a thin ghost and others by montague rhodes james, litt.d. provost of eton college author of "ghost stories of an antiquary," "more ghost stories," etc. third impression new york longmans, green & co. london: edward arnold (all rights reserved) preface two of these stories, the third and fourth, have appeared in print in the _cambridge review_, and i wish to thank the proprietor for permitting me to republish them here. i have had my doubts about the wisdom of publishing a third set of tales; sequels are, not only proverbially but actually, very hazardous things. however, the tales make no pretence but to amuse, and my friends have not seldom asked for the publication. so not a great deal is risked, perhaps, and perhaps also some one's christmas may be the cheerfuller for a storybook which, i think, only once mentions the war. contents page the residence at whitminster the diary of mr. poynter an episode of cathedral history the story of a disappearance and an appearance two doctors the residence at whitminster a thin ghost and others the residence at whitminster dr. ashton--thomas ashton, doctor of divinity--sat in his study, habited in a dressing-gown, and with a silk cap on his shaven head--his wig being for the time taken off and placed on its block on a side table. he was a man of some fifty-five years, strongly made, of a sanguine complexion, an angry eye, and a long upper lip. face and eye were lighted up at the moment when i picture him by the level ray of an afternoon sun that shone in upon him through a tall sash window, giving on the west. the room into which it shone was also tall, lined with book-cases, and, where the wall showed between them, panelled. on the table near the doctor's elbow was a green cloth, and upon it what he would have called a silver standish--a tray with inkstands--quill pens, a calf-bound book or two, some papers, a churchwarden pipe and brass tobacco-box, a flask cased in plaited straw, and a liqueur glass. the year was , the month december, the hour somewhat past three in the afternoon. i have described in these lines pretty much all that a superficial observer would have noted when he looked into the room. what met dr. ashton's eye when he looked out of it, sitting in his leather arm-chair? little more than the tops of the shrubs and fruit-trees of his garden could be seen from that point, but the red brick wall of it was visible in almost all the length of its western side. in the middle of that was a gate--a double gate of rather elaborate iron scroll-work, which allowed something of a view beyond. through it he could see that the ground sloped away almost at once to a bottom, along which a stream must run, and rose steeply from it on the other side, up to a field that was park-like in character, and thickly studded with oaks, now, of course, leafless. they did not stand so thick together but that some glimpse of sky and horizon could be seen between their stems. the sky was now golden and the horizon, a horizon of distant woods, it seemed, was purple. but all that dr. ashton could find to say, after contemplating this prospect for many minutes, was: "abominable!" a listener would have been aware, immediately upon this, of the sound of footsteps coming somewhat hurriedly in the direction of the study: by the resonance he could have told that they were traversing a much larger room. dr. ashton turned round in his chair as the door opened, and looked expectant. the incomer was a lady--a stout lady in the dress of the time: though i have made some attempt at indicating the doctor's costume, i will not enterprise that of his wife--for it was mrs. ashton who now entered. she had an anxious, even a sorely distracted, look, and it was in a very disturbed voice that she almost whispered to dr. ashton, putting her head close to his, "he's in a very sad way, love, worse, i'm afraid." "tt--tt, is he really?" and he leaned back and looked in her face. she nodded. two solemn bells, high up, and not far away, rang out the half-hour at this moment. mrs. ashton started. "oh, do you think you can give order that the minster clock be stopped chiming to-night? 'tis just over his chamber, and will keep him from sleeping, and to sleep is the only chance for him, that's certain." "why, to be sure, if there were need, real need, it could be done, but not upon any light occasion. this frank, now, do you assure me that his recovery stands upon it?" said dr. ashton: his voice was loud and rather hard. "i do verily believe it," said his wife. "then, if it must be, bid molly run across to simpkins and say on my authority that he is to stop the clock chimes at sunset: and--yes--she is after that to say to my lord saul that i wish to see him presently in this room." mrs. ashton hurried off. before any other visitor enters, it will be well to explain the situation. dr. ashton was the holder, among other preferments, of a prebend in the rich collegiate church of whitminster, one of the foundations which, though not a cathedral, survived dissolution and reformation, and retained its constitution and endowments for a hundred years after the time of which i write. the great church, the residences of the dean and the two prebendaries, the choir and its appurtenances, were all intact and in working order. a dean who flourished soon after had been a great builder, and had erected a spacious quadrangle of red brick adjoining the church for the residence of the officials. some of these persons were no longer required: their offices had dwindled down to mere titles, borne by clergy or lawyers in the town and neighbourhood; and so the houses that had been meant to accommodate eight or ten people were now shared among three, the dean and the two prebendaries. dr. ashton's included what had been the common parlour and the dining-hall of the whole body. it occupied a whole side of the court, and at one end had a private door into the minster. the other end, as we have seen, looked out over the country. so much for the house. as for the inmates, dr. ashton was a wealthy man and childless, and he had adopted, or rather undertaken to bring up, the orphan son of his wife's sister. frank sydall was the lad's name: he had been a good many months in the house. then one day came a letter from an irish peer, the earl of kildonan (who had known dr. ashton at college), putting it to the doctor whether he would consider taking into his family the viscount saul, the earl's heir, and acting in some sort as his tutor. lord kildonan was shortly to take up a post in the lisbon embassy, and the boy was unfit to make the voyage: "not that he is sickly," the earl wrote, "though you'll find him whimsical, or of late i've thought him so, and to confirm this, 'twas only to-day his old nurse came expressly to tell me he was possess'd: but let that pass; i'll warrant you can find a spell to make all straight. your arm was stout enough in old days, and i give you plenary authority to use it as you see fit. the truth is, he has here no boys of his age or quality to consort with, and is given to moping about in our raths and graveyards: and he brings home romances that fright my servants out of their wits. so there are you and your lady forewarned." it was perhaps with half an eye open to the possibility of an irish bishopric (at which another sentence in the earl's letter seemed to hint) that dr. ashton accepted the charge of my lord viscount saul and of the guineas a year that were to come with him. so he came, one night in september. when he got out of the chaise that brought him, he went first and spoke to the postboy and gave him some money, and patted the neck of his horse. whether he made some movement that scared it or not, there was very nearly a nasty accident, for the beast started violently, and the postilion being unready was thrown and lost his fee, as he found afterwards, and the chaise lost some paint on the gateposts, and the wheel went over the man's foot who was taking out the baggage. when lord saul came up the steps into the light of the lamp in the porch to be greeted by dr. ashton, he was seen to be a thin youth of, say, sixteen years old, with straight black hair and the pale colouring that is common to such a figure. he took the accident and commotion calmly enough, and expressed a proper anxiety for the people who had been, or might have been, hurt: his voice was smooth and pleasant, and without any trace, curiously, of an irish brogue. frank sydall was a younger boy, perhaps of eleven or twelve, but lord saul did not for that reject his company. frank was able to teach him various games he had not known in ireland, and he was apt at learning them; apt, too, at his books, though he had had little or no regular teaching at home. it was not long before he was making a shift to puzzle out the inscriptions on the tombs in the minster, and he would often put a question to the doctor about the old books in the library that required some thought to answer. it is to be supposed that he made himself very agreeable to the servants, for within ten days of his coming they were almost falling over each other in their efforts to oblige him. at the same time, mrs. ashton was rather put to it to find new maidservants; for there were several changes, and some of the families in the town from which she had been accustomed to draw seemed to have no one available. she was forced to go further afield than was usual. these generalities i gather from the doctor's notes in his diary and from letters. they are generalities, and we should like, in view of what has to be told, something sharper and more detailed. we get it in entries which begin late in the year, and, i think, were posted up all together after the final incident; but they cover so few days in all that there is no need to doubt that the writer could remember the course of things accurately. on a friday morning it was that a fox, or perhaps a cat, made away with mrs. ashton's most prized black cockerel, a bird without a single white feather on its body. her husband had told her often enough that it would make a suitable sacrifice to Æsculapius; that had discomfited her much, and now she would hardly be consoled. the boys looked everywhere for traces of it: lord saul brought in a few feathers, which seemed to have been partially burnt on the garden rubbish-heap. it was on the same day that dr. ashton, looking out of an upper window, saw the two boys playing in the corner of the garden at a game he did not understand. frank was looking earnestly at something in the palm of his hand. saul stood behind him and seemed to be listening. after some minutes he very gently laid his hand on frank's head, and almost instantly thereupon, frank suddenly dropped whatever it was that he was holding, clapped his hands to his eyes, and sank down on the grass. saul, whose face expressed great anger, hastily picked the object up, of which it could only be seen that it was glittering, put it in his pocket, and turned away, leaving frank huddled up on the grass. dr. ashton rapped on the window to attract their attention, and saul looked up as if in alarm, and then springing to frank, pulled him up by the arm and led him away. when they came in to dinner, saul explained that they had been acting a part of the tragedy of radamistus, in which the heroine reads the future fate of her father's kingdom by means of a glass ball held in her hand, and is overcome by the terrible events she has seen. during this explanation frank said nothing, only looked rather bewilderedly at saul. he must, mrs. ashton thought, have contracted a chill from the wet of the grass, for that evening he was certainly feverish and disordered; and the disorder was of the mind as well as the body, for he seemed to have something he wished to say to mrs. ashton, only a press of household affairs prevented her from paying attention to him; and when she went, according to her habit, to see that the light in the boys' chamber had been taken away, and to bid them good-night, he seemed to be sleeping, though his face was unnaturally flushed, to her thinking: lord saul, however, was pale and quiet, and smiling in his slumber. next morning it happened that dr. ashton was occupied in church and other business, and unable to take the boys' lessons. he therefore set them tasks to be written and brought to him. three times, if not oftener, frank knocked at the study door, and each time the doctor chanced to be engaged with some visitor, and sent the boy off rather roughly, which he later regretted. two clergymen were at dinner this day, and both remarked--being fathers of families--that the lad seemed sickening for a fever, in which they were too near the truth, and it had been better if he had been put to bed forthwith: for a couple of hours later in the afternoon he came running into the house, crying out in a way that was really terrifying, and rushing to mrs. ashton, clung about her, begging her to protect him, and saying, "keep them off! keep them off!" without intermission. and it was now evident that some sickness had taken strong hold of him. he was therefore got to bed in another chamber from that in which he commonly lay, and the physician brought to him: who pronounced the disorder to be grave and affecting the lad's brain, and prognosticated a fatal end to it if strict quiet were not observed, and those sedative remedies used which he should prescribe. we are now come by another way to the point we had reached before. the minster clock has been stopped from striking, and lord saul is on the threshold of the study. "what account can you give of this poor lad's state?" was dr. ashton's first question. "why, sir, little more than you know already, i fancy. i must blame myself, though, for giving him a fright yesterday when we were acting that foolish play you saw. i fear i made him take it more to heart than i meant." "how so?" "well, by telling him foolish tales i had picked up in ireland of what we call the second sight." "_second_ sight! what kind of sight might that be?" "why, you know our ignorant people pretend that some are able to foresee what is to come--sometimes in a glass, or in the air, maybe, and at kildonan we had an old woman that pretended to such a power. and i daresay i coloured the matter more highly than i should: but i never dreamed frank would take it so near as he did." "you were wrong, my lord, very wrong, in meddling with such superstitious matters at all, and you should have considered whose house you were in, and how little becoming such actions are to my character and person or to your own: but pray how came it that you, acting, as you say, a play, should fall upon anything that could so alarm frank?" "that is what i can hardly tell, sir: he passed all in a moment from rant about battles and lovers and cleodora and antigenes to something i could not follow at all, and then dropped down as you saw." "yes: was that at the moment when you laid your hand on the top of his head?" lord saul gave a quick look at his questioner--quick and spiteful--and for the first time seemed unready with an answer. "about that time it may have been," he said. "i have tried to recollect myself, but i am not sure. there was, at any rate, no significance in what i did then." "ah!" said dr. ashton, "well, my lord, i should do wrong were i not to tell you that this fright of my poor nephew may have very ill consequences to him. the doctor speaks very despondingly of his state." lord saul pressed his hands together and looked earnestly upon dr. ashton. "i am willing to believe you had no bad intention, as assuredly you could have no reason to bear the poor boy malice: but i cannot wholly free you from blame in the affair." as he spoke, the hurrying steps were heard again, and mrs. ashton came quickly into the room, carrying a candle, for the evening had by this time closed in. she was greatly agitated. "o come!" she cried, "come directly. i'm sure he is going." "going? frank? is it possible? already?" with some such incoherent words the doctor caught up a book of prayers from the table and ran out after his wife. lord saul stopped for a moment where he was. molly, the maid, saw him bend over and put both hands to his face. if it were the last words she had to speak, she said afterwards, he was striving to keep back a fit of laughing. then he went out softly, following the others. mrs. ashton was sadly right in her forecast. i have no inclination to imagine the last scene in detail. what dr. ashton records is, or may be taken to be, important to the story. they asked frank if he would like to see his companion, lord saul, once again. the boy was quite collected, it appears, in these moments. "no," he said, "i do not want to see him; but you should tell him i am afraid he will be very cold." "what do you mean, my dear?" said mrs. ashton. "only that;" said frank, "but say to him besides that i am free of them now, but he should take care. and i am sorry about your black cockerel, aunt ashton; but he said we must use it so, if we were to see all that could be seen." not many minutes after, he was gone. both the ashtons were grieved, she naturally most; but the doctor, though not an emotional man, felt the pathos of the early death: and, besides, there was the growing suspicion that all had not been told him by saul, and that there was something here which was out of his beaten track. when he left the chamber of death, it was to walk across the quadrangle of the residence to the sexton's house. a passing bell, the greatest of the minster bells, must be rung, a grave must be dug in the minster yard, and there was now no need to silence the chiming of the minster clock. as he came slowly back in the dark, he thought he must see lord saul again. that matter of the black cockerel--trifling as it might seem--would have to be cleared up. it might be merely a fancy of the sick boy, but if not, was there not a witch-trial he had read, in which some grim little rite of sacrifice had played a part? yes, he must see saul. i rather guess these thoughts of his than find written authority for them. that there was another interview is certain: certain also that saul would (or, as he said, could) throw no light on frank's words: though the message, or some part of it, appeared to affect him horribly. but there is no record of the talk in detail. it is only said that saul sat all that evening in the study, and when he bid good-night, which he did most reluctantly, asked for the doctor's prayers. the month of january was near its end when lord kildonan, in the embassy at lisbon, received a letter that for once gravely disturbed that vain man and neglectful father. saul was dead. the scene at frank's burial had been very distressing. the day was awful in blackness and wind: the bearers, staggering blindly along under the flapping black pall, found it a hard job, when they emerged from the porch of the minster, to make their way to the grave. mrs. ashton was in her room--women did not then go to their kinsfolk's funerals--but saul was there, draped in the mourning cloak of the time, and his face was white and fixed as that of one dead, except when, as was noticed three or four times, he suddenly turned his head to the left and looked over his shoulder. it was then alive with a terrible expression of listening fear. no one saw him go away: and no one could find him that evening. all night the gale buffeted the high windows of the church, and howled over the upland and roared through the woodland. it was useless to search in the open: no voice of shouting or cry for help could possibly be heard. all that dr. ashton could do was to warn the people about the college, and the town constables, and to sit up, on the alert for any news, and this he did. news came early next morning, brought by the sexton, whose business it was to open the church for early prayers at seven, and who sent the maid rushing upstairs with wild eyes and flying hair to summon her master. the two men dashed across to the south door of the minster, there to find lord saul clinging desperately to the great ring of the door, his head sunk between his shoulders, his stockings in rags, his shoes gone, his legs torn and bloody. this was what had to be told to lord kildonan, and this really ends the first part of the story. the tomb of frank sydall and of the lord viscount saul, only child and heir to william earl of kildonan, is one: a stone altar tomb in whitminster churchyard. dr. ashton lived on for over thirty years in his prebendal house, i do not know how quietly, but without visible disturbance. his successor preferred a house he already owned in the town, and left that of the senior prebendary vacant. between them these two men saw the eighteenth century out and the nineteenth in; for mr. hindes, the successor of ashton, became prebendary at nine-and-twenty and died at nine-and-eighty. so that it was not till or that any one succeeded to the post who intended to make the house his home. the man who did was dr. henry oldys, whose name may be known to some of my readers as that of the author of a row of volumes labelled _oldys's works_, which occupy a place that must be honoured, since it is so rarely touched, upon the shelves of many a substantial library. dr. oldys, his niece, and his servants took some months to transfer furniture and books from his dorsetshire parsonage to the quadrangle of whitminster, and to get everything into place. but eventually the work was done, and the house (which, though untenanted, had always been kept sound and weather-tight) woke up, and like monte cristo's mansion at auteuil, lived, sang, and bloomed once more. on a certain morning in june it looked especially fair, as dr. oldys strolled in his garden before breakfast and gazed over the red roof at the minster tower with its four gold vanes, backed by a very blue sky, and very white little clouds. "mary," he said, as he seated himself at the breakfast table and laid down something hard and shiny on the cloth, "here's a find which the boy made just now. you'll be sharper than i if you can guess what it's meant for." it was a round and perfectly smooth tablet--as much as an inch thick--of what seemed clear glass. "it is rather attractive at all events," said mary: she was a fair woman, with light hair and large eyes, rather a devotee of literature. "yes," said her uncle, "i thought you'd be pleased with it. i presume it came from the house: it turned up in the rubbish-heap in the corner." "i'm not sure that i do like it, after all," said mary, some minutes later. "why in the world not, my dear?" "i don't know, i'm sure. perhaps it's only fancy." "yes, only fancy and romance, of course. what's that book, now--the name of that book, i mean, that you had your head in all yesterday?" "_the talisman_, uncle. oh, if this should turn out to be a talisman, how enchanting it would be!" "yes, _the talisman_: ah, well, you're welcome to it, whatever it is: i must be off about my business. is all well in the house? does it suit you? any complaints from the servants' hall?" "no, indeed, nothing could be more charming. the only _soupçon_ of a complaint besides the lock of the linen closet, which i told you of, is that mrs. maple says she cannot get rid of the sawflies out of that room you pass through at the other end of the hall. by the way, are you sure you like your bedroom? it is a long way off from any one else, you know." "like it? to be sure i do; the further off from you, my dear, the better. there, don't think it necessary to beat me: accept my apologies. but what are sawflies? will they eat my coats? if not, they may have the room to themselves for what i care. we are not likely to be using it." "no, of course not. well, what she calls sawflies are those reddish things like a daddy-longlegs, but smaller,[ ] and there are a great many of them perching about that room, certainly. i don't like them, but i don't fancy they are mischievous." "there seem to be several things you don't like this fine morning," said her uncle, as he closed the door. miss oldys remained in her chair looking at the tablet, which she was holding in the palm of her hand. the smile that had been on her face faded slowly from it and gave place to an expression of curiosity and almost strained attention. her reverie was broken by the entrance of mrs. maple, and her invariable opening, "oh, miss, could i speak to you a minute?" a letter from miss oldys to a friend in lichfield, begun a day or two before, is the next source for this story. it is not devoid of traces of the influence of that leader of female thought in her day, miss anna seward, known to some as the swan of lichfield. "my sweetest emily will be rejoiced to hear that we are at length--my beloved uncle and myself--settled in the house that now calls us master--nay, master and mistress--as in past ages it has called so many others. here we taste a mingling of modern elegance and hoary antiquity, such as has never ere now graced life for either of us. the town, small as it is, affords us some reflection, pale indeed, but veritable, of the sweets of polite intercourse: the adjacent country numbers amid the occupants of its scattered mansions some whose polish is annually refreshed by contact with metropolitan splendour, and others whose robust and homely geniality is, at times, and by way of contrast, not less cheering and acceptable. tired of the parlours and drawing-rooms of our friends, we have ready to hand a refuge from the clash of wits or the small talk of the day amid the solemn beauties of our venerable minster, whose silvern chimes daily 'knoll us to prayer,' and in the shady walks of whose tranquil graveyard we muse with softened heart, and ever and anon with moistened eye, upon the memorials of the young, the beautiful, the aged, the wise, and the good." here there is an abrupt break both in the writing and the style. "but my dearest emily, i can no longer write with the care which you deserve, and in which we both take pleasure. what i have to tell you is wholly foreign to what has gone before. this morning my uncle brought in to breakfast an object which had been found in the garden; it was a glass or crystal tablet of this shape (a little sketch is given), which he handed to me, and which, after he left the room, remained on the table by me. i gazed at it, i know not why, for some minutes, till called away by the day's duties; and you will smile incredulously when i say that i seemed to myself to begin to descry reflected in it objects and scenes which were not in the room where i was. you will not, however, be surprised that after such an experience i took the first opportunity to seclude myself in my room with what i now half believed to be a talisman of mickle might. i was not disappointed. i assure you, emily, by that memory which is dearest to both of us, that what i went through this afternoon transcends the limits of what i had before deemed credible. in brief, what i saw, seated in my bedroom, in the broad daylight of summer, and looking into the crystal depth of that small round tablet, was this. first, a prospect, strange to me, of an enclosure of rough and hillocky grass, with a grey stone ruin in the midst, and a wall of rough stones about it. in this stood an old, and very ugly, woman in a red cloak and ragged skirt, talking to a boy dressed in the fashion of maybe a hundred years ago. she put something which glittered into his hand, and he something into hers, which i saw to be money, for a single coin fell from her trembling hand into the grass. the scene passed--i should have remarked, by the way, that on the rough walls of the enclosure i could distinguish bones, and even a skull, lying in a disorderly fashion. next, i was looking upon two boys; one the figure of the former vision, the other younger. they were in a plot of garden, walled round, and this garden, in spite of the difference in arrangement, and the small size of the trees, i could clearly recognize as being that upon which i now look from my window. the boys were engaged in some curious play, it seemed. something was smouldering on the ground. the elder placed his hands upon it, and then raised them in what i took to be an attitude of prayer: and i saw, and started at seeing, that on them were deep stains of blood. the sky above was overcast. the same boy now turned his face towards the wall of the garden, and beckoned with both his raised hands, and as he did so i was conscious that some moving objects were becoming visible over the top of the wall--whether heads or other parts of some animal or human forms i could not tell. upon the instant the elder boy turned sharply, seized the arm of the younger (who all this time had been poring over what lay on the ground), and both hurried off. i then saw blood upon the grass, a little pile of bricks, and what i thought were black feathers scattered about. that scene closed, and the next was so dark that perhaps the full meaning of it escaped me. but what i seemed to see was a form, at first crouching low among trees or bushes that were being threshed by a violent wind, then running very swiftly, and constantly turning a pale face to look behind him, as if he feared a pursuer: and, indeed, pursuers were following hard after him. their shapes were but dimly seen, their number--three or four, perhaps, only guessed. i suppose they were on the whole more like dogs than anything else, but dogs such as we have seen they assuredly were not. could i have closed my eyes to this horror, i would have done so at once, but i was helpless. the last i saw was the victim darting beneath an arch and clutching at some object to which he clung: and those that were pursuing him overtook him, and i seemed to hear the echo of a cry of despair. it may be that i became unconscious: certainly i had the sensation of awaking to the light of day after an interval of darkness. such, in literal truth, emily, was my vision--i can call it by no other name--of this afternoon. tell me, have i not been the unwilling witness of some episode of a tragedy connected with this very house?" the letter is continued next day. "the tale of yesterday was not completed when i laid down my pen. i said nothing of my experiences to my uncle--you know, yourself, how little his robust common-sense would be prepared to allow of them, and how in his eyes the specific remedy would be a black draught or a glass of port. after a silent evening, then--silent, not sullen--i retired to rest. judge of my terror, when, not yet in bed, i heard what i can only describe as a distant bellow, and knew it for my uncle's voice, though never in my hearing so exerted before. his sleeping-room is at the further extremity of this large house, and to gain access to it one must traverse an antique hall some eighty feet long and a lofty panelled chamber, and two unoccupied bedrooms. in the second of these--a room almost devoid of furniture--i found him, in the dark, his candle lying smashed on the floor. as i ran in, bearing a light, he clasped me in arms that trembled for the first time since i have known him, thanked god, and hurried me out of the room. he would say nothing of what had alarmed him. 'to-morrow, to-morrow,' was all i could get from him. a bed was hastily improvised for him in the room next to my own. i doubt if his night was more restful than mine. i could only get to sleep in the small hours, when daylight was already strong, and then my dreams were of the grimmest--particularly one which stamped itself on my brain, and which i must set down on the chance of dispersing the impression it has made. it was that i came up to my room with a heavy foreboding of evil oppressing me, and went with a hesitation and reluctance i could not explain to my chest of drawers. i opened the top drawer, in which was nothing but ribbons and handkerchiefs, and then the second, where was as little to alarm, and then, o heavens, the third and last: and there was a mass of linen neatly folded: upon which, as i looked with curiosity that began to be tinged with horror, i perceived a movement in it, and a pink hand was thrust out of the folds and began to grope feebly in the air. i could bear it no more, and rushed from the room, clapping the door after me, and strove with all my force to lock it. but the key would not turn in the wards, and from within the room came a sound of rustling and bumping, drawing nearer and nearer to the door. why i did not flee down the stairs i know not. i continued grasping the handle, and mercifully, as the door was plucked from my hand with an irresistible force, i awoke. you may not think this very alarming, but i assure you it was so to me. "at breakfast to-day my uncle was very uncommunicative, and i think ashamed of the fright he had given us; but afterwards he inquired of me whether mr. spearman was still in town, adding that he thought that was a young man who had some sense left in his head. i think you know, my dear emily, that i am not inclined to disagree with him there, and also that i was not unlikely to be able to answer his question. to mr. spearman he accordingly went, and i have not seen him since. i must send this strange budget of news to you now, or it may have to wait over more than one post." the reader will not be far out if he guesses that miss mary and mr. spearman made a match of it not very long after this month of june. mr. spearman was a young spark, who had a good property in the neighbourhood of whitminster, and not unfrequently about this time spent a few days at the "king's head," ostensibly on business. but he must have had some leisure, for his diary is copious, especially for the days of which i am telling the story. it is probable to me that he wrote this episode as fully as he could at the bidding of miss mary. "uncle oldys (how i hope i may have the right to call him so before long!) called this morning. after throwing out a good many short remarks on indifferent topics, he said 'i wish, spearman, you'd listen to an odd story and keep a close tongue about it just for a bit, till i get more light on it.' 'to be sure,' said i, 'you may count on me.' 'i don't know what to make of it,' he said. 'you know my bedroom. it is well away from every one else's, and i pass through the great hall and two or three other rooms to get to it.' 'is it at the end next the minster, then?' i asked. 'yes, it is: well, now, yesterday morning my mary told me that the room next before it was infested with some sort of fly that the housekeeper couldn't get rid of. that may be the explanation, or it may not. what do you think?' 'why,' said i, 'you've not yet told me what has to be explained.' 'true enough, i don't believe i have; but by-the-by, what are these sawflies? what's the size of them?' i began to wonder if he was touched in the head. 'what i call a sawfly,' i said very patiently, 'is a red animal, like a daddy-longlegs, but not so big, perhaps an inch long, perhaps less. it is very hard in the body, and to me'--i was going to say 'particularly offensive,' but he broke in, 'come, come; an inch or less. that won't do.' 'i can only tell you,' i said, 'what i know. would it not be better if you told me from first to last what it is that has puzzled you, and then i may be able to give you some kind of an opinion.' he gazed at me meditatively. 'perhaps it would,' he said. 'i told mary only to-day that i thought you had some vestiges of sense in your head.' (i bowed my acknowledgements.) 'the thing is, i've an odd kind of shyness about talking of it. nothing of the sort has happened to me before. well, about eleven o'clock last night, or after, i took my candle and set out for my room. i had a book in my other hand--i always read something for a few minutes before i drop off to sleep. a dangerous habit: i don't recommend it: but i know how to manage my light and my bed curtains. now then, first, as i stepped out of my study into the great half that's next to it, and shut the door, my candle went out. i supposed i had clapped the door behind me too quick, and made a draught, and i was annoyed, for i'd no tinder-box nearer than my bedroom. but i knew my way well enough, and went on. the next thing was that my book was struck out of my hand in the dark: if i said twitched out of my hand it would better express the sensation. it fell on the floor. i picked it up, and went on, more annoyed than before, and a little startled. but as you know, that hall has many windows without curtains, and in summer nights like these it is easy to see not only where the furniture is, but whether there's any one or anything moving, and there was no one--nothing of the kind. so on i went through the hall and through the audit chamber next to it, which also has big windows, and then into the bedrooms which lead to my own, where the curtains were drawn, and i had to go slower because of steps here and there. it was in the second of those rooms that i nearly got my _quietus_. the moment i opened the door of it i felt there was something wrong. i thought twice, i confess, whether i shouldn't turn back and find another way there is to my room rather than go through that one. then i was ashamed of myself, and thought what people call better of it, though i don't know about "better" in this case. if i was to describe my experience exactly, i should say this: there was a dry, light, rustling sound all over the room as i went in, and then (you remember it was perfectly dark) something seemed to rush at me, and there was--i don't know how to put it--a sensation of long thin arms, or legs, or feelers, all about my face, and neck, and body. very little strength in them, there seemed to be, but spearman, i don't think i was ever more horrified or disgusted in all my life, that i remember: and it does take something to put me out. i roared out as loud as i could, and flung away my candle at random, and, knowing i was near the window, i tore at the curtain and somehow let in enough light to be able to see something waving which i knew was an insect's leg, by the shape of it: but, lord, what a size! why the beast must have been as tall as i am. and now you tell me sawflies are an inch long or less. what do you make of it, spearman?' "'for goodness sake finish your story first,' i said. 'i never heard anything like it.' 'oh,' said he, 'there's no more to tell. mary ran in with a light, and there was nothing there. i didn't tell her what was the matter. i changed my room for last night, and i expect for good.' 'have you searched this odd room of yours?' i said. 'what do you keep in it?' 'we don't use it,' he answered. 'there's an old press there, and some little other furniture.' 'and in the press?' said i. 'i don't know; i never saw it opened, but i do know that it's locked.' 'well, i should have it looked into, and, if you had time, i own to having some curiosity to see the place myself.' 'i didn't exactly like to ask you, but that's rather what i hoped you'd say. name your time and i'll take you there.' 'no time like the present,' i said at once, for i saw he would never settle down to anything while this affair was in suspense. he got up with great alacrity, and looked at me, i am tempted to think, with marked approval. 'come along,' was all he said, however; and was pretty silent all the way to his house. my mary (as he calls her in public, and i in private) was summoned, and we proceeded to the room. the doctor had gone so far as to tell her that he had had something of a fright there last night, of what nature he had not yet divulged; but now he pointed out and described, very briefly, the incidents of his progress. when we were near the important spot, he pulled up, and allowed me to pass on. 'there's the room,' he said. 'go in, spearman, and tell us what you find.' whatever i might have felt at midnight, noonday i was sure would keep back anything sinister, and i flung the door open with an air and stepped in. it was a well-lighted room, with its large window on the right, though not, i thought, a very airy one. the principal piece of furniture was the gaunt old press of dark wood. there was, too, a four-post bedstead, a mere skeleton which could hide nothing, and there was a chest of drawers. on the window-sill and the floor near it were the dead bodies of many hundred sawflies, and one torpid one which i had some satisfaction in killing. i tried the door of the press, but could not open it: the drawers, too, were locked. somewhere, i was conscious, there was a faint rustling sound, but i could not locate it, and when i made my report to those outside, i said nothing of it. but, i said, clearly the next thing was to see what was in those locked receptacles. uncle oldys turned to mary. 'mrs. maple,' he said, and mary ran off--no one, i am sure, steps like her--and soon came back at a soberer pace, with an elderly lady of discreet aspect. "'have you the keys of these things, mrs. maple?' said uncle oldys. his simple words let loose a torrent (not violent, but copious) of speech: had she been a shade or two higher in the social scale, mrs. maple might have stood as the model for miss bates. "'oh, doctor, and miss, and you too, sir,' she said, acknowledging my presence with a bend, 'them keys! who was that again that come when first we took over things in this house--a gentleman in business it was, and i gave him his luncheon in the small parlour on account of us not having everything as we should like to see it in the large one--chicken, and apple-pie, and a glass of madeira--dear, dear, you'll say i'm running on, miss mary; but i only mention it to bring back my recollection; and there it comes--gardner, just the same as it did last week with the artichokes and the text of the sermon. now that mr. gardner, every key i got from him were labelled to itself, and each and every one was a key of some door or another in this house, and sometimes two; and when i say door, my meaning is door of a room, not like such a press as this is. yes, miss mary, i know full well, and i'm just making it clear to your uncle and you too, sir. but now there _was_ a box which this same gentleman he give over into my charge, and thinking no harm after he was gone i took the liberty, knowing it was your uncle's property, to rattle it: and unless i'm most surprisingly deceived, in that box there was keys, but what keys, that, doctor, is known elsewhere, for open the box, no that i would not do.' "i wondered that uncle oldys remained as quiet as he did under this address. mary, i knew, was amused by it, and he probably had been taught by experience that it was useless to break in upon it. at any rate he did not, but merely said at the end, 'have you that box handy, mrs. maple? if so, you might bring it here.' mrs. maple pointed her finger at him, either in accusation or in gloomy triumph. 'there,' she said, 'was i to choose out the very words out of your mouth, doctor, them would be the ones. and if i've took it to my own rebuke one half-a-dozen times, it's been nearer fifty. laid awake i have in my bed, sat down in my chair i have, the same you and miss mary gave me the day i was twenty year in your service, and no person could desire a better--yes, miss mary, but it _is_ the truth, and well we know who it is would have it different if he could. "all very well," says i to myself, "but pray, when the doctor calls you to account for that box, what are you going to say?" no, doctor, if you was some masters i've heard of and i was some servants i could name, i should have an easy task before me, but things being, humanly speaking, what they are, the one course open to me is just to say to you that without miss mary comes to my room and helps me to my recollection, which her wits _may_ manage what's slipped beyond mine, no such box as that, small though it be, will cross your eyes this many a day to come.' "'why, dear mrs. maple, why didn't you tell me before that you wanted me to help you to find it?' said my mary. 'no, never mind telling me why it was: let us come at once and look for it.' they hastened off together. i could hear mrs. maple beginning an explanation which, i doubt not, lasted into the furthest recesses of the housekeeper's department. uncle oldys and i were left alone. 'a valuable servant,' he said, nodding towards the door. 'nothing goes wrong under her: the speeches are seldom over three minutes.' 'how will miss oldys manage to make her remember about the box?' i asked. "'mary? oh, she'll make her sit down and ask her about her aunt's last illness, or who gave her the china dog on the mantel-piece--something quite off the point. then, as maple says, one thing brings up another, and the right one will come round sooner than you could suppose. there! i believe i hear them coming back already.' "it was indeed so, and mrs. maple was hurrying on ahead of mary with the box in her outstretched hand, and a beaming face. 'what was it,' she cried as she drew near, 'what was it as i said, before ever i come out of dorsetshire to this place? not that i'm a dorset woman myself, nor had need to be. "safe bind, safe find," and there it was in the place where i'd put it--what?--two months back, i daresay.' she handed it to uncle oldys, and he and i examined it with some interest, so that i ceased to pay attention to mrs. ann maple for the moment, though i know that she went on to expound exactly where the box had been, and in what way mary had helped to refresh her memory on the subject. "it was an oldish box, tied with pink tape and sealed, and on the lid was pasted a label inscribed in old ink, 'the senior prebendary's house, whitminster.' on being opened it was found to contain two keys of moderate size, and a paper, on which, in the same hand as the label, was 'keys of the press and box of drawers standing in the disused chamber.' also this: 'the effects in this press and box are held by me, and to be held by my successors in the residence, in trust for the noble family of kildonan, if claim be made by any survivor of it. i having made all the enquiry possible to myself am of the opinion that that noble house is wholly extinct: the last earl having been, as is notorious, cast away at sea, and his only child and heire deceas'd in my house (the papers as to which melancholy casualty were by me repos'd in the same press in this year of our lord , march). i am further of opinion that unless grave discomfort arise, such persons, not being of the family of kildonan, as shall become possess'd of these keys, will be well advised to leave matters as they are: which opinion i do not express without weighty and sufficient reason; and am happy to have my judgment confirm'd by the other members of this college and church who are conversant with the events referr'd to in this paper. tho. ashton, _s.t.p._, _præb. senr._ will. blake, _s.t.p._, _decanus_. hen. goodman, _s.t.b._, _præb. junr._' "'ah!' said uncle oldys, 'grave discomfort! so he thought there might be something. i suspect it was that young man,' he went on, pointing with the key to the line about the 'only child and heire.' 'eh, mary? the viscounty of kildonan was saul.' 'how _do_ you know that, uncle?' said mary. 'oh, why not? it's all in debrett--two little fat books. but i meant the tomb by the lime walk. he's there. what's the story, i wonder? do you know it, mrs. maple? and, by the way, look at your sawflies by the window there.' "mrs. maple, thus confronted with two subjects at once, was a little put to it to do justice to both. it was no doubt rash in uncle oldys to give her the opportunity. i could only guess that he had some slight hesitation about using the key he held in his hand. "'oh them flies, how bad they was, doctor and miss, this three or four days: and you, too, sir, you wouldn't guess, none of you! and how they come, too! first we took the room in hand, the shutters was up, and had been, i daresay, years upon years, and not a fly to be seen. then we got the shutter bars down with a deal of trouble and left it so for the day, and next day i sent susan in with the broom to sweep about, and not two minutes hadn't passed when out she come into the hall like a blind thing, and we had regular to beat them off her. why her cap and her hair, you couldn't see the colour of it, i do assure you, and all clustering round her eyes, too. fortunate enough she's not a girl with fancies, else if it had been me, why only the tickling of the nasty things would have drove me out of my wits. and now there they lay like so many dead things. well, they was lively enough on the monday, and now here's thursday, is it, or no, friday. only to come near the door and you'd hear them pattering up against it, and once you opened it, dash at you, they would, as if they'd eat you. i couldn't help thinking to myself, "if you was bats, where should we be this night?" nor you can't cresh 'em, not like a usual kind of a fly. well, there's something to be thankful for, if we could but learn by it. and then this tomb, too,' she said, hastening on to her second point to elude any chance of interruption, 'of them two poor young lads. i say poor, and yet when i recollect myself, i was at tea with mrs. simpkins, the sexton's wife, before you come, doctor and miss mary, and that's a family has been in the place, what? i daresay a hundred years in that very house, and could put their hand on any tomb or yet grave in all the yard and give you name and age. and his account of that young man, mr. simpkins's i mean to say--_well_!' she compressed her lips and nodded several times. 'tell us, mrs. maple,' said mary. 'go on,' said uncle oldys. 'what about him?' said i. 'never was such a thing seen in this place, not since queen mary's times and the pope and all,' said mrs. maple. 'why, do you know he lived in this very house, him and them that was with him, and for all i can tell in this identical room' (she shifted her feet uneasily on the floor). 'who was with him? do you mean the people of the house?' said uncle oldys suspiciously. 'not to call people, doctor, dear no,' was the answer; 'more what he brought with him from ireland, i believe it was. no, the people in the house was the last to hear anything of his goings-on. but in the town not a family but knew how he stopped out at night: and them that was with him, why they were such as would strip the skin from the child in its grave; and a withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost, says mr. simpkins. but they turned on him at the last, he says, and there's the mark still to be seen on the minster door where they run him down. and that's no more than the truth, for i got him to show it to myself, and that's what he said. a lord he was, with a bible name of a wicked king, whatever his godfathers could have been thinking of.' 'saul was the name,' said uncle oldys. 'to be sure it was saul, doctor, and thank you; and now isn't it king saul that we read of raising up the dead ghost that was slumbering in its tomb till he disturbed it, and isn't that a strange thing, this young lord to have such a name, and mr. simpkins's grandfather to see him out of his window of a dark night going about from one grave to another in the yard with a candle, and them that was with him following through the grass at his heels: and one night him to come right up to old mr. simpkins's window that gives on the yard and press his face up against it to find out if there was any one in the room that could see him: and only just time there was for old mr. simpkins to drop down like, quiet, just under the window and hold his breath, and not stir till he heard him stepping away again, and this rustling-like in the grass after him as he went, and then when he looked out of his window in the morning there was treadings in the grass and a dead man's bone. oh, he was a cruel child for certain, but he had to pay in the end, and after.' 'after?' said uncle oldys, with a frown. 'oh yes, doctor, night after night in old mr. simpkins's time, and his son, that's our mr. simpkins's father, yes, and our own mr. simpkins too. up against that same window, particular when they've had a fire of a chilly evening, with his face right on the panes, and his hands fluttering out, and his mouth open and shut, open and shut, for a minute or more, and then gone off in the dark yard. but open the window at such times, no, that they dare not do, though they could find it in their heart to pity the poor thing, that pinched up with the cold, and seemingly fading away to a nothink as the years passed on. well, indeed, i believe it is no more than the truth what our mr. simpkins says on his own grandfather's word, "a withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost."' 'i daresay,' said uncle oldys suddenly: so suddenly that mrs. maple stopped short. 'thank you. come away, all of you.' 'why, _uncle_,' said mary, 'are you not going to open the press after all?' uncle oldys blushed, actually blushed. 'my dear,' he said, 'you are at liberty to call me a coward, or applaud me as a prudent man, whichever you please. but i am neither going to open that press nor that chest of drawers myself, nor am i going to hand over the keys to you or to any other person. mrs. maple, will you kindly see about getting a man or two to move those pieces of furniture into the garret?' 'and when they do it, mrs. maple,' said mary, who seemed to me--i did not then know why--more relieved than disappointed by her uncle's decision, 'i have something that i want put with the rest; only quite a small packet.' "we left that curious room not unwillingly, i think. uncle oldys's orders were carried out that same day. and so," concludes mr. spearman, "whitminster has a bluebeard's chamber, and, i am rather inclined to suspect, a jack-in-the-box, awaiting some future occupant of the residence of the senior prebendary." footnotes: [footnote : apparently the ichneumon fly (_ophion obscurum_), and not the true sawfly, is meant.] the diary of mr. poynter the diary of mr. poynter the sale-room of an old and famous firm of book auctioneers in london is, of course, a great meeting-place for collectors, librarians, dealers: not only when an auction is in progress, but perhaps even more notably when books that are coming on for sale are upon view. it was in such a sale-room that the remarkable series of events began which were detailed to me not many months ago by the person whom they principally affected, namely, mr. james denton, m.a., f.s.a., etc., etc., some time of trinity hall, now, or lately, of rendcomb manor in the county of warwick. he, on a certain spring day not many years since, was in london for a few days upon business connected principally with the furnishing of the house which he had just finished building at rendcomb. it may be a disappointment to you to learn that rendcomb manor was new; that i cannot help. there had, no doubt, been an old house; but it was not remarkable for beauty or interest. even had it been, neither beauty nor interest would have enabled it to resist the disastrous fire which about a couple of years before the date of my story had razed it to the ground. i am glad to say that all that was most valuable in it had been saved, and that it was fully insured. so that it was with a comparatively light heart that mr. denton was able to face the task of building a new and considerably more convenient dwelling for himself and his aunt who constituted his whole _ménage_. being in london, with time on his hands, and not far from the sale-room at which i have obscurely hinted, mr. denton thought that he would spend an hour there upon the chance of finding, among that portion of the famous thomas collection of mss., which he knew to be then on view, something bearing upon the history or topography of his part of warwickshire. he turned in accordingly, purchased a catalogue and ascended to the sale-room, where, as usual, the books were disposed in cases and some laid out upon the long tables. at the shelves, or sitting about at the tables, were figures, many of whom were familiar to him. he exchanged nods and greetings with several, and then settled down to examine his catalogue and note likely items. he had made good progress through about two hundred of the five hundred lots--every now and then rising to take a volume from the shelf and give it a cursory glance--when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and he looked up. his interrupter was one of those intelligent men with a pointed beard and a flannel shirt, of whom the last quarter of the nineteenth century was, it seems to me, very prolific. it is no part of my plan to repeat the whole conversation which ensued between the two. i must content myself with stating that it largely referred to common acquaintances, e.g., to the nephew of mr. denton's friend who had recently married and settled in chelsea, to the sister-in-law of mr. denton's friend who had been seriously indisposed, but was now better, and to a piece of china which mr. denton's friend had purchased some months before at a price much below its true value. from which you will rightly infer that the conversation was rather in the nature of a monologue. in due time, however, the friend bethought himself that mr. denton was there for a purpose, and said he, "what are you looking out for in particular? i don't think there's much in this lot." "why, i thought there might be some warwickshire collections, but i don't see anything under warwick in the catalogue." "no, apparently not," said the friend. "all the same, i believe i noticed something like a warwickshire diary. what was the name again? drayton? potter? painter--either a p or a d, i feel sure." he turned over the leaves quickly. "yes, here it is. poynter. lot . that might interest you. there are the books, i think: out on the table. some one has been looking at them. well, i must be getting on. good-bye, you'll look us up, won't you? couldn't you come this afternoon? we've got a little music about four. well, then, when you're next in town." he went off. mr. denton looked at his watch and found to his confusion that he could spare no more than a moment before retrieving his luggage and going for the train. the moment was just enough to show him that there were four largish volumes of the diary--that it concerned the years about , and that there seemed to be a good many insertions in it of various kinds. it seemed quite worth while to leave a commission of five and twenty pounds for it, and this he was able to do, for his usual agent entered the room as he was on the point of leaving it. that evening he rejoined his aunt at their temporary abode, which was a small dower-house not many hundred yards from the manor. on the following morning the two resumed a discussion that had now lasted for some weeks as to the equipment of the new house. mr. denton laid before his relative a statement of the results of his visit to town--particulars of carpets, of chairs, of wardrobes, and of bedroom china. "yes, dear," said his aunt, "but i don't see any chintzes here. did you go to ----?" mr. denton stamped on the floor (where else, indeed, could he have stamped?). "oh dear, oh dear," he said, "the one thing i missed. i _am_ sorry. the fact is i was on my way there and i happened to be passing robins's." his aunt threw up her hands. "robins's! then the next thing will be another parcel of horrible old books at some outrageous price. i do think, james, when i am taking all this trouble for you, you might contrive to remember the one or two things which i specially begged you to see after. it's not as if i was asking it for myself. i don't know whether you think i get any pleasure out of it, but if so i can assure you it's very much the reverse. the thought and worry and trouble i have over it you have no idea of, and _you_ have simply to go to the shops and order the things." mr. denton interposed a moan of penitence. "oh, aunt----" "yes, that's all very well, dear, and i don't want to speak sharply, but you _must_ know how very annoying it is: particularly as it delays the whole of our business for i can't tell how long: here is wednesday--the simpsons come to-morrow, and you can't leave them. then on saturday we have friends, as you know, coming for tennis. yes, indeed, you spoke of asking them yourself, but, of course, i had to write the notes, and it is ridiculous, james, to look like that. we must occasionally be civil to our neighbours: you wouldn't like to have it said we were perfect bears. what was i saying? well, anyhow it comes to this, that it must be thursday in next week at least, before you can go to town again, and until we have decided upon the chintzes it is impossible to settle upon one single other thing." mr. denton ventured to suggest that as the paint and wallpapers had been dealt with, this was too severe a view: but this his aunt was not prepared to admit at the moment. nor, indeed, was there any proposition he could have advanced which she would have found herself able to accept. however, as the day went on, she receded a little from this position: examined with lessening disfavour the samples and price lists submitted by her nephew, and even in some cases gave a qualified approval to his choice. as for him, he was naturally somewhat dashed by the consciousness of duty unfulfilled, but more so by the prospect of a lawn-tennis party, which, though an inevitable evil in august, he had thought there was no occasion to fear in may. but he was to some extent cheered by the arrival on the friday morning of an intimation that he had secured at the price of £ s. the four volumes of poynter's manuscript diary, and still more by the arrival on the next morning of the diary itself. the necessity of taking mr. and mrs. simpson for a drive in the car on saturday morning and of attending to his neighbours and guests that afternoon prevented him from doing more than open the parcel until the party had retired to bed on the saturday night. it was then that he made certain of the fact, which he had before only suspected, that he had indeed acquired the diary of mr. william poynter, squire of acrington (about four miles from his own parish)--that same poynter who was for a time a member of the circle of oxford antiquaries, the centre of which was thomas hearne, and with whom hearne seems ultimately to have quarrelled--a not uncommon episode in the career of that excellent man. as is the case with hearne's own collections, the diary of poynter contained a good many notes from printed books, descriptions of coins and other antiquities that had been brought to his notice, and drafts of letters on these subjects, besides the chronicle of everyday events. the description in the sale-catalogue had given mr. denton no idea of the amount of interest which seemed to lie in the book, and he sat up reading in the first of the four volumes until a reprehensibly late hour. on the sunday morning, after church, his aunt came into the study and was diverted from what she had been going to say to him by the sight of the four brown leather quartos on the table. "what are these?" she said suspiciously. "new, aren't they? oh! are these the things that made you forget my chintzes? i thought so. disgusting. what did you give for them, i should like to know? over ten pounds? james, it is really sinful. well, if you have money to throw away on this kind of thing, there _can_ be no reason why you should not subscribe--and subscribe handsomely--to my anti-vivisection league. there is not, indeed, james, and i shall be very seriously annoyed if----. who did you say wrote them? old mr. poynter, of acrington? well, of course, there is some interest in getting together old papers about this neighbourhood. but ten pounds!" she picked up one of the volumes--not that which her nephew had been reading--and opened it at random, dashing it to the floor the next instant with a cry of disgust as a earwig fell from between the pages. mr. denton picked it up with a smothered expletive and said, "poor book! i think you're rather hard on mr. poynter." "was i, my dear? i beg his pardon, but you know i cannot abide those horrid creatures. let me see if i've done any mischief." "no, i think all's well: but look here what you've opened him on." "dear me, yes, to be sure! how very interesting. do unpin it, james, and let me look at it." it was a piece of patterned stuff about the size of the quarto page, to which it was fastened by an old-fashioned pin. james detached it and handed it to his aunt, carefully replacing the pin in the paper. now, i do not know exactly what the fabric was; but it had a design printed upon it, which completely fascinated miss denton. she went into raptures over it, held it against the wall, made james do the same, that she might retire to contemplate it from a distance: then pored over it at close quarters, and ended her examination by expressing in the warmest terms her appreciation of the taste of the ancient mr. poynter who had had the happy idea of preserving this sample in his diary. "it is a most charming pattern," she said, "and remarkable too. look, james, how delightfully the lines ripple. it reminds one of hair, very much, doesn't it. and then these knots of ribbon at intervals. they give just the relief of colour that is wanted. i wonder----" "i was going to say," said james with deference, "i wonder if it would cost much to have it copied for our curtains." "copied? how could you have it copied, james?" "well, i don't know the details, but i suppose that is a printed pattern, and that you could have a block cut from it in wood or metal." "now, really, that is a capital idea, james. i am almost inclined to be glad that you were so--that you forgot the chintzes on monday. at any rate, i'll promise to forgive and forget if you get this _lovely_ old thing copied. no one will have anything in the least like it, and mind, james, we won't allow it to be sold. now i _must_ go, and i've totally forgotten what it was i came in to say: never mind, it'll keep." after his aunt had gone james denton devoted a few minutes to examining the pattern more closely than he had yet had a chance of doing. he was puzzled to think why it should have struck miss benton so forcibly. it seemed to him not specially remarkable or pretty. no doubt it was suitable enough for a curtain pattern: it ran in vertical bands, and there was some indication that these were intended to converge at the top. she was right, too, in thinking that these main bands resembled rippling--almost curling--tresses of hair. well, the main thing was to find out by means of trade directories, or otherwise, what firm would undertake the reproduction of an old pattern of this kind. not to delay the reader over this portion of the story, a list of likely names was made out, and mr. denton fixed a day for calling on them, or some of them, with his sample. the first two visits which he paid were unsuccessful: but there is luck in odd numbers. the firm in bermondsey which was third on his list was accustomed to handling this line. the evidence they were able to produce justified their being entrusted with the job. "our mr. cattell" took a fervent personal interest in it. "it's 'eartrending, isn't it, sir," he said, "to picture the quantity of reelly lovely medeevial stuff of this kind that lays well-nigh unnoticed in many of our residential country 'ouses: much of it in peril, i take it, of being cast aside as so much rubbish. what is it shakespeare says--unconsidered trifles. ah, i often say he 'as a word for us all, sir. i say shakespeare, but i'm well aware all don't 'old with me there--i 'ad something of an upset the other day when a gentleman came in--a titled man, too, he was, and i think he told me he'd wrote on the topic, and i 'appened to cite out something about 'ercules and the painted cloth. dear me, you never see such a pother. but as to this, what you've kindly confided to us, it's a piece of work we shall take a reel enthusiasm in achieving it out to the very best of our ability. what man 'as done, as i was observing only a few weeks back to another esteemed client, man can do, and in three to four weeks' time, all being well, we shall 'ope to lay before you evidence to that effect, sir. take the address, mr. 