
+Because if she don't pick up this light before very many minutes she'll
+be too close in to wear--tide'll have her on the rocks--that's why!"
+
+I couldn't see her face, but I could see one of her silk shoulders lift
+a little, like a shrug. And there I kept on staring at her, a dumb one,
+sure enough. I know what brought me to was hearing the Boston boat's
+three sharp toots as she picked up the light--mad as anything--and swung
+her helm a-port. I turned away from her, sweat stringing down my face,
+and walked around to the door. It was just as well, too, for the
+feed-pipe was plugged in the lamp and the wicks were popping. She'd have
+been out in another five minutes, sir.
+
+When I'd finished, I saw that woman standing in the doorway. Her eyes
+were bright. I had a horror of her, sir, a living horror.
+
+"If only the light had been out," said she, low and sweet.
+
+"God forgive you," said I. "You don't know what you're saying."
+
+She went down the stair into the well, winding out of sight, and as long
+as I could see her, her eyes were watching mine. When I went, myself,
+after a few minutes, she was waiting for me on that first landing,
+standing still in the dark. She took hold of my hand, though I tried to
+get it away.
+
+"Good-by," said she in my ear.
+
+"Good-by?" said I. I didn't understand.
+
+"You heard what he said to-day--about Kingdom Come? Be it so--on his own
+head. I'll never come back here. Once I set foot ashore--I've got
+friends in Brightonboro, Ray."
+
+I got away from her and started on down. But I stopped. "Brightonboro?"
+I whispered back. "Why do you tell _me_?" My throat was raw to the
+words, like a sore.
+
+"So you'd know," said she.
+
+Well, sir, I saw them off next morning, down that new Jacob's-ladder
+into the dinghy-boat, her in a dress of blue velvet and him in his best
+cutaway and derby--rowing away, smaller and smaller, the two of them.
+And then I went back and sat on my cot, leaving the door open and the
+ladder still hanging down the wall, along with the boat-falls.
+
+I don't know whether it was relief, or what. I suppose I must have been
+worked up even more than I'd thought those past weeks, for now it was
+all over I was like a rag. I got down on my knees, sir, and prayed to
+God for the salvation of my soul, and when I got up and climbed to the
+living-room it was half past twelve by the clock. There was rain on the
+windows and the sea was running blue-black under the sun. I'd sat there
+all that time not knowing there was a squall.
+
+It was funny; the glass stood high, but those black squalls kept coming
+and going all afternoon, while I was at work up in the light-room. And I
+worked hard, to keep myself busy. First thing I knew it was five, and no
+sign of the boat yet. It began to get dim and kind of purplish-gray over
+the land. The sun was down. I lit up, made everything snug, and got out
+the night-glasses to have another look for that boat. He'd said he
+intended to get back before five. No sign. And then, standing there, it
+came over me that of course he wouldn't be coming off--he'd be hunting
+_her_, poor old fool. It looked like I had to stand two men's watches
+that night.
+
+Never mind. I felt like myself again, even if I hadn't had any dinner or
+supper. Pride came to me that night on the walk-around, watching the
+boats go by--little boats, big boats, the Boston boat with all her
+pearls and her dance-music. They couldn't see me; they didn't know who I
+was; but to the last of them, they depended on _me_. They say a man must
+be born again. Well, I was born again. I breathed deep in the wind.
+
+Dawn broke hard and red as a dying coal. I put out the light and started
+to go below. Born again; yes, sir. I felt so good I whistled in the
+well, and when I came to the first door on the stair I reached out in
+the dark to give it a rap for luck. And then, sir, the hair prickled all
+over my scalp, when I found my hand just going on and on through the
+air, the same as it had gone once before, and all of a sudden I wanted
+to yell, because I thought I was going to touch flesh. It's funny what
+their just forgetting to close their door did to me, isn't it?
+
+Well, I reached for the latch and pulled it to with a bang and ran down
+as if a ghost was after me. I got up some coffee and bread and bacon for
+breakfast. I drank the coffee. But somehow I couldn't eat, all along of
+that open door. The light in the room was blood. I got to thinking. I
+thought how she'd talked about those men, women, and children on the
+rocks, and how she'd made to bathe her hands over the rail. I almost
+jumped out of my chair then; it seemed for a wink she was there beside
+the stove watching me with that queer half-smile--really, I seemed to
+see her for a flash across the red table-cloth in the red light of dawn.
+
+"Look here!" said I to myself, sharp enough; and then I gave myself a
+good laugh and went below. There I took a look out of the door, which
+was still open, with the ladder hanging down. I made sure to see the
+poor old fool come pulling around the point before very long now.
+
+My boots were hurting a little, and, taking them off, I lay down on the
+cot to rest, and somehow I went to sleep. I had horrible dreams. I saw
+her again standing in that blood-red kitchen, and she seemed to be
+washing her hands, and the surf on the ledge was whining up the tower,
+louder and louder all the time, and what it whined was, "Night after
+night--night after night." What woke me was cold water in my face.
+
+The store-room was in gloom. That scared me at first; I thought night
+had come, and remembered the light. But then I saw the gloom was of a
+storm. The floor was shining wet, and the water in my face was spray,
+flung up through the open door. When I ran to close it, it almost made
+me dizzy to see the gray-and-white breakers marching past. The land was
+gone; the sky shut down heavy overhead; there was a piece of wreckage on
+the back of a swell, and the Jacob's-ladder was carried clean away. How
+that sea had picked up so quick I can't think. I looked at my watch and
+it wasn't four in the afternoon yet.
+
+When I closed the door, sir, it was almost dark in the store-room. I'd
+never been in the Light before in a gale of wind. I wondered why I was
+shivering so, till I found it was the floor below me shivering, and the
+walls and stair. Horrible crunchings and grindings ran away up the
+tower, and now and then there was a great thud somewhere, like a
+cannon-shot in a cave. I tell you, sir, I was alone, and I was in a
+mortal fright for a minute or so. And yet I had to get myself together.
+There was the light up there not tended to, and an early dark coming on
+and a heavy night and all, and I had to go. And I had to pass that door.
+
+You'll say it's foolish, sir, and maybe it _was_ foolish. Maybe it was
+because I hadn't eaten. But I began thinking of that door up there the
+minute I set foot on the stair, and all the way up through that howling
+dark well I dreaded to pass it. I told myself I wouldn't stop. I didn't
+stop. I felt the landing underfoot and I went on, four steps, five--and
+then I couldn't. I turned and went back. I put out my hand and it went
+on into nothing. That door, sir, was open again.
+
+I left it be; I went on up to the light-room and set to work. It was
+Bedlam there, sir, screeching Bedlam, but I took no notice. I kept my
+eyes down. I trimmed those seven wicks, sir, as neat as ever they were
+trimmed; I polished the brass till it shone, and I dusted the lens. It
+wasn't till that was done that I let myself look back to see who it was
+standing there, half out of sight in the well. It was her, sir.
+
+"Where'd you come from?" I asked. I remember my voice was sharp.
+
+"Up Jacob's-ladder," said she, and hers was like the syrup of flowers.
+
+I shook my head. I was savage, sir. "The ladder's carried away."
+
+"I cast it off," said she, with a smile.
+
+"Then," said I, "you must have come while I was asleep." Another thought
+came on me heavy as a ton of lead. "And where's _he_?" said I. "Where's
+the boat?"
+
+"He's drowned," said she, as easy as that. "And I let the boat go
+adrift. You wouldn't hear me when I called."
+
+"But look here," said I. "If you came through the store-room, why didn't
+you wake me up? Tell me that!" It sounds foolish enough, me standing
+like a lawyer in court, trying to prove she _couldn't_ be there.
+
+She didn't answer for a moment. I guess she sighed, though I couldn't
+hear for the gale, and her eyes grew soft, sir, so soft.
+
+"I couldn't," said she. "You looked so peaceful--dear one."
+
+My cheeks and neck went hot, sir, as if a warm iron was laid on them. I
+didn't know what to say. I began to stammer, "What do you mean--" but
+she was going back down the stair, out of sight. My God sir, and I used
+not to think she was good-looking!
+
+I started to follow her. I wanted to know what she meant. Then I said to
+myself, "If I don't go--if I wait here--she'll come back." And I went to
+the weather side and stood looking out of the window. Not that there was
+much to see. It was growing dark, and the Seven Brothers looked like the
+mane of a running horse, a great, vast, white horse running into the
+wind. The air was a-welter with it. I caught one peep of a fisherman,
+lying down flat trying to weather the ledge, and I said, "God help them
+all to-night," and then I went hot at sound of that "God."
+
+I was right about her, though. She was back again. I wanted her to speak
+first, before I turned, but she wouldn't. I didn't hear her go out; I
+didn't know what she was up to till I saw her coming outside on the
+walk-around, drenched wet already. I pounded on the glass for her to
+come in and not be a fool; if she heard she gave no sign of it.
+
+There she stood, and there I stood watching her. Lord, sir--was it just
+that I'd never had eyes to see? Or are there women who bloom? Her
+clothes were shining on her, like a carving, and her hair was let down
+like a golden curtain tossing and streaming in the gale, and there she
+stood with her lips half open, drinking, and her eyes half closed,
+gazing straight away over the Seven Brothers, and her shoulders swaying,
+as if in tune with the wind and water and all the ruin. And when I
+looked at her hands over the rail, sir, they were moving in each other
+as if they bathed, and then I remembered, sir.
+
+A cold horror took me. I knew now why she had come back again. She
+wasn't a woman--she was a devil. I turned my back on her. I said to
+myself: "It's time to light up. You've got to light up"--like that, over
+and over, out loud. My hand was shivering so I could hardly find a
+match; and when I scratched it, it only flared a second and then went
+out in the back draught from the open door. She was standing in the
+doorway, looking at me. It's queer, sir, but I felt like a child caught
+in mischief.
+
+"I--I--was going to light up," I managed to say, finally.
+
+"Why?" said she. No, I can't say it as she did.
+
+"_Why?_" said I. "_My God!_"
+
+She came nearer, laughing, as if with pity, low, you know. "Your God?
+And who is your God? What is God? What is anything on a night like
+this?"
+
+I drew back from her. All I could say anything about was the light.
+
+"Why not the dark?" said she. "Dark is softer than
+light--tenderer--dearer than light. From the dark up here, away up here
+in the wind and storm, we can watch the ships go by, you and I. And you
+love me so. You've loved me so long, Ray."
+
+"I never have!" I struck out at her. "I don't! I don't!"
+
+Her voice was lower than ever, but there was the same laughing pity in
+it. "Oh yes, you have." And she was near me again.
+
+"I have?" I yelled. "I'll show you! I'll show you if I have!"
+
+I got another match, sir, and scratched it on the brass. I gave it to
+the first wick, the little wick that's inside all the others. It bloomed
+like a yellow flower. "I _have_?" I yelled, and gave it to the next.
+
+Then there was a shadow, and I saw she was leaning beside me, her two
+elbows on the brass, her two arms stretched out above the wicks, her
+bare forearms and wrists and hands. I gave a gasp:
+
+"Take care! You'll burn them! For God's sake----"
+
+She didn't move or speak. The match burned my fingers and went out, and
+all I could do was stare at those arms of hers, helpless. I'd never
+noticed her arms before. They were rounded and graceful and covered with
+a soft down, like a breath of gold. Then I heard her speaking close to
+my ear.
+
+"Pretty arms," she said. "Pretty arms!"
+
+I turned. Her eyes were fixed on mine. They seemed heavy, as if with
+sleep, and yet between their lids they were two wells, deep and deep,
+and as if they held all the things I'd ever thought or dreamed in them.
+I looked away from them, at her lips. Her lips were red as poppies,
+heavy with redness. They moved, and I heard them speaking:
+
+"Poor boy, you love me so, and you want to kiss me--don't you?"
+
+"No," said I. But I couldn't turn around. I looked at her hair. I'd
+always thought it was stringy hair. Some hair curls naturally with damp,
+they say, and perhaps that was it, for there were pearls of wet on it,
+and it was thick and shimmering around her face, making soft shadows by
+the temples. There was green in it, queer strands of green like braids.
+
+"What is it?" said I.
+
+"Nothing but weed," said she, with that slow, sleepy smile.
+
+Somehow or other I felt calmer than I had any time. "Look here," said I.
+"I'm going to light this lamp." I took out a match, scratched it, and
+touched the third wick. The flame ran around, bigger than the other two
+together. But still her arms hung there. I bit my lip. "By God, I will!"
+said I to myself, and I lit the fourth.
+
+It was fierce, sir, fierce! And yet those arms never trembled. I had to
+look around at her. Her eyes were still looking into mine, so deep and
+deep, and her red lips were still smiling with that queer, sleepy droop;
+the only thing was that tears were raining down her cheeks--big, glowing
+round, jewel tears. It wasn't human, sir. It was like a dream.
+
+"Pretty arms," she sighed, and then, as if those words had broken
+something in her heart, there came a great sob bursting from her lips.
+To hear it drove me mad. I reached to drag her away, but she was too
+quick, sir; she cringed from me and slipped out from between my hands.
+It was like she faded away, sir, and went down in a bundle, nursing her
+poor arms and mourning over them with those terrible, broken sobs.
+
+The sound of them took the manhood out of me--you'd have been the same,
+sir. I knelt down beside her on the floor and covered my face.
+
+"Please!" I moaned. "Please! Please!" That's all I could say. I wanted
+her to forgive me. I reached out a hand, blind, for forgiveness, and I
+couldn't find her anywhere. I had hurt her so, and she was afraid of
+me, of _me_, sir, who loved her so deep it drove me crazy.
+
+I could see her down the stair, though it was dim and my eyes were
+filled with tears. I stumbled after her, crying, "Please! Please!" The
+little wicks I'd lit were blowing in the wind from the door and smoking
+the glass beside them black. One went out. I pleaded with them, the same
+as I would plead with a human being. I said I'd be back in a second. I
+promised. And I went on down the stair, crying like a baby because I'd
+hurt her, and she was afraid of me--of _me_, sir.
+
+She had gone into her room. The door was closed against me and I could
+hear her sobbing beyond it, broken-hearted. My heart was broken too. I
+beat on the door with my palms. I begged her to forgive me. I told her I
+loved her. And all the answer was that sobbing in the dark.
+
+And then I lifted the latch and went in, groping, pleading.
+"Dearest--please! Because I love you!"
+
+I heard her speak down near the floor. There wasn't any anger in her
+voice; nothing but sadness and despair.
+
+"No," said she. "You don't love me, Ray. You never have."
+
+"I do! I have!"
+
+"No, no," said she, as if she was tired out.
+
+"Where are you?" I was groping for her. I thought, and lit a match. She
+had got to the door and was standing there as if ready to fly. I went
+toward her, and she made me stop. She took my breath away. "I hurt your
+arms," said I, in a dream.
+
+"No," said she, hardly moving her lips. She held them out to the match's
+light for me to look and there was never a scar on them--not even that
+soft, golden down was singed, sir. "You can't hurt my body," said she,
+sad as anything. "Only my heart, Ray; my poor heart."
+
+I tell you again, she took my breath away. I lit another match. "How can
+you be so beautiful?" I wondered.
+
+She answered in riddles--but oh, the sadness of her, sir.
+
+"Because," said she, "I've always so wanted to be."
+
+"How come your eyes so heavy?" said I.
+
+"Because I've seen so many things I never dreamed of," said she.
+
+"How come your hair so thick?"
+
+"It's the seaweed makes it thick," said she smiling queer, queer.
+
+"How come seaweed there?"
+
+"Out of the bottom of the sea."
+
+She talked in riddles, but it was like poetry to hear her, or a song.
+
+"How come your lips so red?" said I.
+
+"Because they've wanted so long to be kissed."
+
+Fire was on me, sir. I reached out to catch her, but she was gone, out
+of the door and down the stair. I followed, stumbling. I must have
+tripped on the turn, for I remember going through the air and fetching
+up with a crash, and I didn't know anything for a spell--how long I
+can't say. When I came to, she was there, somewhere, bending over me,
+crooning, "My love--my love--" under her breath like, a song.
+
+But then when I got up, she was not where my arms went; she was down the
+stair again, just ahead of me. I followed her. I was tottering and dizzy
+and full of pain. I tried to catch up with her in the dark of the
+store-room, but she was too quick for me, sir, always a little too quick
+for me. Oh, she was cruel to me, sir. I kept bumping against things,
+hurting myself still worse, and it was cold and wet and a horrible noise
+all the while, sir; and then, sir, I found the door was open, and a sea
+had parted the hinges.
+
+I don't know how it all went, sir. I'd tell you if I could, but it's all
+so blurred--sometimes it seems more like a dream. I couldn't find her
+any more; I couldn't hear her; I went all over, everywhere. Once, I
+remember, I found myself hanging out of that door between the davits,
+looking down into those big black seas and crying like a baby. It's all
+riddles and blur. I can't seem to tell you much, sir. It was all--all--I
+don't know.
+
+I was talking to somebody else--not her. It was the Inspector. I hardly
+knew it was the Inspector. His face was as gray as a blanket, and his
+eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were twisted. His left wrist hung
+down, awkward. It was broken coming aboard the Light in that sea. Yes,
+we were in the living-room. Yes, sir, it was daylight--gray daylight. I
+tell you, sir, the man looked crazy to me. He was waving his good arm
+toward the weather windows, and what he was saying, over and over, was
+this:
+
+"_Look what you done, damn you! Look what you done_!"
+
+And what I was saying was this:
+
+"_I've lost her_!"
+
+I didn't pay any attention to him, nor him to me. By and by he did,
+though. He stopped his talking all of a sudden, and his eyes looked like
+the devil's eyes. He put them up close to mine. He grabbed my arm with
+his good hand, and I cried, I was so weak.
+
+"Johnson," said he, "is that it? By the living God--if you got a woman
+out here, Johnson!"
+
+"No," said I. "I've lost her."
+
+"What do you mean--lost her?"
+
+"It was dark," said I--and it's funny how my head was clearing up--"and
+the door was open--the store-room door--and I was after her--and I guess
+she stumbled, maybe--and I lost her."
+
+"Johnson," said he, "what do you mean? You sound crazy--downright crazy.
+Who?"
+
+"Her," said I. "Fedderson's wife."
+
+"_Who?_"
+
+"Her," said I. And with that he gave my arm another jerk.
+
+"Listen," said he, like a tiger. "Don't try that on me. It won't do any
+good--that kind of lies--not where _you're_ going to. Fedderson and his
+wife, too--the both of 'em's drowned deader 'n a door-nail."
+
+"I know," said I, nodding my head. I was so calm it made him wild.
+
+"You're crazy! Crazy as a loon, Johnson!" And he was chewing his lip
+red. "I know, because it was me that found the old man laying on Back
+Water Flats yesterday morning--_me!_ And she'd been with him in the
+boat, too, because he had a piece of her jacket tore off, tangled in his
+arm."
+
+"I know," said I, nodding again, like that.
+
+"You know _what_, you _crazy, murdering fool_?" Those were his words to
+me, sir.
+
+"I know," said I, "what I know."
+
+"And _I_ know," said he, "what _I_ know."
+
+And there you are, sir. He's Inspector. I'm--nobody.
+
+
+
+At the Gate
+
+BY MYLA JO CLOSSER
+
+     From the _Century Magazine_. By permission of the Century Company
+     and Myla J. Closser.
+
+
+A shaggy Airedale scented his way along the highroad. He had not been
+there before, but he was guided by the trail of his brethren who had
+preceded him. He had gone unwillingly upon this journey, yet with the
+perfect training of dogs he had accepted it without complaint. The path
+had been lonely, and his heart would have failed him, traveling as he
+must without his people, had not these traces of countless dogs before
+him promised companionship of a sort at the end of the road.
+
+The landscape had appeared arid at first, for the translation from
+recent agony into freedom from pain had been so numbing in its swiftness
+that it was some time before he could fully appreciate the pleasant
+dog-country through which he was passing. There were woods with leaves
+upon the ground through which to scurry, long grassy slopes for extended
+runs, and lakes into which he might plunge for sticks and bring them
+back to--But he did not complete his thought, for the boy was not with
+him. A little wave of homesickness possessed him.
+
+It made his mind easier to see far ahead a great gate as high as the
+heavens, wide enough for all. He understood that only man built such
+barriers and by straining his eyes he fancied he could discern humans
+passing through to whatever lay beyond. He broke into a run that he
+might the more quickly gain this inclosure made beautiful by men and
+women; but his thoughts outran his pace, and he remembered that he had
+left the family behind, and again this lovely new compound became not
+perfect, since it would lack the family.
+
+The scent of the dogs grew very strong now, and coming nearer, he
+discovered, to his astonishment that of the myriads of those who had
+arrived ahead of him thousands were still gathered on the outside of the
+portal. They sat in a wide circle spreading out on each side of the
+entrance, big, little, curly, handsome, mongrel, thoroughbred dogs of
+every age, complexion, and personality. All were apparently waiting for
+something, someone, and at the pad of the Airedale's feet on the hard
+road they arose and looked in his direction.
+
+That the interest passed as soon as they discovered the new-comer to be
+a dog puzzled him. In his former dwelling-place a four-footed brother
+was greeted with enthusiasm when he was a friend, with suspicious
+diplomacy when a stranger, and with sharp reproof when an enemy; but
+never had he been utterly ignored.
+
+He remembered something that he had read many times on great buildings
+with lofty entrances. "Dogs not admitted," the signs had said, and he
+feared this might be the reason for the waiting circle outside the gate.
+It might be that this noble portal stood as the dividing-line between
+mere dogs and humans. But he had been a member of the family, romping
+with them in the living-room, sitting at meals with them in the
+dining-room, going upstairs at night with them, and the thought that he
+was to be "kept out" would be unendurable.
+
+He despised the passive dogs. They should be treating a barrier after
+the fashion of their old country, leaping against it, barking, and
+scratching the nicely painted door. He bounded up the last little hill
+to set them an example, for he was still full of the rebellion of the
+world; but he found no door to leap against. He could see beyond the
+entrance dear masses of people, yet no dog crossed the threshold. They
+continued in their patient ring, their gaze upon the winding road.
+
+He now advanced cautiously to examine the gate. It occurred to him that
+it must be fly-time in this region, and he did not wish to make himself
+ridiculous before all these strangers by trying to bolt through an
+invisible mesh like the one that had baffled him when he was a little
+chap. Yet there were no screens, and despair entered his soul. What
+bitter punishment these poor beasts must have suffered before they
+learned to stay on this side the arch that led to human beings! What
+had they done on earth to merit this? Stolen bones troubled his
+conscience, runaway days, sleeping in the best chair until the key
+clicked in the lock. These were sins.
+
+At that moment an English bull-terrier, white, with liver-colored spots
+and a jaunty manner, approached him, snuffling in a friendly way. No
+sooner had the bull-terrier smelt his collar than he fell to expressing
+his joy at meeting him. The Airedale's reserve was quite thawed by this
+welcome, though he did not know just what to make of it.
+
+"I know you! I know you!" exclaimed the bull-terrier, adding
+inconsequently, "What's your name?"
+
+"Tam o'Shanter. They call me Tammy," was the answer, with a pardonable
+break in the voice.
+
+"I know them," said the bull-terrier. "Nice folks."
+
+"Best ever," said the Airedale, trying to be nonchalant, and scratching
+a flea which was not there. "I don't remember you. When did you know
+them?"
+
+"About fourteen tags ago, when they were first married. We keep track of
+time here by the license-tags. I had four."
+
+"This is my first and only one. You were before my time, I guess." He
+felt young and shy.
+
+"Come for a walk, and tell me all about them," was his new friend's
+invitation.
+
+"Aren't we allowed in there?" asked Tam, looking toward the gate.
+
+"Sure. You can go in whenever you want to. Some of us do at first, but
+we don't stay."
+
+"Like it better outside?"
+
+"No, no; it isn't that."
+
+"Then why are all you fellows hanging around here? Any old dog can see
+it's better beyond the arch."
+
+"You see, we're waiting for our folks to come."
+
+The Airedale grasped it at once, and nodded understandingly.
+
+"I felt that way when I came along the road. It wouldn't be what it's
+supposed to be without them. It wouldn't be the perfect place."
+
+"Not to us," said the bull-terrier.
+
+"Fine! I've stolen bones, but it must be that I have been forgiven, if
+I'm to see them here again. It's the great good place all right. But
+look here," he added as a new thought struck him, "do they wait for us?"
+
+The older inhabitant coughed in slight embarrassment.
+
+"The humans couldn't do that very well. It wouldn't be the thing to have
+them hang around outside for just a dog--not dignified."
+
+"Quite right," agreed Tam. "I'm glad they go straight to their mansions.
+I'd--I'd hate to have them missing me as I am missing them." He sighed.
+"But, then, they wouldn't have to wait so long."
+
+"Oh, well, they're getting on. Don't be discouraged," comforted the
+terrier. "And in the meantime it's like a big hotel in summer--watching
+the new arrivals. See, there is something doing now."
+
+All the dogs were aroused to excitement by a little figure making its
+way uncertainly up the last slope. Half of them started to meet it,
+crowding about in a loving, eager pack.
+
+"Look out; don't scare it," cautioned the older animals, while word was
+passed to those farthest from the gate: "Quick! Quick! A baby's come!"
+
+Before they had entirely assembled, however, a gaunt yellow hound pushed
+through the crowd, gave one sniff at the small child, and with a yelp of
+joy crouched at its feet. The baby embraced the hound in recognition,
+and the two moved toward the gate. Just outside the hound stopped to
+speak to an aristocratic St. Bernard who had been friendly:
+
+"Sorry to leave you, old fellow," he said, "but I'm going in to watch
+over the kid. You see, I'm all she has up here."
+
+The bull-terrier looked at the Airedale for appreciation.
+
+"That's the way we do it," he said proudly.
+
+"Yes, but--" the Airedale put his head on one side in perplexity.
+
+"Yes, but what?" asked the guide.
+
+"The dogs that don't have any people--the nobodies' dogs?"
+
+"That's the best of all. Oh, everything is thought out here. Crouch
+down,--you must be tired,--and watch," said the bull-terrier.
+
+Soon they spied another small form making the turn in the road. He wore
+a Boy Scout's uniform, but he was a little fearful, for all that, so new
+was this adventure. The dogs rose again and snuffled, but the better
+groomed of the circle held back, and in their place a pack of odds and
+ends of the company ran down to meet him. The Boy Scout was reassured by
+their friendly attitude, and after petting them impartially, he chose an
+old-fashioned black and tan, and the two passed in.
+
+Tam looked questioningly.
+
+"They didn't know each other!" he exclaimed.
+
+"But they've always wanted to. That's one of the boys who used to beg
+for a dog, but his father wouldn't let him have one. So all our strays
+wait for just such little fellows to come along. Every boy gets a dog,
+and every dog gets a master."
+
+"I expect the boy's father would like to know that now," commented the
+Airedale. "No doubt he thinks quite often, 'I wish I'd let him have a
+dog.'"
+
+The bull-terrier laughed.
+
+"You're pretty near the earth yet, aren't you?"
+
+Tam admitted it.
+
+"I've a lot of sympathy with fathers and with boys, having them both in
+the family, and a mother as well."
+
+The bull-terrier leaped up in astonishment.
+
+"You don't mean to say they keep a boy?"
+
+"Sure; greatest boy on earth. Ten this year."
+
+"Well, well, this is news! I wish they'd kept a boy when I was there."
+
+The Airedale looked at his new friend intently.
+
+"See here, who are you?" he demanded.
+
+But the other hurried on:
+
+"I used to run away from them just to play with a boy. They'd punish me,
+and I always wanted to tell them it was their fault for not getting
+one."
+
+"Who are you, anyway?" repeated Tam. "Talking all this interest in me,
+too. Whose dog _were_ you?"
+
+"You've already guessed. I see it in your quivering snout. I'm the old
+dog that had to leave them about ten years ago."
+
+"Their old dog Bully?"
+
+"Yes, I'm Bully." They nosed each other with deeper affection, then
+strolled about the glades shoulder to shoulder. Bully the more eagerly
+pressed for news. "Tell me, how are they getting along?"
+
+"Very well indeed; they've paid for the house."
+
+"I--I suppose you occupy the kennel?"
+
+"No. They said they couldn't stand it to see another dog in your old
+place."
+
+Bully stopped to howl gently.
+
+"That touches me. It's generous in you to tell it. To think they missed
+me!"
+
+For a little while they went on in silence, but as evening fell, and
+the light from the golden streets inside of the city gave the only glow
+to the scene, Bully grew nervous and suggested that they go back.
+
+"We can't see so well at night, and I like to be pretty close to the
+path, especially toward morning."
+
+Tam assented.
+
+"And I will point them out. You might not know them just at first."
+
+"Oh, we know them. Sometimes the babies have so grown up they're rather
+hazy in their recollection of how we look. They think we're bigger than
+we are; but you can't fool us dogs."
+
+"It's understood," Tam cunningly arranged, "that when he or she arrives
+you'll sort of make them feel at home while I wait for the boy?"
+
+"That's the best plan," assented Bully, kindly. "And if by any chance
+the little fellow should come first,--there's been a lot of them this
+summer--of course you'll introduce me?"
+
+"I shall be proud to do it."
+
+And so with muzzles sunk between their paws, and with their eyes
+straining down the pilgrims' road, they wait outside the gate.
+
+
+
+
+Ligeia
+
+BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
+
+     And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
+     mystery of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will
+     pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not
+     yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only
+     through the weakness of his feeble will.--_Joseph Glanvill._
+
+
+I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I
+first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since
+elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I
+cannot _now_ bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the
+character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast
+of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low
+musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and
+stealthily progressive, that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I
+believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large, old,
+decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family--I have surely heard her
+speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia!
+Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than all else adapted to
+deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by that sweet word
+alone--by Ligeia--that I bring before mine eyes in fancy the image of
+her who is no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon
+me that I have _never known_ the paternal name of her who was my friend
+and my bethrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and finally
+the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia?
+or was it a test of my strength of affection, that I should institute no
+inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own--a
+wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion?
+I but indistinctly recall the fact itself--what wonder that I have
+utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it?
+And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled _Romance_--if ever
+she, the wan misty-winged _Ashtophet_ of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as
+they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over
+mine.
+
+There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails me not. It
+is the _person_ of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat
+slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain
+attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease of her demeanor, or the
+incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came
+and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into
+my closed study, save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she
+placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden
+ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream--an airy and
+spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which
+hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her
+features were not of that regular mold which we have been falsely taught
+to worship in the classical labors of the heathen. "There is no exquisite
+beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and
+_genera_ of beauty, "without some _strangeness_ in the proportion."
+Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic
+regularity--although I perceived that her loveliness was indeed
+"exquisite," and felt that there was much of "strangeness" pervading it,
+yet I have tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home my
+own perception of "the strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and
+pale forehead--it was faultless--how cold indeed that word when applied
+to a majesty so divine!--the skin rivaling the purest ivory, the
+commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above
+the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant, and
+naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric
+epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the
+nose--and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I
+beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of
+surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the
+same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded
+the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly--the
+magnificent turn of the short upper lip--the soft, voluptuous slumber of
+the under--the dimples which sported, and the color which spoke--the
+teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling, every ray of
+the holy light which fell upon them in her serene and placid yet most
+exultingly radiant of all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the
+chin--and, here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, the softness
+and the majesty, the fullness and the spirituality, of the Greek--the
+contour which the god Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the
+son of the Athenian. And then I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.
+
+For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might have been,
+too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the secret to which Lord
+Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger than the ordinary
+eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the fullest of the
+gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at
+intervals--in moments of intense excitement--that this peculiarity
+became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was
+her beauty--in my heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps--the beauty of
+beings either above or apart from the earth--the beauty of the fabulous
+Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black,
+and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows,
+slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The "strangeness,"
+however, which I found in the eyes was of a nature distinct from the
+formation, or the color, or the brilliancy of the features, and must,
+after all, be referred to the _expression_. Ah, word of no meaning!
+behind whose vast latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so
+much of the spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for
+long hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, through the whole of a
+midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What was it--that something
+more profound than the well of Democritus--which lay far within the
+pupils of my beloved? What _was_ it? I was possessed with a passion to
+discover. Those eyes! those large, those shining, those divine orbs!
+they became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of
+astrologers.
+
+There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of the
+science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the fact--never, I
+believe, noticed in the schools--than in our endeavors to recall to
+memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves _upon the very
+verge_ of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember. And
+thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia's eyes, have I
+felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression--felt it
+approaching--yet not quite be mine--and so at length entirely depart!
+And (strange, oh, strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the commonest
+objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression. I
+mean to say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia's beauty passed
+into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many
+existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt always
+around, within me, by her large and luminous orbs. Yet not the more
+could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I
+recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly
+growing vine--in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis,
+a stream of running water. I have felt it in the ocean--in the falling
+of a meteor. I have felt it in the glances of unusually aged people. And
+there are one or two stars in heaven (one especially, a star of the
+sixth magnitude, double and changeable, to be found near the large star
+in Lyra) in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the
+feeling. I have been filled with it by certain sounds from stringed
+instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from books. Among
+innumerable other instances, I well remember something in a volume of
+Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely from its quaintness--who shall
+say?) never failed to inspire me with the sentiment: "And the will
+therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will,
+with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by
+nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto
+death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
+
+Length of years and subsequent reflection have enabled me to trace,
+indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the English
+moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An _intensity_ in
+thought, action, or speech was possibly, in her, a result, or at least
+an index, of that gigantic volition which, during our long intercourse,
+failed to give other and more immediate evidence of its existence. Of
+all the women whom I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the
+ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous
+vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate,
+save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so
+delighted and appalled me,--by the almost magical melody, modulation,
+distinctness, and placidity of her very low voice,--and by the fierce
+energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of
+utterance) of the wild words which she habitually uttered.
+
+I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense--such as I have
+never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she deeply
+proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard to the
+modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault. Indeed upon
+any theme of the most admired because simply the most abstruse of the
+boasted erudition of the Academy, have I _ever_ found Ligeia at fault?
+How singularly--how thrillingly, this one point in the nature of my wife
+has forced itself, at this late period only, upon my attention! I said
+her knowledge was such as I have never known in woman--but where
+breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, _all_ the wide
+areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw not then what
+I now clearly perceive that the acquisitions of Ligeia were gigantic,
+were astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy
+to resign myself, with a child-like confidence, to her guidance through
+the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation at which I was most
+busily occupied during the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast
+a triumph--with how vivid a delight--with how much of all that is
+ethereal in hope did I _feel_, as she bent over me in studies but little
+sought--but less known,--that delicious vista by slow degrees expanding
+before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I might at
+length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely precious not to
+be forbidden.
+
+How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some
+years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to themselves
+and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted. Her
+presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly luminous the many
+mysteries of the transcendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting
+the radiant luster of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew duller
+than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and less frequently
+upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed
+with a too--too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers became of the
+transparent waxen hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the lofty
+forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle
+emotion. I saw that she must die--and I struggled desperately in spirit
+with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the passionate wife were, to
+my astonishment, even more energetic than my own. There had been much in
+her stern nature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would
+have come without its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to convey
+any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled
+with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I would
+have soothed--I would have reasoned; but in the intensity of her wild
+desire for life--for life--_but_ for life--solace and reason were alike
+the uttermost of folly. Yet not until the last instance, amid the most
+convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shaken the external
+placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew more gentle--grew more
+low--yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild meaning of the quietly
+uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkened, entranced, to a melody
+more than mortal--to assumptions and aspirations which mortality had
+never before known.
+
+That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have been
+easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have reigned no
+ordinary passion. But in death only was I fully impressed with the
+strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand, would she
+pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate
+devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by
+such confessions?--how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal
+of my beloved in the hour of my making them? But upon this subject I
+cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than
+womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily
+bestowed, I at length, recognized the principle of her longing, with so
+wildly earnest a desire, for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly
+away. It is this wild longing--it is this eager vehemence of desire for
+life--_but_ for life--that I have no power to portray--no utterance
+capable of expressing.
+
+At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,
+peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses composed by
+herself not many days before. I obeyed her. They were these:--
+
+    Lo! 'tis a gala night
+      Within the lonesome latter years!
+    An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
+      In veils, and drowned in tears,
+    Sit in a theatre, to see
+      A play of hopes and fears,
+    While the orchestra breathes fitfully
+      The music of the spheres.
+
+    Mimes, in the form of God on high,
+      Mutter and mumble low,
+    And hither and thither fly;
+      Mere puppets they, who come and go
+    At bidding of vast formless things
+      That shift the scenery to and fro,
+    Flapping from out their condor wings
+      Invisible Wo!
+
+    That motley drama!--oh, be sure
+      It shall not be forgot!
+    With its Phantom chased for evermore
+      By a crowd that seize it not,
+    Through a circle that ever returneth in
+      To the self-same spot;
+    And much of Madness, and more of Sin
+      And Horror, the soul of the plot!
+
+    But see, amid the mimic rout,
+      A crawling shape intrude!
+    A blood-red thing that writhes from out
+      The scenic solitude!
+    It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
+      The mimes become its food,
+    And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
+      In human gore imbued.
+
+    Out--out are the lights--out all:
+      And over each quivering form,
+    The curtain, a funeral pall,
+      Comes down with the rush of a storm--
+    And the angels, all pallid and wan,
+      Uprising, unveiling, affirm
+    That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
+      And its hero, the conqueror Worm.
+
+"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her
+arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these
+lines--"O God! O Divine Father!--shall these things be undeviatingly
+so?--shall this conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and
+parcel in Thee? Who--who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its
+vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, _nor unto death utterly_,
+save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
+
+And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms to
+fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as she breathed her
+last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from her lips. I
+bent to them my ear, and distinguished, again, the concluding words of
+the passage in Glanvill: "_Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor
+unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will._"
+
+She died: and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no longer
+endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and decaying
+city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls wealth. Ligeia
+had brought me far more, very far more, than ordinarily falls to the lot
+of mortals. After a few months, therefore, of weary and aimless
+wandering, I purchased and put in some repair, an abbey, which I shall
+not name, in one of the wildest and least frequented portions of fair
+England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost
+savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored
+memories connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of
+utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and unsocial
+region of the country. Yet although the external abbey, with its verdant
+decay hanging about it, suffered but little alteration, I gave way, with
+a child-like perversity, and perchance with a faint hope of alleviating
+my sorrows, to a display of more than regal magnificence within. For
+such follies, even in childhood, I had imbibed a taste, and now they
+came back to me as if in the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even
+of incipient madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and
+fantastic draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild
+cornices and furniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted
+gold! I had become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my
+labors and my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But these
+absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me speak only of that one
+chamber, ever accursed, whither, in a moment of mental alienation, I led
+from the altar as my bride--as the successor of the unforgotten
+Ligeia--the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of
+Tremaine.
+
+There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration of
+that bridal chamber which is not visibly before me. Where were the souls
+of the haughty family of the bride, when, through thirst of gold, they
+permitted to pass the threshold of an apartment _so_ bedecked, a maiden
+and a daughter so beloved? I have said, that I minutely remember the
+details of the chamber--yet I am sadly forgetful on topics of deep
+moment; and here there was no system, no keeping, in the fantastic
+display to take hold upon the memory. The room lay in a high turret of
+the castellated abbey, was pentagonal in shape, and of capacious size.
+Occupying the whole southern face of the pentagonal was the sole
+window--an immense sheet of unbroken glass from Venice--a single pane,
+and tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or moon
+passing through it, fell with a ghastly luster on the objects within.
+Over the upper portion of this huge window extended the trellis-work of
+an aged vine, which clambered up the massy walls of the turret. The
+ceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and
+elaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a
+semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. From out the most central recess of
+this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with long
+links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in pattern, and with
+many perforations so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, as
+if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual succession of
+parti-colored fires.
+
+Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were in
+various stations about; and there was the couch, too--the bridal
+couch--of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony, with
+a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamber stood on
+end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings
+over against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial sculpture.
+But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the chief phantasy of
+all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height--even unproportionably so--were
+hung from summit to foot, in vast folds, with a heavy and
+massive-looking tapestry--tapestry of a material which was found alike
+as a carpet on the floor, as a covering for the ottomans and the ebony
+bed, as a canopy for the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the
+curtains which partially shaded the window. The material was the richest
+cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular intervals, with
+arabesque figures, about a foot in diameter, and wrought upon the cloth
+in patterns of the most jetty black. But these figures partook of the
+true character of the arabesque only when regarded from a single point
+of view. By a contrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very
+remote period of antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one
+entering the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but
+upon a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and, step by
+step, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself
+surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong to
+the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of the
+monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial
+introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind the
+draperies--giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.
+
+In halls such as these--in a bridal chamber such as this--I passed, with
+the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the first month of our
+marriage--passed them with but little disquietude. That my wife dreaded
+the fierce moodiness of my temper--that she shunned me, and loved me but
+little--I could not help perceiving; but it gave me rather pleasure than
+otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred belonging more to demon than to
+man. My memory flew back (oh, with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia,
+the beloved, the august, the beautiful, the entombed. I reveled in
+recollections of her purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty--her ethereal
+nature, of her passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit
+fully and freely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In the
+excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the
+shackles of the drug), I would call aloud upon her name, during the
+silence of the night, or among the sheltered recesses of the glens by
+day, as if, through the wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the
+consuming ardor of my longing for the departed, I could restore her to
+the pathways she had abandoned--ah, _could_ it be forever?--upon the
+earth.
+
+About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the Lady
+Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery was
+slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy; and in
+her perturbed state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of
+motions, in and about the chamber of the turret, which I concluded had
+no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the
+phantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She became at length
+convalescent--finally, well. Yet but a second more violent disorder
+again threw her upon a bed of suffering; and from this attack her frame,
+at all times feeble, never altogether recovered. Her illnesses were,
+after this epoch, of alarming character, and of more alarming
+recurrence, defying alike the knowledge and the great exertions of her
+physicians. With the increase of the chronic disease, which had thus,
+apparently, taken too sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated
+by human means, I could not fail to observe a similar increase in the
+nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by
+trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently and
+pertinaciously, of the sounds--of the slight sounds--and of the unusual
+motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly alluded.
+
+One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this
+distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention. She
+had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had been watching, with
+feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror, the workings of her
+emaciated countenance. I sat by the side of her ebony bed, upon one of
+the ottomans of India. She partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low
+whisper, of sounds which she _then_ heard, but which I could not
+hear--of motions which she _then_ saw, but which I could not perceive.
+The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I wished to
+show her (what, let me confess it, I could not _all_ believe) that those
+almost inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations of the
+figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of that customary
+rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor, overspreading her face, had
+proved to me that my exertions to reassure her would be fruitless. She
+appeared to be fainting, and no attendants were within call. I
+remembered where was deposited a decanter of light wine which had been
+ordered by her physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure
+it. But, as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two
+circumstances of a startling nature attracted my attention. I had felt
+that some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my
+person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in the very
+middle of the rich luster thrown from the censer, a shadow--a faint,
+indefinite shadow of angelic aspect--such as might be fancied for the
+shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate
+dose of opium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them to
+Rowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber, and poured out a
+gobletful, which I held to the lips of the fainting lady. She had now
+partially recovered, however, and took the vessel herself, while I sank
+upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was
+then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the
+carpet, and near the couch; and in a second thereafter, as Rowena was in
+the act of raising the wine to her lips, I saw, or may have dreamed that
+I saw, fall within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the
+atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant and
+ruby colored fluid. If this I saw--not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine
+unhesitatingly, and I forebore to speak to her of a circumstance which
+must, after all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid
+imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the
+opium, and by the hour.
+
+Yet I cannot conceal [Transcriber's note: The original reads "coneal".]
+it from my own perception that, immediately subsequent to the fall of
+the ruby drops, a rapid change for the worse took place in the disorder
+of my wife; so that, on the third subsequent night, the hands of her
+menials prepared her for the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with
+her shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber which had received her as
+my bride. Wild visions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before
+me. I gazed with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the
+room, upon the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of
+the parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I
+called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot beneath
+the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of the shadow.
+It was there, however, no longer; and breathing with greater freedom, I
+turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed. Then
+rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia--and then came back upon my
+heart, with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that
+unutterable woe with which I had regarded _her_ thus enshrouded. The
+night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts of the one
+only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the body of Rowena.
+
+It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I had
+taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,
+startled me from my revery. I _felt_ that it came from the bed of
+ebony--the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious
+terror--but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision
+to detect any motion in the corpse--but there was not the slightest
+perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I _had_ heard the
+noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely
+and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes
+elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the
+mystery. At length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and
+barely noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and
+along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of
+unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality has no
+sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease to beat, my
+limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty finally operated to
+restore my self-possession. I could no longer doubt that we had been
+precipitate in our preparations--that Rowena still lived. It was
+necessary that some immediate exertion be made; yet the turret was
+altogether apart from the portion of the abbey tenanted by the
+servants--there were none within call--I had no means of summoning them
+to my aid without leaving the room for many minutes--and this I could
+not venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to call
+back the spirit still hovering. In a short period it was certain,
+however, that a relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both
+eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the
+lips became doubly shriveled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of
+death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the
+surface of the body; and all the usual rigorous stiffness immediately
+supervened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had
+been so startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate
+waking visions of Ligeia.
+
+An hour thus elapsed, when (could it be possible?) I was a second time
+aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. I
+listened--in extremity of horror. The sound came again--it was a sigh.
+Rushing to the corpse, I saw--distinctly saw--a tremor upon the lips. In
+a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the pearly
+teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the profound awe which
+had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that my vision grew dim, that
+my reason wandered; and it was only by a violent effort that I at length
+succeeded in nerving myself to the task which duty thus once more had
+pointed out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the
+cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame; there
+was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady _lived_; and with
+redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and
+bathed the temples and the hands and used every exertion which
+experience, and no little medical reading, could suggest. But in vain.
+Suddenly, the color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the
+expression of the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body
+took upon itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense
+rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of
+that which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.
+
+And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia--and again (what marvel that I
+shudder while I write?), _again_ there reached my ears a low sob from
+the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely detail the
+unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause to relate how, time
+after time, until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous drama
+of revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse was only into
+a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how each agony wore
+the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and how each struggle
+was succeeded by I know not what of wild change in the personal
+appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.
+
+The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who had
+been dead once again stirred--and now more vigorously than hitherto,
+although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in its utter
+hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or to move, and
+remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl
+of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least
+terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now
+more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted
+energy into the countenance--the limbs relaxed--and, save that the
+eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and
+draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel character to the
+figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,
+the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then, altogether
+adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when, arising from the bed,
+tottering, with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the manner of
+one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly
+and palpably into the middle of the apartment.
+
+I trembled not--I stirred not--for a crowd of unutterable fancies
+connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor, of the figure,
+rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed--had chilled me into
+stone. I stirred not--but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad
+disorder in my thoughts--a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the
+_living_ Rowena who confronted me? Could it, indeed, be Rowena _at
+all_--the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine?
+Why, _why_ should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the
+mouth--but then might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of
+Tremaine? And the cheeks--there were the roses as in her noon of
+life--yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of
+Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not be
+hers?--but _had she then grown taller since her malady?_ What
+inexpressible madness seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had
+reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head,
+unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and there
+streamed forth into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber huge masses of
+long and disheveled hair; _it was blacker than the raven wings of
+midnight._ And now slowly opened _the eyes_ of the figure which stood
+before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never--can I
+never be mistaken--these are the full, and the black, and the wild
+eyes--of my lost love--of the Lady--of the LADY LIGEIA."
+
+
+
+The Haunted Orchard
+
+BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
+
+     From _Harper's Magazine_, January, 1912. By permission of Harper
+     and Brothers and Richard Le Gallienne.
+
+
+Spring was once more in the world. As she sang to herself in the faraway
+woodlands her voice reached even the ears of the city, weary with the
+long winter. Daffodils flowered at the entrances to the Subway,
+furniture removing vans blocked the side streets, children clustered
+like blossoms on the doorsteps, the open cars were running, and the cry
+of the "cash clo'" man was once more heard in the land.
+
+Yes, it was the spring, and the city dreamed wistfully of lilacs and the
+dewy piping of birds in gnarled old apple-trees, of dogwood lighting up
+with sudden silver the thickening woods, of water-plants unfolding their
+glossy scrolls in pools of morning freshness.
+
+On Sunday mornings, the outbound trains were thronged with eager
+pilgrims, hastening out of the city, to behold once more the ancient
+marvel of the spring; and, on Sunday evenings, the railway termini were
+aflower with banners of blossom from rifled woodland and orchard carried
+in the hands of the returning pilgrims, whose eyes still shone with the
+spring magic, in whose ears still sang the fairy music.
+
+And as I beheld these signs of the vernal equinox I knew that I, too,
+must follow the music, forsake awhile the beautiful siren we call the
+city, and in the green silences meet once more my sweetheart Solitude.
+
+As the train drew out of the Grand Central, I hummed to myself,
+
+    "I've a neater, sweeter maiden, in a greener, cleaner land"
+
+and so I said good-by to the city, and went forth with beating heart to
+meet the spring.
+
+I had been told of an almost forgotten corner on the south coast of
+Connecticut, where the spring and I could live in an inviolate
+loneliness--a place uninhabited save by birds and blossoms, woods and
+thick grass, and an occasional silent farmer, and pervaded by the breath
+and shimmer of the Sound.
+
+Nor had rumor lied, for when the train set me down at my destination I
+stepped out into the most wonderful green hush, a leafy Sabbath silence
+through which the very train, as it went farther on its way, seemed to
+steal as noiselessly as possible for fear of breaking the spell.
+
+After a winter in the town, to be dropped thus suddenly into the intense
+quiet of the country-side makes an almost ghostly impression upon one,
+as of an enchanted silence, a silence that listens and watches but
+never speaks, finger on lip. There is a spectral quality about
+everything upon which the eye falls: the woods, like great green clouds,
+the wayside flowers, the still farm-houses half lost in orchard
+bloom--all seem to exist in a dream. Everything is so still, everything
+so supernaturally green. Nothing moves or talks, except the gentle
+susurrus of the spring wind swaying the young buds high up in the quiet
+sky, or a bird now and again, or a little brook singing softly to itself
+among the crowding rushes.
+
+Though, from the houses one notes here and there, there are evidently
+human inhabitants of this green silence, none are to be seen. I have
+often wondered where the countryfolk hide themselves, as I have walked
+hour after hour, past farm and croft and lonely door-yards, and never
+caught sight of a human face. If you should want to ask the way, a
+farmer is as shy as a squirrel, and if you knock at a farm-house door,
+all is as silent as a rabbit-warren.
+
+As I walked along in the enchanted stillness, I came at length to a
+quaint old farm-house--"old Colonial" in its architecture--embowered in
+white lilacs, and surrounded by an orchard of ancient apple-trees which
+cast a rich shade on the deep spring grass. The orchard had the
+impressiveness of those old religious groves, dedicated to the strange
+worship of sylvan gods, gods to be found now only in Horace or Catullus,
+and in the hearts of young poets to whom the beautiful antique Latin is
+still dear.
+
+The old house seemed already the abode of Solitude. As I lifted the
+latch of the white gate and walked across the forgotten grass, and up on
+to the veranda already festooned with wistaria, and looked into the
+window, I saw Solitude sitting by an old piano, on which no composer
+later than Bach had ever been played.
+
+In other words, the house was empty; and going round to the back, where
+old barns and stables leaned together as if falling asleep, I found a
+broken pane, and so climbed in and walked through the echoing rooms. The
+house was very lonely. Evidently no one had lived in it for a long time.
+Yet it was all ready for some occupant, for whom it seemed to be
+waiting. Quaint old four-poster bedsteads stood in three rooms--dimity
+curtains and spotless linen--old oak chests and mahogany presses; and,
+opening drawers in Chippendale sideboards, I came upon beautiful frail
+old silver and exquisite china that set me thinking of a beautiful
+grandmother of mine, made out of old lace and laughing wrinkles and
+mischievous old blue eyes.
+
+There was one little room that particularly interested me, a tiny
+bedroom all white, and at the window the red roses were already in bud.
+But what caught my eye with peculiar sympathy was a small bookcase, in
+which were some twenty or thirty volumes, wearing the same forgotten
+expression--forgotten and yet cared for--which lay like a kind of
+memorial charm upon everything in the old house. Yes, everything seemed
+forgotten and yet everything, curiously--even religiously--remembered. I
+took out book after book from the shelves, once or twice flowers fell
+out from the pages--and I caught sight of a delicate handwriting here
+and there and frail markings. It was evidently the little intimate
+library of a young girl. What surprised me most was to find that quite
+half the books were in French--French poets and French romancers: a
+charming, very rare edition of Ronsard, a beautifully printed edition of
+Alfred de Musset, and a copy of Théophile Gautier's _Mademoiselle de
+Maupin_. How did these exotic books come to be there alone in a deserted
+New England farm-house?
+
+This question was to be answered later in a strange way. Meanwhile I had
+fallen in love with the sad, old, silent place, and as I closed the
+white gate and was once more on the road, I looked about for someone who
+could tell me whether or not this house of ghosts might be rented for
+the summer by a comparatively living man.
+
+I was referred to a fine old New England farm-house shining white
+through the trees a quarter of a mile away. There I met an ancient
+couple, a typical New England farmer and his wife; the old man, lean,
+chin-bearded, with keen gray eyes flickering occasionally with a shrewd
+humor, the old lady with a kindly old face of the withered-apple type
+and ruddy. They were evidently prosperous people, but their minds--for
+some reason I could not at the moment divine--seemed to be divided
+between their New England desire to drive a hard bargain and their
+disinclination to let the house at all.
+
+Over and over again they spoke of the loneliness of the place. They
+feared I would find it very lonely. No one had lived in it for a long
+time, and so on. It seemed to me that afterwards I understood their
+curious hesitation, but at the moment only regarded it as a part of the
+circuitous New England method of bargaining. At all events, the rent I
+offered finally overcame their disinclination, whatever its cause, and
+so I came into possession--for four months--of that silent old house,
+with the white lilacs, and the drowsy barns, and the old piano, and the
+strange orchard; and, as the summer came on, and the year changed its
+name from May to June, I used to lie under the apple-trees in the
+afternoons, dreamily reading some old book, and through half-sleepy
+eyelids watching the silken shimmer of the Sound.
+
+I had lived in the old house for about a month, when one afternoon a
+strange thing happened to me. I remember the date well. It was the
+afternoon of Tuesday, June 13th. I was reading, or rather dipping here
+and there, in Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_. As I read, I remember
+that a little unripe apple, with a petal or two of blossom still
+clinging to it, fell upon the old yellow page. Then I suppose I must
+have fallen into a dream, though it seemed to me that both my eyes and
+my ears were wide open, for I suddenly became aware of a beautiful
+young voice singing very softly somewhere among the leaves. The singing
+was very frail, almost imperceptible, as though it came out of the air.
+It came and went fitfully, like the elusive fragrance of sweetbrier--as
+though a girl was walking to and fro, dreamily humming to herself in the
+still afternoon. Yet there was no one to be seen. The orchard had never
+seemed more lonely. And another fact that struck me as strange was that
+the words that floated to me out of the aerial music were French, half
+sad, half gay snatches of some long-dead singer of old France, I looked
+about for the origin of the sweet sounds, but in vain. Could it be the
+birds that were singing in French in this strange orchard? Presently the
+voice seemed to come quite close to me, so near that it might have been
+the voice of a dryad singing to me out of the tree against which I was
+leaning. And this time I distinctly caught the words of the sad little
+song:
+
+    _"Chante, rossignol, chante,
+    Toi qui as le coeur gai;
+    Tu as le coeur à rire,
+    Moi, je l'ai-t-à pleurer."_
+
+But, though the voice was at my shoulder, I could see no one, and then
+the singing stopped with what sounded like a sob; and a moment or two
+later I seemed to hear a sound of sobbing far down the orchard. Then
+there followed silence, and I was left to ponder on the strange
+occurrence. Naturally, I decided that it was just a day-dream between
+sleeping and waking over the pages of an old book; yet when next day and
+the day after the invisible singer was in the orchard again, I could not
+be satisfied with such mere matter-of-fact explanation.
+
+    _"A la claire fontaine,"_
+
+went the voice to and fro through the thick orchard boughs,
+
+    _"M'en allant promener,
+    J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle
+    Que je m'y suis baigné,
+    Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oubliai."_
+
+It was certainly uncanny to hear that voice going to and fro the
+orchard, there somewhere amid the bright sun-dazzled boughs--yet not a
+human creature to be seen--not another house even within half a mile.
+The most materialistic mind could hardly but conclude that here was
+something "not dreamed of in our philosophy." It seemed to me that the
+only reasonable explanation was the entirely irrational one--that my
+orchard was haunted: haunted by some beautiful young spirit, with some
+sorrow of lost joy that would not let her sleep quietly in her grave.
+
+And next day I had a curious confirmation of my theory. Once more I was
+lying under my favorite apple-tree, half reading and half watching the
+Sound, lulled into a dream by the whir of insects and the spices called
+up from the earth by the hot sun. As I bent over the page, I suddenly
+had the startling impression that someone was leaning over my shoulder
+and reading with me, and that a girl's long hair was falling over me
+down on to the page. The book was the Ronsard I had found in the little
+bedroom. I turned, but again there was nothing there. Yet this time I
+knew that I had not been dreaming, and I cried out:
+
+"Poor child! tell me of your grief--that I may help your sorrowing heart
+to rest."
+
+But, of course, there was no answer; yet that night I dreamed a strange
+dream. I thought I was in the orchard again in the afternoon and once
+again heard the strange singing--but this time, as I looked up, the
+singer was no longer invisible. Coming toward me was a young girl with
+wonderful blue eyes filled with tears and gold hair that fell to her
+waist. She wore a straight, white robe that might have been a shroud or
+a bridal dress. She appeared not to see me, though she came directly to
+the tree where I was sitting. And there she knelt and buried her face in
+the grass and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her long hair fell
+over her like a mantle, and in my dream I stroked it pityingly and
+murmured words of comfort for a sorrow I did not understand.... Then I
+woke suddenly as one does from dreams. The moon was shining brightly
+into the room. Rising from my bed, I looked out into the orchard. It was
+almost as bright as day. I could plainly see the tree of which I had
+been dreaming, and then a fantastic notion possessed me. Slipping on my
+clothes, I went out into one of the old barns and found a spade. Then I
+went to the tree where I had seen the girl weeping in my dream and dug
+down at its foot.
+
+I had dug little more than a foot when my spade struck upon some hard
+substance, and in a few more moments I had uncovered and exhumed a small
+box, which, on examination, proved to be one of those pretty
+old-fashioned Chippendale work-boxes used by our grandmothers to keep
+their thimbles and needles in, their reels of cotton and skeins of silk.
+After smoothing down the little grave in which I had found it, I carried
+the box into the house, and under the lamplight examined its contents.
+
+Then at once I understood why that sad young spirit went to and fro the
+orchard singing those little French songs--for the treasure-trove I had
+found under the apple-tree, the buried treasure of an unquiet, suffering
+soul, proved to be a number of love-letters written mostly in French in
+a very picturesque hand--letters, too, written but some five or six
+years before. Perhaps I should not have read them--yet I read them with
+such reverence for the beautiful, impassioned love that animated them,
+and literally made them "smell sweet and blossom in the dust," that I
+felt I had the sanction of the dead to make myself the confidant of
+their story. Among the letters were little songs, two of which I had
+heard the strange young voice singing in the orchard, and, of course,
+there were many withered flowers and such like remembrances of bygone
+rapture.
+
+Not that night could I make out all the story, though it was not
+difficult to define its essential tragedy, and later on a gossip in the
+neighborhood and a headstone in the churchyard told me the rest. The
+unquiet young soul that had sung so wistfully to and fro the orchard was
+my landlord's daughter. She was the only child of her parents, a
+beautiful, willful girl, exotically unlike those from whom she was
+sprung and among whom she lived with a disdainful air of exile. She was,
+as a child, a little creature of fairy fancies, and as she grew up it
+was plain to her father and mother that she had come from another world
+than theirs. To them she seemed like a child in an old fairy-tale
+strangely found on his hearth by some shepherd as he returns from the
+fields at evening--a little fairy girl swaddled in fine linen, and
+dowered with a mysterious bag of gold.
+
+Soon she developed delicate spiritual needs to which her simple parents
+were strangers. From long truancies in the woods she would come home
+laden with mysterious flowers, and soon she came to ask for books and
+pictures and music, of which the poor souls that had given her birth had
+never heard. Finally she had her way, and went to study at a certain
+fashionable college; and there the brief romance of her life began.
+There she met a romantic young Frenchman who had read Ronsard to her and
+written her those picturesque letters I had found in the old mahogany
+work-box. And after a while the young Frenchman had gone back to France,
+and the letters had ceased. Month by month went by, and at length one
+day, as she sat wistful at the window, looking out at the foolish sunlit
+road, a message came. He was dead. That headstone in the village
+churchyard tells the rest. She was very young to die--scarcely nineteen
+years; and the dead who have died young, with all their hopes and dreams
+still like unfolded buds within their hearts, do not rest so quietly in
+the grave as those who have gone through the long day from morning until
+evening and are only too glad to sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day I took the little box to a quiet corner of the orchard, and
+made a little pyre of fragrant boughs--for so I interpreted the wish of
+that young, unquiet spirit--and the beautiful words are now safe, taken
+up again into the aerial spaces from which they came.
+
+But since then the birds sing no more little French songs in my old
+orchard.
+
+
+
+The Bowmen
+
+BY ARTHUR MACHEN
+
+     From _The Bowmen_, by Arthur Machen. Published in England by
+     Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd., and in America by
+     G.P. Putnam's Sons. By permission of the publishers and Arthur
+     Machen.
+
+
+It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority of
+the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But it
+was on the most awful day of that awful time, on the day when ruin and
+disaster came so near that their shadow fell over London far away; and,
+without any certain news, the hearts of men failed within them and grew
+faint; as if the agony of the army in the battlefield had entered into
+their souls.
+
+
+On this dreadful day, then, when three hundred thousand men in arms with
+all their artillery swelled like a flood against the little English
+company, there was one point above all other points in our battle line
+that was for a time in awful danger, not merely of defeat, but of utter
+annihilation. With the permission of the Censorship and of the military
+expert, this corner may, perhaps, be described as a salient, and if this
+angle were crushed and broken, then the English force as a whole would
+be shattered, the Allied left would be turned, and Sedan would
+inevitably follow.
+
+All the morning the German guns had thundered and shrieked against this
+corner, and against the thousand or so of men who held it. The men joked
+at the shells, and found funny names for them, and had bets about them,
+and greeted them with scraps of music-hall songs. But the shells came on
+and burst, and tore good Englishmen limb from limb, and tore brother
+from brother, and as the heat of the day increased so did the fury of
+that terrific cannonade. There was no help, it seemed. The English
+artillery was good, but there was not nearly enough of it; it was being
+steadily battered into scrap iron.
+
+There comes a moment in a storm at sea when people say to one another,
+"It is at its worst; it can blow no harder," and then there is a blast
+ten times more fierce than any before it. So it was in these British
+trenches.
+
+There were no stouter hearts in the whole world than the hearts of these
+men; but even they were appalled as this seven-times-heated hell of the
+German cannonade fell upon them and overwhelmed them and destroyed them.
+And at this very moment they saw from their trenches that a tremendous
+host was moving against their lines. Five hundred of the thousand
+remained, and as far as they could see the German infantry was pressing
+on against them, column upon column, a gray world of men, ten thousand
+of them, as it appeared afterwards.
+
+There was no hope at all. They shook hands, some of them. One man
+improvised a new version of the battle-song, "Good-by, good-by to
+Tipperary," ending with "And we shan't get there." And they all went on
+firing steadily. The officer pointed out that such an opportunity for
+high-class fancy shooting might never occur again; the Tipperary
+humorist asked, "What price Sidney Street?" And the few machine guns did
+their best. But everybody knew it was of no use. The dead gray bodies
+lay in companies and battalions, as others came on and on and on, and
+they swarmed and stirred, and advanced from beyond and beyond.
+
+"World without end. Amen," said one of the British soldiers with some
+irrelevance as he took aim and fired. And then he remembered--he says he
+cannot think why or wherefore--a queer vegetarian restaurant in London
+where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets made of
+lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates in this
+restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue, with the
+motto, "_Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius_"--"May St. George be a present
+help to the English." This soldier happened to know Latin and other
+useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the gray advancing
+mass--three hundred yards away--he uttered the pious vegetarian motto.
+He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right had to clout
+him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing out as he did so
+that the King's ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted
+in drilling funny patterns into dead Germans.
+
+For as the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt something
+between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body. The roar
+of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur; instead of it,
+he says, he heard a great voice and a shout louder than a thunder-peal
+crying, "Array, array, array!"
+
+His heart grew hot as a burning coal, it grew cold as ice within him, as
+it seemed to him that a tumult of voices answered to his summons. He
+heard, or seemed to hear, thousands shouting: "St. George! St. George!"
+
+"Ha! Messire, ha! sweet Saint, grant us good deliverance!"
+
+"St. George for merry England!"
+
+"Harow! Harow! Monseigneur St. George, succor us!"
+
+"Ha! St. George! Ha! St. George! a long bow and a strong bow."
+
+"Heaven's Knight, aid us!"
+
+And as the soldier heard these voices he saw before him, beyond the
+trench, a long line of shapes, with a shining about them. They were like
+men who drew the bow, and with another shout, their cloud of arrows flew
+singing and tingling through the air towards the German hosts.
+
+The other men in the trench were firing all the while. They had no hope;
+but they aimed just as if they had been shooting at Bisley.
+
+Suddenly one of them lifted up his voice in the plainest English.
+
+"Gawd help us!" he bellowed to the man next to him, "but we're blooming
+marvels! Look at those gray ... gentlemen, look at them! D'ye see them?
+They're not going down in dozens nor in 'undreds; it's thousands, it is.
+Look! look! there's a regiment gone while I'm talking to ye."
+
+"Shut it!" the other soldier bellowed, taking aim, "what are ye gassing
+about?"
+
+But he gulped with astonishment even as he spoke, for, indeed, the gray
+men were falling by the thousands. The English could hear the guttural
+scream of the German officers, the crackle of their revolvers as they
+shot the reluctant; and still line after line crashed to the earth.
+
+All the while the Latin-bred soldier heard the cry:
+
+"Harow! Harow! Monseigneur, dear Saint, quick to our aid! St. George
+help us!"
+
+"High Chevalier, defend us!"
+
+The singing arrows fled so swift and thick that they darkened the air,
+the heathen horde melted from before them.
+
+"More machine guns!" Bill yelled to Tom.
+
+"Don't hear them," Tom yelled back.
+
+"But, thank God, anyway; they've got it in the neck."
+
+In fact, there were ten thousand dead German soldiers left before that
+salient of the English army, and consequently there was no Sedan. In
+Germany, a country ruled by scientific principles, the Great General
+Staff decided that the contemptible English must have employed shells
+containing an unknown gas of a poisonous nature, as no wounds were
+discernible on the bodies of the dead German soldiers. But the man who
+knew what nuts tasted like when they called themselves steak knew also
+that St. George had brought his Agincourt Bowmen to help the English.
+
+
+
+A Ghost
+
+BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+     Translated for this volume by M. Charles Sommer.
+
+
+We were speaking of sequestration, alluding to a recent lawsuit. It was
+at the close of a friendly evening in a very old mansion in the Rue de
+Grenelle, and each of the guests had a story to tell, which he assured
+us was true.
+
+Then the old Marquis de la Tour-Samuel, eighty-two years of age, rose
+and came forward to lean on the mantelpiece. He told the following story
+in his slightly quavering voice.
+
+"I, also, have witnessed a strange thing--so strange that it has been
+the nightmare of my life. It happened fifty-six years ago, and yet there
+is not a month when I do not see it again in my dreams. From that day I
+have borne a mark, a stamp of fear,--do you understand?
+
+"Yes, for ten minutes I was a prey to terror, in such a way that ever
+since a constant dread has remained in my soul. Unexpected sounds chill
+me to the heart; objects which I can ill distinguish in the evening
+shadows make me long to flee. I am afraid at night.
+
+"No! I would not have owned such a thing before reaching my present
+age. But now I may tell everything. One may fear imaginary dangers at
+eighty-two years old. But before actual danger I have never turned back,
+_mesdames_.
+
+"That affair so upset my mind, filled me with such a deep, mysterious
+unrest that I never could tell it. I kept it in that inmost part, that
+corner where we conceal our sad, our shameful secrets, all the
+weaknesses of our life which cannot be confessed.
+
+"I will tell you that strange happening just as it took place, with no
+attempt to explain it. Unless I went mad for one short hour it must be
+explainable, though. Yet I was not mad, and I will prove it to you.
+Imagine what you will. Here are the simple facts:
+
+"It was in 1827, in July. I was quartered with my regiment in Rouen.
+
+"One day, as I was strolling on the quay, I came across a man I believed
+I recognized, though I could not place him with certainty. I
+instinctively went more slowly, ready to pause. The stranger saw my
+impulse, looked at me, and fell into my arms.
+
+"It was a friend of my younger days, of whom I had been very fond. He
+seemed to have become half a century older in the five years since I had
+seen him. His hair was white, and he stooped in his walk, as if he were
+exhausted. He understood my amazement and told me the story of his life.
+
+"A terrible event had broken him down. He had fallen madly in love with
+a young girl and married her in a kind of dreamlike ecstasy. After a
+year of unalloyed bliss and unexhausted passion, she had died suddenly
+of heart disease, no doubt killed by love itself.
+
+"He had left the country on the very day of her funeral, and had come to
+live in his hotel at Rouen. He remained there, solitary and desperate,
+grief slowly mining him, so wretched that he constantly thought of
+suicide.
+
+"'As I thus came across you again,' he said, 'I shall ask a great favor
+of you. I want you to go to my château and get some papers I urgently
+need. They are in the writing-desk of my room, of _our_ room. I cannot
+send a servant or a lawyer, as the errand must be kept private. I want
+absolute silence.
+
+"'I shall give you the key of the room, which I locked carefully myself
+before leaving, and the key to the writing-desk. I shall also give you a
+note for the gardener, who will let you in.
+
+"'Come to breakfast with me to-morrow, and we'll talk the matter over.'
+
+"I promised to render him that slight service. It would mean but a
+pleasant excursion for me, his home not being more than twenty-five
+miles from Rouen. I could go there in an hour on horseback.
+
+"At ten o'clock the next day I was with him. We breakfasted alone
+together, yet he did not utter more than twenty words. He asked me to
+excuse him. The thought that I was going to visit the room where his
+happiness lay shattered, upset him, he said. Indeed, he seemed
+perturbed, worried, as if some mysterious struggle were taking place in
+his soul.
+
+"At last he explained exactly what I was to do. It was very simple. I
+was to take two packages of letters and some papers, locked in the first
+drawer at the right of the desk of which I had the key. He added:
+
+"'I need not ask you not to glance at them.'
+
+"I was almost hurt by his words, and told him so, rather sharply. He
+stammered:
+
+"'Forgive me. I suffer so much!'
+
+"And tears came to his eyes.
+
+"I left about one o'clock to accomplish my errand.
+
+"The day was radiant, and I rushed through the meadows, listening to the
+song of the larks, and the rhythmical beat of my sword on my
+riding-boots.
+
+"Then I entered the forest, and I set my horse to walking. Branches of
+the trees softly caressed my face, and now and then I would catch a leaf
+between my teeth and bite it with avidity, full of the joy of life, such
+as fills you without reason, with a tumultuous happiness almost
+indefinable, a kind of magical strength.
+
+"As I neared the house I took out the letter for the gardener, and noted
+with surprise that it was sealed. I was so amazed and so annoyed that I
+almost turned back without fulfilling my mission. Then I thought that I
+should thus display over-sensitiveness and bad taste. My friend might
+have sealed it unconsciously, worried as he was.
+
+"The manor looked as though it had been deserted the last twenty years.
+The gate, wide-open and rotten, held, one wondered how. Grass filled the
+paths; you could not tell the flower-beds from the lawn.
+
+"At the noise I made kicking a shutter, an old man came out from a
+side-door and was apparently amazed to see me there. I dismounted from
+my horse and gave him the letter. He read it once or twice, turned it
+over, looked at me with suspicion, and asked:
+
+"'Well, what do you want?'
+
+"I answered sharply:
+
+"'You must know it as you have read your master's orders. I want to get
+in the house.'
+
+"He appeared overwhelmed. He said:
+
+"'So--you are going in--in his room?'
+
+"I was getting impatient.
+
+"'_Parbleu!_ Do you intend to question me, by chance?'
+
+"He stammered:
+
+"'No--monsieur--only--it has not been opened since--since the death. If
+you will wait five minutes, I will go in to see whether----'
+
+"I interrupted angrily:
+
+"'See here, are you joking? You can't go in that room, as I have the
+key!'
+
+"He no longer knew what to say.
+
+"'Then, monsieur, I will show you the way.'
+
+"'Show me the stairs and leave me alone. I can find it without your
+help.'
+
+"'But--still--monsieur----'
+
+"Then I lost my temper.
+
+"'Now be quiet! Else you'll be sorry!'
+
+"I roughly pushed him aside and went into the house.
+
+"I first went through the kitchen, then crossed two small rooms occupied
+by the man and his wife. From there I stepped into a large hall. I went
+up the stairs, and I recognized the door my friend had described to me.
+
+"I opened it with ease and went in.
+
+"The room was so dark that at first I could not distinguish anything. I
+paused, arrested by that moldy and stale odor peculiar to deserted and
+condemned rooms, of dead rooms. Then gradually my eyes grew accustomed
+to the gloom, and I saw rather clearly a great room in disorder, a bed
+without sheets having still its mattresses and pillows, one of which
+bore the deep print of an elbow or a head, as if someone had just been
+resting on it.
+
+"The chairs seemed all in confusion. I noticed that a door, probably
+that of a closet, had remained ajar.
+
+"I first went to the window and opened it to get some light, but the
+hinges of the outside shutters were so rusted that I could not loosen
+them.
+
+"I even tried to break them with my sword, but did not succeed. As those
+fruitless attempts irritated me, and as my eyes were by now adjusted to
+the dim light, I gave up hope of getting more light and went toward the
+writing-desk.
+
+"I sat down in an arm-chair, folded back the top, and opened the drawer.
+It was full to the edge. I needed but three packages, which I knew how
+to distinguish, and I started looking for them.
+
+"I was straining my eyes to decipher the inscriptions, when I thought I
+heard, or rather felt a rustle behind me. I took no notice, thinking a
+draft had lifted some curtain. But a minute later, another movement,
+almost indistinct, sent a disagreeable little shiver over my skin. It
+was so ridiculous to be moved thus even so slightly, that I would not
+turn round, being ashamed. I had just discovered the second package I
+needed, and was on the point of reaching for the third, when a great and
+sorrowful sigh, close to my shoulder, made me give a mad leap two yards
+away. In my spring I had turned round, my hand on the hilt of my sword,
+and surely had I not felt that, I should have fled like a coward.
+
+"A tall woman, dressed in white, was facing me, standing behind the
+chair in which I had sat a second before.
+
+"Such a shudder ran through me that I almost fell back! Oh, no one who
+has not felt them can understand those gruesome and ridiculous terrors!
+The soul melts; your heart seems to stop; your whole body becomes limp
+as a sponge, and your innermost parts seem collapsing.
+
+"I do not believe in ghosts; and yet I broke down before the hideous
+fear of the dead; and I suffered, oh, I suffered more in a few minutes,
+in the irresistible anguish of supernatural dread, than I have suffered
+in all the rest of my life!
+
+"If she had not spoken, I might have died. But she did speak; she spoke
+in a soft and plaintive voice which set my nerves vibrating. I could not
+say that I regained my self-control. No, I was past knowing what I did;
+but the kind of pride I have in me, as well as a military pride, helped
+me to maintain, almost in spite of myself, an honorable countenance. I
+was making a pose, a pose for myself, and for her, for her, whatever she
+was, woman, or phantom. I realized this later, for at the time of the
+apparition, I could think of nothing. I was afraid.
+
+"She said:
+
+"'Oh, you can be of great help to me, monsieur!'
+
+"I tried to answer, but I was unable to utter one word. A vague sound
+came from my throat.
+
+"She continued:
+
+"'Will you? You can save me, cure me. I suffer terribly. I always
+suffer. I suffer, oh, I suffer!'
+
+"And she sat down gently in my chair. She looked at me.
+
+"'Will you?'
+
+"I nodded my head, being still paralyzed.
+
+"Then she handed me a woman's comb of tortoise-shell, and murmured:
+
+"'Comb my hair! Oh, comb my hair! That will cure me. Look at my
+head--how I suffer! And my hair--how it hurts!'
+
+"Her loose hair, very long, very black, it seemed to me, hung over the
+back of the chair, touching the floor.
+
+"Why did I do it? Why did I, shivering, accept that comb, and why did I
+take between my hands her long hair, which left on my skin a ghastly
+impression of cold, as if I had handled serpents? I do not know.
+
+"That feeling still clings about my fingers, and I shiver when I recall
+it.
+
+"I combed her, I handled, I know not how, that hair of ice. I bound and
+unbound it; I plaited it as one plaits a horse's mane. She sighed, bent
+her head, seemed happy.
+
+"Suddenly she said, 'Thank you!' tore the comb from my hands, and fled
+through the door which I had noticed was half opened.
+
+"Left alone, I had for a few seconds the hazy feeling one feels in
+waking up from a nightmare. Then I recovered myself. I ran to the window
+and broke the shutters by my furious assault.
+
+"A stream of light poured in. I rushed to the door through which that
+being had gone. I found it locked and immovable.
+
+"Then a fever of flight seized on me, a panic, the true panic of battle.
+I quickly grasped the three packages of letters from the open desk; I
+crossed the room running, I took the steps of the stairway four at a
+time. I found myself outside, I don't know how, and seeing my horse
+close by, I mounted in one leap and left at a full gallop.
+
+"I didn't stop till I reached Rouen and drew up in front of my house.
+Having thrown the reins to my orderly, I flew to my room and locked
+myself in to think.
+
+"Then for an hour I asked myself whether I had not been the victim of an
+hallucination. Certainly I must have had one of those nervous shocks,
+one of those brain disorders such as give rise to miracles, to which the
+supernatural owes its strength.
+
+"And I had almost concluded that it was a vision, an illusion of my
+senses, when I came near to the window. My eyes by chance looked down.
+My tunic was covered with hairs, long woman's hairs which had entangled
+themselves around the buttons!
+
+"I took them off one by one and threw them out of the window with
+trembling fingers.
+
+"I then called my orderly. I felt too perturbed, too moved, to go and
+see my friend on that day. Besides, I needed to think over what I should
+tell him.
+
+"I had his letters delivered to him. He gave a receipt to the soldier.
+He inquired after me and was told that I was not well. I had had a
+sunstroke, or something. He seemed distressed.
+
+"I went to see him the next day, early in the morning, bent on telling
+him the truth. He had gone out the evening before and had not come
+back.
+
+"I returned the same day, but he had not been seen. I waited a week. He
+did not come back. I notified the police. They searched for him
+everywhere, but no one could find any trace of his passing or of his
+retreat.
+
+"A careful search was made in the deserted manor. No suspicious clue was
+discovered.
+
+"There was no sign that a woman had been concealed there.
+
+"The inquest gave no result, and so the search went no further.
+
+"And in fifty-six years I have learned nothing more. I never found out
+the truth."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES***
+
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Famous Modern Ghost Stories, by Various,
+Edited by Emily Dorothy Scarborough</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Famous Modern Ghost Stories</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Release Date: February 22, 2005  [eBook #15143]</p>
+<p>Last Updated: March 16, 2015</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Karina Aleksandrova,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+    <h1>FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES</h1>
+
+    <h2>SELECTED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+    <h3>BY</h3>
+
+    <h2><span class="smcap">DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH, Ph.D.</span></h2>
+
+    <h4>LECTURER IN ENGLISH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY<br />
+     AUTHOR OF <i>THE SUPERNATURAL IN MODERN ENGLISH FICTION</i>,
+    <i>FUGITIVE VERSES</i>, <i>FROM A SOUTHERN PORCH</i>, ETC.<br />
+     COMPILER OF <i>HUMOROUS GHOST STORIES</i></h4>
+
+    <div style="height: 5em;"></div>
+
+    <p class="publisher">G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />
+    NEW YORK AND LONDON<br />
+    The Knickerbocker Press</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <p class="cr">1921</p>
+
+    <p class="center"><em>Printed in the United States of
+    America</em></p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <p class="dedication">To<br />
+    <br />
+    ASHLEY HORACE THORNDIKE, Litt. D.<br />
+     Professor of English, Columbia University<br />
+    <br />
+    who guided my earlier studies in the supernatural</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+    <ul class="TOC">
+        <li><a href="#Intro">Introduction: The Imperishable
+        Ghost</a></li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Willows">The Willows</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Algernon Blackwood</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Shadows">The Shadows on the Wall</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Messenger">The Messenger</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Robert W. Chambers</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Lazarus">Lazarus</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Leonid Andreyev</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Beast">The Beast with Five Fingers</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By W. F. Harvey</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Mass">The Mass of Shadows</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Anatole France</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#What">What Was It?</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Fitz-James O'Brien</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Middle">The Middle Toe of the Right Foot</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Ambrose Bierce</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Shell">The Shell of Sense</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Olivia Howard Dunbar</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Woman">The Woman at Seven Brothers</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Wilbur Daniel Steele</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Gate">At the Gate</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Myla Jo Closser</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Ligeia">Ligeia</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Edgar Allan Poe</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Haunted">The Haunted Orchard</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Richard Le Gallienne</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Bowmen">The Bowmen</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Arthur Machen</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+
+        <li>
+            <a href="#Ghost">A Ghost</a>
+
+            <ul class="TOCSub">
+                <li>By Guy de Maupassant</li>
+            </ul>
+        </li>
+    </ul>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Intro"
+       id="Intro"></a>The Imperishable Ghost</h2>
+
+    <h3>INTRODUCTION</h3>
+
+    <p>Ghosts are the true immortals, and the dead grow more alive
+    all the time. Wraiths have a greater vitality to-day than ever
+    before. They are far more numerous than at any time in the
+    past, and people are more interested in them. There are persons
+    that claim to be acquainted with specific spirits, to speak
+    with them, to carry on correspondence with them, and even some
+    who insist that they are private secretaries to the dead.
+    Others of us mortals, more reserved, are content to keep such
+    distance as we may from even the shadow of a shade. But there's
+    no getting away from ghosts nowadays, for even if you shut your
+    eyes to them in actual life, you stumble over them in the books
+    you read, you see them on the stage and on the screen, and you
+    hear them on the lecture platform. Even a Lodge in any vast
+    wilderness would have the company of spirits. Man's love for
+    the supernatural, which is one of the most natural things about
+    him, was never more marked than at present. You may go
+    a-ghosting in any company to-day, and all aspects of
+    literature, novels, short stories, poetry, and drama alike,
+    reflect the shadeless spirit. The latest census of the haunting
+    world shows a vast increase in population, which might be
+    explained on various grounds.</p>
+
+    <p>Life is so inconveniently complex nowadays, what with income
+    taxes and other visitations of government, that it is hard for
+    us to have the added risk of wraiths, but there's no escaping.
+    Many persons of to-day are in the same mental state as one Mr.
+    Boggs, told of in a magazine story, a rural gentleman who was
+    agitated over spectral visitants. He had once talked at a
+    s&eacute;ance with a speaker who claimed to be the spirit of
+    his brother, Wesley Boggs, but who conversed only on blue
+    suspenders, a subject not of vital interest to Wesley in the
+    flesh. "Still," Mr. Boggs reflected, "I'm not so darn sure!" In
+    answer to a suggestion regarding subliminal consciousness and
+    dual personality as explanation of the strange things that come
+    bolting into life, he said, "It's crawly any way you look at
+    it. Ghosts inside you are as bad as ghosts outside you." There
+    are others to-day who are "not so darn sure!"</p>
+
+    <p>One may conjecture divers reasons for this multitude of
+    ghosts in late literature. Perhaps spooks are like small boys
+    that rush to fires, unwilling to miss anything, and craving new
+    sensations. And we mortals read about them to get vicarious
+    thrills through the safe <em>medium</em> of fiction. The war
+    made sensationalists of us all, and the drab everydayness of
+    mortal life bores us. Man's imagination, always bigger than his
+    environment, overleaps the barriers of time and space and
+    claims all worlds as eminent domain, so that literature, which
+    he has the power to create, as he cannot create his material
+    surroundings, possesses a dramatic intensity, an epic sweep,
+    unknown in actuality. In the last analysis, man is as great as
+    his daydreams&mdash;or his nightmares!</p>
+
+    <p>Ghosts have always haunted literature, and doubtless always
+    will. Specters seem never to wear out or to die, but renew
+    their tissue both of person and of raiment, in marvelous
+    fashion, so that their number increases with a Malthusian
+    relentlessness. We of to-day have the ghosts that haunted our
+    ancestors, as well as our own modern revenants, and there's no
+    earthly use trying to banish or exorcise them by such a simple
+    thing as disbelief in them. Schopenhauer asserts that a belief
+    in ghosts is born with man, that it is found in all ages and in
+    all lands, and that no one is free from it. Since accounts
+    vary, and our earliest antecedents were poor diarists, it is
+    difficult to establish the apostolic succession of spooks in
+    actual life, but in literature, the line reaches back as far as
+    the primeval picture writing. A study of animism in primitive
+    culture shows many interesting links between the past and the
+    present in this matter. And anyhow, since man knows that
+    whether or not he has seen a ghost, presently he'll be one,
+    he's fascinated with the subject. And he creates ghosts, not
+    merely in his own image, but according to his dreams of
+    power.</p>
+
+    <p>The more man knows of natural laws, the keener he is about
+    the supernatural. He may claim to have laid aside superstition,
+    but he isn't to be believed in that. Though he has discarded
+    witchcraft and alchemy, it is only that he may have more time
+    for psychical research; true, he no longer dabbles with ancient
+    magic, but that is because the modern types, as the ouija
+    board, entertain him more. He dearly loves to traffic with that
+    other world of which he knows so little and concerning which he
+    is so curious.</p>
+
+    <p>Perhaps the war, or possibly an increase in class
+    consciousness, or unionization of spirits, or whatever, has
+    greatly energized the ghost in our day and given him both
+    ambition and strength to do more things than ever. Maybe "pep
+    tablets" have been discovered on the other side as well! No
+    longer is the ghost content to be seen and not heard, to slink
+    around in shadowy corners as apologetically as poor relations.
+    Wraiths now have a rambunctious vitality and self-assurance
+    that are astonishing. Even the ghosts of folks dead so long
+    they have forgotten about themselves are yawning, stretching
+    their skeletons, and starting out to do a little haunting.
+    Spooky creatures in such a wide diversity are abroad to-day
+    that one is sometimes at a loss to know what to do "gin a body
+    meet a body." Ghosts are entering all sorts of activities now,
+    so that mortals had better look alive, else they'll be crowded
+    out of their place in the shade. The dead are too much with
+    us!</p>
+
+    <p>Modern ghosts are less simple and primitive than their
+    ancestors, and are developing complexes of various kinds. They
+    are more democratic than of old, and have more of a diversity
+    of interests, so that mortals have scarcely the ghost of a
+    chance with them. They employ all the agencies and mechanisms
+    known to mortals, and have in addition their own methods of
+    transit and communication. Whereas in the past a ghost had to
+    stalk or glide to his haunts, now he limousines or airplanes,
+    so that naturally he can get in more work than before. He uses
+    the wireless to send his messages, and is expert in all manner
+    of scientific lines.</p>
+
+    <p>In fact, his infernal efficiency and knowledge of science
+    constitute the worst terror of the current specter. Who can
+    combat a ghost that knows all about a chemical laboratory, that
+    can add electricity to his other shocks, and can employ all
+    mortal and immortal agencies as his own? Science itself is
+    supernatural, as we see when we look at it properly.</p>
+
+    <p>Modern literature, especially the most recent, shows a
+    revival of old types of ghosts, together with the innovations
+    of the new. There are specters that take a real part in the
+    plot complication, and those that merely cast threatening looks
+    at the living, or at least, are content to speak a piece and
+    depart. Some spirits are dumb, while others are highly
+    elocutionary.</p>
+
+    <p>Ghosts vary in many respects. Some are like the pallid
+    shades of the past, altogether unlike the living and with an
+    unmistakable spectral form&mdash;or lack of it. They sweep like
+    mist through the air, or flutter like dead leaves in the
+    gale&mdash;a gale always accompanying them as part of the stock
+    furnishings. On the other hand, some revenants are so
+    successfully made up that one doesn't believe them when they
+    pridefully announce that they are wraiths. Some of them are, in
+    fact, so alive that they don't themselves know they're dead.
+    It's going to be a great shock to some of them one of these
+    days to wake up and find out they're demised!</p>
+
+    <p>Ghosts are more gregarious than in the past. Formerly a
+    shade slunk off by himself, as if ashamed of his profession, as
+    if aware of the lack of cordiality with which he would be
+    received, knowing that mortals shunned and feared him, and
+    chary even of associating with his fellow-shades. He wraithed
+    all by himself. The specters of the past&mdash;save in scenes
+    of the lower world,&mdash;were usually solitary creatures,
+    driven to haunt mortals from very lonesomeness. Now we have a
+    chance to study the mob psychology of ghosts, for they come in
+    madding crowds whenever they like.</p>
+
+    <p>Ghosts at present are showing an active interest not only in
+    public affairs, but in the arts as well. At least, we now have
+    pictures and writing attributed to them. Perhaps annoyed by
+    some of the inaccuracies published concerning them&mdash;for
+    authors have in the past taken advantage of the belief that
+    ghosts couldn't write back&mdash;they have recently developed
+    itching pens. They use all manner of utensils for expression
+    now. There's the magic typewriter that spooks for John Kendrick
+    Bangs, the boardwalk that Patience Worth executes for Mrs.
+    Curran, and innumerable other specters that commandeer fountain
+    pens and pencils and brushes to give their versions of
+    infinity. There's a passion on the part of ghosts for being
+    interviewed just now. At present book-reviewers, for instance,
+    had better be careful, lest the wraiths take their own method
+    of answering criticism. It isn't safe to speak or write with
+    anything but respect of ghosts now. <em>De mortuis nil nisi
+    bonum</em>, indeed! One should never make light of a shade.</p>
+
+    <p>Modern ghosts have a more pronounced personality than the
+    specters of the past. They have more strength, of mind as well
+    as of body, than the colorless revenants of earlier literature,
+    and they produce a more vivid effect on the beholder and the
+    reader. They know more surely what they wish to do, and they
+    advance relentlessly and with economy of effort to the
+    effecting of their purpose, whether it be of pure horror, of
+    beauty, or pathos of humor. We have now many spirits in fiction
+    that are pathetic without frightfulness, many that move us with
+    a sense of poetic beauty rather than of curdling horror, who
+    touch the heart as well as the spine of the reader. And the
+    humorous ghost is a distinctive shade of to-day, with his quips
+    and pranks and haunting grin. Whatever a modern ghost wishes to
+    do or to be, he is or does, with confidence and success.</p>
+
+    <p>The spirit of to-day is terrifyingly visible or invisible at
+    will. The dreadful presence of a ghost that one cannot see is
+    more unbearable than the specter that one can locate and
+    attempt to escape from. The invisible haunting is represented
+    in this volume by Fitz-James O'Brien's <em><a href="#What">What
+    Was It?</a></em> one of the very best of the type, and one that
+    has strongly influenced others. O'Brien's story preceded Guy de
+    Maupassant's <em>Le Horla</em> by several years, and must
+    surely have suggested to Maupassant as to Bierce, in his
+    <em>The Damned Thing</em>, the power of evil that can be felt
+    but not seen.</p>
+
+    <p>The wraith of the present carries with him more vital energy
+    than his predecessors, is more athletic in his struggles with
+    the unlucky wights he visits, and can coerce mortals to do his
+    will by the laying on of hands as well as by the look or word.
+    He speaks with more emphasis and authority, as well as with
+    more human naturalness, than the earlier ghosts. He has not
+    only all the force he possessed in life, but in many instances
+    has an access of power, which makes man a poor protagonist for
+    him. Algernon Blackwood's spirits of evil, for example, have a
+    more awful potentiality than any living person could have, and
+    their will to harm has been increased immeasurably by the
+    accident of death. If the facts bear out the fear that such is
+    the case in life as in fiction, some of our social customs will
+    be reversed. A man will strive by all means to keep his deadly
+    enemy alive, lest death may endow him with tenfold power to
+    hurt. Dark discarnate passions, disembodied hates, work evil
+    where a simple ghost might be helpless and abashed. Algernon
+    Blackwood has command over the spirits of air and fire and
+    wave, so that his pages thrill with beauty and terror. He has
+    handled almost all known aspects of the supernatural, and from
+    his many stories he has selected for this volume
+    <em><a href="#Willows">The Willows</a></em> as the best example
+    of his ghostly art.</p>
+
+    <p>Apparitions are more readily recognizable at present than in
+    the past, for they carry into eternity all the disfigurements
+    or physical peculiarities that the living bodies
+    possessed&mdash;a fact discouraging to all persons not
+    conspicuous for good looks. Freckles and warts, long noses and
+    missing limbs distinguish the ghosts and aid in crucial
+    identification. The thrill of horror in Ambrose Bierce's story,
+    <em><a href="#Middle">The Middle Toe of the Right
+    Foot</a></em>, is intensified by the fact that the dead woman
+    who comes back in revenge to haunt her murderer, has one toe
+    lacking as in life. And in a recent story a surgeon whose
+    desire to experiment has caused him needlessly to sacrifice a
+    man's life on the operating table, is haunted to death by the
+    dismembered arm. Fiction shows us various ghosts with half
+    faces, and at least one notable spook that comes in half. Such
+    ability, it will be granted, must necessarily increase the
+    haunting power, for if a ghost may send a foot or an arm or a
+    leg to harry one person, he can dispatch his back-bone or his
+    liver or his heart to upset other human beings simultaneously
+    in a sectional haunting at once economically efficient and
+    terrifying.</p>
+
+    <p><em><a href="#Beast">The Beast with Five Fingers</a></em>,
+    for instance, has a loathsome horror that a complete skeleton
+    or conventionally equipped wraith could not achieve. Who can
+    doubt that a bodiless hand leaping around on its errands of
+    evil has a menace that a complete six-foot frame could not
+    duplicate? Yet, in Quiller-Couch's <em>A Pair of Hands</em>,
+    what pathos and beauty in the thought of the child hands coming
+    back to serve others in homely tasks! Surely no housewife in
+    these helpless days would object to being haunted in such
+    delicate fashion.</p>
+
+    <p>Ghosts of to-day have an originality that antique specters
+    lacked. For instance, what story of the past has the awful
+    thrill in Andreyev's <em><a href="#Lazarus">Lazarus</a></em>,
+    that story of the man who came back from the grave, living, yet
+    dead, with the horror of the unknown so manifest in his face
+    that those who looked into his deep eyes met their doom?
+    Present-day writers skillfully combine various elements of awe
+    with the supernatural, as madness with the ghostly, adding to
+    the chill of fear which each concept gives. Wilbur Daniel
+    Steele's <em><a href="#Woman">The Woman at Seven
+    Brothers</a></em> is an instance of that method.</p>
+
+    <p>Poe's <em><a href="#Ligeia">Ligeia</a></em>, one of the best
+    stories in any language, reveals the unrelenting will of the
+    dead to effect its desire,&mdash;the dead wife triumphantly
+    coming back to life through the second wife's body. Olivia
+    Howard Dunbar's <em><a href="#Shell">The Shell of
+    Sense</a></em> is another instance of jealousy reaching beyond
+    the grave. <em><a href="#Messenger">The Messenger</a></em>, one
+    of Robert W. Chambers's early stories and an admirable example
+    of the supernatural, has various thrills, with its river of
+    blood, its death's head moth, and the ancient but very active
+    skull of the Black Priest who was shot as a traitor to his
+    country, but lived on as an energetic and curseful ghost.</p>
+
+    <p><em><a href="#Shadows">The Shadows on the Wall</a></em>, by
+    Mary E. Wilkins Freeman,&mdash;which one prominent librarian
+    considers the best ghost story ever written,&mdash;is original
+    in the method of its horrific manifestation. Isn't it more
+    devastating to one's sanity to see the shadow of a revenge
+    ghost cast on the wall,&mdash;to know that a vindictive spirit
+    is beside one but invisible&mdash;than to see the specter
+    himself? Under such circumstances, the sight of a skeleton or a
+    sheeted phantom would be downright comforting.</p>
+
+    <p><em><a href="#Mass">The Mass of Shadows</a></em>, by Anatole
+    France, is an example of the modern tendency to show phantoms
+    in groups, as contrasted with the solitary habits of ancient
+    specters. Here the spirits of those who had sinned for love
+    could meet and celebrate mass together in one evening of the
+    year.</p>
+
+    <p>The delicate beauty of many of the modern ghostly stories is
+    apparent in <em><a href="#Haunted">The Haunted
+    Orchard</a></em>, by Richard Le Gallienne, for this prose poem
+    has an appeal of tenderness rather than of terror. And
+    everybody who has had affection for a dog will appreciate the
+    pathos of the little sketch, by Myla J. Closser,
+    <em><a href="#Gate">At the Gate</a></em>. The dog appears more
+    frequently as a ghost than does any other animal, perhaps
+    because man feels that he is nearer the human,&mdash;though the
+    horse is as intelligent and as much beloved. There is an innate
+    pathos about a dog somehow, that makes his appearance in
+    ghostly form more credible and sympathetic, while the ghost of
+    any other animal would tend to have a comic connotation. Other
+    animals in fiction have power of magic&mdash;notably the
+    cat&mdash;but they don't appear as spirits. But the dog is seen
+    as a pathetic symbol of faithfulness, as a tragic sufferer, or
+    as a terrible revenge ghost. Dogs may come singly or in
+    groups&mdash;Edith Wharton has five of different sorts in
+    <em>Kerfol</em>&mdash;or in packs, as in Eden Phillpotts's
+    <em>Another Little Heath Hound</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>An illuminating instance of the power of fiction over human
+    faith is furnished by the case of Arthur Machen's
+    <em><a href="#Bowmen">The Bowmen</a></em>, included here. This
+    story it is which started the whole tissue of legendry
+    concerning supernatural aid given the allied armies during the
+    war. This purely fictitious account of an angel army that saved
+    the day at Mons was so vivid that its readers accepted it as
+    truth and obstinately clung to that idea in the face of Mr.
+    Machen's persistent and bewildered explanations that he had
+    invented the whole thing. Editors wrote leading articles about
+    it, ministers preached sermons on it, and the general public
+    preferred to believe in the Mons angels rather than in Arthur
+    Machen. Mr. Machen has shown himself an artist in the
+    supernatural, one whom his generation has not been discerning
+    enough to appreciate. Some of his material is painfully morbid,
+    but his pen is magic and his inkwell holds many dark
+    secrets.</p>
+
+    <p>In this collection I have attempted to include specimens of
+    a few of the distinctive types of modern ghosts, as well as to
+    show the art of individual stories. Examples of the humorous
+    ghosts are omitted here, as a number of them will be brought
+    together in <em>Humorous Ghost Stories</em>, the companion
+    volume to this. The ghost lover who reads these pages will
+    think of others that he would like to see included&mdash;for I
+    believe that readers are more passionately attached to their
+    own favorite ghost tales than to any other form of literature.
+    But critics will admit the manifest impossibility of bringing
+    together in one volume all the famous examples of the art. Some
+    of the well-known tales, particularly the older ones on which
+    copyright has expired, have been reprinted so often as to be
+    almost hackneyed, while others have been of necessity omitted
+    because of the limitations of space.</p>
+
+    <p class="citation">D.S.</p>
+
+    <p class="date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>,<br />
+    <em>March, 1921</em>.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Willows"
+       id="Willows"></a>The Willows</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>The Listener</em>, by Algernon Blackwood.
+        Published in America by E.P. Dutton, and in England by
+        Everleigh Nash, Ltd. By permission of the publishers and
+        Algernon Blackwood.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <h4>I</h4>
+
+    <p>After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to
+    Buda-Pesth, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness
+    and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides
+    regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp
+    for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low
+    willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in
+    a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks,
+    and across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word
+    <em>S&uuml;mpfe</em>, meaning marshes.</p>
+
+    <p>In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and
+    willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in
+    normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds,
+    showing their silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving
+    plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the
+    dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble
+    bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender
+    stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as
+    grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the
+    impression that the entire plain is moving and <em>alive</em>.
+    For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole
+    surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green
+    swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and
+    then silvery white as their under-side turns to the sun.</p>
+
+    <p>Happy to slip beyond the control of stern banks, the Danube
+    here wanders about at will among the intricate network of
+    channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues
+    down which the waters pour with a shouting sound; making
+    whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy
+    banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and
+    forming new islands innumerable which shift daily in size and
+    shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the
+    flood-time obliterates their very existence.</p>
+
+    <p>Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life
+    begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian
+    canoe, with gipsy tent and frying-pan on board, reached it on
+    the crest of a rising flood about mid-July. That very same
+    morning, when the sky was reddening before sunrise, we had
+    slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving it a
+    couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue
+    hills of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted
+    below Fischeramend under a grove of birch trees roaring in the
+    wind; and had then swept on the tearing current past Orth,
+    Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman Carnuntum of Marcus
+    Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of Theben on a
+    spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly from
+    the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and
+    Hungary.</p>
+
+    <p>Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well
+    into Hungary, and the muddy waters&mdash;sure sign of
+    flood&mdash;sent us aground on many a shingle-bed, and twisted
+    us like a cork in many a sudden belching whirlpool before the
+    towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Posz&oacute;ny) showed against
+    the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse,
+    flew at top speed under the gray walls, negotiated safely the
+    sunken chain of the Fliegende Br&uuml;cke ferry, turned the
+    corner sharply to the left, and plunged on yellow foam into the
+    wilderness of islands, sand-banks, and swamp-land
+    beyond&mdash;the land of the willows.</p>
+
+    <p>The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope
+    pictures snaps down on the streets of a town and shifts without
+    warning into the scenery of lake and forest. We entered the
+    land of desolation on wings, and in less than half an hour
+    there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor any
+    single sign of human habitation and civilization within sight.
+    The sense of remoteness from the world of human kind, the utter
+    isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows,
+    winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so
+    that we allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by
+    rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit us,
+    and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking
+    leave into a separate little kingdom of wonder and
+    magic&mdash;a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others
+    who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to
+    trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless
+    buffetings of a most tempestuous wind made us feel weary, and
+    we at once began casting about for a suitable camping-ground
+    for the night. But the bewildering character of the islands
+    made landing difficult; the swirling flood carried us in-shore
+    and then swept us out again; the willow branches tore our hands
+    as we seized them to stop the canoe, and we pulled many a yard
+    of sandy bank into the water before at length we shot with a
+    great sideways blow from the wind into a backwater and managed
+    to beach the bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay panting and
+    laughing after our exertions on hot yellow sand, sheltered from
+    the wind, and in the full blaze of a scorching sun, a cloudless
+    blue sky above, and an immense army of dancing, shouting willow
+    bushes, closing in from all sides, shining with spray and
+    clapping their thousand little hands as though to applaud the
+    success of our efforts.</p>
+
+    <p>"What a river!" I said to my companion, thinking of all the
+    way we had traveled from the source in the Black Forest, and
+    how we had often been obliged to wade and push in the upper
+    shallows at the beginning of June.</p>
+
+    <p>"Won't stand much nonsense now, will it?" he said, pulling
+    the canoe a little farther into safety up the sand, and then
+    composing himself for a nap.</p>
+
+    <p>I lay by his side, happy and peaceful in the bath of the
+    elements&mdash;water, wind, sand, and the great fire of the
+    sun&mdash;thinking of the long journey that lay behind us, and
+    of the great stretch before us to the Black Sea, and how lucky
+    I was to have such a delightful and charming traveling
+    companion as my friend, the Swede.</p>
+
+    <p>We had made many similar journeys together, but the Danube,
+    more than any other river I knew, impressed us from the very
+    beginning with its <em>aliveness</em>. From its tiny bubbling
+    entry into the world among the pinewood gardens of
+    Donaueschingen, until this moment when it began to play the
+    great river-game of losing itself among the deserted swamps,
+    unobserved, unrestrained, it had seemed to us like following
+    the growth of some living creature. Sleepy at first, but later
+    developing violent desires as it became conscious of its deep
+    soul, it rolled, like some huge fluid being, through all the
+    countries we had passed, holding our little craft on its mighty
+    shoulders, playing roughly with us sometimes, yet always
+    friendly and well-meaning, till at length we had come
+    inevitably to regard it as a Great Personage.</p>
+
+    <p>How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it told us so much
+    of its secret life? At night we heard it singing to the moon as
+    we lay in our tent, uttering that odd sibilant note peculiar to
+    itself and said to be caused by the rapid tearing of the
+    pebbles along its bed, so great is its hurrying speed. We knew,
+    too, the voice of its gurgling whirlpools, suddenly bubbling up
+    on a surface previously quite calm; the roar of its shallows
+    and swift rapids; its constant steady thundering below all mere
+    surface sounds; and that ceaseless tearing of its icy waters at
+    the banks. How it stood up and shouted when the rains fell flat
+    upon its face! And how its laughter roared out when the wind
+    blew upstream and tried to stop its growing speed! We knew all
+    its sounds and voices, its tumblings and foamings, its
+    unnecessary splashing against the bridges; that self-conscious
+    chatter when there were hills to look on; the affected dignity
+    of its speech when it passed through the little towns, far too
+    important to laugh; and all these faint, sweet whisperings when
+    the sun caught it fairly in some slow curve and poured down
+    upon it till the steam rose.</p>
+
+    <p>It was full of tricks, too, in its early life before the
+    great world knew it. There were places in the upper reaches
+    among the Swabian forests, when yet the first whispers of its
+    destiny had not reached it, where it elected to disappear
+    through holes in the ground, to appear again on the other side
+    of the porous limestone hills and start a new river with
+    another name; leaving, too, so little water in its own bed that
+    we had to climb out and wade and push the canoe through miles
+    of shallows!</p>
+
+    <p>And a chief pleasure, in those early days of its
+    irresponsible youth, was to lie low, like Brer Fox, just before
+    the little turbulent tributaries came to join it from the Alps,
+    and to refuse to acknowledge them when in, but to run for miles
+    side by side, the dividing line well marked, the very levels
+    different, the Danube utterly declining to recognize the
+    new-comer. Below Passau, however, it gave up this particular
+    trick, for there the Inn comes in with a thundering power
+    impossible to ignore, and so pushes and incommodes the parent
+    river that there is hardly room for them in the long twisting
+    gorge that follows, and the Danube is shoved this way and that
+    against the cliffs, and forced to hurry itself with great waves
+    and much dashing to and fro in order to get through in time.
+    And during the fight our canoe slipped down from its shoulder
+    to its breast, and had the time of its life among the
+    struggling waves. But the Inn taught the old river a lesson,
+    and after Passau it no longer pretended to ignore new
+    arrivals.</p>
+
+    <p>This was many days back, of course, and since then we had
+    come to know other aspects of the great creature, and across
+    the Bavarian wheat plain of Straubing she wandered so slowly
+    under the blazing June sun that we could well imagine only the
+    surface inches were water, while below there moved, concealed
+    as by a silken mantle, a whole army of Undines, passing
+    silently and unseen down to the sea, and very leisurely too,
+    lest they be discovered.</p>
+
+    <p>Much, too, we forgave her because of her friendliness to the
+    birds and animals that haunted the shores. Cormorants lined the
+    banks in lonely places in rows like short black palings; gray
+    crows crowded the shingle-beds; storks stood fishing in the
+    vistas of shallower water that opened up between the islands,
+    and hawks, swans, and marsh birds of all sorts filled the air
+    with glinting wings and singing, petulant cries. It was
+    impossible to feel annoyed with the river's vagaries after
+    seeing a deer leap with a splash into the water at sunrise and
+    swim past the bows of the canoe; and often we saw fawns peering
+    at us from the underbrush, or looked straight into the brown
+    eyes of a stag as we charged full tilt round a corner and
+    entered another reach of the river. Foxes, too, everywhere
+    haunted the banks, tripping daintily among the driftwood and
+    disappearing so suddenly that it was impossible to see how they
+    managed it.</p>
+
+    <p>But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything changed a
+    little, and the Danube became more serious. It ceased trifling.
+    It was halfway to the Black Sea, within scenting distance
+    almost of other, stranger countries where no tricks would be
+    permitted or understood. It became suddenly grown-up, and
+    claimed our respect and even our awe. It broke out into three
+    arms, for one thing, that only met again a hundred kilometers
+    farther down, and for a canoe there were no indications which
+    one was intended to be followed.</p>
+
+    <p>"If you take a side channel," said the Hungarian officer we
+    met in the Pressburg shop while buying provisions, "you may
+    find yourselves, when the flood subsides, forty miles from
+    anywhere, high and dry, and you may easily starve. There are no
+    people, no farms, no fishermen. I warn you not to continue. The
+    river, too, is still rising, and this wind will increase."</p>
+
+    <p>The rising river did not alarm us in the least, but the
+    matter of being left high and dry by a sudden subsidence of the
+    waters might be serious, and we had consequently laid in an
+    extra stock of provisions. For the rest, the officer's prophecy
+    held true, and the wind, blowing down a perfectly clear sky,
+    increased steadily till it reached the dignity of a westerly
+    gale.</p>
+
+    <p>It was earlier than usual when we camped, for the sun was a
+    good hour or two from the horizon, and leaving my friend still
+    asleep on the hot sand, I wandered about in desultory
+    examination of our hotel. The island, I found, was less than an
+    acre in extent, a mere sandy bank standing some two or three
+    feet above the level of the river. The far end, pointing into
+    the sunset, was covered with flying spray which the tremendous
+    wind drove off the crests of the broken waves. It was
+    triangular in shape, with the apex upstream.</p>
+
+    <p>I stood there for several minutes, watching the impetuous
+    crimson flood bearing down with a shouting roar, dashing in
+    waves against the bank as though to sweep it bodily away, and
+    then swirling by in two foaming streams on either side. The
+    ground seemed to shake with the shock and rush while the
+    furious movement of the willow bushes as the wind poured over
+    them increased the curious illusion that the island itself
+    actually moved. Above, for a mile or two, I could see the great
+    river descending upon me: it was like looking up the slope of a
+    sliding hill, white with foam, and leaping up everywhere to
+    show itself to the sun.</p>
+
+    <p>The rest of the island was too thickly grown with willows to
+    make walking pleasant, but I made the tour, nevertheless. From
+    the lower end the light, of course, changed, and the river
+    looked dark and angry. Only the backs of the flying waves were
+    visible, streaked with foam, and pushed forcibly by the great
+    puffs of wind that fell upon them from behind. For a short mile
+    it was visible, pouring in and out among the islands, and then
+    disappearing with a huge sweep into the willows, which closed
+    about it like a herd of monstrous antediluvian creatures
+    crowding down to drink. They made me think of gigantic
+    sponge-like growths that sucked the river up into themselves.
+    They caused it to vanish from sight. They herded there together
+    in such overpowering numbers.</p>
+
+    <p>Altogether it was an impressive scene, with its utter
+    loneliness, its bizarre suggestion; and as I gazed, long and
+    curiously, a singular emotion began stir somewhere in the
+    depths of me. Midway in my delight of the wild beauty, there
+    crept unbidden and unexplained, a curious feeling of
+    disquietude, almost of alarm.</p>
+
+    <p>A rising river, perhaps, always suggests something of the
+    ominous: many of the little islands I saw before me would
+    probably have been swept away by the morning; this resistless,
+    thundering flood of water touched the sense of awe. Yet I was
+    aware that my uneasiness lay deeper far than the emotions of
+    awe and wonder. It was not that I felt. Nor had it directly to
+    do with the power of the driving wind&mdash;this shouting
+    hurricane that might almost carry up a few acres of willows
+    into the air and scatter them like so much chaff over the
+    landscape. The wind was simply enjoying itself, for nothing
+    rose out of the flat landscape to stop it, and I was conscious
+    of sharing its great game with a kind of pleasurable
+    excitement. Yet this novel emotion had nothing to do with the
+    wind. Indeed, so vague was the sense of distress I experienced,
+    that it was impossible to trace it to its source and deal with
+    it accordingly, though I was aware somehow that it had to do
+    with my realization of our utter insignificance before this
+    unrestrained power of the elements about me. The huge-grown
+    river had something to do with it too&mdash;a vague, unpleasant
+    idea that we had somehow trifled with these great elemental
+    forces in whose power we lay helpless every hour of the day and
+    night. For here, indeed, they were gigantically at play
+    together, and the sight appealed to the imagination.</p>
+
+    <p>But my emotion, so far as I could understand it, seemed to
+    attach itself more particularly to the willow bushes, to these
+    acres and acres of willows, crowding, so thickly growing there,
+    swarming everywhere the eye could reach, pressing upon the
+    river as though to suffocate it, standing in dense array mile
+    after mile beneath the sky, watching, waiting, listening. And,
+    apart quite from the elements, the willows connected themselves
+    subtly with my malaise, attacking the mind insidiously somehow
+    by reason of their vast numbers, and contriving in some way or
+    other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty power, a
+    power, moreover, not altogether friendly to us.</p>
+
+    <p>Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to
+    impress in one way or another, and I was no stranger to moods
+    of the kind. Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the
+    mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own.
+    But all these, at one point or another, somewhere link on
+    intimately with human life and human experience. They stir
+    comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the
+    whole to exalt.</p>
+
+    <p>With this multitude of willows, however, it was something
+    far different, I felt. Some essence emanated from them that
+    besieged the heart. A sense of awe awakened, true, but of awe
+    touched somewhere by a vague terror. Their serried ranks
+    growing everywhere darker about me as the shadows deepened,
+    moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke in me the curious
+    and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespassed here upon the
+    borders of an alien world, a world where we were intruders, a
+    world where we were not wanted or invited to remain&mdash;where
+    we ran grave risks perhaps!</p>
+
+    <p>The feeling, however, though it refused to yield its meaning
+    entirely to analysis, did not at the time trouble me by passing
+    into menace. Yet it never left me quite, even during the very
+    practical business of putting up the tent in a hurricane of
+    wind and building a fire for the stew-pot. It remained, just
+    enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a most delightful
+    camping-ground of a good portion of its charm. To my companion,
+    however, I said nothing, for he was a man I considered devoid
+    of imagination. In the first place, I could never have
+    explained to him what I meant, and in the second, he would have
+    laughed stupidly at me if I had.</p>
+
+    <p>There was a slight depression in the center of the island,
+    and here we pitched the tent. The surrounding willows broke the
+    wind a bit.</p>
+
+    <p>"A poor camp," observed the imperturbable Swede when at last
+    the tent stood upright; "no stones and precious little
+    firewood. I'm for moving on early to-morrow&mdash;eh? This sand
+    won't hold anything."</p>
+
+    <p>But the experience of a collapsing tent at midnight had
+    taught us many devices, and we made the cosy gipsy house as
+    safe as possible, and then set about collecting a store of wood
+    to last till bedtime. Willow bushes drop no branches, and
+    driftwood was our only source of supply. We hunted the shores
+    pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the banks were crumbling as the
+    rising flood tore at them and carried away great portions with
+    a splash and a gurgle.</p>
+
+    <p>"The island's much smaller than when we landed," said the
+    accurate Swede. "It won't last long at this rate. We'd better
+    drag the canoe close to the tent, and be ready to start at a
+    moment's notice. <em>I</em> shall sleep in my clothes."</p>
+
+    <p>He was a little distance off, climbing along the bank, and I
+    heard his rather jolly laugh as he spoke.</p>
+
+    <p>"By Jove!" I heard him call, a moment later, and turned to
+    see what had caused his exclamation; but for the moment he was
+    hidden by the willows, and I could not find him.</p>
+
+    <p>"What in the world's this?" I heard him cry again, and this
+    time his voice had become serious.</p>
+
+    <p>I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He was looking
+    over the river, pointing at something in the water.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good Heavens, it's a man's body!" he cried excitedly.
+    "Look!"</p>
+
+    <p>A black thing, turning over and over in the foaming waves,
+    swept rapidly past. It kept disappearing and coming up to the
+    surface again. It was about twenty feet from the shore, and
+    just as it was opposite to where we stood it lurched round and
+    looked straight at us. We saw its eyes reflecting the sunset,
+    and gleaming an odd yellow as the body turned over. Then it
+    gave a swift, gulping plunge, and dived out of sight in a
+    flash.</p>
+
+    <p>"An otter, by gad!" we exclaimed in the same breath,
+    laughing.</p>
+
+    <p>It <em>was</em> an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it
+    had looked exactly like the body of a drowned man turning
+    helplessly in the current. Far below it came to the surface
+    once again, and we saw its black skin, wet and shining in the
+    sunlight.</p>
+
+    <p>Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full of
+    driftwood, another thing happened to recall us to the river
+    bank. This time it really was a man, and what was more, a man
+    in a boat. Now a small boat on the Danube was an unusual sight
+    at any time, but here in this deserted region, and at flood
+    time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real event. We
+    stood and stared.</p>
+
+    <p>Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or the
+    refraction from the wonderfully illumined water, I cannot say,
+    but, whatever the cause, I found it difficult to focus my sight
+    properly upon the flying apparition. It seemed, however, to be
+    a man standing upright in a sort of flat-bottomed boat,
+    steering with a long oar, and being carried down the opposite
+    shore at a tremendous pace. He apparently was looking across in
+    our direction, but the distance was too great and the light too
+    uncertain for us to make out very plainly what he was about. It
+    seemed to me that he was gesticulating and making signs at us.
+    His voice came across the water to us shouting something
+    furiously but the wind drowned it so that no single word was
+    audible. There was something curious about the whole
+    appearance&mdash;man, boat, signs, voice&mdash;that made an
+    impression on me out of all proportion to its cause.</p>
+
+    <p>"He's crossing himself!" I cried. "Look, he's making the
+    sign of the cross!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I believe you're right," the Swede said, shading his eyes
+    with his hand and watching the man out of sight. He seemed to
+    be gone in a moment, melting away down there into the sea of
+    willows where the sun caught them in the bend of the river and
+    turned them into a great crimson wall of beauty. Mist, too, had
+    begun to rise, so that the air was hazy.</p>
+
+    <p>"But what in the world is he doing at nightfall on this
+    flooded river?" I said, half to myself. "Where is he going at
+    such a time, and what did he mean by his signs and shouting?
+    D'you think he wished to warn us about something?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably,"
+    laughed my companion. "These Hungarians believe in all sorts of
+    rubbish: you remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us
+    that no one ever landed here because it belonged to some sort
+    of beings outside man's world! I suppose they believe in
+    fairies and elementals, possibly demons too. That peasant in
+    the boat saw people on the islands for the first time in his
+    life," he added, after a slight pause, "and it scared him,
+    that's all." The Swede's tone of voice was not convincing, and
+    his manner lacked something that was usually there. I noted the
+    change instantly while he talked, though without being able to
+    label it precisely.</p>
+
+    <p>"If they had enough imagination," I laughed loudly&mdash;I
+    remember trying to make as much <em>noise</em> as I
+    could&mdash;"they might well people a place like this with the
+    old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all this
+    region more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and
+    elemental deities."</p>
+
+    <p>The subject dropped and we returned to our stew-pot, for my
+    friend was not given to imaginative conversation as a rule.
+    Moreover, just then I remember feeling distinctly glad that he
+    was not imaginative; his stolid, practical nature suddenly
+    seemed to me welcome and comforting. It was an admirable
+    temperament, I felt: he could steer down rapids like a red
+    Indian, shoot dangerous bridges and whirlpools better than any
+    white man I ever saw in a canoe. He was a grand fellow for an
+    adventurous trip, a tower of strength when untoward things
+    happened. I looked at his strong face and light curly hair as
+    he staggered along under his pile of driftwood (twice the size
+    of mine!), and I experienced a feeling of relief. Yes, I was
+    distinctly glad just then that the Swede was&mdash;what he was,
+    and that he never made remarks that suggested more than they
+    said.</p>
+
+    <p>"The river's still rising, though," he added, as if
+    following out some thoughts of his own, and dropping his load
+    with a gasp. "This island will be under water in two days if it
+    goes on."</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish the <em>wind</em> would go down," I said. "I don't
+    care a fig for the river."</p>
+
+    <p>The flood, indeed, had no terrors for us; we could get off
+    at ten minutes' notice, and the more water the better we liked
+    it. It meant an increasing current and the obliteration of the
+    treacherous shingle-beds that so often threatened to tear the
+    bottom out of our canoe.</p>
+
+    <p>Contrary to our expectations, the wind did not go down with
+    the sun. It seemed to increase with the darkness, howling
+    overhead and shaking the willows round us like straws. Curious
+    sounds accompanied it sometimes, like the explosion of heavy
+    guns, and it fell upon the water and the island in great flat
+    blows of immense power. It made me think of the sounds a planet
+    must make, could we only hear it, driving along through
+    space.</p>
+
+    <p>But the sky kept wholly clear of clouds, and soon after
+    supper the full moon rose up in the east and covered the river
+    and the plain of shouting willows with a light like the
+    day.</p>
+
+    <p>We lay on the sandy patch beside the fire, smoking,
+    listening to the noises of the night round us, and talking
+    happily of the journey we had already made, and of our plans
+    ahead. The map lay spread in the door of the tent, but the high
+    wind made it hard to study, and presently we lowered the
+    curtain and extinguished the lantern. The firelight was enough
+    to smoke and see each other's faces by, and the sparks flew
+    about overhead like fireworks. A few yards beyond, the river
+    gurgled and hissed, and from time to time a heavy splash
+    announced the falling away of further portions of the bank.</p>
+
+    <p>Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the far-away scenes and
+    incidents of our first camps in the Black Forest, or of other
+    subjects altogether remote from the present setting, for
+    neither of us spoke of the actual moment more than was
+    necessary&mdash;almost as though we had agreed tacitly to avoid
+    discussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter nor
+    the boatman, for instance, received the honor of a single
+    mention, though ordinarily these would have furnished
+    discussion for the greater part of the evening. They were, of
+    course, distinct events in such a place.</p>
+
+    <p>The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep the fire
+    going, for the wind, that drove the smoke in our faces wherever
+    we sat, helped at the same time to make a forced draught. We
+    took it in turn to make foraging expeditions into the darkness,
+    and the quantity the Swede brought back always made me feel
+    that he took an absurdly long time finding it; for the fact was
+    I did not care much about being left alone, and yet it always
+    seemed to be my turn to grub about among the bushes or scramble
+    along the slippery banks in the moonlight. The long day's
+    battle with wind and water&mdash;such wind and such
+    water!&mdash;had tired us both, and an early bed was the
+    obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for the tent.
+    We lay there, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion,
+    peering about us into the dense willow bushes, and listening to
+    the thunder of wind and river. The loneliness of the place had
+    entered our very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a
+    bit the sound of our voices became a trifle unreal and forced;
+    whispering would have been the fitting mode of communication, I
+    felt, and the human voice, always rather absurd amid the roar
+    of the elements, now carried with it something almost
+    illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in church, or in
+    some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not quite
+    <em>safe</em>, to be overheard.</p>
+
+    <p>The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million
+    willows, swept by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep
+    waters, touched us both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost
+    unknown to man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from
+    human influence, on the frontier of another world, an alien
+    world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of
+    willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even
+    to make use of it! Something more than the power of its mystery
+    stirred in me as I lay on the sand, feet to fire, and peered up
+    through the leaves at the stars. For the last time I rose to
+    get firewood.</p>
+
+    <p>"When this has burnt up," I said firmly, "I shall turn in,"
+    and my companion watched me lazily as I moved off into the
+    surrounding shadows.</p>
+
+    <p>For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed unusually
+    receptive that night, unusually open to suggestion of things
+    other than sensory. He too was touched by the beauty and
+    loneliness of the place. I was not altogether pleased, I
+    remember, to recognize this slight change in him, and instead
+    of immediately collecting sticks, I made my way to the far
+    point of the island where the moonlight on plain and river
+    could be seen to better advantage. The desire to be alone had
+    come suddenly upon me; my former dread returned in force; there
+    was a vague feeling in me I wished to face and probe to the
+    bottom.</p>
+
+    <p>When I reached the point of sand jutting out among the
+    waves, the spell of the place descended upon me with a positive
+    shock. No mere "scenery" could have produced such an effect.
