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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8efa37 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67365 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67365) diff --git a/old/67365-0.txt b/old/67365-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 970413c..0000000 --- a/old/67365-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,750 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Personal Problem, by H. -Bedford-Jones - -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: A Personal Problem - -Author: H. Bedford-Jones - -Release Date: February 9, 2022 [eBook #67365] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Roger Frank. This file was produced from images generously - made available by The Internet Archive. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PERSONAL PROBLEM *** - - - A Personal Problem - By H. Bedford-Jones - -“All the island’s up at the commissioner’s to-night—he always gets a -bale of ice up from Auckland on steamer day. You were surprised to -find me here, eh?” - -“So-so.” The fat man wiped his face and poured another drink. “You’re -a damned ironic brute, Cranshaw! How was I to know that the John -Smith, our Raratonga agent, was yourself? You have nerve. I always -said you had nerve.” - -The long, lean man looked across the table, inspecting his guest -curiously. He had looked forward to the coming of the firm’s junior -partner, but Hobson did not know it. - -His thin lips crisped ironically as he squirted soda into his glass. - -“Well, what are you going to do about it? Come, Hobson, let’s not -mince words. You had me driven out of Auckland; you took over my stock -in the company; you married Agnes, and you’ve grown fat. I fancy -you’re punished enough—you needn’t look at me like that, man! Avarua -is good enough for me.” - -Hobson was indubitably nervous. He had shaven before coming ashore, -but his fat jowl was dusky again. He perspired freely, and as he -mopped his face he shot uneasy glances at the other man from deep-set -black eyes. - -An overlarge diamond flashed on his fat hand, and another glittered in -his tie. - -“You’re a sly dog, Cranshaw, a sly dog,” he muttered, then his voice -took on vigor. “What do you mean, anyway? You needn’t think that -because your bally bungalow is out here at the edge of town you can -threaten me. I won’t stand for it. I’ll discharge you—I’ll show you up -before the commissioner—” - -“Hold on, man! Great Heavens, don’t you see that I’m in your power?” -Cranshaw leaned over the table, his face anxious, pleading. - -But behind the anxiety in his gray eyes there was a hard coldness, -quickly veiled. - -“I’m not threatening you, Hobson—it’s the other way around. I’m -satisfied, here in Avarua; I’m the company’s agent, no one knows who I -used to be, I’ve a good salary. Come, don’t bear malice! The old life -is forgotten, so let the dead bury their dead. Don’t be hard on me, -old man! I know you didn’t treat me square, but you married Agnes—I -was beaten, and that’s an end to it. Now I’m contented and prospering -here. You won’t give me away, will you? You won’t discharge me, send -me down into hell a second time?” - -Hobson took a cheroot from the table and lit it. His flash of -apprehension had vanished altogether. - -“No,” he returned slowly, judicially. As he was inspecting the diamond -on his finger he did not notice the hard gray eyes across the table. -“No, Cranshaw. I didn’t treat you right, I’ll admit, but bygones are -bygones. As you say, you’re in my power. I never quite believed you -stole that money myself.” - -A burst of terrible irony ripped through the mask of Cranshaw’s lean -face; but it was gone instantly. - -Hobson glanced up with complacent, cunning frankness. - -“I misunderstood you, I guess,” he went on heavily. “To tell the -truth, I half expected you had got me here to—to—” - -He paused, licking his lips. Cranshaw broke out into a loud, ringing -laugh. - -“Nonsense, man! Come, drink up and shake hands on it all—if you bear -no malice we’ll cry quits, eh? No, things have turned out for the -best, far as I’m concerned. And so you’ll not bear hard on me, old -man? You’ll just forget who I