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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15143-8.txt b/15143-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..664285f --- /dev/null +++ b/15143-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11244 @@ +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*** + + +******* This file should be named 15143-8.txt or 15143-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/1/4/15143 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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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> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Karina Aleksandrova,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </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 + 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!"</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—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—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!</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—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.</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—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. <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—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,—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,—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.</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,—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 + <em>Kerfol</em>—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—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>Sümpfe</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—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.</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—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—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.</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—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.</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—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—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—man, boat, signs, voice—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—I + remember trying to make as much <em>noise</em> 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."</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—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—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—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 + <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—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—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. + <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—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—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.</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—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—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—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—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—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—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.</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—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—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—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.</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—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—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.</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"—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—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—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——"</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—a thing I always do unconsciously + when utterly nonplused—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——"</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—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>—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.</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—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.</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—"</p> + + <p>"I don't mean that, of course," he interrupted. "I + mean—do you think—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—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——"</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—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—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 <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—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—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—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>—you + know—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——"</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——"</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—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——"</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—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—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.</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—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—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——"</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—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—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—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—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—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—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."</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—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—"</p> + + <p>"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 <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—<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—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——"</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—"</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—"</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—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—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.</p> + + <p>"You damned old pagan!" I cried, laughing aloud in his face. + "You imaginative idiot! You superstitious idolator! + You——"</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—that + strange cry overhead in the darkness—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—down the river."</p> + + <p>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.</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—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.</p> + + <p>"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. "<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—for the moment at any + rate!"</p> + + <p>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.</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—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—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—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—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—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.</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——"</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—as though—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—<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—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.</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—for her brother Edward lay dead + in the house—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—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——"</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——"</p> + + <p>"What?"</p> + + <p>"Then he laughed."</p> + + <p>"What did Henry say?"</p> + + <p>"I didn't hear him say anything, but——"</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—it was a cold, gloomy + day of fall—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—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—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.</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—it looks like—like—" 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——"</p> + + <p>"Yes, it does," assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken + tone matched her sisters', "only—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—queer, like—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—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——"</p> + + <p>"Don't ask; don't speak," said Caroline.</p> + + <p>"No, I'm not going to," replied Mrs. Brigham; + "but——"</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—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.</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—a telegram," she + gasped. "Henry is—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, Môme 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—"</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—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 + 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.</p> + + <p>"Durand is down there—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—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 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?"</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—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—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—come + along, Fortin—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—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."</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—"the thirty-ninth skull is no + business of mine. I have told the Bannalec men to cease + digging."</p> + + <p>"But what is—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——"</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'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."</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. Môme 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'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!"</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'Abbé 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—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——"</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—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—I don't like + it, Monsieur Darrel—"</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—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, Môme, my dog, suddenly + whipped his tail between his legs, whimpered, and made off + across the moor.</p> + + <p>"Môme!" 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 Môme 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>Môme 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>Môme 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 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?"</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—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.</p> + + <p>"Where can she be?" I wondered, Môme 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—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—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—doesn't it, Dick? But then you are so + clever——"</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—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—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."</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 Môme—who whistled through his nose in + sentimental appreciation.</p> + + <p>"I am a very happy woman," said Lys.</p> + + <p>"Môme was a very bad dog to-day," I observed.</p> + + <p>"Poor Môme!" said Lys, smiling.</p> + + <p>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.</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—er—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——"</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—the—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——"</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—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?"</p> + + <p>"He dropped the de, and the Trevecs since then have been + Republicans," said Lys—"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—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—"big + green lizards from the gorse, little gray mullets to swim in + glass globes, baby rabbits from the forest of + Kerselec——"</p> + + <p>"And I," said Lys, "will bring the first primrose, the first + branch of aubepine, the first jonquil, to the king—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——"</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—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—" 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—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—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—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—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—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—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——"</p> + + <p>Fortin and Le Bihan scrambled hastily from their knees, + dropping hammer and nails.</p> + + <p>"W-h-a-t—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—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—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—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 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."</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——"</p> + + <p>"Well, it's human blood, anyway—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—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—only a drunken brawl, + and some one wounded."</p> + + <p>"And you are going to ride—where, Dick?"</p> + + <p>"Well, over to the edge of Kerselec forest. Durand and the + mayor, and Max Fortin, have gone on, following a—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——"</p> + + <p>"So did I—" 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——"</p> + + <p>"I did fire!" I cried excitedly.</p> + + <p>"You—you fired?"</p> + + <p>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."</p> + + <p>"Ah!" gasped Lys.</p> + + <p>"Is that what you dreamed?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, yes, that was it! I begged you to + fire——"</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—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—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—the + rest—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—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, 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."</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 + 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.</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—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—no, nor twenty—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, Môme 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. + 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.</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—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."</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—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—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—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—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,"—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,—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,—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.</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,—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.</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—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.</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,—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,"—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,—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,—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,—life and beauty;</p> + + <p>beyond,—Death, the enigmatical"—</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—that also Lazarus noticed. + He resumed obediently his place and lowered his weary eyes.</p> + + <p>"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."</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—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!"—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?"</p> + + <p>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.</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—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."</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"—said Lazarus—"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—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—and—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"—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,—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,—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!"—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—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,"—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,—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,—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.</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—and with uttermost + indifference did the insatiable black womb of the Infinite + swallow them.</p> + + <p>"Halt!"