'iggins, if you please." such was the general drift of mr. cattell's observations on the occasion of his first interview with mr. denton. about a month later, being advised that some samples were ready for his inspection, mr. denton met him again, and had, it seems, reason to be satisfied with the faithfulness of the reproduction of the design. it had been finished off at the top in accordance with the indication i mentioned, so that the vertical bands joined. but something still needed to be done in the way of matching the colour of the original. mr. cattell had suggestions of a technical kind to offer, with which i need not trouble you. he had also views as to the general desirability of the pattern which were vaguely adverse. "you say you don't wish this to be supplied excepting to personal friends equipped with a authorization from yourself, sir. it shall be done. i quite understand your wish to keep it exclusive: lends it a catchit, does it not, to the suite? what's every man's, it's been said, is no man's." "do you think it would be popular if it were generally obtainable?" asked mr. denton. "i 'ardly think it, sir," said cattell, pensively clasping his beard. "i 'ardly think it. not popular: it wasn't popular with the man that cut the block, was it, mr. 'iggins?" "did he find it a difficult job?" "he'd no call to do so, sir; but the fact is that the artistic temperament--and our men are artists, sir, every man of them--true artists as much as many that the world styles by that term--it's apt to take some strange 'ardly accountable likes or dislikes, and here was an example. the twice or thrice that i went to inspect his progress: language i could understand, for that's 'abitual to him, but reel distaste for what i should call a dainty enough thing, i did not, nor am i now able to fathom. it seemed," said mr. cattell, looking narrowly upon mr. denton, "as if the man scented something almost hevil in the design." "indeed? did he tell you so? i can't say i see anything sinister in it myself." "neether can i, sir. in fact i said as much. 'come, gatwick,' i said, 'what's to do here? what's the reason of your prejudice--for i can call it no more than that?' but, no! no explanation was forthcoming. and i was merely reduced, as i am now, to a shrug of the shoulders, and a _cui bono_. however, here it is," and with that the technical side of the question came to the front again. the matching of the colours for the background, the hem, and the knots of ribbon was by far the longest part of the business, and necessitated many sendings to and fro of the original pattern and of new samples. during part of august and september, too, the dentons were away from the manor. so that it was not until october was well in that a sufficient quantity of the stuff had been manufactured to furnish curtains for the three or four bedrooms which were to be fitted up with it. on the feast of simon and jude the aunt and nephew returned from a short visit to find all completed, and their satisfaction at the general effect was great. the new curtains, in particular, agreed to admiration with their surroundings. when mr. denton was dressing for dinner, and took stock of his room, in which there was a large amount of the chintz displayed, he congratulated himself over and over again on the luck which had first made him forget his aunt's commission and had then put into his hands this extremely effective means of remedying his mistake. the pattern was, as he said at dinner, so restful and yet so far from being dull. and miss denton--who, by the way, had none of the stuff in her own room--was much disposed to agree with him. at breakfast next morning he was induced to qualify his satisfaction to some extent--but very slightly. "there is one thing i rather regret," he said, "that we allowed them to join up the vertical bands of the pattern at the top. i think it would have been better to leave that alone." "oh?" said his aunt interrogatively. "yes: as i was reading in bed last night they kept catching my eye rather. that is, i found myself looking across at them every now and then. there was an effect as if some one kept peeping out between the curtains in one place or another, where there was no edge, and i think that was due to the joining up of the bands at the top. the only other thing that troubled me was the wind." "why, i thought it was a perfectly still night." "perhaps it was only on my side of the house, but there was enough to sway my curtains and rustle them more than i wanted." that night a bachelor friend of james denton's came to stay, and was lodged in a room on the same floor as his host, but at the end of a long passage, halfway down which was a red baize door, put there to cut off the draught and intercept noise. the party of three had separated. miss denton a good first, the two men at about eleven. james denton, not yet inclined for bed, sat him down in an arm-chair and read for a time. then he dozed, and then he woke, and bethought himself that his brown spaniel, which ordinarily slept in his room, had not come upstairs with him. then he thought he was mistaken: for happening to move his hand which hung down over the arm of the chair within a few inches of the floor, he felt on the back of it just the slightest touch of a surface of hair, and stretching it out in that direction he stroked and patted a rounded something. but the feel of it, and still more the fact that instead of a responsive movement, absolute stillness greeted his touch, made him look over the arm. what he had been touching rose to meet him. it was in the attitude of one that had crept along the floor on its belly, and it was, so far as could be collected, a human figure. but of the face which was now rising to within a few inches of his own no feature was discernible, only hair. shapeless as it was, there was about it so horrible an air of menace that as he bounded from his chair and rushed from the room he heard himself moaning with fear: and doubtless he did right to fly. as he dashed into the baize door that cut the passage in two, and--forgetting that it opened towards him--beat against it with all the force in him, he felt a soft ineffectual tearing at his back which, all the same, seemed to be growing in power, as if the hand, or whatever worse than a hand was there, were becoming more material as the pursuer's rage was more concentrated. then he remembered the trick of the door--he got it open--he shut it behind him--he gained his friend's room, and that is all we need know. it seems curious that, during all the time that had elapsed since the purchase of poynter's diary, james denton should not have sought an explanation of the presence of the pattern that had been pinned into it. well, he had read the diary through without finding it mentioned, and had concluded that there was nothing to be said. but, on leaving rendcomb manor (he did not know whether for good), as he naturally insisted upon doing on the day after experiencing the horror i have tried to put into words, he took the diary with him. and at his seaside lodgings he examined more narrowly the portion whence the pattern had been taken. what he remembered having suspected about it turned out to be correct. two or three leaves were pasted together, but written upon, as was patent when they were held up to the light. they yielded easily to steaming, for the paste had lost much of its strength, and they contained something relevant to the pattern. the entry was made in . "old mr. casbury, of acrington, told me this day much of young sir everard charlett, whom he remember'd commoner of university college, and thought was of the same family as dr. arthur charlett, now master of ye coll. this charlett was a personable young gent., but a loose atheistical companion, and a great lifter, as they then call'd the hard drinkers, and for what i know do so now. he was noted, and subject to severall censures at different times for his extravagancies: and if the full history of his debaucheries had bin known, no doubt would have been expell'd ye coll., supposing that no interest had been imploy'd on his behalf, of which mr. casbury had some suspicion. he was a very beautiful person, and constantly wore his own hair, which was very abundant, from which, and his loose way of living, the cant name for him was absalom, and he was accustom'd to say that indeed he believ'd he had shortened old david's days, meaning his father, sir job charlett, an old worthy cavalier. "note that mr. casbury said that he remembers not the year of sir everard charlett's death, but it was or . he died suddenly in october. [several lines describing his unpleasant habits and reputed delinquencies are omitted.] having seen him in such topping spirits the night before, mr. casbury was amaz'd when he learn'd the death. he was found in the town ditch, the hair as was said pluck'd clean off his head. most bells in oxford rung out for him, being a nobleman, and he was buried next night in st. peter's in the east. but two years after, being to be moved to his country estate by his successor, it was said the coffin, breaking by mischance, proved quite full of hair: which sounds fabulous, but yet i believe precedents are upon record, as in dr. plot's _history of staffordshire_. "his chambers being afterwards stripp'd, mr. casbury came by part of the hangings of it, which 'twas said this charlett had design'd expressly for a memorial of his hair, giving the fellow that drew it a lock to work by, and the piece which i have fasten'd in here was parcel of the same, which mr. casbury gave to me. he said he believ'd there was a subtlety in the drawing, but had never discover'd it himself, nor much liked to pore upon it." * * * * * the money spent upon the curtains might as well have been thrown into the fire, as they were. mr. cattell's comment upon what he heard of the story took the form of a quotation from shakespeare. you may guess it without difficulty. it began with the words "there are more things." an episode of cathedral history an episode of cathedral history there was once a learned gentleman who was deputed to examine and report upon the archives of the cathedral of southminster. the examination of these records demanded a very considerable expenditure of time: hence it became advisable for him to engage lodgings in the city: for though the cathedral body were profuse in their offers of hospitality, mr. lake felt that he would prefer to be master of his day. this was recognized as reasonable. the dean eventually wrote advising mr. lake, if he were not already suited, to communicate with mr. worby, the principal verger, who occupied a house convenient to the church and was prepared to take in a quiet lodger for three or four weeks. such an arrangement was precisely what mr. lake desired. terms were easily agreed upon, and early in december, like another mr. datchery (as he remarked to himself), the investigator found himself in the occupation of a very comfortable room in an ancient and "cathedraly" house. one so familiar with the customs of cathedral churches, and treated with such obvious consideration by the dean and chapter of this cathedral in particular, could not fail to command the respect of the head verger. mr. worby even acquiesced in certain modifications of statements he had been accustomed to offer for years to parties of visitors. mr. lake, on his part, found the verger a very cheery companion, and took advantage of any occasion that presented itself for enjoying his conversation when the day's work was over. one evening, about nine o'clock, mr. worby knocked at his lodger's door. "i've occasion," he said, "to go across to the cathedral, mr. lake, and i think i made you a promise when i did so next i would give you the opportunity to see what it looks like at night time. it is quite fine and dry outside, if you care to come." "to be sure i will; very much obliged to you, mr. worby, for thinking of it, but let me get my coat." "here it is, sir, and i've another lantern here that you'll find advisable for the steps, as there's no moon." "any one might think we were jasper and durdles, over again, mightn't they," said lake, as they crossed the close, for he had ascertained that the verger had read _edwin drood_. "well, so they might," said mr. worby, with a short laugh, "though i don't know whether we ought to take it as a compliment. odd ways, i often think, they had at that cathedral, don't it seem so to you, sir? full choral matins at seven o'clock in the morning all the year round. wouldn't suit our boys' voices nowadays, and i think there's one or two of the men would be applying for a rise if the chapter was to bring it in--particular the alltoes." they were now at the south-west door. as mr. worby was unlocking it, lake said, "did you ever find anybody locked in here by accident?" "twice i did. one was a drunk sailor; however he got in i don't know. i s'pose he went to sleep in the service, but by the time i got to him he was praying fit to bring the roof in. lor'! what a noise that man did make! said it was the first time he'd been inside a church for ten years, and blest if ever he'd try it again. the other was an old sheep: them boys it was, up to their games. that was the last time they tried it on, though. there, sir, now you see what we look like; our late dean used now and again to bring parties in, but he preferred a moonlight night, and there was a piece of verse he'd coat to 'em, relating to a scotch cathedral, i understand; but i don't know; i almost think the effect's better when it's all dark-like. seems to add to the size and heighth. now if you won't mind stopping somewhere in the nave while i go up into the choir where my business lays, you'll see what i mean." accordingly lake waited, leaning against a pillar, and watched the light wavering along the length of the church, and up the steps into the choir, until it was intercepted by some screen or other furniture, which only allowed the reflection to be seen on the piers and roof. not many minutes had passed before worby reappeared at the door of the choir and by waving his lantern signalled to lake to rejoin him. "i suppose it _is_ worby, and not a substitute," thought lake to himself, as he walked up the nave. there was, in fact, nothing untoward. worby showed him the papers which he had come to fetch out of the dean's stall, and asked him what he thought of the spectacle: lake agreed that it was well worth seeing. "i suppose," he said, as they walked towards the altar-steps together, "that you're too much used to going about here at night to feel nervous--but you must get a start every now and then, don't you, when a book falls down or a door swings to." "no, mr. lake, i can't say i think much about noises, not nowadays: i'm much more afraid of finding an escape of gas or a burst in the stove pipes than anything else. still there have been times, years ago. did you notice that plain altar-tomb there--fifteenth century we say it is, i don't know if you agree to that? well, if you didn't look at it, just come back and give it a glance, if you'd be so good." it was on the north side of the choir, and rather awkwardly placed: only about three feet from the enclosing stone screen. quite plain, as the verger had said, but for some ordinary stone panelling. a metal cross of some size on the northern side (that next to the screen) was the solitary feature of any interest. lake agreed that it was not earlier than the perpendicular period: "but," he said, "unless it's the tomb of some remarkable person, you'll forgive me for saying that i don't think it's particularly noteworthy." "well, i can't say as it is the tomb of anybody noted in 'istory," said worby, who had a dry smile on his face, "for we don't own any record whatsoever of who it was put up to. for all that, if you've half an hour to spare, sir, when we get back to the house, mr. lake, i could tell you a tale about that tomb. i won't begin on it now; it strikes cold here, and we don't want to be dawdling about all night." "of course i should like to hear it immensely." "very well, sir, you shall. now if i might put a question to you," he went on, as they passed down the choir aisle, "in our little local guide--and not only there, but in the little book on our cathedral in the series--you'll find it stated that this portion of the building was erected previous to the twelfth century. now of course i should be glad enough to take that view, but--mind the step, sir--but, i put it to you--does the lay of the stone 'ere in this portion of the wall (which he tapped with his key) does it to your eye carry the flavour of what you might call saxon masonry? no? i thought not; no more it does to me: now, if you'll believe me, i've said as much to those men--one's the librarian of our free libry here, and the other came down from london on purpose--fifty times, if i have once, but i might just as well have talked to that bit of stonework. but there it is, i suppose every one's got their opinions." the discussion of this peculiar trait of human nature occupied mr. worby almost up to the moment when he and lake re-entered the former's house. the condition of the fire in lake's sitting-room led to a suggestion from mr. worby that they should finish the evening in his own parlour. we find them accordingly settled there some short time afterwards. mr. worby made his story a long one, and i will not undertake to tell it wholly in his own words, or in his own order. lake committed the substance of it to paper immediately after hearing it, together with some few passages of the narrative which had fixed themselves _verbatim_ in his mind; i shall probably find it expedient to condense lake's record to some extent. mr. worby was born, it appeared, about the year . his father before him had been connected with the cathedral, and likewise his grandfather. one or both had been choristers, and in later life both had done work as mason and carpenter respectively about the fabric. worby himself, though possessed, as he frankly acknowledged, of an indifferent voice, had been drafted into the choir at about ten years of age. it was in that the wave of the gothic revival smote the cathedral of southminster. "there was a lot of lovely stuff went then, sir," said worby, with a sigh. "my father couldn't hardly believe it when he got his orders to clear out the choir. there was a new dean just come in--dean burscough it was--and my father had been 'prenticed to a good firm of joiners in the city, and knew what good work was when he saw it. crool it was, he used to say: all that beautiful wainscot oak, as good as the day it was put up, and garlands-like of foliage and fruit, and lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes. all went to the timber yard--every bit except some little pieces worked up in the lady chapel, and 'ere in this overmantel. well--i may be mistook, but i say our choir never looked as well since. still there was a lot found out about the history of the church, and no doubt but what it did stand in need of repair. there were very few winters passed but what we'd lose a pinnicle." mr. lake expressed his concurrence with worby's views of restoration, but owns to a fear about this point lest the story proper should never be reached. possibly this was perceptible in his manner. worby hastened to reassure him, "not but what i could carry on about that topic for hours at a time, and do do when i see my opportunity. but dean burscough he was very set on the gothic period, and nothing would serve him but everything must be made agreeable to that. and one morning after service he appointed for my father to meet him in the choir, and he came back after he'd taken off his robes in the vestry, and he'd got a roll of paper with him, and the verger that was then brought in a table, and they begun spreading it out on the table with prayer books to keep it down, and my father helped 'em, and he saw it was a picture of the inside of a choir in a cathedral; and the dean--he was a quick spoken gentleman--he says, 'well, worby, what do you think of that?' 'why', says my father, 'i don't think i 'ave the pleasure of knowing that view. would that be hereford cathedral, mr. dean?' 'no, worby,' says the dean, 'that's southminster cathedral as we hope to see it before many years.' 'in-deed, sir,' says my father, and that was all he did say--leastways to the dean--but he used to tell me he felt really faint in himself when he looked round our choir as i can remember it, all comfortable and furnished-like, and then see this nasty little dry picter, as he called it, drawn out by some london architect. well, there i am again. but you'll see what i mean if you look at this old view." worby reached down a framed print from the wall. "well, the long and the short of it was that the dean he handed over to my father a copy of an order of the chapter that he was to clear out every bit of the choir--make a clean sweep--ready for the new work that was being designed up in town, and he was to put it in hand as soon as ever he could get the breakers together. now then, sir, if you look at that view, you'll see where the pulpit used to stand: that's what i want you to notice, if you please." it was, indeed, easily seen; an unusually large structure of timber with a domed sounding-board, standing at the east end of the stalls on the north side of the choir, facing the bishop's throne. worby proceeded to explain that during the alterations, services were held in the nave, the members of the choir being thereby disappointed of an anticipated holiday, and the organist in particular incurring the suspicion of having wilfully damaged the mechanism of the temporary organ that was hired at considerable expense from london. the work of demolition began with the choir screen and organ loft, and proceeded gradually eastwards, disclosing, as worby said, many interesting features of older work. while this was going on, the members of the chapter were, naturally, in and about the choir a great deal, and it soon became apparent to the elder worby--who could not help overhearing some of their talk--that, on the part of the senior canons especially, there must have been a good deal of disagreement before the policy now being carried out had been adopted. some were of opinion that they should catch their deaths of cold in the return-stalls, unprotected by a screen from the draughts in the nave: others objected to being exposed to the view of persons in the choir aisles, especially, they said, during the sermons, when they found it helpful to listen in a posture which was liable to misconstruction. the strongest opposition, however, came from the oldest of the body, who up to the last moment objected to the removal of the pulpit. "you ought not to touch it, mr. dean," he said with great emphasis one morning, when the two were standing before it: "you don't know what mischief you may do." "mischief? it's not a work of any particular merit, canon." "don't call me canon," said the old man with great asperity, "that is, for thirty years i've been known as dr. ayloff, and i shall be obliged, mr. dean, if you would kindly humour me in that matter. and as to the pulpit (which i've preached from for thirty years, though i don't insist on that) all i'll say is, i _know_ you're doing wrong in moving it." "but what sense could there be, my dear doctor, in leaving it where it is, when we're fitting up the rest of the choir in a totally different _style_? what reason could be given--apart from the look of the thing?" "reason! reason!" said old dr. ayloff; "if you young men--if i may say so without any disrespect, mr. dean--if you'd only listen to reason a little, and not be always asking for it, we should get on better. but there, i've said my say." the old gentleman hobbled off, and as it proved, never entered the cathedral again. the season--it was a hot summer--turned sickly on a sudden. dr. ayloff was one of the first to go, with some affection of the muscles of the thorax, which took him painfully at night. and at many services the number of choirmen and boys was very thin. meanwhile the pulpit had been done away with. in fact, the sounding-board (part of which still exists as a table in a summer-house in the palace garden) was taken down within an hour or two of dr. ayloff's protest. the removal of the base--not effected without considerable trouble--disclosed to view, greatly to the exultation of the restoring party, an altar-tomb--the tomb, of course, to which worby had attracted lake's attention that same evening. much fruitless research was expended in attempts to identify the occupant; from that day to this he has never had a name put to him. the structure had been most carefully boxed in under the pulpit-base, so that such slight ornament as it possessed was not defaced; only on the north side of it there was what looked like an injury; a gap between two of the slabs composing the side. it might be two or three inches across. palmer, the mason, was directed to fill it up in a week's time, when he came to do some other small jobs near that part of the choir. the season was undoubtedly a very trying one. whether the church was built on a site that had once been a marsh, as was suggested, or for whatever reason, the residents in its immediate neighbourhood had, many of them, but little enjoyment of the exquisite sunny days and the calm nights of august and september. to several of the older people--dr. ayloff, among others, as we have seen--the summer proved downright fatal, but even among the younger, few escaped either a sojourn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. gradually there formulated itself a suspicion--which grew into a conviction--that the alterations in the cathedral had something to say in the matter. the widow of a former old verger, a pensioner of the chapter of southminster, was visited by dreams, which she retailed to her friends, of a shape that slipped out of the little door of the south transept as the dark fell in, and flitted--taking a fresh direction every night--about the close, disappearing for a while in house after house, and finally emerging again when the night sky was paling. she could see nothing of it, she said, but that it was a moving form: only she had an impression that when it returned to the church, as it seemed to do in the end of the dream, it turned its head: and then, she could not tell why, but she thought it had red eyes. worby remembered hearing the old lady tell this dream at a tea-party in the house of the chapter clerk. its recurrence might, perhaps, he said, be taken as a symptom of approaching illness; at any rate before the end of september the old lady was in her grave. the interest excited by the restoration of this great church was not confined to its own county. one day that summer an f.s.a., of some celebrity, visited the place. his business was to write an account of the discoveries that had been made, for the society of antiquaries, and his wife, who accompanied him, was to make a series of illustrative drawings for his report. in the morning she employed herself in making a general sketch of the choir; in the afternoon she devoted herself to details. she first drew the newly exposed altar-tomb, and when that was finished, she called her husband's attention to a beautiful piece of diaper-ornament on the screen just behind it, which had, like the tomb itself, been completely concealed by the pulpit. of course, he said, an illustration of that must be made; so she seated herself on the tomb and began a careful drawing which occupied her till dusk. her husband had by this time finished his work of measuring and description, and they agreed that it was time to be getting back to their hotel. "you may as well brush my skirt, frank," said the lady, "it must have got covered with dust, i'm sure." he obeyed dutifully; but, after a moment, he said, "i don't know whether you value this dress particularly, my dear, but i'm inclined to think it's seen its best days. there's a great bit of it gone." "gone? where?" said she. "i don't know where it's gone, but it's off at the bottom edge behind here." she pulled it hastily into sight, and was horrified to find a jagged tear extending some way into the substance of the stuff; very much, she said, as if a dog had rent it away. the dress was, in any case, hopelessly spoilt, to her great vexation, and though they looked everywhere, the missing piece could not be found. there were many ways, they concluded, in which the injury might have come about, for the choir was full of old bits of woodwork with nails sticking out of them. finally, they could only suppose that one of these had caused the mischief, and that the workmen, who had been about all day, had carried off the particular piece with the fragment of dress still attached to it. it was about this time, worby thought, that his little dog began to wear an anxious expression when the hour for it to be put into the shed in the back yard approached. (for his mother had ordained that it must not sleep in the house.) one evening, he said, when he was just going to pick it up and carry it out, it looked at him "like a christian, and waved its 'and, i was going to say--well, you know 'ow they do carry on sometimes, and the end of it was i put it under my coat, and 'uddled it upstairs--and i'm afraid i as good as deceived my poor mother on the subject. after that the dog acted very artful with 'iding itself under the bed for half-an-hour or more before bed-time came, and we worked it so as my mother never found out what we'd done." of course worby was glad of its company anyhow, but more particularly when the nuisance that is still remembered in southminster as "the crying" set in. "night after night," said worby, "that dog seemed to know it was coming; he'd creep out, he would, and snuggle into the bed and cuddle right up to me shivering, and when the crying come he'd be like a wild thing, shoving his head under my arm, and i was fully near as bad. six or seven times we'd hear it, not more, and when he'd dror out his 'ed again i'd know it was over for that night. what was it like, sir? well, i never heard but one thing that seemed to hit it off. i happened to be playing about in the close, and there was two of the canons met and said 'good morning' one to another. 'sleep well last night?' says one--it was mr. henslow that one, and mr. lyall was the other--'can't say i did,' says mr. lyall, 'rather too much of isaiah . for me.' ' . ,' says mr. henslow, 'what's that?' 'you call yourself a bible reader!' says mr. lyall. (mr. henslow, you must know, he was one of what used to be termed simeon's lot--pretty much what we should call the evangelical party.) 'you go and look it up.' i wanted to know what he was getting at myself, and so off i ran home and got out my own bible, and there it was: 'the satyr shall cry to his fellow.' well, i thought, is that what we've been listening to these past nights? and i tell you it made me look over my shoulder a time or two. of course i'd asked my father and mother about what it could be before that, but they both said it was most likely cats: but they spoke very short, and i could see they was troubled. my word! that was a noise--'ungry-like, as if it was calling after some one that wouldn't come. if ever you felt you wanted company, it would be when you was waiting for it to begin again. i believe two or three nights there was men put on to watch in different parts of the close; but they all used to get together in one corner, the nearest they could to the high street, and nothing came of it. "well, the next thing was this. me and another of the boys--he's in business in the city now as a grocer, like his father before him--we'd gone up in the close after morning service was over, and we heard old palmer the mason bellowing to some of his men. so we went up nearer, because we knew he was a rusty old chap and there might be some fun going. it appears palmer'd told this man to stop up the chink in that old tomb. well, there was this man keeping on saying he'd done it the best he could, and there was palmer carrying on like all possessed about it. 'call that making a job of it?' he says. 'if you had your rights you'd get the sack for this. what do you suppose i pay you your wages for? what do you suppose i'm going to say to the dean and chapter when they come round, as come they may do any time, and see where you've been bungling about covering the 'ole place with mess and plaster and lord knows what?' 'well, master, i done the best i could,' says the man; 'i don't know no more than what you do 'ow it come to fall out this way. i tamped it right in the 'ole,' he says, 'and now it's fell out,' he says, 'i never see.' "'fell out?' says old palmer, 'why it's nowhere near the place. blowed out, you mean,' and he picked up a bit of plaster, and so did i, that was laying up against the screen, three or four feet off, and not dry yet; and old palmer he looked at it curious-like, and then he turned round on me and he says, 'now then, you boys, have you been up to some of your games here?' 'no,' i says, 'i haven't, mr. palmer; there's none of us been about here till just this minute,' and while i was talking the other boy, evans, he got looking in through the chink, and i heard him draw in his breath, and he came away sharp and up to us, and says he, 'i believe there's something in there. i saw something shiny.' 'what! i daresay,' says old palmer; 'well, i ain't got time to stop about there. you, william, you go off and get some more stuff and make a job of it this time; if not, there'll be trouble in my yard,' he says. "so the man he went off, and palmer too, and us boys stopped behind, and i says to evans, 'did you really see anything in there?' 'yes,' he says, 'i did indeed.' so then i says, 'let's shove something in and stir it up.' and we tried several of the bits of wood that was laying about, but they were all too big. then evans he had a sheet of music he'd brought with him, an anthem or a service, i forget which it was now, and he rolled it up small and shoved it in the chink; two or three times he did it, and nothing happened. 'give it me, boy,' i said, and i had a try. no, nothing happened. then, i don't know why i thought of it, i'm sure, but i stooped down just opposite the chink and put my two fingers in my mouth and whistled--you know the way--and at that i seemed to think i heard something stirring, and i says to evans, 'come away,' i says; 'i don't like this.' 'oh, rot,' he says, 'give me that roll,' and he took it and shoved it in. and i don't think ever i see any one go so pale as he did. 'i say, worby,' he says, 'it's caught, or else some one's got hold of it.' 'pull it out or leave it,' i says, 'come and let's get off.' so he gave a good pull, and it came away. leastways most of it did, but the end was gone. torn off it was, and evans looked at it for a second and then he gave a sort of a croak and let it drop, and we both made off out of there as quick as ever we could. when we got outside evans says to me, 'did you see the end of that paper.' 'no,' i says, 'only it was torn.' 'yes, it was,' he says, 'but it was wet too, and black!' well, partly because of the fright we had, and partly because that music was wanted in a day or two, and we knew there'd be a set-out about it with the organist, we didn't say nothing to any one else, and i suppose the workmen they swept up the bit that was left along with the rest of the rubbish. but evans, if you were to ask him this very day about it, he'd stick to it he saw that paper wet and black at the end where it was torn." after that the boys gave the choir a wide berth, so that worby was not sure what was the result of the mason's renewed mending of the tomb. only he made out from fragments of conversation dropped by the workmen passing through the choir that some difficulty had been met with, and that the governor--mr. palmer to wit--had tried his own hand at the job. a little later, he happened to see mr. palmer himself knocking at the door of the deanery and being admitted by the butler. a day or so after that, he gathered from a remark his father let fall at breakfast that something a little out of the common was to be done in the cathedral after morning service on the morrow. "and i'd just as soon it was to-day," his father added, "i don't see the use of running risks." "'father,' i says, 'what are you going to do in the cathedral to-morrow?' and he turned on me as savage as i ever see him--he was a wonderful good-tempered man as a general thing, my poor father was. 'my lad,' he says, 'i'll trouble you not to go picking up your elders' and betters' talk: it's not manners and it's not straight. what i'm going to do or not going to do in the cathedral to-morrow is none of your business: and if i catch sight of you hanging about the place to-morrow after your work's done, i'll send you home with a flea in your ear. now you mind that.' of course i said i was very sorry and that, and equally of course i went off and laid my plans with evans. we knew there was a stair up in the corner of the transept which you can get up to the triforium, and in them days the door to it was pretty well always open, and even if it wasn't we knew the key usually laid under a bit of matting hard by. so we made up our minds we'd be putting away music and that, next morning while the rest of the boys was clearing off, and then slip up the stairs and watch from the triforium if there was any signs of work going on. "well, that same night i dropped off asleep as sound as a boy does, and all of a sudden the dog woke me up, coming into the bed, and thought i, now we're going to get it sharp, for he seemed more frightened than usual. after about five minutes sure enough came this cry. i can't give you no idea what it was like; and so near too--nearer than i'd heard it yet--and a funny thing, mr. lake, you know what a place this close is for an echo, and particular if you stand this side of it. well, this crying never made no sign of an echo at all. but, as i said, it was dreadful near this night; and on the top of the start i got with hearing it, i got another fright; for i heard something rustling outside in the passage. now to be sure i thought i was done; but i noticed the dog seemed to perk up a bit, and next there was some one whispered outside the door, and i very near laughed out loud, for i knew it was my father and mother that had got out of bed with the noise. 'whatever is it?' says my mother. 'hush! i don't know,' says my father, excited-like, 'don't disturb the boy. i hope he didn't hear nothing.' "so, me knowing they were just outside, it made me bolder, and i slipped out of bed across to my little window--giving on the close--but the dog he bored right down to the bottom of the bed--and i looked out. first go off i couldn't see anything. then right down in the shadow under a buttress i made out what i shall always say was two spots of red--a dull red it was--nothing like a lamp or a fire, but just so as you could pick 'em out of the black shadow. i hadn't but just sighted 'em when it seemed we wasn't the only people that had been disturbed, because i see a window in a house on the left-hand side become lighted up, and the light moving. i just turned my head to make sure of it, and then looked back into the shadow for those two red things, and they were gone, and for all i peered about and stared, there was not a sign more of them. then come my last fright that night--something come against my bare leg--but that was all right: that was my little dog had come out of bed, and prancing about, making a great to-do, only holding his tongue, and me seeing he was quite in spirits again, i took him back to bed and we slept the night out! "next morning i made out to tell my mother i'd had the dog in my room, and i was surprised, after all she'd said about it before, how quiet she took it. 'did you?' she says. 'well, by good rights you ought to go without your breakfast for doing such a thing behind my back: but i don't know as there's any great harm done, only another time you ask my permission, do you hear?' a bit after that i said something to my father about having heard the cats again. '_cats_,' he says, and he looked over at my poor mother, and she coughed and he says, 'oh! ah! yes, cats. i believe i heard 'em myself.' "that was a funny morning altogether: nothing seemed to go right. the organist he stopped in bed, and the minor canon he forgot it was the th day and waited for the _venite_; and after a bit the deputy he set off playing the chant for evensong, which was a minor; and then the decani boys were laughing so much they couldn't sing, and when it came to the anthem the solo boy he got took with the giggles, and made out his nose was bleeding, and shoved the book at me what hadn't practised the verse and wasn't much of a singer if i had known it. well, things was rougher, you see, fifty years ago, and i got a nip from the counter-tenor behind me that i remembered. "so we got through somehow, and neither the men nor the boys weren't by way of waiting to see whether the canon in residence--mr. henslow it was--would come to the vestries and fine 'em, but i don't believe he did: for one thing i fancy he'd read the wrong lesson for the first time in his life, and knew it. anyhow evans and me didn't find no difficulty in slipping up the stairs as i told you, and when we got up we laid ourselves down flat on our stomachs where we could just stretch our heads out over the old tomb, and we hadn't but just done so when we heard the verger that was then, first shutting the iron porch-gates and locking the south-west door, and then the transept door, so we knew there was something up, and they meant to keep the public out for a bit. "next thing was, the dean and the canon come in by their door on the north, and then i see my father, and old palmer, and a couple of their best men, and palmer stood a talking for a bit with the dean in the middle of the choir. he had a coil of rope and the men had crows. all of 'em looked a bit nervous. so there they stood talking, and at last i heard the dean say, 'well, i've no time to waste, palmer. if you think this'll satisfy southminster people, i'll permit it to be done; but i must say this, that never in the whole course of my life have i heard such arrant nonsense from a practical man as i have from you. don't you agree with me, henslow?' as far as i could hear mr. henslow said something like 'oh! well we're told, aren't we, mr. dean, not to judge others?' and the dean he gave a kind of sniff, and walked straight up to the tomb, and took his stand behind it with his back to the screen, and the others they come edging up rather gingerly. henslow, he stopped on the south side and scratched on his chin, he did. then the dean spoke up: 'palmer,' he says, 'which can you do easiest, get the slab off the top, or shift one of the side slabs?' "old palmer and his men they pottered about a bit looking round the edge of the top slab and sounding the sides on the south and east and west and everywhere but the north. henslow said something about it being better to have a try at the south side, because there was more light and more room to move about in. then my father, who'd been watching of them, went round to the north side, and knelt down and felt of the slab by the chink, and he got up and dusted his knees and says to the dean: 'beg pardon, mr. dean, but i think if mr. palmer'll try this here slab he'll find it'll come out easy enough. seems to me one of the men could prize it out with his crow by means of this chink.' 'ah! thank you, worby,' says the dean; 'that's a good suggestion. palmer, let one of your men do that, will you?' "so the man come round, and put his bar in and bore on it, and just that minute when they were all bending over, and we boys got our heads well out over the edge of the triforium, there come a most fearful crash down at the west end of the choir, as if a whole stack of big timber had fallen down a flight of stairs. well, you can't expect me to tell you everything that happened all in a minute. of course there was a terrible commotion. i heard the slab fall out, and the crowbar on the floor, and i heard the dean say 'good god!' "when i looked down again i saw the dean tumbled over on the floor, the men was making off down the choir, henslow was just going to help the dean up, palmer was going to stop the men, as he said afterwards, and my father was sitting on the altar step with his face in his hands. the dean he was very cross. 'i wish to goodness you'd look where you're coming to, henslow,' he says. 'why you should all take to your heels when a stick of wood tumbles down i cannot imagine,' and all henslow could do, explaining he was right away on the other side of the tomb, would not satisfy him. "then palmer came back and reported there was nothing to account for this noise and nothing seemingly fallen down, and when the dean finished feeling of himself they gathered round--except my father, he sat where he was--and some one lighted up a bit of candle and they looked into the tomb. 'nothing there,' says the dean, 'what did i tell you? stay! here's something. what's this: a bit of music paper, and a piece of torn stuff--part of a dress it looks like. both quite modern--no interest whatever. another time perhaps you'll take the advice of an educated man'--or something like that, and off he went, limping a bit, and out through the north door, only as he went he called back angry to palmer for leaving the door standing open. palmer called out 'very sorry, sir,' but he shrugged his shoulders, and henslow says, 'i fancy mr. dean's mistaken. i closed the door behind me, but he's a little upset.' then palmer says, 'why, where's worby?' and they saw him sitting on the step and went up to him. he was recovering himself, it seemed, and wiping his forehead, and palmer helped him up on to his legs, as i was glad to see. "they were too far off for me to hear what they said, but my father pointed to the north door in the aisle, and palmer and henslow both of them looked very surprised and scared. after a bit, my father and henslow went out of the church, and the others made what haste they could to put the slab back and plaster it in. and about as the clock struck twelve the cathedral was opened again and us boys made the best of our way home. "i was in a great taking to know what it was had given my poor father such a turn, and when i got in and found him sitting in his chair taking a glass of spirits, and my mother standing looking anxious at him, i couldn't keep from bursting out and making confession where i'd been. but he didn't seem to take on, not in the way of losing his temper. 'you was there, was you? well did you see it?' 'i see everything, father,' i said, 'except when the noise came.' 'did you see what it was knocked the dean over?' he says, 'that what come out of the monument? you didn't? well, that's a mercy.' 'why, what was it, father?' i said. 'come, you must have seen it,' he says. '_didn't_ you see? a thing like a man, all over hair, and two great eyes to it?' "well, that was all i could get out of him that time, and later on he seemed as if he was ashamed of being so frightened, and he used to put me off when i asked him about it. but years after, when i was got to be a grown man, we had more talk now and again on the matter, and he always said the same thing. 