+    There was something more here, something to alarm.</p>
+
+    <p>I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched the
+    whispering willows; I heard the ceaseless beating of the
+    tireless wind; and, one and all, each in its own way, stirred
+    in me this sensation of a strange distress. But the
+    <em>willows</em> especially: for ever they went on chattering
+    and talking among themselves, laughing a little, shrilly crying
+    out, sometimes sighing&mdash;but what it was they made so much
+    to-do about belonged to the secret life of the great plain they
+    inhabited. And it was utterly alien to the world I knew, or to
+    that of the wild yet kindly elements. They made me think of a
+    host of beings from another plane of life, another evolution
+    altogether, perhaps, all discussing a mystery known only to
+    themselves. I watched them moving busily together, oddly
+    shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their myriad leaves
+    even when there was no wind. They moved of their own will as
+    though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my
+    own keen sense of the <em>horrible</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast army
+    surrounding our camp, shaking their innumerable silver spears
+    defiantly, formed all ready for an attack.</p>
+
+    <p>The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is
+    very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their
+    "note" either of welcome or rejection. At first it may not
+    always be apparent, because the busy preparations of tent and
+    cooking prevent, but with the first pause&mdash;after supper
+    usually&mdash;it comes and announces itself. And the note of
+    this willow-camp now became unmistakably plain to me: we were
+    interlopers, trespassers, we were not welcomed. The sense of
+    unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watching. We
+    touched the frontier of a region where our presence was
+    resented. For a night's lodging we might perhaps be tolerated;
+    but for a prolonged and inquisitive stay&mdash;No! by all the
+    gods of the trees and the wilderness, no! We were the first
+    human influences upon this island, and we were not wanted.
+    <em>The willows were against us</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>Strange thoughts like these, bizarre fancies, borne I know
+    not whence, found lodgment in my mind as I stood listening.
+    What, I thought, if, after all, these crouching willows proved
+    to be alive; if suddenly they should rise up, like a swarm of
+    living creatures, marshaled by the gods whose territory we had
+    invaded, sweep towards us off the vast swamps, booming overhead
+    in the night&mdash;and then <em>settle down</em>! As I looked
+    it was so easy to imagine they actually moved, crept nearer,
+    retreated a little, huddled together in masses, hostile,
+    waiting for the great wind that should finally start them
+    a-running. I could have sworn their aspect changed a little,
+    and their ranks deepened and pressed more closely together.</p>
+
+    <p>The melancholy shrill cry of a night bird sounded overhead,
+    and suddenly I nearly lost my balance as the piece of bank I
+    stood upon fell with a great splash into the river, undermined
+    by the flood. I stepped back just in time, and went on hunting
+    for firewood again, half laughing at the odd fancies that
+    crowded so thickly into my mind and cast their spell upon me. I
+    recall the Swede's remark about moving on next day, and I was
+    just thinking that I fully agreed with him, when I turned with
+    a start and saw the subject of my thoughts standing immediately
+    in front of me. He was quite close. The roar of the elements
+    had covered his approach.</p>
+
+    <p>"You've been gone so long," he shouted above the wind, "I
+    thought something must have happened to you."</p>
+
+    <p>But there was that in his tone, and a certain look in his
+    face as well, that conveyed to me more than his actual words,
+    and in a flash I understood the real reason for his coming. It
+    was because the spell of the place had entered his soul too,
+    and he did not like being alone.</p>
+
+    <p>"River still rising," he cried, pointing to the flood in the
+    moonlight, "and the wind's simply awful."</p>
+
+    <p>He always said the same things, but it was the cry for
+    companionship that gave the real importance to his words.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lucky," I cried back, "our tent's in the hollow. I think
+    it'll hold all right." I added something about the difficulty
+    of finding wood, in order to explain my absence, but the wind
+    caught my words and flung them across the river, so that he did
+    not hear, but just looked at me through the branches, nodding
+    his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lucky if we get away without disaster!" he shouted, or
+    words to that effect; and I remember feeling half angry with
+    him for putting the thought into words, for it was exactly what
+    I felt myself. There was disaster impending somewhere, and the
+    sense of presentiment lay unpleasantly upon me.</p>
+
+    <p>We went back to the fire and made a final blaze, poking it
+    up with our feet. We took a last look round. But for the wind
+    the heat would have been unpleasant. I put this thought into
+    words, and I remember my friend's reply struck me oddly: that
+    he would rather have the heat, the ordinary July weather, than
+    this "diabolical wind."</p>
+
+    <p>Everything was snug for the night; the canoe lying turned
+    over beside the tent, with both yellow paddles beneath her; the
+    provision sack hanging from a willow stem, and the washed-up
+    dishes removed to a safe distance from the fire, all ready for
+    the morning meal.</p>
+
+    <p>We smothered the embers of the fire with sand, and then
+    turned in. The flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the
+    branches and the stars and the white moonlight. The shaking
+    willows and the heavy buffetings of the wind against our taut
+    little house were the last things I remembered as sleep came
+    down and covered all with its soft and delicious
+    forgetfulness.</p>
+
+    <h4>II</h4>
+
+    <p>Suddenly I found myself lying awake, peering from my sandy
+    mattress through the door of the tent. I looked at my watch
+    pinned against the canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that
+    it was past twelve o'clock&mdash;the threshold of a new
+    day&mdash;and I had therefore slept a couple of hours. The
+    Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind howled as before
+    something plucked at my heart and made me feel afraid. There
+    was a sense of disturbance in my immediate neighborhood.</p>
+
+    <p>I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were swaying
+    violently to and fro as the gusts smote them, but our little
+    bit of green canvas lay snugly safe in the hollow, for the wind
+    passed over it without meeting enough resistance to make it
+    vicious. The feeling of disquietude did not pass however, and I
+    crawled quietly out of the tent to see if our belongings were
+    safe. I moved carefully so as not to waken my companion. A
+    curious excitement was on me.</p>
+
+    <p>I was halfway out, kneeling on all fours, when my eye first
+    took in that the tops of the bushes opposite, with their moving
+    tracery of leaves, made shapes against the sky. I sat back on
+    my haunches and stared. It was incredible, surely, but there,
+    opposite and slightly above me, were shapes of some
+    indeterminate sort among the willows, and as the branches
+    swayed in the wind they seemed to group themselves about these
+    shapes, forming a series of monstrous outlines that shifted
+    rapidly beneath the moon. Close, about fifty feet in front of
+    me, I saw these things.</p>
+
+    <p>My first instinct was to waken my companion that he too
+    might see them, but something made me hesitate&mdash;the sudden
+    realization, probably, that I should not welcome corroboration;
+    and meanwhile I crouched there staring in amazement with
+    smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying to myself
+    that I was <em>not</em> dreaming.</p>
+
+    <p>They first became properly visible, these huge figures, just
+    within the tops of the bushes&mdash;immense bronze-colored,
+    moving, and wholly independent of the swaying of the branches.
+    I saw them plainly and noted, now I came to examine them more
+    calmly, that they were very much larger than human, and indeed
+    that something in their appearance proclaimed them to be
+    <em>not human</em> at all. Certainly they were not merely the
+    moving tracery of the branches against the moonlight. They
+    shifted independently. They rose upwards in a continuous stream
+    from earth to sky, vanishing utterly as soon as they reached
+    the dark of the sky. They were interlaced one with another,
+    making a great column, and I saw their limbs and huge bodies
+    melting in and out of each other, forming this serpentine line
+    that bent and swayed and twisted spirally with the contortions
+    of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude, fluid shapes, passing
+    up the bushes, <em>within</em> the leaves almost&mdash;rising
+    up in a living column into the heavens. Their faces I never
+    could see. Unceasingly they poured upwards, swaying in great
+    bending curves, with a hue of dull bronze upon their skins.</p>
+
+    <p>I stared, trying to force every atom of vision from my eyes.
+    For a long time I thought they <em>must</em> every moment
+    disappear and resolve themselves into the movements of the
+    branches and prove to be an optical illusion. I searched
+    everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I
+    understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed.
+    For the longer I looked the more certain I became that these
+    figures were real and living, though perhaps not according to
+    the standards that the camera and the biologist would insist
+    upon.</p>
+
+    <p>Far from feeling fear, I was possessed with a sense of awe
+    and wonder such as I have never known. I seemed to be gazing at
+    the personified elemental forces of this haunted and primeval
+    region. Our intrusion had stirred the powers of the place into
+    activity. It was we who were the cause of the disturbance, and
+    my brain filled to bursting with stories and legends of the
+    spirits and deities of places that have been acknowledged and
+    worshiped by men in all ages of the world's history. But,
+    before I could arrive at any possible explanation, something
+    impelled me to go farther out, and I crept forward on to the
+    sand and stood upright. I felt the ground still warm under my
+    bare feet; the wind tore at my hair and face; and the sound of
+    the river burst upon my ears with a sudden roar. These things,
+    I knew, were real, and proved that my senses were acting
+    normally. Yet the figures still rose from earth to heaven,
+    silent, majestically, in a great spiral of grace and strength
+    that overwhelmed me at length with a genuine deep emotion of
+    worship. I felt that I must fall down and
+    worship&mdash;absolutely worship.</p>
+
+    <p>Perhaps in another minute I might have done so, when a gust
+    of wind swept against me with such force that it blew me
+    sideways, and I nearly stumbled and fell. It seemed to shake
+    the dream violently out of me. At least it gave me another
+    point of view somehow. The figures still remained, still
+    ascended into heaven from the heart of the night, but my reason
+    at last began to assert itself. It must be a subjective
+    experience, I argued&mdash;none the less real for that, but
+    still subjective. The moonlight and the branches combined to
+    work out these pictures upon the mirror of my imagination, and
+    for some reason I projected them outwards and made them appear
+    objective. I knew this must be the case, of course. I was the
+    subject of a vivid and interesting hallucination. I took
+    courage, and began to move forward across the open patches of
+    sand. By Jove, though, was it all hallucination? Was it merely
+    subjective? Did not my reason argue in the old futile way from
+    the little standard of the known?</p>
+
+    <p>I only know that great column of figures ascended darkly
+    into the sky for what seemed a very long period of time, and
+    with a very complete measure of reality as most men are
+    accustomed to gauge reality. Then suddenly they were gone!</p>
+
+    <p>And, once they were gone and the immediate wonder of their
+    great presence had passed, fear came down upon me with a cold
+    rush. The esoteric meaning of this lonely and haunted region
+    suddenly flamed up within me and I began to tremble dreadfully.
+    I took a quick look round&mdash;a look of horror that came near
+    to panic&mdash;calculating vainly ways of escape; and then,
+    realizing how helpless I was to achieve anything really
+    effective, I crept back silently into the tent and lay down
+    again upon my sandy mattress, first lowering the door-curtain
+    to shut out the sight of the willows in the moonlight, and then
+    burying my head as deeply as possible beneath the blankets to
+    deaden the sound of the terrifying wind.</p>
+
+    <h4>III</h4>
+
+    <p>As though further to convince me that I had not been
+    dreaming, I remember that it was a long time before I fell
+    again into a troubled and restless sleep; and even then only
+    the upper crust of me slept, and underneath there was something
+    that never quite lost consciousness, but lay alert and on the
+    watch.</p>
+
+    <p>But this second time I jumped up with a genuine start of
+    terror. It was neither the wind nor the river that woke me, but
+    the slow approach of something that caused the sleeping portion
+    of me to grow smaller and smaller till at last it vanished
+    altogether, and I found myself sitting bolt
+    upright&mdash;listening.</p>
+
+    <p>Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little
+    patterings. They had been coming, I was aware, for a long time,
+    and in my sleep they had first become audible. I sat there
+    nervously wide awake as though I had not slept at all. It
+    seemed to me that my breathing came with difficulty, and that
+    there was a great weight upon the surface of my body. In spite
+    of the hot night, I felt clammy with cold and shivered.
+    Something surely was pressing steadily against the sides of the
+    tent and weighing down upon it from above. Was it the body of
+    the wind? Was this the pattering rain, the dripping of the
+    leaves? The spray blown from the river by the wind and
+    gathering in big drops? I thought quickly of a dozen
+    things.</p>
+
+    <p>Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my mind: a bough
+    from the poplar, the only large tree on the island, had fallen
+    with the wind. Still half caught by the other branches, it
+    would fall with the next gust and crush us, and meanwhile its
+    leaves brushed and tapped upon the tight canvas surface of the
+    tent. I raised the loose flap and rushed out, calling to the
+    Swede to follow.</p>
+
+    <p>But when I got out and stood upright I saw that the tent was
+    free. There was no hanging bough; there was no rain or spray;
+    nothing approached.</p>
+
+    <p>A cold, gray light filtered down through the bushes and lay
+    on the faintly gleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky
+    directly overhead, and the wind howled magnificently, but the
+    fire no longer gave out any glow, and I saw the east reddening
+    in streaks through the trees. Several hours must have passed
+    since I stood there before, watching the ascending figures, and
+    the memory of it now came back to me horribly, like an evil
+    dream. Oh, how tired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging
+    wind! Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless night was
+    on me, my nerves were tingling with the activity of an equally
+    tireless apprehension, and all idea of repose was out of the
+    question. The river I saw had risen further. Its thunder filled
+    the air, and a fine spray made itself felt through my thin
+    sleeping shirt.</p>
+
+    <p>Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidences of
+    anything to cause alarm. This deep, prolonged disturbance in my
+    heart remained wholly unaccounted for.</p>
+
+    <p>My companion had not stirred when I called him, and there
+    was no need to waken him now. I looked about me carefully,
+    noting everything: the turned-over canoe; the yellow
+    paddles&mdash;two of them, I'm certain; the provision sack and
+    the extra lantern hanging together from the tree; and, crowding
+    everywhere about me, enveloping all, the willows, those
+    endless, shaking willows. A bird uttered its morning cry, and a
+    string of duck passed with whirring flight overhead in the
+    twilight. The sand whirled, dry and stinging, about my bare
+    feet in the wind.</p>
+
+    <p>I walked round the tent and then went out a little way into
+    the bush, so that I could see across the river to the farther
+    landscape, and the same profound yet indefinable emotion of
+    distress seized upon me again as I saw the interminable sea of
+    bushes stretching to the horizon, looking ghostly and unreal in
+    the wan light of dawn. I walked softly here and there, still
+    puzzling over that odd sound of infinite pattering, and of that
+    pressure upon the tent that had wakened me. It <em>must</em>
+    have been the wind, I reflected&mdash;the wind beating upon the
+    loose, hot sand, driving the dry particles smartly against the
+    taut canvas&mdash;the wind dropping heavily upon our fragile
+    roof.</p>
+
+    <p>Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise increased
+    appreciably.</p>
+
+    <p>I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how the coast
+    line had altered in the night, and what masses of sand the
+    river had torn away. I dipped my hands and feet into the cool
+    current, and bathed my forehead. Already there was a glow of
+    sunrise in the sky and the exquisite freshness of coming day.
+    On my way back I passed purposely beneath the very bushes where
+    I had seen the column of figures rising into the air, and
+    midway among the clumps I suddenly found myself overtaken by a
+    sense of vast terror. From the shadows a large figure went
+    swiftly by. Some one passed me, as sure as ever man did....</p>
+
+    <p>It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me
+    forward again, and once out in the more open space, the sense
+    of terror diminished strangely. The winds were about and
+    walking, I remember saying to myself; for the winds often move
+    like great presences under the trees. And altogether the fear
+    that hovered about me was such an unknown and immense kind of
+    fear, so unlike anything I had ever felt before, that it woke a
+    sense of awe and wonder in me that did much to counteract its
+    worst effects; and when I reached a high point in the middle of
+    the island from which I could see the wide stretch of river,
+    crimson in the sunrise, the whole magical beauty of it all was
+    so overpowering that a sort of wild yearning woke in me and
+    almost brought a cry up into the throat.</p>
+
+    <p>But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes wandered
+    from the plain beyond to the island round me and noted our
+    little tent half hidden among the willows, a dreadful discovery
+    leaped out at me, compared to which my terror of the walking
+    winds seemed as nothing at all.</p>
+
+    <p>For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the
+    arrangement of the landscape. It was not that my point of
+    vantage gave me a different view, but that an alteration had
+    apparently been effected in the relation of the tent to the
+    willows, and of the willows to the tent. Surely the bushes now
+    crowded much closer&mdash;unnecessarily, unpleasantly close.
+    <em>They had moved nearer</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing
+    imperceptibly nearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows
+    had come closer during the night. But had the wind moved them,
+    or had they moved of themselves? I recalled the sound of
+    infinite small patterings and the pressure upon the tent and
+    upon my own heart that caused me to wake in terror. I swayed
+    for a moment in the wind like a tree, finding it hard to keep
+    my upright position on the sandy hillock. There was a
+    suggestion here of personal agency, of deliberate intention, of
+    aggressive hostility, and it terrified me into a sort of
+    rigidity.</p>
+
+    <p>Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea was so bizarre,
+    so absurd, that I felt inclined to laugh. But the laughter came
+    no more readily than the cry, for the knowledge that my mind
+    was so receptive to such dangerous imaginings brought the
+    additional terror that it was through our minds and not through
+    our physical bodies that the attack would come, and was
+    coming.</p>
+
+    <p>The wind buffeted me about, and, very quickly it seemed, the
+    sun came up over the horizon, for it was after four o'clock,
+    and I must have stood on that little pinnacle of sand longer
+    than I knew, afraid to come down at close quarters with the
+    willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the tent, first
+    taking another exhaustive look round and&mdash;yes, I confess
+    it&mdash;making a few measurements. I paced out on the warm
+    sand the distances between the willows and the tent, making a
+    note of the shortest distance particularly.</p>
+
+    <p>I crawled stealthily into my blankets. My companion, to all
+    appearances, still slept soundly, and I was glad that this was
+    so. Provided my experiences were not corroborated, I could find
+    strength somehow to deny them, perhaps. With the daylight I
+    could persuade myself that it was all a subjective
+    hallucination, a fantasy of the night, a projection of the
+    excited imagination.</p>
+
+    <p>Nothing further came to disturb me, and I fell asleep almost
+    at once, utterly exhausted, yet still in dread of hearing again
+    that weird sound of multitudinous pattering, or of feeling the
+    pressure upon my heart that had made it difficult to
+    breathe.</p>
+
+    <h4>IV</h4>
+
+    <p>The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me
+    from a heavy sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked
+    and there was just time to bathe. The grateful smell of
+    frizzling bacon entered the tent door.</p>
+
+    <p>"River still rising," he said, "and several islands out in
+    midstream have disappeared altogether. Our own island's much
+    smaller."</p>
+
+    <p>"Any wood left?" I asked sleepily.</p>
+
+    <p>"The wood and the island will finish to-morrow in a dead
+    heat," he laughed, "but there's enough to last us till
+    then."</p>
+
+    <p>I plunged in from the point of the island, which had indeed
+    altered a lot in size and shape during the night, and was swept
+    down in a moment to the landing place opposite the tent. The
+    water was icy, and the banks flew by like the country from an
+    express train. Bathing under such conditions was an
+    exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night seemed
+    cleansed out of me by a process of evaporation in the brain.
+    The sun was blazing hot; not a cloud showed itself anywhere;
+    the wind, however, had not abated one little jot.</p>
+
+    <p>Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede's words
+    flashed across me, showing that he no longer wished to leave
+    posthaste, and had changed his mind. "Enough to last till
+    to-morrow"&mdash;he assumed we should stay on the island
+    another night. It struck me as odd. The night before he was so
+    positive the other way. How had the change come about?</p>
+
+    <p>Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with
+    heavy splashings and clouds of spray which the wind brought
+    into our frying-pan, and my fellow-traveler talked incessantly
+    about the difficulty the Vienna-Pesth steamers must have to
+    find the channel in flood. But the state of his mind interested
+    and impressed me far more than the state of the river or the
+    difficulties of the steamers. He had changed somehow since the
+    evening before. His manner was different&mdash;a trifle
+    excited, a trifle shy, with a sort of suspicion about his voice
+    and gestures. I hardly know how to describe it now in cold
+    blood, but at the time I remember being quite certain of one
+    thing, viz., that he had become frightened!</p>
+
+    <p>He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke
+    his pipe. He had the map spread open beside him, and kept
+    studying its markings.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'd better get off sharp in an hour," I said presently,
+    feeling for an opening that must bring him indirectly to a
+    partial confession at any rate. And his answer puzzled me
+    uncomfortably: "Rather! If they'll let us."</p>
+
+    <p>"Who'll let us? The elements?" I asked quickly, with
+    affected indifference.</p>
+
+    <p>"The powers of this awful place, whoever they are," he
+    replied, keeping his eyes on the map. "The gods are here, if
+    they are anywhere at all in the world."</p>
+
+    <p>"The elements are always the true immortals," I replied,
+    laughing as naturally as I could manage, yet knowing quite well
+    that my face reflected my true feelings when he looked up
+    gravely at me and spoke across the smoke:</p>
+
+    <p>"We shall be fortunate if we get away without further
+    disaster."</p>
+
+    <p>This was exactly what I had dreaded, and I screwed myself up
+    to the point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to
+    allow the dentist to extract the tooth; it <em>had</em> to come
+    anyhow in the long run, and the rest was all pretense.</p>
+
+    <p>"Further disaster! Why, what's happened?"</p>
+
+    <p>"For one thing&mdash;the steering paddle's gone," he said
+    quietly.</p>
+
+    <p>"The steering paddle gone!" I repeated, greatly excited, for
+    this was our rudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder
+    was suicide. "But what&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"And there's a tear in the bottom of the canoe," he added,
+    with a genuine little tremor in his voice.</p>
+
+    <p>I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in
+    his face somewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and
+    on this burning sand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere
+    descending round us. I got up to follow him, for he merely
+    nodded his head gravely and led the way towards the tent a few
+    yards on the other side of the fireplace. The canoe still lay
+    there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs uppermost, the
+    paddles, or rather, <em>the</em> paddle, on the sand beside
+    her.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's only one," he said, stooping to pick it up. "And
+    here's the rent in the base-board."</p>
+
+    <p>It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had
+    clearly noticed <em>two</em> paddles a few hours before, but a
+    second impulse made me think better of it, and I said nothing.
+    I approached to see.</p>
+
+    <p>There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the
+    canoe where a little slither of wood had been neatly taken
+    clean out; it looked as if the tooth of a sharp rock or snag
+    had eaten down her length, and investigation showed that the
+    hole went through. Had we launched out in her without observing
+    it we must inevitably have foundered. At first the water would
+    have made the wood swell so as to close the hole, but once out
+    in midstream the water must have poured in, and the canoe,
+    never more than two inches above the surface, would have filled
+    and sunk very rapidly.</p>
+
+    <p>"There, you see, an attempt to prepare a victim for the
+    sacrifice," I heard him saying, more to himself than to me,
+    "two victims rather," he added as he bent over and ran his
+    fingers along the slit.</p>
+
+    <p>I began to whistle&mdash;a thing I always do unconsciously
+    when utterly nonplused&mdash;and purposely paid no attention to
+    his words. I was determined to consider them foolish.</p>
+
+    <p>"It wasn't there last night," he said presently,
+    straightening up from his examination and looking anywhere but
+    at me.</p>
+
+    <p>"We must have scratched her in landing, of course," I
+    stopped whistling to say, "The stones are very
+    sharp&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>I stopped abruptly, for at that moment he turned round and
+    met my eye squarely. I knew just as well as he did how
+    impossible my explanation was. There were no stones, to begin
+    with.</p>
+
+    <p>"And then there's this to explain too," he added quietly,
+    handing me the paddle and pointing to the blade.</p>
+
+    <p>A new and curious emotion spread freezingly over me as I
+    took and examined it. The blade was scraped down all over,
+    beautifully scraped, as though someone had sand-papered it with
+    care, making it so thin that the first vigorous stroke must
+    have snapped it off at the elbow.</p>
+
+    <p>"One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing," I said
+    feebly, "or&mdash;or it has been filed by the constant stream
+    of sand particles blown against it by the wind, perhaps."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah," said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, "you
+    can explain everything!"</p>
+
+    <p>"The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it
+    so near the bank that it fell in with the next lump that
+    crumbled," I called out after him, absolutely determined to
+    find an explanation for everything he showed me.</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," he shouted back, turning his head to look at me
+    before disappearing among the willow bushes.</p>
+
+    <p>Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal
+    agency, I think my first thought took the form of "One of us
+    must have done this thing, and it certainly was not I." But my
+    second thought decided how impossible it was to suppose, under
+    all the circumstances, that either of us had done it. That my
+    companion, the trusted friend of a dozen similar expeditions,
+    could have knowingly had a hand in it, was a suggestion not to
+    be entertained for a moment. Equally absurd seemed the
+    explanation that this imperturbable and densely practical
+    nature had suddenly become insane and was busied with insane
+    purposes.</p>
+
+    <p>Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept
+    my fear actively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild
+    beauty, was the clear certainty that some curious alteration
+    had come about in his <em>mind</em>&mdash;that he was nervous,
+    timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he did not speak about,
+    watching a series of secret and hitherto unmentionable
+    events&mdash;waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected,
+    and, I thought, expected very soon. This grew up in my mind
+    intuitively&mdash;I hardly knew how.</p>
+
+    <p>I made a hurried examination of the tent and its
+    surroundings, but the measurements of the night remained the
+    same. There were deep hollows formed in the sand, I now noticed
+    for the first time, basin-shaped and of various depths and
+    sizes, varying from that of a teacup to a large bowl. The wind,
+    no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters, just as
+    it was for lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water.
+    The rent in the canoe was the only thing that seemed quite
+    inexplicable; and, after all, it <em>was</em> conceivable that
+    a sharp point had caught it when we landed. The examination I
+    made of the shore did not assist this theory, but all the same
+    I clung to it with that diminishing portion of my intelligence
+    which I called my "reason." An explanation of some kind was an
+    absolute necessity, just as some working explanation of the
+    universe is necessary&mdash;however absurd&mdash;to the
+    happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in the
+    world and face the problems of life. The simile seemed to me at
+    the time an exact parallel.</p>
+
+    <p>I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede
+    joined me at the work, though under the best conditions in the
+    world the canoe could not be safe for traveling till the
+    following day. I drew his attention casually to the hollows in
+    the sand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," he said, "I know. They're all over the island. But
+    <em>you</em> can explain them, no doubt!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Wind, of course," I answered without hesitation. "Have you
+    never watched those little whirlwinds in the street that twist
+    and twirl everything into a circle? This sand's loose enough to
+    yield, that's all."</p>
+
+    <p>He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I
+    watched him surreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he
+    was watching me. He seemed, too, to be always listening
+    attentively to something I could not hear, or perhaps for
+    something that he expected to hear, for he kept turning about
+    and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, and out
+    across the water where it was visible through the openings
+    among the willows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear
+    and held it there for several minutes. He said nothing to me,
+    however, about it, and I asked no questions. And meanwhile, as
+    he mended that torn canoe with the skill and address of a red
+    Indian, I was glad to notice his absorption in the work, for
+    there was a vague dread in my heart that he would speak of the
+    changed aspect of the willows. And, if he had noticed
+    <em>that</em>, my imagination could no longer be held a
+    sufficient explanation of it.</p>
+
+    <p>At length, after a long pause, he began to talk.</p>
+
+    <p>"Queer thing," he added in a hurried sort of voice, as
+    though he wanted to say something and get it over. "Queer
+    thing, I mean, about that otter last night."</p>
+
+    <p>I had expected something so totally different that he caught
+    me with surprise, and I looked up sharply.</p>
+
+    <p>"Shows how lonely this place is. Otters are awfully shy
+    things&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't mean that, of course," he interrupted. "I
+    mean&mdash;do you think&mdash;did you think it really was an
+    otter?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What else, in the name of Heaven, what else?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You know, I saw it before you did, and at first it
+    seemed&mdash;so <em>much</em> bigger than an otter."</p>
+
+    <p>"The sunset as you looked upstream magnified it, or
+    something," I replied.</p>
+
+    <p>He looked at me absently a moment, as though his mind were
+    busy with other thoughts.</p>
+
+    <p>"It had such extraordinary yellow eyes," he went on half to
+    himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"That was the sun too," I laughed, a trifle boisterously. "I
+    suppose you'll wonder next if that fellow in the
+    boat&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>I suddenly decided not to finish the sentence. He was in the
+    act again of listening, turning his head to the wind, and
+    something in the expression of his face made me halt. The
+    subject dropped, and we went on with our caulking. Apparently
+    he had not noticed my unfinished sentence. Five minutes later,
+    however, he looked at me across the canoe, the smoking pitch in
+    his hand, his face exceedingly grave.</p>
+
+    <p>"I <em>did</em> rather wonder, if you want to know," he said
+    slowly, "what that thing in the boat was. I remember thinking
+    at the time it was not a man. The whole business seemed to rise
+    quite suddenly out of the water."</p>
+
+    <p>I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this time
+    there was impatience and a strain of anger too, in my
+    feeling.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here now," I cried, "this place is quite queer enough
+    without going out of our way to imagine things! That boat was
+    an ordinary boat, and the man in it was an ordinary man, and
+    they were both going downstream as fast as they could lick. And
+    that otter <em>was</em> an otter, so don't let's play the fool
+    about it!"</p>
+
+    <p>He looked steadily at me with the same grave expression. He
+    was not in the least annoyed. I took courage from his
+    silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"And for heaven's sake," I went on, "don't keep pretending
+    you hear things, because it only gives me the jumps, and
+    there's nothing to hear but the river and this cursed old
+    thundering wind."</p>
+
+    <p>"You <em>fool</em>!" he answered in a low, shocked voice,
+    "you utter fool. That's just the way all victims talk. As if
+    you didn't understand just as well as I do!" he sneered with
+    scorn in his voice, and a sort of resignation. "The best thing
+    you can do is to keep quiet and try to hold your mind as firm
+    as possible. This feeble attempt at self-deception only makes
+    the truth harder when you're forced to meet it."</p>
+
+    <p>My little effort was over, and I found nothing more to say,
+    for I knew quite well his words were true, and that I was the
+    fool, not <em>he</em>. Up to a certain stage in the adventure
+    he kept ahead of me easily, and I think I felt annoyed to be
+    out of it, to be thus proved less psychic, less sensitive than
+    himself to these extraordinary happenings, and half ignorant
+    all the time of what was going on under my very nose. <em>He
+    knew</em> from the very beginning, apparently. But at the
+    moment I wholly missed the point of his words about the
+    necessity of there being a victim, and that we ourselves were
+    destined to satisfy the want. I dropped all pretense
+    thenceforward, but thenceforward likewise my fear increased
+    steadily to the climax.</p>
+
+    <p>"But you're quite right about one thing," he added, before
+    the subject passed, "and that is that we're wiser not to talk
+    about it, or even to think about it, because what one
+    <em>thinks</em> finds expression in words, and what one
+    <em>says</em>, happens."</p>
+
+    <p>That afternoon, while the canoe dried and hardened, we spent
+    trying to fish, testing the leak, collecting wood, and watching
+    the enormous flood of rising water. Masses of driftwood swept
+    near our shores sometimes, and we fished for them with long
+    willow branches. The island grew perceptibly smaller as the
+    banks were torn away with great gulps and splashes. The weather
+    kept brilliantly fine till about four o'clock, and then for the
+    first time for three days the wind showed signs of abating.
+    Clouds began to gather in the southwest, spreading thence
+    slowly over the sky.</p>
+
+    <p>This lessening of the wind came as a great relief, for the
+    incessant roaring, banging, and thundering had irritated our
+    nerves. Yet the silence that came about five o'clock with its
+    sudden cessation was in a manner quite as oppressive. The
+    booming of the river had everything its own way then: it filled
+    the air with deep murmurs, more musical than the wind noises,
+    but infinitely more monotonous. The wind held many notes,
+    rising, falling, always beating out some sort of great
+    elemental tune; whereas the river's song lay between three
+    notes at most&mdash;dull pedal notes, that held a lugubrious
+    quality foreign to the wind, and somehow seemed to me, in my
+    then nervous state, to sound wonderfully well the music of
+    doom.</p>
+
+    <p>It was extraordinary, too, how the withdrawal suddenly of
+    bright sunlight took everything out of the landscape that made
+    for cheerfulness; and since this particular landscape had
+    already managed to convey the suggestion of something sinister,
+    the change of course was all the more unwelcome and noticeable.
+    For me, I know, the darkening outlook became distinctly more
+    alarming, and I found myself more than once calculating how
+    soon after sunset the full moon would get up in the east, and
+    whether the gathering clouds would greatly interfere with her
+    lighting of the little island.</p>
+
+    <p>With this general hush of the wind&mdash;though it still
+    indulged in occasional brief gusts&mdash;the river seemed to me
+    to grow blacker, the willows to stand more densely together.
+    The latter, too, kept up a sort of independent movement of
+    their own, rustling among themselves when no wind stirred, and
+    shaking oddly from the roots upwards. When common objects in
+    this way become charged with the suggestion of horror, they
+    stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual
+    appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us,
+    assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre <em>grotesquerie</em>
+    of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of
+    purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I
+    felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us. The forces
+    of the region drew nearer with the coming of night. They were
+    focusing upon our island, and more particularly upon ourselves.
+    For thus, somehow, in the terms of the imagination, did my
+    really indescribable sensations in this extraordinary place
+    present themselves.</p>
+
+    <p>I had slept a good deal in the early afternoon, and had thus
+    recovered somewhat from the exhaustion of a disturbed night,
+    but this only served apparently to render me more susceptible
+    than before to the obsessing spell of the haunting. I fought
+    against it, laughing at my feelings as absurd and childish,
+    with very obvious physiological explanations, yet, in spite of
+    every effort, they gained in strength upon me so that I dreaded
+    the night as a child lost in a forest must dread the approach
+    of darkness.</p>
+
+    <p>The canoe we had carefully covered with a waterproof sheet
+    during the day, and the one remaining paddle had been securely
+    tied by the Swede to the base of a tree, lest the wind should
+    rob us of that too. From five o'clock onwards I busied myself
+    with the stew-pot and preparations for dinner, it being my turn
+    to cook that night. We had potatoes, onions, bits of bacon fat
+    to add flavour, and a general thick residue from former stews
+    at the bottom of the pot; with black bread broken up into it
+    the result was most excellent, and it was followed by a stew of
+    plums with sugar and a brew of strong tea with dried milk. A
+    good pile of wood lay close at hand, and the absence of wind
+    made my duties easy. My companion sat lazily watching me,
+    dividing his attentions between cleaning his pipe and giving
+    useless advice&mdash;an admitted privilege of the off-duty man.
+    He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in
+    re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and
+    fishing for driftwood while I slept. No more talk about
+    undesirable things had passed between us, and I think his only
+    remarks had to do with the gradual destruction of the island,
+    which he declared was now fully a third smaller than when we
+    first landed.</p>
+
+    <p>The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard his voice
+    calling to me from the bank, where he had wandered away without
+    my noticing. I ran up.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come and listen," he said, "and see what you make of it."
+    He held his hand cupwise to his ear, as so often before.</p>
+
+    <p>"<em>Now</em> do you hear anything?" he asked, watching me
+    curiously.</p>
+
+    <p>We stood there, listening attentively together. At first I
+    heard only the deep note of the water and the hissings rising
+    from its turbulent surface. The willows, for once, were
+    motionless and silent. Then a sound began to reach my ears
+    faintly, a peculiar sound&mdash;something like the humming of a
+    distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the darkness
+    from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated
+    at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of
+    a bell nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to
+    nothing so much as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended
+    far up in the sky, repeating incessantly its muffled metallic
+    note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly struck. My heart
+    quickened as I listened.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've heard it all day," said my companion. "While you slept
+    this afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down,
+    but could never get near enough to see&mdash;to localize it
+    correctly. Sometimes it was overhead, and sometimes it seemed
+    under the water. Once or twice, too, I could have sworn it was
+    not outside at all, but <em>within myself</em>&mdash;you
+    know&mdash;the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed
+    to come."</p>
+
+    <p>I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to his words. I
+    listened carefully, striving to associate it with any known
+    familiar sound I could think of, but without success. It
+    changed in direction, too, coming nearer, and then sinking
+    utterly away into remote distance. I cannot say that it was
+    ominous in quality, because to me it seemed distinctly musical,
+    yet I must admit it set going a distressing feeling that made
+    me wish I had never heard it.</p>
+
+    <p>"The wind blowing in those sand-funnels," I said, determined
+    to find an explanation, "or the bushes rubbing together after
+    the storm perhaps."</p>
+
+    <p>"It comes off the whole swamp," my friend answered. "It
+    comes from everywhere at once." He ignored my explanations. "It
+    comes from the willow bushes somehow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"But now the wind has dropped," I objected "The willows can
+    hardly make a noise by themselves, can they?"</p>
+
+    <p>His answer frightened me, first because I had dreaded it,
+    and secondly, because I knew intuitively it was true.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is <em>because</em> the wind has dropped we now hear it.
+    It was drowned before. It is the cry, I believe of
+    the&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>I dashed back to my fire, warned by a sound of bubbling that
+    the stew was in danger, but determined at the same time to
+    escape from further conversation. I was resolute, if possible,
+    to avoid the exchanging of views. I dreaded, too, that he would
+    begin again about the gods, or the elemental forces, or
+    something else disquieting, and I wanted to keep myself well in
+    hand for what might happen later. There was another night to be
+    faced before we escaped from this distressing place, and there
+    was no knowing yet what it might bring forth.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come and cut up bread for the pot," I called to him,
+    vigorously stirring the appetizing mixture. That stew-pot held
+    sanity for us both, and the thought made me laugh.</p>
+
+    <p>He came over slowly and took the provision sack from the
+    tree, fumbling in its mysterious depths, and then emptying the
+    entire contents upon the ground-sheet at his feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hurry up!" I cried; "it's boiling."</p>
+
+    <p>The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that startled
+    me. It was forced laughter, not artificial exactly, but
+    mirthless.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's nothing here!" he shouted, holding his sides.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bread, I mean."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's gone. There is no bread. They've taken it!"</p>
+
+    <p>I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Everything the sack had
+    contained lay upon the ground-sheet, but there was no loaf.</p>
+
+    <p>The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and
+    shook me. Then I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing
+    to do: and the sound of my own laughter also made me understand
+    his. The strain of psychical pressure caused it&mdash;this
+    explosion of unnatural laughter in both of us; it was an effort
+    of repressed forces to seek relief; it was a temporary safety
+    valve. And with both of us it ceased quite suddenly.</p>
+
+    <p>"How criminally stupid of me!" I cried, still determined to
+    be consistent and find an explanation. "I clean forgot to buy a
+    loaf at Pressburg. That chattering woman put everything out of
+    my head, and I must have left it lying on the counter
+    or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"The oatmeal, too, is much less than it was this morning,"
+    the Swede interrupted.</p>
+
+    <p>Why in the world need he draw attention to it? I thought
+    angrily.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's enough for to-morrow," I said, stirring vigorously,
+    "and we can get lots more at Komorn or Gran. In twenty-four
+    hours we shall be miles from here."</p>
+
+    <p>"I hope so&mdash;to God," he muttered, putting the things
+    back into the sack, "unless we're claimed first as victims for
+    the sacrifice," he added with a foolish laugh. He dragged the
+    sack into the tent, for safety's sake, I suppose, and I heard
+    him mumbling on to himself, but so indistinctly that it seemed
+    quite natural for me to ignore his words.</p>
+
+    <p>Our meal was beyond question a gloomy one, and we ate it
+    almost in silence, avoiding one another's eyes, and keeping the
+    fire bright. Then we washed up and prepared for the night, and,
+    once smoking, our minds unoccupied with any definite duties,
+    the apprehension I had felt all day long became more and more
+    acute. It was not then active fear, I think, but the very
+    vagueness of its origin distressed me far more than if I had
+    been able to ticket and face it squarely. The curious sound I
+    have likened to the note of a gong became now almost incessant,
+    and filled the stillness of the night with a faint, continuous
+    ringing rather than a series of distinct notes. At one time it
+    was behind and at another time in front of us. Sometimes I
+    fancied it came from the bushes on our left, and then again
+    from the clumps on our right. More often it hovered directly
+    overhead like the whirring of wings. It was really everywhere
+    at once, behind, in front, at our sides and over our heads,
+    completely surrounding us. The sound really defies description.
+    But nothing within my knowledge is like that ceaseless muffled
+    humming rising off the deserted world of swamps and
+    willows.</p>
+
+    <p>We sat smoking in comparative silence, the strain growing
+    every minute greater. The worst feature of the situation seemed
+    to me that we did not know what to expect, and could therefore
+    make no sort of preparation by way of defense. We could
+    anticipate nothing. My explanations made in the sunshine,
+    moreover, now came to haunt me with their foolish and wholly
+    unsatisfactory nature, and it was more and more clear to me
+    that some kind of plain talk with my companion was inevitable,
+    whether I liked it or not. After all, we had to spend the night
+    together, and to sleep in the same tent side by side. I saw
+    that I could not get along much longer without the support of
+    his mind, and for that, of course, plain talk was imperative.
+    As long as possible, however, I postponed this little climax,
+    and tried to ignore or laugh at the occasional sentences he
+    flung into the emptiness.</p>
+
+    <p>Some of these sentences, moreover, were confoundedly
+    disquieting to me, coming as they did to corroborate much that
+    I felt myself: corroboration, too&mdash;which made it so much
+    more convincing&mdash;from a totally different point of view.
+    He composed such curious sentences, and hurled them at me in
+    such an inconsequential sort of way, as though his main line of
+    thought was secret to himself, and these fragments were the
+    bits he found it impossible to digest. He got rid of them by
+    uttering them. Speech relieved him. It was like being sick.</p>
+
+    <p>"There are things about us, I'm sure, that make for
+    disorder, disintegration, destruction, <em>our</em>
+    destruction," he said once, while the fire blazed between us.
+    "We've strayed out of a safe line somewhere."</p>
+
+    <p>And another time, when the gong sounds had come nearer,
+    ringing much louder than before, and directly over our heads,
+    he said, as though talking to himself:</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't think a phonograph would show any record of that.
+    The sound doesn't come to me by the ears at all. The vibrations
+    reach me in another manner altogether, and seem to be within
+    me, which is precisely how a fourth dimension sound might be
+    supposed to make itself heard."</p>
+
+    <p>I purposely made no reply to this, but I sat up a little
+    closer to the fire and peered about me into the darkness. The
+    clouds were massed all over the sky and no trace of moonlight
+    came through. Very still, too, everything was, so that the
+    river and the frogs had things all their own way.</p>
+
+    <p>"It has that about it," he went on, "which is utterly out of
+    common experience. It is <em>unknown</em>. Only one thing
+    describes it really: it is a non-human sound; I mean a sound
+    outside humanity."</p>
+
+    <p>Having rid himself of this indigestible morsel, he lay quiet
+    for a time; but he had so admirably expressed my own feeling
+    that it was a relief to have the thought out, and to have
+    confined it by the limitation of words from dangerous wandering
+    to and fro in the mind.</p>
+
+    <p>The solitude of that Danube camping-place, can I ever forget
+    it? The feeling of being utterly alone on an empty planet! My
+    thoughts ran incessantly upon cities and the haunts of men. I
+    would have given my soul, as the saying is, for the "feel" of
+    those Bavarian villages we had passed through by the score; for
+    the normal, human commonplaces, peasants drinking beer, tables
+    beneath the trees, hot sunshine, and a ruined castle on the
+    rocks behind the red-roofed church. Even the tourists would
+    have been welcome.</p>
+
+    <p>Yet what I felt of dread was no ordinary ghostly fear. It
+    was infinitely greater, stranger, and seemed to arise from some
+    dim ancestral sense of terror more profoundly disturbing than
+    anything I had known or dreamed of. We had "strayed," as the
+    Swede put it, into some region or some set of conditions where
+    the risks were great, yet unintelligible to us; where the
+    frontiers of some unknown world lay close about us. It was a
+    spot held by the dwellers in some outer space, a sort of
+    peephole whence they could spy upon the earth, themselves
+    unseen, a point where the veil between had worn a little thin.
+    As the final result of too long a sojourn here, we should be
+    carried over the border and deprived of what we called "our
+    lives," yet by mental, not physical, processes. In that sense,
+    as he said, we should be the victims of our adventure&mdash;a
+    sacrifice.</p>
+
+    <p>It took us in different fashion, each according to the
+    measure of his sensitiveness and powers of resistance. I
+    translated it vaguely into a personification of the mightily
+    disturbed elements, investing them with the horror of a
+    deliberate and malefic purpose, resentful of our audacious
+    intrusion into their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw it
+    into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass on some ancient
+    shrine, some place where the old gods still held sway, where
+    the emotional forces of former worshipers still clung, and the
+    ancestral portion of him yielded to the old pagan spell.</p>
+
+    <p>At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men, kept clean
+    by the winds from coarsening human influences, a place where
+    spiritual agencies were within reach and aggressive. Never,
+    before or since, have I been so attacked by indescribable
+    suggestions of a "beyond region," of another scheme of life,
+    another evolution not parallel to the human. And in the end our
+    minds would succumb under the weight of the awful spell, and we
+    should be drawn across the frontier into <em>their</em>
+    world.</p>
+
+    <p>Small things testified to this amazing influence of the
+    place, and now in the silence round the fire they allowed
+    themselves to be noted by the mind. The very atmosphere had
+    proved itself a magnifying medium to distort every indication:
+    the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying boatman making
+    signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed of its
+    natural character, and revealed in something of its other
+    aspect&mdash;as it existed across the border in that other
+    region. And this changed aspect I felt was new not merely to
+    me, but to the race. The whole experience whose verge we
+    touched was unknown to humanity at all. It was a new order of
+    experience, and in the true sense of the word
+    <em>unearthly</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces
+    one's courage to zero," the Swede said suddenly, as if he had
+    been actually following my thoughts. "Otherwise imagination
+    might count for much. But the paddle, the canoe, the lessening
+    food&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Haven't I explained all that once?" I interrupted
+    viciously.</p>
+
+    <p>"You have," he answered dryly; "you have indeed."</p>
+
+    <p>He made other remarks too, as usual, about what he called
+    the "plain determination to provide a victim"; but, having now
+    arranged my thoughts better, I recognized that this was simply
+    the cry of his frightened soul against the knowledge that he
+    was being attacked in a vital part, and that he would be
+    somehow taken or destroyed. The situation called for a courage
+    and calmness of reasoning that neither of us could compass, and
+    I have never before been so clearly conscious of two persons in
+    me&mdash;the one that explained everything, and the other that
+    laughed at such foolish explanations, yet was horribly
+    afraid.</p>
+
+    <p>Meanwhile, in the pitchy night the fire died down and the
+    woodpile grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish the
+    stock, and the darkness consequently came up very close to our
+    faces. A few feet beyond the circle of firelight it was inky
+    black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind set the billows
+    shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome sound
+    a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken only by the
+    gurgling of the river and the humming in the air overhead.</p>
+
+    <p>We both missed, I think, the shouting company of the
+    winds.</p>
+
+    <p>At length, at a moment when a stray puff prolonged itself as
+    though the wind were about to rise again, I reached the point
+    for me of saturation, the point where it was absolutely
+    necessary to find relief in plain speech, or else to betray
+    myself by some hysterical extravagance that must have been far
+    worse in its effect upon both of us. I kicked the fire into a
+    blaze, and turned to my companion abruptly. He looked up with a
+    start.</p>
+
+    <p>"I can't disguise it any longer," I said; "I don't like this
+    place, and the darkness, and the noises, and the awful feelings
+    I get. There's something here that beats me utterly. I'm in a
+    blue funk, and that's the plain truth. If the other shore
+    was&mdash;different, I swear I'd be inclined to swim for
+    it!"</p>
+
+    <p>The Swede's face turned very white beneath the deep tan of
+    sun and wind. He stared straight at me and answered quietly,
+    but his voice betrayed his huge excitement by its unnatural
+    calmness. For the moment, at any rate, he was the strong man of
+    the two. He was more phlegmatic, for one thing.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's not a physical condition we can escape from by running
+    away," he replied, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing some
+    grave disease; "we must sit tight and wait. There are forces
+    close here that could kill a herd of elephants in a second as
+    easily as you or I could squash a fly. Our only chance is to
+    keep perfectly still. Our insignificance perhaps may save
+    us."</p>
+
+    <p>I put a dozen questions into my expression of face, but
+    found no words. It was precisely like listening to an accurate
+    description of a disease whose symptoms had puzzled me.</p>
+
+    <p>"I mean that so far, although aware of our disturbing
+    presence, they have not <em>found</em> us&mdash;not 'located'
+    us, as the Americans say," he went on. "They're blundering
+    about like men hunting for a leak of gas. The paddle and canoe
+    and provisions prove that. I think they <em>feel</em> us, but
+    cannot actually see us. We must keep our minds quiet&mdash;it's
+    our minds they feel. We must control our thoughts, or it's all
+    up with us."</p>
+
+    <p>"Death you mean?" I stammered, icy with the horror of his
+    suggestion.</p>
+
+    <p>"Worse&mdash;by far," he said. "Death, according to one's
+    belief, means either annihilation or release from the
+    limitations of the senses, but it involves no change of
+    character. <em>You</em> don't suddenly alter just because the
+    body's gone. But this means a radical alteration, a complete
+    change, a horrible loss of oneself by substitution&mdash;far
+    worse than death, and not even annihilation. We happen to have
+    camped in a spot where their region touches ours where the veil
+    between has worn thin"&mdash;horrors! he was using my very own
+    phrase, my actual words&mdash;"so that they are aware of our
+    being in their neighborhood."</p>
+
+    <p>"But <em>who</em> are aware?" I asked.</p>
+
+    <p>I forgot the shaking of the willows in the windless calm,
+    the humming overhead, everything except that I was waiting for
+    an answer that I dreaded more than I can possibly explain.</p>
+
+    <p>He lowered his voice at once to reply, leaning forward a
+    little over the fire, an indefinable change in his face that
+    made me avoid his eyes and look down upon the ground.</p>
+
+    <p>"All my life," he said, "I have been strangely, vividly
+    conscious of another region&mdash;not far removed from our own
+    world in one sense, yet wholly different in kind&mdash;where
+    great things go on unceasingly, where immense and terrible
+    personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to
+    which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the
+    destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are
+    all as dust in the balance; vast purposes, I mean, that deal
+    directly with the soul, and not indirectly with mere
+    expressions of the soul&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I suggest just now&mdash;" I began, seeking to stop him,
+    feeling as though I was face to face with a madman. But he
+    instantly overbore me with his torrent that <em>had</em> to
+    come.</p>
+
+    <p>"You think," he said, "it is the spirits of the elements,
+    and I thought perhaps it was the old gods. But I tell you now
+    it is&mdash;<em>neither</em>. These would be comprehensible
+    entities, for they have relations with men, depending upon them
+    for worship or sacrifice, whereas these beings who are now
+    about us have absolutely nothing to do with mankind, and it is
+    mere chance that their space happens just at this spot to touch
+    our own."</p>
+
+    <p>The mere conception, which his words somehow made so
+    convincing, as I listened to them there in the dark stillness
+    of that lonely island, set me shaking a little all over. I
+    found it impossible to control my movements.</p>
+
+    <p>"And what do you propose?" I began again.</p>
+
+    <p>"A sacrifice, a victim, might save us by distracting them
+    until we could get away," he went on, "just as the wolves stop
+    to devour the dogs and give the sleigh another start.
+    But&mdash;I see no chance of any other victim now."</p>
+
+    <p>I stared blankly at him. The gleam in his eyes was dreadful.
+    Presently he continued.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's the willows, of course. The willows <em>mask</em> the
+    others, but the others are feeling about for us. If we let our
+    minds betray our fear, we're lost, lost utterly." He looked at
+    me with an expression so calm, so determined, so sincere, that
+    I no longer had any doubts as to his sanity. He was as sane as
+    any man ever was. "If we can hold out through the night," he
+    added, "we may get off in the daylight unnoticed, or rather,
+    <em>undiscovered</em>."</p>
+
+    <p>"But you really think a sacrifice would&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>That gong-like humming came down very close over our heads
+    as I spoke, but it was my friend's scared face that really
+    stopped my mouth.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hush!" he whispered, holding up his hand. "Do not mention
+    them more than you can help. Do not refer to them <em>by
+    name</em>. To name is to reveal: it is the inevitable clue, and
+    our only hope lies in ignoring them, in order that they may
+    ignore us."</p>
+
+    <p>"Even in thought?" He was extraordinarily agitated.</p>
+
+    <p>"Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their
+    world. We must keep them <em>out of our minds</em> at all costs
+    if possible."</p>
+
+    <p>I raked the fire together to prevent the darkness having
+    everything its own way. I never longed for the sun as I longed
+    for it then in the awful blackness of that summer night.</p>
+
+    <p>"Were you awake all last night?" he went on suddenly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I slept badly a little after dawn," I replied evasively,
+    trying to follow his instructions, which I knew instinctively
+    were true, "but the wind, of course&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I know. But the wind won't account for all the noises."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then you heard it too?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The multiplying countless little footsteps I heard," he
+    said, adding, after a moment's hesitation, "and that other
+    sound&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"You mean above the tent, and the pressing down upon us of
+    something tremendous, gigantic?"</p>
+
+    <p>He nodded significantly.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was like the beginning of a sort of inner suffocation?"
+    I said.</p>
+
+    <p>"Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of the
+    atmosphere had been altered&mdash;had increased enormously, so
+    that we should be crushed."</p>
+
+    <p>"And <em>that</em>," I went on, determined to have it all
+    out, pointing upwards where the gong-like note hummed
+    ceaselessly, rising and falling like wind. "What do you make of
+    that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's <em>their</em> sound," he whispered gravely. "It's the
+    sound of their world, the humming in their region. The division
+    here is so thin that it leaks through somehow. But, if you
+    listen carefully, you'll find it's not above so much as around
+    us. It's in the willows. It's the willows themselves humming,
+    because here the willows have been made symbols of the forces
+    that are against us."</p>
+
+    <p>I could not follow exactly what he meant by this, yet the
+    thought and idea in my mind were beyond question the thought
+    and idea in his. I realized what he realized, only with less
+    power of analysis than his. It was on the tip of my tongue to
+    tell him at last about my hallucination of the ascending
+    figures and the moving bushes, when he suddenly thrust his face
+    again close into mine across the firelight and began to speak
+    in a very earnest whisper. He amazed me by his calmness and
+    pluck, his apparent control of the situation. This man I had
+    for years deemed unimaginative, stolid!</p>
+
+    <p>"Now listen," he said. "The only thing for us to do is to go
+    on as though nothing had happened, follow our usual habits, go
+    to bed, and so forth; pretend we feel nothing and notice
+    nothing. It is a question wholly of the mind, and the less we
+    think about them the better our chance of escape. Above all,
+    don't <em>think</em>, for what you think happens!"</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," I managed to reply, simply breathless with his
+    words and the strangeness of it all; "all right, I'll try, but
+    tell me one thing more first. Tell me what you make of those
+    hollows in the ground all about us, those sand-funnels?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No!" he cried, forgetting to whisper in his excitement. "I
+    dare not, simply dare not, put the thought into words. If you
+    have not guessed I am glad. Don't try to. <em>They</em> have
+    put it into my mind; try your hardest to prevent their putting
+    it into yours."</p>
+
+    <p>He sank his voice again to a whisper before he finished, and
+    I did not press him to explain. There was already just about as
+    much horror in me as I could hold. The conversation came to an
+    end, and we smoked our pipes busily in silence.</p>
+
+    <p>Then something happened, something unimportant apparently,
+    as the way is when the nerves are in a very great state of
+    tension, and this small thing for a brief space gave me an
+    entirely different point of view. I chanced to look down at my
+    sand-shoe&mdash;the sort we used for the canoe&mdash;and
+    something to do with the hole at the toe suddenly recalled to
+    me the London shop where I had bought them, the difficulty the
+    man had in fitting me, and other details of the uninteresting
+    but practical operation. At once, in its train, followed a
+    wholesome view of the modern skeptical world I was accustomed
+    to move in at home. I thought of roast beef and ale,
+    motor-cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen other things
+    that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The effect
+    was immediate and astonishing even to myself. Psychologically,
+    I suppose, it was simply a sudden and violent reaction after
+    the strain of living in an atmosphere of things that to the
+    normal consciousness must seem impossible and incredible. But,
+    whatever the cause, it momentarily lifted the spell from my
+    heart, and left me for the short space of a minute feeling free
+    and utterly unafraid. I looked up at my friend opposite.</p>
+
+    <p>"You damned old pagan!" I cried, laughing aloud in his face.
+    "You imaginative idiot! You superstitious idolator!
+    You&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old horror. I
+    tried to smother the sound of my voice as something
+    sacrilegious. The Swede, of course, heard it too&mdash;that
+    strange cry overhead in the darkness&mdash;and that sudden drop
+    in the air as though something had come nearer.</p>
+
+    <p>He had turned ashen white under the tan. He stood bolt
+    upright in front of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring at
+    me.</p>
+
+    <p>"After that," he said in a sort of helpless, frantic way,
+    "we must go! We can't stay now; we must strike camp this very
+    instant and go on&mdash;down the river."</p>
+
+    <p>He was talking, I saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by
+    abject terror&mdash;the terror he had resisted so long, but
+    which had caught him at last.</p>
+
+    <p>"In the dark?" I exclaimed, shaking with fear after my
+    hysterical outburst, but still realizing our position better
+    than he did. "Sheer madness! The river's in flood, and we've
+    only got a single paddle. Besides, we only go deeper into their
+    country! There's nothing ahead for fifty miles but willows,
+    willows, willows!"</p>
+
+    <p>He sat down again in a state of semi-collapse. The
+    positions, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes nature loves,
+    were suddenly reversed, and the control of our forces passed
+    over into my hands. His mind at last had reached the point
+    where it was beginning to weaken.</p>
+
+    <p>"What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?" he
+    whispered, with the awe of genuine terror in his voice and
+    face.</p>
+
+    <p>I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took both his
+    hands in mine, kneeling down beside him and looking straight
+    into his frightened eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll make one more blaze," I said firmly, "and then turn
+    in for the night. At sunrise we'll be off full speed for
+    Komorn. Now, pull yourself together a bit, and remember your
+    own advice about <em>not thinking fear</em>!"</p>
+
+    <p>He said no more, and I saw that he would agree and obey. In
+    some measure, too, it was a sort of relief to get up and make
+    an excursion into the darkness for more wood. We kept close
+    together, almost touching, groping among the bushes and along
+    the bank. The humming overhead never ceased, but seemed to me
+    to grow louder as we increased our distance from the fire. It
+    was shivery work!</p>
+
+    <p>We were grubbing away in the middle of a thickish clump of
+    willows where some driftwood from a former flood had caught
+    high among the branches, when my body was seized in a grip that
+    made me half drop upon the sand. It was the Swede. He had
+    fallen against me, and was clutching me for support. I heard
+    his breath coming and going in short gasps.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look! By my soul!" he whispered, and for the first time in
+    my experience I knew what it was to hear tears of terror in a
+    human voice. He was pointing to the fire, some fifty feet away.
+    I followed the direction of his finger, and I swear my heart
+    missed a beat.</p>
+
+    <p>There, in front of the dim glow, <em>something was
+    moving</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>I saw it through a veil that hung before my eyes like the
+    gauze drop-curtain used at the back of a theater&mdash;hazily a
+    little. It was neither a human figure nor an animal. To me it
+    gave the strange impression of being as large as several
+    animals grouped together, like horses, two or three, moving
+    slowly. The Swede, too, got a similar result, though expressing
+    it differently, for he thought it was shaped and sized like a
+    clump of willow bushes, rounded at the top, and moving all over
+    upon its surface&mdash;"coiling upon itself like smoke," he
+    said afterwards.</p>
+
+    <p>"I watched it settle downwards through the bushes," he
+    sobbed at me. "Look, by God! It's coming this way! Oh,
+    oh!"&mdash;he gave a kind of whistling cry. "<em>They've found
+    us</em>."</p>
+
+    <p>I gave one terrified glance, which just enabled me to see
+    that the shadowy form was swinging towards us through the
+    bushes, and then I collapsed backwards with a crash into the
+    branches. These failed, of course, to support my weight, so
+    that with the Swede on the top of me we fell in a struggling
+    heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what was happening. I
+    was conscious only of a sort of enveloping sensation of icy
+    fear that plucked the nerves out of their fleshly covering,
+    twisted them this way and that, and replaced them quivering. My
+    eyes were tightly shut; something in my throat choked me; a
+    feeling that my consciousness was expanding, extending out into
+    space, swiftly gave way to another feeling that I was losing it
+    altogether, and about to die.</p>
+
+    <p>An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware
+    that the Swede had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me
+    abominably. It was the way he caught at me in falling.</p>
+
+    <p>But it was this pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me:
+    it caused me to <em>forget them</em> and think of something
+    else at the very instant when they were about to find me. It
+    concealed my mind from them at the moment of discovery, yet
+    just in time to evade their terrible seizing of me. He himself,
+    he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and that was what
+    saved him.</p>
+
+    <p>I only know that at a later time, how long or short is
+    impossible to say, I found myself scrambling up out of the
+    slippery network of willow branches, and saw my companion
+    standing in front of me holding out a hand to assist me. I
+    stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he had twisted
+    for me. Nothing came to me to say, somehow.</p>
+
+    <p>"I lost consciousness for a moment or two," I heard him say.
+    "That's what saved me. It made me stop thinking about
+    them."</p>
+
+    <p>"You nearly broke my arm in two," I said, uttering my only
+    connected thought at the moment. A numbness came over me.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's what saved <em>you</em>!" he replied. "Between us,
+    we've managed to set them off on a false tack somewhere. The
+    humming has ceased. It's gone&mdash;for the moment at any
+    rate!"</p>
+
+    <p>A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time
+    spread to my friend too&mdash;great healing gusts of shaking
+    laughter that brought a tremendous sense of relief in their
+    train. We made our way back to the fire and put the wood on so
+    that it blazed at once. Then we saw that the tent had fallen
+    over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground.</p>
+
+    <p>We picked it up, and during the process tripped more than
+    once and caught our feet in sand.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's those sand-funnels," exclaimed the Swede, when the
+    tent was up again and the firelight lit up the ground for
+    several yards about us. "And look at the size of them!"</p>
+
+    <p>All round the tent and about the fireplace where we had seen
+    the moving shadows there were deep funnel-shaped hollows in the
+    sand, exactly similar to the ones we had already found over the
+    island, only far bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and
+    wide enough in some instances to admit the whole of my foot and
+    leg.</p>
+
+    <p>Neither of us said a word. We both knew that sleep was the
+    safest thing we could do, and to bed we went accordingly
+    without further delay, having first thrown sand on the fire and
+    taken the provision sack and the paddle inside the tent with
+    us. The canoe, too, we propped in such a way at the end of the
+    tent that our feet touched it, and the least motion would
+    disturb and wake us.</p>
+
+    <p>In case of emergency, too, we again went to bed in our
+    clothes, ready for a sudden start.</p>
+
+    <h4>V</h4>
+
+    <p>It was my firm intention to lie awake all night and watch,
+    but the exhaustion of nerves and body decreed otherwise, and
+    sleep after a while came over me with a welcome blanket of
+    oblivion. The fact that my companion also slept quickened its
+    approach. At first he fidgeted and constantly sat up, asking me
+    if I "heard this" or "heard that." He tossed about on his cork
+    mattress, and said the tent was moving and the river had risen
+    over the point of the island; but each time I went out to look
+    I returned with the report that all was well, and finally he
+    grew calmer and lay still. Then at length his breathing became
+    regular and I heard unmistakable sounds of snoring&mdash;the
+    first and only time in my life when snoring has been a welcome
+    and calming influence.</p>
+
+    <p>This, I remember, was the last thought in my mind before
+    dozing off.</p>
+
+    <p>A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found the blanket
+    over my face. But something else besides the blanket was
+    pressing upon me, and my first thought was that my companion
+    had rolled off his mattress on to my own in his sleep. I called
+    to him and sat up, and at the same moment it came to me that
+    the tent was <em>surrounded</em>. That sound of multitudinous
+    soft pattering was again audible outside, filling the night
+    with horror.</p>
+
+    <p>I called again to him, louder than before. He did not
+    answer, but I missed the sound of his snoring, and also noticed
+    that the flap of the tent door was down. This was the
+    unpardonable sin. I crawled out in the darkness to hook it back
+    securely, and it was then for the first time I realized
+    positively that the Swede was not there. He had gone.</p>
+
+    <p>I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation,
+    and the moment I was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of
+    humming that surrounded me completely and came out of every
+    quarter of the heavens at once. It was that same familiar
+    humming&mdash;gone mad! A swarm of great invisible bees might
+    have been about me in the air. The sound seemed to thicken the
+    very atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with
+    difficulty.</p>
+
+    <p>But my friend was in danger, and I could not hesitate.</p>
+
+    <p>The dawn was just about to break, and a faint whitish light
+    spread upwards over the clouds from a thin strip of clear
+    horizon. No wind stirred. I could just make out the bushes and
+    river beyond, and the pale sandy patches. In my excitement I
+    ran frantically to and fro about the island, calling him by
+    name, shouting at the top of my voice the first words that came
+    into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, and the
+    humming muffled it, so that the sound only traveled a few feet
+    round me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong,
+    tumbling over roots, and scraping my face as I tore this way
+    and that among the preventing branches.</p>
+
+    <p>Then, quite unexpectedly, I came out upon the island's point
+    and saw a dark figure outlined between the water and the sky.
+    It was the Swede. And already he had one foot in the river! A
+    moment more and he would have taken the plunge.</p>
+
+    <p>I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about his waist
+    and dragging him shorewards with all my strength. Of course he
+    struggled furiously, making a noise all the time just like that
+    cursed humming, and using the most outlandish phrases in his
+    anger about "going <em>inside</em> to Them," and "taking the
+    way of the water and the wind," and God only knows what more
+    besides, that I tried in vain to recall afterwards, but which
+    turned me sick with horror and amazement as I listened. But in
+    the end I managed to get him into the comparative safety of the
+    tent, and flung him breathless and cursing upon the mattress,
+    where I held him until the fit had passed.</p>
+
+    <p>I think the suddenness with which it all went and he grew
+    calm, coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of
+    the humming and pattering outside&mdash;I think this was almost
+    the strangest part of the whole business perhaps. For he just
+    opened his eyes and turned his tired face up to me so that the
+    dawn threw a pale light upon it through the doorway, and said,
+    for all the world just like a frightened child:</p>
+
+    <p>"My life, old man&mdash;it's my life I owe you. But it's all
+    over now anyhow. They've found a victim in our place!"</p>
+
+    <p>Then he dropped back upon his blankets and went to sleep
+    literally under my eyes. He simply collapsed, and began to
+    snore again as healthily as though nothing had happened and he
+    had never tried to offer his own life as a sacrifice by
+    drowning. And when the sunlight woke him three hours
+    later&mdash;hours of ceaseless vigil for me&mdash;it became so
+    clear to me that he remembered absolutely nothing of what he
+    had attempted to do, that I deemed it wise to hold my peace and
+    ask no dangerous questions.</p>
+
+    <p>He woke naturally and easily, as I have said, when the sun
+    was already high in a windless hot sky, and he at once got up
+    and set about the preparation of the fire for breakfast. I
+    followed him anxiously at bathing, but he did not attempt to
+    plunge in, merely dipping his head and making some remark about
+    the extra coldness of the water.</p>
+
+    <p>"River's falling at last," he said, "and I'm glad of
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"The humming has stopped too," I said.</p>
+
+    <p>He looked up at me quietly with his normal expression.
+    Evidently he remembered everything except his own attempt at
+    suicide.</p>
+
+    <p>"Everything has stopped," he said,
+    "because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>He hesitated. But I knew some reference to that remark he
+    had made just before he fainted was in his mind, and I was
+    determined to know it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Because 'They've found another victim'?" I said, forcing a
+    little laugh.</p>
+
+    <p>"Exactly," he answered, "exactly! I feel as positive of it
+    as though&mdash;as though&mdash;I feel quite safe again, I
+    mean," he finished.</p>
+
+    <p>He began to look curiously about him. The sunlight lay in
+    hot patches on the sand. There was no wind. The willows were
+    motionless. He slowly rose to feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come," he said; "I think if we look, we shall find it."</p>
+
+    <p>He started off on a run, and I followed him. He kept to the
+    banks, poking with a stick among the sandy bays and caves and
+    little back-waters, myself always close on his heels.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah!" he exclaimed presently, "ah!"</p>
+
+    <p>The tone of his voice somehow brought back to me a vivid
+    sense of the horror of the last twenty-four hours, and I
+    hurried up to join him. He was pointing with his stick at a
+    large black object that lay half in the water and half on the
+    sand. It appeared to be caught by some twisted willow roots so
+    that the river could not sweep it away. A few hours before the
+    spot must have been under water.</p>
+
+    <p>"See," he said quietly, "the victim that made our escape
+    possible!"</p>
+
+    <p>And when I peered across his shoulder I saw that his stick
+    rested on the body of a man. He turned it over. It was the
+    corpse of a peasant, and the face was hidden in the sand.
+    Clearly the man had been drowned but a few hours before, and
+    his body must have been swept down upon our island somewhere
+    about the hour of the dawn&mdash;<em>at the very time the fit
+    had passed</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>"We must give it a decent burial, you know."</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose so," I replied. I shuddered a little in spite of
+    myself, for there was something about the appearance of that
+    poor drowned man that turned me cold.</p>
+
+    <p>The Swede glanced up sharply at me, and began clambering
+    down the bank. I followed him more leisurely. The current, I
+    noticed, had torn away much of the clothing from the body, so
+    that the neck and part of the chest lay bare.</p>
+
+    <p>Halfway down the bank my companion suddenly stopped and held
+    up his hand in warning; but either my foot slipped, or I had
+    gained too much momentum to bring myself quickly to a halt, for
+    I bumped into him and sent him forward with a sort of leap to
+    save himself. We tumbled together on to the hard sand so that
+    our feet splashed into the water. And, before anything could be
+    done, we had collided a little heavily against the corpse.</p>
+
+    <p>The Swede uttered a sharp cry. And I sprang back as if I had
+    been shot.</p>
+
+    <p>At the moment we touched the body there arose from its
+    surface the loud sound of humming&mdash;the sound of several
+    hummings&mdash;which passed with a vast commotion as of winged
+    things in the air about us and disappeared upwards into the
+    sky, growing fainter and fainter till they finally ceased in
+    the distance. It was exactly as though we had disturbed some
+    living yet invisible creatures at work.</p>
+
+    <p>My companion clutched me, and I think I clutched him, but
+    before either of us had time properly to recover from the
+    unexpected shock, we saw that a movement of the current was
+    turning the corpse round so that it became released from the
+    grip of the willow roots. A moment later it had turned
+    completely over, the dead face uppermost, staring at the sky.
+    It lay on the edge of the main stream. In another moment it
+    would be swept away.</p>
+
+    <p>The Swede started to save it, shouting again something I did
+    not catch about a "proper burial" and then abruptly dropped
+    upon his knees on the sand and covered his eyes with his hands.
+    I was beside him in an instant.</p>
+
+    <p>I saw what he had seen.</p>
+
+    <p>For just as the body swung round to the current the face and
+    the exposed chest turned full towards us, and showed plainly
+    how the skin and flesh were indented with small hollows,
+    beautifully formed, and exactly similar in shape and kind to
+    the sand-funnels that we had found all over the island.</p>
+
+    <p>"Their mark!" I heard my companion mutter under his breath.
+    "Their awful mark!"</p>
+
+    <p>And when I turned my eyes again from his ghastly face to the
+    river, the current had done its work, and the body had been
+    swept away into midstream and was already beyond our reach and
+    almost out of sight, turning over and over on the waves like an
+    otter.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Shadows"
+       id="Shadows"></a>The Shadows on the Wall</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>The Wind in the Rose-bush</em>, by Mary E.
+        Wilkins Freeman. Copyright by Harper and Brothers. By
+        permission of the publishers and Mary E. Wilkins
+        Freeman.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Henry had words with Edward in the study the night before
+    Edward died," said Caroline Glynn.</p>
+
+    <p>She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity.
+    Rebecca Ann Glynn gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide
+    flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled
+    terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs.
+    Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the
+    family. The latter was beautiful still, with a large, splendid,
+    full-blown beauty, she filled a great rocking-chair with her
+    superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gently back and forth,
+    her black silks whispering and her black frills fluttering.
+    Even the shock of death&mdash;for her brother Edward lay dead
+    in the house&mdash;could not disturb her outward serenity of
+    demeanor.</p>
+
+    <p>But even her expression of masterly placidity changed before
+    her sister Caroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's
+    gasp of terror and distress in response.</p>
+
+    <p>"I think Henry might have controlled his temper, when poor
+    Edward was so near his end," she said with an asperity which
+    disturbed slightly the roseate curves of her beautiful
+    mouth.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course he did not <em>know</em>," murmured Rebecca Ann
+    in a faint tone.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course he did not know it," said Caroline quickly. She
+    turned on her sister with a strange, sharp look of suspicion.
+    Then she shrank as if from the other's possible answer.</p>
+
+    <p>Rebecca gasped again. The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham,
+    was now sitting up straight in her chair; she had ceased
+    rocking, and was eyeing them both intently with a sudden
+    accentuation of family likeness in her face.</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you mean?" said she impartially to them both. Then
+    she, too, seemed to shrink before a possible answer. She even
+    laughed an evasive sort of laugh.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nobody means anything," said Caroline firmly. She rose and
+    crossed the room toward the door with grim decisiveness.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Brigham.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have something to see to," replied Caroline, and the
+    others at once knew by her tone that she had some solemn and
+    sad duty to perform in the chamber of death.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh," said Mrs. Brigham.</p>
+
+    <p>After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to
+    Rebecca.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did Henry have many words with him?" she asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"They were talking very loud," replied Rebecca
+    evasively.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She
+    still sat up straight, with a slight knitting of intensity on
+    her fair forehead, between the pretty rippling curves of her
+    auburn hair.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you&mdash;ever hear anything?" she asked in a low voice
+    with a glance toward the door.</p>
+
+    <p>"I was just across the hall in the south parlor, and that
+    door was open and this door ajar," replied Rebecca with a
+    slight flush.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then you must have&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I couldn't help it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Everything?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Most of it."</p>
+
+    <p>"What was it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The old story."</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward
+    was living on here for nothing, when he had wasted all the
+    money father left him."</p>
+
+    <p>Rebecca nodded, with a fearful glance at the door.</p>
+
+    <p>When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed. "I
+    know how he felt," said she. "It must have looked to him as if
+    Edward was living at his expense, but he wasn't."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, he wasn't."</p>
+
+    <p>"And Edward had a right here according to the terms of
+    father's will, and Henry ought to have remembered it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, he ought."</p>
+
+    <p>"Did he say hard things?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty hard, from what I heard."</p>
+
+    <p>"What?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at
+    all, and he thought he had better go away."</p>
+
+    <p>"What did Edward say?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That he would stay here as long as he lived and afterward,
+    too, if he was a mind to, and he would like to see Henry get
+    him out; and then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"What?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Then he laughed."</p>
+
+    <p>"What did Henry say?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I didn't hear him say anything, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"But what?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I saw him when he came out of this room."</p>
+
+    <p>"He looked mad?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You've seen him when he looked so."</p>
+
+    <p>Emma nodded. The expression of horror on her face had
+    deepened.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had
+    scratched him?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes. Don't!"</p>
+
+    <p>Then Caroline reentered the room; she went up to the stove,
+    in which a wood fire was burning&mdash;it was a cold, gloomy
+    day of fall&mdash;and she warmed her hands, which were reddened
+    from recent washing in cold water.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the
+    door, which was still ajar; it did not easily shut, being still
+    swollen with the damp weather of the summer. She rose and
+    pushed it together with a sharp thud, which jarred the house.
+    Rebecca started painfully with a half-exclamation. Caroline
+    looked at her disapprovingly.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebecca," she
+    said.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham, returning from the closed door, said
+    imperiously that it ought to be fixed, it shut so hard.</p>
+
+    <p>"It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few
+    days," replied Caroline.</p>
+
+    <p>"I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as
+    he did to Edward," said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost
+    inaudible voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hush," said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the
+    closed door.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nobody can hear with the door shut. I say again I think
+    Henry ought to be ashamed of himself. I shouldn't think he'd
+    ever get over it, having words with poor Edward the very night
+    before he died. Edward was enough sight better disposition than
+    Henry, with all his faults."</p>
+
+    <p>"I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross
+    to Henry that last night. I don't know but he did from what
+    Rebecca overheard."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not so much cross, as sort of soft, and sweet, and
+    aggravating," sniffed Rebecca.</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you really think ailed Edward?" asked Emma in
+    hardly more than a whisper. She did not look at her sister.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach,
+    and had spasms, but what do you think made him have them?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Henry called it gastric trouble. You know Edward has always
+    had dyspepsia."</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment. "Was there any talk of
+    an&mdash;examination?" said she.</p>
+
+    <p>Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said she in a terrible voice. "No."</p>
+
+    <p>The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground
+    of terrified understanding through their eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>The old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and
+    a push from without made the door shake ineffectually. "It's
+    Henry," Rebecca sighed rather than whispered. Mrs. Brigham
+    settled herself, after a noiseless rush across the floor, into
+    her rocking-chair again, and was swaying back and forth with
+    her head comfortably leaning back, when the door at last
+    yielded and Henry Glynn entered. He cast a covertly sharp,
+    comprehensive glance at Mrs. Brigham with her elaborate calm;
+    at Rebecca quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa with her
+    handkerchief to her face and only one small uncovered reddened
+    ear as attentive as a dog's, and at Caroline sitting with a
+    strained composure in her armchair by the stove. She met his
+    eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear, and defiance
+    of the fear and of him.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry Glynn looked more like this sister than the others.
+    Both had the same hard delicacy of form and aquilinity of
+    feature. They confronted each other with the pitiless
+    immovability of two statues in whose marble lineaments emotions
+    were fixed for all eternity.</p>
+
+    <p>Then Henry Glynn smiled and the smile transformed his face.
+    He looked suddenly years younger, and an almost boyish
+    recklessness appeared in his face. He flung himself into a
+    chair with a gesture which was bewildering from its incongruity
+    with his general appearance. He leaned his head back, flung one
+    leg over the other, and looked laughingly at Mrs. Brigham.</p>
+
+    <p>"I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year," he said.</p>
+
+    <p>She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the
+    corners. She was susceptible to praise.</p>
+
+    <p>"Our thoughts to-day ought to belong to the one of us who
+    will <em>never</em> grow older," said Caroline in a hard
+    voice.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry looked at her, still smiling. "Of course, we none of
+    us forget that," said he, in a deep, gentle voice; "but we have
+    to speak to the living, Caroline, and I have not seen Emma for
+    a long time, and the living are as dear as the dead."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not to me," said Caroline.</p>
+
+    <p>She rose and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebecca
+    also rose and hurried after her, sobbing loudly.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry looked slowly after them.</p>
+
+    <p>"Caroline is completely unstrung," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham rocked. A confidence in him inspired by his
+    manner was stealing over her. Out of that confidence she spoke
+    quite easily and naturally.</p>
+
+    <p>"His death was very sudden," said she.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was
+    unswerving.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said he, "it was very sudden. He was sick only a few
+    hours."</p>
+
+    <p>"What did you call it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Gastric."</p>
+
+    <p>"You did not think of an examination?"</p>
+
+    <p>"There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause
+    of his death."</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror
+    over her very soul. Her flesh prickled with cold, before an
+    inflection of his voice. She rose, tottering on weak knees.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where are you going?" asked Henry in a strange, breathless
+    voice.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing
+    which she had to do&mdash;some black for the funeral&mdash;and
+    was out of the room. She went up to the front chamber which she
+    occupied. Caroline was there. She went close to her and took
+    her hands, and the two sisters looked at each other.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't speak, don't, I won't have it!" said Caroline finally
+    in an awful whisper.</p>
+
+    <p>"I won't," replied Emma.</p>
+
+    <p>That afternoon the three sisters were in the study.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham was hemming some black material. At last she
+    laid her work on her lap.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's no use, I cannot see to sew another stitch until we
+    have a light," said she.</p>
+
+    <p>Caroline, who was writing some letters at the table, turned
+    to Rebecca, in her usual place on the sofa.</p>
+
+    <p>"Rebecca, you had better get a lamp," she said.</p>
+
+    <p>Rebecca started up; even in the dusk her face showed her
+    agitation.</p>
+
+    <p>"It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet," she
+    said in a piteous, pleading voice like a child's.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, we do," returned Mrs. Brigham peremptorily. "I can't
+    see to sew another stitch."</p>
+
+    <p>Rebecca rose and left the room. Presently she entered with a
+    lamp. She set it on the table, an old-fashioned card-table
+    which was placed against the opposite wall from the window.
+    That opposite wall was taken up with three doors; the one small
+    space was occupied by the table.</p>
+
+    <p>"What have you put that lamp over there for?" asked Mrs.
+    Brigham, with more of impatience than her voice usually
+    revealed. "Why didn't you set it in the hall, and have done
+    with it? Neither Caroline nor I can see if it is on that
+    table."</p>
+
+    <p>"I thought perhaps you would move," replied Rebecca
+    hoarsely.</p>
+
+    <p>"If I do move, we can't both sit at that table. Caroline has
+    her paper all spread around. Why don't you set the lamp on the
+    study table in the middle of the room, then we can both
+    see?"</p>
+
+    <p>Rebecca hesitated. Her face was very pale. She looked with
+    an appeal that was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you put the lamp on this table, as she says?"
+    asked Caroline, almost fiercely. "Why do you act so,
+    Rebecca?"</p>
+
+    <p>Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle
+    of the room without another word. Then she seated herself on
+    the sofa and placed a hand over her eyes as if to shade them,
+    and remained so.</p>
+
+    <p>"Does the light hurt your eyes, and is that the reason why
+    you didn't want the lamp?" asked Mrs. Brigham kindly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I always like to sit in the dark," replied Rebecca
+    chokingly. Then she snatched her handkerchief hastily from her
+    pocket and began to weep. Caroline continued to write, Mrs.
+    Brigham to sew.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly Mrs. Brigham as she sewed glanced at the opposite
+    wall. The glance became a steady stare. She looked intently,
+    her work suspended in her hands. Then she looked away again and
+    took a few more stitches, then she looked again, and again
+    turned to her task. At last she laid her work in her lap and
+    stared concentratedly. She looked from the wall round the room,
+    taking note of the various objects. Then she turned to her
+    sisters.</p>
+
+    <p>"What <em>is</em> that?" said she.</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" asked Caroline harshly.</p>
+
+    <p>"That strange shadow on the wall," replied Mrs. Brigham.</p>
+
+    <p>Rebecca sat with her face hidden; Caroline dipped her pen in
+    the inkstand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you turn around and look?" asked Mrs. Brigham in
+    a wondering and somewhat aggrieved way.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am in a hurry to finish this letter," replied Caroline
+    shortly.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham rose, her work slipping to the floor, and began
+    walking round the room, moving various articles of furniture,
+    with her eyes on the shadow.</p>
+
+    <p>Then suddenly she shrieked out:</p>
+
+    <p>"Look at this awful shadow! What is it? Caroline, look,
+    look! Rebecca, look! What is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>All Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone. Her
+    handsome face was livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing
+    at the shadow.</p>
+
+    <p>Then after a shuddering glance at the wall Rebecca burst out
+    in a wild wail.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, Caroline, there it is again, there it is again!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Caroline Glynn, you look!" said Mrs. Brigham. "Look! What
+    is that dreadful shadow?"</p>
+
+    <p>Caroline rose, turned, and stood confronting the wall.</p>
+
+    <p>"How should I know?" she said.</p>
+
+    <p>"It has been there every night since he died!" cried
+    Rebecca.</p>
+
+    <p>"Every night?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes; he died Thursday and this is Saturday; that makes
+    three nights," said Caroline rigidly. She stood as if holding
+    her calm with a vise of concentrated will.</p>
+
+    <p>"It&mdash;it looks like&mdash;like&mdash;" stammered Mrs.
+    Brigham in a tone of intense horror.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know what it looks like well enough," said Caroline.
+    "I've got eyes in my head."</p>
+
+    <p>"It looks like Edward," burst out Rebecca in a sort of
+    frenzy of fear. "Only&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, it does," assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken
+    tone matched her sisters', "only&mdash;Oh, it is awful! What is
+    it, Caroline?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I ask you again, how should I know?" replied Caroline. "I
+    see it there like you. How should I know any more than
+    you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It <em>must</em> be something in the room," said Mrs.
+    Brigham, staring wildly around.</p>
+
+    <p>"We moved everything in the room the first night it came,"
+    said Rebecca; "it is not anything in the room."</p>
+
+    <p>Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury. "Of course it
+    is something in the room," said she. "How you act! What do you
+    mean talking so? Of course it is something in the room."</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course it is," agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline
+    suspiciously. "It must be something in the room."</p>
+
+    <p>"It is not anything in the room," repeated Rebecca with
+    obstinate horror.</p>
+
+    <p>The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered. He began
+    to speak, then his eyes followed the direction of the others.
+    He stood staring at the shadow on the wall.</p>
+
+    <p>"What is that?" he demanded in a strange voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"It must be due to something in the room," Mrs. Brigham said
+    faintly.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face
+    showed a gamut of emotions. Horror, conviction, then furious
+    incredulity. Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither
+    about the room. He moved the furniture with fierce jerks,
+    turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall. Not
+    a line of its terrible outlines wavered.</p>
+
+    <p>"It must be something in the room!" he declared in a voice
+    which seemed to snap like a lash.</p>
+
+    <p>His face changed, the inmost secrecy of his nature seemed
+    evident upon his face, until one almost lost sight of his
+    lineaments. Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with
+    woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs. Brigham clutched Caroline's hand.
+    They both stood in a corner out of his way. For a few moments
+    he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. He moved
+    every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not
+    affect the shadow he flung it to the floor.</p>
+
+    <p>Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"What an absurdity," he said easily. "Such a to-do about a
+    shadow."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's so," assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which
+    she tried to make natural. As she spoke she lifted a chair near
+    her.</p>
+
+    <p>"I think you have broken the chair that Edward was fond of,"
+    said Caroline.</p>
+
+    <p>Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face.
+    Her mouth was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair
+    with a show of anxiety.</p>
+
+    <p>"Just as good as ever," he said pleasantly. He laughed
+    again, looking at his sisters. "Did I scare you?" he said. "I
+    should think you might be used to me by this time. You know my
+    way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery, and that
+    shadow does look&mdash;queer, like&mdash;and I thought if there
+    was any way of accounting for it I would like to without any
+    delay."</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't seem to have succeeded," remarked Caroline dryly,
+    with a slight glance at the wall.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry's eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, there is no accounting for shadows," he said, and he
+    laughed again. "A man is a fool to try to account for
+    shadows."</p>
+
+    <p>Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but
+    Henry kept his back to the wall&mdash;as did, indeed, the
+    others.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca
+    brought up the rear. She could scarcely walk, her knees
+    trembled so.</p>
+
+    <p>"I can't sit in that room again this evening," she whispered
+    to Caroline after supper.</p>
+
+    <p>"Very well; we will sit in the south room," replied
+    Caroline. "I think we will sit in the south parlor," she said
+    aloud; "it isn't as damp as the study, and I have a cold."</p>
+
+    <p>So they all sat in the south room with their sewing. Henry
+    read the newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the
+    table. About nine o'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall
+    to the study. The three sisters looked at one another. Mrs.
+    Brigham rose, folded her rustling skirts compactly round her,
+    and began tiptoeing toward the door.</p>
+
+    <p>"What are you going to do?" inquired Rebecca agitatedly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am going to see what he is about," replied Mrs. Brigham
+    cautiously.</p>
+
+    <p>As she spoke she pointed to the study door across the hall;
+    it was ajar. Henry had striven to pull it together behind him,
+    but it had somehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed.
+    It was still ajar and a streak of light showed from top to
+    bottom.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Brigham folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with
+    its swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and
+    she went with a slow toddle across the hall to the study door.
+    She stood there, her eye at the crack.</p>
+
+    <p>In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching
+    with dilated eyes. Caroline sewed steadily. What Mrs. Brigham,
+    standing at the crack in the study door, saw was this:</p>
+
+    <p>Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the
+    strange shadow must be between the table on which the lamp
+    stood and the wall, was making systematic passes and thrusts
+    with an old sword which had belonged to his father all over and
+    through the intervening space. Not an inch was left unpierced.
+    He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections.
+    He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury and
+    calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow
+    remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself cold
+    with horror.</p>
+
+    <p>Finally Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and
+    raised as if to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall
+    threateningly. Mrs. Brigham toddled back across the hall and
+    shut the south room door behind her before she related what she
+    had seen.</p>
+
+    <p>"He looked like a demon," she said again. "Have you got any
+    of that old wine in the house, Caroline? I don't feel as if I
+    could stand much more."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, there's plenty," said Caroline; "you can have some
+    when you go to bed."</p>
+
+    <p>"I think we had all better take some," said Mrs. Brigham.
+    "Oh, Caroline, what&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't ask; don't speak," said Caroline.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, I'm not going to," replied Mrs. Brigham;
+    "but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south
+    parlor was deserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to
+    put out the light before he came upstairs. They had been gone
+    about an hour when he came into the room bringing the lamp
+    which had stood in the study. He set it on the table, and
+    waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His face was
+    terrible, his fair complexion showed livid, and his blue eyes
+    seemed dark blanks of awful reflections.</p>
+
+    <p>Then he took up the lamp and returned to the library. He set
+    the lamp on the center table and the shadow sprang out on the
+    wall. Again he studied the furniture and moved it about, but
+    deliberately, with none of his former frenzy. Nothing affected
+    the shadow. Then he returned to the south room with the lamp
+    and again waited. Again he returned to the study and placed the
+    lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon the wall. It
+    was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brigham and the
+    other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him.</p>
+
+    <p>The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in
+    the south room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered
+    the study until Henry carried a lamp in there after the others
+    had retired for the night. He saw again the shadow on the wall
+    leap to an awful life before the light.</p>
+
+    <p>The next morning at breakfast Henry Glynn announced that he
+    had to go to the city for three days. The sisters looked at him
+    with surprise. He very seldom left home, and just now his
+    practice had been neglected on account of Edward's death.</p>
+
+    <p>"How can you leave your patients now?" asked Mrs. Brigham
+    wonderingly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know how to, but there is no other way," replied
+    Henry easily. "I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford."</p>
+
+    <p>"Consultation?" inquired Mrs. Brigham.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have business," replied Henry.</p>
+
+    <p>Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a
+    neighboring city and who occasionally called upon him in the
+    case of a consultation.</p>
+
+    <p>After he had gone, Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that, after
+    all, Henry had not said that he was going to consult with
+    Doctor Mitford, and she thought it very strange.</p>
+
+    <p>"Everything is very strange," said Rebecca with a
+    shudder.</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you mean?" inquired Caroline.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing," replied Rebecca.</p>
+
+    <p>Nobody entered the study that day, nor the next. The third
+    day Henry was expected home, but he did not arrive and the last
+    train from the city had come.</p>
+
+    <p>"I call it pretty queer work," said Mrs. Brigham. "The idea
+    of a doctor leaving his patients at such a time as this, and
+    the idea of a consultation lasting three days! There is no
+    sense in it, and <em>now</em> he has not come. I don't
+    understand it, for my part."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't either," said Rebecca.</p>
+
+    <p>They were all in the south parlor. There was no light in the
+    study; the door was ajar.</p>
+
+    <p>Presently Mrs. Brigham rose&mdash;she could not have told
+    why; something seemed to impel her&mdash;some will outside her
+    own. She went out of the room, again wrapping her rustling
+    skirts round that she might pass noiselessly, and began pushing
+    at the swollen door of the study.</p>
+
+    <p>"She has not got any lamp," said Rebecca in a shaking
+    voice.</p>
+
+    <p>Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took the only
+    remaining lamp in the room, and followed her sister. Rebecca
+    had risen, but she stood trembling, not venturing to
+    follow.</p>
+
+    <p>The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it; it was on
+    the south door on the other side of the house from the study.
+    Rebecca, after hesitating until the bell rang the second time,
+    went to the door; she remembered that the servant was out.</p>
+
+    <p>Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study. Caroline set
+    the lamp on the table. They looked at the wall, and there were
+    two shadows. The sisters stood clutching each other, staring at
+    the awful things on the wall. Then Rebecca came in, staggering,
+    with a telegram in her hand. "Here is&mdash;a telegram," she
+    gasped. "Henry is&mdash;dead."</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Messenger"
+       id="Messenger"></a>The Messenger</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Little gray messenger,</p>
+
+            <p>Robed like painted Death,</p>
+
+            <p>Your robe is dust.</p>
+
+            <p>Whom do you seek</p>
+
+            <p>Among lilies and closed buds</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">At dusk?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Among lilies and closed buds</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">At dusk,</p>
+
+            <p>Whom do you seek,</p>
+
+            <p>Little gray messenger,</p>
+
+            <p>Robed in the awful panoply</p>
+
+            <p>Of painted Death?</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="citation">R.W.C.</p>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>The Mystery of Choice</em>, by Robert W.
+        Chambers. Published, 1897, by D. Appleton and Company.
+        Copyright by Robert W. Chambers. By permission of Robert W.
+        Chambers.</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p class="i64">All-wise,</p>
+
+            <p>Hast thou seen all there is to see with thy two
+            eyes?</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Dost thou know all there is to know, and
+            so,</p>
+
+            <p class="i6">Omniscient,</p>
+
+            <p>Darest thou still to say thy brother lies?</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="citation">R.W.C.</p>
+
+    <h4>I</h4>
+
+    <p>"The bullet entered here," said Max Fortin, and he placed
+    his middle finger over a smooth hole exactly in the center of
+    the forehead.</p>
+
+    <p>I sat down upon a mound of dry seaweed and unslung my
+    fowling piece.</p>
+
+    <p>The little chemist cautiously felt the edges of the
+    shot-hole, first with his middle finger, and then with his
+    thumb.</p>
+
+    <p>"Let me see the skull again," said I.</p>
+
+    <p>Max Fortin picked it up from the sod.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's like all the others," he repeated, wiping his glasses
+    on his handkerchief. "I thought you might care to see one of
+    the skulls, so I brought this over from the gravel pit. The men
+    from Bannalec are digging yet. They ought to stop."</p>
+
+    <p>"How many skulls are there altogether?" I inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"They found thirty-eight skulls; there are thirty-nine noted
+    in the list. They lie piled up in the gravel pit on the edge of
+    Le Bihan's wheat field. The men are at work yet. Le Bihan is
+    going to stop them."</p>
+
+    <p>"Let's go over," said I; and I picked up my gun and started
+    across the cliffs, Portin on one side, M&ocirc;me on the
+    other.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who has the list?" I asked, lighting my pipe. "You say
+    there is a list?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The list was found rolled up in a brass cylinder," said the
+    chemist. He added: "You should not smoke here. You know that if
+    a single spark drifted into the wheat&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah, but I have a cover to my pipe," said I, smiling.</p>
+
+    <p>Fortin watched me as I closed the pepper-box arrangement
+    over the glowing bowl of the pipe. Then he continued:</p>
+
+    <p>"The list was made out on thick yellow paper; the brass tube
+    has preserved it. It is as fresh to-day as it was in 1760. You
+    shall see it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Is that the date?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The list is dated 'April, 1760.' The Brigadier Durand has
+    it. It is not written in French."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not written in French!" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," replied Fortin solemnly, "it is written in
+    Breton."</p>
+
+    <p>"But," I protested, "the Breton language was never written
+    or printed in 1760."</p>
+
+    <p>"Except by priests," said the chemist.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have heard of but one priest who ever wrote the Breton
+    language," I began.</p>
+
+    <p>Fortin stole a glance at my face.</p>
+
+    <p>"You mean&mdash;the Black Priest?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>I nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>Fortin opened his mouth to speak again, hesitated, and
+    finally shut his teeth obstinately over the wheat stem that he
+    was chewing.</p>
+
+    <p>"And the Black Priest?" I suggested encouragingly. But I
+    knew it was useless; for it is easier to move the stars from
+    their courses than to make an obstinate Breton talk. We walked
+    on for a minute or two in silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where is the Brigadier Durand?" I asked, motioning
+    M&ocirc;me to come out of the wheat, which he was trampling as
+    though it were heather. As I spoke we came in sight of the
+    farther edge of the wheat field and the dark, wet mass of
+    cliffs beyond.</p>
+
+    <p>"Durand is down there&mdash;you can see him; he stands just
+    behind the mayor of St. Gildas."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," said I; and we struck straight down, following a
+    sun-baked cattle path across the heather.</p>
+
+    <p>When we reached the edge of the wheat field, Le Bihan, the
+    mayor of St. Gildas, called to me, and I tucked my gun under my
+    arm and skirted the wheat to where he stood.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thirty-eight skulls," he said in his thin, high-pitched
+    voice; "there is but one more, and I am opposed to further
+    search. I suppose Fortin told you?"</p>
+
+    <p>I shook hands with him, and returned the salute of the
+    Brigadier Durand.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am opposed to further search," repeated Le Bihan,
+    nervously picking at the mass of silver buttons which covered
+    the front of his velvet and broadcloth jacket like a
+    breastplate of scale armor.</p>
+
+    <p>Durand pursed up his lips, twisted his tremendous mustache,
+    and hooked his thumbs in his saber belt.</p>
+
+    <p>"As for me," he said, "I am in favor of further search."</p>
+
+    <p>"Further search for what&mdash;for the thirty-ninth skull?"
+    I asked.</p>
+
+    <p>Le Bihan nodded. Durand frowned at the sunlit sea, rocking
+    like a bowl of molten gold from the cliffs to the horizon. I
+    followed his eyes. On the dark glistening cliffs, silhouetted
+    against the glare of the sea, sat a cormorant, black,
+    motionless, its horrible head raised toward heaven.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where is that list, Durand?" I asked.</p>
+
+    <p>The gendarme rummaged in his despatch pouch and produced a
+    brass cylinder about a foot long. Very gravely he unscrewed the
+    head and dumped out a scroll of thick yellow paper closely
+    covered with writing on both sides. At a nod from Le Bihan he
+    handed me the scroll. But I could make nothing of the coarse
+    writing, now faded to a dull brown.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come, come, Le Bihan," I said impatiently, "translate it,
+    won't you? You and Max Fortin make a lot of mystery out of
+    nothing, it seems."</p>
+
+    <p>Le Bihan went to the edge of the pit where the three
+    Bannalec men were digging, gave an order or two in Breton, and
+    turned to me.</p>
+
+    <p>As I came to the edge of the pit the Bannalec men were
+    removing a square piece of sailcloth from what appeared to be a
+    pile of cobblestones.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look!" said Le Bihan shrilly. I looked. The pile below was
+    a heap of skulls. After a moment I clambered down the gravel
+    sides of the pit and walked over to the men of Bannalec. They
+    saluted me gravely, leaning on their picks and shovels, and
+    wiping their sweating faces with sunburned hands.</p>
+
+    <p>"How many?" said I in Breton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thirty-eight," they replied.</p>
+
+    <p>I glanced around. Beyond the heap of skulls lay two piles of
+    human bones. Beside these was a mound of broken, rusted bits of
+    iron and steel. Looking closer, I saw that this mound was
+    composed of rusty bayonets, saber blades, scythe blades, with
+    here and there a tarnished buckle attached to a bit of leather
+    hard as iron.</p>
+
+    <p>I picked up a couple of buttons and a belt plate. The
+    buttons bore the royal arms of England; the belt plate was
+    emblazoned with the English arms and also with the number
+    "27."</p>
+
+    <p>"I have heard my grandfather speak of the terrible English
+    regiment, the 27th Foot, which landed and stormed the fort up
+    there," said one of the Bannalec men.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh!" said I; "then these are the bones of English
+    soldiers?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said the men of Bannalec.</p>
+
+    <p>Le Bihan was calling to me from the edge of the pit above,
+    and I handed the belt plate and buttons to the men and climbed
+    the side of the excavation.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said I, trying to prevent M&ocirc;me from leaping up
+    and licking my face as I emerged from the pit, "I suppose you
+    know what these bones are. What are you going to do with
+    them?"</p>
+
+    <p>"There was a man," said Le Bihan angrily, "an Englishman,
+    who passed here in a dog-cart on his way to Quimper about an
+    hour ago, and what do you suppose he wished to do?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Buy the relics?" I asked, smiling.</p>
+
+    <p>"Exactly&mdash;the pig!" piped the mayor of St. Gildas.
+    "Jean Marie Tregunc, who found the bones, was standing there
+    where Max Fortin stands, and do you know what he answered? He
+    spat upon the ground, and said: 'Pig of an Englishman, do you
+    take me for a desecrator of graves?'"</p>
+
+    <p>I knew Tregunc, a sober, blue-eyed Breton, who lived from
+    one year's end to the other without being able to afford a
+    single bit of meat for a meal.</p>
+
+    <p>"How much did the Englishman offer Tregunc?" I asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Two hundred francs for the skulls alone."</p>
+
+    <p>I thought of the relic hunters and the relic buyers on the
+    battlefields of our civil war.</p>
+
+    <p>"Seventeen hundred and sixty is long ago," I said.</p>
+
+    <p>"Respect for the dead can never die," said Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>"And the English soldiers came here to kill your fathers and
+    burn your homes," I continued.</p>
+
+    <p>"They were murderers and thieves, but&mdash;they are dead,"
+    said Tregunc, coming up from the beach below, his long sea rake
+    balanced on his dripping jersey.</p>
+
+    <p>"How much do you earn every year, Jean Marie?" I asked,
+    turning to shake hands with him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Two hundred and twenty francs, monsieur."</p>
+
+    <p>"Forty-five dollars a year," I said. "Bah! you are worth
+    more, Jean. Will you take care of my garden for me? My wife
+    wished me to ask you. I think it would be worth one hundred
+    francs a month to you and to me. Come on, Le Bihan&mdash;come
+    along, Fortin&mdash;and you, Durand. I want somebody to
+    translate that list into French for me."</p>
+
+    <p>Tregunc stood gazing at me, his blue eyes dilated.</p>
+
+    <p>"You may begin at once," I said, smiling, "if the salary
+    suits you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It suits," said Tregunc, fumbling for his pipe in a silly
+    way that annoyed Le Bihan.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then go and begin your work," cried the mayor impatiently;
+    and Tregunc started across the moors toward St. Gildas, taking
+    off his velvet-ribboned cap to me and gripping his sea rake
+    very hard.</p>
+
+    <p>"You offer him more than my salary," said the mayor, after a
+    moment's contemplation of his silver buttons.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pooh!" said I, "what do you do for your salary except play
+    dominoes with Max Portin at the Groix Inn?"</p>
+
+    <p>Le Bihan turned red, but Durand rattled his saber and winked
+    at Max Fortin, and I slipped my arm through the arm of the
+    sulky magistrate, laughing.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's a shady spot under the cliff," I said; "come on, Le
+    Bihan, and read me what is in the scroll."</p>
+
+    <p>In a few moments we reached the shadow of the cliff, and I
+    threw myself upon the turf, chin on hand, to listen.</p>
+
+    <p>The gendarme, Durand, also sat down, twisting his mustache
+    into needlelike points. Fortin leaned against the cliff,
+    polishing his glasses and examining us with vague, near-sighted
+    eyes; and Le Bihan, the mayor, planted himself in our midst,
+    rolling up the scroll and tucking it under his arm.</p>
+
+    <p>"First of all," he began in a shrill voice, "I am going to
+    light my pipe, and while lighting it I shall tell you what I
+    have heard about the attack on the fort yonder. My father told
+    me; his father told him."</p>
+
+    <p>He jerked his head in the direction of the ruined fort, a
+    small, square stone structure on the sea cliff, now nothing but
+    crumbling walls. Then he slowly produced a tobacco pouch, a bit
+    of flint and tinder, and a long-stemmed pipe fitted with a
+    microscopical bowl of baked clay. To fill such a pipe requires
+    ten minutes' close attention. To smoke it to a finish takes but
+    four puffs. It is very Breton, this Breton pipe. It is the
+    crystallization of everything Breton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Go on," said I, lighting a cigarette.</p>
+
+    <p>"The fort," said the mayor, "was built by Louis XIV, and was
+    dismantled twice by the English. Louis XV restored it in 1730.
+    In 1760 it was carried by assault by the English. They came
+    across from the island of Groix&mdash;three shiploads, and they
+    stormed the fort and sacked St. Julien yonder, and they started
+    to burn St. Gildas&mdash;you can see the marks of their bullets
+    on my house yet; but the men of Bannalec and the men of Lorient
+    fell upon them with pike and scythe and blunderbuss, and those
+    who did not run away lie there below in the gravel pit
+    now&mdash;thirty-eight of them."</p>
+
+    <p>"And the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked, finishing my
+    cigarette.</p>
+
+    <p>The mayor had succeeded in filling his pipe, and now he
+    began to put his tobacco pouch away.</p>
+
+    <p>"The thirty-ninth skull," he mumbled, holding the pipe stem
+    between his defective teeth&mdash;"the thirty-ninth skull is no
+    business of mine. I have told the Bannalec men to cease
+    digging."</p>
+
+    <p>"But what is&mdash;whose is the missing skull?" I persisted
+    curiously.</p>
+
+    <p>The mayor was busy trying to strike a spark to his tinder.
+    Presently he set it aglow, applied it to his pipe, took the
+    prescribed four puffs, knocked the ashes out of the bowl, and
+    gravely replaced the pipe in his pocket.</p>
+
+    <p>"The missing skull?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said I, impatiently.</p>
+
+    <p>The mayor slowly unrolled the scroll and began to read,
+    translating from the Breton into French. And this is what he
+    read:</p>
+
+    <p style="text-align: right; margin-top: 2em; font-variant: small-caps;">
+    "On the Cliffs of St. Gildas,<br />
+    April 13, 1760.</p>
+
+    <p>"On this day, by order of the Count of Soisic, general in
+    chief of the Breton forces now lying in Kerselec Forest, the
+    bodies of thirty-eight English soldiers of the 27th, 50th, and
+    72d regiments of Foot were buried in this spot, together with
+    their arms and equipments."</p>
+
+    <p>The mayor paused and glanced at me reflectively.</p>
+
+    <p>"Go on, Le Bihan," I said.</p>
+
+    <p>"With them," continued the mayor, turning the scroll and
+    reading on the other side, "was buried the body of that vile
+    traitor who betrayed the fort to the English. The manner of his
+    death was as follows: By order of the most noble Count of
+    Soisic, the traitor was first branded upon the forehead with
+    the brand of an arrowhead. The iron burned through the flesh
+    and was pressed heavily so that the brand should even burn into
+    the bone of the skull. The traitor was then led out and bidden
+    to kneel. He admitted having guided the English from the island
+    of Groix. Although a priest and a Frenchman, he had violated
+    his priestly office to aid him in discovering the password to
+    the fort. This password he extorted during confession from a
+    young Breton girl who was in the habit of rowing across from
+    the island of Groix to visit her husband in the fort. When the
+    fort fell, this young girl, crazed by the death of her husband,
+    sought the Count of Soisic and told how the priest had forced
+    her to confess to him all she knew about the fort. The priest
+    was arrested at St. Gildas as he was about to cross the river
+    to Lorient. When arrested he cursed the girl, Marie
+    Trevec&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"What!" I exclaimed, "Marie Trevec!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Marie Trevec," repeated Le Bihan; "the priest cursed Marie
+    Trevec, and all her family and descendants. He was shot as he
+    knelt, having a mask of leather over his face, because the
+    Bretons who composed the squad of execution refused to fire at
+    a priest unless his face was concealed. The priest was
+    l'Abb&eacute; Sorgue, commonly known as the Black Priest on
+    account of his dark face and swarthy eyebrows. He was buried
+    with a stake through his heart."</p>
+
+    <p>Le Bihan paused, hesitated, looked at me, and handed the
+    manuscript back to Durand. The gendarme took it and slipped it
+    into the brass cylinder.</p>
+
+    <p>"So," said I, "the thirty-ninth skull is the skull of the
+    Black Priest."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Fortin. "I hope they won't find it."</p>
+
+    <p>"I have forbidden them to proceed," said the mayor
+    querulously. "You heard me, Max Fortin."</p>
+
+    <p>I rose and picked up my gun. M&ocirc;me came and pushed his
+    head into my hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's a fine dog," observed Durand, also rising.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you wish to find his skull?" I asked Le Bihan.
+    "It would be curious to see whether the arrow brand really
+    burned into the bone."</p>
+
+    <p>"There is something in that scroll that I didn't read to
+    you," said the mayor grimly. "Do you wish to know what it
+    is?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course," I replied in surprise.</p>
+
+    <p>"Give me the scroll again, Durand," he said; then he read
+    from the bottom: "I, l'Abb&eacute; Sorgue, forced to write the
+    above by my executioners, have written it in my own blood; and
+    with it I leave my curse. My curse on St. Gildas, on Marie
+    Trevec, and on her descendants. I will come back to St. Gildas
+    when my remains are disturbed. Woe to that Englishman whom my
+    branded skull shall touch!"</p>
+
+    <p>"What rot!" I said. "Do you believe it was really written in
+    his own blood?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I am going to test it," said Fortin, "at the request of
+    Monsieur le Maire. I am not anxious for the job, however."</p>
+
+    <p>"See," said Le Bihan, holding out the scroll to me, "it is
+    signed, 'L'Abb&eacute; Sorgue.'"</p>
+
+    <p>I glanced curiously over the paper.</p>
+
+    <p>"It must be the Black Priest," I said. "He was the only man
+    who wrote in the Breton language. This is a wonderfully
+    interesting discovery, for now, at last, the mystery of the
+    Black Priest's disappearance is cleared up. You will, of
+    course, send this scroll to Paris, Le Bihan?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said the mayor obstinately, "it shall be buried in the
+    pit below where the rest of the Black Priest lies."</p>
+
+    <p>I looked at him and recognized that argument would be
+    useless. But still I said, "It will be a loss to history,
+    Monsieur Le Bihan."</p>
+
+    <p>"All the worse for history, then," said the enlightened
+    Mayor of St. Gildas.</p>
+
+    <p>We had sauntered back to the gravel pit while speaking. The
+    men of Bannalec were carrying the bones of the English soldiers
+    toward the St. Gildas cemetery, on the cliffs to the east,
+    where already a knot of white-coiffed women stood in attitudes
+    of prayer; and I saw the somber robe of a priest among the
+    crosses of the little graveyard.</p>
+
+    <p>"They were thieves and assassins; they are dead now,"
+    muttered Max Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>"Respect the dead," repeated the Mayor of St. Gildas,
+    looking after the Bannalec men.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was written in that scroll that Marie Trevec, of Groix
+    Island, was cursed by the priest&mdash;she and her
+    descendants," I said, touching Le Bihan on the arm. "There was
+    a Marie Trevec who married an Yves Trevec of St.
+    Gildas&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"It is the same," said Le Bihan, looking at me
+    obliquely.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh!" said I; "then they were ancestors of my wife."</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you fear the curse?" asked Le Bihan.</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" I laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"There was the case of the Purple Emperor," said Max Fortin
+    timidly.</p>
+
+    <p>Startled for a moment, I faced him, then shrugged my
+    shoulders and kicked at a smooth bit of rock which lay near the
+    edge of the pit, almost embedded in gravel.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you suppose the Purple-Emperor drank himself crazy
+    because he was descended from Marie Trevec?" I asked
+    contemptuously.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course not," said Max Fortin hastily.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course not," piped the mayor. "I only&mdash;Hellow!
+    what's that you're kicking?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" said I, glancing down, at the same time
+    involuntarily giving another kick. The smooth bit of rock
+    dislodged itself and rolled out of the loosened gravel at my
+    feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"The thirty-ninth skull!" I exclaimed. "By jingo, it's the
+    noddle of the Black Priest! See! there is the arrowhead branded
+    on the front!"</p>
+
+    <p>The mayor stepped back. Max Fortin also retreated. There was
+    a pause, during which I looked at them, and they looked
+    anywhere but at me.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't like it," said the mayor at last, in a husky, high
+    voice. "I don't like it! The scroll says he will come back to
+    St. Gildas when his remains are disturbed. I&mdash;I don't like
+    it, Monsieur Darrel&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Bosh!" said I; "the poor wicked devil is where he can't get
+    out. For Heaven's sake, Le Bihan, what is this stuff you are
+    talking in the year of grace 1896?"</p>
+
+    <p>The mayor gave me a look.</p>
+
+    <p>"And he says 'Englishman.' You are an Englishman, Monsieur
+    Darrel," he announced.</p>
+
+    <p>"You know better. You know I'm an American."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's all the same," said the Mayor of St. Gildas,
+    obstinately.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, it isn't!" I answered, much exasperated, and
+    deliberately pushed the skull till it rolled into the bottom of
+    the gravel pit below.</p>
+
+    <p>"Cover it up," said I; "bury the scroll with it too, if you
+    insist, but I think you ought to send it to Paris. Don't look
+    so gloomy, Fortin, unless you believe in werewolves and ghosts.
+    Hey! what the&mdash;what the devil's the matter with you,
+    anyway? What are you staring at, Le Bihan?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Come, come," muttered the mayor in a low, tremulous voice,
+    "it's time we got out of this. Did you see? Did you see,
+    Fortin?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I saw," whispered Max Fortin, pallid with fright.</p>
+
+    <p>The two men were almost running across the sunny pasture
+    now, and I hastened after them, demanding to know what was the
+    matter.</p>
+
+    <p>"Matter!" chattered the mayor, gasping with exasperation and
+    terror. "The skull is rolling up hill again," and he burst into
+    a terrified gallop, Max Fortin followed close behind.</p>
+
+    <p>I watched them stampeding across the pasture, then turned
+    toward the gravel pit, mystified, incredulous. The skull was
+    lying on the edge of the pit, exactly where it had been before
+    I pushed it over the edge. For a second I stared at it; a
+    singular chilly feeling crept up my spinal column, and I turned
+    and walked away, sweat starting from the root of every hair on
+    my head. Before I had gone twenty paces the absurdity of the
+    whole thing struck me. I halted, hot with shame and annoyance,
+    and retraced my steps.</p>
+
+    <p>There lay the skull.</p>
+
+    <p>"I rolled a stone down instead of the skull," I muttered to
+    myself. Then with the butt of my gun I pushed the skull over
+    the edge of the pit and watched it roll to the bottom; and as
+    it struck the bottom of the pit, M&ocirc;me, my dog, suddenly
+    whipped his tail between his legs, whimpered, and made off
+    across the moor.</p>
+
+    <p>"M&ocirc;me!" I shouted, angry and astonished; but the dog
+    only fled the faster, and I ceased calling from sheer
+    surprise.</p>
+
+    <p>"What the mischief is the matter with that dog!" I thought.
+    He had never before played me such a trick.</p>
+
+    <p>Mechanically I glanced into the pit, but I could not see the
+    skull. I looked down. The skull lay at my feet again, touching
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good heavens!" I stammered, and struck at it blindly with
+    my gunstock. The ghastly thing flew into the air, whirling over
+    and over, and rolled again down the sides of the pit to the
+    bottom. Breathlessly I stared at it, then, confused and
+    scarcely comprehending, I stepped back from the pit, still
+    facing it, one, ten, twenty paces, my eyes almost starting from
+    my head, as though I expected to see the thing roll up from the
+    bottom of the pit under my very gaze. At last I turned my back
+    to the pit and strode out across the gorse-covered moorland
+    toward my home. As I reached the road that winds from St.
+    Gildas to St. Julien I gave one hasty glance at the pit over my
+    shoulder. The sun shone hot on the sod about the excavation.
+    There was something white and bare and round on the turf at the
+    edge of the pit. It might have been a stone; there were plenty
+    of them lying about.</p>
+
+    <h4>II</h4>
+
+    <p>When I entered my garden I saw M&ocirc;me sprawling on the
+    stone doorstep. He eyed me sideways and flopped his tail.</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you not mortified, you idiot dog?" I said, looking
+    about the upper windows for Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>M&ocirc;me rolled over on his back and raised one
+    deprecating forepaw, as though to ward off calamity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't act as though I was in the habit of beating you to
+    death," I said, disgusted. I had never in my life raised whip
+    to the brute. "But you are a fool dog," I continued. "No, you
+    needn't come to be babied and wept over; Lys can do that, if
+    she insists, but I am ashamed of you, and you can go to the
+    devil."</p>
+
+    <p>M&ocirc;me slunk off into the house, and I followed,
+    mounting directly to my wife's boudoir. It was empty.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where has she gone?" I said, looking hard at M&ocirc;me,
+    who had followed me. "Oh! I see you don't know. Don't pretend
+    you do. Come off that lounge! Do you think Lys wants
+    tan-colored hairs all over her lounge?"</p>
+
+    <p>I rang the bell for Catherine and Fine, but they didn't know
+    where "madame" had gone; so I went into my room, bathed,
+    exchanged my somewhat grimy shooting clothes for a suit of
+    warm, soft knickerbockers, and, after lingering some extra
+    moments over my toilet&mdash;for I was particular, now that I
+    had married Lys&mdash;I went down to the garden and took a
+    chair out under the fig-trees.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where can she be?" I wondered, M&ocirc;me came sneaking out
+    to be comforted, and I forgave him for Lys's sake, whereupon he
+    frisked.</p>
+
+    <p>"You bounding cur," said I, "now what on earth started you
+    off across the moor? If you do it again I'll push you along
+    with a charge of dust shot."</p>
+
+    <p>As yet I had scarcely dared think about the ghastly
+    hallucination of which I had been a victim, but now I faced it
+    squarely, flushing a little with mortification at the thought
+    of my hasty retreat from the gravel pit.</p>
+
+    <p>"To think," I said aloud, "that those old woman's tales of
+    Max Fortin and Le Bihan should have actually made me see what
+    didn't exist at all! I lost my nerve like a schoolboy in a dark
+    bedroom." For I knew now that I had mistaken a round stone for
+    a skull each time, and had pushed a couple of big pebbles into
+    the pit instead of the skull itself.</p>
+
+    <p>"By jingo!" said I, "I'm nervous; my liver must be in a
+    devil of a condition if I see such things when I'm awake! Lys
+    will know what to give me."</p>
+
+    <p>I felt mortified and irritated and sulky, and thought
+    disgustedly of Le Bihan and Max Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>But after a while I ceased speculating, dismissed the mayor,
+    the chemist, and the skull from my mind, and smoked pensively,
+    watching the sun low dipping in the western ocean. As the
+    twilight fell for a moment over ocean and moorland, a wistful,
+    restless happiness filled my heart, the happiness that all men
+    know&mdash;all men who have loved.</p>
+
+    <p>Slowly the purple mist crept out over the sea; the cliffs
+    darkened; the forest was shrouded.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly the sky above burned with the afterglow, and the
+    world was alight again.</p>
+
+    <p>Cloud after cloud caught the rose dye; the cliffs were
+    tinted with it; moor and pasture, heather and forest burned and
+    pulsated with the gentle flush. I saw the gulls turning and
+    tossing above the sand bar, their snowy wings tipped with pink;
+    I saw the sea swallows sheering the surface of the still river,
+    stained to its placid depths with warm reflections of the
+    clouds. The twitter of drowsy hedge birds broke out in the
+    stillness; a salmon rolled its shining side above
+    tidewater.</p>
+
+    <p>The interminable monotone of the ocean intensified the
+    silence. I sat motionless, holding my breath as one who listens
+    to the first low rumor of an organ. All at once the pure
+    whistle of a nightingale cut the silence, and the first
+    moonbeam silvered the wastes of mist-hung waters.</p>
+
+    <p>I raised my head.</p>
+
+    <p>Lys stood before me in the garden.</p>
+
+    <p>When we had kissed each other, we linked arms and moved up
+    and down the gravel walks, watching the moonbeams sparkle on
+    the sand bar as the tide ebbed and ebbed. The broad beds of
+    white pinks about us were atremble with hovering white moths;
+    the October roses hung all abloom, perfuming the salt wind.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sweetheart," I said, "where is Yvonne? Has she promised to
+    spend Christmas with us?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, Dick; she drove me down from Plougat this afternoon.
+    She sent her love to you. I am not jealous. What did you
+    shoot?"</p>
+
+    <p>"A hare and four partridges. They are in the gun room. I
+    told Catherine not to touch them until you had seen them."</p>
+
+    <p>Now I suppose I knew that Lys could not be particularly
+    enthusiastic over game or guns; but she pretended she was, and
+    always scornfully denied that it was for my sake and not for
+    the pure love of sport. So she dragged me off to inspect the
+    rather meager game bag, and she paid me pretty compliments, and
+    gave a little cry of delight and pity as I lifted the enormous
+    hare out of the sack by his ears.</p>
+
+    <p>"He'll eat no more of our lettuce," I said attempting to
+    justify the assassination.</p>
+
+    <p>"Unhappy little bunny&mdash;and what a beauty! O Dick, you
+    are a splendid shot, are you not?"</p>
+
+    <p>I evaded the question and hauled out a partridge.</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor little dead things'" said Lys in a whisper; "it seems
+    a pity&mdash;doesn't it, Dick? But then you are so
+    clever&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll have them broiled," I said guardedly, "tell
+    Catherine."</p>
+
+    <p>Catherine came in to take away the game, and presently 'Fine
+    Lelocard, Lys's maid, announced dinner, and Lys tripped away to
+    her boudoir.</p>
+
+    <p>I stood an instant contemplating her blissfully, thinking,
+    "My boy, you're the happiest fellow in the world&mdash;you're
+    in love with your wife'"</p>
+
+    <p>I walked into the dining-room, beamed at the plates, walked
+    out again; met Tregunc in the hallway, beamed on him; glanced
+    into the kitchen, beamed at Catherine, and went up stairs,
+    still beaming.</p>
+
+    <p>Before I could knock at Lys's door it opened, and Lys came
+    hastily out. When she saw me she gave a little cry of relief,
+    and nestled close to my breast.</p>
+
+    <p>"There is something peering in at my window," she said.</p>
+
+    <p>"What!" I cried angrily.</p>
+
+    <p>"A man, I think, disguised as a priest, and he has a mask
+    on. He must have climbed up by the bay tree."</p>
+
+    <p>I was down the stairs and out of doors in no time. The
+    moonlit garden was absolutely deserted. Tregunc came up, and
+    together we searched the hedge and shrubbery around the house
+    and out to the road.</p>
+
+    <p>"Jean Marie," said I at length, "loose my bulldog&mdash;he
+    knows you&mdash;and take your supper on the porch where you can
+    watch. My wife says the fellow is disguised as a priest, and
+    wears a mask."</p>
+
+    <p>Tregunc showed his white teeth in a smile. "He will not care
+    to venture in here again, I think, Monsieur Darrel."</p>
+
+    <p>I went back and found Lys seated quietly at the table.</p>
+
+    <p>"The soup is ready, dear," she said. "Don't worry; it was
+    only some foolish lout from Bannalec. No one in St. Gildas or
+    St. Julien would do such a thing."</p>
+
+    <p>I was too much exasperated to reply at first, but Lys
+    treated it as a stupid joke, and after a while I began to look
+    at it in that light.</p>
+
+    <p>Lys told me about Yvonne, and reminded me of my promise to
+    have Herbert Stuart down to meet her.</p>
+
+    <p>"You wicked diplomat!" I protested. "Herbert is in Paris,
+    and hard at work for the Salon."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't you think he might spare a week to flirt with the
+    prettiest girl in Finistere?" inquired Lys innocently.</p>
+
+    <p>"Prettiest girl! Not much!" I said.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who is, then?" urged Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>I laughed a trifle sheepishly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose you mean me, Dick," said Lys, coloring up.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now I bore you, don't I?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Bore me? Ah, no, Dick."</p>
+
+    <p>After coffee and cigarettes were served I spoke about
+    Tregunc, and Lys approved.</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor Jean! He will be glad, won't he? What a dear fellow
+    you are!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Nonsense," said I; "we need a gardener; you said so
+    yourself, Lys."</p>
+
+    <p>But Lys leaned over and kissed me, and then bent down and
+    hugged M&ocirc;me&mdash;who whistled through his nose in
+    sentimental appreciation.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am a very happy woman," said Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>"M&ocirc;me was a very bad dog to-day," I observed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor M&ocirc;me!" said Lys, smiling.</p>
+
+    <p>When dinner was over and M&ocirc;me lay snoring before the
+    blaze&mdash;for the October nights are often chilly in
+    Finistere&mdash;Lys curled up in the chimney corner with her
+    embroidery, and gave me a swift glance from under her dropping
+    lashes.</p>
+
+    <p>"You look like a schoolgirl, Lys," I said teasingly. "I
+    don't believe you are sixteen yet."</p>
+
+    <p>She pushed back her heavy burnished hair thoughtfully. Her
+    wrist was as white as surf foam.</p>
+
+    <p>"Have we been married four years? I don't believe it," I
+    said.</p>
+
+    <p>She gave me another swift glance and touched the embroidery
+    on her knee, smiling faintly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," said I, also smiling at the embroidered garment.
