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diff --git a/4366-0.txt b/4366-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b88a0c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/4366-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6789 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Can Such Things Be?, by Ambrose Bierce + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + + +Title: Can Such Things Be? + +Author: Ambrose Bierce + +Release Date: August 14, 2019 [eBook #4366] +[This file was first posted on January 17, 2002] +[Last Updated: March 29, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org from the 1918 Boni and +Liveright edition + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAN SUCH THINGS BE?*** + + + + + CAN SUCH + THINGS BE? + + + BY + AMBROSE BIERCE + + [Picture: Decorative graphic labelled B L] + + * * * * * + + BONI & LIVERIGHT + NEW YORK 1918 + + * * * * * + + COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY + THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +THE DEATH OF HALPIN FRAYSER 13 +THE SECRET OF MACARGER’S GULCH 44 +ONE SUMMER NIGHT 58 +THE MOONLIT ROAD 62 +A DIAGNOSIS OF DEATH 81 +MOXON’S MASTER 88 +A TOUGH TUSSLE 106 +ONE OF TWINS 121 +THE HAUNTED VALLEY 134 +A JUG OF SIRUP 155 +STALEY FLEMING’S HALLUCINATION 169 +A RESUMED IDENTITY 174 +A BABY TRAMP 185 +THE NIGHT-DOINGS AT “DEADMAN’S” 194 +BEYOND THE WALL 210 +A PSYCHOLOGICAL SHIPWRECK 227 +THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT 235 +JOHN MORTONSON’S FUNERAL 252 +THE REALM OF THE UNREAL 255 +JOHN BARTINE’S WATCH 268 +THE DAMNED THING 280 +HAÏTA THE SHEPHERD 297 +AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA 308 +THE STRANGER 315 + + + + +THE DEATH OF HALPIN FRAYSER + + +I + + + For by death is wrought greater change than hath been shown. Whereas + in general the spirit that removed cometh back upon occasion, and is + sometimes seen of those in flesh (appearing in the form of the body + it bore) yet it hath happened that the veritable body without the + spirit hath walked. And it is attested of those encountering who + have lived to speak thereon that a lich so raised up hath no natural + affection, nor remembrance thereof, but only hate. Also, it is known + that some spirits which in life were benign become by death evil + altogether.—_Hali_. + +ONE dark night in midsummer a man waking from a dreamless sleep in a +forest lifted his head from the earth, and staring a few moments into the +blackness, said: “Catherine Larue.” He said nothing more; no reason was +known to him why he should have said so much. + +The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, but where he lives +now is uncertain, for he is dead. One who practices sleeping in the +woods with nothing under him but the dry leaves and the damp earth, and +nothing over him but the branches from which the leaves have fallen and +the sky from which the earth has fallen, cannot hope for great longevity, +and Frayser had already attained the age of thirty-two. There are +persons in this world, millions of persons, and far and away the best +persons, who regard that as a very advanced age. They are the children. +To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark +that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close +approach to the farther shore. However, it is not certain that Halpin +Frayser came to his death by exposure. + +He had been all day in the hills west of the Napa Valley, looking for +doves and such small game as was in season. Late in the afternoon it had +come on to be cloudy, and he had lost his bearings; and although he had +only to go always downhill—everywhere the way to safety when one is +lost—the absence of trails had so impeded him that he was overtaken by +night while still in the forest. Unable in the darkness to penetrate the +thickets of manzanita and other undergrowth, utterly bewildered and +overcome with fatigue, he had lain down near the root of a large madroño +and fallen into a dreamless sleep. It was hours later, in the very +middle of the night, that one of God’s mysterious messengers, gliding +ahead of the incalculable host of his companions sweeping westward with +the dawn line, pronounced the awakening word in the ear of the sleeper, +who sat upright and spoke, he knew not why, a name, he knew not whose. + +Halpin Frayser was not much of a philosopher, nor a scientist. The +circumstance that, waking from a deep sleep at night in the midst of a +forest, he had spoken aloud a name that he had not in memory and hardly +had in mind did not arouse an enlightened curiosity to investigate the +phenomenon. He thought it odd, and with a little perfunctory shiver, as +if in deference to a seasonal presumption that the night was chill, he +lay down again and went to sleep. But his sleep was no longer dreamless. + +He thought he was walking along a dusty road that showed white in the +gathering darkness of a summer night. Whence and whither it led, and why +he traveled it, he did not know, though all seemed simple and natural, as +is the way in dreams; for in the Land Beyond the Bed surprises cease from +troubling and the judgment is at rest. Soon he came to a parting of the +ways; leading from the highway was a road less traveled, having the +appearance, indeed, of having been long abandoned, because, he thought, +it led to something evil; yet he turned into it without hesitation, +impelled by some imperious necessity. + +As he pressed forward he became conscious that his way was haunted by +invisible existences whom he could not definitely figure to his mind. +From among the trees on either side he caught broken and incoherent +whispers in a strange tongue which yet he partly understood. They seemed +to him fragmentary utterances of a monstrous conspiracy against his body +and soul. + +It was now long after nightfall, yet the interminable forest through +which he journeyed was lit with a wan glimmer having no point of +diffusion, for in its mysterious lumination nothing cast a shadow. A +shallow pool in the guttered depression of an old wheel rut, as from a +recent rain, met his eye with a crimson gleam. He stooped and plunged +his hand into it. It stained his fingers; it was blood! Blood, he then +observed, was about him everywhere. The weeds growing rankly by the +roadside showed it in blots and splashes on their big, broad leaves. +Patches of dry dust between the wheelways were pitted and spattered as +with a red rain. Defiling the trunks of the trees were broad maculations +of crimson, and blood dripped like dew from their foliage. + +All this he observed with a terror which seemed not incompatible with the +fulfillment of a natural expectation. It seemed to him that it was all +in expiation of some crime which, though conscious of his guilt, he could +not rightly remember. To the menaces and mysteries of his surroundings +the consciousness was an added horror. Vainly he sought by tracing life +backward in memory, to reproduce the moment of his sin; scenes and +incidents came crowding tumultuously into his mind, one picture effacing +another, or commingling with it in confusion and obscurity, but nowhere +could he catch a glimpse of what he sought. The failure augmented his +terror; he felt as one who has murdered in the dark, not knowing whom nor +why. So frightful was the situation—the mysterious light burned with so +silent and awful a menace; the noxious plants, the trees that by common +consent are invested with a melancholy or baleful character, so openly in +his sight conspired against his peace; from overhead and all about came +so audible and startling whispers and the sighs of creatures so obviously +not of earth—that he could endure it no longer, and with a great effort +to break some malign spell that bound his faculties to silence and +inaction, he shouted with the full strength of his lungs! His voice +broken, it seemed, into an infinite multitude of unfamiliar sounds, went +babbling and stammering away into the distant reaches of the forest, died +into silence, and all was as before. But he had made a beginning at +resistance and was encouraged. He said: + +“I will not submit unheard. There may be powers that are not malignant +traveling this accursed road. I shall leave them a record and an appeal. +I shall relate my wrongs, the persecutions that I endure—I, a helpless +mortal, a penitent, an unoffending poet!” Halpin Frayser was a poet only +as he was a penitent: in his dream. + +Taking from his clothing a small red-leather pocketbook, one-half of +which was leaved for memoranda, he discovered that he was without a +pencil. He broke a twig from a bush, dipped it into a pool of blood and +wrote rapidly. He had hardly touched the paper with the point of his +twig when a low, wild peal of laughter broke out at a measureless +distance away, and growing ever louder, seemed approaching ever nearer; a +soulless, heartless, and unjoyous laugh, like that of the loon, solitary +by the lakeside at midnight; a laugh which culminated in an unearthly +shout close at hand, then died away by slow gradations, as if the +accursed being that uttered it had withdrawn over the verge of the world +whence it had come. But the man felt that this was not so—that it was +near by and had not moved. + +A strange sensation began slowly to take possession of his body and his +mind. He could not have said which, if any, of his senses was affected; +he felt it rather as a consciousness—a mysterious mental assurance of +some overpowering presence—some supernatural malevolence different in +kind from the invisible existences that swarmed about him, and superior +to them in power. He knew that it had uttered that hideous laugh. And +now it seemed to be approaching him; from what direction he did not +know—dared not conjecture. All his former fears were forgotten or merged +in the gigantic terror that now held him in thrall. Apart from that, he +had but one thought: to complete his written appeal to the benign powers +who, traversing the haunted wood, might some time rescue him if he should +be denied the blessing of annihilation. He wrote with terrible rapidity, +the twig in his fingers rilling blood without renewal; but in the middle +of a sentence his hands denied their service to his will, his arms fell +to his sides, the book to the earth; and powerless to move or cry out, he +found himself staring into the sharply drawn face and blank, dead eyes of +his own mother, standing white and silent in the garments of the grave! + + +II + + +IN his youth Halpin Frayser had lived with his parents in Nashville, +Tennessee. The Fraysers were well-to-do, having a good position in such +society as had survived the wreck wrought by civil war. Their children +had the social and educational opportunities of their time and place, and +had responded to good associations and instruction with agreeable manners +and cultivated minds. Halpin being the youngest and not over robust was +perhaps a trifle “spoiled.” He had the double disadvantage of a mother’s +assiduity and a father’s neglect. Frayser père was what no Southern man +of means is not—a politician. His country, or rather his section and +State, made demands upon his time and attention so exacting that to those +of his family he was compelled to turn an ear partly deafened by the +thunder of the political captains and the shouting, his own included. + +Young Halpin was of a dreamy, indolent and rather romantic turn, somewhat +more addicted to literature than law, the profession to which he was +bred. Among those of his relations who professed the modern faith of +heredity it was well understood that in him the character of the late +Myron Bayne, a maternal great-grandfather, had revisited the glimpses of +the moon—by which orb Bayne had in his lifetime been sufficiently +affected to be a poet of no small Colonial distinction. If not specially +observed, it was observable that while a Frayser who was not the proud +possessor of a sumptuous copy of the ancestral “poetical works” (printed +at the family expense, and long ago withdrawn from an inhospitable +market) was a rare Frayser indeed, there was an illogical indisposition +to honor the great deceased in the person of his spiritual successor. +Halpin was pretty generally deprecated as an intellectual black sheep who +was likely at any moment to disgrace the flock by bleating in meter. The +Tennessee Fraysers were a practical folk—not practical in the popular +sense of devotion to sordid pursuits, but having a robust contempt for +any qualities unfitting a man for the wholesome vocation of politics. + +In justice to young Halpin it should be said that while in him were +pretty faithfully reproduced most of the mental and moral characteristics +ascribed by history and family tradition to the famous Colonial bard, his +succession to the gift and faculty divine was purely inferential. Not +only had he never been known to court the muse, but in truth he could not +have written correctly a line of verse to save himself from the Killer of +the Wise. Still, there was no knowing when the dormant faculty might +wake and smite the lyre. + +In the meantime the young man was rather a loose fish, anyhow. Between +him and his mother was the most perfect sympathy, for secretly the lady +was herself a devout disciple of the late and great Myron Bayne, though +with the tact so generally and justly admired in her sex (despite the +hardy calumniators who insist that it is essentially the same thing as +cunning) she had always taken care to conceal her weakness from all eyes +but those of him who shared it. Their common guilt in respect of that +was an added tie between them. If in Halpin’s youth his mother had +“spoiled” him, he had assuredly done his part toward being spoiled. As +he grew to such manhood as is attainable by a Southerner who does not +care which way elections go the attachment between him and his beautiful +mother—whom from early childhood he had called Katy—became yearly +stronger and more tender. In these two romantic natures was manifest in +a signal way that neglected phenomenon, the dominance of the sexual +element in all the relations of life, strengthening, softening, and +beautifying even those of consanguinity. The two were nearly +inseparable, and by strangers observing their manner were not +infrequently mistaken for lovers. + +Entering his mother’s boudoir one day Halpin Frayser kissed her upon the +forehead, toyed for a moment with a lock of her dark hair which had +escaped from its confining pins, and said, with an obvious effort at +calmness: + +“Would you greatly mind, Katy, if I were called away to California for a +few weeks?” + +It was hardly needful for Katy to answer with her lips a question to +which her telltale cheeks had made instant reply. Evidently she would +greatly mind; and the tears, too, sprang into her large brown eyes as +corroborative testimony. + +“Ah, my son,” she said, looking up into his face with infinite +tenderness, “I should have known that this was coming. Did I not lie +awake a half of the night weeping because, during the other half, +Grandfather Bayne had come to me in a dream, and standing by his +portrait—young, too, and handsome as that—pointed to yours on the same +wall? And when I looked it seemed that I could not see the features; you +had been painted with a face cloth, such as we put upon the dead. Your +father has laughed at me, but you and I, dear, know that such things are +not for nothing. And I saw below the edge of the cloth the marks of +hands on your throat—forgive me, but we have not been used to keep such +things from each other. Perhaps you have another interpretation. +Perhaps it does not mean that you will go to California. Or maybe you +will take me with you?” + +It must be confessed that this ingenious interpretation of the dream in +the light of newly discovered evidence did not wholly commend itself to +the son’s more logical mind; he had, for the moment at least, a +conviction that it foreshadowed a more simple and immediate, if less +tragic, disaster than a visit to the Pacific Coast. It was Halpin +Frayser’s impression that he was to be garroted on his native heath. + +“Are there not medicinal springs in California?” Mrs. Frayser resumed +before he had time to give her the true reading of the dream—“places +where one recovers from rheumatism and neuralgia? Look—my fingers feel +so stiff; and I am almost sure they have been giving me great pain while +I slept.” + +She held out her hands for his inspection. What diagnosis of her case +the young man may have thought it best to conceal with a smile the +historian is unable to state, but for himself he feels bound to say that +fingers looking less stiff, and showing fewer evidences of even +insensible pain, have seldom been submitted for medical inspection by +even the fairest patient desiring a prescription of unfamiliar scenes. + +The outcome of it was that of these two odd persons having equally odd +notions of duty, the one went to California, as the interest of his +client required, and the other remained at home in compliance with a wish +that her husband was scarcely conscious of entertaining. + +While in San Francisco Halpin Frayser was walking one dark night along +the water front of the city, when, with a suddenness that surprised and +disconcerted him, he became a sailor. He was in fact “shanghaied” aboard +a gallant, gallant ship, and sailed for a far countree. Nor did his +misfortunes end with the voyage; for the ship was cast ashore on an +island of the South Pacific, and it was six years afterward when the +survivors were taken off by a venturesome trading schooner and brought +back to San Francisco. + +Though poor in purse, Frayser was no less proud in spirit than he had +been in the years that seemed ages and ages ago. He would accept no +assistance from strangers, and it was while living with a fellow survivor +near the town of St. Helena, awaiting news and remittances from home, +that he had gone gunning and dreaming. + + +III + + +THE apparition confronting the dreamer in the haunted wood—the thing so +like, yet so unlike his mother—was horrible! It stirred no love nor +longing in his heart; it came unattended with pleasant memories of a +golden past—inspired no sentiment of any kind; all the finer emotions +were swallowed up in fear. He tried to turn and run from before it, but +his legs were as lead; he was unable to lift his feet from the ground. +His arms hung helpless at his sides; of his eyes only he retained +control, and these he dared not remove from the lusterless orbs of the +apparition, which he knew was not a soul without a body, but that most +dreadful of all existences infesting that haunted wood—a body without a +soul! In its blank stare was neither love, nor pity, nor +intelligence—nothing to which to address an appeal for mercy. “An appeal +will not lie,” he thought, with an absurd reversion to professional +slang, making the situation more horrible, as the fire of a cigar might +light up a tomb. + +For a time, which seemed so long that the world grew gray with age and +sin, and the haunted forest, having fulfilled its purpose in this +monstrous culmination of its terrors, vanished out of his consciousness +with all its sights and sounds, the apparition stood within a pace, +regarding him with the mindless malevolence of a wild brute; then thrust +its hands forward and sprang upon him with appalling ferocity! The act +released his physical energies without unfettering his will; his mind was +still spellbound, but his powerful body and agile limbs, endowed with a +blind, insensate life of their own, resisted stoutly and well. For an +instant he seemed to see this unnatural contest between a dead +intelligence and a breathing mechanism only as a spectator—such fancies +are in dreams; then he regained his identity almost as if by a leap +forward into his body, and the straining automaton had a directing will +as alert and fierce as that of its hideous antagonist. + +But what mortal can cope with a creature of his dream? The imagination +creating the enemy is already vanquished; the combat’s result is the +combat’s cause. Despite his struggles—despite his strength and activity, +which seemed wasted in a void, he felt the cold fingers close upon his +throat. Borne backward to the earth, he saw above him the dead and drawn +face within a hand’s breadth of his own, and then all was black. A sound +as of the beating of distant drums—a murmur of swarming voices, a sharp, +far cry signing all to silence, and Halpin Frayser dreamed that he was +dead. + + +IV + + +A WARM, clear night had been followed by a morning of drenching fog. At +about the middle of the afternoon of the preceding day a little whiff of +light vapor—a mere thickening of the atmosphere, the ghost of a cloud—had +been observed clinging to the western side of Mount St. Helena, away up +along the barren altitudes near the summit. It was so thin, so +diaphanous, so like a fancy made visible, that one would have said: “Look +quickly! in a moment it will be gone.” + +In a moment it was visibly larger and denser. While with one edge it +clung to the mountain, with the other it reached farther and farther out +into the air above the lower slopes. At the same time it extended itself +to north and south, joining small patches of mist that appeared to come +out of the mountainside on exactly the same level, with an intelligent +design to be absorbed. And so it grew and grew until the summit was shut +out of view from the valley, and over the valley itself was an +ever-extending canopy, opaque and gray. At Calistoga, which lies near +the head of the valley and the foot of the mountain, there were a +starless night and a sunless morning. The fog, sinking into the valley, +had reached southward, swallowing up ranch after ranch, until it had +blotted out the town of St. Helena, nine miles away. The dust in the +road was laid; trees were adrip with moisture; birds sat silent in their +coverts; the morning light was wan and ghastly, with neither color nor +fire. + +Two men left the town of St. Helena at the first glimmer of dawn, and +walked along the road northward up the valley toward Calistoga. They +carried guns on their shoulders, yet no one having knowledge of such +matters could have mistaken them for hunters of bird or beast. They were +a deputy sheriff from Napa and a detective from San Francisco—Holker and +Jaralson, respectively. Their business was man-hunting. + +“How far is it?” inquired Holker, as they strode along, their feet +stirring white the dust beneath the damp surface of the road. + +“The White Church? Only a half mile farther,” the other answered. “By +the way,” he added, “it is neither white nor a church; it is an abandoned +schoolhouse, gray with age and neglect. Religious services were once +held in it—when it was white, and there is a graveyard that would delight +a poet. Can you guess why I sent for you, and told you to come heeled?” + +“Oh, I never have bothered you about things of that kind. I’ve always +found you communicative when the time came. But if I may hazard a guess, +you want me to help you arrest one of the corpses in the graveyard.” + +“You remember Branscom?” said Jaralson, treating his companion’s wit with +the inattention that it deserved. + +“The chap who cut his wife’s throat? I ought; I wasted a week’s work on +him and had my expenses for my trouble. There is a reward of five +hundred dollars, but none of us ever got a sight of him. You don’t mean +to say—” + +“Yes, I do. He has been under the noses of you fellows all the time. He +comes by night to the old graveyard at the White Church.” + +“The devil! That’s where they buried his wife.” + +“Well, you fellows might have had sense enough to suspect that he would +return to her grave some time.” + +“The very last place that anyone would have expected him to return to.” + +“But you had exhausted all the other places. Learning your failure at +them, I ‘laid for him’ there.” + +“And you found him?” + +“Damn it! he found _me_. The rascal got the drop on me—regularly held me +up and made me travel. It’s God’s mercy that he didn’t go through me. +Oh, he’s a good one, and I fancy the half of that reward is enough for me +if you’re needy.” + +Holker laughed good humoredly, and explained that his creditors were +never more importunate. + +“I wanted merely to show you the ground, and arrange a plan with you,” +the detective explained. “I thought it as well for us to be heeled, even +in daylight.” + +“The man must be insane,” said the deputy sheriff. “The reward is for +his capture and conviction. If he’s mad he won’t be convicted.” + +Mr. Holker was so profoundly affected by that possible failure of justice +that he involuntarily stopped in the middle of the road, then resumed his +walk with abated zeal. + +“Well, he looks it,” assented Jaralson. “I’m bound to admit that a more +unshaven, unshorn, unkempt, and uneverything wretch I never saw outside +the ancient and honorable order of tramps. But I’ve gone in for him, and +can’t make up my mind to let go. There’s glory in it for us, anyhow. +Not another soul knows that he is this side of the Mountains of the +Moon.” + +“All right,” Holker said; “we will go and view the ground,” and he added, +in the words of a once favorite inscription for tombstones: “‘where you +must shortly lie’—I mean, if old Branscom ever gets tired of you and your +impertinent intrusion. By the way, I heard the other day that ‘Branscom’ +was not his real name.” + +“What is?” + +“I can’t recall it. I had lost all interest in the wretch, and it did +not fix itself in my memory—something like Pardee. The woman whose +throat he had the bad taste to cut was a widow when he met her. She had +come to California to look up some relatives—there are persons who will +do that sometimes. But you know all that.” + +“Naturally.” + +“But not knowing the right name, by what happy inspiration did you find +the right grave? The man who told me what the name was said it had been +cut on the headboard.” + +“I don’t know the right grave.” Jaralson was apparently a trifle +reluctant to admit his ignorance of so important a point of his plan. “I +have been watching about the place generally. A part of our work this +morning will be to identify that grave. Here is the White Church.” + +For a long distance the road had been bordered by fields on both sides, +but now on the left there was a forest of oaks, madroños, and gigantic +spruces whose lower parts only could be seen, dim and ghostly in the fog. +The undergrowth was, in places, thick, but nowhere impenetrable. For +some moments Holker saw nothing of the building, but as they turned into +the woods it revealed itself in faint gray outline through the fog, +looking huge and far away. A few steps more, and it was within an arm’s +length, distinct, dark with moisture, and insignificant in size. It had +the usual country-schoolhouse form—belonged to the packing-box order of +architecture; had an underpinning of stones, a moss-grown roof, and blank +window spaces, whence both glass and sash had long departed. It was +ruined, but not a ruin—a typical Californian substitute for what are +known to guide-bookers abroad as “monuments of the past.” With scarcely +a glance at this uninteresting structure Jaralson moved on into the +dripping undergrowth beyond. + +“I will show you where he held me up,” he said. “This is the graveyard.” + +Here and there among the bushes were small inclosures containing graves, +sometimes no more than one. They were recognized as graves by the +discolored stones or rotting boards at head and foot, leaning at all +angles, some prostrate; by the ruined picket fences surrounding them; or, +infrequently, by the mound itself showing its gravel through the fallen +leaves. In many instances nothing marked the spot where lay the vestiges +of some poor mortal—who, leaving “a large circle of sorrowing friends,” +had been left by them in turn—except a depression in the earth, more +lasting than that in the spirits of the mourners. The paths, if any +paths had been, were long obliterated; trees of a considerable size had +been permitted to grow up from the graves and thrust aside with root or +branch the inclosing fences. Over all was that air of abandonment and +decay which seems nowhere so fit and significant as in a village of the +forgotten dead. + +As the two men, Jaralson leading, pushed their way through the growth of +young trees, that enterprising man suddenly stopped and brought up his +shotgun to the height of his breast, uttered a low note of warning, and +stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon something ahead. As well as he +could, obstructed by brush, his companion, though seeing nothing, +imitated the posture and so stood, prepared for what might ensue. A +moment later Jaralson moved cautiously forward, the other following. + +Under the branches of an enormous spruce lay the dead body of a man. +Standing silent above it they noted such particulars as first strike the +attention—the face, the attitude, the clothing; whatever most promptly +and plainly answers the unspoken question of a sympathetic curiosity. + +The body lay upon its back, the legs wide apart. One arm was thrust +upward, the other outward; but the latter was bent acutely, and the hand +was near the throat. Both hands were tightly clenched. The whole +attitude was that of desperate but ineffectual resistance to—what? + +Near by lay a shotgun and a game bag through the meshes of which was seen +the plumage of shot birds. All about were evidences of a furious +struggle; small sprouts of poison-oak were bent and denuded of leaf and +bark; dead and rotting leaves had been pushed into heaps and ridges on +both sides of the legs by the action of other feet than theirs; alongside +the hips were unmistakable impressions of human knees. + +The nature of the struggle was made clear by a glance at the dead man’s +throat and face. While breast and hands were white, those were +purple—almost black. The shoulders lay upon a low mound, and the head +was turned back at an angle otherwise impossible, the expanded eyes +staring blankly backward in a direction opposite to that of the feet. +From the froth filling the open mouth the tongue protruded, black and +swollen. The throat showed horrible contusions; not mere finger-marks, +but bruises and lacerations wrought by two strong hands that must have +buried themselves in the yielding flesh, maintaining their terrible grasp +until long after death. Breast, throat, face, were wet; the clothing was +saturated; drops of water, condensed from the fog, studded the hair and +mustache. + +All this the two men observed without speaking—almost at a glance. Then +Holker said: + +“Poor devil! he had a rough deal.” + +Jaralson was making a vigilant circumspection of the forest, his shotgun +held in both hands and at full cock, his finger upon the trigger. + +“The work of a maniac,” he said, without withdrawing his eyes from the +inclosing wood. “It was done by Branscom—Pardee.” + +Something half hidden by the disturbed leaves on the earth caught +Holker’s attention. It was a red-leather pocketbook. He picked it up +and opened it. It contained leaves of white paper for memoranda, and +upon the first leaf was the name “Halpin Frayser.” Written in red on +several succeeding leaves—scrawled as if in haste and barely legible—were +the following lines, which Holker read aloud, while his companion +continued scanning the dim gray confines of their narrow world and +hearing matter of apprehension in the drip of water from every burdened +branch: + + “Enthralled by some mysterious spell, I stood + In the lit gloom of an enchanted wood. + The cypress there and myrtle twined their boughs, + Significant, in baleful brotherhood. + + “The brooding willow whispered to the yew; + Beneath, the deadly nightshade and the rue, + With immortelles self-woven into strange + Funereal shapes, and horrid nettles grew. + + “No song of bird nor any drone of bees, + Nor light leaf lifted by the wholesome breeze: + The air was stagnant all, and Silence was + A living thing that breathed among the trees. + + “Conspiring spirits whispered in the gloom, + Half-heard, the stilly secrets of the tomb. + With blood the trees were all adrip; the leaves + Shone in the witch-light with a ruddy bloom. + + “I cried aloud!—the spell, unbroken still, + Rested upon my spirit and my will. + Unsouled, unhearted, hopeless and forlorn, + I strove with monstrous presages of ill! + + “At last the viewless—” + +Holker ceased reading; there was no more to read. The manuscript broke +off in the middle of a line. + +“That sounds like Bayne,” said Jaralson, who was something of a scholar +in his way. He had abated his vigilance and stood looking down at the +body. + +“Who’s Bayne?” Holker asked rather incuriously. + +“Myron Bayne, a chap who flourished in the early years of the nation—more +than a century ago. Wrote mighty dismal stuff; I have his collected +works. That poem is not among them, but it must have been omitted by +mistake.” + +“It is cold,” said Holker; “let us leave here; we must have up the +coroner from Napa.” + +Jaralson said nothing, but made a movement in compliance. Passing the +end of the slight elevation of earth upon which the dead man’s head and +shoulders lay, his foot struck some hard substance under the rotting +forest leaves, and he took the trouble to kick it into view. It was a +fallen headboard, and painted on it were the hardly decipherable words, +“Catharine Larue.” + +“Larue, Larue!” exclaimed Holker, with sudden animation. “Why, that is +the real name of Branscom—not Pardee. And—bless my soul! how it all +comes to me—the murdered woman’s name had been Frayser!” + +“There is some rascally mystery here,” said Detective Jaralson. “I hate +anything of that kind.” + +There came to them out of the fog—seemingly from a great distance—the +sound of a laugh, a low, deliberate, soulless laugh, which had no more of +joy than that of a hyena night-prowling in the desert; a laugh that rose +by slow gradation, louder and louder, clearer, more distinct and +terrible, until it seemed barely outside the narrow circle of their +vision; a laugh so unnatural, so unhuman, so devilish, that it filled +those hardy man-hunters with a sense of dread unspeakable! They did not +move their weapons nor think of them; the menace of that horrible sound +was not of the kind to be met with arms. As it had grown out of silence, +so now it died away; from a culminating shout which had seemed almost in +their ears, it drew itself away into the distance, until its failing +notes, joyless and mechanical to the last, sank to silence at a +measureless remove. + + + + +THE SECRET OF MACARGER’S GULCH + + +NORTHWESTWARDLY from Indian Hill, about nine miles as the crow flies, is +Macarger’s Gulch. It is not much of a gulch—a mere depression between +two wooded ridges of inconsiderable height. From its mouth up to its +head—for gulches, like rivers, have an anatomy of their own—the distance +does not exceed two miles, and the width at bottom is at only one place +more than a dozen yards; for most of the distance on either side of the +little brook which drains it in winter, and goes dry in the early spring, +there is no level ground at all; the steep slopes of the hills, covered +with an almost impenetrable growth of manzanita and chemisal, are parted +by nothing but the width of the water course. No one but an occasional +enterprising hunter of the vicinity ever goes into Macarger’s Gulch, and +five miles away it is unknown, even by name. Within that distance in any +direction are far more conspicuous topographical features without names, +and one might try in vain to ascertain by local inquiry the origin of the +name of this one. + +About midway between the head and the mouth of Macarger’s Gulch, the hill +on the right as you ascend is cloven by another gulch, a short dry one, +and at the junction of the two is a level space of two or three acres, +and there a few years ago stood an old board house containing one small +room. How the component parts of the house, few and simple as they were, +had been assembled at that almost inaccessible point is a problem in the +solution of which there would be greater satisfaction than advantage. +Possibly the creek bed is a reformed road. It is certain that the gulch +was at one time pretty thoroughly prospected by miners, who must have had +some means of getting in with at least pack animals carrying tools and +supplies; their profits, apparently, were not such as would have +justified any considerable outlay to connect Macarger’s Gulch with any +center of civilization enjoying the distinction of a sawmill. The house, +however, was there, most of it. It lacked a door and a window frame, and +the chimney of mud and stones had fallen into an unlovely heap, overgrown +with rank weeds. Such humble furniture as there may once have been and +much of the lower weatherboarding, had served as fuel in the camp fires +of hunters; as had also, probably, the curbing of an old well, which at +the time I write of existed in the form of a rather wide but not very +deep depression near by. + +One afternoon in the summer of 1874, I passed up Macarger’s Gulch from +the narrow valley into which it opens, by following the dry bed of the +brook. I was quail-shooting and had made a bag of about a dozen birds by +the time I had reached the house described, of whose existence I was +until then unaware. After rather carelessly inspecting the ruin I +resumed my sport, and having fairly good success prolonged it until near +sunset, when it occurred to me that I was a long way from any human +habitation—too far to reach one by nightfall. But in my game bag was +food, and the old house would afford shelter, if shelter were needed on a +warm and dewless night in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, where one +may sleep in comfort on the pine needles, without covering. I am fond of +solitude and love the night, so my resolution to “camp out” was soon +taken, and by the time that it was dark I had made my bed of boughs and +grasses in a corner of the room and was roasting a quail at a fire that I +had kindled on the hearth. The smoke escaped out of the ruined chimney, +the light illuminated the room with a kindly glow, and as I ate my simple +meal of plain bird and drank the remains of a bottle of red wine which +had served me all the afternoon in place of the water, which the region +did not supply, I experienced a sense of comfort which better fare and +accommodations do not always give. + +Nevertheless, there was something lacking. I had a sense of comfort, but +not of security. I detected myself staring more frequently at the open +doorway and blank window than I could find warrant for doing. Outside +these apertures all was black, and I was unable to repress a certain +feeling of apprehension as my fancy pictured the outer world and filled +it with unfriendly entities, natural and supernatural—chief among which, +in their respective classes, were the grizzly bear, which I knew was +occasionally still seen in that region, and the ghost, which I had reason +to think was not. Unfortunately, our feelings do not always respect the +law of probabilities, and to me that evening, the possible and the +impossible were equally disquieting. + +Everyone who has had experience in the matter must have observed that one +confronts the actual and imaginary perils of the night with far less +apprehension in the open air than in a house with an open doorway. I +felt this now as I lay on my leafy couch in a corner of the room next to +the chimney and permitted my fire to die out. So strong became my sense +of the presence of something malign and menacing in the place, that I +found myself almost unable to withdraw my eyes from the opening, as in +the deepening darkness it became more and more indistinct. And when the +last little flame flickered and went out I grasped the shotgun which I +had laid at my side and actually turned the muzzle in the direction of +the now invisible entrance, my thumb on one of the hammers, ready to cock +the piece, my breath suspended, my muscles rigid and tense. But later I +laid down the weapon with a sense of shame and mortification. What did I +fear, and why?