'black it was,' he'd say, 'and a mass of hair, and two legs, and the light caught on its eyes.' "well, that's the tale of that tomb, mr. lake; it's one we don't tell to our visitors, and i should be obliged to you not to make any use of it till i'm out of the way. i doubt mr. evans'll feel the same as i do, if you ask him." this proved to be the case. but over twenty years have passed by, and the grass is growing over both worby and evans; so mr. lake felt no difficulty about communicating his notes--taken in --to me. he accompanied them with a sketch of the tomb and a copy of the short inscription on the metal cross which was affixed at the expense of dr. lyall to the centre of the northern side. it was from the vulgate of isaiah xxxiv., and consisted merely of the three words-- ibi cubavit lamia. the story of a disappearance and an appearance the story of a disappearance and an appearance the letters which i now publish were sent to me recently by a person who knows me to be interested in ghost stories. there is no doubt about their authenticity. the paper on which they are written, the ink, and the whole external aspect put their date beyond the reach of question. the only point which they do not make clear is the identity of the writer. he signs with initials only, and as none of the envelopes of the letters are preserved, the surname of his correspondent--obviously a married brother--is as obscure as his own. no further preliminary explanation is needed, i think. luckily the first letter supplies all that could be expected. letter i great chrishall, _dec. , _. my dear robert,--it is with great regret for the enjoyment i am losing, and for a reason which you will deplore equally with myself, that i write to inform you that i am unable to join your circle for this christmas: but you will agree with me that it is unavoidable when i say that i have within these few hours received a letter from mrs. hunt at b----, to the effect that our uncle henry has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and begging me to go down there immediately and join the search that is being made for him. little as i, or you either, i think, have ever seen of uncle, i naturally feel that this is not a request that can be regarded lightly, and accordingly i propose to go to b---- by this afternoon's mail, reaching it late in the evening. i shall not go to the rectory, but put up at the king's head, and to which you may address letters. i enclose a small draft, which you will please make use of for the benefit of the young people. i shall write you daily (supposing me to be detained more than a single day) what goes on, and you may be sure, should the business be cleared up in time to permit of my coming to the manor after all, i shall present myself. i have but a few minutes at disposal. with cordial greetings to you all, and many regrets, believe me, your affectionate bro., w. r. letter ii king's head, _dec. , ' _. my dear robert,--in the first place, there is as yet no news of uncle h., and i think you may finally dismiss any idea--i won't say hope--that i might after all "turn up" for xmas. however, my thoughts will be with you, and you have my best wishes for a really festive day. mind that none of my nephews or nieces expend any fraction of their guineas on presents for me. since i got here i have been blaming myself for taking this affair of uncle h. too easily. from what people here say, i gather that there is very little hope that he can still be alive; but whether it is accident or design that carried him off i cannot judge. the facts are these. on friday the th, he went as usual shortly before five o'clock to read evening prayers at the church; and when they were over the clerk brought him a message, in response to which he set off to pay a visit to a sick person at an outlying cottage the better part of two miles away. he paid the visit, and started on his return journey at about half-past six. this is the last that is known of him. the people here are very much grieved at his loss; he had been here many years, as you know, and though, as you also know, he was not the most genial of men, and had more than a little of the _martinet_ in his composition, he seems to have been active in good works, and unsparing of trouble to himself. poor mrs. hunt, who has been his housekeeper ever since she left woodley, is quite overcome: it seems like the end of the world to her. i am glad that i did not entertain the idea of taking quarters at the rectory; and i have declined several kindly offers of hospitality from people in the place, preferring as i do to be independent, and finding myself very comfortable here. you will, of course, wish to know what has been done in the way of inquiry and search. first, nothing was to be expected from investigation at the rectory; and to be brief, nothing has transpired. i asked mrs. hunt--as others had done before--whether there was either any unfavourable symptom in her master such as might portend a sudden stroke, or attack of illness, or whether he had ever had reason to apprehend any such thing: but both she, and also his medical man, were clear that this was not the case. he was quite in his usual health. in the second place, naturally, ponds and streams have been dragged, and fields in the neighbourhood which he is known to have visited last, have been searched--without result. i have myself talked to the parish clerk and--more important--have been to the house where he paid his visit. there can be no question of any foul play on these people's part. the one man in the house is ill in bed and very weak: the wife and the children of course could do nothing themselves, nor is there the shadow of a probability that they or any of them should have agreed to decoy poor uncle h. out in order that he might be attacked on the way back. they had told what they knew to several other inquirers already, but the woman repeated it to me. the rector was looking just as usual: he wasn't very long with the sick man--"he ain't," she said, "like some what has a gift in prayer; but there, if we was all that way, 'owever would the chapel people get their living?" he left some money when he went away, and one of the children saw him cross the stile into the next field. he was dressed as he always was: wore his bands--i gather he is nearly the last man remaining who does so--at any rate in this district. you see i am putting down everything. the fact is that i have nothing else to do, having brought no business papers with me; and, moreover, it serves to clear my own mind, and may suggest points which have been overlooked. so i shall continue to write all that passes, even to conversations if need be--you may read or not as you please, but pray keep the letters. i have another reason for writing so fully, but it is not a very tangible one. you may ask if i have myself made any search in the fields near the cottage. something--a good deal--has been done by others, as i mentioned; but i hope to go over the ground to-morrow. bow street has now been informed, and will send down by to-night's coach, but i do not think they will make much of the job. there is no snow, which might have helped us. the fields are all grass. of course i was on the _qui vive_ for any indication to-day both going and returning; but there was a thick mist on the way back, and i was not in trim for wandering about unknown pastures, especially on an evening when bushes looked like men, and a cow lowing in the distance might have been the last trump. i assure you, if uncle henry had stepped out from among the trees in a little copse which borders the path at one place, carrying his head under his arm, i should have been very little more uncomfortable than i was. to tell you the truth, i was rather expecting something of the kind. but i must drop my pen for the moment: mr. lucas, the curate, is announced. _later._ mr. lucas has been, and gone, and there is not much beyond the decencies of ordinary sentiment to be got from him. i can see that he has given up any idea that the rector can be alive, and that, so far as he can be, he is truly sorry. i can also discern that even in a more emotional person than mr. lucas, uncle henry was not likely to inspire strong attachment. besides mr. lucas, i have had another visitor in the shape of my boniface--mine host of the "king's head"--who came to see whether i had everything i wished, and who really requires the pen of a boz to do him justice. he was very solemn and weighty at first. "well, sir," he said, "i suppose we must bow our 'ead beneath the blow, as my poor wife had used to say. so far as i can gather there's been neither hide nor yet hair of our late respected incumbent scented out as yet; not that he was what the scripture terms a hairy man in any sense of the word." i said--as well as i could--that i supposed not, but could not help adding that i had heard he was sometimes a little difficult to deal with. mr. bowman looked at me sharply for a moment, and then passed in a flash from solemn sympathy to impassioned declamation. "when i think," he said, "of the language that man see fit to employ to me in this here parlour over no more a matter than a cask of beer--such a thing as i told him might happen any day of the week to a man with a family--though as it turned out he was quite under a mistake, and that i knew at the time, only i was that shocked to hear him i couldn't lay my tongue to the right expression." he stopped abruptly and eyed me with some embarrassment. i only said, "dear me, i'm sorry to hear you had any little differences; i suppose my uncle will be a good deal missed in the parish?" mr. bowman drew a long breath. "ah, yes!" he said; "your uncle! you'll understand me when i say that for the moment it had slipped my remembrance that he was a relative; and natural enough, i must say, as it should, for as to you bearing any resemblance to--to him, the notion of any such a thing is clean ridiculous. all the same, 'ad i 'ave bore it in my mind, you'll be among the first to feel, i'm sure, as i should have abstained my lips, or rather i should _not_ have abstained my lips with no such reflections." i assured him that i quite understood, and was going to have asked him some further questions, but he was called away to see after some business. by the way, you need not take it into your head that he has anything to fear from the inquiry into poor uncle henry's disappearance--though, no doubt, in the watches of the night it will occur to him that _i_ think he has, and i may expect explanations to-morrow. i must close this letter: it has to go by the late coach. letter iii _dec. , ' _. my dear robert,--this is a curious letter to be writing on christmas day, and yet after all there is nothing much in it. or there may be--you shall be the judge. at least, nothing decisive. the bow street men practically say that they have no clue. the length of time and the weather conditions have made all tracks so faint as to be quite useless: nothing that belonged to the dead man--i'm afraid no other word will do--has been picked up. as i expected, mr. bowman was uneasy in his mind this morning; quite early i heard him holding forth in a very distinct voice--purposely so, i thought--to the bow street officers in the bar, as to the loss that the town had sustained in their rector, and as to the necessity of leaving no stone unturned (he was very great on this phrase) in order to come at the truth. i suspect him of being an orator of repute at convivial meetings. when i was at breakfast he came to wait on me, and took an opportunity when handing a muffin to say in a low tone, "i 'ope, sir, you reconize as my feelings towards your relative is not actuated by any taint of what you may call melignity--you can leave the room, eliza, i will see the gentleman 'as all he requires with my own hands--i ask your pardon, sir, but you must be well aware a man is not always master of himself: and when that man has been 'urt in his mind by the application of expressions which i will go so far as to say 'ad not ought to have been made use of (his voice was rising all this time and his face growing redder); no, sir; and 'ere, if you will permit of it, i should like to explain to you in a very few words the exact state of the bone of contention. this cask--i might more truly call it a firkin--of beer--" i felt it was time to interpose, and said that i did not see that it would help us very much to go into that matter in detail. mr. bowman acquiesced, and resumed more calmly: "well, sir, i bow to your ruling, and as you say, be that here or be it there, it don't contribute a great deal, perhaps, to the present question. all i wish you to understand is that i am prepared as you are yourself to lend every hand to the business we have afore us, and--as i took the opportunity to say as much to the orficers not three-quarters of an hour ago--to leave no stone unturned as may throw even a spark of light on this painful matter." in fact, mr. bowman did accompany us on our exploration, but though i am sure his genuine wish was to be helpful, i am afraid he did not contribute to the serious side of it. he appeared to be under the impression that we were likely to meet either uncle henry or the person responsible for his disappearance, walking about the fields--and did a great deal of shading his eyes with his hand and calling our attention, by pointing with his stick, to distant cattle and labourers. he held several long conversations with old women whom we met, and was very strict and severe in his manner--but on each occasion returned to our party saying, "well, i find she don't seem to 'ave no connexion with this sad affair. i think you may take it from me, sir, as there's little or no light to be looked for from that quarter; not without she's keeping somethink back intentional." we gained no appreciable result, as i told you at starting; the bow street men have left the town, whether for london or not, i am not sure. this evening i had company in the shape of a bagman, a smartish fellow. he knew what was going forward, but though he has been on the roads for some days about here, he had nothing to tell of suspicious characters--tramps, wandering sailors or gipsies. he was very full of a capital punch and judy show he had seen this same day at w----, and asked if it had been here yet, and advised me by no means to miss it if it does come. the best punch and the best toby dog, he said, he had ever come across. toby dogs, you know, are the last new thing in the shows. i have only seen one myself, but before long all the men will have them. now why, you will want to know, do i trouble to write all this to you? i am obliged to do it, because it has something to do with another absurd trifle (as you will inevitably say), which in my present state of rather unquiet fancy--nothing more, perhaps--i have to put down. it is a dream, sir, which i am going to record, and i must say it is one of the oddest i have had. is there anything in it beyond what the bagman's talk and uncle henry's disappearance could have suggested? you, i repeat, shall judge: i am not in a sufficiently cool and judicial frame to do so. it began with what i can only describe as a pulling aside of curtains: and i found myself seated in a place--i don't know whether in doors or out. there were people--only a few--on either side of me, but i did not recognize them, or indeed think much about them. they never spoke, but, so far as i remember, were all grave and pale-faced and looked fixedly before them. facing me there was a punch and judy show, perhaps rather larger than the ordinary ones, painted with black figures on a reddish-yellow ground. behind it and on each side was only darkness, but in front there was a sufficiency of light. i was "strung up" to a high degree of expectation and listened every moment to hear the panpipes and the roo-too-too-it. instead of that there came suddenly an enormous--i can use no other word--an enormous single toll of a bell, i don't know from how far off--somewhere behind. the little curtain flew up and the drama began. i believe someone once tried to re-write punch as a serious tragedy; but whoever he may have been, this performance would have suited him exactly. there was something satanic about the hero. he varied his methods of attack: for some of his victims he lay in wait, and to see his horrible face--it was yellowish white, i may remark--peering round the wings made me think of the vampyre in fuseli's foul sketch. to others he was polite and carneying--particularly to the unfortunate alien who can only say _shallabalah_--though what punch said i never could catch. but with all of them i came to dread the moment of death. the crack of the stick on their skulls, which in the ordinary way delights me, had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as they lay. the baby--it sounds more ridiculous as i go on--the baby, i am sure, was alive. punch wrung its neck, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, i know nothing of reality. the stage got perceptibly darker as each crime was consummated, and at last there was one murder which was done quite in the dark, so that i could see nothing of the victim, and took some time to effect. it was accompanied by hard breathing and horrid muffled sounds, and after it punch came and sat on the foot-board and fanned himself and looked at his shoes, which were bloody, and hung his head on one side, and sniggered in so deadly a fashion that i saw some of those beside me cover their faces, and i would gladly have done the same. but in the meantime the scene behind punch was clearing, and showed, not the usual house front, but something more ambitious--a grove of trees and the gentle slope of a hill, with a very natural--in fact, i should say a real--moon shining on it. over this there rose slowly an object which i soon perceived to be a human figure with something peculiar about the head--what, i was unable at first to see. it did not stand on its feet, but began creeping or dragging itself across the middle distance towards punch, who still sat back to it; and by this time, i may remark (though it did not occur to me at the moment) that all pretence of this being a puppet show had vanished. punch was still punch, it is true, but, like the others, was in some sense a live creature, and both moved themselves at their own will. when i next glanced at him he was sitting in malignant reflection; but in another instant something seemed to attract his attention, and he first sat up sharply and then turned round, and evidently caught sight of the person that was approaching him and was in fact now very near. then, indeed, did he show unmistakable signs of terror: catching up his stick, he rushed towards the wood, only just eluding the arm of his pursuer, which was suddenly flung out to intercept him. it was with a revulsion which i cannot easily express that i now saw more or less clearly what this pursuer was like. he was a sturdy figure clad in black, and, as i thought, wearing bands: his head was covered with a whitish bag. the chase which now began lasted i do not know how long, now among the trees, now along the slope of the field, sometimes both figures disappearing wholly for a few seconds, and only some uncertain sounds letting one know that they were still afoot. at length there came a moment when punch, evidently exhausted, staggered in from the left and threw himself down among the trees. his pursuer was not long after him, and came looking uncertainly from side to side. then, catching sight of the figure on the ground, he too threw himself down--his back was turned to the audience--with a swift motion twitched the covering from his head, and thrust his face into that of punch. everything on the instant grew dark. there was one long, loud, shuddering scream, and i awoke to find myself looking straight into the face of--what in all the world do you think?--but a large owl, which was seated on my window-sill immediately opposite my bed-foot, holding up its wings like two shrouded arms. i caught the fierce glance of its yellow eyes, and then it was gone. i heard the single enormous bell again--very likely, as you are saying to yourself, the church clock; but i do not think so--and then i was broad awake. all this, i may say, happened within the last half-hour. there was no probability of my getting to sleep again, so i got up, put on clothes enough to keep me warm, and am writing this rigmarole in the first hours of christmas day. have i left out anything? yes, there was no toby dog, and the names over the front of the punch and judy booth were kidman and gallop, which were certainly not what the bagman told me to look out for. by this time, i feel a little more as if i could sleep, so this shall be sealed and wafered. letter iv _dec. , ' ._ my dear robert,--all is over. the body has been found. i do not make excuses for not having sent off my news by last night's mail, for the simple reason that i was incapable of putting pen to paper. the events that attended the discovery bewildered me so completely that i needed what i could get of a night's rest to enable me to face the situation at all. now i can give you my journal of the day, certainly the strangest christmas day that ever i spent or am likely to spend. the first incident was not very serious. mr. bowman had, i think, been keeping christmas eve, and was a little inclined to be captious: at least, he was not on foot very early, and to judge from what i could hear, neither men or maids could do anything to please him. the latter were certainly reduced to tears; nor am i sure that mr. bowman succeeded in preserving a manly composure. at any rate, when i came downstairs, it was in a broken voice that he wished me the compliments of the season, and a little later on, when he paid his visit of ceremony at breakfast, he was far from cheerful: even byronic, i might almost say, in his outlook on life. "i don't know," he said, "if you think with me, sir; but every christmas as comes round the world seems a hollerer thing to me. why, take an example now from what lays under my own eye. there's my servant eliza--been with me now for going on fifteen years. i thought i could have placed my confidence in elizar, and yet this very morning--christmas morning too, of all the blessed days in the year--with the bells a ringing and--and--all like that--i say, this very morning, had it not have been for providence watching over us all, that girl would have put--indeed i may go so far to say, 'ad put the cheese on your breakfast table----" he saw i was about to speak, and waved his hand at me. "it's all very well for you to say, 'yes, mr. bowman, but you took away the cheese and locked it up in the cupboard,' which i did, and have the key here, or if not the actual key one very much about the same size. that's true enough, sir, but what do you think is the effect of that action on me? why it's no exaggeration for me to say that the ground is cut from under my feet. and yet when i said as much to eliza, not nasty, mind you, but just firm like, what was my return? 'oh,' she says: 'well,' she says, 'there wasn't no bones broke, i suppose.' well, sir, it 'urt me, that's all i can say: it 'urt me, and i don't like to think of it now." there was an ominous pause here, in which i ventured to say something like, "yes, very trying," and then asked at what hour the church service was to be. "eleven o'clock," mr. bowman said with a heavy sigh. "ah, you won't have no such discourse from poor mr. lucas as what you would have done from our late rector. him and me may have had our little differences, and did do, more's the pity." i could see that a powerful effort was needed to keep him off the vexed question of the cask of beer, but he made it. "but i will say this, that a better preacher, nor yet one to stand faster by his rights, or what he considered to be his rights--however, that's not the question now--i for one, never set under. some might say, 'was he a eloquent man?' and to that my answer would be: 'well, there you've a better right per'aps to speak of your own uncle than what i have.' others might ask, 'did he keep a hold of his congregation?' and there again i should reply, 'that depends.' but as i say--yes, eliza, my girl, i'm coming--eleven o'clock, sir, and you inquire for the king's head pew." i believe eliza had been very near the door, and shall consider it in my vail. the next episode was church: i felt mr. lucas had a difficult task in doing justice to christmas sentiments, and also to the feeling of disquiet and regret which, whatever mr. bowman might say, was clearly prevalent. i do not think he rose to the occasion. i was uncomfortable. the organ wolved--you know what i mean: the wind died--twice in the christmas hymn, and the tenor bell, i suppose owing to some negligence on the part of the ringers, kept sounding faintly about once in a minute during the sermon. the clerk sent up a man to see to it, but he seemed unable to do much. i was glad when it was over. there was an odd incident, too, before the service. i went in rather early, and came upon two men carrying the parish bier back to its place under the tower. from what i overheard them saying, it appeared that it had been put out by mistake, by some one who was not there. i also saw the clerk busy folding up a moth-eaten velvet pall--not a sight for christmas day. i dined soon after this, and then, feeling disinclined to go out, took my seat by the fire in the parlour, with the last number of _pickwick_, which i had been saving up for some days. i thought i could be sure of keeping awake over this, but i turned out as bad as our friend smith. i suppose it was half-past two when i was roused by a piercing whistle and laughing and talking voices outside in the market-place. it was a punch and judy--i had no doubt the one that my bagman had seen at w----. i was half delighted, half not--the latter because my unpleasant dream came back to me so vividly; but, anyhow, i determined to see it through, and i sent eliza out with a crown-piece to the performers and a request that they would face my window if they could manage it. the show was a very smart new one; the names of the proprietors, i need hardly tell you, were italian, foresta and calpigi. the toby dog was there, as i had been led to expect. all b---- turned out, but did not obstruct my view, for i was at the large first-floor window and not ten yards away. the play began on the stroke of a quarter to three by the church clock. certainly it was very good; and i was soon relieved to find that the disgust my dream had given me for punch's onslaughts on his ill-starred visitors was only transient. i laughed at the demise of the turncock, the foreigner, the beadle, and even the baby. the only drawback was the toby dog's developing a tendency to howl in the wrong place. something had occurred, i suppose, to upset him, and something considerable: for, i forget exactly at what point, he gave a most lamentable cry, leapt off the foot board, and shot away across the market-place and down a side street. there was a stage-wait, but only a brief one. i suppose the men decided that it was no good going after him, and that he was likely to turn up again at night. we went on. punch dealt faithfully with judy, and in fact with all comers; and then came the moment when the gallows was erected, and the great scene with mr. ketch was to be enacted. it was now that something happened of which i can certainly not yet see the import fully. you have witnessed an execution, and know what the criminal's head looks like with the cap on. if you are like me, you never wish to think of it again, and i do not willingly remind you of it. it was just such a head as that, that i, from my somewhat higher post, saw in the inside of the show-box; but at first the audience did not see it. i expected it to emerge into their view, but instead of that there slowly rose for a few seconds an uncovered face, with an expression of terror upon it, of which i have never imagined the like. it seemed as if the man, whoever he was, was being forcibly lifted, with his arms somehow pinioned or held back, towards the little gibbet on the stage. i could just see the nightcapped head behind him. then there was a cry and a crash. the whole show-box fell over backwards; kicking legs were seen among the ruins, and then two figures--as some said; i can only answer for one--were visible running at top speed across the square and disappearing in a lane which leads to the fields. of course everybody gave chase. i followed; but the pace was killing, and very few were in, literally, at the death. it happened in a chalk pit: the man went over the edge quite blindly and broke his neck. they searched everywhere for the other, until it occurred to me to ask whether he had ever left the market-place. at first everyone was sure that he had; but when we came to look, he was there, under the show-box, dead too. but in the chalk pit it was that poor uncle henry's body was found, with a sack over the head, the throat horribly mangled. it was a peaked corner of the sack sticking out of the soil that attracted attention. i cannot bring myself to write in greater detail. i forgot to say the men's real names were kidman and gallop. i feel sure i have heard them, but no one here seems to know anything about them. i am coming to you as soon as i can after the funeral. i must tell you when we meet what i think of it all. two doctors two doctors it is a very common thing, in my experience, to find papers shut up in old books; but one of the rarest things to come across any such that are at all interesting. still it does happen, and one should never destroy them unlooked at. now it was a practice of mine before the war occasionally to buy old ledgers of which the paper was good, and which possessed a good many blank leaves, and to extract these and use them for my own notes and writings. one such i purchased for a small sum in . it was tightly clasped, and its boards were warped by having for years been obliged to embrace a number of extraneous sheets. three-quarters of this inserted matter had lost all vestige of importance for any living human being: one bundle had not. that it belonged to a lawyer is certain, for it is endorsed: _the strangest case i have yet met_, and bears initials, and an address in gray's inn. it is only materials for a case, and consists of statements by possible witnesses. the man who would have been the defendant or prisoner seems never to have appeared. the _dossier_ is not complete, but, such as it is, it furnishes a riddle in which the supernatural appears to play a part. you must see what you can make of it. the following is the setting and the tale as i elicit it. dr. abell was walking in his garden one afternoon waiting for his horse to be brought round that he might set out on his visits for the day. as the place was islington, the month june, and the year , we conceive the surroundings as being countrified and pleasant. to him entered his confidential servant, luke jennett, who had been with him twenty years. "i said i wished to speak to him, and what i had to say might take some quarter of an hour. he accordingly bade me go into his study, which was a room opening on the terrace path where he was walking, and came in himself and sat down. i told him that, much against my will, i must look out for another place. he inquired what was my reason, in consideration i had been so long with him. i said if he would excuse me he would do me a great kindness, because (this appears to have been common form even in ) i was one that always liked to have everything pleasant about me. as well as i can remember, he said that was his case likewise, but he would wish to know why i should change my mind after so many years, and, says he, 'you know there can be no talk of a remembrance of you in my will if you leave my service now.' i said i had made my reckoning of that. "'then,' says he, 'you must have some complaint to make, and if i could i would willingly set it right.' and at that i told him, not seeing how i could keep it back, the matter of my former affidavit and of the bedstaff in the dispensing-room, and said that a house where such things happened was no place for me. at which he, looking very black upon me, said no more, but called me fool, and said he would pay what was owing me in the morning; and so, his horse being waiting, went out. so for that night i lodged with my sister's husband near battle bridge and came early next morning to my late master, who then made a great matter that i had not lain in his house and stopped a crown out of my wages owing. "after that i took service here and there, not for long at a time, and saw no more of him till i came to be dr. quinn's man at dodds hall in islington." there is one very obscure part in this statement, namely, the reference to the former affidavit and the matter of the bedstaff. the former affidavit is not in the bundle of papers. it is to be feared that it was taken out to be read because of its special oddity, and not put back. of what nature the story was may be guessed later, but as yet no clue has been put into our hands. the rector of islington, jonathan pratt, is the next to step forward. he furnishes particulars of the standing and reputation of dr. abell and dr. quinn, both of whom lived and practised in his parish. "it is not to be supposed," he says, "that a physician should be a regular attendant at morning and evening prayers, or at the wednesday lectures, but within the measure of their ability i would say that both these persons fulfilled their obligations as loyal members of the church of england. at the same time (as you desire my private mind) i must say, in the language of the schools, _distinguo_. dr. a. was to me a source of perplexity, dr. q. to my eye a plain, honest believer, not inquiring over closely into points of belief, but squaring his practice to what lights he had. the other interested himself in questions to which providence, as i hold, designs no answer to be given us in this state: he would ask me, for example, what place i believed those beings now to hold in the scheme of creation which by some are thought neither to have stood fast when the rebel angels fell, nor to have joined with them to the full pitch of their transgression. "as was suitable, my first answer to him was a question, what warrant he had for supposing any such beings to exist? for that there was none in scripture i took it he was aware. it appeared--for as i am on the subject, the whole tale may be given--that he grounded himself on such passages as that of the satyr which jerome tells us conversed with antony; but thought too that some parts of scripture might be cited in support. 'and besides,' said he, 'you know 'tis the universal belief among those that spend their days and nights abroad, and i would add that if your calling took you so continuously as it does me about the country lanes by night, you might not be so surprised as i see you to be by my suggestion.' 'you are then of john milton's mind,' i said, 'and hold that millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.' "'i do not know,' he said, 'why milton should take upon himself to say "unseen"; though to be sure he was blind when he wrote that. but for the rest, why, yes, i think he was in the right.' 'well,' i said, 'though not so often as you, i am not seldom called abroad pretty late; but i have no mind of meeting a satyr in our islington lanes in all the years i have been here; and if you have had the better luck, i am sure the royal society would be glad to know of it.' "i am reminded of these trifling expressions because dr. a. took them so ill, stamping out of the room in a huff with some such word as that these high and dry parsons had no eyes but for a prayerbook or a pint of wine. "but this was not the only time that our conversation took a remarkable turn. there was an evening when he came in, at first seeming gay and in good spirits, but afterwards as he sat and smoked by the fire falling into a musing way; out of which to rouse him i said pleasantly that i supposed he had had no meetings of late with his odd friends. a question which did effectually arouse him, for he looked most wildly, and as if scared, upon me, and said, '_you_ were never there? i did not see you. who brought you?' and then in a more collected tone, 'what was this about a meeting? i believe i must have been in a doze.' to which i answered that i was thinking of fauns and centaurs in the dark lane, and not of a witches' sabbath; but it seemed he took it differently. "'well,' said he, 'i can plead guilty to neither; but i find you very much more of a sceptic than becomes your cloth. if you care to know about the dark lane you might do worse than ask my housekeeper that lived at the other end of it when she was a child.' 'yes,' said i, 'and the old women in the almshouse and the children in the kennel. if i were you, i would send to your brother quinn for a bolus to clear your brain.' 'damn quinn,' says he; 'talk no more of him: he has embezzled four of my best patients this month; i believe it is that cursed man of his, jennett, that used to be with me, his tongue is never still; it should be nailed to the pillory if he had his deserts.' this, i may say, was the only time of his showing me that he had any grudge against either dr. quinn or jennett, and as was my business, i did my best to persuade him he was mistaken in them. yet it could not be denied that some respectable families in the parish had given him the cold shoulder, and for no reason that they were willing to allege. the end was that he said he had not done so ill at islington but that he could afford to live at ease elsewhere when he chose, and anyhow he bore dr. quinn no malice. i think i now remember what observation of mine drew him into the train of thought which he next pursued. it was, i believe, my mentioning some juggling tricks which my brother in the east indies had seen at the court of the rajah of mysore. 'a convenient thing enough,' said dr. abell to me, 'if by some arrangement a man could get the power of communicating motion and energy to inanimate objects.' 'as if the axe should move itself against him that lifts it; something of that kind?' 'well, i don't know that that was in my mind so much; but if you could summon such a volume from your shelf or even order it to open at the right page.' "he was sitting by the fire--it was a cold evening--and stretched out his hand that way, and just then the fire-irons, or at least the poker, fell over towards him with a great clatter, and i did not hear what else he said. but i told him that i could not easily conceive of an arrangement, as he called it, of such a kind that would not include as one of its conditions a heavier payment than any christian would care to make; to which he assented. 'but,' he said, 'i have no doubt these bargains can be made very tempting, very persuasive. still, you would not favour them, eh, doctor? no, i suppose not.' "this is as much as i know of dr. abell's mind, and the feeling between these men. dr. quinn, as i said, was a plain, honest creature, and a man to whom i would have gone--indeed i have before now gone to him for advice on matters of business. he was, however, every now and again, and particularly of late, not exempt from troublesome fancies. there was certainly a time when he was so much harassed by his dreams that he could not keep them to himself, but would tell them to his acquaintances and among them to me. i was at supper at his house, and he was not inclined to let me leave him at my usual time. 'if you go,' he said, 'there will be nothing for it but i must go to bed and dream of the chrysalis.' 'you might be worse off,' said i. 'i do not think it,' he said, and he shook himself like a man who is displeased with the complexion of his thoughts. 'i only meant,' said i, 'that a chrysalis is an innocent thing.' 'this one is not,' he said, 'and i do not care to think of it.' "however, sooner than lose my company he was fain to tell me (for i pressed him) that this was a dream which had come to him several times of late, and even more than once in a night. it was to this effect, that he seemed to himself to wake under an extreme compulsion to rise and go out of doors. so he would dress himself and go down to his garden door. by the door there stood a spade which he must take, and go out into the garden, and at a particular place in the shrubbery somewhat clear and upon which the moon shone, for there was always in his dream a full moon, he would feel himself forced to dig. and after some time the spade would uncover something light-coloured, which he would perceive to be a stuff, linen or woollen, and this he must clear with his hands. it was always the same: of the size of a man and shaped like the chrysalis of a moth, with the folds showing a promise of an opening at one end. "he could not describe how gladly he would have left all at this stage and run to the house, but he must not escape so easily. so with many groans, and knowing only too well what to expect, he parted these folds of stuff, or, as it sometimes seemed to be, membrane, and disclosed a head covered with a smooth pink skin, which breaking as the creature stirred, showed him his own face in a state of death. the telling of this so much disturbed him that i was forced out of mere compassion to sit with him the greater part of the night and talk with him upon indifferent subjects. he said that upon every recurrence of this dream he woke and found himself, as it were, fighting for his breath." another extract from luke jennett's long continuous statement comes in at this point. "i never told tales of my master, dr. abell, to anybody in the neighbourhood. when i was in another service i remember to have spoken to my fellow-servants about the matter of the bedstaff, but i am sure i never said either i or he were the persons concerned, and it met with so little credit that i was affronted and thought best to keep it to myself. and when i came back to islington and found dr. abell still there, who i was told had left the parish, i was clear that it behoved me to use great discretion, for indeed i was afraid of the man, and it is certain i was no party to spreading any ill report of him. my master, dr. quinn, was a very just, honest man, and no maker of mischief. i am sure he never stirred a finger nor said a word by way of inducement to a soul to make them leave going to dr. abell and come to him; nay, he would hardly be persuaded to attend them that came, until he was convinced that if he did not they would send into the town for a physician rather than do as they had hitherto done. "i believe it may be proved that dr. abell came into my master's house more than once. we had a new chambermaid out of hertfordshire, and she asked me who was the gentleman that was looking after the master, that is dr. quinn, when he was out, and seemed so disappointed that he was out. she said whoever he was he knew the way of the house well, running at once into the study and then into the dispensing-room, and last into the bed-chamber. i made her tell me what he was like, and what she said was suitable enough to dr. abell; but besides she told me she saw the same man at church and some one told her that was the doctor. "it was just after this that my master began to have his bad nights, and complained to me and other persons, and in particular what discomfort he suffered from his pillow and bedclothes. he said he must buy some to suit him, and should do his own marketing. and accordingly brought home a parcel which he said was of the right quality, but where he bought it we had then no knowledge, only they were marked in thread with a coronet and a bird. the women said they were of a sort not commonly met with and very fine, and my master said they were the comfortablest he ever used, and he slept now both soft and deep. also the feather pillows were the best sorted and his head would sink into them as if they were a cloud: which i have myself remarked several times when i came to wake him of a morning, his face being almost hid by the pillow closing over it. "i had never any communication with dr. abell after i came back to islington, but one day when he passed me in the street and asked me whether i was not looking for another service, to which i answered i was very well suited where i was, but he said i was a tickle-minded fellow and he doubted not he should soon hear i was on the world again, which indeed proved true." dr. pratt is next taken up where he left off. "on the th i was called up out of my bed soon after it was light--that is about five--with a message that dr. quinn was dead or dying. making my way to his house i found there was no doubt which was the truth. all the persons in the house except the one that let me in were already in his chamber and standing about his bed, but none touching him. he was stretched in the midst of the bed, on his back, without any disorder, and indeed had the appearance of one ready laid out for burial. his hands, i think, were even crossed on his breast. the only thing not usual was that nothing was to be seen of his face, the two ends of the pillow or bolster appearing to be closed quite over it. these i immediately pulled apart, at the same time rebuking those present, and especially the man, for not at once coming to the assistance of his master. he, however, only looked at me and shook his head, having evidently no more hope than myself that there was anything but a corpse before us. "indeed it was plain to any one possessed of the least experience that he was not only dead, but had died of suffocation. nor could it be conceived that his death was accidentally caused by the mere folding of the pillow over his face. how should he not, feeling the oppression, have lifted his hands to put it away? whereas not a fold of the sheet which was closely gathered about him, as i now observed, was disordered. the next thing was to procure a physician. i had bethought me of this on leaving my house, and sent on the messenger who had come to me to dr. abell; but i now heard that he was away from home, and the nearest surgeon was got, who however could tell no more, at least without opening the body, than we already knew. "as to any person entering the room with evil purpose (which was the next point to be cleared), it was visible that the bolts of the door were burst from their stanchions, and the stanchions broken away from the door-post by main force; and there was a sufficient body of witness, the smith among them, to testify that this had been done but a few minutes before i came. the chamber being moreover at the top of the house, the window was neither easy of access nor did it show any sign of an exit made that way, either by marks upon the sill or footprints below upon soft mould." the surgeon's evidence forms of course part of the report of the inquest, but since it has nothing but remarks upon the healthy state of the larger organs and the coagulation of blood in various parts of the body, it need not be reproduced. the verdict was "death by the visitation of god." annexed to the other papers is one which i was at first inclined to suppose had made its way among them by mistake. upon further consideration i think i can divine a reason for its presence. it relates to the rifling of a mausoleum in middlesex which stood in a park (now broken up), the property of a noble family which i will not name. the outrage was not that of an ordinary resurrection man. the object, it seemed likely, was theft. the account is blunt and terrible. i shall not quote it. a dealer in the north of london suffered heavy penalties as a receiver of stolen goods in connexion with the affair. * * * * * _printed in great britain by_ unwin brothers, limited, the gresham press, woking and london four weird tales by algernon blackwood including: "the insanity of jones" "the man who found out" "the glamour of the snow" and "sand" a note on the text these stories first appeared in blackwood's story collections: "the insanity of jones" in _the listener and other stories_ ( ); "the man who found out" in _the wolves of god and other fey stories_ ( ); "the glamour of the snow," and "sand" in _pan's garden_ ( ). * * * * * _the insanity of jones_ (a study in reincarnation) adventures come to the adventurous, and mysterious things fall in the way of those who, with wonder and imagination, are on the watch for them; but the majority of people go past the doors that are half ajar, thinking them closed, and fail to notice the faint stirrings of the great curtain that hangs ever in the form of appearances between them and the world of causes behind. for only to the few whose inner senses have been quickened, perchance by some strange suffering in the depths, or by a natural temperament bequeathed from a remote past, comes the knowledge, not too welcome, that this greater world lies ever at their elbow, and that any moment a chance combination of moods and forces may invite them to cross the shifting frontier. some, however, are born with this awful certainty in their hearts, and are called to no apprenticeship, and to this select company jones undoubtedly belonged. all his life he had realised that his senses brought to him merely a more or less interesting set of sham appearances; that space, as men measure it, was utterly misleading; that time, as the clock ticked it in a succession of minutes, was arbitrary nonsense; and, in fact, that all his sensory perceptions were but a clumsy representation of _real_ things behind the curtain--things he was for ever trying to get at, and that sometimes he actually did get at. he had always been tremblingly aware that he stood on the borderland of another region, a region where time and space were merely forms of thought, where ancient memories lay open to the sight, and where the forces behind each human life stood plainly revealed and he could see the hidden springs at the very heart of the world. moreover, the fact that he was a clerk in a fire insurance office, and did his work with strict attention, never allowed him to forget for one moment that, just beyond the dingy brick walls where the hundred men scribbled with pointed pens beneath the electric lamps, there existed this glorious region where the important part of himself dwelt and moved and had its being. for in this region he pictured himself playing the part of a spectator to his ordinary workaday life, watching, like a king, the stream of events, but untouched in his own soul by the dirt, the noise, and the vulgar commotion of the outer world. and this was no poetic dream merely. jones was not playing prettily with idealism to amuse himself. it was a living, working belief. so convinced was he that the external world was the result of a vast deception practised upon him by the gross senses, that when he stared at a great building like st. paul's he felt it would not very much surprise him to see it suddenly quiver like a shape of jelly and then melt utterly away, while in its place stood all at once revealed the mass of colour, or the great intricate vibrations, or the splendid sound--the spiritual idea--which it represented in stone. for something in this way it was that his mind worked. yet, to all appearances, and in the satisfaction of all business claims, jones was normal and unenterprising. he felt nothing but contempt for the wave of modern psychism. he hardly knew the meaning of such words as "clairvoyance" and "clairaudience." he had never felt the least desire to join the theosophical society and to speculate in theories of astral-plane life, or elementals. he attended no meetings of the psychical research society, and knew no anxiety as to whether his "aura" was black or blue; nor was he conscious of the slightest wish to mix in with the revival of cheap occultism which proves so attractive to weak minds of mystical tendencies and unleashed imaginations. there were certain things he _knew_, but none he cared to argue about; and he shrank instinctively from attempting to put names to the contents of this other region, knowing well that such names could only limit and define things that, according to any standards in use in the ordinary world, were simply undefinable and illusive. so that, although this was the way his mind worked, there was clearly a very strong leaven of common sense in jones. in a word, the man the world and the office knew as jones _was_ jones. the name summed him up and labelled him correctly--john enderby jones. among the things that he _knew_, and therefore never cared to speak or speculate about, one was that he plainly saw himself as the inheritor of a long series of past lives, the net result of painful evolution, always as himself, of course, but in numerous different bodies each determined by the behaviour of the preceding one. the present john jones was the last result to date of all the previous thinking, feeling, and doing of john jones in earlier bodies and in other centuries. he pretended to no details, nor claimed distinguished ancestry, for he realised his past must have been utterly commonplace and insignificant to have produced his present; but he was just as sure he had been at this weary game for ages as that he breathed, and it never occurred to him to argue, to doubt, or to ask questions. and one result of this belief was that his thoughts dwelt upon the past rather than upon the future; that he read much history, and felt specially drawn to certain periods whose spirit he understood instinctively as though he had lived in them; and that he found all religions uninteresting because, almost without exception, they start from the present and speculate ahead as to what men shall become, instead of looking back and speculating why men have got here as they are. in the insurance office he did his work exceedingly well, but without much personal ambition. men and women he regarded as the impersonal instruments for inflicting upon him the pain or pleasure he had earned by his past workings, for chance had no place in his scheme of things at all; and while he recognised that the practical world could not get along unless every man did his work thoroughly and conscientiously, he took no interest in the accumulation of fame or money for himself, and simply, therefore, did his plain duty, with indifference as to results. in common with others who lead a strictly impersonal life, he possessed the quality of utter bravery, and was always ready to face any combination of circumstances, no matter how terrible, because he saw in them the just working-out of past causes he had himself set in motion which could not be dodged or modified. and whereas the majority of people had little meaning for him, either by way of attraction or repulsion, the moment he met some one with whom he felt his past had been _vitally_ interwoven his whole inner being leapt up instantly and shouted the fact in his face, and he regulated his life with the utmost skill and caution, like a sentry on watch for an enemy whose feet could already be heard approaching. thus, while the great majority of men and women left him uninfluenced--since he regarded them as so many souls merely passing with him along the great stream of evolution--there were, here and there, individuals with whom he recognised that his smallest intercourse was of the gravest importance. these were persons with whom he knew in every fibre of his being he had accounts to settle, pleasant or otherwise, arising out of dealings in past lives; and into his relations with these few, therefore, he concentrated as it were the efforts that most people spread over their intercourse with a far greater number. by what means he picked out these few individuals only those conversant with the startling processes of the subconscious memory may say, but the point was that jones believed the main purpose, if not quite the entire purpose, of his present incarnation lay in his faithful and thorough settling of these accounts, and that if he sought to evade the least detail of such settling, no matter how unpleasant, he would have lived in vain, and would return to his next incarnation with this added duty to perform. for according to his beliefs there was no chance, and could be no ultimate shirking, and to avoid a problem was merely to waste time and lose opportunities for development. and there was one individual with whom jones had long understood clearly he had a very large account to settle, and towards the accomplishment of which all the main currents of his being seemed to bear him with unswerving purpose. for, when he first entered the insurance office as a junior clerk ten years before, and through a glass door had caught sight of this man seated in an inner room, one of his sudden overwhelming flashes of intuitive memory had burst up into him from the depths, and he had seen, as in a flame of blinding light, a symbolical picture of the future rising out of a dreadful past, and he had, without any act of definite volition, marked down this man for a real account to be settled. "with _that_ man i shall have much to do," he said to himself, as he noted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "there is something i cannot shirk--a vital relation out of the past of both of us." and he went to his desk trembling a little, and with shaking knees, as though the memory of some terrible pain had suddenly laid its icy hand upon his heart and touched the scar of a great horror. it was a moment of genuine terror when their eyes had met through the glass door, and he was conscious of an inward shrinking and loathing that seized upon him with great violence and convinced him in a single second that the settling of this account would be almost, perhaps, more than he could manage. the vision passed as swiftly as it came, dropping back again into the submerged region of his consciousness; but he never forgot it, and the whole of his life thereafter became a sort of natural though undeliberate preparation for the fulfilment of the great duty when the time should be ripe. in those days--ten years ago--this man was the assistant manager, but had since been promoted as manager to one of the company's local branches; and soon afterwards jones had likewise found himself transferred to this same branch. a little later, again, the branch at liverpool, one of the most important, had been in peril owing to mismanagement and defalcation, and the man had gone to take charge of it, and again, by mere chance apparently, jones had been promoted to the same place. and this pursuit of the assistant manager had continued for several years, often, too, in the most curious fashion; and though jones had never exchanged a single word with him, or been so much as noticed indeed by the great man, the clerk understood perfectly well that these moves in the game were all part of a definite purpose. never for one moment did he doubt that the invisibles behind the veil were slowly and surely arranging the details of it all so as to lead up suitably to the climax demanded by justice, a climax in which himself and the manager would play the leading _roles_. "it is inevitable," he said to himself, "and i feel it may be terrible; but when the moment comes i shall be ready, and i pray god that i may face it properly and act like a man." moreover, as the years passed, and nothing happened, he felt the horror closing in upon him with steady increase, for the fact was jones hated and loathed the manager with an intensity of feeling he had never before experienced towards any human being. he shrank from his presence, and from the glance of his eyes, as though he remembered to have suffered nameless cruelties at his hands; and he slowly began to realise, moreover, that the matter to be settled between them was one of very ancient standing, and that the nature of the settlement was a discharge of accumulated punishment which would probably be very dreadful in the manner of its fulfilment. when, therefore, the chief cashier one day informed him that the man was to be in london again--this time as general manager of the head office--and said that he was charged to find a private secretary for him from among the best clerks, and further intimated that the selection had fallen upon himself, jones accepted the promotion quietly, fatalistically, yet with a degree of inward loathing hardly to be described. for he saw in this merely another move in the evolution of the inevitable nemesis which he simply dared not seek to frustrate by any personal consideration; and at the same time he was conscious of a certain feeling of relief that the suspense of waiting might soon be mitigated. a secret sense of satisfaction, therefore, accompanied the unpleasant change, and jones was able to hold himself perfectly well in hand when it was carried into effect and he was formally introduced as private secretary to the general manager. now the manager was a large, fat man, with a very red face and bags beneath his eyes. being short-sighted, he wore glasses that seemed to magnify his eyes, which were always a little bloodshot. in hot weather a sort of thin slime covered his cheeks, for he perspired easily. his head was almost entirely bald, and over his turn-down collar his great neck folded in two distinct reddish collops of flesh. his hands were big and his fingers almost massive in thickness. he was an excellent business man, of sane judgment and firm will, without enough imagination to confuse his course of action by showing him possible alternatives; and his integrity and ability caused him to be held in universal respect by the world of business and finance. in the important regions of a man's character, however, and at heart, he was coarse, brutal almost to savagery, without consideration for others, and as a result often cruelly unjust to his helpless subordinates. in moments of temper, which were not infrequent, his face turned a dull purple, while the top of his bald head shone by contrast like white marble, and the bags under his eyes swelled till it seemed they would presently explode with a pop. and at these times he presented a distinctly repulsive appearance. but to a private secretary like jones, who did his duty regardless of whether his employer was beast or angel, and whose mainspring was principle and not emotion, this made little difference. within the narrow limits in which any one _could_ satisfy such a man, he pleased the general manager; and more than once his piercing intuitive faculty, amounting almost to clairvoyance, assisted the chief in a fashion that served to bring the two closer together than might otherwise have been the case, and caused the man to respect in his assistant a power of which he possessed not even the germ himself. it was a curious relationship that grew up between the two, and the cashier, who enjoyed the credit of having made the selection, profited by it indirectly as much as any one else. so for some time the work of the office continued normally and very prosperously. john enderby jones received a good salary, and in the outward appearance of the two chief characters in this history there was little change noticeable, except that the manager grew fatter and redder, and the secretary observed that his own hair was beginning to show rather greyish at the temples. there were, however, two changes in progress, and they both had to do with jones, and are important to mention. one was that he began to dream evilly. in the region of deep sleep, where the possibility of significant dreaming first develops itself, he was tormented more and more with vivid scenes and pictures in which a tall thin man, dark and sinister of countenance, and with bad eyes, was closely associated with himself. only the setting was that of a past age, with costumes of centuries gone by, and the scenes had to do with dreadful cruelties that could not belong to modern life as he knew it. the other change was also significant, but is not so easy to describe, for he had in fact become aware that some new portion of himself, hitherto unawakened, had stirred slowly into life out of the very depths of his consciousness. this new part of himself amounted almost to another personality, and he never observed its least manifestation without a strange thrill at his heart. for he understood that it had begun to _watch_ the manager! ii it was the habit of jones, since he was compelled to work among conditions that were utterly distasteful, to withdraw his mind wholly from business once the day was over. during office hours he kept the strictest possible watch upon himself, and turned the key on all inner dreams, lest any sudden uprush from the deeps should interfere with his duty. but, once the working day was over, the gates flew open, and he began to enjoy himself. he read no modern books on the subjects that interested him, and, as already said, he followed no course of training, nor belonged to any society that dabbled with half-told mysteries; but, once released from the office desk in the manager's room, he simply and naturally entered the other region, because he was an old inhabitant, a rightful denizen, and because he belonged there. it was, in fact, really a case of dual personality; and a carefully drawn agreement existed between jones-of-the-fire-insurance-office and jones-of-the-mysteries, by the terms of which, under heavy penalties, neither region claimed him out of hours. for the moment he reached his rooms under the roof in bloomsbury, and had changed his city coat to another, the iron doors of the office clanged far behind him, and in front, before his very eyes, rolled up the beautiful gates of ivory, and he entered into the places of flowers and singing and wonderful veiled forms. sometimes he quite lost touch with the outer world, forgetting to eat his dinner or go to bed, and lay in a state of trance, his consciousness working far out of the body. and on other occasions he walked the streets on air, half-way between the two regions, unable to distinguish between incarnate and discarnate forms, and not very far, probably, beyond the strata where poets, saints, and the greatest artists have moved and thought and found their inspiration. but this was only when some insistent bodily claim prevented his full release, and more often than not he was entirely independent of his physical portion and free of the real region, without let or hindrance. one evening he reached home utterly exhausted after the burden of the day's work. the manager had been more than usually brutal, unjust, ill-tempered, and jones had been almost persuaded out of his settled policy of contempt into answering back. everything seemed to have gone amiss, and the man's coarse, underbred nature had been in the ascendant all day long: he had thumped the desk with his great fists, abused, found fault unreasonably, uttered outrageous things, and behaved generally as he actually was--beneath the thin veneer of acquired business varnish. he had done and said everything to wound all that was woundable in an ordinary secretary, and though jones fortunately dwelt in a region from which he looked down upon such a man as he might look down on the blundering of a savage animal, the strain had nevertheless told severely upon him, and he reached home wondering for the first time in his life whether there was perhaps a point beyond which he would be unable to restrain himself any longer. for something out of the usual had happened. at the close of a passage of great stress between the two, every nerve in the secretary's body tingling from undeserved abuse, the manager had suddenly turned full upon him, in the corner of the private room where the safes stood, in such a way that the glare of his red eyes, magnified by the glasses, looked straight into his own. and at this very second that other personality in jones--the one that was ever _watching_--rose up swiftly from the deeps within and held a mirror to his face. a moment of flame and vision rushed over him, and for one single second--one merciless second of clear sight--he saw the manager as the tall dark man of his evil dreams, and the knowledge that he had suffered at his hands some awful injury in the past crashed through