used to be?” - -Hobson’s little leering eyes cleared of their suspicion and something -very like a sigh of relief shook his fat chest. Their glasses clinked -together. - -“Here’s how!” - -The personal problem, it seemed, was closed finally and forever. - -There followed an hour of labor over the table, since it was the -junior partner’s first “whirl around the circuit” of the islands; -previously he had lived a cunning and contented existence in Auckland, -far from savages and resident commissioners. - -Cranshaw, however, had looked forward to his coming for some little -time. - -“You’d better stay ashore for the night,” stated the resident agent, -when the reports had been cleared up and balanced properly. “There’s -quite a surf running, and it’ll be hard to get a whale boat, since all -the natives are feasting. Steamer day’s a great occasion here, you -know.” - -“I’m not fond of insects,” and as Hobson reached for the siphon his -eyes flitted around uneasily. “I’ve heard stories about these -islands.” - -“You look apoplectic, too,” mused Cranshaw. For an instant that odd, -bitterly cruel light shot through his gray eyes. “Nonsense, man! -That’s all talk. Of course, there are a few cockroaches and such, but -there’s nothing dangerous. Absolutely no scorpions, and the centipeds -don’t kill. That’s all talk. See here, I’ve two cots laid up in my -sleeping-room—finest mosquito curtains in the island. Better stop, and -it’ll save coming ashore in the morning.” - -Hobson glanced through the door that his host flung open, and the -sight of the wide, clean sleeping-room with its two draped beds -evidently decided him. - -“All right,” he nodded. - -“Better finish this bottle,” suggested Cranshaw easily. He himself -drank little. - -“Come out to the steamer to-morrow,” said Hobson, a half hour later, -as they rose. “I’d like to show you—show you Agnes’s picture—an’ the -baby’s.” - -“Thanks,” returned Cranshaw. - -But his long, lean face seemed to quiver a trifle, and as he ushered -his guest into the sleeping-room his gray eyes were baleful. That -speech had been sheer venom, for Hobson was not drunk; he had merely -forgotten for the moment his intense fear of Cranshaw. - -Once ensconced with their mosquito curtains, the two men exchanged a -few words before dropping off to sleep, then the darkness was broken -only by the rasping snore of Hobson. - -Curiously enough, Cranshaw’s breathing seemed hardly audible. - -For Avarua, the night was a cool one. The bungalow was at the edge of -town, and the roar of the surf thundered dully from the outer reefs in -unbroken cadences. - -Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a horrible scream echoed -out from the veranda—shrilled up and off, and seemed to die softly in -the distance. - -“My God!” Hobson’s voice rang out. “What’s that?” - -“_Mor kiri-kiri_,” returned Cranshaw sleepily. - -“What’s that?” - -“A flying fox—for heaven’s sake shut up and go to sleep!” - -Cranshaw did not sleep himself, however, for he lay motionless with -his hand on an electric torch, and chuckled slightly as he listened to -the irregular, panting breathing of the other man. - -Slowly through the surf-mutter there pierced other sounds—slight, -thin, bird-like sounds, as though innumerable watches were ticking in -the room. Hobson’s breathing sounded rather flurried, and Cranshaw’s -thin lips parted in a grim smile as he stared up into the darkness. - -Peculiar though the ticking sounds were, they were presently overborne -by a still more peculiar sound—one which no human brain could define, -without experience. - -It was a ghostly tapping, tapping, tapping that seemed to come from -the floor; a clicking, irregular, metallic tapping. It ceased with -uncanny suddenness. - -“I say, are you awake?” - -Hobson’s voice sounded stifled, hoarse. - -“Cranshaw! Wake up!” - -“Eh? What’s the matter?” Cranshaw spoke very sleepily, and smiled to -himself. - -“There’s something on my curtains!” - -“Shake it off and go to sleep.” - -A soft flurry of mosquito curtains, a subdued crash, and then a -scuttling and tapping that once more ended abruptly. A gasp from -Hobson. - -“I say, the bally thing’s back!” he cried. “For God’s sake help me -out, Cranshaw!” - -“It’s