—I, to whom the night had been + + a more familiar face + Than that of man— + +I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from which none of us +is altogether free had given to solitude and darkness and silence only a +more alluring interest and charm! I was unable to comprehend my folly, +and losing in the conjecture the thing conjectured of, I fell asleep. +And then I dreamed. + +I was in a great city in a foreign land—a city whose people were of my +own race, with minor differences of speech and costume; yet precisely +what these were I could not say; my sense of them was indistinct. The +city was dominated by a great castle upon an overlooking height whose +name I knew, but could not speak. I walked through many streets, some +broad and straight with high, modern buildings, some narrow, gloomy, and +tortuous, between the gables of quaint old houses whose overhanging +stories, elaborately ornamented with carvings in wood and stone, almost +met above my head. + +I sought someone whom I had never seen, yet knew that I should recognize +when found. My quest was not aimless and fortuitous; it had a definite +method. I turned from one street into another without hesitation and +threaded a maze of intricate passages, devoid of the fear of losing my +way. + +Presently I stopped before a low door in a plain stone house which might +have been the dwelling of an artisan of the better sort, and without +announcing myself, entered. The room, rather sparely furnished, and +lighted by a single window with small diamond-shaped panes, had but two +occupants; a man and a woman. They took no notice of my intrusion, a +circumstance which, in the manner of dreams, appeared entirely natural. +They were not conversing; they sat apart, unoccupied and sullen. + +The woman was young and rather stout, with fine large eyes and a certain +grave beauty; my memory of her expression is exceedingly vivid, but in +dreams one does not observe the details of faces. About her shoulders +was a plaid shawl. The man was older, dark, with an evil face made more +forbidding by a long scar extending from near the left temple diagonally +downward into the black mustache; though in my dreams it seemed rather to +haunt the face as a thing apart—I can express it no otherwise—than to +belong to it. The moment that I found the man and woman I knew them to +be husband and wife. + +What followed, I remember indistinctly; all was confused and +inconsistent—made so, I think, by gleams of consciousness. It was as if +two pictures, the scene of my dream, and my actual surroundings, had been +blended, one overlying the other, until the former, gradually fading, +disappeared, and I was broad awake in the deserted cabin, entirely and +tranquilly conscious of my situation. + +My foolish fear was gone, and opening my eyes I saw that my fire, not +altogether burned out, had revived by the falling of a stick and was +again lighting the room. I had probably slept only a few minutes, but my +commonplace dream had somehow so strongly impressed me that I was no +longer drowsy; and after a little while I rose, pushed the embers of my +fire together, and lighting my pipe proceeded in a rather ludicrously +methodical way to meditate upon my vision. + +It would have puzzled me then to say in what respect it was worth +attention. In the first moment of serious thought that I gave to the +matter I recognized the city of my dream as Edinburgh, where I had never +been; so if the dream was a memory it was a memory of pictures and +description. The recognition somehow deeply impressed me; it was as if +something in my mind insisted rebelliously against will and reason on the +importance of all this. And that faculty, whatever it was, asserted also +a control of my speech. “Surely,” I said aloud, quite involuntarily, +“the MacGregors must have come here from Edinburgh.” + +At the moment, neither the substance of this remark nor the fact of my +making it, surprised me in the least; it seemed entirely natural that I +should know the name of my dreamfolk and something of their history. But +the absurdity of it all soon dawned upon me: I laughed aloud, knocked the +ashes from my pipe and again stretched myself upon my bed of boughs and +grass, where I lay staring absently into my failing fire, with no further +thought of either my dream or my surroundings. Suddenly the single +remaining flame crouched for a moment, then, springing upward, lifted +itself clear of its embers and expired in air. The darkness was +absolute. + +At that instant—almost, it seemed, before the gleam of the blaze had +faded from my eyes—there was a dull, dead sound, as of some heavy body +falling upon the floor, which shook beneath me as I lay. I sprang to a +sitting posture and groped at my side for my gun; my notion was that some +wild beast had leaped in through the open window. While the flimsy +structure was still shaking from the impact I heard the sound of blows, +the scuffling of feet upon the floor, and then—it seemed to come from +almost within reach of my hand, the sharp shrieking of a woman in mortal +agony. So horrible a cry I had never heard nor conceived; it utterly +unnerved me; I was conscious for a moment of nothing but my own terror! +Fortunately my hand now found the weapon of which it was in search, and +the familiar touch somewhat restored me. I leaped to my feet, straining +my eyes to pierce the darkness. The violent sounds had ceased, but more +terrible than these, I heard, at what seemed long intervals, the faint +intermittent gasping of some living, dying thing! + +As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light of the coals in the +fireplace, I saw first the shapes of the door and window, looking blacker +than the black of the walls. Next, the distinction between wall and +floor became discernible, and at last I was sensible to the form and full +expanse of the floor from end to end and side to side. Nothing was +visible and the silence was unbroken. + +With a hand that shook a little, the other still grasping my gun, I +restored my fire and made a critical examination of the place. There was +nowhere any sign that the cabin had been entered. My own tracks were +visible in the dust covering the floor, but there were no others. I +relit my pipe, provided fresh fuel by ripping a thin board or two from +the inside of the house—I did not care to go into the darkness out of +doors—and passed the rest of the night smoking and thinking, and feeding +my fire; not for added years of life would I have permitted that little +flame to expire again. + + * * * * * + +Some years afterward I met in Sacramento a man named Morgan, to whom I +had a note of introduction from a friend in San Francisco. Dining with +him one evening at his home I observed various “trophies” upon the wall, +indicating that he was fond of shooting. It turned out that he was, and +in relating some of his feats he mentioned having been in the region of +my adventure. + +“Mr. Morgan,” I asked abruptly, “do you know a place up there called +Macarger’s Gulch?” + +“I have good reason to,” he replied; “it was I who gave to the +newspapers, last year, the accounts of the finding of the skeleton +there.” + +I had not heard of it; the accounts had been published, it appeared, +while I was absent in the East. + +“By the way,” said Morgan, “the name of the gulch is a corruption; it +should have been called ‘MacGregor’s.’ My dear,” he added, speaking to +his wife, “Mr. Elderson has upset his wine.” + +That was hardly accurate—I had simply dropped it, glass and all. + +“There was an old shanty once in the gulch,” Morgan resumed when the ruin +wrought by my awkwardness had been repaired, “but just previously to my +visit it had been blown down, or rather blown away, for its _débris_ was +scattered all about, the very floor being parted, plank from plank. +Between two of the sleepers still in position I and my companion observed +the remnant of a plaid shawl, and examining it found that it was wrapped +about the shoulders of the body of a woman, of which but little remained +besides the bones, partly covered with fragments of clothing, and brown +dry skin. But we will spare Mrs. Morgan,” he added with a smile. The +lady had indeed exhibited signs of disgust rather than sympathy. + +“It is necessary to say, however,” he went on, “that the skull was +fractured in several places, as by blows of some blunt instrument; and +that instrument itself—a pick-handle, still stained with blood—lay under +the boards near by.” + +Mr. Morgan turned to his wife. “Pardon me, my dear,” he said with +affected solemnity, “for mentioning these disagreeable particulars, the +natural though regrettable incidents of a conjugal quarrel—resulting, +doubtless, from the luckless wife’s insubordination.” + +“I ought to be able to overlook it,” the lady replied with composure; +“you have so many times asked me to in those very words.” + +I thought he seemed rather glad to go on with his story. + +“From these and other circumstances,” he said, “the coroner’s jury found +that the deceased, Janet MacGregor, came to her death from blows +inflicted by some person to the jury unknown; but it was added that the +evidence pointed strongly to her husband, Thomas MacGregor, as the guilty +person. But Thomas MacGregor has never been found nor heard of. It was +learned that the couple came from Edinburgh, but not—my dear, do you not +observe that Mr. Elderson’s boneplate has water in it?” + +I had deposited a chicken bone in my finger bowl. + +“In a little cupboard I found a photograph of MacGregor, but it did not +lead to his capture.” + +“Will you let me see it?” I said. + +The picture showed a dark man with an evil face made more forbidding by a +long scar extending from near the temple diagonally downward into the +black mustache. + +“By the way, Mr. Elderson,” said my affable host, “may I know why you +asked about ‘Macarger’s Gulch’?” + +“I lost a mule near there once,” I replied, “and the mischance has—has +quite—upset me.” + +“My dear,” said Mr. Morgan, with the mechanical intonation of an +interpreter translating, “the loss of Mr. Elderson’s mule has peppered +his coffee.” + + + + +ONE SUMMER NIGHT + + +THE fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove +that he was dead: he had always been a hard man to convince. That he +really was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit. +His posture—flat upon his back, with his hands crossed upon his stomach +and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering +the situation—the strict confinement of his entire person, the black +darkness and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to +controvert and he accepted it without cavil. + +But dead—no; he was only very, very ill. He had, withal, the invalid’s +apathy and did not greatly concern himself about the uncommon fate that +had been allotted to him. No philosopher was he—just a plain, +commonplace person gifted, for the time being, with a pathological +indifference: the organ that he feared consequences with was torpid. So, +with no particular apprehension for his immediate future, he fell asleep +and all was peace with Henry Armstrong. + +But something was going on overhead. It was a dark summer night, shot +through with infrequent shimmers of lightning silently firing a cloud +lying low in the west and portending a storm. These brief, stammering +illuminations brought out with ghastly distinctness the monuments and +headstones of the cemetery and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a +night in which any credible witness was likely to be straying about a +cemetery, so the three men who were there, digging into the grave of +Henry Armstrong, felt reasonably secure. + +Two of them were young students from a medical college a few miles away; +the third was a gigantic negro known as Jess. For many years Jess had +been employed about the cemetery as a man-of-all-work and it was his +favorite pleasantry that he knew “every soul in the place.” From the +nature of what he was now doing it was inferable that the place was not +so populous as its register may have shown it to be. + +Outside the wall, at the part of the grounds farthest from the public +road, were a horse and a light wagon, waiting. + +The work of excavation was not difficult: the earth with which the grave +had been loosely filled a few hours before offered little resistance and +was soon thrown out. Removal of the casket from its box was less easy, +but it was taken out, for it was a perquisite of Jess, who carefully +unscrewed the cover and laid it aside, exposing the body in black +trousers and white shirt. At that instant the air sprang to flame, a +cracking shock of thunder shook the stunned world and Henry Armstrong +tranquilly sat up. With inarticulate cries the men fled in terror, each +in a different direction. For nothing on earth could two of them have +been persuaded to return. But Jess was of another breed. + +In the gray of the morning the two students, pallid and haggard from +anxiety and with the terror of their adventure still beating tumultuously +in their blood, met at the medical college. + +“You saw it?” cried one. + +“God! yes—what are we to do?” + +They went around to the rear of the building, where they saw a horse, +attached to a light wagon, hitched to a gatepost near the door of the +dissecting-room. Mechanically they entered the room. On a bench in the +obscurity sat the negro Jess. He rose, grinning, all eyes and teeth. + +“I’m waiting for my pay,” he said. + +Stretched naked on a long table lay the body of Henry Armstrong, the head +defiled with blood and clay from a blow with a spade. + + + + +THE MOONLIT ROAD + + +I +STATEMENT OF JOEL HETMAN, JR. + + +I AM the most unfortunate of men. Rich, respected, fairly well educated +and of sound health—with many other advantages usually valued by those +having them and coveted by those who have them not—I sometimes think that +I should be less unhappy if they had been denied me, for then the +contrast between my outer and my inner life would not be continually +demanding a painful attention. In the stress of privation and the need +of effort I might sometimes forget the somber secret ever baffling the +conjecture that it compels. + +I am the only child of Joel and Julia Hetman. The one was a well-to-do +country gentleman, the other a beautiful and accomplished woman to whom +he was passionately attached with what I now know to have been a jealous +and exacting devotion. The family home was a few miles from Nashville, +Tennessee, a large, irregularly built dwelling of no particular order of +architecture, a little way off the road, in a park of trees and +shrubbery. + +At the time of which I write I was nineteen years old, a student at Yale. +One day I received a telegram from my father of such urgency that in +compliance with its unexplained demand I left at once for home. At the +railway station in Nashville a distant relative awaited me to apprise me +of the reason for my recall: my mother had been barbarously murdered—why +and by whom none could conjecture, but the circumstances were these: My +father had gone to Nashville, intending to return the next afternoon. +Something prevented his accomplishing the business in hand, so he +returned on the same night, arriving just before the dawn. In his +testimony before the coroner he explained that having no latchkey and not +caring to disturb the sleeping servants, he had, with no clearly defined +intention, gone round to the rear of the house. As he turned an angle of +the building, he heard a sound as of a door gently closed, and saw in the +darkness, indistinctly, the figure of a man, which instantly disappeared +among the trees of the lawn. A hasty pursuit and brief search of the +grounds in the belief that the trespasser was some one secretly visiting +a servant proving fruitless, he entered at the unlocked door and mounted +the stairs to my mother’s chamber. Its door was open, and stepping into +black darkness he fell headlong over some heavy object on the floor. I +may spare myself the details; it was my poor mother, dead of +strangulation by human hands! + +Nothing had been taken from the house, the servants had heard no sound, +and excepting those terrible finger-marks upon the dead woman’s +throat—dear God! that I might forget them!—no trace of the assassin was +ever found. + +I gave up my studies and remained with my father, who, naturally, was +greatly changed. Always of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he now fell +into so deep a dejection that nothing could hold his attention, yet +anything—a footfall, the sudden closing of a door—aroused in him a fitful +interest; one might have called it an apprehension. At any small +surprise of the senses he would start visibly and sometimes turn pale, +then relapse into a melancholy apathy deeper than before. I suppose he +was what is called a “nervous wreck.” As to me, I was younger then than +now—there is much in that. Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every +wound. Ah, that I might again dwell in that enchanted land! +Unacquainted with grief, I knew not how to appraise my bereavement; I +could not rightly estimate the strength of the stroke. + +One night, a few months after the dreadful event, my father and I walked +home from the city. The full moon was about three hours above the +eastern horizon; the entire countryside had the solemn stillness of a +summer night; our footfalls and the ceaseless song of the katydids were +the only sound aloof. Black shadows of bordering trees lay athwart the +road, which, in the short reaches between, gleamed a ghostly white. As +we approached the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in shadow, and in +which no light shone, my father suddenly stopped and clutched my arm, +saying, hardly above his breath: + +“God! God! what is that?” + +“I hear nothing,” I replied. + +“But see—see!” he said, pointing along the road, directly ahead. + +I said: “Nothing is there. Come, father, let us go in—you are ill.” + +He had released my arm and was standing rigid and motionless in the +center of the illuminated roadway, staring like one bereft of sense. His +face in the moonlight showed a pallor and fixity inexpressibly +distressing. I pulled gently at his sleeve, but he had forgotten my +existence. Presently he began to retire backward, step by step, never +for an instant removing his eyes from what he saw, or thought he saw. I +turned half round to follow, but stood irresolute. I do not recall any +feeling of fear, unless a sudden chill was its physical manifestation. +It seemed as if an icy wind had touched my face and enfolded my body from +head to foot; I could feel the stir of it in my hair. + +At that moment my attention was drawn to a light that suddenly streamed +from an upper window of the house: one of the servants, awakened by what +mysterious premonition of evil who can say, and in obedience to an +impulse that she was never able to name, had lit a lamp. When I turned +to look for my father he was gone, and in all the years that have passed +no whisper of his fate has come across the borderland of conjecture from +the realm of the unknown. + + +II +STATEMENT OF CASPAR GRATTAN + + +To-day I am said to live; to-morrow, here in this room, will lie a +senseless shape of clay that all too long was I. If anyone lift the +cloth from the face of that unpleasant thing it will be in gratification +of a mere morbid curiosity. Some, doubtless, will go further and +inquire, “Who was he?” In this writing I supply the only answer that I +am able to make—Caspar Grattan. Surely, that should be enough. The name +has served my small need for more than twenty years of a life of unknown +length. True, I gave it to myself, but lacking another I had the right. +In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it +does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which +also seem inadequate distinctions. + +One day, for illustration, I was passing along a street of a city, far +from here, when I met two men in uniform, one of whom, half pausing and +looking curiously into my face, said to his companion, “That man looks +like 767.” Something in the number seemed familiar and horrible. Moved +by an uncontrollable impulse, I sprang into a side street and ran until I +fell exhausted in a country lane. + +I have never forgotten that number, and always it comes to memory +attended by gibbering obscenity, peals of joyless laughter, the clang of +iron doors. So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a +number. In the register of the potter’s field I shall soon have both. +What wealth! + +Of him who shall find this paper I must beg a little consideration. It +is not the history of my life; the knowledge to write that is denied me. +This is only a record of broken and apparently unrelated memories, some +of them as distinct and sequent as brilliant beads upon a thread, others +remote and strange, having the character of crimson dreams with +interspaces blank and black—witch-fires glowing still and red in a great +desolation. + +Standing upon the shore of eternity, I turn for a last look landward over +the course by which I came. There are twenty years of footprints fairly +distinct, the impressions of bleeding feet. They lead through poverty +and pain, devious and unsure, as of one staggering beneath a burden— + + Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow. + +Ah, the poet’s prophecy of Me—how admirable, how dreadfully admirable! + +Backward beyond the beginning of this _via dolorosa_—this epic of +suffering with episodes of sin—I see nothing clearly; it comes out of a +cloud. I know that it spans only twenty years, yet I am an old man. + +One does not remember one’s birth—one has to be told. But with me it was +different; life came to me full-handed and dowered me with all my +faculties and powers. Of a previous existence I know no more than +others, for all have stammering intimations that may be memories and may +be dreams. I know only that my first consciousness was of maturity in +body and mind—a consciousness accepted without surprise or conjecture. I +merely found myself walking in a forest, half-clad, footsore, unutterably +weary and hungry. Seeing a farmhouse, I approached and asked for food, +which was given me by one who inquired my name. I did not know, yet knew +that all had names. Greatly embarrassed, I retreated, and night coming +on, lay down in the forest and slept. + +The next day I entered a large town which I shall not name. Nor shall I +recount further incidents of the life that is now to end—a life of +wandering, always and everywhere haunted by an overmastering sense of +crime in punishment of wrong and of terror in punishment of crime. Let +me see if I can reduce it to narrative. + +I seem once to have lived near a great city, a prosperous planter, +married to a woman whom I loved and distrusted. We had, it sometimes +seems, one child, a youth of brilliant parts and promise. He is at all +times a vague figure, never clearly drawn, frequently altogether out of +the picture. + +One luckless evening it occurred to me to test my wife’s fidelity in a +vulgar, commonplace way familiar to everyone who has acquaintance with +the literature of fact and fiction. I went to the city, telling my wife +that I should be absent until the following afternoon. But I returned +before daybreak and went to the rear of the house, purposing to enter by +a door with which I had secretly so tampered that it would seem to lock, +yet not actually fasten. As I approached it, I heard it gently open and +close, and saw a man steal away into the darkness. With murder in my +heart, I sprang after him, but he had vanished without even the bad luck +of identification. Sometimes now I cannot even persuade myself that it +was a human being. + +Crazed with jealousy and rage, blind and bestial with all the elemental +passions of insulted manhood, I entered the house and sprang up the +stairs to the door of my wife’s chamber. It was closed, but having +tampered with its lock also, I easily entered and despite the black +darkness soon stood by the side of her bed. My groping hands told me +that although disarranged it was unoccupied. + +“She is below,” I thought, “and terrified by my entrance has evaded me in +the darkness of the hall.” + +With the purpose of seeking her I turned to leave the room, but took a +wrong direction—the right one! My foot struck her, cowering in a corner +of the room. Instantly my hands were at her throat, stifling a shriek, +my knees were upon her struggling body; and there in the darkness, +without a word of accusation or reproach, I strangled her till she died! + +There ends the dream. I have related it in the past tense, but the +present would be the fitter form, for again and again the somber tragedy +reenacts itself in my consciousness—over and over I lay the plan, I +suffer the confirmation, I redress the wrong. Then all is blank; and +afterward the rains beat against the grimy window-panes, or the snows +fall upon my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the squalid streets where +my life lies in poverty and mean employment. If there is ever sunshine I +do not recall it; if there are birds they do not sing. + +There is another dream, another vision of the night. I stand among the +shadows in a moonlit road. I am aware of another presence, but whose I +cannot rightly determine. In the shadow of a great dwelling I catch the +gleam of white garments; then the figure of a woman confronts me in the +road—my murdered wife! There is death in the face; there are marks upon +the throat. The eyes are fixed on mine with an infinite gravity which is +not reproach, nor hate, nor menace, nor anything less terrible than +recognition. Before this awful apparition I retreat in terror—a terror +that is upon me as I write. I can no longer rightly shape the words. +See! they— + +Now I am calm, but truly there is no more to tell: the incident ends +where it began—in darkness and in doubt. + +Yes, I am again in control of myself: “the captain of my soul.” But that +is not respite; it is another stage and phase of expiation. My penance, +constant in degree, is mutable in kind: one of its variants is +tranquillity. After all, it is only a life-sentence. “To Hell for +life”—that is a foolish penalty: the culprit chooses the duration of his +punishment. To-day my term expires. + +To each and all, the peace that was not mine. + + +III +STATEMENT OF THE LATE JULIA HETMAN, +THROUGH THE MEDIUM BAYROLLES + + +I had retired early and fallen almost immediately into a peaceful sleep, +from which I awoke with that indefinable sense of peril which is, I +think, a common experience in that other, earlier life. Of its unmeaning +character, too, I was entirely persuaded, yet that did not banish it. My +husband, Joel Hetman, was away from home; the servants slept in another +part of the house. But these were familiar conditions; they had never +before distressed me. Nevertheless, the strange terror grew so +insupportable that conquering my reluctance to move I sat up and lit the +lamp at my bedside. Contrary to my expectation this gave me no relief; +the light seemed rather an added danger, for I reflected that it would +shine out under the door, disclosing my presence to whatever evil thing +might lurk outside. You that are still in the flesh, subject to horrors +of the imagination, think what a monstrous fear that must be which seeks +in darkness security from malevolent existences of the night. That is to +spring to close quarters with an unseen enemy—the strategy of despair! + +Extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bed-clothing about my head and lay +trembling and silent, unable to shriek, forgetful to pray. In this +pitiable state I must have lain for what you call hours—with us there are +no hours, there is no time. + +At last it came—a soft, irregular sound of footfalls on the stairs! They +were slow, hesitant, uncertain, as of something that did not see its way; +to my disordered reason all the more terrifying for that, as the approach +of some blind and mindless malevolence to which is no appeal. I even +thought that I must have left the hall lamp burning and the groping of +this creature proved it a monster of the night. This was foolish and +inconsistent with my previous dread of the light, but what would you +have? Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it +bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated. We know +this well, we who have passed into the Realm of Terror, who skulk in +eternal dusk among the scenes of our former lives, invisible even to +ourselves and one another, yet hiding forlorn in lonely places; yearning +for speech with our loved ones, yet dumb, and as fearful of them as they +of us. Sometimes the disability is removed, the law suspended: by the +deathless power of love or hate we break the spell—we are seen by those +whom we would warn, console, or punish. What form we seem to them to +bear we know not; we know only that we terrify even those whom we most +wish to comfort, and from whom we most crave tenderness and sympathy. + +Forgive, I pray you, this inconsequent digression by what was once a +woman. You who consult us in this imperfect way—you do not understand. +You ask foolish questions about things unknown and things forbidden. +Much that we know and could impart in our speech is meaningless in yours. +We must communicate with you through a stammering intelligence in that +small fraction of our language that you yourselves can speak. You think +that we are of another world. No, we have knowledge of no world but +yours, though for us it holds no sunlight, no warmth, no music, no +laughter, no song of birds, nor any companionship. O God! what a thing +it is to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an altered world, a prey +to apprehension and despair! + +No, I did not die of fright: the Thing turned and went away. I heard it +go down the stairs, hurriedly, I thought, as if itself in sudden fear. +Then I rose to call for help. Hardly had my shaking hand found the +doorknob when—merciful heaven!—I heard it returning. Its footfalls as it +remounted the stairs were rapid, heavy and loud; they shook the house. I +fled to an angle of the wall and crouched upon the floor. I tried to +pray. I tried to call the name of my dear husband. Then I heard the +door thrown open. There was an interval of unconsciousness, and when I +revived I felt a strangling clutch upon my throat—felt my arms feebly +beating against something that bore me backward—felt my tongue thrusting +itself from between my teeth! And then I passed into this life. + +No, I have no knowledge of what it was. The sum of what we knew at death +is the measure of what we know afterward of all that went before. Of +this existence we know many things, but no new light falls upon any page +of that; in memory is written all of it that we can read. Here are no +heights of truth overlooking the confused landscape of that dubitable +domain. We still dwell in the Valley of the Shadow, lurk in its desolate +places, peering from brambles and thickets at its mad, malign +inhabitants. How should we have new knowledge of that fading past? + +What I am about to relate happened on a night. We know when it is night, +for then you retire to your houses and we can venture from our places of +concealment to move unafraid about our old homes, to look in at the +windows, even to enter and gaze upon your faces as you sleep. I had +lingered long near the dwelling where I had been so cruelly changed to +what I am, as we do while any that we love or hate remain. Vainly I had +sought some method of manifestation, some way to make my continued +existence and my great love and poignant pity understood by my husband +and son. Always if they slept they would wake, or if in my desperation I +dared approach them when they were awake, would turn toward me the +terrible eyes of the living, frightening me by the glances that I sought +from the purpose that I held. + +On this night I had searched for them without success, fearing to find +them; they were nowhere in the house, nor about the moonlit lawn. For, +although the sun is lost to us forever, the moon, full-orbed or slender, +remains to us. Sometimes it shines by night, sometimes by day, but +always it rises and sets, as in that other life. + +I left the lawn and moved in the white light and silence along the road, +aimless and sorrowing. Suddenly I heard the voice of my poor husband in +exclamations of astonishment, with that of my son in reassurance and +dissuasion; and there by the shadow of a group of trees they stood—near, +so near! Their faces were toward me, the eyes of the elder man fixed +upon mine. He saw me—at last, at last, he saw me! In the consciousness +of that, my terror fled as a cruel dream. The death-spell was broken: +Love had conquered Law! Mad with exultation I shouted—I _must_ have +shouted, “He sees, he sees: he will understand!” Then, controlling +myself, I moved forward, smiling and consciously beautiful, to offer +myself to his arms, to comfort him with endearments, and, with my son’s +hand in mine, to speak words that should restore the broken bonds between +the living and the dead. + +Alas! alas! his face went white with fear, his eyes were as those of a +hunted animal. He backed away from me, as I advanced, and at last turned +and fled into the wood—whither, it is not given to me to know. + +To my poor boy, left doubly desolate, I have never been able to impart a +sense of my presence. Soon he, too, must pass to this Life Invisible and +be lost to me forever. + + + + +A DIAGNOSIS OF DEATH + + +“I am not so superstitious as some of your physicians—men of science, as +you are pleased to be called,” said Hawver, replying to an accusation +that had not been made. “Some of you—only a few, I confess—believe in +the immortality of the soul, and in apparitions which you have not the +honesty to call ghosts. I go no further than a conviction that the +living are sometimes seen where they are not, but have been—where they +have lived so long, perhaps so intensely, as to have left their impress +on everything about them. I know, indeed, that one’s environment may be +so affected by one’s personality as to yield, long afterward, an image of +one’s self to the eyes of another. Doubtless the impressing personality +has to be the right kind of personality as the perceiving eyes have to be +the right kind of eyes—mine, for example.” + +“Yes, the right kind of eyes, conveying sensations to the wrong kind of +brain,” said Dr. Frayley, smiling. + +“Thank you; one likes to have an expectation gratified; that is about the +reply that I supposed you would have the civility to make.” + +“Pardon me. But you say that you know. That is a good deal to say, +don’t you think? Perhaps you will not mind the trouble of saying how you +learned.” + +“You will call it an hallucination,” Hawver said, “but that does not +matter.” And he told the story. + +“Last summer I went, as you know, to pass the hot weather term in the +town of Meridian. The relative at whose house I had intended to stay was +ill, so I sought other quarters. After some difficulty I succeeded in +renting a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by an eccentric doctor +of the name of Mannering, who had gone away years before, no one knew +where, not even his agent. He had built the house himself and had lived +in it with an old servant for about ten years. His practice, never very +extensive, had after a few years been given up entirely. Not only so, +but he had withdrawn himself almost altogether from social life and +become a recluse. I was told by the village doctor, about the only +person with whom he held any relations, that during his retirement he had +devoted himself to a single line of study, the result of which he had +expounded in a book that did not commend itself to the approval of his +professional brethren, who, indeed, considered him not entirely sane. I +have not seen the book and cannot now recall the title of it, but I am +told that it expounded a rather startling theory. He held that it was +possible in the case of many a person in good health to forecast his +death with precision, several months in advance of the event. The limit, +I think, was eighteen months. There were local tales of his having +exerted his powers of prognosis, or perhaps you would say diagnosis; and +it was said that in every instance the person whose friends he had warned +had died suddenly at the appointed time, and from no assignable cause. +All this, however, has nothing to do with what I have to tell; I thought +it might amuse a physician. + +“The house was furnished, just as he had lived in it. It was a rather +gloomy dwelling for one who was neither a recluse nor a student, and I +think it gave something of its character to me—perhaps some of its former +occupant’s character; for always I felt in it a certain melancholy that +was not in my natural disposition, nor, I think, due to loneliness. I +had no servants that slept in the house, but I have always been, as you +know, rather fond of my own society, being much addicted to reading, +though little to study. Whatever was the cause, the effect was dejection +and a sense of impending evil; this was especially so in Dr. Mannering’s +study, although that room was the lightest and most airy in the house. +The doctor’s life-size portrait in oil hung in that room, and seemed +completely to dominate it. There was nothing unusual in the picture; the +man was evidently rather good looking, about fifty years old, with +iron-gray hair, a smooth-shaven face and dark, serious eyes. Something +in the picture always drew and held my attention. The man’s appearance +became familiar to me, and rather ‘haunted’ me. + +“One evening I was passing through this room to my bedroom, with a +lamp—there is no gas in Meridian. I stopped as usual before the +portrait, which seemed in the lamplight to have a new expression, not +easily named, but distinctly uncanny. It interested but did not disturb +me. I moved the lamp from one side to the other and observed the effects +of the altered light. While so engaged I felt an impulse to turn round. +As I did so I saw a man moving across the room directly toward me! As +soon as he came near enough for the lamplight to illuminate the face I +saw that it was Dr. Mannering himself; it was as if the portrait were +walking! + +“‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, somewhat coldly, ‘but if you knocked I did +not hear.’ + +“He passed me, within an arm’s length, lifted his right forefinger, as in +warning, and without a word went on out of the room, though I observed +his exit no more than I had observed his entrance. + +“Of course, I need not tell you that this was what you will call an +hallucination and I call an apparition. That room had only two doors, of +which one was locked; the other led into a bedroom, from which there was +no exit. My feeling on realizing this is not an important part of the +incident. + +“Doubtless this seems to you a very commonplace ‘ghost story’—one +constructed on the regular lines laid down by the old masters of the art. +If that were so I should not have related it, even if it were true. The +man was not dead; I met him to-day in Union street. He passed me in a +crowd.” + +Hawver had finished his story and both men were silent. Dr. Frayley +absently drummed on the table with his fingers. + +“Did he say anything to-day?” he asked—“anything from which you inferred +that he was not dead?” + +Hawver stared and did not reply. + +“Perhaps,” continued Frayley, “he made a sign, a gesture—lifted a finger, +as in warning. It’s a trick he had—a habit when saying something +serious—announcing the result of a diagnosis, for example.” + +“Yes, he did—just as his apparition had done. But, good God! did you +ever know him?” + +Hawver was apparently growing nervous. + +“I knew him. I have read his book, as will every physician some day. It +is one of the most striking and important of the century’s contributions +to medical science. Yes, I knew him; I attended him in an illness three +years ago. He died.” + +Hawver sprang from his chair, manifestly disturbed. He strode forward +and back across the room; then approached his friend, and in a voice not +altogether steady, said: “Doctor, have you anything to say to me—as a +physician?” + +“No, Hawver; you are the healthiest man I ever knew. As a friend I +advise you to go to your room. You play the violin like an angel. Play +it; play something light and lively. Get this cursed bad business off +your mind.” + +The next day Hawver was found dead in his room, the violin at his neck, +the bow upon the strings, his music open before him at Chopin’s funeral +march. + + + + +MOXON’S MASTER + + +“ARE you serious?