—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,"—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,—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—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——"</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—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—"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—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—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.—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—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."</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—"</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—marriage—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—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—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—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.</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 curé + 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-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.</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-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:</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-Cléry 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: 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.</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. —— 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——, 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.</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. + —— 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.</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. + —— 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,—in short, that + unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would not surrender for a + throne, and which I hope you, reader, will never—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,—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,—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;—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>,—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,—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,—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,—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—which, I suppose, + must have been an awful sight to look at—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,—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—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,—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,—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.</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,—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,—a will + that moves it,—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,—warm, fleshly + hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal life."</p> + + <p>"What? Do you think, then, that this thing + is——"</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,—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 <em>Un Voyage où 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——, + 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—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—"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—"</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—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.</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—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.</p> + + <p>"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.</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—"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—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—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—"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—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—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.</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—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>—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—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.</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—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—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?</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—at <em>my</em> + 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.</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,—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.</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—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.</p> + + <p>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.</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—unaccountable sensation. Can there be too many + windows open? There is such a—chill—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—persists.... Theresa, you must tell me: do I + fancy it, or do you, too, feel—something—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—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,"—he paused—"if I <em>were</em> + superstitious, if I <em>were</em> a woman, I should probably + imagine it to seem—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—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."</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—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?—when she knew you to be so + good!—when you adored her!"</p> + + <p>"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——"</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—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—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—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</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—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—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—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—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—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—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 <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,—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?"</p> + + <p>"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.</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—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.</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—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?"</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——"</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—<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—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—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—'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—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.</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—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.</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—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—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—" 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—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.</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—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. <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——"</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—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—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—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.</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—yes—! <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—something—well—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——"</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—"and then where'd + all their music be of a sudden, and their goings-on and their + singing——"</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—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—you see," said I, "she's cleared the rip there + now, and the music's gone. You—you hear?"</p> + + <p>"Yes," said she, turning back slow. "That's where it stops + every night—night after night—it stops just + there—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—ice-cold—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—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—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—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—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.</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—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—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—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—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—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—tide'll have her on the rocks—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—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.</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—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."</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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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—" 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—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."</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—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—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.</p> + + <p>"I—I—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—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."</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——"</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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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.</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—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.</p> + + <p>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:</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—if + you got a woman out here, Johnson!"</p> + + <p>"No," said I. "I've lost her."</p> + + <p>"What do you mean—lost her?"</p> + + <p>"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."</p> + + <p>"Johnson," said he, "what do you mean? You sound + crazy—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—that kind of lies—not where + <em>you're</em> going to. Fedderson and his wife, too—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—<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—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—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—not + dignified."</p> + + <p>"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."</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—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—" 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—the nobodies' + dogs?"</p> + + <p>"That's the best of all. Oh, everything is thought out here. + Crouch down,—you must be tired,—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—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,—there's + been a lot of them this summer—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.—<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—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 <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—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 + <em>Romance</em>—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—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—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.</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—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 <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—that something more profound than the well of + Democritus—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—never, I believe, noticed in the schools—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—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."</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,—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.</p> + + <p>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 <em>ever</em> 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, <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—with how vivid a delight—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—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.</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—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—<em>but</em> 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.</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?—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—<em>but</em> for life—that I have no power to + portray—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:—</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!—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!—it writhes!—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—out are the lights—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—</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—"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, <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—as the + successor of the unforgotten Ligeia—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—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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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, <em>could</em> it be + forever?—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—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.</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—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—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.</p> + + <p>Yet I cannot <ins class="correction" + title="Transcriber's note: The original reads "coneal"."> + 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—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—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 <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—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.</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—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 + <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—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—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.</p> + + <p>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 <em>living</em> Rowena who confronted me? Could + it, indeed, be Rowena <em>at all</em>—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—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 + <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—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."</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—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—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—"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.</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—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.</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—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 <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—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.</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—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.</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—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 cœur gai;</em></p> + + <p><em>Tu as le cœur à rire,</em></p> + + <p><em>Moi, je l'ai-t-à 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 trouvé l'eau si belle</em></p> + + <p><em>Que je m'y suis baigné,</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—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.</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—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—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—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.</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—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—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—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.</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 & 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—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, "<em>Adsit Anglis Sanctus + Georgius</em>"—"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.</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—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?</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 château 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—you are going in—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—monsieur—only—it has not been opened + since—since the death. If you will wait five minutes, I + will go in to see whether——'</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—still—monsieur——'</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—how I suffer! And my hair—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> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 15143-h.txt or 15143-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/1/4/15143">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/1/4/15143</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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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." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES*** + + +******* This file should be named 15143.txt or 15143.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/1/4/15143 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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