only a hermit crab wandered in, you fool. Wait—now take a look -and give him a good fling off.” - -Cranshaw’s arm protruded from his curtains, and he snapped the -electric torch. He had no need where to look, for he had been -expecting this visit from the junior partner for some time. - -Hobson gripped his curtains in desperate haste and again shook off the -thing that was climbing. He looked out, saw the hideous, bristly -object clatter away on its spider-legs, and fell back with a subdued -groan. - -“Damn this place!” - -Again silence and darkness fell upon the room, and again the noises of -the night slowly seeped through the surf-thunder. - -Outside the veranda the crabs were scuttling and clicking and -rustling, scavenging with resistless vigor and great enthusiasm. A -thin, far burst of song came from the government accommodation house, -where the bulk of the steamer’s passengers were gathered in jovial -celebration. - -Then through all the muffled night there again began to pierce that -insistent watch-like ticking. Not as of one watch, but as of a -thousand it was, steady and irregular and very thin. Occasionally a -quite distinct crunch would echo through, as though some one had -stepped on a beetle; only there was no one to step. - -Once or twice there came a soft “flop” on the floor; whatever had -fallen must have fallen from the ceiling. - -The sounds were not exactly pleasant, especially to a fevered -imagination. They might mean anything from ghosts to dragons. - -And over all, slurring the staccato harmony of the ticking, was an -almost inaudible soft scurrying—like innumerable feathers or hairy -legs running about. - -It was a weird symphony, a symphony of lesser noises, of louder -silences, a symphony whose eldritch orchestration produced -hideousness. - -There was no discord. Over the crescendo and diminuendo of the ticking -swept that soft horror of nearly inaudible sound, shot through by the -louder crunches; there were other sounds also that could not be -defined by human ears, but all blended into a terrible harmony, the -more terrible because produced by darkness and rife with suggestion. - -“I say, old man,” Hobson’s voice rose in a thick discord that ruined -the symphonic whispers utterly, “what’s all this bally rustling, eh?” - -Cranshaw waited a little, smiling into the blackness, inscrutable. - -“I say, Cranshaw! Let’s have a drink, old man!” - -“You ’wake again?” Cranshaw’s voice bubbled out sleepily. “What’s the -matter?” - -“I want a drink, that’s all,” came the half-shamed answer. - -“No more whisky in the house—we finished up the last of it to-night. -Go to sleep and quit your infernal nonsense.” - -“You’re sure there’re no poisonous things around?” - -Cranshaw did not answer. The other repeated the question, his voice -beginning insensibly to climb with the last words. - -This time Cranshaw replied, but took no immediate heed of the question -itself. - -“Say, Hobson, I’ve just been thinking about something. You remember -that mess I got into down at Auckland? I heard the other day that it -was you who stole that money yourself. That’s true, isn’t it?” - -The other held silence for a moment, until the ghastly symphony -protruded into his brain. - -“I—I wanted Agnes,” came the hoarse words. - -Cranshaw smiled to himself. - -“Thank God you got her, Hobson—since _she_ wanted money, it seems. By -the way, you were quite right in thinking that I got you here to-night -in order to pay you out.” - -“Eh? What’s that?” - -Hobson’s voice leaped from the darkness, vivid with a horrible fear, -pulsating and lingering under the roof weirdly. - -Cranshaw spoke after a moment; his words were cold and sharp and quite -impersonal. - -“Hobson, you were a fool to imagine that I would ever forget or -forgive. You had me snared for your own crime; you broke me; you got -the girl I wanted; you became the junior partner in my place. I became -John Smith, came to Raratonga, settled here and waited. I knew you -would come sooner or later.” - -He paused, smiling inscrutably at the darkness. - -Hobson was breathing stertorously, and there was another and queerer -sound—like a fat man licking his lips in fear. The darkness -intensified everything. - -“I was