—do you really believe that a machine thinks?” + +I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon the coals in +the grate, touching them deftly here and there with the fire-poker till +they signified a sense of his attention by a brighter glow. For several +weeks I had been observing in him a growing habit of delay in answering +even the most trivial of commonplace questions. His air, however, was +that of preoccupation rather than deliberation: one might have said that +he had “something on his mind.” + +Presently he said: + +“What is a ‘machine’? The word has been variously defined. Here is one +definition from a popular dictionary: ‘Any instrument or organization by +which power is applied and made effective, or a desired effect produced.’ +Well, then, is not a man a machine? And you will admit that he thinks—or +thinks he thinks.” + +“If you do not wish to answer my question,” I said, rather testily, “why +not say so?—all that you say is mere evasion. You know well enough that +when I say ‘machine’ I do not mean a man, but something that man has made +and controls.” + +“When it does not control him,” he said, rising abruptly and looking out +of a window, whence nothing was visible in the blackness of a stormy +night. A moment later he turned about and with a smile said: “I beg your +pardon; I had no thought of evasion. I considered the dictionary man’s +unconscious testimony suggestive and worth something in the discussion. +I can give your question a direct answer easily enough: I do believe that +a machine thinks about the work that it is doing.” + +That was direct enough, certainly. It was not altogether pleasing, for +it tended to confirm a sad suspicion that Moxon’s devotion to study and +work in his machine-shop had not been good for him. I knew, for one +thing, that he suffered from insomnia, and that is no light affliction. +Had it affected his mind? His reply to my question seemed to me then +evidence that it had; perhaps I should think differently about it now. I +was younger then, and among the blessings that are not denied to youth is +ignorance. Incited by that great stimulant to controversy, I said: + +“And what, pray, does it think with—in the absence of a brain?” + +The reply, coming with less than his customary delay, took his favorite +form of counter-interrogation: + +“With what does a plant think—in the absence of a brain?” + +“Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher class! I should be pleased to +know some of their conclusions; you may omit the premises.” + +“Perhaps,” he replied, apparently unaffected by my foolish irony, “you +may be able to infer their convictions from their acts. I will spare you +the familiar examples of the sensitive mimosa, the several insectivorous +flowers and those whose stamens bend down and shake their pollen upon the +entering bee in order that he may fertilize their distant mates. But +observe this. In an open spot in my garden I planted a climbing vine. +When it was barely above the surface I set a stake into the soil a yard +away. The vine at once made for it, but as it was about to reach it +after several days I removed it a few feet. The vine at once altered its +course, making an acute angle, and again made for the stake. This +manœuvre was repeated several times, but finally, as if discouraged, the +vine abandoned the pursuit and ignoring further attempts to divert it +traveled to a small tree, further away, which it climbed. + +“Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong themselves incredibly in search of +moisture. A well-known horticulturist relates that one entered an old +drain pipe and followed it until it came to a break, where a section of +the pipe had been removed to make way for a stone wall that had been +built across its course. The root left the drain and followed the wall +until it found an opening where a stone had fallen out. It crept through +and following the other side of the wall back to the drain, entered the +unexplored part and resumed its journey.” + +“And all this?” + +“Can you miss the significance of it? It shows the consciousness of +plants. It proves that they think.” + +“Even if it did—what then? We were speaking, not of plants, but of +machines. They may be composed partly of wood—wood that has no longer +vitality—or wholly of metal. Is thought an attribute also of the mineral +kingdom?” + +“How else do you explain the phenomena, for example, of crystallization?” + +“I do not explain them.” + +“Because you cannot without affirming what you wish to deny, namely, +intelligent cooperation among the constituent elements of the crystals. +When soldiers form lines, or hollow squares, you call it reason. When +wild geese in flight take the form of a letter V you say instinct. When +the homogeneous atoms of a mineral, moving freely in solution, arrange +themselves into shapes mathematically perfect, or particles of frozen +moisture into the symmetrical and beautiful forms of snowflakes, you have +nothing to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal your heroic +unreason.” + +Moxon was speaking with unusual animation and earnestness. As he paused +I heard in an adjoining room known to me as his “machine-shop,” which no +one but himself was permitted to enter, a singular thumping sound, as of +some one pounding upon a table with an open hand. Moxon heard it at the +same moment and, visibly agitated, rose and hurriedly passed into the +room whence it came. I thought it odd that any one else should be in +there, and my interest in my friend—with doubtless a touch of +unwarrantable curiosity—led me to listen intently, though, I am happy to +say, not at the keyhole. There were confused sounds, as of a struggle or +scuffle; the floor shook. I distinctly heard hard breathing and a hoarse +whisper which said “Damn you!” Then all was silent, and presently Moxon +reappeared and said, with a rather sorry smile: + +“Pardon me for leaving you so abruptly. I have a machine in there that +lost its temper and cut up rough.” + +Fixing my eyes steadily upon his left cheek, which was traversed by four +parallel excoriations showing blood, I said: + +“How would it do to trim its nails?” + +I could have spared myself the jest; he gave it no attention, but seated +himself in the chair that he had left and resumed the interrupted +monologue as if nothing had occurred: + +“Doubtless you do not hold with those (I need not name them to a man of +your reading) who have taught that all matter is sentient, that every +atom is a living, feeling, conscious being. _I_ do. There is no such +thing as dead, inert matter: it is all alive; all instinct with force, +actual and potential; all sensitive to the same forces in its environment +and susceptible to the contagion of higher and subtler ones residing in +such superior organisms as it may be brought into relation with, as those +of man when he is fashioning it into an instrument of his will. It +absorbs something of his intelligence and purpose—more of them in +proportion to the complexity of the resulting machine and that of its +work. + +“Do you happen to recall Herbert Spencer’s definition of ‘Life’? I read +it thirty years ago. He may have altered it afterward, for anything I +know, but in all that time I have been unable to think of a single word +that could profitably be changed or added or removed. It seems to me not +only the best definition, but the only possible one. + +“‘Life,’ he says, ‘is a definite combination of heterogeneous changes, +both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external +coexistences and sequences.’” + +“That defines the phenomenon,” I said, “but gives no hint of its cause.” + +“That,” he replied, “is all that any definition can do. As Mill points +out, we know nothing of cause except as an antecedent—nothing of effect +except as a consequent. Of certain phenomena, one never occurs without +another, which is dissimilar: the first in point of time we call cause, +the second, effect. One who had many times seen a rabbit pursued by a +dog, and had never seen rabbits and dogs otherwise, would think the +rabbit the cause of the dog. + +“But I fear,” he added, laughing naturally enough, “that my rabbit is +leading me a long way from the track of my legitimate quarry: I’m +indulging in the pleasure of the chase for its own sake. What I want you +to observe is that in Herbert Spencer’s definition of ‘life’ the activity +of a machine is included—there is nothing in the definition that is not +applicable to it. According to this sharpest of observers and deepest of +thinkers, if a man during his period of activity is alive, so is a +machine when in operation. As an inventor and constructor of machines I +know that to be true.” + +Moxon was silent for a long time, gazing absently into the fire. It was +growing late and I thought it time to be going, but somehow I did not +like the notion of leaving him in that isolated house, all alone except +for the presence of some person of whose nature my conjectures could go +no further than that it was unfriendly, perhaps malign. Leaning toward +him and looking earnestly into his eyes while making a motion with my +hand through the door of his workshop, I said: + +“Moxon, whom have you in there?” + +Somewhat to my surprise he laughed lightly and answered without +hesitation: + +“Nobody; the incident that you have in mind was caused by my folly in +leaving a machine in action with nothing to act upon, while I undertook +the interminable task of enlightening your understanding. Do you happen +to know that Consciousness is the creature of Rhythm?” + +“O bother them both!” I replied, rising and laying hold of my overcoat. +“I’m going to wish you good night; and I’ll add the hope that the machine +which you inadvertently left in action will have her gloves on the next +time you think it needful to stop her.” + +Without waiting to observe the effect of my shot I left the house. + +Rain was falling, and the darkness was intense. In the sky beyond the +crest of a hill toward which I groped my way along precarious plank +sidewalks and across miry, unpaved streets I could see the faint glow of +the city’s lights, but behind me nothing was visible but a single window +of Moxon’s house. It glowed with what seemed to me a mysterious and +fateful meaning. I knew it was an uncurtained aperture in my friend’s +“machine-shop,” and I had little doubt that he had resumed the studies +interrupted by his duties as my instructor in mechanical consciousness +and the fatherhood of Rhythm. Odd, and in some degree humorous, as his +convictions seemed to me at that time, I could not wholly divest myself +of the feeling that they had some tragic relation to his life and +character—perhaps to his destiny—although I no longer entertained the +notion that they were the vagaries of a disordered mind. Whatever might +be thought of his views, his exposition of them was too logical for that. +Over and over, his last words came back to me: “Consciousness is the +creature of Rhythm.” Bald and terse as the statement was, I now found it +infinitely alluring. At each recurrence it broadened in meaning and +deepened in suggestion. Why, here, (I thought) is something upon which +to found a philosophy. If consciousness is the product of rhythm all +things _are_ conscious, for all have motion, and all motion is rhythmic. +I wondered if Moxon knew the significance and breadth of his thought—the +scope of this momentous generalization; or had he arrived at his +philosophic faith by the tortuous and uncertain road of observation? + +That faith was then new to me, and all Moxon’s expounding had failed to +make me a convert; but now it seemed as if a great light shone about me, +like that which fell upon Saul of Tarsus; and out there in the storm and +darkness and solitude I experienced what Lewes calls “The endless variety +and excitement of philosophic thought.” I exulted in a new sense of +knowledge, a new pride of reason. My feet seemed hardly to touch the +earth; it was as if I were uplifted and borne through the air by +invisible wings. + +Yielding to an impulse to seek further light from him whom I now +recognized as my master and guide, I had unconsciously turned about, and +almost before I was aware of having done so found myself again at Moxon’s +door. I was drenched with rain, but felt no discomfort. Unable in my +excitement to find the doorbell I instinctively tried the knob. It +turned and, entering, I mounted the stairs to the room that I had so +recently left. All was dark and silent; Moxon, as I had supposed, was in +the adjoining room—the “machine-shop.” Groping along the wall until I +found the communicating door I knocked loudly several times, but got no +response, which I attributed to the uproar outside, for the wind was +blowing a gale and dashing the rain against the thin walls in sheets. +The drumming upon the shingle roof spanning the unceiled room was loud +and incessant. + +I had never been invited into the machine-shop—had, indeed, been denied +admittance, as had all others, with one exception, a skilled metal +worker, of whom no one knew anything except that his name was Haley and +his habit silence. But in my spiritual exaltation, discretion and +civility were alike forgotten and I opened the door. What I saw took all +philosophical speculation out of me in short order. + +Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small table upon which a +single candle made all the light that was in the room. Opposite him, his +back toward me, sat another person. On the table between the two was a +chessboard; the men were playing. I knew little of chess, but as only a +few pieces were on the board it was obvious that the game was near its +close. Moxon was intensely interested—not so much, it seemed to me, in +the game as in his antagonist, upon whom he had fixed so intent a look +that, standing though I did directly in the line of his vision, I was +altogether unobserved. His face was ghastly white, and his eyes +glittered like diamonds. Of his antagonist I had only a back view, but +that was sufficient; I should not have cared to see his face. + +He was apparently not more than five feet in height, with proportions +suggesting those of a gorilla—a tremendous breadth of shoulders, thick, +short neck and broad, squat head, which had a tangled growth of black +hair and was topped with a crimson fez. A tunic of the same color, +belted tightly to the waist, reached the seat—apparently a box—upon which +he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. His left forearm appeared to +rest in his lap; he moved his pieces with his right hand, which seemed +disproportionately long. + +I had shrunk back and now stood a little to one side of the doorway and +in shadow. If Moxon had looked farther than the face of his opponent he +could have observed nothing now, except that the door was open. +Something forbade me either to enter or to retire, a feeling—I know not +how it came—that I was in the presence of an imminent tragedy and might +serve my friend by remaining. With a scarcely conscious rebellion +against the indelicacy of the act I remained. + +The play was rapid. Moxon hardly glanced at the board before making his +moves, and to my unskilled eye seemed to move the piece most convenient +to his hand, his motions in doing so being quick, nervous and lacking in +precision. The response of his antagonist, while equally prompt in the +inception, was made with a slow, uniform, mechanical and, I thought, +somewhat theatrical movement of the arm, that was a sore trial to my +patience. There was something unearthly about it all, and I caught +myself shuddering. But I was wet and cold. + +Two or three times after moving a piece the stranger slightly inclined +his head, and each time I observed that Moxon shifted his king. All at +once the thought came to me that the man was dumb. And then that he was +a machine—an automaton chess-player! Then I remembered that Moxon had +once spoken to me of having invented such a piece of mechanism, though I +did not understand that it had actually been constructed. Was all his +talk about the consciousness and intelligence of machines merely a +prelude to eventual exhibition of this device—only a trick to intensify +the effect of its mechanical action upon me in my ignorance of its +secret? + +A fine end, this, of all my intellectual transports—my “endless variety +and excitement of philosophic thought!” I was about to retire in disgust +when something occurred to hold my curiosity. I observed a shrug of the +thing’s great shoulders, as if it were irritated: and so natural was +this—so entirely human—that in my new view of the matter it startled me. +Nor was that all, for a moment later it struck the table sharply with its +clenched hand. At that gesture Moxon seemed even more startled than I: +he pushed his chair a little backward, as in alarm. + +Presently Moxon, whose play it was, raised his hand high above the board, +pounced upon one of his pieces like a sparrow-hawk and with the +exclamation “checkmate!” rose quickly to his feet and stepped behind his +chair. The automaton sat motionless. + +The wind had now gone down, but I heard, at lessening intervals and +progressively louder, the rumble and roll of thunder. In the pauses +between I now became conscious of a low humming or buzzing which, like +the thunder, grew momentarily louder and more distinct. It seemed to +come from the body of the automaton, and was unmistakably a whirring of +wheels. It gave me the impression of a disordered mechanism which had +escaped the repressive and regulating action of some controlling part—an +effect such as might be expected if a pawl should be jostled from the +teeth of a ratchet-wheel. But before I had time for much conjecture as +to its nature my attention was taken by the strange motions of the +automaton itself. A slight but continuous convulsion appeared to have +possession of it. In body and head it shook like a man with palsy or an +ague chill, and the motion augmented every moment until the entire figure +was in violent agitation. Suddenly it sprang to its feet and with a +movement almost too quick for the eye to follow shot forward across table +and chair, with both arms thrust forth to their full length—the posture +and lunge of a diver. Moxon tried to throw himself backward out of +reach, but he was too late: I saw the horrible thing’s hands close upon +his throat, his own clutch its wrists. Then the table was overturned, +the candle thrown to the floor and extinguished, and all was black dark. +But the noise of the struggle was dreadfully distinct, and most terrible +of all were the raucous, squawking sounds made by the strangled man’s +efforts to breathe. Guided by the infernal hubbub, I sprang to the +rescue of my friend, but had hardly taken a stride in the darkness when +the whole room blazed with a blinding white light that burned into my +brain and heart and memory a vivid picture of the combatants on the +floor, Moxon underneath, his throat still in the clutch of those iron +hands, his head forced backward, his eyes protruding, his mouth wide open +and his tongue thrust out; and—horrible contrast!—upon the painted face +of his assassin an expression of tranquil and profound thought, as in the +solution of a problem in chess! This I observed, then all was blackness +and silence. + +Three days later I recovered consciousness in a hospital. As the memory +of that tragic night slowly evolved in my ailing brain recognized in my +attendant Moxon’s confidential workman, Haley. Responding to a look he +approached, smiling. + +“Tell me about it,” I managed to say, faintly—“all about it.” + +“Certainly,” he said; “you were carried unconscious from a burning +house—Moxon’s. Nobody knows how you came to be there. You may have to +do a little explaining. The origin of the fire is a bit mysterious, too. +My own notion is that the house was struck by lightning.” + +“And Moxon?” + +“Buried yesterday—what was left of him.” + +Apparently this reticent person could unfold himself on occasion. When +imparting shocking intelligence to the sick he was affable enough. After +some moments of the keenest mental suffering I ventured to ask another +question: + +“Who rescued me?” + +“Well, if that interests you—I did.” + +“Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God bless you for it. Did you rescue, +also, that charming product of your skill, the automaton chess-player +that murdered its inventor?” + +The man was silent a long time, looking away from me. Presently he +turned and gravely said: + +“Do you know that?” + +“I do,” I replied; “I saw it done.” + +That was many years ago. If asked to-day I should answer less +confidently. + + + + +A TOUGH TUSSLE + + +ONE night in the autumn of 1861 a man sat alone in the heart of a forest +in western Virginia. The region was one of the wildest on the +continent—the Cheat Mountain country. There was no lack of people close +at hand, however; within a mile of where the man sat was the now silent +camp of a whole Federal brigade. Somewhere about—it might be still +nearer—was a force of the enemy, the numbers unknown. It was this +uncertainty as to its numbers and position that accounted for the man’s +presence in that lonely spot; he was a young officer of a Federal +infantry regiment and his business there was to guard his sleeping +comrades in the camp against a surprise. He was in command of a +detachment of men constituting a picket-guard. These men he had +stationed just at nightfall in an irregular line, determined by the +nature of the ground, several hundred yards in front of where he now sat. +The line ran through the forest, among the rocks and laurel thickets, the +men fifteen or twenty paces apart, all in concealment and under +injunction of strict silence and unremitting vigilance. In four hours, +if nothing occurred, they would be relieved by a fresh detachment from +the reserve now resting in care of its captain some distance away to the +left and rear. Before stationing his men the young officer of whom we +are writing had pointed out to his two sergeants the spot at which he +would be found if it should be necessary to consult him, or if his +presence at the front line should be required. + +It was a quiet enough spot—the fork of an old wood-road, on the two +branches of which, prolonging themselves deviously forward in the dim +moonlight, the sergeants were themselves stationed, a few paces in rear +of the line. If driven sharply back by a sudden onset of the enemy—and +pickets are not expected to make a stand after firing—the men would come +into the converging roads and naturally following them to their point of +intersection could be rallied and “formed.” In his small way the author +of these dispositions was something of a strategist; if Napoleon had +planned as intelligently at Waterloo he would have won that memorable +battle and been overthrown later. + +Second-Lieutenant Brainerd Byring was a brave and efficient officer, +young and comparatively inexperienced as he was in the business of +killing his fellow-men. He had enlisted in the very first days of the +war as a private, with no military knowledge whatever, had been made +first-sergeant of his company on account of his education and engaging +manner, and had been lucky enough to lose his captain by a Confederate +bullet; in the resulting promotions he had gained a commission. He had +been in several engagements, such as they were—at Philippi, Rich +Mountain, Carrick’s Ford and Greenbrier—and had borne himself with such +gallantry as not to attract the attention of his superior officers. The +exhilaration of battle was agreeable to him, but the sight of the dead, +with their clay faces, blank eyes and stiff bodies, which when not +unnaturally shrunken were unnaturally swollen, had always intolerably +affected him. He felt toward them a kind of reasonless antipathy that +was something more than the physical and spiritual repugnance common to +us all. Doubtless this feeling was due to his unusually acute +sensibilities—his keen sense of the beautiful, which these hideous things +outraged. Whatever may have been the cause, he could not look upon a +dead body without a loathing which had in it an element of resentment. +What others have respected as the dignity of death had to him no +existence—was altogether unthinkable. Death was a thing to be hated. It +was not picturesque, it had no tender and solemn side—a dismal thing, +hideous in all its manifestations and suggestions. Lieutenant Byring was +a braver man than anybody knew, for nobody knew his horror of that which +he was ever ready to incur. + +Having posted his men, instructed his sergeants and retired to his +station, he seated himself on a log, and with senses all alert began his +vigil. For greater ease he loosened his sword-belt and taking his heavy +revolver from his holster laid it on the log beside him. He felt very +comfortable, though he hardly gave the fact a thought, so intently did he +listen for any sound from the front which might have a menacing +significance—a shout, a shot, or the footfall of one of his sergeants +coming to apprise him of something worth knowing. From the vast, +invisible ocean of moonlight overhead fell, here and there, a slender, +broken stream that seemed to plash against the intercepting branches and +trickle to earth, forming small white pools among the clumps of laurel. +But these leaks were few and served only to accentuate the blackness of +his environment, which his imagination found it easy to people with all +manner of unfamiliar shapes, menacing, uncanny, or merely grotesque. + +He to whom the portentous conspiracy of night and solitude and silence in +the heart of a great forest is not an unknown experience needs not to be +told what another world it all is—how even the most commonplace and +familiar objects take on another character. The trees group themselves +differently; they draw closer together, as if in fear. The very silence +has another quality than the silence of the day. And it is full of +half-heard whispers—whispers that startle—ghosts of sounds long dead. +There are living sounds, too, such as are never heard under other +conditions: notes of strange night-birds, the cries of small animals in +sudden encounters with stealthy foes or in their dreams, a rustling in +the dead leaves—it may be the leap of a wood-rat, it may be the footfall +of a panther. What caused the breaking of that twig?—what the low, +alarmed twittering in that bushful of birds? There are sounds without a +name, forms without substance, translations in space of objects which +have not been seen to move, movements wherein nothing is observed to +change its place. Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how +little you know of the world in which you live! + +Surrounded at a little distance by armed and watchful friends, Byring +felt utterly alone. Yielding himself to the solemn and mysterious spirit +of the time and place, he had forgotten the nature of his connection with +the visible and audible aspects and phases of the night. The forest was +boundless; men and the habitations of men did not exist. The universe +was one primeval mystery of darkness, without form and void, himself the +sole, dumb questioner of its eternal secret. Absorbed in thoughts born +of this mood, he suffered the time to slip away unnoted. Meantime the +infrequent patches of white light lying amongst the tree-trunks had +undergone changes of size, form and place. In one of them near by, just +at the roadside, his eye fell upon an object that he had not previously +observed. It was almost before his face as he sat; he could have sworn +that it had not before been there. It was partly covered in shadow, but +he could see that it was a human figure. Instinctively he adjusted the +clasp of his sword-belt and laid hold of his pistol—again he was in a +world of war, by occupation an assassin. + +The figure did not move. Rising, pistol in hand, he approached. The +figure lay upon its back, its upper part in shadow, but standing above it +and looking down upon the face, he saw that it was a dead body. He +shuddered and turned from it with a feeling of sickness and disgust, +resumed his seat upon the log, and forgetting military prudence struck a +match and lit a cigar. In the sudden blackness that followed the +extinction of the flame he felt a sense of relief; he could no longer see +the object of his aversion. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes set in that +direction until it appeared again with growing distinctness. It seemed +to have moved a trifle nearer. + +“Damn the thing!” he muttered. “What does it want?” + +It did not appear to be in need of anything but a soul. + +Byring turned away his eyes and began humming a tune, but he broke off in +the middle of a bar and looked at the dead body. Its presence annoyed +him, though he could hardly have had a quieter neighbor. He was +conscious, too, of a vague, indefinable feeling that was new to him. It +was not fear, but rather a sense of the supernatural—in which he did not +at all believe. + +“I have inherited it,” he said to himself. “I suppose it will require a +thousand ages—perhaps ten thousand—for humanity to outgrow this feeling. +Where and when did it originate? Away back, probably, in what is called +the cradle of the human race—the plains of Central Asia. What we inherit +as a superstition our barbarous ancestors must have held as a reasonable +conviction. Doubtless they believed themselves justified by facts whose +nature we cannot even conjecture in thinking a dead body a malign thing +endowed with some strange power of mischief, with perhaps a will and a +purpose to exert it. Possibly they had some awful form of religion of +which that was one of the chief doctrines, sedulously taught by their +priesthood, as ours teach the immortality of the soul. As the Aryans +moved slowly on, to and through the Caucasus passes, and spread over +Europe, new conditions of life must have resulted in the formulation of +new religions. The old belief in the malevolence of the dead body was +lost from the creeds and even perished from tradition, but it left its +heritage of terror, which is transmitted from generation to generation—is +as much a part of us as are our blood and bones.” + +In following out his thought he had forgotten that which suggested it; +but now his eye fell again upon the corpse. The shadow had now +altogether uncovered it. He saw the sharp profile, the chin in the air, +the whole face, ghastly white in the moonlight. The clothing was gray, +the uniform of a Confederate soldier. The coat and waistcoat, +unbuttoned, had fallen away on each side, exposing the white shirt. The +chest seemed unnaturally prominent, but the abdomen had sunk in, leaving +a sharp projection at the line of the lower ribs. The arms were +extended, the left knee was thrust upward. The whole posture impressed +Byring as having been studied with a view to the horrible. + +“Bah!” he exclaimed; “he was an actor—he knows how to be dead.” + +He drew away his eyes, directing them resolutely along one of the roads +leading to the front, and resumed his philosophizing where he had left +off. + +“It may be that our Central Asian ancestors had not the custom of burial. +In that case it is easy to understand their fear of the dead, who really +were a menace and an evil. They bred pestilences. Children were taught +to avoid the places where they lay, and to run away if by inadvertence +they came near a corpse. I think, indeed, I’d better go away from this +chap.” + +He half rose to do so, then remembered that he had told his men in front +and the officer in the rear who was to relieve him that he could at any +time be found at that spot. It was a matter of pride, too. If he +abandoned his post he feared they would think he feared the corpse. He +was no coward and he was unwilling to incur anybody’s ridicule. So he +again seated himself, and to prove his courage looked boldly at the body. +The right arm—the one farthest from him—was now in shadow. He could +barely see the hand which, he had before observed, lay at the root of a +clump of laurel. There had been no change, a fact which gave him a +certain comfort, he could not have said why. He did not at once remove +his eyes; that which we do not wish to see has a strange fascination, +sometimes irresistible. Of the woman who covers her eyes with her hands +and looks between the fingers let it be said that the wits have dealt +with her not altogether justly. + +Byring suddenly became conscious of a pain in his right hand. He +withdrew his eyes from his enemy and looked at it. He was grasping the +hilt of his drawn sword so tightly that it hurt him. He observed, too, +that he was leaning forward in a strained attitude—crouching like a +gladiator ready to spring at the throat of an antagonist. His teeth were +clenched and he was breathing hard. This matter was soon set right, and +as his muscles relaxed and he drew a long breath he felt keenly enough +the ludicrousness of the incident. It affected him to laughter. +Heavens! what sound was that? what mindless devil was uttering an unholy +glee in mockery of human merriment? He sprang to his feet and looked +about him, not recognizing his own laugh. + +He could no longer conceal from himself the horrible fact of his +cowardice; he was thoroughly frightened! He would have run from the +spot, but his legs refused their office; they gave way beneath him and he +sat again upon the log, violently trembling. His face was wet, his whole +body bathed in a chill perspiration. He could not even cry out. +Distinctly he heard behind him a stealthy tread, as of some wild animal, +and dared not look over his shoulder. Had the soulless living joined +forces with the soulless dead?—was it an animal? Ah, if he could but be +assured of that! But by no effort of will could he now unfix his gaze +from the face of the dead man. + +I repeat that Lieutenant Byring was a brave and intelligent man. But +what would you have? Shall a man cope, single-handed, with so monstrous +an alliance as that of night and solitude and silence and the dead,—while +an incalculable host of his own ancestors shriek into the ear of his +spirit their coward counsel, sing their doleful death-songs in his heart, +and disarm his very blood of all its iron? The odds are too +great—courage was not made for so rough use as that. + +One sole conviction now had the man in possession: that the body had +moved. It lay nearer to the edge of its plot of light—there could be no +doubt of it. It had also moved its arms, for, look, they are both in the +shadow! A breath of cold air struck Byring full in the face; the boughs +of trees above him stirred and moaned. A strongly defined shadow passed +across the face of the dead, left it luminous, passed back upon it and +left it half obscured. The horrible thing was visibly moving! At that +moment a single shot rang out upon the picket-line—a lonelier and louder, +though more distant, shot than ever had been heard by mortal ear! It +broke the spell of that enchanted man; it slew the silence and the +solitude, dispersed the hindering host from Central Asia and released his +modern manhood. With a cry like that of some great bird pouncing upon +its prey he sprang forward, hot-hearted for action! + +Shot after shot now came from the front. There were shoutings and +confusion, hoof-beats and desultory cheers. Away to the rear, in the +sleeping camp, were a singing of bugles and grumble of drums. Pushing +through the thickets on either side the roads came the Federal pickets, +in full retreat, firing backward at random as they ran. A straggling +group that had followed back one of the roads, as instructed, suddenly +sprang away into the bushes as half a hundred horsemen thundered by them, +striking wildly with their sabres as they passed. At headlong speed +these mounted madmen shot past the spot where Byring had sat, and +vanished round an angle of the road, shouting and firing their pistols. +A moment later there was a roar of musketry, followed by dropping +shots—they had encountered the reserve-guard in line; and back they came +in dire confusion, with here and there an empty saddle and many a +maddened horse, bullet-stung, snorting and plunging with pain. It was +all over—“an affair of outposts.” + +The line was reëstablished with fresh men, the roll called, the +stragglers were reformed. The Federal commander with a part of his +staff, imperfectly clad, appeared upon the scene, asked a few questions, +looked exceedingly wise and retired. After standing at arms for an hour +the brigade in camp “swore a prayer or two” and went to bed. + +Early the next morning a fatigue-party, commanded by a captain and +accompanied by a surgeon, searched the ground for dead and wounded. At +the fork of the road, a little to one side, they found two bodies lying +close together—that of a Federal officer and that of a Confederate +private. The officer had died of a sword-thrust through the heart, but +not, apparently, until he had inflicted upon his enemy no fewer than five +dreadful wounds. The dead officer lay on his face in a pool of blood, +the weapon still in his breast. They turned him on his back and the +surgeon removed it. + +“Gad!” said the captain—“It is Byring!”—adding, with a glance at the +other, “They had a tough tussle.” + +The surgeon was examining the sword. It was that of a line officer of +Federal infantry—exactly like the one worn by the captain. It was, in +fact, Byring’s own. The only other weapon discovered was an undischarged +revolver in the dead officer’s belt. + +The surgeon laid down the sword and approached the other body. It was +frightfully gashed and stabbed, but there was no blood. He took hold of +the left foot and tried to straighten the leg. In the effort the body +was displaced. The dead do not wish to be moved—it protested with a +faint, sickening odor. Where it had lain were a few maggots, manifesting +an imbecile activity. + +The surgeon looked at the captain. The captain looked at the surgeon. + + + + +ONE OF TWINS + + + A LETTER FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MORTIMER BARR + +YOU ask me if in my experience as one of a pair of twins I ever observed +anything unaccountable by the natural laws with which we have +acquaintance. As to that you shall judge; perhaps we have not all +acquaintance with the same natural laws. You may know some that I do +not, and what is to me unaccountable may be very clear to you. + +You knew my brother John—that is, you knew him when you knew that I was +not present; but neither you nor, I believe, any human being could +distinguish between him and me if we chose to seem alike. Our parents +could not; ours is the only instance of which I have any knowledge of so +close resemblance as that. I speak of my brother John, but I am not at +all sure that his name was not Henry and mine John. We were regularly +christened, but afterward, in the very act of tattooing us with small +distinguishing marks, the operator lost his reckoning; and although I +bear upon my forearm a small “H” and he bore a “J,” it is by no means +certain that the letters ought not to have been transposed. During our +boyhood our parents tried to distinguish us more obviously by our +clothing and other simple devices, but we would so frequently exchange +suits and otherwise circumvent the enemy that they abandoned all such +ineffectual attempts, and during all the years that we lived together at +home everybody recognized the difficulty of the situation and made the +best of it by calling us both “Jehnry.” I have often wondered at my +father’s forbearance in not branding us conspicuously upon our unworthy +brows, but as we were tolerably good boys and used our power of +embarrassment and annoyance with commendable moderation, we escaped the +iron. My father was, in fact, a singularly good-natured man, and I think +quietly enjoyed nature’s practical joke. + +Soon after we had come to California, and settled at San Jose (where the +only good fortune that awaited us was our meeting with so kind a friend +as you) the family, as you know, was broken up by the death of both my +parents in the same week. My father died insolvent and the homestead was +sacrificed to pay his debts. My sisters returned to relatives in the +East, but owing to your kindness John and I, then twenty-two years of +age, obtained employment in San Francisco, in different quarters of the +town. Circumstances did not permit us to live together, and we saw each +other infrequently, sometimes not oftener than once a week. As we had +few acquaintances in common, the fact of our extraordinary likeness was +little known. I come now to the matter of your inquiry. + +One day soon after we had come to this city I was walking down Market +street late in the afternoon, when I was accosted by a well-dressed man +of middle age, who after greeting me cordially said: “Stevens, I know, of +course, that you do not go out much, but I have told my wife about you, +and she would be glad to see you at the house. I have a notion, too, +that my girls are worth knowing. Suppose you come out to-morrow at six +and dine with us, _en famille_; and then if the ladies can’t amuse you +afterward I’ll stand in with a few games of billiards.” + +This was said with so bright a smile and so engaging a manner that I had +not the heart to refuse, and although I had never seen the man in my life +I promptly replied: “You are very good, sir, and it will give me great +pleasure to accept the invitation. Please present my compliments to Mrs. +Margovan and ask her to expect me.” + +With a shake of the hand and a pleasant parting word the man passed on. +That he had mistaken me for my brother was plain enough. That was an +error to which I was accustomed and which it was not my habit to rectify +unless the matter seemed important. But how had I known that this man’s +name was Margovan? It certainly is not a name that one would apply to a +man at random, with a probability that it would be right. In point of +fact, the name was as strange to me as the man. + +The next morning I hastened to where my brother was employed and met him +coming out of the office with a number of bills that he was to collect. +I told him how I had “committed” him and added that if he didn’t care to +keep the engagement I should be delighted to continue the impersonation. + +“That’s queer,” he said thoughtfully. “Margovan is the only man in the +office here whom I know well and like. When he came in this morning and +we had passed the usual greetings some singular impulse prompted me to +say: ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Margovan, but I neglected to ask your +address.’ I got the address, but what under the sun I was to do with it, +I did not know until now. It’s good of you to offer to take the +consequence of your impudence, but I’ll eat that dinner myself, if you +please.” + +He ate a number of dinners at the same place—more than were good for him, +I may add without disparaging their quality; for he fell in love with +Miss Margovan, proposed marriage to her and was heartlessly accepted. + +Several weeks after I had been informed of the engagement, but before it +had been convenient for me to make the acquaintance of the young woman +and her family, I met one day on Kearney street a handsome but somewhat +dissipated-looking man whom something prompted me to follow and watch, +which I did without any scruple whatever. He turned up Geary street and +followed it until he came to Union square. There he looked at his watch, +then entered the square. He loitered about the paths for some time, +evidently waiting for someone. Presently he was joined by a fashionably +dressed and beautiful young woman and the two walked away up Stockton +street, I following. I now felt the necessity of extreme caution, for +although the girl was a stranger it seemed to me that she would recognize +me at a glance. They made several turns from one street to another and +finally, after both had taken a hasty look all about—which I narrowly +evaded by stepping into a doorway—they entered a house of which I do not +care to state the location. Its location was better than its character. + +I protest that my action in playing the spy upon these two strangers was +without assignable motive. It was one of which I might or might not be +ashamed, according to my estimate of the character of the person finding +it out. As an essential part of a narrative educed by your question it +is related here without hesitancy or shame. + +A week later John took me to the house of his prospective father-in-law, +and in Miss Margovan, as you have already surmised, but to my profound +astonishment, I recognized the heroine of that discreditable adventure. +A gloriously beautiful heroine of a discreditable adventure I must in +justice admit that she was; but that fact has only this importance: her +beauty was such a surprise to me that it cast a doubt upon her identity +with the young woman I had seen before; how could the marvelous +fascination of her face have failed to strike me at that time? But +no—there was no possibility of error; the difference was due to costume, +light and general surroundings. + +John and I passed the evening at the house, enduring, with the fortitude +of long experience, such delicate enough banter as our likeness naturally +suggested. When the young lady and I were left alone for a few minutes I +looked her squarely in the face and said with sudden gravity: + +“You, too, Miss Margovan, have a double: I saw her last Tuesday afternoon +in Union square.” + +She trained her great gray eyes upon me for a moment, but her glance was +a trifle less steady than my own and she withdrew it, fixing it on the +tip of her shoe. + +“Was she very like me?” she asked, with an indifference which I thought a +little overdone. + +“So like,” said I, “that I greatly admired her, and being unwilling to +lose sight of her I confess that I followed her until—Miss Margovan, are +you sure that you understand?” + +She was now pale, but entirely calm. She again raised her eyes to mine, +with a look that did not falter. + +“What do you wish me to do?” she asked. “You need not fear to name your +terms. I accept them.” + +It was plain, even in the brief time given me for reflection, that in +dealing with this girl ordinary methods would not do, and ordinary +exactions were needless. + +“Miss Margovan,” I said, doubtless with something of the compassion in my +voice that I had in my heart, “it is impossible not to think you the +victim of some horrible compulsion. Rather than impose new +embarrassments upon you I would prefer to aid you to regain your +freedom.” + +She shook her head, sadly and hopelessly, and I continued, with +agitation: + +“Your beauty unnerves me. I am disarmed by your frankness and your +distress. If you are free to act upon conscience you will, I believe, do +what you conceive to be best; if you are not—well, Heaven help us all! +You have nothing to fear from me but such opposition to this marriage as +I can try to justify on—on other grounds.” + +These were not my exact words, but that was the sense of them, as nearly +as my sudden and conflicting emotions permitted me to express it. I rose +and left her without another look at her, met the others as they +reentered the room and said, as calmly as I could: “I have been bidding +Miss Margovan good evening; it is later than I thought.” + +John decided to go with me. In the street he asked if I had observed +anything singular in Julia’s manner. + +“I thought her ill,” I replied; “that is why I left.” Nothing more was +said. + +The next evening I came late to my lodgings. The events of the previous +evening had made me nervous and ill; I had tried to cure myself and +attain to clear thinking by walking in the open air, but I was oppressed +with a horrible presentiment of evil—a presentiment which I could not +formulate. It was a chill, foggy night; my clothing and hair were damp +and I shook with cold. In my dressing-gown and slippers before a blazing +grate of coals I was even more uncomfortable. I no longer shivered but +shuddered—there is a difference. The dread of some impending calamity +was so strong and dispiriting that I tried to drive it away by inviting a +real sorrow—tried to dispel the conception of a terrible future by +substituting the memory of a painful past. I recalled the death of my +parents and endeavored to fix my mind upon the last sad scenes at their +bedsides and their graves. It all seemed vague and unreal, as having +occurred ages ago and to another person. Suddenly, striking through my +thought and parting it as a tense cord is parted by the stroke of steel—I +can think of no other comparison—I heard a sharp cry as of one in mortal +agony! The voice was that of my brother and seemed to come from the +street outside my window. I sprang to the window and threw it open. A +street lamp directly opposite threw a wan and ghastly light upon the wet +pavement and the fronts of the houses. A single policeman, with upturned +collar, was leaning against a gatepost, quietly smoking a cigar. No one +else was in sight. I closed the window and pulled down the shade, seated +myself before the fire and tried to fix my mind upon my surroundings. By +way of assisting, by performance of some familiar act, I looked at my +watch; it marked half-past eleven. Again I heard that awful cry! It +seemed in the room—at my side. I was frightened and for some moments had +not the power to move. A few minutes later—I have no recollection of the +intermediate time—I found myself hurrying along an unfamiliar street as +fast as I could walk. I did not know where I was, nor whither I was +going, but presently sprang up the steps of a house before which were two +or three carriages and in which were moving lights and a subdued +confusion of voices. It was the house of Mr. Margovan. + +You know, good friend, what had occurred there. In one chamber lay Julia +Margovan, hours dead by poison; in another John Stevens, bleeding from a +pistol wound in the chest, inflicted by his own hand. As I burst into +the room, pushed aside the physicians and laid my hand upon his forehead +he unclosed his eyes, stared blankly, closed them slowly and died without +a sign. + +I knew no more until six weeks afterward, when I had been nursed back to +life by your own saintly wife in your own beautiful home. All of that +you know, but what you do not know is this—which, however, has no bearing +upon the subject of your psychological researches—at least not upon that +branch of them in which, with a delicacy and consideration all your own, +you have asked for less assistance than I think I have given you: + +One moonlight night several years afterward I was passing through Union +square. The hour was late and the square deserted. Certain memories of +the past naturally came into my mind as I came to the spot where I had +once witnessed that fateful assignation, and with that unaccountable +perversity which prompts us to dwell upon thoughts of the most painful +character I seated myself upon one of the benches to indulge them. A man +entered the square and came along the walk toward me. His hands were +clasped behind him, his head was bowed; he seemed to observe nothing. As +he approached the shadow in which I sat I recognized him as the man whom +I had seen meet Julia Margovan years before at that spot. But he was +terribly altered—gray, worn and haggard. Dissipation and vice were in +evidence in every look; illness was no less apparent. His clothing was +in disorder, his hair fell across his forehead in a derangement which was +at once uncanny and picturesque. He looked fitter for restraint than +liberty—the restraint of a hospital. + +With no defined purpose I rose and confronted him. He raised his head +and looked me full in the face. I have no words to describe the ghastly +change that came over his own; it was a look of unspeakable terror—he +thought himself eye to eye with a ghost. But he was a courageous man. +“Damn you, John Stevens!” he cried, and lifting his trembling arm he +dashed his fist feebly at my face and fell headlong upon the gravel as I +walked away. + +Somebody found him there, stone-dead. Nothing more is known of him, not +even his name. To know of a man that he is dead should be enough. + + + + +THE HAUNTED VALLEY + + +I +HOW TREES ARE FELLED IN CHINA + + +A HALF-MILE north from Jo. Dunfer’s, on the road from Hutton’s to Mexican +Hill, the highway dips into a sunless ravine which opens out on either +hand in a half-confidential manner, as if it had a secret to impart at +some more convenient season. I never used to ride through it without +looking first to the one side and then to the other, to see if the time +had arrived for the revelation. If I saw nothing—and I never did see +anything—there was no feeling of disappointment, for I knew the +disclosure was merely withheld temporarily for some good reason which I +had no right to question. That I should one day be taken into full +confidence I no more doubted than I doubted the existence of Jo. Dunfer +himself, through whose premises the ravine ran. + +It was said that Jo. had once undertaken to erect a cabin in some remote +part of it, but for some reason had abandoned the enterprise and +constructed his present hermaphrodite habitation, half residence and half +groggery, at the roadside, upon an extreme corner of his estate; as far +away as possible, as if on purpose to show how radically he had changed +his mind. + +This Jo. Dunfer—or, as he was familiarly known in the neighborhood, +Whisky Jo.—was a very important personage in those parts. He was +apparently about forty years of age, a long, shock-headed fellow, with a +corded face, a gnarled arm and a knotty hand like a bunch of prison-keys. +He was a hairy man, with a stoop in his walk, like that of one who is +about to spring upon something and rend it. + +Next to the peculiarity to which he owed his local appellation, Mr. +Dunfer’s most obvious characteristic was a deep-seated antipathy to the +Chinese. I saw him once in a towering rage because one of his herdsmen +had permitted a travel-heated Asian to slake his thirst at the +horse-trough in front of the saloon end of Jo.’s establishment. I +ventured faintly to remonstrate with Jo. for his unchristian spirit, but +he merely explained that there was nothing about Chinamen in the New +Testament, and strode away to wreak his displeasure upon his dog, which +also, I suppose, the inspired scribes had overlooked. + +Some days afterward, finding him sitting alone in his barroom, I +cautiously approached the subject, when, greatly to my relief, the +habitual austerity of his expression visibly softened into something that +I took for condescension. + +“You young Easterners,” he said, “are a mile-and-a-half too good for this +country, and you don’t catch on to our play. People who don’t know a +Chileño from a Kanaka can afford to hang out liberal ideas about Chinese +immigration, but a fellow that has to fight for his bone with a lot of +mongrel coolies hasn’t any time for foolishness.” + +This long consumer, who had probably never done an honest day’s-work in +his life, sprung the lid of a Chinese tobacco-box and with thumb and +forefinger forked out a wad like a small haycock. Holding this +reinforcement within supporting distance he fired away with renewed +confidence. + +“They’re a flight of devouring locusts, and they’re going for everything +green in this God blest land, if you want to know.” + +Here he pushed his reserve into the breach and when his gabble-gear was +again disengaged resumed his uplifting discourse. + +“I had one of them on this ranch five years ago, and I’ll tell you about +it, so that you can see the nub of this whole question. I didn’t pan out +particularly well those days—drank more whisky than was prescribed for me +and didn’t seem to care for my duty as a patriotic American citizen; so I +took that pagan in, as a kind of cook. But when I got religion over at +the Hill and they talked of running me for the Legislature it was given +to me to see the light. But what was I to do? If I gave him the go +somebody else would take him, and mightn’t treat him white. _What_ was I +to do? What would any good Christian do, especially one new to the trade +and full to the neck with the brotherhood of Man and the fatherhood of +God?” + +Jo. paused for a reply, with an expression of unstable satisfaction, as +of one who has solved a problem by a distrusted method. Presently he +rose and swallowed a glass of whisky from a full bottle on the counter, +then resumed his story. + +“Besides, he didn’t count for much—didn’t know anything and gave himself +airs. They all do that. I said him nay, but he muled it through on that +line while he lasted; but after turning the other cheek seventy and seven +times I doctored the dice so that he didn’t last forever. And I’m +almighty glad I had the sand to do it.” + +Jo.’s gladness, which somehow did not impress me, was duly and +ostentatiously celebrated at the bottle. + +“About five years ago I started in to stick up a shack. That was before +this one was built, and I put it in another place. I set Ah Wee and a +little cuss named Gopher to cutting the timber. Of course I didn’t +expect Ah Wee to help much, for he had a face like a day in June and big +black eyes—I guess maybe they were the damn’dest eyes in this neck o’ +woods.” + +While delivering this trenchant thrust at common sense Mr. Dunfer +absently regarded a knot-hole in the thin board partition separating the +bar from the living-room, as if that were one of the eyes whose size and +color had incapacitated his servant for good service. + +“Now you Eastern galoots won’t believe anything against the yellow +devils,” he suddenly flamed out with an appearance of earnestness not +altogether convincing, “but I tell you that Chink was the perversest +scoundrel outside San Francisco. The miserable pigtail Mongolian went to +hewing away at the saplings all round the stems, like a worm o’ the dust +gnawing a radish. I pointed out his error as patiently as I knew how, +and showed him how to cut them on two sides, so as to make them fall +right; but no sooner would I turn my back on him, like this”—and he +turned it on me, amplifying the illustration by taking some more +liquor—“than he was at it again. It was just this way: while I looked at +him, _so_”—regarding me rather unsteadily and with evident complexity of +vision—“he was all right; but when I looked away, _so_”—taking a long +pull at the bottle—“he defied me. Then I’d gaze at him reproachfully, +_so_, and butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth.” + +Doubtless Mr. Dunfer honestly intended the look that he fixed upon me to +be merely reproachful, but it was singularly fit to arouse the gravest +apprehension in any unarmed person incurring it; and as I had lost all +interest in his pointless and interminable narrative, I rose to go. +Before I had fairly risen, he had again turned to the counter, and with a +barely audible “so,” had emptied the bottle at a gulp. + +Heavens! what a yell! It was like a Titan in his last, strong agony. +Jo. staggered back after emitting it, as a cannon recoils from its own +thunder, and then dropped into his chair, as if he had been “knocked in +the head” like a beef—his eyes drawn sidewise toward the wall, with a +stare of terror. Looking in the same direction, I saw that the knot-hole +in the wall had indeed become a human eye—a full, black eye, that glared +into my own with an entire lack of expression more awful than the most +devilish glitter. I think I must have covered my face with my hands to +shut out the horrible illusion, if such it was, and Jo.’s little white +man-of-all-work coming into the room broke the spell, and I walked out of +the house with a sort of dazed fear that _delirium tremens_ might be +infectious. My horse was hitched at the watering-trough, and untying him +I mounted and gave him his head, too much troubled in mind to note +whither he took me. + +I did not know what to think of all this, and like every one who does not +know what to think I thought a great deal, and to little purpose. The +only reflection that seemed at all satisfactory, was, that on the morrow +I should be some miles away, with a strong probability of never +returning. + +A sudden coolness brought me out of my abstraction, and looking up I +found myself entering the deep shadows of the ravine. The day was +stifling; and this transition from the pitiless, visible heat of the +parched fields to the cool gloom, heavy with pungency of cedars and vocal +with twittering of the birds that had been driven to its leafy asylum, +was exquisitely refreshing. I looked for my mystery, as usual, but not +finding the ravine in a communicative mood, dismounted, led my sweating +animal into the undergrowth, tied him securely to a tree and sat down +upon a rock to meditate. + +I began bravely by analyzing my pet superstition about the place. Having +resolved it into its constituent elements I arranged them in convenient +troops and squadrons, and collecting all the forces of my logic bore down +upon them from impregnable premises with the thunder of irresistible +conclusions and a great noise of chariots and general intellectual +shouting. Then, when my big mental guns had overturned all opposition, +and were growling almost inaudibly away on the horizon of pure +speculation, the routed enemy straggled in upon their rear, massed +silently into a solid phalanx, and captured me, bag and baggage. An +indefinable dread came upon me. I rose to shake it off, and began +threading the narrow dell by an old, grass-grown cow-path that seemed to +flow along the bottom, as a substitute for the brook that Nature had +neglected to provide. + +The trees among which the path straggled were ordinary, well-behaved +plants, a trifle perverted as to trunk and eccentric as to bough, but +with nothing unearthly in their general aspect. A few loose bowlders, +which had detached themselves from the sides of the depression to set up +an independent existence at the bottom, had dammed up the pathway, here +and there, but their stony repose had nothing in it of the stillness of +death. There was a kind of death-chamber hush in the valley, it is true, +and a mysterious whisper above: the wind was just fingering the tops of +the trees—that was all. + +I had not thought of connecting Jo. Dunfer’s drunken narrative with what +I now sought, and only when I came into a clear space and stumbled over +the level trunks of some small trees did I have the revelation. This was +the site of the abandoned “shack.” The discovery was verified by noting +that some of the rotting stumps were hacked all round, in a most +unwoodmanlike way, while others were cut straight across, and the butt +ends of the corresponding trunks had the blunt wedge-form given by the +axe of a master. + +The opening among the trees was not more than thirty paces across. At +one side was a little knoll—a natural hillock, bare of shrubbery but +covered with wild grass, and on this, standing out of the grass, the +headstone of a grave! + +I do not remember that I felt anything like surprise at this discovery. +I viewed that lonely grave with something of the feeling that Columbus +must have had when he saw the hills and headlands of the new world. +Before approaching it I leisurely completed my survey of the +surroundings. I was even guilty of the affectation of winding my watch +at that unusual hour, and with needless care and deliberation. Then I +approached my mystery. + +The grave—a rather short one—was in somewhat better repair than was +consistent with its obvious age and isolation, and my eyes, I dare say, +widened a trifle at a clump of unmistakable garden flowers showing +evidence of recent watering. The stone had clearly enough done duty once +as a doorstep. In its front was carved, or rather dug, an inscription. +It read thus: + + AH WEE—CHINAMAN. + Age unknown. Worked for Jo. Dunfer. + This monument is erected by him to keep the Chink’s + memory green. Likewise as a warning to Celestials + not to take on airs. Devil take ’em! + She Was a Good Egg. + +I cannot adequately relate my astonishment at this uncommon inscription! +The meagre but sufficient identification of the deceased; the impudent +candor of confession; the brutal anathema; the ludicrous change of sex +and sentiment—all marked this record as the work of one who must have +been at least as much demented as bereaved. I felt that any further +disclosure would be a paltry anti-climax, and with an unconscious regard +for dramatic effect turned squarely about and walked away. Nor did I +return to that part of the county for four years. + + +II +WHO DRIVES SANE OXEN SHOULD HIMSELF BE SANE + + +“Gee-up, there, old Fuddy-Duddy!” + +This unique adjuration came from the lips of a queer little man perched +upon a wagonful of firewood, behind a brace of oxen that were hauling it +easily along with a simulation of mighty effort which had evidently not +imposed on their lord and master. As that gentleman happened at the +moment to be staring me squarely in the face as I stood by the roadside +it was not altogether clear whether he was addressing me or his beasts; +nor could I say if they were named Fuddy and Duddy and were both subjects +of the imperative verb “to gee-up.” Anyhow the command produced no +effect on us, and the queer little man removed his eyes from mine long +enough to spear Fuddy and Duddy alternately with a long pole, remarking, +quietly but with feeling: “Dern your skin,” as if they enjoyed that +integument in common. Observing that my request for a ride took no +attention, and finding myself falling slowly astern, I placed one foot +upon the inner circumference of a hind wheel and was slowly elevated to +the level of the hub, whence I boarded the concern, _sans cérémonie_, and +scrambling forward seated myself beside the driver—who took no notice of +me until he had administered another indiscriminate castigation to his +cattle, accompanied with the advice to “buckle down, you derned +Incapable!” Then, the master of the outfit (or rather the former master, +for I could not suppress a whimsical feeling that the entire +establishment was my lawful prize) trained his big, black eyes upon me +with an expression strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, familiar, laid +down his rod—which neither blossomed nor turned into a serpent, as I half +expected—folded his arms, and gravely demanded, “W’at did you do to +W’isky?” + +My natural reply would have been that I drank it, but there was something +about the query that suggested a hidden significance, and something about +the man that did not invite a shallow jest. And so, having no other +answer ready, I merely held my tongue, but felt as if I were resting +under an imputation of guilt, and that my silence was being construed +into a confession. + +Just then a cold shadow fell upon my cheek, and caused me to look up. We +were descending into my ravine! I cannot describe the sensation that +came upon me: I had not seen it since it unbosomed itself four years +before, and now I felt like one to whom a friend has made some sorrowing +confession of crime long past, and who has basely deserted him in +consequence. The old memories of Jo. Dunfer, his fragmentary revelation, +and the unsatisfying explanatory note by the headstone, came back with +singular distinctness. I wondered what had become of Jo., and—I turned +sharply round and asked my prisoner. He was intently watching his +cattle, and without withdrawing his eyes replied: + +“Gee-up, old Terrapin! He lies aside of Ah Wee up the gulch. Like to +see it? They always come back to the spot—I’ve been expectin’ you. +H-woa!” + +At the enunciation of the aspirate, Fuddy-Duddy, the incapable terrapin, +came to a dead halt, and before the vowel had died away up the ravine had +folded up all his eight legs and lain down in the dusty road, regardless +of the effect upon his derned skin. The queer little man slid off his +seat to the ground and started up the dell without deigning to look back +to see if I was following. But I was. + +It was about the same season of the year, and at near the same hour of +the day, of my last visit. The jays clamored loudly, and the trees +whispered darkly, as before; and I somehow traced in the two sounds a +fanciful analogy to the open boastfulness of Mr. Jo. Dunfer’s mouth and +the mysterious reticence of his manner, and to the mingled hardihood and +tenderness of his sole literary production—the epitaph. All things in +the valley seemed unchanged, excepting the cow-path, which was almost +wholly overgrown with weeds. When we came out into the “clearing,” +however, there was change enough. Among the stumps and trunks of the +fallen saplings, those that had been hacked “China fashion” were no +longer distinguishable from those that were cut “’Melican way.” It was +as if the Old-World barbarism and the New-World civilization had +reconciled their differences by the arbitration of an impartial decay—as +is the way of civilizations. The knoll was there, but the Hunnish +brambles had overrun and all but obliterated its effete grasses; and the +patrician garden-violet had capitulated to his plebeian brother—perhaps +had merely reverted to his original type. Another grave—a long, robust +mound—had been made beside the first, which seemed to shrink from the +comparison; and in the shadow of a new headstone the old one lay +prostrate, with its marvelous inscription illegible by accumulation of +leaves and soil. In point of literary merit the new was inferior to the +old—was even repulsive in its terse and savage jocularity: + + JO. DUNFER. DONE FOR. + +I turned from it with indifference, and brushing away the leaves from the +tablet of the dead pagan restored to light the mocking words which, fresh +from their long neglect, seemed to have a certain pathos. My guide, too, +appeared to take on an added seriousness as he read it, and I fancied +that I could detect beneath his whimsical manner something of manliness, +almost of dignity. But while I looked at him his former aspect, so +subtly inhuman, so tantalizingly familiar, crept back into his big eyes, +repellant and attractive. I resolved to make an end of the mystery if +possible. + +“My friend,” I said, pointing to the smaller grave, “did Jo. Dunfer +murder that Chinaman?” + +He was leaning against a tree and looking across the open space into the +top of another, or into the blue sky beyond. He neither withdrew his +eyes, nor altered his posture as he slowly replied: + +“No, sir; he justifiably homicided him.” + +“Then he really did kill him.” + +“Kill ’im? I should say he did, rather. Doesn’t everybody know that? +Didn’t he stan’ up before the coroner’s jury and confess it? And didn’t +they find a verdict of ‘Came to ’is death by a wholesome Christian +sentiment workin’ in the Caucasian breast’? An’ didn’t the church at the +Hill turn W’isky down for it? And didn’t the sovereign people elect him +Justice of the Peace to get even on the gospelers? I don’t know where +you were brought up.” + +“But did Jo. do that because the Chinaman did not, or would n’ot, learn +to cut down trees like a white man?” + +“Sure!—it stan’s so on the record, which makes it true an’ legal. My +knowin’ better doesn’t make any difference with legal truth; it wasn’t my +funeral and I wasn’t invited to deliver an oration. But the fact is, +W’isky was jealous o’ _me_”—and the little wretch actually swelled out +like a turkeycock and made a pretense of adjusting an imaginary neck-tie, +noting the effect in the palm of his hand, held up before him to +represent a mirror. + +“Jealous of _you_!” I repeated with ill-mannered astonishment. + +“That’s what I said. Why not?—don’t I look all right?” + +He assumed a mocking attitude of studied grace, and twitched the wrinkles +out of his threadbare waistcoat. Then, suddenly dropping his voice to a +low pitch of singular sweetness, he continued: + +“W’isky thought a lot o’ that Chink; nobody but me knew how ’e doted on +’im. Couldn’t bear ’im out of ’is sight, the derned protoplasm! And +w’en ’e came down to this clear-in’ one day an’ found him an’ me +neglectin’ our work—him asleep an’ me grapplin a tarantula out of ’is +sleeve—W’isky laid hold of my axe and let us have it, good an’ hard! I +dodged just then, for the spider bit me, but Ah Wee got it bad in the +side an’ tumbled about like anything. W’isky was just weigh-in’ me out +one w’en ’e saw the spider fastened on my finger; then ’e knew he’d made +a jack ass of ’imself. He threw away the axe and got down on ’is knees +alongside of Ah Wee, who gave a last little kick and opened ’is eyes—he +had eyes like mine—an’ puttin’ up ’is hands drew down W’isky’s ugly head +and held it there w’ile ’e stayed. That wasn’t long, for a tremblin’ ran +through ’im and ’e gave a bit of a moan an’ beat the game.” + +During the progress of the story the narrator had become transfigured. +The comic, or rather, the sardonic element was all out of him, and as he +painted that strange scene it was with difficulty that I kept my +composure. And this consummate actor had somehow so managed me that the +sympathy due to his _dramatis personæ_ was given to himself. I stepped +forward to grasp his hand, when suddenly a broad grin danced across his +face and with a light, mocking laugh he continued: + +“W’en W’isky got ’is nut out o’ that ’e was a sight to see! All his fine +clothes—he dressed mighty blindin’ those days—were spoiled everlastin’! +’Is hair was towsled and his face—what I could see of it—was whiter than +the ace of lilies. ’E stared once at me, and looked away as if I didn’t +count; an’ then there were shootin’ pains chasin’ one another from my +bitten finger into my head, and it was Gopher to the dark. That’s why I +wasn’t at the inquest.” + +“But why did you hold your tongue afterward?” I asked. + +“It’s that kind of tongue,” he replied, and not another word would he say +about it. + +“After that W’isky took to drinkin’ harder an’ harder, and was rabider +an’ rabider anti-coolie, but I don’t think ’e was ever particularly glad +that ’e dispelled Ah Wee. He didn’t put on so much dog about it w’en we +were alone as w’en he had the ear of a derned Spectacular Extravaganza +like you. ’E put up that headstone and gouged the inscription accordin’ +to his varyin’ moods. It took ’im three weeks, workin’ between drinks. +I gouged his in one day.” + +“When did Jo. die?” I asked rather absently. The answer took my breath: + +“Pretty soon after I looked at him through that knot-hole, w’en you had +put something in his w’isky, you derned Borgia!” + +Recovering somewhat from my surprise at this astounding charge, I was +half-minded to throttle the audacious accuser, but was restrained by a +sudden conviction that came to me in the light of a revelation. I fixed +a grave look upon him and asked, as calmly as I could: “And when did you +go luny?” + +“Nine years ago!” he shrieked, throwing out his clenched hands—“nine +years ago, w’en that big brute killed the woman who loved him better than +she did me!—me who had followed ’er from San Francisco, where ’e won ’er +at draw poker!—me who had watched over ’er for years w’en the scoundrel +she belonged to was ashamed to acknowledge ’er and treat ’er white!—me +who for her sake kept ’is cussed secret till it ate ’im up!—me who w’en +you poisoned the beast fulfilled ’is last request to lay ’im alongside +’er and give ’im a stone to the head of ’im! And I’ve never since seen +’er grave till now, for I didn’t want to meet ’im here.” + +“Meet him? Why, Gopher, my poor fellow, he is dead!” + +“That’s why I’m afraid of ’im.” + +I followed the little wretch back to his wagon and wrung his hand at +parting. It was now nightfall, and as I stood there at the roadside in +the deepening gloom, watching the blank outlines of the receding wagon, a +sound was borne to me on the evening wind—a sound as of a series of +vigorous thumps—and a voice came out of the night: + +“Gee-up, there, you derned old Geranium.” + + + + +A JUG OF SIRUP + + +THIS narrative begins with the death of its hero. Silas Deemer died on +the 16th day of July, 1863, and two days later his remains were buried. +As he had been personally known to every man, woman and well-grown child +in the village, the funeral, as the local newspaper phrased it, “was +largely attended.” In accordance with a custom of the time and place, +the coffin was opened at the graveside and the entire assembly of friends +and neighbors filed past, taking a last look at the face of the dead. +And then, before the eyes of all, Silas Deemer was put into the ground. +Some of the eyes were a trifle dim, but in a general way it may be said +that at that interment there was lack of neither observance nor +observation; Silas was indubitably dead, and none could have pointed out +any ritual delinquency that would have justified him in coming back from +the grave. Yet if human testimony is good for anything (and certainly it +once put an end to witchcraft in and about Salem) he came back. + +I forgot to state that the death and burial of Silas Deemer occurred in +the little village of Hillbrook, where he had lived for thirty-one years. +He had been what is known in some parts of the Union (which is admittedly +a free country) as a “merchant”; that is to say, he kept a retail shop +for the sale of such things as are commonly sold in shops of that +character. His honesty had never been questioned, so far as is known, +and he was held in high esteem by all. The only thing that could be +urged against him by the most censorious was a too close attention to +business. It was not urged against him, though many another, who +manifested it in no greater degree, was less leniently judged. The +business to which Silas was devoted was mostly his own—that, possibly, +may have made a difference. + +At the time of Deemer’s death nobody could recollect a single day, +Sundays excepted, that he had not passed in his “store,” since he had +opened it more than a quarter-century before. His health having been +perfect during all that time, he had been unable to discern any validity +in whatever may or might have been urged to lure him astray from his +counter and it is related that once when he was summoned to the county +seat as a witness in an important law case and did not attend, the lawyer +who had the hardihood to move that he be “admonished” was solemnly +informed that the Court regarded the proposal with “surprise.” Judicial +surprise being an emotion that attorneys are not commonly ambitious to +arouse, the motion was hastily withdrawn and an agreement with the other +side effected as to what Mr. Deemer would have said if he had been +there—the other side pushing its advantage to the extreme and making the +supposititious testimony distinctly damaging to the interests of its +proponents. In brief, it was the general feeling in all that region that +Silas Deemer was the one immobile verity of Hillbrook, and that his +translation in space would precipitate some dismal public ill or +strenuous calamity. + +Mrs. Deemer and two grown daughters occupied the upper rooms of the +building, but Silas had never been known to sleep elsewhere than on a cot +behind the counter of the store. And there, quite by accident, he was +found one night, dying, and passed away just before the time for taking +down the shutters. Though speechless, he appeared conscious, and it was +thought by those who knew him best that if the end had unfortunately been +delayed beyond the usual hour for opening the store the effect upon him +would have been deplorable. + +Such had been Silas Deemer—such the fixity and invariety of his life and +habit, that the village humorist (who had once attended college) was +moved to bestow upon him the sobriquet of “Old Ibidem,” and, in the first +issue of the local newspaper after the death, to explain without offence +that Silas had taken “a day off.” It was more than a day, but from the +record it appears that well within a month Mr. Deemer made it plain that +he had not the leisure to be dead. + +One of Hillbrook’s most respected citizens was Alvan Creede, a banker. +He lived in the finest house in town, kept a carriage and was a most +estimable man variously. He knew something of the advantages of travel, +too, having been frequently in Boston, and once, it was thought, in New +York, though he modestly disclaimed that glittering distinction. The +matter is mentioned here merely as a contribution to an understanding of +Mr. Creede’s worth, for either way it is creditable to him—to his +intelligence if he had put himself, even temporarily, into contact with +metropolitan culture; to his candor if he had not. + +One pleasant summer evening at about the hour of ten Mr. Creede, entering +at his garden gate, passed up the gravel walk, which looked very white in +the moonlight, mounted the stone steps of his fine house and pausing a +moment inserted his latchkey in the door. As he pushed this open he met +his wife, who was crossing the passage from the parlor to the library. +She greeted him pleasantly and pulling the door further back held it for +him to enter. Instead he turned and, looking about his feet in front of +the threshold, uttered an exclamation of surprise. + +“Why!