his mind like the report of a cannon. it all flashed upon him and was gone, changing him from fire to ice, and then back again to fire; and he left the office with the certain conviction in his heart that the time for his final settlement with the man, the time for the inevitable retribution, was at last drawing very near. according to his invariable custom, however, he succeeded in putting the memory of all this unpleasantness out of his mind with the changing of his office coat, and after dozing a little in his leather chair before the fire, he started out as usual for dinner in the soho french restaurant, and began to dream himself away into the region of flowers and singing, and to commune with the invisibles that were the very sources of his real life and being. for it was in this way that his mind worked, and the habits of years had crystallised into rigid lines along which it was now necessary and inevitable for him to act. at the door of the little restaurant he stopped short, a half-remembered appointment in his mind. he had made an engagement with some one, but where, or with whom, had entirely slipped his memory. he thought it was for dinner, or else to meet just after dinner, and for a second it came back to him that it had something to do with the office, but, whatever it was, he was quite unable to recall it, and a reference to his pocket engagement book showed only a blank page. evidently he had even omitted to enter it; and after standing a moment vainly trying to recall either the time, place, or person, he went in and sat down. but though the details had escaped him, his subconscious memory seemed to know all about it, for he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart, accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation, and felt that beneath his exhaustion there lay a centre of tremendous excitement. the emotion caused by the engagement was at work, and would presently cause the actual details of the appointment to reappear. inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead of passing: some one was waiting for him somewhere--some one whom he had definitely arranged to meet. he was expected by a person that very night and just about that very time. but by whom? where? a curious inner trembling came over him, and he made a strong effort to hold himself in hand and to be ready for anything that might come. and then suddenly came the knowledge that the place of appointment was this very restaurant, and, further, that the person he had promised to meet was already here, waiting somewhere quite close beside him. he looked up nervously and began to examine the faces round him. the majority of the diners were frenchmen, chattering loudly with much gesticulation and laughter; and there was a fair sprinkling of clerks like himself who came because the prices were low and the food good, but there was no single face that he recognised until his glance fell upon the occupant of the corner seat opposite, generally filled by himself. "there's the man who's waiting for me!" thought jones instantly. he knew it at once. the man, he saw, was sitting well back into the corner, with a thick overcoat buttoned tightly up to the chin. his skin was very white, and a heavy black beard grew far up over his cheeks. at first the secretary took him for a stranger, but when he looked up and their eyes met, a sense of familiarity flashed across him, and for a second or two jones imagined he was staring at a man he had known years before. for, barring the beard, it was the face of an elderly clerk who had occupied the next desk to his own when he first entered the service of the insurance company, and had shown him the most painstaking kindness and sympathy in the early difficulties of his work. but a moment later the illusion passed, for he remembered that thorpe had been dead at least five years. the similarity of the eyes was obviously a mere suggestive trick of memory. the two men stared at one another for several seconds, and then jones began to act _instinctively_, and because he had to. he crossed over and took the vacant seat at the other's table, facing him; for he felt it was somehow imperative to explain why he was late, and how it was he had almost forgotten the engagement altogether. no honest excuse, however, came to his assistance, though his mind had begun to work furiously. "yes, you _are_ late," said the man quietly, before he could find a single word to utter. "but it doesn't matter. also, you had forgotten the appointment, but that makes no difference either." "i knew--that there was an engagement," jones stammered, passing his hand over his forehead; "but somehow--" "you will recall it presently," continued the other in a gentle voice, and smiling a little. "it was in deep sleep last night we arranged this, and the unpleasant occurrences of to-day have for the moment obliterated it." a faint memory stirred within him as the man spoke, and a grove of trees with moving forms hovered before his eyes and then vanished again, while for an instant the stranger seemed to be capable of self-distortion and to have assumed vast proportions, with wonderful flaming eyes. "oh!" he gasped. "it was there--in the other region?" "of course," said the other, with a smile that illumined his whole face. "you will remember presently, all in good time, and meanwhile you have no cause to feel afraid." there was a wonderful soothing quality in the man's voice, like the whispering of a great wind, and the clerk felt calmer at once. they sat a little while longer, but he could not remember that they talked much or ate anything. he only recalled afterwards that the head waiter came up and whispered something in his ear, and that he glanced round and saw the other people were looking at him curiously, some of them laughing, and that his companion then got up and led the way out of the restaurant. they walked hurriedly through the streets, neither of them speaking; and jones was so intent upon getting back the whole history of the affair from the region of deep sleep, that he barely noticed the way they took. yet it was clear he knew where they were bound for just as well as his companion, for he crossed the streets often ahead of him, diving down alleys without hesitation, and the other followed always without correction. the pavements were very full, and the usual night crowds of london were surging to and fro in the glare of the shop lights, but somehow no one impeded their rapid movements, and they seemed to pass through the people as if they were smoke. and, as they went, the pedestrians and traffic grew less and less, and they soon passed the mansion house and the deserted space in front of the royal exchange, and so on down fenchurch street and within sight of the tower of london, rising dim and shadowy in the smoky air. jones remembered all this perfectly well, and thought it was his intense preoccupation that made the distance seem so short. but it was when the tower was left behind and they turned northwards that he began to notice how altered everything was, and saw that they were in a neighbourhood where houses were suddenly scarce, and lanes and fields beginning, and that their only light was the stars overhead. and, as the deeper consciousness more and more asserted itself to the exclusion of the surface happenings of his mere body during the day, the sense of exhaustion vanished, and he realised that he was moving somewhere in the region of causes behind the veil, beyond the gross deceptions of the senses, and released from the clumsy spell of space and time. without great surprise, therefore, he turned and saw that his companion had altered, had shed his overcoat and black hat, and was moving beside him absolutely _without sound_. for a brief second he saw him, tall as a tree, extending through space like a great shadow, misty and wavering of outline, followed by a sound like wings in the darkness; but, when he stopped, fear clutching at his heart, the other resumed his former proportions, and jones could plainly see his normal outline against the green field behind. then the secretary saw him fumbling at his neck, and at the same moment the black beard came away from the face in his hand. "then you _are_ thorpe!" he gasped, yet somehow without overwhelming surprise. they stood facing one another in the lonely lane, trees meeting overhead and hiding the stars, and a sound of mournful sighing among the branches. "i am thorpe," was the answer in a voice that almost seemed part of the wind. "and i have come out of our far past to help you, for my debt to you is large, and in this life i had but small opportunity to repay." jones thought quickly of the man's kindness to him in the office, and a great wave of feeling surged through him as he began to remember dimly the friend by whose side he had already climbed, perhaps through vast ages of his soul's evolution. "to help me _now_?" he whispered. "you will understand me when you enter into your real memory and recall how great a debt i have to pay for old faithful kindnesses of long ago," sighed the other in a voice like falling wind. "between us, though, there can be no question of _debt_," jones heard himself saying, and remembered the reply that floated to him on the air and the smile that lightened for a moment the stern eyes facing him. "not of debt, indeed, but of privilege." jones felt his heart leap out towards this man, this old friend, tried by centuries and still faithful. he made a movement to seize his hand. but the other shifted like a thing of mist, and for a moment the clerk's head swam and his eyes seemed to fail. "then you are _dead_?" he said under his breath with a slight shiver. "five years ago i left the body you knew," replied thorpe. "i tried to help you then instinctively, not fully recognising you. but now i can accomplish far more." with an awful sense of foreboding and dread in his heart, the secretary was beginning to understand. "it has to do with--with--?" "your past dealings with the manager," came the answer, as the wind rose louder among the branches overhead and carried off the remainder of the sentence into the air. jones's memory, which was just beginning to stir among the deepest layers of all, shut down suddenly with a snap, and he followed his companion over fields and down sweet-smelling lanes where the air was fragrant and cool, till they came to a large house, standing gaunt and lonely in the shadows at the edge of a wood. it was wrapped in utter stillness, with windows heavily draped in black, and the clerk, as he looked, felt such an overpowering wave of sadness invade him that his eyes began to burn and smart, and he was conscious of a desire to shed tears. the key made a harsh noise as it turned in the lock, and when the door swung open into a lofty hall they heard a confused sound of rustling and whispering, as of a great throng of people pressing forward to meet them. the air seemed full of swaying movement, and jones was certain he saw hands held aloft and dim faces claiming recognition, while in his heart, already oppressed by the approaching burden of vast accumulated memories, he was aware of the _uncoiling of something_ that had been asleep for ages. as they advanced he heard the doors close with a muffled thunder behind them, and saw that the shadows seemed to retreat and shrink away towards the interior of the house, carrying the hands and faces with them. he heard the wind singing round the walls and over the roof, and its wailing voice mingled with the sound of deep, collective breathing that filled the house like the murmur of a sea; and as they walked up the broad staircase and through the vaulted rooms, where pillars rose like the stems of trees, he knew that the building was crowded, row upon row, with the thronging memories of his own long past. "this is the _house of the past_," whispered thorpe beside him, as they moved silently from room to room; "the house of _your_ past. it is full from cellar to roof with the memories of what you have done, thought, and felt from the earliest stages of your evolution until now. "the house climbs up almost to the clouds, and stretches back into the heart of the wood you saw outside, but the remoter halls are filled with the ghosts of ages ago too many to count, and even if we were able to waken them you could not remember them now. some day, though, they will come and claim you, and you must know them, and answer their questions, for they can never rest till they have exhausted themselves again through you, and justice has been perfectly worked out. "but now follow me closely, and you shall see the particular memory for which i am permitted to be your guide, so that you may know and understand a great force in your present life, and may use the sword of justice, or rise to the level of a great forgiveness, according to your degree of power." icy thrills ran through the trembling clerk, and as he walked slowly beside his companion he heard from the vaults below, as well as from more distant regions of the vast building, the stirring and sighing of the serried ranks of sleepers, sounding in the still air like a chord swept from unseen strings stretched somewhere among the very foundations of the house. stealthily, picking their way among the great pillars, they moved up the sweeping staircase and through several dark corridors and halls, and presently stopped outside a small door in an archway where the shadows were very deep. "remain close by my side, and remember to utter no cry," whispered the voice of his guide, and as the clerk turned to reply he saw his face was stern to whiteness and even shone a little in the darkness. the room they entered seemed at first to be pitchy black, but gradually the secretary perceived a faint reddish glow against the farther end, and thought he saw figures moving silently to and fro. "now watch!" whispered thorpe, as they pressed close to the wall near the door and waited. "but remember to keep absolute silence. it is a torture scene." jones felt utterly afraid, and would have turned to fly if he dared, for an indescribable terror seized him and his knees shook; but some power that made escape impossible held him remorselessly there, and with eyes glued on the spots of light he crouched against the wall and waited. the figures began to move more swiftly, each in its own dim light that shed no radiance beyond itself, and he heard a soft clanking of chains and the voice of a man groaning in pain. then came the sound of a door closing, and thereafter jones saw but one figure, the figure of an old man, naked entirely, and fastened with chains to an iron framework on the floor. his memory gave a sudden leap of fear as he looked, for the features and white beard were familiar, and he recalled them as though of yesterday. the other figures had disappeared, and the old man became the centre of the terrible picture. slowly, with ghastly groans; as the heat below him increased into a steady glow, the aged body rose in a curve of agony, resting on the iron frame only where the chains held wrists and ankles fast. cries and gasps filled the air, and jones felt exactly as though they came from his own throat, and as if the chains were burning into his own wrists and ankles, and the heat scorching the skin and flesh upon his own back. he began to writhe and twist himself. "spain!" whispered the voice at his side, "and four hundred years ago." "and the purpose?" gasped the perspiring clerk, though he knew quite well what the answer must be. "to extort the name of a friend, to his death and betrayal," came the reply through the darkness. a sliding panel opened with a little rattle in the wall immediately above the rack, and a face, framed in the same red glow, appeared and looked down upon the dying victim. jones was only just able to choke a scream, for he recognised the tall dark man of his dreams. with horrible, gloating eyes he gazed down upon the writhing form of the old man, and his lips moved as in speaking, though no words were actually audible. "he asks again for the name," explained the other, as the clerk struggled with the intense hatred and loathing that threatened every moment to result in screams and action. his ankles and wrists pained him so that he could scarcely keep still, but a merciless power held him to the scene. he saw the old man, with a fierce cry, raise his tortured head and spit up into the face at the panel, and then the shutter slid back again, and a moment later the increased glow beneath the body, accompanied by awful writhing, told of the application of further heat. there came the odour of burning flesh; the white beard curled and burned to a crisp; the body fell back limp upon the red-hot iron, and then shot up again in fresh agony; cry after cry, the most awful in the world, rang out with deadened sound between the four walls; and again the panel slid back creaking, and revealed the dreadful face of the torturer. again the name was asked for, and again it was refused; and this time, after the closing of the panel, a door opened, and the tall thin man with the evil face came slowly into the chamber. his features were savage with rage and disappointment, and in the dull red glow that fell upon them he looked like a very prince of devils. in his hand he held a pointed iron at white heat. "now the murder!" came from thorpe in a whisper that sounded as if it was outside the building and far away. jones knew quite well what was coming, but was unable even to close his eyes. he felt all the fearful pains himself just as though he were actually the sufferer; but now, as he stared, he felt something more besides; and when the tall man deliberately approached the rack and plunged the heated iron first into one eye and then into the other, he heard the faint fizzing of it, and felt his own eyes burst in frightful pain from his head. at the same moment, unable longer to control himself, he uttered a wild shriek and dashed forward to seize the torturer and tear him to a thousand pieces. instantly, in a flash, the entire scene vanished; darkness rushed in to fill the room, and he felt himself lifted off his feet by some force like a great wind and borne swiftly away into space. when he recovered his senses he was standing just outside the house and the figure of thorpe was beside him in the gloom. the great doors were in the act of closing behind him, but before they shut he fancied he caught a glimpse of an immense veiled figure standing upon the threshold, with flaming eyes, and in his hand a bright weapon like a shining sword of fire. "come quickly now--all is over!" thorpe whispered. "and the dark man--?" gasped the clerk, as he moved swiftly by the other's side. "in this present life is the manager of the company." "and the victim?" "was yourself!" "and the friend he--_i_ refused to betray?" "i was that friend," answered thorpe, his voice with every moment sounding more and more like the cry of the wind. "you gave your life in agony to save mine." "and again, in this life, we have all three been together?" "yes. such forces are not soon or easily exhausted, and justice is not satisfied till all have reaped what they sowed." jones had an odd feeling that he was slipping away into some other state of consciousness. thorpe began to seem unreal. presently he would be unable to ask more questions. he felt utterly sick and faint with it all, and his strength was ebbing. "oh, quick!" he cried, "now tell me more. why did i see this? what must i do?" the wind swept across the field on their right and entered the wood beyond with a great roar, and the air round him seemed filled with voices and the rushing of hurried movement. "to the ends of justice," answered the other, as though speaking out of the centre of the wind and from a distance, "which sometimes is entrusted to the hands of those who suffered and were strong. one wrong cannot be put right by another wrong, but your life has been so worthy that the opportunity is given to--" the voice grew fainter and fainter, already it was far overhead with the rushing wind. "you may punish or--" here jones lost sight of thorpe's figure altogether, for he seemed to have vanished and melted away into the wood behind him. his voice sounded far across the trees, very weak, and ever rising. "or if you can rise to the level of a great forgiveness--" the voice became inaudible.... the wind came crying out of the wood again. * * * * * jones shivered and stared about him. he shook himself violently and rubbed his eyes. the room was dark, the fire was out; he felt cold and stiff. he got up out of his armchair, still trembling, and lit the gas. outside the wind was howling, and when he looked at his watch he saw that it was very late and he must go to bed. he had not even changed his office coat; he must have fallen asleep in the chair as soon as he came in, and he had slept for several hours. certainly he had eaten no dinner, for he felt ravenous. iii next day, and for several weeks thereafter, the business of the office went on as usual, and jones did his work well and behaved outwardly with perfect propriety. no more visions troubled him, and his relations with the manager became, if anything, somewhat smoother and easier. true, the man _looked_ a little different, because the clerk kept seeing him with his inner and outer eye promiscuously, so that one moment he was broad and red-faced, and the next he was tall, thin, and dark, enveloped, as it were, in a sort of black atmosphere tinged with red. while at times a confusion of the two sights took place, and jones saw the two faces mingled in a composite countenance that was very horrible indeed to contemplate. but, beyond this occasional change in the outward appearance of the manager, there was nothing that the secretary noticed as the result of his vision, and business went on more or less as before, and perhaps even with a little less friction. but in the rooms under the roof in bloomsbury it was different, for there it was perfectly clear to jones that thorpe had come to take up his abode with him. he never saw him, but he knew all the time he was there. every night on returning from his work he was greeted by the well-known whisper, "be ready when i give the sign!" and often in the night he woke up suddenly out of deep sleep and was aware that thorpe had that minute moved away from his bed and was standing waiting and watching somewhere in the darkness of the room. often he followed him down the stairs, though the dim gas jet on the landings never revealed his outline; and sometimes he did not come into the room at all, but hovered outside the window, peering through the dirty panes, or sending his whisper into the chamber in the whistling of the wind. for thorpe had come to stay, and jones knew that he would not get rid of him until he had fulfilled the ends of justice and accomplished the purpose for which he was waiting. meanwhile, as the days passed, he went through a tremendous struggle with himself, and came to the perfectly honest decision that the "level of a great forgiveness" was impossible for him, and that he must therefore accept the alternative and use the secret knowledge placed in his hands--and execute justice. and once this decision was arrived at, he noticed that thorpe no longer left him alone during the day as before, but now accompanied him to the office and stayed more or less at his side all through business hours as well. his whisper made itself heard in the streets and in the train, and even in the manager's room where he worked; sometimes warning, sometimes urging, but never for a moment suggesting the abandonment of the main purpose, and more than once so plainly audible that the clerk felt certain others must have heard it as well as himself. the obsession was complete. he felt he was always under thorpe's eye day and night, and he knew he must acquit himself like a man when the moment came, or prove a failure in his own sight as well in the sight of the other. and now that his mind was made up, nothing could prevent the carrying out of the sentence. he bought a pistol, and spent his saturday afternoons practising at a target in lonely places along the essex shore, marking out in the sand the exact measurements of the manager's room. sundays he occupied in like fashion, putting up at an inn overnight for the purpose, spending the money that usually went into the savings bank on travelling expenses and cartridges. everything was done very thoroughly, for there must be no possibility of failure; and at the end of several weeks he had become so expert with his six-shooter that at a distance of feet, which was the greatest length of the manager's room, he could pick the inside out of a halfpenny nine times out of a dozen, and leave a clean, unbroken rim. there was not the slightest desire to delay. he had thought the matter over from every point of view his mind could reach, and his purpose was inflexible. indeed, he felt proud to think that he had been chosen as the instrument of justice in the infliction of so well-deserved and so terrible a punishment. vengeance may have had some part in his decision, but he could not help that, for he still felt at times the hot chains burning his wrists and ankles with fierce agony through to the bone. he remembered the hideous pain of his slowly roasting back, and the point when he thought death _must_ intervene to end his suffering, but instead new powers of endurance had surged up in him, and awful further stretches of pain had opened up, and unconsciousness seemed farther off than ever. then at last the hot irons in his eyes.... it all came back to him, and caused him to break out in icy perspiration at the mere thought of it ... the vile face at the panel ... the expression of the dark face.... his fingers worked. his blood boiled. it was utterly impossible to keep the idea of vengeance altogether out of his mind. several times he was temporarily baulked of his prey. odd things happened to stop him when he was on the point of action. the first day, for instance, the manager fainted from the heat. another time when he had decided to do the deed, the manager did not come down to the office at all. and a third time, when his hand was actually in his hip pocket, he suddenly heard thorpe's horrid whisper telling him to wait, and turning, he saw that the head cashier had entered the room noiselessly without his noticing it. thorpe evidently knew what he was about, and did not intend to let the clerk bungle the matter. he fancied, moreover, that the head cashier was watching him. he was always meeting him in unexpected corners and places, and the cashier never seemed to have an adequate excuse for being there. his movements seemed suddenly of particular interest to others in the office as well, for clerks were always being sent to ask him unnecessary questions, and there was apparently a general design to keep him under a sort of surveillance, so that he was never much alone with the manager in the private room where they worked. and once the cashier had even gone so far as to suggest that he could take his holiday earlier than usual if he liked, as the work had been very arduous of late and the heat exceedingly trying. he noticed, too, that he was sometimes followed by a certain individual in the streets, a careless-looking sort of man, who never came face to face with him, or actually ran into him, but who was always in his train or omnibus, and whose eye he often caught observing him over the top of his newspaper, and who on one occasion was even waiting at the door of his lodgings when he came out to dine. there were other indications too, of various sorts, that led him to think something was at work to defeat his purpose, and that he must act at once before these hostile forces could prevent. and so the end came very swiftly, and was thoroughly approved by thorpe. it was towards the close of july, and one of the hottest days london had ever known, for the city was like an oven, and the particles of dust seemed to burn the throats of the unfortunate toilers in street and office. the portly manager, who suffered cruelly owing to his size, came down perspiring and gasping with the heat. he carried a light-coloured umbrella to protect his head. "he'll want something more than that, though!" jones laughed quietly to himself when he saw him enter. the pistol was safely in his hip pocket, every one of its six chambers loaded. the manager saw the smile on his face, and gave him a long steady look as he sat down to his desk in the corner. a few minutes later he touched the bell for the head cashier--a single ring--and then asked jones to fetch some papers from another safe in the room upstairs. a deep inner trembling seized the secretary as he noticed these precautions, for he saw that the hostile forces were at work against him, and yet he felt he could delay no longer and must act that very morning, interference or no interference. however, he went obediently up in the lift to the next floor, and while fumbling with the combination of the safe, known only to himself, the cashier, and the manager, he again heard thorpe's horrid whisper just behind him: "you must do it to-day! you must do it to-day!" he came down again with the papers, and found the manager alone. the room was like a furnace, and a wave of dead heated air met him in the face as he went in. the moment he passed the doorway he realised that he had been the subject of conversation between the head cashier and his enemy. they had been discussing him. perhaps an inkling of his secret had somehow got into their minds. they had been watching him for days past. they had become suspicious. clearly, he must act now, or let the opportunity slip by perhaps for ever. he heard thorpe's voice in his ear, but this time it was no mere whisper, but a plain human voice, speaking out loud. "now!" it said. "do it now!" the room was empty. only the manager and himself were in it. jones turned from his desk where he had been standing, and locked the door leading into the main office. he saw the army of clerks scribbling in their shirt-sleeves, for the upper half of the door was of glass. he had perfect control of himself, and his heart was beating steadily. the manager, hearing the key turn in the lock, looked up sharply. "what's that you're doing?" he asked quickly. "only locking the door, sir," replied the secretary in a quite even voice. "why? who told you to--?" "the voice of justice, sir," replied jones, looking steadily into the hated face. the manager looked black for a moment, and stared angrily across the room at him. then suddenly his expression changed as he stared, and he tried to smile. it was meant to be a kind smile evidently, but it only succeeded in being frightened. "that _is_ a good idea in this weather," he said lightly, "but it would be much better to lock it on the _outside_, wouldn't it, mr. jones?" "i think not, sir. you might escape me then. now you can't." jones took his pistol out and pointed it at the other's face. down the barrel he saw the features of the tall dark man, evil and sinister. then the outline trembled a little and the face of the manager slipped back into its place. it was white as death, and shining with perspiration. "you tortured me to death four hundred years ago," said the clerk in the same steady voice, "and now the dispensers of justice have chosen me to punish you." the manager's face turned to flame, and then back to chalk again. he made a quick movement towards the telephone bell, stretching out a hand to reach it, but at the same moment jones pulled the trigger and the wrist was shattered, splashing the wall behind with blood. "that's _one_ place where the chains burnt," he said quietly to himself. his hand was absolutely steady, and he felt that he was a hero. the manager was on his feet, with a scream of pain, supporting himself with his right hand on the desk in front of him, but jones pressed the trigger again, and a bullet flew into the other wrist, so that the big man, deprived of support, fell forward with a crash on to the desk. "you damned madman!" shrieked the manager. "drop that pistol!" "that's _another_ place," was all jones said, still taking careful aim for another shot. the big man, screaming and blundering, scrambled beneath the desk, making frantic efforts to hide, but the secretary took a step forward and fired two shots in quick succession into his projecting legs, hitting first one ankle and then the other, and smashing them horribly. "two more places where the chains burnt," he said, going a little nearer. the manager, still shrieking, tried desperately to squeeze his bulk behind the shelter of the opening beneath the desk, but he was far too large, and his bald head protruded through on the other side. jones caught him by the scruff of his great neck and dragged him yelping out on to the carpet. he was covered with blood, and flopped helplessly upon his broken wrists. "be quick now!" cried the voice of thorpe. there was a tremendous commotion and banging at the door, and jones gripped his pistol tightly. something seemed to crash through his brain, clearing it for a second, so that he thought he saw beside him a great veiled figure, with drawn sword and flaming eyes, and sternly approving attitude. "remember the eyes! remember the eyes!" hissed thorpe in the air above him. jones felt like a god, with a god's power. vengeance disappeared from his mind. he was acting impersonally as an instrument in the hands of the invisibles who dispense justice and balance accounts. he bent down and put the barrel close into the other's face, smiling a little as he saw the childish efforts of the arms to cover his head. then he pulled the trigger, and a bullet went straight into the right eye, blackening the skin. moving the pistol two inches the other way, he sent another bullet crashing into the left eye. then he stood upright over his victim with a deep sigh of satisfaction. the manager wriggled convulsively for the space of a single second, and then lay still in death. there was not a moment to lose, for the door was already broken in and violent hands were at his neck. jones put the pistol to his temple and once more pressed the trigger with his finger. but this time there was no report. only a little dead click answered the pressure, for the secretary had forgotten that the pistol had only six chambers, and that he had used them all. he threw the useless weapon on to the floor, laughing a little out loud, and turned, without a struggle, to give himself up. "i _had_ to do it," he said quietly, while they tied him. "it was simply my duty! and now i am ready to face the consequences, and thorpe will be proud of me. for justice has been done and the gods are satisfied." he made not the slightest resistance, and when the two policemen marched him off through the crowd of shuddering little clerks in the office, he again saw the veiled figure moving majestically in front of him, making slow sweeping circles with the flaming sword, to keep back the host of faces that were thronging in upon him from the other region. * * * * * _the man who found out_ (a nightmare) professor mark ebor, the scientist, led a double life, and the only persons who knew it were his assistant, dr. laidlaw, and his publishers. but a double life need not always be a bad one, and, as dr. laidlaw and the gratified publishers well knew, the parallel lives of this particular man were equally good, and indefinitely produced would certainly have ended in a heaven somewhere that can suitably contain such strangely opposite characteristics as his remarkable personality combined. for mark ebor, f.r.s., etc., etc., was that unique combination hardly ever met with in actual life, a man of science and a mystic. as the first, his name stood in the gallery of the great, and as the second--but there came the mystery! for under the pseudonym of "pilgrim" (the author of that brilliant series of books that appealed to so many), his identity was as well concealed as that of the anonymous writer of the weather reports in a daily newspaper. thousands read the sanguine, optimistic, stimulating little books that issued annually from the pen of "pilgrim," and thousands bore their daily burdens better for having read; while the press generally agreed that the author, besides being an incorrigible enthusiast and optimist, was also--a woman; but no one ever succeeded in penetrating the veil of anonymity and discovering that "pilgrim" and the biologist were one and the same person. mark ebor, as dr. laidlaw knew him in his laboratory, was one man; but mark ebor, as he sometimes saw him after work was over, with rapt eyes and ecstatic face, discussing the possibilities of "union with god" and the future of the human race, was quite another. "i have always held, as you know," he was saying one evening as he sat in the little study beyond the laboratory with his assistant and intimate, "that vision should play a large part in the life of the awakened man--not to be regarded as infallible, of course, but to be observed and made use of as a guide-post to possibilities--" "i am aware of your peculiar views, sir," the young doctor put in deferentially, yet with a certain impatience. "for visions come from a region of the consciousness where observation and experiment are out of the question," pursued the other with enthusiasm, not noticing the interruption, "and, while they should be checked by reason afterwards, they should not be laughed at or ignored. all inspiration, i hold, is of the nature of interior vision, and all our best knowledge has come--such is my confirmed belief--as a sudden revelation to the brain prepared to receive it--" "prepared by hard work first, by concentration, by the closest possible study of ordinary phenomena," dr. laidlaw allowed himself to observe. "perhaps," sighed the other; "but by a process, none the less, of spiritual illumination. the best match in the world will not light a candle unless the wick be first suitably prepared." it was laidlaw's turn to sigh. he knew so well the impossibility of arguing with his chief when he was in the regions of the mystic, but at the same time the respect he felt for his tremendous attainments was so sincere that he always listened with attention and deference, wondering how far the great man would go and to what end this curious combination of logic and "illumination" would eventually lead him. "only last night," continued the elder man, a sort of light coming into his rugged features, "the vision came to me again--the one that has haunted me at intervals ever since my youth, and that will not be denied." dr. laidlaw fidgeted in his chair. "about the tablets of the gods, you mean--and that they lie somewhere hidden in the sands," he said patiently. a sudden gleam of interest came into his face as he turned to catch the professor's reply. "and that i am to be the one to find them, to decipher them, and to give the great knowledge to the world--" "who will not believe," laughed laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spite of his thinly-veiled contempt. "because even the keenest minds, in the right sense of the word, are hopelessly--unscientific," replied the other gently, his face positively aglow with the memory of his vision. "yet what is more likely," he continued after a moment's pause, peering into space with rapt eyes that saw things too wonderful for exact language to describe, "than that there should have been given to man in the first ages of the world some record of the purpose and problem that had been set him to solve? in a word," he cried, fixing his shining eyes upon the face of his perplexed assistant, "that god's messengers in the far-off ages should have given to his creatures some full statement of the secret of the world, of the secret of the soul, of the meaning of life and death--the explanation of our being here, and to what great end we are destined in the ultimate fullness of things?" dr. laidlaw sat speechless. these outbursts of mystical enthusiasm he had witnessed before. with any other man he would not have listened to a single sentence, but to professor ebor, man of knowledge and profound investigator, he listened with respect, because he regarded this condition as temporary and pathological, and in some sense a reaction from the intense strain of the prolonged mental concentration of many days. he smiled, with something between sympathy and resignation as he met the other's rapt gaze. "but you have said, sir, at other times, that you consider the ultimate secrets to be screened from all possible--" "the _ultimate_ secrets, yes," came the unperturbed reply; "but that there lies buried somewhere an indestructible record of the secret meaning of life, originally known to men in the days of their pristine innocence, i am convinced. and, by this strange vision so often vouchsafed to me, i am equally sure that one day it shall be given to me to announce to a weary world this glorious and terrific message." and he continued at great length and in glowing language to describe the species of vivid dream that had come to him at intervals since earliest childhood, showing in detail how he discovered these very tablets of the gods, and proclaimed their splendid contents--whose precise nature was always, however, withheld from him in the vision--to a patient and suffering humanity. "the _scrutator_, sir, well described 'pilgrim' as the apostle of hope," said the young doctor gently, when he had finished; "and now, if that reviewer could hear you speak and realize from what strange depths comes your simple faith--" the professor held up his hand, and the smile of a little child broke over his face like sunshine in the morning. "half the good my books do would be instantly destroyed," he said sadly; "they would say that i wrote with my tongue in my cheek. but wait," he added significantly; "wait till i find these tablets of the gods! wait till i hold the solutions of the old world-problems in my hands! wait till the light of this new revelation breaks upon confused humanity, and it wakes to find its bravest hopes justified! ah, then, my dear laidlaw--" he broke off suddenly; but the doctor, cleverly guessing the thought in his mind, caught him up immediately. "perhaps this very summer," he said, trying hard to make the suggestion keep pace with honesty; "in your explorations in assyria--your digging in the remote civilization of what was once chaldea, you may find--what you dream of--" the professor held up his hand, and the smile of a fine old face. "perhaps," he murmured softly, "perhaps!" and the young doctor, thanking the gods of science that his leader's aberrations were of so harmless a character, went home strong in the certitude of his knowledge of externals, proud that he was able to refer his visions to self-suggestion, and wondering complaisantly whether in his old age he might not after all suffer himself from visitations of the very kind that afflicted his respected chief. and as he got into bed and thought again of his master's rugged face, and finely shaped head, and the deep lines traced by years of work and self-discipline, he turned over on his pillow and fell asleep with a sigh that was half of wonder, half of regret. it was in february, nine months later, when dr. laidlaw made his way to charing cross to meet his chief after his long absence of travel and exploration. the vision about the so-called tablets of the gods had meanwhile passed almost entirely from his memory. there were few people in the train, for the stream of traffic was now running the other way, and he had no difficulty in finding the man he had come to meet. the shock of white hair beneath the low-crowned felt hat was alone enough to distinguish him by easily. "here i am at last!" exclaimed the professor, somewhat wearily, clasping his friend's hand as he listened to the young doctor's warm greetings and questions. "here i am--a little older, and _much_ dirtier than when you last saw me!" he glanced down laughingly at his travel-stained garments. "and _much_ wiser," said laidlaw, with a smile, as he bustled about the platform for porters and gave his chief the latest scientific news. at last they came down to practical considerations. "and your luggage--where is that? you must have tons of it, i suppose?" said laidlaw. "hardly anything," professor ebor answered. "nothing, in fact, but what you see." "nothing but this hand-bag?" laughed the other, thinking he was joking. "and a small portmanteau in the van," was the quiet reply. "i have no other luggage." "you have no other luggage?" repeated laidlaw, turning sharply to see if he were in earnest. "why should i need more?" the professor added simply. something in the man's face, or voice, or manner--the doctor hardly knew which--suddenly struck him as strange. there was a change in him, a change so profound--so little on the surface, that is--that at first he had not become aware of it. for a moment it was as though an utterly alien personality stood before him in that noisy, bustling throng. here, in all the homely, friendly turmoil of a charing cross crowd, a curious feeling of cold passed over his heart, touching his life with icy finger, so that he actually trembled and felt afraid. he looked up quickly at his friend, his mind working with startled and unwelcome thoughts. "only this?" he repeated, indicating the bag. "but where's all the stuff you went away with? and--have you brought nothing home--no treasures?" "this is all i have," the other said briefly. the pale smile that went with the words caused the doctor a second indescribable sensation of uneasiness. something was very wrong, something was very queer; he wondered now that he had not noticed it sooner. "the rest follows, of course, by slow freight," he added tactfully, and as naturally as possible. "but come, sir, you must be tired and in want of food after your long journey. i'll get a taxi at once, and we can see about the other luggage afterwards." it seemed to him he hardly knew quite what he was saying; the change in his friend had come upon him so suddenly and now grew upon him more and more distressingly. yet he could not make out exactly in what it consisted. a terrible suspicion began to take shape in his mind, troubling him dreadfully. "i am neither very tired, nor in need of food, thank you," the professor said quietly. "and this is all i have. there is no luggage to follow. i have brought home nothing--nothing but what you see." his words conveyed finality. they got into a taxi, tipped the porter, who had been staring in amazement at the venerable figure of the scientist, and were conveyed slowly and noisily to the house in the north of london where the laboratory was, the scene of their labours of years. and the whole way professor ebor uttered no word, nor did dr. laidlaw find the courage to ask a single question. it was only late that night, before he took his departure, as the two men were standing before the fire in the study--that study where they had discussed so many problems of vital and absorbing interest--that dr. laidlaw at last found strength to come to the point with direct questions. the professor had been giving him a superficial and desultory account of his travels, of his journeys by camel, of his encampments among the mountains and in the desert, and of his explorations among the buried temples, and, deeper, into the waste of the pre-historic sands, when suddenly the doctor came to the desired point with a kind of nervous rush, almost like a frightened boy. "and you found--" he began stammering, looking hard at the other's dreadfully altered face, from which every line of hope and cheerfulness seemed to have been obliterated as a sponge wipes markings from a slate--"you found--" "i found," replied the other, in a solemn voice, and it was the voice of the mystic rather than the man of science--"i found what i went to seek. the vision never once failed me. it led me straight to the place like a star in the heavens. i found--the tablets of the gods." dr. laidlaw caught his breath, and steadied himself on the back of a chair. the words fell like particles of ice upon his heart. for the first time the professor had uttered the well-known phrase without the glow of light and wonder in his face that always accompanied it. "you have--brought them?" he faltered. "i have brought them home," said the other, in a voice with a ring like iron; "and i have--deciphered them." profound despair, the bloom of outer darkness, the dead sound of a hopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of space seemed to fill in the pauses between the brief sentences. a silence followed, during which dr. laidlaw saw nothing but the white face before him alternately fade and return. and it was like the face of a dead man. "they are, alas, indestructible," he heard the voice continue, with its even, metallic ring. "indestructible," laidlaw repeated mechanically, hardly knowing what he was saying. again a silence of several minutes passed, during which, with a creeping cold about his heart, he stood and stared into the eyes of the man he had known and loved so long--aye, and worshipped, too; the man who had first opened his own eyes when they were blind, and had led him to the gates of knowledge, and no little distance along the difficult path beyond; the man who, in another direction, had passed on the strength of his faith into the hearts of thousands by his books. "i may see them?" he asked at last, in a low voice he hardly recognized as his own. "you will let me know--their message?" professor ebor kept his eyes fixedly upon his assistant's face as he answered, with a smile that was more like the grin of death than a living human smile. "when i am gone," he whispered; "when i have passed away. then you shall find them and read the translation i have made. and then, too, in your turn, you must try, with the latest resources of science at your disposal to aid you, to compass their utter destruction." he paused a moment, and his face grew pale as the face of a corpse. "until that time," he added presently, without looking up, "i must ask you not to refer to the subject again--and to keep my confidence meanwhile--_ab--so--lute--ly_." a year passed slowly by, and at the end of it dr. laidlaw had found it necessary to sever his working connexion with his friend and one-time leader. professor ebor was no longer the same man. the light had gone out of his life; the laboratory was closed; he no longer put pen to paper or applied his mind to a single problem. in the short space of a few months he had passed from a hale and hearty man of late middle life to the condition of old age--a man collapsed and on the edge of dissolution. death, it was plain, lay waiting for him in the shadows of any day--and he knew it. to describe faithfully the nature of this profound alteration in his character and temperament is not easy, but dr. laidlaw summed it up to himself in three words: _loss of hope_. the splendid mental powers remained indeed undimmed, but the incentive to use them--to use them for the help of others--had gone. the character still held to its fine and unselfish habits of years, but the far goal to which they had been the leading strings had faded away. the desire for knowledge--knowledge for its own sake--had died, and the passionate hope which hitherto had animated with tireless energy the heart and brain of this splendidly equipped intellect had suffered total eclipse. the central fires had gone out. nothing was worth doing, thinking, working for. there _was_ nothing to work for any longer! the professor's first step was to recall as many of his books as possible; his second to close his laboratory and stop all research. he gave no explanation, he invited no questions. his whole personality crumbled away, so to speak, till his daily life became a mere mechanical process of clothing the body, feeding the body, keeping it in good health so as to avoid physical discomfort, and, above all, doing nothing that could interfere with sleep. the professor did everything he could to lengthen the hours of sleep, and therefore of forgetfulness. it was all clear enough to dr. laidlaw. a weaker man, he knew, would have sought to lose himself in one form or another of sensual indulgence--sleeping-draughts, drink, the first pleasures that came to hand. self-destruction would have been the method of a little bolder type; and deliberate evil-doing, poisoning with his awful knowledge all he could, the means of still another kind of man. mark ebor was none of these. he held himself under fine control, facing silently and without complaint the terrible facts he honestly believed himself to have been unfortunate enough to discover. even to his intimate friend and assistant, dr. laidlaw, he vouchsafed no word of true explanation or lament. he went straight forward to the end, knowing well that the end was not very far away. and death came very quietly one day to him, as he was sitting in the arm-chair of the study, directly facing the doors of the laboratory--the doors that no longer opened. dr. laidlaw, by happy chance, was with him at the time, and just able to reach his side in response to the sudden painful efforts for breath; just in time, too, to catch the murmured words that fell from the pallid lips like a message from the other side of the grave. "read them, if you must; and, if you can--destroy. but"--his voice sank so low that dr. laidlaw only just caught the dying syllables--"but--never, never--give them to the world." and like a grey bundle of dust loosely gathered up in an old garment the professor sank back into his chair and expired. but this was only the death of the body. his spirit had died two years before. the estate of the dead man was small and uncomplicated, and dr. laidlaw, as sole executor and residuary legatee, had no difficulty in settling it up. a month after the funeral he was sitting alone in his upstairs library, the last sad duties completed, and his mind full of poignant memories and regrets for the loss of a friend he had revered and loved, and to whom his debt was so incalculably great. the last two years, indeed, had been for him terrible. to watch the swift decay of the greatest combination of heart and brain he had ever known, and to realize he was powerless to help, was a source of profound grief to him that would remain to the end of his days. at the same time an insatiable curiosity possessed him. the study of dementia was, of course, outside his special province as a specialist, but he knew enough of it to understand how small a matter might be the actual cause of how great an illusion, and he had been devoured from the very beginning by a ceaseless and increasing anxiety to know what the professor had found in the sands of "chaldea," what these precious tablets of the gods might be, and particularly--for this was the real cause that had sapped the man's sanity and hope--what the inscription was that he had believed to have deciphered thereon. the curious feature of it all to his own mind was, that whereas his friend had dreamed of finding a message of glorious hope and comfort, he had apparently found (so far as he had found anything intelligible at all, and not invented the whole thing in his dementia) that the secret of the world, and the meaning of life and death, was of so terrible a nature that it robbed the heart of courage and the soul of hope. what, then, could be the contents of the little brown parcel the professor had bequeathed to him with his pregnant dying sentences? actually his hand was trembling as he turned to the writing-table and began slowly to unfasten a small old-fashioned desk on which the small gilt initials "m.e." stood forth as a melancholy memento. he put the key into the lock and half turned it. then, suddenly, he stopped and looked about him. was that a sound at the back of the room? it was just as though someone had laughed and then tried to smother the laugh with a cough. a slight shiver ran over him as he stood listening. "this is absurd," he said aloud; "too absurd for belief--that i should be so nervous! it's the effect of curiosity unduly prolonged." he smiled a little sadly and his eyes wandered to the blue summer sky and the plane trees swaying in the wind below his window. "it's the reaction," he continued. "the curiosity of two years to be quenched in a single moment! the nervous tension, of course, must be considerable." he turned back to the brown desk and opened it without further delay. his hand was firm now, and he took out the paper parcel that lay inside without a tremor. it was heavy. a moment later there lay on the table before him a couple of weather-worn plaques of grey stone--they looked like stone, although they felt like metal--on which he saw markings of a curious character that might have been the mere tracings of natural forces through the ages, or, equally well, the half-obliterated hieroglyphics cut upon their surface in past centuries by the more or less untutored hand of a common scribe. he lifted each stone in turn and examined it carefully. it seemed to him that a faint glow of heat passed from the substance into his skin, and he put them down again suddenly, as with a gesture of uneasiness. "a very clever, or a very imaginative man," he said to himself, "who could squeeze the secrets of life and death from such broken lines as those!" then he turned to a yellow envelope lying beside them in the desk, with the single word on the outside in the writing of the professor--the word _translation_. "now," he thought, taking it up with a sudden violence to conceal his nervousness, "now for the great solution. now to learn the meaning of the worlds, and why mankind was made, and why discipline is worth while, and sacrifice and pain the true law of advancement." there was the shadow of a sneer in his voice, and yet something in him shivered at the same time. he held the envelope as though weighing it in his hand, his mind pondering many things. then curiosity won the day, and he suddenly tore it open with the gesture of an actor who tears open a letter on the stage, knowing there is no real writing inside at all. a page of finely written script in the late scientist's handwriting lay before him. he read it through from beginning to end, missing no word, uttering each syllable distinctly under his breath as he read. the pallor of his face grew ghastly as he neared the end. he began to shake all over as with ague. his breath came heavily in gasps. he still gripped the sheet of paper, however, and deliberately, as by an intense effort of will, read it through a second time from beginning to end. and this time, as the last syllable dropped from his lips, the whole face of the man flamed with a sudden and terrible anger. his skin became deep, deep red, and he clenched his teeth. with all the strength of his vigorous soul he was struggling to keep control of himself. for perhaps five minutes he stood there beside the table without stirring a muscle. he might have been carved out of stone. his eyes were shut, and only the heaving of the chest betrayed the fact that he was a living being. then, with a strange quietness, he lit a match and applied it to the sheet of paper he held in his hand. the ashes fell slowly about him, piece by piece, and he blew them from the window-sill into the air, his eyes following them as they floated away on the summer wind that breathed so warmly over the world. he turned back slowly into the room. although his actions and movements were absolutely steady and controlled, it was clear that he was on the edge of violent action. a hurricane might burst upon the still room any moment. his muscles were tense and rigid. then, suddenly, he whitened, collapsed, and sank backwards into a chair, like a tumbled bundle of inert matter. he had fainted. in less than half an hour he recovered consciousness and sat up. as before, he made no sound. not a syllable passed his lips. he rose quietly and looked about the room. then he did a curious thing. taking a heavy stick from the rack in the corner he approached the mantlepiece, and with a heavy shattering blow he smashed the clock to pieces. the glass fell in shivering atoms. "cease your lying voice for ever," he said, in a curiously still, even tone. "there is no such thing as _time_!" he took the watch from his pocket, swung it round several times by the long gold chain, smashed it into smithereens against the wall with a single blow, and then walked into his laboratory next door, and hung its broken body on the bones of the skeleton in the corner of the room. "let one damned mockery hang upon another," he said smiling oddly. "delusions, both of you, and cruel as false!" he slowly moved back to the front room. he stopped opposite the bookcase where stood in a row the "scriptures of the world," choicely bound and exquisitely printed, the late professor's most treasured possession, and next to them several books signed "pilgrim." one by one he took them from the shelf and hurled them through the open window. "a devil's dreams! a devil's foolish dreams!" he cried, with a vicious laugh. presently he stopped from sheer exhaustion. he turned his eyes slowly to the wall opposite, where hung a weird array of eastern swords and daggers, scimitars and spears, the collections of many journeys. he crossed the room and ran his finger along the edge. his mind seemed to waver. "no," he muttered presently; "not that way. there are easier and better ways than that." he took his hat and passed downstairs into the street. it was five o'clock, and the june sun lay hot upon the pavement. he felt the metal door-knob burn the palm of his hand. "ah, laidlaw, this is well met," cried a voice at his elbow; "i was in the act of coming to see you. i've a case that will interest you, and besides, i remembered that you flavoured your tea with orange leaves!