+    "Do you think it will fit?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Fit?" repeated Lys. Then she laughed</p>
+
+    <p>"And," I persisted, "are you perfectly sure that
+    you&mdash;er&mdash;we shall need it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Perfectly," said Lys. A delicate color touched her cheeks
+    and neck. She held up the little garment, all fluffy with misty
+    lace and wrought with quaint embroidery.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is very gorgeous," said I; "don't use your eyes too
+    much, dearest. May I smoke a pipe?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course," she said selecting a skein of pale blue
+    silk.</p>
+
+    <p>For a while I sat and smoked in silence, watching her
+    slender fingers among the tinted silks and thread of gold.</p>
+
+    <p>Presently she spoke: "What did you say your crest is,
+    Dick?"</p>
+
+    <p>"My crest? Oh, something or other rampant on a something or
+    other&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Dick!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Dearest?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't be flippant."</p>
+
+    <p>"But I really forget. It's an ordinary crest; everybody in
+    New York has them. No family should be without 'em."</p>
+
+    <p>"You are disagreeable, Dick. Send Josephine upstairs for my
+    album."</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you going to put that crest on
+    the&mdash;the&mdash;whatever it is?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I am; and my own crest, too."</p>
+
+    <p>I thought of the Purple Emperor and wondered a little.</p>
+
+    <p>"You didn't know I had one, did you?" she smiled.</p>
+
+    <p>"What is it?" I replied evasively.</p>
+
+    <p>"You shall see. Ring for Josephine."</p>
+
+    <p>I rang, and, when 'Fine appeared, Lys gave her some orders
+    in a low voice, and Josephine trotted away, bobbing her
+    white-coiffed head with a "Bien, Madame!"</p>
+
+    <p>After a few minutes she returned, bearing a tattered, musty
+    volume, from which the gold and blue had mostly
+    disappeared.</p>
+
+    <p>I took the book in my hands and examined the ancient
+    emblazoned covers.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lilies!" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fleur-de-lis," said my wife demurely.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh!" said I, astonished, and opened the book.</p>
+
+    <p>"You have never before seen this book?" asked Lys, with a
+    touch of malice in her eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"You know I haven't. Hello! What's this? Oho! So there
+    should be a de before Trevec? Lys de Trevec? Then why in the
+    world did the Purple Emperor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Dick!" cried Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," said I. "Shall I read about the Sieur de Trevec
+    who rode to Saladin's tent alone to seek for medicine for St.
+    Louise? Or shall I read about&mdash;what is it? Oh, here it is,
+    all down in black and white&mdash;about the Marquis de Trevec
+    who drowned himself before Alva's eyes rather than surrender
+    the banner of the fleur-de-lis to Spain? It's all written here.
+    But, dear, how about that soldier named Trevec who was killed
+    in the old fort on the cliff yonder?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He dropped the de, and the Trevecs since then have been
+    Republicans," said Lys&mdash;"all except me."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's quite right," said I; "it is time that we
+    Republicans should agree upon some feudal system. My dear, I
+    drink to the king!" and I raised my wine glass and looked at
+    Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>"To the king," said Lys, flushing. She smoothed out the tiny
+    garment on her knees; she touched the glass with her lips; her
+    eyes were very sweet. I drained the glass to the king.</p>
+
+    <p>After a silence I said: "I will tell the king stories. His
+    majesty shall be amused."</p>
+
+    <p>"His majesty," repeated Lys softly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Or hers," I laughed. "Who knows?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Who knows?" murmured Lys; with a gentle sigh.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know some stories about Jack the Giant-Killer," I
+    announced. "Do you, Lys?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I? No, not about a giant-killer, but I know all about the
+    werewolf, and Jeanne-la-Flamme, and the Man in Purple Tatters,
+    and&mdash;O dear me, I know lots more."</p>
+
+    <p>"You are very wise," said I. "I shall teach his majesty,
+    English."</p>
+
+    <p>"And I Breton," cried Lys jealously.</p>
+
+    <p>"I shall bring playthings to the king," said I&mdash;"big
+    green lizards from the gorse, little gray mullets to swim in
+    glass globes, baby rabbits from the forest of
+    Kerselec&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"And I," said Lys, "will bring the first primrose, the first
+    branch of aubepine, the first jonquil, to the king&mdash;my
+    king."</p>
+
+    <p>"Our king," said I; and there was peace in Finistere.</p>
+
+    <p>I lay back, idly turning the leaves of the curious old
+    volume.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am looking," said I, "for the crest."</p>
+
+    <p>"The crest, dear? It is a priest's head with an arrow-shaped
+    mark on the forehead, on a field&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>I sat up and stared at my wife.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dick, whatever is the matter?" she smiled. "The story is
+    there in that book. Do you care to read it? No? Shall I tell it
+    to you? Well, then: It happened in the third crusade. There was
+    a monk whom men called the Black Priest. He turned apostate,
+    and sold himself to the enemies of Christ. A Sieur de Trevec
+    burst into the Saracen camp, at the head of only one hundred
+    lances, and carried the Black Priest away out of the very midst
+    of their army."</p>
+
+    <p>"So that is how you come by the crest," I said quietly; but
+    I thought of the branded skull in the gravel pit, and
+    wondered.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Lys. "The Sieur de Trevec cut the Black Priest's
+    head off, but first he branded him with an arrow mark on the
+    forehead. The book says it was a pious action, and the Sieur de
+    Trevec got great merit by it. But I think it was cruel, the
+    branding," she sighed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you ever hear of any other Black Priest?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes. There was one in the last century, here in St. Gildas.
+    He cast a white shadow in the sun. He wrote in the Breton
+    language. Chronicles, too, I believe. I never saw them. His
+    name was the same as that of the old chronicler, and of the
+    other priest, Jacques Sorgue. Some said he was a lineal
+    descendant of the traitor. Of course the first Black Priest was
+    bad enough for anything. But if he did have a child, it need
+    not have been the ancestor of the last Jacques Sorgue. They say
+    he was so good he was not allowed to die, but was caught up to
+    heaven one day," added Lys, with believing eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>I smiled.</p>
+
+    <p>"But he disappeared," persisted Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm afraid his journey was in another direction," I said
+    jestingly, and thoughtlessly told her the story of the morning.
+    I had utterly forgotten the masked man at her window, but
+    before I finished I remembered him fast enough, and realized
+    what I had done as I saw her face whiten.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lys," I urged tenderly, "that was only some clumsy clown's
+    trick. You said so yourself. You are not superstitious, my
+    dear?"</p>
+
+    <p>Her eyes were on mine. She slowly drew the little gold cross
+    from her bosom and kissed it. But her lips trembled as they
+    pressed the symbol of faith.</p>
+
+    <h4>III</h4>
+
+    <p>About nine o'clock the next morning I walked into the Groix
+    Inn and sat down at the long discolored oaken table, nodding
+    good-day to Marianne Bruyere, who in turn bobbed her white
+    coiffe at me.</p>
+
+    <p>"My clever Bannalec maid," said I, "what is good for a
+    stirrup-cup at the Groix Inn?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Schist?" she inquired in Breton.</p>
+
+    <p>"With a dash of red wine, then," I replied.</p>
+
+    <p>She brought the delicious Quimperle cider, and I poured a
+    little Bordeaux into it. Marianne watched me with laughing
+    black eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"What makes your cheeks so red, Marianne?" I asked. "Has
+    Jean Marie been here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"We are to be married, Monsieur Darrel," she laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah! Since when has Jean Marie Tregunc lost his head?"</p>
+
+    <p>"His head? Oh, Monsieur Darrel&mdash;his heart, you
+    mean!"</p>
+
+    <p>"So I do," said I. "Jean Marie is a practical fellow."</p>
+
+    <p>"It is all due to your kindness&mdash;" began the girl, but
+    I raised my hand and held up the glass.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's due to himself. To your happiness, Marianne"; and I
+    took a hearty draught of the schist. "Now," said I, "tell me
+    where I can find Le Bihan and Max Fortin."</p>
+
+    <p>"Monsieur Le Bihan and Monsieur Fortin are above in the
+    broad room. I believe they are examining the Red Admiral's
+    effects."</p>
+
+    <p>"To send them to Paris? Oh, I know. May I go up,
+    Marianne?"</p>
+
+    <p>"And God go with you," smiled the girl.</p>
+
+    <p>When I knocked at the door of the broad room above little
+    Max Fortin opened it. Dust covered his spectacles and nose; his
+    hat, with the tiny velvet ribbons fluttering, was all awry.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come in, Monsieur Darrel," he said; "the mayor and I are
+    packing up the effects of the Purple Emperor and of the poor
+    Red Admiral."</p>
+
+    <p>"The collections?" I asked, entering the room. "You must be
+    very careful in packing those butterfly cases; the slightest
+    jar might break wings and antennas, you know."</p>
+
+    <p>Le Bihan shook hands with me and pointed to the great pile
+    of boxes.</p>
+
+    <p>"They're all cork lined," he said, "but Fortin and I are
+    putting felt around each box. The Entomological Society of
+    Paris pays the freight."</p>
+
+    <p>The combined collection of the Red Admiral and the Purple
+    Emperor made a magnificent display.</p>
+
+    <p>I lifted and inspected case after case set with gorgeous
+    butterflies and moths, each specimen carefully labelled with
+    the name in Latin. There were cases filled with crimson tiger
+    moths all aflame with color; cases devoted to the common yellow
+    butterflies; symphonies in orange and pale yellow; cases of
+    soft gray and dun-colored sphinx moths; and cases of grayish
+    nettle-bed butterflies of the numerous family of Vanessa.</p>
+
+    <p>All alone in a great case by itself was pinned the purple
+    emperor, the Apatura Iris, that fatal specimen that had given
+    the Purple Emperor his name and quietus.</p>
+
+    <p>I remembered the butterfly, and stood looking at it with
+    bent eyebrows.</p>
+
+    <p>Le Bihan glanced up from the floor where he was nailing down
+    the lid of a box full of cases.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is settled, then," said he, "that madame, your wife,
+    gives the Purple Emperor's entire Collection to the city of
+    Paris?"</p>
+
+    <p>I nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>"Without accepting anything for it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It is a gift," I said.</p>
+
+    <p>"Including the purple emperor there in the case? That
+    butterfly is worth a great deal of money," persisted Le
+    Bihan.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't suppose that we would wish to sell that specimen,
+    do you?" I answered a trifle sharply.</p>
+
+    <p>"If I were you I should destroy it," said the mayor in his
+    high-pitched voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"That would be nonsense," said I, "like your burying the
+    brass cylinder and scroll yesterday."</p>
+
+    <p>"It was not nonsense," said Le Bihan doggedly, "and I should
+    prefer not to discuss the subject of the scroll."</p>
+
+    <p>I looked at Max Portin, who immediately avoided my eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"You are a pair of superstitious old women," said I, digging
+    my hands into my pockets; "you swallow every nursery tale that
+    is invented."</p>
+
+    <p>"What of it?" said Le Bihan sulkily; "there's more truth
+    than lies in most of 'em."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh!" I sneered, "does the Mayor of St. Gildas and St.
+    Julien believe in the loup-garou?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, not in the loup-garou."</p>
+
+    <p>"In what, then&mdash;Jeanne-la-Flamme?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That," said Le Bihan with conviction, "is history."</p>
+
+    <p>"The devil it is!" said I; "and perhaps, Monsieur the mayor,
+    your faith in giants is unimpaired?"</p>
+
+    <p>"There were giants&mdash;everybody knows it," growled Max
+    Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>"And you a chemist!" I observed scornfully.</p>
+
+    <p>"Listen, Monsieur Darrel," squeaked Le Bihan; "you know
+    yourself that the Purple Emperor was a scientific man. Now
+    suppose I should tell you that he always refused to include in
+    his collection a Death's Messenger?"</p>
+
+    <p>"A what?" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+    <p>"You know what I mean&mdash;that moth that flies by night;
+    some call it the Death's Head, but in St. Gildas we call it
+    'Death's Messenger.'"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh!" said I, "you mean that big sphinx moth that is
+    commonly known as the 'death's-head moth.' Why the mischief
+    should the people here call it death's messenger?"</p>
+
+    <p>"For hundreds of years it has been known as death's
+    messenger in St. Gildas," said Max Fortin. "Even Froissart
+    speaks of it in his commentaries on Jacques Sorgue's
+    <em>Chronicles</em>. The book is in your library."</p>
+
+    <p>"Sorgue? And who was Jacques Sorgue? I never read his
+    book."</p>
+
+    <p>"Jacques <ins class="correction"
+         title="Transcriber's Note: the original reads 'Sorque'">Sorgue</ins>
+         was the son of some unfrocked priest&mdash;I forget. It
+         was during the crusades."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good Heavens!" I burst out, "I've been hearing of nothing
+    but crusades and priests and death and sorcery ever since I
+    kicked that skull into the gravel pit, and I am tired of it, I
+    tell you frankly. One would think we lived in the dark ages. Do
+    you know what year of our Lord it is, Le Bihan?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Eighteen hundred and ninety-six," replied the mayor.</p>
+
+    <p>"And yet you two hulking men are afraid of a death's-head
+    moth."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't care to have one fly into the window," said Max
+    Fortin; "it means evil to the house and the people in it."</p>
+
+    <p>"God alone knows why he marked one of his creatures with a
+    yellow death's head on the back," observed Le Bihan piously,
+    "but I take it that he meant it as a warning; and I propose to
+    profit by it," he added triumphantly.</p>
+
+    <p>"See here, Le Bihan," I said; "by a stretch of imagination
+    one can make out a skull on the thorax of a certain big sphinx
+    moth. What of it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It is a bad thing to touch," said the mayor wagging his
+    head.</p>
+
+    <p>"It squeaks when handled," added Max Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>"Some creatures squeak all the time," I observed, looking
+    hard at Le Bihan.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pigs," added the mayor.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, and asses," I replied. "Listen, Le Bihan: do you mean
+    to tell me that you saw that skull roll uphill yesterday?"</p>
+
+    <p>The mayor shut his mouth tightly and picked up his
+    hammer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't be obstinate," I said; "I asked you a question."</p>
+
+    <p>"And I refuse to answer," snapped Le Bihan. "Fortin saw what
+    I saw; let him talk about it."</p>
+
+    <p>I looked searchingly at the little chemist.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't say that I saw it actually roll up out of the pit,
+    all by itself," said Fortin with a shiver, "but&mdash;but then,
+    how did it come up out of the pit, if it didn't roll up all by
+    itself?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It didn't come up at all; that was a yellow cobblestone
+    that you mistook for the skull again," I replied. "You were
+    nervous, Max."</p>
+
+    <p>"A&mdash;a very curious cobblestone, Monsieur Darrel," said
+    Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>"I also was a victim to the same hallucination," I
+    continued, "and I regret to say that I took the trouble to roll
+    two innocent cobblestones into the gravel pit, imagining each
+    time that it was the skull I was rolling."</p>
+
+    <p>"It was," observed Le Bihan with a morose shrug.</p>
+
+    <p>"It just shows," said I, ignoring the mayor's remark, "how
+    easy it is to fix up a train of coincidences so that the result
+    seems to savor of the supernatural. Now, last night my wife
+    imagined that she saw a priest in a mask peer in at her
+    window&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>Fortin and Le Bihan scrambled hastily from their knees,
+    dropping hammer and nails.</p>
+
+    <p>"W-h-a-t&mdash;what's that?" demanded the mayor.</p>
+
+    <p>I repeated what I had said. Max Fortin turned livid.</p>
+
+    <p>"My God!" muttered Le Bihan, "the Black Priest is in St.
+    Gildas!"</p>
+
+    <p>"D-don't you&mdash;you know the old prophecy?" stammered
+    Fortin; "Froissart quotes it from Jacques Sorgue:</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>"'When the Black Priest rises from the dead,</p>
+
+            <p>St. Gildas folk shall shriek in bed;</p>
+
+            <p>When the Black Priest rises from his grave,</p>
+
+            <p>May the good God St. Gildas save!'"</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Aristide Le Bihan," I said angrily, "and you, Max Fortin,
+    I've got enough of this nonsense! Some foolish lout from
+    Bannalec has been in St. Gildas playing tricks to frighten old
+    fools like you. If you have nothing better to talk about than
+    nursery legends I'll wait until you come to your senses.
+    Good-morning." And I walked out, more disturbed than I cared to
+    acknowledge to myself.</p>
+
+    <p>The day had become misty and overcast. Heavy, wet clouds
+    hung in the east. I heard the surf thundering against the
+    cliffs, and the gray gulls squealed as they tossed and turned
+    high in the sky. The tide was creeping across the river sands,
+    higher, higher, and I saw the seaweed floating on the beach,
+    and the lancons springing from the foam, silvery threadlike
+    flashes in the gloom. Curlew were flying up the river in twos
+    and threes; the timid sea swallows skimmed across the moors
+    toward some quiet, lonely pool, safe from the coming tempest.
+    In every hedge field birds were gathering, huddling together,
+    twittering restlessly.</p>
+
+    <p>When I reached the cliffs I sat down, resting my chin on my
+    clenched hands. Already a vast curtain of rain, sweeping across
+    the ocean miles away, hid the island of Groix. To the east,
+    behind the white semaphore on the hills, black clouds crowded
+    up over the horizon. After a little the thunder boomed, dull,
+    distant, and slender skeins of lightning unraveled across the
+    crest of the coming storm. Under the cliff at my feet the surf
+    rushed foaming over the shore, and the lancons jumped and
+    skipped and quivered until they seemed to be but the
+    reflections of the meshed lightning.</p>
+
+    <p>I turned to the east. It was raining over Groix, it was
+    raining at Sainte Barbe, it was raining now at the semaphore.
+    High in the storm whirl a few gulls pitched; a nearer cloud
+    trailed veils of rain in its wake; the sky was spattered with
+    lightning; the thunder boomed.</p>
+
+    <p>As I rose to go, a cold raindrop fell upon the back of my
+    hand, and another, and yet another on my face. I gave a last
+    glance at the sea, where the waves were bursting into strange
+    white shapes that seemed to fling out menacing arms toward me.
+    Then something moved on the cliff, something black as the black
+    rock it clutched&mdash;a filthy cormorant, craning its hideous
+    head at the sky.</p>
+
+    <p>Slowly I plodded homeward across the somber moorland, where
+    the gorse stems glimmered with a dull metallic green, and the
+    heather, no longer violet and purple, hung drenched and
+    dun-colored among the dreary rocks. The wet turf creaked under
+    my heavy boots, the black-thorn scraped and grated against knee
+    and elbow. Over all lay a strange light, pallid, ghastly, where
+    the sea spray whirled across the landscape and drove into my
+    face until it grew numb with the cold. In broad bands, rank
+    after rank, billow on billow, the rain burst out across the
+    endless moors, and yet there was no wind to drive it at such a
+    pace.</p>
+
+    <p>Lys stood at the door as I turned into the garden, motioning
+    me to hasten; and then for the first time I became conscious
+    that I was soaked to the skin.</p>
+
+    <p>"However in the world did you come to stay out when such a
+    storm threatened?" she said. "Oh, you are dripping! Go quickly
+    and change; I have laid your warm underwear on the bed,
+    Dick."</p>
+
+    <p>I kissed my wife, and went upstairs to change my dripping
+    clothes for something more comfortable.</p>
+
+    <p>When I returned to the morning room there was a driftwood
+    fire on the hearth, and Lys sat in the chimney corner
+    embroidering.</p>
+
+    <p>"Catherine tells me that the fishing fleet from Lorient is
+    out. Do you think they are in danger, dear?" asked Lys, raising
+    her blue eyes to mine as I entered.</p>
+
+    <p>"There is no wind, and there will be no sea," said I,
+    looking out of the window. Far across the moor I could see the
+    black cliffs looming in the mist.</p>
+
+    <p>"How it rains!" murmured Lys; "come to the fire, Dick."</p>
+
+    <p>I threw myself on the fur rug, my hands in my pockets, my
+    head on Lys's knees.</p>
+
+    <p>"Tell me a story," I said. "I feel like a boy of ten."</p>
+
+    <p>Lys raised a finger to her scarlet lips. I always waited for
+    her to do that.</p>
+
+    <p>"Will you be very still, then?" she said.</p>
+
+    <p>"Still as death."</p>
+
+    <p>"Death," echoed a voice, very softly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you speak, Lys?" I asked, turning so that I could see
+    her face.</p>
+
+    <p>"No; did you, Dick?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Who said 'death'?" I asked, startled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Death," echoed a voice, softly.</p>
+
+    <p>I sprang up and looked about. Lys rose too, her needles and
+    embroidery falling to the floor. She seemed about to faint,
+    leaning heavily on me, and I led her to the window and opened
+    it a little way to give her air. As I did so the chain
+    lightning split the zenith, the thunder crashed, and a sheet of
+    rain swept into the room, driving with it something that
+    fluttered&mdash;something that flapped, and squeaked, and beat
+    upon the rug with soft, moist wings.</p>
+
+    <p>We bent over it together, Lys clinging to me, and we saw
+    that it was a death's-head moth drenched with rain.</p>
+
+    <p>The dark day passed slowly as we sat beside the fire, hand
+    in hand, her head against my breast, speaking of sorrow and
+    mystery and death. For Lys believed that there were things on
+    earth that none might understand, things that must be nameless
+    forever and ever, until God rolls up the scroll of life and all
+    is ended. We spoke of hope and fear and faith, and the mystery
+    of the saints; we spoke of the beginning and the end, of the
+    shadow of sin, of omens, and of love. The moth still lay on the
+    floor quivering its somber wings in the warmth of the fire, the
+    skull and ribs clearly etched upon its neck and body.</p>
+
+    <p>"If it is a messenger of death to this house," I said, "why
+    should we fear, Lys?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Death should be welcome to those who love God," murmured
+    Lys, and she drew the cross from her breast and kissed it.</p>
+
+    <p>"The moth might die if I threw it out into the storm," I
+    said after a silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Let it remain," sighed Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>Late that night my wife lay sleeping, and I sat beside her
+    bed and read in the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue. I shaded the
+    candle, but Lys grew restless, and finally I took the book down
+    into the morning room, where the ashes of the fire rustled and
+    whitened on the hearth.</p>
+
+    <p>The death's-head moth lay on the rug before the fire where I
+    had left it. At first I thought it was dead, but when I looked
+    closer I saw a lambent fire in its amber eyes. The straight
+    white shadow it cast across the floor wavered as the candle
+    flickered.</p>
+
+    <p>The pages of the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue were damp and
+    sticky; the illuminated gold and blue initials left flakes of
+    azure and gilt where my hand brushed them.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is not paper at all; it is thin parchment," I said to
+    myself; and I held the discolored page close to the candle
+    flame and read, translating laboriously:</p>
+
+    <p>"I, Jacques Sorgue, saw all these things. And I saw the
+    Black Mass celebrated in the chapel of St. Gildas-on-the-Cliff.
+    And it was said by the Abb&eacute; Sorgue, my kinsman: for
+    which deadly sin the apostate priest was seized by the most
+    noble Marquis of Plougastel and by him condemned to be burned
+    with hot irons, until his seared soul quit its body and fly to
+    its master the devil. But when the Black Priest lay in the
+    crypt of Plougastel, his master Satan came at night and set him
+    free, and carried him across land and sea to Mahmoud, which is
+    Soldan or Saladin. And I, Jacques Sorgue, traveling afterward
+    by sea, beheld with my own eyes my kinsman, the Black Priest of
+    St. Gildas, borne along in the air upon a vast black wing,
+    which was the wing of his master Satan. And this was seen also
+    by two men of the crew."</p>
+
+    <p>I turned the page. The wings of the moth on the floor began
+    to quiver. I read on and on, my eyes blurring under the
+    shifting candle flame. I read of battles and of saints, and I
+    learned how the Great Soldan made his pact with Satan, and then
+    I came to the Sieur de Trevec, and read how he seized the Black
+    Priest in the midst of Saladin's tents and carried him away and
+    cut off his head first branding him on the forehead. "And
+    before he suffered," said the Chronicle, "he cursed the Sieur
+    de Trevec and his descendants, and he said he would surely
+    return to St. Gildas. 'For the violence you do to me, I will do
+    violence to you. For the evil I suffer at your hands, I will
+    work evil on you and your descendants. Woe to your children,
+    Sieur de Trevec!'" There was a whirr, a beating of strong
+    wings, and my candle flashed up as in a sudden breeze. A
+    humming filled the room; the great moth darted hither and
+    thither, beating, buzzing, on ceiling and wall. I flung down my
+    book and stepped forward. Now it lay fluttering upon the window
+    sill, and for a moment I had it under my hand, but the thing
+    squeaked and I shrank back. Then suddenly it darted across the
+    candle flame; the light flared and went out, and at the same
+    moment a shadow moved in the darkness outside. I raised my eyes
+    to the window. A masked face was peering in at me.</p>
+
+    <p>Quick as thought I whipped out my revolver and fired every
+    cartridge, but the face advanced beyond the window, the glass
+    melting away before it like mist, and through the smoke of my
+    revolver I saw something creep swiftly into the room. Then I
+    tried to cry out, but the thing was at my throat, and I fell
+    backward among the ashes of the hearth.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>When my eyes unclosed I was lying on the hearth, my head
+    among the cold ashes. Slowly I got on my knees, rose painfully,
+    and groped my way to a chair. On the floor lay my revolver,
+    shining in the pale light of early morning. My mind clearing by
+    degrees, I looked, shuddering, at the window. The glass was
+    unbroken. I stooped stiffly, picked up my revolver and opened
+    the cylinder. Every cartridge had been fired. Mechanically I
+    closed the cylinder and placed the revolver in my pocket. The
+    book, the Chronicles of Jacques Sorgue, lay on the table beside
+    me, and as I started to close it I glanced at the page. It was
+    all splashed with rain, and the lettering had run, so that the
+    page was merely a confused blur of gold and red and black. As I
+    stumbled toward the door I cast a fearful glance over my
+    shoulder. The death's-head moth crawled shivering on the
+    rug.</p>
+
+    <h4>IV</h4>
+
+    <p>The sun was about three hours high. I must have slept, for I
+    was aroused by the sudden gallop of horses under our window.
+    People were shouting and calling in the road. I sprang up and
+    opened the sash. Le Bihan was there, an image of helplessness,
+    and Max Fortin stood beside him polishing his glasses. Some
+    gendarmes had just arrived from Quimperle, and I could hear
+    them around the corner of the house, stamping, and rattling
+    their sabres and carbines, as they led their horses into my
+    stable.</p>
+
+    <p>Lys sat up, murmuring half-sleepy, half-anxious
+    questions.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," I answered. "I am going out to see what it
+    means."</p>
+
+    <p>"It is like the day they came to arrest you," Lys said,
+    giving me a troubled look. But I kissed her and laughed at her
+    until she smiled too. Then I flung on coat and cap and hurried
+    down the stairs.</p>
+
+    <p>The first person I saw standing in the road was the
+    Brigadier Durand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hello!" said I, "have you come to arrest me again? What the
+    devil is all this fuss about, anyway?"</p>
+
+    <p>"We were telegraphed for an hour ago," said Durand briskly,
+    "and for a sufficient reason, I think. Look there, Monsieur
+    Darrel!"</p>
+
+    <p>He pointed to the ground almost under my feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good heavens!" I cried, "where did that puddle of blood
+    come from?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's what I want to know, Monsieur Darrel. Max Fortin
+    found it at daybreak. See, it's splashed all over the grass,
+    too. A trail of it leads into your garden, across the flower
+    beds to your very window, the one that opens from the morning
+    room. There is another trail leading from this spot across the
+    road to the cliffs, then to the gravel pit, and thence across
+    the moor to the forest of Kerselec. We are going to mount in a
+    minute and search the bosquets. Will you join us? Bon Dieu! but
+    the fellow bled like an ox. Max Fortin says it's human blood,
+    or I should not have believed it."</p>
+
+    <p>The little chemist of Quimperle came up at that moment,
+    rubbing his glasses with a colored handkerchief.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, it is human blood," he said, "but one thing puzzles
+    me: the corpuscles are yellow. I never saw any human blood
+    before with yellow corpuscles. But your English Doctor Thompson
+    asserts that he has&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, it's human blood, anyway&mdash;isn't it?" insisted
+    Durand, impatiently.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ye-es," admitted Max Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then it's my business to trail it," said the big gendarme,
+    and he called his men and gave the order to mount.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you hear anything last night?" asked Durand of me.</p>
+
+    <p>"I heard the rain. I wonder the rain did not wash away these
+    traces."</p>
+
+    <p>"They must have come after the rain ceased. See this thick
+    splash, how it lies over and weighs down the wet grass blades.
+    Pah!"</p>
+
+    <p>It was a heavy, evil-looking clot, and I stepped back from
+    it, my throat closing in disgust.</p>
+
+    <p>"My theory," said the brigadier, "is this: Some of those
+    Biribi fishermen, probably the Icelanders, got an extra glass
+    of cognac into their hides and quarreled on the road. Some of
+    them were slashed, and staggered to your house. But there is
+    only one trail, and yet&mdash;and yet, how could all that blood
+    come from only one person? Well, the wounded man, let us say,
+    staggered first to your house and then back here, and he
+    wandered off, drunk and dying, God knows where. That's my
+    theory."</p>
+
+    <p>"A very good one," said I calmly. "And you are going to
+    trail him?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+    <p>"When?"</p>
+
+    <p>"At once. Will you come?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not now. I'll gallop over by-and-bye. You are going to the
+    edge of the Kerselec forest?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes; you will hear us calling. Are you coming, Max Fortin?
+    And you, Le Bihan? Good; take the dog-cart."</p>
+
+    <p>The big gendarme tramped around the corner to the stable and
+    presently returned mounted on a strong gray horse, his sabre
+    shone on his saddle; his pale yellow and white facings were
+    spotless. The little crowd of white-coiffed women with their
+    children fell back as Durand touched spurs and clattered away
+    followed by his two troopers. Soon after Le Bihan and Max
+    Fortin also departed in the mayor's dingy dog-cart.</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you coming?" piped Le Bihan shrilly.</p>
+
+    <p>"In a quarter of an hour," I replied, and went back to the
+    house.</p>
+
+    <p>When I opened the door of the morning room the death's-head
+    moth was beating its strong wings against the window. For a
+    second I hesitated, then walked over and opened the sash. The
+    creature fluttered out, whirred over the flower beds a moment,
+    then darted across the moorland toward the sea. I called the
+    servants together and questioned them. Josephine, Catherine,
+    Jean Marie Tregunc, not one of them had heard the slightest
+    disturbance during the night. Then I told Jean Marie to saddle
+    my horse, and while I was speaking Lys came down.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dearest," I began, going to her.</p>
+
+    <p>"You must tell me everything you know, Dick," she
+    interrupted, looking me earnestly in the face.</p>
+
+    <p>"But there is nothing to tell&mdash;only a drunken brawl,
+    and some one wounded."</p>
+
+    <p>"And you are going to ride&mdash;where, Dick?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, over to the edge of Kerselec forest. Durand and the
+    mayor, and Max Fortin, have gone on, following a&mdash;a
+    trail."</p>
+
+    <p>"What trail?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Some blood."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where did they find it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Out in the road there." Lys crossed herself.</p>
+
+    <p>"Does it come near our house?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+    <p>"How near?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It comes up to the morning room window," said I, giving
+    in.</p>
+
+    <p>Her hand on my arm grew heavy. "I dreamed last
+    night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"So did I&mdash;" but I thought of the empty cartridges in
+    my revolver, and stopped.</p>
+
+    <p>"I dreamed that you were in great danger, and I could not
+    move hand or foot to save you; but you had your revolver, and I
+    called out to you to fire&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I did fire!" I cried excitedly.</p>
+
+    <p>"You&mdash;you fired?"</p>
+
+    <p>I took her in my arms. "My darling," I said "something
+    strange has happened&mdash;something that I cannot understand
+    as yet. But, of course, there is an explanation. Last night I
+    thought I fired at the Black Priest."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah!" gasped Lys.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is that what you dreamed?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, yes, that was it! I begged you to
+    fire&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"And I did."</p>
+
+    <p>Her heart was beating against my breast. I held her close in
+    silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dick," she said at length, "perhaps you killed
+    the&mdash;the thing."</p>
+
+    <p>"If it was human I did not miss," I answered grimly. "And it
+    was human," I went on, pulling myself together, ashamed of
+    having so nearly gone to pieces. "Of course it was human! The
+    whole affair is plain enough. Not a drunken brawl, as Durand
+    thinks; it was a drunken lout's practical joke, for which he
+    has suffered. I suppose I must have filled him pretty full of
+    bullets, and he has crawled away to die in Kerselec forest.
+    It's a terrible affair; I'm sorry I fired so hastily; but that
+    idiot Le Bihan and Max Fortin have been working on my nerves
+    till I am as hysterical as a schoolgirl," I ended angrily.</p>
+
+    <p>"You fired&mdash;but the window glass was not shattered,"
+    said Lys in a low voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, the window was open, then. And as for the&mdash;the
+    rest&mdash;I've got nervous indigestion, and a doctor will
+    settle the Black Priest for me, Lys."</p>
+
+    <p>I glanced out of the window at Tregunc waiting with my horse
+    at the gate.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dearest, I think I had better go to join Durand and the
+    others."</p>
+
+    <p>"I will go, too."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, no!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, Dick."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't, Lys."</p>
+
+    <p>"I shall suffer every moment you are away."</p>
+
+    <p>"The ride is too fatiguing, and we can't tell what
+    unpleasant sight you may come upon. Lys, you don't really think
+    there is anything supernatural in this affair?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Dick," she answered gently, "I am a Bretonne." With both
+    arms around my neck, my wife said, "Death is the gift of God. I
+    do not fear it when we are together. But alone&mdash;oh, my
+    husband, I should fear a God who could take you away from
+    me!"</p>
+
+    <p>We kissed each other soberly, simply, like two children.
+    Then Lys hurried away to change her gown, and I paced up and
+    down the garden waiting for her.</p>
+
+    <p>She came, drawing on her slender gauntlets. I swung her into
+    the saddle, gave a hasty order to Jean Marie, and mounted.</p>
+
+    <p>Now, to quail under thoughts of terror on a morning like
+    this, with Lys in the saddle beside me, no matter what had
+    happened or might happen was impossible. Moreover, M&ocirc;me
+    came sneaking after us. I asked Tregunc to catch him, for I was
+    afraid he might be brained by our horses' hoofs if he followed,
+    but the wily puppy dodged and bolted after Lys, who was
+    trotting along the highroad. "Never mind," I thought; "if he's
+    hit he'll live, for he has no brains to lose."</p>
+
+    <p>Lys was waiting for me in the road beside the Shrine of Our
+    Lady of St. Gildas when I joined her. She crossed herself, I
+    doffed my cap, then we shook out our bridles and galloped
+    toward the forest of Kerselec.</p>
+
+    <p>We said very little as we rode. I always loved to watch Lys
+    in the saddle. Her exquisite figure and lovely face were the
+    incarnation of youth and grace; her curling hair glistened like
+    threaded gold.</p>
+
+    <p>Out of the corner of my eye I saw the spoiled puppy
+    M&ocirc;me come bounding cheerfully alongside, oblivious of our
+    horses' heels. Our road swung close to the cliffs. A filthy
+    cormorant rose from the black rocks and flapped heavily across
+    our path. Lys's horse reared, but she pulled him down, and
+    pointed at the bird with her riding crop.</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," said I; "it seems to be going our way. Curious to
+    see a cormorant in a forest, isn't it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It is a bad sign," said Lys. "You know the Morbihan
+    proverb: 'When the cormorant turns from the sea, Death laughs
+    in the forest, and wise woodsmen build boats.'"</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish," said I sincerely, "that there were fewer proverbs
+    in Brittany."</p>
+
+    <p>We were in sight of the forest now; across the gorse I could
+    see the sparkle of gendarmes' trappings, and the glitter of Le
+    Bihan's silver-buttoned jacket. The hedge was low and we took
+    it without difficulty, and trotted across the moor to where Le
+    Bihan and Durand stood gesticulating.</p>
+
+    <p>They bowed ceremoniously to Lys as we rode up.</p>
+
+    <p>"The trail is horrible&mdash;it is a river," said the mayor
+    in his squeaky voice. "Monsieur Darrel, I think perhaps madame
+    would scarcely care to come any nearer."</p>
+
+    <p>Lys drew bridle and looked at me.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is horrible!" said Durand, walking up beside me; "it
+    looks as though a bleeding regiment had passed this way. The
+    trail winds and winds about here in the thickets; we lose it at
+    times, but we always find it again. I can't understand how one
+    man&mdash;no, nor twenty&mdash;could bleed like that!"</p>
+
+    <p>A halloo, answered by another, sounded from the depths of
+    the forest.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's my men; they are following the trail," muttered the
+    brigadier. "God alone knows what is at the end!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Shall we gallop back, Lys?" I asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"No; let us ride along the western edge of the woods and
+    dismount. The sun is so hot now, and I should like to rest for
+    a moment," she said.</p>
+
+    <p>"The western forest is clear of anything disagreeable," said
+    Durand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Very well," I answered; "call me, Le Bihan, if you find
+    anything."</p>
+
+    <p>Lys wheeled her mare, and I followed across the springy
+    heather, M&ocirc;me trotting cheerfully in the rear.</p>
+
+    <p>We entered the sunny woods about a quarter of a kilometer
+    from where we left Durand. I took Lys from her horse, flung
+    both bridles over a limb, and, giving my wife my arm, aided her
+    to a flat mossy rock which overhung a shallow brook gurgling
+    among the beech trees. Lys sat down and drew off her gauntlets.
+    M&ocirc;me pushed his head into her lap, received an undeserved
+    caress, and came doubtfully toward me. I was weak enough to
+    condone his offense, but I made him lie down at my feet,
+    greatly to his disgust.</p>
+
+    <p>I rested my head on Lys's knees, looking up at the sky
+    through the crossed branches of the trees.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose I have killed him," I said. "It shocks me
+    terribly, Lys."</p>
+
+    <p>"You could not have known, dear. He may have been a robber,
+    and&mdash;if&mdash;not&mdash;did&mdash;have you ever fired your
+    revolver since that day four years ago when the Red Admiral's
+    son tried to kill you? But I know you have not."</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said I, wondering. "It's a fact, I have not. Why?"</p>
+
+    <p>"And don't you remember that I asked you to let me load it
+    for you the day when Yves went off, swearing to kill you and
+    his father?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, I do remember. Well?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I&mdash;I took the cartridges first to St. Gildas
+    chapel and dipped them in holy water. You must not laugh,
+    Dick," said Lys gently, laying her cool hands on my lips.</p>
+
+    <p>"Laugh, my darling!"</p>
+
+    <p>Overhead the October sky was pale amethyst, and the sunlight
+    burned like orange flame through the yellow leaves of beech and
+    oak. Gnats and midges danced and wavered overhead; a spider
+    dropped from a twig halfway to the ground and hung suspended on
+    the end of his gossamer thread.</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you sleepy, dear?" asked Lys, bending over me.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am&mdash;a little; I scarcely slept two hours last
+    night," I answered.</p>
+
+    <p>"You may sleep, if you wish," said Lys, and touched my eyes
+    caressingly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is my head heavy on your knees?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, Dick."</p>
+
+    <p>I was already in a half doze; still I heard the brook
+    babbling under the beeches and the humming of forest flies
+    overhead. Presently even these were stilled.</p>
+
+    <p>The next thing I knew I was sitting bolt upright, my ears
+    ringing with a scream, and I saw Lys cowering beside me,
+    covering her white face with both hands.</p>
+
+    <p>As I sprang to my feet she cried again and clung to my
+    knees. I saw my dog rush growling into a thicket, then I heard
+    him whimper, and he came backing out, whining, ears flat, tail
+    down. I stooped and disengaged Lys's hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't go, Dick!" she cried. "O God, it's the Black
+    Priest!"</p>
+
+    <p>In a moment I had leaped across the brook and pushed my way
+    into the thicket. It was empty. I stared about me; I scanned
+    every tree trunk, every bush. Suddenly I saw him. He was seated
+    on a fallen log, his head resting in his hands, his rusty black
+    robe gathered around him. For a moment my hair stirred under my
+    cap; sweat started on forehead and cheek bone; then I recovered
+    my reason, and understood that the man was human and was
+    probably wounded to death. Ay, to death; for there at my feet,
+    lay the wet trail of blood, over leaves and stones, down into
+    the little hollow, across to the figure in black resting
+    silently under the trees.</p>
+
+    <p>I saw that he could not escape even if he had the strength,
+    for before him, almost at his very feet, lay a deep, shining
+    swamp.</p>
+
+    <p>As I stepped forward my foot broke a twig. At the sound the
+    figure started a little, then its head fell forward again. Its
+    face was masked. Walking up to the man, I bade him tell where
+    he was wounded. Durand and the others broke through the thicket
+    at the same moment and hurried to my side.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who are you who hide a masked face in a priest's robe?"
+    said the gendarme loudly.</p>
+
+    <p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+    <p>"See&mdash;see the stiff blood all over his robe," muttered
+    Le Bihan to Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>"He will not speak," said I.</p>
+
+    <p>"He may be too badly wounded," whispered Le Bihan.</p>
+
+    <p>"I saw him raise his head," I said, "my wife saw him creep
+    up here."</p>
+
+    <p>Durand stepped forward and touched the figure.</p>
+
+    <p>"Speak!" he said.</p>
+
+    <p>"Speak!" quavered Fortin.</p>
+
+    <p>Durand waited a moment, then with a sudden upward movement
+    he stripped off the mask and threw back the man's head. We were
+    looking into the eye sockets of a skull. Durand stood rigid;
+    the mayor shrieked. The skeleton burst out from its rotting
+    robes and collapsed on the ground before us. From between the
+    staring ribs and the grinning teeth spurted a torrent of black
+    blood, showering the shrinking grasses; then the thing
+    shuddered, and fell over into the black ooze of the bog. Little
+    bubbles of iridescent air appeared from the mud; the bones were
+    slowly engulfed, and, as the last fragments sank out of sight,
+    up from the depths and along the bank crept a creature, shiny,
+    shivering, quivering its wings.</p>
+
+    <p>It was a death's-head moth.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>I wish I had time to tell you how Lys outgrew
+    superstitions&mdash;for she never knew the truth about the
+    affair, and she never will know, since she has promised not to
+    read this book. I wish I might tell you about the king and his
+    coronation, and how the coronation robe fitted. I wish that I
+    were able to write how Yvonne and Herbert Stuart rode to a boar
+    hunt in Quimperle, and how the hounds raced the quarry right
+    through the town, overturning three gendarmes, the notary, and
+    an old woman. But I am becoming garrulous and Lys is calling me
+    to come and hear the king say that he is sleepy. And his
+    highness shall not be kept waiting.</p>
+
+    <p class="center">THE KING'S CRADLE SONG</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p class="i4">Seal with a seal of gold</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">The scroll of a life unrolled;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Swathe him deep in his purple stole;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Ashes of diamonds, crystalled coal,</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Drops of gold in each scented fold.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p class="i2">Crimson wings of the Little Death,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Stir his hair with your silken
+            breath;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Flaming wings of sins to be,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Splendid pinions of prophecy,</p>
+
+            <p class="i6">Smother his eyes with hues and dyes,</p>
+
+            <p>While the white moon spins and the winds arise,</p>
+
+            <p class="i6">And the stars drip through the skies.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p class="i4">Wave, O wings of the Little Death!</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Seal his sight and stifle his breath,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Cover his breast with the gemmed shroud
+            pressed;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">From north to north, from west to
+            west,</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Wave, O wings of the Little Death!</p>
+
+            <p>Till the white moon reels in the cracking skies,</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">And the ghosts of God arise.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Lazarus"
+       id="Lazarus"></a>Lazarus</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By LEONID ANDREYEV</span></h3>
+
+    <h4>TRANSLATED BY ABRAHAM YARMOLINSKY</h4>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>Lazarus and the Gentleman from San
+        Francisco</em>. Published by The Stratford Company. By
+        permission of the publishers.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <h4>I</h4>
+
+    <p>When Lazarus left the grave, where, for three days and three
+    nights he had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and
+    returned alive to his dwelling, for a long time no one noticed
+    in him those sinister oddities, which, as time went on, made
+    his very name a terror. Gladdened unspeakably by the sight of
+    him who had been returned to life, those near to him caressed
+    him unceasingly, and satiated their burning desire to serve
+    him, in solicitude for his food and drink and garments. And
+    they dressed him gorgeously, in bright colors of hope and
+    laughter, and when, like to a bridegroom in his bridal
+    vestures, he sat again among them at the table, and again ate
+    and drank, they wept, overwhelmed with tenderness. And they
+    summoned the neighbors to look at him who had risen
+    miraculously from the dead. These came and shared the serene
+    joy of the hosts. Strangers from far-off towns and hamlets came
+    and adored the miracle in tempestuous words. Like to a beehive
+    was the house of Mary and Martha.</p>
+
+    <p>Whatever was found new in Lazarus' face and gestures was
+    thought to be some trace of a grave illness and of the shocks
+    recently experienced. Evidently, the destruction wrought by
+    death on the corpse was only arrested by the miraculous power,
+    but its effects were still apparent; and what death had
+    succeeded in doing with Lazarus' face and body, was like an
+    artist's unfinished sketch seen under thin glass. On Lazarus'
+    temples, under his eyes, and in the hollows of his cheeks, lay
+    a deep and cadaverous blueness; cadaverously blue also were his
+    long fingers, and around his fingernails, grown long in the
+    grave, the blue had become purple and dark. On his lips the
+    skin, swollen in the grave, had burst in places, and thin,
+    reddish cracks were formed, shining as though covered with
+    transparent mica. And he had grown stout. His body, puffed up
+    in the grave, retained its monstrous size and showed those
+    frightful swellings, in which one sensed the presence of the
+    rank liquid of decomposition. But the heavy corpse-like odor
+    which penetrated Lazarus' graveclothes and, it seemed, his very
+    body, soon entirely disappeared, the blue spots on his face and
+    hands grew paler, and the reddish cracks closed up, although
+    they never disappeared altogether. That is how Lazarus looked
+    when he appeared before people, in his second life, but his
+    face looked natural to those who had seen him in the
+    coffin.</p>
+
+    <p>In addition to the changes in his appearance, Lazarus'
+    temper seemed to have undergone a transformation, but this
+    circumstance startled no one and attracted no attention. Before
+    his death Lazarus had always been cheerful and carefree, fond
+    of laughter and a merry joke. It was because of this brightness
+    and cheerfulness, with not a touch of malice and darkness, that
+    the Master had grown so fond of him. But now Lazarus had grown
+    grave and taciturn, he never jested, himself, nor responded
+    with laughter to other people's jokes; and the words which he
+    uttered, very infrequently, were the plainest, most ordinary,
+    and necessary words, as deprived of depth and significance, as
+    those sounds with which animals express pain and pleasure,
+    thirst and hunger. They were the words that one can say all
+    one's life, and yet they give no indication of what pains and
+    gladdens the depths of the soul.</p>
+
+    <p>Thus, with the face of a corpse which for three days had
+    been under the heavy sway of death, dark and taciturn, already
+    appallingly transformed, but still unrecognized by anyone in
+    his new self, he was sitting at the feasting table, among
+    friends and relatives, and his gorgeous nuptial garments
+    glittered with yellow gold and bloody scarlet. Broad waves of
+    jubilation, now soft, now tempestuously sonorous surged around
+    him; warm glances of love were reaching out for his face, still
+    cold with the coldness of the grave; and a friend's warm palm
+    caressed his blue, heavy hand. And music played the tympanum
+    and the pipe, the cithara and the harp. It was as though bees
+    hummed, grasshoppers chirped and birds warbled over the happy
+    house of Mary and Martha.</p>
+
+    <h4>II</h4>
+
+    <p>One of the guests incautiously lifted the veil. By a
+    thoughtless word he broke the serene charm and uncovered the
+    truth in all its naked ugliness. Ere the thought formed itself
+    in his mind, his lips uttered with a smile:</p>
+
+    <p>"Why dost thou not tell us what happened yonder?"</p>
+
+    <p>And all grew silent, startled by the question. It was as if
+    it occurred to them only now that for three days Lazarus had
+    been dead, and they looked at him, anxiously awaiting his
+    answer. But Lazarus kept silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thou dost not wish to tell us,"&mdash;wondered the man, "is
+    it so terrible yonder?"</p>
+
+    <p>And again his thought came after his words. Had it been
+    otherwise, he would not have asked this question, which at that
+    very moment oppressed his heart with its insufferable horror.
+    Uneasiness seized all present, and with a feeling of heavy
+    weariness they awaited Lazarus' words, but he was silent,
+    sternly and coldly, and his eyes were lowered. And as if for
+    the first time, they noticed the frightful blueness of his face
+    and his repulsive obesity. On the table, as though forgotten by
+    Lazarus, rested his bluish-purple wrist, and to this all eyes
+    turned, as if it were from it that the awaited answer was to
+    come. The musicians were still playing, but now the silence
+    reached them too, and even as water extinguishes scattered
+    embers, so were their merry tunes extinguished in the silence.
+    The pipe grew silent; the voices of the sonorous tympanum and
+    the murmuring harp died away; and as if the strings had burst,
+    the cithara answered with a tremulous, broken note.
+    Silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thou dost not wish to say?" repeated the guest, unable to
+    check his chattering tongue. But the stillness remained
+    unbroken, and the bluish-purple hand rested motionless. And
+    then he stirred slightly and everyone felt relieved. He lifted
+    up his eyes, and lo! straightway embracing everything in one
+    heavy glance, fraught with weariness and horror, he looked at
+    them,&mdash;Lazarus who had arisen from the dead.</p>
+
+    <p>It was the third day since Lazarus had left the grave. Ever
+    since then many had experienced the pernicious power of his
+    eye, but neither those who were crushed by it forever, nor
+    those who found the strength to resist in it the primordial
+    sources of life,&mdash;which is as mysterious as
+    death,&mdash;never could they explain the horror which lay
+    motionless in the depth of his black pupils. Lazarus looked
+    calmly and simply with no desire to conceal anything, but also
+    with no intention to say anything; he looked coldly, as he who
+    is infinitely indifferent to those alive. Many carefree people
+    came close to him without noticing him, and only later did they
+    learn with astonishment and fear who that calm stout man was,
+    that walked slowly by, almost touching them with his gorgeous
+    and dazzling garments. The sun did not cease shining, when he
+    was looking, nor did the fountain hush its murmur, and the sky
+    overhead remained cloudless and blue. But the man under the
+    spell of his enigmatical look heard no more the fountain and
+    saw not the sky overhead. Sometimes, he wept bitterly,
+    sometimes he tore his hair and in frenzy called for help; but
+    more often it came to pass that apathetically and quietly he
+    began to die, and so he languished many years, before
+    everybody's very eyes, wasted away, colorless, flabby, dull,
+    like a tree, silently drying up in a stony soil. And of those
+    who gazed at him, the ones who wept madly, sometimes felt again
+    the stir of life; the others never.</p>
+
+    <p>"So thou dost not wish to tell us what thou hast seen
+    yonder?" repeated the man. But now his voice was impassive and
+    dull, and deadly gray weariness showed in Lazarus' eyes. And
+    deadly gray weariness covered like dust all the faces, and with
+    dull amazement the guests stared at each other and did not
+    understand wherefore they had gathered here and sat at the rich
+    table. The talk ceased. They thought it was time to go home,
+    but could not overcome the flaccid lazy weariness which glued
+    their muscles, and they kept on sitting there, yet apart and
+    torn away from each other, like pale fires scattered over a
+    dark field.</p>
+
+    <p>But the musicians were paid to play and again they took
+    their instruments and again tunes full of studied mirth and
+    studied sorrow began to flow and to rise. They unfolded the
+    customary melody but the guests hearkened in dull amazement.
+    Already they knew not wherefore is it necessary, and why is it
+    well, that people should pluck strings, inflate their cheeks,
+    blow in thin pipes, and produce a bizarre, many-voiced
+    noise.</p>
+
+    <p>"What bad music," said someone.</p>
+
+    <p>The musicians took offense and left. Following them, the
+    guests left one after another, for night was already come. And
+    when placid darkness encircled them and they began to breathe
+    with more ease, suddenly Lazarus' image loomed up before each
+    one in formidable radiance: the blue face of a corpse,
+    grave-clothes gorgeous and resplendent, a cold look, in the
+    depths of which lay motionless an unknown horror. As though
+    petrified, they were standing far apart, and darkness enveloped
+    them, but in the darkness blazed brighter and brighter the
+    supernatural vision of him who for three days had been under
+    the enigmatical sway of death. For three days had he been dead:
+    thrice had the sun risen and set, but he had been dead;
+    children had played, streams murmured over pebbles, the
+    wayfarer had lifted up hot dust in the highroad,&mdash;but he
+    had been dead. And now he is again among them,&mdash;touches
+    them,&mdash;looks at them,&mdash;looks at them! and through the
+    black discs of his pupils, as through darkened glass, stares
+    the unknowable Yonder.</p>
+
+    <h4>III</h4>
+
+    <p>No one was taking care of Lazarus, for no friends no
+    relatives were left to him, and the great desert which
+    encircled the holy city, came near the very threshold of his
+    dwelling. And the desert entered his house, and stretched on
+    his couch, like a wife and extinguished the fires. No one was
+    taking care of Lazarus. One after the other, his
+    sisters&mdash;Mary and Martha&mdash;forsook him. For a long
+    while Martha was loath to abandon him, for she knew not who
+    would feed him and pity him, she wept and prayed. But one
+    night, when the wind was roaming in the desert and with a
+    hissing sound the cypresses were bending over the roof, she
+    dressed noiselessly and secretly left the house. Lazarus
+    probably heard the door slam; it banged against the side-post
+    under the gusts of the desert wind, but he did not rise to go
+    out and to look at her that was abandoning him. All the night
+    long the cypresses hissed over his head and plaintively thumped
+    the door, letting in the cold, greedy desert.</p>
+
+    <p>Like a leper he was shunned by everyone, and it was proposed
+    to tie a bell to his neck, as is done with lepers, to warn
+    people against sudden meetings. But someone remarked, growing
+    frightfully pale, that it would be too horrible if by night the
+    moaning of Lazarus' bell were suddenly heard under the
+    windows,&mdash;and so the project was abandoned.</p>
+
+    <p>And since he did not take care of himself, he would probably
+    have starved to death, had not the neighbors brought him food
+    in fear of something that they sensed but vaguely. The food was
+    brought to him by children; they were not afraid of Lazarus,
+    nor did they mock him with naive cruelty, as children are wont
+    to do with the wretched and miserable. They were indifferent to
+    him, and Lazarus answered them with the same coldness; he had
+    no desire to caress the black little curls, and to look into
+    their innocent shining eyes. Given to Time and to the Desert,
+    his house was crumbling down, and long since had his famishing,
+    lowing goats wandered away to the neighboring pastures. And his
+    bridal garments became threadbare. Ever since that happy day,
+    when the musicians played, he had worn them unaware of the
+    difference of the new and the worn. The bright colors grew dull
+    and faded; vicious dogs and the sharp thorn of the Desert
+    turned the tender fabric into rags.</p>
+
+    <p>By day, when the merciless sun slew all things alive, and
+    even scorpions sought shelter under stones and writhed there in
+    a mad desire to sting, he sat motionless under the sunrays, his
+    blue face and the uncouth, bushy beard lifted up, bathing in
+    the fiery flood.</p>
+
+    <p>When people still talked to him, he was once asked:</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor Lazarus, does it please thee to sit thus and to stare
+    at the sun?"</p>
+
+    <p>And he had answered:</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, it does."</p>
+
+    <p>So strong, it seemed, was the cold of his three days' grave,
+    so deep the darkness, that there was no heat on earth to warm
+    Lazarus, nor a splendor that could brighten the darkness of his
+    eyes. That is what came to the mind of those who spoke to
+    Lazarus, and with a sigh they left him.</p>
+
+    <p>And when the scarlet, flattened globe would lower, Lazarus
+    would set out for the desert and walk straight toward the sun,
+    as though striving to reach it. He always walked straight
+    toward the sun and those who tried to follow him and to spy
+    upon what he was doing at night in the desert, retained in
+    their memory the black silhouette of a tall stout man against
+    the red background of an enormous flattened disc. Night pursued
+    them with her horrors, and so they did not learn of Lazarus'
+    doings in the desert, but the vision of the black on red was
+    forever branded on their brain. Just as a beast with a splinter
+    in its eye furiously rubs its muzzle with its paws, so they too
+    foolishly rubbed their eyes, but what Lazarus had given was
+    indelible, and Death alone could efface it.</p>
+
+    <p>But there were people who lived far away, who never saw
+    Lazarus and knew of him only by report. With daring curiosity,
+    which is stronger than fear and feeds upon it, with hidden
+    mockery, they would come to Lazarus who was sitting in the sun
+    and enter into conversation with him. By this time Lazarus'
+    appearance had changed for the better and was not so terrible.
+    The first minute they snapped their fingers and thought of how
+    stupid the inhabitants of the holy city were; but when the
+    short talk was over and they started homeward, their looks were
+    such that the inhabitants of the holy city recognized them at
+    once and said:</p>
+
+    <p>"Look, there is one more fool on whom Lazarus has set his
+    eye,"&mdash;and they shook their heads regretfully, and lifted
+    up their arms.</p>
+
+    <p>There came brave, intrepid warriors, with tinkling weapons;
+    happy youths came with laughter and song; busy tradesmen,
+    jingling their money, ran in for a moment, and haughty priests
+    leaned their crosiers against Lazarus' door, and they were all
+    strangely changed, as they came back. The same terrible shadow
+    swooped down upon their souls and gave a new appearance to the
+    old familiar world.</p>
+
+    <p>Those who still had the desire to speak, expressed their
+    feelings thus:</p>
+
+    <p>"All things tangible and visible grew hollow, light, and
+    transparent,&mdash;similar to lightsome shadows in the darkness
+    of night;</p>
+
+    <p>"for, that great darkness, which holds the whole cosmos, was
+    dispersed neither by the sun or by the moon and the stars, but
+    like an immense black shroud enveloped the earth and, like a
+    mother, embraced it;</p>
+
+    <p>"it penetrated all the bodies, iron and stone,&mdash;and the
+    particles of the bodies, having lost their ties, grew lonely;
+    and it penetrated into the depth of the particles, and the
+    particles of particles became lonely;</p>
+
+    <p>"for that great void, which encircles the cosmos, was not
+    filled by things visible: neither by the sun, nor by the moon
+    and the stars, but reigned unrestrained, penetrating
+    everywhere, severing body from body, particle from
+    particle;</p>
+
+    <p>"in the void hollow trees spread hollow roots threatening a
+    fantastic fall; temples, palaces, and horses loomed up and they
+    were hollow; and in the void men moved about restlessly but
+    they were light and hollow like shadows;</p>
+
+    <p>"for, Time was no more, and the beginning of all things came
+    near their end: the building was still being built, and
+    builders were still hammering away, and its ruins were already
+    seen and the void in its place; the man was still being born,
+    but already funeral candles were burning at his head, and now
+    they were extinguished, and there was the void in place of the
+    man and of the funeral candles.</p>
+
+    <p>"and wrapped by void and darkness the man in despair
+    trembled in the face of the Horror of the Infinite."</p>
+
+    <p>Thus spake the men who had still a desire to speak. But,
+    surely, much more could have told those who wished not to
+    speak, and died in silence.</p>
+
+    <h4>IV</h4>
+
+    <p>At that time there lived in Rome a renowned sculptor. In
+    clay, marble, and bronze he wrought bodies of gods and men, and
+    such was their beauty, that people called them immortal. But he
+    himself was discontented and asserted that there was something
+    even more beautiful, that he could not embody either in marble
+    or in bronze. "I have not yet gathered the glimmers of the
+    moon, nor have I my fill of sunshine," he was wont to say, "and
+    there is no soul in my marble, no life in my beautiful bronze."
+    And when on moonlit nights he slowly walked along the road,
+    crossing the black shadows of cypresses, his white tunic
+    glittering in the moonshine, those who met him would laugh in a
+    friendly way and say:</p>
+
+    <p>"Art thou going to gather moonshine, Aurelius? Why then
+    didst thou not fetch baskets?"</p>
+
+    <p>And he would answer, laughing and pointing to his eyes:</p>
+
+    <p>"Here are the baskets wherein I gather the sheen of the moon
+    and the glimmer of the sun."</p>
+
+    <p>And so it was: the moon glimmered in his eyes and the sun
+    sparkled therein. But he could not translate them into marble
+    and therein lay the serene tragedy of his life.</p>
+
+    <p>He was descended from an ancient patrician race, had a good
+    wife and children, and suffered from no want.</p>
+
+    <p>When the obscure rumor about Lazarus reached him, he
+    consulted his wife and friends and undertook the far journey to
+    Judea to see him who had miraculously risen from the dead. He
+    was somewhat weary in those days and he hoped that the road
+    would sharpen his blunted senses. What was said of Lazarus did
+    not frighten him: he had pondered much over Death, did not like
+    it, but he disliked also those who confused it with life.</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>"In this life,&mdash;life and beauty;</p>
+
+            <p>beyond,&mdash;Death, the enigmatical"&mdash;</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="noindent">thought he, and there is no better thing
+    for a man to do than to delight in life and in the beauty of
+    all things living. He had even a vainglorious desire to
+    convince Lazarus of the truth of his own view and restore his
+    soul to life, as his body had been restored. This seemed so
+    much easier because the rumors, shy and strange, did not render
+    the whole truth about Lazarus and but vaguely warned against
+    something frightful.</p>
+
+    <p>Lazarus had just risen from the stone in order to follow the
+    sun which was setting in the desert, when a rich Roman attended
+    by an armed slave, approached him and addressed him in a
+    sonorous tone of voice:</p>
+
+    <p>"Lazarus!"</p>
+
+    <p>And Lazarus beheld a superb face, lit with glory, and
+    arrayed in fine clothes, and precious stones sparkling in the
+    sun. The red light lent to the Roman's face and head the
+    appearance of gleaming bronze&mdash;that also Lazarus noticed.
+    He resumed obediently his place and lowered his weary eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, thou art ugly, my poor Lazarus,"&mdash;quietly said
+    the Roman, playing with his golden chain; "thou art even
+    horrible, my poor friend; and Death was not lazy that day when
+    thou didst fall so heedlessly into his hands. But thou art
+    stout, and, as the great C&aelig;sar used to say, fat people
+    are not ill-tempered; to tell the truth, I don't understand why
+    men fear thee. Permit me to spend the night in thy house; the
+    hour is late, and I have no shelter."</p>
+
+    <p>Never had anyone asked Lazarus' hospitality.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have no bed," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am somewhat of a soldier and I can sleep sitting," the
+    Roman answered. "We shall build a fire."</p>
+
+    <p>"I have no fire."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then we shall have our talk in the darkness, like two
+    friends. I think thou wilt find a bottle of wine."</p>
+
+    <p>"I have no wine."</p>
+
+    <p>The Roman laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now I see why thou art so somber and dislikest thy second
+    life. No wine! Why, then we shall do without it: there are
+    words that make the head go round better than the
+    Falernian."</p>
+
+    <p>By a sign he dismissed the slave, and they remained all
+    alone. And again the sculptor started speaking, but it was as
+    if, together with the setting sun, life had left his words; and
+    they grew pale and hollow, as if they staggered on unsteady
+    feet, as if they slipped and fell down, drunk with the heavy
+    lees of weariness and despair. And black chasms grew up between
+    the words&mdash;like far-off hints of the great void and the
+    great darkness.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now I am thy guest, and thou wilt not be unkind to me,
+    Lazarus!"&mdash;said he. "Hospitality is the duty even of those
+    who for three days were dead. Three days, I was told, thou
+    didst rest in the grave. There it must be cold ... and that is
+    whence comes thy ill habit of going without fire and wine. As
+    to me, I like fire; it grows dark here so rapidly.... The lines
+    of thy eyebrows and forehead are quite, quite interesting: they
+    are like ruins of strange palaces, buried in ashes after an
+    earthquake. But why dost thou wear such ugly and queer
+    garments? I have seen bridegrooms in thy country, and they wear
+    such clothes&mdash;are they not funny&mdash;and terrible....
+    But art thou a bridegroom?"</p>
+
+    <p>The sun had already disappeared, a monstrous black shadow
+    came running from the east&mdash;it was as if gigantic bare
+    feet began rumbling on the sand, and the wind sent a cold wave
+    along the backbone.</p>
+
+    <p>"In the darkness thou seemest still larger, Lazarus, as if
+    thou hast grown stouter in these moments. Dost thou feed on
+    darkness, Lazarus? I would fain have a little fire&mdash;at
+    least a little fire, a little fire. I feel somewhat chilly,
+    your nights are so barbarously cold.... Were it not so dark, I
+    should say that thou wert looking at me, Lazarus. Yes, it seems
+    to me, thou art looking.... Why, thou art looking at me, I feel
+    it,&mdash;but there thou art smiling."</p>
+
+    <p>Night came, and filled the air with heavy blackness.</p>
+
+    <p>"How well it will be, when the sun will rise to-morrow
+    anew.... I am a great sculptor, thou knowest; that is how my
+    friends call me. I create. Yes, that is the word ... but I need
+    daylight. I give life to the cold marble, I melt sonorous
+    bronze in fire, in bright hot fire.... Why didst thou touch me
+    with thy hand?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Come"&mdash;said Lazarus&mdash;"Thou art my guest."</p>
+
+    <p>And they went to the house. And a long night enveloped the
+    earth.</p>
+
+    <p>The slave, seeing that his master did not come, went to seek
+    him, when the sun was already high in the sky. And he beheld
+    his master side by side with Lazarus: in profound silence were
+    they sitting right under the dazzling and scorching sunrays and
+    looking upward. The slave began to weep and cried out:</p>
+
+    <p>"My master, what has befallen thee, master?"</p>
+
+    <p>The very same day the sculptor left for Rome. On the way
+    Aurelius was pensive and taciturn, staring attentively at
+    everything&mdash;the men, the ship, the sea, as though trying
+    to retain something. On the high sea a storm burst upon them,
+    and all through it Aurelius stayed on the deck and eagerly
+    scanned the seas looming near and sinking with a thud.</p>
+
+    <p>At home his friends were frightened at the change which had
+    taken place in Aurelius, but he calmed them, saying
+    meaningly:</p>
+
+    <p>"I have found it."</p>
+
+    <p>And without changing the dusty clothes he wore on his
+    journey, he fell to work, and the marble obediently resounded
+    under his sonorous hammer. Long and eagerly worked he,
+    admitting no one, until one morning he announced that the work
+    was ready and ordered his friends to be summoned, severe
+    critics and connoisseurs of art. And to meet them he put on
+    bright and gorgeous garments, that glittered with yellow
+    gold&mdash;and&mdash;scarlet byssus.</p>
+
+    <p>"Here is my work," said he thoughtfully.</p>
+
+    <p>His friends glanced and a shadow of profound sorrow covered
+    their faces. It was something monstrous, deprived of all the
+    lines and shapes familiar to the eye, but not without a hint at
+    some new, strange image.</p>
+
+    <p>On a thin, crooked twig, or rather on an ugly likeness of a
+    twig rested askew a blind, ugly, shapeless, outspread mass of
+    something utterly and inconceivably distorted, a mad leap of
+    wild and bizarre fragments, all feebly and vainly striving to
+    part from one another. And, as if by chance, beneath one of the
+    wildly-rent salients a butterfly was chiseled with divine
+    skill, all airy loveliness, delicacy, and beauty, with
+    transparent wings, which seemed to tremble with an impotent
+    desire to take flight.</p>
+
+    <p>"Wherefore this wonderful butterfly, Aurelius?" said
+    somebody falteringly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know not"&mdash;was the sculptor's answer.</p>
+
+    <p>But it was necessary to tell the truth, and one of his
+    friends who loved him best said firmly:</p>
+
+    <p>"This is ugly, my poor friend. It must be destroyed. Give me
+    the hammer."</p>
+
+    <p>And with two strokes he broke the monstrous man into pieces,
+    leaving only the infinitely delicate butterfly untouched.</p>
+
+    <p>From that time on Aurelius created nothing. With profound
+    indifference he looked at marble and bronze, and on his former
+    divine works, where everlasting beauty rested. With the purpose
+    of arousing his former fervent passion for work and, awakening
+    his deadened soul, his friends took him to see other artists'
+    beautiful works,&mdash;but he remained indifferent as before,
+    and the smile did not warm up his tightened lips. And only
+    after listening to lengthy talks about beauty, he would retort
+    wearily and indolently:</p>
+
+    <p>"But all this is a lie."</p>
+
+    <p>And by the day, when the sun was shining, he went into his
+    magnificent, skilfully built garden and having found a place
+    without shadow, he exposed his bare head to the glare and heat.
+    Red and white butterflies fluttered around; from the crooked
+    lips of a drunken satyr, water streamed down with a splash into
+    a marble cistern, but he sat motionless and silent,&mdash;like
+    a pallid reflection of him who, in the far-off distance, at the
+    very gates of the stony desert, sat under the fiery sun.</p>
+
+    <h4>V</h4>
+
+    <p>And now it came to pass that the great, deified Augustus
+    himself summoned Lazarus. The imperial messengers dressed him
+    gorgeously, in solemn nuptial clothes, as if Time had legalized
+    them, and he was to remain until his very death the bridegroom
+    of an unknown bride. It was as though an old, rotting coffin
+    had been gilt and furnished with new, gay tassels. And men, all
+    in trim and bright attire, rode after him, as if in bridal
+    procession indeed, and those foremost trumpeted loudly, bidding
+    people to clear the way for the emperor's messengers. But
+    Lazarus' way was deserted: his native land cursed the hateful
+    name of him who had miraculously risen from the dead, and
+    people scattered at the very news of his appalling approach.
+    The solitary voice of the brass trumpets sounded in the
+    motionless air, and the wilderness alone responded with its
+    languid echo.</p>
+
+    <p>Then Lazarus went by sea. And his was the most magnificently
+    arrayed and the most mournful ship that ever mirrored itself in
+    the azure waves of the Mediterranean Sea. Many were the
+    travelers aboard, but like a tomb was the ship, all silence and
+    stillness, and the despairing water sobbed at the steep,
+    proudly curved prow. All alone sat Lazarus exposing his head to
+    the blaze of the sun, silently listening to the murmur and
+    splash of the wavelets, and afar seamen and messengers were
+    sitting, a vague group of weary shadows. Had the thunder burst
+    and the wind attacked the red sails, the ships would probably
+    have perished, for none of those aboard had either the will or
+    the strength to struggle for life. With a supreme effort some
+    mariners would reach the board and eagerly scan the blue,
+    transparent deep, hoping to see a naiad's pink shoulder flash
+    in the hollow of an azure wave, or a drunken gay centaur dash
+    along and in frenzy splash the wave with his hoof. But the sea
+    was like a wilderness, and the deep was dumb and deserted.</p>
+
+    <p>With utter indifference did Lazarus set his feet on the
+    street of the eternal city. As though all her wealth, all the
+    magnificence of her palaces built by giants, all the
+    resplendence, beauty, and music of her refined life were but
+    the echo of the wind in the wilderness, the reflection of the
+    desert quicksand. Chariots were dashing, and along the streets
+    were moving crowds of strong, fair, proud builders of the
+    eternal city and haughty participants in her life; a song
+    sounded; fountains and women laughed a pearly laughter; drunken
+    philosophers harangued, and the sober listened to them with a
+    smile; hoofs struck the stone pavements. And surrounded by
+    cheerful noise, a stout, heavy man was moving, a cold spot of
+    silence and despair, and on his way he sowed disgust, anger,
+    and vague, gnawing weariness. Who dares to be sad in Rome,
+    wondered indignantly the citizens, and frowned. In two days the
+    entire city already knew all about him who had miraculously
+    risen from the dead, and shunned him shyly.</p>
+
+    <p>But some daring people there were, who wanted to test their
+    strength, and Lazarus obeyed their imprudent summons. Kept busy
+    by state affairs, the emperor constantly delayed the reception,
+    and seven days did he who had risen from the dead go about
+    visiting others.</p>
+
+    <p>And Lazarus came to a cheerful Epicurean, and the host met
+    him with laughter on his lips:</p>
+
+    <p>"Drink, Lazarus, drink!"&mdash;shouted he. "Would not
+    Augustus laugh to see thee drunk!"</p>
+
+    <p>And half-naked drunken women laughed, and rose petals fell
+    on Lazarus' blue hands. But then the Epicurean looked into
+    Lazarus' eyes, and his gaiety ended forever. Drunkard remained
+    he for the rest of his life; never did he drink, yet forever
+    was he drunk. But instead of the gay reverie which wine brings
+    with it, frightful dreams began to haunt him, the sole food of
+    his stricken spirit. Day and night he lived in the poisonous
+    vapors of his nightmares, and death itself was not more
+    frightful than her raving, monstrous forerunners.</p>
+
+    <p>And Lazarus came to a youth and his beloved, who loved each
+    other and were most beautiful in their passions. Proudly and
+    strongly embracing his love, the youth said with serene
+    regret:</p>
+
+    <p>"Look at us, Lazarus, and share our joy. Is there anything
+    stronger than love?"</p>
+
+    <p>And Lazarus looked. And for the rest of their life they kept
+    on loving each other, but their passion grew gloomy and
+    joyless, like those funeral cypresses whose roots feed on the
+    decay of the graves and whose black summits in a still evening
+    hour seek in vain to reach the sky. Thrown by the unknown
+    forces of life into each other's embraces, they mingled tears
+    with kisses, voluptuous pleasures with pain, and they felt
+    themselves doubly slaves, obedient slaves to life, and patient
+    servants of the silent Nothingness. Ever united, ever severed,
+    they blazed like sparks and like sparks lost themselves in the
+    boundless Dark.</p>
+
+    <p>And Lazarus came to a haughty sage, and the sage said to
+    him:</p>
+
+    <p>"I know all the horrors thou canst reveal to me. Is there
+    anything thou canst frighten me with?"</p>
+
+    <p>But before long the sage felt that the knowledge of horror
+    was far from being the horror itself, and that the vision of
+    Death, was not Death. And he felt that wisdom and folly are
+    equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.
+    And it vanished, the dividing-line between knowledge and
+    ignorance, truth and falsehood, top and bottom, and the
+    shapeless thought hung suspended in the void. Then the sage
+    clutched his gray head and cried out frantically:</p>
+
+    <p>"I cannot think! I cannot think!"</p>
+
+    <p>Thus under the indifferent glance for him, who miraculously
+    had risen from the dead, perished everything that asserts life,
+    its significance and joys. And it was suggested that it was
+    dangerous to let him see the emperor, that it was better to
+    kill him and, having buried him secretly, to tell the emperor
+    that he had disappeared no one knew whither. Already swords
+    were being whetted and youths devoted to the public welfare
+    prepared for the murder, when Augustus ordered Lazarus to be
+    brought before him next morning, thus destroying the cruel
+    plans.</p>
+
+    <p>If there was no way of getting rid of Lazarus, at least it
+    was possible to soften the terrible impression his face
+    produced. With this in view, skillful painters, barbers, and
+    artists were summoned, and all night long they were busy over
+    Lazarus' head. They cropped his beard, curled it, and gave it a
+    tidy, agreeable appearance. By means of paints they concealed
+    the corpse-like blueness of his hands and face. Repulsive were
+    the wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his old face, and they
+    were puttied, painted, and smoothed; then, over the smooth
+    background, wrinkles of good-tempered laughter and pleasant,
+    carefree mirth were skillfully painted with fine brushes.</p>
+
+    <p>Lazarus submitted indifferently to everything that was done
+    to him. Soon he was turned into a becomingly stout, venerable
+    old man, into a quiet and kind grandfather of numerous
+    offspring. It seemed that the smile, with which only a while
+    ago he was spinning funny yarns, was still lingering on his
+    lips, and that in the corner of his eye serene tenderness was
+    hiding, the companion of old age. But people did not dare
+    change his nuptial garments, and they could not change his
+    eyes, two dark and frightful glasses through which looked at
+    men, the unknowable Yonder.</p>
+
+    <h4>VI</h4>
+
+    <p>Lazarus was not moved by the magnificence of the imperial
+    palace. It was as though he saw no difference between the
+    crumbling house, closely pressed by the desert, and the stone
+    palace, solid and fair, and indifferently he passed into it.
+    And the hard marble of the floors under his feet grew similar
+    to the quicksand of the desert, and the multitude of richly
+    dressed and haughty men became like void air under his glance.
+    No one looked into his face, as Lazarus passed by, fearing to
+    fall under the appalling influence of his eyes; but when the
+    sound of his heavy footsteps had sufficiently died down, the
+    courtiers raised their heads and with fearful curiosity
+    examined the figure of a stout, tall, slightly bent old man,
+    who was slowly penetrating into the very heart of the imperial
+    palace. Were Death itself passing, it would be faced with no
+    greater fear: for until then the dead alone knew Death, and
+    those alive knew Life only&mdash;and there was no bridge
+    between them. But this extraordinary man, although alive, knew
+    Death, and enigmatical, appalling, was his cursed knowledge.
+    "Woe," people thought, "he will take the life of our great,
+    deified Augustus," and they sent curses after Lazarus, who
+    meanwhile kept on advancing into the interior of the
+    palace.</p>
+
+    <p>Already did the emperor know who Lazarus was, and prepared
+    to meet him. But the monarch was a brave man, and felt his own
+    tremendous, unconquerable power, and in his fatal duel with him
+    who had miraculously risen from the dead he wanted not to
+    invoke human help. And so he met Lazarus face to face:</p>
+
+    <p>"Lift not thine eyes upon me, Lazarus," he ordered. "I heard
+    thy face is like that of Medusa and turns into stone whomsoever
+    thou lookest at. Now, I wish to see thee and to have a talk
+    with thee, before I turn into stone,"&mdash;added he in a tone
+    of kingly jesting, not devoid of fear.</p>
+
+    <p>Coming close to him, he carefully examined Lazarus' face and
+    his strange festal garments. And although he had a keen eye, he
+    was deceived by his appearance.</p>
+
+    <p>"So. Thou dost not appear terrible, my venerable old man.
+    But the worse for us, if horror assumes such a respectable and
+    pleasant air. Now let us have a talk."</p>
+
+    <p>Augustus sat, and questioning Lazarus with his eye as much
+    as with words, started the conversation:</p>
+
+    <p>"Why didst thou not greet me as thou enteredst?"</p>
+
+    <p>Lazarus answered indifferent:</p>
+
+    <p>"I knew not it was necessary."</p>
+
+    <p>"Art thou a Christian?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No."</p>
+
+    <p>Augustus approvingly shook his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"That is good. I do not like Christians. They shake the tree
+    of life before it is covered with fruit, and disperse its
+    odorous bloom to the winds. But who art thou?"</p>
+
+    <p>With a visible effort Lazarus answered:</p>
+
+    <p>"I was dead."</p>
+
+    <p>"I had heard that. But who art thou now?"</p>
+
+    <p>Lazarus was silent, but at last repeated in a tone of weary
+    apathy:</p>
+
+    <p>"I was dead."</p>
+
+    <p>"Listen to me, stranger," said the emperor, distinctly and
+    severely giving utterance to the thought that had come to him
+    at the beginning, "my realm is the realm of Life, my people are
+    of the living, not of the dead. Thou art here one too many. I
+    know not who thou art and what thou sawest there; but, if thou
+    liest, I hate thy lies, and if thou tellst the truth, I hate
+    thy truth. In my bosom I feel the throb of life; I feel
+    strength in my arm, and my proud thoughts, like eagles, pierce
+    the space. And yonder in the shelter of my rule, under the
+    protection of laws created by me, people live and toil and
+    rejoice. Dost thou hear the battle-cry, the challenge men throw
+    into the face of the future?"</p>
+
+    <p>Augustus, as in prayer, stretched forth his arms and
+    exclaimed solemnly:</p>
+
+    <p>"Be blessed, O great and divine Life!"</p>
+
+    <p>Lazarus was silent, and with growing sternness the emperor
+    went on:</p>
+
+    <p>"Thou art not wanted here, miserable remnant, snatched from
+    under Death's teeth, thou inspirest weariness and disgust with
+    life; like a caterpillar in the fields, thou gloatest on the
+    rich ear of joy and belchest out the drivel of despair and
+    sorrow. Thy truth is like a rusty sword in the hands of a
+    nightly murderer,&mdash;and as a murderer thou shalt be
+    executed. But before that, let me look into thine eyes.
+    Perchance, only cowards are afraid of them, but in the brave
+    they awake the thirst for strife and victory; then thou shalt
+    be rewarded, not executed.... Now, look at me, Lazarus."</p>
+
+    <p>At first it appeared to the deified Augustus that a friend
+    was looking at him,&mdash;so soft, so tenderly fascinating was
+    Lazarus' glance. It promised not horror, but sweet rest and the
+    Infinite seemed to him a tender mistress, a compassionate
+    sister, a mother. But stronger and stronger grew its embraces,
+    and already the mouth, greedy of hissing kisses, interfered
+    with the monarch's breathing, and already to the surface of the
+    soft tissues of the body came the iron of the bones and
+    tightened its merciless circle,&mdash;and unknown fangs, blunt
+    and cold, touched his heart and sank into it with slow
+    indolence.</p>
+
+    <p>"It pains," said the deified Augustus, growing pale. "But
+    look at me, Lazarus, look."</p>
+
+    <p>It was as though some heavy gates, ever closed, were slowly
+    moving apart, and through the growing interstice the appalling
+    horror of the Infinite poured in slowly and steadily. Like two
+    shadows there entered the shoreless void and the unfathomable
+    darkness; they extinguished the sun, ravished the earth from
+    under the feet, and the roof from over the head. No more did
+    the frozen heart ache.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look, look, Lazarus," ordered Augustus tottering.</p>
+
+    <p>Time stood still, and the beginning of each thing grew
+    frightfully near to its end. Augustus' throne just erected,
+    crumbled down, and the void was already in the place of the
+    throne and of Augustus. Noiselessly did Rome crumble down, and
+    a new city stood on its site and it too was swallowed by the
+    void. Like fantastic giants, cities, states, and countries fell
+    down and vanished in the void darkness&mdash;and with uttermost
+    indifference did the insatiable black womb of the Infinite
+    swallow them.</p>
+
+    <p>"Halt!"&mdash;ordered the emperor.</p>
+
+    <p>In his voice sounded already a note of indifference, his
+    hands dropped in languor, and in the vain struggle with the
+    onrushing darkness his fiery eyes now blazed up, and now went
+    out.</p>
+
+    <p>"My life thou hast taken from me, Lazarus,"&mdash;said he in
+    a spiritless, feeble voice.</p>
+
+    <p>And these words of hopelessness saved him. He remembered his
+    people, whose shield he was destined to be, and keen salutary
+    pain pierced his deadened heart. "They are doomed to death," he
+    thought wearily. "Serene shadows in the darkness of the
+    Infinite," thought he, and horror grew upon him. "Frail vessels
+    with living seething blood with a heart that knows sorrow and
+    also great joy," said he in his heart, and tenderness pervaded
+    it.</p>
+
+    <p>Thus pondering and oscillating between the poles of Life and
+    Death, he slowly came back to life, to find in its suffering
+    and in its joys a shield against the darkness of the void and
+    the horror of the Infinite.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, thou hast not murdered me, Lazarus," said he firmly,
+    "but I will take thy life. Be gone."</p>
+
+    <p>That evening the deified Augustus partook of his meats and
+    drinks with particular joy. Now and then his lifted hand
+    remained suspended in the air, and a dull glimmer replaced the
+    bright sheen of his fiery eye. It was the cold wave of Horror
+    that surged at his feet. Defeated, but not undone, ever
+    awaiting its hour, that Horror stood at the emperor's bedside,
+    like a black shadow all through his life; it swayed his nights,
+    but yielded the days to the sorrows and joys of life.</p>
+
+    <p>The following day, the hangman with a hot iron burned out
+    Lazarus' eyes. Then he was sent home. The deified Augustus
+    dared not kill him.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>Lazarus returned to the desert, and the wilderness met him
+    with hissing gusts of wind and the heat of the blazing sun.
+    Again he was sitting on a stone, his rough, bushy beard lifted
+    up; and the two black holes in place of his eyes looked at the
+    sky with an expression of dull terror. Afar-off the holy city
+    stirred noisily and restlessly, but around him everything was
+    deserted and dumb. No one approached the place where lived he
+    who had miraculously risen from the dead, and long since his
+    neighbors had forsaken their houses. Driven by the hot iron
+    into the depth of his skull, his cursed knowledge hid there in
+    an ambush. As though leaping out from an ambush it plunged its
+    thousand invisible eyes into the man,&mdash;and no one dared
+    look at Lazarus.</p>
+
+    <p>And in the evening, when the sun, reddening and growing
+    wider, would come nearer and nearer the western horizon, the
+    blind Lazarus would slowly follow it. He would stumble against
+    stones and fall, stout and weak as he was; would rise heavily
+    to his feet and walk on again; and on the red screen of the
+    sunset his black body and outspread hands would form a
+    monstrous likeness of a cross.</p>
+
+    <p>And it came to pass that once he went out and did not come
+    back. Thus seemingly ended the second life of him who for three
+    days had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and rose
+    miraculously from the dead.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Beast"
+       id="Beast"></a>The Beast with Five Fingers</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By W. F. HARVEY</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>The New Decameron</em>, by Various Hands.
+        Copyright, 1919, by Robert M. McBride and Company. By
+        permission of the publishers.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>When I was a little boy I once went with my father to call
+    on Adrian Borlsover. I played on the floor with a black spaniel
+    while my father appealed for a subscription. Just before we
+    left my father said, "Mr. Borlsover, may my son here shake
+    hands with you? It will be a thing to look back upon with pride
+    when he grows to be a man."</p>
+
+    <p>I came up to the bed on which the old man was lying and put
+    my hand in his, awed by the still beauty of his face. He spoke
+    to me kindly, and hoped that I should always try to please my
+    father. Then he placed his right hand on my head and asked for
+    a blessing to rest upon me. "Amen!" said my father, and I
+    followed him out of the room, feeling as if I wanted to cry.
+    But my father was in excellent spirits.</p>
+
+    <p>"That old gentleman, Jim," said he, "is the most wonderful
+    man in the whole town. For ten years he has been quite
+    blind."</p>
+
+    <p>"But I saw his eyes," I said. "They were ever so black and
+    shiny; they weren't shut up like Nora's puppies. Can't he see
+    at all?"</p>
+
+    <p>And so I learnt for the first time that a man might have
+    eyes that looked dark and beautiful and shining without being
+    able to see.</p>
+
+    <p>"Just like Mrs. Tomlinson has big ears," I said, "and can't
+    hear at all except when Mr. Tomlinson shouts."</p>
+
+    <p>"Jim," said my father, "it's not right to talk about a
+    lady's ears. Remember what Mr. Borlsover said about pleasing me
+    and being a good boy."</p>
+
+    <p>That was the only time I saw Adrian Borlsover. I soon forgot
+    about him and the hand which he laid in blessing on my head.
+    But for a week I prayed that those dark tender eyes might
+    see.</p>
+
+    <p>"His spaniel may have puppies," I said in my prayers, "and
+    he will never be able to know how funny they look with their
+    eyes all closed up. Please let old Mr. Borlsover see."</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>Adrian Borlsover, as my father had said, was a wonderful
+    man. He came of an eccentric family. Borlsovers' sons, for some
+    reason, always seemed to marry very ordinary women, which
+    perhaps accounted for the fact that no Borlsover had been a
+    genius, and only one Borlsover had been mad. But they were
+    great champions of little causes, generous patrons of odd
+    sciences, founders of querulous sects, trustworthy guides to
+    the bypath meadows of erudition.</p>
+
+    <p>Adrian was an authority on the fertilization of orchids. He
+    had held at one time the family living at Borlsover Conyers,
+    until a congenital weakness of the lungs obliged him to seek a
+    less rigorous climate in the sunny south coast watering-place
+    where I had seen him. Occasionally he would relieve one or
+    other of the local clergy. My father described him as a fine
+    preacher, who gave long and inspiring sermons from what many
+    men would have considered unprofitable texts. "An excellent
+    proof," he would add, "of the truth of the doctrine of direct
+    verbal inspiration."</p>
+
+    <p>Adrian Borlsover was exceedingly clever with his hands. His
+    penmanship was exquisite. He illustrated all his scientific
+    papers, made his own woodcuts, and carved the reredos that is
+    at present the chief feature of interest in the church at
+    Borlsover Conyers. He had an exceedingly clever knack in
+    cutting silhouettes for young ladies and paper pigs and cows
+    for little children, and made more than one complicated wind
+    instrument of his own devising.</p>
+
+    <p>When he was fifty years old Adrian Borlsover lost his sight.
+    In a wonderfully short time he had adapted himself to the new
+    conditions of life. He quickly learned to read Braille. So
+    marvelous indeed was his sense of touch that he was still able
+    to maintain his interest in botany. The mere passing of his
+    long supple fingers over a flower was sufficient means for its
+    identification, though occasionally he would use his lips. I
+    have found several letters of his among my father's
+    correspondence. In no case was there anything to show that he
+    was afflicted with blindness and this in spite of the fact that
+    he exercised undue economy in the spacing of lines. Towards the
+    close of his life the old man was credited with powers of touch
+    that seemed almost uncanny: it has been said that he could tell
+    at once the color of a ribbon placed between his fingers. My
+    father would neither confirm nor deny the story.</p>
+
+    <h4>I</h4>
+
+    <p>Adrian Borlsover was a bachelor. His elder brother George
+    had married late in life, leaving one son, Eustace, who lived
+    in the gloomy Georgian mansion at Borlsover Conyers, where he
+    could work undisturbed in collecting material for his great
+    book on heredity.</p>
+
+    <p>Like his uncle, he was a remarkable man. The Borlsovers had
+    always been born naturalists, but Eustace possessed in a
+    special degree the power of systematizing his knowledge. He had
+    received his university education in Germany, and then, after
+    post-graduate work in Vienna and Naples, had traveled for four
+    years in South America and the East, getting together a huge
+    store of material for a new study into the processes of
+    variation.</p>
+
+    <p>He lived alone at Borlsover Conyers with Saunders his
+    secretary, a man who bore a somewhat dubious reputation in the
+    district, but whose powers as a mathematician, combined with
+    his business abilities, were invaluable to Eustace.</p>
+
+    <p>Uncle and nephew saw little of each other. The visits of
+    Eustace were confined to a week in the summer or autumn: long
+    weeks, that dragged almost as slowly as the bath-chair in which
+    the old man was drawn along the sunny sea front. In their way
+    the two men were fond of each other, though their intimacy
+    would doubtless have been greater had they shared the same
+    religious views. Adrian held to the old-fashioned evangelical
+    dogmas of his early manhood; his nephew for many years had been
+    thinking of embracing Buddhism. Both men possessed, too, the
+    reticence the Borlsovers had always shown, and which their
+    enemies sometimes called hypocrisy. With Adrian it was a
+    reticence as to the things he had left undone; but with Eustace
+    it seemed that the curtain which he was so careful to leave
+    undrawn hid something more than a half-empty chamber.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>Two years before his death Adrian Borlsover developed,
+    unknown to himself, the not uncommon power of automatic
+    writing. Eustace made the discovery by accident. Adrian was
+    sitting reading in bed, the forefinger of his left hand tracing
+    the Braille characters, when his nephew noticed that a pencil
+    the old man held in his right hand was moving slowly along the
+    opposite page. He left his seat in the window and sat down
+    beside the bed. The right hand continued to move, and now he
+    could see plainly that they were letters and words which it was
+    forming.</p>
+
+    <p>"Adrian Borlsover," wrote the hand, "Eustace Borlsover,
+    George Borlsover, Francis Borlsover Sigismund Borlsover, Adrian
+    Borlsover, Eustace Borlsover, Saville Borlsover. B, for
+    Borlsover. Honesty is the Best Policy. Beautiful Belinda
+    Borlsover."</p>
+
+    <p>"What curious nonsense!" said Eustace to himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"King George the Third ascended the throne in 1760," wrote
+    the hand. "Crowd, a noun of multitude; a collection of
+    individuals&mdash;Adrian Borlsover, Eustace Borlsover."</p>
+
+    <p>"It seems to me," said his uncle, closing the book, "that
+    you had much better make the most of the afternoon sunshine and
+    take your walk now." "I think perhaps I will," Eustace answered
+    as he picked up the volume. "I won't go far, and when I come
+    back I can read to you those articles in <em>Nature</em> about
+    which we were speaking."</p>
+
+    <p>He went along the promenade, but stopped at the first
+    shelter, and seating himself in the corner best protected from
+    the wind, he examined the book at leisure. Nearly every page
+    was scored with a meaningless jungle of pencil marks: rows of
+    capital letters, short words, long words, complete sentences,
+    copy-book tags. The whole thing, in fact, had the appearance of
+    a copy-book, and on a more careful scrutiny Eustace thought
+    that there was ample evidence to show that the handwriting at
+    the beginning of the book, good though it was was not nearly so
+    good as the handwriting at the end.</p>
+
+    <p>He left his uncle at the end of October, with a promise to
+    return early in December. It seemed to him quite clear that the
+    old man's power of automatic writing was developing rapidly,
+    and for the first time he looked forward to a visit that
+    combined duty with interest.</p>
+
+    <p>But on his return he was at first disappointed. His uncle,
+    he thought, looked older. He was listless too, preferring
+    others to read to him and dictating nearly all his letters. Not
+    until the day before he left had Eustace an opportunity of
+    observing Adrian Borlsover's new-found faculty.</p>
+
+    <p>The old man, propped up in bed with pillows, had sunk into a
+    light sleep. His two hands lay on the coverlet, his left hand
+    tightly clasping his right. Eustace took an empty manuscript
+    book and placed a pencil within reach of the fingers of the
+    right hand. They snatched at it eagerly; then dropped the
+    pencil to unloose the left hand from its restraining grasp.</p>
+
+    <p>"Perhaps to prevent interference I had better hold that
+    hand," said Eustace to himself, as he watched the pencil.
+    Almost immediately it began to write.</p>
+
+    <p>"Blundering Borlsovers, unnecessarily unnatural,
+    extraordinarily eccentric, culpably curious."</p>
+
+    <p>"Who are you?" asked Eustace, in a low voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never you mind," wrote the hand of Adrian.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is it my uncle who is writing?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, my prophetic soul, mine uncle."</p>
+
+    <p>"Is it anyone I know?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Silly Eustace, you'll see me very soon."</p>
+
+    <p>"When shall I see you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"When poor old Adrian's dead."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where shall I see you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Where shall you not?"</p>
+
+    <p>Instead of speaking his next question, Borlsover wrote it.
+    "What is the time?"</p>
+
+    <p>The fingers dropped the pencil and moved three or four times
+    across the paper. Then, picking up the pencil, they wrote:</p>
+
+    <p>"Ten minutes before four. Put your book away, Eustace.
+    Adrian mustn't find us working at this sort of thing. He
+    doesn't know what to make of it, and I won't have poor old
+    Adrian disturbed. <em>Au revoir</em>."</p>
+
+    <p>Adrian Borlsover awoke with a start.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've been dreaming again," he said; "such queer dreams of
+    leaguered cities and forgotten towns. You were mixed up in this
+    one, Eustace, though I can't remember how. Eustace, I want to
+    warn you. Don't walk in doubtful paths. Choose your friends
+    well. Your poor grandfather&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>A fit of coughing put an end to what he was saying, but
+    Eustace saw that the hand was still writing. He managed
+    unnoticed to draw the book away. "I'll light the gas," he said,
+    "and ring for tea." On the other side of the bed curtain he saw
+    the last sentences that had been written.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's too late, Adrian," he read. "We're friends already;
+    aren't we, Eustace Borlsover?"</p>
+
+    <p>On the following day Eustace Borlsover left. He thought his
+    uncle looked ill when he said good-by, and the old man spoke
+    despondently of the failure his life had been.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nonsense, uncle!" said his nephew. "You have got over your
+    difficulties in a way not one in a hundred thousand would have
+    done. Every one marvels at your splendid perseverance in
+    teaching your hand to take the place of your lost sight. To me
+    it's been a revelation of the possibilities of education."</p>
+
+    <p>"Education," said his uncle dreamily, as if the word had
+    started a new train of thought, "education is good so long as
+    you know to whom and for what purpose you give it. But with the
+    lower orders of men, the base and more sordid spirits, I have
+    grave doubts as to its results. Well, good-by, Eustace, I may
+    not see you again. You are a true Borlsover, with all the
+    Borlsover faults. Marry, Eustace. Marry some good, sensible
+    girl. And if by any chance I don't see you again, my will is at
+    my solicitor's. I've not left you any legacy, because I know
+    you're well provided for, but I thought you might like to have
+    my books. Oh, and there's just one other thing. You know,
+    before the end people often lose control over themselves and
+    make absurd requests. Don't pay any attention to them, Eustace.
+    Good-by!" and he held out his hand. Eustace took it. It
+    remained in his a fraction of a second longer than he had
+    expected, and gripped him with a virility that was surprising.
+    There was, too, in its touch a subtle sense of intimacy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, uncle!" he said, "I shall see you alive and well for
+    many long years to come."</p>
+
+    <p>Two months later Adrian Borlsover died.</p>
+
+    <h4>II</h4>
+
+    <p>Eustace Borlsover was in Naples at the time. He read the
+    obituary notice in the <em>Morning Post</em> on the day
+    announced for the funeral.</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor old fellow!" he said. "I wonder where I shall find
+    room for all his books."</p>
+
+    <p>The question occurred to him again with greater force when
+    three days later he found himself standing in the library at
+    Borlsover Conyers, a huge room built for use, and not for
+    beauty, in the year of Waterloo by a Borlsover who was an
+    ardent admirer of the great Napoleon. It was arranged on the
+    plan of many college libraries, with tall, projecting bookcases
+    forming deep recesses of dusty silence, fit graves for the old
+    hates of forgotten controversy, the dead passions of forgotten
+    lives. At the end of the room, behind the bust of some unknown
+    eighteenth-century divine, an ugly iron corkscrew stair led to
+    a shelf-lined gallery. Nearly every shelf was full.</p>
+
+    <p>"I must talk to Saunders about it," said Eustace. "I suppose
+    that it will be necessary to have the billiard-room fitted up
+    with book cases."</p>
+
+    <p>The two men met for the first time after many weeks in the
+    dining-room that evening.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo!" said Eustace, standing before the fire with his
+    hands in his pockets. "How goes the world, Saunders? Why these
+    dress togs?" He himself was wearing an old shooting-jacket. He
+    did not believe in mourning, as he had told his uncle on his
+    last visit; and though he usually went in for quiet-colored
+    ties, he wore this evening one of an ugly red, in order to
+    shock Morton the butler, and to make them thrash out the whole
+    question of mourning for themselves in the servants' hall.
+    Eustace was a true Borlsover. "The world," said Saunders, "goes
+    the same as usual, confoundedly slow. The dress togs are
+    accounted for by an invitation from Captain Lockwood to
+    bridge."</p>
+
+    <p>"How are you getting there?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've told your coachman to drive me in your carriage. Any
+    objection?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, dear me, no! We've had all things in common for far too
+    many years for me to raise objections at this hour of the
+    day."</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll find your correspondence in the library," went on
+    Saunders. "Most of it I've seen to. There are a few private
+    letters I haven't opened. There's also a box with a rat, or
+    something, inside it that came by the evening post. Very likely
+    it's the six-toed albino. I didn't look, because I didn't want
+    to mess up my things but I should gather from the way it's
+    jumping about that it's pretty hungry."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I'll see to it," said Eustace, "while you and the
+    Captain earn an honest penny."</p>
+
+    <p>Dinner over and Saunders gone, Eustace went into the
+    library. Though the fire had been lit the room was by no means
+    cheerful.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll have all the lights on at any rate," he said, as he
+    turned the switches. "And, Morton," he added, when the butler
+    brought the coffee, "get me a screwdriver or something to undo
+    this box. Whatever the animal is, he's kicking up the deuce of
+    a row. What is it? Why are you dawdling?"</p>
+
+    <p>"If you please, sir, when the postman brought it he told me
+    that they'd bored the holes in the lid at the post-office.
+    There were no breathin' holes in the lid, sir, and they didn't
+    want the animal to die. That is all, sir."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's culpably careless of the man, whoever he was," said
+    Eustace, as he removed the screws, "packing an animal like this
+    in a wooden box with no means of getting air. Confound it all!
+    I meant to ask Morton to bring me a cage to put it in. Now I
+    suppose I shall have to get one myself."</p>
+
+    <p>He placed a heavy book on the lid from which the screws had
+    been removed, and went into the billiard-room. As he came back
+    into the library with an empty cage in his hand he heard the
+    sound of something falling, and then of something scuttling
+    along the floor.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bother it! The beast's got out. How in the world am I to
+    find it again in this library!"</p>
+
+    <p>To search for it did indeed seem hopeless. He tried to
+    follow the sound of the scuttling in one of the recesses where
+    the animal seemed to be running behind the books in the
+    shelves, but it was impossible to locate it. Eustace resolved
+    to go on quietly reading. Very likely the animal might gain
+    confidence and show itself. Saunders seemed to have dealt in
+    his usual methodical manner with most of the correspondence.
+    There were still the private letters.</p>
+
+    <p>What was that? Two sharp clicks and the lights in the
+    hideous candelabra that hung from the ceiling suddenly went
+    out.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wonder if something has gone wrong with the fuse," said
+    Eustace, as he went to the switches by the door. Then he
+    stopped. There was a noise at the other end of the room, as if
+    something was crawling up the iron corkscrew stair. "If it's
+    gone into the gallery," he said, "well and good." He hastily
+    turned on the lights, crossed the room, and climbed up the
+    stair. But he could see nothing. His grandfather had placed a
+    little gate at the top of the stair, so that children could run
+    and romp in the gallery without fear of accident. This Eustace
+    closed, and having considerably narrowed the circle of his
+    search, returned to his desk by the fire.</p>
+
+    <p>How gloomy the library was! There was no sense of intimacy
+    about the room. The few busts that an eighteenth-century
+    Borlsover had brought back from the grand tour, might have been
+    in keeping in the old library. Here they seemed out of place.
+    They made the room feel cold, in spite of the heavy red damask
+    curtains and great gilt cornices.</p>
+
+    <p>With a crash two heavy books fell from the gallery to the
+    floor; then, as Borlsover looked, another and yet another.</p>
+
+    <p>"Very well; you'll starve for this, my beauty!" he said.
+    "We'll do some little experiments on the metabolism of rats
+    deprived of water. Go on! Chuck them down! I think I've got the
+    upper hand." He turned once again to his correspondence. The
+    letter was from the family solicitor. It spoke of his uncle's
+    death and of the valuable collection of books that had been
+    left to him in the will.</p>
+
+    <p>"There was one request," he read, "which certainly came as a
+    surprise to me. As you know, Mr. Adrian Borlsover had left
+    instructions that his body was to be buried in as simple a
+    manner as possible at Eastbourne. He expressed a desire that
+    there should be neither wreaths nor flowers of any kind, and
+    hoped that his friends and relatives would not consider it
+    necessary to wear mourning. The day before his death we
+    received a letter canceling these instructions. He wished his
+    body to be embalmed (he gave us the address of the man we were
+    to employ&mdash;Pennifer, Ludgate Hill), with orders that his
+    right hand was to be sent to you, stating that it was at your
+    special request. The other arrangements as to the funeral
+    remained unaltered."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good Lord!" said Eustace; "what in the world was the old
+    boy driving at? And what in the name of all that's holy is
+    that?"</p>
+
+    <p>Someone was in the gallery. Someone had pulled the cord
+    attached to one of the blinds, and it had rolled up with a
+    snap. Someone must be in the gallery, for a second blind did
+    the same. Someone must be walking round the gallery, for one
+    after the other the blinds sprang up, letting in the
+    moonlight.</p>
+
+    <p>"I haven't got to the bottom of this yet," said Eustace,
+    "but I will do before the night is very much older," and he
+    hurried up the corkscrew stair. He had just got to the top when
+    the lights went out a second time, and he heard again the
+    scuttling along the floor. Quickly he stole on tiptoe in the
+    dim moonshine in the direction of the noise, feeling as he went
+    for one of the switches. His fingers touched the metal knob at
+    last. He turned on the electric light.</p>
+
+    <p>About ten yards in front of him, crawling along the floor,
+    was a man's hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment.
+    It was moving quickly, in the manner of a geometer caterpillar,
+    the fingers humped up one moment, flattened out the next; the
+    thumb appeared to give a crab-like motion to the whole. While
+    he was looking, too surprised to stir, the hand disappeared
+    round the corner. Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw it, but
+    he could hear it as it squeezed its way behind the books on one
+    of the shelves. A heavy volume had been displaced. There was a
+    gap in the row of books where it had got in. In his fear lest
+    it should escape him again, he seized the first book that came
+    to his hand and plugged it into the hole. Then, emptying two
+    shelves of their contents, he took the wooden boards and
+    propped them up in front to make his barrier doubly sure.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish Saunders was back," he said; "one can't tackle this
+    sort of thing alone." It was after eleven, and there seemed
+    little likelihood of Saunders returning before twelve. He did
+    not dare to leave the shelf unwatched, even to run downstairs
+    to ring the bell. Morton the butler often used to come round
+    about eleven to see that the windows were fastened, but he
+    might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At last he
+    heard steps down below.</p>
+
+    <p>"Morton!" he shouted; "Morton!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sir?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Has Mr. Saunders got back yet?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not yet, sir."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, bring me some brandy, and hurry up about it. I'm up
+    here in the gallery, you duffer."</p>
+
+    <p>"Thanks," said Eustace, as he emptied the glass. "Don't go
+    to bed yet, Morton. There are a lot of books that have fallen
+    down by accident; bring them up and put them back in their
+    shelves."</p>
+
+    <p>Morton had never seen Borlsover in so talkative a mood as on
+    that night. "Here," said Eustace, when the books had been put
+    back and dusted, "you might hold up these boards for me,
+    Morton. That beast in the box got out, and I've been chasing it
+    all over the place."</p>
+
+    <p>"I think I can hear it chawing at the books, sir. They're
+    not valuable, I hope? I think that's the carriage, sir; I'll go
+    and call Mr. Saunders."</p>
+
+    <p>It seemed to Eustace that he was away for five minutes, but
+    it could hardly have been more than one when he returned with
+    Saunders. "All right, Morton, you can go now. I'm up here,
+    Saunders."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's all the row?" asked Saunders, as he lounged forward
+    with his hands in his pockets. The luck had been with him all
+    the evening. He was completely satisfied, both with himself and
+    with Captain Lockwood's taste in wines. "What's the matter? You
+    look to me to be in an absolute blue funk."</p>
+
+    <p>"That old devil of an uncle of mine," began
+    Eustace&mdash;"oh, I can't explain it all. It's his hand that's
+    been playing old Harry all the evening. But I've got it
+    cornered behind these books. You've got to help me catch
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's up with you, Eustace? What's the game?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's no game, you silly idiot! If you don't believe me take
+    out one of those books and put your hand in and feel."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," said Saunders; "but wait till I've rolled up my
+    sleeve. The accumulated dust of centuries, eh?" He took off his
+    coat, knelt down, and thrust his arm along the shelf.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's something there right enough," he said. "It's got a
+    funny stumpy end to it, whatever it is, and nips like a crab.
+    Ah, no, you don't!" He pulled his hand out in a flash. "Shove
+    in a book quickly. Now it can't get out."</p>
+
+    <p>"What was it?" asked Eustace.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was something that wanted very much to get hold of me. I
+    felt what seemed like a thumb and forefinger. Give me some
+    brandy."</p>
+
+    <p>"How are we to get it out of there?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What about a landing net?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No good. It would be too smart for us. I tell you,
+    Saunders, it can cover the ground far faster than I can walk.
+    But I think I see how we can manage it. The two books at the
+    end of the shelf are big ones that go right back against the
+    wall. The others are very thin. I'll take out one at a time,
+    and you slide the rest along until we have it squashed between
+    the end two."</p>
+
+    <p>It certainly seemed to be the best plan. One by one, as they
+    took out the books, the space behind grew smaller and smaller.
+    There was something in it that was certainly very much alive.
+    Once they caught sight of fingers pressing outward for a way of
+    escape. At last they had it pressed between the two big
+    books.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's muscle there, if there isn't flesh and blood," said
+    Saunders, as he held them together. "It seems to be a hand
+    right enough, too. I suppose this is a sort of infectious
+    hallucination. I've read about such cases before."</p>
+
+    <p>"Infectious fiddlesticks!" said Eustace, his face white with
+    anger; "bring the thing downstairs. We'll get it back into the
+    box."</p>
+
+    <p>It was not altogether easy, but they were successful at
+    last. "Drive in the screws," said Eustace, "we won't run any
+    risks. Put the box in this old desk of mine. There's nothing in
+    it that I want. Here's the key. Thank goodness, there's nothing
+    wrong with the lock."</p>
+
+    <p>"Quite a lively evening," said Saunders. "Now let's hear
+    more about your uncle."</p>
+
+    <p>They sat up together until early morning. Saunders had no
+    desire for sleep. Eustace was trying to explain and to forget:
+    to conceal from himself a fear that he had never felt
+    before&mdash;the fear of walking alone down the long corridor
+    to his bedroom.</p>
+
+    <h4>III</h4>
+
+    <p>"Whatever it was," said Eustace to Saunders on the following
+    morning, "I propose that we drop the subject. There's nothing
+    to keep us here for the next ten days. We'll motor up to the
+    Lakes and get some climbing."</p>
+
+    <p>"And see nobody all day, and sit bored to death with each
+    other every night. Not for me thanks. Why not run up to town?
+    Run's the exact word in this case, isn't it? We're both in such
+    a blessed funk. Pull yourself together Eustace, and let's have
+    another look at the hand."</p>
+
+    <p>"As you like," said Eustace; "there's the key." They went
+    into the library and opened the desk. The box was as they had
+    left it on the previous night.</p>
+
+    <p>"What are you waiting for?" asked Eustace.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am waiting for you to volunteer to open the lid. However,
+    since you seem to funk it, allow me. There doesn't seem to be
+    the likelihood of any rumpus this morning, at all events." He
+    opened the lid and picked out the hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Cold?" asked Eustace.</p>
+
+    <p>"Tepid. A bit below blood-heat by the feel. Soft and supple
+    too. If it's the embalming, it's a sort of embalming I've never
+    seen before. Is it your uncle's hand?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, yes, it's his all right," said Eustace. "I should know
+    those long thin fingers anywhere. Put it back in the box,
+    Saunders. Never mind about the screws. I'll lock the desk, so
+    that there'll be no chance of its getting out. We'll compromise
+    by motoring up to town for a week. If we get off soon after
+    lunch we ought to be at Grantham or Stamford by night."</p>
+
+    <p>"Right," said Saunders; "and to-morrow&mdash;Oh, well, by
+    to-morrow we shall have forgotten all about this beastly
+    thing."</p>
+
+    <p>If when the morrow came they had not forgotten, it was
+    certainly true that at the end of the week they were able to
+    tell a very vivid ghost story at the little supper Eustace gave
+    on Hallow E'en.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't want us to believe that it's true, Mr. Borlsover?
+    How perfectly awful!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll take my oath on it, and so would Saunders here;
+    wouldn't you, old chap?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Any number of oaths," said Saunders. "It was a long thin
+    hand, you know, and it gripped me just like that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't Mr. Saunders! Don't! How perfectly horrid! Now tell
+    us another one, do. Only a really creepy one, please!"</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>"Here's a pretty mess!" said Eustace on the following day as
+    he threw a letter across the table to Saunders. "It's your
+    affair, though. Mrs. Merrit, if I understand it, gives a
+    month's notice."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, that's quite absurd on Mrs. Merrit's part," Saunders
+    replied. "She doesn't know what she's talking about. Let's see
+    what she says."</p>
+
+    <p style="margin-top: 2em;">"<span class="smcap">Dear
+    Sir</span>," he read, "this is to let you know that I must give
+    you a month's notice as from Tuesday the 13th. For a long time
+    I've felt the place too big for me, but when Jane Parfit, and
+    Emma Laidlaw go off with scarcely as much as an 'if you
+    please,' after frightening the wits out of the other girls, so
+    that they can't turn out a room by themselves or walk alone
+    down the stairs for fear of treading on half-frozen toads or
+    hearing it run along the passages at night, all I can say is
+    that it's no place for me. So I must ask you, Mr. Borlsover,
+    sir, to find a new housekeeper that has no objection to large
+    and lonely houses, which some people do say, not that I believe
+    them for a minute, my poor mother always having been a
+    Wesleyan, are haunted.</p>
+
+    <p class="sig">"Yours faithfully,<br />
+    <span class="smcap">Elizabeth Merrit.</span></p>
+
+    <p style="margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;">"P.S.&mdash;I
+    should be obliged if you would give my respects to Mr.
+    Saunders. I hope that he won't run no risks with his cold."</p>
+
+    <p>"Saunders," said Eustace, "you've always had a wonderful way
+    with you in dealing with servants. You mustn't let poor old
+    Merrit go."</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course she shan't go," said Saunders. "She's probably
+    only angling for a rise in salary. I'll write to her this
+    morning."</p>
+
+    <p>"No; there's nothing like a personal interview. We've had
+    enough of town. We'll go back to-morrow, and you must work your
+    cold for all it's worth. Don't forget that it's got on to the
+    chest, and will require weeks of feeding up and nursing."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right. I think I can manage Mrs. Merrit."</p>
+
+    <p>But Mrs. Merrit was more obstinate than he had thought. She
+    was very sorry to hear of Mr. Saunders's cold, and how he lay
+    awake all night in London coughing; very sorry indeed. She'd
+    change his room for him gladly, and get the south room aired.
+    And wouldn't he have a basin of hot bread and milk last thing
+    at night? But she was afraid that she would have to leave at
+    the end of the month.</p>
+
+    <p>"Try her with an increase of salary," was the advice of
+    Eustace.</p>
+
+    <p>It was no use. Mrs. Merrit was obdurate, though she knew of
+    a Mrs. Handyside who had been housekeeper to Lord Gargrave, who
+    might be glad to come at the salary mentioned.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter with the servants, Morton?" asked Eustace
+    that evening when he brought the coffee into the library.
+    "What's all this about Mrs. Merrit wanting to leave?"</p>
+
+    <p>"If you please, sir, I was going to mention it myself. I
+    have a confession to make, sir. When I found your note asking
+    me to open that desk and take out the box with the rat, I broke
+    the lock as you told me, and was glad to do it, because I could
+    hear the animal in the box making a great noise, and I thought
+    it wanted food. So I took out the box, sir, and got a cage, and
+    was going to transfer it, when the animal got away."</p>
+
+    <p>"What in the world are you talking about? I never wrote any
+    such note."</p>
+
+    <p>"Excuse me, sir, it was the note I picked up here on the
+    floor on the day you and Mr. Saunders left. I have it in my
+    pocket now."</p>
+
+    <p>It certainly seemed to be in Eustace's handwriting. It was
+    written in pencil, and began somewhat abruptly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Get a hammer, Morton," he read, "or some other tool, and
+    break open the lock in the old desk in the library. Take out
+    the box that is inside. You need not do anything else. The lid
+    is already open. Eustace Borlsover."</p>
+
+    <p>"And you opened the desk?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir; and as I was getting the cage ready the animal
+    hopped out."</p>
+
+    <p>"What animal?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The animal inside the box, sir."</p>
+
+    <p>"What did it look like?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, sir, I couldn't tell you," said Morton nervously; "my
+    back was turned, and it was halfway down the room when I looked
+    up."</p>
+
+    <p>"What was its color?" asked Saunders; "black?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, no, sir, a grayish white. It crept along in a very
+    funny way, sir. I don't think it had a tail."</p>
+
+    <p>"What did you do then?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I tried to catch it, but it was no use. So I set the
+    rat-traps and kept the library shut. Then that girl Emma
+    Laidlaw left the door open when she was cleaning, and I think
+    it must have escaped."</p>
+
+    <p>"And you think it was the animal that's been frightening the
+    maids?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, no, sir, not quite. They said it was&mdash;you'll
+    excuse me, sir&mdash;a hand that they saw. Emma trod on it once
+    at the bottom of the stairs. She thought then it was a
+    half-frozen toad, only white. And then Parfit was washing up
+    the dishes in the scullery. She wasn't thinking about anything
+    in particular. It was close on dusk. She took her hands out of
+    the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller
+    towel, when she found that she was drying someone else's hand
+    as well, only colder than hers."</p>
+
+    <p>"What nonsense!" exclaimed Saunders.</p>
+
+    <p>"Exactly, sir; that's what I told her; but we couldn't get
+    her to stop."</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't believe all this?" said Eustace, turning suddenly
+    towards the butler.</p>
+
+    <p>"Me, sir? Oh, no, sir! I've not seen anything."</p>
+
+    <p>"Nor heard anything?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, sir, if you must know, the bells do ring at odd
+    times, and there's nobody there when we go; and when we go
+    round to draw the blinds of a night, as often as not somebody's
+    been there before us. But as I says to Mrs. Merrit, a young
+    monkey might do wonderful things, and we all know that Mr.
+    Borlsover has had some strange animals about the place."</p>
+
+    <p>"Very well, Morton, that will do."</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you make of it?" asked Saunders when they were
+    alone. "I mean of the letter he said you wrote."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, that's simple enough," said Eustace. "See the paper
+    it's written on? I stopped using that years ago, but there were
+    a few odd sheets and envelopes left in the old desk. We never
+    fastened up the lid of the box before locking it in. The hand
+    got out, found a pencil, wrote this note, and shoved it through
+    a crack on to the floor where Morton found it. That's plain as
+    daylight."</p>
+
+    <p>"But the hand couldn't write?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Couldn't it? You've not seen it do the things I've seen,"
+    and he told Saunders more of what had happened at
+    Eastbourne.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said Saunders, "in that case we have at least an
+    explanation of the legacy. It was the hand which wrote unknown
+    to your uncle that letter to your solicitor, bequeathing itself
+    to you. Your uncle had no more to do with that request than I.
+    In fact, it would seem that he had some idea of this automatic
+    writing, and feared it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then if it's not my uncle, what is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose some people might say that a disembodied spirit
+    had got your uncle to educate and prepare a little body for it.
+    Now it's got into that little body and is off on its own."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, what are we to do?"</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll keep our eyes open," said Saunders, "and try to catch
+    it. If we can't do that, we shall have to wait till the bally
+    clockwork runs down. After all, if it's flesh and blood, it
+    can't live for ever."</p>
+
+    <p>For two days nothing happened. Then Saunders saw it sliding
+    down the banister in the hall. He was taken unawares, and lost
+    a full second before he started in pursuit, only to find that
+    the thing had escaped him. Three days later, Eustace, writing
+    alone in the library at night, saw it sitting on an open book
+    at the other end of the room. The fingers crept over the page,
+    feeling the print as if it were reading; but before he had time
+    to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was pulling
+    itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on
+    to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and
+    forefinger at him in an expression of scornful derision.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know what I'll do," he said. "If I only get it into the
+    open I'll set the dogs on to it."</p>
+
+    <p>He spoke to Saunders of the suggestion.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's jolly good idea," he said; "only we won't wait till we
+    find it out of doors. We'll get the dogs. There are the two
+    terriers and the under-keeper's Irish mongrel that's on to rats
+    like a flash. Your spaniel has not got spirit enough for this
+    sort of game." They brought the dogs into the house, and the
+    keeper's Irish mongrel chewed up the slippers, and the terriers
+    tripped up Morton as he waited at table; but all three were
+    welcome. Even false security is better than no security at
+    all.</p>
+
+    <p>For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught,
+    not by the dogs, but by Mrs. Merrit's gray parrot. The bird was
+    in the habit of periodically removing the pins that kept its
+    seed and water tins in place, and of escaping through the holes
+    in the side of the cage. When once at liberty Peter would show
+    no inclination to return, and would often be about the house
+    for days. Now, after six consecutive weeks of captivity, Peter
+    had again discovered a new means of unloosing his bolts and was
+    at large, exploring the tapestried forests of the curtains and
+    singing songs in praise of liberty from cornice and picture
+    rail.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's no use your trying to catch him," said Eustace to Mrs.
+    Merrit, as she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk
+    with a step-ladder. "You'd much better leave Peter alone.
+    Starve him into surrender, Mrs. Merrit, and don't leave bananas
+    and seed about for him to peck at when he fancies he's hungry.
+    You're far too softhearted."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, sir, I see he's right out of reach now on that
+    picture rail, so if you wouldn't mind closing the door, sir,
+    when you leave the room, I'll bring his cage in to-night and
+    put some meat inside it. He's that fond of meat, though it does
+    make him pull out his feathers to suck the quills. They
+    <em>do</em> say that if you cook&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Never mind, Mrs. Merrit," said Eustace, who was busy
+    writing. "That will do; I'll keep an eye on the bird."</p>
+
+    <p>There was silence in the room, unbroken but for the
+    continuous whisper of his pen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Scratch poor Peter," said the bird. "Scratch poor old
+    Peter!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Be quiet, you beastly bird!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor old Peter! Scratch poor Peter, do."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm more likely to wring your neck if I get hold of you."
+    He looked up at the picture rail, and there was the hand
+    holding on to a hook with three fingers, and slowly scratching
+    the head of the parrot with the fourth. Eustace ran to the bell
+    and pressed it hard; then across to the window, which he closed
+    with a bang. Frightened by the noise the parrot shook its wings
+    preparatory to flight, and as it did so the fingers of the hand
+    got hold of it by the throat. There was a shrill scream from
+    Peter as he fluttered across the room, wheeling round in
+    circles that ever descended, borne down under the weight that
+    clung to him. The bird dropped at last quite suddenly, and
+    Eustace saw fingers and feathers rolled into an inextricable
+    mass on the floor. The struggle abruptly ceased as finger and
+    thumb squeezed the neck; the bird's eyes rolled up to show the
+    whites, and there was a faint, half-choked gurgle. But before
+    the fingers had time to loose their hold, Eustace had them in
+    his own.</p>
+
+    <p>"Send Mr. Saunders here at once," he said to the maid who
+    came in answer to the bell. "Tell him I want him
+    immediately."</p>
+
+    <p>Then he went with the hand to the fire. There was a ragged
+    gash across the back where the bird's beak had torn it, but no
+    blood oozed from the wound. He noticed with disgust that the
+    nails had grown long and discolored.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll burn the beastly thing," he said. But he could not
+    burn it. He tried to throw it into the flames, but his own
+    hands, as if restrained by some old primitive feeling, would
+    not let him. And so Saunders found him pale and irresolute,
+    with the hand still clasped tightly in his fingers.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've got it at last," he said in a tone of triumph.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good; let's have a look at it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not when it's loose. Get me some nails and a hammer and a
+    board of some sort."</p>
+
+    <p>"Can you hold it all right?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, the thing's quite limp; tired out with throttling poor
+    old Peter, I should say."</p>
+
+    <p>"And now," said Saunders when he returned with the things,
+    "what are we going to do?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Drive a nail through it first, so that it can't get away;
+    then we can take our time over examining it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Do it yourself," said Saunders. "I don't mind helping you
+    with guinea-pigs occasionally when there's something to be
+    learned; partly because I don't fear a guinea-pig's revenge.
+    This thing's different."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right, you miserable skunk. I won't forget the way
+    you've stood by me."</p>
+
+    <p>He took up a nail, and before Saunders had realised what he
+    was doing had driven it through the hand, deep into the
+    board.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, my aunt," he giggled hysterically, "look at it now,"
+    for the hand was writhing in agonized contortions, squirming
+    and wriggling upon the nail like a worm upon the hook.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said Saunders, "you've done it now. I'll leave you
+    to examine it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't go, in heaven's name. Cover it up, man, cover it up!
+    Shove a cloth over it! Here!" and he pulled off the
+    antimacassar from the back of a chair and wrapped the board in
+    it. "Now get the keys from my pocket and open the safe. Chuck
+    the other things out. Oh, Lord, it's getting itself into
+    frightful knots! and open it quick!" He threw the thing in and
+    banged the door.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll keep it there till it dies," he said. "May I burn in
+    hell if I ever open the door of that safe again."</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>Mrs. Merrit departed at the end of the month. Her successor
+    certainly was more successful in the management of the
+    servants. Early in her rule she declared that she would stand
+    no nonsense, and gossip soon withered and died. Eustace
+    Borlsover went back to his old way of life. Old habits crept
+    over and covered his new experience. He was, if anything, less
+    morose, and showed a greater inclination to take his natural
+    part in country society.</p>
+
+    <p>"I shouldn't be surprised if he marries one of these days,"
+    said Saunders. "Well, I'm in no hurry for such an event. I know
+    Eustace far too well for the future Mrs. Borlsover to like me.