—what the devil,” he said, “has become of that jug?” + +“What jug, Alvan?” his wife inquired, not very sympathetically. + +“A jug of maple sirup—I brought it along from the store and set it down +here to open the door. What the—” + +“There, there, Alvan, please don’t swear again,” said the lady, +interrupting. Hillbrook, by the way, is not the only place in +Christendom where a vestigial polytheism forbids the taking in vain of +the Evil One’s name. + +The jug of maple sirup which the easy ways of village life had permitted +Hillbrook’s foremost citizen to carry home from the store was not there. + +“Are you quite sure, Alvan?” + +“My dear, do you suppose a man does not know when he is carrying a jug? +I bought that sirup at Deemer’s as I was passing. Deemer himself drew it +and lent me the jug, and I—” + +The sentence remains to this day unfinished. Mr. Creede staggered into +the house, entered the parlor and dropped into an armchair, trembling in +every limb. He had suddenly remembered that Silas Deemer was three weeks +dead. + +Mrs. Creede stood by her husband, regarding him with surprise and +anxiety. + +“For Heaven’s sake,” she said, “what ails you?” + +Mr. Creede’s ailment having no obvious relation to the interests of the +better land he did not apparently deem it necessary to expound it on that +demand; he said nothing—merely stared. There were long moments of +silence broken by nothing but the measured ticking of the clock, which +seemed somewhat slower than usual, as if it were civilly granting them an +extension of time in which to recover their wits. + +“Jane, I have gone mad—that is it.” He spoke thickly and hurriedly. +“You should have told me; you must have observed my symptoms before they +became so pronounced that I have observed them myself. I thought I was +passing Deemer’s store; it was open and lit up—that is what I thought; of +course it is never open now. Silas Deemer stood at his desk behind the +counter. My God, Jane, I saw him as distinctly as I see you. +Remembering that you had said you wanted some maple sirup, I went in and +bought some—that is all—I bought two quarts of maple sirup from Silas +Deemer, who is dead and underground, but nevertheless drew that sirup +from a cask and handed it to me in a jug. He talked with me, too, rather +gravely, I remember, even more so than was his way, but not a word of +what he said can I now recall. But I saw him—good Lord, I saw and talked +with him—and he is dead! So I thought, but I’m mad, Jane, I’m as crazy +as a beetle; and you have kept it from me.” + +This monologue gave the woman time to collect what faculties she had. + +“Alvan,” she said, “you have given no evidence of insanity, believe me. +This was undoubtedly an illusion—how should it be anything else? That +would be too terrible! But there is no insanity; you are working too +hard at the bank. You should not have attended the meeting of directors +this evening; any one could see that you were ill; I knew something would +occur.” + +It may have seemed to him that the prophecy had lagged a bit, awaiting +the event, but he said nothing of that, being concerned with his own +condition. He was calm now, and could think coherently. + +“Doubtless the phenomenon was subjective,” he said, with a somewhat +ludicrous transition to the slang of science. “Granting the possibility +of spiritual apparition and even materialization, yet the apparition and +materialization of a half-gallon brown clay jug—a piece of coarse, heavy +pottery evolved from nothing—that is hardly thinkable.” + +As he finished speaking, a child ran into the room—his little daughter. +She was clad in a bedgown. Hastening to her father she threw her arms +about his neck, saying: “You naughty papa, you forgot to come in and kiss +me. We heard you open the gate and got up and looked out. And, papa +dear, Eddy says mayn’t he have the little jug when it is empty?” + +As the full import of that revelation imparted itself to Alvan Creede’s +understanding he visibly shuddered. For the child could not have heard a +word of the conversation. + +The estate of Silas Deemer being in the hands of an administrator who had +thought it best to dispose of the “business” the store had been closed +ever since the owner’s death, the goods having been removed by another +“merchant” who had purchased them _en bloc_. The rooms above were vacant +as well, for the widow and daughters had gone to another town. + +On the evening immediately after Alvan Creede’s adventure (which had +somehow “got out”) a crowd of men, women and children thronged the +sidewalk opposite the store. That the place was haunted by the spirit of +the late Silas Deemer was now well known to every resident of Hillbrook, +though many affected disbelief. Of these the hardiest, and in a general +way the youngest, threw stones against the front of the building, the +only part accessible, but carefully missed the unshuttered windows. +Incredulity had not grown to malice. A few venturesome souls crossed the +street and rattled the door in its frame; struck matches and held them +near the window; attempted to view the black interior. Some of the +spectators invited attention to their wit by shouting and groaning and +challenging the ghost to a footrace. + +After a considerable time had elapsed without any manifestation, and many +of the crowd had gone away, all those remaining began to observe that the +interior of the store was suffused with a dim, yellow light. At this all +demonstrations ceased; the intrepid souls about the door and windows fell +back to the opposite side of the street and were merged in the crowd; the +small boys ceased throwing stones. Nobody spoke above his breath; all +whispered excitedly and pointed to the now steadily growing light. How +long a time had passed since the first faint glow had been observed none +could have guessed, but eventually the illumination was bright enough to +reveal the whole interior of the store; and there, standing at his desk +behind the counter, Silas Deemer was distinctly visible! + +The effect upon the crowd was marvelous. It began rapidly to melt away +at both flanks, as the timid left the place. Many ran as fast as their +legs would let them; others moved off with greater dignity, turning +occasionally to look backward over the shoulder. At last a score or +more, mostly men, remained where they were, speechless, staring, excited. +The apparition inside gave them no attention; it was apparently occupied +with a book of accounts. + +Presently three men left the crowd on the sidewalk as if by a common +impulse and crossed the street. One of them, a heavy man, was about to +set his shoulder against the door when it opened, apparently without +human agency, and the courageous investigators passed in. No sooner had +they crossed the threshold than they were seen by the awed observers +outside to be acting in the most unaccountable way. They thrust out +their hands before them, pursued devious courses, came into violent +collision with the counter, with boxes and barrels on the floor, and with +one another. They turned awkwardly hither and thither and seemed trying +to escape, but unable to retrace their steps. Their voices were heard in +exclamations and curses. But in no way did the apparition of Silas +Deemer manifest an interest in what was going on. + +By what impulse the crowd was moved none ever recollected, but the entire +mass—men, women, children, dogs—made a simultaneous and tumultuous rush +for the entrance. They congested the doorway, pushing for +precedence—resolving themselves at length into a line and moving up step +by step. By some subtle spiritual or physical alchemy observation had +been transmuted into action—the sightseers had become participants in the +spectacle—the audience had usurped the stage. + +To the only spectator remaining on the other side of the street—Alvan +Creede, the banker—the interior of the store with its inpouring crowd +continued in full illumination; all the strange things going on there +were clearly visible. To those inside all was black darkness. It was as +if each person as he was thrust in at the door had been stricken blind, +and was maddened by the mischance. They groped with aimless imprecision, +tried to force their way out against the current, pushed and elbowed, +struck at random, fell and were trampled, rose and trampled in their +turn. They seized one another by the garments, the hair, the +beard—fought like animals, cursed, shouted, called one another +opprobrious and obscene names. When, finally, Alvan Creede had seen the +last person of the line pass into that awful tumult the light that had +illuminated it was suddenly quenched and all was as black to him as to +those within. He turned away and left the place. + +In the early morning a curious crowd had gathered about “Deemer’s.” It +was composed partly of those who had run away the night before, but now +had the courage of sunshine, partly of honest folk going to their daily +toil. The door of the store stood open; the place was vacant, but on the +walls, the floor, the furniture, were shreds of clothing and tangles of +hair. Hillbrook militant had managed somehow to pull itself out and had +gone home to medicine its hurts and swear that it had been all night in +bed. On the dusty desk, behind the counter, was the sales-book. The +entries in it, in Deemer’s handwriting, had ceased on the 16th day of +July, the last of his life. There was no record of a later sale to Alvan +Creede. + +That is the entire story—except that men’s passions having subsided and +reason having resumed its immemorial sway, it was confessed in Hillbrook +that, considering the harmless and honorable character of his first +commercial transaction under the new conditions, Silas Deemer, deceased, +might properly have been suffered to resume business at the old stand +without mobbing. In that judgment the local historian from whose +unpublished work these facts are compiled had the thoughtfulness to +signify his concurrence. + + + + +STALEY FLEMING’S HALLUCINATION + + +OF two men who were talking one was a physician. + +“I sent for you, Doctor,” said the other, “but I don’t think you can do +me any good. May be you can recommend a specialist in psychopathy. I +fancy I’m a bit loony.” + +“You look all right,” the physician said. + +“You shall judge—I have hallucinations. I wake every night and see in my +room, intently watching me, a big black Newfoundland dog with a white +forefoot.” + +“You say you wake; are you sure about that? ‘Hallucinations’ are +sometimes only dreams.” + +“Oh, I wake, all right. Sometimes I lie still a long time, looking at +the dog as earnestly as the dog looks at me—I always leave the light +going. When I can’t endure it any longer I sit up in bed—and nothing is +there!” + +“’M, ’m—what is the beast’s expression?” + +“It seems to me sinister. Of course I know that, except in art, an +animal’s face in repose has always the same expression. But this is not +a real animal. Newfoundland dogs are pretty mild looking, you know; +what’s the matter with this one?” + +“Really, my diagnosis would have no value: I am not going to treat the +dog.” + +The physician laughed at his own pleasantry, but narrowly watched his +patient from the corner of his eye. Presently he said: “Fleming, your +description of the beast fits the dog of the late Atwell Barton.” + +Fleming half-rose from his chair, sat again and made a visible attempt at +indifference. “I remember Barton,” he said; “I believe he was—it was +reported that—wasn’t there something suspicious in his death?” + +Looking squarely now into the eyes of his patient, the physician said: +“Three years ago the body of your old enemy, Atwell Barton, was found in +the woods near his house and yours. He had been stabbed to death. There +have been no arrests; there was no clew. Some of us had ‘theories.’ I +had one. Have you?” + +“I? Why, bless your soul, what could I know about it? You remember that +I left for Europe almost immediately afterward—a considerable time +afterward. In the few weeks since my return you could not expect me to +construct a ‘theory.’ In fact, I have not given the matter a thought. +What about his dog?” + +“It was first to find the body. It died of starvation on his grave.” + +We do not know the inexorable law underlying coincidences. Staley +Fleming did not, or he would perhaps not have sprung to his feet as the +night wind brought in through the open window the long wailing howl of a +distant dog. He strode several times across the room in the steadfast +gaze of the physician; then, abruptly confronting him, almost shouted: +“What has all this to do with my trouble, Dr. Halderman? You forget why +you were sent for.” + +Rising, the physician laid his hand upon his patient’s arm and said, +gently: “Pardon me. I cannot diagnose your disorder off-hand—to-morrow, +perhaps. Please go to bed, leaving your door unlocked; I will pass the +night here with your books. Can you call me without rising?” + +“Yes, there is an electric bell.” + +“Good. If anything disturbs you push the button without sitting up. +Good night.” + +Comfortably installed in an armchair the man of medicine stared into the +glowing coals and thought deeply and long, but apparently to little +purpose, for he frequently rose and opening a door leading to the +staircase, listened intently; then resumed his seat. Presently, however, +he fell asleep, and when he woke it was past midnight. He stirred the +failing fire, lifted a book from the table at his side and looked at the +title. It was Denneker’s “Meditations.” He opened it at random and +began to read: + +“Forasmuch as it is ordained of God that all flesh hath spirit and +thereby taketh on spiritual powers, so, also, the spirit hath powers of +the flesh, even when it is gone out of the flesh and liveth as a thing +apart, as many a violence performed by wraith and lemure sheweth. And +there be who say that man is not single in this, but the beasts have the +like evil inducement, and—” + +The reading was interrupted by a shaking of the house, as by the fall of +a heavy object. The reader flung down the book, rushed from the room and +mounted the stairs to Fleming’s bed-chamber. He tried the door, but +contrary to his instructions it was locked. He set his shoulder against +it with such force that it gave way. On the floor near the disordered +bed, in his night clothes, lay Fleming gasping away his life. + +The physician raised the dying man’s head from the floor and observed a +wound in the throat. “I should have thought of this,” he said, believing +it suicide. + +When the man was dead an examination disclosed the unmistakable marks of +an animal’s fangs deeply sunken into the jugular vein. + +But there was no animal. + + + + +A RESUMED IDENTITY + + +I +THE REVIEW AS A FORM OF WELCOME + + +ONE summer night a man stood on a low hill overlooking a wide expanse of +forest and field. By the full moon hanging low in the west he knew what +he might not have known otherwise: that it was near the hour of dawn. A +light mist lay along the earth, partly veiling the lower features of the +landscape, but above it the taller trees showed in well-defined masses +against a clear sky. Two or three farmhouses were visible through the +haze, but in none of them, naturally, was a light. Nowhere, indeed, was +any sign or suggestion of life except the barking of a distant dog, +which, repeated with mechanical iteration, served rather to accentuate +than dispel the loneliness of the scene. + +The man looked curiously about him on all sides, as one who among +familiar surroundings is unable to determine his exact place and part in +the scheme of things. It is so, perhaps, that we shall act when, risen +from the dead, we await the call to judgment. + +A hundred yards away was a straight road, showing white in the moonlight. +Endeavoring to orient himself, as a surveyor or navigator might say, the +man moved his eyes slowly along its visible length and at a distance of a +quarter-mile to the south of his station saw, dim and gray in the haze, a +group of horsemen riding to the north. Behind them were men afoot, +marching in column, with dimly gleaming rifles aslant above their +shoulders. They moved slowly and in silence. Another group of horsemen, +another regiment of infantry, another and another—all in unceasing motion +toward the man’s point of view, past it, and beyond. A battery of +artillery followed, the cannoneers riding with folded arms on limber and +caisson. And still the interminable procession came out of the obscurity +to south and passed into the obscurity to north, with never a sound of +voice, nor hoof, nor wheel. + +The man could not rightly understand: he thought himself deaf; said so, +and heard his own voice, although it had an unfamiliar quality that +almost alarmed him; it disappointed his ear’s expectancy in the matter of +_timbre_ and resonance. But he was not deaf, and that for the moment +sufficed. + +Then he remembered that there are natural phenomena to which some one has +given the name “acoustic shadows.” If you stand in an acoustic shadow +there is one direction from which you will hear nothing. At the battle +of Gaines’s Mill, one of the fiercest conflicts of the Civil War, with a +hundred guns in play, spectators a mile and a half away on the opposite +side of the Chickahominy valley heard nothing of what they clearly saw. +The bombardment of Port Royal, heard and felt at St. Augustine, a hundred +and fifty miles to the south, was inaudible two miles to the north in a +still atmosphere. A few days before the surrender at Appomattox a +thunderous engagement between the commands of Sheridan and Pickett was +unknown to the latter commander, a mile in the rear of his own line. + +These instances were not known to the man of whom we write, but less +striking ones of the same character had not escaped his observation. He +was profoundly disquieted, but for another reason than the uncanny +silence of that moonlight march. + +“Good Lord!” he said to himself—and again it was as if another had spoken +his thought—“if those people are what I take them to be we have lost the +battle and they are moving on Nashville!” + +Then came a thought of self—an apprehension—a strong sense of personal +peril, such as in another we call fear. He stepped quickly into the +shadow of a tree. And still the silent battalions moved slowly forward +in the haze. + +The chill of a sudden breeze upon the back of his neck drew his attention +to the quarter whence it came, and turning to the east he saw a faint +gray light along the horizon—the first sign of returning day. This +increased his apprehension. + +“I must get away from here,” he thought, “or I shall be discovered and +taken.” + +He moved out of the shadow, walking rapidly toward the graying east. +From the safer seclusion of a clump of cedars he looked back. The entire +column had passed out of sight: the straight white road lay bare and +desolate in the moonlight! + +Puzzled before, he was now inexpressibly astonished. So swift a passing +of so slow an army!—he could not comprehend it. Minute after minute +passed unnoted; he had lost his sense of time. He sought with a terrible +earnestness a solution of the mystery, but sought in vain. When at last +he roused himself from his abstraction the sun’s rim was visible above +the hills, but in the new conditions he found no other light than that of +day; his understanding was involved as darkly in doubt as before. + +On every side lay cultivated fields showing no sign of war and war’s +ravages. From the chimneys of the farmhouses thin ascensions of blue +smoke signaled preparations for a day’s peaceful toil. Having stilled +its immemorial allocution to the moon, the watch-dog was assisting a +negro who, prefixing a team of mules to the plow, was flatting and +sharping contentedly at his task. The hero of this tale stared stupidly +at the pastoral picture as if he had never seen such a thing in all his +life; then he put his hand to his head, passed it through his hair and, +withdrawing it, attentively considered the palm—a singular thing to do. +Apparently reassured by the act, he walked confidently toward the road. + + +II +WHEN YOU HAVE LOST YOUR LIFE CONSULT A PHYSICIAN + + +Dr. Stilling Malson, of Murfreesboro, having visited a patient six or +seven miles away, on the Nashville road, had remained with him all night. +At daybreak he set out for home on horseback, as was the custom of +doctors of the time and region. He had passed into the neighborhood of +Stone’s River battlefield when a man approached him from the roadside and +saluted in the military fashion, with a movement of the right hand to the +hat-brim. But the hat was not a military hat, the man was not in uniform +and had not a martial bearing. The doctor nodded civilly, half thinking +that the stranger’s uncommon greeting was perhaps in deference to the +historic surroundings. As the stranger evidently desired speech with him +he courteously reined in his horse and waited. + +“Sir,” said the stranger, “although a civilian, you are perhaps an +enemy.” + +“I am a physician,” was the non-committal reply. + +“Thank you,” said the other. “I am a lieutenant, of the staff of General +Hazen.” He paused a moment and looked sharply at the person whom he was +addressing, then added, “Of the Federal army.” + +The physician merely nodded. + +“Kindly tell me,” continued the other, “what has happened here. Where +are the armies? Which has won the battle?” + +The physician regarded his questioner curiously with half-shut eyes. +After a professional scrutiny, prolonged to the limit of politeness, +“Pardon me,” he said; “one asking information should be willing to impart +it. Are you wounded?” he added, smiling. + +“Not seriously—it seems.” + +The man removed the unmilitary hat, put his hand to his head, passed it +through his hair and, withdrawing it, attentively considered the palm. + +“I was struck by a bullet and have been unconscious. It must have been a +light, glancing blow: I find no blood and feel no pain. I will not +trouble you for treatment, but will you kindly direct me to my command—to +any part of the Federal army—if you know?” + +Again the doctor did not immediately reply: he was recalling much that is +recorded in the books of his profession—something about lost identity and +the effect of familiar scenes in restoring it. At length he looked the +man in the face, smiled, and said: + +“Lieutenant, you are not wearing the uniform of your rank and service.” + +At this the man glanced down at his civilian attire, lifted his eyes, and +said with hesitation: + +“That is true. I—I don’t quite understand.” + +Still regarding him sharply but not unsympathetically the man of science +bluntly inquired: + +“How old are you?” + +“Twenty-three—if that has anything to do with it.” + +“You don’t look it; I should hardly have guessed you to be just that.” + +The man was growing impatient. “We need not discuss that,” he said; “I +want to know about the army. Not two hours ago I saw a column of troops +moving northward on this road. You must have met them. Be good enough +to tell me the color of their clothing, which I was unable to make out, +and I’ll trouble you no more.” + +“You are quite sure that you saw them?” + +“Sure? My God, sir, I could have counted them!” + +“Why, really,” said the physician, with an amusing consciousness of his +own resemblance to the loquacious barber of the Arabian Nights, “this is +very interesting. I met no troops.” + +The man looked at him coldly, as if he had himself observed the likeness +to the barber. “It is plain,” he said, “that you do not care to assist +me. Sir, you may go to the devil!” + +He turned and strode away, very much at random, across the dewy fields, +his half-penitent tormentor quietly watching him from his point of +vantage in the saddle till he disappeared beyond an array of trees. + + +III +THE DANGER OF LOOKING INTO A POOL OF WATER + + +After leaving the road the man slackened his pace, and now went forward, +rather deviously, with a distinct feeling of fatigue. He could not +account for this, though truly the interminable loquacity of that country +doctor offered itself in explanation. Seating himself upon a rock, he +laid one hand upon his knee, back upward, and casually looked at it. It +was lean and withered. He lifted both hands to his face. It was seamed +and furrowed; he could trace the lines with the tips of his fingers. How +strange!—a mere bullet-stroke and a brief unconsciousness should not make +one a physical wreck. + +“I must have been a long time in hospital,” he said aloud. “Why, what a +fool I am! The battle was in December, and it is now summer!” He +laughed. “No wonder that fellow thought me an escaped lunatic. He was +wrong: I am only an escaped patient.” + +At a little distance a small plot of ground enclosed by a stone wall +caught his attention. With no very definite intent he rose and went to +it. In the center was a square, solid monument of hewn stone. It was +brown with age, weather-worn at the angles, spotted with moss and lichen. +Between the massive blocks were strips of grass the leverage of whose +roots had pushed them apart. In answer to the challenge of this +ambitious structure Time had laid his destroying hand upon it, and it +would soon be “one with Nineveh and Tyre.” In an inscription on one side +his eye caught a familiar name. Shaking with excitement, he craned his +body across the wall and read: + + HAZEN’S BRIGADE + to + The Memory of Its Soldiers + who fell at + Stone River, Dec. 31, 1862. + +The man fell back from the wall, faint and sick. Almost within an arm’s +length was a little depression in the earth; it had been filled by a +recent rain—a pool of clear water. He crept to it to revive himself, +lifted the upper part of his body on his trembling arms, thrust forward +his head and saw the reflection of his face, as in a mirror. He uttered +a terrible cry. His arms gave way; he fell, face downward, into the pool +and yielded up the life that had spanned another life. + + + + +A BABY TRAMP + + +IF you had seen little Jo standing at the street corner in the rain, you +would hardly have admired him. It was apparently an ordinary autumn +rainstorm, but the water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly old enough to +be either just or unjust, and so perhaps did not come under the law of +impartial distribution) appeared to have some property peculiar to +itself: one would have said it was dark and adhesive—sticky. But that +could hardly be so, even in Blackburg, where things certainly did occur +that were a good deal out of the common. + +For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogs had +fallen, as is credibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, the +record concluding with a somewhat obscure statement to the effect that +the chronicler considered it good growing-weather for Frenchmen. + +Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it is cold in +Blackburg when winter is on, and the snows are frequent and deep. There +can be no doubt of it—the snow in this instance was of the color of blood +and melted into water of the same hue, if water it was, not blood. The +phenomenon had attracted wide attention, and science had as many +explanations as there were scientists who knew nothing about it. But the +men of Blackburg—men who for many years had lived right there where the +red snow fell, and might be supposed to know a good deal about the +matter—shook their heads and said something would come of it. + +And something did, for the next summer was made memorable by the +prevalence of a mysterious disease—epidemic, endemic, or the Lord knows +what, though the physicians didn’t—which carried away a full half of the +population. Most of the other half carried themselves away and were slow +to return, but finally came back, and were now increasing and multiplying +as before, but Blackburg had not since been altogether the same. + +Of quite another kind, though equally “out of the common,” was the +incident of Hetty Parlow’s ghost. Hetty Parlow’s maiden name had been +Brownon, and in Blackburg that meant more than one would think. + +The Brownons had from time immemorial—from the very earliest of the old +colonial days—been the leading family of the town. It was the richest +and it was the best, and Blackburg would have shed the last drop of its +plebeian blood in defense of the Brownon fair fame. As few of the +family’s members had ever been known to live permanently away from +Blackburg, although most of them were educated elsewhere and nearly all +had traveled, there was quite a number of them. The men held most of the +public offices, and the women were foremost in all good works. Of these +latter, Hetty was most beloved by reason of the sweetness of her +disposition, the purity of her character and her singular personal +beauty. She married in Boston a young scapegrace named Parlow, and like +a good Brownon brought him to Blackburg forthwith and made a man and a +town councilman of him. They had a child which they named Joseph and +dearly loved, as was then the fashion among parents in all that region. +Then they died of the mysterious disorder already mentioned, and at the +age of one whole year Joseph set up as an orphan. + +Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which had cut off his parents did +not stop at that; it went on and extirpated nearly the whole Brownon +contingent and its allies by marriage; and those who fled did not return. +The tradition was broken, the Brownon estates passed into alien hands and +the only Brownons remaining in that place were underground in Oak Hill +Cemetery, where, indeed, was a colony of them powerful enough to resist +the encroachment of surrounding tribes and hold the best part of the +grounds. But about the ghost: + +One night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow, a number of +the young people of Blackburg were passing Oak Hill Cemetery in a +wagon—if you have been there you will remember that the road to Greenton +runs alongside it on the south. They had been attending a May Day +festival at Greenton; and that serves to fix the date. Altogether there +may have been a dozen, and a jolly party they were, considering the +legacy of gloom left by the town’s recent somber experiences. As they +passed the cemetery the man driving suddenly reined in his team with an +exclamation of surprise. It was sufficiently surprising, no doubt, for +just ahead, and almost at the roadside, though inside the cemetery, stood +the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could be no doubt of it, for she had +been personally known to every youth and maiden in the party. That +established the thing’s identity; its character as ghost was signified by +all the customary signs—the shroud, the long, undone hair, the “far-away +look”—everything. This disquieting apparition was stretching out its +arms toward the west, as if in supplication for the evening star, which, +certainly, was an alluring object, though obviously out of reach. As +they all sat silent (so the story goes) every member of that party of +merrymakers—they had merry-made on coffee and lemonade only—distinctly +heard that ghost call the name “Joey, Joey!” A moment later nothing was +there. Of course one does not have to believe all that. + +Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascertained, Joey was wandering +about in the sage-brush on the opposite side of the continent, near +Winnemucca, in the State of Nevada. He had been taken to that town by +some good persons distantly related to his dead father, and by them +adopted and tenderly cared for. But on that evening the poor child had +strayed from home and was lost in the desert. + +His after history is involved in obscurity and has gaps which conjecture +alone can fill. It is known that he was found by a family of Piute +Indians, who kept the little wretch with them for a time and then sold +him—actually sold him for money to a woman on one of the east-bound +trains, at a station a long way from Winnemucca. The woman professed to +have made all manner of inquiries, but all in vain: so, being childless +and a widow, she adopted him herself. At this point of his career Jo +seemed to be getting a long way from the condition of orphanage; the +interposition of a multitude of parents between himself and that woeful +state promised him a long immunity from its disadvantages. + +Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleveland, Ohio. But her +adopted son did not long remain with her. He was seen one afternoon by a +policeman, new to that beat, deliberately toddling away from her house, +and being questioned answered that he was “a doin’ home.” He must have +traveled by rail, somehow, for three days later he was in the town of +Whiteville, which, as you know, is a long way from Blackburg. His +clothing was in pretty fair condition, but he was sinfully dirty. Unable +to give any account of himself he was arrested as a vagrant and sentenced +to imprisonment in the Infants’ Sheltering Home—where he was washed. + +Jo ran away from the Infants’ Sheltering Home at Whiteville—just took to +the woods one day, and the Home knew him no more forever. + +We find him next, or rather get back to him, standing forlorn in the cold +autumn rain at a suburban street corner in Blackburg; and it seems right +to explain now that the raindrops falling upon him there were really not +dark and gummy; they only failed to make his face and hands less so. Jo +was indeed fearfully and wonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an +artist. And the forlorn little tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare, +red, and swollen, and when he walked he limped with both legs. As to +clothing—ah, you would hardly have had the skill to name any single +garment that he wore, or say by what magic he kept it upon him. That he +was cold all over and all through did not admit of a doubt; he knew it +himself. Anyone would have been cold there that evening; but, for that +reason, no one else was there. How Jo came to be there himself, he could +not for the flickering little life of him have told, even if gifted with +a vocabulary exceeding a hundred words. From the way he stared about him +one could have seen that he had not the faintest notion of where (nor +why) he was. + +Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation; being cold +and hungry, and still able to walk a little by bending his knees very +much indeed and putting his feet down toes first, he decided to enter one +of the houses which flanked the street at long intervals and looked so +bright and warm. But when he attempted to act upon that very sensible +decision a burly dog came bowsing out and disputed his right. +Inexpressibly frightened and believing, no doubt (with some reason, too) +that brutes without meant brutality within, he hobbled away from all the +houses, and with gray, wet fields to right of him and gray, wet fields to +left of him—with the rain half blinding him and the night coming in mist +and darkness, held his way along the road that leads to Greenton. That +is to say, the road leads those to Greenton who succeed in passing the +Oak Hill Cemetery. A considerable number every year do not. + +Jo did not. + +They found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold, but no longer +hungry. He had apparently entered the cemetery gate—hoping, perhaps, +that it led to a house where there was no dog—and gone blundering about +in the darkness, falling over many a grave, no doubt, until he had tired +of it all and given up. The little body lay upon one side, with one +soiled cheek upon one soiled hand, the other hand tucked away among the +rags to make it warm, the other cheek washed clean and white at last, as +for a kiss from one of God’s great angels. It was observed—though +nothing was thought of it at the time, the body being as yet +unidentified—that the little fellow was lying upon the grave of Hetty +Parlow. The grave, however, had not opened to receive him. That is a +circumstance which, without actual irreverence, one may wish had been +ordered otherwise. + + + + +THE NIGHT-DOINGS AT “DEADMAN’S” + + + A STORY THAT IS UNTRUE + +IT was a singularly sharp night, and clear as the heart of a diamond. +Clear nights have a trick of being keen. In darkness you may be cold and +not know it; when you see, you suffer. This night was bright enough to +bite like a serpent. The moon was moving mysteriously along behind the +giant pines crowning the South Mountain, striking a cold sparkle from the +crusted snow, and bringing out against the black west the ghostly +outlines of the Coast Range, beyond which lay the invisible Pacific. The +snow had piled itself, in the open spaces along the bottom of the gulch, +into long ridges that seemed to heave, and into hills that appeared to +toss and scatter spray. The spray was sunlight, twice reflected: dashed +once from the moon, once from the snow. + +In this snow many of the shanties of the abandoned mining camp were +obliterated, (a sailor might have said they had gone down) and at +irregular intervals it had overtopped the tall trestles which had once +supported a river called a flume; for, of course, “flume” is _flumen_. +Among the advantages of which the mountains cannot deprive the +gold-hunter is the privilege of speaking Latin. He says of his dead +neighbor, “He has gone up the flume.” This is not a bad way to say, “His +life has returned to the Fountain of Life.” + +While putting on its armor against the assaults of the wind, this snow +had neglected no coign of vantage. Snow pursued by the wind is not +wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in +ranks and battalions; where it can get a foothold it makes a stand; where +it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow +cowering behind a bit of broken wall. The devious old road, hewn out of +the mountain side, was full of it. Squadron upon squadron had struggled +to escape by this line, when suddenly pursuit had ceased. A more +desolate and dreary spot than Deadman’s Gulch in a winter midnight it is +impossible to imagine. Yet Mr. Hiram Beeson elected to live there, the +sole inhabitant. + +Away up the side of the North Mountain his little pine-log shanty +projected from its single pane of glass a long, thin beam of light, and +looked not altogether unlike a black beetle fastened to the hillside with +a bright new pin. Within it sat Mr. Beeson himself, before a roaring +fire, staring into its hot heart as if he had never before seen such a +thing in all his life. He was not a comely man. He was gray; he was +ragged and slovenly in his attire; his face was wan and haggard; his eyes +were too bright. As to his age, if one had attempted to guess it, one +might have said forty-seven, then corrected himself and said +seventy-four. He was really twenty-eight. Emaciated he was; as much, +perhaps, as he dared be, with a needy undertaker at Bentley’s Flat and a +new and enterprising coroner at Sonora. Poverty and zeal are an upper +and a nether millstone. It is dangerous to make a third in that kind of +sandwich. + +As Mr. Beeson sat there, with his ragged elbows on his ragged knees, his +lean jaws buried in his lean hands, and with no apparent intention of +going to bed, he looked as if the slightest movement would tumble him to +pieces. Yet during the last hour he had winked no fewer than three +times. + +There was a sharp rapping at the door. A