--and i admit--" it was alexis stephen, the great hypnotic doctor. "i've had no tea to-day," laidlaw said, in a dazed manner, after staring for a moment as though the other had struck him in the face. a new idea had entered his mind. "what's the matter?" asked dr. stephen quickly. "something's wrong with you. it's this sudden heat, or overwork. come, man, let's go inside." a sudden light broke upon the face of the younger man, the light of a heaven-sent inspiration. he looked into his friend's face, and told a direct lie. "odd," he said, "i myself was just coming to see you. i have something of great importance to test your confidence with. but in _your_ house, please," as stephen urged him towards his own door--"in your house. it's only round the corner, and i--i cannot go back there--to my rooms--till i have told you. "i'm your patient--for the moment," he added stammeringly as soon as they were seated in the privacy of the hypnotist's sanctum, "and i want--er--" "my dear laidlaw," interrupted the other, in that soothing voice of command which had suggested to many a suffering soul that the cure for its pain lay in the powers of its own reawakened will, "i am always at your service, as you know. you have only to tell me what i can do for you, and i will do it." he showed every desire to help him out. his manner was indescribably tactful and direct. dr. laidlaw looked up into his face. "i surrender my will to you," he said, already calmed by the other's healing presence, "and i want you to treat me hypnotically--and at once. i want you to suggest to me"--his voice became very tense--"that i shall forget--forget till i die--everything that has occurred to me during the last two hours; till i die, mind," he added, with solemn emphasis, "till i die." he floundered and stammered like a frightened boy. alexis stephen looked at him fixedly without speaking. "and further," laidlaw continued, "i want you to ask me no questions. i wish to forget for ever something i have recently discovered--something so terrible and yet so obvious that i can hardly understand why it is not patent to every mind in the world--for i have had a moment of absolute _clear vision_--of merciless clairvoyance. but i want no one else in the whole world to know what it is--least of all, old friend, yourself." he talked in utter confusion, and hardly knew what he was saying. but the pain on his face and the anguish in his voice were an instant passport to the other's heart. "nothing is easier," replied dr. stephen, after a hesitation so slight that the other probably did not even notice it. "come into my other room where we shall not be disturbed. i can heal you. your memory of the last two hours shall be wiped out as though it had never been. you can trust me absolutely." "i know i can," laidlaw said simply, as he followed him in. an hour later they passed back into the front room again. the sun was already behind the houses opposite, and the shadows began to gather. "i went off easily?" laidlaw asked. "you were a little obstinate at first. but though you came in like a lion, you went out like a lamb. i let you sleep a bit afterwards." dr. stephen kept his eyes rather steadily upon his friend's face. "what were you doing by the fire before you came here?" he asked, pausing, in a casual tone, as he lit a cigarette and handed the case to his patient. "i? let me see. oh, i know; i was worrying my way through poor old ebor's papers and things. i'm his executor, you know. then i got weary and came out for a whiff of air." he spoke lightly and with perfect naturalness. obviously he was telling the truth. "i prefer specimens to papers," he laughed cheerily. "i know, i know," said dr. stephen, holding a lighted match for the cigarette. his face wore an expression of content. the experiment had been a complete success. the memory of the last two hours was wiped out utterly. laidlaw was already chatting gaily and easily about a dozen other things that interested him. together they went out into the street, and at his door dr. stephen left him with a joke and a wry face that made his friend laugh heartily. "don't dine on the professor's old papers by mistake," he cried, as he vanished down the street. dr. laidlaw went up to his study at the top of the house. half way down he met his housekeeper, mrs. fewings. she was flustered and excited, and her face was very red and perspiring. "there've been burglars here," she cried excitedly, "or something funny! all your things is just any'ow, sir. i found everything all about everywhere!" she was very confused. in this orderly and very precise establishment it was unusual to find a thing out of place. "oh, my specimens!" cried the doctor, dashing up the rest of the stairs at top speed. "have they been touched or--" he flew to the door of the laboratory. mrs. fewings panted up heavily behind him. "the labatry ain't been touched," she explained, breathlessly, "but they smashed the libry clock and they've 'ung your gold watch, sir, on the skelinton's hands. and the books that weren't no value they flung out er the window just like so much rubbish. they must have been wild drunk, dr. laidlaw, sir!" the young scientist made a hurried examination of the rooms. nothing of value was missing. he began to wonder what kind of burglars they were. he looked up sharply at mrs. fewings standing in the doorway. for a moment he seemed to cast about in his mind for something. "odd," he said at length. "i only left here an hour ago and everything was all right then." "was it, sir? yes, sir." she glanced sharply at him. her room looked out upon the courtyard, and she must have seen the books come crashing down, and also have heard her master leave the house a few minutes later. "and what's this rubbish the brutes have left?" he cried, taking up two slabs of worn gray stone, on the writing-table. "bath brick, or something, i do declare." he looked very sharply again at the confused and troubled housekeeper. "throw them on the dust heap, mrs. fewings, and--and let me know if anything is missing in the house, and i will notify the police this evening." when she left the room he went into the laboratory and took his watch off the skeleton's fingers. his face wore a troubled expression, but after a moment's thought it cleared again. his memory was a complete blank. "i suppose i left it on the writing-table when i went out to take the air," he said. and there was no one present to contradict him. he crossed to the window and blew carelessly some ashes of burned paper from the sill, and stood watching them as they floated away lazily over the tops of the trees. * * * * * _the glamour of the snow_ i hibbert, always conscious of two worlds, was in this mountain village conscious of three. it lay on the slopes of the valais alps, and he had taken a room in the little post office, where he could be at peace to write his book, yet at the same time enjoy the winter sports and find companionship in the hotels when he wanted it. the three worlds that met and mingled here seemed to his imaginative temperament very obvious, though it is doubtful if another mind less intuitively equipped would have seen them so well-defined. there was the world of tourist english, civilised, quasi-educated, to which he belonged by birth, at any rate; there was the world of peasants to which he felt himself drawn by sympathy--for he loved and admired their toiling, simple life; and there was this other--which he could only call the world of nature. to this last, however, in virtue of a vehement poetic imagination, and a tumultuous pagan instinct fed by his very blood, he felt that most of him belonged. the others borrowed from it, as it were, for visits. here, with the soul of nature, hid his central life. between all three was conflict--potential conflict. on the skating-rink each sunday the tourists regarded the natives as intruders; in the church the peasants plainly questioned: "why do you come? we are here to worship; you to stare and whisper!" for neither of these two worlds accepted the other. and neither did nature accept the tourists, for it took advantage of their least mistakes, and indeed, even of the peasant-world "accepted" only those who were strong and bold enough to invade her savage domain with sufficient skill to protect themselves from several forms of--death. now hibbert was keenly aware of this potential conflict and want of harmony; he felt outside, yet caught by it--torn in the three directions because he was partly of each world, but wholly in only one. there grew in him a constant, subtle effort--or, at least, desire--to unify them and decide positively to which he should belong and live in. the attempt, of course, was largely subconscious. it was the natural instinct of a richly imaginative nature seeking the point of equilibrium, so that the mind could feel at peace and his brain be free to do good work. among the guests no one especially claimed his interest. the men were nice but undistinguished--athletic schoolmasters, doctors snatching a holiday, good fellows all; the women, equally various--the clever, the would-be-fast, the dare-to-be-dull, the women "who understood," and the usual pack of jolly dancing girls and "flappers." and hibbert, with his forty odd years of thick experience behind him, got on well with the lot; he understood them all; they belonged to definite, predigested types that are the same the world over, and that he had met the world over long ago. but to none of them did he belong. his nature was too "multiple" to subscribe to the set of shibboleths of any one class. and, since all liked him, and felt that somehow he seemed outside of them--spectator, looker-on--all sought to claim him. in a sense, therefore, the three worlds fought for him: natives, tourists, nature.... it was thus began the singular conflict for the soul of hibbert. _in_ his own soul, however, it took place. neither the peasants nor the tourists were conscious that they fought for anything. and nature, they say, is merely blind and automatic. the assault upon him of the peasants may be left out of account, for it is obvious that they stood no chance of success. the tourist world, however, made a gallant effort to subdue him to themselves. but the evenings in the hotel, when dancing was not in order, were--english. the provincial imagination was set upon a throne and worshipped heavily through incense of the stupidest conventions possible. hibbert used to go back early to his room in the post office to work. "it is a mistake on my part to have _realised_ that there is any conflict at all," he thought, as he crunched home over the snow at midnight after one of the dances. "it would have been better to have kept outside it all and done my work. better," he added, looking back down the silent village street to the church tower, "and--safer." the adjective slipped from his mind before he was aware of it. he turned with an involuntary start and looked about him. he knew perfectly well what it meant--this thought that had thrust its head up from the instinctive region. he understood, without being able to express it fully, the meaning that betrayed itself in the choice of the adjective. for if he had ignored the existence of this conflict he would at the same time, have remained outside the arena. whereas now he had entered the lists. now this battle for his soul must have issue. and he knew that the spell of nature was greater for him than all other spells in the world combined--greater than love, revelry, pleasure, greater even than study. he had always been afraid to let himself go. his pagan soul dreaded her terrific powers of witchery even while he worshipped. the little village already slept. the world lay smothered in snow. the chalet roofs shone white beneath the moon, and pitch-black shadows gathered against the walls of the church. his eye rested a moment on the square stone tower with its frosted cross that pointed to the sky: then travelled with a leap of many thousand feet to the enormous mountains that brushed the brilliant stars. like a forest rose the huge peaks above the slumbering village, measuring the night and heavens. they beckoned him. and something born of the snowy desolation, born of the midnight and the silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of the night, something that lay 'twixt terror and wonder, dropped from the vast wintry spaces down into his heart--and called him. very softly, unrecorded in any word or thought his brain could compass, it laid its spell upon him. fingers of snow brushed the surface of his heart. the power and quiet majesty of the winter's night appalled him.... fumbling a moment with the big unwieldy key, he let himself in and went upstairs to bed. two thoughts went with him--apparently quite ordinary and sensible ones: "what fools these peasants are to sleep through such a night!" and the other: "those dances tire me. i'll never go again. my work only suffers in the morning." the claims of peasants and tourists upon him seemed thus in a single instant weakened. the clash of battle troubled half his dreams. nature had sent her beauty of the night and won the first assault. the others, routed and dismayed, fled far away. ii "don't go back to your dreary old post office. we're going to have supper in my room--something hot. come and join us. hurry up!" there had been an ice carnival, and the last party, tailing up the snow-slope to the hotel, called him. the chinese lanterns smoked and sputtered on the wires; the band had long since gone. the cold was bitter and the moon came only momentarily between high, driving clouds. from the shed where the people changed from skates to snow-boots he shouted something to the effect that he was "following"; but no answer came; the moving shadows of those who had called were already merged high up against the village darkness. the voices died away. doors slammed. hibbert found himself alone on the deserted rink. and it was then, quite suddenly, the impulse came to--stay and skate alone. the thought of the stuffy hotel room, and of those noisy people with their obvious jokes and laughter, oppressed him. he felt a longing to be alone with the night; to taste her wonder all by himself there beneath the stars, gliding over the ice. it was not yet midnight, and he could skate for half an hour. that supper party, if they noticed his absence at all, would merely think he had changed his mind and gone to bed. it was an impulse, yes, and not an unnatural one; yet even at the time it struck him that something more than impulse lay concealed behind it. more than invitation, yet certainly less than command, there was a vague queer feeling that he stayed because he had to, almost as though there was something he had forgotten, overlooked, left undone. imaginative temperaments are often thus; and impulse is ever weakness. for with such ill-considered opening of the doors to hasty action may come an invasion of other forces at the same time--forces merely waiting their opportunity perhaps! he caught the fugitive warning even while he dismissed it as absurd, and the next minute he was whirling over the smooth ice in delightful curves and loops beneath the moon. there was no fear of collision. he could take his own speed and space as he willed. the shadows of the towering mountains fell across the rink, and a wind of ice came from the forests, where the snow lay ten feet deep. the hotel lights winked and went out. the village slept. the high wire netting could not keep out the wonder of the winter night that grew about him like a presence. he skated on and on, keen exhilarating pleasure in his tingling blood, and weariness all forgotten. and then, midway in the delight of rushing movement, he saw a figure gliding behind the wire netting, watching him. with a start that almost made him lose his balance--for the abruptness of the new arrival was so unlooked for--he paused and stared. although the light was dim he made out that it was the figure of a woman and that she was feeling her way along the netting, trying to get in. against the white background of the snow-field he watched her rather stealthy efforts as she passed with a silent step over the banked-up snow. she was tall and slim and graceful; he could see that even in the dark. and then, of course, he understood. it was another adventurous skater like himself, stolen down unawares from hotel or chalet, and searching for the opening. at once, making a sign and pointing with one hand, he turned swiftly and skated over to the little entrance on the other side. but, even before he got there, there was a sound on the ice behind him and, with an exclamation of amazement he could not suppress, he turned to see her swerving up to his side across the width of the rink. she had somehow found another way in. hibbert, as a rule, was punctilious, and in these free-and-easy places, perhaps, especially so. if only for his own protection he did not seek to make advances unless some kind of introduction paved the way. but for these two to skate together in the semi-darkness without speech, often of necessity brushing shoulders almost, was too absurd to think of. accordingly he raised his cap and spoke. his actual words he seems unable to recall, nor what the girl said in reply, except that she answered him in accented english with some commonplace about doing figures at midnight on an empty rink. quite natural it was, and right. she wore grey clothes of some kind, though not the customary long gloves or sweater, for indeed her hands were bare, and presently when he skated with her, he wondered with something like astonishment at their dry and icy coldness. and she was delicious to skate with--supple, sure, and light, fast as a man yet with the freedom of a child, sinuous and steady at the same time. her flexibility made him wonder, and when he asked where she had learned she murmured--he caught the breath against his ear and recalled later that it was singularly cold--that she could hardly tell, for she had been accustomed to the ice ever since she could remember. but her face he never properly saw. a muffler of white fur buried her neck to the ears, and her cap came over the eyes. he only saw that she was young. nor could he gather her hotel or chalet, for she pointed vaguely, when he asked her, up the slopes. "just over there--" she said, quickly taking his hand again. he did not press her; no doubt she wished to hide her escapade. and the touch of her hand thrilled him more than anything he could remember; even through his thick glove he felt the softness of that cold and delicate softness. the clouds thickened over the mountains. it grew darker. they talked very little, and did not always skate together. often they separated, curving about in corners by themselves, but always coming together again in the centre of the rink; and when she left him thus hibbert was conscious of--yes, of missing her. he found a peculiar satisfaction, almost a fascination, in skating by her side. it was quite an adventure--these two strangers with the ice and snow and night! midnight had long since sounded from the old church tower before they parted. she gave the sign, and he skated quickly to the shed, meaning to find a seat and help her take her skates off. yet when he turned--she had already gone. he saw her slim figure gliding away across the snow ... and hurrying for the last time round the rink alone he searched in vain for the opening she had twice used in this curious way. "how very queer!" he thought, referring to the wire netting. "she must have lifted it and wriggled under ...!" wondering how in the world she managed it, what in the world had possessed him to be so free with her, and who in the world she was, he went up the steep slope to the post office and so to bed, her promise to come again another night still ringing delightfully in his ears. and curious were the thoughts and sensations that accompanied him. most of all, perhaps, was the half suggestion of some dim memory that he had known this girl before, had met her somewhere, more--that she knew him. for in her voice--a low, soft, windy little voice it was, tender and soothing for all its quiet coldness--there lay some faint reminder of two others he had known, both long since gone: the voice of the woman he had loved, and--the voice of his mother. but this time through his dreams there ran no clash of battle. he was conscious, rather, of something cold and clinging that made him think of sifting snowflakes climbing slowly with entangling touch and thickness round his feet. the snow, coming without noise, each flake so light and tiny none can mark the spot whereon it settles, yet the mass of it able to smother whole villages, wove through the very texture of his mind--cold, bewildering, deadening effort with its clinging network of ten million feathery touches. iii in the morning hibbert realised he had done, perhaps, a foolish thing. the brilliant sunshine that drenched the valley made him see this, and the sight of his work-table with its typewriter, books, papers, and the rest, brought additional conviction. to have skated with a girl alone at midnight, no matter how innocently the thing had come about, was unwise--unfair, especially to her. gossip in these little winter resorts was worse than in a provincial town. he hoped no one had seen them. luckily the night had been dark. most likely none had heard the ring of skates. deciding that in future he would be more careful, he plunged into work, and sought to dismiss the matter from his mind. but in his times of leisure the memory returned persistently to haunt him. when he "ski-d," "luged," or danced in the evenings, and especially when he skated on the little rink, he was aware that the eyes of his mind forever sought this strange companion of the night. a hundred times he fancied that he saw her, but always sight deceived him. her face he might not know, but he could hardly fail to recognise her figure. yet nowhere among the others did he catch a glimpse of that slim young creature he had skated with alone beneath the clouded stars. he searched in vain. even his inquiries as to the occupants of the private chalets brought no results. he had lost her. but the queer thing was that he felt as though she were somewhere close; he _knew_ she had not really gone. while people came and left with every day, it never once occurred to him that she had left. on the contrary, he felt assured that they would meet again. this thought he never quite acknowledged. perhaps it was the wish that fathered it only. and, even when he did meet her, it was a question how he would speak and claim acquaintance, or whether _she_ would recognise himself. it might be awkward. he almost came to dread a meeting, though "dread," of course, was far too strong a word to describe an emotion that was half delight, half wondering anticipation. meanwhile the season was in full swing. hibbert felt in perfect health, worked hard, ski-d, skated, luged, and at night danced fairly often--in spite of his decision. this dancing was, however, an act of subconscious surrender; it really meant he hoped to find her among the whirling couples. he was searching for her without quite acknowledging it to himself; and the hotel-world, meanwhile, thinking it had won him over, teased and chaffed him. he made excuses in a similar vein; but all the time he watched and searched and--waited. for several days the sky held clear and bright and frosty, bitterly cold, everything crisp and sparkling in the sun; but there was no sign of fresh snow, and the ski-ers began to grumble. on the mountains was an icy crust that made "running" dangerous; they wanted the frozen, dry, and powdery snow that makes for speed, renders steering easier and falling less severe. but the keen east wind showed no signs of changing for a whole ten days. then, suddenly, there came a touch of softer air and the weather-wise began to prophesy. hibbert, who was delicately sensitive to the least change in earth or sky, was perhaps the first to feel it. only he did not prophesy. he knew through every nerve in his body that moisture had crept into the air, was accumulating, and that presently a fall would come. for he responded to the moods of nature like a fine barometer. and the knowledge, this time, brought into his heart a strange little wayward emotion that was hard to account for--a feeling of unexplained uneasiness and disquieting joy. for behind it, woven through it rather, ran a faint exhilaration that connected remotely somewhere with that touch of delicious alarm, that tiny anticipating "dread," that so puzzled him when he thought of his next meeting with his skating companion of the night. it lay beyond all words, all telling, this queer relationship between the two; but somehow the girl and snow ran in a pair across his mind. perhaps for imaginative writing-men, more than for other workers, the smallest change of mood betrays itself at once. his work at any rate revealed this slight shifting of emotional values in his soul. not that his writing suffered, but that it altered, subtly as those changes of sky or sea or landscape that come with the passing of afternoon into evening--imperceptibly. a subconscious excitement sought to push outwards and express itself ... and, knowing the uneven effect such moods produced in his work, he laid his pen aside and took instead to reading that he had to do. meanwhile the brilliance passed from the sunshine, the sky grew slowly overcast; by dusk the mountain tops came singularly close and sharp; the distant valley rose into absurdly near perspective. the moisture increased, rapidly approaching saturation point, when it must fall in snow. hibbert watched and waited. and in the morning the world lay smothered beneath its fresh white carpet. it snowed heavily till noon, thickly, incessantly, chokingly, a foot or more; then the sky cleared, the sun came out in splendour, the wind shifted back to the east, and frost came down upon the mountains with its keenest and most biting tooth. the drop in the temperature was tremendous, but the ski-ers were jubilant. next day the "running" would be fast and perfect. already the mass was settling, and the surface freezing into those moss-like, powdery crystals that make the ski run almost of their own accord with the faint "sishing" as of a bird's wings through the air. iv that night there was excitement in the little hotel-world, first because there was a _bal costume_, but chiefly because the new snow had come. and hibbert went--felt drawn to go; he did not go in costume, but he wanted to talk about the slopes and ski-ing with the other men, and at the same time.... ah, there was the truth, the deeper necessity that called. for the singular connection between the stranger and the snow again betrayed itself, utterly beyond explanation as before, but vital and insistent. some hidden instinct in his pagan soul--heaven knows how he phrased it even to himself, if he phrased it at all--whispered that with the snow the girl would be somewhere about, would emerge from her hiding place, would even look for him. absolutely unwarranted it was. he laughed while he stood before the little glass and trimmed his moustache, tried to make his black tie sit straight, and shook down his dinner jacket so that it should lie upon the shoulders without a crease. his brown eyes were very bright. "i look younger than i usually do," he thought. it was unusual, even significant, in a man who had no vanity about his appearance and certainly never questioned his age or tried to look younger than he was. affairs of the heart, with one tumultuous exception that left no fuel for lesser subsequent fires, had never troubled him. the forces of his soul and mind not called upon for "work" and obvious duties, all went to nature. the desolate, wild places of the earth were what he loved; night, and the beauty of the stars and snow. and this evening he felt their claims upon him mightily stirring. a rising wildness caught his blood, quickened his pulse, woke longing and passion too. but chiefly snow. the snow whirred softly through his thoughts like white, seductive dreams.... for the snow had come; and she, it seemed, had somehow come with it--into his mind. and yet he stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and coat askew a dozen times, as though it mattered. "what in the world is up with me?" he thought. then, laughing a little, he turned before leaving the room to put his private papers in order. the green morocco desk that held them he took down from the shelf and laid upon the table. tied to the lid was the visiting card with his brother's london address "in case of accident." on the way down to the hotel he wondered why he had done this, for though imaginative, he was not the kind of man who dealt in presentiments. moods with him were strong, but ever held in leash. "it's almost like a warning," he thought, smiling. he drew his thick coat tightly round the throat as the freezing air bit at him. "those warnings one reads of in stories sometimes ...!" a delicious happiness was in his blood. over the edge of the hills across the valley rose the moon. he saw her silver sheet the world of snow. snow covered all. it smothered sound and distance. it smothered houses, streets, and human beings. it smothered--life. v in the hall there was light and bustle; people were already arriving from the other hotels and chalets, their costumes hidden beneath many wraps. groups of men in evening dress stood about smoking, talking "snow" and "ski-ing." the band was tuning up. the claims of the hotel-world clashed about him faintly as of old. at the big glass windows of the verandah, peasants stopped a moment on their way home from the _cafe_ to peer. hibbert thought laughingly of that conflict he used to imagine. he laughed because it suddenly seemed so unreal. he belonged so utterly to nature and the mountains, and especially to those desolate slopes where now the snow lay thick and fresh and sweet, that there was no question of a conflict at all. the power of the newly fallen snow had caught him, proving it without effort. out there, upon those lonely reaches of the moonlit ridges, the snow lay ready--masses and masses of it--cool, soft, inviting. he longed for it. it awaited him. he thought of the intoxicating delight of ski-ing in the moonlight.... thus, somehow, in vivid flashing vision, he thought of it while he stood there smoking with the other men and talking all the "shop" of ski-ing. and, ever mysteriously blended with this power of the snow, poured also through his inner being the power of the girl. he could not disabuse his mind of the insinuating presence of the two together. he remembered that queer skating-impulse of ten days ago, the impulse that had let her in. that any mind, even an imaginative one, could pass beneath the sway of such a fancy was strange enough; and hibbert, while fully aware of the disorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it. this insubordinate centre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had assumed command. with a kind of sensuous pleasure he let himself be conquered. and snow that night seemed in everybody's thoughts. the dancing couples talked of it; the hotel proprietors congratulated one another; it meant good sport and satisfied their guests; every one was planning trips and expeditions, talking of slopes and telemarks, of flying speed and distance, of drifts and crust and frost. vitality and enthusiasm pulsed in the very air; all were alert and active, positive, radiating currents of creative life even into the stuffy atmosphere of that crowded ball-room. and the snow had caused it, the snow had brought it; all this discharge of eager sparkling energy was due primarily to the--snow. but in the mind of hibbert, by some swift alchemy of his pagan yearnings, this energy became transmuted. it rarefied itself, gleaming in white and crystal currents of passionate anticipation, which he transferred, as by a species of electrical imagination, into the personality of the girl--the girl of the snow. she somewhere was waiting for him, expecting him, calling to him softly from those leagues of moonlit mountain. he remembered the touch of that cool, dry hand; the soft and icy breath against his cheek; the hush and softness of her presence in the way she came and the way she had gone again--like a flurry of snow the wind sent gliding up the slopes. she, like himself, belonged out there. he fancied that he heard her little windy voice come sifting to him through the snowy branches of the trees, calling his name ... that haunting little voice that dived straight to the centre of his life as once, long years ago, two other voices used to do.... but nowhere among the costumed dancers did he see her slender figure. he danced with one and all, distrait and absent, a stupid partner as each girl discovered, his eyes ever turning towards the door and windows, hoping to catch the luring face, the vision that did not come ... and at length, hoping even against hope. for the ball-room thinned; groups left one by one, going home to their hotels and chalets; the band tired obviously; people sat drinking lemon-squashes at the little tables, the men mopping their foreheads, everybody ready for bed. it was close on midnight. as hibbert passed through the hall to get his overcoat and snow-boots, he saw men in the passage by the "sport-room," greasing their ski against an early start. knapsack luncheons were being ordered by the kitchen swing doors. he sighed. lighting a cigarette a friend offered him, he returned a confused reply to some question as to whether he could join their party in the morning. it seemed he did not hear it properly. he passed through the outer vestibule between the double glass doors, and went into the night. the man who asked the question watched him go, an expression of anxiety momentarily in his eyes. "don't think he heard you," said another, laughing. "you've got to shout to hibbert, his mind's so full of his work." "he works too hard," suggested the first, "full of queer ideas and dreams." but hibbert's silence was not rudeness. he had not caught the invitation, that was all. the call of the hotel-world had faded. he no longer heard it. another wilder call was sounding in his ears. for up the street he had seen a little figure moving. close against the shadows of the baker's shop it glided--white, slim, enticing. vi and at once into his mind passed the hush and softness of the snow--yet with it a searching, crying wildness for the heights. he knew by some incalculable, swift instinct she would not meet him in the village street. it was not there, amid crowding houses, she would speak to him. indeed, already she had disappeared, melted from view up the white vista of the moonlit road. yonder, he divined, she waited where the highway narrowed abruptly into the mountain path beyond the chalets. it did not even occur to him to hesitate; mad though it seemed, and was--this sudden craving for the heights with her, at least for open spaces where the snow lay thick and fresh--it was too imperious to be denied. he does not remember going up to his room, putting the sweater over his evening clothes, and getting into the fur gauntlet gloves and the helmet cap of wool. most certainly he has no recollection of fastening on his ski; he must have done it automatically. some faculty of normal observation was in abeyance, as it were. his mind was out beyond the village--out with the snowy mountains and the moon. henri defago, putting up the shutters over his _cafe_ windows, saw him pass, and wondered mildly: "un monsieur qui fait du ski a cette heure! il est anglais, done ...!" he shrugged his shoulders, as though a man had the right to choose his own way of death. and marthe perotti, the hunchback wife of the shoemaker, looking by chance from her window, caught his figure moving swiftly up the road. she had other thoughts, for she knew and believed the old traditions of the witches and snow-beings that steal the souls of men. she had even heard, 'twas said, the dreaded "synagogue" pass roaring down the street at night, and now, as then, she hid her eyes. "they've called to him ... and he must go," she murmured, making the sign of the cross. but no one sought to stop him. hibbert recalls only a single incident until he found himself beyond the houses, searching for her along the fringe of forest where the moonlight met the snow in a bewildering frieze of fantastic shadows. and the incident was simply this--that he remembered passing the church. catching the outline of its tower against the stars, he was aware of a faint sense of hesitation. a vague uneasiness came and went--jarred unpleasantly across the flow of his excited feelings, chilling exhilaration. he caught the instant's discord, dismissed it, and--passed on. the seduction of the snow smothered the hint before he realised that it had brushed the skirts of warning. and then he saw her. she stood there waiting in a little clear space of shining snow, dressed all in white, part of the moonlight and the glistening background, her slender figure just discernible. "i waited, for i knew you would come," the silvery little voice of windy beauty floated down to him. "you _had_ to come." "i'm ready," he answered, "i knew it too." the world of nature caught him to its heart in those few words--the wonder and the glory of the night and snow. life leaped within him. the passion of his pagan soul exulted, rose in joy, flowed out to her. he neither reflected nor considered, but let himself go like the veriest schoolboy in the wildness of first love. "give me your hand," he cried, "i'm coming ...!" "a little farther on, a little higher," came her delicious answer. "here it is too near the village--and the church." and the words seemed wholly right and natural; he did not dream of questioning them; he understood that, with this little touch of civilisation in sight, the familiarity he suggested was impossible. once out upon the open mountains, 'mid the freedom of huge slopes and towering peaks, the stars and moon to witness and the wilderness of snow to watch, they could taste an innocence of happy intercourse free from the dead conventions that imprison literal minds. he urged his pace, yet did not quite overtake her. the girl kept always just a little bit ahead of his best efforts.... and soon they left the trees behind and passed on to the enormous slopes of the sea of snow that rolled in mountainous terror and beauty to the stars. the wonder of the white world caught him away. under the steady moonlight it was more than haunting. it was a living, white, bewildering power that deliciously confused the senses and laid a spell of wild perplexity upon the heart. it was a personality that cloaked, and yet revealed, itself through all this sheeted whiteness of snow. it rose, went with him, fled before, and followed after. slowly it dropped lithe, gleaming arms about his neck, gathering him in.... certainly some soft persuasion coaxed his very soul, urging him ever forwards, upwards, on towards the higher icy slopes. judgment and reason left their throne, it seemed, completely, as in the madness of intoxication. the girl, slim and seductive, kept always just ahead, so that he never quite came up with her. he saw the white enchantment of her face and figure, something that streamed about her neck flying like a wreath of snow in the wind, and heard the alluring accents of her whispering voice that called from time to time: "a little farther on, a little higher.... then we'll run home together!" sometimes he saw her hand stretched out to find his own, but each time, just as he came up with her, he saw her still in front, the hand and arm withdrawn. they took a gentle angle of ascent. the toil seemed nothing. in this crystal, wine-like air fatigue vanished. the sishing of the ski through the powdery surface of the snow was the only sound that broke the stillness; this, with his breathing and the rustle of her skirts, was all he heard. cold moonshine, snow, and silence held the world. the sky was black, and the peaks beyond cut into it like frosted wedges of iron and steel. far below the valley slept, the village long since hidden out of sight. he felt that he could never tire.... the sound of the church clock rose from time to time faintly through the air--more and more distant. "give me your hand. it's time now to turn back." "just one more slope," she laughed. "that ridge above us. then we'll make for home." and her low voice mingled pleasantly with the purring of their ski. his own seemed harsh and ugly by comparison. "but i have never come so high before. it's glorious! this world of silent snow and moonlight--and _you_. you're a child of the snow, i swear. let me come up--closer--to see your face--and touch your little hand." her laughter answered him. "come on! a little higher. here we're quite alone together." "it's magnificent," he cried. "but why did you hide away so long? i've looked and searched for you in vain ever since we skated--" he was going to say "ten days ago," but the accurate memory of time had gone from him; he was not sure whether it was days or years or minutes. his thoughts of earth were scattered and confused. "you looked for me in the wrong places," he heard her murmur just above him. "you looked in places where i never go. hotels and houses kill me. i avoid them." she laughed--a fine, shrill, windy little laugh. "i loathe them too--" he stopped. the girl had suddenly come quite close. a breath of ice passed through his very soul. she had touched him. "but this awful cold!" he cried out, sharply, "this freezing cold that takes me. the wind is rising; it's a wind of ice. come, let us turn ...!" but when he plunged forward to hold her, or at least to look, the girl was gone again. and something in the way she stood there a few feet beyond, and stared down into his eyes so steadfastly in silence, made him shiver. the moonlight was behind her, but in some odd way he could not focus sight upon her face, although so close. the gleam of eyes he caught, but all the rest seemed white and snowy as though he looked beyond her--out into space.... the sound of the church bell came up faintly from the valley far below, and he counted the strokes--five. a sudden, curious weakness seized him as he listened. deep within it was, deadly yet somehow sweet, and hard to resist. he felt like sinking down upon the snow and lying there.... they had been climbing for five hours.... it was, of course, the warning of complete exhaustion. with a great effort he fought and overcame it. it passed away as suddenly as it came. "we'll turn," he said with a decision he hardly felt. "it will be dawn before we reach the village again. come at once. it's time for home." the sense of exhilaration had utterly left him. an emotion that was akin to fear swept coldly through him. but her whispering answer turned it instantly to terror--a terror that gripped him horribly and turned him weak and unresisting. "our home is--_here_!" a burst of wild, high laughter, loud and shrill, accompanied the words. it was like a whistling wind. the wind _had_ risen, and clouds obscured the moon. "a little higher--where we cannot hear the wicked bells," she cried, and for the first time seized him deliberately by the hand. she moved, was suddenly close against his face. again she touched him. and hibbert tried to turn away in escape, and so trying, found for the first time that the power of the snow--that other power which does not exhilarate but deadens effort--was upon him. the suffocating weakness that it brings to exhausted men, luring them to the sleep of death in her clinging soft embrace, lulling the will and conquering all desire for life--this was awfully upon him. his feet were heavy and entangled. he could not turn or move. the girl stood in front of him, very near; he felt her chilly breath upon his cheeks; her hair passed blindingly across his eyes; and that icy wind came with her. he saw her whiteness close; again, it seemed, his sight passed through her into space as though she had no face. her arms were round his neck. she drew him softly downwards to his knees. he sank; he yielded utterly; he obeyed. her weight was upon him, smothering, delicious. the snow was to his waist.... she kissed him softly on the lips, the eyes, all over his face. and then she spoke his name in that voice of love and wonder, the voice that held the accent of two others--both taken over long ago by death--the voice of his mother, and of the woman he had loved. he made one more feeble effort to resist. then, realising even while he struggled that this soft weight about his heart was sweeter than anything life could ever bring, he let his muscles relax, and sank back into the soft oblivion of the covering snow. her wintry kisses bore him into sleep. vii they say that men who know the sleep of exhaustion in the snow find no awakening on the hither side of death.... the hours passed and the moon sank down below the white world's rim. then, suddenly, there came a little crash upon his breast and neck, and hibbert--woke. he slowly turned bewildered, heavy eyes upon the desolate mountains, stared dizzily about him, tried to rise. at first his muscles would not act; a numbing, aching pain possessed him. he uttered a long, thin cry for help, and heard its faintness swallowed by the wind. and then he understood vaguely why he was only warm--not dead. for this very wind that took his cry had built up a sheltering mound of driven snow against his body while he slept. like a curving wave it ran beside him. it was the breaking of its over-toppling edge that caused the crash, and the coldness of the mass against his neck that woke him. dawn kissed the eastern sky; pale gleams of gold shot every peak with splendour; but ice was in the air, and the dry and frozen snow blew like powder from the surface of the slopes. he saw the points of his ski projecting just below him. then he--remembered. it seems he had just strength enough to realise that, could he but rise and stand, he might fly with terrific impetus towards the woods and village far beneath. the ski would carry him. but if he failed and fell ...! how he contrived it hibbert never knew; this fear of death somehow called out his whole available reserve force. he rose slowly, balanced a moment, then, taking the angle of an immense zigzag, started down the awful slopes like an arrow from a bow. and automatically the splendid muscles of the practised ski-er and athlete saved and guided him, for he was hardly conscious of controlling either speed or direction. the snow stung face and eyes like fine steel shot; ridge after ridge flew past; the summits raced across the sky; the valley leaped up with bounds to meet him. he scarcely felt the ground beneath his feet as the huge slopes and distance melted before the lightning speed of that descent from death to life. he took it in four mile-long zigzags, and it was the turning at each corner that nearly finished him, for then the strain of balancing taxed to the verge of collapse the remnants of his strength. slopes that have taken hours to climb can be descended in a short half-hour on ski, but hibbert had lost all count of time. quite other thoughts and feelings mastered him in that wild, swift dropping through the air that was like the flight of a bird. for ever close upon his heels came following forms and voices with the whirling snow-dust. he heard that little silvery voice of death and laughter at his back. shrill and wild, with the whistling of the wind past his ears, he caught its pursuing tones; but in anger now, no longer soft and coaxing. and it was accompanied; she did not follow alone. it seemed a host of these flying figures of the snow chased madly just behind him. he felt them furiously smite his neck and cheeks, snatch at his hands and try to entangle his feet and ski in drifts. his eyes they blinded, and they caught his breath away. the terror of the heights and snow and winter desolation urged him forward in the maddest race with death a human being ever knew; and so terrific was the speed that before the gold and crimson had left the summits to touch the ice-lips of the lower glaciers, he saw the friendly forest far beneath swing up and welcome him. and it was then, moving slowly along the edge of the woods, he saw a light. a man was carrying it. a procession of human figures was passing in a dark line laboriously through the snow. and--he heard the sound of chanting. instinctively, without a second's hesitation, he changed his course. no longer flying at an angle as before, he pointed his ski straight down the mountain-side. the dreadful steepness did not frighten him. he knew full well it meant a crashing tumble at the bottom, but he also knew it meant a doubling of his speed--with safety at the end. for, though no definite thought passed through his mind, he understood that it was the village _cure_ who carried that little gleaming lantern in the dawn, and that he was taking the host to a chalet on the lower slopes--to some peasant _in extremis_. he remembered her terror of the church and bells. she feared the holy symbols. there was one last wild cry in his ears as he started, a shriek of the wind before his face, and a rush of stinging snow against closed eyelids--and then he dropped through empty space. speed took sight from him. it seemed he flew off the surface of the world. * * * * * indistinctly he recalls the murmur of men's voices, the touch of strong arms that lifted him, and the shooting pains as the ski were unfastened from the twisted ankle ... for when he opened his eyes again to normal life he found himself lying in his bed at the post office with the doctor at his side. but for years to come the story of "mad hibbert's" ski-ing at night is recounted in that mountain village. he went, it seems, up slopes, and to a height that no man in his senses ever tried before. the tourists were agog about it for the rest of the season, and the very same day two of the bolder men went over the actual ground and photographed the slopes. later hibbert saw these photographs. he noticed one curious thing about them--though he did not mention it to any one: there was only a single track. * * * * * _sand_ i as felix henriot came through the streets that january night the fog was stifling, but when he reached his little flat upon the top floor there came a sound of wind. wind was stirring about the world. it blew against his windows, but at first so faintly that he hardly noticed it. then, with an abrupt rise and fall like a wailing voice that sought to claim attention, it called him. he peered through the window into the blurred darkness, listening. there is no cry in the world like that of the homeless wind. a vague excitement, scarcely to be analysed, ran through his blood. the curtain of fog waved momentarily aside. henriot fancied a star peeped down at him. "it will change things a bit--at last," he sighed, settling back into his chair. "it will bring movement!" already something in himself had changed. a restlessness, as of that wandering wind, woke in his heart--the desire to be off and away. other things could rouse this wildness too: falling water, the singing of a bird, an odour of wood-fire, a glimpse of winding road. but the cry of wind, always searching, questioning, travelling the world's great routes, remained ever the master-touch. high longing took his mood in hand. mid seven millions he felt suddenly--lonely. "i will arise and go now, for always night and day i hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; while i stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, i hear it in the deep heart's core." he murmured the words over softly to himself. the emotion that produced innisfree passed strongly through him. he too would be over the hills and far away. he craved movement, change, adventure--somewhere far from shops and crowds and motor-'busses. for a week the fog had stifled london. this wind brought life. where should he go? desire was long; his purse was short. he glanced at his books, letters, newspapers. they had no interest now. instead he listened. the panorama of other journeys rolled in colour through the little room, flying on one another's heels. henriot enjoyed this remembered essence of his travels more than the travels themselves. the crying wind brought so many voices, all of them seductive: there was a soft crashing of waves upon the black sea shores, where the huge caucasus beckoned in the sky beyond; a rustling in the umbrella pines and cactus at marseilles, whence magic steamers start about the world like flying dreams. he heard the plash of fountains upon mount ida's slopes, and the whisper of the tamarisk on marathon. it was dawn once more upon the ionian sea, and he smelt the perfume of the cyclades. blue-veiled islands melted in the sunshine, and across the dewy lawns of tempe, moistened by the spray of many waterfalls, he saw--great heavens above!