+    It will be the same old story again: a long friendship slowly
+    made&mdash;marriage&mdash;and a long friendship quickly
+    forgotten."</p>
+
+    <h4>IV</h4>
+
+    <p>But Eustace Borlsover did not follow the advice of his uncle
+    and marry. He was too fond of old slippers and tobacco. The
+    cooking, too, under Mrs. Handyside's management was excellent,
+    and she seemed, too, to have a heaven-sent faculty in knowing
+    when to stop dusting.</p>
+
+    <p>Little by little the old life resumed its old power. Then
+    came the burglary. The men, it was said, broke into the house
+    by way of the conservatory. It was really little more than an
+    attempt, for they only succeeded in carrying away a few pieces
+    of plate from the pantry. The safe in the study was certainly
+    found open and empty, but, as Mr. Borlsover informed the police
+    inspector, he had kept nothing of value in it during the last
+    six months.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then you're lucky in getting off so easily, sir," the man
+    replied. "By the way they have gone about their business, I
+    should say they were experienced cracksmen. They must have
+    caught the alarm when they were just beginning their evening's
+    work."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Eustace, "I suppose I am lucky."</p>
+
+    <p>"I've no doubt," said the inspector, "that we shall be able
+    to trace the men. I've said that they must have been old hands
+    at the game. The way they got in and opened the safe shows
+    that. But there's one little thing that puzzles me. One of them
+    was careless enough not to wear gloves, and I'm bothered if I
+    know what he was trying to do. I've traced his finger-marks on
+    the new varnish on the window sashes in every one of the
+    downstairs rooms. They are very distinct ones too."</p>
+
+    <p>"Right hand or left, or both?" asked Eustace.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, right every time. That's the funny thing. He must have
+    been a foolhardy fellow, and I rather think it was him that
+    wrote that." He took out a slip of paper from his pocket.
+    "That's what he wrote, sir. 'I've got out, Eustace Borlsover,
+    but I'll be back before long.' Some gaol bird just escaped, I
+    suppose. It will make it all the easier for us to trace him. Do
+    you know the writing, sir?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said Eustace; "it's not the writing of anyone I
+    know."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm not going to stay here any longer," said Eustace to
+    Saunders at luncheon. "I've got on far better during the last
+    six months than ever I expected, but I'm not going to run the
+    risk of seeing that thing again. I shall go up to town this
+    afternoon. Get Morton to put my things together, and join me
+    with the car at Brighton on the day after to-morrow. And bring
+    the proofs of those two papers with you. We'll run over them
+    together."</p>
+
+    <p>"How long are you going to be away?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I can't say for certain, but be prepared to stay for some
+    time. We've stuck to work pretty closely through the summer,
+    and I for one need a holiday. I'll engage the rooms at
+    Brighton. You'll find it best to break the journey at Hitchin.
+    I'll wire to you there at the Crown to tell you the Brighton
+    address."</p>
+
+    <p>The house he chose at Brighton was in a terrace. He had been
+    there before. It was kept by his old college gyp, a man of
+    discreet silence, who was admirably partnered by an excellent
+    cook. The rooms were on the first floor. The two bedrooms were
+    at the back, and opened out of each other. "Saunders can have
+    the smaller one, though it is the only one with a fireplace,"
+    he said. "I'll stick to the larger of the two, since it's got a
+    bathroom adjoining. I wonder what time he'll arrive with the
+    car."</p>
+
+    <p>Saunders came about seven, cold and cross and dirty. "We'll
+    light the fire in the dining-room," said Eustace, "and get
+    Prince to unpack some of the things while we are at dinner.
+    What were the roads like?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Rotten; swimming with mud, and a beastly cold wind against
+    us all day. And this is July. Dear old England!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Eustace, "I think we might do worse than leave
+    dear old England for a few months."</p>
+
+    <p>They turned in soon after twelve.</p>
+
+    <p>"You oughtn't to feel cold, Saunders," said Eustace, "when
+    you can afford to sport a great cat-skin lined coat like this.
+    You do yourself very well, all things considered. Look at those
+    gloves, for instance. Who could possibly feel cold when wearing
+    them?"</p>
+
+    <p>"They are far too clumsy though for driving. Try them on and
+    see," and he tossed them through the door on to Eustace's bed,
+    and went on with his unpacking. A minute later he heard a
+    shrill cry of terror. "Oh, Lord," he heard, "it's in the glove!
+    Quick, Saunders, quick!" Then came a smacking thud. Eustace had
+    thrown it from him. "I've chucked it into the bathroom," he
+    gasped, "it's hit the wall and fallen into the bath. Come now
+    if you want to help." Saunders, with a lighted candle in his
+    hand, looked over the edge of the bath. There it was, old and
+    maimed, dumb and blind, with a ragged hole in the middle,
+    crawling, staggering, trying to creep up the slippery sides,
+    only to fall back helpless.</p>
+
+    <p>"Stay there," said Saunders. "I'll empty a collar box or
+    something, and we'll jam it in. It can't get out while I'm
+    away."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, it can," shouted Eustace. "It's getting out now. It's
+    climbing up the plug chain. No, you brute, you filthy brute,
+    you don't! Come back, Saunders, it's getting away from me. I
+    can't hold it; it's all slippery. Curse its claw! Shut the
+    window, you idiot! The top too, as well as the bottom. You
+    utter idiot! It's got out!" There was the sound of something
+    dropping on to the hard flagstones below, and Eustace fell back
+    fainting.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>For a fortnight he was ill.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know what to make of it," the doctor said to
+    Saunders. "I can only suppose that Mr. Borlsover has suffered
+    some great emotional shock. You had better let me send someone
+    to help you nurse him. And by all means indulge that whim of
+    his never to be left alone in the dark. I would keep a light
+    burning all night if I were you. But he <em>must</em> have more
+    fresh air. It's perfectly absurd this hatred of open
+    windows."</p>
+
+    <p>Eustace, however, would have no one with him but Saunders.
+    "I don't want the other men," he said. "They'd smuggle it in
+    somehow. I know they would."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't worry about it, old chap. This sort of thing can't go
+    on indefinitely. You know I saw it this time as well as you. It
+    wasn't half so active. It won't go on living much longer,
+    especially after that fall. I heard it hit the flags myself. As
+    soon as you're a bit stronger we'll leave this place; not bag
+    and baggage, but with only the clothes on our backs, so that it
+    won't be able to hide anywhere. We'll escape it that way. We
+    won't give any address, and we won't have any parcels sent
+    after us. Cheer up, Eustace! You'll be well enough to leave in
+    a day or two. The doctor says I can take you out in a chair
+    to-morrow."</p>
+
+    <p>"What have I done?" asked Eustace. "Why does it come after
+    me? I'm no worse than other men. I'm no worse than you,
+    Saunders; you know I'm not. It was you who were at the bottom
+    of that dirty business in San Diego, and that was fifteen years
+    ago."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's not that, of course," said Saunders. "We are in the
+    twentieth century, and even the parsons have dropped the idea
+    of your old sins finding you out. Before you caught the hand in
+    the library it was filled with pure malevolence&mdash;to you
+    and all mankind. After you spiked it through with that nail it
+    naturally forgot about other people, and concentrated its
+    attention on you. It was shut up in the safe, you know, for
+    nearly six months. That gives plenty of time for thinking of
+    revenge."</p>
+
+    <p>Eustace Borlsover would not leave his room, but he thought
+    that there might be something in Saunders's suggestion to leave
+    Brighton without notice. He began rapidly to regain his
+    strength.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll go on the first of September," he said.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>The evening of August 31st was oppressively warm. Though at
+    midday the windows had been wide open, they had been shut an
+    hour or so before dusk. Mrs. Prince had long since ceased to
+    wonder at the strange habits of the gentlemen on the first
+    floor. Soon after their arrival she had been told to take down
+    the heavy window curtains in the two bedrooms, and day by day
+    the rooms had seemed to grow more bare. Nothing was left lying
+    about.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. Borlsover doesn't like to have any place where dirt can
+    collect," Saunders had said as an excuse. "He likes to see into
+    all the corners of the room."</p>
+
+    <p>"Couldn't I open the window just a little?" he said to
+    Eustace that evening. "We're simply roasting in here, you
+    know."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, leave well alone. We're not a couple of boarding-school
+    misses fresh from a course of hygiene lectures. Get the
+    chessboard out."</p>
+
+    <p>They sat down and played. At ten o'clock Mrs. Prince came to
+    the door with a note. "I am sorry I didn't bring it before,"
+    she said, "but it was left in the letter-box."</p>
+
+    <p>"Open it, Saunders, and see if it wants answering."</p>
+
+    <p>It was very brief. There was neither address nor
+    signature.</p>
+
+    <p style="margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;">"Will eleven
+    o'clock to-night be suitable for our last appointment?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Who is it from?" asked Borlsover.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was meant for me," said Saunders. "There's no answer,
+    Mrs. Prince," and he put the paper into his pocket. "A dunning
+    letter from a tailor; I suppose he must have got wind of our
+    leaving."</p>
+
+    <p>It was a clever lie, and Eustace asked no more questions.
+    They went on with their game.</p>
+
+    <p>On the landing outside Saunders could hear the grandfather's
+    clock whispering the seconds, blurting out the
+    quarter-hours.</p>
+
+    <p>"Check!" said Eustace. The clock struck eleven. At the same
+    time there was a gentle knocking on the door; it seemed to come
+    from the bottom panel.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who's there?" asked Eustace.</p>
+
+    <p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mrs. Prince, is that you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"She is up above," said Saunders; "I can hear her walking
+    about the room."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then lock the door; bolt it too. Your move, Saunders."</p>
+
+    <p>While Saunders sat with his eyes on the chessboard, Eustace
+    walked over to the window and examined the fastenings. He did
+    the same in Saunders's room and the bathroom. There were no
+    doors between the three rooms, or he would have shut and locked
+    them too.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, Saunders," he said, "don't stay all night over your
+    move. I've had time to smoke one cigarette already. It's bad to
+    keep an invalid waiting. There's only one possible thing for
+    you to do. What was that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The ivy blowing against the window. There, it's your move
+    now, Eustace."</p>
+
+    <p>"It wasn't the ivy, you idiot. It was someone tapping at the
+    window," and he pulled up the blind. On the outer side of the
+    window, clinging to the sash, was the hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"What is it that it's holding?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a pocket-knife. It's going to try to open the window
+    by pushing back the fastener with the blade."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, let it try," said Eustace. "Those fasteners screw
+    down; they can't be opened that way. Anyhow, we'll close the
+    shutters. It's your move, Saunders. I've played."</p>
+
+    <p>But Saunders found it impossible to fix his attention on the
+    game. He could not understand Eustace, who seemed all at once
+    to have lost his fear. "What do you say to some wine?" he
+    asked. "You seem to be taking things coolly, but I don't mind
+    confessing that I'm in a blessed funk."</p>
+
+    <p>"You've no need to be. There's nothing supernatural about
+    that hand, Saunders. I mean it seems to be governed by the laws
+    of time and space. It's not the sort of thing that vanishes
+    into thin air or slides through oaken doors. And since that's
+    so, I defy it to get in here. We'll leave the place in the
+    morning. I for one have bottomed the depths of fear. Fill your
+    glass, man! The windows are all shuttered, the door is locked
+    and bolted. Pledge me my uncle Adrian! Drink, man! What are you
+    waiting for?"</p>
+
+    <p>Saunders was standing with his glass half raised. "It can
+    get in," he said hoarsely; "it can get in! We've forgotten.
+    There's the fireplace in my bedroom. It will come down the
+    chimney."</p>
+
+    <p>"Quick!" said Eustace, as he rushed into the other room; "we
+    haven't a minute to lose. What can we do? Light the fire,
+    Saunders. Give me a match, quick!"</p>
+
+    <p>"They must be all in the other room. I'll get them."</p>
+
+    <p>"Hurry, man, for goodness' sake! Look in the bookcase! Look
+    in the bathroom! Here, come and stand here; I'll look."</p>
+
+    <p>"Be quick!" shouted Saunders. "I can hear something!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Then plug a sheet from your bed up the chimney. No, here's
+    a match." He had found one at last that had slipped into a
+    crack in the floor.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is the fire laid? Good, but it may not burn. I
+    know&mdash;the oil from that old reading-lamp and this
+    cotton-wool. Now the match, quick! Pull the sheet away, you
+    fool! We don't want it now."</p>
+
+    <p>There was a great roar from the grate as the flames shot up.
+    Saunders had been a fraction of a second too late with the
+    sheet. The oil had fallen on to it. It, too, was burning.</p>
+
+    <p>"The whole place will be on fire!" cried Eustace, as he
+    tried to beat out the flames with a blanket. "It's no good! I
+    can't manage it. You must open the door, Saunders, and get
+    help."</p>
+
+    <p>Saunders ran to the door and fumbled with the bolts. The key
+    was stiff in the lock.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hurry!" shouted Eustace; "the whole place is ablaze!"</p>
+
+    <p>The key turned in the lock at last. For half a second
+    Saunders stopped to look back. Afterwards he could never be
+    quite sure as to what he had seen, but at the time he thought
+    that something black and charred was creeping slowly, very
+    slowly, from the mass of flames towards Eustace Borlsover. For
+    a moment he thought of returning to his friend, but the noise
+    and the smell of the burning sent him running down the passage
+    crying, "Fire! Fire!" He rushed to the telephone to summon
+    help, and then back to the bathroom&mdash;he should have
+    thought of that before&mdash;for water. As he burst open the
+    bedroom door there came a scream of terror which ended
+    suddenly, and then the sound of a heavy fall.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Mass"
+       id="Mass"></a>The Mass of Shadows</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By ANATOLE FRANCE</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>Mother of Pearl</em>, by Anatole France.
+        Copyright by John Lane Company. By permission of the
+        publishers.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>This tale the sacristan of the church of St. Eulalie at
+    Neuville d'Aumont told me, as we sat under the arbor of the
+    White Horse, one fine summer evening, drinking a bottle of old
+    wine to the health of the dead man, now very much at his ease,
+    whom that very morning he had borne to the grave with full
+    honors, beneath a pall powdered with smart silver tears.</p>
+
+    <p>"My poor father who is dead" (it is the sacristan who is
+    speaking,) "was in his lifetime a grave-digger. He was of an
+    agreeable disposition, the result, no doubt, of the calling he
+    followed, for it has often been pointed out that people who
+    work in cemeteries are of a jovial turn. Death has no terrors
+    for them; they never give it a thought. I, for instance,
+    monsieur, enter a cemetery at night as little perturbed as
+    though it were the arbor of the White Horse. And if by chance I
+    meet with a ghost, I don't disturb myself in the least about
+    it, for I reflect that he may just as likely have business of
+    his own to attend to as I. I know the habits of the dead, and I
+    know their character. Indeed, so far as that goes, I know
+    things of which the priests themselves are ignorant. If I were
+    to tell you all I have seen, you would be astounded. But a
+    still tongue makes a wise head, and my father, who, all the
+    same, delighted in spinning a yarn, did not disclose a
+    twentieth part of what he knew. To make up for this he often
+    repeated the same stories, and to my knowledge he told the
+    story of Catherine Fontaine at least a hundred times.</p>
+
+    <p>"Catherine Fontaine was an old maid whom he well remembered
+    having seen when he was a mere child. I should not be surprised
+    if there were still, perhaps, three old fellows in the district
+    who could remember having heard folks speak of her, for she was
+    very well known and of excellent reputation, though poor
+    enough. She lived at the corner of the Rue aux Nonnes, in the
+    turret which is still to be seen there, and which formed part
+    of an old half-ruined mansion looking on to the garden of the
+    Ursuline nuns. On that turret can still be traced certain
+    figures and half-obliterated inscriptions. The late cur&eacute;
+    of St. Eulalie, Monsieur Levasseur, asserted that there are the
+    words in Latin, <em>Love is stronger than death</em>, 'which is
+    to be understood,' so he would add, 'of divine love.'</p>
+
+    <p>"Catherine Fontaine lived by herself in this tiny apartment.
+    She was a lace-maker. You know, of course, that the lace made
+    in our part of the world was formerly held in high esteem. No
+    one knew anything of her relatives or friends. It was reported
+    that when she was eighteen years of age she had loved the young
+    Chevalier d'Aumont-Cl&eacute;ry, and had been secretly
+    affianced to him. But decent folk didn't believe a word of it,
+    and said it was nothing but a tale concocted because Catherine
+    Fontaine's demeanor was that of a lady rather than that of a
+    working woman, and because, moreover, she possessed beneath her
+    white locks the remains of great beauty. Her expression was
+    sorrowful, and on one finger she wore one of those rings
+    fashioned by the goldsmith into the semblance of two tiny hands
+    clasped together. In former days folks were accustomed to
+    exchange such rings at their betrothal ceremony. I am sure you
+    know the sort of thing I mean.</p>
+
+    <p>"Catherine Fontaine lived a saintly life. She spent a great
+    deal of time in churches, and every morning, whatever might be
+    the weather, she went to assist at the six o'clock Mass at St.
+    Eulalie.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now one December night, whilst she was in her little
+    chamber, she was awakened by the sound of bells, and nothing
+    doubting that they were ringing for the first Mass, the pious
+    woman dressed herself, and came downstairs and out into the
+    street. The night was so obscure that not even the walls of the
+    houses were visible, and not a ray of light shone from the
+    murky sky. And such was the silence amid this black darkness,
+    that there was not even the sound of a distant dog barking, and
+    a feeling of aloofness from every living creature was
+    perceptible. But Catherine Fontaine knew well every single
+    stone she stepped on, and, as she could have found her way to
+    the church with her eyes shut, she reached without difficulty
+    the corner of the Rue aux Nonnes and the Rue de la Paroisse,
+    where the timbered house stands with the tree of Jesse carved
+    on one of its massive beams. When she reached this spot she
+    perceived that the church doors were open, and that a great
+    light was streaming out from the wax tapers. She resumed her
+    journey, and when she had passed through the porch she found
+    herself in the midst of a vast congregation which entirely
+    filled the church. But she did not recognize any of the
+    worshipers and was surprised to observe that all of these
+    people were dressed in velvets and brocades, with feathers in
+    their hats, and that they wore swords in the fashion of days
+    gone by. Here were gentlemen who carried tall canes with gold
+    knobs, and ladies with lace caps fastened with coronet-shaped
+    combs. Chevaliers of the Order of St. Louis extended their
+    hands to these ladies, who concealed behind their fans painted
+    faces, of which only the powdered brow and the patch at the
+    corner of the eye were visible! All of them proceeded to take
+    their places without the slightest sound, and as they moved
+    neither the sound of their footsteps on the pavement, nor the
+    rustle of their garments could be heard. The lower places were
+    filled with a crowd of young artisans in brown jackets, dimity
+    breeches, and blue stockings, with their arms round the waists
+    of pretty blushing girls who lowered their eyes. Near the holy
+    water stoups peasant women, in scarlet petticoats and laced
+    bodices, sat upon the ground as immovable as domestic animals,
+    whilst young lads, standing up behind them, stared out from
+    wide-open eyes and twirled their hats round and round on their
+    fingers, and all these sorrowful countenances seemed centred
+    irremovably on one and the same thought, at once sweet and
+    sorrowful. On her knees, in her accustomed place, Catherine
+    Fontaine saw the priest advance toward the altar, preceded by
+    two servers. She recognized neither priest nor clerks. The Mass
+    began. It was a silent Mass, during which neither the sound of
+    the moving lips nor the tinkle of the bell was audible.
+    Catherine Fontaine felt that she was under the observation and
+    the influence also of her mysterious neighbor, and when,
+    scarcely turning her head, she stole a glance at him, she
+    recognized the young Chevalier d'Aumont-Cl&eacute;ry, who had
+    once loved her, and who had been dead for five and forty years.
+    She recognized him by a small mark which he had over the left
+    ear, and above all by the shadow which his long black eyelashes
+    cast upon his cheeks. He was dressed in his hunting clothes,
+    scarlet with gold lace, the very clothes he wore that day when
+    he met her in St. Leonard's Wood, begged of her a drink, and
+    stole a kiss. He had preserved his youth and good looks. When
+    he smiled, he still displayed magnificent teeth. Catherine said
+    to him in an undertone:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Monseigneur, you who were my friend, and to whom in days
+    gone by I gave all that a girl holds most dear, may God keep
+    you in His grace! O, that He would at length inspire me with
+    regret for the sin I committed in yielding to you; for it is a
+    fact that, though my hair is white and I approach my end, I
+    have not yet repented of having loved you. But, dear dead
+    friend and noble seigneur, tell me, who are these folk, habited
+    after the antique fashion, who are here assisting at this
+    silent Mass?'</p>
+
+    <p>"The Chevalier d'Aumont-Cl&eacute;ry replied in a voice
+    feebler than a breath, but none the less crystal clear:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Catherine, these men and women are souls from purgatory
+    who have grieved God by sinning as we ourselves sinned through
+    love of the creature, but who are not on that account cast off
+    by God, inasmuch as their sin, like ours, was not
+    deliberate.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Whilst separated from those whom they loved upon earth,
+    they are purified in the cleansing fires of purgatory, they
+    suffer the pangs of absence, which is for them the most cruel
+    of tortures. They are so unhappy that an angel from heaven
+    takes pity upon their love-torment. By the permission of the
+    Most High, for one hour in the night, he reunites each year
+    lover to loved in their parish church, where they are permitted
+    to assist at the Mass of Shadows, hand clasped in hand. These
+    are the facts. If it has been granted to me to see thee before
+    thy death, Catherine, it is a boon which is bestowed by God's
+    special permission.'</p>
+
+    <p>"And Catherine Fontaine answered him:</p>
+
+    <p>"'I would die gladly enough, dear, dead lord, if I might
+    recover the beauty that was mine when I gave you to drink in
+    the forest.'</p>
+
+    <p>"Whilst they thus conversed under their breath, a very old
+    canon was taking the collection and proffering to the
+    worshipers a great copper dish, wherein they let fall, each in
+    his turn, ancient coins which have long since ceased to pass
+    current: &eacute;cus of six livres, florins, ducats and
+    ducatoons, jacobuses and rose-nobles, and the pieces fell
+    silently into the dish. When at length it was placed before the
+    Chevalier, he dropped into it a louis which made no more sound
+    than had the other pieces of gold and silver.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then the old canon stopped before Catherine Fontaine, who
+    fumbled in her pocket without being able to find a farthing.
+    Then, being unwilling to allow the dish to pass without an
+    offering from herself, she slipped from her finger the ring
+    which the Chevalier had given her the day before his death, and
+    cast it into the copper bowl. As the golden ring fell, a sound
+    like the heavy clang of a bell rang out, and on the stroke of
+    this reverberation the Chevalier, the canon, the celebrant, the
+    servers, the ladies and their cavaliers, the whole assembly
+    vanished utterly; the candles guttered out, and Catherine
+    Fontaine was left alone in the darkness."</p>
+
+    <p>Having concluded his narrative after this fashion, the
+    sacristan drank a long draught of wine, remained pensive for a
+    moment, and then resumed his talk in these words:</p>
+
+    <p>"I have told you this tale exactly as my father has told it
+    to me over and over again, and I believe that it is authentic,
+    because it agrees in all respects with what I have observed of
+    the manners and customs peculiar to those who have passed away.
+    I have associated a good deal with the dead ever since my
+    childhood, and I know that they are accustomed to return to
+    what they have loved.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is on this account that the miserly dead wander at night
+    in the neighborhood of the treasures they conceal during their
+    life time. They keep a strict watch over their gold; but the
+    trouble they give themselves, far from being of service to
+    them, turns to their disadvantage; and it is not a rare thing
+    at all to come upon money buried in the ground on digging in a
+    place haunted by a ghost. In the same way deceased husbands
+    come by night to harass their wives who have made a second
+    matrimonial venture, and I could easily name several who have
+    kept a better watch over their wives since death than they ever
+    did while living.</p>
+
+    <p>"That sort of thing is blameworthy, for in all fairness the
+    dead have no business to stir up jealousies. Still I do but
+    tell you what I have observed myself. It is a matter to take
+    into account if one marries a widow. Besides, the tale I have
+    told you is vouchsafed for in the manner following:</p>
+
+    <p>"The morning after that extraordinary night Catherine
+    Fontaine was discovered dead in her chamber. And the beadle
+    attached to St. Eulalie found in the copper bowl used for the
+    collection a gold ring with two clasped hands. Besides, I'm not
+    the kind of man to make jokes. Suppose we order another bottle
+    of wine?..."</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="What"
+       id="What"></a>What Was It?</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN</span></h3>
+
+    <p>It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence, that I
+    approach the strange narrative which I am about to relate. The
+    events which I purpose detailing are of so extraordinary a
+    character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual
+    amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all such beforehand.
+    I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief. I have,
+    after mature consideration resolved to narrate, in as simple
+    and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that
+    passed under my observation, in the month of July last, and
+    which, in the annals of the mysteries of physical science, are
+    wholly unparalleled.</p>
+
+    <p>I live at No. &mdash;&mdash; Twenty-sixth Street, in New
+    York. The house is in some respects a curious one. It has
+    enjoyed for the last two years the reputation of being haunted.
+    It is a large and stately residence, surrounded by what was
+    once a garden, but which is now only a green enclosure used for
+    bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a fountain,
+    and a few fruit trees ragged and unpruned, indicate that this
+    spot in past days was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with
+    fruits and flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.</p>
+
+    <p>The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a
+    large spiral staircase winding through its center, while the
+    various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built
+    some fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A&mdash;&mdash;, the
+    well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw the
+    commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud.
+    Mr. A&mdash;&mdash;, as everyone knows, escaped to Europe, and
+    died not long after, of a broken heart. Almost immediately
+    after the news of his decease reached this country and was
+    verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No.
+    &mdash;&mdash; was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the
+    widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a
+    caretaker and his wife, placed there by the house agent into
+    whose hands it had passed for the purposes of renting or sale.
+    These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural
+    noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The
+    remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms were,
+    during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands.
+    Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight,
+    accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the
+    gliding of viewless hands along the massive balusters. The
+    caretaker and his wife declared they would live there no
+    longer. The house agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others
+    in their place. The noises and supernatural manifestations
+    continued. The neighborhood caught up the story, and the house
+    remained untenanted for three years. Several persons negotiated
+    for it; but, somehow, always before the bargain was closed they
+    heard the unpleasant rumors and declined to treat any
+    further.</p>
+
+    <p>It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that
+    time kept a boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished
+    to move further up town, conceived the bold idea of renting No.
+    &mdash;&mdash; Twenty-sixth Street. Happening to have in her
+    house rather a plucky and philosophical set of boarders, she
+    laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she had
+    heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to
+    which she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid
+    persons,&mdash;a sea-captain and a returned Californian, who
+    immediately gave notice that they would leave,&mdash;all of
+    Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would accompany her in
+    her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.</p>
+
+    <p>Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were
+    charmed with our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth
+    Street where our house is situated, between Seventh and Eighth
+    Avenues, is one of the pleasantest localities in New York. The
+    gardens back of the houses, running down nearly to the Hudson,
+    form, in the summer time, a perfect avenue of verdure. The air
+    is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does, straight across
+    the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the ragged
+    garden which surrounded the house, although displaying on
+    washing days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece
+    of greensward to look at, and a cool retreat in the summer
+    evenings, where we smoked our cigars in the dusk, and watched
+    the fireflies flashing their dark lanterns in the long
+    grass.</p>
+
+    <p>Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No.
+    &mdash;&mdash; than we began to expect ghosts. We absolutely
+    awaited their advent with eagerness. Our dinner conversation
+    was supernatural. One of the boarders, who had purchased Mrs.
+    Crowe's <em>Night Side of Nature</em> for his own private
+    delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire
+    household for not having bought twenty copies. The man led a
+    life of supreme wretchedness while he was reading this volume.
+    A system of espionage was established, of which he was the
+    victim. If he incautiously laid the book down for an instant
+    and left the room, it was immediately seized and read aloud in
+    secret places to a select few. I found myself a person of
+    immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably
+    well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once
+    written a story the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table
+    or a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in
+    the large drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and
+    everyone was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains and a
+    spectral form.</p>
+
+    <p>After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the
+    utmost dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that
+    nothing in the remotest degree approaching the supernatural had
+    manifested itself. Once the black butler asseverated that his
+    candle had been blown out by some invisible agency while he was
+    undressing himself for the night; but as I had more than once
+    discovered this colored gentleman in a condition when one
+    candle must have appeared to him like two, thought it possible
+    that, by going a step further in his potations, he might have
+    reversed this phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he
+    ought to have beheld one.</p>
+
+    <p>Things were in this state when an accident took place so
+    awful and inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly
+    reels at the bare memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of
+    July. After dinner was over I repaired, with my friend Dr.
+    Hammond, to the garden to smoke my evening pipe. Independent of
+    certain mental sympathies which existed between the Doctor and
+    myself, we were linked together by a vice. We both smoked
+    opium. We knew each other's secret, and respected it. We
+    enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that
+    marvelous intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that
+    boundless feeling of existence when we seem to have points of
+    contact with the whole universe,&mdash;in short, that
+    unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would not surrender for a
+    throne, and which I hope you, reader, will never&mdash;never
+    taste.</p>
+
+    <p>Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent
+    together in secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy.
+    We did not blindly smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our
+    dreams to chance. While smoking, we carefully steered our
+    conversation through the brightest and calmest channels of
+    thought. We talked of the East, and endeavored to recall the
+    magical panorama of its glowing scenery. We criticized the most
+    sensuous poets,&mdash;those who painted life ruddy with health,
+    brimming with passion, happy in the possession of youth and
+    strength and beauty. If we talked of Shakespeare's
+    <em>Tempest</em>, we lingered over Ariel, and avoided Caliban.
+    Like the Guebers, we turned our faces to the East, and saw only
+    the sunny side of the world.</p>
+
+    <p>This skillful coloring of our train of thought produced in
+    our subsequent visions a corresponding tone. The splendors of
+    Arabian fairyland dyed our dreams. We paced the narrow strip of
+    grass with the tread and port of kings. The song of the
+    <em>Rana arborea</em>, while he clung to the bark of the ragged
+    plum-tree, sounded like the strains of divine musicians.
+    Houses, walls, and streets melted like rain clouds, and vistas
+    of unimaginable glory stretched away before us. It was a
+    rapturous companionship. We enjoyed the vast delight more
+    perfectly because, even in our most ecstatic moments, we were
+    conscious of each other's presence. Our pleasures, while
+    individual, were still twin, vibrating and moving in musical
+    accord.</p>
+
+    <p>On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the Doctor
+    and myself drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit
+    our large meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the
+    core of which burned a little black nut of opium, that, like
+    the nut in the fairy tale, held within its narrow limits
+    wonders beyond the reach of kings; we paced to and fro,
+    conversing. A strange perversity dominated the currents of our
+    thought. They would <em>not</em> flow through the sun-lit
+    channels into which we strove to divert them. For some
+    unaccountable reason, they constantly diverged into dark and
+    lonesome beds, where a continual gloom brooded. It was in vain
+    that, after our old fashion, we flung ourselves on the shores
+    of the East, and talked of its gay bazaars, of the splendors of
+    the time of Haroun, of harems and golden palaces. Black afreets
+    continually arose from the depths of our talk, and expanded,
+    like the one the fisherman released from the copper vessel,
+    until they blotted everything bright from our vision.
+    Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and
+    indulged in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon
+    the proneness of the human mind to mysticism, and the almost
+    universal love of the terrible, when Hammond suddenly said to
+    me. "What do you consider to be the greatest element of
+    terror?"</p>
+
+    <p>The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I
+    knew. Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once
+    did, a woman floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly
+    lifted arms, and awful, upturned face, uttering, as she
+    drifted, shrieks that rent one's heart while we, spectators,
+    stood frozen at a window which overhung the river at a height
+    of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to save her,
+    but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her
+    disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible,
+    encountered floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible
+    object, for it suggests a huge terror, the proportions of which
+    are veiled. But it now struck me, for the first time, that
+    there must be one great and ruling embodiment of fear,&mdash;a
+    King of Terrors, to which all others must succumb. What might
+    it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe its
+    existence?</p>
+
+    <p>"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never
+    considered the subject before. That there must be one Something
+    more terrible than any other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt,
+    however, even the most vague definition."</p>
+
+    <p>"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my
+    capacity to experience a terror greater than anything yet
+    conceived by the human mind;&mdash;something combining in
+    fearful and unnatural amalgamation hitherto supposed
+    incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in Brockden
+    Brown's novel of <em>Wieland</em> is awful; so is the picture
+    of the Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer's <em>Zanoni</em>;
+    but," he added, shaking his head gloomily, "there is something
+    more horrible still than those."</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Hammond," I rejoined, "let us drop this kind of
+    talk, for Heaven's sake! We shall suffer for it, depend on
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know what's the matter with me to-night," he
+    replied, "but my brain is running upon all sorts of weird and
+    awful thoughts. I feel as if I could write a story like
+    Hoffman, to-night, if I were only master of a literary
+    style."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I'm
+    off to bed. Opium and nightmares should never be brought
+    together. How sultry it is! Good-night, Hammond."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good-night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."</p>
+
+    <p>"To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and
+    enchanters."</p>
+
+    <p>We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I
+    undressed quickly and got into bed, taking with me, according
+    to my usual custom, a book, over which I generally read myself
+    to sleep. I opened the volume as soon as I had laid my head
+    upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the other side of
+    the room. It was Goudon's <em>History of Monsters</em>,&mdash;a
+    curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris,
+    but which, in the state of mind I had then reached, was
+    anything but an agreeable companion. I resolved to go to sleep
+    at once; so, turning down my gas until nothing but a little
+    blue point of light glimmered on the top of the tube, I
+    composed myself to rest.</p>
+
+    <p>The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still
+    remained alight did not illuminate a distance of three inches
+    round the burner. I desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as
+    if to shut out even the darkness, and tried to think of
+    nothing. It was in vain. The confounded themes touched on by
+    Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on my brain. I
+    battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be blackness
+    of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me.
+    While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect
+    physical inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful
+    incident occurred. A Something dropped, as it seemed, from the
+    ceiling, plumb upon my chest, and the next instant I felt two
+    bony hands encircling my throat, endeavoring to choke me.</p>
+
+    <p>I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical
+    strength. The suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me,
+    strung every nerve to its highest tension. My body acted from
+    instinct, before my brain had time to realize the terrors of my
+    position. In an instant I wound two muscular arms around the
+    creature, and squeezed it, with all the strength of despair,
+    against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands that had
+    fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to
+    breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful
+    intensity. Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally
+    ignorant of the nature of the Thing by which I was so suddenly
+    attacked, finding my grasp slipping every moment, by reason, it
+    seemed to me, of the entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten
+    with sharp teeth in the shoulder, neck, and chest, having every
+    moment to protect my throat against a pair of sinewy, agile
+    hands, which my utmost efforts could not confine,&mdash;these
+    were a combination of circumstances to combat which required
+    all the strength, skill, and courage that I possessed.</p>
+
+    <p>At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got
+    my assailant under by a series of incredible efforts of
+    strength. Once pinned, with my knee on what I made out to be
+    its chest, I knew that I was victor. I rested for a moment to
+    breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting in the
+    darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was
+    apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this
+    moment I remembered that I usually placed under my pillow,
+    before going to bed, a large yellow silk pocket handkerchief. I
+    felt for it instantly; it was there. In a few seconds more I
+    had, after a fashion, pinioned the creature's arms.</p>
+
+    <p>I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be
+    done but to turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my
+    midnight assailant was like, arouse the household. I will
+    confess to being actuated by a certain pride in not giving the
+    alarm before; I wished to make the capture alone and
+    unaided.</p>
+
+    <p>Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed
+    to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few
+    steps to make to reach the gas-burner; these I made with the
+    greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like a vice.
+    At last I got within arm's length of the tiny speck of blue
+    light which told me where the gas-burner lay. Quick as
+    lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full
+    flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.</p>
+
+    <p>I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my
+    sensations the instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I
+    must have shrieked with terror, for in less than a minute
+    afterward my room was crowded with the inmates of the house. I
+    shudder now as I think of that awful moment. <em>I saw
+    nothing</em>! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a
+    breathing, panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with
+    all its strength a throat as warm, as apparently fleshy, as my
+    own; and yet, with this living substance in my grasp, with its
+    body pressed against my own, and all in the bright glare of a
+    large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld nothing! Not even an
+    outline,&mdash;a vapor!</p>
+
+    <p>I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which
+    I found myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident
+    thoroughly. Imagination in vain tries to compass the awful
+    paradox.</p>
+
+    <p>It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It
+    struggled fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin
+    was smooth, like my own. There it lay, pressed close up against
+    me, solid as stone,&mdash;and yet utterly invisible!</p>
+
+    <p>I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some
+    wonderful instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in
+    place of loosening my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to
+    gain an additional strength in my moment of horror, and
+    tightened my grasp with such wonderful force that I felt the
+    creature shivering with agony.</p>
+
+    <p>Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the
+    household. As soon as he beheld my face&mdash;which, I suppose,
+    must have been an awful sight to look at&mdash;he hastened
+    forward, crying, "Great heaven, Harry! what has happened?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried, "come here. O, this is awful! I
+    have been attacked in bed by something or other, which I have
+    hold of; but I can't see it,&mdash;I can't see it!"</p>
+
+    <p>Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed
+    in my countenance, made one or two steps forward with an
+    anxious yet puzzled expression. A very audible titter burst
+    from the remainder of my visitors. This suppressed laughter
+    made me furious. To laugh at a human being in my position! It
+    was the worst species of cruelty. <em>Now</em>, I can
+    understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as
+    it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance
+    against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous.
+    <em>Then</em>, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd
+    that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they
+    stood.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried again, despairingly, "for God's
+    sake come to me. I can hold the&mdash;the thing but a short
+    while longer. It is overpowering me. Help me! Help me!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Harry," whispered Hammond, approaching me, "you have been
+    smoking too much opium."</p>
+
+    <p>"I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision," I
+    answered, in the same low tone. "Don't you see how it shakes my
+    whole frame with its struggles? If you don't believe me,
+    convince yourself. Feel it,&mdash;touch it."</p>
+
+    <p>Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated.
+    A wild cry of horror burst from him. He had felt it!</p>
+
+    <p>In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long
+    piece of cord, and was the next instant winding it and knotting
+    it about the body of the unseen being that I clasped in my
+    arms.</p>
+
+    <p>"Harry," he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though
+    he preserved his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, "Harry,
+    it's all safe now. You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired.
+    The Thing can't move."</p>
+
+    <p>I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.</p>
+
+    <p>Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the
+    Invisible, twisted round his hand, while before him,
+    self-supporting as it were, he beheld a rope laced and
+    interlaced, and stretching tightly around a vacant space. I
+    never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe.
+    Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and
+    determination which I knew him to possess. His lips, although
+    white, were set firmly, and one could perceive at a glance
+    that, although stricken with fear, he was not daunted.</p>
+
+    <p>The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who
+    were witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and
+    myself,&mdash;who beheld the pantomime of binding this
+    struggling Something,&mdash;who beheld me almost sinking from
+    physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was over,&mdash;the
+    confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,
+    when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones
+    fled from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near
+    the door and could not be induced to approach Hammond and his
+    Charge. Still incredulity broke out through their terror. They
+    had not the courage to satisfy themselves, and yet they
+    doubted. It was in vain that I begged of some of the men to
+    come near and convince themselves by touch of the existence in
+    that room of a living being which was invisible. They were
+    incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How
+    could a solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked.
+    My reply was this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of
+    us&mdash;conquering our fearful repugnance to touch the
+    invisible creature&mdash;lifted it from the ground, manacled as
+    it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of a
+    boy of fourteen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the
+    creature suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident
+    proof that here is a solid, ponderable body, which,
+    nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good enough to watch the
+    surface of the bed attentively."</p>
+
+    <p>I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange
+    event so calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and
+    felt a sort of scientific pride in the affair, which dominated
+    every other feeling.</p>
+
+    <p>The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed.
+    At a given signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There
+    was a dull sound of a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The
+    timbers of the bed creaked. A deep impression marked itself
+    distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed itself. The crowd who
+    witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed from the room.
+    Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.</p>
+
+    <p>We remained silent for some time, listening to the low,
+    irregular breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching
+    the rustle of the bedclothes as it impotently struggled to free
+    itself from confinement. Then Hammond spoke.</p>
+
+    <p>"Harry, this is awful."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ay, awful."</p>
+
+    <p>"But not unaccountable."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never
+    occurred since the birth of the world. I know not what to
+    think, Hammond. God grant that I am not mad, and that this is
+    not an insane fantasy!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which
+    we touch, but which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that
+    it strikes us with terror. Is there no parallel, though, for
+    such a phenomenon? Take a piece of pure glass. It is tangible
+    and transparent. A certain chemical coarseness is all that
+    prevents its being so entirely transparent as to be totally
+    invisible. It is not <em>theoretically impossible</em>, mind
+    you, to make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of
+    light,&mdash;a glass so pure and homogeneous in its atoms that
+    the rays from the sun will pass through it as they do through
+    the air, refracted but not reflected. We do not see the air,
+    and yet we feel it."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate
+    substances. Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe.
+    <em>This</em> thing has a heart that palpitates,&mdash;a will
+    that moves it,&mdash;lungs that play, and inspire and
+    respire."</p>
+
+    <p>"You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of
+    late," answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called
+    'spirit circles,' invisible hands have been thrust into the
+    hands of those persons round the table,&mdash;warm, fleshly
+    hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal life."</p>
+
+    <p>"What? Do you think, then, that this thing
+    is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please
+    the gods I will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by
+    the bedside of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until
+    it was apparently wearied out. Then we learned by the low,
+    regular breathing that it slept.</p>
+
+    <p>The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders
+    congregated on the landing outside my room, and Hammond and
+    myself were lions. We had to answer a thousand questions as to
+    the state of our extraordinary prisoner, for as yet not one
+    person in the house except ourselves could be induced to set
+    foot in the apartment.</p>
+
+    <p>The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive
+    manner in which the bedclothes were moved in its efforts to
+    escape. There was something truly terrible in beholding, as it
+    were, those second-hand indications of the terrible writhings
+    and agonized struggles for liberty which themselves were
+    invisible.</p>
+
+    <p>Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long
+    night to discover some means by which we might realize the
+    shape and general appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could
+    make out by passing our hands over the creature's form, its
+    outlines and lineaments were human. There was a mouth; a round,
+    smooth head without hair; a nose, which, however, was little
+    elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet felt like
+    those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a
+    smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk, as
+    shoemakers trace the outline of the foot. This plan was given
+    up as being of no value. Such an outline would give not the
+    slightest idea of its conformation.</p>
+
+    <p>A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in
+    plaster of Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and
+    satisfy all our wishes. But how to do it? The movements of the
+    creature would disturb the setting of the plastic covering, and
+    distort the mold. Another thought. Why not give it chloroform?
+    It had respiratory organs,&mdash;that was evident by its
+    breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could
+    do with it what we would. Doctor X&mdash;&mdash; was sent for;
+    and after the worthy physician had recovered from the first
+    shock of amazement, he proceeded to administer the chloroform.
+    In three minutes afterward we were enabled to remove the
+    fetters from the creature's body, and a modeler was busily
+    engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In
+    five minutes more we had a mold, and before evening a rough
+    facsimile of the Mystery. It was shaped like a
+    man&mdash;distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but still a man. It
+    was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and
+    its limbs revealed a muscular development that was
+    unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had
+    ever seen. Gustav Dor&eacute;, or Callot, or Tony Johannot,
+    never conceived anything so horrible. There is a face in one of
+    the latter's illustrations to <em>Un Voyage o&ugrave; il vous
+    plaira</em>, which somewhat approaches the countenance of this
+    creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what
+    I should fancy a ghoul might be. It looked as if it was capable
+    of feeding on human flesh.</p>
+
+    <p>Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the
+    house to secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with
+    our Enigma? It was impossible that we should keep such a horror
+    in our house; it was equally impossible that such an awful
+    being should be let loose upon the world. I confess that I
+    would have gladly voted for the creature's destruction. But who
+    would shoulder the responsibility? Who would undertake the
+    execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day
+    after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders
+    all left the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened
+    Hammond and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did
+    not remove the Horror. Our answer was, "We will go if you like,
+    but we decline taking this creature with us. Remove it yourself
+    if you please. It appeared in your house. On you the
+    responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer.
+    Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who
+    would even approach the Mystery.</p>
+
+    <p>The most singular part of the affair was that we were
+    entirely ignorant of what the creature habitually fed on.
+    Everything in the way of nutriment that we could think of was
+    placed before it, but was never touched. It was awful to stand
+    by, day after day, and see the clothes toss, and hear the hard
+    breathing, and know that it was starving.</p>
+
+    <p>Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived.
+    The pulsations of the heart, however, were daily growing
+    fainter, and had now nearly ceased. It was evident that the
+    creature was dying for want of sustenance. While this terrible
+    life-struggle was going on, I felt miserable. I could not
+    sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was pitiful to think of
+    the pangs it was suffering.</p>
+
+    <p>At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one
+    morning in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to
+    inspire. We hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange
+    funeral, the dropping of that viewless corpse into the damp
+    hole. The cast of its form I gave to Doctor X&mdash;&mdash;,
+    who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.</p>
+
+    <p>As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not
+    return, I have drawn up this narrative of an event the most
+    singular that has ever come to my knowledge.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Middle"
+       id="Middle"></a>The Middle Toe of the Right Foot</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By AMBROSE BIERCE</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>Can Such Things Be?</em> by Ambrose Bierce.
+        Copyright by the Neale Publishing Company. By permission of
+        the publishers.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <h4>I</h4>
+
+    <p>It is well known that the old Manton house is haunted. In
+    all the rural district near about, and even in the town of
+    Marshall, a mile away, not one person of unbiased mind
+    entertains a doubt of it; incredulity is confined to those
+    opinionated persons who will be called "cranks" as soon as the
+    useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual demesne of
+    the Marshall <em>Advance</em>. The evidence that the house is
+    haunted is of two kinds; the testimony of disinterested
+    witnesses who have had ocular proof, and that of the house
+    itself. The former may be disregarded and ruled out on any of
+    the various grounds of objection which may be urged against it
+    by the ingenious; but facts within the observation of all are
+    material and controlling.</p>
+
+    <p>In the first place the Manton house has been unoccupied by
+    mortals for more than ten years, and with its outbuildings is
+    slowly falling into decay&mdash;a circumstance which in itself
+    the judicious will hardly venture to ignore. It stands a little
+    way off the loneliest reach of the Marshall and Harriston road,
+    in an opening which was once a farm and is still disfigured
+    with strips of rotting fence and half covered with brambles
+    overrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with the
+    plow. The house itself is in tolerably good condition, though
+    badly weather-stained and in dire need of attention from the
+    glazier, the smaller male population of the region having
+    attested in the manner of its kind its disapproval of dwelling
+    without dwellers. It is two stories in height, nearly square,
+    its front pierced by a single doorway flanked on each side by a
+    window boarded up to the very top. Corresponding windows above,
+    not protected, serve to admit light and rain to the rooms of
+    the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow pretty rankly all about,
+    and a few shade trees, somewhat the worse for wind, and leaning
+    all in one direction, seem to be making a concerted effort to
+    run away. In short, as the Marshall town humorist explained in
+    the columns of the <em>Advance</em>, "the proposition that the
+    Manton house is badly haunted is the only logical conclusion
+    from the premises." The fact that in this dwelling Mr. Manton
+    thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and
+    cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at
+    once to another part of the country, has no doubt done its
+    share in directing public attention to the fitness of the place
+    for supernatural phenomena.</p>
+
+    <p>To this house, one summer evening, came four men in a wagon.
+    Three of them promptly alighted, and the one who had been
+    driving hitched the team to the only remaining post of what had
+    been a fence. The fourth remained seated in the wagon. "Come,"
+    said one of his companions, approaching him, while the others
+    moved away in the direction of the dwelling&mdash;"this is the
+    place."</p>
+
+    <p>The man addressed did not move. "By God!" he said harshly,
+    "this is a trick, and it looks to me as if you were in it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Perhaps I am," the other said, looking him straight in the
+    face and speaking in a tone which had something of contempt in
+    it. "You will remember, however, that the choice of place was
+    with your own assent left to the other side. Of course if you
+    are afraid of spooks&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I am afraid of nothing," the man interrupted with another
+    oath, and sprang to the ground. The two then joined the others
+    at the door, which one of them had already opened with some
+    difficulty, caused by rust of lock and hinge. All entered.
+    Inside it was dark, but the man who had unlocked the door
+    produced a candle and matches and made a light. He then
+    unlocked a door on their right as they stood in the passage.
+    This gave them entrance to a large, square room that the candle
+    but dimly lighted. The floor had a thick carpeting of dust,
+    which partly muffled their footfalls. Cobwebs were in the
+    angles of the walls and depended from the ceiling like strips
+    of rotting lace making undulatory movements in the disturbed
+    air. The room had two windows in adjoining sides, but from
+    neither could anything be seen except the rough inner surfaces
+    of boards a few inches from the glass. There was no fireplace,
+    no furniture; there was nothing: besides the cobwebs and the
+    dust, the four men were the only objects there which were not a
+    part of the structure.</p>
+
+    <p>Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of the
+    candle. The one who had so reluctantly alighted was especially
+    spectacular&mdash;he might have been called sensational. He was
+    of middle age, heavily built, deep chested, and broad
+    shouldered. Looking at his figure, one would have said that he
+    had a giant's strength; at his features, that he would use it
+    like a giant. He was clean shaven, his hair rather closely
+    cropped and gray. His low forehead was seamed with wrinkles
+    above the eyes, and over the nose these became vertical. The
+    heavy black brows followed the same law, saved from meeting
+    only by an upward turn at what would otherwise have been the
+    point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these, glowed in the
+    obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain color, but obviously
+    enough too small. There was something forbidding in their
+    expression, which was not bettered by the cruel mouth and wide
+    jaw. The nose was well enough, as noses go; one does not expect
+    much of noses. All that was sinister in the man's face seemed
+    accentuated by an unnatural pallor&mdash;he appeared altogether
+    bloodless.</p>
+
+    <p>The appearance of the other men was sufficiently
+    commonplace; they were such persons as one meets and forgets
+    that he met. All were younger than the man described, between
+    whom and the eldest of the others, who stood apart, there was
+    apparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at each
+    other.</p>
+
+    <p>"Gentlemen," said the man holding the candle and keys, "I
+    believe everything is right. Are you ready, Mr. Rosser?"</p>
+
+    <p>The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled.</p>
+
+    <p>"And you, Mr. Grossmith?"</p>
+
+    <p>The heavy man bowed and scowled.</p>
+
+    <p>"You will be pleased to remove your outer clothing."</p>
+
+    <p>Their hats, coats, waistcoats, and neckwear were soon
+    removed and thrown outside the door, in the passage. The man
+    with the candle now nodded, and the fourth man&mdash;he who had
+    urged Grossmith to leave the wagon&mdash;produced from the
+    pocket of his overcoat two long, murderous-looking
+    bowie-knives, which he drew now from their leather
+    scabbards.</p>
+
+    <p>"They are exactly alike," he said, presenting one to each of
+    the two principals&mdash;for by this time the dullest observer
+    would have understood the nature of this meeting. It was to be
+    a duel to the death.</p>
+
+    <p>Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the
+    candle and tested the strength of the blade and handle across
+    his lifted knee. Their persons were then searched in turn, each
+    by the second of the other.</p>
+
+    <p>"If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith," said the man
+    holding the light, "you will place yourself in that
+    corner."</p>
+
+    <p>He indicated the angle of the room farthest from the door,
+    whither Grossmith retired, his second parting from him with a
+    grasp of the hand which had nothing of cordiality in it. In the
+    angle nearest the door Mr. Rosser stationed himself, and after
+    a whispered consultation his second left him, joining the other
+    near the door. At that moment the candle was suddenly
+    extinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This may have
+    been done by a draught from the opened door; whatever the
+    cause, the effect was startling.</p>
+
+    <p>"Gentlemen," said a voice which sounded strangely unfamiliar
+    in the altered condition affecting the relations of the
+    senses&mdash;"gentlemen, you will not move until you hear the
+    closing of the outer door."</p>
+
+    <p>A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the inner
+    door; and finally the outer one closed with a concussion which
+    shook the entire building.</p>
+
+    <p>A few minutes afterward a belated farmer's boy met a light
+    wagon which was being driven furiously toward the town of
+    Marshall. He declared that behind the two figures on the front
+    seat stood a third, with its hands upon the bowed shoulders of
+    the others, who appeared to struggle vainly to free themselves
+    from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was clad in
+    white, and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed the
+    haunted house. As the lad could boast a considerable former
+    experience with the supernatural thereabouts his word had the
+    weight justly due to the testimony of an expert. The story (in
+    connection with the next day's events) eventually appeared in
+    the <em>Advance</em>, with some slight literary embellishments
+    and a concluding intimation that the gentlemen referred to
+    would be allowed the use of the paper's columns for their
+    version of the night's adventure. But the privilege remained
+    without a claimant.</p>
+
+    <h4>II</h4>
+
+    <p>The events that led up to this "duel in the dark" were
+    simple enough. One evening three young men of the town of
+    Marshall were sitting in a quiet corner of the porch of the
+    village hotel, smoking and discussing such matters as three
+    educated young men of a Southern village would naturally find
+    interesting. Their names were King, Sancher, and Rosser. At a
+    little distance, within easy hearing, but taking no part in the
+    conversation, sat a fourth. He was a stranger to the others.
+    They merely knew that on his arrival by the stage-coach that
+    afternoon he had written in the hotel register the name of
+    Robert Grossmith. He had not been observed to speak to anyone
+    except the hotel clerk. He seemed, indeed, singularly fond of
+    his own company&mdash;or, as the <em>personnel</em> of the
+    <em>Advance</em> expressed it, "grossly addicted to evil
+    associations." But then it should be said in justice to the
+    stranger that the <em>personnel</em> was himself of a too
+    convivial disposition fairly to judge one differently gifted,
+    and had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in an effort at
+    an "interview."</p>
+
+    <p>"I hate any kind of deformity in a woman," said King,
+    "whether natural or&mdash;acquired. I have a theory that any
+    physical defect has its correlative mental and moral
+    defect."</p>
+
+    <p>"I infer, then," said Rosser, gravely, "that a lady lacking
+    the moral advantage of a nose would find the struggle to become
+    Mrs. King an arduous enterprise."</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course you may put it that way," was the reply; "but,
+    seriously, I once threw over a most charming girl on learning
+    quite accidentally that she had suffered amputation of a toe.
+    My conduct was brutal if you like, but if I had married that
+    girl I should have been miserable for life and should have made
+    her so."</p>
+
+    <p>"Whereas," said Sancher, with a light laugh, "by marrying a
+    gentleman of more liberal view she escaped with a parted
+    throat."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah, you know to whom I refer. Yes, she married Manton, but
+    I don't know about his liberality; I'm not sure but he cut her
+    throat because he discovered that she lacked that excellent
+    thing in woman, the middle toe of the right foot."</p>
+
+    <p>"Look at that chap!" said Rosser in a low voice, his eyes
+    fixed upon the stranger.</p>
+
+    <p>That chap was obviously listening intently to the
+    conversation.</p>
+
+    <p>"Damn his impudence!" muttered King&mdash;"what ought we to
+    do?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's an easy one," Rosser replied, rising. "Sir," he
+    continued, addressing the stranger, "I think it would be better
+    if you would remove your chair to the other end of the veranda.
+    The presence of gentlemen is evidently an unfamiliar situation
+    to you."</p>
+
+    <p>The man sprang to his feet and strode forward with clenched
+    hands, his face white with rage. All were now standing. Sancher
+    stepped between the belligerents.</p>
+
+    <p>"You are hasty and unjust," he said to Rosser; "this
+    gentleman has done nothing to deserve such language."</p>
+
+    <p>But Rosser would not withdraw a word. By the custom of the
+    country and the time there could be but one outcome to the
+    quarrel.</p>
+
+    <p>"I demand the satisfaction due to a gentleman," said the
+    stranger, who had become more calm. "I have not an acquaintance
+    in this region. Perhaps you, sir," bowing to Sancher, "will be
+    kind enough to represent me in this matter."</p>
+
+    <p>Sancher accepted the trust&mdash;somewhat reluctantly it
+    must be confessed, for the man's appearance and manner were not
+    at all to his liking. King, who during the colloquy had hardly
+    removed his eyes from the stranger's face and had not spoken a
+    word, consented with a nod to act for Rosser, and the upshot of
+    it was that, the principals having retired, a meeting was
+    arranged for the next evening. The nature of the arrangements
+    has been already disclosed. The duel with knives in a dark room
+    was once a commoner feature of Southwestern life than it is
+    likely to be again. How thin a veneering of "chivalry" covered
+    the essential brutality of the code under which such encounters
+    were possible we shall see.</p>
+
+    <h4>III</h4>
+
+    <p>In the blaze of a midsummer noonday the old Manton house was
+    hardly true to its traditions. It was of the earth, earthy. The
+    sunshine caressed it warmly and affectionately, with evident
+    disregard of its bad reputation. The grass greening all the
+    expanse in its front seemed to grow, not rankly, but with a
+    natural and joyous exuberance, and the weeds blossomed quite
+    like plants. Full of charming lights and shadows and populous
+    with pleasant-voiced birds, the neglected shade trees no longer
+    struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath their
+    burdens of sun and song. Even in the glassless upper windows
+    was an expression of peace and contentment, due to the light
+    within. Over the stony fields the visible heat danced with a
+    lively tremor incompatible with the gravity which is an
+    attribute of the supernatural.</p>
+
+    <p>Such was the aspect under which the place presented itself
+    to Sheriff Adams and two other men who had come out from
+    Marshall to look at it. One of these men was Mr. King, the
+    sheriff's deputy; the other, whose name was Brewer, was a
+    brother of the late Mrs. Manton. Under a beneficent law of the
+    State relating to property which has been for a certain period
+    abandoned by an owner whose residence cannot be ascertained,
+    the sheriff was legal custodian of the Manton farm and
+    appurtenances thereunto belonging. His present visit was in
+    mere perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which
+    Mr. Brewer had an action to get possession of the property as
+    heir to his deceased sister. By a mere coincidence, the visit
+    was made on the day after the night that Deputy King had
+    unlocked the house for another and very different purpose. His
+    presence now was not of his own choosing: he had been ordered
+    to accompany his superior, and at the moment could think of
+    nothing more prudent than simulated alacrity in obedience to
+    the command.</p>
+
+    <p>Carelessly opening the front door, which to his surprise was
+    not locked, the sheriff was amazed to see, lying on the floor
+    of the passage into which it opened, a confused heap of men's
+    apparel. Examination showed it to consist of two hats, and the
+    same number of coats, waistcoats, and scarves all in a
+    remarkably good state of preservation, albeit somewhat defiled
+    by the dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equally
+    astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not of record. With a new
+    and lively interest in his own actions the sheriff now
+    unlatched and pushed open a door on the right, and the three
+    entered. The room was apparently vacant&mdash;no; as their eyes
+    became accustomed to the dimmer light something was visible in
+    the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human
+    figure&mdash;that of a man crouching close in the corner.
+    Something in the attitude made the intruders halt when they had
+    barely passed the threshold. The figure more and more clearly
+    defined itself. The man was upon one knee, his back in the
+    angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated to the level of his
+    ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the fingers
+    spread and crooked like claws; the white face turned upward on
+    the retracted neck had an expression of unutterable fright, the
+    mouth half open, the eyes incredibly expanded. He was stone
+    dead. Yet with the exception of a bowie-knife, which had
+    evidently fallen from his own hand, not another object was in
+    the room.</p>
+
+    <p>In thick dust that covered the floor were some confused
+    footprints near the door and along the wall through which it
+    opened. Along one of the adjoining walls, too, past the
+    boarded-up windows was the trail made by the man himself in
+    reaching his corner. Instinctively in approaching the body the
+    three men followed that trail. The sheriff grasped one of the
+    outthrown arms; it was as rigid as iron, and the application of
+    a gentle force rocked the entire body without altering the
+    relation of its parts. Brewer, pale with excitement, gazed
+    intently into the distorted face. "God of mercy!" he suddenly
+    cried, "it is Manton!"</p>
+
+    <p>"You are right," said King, with an evident attempt at
+    calmness: "I knew Manton. He then wore a full beard and his
+    hair long, but this is he."</p>
+
+    <p>He might have added: "I recognized him when he challenged
+    Rosser. I told Rosser and Sancher who he was before we played
+    him this horrible trick. When Rosser left this dark room at our
+    heels, forgetting his outer clothing in the excitement, and
+    driving away with us in his shirt sleeves&mdash;all through the
+    discreditable proceedings we knew with whom we were dealing,
+    murderer and coward that he was!"</p>
+
+    <p>But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his better light
+    he was trying to penetrate the mystery of the man's death. That
+    he had not once moved from the corner where he had been
+    stationed; that his posture was that of neither attack nor
+    defense; that he had dropped his weapon; that he had obviously
+    perished of sheer horror of something that he
+    <em>saw</em>&mdash;these were circumstances which Mr. King's
+    disturbed intelligence could not rightly comprehend.</p>
+
+    <p>Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew to his maze of
+    doubt, his gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of
+    one who ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which,
+    there, in the light of day and in the presence of living
+    companions, affected him with terror. In the dust of years that
+    lay thick upon the floor&mdash;leading from the door by which
+    they had entered, straight across the room to within a yard of
+    Manton's crouching corpse&mdash;were three parallel lines of
+    footprints&mdash;light but definite impressions of bare feet,
+    the outer ones those of small children, the inner a woman's.
+    From the point at which they ended they did not return; they
+    pointed all one way. Brewer, who had observed them at the same
+    moment, was leaning forward in an attitude of rapt attention,
+    horribly pale.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look at that!" he cried, pointing with both hands at the
+    nearest print of the woman's right foot, where she had
+    apparently stopped and stood. "The middle toe is
+    missing&mdash;it was Gertrude!"</p>
+
+    <p>Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister to Mr. Brewer.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Shell"
+       id="Shell"></a>The Shell of Sense</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From Harper's Magazine, December, 1908. By permission of
+        Harper and Brothers and Olivia Howard Dunbar.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>It was intolerably unchanged, the dim, dark-toned room. In
+    an agony of recognition my glance ran from one to another of
+    the comfortable, familiar things that my earthly life had been
+    passed among. Incredibly distant from it all as I essentially
+    was. I noted sharply that the very gaps that I myself had left
+    in my bookshelves still stood unfilled; that the delicate
+    fingers of the ferns that I had tended were still stretched
+    futilely toward the light; that the soft agreeable chuckle of
+    my own little clock, like some elderly woman with whom
+    conversation has become automatic, was undiminished.</p>
+
+    <p>Unchanged&mdash;or so it seemed at first. But there were
+    certain trivial differences that shortly smote me. The windows
+    were closed too tightly; for I had always kept the house very
+    cool, although I had known that Theresa preferred warm rooms.
+    And my work-basket was in disorder; it was preposterous that so
+    small a thing should hurt me so. Then, for this was my first
+    experience of the shadow-folded transition, the odd alteration
+    of my emotions bewildered me. For at one moment the place
+    seemed so humanly familiar, so distinctly my own proper
+    envelope, that for love of it I could have laid my cheek
+    against the wall; while in the next I was miserably conscious
+    of strange new shrillnesses. How could they be
+    endured&mdash;and had I ever endured them?&mdash;those harsh
+    influences that I now perceived at the window; light and color
+    so blinding that they obscured the form of the wind, tumult so
+    discordant that one could scarcely hear the roses open in the
+    garden below?</p>
+
+    <p>But Theresa did not seem to mind any of these things.
+    Disorder, it is true, the dear child had never minded. She was
+    sitting all this time at my desk&mdash;at <em>my</em>
+    desk&mdash;occupied, I could only too easily surmise how. In
+    the light of my own habits of precision it was plain that that
+    sombre correspondence should have been attended to before; but
+    I believe that I did not really reproach Theresa, for I knew
+    that her notes, when she did write them, were perhaps less
+    perfunctory than mine. She finished the last one as I watched
+    her, and added it to the heap of black-bordered envelopes that
+    lay on the desk. Poor girl! I saw now that they had cost her
+    tears. Yet, living beside her day after day, year after year, I
+    had never discovered what deep tenderness my sister possessed.
+    Toward each other it had been our habit to display only a
+    temperate affection, and I remember having always thought it
+    distinctly fortunate for Theresa, since she was denied my
+    happiness, that she could live so easily and pleasantly without
+    emotions of the devastating sort.... And now, for the first
+    time, I was really to behold her.... Could it be Theresa, after
+    all, this tangle of subdued turbulences? Let no one suppose
+    that it is an easy thing to bear, the relentlessly lucid
+    understanding that I then first exercised; or that, in its
+    first enfranchisement, the timid vision does not yearn for its
+    old screens and mists.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly, as Theresa sat there, her head, filled with its
+    tender thoughts of me, held in her gentle hands, I felt Allan's
+    step on the carpeted stair outside. Theresa felt it,
+    too,&mdash;but how? for it was not audible. She gave a start,
+    swept the black envelopes out of sight, and pretended to be
+    writing in a little book. Then I forgot to watch her any longer
+    in my absorption in Allan's coming. It was he, of course, that
+    I was awaiting. It was for him that I had made this first
+    lonely, frightened effort to return, to recover.... It was not
+    that I had supposed he would allow himself to recognize my
+    presence, for I had long been sufficiently familiar with his
+    hard and fast denials of the invisible. He was so reasonable
+    always, so sane&mdash;so blindfolded. But I had hoped that
+    because of his very rejection of the ether that now contained
+    me I could perhaps all the more safely, the more secretly,
+    watch him, linger near him. He was near now, very
+    near,&mdash;but why did Theresa, sitting there in the room that
+    had never belonged to her, appropriate for herself his coming?
+    It was so manifestly I who had drawn him, I whom he had come to
+    seek.</p>
+
+    <p>The door was ajar. He knocked softly at it "Are you there,
+    Theresa?" he called. He expected to find her, then, there in my
+    room? I shrank back, fearing, almost, to stay.</p>
+
+    <p>"I shall have finished in a moment," Theresa told him, and
+    he sat down to wait for her.</p>
+
+    <p>No spirit still unreleased can understand the pang that I
+    felt with Allan sitting almost within my touch. Almost
+    irresistibly the wish beset me to let him for an instant feel
+    my nearness. Then I checked myself, remembering&mdash;oh,
+    absurd, piteous human fears!&mdash;that my too unguarded
+    closeness might alarm him. It was not so remote a time that I
+    myself had known them, those blind, uncouth timidities. I came,
+    therefore, somewhat nearer&mdash;but I did not touch him. I
+    merely leaned toward him and with incredible softness whispered
+    his name. That much I could not have forborne; the spell of
+    life was still too strong in me.</p>
+
+    <p>But it gave him no comfort, no delight. "Theresa!" he
+    called, in a voice dreadful with alarm&mdash;and in that
+    instant the last veil fell, and desperately, scarce
+    believingly, I beheld how it stood between them, those two.</p>
+
+    <p>She turned to him that gentle look of hers.</p>
+
+    <p>"Forgive me," came from him hoarsely. "But I had suddenly
+    the most&mdash;unaccountable sensation. Can there be too many
+    windows open? There is such a&mdash;chill&mdash;about."</p>
+
+    <p>"There are no windows open," Theresa assured him. "I took
+    care to shut out the chill. You are not well, Allan!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Perhaps not." He embraced the suggestion. "And yet I feel
+    no illness apart from this abominable sensation that
+    persists&mdash;persists.... Theresa, you must tell me: do I
+    fancy it, or do you, too, feel&mdash;something&mdash;strange
+    here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, there is something very strange here," she half sobbed.
+    "There always will be."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good heavens, child, I didn't mean that!" He rose and stood
+    looking about him. "I know, of course, that you have your
+    beliefs, and I respect them, but you know equally well that I
+    have nothing of the sort! So&mdash;don't let us conjure up
+    anything inexplicable."</p>
+
+    <p>I stayed impalpably, imponderably near him. Wretched and
+    bereft though I was, I could not have left him while he stood
+    denying me.</p>
+
+    <p>"What I mean," he went on, in his low, distinct voice, "is a
+    special, an almost ominous sense of cold. Upon my soul,
+    Theresa,"&mdash;he paused&mdash;"if I <em>were</em>
+    superstitious, if I <em>were</em> a woman, I should probably
+    imagine it to seem&mdash;a presence!"</p>
+
+    <p>He spoke the last word very faintly, but Theresa shrank from
+    it nevertheless.</p>
+
+    <p>"<em>Don't</em> say that, Allan!" she cried out. "Don't
+    think it, I beg of you! I've tried so hard myself not to think
+    it&mdash;and you must help me. You know it is only perturbed,
+    uneasy spirits that wander. With her it is quite different. She
+    has always been so happy&mdash;she must still be."</p>
+
+    <p>I listened, stunned, to Theresa's sweet dogmatism. From what
+    blind distances came her confident misapprehensions, how dense,
+    both for her and for Allan, was the separating vapor!</p>
+
+    <p>Allan frowned. "Don't take me literally, Theresa," he
+    explained; and I, who a moment before had almost touched him,
+    now held myself aloof and heard him with a strange untried
+    pity, new born in me. "I'm not speaking of what you
+    call&mdash;spirits. It's something much more terrible." He
+    allowed his head to sink heavily on his chest. "If I did not
+    positively know that I had never done her any harm, I should
+    suppose myself to be suffering from guilt, from remorse....
+    Theresa, you know better than I, perhaps. Was she content,
+    always? Did she believe in me?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Believe in you?&mdash;when she knew you to be so
+    good!&mdash;when you adored her!"</p>
+
+    <p>"She thought that? She said it? Then what in Heaven's name
+    ails me?&mdash;unless it is all as you believe, Theresa, and
+    she knows now what she didn't know then, poor dear, and
+    minds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Minds what? What do you mean, Allan?"</p>
+
+    <p>I, who with my perhaps illegitimate advantage saw so clear,
+    knew that he had not meant to tell her: I did him that justice,
+    even in my first jealousy. If I had not tortured him so by
+    clinging near him, he would not have told her. But the moment
+    came, and overflowed, and he did tell her&mdash;passionate,
+    tumultuous story that it was. During all our life together,
+    Allan's and mine, he had spared me, had kept me wrapped in the
+    white cloak of an unblemished loyalty. But it would have been
+    kinder, I now bitterly thought, if, like many husbands, he had
+    years ago found for the story he now poured forth some
+    clandestine listener; I should not have known. But he was
+    faithful and good, and so he waited till I, mute and chained,
+    was there to hear him. So well did I know him, as I thought, so
+    thoroughly had he once been mine, that I saw it in his eyes,
+    heard it in his voice, before the words came. And yet, when it
+    came, it lashed me with the whips of an unbearable humiliation.
+    For I, his wife, had not known how greatly he could love.</p>
+
+    <p>And that Theresa, soft little traitor, should, in her still
+    way, have cared too! Where was the iron in her, I moaned within
+    my stricken spirit, where the steadfastness? From the moment he
+    bade her, she turned her soft little petals up to him&mdash;and
+    my last delusion was spent. It was intolerable; and none the
+    less so that in another moment she had, prompted by some
+    belated thought of me, renounced him. Allan was hers, yet she
+    put him from her; and it was my part to watch them both.</p>
+
+    <p>Then in the anguish of it all I remembered, awkward,
+    untutored spirit that I was, that I now had the Great Recourse.
+    Whatever human things were unbearable, I had no need to bear. I
+    ceased, therefore, to make the effort that kept me with them.
+    The pitiless poignancy was dulled, the sounds and the light
+    ceased, the lovers faded from me, and again I was mercifully
+    drawn into the dim, infinite spaces.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>There followed a period whose length I cannot measure and
+    during which I was able to make no progress in the difficult,
+    dizzying experience of release. "Earth-bound" my jealousy
+    relentlessly kept me. Though my two dear ones had forsworn each
+    other, I could not trust them, for theirs seemed to me an
+    affectation of a more than mortal magnanimity. Without a
+    ghostly sentinel to prick them with sharp fears and
+    recollections, who could believe that they would keep to it? Of
+    the efficacy of my own vigilance, so long as I might choose to
+    exercise it, I could have no doubt, for I had by this time come
+    to have a dreadful exultation in the new power that lived in
+    me. Repeated delicate experiment had taught me how a touch or a
+    breath, a wish or a whisper, could control Allan's acts, could
+    keep him from Theresa. I could manifest myself as palely, as
+    transiently, as a thought. I could produce the merest necessary
+    flicker, like the shadow of a just-opened leaf, on his
+    trembling, tortured consciousness. And these unrealized
+    perceptions of me he interpreted, as I had known that he would,
+    as his soul's inevitable penance. He had come to believe that
+    he had done evil in silently loving Theresa all these years,
+    and it was my vengeance to allow him to believe this, to prod
+    him ever to believe it afresh.</p>
+
+    <p>I am conscious that this frame of mind was not continuous in
+    me. For I remember, too, that when Allan and Theresa were
+    safely apart and sufficiently miserable I loved them as dearly
+    as I ever had, more dearly perhaps. For it was impossible that
+    I should not perceive, in my new emancipation, that they were,
+    each of them, something more and greater than the two beings I
+    had once ignorantly pictured them. For years they had practiced
+    a selflessness of which I could once scarcely have conceived,
+    and which even now I could only admire without entering into
+    its mystery. While I had lived solely for myself, these two
+    divine creatures had lived exquisitely for me. They had granted
+    me everything, themselves nothing. For my undeserving sake
+    their lives had been a constant torment of renunciation&mdash;a
+    torment they had not sought to alleviate by the exchange of a
+    single glance of understanding. There were even marvelous
+    moments when, from the depths of my newly informed heart, I
+    pitied them&mdash;poor creatures, who, withheld from the
+    infinite solaces that I had come to know, were still utterly
+    within that</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p class="i16">Shell of sense</p>
+
+            <p>So frail, so piteously contrived for pain.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>Within it, yes; yet exercising qualities that so sublimely
+    transcended it. Yet the shy, hesitating compassion that thus
+    had birth in me was far from being able to defeat the earlier,
+    earthlier emotion. The two, I recognized, were in a sort of
+    conflict; and I, regarding it, assumed that the conflict would
+    never end; that for years, as Allan and Theresa reckoned time,
+    I should be obliged to withhold myself from the great spaces
+    and linger suffering, grudging, shamed, where they
+    lingered.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>It can never have been explained, I suppose, what, to
+    devitalized perception such as mine, the contact of mortal
+    beings with each other appears to be. Once to have exercised
+    this sense-freed perception is to realize that the gift of
+    prophecy, although the subject of such frequent marvel, is no
+    longer mysterious. The merest glance of our sensitive and
+    uncloyed vision can detect the strength of the relation between
+    two beings, and therefore instantly calculate its duration. If
+    you see a heavy weight suspended from a slender string, you can
+    know, without any wizardry, that in a few moments the string
+    will snap; well, such, if you admit the analogy, is prophecy,
+    is foreknowledge. And it was thus that I saw it with Theresa
+    and Allan. For it was perfectly visible to me that they would
+    very little longer have the strength to preserve, near each
+    other, the denuded impersonal relation that they, and that I,
+    behind them, insisted on; and that they would have to separate.
+    It was my sister, perhaps the more sensitive, who first
+    realized this. It had now become possible for me to observe
+    them almost constantly, the effort necessary to visit them had
+    so greatly diminished; so that I watched her, poor, anguished
+    girl, prepare to leave him. I saw each reluctant movement that
+    she made. I saw her eyes, worn from self-searching; I heard her
+    step grown timid from inexplicable fears; I entered her very
+    heart and heard its pitiful, wild beating. And still I did not
+    interfere.</p>
+
+    <p>For at this time I had a wonderful, almost demoniacal sense
+    of disposing of matters to suit my own selfish will. At any
+    moment I could have checked their miseries, could have restored
+    happiness and peace. Yet it gave me, and I could weep to admit
+    it, a monstrous joy to know that Theresa thought she was
+    leaving Allan of her own free intention, when it was I who was
+    contriving, arranging, insisting.... And yet she wretchedly
+    felt my presence near her; I am certain of that.</p>
+
+    <p>A few days before the time of her intended departure my
+    sister told Allan that she must speak with him after dinner.
+    Our beautiful old house branched out from a circular hall with
+    great arched doors at either end; and it was through the rear
+    doorway that always in summer, after dinner, we passed out into
+    the garden adjoining. As usual, therefore, when the hour came,
+    Theresa led the way. That dreadful daytime brilliance that in
+    my present state I found so hard to endure was now becoming
+    softer. A delicate, capricious twilight breeze danced
+    inconsequently through languidly whispering leaves. Lovely pale
+    flowers blossomed like little moons in the dusk, and over them
+    the breath of mignonette hung heavily. It was a perfect
+    place&mdash;and it had so long been ours, Allan's and mine. It
+    made me restless and a little wicked that those two should be
+    there together now.</p>
+
+    <p>For a little they walked about together, speaking of common,
+    daily things. Then suddenly Theresa burst out:</p>
+
+    <p>"I am going away, Allan. I have stayed to do everything that
+    needed to be done. Now your mother will be here to care for
+    you, and it is time for me to go."</p>
+
+    <p>He stared at her and stood still. Theresa had been there so
+    long, she so definitely, to his mind, belonged there. And she
+    was, as I also had jealously known, so lovely there, the small,
+    dark, dainty creature, in the old hall, on the wide staircases,
+    in the garden.... Life there without Theresa, even the
+    intentionally remote, the perpetually renounced
+    Theresa&mdash;he had not dreamed of it, he could not, so
+    suddenly, conceive of it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sit here," he said, and drew her down beside him on a
+    bench, "and tell me what it means, why you are going. Is it
+    because of something that I have been&mdash;have done?"</p>
+
+    <p>She hesitated. I wondered if she would dare tell him. She
+    looked out and away from him, and he waited long for her to
+    speak.</p>
+
+    <p>The pale stars were sliding into their places. The
+    whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it
+    was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment
+    when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world
+    seems infinitely greater&mdash;a moment when anything can
+    happen, anything be believed in. To me, watching, listening,
+    hovering, there came a dreadful purpose and a dreadful courage.
+    Suppose for one moment, Theresa should not only feel, but
+    <em>see</em> me&mdash;would she dare to tell him then?</p>
+
+    <p>There came a brief space of terrible effort, all my
+    fluttering, uncertain forces strained to the utmost. The
+    instant of my struggle was endlessly long and the transition
+    seemed to take place outside me&mdash;as one sitting in a
+    train, motionless, sees the leagues of earth float by. And
+    then, in a bright, terrible flash I knew I had achieved
+    it&mdash;I had <em>attained visibility</em>. Shuddering,
+    insubstantial, but luminously apparent, I stood there before
+    them. And for the instant that I maintained the visible state I
+    looked straight into Theresa's soul.</p>
+
+    <p>She gave a cry. And then, thing of silly, cruel impulses
+    that I was, I saw what I had done. The very thing that I wished
+    to avert I had precipitated. For Allan, in his sudden terror
+    and pity, had bent and caught her in his arms. For the first
+    time they were together; and it was I who had brought them.</p>
+
+    <p>Then, to his whispered urging to tell the reason of her cry,
+    Theresa said:</p>
+
+    <p>"Frances was here. You did not see her, standing there,
+    under the lilacs, with no smile on her face?"</p>
+
+    <p>"My dear, my dear!" was all that Allan said. I had so long
+    now lived invisibly with them, he knew that she was right.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose you know what it means?" she asked him,
+    calmly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dear Theresa," Allan said, slowly, "if you and I should go
+    away somewhere, could we not evade all this ghostliness? And
+    will you come with me?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Distance would not banish her," my sister confidently
+    asserted. And then she said, softly: "Have you thought what a
+    lonely, awesome thing it must be to be so newly dead? Pity her,
+    Allan. We who are warm and alive should pity her. She loves you
+    still,&mdash;that is the meaning of it all, you know&mdash;and
+    she wants us to understand that for that reason we must keep
+    apart. Oh, it was so plain in her white face as she stood
+    there. And you did not see her?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It was your face that I saw," Allan solemnly told
+    her&mdash;oh, how different he had grown from the Allan that I
+    had known!&mdash;"and yours is the only face that I shall ever
+    see." And again he drew her to him.</p>
+
+    <p>She sprang from him. "You are defying her, Allan!" she
+    cried. "And you must not. It is her right to keep us apart, if
+    she wishes. It must be as she insists. I shall go, as I told
+    you. And, Allan, I beg of you, leave me the courage to do as
+    she demands!"</p>
+
+    <p>They stood facing each other in the deep dusk, and the
+    wounds that I had dealt them gaped red and accusing. "We must
+    pity her," Theresa had said. And as I remembered that
+    extraordinary speech, and saw the agony in her face, and the
+    greater agony in Allan's, there came the great irreparable
+    cleavage between mortality and me. In a swift, merciful flame
+    the last of my mortal emotions&mdash;gross and tenacious they
+    must have been&mdash;was consumed. My cold grasp of Allan
+    loosened and a new unearthly love of him bloomed in my
+    heart.</p>
+
+    <p>I was now, however, in a difficulty with which my experience
+    in the newer state was scarcely sufficient to deal. How could I
+    make it plain to Allan and Theresa that I wished to bring them
+    together, to heal the wounds that I had made?</p>
+
+    <p>Pityingly, remorsefully, I lingered near them all that night
+    and the next day. And by that time had brought myself to the
+    point of a great determination. In the little time that was
+    left, before Theresa should be gone and Allan bereft and
+    desolate, I saw the one way that lay open to me to convince
+    them of my acquiescence in their destiny.</p>
+
+    <p>In the deepest darkness and silence of the next night I made
+    a greater effort than it will ever be necessary for me to make
+    again. When they think of me, Allan and Theresa, I pray now
+    that they will recall what I did that night, and that my
+    thousand frustrations and selfishnesses may shrivel and be
+    blown from their indulgent memories.</p>
+
+    <p>Yet the following morning, as she had planned, Theresa
+    appeared at breakfast dressed for her journey. Above in her
+    room there were the sounds of departure. They spoke little
+    during the brief meal, but when it was ended Allan said:</p>
+
+    <p>"Theresa, there is half an hour before you go. Will you come
+    upstairs with me? I had a dream that I must tell you of."</p>
+
+    <p>"Allan!" She looked at him, frightened, but went with him.
+    "It was of Frances you dreamed," she said, quietly, as they
+    entered the library together.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did I say it was a dream? But I was awake&mdash;thoroughly
+    awake. I had not been sleeping well, and I heard, twice, the
+    striking of the clock. And as I lay there, looking out at the
+    stars, and thinking&mdash;thinking of you, Theresa,&mdash;she
+    came to me, stood there before me, in my room. It was no
+    sheeted specter, you understand; it was Frances, literally she.
+    In some inexplicable fashion I seemed to be aware that she
+    wanted to make me know something, and I waited, watching her
+    face. After a few moments it came. She did not speak,
+    precisely. That is, I am sure I heard no sound. Yet the words
+    that came from her were definite enough. She said: 'Don't let
+    Theresa leave you. Take her and keep her.' Then she went away.
+    Was that a dream?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I had not meant to tell you," Theresa eagerly answered,
+    "but now I must. It is too wonderful. What time did your clock
+    strike, Allan?"</p>
+
+    <p>"One, the last time."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes; it was then that I awoke. And she had been with me. I
+    had not seen her, but her arm had been about me and her kiss
+    was on my cheek. Oh. I knew; it was unmistakable. And the sound
+    of her voice was with me."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then she bade you, too&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, to stay with you. I am glad we told each other." She
+    smiled tearfully and began to fasten her wrap.</p>
+
+    <p>"But you are not going&mdash;<em>now!</em>" Allan cried.
+    "You know that you cannot, now that she has asked you to
+    stay."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then you believe, as I do, that it was she?" Theresa
+    demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>"I can never understand, but I know," he answered her. "And
+    now you will not go?"</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>I am freed. There will be no further semblance of me in my
+    old home, no sound of my voice, no dimmest echo of my earthly
+    self. They have no further need of me, the two that I have
+    brought together. Theirs is the fullest joy that the dwellers
+    in the shell of sense can know. Mine is the transcendent joy of
+    the unseen spaces.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Woman"
+       id="Woman"></a>The Woman at Seven Brothers</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By WILBUR DANIEL STEELE</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>Land's End</em>, by Wilbur Daniel Steele.
+        Copyright, 1908, by Harper and Brothers. By permission of
+        the publishers and Wilbur Daniel Steele.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>I tell you sir, I was innocent. I didn't know any more about
+    the world at twenty-two than some do at twelve. My uncle and
+    aunt in Duxbury brought me up strict; I studied hard in high
+    school, I worked hard after hours, and I went to church twice
+    on Sundays, and I can't see it's right to put me in a place
+    like this, with crazy people. Oh yes, I know they're
+    crazy&mdash;you can't tell <em>me.</em> As for what they said
+    in court about finding her with her husband, that's the
+    Inspector's lie, sir, because he's down on me, and wants to
+    make it look like my fault.</p>
+
+    <p>No, sir, I can't say as I thought she was handsome&mdash;not
+    at first. For one thing, her lips were too thin and white, and
+    her color was bad. I'll tell you a fact, sir; that first day I
+    came off to the Light I was sitting on my cot in the store-room
+    (that's where the assistant keeper sleeps at the Seven
+    Brothers), as lonesome as I could be, away from home for the
+    first time, and the water all around me, and, even though it
+    was a calm day, pounding enough on the ledge to send a kind of
+    a <em>woom-woom-woom</em> whining up through all that solid
+    rock of the tower. And when old Fedderson poked his head down
+    from the living-room with the sunshine above making a kind of
+    bright frame around his hair and whiskers, to give me a cheery,
+    "Make yourself to home, son!" I remember I said to myself:
+    "<em>He's</em> all right. I'll get along with <em>him</em>. But
+    his wife's enough to sour milk." That was queer, because she
+    was so much under him in age&mdash;'long about twenty-eight or
+    so, and him nearer fifty. But that's what I said, sir.</p>
+
+    <p>Of course that feeling wore off, same as any feeling will
+    wear off sooner or later in a place like the Seven Brothers.
+    Cooped up in a place like that you come to know folks so well
+    that you forget what they <em>do</em> look like. There was a
+    long time I never noticed her, any more than you'd notice the
+    cat. We used to sit of an evening around the table, as if you
+    were Fedderson there, and me here, and her somewhere back
+    there, in the rocker, knitting. Fedderson would be working on
+    his Jacob's-ladder, and I'd be reading. He'd been working on
+    that Jacob's-ladder a year, I guess, and every time the
+    Inspector came off with the tender he was so astonished to see
+    how good that ladder was that the old man would go to work and
+    make it better. That's all he lived for.</p>
+
+    <p>If I was reading, as I say, I daren't take my eyes off the
+    book, or Fedderson had me. And then he'd begin&mdash;what the
+    Inspector said about him. How surprised the member of the board
+    had been, that time, to see everything so clean about the
+    light. What the Inspector had said about Fedderson's being
+    stuck here in a second-class light&mdash;best keeper on the
+    coast. And so on and so on, till either he or I had to go aloft
+    and have a look at the wicks.</p>
+
+    <p>He'd been there twenty-three years, all told, and he'd got
+    used to the feeling that he was kept down unfair&mdash;so used
+    to it, I guess, that he fed on it, and told himself how folks
+    ashore would talk when he was dead and gone&mdash;best keeper
+    on the coast&mdash;kept down unfair. Not that he said that to
+    me. No, he was far too loyal and humble and respectful, doing
+    his duty without complaint, as anybody could see.</p>
+
+    <p>And all that time, night after night, hardly ever a word out
+    of the woman. As I remember it, she seemed more like a piece of
+    furniture than anything else&mdash;not even a very good cook,
+    nor over and above tidy. One day, when he and I were trimming
+    the lamp, he passed the remark that his <em>first</em> wife
+    used to dust the lens and take a pride in it. Not that he said
+    a word against Anna, though. He never said a word against any
+    living mortal; he was too upright.</p>
+
+    <p>I don't know how it came about; or, rather, I <em>do</em>
+    know, but it was so sudden, and so far away from my thoughts,
+    that it shocked me, like the world turned over. It was at
+    prayers. That night I remember Fedderson was uncommon
+    long-winded. We'd had a batch of newspapers out by the tender,
+    and at such times the old man always made a long watch of it,
+    getting the world straightened out. For one thing, the United
+    States minister to Turkey was dead. Well, from him and his
+    soul, Fedderson got on to Turkey and the Presbyterian college
+    there, and from that to heathen in general. He rambled on and
+    on, like the surf on the ledge, <em>woom-woom-woom</em>, never
+    coming to an end.</p>
+
+    <p>You know how you'll be at prayers sometimes. My mind
+    strayed. I counted the canes in the chair-seat where I was
+    kneeling; I plaited a corner of the table-cloth between my
+    fingers for a spell, and by and by my eyes went wandering up
+    the back of the chair.</p>
+
+    <p>The woman, sir, was looking at me. Her chair was back to
+    mine, close, and both our heads were down in the shadow under
+    the edge of the table, with Fedderson clear over on the other
+    side by the stove. And there were her two eyes hunting mine
+    between the spindles in the shadow. You won't believe me, sir,
+    but I tell you I felt like jumping to my feet and running out
+    of the room&mdash;it was so queer.</p>
+
+    <p>I don't know what her husband was praying about after that.
+    His voice didn't mean anything, no more than the seas on the
+    ledge away down there. I went to work to count the canes in the
+    seat again, but all my eyes were in the top of my head. It got
+    so I couldn't stand it. We were at the Lord's prayer, saying it
+    singsong together, when I had to look up again. And there her
+    two eyes were, between the spindles, hunting mine. Just then
+    all of us were saying, "Forgive us our trespasses&mdash;" I
+    thought of it afterward.</p>
+
+    <p>When we got up she was turned the other way, but I couldn't
+    help seeing her cheeks were red. It was terrible. I wondered if
+    Fedderson would notice, though I might have known he
+    wouldn't&mdash;not him. He was in too much of a hurry to get at
+    his Jacob's-ladder, and then he had to tell me for the tenth
+    time what the Inspector'd said that day about getting him
+    another light&mdash;Kingdom Come, maybe, he said.</p>
+
+    <p>I made some excuse or other and got away. Once in the
+    store-room, I sat down on my cot and stayed there a long time,
+    feeling queerer than anything. I read a chapter in the Bible, I
+    don't know why. After I'd got my boots off I sat with them in
+    my hands for as much as an hour, I guess, staring at the
+    oil-tank and its lopsided shadow on the wall. I tell you, sir,
+    I was shocked. I was only twenty-two remember, and I was
+    shocked and horrified.</p>
+
+    <p>And when I did turn in, finally, I didn't sleep at all well.
+    Two or three times I came to, sitting straight up in bed. Once
+    I got up and opened the outer door to have a look. The water
+    was like glass, dim, without a breath of wind, and the moon
+    just going down. Over on the black shore I made out two lights
+    in a village, like a pair of eyes watching. Lonely? My, yes!
+    Lonely and nervous. I had a horror of her, sir. The dinghy-boat
+    hung on its davits just there in front of the door, and for a
+    minute I had an awful hankering to climb into it, lower away,
+    and row off, no matter where. It sounds foolish.</p>
+
+    <p>Well, it seemed foolish next morning, with the sun shining
+    and everything as usual&mdash;Fedderson sucking his pen and
+    wagging his head over his eternal "log," and his wife down in
+    the rocker with her head in the newspaper, and her breakfast
+    work still waiting. I guess that jarred it out of me more than
+    anything else&mdash;sight of her slouched down there, with her
+    stringy, yellow hair and her dusty apron and the pale back of
+    her neck, reading the Society Notes. <em>Society Notes</em>!
+    Think of it! For the first time since I came to Seven Brothers
+    I wanted to laugh.</p>
+
+    <p>I guess I did laugh when I went aloft to clean the lamp and
+    found everything so free and breezy, gulls flying high and
+    little whitecaps making under a westerly. It was like feeling a
+    big load dropped off your shoulders. Fedderson came up with his
+    dust-rag and cocked his head at me.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter, Ray?" said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing," said I. And then I couldn't help it. "Seems kind
+    of out of place for society notes," said I, "out here at Seven
+    Brothers."</p>
+
+    <p>He was the other side of the lens, and when he looked at me
+    he had a thousand eyes, all sober. For a minute I thought he
+    was going on dusting, but then he came out and sat down on a
+    sill.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sometimes," said he, "I get to thinking it may be a mite
+    dull for her out here. She's pretty young, Ray. Not much more'n
+    a girl, hardly."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not much more'n a <em>girl!</em>" It gave me a turn, sir,
+    as though I'd seen my aunt in short dresses.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a good home for her, though," he went on slow. "I've
+    seen a lot worse ashore, Ray. Of course if I could get a shore
+    light&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Kingdom Come's a shore light."</p>
+
+    <p>He looked at me out of his deep-set eyes, and then he turned
+    them around the light-room, where he'd been so long.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said he, wagging his head. "It ain't for such as
+    me."</p>
+
+    <p>I never saw so humble a man.</p>
+
+    <p>"But look here," he went on, more cheerful. "As I was
+    telling her just now, a month from yesterday's our fourth
+    anniversary, and I'm going to take her ashore for the day and
+    give her a holiday&mdash;new hat and everything. A girl wants a
+    mite of excitement now and then, Ray."</p>
+
+    <p>There it was again, that "girl." It gave me the fidgets,
+    sir. I had to do something about it. It's close quarters for
+    last names in a light, and I'd taken to calling him Uncle Matt
+    soon after I came. Now, when I was at table that noon I spoke
+    over to where she was standing by the stove, getting him
+    another help of chowder.</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess I'll have some, too, <em>Aunt</em> Anna," said I,
+    matter of fact.</p>
+
+    <p>She never said a word nor gave a sign&mdash;just stood there
+    kind of round-shouldered, dipping the chowder. And that night
+    at prayers I hitched my chair around the table, with its back
+    the other way.</p>
+
+    <p>You get awful lazy in a lighthouse, some ways. No matter how
+    much tinkering you've got, there's still a lot of time and
+    there's such a thing as too much reading. The changes in
+    weather get monotonous, too, by and by; the light burns the
+    same on a thick night as it does on a fair one. Of course
+    there's the ships, north-bound, south-bound&mdash;wind-jammers,
+    freighters, passenger-boats full of people. In the watches at
+    night you can see their lights go by, and wonder what they are,
+    how they're laden, where they'll fetch up, and all. I used to
+    do that almost every evening when it was my first watch,
+    sitting out on the walk-around up there with my legs hanging
+    over the edge and my chin propped on the railing&mdash;lazy.
+    The Boston boat was the prettiest to see, with her three tiers
+    of port-holes lit, like a string of pearls wrapped round and
+    round a woman's neck&mdash;well away, too, for the ledge must
+    have made a couple of hundred fathoms off the Light, like a
+    white dog-tooth of a breaker, even on the darkest night.</p>
+
+    <p>Well, I was lolling there one night, as I say, watching the
+    Boston boat go by, not thinking of anything special, when I
+    heard the door on the other side of the tower open and
+    footsteps coming around to me.</p>
+
+    <p>By and by I nodded toward the boat and passed the remark
+    that she was fetching in uncommon close to-night. No answer. I
+    made nothing of that, for oftentimes Fedderson wouldn't answer,
+    and after I'd watched the lights crawling on through the dark a
+    spell, just to make conversation I said I guessed there'd be a
+    bit of weather before long.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've noticed," said I, "when there's weather coming on, and
+    the wind in the northeast, you can hear the orchestra playing
+    aboard of her just over there. I make it out now. Do you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes. Oh&mdash;yes&mdash;! <em>I hear it all
+    right!</em>"</p>
+
+    <p>You can imagine I started. It wasn't him, but <em>her</em>.
+    And there was something in the way she said that speech,
+    sir&mdash;something&mdash;well&mdash;unnatural. Like a hungry
+    animal snapping at a person's hand.</p>
+
+    <p>I turned and looked at her sidewise. She was standing by the
+    railing, leaning a little outward, the top of her from the
+    waist picked out bright by the lens behind her. I didn't know
+    what in the world to say, and yet I had a feeling I ought not
+    to sit there mum.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wonder," said I, "what that captain's thinking of,
+    fetching in so handy to-night. It's no way. I tell you, if
+    'twasn't for this light, she'd go to work and pile up on the
+    ledge some thick night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>She turned at that and stared straight into the lens. I
+    didn't like the look of her face. Somehow, with its edges cut
+    hard all around and its two eyes closed down to slits, like a
+    cat's, it made a kind of mask.</p>
+
+    <p>"And then," I went on, uneasy enough&mdash;"and then where'd
+    all their music be of a sudden, and their goings-on and their
+    singing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"And dancing!" She clipped me off so quick it took my
+    breath.</p>
+
+    <p>"D-d-dancing?" said I.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's dance-music," said she. She was looking at the boat
+    again.</p>
+
+    <p>"How do you know?" I felt I had to keep on talking.</p>
+
+    <p>Well, sir&mdash;she laughed. I looked at her. She had on a
+    shawl of some stuff or other that shined in the light; she had
+    it pulled tight around her with her two hands in front at her
+    breast, and I saw her shoulders swaying in tune.</p>
+
+    <p>"How do I <em>know</em>?" she cried. Then she laughed again,
+    the same kind of a laugh. It was queer, sir, to see her, and to
+    hear her. She turned, as quick as that, and leaned toward me.
+    "Don't you know how to dance, Ray?" said she.</p>
+
+    <p>"N-no," I managed, and I was going to say "<em>Aunt
+    Anna</em>," but the thing choked in my throat.</p>
+
+    <p>I tell you she was looking square at me all the time with
+    her two eyes and moving with the music as if she didn't know
+    it. By heavens, sir, it came over me of a sudden that she
+    wasn't so bad-looking, after all. I guess I must have sounded
+    like a fool.</p>
+
+    <p>"You&mdash;you see," said I, "she's cleared the rip there
+    now, and the music's gone. You&mdash;you hear?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said she, turning back slow. "That's where it stops
+    every night&mdash;night after night&mdash;it stops just
+    there&mdash;at the rip."</p>
+
+    <p>When she spoke again her voice was different. I never heard
+    the like of it, thin and taut as a thread. It made me shiver,
+    sir.</p>
+
+    <p>"I hate 'em!" That's what she said. "I hate 'em all. I'd
+    like to see 'em dead. I'd love to see 'em torn apart on the
+    rocks, night after night. I could bathe my hands in their
+    blood, night after night."</p>
+
+    <p>And do you know, sir, I saw it with my own eyes, her hands
+    moving in each other above the rail. But it was her voice,
+    though. I didn't know what to do, or what to say, so I poked my
+    head through the railing and looked down at the water. I don't
+    think I'm a coward, sir, but it was like a
+    cold&mdash;ice-cold&mdash;hand, taking hold of my beating
+    heart.</p>
+
+    <p>When I looked up finally, she was gone. By and by I went in
+    and had a look at the lamp, hardly knowing what I was about.
+    Then, seeing by my watch it was time for the old man to come on
+    duty, I started to go below. In the Seven Brothers, you
+    understand, the stair goes down in a spiral through a well
+    against the south wall and first there's the door to the
+    keeper's room and then you come to another, and that's the
+    living-room, and then down to the store-room. And at night, if
+    you don't carry a lantern, it's as black as the pit.</p>
+
+    <p>Well, down I went, sliding my hand along the rail, and as
+    usual I stopped to give a rap on the keeper's door, in case he
+    was taking a nap after supper. Sometimes he did.</p>
+
+    <p>I stood there, blind as a bat, with my mind still up on the
+    walk-around. There was no answer to my knock. I hadn't expected
+    any. Just from habit, and with my right foot already hanging
+    down for the next step, I reached out to give the door one more
+    tap for luck.</p>
+
+    <p>Do you know, sir, my hand didn't fetch up on anything. The
+    door had been there a second before, and now the door wasn't
+    there. My hand just went on going through the dark, on and on,
+    and I didn't seem to have sense or power enough to stop it.
+    There didn't seem any air in the well to breathe, and my ears
+    were drumming to the surf&mdash;that's how scared I was. And
+    then my hand touched the flesh of a face, and something in the
+    dark said, "Oh!" no louder than a sigh.</p>
+
+    <p>Next thing I knew, sir, I was down in the living-room, warm
+    and yellow-lit, with Fedderson cocking his head at me across
+    the table, where he was at that eternal Jacob's-ladder of
+    his.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter, Ray?" said he. "Lord's sake, Ray!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing," said I. Then I think I told him I was sick. That
+    night I wrote a letter to A.L. Peters, the grain-dealer in
+    Duxbury, asking for a job&mdash;even though it wouldn't go
+    ashore for a couple of weeks, just the writing of it made me
+    feel better.</p>
+
+    <p>It's hard to tell you how those two weeks went by. I don't
+    know why, but I felt like hiding in a corner all the time. I
+    had to come to meals, but I didn't look at her, though, not
+    once, unless it was by accident. Fedderson thought I was still
+    ailing and nagged me to death with advice and so on. One thing
+    I took care not to do, I can tell you, and that was to knock on
+    his door till I'd made certain he wasn't below in the
+    living-room&mdash;though I was tempted to.</p>
+
+    <p>Yes, sir; that's a queer thing, and I wouldn't tell you if I
+    hadn't set out to give you the truth. Night after night,
+    stopping there on the landing in that black pit, the air gone
+    out of my lungs and the surf drumming in my ears and sweat
+    standing cold on my neck&mdash;and one hand lifting up in the
+    air&mdash;God forgive me, sir! Maybe I did wrong not to look at
+    her more, drooping about her work in her gingham apron, with
+    her hair stringing.</p>
+
+    <p>When the Inspector came off with the tender, that time, I
+    told him I was through. That's when he took the dislike to me,
+    I guess, for he looked at me kind of sneering and said, soft as
+    I was, I'd have to put up with it till next relief. And then,
+    said he, there'd be a whole house-cleaning at Seven Brothers,
+    because he'd gotten Fedderson the berth at Kingdom Come. And
+    with that he slapped the old man on the back.</p>
+
+    <p>I wish you could have seen Fedderson, sir. He sat down on my
+    cot as if his knees had given 'way. Happy? You'd think he'd be
+    happy, with all his dreams come true. Yes, he was happy,
+    beaming all over&mdash;for a minute. Then, sir, he began to
+    shrivel up. It was like seeing a man cut down in his prime
+    before your eyes. He began to wag his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said he. "No, no; it's not for such as me. I'm good
+    enough for Seven Brothers, and that's all, Mr. Bayliss. That's
+    all."</p>
+
+    <p>And for all the Inspector could say, that's what he stuck
+    to. He'd figured himself a martyr so many years, nursed that
+    injustice like a mother with her first-born, sir; and now in
+    his old age, so to speak, they weren't to rob him of it.
+    Fedderson was going to wear out his life in a second-class
+    light, and folks would talk&mdash;that was his idea. I heard
+    him hailing down as the tender was casting off:</p>
+
+    <p>"See you to-morrow, Mr. Bayliss. Yep. Coming ashore with the
+    wife for a spree. Anniversary. Yep."</p>
+
+    <p>But he didn't sound much like a spree. They <em>had</em>,
+    robbed him, partly, after all. I wondered what <em>she</em>
+    thought about it. I didn't know till night. She didn't show up
+    to supper, which Fedderson and I got ourselves&mdash;had a
+    headache, be said. It was my early watch. I went and lit up and
+    came back to read a spell. He was finishing off the
+    Jacob's-ladder, and thoughtful, like a man that's lost a
+    treasure. Once or twice I caught him looking about the room on
+    the sly. It was pathetic, sir.</p>
+
+    <p>Going up the second time, I stepped out on the walk-around
+    to have a look at things. She was there on the seaward side,
+    wrapped in that silky thing. A fair sea was running across the
+    ledge and it was coming on a little thick&mdash;not too thick.
+    Off to the right the Boston boat was blowing,
+    <em>whroom-whroom!</em> Creeping up on us, quarter-speed. There
+    was another fellow behind her, and a fisherman's conch farther
+    offshore.</p>
+
+    <p>I don't know why, but I stopped beside her and leaned on the
+    rail. She didn't appear to notice me, one way or another. We
+    stood and we stood, listening to the whistles, and the longer
+    we stood the more it got on my nerves, her not noticing me. I
+    suppose she'd been too much on my mind lately. I began to be
+    put out. I scraped my feet. I coughed. By and by I said out
+    loud:</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, I guess I better get out the fog-horn and give
+    those fellows a toot."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why?" said she, without moving her head&mdash;calm as
+    that.</p>
+
+    <p>"<em>Why?</em>" It gave me a turn, sir. For a minute I
+    stared at her. "Why? Because if she don't pick up this light
+    before very many minutes she'll be too close in to
+    wear&mdash;tide'll have her on the rocks&mdash;that's why!"</p>
+
+    <p>I couldn't see her face, but I could see one of her silk
+    shoulders lift a little, like a shrug. And there I kept on
+    staring at her, a dumb one, sure enough. I know what brought me
+    to was hearing the Boston boat's three sharp toots as she
+    picked up the light&mdash;mad as anything&mdash;and swung her
+    helm a-port. I turned away from her, sweat stringing down my
+    face, and walked around to the door. It was just as well, too,
+    for the feed-pipe was plugged in the lamp and the wicks were
+    popping. She'd have been out in another five minutes, sir.</p>
+
+    <p>When I'd finished, I saw that woman standing in the doorway.
+    Her eyes were bright. I had a horror of her, sir, a living
+    horror.</p>
+
+    <p>"If only the light had been out," said she, low and
+    sweet.</p>
+
+    <p>"God forgive you," said I. "You don't know what you're
+    saying."</p>
+
+    <p>She went down the stair into the well, winding out of sight,
+    and as long as I could see her, her eyes were watching mine.
+    When I went, myself, after a few minutes, she was waiting for
+    me on that first landing, standing still in the dark. She took
+    hold of my hand, though I tried to get it away.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good-by," said she in my ear.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good-by?" said I. I didn't understand.</p>
+
+    <p>"You heard what he said to-day&mdash;about Kingdom Come? Be
+    it so&mdash;on his own head. I'll never come back here. Once I
+    set foot ashore&mdash;I've got friends in Brightonboro,
+    Ray."</p>
+
+    <p>I got away from her and started on down. But I stopped.
+    "Brightonboro?" I whispered back. "Why do you tell
+    <em>me</em>?" My throat was raw to the words, like a sore.</p>
+
+    <p>"So you'd know," said she.</p>
+
+    <p>Well, sir, I saw them off next morning, down that new
+    Jacob's-ladder into the dinghy-boat, her in a dress of blue
+    velvet and him in his best cutaway and derby&mdash;rowing away,
+    smaller and smaller, the two of them. And then I went back and
+    sat on my cot, leaving the door open and the ladder still
+    hanging down the wall, along with the boat-falls.</p>
+
+    <p>I don't know whether it was relief, or what. I suppose I
+    must have been worked up even more than I'd thought those past
+    weeks, for now it was all over I was like a rag. I got down on
+    my knees, sir, and prayed to God for the salvation of my soul,
+    and when I got up and climbed to the living-room it was half
+    past twelve by the clock. There was rain on the windows and the
+    sea was running blue-black under the sun. I'd sat there all
+    that time not knowing there was a squall.</p>
+
+    <p>It was funny; the glass stood high, but those black squalls
+    kept coming and going all afternoon, while I was at work up in
+    the light-room. And I worked hard, to keep myself busy. First
+    thing I knew it was five, and no sign of the boat yet. It began
+    to get dim and kind of purplish-gray over the land. The sun was
+    down. I lit up, made everything snug, and got out the
+    night-glasses to have another look for that boat. He'd said he
+    intended to get back before five. No sign. And then, standing
+    there, it came over me that of course he wouldn't be coming
+    off&mdash;he'd be hunting <em>her</em>, poor old fool. It
+    looked like I had to stand two men's watches that night.</p>
+
+    <p>Never mind. I felt like myself again, even if I hadn't had
+    any dinner or supper. Pride came to me that night on the
+    walk-around, watching the boats go by&mdash;little boats, big
+    boats, the Boston boat with all her pearls and her dance-music.
+    They couldn't see me; they didn't know who I was; but to the
+    last of them, they depended on <em>me</em>. They say a man must
+    be born again. Well, I was born again. I breathed deep in the
+    wind.</p>
+
+    <p>Dawn broke hard and red as a dying coal. I put out the light
+    and started to go below. Born again; yes, sir. I felt so good I
+    whistled in the well, and when I came to the first door on the
+    stair I reached out in the dark to give it a rap for luck. And
+    then, sir, the hair prickled all over my scalp, when I found my
+    hand just going on and on through the air, the same as it had
+    gone once before, and all of a sudden I wanted to yell, because
+    I thought I was going to touch flesh. It's funny what their
+    just forgetting to close their door did to me, isn't it?</p>
+
+    <p>Well, I reached for the latch and pulled it to with a bang
+    and ran down as if a ghost was after me. I got up some coffee
+    and bread and bacon for breakfast. I drank the coffee. But
+    somehow I couldn't eat, all along of that open door. The light
+    in the room was blood. I got to thinking. I thought how she'd
+    talked about those men, women, and children on the rocks, and
+    how she'd made to bathe her hands over the rail. I almost
+    jumped out of my chair then; it seemed for a wink she was there
+    beside the stove watching me with that queer
+    half-smile&mdash;really, I seemed to see her for a flash across
+    the red table-cloth in the red light of dawn.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here!" said I to myself, sharp enough; and then I gave
+    myself a good laugh and went below. There I took a look out of
+    the door, which was still open, with the ladder hanging down. I
+    made sure to see the poor old fool come pulling around the
+    point before very long now.</p>
+
+    <p>My boots were hurting a little, and, taking them off, I lay
+    down on the cot to rest, and somehow I went to sleep. I had
+    horrible dreams. I saw her again standing in that blood-red
+    kitchen, and she seemed to be washing her hands, and the surf
+    on the ledge was whining up the tower, louder and louder all
+    the time, and what it whined was, "Night after
+    night&mdash;night after night." What woke me was cold water in
+    my face.</p>
+
+    <p>The store-room was in gloom. That scared me at first; I
+    thought night had come, and remembered the light. But then I
+    saw the gloom was of a storm. The floor was shining wet, and
+    the water in my face was spray, flung up through the open door.
+    When I ran to close it, it almost made me dizzy to see the
+    gray-and-white breakers marching past. The land was gone; the
+    sky shut down heavy overhead; there was a piece of wreckage on
+    the back of a swell, and the Jacob's-ladder was carried clean
+    away. How that sea had picked up so quick I can't think. I
+    looked at my watch and it wasn't four in the afternoon yet.</p>
+
+    <p>When I closed the door, sir, it was almost dark in the
+    store-room. I'd never been in the Light before in a gale of
+    wind. I wondered why I was shivering so, till I found it was
+    the floor below me shivering, and the walls and stair. Horrible
+    crunchings and grindings ran away up the tower, and now and
+    then there was a great thud somewhere, like a cannon-shot in a
+    cave. I tell you, sir, I was alone, and I was in a mortal
+    fright for a minute or so. And yet I had to get myself
+    together. There was the light up there not tended to, and an
+    early dark coming on and a heavy night and all, and I had to
+    go. And I had to pass that door.</p>
+
+    <p>You'll say it's foolish, sir, and maybe it <em>was</em>
+    foolish. Maybe it was because I hadn't eaten. But I began
+    thinking of that door up there the minute I set foot on the
+    stair, and all the way up through that howling dark well I
+    dreaded to pass it. I told myself I wouldn't stop. I didn't
+    stop. I felt the landing underfoot and I went on, four steps,
+    five&mdash;and then I couldn't. I turned and went back. I put
+    out my hand and it went on into nothing. That door, sir, was
+    open again.</p>
+
+    <p>I left it be; I went on up to the light-room and set to
+    work. It was Bedlam there, sir, screeching Bedlam, but I took
+    no notice. I kept my eyes down. I trimmed those seven wicks,
+    sir, as neat as ever they were trimmed; I polished the brass
+    till it shone, and I dusted the lens. It wasn't till that was
+    done that I let myself look back to see who it was standing
+    there, half out of sight in the well. It was her, sir.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where'd you come from?" I asked. I remember my voice was
+    sharp.</p>
+
+    <p>"Up Jacob's-ladder," said she, and hers was like the syrup
+    of flowers.</p>
+
+    <p>I shook my head. I was savage, sir. "The ladder's carried
+    away."</p>
+
+    <p>"I cast it off," said she, with a smile.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then," said I, "you must have come while I was asleep."
+    Another thought came on me heavy as a ton of lead. "And where's
+    <em>he</em>?" said I. "Where's the boat?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He's drowned," said she, as easy as that. "And I let the
+    boat go adrift. You wouldn't hear me when I called."</p>
+
+    <p>"But look here," said I. "If you came through the
+    store-room, why didn't you wake me up? Tell me that!" It sounds
+    foolish enough, me standing like a lawyer in court, trying to
+    prove she <em>couldn't</em> be there.</p>
+
+    <p>She didn't answer for a moment. I guess she sighed, though I
+    couldn't hear for the gale, and her eyes grew soft, sir, so
+    soft.</p>
+
+    <p>"I couldn't," said she. "You looked so peaceful&mdash;dear
+    one."</p>
+
+    <p>My cheeks and neck went hot, sir, as if a warm iron was laid
+    on them. I didn't know what to say. I began to stammer, "What
+    do you mean&mdash;" but she was going back down the stair, out
+    of sight. My God sir, and I used not to think she was
+    good-looking!</p>
+
+    <p>I started to follow her. I wanted to know what she meant.
+    Then I said to myself, "If I don't go&mdash;if I wait
+    here&mdash;she'll come back." And I went to the weather side
+    and stood looking out of the window. Not that there was much to
+    see. It was growing dark, and the Seven Brothers looked like
+    the mane of a running horse, a great, vast, white horse running
+    into the wind. The air was a-welter with it. I caught one peep
+    of a fisherman, lying down flat trying to weather the ledge,
+    and I said, "God help them all to-night," and then I went hot
+    at sound of that "God."</p>
+
+    <p>I was right about her, though. She was back again. I wanted
+    her to speak first, before I turned, but she wouldn't. I didn't
+    hear her go out; I didn't know what she was up to till I saw
+    her coming outside on the walk-around, drenched wet already. I
+    pounded on the glass for her to come in and not be a fool; if
+    she heard she gave no sign of it.</p>
+
+    <p>There she stood, and there I stood watching her. Lord,
+    sir&mdash;was it just that I'd never had eyes to see? Or are
+    there women who bloom? Her clothes were shining on her, like a
+    carving, and her hair was let down like a golden curtain
+    tossing and streaming in the gale, and there she stood with her
+    lips half open, drinking, and her eyes half closed, gazing
+    straight away over the Seven Brothers, and her shoulders
+    swaying, as if in tune with the wind and water and all the
+    ruin. And when I looked at her hands over the rail, sir, they
+    were moving in each other as if they bathed, and then I
+    remembered, sir.</p>
+
+    <p>A cold horror took me. I knew now why she had come back
+    again. She wasn't a woman&mdash;she was a devil. I turned my
+    back on her. I said to myself: "It's time to light up. You've
+    got to light up"&mdash;like that, over and over, out loud. My
+    hand was shivering so I could hardly find a match; and when I
+    scratched it, it only flared a second and then went out in the
+    back draught from the open door. She was standing in the
+    doorway, looking at me. It's queer, sir, but I felt like a
+    child caught in mischief.</p>
+
+    <p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;was going to light up," I managed to say,
+    finally.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why?" said she. No, I can't say it as she did.</p>
+
+    <p>"<em>Why?</em>" said I. "<em>My God!</em>"</p>
+
+    <p>She came nearer, laughing, as if with pity, low, you know.
+    "Your God? And who is your God? What is God? What is anything
+    on a night like this?"</p>
+
+    <p>I drew back from her. All I could say anything about was the
+    light.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why not the dark?" said she. "Dark is softer than
+    light&mdash;tenderer&mdash;dearer than light. From the dark up
+    here, away up here in the wind and storm, we can watch the
+    ships go by, you and I. And you love me so. You've loved me so
+    long, Ray."</p>
+
+    <p>"I never have!" I struck out at her. "I don't! I don't!"</p>
+
+    <p>Her voice was lower than ever, but there was the same
+    laughing pity in it. "Oh yes, you have." And she was near me
+    again.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have?" I yelled. "I'll show you! I'll show you if I
+    have!"</p>
+
+    <p>I got another match, sir, and scratched it on the brass. I
+    gave it to the first wick, the little wick that's inside all
+    the others. It bloomed like a yellow flower. "I <em>have</em>?"
+    I yelled, and gave it to the next.</p>
+
+    <p>Then there was a shadow, and I saw she was leaning beside
+    me, her two elbows on the brass, her two arms stretched out
+    above the wicks, her bare forearms and wrists and hands. I gave
+    a gasp:</p>
+
+    <p>"Take care! You'll burn them! For God's
+    sake&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>She didn't move or speak. The match burned my fingers and
+    went out, and all I could do was stare at those arms of hers,
+    helpless. I'd never noticed her arms before. They were rounded
+    and graceful and covered with a soft down, like a breath of
+    gold. Then I heard her speaking close to my ear.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty arms," she said. "Pretty arms!"</p>
+
+    <p>I turned. Her eyes were fixed on mine. They seemed heavy, as
+    if with sleep, and yet between their lids they were two wells,
+    deep and deep, and as if they held all the things I'd ever
+    thought or dreamed in them. I looked away from them, at her
+    lips. Her lips were red as poppies, heavy with redness. They
+    moved, and I heard them speaking:</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor boy, you love me so, and you want to kiss
+    me&mdash;don't you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said I. But I couldn't turn around. I looked at her
+    hair. I'd always thought it was stringy hair. Some hair curls
+    naturally with damp, they say, and perhaps that was it, for
+    there were pearls of wet on it, and it was thick and shimmering
+    around her face, making soft shadows by the temples. There was
+    green in it, queer strands of green like braids.</p>
+
+    <p>"What is it?" said I.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing but weed," said she, with that slow, sleepy
+    smile.</p>
+
+    <p>Somehow or other I felt calmer than I had any time. "Look
+    here," said I. "I'm going to light this lamp." I took out a
+    match, scratched it, and touched the third wick. The flame ran
+    around, bigger than the other two together. But still her arms
+    hung there. I bit my lip. "By God, I will!" said I to myself,
+    and I lit the fourth.</p>
+
+    <p>It was fierce, sir, fierce! And yet those arms never
+    trembled. I had to look around at her. Her eyes were still
+    looking into mine, so deep and deep, and her red lips were
+    still smiling with that queer, sleepy droop; the only thing was
+    that tears were raining down her cheeks&mdash;big, glowing
+    round, jewel tears. It wasn't human, sir. It was like a
+    dream.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty arms," she sighed, and then, as if those words had
+    broken something in her heart, there came a great sob bursting
+    from her lips. To hear it drove me mad. I reached to drag her
+    away, but she was too quick, sir; she cringed from me and
+    slipped out from between my hands. It was like she faded away,
+    sir, and went down in a bundle, nursing her poor arms and
+    mourning over them with those terrible, broken sobs.</p>
+
+    <p>The sound of them took the manhood out of me&mdash;you'd
+    have been the same, sir. I knelt down beside her on the floor
+    and covered my face.</p>
+
+    <p>"Please!" I moaned. "Please! Please!" That's all I could
+    say. I wanted her to forgive me. I reached out a hand, blind,
+    for forgiveness, and I couldn't find her anywhere. I had hurt
+    her so, and she was afraid of me, of <em>me</em>, sir, who
+    loved her so deep it drove me crazy.</p>
+
+    <p>I could see her down the stair, though it was dim and my
+    eyes were filled with tears. I stumbled after her, crying,
+    "Please! Please!" The little wicks I'd lit were blowing in the
+    wind from the door and smoking the glass beside them black. One
+    went out. I pleaded with them, the same as I would plead with a
+    human being. I said I'd be back in a second. I promised. And I
+    went on down the stair, crying like a baby because I'd hurt
+    her, and she was afraid of me&mdash;of <em>me</em>, sir.</p>
+
+    <p>She had gone into her room. The door was closed against me
+    and I could hear her sobbing beyond it, broken-hearted. My
+    heart was broken too. I beat on the door with my palms. I
+    begged her to forgive me. I told her I loved her. And all the
+    answer was that sobbing in the dark.</p>
+
+    <p>And then I lifted the latch and went in, groping, pleading.
+    "Dearest&mdash;please! Because I love you!"</p>
+
+    <p>I heard her speak down near the floor. There wasn't any
+    anger in her voice; nothing but sadness and despair.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said she. "You don't love me, Ray. You never
+    have."</p>
+
+    <p>"I do! I have!"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, no," said she, as if she was tired out.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where are you?" I was groping for her. I thought, and lit a
+    match. She had got to the door and was standing there as if
+    ready to fly. I went toward her, and she made me stop. She took
+    my breath away. "I hurt your arms," said I, in a dream.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said she, hardly moving her lips. She held them out to
+    the match's light for me to look and there was never a scar on
+    them&mdash;not even that soft, golden down was singed, sir.
+    "You can't hurt my body," said she, sad as anything. "Only my
+    heart, Ray; my poor heart."</p>
+
+    <p>I tell you again, she took my breath away. I lit another
+    match. "How can you be so beautiful?" I wondered.</p>
+
+    <p>She answered in riddles&mdash;but oh, the sadness of her,
+    sir.</p>
+
+    <p>"Because," said she, "I've always so wanted to be."</p>
+
+    <p>"How come your eyes so heavy?" said I.</p>
+
+    <p>"Because I've seen so many things I never dreamed of," said
+    she.</p>
+
+    <p>"How come your hair so thick?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's the seaweed makes it thick," said she smiling queer,
+    queer.</p>
+
+    <p>"How come seaweed there?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Out of the bottom of the sea."</p>
+
+    <p>She talked in riddles, but it was like poetry to hear her,
+    or a song.</p>
+
+    <p>"How come your lips so red?" said I.</p>
+
+    <p>"Because they've wanted so long to be kissed."</p>
+
+    <p>Fire was on me, sir. I reached out to catch her, but she was
+    gone, out of the door and down the stair. I followed,
+    stumbling. I must have tripped on the turn, for I remember
+    going through the air and fetching up with a crash, and I
+    didn't know anything for a spell&mdash;how long I can't say.
+    When I came to, she was there, somewhere, bending over me,
+    crooning, "My love&mdash;my love&mdash;" under her breath like,
+    a song.</p>
+
+    <p>But then when I got up, she was not where my arms went; she
+    was down the stair again, just ahead of me. I followed her. I
+    was tottering and dizzy and full of pain. I tried to catch up
+    with her in the dark of the store-room, but she was too quick
+    for me, sir, always a little too quick for me. Oh, she was
+    cruel to me, sir. I kept bumping against things, hurting myself
+    still worse, and it was cold and wet and a horrible noise all
+    the while, sir; and then, sir, I found the door was open, and a
+    sea had parted the hinges.</p>
+
+    <p>I don't know how it all went, sir. I'd tell you if I could,
+    but it's all so blurred&mdash;sometimes it seems more like a
+    dream. I couldn't find her any more; I couldn't hear her; I
+    went all over, everywhere. Once, I remember, I found myself
+    hanging out of that door between the davits, looking down into
+    those big black seas and crying like a baby. It's all riddles
+    and blur. I can't seem to tell you much, sir. It was
+    all&mdash;all&mdash;I don't know.</p>
+
+    <p>I was talking to somebody else&mdash;not her. It was the
+    Inspector. I hardly knew it was the Inspector. His face was as
+    gray as a blanket, and his eyes were bloodshot, and his lips
+    were twisted. His left wrist hung down, awkward. It was broken
+    coming aboard the Light in that sea. Yes, we were in the
+    living-room. Yes, sir, it was daylight&mdash;gray daylight. I
+    tell you, sir, the man looked crazy to me. He was waving his
+    good arm toward the weather windows, and what he was saying,
+    over and over, was this:</p>
+
+    <p>"<em>Look what you done, damn you! Look what you
+    done</em>!"</p>
+
+    <p>And what I was saying was this:</p>
+
+    <p>"<em>I've lost her</em>!"</p>
+
+    <p>I didn't pay any attention to him, nor him to me. By and by
+    he did, though. He stopped his talking all of a sudden, and his
+    eyes looked like the devil's eyes. He put them up close to
+    mine. He grabbed my arm with his good hand, and I cried, I was
+    so weak.</p>
+
+    <p>"Johnson," said he, "is that it? By the living God&mdash;if
+    you got a woman out here, Johnson!"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said I. "I've lost her."</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you mean&mdash;lost her?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It was dark," said I&mdash;and it's funny how my head was
+    clearing up&mdash;"and the door was open&mdash;the store-room
+    door&mdash;and I was after her&mdash;and I guess she stumbled,
+    maybe&mdash;and I lost her."</p>
+
+    <p>"Johnson," said he, "what do you mean? You sound
+    crazy&mdash;downright crazy. Who?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Her," said I. "Fedderson's wife."</p>
+
+    <p>"<em>Who?</em>"</p>
+
+    <p>"Her," said I. And with that he gave my arm another
+    jerk.</p>
+
+    <p>"Listen," said he, like a tiger. "Don't try that on me. It
+    won't do any good&mdash;that kind of lies&mdash;not where
+    <em>you're</em> going to. Fedderson and his wife, too&mdash;the
+    both of 'em's drowned deader 'n a door-nail."</p>
+
+    <p>"I know," said I, nodding my head. I was so calm it made him
+    wild.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're crazy! Crazy as a loon, Johnson!" And he was chewing
+    his lip red. "I know, because it was me that found the old man
+    laying on Back Water Flats yesterday morning&mdash;<em>me!</em>
+    And she'd been with him in the boat, too, because he had a
+    piece of her jacket tore off, tangled in his arm."</p>
+
+    <p>"I know," said I, nodding again, like that.</p>
+
+    <p>"You know <em>what</em>, you <em>crazy, murdering
+    fool</em>?" Those were his words to me, sir.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know," said I, "what I know."</p>
+
+    <p>"And <em>I</em> know," said he, "what <em>I</em> know."</p>
+
+    <p>And there you are, sir. He's Inspector.