rap at that time of night and +in that weather might have surprised an ordinary mortal who had dwelt two +years in the gulch without seeing a human face, and could not fail to +know that the country was impassable; but Mr. Beeson did not so much as +pull his eyes out of the coals. And even when the door was pushed open +he only shrugged a little more closely into himself, as one does who is +expecting something that he would rather not see. You may observe this +movement in women when, in a mortuary chapel, the coffin is borne up the +aisle behind them. + +But when a long old man in a blanket overcoat, his head tied up in a +handkerchief and nearly his entire face in a muffler, wearing green +goggles and with a complexion of glittering whiteness where it could be +seen, strode silently into the room, laying a hard, gloved hand on Mr. +Beeson’s shoulder, the latter so far forgot himself as to look up with an +appearance of no small astonishment; whomever he may have been expecting, +he had evidently not counted on meeting anyone like this. Nevertheless, +the sight of this unexpected guest produced in Mr. Beeson the following +sequence: a feeling of astonishment; a sense of gratification; a +sentiment of profound good will. Rising from his seat, he took the +knotty hand from his shoulder, and shook it up and down with a fervor +quite unaccountable; for in the old man’s aspect was nothing to attract, +much to repel. However, attraction is too general a property for +repulsion to be without it. The most attractive object in the world is +the face we instinctively cover with a cloth. When it becomes still more +attractive—fascinating—we put seven feet of earth above it. + +“Sir,” said Mr. Beeson, releasing the old man’s hand, which fell +passively against his thigh with a quiet clack, “it is an extremely +disagreeable night. Pray be seated; I am very glad to see you.” + +Mr. Beeson spoke with an easy good breeding that one would hardly have +expected, considering all things. Indeed, the contrast between his +appearance and his manner was sufficiently surprising to be one of the +commonest of social phenomena in the mines. The old man advanced a step +toward the fire, glowing cavernously in the green goggles. Mr. Beeson +resumed: + +“You bet your life I am!” + +Mr. Beeson’s elegance was not too refined; it had made reasonable +concessions to local taste. He paused a moment, letting his eyes drop +from the muffled head of his guest, down along the row of moldy buttons +confining the blanket overcoat, to the greenish cowhide boots powdered +with snow, which had begun to melt and run along the floor in little +rills. He took an inventory of his guest, and appeared satisfied. Who +would not have been? Then he continued: + +“The cheer I can offer you is, unfortunately, in keeping with my +surroundings; but I shall esteem myself highly favored if it is your +pleasure to partake of it, rather than seek better at Bentley’s Flat.” + +With a singular refinement of hospitable humility Mr. Beeson spoke as if +a sojourn in his warm cabin on such a night, as compared with walking +fourteen miles up to the throat in snow with a cutting crust, would be an +intolerable hardship. By way of reply, his guest unbuttoned the blanket +overcoat. The host laid fresh fuel on the fire, swept the hearth with +the tail of a wolf, and added: + +“But _I_ think you’d better skedaddle.” + +The old man took a seat by the fire, spreading his broad soles to the +heat without removing his hat. In the mines the hat is seldom removed +except when the boots are. Without further remark Mr. Beeson also seated +himself in a chair which had been a barrel, and which, retaining much of +its original character, seemed to have been designed with a view to +preserving his dust if it should please him to crumble. For a moment +there was silence; then, from somewhere among the pines, came the +snarling yelp of a coyote; and simultaneously the door rattled in its +frame. There was no other connection between the two incidents than that +the coyote has an aversion to storms, and the wind was rising; yet there +seemed somehow a kind of supernatural conspiracy between the two, and Mr. +Beeson shuddered with a vague sense of terror. He recovered himself in a +moment and again addressed his guest. + +“There are strange doings here. I will tell you everything, and then if +you decide to go I shall hope to accompany you over the worst of the way; +as far as where Baldy Peterson shot Ben Hike—I dare say you know the +place.” + +The old man nodded emphatically, as intimating not merely that he did, +but that he did indeed. + +“Two years ago,” began Mr. Beeson, “I, with two companions, occupied this +house; but when the rush to the Flat occurred we left, along with the +rest. In ten hours the Gulch was deserted. That evening, however, I +discovered I had left behind me a valuable pistol (that is it) and +returned for it, passing the night here alone, as I have passed every +night since. I must explain that a few days before we left, our Chinese +domestic had the misfortune to die while the ground was frozen so hard +that it was impossible to dig a grave in the usual way. So, on the day +of our hasty departure, we cut through the floor there, and gave him such +burial as we could. But before putting him down I had the extremely bad +taste to cut off his pigtail and spike it to that beam above his grave, +where you may see it at this moment, or, preferably, when warmth has +given you leisure for observation. + +“I stated, did I not, that the Chinaman came to his death from natural +causes? I had, of course, nothing to do with that, and returned through +no irresistible attraction, or morbid fascination, but only because I had +forgotten a pistol. This is clear to you, is it not, sir?” + +The visitor nodded gravely. He appeared to be a man of few words, if +any. Mr. Beeson continued: + +“According to the Chinese faith, a man is like a kite: he cannot go to +heaven without a tail. Well, to shorten this tedious story—which, +however, I thought it my duty to relate—on that night, while I was here +alone and thinking of anything but him, that Chinaman came back for his +pigtail. + +“He did not get it.” + +At this point Mr. Beeson relapsed into blank silence. Perhaps he was +fatigued by the unwonted exercise of speaking; perhaps he had conjured up +a memory that demanded his undivided attention. The wind was now fairly +abroad, and the pines along the mountainside sang with singular +distinctness. The narrator continued: + +“You say you do not see much in that, and I must confess I do not myself. + +“But he keeps coming!” + +There was another long silence, during which both stared into the fire +without the movement of a limb. Then Mr. Beeson broke out, almost +fiercely, fixing his eyes on what he could see of the impassive face of +his auditor: + +“Give it him? Sir, in this matter I have no intention of troubling +anyone for advice. You will pardon me, I am sure”—here he became +singularly persuasive—“but I have ventured to nail that pigtail fast, and +have assumed the somewhat onerous obligation of guarding it. So it is +quite impossible to act on your considerate suggestion. + +“Do you play me for a Modoc?” + +Nothing could exceed the sudden ferocity with which he thrust this +indignant remonstrance into the ear of his guest. It was as if he had +struck him on the side of the head with a steel gauntlet. It was a +protest, but it was a challenge. To be mistaken for a coward—to be +played for a Modoc: these two expressions are one. Sometimes it is a +Chinaman. Do you play me for a Chinaman? is a question frequently +addressed to the ear of the suddenly dead. + +Mr. Beeson’s buffet produced no effect, and after a moment’s pause, +during which the wind thundered in the chimney like the sound of clods +upon a coffin, he resumed: + +“But, as you say, it is wearing me out. I feel that the life of the last +two years has been a mistake—a mistake that corrects itself; you see how. +The grave! No; there is no one to dig it. The ground is frozen, too. +But you are very welcome. You may say at Bentley’s—but that is not +important. It was very tough to cut: they braid silk into their +pigtails. Kwaagh.” + +Mr. Beeson was speaking with his eyes shut, and he wandered. His last +word was a snore. A moment later he drew a long breath, opened his eyes +with an effort, made a single remark, and fell into a deep sleep. What +he said was this: + +“They are swiping my dust!” + +Then the aged stranger, who had not uttered one word since his arrival, +arose from his seat and deliberately laid off his outer clothing, looking +as angular in his flannels as the late Signorina Festorazzi, an Irish +woman, six feet in height, and weighing fifty-six pounds, who used to +exhibit herself in her chemise to the people of San Francisco. He then +crept into one of the “bunks,” having first placed a revolver in easy +reach, according to the custom of the country. This revolver he took +from a shelf, and it was the one which Mr. Beeson had mentioned as that +for which he had returned to the Gulch two years before. + +In a few moments Mr. Beeson awoke, and seeing that his guest had retired +he did likewise. But before doing so he approached the long, plaited +wisp of pagan hair and gave it a powerful tug, to assure himself that it +was fast and firm. The two beds—mere shelves covered with blankets not +overclean—faced each other from opposite sides of the room, the little +square trapdoor that had given access to the Chinaman’s grave being +midway between. This, by the way, was crossed by a double row of +spike-heads. In his resistance to the supernatural, Mr. Beeson had not +disdained the use of material precautions. + +The fire was now low, the flames burning bluely and petulantly, with +occasional flashes, projecting spectral shadows on the walls—shadows that +moved mysteriously about, now dividing, now uniting. The shadow of the +pendent queue, however, kept moodily apart, near the roof at the further +end of the room, looking like a note of admiration. The song of the +pines outside had now risen to the dignity of a triumphal hymn. In the +pauses the silence was dreadful. + +It was during one of these intervals that the trap in the floor began to +lift. Slowly and steadily it rose, and slowly and steadily rose the +swaddled head of the old man in the bunk to observe it. Then, with a +clap that shook the house to its foundation, it was thrown clean back, +where it lay with its unsightly spikes pointing threateningly upward. +Mr. Beeson awoke, and without rising, pressed his fingers into his eyes. +He shuddered; his teeth chattered. His guest was now reclining on one +elbow, watching the proceedings with the goggles that glowed like lamps. + +Suddenly a howling gust of wind swooped down the chimney, scattering +ashes and smoke in all directions, for a moment obscuring everything. +When the firelight again illuminated the room there was seen, sitting +gingerly on the edge of a stool by the hearthside, a swarthy little man +of prepossessing appearance and dressed with faultless taste, nodding to +the old man with a friendly and engaging smile. “From San Francisco, +evidently,” thought Mr. Beeson, who having somewhat recovered from his +fright was groping his way to a solution of the evening’s events. + +But now another actor appeared upon the scene. Out of the square black +hole in the middle of the floor protruded the head of the departed +Chinaman, his glassy eyes turned upward in their angular slits and +fastened on the dangling queue above with a look of yearning unspeakable. +Mr. Beeson groaned, and again spread his hands upon his face. A mild +odor of opium pervaded the place. The phantom, clad only in a short blue +tunic quilted and silken but covered with grave-mold, rose slowly, as if +pushed by a weak spiral spring. Its knees were at the level of the +floor, when with a quick upward impulse like the silent leaping of a +flame it grasped the queue with both hands, drew up its body and took the +tip in its horrible yellow teeth. To this it clung in a seeming frenzy, +grimacing ghastly, surging and plunging from side to side in its efforts +to disengage its property from the beam, but uttering no sound. It was +like a corpse artificially convulsed by means of a galvanic battery. The +contrast between its superhuman activity and its silence was no less than +hideous! + +Mr. Beeson cowered in his bed. The swarthy little gentleman uncrossed +his legs, beat an impatient tattoo with the toe of his boot and consulted +a heavy gold watch. The old man sat erect and quietly laid hold of the +revolver. + +Bang! + +Like a body cut from the gallows the Chinaman plumped into the black hole +below, carrying his tail in his teeth. The trapdoor turned over, +shutting down with a snap. The swarthy little gentleman from San +Francisco sprang nimbly from his perch, caught something in the air with +his hat, as a boy catches a butterfly, and vanished into the chimney as +if drawn up by suction. + +From away somewhere in the outer darkness floated in through the open +door a faint, far cry—a long, sobbing wail, as of a child death-strangled +in the desert, or a lost soul borne away by the Adversary. It may have +been the coyote. + + * * * * * + +In the early days of the following spring a party of miners on their way +to new diggings passed along the Gulch, and straying through the deserted +shanties found in one of them the body of Hiram Beeson, stretched upon a +bunk, with a bullet hole through the heart. The ball had evidently been +fired from the opposite side of the room, for in one of the oaken beams +overhead was a shallow blue dint, where it had struck a knot and been +deflected downward to the breast of its victim. Strongly attached to the +same beam was what appeared to be an end of a rope of braided horsehair, +which had been cut by the bullet in its passage to the knot. Nothing +else of interest was noted, excepting a suit of moldy and incongruous +clothing, several articles of which were afterward identified by +respectable witnesses as those in which certain deceased citizens of +Deadman’s had been buried years before. But it is not easy to understand +how that could be, unless, indeed, the garments had been worn as a +disguise by Death himself—which is hardly credible. + + + + +BEYOND THE WALL + + +MANY years ago, on my way from Hongkong to New York, I passed a week in +San Francisco. A long time had gone by since I had been in that city, +during which my ventures in the Orient had prospered beyond my hope; I +was rich and could afford to revisit my own country to renew my +friendship with such of the companions of my youth as still lived and +remembered me with the old affection. Chief of these, I hoped, was Mohun +Dampier, an old schoolmate with whom I had held a desultory +correspondence which had long ceased, as is the way of correspondence +between men. You may have observed that the indisposition to write a +merely social letter is in the ratio of the square of the distance +between you and your correspondent. It is a law. + +I remembered Dampier as a handsome, strong young fellow of scholarly +tastes, with an aversion to work and a marked indifference to many of the +things that the world cares for, including wealth, of which, however, he +had inherited enough to put him beyond the reach of want. In his family, +one of the oldest and most aristocratic in the country, it was, I think, +a matter of pride that no member of it had ever been in trade nor +politics, nor suffered any kind of distinction. Mohun was a trifle +sentimental, and had in him a singular element of superstition, which led +him to the study of all manner of occult subjects, although his sane +mental health safeguarded him against fantastic and perilous faiths. He +made daring incursions into the realm of the unreal without renouncing +his residence in the partly surveyed and charted region of what we are +pleased to call certitude. + +The night of my visit to him was stormy. The Californian winter was on, +and the incessant rain plashed in the deserted streets, or, lifted by +irregular gusts of wind, was hurled against the houses with incredible +fury. With no small difficulty my cabman found the right place, away out +toward the ocean beach, in a sparsely populated suburb. The dwelling, a +rather ugly one, apparently, stood in the center of its grounds, which as +nearly as I could make out in the gloom were destitute of either flowers +or grass. Three or four trees, writhing and moaning in the torment of +the tempest, appeared to be trying to escape from their dismal +environment and take the chance of finding a better one out at sea. The +house was a two-story brick structure with a tower, a story higher, at +one corner. In a window of that was the only visible light. Something +in the appearance of the place made me shudder, a performance that may +have been assisted by a rill of rain-water down my back as I scuttled to +cover in the doorway. + +In answer to my note apprising him of my wish to call, Dampier had +written, “Don’t ring—open the door and come up.” I did so. The +staircase was dimly lighted by a single gas-jet at the top of the second +flight. I managed to reach the landing without disaster and entered by +an open door into the lighted square room of the tower. Dampier came +forward in gown and slippers to receive me, giving me the greeting that I +wished, and if I had held a thought that it might more fitly have been +accorded me at the front door the first look at him dispelled any sense +of his inhospitality. + +He was not the same. Hardly past middle age, he had gone gray and had +acquired a pronounced stoop. His figure was thin and angular, his face +deeply lined, his complexion dead-white, without a touch of color. His +eyes, unnaturally large, glowed with a fire that was almost uncanny. + +He seated me, proffered a cigar, and with grave and obvious sincerity +assured me of the pleasure that it gave him to meet me. Some unimportant +conversation followed, but all the while I was dominated by a melancholy +sense of the great change in him. This he must have perceived, for he +suddenly said with a bright enough smile, “You are disappointed in +me—_non sum qualis eram_.” + +I hardly knew what to reply, but managed to say: “Why, really, I don’t +know: your Latin is about the same.” + +He brightened again. “No,” he said, “being a dead language, it grows in +appropriateness. But please have the patience to wait: where I am going +there is perhaps a better tongue. Will you care to have a message in +it?” + +The smile faded as he spoke, and as he concluded he was looking into my +eyes with a gravity that distressed me. Yet I would not surrender myself +to his mood, nor permit him to see how deeply his prescience of death +affected me. + +“I fancy that it will be long,” I said, “before human speech will cease +to serve our need; and then the need, with its possibilities of service, +will have passed.” + +He made no reply, and I too was silent, for the talk had taken a +dispiriting turn, yet I knew not how to give it a more agreeable +character. Suddenly, in a pause of the storm, when the dead silence was +almost startling by contrast with the previous uproar, I heard a gentle +tapping, which appeared to come from the wall behind my chair. The sound +was such as might have been made by a human hand, not as upon a door by +one asking admittance, but rather, I thought, as an agreed signal, an +assurance of someone’s presence in an adjoining room; most of us, I +fancy, have had more experience of such communications than we should +care to relate. I glanced at Dampier. If possibly there was something +of amusement in the look he did not observe it. He appeared to have +forgotten my presence, and was staring at the wall behind me with an +expression in his eyes that I am unable to name, although my memory of it +is as vivid to-day as was my sense of it then. The situation was +embarrassing; I rose to take my leave. At this he seemed to recover +himself. + +“Please be seated,” he said; “it is nothing—no one is there.” + +But the tapping was repeated, and with the same gentle, slow insistence +as before. + +“Pardon me,” I said, “it is late. May I call to-morrow?” + +He smiled—a little mechanically, I thought. “It is very delicate of +you,” said he, “but quite needless. Really, this is the only room in the +tower, and no one is there. At least—” He left the sentence incomplete, +rose, and threw up a window, the only opening in the wall from which the +sound seemed to come. “See.” + +Not clearly knowing what else to do I followed him to the window and +looked out. A street-lamp some little distance away gave enough light +through the murk of the rain that was again falling in torrents to make +it entirely plain that “no one was there.” In truth there was nothing +but the sheer blank wall of the tower. + +Dampier closed the window and signing me to my seat resumed his own. + +The incident was not in itself particularly mysterious; any one of a +dozen explanations was possible (though none has occurred to me), yet it +impressed me strangely, the more, perhaps, from my friend’s effort to +reassure me, which seemed to dignify it with a certain significance and +importance. He had proved that no one was there, but in that fact lay +all the interest; and he proffered no explanation. His silence was +irritating and made me resentful. + +“My good friend,” I said, somewhat ironically, I fear, “I am not disposed +to question your right to harbor as many spooks as you find agreeable to +your taste and consistent with your notions of companionship; that is no +business of mine. But being just a plain man of affairs, mostly of this +world, I find spooks needless to my peace and comfort. I am going to my +hotel, where my fellow-guests are still in the flesh.” + +It was not a very civil speech, but he manifested no feeling about it. +“Kindly remain,” he said. “I am grateful for your presence here. What +you have heard to-night I believe myself to have heard twice before. Now +I _know_ it was no illusion. That is much to me—more than you know. +Have a fresh cigar and a good stock of patience while I tell you the +story.” + +The rain was now falling more steadily, with a low, monotonous +susurration, interrupted at long intervals by the sudden slashing of the +boughs of the trees as the wind rose and failed. The night was well +advanced, but both sympathy and curiosity held me a willing listener to +my friend’s monologue, which I did not interrupt by a single word from +beginning to end. + +“Ten years ago,” he said, “I occupied a ground-floor apartment in one of +a row of houses, all alike, away at the other end of the town, on what we +call Rincon Hill. This had been the best quarter of San Francisco, but +had fallen into neglect and decay, partly because the primitive character +of its domestic architecture no longer suited the maturing tastes of our +wealthy citizens, partly because certain public improvements had made a +wreck of it. The row of dwellings in one of which I lived stood a little +way back from the street, each having a miniature garden, separated from +its neighbors by low iron fences and bisected with mathematical precision +by a box-bordered gravel walk from gate to door. + +“One morning as I was leaving my lodging I observed a young girl entering +the adjoining garden on the left. It was a warm day in June, and she was +lightly gowned in white. From her shoulders hung a broad straw hat +profusely decorated with flowers and wonderfully beribboned in the +fashion of the time. My attention was not long held by the exquisite +simplicity of her costume, for no one could look at her face and think of +anything earthly. Do not fear; I shall not profane it by description; it +was beautiful exceedingly. All that I had ever seen or dreamed of +loveliness was in that matchless living picture by the hand of the Divine +Artist. So deeply did it move me that, without a thought of the +impropriety of the act, I unconsciously bared my head, as a devout +Catholic or well-bred Protestant uncovers before an image of the Blessed +Virgin. The maiden showed no displeasure; she merely turned her glorious +dark eyes upon me with a look that made me catch my breath, and without +other recognition of my act passed into the house. For a moment I stood +motionless, hat in hand, painfully conscious of my rudeness, yet so +dominated by the emotion inspired by that vision of incomparable beauty +that my penitence was less poignant than it should have been. Then I +went my way, leaving my heart behind. In the natural course of things I +should probably have remained away until nightfall, but by the middle of +the afternoon I was back in the little garden, affecting an interest in +the few foolish flowers that I had never before observed. My hope was +vain; she did not appear. + +“To a night of unrest succeeded a day of expectation and disappointment, +but on the day after, as I wandered aimlessly about the neighborhood, I +met her. Of course I did not repeat my folly of uncovering, nor venture +by even so much as too long a look to manifest an interest in her; yet my +heart was beating audibly. I trembled and consciously colored as she +turned her big black eyes upon me with a look of obvious recognition +entirely devoid of boldness or coquetry. + +“I will not weary you with particulars; many times afterward I met the +maiden, yet never either addressed her or sought to fix her attention. +Nor did I take any action toward making her acquaintance. Perhaps my +forbearance, requiring so supreme an effort of self-denial, will not be +entirely clear to you. That I was heels over head in love is true, but +who can overcome his habit of thought, or reconstruct his character? + +“I was what some foolish persons are pleased to call, and others, more +foolish, are pleased to be called—an aristocrat; and despite her beauty, +her charms and graces, the girl was not of my class. I had learned her +name—which it is needless to speak—and something of her family. She was +an orphan, a dependent niece of the impossible elderly fat woman in whose +lodging-house she lived. My income was small and I lacked the talent for +marrying; it is perhaps a gift. An alliance with that family would +condemn me to its manner of life, part me from my books and studies, and +in a social sense reduce me to the ranks. It is easy to deprecate such +considerations as these and I have not retained myself for the defense. +Let judgment be entered against me, but in strict justice all my +ancestors for generations should be made co-defendants and I be permitted +to plead in mitigation of punishment the imperious mandate of heredity. +To a mésalliance of that kind every globule of my ancestral blood spoke +in opposition. In brief, my tastes, habits, instinct, with whatever of +reason my love had left me—all fought against it. Moreover, I was an +irreclaimable sentimentalist, and found a subtle charm in an impersonal +and spiritual relation which acquaintance might vulgarize and marriage +would certainly dispel. No woman, I argued, is what this lovely creature +seems. Love is a delicious dream; why should I bring about my own +awakening? + +“The course dictated by all this sense and sentiment was obvious. Honor, +pride, prudence, preservation of my ideals—all commanded me to go away, +but for that I was too weak. The utmost that I could do by a mighty +effort of will was to cease meeting the girl, and that I did. I even +avoided the chance encounters of the garden, leaving my lodging only when +I knew that she had gone to her music lessons, and returning after +nightfall. Yet all the while I was as one in a trance, indulging the +most fascinating fancies and ordering my entire intellectual life in +accordance with my dream. Ah, my friend, as one whose actions have a +traceable relation to reason, you cannot know the fool’s paradise in +which I lived. + +“One evening the devil put it into my head to be an unspeakable idiot. +By apparently careless and purposeless questioning I learned from my +gossipy landlady that the young woman’s bedroom adjoined my own, a +party-wall between. Yielding to a sudden and coarse impulse I gently +rapped on the wall. There was no response, naturally, but I was in no +mood to accept a rebuke. A madness was upon me and I repeated the folly, +the offense, but again ineffectually, and I had the decency to desist. + +“An hour later, while absorbed in some of my infernal studies, I heard, +or thought I heard, my signal answered. Flinging down my books I sprang +to the wall and as steadily as my beating heart would permit gave three +slow taps upon it. This time the response was distinct, unmistakable: +one, two, three—an exact repetition of my signal. That was all I could +elicit, but it was enough—too much. + +“The next evening, and for many evenings afterward, that folly went on, I +always having ‘the last word.’ During the whole period I was deliriously +happy, but with the perversity of my nature I persevered in my resolution +not to see her. Then, as I should have expected, I got no further +answers. ‘She is disgusted,’ I said to myself, ‘with what she thinks my +timidity in making no more definite advances’; and I resolved to seek her +and make her acquaintance and—what? I did not know, nor do I now know, +what might have come of it. I know only that I passed days and days +trying to meet her, and all in vain; she was invisible as well as +inaudible. I haunted the streets where we had met, but she did not come. +From my window I watched the garden in front of her house, but she passed +neither in nor out. I fell into the deepest dejection, believing that +she had gone away, yet took no steps to resolve my doubt by inquiry of my +landlady, to whom, indeed, I had taken an unconquerable aversion from her +having once spoken of the girl with less of reverence than I thought +befitting. + +“There came a fateful night. Worn out with emotion, irresolution and +despondency, I had retired early and fallen into such sleep as was still +possible to me. In the middle of the night something—some malign power +bent upon the wrecking of my peace forever—caused me to open my eyes and +sit up, wide awake and listening intently for I knew not what. Then I +thought I heard a faint tapping on the wall—the mere ghost of the +familiar signal. In a few moments it was repeated: one, two, three—no +louder than before, but addressing a sense alert and strained to receive +it. I was about to reply when the Adversary of Peace again intervened in +my affairs with a rascally suggestion of retaliation. She had long and +cruelly ignored me; now I would ignore her. Incredible fatuity—may God +forgive it! All the rest of the night I lay awake, fortifying my +obstinacy with shameless justifications and—listening. + +“Late the next morning, as I was leaving the house, I met my landlady, +entering. + +“‘Good morning, Mr. Dampier,’ she said. ‘Have you heard the news?’ + +“I replied in words that I had heard no news; in manner, that I did not +care to hear any. The manner escaped her observation. + +“‘About the sick young lady next door,’ she babbled on. ‘What! you did +not know? Why, she has been ill for weeks. And now—’ + +“I almost sprang upon her. ‘And now,’ I cried, ‘now what?’ + +“‘She is dead.’ + +“That is not the whole story. In the middle of the night, as I learned +later, the patient, awakening from a long stupor after a week of +delirium, had asked—it was her last utterance—that her bed be moved to +the opposite side of the room. Those in attendance had thought the +request a vagary of her delirium, but had complied. And there the poor +passing soul had exerted its failing will to restore a broken +connection—a golden thread of sentiment between its innocence and a +monstrous baseness owning a blind, brutal allegiance to the Law of Self. + +“What reparation could I make? Are there masses that can be said for the +repose of souls that are abroad such nights as this—spirits ‘blown about +by the viewless winds’—coming in the storm and darkness with signs and +portents, hints of memory and presages of doom? + +“This is the third visitation. On the first occasion I was too skeptical +to do more than verify by natural methods the character of the incident; +on the second, I responded to the signal after it had been several times +repeated, but without result. To-night’s recurrence completes the ‘fatal +triad’ expounded by Parapelius Necromantius. There is no more to tell.” + +When Dampier had finished his story I could think of nothing relevant +that I cared to say, and to question him would have been a hideous +impertinence. I rose and bade him good night in a way to convey to him a +sense of my sympathy, which he silently acknowledged by a pressure of the +hand. That night, alone with his sorrow and remorse, he passed into the +Unknown. + + + + +A PSYCHOLOGICAL SHIPWRECK + + +IN the summer of 1874 I was in Liverpool, whither I had gone on business +for the mercantile house of Bronson & Jarrett, New York. I am William +Jarrett; my partner was Zenas Bronson. The firm failed last year, and +unable to endure the fall from affluence to poverty he died. + +Having finished my business, and feeling the lassitude and exhaustion +incident to its dispatch, I felt that a protracted sea voyage would be +both agreeable and beneficial, so instead of embarking for my return on +one of the many fine passenger steamers I booked for New York on the +sailing vessel _Morrow_, upon which I had shipped a large and valuable +invoice of the goods I had bought. The _Morrow_ was an English ship +with, of course, but little accommodation for passengers, of whom there +were only myself, a young woman and her servant, who was a middle-aged +negress. I thought it singular that a traveling English girl should be +so attended, but she afterward explained to me that the woman had been +left with her family by a man and his wife from South Carolina, both of +whom had died on the same day at the house of the young lady’s father in +Devonshire—a circumstance in itself sufficiently uncommon to remain +rather distinctly in my memory, even had it not afterward transpired in +conversation with the young lady that the name of the man was William +Jarrett, the same as my own. I knew that a branch of my family had +settled in South Carolina, but of them and their history I was ignorant. + +The _Morrow_ sailed from the mouth of the Mersey on the 15th of June and +for several weeks we had fair breezes and unclouded skies. The skipper, +an admirable seaman but nothing more, favored us with very little of his +society, except at his table; and the young woman, Miss Janette Harford, +and I became very well acquainted. We were, in truth, nearly always +together, and being of an introspective turn of mind I often endeavored +to analyze and define the novel feeling with which she inspired me—a +secret, subtle, but powerful attraction which constantly impelled me to +seek her; but the attempt was hopeless. I could only be sure that at +least it was not love. Having assured myself of this and being certain +that she was quite as whole-hearted, I ventured one evening (I remember +it was on the 3d of July) as we sat on deck to ask her, laughingly, if +she could assist me to resolve my psychological doubt. + +For a moment she was silent, with averted face, and I began to fear I had +been extremely rude and indelicate; then she fixed her eyes gravely on my +own. In an instant my mind was dominated by as strange a fancy as ever +entered human consciousness. It seemed as if she were looking at me, not +_with_, but _through_, those eyes—from an immeasurable distance behind +them—and that a number of other persons, men, women and children, upon +whose faces I caught strangely familiar evanescent expressions, clustered +about her, struggling with gentle eagerness to look at me through the +same orbs. Ship, ocean, sky—all had vanished. I was conscious of +nothing but the figures in this extraordinary and fantastic scene. Then +all at once darkness fell upon me, and anon from out of it, as to one who +grows accustomed by degrees to a dimmer light, my former surroundings of +deck and mast and cordage slowly resolved themselves. Miss Harford had +closed her eyes and was leaning back in her chair, apparently asleep, the +book she had been reading open in her lap. Impelled by surely I cannot +say what motive, I glanced at the top of the page; it was a copy of that +rare and curious work, “Denneker’s Meditations,” and the lady’s index +finger rested on this passage: + +“To sundry it is given to be drawn away, and to be apart from the body +for a season; for, as concerning rills which would flow across each other +the weaker is borne along by the stronger, so there be certain of kin +whose paths intersecting, their souls do bear company, the while their +bodies go fore-appointed ways, unknowing.” + + * * * * * + +Miss Harford arose, shuddering; the sun had sunk below the horizon, but +it was not cold. There was not a breath of wind; there were no clouds in +the sky, yet not a star was visible. A hurried tramping sounded on the +deck; the captain, summoned from below, joined the first officer, who +stood looking at the barometer. “Good God!” I heard him exclaim. + +An hour later the form of Janette Harford, invisible in the darkness and +spray, was torn from my grasp by the cruel vortex of the sinking ship, +and I fainted in the cordage of the floating mast to which I had lashed +myself. + +It was by lamplight that I awoke. I lay in a berth amid the familiar +surroundings of the stateroom of a steamer. On a couch opposite sat a +man, half undressed for bed, reading a book. I recognized the face of my +friend Gordon Doyle, whom I had met in Liverpool on the day of my +embarkation, when he was himself about to sail on the steamer _City of +Prague_, on which he had urged me to accompany him. + +After some moments I now spoke his name. He simply said, “Well,” and +turned a leaf in his book without removing his eyes from the page. + +“Doyle,” I repeated, “did they save _her_?” + +He now deigned to look at me and smiled as if amused. He evidently +thought me but half awake. + +“Her? Whom do you mean?” + +“Janette Harford.” + +His amusement turned to amazement; he stared at me fixedly, saying +nothing. + +“You will tell me after a while,” I continued; “I suppose you will tell +me after a while.” + +A moment later I asked: “What ship is this?” + +Doyle stared again. “The steamer _City of Prague_, bound from Liverpool +to New York, three weeks out with a broken shaft. Principal passenger, +Mr. Gordon Doyle; ditto lunatic, Mr. William Jarrett. These two +distinguished travelers embarked together, but they are about to part, it +being the resolute intention of the former to pitch the latter +overboard.” + +I sat bolt upright. “Do you mean to say that I have been for three weeks +a passenger on this steamer?” + +“Yes, pretty nearly; this is the 3d of July.” + +“Have I been ill?” + +“Right as a trivet all the time, and punctual at your meals.” + +“My God! Doyle, there is some mystery here; do have the goodness to be +serious. Was I not rescued from the wreck of the ship _Morrow_?” + +Doyle changed color, and approaching me, laid his fingers on my wrist. A +moment later, “What do you know of Janette Harford?” he asked very +calmly. + +“First tell me what _you_ know of her?” + +Mr. Doyle gazed at me for some moments as if thinking what to do, then +seating himself again on the couch, said: + +“Why should I not? I am engaged to marry Janette Harford, whom I met a +year ago in London. Her family, one of the wealthiest in Devonshire, cut +up rough about it, and we eloped—are eloping rather, for on the day that +you and I walked to the landing stage to go aboard this steamer she and +her faithful servant, a negress, passed us, driving to the ship _Morrow_. +She would not consent to go in the same vessel with me, and it had been +deemed best that she take a sailing vessel in order to avoid observation +and lessen the risk of detection. I am now alarmed lest this cursed +breaking of our machinery may detain us so long that the _Morrow_ will +get to New York before us, and the poor girl will not know where to go.” + +I lay still in my berth—so still I hardly breathed. But the subject was +evidently not displeasing to Doyle, and after a short pause he resumed: + +“By the way, she is only an adopted daughter of the Harfords. Her mother +was killed at their place by being thrown from a horse while hunting, and +her father, mad with grief, made away with himself the same day. No one +ever claimed the child, and after a reasonable time they adopted her. +She has grown up in the belief that she is their daughter.” + +“Doyle, what book are you reading?” + +“Oh, it’s called ‘Denneker’s Meditations.’ It’s a rum lot, Janette gave +it to me; she happened to have two copies. Want to see it?” + +He tossed me the volume, which opened as it fell. On one of the exposed +pages was a marked passage: + +“To sundry it is given to be drawn away, and to be apart from the body +for a season; for, as concerning rills which would flow across each other +the weaker is borne along by the stronger, so there be certain of kin +whose paths intersecting, their souls do bear company, the while their +bodies go fore-appointed ways, unknowing.” + +“She had—she has—a singular taste in reading,” I managed to say, +mastering my agitation. + +“Yes. And now perhaps you will have the kindness to explain how you knew +her name and that of the ship she sailed in.” + +“You talked of her in your sleep,” I said. + +A week later we were towed into the port of New York. But the _Morrow_ +was never heard from. + + + + +THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT + + +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 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 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 views 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 whom we were +dealing with, 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. + + + + +JOHN MORTONSON’S FUNERAL {252} + + +JOHN MORTONSON was dead: his lines in “the tragedy ‘Man’” had all been +spoken and he had left the stage. + +The body rested in a fine mahogany coffin fitted with a plate of glass. +All arrangements for the funeral had been so well attended to that had +the deceased known he would doubtless have approved. The face, as it +showed under the glass, was not disagreeable to look upon: it bore a +faint smile, and as the death had been painless, had not been distorted +beyond the repairing power of the undertaker. At two o’clock of the +afternoon the friends were to assemble to pay their last tribute of +respect to one who had no further need of friends and respect. The +surviving members of the family came severally every few minutes to the +casket and wept above the placid features beneath the glass. This did +them no good; it did no good to John Mortonson; but in the presence of +death reason and philosophy are silent. + +As the hour of two approached the friends began to arrive and after +offering such consolation to the stricken relatives as the proprieties of +the occasion required, solemnly seated themselves about the room with an +augmented consciousness of their importance in the scheme funereal. Then +the minister came, and in that overshadowing presence the lesser lights +went into eclipse. His entrance was followed by that of the widow, whose +lamentations filled the room. She approached the casket and after +leaning her face against the cold glass for a moment was gently led to a +seat near her daughter. Mournfully and low the man of God began his +eulogy of the dead, and his doleful voice, mingled with the sobbing which +it was its purpose to stimulate and sustain, rose and fell, seemed to +come and go, like the sound of a sullen sea. The gloomy day grew darker +as he spoke; a curtain of cloud underspread the sky and a few drops of +rain fell audibly. It seemed as if all nature were weeping for John +Mortonson. + +When the minister had finished his eulogy with prayer a hymn was sung and +the pall-bearers took their places beside the bier. As the last notes of +the hymn died away the widow ran to the coffin, cast herself upon it and +sobbed hysterically. Gradually, however, she yielded to dissuasion, +becoming more composed; and as the minister was in the act of leading her +away her eyes sought the face of the dead beneath the glass. She threw +up her arms and with a shriek fell backward insensible. + +The mourners sprang forward to the coffin, the friends followed, and as +the clock on the mantel solemnly struck three all were staring down upon +the face of John Mortonson, deceased. + +They turned away, sick and faint. One man, trying in his terror to +escape the awful sight, stumbled against the coffin so heavily as to +knock away one of its frail supports. The coffin fell to the floor, the +glass was shattered to bits by the concussion. + +From the opening crawled John Mortonson’s cat, which lazily leapt to the +floor, sat up, tranquilly wiped its crimson muzzle with a forepaw, then +walked with dignity from the room. + + + + +THE REALM OF THE UNREAL + + +I + + +FOR a part of the distance between Auburn and Newcastle the road—first on +one side of a creek and then on the other—occupies the whole bottom of +the ravine, being partly cut out of the steep hillside, and partly built +up with bowlders removed from the creek-bed by the miners. The hills are +wooded, the course of the ravine is sinuous. In a dark night careful +driving is required in order not to go off into the water. The night +that I have in memory was dark, the creek a torrent, swollen by a recent +storm. I had driven up from Newcastle and was within about a mile of +Auburn in the darkest and narrowest part of the ravine, looking intently +ahead of my horse for the roadway. Suddenly I saw a man almost under the +animal’s nose, and reined in with a jerk that came near setting the +creature upon its haunches. + +“I beg your pardon,” I said; “I did not see you, sir.” + +“You could hardly be expected to see me,” the man replied, civilly, +approaching the side of the vehicle; “and the noise of the creek +prevented my hearing you.” + +I at once recognized the voice, although five years had passed since I +had heard it. I was not particularly well pleased to hear it now. + +“You are Dr. Dorrimore, I think,” said I. + +“Yes; and you are my good friend Mr. Manrich. I am more than glad to see +you—the excess,” he added, with a light laugh, “being due to the fact +that I am going your way, and naturally expect an invitation to ride with +you.” + +“Which I extend with all my heart.” + +That was not altogether true. + +Dr. Dorrimore thanked me as he seated himself beside me, and I drove +cautiously forward, as before. Doubtless it is fancy, but it seems to me +now that the remaining distance was made in a chill fog; that I was +uncomfortably cold; that the way was longer than ever before, and the +town, when we reached it, cheerless, forbidding, and desolate. It must +have been early in the evening, yet I do not recollect a light in any of +the houses nor a living thing in the streets. Dorrimore explained at +some length how he happened to be there, and where he had been during the +years that had elapsed since I had seen him. I recall the fact of the +narrative, but none of the facts narrated. He had been in foreign +countries and had returned—this is all that my memory retains, and this I +already knew. As to myself I cannot remember that I spoke a word, though +doubtless I did. Of one thing I am distinctly conscious: the man’s +presence at my side was strangely distasteful and disquieting—so much so +that when I at last pulled up under the lights of the Putnam House I +experienced a sense of having escaped some spiritual peril of a nature +peculiarly forbidding. This sense of relief was somewhat modified by the +discovery that Dr. Dorrimore was living at the same hotel. + + +II + + +In partial explanation of my feelings regarding Dr. Dorrimore I will +relate briefly the circumstances under which I had met him some years +before. One evening a half-dozen men of whom I was one were sitting in +the library of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. The conversation had +turned to the subject of sleight-of-hand and the feats of the +_prestidigitateurs_, one of whom was then exhibiting at a local theatre. + +“These fellows are pretenders in a double sense,” said one of the party; +“they can do nothing which it is worth one’s while to be made a dupe by. +The humblest wayside juggler in India could mystify them to the verge of +lunacy.” + +“For example, how?” asked another, lighting a cigar. + +“For example, by all their common and familiar performances—throwing +large objects into the air which never come down; causing plants to +sprout, grow visibly and blossom, in bare ground chosen by spectators; +putting a man into a wicker basket, piercing him through and through with +a sword while he shrieks and bleeds, and then—the basket being opened +nothing is there; tossing the free end of a silken ladder into the air, +mounting it and disappearing.” + +“Nonsense!” I said, rather uncivilly, I fear. “You surely do not believe +such things?” + +“Certainly not: I have seen them too often.” + +“But I do,” said a journalist of considerable local fame as a picturesque +reporter. “I have so frequently related them that nothing but +observation could shake my conviction. Why, gentlemen, I have my own +word for it.” + +Nobody laughed—all were looking at something behind me. Turning in my +seat I saw a man in evening dress who had just entered the room. He was +exceedingly dark, almost swarthy, with a thin face, black-bearded to the +lips, an abundance of coarse black hair in some disorder, a high nose and +eyes that glittered with as soulless an expression as those of a cobra. +One of the group rose and introduced him as Dr. Dorrimore, of Calcutta. +As each of us was presented in turn he acknowledged the fact with a +profound bow in the Oriental manner, but with nothing of Oriental +gravity. His smile impressed me as cynical and a trifle contemptuous. +His whole demeanor I can describe only as disagreeably engaging. + +His presence led the conversation into other channels. He said little—I +do not recall anything of what he did say. I thought his voice +singularly rich and melodious, but it affected me in the same way as his +eyes and smile. In a few minutes I rose to go. He also rose and put on +his overcoat. + +“Mr. Manrich,” he said, “I am going your way.” + +“The devil you are!” I thought. “How do you know which way I am going?” +Then I said, “I shall be pleased to have your company.” + +We left the building together. No cabs were in sight, the street cars +had gone to bed, there was a full moon and the cool night air was +delightful; we walked up the California street hill. I took that +direction thinking he would naturally wish to take another, toward one of +the hotels. + +“You do not believe what is told of the Hindu jugglers,” he said +abruptly. + +“How do you know that?” I asked. + +Without replying he laid his hand lightly upon my arm and with the other +pointed to the stone sidewalk directly in front. There, almost at our +feet, lay the dead body of a man, the face upturned and white in the +moonlight! A sword whose hilt sparkled with gems stood fixed and upright +in the breast; a pool of blood had collected on the stones of the +sidewalk. + +I was startled and terrified—not only by what I saw, but by the +circumstances under which I saw it. Repeatedly during our ascent of the +hill my eyes, I thought, had traversed the whole reach of that sidewalk, +from street to street. How could they have been insensible to this +dreadful object now so conspicuous in the white moonlight? + +As my dazed faculties cleared I observed that the body was in evening +dress; the overcoat thrown wide open revealed the dress-coat, the white +tie, the broad expanse of shirt front pierced by the sword. And—horrible +revelation!—the face, except for its pallor, was that of my companion! +It was to the minutest detail of dress and feature Dr. Dorrimore himself. +Bewildered and horrified, I turned to look for the living man. He was +nowhere visible, and with an added terror I retired from the place, down +the hill in the direction whence I had come. I had taken but a few +strides when a strong grasp upon my shoulder arrested me. I came near +crying out with terror: the dead man, the sword still fixed in his +breast, stood beside me! Pulling out the sword with his disengaged hand, +he flung it from him, the moonlight glinting upon the jewels of its hilt +and the unsullied steel of its blade. It fell with a clang upon the +sidewalk ahead and—vanished! The man, swarthy as before, relaxed his +grasp upon my shoulder and looked at me with the same cynical regard that +I had observed on first meeting him. The dead have not that look—it +partly restored me, and turning my head backward, I saw the smooth white +expanse of sidewalk, unbroken from street to street. + +“What is all this nonsense, you devil?” I demanded, fiercely enough, +though weak and trembling in every limb. + +“It is what some are pleased to call jugglery,” he answered, with a +light, hard laugh. + +He turned down Dupont street and I saw him no more until we met in the +Auburn ravine. + + +III + + +On the day after my second meeting with Dr. Dorrimore I did not see him: +the clerk in the Putnam House explained that a slight illness confined +him to his rooms. That afternoon at the railway station I was surprised +and made happy by the unexpected arrival of Miss Margaret Corray and her +mother, from Oakland. + +This is not a love story. I am no storyteller, and love as it is cannot +be portrayed in a literature dominated and enthralled by the debasing +tyranny which “sentences letters” in the name of the Young Girl. Under +the Young Girl’s blighting reign—or rather under the rule of those false +Ministers of the Censure who have appointed themselves to the custody of +her welfare—love + + veils her sacred fires, + And, unaware, Morality expires, + +famished upon the sifted meal and distilled water of a prudish +purveyance. + +Let it suffice that Miss Corray and I were engaged in marriage. She and +her mother went to the hotel at which I lived, and for two weeks I saw +her daily. That I was happy needs hardly be said; the only bar to my +perfect enjoyment of those golden days was the presence of Dr. Dorrimore, +whom I had felt compelled to introduce to the ladies. + +By them he was evidently held in favor. What could I say? I knew +absolutely nothing to his discredit. His manners were those of a +cultivated and considerate gentleman; and to women a man’s manner is the +man. On one or two occasions when I saw Miss Corray walking with him I +was furious, and once had the indiscretion to protest. Asked for +reasons, I had none to give and fancied I saw in her expression a shade +of contempt for the vagaries of a jealous mind. In time I grew morose +and consciously disagreeable, and resolved in my madness to return to San +Francisco the next day. Of this, however, I said nothing. + + +IV + + +There was at Auburn an old, abandoned cemetery. It was nearly in the +heart of the town, yet by night it was as gruesome a place as the most +dismal of human moods could crave. The railings about the plats were +prostrate, decayed, or altogether gone. Many of the graves were sunken, +from others grew sturdy pines, whose roots had committed unspeakable sin. +The headstones were fallen and broken across; brambles overran the +ground; the fence was mostly gone, and cows and pigs wandered there at +will; the place was a dishonor to the living, a calumny on the dead, a +blasphemy against God. + +The evening of the day on which I had taken my madman’s resolution to +depart in anger from all that was dear to me found me in that congenial +spot. The light of the half moon fell ghostly through the foliage of +trees in spots and patches, revealing much that was unsightly, and the +black shadows seemed conspiracies withholding to the proper time +revelations of darker import. Passing along what had been a gravel path, +I saw emerging from shadow the figure of Dr. Dorrimore. I was myself in +shadow, and stood still with clenched hands and set teeth, trying to +control the impulse to leap upon and strangle him. A moment later a +second figure joined him and clung to his arm. It was Margaret Corray! + +I cannot rightly relate what occurred. I know that I sprang forward, +bent upon murder; I know that I was found in the gray of the morning, +bruised and bloody, with finger marks upon my throat. I was taken to the +Putnam House, where for days I lay in a delirium. All this I know, for I +have been told. And of my own knowledge I know that when consciousness +returned with convalescence I sent for the clerk of the hotel. + +“Are Mrs. Corray and her daughter still here?” I asked. + +“What name did you say?” + +“Corray.” + +“Nobody of that name has been here.” + +“I beg you will not trifle with me,” I said petulantly. “You see that I +am all right now; tell me the truth.” + +“I give you my word,” he replied with evident sincerity, “we have had no +guests of that name.” + +His words stupefied me. I lay for a few moments in silence; then I +asked: “Where is Dr. Dorrimore?” + +“He left on the morning of your fight and has not been heard of since. +It was a rough deal he gave you.” + + +V + + +Such are the facts of this case. Margaret Corray is now my wife. She +has never seen Auburn, and during the weeks whose history as it shaped +itself in my brain I have endeavored to relate, was living at her home in +Oakland, wondering where her lover was and why he did not write. The +other day I saw in the Baltimore _Sun_ the following paragraph: + +“Professor Valentine Dorrimore, the hypnotist, had a large audience last +night. The lecturer, who has lived most of his life in India, gave some +marvelous exhibitions of his power, hypnotizing anyone who chose to +submit himself to the experiment, by merely looking at him. In fact, he +twice hypnotized the entire audience (reporters alone exempted), making +all entertain the most extraordinary illusions. The most valuable +feature of the lecture was the disclosure of the methods of the Hindu +jugglers in their famous performances, familiar in the mouths of +travelers. The professor declares that these thaumaturgists have +acquired such skill in the art which he learned at their feet that they +perform their miracles by simply throwing the ‘spectators’ into a state +of hypnosis and telling them what to see and hear. His assertion that a +peculiarly susceptible subject may be kept in the realm of the unreal for +weeks, months, and even years, dominated by whatever delusions and +hallucinations the operator may from time to time suggest, is a trifle +disquieting.” + + + + +JOHN BARTINE’S WATCH + + + A STORY BY A PHYSICIAN + +“THE exact time? Good God! my friend, why do you insist? One would +think—but what does it matter; it is easily bedtime—isn’t that near +enough? But, here, if you must set your watch, take mine and see for +yourself.” + +With that he detached his watch—a tremendously heavy, old-fashioned +one—from the chain, and handed it to me; then turned away, and walking +across the room to a shelf of books, began an examination of their backs. +His agitation and evident distress surprised me; they appeared +reasonless. Having set my watch by his, I stepped over to where he stood +and said, “Thank you.” + +As he took his timepiece and reattached it to the guard I observed that +his hands were unsteady. With a tact upon which I greatly prided myself, +I sauntered carelessly to the sideboard and took some brandy and water; +then, begging his pardon for my thoughtlessness, asked him to have some +and went back to my seat by the fire, leaving him to help himself, as was +our custom. He did so and presently joined me at the hearth, as tranquil +as ever. + +This odd little incident occurred in my apartment, where John Bartine was +passing an evening. We had dined together at the club, had come home in +a cab and—in short, everything had been done in the most prosaic way; and +why John Bartine should break in upon the natural and established order +of things to make himself spectacular with a display of emotion, +apparently for his own entertainment, I could nowise understand. The +more I thought of it, while his brilliant conversational gifts were +commending themselves to my inattention, the more curious I grew, and of +course had no difficulty in persuading myself that my curiosity was +friendly solicitude. That is the disguise that curiosity usually assumes +to evade resentment. So I ruined one of the finest sentences of his +disregarded monologue by cutting it short without ceremony. + +“John Bartine,” I said, “you must try to forgive me if I am wrong, but +with the light that I have at present I cannot concede your right to go +all to pieces when asked the time o’ night. I cannot admit that it is +proper to experience a mysterious reluctance to look your own watch in +the face and to cherish in my presence, without explanation, painful +emotions which are denied to me, and which are none of my business.” + +To this ridiculous speech Bartine made no immediate reply, but sat +looking gravely into the fire. Fearing that I had offended I was about +to apologize and beg him to think no more about the matter, when looking +me calmly in the eyes he said: + +“My dear fellow, the levity of your manner does not at all disguise the +hideous impudence of your demand; but happily I had already decided to +tell you what you wish to know, and no manifestation of your unworthiness +to hear it shall alter my decision. Be good enough to give me your +attention and you shall hear all about the matter. + +“This watch,” he said, “had been in my family for three generations +before it fell to me. Its original owner, for whom it was made, was my +great-grandfather, Bramwell Olcott Bartine, a wealthy planter of Colonial +Virginia, and as stanch a Tory as ever lay awake nights contriving new +kinds of maledictions for the head of Mr. Washington, and new methods of +aiding and abetting good King George. One day this worthy gentleman had +the deep misfortune to perform for his cause a service of capital +importance which was not recognized as legitimate by those who suffered +its disadvantages. It does not matter what it was, but among its minor +consequences was my excellent ancestor’s arrest one night in his own +house by a party of Mr. Washington’s rebels. He was permitted to say +farewell to his weeping family, and was then marched away into the +darkness which swallowed him up forever. Not the slenderest clew to his +fate was ever found. After the war the most diligent inquiry and the +offer of large rewards failed to turn up any of his captors or any fact +concerning his disappearance. He had disappeared, and that was all.” + +Something in Bartine’s manner that was not in his words—I hardly knew +what it was—prompted me to ask: + +“What is your view of the matter—of the justice of it?” + +“My view of it,” he flamed out, bringing his clenched hand down upon the +table as if he had been in a public house dicing with blackguards—“my +view of it is that it was a characteristically dastardly assassination by +that damned traitor, Washington, and his ragamuffin rebels!” + +For some minutes nothing was said: Bartine was recovering his temper, and +I waited. Then I said: + +“Was that all?” + +“No—there was something else. A few weeks after my great-grandfather’s +arrest his watch was found lying on the porch at the front door of his +dwelling. It was wrapped in a sheet of letter paper bearing the name of +Rupert Bartine, his only son, my grandfather. I am wearing that watch.” + +Bartine paused. His usually restless black eyes were staring fixedly +into the grate, a point of red light in each, reflected from the glowing +coals. He seemed to have forgotten me. A sudden threshing of the +branches of a tree outside one of the windows, and almost at the same +instant a rattle of rain against the glass, recalled him to a sense of +his surroundings. A storm had risen, heralded by a single gust of wind, +and in a few moments the steady plash of the water on the pavement was +distinctly heard. I hardly know why I relate this incident; it seemed +somehow to have a certain significance and relevancy which I am unable +now to discern. It at least added an element of seriousness, almost +solemnity. Bartine resumed: + +“I have a singular feeling toward this watch—a kind of affection for it; +I like to have it about me, though partly from its weight, and partly for +a reason I shall now explain, I seldom carry it. The reason is this: +Every evening when I have it with me I feel an unaccountable desire to +open and consult it, even if I can think of no reason for wishing to know +the time. But if I yield to it, the moment my eyes rest upon the dial I +am filled with a mysterious apprehension—a sense of imminent calamity. +And this is the more insupportable the nearer it is to eleven o’clock—by +this watch, no matter what the actual hour may be. After the hands have +registered eleven the desire to look is gone; I am entirely indifferent. +Then I can consult the thing as often as I like, with no more emotion +than you feel in looking at your own. Naturally I have trained myself +not to look at that watch in the evening before eleven; nothing could +induce me. Your insistence this evening upset me a trifle. I felt very +much as I suppose an opium-eater might feel if his yearning for his +special and particular kind of hell were re-enforced by opportunity and +advice. + +“Now that is my story, and I have told it in the interest of your +trumpery science; but if on any evening hereafter you observe me wearing +this damnable watch, and you have the thoughtfulness to ask me the hour, +I shall beg leave to put you to the inconvenience of being knocked down.” + +His humor did not amuse me. I could see that in relating his delusion he +was again somewhat disturbed. His concluding smile was positively +ghastly, and his eyes had resumed something more than their old +restlessness; they shifted hither and thither about the room with +apparent aimlessness and I fancied had taken on a wild expression, such +as is sometimes observed in cases of dementia. Perhaps this was my own +imagination, but at any rate I was now persuaded that my friend was +afflicted with a most singular and interesting monomania. Without, I +trust, any abatement of my affectionate solicitude for him as a friend, I +began to regard him as a patient, rich in possibilities of profitable +study. Why not? Had he not described his delusion in the interest of +science? Ah, poor fellow, he was doing more for science than he knew: +not only his story but himself was in evidence. I should cure him if I +could, of course, but first I should make a little experiment in +psychology—nay, the experiment itself might be a step in his restoration. + +“That is very frank and friendly of you, Bartine,” I said cordially, “and +I’m rather proud of your confidence. It is all very odd, certainly. Do +you mind showing me the watch?” + +He detached it from his waistcoat, chain and all, and passed it to me +without a word. The case was of gold, very thick and strong, and +singularly engraved. After closely examining the dial and observing that +it was nearly twelve o’clock, I opened it at the back and was interested +to observe an inner case of ivory, upon which was painted a miniature +portrait in that exquisite and delicate manner which was in vogue during +the eighteenth century. + +“Why, bless my soul!” I exclaimed, feeling a sharp artistic delight—“how +under the sun did you get that done? I thought miniature painting on +ivory was a lost art.” + +“That,” he replied, gravely smiling, “is not I; it is my excellent +great-grandfather, the late Bramwell Olcott Bartine, Esquire, of +Virginia. He was younger then than later—about my age, in fact. It is +said to resemble me; do you think so?” + +“Resemble you? I should say so! Barring the costume, which I supposed +you to have assumed out of compliment to the art—or for _vraisemblance_, +so to say—and the no mustache, that portrait is you in every feature, +line, and expression.” + +No more was said at that time. Bartine took a book from the table and +began reading. I heard outside the incessant plash of the rain in the +street. There were occasional hurried footfalls on the sidewalks; and +once a slower, heavier tread seemed to cease at my door—a policeman, I +thought, seeking shelter in the doorway. The boughs of the trees tapped +significantly on the window panes, as if asking for admittance. I +remember it all through these years and years of a wiser, graver life. + +Seeing myself unobserved, I took the old-fashioned key that dangled from +the chain and quickly turned back the hands of the watch a full hour; +then, closing the case, I handed Bartine his property and saw him replace +it on his person. + +“I think you said,” I began, with assumed carelessness, “that after +eleven the sight of the dial no longer affects you. As it is now nearly +twelve”—looking at my own timepiece—“perhaps, if you don’t resent my +pursuit of proof, you will look at it now.” + +He smiled good-humoredly, pulled out the watch again, opened it, and +instantly sprang to his feet with a cry that Heaven has not had the mercy +to permit me to forget! His eyes, their blackness strikingly intensified +by the pallor of his face, were fixed upon the watch, which he clutched +in both hands. For some time he remained in that attitude without +uttering another sound; then, in a voice that I should not have +recognized as his, he said: + +“Damn you! it is two minutes to eleven!” + +I was not unprepared for some such outbreak, and without rising replied, +calmly enough: + +“I beg your pardon; I must have misread your watch in setting my own by +it.” + +He shut the case with a sharp snap and put the watch in his pocket. He +looked at me and made an attempt to smile, but his lower lip quivered and +he seemed unable to close his mouth. His hands, also, were shaking, and +he thrust them, clenched, into the pockets of his sack-coat. The +courageous spirit was manifestly endeavoring to subdue the coward body. +The effort was too great; he began to sway from side to side, as from +vertigo, and before I could spring from my chair to support him his knees +gave way and he pitched awkwardly forward and fell upon his face. I +sprang to assist him to rise; but when John Bartine rises we shall all +rise. + +The _post-mortem_ examination disclosed nothing; every organ was normal +and sound. But when the body had been prepared for burial a faint dark +circle was seen to have developed around the neck; at least I was so +assured by several persons who said they saw it, but of my own knowledge +I cannot say if that was true. + +Nor can I set limitations to the law of heredity. I do not know that in +the spiritual world a sentiment or emotion may not survive the heart that +held it, and seek expression in a kindred life, ages removed. Surely, if +I were to guess at the fate of Bramwell Olcott Bartine, I should guess +that he was hanged at eleven o’clock in the evening, and that he had been +allowed several hours in which to prepare for the change. + +As to John Bartine, my friend, my patient for five minutes, and—Heaven +forgive me!—my victim for eternity, there is no more to say. He is +buried, and his watch with him—I saw to that. May God rest his soul in +Paradise, and the soul of his Virginian ancestor, if, indeed, they are +two souls. + + + + +THE DAMNED THING + + +I +ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS EAT WHAT IS ON THE TABLE + + +BY the light of a tallow candle which had been placed on one end of a +rough table a man was reading something written in a book. It was an old +account book, greatly worn; and the writing was not, apparently, very +legible, for the man sometimes held the page close to the flame of the +candle to get a stronger light on it. The shadow of the book would then +throw into obscurity a half of the room, darkening a number of faces and +figures; for besides the reader, eight other men were present. Seven of +them sat against the rough log walls, silent, motionless, and the room +being small, not very far from the table. By extending an arm any one of +them could have touched the eighth man, who lay on the table, face +upward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at his sides. He was dead. + +The man with the book was not reading aloud, and no one spoke; all seemed +to be waiting for something to occur; the dead man only was without +expectation. From the blank darkness outside came in, through the +aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of +night in the wilderness—the long nameless note of a distant coyote; the +stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange cries of +night birds, so different from those of the birds of day; the drone of +great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small sounds +that seem always to have been but half heard when they have suddenly +ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing of all this was +noted in that company; its members were not overmuch addicted to idle +interest in matters of no practical importance; that was obvious in every +line of their rugged faces—obvious even in the dim light of the single +candle. They were evidently men of the vicinity—farmers and woodsmen. + +The person reading was a trifle different; one would have said of him +that he was of the world, worldly, albeit there was that in his attire +which attested a certain fellowship with the organisms of his +environment. His coat would hardly have passed muster in San Francisco; +his foot-gear was not of urban origin, and the hat that lay by him on the +floor (he was the only one uncovered) was such that if one had considered +it as an article of mere personal adornment he would have missed its +meaning. In countenance the man was rather prepossessing, with just a +hint of sternness; though that he may have assumed or cultivated, as +appropriate to one in authority. For he was a coroner. It was by virtue +of his office that he had possession of the book in which he was reading; +it had been found among the dead man’s effects—in his cabin, where the +inquest was now taking place. + +When the coroner had finished reading he put the book into his breast +pocket. At that moment the door was pushed open and a young man entered. +He, clearly, was not of mountain birth and breeding: he was clad as those +who dwell in cities. His clothing was dusty, however, as from travel. +He had, in fact, been riding hard to attend the inquest. + +The coroner nodded; no one else greeted him. + +“We have waited for you,” said the coroner. “It is necessary to have +done with this business to-night.” + +The young man smiled. “I am sorry to have kept you,” he said. “I went +away, not to evade your summons, but to post to my newspaper an account +of what I suppose I am called back to relate.” + +The coroner smiled. + +“The account that you posted to your newspaper,” he said, “differs, +probably, from that which you will give here under oath.” + +“That,” replied the other, rather hotly and with a visible flush, “is as +you please. I used manifold paper and have a copy of what I sent. It +was not written as news, for it is incredible, but as fiction. It may go +as a part of my testimony under oath.” + +“But you say it is incredible.” + +“That is nothing to you, sir, if I also swear that it is true.” + +The coroner was silent for a time, his eyes upon the floor. The men +about the sides of the cabin talked in whispers, but seldom withdrew +their gaze from the face of the corpse. Presently the coroner lifted his +eyes and said: “We will resume the inquest.” + +The men removed their hats. The witness was sworn. + +“What is your name?” the coroner asked. + +“William Harker.” + +“Age?” + +“Twenty-seven.” + +“You knew the deceased, Hugh Morgan?” + +“Yes.” + +“You were with him when he died?” + +“Near him.” + +“How did that happen—your presence, I mean?” + +“I was visiting him at this place to shoot and fish. A part of my +purpose, however, was to study him and his odd, solitary way of life. He +seemed a good model for a character in fiction. I sometimes write +stories.” + +“I sometimes read them.” + +“Thank you.” + +“Stories in general—not yours.” + +Some of the jurors laughed. Against a sombre background humor shows high +lights. Soldiers in the intervals of battle laugh easily, and a jest in +the death chamber conquers by surprise. + +“Relate the circumstances of this man’s death,” said the coroner. “You +may use any notes or memoranda that you please.” + +The witness understood. Pulling a manuscript from his breast pocket he +held it near the candle and turning the leaves until he found the passage +that he wanted began to read. + + +II +WHAT MAY HAPPEN IN A FIELD OF WILD OATS + + +“... The sun had hardly risen when we left the house. We were looking +for quail, each with a shotgun, but we had only one dog. Morgan said +that our best ground was beyond a certain ridge that he pointed out, and +we crossed it by a trail through the _chaparral_. On the other side was +comparatively level ground, thickly covered with wild oats. As we +emerged from the _chaparral_ Morgan was but a few yards in advance. +Suddenly we heard, at a little distance to our right and partly in front, +a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we could +see were violently agitated. + +“‘We’ve started a deer,’ I said. ‘I wish we had brought a rifle.’ + +“Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching the agitated +_chaparral_, said nothing, but had cocked both barrels of his gun and was +holding it in readiness to aim. I thought him a trifle excited, which +surprised me, for he had a reputation for exceptional coolness, even in +moments of sudden and imminent peril. + +“‘O, come,’ I said. ‘You are not going to fill up a deer with +quail-shot, are you?’ + +“Still he did not reply; but catching a sight of his face as he turned it +slightly toward me I was struck by the intensity of his look. Then I +understood that we had serious business in hand and my first conjecture +was that we had ‘jumped’ a grizzly. I advanced to Morgan’s side, cocking +my piece as I moved. + +“The bushes were now quiet and the sounds had ceased, but Morgan was as +attentive to the place as before. + +“‘What is it? What the devil is it?’ I asked. + +“‘That Damned Thing!’ he replied, without turning his head. His voice +was husky and unnatural. He trembled visibly. + +“I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the +place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way. I can +hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which +not only bent it, but pressed it down—crushed it so that it did not rise; +and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us. + +“Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me so strangely as this +unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon, yet I am unable to recall any +sense of fear. I remember—and tell it here because, singularly enough, I +recollected it then—that once in looking carelessly out of an open window +I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a group of +larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size as the +others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and detail +seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification of the law +of aërial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified me. We so rely +upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any seeming +suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning of +unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless movement of the +herbage and the slow, undeviating approach of the line of disturbance +were distinctly disquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened, +and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw his gun +to his shoulder and fire both barrels at the agitated grain! Before the +smoke of the discharge had cleared away I heard a loud savage cry—a +scream like that of a wild animal—and flinging his gun upon the ground +Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same instant I +was thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in +the smoke—some soft, heavy substance that seemed thrown against me with +great force. + +“Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to have +been struck from my hands, I heard Morgan crying out as if in mortal +agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage sounds as one +hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my +feet and looked in the direction of Morgan’s retreat; and may Heaven in +mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a distance of less than +thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a +frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in disorder and his whole body in +violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right arm +was lifted and seemed to lack the hand—at least, I could see none. The +other arm was invisible. At times, as my memory now reports this +extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body; it was as if +he had been partly blotted out—I cannot otherwise express it—then a +shifting of his position would bring it all into view again. + +“All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time +Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler vanquished by +superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him not always +distinctly. During the entire incident his shouts and curses were heard, +as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I +had never heard from the throat of man or brute! + +“For a moment only I stood irresolute, then throwing down my gun I ran +forward to my friend’s assistance. I had a vague belief that he was +suffering from a fit, or some form of convulsion. Before I could reach +his side he was down and quiet. All sounds had ceased, but with a +feeling of such terror as even these awful events had not inspired I now +saw again the mysterious movement of the wild oats, prolonging itself +from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of a wood. +It was only when it had reached the wood that I was able to withdraw my +eyes and look at my companion. He was dead.” + + +III +A MAN THOUGH NAKED MAY BE IN RAGS + + +The coroner rose from his seat and stood beside the dead man. Lifting an +edge of the sheet he pulled it away, exposing the entire body, altogether +naked and showing in the candle-light a claylike yellow. It had, +however, broad maculations of bluish black, obviously caused by +extravasated blood from contusions. The chest and sides looked as if +they had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadful lacerations; +the skin was torn in strips and shreds. + +The coroner moved round to the end of the table and undid a silk +handkerchief which had been passed under the chin and knotted on the top +of the head. When the handkerchief was drawn away it exposed what had +been the throat. Some of the jurors who had risen to get a better view +repented their curiosity and turned away their faces. Witness Harker +went to the open window and leaned out across the sill, faint and sick. +Dropping the handkerchief upon the dead man’s neck the coroner stepped to +an angle of the room and from a pile of clothing produced one garment +after another, each of which he held up a moment for inspection. All +were torn, and stiff with blood. The jurors did not make a closer +inspection. They seemed rather uninterested. They had, in truth, seen +all this before; the only thing that was new to them being Harker’s +testimony. + +“Gentlemen,” the coroner said, “we have no more evidence, I think. Your +duty has been already explained to you; if there is nothing you wish to +ask you may go outside and consider your verdict.” + +The foreman rose—a tall, bearded man of sixty, coarsely clad. + +“I should like to ask one question, Mr. Coroner,” he said. “What asylum +did this yer last witness escape from?” + +“Mr. Harker,” said the coroner, gravely and tranquilly, “from what asylum +did you last escape?” + +Harker flushed crimson again, but said nothing, and the seven jurors rose +and solemnly filed out of the cabin. + +“If you have done insulting me, sir,” said Harker, as soon as he and the +officer were left alone with the dead man, “I suppose I am at liberty to +go?” + +“Yes.” + +Harker started to leave, but paused, with his hand on the door latch. +The habit of his profession was strong in him—stronger than his sense of +personal dignity. He turned about and said: + +“The book that you have there—I recognize it as Morgan’s diary. You +seemed greatly interested in it; you read in it while I was testifying. +May I see it? The public would like—” + +“The book will cut no figure in this matter,” replied the official, +slipping it into his coat pocket; “all the entries in it were made before +the writer’s death.” + +As Harker passed out of the house the jury reentered and stood about the +table, on which the now covered corpse showed under the sheet with sharp +definition. The foreman seated himself near the candle, produced from +his breast pocket a pencil and scrap of paper and wrote rather +laboriously the following verdict, which with various degrees of effort +all signed: + +“We, the jury, do find that the remains come to their death at the hands +of a mountain lion, but some of us thinks, all the same, they had fits.” + + +IV +AN EXPLANATION FROM THE TOMB + + +In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries +having, possibly, a scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest upon +his body the book was not put in evidence; possibly the coroner thought +it not worth while to confuse the jury. The date of the first of the +entries mentioned cannot be ascertained; the upper part of the leaf is +torn away; the part of the entry remaining follows: + +“... would run in a half-circle, keeping his head turned always toward +the centre, and again he would stand still, barking furiously. At last +he ran away into the brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first +that he had gone mad, but on returning to the house found no other +alteration in his manner than what was obviously due to fear of +punishment. + +“Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors impress some cerebral centre with +images of the thing that emitted them? . . . + +“Sept. 2.—Looking at the stars last night as they rose above the crest of +the ridge east of the house, I observed them successively disappear—from +left to right. Each was eclipsed but an instant, and only a few at the +same time, but along the entire length of the ridge all that were within +a degree or two of the crest were blotted out. It was as if something +had passed along between me and them; but I could not see it, and the +stars were not thick enough to define its outline. Ugh! I don’t like +this.” . . . + +Several weeks’ entries are missing, three leaves being torn from the +book. + +“Sept. 27.—It has been about here again—I find evidences of its presence +every day. I watched again all last night in the same cover, gun in +hand, double-charged with buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints +were there, as before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not +sleep—indeed, I hardly sleep at all. It is terrible, insupportable! If +these amazing experiences are real I shall go mad; if they are fanciful I +am mad already. + +“Oct. 3.—I shall not go—it shall not drive me away. No, this is _my_ +house, _my_ land. God hates a coward . . . + +“Oct. 5.—I can stand it no longer; I have invited Harker to pass a few +weeks with me—he has a level head. I can judge from his manner if he +thinks me mad. + +“Oct. 7.—I have the solution of the mystery; it came to me last +night—suddenly, as by revelation. How simple—how terribly simple! + +“There are sounds that we cannot hear. At either end of the scale are +notes that stir no chord of that imperfect instrument, the human ear. +They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds +occupying an entire tree-top—the tops of several trees—and all in full +song. Suddenly—in a moment—at absolutely the same instant—all spring +into the air and fly away. How? They could not all see one +another—whole tree-tops intervened. At no point could a leader have been +visible to all. There must have been a signal of warning or command, +high and shrill above the din, but by me unheard. I have observed, too, +the same simultaneous flight when all were silent, among not only +blackbirds, but other birds—quail, for example, widely separated by +bushes—even on opposite sides of a hill. + +“It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the +surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth +between, will sometimes dive at the same instant—all gone out of sight in +a moment. The signal has been sounded—too grave for the ear of the +sailor at the masthead and his comrades on the deck—who nevertheless feel +its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred by +the bass of the organ. + +“As with sounds, so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum the +chemist can detect the presence of what are known as ‘actinic’ rays. +They represent colors—integral colors in the composition of light—which +we are unable to discern. The human eye is an imperfect instrument; its +range is but a few octaves of the real ‘chromatic scale.’ I am not mad; +there are colors that we cannot see. + +“And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such a color!” + + + + +HAÏTA THE SHEPHERD + + +IN the heart of Haïta the illusions of youth had not been supplanted by +those of age and experience. His thoughts were pure and pleasant, for +his life was simple and his soul devoid of ambition. He rose with the +sun and went forth to pray at the shrine of Hastur, the god of shepherds, +who heard and was pleased. After performance of this pious rite Haïta +unbarred the gate of the fold and with a cheerful mind drove his flock +afield, eating his morning meal of curds and oat cake as he went, +occasionally pausing to add a few berries, cold with dew, or to drink of +the waters that came away from the hills to join the stream in the middle +of the valley and be borne along with it, he knew not whither. + +During the long summer day, as his sheep cropped the good grass which the +gods had made to grow for them, or lay with their forelegs doubled under +their breasts and chewed the cud, Haïta, reclining in the shadow of a +tree, or sitting upon a rock, played so sweet music upon his reed pipe +that sometimes from the corner of his eye he got accidental glimpses of +the minor sylvan deities, leaning forward out of the copse to hear; but +if he looked at them directly they vanished. From this—for he must be +thinking if he would not turn into one of his own sheep—he drew the +solemn inference that happiness may come if not sought, but if looked for +will never be seen; for next to the favor of Hastur, who never disclosed +himself, Haïta most valued the friendly interest of his neighbors, the +shy immortals of the wood and stream. At nightfall he drove his flock +back to the fold, saw that the gate was secure and retired to his cave +for refreshment and for dreams. + +So passed his life, one day like another, save when the storms uttered +the wrath of an offended god. Then Haïta cowered in his cave, his face +hidden in his hands, and prayed that he alone might be punished for his +sins and the world saved from destruction. Sometimes when there was a +great rain, and the stream came out of its banks, compelling him to urge +his terrified flock to the uplands, he interceded for the people in the +cities which he had been told lay in the plain beyond the two blue hills +forming the gateway of his valley. + +“It is kind of thee, O Hastur,” so he prayed, “to give me mountains so +near to my dwelling and my fold that I and my sheep can escape the angry +torrents; but the rest of the world thou must thyself deliver in some way +that I know not of, or I will no longer worship thee.” + +And Hastur, knowing that Haïta was a youth who kept his word, spared the +cities and turned the waters into the sea. + +So he had lived since he could remember. He could not rightly conceive +any other mode of existence. The holy hermit who dwelt at the head of +the valley, a full hour’s journey away, from whom he had heard the tale +of the great cities where dwelt people—poor souls!—who had no sheep, gave +him no knowledge of that early time, when, so he reasoned, he must have +been small and helpless like a lamb. + +It was through thinking on these mysteries and marvels, and on that +horrible change to silence and decay which he felt sure must some time +come to him, as he had seen it come to so many of his flock—as it came to +all living things except the birds—that Haïta first became conscious how +miserable and hopeless was his lot. + +“It is necessary,” he said, “that I know whence and how I came; for how +can one perform his duties unless able to judge what they are by the way +in which he was intrusted with them? And what contentment can I have +when I know not how long it is going to last? Perhaps before another sun +I may be changed, and then what will become of the sheep? What, indeed, +will have become of me?” + +Pondering these things Haïta became melancholy and morose. He no longer +spoke cheerfully to his flock, nor ran with alacrity to the shrine of +Hastur. In every breeze he heard whispers of malign deities whose +existence he now first observed. Every cloud was a portent signifying +disaster, and the darkness was full of terrors. His reed pipe when +applied to his lips gave out no melody, but a dismal wail; the sylvan and +riparian intelligences no longer thronged the thicket-side to listen, but +fled from the sound, as he knew by the stirred leaves and bent flowers. +He relaxed his vigilance and many of his sheep strayed away into the +hills and were lost. Those that remained became lean and ill for lack of +good pasturage, for he would not seek it for them, but conducted them day +after day to the same spot, through mere abstraction, while puzzling +about life and death—of immortality he knew not. + +One day while indulging in the gloomiest reflections he suddenly sprang +from the rock upon which he sat, and with a determined gesture of the +right hand exclaimed: “I will no longer be a suppliant for knowledge +which the gods withhold. Let them look to it that they do me no wrong. +I will do my duty as best I can and if I err upon their own heads be it!” + +Suddenly, as he spoke, a great brightness fell about him, causing him to +look upward, thinking the sun had burst through a rift in the clouds; but +there were no clouds. No more than an arm’s length away stood a +beautiful maiden. So beautiful she was that the flowers about her feet +folded their petals in despair and bent their heads in token of +submission; so sweet her look that the humming birds thronged her eyes, +thrusting their thirsty bills almost into them, and the wild bees were +about her lips. And such was her brightness that the shadows of all +objects lay divergent from her feet, turning as she moved. + +Haïta was entranced. Rising, he knelt before her in adoration, and she +laid her hand upon his head. + +“Come,” she said in a voice that had the music of all the bells of his +flock—“come, thou art not to worship me, who am no goddess, but if thou +art truthful and dutiful I will abide with thee.” + +Haïta seized her hand, and stammering his joy and gratitude arose, and +hand in hand they stood and smiled into each other’s eyes. He gazed on +her with reverence and rapture. He said: “I pray thee, lovely maid, tell +me thy name and whence and why thou comest.” + +At this she laid a warning finger on her lip and began to withdraw. Her +beauty underwent a visible alteration that made him shudder, he knew not +why, for still she was beautiful. The landscape was darkened by a giant +shadow sweeping across the valley with the speed of a vulture. In the +obscurity the maiden’s figure grew dim and indistinct and her voice +seemed to come from a distance, as she said, in a tone of sorrowful +reproach: “Presumptuous and ungrateful youth! must I then so soon leave +thee? Would nothing do but thou must at once break the eternal compact?” + +Inexpressibly grieved, Haïta fell upon his knees and implored her to +remain—rose and sought her in the deepening darkness—ran in circles, +calling to her aloud, but all in vain. She was no longer visible, but +out of the gloom he heard her voice saying: “Nay, thou shalt not have me +by seeking. Go to thy duty, faithless shepherd, or we shall never meet +again.” + +Night had fallen; the wolves were howling in the hills and the terrified +sheep crowding about Haïta’s feet. In the demands of the hour he forgot +his disappointment, drove his sheep to the fold and repairing to the +place of worship poured out his heart in gratitude to Hastur for +permitting him to save his flock, then retired to his cave and slept. + +When Haïta awoke the sun was high and shone in at the cave, illuminating +it with a great glory. And there, beside him, sat the maiden. She +smiled upon him with a smile that seemed the visible music of his pipe of +reeds. He dared not speak, fearing to offend her as before, for he knew +not what he could venture to say. + +“Because,” she said, “thou didst thy duty by the flock, and didst not +forget to thank Hastur for staying the wolves of the night, I am come to +thee again. Wilt thou have me for a companion?” + +“Who would not have thee forever?” replied Haïta. “Oh! never again leave +me until—until I—change and become silent and motionless.” + +Haïta had no word for death. + +“I wish, indeed,” he continued, “that thou wert of my own sex, that we +might wrestle and run races and so never tire of being together.” + +At these words the maiden arose and passed out of the cave, and Haïta, +springing from his couch of fragrant boughs to overtake and detain her, +observed to his astonishment that the rain was falling and the stream in +the middle of the valley had come out of its banks. The sheep were +bleating in terror, for the rising waters had invaded their fold. And +there was danger for the unknown cities of the distant plain. + +It was many days before Haïta saw the maiden again. One day he was +returning from the head of the valley, where he had gone with ewe’s milk +and oat cake and berries for the holy hermit, who was too old and feeble +to provide himself with food. + +“Poor old man!” he said aloud, as he trudged along homeward. “I will +return to-morrow and bear him on my back to my own dwelling, where I can +care for him. Doubtless it is for this that Hastur has reared me all +these many years, and gives me health and strength.” + +As he spoke, the maiden, clad in glittering garments, met him in the path +with a smile that took away his breath. + +“I am come again,” she said, “to dwell with thee if thou wilt now have +me, for none else will. Thou mayest have learned wisdom, and art willing +to take me as I am, nor care to know.” + +Haïta threw himself at her feet. “Beautiful being,” he cried, “if thou +wilt but deign to accept all the devotion of my heart and soul—after +Hastur be served—it is thine forever. But, alas! thou art capricious and +wayward. Before to-morrow’s sun I may lose thee again. Promise, I +beseech thee, that however in my ignorance I may offend, thou wilt +forgive and remain always with me.” + +Scarcely had he finished speaking when a troop of bears came out of the +hills, racing toward him with crimson mouths and fiery eyes. The maiden +again vanished, and he turned and fled for his life. Nor did he stop +until he was in the cot of the holy hermit, whence he had set out. +Hastily barring the door against the bears he cast himself upon the +ground and wept. + +“My son,” said the hermit from his couch of straw, freshly gathered that +morning by Haïta’s hands, “it is not like thee to weep for bears—tell me +what sorrow hath befallen thee, that age may minister to the hurts of +youth with such balms as it hath of its wisdom.” + +Haïta told him all: how thrice he had met the radiant maid, and thrice +she had left him forlorn. He related minutely all that had passed +between them, omitting no word of what had been said. + +When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, then said: “My +son, I have attended to thy story, and I know the maiden. I have myself +seen her, as have many. Know, then, that her name, which she would not +even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, +that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot +fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when +unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, +one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How +long didst thou have her at any time before she fled?” + +“Only a single instant,” answered Haïta, blushing with shame at the +confession. “Each time I drove her away in one moment.” + +“Unfortunate youth!” said the holy hermit, “but for thine indiscretion +thou mightst have had her for two.” + + + + +AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA + + + For there be divers sorts of death—some wherein the body remaineth; + and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly + occurreth only in solitude (such is God’s will) and, none seeing the + end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long journey—which indeed + he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, as abundant + testimony showeth. In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and + this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigor for + many years. Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth with the + body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where the + body did decay. + +PONDERING these words of Hali (whom God rest) and questioning their full +meaning, as one who, having an intimation, yet doubts if there be not +something behind, other than that which he has discerned, I noted not +whither I had strayed until a sudden chill wind striking my face revived +in me a sense of my surroundings. I observed with astonishment that +everything seemed unfamiliar. On every side of me stretched a bleak and +desolate expanse of plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of sere grass, +which rustled and whistled in the autumn wind with heaven knows what +mysterious and disquieting suggestion. Protruded at long intervals above +it, stood strangely shaped and somber-colored rocks, which seemed to have +an understanding with one another and to exchange looks of uncomfortable +significance, as if they had reared their heads to watch the issue of +some foreseen event. A few blasted trees here and there appeared as +leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation. + +The day, I thought, must be far advanced, though the sun was invisible; +and although sensible that the air was raw and chill my consciousness of +that fact was rather mental than physical—I had no feeling of discomfort. +Over all the dismal landscape a canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung +like a visible curse. In all this there were a menace and a portent—a +hint of evil, an intimation of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was +none. The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the +gray grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other +sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place. + +I observed in the herbage a number of weather-worn stones, evidently +shaped with tools. They were broken, covered with moss and half sunken +in the earth. Some lay prostrate, some leaned at various angles, none +was vertical. They were obviously headstones of graves, though the +graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the +years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks +showed where some pompous tomb or ambitious monument had once flung its +feeble defiance at oblivion. So old seemed these relics, these vestiges +of vanity and memorials of affection and piety, so battered and worn and +stained—so neglected, deserted, forgotten the place, that I could not +help thinking myself the discoverer of the burial-ground of a prehistoric +race of men whose very name was long extinct. + +Filled with these reflections, I was for some time heedless of the +sequence of my own experiences, but soon I thought, “How came I hither?” +A moment’s reflection seemed to make this all clear and explain at the +same time, though in a disquieting way, the singular character with which +my fancy had invested all that I saw or heard. I was ill. I remembered +now that I had been prostrated by a sudden fever, and that my family had +told me that in my periods of delirium I had constantly cried out for +liberty and air, and had been held in bed to prevent my escape +out-of-doors. Now I had eluded the vigilance of my attendants and had +wandered hither to—to where? I could not conjecture. Clearly I was at a +considerable distance from the city where I dwelt—the ancient and famous +city of Carcosa. + +No signs of human life were anywhere visible nor audible; no rising +smoke, no watch-dog’s bark, no lowing of cattle, no shouts of children at +play—nothing but that dismal burial-place, with its air of mystery and +dread, due to my own disordered brain. Was I not becoming again +delirious, there beyond human aid? Was it not indeed _all_ an illusion +of my madness? I called aloud the names of my wives and sons, reached +out my hands in search of theirs, even as I walked among the crumbling +stones and in the withered grass. + +A noise behind me caused me to turn about. A wild animal—a lynx—was +approaching. The thought came to me: If I break down here in the +desert—if the fever return and I fail, this beast will be at my throat. +I sprang toward it, shouting. It trotted tranquilly by within a hand’s +breadth of me and disappeared behind a rock. + +A moment later a man’s head appeared to rise out of the ground a short +distance away. He was ascending the farther slope of a low hill whose +crest was hardly to be distinguished from the general level. His whole +figure soon came into view against the background of gray cloud. He was +half naked, half clad in skins. His hair was unkempt, his beard long and +ragged. In one hand he carried a bow and arrow; the other held a blazing +torch with a long trail of black smoke. He walked slowly and with +caution, as if he feared falling into some open grave concealed by the +tall grass. This strange apparition surprised but did not alarm, and +taking such a course as to intercept him I met him almost face to face, +accosting him with the familiar salutation, “God keep you.” + +He gave no heed, nor did he arrest his pace. + +“Good stranger,” I continued, “I am ill and lost. Direct me, I beseech +you, to Carcosa.” + +The man broke into a barbarous chant in an unknown tongue, passing on and +away. + +An owl on the branch of a decayed tree hooted dismally and was answered +by another in the distance. Looking upward, I saw through a sudden rift +in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades! In all this there was a hint of +night—the lynx, the man with the torch, the owl. Yet I saw—I saw even +the stars in absence of the darkness. I saw, but was apparently not seen +nor heard. Under what awful spell did I exist? + +I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously to consider what +it were best to do. That I was mad I could no longer doubt, yet +recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction. Of fever I had no trace. +I had, withal, a sense of exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to +me—a feeling of mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemed all +alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous substance; I could hear the +silence. + +A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held +inclosed in its grasp a slab of stone, a part of which protruded into a +recess formed by another root. The stone was thus partly protected from +the weather, though greatly decomposed. Its edges were worn round, its +corners eaten away, its surface deeply furrowed and scaled. Glittering +particles of mica were visible in the earth about it—vestiges of its +decomposition. This stone had apparently marked the grave out of which +the tree had sprung ages ago. The tree’s exacting roots had robbed the +grave and made the stone a prisoner. + +A sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and twigs from the uppermost face of +the stone; I saw the low-relief letters of an inscription and bent to +read it. God in Heaven! _my_ name in full!—the date of _my_ birth!—the +date of _my_ death! + +A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as I sprang +to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in the rosy east. I stood +between the tree and his broad red disk—no shadow darkened the trunk! + +A chorus of howling wolves saluted the dawn. I saw them sitting on their +haunches, singly and in groups, on the summits of irregular mounds and +tumuli filling a half of my desert prospect and extending to the horizon. +And then I knew that these were ruins of the ancient and famous city of +Carcosa. + + * * * * * + +Such are the facts imparted to the medium Bayrolles by the spirit Hoseib +Alar Robardin. + + + + +THE STRANGER + + +A MAN stepped out of the darkness into the little illuminated circle +about our failing campfire and seated himself upon a rock. + +“You are not the first to explore this region,” he said, gravely. + +Nobody controverted his statement; he was himself proof of its truth, for +he was not of our party and must have been somewhere near when we camped. +Moreover, he must have companions not far away; it was not a place where +one would be living or traveling alone. For more than a week we had +seen, besides ourselves and our animals, only such living things as +rattlesnakes and horned toads. In an Arizona desert one does not long +coexist with only such creatures as these: one must have pack animals, +supplies, arms—“an outfit.” And all these imply comrades. It was +perhaps a doubt as to what manner of men this unceremonious stranger’s +comrades might be, together with something in his words interpretable as +a challenge, that caused every man of our half-dozen “gentlemen +adventurers” to rise to a sitting posture and lay his hand upon a +weapon—an act signifying, in that time and place, a policy of +expectation. The stranger gave the matter no attention and began again +to speak in the same deliberate, uninflected monotone in which he had +delivered his first sentence: + +“Thirty years ago Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry +Davis, all of Tucson, crossed the Santa Catalina mountains and traveled +due west, as nearly as the configuration of the country permitted. We +were prospecting and it was our intention, if we found nothing, to push +through to the Gila river at some point near Big Bend, where we +understood there was a settlement. We had a good outfit but no +guide—just Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry Davis.” + +The man repeated the names slowly and distinctly, as if to fix them in +the memories of his audience, every member of which was now attentively +observing him, but with a slackened apprehension regarding his possible +companions somewhere in the darkness that seemed to enclose us like a +black wall; in the manner of this volunteer historian was no suggestion +of an unfriendly purpose. His act was rather that of a harmless lunatic +than an enemy. We were not so new to the country as not to know that the +solitary life of many a plainsman had a tendency to develop +eccentricities of conduct and character not always easily distinguishable +from mental aberration. A man is like a tree: in a forest of his fellows +he will grow as straight as his generic and individual nature permits; +alone in the open, he yields to the deforming stresses and tortions that +environ him. Some such thoughts were in my mind as I watched the man +from the shadow of my hat, pulled low to shut out the firelight. A +witless fellow, no doubt, but what could he be doing there in the heart +of a desert? + +Having undertaken to tell this story, I wish that I could describe the +man’s appearance; that would be a natural thing to do. Unfortunately, +and somewhat strangely, I find myself unable to do so with any degree of +confidence, for afterward no two of us agreed as to what he wore and how +he looked; and when I try to set down my own impressions they elude me. +Anyone can tell some kind of story; narration is one of the elemental +powers of the race. But the talent for description is a gift. + +Nobody having broken silence the visitor went on to say: + +“This country was not then what it is now. There was not a ranch between +the Gila and the Gulf. There was a little game here and there in the +mountains, and near the infrequent water-holes grass enough to keep our +animals from starvation. If we should be so fortunate as to encounter no +Indians we might get through. But within a week the purpose of the +expedition had altered from discovery of wealth to preservation of life. +We had gone too far to go back, for what was ahead could be no worse than +what was behind; so we pushed on, riding by night to avoid Indians and +the intolerable heat, and concealing ourselves by day as best we could. +Sometimes, having exhausted our supply of wild meat and emptied our +casks, we were days without food or drink; then a water-hole or a shallow +pool in the bottom of an _arroyo_ so restored our strength and sanity +that we were able to shoot some of the wild animals that sought it also. +Sometimes it was a bear, sometimes an antelope, a coyote, a cougar—that +was as God pleased; all were food. + +“One morning as we skirted a mountain range, seeking a practicable pass, +we were attacked by a band of Apaches who had followed our trail up a +gulch—it is not far from here. Knowing that they outnumbered us ten to +one, they took none of their usual cowardly precautions, but dashed upon +us at a gallop, firing and yelling. Fighting was out of the question: we +urged our feeble animals up the gulch as far as there was footing for a +hoof, then threw ourselves out of our saddles and took to the _chaparral_ +on one of the slopes, abandoning our entire outfit to the enemy. But we +retained our rifles, every man—Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. +Kent and Berry Davis.” + +“Same old crowd,” said the humorist of our party. He was an Eastern man, +unfamiliar with the decent observances of social intercourse. A gesture +of disapproval from our leader silenced him and the stranger proceeded +with his tale: + +“The savages dismounted also, and some of them ran up the gulch beyond +the point at which we had left it, cutting off further retreat in that +direction and forcing us on up the side. Unfortunately the _chaparral_ +extended only a short distance up the slope, and as we came into the open +ground above we took the fire of a dozen rifles; but Apaches shoot badly +when in a hurry, and God so willed it that none of us fell. Twenty yards +up the slope, beyond the edge of the brush, were vertical cliffs, in +which, directly in front of us, was a narrow opening. Into that we ran, +finding ourselves in a cavern about as large as an ordinary room in a +house. Here for a time we were safe: a single man with a repeating rifle +could defend the entrance against all the Apaches in the land. But +against hunger and thirst we had no defense. Courage we still had, but +hope was a memory. + +“Not one of those Indians did we afterward see, but by the smoke and +glare of their fires in the gulch we knew that by day and by night they +watched with ready rifles in the edge of the bush—knew that if we made a +sortie not a man of us would live to take three steps into the open. For +three days, watching in turn, we held out before our suffering became +insupportable. Then—it was the morning of the fourth day—Ramon Gallegos +said: + +“‘Senores, I know not well of the good God and what please him. I have +live without religion, and I am not acquaint with that of you. Pardon, +senores, if I shock you, but for me the time is come to beat the game of +the Apache.’ + +“He knelt upon the rock floor of the cave and pressed his pistol against +his temple. ‘Madre de Dios,’ he said, ‘comes now the soul of Ramon +Gallegos.’ + +“And so he left us—William Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry Davis. + +“I was the leader: it was for me to speak. + +“‘He was a brave man,’ I said—‘he knew when to die, and how. It is +foolish to go mad from thirst and fall by Apache bullets, or be skinned +alive—it is in bad taste. Let us join Ramon Gallegos.’ + +“‘That is right,’ said William Shaw. + +“‘That is right,’ said George W. Kent. + +“I straightened the limbs of Ramon Gallegos and put a handkerchief over +his face. Then William Shaw said: ‘I should like to look like that—a +little while.’ + +“And George W. Kent said that he felt that way, too. + +“‘It shall be so,’ I said: ‘the red devils will wait a week. William +Shaw and George W. Kent, draw and kneel.’ + +“They did so and I stood before them. + +“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said I. + +“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said William Shaw. + +“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said George W. Kent. + +“‘Forgive us our sins,’ said I. + +“‘Forgive us our sins,’ said they. + +“‘And receive our souls.’ + +“‘And receive our souls.’ + +“‘Amen!’ + +“‘Amen!’ + +“I laid them beside Ramon Gallegos and covered their faces.” + +There was a quick commotion on the opposite side of the campfire: one of +our party had sprung to his feet, pistol in hand. + +“And you!” he shouted—“_you_ dared to escape?—you dare to be alive? You +cowardly hound, I’ll send you to join them if I hang for it!” + +But with the leap of a panther the captain was upon him, grasping his +wrist. “Hold it in, Sam Yountsey, hold it in!” + +We were now all upon our feet—except the stranger, who sat motionless and +apparently inattentive. Some one seized Yountsey’s other arm. + +“Captain,” I said, “there is something wrong here. This fellow is either +a lunatic or merely a liar—just a plain, every-day liar whom Yountsey has +no call to kill. If this man was of that party it had five members, one +of whom—probably himself—he has not named.” + +“Yes,” said the captain, releasing the insurgent, who sat down, “there is +something—unusual. Years ago four dead bodies of white men, scalped and +shamefully mutilated, were found about the mouth of that cave. They are +buried there; I have seen the graves—we shall all see them to-morrow.” + +The stranger rose, standing tall in the light of the expiring fire, which +in our breathless attention to his story we had neglected to keep going. + +“There were four,” he said—“Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent +and Berry Davis.” + +With this reiterated roll-call of the dead he walked into the darkness +and we saw him no more. + +At that moment one of our party, who had been on guard, strode in among +us, rifle in hand and somewhat excited. + +“Captain,” he said, “for the last half-hour three men have been standing +out there on the _mesa_.” He pointed in the direction taken by the +stranger. “I could see them distinctly, for the moon is up, but as they +had no guns and I had them covered with mine I thought it was their move. +They have made none, but, damn it! they have got on to my nerves.” + +“Go back to your post, and stay till you see them again,” said the +captain. “The rest of you lie down again, or I’ll kick you all into the +fire.” + +The sentinel obediently withdrew, swearing, and did not return. As we +were arranging our blankets the fiery Yountsey said: “I beg your pardon, +Captain, but who the devil do you take them to be?” + +“Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw and George W. Kent.” + +“But how about Berry Davis? I ought to have shot him.” + +“Quite needless; you couldn’t have made him any deader. Go to sleep.” + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{252} Rough notes of this tale were found among the papers of the late +Leigh Bierce. It is printed here with such revision only as the author +might himself have made in transcription. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAN SUCH THINGS BE?*** + + +******* This file should be named 4366-0.txt or 4366-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/6/4366 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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