--the dancing of white forms ... or was it only mist the sunshine painted against pelion?... "methought, among the lawns together, we wandered underneath the young grey dawn. and multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind...." and then, into his stuffy room, slipped the singing perfume of a wall-flower on a ruined tower, and with it the sweetness of hot ivy. he heard the "yellow bees in the ivy bloom." wind whipped over the open hills--this very wind that laboured drearily through the london fog. and--he was caught. the darkness melted from the city. the fog whisked off into an azure sky. the roar of traffic turned into booming of the sea. there was a whistling among cordage, and the floor swayed to and fro. he saw a sailor touch his cap and pocket the two-franc piece. the syren hooted--ominous sound that had started him on many a journey of adventure--and the roar of london became mere insignificant clatter of a child's toy carriages. he loved that syren's call; there was something deep and pitiless in it. it drew the wanderers forth from cities everywhere: "leave your known world behind you, and come with me for better or for worse! the anchor is up; it is too late to change. only--beware! you shall know curious things--and alone!" henriot stirred uneasily in his chair. he turned with sudden energy to the shelf of guide-books, maps and time-tables--possessions he most valued in the whole room. he was a happy-go-lucky, adventure-loving soul, careless of common standards, athirst ever for the new and strange. "that's the best of having a cheap flat," he laughed, "and no ties in the world. i can turn the key and disappear. no one cares or knows--no one but the thieving caretaker. and he's long ago found out that there's nothing here worth taking!" there followed then no lengthy indecision. preparation was even shorter still. he was always ready for a move, and his sojourn in cities was but breathing-space while he gathered pennies for further wanderings. an enormous kit-bag--sack-shaped, very worn and dirty--emerged speedily from the bottom of a cupboard in the wall. it was of limitless capacity. the key and padlock rattled in its depths. cigarette ashes covered everything while he stuffed it full of ancient, indescribable garments. and his voice, singing of those "yellow bees in the ivy bloom," mingled with the crying of the rising wind about his windows. his restlessness had disappeared by magic. this time, however, there could be no haunted pelion, nor shady groves of tempe, for he lived in sophisticated times when money markets regulated movement sternly. travelling was only for the rich; mere wanderers must pig it. he remembered instead an opportune invitation to the desert. "objective" invitation, his genial hosts had called it, knowing his hatred of convention. and helouan danced into letters of brilliance upon the inner map of his mind. for egypt had ever held his spirit in thrall, though as yet he had tried in vain to touch the great buried soul of her. the excavators, the egyptologists, the archaeologists most of all, plastered her grey ancient face with labels like hotel advertisements on travellers' portmanteaux. they told where she had come from last, but nothing of what she dreamed and thought and loved. the heart of egypt lay beneath the sand, and the trifling robbery of little details that poked forth from tombs and temples brought no true revelation of her stupendous spiritual splendour. henriot, in his youth, had searched and dived among what material he could find, believing once--or half believing--that the ceremonial of that ancient system veiled a weight of symbol that was reflected from genuine supersensual knowledge. the rituals, now taken literally, and so pityingly explained away, had once been genuine pathways of approach. but never yet, and least of all in his previous visits to egypt itself, had he discovered one single person, worthy of speech, who caught at his idea. "curious," they said, then turned away--to go on digging in the sand. sand smothered her world to-day. excavators discovered skeletons. museums everywhere stored them--grinning, literal relics that told nothing. but now, while he packed and sang, these hopes of enthusiastic younger days stirred again--because the emotion that gave them birth was real and true in him. through the morning mists upon the nile an old pyramid bowed hugely at him across london roofs: "come," he heard its awful whisper beneath the ceiling, "i have things to show you, and to tell." he saw the flock of them sailing the desert like weird grey solemn ships that make no earthly port. and he imagined them as one: multiple expressions of some single unearthly portent they adumbrated in mighty form--dead symbols of some spiritual conception long vanished from the world. "i mustn't dream like this," he laughed, "or i shall get absent-minded and pack fire-tongs instead of boots. it looks like a jumble sale already!" and he stood on a heap of things to wedge them down still tighter. but the pictures would not cease. he saw the kites circling high in the blue air. a couple of white vultures flapped lazily away over shining miles. felucca sails, like giant wings emerging from the ground, curved towards him from the nile. the palm-trees dropped long shadows over memphis. he felt the delicious, drenching heat, and the khamasin, that over-wind from nubia, brushed his very cheeks. in the little gardens the mish-mish was in bloom.... he smelt the desert ... grey sepulchre of cancelled cycles.... the stillness of her interminable reaches dropped down upon old london.... the magic of the sand stole round him in its silent-footed tempest. and while he struggled with that strange, capacious sack, the piles of clothing ran into shapes of gleaming bedouin faces; london garments settled down with the mournful sound of camels' feet, half dropping wind, half water flowing underground--sound that old time has brought over into modern life and left a moment for our wonder and perhaps our tears. he rose at length with the excitement of some deep enchantment in his eyes. the thought of egypt plunged ever so deeply into him, carrying him into depths where he found it difficult to breathe, so strangely far away it seemed, yet indefinably familiar. he lost his way. a touch of fear came with it. "a sack like that is the wonder of the world," he laughed again, kicking the unwieldy, sausage-shaped monster into a corner of the room, and sitting down to write the thrilling labels: "felix henriot, alexandria _via_ marseilles." but his pen blotted the letters; there was sand in it. he rewrote the words. then he remembered a dozen things he had left out. impatiently, yet with confusion somewhere, he stuffed them in. they ran away into shifting heaps; they disappeared; they emerged suddenly again. it was like packing hot, dry, flowing sand. from the pockets of a coat--he had worn it last summer down dorset way--out trickled sand. there was sand in his mind and thoughts. and his dreams that night were full of winds, the old sad winds of egypt, and of moving, sifting sand. arabs and afreets danced amazingly together across dunes he could never reach. for he could not follow fast enough. something infinitely older than these ever caught his feet and held him back. a million tiny fingers stung and pricked him. something flung a veil before his eyes. once it touched him--his face and hands and neck. "stay here with us," he heard a host of muffled voices crying, but their sound was smothered, buried, rising through the ground. a myriad throats were choked. till, at last, with a violent effort he turned and seized it. and then the thing he grasped at slipped between his fingers and ran easily away. it had a grey and yellow face, and it moved through all its parts. it flowed as water flows, and yet was solid. it was centuries old. he cried out to it. "who are you? what is your name? i surely know you ... but i have forgotten ...?" and it stopped, turning from far away its great uncovered countenance of nameless colouring. he caught a voice. it rolled and boomed and whispered like the wind. and then he woke, with a curious shaking in his heart, and a little touch of chilly perspiration on the skin. but the voice seemed in the room still--close beside him: "i am the sand," he heard, before it died away. * * * * * and next he realised that the glitter of paris lay behind him, and a steamer was taking him with much unnecessary motion across a sparkling sea towards alexandria. gladly he saw the riviera fade below the horizon, with its hard bright sunshine, treacherous winds, and its smear of rich, conventional english. all restlessness now had left him. true vagabond still at forty, he only felt the unrest and discomfort of life when caught in the network of routine and rigid streets, no chance of breaking loose. he was off again at last, money scarce enough indeed, but the joy of wandering expressing itself in happy emotions of release. every warning of calculation was stifled. he thought of the american woman who walked out of her long island house one summer's day to look at a passing sail--and was gone eight years before she walked in again. eight years of roving travel! he had always felt respect and admiration for that woman. for felix henriot, with his admixture of foreign blood, was philosopher as well as vagabond, a strong poetic and religious strain sometimes breaking out through fissures in his complex nature. he had seen much life; had read many books. the passionate desire of youth to solve the world's big riddles had given place to a resignation filled to the brim with wonder. anything _might_ be true. nothing surprised him. the most outlandish beliefs, for all he knew, might fringe truth somewhere. he had escaped that cheap cynicism with which disappointed men soothe their vanity when they realise that an intelligible explanation of the universe lies beyond their powers. he no longer expected final answers. for him, even the smallest journeys held the spice of some adventure; all minutes were loaded with enticing potentialities. and they shaped for themselves somehow a dramatic form. "it's like a story," his friends said when he told his travels. it always was a story. but the adventure that lay waiting for him where the silent streets of little helouan kiss the great desert's lips, was of a different kind to any henriot had yet encountered. looking back, he has often asked himself, "how in the world can i accept it?" and, perhaps, he never yet has accepted it. it was sand that brought it. for the desert, the stupendous thing that mothers little helouan, produced it. ii he slipped through cairo with the same relief that he left the riviera, resenting its social vulgarity so close to the imperial aristocracy of the desert; he settled down into the peace of soft and silent little helouan. the hotel in which he had a room on the top floor had been formerly a khedivial palace. it had the air of a palace still. he felt himself in a country-house, with lofty ceilings, cool and airy corridors, spacious halls. soft-footed arabs attended to his wants; white walls let in light and air without a sign of heat; there was a feeling of a large, spread tent pitched on the very sand; and the wind that stirred the oleanders in the shady gardens also crept in to rustle the palm leaves of his favourite corner seat. through the large windows where once the khedive held high court, the sunshine blazed upon vistaed leagues of desert. and from his bedroom windows he watched the sun dip into gold and crimson behind the swelling libyan sands. this side of the pyramids he saw the nile meander among palm groves and tilled fields. across his balcony railings the egyptian stars trooped down beside his very bed, shaping old constellations for his dreams; while, to the south, he looked out upon the vast untamable body of the sands that carpeted the world for thousands of miles towards upper egypt, nubia, and the dread sahara itself. he wondered again why people thought it necessary to go so far afield to know the desert. here, within half an hour of cairo, it lay breathing solemnly at his very doors. for little helouan, caught thus between the shoulders of the libyan and arabian deserts, is utterly sand-haunted. the desert lies all round it like a sea. henriot felt he never could escape from it, as he moved about the island whose coasts are washed with sand. down each broad and shining street the two end houses framed a vista of its dim immensity--glimpses of shimmering blue, or flame-touched purple. there were stretches of deep sea-green as well, far off upon its bosom. the streets were open channels of approach, and the eye ran down them as along the tube of a telescope laid to catch incredible distance out of space. through them the desert reached in with long, thin feelers towards the village. its being flooded into helouan, and over it. past walls and houses, churches and hotels, the sea of desert pressed in silently with its myriad soft feet of sand. it poured in everywhere, through crack and slit and crannie. these were reminders of possession and ownership. and every passing wind that lifted eddies of dust at the street corners were messages from the quiet, powerful thing that permitted helouan to lie and dream so peacefully in the sunshine. mere artificial oasis, its existence was temporary, held on lease, just for ninety-nine centuries or so. this sea idea became insistent. for, in certain lights, and especially in the brief, bewildering dusk, the desert rose--swaying towards the small white houses. the waves of it ran for fifty miles without a break. it was too deep for foam or surface agitation, yet it knew the swell of tides. and underneath flowed resolute currents, linking distance to the centre. these many deserts were really one. a storm, just retreated, had tossed helouan upon the shore and left it there to dry; but any morning he would wake to find it had been carried off again into the depths. some fragment, at least, would disappear. the grim mokattam hills were rollers that ever threatened to topple down and submerge the sandy bar that men called helouan. being soundless, and devoid of perfume, the desert's message reached him through two senses only--sight and touch; chiefly, of course, the former. its invasion was concentrated through the eyes. and vision, thus uncorrected, went what pace it pleased. the desert played with him. sand stole into his being--through the eyes. and so obsessing was this majesty of its close presence, that henriot sometimes wondered how people dared their little social activities within its very sight and hearing; how they played golf and tennis upon reclaimed edges of its face, picnicked so blithely hard upon its frontiers, and danced at night while this stern, unfathomable thing lay breathing just beyond the trumpery walls that kept it out. the challenge of their shallow admiration seemed presumptuous, almost provocative. their pursuit of pleasure suggested insolent indifference. they ran fool-hardy hazards, he felt; for there was no worship in their vulgar hearts. with a mental shudder, sometimes he watched the cheap tourist horde go laughing, chattering past within view of its ancient, half-closed eyes. it was like defying deity. for, to his stirred imagination the sublimity of the desert dwarfed humanity. these people had been wiser to choose another place for the flaunting of their tawdry insignificance. any minute this wilderness, "huddled in grey annihilation," might awake and notice them ...! in his own hotel were several "smart," so-called "society" people who emphasised the protest in him to the point of definite contempt. overdressed, the latest worldly novel under their arms, they strutted the narrow pavements of their tiny world, immensely pleased with themselves. their vacuous minds expressed themselves in the slang of their exclusive circle--value being the element excluded. the pettiness of their outlook hardly distressed him--he was too familiar with it at home--but their essential vulgarity, their innate ugliness, seemed more than usually offensive in the grandeur of its present setting. into the mighty sands they took the latest london scandal, gabbling it over even among the tombs and temples. and "it was to laugh," the pains they spent wondering whom they might condescend to know, never dreaming that they themselves were not worth knowing. against the background of the noble desert their titles seemed the cap and bells of clowns. and henriot, knowing some of them personally, could not always escape their insipid company. yet he was the gainer. they little guessed how their commonness heightened contrast, set mercilessly thus beside the strange, eternal beauty of the sand. occasionally the protest in his soul betrayed itself in words, which of course they did not understand. "he is so clever, isn't he?" and then, having relieved his feelings, he would comfort himself characteristically: "the desert has not noticed them. the sand is not aware of their existence. how should the sea take note of rubbish that lies above its tide-line?" for henriot drew near to its great shifting altars in an attitude of worship. the wilderness made him kneel in heart. its shining reaches led to the oldest temple in the world, and every journey that he made was like a sacrament. for him the desert was a consecrated place. it was sacred. and his tactful hosts, knowing his peculiarities, left their house open to him when he cared to come--they lived upon the northern edge of the oasis--and he was as free as though he were absolutely alone. he blessed them; he rejoiced that he had come. little helouan accepted him. the desert knew that he was there. * * * * * from his corner of the big dining-room he could see the other guests, but his roving eye always returned to the figure of a solitary man who sat at an adjoining table, and whose personality stirred his interest. while affecting to look elsewhere, he studied him as closely as might be. there was something about the stranger that touched his curiosity--a certain air of expectation that he wore. but it was more than that: it was anticipation, apprehension in it somewhere. the man was nervous, uneasy. his restless way of suddenly looking about him proved it. henriot tried every one else in the room as well; but, though his thought settled on others too, he always came back to the figure of this solitary being opposite, who ate his dinner as if afraid of being seen, and glanced up sometimes as if fearful of being watched. henriot's curiosity, before he knew it, became suspicion. there was mystery here. the table, he noticed, was laid for two. "is he an actor, a priest of some strange religion, an enquiry agent, or just--a crank?" was the thought that first occurred to him. and the question suggested itself without amusement. the impression of subterfuge and caution he conveyed left his observer unsatisfied. the face was clean shaven, dark, and strong; thick hair, straight yet bushy, was slightly unkempt; it was streaked with grey; and an unexpected mobility when he smiled ran over the features that he seemed to hold rigid by deliberate effort. the man was cut to no quite common measure. henriot jumped to an intuitive conclusion: "he's not here for pleasure or merely sight-seeing. something serious has brought him out to egypt." for the face combined too ill-assorted qualities: an obstinate tenacity that might even mean brutality, and was certainly repulsive, yet, with it, an undecipherable dreaminess betrayed by lines of the mouth, but above all in the very light blue eyes, so rarely raised. those eyes, he felt, had looked upon unusual things; "dreaminess" was not an adequate description; "searching" conveyed it better. the true source of the queer impression remained elusive. and hence, perhaps, the incongruous marriage in the face--mobility laid upon a matter-of-fact foundation underneath. the face showed conflict. and henriot, watching him, felt decidedly intrigued. "i'd like to know that man, and all about him." his name, he learned later, was richard vance; from birmingham; a business man. but it was not the birmingham he wished to know; it was the--other: cause of the elusive, dreamy searching. though facing one another at so short a distance, their eyes, however, did not meet. and this, henriot well knew, was a sure sign that he himself was also under observation. richard vance, from birmingham, was equally taking careful note of felix henriot, from london. thus, he could wait his time. they would come together later. an opportunity would certainly present itself. the first links in a curious chain had already caught; soon the chain would tighten, pull as though by chance, and bring their lives into one and the same circle. wondering in particular for what kind of a companion the second cover was laid, henriot felt certain that their eventual coming together was inevitable. he possessed this kind of divination from first impressions, and not uncommonly it proved correct. following instinct, therefore, he took no steps towards acquaintance, and for several days, owing to the fact that he dined frequently with his hosts, he saw nothing more of richard vance, the business man from birmingham. then, one night, coming home late from his friend's house, he had passed along the great corridor, and was actually a step or so into his bedroom, when a drawling voice sounded close behind him. it was an unpleasant sound. it was very near him too-- "i beg your pardon, but have you, by any chance, such a thing as a compass you could lend me?" the voice was so close that he started. vance stood within touching distance of his body. he had stolen up like a ghostly arab, must have followed him, too, some little distance, for further down the passage the light of an open door--he had passed it on his way--showed where he came from. "eh? i beg your pardon? a--compass, did you say?" he felt disconcerted for a moment. how short the man was, now that he saw him standing. broad and powerful too. henriot looked down upon his thick head of hair. the personality and voice repelled him. possibly his face, caught unawares, betrayed this. "forgive my startling you," said the other apologetically, while the softer expression danced in for a moment and disorganised the rigid set of the face. "the soft carpet, you know. i'm afraid you didn't hear my tread. i wondered"--he smiled again slightly at the nature of the request--"if--by any chance--you had a pocket compass you could lend me?" "ah, a compass, yes! please don't apologise. i believe i have one--if you'll wait a moment. come in, won't you? i'll have a look." the other thanked him but waited in the passage. henriot, it so happened, had a compass, and produced it after a moment's search. "i am greatly indebted to you--if i may return it in the morning. you will forgive my disturbing you at such an hour. my own is broken, and i wanted--er--to find the true north." henriot stammered some reply, and the man was gone. it was all over in a minute. he locked his door and sat down in his chair to think. the little incident had upset him, though for the life of him he could not imagine why. it ought by rights to have been almost ludicrous, yet instead it was the exact reverse--half threatening. why should not a man want a compass? but, again, why should he? and at midnight? the voice, the eyes, the near presence--what did they bring that set his nerves thus asking unusual questions? this strange impression that something grave was happening, something unearthly--how was it born exactly? the man's proximity came like a shock. it had made him start. he brought--thus the idea came unbidden to his mind--something with him that galvanised him quite absurdly, as fear does, or delight, or great wonder. there was a music in his voice too--a certain--well, he could only call it lilt, that reminded him of plainsong, intoning, chanting. drawling was _not_ the word at all. he tried to dismiss it as imagination, but it would not be dismissed. the disturbance in himself was caused by something not imaginary, but real. and then, for the first time, he discovered that the man had brought a faint, elusive suggestion of perfume with him, an aromatic odour, that made him think of priests and churches. the ghost of it still lingered in the air. ah, here then was the origin of the notion that his voice had chanted: it was surely the suggestion of incense. but incense, intoning, a compass to find the true north--at midnight in a desert hotel! a touch of uneasiness ran through the curiosity and excitement that he felt. and he undressed for bed. "confound my old imagination," he thought, "what tricks it plays me! it'll keep me awake!" but the questions, once started in his mind, continued. he must find explanation of one kind or another before he could lie down and sleep, and he found it at length in--the stars. the man was an astronomer of sorts; possibly an astrologer into the bargain! why not? the stars were wonderful above helouan. was there not an observatory on the mokattam hills, too, where tourists could use the telescopes on privileged days? he had it at last. he even stole out on to his balcony to see if the stranger perhaps was looking through some wonderful apparatus at the heavens. their rooms were on the same side. but the shuttered windows revealed no stooping figure with eyes glued to a telescope. the stars blinked in their many thousands down upon the silent desert. the night held neither sound nor movement. there was a cool breeze blowing across the nile from the lybian sands. it nipped; and he stepped back quickly into the room again. drawing the mosquito curtains carefully about the bed, he put the light out and turned over to sleep. and sleep came quickly, contrary to his expectations, though it was a light and surface sleep. that last glimpse of the darkened desert lying beneath the egyptian stars had touched him with some hand of awful power that ousted the first, lesser excitement. it calmed and soothed him in one sense, yet in another, a sense he could not understand, it caught him in a net of deep, deep feelings whose mesh, while infinitely delicate, was utterly stupendous. his nerves this deeper emotion left alone: it reached instead to something infinite in him that mere nerves could neither deal with nor interpret. the soul awoke and whispered in him while his body slept. and the little, foolish dreams that ran to and fro across this veil of surface sleep brought oddly tangled pictures of things quite tiny and at the same time of others that were mighty beyond words. with these two counters nightmare played. they interwove. there was the figure of this dark-faced man with the compass, measuring the sky to find the true north, and there were hints of giant presences that hovered just outside some curious outline that he traced upon the ground, copied in some nightmare fashion from the heavens. the excitement caused by his visitor's singular request mingled with the profounder sensations his final look at the stars and desert stirred. the two were somehow inter-related. some hours later, before this surface sleep passed into genuine slumber, henriot woke--with an appalling feeling that the desert had come creeping into his room and now stared down upon him where he lay in bed. the wind was crying audibly about the walls outside. a faint, sharp tapping came against the window panes. he sprang instantly out of bed, not yet awake enough to feel actual alarm, yet with the nightmare touch still close enough to cause a sort of feverish, loose bewilderment. he switched the lights on. a moment later he knew the meaning of that curious tapping, for the rising wind was flinging tiny specks of sand against the glass. the idea that they had summoned him belonged, of course, to dream. he opened the window, and stepped out on to the balcony. the stone was very cold under his bare feet. there was a wash of wind all over him. he saw the sheet of glimmering, pale desert near and far; and something stung his skin below the eyes. "the sand," he whispered, "again the sand; always the sand. waking or sleeping, the sand is everywhere--nothing but sand, sand, sand...." he rubbed his eyes. it was like talking in his sleep, talking to someone who had questioned him just before he woke. but was he really properly awake? it seemed next day that he had dreamed it. something enormous, with rustling skirts of sand, had just retreated far into the desert. sand went with it--flowing, trailing, smothering the world. the wind died down. and henriot went back to sleep, caught instantly away into unconsciousness; covered, blinded, swept over by this spreading thing of reddish brown with the great, grey face, whose being was colossal yet quite tiny, and whose fingers, wings and eyes were countless as the stars. but all night long it watched and waited, rising to peer above the little balcony, and sometimes entering the room and piling up beside his very pillow. he dreamed of sand. iii for some days henriot saw little of the man who came from birmingham and pushed curiosity to a climax by asking for a compass in the middle of the night. for one thing, he was a good deal with his friends upon the other side of helouan, and for another, he slept several nights in the desert. he loved the gigantic peace the desert gave him. the world was forgotten there; and not the world merely, but all memory of it. everything faded out. the soul turned inwards upon itself. an arab boy and donkey took out sleeping-bag, food and water to the wadi hof, a desolate gorge about an hour eastwards. it winds between cliffs whose summits rise some thousand feet above the sea. it opens suddenly, cut deep into the swaying world of level plateaux and undulating hills. it moves about too; he never found it in the same place twice--like an arm of the desert that shifted with the changing lights. here he watched dawns and sunsets, slept through the mid-day heat, and enjoyed the unearthly colouring that swept day and night across the huge horizons. in solitude the desert soaked down into him. at night the jackals cried in the darkness round his cautiously-fed camp fire--small, because wood had to be carried--and in the day-time kites circled overhead to inspect him, and an occasional white vulture flapped across the blue. the weird desolation of this rocky valley, he thought, was like the scenery of the moon. he took no watch with him, and the arrival of the donkey boy an hour after sunrise came almost from another planet, bringing things of time and common life out of some distant gulf where they had lain forgotten among lost ages. the short hour of twilight brought, too, a bewitchment into the silence that was a little less than comfortable. full light or darkness he could manage, but this time of half things made him want to shut his eyes and hide. its effect stepped over imagination. the mind got lost. he could not understand it. for the cliffs and boulders of discoloured limestone shone then with an inward glow that signalled to the desert with veiled lanterns. the misshappen hills, carved by wind and rain into ominous outlines, stirred and nodded. in the morning light they retired into themselves, asleep. but at dusk the tide retreated. they rose from the sea, emerging naked, threatening. they ran together and joined shoulders, the entire army of them. and the glow of their sandy bodies, self-luminous, continued even beneath the stars. only the moonlight drowned it. for the moonrise over the mokattam hills brought a white, grand loveliness that drenched the entire desert. it drew a marvellous sweetness from the sand. it shone across a world as yet unfinished, whereon no life might show itself for ages yet to come. he was alone then upon an empty star, before the creation of things that breathed and moved. what impressed him, however, more than everything else was the enormous vitality that rose out of all this apparent death. there was no hint of the melancholy that belongs commonly to flatness; the sadness of wide, monotonous landscape was not here. the endless repetition of sweeping vale and plateau brought infinity within measurable comprehension. he grasped a definite meaning in the phrase "world without end": the desert had no end and no beginning. it gave him a sense of eternal peace, the silent peace that star-fields know. instead of subduing the soul with bewilderment, it inspired with courage, confidence, hope. through this sand which was the wreck of countless geological ages, rushed life that was terrific and uplifting, too huge to include melancholy, too deep to betray itself in movement. here was the stillness of eternity. behind the spread grey masque of apparent death lay stores of accumulated life, ready to break forth at any point. in the desert he felt himself absolutely royal. and this contrast of life, veiling itself in death, was a contradiction that somehow intoxicated. the desert exhilaration never left him. he was never alone. a companionship of millions went with him, and he _felt_ the desert close, as stars are close to one another, or grains of sand. it was the khamasin, the hot wind bringing sand, that drove him in--with the feeling that these few days and nights had been immeasurable, and that he had been away a thousand years. he came back with the magic of the desert in his blood, hotel-life tasteless and insipid by comparison. to human impressions thus he was fresh and vividly sensitive. his being, cleaned and sensitized by pure grandeur, "felt" people--for a time at any rate--with an uncommon sharpness of receptive judgment. he returned to a life somehow mean and meagre, resuming insignificance with his dinner jacket. out with the sand he had been regal; now, like a slave, he strutted self-conscious and reduced. but this imperial standard of the desert stayed a little time beside him, its purity focussing judgment like a lens. the specks of smaller emotions left it clear at first, and as his eye wandered vaguely over the people assembled in the dining-room, it was arrested with a vivid shock upon two figures at the little table facing him. he had forgotten vance, the birmingham man who sought the north at midnight with a pocket compass. he now saw him again, with an intuitive discernment entirely fresh. before memory brought up her clouding associations, some brilliance flashed a light upon him. "that man," henriot thought, "might have come with me. he would have understood and loved it!" but the thought was really this--a moment's reflection spread it, rather: "he belongs somewhere to the desert; the desert brought him out here." and, again, hidden swiftly behind it like a movement running below water--"what does he want with it? what is the deeper motive he conceals? for there is a deeper motive; and it _is_ concealed." but it was the woman seated next him who absorbed his attention really, even while this thought flashed and went its way. the empty chair was occupied at last. unlike his first encounter with the man, she looked straight at him. their eyes met fully. for several seconds there was steady mutual inspection, while her penetrating stare, intent without being rude, passed searchingly all over his face. it was disconcerting. crumbling his bread, he looked equally hard at her, unable to turn away, determined not to be the first to shift his gaze. and when at length she lowered her eyes he felt that many things had happened, as in a long period of intimate conversation. her mind had judged him through and through. questions and answer flashed. they were no longer strangers. for the rest of dinner, though he was careful to avoid direct inspection, he was aware that she felt his presence and was secretly speaking with him. she asked questions beneath her breath. the answers rose with the quickened pulses in his blood. moreover, she explained richard vance. it was this woman's power that shone reflected in the man. she was the one who knew the big, unusual things. vance merely echoed the rush of her vital personality. this was the first impression that he got--from the most striking, curious face he had ever seen in a woman. it remained very near him all through the meal: she had moved to his table, it seemed she sat beside him. their minds certainly knew contact from that moment. it is never difficult to credit strangers with the qualities and knowledge that oneself craves for, and no doubt henriot's active fancy went busily to work. but, none the less, this thing remained and grew: that this woman was aware of the hidden things of egypt he had always longed to know. there was knowledge and guidance she could impart. her soul was searching among ancient things. her face brought the desert back into his thoughts. and with it came--the sand. here was the flash. the sight of her restored the peace and splendour he had left behind him in his desert camps. the rest, of course, was what his imagination constructed upon this slender basis. only,--not all of it was imagination. now, henriot knew little enough of women, and had no pose of "understanding" them. his experience was of the slightest; the love and veneration felt for his own mother had set the entire sex upon the heights. his affairs with women, if so they may be called, had been transient--all but those of early youth, which having never known the devastating test of fulfilment, still remained ideal and superb. there was unconscious humour in his attitude--from a distance; for he regarded women with wonder and respect, as puzzles that sweetened but complicated life, might even endanger it. he certainly was not a marrying man! but now, as he felt the presence of this woman so deliberately possess him, there came over him two clear, strong messages, each vivid with certainty. one was that banal suggestion of familiarity claimed by lovers and the like--he had often heard of it--"i have known that woman before; i have met her ages ago somewhere; she is strangely familiar to me"; and the other, growing out of it almost: "have nothing to do with her; she will bring you trouble and confusion; avoid her, and be warned";--in fact, a distinct presentiment. yet, although henriot dismissed both impressions as having no shred of evidence to justify them, the original clear judgment, as he studied her extraordinary countenance, persisted through all denials the familiarity, and the presentiment, remained. there also remained this other--an enormous imaginative leap!--that she could teach him "egypt." he watched her carefully, in a sense fascinated. he could only describe the face as black, so dark it was with the darkness of great age. elderly was the obvious, natural word; but elderly described the features only. the expression of the face wore centuries. nor was it merely the coal-black eyes that betrayed an ancient, age-travelled soul behind them. the entire presentment mysteriously conveyed it. this woman's heart knew long-forgotten things--the thought kept beating up against him. there were cheek-bones, oddly high, that made him think involuntarily of the well-advertised pharaoh, ramases; a square, deep jaw; and an aquiline nose that gave the final touch of power. for the power undeniably was there, and while the general effect had grimness in it, there was neither harshness nor any forbidding touch about it. there was an implacable sternness in the set of lips and jaw, and, most curious of all, the eyelids over the steady eyes of black were level as a ruler. this level framing made the woman's stare remarkable beyond description. henriot thought of an idol carved in stone, stone hard and black, with eyes that stared across the sand into a world of things non-human, very far away, forgotten of men. the face was finely ugly. this strange dark beauty flashed flame about it. and, as the way ever was with him, henriot next fell to constructing the possible lives of herself and her companion, though without much success. imagination soon stopped dead. she was not old enough to be vance's mother, and assuredly she was not his wife. his interest was more than merely piqued--it was puzzled uncommonly. what was the contrast that made the man seem beside her--vile? whence came, too, the impression that she exercised some strong authority, though never directly exercised, that held him at her mercy? how did he guess that the man resented it, yet did not dare oppose, and that, apparently acquiescing good-humouredly, his will was deliberately held in abeyance, and that he waited sulkily, biding his time? there was furtiveness in every gesture and expression. a hidden motive lurked in him; unworthiness somewhere; he was determined yet ashamed. he watched her ceaselessly and with such uncanny closeness. henriot imagined he divined all this. he leaped to the guess that his expenses were being paid. a good deal more was being paid besides. she was a rich relation, from whom he had expectations; he was serving his seven years, ashamed of his servitude, ever calculating escape--but, perhaps, no ordinary escape. a faint shudder ran over him. he drew in the reins of imagination. of course, the probabilities were that he was hopelessly astray--one usually is on such occasions--but this time, it so happened, he was singularly right. before one thing only his ready invention stopped every time. this vileness, this notion of unworthiness in vance, could not be negative merely. a man with that face was no inactive weakling. the motive he was at such pains to conceal, betraying its existence by that very fact, moved, surely, towards aggressive action. disguised, it never slept. vance was sharply on the alert. he had a plan deep out of sight. and henriot remembered how the man's soft approach along the carpeted corridor had made him start. he recalled the quasi shock it gave him. he thought again of the feeling of discomfort he had experienced. next, his eager fancy sought to plumb the business these two had together in egypt--in the desert. for the desert, he felt convinced, had brought them out. but here, though he constructed numerous explanations, another barrier stopped him. because he _knew_. this woman was in touch with that aspect of ancient egypt he himself had ever sought in vain; and not merely with stones the sand had buried so deep, but with the meanings they once represented, buried so utterly by the sands of later thought. and here, being ignorant, he found no clue that could lead to any satisfactory result, for he possessed no knowledge that might guide him. he floundered--until fate helped him. and the instant fate helped him, the warning and presentiment he had dismissed as fanciful, became real again. he hesitated. caution acted. he would think twice before taking steps to form acquaintance. "better not," thought whispered. "better leave them alone, this queer couple. they're after things that won't do you any good." this idea of mischief, almost of danger, in their purposes was oddly insistent; for what could possibly convey it? but, while he hesitated, fate, who sent the warning, pushed him at the same time into the circle of their lives: at first tentatively--he might still have escaped; but soon urgently--curiosity led him inexorably towards the end. iv it was so simple a manoeuvre by which fate began the innocent game. the woman left a couple of books behind her on the table one night, and henriot, after a moment's hesitation, took them out after her. he knew the titles--_the house of the master_, and _the house of the hidden places_, both singular interpretations of the pyramids that once had held his own mind spellbound. their ideas had been since disproved, if he remembered rightly, yet the titles were a clue--a clue to that imaginative part of his mind that was so busy constructing theories and had found its stride. loose sheets of paper, covered with notes in a minute handwriting, lay between the pages; but these, of course, he did not read, noticing only that they were written round designs of various kinds--intricate designs. he discovered vance in a corner of the smoking-lounge. the woman had disappeared. vance thanked him politely. "my aunt is so forgetful sometimes," he said, and took them with a covert eagerness that did not escape the other's observation. he folded up the sheets and put them carefully in his pocket. on one there was an ink-sketched map, crammed with detail, that might well have referred to some portion of the desert. the points of the compass stood out boldly at the bottom. there were involved geometrical designs again. henriot saw them. they exchanged, then, the commonplaces of conversation, but these led to nothing further. vance was nervous and betrayed impatience. he presently excused himself and left the lounge. ten minutes later he passed through the outer hall, the woman beside him, and the pair of them, wrapped up in cloak and ulster, went out into the night. at the door, vance turned and threw a quick, investigating glance in his direction. there seemed a hint of questioning in that glance; it might almost have been a tentative invitation. but, also, he wanted to see if their exit had been particularly noticed--and by whom. this, briefly told, was the first manoeuvre by which fate introduced them. there was nothing in it. the details were so insignificant, so slight the conversation, so meagre the pieces thus added to henriot's imaginative structure. yet they somehow built it up and made it solid; the outline in his mind began to stand foursquare. that writing, those designs, the manner of the man, their going out together, the final curious look--each and all betrayed points of a hidden thing. subconsciously he was excavating their buried purposes. the sand was shifting. the concentration of his mind incessantly upon them removed it grain by grain and speck by speck. tips of the smothered thing emerged. presently a subsidence would follow with a rush and light would blaze upon its skeleton. he felt it stirring underneath his feet--this flowing movement of light, dry, heaped-up sand. it was always--sand. then other incidents of a similar kind came about, clearing the way to a natural acquaintanceship. henriot watched the process with amusement, yet with another feeling too that was only a little less than anxiety. a keen observer, no detail escaped him; he saw the forces of their lives draw closer. it made him think of the devices of young people who desire to know one another, yet cannot get a proper introduction. fate condescended to such little tricks. they wanted a third person, he began to feel. a third was necessary to some plan they had on hand, and--they waited to see if he could fill the place. this woman, with whom he had yet exchanged no single word, seemed so familiar to him, well known for years. they weighed and watched him, wondering if he would do. none of the devices were too obviously used, but at length henriot picked up so many forgotten articles, and heard so many significant phrases, casually let fall, that he began to feel like the villain in a machine-made play, where the hero for ever drops clues his enemy is intended to discover. introduction followed inevitably. "my aunt can tell you; she knows arabic perfectly." he had been discussing the meaning of some local name or other with a neighbour after dinner, and vance had joined them. the neighbour moved away; these two were left standing alone, and he accepted a cigarette from the other's case. there was a rustle of skirts behind them. "here she comes," said vance; "you will let me introduce you." he did not ask for henriot's name; he had already taken the trouble to find it out--another little betrayal, and another clue. it was in a secluded corner of the great hall, and henriot turned to see the woman's stately figure coming towards them across the thick carpet that deadened her footsteps. she came sailing up, her black eyes fixed upon his face. very erect, head upright, shoulders almost squared, she moved wonderfully well; there was dignity and power in her walk. she was dressed in black, and her face was like the night. he found it impossible to say what lent her this air of impressiveness and solemnity that was almost majestic. but there _was_ this touch of darkness and of power in the way she came that made him think of some sphinx-like figure of stone, some idol motionless in all its parts but moving as a whole, and gliding across--sand. beneath those level lids her eyes stared hard at him. and a faint sensation of distress stirred in him deep, deep down. where had he seen those eyes before? he bowed, as she joined them, and vance led the way to the armchairs in a corner of the lounge. the meeting, as the talk that followed, he felt, were all part of a preconceived plan. it had happened before. the woman, that is, was familiar to him--to some part of his being that had dropped stitches of old, old memory. lady statham! at first the name had disappointed him. so many folk wear titles, as syllables in certain tongues wear accents--without them being mute, unnoticed, unpronounced. nonentities, born to names, so often claim attention for their insignificance in this way. but this woman, had she been jemima jones, would have made the name distinguished and select. she was a big and sombre personality. why was it, he wondered afterwards, that for a moment something in him shrank, and that his mind, metaphorically speaking, flung up an arm in self-protection? the instinct flashed and passed. but it seemed to him born of an automatic feeling that he must protect--not himself, but the woman from the man. there was confusion in it all; links were missing. he studied her intently. she was a woman who had none of the external feminine signals in either dress or manner, no graces, no little womanly hesitations and alarms, no daintiness, yet neither anything distinctly masculine. her charm was strong, possessing; only he kept forgetting that he was talking to a--woman; and the thing she inspired in him included, with respect and wonder, somewhere also this curious hint of dread. this instinct to protect her fled as soon as it was born, for the interest of the conversation in which she so quickly plunged him obliterated all minor emotions whatsoever. here, for the first time, he drew close to egypt, the egypt he had sought so long. it was not to be explained. he _felt_ it. beginning with commonplaces, such as "you like egypt? you find here what you expected?" she led him into better regions with "one finds here what one brings." he knew the delightful experience of talking fluently on subjects he was at home in, and to some one who understood. the feeling at first that to this woman he could not say mere anythings, slipped into its opposite--that he could say everything. strangers ten minutes ago, they were at once in deep and intimate talk together. he found his ideas readily followed, agreed with up to a point--the point which permits discussion to start from a basis of general accord towards speculation. in the excitement of ideas he neglected the uncomfortable note that had stirred his caution, forgot the warning too. her mind, moreover, seemed known to him; he was often aware of what she was going to say before he actually heard it; the current of her thoughts struck a familiar gait, and more than once he experienced vividly again the odd sensation that it all had happened before. the very sentences and phrases with which she pointed the turns of her unusual ideas were never wholly unexpected. for her ideas were decidedly unusual, in the sense that she accepted without question speculations not commonly deemed worth consideration at all, indeed not ordinarily even known. henriot knew them, because he had read in many fields. it was the strength of her belief that fascinated him. she offered no apologies. she knew. and while he talked, she listening with folded arms and her black eyes fixed upon his own, richard vance watched with vigilant eyes and listened too, ceaselessly alert. vance joined in little enough, however, gave no opinions, his attitude one of general acquiescence. twice, when pauses of slackening interest made it possible, henriot fancied he surprised another quality in this negative attitude. interpreting it each time differently, he yet dismissed both interpretations with a smile. his imagination leaped so absurdly to violent conclusions. they were not tenable: vance was neither her keeper, nor was he in some fashion a detective. yet in his manner was sometimes this suggestion of the detective order. he watched with such deep attention, and he concealed it so clumsily with an affectation of careless indifference. there is nothing more dangerous than that impulsive intimacy strangers sometimes adopt when an atmosphere of mutual sympathy takes them by surprise, for it is akin to the false frankness friends affect when telling "candidly" one another's faults. the mood is invariably regretted later. henriot, however, yielded to it now with something like abandon. the pleasure of talking with this woman was so unexpected, and so keen. for lady statham believed apparently in some egypt of her dreams. her interest was neither historical, archaeological, nor political. it was religious--yet hardly of this earth at all. the conversation turned upon the knowledge of the ancient egyptians from an unearthly point of view, and even while he talked he was vaguely aware that it was _her_ mind talking through his own. she drew out his ideas and made him say them. but this he was properly aware of only afterwards--that she had cleverly, mercilessly pumped him of all he had ever known or read upon the subject. moreover, what vance watched so intently was himself, and the reactions in himself this remarkable woman produced. that also he realised later. his first impression that these two belonged to what may be called the "crank" order was justified by the conversation. but, at least, it was interesting crankiness, and the belief behind it made it even fascinating. long before the end he surprised in her a more vital form of his own attitude that anything _may_ be true, since knowledge has never yet found final answers to any of the biggest questions. he understood, from sentences dropped early in the talk, that she was among those few "superstitious" folk who think that the old egyptians came closer to reading the eternal riddles of the world than any others, and that their knowledge was a remnant of that ancient wisdom religion which existed in the superb, dark civilization of the sunken atlantis, lost continent that once joined africa to mexico. eighty thousand years ago the dim sands of poseidonis, great island adjoining the main continent which itself had vanished a vast period before, sank down beneath the waves, and the entire known world to-day was descended from its survivors. hence the significant fact that all religions and "mythological" systems begin with a story of a flood--some cataclysmic upheaval that destroyed the world. egypt itself was colonised by a group of atlantean priests who brought their curious, deep knowledge with them. they had foreseen the cataclysm. lady statham talked well, bringing into her great dream this strong, insistent quality of belief and fact. she knew, from plato to donelly, all that the minds of men have ever speculated upon the gorgeous legend. the evidence for such a sunken continent--henriot had skimmed it too in years gone by--she made bewilderingly complete. he had heard baconians demolish shakespeare with an array of evidence equally overwhelming. it catches the imagination though not the mind. yet out of her facts, as she presented them, grew a strange likelihood. the force of this woman's personality, and her calm and quiet way of believing all she talked about, took her listener to some extent--further than ever before, certainly--into the great dream after her. and the dream, to say the least, was a picturesque one, laden with wonderful possibilities. for as she talked the spirit of old egypt moved up, staring down upon him out of eyes lidded so curiously level. hitherto all had prated to him of the arabs, their ancient faith and customs, and the splendour of the bedouins, those princes of the desert. but what he sought, barely confessed in words even to himself, was something older far than this. and this strange, dark woman brought it close. deeps in his soul, long slumbering, awoke. he heard forgotten questions. only in this brief way could he attempt to sum up the storm she roused in him. she carried him far beyond mere outline, however, though afterwards he recalled the details with difficulty. so much more was suggested than actually expressed. she contrived to make the general modern scepticism an evidence of cheap mentality. it was so easy; the depth it affects to conceal, mere emptiness. "we have tried all things, and found all wanting"--the mind, as measuring instrument, merely confessed inadequate. various shrewd judgments of this kind increased his respect, although her acceptance went so far beyond his own. and, while the label of credulity refused to stick to her, her sense of imaginative wonder enabled her to escape that dreadful compromise, a man's mind in a woman's temperament. she fascinated him. the spiritual worship of the ancient egyptians, she held, was a symbolical explanation of things generally alluded to as the secrets of life and death; their knowledge was a remnant of the wisdom of atlantis. material relics, equally misunderstood, still stood to-day at karnac, stonehenge, and in the mysterious writings on buried mexican temples and cities, so significantly akin to the hieroglyphics upon the egyptian tombs. "the one misinterpreted as literally as the other," she suggested, "yet both fragments of an advanced knowledge that found its grave in the sea. the wisdom of that old spiritual system has vanished from the world, only a degraded literalism left of its undecipherable language. the jewel has been lost, and the casket is filled with sand, sand, sand." how keenly her black eyes searched his own as she said it, and how oddly she made the little word resound. the syllable drew out almost into chanting. echoes answered from the depths within him, carrying it on and on across some desert of forgotten belief. veils of sand flew everywhere about his mind. curtains lifted. whole hills of sand went shifting into level surfaces whence gardens of dim outline emerged to meet the sunlight. "but the sand may be removed." it was her nephew, speaking almost for the first time, and the interruption had an odd effect, introducing a sharply practical element. for the tone expressed, so far as he dared express it, disapproval. it was a baited observation, an invitation to opinion. "we are not sand-diggers, mr. henriot," put in lady statham, before he decided to respond. "our object is quite another one; and i believe--i have a feeling," she added almost questioningly, "that you might be interested enough to help us perhaps." he only wondered the direct attack had not come sooner. its bluntness hardly surprised him. he felt himself leap forward to accept it. a sudden subsidence had freed his feet. then the warning operated suddenly--for an instant. henriot _was_ interested; more, he was half seduced; but, as yet, he did not mean to be included in their purposes, whatever these might be. that shrinking dread came back a moment, and was gone again before he could question it. his eyes looked full at lady statham. "what is it that you know?" they asked her. "tell me the things we once knew together, you and i. these words are merely trifling. and why does another man now stand in my place? for the sands heaped upon my memory are shifting, and it is _you_ who are moving them away." his soul whispered it; his voice said quite another thing, although the words he used seemed oddly chosen: "there is much in the ideas of ancient egypt that has attracted me ever since i can remember, though i have never caught up with anything definite enough to follow. there was majesty somewhere in their conceptions--a large, calm majesty of spiritual dominion, one might call it perhaps. i _am_ interested." her face remained expressionless as she listened, but there was grave conviction in the eyes that held him like a spell. he saw through them into dim, faint pictures whose background was always sand. he forgot that he was speaking with a woman, a woman who half an hour ago had been a stranger to him. he followed these faded mental pictures, though he never caught them up.... it was like his dream in london. lady statham was talking--he had not noticed the means by which she effected the abrupt transition--of familiar beliefs of old egypt; of the ka, or double, by whose existence the survival of the soul was possible, even its return into manifested, physical life; of the astrology, or influence of the heavenly bodies upon all sublunar activities; of terrific forms of other life, known to the ancient worship of atlantis, great potencies that might be invoked by ritual and ceremonial, and of their lesser influence as recognised in certain lower forms, hence treated with veneration as the "sacred animal" branch of this dim religion. and she spoke lightly of the modern learning which so glibly imagined it was the animals themselves that were looked upon as "gods"--the bull, the bird, the crocodile, the cat. "it's there they all go so absurdly wrong," she said, "taking the symbol for the power symbolised. yet natural enough. the mind to-day wears blinkers, studies only the details seen directly before it. had none of us experienced love, we should think the first lover mad. few to-day know the powers _they_ knew, hence deny them. if the world were deaf it would stand with mockery before a hearing group swayed by an orchestra, pitying both listeners and performers. it would deem our admiration of a great swinging bell mere foolish worship of form and movement. similarly, with high powers that once expressed themselves in common forms--where best they could--being themselves bodiless. the learned men classify the forms with painstaking detail. but deity has gone out of life. the powers symbolised are no longer experienced." "these powers, you suggest, then--their kas, as it were--may still--" but she waved aside the interruption. "they are satisfied, as the common people were, with a degraded literalism," she went on. "nut was the heavens, who spread herself across the earth in the form of a woman; shu, the vastness of space; the ibis typified thoth, and hathor was the patron of the western hills; khonsu, the moon, was personified, as was the deity of the nile. but the high priest of ra, the sun, you notice, remained ever the great one of visions." the high priest, the great one of visions!