in two minds, Hobson. I had a notion to take you out to the -reefs for a swim. You don’t know it, but there are interesting things -out there in the warm water—bubbly eels, spiny leper-fishes with every -spine deadly poison, sting-rays, devil-fish, plenty, plenty snake and -shark. But I decided against that, for I knew you had imagination. So -I brought you here instead.” - -Cranshaw still smiled into the blackness above him, lying motionless -as he talked. He had no need to switch on the light to guess at the -shaking mosquito curtains of the other bed, the pasty-faced man who -clutched at them, the horrible fascination with which Hobson followed -his every word. - -“Now, my dear fellow,” he went on, his voice acridly smooth, “I want -you to take a little look around. Then—” - -“For God’s sake, Cranshaw!” burst forth the frenzied tones of the -other man, shrill and smitten with hysteria. “I’ll give up -everything—I’ll sign a confession and give you Agnes—I’ll make it all -right if you—” - -“Shut your mouth—and _look_!” snapped Cranshaw, and the words fairly -crackled through the room as he shoved his arm and swept the place -with light. - -The light was blinding, merciless, leaving every inch of the room -clean-cut and distinct, dislosing the whole fearful secret of the -hidden orchestration. - -About the floor and walls and ceiling were poised cockroaches—South -Sea cockroaches, as large as mice or larger, with great waving -feather-feelers. They flitted hither and thither by the hundred—moving -masses of hideousness, making as they went that ticking which -furnished forth the body of the night’s symphony. - -And here and there, flashing away from the light more quickly than the -light could follow, or flopping from ceiling to floor as the light -swept up, were things that looked like sausages. Only when they moved, -when the fearsome hidden red legs flashed out in all their horror, -could one recognize centipeds. - -Yet these were not the most horrible nor the swiftest. - -For heedless of the light, the occasional crunches swept up above the -body of the symphony as the electric ray disclosed the hordes of -cockroaches to their enemies. Great brown shapes darted here and -there, back and forth, by the dozen; huge brown hairy things as large -as a plate—hunting spiders—leaping on their pray, crunching once, and -leaping forward anew. - -The room was a wriggling horror in that moment, and when Cranshaw -clicked off the light that triumphant “crunch—crunch—crunch!” was -rising in a finale that drowned out the rest of the symphony—and -shattered suddenly at his voice. - -“Better not step out on the floor, Hobson—I saw a couple of those -spiders on your curtains. I’ll take my chances, but you’ll stay here. -If they get under your curtains you’re gone, remember—any one of those -things means certain death. As I say, I’ll take my chances, because -I’m going to leave you here.” - -He calmly threw aside his curtains, reached out for his slippers, -dumped the wriggling things out of them, and rose. Seizing a spray at -hand, he sent a shower of boracic acid over the floor and calmly went -to the door. - -There he paused, with a cold laugh, to listen to the frenzied cries -and promises and curses and prayers of the man who dared not leave his -cot—and with that Cranshaw slammed the door. - -“Damned coward!” he muttered, opening the tantalus on the veranda and -pouring himself a drink. “He’ll be fool enough to believe me, and be -afraid to try rushing from the room—the damned coward! And precisely -at two o’clock apoplexy or heart-failure will take him off, and Agnes -collects the insurance. Well, I’m satisfied to call quits.” - -And the soda shot hissing into the glass. - -[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 11, 1914 issue -of All-Story Cavalier Weekly magazine.] - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PERSONAL PROBLEM *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PERSONAL PROBLEM ***</div> -<div class='ce'> -<h1>A Personal Problem </h1> -<div>By H. Bedford-Jones</div> -</div> -<div id='i001' style='margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;' class='w001'> - <img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -</div> -<p>“All the island’s up at the commissioner’s to-night—he always gets a -bale of ice up from Auckland on steamer day. You were surprised to -find me here, eh?”