+    I'm&mdash;nobody.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Gate"
+       id="Gate"></a>At the Gate</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By MYLA JO CLOSSER</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From the <em>Century Magazine</em>. By permission of the
+        Century Company and Myla J. Closser.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>A shaggy Airedale scented his way along the highroad. He had
+    not been there before, but he was guided by the trail of his
+    brethren who had preceded him. He had gone unwillingly upon
+    this journey, yet with the perfect training of dogs he had
+    accepted it without complaint. The path had been lonely, and
+    his heart would have failed him, traveling as he must without
+    his people, had not these traces of countless dogs before him
+    promised companionship of a sort at the end of the road.</p>
+
+    <p>The landscape had appeared arid at first, for the
+    translation from recent agony into freedom from pain had been
+    so numbing in its swiftness that it was some time before he
+    could fully appreciate the pleasant dog-country through which
+    he was passing. There were woods with leaves upon the ground
+    through which to scurry, long grassy slopes for extended runs,
+    and lakes into which he might plunge for sticks and bring them
+    back to&mdash;But he did not complete his thought, for the boy
+    was not with him. A little wave of homesickness possessed
+    him.</p>
+
+    <p>It made his mind easier to see far ahead a great gate as
+    high as the heavens, wide enough for all. He understood that
+    only man built such barriers and by straining his eyes he
+    fancied he could discern humans passing through to whatever lay
+    beyond. He broke into a run that he might the more quickly gain
+    this inclosure made beautiful by men and women; but his
+    thoughts outran his pace, and he remembered that he had left
+    the family behind, and again this lovely new compound became
+    not perfect, since it would lack the family.</p>
+
+    <p>The scent of the dogs grew very strong now, and coming
+    nearer, he discovered, to his astonishment that of the myriads
+    of those who had arrived ahead of him thousands were still
+    gathered on the outside of the portal. They sat in a wide
+    circle spreading out on each side of the entrance, big, little,
+    curly, handsome, mongrel, thoroughbred dogs of every age,
+    complexion, and personality. All were apparently waiting for
+    something, someone, and at the pad of the Airedale's feet on
+    the hard road they arose and looked in his direction.</p>
+
+    <p>That the interest passed as soon as they discovered the
+    new-comer to be a dog puzzled him. In his former dwelling-place
+    a four-footed brother was greeted with enthusiasm when he was a
+    friend, with suspicious diplomacy when a stranger, and with
+    sharp reproof when an enemy; but never had he been utterly
+    ignored.</p>
+
+    <p>He remembered something that he had read many times on great
+    buildings with lofty entrances. "Dogs not admitted," the signs
+    had said, and he feared this might be the reason for the
+    waiting circle outside the gate. It might be that this noble
+    portal stood as the dividing-line between mere dogs and humans.
+    But he had been a member of the family, romping with them in
+    the living-room, sitting at meals with them in the dining-room,
+    going upstairs at night with them, and the thought that he was
+    to be "kept out" would be unendurable.</p>
+
+    <p>He despised the passive dogs. They should be treating a
+    barrier after the fashion of their old country, leaping against
+    it, barking, and scratching the nicely painted door. He bounded
+    up the last little hill to set them an example, for he was
+    still full of the rebellion of the world; but he found no door
+    to leap against. He could see beyond the entrance dear masses
+    of people, yet no dog crossed the threshold. They continued in
+    their patient ring, their gaze upon the winding road.</p>
+
+    <p>He now advanced cautiously to examine the gate. It occurred
+    to him that it must be fly-time in this region, and he did not
+    wish to make himself ridiculous before all these strangers by
+    trying to bolt through an invisible mesh like the one that had
+    baffled him when he was a little chap. Yet there were no
+    screens, and despair entered his soul. What bitter punishment
+    these poor beasts must have suffered before they learned to
+    stay on this side the arch that led to human beings! What had
+    they done on earth to merit this? Stolen bones troubled his
+    conscience, runaway days, sleeping in the best chair until the
+    key clicked in the lock. These were sins.</p>
+
+    <p>At that moment an English bull-terrier, white, with
+    liver-colored spots and a jaunty manner, approached him,
+    snuffling in a friendly way. No sooner had the bull-terrier
+    smelt his collar than he fell to expressing his joy at meeting
+    him. The Airedale's reserve was quite thawed by this welcome,
+    though he did not know just what to make of it.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know you! I know you!" exclaimed the bull-terrier, adding
+    inconsequently, "What's your name?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Tam o'Shanter. They call me Tammy," was the answer, with a
+    pardonable break in the voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know them," said the bull-terrier. "Nice folks."</p>
+
+    <p>"Best ever," said the Airedale, trying to be nonchalant, and
+    scratching a flea which was not there. "I don't remember you.
+    When did you know them?"</p>
+
+    <p>"About fourteen tags ago, when they were first married. We
+    keep track of time here by the license-tags. I had four."</p>
+
+    <p>"This is my first and only one. You were before my time, I
+    guess." He felt young and shy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come for a walk, and tell me all about them," was his new
+    friend's invitation.</p>
+
+    <p>"Aren't we allowed in there?" asked Tam, looking toward the
+    gate.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure. You can go in whenever you want to. Some of us do at
+    first, but we don't stay."</p>
+
+    <p>"Like it better outside?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, no; it isn't that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then why are all you fellows hanging around here? Any old
+    dog can see it's better beyond the arch."</p>
+
+    <p>"You see, we're waiting for our folks to come."</p>
+
+    <p>The Airedale grasped it at once, and nodded
+    understandingly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I felt that way when I came along the road. It wouldn't be
+    what it's supposed to be without them. It wouldn't be the
+    perfect place."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not to us," said the bull-terrier.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fine! I've stolen bones, but it must be that I have been
+    forgiven, if I'm to see them here again. It's the great good
+    place all right. But look here," he added as a new thought
+    struck him, "do they wait for us?"</p>
+
+    <p>The older inhabitant coughed in slight embarrassment.</p>
+
+    <p>"The humans couldn't do that very well. It wouldn't be the
+    thing to have them hang around outside for just a dog&mdash;not
+    dignified."</p>
+
+    <p>"Quite right," agreed Tam. "I'm glad they go straight to
+    their mansions. I'd&mdash;I'd hate to have them missing me as I
+    am missing them." He sighed. "But, then, they wouldn't have to
+    wait so long."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, well, they're getting on. Don't be discouraged,"
+    comforted the terrier. "And in the meantime it's like a big
+    hotel in summer&mdash;watching the new arrivals. See, there is
+    something doing now."</p>
+
+    <p>All the dogs were aroused to excitement by a little figure
+    making its way uncertainly up the last slope. Half of them
+    started to meet it, crowding about in a loving, eager pack.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look out; don't scare it," cautioned the older animals,
+    while word was passed to those farthest from the gate: "Quick!
+    Quick! A baby's come!"</p>
+
+    <p>Before they had entirely assembled, however, a gaunt yellow
+    hound pushed through the crowd, gave one sniff at the small
+    child, and with a yelp of joy crouched at its feet. The baby
+    embraced the hound in recognition, and the two moved toward the
+    gate. Just outside the hound stopped to speak to an
+    aristocratic St. Bernard who had been friendly:</p>
+
+    <p>"Sorry to leave you, old fellow," he said, "but I'm going in
+    to watch over the kid. You see, I'm all she has up here."</p>
+
+    <p>The bull-terrier looked at the Airedale for
+    appreciation.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the way we do it," he said proudly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, but&mdash;" the Airedale put his head on one side in
+    perplexity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, but what?" asked the guide.</p>
+
+    <p>"The dogs that don't have any people&mdash;the nobodies'
+    dogs?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the best of all. Oh, everything is thought out here.
+    Crouch down,&mdash;you must be tired,&mdash;and watch," said
+    the bull-terrier.</p>
+
+    <p>Soon they spied another small form making the turn in the
+    road. He wore a Boy Scout's uniform, but he was a little
+    fearful, for all that, so new was this adventure. The dogs rose
+    again and snuffled, but the better groomed of the circle held
+    back, and in their place a pack of odds and ends of the company
+    ran down to meet him. The Boy Scout was reassured by their
+    friendly attitude, and after petting them impartially, he chose
+    an old-fashioned black and tan, and the two passed in.</p>
+
+    <p>Tam looked questioningly.</p>
+
+    <p>"They didn't know each other!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+    <p>"But they've always wanted to. That's one of the boys who
+    used to beg for a dog, but his father wouldn't let him have
+    one. So all our strays wait for just such little fellows to
+    come along. Every boy gets a dog, and every dog gets a
+    master."</p>
+
+    <p>"I expect the boy's father would like to know that now,"
+    commented the Airedale. "No doubt he thinks quite often, 'I
+    wish I'd let him have a dog.'"</p>
+
+    <p>The bull-terrier laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're pretty near the earth yet, aren't you?"</p>
+
+    <p>Tam admitted it.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've a lot of sympathy with fathers and with boys, having
+    them both in the family, and a mother as well."</p>
+
+    <p>The bull-terrier leaped up in astonishment.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't mean to say they keep a boy?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure; greatest boy on earth. Ten this year."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, well, this is news! I wish they'd kept a boy when I
+    was there."</p>
+
+    <p>The Airedale looked at his new friend intently.</p>
+
+    <p>"See here, who are you?" he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>But the other hurried on:</p>
+
+    <p>"I used to run away from them just to play with a boy.
+    They'd punish me, and I always wanted to tell them it was their
+    fault for not getting one."</p>
+
+    <p>"Who are you, anyway?" repeated Tam. "Talking all this
+    interest in me, too. Whose dog <em>were</em> you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You've already guessed. I see it in your quivering snout.
+    I'm the old dog that had to leave them about ten years
+    ago."</p>
+
+    <p>"Their old dog Bully?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, I'm Bully." They nosed each other with deeper
+    affection, then strolled about the glades shoulder to shoulder.
+    Bully the more eagerly pressed for news. "Tell me, how are they
+    getting along?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Very well indeed; they've paid for the house."</p>
+
+    <p>"I&mdash;I suppose you occupy the kennel?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No. They said they couldn't stand it to see another dog in
+    your old place."</p>
+
+    <p>Bully stopped to howl gently.</p>
+
+    <p>"That touches me. It's generous in you to tell it. To think
+    they missed me!"</p>
+
+    <p>For a little while they went on in silence, but as evening
+    fell, and the light from the golden streets inside of the city
+    gave the only glow to the scene, Bully grew nervous and
+    suggested that they go back.</p>
+
+    <p>"We can't see so well at night, and I like to be pretty
+    close to the path, especially toward morning."</p>
+
+    <p>Tam assented.</p>
+
+    <p>"And I will point them out. You might not know them just at
+    first."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, we know them. Sometimes the babies have so grown up
+    they're rather hazy in their recollection of how we look. They
+    think we're bigger than we are; but you can't fool us
+    dogs."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's understood," Tam cunningly arranged, "that when he or
+    she arrives you'll sort of make them feel at home while I wait
+    for the boy?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the best plan," assented Bully, kindly. "And if by
+    any chance the little fellow should come first,&mdash;there's
+    been a lot of them this summer&mdash;of course you'll introduce
+    me?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I shall be proud to do it."</p>
+
+    <p>And so with muzzles sunk between their paws, and with their
+    eyes straining down the pilgrims' road, they wait outside the
+    gate.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Ligeia"
+       id="Ligeia"></a>Ligeia</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By EDGAR ALLAN POE</span></h3>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth
+        the mystery of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a
+        great will pervading all things by nature of its
+        intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor
+        unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his
+        feeble will.&mdash;<em>Joseph Glanvill.</em></p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely
+    where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long
+    years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much
+    suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot <em>now</em> bring these
+    points to mind, because, in truth, the character of my beloved,
+    her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and
+    the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical
+    language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and
+    stealthily progressive, that they have been unnoticed and
+    unknown. Yet I believe that I met her first and most frequently
+    in some large, old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her
+    family&mdash;I have surely heard her speak. That it is of a
+    remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! Buried
+    in studies of a nature more than all else adapted to deaden
+    impressions of the outward world, it is by that sweet word
+    alone&mdash;by Ligeia&mdash;that I bring before mine eyes in
+    fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while I write,
+    a recollection flashes upon me that I have <em>never known</em>
+    the paternal name of her who was my friend and my bethrothed,
+    and who became the partner of my studies, and finally the wife
+    of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia?
+    or was it a test of my strength of affection, that I should
+    institute no inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a
+    caprice of my own&mdash;a wildly romantic offering on the
+    shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but indistinctly
+    recall the fact itself&mdash;what wonder that I have utterly
+    forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it?
+    And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled
+    <em>Romance</em>&mdash;if ever she, the wan misty-winged
+    <em>Ashtophet</em> of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell,
+    over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over
+    mine.</p>
+
+    <p>There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails
+    me not. It is the <em>person</em> of Ligeia. In stature she was
+    tall, somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even
+    emaciated. I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the
+    quiet ease of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness
+    and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a
+    shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed
+    study, save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she
+    placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no
+    maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an
+    opium-dream&mdash;an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly
+    divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering
+    souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of
+    that regular mold which we have been falsely taught to worship
+    in the classical labors of the heathen. "There is no exquisite
+    beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the
+    forms and <em>genera</em> of beauty, "without some
+    <em>strangeness</em> in the proportion." Yet, although I saw
+    that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic
+    regularity&mdash;although I perceived that her loveliness was
+    indeed "exquisite," and felt that there was much of
+    "strangeness" pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect
+    the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of "the
+    strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and pale
+    forehead&mdash;it was faultless&mdash;how cold indeed that word
+    when applied to a majesty so divine!&mdash;the skin rivaling
+    the purest ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the gentle
+    prominence of the regions above the temples; and then the
+    raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant, and naturally-curling
+    tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet,
+    "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the
+    nose&mdash;and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the
+    Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection. There were the same
+    luxurious smoothness of surface, the same scarcely perceptible
+    tendency to the aquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils
+    speaking the free spirit. I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was
+    indeed the triumph of all things heavenly&mdash;the magnificent
+    turn of the short upper lip&mdash;the soft, voluptuous slumber
+    of the under&mdash;the dimples which sported, and the color
+    which spoke&mdash;the teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy
+    almost startling, every ray of the holy light which fell upon
+    them in her serene and placid yet most exultingly radiant of
+    all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the chin&mdash;and,
+    here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, the softness and
+    the majesty, the fullness and the spirituality, of the
+    Greek&mdash;the contour which the god Apollo revealed but in a
+    dream, to Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian. And then I peered
+    into the large eyes of Ligeia.</p>
+
+    <p>For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might
+    have been, too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the secret
+    to which Lord Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far
+    larger than the ordinary eyes of our own race. They were even
+    fuller than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the
+    valley of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at intervals&mdash;in
+    moments of intense excitement&mdash;that this peculiarity
+    became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such
+    moments was her beauty&mdash;in my heated fancy thus it
+    appeared perhaps&mdash;the beauty of beings either above or
+    apart from the earth&mdash;the beauty of the fabulous Houri of
+    the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black,
+    and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The
+    brows, slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The
+    "strangeness," however, which I found in the eyes was of a
+    nature distinct from the formation, or the color, or the
+    brilliancy of the features, and must, after all, be referred to
+    the <em>expression</em>. Ah, word of no meaning! behind whose
+    vast latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so
+    much of the spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeia!
+    How for long hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, through
+    the whole of a midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What
+    was it&mdash;that something more profound than the well of
+    Democritus&mdash;which lay far within the pupils of my beloved?
+    What <em>was</em> it? I was possessed with a passion to
+    discover. Those eyes! those large, those shining, those divine
+    orbs! they became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them
+    devoutest of astrologers.</p>
+
+    <p>There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies
+    of the science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the
+    fact&mdash;never, I believe, noticed in the schools&mdash;than
+    in our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten,
+    we often find ourselves <em>upon the very verge</em> of
+    remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember. And
+    thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia's eyes,
+    have I felt approaching the full knowledge of their
+    expression&mdash;felt it approaching&mdash;yet not quite be
+    mine&mdash;and so at length entirely depart! And (strange, oh,
+    strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the commonest objects of
+    the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression. I mean
+    to say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia's beauty
+    passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I
+    derived, from many existences in the material world, a
+    sentiment such as I felt always around, within me, by her large
+    and luminous orbs. Yet not the more could I define that
+    sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I recognized
+    it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly growing
+    vine&mdash;in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a
+    chrysalis, a stream of running water. I have felt it in the
+    ocean&mdash;in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it in the
+    glances of unusually aged people. And there are one or two
+    stars in heaven (one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude,
+    double and changeable, to be found near the large star in Lyra)
+    in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the
+    feeling. I have been filled with it by certain sounds from
+    stringed instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from
+    books. Among innumerable other instances, I well remember
+    something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely
+    from its quaintness&mdash;who shall say?) never failed to
+    inspire me with the sentiment: "And the will therein lieth,
+    which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with
+    its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by
+    nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels,
+    nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his
+    feeble will."</p>
+
+    <p>Length of years and subsequent reflection have enabled me to
+    trace, indeed, some remote connection between this passage in
+    the English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia.
+    An <em>intensity</em> in thought, action, or speech was
+    possibly, in her, a result, or at least an index, of that
+    gigantic volition which, during our long intercourse, failed to
+    give other and more immediate evidence of its existence. Of all
+    the women whom I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the
+    ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the
+    tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I
+    could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of
+    those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me,&mdash;by
+    the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness, and
+    placidity of her very low voice,&mdash;and by the fierce energy
+    (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of
+    utterance) of the wild words which she habitually uttered.</p>
+
+    <p>I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was
+    immense&mdash;such as I have never known in woman. In the
+    classical tongues was she deeply proficient, and as far as my
+    own acquaintance extended in regard to the modern dialects of
+    Europe, I have never known her at fault. Indeed upon any theme
+    of the most admired because simply the most abstruse of the
+    boasted erudition of the Academy, have I <em>ever</em> found
+    Ligeia at fault? How singularly&mdash;how thrillingly, this one
+    point in the nature of my wife has forced itself, at this late
+    period only, upon my attention! I said her knowledge was such
+    as I have never known in woman&mdash;but where breathes the man
+    who has traversed, and successfully, <em>all</em> the wide
+    areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw not
+    then what I now clearly perceive that the acquisitions of
+    Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently
+    aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a
+    child-like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic
+    world of metaphysical investigation at which I was most busily
+    occupied during the earlier years of our marriage. With how
+    vast a triumph&mdash;with how vivid a delight&mdash;with how
+    much of all that is ethereal in hope did I <em>feel</em>, as
+    she bent over me in studies but little sought&mdash;but less
+    known,&mdash;that delicious vista by slow degrees expanding
+    before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I
+    might at length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too
+    divinely precious not to be forbidden.</p>
+
+    <p>How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which,
+    after some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take
+    wings to themselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a
+    child groping benighted. Her presence, her readings alone,
+    rendered vividly luminous the many mysteries of the
+    transcendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting the
+    radiant luster of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew
+    duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and
+    less frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia grew
+    ill. The wild eyes blazed with a too&mdash;too glorious
+    effulgence; the pale fingers became of the transparent waxen
+    hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead
+    swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle
+    emotion. I saw that she must die&mdash;and I struggled
+    desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles
+    of the passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more
+    energetic than my own. There had been much in her stern nature
+    to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would have
+    come without its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to
+    convey any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which
+    she wrestled with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the
+    pitiable spectacle. I would have soothed&mdash;I would have
+    reasoned; but in the intensity of her wild desire for
+    life&mdash;for life&mdash;<em>but</em> for life&mdash;solace
+    and reason were alike the uttermost of folly. Yet not until the
+    last instance, amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce
+    spirit, was shaken the external placidity of her demeanor. Her
+    voice grew more gentle&mdash;grew more low&mdash;yet I would
+    not wish to dwell upon the wild meaning of the quietly uttered
+    words. My brain reeled as I hearkened, entranced, to a melody
+    more than mortal&mdash;to assumptions and aspirations which
+    mortality had never before known.</p>
+
+    <p>That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might
+    have been easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love
+    would have reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only was I
+    fully impressed with the strength of her affection. For long
+    hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the
+    overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devotion
+    amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by
+    such confessions?&mdash;how had I deserved to be so cursed with
+    the removal of my beloved in the hour of my making them? But
+    upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only,
+    that in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas!
+    all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length, recognized
+    the principle of her longing, with so wildly earnest a desire,
+    for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this
+    wild longing&mdash;it is this eager vehemence of desire for
+    life&mdash;<em>but</em> for life&mdash;that I have no power to
+    portray&mdash;no utterance capable of expressing.</p>
+
+    <p>At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning
+    me, peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain
+    verses composed by herself not many days before. I obeyed her.
+    They were these:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Lo! 'tis a gala night</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Within the lonesome latter years!</p>
+
+            <p>An angel throng, bewinged, bedight</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">In veils, and drowned in tears,</p>
+
+            <p>Sit in a theatre, to see</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">A play of hopes and fears,</p>
+
+            <p>While the orchestra breathes fitfully</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The music of the spheres.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Mimes, in the form of God on high,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Mutter and mumble low,</p>
+
+            <p>And hither and thither fly;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Mere puppets they, who come and go</p>
+
+            <p>At bidding of vast formless things</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">That shift the scenery to and fro,</p>
+
+            <p>Flapping from out their condor wings</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Invisible Wo!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>That motley drama!&mdash;oh, be sure</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">It shall not be forgot!</p>
+
+            <p>With its Phantom chased for evermore</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">By a crowd that seize it not,</p>
+
+            <p>Through a circle that ever returneth in</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To the self-same spot;</p>
+
+            <p>And much of Madness, and more of Sin</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And Horror, the soul of the plot!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>But see, amid the mimic rout,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">A crawling shape intrude!</p>
+
+            <p>A blood-red thing that writhes from out</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The scenic solitude!</p>
+
+            <p>It writhes!&mdash;it writhes!&mdash;with mortal
+            pangs</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The mimes become its food,</p>
+
+            <p>And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">In human gore imbued.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Out&mdash;out are the lights&mdash;out all:</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And over each quivering form,</p>
+
+            <p>The curtain, a funeral pall,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Comes down with the rush of a
+            storm&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>And the angels, all pallid and wan,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Uprising, unveiling, affirm</p>
+
+            <p>That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And its hero, the conqueror Worm.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and
+    extending her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made
+    an end of these lines&mdash;"O God! O Divine
+    Father!&mdash;shall these things be undeviatingly
+    so?&mdash;shall this conqueror be not once conquered? Are we
+    not part and parcel in Thee? Who&mdash;who knoweth the
+    mysteries of the will with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to
+    the angels, <em>nor unto death utterly</em>, save only through
+    the weakness of his feeble will."</p>
+
+    <p>And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her
+    white arms to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death.
+    And as she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with
+    them a low murmur from her lips. I bent to them my ear, and
+    distinguished, again, the concluding words of the passage in
+    Glanvill: "<em>Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto
+    death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble
+    will.</em>"</p>
+
+    <p>She died: and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow,
+    could no longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in
+    the dim and decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what
+    the world calls wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very
+    far more, than ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals. After a
+    few months, therefore, of weary and aimless wandering, I
+    purchased and put in some repair, an abbey, which I shall not
+    name, in one of the wildest and least frequented portions of
+    fair England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building,
+    the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and
+    time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unison
+    with the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into
+    that remote and unsocial region of the country. Yet although
+    the external abbey, with its verdant decay hanging about it,
+    suffered but little alteration, I gave way, with a child-like
+    perversity, and perchance with a faint hope of alleviating my
+    sorrows, to a display of more than regal magnificence within.
+    For such follies, even in childhood, I had imbibed a taste, and
+    now they came back to me as if in the dotage of grief. Alas, I
+    feel how much even of incipient madness might have been
+    discovered in the gorgeous and fantastic draperies, in the
+    solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild cornices and furniture,
+    in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted gold! I had
+    become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my labors
+    and my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But these
+    absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me speak only of
+    that one chamber, ever accursed, whither, in a moment of mental
+    alienation, I led from the altar as my bride&mdash;as the
+    successor of the unforgotten Ligeia&mdash;the fair-haired and
+    blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine.</p>
+
+    <p>There is no individual portion of the architecture and
+    decoration of that bridal chamber which is not visibly before
+    me. Where were the souls of the haughty family of the bride,
+    when, through thirst of gold, they permitted to pass the
+    threshold of an apartment <em>so</em> bedecked, a maiden and a
+    daughter so beloved? I have said, that I minutely remember the
+    details of the chamber&mdash;yet I am sadly forgetful on topics
+    of deep moment; and here there was no system, no keeping, in
+    the fantastic display to take hold upon the memory. The room
+    lay in a high turret of the castellated abbey, was pentagonal
+    in shape, and of capacious size. Occupying the whole southern
+    face of the pentagonal was the sole window&mdash;an immense
+    sheet of unbroken glass from Venice&mdash;a single pane, and
+    tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or
+    moon passing through it, fell with a ghastly luster on the
+    objects within. Over the upper portion of this huge window
+    extended the trellis-work of an aged vine, which clambered up
+    the massy walls of the turret. The ceiling, of gloomy-looking
+    oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted
+    with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a semi-Gothic,
+    semi-Druidical device. From out the most central recess of this
+    melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with
+    long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in
+    pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there
+    writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent
+    vitality, a continual succession of parti-colored fires.</p>
+
+    <p>Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure,
+    were in various stations about; and there was the couch,
+    too&mdash;the bridal couch&mdash;of an Indian model, and low,
+    and sculptured of solid ebony, with a pall-like canopy above.
+    In each of the angles of the chamber stood on end a gigantic
+    sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings over
+    against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial
+    sculpture. But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the
+    chief phantasy of all. The lofty walls, gigantic in
+    height&mdash;even unproportionably so&mdash;were hung from
+    summit to foot, in vast folds, with a heavy and massive-looking
+    tapestry&mdash;tapestry of a material which was found alike as
+    a carpet on the floor, as a covering for the ottomans and the
+    ebony bed, as a canopy for the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes
+    of the curtains which partially shaded the window. The material
+    was the richest cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at
+    irregular intervals, with arabesque figures, about a foot in
+    diameter, and wrought upon the cloth in patterns of the most
+    jetty black. But these figures partook of the true character of
+    the arabesque only when regarded from a single point of view.
+    By a contrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very
+    remote period of antiquity, they were made changeable in
+    aspect. To one entering the room, they bore the appearance of
+    simple monstrosities; but upon a farther advance, this
+    appearance gradually departed; and, step by step, as the
+    visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself
+    surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which
+    belong to the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the
+    guilty slumbers of the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was
+    vastly heightened by the artificial introduction of a strong
+    continual current of wind behind the draperies&mdash;giving a
+    hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.</p>
+
+    <p>In halls such as these&mdash;in a bridal chamber such as
+    this&mdash;I passed, with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed
+    hours of the first month of our marriage&mdash;passed them with
+    but little disquietude. That my wife dreaded the fierce
+    moodiness of my temper&mdash;that she shunned me, and loved me
+    but little&mdash;I could not help perceiving; but it gave me
+    rather pleasure than otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred
+    belonging more to demon than to man. My memory flew back (oh,
+    with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved, the
+    august, the beautiful, the entombed. I reveled in recollections
+    of her purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty&mdash;her ethereal
+    nature, of her passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did
+    my spirit fully and freely burn with more than all the fires of
+    her own. In the excitement of my opium dreams (for I was
+    habitually fettered in the shackles of the drug), I would call
+    aloud upon her name, during the silence of the night, or among
+    the sheltered recesses of the glens by day, as if, through the
+    wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the consuming ardor of my
+    longing for the departed, I could restore her to the pathways
+    she had abandoned&mdash;ah, <em>could</em> it be
+    forever?&mdash;upon the earth.</p>
+
+    <p>About the commencement of the second month of the marriage,
+    the Lady Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which
+    her recovery was slow. The fever which consumed her rendered
+    her nights uneasy; and in her perturbed state of half-slumber,
+    she spoke of sounds, and of motions, in and about the chamber
+    of the turret, which I concluded had no origin save in the
+    distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the phantasmagoric
+    influences of the chamber itself. She became at length
+    convalescent&mdash;finally, well. Yet but a second more violent
+    disorder again threw her upon a bed of suffering; and from this
+    attack her frame, at all times feeble, never altogether
+    recovered. Her illnesses were, after this epoch, of alarming
+    character, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike the
+    knowledge and the great exertions of her physicians. With the
+    increase of the chronic disease, which had thus, apparently,
+    taken too sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated by
+    human means, I could not fail to observe a similar increase in
+    the nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her
+    excitability by trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and
+    now more frequently and pertinaciously, of the sounds&mdash;of
+    the slight sounds&mdash;and of the unusual motions among the
+    tapestries, to which she had formerly alluded.</p>
+
+    <p>One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed
+    this distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my
+    attention. She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I
+    had been watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague
+    terror, the workings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the
+    side of her ebony bed, upon one of the ottomans of India. She
+    partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low whisper, of sounds
+    which she <em>then</em> heard, but which I could not
+    hear&mdash;of motions which she <em>then</em> saw, but which I
+    could not perceive. The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the
+    tapestries, and I wished to show her (what, let me confess it,
+    I could not <em>all</em> believe) that those almost
+    inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations of
+    the figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of that
+    customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor,
+    overspreading her face, had proved to me that my exertions to
+    reassure her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting,
+    and no attendants were within call. I remembered where was
+    deposited a decanter of light wine which had been ordered by
+    her physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure it.
+    But, as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two
+    circumstances of a startling nature attracted my attention. I
+    had felt that some palpable although invisible object had
+    passed lightly by my person; and I saw that there lay upon the
+    golden carpet, in the very middle of the rich luster thrown
+    from the censer, a shadow&mdash;a faint, indefinite shadow of
+    angelic aspect&mdash;such as might be fancied for the shadow of
+    a shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate
+    dose of opium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of
+    them to Rowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber,
+    and poured out a gobletful, which I held to the lips of the
+    fainting lady. She had now partially recovered, however, and
+    took the vessel herself, while I sank upon an ottoman near me,
+    with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was then that I
+    became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the carpet,
+    and near the couch; and in a second thereafter, as Rowena was
+    in the act of raising the wine to her lips, I saw, or may have
+    dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if from some
+    invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three or four
+    large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid. If this I
+    saw&mdash;not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine unhesitatingly,
+    and I forebore to speak to her of a circumstance which must,
+    after all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a
+    vivid imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of
+    the lady, by the opium, and by the hour.</p>
+
+    <p>Yet I cannot <ins class="correction"
+         title="Transcriber's note: The original reads &quot;coneal&quot;.">
+    conceal</ins> it from my own perception that, immediately
+    subsequent to the fall of the ruby drops, a rapid change for
+    the worse took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on
+    the third subsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared
+    her for the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her
+    shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber which had received her
+    as my bride. Wild visions, opium-engendered, flitted,
+    shadow-like, before me. I gazed with unquiet eye upon the
+    sarcophagi in the angles of the room, upon the varying figures
+    of the drapery, and upon the writhing of the parti-colored
+    fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I called to
+    mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot beneath
+    the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of
+    the shadow. It was there, however, no longer; and breathing
+    with greater freedom, I turned my glances to the pallid and
+    rigid figure upon the bed. Then rushed upon me a thousand
+    memories of Ligeia&mdash;and then came back upon my heart, with
+    the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that
+    unutterable woe with which I had regarded <em>her</em> thus
+    enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of
+    bitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I
+    remained gazing upon the body of Rowena.</p>
+
+    <p>It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later,
+    for I had taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but
+    very distinct, startled me from my revery. I <em>felt</em> that
+    it came from the bed of ebony&mdash;the bed of death. I
+    listened in an agony of superstitious terror&mdash;but there
+    was no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision to detect
+    any motion in the corpse&mdash;but there was not the slightest
+    perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I <em>had</em>
+    heard the noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within
+    me. I resolutely and perseveringly kept my attention riveted
+    upon the body. Many minutes elapsed before any circumstance
+    occurred tending to throw light upon the mystery. At length it
+    became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and barely
+    noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and
+    along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species
+    of unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of
+    mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my
+    heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a
+    sense of duty finally operated to restore my self-possession. I
+    could no longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our
+    preparations&mdash;that Rowena still lived. It was necessary
+    that some immediate exertion be made; yet the turret was
+    altogether apart from the portion of the abbey tenanted by the
+    servants&mdash;there were none within call&mdash;I had no means
+    of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room for many
+    minutes&mdash;and this I could not venture to do. I therefore
+    struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit still
+    hovering. In a short period it was certain, however, that a
+    relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both eyelid
+    and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the
+    lips became doubly shriveled and pinched up in the ghastly
+    expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness
+    overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual
+    rigorous stiffness immediately supervened. I fell back with a
+    shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly
+    aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking visions
+    of Ligeia.</p>
+
+    <p>An hour thus elapsed, when (could it be possible?) I was a
+    second time aware of some vague sound issuing from the region
+    of the bed. I listened&mdash;in extremity of horror. The sound
+    came again&mdash;it was a sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I
+    saw&mdash;distinctly saw&mdash;a tremor upon the lips. In a
+    minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the
+    pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the
+    profound awe which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt
+    that my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered; and it was
+    only by a violent effort that I at length succeeded in nerving
+    myself to the task which duty thus once more had pointed out.
+    There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the
+    cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole
+    frame; there was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady
+    <em>lived</em>; and with redoubled ardor I betook myself to the
+    task of restoration. I chafed and bathed the temples and the
+    hands and used every exertion which experience, and no little
+    medical reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the
+    color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the
+    expression of the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole
+    body took upon itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the
+    intense rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the loathsome
+    peculiarities of that which has been, for many days, a tenant
+    of the tomb.</p>
+
+    <p>And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia&mdash;and again
+    (what marvel that I shudder while I write?), <em>again</em>
+    there reached my ears a low sob from the region of the ebony
+    bed. But why shall I minutely detail the unspeakable horrors of
+    that night? Why shall I pause to relate how, time after time,
+    until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous drama of
+    revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse was only
+    into a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how each
+    agony wore the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe;
+    and how each struggle was succeeded by I know not what of wild
+    change in the personal appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry
+    to a conclusion.</p>
+
+    <p>The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she
+    who had been dead once again stirred&mdash;and now more
+    vigorously than hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution
+    more appalling in its utter hopelessness than any. I had long
+    ceased to struggle or to move, and remained sitting rigidly
+    upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl of violent
+    emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least terrible,
+    the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now
+    more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with
+    unwonted energy into the countenance&mdash;the limbs
+    relaxed&mdash;and, save that the eyelids were yet pressed
+    heavily together, and that the bandages and draperies of the
+    grave still imparted their charnel character to the figure, I
+    might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,
+    the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then,
+    altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when,
+    arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closed
+    eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the
+    thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the
+    middle of the apartment.</p>
+
+    <p>I trembled not&mdash;I stirred not&mdash;for a crowd of
+    unutterable fancies connected with the air, the stature, the
+    demeanor, of the figure, rushing hurriedly through my brain,
+    had paralyzed&mdash;had chilled me into stone. I stirred
+    not&mdash;but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad
+    disorder in my thoughts&mdash;a tumult unappeasable. Could it,
+    indeed, be the <em>living</em> Rowena who confronted me? Could
+    it, indeed, be Rowena <em>at all</em>&mdash;the fair-haired,
+    the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine? Why,
+    <em>why</em> should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about
+    the mouth&mdash;but then might it not be the mouth of the
+    breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks&mdash;there were the
+    roses as in her noon of life&mdash;yes, these might indeed be
+    the fair cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine. And the chin,
+    with its dimples, as in health, might it not be hers?&mdash;but
+    <em>had she then grown taller since her malady?</em> What
+    inexpressible madness seized me with that thought? One bound,
+    and I had reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let
+    fall from her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had
+    confined it, and there streamed forth into the rushing
+    atmosphere of the chamber huge masses of long and disheveled
+    hair; <em>it was blacker than the raven wings of midnight.</em>
+    And now slowly opened <em>the eyes</em> of the figure which
+    stood before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can
+    I never&mdash;can I never be mistaken&mdash;these are the full,
+    and the black, and the wild eyes&mdash;of my lost love&mdash;of
+    the Lady&mdash;of the LADY LIGEIA."</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Haunted"
+       id="Haunted"></a>The Haunted Orchard</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>Harper's Magazine</em>, January, 1912. By
+        permission of Harper and Brothers and Richard Le
+        Gallienne.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>Spring was once more in the world. As she sang to herself in
+    the faraway woodlands her voice reached even the ears of the
+    city, weary with the long winter. Daffodils flowered at the
+    entrances to the Subway, furniture removing vans blocked the
+    side streets, children clustered like blossoms on the
+    doorsteps, the open cars were running, and the cry of the "cash
+    clo'" man was once more heard in the land.</p>
+
+    <p>Yes, it was the spring, and the city dreamed wistfully of
+    lilacs and the dewy piping of birds in gnarled old apple-trees,
+    of dogwood lighting up with sudden silver the thickening woods,
+    of water-plants unfolding their glossy scrolls in pools of
+    morning freshness.</p>
+
+    <p>On Sunday mornings, the outbound trains were thronged with
+    eager pilgrims, hastening out of the city, to behold once more
+    the ancient marvel of the spring; and, on Sunday evenings, the
+    railway termini were aflower with banners of blossom from
+    rifled woodland and orchard carried in the hands of the
+    returning pilgrims, whose eyes still shone with the spring
+    magic, in whose ears still sang the fairy music.</p>
+
+    <p>And as I beheld these signs of the vernal equinox I knew
+    that I, too, must follow the music, forsake awhile the
+    beautiful siren we call the city, and in the green silences
+    meet once more my sweetheart Solitude.</p>
+
+    <p>As the train drew out of the Grand Central, I hummed to
+    myself,</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>"I've a neater, sweeter maiden, in a greener,
+            cleaner land"</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="noindent">and so I said good-by to the city, and went
+    forth with beating heart to meet the spring.</p>
+
+    <p>I had been told of an almost forgotten corner on the south
+    coast of Connecticut, where the spring and I could live in an
+    inviolate loneliness&mdash;a place uninhabited save by birds
+    and blossoms, woods and thick grass, and an occasional silent
+    farmer, and pervaded by the breath and shimmer of the
+    Sound.</p>
+
+    <p>Nor had rumor lied, for when the train set me down at my
+    destination I stepped out into the most wonderful green hush, a
+    leafy Sabbath silence through which the very train, as it went
+    farther on its way, seemed to steal as noiselessly as possible
+    for fear of breaking the spell.</p>
+
+    <p>After a winter in the town, to be dropped thus suddenly into
+    the intense quiet of the country-side makes an almost ghostly
+    impression upon one, as of an enchanted silence, a silence that
+    listens and watches but never speaks, finger on lip. There is a
+    spectral quality about everything upon which the eye falls: the
+    woods, like great green clouds, the wayside flowers, the still
+    farm-houses half lost in orchard bloom&mdash;all seem to exist
+    in a dream. Everything is so still, everything so
+    supernaturally green. Nothing moves or talks, except the gentle
+    susurrus of the spring wind swaying the young buds high up in
+    the quiet sky, or a bird now and again, or a little brook
+    singing softly to itself among the crowding rushes.</p>
+
+    <p>Though, from the houses one notes here and there, there are
+    evidently human inhabitants of this green silence, none are to
+    be seen. I have often wondered where the countryfolk hide
+    themselves, as I have walked hour after hour, past farm and
+    croft and lonely door-yards, and never caught sight of a human
+    face. If you should want to ask the way, a farmer is as shy as
+    a squirrel, and if you knock at a farm-house door, all is as
+    silent as a rabbit-warren.</p>
+
+    <p>As I walked along in the enchanted stillness, I came at
+    length to a quaint old farm-house&mdash;"old Colonial" in its
+    architecture&mdash;embowered in white lilacs, and surrounded by
+    an orchard of ancient apple-trees which cast a rich shade on
+    the deep spring grass. The orchard had the impressiveness of
+    those old religious groves, dedicated to the strange worship of
+    sylvan gods, gods to be found now only in Horace or Catullus,
+    and in the hearts of young poets to whom the beautiful antique
+    Latin is still dear.</p>
+
+    <p>The old house seemed already the abode of Solitude. As I
+    lifted the latch of the white gate and walked across the
+    forgotten grass, and up on to the veranda already festooned
+    with wistaria, and looked into the window, I saw Solitude
+    sitting by an old piano, on which no composer later than Bach
+    had ever been played.</p>
+
+    <p>In other words, the house was empty; and going round to the
+    back, where old barns and stables leaned together as if falling
+    asleep, I found a broken pane, and so climbed in and walked
+    through the echoing rooms. The house was very lonely. Evidently
+    no one had lived in it for a long time. Yet it was all ready
+    for some occupant, for whom it seemed to be waiting. Quaint old
+    four-poster bedsteads stood in three rooms&mdash;dimity
+    curtains and spotless linen&mdash;old oak chests and mahogany
+    presses; and, opening drawers in Chippendale sideboards, I came
+    upon beautiful frail old silver and exquisite china that set me
+    thinking of a beautiful grandmother of mine, made out of old
+    lace and laughing wrinkles and mischievous old blue eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>There was one little room that particularly interested me, a
+    tiny bedroom all white, and at the window the red roses were
+    already in bud. But what caught my eye with peculiar sympathy
+    was a small bookcase, in which were some twenty or thirty
+    volumes, wearing the same forgotten expression&mdash;forgotten
+    and yet cared for&mdash;which lay like a kind of memorial charm
+    upon everything in the old house. Yes, everything seemed
+    forgotten and yet everything, curiously&mdash;even
+    religiously&mdash;remembered. I took out book after book from
+    the shelves, once or twice flowers fell out from the
+    pages&mdash;and I caught sight of a delicate handwriting here
+    and there and frail markings. It was evidently the little
+    intimate library of a young girl. What surprised me most was to
+    find that quite half the books were in French&mdash;French
+    poets and French romancers: a charming, very rare edition of
+    Ronsard, a beautifully printed edition of Alfred de Musset, and
+    a copy of Th&eacute;ophile Gautier's <em>Mademoiselle de
+    Maupin</em>. How did these exotic books come to be there alone
+    in a deserted New England farm-house?</p>
+
+    <p>This question was to be answered later in a strange way.
+    Meanwhile I had fallen in love with the sad, old, silent place,
+    and as I closed the white gate and was once more on the road, I
+    looked about for someone who could tell me whether or not this
+    house of ghosts might be rented for the summer by a
+    comparatively living man.</p>
+
+    <p>I was referred to a fine old New England farm-house shining
+    white through the trees a quarter of a mile away. There I met
+    an ancient couple, a typical New England farmer and his wife;
+    the old man, lean, chin-bearded, with keen gray eyes flickering
+    occasionally with a shrewd humor, the old lady with a kindly
+    old face of the withered-apple type and ruddy. They were
+    evidently prosperous people, but their minds&mdash;for some
+    reason I could not at the moment divine&mdash;seemed to be
+    divided between their New England desire to drive a hard
+    bargain and their disinclination to let the house at all.</p>
+
+    <p>Over and over again they spoke of the loneliness of the
+    place. They feared I would find it very lonely. No one had
+    lived in it for a long time, and so on. It seemed to me that
+    afterwards I understood their curious hesitation, but at the
+    moment only regarded it as a part of the circuitous New England
+    method of bargaining. At all events, the rent I offered finally
+    overcame their disinclination, whatever its cause, and so I
+    came into possession&mdash;for four months&mdash;of that silent
+    old house, with the white lilacs, and the drowsy barns, and the
+    old piano, and the strange orchard; and, as the summer came on,
+    and the year changed its name from May to June, I used to lie
+    under the apple-trees in the afternoons, dreamily reading some
+    old book, and through half-sleepy eyelids watching the silken
+    shimmer of the Sound.</p>
+
+    <p>I had lived in the old house for about a month, when one
+    afternoon a strange thing happened to me. I remember the date
+    well. It was the afternoon of Tuesday, June 13th. I was
+    reading, or rather dipping here and there, in Burton's
+    <em>Anatomy of Melancholy</em>. As I read, I remember that a
+    little unripe apple, with a petal or two of blossom still
+    clinging to it, fell upon the old yellow page. Then I suppose I
+    must have fallen into a dream, though it seemed to me that both
+    my eyes and my ears were wide open, for I suddenly became aware
+    of a beautiful young voice singing very softly somewhere among
+    the leaves. The singing was very frail, almost imperceptible,
+    as though it came out of the air. It came and went fitfully,
+    like the elusive fragrance of sweetbrier&mdash;as though a girl
+    was walking to and fro, dreamily humming to herself in the
+    still afternoon. Yet there was no one to be seen. The orchard
+    had never seemed more lonely. And another fact that struck me
+    as strange was that the words that floated to me out of the
+    aerial music were French, half sad, half gay snatches of some
+    long-dead singer of old France, I looked about for the origin
+    of the sweet sounds, but in vain. Could it be the birds that
+    were singing in French in this strange orchard? Presently the
+    voice seemed to come quite close to me, so near that it might
+    have been the voice of a dryad singing to me out of the tree
+    against which I was leaning. And this time I distinctly caught
+    the words of the sad little song:</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p><em>"Chante, rossignol, chante,</em></p>
+
+            <p><em>Toi qui as le c&oelig;ur gai;</em></p>
+
+            <p><em>Tu as le c&oelig;ur &agrave; rire,</em></p>
+
+            <p><em>Moi, je l'ai-t-&agrave; pleurer."</em></p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>But, though the voice was at my shoulder, I could see no
+    one, and then the singing stopped with what sounded like a sob;
+    and a moment or two later I seemed to hear a sound of sobbing
+    far down the orchard. Then there followed silence, and I was
+    left to ponder on the strange occurrence. Naturally, I decided
+    that it was just a day-dream between sleeping and waking over
+    the pages of an old book; yet when next day and the day after
+    the invisible singer was in the orchard again, I could not be
+    satisfied with such mere matter-of-fact explanation.</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p><em>"A la claire fontaine,"</em></p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="noindent">went the voice to and fro through the thick
+    orchard boughs,</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p><em>"M'en allant promener,</em></p>
+
+            <p><em>J'ai trouv&eacute; l'eau si belle</em></p>
+
+            <p><em>Que je m'y suis baign&eacute;,</em></p>
+
+            <p><em>Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,</em></p>
+
+            <p><em>Jamais je ne t'oubliai."</em></p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>It was certainly uncanny to hear that voice going to and fro
+    the orchard, there somewhere amid the bright sun-dazzled
+    boughs&mdash;yet not a human creature to be seen&mdash;not
+    another house even within half a mile. The most materialistic
+    mind could hardly but conclude that here was something "not
+    dreamed of in our philosophy." It seemed to me that the only
+    reasonable explanation was the entirely irrational
+    one&mdash;that my orchard was haunted: haunted by some
+    beautiful young spirit, with some sorrow of lost joy that would
+    not let her sleep quietly in her grave.</p>
+
+    <p>And next day I had a curious confirmation of my theory. Once
+    more I was lying under my favorite apple-tree, half reading and
+    half watching the Sound, lulled into a dream by the whir of
+    insects and the spices called up from the earth by the hot sun.
+    As I bent over the page, I suddenly had the startling
+    impression that someone was leaning over my shoulder and
+    reading with me, and that a girl's long hair was falling over
+    me down on to the page. The book was the Ronsard I had found in
+    the little bedroom. I turned, but again there was nothing
+    there. Yet this time I knew that I had not been dreaming, and I
+    cried out:</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor child! tell me of your grief&mdash;that I may help
+    your sorrowing heart to rest."</p>
+
+    <p>But, of course, there was no answer; yet that night I
+    dreamed a strange dream. I thought I was in the orchard again
+    in the afternoon and once again heard the strange
+    singing&mdash;but this time, as I looked up, the singer was no
+    longer invisible. Coming toward me was a young girl with
+    wonderful blue eyes filled with tears and gold hair that fell
+    to her waist. She wore a straight, white robe that might have
+    been a shroud or a bridal dress. She appeared not to see me,
+    though she came directly to the tree where I was sitting. And
+    there she knelt and buried her face in the grass and sobbed as
+    if her heart would break. Her long hair fell over her like a
+    mantle, and in my dream I stroked it pityingly and murmured
+    words of comfort for a sorrow I did not understand.... Then I
+    woke suddenly as one does from dreams. The moon was shining
+    brightly into the room. Rising from my bed, I looked out into
+    the orchard. It was almost as bright as day. I could plainly
+    see the tree of which I had been dreaming, and then a fantastic
+    notion possessed me. Slipping on my clothes, I went out into
+    one of the old barns and found a spade. Then I went to the tree
+    where I had seen the girl weeping in my dream and dug down at
+    its foot.</p>
+
+    <p>I had dug little more than a foot when my spade struck upon
+    some hard substance, and in a few more moments I had uncovered
+    and exhumed a small box, which, on examination, proved to be
+    one of those pretty old-fashioned Chippendale work-boxes used
+    by our grandmothers to keep their thimbles and needles in,
+    their reels of cotton and skeins of silk. After smoothing down
+    the little grave in which I had found it, I carried the box
+    into the house, and under the lamplight examined its
+    contents.</p>
+
+    <p>Then at once I understood why that sad young spirit went to
+    and fro the orchard singing those little French songs&mdash;for
+    the treasure-trove I had found under the apple-tree, the buried
+    treasure of an unquiet, suffering soul, proved to be a number
+    of love-letters written mostly in French in a very picturesque
+    hand&mdash;letters, too, written but some five or six years
+    before. Perhaps I should not have read them&mdash;yet I read
+    them with such reverence for the beautiful, impassioned love
+    that animated them, and literally made them "smell sweet and
+    blossom in the dust," that I felt I had the sanction of the
+    dead to make myself the confidant of their story. Among the
+    letters were little songs, two of which I had heard the strange
+    young voice singing in the orchard, and, of course, there were
+    many withered flowers and such like remembrances of bygone
+    rapture.</p>
+
+    <p>Not that night could I make out all the story, though it was
+    not difficult to define its essential tragedy, and later on a
+    gossip in the neighborhood and a headstone in the churchyard
+    told me the rest. The unquiet young soul that had sung so
+    wistfully to and fro the orchard was my landlord's daughter.
+    She was the only child of her parents, a beautiful, willful
+    girl, exotically unlike those from whom she was sprung and
+    among whom she lived with a disdainful air of exile. She was,
+    as a child, a little creature of fairy fancies, and as she grew
+    up it was plain to her father and mother that she had come from
+    another world than theirs. To them she seemed like a child in
+    an old fairy-tale strangely found on his hearth by some
+    shepherd as he returns from the fields at evening&mdash;a
+    little fairy girl swaddled in fine linen, and dowered with a
+    mysterious bag of gold.</p>
+
+    <p>Soon she developed delicate spiritual needs to which her
+    simple parents were strangers. From long truancies in the woods
+    she would come home laden with mysterious flowers, and soon she
+    came to ask for books and pictures and music, of which the poor
+    souls that had given her birth had never heard. Finally she had
+    her way, and went to study at a certain fashionable college;
+    and there the brief romance of her life began. There she met a
+    romantic young Frenchman who had read Ronsard to her and
+    written her those picturesque letters I had found in the old
+    mahogany work-box. And after a while the young Frenchman had
+    gone back to France, and the letters had ceased. Month by month
+    went by, and at length one day, as she sat wistful at the
+    window, looking out at the foolish sunlit road, a message came.
+    He was dead. That headstone in the village churchyard tells the
+    rest. She was very young to die&mdash;scarcely nineteen years;
+    and the dead who have died young, with all their hopes and
+    dreams still like unfolded buds within their hearts, do not
+    rest so quietly in the grave as those who have gone through the
+    long day from morning until evening and are only too glad to
+    sleep.</p>
+    <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+    <p>Next day I took the little box to a quiet corner of the
+    orchard, and made a little pyre of fragrant boughs&mdash;for so
+    I interpreted the wish of that young, unquiet spirit&mdash;and
+    the beautiful words are now safe, taken up again into the
+    aerial spaces from which they came.</p>
+
+    <p>But since then the birds sing no more little French songs in
+    my old orchard.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Bowmen"
+       id="Bowmen"></a>The Bowmen</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By ARTHUR MACHEN</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>From <em>The Bowmen</em>, by Arthur Machen. Published in
+        England by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent &amp; Co.,
+        Ltd., and in America by G.P. Putnam's Sons. By permission
+        of the publishers and Arthur Machen.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the
+    authority of the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being
+    more explicit. But it was on the most awful day of that awful
+    time, on the day when ruin and disaster came so near that their
+    shadow fell over London far away; and, without any certain
+    news, the hearts of men failed within them and grew faint; as
+    if the agony of the army in the battlefield had entered into
+    their souls.</p>
+
+    <p>On this dreadful day, then, when three hundred thousand men
+    in arms with all their artillery swelled like a flood against
+    the little English company, there was one point above all other
+    points in our battle line that was for a time in awful danger,
+    not merely of defeat, but of utter annihilation. With the
+    permission of the Censorship and of the military expert, this
+    corner may, perhaps, be described as a salient, and if this
+    angle were crushed and broken, then the English force as a
+    whole would be shattered, the Allied left would be turned, and
+    Sedan would inevitably follow.</p>
+
+    <p>All the morning the German guns had thundered and shrieked
+    against this corner, and against the thousand or so of men who
+    held it. The men joked at the shells, and found funny names for
+    them, and had bets about them, and greeted them with scraps of
+    music-hall songs. But the shells came on and burst, and tore
+    good Englishmen limb from limb, and tore brother from brother,
+    and as the heat of the day increased so did the fury of that
+    terrific cannonade. There was no help, it seemed. The English
+    artillery was good, but there was not nearly enough of it; it
+    was being steadily battered into scrap iron.</p>
+
+    <p>There comes a moment in a storm at sea when people say to
+    one another, "It is at its worst; it can blow no harder," and
+    then there is a blast ten times more fierce than any before it.
+    So it was in these British trenches.</p>
+
+    <p>There were no stouter hearts in the whole world than the
+    hearts of these men; but even they were appalled as this
+    seven-times-heated hell of the German cannonade fell upon them
+    and overwhelmed them and destroyed them. And at this very
+    moment they saw from their trenches that a tremendous host was
+    moving against their lines. Five hundred of the thousand
+    remained, and as far as they could see the German infantry was
+    pressing on against them, column upon column, a gray world of
+    men, ten thousand of them, as it appeared afterwards.</p>
+
+    <p>There was no hope at all. They shook hands, some of them.
+    One man improvised a new version of the battle-song, "Good-by,
+    good-by to Tipperary," ending with "And we shan't get there."
+    And they all went on firing steadily. The officer pointed out
+    that such an opportunity for high-class fancy shooting might
+    never occur again; the Tipperary humorist asked, "What price
+    Sidney Street?" And the few machine guns did their best. But
+    everybody knew it was of no use. The dead gray bodies lay in
+    companies and battalions, as others came on and on and on, and
+    they swarmed and stirred, and advanced from beyond and
+    beyond.</p>
+
+    <p>"World without end. Amen," said one of the British soldiers
+    with some irrelevance as he took aim and fired. And then he
+    remembered&mdash;he says he cannot think why or
+    wherefore&mdash;a queer vegetarian restaurant in London where
+    he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets made of
+    lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates
+    in this restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in
+    blue, with the motto, "<em>Adsit Anglis Sanctus
+    Georgius</em>"&mdash;"May St. George be a present help to the
+    English." This soldier happened to know Latin and other useless
+    things, and now, as he fired at his man in the gray advancing
+    mass&mdash;three hundred yards away&mdash;he uttered the pious
+    vegetarian motto. He went on firing to the end, and at last
+    Bill on his right had to clout him cheerfully over the head to
+    make him stop, pointing out as he did so that the King's
+    ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted in
+    drilling funny patterns into dead Germans.</p>
+
+    <p>For as the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt
+    something between a shudder and an electric shock pass through
+    his body. The roar of the battle died down in his ears to a
+    gentle murmur; instead of it, he says, he heard a great voice
+    and a shout louder than a thunder-peal crying, "Array, array,
+    array!"</p>
+
+    <p>His heart grew hot as a burning coal, it grew cold as ice
+    within him, as it seemed to him that a tumult of voices
+    answered to his summons. He heard, or seemed to hear, thousands
+    shouting: "St. George! St. George!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Ha! Messire, ha! sweet Saint, grant us good
+    deliverance!"</p>
+
+    <p>"St. George for merry England!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Harow! Harow! Monseigneur St. George, succor us!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Ha! St. George! Ha! St. George! a long bow and a strong
+    bow."</p>
+
+    <p>"Heaven's Knight, aid us!"</p>
+
+    <p>And as the soldier heard these voices he saw before him,
+    beyond the trench, a long line of shapes, with a shining about
+    them. They were like men who drew the bow, and with another
+    shout, their cloud of arrows flew singing and tingling through
+    the air towards the German hosts.</p>
+
+    <p>The other men in the trench were firing all the while. They
+    had no hope; but they aimed just as if they had been shooting
+    at Bisley.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly one of them lifted up his voice in the plainest
+    English.</p>
+
+    <p>"Gawd help us!" he bellowed to the man next to him, "but
+    we're blooming marvels! Look at those gray ... gentlemen, look
+    at them! D'ye see them? They're not going down in dozens nor in
+    'undreds; it's thousands, it is. Look! look! there's a regiment
+    gone while I'm talking to ye."</p>
+
+    <p>"Shut it!" the other soldier bellowed, taking aim, "what are
+    ye gassing about?"</p>
+
+    <p>But he gulped with astonishment even as he spoke, for,
+    indeed, the gray men were falling by the thousands. The English
+    could hear the guttural scream of the German officers, the
+    crackle of their revolvers as they shot the reluctant; and
+    still line after line crashed to the earth.</p>
+
+    <p>All the while the Latin-bred soldier heard the cry:</p>
+
+    <p>"Harow! Harow! Monseigneur, dear Saint, quick to our aid!
+    St. George help us!"</p>
+
+    <p>"High Chevalier, defend us!"</p>
+
+    <p>The singing arrows fled so swift and thick that they
+    darkened the air, the heathen horde melted from before
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>"More machine guns!" Bill yelled to Tom.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't hear them," Tom yelled back.</p>
+
+    <p>"But, thank God, anyway; they've got it in the neck."</p>
+
+    <p>In fact, there were ten thousand dead German soldiers left
+    before that salient of the English army, and consequently there
+    was no Sedan. In Germany, a country ruled by scientific
+    principles, the Great General Staff decided that the
+    contemptible English must have employed shells containing an
+    unknown gas of a poisonous nature, as no wounds were
+    discernible on the bodies of the dead German soldiers. But the
+    man who knew what nuts tasted like when they called themselves
+    steak knew also that St. George had brought his Agincourt
+    Bowmen to help the English.</p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+    <h2><a name="Ghost"
+       id="Ghost"></a>A Ghost</h2>
+
+    <h3><span class="smcap">By GUY DE MAUPASSANT</span></h3>
+
+    <div class="note">
+        <p>Translated for this volume by M. Charles Sommer.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>We were speaking of sequestration, alluding to a recent
+    lawsuit. It was at the close of a friendly evening in a very
+    old mansion in the Rue de Grenelle, and each of the guests had
+    a story to tell, which he assured us was true.</p>
+
+    <p>Then the old Marquis de la Tour-Samuel, eighty-two years of
+    age, rose and came forward to lean on the mantelpiece. He told
+    the following story in his slightly quavering voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"I, also, have witnessed a strange thing&mdash;so strange
+    that it has been the nightmare of my life. It happened
+    fifty-six years ago, and yet there is not a month when I do not
+    see it again in my dreams. From that day I have borne a mark, a
+    stamp of fear,&mdash;do you understand?</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, for ten minutes I was a prey to terror, in such a way
+    that ever since a constant dread has remained in my soul.
+    Unexpected sounds chill me to the heart; objects which I can
+    ill distinguish in the evening shadows make me long to flee. I
+    am afraid at night.</p>
+
+    <p>"No! I would not have owned such a thing before reaching my
+    present age. But now I may tell everything. One may fear
+    imaginary dangers at eighty-two years old. But before actual
+    danger I have never turned back, <em>mesdames</em>.</p>
+
+    <p>"That affair so upset my mind, filled me with such a deep,
+    mysterious unrest that I never could tell it. I kept it in that
+    inmost part, that corner where we conceal our sad, our shameful
+    secrets, all the weaknesses of our life which cannot be
+    confessed.</p>
+
+    <p>"I will tell you that strange happening just as it took
+    place, with no attempt to explain it. Unless I went mad for one
+    short hour it must be explainable, though. Yet I was not mad,
+    and I will prove it to you. Imagine what you will. Here are the
+    simple facts:</p>
+
+    <p>"It was in 1827, in July. I was quartered with my regiment
+    in Rouen.</p>
+
+    <p>"One day, as I was strolling on the quay, I came across a
+    man I believed I recognized, though I could not place him with
+    certainty. I instinctively went more slowly, ready to pause.
+    The stranger saw my impulse, looked at me, and fell into my
+    arms.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was a friend of my younger days, of whom I had been very
+    fond. He seemed to have become half a century older in the five
+    years since I had seen him. His hair was white, and he stooped
+    in his walk, as if he were exhausted. He understood my
+    amazement and told me the story of his life.</p>
+
+    <p>"A terrible event had broken him down. He had fallen madly
+    in love with a young girl and married her in a kind of
+    dreamlike ecstasy. After a year of unalloyed bliss and
+    unexhausted passion, she had died suddenly of heart disease, no
+    doubt killed by love itself.</p>
+
+    <p>"He had left the country on the very day of her funeral, and
+    had come to live in his hotel at Rouen. He remained there,
+    solitary and desperate, grief slowly mining him, so wretched
+    that he constantly thought of suicide.</p>
+
+    <p>"'As I thus came across you again,' he said, 'I shall ask a
+    great favor of you. I want you to go to my ch&acirc;teau and
+    get some papers I urgently need. They are in the writing-desk
+    of my room, of <em>our</em> room. I cannot send a servant or a
+    lawyer, as the errand must be kept private. I want absolute
+    silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"'I shall give you the key of the room, which I locked
+    carefully myself before leaving, and the key to the
+    writing-desk. I shall also give you a note for the gardener,
+    who will let you in.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Come to breakfast with me to-morrow, and we'll talk the
+    matter over.'</p>
+
+    <p>"I promised to render him that slight service. It would mean
+    but a pleasant excursion for me, his home not being more than
+    twenty-five miles from Rouen. I could go there in an hour on
+    horseback.</p>
+
+    <p>"At ten o'clock the next day I was with him. We breakfasted
+    alone together, yet he did not utter more than twenty words. He
+    asked me to excuse him. The thought that I was going to visit
+    the room where his happiness lay shattered, upset him, he said.
+    Indeed, he seemed perturbed, worried, as if some mysterious
+    struggle were taking place in his soul.</p>
+
+    <p>"At last he explained exactly what I was to do. It was very
+    simple. I was to take two packages of letters and some papers,
+    locked in the first drawer at the right of the desk of which I
+    had the key. He added:</p>
+
+    <p>"'I need not ask you not to glance at them.'</p>
+
+    <p>"I was almost hurt by his words, and told him so, rather
+    sharply. He stammered:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Forgive me. I suffer so much!'</p>
+
+    <p>"And tears came to his eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"I left about one o'clock to accomplish my errand.</p>
+
+    <p>"The day was radiant, and I rushed through the meadows,
+    listening to the song of the larks, and the rhythmical beat of
+    my sword on my riding-boots.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then I entered the forest, and I set my horse to walking.
+    Branches of the trees softly caressed my face, and now and then
+    I would catch a leaf between my teeth and bite it with avidity,
+    full of the joy of life, such as fills you without reason, with
+    a tumultuous happiness almost indefinable, a kind of magical
+    strength.</p>
+
+    <p>"As I neared the house I took out the letter for the
+    gardener, and noted with surprise that it was sealed. I was so
+    amazed and so annoyed that I almost turned back without
+    fulfilling my mission. Then I thought that I should thus
+    display over-sensitiveness and bad taste. My friend might have
+    sealed it unconsciously, worried as he was.</p>
+
+    <p>"The manor looked as though it had been deserted the last
+    twenty years. The gate, wide-open and rotten, held, one
+    wondered how. Grass filled the paths; you could not tell the
+    flower-beds from the lawn.</p>
+
+    <p>"At the noise I made kicking a shutter, an old man came out
+    from a side-door and was apparently amazed to see me there. I
+    dismounted from my horse and gave him the letter. He read it
+    once or twice, turned it over, looked at me with suspicion, and
+    asked:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Well, what do you want?'</p>
+
+    <p>"I answered sharply:</p>
+
+    <p>"'You must know it as you have read your master's orders. I
+    want to get in the house.'</p>
+
+    <p>"He appeared overwhelmed. He said:</p>
+
+    <p>"'So&mdash;you are going in&mdash;in his room?'</p>
+
+    <p>"I was getting impatient.</p>
+
+    <p>"'<em>Parbleu!</em> Do you intend to question me, by
+    chance?'</p>
+
+    <p>"He stammered:</p>
+
+    <p>"'No&mdash;monsieur&mdash;only&mdash;it has not been opened
+    since&mdash;since the death. If you will wait five minutes, I
+    will go in to see whether&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+    <p>"I interrupted angrily:</p>
+
+    <p>"'See here, are you joking? You can't go in that room, as I
+    have the key!'</p>
+
+    <p>"He no longer knew what to say.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Then, monsieur, I will show you the way.'</p>
+
+    <p>"'Show me the stairs and leave me alone. I can find it
+    without your help.'</p>
+
+    <p>"'But&mdash;still&mdash;monsieur&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+    <p>"Then I lost my temper.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Now be quiet! Else you'll be sorry!'</p>
+
+    <p>"I roughly pushed him aside and went into the house.</p>
+
+    <p>"I first went through the kitchen, then crossed two small
+    rooms occupied by the man and his wife. From there I stepped
+    into a large hall. I went up the stairs, and I recognized the
+    door my friend had described to me.</p>
+
+    <p>"I opened it with ease and went in.</p>
+
+    <p>"The room was so dark that at first I could not distinguish
+    anything. I paused, arrested by that moldy and stale odor
+    peculiar to deserted and condemned rooms, of dead rooms. Then
+    gradually my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and I saw
+    rather clearly a great room in disorder, a bed without sheets
+    having still its mattresses and pillows, one of which bore the
+    deep print of an elbow or a head, as if someone had just been
+    resting on it.</p>
+
+    <p>"The chairs seemed all in confusion. I noticed that a door,
+    probably that of a closet, had remained ajar.</p>
+
+    <p>"I first went to the window and opened it to get some light,
+    but the hinges of the outside shutters were so rusted that I
+    could not loosen them.</p>
+
+    <p>"I even tried to break them with my sword, but did not
+    succeed. As those fruitless attempts irritated me, and as my
+    eyes were by now adjusted to the dim light, I gave up hope of
+    getting more light and went toward the writing-desk.</p>
+
+    <p>"I sat down in an arm-chair, folded back the top, and opened
+    the drawer. It was full to the edge. I needed but three
+    packages, which I knew how to distinguish, and I started
+    looking for them.</p>
+
+    <p>"I was straining my eyes to decipher the inscriptions, when
+    I thought I heard, or rather felt a rustle behind me. I took no
+    notice, thinking a draft had lifted some curtain. But a minute
+    later, another movement, almost indistinct, sent a disagreeable
+    little shiver over my skin. It was so ridiculous to be moved
+    thus even so slightly, that I would not turn round, being
+    ashamed. I had just discovered the second package I needed, and
+    was on the point of reaching for the third, when a great and
+    sorrowful sigh, close to my shoulder, made me give a mad leap
+    two yards away. In my spring I had turned round, my hand on the
+    hilt of my sword, and surely had I not felt that, I should have
+    fled like a coward.</p>
+
+    <p>"A tall woman, dressed in white, was facing me, standing
+    behind the chair in which I had sat a second before.</p>
+
+    <p>"Such a shudder ran through me that I almost fell back! Oh,
+    no one who has not felt them can understand those gruesome and
+    ridiculous terrors! The soul melts; your heart seems to stop;
+    your whole body becomes limp as a sponge, and your innermost
+    parts seem collapsing.</p>
+
+    <p>"I do not believe in ghosts; and yet I broke down before the
+    hideous fear of the dead; and I suffered, oh, I suffered more
+    in a few minutes, in the irresistible anguish of supernatural
+    dread, than I have suffered in all the rest of my life!</p>
+
+    <p>"If she had not spoken, I might have died. But she did
+    speak; she spoke in a soft and plaintive voice which set my
+    nerves vibrating. I could not say that I regained my
+    self-control. No, I was past knowing what I did; but the kind
+    of pride I have in me, as well as a military pride, helped me
+    to maintain, almost in spite of myself, an honorable
+    countenance. I was making a pose, a pose for myself, and for
+    her, for her, whatever she was, woman, or phantom. I realized
+    this later, for at the time of the apparition, I could think of
+    nothing. I was afraid.</p>
+
+    <p>"She said:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Oh, you can be of great help to me, monsieur!'</p>
+
+    <p>"I tried to answer, but I was unable to utter one word. A
+    vague sound came from my throat.</p>
+
+    <p>"She continued:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Will you? You can save me, cure me. I suffer terribly. I
+    always suffer. I suffer, oh, I suffer!'</p>
+
+    <p>"And she sat down gently in my chair. She looked at me.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Will you?'</p>
+
+    <p>"I nodded my head, being still paralyzed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then she handed me a woman's comb of tortoise-shell, and
+    murmured:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Comb my hair! Oh, comb my hair! That will cure me. Look at
+    my head&mdash;how I suffer! And my hair&mdash;how it
+    hurts!'</p>
+
+    <p>"Her loose hair, very long, very black, it seemed to me,
+    hung over the back of the chair, touching the floor.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why did I do it? Why did I, shivering, accept that comb,
+    and why did I take between my hands her long hair, which left
+    on my skin a ghastly impression of cold, as if I had handled
+    serpents? I do not know.</p>
+
+    <p>"That feeling still clings about my fingers, and I shiver
+    when I recall it.</p>
+
+    <p>"I combed her, I handled, I know not how, that hair of ice.
+    I bound and unbound it; I plaited it as one plaits a horse's
+    mane. She sighed, bent her head, seemed happy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Suddenly she said, 'Thank you!' tore the comb from my
+    hands, and fled through the door which I had noticed was half
+    opened.</p>
+
+    <p>"Left alone, I had for a few seconds the hazy feeling one
+    feels in waking up from a nightmare. Then I recovered myself. I
+    ran to the window and broke the shutters by my furious
+    assault.</p>
+
+    <p>"A stream of light poured in. I rushed to the door through
+    which that being had gone. I found it locked and immovable.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then a fever of flight seized on me, a panic, the true
+    panic of battle. I quickly grasped the three packages of
+    letters from the open desk; I crossed the room running, I took
+    the steps of the stairway four at a time. I found myself
+    outside, I don't know how, and seeing my horse close by, I
+    mounted in one leap and left at a full gallop.</p>
+
+    <p>"I didn't stop till I reached Rouen and drew up in front of
+    my house. Having thrown the reins to my orderly, I flew to my
+    room and locked myself in to think.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then for an hour I asked myself whether I had not been the
+    victim of an hallucination. Certainly I must have had one of
+    those nervous shocks, one of those brain disorders such as give
+    rise to miracles, to which the supernatural owes its
+    strength.</p>
+
+    <p>"And I had almost concluded that it was a vision, an
+    illusion of my senses, when I came near to the window. My eyes
+    by chance looked down. My tunic was covered with hairs, long
+    woman's hairs which had entangled themselves around the
+    buttons!</p>
+
+    <p>"I took them off one by one and threw them out of the window
+    with trembling fingers.</p>
+
+    <p>"I then called my orderly. I felt too perturbed, too moved,
+    to go and see my friend on that day. Besides, I needed to think
+    over what I should tell him.</p>
+
+    <p>"I had his letters delivered to him. He gave a receipt to
+    the soldier. He inquired after me and was told that I was not
+    well. I had had a sunstroke, or something. He seemed
+    distressed.</p>
+
+    <p>"I went to see him the next day, early in the morning, bent
+    on telling him the truth. He had gone out the evening before
+    and had not come back.</p>
+
+    <p>"I returned the same day, but he had not been seen. I waited
+    a week. He did not come back. I notified the police. They
+    searched for him everywhere, but no one could find any trace of
+    his passing or of his retreat.</p>
+
+    <p>"A careful search was made in the deserted manor. No
+    suspicious clue was discovered.</p>
+
+    <p>"There was no sign that a woman had been concealed
+    there.</p>
+
+    <p>"The inquest gave no result, and so the search went no
+    further.</p>
+
+    <p>"And in fifty-six years I have learned nothing more. I never
+    found out the truth."</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Famous Modern Ghost Stories, by Various,
+Edited by Emily Dorothy Scarborough
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Famous Modern Ghost Stories
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 22, 2005  [eBook #15143]
+Last Updated: March 16, 2015
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Karina Aleksandrova, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES
+
+Selected, with an Introduction by
+
+DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH, PH.D.
+
+     Lecturer in English, Columbia University
+
+     Author of _The Supernatural In Modern English Fiction_, _Fugitive
+     Verses_, _From A Southern Porch_, etc. Compiler of _Humorous Ghost
+     Stories_
+
+G.P. Putnam's Sons
+New York and London
+The Knickerbocker Press
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+To
+
+ASHLEY HORACE THORNDIKE, LITT. D.
+
+PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
+
+WHO GUIDED MY EARLIER STUDIES IN THE SUPERNATURAL
+
+
+
+
+The Imperishable Ghost
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Ghosts are the true immortals, and the dead grow more alive all the
+time. Wraiths have a greater vitality to-day than ever before. They are
+far more numerous than at any time in the past, and people are more
+interested in them. There are persons that claim to be acquainted with
+specific spirits, to speak with them, to carry on correspondence with
+them, and even some who insist that they are private secretaries to the
+dead. Others of us mortals, more reserved, are content to keep such
+distance as we may from even the shadow of a shade. But there's no
+getting away from ghosts nowadays, for even if you shut your eyes to
+them in actual life, you stumble over them in the books you read, you
+see them on the stage and on the screen, and you hear them on the
+lecture platform. Even a Lodge in any vast wilderness would have the
+company of spirits. Man's love for the supernatural, which is one of the
+most natural things about him, was never more marked than at present.
+You may go a-ghosting in any company to-day, and all aspects of
+literature, novels, short stories, poetry, and drama alike, reflect the
+shadeless spirit. The latest census of the haunting world shows a vast
+increase in population, which might be explained on various grounds.
+
+Life is so inconveniently complex nowadays, what with income taxes and
+other visitations of government, that it is hard for us to have the
+added risk of wraiths, but there's no escaping. Many persons of to-day
+are in the same mental state as one Mr. Boggs, told of in a magazine
+story, a rural gentleman who was agitated over spectral visitants. He
+had once talked at a seance with a speaker who claimed to be the spirit
+of his brother, Wesley Boggs, but who conversed only on blue suspenders,
+a subject not of vital interest to Wesley in the flesh. "Still," Mr.
+Boggs reflected, "I'm not so darn sure!" In answer to a suggestion
+regarding subliminal consciousness and dual personality as explanation
+of the strange things that come bolting into life, he said, "It's crawly
+any way you look at it. Ghosts inside you are as bad as ghosts outside
+you." There are others to-day who are "not so darn sure!"
+
+One may conjecture divers reasons for this multitude of ghosts in late
+literature. Perhaps spooks are like small boys that rush to fires,
+unwilling to miss anything, and craving new sensations. And we mortals
+read about them to get vicarious thrills through the safe _medium_ of
+fiction. The war made sensationalists of us all, and the drab
+everydayness of mortal life bores us. Man's imagination, always bigger
+than his environment, overleaps the barriers of time and space and
+claims all worlds as eminent domain, so that literature, which he has
+the power to create, as he cannot create his material surroundings,
+possesses a dramatic intensity, an epic sweep, unknown in actuality. In
+the last analysis, man is as great as his daydreams--or his nightmares!
+
+Ghosts have always haunted literature, and doubtless always will.
+Specters seem never to wear out or to die, but renew their tissue both
+of person and of raiment, in marvelous fashion, so that their number
+increases with a Malthusian relentlessness. We of to-day have the ghosts
+that haunted our ancestors, as well as our own modern revenants, and
+there's no earthly use trying to banish or exorcise them by such a
+simple thing as disbelief in them. Schopenhauer asserts that a belief in
+ghosts is born with man, that it is found in all ages and in all lands,
+and that no one is free from it. Since accounts vary, and our earliest
+antecedents were poor diarists, it is difficult to establish the
+apostolic succession of spooks in actual life, but in literature, the
+line reaches back as far as the primeval picture writing. A study of
+animism in primitive culture shows many interesting links between the
+past and the present in this matter. And anyhow, since man knows that
+whether or not he has seen a ghost, presently he'll be one, he's
+fascinated with the subject. And he creates ghosts, not merely in his
+own image, but according to his dreams of power.
+
+The more man knows of natural laws, the keener he is about the
+supernatural. He may claim to have laid aside superstition, but he isn't
+to be believed in that. Though he has discarded witchcraft and alchemy,
+it is only that he may have more time for psychical research; true, he
+no longer dabbles with ancient magic, but that is because the modern
+types, as the ouija board, entertain him more. He dearly loves to
+traffic with that other world of which he knows so little and concerning
+which he is so curious.
+
+Perhaps the war, or possibly an increase in class consciousness, or
+unionization of spirits, or whatever, has greatly energized the ghost in
+our day and given him both ambition and strength to do more things than
+ever. Maybe "pep tablets" have been discovered on the other side as
+well! No longer is the ghost content to be seen and not heard, to slink
+around in shadowy corners as apologetically as poor relations. Wraiths
+now have a rambunctious vitality and self-assurance that are
+astonishing. Even the ghosts of folks dead so long they have forgotten
+about themselves are yawning, stretching their skeletons, and starting
+out to do a little haunting. Spooky creatures in such a wide diversity
+are abroad to-day that one is sometimes at a loss to know what to do
+"gin a body meet a body." Ghosts are entering all sorts of activities
+now, so that mortals had better look alive, else they'll be crowded out
+of their place in the shade. The dead are too much with us!
+
+Modern ghosts are less simple and primitive than their ancestors, and
+are developing complexes of various kinds. They are more democratic than
+of old, and have more of a diversity of interests, so that mortals have
+scarcely the ghost of a chance with them. They employ all the agencies
+and mechanisms known to mortals, and have in addition their own methods
+of transit and communication. Whereas in the past a ghost had to stalk
+or glide to his haunts, now he limousines or airplanes, so that
+naturally he can get in more work than before. He uses the wireless to
+send his messages, and is expert in all manner of scientific lines.
+
+In fact, his infernal efficiency and knowledge of science constitute the
+worst terror of the current specter. Who can combat a ghost that knows
+all about a chemical laboratory, that can add electricity to his other
+shocks, and can employ all mortal and immortal agencies as his own?
+Science itself is supernatural, as we see when we look at it properly.
+
+Modern literature, especially the most recent, shows a revival of old
+types of ghosts, together with the innovations of the new. There are
+specters that take a real part in the plot complication, and those that
+merely cast threatening looks at the living, or at least, are content to
+speak a piece and depart. Some spirits are dumb, while others are highly
+elocutionary.
+
+Ghosts vary in many respects. Some are like the pallid shades of the
+past, altogether unlike the living and with an unmistakable spectral
+form--or lack of it. They sweep like mist through the air, or flutter
+like dead leaves in the gale--a gale always accompanying them as part of
+the stock furnishings. On the other hand, some revenants are so
+successfully made up that one doesn't believe them when they pridefully
+announce that they are wraiths. Some of them are, in fact, so alive that
+they don't themselves know they're dead. It's going to be a great shock
+to some of them one of these days to wake up and find out they're
+demised!
+
+Ghosts are more gregarious than in the past. Formerly a shade slunk off
+by himself, as if ashamed of his profession, as if aware of the lack of
+cordiality with which he would be received, knowing that mortals shunned
+and feared him, and chary even of associating with his fellow-shades. He
+wraithed all by himself. The specters of the past--save in scenes of the
+lower world,--were usually solitary creatures, driven to haunt mortals
+from very lonesomeness. Now we have a chance to study the mob psychology
+of ghosts, for they come in madding crowds whenever they like.
+
+Ghosts at present are showing an active interest not only in public
+affairs, but in the arts as well. At least, we now have pictures and
+writing attributed to them. Perhaps annoyed by some of the inaccuracies
+published concerning them--for authors have in the past taken advantage
+of the belief that ghosts couldn't write back--they have recently
+developed itching pens. They use all manner of utensils for expression
+now. There's the magic typewriter that spooks for John Kendrick Bangs,
+the boardwalk that Patience Worth executes for Mrs. Curran, and
+innumerable other specters that commandeer fountain pens and pencils and
+brushes to give their versions of infinity. There's a passion on the
+part of ghosts for being interviewed just now. At present
+book-reviewers, for instance, had better be careful, lest the wraiths
+take their own method of answering criticism. It isn't safe to speak or
+write with anything but respect of ghosts now. _De mortuis nil nisi
+bonum_, indeed! One should never make light of a shade.
+
+Modern ghosts have a more pronounced personality than the specters of
+the past. They have more strength, of mind as well as of body, than the
+colorless revenants of earlier literature, and they produce a more vivid
+effect on the beholder and the reader. They know more surely what they
+wish to do, and they advance relentlessly and with economy of effort to
+the effecting of their purpose, whether it be of pure horror, of beauty,
+or pathos of humor. We have now many spirits in fiction that are
+pathetic without frightfulness, many that move us with a sense of poetic
+beauty rather than of curdling horror, who touch the heart as well as
+the spine of the reader. And the humorous ghost is a distinctive shade
+of to-day, with his quips and pranks and haunting grin. Whatever a
+modern ghost wishes to do or to be, he is or does, with confidence and
+success.
+
+The spirit of to-day is terrifyingly visible or invisible at will. The
+dreadful presence of a ghost that one cannot see is more unbearable than
+the specter that one can locate and attempt to escape from. The
+invisible haunting is represented in this volume by Fitz-James O'Brien's
+_What Was It?_ one of the very best of the type, and one that has
+strongly influenced others. O'Brien's story preceded Guy de Maupassant's
+_Le Horla_ by several years, and must surely have suggested to
+Maupassant as to Bierce, in his _The Damned Thing_, the power of evil
+that can be felt but not seen.
+
+The wraith of the present carries with him more vital energy than his
+predecessors, is more athletic in his struggles with the unlucky wights
+he visits, and can coerce mortals to do his will by the laying on of
+hands as well as by the look or word. He speaks with more emphasis and
+authority, as well as with more human naturalness, than the earlier
+ghosts. He has not only all the force he possessed in life, but in many
+instances has an access of power, which makes man a poor protagonist for
+him. Algernon Blackwood's spirits of evil, for example, have a more
+awful potentiality than any living person could have, and their will to
+harm has been increased immeasurably by the accident of death. If the
+facts bear out the fear that such is the case in life as in fiction,
+some of our social customs will be reversed. A man will strive by all
+means to keep his deadly enemy alive, lest death may endow him with
+tenfold power to hurt. Dark discarnate passions, disembodied hates, work
+evil where a simple ghost might be helpless and abashed. Algernon
+Blackwood has command over the spirits of air and fire and wave, so that
+his pages thrill with beauty and terror. He has handled almost all known
+aspects of the supernatural, and from his many stories he has selected
+for this volume _The Willows_ as the best example of his ghostly art.
+
+Apparitions are more readily recognizable at present than in the past,
+for they carry into eternity all the disfigurements or physical
+peculiarities that the living bodies possessed--a fact discouraging to
+all persons not conspicuous for good looks. Freckles and warts, long
+noses and missing limbs distinguish the ghosts and aid in crucial
+identification. The thrill of horror in Ambrose Bierce's story, _The
+Middle Toe of the Right Foot_, is intensified by the fact that the dead
+woman who comes back in revenge to haunt her murderer, has one toe
+lacking as in life. And in a recent story a surgeon whose desire to
+experiment has caused him needlessly to sacrifice a man's life on the
+operating table, is haunted to death by the dismembered arm. Fiction
+shows us various ghosts with half faces, and at least one notable spook
+that comes in half. Such ability, it will be granted, must necessarily
+increase the haunting power, for if a ghost may send a foot or an arm or
+a leg to harry one person, he can dispatch his back-bone or his liver or
+his heart to upset other human beings simultaneously in a sectional
+haunting at once economically efficient and terrifying.
+
+_The Beast with Five Fingers_, for instance, has a loathsome horror that
+a complete skeleton or conventionally equipped wraith could not achieve.
+Who can doubt that a bodiless hand leaping around on its errands of evil
+has a menace that a complete six-foot frame could not duplicate? Yet, in
+Quiller-Couch's _A Pair of Hands_, what pathos and beauty in the thought
+of the child hands coming back to serve others in homely tasks! Surely
+no housewife in these helpless days would object to being haunted in
+such delicate fashion.
+
+Ghosts of to-day have an originality that antique specters lacked. For
+instance, what story of the past has the awful thrill in Andreyev's
+_Lazarus_, that story of the man who came back from the grave, living,
+yet dead, with the horror of the unknown so manifest in his face that
+those who looked into his deep eyes met their doom? Present-day writers
+skillfully combine various elements of awe with the supernatural, as
+madness with the ghostly, adding to the chill of fear which each concept
+gives. Wilbur Daniel Steele's _The Woman at Seven Brothers_ is an
+instance of that method.
+
+Poe's _Ligeia_, one of the best stories in any language, reveals the
+unrelenting will of the dead to effect its desire,--the dead wife
+triumphantly coming back to life through the second wife's body. Olivia
+Howard Dunbar's _The Shell of Sense_ is another instance of jealousy
+reaching beyond the grave. _The Messenger_, one of Robert W. Chambers's
+early stories and an admirable example of the supernatural, has various
+thrills, with its river of blood, its death's head moth, and the ancient
+but very active skull of the Black Priest who was shot as a traitor to
+his country, but lived on as an energetic and curseful ghost.
+
+_The Shadows on the Wall_, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman,--which one
+prominent librarian considers the best ghost story ever written,--is
+original in the method of its horrific manifestation. Isn't it more
+devastating to one's sanity to see the shadow of a revenge ghost cast on
+the wall,--to know that a vindictive spirit is beside one but
+invisible--than to see the specter himself? Under such circumstances,
+the sight of a skeleton or a sheeted phantom would be downright
+comforting.
+
+_The Mass of Shadows_, by Anatole France, is an example of the modern
+tendency to show phantoms in groups, as contrasted with the solitary
+habits of ancient specters. Here the spirits of those who had sinned for
+love could meet and celebrate mass together in one evening of the year.
+
+The delicate beauty of many of the modern ghostly stories is apparent in
+_The Haunted Orchard_, by Richard Le Gallienne, for this prose poem has
+an appeal of tenderness rather than of terror. And everybody who has
+had affection for a dog will appreciate the pathos of the little sketch,
+by Myla J. Closser, _At the Gate_. The dog appears more frequently as a
+ghost than does any other animal, perhaps because man feels that he is
+nearer the human,--though the horse is as intelligent and as much
+beloved. There is an innate pathos about a dog somehow, that makes his
+appearance in ghostly form more credible and sympathetic, while the
+ghost of any other animal would tend to have a comic connotation. Other
+animals in fiction have power of magic--notably the cat--but they don't
+appear as spirits. But the dog is seen as a pathetic symbol of
+faithfulness, as a tragic sufferer, or as a terrible revenge ghost. Dogs
+may come singly or in groups--Edith Wharton has five of different sorts
+in _Kerfol_--or in packs, as in Eden Phillpotts's _Another Little Heath
+Hound_.
+
+An illuminating instance of the power of fiction over human faith is
+furnished by the case of Arthur Machen's _The Bowmen_, included here.
+This story it is which started the whole tissue of legendry concerning
+supernatural aid given the allied armies during the war. This purely
+fictitious account of an angel army that saved the day at Mons was so
+vivid that its readers accepted it as truth and obstinately clung to
+that idea in the face of Mr. Machen's persistent and bewildered
+explanations that he had invented the whole thing. Editors wrote leading
+articles about it, ministers preached sermons on it, and the general
+public preferred to believe in the Mons angels rather than in Arthur
+Machen. Mr. Machen has shown himself an artist in the supernatural, one
+whom his generation has not been discerning enough to appreciate. Some
+of his material is painfully morbid, but his pen is magic and his
+inkwell holds many dark secrets.
+
+In this collection I have attempted to include specimens of a few of the
+distinctive types of modern ghosts, as well as to show the art of
+individual stories. Examples of the humorous ghosts are omitted here, as
+a number of them will be brought together in _Humorous Ghost Stories_,
+the companion volume to this. The ghost lover who reads these pages will
+think of others that he would like to see included--for I believe that
+readers are more passionately attached to their own favorite ghost tales
+than to any other form of literature. But critics will admit the
+manifest impossibility of bringing together in one volume all the famous
+examples of the art. Some of the well-known tales, particularly the
+older ones on which copyright has expired, have been reprinted so often
+as to be almost hackneyed, while others have been of necessity omitted
+because of the limitations of space.
+
+                                                                    D.S.
+
+NEW YORK,
+  March, 1921.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION: THE IMPERISHABLE GHOST
+
+THE WILLOWS
+    BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
+
+THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL
+    BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
+
+THE MESSENGER
+    BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+LAZARUS
+    BY LEONID ANDREYEV
+
+THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS
+    BY W. F. HARVEY
+
+THE MASS OF SHADOWS
+    BY ANATOLE FRANCE
+
+WHAT WAS IT?
+    BY FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN
+
+THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT
+    BY AMBROSE BIERCE
+
+THE SHELL OF SENSE
+    BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR
+
+THE WOMAN AT SEVEN BROTHERS
+    BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE
+
+AT THE GATE
+    BY MYLA JO CLOSSER
+
+LIGEIA
+    BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
+
+THE HAUNTED ORCHARD
+    BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
+
+THE BOWMEN
+    BY ARTHUR MACHEN
+
+A GHOST
+    BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+
+
+
+
+The Willows
+
+BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
+
+     From _The Listener_, by Algernon Blackwood. Published in America by
+     E.P. Dutton, and in England by Everleigh Nash, Ltd. By permission
+     of the publishers and Algernon Blackwood.
+
+
+I
+
+After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Buda-Pesth, the Danube
+enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters
+spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country
+becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low
+willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy
+blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may
+be seen in large straggling letters the word _Suempfe_, meaning marshes.
+
+In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown
+islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes
+bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the
+sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows
+never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they
+remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on
+slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as
+grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the
+impression that the entire plain is moving and _alive_. For the wind
+sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves
+instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the
+branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their under-side turns
+to the sun.
+
+Happy to slip beyond the control of stern banks, the Danube here wanders
+about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the
+islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a
+shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing
+at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and
+forming new islands innumerable which shift daily in size and shape and
+possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates
+their very existence.
+
+Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon
+after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent
+and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about
+mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before
+sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving
+it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills
+of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend
+under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had then swept on
+the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman
+Carnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of
+Theben on a spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly
+from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.
+
+Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well into
+Hungary, and the muddy waters--sure sign of flood--sent us aground on
+many a shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belching
+whirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszony) showed
+against the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse, flew
+at top speed under the gray walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of
+the Fliegende Bruecke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and
+plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of islands, sand-banks, and
+swamp-land beyond--the land of the willows.
+
+The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps
+down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the
+scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings,
+and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor
+red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilization
+within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of human kind, the
+utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows,
+winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we
+allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held
+some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat
+audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of
+wonder and magic--a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who
+had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for
+those who had the imagination to discover them.
+
+Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless buffetings of a most
+tempestuous wind made us feel weary, and we at once began casting about
+for a suitable camping-ground for the night. But the bewildering
+character of the islands made landing difficult; the swirling flood
+carried us in-shore and then swept us out again; the willow branches
+tore our hands as we seized them to stop the canoe, and we pulled many a
+yard of sandy bank into the water before at length we shot with a great
+sideways blow from the wind into a backwater and managed to beach the
+bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay panting and laughing after our
+exertions on hot yellow sand, sheltered from the wind, and in the full
+blaze of a scorching sun, a cloudless blue sky above, and an immense
+army of dancing, shouting willow bushes, closing in from all sides,
+shining with spray and clapping their thousand little hands as though to
+applaud the success of our efforts.
+
+"What a river!" I said to my companion, thinking of all the way we had
+traveled from the source in the Black Forest, and how we had often been
+obliged to wade and push in the upper shallows at the beginning of June.
+
+"Won't stand much nonsense now, will it?" he said, pulling the canoe a
+little farther into safety up the sand, and then composing himself for a
+nap.
+
+I lay by his side, happy and peaceful in the bath of the
+elements--water, wind, sand, and the great fire of the sun--thinking of
+the long journey that lay behind us, and of the great stretch before us
+to the Black Sea, and how lucky I was to have such a delightful and
+charming traveling companion as my friend, the Swede.
+
+We had made many similar journeys together, but the Danube, more than
+any other river I knew, impressed us from the very beginning with its
+_aliveness_. From its tiny bubbling entry into the world among the
+pinewood gardens of Donaueschingen, until this moment when it began to
+play the great river-game of losing itself among the deserted swamps,
+unobserved, unrestrained, it had seemed to us like following the growth
+of some living creature. Sleepy at first, but later developing violent
+desires as it became conscious of its deep soul, it rolled, like some
+huge fluid being, through all the countries we had passed, holding our
+little craft on its mighty shoulders, playing roughly with us sometimes,
+yet always friendly and well-meaning, till at length we had come
+inevitably to regard it as a Great Personage.
+
+How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it told us so much of its
+secret life? At night we heard it singing to the moon as we lay in our
+tent, uttering that odd sibilant note peculiar to itself and said to be
+caused by the rapid tearing of the pebbles along its bed, so great is
+its hurrying speed. We knew, too, the voice of its gurgling whirlpools,
+suddenly bubbling up on a surface previously quite calm; the roar of its
+shallows and swift rapids; its constant steady thundering below all mere
+surface sounds; and that ceaseless tearing of its icy waters at the
+banks. How it stood up and shouted when the rains fell flat upon its
+face! And how its laughter roared out when the wind blew upstream and
+tried to stop its growing speed! We knew all its sounds and voices, its
+tumblings and foamings, its unnecessary splashing against the bridges;
+that self-conscious chatter when there were hills to look on; the
+affected dignity of its speech when it passed through the little towns,
+far too important to laugh; and all these faint, sweet whisperings when
+the sun caught it fairly in some slow curve and poured down upon it till
+the steam rose.
+
+It was full of tricks, too, in its early life before the great world
+knew it. There were places in the upper reaches among the Swabian
+forests, when yet the first whispers of its destiny had not reached it,
+where it elected to disappear through holes in the ground, to appear
+again on the other side of the porous limestone hills and start a new
+river with another name; leaving, too, so little water in its own bed
+that we had to climb out and wade and push the canoe through miles of
+shallows!
+
+And a chief pleasure, in those early days of its irresponsible youth,
+was to lie low, like Brer Fox, just before the little turbulent
+tributaries came to join it from the Alps, and to refuse to acknowledge
+them when in, but to run for miles side by side, the dividing line well
+marked, the very levels different, the Danube utterly declining to
+recognize the new-comer. Below Passau, however, it gave up this
+particular trick, for there the Inn comes in with a thundering power
+impossible to ignore, and so pushes and incommodes the parent river that
+there is hardly room for them in the long twisting gorge that follows,
+and the Danube is shoved this way and that against the cliffs, and
+forced to hurry itself with great waves and much dashing to and fro in
+order to get through in time. And during the fight our canoe slipped
+down from its shoulder to its breast, and had the time of its life among
+the struggling waves. But the Inn taught the old river a lesson, and
+after Passau it no longer pretended to ignore new arrivals.
+
+This was many days back, of course, and since then we had come to know
+other aspects of the great creature, and across the Bavarian wheat plain
+of Straubing she wandered so slowly under the blazing June sun that we
+could well imagine only the surface inches were water, while below there
+moved, concealed as by a silken mantle, a whole army of Undines,
+passing silently and unseen down to the sea, and very leisurely too,
+lest they be discovered.
+
+Much, too, we forgave her because of her friendliness to the birds and
+animals that haunted the shores. Cormorants lined the banks in lonely
+places in rows like short black palings; gray crows crowded the
+shingle-beds; storks stood fishing in the vistas of shallower water that
+opened up between the islands, and hawks, swans, and marsh birds of all
+sorts filled the air with glinting wings and singing, petulant cries. It
+was impossible to feel annoyed with the river's vagaries after seeing a
+deer leap with a splash into the water at sunrise and swim past the bows
+of the canoe; and often we saw fawns peering at us from the underbrush,
+or looked straight into the brown eyes of a stag as we charged full tilt
+round a corner and entered another reach of the river. Foxes, too,
+everywhere haunted the banks, tripping daintily among the driftwood and
+disappearing so suddenly that it was impossible to see how they managed
+it.
+
+But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything changed a little, and the
+Danube became more serious. It ceased trifling. It was halfway to the
+Black Sea, within scenting distance almost of other, stranger countries
+where no tricks would be permitted or understood. It became suddenly
+grown-up, and claimed our respect and even our awe. It broke out into
+three arms, for one thing, that only met again a hundred kilometers
+farther down, and for a canoe there were no indications which one was
+intended to be followed.
+
+"If you take a side channel," said the Hungarian officer we met in the
+Pressburg shop while buying provisions, "you may find yourselves, when
+the flood subsides, forty miles from anywhere, high and dry, and you may
+easily starve. There are no people, no farms, no fishermen. I warn you
+not to continue. The river, too, is still rising, and this wind will
+increase."
+
+The rising river did not alarm us in the least, but the matter of being
+left high and dry by a sudden subsidence of the waters might be serious,
+and we had consequently laid in an extra stock of provisions. For the
+rest, the officer's prophecy held true, and the wind, blowing down a
+perfectly clear sky, increased steadily till it reached the dignity of a
+westerly gale.
+
+It was earlier than usual when we camped, for the sun was a good hour or
+two from the horizon, and leaving my friend still asleep on the hot
+sand, I wandered about in desultory examination of our hotel. The
+island, I found, was less than an acre in extent, a mere sandy bank
+standing some two or three feet above the level of the river. The far
+end, pointing into the sunset, was covered with flying spray which the
+tremendous wind drove off the crests of the broken waves. It was
+triangular in shape, with the apex upstream.
+
+I stood there for several minutes, watching the impetuous crimson flood
+bearing down with a shouting roar, dashing in waves against the bank as
+though to sweep it bodily away, and then swirling by in two foaming
+streams on either side. The ground seemed to shake with the shock and
+rush while the furious movement of the willow bushes as the wind poured
+over them increased the curious illusion that the island itself actually
+moved. Above, for a mile or two, I could see the great river descending
+upon me: it was like looking up the slope of a sliding hill, white with
+foam, and leaping up everywhere to show itself to the sun.
+
+The rest of the island was too thickly grown with willows to make
+walking pleasant, but I made the tour, nevertheless. From the lower end
+the light, of course, changed, and the river looked dark and angry. Only
+the backs of the flying waves were visible, streaked with foam, and
+pushed forcibly by the great puffs of wind that fell upon them from
+behind. For a short mile it was visible, pouring in and out among the
+islands, and then disappearing with a huge sweep into the willows, which
+closed about it like a herd of monstrous antediluvian creatures crowding
+down to drink. They made me think of gigantic sponge-like growths that
+sucked the river up into themselves. They caused it to vanish from
+sight. They herded there together in such overpowering numbers.
+
+Altogether it was an impressive scene, with its utter loneliness, its
+bizarre suggestion; and as I gazed, long and curiously, a singular
+emotion began stir somewhere in the depths of me. Midway in my delight
+of the wild beauty, there crept unbidden and unexplained, a curious
+feeling of disquietude, almost of alarm.
+
+A rising river, perhaps, always suggests something of the ominous: many
+of the little islands I saw before me would probably have been swept
+away by the morning; this resistless, thundering flood of water touched
+the sense of awe. Yet I was aware that my uneasiness lay deeper far than
+the emotions of awe and wonder. It was not that I felt. Nor had it
+directly to do with the power of the driving wind--this shouting
+hurricane that might almost carry up a few acres of willows into the air
+and scatter them like so much chaff over the landscape. The wind was
+simply enjoying itself, for nothing rose out of the flat landscape to
+stop it, and I was conscious of sharing its great game with a kind of
+pleasurable excitement. Yet this novel emotion had nothing to do with
+the wind. Indeed, so vague was the sense of distress I experienced, that
+it was impossible to trace it to its source and deal with it
+accordingly, though I was aware somehow that it had to do with my
+realization of our utter insignificance before this unrestrained power
+of the elements about me. The huge-grown river had something to do with
+it too--a vague, unpleasant idea that we had somehow trifled with these
+great elemental forces in whose power we lay helpless every hour of the
+day and night. For here, indeed, they were gigantically at play
+together, and the sight appealed to the imagination.
+
+But my emotion, so far as I could understand it, seemed to attach itself
+more particularly to the willow bushes, to these acres and acres of
+willows, crowding, so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the eye
+could reach, pressing upon the river as though to suffocate it, standing
+in dense array mile after mile beneath the sky, watching, waiting,
+listening. And, apart quite from the elements, the willows connected
+themselves subtly with my malaise, attacking the mind insidiously
+somehow by reason of their vast numbers, and contriving in some way or
+other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty power, a power,
+moreover, not altogether friendly to us.
+
+Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way
+or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains
+overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises
+a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another,
+somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They
+stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole
+to exalt.
+
+With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far different,
+I felt. Some essence emanated from them that besieged the heart. A sense
+of awe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere by a vague terror.
+Their serried ranks growing everywhere darker about me as the shadows
+deepened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke in me the
+curious and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespassed here upon the
+borders of an alien world, a world where we were intruders, a world
+where we were not wanted or invited to remain--where we ran grave risks
+perhaps!
+
+The feeling, however, though it refused to yield its meaning entirely to
+analysis, did not at the time trouble me by passing into menace. Yet it
+never left me quite, even during the very practical business of putting
+up the tent in a hurricane of wind and building a fire for the stew-pot.
+It remained, just enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a most
+delightful camping-ground of a good portion of its charm. To my
+companion, however, I said nothing, for he was a man I considered devoid
+of imagination. In the first place, I could never have explained to him
+what I meant, and in the second, he would have laughed stupidly at me if
+I had.
+
+There was a slight depression in the center of the island, and here we
+pitched the tent. The surrounding willows broke the wind a bit.
+
+"A poor camp," observed the imperturbable Swede when at last the tent
+stood upright; "no stones and precious little firewood. I'm for moving
+on early to-morrow--eh? This sand won't hold anything."
+
+But the experience of a collapsing tent at midnight had taught us many
+devices, and we made the cosy gipsy house as safe as possible, and then
+set about collecting a store of wood to last till bedtime. Willow bushes
+drop no branches, and driftwood was our only source of supply. We hunted
+the shores pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the banks were crumbling as the
+rising flood tore at them and carried away great portions with a splash
+and a gurgle.
+
+"The island's much smaller than when we landed," said the accurate
+Swede. "It won't last long at this rate. We'd better drag the canoe
+close to the tent, and be ready to start at a moment's notice. _I_ shall
+sleep in my clothes."
+
+He was a little distance off, climbing along the bank, and I heard his
+rather jolly laugh as he spoke.
+
+"By Jove!" I heard him call, a moment later, and turned to see what had
+caused his exclamation; but for the moment he was hidden by the willows,
+and I could not find him.
+
+"What in the world's this?" I heard him cry again, and this time his
+voice had become serious.
+
+I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He was looking over the
+river, pointing at something in the water.
+
+"Good Heavens, it's a man's body!" he cried excitedly. "Look!"
+
+A black thing, turning over and over in the foaming waves, swept rapidly
+past. It kept disappearing and coming up to the surface again. It was
+about twenty feet from the shore, and just as it was opposite to where
+we stood it lurched round and looked straight at us. We saw its eyes
+reflecting the sunset, and gleaming an odd yellow as the body turned
+over. Then it gave a swift, gulping plunge, and dived out of sight in a
+flash.
+
+"An otter, by gad!" we exclaimed in the same breath, laughing.
+
+It _was_ an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it had looked exactly
+like the body of a drowned man turning helplessly in the current. Far
+below it came to the surface once again, and we saw its black skin, wet
+and shining in the sunlight.
+
+Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full of driftwood, another
+thing happened to recall us to the river bank. This time it really was a
+man, and what was more, a man in a boat. Now a small boat on the Danube
+was an unusual sight at any time, but here in this deserted region, and
+at flood time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real event. We
+stood and stared.
+
+Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or the refraction from the
+wonderfully illumined water, I cannot say, but, whatever the cause, I
+found it difficult to focus my sight properly upon the flying
+apparition. It seemed, however, to be a man standing upright in a sort
+of flat-bottomed boat, steering with a long oar, and being carried down
+the opposite shore at a tremendous pace. He apparently was looking
+across in our direction, but the distance was too great and the light
+too uncertain for us to make out very plainly what he was about. It
+seemed to me that he was gesticulating and making signs at us. His voice
+came across the water to us shouting something furiously but the wind
+drowned it so that no single word was audible. There was something
+curious about the whole appearance--man, boat, signs, voice--that made
+an impression on me out of all proportion to its cause.
+
+"He's crossing himself!" I cried. "Look, he's making the sign of the
+cross!"
+
+"I believe you're right," the Swede said, shading his eyes with his hand
+and watching the man out of sight. He seemed to be gone in a moment,
+melting away down there into the sea of willows where the sun caught
+them in the bend of the river and turned them into a great crimson wall
+of beauty. Mist, too, had begun to rise, so that the air was hazy.
+
+"But what in the world is he doing at nightfall on this flooded river?"
+I said, half to myself. "Where is he going at such a time, and what did
+he mean by his signs and shouting? D'you think he wished to warn us
+about something?"
+
+"He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably," laughed my
+companion. "These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish: you
+remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed
+here because it belonged to some sort of beings outside man's world! I
+suppose they believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons too.
+That peasant in the boat saw people on the islands for the first time in
+his life," he added, after a slight pause, "and it scared him, that's
+all." The Swede's tone of voice was not convincing, and his manner
+lacked something that was usually there. I noted the change instantly
+while he talked, though without being able to label it precisely.
+
+"If they had enough imagination," I laughed loudly--I remember trying to
+make as much _noise_ as I could--"they might well people a place like
+this with the old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all
+this region more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and
+elemental deities."
+
+The subject dropped and we returned to our stew-pot, for my friend was
+not given to imaginative conversation as a rule. Moreover, just then I
+remember feeling distinctly glad that he was not imaginative; his
+stolid, practical nature suddenly seemed to me welcome and comforting.
+It was an admirable temperament, I felt: he could steer down rapids like
+a red Indian, shoot dangerous bridges and whirlpools better than any
+white man I ever saw in a canoe. He was a grand fellow for an
+adventurous trip, a tower of strength when untoward things happened. I
+looked at his strong face and light curly hair as he staggered along
+under his pile of driftwood (twice the size of mine!), and I experienced
+a feeling of relief. Yes, I was distinctly glad just then that the Swede
+was--what he was, and that he never made remarks that suggested more
+than they said.
+
+"The river's still rising, though," he added, as if following out some
+thoughts of his own, and dropping his load with a gasp. "This island
+will be under water in two days if it goes on."
+
+"I wish the _wind_ would go down," I said. "I don't care a fig for the
+river."
+
+The flood, indeed, had no terrors for us; we could get off at ten
+minutes' notice, and the more water the better we liked it. It meant an
+increasing current and the obliteration of the treacherous shingle-beds
+that so often threatened to tear the bottom out of our canoe.
+
+Contrary to our expectations, the wind did not go down with the sun. It
+seemed to increase with the darkness, howling overhead and shaking the
+willows round us like straws. Curious sounds accompanied it sometimes,
+like the explosion of heavy guns, and it fell upon the water and the
+island in great flat blows of immense power. It made me think of the
+sounds a planet must make, could we only hear it, driving along through
+space.
+
+But the sky kept wholly clear of clouds, and soon after supper the full
+moon rose up in the east and covered the river and the plain of shouting
+willows with a light like the day.
+
+We lay on the sandy patch beside the fire, smoking, listening to the
+noises of the night round us, and talking happily of the journey we had
+already made, and of our plans ahead. The map lay spread in the door of
+the tent, but the high wind made it hard to study, and presently we
+lowered the curtain and extinguished the lantern. The firelight was
+enough to smoke and see each other's faces by, and the sparks flew about
+overhead like fireworks. A few yards beyond, the river gurgled and
+hissed, and from time to time a heavy splash announced the falling away
+of further portions of the bank.
+
+Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the far-away scenes and incidents of
+our first camps in the Black Forest, or of other subjects altogether
+remote from the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the actual
+moment more than was necessary--almost as though we had agreed tacitly
+to avoid discussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter nor
+the boatman, for instance, received the honor of a single mention,
+though ordinarily these would have furnished discussion for the greater
+part of the evening. They were, of course, distinct events in such a
+place.
+
+The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep the fire going, for the
+wind, that drove the smoke in our faces wherever we sat, helped at the
+same time to make a forced draught. We took it in turn to make foraging
+expeditions into the darkness, and the quantity the Swede brought back
+always made me feel that he took an absurdly long time finding it; for
+the fact was I did not care much about being left alone, and yet it
+always seemed to be my turn to grub about among the bushes or scramble
+along the slippery banks in the moonlight. The long day's battle with
+wind and water--such wind and such water!--had tired us both, and an
+early bed was the obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for
+the tent. We lay there, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion,
+peering about us into the dense willow bushes, and listening to the
+thunder of wind and river. The loneliness of the place had entered our
+very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our
+voices became a trifle unreal and forced; whispering would have been the
+fitting mode of communication, I felt, and the human voice, always
+rather absurd amid the roar of the elements, now carried with it
+something almost illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in church,
+or in some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not quite _safe_, to
+be overheard.
+
+The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept
+by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both,
+I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath
+the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world,
+an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of
+willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make
+use of it! Something more than the power of its mystery stirred in me as
+I lay on the sand, feet to fire, and peered up through the leaves at the
+stars. For the last time I rose to get firewood.
+
+"When this has burnt up," I said firmly, "I shall turn in," and my
+companion watched me lazily as I moved off into the surrounding
+shadows.
+
+For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed unusually receptive that
+night, unusually open to suggestion of things other than sensory. He too
+was touched by the beauty and loneliness of the place. I was not
+altogether pleased, I remember, to recognize this slight change in him,
+and instead of immediately collecting sticks, I made my way to the far
+point of the island where the moonlight on plain and river could be seen
+to better advantage. The desire to be alone had come suddenly upon me;
+my former dread returned in force; there was a vague feeling in me I
+wished to face and probe to the bottom.
+
+When I reached the point of sand jutting out among the waves, the spell
+of the place descended upon me with a positive shock. No mere "scenery"
+could have produced such an effect. There was something more here,
+something to alarm.
+
+I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched the whispering
+willows; I heard the ceaseless beating of the tireless wind; and, one
+and all, each in its own way, stirred in me this sensation of a strange
+distress. But the _willows_ especially: for ever they went on chattering
+and talking among themselves, laughing a little, shrilly crying out,
+sometimes sighing--but what it was they made so much to-do about
+belonged to the secret life of the great plain they inhabited. And it
+was utterly alien to the world I knew, or to that of the wild yet
+kindly elements. They made me think of a host of beings from another
+plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps, all discussing a
+mystery known only to themselves. I watched them moving busily together,
+oddly shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their myriad leaves even
+when there was no wind. They moved of their own will as though alive,
+and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the
+_horrible_.
+
+There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast army surrounding our
+camp, shaking their innumerable silver spears defiantly, formed all
+ready for an attack.
+
+The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid;
+for the wanderer, especially, camps have their "note" either of welcome
+or rejection. At first it may not always be apparent, because the busy
+preparations of tent and cooking prevent, but with the first
+pause--after supper usually--it comes and announces itself. And the note
+of this willow-camp now became unmistakably plain to me: we were
+interlopers, trespassers, we were not welcomed. The sense of
+unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watching. We touched the
+frontier of a region where our presence was resented. For a night's
+lodging we might perhaps be tolerated; but for a prolonged and
+inquisitive stay--No! by all the gods of the trees and the wilderness,
+no! We were the first human influences upon this island, and we were not
+wanted. _The willows were against us_.
+
+Strange thoughts like these, bizarre fancies, borne I know not whence,
+found lodgment in my mind as I stood listening. What, I thought, if,
+after all, these crouching willows proved to be alive; if suddenly they
+should rise up, like a swarm of living creatures, marshaled by the gods
+whose territory we had invaded, sweep towards us off the vast swamps,
+booming overhead in the night--and then _settle down_! As I looked it
+was so easy to imagine they actually moved, crept nearer, retreated a
+little, huddled together in masses, hostile, waiting for the great wind
+that should finally start them a-running. I could have sworn their
+aspect changed a little, and their ranks deepened and pressed more
+closely together.
+
+The melancholy shrill cry of a night bird sounded overhead, and suddenly
+I nearly lost my balance as the piece of bank I stood upon fell with a
+great splash into the river, undermined by the flood. I stepped back
+just in time, and went on hunting for firewood again, half laughing at
+the odd fancies that crowded so thickly into my mind and cast their
+spell upon me. I recall the Swede's remark about moving on next day, and
+I was just thinking that I fully agreed with him, when I turned with a
+start and saw the subject of my thoughts standing immediately in front
+of me. He was quite close. The roar of the elements had covered his
+approach.
+
+"You've been gone so long," he shouted above the wind, "I thought
+something must have happened to you."
+
+But there was that in his tone, and a certain look in his face as well,
+that conveyed to me more than his actual words, and in a flash I
+understood the real reason for his coming. It was because the spell of
+the place had entered his soul too, and he did not like being alone.
+
+"River still rising," he cried, pointing to the flood in the moonlight,
+"and the wind's simply awful."
+
+He always said the same things, but it was the cry for companionship
+that gave the real importance to his words.
+
+"Lucky," I cried back, "our tent's in the hollow. I think it'll hold all
+right." I added something about the difficulty of finding wood, in order
+to explain my absence, but the wind caught my words and flung them
+across the river, so that he did not hear, but just looked at me through
+the branches, nodding his head.
+
+"Lucky if we get away without disaster!" he shouted, or words to that
+effect; and I remember feeling half angry with him for putting the
+thought into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself. There was
+disaster impending somewhere, and the sense of presentiment lay
+unpleasantly upon me.
+
+We went back to the fire and made a final blaze, poking it up with our
+feet. We took a last look round. But for the wind the heat would have
+been unpleasant. I put this thought into words, and I remember my
+friend's reply struck me oddly: that he would rather have the heat, the
+ordinary July weather, than this "diabolical wind."
+
+Everything was snug for the night; the canoe lying turned over beside
+the tent, with both yellow paddles beneath her; the provision sack
+hanging from a willow stem, and the washed-up dishes removed to a safe
+distance from the fire, all ready for the morning meal.
+
+We smothered the embers of the fire with sand, and then turned in. The
+flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the branches and the stars and
+the white moonlight. The shaking willows and the heavy buffetings of the
+wind against our taut little house were the last things I remembered as
+sleep came down and covered all with its soft and delicious
+forgetfulness.
+
+
+II
+
+Suddenly I found myself lying awake, peering from my sandy mattress
+through the door of the tent. I looked at my watch pinned against the
+canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that it was past twelve
+o'clock--the threshold of a new day--and I had therefore slept a couple
+of hours. The Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind howled as
+before something plucked at my heart and made me feel afraid. There was
+a sense of disturbance in my immediate neighborhood.
+
+I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were swaying violently to and
+fro as the gusts smote them, but our little bit of green canvas lay
+snugly safe in the hollow, for the wind passed over it without meeting
+enough resistance to make it vicious. The feeling of disquietude did not
+pass however, and I crawled quietly out of the tent to see if our
+belongings were safe. I moved carefully so as not to waken my companion.
+A curious excitement was on me.
+
+I was halfway out, kneeling on all fours, when my eye first took in that
+the tops of the bushes opposite, with their moving tracery of leaves,
+made shapes against the sky. I sat back on my haunches and stared. It
+was incredible, surely, but there, opposite and slightly above me, were
+shapes of some indeterminate sort among the willows, and as the branches
+swayed in the wind they seemed to group themselves about these shapes,
+forming a series of monstrous outlines that shifted rapidly beneath the
+moon. Close, about fifty feet in front of me, I saw these things.
+
+My first instinct was to waken my companion that he too might see them,
+but something made me hesitate--the sudden realization, probably, that I
+should not welcome corroboration; and meanwhile I crouched there staring
+in amazement with smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying to
+myself that I was _not_ dreaming.
+
+They first became properly visible, these huge figures, just within the
+tops of the bushes--immense bronze-colored, moving, and wholly
+independent of the swaying of the branches. I saw them plainly and
+noted, now I came to examine them more calmly, that they were very much
+larger than human, and indeed that something in their appearance
+proclaimed them to be _not human_ at all. Certainly they were not merely
+the moving tracery of the branches against the moonlight. They shifted
+independently. They rose upwards in a continuous stream from earth to
+sky, vanishing utterly as soon as they reached the dark of the sky. They
+were interlaced one with another, making a great column, and I saw their
+limbs and huge bodies melting in and out of each other, forming this
+serpentine line that bent and swayed and twisted spirally with the
+contortions of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude, fluid shapes,
+passing up the bushes, _within_ the leaves almost--rising up in a living
+column into the heavens. Their faces I never could see. Unceasingly they
+poured upwards, swaying in great bending curves, with a hue of dull
+bronze upon their skins.
+
+I stared, trying to force every atom of vision from my eyes. For a long
+time I thought they _must_ every moment disappear and resolve themselves
+into the movements of the branches and prove to be an optical illusion.
+I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I
+understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed. For the
+longer I looked the more certain I became that these figures were real
+and living, though perhaps not according to the standards that the
+camera and the biologist would insist upon.
+
+Far from feeling fear, I was possessed with a sense of awe and wonder
+such as I have never known. I seemed to be gazing at the personified
+elemental forces of this haunted and primeval region. Our intrusion had
+stirred the powers of the place into activity. It was we who were the
+cause of the disturbance, and my brain filled to bursting with stories
+and legends of the spirits and deities of places that have been
+acknowledged and worshiped by men in all ages of the world's history.
+But, before I could arrive at any possible explanation, something
+impelled me to go farther out, and I crept forward on to the sand and
+stood upright. I felt the ground still warm under my bare feet; the wind
+tore at my hair and face; and the sound of the river burst upon my ears
+with a sudden roar. These things, I knew, were real, and proved that my
+senses were acting normally. Yet the figures still rose from earth to
+heaven, silent, majestically, in a great spiral of grace and strength
+that overwhelmed me at length with a genuine deep emotion of worship. I
+felt that I must fall down and worship--absolutely worship.
+
+Perhaps in another minute I might have done so, when a gust of wind
+swept against me with such force that it blew me sideways, and I nearly
+stumbled and fell. It seemed to shake the dream violently out of me. At
+least it gave me another point of view somehow. The figures still
+remained, still ascended into heaven from the heart of the night, but my
+reason at last began to assert itself. It must be a subjective
+experience, I argued--none the less real for that, but still subjective.
+The moonlight and the branches combined to work out these pictures upon
+the mirror of my imagination, and for some reason I projected them
+outwards and made them appear objective. I knew this must be the case,
+of course. I was the subject of a vivid and interesting hallucination. I
+took courage, and began to move forward across the open patches of sand.
+By Jove, though, was it all hallucination? Was it merely subjective? Did
+not my reason argue in the old futile way from the little standard of
+the known?
+
+I only know that great column of figures ascended darkly into the sky
+for what seemed a very long period of time, and with a very complete
+measure of reality as most men are accustomed to gauge reality. Then
+suddenly they were gone!
+
+And, once they were gone and the immediate wonder of their great
+presence had passed, fear came down upon me with a cold rush. The
+esoteric meaning of this lonely and haunted region suddenly flamed up
+within me and I began to tremble dreadfully. I took a quick look
+round--a look of horror that came near to panic--calculating vainly ways
+of escape; and then, realizing how helpless I was to achieve anything
+really effective, I crept back silently into the tent and lay down again
+upon my sandy mattress, first lowering the door-curtain to shut out the
+sight of the willows in the moonlight, and then burying my head as
+deeply as possible beneath the blankets to deaden the sound of the
+terrifying wind.
+
+
+III
+
+As though further to convince me that I had not been dreaming, I
+remember that it was a long time before I fell again into a troubled and
+restless sleep; and even then only the upper crust of me slept, and
+underneath there was something that never quite lost consciousness, but
+lay alert and on the watch.
+
+But this second time I jumped up with a genuine start of terror. It was
+neither the wind nor the river that woke me, but the slow approach of
+something that caused the sleeping portion of me to grow smaller and
+smaller till at last it vanished altogether, and I found myself sitting
+bolt upright--listening.
+
+Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little patterings. They had
+been coming, I was aware, for a long time, and in my sleep they had
+first become audible. I sat there nervously wide awake as though I had
+not slept at all. It seemed to me that my breathing came with
+difficulty, and that there was a great weight upon the surface of my
+body. In spite of the hot night, I felt clammy with cold and shivered.
+Something surely was pressing steadily against the sides of the tent and
+weighing down upon it from above. Was it the body of the wind? Was this
+the pattering rain, the dripping of the leaves? The spray blown from
+the river by the wind and gathering in big drops? I thought quickly of a
+dozen things.
+
+Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my mind: a bough from the
+poplar, the only large tree on the island, had fallen with the wind.
+Still half caught by the other branches, it would fall with the next
+gust and crush us, and meanwhile its leaves brushed and tapped upon the
+tight canvas surface of the tent. I raised the loose flap and rushed
+out, calling to the Swede to follow.
+
+But when I got out and stood upright I saw that the tent was free. There
+was no hanging bough; there was no rain or spray; nothing approached.
+
+A cold, gray light filtered down through the bushes and lay on the
+faintly gleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky directly overhead,
+and the wind howled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave out any
+glow, and I saw the east reddening in streaks through the trees. Several
+hours must have passed since I stood there before, watching the
+ascending figures, and the memory of it now came back to me horribly,
+like an evil dream. Oh, how tired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging
+wind! Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless night was on me, my
+nerves were tingling with the activity of an equally tireless
+apprehension, and all idea of repose was out of the question. The river
+I saw had risen further. Its thunder filled the air, and a fine spray
+made itself felt through my thin sleeping shirt.
+
+Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidences of anything to cause
+alarm. This deep, prolonged disturbance in my heart remained wholly
+unaccounted for.
+
+My companion had not stirred when I called him, and there was no need to
+waken him now. I looked about me carefully, noting everything: the
+turned-over canoe; the yellow paddles--two of them, I'm certain; the
+provision sack and the extra lantern hanging together from the tree;
+and, crowding everywhere about me, enveloping all, the willows, those
+endless, shaking willows. A bird uttered its morning cry, and a string
+of duck passed with whirring flight overhead in the twilight. The sand
+whirled, dry and stinging, about my bare feet in the wind.
+
+I walked round the tent and then went out a little way into the bush, so
+that I could see across the river to the farther landscape, and the same
+profound yet indefinable emotion of distress seized upon me again as I
+saw the interminable sea of bushes stretching to the horizon, looking
+ghostly and unreal in the wan light of dawn. I walked softly here and
+there, still puzzling over that odd sound of infinite pattering, and of
+that pressure upon the tent that had wakened me. It _must_ have been the
+wind, I reflected--the wind beating upon the loose, hot sand, driving
+the dry particles smartly against the taut canvas--the wind dropping
+heavily upon our fragile roof.
+
+Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise increased appreciably.
+
+I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how the coast line had
+altered in the night, and what masses of sand the river had torn away. I
+dipped my hands and feet into the cool current, and bathed my forehead.
+Already there was a glow of sunrise in the sky and the exquisite
+freshness of coming day. On my way back I passed purposely beneath the
+very bushes where I had seen the column of figures rising into the air,
+and midway among the clumps I suddenly found myself overtaken by a sense
+of vast terror. From the shadows a large figure went swiftly by. Some
+one passed me, as sure as ever man did....