--how wonderfully again she made the sentence sing. she put splendour into it. the pictures shifted suddenly closer in his mind. he saw the grandeur of memphis and heliopolis rise against the stars and shake the sand of ages from their stern old temples. "you think it possible, then, to get into touch with these high powers you speak of, powers once manifested in common forms?" henriot asked the question with a degree of conviction and solemnity that surprised himself. the scenery changed about him as he listened. the spacious halls of this former khedivial palace melted into desert spaces. he smelt the open wilderness, the sand that haunted helouan. the soft-footed arab servants moved across the hall in their white sheets like eddies of dust the wind stirred from the libyan dunes. and over these two strangers close beside him stole a queer, indefinite alteration. moods and emotions, nameless as unknown stars, rose through his soul, trailing dark mists of memory from unfathomable distances. lady statham answered him indirectly. he found himself wishing that those steady eyes would sometimes close. "love is known only by feeling it," she said, her voice deepening a little. "behind the form you feel the person loved. the process is an evocation, pure and simple. an arduous ceremonial, involving worship and devotional preparation, is the means. it is a difficult ritual--the only one acknowledged by the world as still effectual. ritual is the passage way of the soul into the infinite." he might have said the words himself. the thought lay in him while she uttered it. evocation everywhere in life was as true as assimilation. nevertheless, he stared his companion full in the eyes with a touch of almost rude amazement. but no further questions prompted themselves; or, rather, he declined to ask them. he recalled, somehow uneasily, that in ceremonial the points of the compass have significance, standing for forces and activities that sleep there until invoked, and a passing light fell upon that curious midnight request in the corridor upstairs. these two were on the track of undesirable experiments, he thought.... they wished to include him too. "you go at night sometimes into the desert?" he heard himself saying. it was impulsive and miscalculated. his feeling that it would be wise to change the conversation resulted in giving it fresh impetus instead. "we saw you there--in the wadi hof," put in vance, suddenly breaking his long silence; "you too sleep out, then? it means, you know, the valley of fear." "we wondered--" it was lady statham's voice, and she leaned forward eagerly as she said it, then abruptly left the sentence incomplete. henriot started; a sense of momentary acute discomfort again ran over him. the same second she continued, though obviously changing the phrase--"we wondered how you spent your day there, during the heat. but you paint, don't you? you draw, i mean?" the commonplace question, he realised in every fibre of his being, meant something _they_ deemed significant. was it his talent for drawing that they sought to use him for? even as he answered with a simple affirmative, he had a flash of intuition that might be fanciful, yet that might be true: that this extraordinary pair were intent upon some ceremony of evocation that should summon into actual physical expression some power--some type of life--known long ago to ancient worship, and that they even sought to fix its bodily outline with the pencil--his pencil. a gateway of incredible adventure opened at his feet. he balanced on the edge of knowing unutterable things. here was a clue that might lead him towards the hidden egypt he had ever craved to know. an awful hand was beckoning. the sands were shifting. he saw the million eyes of the desert watching him from beneath the level lids of centuries. speck by speck, and grain by grain, the sand that smothered memory lifted the countless wrappings that embalmed it. and he was willing, yet afraid. why in the world did he hesitate and shrink? why was it that the presence of this silent, watching personality in the chair beside him kept caution still alive, with warning close behind? the pictures in his mind were gorgeously coloured. it was richard vance who somehow streaked them through with black. a thing of darkness, born of this man's unassertive presence, flitted ever across the scenery, marring its grandeur with something evil, petty, dreadful. he held a horrible thought alive. his mind was thinking venal purposes. in henriot himself imagination had grown curiously heated, fed by what had been suggested rather than actually said. ideas of immensity crowded his brain, yet never assumed definite shape. they were familiar, even as this strange woman was familiar. once, long ago, he had known them well; had even practised them beneath these bright egyptian stars. whence came this prodigious glad excitement in his heart, this sense of mighty powers coaxed down to influence the very details of daily life? behind them, for all their vagueness, lay an archetypal splendour, fraught with forgotten meanings. he had always been aware of it in this mysterious land, but it had ever hitherto eluded him. it hovered everywhere. he had felt it brooding behind the towering colossi at thebes, in the skeletons of wasted temples, in the uncouth comeliness of the sphinx, and in the crude terror of the pyramids even. over the whole of egypt hung its invisible wings. these were but isolated fragments of the body that might express it. and the desert remained its cleanest, truest symbol. sand knew it closest. sand might even give it bodily form and outline. but, while it escaped description in his mind, as equally it eluded visualisation in his soul, he felt that it combined with its vastness something infinitely small as well. of such wee particles is the giant desert born.... henriot started nervously in his chair, convicted once more of unconscionable staring; and at the same moment a group of hotel people, returning from a dance, passed through the hall and nodded him good-night. the scent of the women reached him; and with it the sound of their voices discussing personalities just left behind. a london atmosphere came with them. he caught trivial phrases, uttered in a drawling tone, and followed by the shrill laughter of a girl. they passed upstairs, discussing their little things, like marionettes upon a tiny stage. but their passage brought him back to things of modern life, and to some standard of familiar measurement. the pictures that his soul had gazed at so deep within, he realised, were a pictorial transfer caught incompletely from this woman's vivid mind. he had seen the desert as the grey, enormous tomb where hovered still the ka of ancient egypt. sand screened her visage with the veil of centuries. but she was there, and she was living. egypt herself had pitched a temporary camp in him, and then moved on. there was a momentary break, a sense of abruptness and dislocation. and then he became aware that lady statham had been speaking for some time before he caught her actual words, and that a certain change had come into her voice as also into her manner. v she was leaning closer to him, her face suddenly glowing and alive. through the stone figure coursed the fires of a passion that deepened the coal-black eyes and communicated a hint of light--of exaltation--to her whole person. it was incredibly moving. to this deep passion was due the power he had felt. it was her entire life; she lived for it, she would die for it. her calmness of manner enhanced its effect. hence the strength of those first impressions that had stormed him. the woman had belief; however wild and strange, it was sacred to her. the secret of her influence was--conviction. his attitude shifted several points then. the wonder in him passed over into awe. the things she knew were real. they were not merely imaginative speculations. "i knew i was not wrong in thinking you in sympathy with this line of thought," she was saying in lower voice, steady with earnestness, and as though she had read his mind. "you, too, know, though perhaps you hardly realise that you know. it lies so deep in you that you only get vague feelings of it--intimations of memory. isn't that the case?" henriot gave assent with his eyes; it was the truth. "what we know instinctively," she continued, "is simply what we are trying to remember. knowledge is memory." she paused a moment watching his face closely. "at least, you are free from that cheap scepticism which labels these old beliefs as superstition." it was not even a question. "i--worship real belief--of any kind," he stammered, for her words and the close proximity of her atmosphere caused a strange upheaval in his heart that he could not account for. he faltered in his speech. "it is the most vital quality in life--rarer than deity." he was using her own phrases even. "it is creative. it constructs the world anew--" "and may reconstruct the old." she said it, lifting her face above him a little, so that her eyes looked down into his own. it grew big and somehow masculine. it was the face of a priest, spiritual power in it. where, oh where in the echoing past had he known this woman's soul? he saw her in another setting, a forest of columns dim about her, towering above giant aisles. again he felt the desert had come close. into this tent-like hall of the hotel came the sifting of tiny sand. it heaped softly about the very furniture against his feet, blocking the exits of door and window. it shrouded the little present. the wind that brought it stirred a veil that had hung for ages motionless.... she had been saying many things that he had missed while his mind went searching. "there were types of life the atlantean system knew it might revive--life unmanifested to-day in any bodily form," was the sentence he caught with his return to the actual present. "a type of life?" he whispered, looking about him, as though to see who it was had joined them; "you mean a--soul? some kind of soul, alien to humanity, or to--to any forms of living thing in the world to-day?" what she had been saying reached him somehow, it seemed, though he had not heard the words themselves. still hesitating, he was yet so eager to hear. already he felt she meant to include him in her purposes, and that in the end he must go willingly. so strong was her persuasion on his mind. and he felt as if he knew vaguely what was coming. before she answered his curious question--prompting it indeed--rose in his mind that strange idea of the group-soul: the theory that big souls cannot express themselves in a single individual, but need an entire group for their full manifestation. he listened intently. the reflection that this sudden intimacy was unnatural, he rejected, for many conversations were really gathered into one. long watching and preparation on both sides had cleared the way for the ripening of acquaintance into confidence--how long he dimly wondered? but if this conception of the group-soul was not new, the suggestion lady statham developed out of it was both new and startling--and yet always so curiously familiar. its value for him lay, not in far-fetched evidence that supported it, but in the deep belief which made it a vital asset in an honest inner life. "an individual," she said quietly, "one soul expressed completely in a single person, i mean, is exceedingly rare. not often is a physical instrument found perfect enough to provide it with adequate expression. in the lower ranges of humanity--certainly in animal and insect life--one soul is shared by many. behind a tribe of savages stands one savage. a flock of birds is a single bird, scattered through the consciousness of all. they wheel in mid-air, they migrate, they obey the deep intelligence called instinct--all as one. the life of any one lion is the life of all--the lion group-soul that manifests itself in the entire genus. an ant-heap is a single ant; through the bees spreads the consciousness of a single bee." henriot knew what she was working up to. in his eagerness to hasten disclosure he interrupted-- "and there may be types of life that have no corresponding bodily expression at all, then?" he asked as though the question were forced out of him. "they exist as powers--unmanifested on the earth to-day?" "powers," she answered, watching him closely with unswerving stare, "that need a group to provide their body--their physical expression--if they came back." "came back!" he repeated below his breath. but she heard him. "they once had expression. egypt, atlantis knew them--spiritual powers that never visit the world to-day." "bodies," he whispered softly, "actual bodies?" "their sphere of action, you see, would be their body. and it might be physical outline. so potent a descent of spiritual life would select materials for its body where it could find them. our conventional notion of a body--what is it? a single outline moving altogether in one direction. for little human souls, or fragments, this is sufficient. but for vaster types of soul an entire host would be required." "a church?" he ventured. "some body of belief, you surely mean?" she bowed her head a moment in assent. she was determined he should seize her meaning fully. "a wave of spiritual awakening--a descent of spiritual life upon a nation," she answered slowly, "forms itself a church, and the body of true believers are its sphere of action. they are literally its bodily expression. each individual believer is a corpuscle in that body. the power has provided itself with a vehicle of manifestation. otherwise we could not know it. and the more real the belief of each individual, the more perfect the expression of the spiritual life behind them all. a group-soul walks the earth. moreover, a nation naturally devout could attract a type of soul unknown to a nation that denies all faith. faith brings back the gods.... but to-day belief is dead, and deity has left the world." she talked on and on, developing this main idea that in days of older faiths there were deific types of life upon the earth, evoked by worship and beneficial to humanity. they had long ago withdrawn because the worship which brought them down had died the death. the world had grown pettier. these vast centres of spiritual power found no "body" in which they now could express themselves or manifest.... her thoughts and phrases poured over him like sand. it was always sand he felt--burying the present and uncovering the past.... he tried to steady his mind upon familiar objects, but wherever he looked sand stared him in the face. outside these trivial walls the desert lay listening. it lay waiting too. vance himself had dropped out of recognition. he belonged to the world of things to-day. but this woman and himself stood thousands of years away, beneath the columns of a temple in the sands. and the sands were moving. his feet went shifting with them ... running down vistas of ageless memory that woke terror by their sheer immensity of distance.... like a muffled voice that called to him through many veils and wrappings, he heard her describe the stupendous powers that evocation might coax down again among the world of men. "to what useful end?" he asked at length, amazed at his own temerity, and because he knew instinctively the answer in advance. it rose through these layers of coiling memory in his soul. "the extension of spiritual knowledge and the widening of life," she answered. "the link with the 'unearthly kingdom' wherein this ancient system went forever searching, would be re-established. complete rehabilitation might follow. portions--little portions of these powers--expressed themselves naturally once in certain animal types, instinctive life that did not deny or reject them. the worship of sacred animals was the relic of a once gigantic system of evocation--not of monsters," and she smiled sadly, "but of powers that were willing and ready to descend when worship summoned them." again, beneath his breath, henriot heard himself murmur--his own voice startled him as he whispered it: "actual bodily shape and outline?" "material for bodies is everywhere," she answered, equally low; "dust to which we all return; sand, if you prefer it, fine, fine sand. life moulds it easily enough, when that life is potent." a certain confusion spread slowly through his mind as he heard her. he lit a cigarette and smoked some minutes in silence. lady statham and her nephew waited for him to speak. at length, after some inner battling and hesitation, he put the question that he knew they waited for. it was impossible to resist any longer. "it would be interesting to know the method," he said, "and to revive, perhaps, by experiment--" before he could complete his thought, she took him up: "there are some who claim to know it," she said gravely--her eyes a moment masterful. "a clue, thus followed, might lead to the entire reconstruction i spoke of." "and the method?" he repeated faintly. "evoke the power by ceremonial evocation--the ritual is obtainable--and note the form it assumes. then establish it. this shape or outline once secured, could then be made permanent--a mould for its return at will--its natural physical expression here on earth." "idol!" he exclaimed. "image," she replied at once. "life, before we can know it, must have a body. our souls, in order to manifest here, need a material vehicle." "and--to obtain this form or outline?" he began; "to fix it, rather?" "would be required the clever pencil of a fearless looker-on--some one not engaged in the actual evocation. this form, accurately made permanent in solid matter, say in stone, would provide a channel always open. experiment, properly speaking, might then begin. the cisterns of power behind would be accessible." "an amazing proposition!" henriot exclaimed. what surprised him was that he felt no desire to laugh, and little even to doubt. "yet known to every religion that ever deserved the name," put in vance like a voice from a distance. blackness came somehow with his interruption--a touch of darkness. he spoke eagerly. to all the talk that followed, and there was much of it, henriot listened with but half an ear. this one idea stormed through him with an uproar that killed attention. judgment was held utterly in abeyance. he carried away from it some vague suggestion that this woman had hinted at previous lives she half remembered, and that every year she came to egypt, haunting the sands and temples in the effort to recover lost clues. and he recalled afterwards that she said, "this all came to me as a child, just as though it was something half remembered." there was the further suggestion that he himself was not unknown to her; that they, too, had met before. but this, compared to the grave certainty of the rest, was merest fantasy that did not hold his attention. he answered, hardly knowing what he said. his preoccupation with other thoughts deep down was so intense, that he was probably barely polite, uttering empty phrases, with his mind elsewhere. his one desire was to escape and be alone, and it was with genuine relief that he presently excused himself and went upstairs to bed. the halls, he noticed, were empty; an arab servant waited to put the lights out. he walked up, for the lift had long ceased running. and the magic of old egypt stalked beside him. the studies that had fascinated his mind in earlier youth returned with the power that had subdued his mind in boyhood. the cult of osiris woke in his blood again; horus and nephthys stirred in their long-forgotten centres. there revived in him, too long buried, the awful glamour of those liturgal rites and vast body of observances, those spells and formulae of incantation of the oldest known recension that years ago had captured his imagination and belief--the book of the dead. trumpet voices called to his heart again across the desert of some dim past. there were forms of life--impulses from the creative power which is the universe--other than the soul of man. they could be known. a spiritual exaltation, roused by the words and presence of this singular woman, shouted to him as he went. then, as he closed his bedroom door, carefully locking it, there stood beside him--vance. the forgotten figure of vance came up close--the watching eyes, the simulated interest, the feigned belief, the detective mental attitude, these broke through the grandiose panorama, bringing darkness. vance, strong personality that hid behind assumed nonentity for some purpose of his own, intruded with sudden violence, demanding an explanation of his presence. and, with an equal suddenness, explanation offered itself then and there. it came unsought, its horror of certainty utterly unjustified; and it came in this unexpected fashion: behind the interest and acquiescence of the man ran--fear: but behind the vivid fear ran another thing that henriot now perceived was vile. for the first time in his life, henriot knew it at close quarters, actual, ready to operate. though familiar enough in daily life to be of common occurrence, henriot had never realised it as he did now, so close and terrible. in the same way he had never _realised_ that he would die--vanish from the busy world of men and women, forgotten as though he had never existed, an eddy of wind-blown dust. and in the man named richard vance this thing was close upon blossom. henriot could not name it to himself. even in thought it appalled him. * * * * * he undressed hurriedly, almost with the child's idea of finding safety between the sheets. his mind undressed itself as well. the business of the day laid itself automatically aside; the will sank down; desire grew inactive. henriot was exhausted. but, in that stage towards slumber when thinking stops, and only fugitive pictures pass across the mind in shadowy dance, his brain ceased shouting its mechanical explanations, and his soul unveiled a peering eye. great limbs of memory, smothered by the activities of the present, stirred their stiffened lengths through the sands of long ago--sands this woman had begun to excavate from some far-off pre-existence they had surely known together. vagueness and certainty ran hand in hand. details were unrecoverable, but the emotions in which they were embedded moved. he turned restlessly in his bed, striving to seize the amazing clues and follow them. but deliberate effort hid them instantly again; they retired instantly into the subconsciousness. with the brain of this body he now occupied they had nothing to do. the brain stored memories of each life only. this ancient script was graven in his soul. subconsciousness alone could interpret and reveal. and it was his subconscious memory that lady statham had been so busily excavating. dimly it stirred and moved about the depths within him, never clearly seen, indefinite, felt as a yearning after unrecoverable knowledge. against the darker background of vance's fear and sinister purpose--both of this present life, and recent--he saw the grandeur of this woman's impossible dream, and _knew_, beyond argument or reason, that it was true. judgment and will asleep, he left the impossibility aside, and took the grandeur. the belief of lady statham was not credulity and superstition; it was memory. still to this day, over the sands of egypt, hovered immense spiritual potencies, so vast that they could only know physical expression in a group--in many. their sphere of bodily manifestation must be a host, each individual unit in that host a corpuscle in the whole. the wind, rising from the lybian wastes across the nile, swept up against the exposed side of the hotel, and made his windows rattle--the old, sad winds of egypt. henriot got out of bed to fasten the outside shutters. he stood a moment and watched the moon floating down behind the sakkara pyramids. the pleiades and orion's belt hung brilliantly; the great bear was close to the horizon. in the sky above the desert swung ten thousand stars. no sounds rose from the streets of helouan. the tide of sand was coming slowly in. and a flock of enormous thoughts swooped past him from fields of this unbelievable, lost memory. the desert, pale in the moon, was coextensive with the night, too huge for comfort or understanding, yet charged to the brim with infinite peace. behind its majesty of silence lay whispers of a vanished language that once could call with power upon mighty spiritual agencies. its skirts were folded now, but, slowly across the leagues of sand, they began to stir and rearrange themselves. he grew suddenly aware of this enveloping shroud of sand--as the raw material of bodily expression: form. the sand was in his imagination and his mind. shaking loosely the folds of its gigantic skirts, it rose; it moved a little towards him. he saw the eternal countenance of the desert watching him--immobile and unchanging behind these shifting veils the winds laid so carefully over it. egypt, the ancient egypt, turned in her vast sarcophagus of desert, wakening from her sleep of ages at the belief of approaching worshippers. only in this insignificant manner could he express a letter of the terrific language that crowded to seek expression through his soul.... he closed the shutters and carefully fastened them. he turned to go back to bed, curiously trembling. then, as he did so, the whole singular delusion caught him with a shock that held him motionless. up rose the stupendous apparition of the entire desert and stood behind him on that balcony. swift as thought, in silence, the desert stood on end against his very face. it towered across the sky, hiding orion and the moon; it dipped below the horizons. the whole grey sheet of it rose up before his eyes and stood. through its unfolding skirts ran ten thousand eddies of swirling sand as the creases of its grave-clothes smoothed themselves out in moonlight. and a bleak, scarred countenance, huge as a planet, gazed down into his own.... through his dreamless sleep that night two things lay active and awake ... in the subconscious part that knows no slumber. they were incongruous. one was evil, small and human; the other unearthly and sublime. for the memory of the fear that haunted vance, and the sinister cause of it, pricked at him all night long. but behind, beyond this common, intelligible emotion, lay the crowding wonder that caught his soul with glory: the sand was stirring, the desert was awake. ready to mate with them in material form, brooded close the ka of that colossal entity that once expressed itself through the myriad life of ancient egypt. vi next day, and for several days following, henriot kept out of the path of lady statham and her nephew. the acquaintanceship had grown too rapidly to be quite comfortable. it was easy to pretend that he took people at their face value, but it was a pose; one liked to know something of antecedents. it was otherwise difficult to "place" them. and henriot, for the life of him, could not "place" these two. his subconsciousness brought explanation when it came--but the subconsciousness is only temporarily active. when it retired he floundered without a rudder, in confusion. with the flood of morning sunshine the value of much she had said evaporated. her presence alone had supplied the key to the cipher. but while the indigestible portions he rejected, there remained a good deal he had already assimilated. the discomfort remained; and with it the grave, unholy reality of it all. it was something more than theory. results would follow--if he joined them. he would witness curious things. the force with which it drew him brought hesitation. it operated in him like a shock that numbs at first by its abrupt arrival, and needs time to realise in the right proportions to the rest of life. these right proportions, however, did not come readily, and his emotions ranged between sceptical laughter and complete acceptance. the one detail he felt certain of was this dreadful thing he had divined in vance. trying hard to disbelieve it, he found he could not. it was true. though without a shred of real evidence to support it, the horror of it remained. he knew it in his very bones. and this, perhaps, was what drove him to seek the comforting companionship of folk he understood and felt at home with. he told his host and hostess about the strangers, though omitting the actual conversation because they would merely smile in blank miscomprehension. but the moment he described the strong black eyes beneath the level eyelids, his hostess turned with a start, her interest deeply roused: "why, it's that awful statham woman," she exclaimed, "that must be lady statham, and the man she calls her nephew." "sounds like it, certainly," her husband added. "felix, you'd better clear out. they'll bewitch you too." and henriot bridled, yet wondering why he did so. he drew into his shell a little, giving the merest sketch of what had happened. but he listened closely while these two practical old friends supplied him with information in the gossiping way that human nature loves. no doubt there was much embroidery, and more perversion, exaggeration too, but the account evidently rested upon some basis of solid foundation for all that. smoke and fire go together always. "he _is_ her nephew right enough," mansfield corrected his wife, before proceeding to his own man's form of elaboration; "no question about that, i believe. he's her favourite nephew, and she's as rich as a pig. he follows her out here every year, waiting for her empty shoes. but they _are_ an unsavoury couple. i've met 'em in various parts, all over egypt, but they always come back to helouan in the end. and the stories about them are simply legion. you remember--" he turned hesitatingly to his wife--"some people, i heard," he changed his sentence, "were made quite ill by her." "i'm sure felix ought to know, yes," his wife boldly took him up, "my niece, fanny, had the most extraordinary experience." she turned to henriot. "her room was next to lady statham in some hotel or other at assouan or edfu, and one night she woke and heard a kind of mysterious chanting or intoning next her. hotel doors are so dreadfully thin. there was a funny smell too, like incense of something sickly, and a man's voice kept chiming in. it went on for hours, while she lay terrified in bed--" "frightened, you say?" asked henriot. "out of her skin, yes; she said it was so uncanny--made her feel icy. she wanted to ring the bell, but was afraid to leave her bed. the room was full of--of things, yet she could see nothing. she _felt_ them, you see. and after a bit the sound of this sing-song voice so got on her nerves, it half dazed her--a kind of enchantment--she felt choked and suffocated. and then--" it was her turn to hesitate. "tell it all," her husband said, quite gravely too. "well--something came in. at least, she describes it oddly, rather; she said it made the door bulge inwards from the next room, but not the door alone; the walls bulged or swayed as if a huge thing pressed against them from the other side. and at the same moment her windows--she had two big balconies, and the venetian shutters were fastened--both her windows _darkened_--though it was two in the morning and pitch dark outside. she said it was all _one_ thing--trying to get in; just as water, you see, would rush in through every hole and opening it could find, and all at once. and in spite of her terror--that's the odd part of it--she says she felt a kind of splendour in her--a sort of elation." "she saw nothing?" "she says she doesn't remember. her senses left her, i believe--though she won't admit it." "fainted for a minute, probably," said mansfield. "so there it is," his wife concluded, after a silence. "and that's true. it happened to my niece, didn't it, john?" stories and legendary accounts of strange things that the presence of these two brought poured out then. they were obviously somewhat mixed, one account borrowing picturesque details from another, and all in disproportion, as when people tell stories in a language they are little familiar with. but, listening with avidity, yet also with uneasiness, somehow, henriot put two and two together. truth stood behind them somewhere. these two held traffic with the powers that ancient egypt knew. "tell felix, dear, about the time you met the nephew--horrid creature--in the valley of the kings," he heard his wife say presently. and mansfield told it plainly enough, evidently glad to get it done, though. "it was some years ago now, and i didn't know who he was then, or anything about him. i don't know much more now--except that he's a dangerous sort of charlatan-devil, _i_ think. but i came across him one night up there by thebes in the valley of the kings--you know, where they buried all their johnnies with so much magnificence and processions and masses, and all the rest. it's the most astounding, the most haunted place you ever saw, gloomy, silent, full of gorgeous lights and shadows that seem alive--terribly impressive; it makes you creep and shudder. you feel old egypt watching you." "get on, dear," said his wife. "well, i was coming home late on a blasted lazy donkey, dog-tired into the bargain, when my donkey boy suddenly ran for his life and left me alone. it was after sunset. the sand was red and shining, and the big cliffs sort of fiery. and my donkey stuck its four feet in the ground and wouldn't budge. then, about fifty yards away, i saw a fellow--european apparently--doing something--heaven knows what, for i can't describe it--among the boulders that lie all over the ground there. ceremony, i suppose you'd call it. i was so interested that at first i watched. then i saw he wasn't alone. there were a lot of moving things round him, towering big things, that came and went like shadows. that twilight is fearfully bewildering; perspective changes, and distance gets all confused. it's fearfully hard to see properly. i only remember that i got off my donkey and went up closer, and when i was within a dozen yards of him--well, it sounds such rot, you know, but i swear the things suddenly rushed off and left him there alone. they went with a roaring noise like wind; shadowy but tremendously big, they were, and they vanished up against the fiery precipices as though they slipped bang into the stone itself. the only thing i can think of to describe 'em is--well, those sand-storms the khamasin raises--the hot winds, you know." "they probably _were_ sand," his wife suggested, burning to tell another story of her own. "possibly, only there wasn't a breath of wind, and it was hot as blazes--and--i had such extraordinary sensations--never felt anything like it before--wild and exhilarated--drunk, i tell you, drunk." "you saw them?" asked henriot. "you made out their shape at all, or outline?" "sphinx," he replied at once, "for all the world like sphinxes. you know the kind of face and head these limestone strata in the desert take--great visages with square egyptian head-dresses where the driven sand has eaten away the softer stuff beneath? you see it everywhere--enormous idols they seem, with faces and eyes and lips awfully like the sphinx--well, that's the nearest i can get to it." he puffed his pipe hard. but there was no sign of levity in him. he told the actual truth as far as in him lay, yet half ashamed of what he told. and a good deal he left out, too. "she's got a face of the same sort, that statham horror," his wife said with a shiver. "reduce the size, and paint in awful black eyes, and you've got her exactly--a living idol." and all three laughed, yet a laughter without merriment in it. "and you spoke to the man?" "i did," the englishman answered, "though i confess i'm a bit ashamed of the way i spoke. fact is, i was excited, thunderingly excited, and felt a kind of anger. i wanted to kick the beggar for practising such bally rubbish, and in such a place too. yet all the time--well, well, i believe it was sheer funk now," he laughed; "for i felt uncommonly queer out there in the dusk, alone with--with that kind of business; and i was angry with myself for feeling it. anyhow, i went up--i'd lost my donkey boy as well, remember--and slated him like a dog. i can't remember what i said exactly--only that he stood and stared at me in silence. that made it worse--seemed twice as real then. the beggar said no single word the whole time. he signed to me with one hand to clear out. and then, suddenly out of nothing--she--that woman--appeared and stood beside him. i never saw her come. she must have been behind some boulder or other, for she simply rose out of the ground. she stood there and stared at me too--bang in the face. she was turned towards the sunset--what was left of it in the west--and her black eyes shone like--ugh! i can't describe it--it was shocking." "she spoke?" "she said five words--and her voice--it'll make you laugh--it was metallic like a gong: 'you are in danger here.' that's all she said. i simply turned and cleared out as fast as ever i could. but i had to go on foot. my donkey had followed its boy long before. i tell you--smile as you may--my blood was all curdled for an hour afterwards." then he explained that he felt some kind of explanation or apology was due, since the couple lodged in his own hotel, and how he approached the man in the smoking-room after dinner. a conversation resulted--the man was quite intelligent after all--of which only one sentence had remained in his mind. "perhaps you can explain it, felix. i wrote it down, as well as i could remember. the rest confused me beyond words or memory; though i must confess it did not seem--well, not utter rot exactly. it was about astrology and rituals and the worship of the old egyptians, and i don't know what else besides. only, he made it intelligible and almost sensible, if only i could have got the hang of the thing enough to remember it. you know," he added, as though believing in spite of himself, "there _is_ a lot of that wonderful old egyptian religious business still hanging about in the atmosphere of this place, say what you like." "but this sentence?" henriot asked. and the other went off to get a note-book where he had written it down. "he was jawing, you see," he continued when he came back, henriot and his wife having kept silence meanwhile, "about direction being of importance in religious ceremonies, west and north symbolising certain powers, or something of the kind, why people turn to the east and all that sort of thing, and speaking of the whole universe as if it had living forces tucked away in it that expressed themselves somehow when roused up. that's how i remember it anyhow. and then he said this thing--in answer to some fool question probably that i put." and he read out of the note-book: "'you were in danger because you came through the gateway of the west, and the powers from the gateway of the east were at that moment rising, and therefore in direct opposition to you.'" then came the following, apparently a simile offered by way of explanation. mansfield read it in a shamefaced tone, evidently prepared for laughter: "'whether i strike you on the back or in the face determines what kind of answering force i rouse in you. direction is significant.' and he said it was the period called the night of power--time when the desert encroaches and spirits are close." and tossing the book aside, he lit his pipe again and waited a moment to hear what might be said. "can you explain such gibberish?" he asked at length, as neither of his listeners spoke. but henriot said he couldn't. and the wife then took up her own tale of stories that had grown about this singular couple. these were less detailed, and therefore less impressive, but all contributed something towards the atmosphere of reality that framed the entire picture. they belonged to the type one hears at every dinner party in egypt--stories of the vengeance mummies seem to take on those who robbed them, desecrating their peace of centuries; of a woman wearing a necklace of scarabs taken from a princess's tomb, who felt hands about her throat to strangle her; of little ka figures, pasht goddesses, amulets and the rest, that brought curious disaster to those who kept them. they are many and various, astonishingly circumstantial often, and vouched for by persons the reverse of credulous. the modern superstition that haunts the desert gullies with afreets has nothing in common with them. they rest upon a basis of indubitable experience; and they remain--inexplicable. and about the personalities of lady statham and her nephew they crowded like flies attracted by a dish of fruit. the arabs, too, were afraid of her. she had difficulty in getting guides and dragomen. "my dear chap," concluded mansfield, "take my advice and have nothing to do with 'em. there _is_ a lot of queer business knocking about in this old country, and people like that know ways of reviving it somehow. it's upset you already; you looked scared, i thought, the moment you came in." they laughed, but the englishman was in earnest. "i tell you what," he added, "we'll go off for a bit of shooting together. the fields along the delta are packed with birds now: they're home early this year on their way to the north. what d'ye say, eh?" but henriot did not care about the quail shooting. he felt more inclined to be alone and think things out by himself. he had come to his friends for comfort, and instead they had made him uneasy and excited. his interest had suddenly doubled. though half afraid, he longed to know what these two were up to--to follow the adventure to the bitter end. he disregarded the warning of his host as well as the premonition in his own heart. the sand had caught his feet. there were moments when he laughed in utter disbelief, but these were optimistic moods that did not last. he always returned to the feeling that truth lurked somewhere in the whole strange business, and that if he joined forces with them, as they seemed to wish, he would witness--well, he hardly knew what--but it enticed him as danger does the reckless man, or death the suicide. the sand had caught his mind. he decided to offer himself to all they wanted--his pencil too. he would see--a shiver ran through him at the thought--what they saw, and know some eddy of that vanished tide of power and splendour the ancient egyptian priesthood knew, and that perhaps was even common experience in the far-off days of dim atlantis. the sand had caught his imagination too. he was utterly sand-haunted. vii and so he took pains, though without making definite suggestion, to place himself in the way of this woman and her nephew--only to find that his hints were disregarded. they left him alone, if they did not actually avoid him. moreover, he rarely came across them now. only at night, or in the queer dusk hours, he caught glimpses of them moving hurriedly off from the hotel, and always desertwards. and their disregard, well calculated, enflamed his desire to the point when he almost decided to propose himself. quite suddenly, then, the idea flashed through him--how do they come, these odd revelations, when the mind lies receptive like a plate sensitised by anticipation?--that they were waiting for a certain date, and, with the notion, came mansfield's remark about "the night of power," believed in by the old egyptian calendar as a time when the supersensuous world moves close against the minds of men with all its troop of possibilities. and the thought, once lodged in its corner of imagination, grew strong. he looked it up. ten days from now, he found, leyel-el-sud would be upon him, with a moon, too, at the full. and this strange hint of guidance he accepted. in his present mood, as he admitted, smiling to himself, he could accept anything. it was part of it, it belonged to the adventure. but, even while he persuaded himself that it was play, the solemn reality, of what lay ahead increased amazingly, sketched darkly in his very soul. these intervening days he spent as best he could--impatiently, a prey to quite opposite emotions. in the blazing sunshine he thought of it and laughed; but at night he lay often sleepless, calculating chances of escape. he never did escape, however. the desert that watched little helouan with great, unwinking eyes watched also every turn and twist he made. like this oasis, he basked in the sun of older time, and dreamed beneath forgotten moons. the sand at last had crept into his inmost heart. it sifted over him. seeking a reaction from normal, everyday things, he made tourist trips; yet, while recognising the comedy in his attitude, he never could lose sight of the grandeur that banked it up so hauntingly. these two contrary emotions grafted themselves on all he did and saw. he crossed the nile at bedrashein, and went again to the tomb-world of sakkara; but through all the chatter of veiled and helmeted tourists, the _bandar-log_ of our modern jungle, ran this dark under-stream of awe their monkey methods could not turn aside. one world lay upon another, but this modern layer was a shallow crust that, like the phenomenon of the "desert-film," a mere angle of falling light could instantly obliterate. beneath the sand, deep down, he passed along the street of tombs, as he had often passed before, moved then merely by historical curiosity and admiration, but now by emotions for which he found no name. he saw the enormous sarcophagi of granite in their gloomy chambers where the sacred bulls once lay, swathed and embalmed like human beings, and, in the flickering candle light, the mood of ancient rites surged round him, menacing his doubts and laughter. the least human whisper in these subterraneans, dug out first four thousand years ago, revived ominous powers that stalked beside him, forbidding and premonitive. he gazed at the spots where mariette, unearthing them forty years ago, found fresh as of yesterday the marks of fingers and naked feet--of those who set the sixty-five ton slabs in position. and when he came up again into the sunshine he met the eternal questions of the pyramids, overtopping all his mental horizons. sand blocked all the avenues of younger emotion, leaving the channels of something in him incalculably older, open and clean swept. he slipped homewards, uncomfortable and followed, glad to be with a crowd--because he was otherwise alone with more than he could dare to think about. keeping just ahead of his companions, he crossed the desert edge where the ghost of memphis walks under rustling palm trees that screen no stone left upon another of all its mile-long populous splendours. for here was a vista his imagination could realise; here he could know the comfort of solid ground his feet could touch. gigantic ramases, lying on his back beneath their shade and staring at the sky, similarly helped to steady his swaying thoughts. imagination could deal with these. and daily thus he watched the busy world go to and fro to its scale of tips and bargaining, and gladly mingled with it, trying to laugh and study guidebooks, and listen to half-fledged explanations, but always seeing the comedy of his poor attempts. not all those little donkeys, bells tinkling, beads shining, trotting beneath their comical burdens to the tune of shouting and belabouring, could stem this tide of deeper things the woman had let loose in the subconscious part of him. everywhere he saw the mysterious camels go slouching through the sand, gurgling the water in their skinny, extended throats. centuries passed between the enormous knee-stroke of their stride. and, every night, the sunsets restored the forbidding, graver mood, with their crimson, golden splendour, their strange green shafts of light, then--sudden twilight that brought the past upon him with an awful leap. upon the stage then stepped the figures of this pair of human beings, chanting their ancient plainsong of incantation in the moonlit desert, and working their rites of unholy evocation as the priests had worked them centuries before in the sands that now buried sakkara fathoms deep. then one morning he woke with a question in his mind, as though it had been asked of him in sleep and he had waked just before the answer came. "why do i spend my time sight-seeing, instead of going alone into the desert as before? what has made me change?" this latest mood now asked for explanation. and the answer, coming up automatically, startled him. it was so clear and sure--had been lying in the background all along. one word contained it: vance. the sinister intentions of this man, forgotten in the rush of other emotions, asserted themselves again convincingly. the human horror, so easily comprehensible, had been smothered for the time by the hint of unearthly revelations. but it had operated all the time. now it took the lead. he dreaded to be alone in the desert with this dark picture in his mind of what vance meant to bring there to completion. this abomination of a selfish human will returned to fix its terror in him. to be alone in the desert meant to be alone with the imaginative picture of what vance--he knew it with such strange certainty--hoped to bring about there. there was absolutely no evidence to justify the grim suspicion. it seemed indeed far-fetched enough, this connection between the sand and the purpose of an evil-minded, violent man. but henriot saw it true. he could argue it away in a few minutes--easily. yet the instant thought ceased, it returned, led up by intuition. it possessed him, filled his mind with horrible possibilities. he feared the desert as he might have feared the scene of some atrocious crime. and, for the time, this dread of a merely human thing corrected the big seduction of the other--the suggested "super-natural." side by side with it, his desire to join himself to the purposes of the woman increased steadily. they kept out of his way apparently; the offer seemed withdrawn; he grew restless, unable to settle to anything for long, and once he asked the porter casually if they were leaving the hotel. lady statham had been invisible for days, and vance was somehow never within speaking distance. he heard with relief that they had not gone--but with dread as well. keen excitement worked in him underground. he slept badly. like a schoolboy, he waited for the summons to an important examination that involved portentous issues, and contradictory emotions disturbed his peace of mind abominably. viii but it was not until the end of the week, when vance approached him with purpose in his eyes and manner, that henriot knew his fears unfounded, and caught himself trembling with sudden anticipation--because the invitation, so desired yet so dreaded, was actually at hand. firmly determined to keep caution uppermost, yet he went unresistingly to a secluded corner by the palms where they could talk in privacy. for prudence is of the mind, but desire is of the soul, and while his brain of to-day whispered wariness, voices in his heart of long ago shouted commands that he knew he must obey with joy. it was evening and the stars were out. helouan, with her fairy twinkling lights, lay silent against the desert edge. the sand was at the flood. the period of the encroaching of the desert was at hand, and the deeps were all astir with movement. but in the windless air was a great peace. a calm of infinite stillness breathed everywhere. the flow of time, before it rushed away backwards, stopped somewhere between the dust of stars and desert. the mystery of sand touched every street with its unutterable softness. and vance began without the smallest circumlocution. his voice was low, in keeping with the scene, but the words dropped with a sharp distinctness into the other's heart like grains of sand that pricked the skin before they smothered him. caution they smothered instantly; resistance too. "i have a message for you from my aunt," he said, as though he brought an invitation to a picnic. henriot sat in shadow, but his companion's face was in a patch of light that followed them from the windows of the central hall. there was a shining in the light blue eyes that betrayed the excitement his quiet manner concealed. "we are going--the day after to-morrow--to spend the night in the desert; she wondered if, perhaps, you would care to join us?" "for your experiment?" asked henriot bluntly. vance smiled with his lips, holding his eyes steady, though unable to suppress the gleam that flashed in them and was gone so swiftly. there was a hint of shrugging his shoulders. "it is the night of power--in the old egyptian calendar, you know," he answered with assumed lightness almost, "the final moment of leyel-el-sud, the period of black nights when the desert was held to encroach with--with various possibilities of a supernatural order. she wishes to revive a certain practice of the old egyptians. there _may_ be curious results. at any rate, the occasion is a picturesque one--better than this cheap imitation of london life." and he indicated the lights, the signs of people in the hall dressed for gaieties and dances, the hotel orchestra that played after dinner. henriot at the moment answered nothing, so great was the rush of conflicting emotions that came he knew not whence. vance went calmly on. he spoke with a simple frankness that was meant to be disarming. henriot never took his eyes off him. the two men stared steadily at one another. "she wants to know if you will come and help too--in a certain way only: not in the experiment itself precisely, but by watching merely and--" he hesitated an instant, half lowering his eyes. "drawing the picture," henriot helped him deliberately. "drawing what you see, yes," vance replied, the voice turned graver in spite of himself. "she wants--she hopes to catch the outlines of anything that happens--" "comes." "exactly. determine the shape of anything that comes. you may remember your conversation of the other night with her. she is very certain of success." this was direct enough at any rate. it was as formal as an invitation to a dinner, and as guileless. the thing he thought he wanted lay within his reach. he had merely to say yes. he did say yes; but first he looked about him instinctively, as for guidance. he looked at the stars twinkling high above the distant libyan plateau; at the long arms of the desert, gleaming weirdly white in the moonlight, and reaching towards him down every opening between the houses; at the heavy mass of the mokattam hills, guarding the arabian wilderness with strange, peaked barriers, their sand-carved ridges dark and still above the wadi hof. these questionings attracted no response. the desert watched him, but it did not answer. there was only the shrill whistling cry of the lizards, and the sing-song of a white-robed arab gliding down the sandy street. and through these sounds he heard his own voice answer: "i will come--yes. but how can i help? tell me what you propose--your plan?" and the face of vance, seen plainly in the electric glare, betrayed his satisfaction. the opposing things in the fellow's mind of darkness fought visibly in his eyes and skin. the sordid motive, planning a dreadful act, leaped to his face, and with it a flash of this other yearning that sought unearthly knowledge, perhaps believed it too. no wonder there was conflict written on his features. then all expression vanished again; he leaned forward, lowering his voice. "you remember our conversation about there being types of life too vast to manifest in a single body, and my aunt's belief that these were known to certain of the older religious systems of the world?" "perfectly." "her experiment, then, is to bring one of these great powers back--we possess the sympathetic ritual that can rouse some among them to activity--and win it down into the sphere of our minds, our minds heightened, you see, by ceremonial to that stage of clairvoyant vision which can perceive them." "and then?" they might have been discussing the building of a house, so naturally followed answer upon question. but the whole body of meaning in the old egyptian symbolism rushed over him with a force that shook his heart. memory came so marvellously with it. "if the power floods down into our minds with sufficient strength for actual form, to note the outline of such form, and from your drawing model it later in permanent substance. then we should have means of evoking it at will, for we should have its natural body--the form it built itself, its signature, image, pattern. a starting-point, you see, for more--leading, she hopes, to a complete reconstruction." "it might take actual shape--assume a bodily form visible to the eye?" repeated henriot, amazed as before that doubt and laughter did not break through his mind. "we are on the earth," was the reply, spoken unnecessarily low since no living thing was within earshot, "we are in physical conditions, are we not? even a human soul we do not recognise unless we see it in a body--parents provide the outline, the signature, the sigil of the returning soul. this," and he tapped himself upon the breast, "is the physical signature of that type of life we call a soul. unless there is life of a certain strength behind it, no body forms. and, without a body, we are helpless to control or manage it--deal with it in any way. we could not know it, though being possibly _aware_ of it." "to be aware, you mean, is not sufficient?" for he noticed the italics vance made use of. "too vague, of no value for future use," was the reply. "but once obtain the form, and we have the natural symbol of that particular power. and a symbol is more than image, it is a direct and concentrated expression of the life it typifies--possibly terrific." "it may be a body, then, this symbol you speak of." "accurate vehicle of manifestation; but 'body' seems the simplest word." vance answered very slowly and deliberately, as though weighing how much he would tell. his language was admirably evasive. few perhaps would have detected the profound significance the curious words he next used unquestionably concealed. henriot's mind rejected them, but his heart accepted. for the ancient soul in him was listening and aware. "life, using matter to express itself in bodily shape, first traces a geometrical pattern. from the lowest form in crystals, upwards to more complicated patterns in the higher organisations--there is always first this geometrical pattern as skeleton. for geometry lies at the root of all possible phenomena; and is the mind's interpretation of a living movement towards shape that shall express it." he brought his eyes closer to the other, lowering his voice again. "hence," he said softly, "the signs in all the old magical systems--skeleton forms into which the powers evoked descended; outlines those powers automatically built up when using matter to express themselves. such signs are material symbols of their bodiless existence. they attract the life they represent and interpret. obtain the correct, true symbol, and the power corresponding to it can approach--once roused and made aware. it has, you see, a ready-made mould into which it can come down." "once roused and made aware?" repeated henriot questioningly, while this man went stammering the letters of a language that he himself had used too long ago to recapture fully. "because they have left the world. they sleep, unmanifested. their forms are no longer known to men. no forms exist on earth to-day that could contain them. but they may be awakened," he added darkly. "they are bound to answer to the summons, if such summons be accurately made." "evocation?" whispered henriot, more distressed than he cared to admit. vance nodded. leaning still closer, to his companion's face, he thrust his lips forward, speaking eagerly, earnestly, yet somehow at the same time, horribly: "and we want--my aunt would ask--your draughtsman's skill, or at any rate your memory afterwards, to establish the outline of anything that comes." he waited for the answer, still keeping his face uncomfortably close. henriot drew back a little. but his mind was fully made up now. he had known from the beginning that he would consent, for the desire in him was stronger than all the caution in the world. the past inexorably drew him into the circle of these other lives, and the little human dread vance woke in him seemed just then insignificant by comparison. it was merely of to-day. "you two," he said, trying to bring judgment into it, "engaged in evocation, will be in a state of clairvoyant vision. granted. but shall i, as an outsider, observing with unexcited mind, see anything, know anything, be aware of anything at all, let alone the drawing of it?" "unless," the reply came instantly with decision, "the descent of power is strong enough to take actual material shape, the experiment is a failure. anybody can induce subjective vision. such fantasies have no value though. they are born of an overwrought imagination." and then he added quickly, as though to clinch the matter before caution and hesitation could take effect: "you must watch from the heights above. we shall be in the valley--the wadi hof is the place. you must not be too close--" "why not too close?" asked henriot, springing forward like a flash before he could prevent the sudden impulse. with a quickness equal to his own, vance answered. there was no faintest sign that he was surprised. his self-control was perfect. only the glare passed darkly through his eyes and went back again into the sombre soul that bore it. "for your own safety," he answered low. "the power, the type of life, she would waken is stupendous. and if roused enough to be attracted by the patterned symbol into which she would decoy it down, it will take actual, physical expression. but how? where is the body of worshippers through whom it can manifest? there is none. it will, therefore, press inanimate matter into the service. the terrific impulse to form itself a means of expression will force all loose matter at hand towards it--sand, stones, all it can compel to yield--everything must rush into the sphere of action in which it operates. alone, we at the centre, and you, upon the outer fringe, will be safe. only--you must not come too close." but henriot was no longer listening. his soul had turned to ice. for here, in this unguarded moment, the cloven hoof had plainly shown itself. in that suggestion of a particular kind of danger vance had lifted a corner of the curtain behind which crouched his horrible intention. vance desired a witness of the extraordinary experiment, but he desired this witness, not merely for the purpose of sketching possible shapes that might present themselves to excited vision. he desired a witness for another reason too. why had vance put that idea into his mind, this idea of so peculiar danger? it might well have lost him the very assistance he seemed so anxious to obtain. henriot could not fathom it quite. only one thing was clear to him. he, henriot, was not the only one in danger. they talked for long after that--far into the night. the lights went out, and the armed patrol, pacing to and fro outside the iron railings that kept the desert back, eyed them curiously. but the only other thing he gathered of importance was the ledge upon the cliff-top where he was to stand and watch; that he was expected to reach there before sunset and wait till the moon concealed all glimmer in the western sky, and--that the woman, who had been engaged for days in secret preparation of soul and body for the awful rite, would not be visible again until he saw her in the depths of the black valley far below, busy with this man upon audacious, ancient purposes. ix an hour before sunset henriot put his rugs and food upon a donkey, and gave the boy directions where to meet him--a considerable distance from the appointed spot. he went himself on foot. he slipped in the heat along the sandy street, where strings of camels still go slouching, shuffling with their loads from the quarries that built the pyramids, and he felt that little friendly helouan tried to keep him back. but desire now was far too strong for caution. the desert tide was rising. it easily swept him down the long white street towards the enormous deeps beyond. he felt the pull of a thousand miles before him; and twice a thousand years drove at his back. everything still basked in the sunshine. he passed al hayat, the stately hotel that dominates the village like a palace built against the sky; and in its pillared colonnades and terraces he saw the throngs of people having late afternoon tea and listening to the music of a regimental band. men in flannels were playing tennis, parties were climbing off donkeys after long excursions; there was laughter, talking, a babel of many voices. the gaiety called to him; the everyday spirit whispered to stay and join the crowd of lively human beings. soon there would be merry dinner-parties, dancing, voices of pretty women, sweet white dresses, singing, and the rest. soft eyes would question and turn dark. he picked out several girls he knew among the palms. but it was all many, oh so many leagues away; centuries lay between him and this modern world. an indescriable loneliness was in his heart. he went searching through the sands of forgotten ages, and wandering among the ruins of a vanished time. he hurried. already the deeper water caught his breath. he climbed the steep rise towards the plateau where the observatory stands, and saw two of the officials whom he knew taking a siesta after their long day's work. he felt that his mind, too, had dived and searched among the heavenly bodies that live in silent, changeless peace remote from the world of men. they recognised him, these two whose eyes also knew tremendous distance close. they beckoned, waving the straws through which they sipped their drinks from tall glasses. their voices floated down to him as from the star-fields. he saw the sun gleam upon the glasses, and heard the clink of the ice against the sides. the stillness was amazing. he waved an answer, and passed quickly on. he could not stop this sliding current of the years. the tide moved faster, the draw of piled-up cycles urging it. he emerged upon the plateau, and met the cooler desert air. his feet went crunching on the "desert-film" that spread its curious dark shiny carpet as far as the eye could reach; it lay everywhere, unswept and smooth as when the feet of vanished civilizations trod its burning surface, then dipped behind the curtains time pins against the stars. and here the body of the tide set all one way. there was a greater strength of current, draught and suction. he felt the powerful undertow. deeper masses drew his feet sideways, and he felt the rushing of the central body of the sand. the sands were moving, from their foundation upwards. he went unresistingly with them. turning a moment, he looked back at shining little helouan in the blaze of evening light. the voices reached him very faintly, merged now in a general murmur. beyond lay the strip of delta vivid green, the palms, the roofs of bedrashein, the blue laughter of the nile with its flocks of curved felucca sails. further still, rising above the yellow libyan horizon, gloomed the vast triangles of a dozen pyramids, cutting their wedge-shaped clefts out of a sky fast crimsoning through a sea of gold. seen thus, their dignity imposed upon the entire landscape. they towered darkly, symbolic signatures of the ancient powers that now watched him taking these little steps across their damaged territory. he gazed a minute, then went on. he saw the big pale face of the moon in the east. above the ever-silent thing these giant symbols once interpreted, she rose, grand, effortless, half-terrible