</p> - -<p>“So-so.” The fat man wiped his face and poured another drink. “You’re -a damned ironic brute, Cranshaw! How was I to know that the John -Smith, our Raratonga agent, was yourself? You have nerve. I always -said you had nerve.”</p> - -<p>The long, lean man looked across the table, inspecting his guest -curiously. He had looked forward to the coming of the firm’s junior -partner, but Hobson did not know it.</p> - -<p>His thin lips crisped ironically as he squirted soda into his glass.</p> - -<p>“Well, what are you going to do about it? Come, Hobson, let’s not -mince words. You had me driven out of Auckland; you took over my stock -in the company; you married Agnes, and you’ve grown fat. I fancy -you’re punished enough—you needn’t look at me like that, man! Avarua -is good enough for me.”</p> - -<p>Hobson was indubitably nervous. He had shaven before coming ashore, -but his fat jowl was dusky again. He perspired freely, and as he -mopped his face he shot uneasy glances at the other man from deep-set -black eyes.</p> - -<p>An overlarge diamond flashed on his fat hand, and another glittered in -his tie.</p> - -<p>“You’re a sly dog, Cranshaw, a sly dog,” he muttered, then his voice -took on vigor. “What do you mean, anyway? You needn’t think that -because your bally bungalow is out here at the edge of town you can -threaten me. I won’t stand for it. I’ll discharge you—I’ll show you up -before the commissioner—”</p> - -<p>“Hold on, man! Great Heavens, don’t you see that I’m in your power?” -Cranshaw leaned over the table, his face anxious, pleading.</p> - -<p>But behind the anxiety in his gray eyes there was a hard coldness, -quickly veiled.</p> - -<p>“I’m not threatening you, Hobson—it’s the other way around. I’m -satisfied, here in Avarua; I’m the company’s agent, no one knows who I -used to be, I’ve a good salary. Come, don’t bear malice! The old life -is forgotten, so let the dead bury their dead. Don’t be hard on me, -old man! I know you didn’t treat me square, but you married Agnes—I -was beaten, and that’s an end to it. Now I’m contented and prospering -here. You won’t give me away, will you? You won’t discharge me, send -me down into hell a second time?”</p> - -<p>Hobson took a cheroot from the table and lit it. His flash of -apprehension had vanished altogether.</p> - -<p>“No,” he returned slowly, judicially. As he was inspecting the diamond -on his finger he did not notice the hard gray eyes across the table. -“No, Cranshaw. I didn’t treat you right, I’ll admit, but bygones are -bygones. As you say, you’re in my power. I never quite believed you -stole that money myself.”</p> - -<p>A burst of terrible irony ripped through the mask of Cranshaw’s lean -face; but it was gone instantly.</p> - -<p>Hobson glanced up with complacent, cunning frankness.</p> - -<p>“I misunderstood you, I guess,” he went on heavily. “To tell the -truth, I half expected you had got me here to—to—”</p> - -<p>He paused, licking his lips. Cranshaw broke out into a loud, ringing -laugh.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, man! Come, drink up and shake hands on it all—if you bear -no malice we’ll cry quits, eh? No, things have turned out for the -best, far as I’m concerned. And so you’ll not bear hard on me, old -man? You’ll just forget who I used to be?”</p> - -<p>Hobson’s little leering eyes cleared of their suspicion and something -very like a sigh of relief shook his fat chest. Their glasses clinked -together.</p> - -<p>“Here’s how!”</p> - -<p>The personal problem, it seemed, was closed finally and forever.</p> - -<p>There followed an hour of labor over the table, since it was the -junior partner’s first “whirl around the circuit” of the islands; -previously he had lived a cunning and contented existence in Auckland, -far from savages and resident commissioners.</p> - -<p>Cranshaw, however, had looked forward to his coming for some little -time.