+
+It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me forward
+again, and once out in the more open space, the sense of terror
+diminished strangely. The winds were about and walking, I remember
+saying to myself; for the winds often move like great presences under
+the trees. And altogether the fear that hovered about me was such an
+unknown and immense kind of fear, so unlike anything I had ever felt
+before, that it woke a sense of awe and wonder in me that did much to
+counteract its worst effects; and when I reached a high point in the
+middle of the island from which I could see the wide stretch of river,
+crimson in the sunrise, the whole magical beauty of it all was so
+overpowering that a sort of wild yearning woke in me and almost brought
+a cry up into the throat.
+
+But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes wandered from the plain
+beyond to the island round me and noted our little tent half hidden
+among the willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me, compared to
+which my terror of the walking winds seemed as nothing at all.
+
+For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of
+the landscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different
+view, but that an alteration had apparently been effected in the
+relation of the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent.
+Surely the bushes now crowded much closer--unnecessarily, unpleasantly
+close. _They had moved nearer_.
+
+Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing imperceptibly
+nearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows had come closer during
+the night. But had the wind moved them, or had they moved of themselves?
+I recalled the sound of infinite small patterings and the pressure upon
+the tent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake in terror. I
+swayed for a moment in the wind like a tree, finding it hard to keep my
+upright position on the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here of
+personal agency, of deliberate intention, of aggressive hostility, and
+it terrified me into a sort of rigidity.
+
+Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea was so bizarre, so absurd,
+that I felt inclined to laugh. But the laughter came no more readily
+than the cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so receptive to such
+dangerous imaginings brought the additional terror that it was through
+our minds and not through our physical bodies that the attack would
+come, and was coming.
+
+The wind buffeted me about, and, very quickly it seemed, the sun came up
+over the horizon, for it was after four o'clock, and I must have stood
+on that little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew, afraid to come down
+at close quarters with the willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the
+tent, first taking another exhaustive look round and--yes, I confess
+it--making a few measurements. I paced out on the warm sand the
+distances between the willows and the tent, making a note of the
+shortest distance particularly.
+
+I crawled stealthily into my blankets. My companion, to all appearances,
+still slept soundly, and I was glad that this was so. Provided my
+experiences were not corroborated, I could find strength somehow to deny
+them, perhaps. With the daylight I could persuade myself that it was all
+a subjective hallucination, a fantasy of the night, a projection of the
+excited imagination.
+
+Nothing further came to disturb me, and I fell asleep almost at once,
+utterly exhausted, yet still in dread of hearing again that weird sound
+of multitudinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my heart
+that had made it difficult to breathe.
+
+
+IV
+
+The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavy
+sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just
+time to bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent
+door.
+
+"River still rising," he said, "and several islands out in midstream
+have disappeared altogether. Our own island's much smaller."
+
+"Any wood left?" I asked sleepily.
+
+"The wood and the island will finish to-morrow in a dead heat," he
+laughed, "but there's enough to last us till then."
+
+I plunged in from the point of the island, which had indeed altered a
+lot in size and shape during the night, and was swept down in a moment
+to the landing place opposite the tent. The water was icy, and the banks
+flew by like the country from an express train. Bathing under such
+conditions was an exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night
+seemed cleansed out of me by a process of evaporation in the brain. The
+sun was blazing hot; not a cloud showed itself anywhere; the wind,
+however, had not abated one little jot.
+
+Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede's words flashed
+across me, showing that he no longer wished to leave posthaste, and had
+changed his mind. "Enough to last till to-morrow"--he assumed we should
+stay on the island another night. It struck me as odd. The night before
+he was so positive the other way. How had the change come about?
+
+Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with heavy
+splashings and clouds of spray which the wind brought into our
+frying-pan, and my fellow-traveler talked incessantly about the
+difficulty the Vienna-Pesth steamers must have to find the channel in
+flood. But the state of his mind interested and impressed me far more
+than the state of the river or the difficulties of the steamers. He had
+changed somehow since the evening before. His manner was different--a
+trifle excited, a trifle shy, with a sort of suspicion about his voice
+and gestures. I hardly know how to describe it now in cold blood, but at
+the time I remember being quite certain of one thing, viz., that he had
+become frightened!
+
+He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke his pipe. He
+had the map spread open beside him, and kept studying its markings.
+
+"We'd better get off sharp in an hour," I said presently, feeling for an
+opening that must bring him indirectly to a partial confession at any
+rate. And his answer puzzled me uncomfortably: "Rather! If they'll let
+us."
+
+"Who'll let us? The elements?" I asked quickly, with affected
+indifference.
+
+"The powers of this awful place, whoever they are," he replied, keeping
+his eyes on the map. "The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in
+the world."
+
+"The elements are always the true immortals," I replied, laughing as
+naturally as I could manage, yet knowing quite well that my face
+reflected my true feelings when he looked up gravely at me and spoke
+across the smoke:
+
+"We shall be fortunate if we get away without further disaster."
+
+This was exactly what I had dreaded, and I screwed myself up to the
+point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist
+to extract the tooth; it _had_ to come anyhow in the long run, and the
+rest was all pretense.
+
+"Further disaster! Why, what's happened?"
+
+"For one thing--the steering paddle's gone," he said quietly.
+
+"The steering paddle gone!" I repeated, greatly excited, for this was
+our rudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder was suicide. "But
+what----"
+
+"And there's a tear in the bottom of the canoe," he added, with a
+genuine little tremor in his voice.
+
+I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in his face
+somewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and on this burning
+sand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending round us. I got up
+to follow him, for he merely nodded his head gravely and led the way
+towards the tent a few yards on the other side of the fireplace. The
+canoe still lay there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs
+uppermost, the paddles, or rather, _the_ paddle, on the sand beside her.
+
+"There's only one," he said, stooping to pick it up. "And here's the
+rent in the base-board."
+
+It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had clearly noticed
+_two_ paddles a few hours before, but a second impulse made me think
+better of it, and I said nothing. I approached to see.
+
+There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the canoe where a
+little slither of wood had been neatly taken clean out; it looked as if
+the tooth of a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length, and
+investigation showed that the hole went through. Had we launched out in
+her without observing it we must inevitably have foundered. At first the
+water would have made the wood swell so as to close the hole, but once
+out in midstream the water must have poured in, and the canoe, never
+more than two inches above the surface, would have filled and sunk very
+rapidly.
+
+"There, you see, an attempt to prepare a victim for the sacrifice," I
+heard him saying, more to himself than to me, "two victims rather," he
+added as he bent over and ran his fingers along the slit.
+
+I began to whistle--a thing I always do unconsciously when utterly
+nonplused--and purposely paid no attention to his words. I was
+determined to consider them foolish.
+
+"It wasn't there last night," he said presently, straightening up from
+his examination and looking anywhere but at me.
+
+"We must have scratched her in landing, of course," I stopped whistling
+to say, "The stones are very sharp----"
+
+I stopped abruptly, for at that moment he turned round and met my eye
+squarely. I knew just as well as he did how impossible my explanation
+was. There were no stones, to begin with.
+
+"And then there's this to explain too," he added quietly, handing me the
+paddle and pointing to the blade.
+
+A new and curious emotion spread freezingly over me as I took and
+examined it. The blade was scraped down all over, beautifully scraped,
+as though someone had sand-papered it with care, making it so thin that
+the first vigorous stroke must have snapped it off at the elbow.
+
+"One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing," I said feebly,
+"or--or it has been filed by the constant stream of sand particles blown
+against it by the wind, perhaps."
+
+"Ah," said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, "you can explain
+everything!"
+
+"The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near the
+bank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled," I called out
+after him, absolutely determined to find an explanation for everything
+he showed me.
+
+"I see," he shouted back, turning his head to look at me before
+disappearing among the willow bushes.
+
+Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think
+my first thought took the form of "One of us must have done this thing,
+and it certainly was not I." But my second thought decided how
+impossible it was to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either
+of us had done it. That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen
+similar expeditions, could have knowingly had a hand in it, was a
+suggestion not to be entertained for a moment. Equally absurd seemed the
+explanation that this imperturbable and densely practical nature had
+suddenly become insane and was busied with insane purposes.
+
+Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fear
+actively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the
+clear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in his
+_mind_--that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he
+did not speak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto
+unmentionable events--waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected,
+and, I thought, expected very soon. This grew up in my mind
+intuitively--I hardly knew how.
+
+I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the
+measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows
+formed in the sand, I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and
+of various depths and sizes, varying from that of a teacup to a large
+bowl. The wind, no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters,
+just as it was for lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water.
+The rent in the canoe was the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable;
+and, after all, it _was_ conceivable that a sharp point had caught it
+when we landed. The examination I made of the shore did not assist this
+theory, but all the same I clung to it with that diminishing portion of
+my intelligence which I called my "reason." An explanation of some kind
+was an absolute necessity, just as some working explanation of the
+universe is necessary--however absurd--to the happiness of every
+individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and face the problems
+of life. The simile seemed to me at the time an exact parallel.
+
+I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede joined me at
+the work, though under the best conditions in the world the canoe could
+not be safe for traveling till the following day. I drew his attention
+casually to the hollows in the sand.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I know. They're all over the island. But _you_ can
+explain them, no doubt!"
+
+"Wind, of course," I answered without hesitation. "Have you never
+watched those little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl
+everything into a circle? This sand's loose enough to yield, that's
+all."
+
+He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I watched him
+surreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he was watching me. He
+seemed, too, to be always listening attentively to something I could not
+hear, or perhaps for something that he expected to hear, for he kept
+turning about and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, and out
+across the water where it was visible through the openings among the
+willows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear and held it there for
+several minutes. He said nothing to me, however, about it, and I asked
+no questions. And meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe with the skill
+and address of a red Indian, I was glad to notice his absorption in the
+work, for there was a vague dread in my heart that he would speak of the
+changed aspect of the willows. And, if he had noticed _that_, my
+imagination could no longer be held a sufficient explanation of it.
+
+At length, after a long pause, he began to talk.
+
+"Queer thing," he added in a hurried sort of voice, as though he wanted
+to say something and get it over. "Queer thing, I mean, about that otter
+last night."
+
+I had expected something so totally different that he caught me with
+surprise, and I looked up sharply.
+
+"Shows how lonely this place is. Otters are awfully shy things--"
+
+"I don't mean that, of course," he interrupted. "I mean--do you
+think--did you think it really was an otter?"
+
+"What else, in the name of Heaven, what else?"
+
+"You know, I saw it before you did, and at first it seemed--so _much_
+bigger than an otter."
+
+"The sunset as you looked upstream magnified it, or something," I
+replied.
+
+He looked at me absently a moment, as though his mind were busy with
+other thoughts.
+
+"It had such extraordinary yellow eyes," he went on half to himself.
+
+"That was the sun too," I laughed, a trifle boisterously. "I suppose
+you'll wonder next if that fellow in the boat----"
+
+I suddenly decided not to finish the sentence. He was in the act again
+of listening, turning his head to the wind, and something in the
+expression of his face made me halt. The subject dropped, and we went on
+with our caulking. Apparently he had not noticed my unfinished sentence.
+Five minutes later, however, he looked at me across the canoe, the
+smoking pitch in his hand, his face exceedingly grave.
+
+"I _did_ rather wonder, if you want to know," he said slowly, "what that
+thing in the boat was. I remember thinking at the time it was not a man.
+The whole business seemed to rise quite suddenly out of the water."
+
+I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this time there was
+impatience and a strain of anger too, in my feeling.
+
+"Look here now," I cried, "this place is quite queer enough without
+going out of our way to imagine things! That boat was an ordinary boat,
+and the man in it was an ordinary man, and they were both going
+downstream as fast as they could lick. And that otter _was_ an otter, so
+don't let's play the fool about it!"
+
+He looked steadily at me with the same grave expression. He was not in
+the least annoyed. I took courage from his silence.
+
+"And for heaven's sake," I went on, "don't keep pretending you hear
+things, because it only gives me the jumps, and there's nothing to hear
+but the river and this cursed old thundering wind."
+
+"You _fool_!" he answered in a low, shocked voice, "you utter fool.
+That's just the way all victims talk. As if you didn't understand just
+as well as I do!" he sneered with scorn in his voice, and a sort of
+resignation. "The best thing you can do is to keep quiet and try to hold
+your mind as firm as possible. This feeble attempt at self-deception
+only makes the truth harder when you're forced to meet it."
+
+My little effort was over, and I found nothing more to say, for I knew
+quite well his words were true, and that I was the fool, not _he_. Up to
+a certain stage in the adventure he kept ahead of me easily, and I think
+I felt annoyed to be out of it, to be thus proved less psychic, less
+sensitive than himself to these extraordinary happenings, and half
+ignorant all the time of what was going on under my very nose. _He knew_
+from the very beginning, apparently. But at the moment I wholly missed
+the point of his words about the necessity of there being a victim, and
+that we ourselves were destined to satisfy the want. I dropped all
+pretense thenceforward, but thenceforward likewise my fear increased
+steadily to the climax.
+
+"But you're quite right about one thing," he added, before the subject
+passed, "and that is that we're wiser not to talk about it, or even to
+think about it, because what one _thinks_ finds expression in words, and
+what one _says_, happens."
+
+That afternoon, while the canoe dried and hardened, we spent trying to
+fish, testing the leak, collecting wood, and watching the enormous flood
+of rising water. Masses of driftwood swept near our shores sometimes,
+and we fished for them with long willow branches. The island grew
+perceptibly smaller as the banks were torn away with great gulps and
+splashes. The weather kept brilliantly fine till about four o'clock, and
+then for the first time for three days the wind showed signs of abating.
+Clouds began to gather in the southwest, spreading thence slowly over
+the sky.
+
+This lessening of the wind came as a great relief, for the incessant
+roaring, banging, and thundering had irritated our nerves. Yet the
+silence that came about five o'clock with its sudden cessation was in a
+manner quite as oppressive. The booming of the river had everything its
+own way then: it filled the air with deep murmurs, more musical than the
+wind noises, but infinitely more monotonous. The wind held many notes,
+rising, falling, always beating out some sort of great elemental tune;
+whereas the river's song lay between three notes at most--dull pedal
+notes, that held a lugubrious quality foreign to the wind, and somehow
+seemed to me, in my then nervous state, to sound wonderfully well the
+music of doom.
+
+It was extraordinary, too, how the withdrawal suddenly of bright
+sunlight took everything out of the landscape that made for
+cheerfulness; and since this particular landscape had already managed to
+convey the suggestion of something sinister, the change of course was
+all the more unwelcome and noticeable. For me, I know, the darkening
+outlook became distinctly more alarming, and I found myself more than
+once calculating how soon after sunset the full moon would get up in the
+east, and whether the gathering clouds would greatly interfere with her
+lighting of the little island.
+
+With this general hush of the wind--though it still indulged in
+occasional brief gusts--the river seemed to me to grow blacker, the
+willows to stand more densely together. The latter, too, kept up a sort
+of independent movement of their own, rustling among themselves when no
+wind stirred, and shaking oddly from the roots upwards. When common
+objects in this way become charged with the suggestion of horror, they
+stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance;
+and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the
+darkness a bizarre _grotesquerie_ of appearance that lent to them
+somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very
+ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us. The
+forces of the region drew nearer with the coming of night. They were
+focusing upon our island, and more particularly upon ourselves. For
+thus, somehow, in the terms of the imagination, did my really
+indescribable sensations in this extraordinary place present themselves.
+
+I had slept a good deal in the early afternoon, and had thus recovered
+somewhat from the exhaustion of a disturbed night, but this only served
+apparently to render me more susceptible than before to the obsessing
+spell of the haunting. I fought against it, laughing at my feelings as
+absurd and childish, with very obvious physiological explanations, yet,
+in spite of every effort, they gained in strength upon me so that I
+dreaded the night as a child lost in a forest must dread the approach of
+darkness.
+
+The canoe we had carefully covered with a waterproof sheet during the
+day, and the one remaining paddle had been securely tied by the Swede to
+the base of a tree, lest the wind should rob us of that too. From five
+o'clock onwards I busied myself with the stew-pot and preparations for
+dinner, it being my turn to cook that night. We had potatoes, onions,
+bits of bacon fat to add flavour, and a general thick residue from
+former stews at the bottom of the pot; with black bread broken up into
+it the result was most excellent, and it was followed by a stew of plums
+with sugar and a brew of strong tea with dried milk. A good pile of wood
+lay close at hand, and the absence of wind made my duties easy. My
+companion sat lazily watching me, dividing his attentions between
+cleaning his pipe and giving useless advice--an admitted privilege of
+the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in
+re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for
+driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable things had
+passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the
+gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was now fully a
+third smaller than when we first landed.
+
+The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard his voice calling to me
+from the bank, where he had wandered away without my noticing. I ran up.
+
+"Come and listen," he said, "and see what you make of it." He held his
+hand cupwise to his ear, as so often before.
+
+"_Now_ do you hear anything?" he asked, watching me curiously.
+
+We stood there, listening attentively together. At first I heard only
+the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent
+surface. The willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then a sound
+began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar sound--something like the
+humming of a distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the
+darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated
+at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell
+nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much
+as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky,
+repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as
+it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as I listened.
+
+"I've heard it all day," said my companion. "While you slept this
+afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down, but could
+never get near enough to see--to localize it correctly. Sometimes it was
+overhead, and sometimes it seemed under the water. Once or twice, too, I
+could have sworn it was not outside at all, but _within myself_--you
+know--the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed to come."
+
+I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to his words. I listened
+carefully, striving to associate it with any known familiar sound I
+could think of, but without success. It changed in direction, too,
+coming nearer, and then sinking utterly away into remote distance. I
+cannot say that it was ominous in quality, because to me it seemed
+distinctly musical, yet I must admit it set going a distressing feeling
+that made me wish I had never heard it.
+
+"The wind blowing in those sand-funnels," I said, determined to find an
+explanation, "or the bushes rubbing together after the storm perhaps."
+
+"It comes off the whole swamp," my friend answered. "It comes from
+everywhere at once." He ignored my explanations. "It comes from the
+willow bushes somehow----"
+
+"But now the wind has dropped," I objected "The willows can hardly make
+a noise by themselves, can they?"
+
+His answer frightened me, first because I had dreaded it, and secondly,
+because I knew intuitively it was true.
+
+"It is _because_ the wind has dropped we now hear it. It was drowned
+before. It is the cry, I believe of the----"
+
+I dashed back to my fire, warned by a sound of bubbling that the stew
+was in danger, but determined at the same time to escape from further
+conversation. I was resolute, if possible, to avoid the exchanging of
+views. I dreaded, too, that he would begin again about the gods, or the
+elemental forces, or something else disquieting, and I wanted to keep
+myself well in hand for what might happen later. There was another night
+to be faced before we escaped from this distressing place, and there was
+no knowing yet what it might bring forth.
+
+"Come and cut up bread for the pot," I called to him, vigorously
+stirring the appetizing mixture. That stew-pot held sanity for us both,
+and the thought made me laugh.
+
+He came over slowly and took the provision sack from the tree, fumbling
+in its mysterious depths, and then emptying the entire contents upon the
+ground-sheet at his feet.
+
+"Hurry up!" I cried; "it's boiling."
+
+The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that startled me. It was
+forced laughter, not artificial exactly, but mirthless.
+
+"There's nothing here!" he shouted, holding his sides.
+
+"Bread, I mean."
+
+"It's gone. There is no bread. They've taken it!"
+
+I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Everything the sack had contained
+lay upon the ground-sheet, but there was no loaf.
+
+The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. Then
+I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound of
+my own laughter also made me understand his. The strain of psychical
+pressure caused it--this explosion of unnatural laughter in both of us;
+it was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief; it was a temporary
+safety valve. And with both of us it ceased quite suddenly.
+
+"How criminally stupid of me!" I cried, still determined to be
+consistent and find an explanation. "I clean forgot to buy a loaf at
+Pressburg. That chattering woman put everything out of my head, and I
+must have left it lying on the counter or----"
+
+"The oatmeal, too, is much less than it was this morning," the Swede
+interrupted.
+
+Why in the world need he draw attention to it? I thought angrily.
+
+"There's enough for to-morrow," I said, stirring vigorously, "and we can
+get lots more at Komorn or Gran. In twenty-four hours we shall be miles
+from here."
+
+"I hope so--to God," he muttered, putting the things back into the sack,
+"unless we're claimed first as victims for the sacrifice," he added
+with a foolish laugh. He dragged the sack into the tent, for safety's
+sake, I suppose, and I heard him mumbling on to himself, but so
+indistinctly that it seemed quite natural for me to ignore his words.
+
+Our meal was beyond question a gloomy one, and we ate it almost in
+silence, avoiding one another's eyes, and keeping the fire bright. Then
+we washed up and prepared for the night, and, once smoking, our minds
+unoccupied with any definite duties, the apprehension I had felt all day
+long became more and more acute. It was not then active fear, I think,
+but the very vagueness of its origin distressed me far more than if I
+had been able to ticket and face it squarely. The curious sound I have
+likened to the note of a gong became now almost incessant, and filled
+the stillness of the night with a faint, continuous ringing rather than
+a series of distinct notes. At one time it was behind and at another
+time in front of us. Sometimes I fancied it came from the bushes on our
+left, and then again from the clumps on our right. More often it hovered
+directly overhead like the whirring of wings. It was really everywhere
+at once, behind, in front, at our sides and over our heads, completely
+surrounding us. The sound really defies description. But nothing within
+my knowledge is like that ceaseless muffled humming rising off the
+deserted world of swamps and willows.
+
+We sat smoking in comparative silence, the strain growing every minute
+greater. The worst feature of the situation seemed to me that we did not
+know what to expect, and could therefore make no sort of preparation by
+way of defense. We could anticipate nothing. My explanations made in the
+sunshine, moreover, now came to haunt me with their foolish and wholly
+unsatisfactory nature, and it was more and more clear to me that some
+kind of plain talk with my companion was inevitable, whether I liked it
+or not. After all, we had to spend the night together, and to sleep in
+the same tent side by side. I saw that I could not get along much longer
+without the support of his mind, and for that, of course, plain talk was
+imperative. As long as possible, however, I postponed this little
+climax, and tried to ignore or laugh at the occasional sentences he
+flung into the emptiness.
+
+Some of these sentences, moreover, were confoundedly disquieting to me,
+coming as they did to corroborate much that I felt myself:
+corroboration, too--which made it so much more convincing--from a
+totally different point of view. He composed such curious sentences, and
+hurled them at me in such an inconsequential sort of way, as though his
+main line of thought was secret to himself, and these fragments were the
+bits he found it impossible to digest. He got rid of them by uttering
+them. Speech relieved him. It was like being sick.
+
+"There are things about us, I'm sure, that make for disorder,
+disintegration, destruction, _our_ destruction," he said once, while the
+fire blazed between us. "We've strayed out of a safe line somewhere."
+
+And another time, when the gong sounds had come nearer, ringing much
+louder than before, and directly over our heads, he said, as though
+talking to himself:
+
+"I don't think a phonograph would show any record of that. The sound
+doesn't come to me by the ears at all. The vibrations reach me in
+another manner altogether, and seem to be within me, which is precisely
+how a fourth dimension sound might be supposed to make itself heard."
+
+I purposely made no reply to this, but I sat up a little closer to the
+fire and peered about me into the darkness. The clouds were massed all
+over the sky and no trace of moonlight came through. Very still, too,
+everything was, so that the river and the frogs had things all their own
+way.
+
+"It has that about it," he went on, "which is utterly out of common
+experience. It is _unknown_. Only one thing describes it really: it is a
+non-human sound; I mean a sound outside humanity."
+
+Having rid himself of this indigestible morsel, he lay quiet for a time;
+but he had so admirably expressed my own feeling that it was a relief to
+have the thought out, and to have confined it by the limitation of words
+from dangerous wandering to and fro in the mind.
+
+The solitude of that Danube camping-place, can I ever forget it? The
+feeling of being utterly alone on an empty planet! My thoughts ran
+incessantly upon cities and the haunts of men. I would have given my
+soul, as the saying is, for the "feel" of those Bavarian villages we had
+passed through by the score; for the normal, human commonplaces,
+peasants drinking beer, tables beneath the trees, hot sunshine, and a
+ruined castle on the rocks behind the red-roofed church. Even the
+tourists would have been welcome.
+
+Yet what I felt of dread was no ordinary ghostly fear. It was infinitely
+greater, stranger, and seemed to arise from some dim ancestral sense of
+terror more profoundly disturbing than anything I had known or dreamed
+of. We had "strayed," as the Swede put it, into some region or some set
+of conditions where the risks were great, yet unintelligible to us;
+where the frontiers of some unknown world lay close about us. It was a
+spot held by the dwellers in some outer space, a sort of peephole whence
+they could spy upon the earth, themselves unseen, a point where the veil
+between had worn a little thin. As the final result of too long a
+sojourn here, we should be carried over the border and deprived of what
+we called "our lives," yet by mental, not physical, processes. In that
+sense, as he said, we should be the victims of our adventure--a
+sacrifice.
+
+It took us in different fashion, each according to the measure of his
+sensitiveness and powers of resistance. I translated it vaguely into a
+personification of the mightily disturbed elements, investing them with
+the horror of a deliberate and malefic purpose, resentful of our
+audacious intrusion into their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw
+it into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass on some ancient
+shrine, some place where the old gods still held sway, where the
+emotional forces of former worshipers still clung, and the ancestral
+portion of him yielded to the old pagan spell.
+
+At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men, kept clean by the winds
+from coarsening human influences, a place where spiritual agencies were
+within reach and aggressive. Never, before or since, have I been so
+attacked by indescribable suggestions of a "beyond region," of another
+scheme of life, another evolution not parallel to the human. And in the
+end our minds would succumb under the weight of the awful spell, and we
+should be drawn across the frontier into _their_ world.
+
+Small things testified to this amazing influence of the place, and now
+in the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted by the
+mind. The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to
+distort every indication: the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying
+boatman making signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed
+of its natural character, and revealed in something of its other
+aspect--as it existed across the border in that other region. And this
+changed aspect I felt was new not merely to me, but to the race. The
+whole experience whose verge we touched was unknown to humanity at all.
+It was a new order of experience, and in the true sense of the word
+_unearthly_.
+
+"It's the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces one's courage to
+zero," the Swede said suddenly, as if he had been actually following my
+thoughts. "Otherwise imagination might count for much. But the paddle,
+the canoe, the lessening food----"
+
+"Haven't I explained all that once?" I interrupted viciously.
+
+"You have," he answered dryly; "you have indeed."
+
+He made other remarks too, as usual, about what he called the "plain
+determination to provide a victim"; but, having now arranged my thoughts
+better, I recognized that this was simply the cry of his frightened soul
+against the knowledge that he was being attacked in a vital part, and
+that he would be somehow taken or destroyed. The situation called for a
+courage and calmness of reasoning that neither of us could compass, and
+I have never before been so clearly conscious of two persons in me--the
+one that explained everything, and the other that laughed at such
+foolish explanations, yet was horribly afraid.
+
+Meanwhile, in the pitchy night the fire died down and the woodpile grew
+small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the darkness
+consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the
+circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind
+set the billows shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome
+sound a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken only by the gurgling
+of the river and the humming in the air overhead.
+
+We both missed, I think, the shouting company of the winds.
+
+At length, at a moment when a stray puff prolonged itself as though the
+wind were about to rise again, I reached the point for me of saturation,
+the point where it was absolutely necessary to find relief in plain
+speech, or else to betray myself by some hysterical extravagance that
+must have been far worse in its effect upon both of us. I kicked the
+fire into a blaze, and turned to my companion abruptly. He looked up
+with a start.
+
+"I can't disguise it any longer," I said; "I don't like this place, and
+the darkness, and the noises, and the awful feelings I get. There's
+something here that beats me utterly. I'm in a blue funk, and that's the
+plain truth. If the other shore was--different, I swear I'd be inclined
+to swim for it!"
+
+The Swede's face turned very white beneath the deep tan of sun and wind.
+He stared straight at me and answered quietly, but his voice betrayed
+his huge excitement by its unnatural calmness. For the moment, at any
+rate, he was the strong man of the two. He was more phlegmatic, for one
+thing.
+
+"It's not a physical condition we can escape from by running away," he
+replied, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing some grave disease; "we must
+sit tight and wait. There are forces close here that could kill a herd
+of elephants in a second as easily as you or I could squash a fly. Our
+only chance is to keep perfectly still. Our insignificance perhaps may
+save us."
+
+I put a dozen questions into my expression of face, but found no words.
+It was precisely like listening to an accurate description of a disease
+whose symptoms had puzzled me.
+
+"I mean that so far, although aware of our disturbing presence, they
+have not _found_ us--not 'located' us, as the Americans say," he went
+on. "They're blundering about like men hunting for a leak of gas. The
+paddle and canoe and provisions prove that. I think they _feel_ us, but
+cannot actually see us. We must keep our minds quiet--it's our minds
+they feel. We must control our thoughts, or it's all up with us."
+
+"Death you mean?" I stammered, icy with the horror of his suggestion.
+
+"Worse--by far," he said. "Death, according to one's belief, means
+either annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but
+it involves no change of character. _You_ don't suddenly alter just
+because the body's gone. But this means a radical alteration, a complete
+change, a horrible loss of oneself by substitution--far worse than
+death, and not even annihilation. We happen to have camped in a spot
+where their region touches ours where the veil between has worn
+thin"--horrors! he was using my very own phrase, my actual words--"so
+that they are aware of our being in their neighborhood."
+
+"But _who_ are aware?" I asked.
+
+I forgot the shaking of the willows in the windless calm, the humming
+overhead, everything except that I was waiting for an answer that I
+dreaded more than I can possibly explain.
+
+He lowered his voice at once to reply, leaning forward a little over the
+fire, an indefinable change in his face that made me avoid his eyes and
+look down upon the ground.
+
+"All my life," he said, "I have been strangely, vividly conscious of
+another region--not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet
+wholly different in kind--where great things go on unceasingly, where
+immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes
+compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the
+destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as dust
+in the balance; vast purposes, I mean, that deal directly with the soul,
+and not indirectly with mere expressions of the soul--"
+
+"I suggest just now--" I began, seeking to stop him, feeling as though I
+was face to face with a madman. But he instantly overbore me with his
+torrent that _had_ to come.
+
+"You think," he said, "it is the spirits of the elements, and I thought
+perhaps it was the old gods. But I tell you now it is--_neither_. These
+would be comprehensible entities, for they have relations with men,
+depending upon them for worship or sacrifice, whereas these beings who
+are now about us have absolutely nothing to do with mankind, and it is
+mere chance that their space happens just at this spot to touch our
+own."
+
+The mere conception, which his words somehow made so convincing, as I
+listened to them there in the dark stillness of that lonely island, set
+me shaking a little all over. I found it impossible to control my
+movements.
+
+"And what do you propose?" I began again.
+
+"A sacrifice, a victim, might save us by distracting them until we could
+get away," he went on, "just as the wolves stop to devour the dogs and
+give the sleigh another start. But--I see no chance of any other victim
+now."
+
+I stared blankly at him. The gleam in his eyes was dreadful. Presently
+he continued.
+
+"It's the willows, of course. The willows _mask_ the others, but the
+others are feeling about for us. If we let our minds betray our fear,
+we're lost, lost utterly." He looked at me with an expression so calm,
+so determined, so sincere, that I no longer had any doubts as to his
+sanity. He was as sane as any man ever was. "If we can hold out through
+the night," he added, "we may get off in the daylight unnoticed, or
+rather, _undiscovered_."
+
+"But you really think a sacrifice would----"
+
+That gong-like humming came down very close over our heads as I spoke,
+but it was my friend's scared face that really stopped my mouth.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, holding up his hand. "Do not mention them more
+than you can help. Do not refer to them _by name_. To name is to reveal:
+it is the inevitable clue, and our only hope lies in ignoring them, in
+order that they may ignore us."
+
+"Even in thought?" He was extraordinarily agitated.
+
+"Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their world. We
+must keep them _out of our minds_ at all costs if possible."
+
+I raked the fire together to prevent the darkness having everything its
+own way. I never longed for the sun as I longed for it then in the awful
+blackness of that summer night.
+
+"Were you awake all last night?" he went on suddenly.
+
+"I slept badly a little after dawn," I replied evasively, trying to
+follow his instructions, which I knew instinctively were true, "but the
+wind, of course--"
+
+"I know. But the wind won't account for all the noises."
+
+"Then you heard it too?"
+
+"The multiplying countless little footsteps I heard," he said, adding,
+after a moment's hesitation, "and that other sound--"
+
+"You mean above the tent, and the pressing down upon us of something
+tremendous, gigantic?"
+
+He nodded significantly.
+
+"It was like the beginning of a sort of inner suffocation?" I said.
+
+"Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of the atmosphere had been
+altered--had increased enormously, so that we should be crushed."
+
+"And _that_," I went on, determined to have it all out, pointing upwards
+where the gong-like note hummed ceaselessly, rising and falling like
+wind. "What do you make of that?"
+
+"It's _their_ sound," he whispered gravely. "It's the sound of their
+world, the humming in their region. The division here is so thin that it
+leaks through somehow. But, if you listen carefully, you'll find it's
+not above so much as around us. It's in the willows. It's the willows
+themselves humming, because here the willows have been made symbols of
+the forces that are against us."
+
+I could not follow exactly what he meant by this, yet the thought and
+idea in my mind were beyond question the thought and idea in his. I
+realized what he realized, only with less power of analysis than his. It
+was on the tip of my tongue to tell him at last about my hallucination
+of the ascending figures and the moving bushes, when he suddenly thrust
+his face again close into mine across the firelight and began to speak
+in a very earnest whisper. He amazed me by his calmness and pluck, his
+apparent control of the situation. This man I had for years deemed
+unimaginative, stolid!
+
+"Now listen," he said. "The only thing for us to do is to go on as
+though nothing had happened, follow our usual habits, go to bed, and so
+forth; pretend we feel nothing and notice nothing. It is a question
+wholly of the mind, and the less we think about them the better our
+chance of escape. Above all, don't _think_, for what you think happens!"
+
+"All right," I managed to reply, simply breathless with his words and
+the strangeness of it all; "all right, I'll try, but tell me one thing
+more first. Tell me what you make of those hollows in the ground all
+about us, those sand-funnels?"
+
+"No!" he cried, forgetting to whisper in his excitement. "I dare not,
+simply dare not, put the thought into words. If you have not guessed I
+am glad. Don't try to. _They_ have put it into my mind; try your hardest
+to prevent their putting it into yours."
+
+He sank his voice again to a whisper before he finished, and I did not
+press him to explain. There was already just about as much horror in me
+as I could hold. The conversation came to an end, and we smoked our
+pipes busily in silence.
+
+Then something happened, something unimportant apparently, as the way is
+when the nerves are in a very great state of tension, and this small
+thing for a brief space gave me an entirely different point of view. I
+chanced to look down at my sand-shoe--the sort we used for the
+canoe--and something to do with the hole at the toe suddenly recalled
+to me the London shop where I had bought them, the difficulty the man
+had in fitting me, and other details of the uninteresting but practical
+operation. At once, in its train, followed a wholesome view of the
+modern skeptical world I was accustomed to move in at home. I thought of
+roast beef and ale, motor-cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen
+other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The
+effect was immediate and astonishing even to myself. Psychologically, I
+suppose, it was simply a sudden and violent reaction after the strain of
+living in an atmosphere of things that to the normal consciousness must
+seem impossible and incredible. But, whatever the cause, it momentarily
+lifted the spell from my heart, and left me for the short space of a
+minute feeling free and utterly unafraid. I looked up at my friend
+opposite.
+
+"You damned old pagan!" I cried, laughing aloud in his face. "You
+imaginative idiot! You superstitious idolator! You----"
+
+I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old horror. I tried to
+smother the sound of my voice as something sacrilegious. The Swede, of
+course, heard it too--that strange cry overhead in the darkness--and
+that sudden drop in the air as though something had come nearer.
+
+He had turned ashen white under the tan. He stood bolt upright in front
+of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring at me.
+
+"After that," he said in a sort of helpless, frantic way, "we must go!
+We can't stay now; we must strike camp this very instant and go on--down
+the river."
+
+He was talking, I saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by abject
+terror--the terror he had resisted so long, but which had caught him at
+last.
+
+"In the dark?" I exclaimed, shaking with fear after my hysterical
+outburst, but still realizing our position better than he did. "Sheer
+madness! The river's in flood, and we've only got a single paddle.
+Besides, we only go deeper into their country! There's nothing ahead for
+fifty miles but willows, willows, willows!"
+
+He sat down again in a state of semi-collapse. The positions, by one of
+those kaleidoscopic changes nature loves, were suddenly reversed, and
+the control of our forces passed over into my hands. His mind at last
+had reached the point where it was beginning to weaken.
+
+"What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?" he whispered, with the
+awe of genuine terror in his voice and face.
+
+I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took both his hands in mine,
+kneeling down beside him and looking straight into his frightened eyes.
+
+"We'll make one more blaze," I said firmly, "and then turn in for the
+night. At sunrise we'll be off full speed for Komorn. Now, pull yourself
+together a bit, and remember your own advice about _not thinking
+fear_!"
+
+He said no more, and I saw that he would agree and obey. In some
+measure, too, it was a sort of relief to get up and make an excursion
+into the darkness for more wood. We kept close together, almost
+touching, groping among the bushes and along the bank. The humming
+overhead never ceased, but seemed to me to grow louder as we increased
+our distance from the fire. It was shivery work!
+
+We were grubbing away in the middle of a thickish clump of willows where
+some driftwood from a former flood had caught high among the branches,
+when my body was seized in a grip that made me half drop upon the sand.
+It was the Swede. He had fallen against me, and was clutching me for
+support. I heard his breath coming and going in short gasps.
+
+"Look! By my soul!" he whispered, and for the first time in my
+experience I knew what it was to hear tears of terror in a human voice.
+He was pointing to the fire, some fifty feet away. I followed the
+direction of his finger, and I swear my heart missed a beat.
+
+There, in front of the dim glow, _something was moving_.
+
+I saw it through a veil that hung before my eyes like the gauze
+drop-curtain used at the back of a theater--hazily a little. It was
+neither a human figure nor an animal. To me it gave the strange
+impression of being as large as several animals grouped together, like
+horses, two or three, moving slowly. The Swede, too, got a similar
+result, though expressing it differently, for he thought it was shaped
+and sized like a clump of willow bushes, rounded at the top, and moving
+all over upon its surface--"coiling upon itself like smoke," he said
+afterwards.
+
+"I watched it settle downwards through the bushes," he sobbed at me.
+"Look, by God! It's coming this way! Oh, oh!"--he gave a kind of
+whistling cry. "_They've found us_."
+
+I gave one terrified glance, which just enabled me to see that the
+shadowy form was swinging towards us through the bushes, and then I
+collapsed backwards with a crash into the branches. These failed, of
+course, to support my weight, so that with the Swede on the top of me we
+fell in a struggling heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what was
+happening. I was conscious only of a sort of enveloping sensation of icy
+fear that plucked the nerves out of their fleshly covering, twisted them
+this way and that, and replaced them quivering. My eyes were tightly
+shut; something in my throat choked me; a feeling that my consciousness
+was expanding, extending out into space, swiftly gave way to another
+feeling that I was losing it altogether, and about to die.
+
+An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the Swede
+had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way
+he caught at me in falling.
+
+But it was this pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me: it caused
+me to _forget them_ and think of something else at the very instant when
+they were about to find me. It concealed my mind from them at the moment
+of discovery, yet just in time to evade their terrible seizing of me. He
+himself, he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and that was what
+saved him.
+
+I only know that at a later time, how long or short is impossible to
+say, I found myself scrambling up out of the slippery network of willow
+branches, and saw my companion standing in front of me holding out a
+hand to assist me. I stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he
+had twisted for me. Nothing came to me to say, somehow.
+
+"I lost consciousness for a moment or two," I heard him say. "That's
+what saved me. It made me stop thinking about them."
+
+"You nearly broke my arm in two," I said, uttering my only connected
+thought at the moment. A numbness came over me.
+
+"That's what saved _you_!" he replied. "Between us, we've managed to set
+them off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It's
+gone--for the moment at any rate!"
+
+A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time spread to
+my friend too--great healing gusts of shaking laughter that brought a
+tremendous sense of relief in their train. We made our way back to the
+fire and put the wood on so that it blazed at once. Then we saw that the
+tent had fallen over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground.
+
+We picked it up, and during the process tripped more than once and
+caught our feet in sand.
+
+"It's those sand-funnels," exclaimed the Swede, when the tent was up
+again and the firelight lit up the ground for several yards about us.
+"And look at the size of them!"
+
+All round the tent and about the fireplace where we had seen the moving
+shadows there were deep funnel-shaped hollows in the sand, exactly
+similar to the ones we had already found over the island, only far
+bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and wide enough in some instances
+to admit the whole of my foot and leg.
+
+Neither of us said a word. We both knew that sleep was the safest thing
+we could do, and to bed we went accordingly without further delay,
+having first thrown sand on the fire and taken the provision sack and
+the paddle inside the tent with us. The canoe, too, we propped in such a
+way at the end of the tent that our feet touched it, and the least
+motion would disturb and wake us.
+
+In case of emergency, too, we again went to bed in our clothes, ready
+for a sudden start.
+
+
+V
+
+It was my firm intention to lie awake all night and watch, but the
+exhaustion of nerves and body decreed otherwise, and sleep after a while
+came over me with a welcome blanket of oblivion. The fact that my
+companion also slept quickened its approach. At first he fidgeted and
+constantly sat up, asking me if I "heard this" or "heard that." He
+tossed about on his cork mattress, and said the tent was moving and the
+river had risen over the point of the island; but each time I went out
+to look I returned with the report that all was well, and finally he
+grew calmer and lay still. Then at length his breathing became regular
+and I heard unmistakable sounds of snoring--the first and only time in
+my life when snoring has been a welcome and calming influence.
+
+This, I remember, was the last thought in my mind before dozing off.
+
+A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found the blanket over my face.
+But something else besides the blanket was pressing upon me, and my
+first thought was that my companion had rolled off his mattress on to my
+own in his sleep. I called to him and sat up, and at the same moment it
+came to me that the tent was _surrounded_. That sound of multitudinous
+soft pattering was again audible outside, filling the night with horror.
+
+I called again to him, louder than before. He did not answer, but I
+missed the sound of his snoring, and also noticed that the flap of the
+tent door was down. This was the unpardonable sin. I crawled out in the
+darkness to hook it back securely, and it was then for the first time I
+realized positively that the Swede was not there. He had gone.
+
+I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation, and the
+moment I was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of humming that
+surrounded me completely and came out of every quarter of the heavens at
+once. It was that same familiar humming--gone mad! A swarm of great
+invisible bees might have been about me in the air. The sound seemed to
+thicken the very atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with
+difficulty.
+
+But my friend was in danger, and I could not hesitate.
+
+The dawn was just about to break, and a faint whitish light spread
+upwards over the clouds from a thin strip of clear horizon. No wind
+stirred. I could just make out the bushes and river beyond, and the pale
+sandy patches. In my excitement I ran frantically to and fro about the
+island, calling him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the first
+words that came into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, and
+the humming muffled it, so that the sound only traveled a few feet round
+me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong, tumbling over roots,
+and scraping my face as I tore this way and that among the preventing
+branches.
+
+Then, quite unexpectedly, I came out upon the island's point and saw a
+dark figure outlined between the water and the sky. It was the Swede.
+And already he had one foot in the river! A moment more and he would
+have taken the plunge.
+
+I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about his waist and dragging
+him shorewards with all my strength. Of course he struggled furiously,
+making a noise all the time just like that cursed humming, and using the
+most outlandish phrases in his anger about "going _inside_ to Them," and
+"taking the way of the water and the wind," and God only knows what more
+besides, that I tried in vain to recall afterwards, but which turned me
+sick with horror and amazement as I listened. But in the end I managed
+to get him into the comparative safety of the tent, and flung him
+breathless and cursing upon the mattress, where I held him until the fit
+had passed.
+
+I think the suddenness with which it all went and he grew calm,
+coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming
+and pattering outside--I think this was almost the strangest part of the
+whole business perhaps. For he just opened his eyes and turned his tired
+face up to me so that the dawn threw a pale light upon it through the
+doorway, and said, for all the world just like a frightened child:
+
+"My life, old man--it's my life I owe you. But it's all over now anyhow.
+They've found a victim in our place!"
+
+Then he dropped back upon his blankets and went to sleep literally under
+my eyes. He simply collapsed, and began to snore again as healthily as
+though nothing had happened and he had never tried to offer his own life
+as a sacrifice by drowning. And when the sunlight woke him three hours
+later--hours of ceaseless vigil for me--it became so clear to me that he
+remembered absolutely nothing of what he had attempted to do, that I
+deemed it wise to hold my peace and ask no dangerous questions.
+
+He woke naturally and easily, as I have said, when the sun was already
+high in a windless hot sky, and he at once got up and set about the
+preparation of the fire for breakfast. I followed him anxiously at
+bathing, but he did not attempt to plunge in, merely dipping his head
+and making some remark about the extra coldness of the water.
+
+"River's falling at last," he said, "and I'm glad of it."
+
+"The humming has stopped too," I said.
+
+He looked up at me quietly with his normal expression. Evidently he
+remembered everything except his own attempt at suicide.
+
+"Everything has stopped," he said, "because----"
+
+He hesitated. But I knew some reference to that remark he had made just
+before he fainted was in his mind, and I was determined to know it.
+
+"Because 'They've found another victim'?" I said, forcing a little
+laugh.
+
+"Exactly," he answered, "exactly! I feel as positive of it as though--as
+though--I feel quite safe again, I mean," he finished.
+
+He began to look curiously about him. The sunlight lay in hot patches
+on the sand. There was no wind. The willows were motionless. He slowly
+rose to feet.
+
+"Come," he said; "I think if we look, we shall find it."
+
+He started off on a run, and I followed him. He kept to the banks,
+poking with a stick among the sandy bays and caves and little
+back-waters, myself always close on his heels.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed presently, "ah!"
+
+The tone of his voice somehow brought back to me a vivid sense of the
+horror of the last twenty-four hours, and I hurried up to join him. He
+was pointing with his stick at a large black object that lay half in the
+water and half on the sand. It appeared to be caught by some twisted
+willow roots so that the river could not sweep it away. A few hours
+before the spot must have been under water.
+
+"See," he said quietly, "the victim that made our escape possible!"
+
+And when I peered across his shoulder I saw that his stick rested on the
+body of a man. He turned it over. It was the corpse of a peasant, and
+the face was hidden in the sand. Clearly the man had been drowned but a
+few hours before, and his body must have been swept down upon our island
+somewhere about the hour of the dawn--_at the very time the fit had
+passed_.
+
+"We must give it a decent burial, you know."
+
+"I suppose so," I replied. I shuddered a little in spite of myself, for
+there was something about the appearance of that poor drowned man that
+turned me cold.
+
+The Swede glanced up sharply at me, and began clambering down the bank.
+I followed him more leisurely. The current, I noticed, had torn away
+much of the clothing from the body, so that the neck and part of the
+chest lay bare.
+
+Halfway down the bank my companion suddenly stopped and held up his hand
+in warning; but either my foot slipped, or I had gained too much
+momentum to bring myself quickly to a halt, for I bumped into him and
+sent him forward with a sort of leap to save himself. We tumbled
+together on to the hard sand so that our feet splashed into the water.
+And, before anything could be done, we had collided a little heavily
+against the corpse.
+
+The Swede uttered a sharp cry. And I sprang back as if I had been shot.
+
+At the moment we touched the body there arose from its surface the loud
+sound of humming--the sound of several hummings--which passed with a
+vast commotion as of winged things in the air about us and disappeared
+upwards into the sky, growing fainter and fainter till they finally
+ceased in the distance. It was exactly as though we had disturbed some
+living yet invisible creatures at work.
+
+My companion clutched me, and I think I clutched him, but before either
+of us had time properly to recover from the unexpected shock, we saw
+that a movement of the current was turning the corpse round so that it
+became released from the grip of the willow roots. A moment later it had
+turned completely over, the dead face uppermost, staring at the sky. It
+lay on the edge of the main stream. In another moment it would be swept
+away.
+
+The Swede started to save it, shouting again something I did not catch
+about a "proper burial" and then abruptly dropped upon his knees on the
+sand and covered his eyes with his hands. I was beside him in an
+instant.
+
+I saw what he had seen.
+
+For just as the body swung round to the current the face and the exposed
+chest turned full towards us, and showed plainly how the skin and flesh
+were indented with small hollows, beautifully formed, and exactly
+similar in shape and kind to the sand-funnels that we had found all over
+the island.
+
+"Their mark!" I heard my companion mutter under his breath. "Their awful
+mark!"
+
+And when I turned my eyes again from his ghastly face to the river, the
+current had done its work, and the body had been swept away into
+midstream and was already beyond our reach and almost out of sight,
+turning over and over on the waves like an otter.
+
+
+
+The Shadows on the Wall
+
+BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
+
+     From _The Wind in the Rose-bush_, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.
+     Copyright by Harper and Brothers. By permission of the publishers
+     and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.
+
+
+"Henry had words with Edward in the study the night before Edward died,"
+said Caroline Glynn.
+
+She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity. Rebecca Ann Glynn
+gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the
+corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline
+to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one
+beauty of the family. The latter was beautiful still, with a large,
+splendid, full-blown beauty, she filled a great rocking-chair with her
+superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gently back and forth, her black
+silks whispering and her black frills fluttering. Even the shock of
+death--for her brother Edward lay dead in the house--could not disturb
+her outward serenity of demeanor.
+
+But even her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister
+Caroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror and
+distress in response.
+
+"I think Henry might have controlled his temper, when poor Edward was so
+near his end," she said with an asperity which disturbed slightly the
+roseate curves of her beautiful mouth.
+
+"Of course he did not _know_," murmured Rebecca Ann in a faint tone.
+
+"Of course he did not know it," said Caroline quickly. She turned on her
+sister with a strange, sharp look of suspicion. Then she shrank as if
+from the other's possible answer.
+
+Rebecca gasped again. The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham, was now
+sitting up straight in her chair; she had ceased rocking, and was eyeing
+them both intently with a sudden accentuation of family likeness in her
+face.
+
+"What do you mean?" said she impartially to them both. Then she, too,
+seemed to shrink before a possible answer. She even laughed an evasive
+sort of laugh.
+
+"Nobody means anything," said Caroline firmly. She rose and crossed the
+room toward the door with grim decisiveness.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Brigham.
+
+"I have something to see to," replied Caroline, and the others at once
+knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform in the
+chamber of death.
+
+"Oh," said Mrs. Brigham.
+
+After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca.
+
+"Did Henry have many words with him?" she asked.
+
+"They were talking very loud," replied Rebecca evasively.
+
+Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She still sat
+up straight, with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead,
+between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn hair.
+
+"Did you--ever hear anything?" she asked in a low voice with a glance
+toward the door.
+
+"I was just across the hall in the south parlor, and that door was open
+and this door ajar," replied Rebecca with a slight flush.
+
+"Then you must have----"
+
+"I couldn't help it."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Most of it."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"The old story."
+
+"I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was living on
+here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father left him."
+
+Rebecca nodded, with a fearful glance at the door.
+
+When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed. "I know how he
+felt," said she. "It must have looked to him as if Edward was living at
+his expense, but he wasn't."
+
+"No, he wasn't."
+
+"And Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will,
+and Henry ought to have remembered it."
+
+"Yes, he ought."
+
+"Did he say hard things?"
+
+"Pretty hard, from what I heard."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and he
+thought he had better go away."
+
+"What did Edward say?"
+
+"That he would stay here as long as he lived and afterward, too, if he
+was a mind to, and he would like to see Henry get him out; and then----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Then he laughed."
+
+"What did Henry say?"
+
+"I didn't hear him say anything, but----"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I saw him when he came out of this room."
+
+"He looked mad?"
+
+"You've seen him when he looked so."
+
+Emma nodded. The expression of horror on her face had deepened.
+
+"Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched
+him?"
+
+"Yes. Don't!"
+
+Then Caroline reentered the room; she went up to the stove, in which a
+wood fire was burning--it was a cold, gloomy day of fall--and she warmed
+her hands, which were reddened from recent washing in cold water.
+
+Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door, which
+was still ajar; it did not easily shut, being still swollen with the
+damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it together with a sharp
+thud, which jarred the house. Rebecca started painfully with a
+half-exclamation. Caroline looked at her disapprovingly.
+
+"It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebecca," she said.
+
+Mrs. Brigham, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it
+ought to be fixed, it shut so hard.
+
+"It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days," replied
+Caroline.
+
+"I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to
+Edward," said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice.
+
+"Hush," said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door.
+
+"Nobody can hear with the door shut. I say again I think Henry ought to
+be ashamed of himself. I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having
+words with poor Edward the very night before he died. Edward was enough
+sight better disposition than Henry, with all his faults."
+
+"I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross to Henry
+that last night. I don't know but he did from what Rebecca overheard."
+
+"Not so much cross, as sort of soft, and sweet, and aggravating,"
+sniffed Rebecca.
+
+"What do you really think ailed Edward?" asked Emma in hardly more than
+a whisper. She did not look at her sister.
+
+"I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach, and had
+spasms, but what do you think made him have them?"
+
+"Henry called it gastric trouble. You know Edward has always had
+dyspepsia."
+
+Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment. "Was there any talk of
+an--examination?" said she.
+
+Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.
+
+"No," said she in a terrible voice. "No."
+
+The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground of
+terrified understanding through their eyes.
+
+The old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and a push from
+without made the door shake ineffectually. "It's Henry," Rebecca sighed
+rather than whispered. Mrs. Brigham settled herself, after a noiseless
+rush across the floor, into her rocking-chair again, and was swaying
+back and forth with her head comfortably leaning back, when the door at
+last yielded and Henry Glynn entered. He cast a covertly sharp,
+comprehensive glance at Mrs. Brigham with her elaborate calm; at Rebecca
+quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her
+face and only one small uncovered reddened ear as attentive as a dog's,
+and at Caroline sitting with a strained composure in her armchair by the
+stove. She met his eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear,
+and defiance of the fear and of him.
+
+Henry Glynn looked more like this sister than the others. Both had the
+same hard delicacy of form and aquilinity of feature. They confronted
+each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose
+marble lineaments emotions were fixed for all eternity.
+
+Then Henry Glynn smiled and the smile transformed his face. He looked
+suddenly years younger, and an almost boyish recklessness appeared in
+his face. He flung himself into a chair with a gesture which was
+bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance. He leaned
+his head back, flung one leg over the other, and looked laughingly at
+Mrs. Brigham.
+
+"I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year," he said.
+
+She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the corners. She
+was susceptible to praise.
+
+"Our thoughts to-day ought to belong to the one of us who will _never_
+grow older," said Caroline in a hard voice.
+
+Henry looked at her, still smiling. "Of course, we none of us forget
+that," said he, in a deep, gentle voice; "but we have to speak to the
+living, Caroline, and I have not seen Emma for a long time, and the
+living are as dear as the dead."
+
+"Not to me," said Caroline.
+
+She rose and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebecca also rose and
+hurried after her, sobbing loudly.
+
+Henry looked slowly after them.
+
+"Caroline is completely unstrung," said he.
+
+Mrs. Brigham rocked. A confidence in him inspired by his manner was
+stealing over her. Out of that confidence she spoke quite easily and
+naturally.
+
+"His death was very sudden," said she.
+
+Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving.
+
+"Yes," said he, "it was very sudden. He was sick only a few hours."
+
+"What did you call it?"
+
+"Gastric."
+
+"You did not think of an examination?"
+
+"There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his
+death."
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her very
+soul. Her flesh prickled with cold, before an inflection of his voice.
+She rose, tottering on weak knees.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Henry in a strange, breathless voice.
+
+Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing which she had
+to do--some black for the funeral--and was out of the room. She went up
+to the front chamber which she occupied. Caroline was there. She went
+close to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at each
+other.
+
+"Don't speak, don't, I won't have it!" said Caroline finally in an awful
+whisper.
+
+"I won't," replied Emma.
+
+That afternoon the three sisters were in the study.
+
+Mrs. Brigham was hemming some black material. At last she laid her work
+on her lap.
+
+"It's no use, I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have a light,"
+said she.
+
+Caroline, who was writing some letters at the table, turned to Rebecca,
+in her usual place on the sofa.
+
+"Rebecca, you had better get a lamp," she said.
+
+Rebecca started up; even in the dusk her face showed her agitation.
+
+"It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet," she said in a
+piteous, pleading voice like a child's.
+
+"Yes, we do," returned Mrs. Brigham peremptorily. "I can't see to sew
+another stitch."
+
+Rebecca rose and left the room. Presently she entered with a lamp. She
+set it on the table, an old-fashioned card-table which was placed
+against the opposite wall from the window. That opposite wall was taken
+up with three doors; the one small space was occupied by the table.
+
+"What have you put that lamp over there for?" asked Mrs. Brigham, with
+more of impatience than her voice usually revealed. "Why didn't you set
+it in the hall, and have done with it? Neither Caroline nor I can see if
+it is on that table."
+
+"I thought perhaps you would move," replied Rebecca hoarsely.
+
+"If I do move, we can't both sit at that table. Caroline has her paper
+all spread around. Why don't you set the lamp on the study table in the
+middle of the room, then we can both see?"
+
+Rebecca hesitated. Her face was very pale. She looked with an appeal
+that was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline.
+
+"Why don't you put the lamp on this table, as she says?" asked Caroline,
+almost fiercely. "Why do you act so, Rebecca?"
+
+Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle of the room
+without another word. Then she seated herself on the sofa and placed a
+hand over her eyes as if to shade them, and remained so.
+
+"Does the light hurt your eyes, and is that the reason why you didn't
+want the lamp?" asked Mrs. Brigham kindly.
+
+"I always like to sit in the dark," replied Rebecca chokingly. Then she
+snatched her handkerchief hastily from her pocket and began to weep.
+Caroline continued to write, Mrs. Brigham to sew.
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Brigham as she sewed glanced at the opposite wall. The
+glance became a steady stare. She looked intently, her work suspended in
+her hands. Then she looked away again and took a few more stitches, then
+she looked again, and again turned to her task. At last she laid her
+work in her lap and stared concentratedly. She looked from the wall
+round the room, taking note of the various objects. Then she turned to
+her sisters.
+
+"What _is_ that?" said she.
+
+"What?" asked Caroline harshly.
+
+"That strange shadow on the wall," replied Mrs. Brigham.
+
+Rebecca sat with her face hidden; Caroline dipped her pen in the
+inkstand.
+
+"Why don't you turn around and look?" asked Mrs. Brigham in a wondering
+and somewhat aggrieved way.
+
+"I am in a hurry to finish this letter," replied Caroline shortly.
+
+Mrs. Brigham rose, her work slipping to the floor, and began walking
+round the room, moving various articles of furniture, with her eyes on
+the shadow.
+
+Then suddenly she shrieked out:
+
+"Look at this awful shadow! What is it? Caroline, look, look! Rebecca,
+look! What is it?"
+
+All Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone. Her handsome face was
+livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow.
+
+Then after a shuddering glance at the wall Rebecca burst out in a wild
+wail.
+
+"Oh, Caroline, there it is again, there it is again!"
+
+"Caroline Glynn, you look!" said Mrs. Brigham. "Look! What is that
+dreadful shadow?"
+
+Caroline rose, turned, and stood confronting the wall.
+
+"How should I know?" she said.
+
+"It has been there every night since he died!" cried Rebecca.
+
+"Every night?"
+
+"Yes; he died Thursday and this is Saturday; that makes three nights,"
+said Caroline rigidly. She stood as if holding her calm with a vise of
+concentrated will.
+
+"It--it looks like--like--" stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intense
+horror.
+
+"I know what it looks like well enough," said Caroline. "I've got eyes
+in my head."
+
+"It looks like Edward," burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear.
+"Only----"
+
+"Yes, it does," assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken tone
+matched her sisters', "only--Oh, it is awful! What is it, Caroline?"
+
+"I ask you again, how should I know?" replied Caroline. "I see it there
+like you. How should I know any more than you?"
+
+"It _must_ be something in the room," said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildly
+around.
+
+"We moved everything in the room the first night it came," said Rebecca;
+"it is not anything in the room."
+
+Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury. "Of course it is something
+in the room," said she. "How you act! What do you mean talking so? Of
+course it is something in the room."
+
+"Of course it is," agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline
+suspiciously. "It must be something in the room."
+
+"It is not anything in the room," repeated Rebecca with obstinate
+horror.
+
+The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered. He began to speak,
+then his eyes followed the direction of the others. He stood staring at
+the shadow on the wall.
+
+"What is that?" he demanded in a strange voice.
+
+"It must be due to something in the room," Mrs. Brigham said faintly.
+
+Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamut of
+emotions. Horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly he
+began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the
+furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the
+shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.
+
+"It must be something in the room!" he declared in a voice which seemed
+to snap like a lash.
+
+His face changed, the inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident upon
+his face, until one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood
+close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs.
+Brigham clutched Caroline's hand. They both stood in a corner out of his
+way. For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal.
+He moved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not
+affect the shadow he flung it to the floor.
+
+Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed.
+
+"What an absurdity," he said easily. "Such a to-do about a shadow."
+
+"That's so," assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried to
+make natural. As she spoke she lifted a chair near her.
+
+"I think you have broken the chair that Edward was fond of," said
+Caroline.
+
+Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouth
+was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair with a show of
+anxiety.
+
+"Just as good as ever," he said pleasantly. He laughed again, looking at
+his sisters. "Did I scare you?" he said. "I should think you might be
+used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to the
+bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look--queer, like--and I
+thought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like to
+without any delay."
+
+"You don't seem to have succeeded," remarked Caroline dryly, with a
+slight glance at the wall.
+
+Henry's eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.
+
+"Oh, there is no accounting for shadows," he said, and he laughed again.
+"A man is a fool to try to account for shadows."
+
+Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kept
+his back to the wall--as did, indeed, the others.
+
+Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca brought up
+the rear. She could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so.
+
+"I can't sit in that room again this evening," she whispered to Caroline
+after supper.
+
+"Very well; we will sit in the south room," replied Caroline. "I think
+we will sit in the south parlor," she said aloud; "it isn't as damp as
+the study, and I have a cold."
+
+So they all sat in the south room with their sewing. Henry read the
+newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table. About nine
+o'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study. The three
+sisters looked at one another. Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustling
+skirts compactly round her, and began tiptoeing toward the door.
+
+"What are you going to do?" inquired Rebecca agitatedly.
+
+"I am going to see what he is about," replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously.
+
+As she spoke she pointed to the study door across the hall; it was ajar.
+Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow
+swollen beyond the limit with curious speed. It was still ajar and a
+streak of light showed from top to bottom.
+
+Mrs. Brigham folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with its
+swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a
+slow toddle across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her eye
+at the crack.
+
+In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated
+eyes. Caroline sewed steadily. What Mrs. Brigham, standing at the crack
+in the study door, saw was this:
+
+Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow
+must be between the table on which the lamp stood and the wall, was
+making systematic passes and thrusts with an old sword which had
+belonged to his father all over and through the intervening space. Not
+an inch was left unpierced. He seemed to have divided the space into
+mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury
+and calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow
+remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself cold with horror.
+
+Finally Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as if
+to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall threateningly. Mrs. Brigham
+toddled back across the hall and shut the south room door behind her
+before she related what she had seen.
+
+"He looked like a demon," she said again. "Have you got any of that old
+wine in the house, Caroline? I don't feel as if I could stand much
+more."
+
+"Yes, there's plenty," said Caroline; "you can have some when you go to
+bed."
+
+"I think we had all better take some," said Mrs. Brigham. "Oh, Caroline,
+what----"
+
+"Don't ask; don't speak," said Caroline.
+
+"No, I'm not going to," replied Mrs. Brigham; "but----"
+
+Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south parlor was
+deserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the light
+before he came upstairs. They had been gone about an hour when he came
+into the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the study. He set it
+on the table, and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His face was
+terrible, his fair complexion showed livid, and his blue eyes seemed
+dark blanks of awful reflections.
+
+Then he took up the lamp and returned to the library. He set the lamp on
+the center table and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again he studied
+the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with none of his
+former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the
+south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned to the
+study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon
+the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brigham and the
+other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him.
+
+The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in the south
+room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study until
+Henry carried a lamp in there after the others had retired for the
+night. He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before
+the light.
+
+The next morning at breakfast Henry Glynn announced that he had to go to
+the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise. He
+very seldom left home, and just now his practice had been neglected on
+account of Edward's death.
+
+"How can you leave your patients now?" asked Mrs. Brigham wonderingly.
+
+"I don't know how to, but there is no other way," replied Henry easily.
+"I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford."
+
+"Consultation?" inquired Mrs. Brigham.
+
+"I have business," replied Henry.
+
+Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighboring
+city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation.
+
+After he had gone, Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that, after all, Henry
+had not said that he was going to consult with Doctor Mitford, and she
+thought it very strange.
+
+"Everything is very strange," said Rebecca with a shudder.
+
+"What do you mean?" inquired Caroline.
+
+"Nothing," replied Rebecca.
+
+Nobody entered the study that day, nor the next. The third day Henry was
+expected home, but he did not arrive and the last train from the city
+had come.
+
+"I call it pretty queer work," said Mrs. Brigham. "The idea of a doctor
+leaving his patients at such a time as this, and the idea of a
+consultation lasting three days! There is no sense in it, and _now_ he
+has not come. I don't understand it, for my part."
+
+"I don't either," said Rebecca.
+
+They were all in the south parlor. There was no light in the study; the
+door was ajar.
+
+Presently Mrs. Brigham rose--she could not have told why; something
+seemed to impel her--some will outside her own. She went out of the
+room, again wrapping her rustling skirts round that she might pass
+noiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study.
+
+"She has not got any lamp," said Rebecca in a shaking voice.
+
+Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took the only remaining
+lamp in the room, and followed her sister. Rebecca had risen, but she
+stood trembling, not venturing to follow.
+
+The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it; it was on the south
+door on the other side of the house from the study. Rebecca, after
+hesitating until the bell rang the second time, went to the door; she
+remembered that the servant was out.
+
+Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study. Caroline set the lamp on
+the table. They looked at the wall, and there were two shadows. The
+sisters stood clutching each other, staring at the awful things on the
+wall. Then Rebecca came in, staggering, with a telegram in her hand.
+"Here is--a telegram," she gasped. "Henry is--dead."
+
+
+
+The Messenger
+
+BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    Little gray messenger,
+    Robed like painted Death,
+    Your robe is dust.
+    Whom do you seek
+    Among lilies and closed buds
+      At dusk?
+
+    Among lilies and closed buds
+      At dusk,
+    Whom do you seek,
+    Little gray messenger,
+    Robed in the awful panoply
+    Of painted Death?
+                                                                  R.W.C.
+
+     From _The Mystery of Choice_, by Robert W. Chambers. Published,
+     1897, by D. Appleton and Company. Copyright by Robert W. Chambers.
+     By permission of Robert W. Chambers.
+
+
+
+
+        All-wise,
+    Hast thou seen all there is to see with thy two eyes?
+      Dost thou know all there is to know, and so,
+        Omniscient,
+    Darest thou still to say thy brother lies?
+                                                                  R.W.C.
+
+
+I
+
+"The bullet entered here," said Max Fortin, and he placed his middle
+finger over a smooth hole exactly in the center of the forehead.
+
+I sat down upon a mound of dry seaweed and unslung my fowling piece.
+
+The little chemist cautiously felt the edges of the shot-hole, first
+with his middle finger, and then with his thumb.
+
+"Let me see the skull again," said I.
+
+Max Fortin picked it up from the sod.
+
+"It's like all the others," he repeated, wiping his glasses on his
+handkerchief. "I thought you might care to see one of the skulls, so I
+brought this over from the gravel pit. The men from Bannalec are digging
+yet. They ought to stop."
+
+"How many skulls are there altogether?" I inquired.
+
+"They found thirty-eight skulls; there are thirty-nine noted in the
+list. They lie piled up in the gravel pit on the edge of Le Bihan's
+wheat field. The men are at work yet. Le Bihan is going to stop them."
+
+"Let's go over," said I; and I picked up my gun and started across the
+cliffs, Portin on one side, Mome on the other.
+
+"Who has the list?" I asked, lighting my pipe. "You say there is a
+list?"
+
+"The list was found rolled up in a brass cylinder," said the chemist. He
+added: "You should not smoke here. You know that if a single spark
+drifted into the wheat--"
+
+"Ah, but I have a cover to my pipe," said I, smiling.
+
+Fortin watched me as I closed the pepper-box arrangement over the
+glowing bowl of the pipe. Then he continued:
+
+"The list was made out on thick yellow paper; the brass tube has
+preserved it. It is as fresh to-day as it was in 1760. You shall see
+it."
+
+"Is that the date?"
+
+"The list is dated 'April, 1760.' The Brigadier Durand has it. It is not
+written in French."
+
+"Not written in French!" I exclaimed.
+
+"No," replied Fortin solemnly, "it is written in Breton."
+
+"But," I protested, "the Breton language was never written or printed in
+1760."
+
+"Except by priests," said the chemist.
+
+"I have heard of but one priest who ever wrote the Breton language," I
+began.
+
+Fortin stole a glance at my face.
+
+"You mean--the Black Priest?" he asked.
+
+I nodded.
+
+Fortin opened his mouth to speak again, hesitated, and finally shut his
+teeth obstinately over the wheat stem that he was chewing.
+
+"And the Black Priest?" I suggested encouragingly. But I knew it was
+useless; for it is easier to move the stars from their courses than to
+make an obstinate Breton talk. We walked on for a minute or two in
+silence.
+
+"Where is the Brigadier Durand?" I asked, motioning Mome to come out of
+the wheat, which he was trampling as though it were heather. As I spoke
+we came in sight of the farther edge of the wheat field and the dark,
+wet mass of cliffs beyond.
+
+"Durand is down there--you can see him; he stands just behind the mayor
+of St. Gildas."
+
+"I see," said I; and we struck straight down, following a sun-baked
+cattle path across the heather.
+
+When we reached the edge of the wheat field, Le Bihan, the mayor of St.
+Gildas, called to me, and I tucked my gun under my arm and skirted the
+wheat to where he stood.
+
+"Thirty-eight skulls," he said in his thin, high-pitched voice; "there
+is but one more, and I am opposed to further search. I suppose Fortin
+told you?"
+
+I shook hands with him, and returned the salute of the Brigadier Durand.
+
+"I am opposed to further search," repeated Le Bihan, nervously picking
+at the mass of silver buttons which covered the front of his velvet and
+broadcloth jacket like a breastplate of scale armor.
+
+Durand pursed up his lips, twisted his tremendous mustache, and hooked
+his thumbs in his saber belt.
+
+"As for me," he said, "I am in favor of further search."
+
+"Further search for what--for the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked.
+
+Le Bihan nodded. Durand frowned at the sunlit sea, rocking like a bowl
+of molten gold from the cliffs to the horizon. I followed his eyes. On
+the dark glistening cliffs, silhouetted against the glare of the sea,
+sat a cormorant, black, motionless, its horrible head raised toward
+heaven.
+
+"Where is that list, Durand?" I asked.
+
+The gendarme rummaged in his despatch pouch and produced a brass
+cylinder about a foot long. Very gravely he unscrewed the head and
+dumped out a scroll of thick yellow paper closely covered with writing
+on both sides. At a nod from Le Bihan he handed me the scroll. But I
+could make nothing of the coarse writing, now faded to a dull brown.
+
+"Come, come, Le Bihan," I said impatiently, "translate it, won't you?
+You and Max Fortin make a lot of mystery out of nothing, it seems."
+
+Le Bihan went to the edge of the pit where the three Bannalec men were
+digging, gave an order or two in Breton, and turned to me.
+
+As I came to the edge of the pit the Bannalec men were removing a square
+piece of sailcloth from what appeared to be a pile of cobblestones.
+
+"Look!" said Le Bihan shrilly. I looked. The pile below was a heap of
+skulls. After a moment I clambered down the gravel sides of the pit and
+walked over to the men of Bannalec. They saluted me gravely, leaning on
+their picks and shovels, and wiping their sweating faces with sunburned
+hands.
+
+"How many?" said I in Breton.
+
+"Thirty-eight," they replied.
+
+I glanced around. Beyond the heap of skulls lay two piles of human
+bones. Beside these was a mound of broken, rusted bits of iron and
+steel. Looking closer, I saw that this mound was composed of rusty
+bayonets, saber blades, scythe blades, with here and there a tarnished
+buckle attached to a bit of leather hard as iron.
+
+I picked up a couple of buttons and a belt plate. The buttons bore the
+royal arms of England; the belt plate was emblazoned with the English
+arms and also with the number "27."
+
+"I have heard my grandfather speak of the terrible English regiment, the
+27th Foot, which landed and stormed the fort up there," said one of the
+Bannalec men.
+
+"Oh!" said I; "then these are the bones of English soldiers?"
+
+"Yes," said the men of Bannalec.
+
+Le Bihan was calling to me from the edge of the pit above, and I handed
+the belt plate and buttons to the men and climbed the side of the
+excavation.
+
+"Well," said I, trying to prevent Mome from leaping up and licking my
+face as I emerged from the pit, "I suppose you know what these bones
+are. What are you going to do with them?"
+
+"There was a man," said Le Bihan angrily, "an Englishman, who passed
+here in a dog-cart on his way to Quimper about an hour ago, and what do
+you suppose he wished to do?"
+
+"Buy the relics?" I asked, smiling.
+
+"Exactly--the pig!" piped the mayor of St. Gildas. "Jean Marie Tregunc,
+who found the bones, was standing there where Max Fortin stands, and do
+you know what he answered? He spat upon the ground, and said: 'Pig of an
+Englishman, do you take me for a desecrator of graves?'"
+
+I knew Tregunc, a sober, blue-eyed Breton, who lived from one year's end
+to the other without being able to afford a single bit of meat for a
+meal.
+
+"How much did the Englishman offer Tregunc?" I asked.
+
+"Two hundred francs for the skulls alone."
+
+I thought of the relic hunters and the relic buyers on the battlefields
+of our civil war.
+
+"Seventeen hundred and sixty is long ago," I said.
+
+"Respect for the dead can never die," said Fortin.
+
+"And the English soldiers came here to kill your fathers and burn your
+homes," I continued.
+
+"They were murderers and thieves, but--they are dead," said Tregunc,
+coming up from the beach below, his long sea rake balanced on his
+dripping jersey.
+
+"How much do you earn every year, Jean Marie?" I asked, turning to shake
+hands with him.
+
+"Two hundred and twenty francs, monsieur."
+
+"Forty-five dollars a year," I said. "Bah! you are worth more, Jean.
+Will you take care of my garden for me? My wife wished me to ask you. I
+think it would be worth one hundred francs a month to you and to me.
+Come on, Le Bihan--come along, Fortin--and you, Durand. I want somebody
+to translate that list into French for me."
+
+Tregunc stood gazing at me, his blue eyes dilated.
+
+"You may begin at once," I said, smiling, "if the salary suits you?"
+
+"It suits," said Tregunc, fumbling for his pipe in a silly way that
+annoyed Le Bihan.
+
+"Then go and begin your work," cried the mayor impatiently; and Tregunc
+started across the moors toward St. Gildas, taking off his
+velvet-ribboned cap to me and gripping his sea rake very hard.
+
+"You offer him more than my salary," said the mayor, after a moment's
+contemplation of his silver buttons.
+
+"Pooh!" said I, "what do you do for your salary except play dominoes
+with Max Portin at the Groix Inn?"
+
+Le Bihan turned red, but Durand rattled his saber and winked at Max
+Fortin, and I slipped my arm through the arm of the sulky magistrate,
+laughing.
+
+"There's a shady spot under the cliff," I said; "come on, Le Bihan, and
+read me what is in the scroll."
+
+In a few moments we reached the shadow of the cliff, and I threw myself
+upon the turf, chin on hand, to listen.
+
+The gendarme, Durand, also sat down, twisting his mustache into
+needlelike points. Fortin leaned against the cliff, polishing his
+glasses and examining us with vague, near-sighted eyes; and Le Bihan,
+the mayor, planted himself in our midst, rolling up the scroll and
+tucking it under his arm.
+
+"First of all," he began in a shrill voice, "I am going to light my
+pipe, and while lighting it I shall tell you what I have heard about the
+attack on the fort yonder. My father told me; his father told him."
+
+He jerked his head in the direction of the ruined fort, a small, square
+stone structure on the sea cliff, now nothing but crumbling walls. Then
+he slowly produced a tobacco pouch, a bit of flint and tinder, and a
+long-stemmed pipe fitted with a microscopical bowl of baked clay. To
+fill such a pipe requires ten minutes' close attention. To smoke it to a
+finish takes but four puffs. It is very Breton, this Breton pipe. It is
+the crystallization of everything Breton.
+
+"Go on," said I, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"The fort," said the mayor, "was built by Louis XIV, and was dismantled
+twice by the English. Louis XV restored it in 1730. In 1760 it was
+carried by assault by the English. They came across from the island of
+Groix--three shiploads, and they stormed the fort and sacked St. Julien
+yonder, and they started to burn St. Gildas--you can see the marks of
+their bullets on my house yet; but the men of Bannalec and the men of
+Lorient fell upon them with pike and scythe and blunderbuss, and those
+who did not run away lie there below in the gravel pit now--thirty-eight
+of them."
+
+"And the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked, finishing my cigarette.
+
+The mayor had succeeded in filling his pipe, and now he began to put his
+tobacco pouch away.
+
+"The thirty-ninth skull," he mumbled, holding the pipe stem between his
+defective teeth--"the thirty-ninth skull is no business of mine. I have
+told the Bannalec men to cease digging."
+
+"But what is--whose is the missing skull?" I persisted curiously.
+
+The mayor was busy trying to strike a spark to his tinder. Presently he
+set it aglow, applied it to his pipe, took the prescribed four puffs,
+knocked the ashes out of the bowl, and gravely replaced the pipe in his
+pocket.
+
+"The missing skull?" he asked.
+
+
+"Yes," said I, impatiently.
+
+The mayor slowly unrolled the scroll and began to read, translating from
+the Breton into French. And this is what he read:
+
+
+                                        "ON THE CLIFFS OF ST. GILDAS,
+                                           APRIL 13, 1760.
+
+"On this day, by order of the Count of Soisic, general in chief of the
+Breton forces now lying in Kerselec Forest, the bodies of thirty-eight
+English soldiers of the 27th, 50th, and 72d regiments of Foot were
+buried in this spot, together with their arms and equipments."
+
+The mayor paused and glanced at me reflectively.
+
+"Go on, Le Bihan," I said.
+
+"With them," continued the mayor, turning the scroll and reading on the
+other side, "was buried the body of that vile traitor who betrayed the
+fort to the English. The manner of his death was as follows: By order of
+the most noble Count of Soisic, the traitor was first branded upon the
+forehead with the brand of an arrowhead. The iron burned through the
+flesh and was pressed heavily so that the brand should even burn into
+the bone of the skull. The traitor was then led out and bidden to
+kneel. He admitted having guided the English from the island of Groix.
+Although a priest and a Frenchman, he had violated his priestly office
+to aid him in discovering the password to the fort. This password he
+extorted during confession from a young Breton girl who was in the habit
+of rowing across from the island of Groix to visit her husband in the
+fort. When the fort fell, this young girl, crazed by the death of her
+husband, sought the Count of Soisic and told how the priest had forced
+her to confess to him all she knew about the fort. The priest was
+arrested at St. Gildas as he was about to cross the river to Lorient.
+When arrested he cursed the girl, Marie Trevec----"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, "Marie Trevec!"
+
+"Marie Trevec," repeated Le Bihan; "the priest cursed Marie Trevec, and
+all her family and descendants. He was shot as he knelt, having a mask
+of leather over his face, because the Bretons who composed the squad of
+execution refused to fire at a priest unless his face was concealed. The
+priest was l'Abbe Sorgue, commonly known as the Black Priest on account
+of his dark face and swarthy eyebrows. He was buried with a stake
+through his heart."
+
+Le Bihan paused, hesitated, looked at me, and handed the manuscript back
+to Durand. The gendarme took it and slipped it into the brass cylinder.
+
+"So," said I, "the thirty-ninth skull is the skull of the Black
+Priest."
+
+"Yes," said Fortin. "I hope they won't find it."
+
+"I have forbidden them to proceed," said the mayor querulously. "You
+heard me, Max Fortin."
+
+I rose and picked up my gun. Mome came and pushed his head into my hand.
+
+"That's a fine dog," observed Durand, also rising.
+
+"Why don't you wish to find his skull?" I asked Le Bihan. "It would be
+curious to see whether the arrow brand really burned into the bone."
+
+"There is something in that scroll that I didn't read to you," said the
+mayor grimly. "Do you wish to know what it is?"
+
+"Of course," I replied in surprise.
+
+"Give me the scroll again, Durand," he said; then he read from the
+bottom: "I, l'Abbe Sorgue, forced to write the above by my executioners,
+have written it in my own blood; and with it I leave my curse. My curse
+on St. Gildas, on Marie Trevec, and on her descendants. I will come back
+to St. Gildas when my remains are disturbed. Woe to that Englishman whom
+my branded skull shall touch!"
+
+"What rot!" I said. "Do you believe it was really written in his own
+blood?"
+
+"I am going to test it," said Fortin, "at the request of Monsieur le
+Maire. I am not anxious for the job, however."
+
+"See," said Le Bihan, holding out the scroll to me, "it is signed,
+'L'Abbe Sorgue.'"
+
+I glanced curiously over the paper.
+
+"It must be the Black Priest," I said. "He was the only man who wrote in
+the Breton language. This is a wonderfully interesting discovery, for
+now, at last, the mystery of the Black Priest's disappearance is cleared
+up. You will, of course, send this scroll to Paris, Le Bihan?"
+
+"No," said the mayor obstinately, "it shall be buried in the pit below
+where the rest of the Black Priest lies."
+
+I looked at him and recognized that argument would be useless. But still
+I said, "It will be a loss to history, Monsieur Le Bihan."
+
+"All the worse for history, then," said the enlightened Mayor of St.
+Gildas.
+
+We had sauntered back to the gravel pit while speaking. The men of
+Bannalec were carrying the bones of the English soldiers toward the St.
+Gildas cemetery, on the cliffs to the east, where already a knot of
+white-coiffed women stood in attitudes of prayer; and I saw the somber
+robe of a priest among the crosses of the little graveyard.
+
+"They were thieves and assassins; they are dead now," muttered Max
+Fortin.
+
+"Respect the dead," repeated the Mayor of St. Gildas, looking after the
+Bannalec men.
+
+"It was written in that scroll that Marie Trevec, of Groix Island, was
+cursed by the priest--she and her descendants," I said, touching Le
+Bihan on the arm. "There was a Marie Trevec who married an Yves Trevec
+of St. Gildas----"
+
+"It is the same," said Le Bihan, looking at me obliquely.
+
+"Oh!" said I; "then they were ancestors of my wife."
+
+"Do you fear the curse?" asked Le Bihan.
+
+"What?" I laughed.
+
+"There was the case of the Purple Emperor," said Max Fortin timidly.
+
+Startled for a moment, I faced him, then shrugged my shoulders and
+kicked at a smooth bit of rock which lay near the edge of the pit,
+almost embedded in gravel.
+
+"Do you suppose the Purple-Emperor drank himself crazy because he was
+descended from Marie Trevec?" I asked contemptuously.
+
+"Of course not," said Max Fortin hastily.
+
+"Of course not," piped the mayor. "I only--Hellow! what's that you're
+kicking?"
+
+"What?" said I, glancing down, at the same time involuntarily giving
+another kick. The smooth bit of rock dislodged itself and rolled out of
+the loosened gravel at my feet.
+
+"The thirty-ninth skull!" I exclaimed. "By jingo, it's the noddle of the
+Black Priest! See! there is the arrowhead branded on the front!"
+
+The mayor stepped back. Max Fortin also retreated. There was a pause,
+during which I looked at them, and they looked anywhere but at me.
+
+"I don't like it," said the mayor at last, in a husky, high voice. "I
+don't like it! The scroll says he will come back to St. Gildas when his
+remains are disturbed. I--I don't like it, Monsieur Darrel--"
+
+"Bosh!" said I; "the poor wicked devil is where he can't get out. For
+Heaven's sake, Le Bihan, what is this stuff you are talking in the year
+of grace 1896?"
+
+The mayor gave me a look.
+
+"And he says 'Englishman.' You are an Englishman, Monsieur Darrel," he
+announced.
+
+"You know better. You know I'm an American."
+
+"It's all the same," said the Mayor of St. Gildas, obstinately.
+
+"No, it isn't!" I answered, much exasperated, and deliberately pushed
+the skull till it rolled into the bottom of the gravel pit below.
+
+"Cover it up," said I; "bury the scroll with it too, if you insist, but
+I think you ought to send it to Paris. Don't look so gloomy, Fortin,
+unless you believe in werewolves and ghosts. Hey! what the--what the
+devil's the matter with you, anyway? What are you staring at, Le Bihan?"
+
+"Come, come," muttered the mayor in a low, tremulous voice, "it's time
+we got out of this. Did you see? Did you see, Fortin?"
+
+"I saw," whispered Max Fortin, pallid with fright.
+
+The two men were almost running across the sunny pasture now, and I
+hastened after them, demanding to know what was the matter.
+
+"Matter!" chattered the mayor, gasping with exasperation and terror.
+"The skull is rolling up hill again," and he burst into a terrified
+gallop, Max Fortin followed close behind.
+
+I watched them stampeding across the pasture, then turned toward the
+gravel pit, mystified, incredulous. The skull was lying on the edge of
+the pit, exactly where it had been before I pushed it over the edge. For
+a second I stared at it; a singular chilly feeling crept up my spinal
+column, and I turned and walked away, sweat starting from the root of
+every hair on my head. Before I had gone twenty paces the absurdity of
+the whole thing struck me. I halted, hot with shame and annoyance, and
+retraced my steps.
+
+There lay the skull.
+
+"I rolled a stone down instead of the skull," I muttered to myself. Then
+with the butt of my gun I pushed the skull over the edge of the pit and
+watched it roll to the bottom; and as it struck the bottom of the pit,
+Mome, my dog, suddenly whipped his tail between his legs, whimpered, and
+made off across the moor.
+
+"Mome!" I shouted, angry and astonished; but the dog only fled the
+faster, and I ceased calling from sheer surprise.
+
+"What the mischief is the matter with that dog!" I thought. He had never
+before played me such a trick.
+
+Mechanically I glanced into the pit, but I could not see the skull. I
+looked down. The skull lay at my feet again, touching them.
+
+"Good heavens!" I stammered, and struck at it blindly with my gunstock.
+The ghastly thing flew into the air, whirling over and over, and rolled
+again down the sides of the pit to the bottom. Breathlessly I stared at
+it, then, confused and scarcely comprehending, I stepped back from the
+pit, still facing it, one, ten, twenty paces, my eyes almost starting
+from my head, as though I expected to see the thing roll up from the
+bottom of the pit under my very gaze. At last I turned my back to the
+pit and strode out across the gorse-covered moorland toward my home. As
+I reached the road that winds from St. Gildas to St. Julien I gave one
+hasty glance at the pit over my shoulder. The sun shone hot on the sod
+about the excavation. There was something white and bare and round on
+the turf at the edge of the pit. It might have been a stone; there were
+plenty of them lying about.
+
+
+II
+
+When I entered my garden I saw Mome sprawling on the stone doorstep. He
+eyed me sideways and flopped his tail.
+
+"Are you not mortified, you idiot dog?" I said, looking about the upper
+windows for Lys.
+
+Mome rolled over on his back and raised one deprecating forepaw, as
+though to ward off calamity.
+
+"Don't act as though I was in the habit of beating you to death," I
+said, disgusted. I had never in my life raised whip to the brute. "But
+you are a fool dog," I continued. "No, you needn't come to be babied and
+wept over; Lys can do that, if she insists, but I am ashamed of you, and
+you can go to the devil."
+
+Mome slunk off into the house, and I followed, mounting directly to my
+wife's boudoir. It was empty.
+
+"Where has she gone?" I said, looking hard at Mome, who had followed me.
+"Oh! I see you don't know. Don't pretend you do. Come off that lounge!
+Do you think Lys wants tan-colored hairs all over her lounge?"
+
+I rang the bell for Catherine and Fine, but they didn't know where
+"madame" had gone; so I went into my room, bathed, exchanged my somewhat
+grimy shooting clothes for a suit of warm, soft knickerbockers, and,
+after lingering some extra moments over my toilet--for I was particular,
+now that I had married Lys--I went down to the garden and took a chair
+out under the fig-trees.
+
+"Where can she be?" I wondered, Mome came sneaking out to be comforted,
+and I forgave him for Lys's sake, whereupon he frisked.
+
+"You bounding cur," said I, "now what on earth started you off across
+the moor? If you do it again I'll push you along with a charge of dust
+shot."
+
+As yet I had scarcely dared think about the ghastly hallucination of
+which I had been a victim, but now I faced it squarely, flushing a
+little with mortification at the thought of my hasty retreat from the
+gravel pit.
+
+"To think," I said aloud, "that those old woman's tales of Max Fortin
+and Le Bihan should have actually made me see what didn't exist at all!
+I lost my nerve like a schoolboy in a dark bedroom." For I knew now that
+I had mistaken a round stone for a skull each time, and had pushed a
+couple of big pebbles into the pit instead of the skull itself.
+
+"By jingo!" said I, "I'm nervous; my liver must be in a devil of a
+condition if I see such things when I'm awake! Lys will know what to
+give me."
+
+I felt mortified and irritated and sulky, and thought disgustedly of Le
+Bihan and Max Fortin.
+
+But after a while I ceased speculating, dismissed the mayor, the
+chemist, and the skull from my mind, and smoked pensively, watching the
+sun low dipping in the western ocean. As the twilight fell for a moment
+over ocean and moorland, a wistful, restless happiness filled my heart,
+the happiness that all men know--all men who have loved.
+
+Slowly the purple mist crept out over the sea; the cliffs darkened; the
+forest was shrouded.
+
+Suddenly the sky above burned with the afterglow, and the world was
+alight again.
+
+Cloud after cloud caught the rose dye; the cliffs were tinted with it;
+moor and pasture, heather and forest burned and pulsated with the
+gentle flush. I saw the gulls turning and tossing above the sand bar,
+their snowy wings tipped with pink; I saw the sea swallows sheering the
+surface of the still river, stained to its placid depths with warm
+reflections of the clouds. The twitter of drowsy hedge birds broke out
+in the stillness; a salmon rolled its shining side above tidewater.
+
+The interminable monotone of the ocean intensified the silence. I sat
+motionless, holding my breath as one who listens to the first low rumor
+of an organ. All at once the pure whistle of a nightingale cut the
+silence, and the first moonbeam silvered the wastes of mist-hung waters.
+
+I raised my head.
+
+Lys stood before me in the garden.
+
+When we had kissed each other, we linked arms and moved up and down the
+gravel walks, watching the moonbeams sparkle on the sand bar as the tide
+ebbed and ebbed. The broad beds of white pinks about us were atremble
+with hovering white moths; the October roses hung all abloom, perfuming
+the salt wind.
+
+"Sweetheart," I said, "where is Yvonne? Has she promised to spend
+Christmas with us?"
+
+"Yes, Dick; she drove me down from Plougat this afternoon. She sent her
+love to you. I am not jealous. What did you shoot?"
+
+"A hare and four partridges. They are in the gun room. I told Catherine
+not to touch them until you had seen them."
+
+Now I suppose I knew that Lys could not be particularly enthusiastic
+over game or guns; but she pretended she was, and always scornfully
+denied that it was for my sake and not for the pure love of sport. So
+she dragged me off to inspect the rather meager game bag, and she paid
+me pretty compliments, and gave a little cry of delight and pity as I
+lifted the enormous hare out of the sack by his ears.
+
+"He'll eat no more of our lettuce," I said attempting to justify the
+assassination.
+
+"Unhappy little bunny--and what a beauty! O Dick, you are a splendid
+shot, are you not?"
+
+I evaded the question and hauled out a partridge.
+
+"Poor little dead things'" said Lys in a whisper; "it seems a
+pity--doesn't it, Dick? But then you are so clever----"
+
+"We'll have them broiled," I said guardedly, "tell Catherine."
+
+Catherine came in to take away the game, and presently 'Fine Lelocard,
+Lys's maid, announced dinner, and Lys tripped away to her boudoir.
+
+I stood an instant contemplating her blissfully, thinking, "My boy,
+you're the happiest fellow in the world--you're in love with your wife'"
+
+I walked into the dining-room, beamed at the plates, walked out again;
+met Tregunc in the hallway, beamed on him; glanced into the kitchen,
+beamed at Catherine, and went up stairs, still beaming.
+
+Before I could knock at Lys's door it opened, and Lys came hastily out.
+When she saw me she gave a little cry of relief, and nestled close to my
+breast.
+
+"There is something peering in at my window," she said.
+
+"What!" I cried angrily.
+
+"A man, I think, disguised as a priest, and he has a mask on. He must
+have climbed up by the bay tree."
+
+I was down the stairs and out of doors in no time. The moonlit garden
+was absolutely deserted. Tregunc came up, and together we searched the
+hedge and shrubbery around the house and out to the road.
+
+"Jean Marie," said I at length, "loose my bulldog--he knows you--and
+take your supper on the porch where you can watch. My wife says the
+fellow is disguised as a priest, and wears a mask."
+
+Tregunc showed his white teeth in a smile. "He will not care to venture
+in here again, I think, Monsieur Darrel."
+
+I went back and found Lys seated quietly at the table.
+
+"The soup is ready, dear," she said. "Don't worry; it was only some
+foolish lout from Bannalec. No one in St. Gildas or St. Julien would do
+such a thing."
+
+I was too much exasperated to reply at first, but Lys treated it as a
+stupid joke, and after a while I began to look at it in that light.
+
+Lys told me about Yvonne, and reminded me of my promise to have Herbert
+Stuart down to meet her.
+
+"You wicked diplomat!" I protested. "Herbert is in Paris, and hard at
+work for the Salon."
+
+"Don't you think he might spare a week to flirt with the prettiest girl
+in Finistere?" inquired Lys innocently.
+
+"Prettiest girl! Not much!" I said.
+
+"Who is, then?" urged Lys.
+
+I laughed a trifle sheepishly.
+
+"I suppose you mean me, Dick," said Lys, coloring up.
+
+"Now I bore you, don't I?"
+
+"Bore me? Ah, no, Dick."
+
+After coffee and cigarettes were served I spoke about Tregunc, and Lys
+approved.
+
+"Poor Jean! He will be glad, won't he? What a dear fellow you are!"
+
+"Nonsense," said I; "we need a gardener; you said so yourself, Lys."
+
+But Lys leaned over and kissed me, and then bent down and hugged
+Mome--who whistled through his nose in sentimental appreciation.
+
+"I am a very happy woman," said Lys.
+
+"Mome was a very bad dog to-day," I observed.
+
+"Poor Mome!" said Lys, smiling.
+
+When dinner was over and Mome lay snoring before the blaze--for the
+October nights are often chilly in Finistere--Lys curled up in the
+chimney corner with her embroidery, and gave me a swift glance from
+under her dropping lashes.
+
+"You look like a schoolgirl, Lys," I said teasingly. "I don't believe
+you are sixteen yet."
+
+She pushed back her heavy burnished hair thoughtfully. Her wrist was as
+white as surf foam.
+
+"Have we been married four years? I don't believe it," I said.
+
+She gave me another swift glance and touched the embroidery on her knee,
+smiling faintly.
+
+"I see," said I, also smiling at the embroidered garment. "Do you think
+it will fit?"
+
+"Fit?" repeated Lys. Then she laughed
+
+"And," I persisted, "are you perfectly sure that you--er--we shall need
+it?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Lys. A delicate color touched her cheeks and neck. She
+held up the little garment, all fluffy with misty lace and wrought with
+quaint embroidery.
+
+"It is very gorgeous," said I; "don't use your eyes too much, dearest.
+May I smoke a pipe?"
+
+"Of course," she said selecting a skein of pale blue silk.
+
+For a while I sat and smoked in silence, watching her slender fingers
+among the tinted silks and thread of gold.
+
+Presently she spoke: "What did you say your crest is, Dick?"
+
+"My crest? Oh, something or other rampant on a something or other----"
+
+"Dick!"
+
+"Dearest?"
+
+"Don't be flippant."
+
+"But I really forget. It's an ordinary crest; everybody in New York has
+them. No family should be without 'em."
+
+"You are disagreeable, Dick. Send Josephine upstairs for my album."
+
+"Are you going to put that crest on the--the--whatever it is?"
+
+"I am; and my own crest, too."
+
+I thought of the Purple Emperor and wondered a little.
+
+"You didn't know I had one, did you?" she smiled.
+
+"What is it?" I replied evasively.
+
+"You shall see. Ring for Josephine."
+
+I rang, and, when 'Fine appeared, Lys gave her some orders in a low
+voice, and Josephine trotted away, bobbing her white-coiffed head with a
+"Bien, Madame!"
+
+After a few minutes she returned, bearing a tattered, musty volume, from
+which the gold and blue had mostly disappeared.
+
+I took the book in my hands and examined the ancient emblazoned covers.
+
+"Lilies!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Fleur-de-lis," said my wife demurely.
+
+"Oh!" said I, astonished, and opened the book.
+
+"You have never before seen this book?" asked Lys, with a touch of
+malice in her eyes.
+
+"You know I haven't. Hello! What's this? Oho! So there should be a de
+before Trevec? Lys de Trevec? Then why in the world did the Purple
+Emperor----"
+
+"Dick!" cried Lys.
+
+"All right," said I. "Shall I read about the Sieur de Trevec who rode to
+Saladin's tent alone to seek for medicine for St. Louise? Or shall I
+read about--what is it? Oh, here it is, all down in black and
+white--about the Marquis de Trevec who drowned himself before Alva's
+eyes rather than surrender the banner of the fleur-de-lis to Spain? It's
+all written here. But, dear, how about that soldier named Trevec who was
+killed in the old fort on the cliff yonder?"
+
+"He dropped the de, and the Trevecs since then have been Republicans,"
+said Lys--"all except me."
+
+"That's quite right," said I; "it is time that we Republicans should
+agree upon some feudal system. My dear, I drink to the king!" and I
+raised my wine glass and looked at Lys.
+
+"To the king," said Lys, flushing. She smoothed out the tiny garment on
+her knees; she touched the glass with her lips; her eyes were very
+sweet. I drained the glass to the king.
+
+After a silence I said: "I will tell the king stories. His majesty shall
+be amused."
+
+"His majesty," repeated Lys softly.
+
+"Or hers," I laughed. "Who knows?"
+
+"Who knows?" murmured Lys; with a gentle sigh.
+
+"I know some stories about Jack the Giant-Killer," I announced. "Do
+you, Lys?"
+
+"I? No, not about a giant-killer, but I know all about the werewolf, and
+Jeanne-la-Flamme, and the Man in Purple Tatters, and--O dear me, I know
+lots more."
+
+"You are very wise," said I. "I shall teach his majesty, English."
+
+"And I Breton," cried Lys jealously.
+
+"I shall bring playthings to the king," said I--"big green lizards from
+the gorse, little gray mullets to swim in glass globes, baby rabbits
+from the forest of Kerselec----"
+
+"And I," said Lys, "will bring the first primrose, the first branch of
+aubepine, the first jonquil, to the king--my king."
+
+"Our king," said I; and there was peace in Finistere.
+
+I lay back, idly turning the leaves of the curious old volume.
+
+"I am looking," said I, "for the crest."
+
+"The crest, dear? It is a priest's head with an arrow-shaped mark on the
+forehead, on a field----"
+
+I sat up and stared at my wife.
+
+"Dick, whatever is the matter?" she smiled. "The story is there in that
+book. Do you care to read it? No? Shall I tell it to you? Well, then: It
+happened in the third crusade. There was a monk whom men called the
+Black Priest. He turned apostate, and sold himself to the enemies of
+Christ. A Sieur de Trevec burst into the Saracen camp, at the head of
+only one hundred lances, and carried the Black Priest away out of the
+very midst of their army."
+
+"So that is how you come by the crest," I said quietly; but I thought of
+the branded skull in the gravel pit, and wondered.
+
+"Yes," said Lys. "The Sieur de Trevec cut the Black Priest's head off,
+but first he branded him with an arrow mark on the forehead. The book
+says it was a pious action, and the Sieur de Trevec got great merit by
+it. But I think it was cruel, the branding," she sighed.
+
+"Did you ever hear of any other Black Priest?"
+
+"Yes. There was one in the last century, here in St. Gildas. He cast a
+white shadow in the sun. He wrote in the Breton language. Chronicles,
+too, I believe. I never saw them. His name was the same as that of the
+old chronicler, and of the other priest, Jacques Sorgue. Some said he
+was a lineal descendant of the traitor. Of course the first Black Priest
+was bad enough for anything. But if he did have a child, it need not
+have been the ancestor of the last Jacques Sorgue. They say he was so
+good he was not allowed to die, but was caught up to heaven one day,"
+added Lys, with believing eyes.
+
+I smiled.
+
+"But he disappeared," persisted Lys.
+
+"I'm afraid his journey was in another direction," I said jestingly, and
+thoughtlessly told her the story of the morning. I had utterly
+forgotten the masked man at her window, but before I finished I
+remembered him fast enough, and realized what I had done as I saw her
+face whiten.
+
+"Lys," I urged tenderly, "that was only some clumsy clown's trick. You
+said so yourself. You are not superstitious, my dear?"
+
+Her eyes were on mine. She slowly drew the little gold cross from her
+bosom and kissed it. But her lips trembled as they pressed the symbol of
+faith.
+
+
+III
+
+About nine o'clock the next morning I walked into the Groix Inn and sat
+down at the long discolored oaken table, nodding good-day to Marianne
+Bruyere, who in turn bobbed her white coiffe at me.
+
+"My clever Bannalec maid," said I, "what is good for a stirrup-cup at
+the Groix Inn?"
+
+"Schist?" she inquired in Breton.
+
+"With a dash of red wine, then," I replied.
+
+She brought the delicious Quimperle cider, and I poured a little
+Bordeaux into it. Marianne watched me with laughing black eyes.
+
+"What makes your cheeks so red, Marianne?" I asked. "Has Jean Marie been
+here?"
+
+"We are to be married, Monsieur Darrel," she laughed.
+
+"Ah! Since when has Jean Marie Tregunc lost his head?"
+
+"His head? Oh, Monsieur Darrel--his heart, you mean!"
+
+"So I do," said I. "Jean Marie is a practical fellow."
+
+"It is all due to your kindness--" began the girl, but I raised my hand
+and held up the glass.
+
+"It's due to himself. To your happiness, Marianne"; and I took a hearty
+draught of the schist. "Now," said I, "tell me where I can find Le Bihan
+and Max Fortin."
+
+"Monsieur Le Bihan and Monsieur Fortin are above in the broad room. I
+believe they are examining the Red Admiral's effects."
+
+"To send them to Paris? Oh, I know. May I go up, Marianne?"
+
+"And God go with you," smiled the girl.
+
+When I knocked at the door of the broad room above little Max Fortin
+opened it. Dust covered his spectacles and nose; his hat, with the tiny
+velvet ribbons fluttering, was all awry.
+
+"Come in, Monsieur Darrel," he said; "the mayor and I are packing up the
+effects of the Purple Emperor and of the poor Red Admiral."
+
+"The collections?" I asked, entering the room. "You must be very careful
+in packing those butterfly cases; the slightest jar might break wings
+and antennas, you know."
+
+Le Bihan shook hands with me and pointed to the great pile of boxes.
+
+"They're all cork lined," he said, "but Fortin and I are putting felt
+around each box. The Entomological Society of Paris pays the freight."
+
+The combined collection of the Red Admiral and the Purple Emperor made a
+magnificent display.
+
+I lifted and inspected case after case set with gorgeous butterflies and
+moths, each specimen carefully labelled with the name in Latin. There
+were cases filled with crimson tiger moths all aflame with color; cases
+devoted to the common yellow butterflies; symphonies in orange and pale
+yellow; cases of soft gray and dun-colored sphinx moths; and cases of
+grayish nettle-bed butterflies of the numerous family of Vanessa.
+
+All alone in a great case by itself was pinned the purple emperor, the
+Apatura Iris, that fatal specimen that had given the Purple Emperor his
+name and quietus.
+
+I remembered the butterfly, and stood looking at it with bent eyebrows.
+
+Le Bihan glanced up from the floor where he was nailing down the lid of
+a box full of cases.
+
+"It is settled, then," said he, "that madame, your wife, gives the
+Purple Emperor's entire Collection to the city of Paris?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Without accepting anything for it?"
+
+"It is a gift," I said.
+
+"Including the purple emperor there in the case? That butterfly is
+worth a great deal of money," persisted Le Bihan.
+
+"You don't suppose that we would wish to sell that specimen, do you?" I
+answered a trifle sharply.
+
+"If I were you I should destroy it," said the mayor in his high-pitched
+voice.
+
+"That would be nonsense," said I, "like your burying the brass cylinder
+and scroll yesterday."
+
+"It was not nonsense," said Le Bihan doggedly, "and I should prefer not
+to discuss the subject of the scroll."
+
+I looked at Max Portin, who immediately avoided my eyes.
+
+"You are a pair of superstitious old women," said I, digging my hands
+into my pockets; "you swallow every nursery tale that is invented."
+
+"What of it?" said Le Bihan sulkily; "there's more truth than lies in
+most of 'em."
+
+"Oh!" I sneered, "does the Mayor of St. Gildas and St. Julien believe in
+the loup-garou?"
+
+"No, not in the loup-garou."
+
+"In what, then--Jeanne-la-Flamme?"
+
+"That," said Le Bihan with conviction, "is history."
+
+"The devil it is!" said I; "and perhaps, Monsieur the mayor, your faith
+in giants is unimpaired?"
+
+"There were giants--everybody knows it," growled Max Fortin.
+
+"And you a chemist!" I observed scornfully.
+
+"Listen, Monsieur Darrel," squeaked Le Bihan; "you know yourself that
+the Purple Emperor was a scientific man. Now suppose I should tell you
+that he always refused to include in his collection a Death's
+Messenger?"
+
+"A what?" I exclaimed.
+
+"You know what I mean--that moth that flies by night; some call it the
+Death's Head, but in St. Gildas we call it 'Death's Messenger.'"
+
+"Oh!" said I, "you mean that big sphinx moth that is commonly known as
+the 'death's-head moth.' Why the mischief should the people here call it
+death's messenger?"
+
+"For hundreds of years it has been known as death's messenger in St.
+Gildas," said Max Fortin. "Even Froissart speaks of it in his
+commentaries on Jacques Sorgue's _Chronicles_. The book is in your
+library."
+
+"Sorgue? And who was Jacques Sorgue? I never read his book."
+
+"Jacques Sorgue [Transcriber's note: the original reads "Sorque"] was the
+son of some unfrocked priest--I forget. It was during the crusades."
+
+"Good Heavens!" I burst out, "I've been hearing of nothing but crusades
+and priests and death and sorcery ever since I kicked that skull into
+the gravel pit, and I am tired of it, I tell you frankly. One would
+think we lived in the dark ages. Do you know what year of our Lord it
+is, Le Bihan?"
+
+"Eighteen hundred and ninety-six," replied the mayor.
+
+"And yet you two hulking men are afraid of a death's-head moth."
+
+"I don't care to have one fly into the window," said Max Fortin; "it
+means evil to the house and the people in it."
+
+"God alone knows why he marked one of his creatures with a yellow
+death's head on the back," observed Le Bihan piously, "but I take it
+that he meant it as a warning; and I propose to profit by it," he added
+triumphantly.
+
+"See here, Le Bihan," I said; "by a stretch of imagination one can make
+out a skull on the thorax of a certain big sphinx moth. What of it?"
+
+"It is a bad thing to touch," said the mayor wagging his head.
+
+"It squeaks when handled," added Max Fortin.
+
+"Some creatures squeak all the time," I observed, looking hard at Le
+Bihan.
+
+"Pigs," added the mayor.
+
+"Yes, and asses," I replied. "Listen, Le Bihan: do you mean to tell me
+that you saw that skull roll uphill yesterday?"
+
+The mayor shut his mouth tightly and picked up his hammer.
+
+"Don't be obstinate," I said; "I asked you a question."
+
+"And I refuse to answer," snapped Le Bihan. "Fortin saw what I saw; let
+him talk about it."
+
+I looked searchingly at the little chemist.
+
+"I don't say that I saw it actually roll up out of the pit, all by
+itself," said Fortin with a shiver, "but--but then, how did it come up
+out of the pit, if it didn't roll up all by itself?"
+
+"It didn't come up at all; that was a yellow cobblestone that you
+mistook for the skull again," I replied. "You were nervous, Max."
+
+"A--a very curious cobblestone, Monsieur Darrel," said Fortin.
+
+"I also was a victim to the same hallucination," I continued, "and I
+regret to say that I took the trouble to roll two innocent cobblestones
+into the gravel pit, imagining each time that it was the skull I was
+rolling."
+
+"It was," observed Le Bihan with a morose shrug.
+
+"It just shows," said I, ignoring the mayor's remark, "how easy it is to
+fix up a train of coincidences so that the result seems to savor of the
+supernatural. Now, last night my wife imagined that she saw a priest in
+a mask peer in at her window----"
+
+Fortin and Le Bihan scrambled hastily from their knees, dropping hammer
+and nails.
+
+"W-h-a-t--what's that?" demanded the mayor.
+
+I repeated what I had said. Max Fortin turned livid.
+
+"My God!" muttered Le Bihan, "the Black Priest is in St. Gildas!"
+
+"D-don't you--you know the old prophecy?" stammered Fortin; "Froissart
+quotes it from Jacques Sorgue:
+
+    "'When the Black Priest rises from the dead,
+    St. Gildas folk shall shriek in bed;
+    When the Black Priest rises from his grave,
+    May the good God St. Gildas save!'"
+
+"Aristide Le Bihan," I said angrily, "and you, Max Fortin, I've got
+enough of this nonsense! Some foolish lout from Bannalec has been in St.
+Gildas playing tricks to frighten old fools like you. If you have
+nothing better to talk about than nursery legends I'll wait until you
+come to your senses. Good-morning." And I walked out, more disturbed
+than I cared to acknowledge to myself.
+
+The day had become misty and overcast. Heavy, wet clouds hung in the
+east. I heard the surf thundering against the cliffs, and the gray gulls
+squealed as they tossed and turned high in the sky. The tide was
+creeping across the river sands, higher, higher, and I saw the seaweed
+floating on the beach, and the lancons springing from the foam, silvery
+threadlike flashes in the gloom. Curlew were flying up the river in twos
+and threes; the timid sea swallows skimmed across the moors toward some
+quiet, lonely pool, safe from the coming tempest. In every hedge field
+birds were gathering, huddling together, twittering restlessly.
+
+When I reached the cliffs I sat down, resting my chin on my clenched
+hands. Already a vast curtain of rain, sweeping across the ocean miles
+away, hid the island of Groix. To the east, behind the white semaphore
+on the hills, black clouds crowded up over the horizon. After a little
+the thunder boomed, dull, distant, and slender skeins of lightning
+unraveled across the crest of the coming storm. Under the cliff at my
+feet the surf rushed foaming over the shore, and the lancons jumped and
+skipped and quivered until they seemed to be but the reflections of the
+meshed lightning.
+
+I turned to the east. It was raining over Groix, it was raining at
+Sainte Barbe, it was raining now at the semaphore. High in the storm
+whirl a few gulls pitched; a nearer cloud trailed veils of rain in its
+wake; the sky was spattered with lightning; the thunder boomed.
+
+As I rose to go, a cold raindrop fell upon the back of my hand, and
+another, and yet another on my face. I gave a last glance at the sea,
+where the waves were bursting into strange white shapes that seemed to
+fling out menacing arms toward me. Then something moved on the cliff,
+something black as the black rock it clutched--a filthy cormorant,
+craning its hideous head at the sky.
+
+Slowly I plodded homeward across the somber moorland, where the gorse
+stems glimmered with a dull metallic green, and the heather, no longer
+violet and purple, hung drenched and dun-colored among the dreary rocks.
+The wet turf creaked under my heavy boots, the black-thorn scraped and
+grated against knee and elbow. Over all lay a strange light, pallid,
+ghastly, where the sea spray whirled across the landscape and drove into
+my face until it grew numb with the cold. In broad bands, rank after
+rank, billow on billow, the rain burst out across the endless moors, and
+yet there was no wind to drive it at such a pace.
+
+Lys stood at the door as I turned into the garden, motioning me to
+hasten; and then for the first time I became conscious that I was soaked
+to the skin.
+
+"However in the world did you come to stay out when such a storm
+threatened?" she said. "Oh, you are dripping! Go quickly and change; I
+have laid your warm underwear on the bed, Dick."
+
+I kissed my wife, and went upstairs to change my dripping clothes for
+something more comfortable.
+
+When I returned to the morning room there was a driftwood fire on the
+hearth, and Lys sat in the chimney corner embroidering.
+
+"Catherine tells me that the fishing fleet from Lorient is out. Do you
+think they are in danger, dear?" asked Lys, raising her blue eyes to
+mine as I entered.
+
+"There is no wind, and there will be no sea," said I, looking out of the
+window. Far across the moor I could see the black cliffs looming in the
+mist.
+
+"How it rains!" murmured Lys; "come to the fire, Dick."
+
+I threw myself on the fur rug, my hands in my pockets, my head on Lys's
+knees.
+
+"Tell me a story," I said. "I feel like a boy of ten."
+
+Lys raised a finger to her scarlet lips. I always waited for her to do
+that.
+
+"Will you be very still, then?" she said.
+
+"Still as death."
+
+"Death," echoed a voice, very softly.
+
+"Did you speak, Lys?" I asked, turning so that I could see her face.
+
+"No; did you, Dick?"
+
+"Who said 'death'?" I asked, startled.
+
+"Death," echoed a voice, softly.
+
+I sprang up and looked about. Lys rose too, her needles and embroidery
+falling to the floor. She seemed about to faint, leaning heavily on me,
+and I led her to the window and opened it a little way to give her air.
+As I did so the chain lightning split the zenith, the thunder crashed,
+and a sheet of rain swept into the room, driving with it something that
+fluttered--something that flapped, and squeaked, and beat upon the rug
+with soft, moist wings.
+
+We bent over it together, Lys clinging to me, and we saw that it was a
+death's-head moth drenched with rain.
+
+The dark day passed slowly as we sat beside the fire, hand in hand, her
+head against my breast, speaking of sorrow and mystery and death. For
+Lys believed that there were things on earth that none might understand,
+things that must be nameless forever and ever, until God rolls up the
+scroll of life and all is ended. We spoke of hope and fear and faith,
+and the mystery of the saints; we spoke of the beginning and the end, of
+the shadow of sin, of omens, and of love. The moth still lay on the
+floor quivering its somber wings in the warmth of the fire, the skull
+and ribs clearly etched upon its neck and body.
+
+"If it is a messenger of death to this house," I said, "why should we
+fear, Lys?"
+
+"Death should be welcome to those who love God," murmured Lys, and she
+drew the cross from her breast and kissed it.
+
+"The moth might die if I threw it out into the storm," I said after a
+silence.
+
+"Let it remain," sighed Lys.
+
+Late that night my wife lay sleeping, and I sat beside her bed and read
+in the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue. I shaded the candle, but Lys grew
+restless, and finally I took the book down into the morning room, where
+the ashes of the fire rustled and whitened on the hearth.
+
+The death's-head moth lay on the rug before the fire where I had left
+it. At first I thought it was dead, but when I looked closer I saw a
+lambent fire in its amber eyes. The straight white shadow it cast across
+the floor wavered as the candle flickered.
+
+The pages of the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue were damp and sticky; the
+illuminated gold and blue initials left flakes of azure and gilt where
+my hand brushed them.
+
+"It is not paper at all; it is thin parchment," I said to myself; and I
+held the discolored page close to the candle flame and read, translating
+laboriously:
+
+"I, Jacques Sorgue, saw all these things. And I saw the Black Mass
+celebrated in the chapel of St. Gildas-on-the-Cliff. And it was said by
+the Abbe Sorgue, my kinsman: for which deadly sin the apostate priest
+was seized by the most noble Marquis of Plougastel and by him condemned
+to be burned with hot irons, until his seared soul quit its body and fly
+to its master the devil. But when the Black Priest lay in the crypt of
+Plougastel, his master Satan came at night and set him free, and carried
+him across land and sea to Mahmoud, which is Soldan or Saladin. And I,
+Jacques Sorgue, traveling afterward by sea, beheld with my own eyes my
+kinsman, the Black Priest of St. Gildas, borne along in the air upon a
+vast black wing, which was the wing of his master Satan. And this was
+seen also by two men of the crew."
+
+I turned the page. The wings of the moth on the floor began to quiver. I
+read on and on, my eyes blurring under the shifting candle flame. I read
+of battles and of saints, and I learned how the Great Soldan made his
+pact with Satan, and then I came to the Sieur de Trevec, and read how he
+seized the Black Priest in the midst of Saladin's tents and carried him
+away and cut off his head first branding him on the forehead. "And
+before he suffered," said the Chronicle, "he cursed the Sieur de Trevec
+and his descendants, and he said he would surely return to St. Gildas.
+'For the violence you do to me, I will do violence to you. For the evil
+I suffer at your hands, I will work evil on you and your descendants.
+Woe to your children, Sieur de Trevec!'" There was a whirr, a beating of
+strong wings, and my candle flashed up as in a sudden breeze. A humming
+filled the room; the great moth darted hither and thither, beating,
+buzzing, on ceiling and wall. I flung down my book and stepped forward.
+Now it lay fluttering upon the window sill, and for a moment I had it
+under my hand, but the thing squeaked and I shrank back. Then suddenly
+it darted across the candle flame; the light flared and went out, and at
+the same moment a shadow moved in the darkness outside. I raised my eyes
+to the window. A masked face was peering in at me.
+
+Quick as thought I whipped out my revolver and fired every cartridge,
+but the face advanced beyond the window, the glass melting away before
+it like mist, and through the smoke of my revolver I saw something creep
+swiftly into the room. Then I tried to cry out, but the thing was at my
+throat, and I fell backward among the ashes of the hearth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When my eyes unclosed I was lying on the hearth, my head among the cold
+ashes. Slowly I got on my knees, rose painfully, and groped my way to a
+chair. On the floor lay my revolver, shining in the pale light of early
+morning. My mind clearing by degrees, I looked, shuddering, at the
+window. The glass was unbroken. I stooped stiffly, picked up my revolver
+and opened the cylinder. Every cartridge had been fired. Mechanically I
+closed the cylinder and placed the revolver in my pocket. The book, the
+Chronicles of Jacques Sorgue, lay on the table beside me, and as I
+started to close it I glanced at the page. It was all splashed with
+rain, and the lettering had run, so that the page was merely a confused
+blur of gold and red and black. As I stumbled toward the door I cast a
+fearful glance over my shoulder. The death's-head moth crawled shivering
+on the rug.
+
+
+IV
+
+The sun was about three hours high. I must have slept, for I was aroused
+by the sudden gallop of horses under our window. People were shouting
+and calling in the road. I sprang up and opened the sash. Le Bihan was
+there, an image of helplessness, and Max Fortin stood beside him
+polishing his glasses. Some gendarmes had just arrived from Quimperle,
+and I could hear them around the corner of the house, stamping, and
+rattling their sabres and carbines, as they led their horses into my
+stable.
+
+Lys sat up, murmuring half-sleepy, half-anxious questions.
+
+"I don't know," I answered. "I am going out to see what it means."
+
+"It is like the day they came to arrest you," Lys said, giving me a
+troubled look. But I kissed her and laughed at her until she smiled too.
+Then I flung on coat and cap and hurried down the stairs.
+
+The first person I saw standing in the road was the Brigadier Durand.
+
+"Hello!" said I, "have you come to arrest me again? What the devil is
+all this fuss about, anyway?"
+
+"We were telegraphed for an hour ago," said Durand briskly, "and for a
+sufficient reason, I think. Look there, Monsieur Darrel!"
+
+He pointed to the ground almost under my feet.
+
+"Good heavens!" I cried, "where did that puddle of blood come from?"
+
+"That's what I want to know, Monsieur Darrel. Max Fortin found it at
+daybreak. See, it's splashed all over the grass, too. A trail of it
+leads into your garden, across the flower beds to your very window, the
+one that opens from the morning room. There is another trail leading
+from this spot across the road to the cliffs, then to the gravel pit,
+and thence across the moor to the forest of Kerselec. We are going to
+mount in a minute and search the bosquets. Will you join us? Bon Dieu!
+but the fellow bled like an ox. Max Fortin says it's human blood, or I
+should not have believed it."
+
+The little chemist of Quimperle came up at that moment, rubbing his
+glasses with a colored handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, it is human blood," he said, "but one thing puzzles me: the
+corpuscles are yellow. I never saw any human blood before with yellow
+corpuscles. But your English Doctor Thompson asserts that he has----"
+
+"Well, it's human blood, anyway--isn't it?" insisted Durand,
+impatiently.
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Max Fortin.
+
+"Then it's my business to trail it," said the big gendarme, and he
+called his men and gave the order to mount.
+
+"Did you hear anything last night?" asked Durand of me.
+
+"I heard the rain. I wonder the rain did not wash away these traces."
+
+"They must have come after the rain ceased. See this thick splash, how
+it lies over and weighs down the wet grass blades. Pah!"
+
+It was a heavy, evil-looking clot, and I stepped back from it, my throat
+closing in disgust.
+
+"My theory," said the brigadier, "is this: Some of those Biribi
+fishermen, probably the Icelanders, got an extra glass of cognac into
+their hides and quarreled on the road. Some of them were slashed, and
+staggered to your house. But there is only one trail, and yet--and yet,
+how could all that blood come from only one person? Well, the wounded
+man, let us say, staggered first to your house and then back here, and
+he wandered off, drunk and dying, God knows where. That's my theory."
+
+"A very good one," said I calmly. "And you are going to trail him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?"
+
+"At once. Will you come?"
+
+"Not now. I'll gallop over by-and-bye. You are going to the edge of the
+Kerselec forest?"
+
+"Yes; you will hear us calling. Are you coming, Max Fortin? And you, Le
+Bihan? Good; take the dog-cart."
+
+The big gendarme tramped around the corner to the stable and presently
+returned mounted on a strong gray horse, his sabre shone on his saddle;
+his pale yellow and white facings were spotless. The little crowd of
+white-coiffed women with their children fell back as Durand touched
+spurs and clattered away followed by his two troopers. Soon after Le
+Bihan and Max Fortin also departed in the mayor's dingy dog-cart.
+
+"Are you coming?" piped Le Bihan shrilly.
+
+"In a quarter of an hour," I replied, and went back to the house.
+
+When I opened the door of the morning room the death's-head moth was
+beating its strong wings against the window. For a second I hesitated,
+then walked over and opened the sash. The creature fluttered out,
+whirred over the flower beds a moment, then darted across the moorland
+toward the sea. I called the servants together and questioned them.
+Josephine, Catherine, Jean Marie Tregunc, not one of them had heard the
+slightest disturbance during the night. Then I told Jean Marie to saddle
+my horse, and while I was speaking Lys came down.
+
+"Dearest," I began, going to her.
+
+"You must tell me everything you know, Dick," she interrupted, looking
+me earnestly in the face.
+
+"But there is nothing to tell--only a drunken brawl, and some one
+wounded."
+
+"And you are going to ride--where, Dick?"
+
+"Well, over to the edge of Kerselec forest. Durand and the mayor, and
+Max Fortin, have gone on, following a--a trail."
+
+"What trail?"
+
+"Some blood."
+
+"Where did they find it?"
+
+"Out in the road there." Lys crossed herself.
+
+"Does it come near our house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How near?"
+
+"It comes up to the morning room window," said I, giving in.
+
+Her hand on my arm grew heavy. "I dreamed last night----"
+
+"So did I--" but I thought of the empty cartridges in my revolver, and
+stopped.
+
+"I dreamed that you were in great danger, and I could not move hand or
+foot to save you; but you had your revolver, and I called out to you to
+fire----"
+
+"I did fire!" I cried excitedly.
+
+"You--you fired?"
+
+I took her in my arms. "My darling," I said "something strange has
+happened--something that I cannot understand as yet. But, of course,
+there is an explanation. Last night I thought I fired at the Black
+Priest."
+
+"Ah!" gasped Lys.
+
+"Is that what you dreamed?"
+
+"Yes, yes, that was it! I begged you to fire----"
+
+"And I did."
+
+Her heart was beating against my breast. I held her close in silence.
+
+"Dick," she said at length, "perhaps you killed the--the thing."