</p> - -<p>“You’d better stay ashore for the night,” stated the resident agent, -when the reports had been cleared up and balanced properly. “There’s -quite a surf running, and it’ll be hard to get a whale boat, since all -the natives are feasting. Steamer day’s a great occasion here, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not fond of insects,” and as Hobson reached for the siphon his -eyes flitted around uneasily. “I’ve heard stories about these -islands.”</p> - -<p>“You look apoplectic, too,” mused Cranshaw. For an instant that odd, -bitterly cruel light shot through his gray eyes. “Nonsense, man! -That’s all talk. Of course, there are a few cockroaches and such, but -there’s nothing dangerous. Absolutely no scorpions, and the centipeds -don’t kill. That’s all talk. See here, I’ve two cots laid up in my -sleeping-room—finest mosquito curtains in the island. Better stop, and -it’ll save coming ashore in the morning.”</p> - -<p>Hobson glanced through the door that his host flung open, and the -sight of the wide, clean sleeping-room with its two draped beds -evidently decided him.</p> - -<p>“All right,” he nodded.</p> - -<p>“Better finish this bottle,” suggested Cranshaw easily. He himself -drank little.</p> - -<p>“Come out to the steamer to-morrow,” said Hobson, a half hour later, -as they rose. “I’d like to show you—show you Agnes’s picture—an’ the -baby’s.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” returned Cranshaw.</p> - -<p>But his long, lean face seemed to quiver a trifle, and as he ushered -his guest into the sleeping-room his gray eyes were baleful. That -speech had been sheer venom, for Hobson was not drunk; he had merely -forgotten for the moment his intense fear of Cranshaw.</p> - -<p>Once ensconced with their mosquito curtains, the two men exchanged a -few words before dropping off to sleep, then the darkness was broken -only by the rasping snore of Hobson.</p> - -<p>Curiously enough, Cranshaw’s breathing seemed hardly audible.</p> - -<p>For Avarua, the night was a cool one. The bungalow was at the edge of -town, and the roar of the surf thundered dully from the outer reefs in -unbroken cadences.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a horrible scream echoed -out from the veranda—shrilled up and off, and seemed to die softly in -the distance.</p> - -<p>“My God!” Hobson’s voice rang out. “What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Mor kiri-kiri</i>,” returned Cranshaw sleepily.</p> - -<p>“What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“A flying fox—for heaven’s sake shut up and go to sleep!”</p> - -<p>Cranshaw did not sleep himself, however, for he lay motionless with -his hand on an electric torch, and chuckled slightly as he listened to -the irregular, panting breathing of the other man.</p> - -<p>Slowly through the surf-mutter there pierced other sounds—slight, -thin, bird-like sounds, as though innumerable watches were ticking in -the room. Hobson’s breathing sounded rather flurried, and Cranshaw’s -thin lips parted in a grim smile as he stared up into the darkness.</p> - -<p>Peculiar though the ticking sounds were, they were presently overborne -by a still more peculiar sound—one which no human brain could define, -without experience.</p> - -<p>It was a ghostly tapping, tapping, tapping that seemed to come from -the floor; a clicking, irregular, metallic tapping. It ceased with -uncanny suddenness.</p> - -<p>“I say, are you awake?”</p> - -<p>Hobson’s voice sounded stifled, hoarse.</p> - -<p>“Cranshaw! Wake up!”</p> - -<p>“Eh? What’s the matter?” Cranshaw spoke very sleepily, and smiled to -himself.</p> - -<p>“There’s something on my curtains!”</p> - -<p>“Shake it off and go to sleep.”</p> - -<p>A soft flurry of mosquito curtains, a subdued crash, and then a -scuttling and tapping that once more ended abruptly. A gasp from -Hobson.</p> - -<p>“I say, the bally thing’s back!” he cried. “For God’s sake help me -out, Cranshaw!”</p> - -<p>“It’s only a hermit crab wandered in, you fool. Wait—now take a look -and give him a good fling off.”</p> - -<p>Cranshaw’s arm protruded from his curtains, and he snapped the -electric torch. He had no need where to look, for he had been -expecting this visit from the junior partner for some time.</p> - -<p>Hobson gripped his curtains in desperate haste and again shook off the -thing that was climbing. He looked out, saw the hideous, bristly -object clatter away on its spider-legs, and fell back with a subdued -groan.