+
+"If it was human I did not miss," I answered grimly. "And it was human,"
+I went on, pulling myself together, ashamed of having so nearly gone to
+pieces. "Of course it was human! The whole affair is plain enough. Not a
+drunken brawl, as Durand thinks; it was a drunken lout's practical joke,
+for which he has suffered. I suppose I must have filled him pretty full
+of bullets, and he has crawled away to die in Kerselec forest. It's a
+terrible affair; I'm sorry I fired so hastily; but that idiot Le Bihan
+and Max Fortin have been working on my nerves till I am as hysterical as
+a schoolgirl," I ended angrily.
+
+"You fired--but the window glass was not shattered," said Lys in a low
+voice.
+
+"Well, the window was open, then. And as for the--the rest--I've got
+nervous indigestion, and a doctor will settle the Black Priest for me,
+Lys."
+
+I glanced out of the window at Tregunc waiting with my horse at the
+gate.
+
+"Dearest, I think I had better go to join Durand and the others."
+
+"I will go, too."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Yes, Dick."
+
+"Don't, Lys."
+
+"I shall suffer every moment you are away."
+
+"The ride is too fatiguing, and we can't tell what unpleasant sight you
+may come upon. Lys, you don't really think there is anything
+supernatural in this affair?"
+
+"Dick," she answered gently, "I am a Bretonne." With both arms around my
+neck, my wife said, "Death is the gift of God. I do not fear it when we
+are together. But alone--oh, my husband, I should fear a God who could
+take you away from me!"
+
+We kissed each other soberly, simply, like two children. Then Lys
+hurried away to change her gown, and I paced up and down the garden
+waiting for her.
+
+She came, drawing on her slender gauntlets. I swung her into the saddle,
+gave a hasty order to Jean Marie, and mounted.
+
+Now, to quail under thoughts of terror on a morning like this, with Lys
+in the saddle beside me, no matter what had happened or might happen
+was impossible. Moreover, Mome came sneaking after us. I asked Tregunc
+to catch him, for I was afraid he might be brained by our horses' hoofs
+if he followed, but the wily puppy dodged and bolted after Lys, who was
+trotting along the highroad. "Never mind," I thought; "if he's hit he'll
+live, for he has no brains to lose."
+
+Lys was waiting for me in the road beside the Shrine of Our Lady of St.
+Gildas when I joined her. She crossed herself, I doffed my cap, then we
+shook out our bridles and galloped toward the forest of Kerselec.
+
+We said very little as we rode. I always loved to watch Lys in the
+saddle. Her exquisite figure and lovely face were the incarnation of
+youth and grace; her curling hair glistened like threaded gold.
+
+Out of the corner of my eye I saw the spoiled puppy Mome come bounding
+cheerfully alongside, oblivious of our horses' heels. Our road swung
+close to the cliffs. A filthy cormorant rose from the black rocks and
+flapped heavily across our path. Lys's horse reared, but she pulled him
+down, and pointed at the bird with her riding crop.
+
+"I see," said I; "it seems to be going our way. Curious to see a
+cormorant in a forest, isn't it?"
+
+"It is a bad sign," said Lys. "You know the Morbihan proverb: 'When the
+cormorant turns from the sea, Death laughs in the forest, and wise
+woodsmen build boats.'"
+
+"I wish," said I sincerely, "that there were fewer proverbs in
+Brittany."
+
+We were in sight of the forest now; across the gorse I could see the
+sparkle of gendarmes' trappings, and the glitter of Le Bihan's
+silver-buttoned jacket. The hedge was low and we took it without
+difficulty, and trotted across the moor to where Le Bihan and Durand
+stood gesticulating.
+
+They bowed ceremoniously to Lys as we rode up.
+
+"The trail is horrible--it is a river," said the mayor in his squeaky
+voice. "Monsieur Darrel, I think perhaps madame would scarcely care to
+come any nearer."
+
+Lys drew bridle and looked at me.
+
+"It is horrible!" said Durand, walking up beside me; "it looks as though
+a bleeding regiment had passed this way. The trail winds and winds about
+here in the thickets; we lose it at times, but we always find it again.
+I can't understand how one man--no, nor twenty--could bleed like that!"
+
+A halloo, answered by another, sounded from the depths of the forest.
+
+"It's my men; they are following the trail," muttered the brigadier.
+"God alone knows what is at the end!"
+
+"Shall we gallop back, Lys?" I asked.
+
+"No; let us ride along the western edge of the woods and dismount. The
+sun is so hot now, and I should like to rest for a moment," she said.
+
+"The western forest is clear of anything disagreeable," said Durand.
+
+"Very well," I answered; "call me, Le Bihan, if you find anything."
+
+Lys wheeled her mare, and I followed across the springy heather, Mome
+trotting cheerfully in the rear.
+
+We entered the sunny woods about a quarter of a kilometer from where we
+left Durand. I took Lys from her horse, flung both bridles over a limb,
+and, giving my wife my arm, aided her to a flat mossy rock which
+overhung a shallow brook gurgling among the beech trees. Lys sat down
+and drew off her gauntlets. Mome pushed his head into her lap, received
+an undeserved caress, and came doubtfully toward me. I was weak enough
+to condone his offense, but I made him lie down at my feet, greatly to
+his disgust.
+
+I rested my head on Lys's knees, looking up at the sky through the
+crossed branches of the trees.
+
+"I suppose I have killed him," I said. "It shocks me terribly, Lys."
+
+"You could not have known, dear. He may have been a robber,
+and--if--not--did--have you ever fired your revolver since that day four
+years ago when the Red Admiral's son tried to kill you? But I know you
+have not."
+
+"No," said I, wondering. "It's a fact, I have not. Why?"
+
+"And don't you remember that I asked you to let me load it for you the
+day when Yves went off, swearing to kill you and his father?"
+
+"Yes, I do remember. Well?"
+
+"Well, I--I took the cartridges first to St. Gildas chapel and dipped
+them in holy water. You must not laugh, Dick," said Lys gently, laying
+her cool hands on my lips.
+
+"Laugh, my darling!"
+
+Overhead the October sky was pale amethyst, and the sunlight burned like
+orange flame through the yellow leaves of beech and oak. Gnats and
+midges danced and wavered overhead; a spider dropped from a twig halfway
+to the ground and hung suspended on the end of his gossamer thread.
+
+"Are you sleepy, dear?" asked Lys, bending over me.
+
+"I am--a little; I scarcely slept two hours last night," I answered.
+
+"You may sleep, if you wish," said Lys, and touched my eyes caressingly.
+
+"Is my head heavy on your knees?"
+
+"No, Dick."
+
+I was already in a half doze; still I heard the brook babbling under the
+beeches and the humming of forest flies overhead. Presently even these
+were stilled.
+
+The next thing I knew I was sitting bolt upright, my ears ringing with a
+scream, and I saw Lys cowering beside me, covering her white face with
+both hands.
+
+As I sprang to my feet she cried again and clung to my knees. I saw my
+dog rush growling into a thicket, then I heard him whimper, and he came
+backing out, whining, ears flat, tail down. I stooped and disengaged
+Lys's hand.
+
+"Don't go, Dick!" she cried. "O God, it's the Black Priest!"
+
+In a moment I had leaped across the brook and pushed my way into the
+thicket. It was empty. I stared about me; I scanned every tree trunk,
+every bush. Suddenly I saw him. He was seated on a fallen log, his head
+resting in his hands, his rusty black robe gathered around him. For a
+moment my hair stirred under my cap; sweat started on forehead and cheek
+bone; then I recovered my reason, and understood that the man was human
+and was probably wounded to death. Ay, to death; for there at my feet,
+lay the wet trail of blood, over leaves and stones, down into the little
+hollow, across to the figure in black resting silently under the trees.
+
+I saw that he could not escape even if he had the strength, for before
+him, almost at his very feet, lay a deep, shining swamp.
+
+As I stepped forward my foot broke a twig. At the sound the figure
+started a little, then its head fell forward again. Its face was masked.
+Walking up to the man, I bade him tell where he was wounded. Durand and
+the others broke through the thicket at the same moment and hurried to
+my side.
+
+"Who are you who hide a masked face in a priest's robe?" said the
+gendarme loudly.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"See--see the stiff blood all over his robe," muttered Le Bihan to
+Fortin.
+
+"He will not speak," said I.
+
+"He may be too badly wounded," whispered Le Bihan.
+
+"I saw him raise his head," I said, "my wife saw him creep up here."
+
+Durand stepped forward and touched the figure.
+
+"Speak!" he said.
+
+"Speak!" quavered Fortin.
+
+Durand waited a moment, then with a sudden upward movement he stripped
+off the mask and threw back the man's head. We were looking into the eye
+sockets of a skull. Durand stood rigid; the mayor shrieked. The skeleton
+burst out from its rotting robes and collapsed on the ground before us.
+From between the staring ribs and the grinning teeth spurted a torrent
+of black blood, showering the shrinking grasses; then the thing
+shuddered, and fell over into the black ooze of the bog. Little bubbles
+of iridescent air appeared from the mud; the bones were slowly engulfed,
+and, as the last fragments sank out of sight, up from the depths and
+along the bank crept a creature, shiny, shivering, quivering its wings.
+
+It was a death's-head moth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I wish I had time to tell you how Lys outgrew superstitions--for she
+never knew the truth about the affair, and she never will know, since
+she has promised not to read this book. I wish I might tell you about
+the king and his coronation, and how the coronation robe fitted. I wish
+that I were able to write how Yvonne and Herbert Stuart rode to a boar
+hunt in Quimperle, and how the hounds raced the quarry right through the
+town, overturning three gendarmes, the notary, and an old woman. But I
+am becoming garrulous and Lys is calling me to come and hear the king
+say that he is sleepy. And his highness shall not be kept waiting.
+
+
+THE KING'S CRADLE SONG
+
+      Seal with a seal of gold
+      The scroll of a life unrolled;
+    Swathe him deep in his purple stole;
+    Ashes of diamonds, crystalled coal,
+      Drops of gold in each scented fold.
+
+    Crimson wings of the Little Death,
+    Stir his hair with your silken breath;
+    Flaming wings of sins to be,
+    Splendid pinions of prophecy,
+      Smother his eyes with hues and dyes,
+    While the white moon spins and the winds arise,
+      And the stars drip through the skies.
+
+      Wave, O wings of the Little Death!
+      Seal his sight and stifle his breath,
+    Cover his breast with the gemmed shroud pressed;
+    From north to north, from west to west,
+      Wave, O wings of the Little Death!
+    Till the white moon reels in the cracking skies,
+      And the ghosts of God arise.
+
+
+
+Lazarus
+
+BY LEONID ANDREYEV
+
+TRANSLATED BY ABRAHAM YARMOLINSKY
+
+     From _Lazarus and the Gentleman from San Francisco_. Published by
+     The Stratford Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+I
+
+When Lazarus left the grave, where, for three days and three nights he
+had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and returned alive to his
+dwelling, for a long time no one noticed in him those sinister oddities,
+which, as time went on, made his very name a terror. Gladdened
+unspeakably by the sight of him who had been returned to life, those
+near to him caressed him unceasingly, and satiated their burning desire
+to serve him, in solicitude for his food and drink and garments. And
+they dressed him gorgeously, in bright colors of hope and laughter, and
+when, like to a bridegroom in his bridal vestures, he sat again among
+them at the table, and again ate and drank, they wept, overwhelmed with
+tenderness. And they summoned the neighbors to look at him who had risen
+miraculously from the dead. These came and shared the serene joy of the
+hosts. Strangers from far-off towns and hamlets came and adored the
+miracle in tempestuous words. Like to a beehive was the house of Mary
+and Martha.
+
+Whatever was found new in Lazarus' face and gestures was thought to be
+some trace of a grave illness and of the shocks recently experienced.
+Evidently, the destruction wrought by death on the corpse was only
+arrested by the miraculous power, but its effects were still apparent;
+and what death had succeeded in doing with Lazarus' face and body, was
+like an artist's unfinished sketch seen under thin glass. On Lazarus'
+temples, under his eyes, and in the hollows of his cheeks, lay a deep
+and cadaverous blueness; cadaverously blue also were his long fingers,
+and around his fingernails, grown long in the grave, the blue had become
+purple and dark. On his lips the skin, swollen in the grave, had burst
+in places, and thin, reddish cracks were formed, shining as though
+covered with transparent mica. And he had grown stout. His body, puffed
+up in the grave, retained its monstrous size and showed those frightful
+swellings, in which one sensed the presence of the rank liquid of
+decomposition. But the heavy corpse-like odor which penetrated Lazarus'
+graveclothes and, it seemed, his very body, soon entirely disappeared,
+the blue spots on his face and hands grew paler, and the reddish cracks
+closed up, although they never disappeared altogether. That is how
+Lazarus looked when he appeared before people, in his second life, but
+his face looked natural to those who had seen him in the coffin.
+
+In addition to the changes in his appearance, Lazarus' temper seemed to
+have undergone a transformation, but this circumstance startled no one
+and attracted no attention. Before his death Lazarus had always been
+cheerful and carefree, fond of laughter and a merry joke. It was because
+of this brightness and cheerfulness, with not a touch of malice and
+darkness, that the Master had grown so fond of him. But now Lazarus had
+grown grave and taciturn, he never jested, himself, nor responded with
+laughter to other people's jokes; and the words which he uttered, very
+infrequently, were the plainest, most ordinary, and necessary words, as
+deprived of depth and significance, as those sounds with which animals
+express pain and pleasure, thirst and hunger. They were the words that
+one can say all one's life, and yet they give no indication of what
+pains and gladdens the depths of the soul.
+
+Thus, with the face of a corpse which for three days had been under the
+heavy sway of death, dark and taciturn, already appallingly transformed,
+but still unrecognized by anyone in his new self, he was sitting at the
+feasting table, among friends and relatives, and his gorgeous nuptial
+garments glittered with yellow gold and bloody scarlet. Broad waves of
+jubilation, now soft, now tempestuously sonorous surged around him; warm
+glances of love were reaching out for his face, still cold with the
+coldness of the grave; and a friend's warm palm caressed his blue, heavy
+hand. And music played the tympanum and the pipe, the cithara and the
+harp. It was as though bees hummed, grasshoppers chirped and birds
+warbled over the happy house of Mary and Martha.
+
+
+II
+
+One of the guests incautiously lifted the veil. By a thoughtless word he
+broke the serene charm and uncovered the truth in all its naked
+ugliness. Ere the thought formed itself in his mind, his lips uttered
+with a smile:
+
+"Why dost thou not tell us what happened yonder?"
+
+And all grew silent, startled by the question. It was as if it occurred
+to them only now that for three days Lazarus had been dead, and they
+looked at him, anxiously awaiting his answer. But Lazarus kept silence.
+
+"Thou dost not wish to tell us,"--wondered the man, "is it so terrible
+yonder?"
+
+And again his thought came after his words. Had it been otherwise, he
+would not have asked this question, which at that very moment oppressed
+his heart with its insufferable horror. Uneasiness seized all present,
+and with a feeling of heavy weariness they awaited Lazarus' words, but
+he was silent, sternly and coldly, and his eyes were lowered. And as if
+for the first time, they noticed the frightful blueness of his face and
+his repulsive obesity. On the table, as though forgotten by Lazarus,
+rested his bluish-purple wrist, and to this all eyes turned, as if it
+were from it that the awaited answer was to come. The musicians were
+still playing, but now the silence reached them too, and even as water
+extinguishes scattered embers, so were their merry tunes extinguished in
+the silence. The pipe grew silent; the voices of the sonorous tympanum
+and the murmuring harp died away; and as if the strings had burst, the
+cithara answered with a tremulous, broken note. Silence.
+
+"Thou dost not wish to say?" repeated the guest, unable to check his
+chattering tongue. But the stillness remained unbroken, and the
+bluish-purple hand rested motionless. And then he stirred slightly and
+everyone felt relieved. He lifted up his eyes, and lo! straightway
+embracing everything in one heavy glance, fraught with weariness and
+horror, he looked at them,--Lazarus who had arisen from the dead.
+
+It was the third day since Lazarus had left the grave. Ever since then
+many had experienced the pernicious power of his eye, but neither those
+who were crushed by it forever, nor those who found the strength to
+resist in it the primordial sources of life,--which is as mysterious as
+death,--never could they explain the horror which lay motionless in the
+depth of his black pupils. Lazarus looked calmly and simply with no
+desire to conceal anything, but also with no intention to say anything;
+he looked coldly, as he who is infinitely indifferent to those alive.
+Many carefree people came close to him without noticing him, and only
+later did they learn with astonishment and fear who that calm stout man
+was, that walked slowly by, almost touching them with his gorgeous and
+dazzling garments. The sun did not cease shining, when he was looking,
+nor did the fountain hush its murmur, and the sky overhead remained
+cloudless and blue. But the man under the spell of his enigmatical look
+heard no more the fountain and saw not the sky overhead. Sometimes, he
+wept bitterly, sometimes he tore his hair and in frenzy called for help;
+but more often it came to pass that apathetically and quietly he began
+to die, and so he languished many years, before everybody's very eyes,
+wasted away, colorless, flabby, dull, like a tree, silently drying up in
+a stony soil. And of those who gazed at him, the ones who wept madly,
+sometimes felt again the stir of life; the others never.
+
+"So thou dost not wish to tell us what thou hast seen yonder?" repeated
+the man. But now his voice was impassive and dull, and deadly gray
+weariness showed in Lazarus' eyes. And deadly gray weariness covered
+like dust all the faces, and with dull amazement the guests stared at
+each other and did not understand wherefore they had gathered here and
+sat at the rich table. The talk ceased. They thought it was time to go
+home, but could not overcome the flaccid lazy weariness which glued
+their muscles, and they kept on sitting there, yet apart and torn away
+from each other, like pale fires scattered over a dark field.
+
+But the musicians were paid to play and again they took their
+instruments and again tunes full of studied mirth and studied sorrow
+began to flow and to rise. They unfolded the customary melody but the
+guests hearkened in dull amazement. Already they knew not wherefore is
+it necessary, and why is it well, that people should pluck strings,
+inflate their cheeks, blow in thin pipes, and produce a bizarre,
+many-voiced noise.
+
+"What bad music," said someone.
+
+The musicians took offense and left. Following them, the guests left one
+after another, for night was already come. And when placid darkness
+encircled them and they began to breathe with more ease, suddenly
+Lazarus' image loomed up before each one in formidable radiance: the
+blue face of a corpse, grave-clothes gorgeous and resplendent, a cold
+look, in the depths of which lay motionless an unknown horror. As though
+petrified, they were standing far apart, and darkness enveloped them,
+but in the darkness blazed brighter and brighter the supernatural vision
+of him who for three days had been under the enigmatical sway of death.
+For three days had he been dead: thrice had the sun risen and set, but
+he had been dead; children had played, streams murmured over pebbles,
+the wayfarer had lifted up hot dust in the highroad,--but he had been
+dead. And now he is again among them,--touches them,--looks at
+them,--looks at them! and through the black discs of his pupils, as
+through darkened glass, stares the unknowable Yonder.
+
+
+III
+
+No one was taking care of Lazarus, for no friends no relatives were left
+to him, and the great desert which encircled the holy city, came near
+the very threshold of his dwelling. And the desert entered his house,
+and stretched on his couch, like a wife and extinguished the fires. No
+one was taking care of Lazarus. One after the other, his sisters--Mary
+and Martha--forsook him. For a long while Martha was loath to abandon
+him, for she knew not who would feed him and pity him, she wept and
+prayed. But one night, when the wind was roaming in the desert and with
+a hissing sound the cypresses were bending over the roof, she dressed
+noiselessly and secretly left the house. Lazarus probably heard the door
+slam; it banged against the side-post under the gusts of the desert
+wind, but he did not rise to go out and to look at her that was
+abandoning him. All the night long the cypresses hissed over his head
+and plaintively thumped the door, letting in the cold, greedy desert.
+
+Like a leper he was shunned by everyone, and it was proposed to tie a
+bell to his neck, as is done with lepers, to warn people against sudden
+meetings. But someone remarked, growing frightfully pale, that it would
+be too horrible if by night the moaning of Lazarus' bell were suddenly
+heard under the windows,--and so the project was abandoned.
+
+And since he did not take care of himself, he would probably have
+starved to death, had not the neighbors brought him food in fear of
+something that they sensed but vaguely. The food was brought to him by
+children; they were not afraid of Lazarus, nor did they mock him with
+naive cruelty, as children are wont to do with the wretched and
+miserable. They were indifferent to him, and Lazarus answered them with
+the same coldness; he had no desire to caress the black little curls,
+and to look into their innocent shining eyes. Given to Time and to the
+Desert, his house was crumbling down, and long since had his famishing,
+lowing goats wandered away to the neighboring pastures. And his bridal
+garments became threadbare. Ever since that happy day, when the
+musicians played, he had worn them unaware of the difference of the new
+and the worn. The bright colors grew dull and faded; vicious dogs and
+the sharp thorn of the Desert turned the tender fabric into rags.
+
+By day, when the merciless sun slew all things alive, and even scorpions
+sought shelter under stones and writhed there in a mad desire to sting,
+he sat motionless under the sunrays, his blue face and the uncouth,
+bushy beard lifted up, bathing in the fiery flood.
+
+When people still talked to him, he was once asked:
+
+"Poor Lazarus, does it please thee to sit thus and to stare at the
+sun?"
+
+And he had answered:
+
+"Yes, it does."
+
+So strong, it seemed, was the cold of his three days' grave, so deep the
+darkness, that there was no heat on earth to warm Lazarus, nor a
+splendor that could brighten the darkness of his eyes. That is what came
+to the mind of those who spoke to Lazarus, and with a sigh they left
+him.
+
+And when the scarlet, flattened globe would lower, Lazarus would set out
+for the desert and walk straight toward the sun, as though striving to
+reach it. He always walked straight toward the sun and those who tried
+to follow him and to spy upon what he was doing at night in the desert,
+retained in their memory the black silhouette of a tall stout man
+against the red background of an enormous flattened disc. Night pursued
+them with her horrors, and so they did not learn of Lazarus' doings in
+the desert, but the vision of the black on red was forever branded on
+their brain. Just as a beast with a splinter in its eye furiously rubs
+its muzzle with its paws, so they too foolishly rubbed their eyes, but
+what Lazarus had given was indelible, and Death alone could efface it.
+
+But there were people who lived far away, who never saw Lazarus and knew
+of him only by report. With daring curiosity, which is stronger than
+fear and feeds upon it, with hidden mockery, they would come to Lazarus
+who was sitting in the sun and enter into conversation with him. By
+this time Lazarus' appearance had changed for the better and was not so
+terrible. The first minute they snapped their fingers and thought of how
+stupid the inhabitants of the holy city were; but when the short talk
+was over and they started homeward, their looks were such that the
+inhabitants of the holy city recognized them at once and said:
+
+"Look, there is one more fool on whom Lazarus has set his eye,"--and
+they shook their heads regretfully, and lifted up their arms.
+
+There came brave, intrepid warriors, with tinkling weapons; happy youths
+came with laughter and song; busy tradesmen, jingling their money, ran
+in for a moment, and haughty priests leaned their crosiers against
+Lazarus' door, and they were all strangely changed, as they came back.
+The same terrible shadow swooped down upon their souls and gave a new
+appearance to the old familiar world.
+
+Those who still had the desire to speak, expressed their feelings thus:
+
+"All things tangible and visible grew hollow, light, and
+transparent,--similar to lightsome shadows in the darkness of night;
+
+"for, that great darkness, which holds the whole cosmos, was dispersed
+neither by the sun or by the moon and the stars, but like an immense
+black shroud enveloped the earth and, like a mother, embraced it;
+
+"it penetrated all the bodies, iron and stone,--and the particles of
+the bodies, having lost their ties, grew lonely; and it penetrated into
+the depth of the particles, and the particles of particles became
+lonely;
+
+"for that great void, which encircles the cosmos, was not filled by
+things visible: neither by the sun, nor by the moon and the stars, but
+reigned unrestrained, penetrating everywhere, severing body from body,
+particle from particle;
+
+"in the void hollow trees spread hollow roots threatening a fantastic
+fall; temples, palaces, and horses loomed up and they were hollow; and
+in the void men moved about restlessly but they were light and hollow
+like shadows;
+
+"for, Time was no more, and the beginning of all things came near their
+end: the building was still being built, and builders were still
+hammering away, and its ruins were already seen and the void in its
+place; the man was still being born, but already funeral candles were
+burning at his head, and now they were extinguished, and there was the
+void in place of the man and of the funeral candles.
+
+"and wrapped by void and darkness the man in despair trembled in the
+face of the Horror of the Infinite."
+
+Thus spake the men who had still a desire to speak. But, surely, much
+more could have told those who wished not to speak, and died in
+silence.
+
+
+IV
+
+At that time there lived in Rome a renowned sculptor. In clay, marble,
+and bronze he wrought bodies of gods and men, and such was their beauty,
+that people called them immortal. But he himself was discontented and
+asserted that there was something even more beautiful, that he could not
+embody either in marble or in bronze. "I have not yet gathered the
+glimmers of the moon, nor have I my fill of sunshine," he was wont to
+say, "and there is no soul in my marble, no life in my beautiful
+bronze." And when on moonlit nights he slowly walked along the road,
+crossing the black shadows of cypresses, his white tunic glittering in
+the moonshine, those who met him would laugh in a friendly way and say:
+
+"Art thou going to gather moonshine, Aurelius? Why then didst thou not
+fetch baskets?"
+
+And he would answer, laughing and pointing to his eyes:
+
+"Here are the baskets wherein I gather the sheen of the moon and the
+glimmer of the sun."
+
+And so it was: the moon glimmered in his eyes and the sun sparkled
+therein. But he could not translate them into marble and therein lay the
+serene tragedy of his life.
+
+He was descended from an ancient patrician race, had a good wife and
+children, and suffered from no want.
+
+When the obscure rumor about Lazarus reached him, he consulted his wife
+and friends and undertook the far journey to Judea to see him who had
+miraculously risen from the dead. He was somewhat weary in those days
+and he hoped that the road would sharpen his blunted senses. What was
+said of Lazarus did not frighten him: he had pondered much over Death,
+did not like it, but he disliked also those who confused it with life.
+
+    "In this life,--life and beauty;
+    beyond,--Death, the enigmatical"--
+
+thought he, and there is no better thing for a man to do than to delight
+in life and in the beauty of all things living. He had even a
+vainglorious desire to convince Lazarus of the truth of his own view and
+restore his soul to life, as his body had been restored. This seemed so
+much easier because the rumors, shy and strange, did not render the
+whole truth about Lazarus and but vaguely warned against something
+frightful.
+
+Lazarus had just risen from the stone in order to follow the sun which
+was setting in the desert, when a rich Roman attended by an armed slave,
+approached him and addressed him in a sonorous tone of voice:
+
+"Lazarus!"
+
+And Lazarus beheld a superb face, lit with glory, and arrayed in fine
+clothes, and precious stones sparkling in the sun. The red light lent to
+the Roman's face and head the appearance of gleaming bronze--that also
+Lazarus noticed. He resumed obediently his place and lowered his weary
+eyes.
+
+"Yes, thou art ugly, my poor Lazarus,"--quietly said the Roman, playing
+with his golden chain; "thou art even horrible, my poor friend; and
+Death was not lazy that day when thou didst fall so heedlessly into his
+hands. But thou art stout, and, as the great Caesar used to say, fat
+people are not ill-tempered; to tell the truth, I don't understand why
+men fear thee. Permit me to spend the night in thy house; the hour is
+late, and I have no shelter."
+
+Never had anyone asked Lazarus' hospitality.
+
+"I have no bed," said he.
+
+"I am somewhat of a soldier and I can sleep sitting," the Roman
+answered. "We shall build a fire."
+
+"I have no fire."
+
+"Then we shall have our talk in the darkness, like two friends. I think
+thou wilt find a bottle of wine."
+
+"I have no wine."
+
+The Roman laughed.
+
+"Now I see why thou art so somber and dislikest thy second life. No
+wine! Why, then we shall do without it: there are words that make the
+head go round better than the Falernian."
+
+By a sign he dismissed the slave, and they remained all alone. And again
+the sculptor started speaking, but it was as if, together with the
+setting sun, life had left his words; and they grew pale and hollow, as
+if they staggered on unsteady feet, as if they slipped and fell down,
+drunk with the heavy lees of weariness and despair. And black chasms
+grew up between the words--like far-off hints of the great void and the
+great darkness.
+
+"Now I am thy guest, and thou wilt not be unkind to me, Lazarus!"--said
+he. "Hospitality is the duty even of those who for three days were dead.
+Three days, I was told, thou didst rest in the grave. There it must be
+cold ... and that is whence comes thy ill habit of going without fire
+and wine. As to me, I like fire; it grows dark here so rapidly.... The
+lines of thy eyebrows and forehead are quite, quite interesting: they
+are like ruins of strange palaces, buried in ashes after an earthquake.
+But why dost thou wear such ugly and queer garments? I have seen
+bridegrooms in thy country, and they wear such clothes--are they not
+funny--and terrible.... But art thou a bridegroom?"
+
+The sun had already disappeared, a monstrous black shadow came running
+from the east--it was as if gigantic bare feet began rumbling on the
+sand, and the wind sent a cold wave along the backbone.
+
+"In the darkness thou seemest still larger, Lazarus, as if thou hast
+grown stouter in these moments. Dost thou feed on darkness, Lazarus? I
+would fain have a little fire--at least a little fire, a little fire. I
+feel somewhat chilly, your nights are so barbarously cold.... Were it
+not so dark, I should say that thou wert looking at me, Lazarus. Yes, it
+seems to me, thou art looking.... Why, thou art looking at me, I feel
+it,--but there thou art smiling."
+
+Night came, and filled the air with heavy blackness.
+
+"How well it will be, when the sun will rise to-morrow anew.... I am a
+great sculptor, thou knowest; that is how my friends call me. I create.
+Yes, that is the word ... but I need daylight. I give life to the cold
+marble, I melt sonorous bronze in fire, in bright hot fire.... Why didst
+thou touch me with thy hand?"
+
+"Come"--said Lazarus--"Thou art my guest."
+
+And they went to the house. And a long night enveloped the earth.
+
+The slave, seeing that his master did not come, went to seek him, when
+the sun was already high in the sky. And he beheld his master side by
+side with Lazarus: in profound silence were they sitting right under the
+dazzling and scorching sunrays and looking upward. The slave began to
+weep and cried out:
+
+"My master, what has befallen thee, master?"
+
+The very same day the sculptor left for Rome. On the way Aurelius was
+pensive and taciturn, staring attentively at everything--the men, the
+ship, the sea, as though trying to retain something. On the high sea a
+storm burst upon them, and all through it Aurelius stayed on the deck
+and eagerly scanned the seas looming near and sinking with a thud.
+
+At home his friends were frightened at the change which had taken place
+in Aurelius, but he calmed them, saying meaningly:
+
+"I have found it."
+
+And without changing the dusty clothes he wore on his journey, he fell
+to work, and the marble obediently resounded under his sonorous hammer.
+Long and eagerly worked he, admitting no one, until one morning he
+announced that the work was ready and ordered his friends to be
+summoned, severe critics and connoisseurs of art. And to meet them he
+put on bright and gorgeous garments, that glittered with yellow
+gold--and--scarlet byssus.
+
+"Here is my work," said he thoughtfully.
+
+His friends glanced and a shadow of profound sorrow covered their faces.
+It was something monstrous, deprived of all the lines and shapes
+familiar to the eye, but not without a hint at some new, strange image.
+
+On a thin, crooked twig, or rather on an ugly likeness of a twig rested
+askew a blind, ugly, shapeless, outspread mass of something utterly and
+inconceivably distorted, a mad leap of wild and bizarre fragments, all
+feebly and vainly striving to part from one another. And, as if by
+chance, beneath one of the wildly-rent salients a butterfly was chiseled
+with divine skill, all airy loveliness, delicacy, and beauty, with
+transparent wings, which seemed to tremble with an impotent desire to
+take flight.
+
+"Wherefore this wonderful butterfly, Aurelius?" said somebody
+falteringly.
+
+"I know not"--was the sculptor's answer.
+
+But it was necessary to tell the truth, and one of his friends who loved
+him best said firmly:
+
+"This is ugly, my poor friend. It must be destroyed. Give me the
+hammer."
+
+And with two strokes he broke the monstrous man into pieces, leaving
+only the infinitely delicate butterfly untouched.
+
+From that time on Aurelius created nothing. With profound indifference
+he looked at marble and bronze, and on his former divine works, where
+everlasting beauty rested. With the purpose of arousing his former
+fervent passion for work and, awakening his deadened soul, his friends
+took him to see other artists' beautiful works,--but he remained
+indifferent as before, and the smile did not warm up his tightened lips.
+And only after listening to lengthy talks about beauty, he would retort
+wearily and indolently:
+
+"But all this is a lie."
+
+And by the day, when the sun was shining, he went into his magnificent,
+skilfully built garden and having found a place without shadow, he
+exposed his bare head to the glare and heat. Red and white butterflies
+fluttered around; from the crooked lips of a drunken satyr, water
+streamed down with a splash into a marble cistern, but he sat
+motionless and silent,--like a pallid reflection of him who, in the
+far-off distance, at the very gates of the stony desert, sat under the
+fiery sun.
+
+
+V
+
+And now it came to pass that the great, deified Augustus himself
+summoned Lazarus. The imperial messengers dressed him gorgeously, in
+solemn nuptial clothes, as if Time had legalized them, and he was to
+remain until his very death the bridegroom of an unknown bride. It was
+as though an old, rotting coffin had been gilt and furnished with new,
+gay tassels. And men, all in trim and bright attire, rode after him, as
+if in bridal procession indeed, and those foremost trumpeted loudly,
+bidding people to clear the way for the emperor's messengers. But
+Lazarus' way was deserted: his native land cursed the hateful name of
+him who had miraculously risen from the dead, and people scattered at
+the very news of his appalling approach. The solitary voice of the brass
+trumpets sounded in the motionless air, and the wilderness alone
+responded with its languid echo.
+
+Then Lazarus went by sea. And his was the most magnificently arrayed and
+the most mournful ship that ever mirrored itself in the azure waves of
+the Mediterranean Sea. Many were the travelers aboard, but like a tomb
+was the ship, all silence and stillness, and the despairing water sobbed
+at the steep, proudly curved prow. All alone sat Lazarus exposing his
+head to the blaze of the sun, silently listening to the murmur and
+splash of the wavelets, and afar seamen and messengers were sitting, a
+vague group of weary shadows. Had the thunder burst and the wind
+attacked the red sails, the ships would probably have perished, for none
+of those aboard had either the will or the strength to struggle for
+life. With a supreme effort some mariners would reach the board and
+eagerly scan the blue, transparent deep, hoping to see a naiad's pink
+shoulder flash in the hollow of an azure wave, or a drunken gay centaur
+dash along and in frenzy splash the wave with his hoof. But the sea was
+like a wilderness, and the deep was dumb and deserted.
+
+With utter indifference did Lazarus set his feet on the street of the
+eternal city. As though all her wealth, all the magnificence of her
+palaces built by giants, all the resplendence, beauty, and music of her
+refined life were but the echo of the wind in the wilderness, the
+reflection of the desert quicksand. Chariots were dashing, and along the
+streets were moving crowds of strong, fair, proud builders of the
+eternal city and haughty participants in her life; a song sounded;
+fountains and women laughed a pearly laughter; drunken philosophers
+harangued, and the sober listened to them with a smile; hoofs struck the
+stone pavements. And surrounded by cheerful noise, a stout, heavy man
+was moving, a cold spot of silence and despair, and on his way he sowed
+disgust, anger, and vague, gnawing weariness. Who dares to be sad in
+Rome, wondered indignantly the citizens, and frowned. In two days the
+entire city already knew all about him who had miraculously risen from
+the dead, and shunned him shyly.
+
+But some daring people there were, who wanted to test their strength,
+and Lazarus obeyed their imprudent summons. Kept busy by state affairs,
+the emperor constantly delayed the reception, and seven days did he who
+had risen from the dead go about visiting others.
+
+And Lazarus came to a cheerful Epicurean, and the host met him with
+laughter on his lips:
+
+"Drink, Lazarus, drink!"--shouted he. "Would not Augustus laugh to see
+thee drunk!"
+
+And half-naked drunken women laughed, and rose petals fell on Lazarus'
+blue hands. But then the Epicurean looked into Lazarus' eyes, and his
+gaiety ended forever. Drunkard remained he for the rest of his life;
+never did he drink, yet forever was he drunk. But instead of the gay
+reverie which wine brings with it, frightful dreams began to haunt him,
+the sole food of his stricken spirit. Day and night he lived in the
+poisonous vapors of his nightmares, and death itself was not more
+frightful than her raving, monstrous forerunners.
+
+And Lazarus came to a youth and his beloved, who loved each other and
+were most beautiful in their passions. Proudly and strongly embracing
+his love, the youth said with serene regret:
+
+"Look at us, Lazarus, and share our joy. Is there anything stronger
+than love?"
+
+And Lazarus looked. And for the rest of their life they kept on loving
+each other, but their passion grew gloomy and joyless, like those
+funeral cypresses whose roots feed on the decay of the graves and whose
+black summits in a still evening hour seek in vain to reach the sky.
+Thrown by the unknown forces of life into each other's embraces, they
+mingled tears with kisses, voluptuous pleasures with pain, and they felt
+themselves doubly slaves, obedient slaves to life, and patient servants
+of the silent Nothingness. Ever united, ever severed, they blazed like
+sparks and like sparks lost themselves in the boundless Dark.
+
+And Lazarus came to a haughty sage, and the sage said to him:
+
+"I know all the horrors thou canst reveal to me. Is there anything thou
+canst frighten me with?"
+
+But before long the sage felt that the knowledge of horror was far from
+being the horror itself, and that the vision of Death, was not Death.
+And he felt that wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity,
+for Infinity knows them not. And it vanished, the dividing-line between
+knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, top and bottom, and the
+shapeless thought hung suspended in the void. Then the sage clutched his
+gray head and cried out frantically:
+
+"I cannot think! I cannot think!"
+
+Thus under the indifferent glance for him, who miraculously had risen
+from the dead, perished everything that asserts life, its significance
+and joys. And it was suggested that it was dangerous to let him see the
+emperor, that it was better to kill him and, having buried him secretly,
+to tell the emperor that he had disappeared no one knew whither. Already
+swords were being whetted and youths devoted to the public welfare
+prepared for the murder, when Augustus ordered Lazarus to be brought
+before him next morning, thus destroying the cruel plans.
+
+If there was no way of getting rid of Lazarus, at least it was possible
+to soften the terrible impression his face produced. With this in view,
+skillful painters, barbers, and artists were summoned, and all night
+long they were busy over Lazarus' head. They cropped his beard, curled
+it, and gave it a tidy, agreeable appearance. By means of paints they
+concealed the corpse-like blueness of his hands and face. Repulsive were
+the wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his old face, and they were
+puttied, painted, and smoothed; then, over the smooth background,
+wrinkles of good-tempered laughter and pleasant, carefree mirth were
+skillfully painted with fine brushes.
+
+Lazarus submitted indifferently to everything that was done to him. Soon
+he was turned into a becomingly stout, venerable old man, into a quiet
+and kind grandfather of numerous offspring. It seemed that the smile,
+with which only a while ago he was spinning funny yarns, was still
+lingering on his lips, and that in the corner of his eye serene
+tenderness was hiding, the companion of old age. But people did not dare
+change his nuptial garments, and they could not change his eyes, two
+dark and frightful glasses through which looked at men, the unknowable
+Yonder.
+
+
+VI
+
+Lazarus was not moved by the magnificence of the imperial palace. It was
+as though he saw no difference between the crumbling house, closely
+pressed by the desert, and the stone palace, solid and fair, and
+indifferently he passed into it. And the hard marble of the floors under
+his feet grew similar to the quicksand of the desert, and the multitude
+of richly dressed and haughty men became like void air under his glance.
+No one looked into his face, as Lazarus passed by, fearing to fall under
+the appalling influence of his eyes; but when the sound of his heavy
+footsteps had sufficiently died down, the courtiers raised their heads
+and with fearful curiosity examined the figure of a stout, tall,
+slightly bent old man, who was slowly penetrating into the very heart of
+the imperial palace. Were Death itself passing, it would be faced with
+no greater fear: for until then the dead alone knew Death, and those
+alive knew Life only--and there was no bridge between them. But this
+extraordinary man, although alive, knew Death, and enigmatical,
+appalling, was his cursed knowledge. "Woe," people thought, "he will
+take the life of our great, deified Augustus," and they sent curses
+after Lazarus, who meanwhile kept on advancing into the interior of the
+palace.
+
+Already did the emperor know who Lazarus was, and prepared to meet him.
+But the monarch was a brave man, and felt his own tremendous,
+unconquerable power, and in his fatal duel with him who had miraculously
+risen from the dead he wanted not to invoke human help. And so he met
+Lazarus face to face:
+
+"Lift not thine eyes upon me, Lazarus," he ordered. "I heard thy face is
+like that of Medusa and turns into stone whomsoever thou lookest at.
+Now, I wish to see thee and to have a talk with thee, before I turn into
+stone,"--added he in a tone of kingly jesting, not devoid of fear.
+
+Coming close to him, he carefully examined Lazarus' face and his strange
+festal garments. And although he had a keen eye, he was deceived by his
+appearance.
+
+"So. Thou dost not appear terrible, my venerable old man. But the worse
+for us, if horror assumes such a respectable and pleasant air. Now let
+us have a talk."
+
+Augustus sat, and questioning Lazarus with his eye as much as with
+words, started the conversation:
+
+"Why didst thou not greet me as thou enteredst?"
+
+Lazarus answered indifferent:
+
+"I knew not it was necessary."
+
+"Art thou a Christian?"
+
+"No."
+
+Augustus approvingly shook his head.
+
+"That is good. I do not like Christians. They shake the tree of life
+before it is covered with fruit, and disperse its odorous bloom to the
+winds. But who art thou?"
+
+With a visible effort Lazarus answered:
+
+"I was dead."
+
+"I had heard that. But who art thou now?"
+
+Lazarus was silent, but at last repeated in a tone of weary apathy:
+
+"I was dead."
+
+"Listen to me, stranger," said the emperor, distinctly and severely
+giving utterance to the thought that had come to him at the beginning,
+"my realm is the realm of Life, my people are of the living, not of the
+dead. Thou art here one too many. I know not who thou art and what thou
+sawest there; but, if thou liest, I hate thy lies, and if thou tellst
+the truth, I hate thy truth. In my bosom I feel the throb of life; I
+feel strength in my arm, and my proud thoughts, like eagles, pierce the
+space. And yonder in the shelter of my rule, under the protection of
+laws created by me, people live and toil and rejoice. Dost thou hear the
+battle-cry, the challenge men throw into the face of the future?"
+
+Augustus, as in prayer, stretched forth his arms and exclaimed
+solemnly:
+
+"Be blessed, O great and divine Life!"
+
+Lazarus was silent, and with growing sternness the emperor went on:
+
+"Thou art not wanted here, miserable remnant, snatched from under
+Death's teeth, thou inspirest weariness and disgust with life; like a
+caterpillar in the fields, thou gloatest on the rich ear of joy and
+belchest out the drivel of despair and sorrow. Thy truth is like a rusty
+sword in the hands of a nightly murderer,--and as a murderer thou shalt
+be executed. But before that, let me look into thine eyes. Perchance,
+only cowards are afraid of them, but in the brave they awake the thirst
+for strife and victory; then thou shalt be rewarded, not executed....
+Now, look at me, Lazarus."
+
+At first it appeared to the deified Augustus that a friend was looking
+at him,--so soft, so tenderly fascinating was Lazarus' glance. It
+promised not horror, but sweet rest and the Infinite seemed to him a
+tender mistress, a compassionate sister, a mother. But stronger and
+stronger grew its embraces, and already the mouth, greedy of hissing
+kisses, interfered with the monarch's breathing, and already to the
+surface of the soft tissues of the body came the iron of the bones and
+tightened its merciless circle,--and unknown fangs, blunt and cold,
+touched his heart and sank into it with slow indolence.
+
+"It pains," said the deified Augustus, growing pale. "But look at me,
+Lazarus, look."
+
+It was as though some heavy gates, ever closed, were slowly moving
+apart, and through the growing interstice the appalling horror of the
+Infinite poured in slowly and steadily. Like two shadows there entered
+the shoreless void and the unfathomable darkness; they extinguished the
+sun, ravished the earth from under the feet, and the roof from over the
+head. No more did the frozen heart ache.
+
+"Look, look, Lazarus," ordered Augustus tottering.
+
+Time stood still, and the beginning of each thing grew frightfully near
+to its end. Augustus' throne just erected, crumbled down, and the void
+was already in the place of the throne and of Augustus. Noiselessly did
+Rome crumble down, and a new city stood on its site and it too was
+swallowed by the void. Like fantastic giants, cities, states, and
+countries fell down and vanished in the void darkness--and with
+uttermost indifference did the insatiable black womb of the Infinite
+swallow them.
+
+"Halt!"--ordered the emperor.
+
+In his voice sounded already a note of indifference, his hands dropped
+in languor, and in the vain struggle with the onrushing darkness his
+fiery eyes now blazed up, and now went out.
+
+"My life thou hast taken from me, Lazarus,"--said he in a spiritless,
+feeble voice.
+
+And these words of hopelessness saved him. He remembered his people,
+whose shield he was destined to be, and keen salutary pain pierced his
+deadened heart. "They are doomed to death," he thought wearily. "Serene
+shadows in the darkness of the Infinite," thought he, and horror grew
+upon him. "Frail vessels with living seething blood with a heart that
+knows sorrow and also great joy," said he in his heart, and tenderness
+pervaded it.
+
+Thus pondering and oscillating between the poles of Life and Death, he
+slowly came back to life, to find in its suffering and in its joys a
+shield against the darkness of the void and the horror of the Infinite.
+
+"No, thou hast not murdered me, Lazarus," said he firmly, "but I will
+take thy life. Be gone."
+
+That evening the deified Augustus partook of his meats and drinks with
+particular joy. Now and then his lifted hand remained suspended in the
+air, and a dull glimmer replaced the bright sheen of his fiery eye. It
+was the cold wave of Horror that surged at his feet. Defeated, but not
+undone, ever awaiting its hour, that Horror stood at the emperor's
+bedside, like a black shadow all through his life; it swayed his nights,
+but yielded the days to the sorrows and joys of life.
+
+The following day, the hangman with a hot iron burned out Lazarus' eyes.
+Then he was sent home. The deified Augustus dared not kill him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lazarus returned to the desert, and the wilderness met him with hissing
+gusts of wind and the heat of the blazing sun. Again he was sitting on a
+stone, his rough, bushy beard lifted up; and the two black holes in
+place of his eyes looked at the sky with an expression of dull terror.
+Afar-off the holy city stirred noisily and restlessly, but around him
+everything was deserted and dumb. No one approached the place where
+lived he who had miraculously risen from the dead, and long since his
+neighbors had forsaken their houses. Driven by the hot iron into the
+depth of his skull, his cursed knowledge hid there in an ambush. As
+though leaping out from an ambush it plunged its thousand invisible eyes
+into the man,--and no one dared look at Lazarus.
+
+And in the evening, when the sun, reddening and growing wider, would
+come nearer and nearer the western horizon, the blind Lazarus would
+slowly follow it. He would stumble against stones and fall, stout and
+weak as he was; would rise heavily to his feet and walk on again; and on
+the red screen of the sunset his black body and outspread hands would
+form a monstrous likeness of a cross.
+
+And it came to pass that once he went out and did not come back. Thus
+seemingly ended the second life of him who for three days had been under
+the enigmatical sway of death, and rose miraculously from the dead.
+
+
+
+The Beast with Five Fingers
+
+BY W.F. HARVEY
+
+     From _The New Decameron_, by Various Hands. Copyright, 1919, by
+     Robert M. McBride and Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+When I was a little boy I once went with my father to call on Adrian
+Borlsover. I played on the floor with a black spaniel while my father
+appealed for a subscription. Just before we left my father said, "Mr.
+Borlsover, may my son here shake hands with you? It will be a thing to
+look back upon with pride when he grows to be a man."
+
+I came up to the bed on which the old man was lying and put my hand in
+his, awed by the still beauty of his face. He spoke to me kindly, and
+hoped that I should always try to please my father. Then he placed his
+right hand on my head and asked for a blessing to rest upon me. "Amen!"
+said my father, and I followed him out of the room, feeling as if I
+wanted to cry. But my father was in excellent spirits.
+
+"That old gentleman, Jim," said he, "is the most wonderful man in the
+whole town. For ten years he has been quite blind."
+
+"But I saw his eyes," I said. "They were ever so black and shiny; they
+weren't shut up like Nora's puppies. Can't he see at all?"
+
+And so I learnt for the first time that a man might have eyes that
+looked dark and beautiful and shining without being able to see.
+
+"Just like Mrs. Tomlinson has big ears," I said, "and can't hear at all
+except when Mr. Tomlinson shouts."
+
+"Jim," said my father, "it's not right to talk about a lady's ears.
+Remember what Mr. Borlsover said about pleasing me and being a good
+boy."
+
+That was the only time I saw Adrian Borlsover. I soon forgot about him
+and the hand which he laid in blessing on my head. But for a week I
+prayed that those dark tender eyes might see.
+
+"His spaniel may have puppies," I said in my prayers, "and he will never
+be able to know how funny they look with their eyes all closed up.
+Please let old Mr. Borlsover see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adrian Borlsover, as my father had said, was a wonderful man. He came of
+an eccentric family. Borlsovers' sons, for some reason, always seemed to
+marry very ordinary women, which perhaps accounted for the fact that no
+Borlsover had been a genius, and only one Borlsover had been mad. But
+they were great champions of little causes, generous patrons of odd
+sciences, founders of querulous sects, trustworthy guides to the bypath
+meadows of erudition.
+
+Adrian was an authority on the fertilization of orchids. He had held at
+one time the family living at Borlsover Conyers, until a congenital
+weakness of the lungs obliged him to seek a less rigorous climate in the
+sunny south coast watering-place where I had seen him. Occasionally he
+would relieve one or other of the local clergy. My father described him
+as a fine preacher, who gave long and inspiring sermons from what many
+men would have considered unprofitable texts. "An excellent proof," he
+would add, "of the truth of the doctrine of direct verbal inspiration."
+
+Adrian Borlsover was exceedingly clever with his hands. His penmanship
+was exquisite. He illustrated all his scientific papers, made his own
+woodcuts, and carved the reredos that is at present the chief feature of
+interest in the church at Borlsover Conyers. He had an exceedingly
+clever knack in cutting silhouettes for young ladies and paper pigs and
+cows for little children, and made more than one complicated wind
+instrument of his own devising.
+
+When he was fifty years old Adrian Borlsover lost his sight. In a
+wonderfully short time he had adapted himself to the new conditions of
+life. He quickly learned to read Braille. So marvelous indeed was his
+sense of touch that he was still able to maintain his interest in
+botany. The mere passing of his long supple fingers over a flower was
+sufficient means for its identification, though occasionally he would
+use his lips. I have found several letters of his among my father's
+correspondence. In no case was there anything to show that he was
+afflicted with blindness and this in spite of the fact that he exercised
+undue economy in the spacing of lines. Towards the close of his life the
+old man was credited with powers of touch that seemed almost uncanny: it
+has been said that he could tell at once the color of a ribbon placed
+between his fingers. My father would neither confirm nor deny the story.
+
+
+I
+
+Adrian Borlsover was a bachelor. His elder brother George had married
+late in life, leaving one son, Eustace, who lived in the gloomy Georgian
+mansion at Borlsover Conyers, where he could work undisturbed in
+collecting material for his great book on heredity.
+
+Like his uncle, he was a remarkable man. The Borlsovers had always been
+born naturalists, but Eustace possessed in a special degree the power of
+systematizing his knowledge. He had received his university education in
+Germany, and then, after post-graduate work in Vienna and Naples, had
+traveled for four years in South America and the East, getting together
+a huge store of material for a new study into the processes of
+variation.
+
+He lived alone at Borlsover Conyers with Saunders his secretary, a man
+who bore a somewhat dubious reputation in the district, but whose
+powers as a mathematician, combined with his business abilities, were
+invaluable to Eustace.
+
+Uncle and nephew saw little of each other. The visits of Eustace were
+confined to a week in the summer or autumn: long weeks, that dragged
+almost as slowly as the bath-chair in which the old man was drawn along
+the sunny sea front. In their way the two men were fond of each other,
+though their intimacy would doubtless have been greater had they shared
+the same religious views. Adrian held to the old-fashioned evangelical
+dogmas of his early manhood; his nephew for many years had been thinking
+of embracing Buddhism. Both men possessed, too, the reticence the
+Borlsovers had always shown, and which their enemies sometimes called
+hypocrisy. With Adrian it was a reticence as to the things he had left
+undone; but with Eustace it seemed that the curtain which he was so
+careful to leave undrawn hid something more than a half-empty chamber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two years before his death Adrian Borlsover developed, unknown to
+himself, the not uncommon power of automatic writing. Eustace made the
+discovery by accident. Adrian was sitting reading in bed, the forefinger
+of his left hand tracing the Braille characters, when his nephew noticed
+that a pencil the old man held in his right hand was moving slowly along
+the opposite page. He left his seat in the window and sat down beside
+the bed. The right hand continued to move, and now he could see plainly
+that they were letters and words which it was forming.
+
+"Adrian Borlsover," wrote the hand, "Eustace Borlsover, George
+Borlsover, Francis Borlsover Sigismund Borlsover, Adrian Borlsover,
+Eustace Borlsover, Saville Borlsover. B, for Borlsover. Honesty is the
+Best Policy. Beautiful Belinda Borlsover."
+
+"What curious nonsense!" said Eustace to himself.
+
+"King George the Third ascended the throne in 1760," wrote the hand.
+"Crowd, a noun of multitude; a collection of individuals--Adrian
+Borlsover, Eustace Borlsover."
+
+"It seems to me," said his uncle, closing the book, "that you had much
+better make the most of the afternoon sunshine and take your walk now."
+"I think perhaps I will," Eustace answered as he picked up the volume.
+"I won't go far, and when I come back I can read to you those articles
+in _Nature_ about which we were speaking."
+
+He went along the promenade, but stopped at the first shelter, and
+seating himself in the corner best protected from the wind, he examined
+the book at leisure. Nearly every page was scored with a meaningless
+jungle of pencil marks: rows of capital letters, short words, long
+words, complete sentences, copy-book tags. The whole thing, in fact, had
+the appearance of a copy-book, and on a more careful scrutiny Eustace
+thought that there was ample evidence to show that the handwriting at
+the beginning of the book, good though it was was not nearly so good as
+the handwriting at the end.
+
+He left his uncle at the end of October, with a promise to return early
+in December. It seemed to him quite clear that the old man's power of
+automatic writing was developing rapidly, and for the first time he
+looked forward to a visit that combined duty with interest.
+
+But on his return he was at first disappointed. His uncle, he thought,
+looked older. He was listless too, preferring others to read to him and
+dictating nearly all his letters. Not until the day before he left had
+Eustace an opportunity of observing Adrian Borlsover's new-found
+faculty.
+
+The old man, propped up in bed with pillows, had sunk into a light
+sleep. His two hands lay on the coverlet, his left hand tightly clasping
+his right. Eustace took an empty manuscript book and placed a pencil
+within reach of the fingers of the right hand. They snatched at it
+eagerly; then dropped the pencil to unloose the left hand from its
+restraining grasp.
+
+"Perhaps to prevent interference I had better hold that hand," said
+Eustace to himself, as he watched the pencil. Almost immediately it
+began to write.
+
+"Blundering Borlsovers, unnecessarily unnatural, extraordinarily
+eccentric, culpably curious."
+
+"Who are you?" asked Eustace, in a low voice.
+
+"Never you mind," wrote the hand of Adrian.
+
+"Is it my uncle who is writing?"
+
+"Oh, my prophetic soul, mine uncle."
+
+"Is it anyone I know?"
+
+"Silly Eustace, you'll see me very soon."
+
+"When shall I see you?"
+
+"When poor old Adrian's dead."
+
+"Where shall I see you?"
+
+"Where shall you not?"
+
+Instead of speaking his next question, Borlsover wrote it. "What is the
+time?"
+
+The fingers dropped the pencil and moved three or four times across the
+paper. Then, picking up the pencil, they wrote:
+
+"Ten minutes before four. Put your book away, Eustace. Adrian mustn't
+find us working at this sort of thing. He doesn't know what to make of
+it, and I won't have poor old Adrian disturbed. _Au revoir_."
+
+Adrian Borlsover awoke with a start.
+
+"I've been dreaming again," he said; "such queer dreams of leaguered
+cities and forgotten towns. You were mixed up in this one, Eustace,
+though I can't remember how. Eustace, I want to warn you. Don't walk in
+doubtful paths. Choose your friends well. Your poor grandfather----"
+
+A fit of coughing put an end to what he was saying, but Eustace saw that
+the hand was still writing. He managed unnoticed to draw the book away.
+"I'll light the gas," he said, "and ring for tea." On the other side of
+the bed curtain he saw the last sentences that had been written.
+
+"It's too late, Adrian," he read. "We're friends already; aren't we,
+Eustace Borlsover?"
+
+On the following day Eustace Borlsover left. He thought his uncle looked
+ill when he said good-by, and the old man spoke despondently of the
+failure his life had been.
+
+"Nonsense, uncle!" said his nephew. "You have got over your difficulties
+in a way not one in a hundred thousand would have done. Every one
+marvels at your splendid perseverance in teaching your hand to take the
+place of your lost sight. To me it's been a revelation of the
+possibilities of education."
+
+"Education," said his uncle dreamily, as if the word had started a new
+train of thought, "education is good so long as you know to whom and for
+what purpose you give it. But with the lower orders of men, the base and
+more sordid spirits, I have grave doubts as to its results. Well,
+good-by, Eustace, I may not see you again. You are a true Borlsover,
+with all the Borlsover faults. Marry, Eustace. Marry some good, sensible
+girl. And if by any chance I don't see you again, my will is at my
+solicitor's. I've not left you any legacy, because I know you're well
+provided for, but I thought you might like to have my books. Oh, and
+there's just one other thing. You know, before the end people often lose
+control over themselves and make absurd requests. Don't pay any
+attention to them, Eustace. Good-by!" and he held out his hand. Eustace
+took it. It remained in his a fraction of a second longer than he had
+expected, and gripped him with a virility that was surprising. There
+was, too, in its touch a subtle sense of intimacy.
+
+"Why, uncle!" he said, "I shall see you alive and well for many long
+years to come."
+
+Two months later Adrian Borlsover died.
+
+
+II
+
+Eustace Borlsover was in Naples at the time. He read the obituary notice
+in the _Morning Post_ on the day announced for the funeral.
+
+"Poor old fellow!" he said. "I wonder where I shall find room for all
+his books."
+
+The question occurred to him again with greater force when three days
+later he found himself standing in the library at Borlsover Conyers, a
+huge room built for use, and not for beauty, in the year of Waterloo by
+a Borlsover who was an ardent admirer of the great Napoleon. It was
+arranged on the plan of many college libraries, with tall, projecting
+bookcases forming deep recesses of dusty silence, fit graves for the old
+hates of forgotten controversy, the dead passions of forgotten lives. At
+the end of the room, behind the bust of some unknown eighteenth-century
+divine, an ugly iron corkscrew stair led to a shelf-lined gallery.
+Nearly every shelf was full.
+
+"I must talk to Saunders about it," said Eustace. "I suppose that it
+will be necessary to have the billiard-room fitted up with book cases."
+
+The two men met for the first time after many weeks in the dining-room
+that evening.
+
+"Hullo!" said Eustace, standing before the fire with his hands in his
+pockets. "How goes the world, Saunders? Why these dress togs?" He
+himself was wearing an old shooting-jacket. He did not believe in
+mourning, as he had told his uncle on his last visit; and though he
+usually went in for quiet-colored ties, he wore this evening one of an
+ugly red, in order to shock Morton the butler, and to make them thrash
+out the whole question of mourning for themselves in the servants' hall.
+Eustace was a true Borlsover. "The world," said Saunders, "goes the same
+as usual, confoundedly slow. The dress togs are accounted for by an
+invitation from Captain Lockwood to bridge."
+
+"How are you getting there?"
+
+"I've told your coachman to drive me in your carriage. Any objection?"
+
+"Oh, dear me, no! We've had all things in common for far too many years
+for me to raise objections at this hour of the day."
+
+"You'll find your correspondence in the library," went on Saunders.
+"Most of it I've seen to. There are a few private letters I haven't
+opened. There's also a box with a rat, or something, inside it that
+came by the evening post. Very likely it's the six-toed albino. I didn't
+look, because I didn't want to mess up my things but I should gather
+from the way it's jumping about that it's pretty hungry."
+
+"Oh, I'll see to it," said Eustace, "while you and the Captain earn an
+honest penny."
+
+Dinner over and Saunders gone, Eustace went into the library. Though the
+fire had been lit the room was by no means cheerful.
+
+"We'll have all the lights on at any rate," he said, as he turned the
+switches. "And, Morton," he added, when the butler brought the coffee,
+"get me a screwdriver or something to undo this box. Whatever the animal
+is, he's kicking up the deuce of a row. What is it? Why are you
+dawdling?"
+
+"If you please, sir, when the postman brought it he told me that they'd
+bored the holes in the lid at the post-office. There were no breathin'
+holes in the lid, sir, and they didn't want the animal to die. That is
+all, sir."
+
+"It's culpably careless of the man, whoever he was," said Eustace, as he
+removed the screws, "packing an animal like this in a wooden box with no
+means of getting air. Confound it all! I meant to ask Morton to bring me
+a cage to put it in. Now I suppose I shall have to get one myself."
+
+He placed a heavy book on the lid from which the screws had been
+removed, and went into the billiard-room. As he came back into the
+library with an empty cage in his hand he heard the sound of something
+falling, and then of something scuttling along the floor.
+
+"Bother it! The beast's got out. How in the world am I to find it again
+in this library!"
+
+To search for it did indeed seem hopeless. He tried to follow the sound
+of the scuttling in one of the recesses where the animal seemed to be
+running behind the books in the shelves, but it was impossible to locate
+it. Eustace resolved to go on quietly reading. Very likely the animal
+might gain confidence and show itself. Saunders seemed to have dealt in
+his usual methodical manner with most of the correspondence. There were
+still the private letters.
+
+What was that? Two sharp clicks and the lights in the hideous candelabra
+that hung from the ceiling suddenly went out.
+
+"I wonder if something has gone wrong with the fuse," said Eustace, as
+he went to the switches by the door. Then he stopped. There was a noise
+at the other end of the room, as if something was crawling up the iron
+corkscrew stair. "If it's gone into the gallery," he said, "well and
+good." He hastily turned on the lights, crossed the room, and climbed up
+the stair. But he could see nothing. His grandfather had placed a little
+gate at the top of the stair, so that children could run and romp in the
+gallery without fear of accident. This Eustace closed, and having
+considerably narrowed the circle of his search, returned to his desk by
+the fire.
+
+How gloomy the library was! There was no sense of intimacy about the
+room. The few busts that an eighteenth-century Borlsover had brought
+back from the grand tour, might have been in keeping in the old library.
+Here they seemed out of place. They made the room feel cold, in spite of
+the heavy red damask curtains and great gilt cornices.
+
+With a crash two heavy books fell from the gallery to the floor; then,
+as Borlsover looked, another and yet another.
+
+"Very well; you'll starve for this, my beauty!" he said. "We'll do some
+little experiments on the metabolism of rats deprived of water. Go on!
+Chuck them down! I think I've got the upper hand." He turned once again
+to his correspondence. The letter was from the family solicitor. It
+spoke of his uncle's death and of the valuable collection of books that
+had been left to him in the will.
+
+"There was one request," he read, "which certainly came as a surprise to
+me. As you know, Mr. Adrian Borlsover had left instructions that his
+body was to be buried in as simple a manner as possible at Eastbourne.
+He expressed a desire that there should be neither wreaths nor flowers
+of any kind, and hoped that his friends and relatives would not consider
+it necessary to wear mourning. The day before his death we received a
+letter canceling these instructions. He wished his body to be embalmed
+(he gave us the address of the man we were to employ--Pennifer, Ludgate
+Hill), with orders that his right hand was to be sent to you, stating
+that it was at your special request. The other arrangements as to the
+funeral remained unaltered."
+
+"Good Lord!" said Eustace; "what in the world was the old boy driving
+at? And what in the name of all that's holy is that?"
+
+Someone was in the gallery. Someone had pulled the cord attached to one
+of the blinds, and it had rolled up with a snap. Someone must be in the
+gallery, for a second blind did the same. Someone must be walking round
+the gallery, for one after the other the blinds sprang up, letting in
+the moonlight.
+
+"I haven't got to the bottom of this yet," said Eustace, "but I will do
+before the night is very much older," and he hurried up the corkscrew
+stair. He had just got to the top when the lights went out a second
+time, and he heard again the scuttling along the floor. Quickly he stole
+on tiptoe in the dim moonshine in the direction of the noise, feeling as
+he went for one of the switches. His fingers touched the metal knob at
+last. He turned on the electric light.
+
+About ten yards in front of him, crawling along the floor, was a man's
+hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment. It was moving quickly,
+in the manner of a geometer caterpillar, the fingers humped up one
+moment, flattened out the next; the thumb appeared to give a crab-like
+motion to the whole. While he was looking, too surprised to stir, the
+hand disappeared round the corner. Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw
+it, but he could hear it as it squeezed its way behind the books on one
+of the shelves. A heavy volume had been displaced. There was a gap in
+the row of books where it had got in. In his fear lest it should escape
+him again, he seized the first book that came to his hand and plugged it
+into the hole. Then, emptying two shelves of their contents, he took the
+wooden boards and propped them up in front to make his barrier doubly
+sure.
+
+"I wish Saunders was back," he said; "one can't tackle this sort of
+thing alone." It was after eleven, and there seemed little likelihood of
+Saunders returning before twelve. He did not dare to leave the shelf
+unwatched, even to run downstairs to ring the bell. Morton the butler
+often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were
+fastened, but he might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At
+last he heard steps down below.
+
+"Morton!" he shouted; "Morton!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Has Mr. Saunders got back yet?"
+
+"Not yet, sir."
+
+"Well, bring me some brandy, and hurry up about it. I'm up here in the
+gallery, you duffer."
+
+"Thanks," said Eustace, as he emptied the glass. "Don't go to bed yet,
+Morton. There are a lot of books that have fallen down by accident;
+bring them up and put them back in their shelves."
+
+Morton had never seen Borlsover in so talkative a mood as on that night.
+"Here," said Eustace, when the books had been put back and dusted, "you
+might hold up these boards for me, Morton. That beast in the box got
+out, and I've been chasing it all over the place."
+
+"I think I can hear it chawing at the books, sir. They're not valuable,
+I hope? I think that's the carriage, sir; I'll go and call Mr.
+Saunders."
+
+It seemed to Eustace that he was away for five minutes, but it could
+hardly have been more than one when he returned with Saunders. "All
+right, Morton, you can go now. I'm up here, Saunders."
+
+"What's all the row?" asked Saunders, as he lounged forward with his
+hands in his pockets. The luck had been with him all the evening. He was
+completely satisfied, both with himself and with Captain Lockwood's
+taste in wines. "What's the matter? You look to me to be in an absolute
+blue funk."
+
+"That old devil of an uncle of mine," began Eustace--"oh, I can't
+explain it all. It's his hand that's been playing old Harry all the
+evening. But I've got it cornered behind these books. You've got to help
+me catch it."
+
+"What's up with you, Eustace? What's the game?"
+
+"It's no game, you silly idiot! If you don't believe me take out one of
+those books and put your hand in and feel."
+
+"All right," said Saunders; "but wait till I've rolled up my sleeve. The
+accumulated dust of centuries, eh?" He took off his coat, knelt down,
+and thrust his arm along the shelf.
+
+"There's something there right enough," he said. "It's got a funny
+stumpy end to it, whatever it is, and nips like a crab. Ah, no, you
+don't!" He pulled his hand out in a flash. "Shove in a book quickly. Now
+it can't get out."
+
+"What was it?" asked Eustace.
+
+"It was something that wanted very much to get hold of me. I felt what
+seemed like a thumb and forefinger. Give me some brandy."
+
+"How are we to get it out of there?"
+
+"What about a landing net?"
+
+"No good. It would be too smart for us. I tell you, Saunders, it can
+cover the ground far faster than I can walk. But I think I see how we
+can manage it. The two books at the end of the shelf are big ones that
+go right back against the wall. The others are very thin. I'll take out
+one at a time, and you slide the rest along until we have it squashed
+between the end two."
+
+It certainly seemed to be the best plan. One by one, as they took out
+the books, the space behind grew smaller and smaller. There was
+something in it that was certainly very much alive. Once they caught
+sight of fingers pressing outward for a way of escape. At last they had
+it pressed between the two big books.
+
+"There's muscle there, if there isn't flesh and blood," said Saunders,
+as he held them together. "It seems to be a hand right enough, too. I
+suppose this is a sort of infectious hallucination. I've read about such
+cases before."
+
+"Infectious fiddlesticks!" said Eustace, his face white with anger;
+"bring the thing downstairs. We'll get it back into the box."
+
+It was not altogether easy, but they were successful at last. "Drive in
+the screws," said Eustace, "we won't run any risks. Put the box in this
+old desk of mine. There's nothing in it that I want. Here's the key.
+Thank goodness, there's nothing wrong with the lock."
+
+"Quite a lively evening," said Saunders. "Now let's hear more about your
+uncle."
+
+They sat up together until early morning. Saunders had no desire for
+sleep. Eustace was trying to explain and to forget: to conceal from
+himself a fear that he had never felt before--the fear of walking alone
+down the long corridor to his bedroom.
+
+
+III
+
+"Whatever it was," said Eustace to Saunders on the following morning, "I
+propose that we drop the subject. There's nothing to keep us here for
+the next ten days. We'll motor up to the Lakes and get some climbing."
+
+"And see nobody all day, and sit bored to death with each other every
+night. Not for me thanks. Why not run up to town? Run's the exact word
+in this case, isn't it? We're both in such a blessed funk. Pull yourself
+together Eustace, and let's have another look at the hand."
+
+"As you like," said Eustace; "there's the key." They went into the
+library and opened the desk. The box was as they had left it on the
+previous night.
+
+"What are you waiting for?" asked Eustace.
+
+"I am waiting for you to volunteer to open the lid. However, since you
+seem to funk it, allow me. There doesn't seem to be the likelihood of
+any rumpus this morning, at all events." He opened the lid and picked
+out the hand.
+
+"Cold?" asked Eustace.
+
+"Tepid. A bit below blood-heat by the feel. Soft and supple too. If it's
+the embalming, it's a sort of embalming I've never seen before. Is it
+your uncle's hand?"
+
+"Oh, yes, it's his all right," said Eustace. "I should know those long
+thin fingers anywhere. Put it back in the box, Saunders. Never mind
+about the screws. I'll lock the desk, so that there'll be no chance of
+its getting out. We'll compromise by motoring up to town for a week. If
+we get off soon after lunch we ought to be at Grantham or Stamford by
+night."
+
+"Right," said Saunders; "and to-morrow--Oh, well, by to-morrow we shall
+have forgotten all about this beastly thing."
+
+If when the morrow came they had not forgotten, it was certainly true
+that at the end of the week they were able to tell a very vivid ghost
+story at the little supper Eustace gave on Hallow E'en.
+
+"You don't want us to believe that it's true, Mr. Borlsover? How
+perfectly awful!"
+
+"I'll take my oath on it, and so would Saunders here; wouldn't you, old
+chap?"
+
+"Any number of oaths," said Saunders. "It was a long thin hand, you
+know, and it gripped me just like that."
+
+"Don't Mr. Saunders! Don't! How perfectly horrid! Now tell us another
+one, do. Only a really creepy one, please!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Here's a pretty mess!" said Eustace on the following day as he threw a
+letter across the table to Saunders. "It's your affair, though. Mrs.
+Merrit, if I understand it, gives a month's notice."
+
+"Oh, that's quite absurd on Mrs. Merrit's part," Saunders replied. "She
+doesn't know what she's talking about. Let's see what she says."
+
+
+"DEAR SIR," he read, "this is to let you know that I must give you a
+month's notice as from Tuesday the 13th. For a long time I've felt the
+place too big for me, but when Jane Parfit, and Emma Laidlaw go off
+with scarcely as much as an 'if you please,' after frightening the wits
+out of the other girls, so that they can't turn out a room by themselves
+or walk alone down the stairs for fear of treading on half-frozen toads
+or hearing it run along the passages at night, all I can say is that
+it's no place for me. So I must ask you, Mr. Borlsover, sir, to find a
+new housekeeper that has no objection to large and lonely houses, which
+some people do say, not that I believe them for a minute, my poor mother
+always having been a Wesleyan, are haunted.
+
+                                "Yours faithfully,
+                                     ELIZABETH MERRIT.
+
+
+"P.S.--I should be obliged if you would give my respects to Mr.
+Saunders. I hope that he won't run no risks with his cold."
+
+
+"Saunders," said Eustace, "you've always had a wonderful way with you in
+dealing with servants. You mustn't let poor old Merrit go."
+
+"Of course she shan't go," said Saunders. "She's probably only angling
+for a rise in salary. I'll write to her this morning."
+
+"No; there's nothing like a personal interview. We've had enough of
+town. We'll go back to-morrow, and you must work your cold for all it's
+worth. Don't forget that it's got on to the chest, and will require
+weeks of feeding up and nursing."
+
+"All right. I think I can manage Mrs. Merrit."
+
+But Mrs. Merrit was more obstinate than he had thought. She was very
+sorry to hear of Mr. Saunders's cold, and how he lay awake all night in
+London coughing; very sorry indeed. She'd change his room for him
+gladly, and get the south room aired. And wouldn't he have a basin of
+hot bread and milk last thing at night? But she was afraid that she
+would have to leave at the end of the month.
+
+"Try her with an increase of salary," was the advice of Eustace.
+
+It was no use. Mrs. Merrit was obdurate, though she knew of a Mrs.
+Handyside who had been housekeeper to Lord Gargrave, who might be glad
+to come at the salary mentioned.
+
+"What's the matter with the servants, Morton?" asked Eustace that
+evening when he brought the coffee into the library. "What's all this
+about Mrs. Merrit wanting to leave?"
+
+"If you please, sir, I was going to mention it myself. I have a
+confession to make, sir. When I found your note asking me to open that
+desk and take out the box with the rat, I broke the lock as you told me,
+and was glad to do it, because I could hear the animal in the box making
+a great noise, and I thought it wanted food. So I took out the box, sir,
+and got a cage, and was going to transfer it, when the animal got away."
+
+"What in the world are you talking about? I never wrote any such note."
+
+"Excuse me, sir, it was the note I picked up here on the floor on the
+day you and Mr. Saunders left. I have it in my pocket now."
+
+It certainly seemed to be in Eustace's handwriting. It was written in
+pencil, and began somewhat abruptly.
+
+"Get a hammer, Morton," he read, "or some other tool, and break open the
+lock in the old desk in the library. Take out the box that is inside.
+You need not do anything else. The lid is already open. Eustace
+Borlsover."
+
+"And you opened the desk?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and as I was getting the cage ready the animal hopped out."
+
+"What animal?"
+
+"The animal inside the box, sir."
+
+"What did it look like?"
+
+"Well, sir, I couldn't tell you," said Morton nervously; "my back was
+turned, and it was halfway down the room when I looked up."
+
+"What was its color?" asked Saunders; "black?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, a grayish white. It crept along in a very funny way, sir.
+I don't think it had a tail."
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"I tried to catch it, but it was no use. So I set the rat-traps and kept
+the library shut. Then that girl Emma Laidlaw left the door open when
+she was cleaning, and I think it must have escaped."
+
+"And you think it was the animal that's been frightening the maids?"
+
+"Well, no, sir, not quite. They said it was--you'll excuse me, sir--a
+hand that they saw. Emma trod on it once at the bottom of the stairs.
+She thought then it was a half-frozen toad, only white. And then Parfit
+was washing up the dishes in the scullery. She wasn't thinking about
+anything in particular. It was close on dusk. She took her hands out of
+the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller towel,
+when she found that she was drying someone else's hand as well, only
+colder than hers."
+
+"What nonsense!" exclaimed Saunders.
+
+"Exactly, sir; that's what I told her; but we couldn't get her to stop."
+
+"You don't believe all this?" said Eustace, turning suddenly towards the
+butler.
+
+"Me, sir? Oh, no, sir! I've not seen anything."
+
+"Nor heard anything?"
+
+"Well, sir, if you must know, the bells do ring at odd times, and
+there's nobody there when we go; and when we go round to draw the blinds
+of a night, as often as not somebody's been there before us. But as I
+says to Mrs. Merrit, a young monkey might do wonderful things, and we
+all know that Mr. Borlsover has had some strange animals about the
+place."
+
+"Very well, Morton, that will do."
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Saunders when they were alone. "I mean
+of the letter he said you wrote."
+
+"Oh, that's simple enough," said Eustace. "See the paper it's written
+on? I stopped using that years ago, but there were a few odd sheets and
+envelopes left in the old desk. We never fastened up the lid of the box
+before locking it in. The hand got out, found a pencil, wrote this note,
+and shoved it through a crack on to the floor where Morton found it.
+That's plain as daylight."
+
+"But the hand couldn't write?"
+
+"Couldn't it? You've not seen it do the things I've seen," and he told
+Saunders more of what had happened at Eastbourne.
+
+"Well," said Saunders, "in that case we have at least an explanation of
+the legacy. It was the hand which wrote unknown to your uncle that
+letter to your solicitor, bequeathing itself to you. Your uncle had no
+more to do with that request than I. In fact, it would seem that he had
+some idea of this automatic writing, and feared it."
+
+"Then if it's not my uncle, what is it?"
+
+"I suppose some people might say that a disembodied spirit had got your
+uncle to educate and prepare a little body for it. Now it's got into
+that little body and is off on its own."
+
+"Well, what are we to do?"
+
+"We'll keep our eyes open," said Saunders, "and try to catch it. If we
+can't do that, we shall have to wait till the bally clockwork runs
+down. After all, if it's flesh and blood, it can't live for ever."
+
+For two days nothing happened. Then Saunders saw it sliding down the
+banister in the hall. He was taken unawares, and lost a full second
+before he started in pursuit, only to find that the thing had escaped
+him. Three days later, Eustace, writing alone in the library at night,
+saw it sitting on an open book at the other end of the room. The fingers
+crept over the page, feeling the print as if it were reading; but before
+he had time to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was
+pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on
+to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him
+in an expression of scornful derision.
+
+"I know what I'll do," he said. "If I only get it into the open I'll set
+the dogs on to it."
+
+He spoke to Saunders of the suggestion.
+
+"It's jolly good idea," he said; "only we won't wait till we find it out
+of doors. We'll get the dogs. There are the two terriers and the
+under-keeper's Irish mongrel that's on to rats like a flash. Your
+spaniel has not got spirit enough for this sort of game." They brought
+the dogs into the house, and the keeper's Irish mongrel chewed up the
+slippers, and the terriers tripped up Morton as he waited at table; but
+all three were welcome. Even false security is better than no security
+at all.
+
+For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught, not by the
+dogs, but by Mrs. Merrit's gray parrot. The bird was in the habit of
+periodically removing the pins that kept its seed and water tins in
+place, and of escaping through the holes in the side of the cage. When
+once at liberty Peter would show no inclination to return, and would
+often be about the house for days. Now, after six consecutive weeks of
+captivity, Peter had again discovered a new means of unloosing his bolts
+and was at large, exploring the tapestried forests of the curtains and
+singing songs in praise of liberty from cornice and picture rail.
+
+"It's no use your trying to catch him," said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as
+she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk with a step-ladder.
+"You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs.
+Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when
+he fancies he's hungry. You're far too softhearted."
+
+"Well, sir, I see he's right out of reach now on that picture rail, so
+if you wouldn't mind closing the door, sir, when you leave the room,
+I'll bring his cage in to-night and put some meat inside it. He's that
+fond of meat, though it does make him pull out his feathers to suck the
+quills. They _do_ say that if you cook--"
+
+"Never mind, Mrs. Merrit," said Eustace, who was busy writing. "That
+will do; I'll keep an eye on the bird."
+
+There was silence in the room, unbroken but for the continuous whisper
+of his pen.
+
+"Scratch poor Peter," said the bird. "Scratch poor old Peter!"
+
+"Be quiet, you beastly bird!"
+
+"Poor old Peter! Scratch poor Peter, do."
+
+"I'm more likely to wring your neck if I get hold of you." He looked up
+at the picture rail, and there was the hand holding on to a hook with
+three fingers, and slowly scratching the head of the parrot with the
+fourth. Eustace ran to the bell and pressed it hard; then across to the
+window, which he closed with a bang. Frightened by the noise the parrot
+shook its wings preparatory to flight, and as it did so the fingers of
+the hand got hold of it by the throat. There was a shrill scream from
+Peter as he fluttered across the room, wheeling round in circles that
+ever descended, borne down under the weight that clung to him. The bird
+dropped at last quite suddenly, and Eustace saw fingers and feathers
+rolled into an inextricable mass on the floor. The struggle abruptly
+ceased as finger and thumb squeezed the neck; the bird's eyes rolled up
+to show the whites, and there was a faint, half-choked gurgle. But
+before the fingers had time to loose their hold, Eustace had them in his
+own.
+
+"Send Mr. Saunders here at once," he said to the maid who came in answer
+to the bell. "Tell him I want him immediately."
+
+Then he went with the hand to the fire. There was a ragged gash across
+the back where the bird's beak had torn it, but no blood oozed from the
+wound. He noticed with disgust that the nails had grown long and
+discolored.
+
+"I'll burn the beastly thing," he said. But he could not burn it. He
+tried to throw it into the flames, but his own hands, as if restrained
+by some old primitive feeling, would not let him. And so Saunders found
+him pale and irresolute, with the hand still clasped tightly in his
+fingers.
+
+"I've got it at last," he said in a tone of triumph.
+
+"Good; let's have a look at it."
+
+"Not when it's loose. Get me some nails and a hammer and a board of some
+sort."
+
+"Can you hold it all right?"
+
+"Yes, the thing's quite limp; tired out with throttling poor old Peter,
+I should say."
+
+"And now," said Saunders when he returned with the things, "what are we
+going to do?"
+
+"Drive a nail through it first, so that it can't get away; then we can
+take our time over examining it."
+
+"Do it yourself," said Saunders. "I don't mind helping you with
+guinea-pigs occasionally when there's something to be learned; partly
+because I don't fear a guinea-pig's revenge. This thing's different."
+
+"All right, you miserable skunk. I won't forget the way you've stood by
+me."
+
+He took up a nail, and before Saunders had realised what he was doing
+had driven it through the hand, deep into the board.
+
+"Oh, my aunt," he giggled hysterically, "look at it now," for the hand
+was writhing in agonized contortions, squirming and wriggling upon the
+nail like a worm upon the hook.
+
+"Well," said Saunders, "you've done it now. I'll leave you to examine
+it."
+
+"Don't go, in heaven's name. Cover it up, man, cover it up! Shove a
+cloth over it! Here!" and he pulled off the antimacassar from the back
+of a chair and wrapped the board in it. "Now get the keys from my pocket
+and open the safe. Chuck the other things out. Oh, Lord, it's getting
+itself into frightful knots! and open it quick!" He threw the thing in
+and banged the door.
+
+"We'll keep it there till it dies," he said. "May I burn in hell if I
+ever open the door of that safe again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Merrit departed at the end of the month. Her successor certainly
+was more successful in the management of the servants. Early in her rule
+she declared that she would stand no nonsense, and gossip soon withered
+and died. Eustace Borlsover went back to his old way of life. Old habits
+crept over and covered his new experience. He was, if anything, less
+morose, and showed a greater inclination to take his natural part in
+country society.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if he marries one of these days," said
+Saunders. "Well, I'm in no hurry for such an event. I know Eustace far
+too well for the future Mrs. Borlsover to like me. It will be the same
+old story again: a long friendship slowly made--marriage--and a long
+friendship quickly forgotten."
+
+
+IV
+
+But Eustace Borlsover did not follow the advice of his uncle and marry.
+He was too fond of old slippers and tobacco. The cooking, too, under
+Mrs. Handyside's management was excellent, and she seemed, too, to have
+a heaven-sent faculty in knowing when to stop dusting.
+
+Little by little the old life resumed its old power. Then came the
+burglary. The men, it was said, broke into the house by way of the
+conservatory. It was really little more than an attempt, for they only
+succeeded in carrying away a few pieces of plate from the pantry. The
+safe in the study was certainly found open and empty, but, as Mr.
+Borlsover informed the police inspector, he had kept nothing of value in
+it during the last six months.
+
+"Then you're lucky in getting off so easily, sir," the man replied. "By
+the way they have gone about their business, I should say they were
+experienced cracksmen. They must have caught the alarm when they were
+just beginning their evening's work."
+
+"Yes," said Eustace, "I suppose I am lucky."
+
+"I've no doubt," said the inspector, "that we shall be able to trace
+the men. I've said that they must have been old hands at the game. The
+way they got in and opened the safe shows that. But there's one little
+thing that puzzles me. One of them was careless enough not to wear
+gloves, and I'm bothered if I know what he was trying to do. I've traced
+his finger-marks on the new varnish on the window sashes in every one of
+the downstairs rooms. They are very distinct ones too."
+
+"Right hand or left, or both?" asked Eustace.
+
+"Oh, right every time. That's the funny thing. He must have been a
+foolhardy fellow, and I rather think it was him that wrote that." He
+took out a slip of paper from his pocket. "That's what he wrote, sir.
+'I've got out, Eustace Borlsover, but I'll be back before long.' Some
+gaol bird just escaped, I suppose. It will make it all the easier for us
+to trace him. Do you know the writing, sir?"
+
+"No," said Eustace; "it's not the writing of anyone I know."
+
+"I'm not going to stay here any longer," said Eustace to Saunders at
+luncheon. "I've got on far better during the last six months than ever I
+expected, but I'm not going to run the risk of seeing that thing again.
+I shall go up to town this afternoon. Get Morton to put my things
+together, and join me with the car at Brighton on the day after
+to-morrow. And bring the proofs of those two papers with you. We'll run
+over them together."
+
+"How long are you going to be away?"
+
+"I can't say for certain, but be prepared to stay for some time. We've
+stuck to work pretty closely through the summer, and I for one need a
+holiday. I'll engage the rooms at Brighton. You'll find it best to break
+the journey at Hitchin. I'll wire to you there at the Crown to tell you
+the Brighton address."
+
+The house he chose at Brighton was in a terrace. He had been there
+before. It was kept by his old college gyp, a man of discreet silence,
+who was admirably partnered by an excellent cook. The rooms were on the
+first floor. The two bedrooms were at the back, and opened out of each
+other. "Saunders can have the smaller one, though it is the only one
+with a fireplace," he said. "I'll stick to the larger of the two, since
+it's got a bathroom adjoining. I wonder what time he'll arrive with the
+car."
+
+Saunders came about seven, cold and cross and dirty. "We'll light the
+fire in the dining-room," said Eustace, "and get Prince to unpack some
+of the things while we are at dinner. What were the roads like?"
+
+"Rotten; swimming with mud, and a beastly cold wind against us all day.
+And this is July. Dear old England!"
+
+"Yes," said Eustace, "I think we might do worse than leave dear old
+England for a few months."
+
+They turned in soon after twelve.
+
+"You oughtn't to feel cold, Saunders," said Eustace, "when you can
+afford to sport a great cat-skin lined coat like this. You do yourself
+very well, all things considered. Look at those gloves, for instance.
+Who could possibly feel cold when wearing them?"
+
+"They are far too clumsy though for driving. Try them on and see," and
+he tossed them through the door on to Eustace's bed, and went on with
+his unpacking. A minute later he heard a shrill cry of terror. "Oh,
+Lord," he heard, "it's in the glove! Quick, Saunders, quick!" Then came
+a smacking thud. Eustace had thrown it from him. "I've chucked it into
+the bathroom," he gasped, "it's hit the wall and fallen into the bath.
+Come now if you want to help." Saunders, with a lighted candle in his
+hand, looked over the edge of the bath. There it was, old and maimed,
+dumb and blind, with a ragged hole in the middle, crawling, staggering,
+trying to creep up the slippery sides, only to fall back helpless.
+
+"Stay there," said Saunders. "I'll empty a collar box or something, and
+we'll jam it in. It can't get out while I'm away."
+
+"Yes, it can," shouted Eustace. "It's getting out now. It's climbing up
+the plug chain. No, you brute, you filthy brute, you don't! Come back,
+Saunders, it's getting away from me. I can't hold it; it's all slippery.
+Curse its claw! Shut the window, you idiot! The top too, as well as the
+bottom. You utter idiot! It's got out!" There was the sound of
+something dropping on to the hard flagstones below, and Eustace fell
+back fainting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a fortnight he was ill.
+
+"I don't know what to make of it," the doctor said to Saunders. "I can
+only suppose that Mr. Borlsover has suffered some great emotional shock.
+You had better let me send someone to help you nurse him. And by all
+means indulge that whim of his never to be left alone in the dark. I
+would keep a light burning all night if I were you. But he _must_ have
+more fresh air. It's perfectly absurd this hatred of open windows."
+
+Eustace, however, would have no one with him but Saunders. "I don't want
+the other men," he said. "They'd smuggle it in somehow. I know they
+would."
+
+"Don't worry about it, old chap. This sort of thing can't go on
+indefinitely. You know I saw it this time as well as you. It wasn't half
+so active. It won't go on living much longer, especially after that
+fall. I heard it hit the flags myself. As soon as you're a bit stronger
+we'll leave this place; not bag and baggage, but with only the clothes
+on our backs, so that it won't be able to hide anywhere. We'll escape it
+that way. We won't give any address, and we won't have any parcels sent
+after us. Cheer up, Eustace! You'll be well enough to leave in a day or
+two. The doctor says I can take you out in a chair to-morrow."
+
+"What have I done?" asked Eustace. "Why does it come after me? I'm no
+worse than other men. I'm no worse than you, Saunders; you know I'm not.
+It was you who were at the bottom of that dirty business in San Diego,
+and that was fifteen years ago."
+
+"It's not that, of course," said Saunders. "We are in the twentieth
+century, and even the parsons have dropped the idea of your old sins
+finding you out. Before you caught the hand in the library it was filled
+with pure malevolence--to you and all mankind. After you spiked it
+through with that nail it naturally forgot about other people, and
+concentrated its attention on you. It was shut up in the safe, you know,
+for nearly six months. That gives plenty of time for thinking of
+revenge."
+
+Eustace Borlsover would not leave his room, but he thought that there
+might be something in Saunders's suggestion to leave Brighton without
+notice. He began rapidly to regain his strength.
+
+"We'll go on the first of September," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The evening of August 31st was oppressively warm. Though at midday the
+windows had been wide open, they had been shut an hour or so before
+dusk. Mrs. Prince had long since ceased to wonder at the strange habits
+of the gentlemen on the first floor. Soon after their arrival she had
+been told to take down the heavy window curtains in the two bedrooms,
+and day by day the rooms had seemed to grow more bare. Nothing was left
+lying about.
+
+"Mr. Borlsover doesn't like to have any place where dirt can collect,"
+Saunders had said as an excuse. "He likes to see into all the corners of
+the room."
+
+"Couldn't I open the window just a little?" he said to Eustace that
+evening. "We're simply roasting in here, you know."
+
+"No, leave well alone. We're not a couple of boarding-school misses
+fresh from a course of hygiene lectures. Get the chessboard out."
+
+They sat down and played. At ten o'clock Mrs. Prince came to the door
+with a note. "I am sorry I didn't bring it before," she said, "but it
+was left in the letter-box."
+
+"Open it, Saunders, and see if it wants answering."
+
+It was very brief. There was neither address nor signature.
+
+
+"Will eleven o'clock to-night be suitable for our last appointment?"
+
+
+"Who is it from?" asked Borlsover.
+
+"It was meant for me," said Saunders. "There's no answer, Mrs. Prince,"
+and he put the paper into his pocket. "A dunning letter from a tailor; I
+suppose he must have got wind of our leaving."
+
+It was a clever lie, and Eustace asked no more questions. They went on
+with their game.
+
+On the landing outside Saunders could hear the grandfather's clock
+whispering the seconds, blurting out the quarter-hours.
+
+"Check!" said Eustace. The clock struck eleven. At the same time there
+was a gentle knocking on the door; it seemed to come from the bottom
+panel.
+
+"Who's there?" asked Eustace.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Mrs. Prince, is that you?"
+
+"She is up above," said Saunders; "I can hear her walking about the
+room."
+
+"Then lock the door; bolt it too. Your move, Saunders."
+
+While Saunders sat with his eyes on the chessboard, Eustace walked over
+to the window and examined the fastenings. He did the same in Saunders's
+room and the bathroom. There were no doors between the three rooms, or
+he would have shut and locked them too.
+
+"Now, Saunders," he said, "don't stay all night over your move. I've had
+time to smoke one cigarette already. It's bad to keep an invalid
+waiting. There's only one possible thing for you to do. What was that?"
+
+"The ivy blowing against the window. There, it's your move now,
+Eustace."
+
+"It wasn't the ivy, you idiot. It was someone tapping at the window,"
+and he pulled up the blind. On the outer side of the window, clinging to
+the sash, was the hand.
+
+"What is it that it's holding?"
+
+"It's a pocket-knife. It's going to try to open the window by pushing
+back the fastener with the blade."
+
+"Well, let it try," said Eustace. "Those fasteners screw down; they
+can't be opened that way. Anyhow, we'll close the shutters. It's your
+move, Saunders. I've played."
+
+But Saunders found it impossible to fix his attention on the game. He
+could not understand Eustace, who seemed all at once to have lost his
+fear. "What do you say to some wine?" he asked. "You seem to be taking
+things coolly, but I don't mind confessing that I'm in a blessed funk."
+
+"You've no need to be. There's nothing supernatural about that hand,
+Saunders. I mean it seems to be governed by the laws of time and space.
+It's not the sort of thing that vanishes into thin air or slides through
+oaken doors. And since that's so, I defy it to get in here. We'll leave
+the place in the morning. I for one have bottomed the depths of fear.
+Fill your glass, man! The windows are all shuttered, the door is locked
+and bolted. Pledge me my uncle Adrian! Drink, man! What are you waiting
+for?"
+
+Saunders was standing with his glass half raised. "It can get in," he
+said hoarsely; "it can get in! We've forgotten. There's the fireplace in
+my bedroom. It will come down the chimney."
+
+"Quick!" said Eustace, as he rushed into the other room; "we haven't a
+minute to lose. What can we do? Light the fire, Saunders. Give me a
+match, quick!"
+
+"They must be all in the other room. I'll get them."
+
+"Hurry, man, for goodness' sake! Look in the bookcase! Look in the
+bathroom! Here, come and stand here; I'll look."
+
+"Be quick!" shouted Saunders. "I can hear something!"
+
+"Then plug a sheet from your bed up the chimney. No, here's a match." He
+had found one at last that had slipped into a crack in the floor.
+
+"Is the fire laid? Good, but it may not burn. I know--the oil from that
+old reading-lamp and this cotton-wool. Now the match, quick! Pull the
+sheet away, you fool! We don't want it now."
+
+There was a great roar from the grate as the flames shot up. Saunders
+had been a fraction of a second too late with the sheet. The oil had
+fallen on to it. It, too, was burning.
+
+"The whole place will be on fire!" cried Eustace, as he tried to beat
+out the flames with a blanket. "It's no good! I can't manage it. You
+must open the door, Saunders, and get help."
+
+Saunders ran to the door and fumbled with the bolts. The key was stiff
+in the lock.
+
+"Hurry!" shouted Eustace; "the whole place is ablaze!"
+
+The key turned in the lock at last. For half a second Saunders stopped
+to look back. Afterwards he could never be quite sure as to what he had
+seen, but at the time he thought that something black and charred was
+creeping slowly, very slowly, from the mass of flames towards Eustace
+Borlsover. For a moment he thought of returning to his friend, but the
+noise and the smell of the burning sent him running down the passage
+crying, "Fire! Fire!" He rushed to the telephone to summon help, and
+then back to the bathroom--he should have thought of that before--for
+water. As he burst open the bedroom door there came a scream of terror
+which ended suddenly, and then the sound of a heavy fall.
+
+
+
+The Mass of Shadows
+
+BY ANATOLE FRANCE
+
+     From _Mother of Pearl_, by Anatole France. Copyright by John Lane
+     Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+This tale the sacristan of the church of St. Eulalie at Neuville
+d'Aumont told me, as we sat under the arbor of the White Horse, one fine
+summer evening, drinking a bottle of old wine to the health of the dead
+man, now very much at his ease, whom that very morning he had borne to
+the grave with full honors, beneath a pall powdered with smart silver
+tears.
+
+"My poor father who is dead" (it is the sacristan who is speaking,) "was
+in his lifetime a grave-digger. He was of an agreeable disposition, the
+result, no doubt, of the calling he followed, for it has often been
+pointed out that people who work in cemeteries are of a jovial turn.
+Death has no terrors for them; they never give it a thought. I, for
+instance, monsieur, enter a cemetery at night as little perturbed as
+though it were the arbor of the White Horse. And if by chance I meet
+with a ghost, I don't disturb myself in the least about it, for I
+reflect that he may just as likely have business of his own to attend to
+as I. I know the habits of the dead, and I know their character.
+Indeed, so far as that goes, I know things of which the priests
+themselves are ignorant. If I were to tell you all I have seen, you
+would be astounded. But a still tongue makes a wise head, and my father,
+who, all the same, delighted in spinning a yarn, did not disclose a
+twentieth part of what he knew. To make up for this he often repeated
+the same stories, and to my knowledge he told the story of Catherine
+Fontaine at least a hundred times.
+
+"Catherine Fontaine was an old maid whom he well remembered having seen
+when he was a mere child. I should not be surprised if there were still,
+perhaps, three old fellows in the district who could remember having
+heard folks speak of her, for she was very well known and of excellent
+reputation, though poor enough. She lived at the corner of the Rue aux
+Nonnes, in the turret which is still to be seen there, and which formed
+part of an old half-ruined mansion looking on to the garden of the
+Ursuline nuns. On that turret can still be traced certain figures and
+half-obliterated inscriptions. The late cure of St. Eulalie, Monsieur
+Levasseur, asserted that there are the words in Latin, _Love is stronger
+than death_, 'which is to be understood,' so he would add, 'of divine
+love.'
+
+"Catherine Fontaine lived by herself in this tiny apartment. She was a
+lace-maker. You know, of course, that the lace made in our part of the
+world was formerly held in high esteem. No one knew anything of her
+relatives or friends. It was reported that when she was eighteen years
+of age she had loved the young Chevalier d'Aumont-Clery, and had been
+secretly affianced to him. But decent folk didn't believe a word of it,
+and said it was nothing but a tale concocted because Catherine
+Fontaine's demeanor was that of a lady rather than that of a working
+woman, and because, moreover, she possessed beneath her white locks the
+remains of great beauty. Her expression was sorrowful, and on one finger
+she wore one of those rings fashioned by the goldsmith into the
+semblance of two tiny hands clasped together. In former days folks were
+accustomed to exchange such rings at their betrothal ceremony. I am sure
+you know the sort of thing I mean.
+
+"Catherine Fontaine lived a saintly life. She spent a great deal of time
+in churches, and every morning, whatever might be the weather, she went
+to assist at the six o'clock Mass at St. Eulalie.
+
+"Now one December night, whilst she was in her little chamber, she was
+awakened by the sound of bells, and nothing doubting that they were
+ringing for the first Mass, the pious woman dressed herself, and came
+downstairs and out into the street. The night was so obscure that not
+even the walls of the houses were visible, and not a ray of light shone
+from the murky sky. And such was the silence amid this black darkness,
+that there was not even the sound of a distant dog barking, and a
+feeling of aloofness from every living creature was perceptible. But
+Catherine Fontaine knew well every single stone she stepped on, and, as
+she could have found her way to the church with her eyes shut, she
+reached without difficulty the corner of the Rue aux Nonnes and the Rue
+de la Paroisse, where the timbered house stands with the tree of Jesse
+carved on one of its massive beams. When she reached this spot she
+perceived that the church doors were open, and that a great light was
+streaming out from the wax tapers. She resumed her journey, and when she
+had passed through the porch she found herself in the midst of a vast
+congregation which entirely filled the church. But she did not recognize
+any of the worshipers and was surprised to observe that all of these
+people were dressed in velvets and brocades, with feathers in their
+hats, and that they wore swords in the fashion of days gone by. Here
+were gentlemen who carried tall canes with gold knobs, and ladies with
+lace caps fastened with coronet-shaped combs. Chevaliers of the Order of
+St. Louis extended their hands to these ladies, who concealed behind
+their fans painted faces, of which only the powdered brow and the patch
+at the corner of the eye were visible! All of them proceeded to take
+their places without the slightest sound, and as they moved neither the
+sound of their footsteps on the pavement, nor the rustle of their
+garments could be heard. The lower places were filled with a crowd of
+young artisans in brown jackets, dimity breeches, and blue stockings,
+with their arms round the waists of pretty blushing girls who lowered
+their eyes. Near the holy water stoups peasant women, in scarlet
+petticoats and laced bodices, sat upon the ground as immovable as
+domestic animals, whilst young lads, standing up behind them, stared out
+from wide-open eyes and twirled their hats round and round on their
+fingers, and all these sorrowful countenances seemed centred irremovably
+on one and the same thought, at once sweet and sorrowful. On her knees,
+in her accustomed place, Catherine Fontaine saw the priest advance
+toward the altar, preceded by two servers. She recognized neither priest
+nor clerks. The Mass began. It was a silent Mass, during which neither
+the sound of the moving lips nor the tinkle of the bell was audible.
+Catherine Fontaine felt that she was under the observation and the
+influence also of her mysterious neighbor, and when, scarcely turning
+her head, she stole a glance at him, she recognized the young Chevalier
+d'Aumont-Clery, who had once loved her, and who had been dead for five
+and forty years. She recognized him by a small mark which he had over
+the left ear, and above all by the shadow which his long black eyelashes
+cast upon his cheeks. He was dressed in his hunting clothes, scarlet
+with gold lace, the very clothes he wore that day when he met her in St.
+Leonard's Wood, begged of her a drink, and stole a kiss. He had
+preserved his youth and good looks. When he smiled, he still displayed
+magnificent teeth. Catherine said to him in an undertone:
+
+"'Monseigneur, you who were my friend, and to whom in days gone by I
+gave all that a girl holds most dear, may God keep you in His grace! O,
+that He would at length inspire me with regret for the sin I committed
+in yielding to you; for it is a fact that, though my hair is white and I
+approach my end, I have not yet repented of having loved you. But, dear
+dead friend and noble seigneur, tell me, who are these folk, habited
+after the antique fashion, who are here assisting at this silent Mass?'
+
+"The Chevalier d'Aumont-Clery replied in a voice feebler than a breath,
+but none the less crystal clear:
+
+"'Catherine, these men and women are souls from purgatory who have
+grieved God by sinning as we ourselves sinned through love of the
+creature, but who are not on that account cast off by God, inasmuch as
+their sin, like ours, was not deliberate.
+
+"'Whilst separated from those whom they loved upon earth, they are
+purified in the cleansing fires of purgatory, they suffer the pangs of
+absence, which is for them the most cruel of tortures. They are so
+unhappy that an angel from heaven takes pity upon their love-torment. By
+the permission of the Most High, for one hour in the night, he reunites
+each year lover to loved in their parish church, where they are
+permitted to assist at the Mass of Shadows, hand clasped in hand. These
+are the facts. If it has been granted to me to see thee before thy
+death, Catherine, it is a boon which is bestowed by God's special
+permission.'
+
+"And Catherine Fontaine answered him:
+
+"'I would die gladly enough, dear, dead lord, if I might recover the
+beauty that was mine when I gave you to drink in the forest.'
+
+"Whilst they thus conversed under their breath, a very old canon was
+taking the collection and proffering to the worshipers a great copper
+dish, wherein they let fall, each in his turn, ancient coins which have
+long since ceased to pass current: ecus of six livres, florins, ducats
+and ducatoons, jacobuses and rose-nobles, and the pieces fell silently
+into the dish. When at length it was placed before the Chevalier, he
+dropped into it a louis which made no more sound than had the other
+pieces of gold and silver.
+
+"Then the old canon stopped before Catherine Fontaine, who fumbled in
+her pocket without being able to find a farthing. Then, being unwilling
+to allow the dish to pass without an offering from herself, she slipped
+from her finger the ring which the Chevalier had given her the day
+before his death, and cast it into the copper bowl. As the golden ring
+fell, a sound like the heavy clang of a bell rang out, and on the stroke
+of this reverberation the Chevalier, the canon, the celebrant, the
+servers, the ladies and their cavaliers, the whole assembly vanished
+utterly; the candles guttered out, and Catherine Fontaine was left alone
+in the darkness."
+
+Having concluded his narrative after this fashion, the sacristan drank a
+long draught of wine, remained pensive for a moment, and then resumed
+his talk in these words:
+
+"I have told you this tale exactly as my father has told it to me over
+and over again, and I believe that it is authentic, because it agrees in
+all respects with what I have observed of the manners and customs
+peculiar to those who have passed away. I have associated a good deal
+with the dead ever since my childhood, and I know that they are
+accustomed to return to what they have loved.
+
+"It is on this account that the miserly dead wander at night in the
+neighborhood of the treasures they conceal during their life time. They
+keep a strict watch over their gold; but the trouble they give
+themselves, far from being of service to them, turns to their
+disadvantage; and it is not a rare thing at all to come upon money
+buried in the ground on digging in a place haunted by a ghost. In the
+same way deceased husbands come by night to harass their wives who have
+made a second matrimonial venture, and I could easily name several who
+have kept a better watch over their wives since death than they ever did
+while living.
+
+"That sort of thing is blameworthy, for in all fairness the dead have no
+business to stir up jealousies. Still I do but tell you what I have
+observed myself. It is a matter to take into account if one marries a
+widow. Besides, the tale I have told you is vouchsafed for in the
+manner following:
+
+"The morning after that extraordinary night Catherine Fontaine was
+discovered dead in her chamber. And the beadle attached to St. Eulalie
+found in the copper bowl used for the collection a gold ring with two
+clasped hands. Besides, I'm not the kind of man to make jokes. Suppose
+we order another bottle of wine?..."
+
+
+
+
+What Was It?
+
+BY FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN
+
+
+It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence, that I approach the
+strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose
+detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared
+to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all
+such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief.
+I have, after mature consideration resolved to narrate, in as simple and
+straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under
+my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the annals of
+the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.
+
+I live at No. ---- Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some
+respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the
+reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence,
+surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green
+enclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a
+fountain, and a few fruit trees ragged and unpruned, indicate that this
+spot in past days was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with fruits and
+flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.
+
+The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a large spiral
+staircase winding through its center, while the various apartments are
+of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since
+by Mr. A----, the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw
+the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr.
+A----, as everyone knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after, of
+a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease reached
+this country and was verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street
+that No. ---- was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the widow of
+its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a caretaker and his
+wife, placed there by the house agent into whose hands it had passed for
+the purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that they were
+troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any visible
+agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms
+were, during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands.
+Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight,
+accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the gliding of
+viewless hands along the massive balusters. The caretaker and his wife
+declared they would live there no longer. The house agent laughed,
+dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and
+supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood caught up the
+story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several
+persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always before the bargain was
+closed they heard the unpleasant rumors and declined to treat any
+further.
+
+It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a
+boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move further up
+town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. ---- Twenty-sixth Street.
+Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of
+boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she
+had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which
+she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons,--a
+sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that
+they would leave,--all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would
+accompany her in her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.
+
+Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with
+our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our house is
+situated, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, is one of the pleasantest
+localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses, running down
+nearly to the Hudson, form, in the summer time, a perfect avenue of
+verdure. The air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does,
+straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the
+ragged garden which surrounded the house, although displaying on washing
+days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece of greensward to
+look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our
+cigars in the dusk, and watched the fireflies flashing their dark
+lanterns in the long grass.
+
+Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. ---- than we
+began to expect ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with
+eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the
+boarders, who had purchased Mrs. Crowe's _Night Side of Nature_ for his
+own private delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire
+household for not having bought twenty copies. The man led a life of
+supreme wretchedness while he was reading this volume. A system of
+espionage was established, of which he was the victim. If he
+incautiously laid the book down for an instant and left the room, it was
+immediately seized and read aloud in secret places to a select few. I
+found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I
+was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had
+once written a story the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or
+a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large
+drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and everyone was prepared
+for an immediate clanking of chains and a spectral form.
+
+After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost
+dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the
+remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself. Once
+the black butler asseverated that his candle had been blown out by some
+invisible agency while he was undressing himself for the night; but as I
+had more than once discovered this colored gentleman in a condition when
+one candle must have appeared to him like two, thought it possible that,
+by going a step further in his potations, he might have reversed this
+phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he ought to have beheld one.
+
+Things were in this state when an accident took place so awful and
+inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare
+memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was
+over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my
+evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed
+between the Doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We
+both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret, and respected it. We
+enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvelous
+intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless feeling of
+existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole
+universe,--in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would
+not surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will
+never--never taste.
+
+Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in
+secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly
+smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While
+smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and
+calmest channels of thought. We talked of the East, and endeavored to
+recall the magical panorama of its glowing scenery. We criticized the
+most sensuous poets,--those who painted life ruddy with health, brimming
+with passion, happy in the possession of youth and strength and beauty.
+If we talked of Shakespeare's _Tempest_, we lingered over Ariel, and
+avoided Caliban. Like the Guebers, we turned our faces to the East, and
+saw only the sunny side of the world.
+
+This skillful coloring of our train of thought produced in our
+subsequent visions a corresponding tone. The splendors of Arabian
+fairyland dyed our dreams. We paced the narrow strip of grass with the
+tread and port of kings. The song of the _Rana arborea_, while he clung
+to the bark of the ragged plum-tree, sounded like the strains of divine
+musicians. Houses, walls, and streets melted like rain clouds, and
+vistas of unimaginable glory stretched away before us. It was a
+rapturous companionship. We enjoyed the vast delight more perfectly
+because, even in our most ecstatic moments, we were conscious of each
+other's presence. Our pleasures, while individual, were still twin,
+vibrating and moving in musical accord.
+
+On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the Doctor and myself
+drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large
+meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which
+burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy
+tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings;
+we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the
+currents of our thought. They would _not_ flow through the sun-lit
+channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable
+reason, they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a
+continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we
+flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay
+bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden
+palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk,
+and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper
+vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision.
+Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged
+in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the
+human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible,
+when Hammond suddenly said to me. "What do you consider to be the
+greatest element of terror?"
+
+The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew.
+Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once did, a woman
+floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly lifted arms, and
+awful, upturned face, uttering, as she drifted, shrieks that rent one's
+heart while we, spectators, stood frozen at a window which overhung the
+river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to
+save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her
+disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible, encountered
+floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for it suggests
+a huge terror, the proportions of which are veiled. But it now struck
+me, for the first time, that there must be one great and ruling
+embodiment of fear,--a King of Terrors, to which all others must
+succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe
+its existence?
+
+"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the
+subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any
+other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague
+definition."
+
+"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to
+experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human
+mind;--something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation
+hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in
+Brockden Brown's novel of _Wieland_ is awful; so is the picture of the
+Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer's _Zanoni_; but," he added, shaking
+his head gloomily, "there is something more horrible still than those."
+
+"Look here, Hammond," I rejoined, "let us drop this kind of talk, for
+Heaven's sake! We shall suffer for it, depend on it."
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me to-night," he replied, "but my
+brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as
+if I could write a story like Hoffman, to-night, if I were only master
+of a literary style."
+
+"Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I'm off to bed.
+Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it is!
+Good-night, Hammond."
+
+"Good-night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."
+
+"To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters."
+
+We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly
+and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book,
+over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon
+as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the
+other side of the room. It was Goudon's _History of Monsters_,--a
+curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which,
+in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable
+companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas
+until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of
+the tube, I composed myself to rest.
+
+The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained
+alight did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner. I
+desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the
+darkness, and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded
+themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on
+my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be
+blackness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me.
+While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical
+inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A
+Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest,
+and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat,
+endeavoring to choke me.
+
+I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The
+suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every nerve to
+its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had
+time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two
+muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with all the
+strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands
+that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to
+breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity.
+Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature
+of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp
+slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire
+nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder,
+neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair
+of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not
+confine,--these were a combination of circumstances to combat which
+required all the strength, skill, and courage that I possessed.
+
+At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant
+under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with
+my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I
+rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting
+in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was
+apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I
+remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a
+large yellow silk pocket handkerchief. I felt for it instantly; it was
+there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the
+creature's arms.
+
+I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to
+turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was
+like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a
+certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the
+capture alone and unaided.
+
+Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the
+floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to
+reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding
+the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's length of
+the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay.
+Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full
+flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.
+
+I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the
+instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with
+terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the
+inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. _I
+saw nothing_! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a breathing,
+panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a
+throat as warm, as apparently fleshy, as my own; and yet, with this
+living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and
+all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld
+nothing! Not even an outline,--a vapor!
+
+I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found
+myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination
+in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.
+
+It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled
+fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, like my
+own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone,--and
+yet utterly invisible!
+
+I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful
+instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening
+my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength
+in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force
+that I felt the creature shivering with agony.
+
+Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon
+as he beheld my face--which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to
+look at--he hastened forward, crying, "Great heaven, Harry! what has
+happened?"
+
+"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried, "come here. O, this is awful! I have been
+attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I can't
+see it,--I can't see it!"
+
+Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my
+countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled
+expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my
+visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human
+being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. _Now_, I can
+understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would
+seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision,
+should have appeared ludicrous. _Then_, so great was my rage against the
+mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead
+where they stood.
+
+"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried again, despairingly, "for God's sake come to
+me. I can hold the--the thing but a short while longer. It is
+overpowering me. Help me! Help me!"
+
+"Harry," whispered Hammond, approaching me, "you have been smoking too
+much opium."
+
+"I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision," I answered, in the
+same low tone. "Don't you see how it shakes my whole frame with its
+struggles? If you don't believe me, convince yourself. Feel it,--touch
+it."
+
+Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry
+of horror burst from him. He had felt it!
+
+In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of cord,
+and was the next instant winding it and knotting it about the body of
+the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.
+
+"Harry," he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved
+his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, "Harry, it's all safe now.
+You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired. The Thing can't move."
+
+I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.
+
+Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible,
+twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were, he
+beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a
+vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe.
+Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which
+I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and
+one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was
+not daunted.
+
+The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were
+witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself,--who
+beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,--who beheld
+me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was
+over,--the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,
+when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled
+from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door and
+could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still
+incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to
+satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged
+of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the
+existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were
+incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a
+solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was
+this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us--conquering our fearful
+repugnance to touch the invisible creature--lifted it from the ground,
+manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of
+a boy of fourteen.
+
+"Now my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature
+suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident proof that here is
+a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good
+enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively."
+
+I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so
+calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of
+scientific pride in the affair, which dominated every other feeling.
+
+The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given
+signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was a dull sound of a
+heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A
+deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed
+itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed from the
+room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.
+
+We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular
+breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the
+bedclothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement.
+Then Hammond spoke.
+
+"Harry, this is awful."
+
+"Ay, awful."
+
+"But not unaccountable."
+
+"Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred
+since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God
+grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!"
+
+"Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but
+which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with
+terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a
+piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical
+coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to
+be totally invisible. It is not _theoretically impossible_, mind you, to
+make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light,--a glass so
+pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass
+through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We
+do not see the air, and yet we feel it."
+
+"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances.
+Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. _This_ thing has a heart
+that palpitates,--a will that moves it,--lungs that play, and inspire
+and respire."
+
+"You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,"
+answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,'
+invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round
+the table,--warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal
+life."
+
+"What? Do you think, then, that this thing is----"
+
+"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I
+will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."
+
+We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside
+of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently
+wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it
+slept.
+
+The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on
+the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had
+to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary
+prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could
+be induced to set foot in the apartment.
+
+The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in
+which the bedclothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was
+something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand
+indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty
+which themselves were invisible.
+
+Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to
+discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general
+appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our
+hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human.
+There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,
+however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet
+felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a
+smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk, as shoemakers trace
+the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value.
+Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.
+
+A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of
+Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes.
+But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the
+setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mold. Another thought.
+Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs,--that was evident
+by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do
+with it what we would. Doctor X---- was sent for; and after the worthy
+physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded
+to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled
+to remove the fetters from the creature's body, and a modeler was busily
+engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In five
+minutes more we had a mold, and before evening a rough facsimile of the
+Mystery. It was shaped like a man--distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but
+still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height,
+and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its
+face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustav Dore, or
+Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible. There
+is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to _Un Voyage ou il vous
+plaira_, which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but
+does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I should fancy a ghoul
+might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh.
+
+Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to
+secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It
+was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was
+equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the
+world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's
+destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would
+undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day
+after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left
+the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself
+with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our
+answer was, "We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature
+with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On
+you the responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer.
+Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even
+approach the Mystery.
+
+The most singular part of the affair was that we were entirely ignorant
+of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of
+nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never
+touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes
+toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.
+
+Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations
+of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly
+ceased. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of
+sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on, I felt
+miserable. I could not sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was
+pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.
+
+At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in
+the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened
+to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that
+viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to
+Doctor X----, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.
+
+As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have
+drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come
+to my knowledge.
+
+
+
+The Middle Toe of the Right Foot
+
+BY AMBROSE BIERCE
+
+     From _Can Such Things Be?_ by Ambrose Bierce. Copyright by the
+     Neale Publishing Company. By permission of the publishers.
+
+
+I
+
+It is well known that the old Manton house is haunted. In all the rural
+district near about, and even in the town of Marshall, a mile away, not
+one person of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it; incredulity is
+confined to those opinionated persons who will be called "cranks" as
+soon as the useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual demesne
+of the Marshall _Advance_. The evidence that the house is haunted is of
+two kinds; the testimony of disinterested witnesses who have had ocular
+proof, and that of the house itself. The former may be disregarded and
+ruled out on any of the various grounds of objection which may be urged
+against it by the ingenious; but facts within the observation of all are
+material and controlling.
+
+In the first place the Manton house has been unoccupied by mortals for
+more than ten years, and with its outbuildings is slowly falling into
+decay--a circumstance which in itself the judicious will hardly venture
+to ignore. It stands a little way off the loneliest reach of the
+Marshall and Harriston road, in an opening which was once a farm and is
+still disfigured with strips of rotting fence and half covered with
+brambles overrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with the
+plow. The house itself is in tolerably good condition, though badly
+weather-stained and in dire need of attention from the glazier, the
+smaller male population of the region having attested in the manner of
+its kind its disapproval of dwelling without dwellers. It is two stories
+in height, nearly square, its front pierced by a single doorway flanked
+on each side by a window boarded up to the very top. Corresponding
+windows above, not protected, serve to admit light and rain to the rooms
+of the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow pretty rankly all about, and a
+few shade trees, somewhat the worse for wind, and leaning all in one
+direction, seem to be making a concerted effort to run away. In short,
+as the Marshall town humorist explained in the columns of the _Advance_,
+"the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted is the only
+logical conclusion from the premises." The fact that in this dwelling
+Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and
+cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to
+another part of the country, has no doubt done its share in directing
+public attention to the fitness of the place for supernatural phenomena.
+
+To this house, one summer evening, came four men in a wagon. Three of
+them promptly alighted, and the one who had been driving hitched the
+team to the only remaining post of what had been a fence. The fourth
+remained seated in the wagon. "Come," said one of his companions,
+approaching him, while the others moved away in the direction of the
+dwelling--"this is the place."
+
+The man addressed did not move. "By God!" he said harshly, "this is a
+trick, and it looks to me as if you were in it."
+
+"Perhaps I am," the other said, looking him straight in the face and
+speaking in a tone which had something of contempt in it. "You will
+remember, however, that the choice of place was with your own assent
+left to the other side. Of course if you are afraid of spooks--"
+
+"I am afraid of nothing," the man interrupted with another oath, and
+sprang to the ground. The two then joined the others at the door, which
+one of them had already opened with some difficulty, caused by rust of
+lock and hinge. All entered. Inside it was dark, but the man who had
+unlocked the door produced a candle and matches and made a light. He
+then unlocked a door on their right as they stood in the passage. This
+gave them entrance to a large, square room that the candle but dimly
+lighted. The floor had a thick carpeting of dust, which partly muffled
+their footfalls. Cobwebs were in the angles of the walls and depended
+from the ceiling like strips of rotting lace making undulatory movements
+in the disturbed air. The room had two windows in adjoining sides, but
+from neither could anything be seen except the rough inner surfaces of
+boards a few inches from the glass. There was no fireplace, no
+furniture; there was nothing: besides the cobwebs and the dust, the four
+men were the only objects there which were not a part of the structure.
+
+Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of the candle. The one
+who had so reluctantly alighted was especially spectacular--he might
+have been called sensational. He was of middle age, heavily built, deep
+chested, and broad shouldered. Looking at his figure, one would have
+said that he had a giant's strength; at his features, that he would use
+it like a giant. He was clean shaven, his hair rather closely cropped
+and gray. His low forehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes, and
+over the nose these became vertical. The heavy black brows followed the
+same law, saved from meeting only by an upward turn at what would
+otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these,
+glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain color, but
+obviously enough too small. There was something forbidding in their
+expression, which was not bettered by the cruel mouth and wide jaw. The
+nose was well enough, as noses go; one does not expect much of noses.
+All that was sinister in the man's face seemed accentuated by an
+unnatural pallor--he appeared altogether bloodless.
+
+The appearance of the other men was sufficiently commonplace; they were
+such persons as one meets and forgets that he met. All were younger than
+the man described, between whom and the eldest of the others, who stood
+apart, there was apparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at
+each other.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the man holding the candle and keys, "I believe
+everything is right. Are you ready, Mr. Rosser?"
+
+The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled.
+
+"And you, Mr. Grossmith?"
+
+The heavy man bowed and scowled.
+
+"You will be pleased to remove your outer clothing."
+
+Their hats, coats, waistcoats, and neckwear were soon removed and thrown
+outside the door, in the passage. The man with the candle now nodded,
+and the fourth man--he who had urged Grossmith to leave the
+wagon--produced from the pocket of his overcoat two long,
+murderous-looking bowie-knives, which he drew now from their leather
+scabbards.
+
+"They are exactly alike," he said, presenting one to each of the two
+principals--for by this time the dullest observer would have understood
+the nature of this meeting. It was to be a duel to the death.
+
+Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the candle and
+tested the strength of the blade and handle across his lifted knee. Their
+persons were then searched in turn, each by the second of the other.
+
+"If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith," said the man holding the
+light, "you will place yourself in that corner."
+
+He indicated the angle of the room farthest from the door, whither
+Grossmith retired, his second parting from him with a grasp of the hand
+which had nothing of cordiality in it. In the angle nearest the door Mr.
+Rosser stationed himself, and after a whispered consultation his second
+left him, joining the other near the door. At that moment the candle was
+suddenly extinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This may have
+been done by a draught from the opened door; whatever the cause, the
+effect was startling.
+
+"Gentlemen," said a voice which sounded strangely unfamiliar in the
+altered condition affecting the relations of the senses--"gentlemen, you
+will not move until you hear the closing of the outer door."
+
+A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the inner door; and
+finally the outer one closed with a concussion which shook the entire
+building.
+
+A few minutes afterward a belated farmer's boy met a light wagon which
+was being driven furiously toward the town of Marshall. He declared that
+behind the two figures on the front seat stood a third, with its hands
+upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who appeared to struggle vainly
+to free themselves from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was
+clad in white, and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed the
+haunted house. As the lad could boast a considerable former experience
+with the supernatural thereabouts his word had the weight justly due to
+the testimony of an expert. The story (in connection with the next day's
+events) eventually appeared in the _Advance_, with some slight literary
+embellishments and a concluding intimation that the gentlemen referred
+to would be allowed the use of the paper's columns for their version of
+the night's adventure. But the privilege remained without a claimant.
+
+
+II
+
+The events that led up to this "duel in the dark" were simple enough.
+One evening three young men of the town of Marshall were sitting in a
+quiet corner of the porch of the village hotel, smoking and discussing
+such matters as three educated young men of a Southern village would
+naturally find interesting. Their names were King, Sancher, and Rosser.
+At a little distance, within easy hearing, but taking no part in the
+conversation, sat a fourth. He was a stranger to the others. They
+merely knew that on his arrival by the stage-coach that afternoon he had
+written in the hotel register the name of Robert Grossmith. He had not
+been observed to speak to anyone except the hotel clerk. He seemed,
+indeed, singularly fond of his own company--or, as the _personnel_ of
+the _Advance_ expressed it, "grossly addicted to evil associations." But
+then it should be said in justice to the stranger that the _personnel_
+was himself of a too convivial disposition fairly to judge one
+differently gifted, and had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in an
+effort at an "interview."
+
+"I hate any kind of deformity in a woman," said King, "whether natural
+or--acquired. I have a theory that any physical defect has its
+correlative mental and moral defect."
+
+"I infer, then," said Rosser, gravely, "that a lady lacking the moral
+advantage of a nose would find the struggle to become Mrs. King an
+arduous enterprise."
+
+"Of course you may put it that way," was the reply; "but, seriously, I
+once threw over a most charming girl on learning quite accidentally that
+she had suffered amputation of a toe. My conduct was brutal if you like,
+but if I had married that girl I should have been miserable for life and
+should have made her so."
+
+"Whereas," said Sancher, with a light laugh, "by marrying a gentleman of
+more liberal view she escaped with a parted throat."
+
+"Ah, you know to whom I refer. Yes, she married Manton, but I don't know
+about his liberality; I'm not sure but he cut her throat because he
+discovered that she lacked that excellent thing in woman, the middle toe
+of the right foot."
+
+"Look at that chap!" said Rosser in a low voice, his eyes fixed upon the
+stranger.
+
+That chap was obviously listening intently to the conversation.
+
+"Damn his impudence!" muttered King--"what ought we to do?"
+
+"That's an easy one," Rosser replied, rising. "Sir," he continued,
+addressing the stranger, "I think it would be better if you would remove
+your chair to the other end of the veranda. The presence of gentlemen is
+evidently an unfamiliar situation to you."
+
+The man sprang to his feet and strode forward with clenched hands, his
+face white with rage. All were now standing. Sancher stepped between the
+belligerents.
+
+"You are hasty and unjust," he said to Rosser; "this gentleman has done
+nothing to deserve such language."
+
+But Rosser would not withdraw a word. By the custom of the country and
+the time there could be but one outcome to the quarrel.
+
+"I demand the satisfaction due to a gentleman," said the stranger, who
+had become more calm. "I have not an acquaintance in this region.
+Perhaps you, sir," bowing to Sancher, "will be kind enough to represent
+me in this matter."
+
+Sancher accepted the trust--somewhat reluctantly it must be confessed,
+for the man's appearance and manner were not at all to his liking. King,
+who during the colloquy had hardly removed his eyes from the stranger's
+face and had not spoken a word, consented with a nod to act for Rosser,
+and the upshot of it was that, the principals having retired, a meeting
+was arranged for the next evening. The nature of the arrangements has
+been already disclosed. The duel with knives in a dark room was once a
+commoner feature of Southwestern life than it is likely to be again. How
+thin a veneering of "chivalry" covered the essential brutality of the
+code under which such encounters were possible we shall see.
+
+
+III
+
+In the blaze of a midsummer noonday the old Manton house was hardly true
+to its traditions. It was of the earth, earthy. The sunshine caressed it
+warmly and affectionately, with evident disregard of its bad reputation.
+The grass greening all the expanse in its front seemed to grow, not
+rankly, but with a natural and joyous exuberance, and the weeds
+blossomed quite like plants. Full of charming lights and shadows and
+populous with pleasant-voiced birds, the neglected shade trees no longer
+struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath their burdens of sun
+and song. Even in the glassless upper windows was an expression of peace
+and contentment, due to the light within. Over the stony fields the
+visible heat danced with a lively tremor incompatible with the gravity
+which is an attribute of the supernatural.
+
+Such was the aspect under which the place presented itself to Sheriff
+Adams and two other men who had come out from Marshall to look at it.
+One of these men was Mr. King, the sheriff's deputy; the other, whose
+name was Brewer, was a brother of the late Mrs. Manton. Under a
+beneficent law of the State relating to property which has been for a
+certain period abandoned by an owner whose residence cannot be
+ascertained, the sheriff was legal custodian of the Manton farm and
+appurtenances thereunto belonging. His present visit was in mere
+perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which Mr. Brewer
+had an action to get possession of the property as heir to his deceased
+sister. By a mere coincidence, the visit was made on the day after the
+night that Deputy King had unlocked the house for another and very
+different purpose. His presence now was not of his own choosing: he had
+been ordered to accompany his superior, and at the moment could think of
+nothing more prudent than simulated alacrity in obedience to the
+command.
+
+Carelessly opening the front door, which to his surprise was not locked,
+the sheriff was amazed to see, lying on the floor of the passage into
+which it opened, a confused heap of men's apparel. Examination showed it
+to consist of two hats, and the same number of coats, waistcoats, and
+scarves all in a remarkably good state of preservation, albeit somewhat
+defiled by the dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equally
+astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not of record. With a new and
+lively interest in his own actions the sheriff now unlatched and pushed
+open a door on the right, and the three entered. The room was apparently
+vacant--no; as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light
+something was visible in the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human
+figure--that of a man crouching close in the corner. Something in the
+attitude made the intruders halt when they had barely passed the
+threshold. The figure more and more clearly defined itself. The man was
+upon one knee, his back in the angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated
+to the level of his ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the
+fingers spread and crooked like claws; the white face turned upward on
+the retracted neck had an expression of unutterable fright, the mouth
+half open, the eyes incredibly expanded. He was stone dead. Yet with the
+exception of a bowie-knife, which had evidently fallen from his own
+hand, not another object was in the room.
+
+In thick dust that covered the floor were some confused footprints near
+the door and along the wall through which it opened. Along one of the
+adjoining walls, too, past the boarded-up windows was the trail made by
+the man himself in reaching his corner. Instinctively in approaching the
+body the three men followed that trail. The sheriff grasped one of the
+outthrown arms; it was as rigid as iron, and the application of a gentle
+force rocked the entire body without altering the relation of its parts.
+Brewer, pale with excitement, gazed intently into the distorted face.
+"God of mercy!" he suddenly cried, "it is Manton!"
+
+"You are right," said King, with an evident attempt at calmness: "I knew
+Manton. He then wore a full beard and his hair long, but this is he."
+
+He might have added: "I recognized him when he challenged Rosser. I told
+Rosser and Sancher who he was before we played him this horrible trick.
+When Rosser left this dark room at our heels, forgetting his outer
+clothing in the excitement, and driving away with us in his shirt
+sleeves--all through the discreditable proceedings we knew with whom we
+were dealing, murderer and coward that he was!"
+
+But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his better light he was
+trying to penetrate the mystery of the man's death. That he had not once
+moved from the corner where he had been stationed; that his posture was
+that of neither attack nor defense; that he had dropped his weapon; that
+he had obviously perished of sheer horror of something that he
+_saw_--these were circumstances which Mr. King's disturbed intelligence
+could not rightly comprehend.
+
+Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew to his maze of doubt, his
+gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of one who ponders
+momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day
+and in the presence of living companions, affected him with terror. In
+the dust of years that lay thick upon the floor--leading from the door
+by which they had entered, straight across the room to within a yard of
+Manton's crouching corpse--were three parallel lines of
+footprints--light but definite impressions of bare feet, the outer ones
+those of small children, the inner a woman's. From the point at which
+they ended they did not return; they pointed all one way. Brewer, who
+had observed them at the same moment, was leaning forward in an attitude
+of rapt attention, horribly pale.
+
+"Look at that!" he cried, pointing with both hands at the nearest print
+of the woman's right foot, where she had apparently stopped and stood.
+"The middle toe is missing--it was Gertrude!"
+
+Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister to Mr. Brewer.
+
+
+
+The Shell of Sense
+
+BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR
+
+     From Harper's Magazine, December, 1908. By permission of Harper and
+     Brothers and Olivia Howard Dunbar.
+
+
+It was intolerably unchanged, the dim, dark-toned room. In an agony of
+recognition my glance ran from one to another of the comfortable,
+familiar things that my earthly life had been passed among. Incredibly
+distant from it all as I essentially was. I noted sharply that the very
+gaps that I myself had left in my bookshelves still stood unfilled; that
+the delicate fingers of the ferns that I had tended were still stretched
+futilely toward the light; that the soft agreeable chuckle of my own
+little clock, like some elderly woman with whom conversation has become
+automatic, was undiminished.
+
+Unchanged--or so it seemed at first. But there were certain trivial
+differences that shortly smote me. The windows were closed too tightly;
+for I had always kept the house very cool, although I had known that
+Theresa preferred warm rooms. And my work-basket was in disorder; it was
+preposterous that so small a thing should hurt me so. Then, for this was
+my first experience of the shadow-folded transition, the odd alteration
+of my emotions bewildered me. For at one moment the place seemed so
+humanly familiar, so distinctly my own proper envelope, that for love of
+it I could have laid my cheek against the wall; while in the next I was
+miserably conscious of strange new shrillnesses. How could they be
+endured--and had I ever endured them?--those harsh influences that I now
+perceived at the window; light and color so blinding that they obscured
+the form of the wind, tumult so discordant that one could scarcely hear
+the roses open in the garden below?
+
+But Theresa did not seem to mind any of these things. Disorder, it is
+true, the dear child had never minded. She was sitting all this time at
+my desk--at _my_ desk--occupied, I could only too easily surmise how. In
+the light of my own habits of precision it was plain that that sombre
+correspondence should have been attended to before; but I believe that I
+did not really reproach Theresa, for I knew that her notes, when she did
+write them, were perhaps less perfunctory than mine. She finished the
+last one as I watched her, and added it to the heap of black-bordered
+envelopes that lay on the desk. Poor girl! I saw now that they had cost
+her tears. Yet, living beside her day after day, year after year, I had
+never discovered what deep tenderness my sister possessed. Toward each
+other it had been our habit to display only a temperate affection, and I
+remember having always thought it distinctly fortunate for Theresa,
+since she was denied my happiness, that she could live so easily and
+pleasantly without emotions of the devastating sort.... And now, for the
+first time, I was really to behold her.... Could it be Theresa, after
+all, this tangle of subdued turbulences? Let no one suppose that it is
+an easy thing to bear, the relentlessly lucid understanding that I then
+first exercised; or that, in its first enfranchisement, the timid vision
+does not yearn for its old screens and mists.
+
+Suddenly, as Theresa sat there, her head, filled with its tender
+thoughts of me, held in her gentle hands, I felt Allan's step on the
+carpeted stair outside. Theresa felt it, too,--but how? for it was not
+audible. She gave a start, swept the black envelopes out of sight, and
+pretended to be writing in a little book. Then I forgot to watch her any
+longer in my absorption in Allan's coming. It was he, of course, that I
+was awaiting. It was for him that I had made this first lonely,
+frightened effort to return, to recover.... It was not that I had
+supposed he would allow himself to recognize my presence, for I had long
+been sufficiently familiar with his hard and fast denials of the
+invisible. He was so reasonable always, so sane--so blindfolded. But I
+had hoped that because of his very rejection of the ether that now
+contained me I could perhaps all the more safely, the more secretly,
+watch him, linger near him. He was near now, very near,--but why did
+Theresa, sitting there in the room that had never belonged to her,
+appropriate for herself his coming? It was so manifestly I who had
+drawn him, I whom he had come to seek.
+
+The door was ajar. He knocked softly at it "Are you there, Theresa?" he
+called. He expected to find her, then, there in my room? I shrank back,
+fearing, almost, to stay.
+
+"I shall have finished in a moment," Theresa told him, and he sat down
+to wait for her.
+
+No spirit still unreleased can understand the pang that I felt with
+Allan sitting almost within my touch. Almost irresistibly the wish beset
+me to let him for an instant feel my nearness. Then I checked myself,
+remembering--oh, absurd, piteous human fears!--that my too unguarded
+closeness might alarm him. It was not so remote a time that I myself had
+known them, those blind, uncouth timidities. I came, therefore, somewhat
+nearer--but I did not touch him. I merely leaned toward him and with
+incredible softness whispered his name. That much I could not have
+forborne; the spell of life was still too strong in me.
+
+But it gave him no comfort, no delight. "Theresa!" he called, in a voice
+dreadful with alarm--and in that instant the last veil fell, and
+desperately, scarce believingly, I beheld how it stood between them,
+those two.
+
+She turned to him that gentle look of hers.
+
+"Forgive me," came from him hoarsely. "But I had suddenly the
+most--unaccountable sensation. Can there be too many windows open? There
+is such a--chill--about."
+
+"There are no windows open," Theresa assured him. "I took care to shut
+out the chill. You are not well, Allan!"
+
+"Perhaps not." He embraced the suggestion. "And yet I feel no illness
+apart from this abominable sensation that persists--persists....
+Theresa, you must tell me: do I fancy it, or do you, too,
+feel--something--strange here?"
+
+"Oh, there is something very strange here," she half sobbed. "There
+always will be."
+
+"Good heavens, child, I didn't mean that!" He rose and stood looking
+about him. "I know, of course, that you have your beliefs, and I respect
+them, but you know equally well that I have nothing of the sort!
+So--don't let us conjure up anything inexplicable."
+
+I stayed impalpably, imponderably near him. Wretched and bereft though I
+was, I could not have left him while he stood denying me.
+
+"What I mean," he went on, in his low, distinct voice, "is a special, an
+almost ominous sense of cold. Upon my soul, Theresa,"--he paused--"if I
+_were_ superstitious, if I _were_ a woman, I should probably imagine it
+to seem--a presence!"
+
+He spoke the last word very faintly, but Theresa shrank from it
+nevertheless.
+
+"_Don't_ say that, Allan!" she cried out. "Don't think it, I beg of you!
+I've tried so hard myself not to think it--and you must help me. You
+know it is only perturbed, uneasy spirits that wander. With her it is
+quite different. She has always been so happy--she must still be."
+
+I listened, stunned, to Theresa's sweet dogmatism. From what blind
+distances came her confident misapprehensions, how dense, both for her
+and for Allan, was the separating vapor!
+
+Allan frowned. "Don't take me literally, Theresa," he explained; and I,
+who a moment before had almost touched him, now held myself aloof and
+heard him with a strange untried pity, new born in me. "I'm not speaking
+of what you call--spirits. It's something much more terrible." He
+allowed his head to sink heavily on his chest. "If I did not positively
+know that I had never done her any harm, I should suppose myself to be
+suffering from guilt, from remorse.... Theresa, you know better than I,
+perhaps. Was she content, always? Did she believe in me?"
+
+"Believe in you?--when she knew you to be so good!--when you adored
+her!"
+
+"She thought that? She said it? Then what in Heaven's name ails
+me?--unless it is all as you believe, Theresa, and she knows now what
+she didn't know then, poor dear, and minds----"
+
+"Minds what? What do you mean, Allan?"
+
+I, who with my perhaps illegitimate advantage saw so clear, knew that he
+had not meant to tell her: I did him that justice, even in my first
+jealousy. If I had not tortured him so by clinging near him, he would
+not have told her. But the moment came, and overflowed, and he did tell
+her--passionate, tumultuous story that it was. During all our life
+together, Allan's and mine, he had spared me, had kept me wrapped in the
+white cloak of an unblemished loyalty. But it would have been kinder, I
+now bitterly thought, if, like many husbands, he had years ago found for
+the story he now poured forth some clandestine listener; I should not
+have known. But he was faithful and good, and so he waited till I, mute
+and chained, was there to hear him. So well did I know him, as I
+thought, so thoroughly had he once been mine, that I saw it in his eyes,
+heard it in his voice, before the words came. And yet, when it came, it
+lashed me with the whips of an unbearable humiliation. For I, his wife,
+had not known how greatly he could love.
+
+And that Theresa, soft little traitor, should, in her still way, have
+cared too! Where was the iron in her, I moaned within my stricken
+spirit, where the steadfastness? From the moment he bade her, she turned
+her soft little petals up to him--and my last delusion was spent. It was
+intolerable; and none the less so that in another moment she had,
+prompted by some belated thought of me, renounced him. Allan was hers,
+yet she put him from her; and it was my part to watch them both.
+
+Then in the anguish of it all I remembered, awkward, untutored spirit
+that I was, that I now had the Great Recourse. Whatever human things
+were unbearable, I had no need to bear. I ceased, therefore, to make
+the effort that kept me with them. The pitiless poignancy was dulled,
+the sounds and the light ceased, the lovers faded from me, and again I
+was mercifully drawn into the dim, infinite spaces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There followed a period whose length I cannot measure and during which I
+was able to make no progress in the difficult, dizzying experience of
+release. "Earth-bound" my jealousy relentlessly kept me. Though my two
+dear ones had forsworn each other, I could not trust them, for theirs
+seemed to me an affectation of a more than mortal magnanimity. Without a
+ghostly sentinel to prick them with sharp fears and recollections, who
+could believe that they would keep to it? Of the efficacy of my own
+vigilance, so long as I might choose to exercise it, I could have no
+doubt, for I had by this time come to have a dreadful exultation in the
+new power that lived in me. Repeated delicate experiment had taught me
+how a touch or a breath, a wish or a whisper, could control Allan's
+acts, could keep him from Theresa. I could manifest myself as palely, as
+transiently, as a thought. I could produce the merest necessary flicker,
+like the shadow of a just-opened leaf, on his trembling, tortured
+consciousness. And these unrealized perceptions of me he interpreted, as
+I had known that he would, as his soul's inevitable penance. He had come
+to believe that he had done evil in silently loving Theresa all these
+years, and it was my vengeance to allow him to believe this, to prod
+him ever to believe it afresh.
+
+I am conscious that this frame of mind was not continuous in me. For I
+remember, too, that when Allan and Theresa were safely apart and
+sufficiently miserable I loved them as dearly as I ever had, more dearly
+perhaps. For it was impossible that I should not perceive, in my new
+emancipation, that they were, each of them, something more and greater
+than the two beings I had once ignorantly pictured them. For years they
+had practiced a selflessness of which I could once scarcely have
+conceived, and which even now I could only admire without entering into
+its mystery. While I had lived solely for myself, these two divine
+creatures had lived exquisitely for me. They had granted me everything,
+themselves nothing. For my undeserving sake their lives had been a
+constant torment of renunciation--a torment they had not sought to
+alleviate by the exchange of a single glance of understanding. There
+were even marvelous moments when, from the depths of my newly informed
+heart, I pitied them--poor creatures, who, withheld from the infinite
+solaces that I had come to know, were still utterly within that
+
+                            Shell of sense
+    So frail, so piteously contrived for pain.
+
+Within it, yes; yet exercising qualities that so sublimely transcended
+it. Yet the shy, hesitating compassion that thus had birth in me was
+far from being able to defeat the earlier, earthlier emotion. The two, I
+recognized, were in a sort of conflict; and I, regarding it, assumed
+that the conflict would never end; that for years, as Allan and Theresa
+reckoned time, I should be obliged to withhold myself from the great
+spaces and linger suffering, grudging, shamed, where they lingered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It can never have been explained, I suppose, what, to devitalized
+perception such as mine, the contact of mortal beings with each other
+appears to be. Once to have exercised this sense-freed perception is to
+realize that the gift of prophecy, although the subject of such frequent
+marvel, is no longer mysterious. The merest glance of our sensitive and
+uncloyed vision can detect the strength of the relation between two
+beings, and therefore instantly calculate its duration. If you see a
+heavy weight suspended from a slender string, you can know, without any
+wizardry, that in a few moments the string will snap; well, such, if you
+admit the analogy, is prophecy, is foreknowledge. And it was thus that I
+saw it with Theresa and Allan. For it was perfectly visible to me that
+they would very little longer have the strength to preserve, near each
+other, the denuded impersonal relation that they, and that I, behind
+them, insisted on; and that they would have to separate. It was my
+sister, perhaps the more sensitive, who first realized this. It had now
+become possible for me to observe them almost constantly, the effort
+necessary to visit them had so greatly diminished; so that I watched
+her, poor, anguished girl, prepare to leave him. I saw each reluctant
+movement that she made. I saw her eyes, worn from self-searching; I
+heard her step grown timid from inexplicable fears; I entered her very
+heart and heard its pitiful, wild beating. And still I did not
+interfere.
+
+For at this time I had a wonderful, almost demoniacal sense of disposing
+of matters to suit my own selfish will. At any moment I could have
+checked their miseries, could have restored happiness and peace. Yet it
+gave me, and I could weep to admit it, a monstrous joy to know that
+Theresa thought she was leaving Allan of her own free intention, when it
+was I who was contriving, arranging, insisting.... And yet she
+wretchedly felt my presence near her; I am certain of that.
+
+A few days before the time of her intended departure my sister told
+Allan that she must speak with him after dinner. Our beautiful old house
+branched out from a circular hall with great arched doors at either end;
+and it was through the rear doorway that always in summer, after dinner,
+we passed out into the garden adjoining. As usual, therefore, when the
+hour came, Theresa led the way. That dreadful daytime brilliance that in
+my present state I found so hard to endure was now becoming softer. A
+delicate, capricious twilight breeze danced inconsequently through
+languidly whispering leaves. Lovely pale flowers blossomed like little
+moons in the dusk, and over them the breath of mignonette hung heavily.
+It was a perfect place--and it had so long been ours, Allan's and mine.
+It made me restless and a little wicked that those two should be there
+together now.
+
+For a little they walked about together, speaking of common, daily
+things. Then suddenly Theresa burst out:
+
+"I am going away, Allan. I have stayed to do everything that needed to
+be done. Now your mother will be here to care for you, and it is time
+for me to go."
+
+He stared at her and stood still. Theresa had been there so long, she so
+definitely, to his mind, belonged there. And she was, as I also had
+jealously known, so lovely there, the small, dark, dainty creature, in
+the old hall, on the wide staircases, in the garden.... Life there
+without Theresa, even the intentionally remote, the perpetually
+renounced Theresa--he had not dreamed of it, he could not, so suddenly,
+conceive of it.
+
+"Sit here," he said, and drew her down beside him on a bench, "and tell
+me what it means, why you are going. Is it because of something that I
+have been--have done?"
+
+She hesitated. I wondered if she would dare tell him. She looked out and
+away from him, and he waited long for her to speak.
+
+The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the
+leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and
+sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon,
+the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater--a moment when
+anything can happen, anything be believed in. To me, watching,
+listening, hovering, there came a dreadful purpose and a dreadful
+courage. Suppose for one moment, Theresa should not only feel, but _see_
+me--would she dare to tell him then?
+
+There came a brief space of terrible effort, all my fluttering,
+uncertain forces strained to the utmost. The instant of my struggle was
+endlessly long and the transition seemed to take place outside me--as
+one sitting in a train, motionless, sees the leagues of earth float by.
+And then, in a bright, terrible flash I knew I had achieved it--I had
+_attained visibility_. Shuddering, insubstantial, but luminously
+apparent, I stood there before them. And for the instant that I
+maintained the visible state I looked straight into Theresa's soul.
+
+She gave a cry. And then, thing of silly, cruel impulses that I was, I
+saw what I had done. The very thing that I wished to avert I had
+precipitated. For Allan, in his sudden terror and pity, had bent and
+caught her in his arms. For the first time they were together; and it
+was I who had brought them.
+
+Then, to his whispered urging to tell the reason of her cry, Theresa
+said:
+
+"Frances was here. You did not see her, standing there, under the
+lilacs, with no smile on her face?"
+
+"My dear, my dear!" was all that Allan said. I had so long now lived
+invisibly with them, he knew that she was right.
+
+"I suppose you know what it means?" she asked him, calmly.
+
+"Dear Theresa," Allan said, slowly, "if you and I should go away
+somewhere, could we not evade all this ghostliness? And will you come
+with me?"
+
+"Distance would not banish her," my sister confidently asserted. And
+then she said, softly: "Have you thought what a lonely, awesome thing it
+must be to be so newly dead? Pity her, Allan. We who are warm and alive
+should pity her. She loves you still,--that is the meaning of it all,
+you know--and she wants us to understand that for that reason we must
+keep apart. Oh, it was so plain in her white face as she stood there.
+And you did not see her?"
+
+"It was your face that I saw," Allan solemnly told her--oh, how
+different he had grown from the Allan that I had known!--"and yours is
+the only face that I shall ever see." And again he drew her to him.
+
+She sprang from him. "You are defying her, Allan!" she cried. "And you
+must not. It is her right to keep us apart, if she wishes. It must be as
+she insists. I shall go, as I told you. And, Allan, I beg of you, leave
+me the courage to do as she demands!"
+
+They stood facing each other in the deep dusk, and the wounds that I had
+dealt them gaped red and accusing. "We must pity her," Theresa had said.
+And as I remembered that extraordinary speech, and saw the agony in her
+face, and the greater agony in Allan's, there came the great irreparable
+cleavage between mortality and me. In a swift, merciful flame the last
+of my mortal emotions--gross and tenacious they must have been--was
+consumed. My cold grasp of Allan loosened and a new unearthly love of
+him bloomed in my heart.
+
+I was now, however, in a difficulty with which my experience in the
+newer state was scarcely sufficient to deal. How could I make it plain
+to Allan and Theresa that I wished to bring them together, to heal the
+wounds that I had made?
+
+Pityingly, remorsefully, I lingered near them all that night and the
+next day. And by that time had brought myself to the point of a great
+determination. In the little time that was left, before Theresa should
+be gone and Allan bereft and desolate, I saw the one way that lay open
+to me to convince them of my acquiescence in their destiny.
+
+In the deepest darkness and silence of the next night I made a greater
+effort than it will ever be necessary for me to make again. When they
+think of me, Allan and Theresa, I pray now that they will recall what I
+did that night, and that my thousand frustrations and selfishnesses may
+shrivel and be blown from their indulgent memories.
+
+Yet the following morning, as she had planned, Theresa appeared at
+breakfast dressed for her journey. Above in her room there were the
+sounds of departure. They spoke little during the brief meal, but when
+it was ended Allan said:
+
+"Theresa, there is half an hour before you go. Will you come upstairs
+with me? I had a dream that I must tell you of."
+
+"Allan!" She looked at him, frightened, but went with him. "It was of
+Frances you dreamed," she said, quietly, as they entered the library
+together.
+
+"Did I say it was a dream? But I was awake--thoroughly awake. I had not
+been sleeping well, and I heard, twice, the striking of the clock. And
+as I lay there, looking out at the stars, and thinking--thinking of you,
+Theresa,--she came to me, stood there before me, in my room. It was no
+sheeted specter, you understand; it was Frances, literally she. In some
+inexplicable fashion I seemed to be aware that she wanted to make me
+know something, and I waited, watching her face. After a few moments it
+came. She did not speak, precisely. That is, I am sure I heard no sound.
+Yet the words that came from her were definite enough. She said: 'Don't
+let Theresa leave you. Take her and keep her.' Then she went away. Was
+that a dream?"
+
+"I had not meant to tell you," Theresa eagerly answered, "but now I
+must. It is too wonderful. What time did your clock strike, Allan?"
+
+"One, the last time."
+
+"Yes; it was then that I awoke. And she had been with me. I had not seen
+her, but her arm had been about me and her kiss was on my cheek. Oh. I
+knew; it was unmistakable. And the sound of her voice was with me."
+
+"Then she bade you, too----"
+
+"Yes, to stay with you. I am glad we told each other." She smiled
+tearfully and began to fasten her wrap.
+
+"But you are not going--_now!_" Allan cried. "You know that you cannot,
+now that she has asked you to stay."
+
+"Then you believe, as I do, that it was she?" Theresa demanded.
+
+"I can never understand, but I know," he answered her. "And now you will
+not go?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am freed. There will be no further semblance of me in my old home, no
+sound of my voice, no dimmest echo of my earthly self. They have no
+further need of me, the two that I have brought together. Theirs is the
+fullest joy that the dwellers in the shell of sense can know. Mine is
+the transcendent joy of the unseen spaces.
+
+
+
+The Woman at Seven Brothers
+
+BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE
+
+     From _Land's End_, by Wilbur Daniel Steele. Copyright, 1908, by
+     Harper and Brothers. By permission of the publishers and Wilbur
+     Daniel Steele.
+
+
+I tell you sir, I was innocent. I didn't know any more about the world
+at twenty-two than some do at twelve. My uncle and aunt in Duxbury
+brought me up strict; I studied hard in high school, I worked hard after
+hours, and I went to church twice on Sundays, and I can't see it's right
+to put me in a place like this, with crazy people. Oh yes, I know
+they're crazy--you can't tell _me._ As for what they said in court about
+finding her with her husband, that's the Inspector's lie, sir, because
+he's down on me, and wants to make it look like my fault.
+
+No, sir, I can't say as I thought she was handsome--not at first. For
+one thing, her lips were too thin and white, and her color was bad. I'll
+tell you a fact, sir; that first day I came off to the Light I was
+sitting on my cot in the store-room (that's where the assistant keeper
+sleeps at the Seven Brothers), as lonesome as I could be, away from home
+for the first time, and the water all around me, and, even though it
+was a calm day, pounding enough on the ledge to send a kind of a
+_woom-woom-woom_ whining up through all that solid rock of the tower.
+And when old Fedderson poked his head down from the living-room with the
+sunshine above making a kind of bright frame around his hair and
+whiskers, to give me a cheery, "Make yourself to home, son!" I remember
+I said to myself: "_He's_ all right. I'll get along with _him_. But his
+wife's enough to sour milk." That was queer, because she was so much
+under him in age--'long about twenty-eight or so, and him nearer fifty.
+But that's what I said, sir.
+
+Of course that feeling wore off, same as any feeling will wear off
+sooner or later in a place like the Seven Brothers. Cooped up in a place
+like that you come to know folks so well that you forget what they _do_
+look like. There was a long time I never noticed her, any more than
+you'd notice the cat. We used to sit of an evening around the table, as
+if you were Fedderson there, and me here, and her somewhere back there,
+in the rocker, knitting. Fedderson would be working on his
+Jacob's-ladder, and I'd be reading. He'd been working on that
+Jacob's-ladder a year, I guess, and every time the Inspector came off
+with the tender he was so astonished to see how good that ladder was
+that the old man would go to work and make it better. That's all he
+lived for.
+
+If I was reading, as I say, I daren't take my eyes off the book, or
+Fedderson had me. And then he'd begin--what the Inspector said about
+him. How surprised the member of the board had been, that time, to see
+everything so clean about the light. What the Inspector had said about
+Fedderson's being stuck here in a second-class light--best keeper on the
+coast. And so on and so on, till either he or I had to go aloft and have
+a look at the wicks.
+
+He'd been there twenty-three years, all told, and he'd got used to the
+feeling that he was kept down unfair--so used to it, I guess, that he
+fed on it, and told himself how folks ashore would talk when he was dead
+and gone--best keeper on the coast--kept down unfair. Not that he said
+that to me. No, he was far too loyal and humble and respectful, doing
+his duty without complaint, as anybody could see.
+
+And all that time, night after night, hardly ever a word out of the
+woman. As I remember it, she seemed more like a piece of furniture than
+anything else--not even a very good cook, nor over and above tidy. One
+day, when he and I were trimming the lamp, he passed the remark that his
+_first_ wife used to dust the lens and take a pride in it. Not that he
+said a word against Anna, though. He never said a word against any
+living mortal; he was too upright.
+
+I don't know how it came about; or, rather, I _do_ know, but it was so
+sudden, and so far away from my thoughts, that it shocked me, like the
+world turned over. It was at prayers. That night I remember Fedderson
+was uncommon long-winded. We'd had a batch of newspapers out by the
+tender, and at such times the old man always made a long watch of it,
+getting the world straightened out. For one thing, the United States
+minister to Turkey was dead. Well, from him and his soul, Fedderson got
+on to Turkey and the Presbyterian college there, and from that to
+heathen in general. He rambled on and on, like the surf on the ledge,
+_woom-woom-woom_, never coming to an end.
+
+You know how you'll be at prayers sometimes. My mind strayed. I counted
+the canes in the chair-seat where I was kneeling; I plaited a corner of
+the table-cloth between my fingers for a spell, and by and by my eyes
+went wandering up the back of the chair.
+
+The woman, sir, was looking at me. Her chair was back to mine, close,
+and both our heads were down in the shadow under the edge of the table,
+with Fedderson clear over on the other side by the stove. And there were
+her two eyes hunting mine between the spindles in the shadow. You won't
+believe me, sir, but I tell you I felt like jumping to my feet and
+running out of the room--it was so queer.
+
+I don't know what her husband was praying about after that. His voice
+didn't mean anything, no more than the seas on the ledge away down
+there. I went to work to count the canes in the seat again, but all my
+eyes were in the top of my head. It got so I couldn't stand it. We were
+at the Lord's prayer, saying it singsong together, when I had to look up
+again. And there her two eyes were, between the spindles, hunting mine.
+Just then all of us were saying, "Forgive us our trespasses--" I thought
+of it afterward.
+
+When we got up she was turned the other way, but I couldn't help seeing
+her cheeks were red. It was terrible. I wondered if Fedderson would
+notice, though I might have known he wouldn't--not him. He was in too
+much of a hurry to get at his Jacob's-ladder, and then he had to tell me
+for the tenth time what the Inspector'd said that day about getting him
+another light--Kingdom Come, maybe, he said.
+
+I made some excuse or other and got away. Once in the store-room, I sat
+down on my cot and stayed there a long time, feeling queerer than
+anything. I read a chapter in the Bible, I don't know why. After I'd got
+my boots off I sat with them in my hands for as much as an hour, I
+guess, staring at the oil-tank and its lopsided shadow on the wall. I
+tell you, sir, I was shocked. I was only twenty-two remember, and I was
+shocked and horrified.
+
+And when I did turn in, finally, I didn't sleep at all well. Two or
+three times I came to, sitting straight up in bed. Once I got up and
+opened the outer door to have a look. The water was like glass, dim,
+without a breath of wind, and the moon just going down. Over on the
+black shore I made out two lights in a village, like a pair of eyes
+watching. Lonely? My, yes! Lonely and nervous. I had a horror of her,
+sir. The dinghy-boat hung on its davits just there in front of the door,
+and for a minute I had an awful hankering to climb into it, lower away,
+and row off, no matter where. It sounds foolish.
+
+Well, it seemed foolish next morning, with the sun shining and
+everything as usual--Fedderson sucking his pen and wagging his head over
+his eternal "log," and his wife down in the rocker with her head in the
+newspaper, and her breakfast work still waiting. I guess that jarred it
+out of me more than anything else--sight of her slouched down there,
+with her stringy, yellow hair and her dusty apron and the pale back of
+her neck, reading the Society Notes. _Society Notes_! Think of it! For
+the first time since I came to Seven Brothers I wanted to laugh.
+
+I guess I did laugh when I went aloft to clean the lamp and found
+everything so free and breezy, gulls flying high and little whitecaps
+making under a westerly. It was like feeling a big load dropped off your
+shoulders. Fedderson came up with his dust-rag and cocked his head at
+me.
+
+"What's the matter, Ray?" said he.
+
+"Nothing," said I. And then I couldn't help it. "Seems kind of out of
+place for society notes," said I, "out here at Seven Brothers."
+
+He was the other side of the lens, and when he looked at me he had a
+thousand eyes, all sober. For a minute I thought he was going on
+dusting, but then he came out and sat down on a sill.
+
+"Sometimes," said he, "I get to thinking it may be a mite dull for her
+out here. She's pretty young, Ray. Not much more'n a girl, hardly."
+
+"Not much more'n a _girl!_" It gave me a turn, sir, as though I'd seen
+my aunt in short dresses.
+
+"It's a good home for her, though," he went on slow. "I've seen a lot
+worse ashore, Ray. Of course if I could get a shore light----"
+
+"Kingdom Come's a shore light."
+
+He looked at me out of his deep-set eyes, and then he turned them around
+the light-room, where he'd been so long.
+
+"No," said he, wagging his head. "It ain't for such as me."
+
+I never saw so humble a man.
+
+"But look here," he went on, more cheerful. "As I was telling her just
+now, a month from yesterday's our fourth anniversary, and I'm going to
+take her ashore for the day and give her a holiday--new hat and
+everything. A girl wants a mite of excitement now and then, Ray."
+
+There it was again, that "girl." It gave me the fidgets, sir. I had to
+do something about it. It's close quarters for last names in a light,
+and I'd taken to calling him Uncle Matt soon after I came. Now, when I
+was at table that noon I spoke over to where she was standing by the
+stove, getting him another help of chowder.
+
+"I guess I'll have some, too, _Aunt_ Anna," said I, matter of fact.
+
+She never said a word nor gave a sign--just stood there kind of
+round-shouldered, dipping the chowder. And that night at prayers I
+hitched my chair around the table, with its back the other way.
+
+You get awful lazy in a lighthouse, some ways. No matter how much
+tinkering you've got, there's still a lot of time and there's such
+a thing as too much reading. The changes in weather get monotonous,
+too, by and by; the light burns the same on a thick night as it
+does on a fair one. Of course there's the ships, north-bound,
+south-bound--wind-jammers, freighters, passenger-boats full of
+people. In the watches at night you can see their lights go by, and
+wonder what they are, how they're laden, where they'll fetch up,
+and all. I used to do that almost every evening when it was my first
+watch, sitting out on the walk-around up there with my legs hanging
+over the edge and my chin propped on the railing--lazy. The Boston
+boat was the prettiest to see, with her three tiers of port-holes
+lit, like a string of pearls wrapped round and round a woman's
+neck--well away, too, for the ledge must have made a couple of
+hundred fathoms off the Light, like a white dog-tooth of a breaker,
+even on the darkest night.
+
+Well, I was lolling there one night, as I say, watching the Boston boat
+go by, not thinking of anything special, when I heard the door on the
+other side of the tower open and footsteps coming around to me.
+
+By and by I nodded toward the boat and passed the remark that she was
+fetching in uncommon close to-night. No answer. I made nothing of that,
+for oftentimes Fedderson wouldn't answer, and after I'd watched the
+lights crawling on through the dark a spell, just to make conversation I
+said I guessed there'd be a bit of weather before long.
+
+"I've noticed," said I, "when there's weather coming on, and the wind in
+the northeast, you can hear the orchestra playing aboard of her just
+over there. I make it out now. Do you?"
+
+"Yes. Oh--yes--! _I hear it all right!_"
+
+You can imagine I started. It wasn't him, but _her_.
+And there was something in the way she said that speech,
+sir--something--well--unnatural. Like a hungry animal snapping
+at a person's hand.
+
+I turned and looked at her sidewise. She was standing by the railing,
+leaning a little outward, the top of her from the waist picked out
+bright by the lens behind her. I didn't know what in the world to say,
+and yet I had a feeling I ought not to sit there mum.
+
+"I wonder," said I, "what that captain's thinking of, fetching in so
+handy to-night. It's no way. I tell you, if 'twasn't for this light,
+she'd go to work and pile up on the ledge some thick night----"
+
+She turned at that and stared straight into the lens. I didn't like the
+look of her face. Somehow, with its edges cut hard all around and its
+two eyes closed down to slits, like a cat's, it made a kind of mask.
+
+"And then," I went on, uneasy enough--"and then where'd all their music
+be of a sudden, and their goings-on and their singing----"
+
+"And dancing!" She clipped me off so quick it took my breath.
+
+"D-d-dancing?" said I.
+
+"That's dance-music," said she. She was looking at the boat again.
+
+"How do you know?" I felt I had to keep on talking.
+
+Well, sir--she laughed. I looked at her. She had on a shawl of some
+stuff or other that shined in the light; she had it pulled tight around
+her with her two hands in front at her breast, and I saw her shoulders
+swaying in tune.
+
+"How do I _know_?" she cried. Then she laughed again, the same kind of a
+laugh. It was queer, sir, to see her, and to hear her. She turned, as
+quick as that, and leaned toward me. "Don't you know how to dance, Ray?"
+said she.
+
+"N-no," I managed, and I was going to say "_Aunt Anna_," but the thing
+choked in my throat.
+
+I tell you she was looking square at me all the time with her two eyes
+and moving with the music as if she didn't know it. By heavens, sir, it
+came over me of a sudden that she wasn't so bad-looking, after all. I
+guess I must have sounded like a fool.
+
+"You--you see," said I, "she's cleared the rip there now, and the
+music's gone. You--you hear?"
+
+"Yes," said she, turning back slow. "That's where it stops every
+night--night after night--it stops just there--at the rip."
+
+When she spoke again her voice was different. I never heard the like of
+it, thin and taut as a thread. It made me shiver, sir.
+
+"I hate 'em!" That's what she said. "I hate 'em all. I'd like to see 'em
+dead. I'd love to see 'em torn apart on the rocks, night after night. I
+could bathe my hands in their blood, night after night."
+
+And do you know, sir, I saw it with my own eyes, her hands moving in
+each other above the rail. But it was her voice, though. I didn't know
+what to do, or what to say, so I poked my head through the railing and
+looked down at the water. I don't think I'm a coward, sir, but it was
+like a cold--ice-cold--hand, taking hold of my beating heart.
+
+When I looked up finally, she was gone. By and by I went in and had a
+look at the lamp, hardly knowing what I was about. Then, seeing by my
+watch it was time for the old man to come on duty, I started to go
+below. In the Seven Brothers, you understand, the stair goes down in a
+spiral through a well against the south wall and first there's the door
+to the keeper's room and then you come to another, and that's the
+living-room, and then down to the store-room. And at night, if you don't
+carry a lantern, it's as black as the pit.
+
+Well, down I went, sliding my hand along the rail, and as usual I
+stopped to give a rap on the keeper's door, in case he was taking a nap
+after supper. Sometimes he did.
+
+I stood there, blind as a bat, with my mind still up on the walk-around.
+There was no answer to my knock. I hadn't expected any. Just from habit,
+and with my right foot already hanging down for the next step, I reached
+out to give the door one more tap for luck.
+
+Do you know, sir, my hand didn't fetch up on anything. The door had been
+there a second before, and now the door wasn't there. My hand just went
+on going through the dark, on and on, and I didn't seem to have sense or
+power enough to stop it. There didn't seem any air in the well to
+breathe, and my ears were drumming to the surf--that's how scared I was.
+And then my hand touched the flesh of a face, and something in the dark
+said, "Oh!" no louder than a sigh.
+
+Next thing I knew, sir, I was down in the living-room, warm and
+yellow-lit, with Fedderson cocking his head at me across the table,
+where he was at that eternal Jacob's-ladder of his.
+
+"What's the matter, Ray?" said he. "Lord's sake, Ray!"
+
+"Nothing," said I. Then I think I told him I was sick. That night I
+wrote a letter to A.L. Peters, the grain-dealer in Duxbury, asking for a
+job--even though it wouldn't go ashore for a couple of weeks, just the
+writing of it made me feel better.
+
+It's hard to tell you how those two weeks went by. I don't know why, but
+I felt like hiding in a corner all the time. I had to come to meals, but
+I didn't look at her, though, not once, unless it was by accident.
+Fedderson thought I was still ailing and nagged me to death with advice
+and so on. One thing I took care not to do, I can tell you, and that was
+to knock on his door till I'd made certain he wasn't below in the
+living-room--though I was tempted to.
+
+Yes, sir; that's a queer thing, and I wouldn't tell you if I hadn't set
+out to give you the truth. Night after night, stopping there on the
+landing in that black pit, the air gone out of my lungs and the surf
+drumming in my ears and sweat standing cold on my neck--and one hand
+lifting up in the air--God forgive me, sir! Maybe I did wrong not to
+look at her more, drooping about her work in her gingham apron, with her
+hair stringing.
+
+When the Inspector came off with the tender, that time, I told him I
+was through. That's when he took the dislike to me, I guess, for he
+looked at me kind of sneering and said, soft as I was, I'd have to put
+up with it till next relief. And then, said he, there'd be a whole
+house-cleaning at Seven Brothers, because he'd gotten Fedderson the
+berth at Kingdom Come. And with that he slapped the old man on the back.
+
+I wish you could have seen Fedderson, sir. He sat down on my cot as if
+his knees had given 'way. Happy? You'd think he'd be happy, with all his
+dreams come true. Yes, he was happy, beaming all over--for a minute.
+Then, sir, he began to shrivel up. It was like seeing a man cut down in
+his prime before your eyes. He began to wag his head.
+
+"No," said he. "No, no; it's not for such as me. I'm good enough for
+Seven Brothers, and that's all, Mr. Bayliss. That's all."
+
+And for all the Inspector could say, that's what he stuck to. He'd
+figured himself a martyr so many years, nursed that injustice like a
+mother with her first-born, sir; and now in his old age, so to speak,
+they weren't to rob him of it. Fedderson was going to wear out his life
+in a second-class light, and folks would talk--that was his idea. I
+heard him hailing down as the tender was casting off:
+
+"See you to-morrow, Mr. Bayliss. Yep. Coming ashore with the wife for a
+spree. Anniversary. Yep."
+
+But he didn't sound much like a spree. They _had_, robbed him, partly,
+after all. I wondered what _she_ thought about it. I didn't know till
+night. She didn't show up to supper, which Fedderson and I got
+ourselves--had a headache, be said. It was my early watch. I went and
+lit up and came back to read a spell. He was finishing off the
+Jacob's-ladder, and thoughtful, like a man that's lost a treasure. Once
+or twice I caught him looking about the room on the sly. It was
+pathetic, sir.
+
+Going up the second time, I stepped out on the walk-around to have a
+look at things. She was there on the seaward side, wrapped in that silky
+thing. A fair sea was running across the ledge and it was coming on a
+little thick--not too thick. Off to the right the Boston boat was
+blowing, _whroom-whroom!_ Creeping up on us, quarter-speed. There was
+another fellow behind her, and a fisherman's conch farther offshore.
+
+I don't know why, but I stopped beside her and leaned on the rail. She
+didn't appear to notice me, one way or another. We stood and we stood,
+listening to the whistles, and the longer we stood the more it got on my
+nerves, her not noticing me. I suppose she'd been too much on my mind
+lately. I began to be put out. I scraped my feet. I coughed. By and by I
+said out loud:
+
+"Look here, I guess I better get out the fog-horn and give those fellows
+a toot."
+
+"Why?" said she, without moving her head--calm as that.
+
+"_Why?_" It gave me a turn, sir. For a minute I stared at her. "Why?
+Because if she don't pick up this light before very many minutes she'll
+be too close in to wear--tide'll have her on the rocks--that's why!"
+
+I couldn't see her face, but I could see one of her silk shoulders lift
+a little, like a shrug. And there I kept on staring at her, a dumb one,
+sure enough. I know what brought me to was hearing the Boston boat's
+three sharp toots as she picked up the light--mad as anything--and swung
+her helm a-port. I turned away from her, sweat stringing down my face,
+and walked around to the door. It was just as well, too, for the
+feed-pipe was plugged in the lamp and the wicks were popping. She'd have
+been out in another five minutes, sir.
+
+When I'd finished, I saw that woman standing in the doorway. Her eyes
+were bright. I had a horror of her, sir, a living horror.
+
+"If only the light had been out," said she, low and sweet.
+
+"God forgive you," said I. "You don't know what you're saying."
+
+She went down the stair into the well, winding out of sight, and as long
+as I could see her, her eyes were watching mine. When I went, myself,
+after a few minutes, she was waiting for me on that first landing,
+standing still in the dark. She took hold of my hand, though I tried to
+get it away.
+
+"Good-by," said she in my ear.
+
+"Good-by?" said I. I didn't understand.
+
+"You heard what he said to-day--about Kingdom Come? Be it so--on his own
+head. I'll never come back here. Once I set foot ashore--I've got
+friends in Brightonboro, Ray."
+
+I got away from her and started on down. But I stopped. "Brightonboro?"
+I whispered back. "Why do you tell _me_?" My throat was raw to the
+words, like a sore.
+
+"So you'd know," said she.
+
+Well, sir, I saw them off next morning, down that new Jacob's-ladder
+into the dinghy-boat, her in a dress of blue velvet and him in his best
+cutaway and derby--rowing away, smaller and smaller, the two of them.
+And then I went back and sat on my cot, leaving the door open and the
+ladder still hanging down the wall, along with the boat-falls.
+
+I don't know whether it was relief, or what. I suppose I must have been
+worked up even more than I'd thought those past weeks, for now it was
+all over I was like a rag. I got down on my knees, sir, and prayed to
+God for the salvation of my soul, and when I got up and climbed to the
+living-room it was half past twelve by the clock. There was rain on the
+windows and the sea was running blue-black under the sun. I'd sat there
+all that time not knowing there was a squall.
+
+It was funny; the glass stood high, but those black squalls kept coming
+and going all afternoon, while I was at work up in the light-room. And I
+worked hard, to keep myself busy. First thing I knew it was five, and no
+sign of the boat yet. It began to get dim and kind of purplish-gray over
+the land. The sun was down. I lit up, made everything snug, and got out
+the night-glasses to have another look for that boat. He'd said he
+intended to get back before five. No sign. And then, standing there, it
+came over me that of course he wouldn't be coming off--he'd be hunting
+_her_, poor old fool. It looked like I had to stand two men's watches
+that night.
+
+Never mind. I felt like myself again, even if I hadn't had any dinner or
+supper. Pride came to me that night on the walk-around, watching the
+boats go by--little boats, big boats, the Boston boat with all her
+pearls and her dance-music. They couldn't see me; they didn't know who I
+was; but to the last of them, they depended on _me_. They say a man must
+be born again. Well, I was born again. I breathed deep in the wind.
+
+Dawn broke hard and red as a dying coal. I put out the light and started
+to go below. Born again; yes, sir. I felt so good I whistled in the
+well, and when I came to the first door on the stair I reached out in
+the dark to give it a rap for luck. And then, sir, the hair prickled all
+over my scalp, when I found my hand just going on and on through the
+air, the same as it had gone once before, and all of a sudden I wanted
+to yell, because I thought I was going to touch flesh. It's funny what
+their just forgetting to close their door did to me, isn't it?
+
+Well, I reached for the latch and pulled it to with a bang and ran down
+as if a ghost was after me. I got up some coffee and bread and bacon for
+breakfast. I drank the coffee. But somehow I couldn't eat, all along of
+that open door. The light in the room was blood. I got to thinking. I
+thought how she'd talked about those men, women, and children on the
+rocks, and how she'd made to bathe her hands over the rail. I almost
+jumped out of my chair then; it seemed for a wink she was there beside
+the stove watching me with that queer half-smile--really, I seemed to
+see her for a flash across the red table-cloth in the red light of dawn.
+
+"Look here!" said I to myself, sharp enough; and then I gave myself a
+good laugh and went below. There I took a look out of the door, which
+was still open, with the ladder hanging down. I made sure to see the
+poor old fool come pulling around the point before very long now.
+
+My boots were hurting a little, and, taking them off, I lay down on the
+cot to rest, and somehow I went to sleep. I had horrible dreams. I saw
+her again standing in that blood-red kitchen, and she seemed to be
+washing her hands, and the surf on the ledge was whining up the tower,
+louder and louder all the time, and what it whined was, "Night after
+night--night after night." What woke me was cold water in my face.
+
+The store-room was in gloom. That scared me at first; I thought night
+had come, and remembered the light. But then I saw the gloom was of a
+storm. The floor was shining wet, and the water in my face was spray,
+flung up through the open door. When I ran to close it, it almost made
+me dizzy to see the gray-and-white breakers marching past. The land was
+gone; the sky shut down heavy overhead; there was a piece of wreckage on
+the back of a swell, and the Jacob's-ladder was carried clean away. How
+that sea had picked up so quick I can't think. I looked at my watch and
+it wasn't four in the afternoon yet.
+
+When I closed the door, sir, it was almost dark in the store-room. I'd
+never been in the Light before in a gale of wind. I wondered why I was
+shivering so, till I found it was the floor below me shivering, and the
+walls and stair. Horrible crunchings and grindings ran away up the
+tower, and now and then there was a great thud somewhere, like a
+cannon-shot in a cave. I tell you, sir, I was alone, and I was in a
+mortal fright for a minute or so. And yet I had to get myself together.
+There was the light up there not tended to, and an early dark coming on
+and a heavy night and all, and I had to go. And I had to pass that door.
+
+You'll say it's foolish, sir, and maybe it _was_ foolish. Maybe it was
+because I hadn't eaten. But I began thinking of that door up there the
+minute I set foot on the stair, and all the way up through that howling
+dark well I dreaded to pass it. I told myself I wouldn't stop. I didn't
+stop. I felt the landing underfoot and I went on, four steps, five--and
+then I couldn't. I turned and went back. I put out my hand and it went
+on into nothing. That door, sir, was open again.
+
+I left it be; I went on up to the light-room and set to work. It was
+Bedlam there, sir, screeching Bedlam, but I took no notice. I kept my
+eyes down. I trimmed those seven wicks, sir, as neat as ever they were
+trimmed; I polished the brass till it shone, and I dusted the lens. It
+wasn't till that was done that I let myself look back to see who it was
+standing there, half out of sight in the well. It was her, sir.
+
+"Where'd you come from?" I asked. I remember my voice was sharp.
+
+"Up Jacob's-ladder," said she, and hers was like the syrup of flowers.
+
+I shook my head. I was savage, sir. "The ladder's carried away."
+
+"I cast it off," said she, with a smile.
+
+"Then," said I, "you must have come while I was asleep." Another thought
+came on me heavy as a ton of lead. "And where's _he_?" said I. "Where's
+the boat?"
+
+"He's drowned," said she, as easy as that. "And I let the boat go
+adrift. You wouldn't hear me when I called."
+
+"But look here," said I. "If you came through the store-room, why didn't
+you wake me up? Tell me that!" It sounds foolish enough, me standing
+like a lawyer in court, trying to prove she _couldn't_ be there.
+
+She didn't answer for a moment. I guess she sighed, though I couldn't
+hear for the gale, and her eyes grew soft, sir, so soft.
+
+"I couldn't," said she. "You looked so peaceful--dear one."
+
+My cheeks and neck went hot, sir, as if a warm iron was laid on them. I
+didn't know what to say. I began to stammer, "What do you mean--" but
+she was going back down the stair, out of sight. My God sir, and I used
+not to think she was good-looking!
+
+I started to follow her. I wanted to know what she meant. Then I said to
+myself, "If I don't go--if I wait here--she'll come back." And I went to
+the weather side and stood looking out of the window. Not that there was
+much to see. It was growing dark, and the Seven Brothers looked like the
+mane of a running horse, a great, vast, white horse running into the
+wind. The air was a-welter with it. I caught one peep of a fisherman,
+lying down flat trying to weather the ledge, and I said, "God help them
+all to-night," and then I went hot at sound of that "God."
+
+I was right about her, though. She was back again. I wanted her to speak
+first, before I turned, but she wouldn't. I didn't hear her go out; I
+didn't know what she was up to till I saw her coming outside on the
+walk-around, drenched wet already. I pounded on the glass for her to
+come in and not be a fool; if she heard she gave no sign of it.
+
+There she stood, and there I stood watching her. Lord, sir--was it just
+that I'd never had eyes to see? Or are there women who bloom? Her
+clothes were shining on her, like a carving, and her hair was let down
+like a golden curtain tossing and streaming in the gale, and there she
+stood with her lips half open, drinking, and her eyes half closed,
+gazing straight away over the Seven Brothers, and her shoulders swaying,
+as if in tune with the wind and water and all the ruin. And when I
+looked at her hands over the rail, sir, they were moving in each other
+as if they bathed, and then I remembered, sir.
+
+A cold horror took me. I knew now why she had come back again. She
+wasn't a woman--she was a devil. I turned my back on her. I said to
+myself: "It's time to light up. You've got to light up"--like that, over
+and over, out loud. My hand was shivering so I could hardly find a
+match; and when I scratched it, it only flared a second and then went
+out in the back draught from the open door. She was standing in the
+doorway, looking at me. It's queer, sir, but I felt like a child caught
+in mischief.
+
+"I--I--was going to light up," I managed to say, finally.
+
+"Why?" said she. No, I can't say it as she did.
+
+"_Why?_" said I. "_My God!_"
+
+She came nearer, laughing, as if with pity, low, you know. "Your God?
+And who is your God? What is God? What is anything on a night like
+this?"
+
+I drew back from her. All I could say anything about was the light.
+
+"Why not the dark?" said she. "Dark is softer than
+light--tenderer--dearer than light. From the dark up here, away up here
+in the wind and storm, we can watch the ships go by, you and I. And you
+love me so. You've loved me so long, Ray."
+
+"I never have!" I struck out at her. "I don't! I don't!"
+
+Her voice was lower than ever, but there was the same laughing pity in
+it. "Oh yes, you have." And she was near me again.
+
+"I have?" I yelled. "I'll show you! I'll show you if I have!"
+
+I got another match, sir, and scratched it on the brass. I gave it to
+the first wick, the little wick that's inside all the others. It bloomed
+like a yellow flower. "I _have_?" I yelled, and gave it to the next.
+
+Then there was a shadow, and I saw she was leaning beside me, her two
+elbows on the brass, her two arms stretched out above the wicks, her
+bare forearms and wrists and hands. I gave a gasp:
+
+"Take care! You'll burn them! For God's sake----"
+
+She didn't move or speak. The match burned my fingers and went out, and
+all I could do was stare at those arms of hers, helpless. I'd never
+noticed her arms before. They were rounded and graceful and covered with
+a soft down, like a breath of gold. Then I heard her speaking close to
+my ear.
+
+"Pretty arms," she said. "Pretty arms!"
+
+I turned. Her eyes were fixed on mine. They seemed heavy, as if with
+sleep, and yet between their lids they were two wells, deep and deep,
+and as if they held all the things I'd ever thought or dreamed in them.
+I looked away from them, at her lips. Her lips were red as poppies,
+heavy with redness. They moved, and I heard them speaking:
+
+"Poor boy, you love me so, and you want to kiss me--don't you?"
+
+"No," said I. But I couldn't turn around. I looked at her hair. I'd
+always thought it was stringy hair. Some hair curls naturally with damp,
+they say, and perhaps that was it, for there were pearls of wet on it,
+and it was thick and shimmering around her face, making soft shadows by
+the temples. There was green in it, queer strands of green like braids.
+
+"What is it?" said I.
+
+"Nothing but weed," said she, with that slow, sleepy smile.
+
+Somehow or other I felt calmer than I had any time. "Look here," said I.
+"I'm going to light this lamp." I took out a match, scratched it, and
+touched the third wick. The flame ran around, bigger than the other two
+together. But still her arms hung there. I bit my lip. "By God, I will!"
+said I to myself, and I lit the fourth.
+
+It was fierce, sir, fierce! And yet those arms never trembled. I had to
+look around at her. Her eyes were still looking into mine, so deep and
+deep, and her red lips were still smiling with that queer, sleepy droop;
+the only thing was that tears were raining down her cheeks--big, glowing
+round, jewel tears. It wasn't human, sir. It was like a dream.
+
+"Pretty arms," she sighed, and then, as if those words had broken
+something in her heart, there came a great sob bursting from her lips.
+To hear it drove me mad. I reached to drag her away, but she was too
+quick, sir; she cringed from me and slipped out from between my hands.
+It was like she faded away, sir, and went down in a bundle, nursing her
+poor arms and mourning over them with those terrible, broken sobs.
+
+The sound of them took the manhood out of me--you'd have been the same,
+sir. I knelt down beside her on the floor and covered my face.
+
+"Please!" I moaned. "Please! Please!" That's all I could say. I wanted
+her to forgive me. I reached out a hand, blind, for forgiveness, and I
+couldn't find her anywhere. I had hurt her so, and she was afraid of
+me, of _me_, sir, who loved her so deep it drove me crazy.
+
+I could see her down the stair, though it was dim and my eyes were
+filled with tears. I stumbled after her, crying, "Please! Please!" The
+little wicks I'd lit were blowing in the wind from the door and smoking
+the glass beside them black. One went out. I pleaded with them, the same
+as I would plead with a human being. I said I'd be back in a second. I
+promised. And I went on down the stair, crying like a baby because I'd
+hurt her, and she was afraid of me--of _me_, sir.
+
+She had gone into her room. The door was closed against me and I could
+hear her sobbing beyond it, broken-hearted. My heart was broken too. I
+beat on the door with my palms. I begged her to forgive me. I told her I
+loved her. And all the answer was that sobbing in the dark.
+
+And then I lifted the latch and went in, groping, pleading.
+"Dearest--please! Because I love you!"
+
+I heard her speak down near the floor. There wasn't any anger in her
+voice; nothing but sadness and despair.
+
+"No," said she. "You don't love me, Ray. You never have."
+
+"I do! I have!"
+
+"No, no," said she, as if she was tired out.
+
+"Where are you?" I was groping for her. I thought, and lit a match. She
+had got to the door and was standing there as if ready to fly. I went
+toward her, and she made me stop. She took my breath away. "I hurt your
+arms," said I, in a dream.
+
+"No," said she, hardly moving her lips. She held them out to the match's
+light for me to look and there was never a scar on them--not even that
+soft, golden down was singed, sir. "You can't hurt my body," said she,
+sad as anything. "Only my heart, Ray; my poor heart."
+
+I tell you again, she took my breath away. I lit another match. "How can
+you be so beautiful?" I wondered.
+
+She answered in riddles--but oh, the sadness of her, sir.
+
+"Because," said she, "I've always so wanted to be."
+
+"How come your eyes so heavy?" said I.
+
+"Because I've seen so many things I never dreamed of," said she.
+
+"How come your hair so thick?"
+
+"It's the seaweed makes it thick," said she smiling queer, queer.
+
+"How come seaweed there?"
+
+"Out of the bottom of the sea."
+
+She talked in riddles, but it was like poetry to hear her, or a song.
+
+"How come your lips so red?" said I.
+
+"Because they've wanted so long to be kissed."
+
+Fire was on me, sir. I reached out to catch her, but she was gone, out
+of the door and down the stair. I followed, stumbling. I must have
+tripped on the turn, for I remember going through the air and fetching
+up with a crash, and I didn't know anything for a spell--how long I
+can't say. When I came to, she was there, somewhere, bending over me,
+crooning, "My love--my love--" under her breath like, a song.
+
+But then when I got up, she was not where my arms went; she was down the
+stair again, just ahead of me. I followed her. I was tottering and dizzy
+and full of pain. I tried to catch up with her in the dark of the
+store-room, but she was too quick for me, sir, always a little too quick
+for me. Oh, she was cruel to me, sir. I kept bumping against things,
+hurting myself still worse, and it was cold and wet and a horrible noise
+all the while, sir; and then, sir, I found the door was open, and a sea
+had parted the hinges.
+
+I don't know how it all went, sir. I'd tell you if I could, but it's all
+so blurred--sometimes it seems more like a dream. I couldn't find her
+any more; I couldn't hear her; I went all over, everywhere. Once, I
+remember, I found myself hanging out of that door between the davits,
+looking down into those big black seas and crying like a baby. It's all
+riddles and blur. I can't seem to tell you much, sir. It was all--all--I
+don't know.
+
+I was talking to somebody else--not her. It was the Inspector. I hardly
+knew it was the Inspector. His face was as gray as a blanket, and his
+eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were twisted. His left wrist hung
+down, awkward. It was broken coming aboard the Light in that sea. Yes,
+we were in the living-room. Yes, sir, it was daylight--gray daylight. I
+tell you, sir, the man looked crazy to me. He was waving his good arm
+toward the weather windows, and what he was saying, over and over, was
+this:
+
+"_Look what you done, damn you! Look what you done_!"
+
+And what I was saying was this:
+
+"_I've lost her_!"
+
+I didn't pay any attention to him, nor him to me. By and by he did,
+though. He stopped his talking all of a sudden, and his eyes looked like
+the devil's eyes. He put them up close to mine. He grabbed my arm with
+his good hand, and I cried, I was so weak.
+
+"Johnson," said he, "is that it? By the living God--if you got a woman
+out here, Johnson!"
+
+"No," said I. "I've lost her."
+
+"What do you mean--lost her?"
+
+"It was dark," said I--and it's funny how my head was clearing up--"and
+the door was open--the store-room door--and I was after her--and I guess
+she stumbled, maybe--and I lost her."
+
+"Johnson," said he, "what do you mean? You sound crazy--downright crazy.
+Who?"
+
+"Her," said I. "Fedderson's wife."
+
+"_Who?_"
+
+"Her," said I. And with that he gave my arm another jerk.
+
+"Listen," said he, like a tiger. "Don't try that on me. It won't do any
+good--that kind of lies--not where _you're_ going to. Fedderson and his
+wife, too--the both of 'em's drowned deader 'n a door-nail."
+
+"I know," said I, nodding my head. I was so calm it made him wild.
+
+"You're crazy! Crazy as a loon, Johnson!" And he was chewing his lip
+red. "I know, because it was me that found the old man laying on Back
+Water Flats yesterday morning--_me!_ And she'd been with him in the
+boat, too, because he had a piece of her jacket tore off, tangled in his
+arm."
+
+"I know," said I, nodding again, like that.
+
+"You know _what_, you _crazy, murdering fool_?" Those were his words to
+me, sir.
+
+"I know," said I, "what I know."
+
+"And _I_ know," said he, "what _I_ know."
+
+And there you are, sir. He's Inspector. I'm--nobody.
+
+
+
+At the Gate
+
+BY MYLA JO CLOSSER
+
+     From the _Century Magazine_. By permission of the Century Company
+     and Myla J. Closser.
+
+
+A shaggy Airedale scented his way along the highroad. He had not been
+there before, but he was guided by the trail of his brethren who had
+preceded him. He had gone unwillingly upon this journey, yet with the
+perfect training of dogs he had accepted it without complaint. The path
+had been lonely, and his heart would have failed him, traveling as he
+must without his people, had not these traces of countless dogs before
+him promised companionship of a sort at the end of the road.
+
+The landscape had appeared arid at first, for the translation from
+recent agony into freedom from pain had been so numbing in its swiftness
+that it was some time before he could fully appreciate the pleasant
+dog-country through which he was passing. There were woods with leaves
+upon the ground through which to scurry, long grassy slopes for extended
+runs, and lakes into which he might plunge for sticks and bring them
+back to--But he did not complete his thought, for the boy was not with
+him. A little wave of homesickness possessed him.
+
+It made his mind easier to see far ahead a great gate as high as the
+heavens, wide enough for all. He understood that only man built such
+barriers and by straining his eyes he fancied he could discern humans
+passing through to whatever lay beyond. He broke into a run that he
+might the more quickly gain this inclosure made beautiful by men and
+women; but his thoughts outran his pace, and he remembered that he had
+left the family behind, and again this lovely new compound became not
+perfect, since it would lack the family.
+
+The scent of the dogs grew very strong now, and coming nearer, he
+discovered, to his astonishment that of the myriads of those who had
+arrived ahead of him thousands were still gathered on the outside of the
+portal. They sat in a wide circle spreading out on each side of the
+entrance, big, little, curly, handsome, mongrel, thoroughbred dogs of
+every age, complexion, and personality. All were apparently waiting for
+something, someone, and at the pad of the Airedale's feet on the hard
+road they arose and looked in his direction.
+
+That the interest passed as soon as they discovered the new-comer to be
+a dog puzzled him. In his former dwelling-place a four-footed brother
+was greeted with enthusiasm when he was a friend, with suspicious
+diplomacy when a stranger, and with sharp reproof when an enemy; but
+never had he been utterly ignored.
+
+He remembered something that he had read many times on great buildings
+with lofty entrances. "Dogs not admitted," the signs had said, and he
+feared this might be the reason for the waiting circle outside the gate.
+It might be that this noble portal stood as the dividing-line between
+mere dogs and humans. But he had been a member of the family, romping
+with them in the living-room, sitting at meals with them in the
+dining-room, going upstairs at night with them, and the thought that he
+was to be "kept out" would be unendurable.
+
+He despised the passive dogs. They should be treating a barrier after
+the fashion of their old country, leaping against it, barking, and
+scratching the nicely painted door. He bounded up the last little hill
+to set them an example, for he was still full of the rebellion of the
+world; but he found no door to leap against. He could see beyond the
+entrance dear masses of people, yet no dog crossed the threshold. They
+continued in their patient ring, their gaze upon the winding road.
+
+He now advanced cautiously to examine the gate. It occurred to him that
+it must be fly-time in this region, and he did not wish to make himself
+ridiculous before all these strangers by trying to bolt through an
+invisible mesh like the one that had baffled him when he was a little
+chap. Yet there were no screens, and despair entered his soul. What
+bitter punishment these poor beasts must have suffered before they
+learned to stay on this side the arch that led to human beings! What
+had they done on earth to merit this? Stolen bones troubled his
+conscience, runaway days, sleeping in the best chair until the key
+clicked in the lock. These were sins.
+
+At that moment an English bull-terrier, white, with liver-colored spots
+and a jaunty manner, approached him, snuffling in a friendly way. No
+sooner had the bull-terrier smelt his collar than he fell to expressing
+his joy at meeting him. The Airedale's reserve was quite thawed by this
+welcome, though he did not know just what to make of it.
+
+"I know you! I know you!" exclaimed the bull-terrier, adding
+inconsequently, "What's your name?"
+
+"Tam o'Shanter. They call me Tammy," was the answer, with a pardonable
+break in the voice.
+
+"I know them," said the bull-terrier. "Nice folks."
+
+"Best ever," said the Airedale, trying to be nonchalant, and scratching
+a flea which was not there. "I don't remember you. When did you know
+them?"
+
+"About fourteen tags ago, when they were first married. We keep track of
+time here by the license-tags. I had four."
+
+"This is my first and only one. You were before my time, I guess." He
+felt young and shy.
+
+"Come for a walk, and tell me all about them," was his new friend's
+invitation.
+
+"Aren't we allowed in there?" asked Tam, looking toward the gate.
+
+"Sure. You can go in whenever you want to. Some of us do at first, but
+we don't stay."
+
+"Like it better outside?"
+
+"No, no; it isn't that."
+
+"Then why are all you fellows hanging around here? Any old dog can see
+it's better beyond the arch."
+
+"You see, we're waiting for our folks to come."
+
+The Airedale grasped it at once, and nodded understandingly.
+
+"I felt that way when I came along the road. It wouldn't be what it's
+supposed to be without them. It wouldn't be the perfect place."
+
+"Not to us," said the bull-terrier.
+
+"Fine! I've stolen bones, but it must be that I have been forgiven, if
+I'm to see them here again. It's the great good place all right. But
+look here," he added as a new thought struck him, "do they wait for us?"
+
+The older inhabitant coughed in slight embarrassment.
+
+"The humans couldn't do that very well. It wouldn't be the thing to have
+them hang around outside for just a dog--not dignified."
+
+"Quite right," agreed Tam. "I'm glad they go straight to their mansions.
+I'd--I'd hate to have them missing me as I am missing them." He sighed.
+"But, then, they wouldn't have to wait so long."
+
+"Oh, well, they're getting on. Don't be discouraged," comforted the
+terrier. "And in the meantime it's like a big hotel in summer--watching
+the new arrivals. See, there is something doing now."
+
+All the dogs were aroused to excitement by a little figure making its
+way uncertainly up the last slope. Half of them started to meet it,
+crowding about in a loving, eager pack.
+
+"Look out; don't scare it," cautioned the older animals, while word was
+passed to those farthest from the gate: "Quick! Quick! A baby's come!"
+
+Before they had entirely assembled, however, a gaunt yellow hound pushed
+through the crowd, gave one sniff at the small child, and with a yelp of
+joy crouched at its feet. The baby embraced the hound in recognition,
+and the two moved toward the gate. Just outside the hound stopped to
+speak to an aristocratic St. Bernard who had been friendly:
+
+"Sorry to leave you, old fellow," he said, "but I'm going in to watch
+over the kid. You see, I'm all she has up here."
+
+The bull-terrier looked at the Airedale for appreciation.
+
+"That's the way we do it," he said proudly.
+
+"Yes, but--" the Airedale put his head on one side in perplexity.
+
+"Yes, but what?" asked the guide.
+
+"The dogs that don't have any people--the nobodies' dogs?"
+
+"That's the best of all. Oh, everything is thought out here. Crouch
+down,--you must be tired,--and watch," said the bull-terrier.
+
+Soon they spied another small form making the turn in the road. He wore
+a Boy Scout's uniform, but he was a little fearful, for all that, so new
+was this adventure. The dogs rose again and snuffled, but the better
+groomed of the circle held back, and in their place a pack of odds and
+ends of the company ran down to meet him. The Boy Scout was reassured by
+their friendly attitude, and after petting them impartially, he chose an
+old-fashioned black and tan, and the two passed in.
+
+Tam looked questioningly.
+
+"They didn't know each other!" he exclaimed.
+
+"But they've always wanted to. That's one of the boys who used to beg
+for a dog, but his father wouldn't let him have one. So all our strays
+wait for just such little fellows to come along. Every boy gets a dog,
+and every dog gets a master."
+
+"I expect the boy's father would like to know that now," commented the
+Airedale. "No doubt he thinks quite often, 'I wish I'd let him have a
+dog.'"
+
+The bull-terrier laughed.
+
+"You're pretty near the earth yet, aren't you?"
+
+Tam admitted it.
+
+"I've a lot of sympathy with fathers and with boys, having them both in
+the family, and a mother as well."
+
+The bull-terrier leaped up in astonishment.
+
+"You don't mean to say they keep a boy?"
+
+"Sure; greatest boy on earth. Ten this year."
+
+"Well, well, this is news! I wish they'd kept a boy when I was there."
+
+The Airedale looked at his new friend intently.
+
+"See here, who are you?" he demanded.
+
+But the other hurried on:
+
+"I used to run away from them just to play with a boy. They'd punish me,
+and I always wanted to tell them it was their fault for not getting
+one."
+
+"Who are you, anyway?" repeated Tam. "Talking all this interest in me,
+too. Whose dog _were_ you?"
+
+"You've already guessed. I see it in your quivering snout. I'm the old
+dog that had to leave them about ten years ago."
+
+"Their old dog Bully?"
+
+"Yes, I'm Bully." They nosed each other with deeper affection, then
+strolled about the glades shoulder to shoulder. Bully the more eagerly
+pressed for news. "Tell me, how are they getting along?"
+
+"Very well indeed; they've paid for the house."
+
+"I--I suppose you occupy the kennel?"
+
+"No. They said they couldn't stand it to see another dog in your old
+place."
+
+Bully stopped to howl gently.
+
+"That touches me. It's generous in you to tell it. To think they missed
+me!"
+
+For a little while they went on in silence, but as evening fell, and
+the light from the golden streets inside of the city gave the only glow
+to the scene, Bully grew nervous and suggested that they go back.
+
+"We can't see so well at night, and I like to be pretty close to the
+path, especially toward morning."
+
+Tam assented.
+
+"And I will point them out. You might not know them just at first."
+
+"Oh, we know them. Sometimes the babies have so grown up they're rather
+hazy in their recollection of how we look. They think we're bigger than
+we are; but you can't fool us dogs."
+
+"It's understood," Tam cunningly arranged, "that when he or she arrives
+you'll sort of make them feel at home while I wait for the boy?"
+
+"That's the best plan," assented Bully, kindly. "And if by any chance
+the little fellow should come first,--there's been a lot of them this
+summer--of course you'll introduce me?"
+
+"I shall be proud to do it."
+
+And so with muzzles sunk between their paws, and with their eyes
+straining down the pilgrims' road, they wait outside the gate.
+
+
+
+
+Ligeia
+
+BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
+
+     And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
+     mystery of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will
+     pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not
+     yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only
+     through the weakness of his feeble will.--_Joseph Glanvill._
+
+
+I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I
+first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since
+elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I
+cannot _now_ bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the
+character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast
+of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low
+musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and
+stealthily progressive, that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I
+believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large, old,
+decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family--I have surely heard her
+speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia!
+Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than all else adapted to
+deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by that sweet word
+alone--by Ligeia--that I bring before mine eyes in fancy the image of
+her who is no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon
+me that I have _never known_ the paternal name of her who was my friend
+and my bethrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and finally
+the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia?
+or was it a test of my strength of affection, that I should institute no
+inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own--a
+wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion?
+I but indistinctly recall the fact itself--what wonder that I have
+utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it?
+And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled _Romance_--if ever
+she, the wan misty-winged _Ashtophet_ of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as
+they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over
+mine.
+
+There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails me not. It
+is the _person_ of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat
+slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain
+attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease of her demeanor, or the
+incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came
+and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into
+my closed study, save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she
+placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden
+ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream--an airy and
+spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which
+hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her
+features were not of that regular mold which we have been falsely taught
+to worship in the classical labors of the heathen. "There is no exquisite
+beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and
+_genera_ of beauty, "without some _strangeness_ in the proportion."
+Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic
+regularity--although I perceived that her loveliness was indeed
+"exquisite," and felt that there was much of "strangeness" pervading it,
+yet I have tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home my
+own perception of "the strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and
+pale forehead--it was faultless--how cold indeed that word when applied
+to a majesty so divine!--the skin rivaling the purest ivory, the
+commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above
+the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant, and
+naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric
+epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the
+nose--and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I
+beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of
+surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the
+same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded
+the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly--the
+magnificent turn of the short upper lip--the soft, voluptuous slumber of
+the under--the dimples which sported, and the color which spoke--the
+teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling, every ray of
+the holy light which fell upon them in her serene and placid yet most
+exultingly radiant of all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the
+chin--and, here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, the softness
+and the majesty, the fullness and the spirituality, of the Greek--the
+contour which the god Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the
+son of the Athenian. And then I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.
+
+For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might have been,
+too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the secret to which Lord
+Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger than the ordinary
+eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the fullest of the
+gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at
+intervals--in moments of intense excitement--that this peculiarity
+became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was
+her beauty--in my heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps--the beauty of
+beings either above or apart from the earth--the beauty of the fabulous
+Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black,
+and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows,
+slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The "strangeness,"
+however, which I found in the eyes was of a nature distinct from the
+formation, or the color, or the brilliancy of the features, and must,
+after all, be referred to the _expression_. Ah, word of no meaning!
+behind whose vast latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so
+much of the spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for
+long hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, through the whole of a
+midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What was it--that something
+more profound than the well of Democritus--which lay far within the
+pupils of my beloved? What _was_ it? I was possessed with a passion to
+discover. Those eyes! those large, those shining, those divine orbs!
+they became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of
+astrologers.
+
+There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of the
+science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the fact--never, I
+believe, noticed in the schools--than in our endeavors to recall to
+memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves _upon the very
+verge_ of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember. And
+thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia's eyes, have I
+felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression--felt it
+approaching--yet not quite be mine--and so at length entirely depart!
+And (strange, oh, strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the commonest
+objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression. I
+mean to say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia's beauty passed
+into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many
+existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt always
+around, within me, by her large and luminous orbs. Yet not the more
+could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I
+recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly
+growing vine--in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis,
+a stream of running water. I have felt it in the ocean--in the falling
+of a meteor. I have felt it in the glances of unusually aged people. And
+there are one or two stars in heaven (one especially, a star of the
+sixth magnitude, double and changeable, to be found near the large star
+in Lyra) in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the
+feeling. I have been filled with it by certain sounds from stringed
+instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from books. Among
+innumerable other instances, I well remember something in a volume of
+Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely from its quaintness--who shall
+say?) never failed to inspire me with the sentiment: "And the will
+therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will,
+with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by
+nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto
+death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
+
+Length of years and subsequent reflection have enabled me to trace,
+indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the English
+moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An _intensity_ in
+thought, action, or speech was possibly, in her, a result, or at least
+an index, of that gigantic volition which, during our long intercourse,
+failed to give other and more immediate evidence of its existence. Of
+all the women whom I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the
+ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous
+vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate,
+save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so
+delighted and appalled me,--by the almost magical melody, modulation,
+distinctness, and placidity of her very low voice,--and by the fierce
+energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of
+utterance) of the wild words which she habitually uttered.
+
+I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense--such as I have
+never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she deeply
+proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard to the
+modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault. Indeed upon
+any theme of the most admired because simply the most abstruse of the
+boasted erudition of the Academy, have I _ever_ found Ligeia at fault?
+How singularly--how thrillingly, this one point in the nature of my wife
+has forced itself, at this late period only, upon my attention! I said
+her knowledge was such as I have never known in woman--but where
+breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, _all_ the wide
+areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw not then what
+I now clearly perceive that the acquisitions of Ligeia were gigantic,
+were astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy
+to resign myself, with a child-like confidence, to her guidance through
+the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation at which I was most
+busily occupied during the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast
+a triumph--with how vivid a delight--with how much of all that is
+ethereal in hope did I _feel_, as she bent over me in studies but little
+sought--but less known,--that delicious vista by slow degrees expanding
+before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I might at
+length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely precious not to
+be forbidden.
+
+How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some
+years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to themselves
+and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted. Her
+presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly luminous the many
+mysteries of the transcendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting
+the radiant luster of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew duller
+than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and less frequently
+upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed
+with a too--too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers became of the
+transparent waxen hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the lofty
+forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle
+emotion. I saw that she must die--and I struggled desperately in spirit
+with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the passionate wife were, to
+my astonishment, even more energetic than my own. There had been much in
+her stern nature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would
+have come without its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to convey
+any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled
+with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I would
+have soothed--I would have reasoned; but in the intensity of her wild
+desire for life--for life--_but_ for life--solace and reason were alike
+the uttermost of folly. Yet not until the last instance, amid the most
+convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shaken the external
+placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew more gentle--grew more
+low--yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild meaning of the quietly
+uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkened, entranced, to a melody
+more than mortal--to assumptions and aspirations which mortality had
+never before known.
+
+That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have been
+easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have reigned no
+ordinary passion. But in death only was I fully impressed with the
+strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand, would she
+pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate
+devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by
+such confessions?--how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal
+of my beloved in the hour of my making them? But upon this subject I
+cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than
+womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily
+bestowed, I at length, recognized the principle of her longing, with so
+wildly earnest a desire, for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly
+away. It is this wild longing--it is this eager vehemence of desire for
+life--_but_ for life--that I have no power to portray--no utterance
+capable of expressing.
+
+At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,
+peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses composed by
+herself not many days before. I obeyed her. They were these:--
+
+    Lo! 'tis a gala night
+      Within the lonesome latter years!
+    An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
+      In veils, and drowned in tears,
+    Sit in a theatre, to see
+      A play of hopes and fears,
+    While the orchestra breathes fitfully
+      The music of the spheres.
+
+    Mimes, in the form of God on high,
+      Mutter and mumble low,
+    And hither and thither fly;
+      Mere puppets they, who come and go
+    At bidding of vast formless things
+      That shift the scenery to and fro,
+    Flapping from out their condor wings
+      Invisible Wo!
+
+    That motley drama!--oh, be sure
+      It shall not be forgot!
+    With its Phantom chased for evermore
+      By a crowd that seize it not,
+    Through a circle that ever returneth in
+      To the self-same spot;
+    And much of Madness, and more of Sin
+      And Horror, the soul of the plot!
+
+    But see, amid the mimic rout,
+      A crawling shape intrude!
+    A blood-red thing that writhes from out
+      The scenic solitude!
+    It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
+      The mimes become its food,
+    And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
+      In human gore imbued.
+
+    Out--out are the lights--out all:
+      And over each quivering form,
+    The curtain, a funeral pall,
+      Comes down with the rush of a storm--
+    And the angels, all pallid and wan,
+      Uprising, unveiling, affirm
+    That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
+      And its hero, the conqueror Worm.
+
+"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her
+arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these
+lines--"O God! O Divine Father!--shall these things be undeviatingly
+so?--shall this conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and
+parcel in Thee? Who--who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its
+vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, _nor unto death utterly_,
+save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
+
+And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms to
+fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as she breathed her
+last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from her lips. I
+bent to them my ear, and distinguished, again, the concluding words of
+the passage in Glanvill: "_Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor
+unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will._"
+
+She died: and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no longer
+endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and decaying
+city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls wealth. Ligeia
+had brought me far more, very far more, than ordinarily falls to the lot
+of mortals. After a few months, therefore, of weary and aimless
+wandering, I purchased and put in some repair, an abbey, which I shall
+not name, in one of the wildest and least frequented portions of fair
+England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost
+savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored
+memories connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of
+utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and unsocial
+region of the country. Yet although the external abbey, with its verdant
+decay hanging about it, suffered but little alteration, I gave way, with
+a child-like perversity, and perchance with a faint hope of alleviating
+my sorrows, to a display of more than regal magnificence within. For
+such follies, even in childhood, I had imbibed a taste, and now they
+came back to me as if in the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even
+of incipient madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and
+fantastic draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild
+cornices and furniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted
+gold! I had become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my
+labors and my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But these
+absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me speak only of that one
+chamber, ever accursed, whither, in a moment of mental alienation, I led
+from the altar as my bride--as the successor of the unforgotten
+Ligeia--the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of
+Tremaine.
+
+There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration of
+that bridal chamber which is not visibly before me. Where were the souls
+of the haughty family of the bride, when, through thirst of gold, they
+permitted to pass the threshold of an apartment _so_ bedecked, a maiden
+and a daughter so beloved? I have said, that I minutely remember the
+details of the chamber--yet I am sadly forgetful on topics of deep
+moment; and here there was no system, no keeping, in the fantastic
+display to take hold upon the memory. The room lay in a high turret of
+the castellated abbey, was pentagonal in shape, and of capacious size.
+Occupying the whole southern face of the pentagonal was the sole
+window--an immense sheet of unbroken glass from Venice--a single pane,
+and tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or moon
+passing through it, fell with a ghastly luster on the objects within.
+Over the upper portion of this huge window extended the trellis-work of
+an aged vine, which clambered up the massy walls of the turret. The
+ceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and
+elaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a
+semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. From out the most central recess of
+this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with long
+links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in pattern, and with
+many perforations so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, as
+if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual succession of
+parti-colored fires.
+
+Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were in
+various stations about; and there was the couch, too--the bridal
+couch--of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony, with
+a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamber stood on
+end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings
+over against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial sculpture.
+But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the chief phantasy of
+all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height--even unproportionably so--were
+hung from summit to foot, in vast folds, with a heavy and
+massive-looking tapestry--tapestry of a material which was found alike
+as a carpet on the floor, as a covering for the ottomans and the ebony
+bed, as a canopy for the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the
+curtains which partially shaded the window. The material was the richest
+cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular intervals, with
+arabesque figures, about a foot in diameter, and wrought upon the cloth
+in patterns of the most jetty black. But these figures partook of the
+true character of the arabesque only when regarded from a single point
+of view. By a contrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very
+remote period of antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one
+entering the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but
+upon a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and, step by
+step, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself
+surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong to
+the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of the
+monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial
+introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind the
+draperies--giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.
+
+In halls such as these--in a bridal chamber such as this--I passed, with
+the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the first month of our
+marriage--passed them with but little disquietude. That my wife dreaded
+the fierce moodiness of my temper--that she shunned me, and loved me but
+little--I could not help perceiving; but it gave me rather pleasure than
+otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred belonging more to demon than to
+man. My memory flew back (oh, with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia,
+the beloved, the august, the beautiful, the entombed. I reveled in
+recollections of her purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty--her ethereal
+nature, of her passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit
+fully and freely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In the
+excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the
+shackles of the drug), I would call aloud upon her name, during the
+silence of the night, or among the sheltered recesses of the glens by
+day, as if, through the wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the
+consuming ardor of my longing for the departed, I could restore her to
+the pathways she had abandoned--ah, _could_ it be forever?--upon the
+earth.
+
+About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the Lady
+Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery was
+slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy; and in
+her perturbed state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of
+motions, in and about the chamber of the turret, which I concluded had
+no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the
+phantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She became at length
+convalescent--finally, well. Yet but a second more violent disorder
+again threw her upon a bed of suffering; and from this attack her frame,
+at all times feeble, never altogether recovered. Her illnesses were,
+after this epoch, of alarming character, and of more alarming
+recurrence, defying alike the knowledge and the great exertions of her
+physicians. With the increase of the chronic disease, which had thus,
+apparently, taken too sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated
+by human means, I could not fail to observe a similar increase in the
+nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by
+trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently and
+pertinaciously, of the sounds--of the slight sounds--and of the unusual
+motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly alluded.
+
+One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this
+distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention. She
+had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had been watching, with
+feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror, the workings of her
+emaciated countenance. I sat by the side of her ebony bed, upon one of
+the ottomans of India. She partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low
+whisper, of sounds which she _then_ heard, but which I could not
+hear--of motions which she _then_ saw, but which I could not perceive.
+The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I wished to
+show her (what, let me confess it, I could not _all_ believe) that those
+almost inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations of the
+figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of that customary
+rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor, overspreading her face, had
+proved to me that my exertions to reassure her would be fruitless. She
+appeared to be fainting, and no attendants were within call. I
+remembered where was deposited a decanter of light wine which had been
+ordered by her physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure
+it. But, as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two
+circumstances of a startling nature attracted my attention. I had felt
+that some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my
+person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in the very
+middle of the rich luster thrown from the censer, a shadow--a faint,
+indefinite shadow of angelic aspect--such as might be fancied for the
+shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate
+dose of opium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them to
+Rowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber, and poured out a
+gobletful, which I held to the lips of the fainting lady. She had now
+partially recovered, however, and took the vessel herself, while I sank
+upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was
+then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the
+carpet, and near the couch; and in a second thereafter, as Rowena was in
+the act of raising the wine to her lips, I saw, or may have dreamed that
+I saw, fall within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the
+atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant and
+ruby colored fluid. If this I saw--not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine
+unhesitatingly, and I forebore to speak to her of a circumstance which
+must, after all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid
+imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the
+opium, and by the hour.
+
+Yet I cannot conceal [Transcriber's note: The original reads "coneal".]
+it from my own perception that, immediately subsequent to the fall of
+the ruby drops, a rapid change for the worse took place in the disorder
+of my wife; so that, on the third subsequent night, the hands of her
+menials prepared her for the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with
+her shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber which had received her as
+my bride. Wild visions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before
+me. I gazed with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the
+room, upon the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of
+the parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I
+called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot beneath
+the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of the shadow.
+It was there, however, no longer; and breathing with greater freedom, I
+turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed. Then
+rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia--and then came back upon my
+heart, with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that
+unutterable woe with which I had regarded _her_ thus enshrouded. The
+night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts of the one
+only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the body of Rowena.
+
+It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I had
+taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,
+startled me from my revery. I _felt_ that it came from the bed of
+ebony--the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious
+terror--but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision
+to detect any motion in the corpse--but there was not the slightest
+perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I _had_ heard the
+noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely
+and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes
+elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the
+mystery. At length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and
+barely noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and
+along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of
+unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality has no
+sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease to beat, my
+limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty finally operated to
+restore my self-possession. I could no longer doubt that we had been
+precipitate in our preparations--that Rowena still lived. It was
+necessary that some immediate exertion be made; yet the turret was
+altogether apart from the portion of the abbey tenanted by the
+servants--there were none within call--I had no means of summoning them
+to my aid without leaving the room for many minutes--and this I could
+not venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to call
+back the spirit still hovering. In a short period it was certain,
+however, that a relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both
+eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the
+lips became doubly shriveled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of
+death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the
+surface of the body; and all the usual rigorous stiffness immediately
+supervened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had
+been so startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate
+waking visions of Ligeia.
+
+An hour thus elapsed, when (could it be possible?) I was a second time
+aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. I
+listened--in extremity of horror. The sound came again--it was a sigh.
+Rushing to the corpse, I saw--distinctly saw--a tremor upon the lips. In
+a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the pearly
+teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the profound awe which
+had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that my vision grew dim, that
+my reason wandered; and it was only by a violent effort that I at length
+succeeded in nerving myself to the task which duty thus once more had
+pointed out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the
+cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame; there
+was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady _lived_; and with
+redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and
+bathed the temples and the hands and used every exertion which
+experience, and no little medical reading, could suggest. But in vain.
+Suddenly, the color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the
+expression of the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body
+took upon itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense
+rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of
+that which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.
+
+And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia--and again (what marvel that I
+shudder while I write?), _again_ there reached my ears a low sob from
+the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely detail the
+unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause to relate how, time
+after time, until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous drama
+of revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse was only into
+a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how each agony wore
+the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and how each struggle
+was succeeded by I know not what of wild change in the personal
+appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.
+
+The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who had
+been dead once again stirred--and now more vigorously than hitherto,
+although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in its utter
+hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or to move, and
+remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl
+of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least
+terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now
+more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted
+energy into the countenance--the limbs relaxed--and, save that the
+eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and
+draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel character to the
+figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,
+the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then, altogether
+adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when, arising from the bed,
+tottering, with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the manner of
+one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly
+and palpably into the middle of the apartment.
+
+I trembled not--I stirred not--for a crowd of unutterable fancies
+connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor, of the figure,
+rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed--had chilled me into
+stone. I stirred not--but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad
+disorder in my thoughts--a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the
+_living_ Rowena who confronted me? Could it, indeed, be Rowena _at
+all_--the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine?
+Why, _why_ should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the
+mouth--but then might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of
+Tremaine? And the cheeks--there were the roses as in her noon of
+life--yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of
+Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not be
+hers?--but _had she then grown taller since her malady?_ What
+inexpressible madness seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had
+reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head,
+unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and there
+streamed forth into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber huge masses of
+long and disheveled hair; _it was blacker than the raven wings of
+midnight._ And now slowly opened _the eyes_ of the figure which stood
+before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never--can I
+never be mistaken--these are the full, and the black, and the wild
+eyes--of my lost love--of the Lady--of the LADY LIGEIA."
+
+
+
+The Haunted Orchard
+
+BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
+
+     From _Harper's Magazine_, January, 1912. By permission of Harper
+     and Brothers and Richard Le Gallienne.
+
+
+Spring was once more in the world. As she sang to herself in the faraway
+woodlands her voice reached even the ears of the city, weary with the
+long winter. Daffodils flowered at the entrances to the Subway,
+furniture removing vans blocked the side streets, children clustered
+like blossoms on the doorsteps, the open cars were running, and the cry
+of the "cash clo'" man was once more heard in the land.
+
+Yes, it was the spring, and the city dreamed wistfully of lilacs and the
+dewy piping of birds in gnarled old apple-trees, of dogwood lighting up
+with sudden silver the thickening woods, of water-plants unfolding their
+glossy scrolls in pools of morning freshness.
+
+On Sunday mornings, the outbound trains were thronged with eager
+pilgrims, hastening out of the city, to behold once more the ancient
+marvel of the spring; and, on Sunday evenings, the railway termini were
+aflower with banners of blossom from rifled woodland and orchard carried
+in the hands of the returning pilgrims, whose eyes still shone with the
+spring magic, in whose ears still sang the fairy music.
+
+And as I beheld these signs of the vernal equinox I knew that I, too,
+must follow the music, forsake awhile the beautiful siren we call the
+city, and in the green silences meet once more my sweetheart Solitude.
+
+As the train drew out of the Grand Central, I hummed to myself,
+
+    "I've a neater, sweeter maiden, in a greener, cleaner land"
+
+and so I said good-by to the city, and went forth with beating heart to
+meet the spring.
+
+I had been told of an almost forgotten corner on the south coast of
+Connecticut, where the spring and I could live in an inviolate
+loneliness--a place uninhabited save by birds and blossoms, woods and
+thick grass, and an occasional silent farmer, and pervaded by the breath
+and shimmer of the Sound.
+
+Nor had rumor lied, for when the train set me down at my destination I
+stepped out into the most wonderful green hush, a leafy Sabbath silence
+through which the very train, as it went farther on its way, seemed to
+steal as noiselessly as possible for fear of breaking the spell.
+
+After a winter in the town, to be dropped thus suddenly into the intense
+quiet of the country-side makes an almost ghostly impression upon one,
+as of an enchanted silence, a silence that listens and watches but
+never speaks, finger on lip. There is a spectral quality about
+everything upon which the eye falls: the woods, like great green clouds,
+the wayside flowers, the still farm-houses half lost in orchard
+bloom--all seem to exist in a dream. Everything is so still, everything
+so supernaturally green. Nothing moves or talks, except the gentle
+susurrus of the spring wind swaying the young buds high up in the quiet
+sky, or a bird now and again, or a little brook singing softly to itself
+among the crowding rushes.
+
+Though, from the houses one notes here and there, there are evidently
+human inhabitants of this green silence, none are to be seen. I have
+often wondered where the countryfolk hide themselves, as I have walked
+hour after hour, past farm and croft and lonely door-yards, and never
+caught sight of a human face. If you should want to ask the way, a
+farmer is as shy as a squirrel, and if you knock at a farm-house door,
+all is as silent as a rabbit-warren.
+
+As I walked along in the enchanted stillness, I came at length to a
+quaint old farm-house--"old Colonial" in its architecture--embowered in
+white lilacs, and surrounded by an orchard of ancient apple-trees which
+cast a rich shade on the deep spring grass. The orchard had the
+impressiveness of those old religious groves, dedicated to the strange
+worship of sylvan gods, gods to be found now only in Horace or Catullus,
+and in the hearts of young poets to whom the beautiful antique Latin is
+still dear.
+
+The old house seemed already the abode of Solitude. As I lifted the
+latch of the white gate and walked across the forgotten grass, and up on
+to the veranda already festooned with wistaria, and looked into the
+window, I saw Solitude sitting by an old piano, on which no composer
+later than Bach had ever been played.
+
+In other words, the house was empty; and going round to the back, where
+old barns and stables leaned together as if falling asleep, I found a
+broken pane, and so climbed in and walked through the echoing rooms. The
+house was very lonely. Evidently no one had lived in it for a long time.
+Yet it was all ready for some occupant, for whom it seemed to be
+waiting. Quaint old four-poster bedsteads stood in three rooms--dimity
+curtains and spotless linen--old oak chests and mahogany presses; and,
+opening drawers in Chippendale sideboards, I came upon beautiful frail
+old silver and exquisite china that set me thinking of a beautiful
+grandmother of mine, made out of old lace and laughing wrinkles and
+mischievous old blue eyes.
+
+There was one little room that particularly interested me, a tiny
+bedroom all white, and at the window the red roses were already in bud.
+But what caught my eye with peculiar sympathy was a small bookcase, in
+which were some twenty or thirty volumes, wearing the same forgotten
+expression--forgotten and yet cared for--which lay like a kind of
+memorial charm upon everything in the old house. Yes, everything seemed
+forgotten and yet everything, curiously--even religiously--remembered. I
+took out book after book from the shelves, once or twice flowers fell
+out from the pages--and I caught sight of a delicate handwriting here
+and there and frail markings. It was evidently the little intimate
+library of a young girl. What surprised me most was to find that quite
+half the books were in French--French poets and French romancers: a
+charming, very rare edition of Ronsard, a beautifully printed edition of
+Alfred de Musset, and a copy of Theophile Gautier's _Mademoiselle de
+Maupin_. How did these exotic books come to be there alone in a deserted
+New England farm-house?
+
+This question was to be answered later in a strange way. Meanwhile I had
+fallen in love with the sad, old, silent place, and as I closed the
+white gate and was once more on the road, I looked about for someone who
+could tell me whether or not this house of ghosts might be rented for
+the summer by a comparatively living man.
+
+I was referred to a fine old New England farm-house shining white
+through the trees a quarter of a mile away. There I met an ancient
+couple, a typical New England farmer and his wife; the old man, lean,
+chin-bearded, with keen gray eyes flickering occasionally with a shrewd
+humor, the old lady with a kindly old face of the withered-apple type
+and ruddy. They were evidently prosperous people, but their minds--for
+some reason I could not at the moment divine--seemed to be divided
+between their New England desire to drive a hard bargain and their
+disinclination to let the house at all.
+
+Over and over again they spoke of the loneliness of the place. They
+feared I would find it very lonely. No one had lived in it for a long
+time, and so on. It seemed to me that afterwards I understood their
+curious hesitation, but at the moment only regarded it as a part of the
+circuitous New England method of bargaining. At all events, the rent I
+offered finally overcame their disinclination, whatever its cause, and
+so I came into possession--for four months--of that silent old house,
+with the white lilacs, and the drowsy barns, and the old piano, and the
+strange orchard; and, as the summer came on, and the year changed its
+name from May to June, I used to lie under the apple-trees in the
+afternoons, dreamily reading some old book, and through half-sleepy
+eyelids watching the silken shimmer of the Sound.
+
+I had lived in the old house for about a month, when one afternoon a
+strange thing happened to me. I remember the date well. It was the
+afternoon of Tuesday, June 13th. I was reading, or rather dipping here
+and there, in Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_. As I read, I remember
+that a little unripe apple, with a petal or two of blossom still
+clinging to it, fell upon the old yellow page. Then I suppose I must
+have fallen into a dream, though it seemed to me that both my eyes and
+my ears were wide open, for I suddenly became aware of a beautiful
+young voice singing very softly somewhere among the leaves. The singing
+was very frail, almost imperceptible, as though it came out of the air.
+It came and went fitfully, like the elusive fragrance of sweetbrier--as
+though a girl was walking to and fro, dreamily humming to herself in the
+still afternoon. Yet there was no one to be seen. The orchard had never
+seemed more lonely. And another fact that struck me as strange was that
+the words that floated to me out of the aerial music were French, half
+sad, half gay snatches of some long-dead singer of old France, I looked
+about for the origin of the sweet sounds, but in vain. Could it be the
+birds that were singing in French in this strange orchard? Presently the
+voice seemed to come quite close to me, so near that it might have been
+the voice of a dryad singing to me out of the tree against which I was
+leaning. And this time I distinctly caught the words of the sad little
+song:
+
+    _"Chante, rossignol, chante,
+    Toi qui as le coeur gai;
+    Tu as le coeur a rire,
+    Moi, je l'ai-t-a pleurer."_
+
+But, though the voice was at my shoulder, I could see no one, and then
+the singing stopped with what sounded like a sob; and a moment or two
+later I seemed to hear a sound of sobbing far down the orchard. Then
+there followed silence, and I was left to ponder on the strange
+occurrence. Naturally, I decided that it was just a day-dream between
+sleeping and waking over the pages of an old book; yet when next day and
+the day after the invisible singer was in the orchard again, I could not
+be satisfied with such mere matter-of-fact explanation.
+
+    _"A la claire fontaine,"_
+
+went the voice to and fro through the thick orchard boughs,
+
+    _"M'en allant promener,
+    J'ai trouve l'eau si belle
+    Que je m'y suis baigne,
+    Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oubliai."_
+
+It was certainly uncanny to hear that voice going to and fro the
+orchard, there somewhere amid the bright sun-dazzled boughs--yet not a
+human creature to be seen--not another house even within half a mile.
+The most materialistic mind could hardly but conclude that here was
+something "not dreamed of in our philosophy." It seemed to me that the
+only reasonable explanation was the entirely irrational one--that my
+orchard was haunted: haunted by some beautiful young spirit, with some
+sorrow of lost joy that would not let her sleep quietly in her grave.
+
+And next day I had a curious confirmation of my theory. Once more I was
+lying under my favorite apple-tree, half reading and half watching the
+Sound, lulled into a dream by the whir of insects and the spices called
+up from the earth by the hot sun. As I bent over the page, I suddenly
+had the startling impression that someone was leaning over my shoulder
+and reading with me, and that a girl's long hair was falling over me
+down on to the page. The book was the Ronsard I had found in the little
+bedroom. I turned, but again there was nothing there. Yet this time I
+knew that I had not been dreaming, and I cried out:
+
+"Poor child! tell me of your grief--that I may help your sorrowing heart
+to rest."
+
+But, of course, there was no answer; yet that night I dreamed a strange
+dream. I thought I was in the orchard again in the afternoon and once
+again heard the strange singing--but this time, as I looked up, the
+singer was no longer invisible. Coming toward me was a young girl with
+wonderful blue eyes filled with tears and gold hair that fell to her
+waist. She wore a straight, white robe that might have been a shroud or
+a bridal dress. She appeared not to see me, though she came directly to
+the tree where I was sitting. And there she knelt and buried her face in
+the grass and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her long hair fell
+over her like a mantle, and in my dream I stroked it pityingly and
+murmured words of comfort for a sorrow I did not understand.... Then I
+woke suddenly as one does from dreams. The moon was shining brightly
+into the room. Rising from my bed, I looked out into the orchard. It was
+almost as bright as day. I could plainly see the tree of which I had
+been dreaming, and then a fantastic notion possessed me. Slipping on my
+clothes, I went out into one of the old barns and found a spade. Then I
+went to the tree where I had seen the girl weeping in my dream and dug
+down at its foot.
+
+I had dug little more than a foot when my spade struck upon some hard
+substance, and in a few more moments I had uncovered and exhumed a small
+box, which, on examination, proved to be one of those pretty
+old-fashioned Chippendale work-boxes used by our grandmothers to keep
+their thimbles and needles in, their reels of cotton and skeins of silk.
+After smoothing down the little grave in which I had found it, I carried
+the box into the house, and under the lamplight examined its contents.
+
+Then at once I understood why that sad young spirit went to and fro the
+orchard singing those little French songs--for the treasure-trove I had
+found under the apple-tree, the buried treasure of an unquiet, suffering
+soul, proved to be a number of love-letters written mostly in French in
+a very picturesque hand--letters, too, written but some five or six
+years before. Perhaps I should not have read them--yet I read them with
+such reverence for the beautiful, impassioned love that animated them,
+and literally made them "smell sweet and blossom in the dust," that I
+felt I had the sanction of the dead to make myself the confidant of
+their story. Among the letters were little songs, two of which I had
+heard the strange young voice singing in the orchard, and, of course,
+there were many withered flowers and such like remembrances of bygone
+rapture.
+
+Not that night could I make out all the story, though it was not
+difficult to define its essential tragedy, and later on a gossip in the
+neighborhood and a headstone in the churchyard told me the rest. The
+unquiet young soul that had sung so wistfully to and fro the orchard was
+my landlord's daughter. She was the only child of her parents, a
+beautiful, willful girl, exotically unlike those from whom she was
+sprung and among whom she lived with a disdainful air of exile. She was,
+as a child, a little creature of fairy fancies, and as she grew up it
+was plain to her father and mother that she had come from another world
+than theirs. To them she seemed like a child in an old fairy-tale
+strangely found on his hearth by some shepherd as he returns from the
+fields at evening--a little fairy girl swaddled in fine linen, and
+dowered with a mysterious bag of gold.
+
+Soon she developed delicate spiritual needs to which her simple parents
+were strangers. From long truancies in the woods she would come home
+laden with mysterious flowers, and soon she came to ask for books and
+pictures and music, of which the poor souls that had given her birth had
+never heard. Finally she had her way, and went to study at a certain
+fashionable college; and there the brief romance of her life began.
+There she met a romantic young Frenchman who had read Ronsard to her and
+written her those picturesque letters I had found in the old mahogany
+work-box. And after a while the young Frenchman had gone back to France,
+and the letters had ceased. Month by month went by, and at length one
+day, as she sat wistful at the window, looking out at the foolish sunlit
+road, a message came. He was dead. That headstone in the village
+churchyard tells the rest. She was very young to die--scarcely nineteen
+years; and the dead who have died young, with all their hopes and dreams
+still like unfolded buds within their hearts, do not rest so quietly in
+the grave as those who have gone through the long day from morning until
+evening and are only too glad to sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day I took the little box to a quiet corner of the orchard, and
+made a little pyre of fragrant boughs--for so I interpreted the wish of
+that young, unquiet spirit--and the beautiful words are now safe, taken
+up again into the aerial spaces from which they came.
+
+But since then the birds sing no more little French songs in my old
+orchard.
+
+
+
+The Bowmen
+
+BY ARTHUR MACHEN
+
+     From _The Bowmen_, by Arthur Machen. Published in England by
+     Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd., and in America by
+     G.P. Putnam's Sons. By permission of the publishers and Arthur
+     Machen.
+
+
+It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority of
+the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But it
+was on the most awful day of that awful time, on the day when ruin and
+disaster came so near that their shadow fell over London far away; and,
+without any certain news, the hearts of men failed within them and grew
+faint; as if the agony of the army in the battlefield had entered into
+their souls.
+
+
+On this dreadful day, then, when three hundred thousand men in arms with
+all their artillery swelled like a flood against the little English
+company, there was one point above all other points in our battle line
+that was for a time in awful danger, not merely of defeat, but of utter
+annihilation. With the permission of the Censorship and of the military
+expert, this corner may, perhaps, be described as a salient, and if this
+angle were crushed and broken, then the English force as a whole would
+be shattered, the Allied left would be turned, and Sedan would
+inevitably follow.
+
+All the morning the German guns had thundered and shrieked against this
+corner, and against the thousand or so of men who held it. The men joked
+at the shells, and found funny names for them, and had bets about them,
+and greeted them with scraps of music-hall songs. But the shells came on
+and burst, and tore good Englishmen limb from limb, and tore brother
+from brother, and as the heat of the day increased so did the fury of
+that terrific cannonade. There was no help, it seemed. The English
+artillery was good, but there was not nearly enough of it; it was being
+steadily battered into scrap iron.
+
+There comes a moment in a storm at sea when people say to one another,
+"It is at its worst; it can blow no harder," and then there is a blast
+ten times more fierce than any before it. So it was in these British
+trenches.
+
+There were no stouter hearts in the whole world than the hearts of these
+men; but even they were appalled as this seven-times-heated hell of the
+German cannonade fell upon them and overwhelmed them and destroyed them.
+And at this very moment they saw from their trenches that a tremendous
+host was moving against their lines. Five hundred of the thousand
+remained, and as far as they could see the German infantry was pressing
+on against them, column upon column, a gray world of men, ten thousand
+of them, as it appeared afterwards.
+
+There was no hope at all. They shook hands, some of them. One man
+improvised a new version of the battle-song, "Good-by, good-by to
+Tipperary," ending with "And we shan't get there." And they all went on
+firing steadily. The officer pointed out that such an opportunity for
+high-class fancy shooting might never occur again; the Tipperary
+humorist asked, "What price Sidney Street?" And the few machine guns did
+their best. But everybody knew it was of no use. The dead gray bodies
+lay in companies and battalions, as others came on and on and on, and
+they swarmed and stirred, and advanced from beyond and beyond.
+
+"World without end. Amen," said one of the British soldiers with some
+irrelevance as he took aim and fired. And then he remembered--he says he
+cannot think why or wherefore--a queer vegetarian restaurant in London
+where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets made of
+lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates in this
+restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue, with the
+motto, "_Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius_"--"May St. George be a present
+help to the English." This soldier happened to know Latin and other
+useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the gray advancing
+mass--three hundred yards away--he uttered the pious vegetarian motto.
+He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right had to clout
+him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing out as he did so
+that the King's ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted
+in drilling funny patterns into dead Germans.
+
+For as the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt something
+between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body. The roar
+of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur; instead of it,
+he says, he heard a great voice and a shout louder than a thunder-peal
+crying, "Array, array, array!"
+
+His heart grew hot as a burning coal, it grew cold as ice within him, as
+it seemed to him that a tumult of voices answered to his summons. He
+heard, or seemed to hear, thousands shouting: "St. George! St. George!"
+
+"Ha! Messire, ha! sweet Saint, grant us good deliverance!"
+
+"St. George for merry England!"
+
+"Harow! Harow! Monseigneur St. George, succor us!"
+
+"Ha! St. George! Ha! St. George! a long bow and a strong bow."
+
+"Heaven's Knight, aid us!"
+
+And as the soldier heard these voices he saw before him, beyond the
+trench, a long line of shapes, with a shining about them. They were like
+men who drew the bow, and with another shout, their cloud of arrows flew
+singing and tingling through the air towards the German hosts.
+
+The other men in the trench were firing all the while. They had no hope;
+but they aimed just as if they had been shooting at Bisley.
+
+Suddenly one of them lifted up his voice in the plainest English.
+
+"Gawd help us!" he bellowed to the man next to him, "but we're blooming
+marvels! Look at those gray ... gentlemen, look at them! D'ye see them?
+They're not going down in dozens nor in 'undreds; it's thousands, it is.
+Look! look! there's a regiment gone while I'm talking to ye."
+
+"Shut it!" the other soldier bellowed, taking aim, "what are ye gassing
+about?"
+
+But he gulped with astonishment even as he spoke, for, indeed, the gray
+men were falling by the thousands. The English could hear the guttural
+scream of the German officers, the crackle of their revolvers as they
+shot the reluctant; and still line after line crashed to the earth.
+
+All the while the Latin-bred soldier heard the cry:
+
+"Harow! Harow! Monseigneur, dear Saint, quick to our aid! St. George
+help us!"
+
+"High Chevalier, defend us!"
+
+The singing arrows fled so swift and thick that they darkened the air,
+the heathen horde melted from before them.
+
+"More machine guns!" Bill yelled to Tom.
+
+"Don't hear them," Tom yelled back.
+
+"But, thank God, anyway; they've got it in the neck."
+
+In fact, there were ten thousand dead German soldiers left before that
+salient of the English army, and consequently there was no Sedan. In
+Germany, a country ruled by scientific principles, the Great General
+Staff decided that the contemptible English must have employed shells
+containing an unknown gas of a poisonous nature, as no wounds were
+discernible on the bodies of the dead German soldiers. But the man who
+knew what nuts tasted like when they called themselves steak knew also
+that St. George had brought his Agincourt Bowmen to help the English.
+
+
+
+A Ghost
+
+BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+     Translated for this volume by M. Charles Sommer.
+
+
+We were speaking of sequestration, alluding to a recent lawsuit. It was
+at the close of a friendly evening in a very old mansion in the Rue de
+Grenelle, and each of the guests had a story to tell, which he assured
+us was true.
+
+Then the old Marquis de la Tour-Samuel, eighty-two years of age, rose
+and came forward to lean on the mantelpiece. He told the following story
+in his slightly quavering voice.
+
+"I, also, have witnessed a strange thing--so strange that it has been
+the nightmare of my life. It happened fifty-six years ago, and yet there
+is not a month when I do not see it again in my dreams. From that day I
+have borne a mark, a stamp of fear,--do you understand?
+
+"Yes, for ten minutes I was a prey to terror, in such a way that ever
+since a constant dread has remained in my soul. Unexpected sounds chill
+me to the heart; objects which I can ill distinguish in the evening
+shadows make me long to flee. I am afraid at night.
+
+"No! I would not have owned such a thing before reaching my present
+age. But now I may tell everything. One may fear imaginary dangers at
+eighty-two years old. But before actual danger I have never turned back,
+_mesdames_.
+
+"That affair so upset my mind, filled me with such a deep, mysterious
+unrest that I never could tell it. I kept it in that inmost part, that
+corner where we conceal our sad, our shameful secrets, all the
+weaknesses of our life which cannot be confessed.
+
+"I will tell you that strange happening just as it took place, with no
+attempt to explain it. Unless I went mad for one short hour it must be
+explainable, though. Yet I was not mad, and I will prove it to you.
+Imagine what you will. Here are the simple facts:
+
+"It was in 1827, in July. I was quartered with my regiment in Rouen.
+
+"One day, as I was strolling on the quay, I came across a man I believed
+I recognized, though I could not place him with certainty. I
+instinctively went more slowly, ready to pause. The stranger saw my
+impulse, looked at me, and fell into my arms.
+
+"It was a friend of my younger days, of whom I had been very fond. He
+seemed to have become half a century older in the five years since I had
+seen him. His hair was white, and he stooped in his walk, as if he were
+exhausted. He understood my amazement and told me the story of his life.
+
+"A terrible event had broken him down. He had fallen madly in love with
+a young girl and married her in a kind of dreamlike ecstasy. After a
+year of unalloyed bliss and unexhausted passion, she had died suddenly
+of heart disease, no doubt killed by love itself.
+
+"He had left the country on the very day of her funeral, and had come to
+live in his hotel at Rouen. He remained there, solitary and desperate,
+grief slowly mining him, so wretched that he constantly thought of
+suicide.
+
+"'As I thus came across you again,' he said, 'I shall ask a great favor
+of you. I want you to go to my chateau and get some papers I urgently
+need. They are in the writing-desk of my room, of _our_ room. I cannot
+send a servant or a lawyer, as the errand must be kept private. I want
+absolute silence.
+
+"'I shall give you the key of the room, which I locked carefully myself
+before leaving, and the key to the writing-desk. I shall also give you a
+note for the gardener, who will let you in.
+
+"'Come to breakfast with me to-morrow, and we'll talk the matter over.'
+
+"I promised to render him that slight service. It would mean but a
+pleasant excursion for me, his home not being more than twenty-five
+miles from Rouen. I could go there in an hour on horseback.
+
+"At ten o'clock the next day I was with him. We breakfasted alone
+together, yet he did not utter more than twenty words. He asked me to
+excuse him. The thought that I was going to visit the room where his
+happiness lay shattered, upset him, he said. Indeed, he seemed
+perturbed, worried, as if some mysterious struggle were taking place in
+his soul.
+
+"At last he explained exactly what I was to do. It was very simple. I
+was to take two packages of letters and some papers, locked in the first
+drawer at the right of the desk of which I had the key. He added:
+
+"'I need not ask you not to glance at them.'
+
+"I was almost hurt by his words, and told him so, rather sharply. He
+stammered:
+
+"'Forgive me. I suffer so much!'
+
+"And tears came to his eyes.
+
+"I left about one o'clock to accomplish my errand.
+
+"The day was radiant, and I rushed through the meadows, listening to the
+song of the larks, and the rhythmical beat of my sword on my
+riding-boots.
+
+"Then I entered the forest, and I set my horse to walking. Branches of
+the trees softly caressed my face, and now and then I would catch a leaf
+between my teeth and bite it with avidity, full of the joy of life, such
+as fills you without reason, with a tumultuous happiness almost
+indefinable, a kind of magical strength.
+
+"As I neared the house I took out the letter for the gardener, and noted
+with surprise that it was sealed. I was so amazed and so annoyed that I
+almost turned back without fulfilling my mission. Then I thought that I
+should thus display over-sensitiveness and bad taste. My friend might
+have sealed it unconsciously, worried as he was.
+
+"The manor looked as though it had been deserted the last twenty years.
+The gate, wide-open and rotten, held, one wondered how. Grass filled the
+paths; you could not tell the flower-beds from the lawn.
+
+"At the noise I made kicking a shutter, an old man came out from a
+side-door and was apparently amazed to see me there. I dismounted from
+my horse and gave him the letter. He read it once or twice, turned it
+over, looked at me with suspicion, and asked:
+
+"'Well, what do you want?'
+
+"I answered sharply:
+
+"'You must know it as you have read your master's orders. I want to get
+in the house.'
+
+"He appeared overwhelmed. He said:
+
+"'So--you are going in--in his room?'
+
+"I was getting impatient.
+
+"'_Parbleu!_ Do you intend to question me, by chance?'
+
+"He stammered:
+
+"'No--monsieur--only--it has not been opened since--since the death. If
+you will wait five minutes, I will go in to see whether----'
+
+"I interrupted angrily:
+
+"'See here, are you joking? You can't go in that room, as I have the
+key!'
+
+"He no longer knew what to say.
+
+"'Then, monsieur, I will show you the way.'
+
+"'Show me the stairs and leave me alone. I can find it without your
+help.'
+
+"'But--still--monsieur----'
+
+"Then I lost my temper.
+
+"'Now be quiet! Else you'll be sorry!'
+
+"I roughly pushed him aside and went into the house.
+
+"I first went through the kitchen, then crossed two small rooms occupied
+by the man and his wife. From there I stepped into a large hall. I went
+up the stairs, and I recognized the door my friend had described to me.
+
+"I opened it with ease and went in.
+
+"The room was so dark that at first I could not distinguish anything. I
+paused, arrested by that moldy and stale odor peculiar to deserted and
+condemned rooms, of dead rooms. Then gradually my eyes grew accustomed
+to the gloom, and I saw rather clearly a great room in disorder, a bed
+without sheets having still its mattresses and pillows, one of which
+bore the deep print of an elbow or a head, as if someone had just been
+resting on it.
+
+"The chairs seemed all in confusion. I noticed that a door, probably
+that of a closet, had remained ajar.
+
+"I first went to the window and opened it to get some light, but the
+hinges of the outside shutters were so rusted that I could not loosen
+them.
+
+"I even tried to break them with my sword, but did not succeed. As those
+fruitless attempts irritated me, and as my eyes were by now adjusted to
+the dim light, I gave up hope of getting more light and went toward the
+writing-desk.
+
+"I sat down in an arm-chair, folded back the top, and opened the drawer.
+It was full to the edge. I needed but three packages, which I knew how
+to distinguish, and I started looking for them.
+
+"I was straining my eyes to decipher the inscriptions, when I thought I
+heard, or rather felt a rustle behind me. I took no notice, thinking a
+draft had lifted some curtain. But a minute later, another movement,
+almost indistinct, sent a disagreeable little shiver over my skin. It
+was so ridiculous to be moved thus even so slightly, that I would not
+turn round, being ashamed. I had just discovered the second package I
+needed, and was on the point of reaching for the third, when a great and
+sorrowful sigh, close to my shoulder, made me give a mad leap two yards
+away. In my spring I had turned round, my hand on the hilt of my sword,
+and surely had I not felt that, I should have fled like a coward.
+
+"A tall woman, dressed in white, was facing me, standing behind the
+chair in which I had sat a second before.
+
+"Such a shudder ran through me that I almost fell back! Oh, no one who
+has not felt them can understand those gruesome and ridiculous terrors!
+The soul melts; your heart seems to stop; your whole body becomes limp
+as a sponge, and your innermost parts seem collapsing.
+
+"I do not believe in ghosts; and yet I broke down before the hideous
+fear of the dead; and I suffered, oh, I suffered more in a few minutes,
+in the irresistible anguish of supernatural dread, than I have suffered
+in all the rest of my life!
+
+"If she had not spoken, I might have died. But she did speak; she spoke
+in a soft and plaintive voice which set my nerves vibrating. I could not
+say that I regained my self-control. No, I was past knowing what I did;
+but the kind of pride I have in me, as well as a military pride, helped
+me to maintain, almost in spite of myself, an honorable countenance. I
+was making a pose, a pose for myself, and for her, for her, whatever she
+was, woman, or phantom. I realized this later, for at the time of the
+apparition, I could think of nothing. I was afraid.
+
+"She said:
+
+"'Oh, you can be of great help to me, monsieur!'
+
+"I tried to answer, but I was unable to utter one word. A vague sound
+came from my throat.
+
+"She continued:
+
+"'Will you? You can save me, cure me. I suffer terribly. I always
+suffer. I suffer, oh, I suffer!'
+
+"And she sat down gently in my chair. She looked at me.
+
+"'Will you?'
+
+"I nodded my head, being still paralyzed.
+
+"Then she handed me a woman's comb of tortoise-shell, and murmured:
+
+"'Comb my hair! Oh, comb my hair! That will cure me. Look at my
+head--how I suffer! And my hair--how it hurts!'
+
+"Her loose hair, very long, very black, it seemed to me, hung over the
+back of the chair, touching the floor.
+
+"Why did I do it? Why did I, shivering, accept that comb, and why did I
+take between my hands her long hair, which left on my skin a ghastly
+impression of cold, as if I had handled serpents? I do not know.
+
+"That feeling still clings about my fingers, and I shiver when I recall
+it.
+
+"I combed her, I handled, I know not how, that hair of ice. I bound and
+unbound it; I plaited it as one plaits a horse's mane. She sighed, bent
+her head, seemed happy.
+
+"Suddenly she said, 'Thank you!' tore the comb from my hands, and fled
+through the door which I had noticed was half opened.
+
+"Left alone, I had for a few seconds the hazy feeling one feels in
+waking up from a nightmare. Then I recovered myself. I ran to the window
+and broke the shutters by my furious assault.
+
+"A stream of light poured in. I rushed to the door through which that
+being had gone. I found it locked and immovable.
+
+"Then a fever of flight seized on me, a panic, the true panic of battle.
+I quickly grasped the three packages of letters from the open desk; I
+crossed the room running, I took the steps of the stairway four at a
+time. I found myself outside, I don't know how, and seeing my horse
+close by, I mounted in one leap and left at a full gallop.
+
+"I didn't stop till I reached Rouen and drew up in front of my house.
+Having thrown the reins to my orderly, I flew to my room and locked
+myself in to think.
+
+"Then for an hour I asked myself whether I had not been the victim of an
+hallucination. Certainly I must have had one of those nervous shocks,
+one of those brain disorders such as give rise to miracles, to which the
+supernatural owes its strength.
+
+"And I had almost concluded that it was a vision, an illusion of my
+senses, when I came near to the window. My eyes by chance looked down.
+My tunic was covered with hairs, long woman's hairs which had entangled
+themselves around the buttons!
+
+"I took them off one by one and threw them out of the window with
+trembling fingers.
+
+"I then called my orderly. I felt too perturbed, too moved, to go and
+see my friend on that day. Besides, I needed to think over what I should
+tell him.
+
+"I had his letters delivered to him. He gave a receipt to the soldier.
+He inquired after me and was told that I was not well. I had had a
+sunstroke, or something. He seemed distressed.
+
+"I went to see him the next day, early in the morning, bent on telling
+him the truth. He had gone out the evening before and had not come
+back.
+
+"I returned the same day, but he had not been seen. I waited a week. He
+did not come back. I notified the police. They searched for him
+everywhere, but no one could find any trace of his passing or of his
+retreat.
+
+"A careful search was made in the deserted manor. No suspicious clue was
+discovered.
+
+"There was no sign that a woman had been concealed there.
+
+"The inquest gave no result, and so the search went no further.
+
+"And in fifty-six years I have learned nothing more. I never found out
+the truth."
+
+
+
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