</p> - -<p>“Damn this place!”</p> - -<p>Again silence and darkness fell upon the room, and again the noises of -the night slowly seeped through the surf-thunder.</p> - -<p>Outside the veranda the crabs were scuttling and clicking and -rustling, scavenging with resistless vigor and great enthusiasm. A -thin, far burst of song came from the government accommodation house, -where the bulk of the steamer’s passengers were gathered in jovial -celebration.</p> - -<p>Then through all the muffled night there again began to pierce that -insistent watch-like ticking. Not as of one watch, but as of a -thousand it was, steady and irregular and very thin. Occasionally a -quite distinct crunch would echo through, as though some one had -stepped on a beetle; only there was no one to step.</p> - -<p>Once or twice there came a soft “flop” on the floor; whatever had -fallen must have fallen from the ceiling.</p> - -<p>The sounds were not exactly pleasant, especially to a fevered -imagination. They might mean anything from ghosts to dragons.</p> - -<p>And over all, slurring the staccato harmony of the ticking, was an -almost inaudible soft scurrying—like innumerable feathers or hairy -legs running about.</p> - -<p>It was a weird symphony, a symphony of lesser noises, of louder -silences, a symphony whose eldritch orchestration produced -hideousness.</p> - -<p>There was no discord. Over the crescendo and diminuendo of the ticking -swept that soft horror of nearly inaudible sound, shot through by the -louder crunches; there were other sounds also that could not be -defined by human ears, but all blended into a terrible harmony, the -more terrible because produced by darkness and rife with suggestion.</p> - -<p>“I say, old man,” Hobson’s voice rose in a thick discord that ruined -the symphonic whispers utterly, “what’s all this bally rustling, eh?”</p> - -<p>Cranshaw waited a little, smiling into the blackness, inscrutable.</p> - -<p>“I say, Cranshaw! Let’s have a drink, old man!”</p> - -<p>“You ’wake again?” Cranshaw’s voice bubbled out sleepily. “What’s the -matter?”</p> - -<p>“I want a drink, that’s all,” came the half-shamed answer.</p> - -<p>“No more whisky in the house—we finished up the last of it to-night. -Go to sleep and quit your infernal nonsense.”</p> - -<p>“You’re sure there’re no poisonous things around?”</p> - -<p>Cranshaw did not answer. The other repeated the question, his voice -beginning insensibly to climb with the last words.</p> - -<p>This time Cranshaw replied, but took no immediate heed of the question -itself.</p> - -<p>“Say, Hobson, I’ve just been thinking about something. You remember -that mess I got into down at Auckland? I heard the other day that it -was you who stole that money yourself. That’s true, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>The other held silence for a moment, until the ghastly symphony -protruded into his brain.</p> - -<p>“I—I wanted Agnes,” came the hoarse words.</p> - -<p>Cranshaw smiled to himself.</p> - -<p>“Thank God you got her, Hobson—since <i>she</i> wanted money, it seems. By -the way, you were quite right in thinking that I got you here to-night -in order to pay you out.”</p> - -<p>“Eh? What’s that?”</p> - -<p>Hobson’s voice leaped from the darkness, vivid with a horrible fear, -pulsating and lingering under the roof weirdly.</p> - -<p>Cranshaw spoke after a moment; his words were cold and sharp and quite -impersonal.</p> - -<p>“Hobson, you were a fool to imagine that I would ever forget or -forgive. You had me snared for your own crime; you broke me; you got -the girl I wanted; you became the junior partner in my place. I became -John Smith, came to Raratonga, settled here and waited. I knew you -would come sooner or later.”</p> - -<p>He paused, smiling inscrutably at the darkness.</p> - -<p>Hobson was breathing stertorously, and there was another and queerer -sound—like a fat man licking his lips in fear. The darkness -intensified everything.</p> - -<p>“I was in two minds, Hobson. I had a notion to take you out to the -reefs for a swim. You don’t know it, but there are interesting things -out there in the warm water—bubbly eels, spiny leper-fishes with every -spine deadly poison, sting-rays, devil-fish, plenty, plenty snake and -shark. But I decided against that, for I knew you had imagination. So -I brought you here instead.”</p> - -<p>Cranshaw still smiled into the blackness above him, lying motionless -as he talked. He had no need to switch on the light to guess at the -shaking mosquito curtains of the other bed, the pasty-faced man who -clutched at them, the horrible fascination with which Hobson followed -his every word.</p> - -<p>“Now, my dear fellow,” he went on, his voice acridly smooth, “I want -you to take a little look around. Then—”</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake, Cranshaw!” burst forth the frenzied tones of the -other man, shrill and smitten with hysteria. “I’ll give up -everything—I’ll sign a confession and give you Agnes—I’ll make it all -right if you—”</p> - -<p>“Shut your mouth—and <i>look</i>!” snapped Cranshaw, and the words fairly -crackled through the room as he shoved his arm and swept the place -with light.</p> - -<p>The light was blinding, merciless, leaving every inch of the room -clean-cut and distinct, dislosing the whole fearful secret of the -hidden orchestration.</p> - -<p>About the floor and walls and ceiling were poised cockroaches—South -Sea cockroaches, as large as mice or larger, with great waving -feather-feelers. They flitted hither and thither by the hundred—moving -masses of hideousness, making as they went that ticking which -furnished forth the body of the night’s symphony.</p> - -<p>And here and there, flashing away from the light more quickly than the -light could follow, or flopping from ceiling to floor as the light -swept up, were things that looked like sausages. Only when they moved, -when the fearsome hidden red legs flashed out in all their horror, -could one recognize centipeds.</p> - -<p>Yet these were not the most horrible nor the swiftest.</p> - -<p>For heedless of the light, the occasional crunches swept up above the -body of the symphony as the electric ray disclosed the hordes of -cockroaches to their enemies. Great brown shapes darted here and -there, back and forth, by the dozen; huge brown hairy things as large -as a plate—hunting spiders—leaping on their pray, crunching once, and -leaping forward anew.</p> - -<p>The room was a wriggling horror in that moment, and when Cranshaw -clicked off the light that triumphant “crunch—crunch—crunch!” was -rising in a finale that drowned out the rest of the symphony—and -shattered suddenly at his voice.</p> - -<p>“Better not step out on the floor, Hobson—I saw a couple of those -spiders on your curtains. I’ll take my chances, but you’ll stay here. -If they get under your curtains you’re gone, remember—any one of those -things means certain death. As I say, I’ll take my chances, because -I’m going to leave you here.”</p> - -<p>He calmly threw aside his curtains, reached out for his slippers, -dumped the wriggling things out of them, and rose. Seizing a spray at -hand, he sent a shower of boracic acid over the floor and calmly went -to the door.</p> - -<p>There he paused, with a cold laugh, to listen to the frenzied cries -and promises and curses and prayers of the man who dared not leave his -cot—and with that Cranshaw slammed the door.</p> - -<p>“Damned coward!” he muttered, opening the tantalus on the veranda and -pouring himself a drink. “He’ll be fool enough to believe me, and be -afraid to try rushing from the room—the damned coward! And precisely -at two o’clock apoplexy or heart-failure will take him off, and Agnes -collects the insurance. Well, I’m satisfied to call quits.”</p> - -<p>And the soda shot hissing into the glass.</p> - -<div style='font-size:0.9em; border:1px solid silver; margin-bottom:2em; - margin-top:1.8em; margin-left:8%; width:80%; padding:0.4em 2%; - background-color:#EFF1F6; text-indent:0'> - Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 11, 1914 issue of - <i>All-Story Cavalier Weekly</i> magazine. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PERSONAL PROBLEM ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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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