as themselves. and, with her, she lifted up this tide of the desert that drew his feet across the sand to wadi hof. a moment later he dipped below the ridge that buried helouan and nile and pyramids from sight. he entered the ancient waters. time then, in an instant, flowed back behind his footsteps, obliterating every trace. and with it his mind went too. he stepped across the gulf of centuries, moving into the past. the desert lay before him--an open tomb wherein his soul should read presently of things long vanished. the strange half-lights of sunset began to play their witchery then upon the landscape. a purple glow came down upon the mokattam hills. perspective danced its tricks of false, incredible deception. the soaring kites that were a mile away seemed suddenly close, passing in a moment from the size of gnats to birds with a fabulous stretch of wing. ridges and cliffs rushed close without a hint of warning, and level places sank into declivities and basins that made him trip and stumble. that indescribable quality of the desert, which makes timid souls avoid the hour of dusk, emerged; it spread everywhere, undisguised. and the bewilderment it brings is no vain, imagined thing, for it distorts vision utterly, and the effect upon the mind when familiar sight goes floundering is the simplest way in the world of dragging the anchor that grips reality. at the hour of sunset this bewilderment comes upon a man with a disconcerting swiftness. it rose now with all this weird rapidity. henriot found himself enveloped at a moment's notice. but, knowing well its effect, he tried to judge it and pass on. the other matters, the object of his journey chief of all, he refused to dwell upon with any imagination. wisely, his mind, while never losing sight of it, declined to admit the exaggeration that over-elaborate thinking brings. "i'm going to witness an incredible experiment in which two enthusiastic religious dreamers believe firmly," he repeated to himself. "i have agreed to draw--anything i see. there may be truth in it, or they may be merely self-suggested vision due to an artificial exaltation of their minds. i'm interested--perhaps against my better judgment. yet i'll see the adventure out--because i _must_." this was the attitude he told himself to take. whether it was the real one, or merely adopted to warm a cooling courage, he could not tell. the emotions were so complex and warring. his mind, automatically, kept repeating this comforting formula. deeper than that he could not see to judge. for a man who knew the full content of his thought at such a time would solve some of the oldest psychological problems in the world. sand had already buried judgment, and with it all attempt to explain the adventure by the standards acceptable to his brain of to-day. he steered subconsciously through a world of dim, huge, half-remembered wonders. the sun, with that abrupt egyptian suddenness, was below the horizon now. the pyramid field had swallowed it. ra, in his golden boat, sailed distant seas beyond the libyan wilderness. henriot walked on and on, aware of utter loneliness. he was walking fields of dream, too remote from modern life to recall companionship he once had surely known. how dim it was, how deep and distant, how lost in this sea of an incalculable past! he walked into the places that are soundless. the soundlessness of ocean, miles below the surface, was about him. he was with one only--this unfathomable, silent thing where nothing breathes or stirs--nothing but sunshine, shadow and the wind-borne sand. slowly, in front, the moon climbed up the eastern sky, hanging above the silence--silence that ran unbroken across the horizons to where suez gleamed upon the waters of a sister sea in motion. that moon was glinting now upon the arabian mountains by its desolate shores. southwards stretched the wastes of upper egypt a thousand miles to meet the nubian wilderness. but over all these separate deserts stirred the soft whisper of the moving sand--deep murmuring message that life was on the way to unwind death. the ka of egypt, swathed in centuries of sand, hovered beneath the moon towards her ancient tenement. for the transformation of the desert now began in earnest. it grew apace. before he had gone the first two miles of his hour's journey, the twilight caught the rocky hills and twisted them into those monstrous revelations of physiognomies they barely take the trouble to conceal even in the daytime. and, while he well understood the eroding agencies that have produced them, there yet rose in his mind a deeper interpretation lurking just behind their literal meanings. here, through the motionless surfaces, that nameless thing the desert ill conceals urged outwards into embryonic form and shape, akin, he almost felt, to those immense deific symbols of other life the egyptians knew and worshipped. hence, from the desert, had first come, he felt, the unearthly life they typified in their monstrous figures of granite, evoked in their stately temples, and communed with in the ritual of their mystery ceremonials. this "watching" aspect of the libyan desert is really natural enough; but it is just the natural, henriot knew, that brings the deepest revelations. the surface limestones, resisting the erosion, block themselves ominously against the sky, while the softer sand beneath sets them on altared pedestals that define their isolation splendidly. blunt and unconquerable, these masses now watched him pass between them. the desert surface formed them, gave them birth. they rose, they saw, they sank down again--waves upon a sea that carried forgotten life up from the depths below. of forbidding, even menacing type, they somewhere mated with genuine grandeur. unformed, according to any standard of human or of animal faces, they achieved an air of giant physiognomy which made them terrible. the unwinking stare of eyes--lidless eyes that yet ever succeed in hiding--looked out under well-marked, level eyebrows, suggesting a vision that included the motives and purposes of his very heart. they looked up grandly, understood why he was there, and then--slowly withdrew their mysterious, penetrating gaze. the strata built them so marvellously up; the heavy, threatening brows; thick lips, curved by the ages into a semblance of cold smiles; jowls drooping into sandy heaps that climbed against the cheeks; protruding jaws, and the suggestion of shoulders just about to lift the entire bodies out of the sandy beds--this host of countenances conveyed a solemnity of expression that seemed everlasting, implacable as death. of human signature they bore no trace, nor was comparison possible between their kind and any animal life. they peopled the desert here. and their smiles, concealed yet just discernible, went broadening with the darkness into a desert laughter. the silence bore it underground. but henriot was aware of it. the troop of faces slipped into that single, enormous countenance which is the visage of the sand. and he saw it everywhere, yet nowhere. thus with the darkness grew his imaginative interpretation of the desert. yet there was construction in it, a construction, moreover, that was _not_ entirely his own. powers, he felt, were rising, stirring, wakening from sleep. behind the natural faces that he saw, these other things peered gravely at him as he passed. they used, as it were, materials that lay ready to their hand. imagination furnished these hints of outline, yet the powers themselves were real. there _was_ this amazing movement of the sand. by no other manner could his mind have conceived of such a thing, nor dreamed of this simple, yet dreadful method of approach. approach! that was the word that first stood out and startled him. there was approach; something was drawing nearer. the desert rose and walked beside him. for not alone these ribs of gleaming limestone contributed towards the elemental visages, but the entire hills, of which they were an outcrop, ran to assist in the formation, and were a necessary part of them. he was watched and stared at from behind, in front, on either side, and even from below. the sand that swept him on, kept even pace with him. it turned luminous too, with a patchwork of glimmering effect that was indescribably weird; lanterns glowed within its substance, and by their light he stumbled on, glad of the arab boy he would presently meet at the appointed place. the last torch of the sunset had flickered out, melting into the wilderness, when, suddenly opening at his feet, gaped the deep, wide gully known as wadi hof. its curve swept past him. this first impression came upon him with a certain violence: that the desolate valley rushed. he saw but a section of its curve and sweep, but through its entire length of several miles the wadi fled away. the moon whitened it like snow, piling black shadows very close against the cliffs. in the flood of moonlight it went rushing past. it was emptying itself. for a moment the stream of movement seemed to pause and look up into his face, then instantly went on again upon its swift career. it was like the procession of a river to the sea. the valley emptied itself to make way for what was coming. the approach, moreover, had already begun. conscious that he was trembling, he stood and gazed into the depths, seeking to steady his mind by the repetition of the little formula he had used before. he said it half aloud. but, while he did so, his heart whispered quite other things. thoughts the woman and the man had sown rose up in a flock and fell upon him like a storm of sand. their impetus drove off all support of ordinary ideas. they shook him where he stood, staring down into this river of strange invisible movement that was hundreds of feet in depth and a quarter of a mile across. he sought to realise himself as he actually was to-day--mere visitor to helouan, tempted into this wild adventure with two strangers. but in vain. that seemed a dream, unreal, a transient detail picked out from the enormous past that now engulfed him, heart and mind and soul. _this_ was the reality. the shapes and faces that the hills of sand built round him were the play of excited fancy only. by sheer force he pinned his thought against this fact: but further he could not get. there _were_ powers at work; they were being stirred, wakened somewhere into activity. evocation had already begun. that sense of their approach as he had walked along from helouan was not imaginary. a descent of some type of life, vanished from the world too long for recollection, was on the way,--so vast that it would manifest itself in a group of forms, a troop, a host, an army. these two were near him somewhere at this very moment, already long at work, their minds driving beyond this little world. the valley was emptying itself--for the descent of life their ritual invited. and the movement in the sand was likewise true. he recalled the sentences the woman had used. "my body," he reflected, "like the bodies life makes use of everywhere, is mere upright heap of earth and dust and--sand. here in the desert is the raw material, the greatest store of it in the world." and on the heels of it came sharply that other thing: that this descending life would press into its service all loose matter within its reach--to form that sphere of action which would be in a literal sense its body. in the first few seconds, as he stood there, he realised all this, and realised it with an overwhelming conviction it was futile to deny. the fast-emptying valley would later brim with an unaccustomed and terrific life. yet death hid there too--a little, ugly, insignificant death. with the name of vance it flashed upon his mind and vanished, too tiny to be thought about in this torrent of grander messages that shook the depths within his soul. he bowed his head a moment, hardly knowing what he did. he could have waited thus a thousand years it seemed. he was conscious of a wild desire to run away, to hide, to efface himself utterly, his terror, his curiosity, his little wonder, and not be seen of anything. but it was all vain and foolish. the desert saw him. the gigantic knew that he was there. no escape was possible any longer. caught by the sand, he stood amid eternal things. the river of movement swept him too. these hills, now motionless as statues, would presently glide forward into the cavalcade, sway like vessels, and go past with the procession. at present only the contents, not the frame, of the wadi moved. an immense soft brush of moonlight swept it empty for what was on the way.... but presently the entire desert would stand up and also go. then, making a sideways movement, his feet kicked against something soft and yielding that lay heaped upon the desert floor, and henriot discovered the rugs the arab boy had carefully set down before he made full speed for the friendly lights of helouan. the sound of his departing footsteps had long since died away. he was alone. the detail restored to him his consciousness of the immediate present, and, stooping, he gathered up the rugs and overcoat and began to make preparations for the night. but the appointed spot, whence he was to watch, lay upon the summit of the opposite cliffs. he must cross the wadi bed and climb. slowly and with labour he made his way down a steep cleft into the depth of the wadi hof, sliding and stumbling often, till at length he stood upon the floor of shining moonlight. it was very smooth; windless utterly; still as space; each particle of sand lay in its ancient place asleep. the movement, it seemed, had ceased. he clambered next up the eastern side, through pitch-black shadows, and within the hour reached the ledge upon the top whence he could see below him, like a silvered map, the sweep of the valley bed. the wind nipped keenly here again, coming over the leagues of cooling sand. loose boulders of splintered rock, started by his climbing, crashed and boomed into the depths. he banked the rugs behind him, wrapped himself in his overcoat, and lay down to wait. behind him was a two-foot crumbling wall against which he leaned; in front a drop of several hundred feet through space. he lay upon a platform, therefore, invisible from the desert at his back. below, the curving wadi formed a natural amphitheatre in which each separate boulder fallen from the cliffs, and even the little _silla_ shrubs the camels eat, were plainly visible. he noted all the bigger ones among them. he counted them over half aloud. and the moving stream he had been unaware of when crossing the bed itself, now began again. the wadi went rushing past before the broom of moonlight. again, the enormous and the tiny combined in one single strange impression. for, through this conception of great movement, stirred also a roving, delicate touch that his imagination felt as bird-like. behind the solid mass of the desert's immobility flashed something swift and light and airy. bizarre pictures interpreted it to him, like rapid snap-shots of a huge flying panorama: he thought of darting dragon-flies seen at helouan, of children's little dancing feet, of twinkling butterflies--of birds. chiefly, yes, of a flock of birds in flight, whose separate units formed a single entity. the idea of the group-soul possessed his mind once more. but it came with a sense of more than curiosity or wonder. veneration lay behind it, a veneration touched with awe. it rose in his deepest thought that here was the first hint of a symbolical representation. a symbol, sacred and inviolable, belonging to some ancient worship that he half remembered in his soul, stirred towards interpretation through all his being. he lay there waiting, wondering vaguely where his two companions were, yet fear all vanished because he felt attuned to a scale of things too big to mate with definite dread. there was high anticipation in him, but not anxiety. of himself, as felix henriot, indeed, he hardly seemed aware. he was some one else. or, rather, he was himself at a stage he had known once far, far away in a remote pre-existence. he watched himself from dim summits of a past, of which no further details were as yet recoverable. pencil and sketching-block lay ready to his hand. the moon rose higher, tucking the shadows ever more closely against the precipices. the silver passed into a sheet of snowy whiteness, that made every boulder clearly visible. solemnity deepened everywhere into awe. the wadi fled silently down the stream of hours. it was almost empty now. and then, abruptly, he was aware of change. the motion altered somewhere. it moved more quietly; pace slackened; the end of the procession that evacuated the depth and length of it went trailing past and turned the distant bend. "it's slowing up," he whispered, as sure of it as though he had watched a regiment of soldiers filing by. the wind took off his voice like a flying feather of sound. and there _was_ a change. it had begun. night and the moon stood still to watch and listen. the wind dropped utterly away. the sand ceased its shifting movement. the desert everywhere stopped still, and turned. some curtain, then, that for centuries had veiled the world, drew softly up, leaving a shaded vista down which the eyes of his soul peered towards long-forgotten pictures. still buried by the sands too deep for full recovery, he yet perceived dim portions of them--things once honoured and loved passionately. for once they had surely been to him the whole of life, not merely a fragment for cheap wonder to inspect. and they were curiously familiar, even as the person of this woman who now evoked them was familiar. henriot made no pretence to more definite remembrance; but the haunting certainty rushed over him, deeper than doubt or denial, and with such force that he felt no effort to destroy it. some lost sweetness of spiritual ambitions, lived for with this passionate devotion, and passionately worshipped as men to-day worship fame and money, revived in him with a tempest of high glory. centres of memory stirred from an age-long sleep, so that he could have wept at their so complete obliteration hitherto. that such majesty had departed from the world as though it never had existed, was a thought for desolation and for tears. and though the little fragment he was about to witness might be crude in itself and incomplete, yet it was part of a vast system that once explored the richest realms of deity. the reverence in him contained a holiness of the night and of the stars; great, gentle awe lay in it too; for he stood, aflame with anticipation and humility, at the gateway of sacred things. and this was the mood, no thrill of cheap excitement or alarm to weaken in, in which he first became aware that two spots of darkness he had taken all along for boulders on the snowy valley bed, were actually something very different. they were living figures. they moved. it was not the shadows slowly following the moonlight, but the stir of human beings who all these hours had been motionless as stone. he must have passed them unnoticed within a dozen yards when he crossed the wadi bed, and a hundred times from this very ledge his eyes had surely rested on them without recognition. their minds, he knew full well, had not been inactive as their bodies. the important part of the ancient ritual lay, he remembered, in the powers of the evoking mind. here, indeed, was no effective nor theatrical approach of the principal figures. it had nothing in common with the cheap external ceremonial of modern days. in forgotten powers of the soul its grandeur lay, potent, splendid, true. long before he came, perhaps all through the day, these two had laboured with their arduous preparations. they were there, part of the desert, when hours ago he had crossed the plateau in the twilight. to them--to this woman's potent working of old ceremonial--had been due that singular rush of imagination he had felt. he had interpreted the desert as alive. here was the explanation. it _was_ alive. life was on the way. long latent, her intense desire summoned it back to physical expression; and the effect upon him had steadily increased as he drew nearer to the centre where she would focus its revival and return. those singular impressions of being watched and accompanied were explained. a priest of this old-world worship performed a genuine evocation; a great one of vision revived the cosmic powers. henriot watched the small figures far below him with a sense of dramatic splendour that only this association of far-off memory could account for. it was their rising now, and the lifting of their arms to form a slow revolving outline, that marked the abrupt cessation of the larger river of movement; for the sweeping of the wadi sank into sudden stillness, and these two, with motions not unlike some dance of deliberate solemnity, passed slowly through the moonlight to and fro. his attention fixed upon them both. all other movement ceased. they fastened the flow of time against the desert's body. what happened then? how could his mind interpret an experience so long denied that the power of expression, as of comprehension, has ceased to exist? how translate this symbolical representation, small detail though it was, of a transcendent worship entombed for most so utterly beyond recovery? its splendour could never lodge in minds that conceive deity perched upon a cloud within telephoning distance of fashionable churches. how should he phrase it even to himself, whose memory drew up pictures from so dim a past that the language fit to frame them lay unreachable and lost? henriot did not know. perhaps he never yet has known. certainly, at the time, he did not even try to think. his sensations remain his own--untranslatable; and even that instinctive description the mind gropes for automatically, floundered, halted, and stopped dead. yet there rose within him somewhere, from depths long drowned in slumber, a reviving power by which he saw, divined and recollected--remembered seemed too literal a word--these elements of a worship he once had personally known. he, too, had worshipped thus. his soul had moved amid similar evocations in some aeonian past, whence now the sand was being cleared away. symbols of stupendous meaning flashed and went their way across the lifting mists. he hardly caught their meaning, so long it was since, he had known them; yet they were familiar as the faces seen in dreams, and some hint of their spiritual significance left faint traces in his heart by means of which their grandeur reached towards interpretation. and all were symbols of a cosmic, deific nature; of powers that only symbols can express--prayer-books and sacraments used in the wisdom religion of an older time, but to-day known only in the decrepit, literal shell which is their degradation. grandly the figures moved across the valley bed. the powers of the heavenly bodies once more joined them. they moved to the measure of a cosmic dance, whose rhythm was creative. the universe partnered them. there was this transfiguration of all common, external things. he realised that appearances were visible letters of a soundless language, a language he once had known. the powers of night and moon and desert sand married with points in the fluid stream of his inmost spiritual being that knew and welcomed them. he understood. old egypt herself stooped down from her uncovered throne. the stars sent messengers. there was commotion in the secret, sandy places of the desert. for the desert had grown temple. columns reared against the sky. there rose, from leagues away, the chanting of the sand. the temples, where once this came to pass, were gone, their ruin questioned by alien hearts that knew not their spiritual meaning. but here the entire desert swept in to form a shrine, and the majesty that once was egypt stepped grandly back across ages of denial and neglect. the sand was altar, and the stars were altar lights. the moon lit up the vast recesses of the ceiling, and the wind from a thousand miles brought in the perfume of her incense. for with that faith which shifts mountains from their sandy bed, two passionate, believing souls invoked the ka of egypt. and the motions that they made, he saw, were definite harmonious patterns their dark figures traced upon the shining valley floor. like the points of compasses, with stems invisible, and directed from the sky, their movements marked the outlines of great signatures of power--the sigils of the type of life they would evoke. it would come as a procession. no individual outline could contain it. it needed for its visible expression--many. the descent of a group-soul, known to the worship of this mighty system, rose from its lair of centuries and moved hugely down upon them. the ka, answering to the summons, would mate with sand. the desert was its body. yet it was not this that he had come to fix with block and pencil. not yet was the moment when his skill might be of use. he waited, watched, and listened, while this river of half-remembered things went past him. the patterns grew beneath his eyes like music. too intricate and prolonged to remember with accuracy later, he understood that they were forms of that root-geometry which lies behind all manifested life. the mould was being traced in outline. life would presently inform it. and a singing rose from the maze of lines whose beauty was like the beauty of the constellations. this sound was very faint at first, but grew steadily in volume. although no echoes, properly speaking, were possible, these precipices caught stray notes that trooped in from the further sandy reaches. the figures certainly were chanting, but their chanting was not all he heard. other sounds came to his ears from far away, running past him through the air from every side, and from incredible distances, all flocking down into the wadi bed to join the parent note that summoned them. the desert was giving voice. and memory, lifting her hood yet higher, showed more of her grey, mysterious face that searched his soul with questions. had he so soon forgotten that strange union of form and sound which once was known to the evocative rituals of olden days? henriot tried patiently to disentangle this desert-music that their intoning voices woke, from the humming of the blood in his own veins. but he succeeded only in part. sand was already in the air. there was reverberation, rhythm, measure; there was almost the breaking of the stream into great syllables. but was it due, this strange reverberation, to the countless particles of sand meeting in mid-air about him, or--to larger bodies, whose surfaces caught this friction of the sand and threw it back against his ears? the wind, now rising, brought particles that stung his face and hands, and filled his eyes with a minute fine dust that partially veiled the moonlight. but was not something larger, vaster these particles composed now also on the way? movement and sound and flying sand thus merged themselves more and more in a single, whirling torrent. but henriot sought no commonplace explanation of what he witnessed; and here was the proof that all happened in some vestibule of inner experience where the strain of question and answer had no business. one sitting beside him need not have seen anything at all. his host, for instance, from helouan, need not have been aware. night screened it; helouan, as the whole of modern experience, stood in front of the screen. this thing took place behind it. he crouched motionless, watching in some reconstructed ante-chamber of the soul's pre-existence, while the torrent grew into a veritable tempest. yet night remained unshaken; the veil of moonlight did not quiver; the stars dropped their slender golden pillars unobstructed. calmness reigned everywhere as before. the stupendous representation passed on behind it all. but the dignity of the little human movements that he watched had become now indescribable. the gestures of the arms and bodies invested themselves with consummate grandeur, as these two strode into the caverns behind manifested life and drew forth symbols that represented vanished powers. the sound of their chanting voices broke in cadenced fragments against the shores of language. the words henriot never actually caught, if words they were; yet he understood their purport--these names of power to which the type of returning life gave answer as they approached. he remembered fumbling for his drawing materials, with such violence, however, that the pencil snapped in two between his fingers as he touched it. for now, even here, upon the outer fringe of the ceremonial ground, there was a stir of forces that set the very muscles working in him before he had become aware of it.... then came the moment when his heart leaped against his ribs with a sudden violence that was almost pain, standing a second later still as death. the lines upon the valley floor ceased their maze-like dance. all movement stopped. sound died away. in the midst of this profound and dreadful silence the sigils lay empty there below him. they waited to be in-formed. for the moment of entrance had come at last. life was close. and he understood why this return of life had all along suggested a procession and could be no mere momentary flash of vision. from such appalling distance did it sweep down towards the present. upon this network, then, of splendid lines, at length held rigid, the entire desert reared itself with walls of curtained sand, that dwarfed the cliffs, the shouldering hills, the very sky. the desert stood on end. as once before he had dreamed it from his balcony windows, it rose upright, towering, and close against his face. it built sudden ramparts to the stars that chambered the thing he witnessed behind walls no centuries could ever bring down crumbling into dust. he himself, in some curious fashion, lay just outside, viewing it apart. as from a pinnacle, he peered within--peered down with straining eyes into the vast picture-gallery memory threw abruptly open. and the picture spaced its noble outline thus against the very stars. he gazed between columns, that supported the sky itself, like pillars of sand that swept across the field of vanished years. sand poured and streamed aside, laying bare the past. for down the enormous vista into which he gazed, as into an avenue running a million miles towards a tiny point, he saw this moving thing that came towards him, shaking loose the countless veils of sand the ages had swathed about it. the ka of buried egypt wakened out of sleep. she had heard the potent summons of her old, time-honoured ritual. she came. she stretched forth an arm towards the worshippers who evoked her. out of the desert, out of the leagues of sand, out of the immeasurable wilderness which was her mummied form and body, she rose and came. and this fragment of her he would actually see--this little portion that was obedient to the stammered and broken ceremonial. the partial revelation he would witness--yet so vast, even this little bit of it, that it came as a procession and a host. for a moment there was nothing. and then the voice of the woman rose in a resounding cry that filled the wadi to its furthest precipices, before it died away again to silence. that a human voice could produce such volume, accent, depth, seemed half incredible. the walls of towering sand swallowed it instantly. but the procession of life, needing a group, a host, an army for its physical expression, reached at that moment the nearer end of the huge avenue. it touched the present; it entered the world of men. x the entire range of henriot's experience, read, imagined, dreamed, then fainted into unreality before the sheer wonder of what he saw. in the brief interval it takes to snap the fingers the climax was thus so hurriedly upon him. and, through it all, he was clearly aware of the pair of little human figures, man and woman, standing erect and commanding at the centre--knew, too, that she directed and controlled, while he in some secondary fashion supported her--and ever watched. but both were dim, dropped somewhere into a lesser scale. it was the knowledge of their presence, however, that alone enabled him to keep his powers in hand at all. but for these two _human_ beings there within possible reach, he must have closed his eyes and swooned. for a tempest that seemed to toss loose stars about the sky swept round about him, pouring up the pillared avenue in front of the procession. a blast of giant energy, of liberty, came through. forwards and backwards, circling spirally about him like a whirlwind, came this revival of life that sought to dip itself once more in matter and in form. it came to the accurate out-line of its form they had traced for it. he held his mind steady enough to realise that it was akin to what men call a "descent" of some "spiritual movement" that wakens a body of believers into faith--a race, an entire nation; only that he experienced it in this brief, concentrated form before it has scattered down into ten thousand hearts. here he knew its source and essence, behind the veil. crudely, unmanageable as yet, he felt it, rushing loose behind appearances. there was this amazing impact of a twisting, swinging force that stormed down as though it would bend and coil the very ribs of the old stubborn hills. it sought to warm them with the stress of its own irresistible life-stream, to beat them into shape, and make pliable their obstinate resistance. through all things the impulse poured and spread, like fire at white heat. yet nothing visible came as yet, no alteration in the actual landscape, no sign of change in things familiar to his eyes, while impetus thus fought against inertia. he perceived nothing form-al. calm and untouched himself, he lay outside the circle of evocation, watching, waiting, scarcely daring to breathe, yet well aware that any minute the scene would transfer itself from memory that was subjective to matter that was objective. and then, in a flash, the bridge was built, and the transfer was accomplished. how or where he did not see, he could not tell. it was there before he knew it--there before his normal, earthly sight. he saw it, as he saw the hands he was holding stupidly up to shield his face. for this terrific release of force long held back, long stored up, latent for centuries, came pouring down the empty wadi bed prepared for its reception. through stones and sand and boulders it came in an impetuous hurricane of power. the liberation of its life appalled him. all that was free, untied, responded instantly like chaff; loose objects fled towards it; there was a yielding in the hills and precipices; and even in the mass of desert which provided their foundation. the hinges of the sand went creaking in the night. it shaped for itself a bodily outline. yet, most strangely, nothing definitely moved. how could he express the violent contradiction? for the immobility was apparent only--a sham, a counterfeit; while behind it the essential _being_ of these things did rush and shift and alter. he saw the two things side by side: the outer immobility the senses commonly agree upon, _and_ this amazing flying-out of their inner, invisible substance towards the vortex of attracting life that sucked them in. for stubborn matter turned docile before the stress of this returning life, taught somewhere to be plastic. it was being moulded into an approach to bodily outline. a mobile elasticity invaded rigid substance. the two officiating human beings, safe at the stationary centre, and himself, just outside the circle of operation, alone remained untouched and unaffected. but a few feet in any direction, for any one of them, meant--instantaneous death. they would be absorbed into the vortex, mere corpuscles pressed into the service of this sphere of action of a mighty body.... how these perceptions reached him with such conviction, henriot could never say. he knew it, because he _felt_ it. something fell about him from the sky that already paled towards the dawn. the stars themselves, it seemed, contributed some part of the terrific, flowing impulse that conquered matter and shaped itself this physical expression. then, before he was able to fashion any preconceived idea of what visible form this potent life might assume, he was aware of further change. it came at the briefest possible interval after the beginning--this certainty that, to and fro about him, as yet however indeterminate, passed magnitudes that were stupendous as the desert. there was beauty in them too, though a terrible beauty hardly of this earth at all. a fragment of old egypt had returned--a little portion of that vast body of belief that once was egypt. evoked by the worship of one human heart, passionately sincere, the ka of egypt stepped back to visit the material it once informed--the sand. yet only a portion came. henriot clearly realised that. it stretched forth an arm. finding no mass of worshippers through whom it might express itself completely, it pressed inanimate matter thus into its service. here was the beginning the woman had spoken of--little opening clue. entire reconstruction lay perhaps beyond. and henriot next realised that these magnitudes in which this group-energy sought to clothe itself as visible form, were curiously familiar. it was not a new thing that he would see. booming softly as they dropped downwards through the sky, with a motion the size of them rendered delusive, they trooped up the avenue towards the central point that summoned them. he realised the giant flock of them--descent of fearful beauty--outlining a type of life denied to the world for ages, countless as this sand that blew against his skin. careering over the waste of desert moved the army of dark splendours, that dwarfed any organic structure called a body men have ever known. he recognised them, cold in him of death, though the outlines reared higher than the pyramids, and towered up to hide whole groups of stars. yes, he recognised them in their partial revelation, though he never saw the monstrous host complete. but, one of them, he realised, posing its eternal riddle to the sands, had of old been glimpsed sufficiently to seize its form in stone,--yet poorly seized, as a doll may stand for the dignity of a human being or a child's toy represent an engine that draws trains.... and he knelt there on his narrow ledge, the world of men forgotten. the power that caught him was too great a thing for wonder or for fear; he even felt no awe. sensation of any kind that can be named or realised left him utterly. he forgot himself. he merely watched. the glory numbed him. block and pencil, as the reason of his presence there at all, no longer existed.... yet one small link remained that held him to some kind of consciousness of earthly things: he never lost sight of this--that, being just outside the circle of evocation, he was safe, and that the man and woman, being stationary in its untouched centre, were also safe. but--that a movement of six inches in any direction meant for any one of them instant death. what was it, then, that suddenly strengthened this solitary link so that the chain tautened and he felt the pull of it? henriot could not say. he came back with the rush of a descending drop to the realisation--dimly, vaguely, as from great distance--that he was with these two, now at this moment, in the wadi hof, and that the cold of dawn was in the air about him. the chill breath of the desert made him shiver. but at first, so deeply had his soul been dipped in this fragment of ancient worship, he could remember nothing more. somewhere lay a little spot of streets and houses; its name escaped him. he had once been there; there were many people, but insignificant people. who were they? and what had he to do with them? all recent memories had been drowned in the tide that flooded him from an immeasurable past. and who were they--these two beings, standing on the white floor of sand below him? for a long time he could not recover their names. yet he remembered them; and, thus robbed of association that names bring, he saw them for an instant naked, and knew that one of them was evil. one of them was vile. blackness touched the picture there. the man, his name still out of reach, was sinister, impure and dark at the heart. and for this reason the evocation had been partial only. the admixture of an evil motive was the flaw that marred complete success. the names then flashed upon him--lady statham--richard vance. vance! with a horrid drop from splendour into something mean and sordid, henriot felt the pain of it. the motive of the man was so insignificant, his purpose so atrocious. more and more, with the name, came back--his first repugnance, fear, suspicion. and human terror caught him. he shrieked. but, as in nightmare, no sound escaped his lips. he tried to move; a wild desire to interfere, to protect, to prevent, flung him forward--close to the dizzy edge of the gulf below. but his muscles refused obedience to the will. the paralysis of common fear rooted him to the rocks. but the sudden change of focus instantly destroyed the picture; and so vehement was the fall from glory into meanness, that it dislocated the machinery of clairvoyant vision. the inner perception clouded and grew dark. outer and inner mingled in violent, inextricable confusion. the wrench seemed almost physical. it happened all at once, retreat and continuation for a moment somehow combined. and, if he did not definitely see the awful thing, at least he was aware that it had come to pass. he knew it as positively as though his eye were glued against a magnifying lens in the stillness of some laboratory. he witnessed it. the supreme moment of evocation was close. life, through that awful sandy vortex, whirled and raged. loose particles showered and pelted, caught by the draught of vehement life that moulded the substance of the desert into imperial outline--when, suddenly, shot the little evil thing across that marred and blasted it. into the whirlpool flew forward a particle of material that was a human being. and the group-soul caught and used it. the actual accomplishment henriot did not claim to see. he was a witness, but a witness who could give no evidence. whether the woman was pushed of set intention, or whether some detail of sound and pattern was falsely used to effect the terrible result, he was helpless to determine. he pretends no itemised account. she went. in one second, with appalling swiftness, she disappeared, swallowed out of space and time within that awful maw--one little corpuscle among a million through which the life, now stalking the desert wastes, moulded itself a troop-like body. sand took her. there followed emptiness--a hush of unutterable silence, stillness, peace. movement and sound instantly retired whence they came. the avenues of memory closed; the splendours all went down into their sandy tombs.... * * * * * the moon had sunk into the libyan wilderness; the eastern sky was red. the dawn drew out that wondrous sweetness of the desert, which is as sister to the sweetness that the moonlight brings. the desert settled back to sleep, huge, unfathomable, charged to the brim with life that watches, waits, and yet conceals itself behind the ruins of apparent desolation. and the wadi, empty at his feet, filled slowly with the gentle little winds that bring the sunrise. then, across the pale glimmering of sand, henriot saw a figure moving. it came quickly towards him, yet unsteadily, and with a hurry that was ugly. vance was on the way to fetch him. and the horror of the man's approach struck him like a hammer in the face. he closed his eyes, sinking back to hide. but, before he swooned, there reached him the clatter of the murderer's tread as he began to climb over the splintered rocks, and the faint echo of his voice, calling him by name--falsely and in pretence--for help. the end [transcriber's note: in chapter ix of the story sand, the word "indescriable" was corrected to "indescribable."] the tale of terror a study of the gothic romance by edith birkhead m.a. assistant lecturer in english literature in the university of bristol formerly noble fellow in the university of liverpool london constable & company ltd. preface the aim of this book is to give some account of the growth of supernatural fiction in english literature, beginning with the vogue of the gothic romance and tale of terror towards the close of the eighteenth century. the origin and development of the gothic romance are set forth in detail from the appearance of walpole's _castle of otranto_ in to the publication of maturin's _melmoth the wanderer_ in ; and the survey of this phase of the novel is continued, in the later chapters, to modern times. one of these is devoted to the tale of terror in america, where in the hands of hawthorne and poe its treatment became a fine art. in the chapters dealing with the more recent forms of the tale of terror and wonder, the scope of the subject becomes so wide that it is impossible to attempt an exhaustive survey. the present work is the outcome of studies begun during my tenure of the william noble fellowship in the university of liverpool, - . it is a pleasure to express here my thanks to professor r.h. case and to dr. john sampson for valuable help and criticism at various stages of the work. parts of the ms. have also been read by professor c.h. herford of the university of manchester and by professor oliver elton of the university of liverpool. to messrs. constable's reader i am also indebted for several helpful suggestions.--e.b. the university of bristol, december, . contents chapter i - introductory. the antiquity of the tale of terror; the element of fear in myths, heroic legends, ballads and folk-tales; terror in the romances of the middle ages, in elizabethan times and in the seventeenth century; the credulity of the age of reason; the renascence of terror and wonder in poetry; the "attempt to blend the marvellous of old story with the natural of modern novels." pp. - . chapter ii - the beginnings of gothic romance. walpole's admiration for gothic art and his interest in the middle ages; the mediaeval revival at the close of the eighteenth century; _the castle of otranto_; walpole's bequest to later romance-writers; smollett's incidental anticipation of the methods of gothic romance; clara reeve's _old english baron_ and her effort to bring her story "within the utmost verge of probability"; mrs. barbauld's gothic fragment; blake's _fair elenor_; the critical theories and gothic experiments of dr. nathan drake. pp. - . chapter iii - "the novel of suspense." mrs. radcliffe. the vogue of mrs. radcliffe; her tentative beginning in _the castles of athlin and dunbayne_, and her gradual advance in skill and power; _the sicilian romance_ and her early experiments in the "explained" supernatural; _the romance of the forest_, and her use of suspense; heroines: _the mysteries of udolpho_; illustrations of mrs. radcliffe's methods; _the italian_; villains; her historical accuracy and "unexplained" spectre in _gaston de blondeville_; her reading; style; descriptions of scenery; position in the history of the novel. pp. - . chapter iv - the novel of terror. lewis and maturin. lewis's methods contrasted with those of mrs. radcliffe; his debt to german terror-mongers; _the monk_; ballads; _the bravo of venice_; minor works and translations; scott's review of maturin's _montorio_; the vogue of the tale of terror between lewis and maturin; miss sarah wilkinson; the personality of charles robert maturin; his literary career; the complicated plot of _the family of montorio_; maturin's debt to others; his distinguishing gifts revealed in _montorio_; the influence of _melmoth the wanderer_ on french literature; a survey of _melmoth_; maturin's achievement as a novelist. pp. - . chapter v - the oriental tale of terror. beckford. the oriental story in france and england in the eighteenth century; beckford's _vathek_; beckford's life and character; his literary gifts; later oriental tales. pp. - . chapter vi - godwin and the rosicrucian novel. godwin's mind and temper; the plan of _caleb williams_ as described by godwin; his methods; the plot of _caleb williams_; its interest as a story; godwin's limitations as a novelist; _st. lean_; its origin and purpose; outline of the story; the character of bethlem gabor; godwin's treatment of the rosicrucian legend; a parody of _st. lean_; the supernatural in _cloudesley_ and in _lives of the necromancers_; moore's _epicurean_; croly's _salathiel_; shelley's youthful enthusiasm for the tale of terror; _zastrozzi_; its lack of originality; _st. irvyne_; traces of shelley's early reading in his poems. pp. - . chapter vii - satires on the novel of terror. jane austen's raillery in _northanger abbey_; barrett's mockery in _the heroine_; peacock's _nightmare abbey_; his praise of c.b. brown in _gryll grange_; _the mystery of the abbey_, and its misleading title; crabbe's satire in _belinda waters_ and _the preceptor husband_; his ironical attack on the sentimental heroine in _the borough_; his appreciation of folktales; _sir eustace grey_. pp. - . chapter viii - scott and the novel of terror. scott's review of fashionable fiction in the preface to _waverley_; his early attempts at gothic story in _thomas the rhymer_ and _the lord of ennerdale_; his enthusiasm for bürger's _lenore_ and for lewis's ballads; his interest in demonology and witchcraft; his attitude to the supernatural; his hints to the writers of ghost-stories; his own experiments; wandering willie's tale, a masterpiece of supernatural horror; the use of the supernatural in the waverley novels; scott, the supplanter of the novel of terror. pp. - . chapter ix - later developments of the tale of terror. the exaggeration of the later terror-mongers; innovations; the stories of mary shelley, byron and polidori; _frankenstein_; its purpose; critical estimate; _valperga_; _the last man_; mrs. shelley's short tales; polidori's _ernestus berchtold_, a domestic story with supernatural agency; _the_ faces _vampyre_; later vampires; de quincey's contributions to the tale of terror; harrison ainsworth's attempt to revive romance; his early gothic stories; _rookwood_, an attempt to bring the radcliffe romance up to date; terror in ainsworth's other novels; marryat's _phantom ship_; bulwer lytton's interest in the occult; _zanoni_, and lytton's theory of the intelligences; _the haunted and the haunters_; _a strange story_ and lytton's preoccupation with mesmerism. pp. - . chapter x - short tales of terror. the chapbook versions of the gothic romance; the popularity of sensational story illustrated in leigh hunt's _indicator_; collections of short stories; various types of short story in periodicals; stories based on oral tradition; the humourist's turn for the terrible; natural terror in tales from _blackwood_ and in conrad; use of terror in stevenson and kipling; future possibilities of fear as a motive in short stories. pp. - . chapter xi - american tales of terror. the vogue of gothic story in america; the novels of charles brockden brown; his use of the "explained" supernatural; his godwinian theory; his construction and style; washington irving's genial tales of terror; hawthorne's reticence and melancholy; suggestions for eery stories in his notebooks; _twice-told tales_; _mosses from an old manse; the scarlet letter_; hawthorne's sympathetic insight into character; _the house of the seven gables_, and the ancestral curse; his half-credulous treatment of the supernatural; unfinished stories; a contrast of hawthorne's methods with those of edgar allan poe; _a manuscript found in a bottle_, the first of poe's tales of terror; the skill of poe illustrated in _ligeia, the fall of the house of usher, the masque of the red death_, and _the cash of amontillado_; poe's psychology; his technique in _the pit and the pendulum_ and in his detective stories; his influence; the art of poe; his ideal in writing a short story. pp. - . chapter xii - conclusion. the persistence of the tale of terror; the position of the gothic romance in the history of fiction; the terrors of actual life in the brontë's novels; sensational stories of wilkie collins, le fanu and later authors; the element of terror in various types of romance; experiments of living authors; the future of the tale of terror. pp - . index. pp. - chapter i - introductory. the history of the tale of terror is as old as the history of man. myths were created in the early days of the race to account for sunrise and sunset, storm-winds and thunder, the origin of the earth and of mankind. the tales men told in the face of these mysteries were naturally inspired by awe and fear. the universal myth of a great flood is perhaps the earliest tale of terror. during the excavation of nineveh in , a babylonian version of the story, which forms part of the gilgamesh epic, was discovered in the library of king ashurbanipal ( - b.c.); and there are records of a much earlier version, belonging to the year b.c. the story of the flood, as related on the eleventh tablet of the gilgamesh epic, abounds in supernatural terror. to seek the gift of immortality from his ancestor, ut-napishtim, the hero undertakes a weary and perilous journey. he passes the mountain guarded by a scorpion man and woman, where the sun goes down; he traverses a dark and dreadful road, where never man trod, and at last crosses the waters of death. during the deluge, which is predicted by his ancestor, the gods themselves are stricken with fear: "no man beheld his fellow, no more could men know each other. in heaven the gods were afraid ... they drew back, they climbed up into the heaven of anu. the gods crouched like dogs, they cowered by the walls."[ ] another episode in the same epic, when nergal, the god of the dead, brings before gilgamesh an apparition of his friend, eabani, recalls the impressive scene, when the witch of endor summons the spirit of samuel before saul. when legends began to grow up round the names of traditional heroes, fierce encounters with giants and monsters were invented to glorify their strength and prowess. david, with a stone from his sling, slew goliath. the crafty ulysses put out the eye of polyphemus. grettir, according to the icelandic saga, overcame glam, the malevolent, death-dealing vampire who "went riding the roofs." beowulf fearlessly descended into the turbid mere to grapple with grendel's mother. folktales and ballads, in which incidents similar to those in myths and heroic legends occur, are often overshadowed by terror. figures like the demon lover, who bears off his mistress in the fatal craft and sinks her in the sea, and the cannibal bridegroom, outwitted at last by the artfulness of one of his brides, appear in the folk-lore of many lands. through every century there glide uneasy spirits, groaning for vengeance. andrew lang[ ] mentions the existence of a papyrus fragment, found attached to a wooden statuette, in which an ancient egyptian scribe addresses a letter to the khou, or spirit, of his dead wife, beseeching her not to haunt him. one of the ancestors of the savage were-wolf, who figures in marryat's _phantom ship_, may perhaps be discovered in petronius' _supper of trimalchio_. the descent of bram stoker's infamous vampire dracula may be traced back through centuries of legend. hobgoblins, demons, and witches mingle grotesquely with the throng of beautiful princesses, queens in glittering raiment, fairies and elves. without these ugly figures, folk-tales would soon lose their power to charm. all tale tellers know that fear is a potent spell. the curiosity which drove bluebeard's wife to explore the hidden chamber lures us on to know the worst, and as we listen to horrid stories, we snatch a fearful joy. human nature desires not only to be amused and entertained, but moved to pity and fear. all can sympathise with the youth, who could not shudder and who would fain acquire the gift. from english literature we gain no more than brief, tantalising glimpses of the vast treasury of folk-tales and ballads that existed before literature became an art and that lived on side by side with it, vitalising and enriching it continually. yet here and there we catch sudden gleams like the fragment in _king lear_: "childe roland to the dark tower came. his word was still fie, foh and fum, i smell the blood of a british man." or benedick's quotation from the _robber bridegroom_: "it is not so, it was not so, but, indeed, god forbid that it should be so." which hint at the existence of a hoard as precious and inexhaustible as that of the nibelungs. the chord of terror is touched in the eerie visit of the three dead sailor sons "in earthly flesh and blood" to the wife of usher's well, sweet william's ghost, the rescue of tarn lin on halloween, when fairyland pays a tiend to hell, the return of clerk saunders to his mistress, true thomas's ride to fairyland, when: "for forty days and forty nights, he wade through red blood to the knee, and he saw neither sun nor moon, but heard the roaring of the sea." the mediaeval romances of chivalry, which embody stories handed down by oral tradition, are set in an atmosphere of supernatural wonder and enchantment. in malory's _morte d'arthur_, sir lancelot goes by night into the chapel perilous, wherein there is only a dim light burning, and steals from the corpse a sword and a piece of silk to heal the wounds of a dying knight. sir galahad sees a fiend leap out of a tomb amid a cloud of smoke; gawaine's ghost, with those of the knights and ladies for whom he has done battle in life, appears to warn the king not to begin the fight against modred on a certain day. in the romance of _sir amadas_, the ghost of a merchant, whose corpse the knight had duteously redeemed from the hands of creditors, succours him at need. the shadow of terror lurks even amid the beauty of spenser's fairyland. in the windings of its forests we come upon dark caves, mysterious castles and huts, from which there start fearsome creatures like despair or the giant orgoglio, hideous hags like occasion, wicked witches and enchanters or frightful beings like the ghostly maleger, who wore as his helmet a dead man's skull and rode upon a tiger swift as the wind. the elizabethan dramatists were fascinated by the terrors of the invisible world. marlowe's dr. faustus, round whose name are clustered legends centuries old concerning bargains between man and the devil, the apparitions and witches in _macbeth_, the dead hand, the corpse-like images, the masque of madmen, the tombmaker and the passing-bell in webster's sombre tragedy, _the duchess of malfi_, prove triumphantly the dramatic possibilities of terror. as a foil to his _masque of queens_ ( ) ben jonson introduced twelve loathly witches with até as their leader, and embellished his description of their profane rites, with details culled from james i.'s treatise on demonology and from learned ancient authorities. in _the pilgrim's progress_, despair, who "had as many lives as a cat," his wife diffidence at doubting castle, and maul and slaygood are the ogres of popular story, whose acquaintance bunyan had made in chapbooks during his ungodly youth. hobgoblins, devils and fiends, "sturdy rogues" like the three brothers faintheart, mistrust and guilt, who set upon littlefaith in dead man's lane, lend the excitement of terror to christian's journey to the celestial city. the widespread belief in witches and spirits to which browne and burton and many others bear witness in the seventeenth century, lived on in the eighteenth century, although the attitude of the "polite" in the age of reason was ostensibly incredulous and superior. a scene in one of the _spectator_ essays illustrates pleasantly the state of popular opinion. addison, lodging with a good-natured widow in london, returns home one day to find a group of girls sitting by candlelight, telling one another ghost-stories. at his entry they are abashed, but, on the widow's assuring them that it is only the "gentleman," they resume, while addison, pretending to be absorbed in his book at the far end of the table, covertly listens to their tales of "ghosts that, pale as ashes, had stood at the feet of the bed or walked over a churchyard by moonlight; and others, who had been conjured into the red sea for disturbing people's rest."[ ] in another essay addison shows that he is strongly inclined to believe in the existence of spirits, though he repudiates the ridiculous superstitions which prevailed in his day;[ ] and sir roger de coverley frankly confesses his belief in witches. defoe, in the preface to his _essay on the history and reality of apparitions_ ( ) states uncompromisingly: "i must tell you, good people, he that is not able to see the devil, in whatever shape he is pleased to appear in, he is not really qualified to live in this world, no, not in the quality of a common inhabitant." epworth rectory, the home of john wesley's father, was haunted in - by a persevering ghost called old jeffrey, whose exploits are recorded with a gravity and circumstantial exactitude that remind us of defoe's narrative concerning the ghostly mrs. veal in her "scoured" silk. john wesley declares stoutly that he is convinced of the literal truth of the story of one elizabeth hobson, who professed to have been visited on several occasions by supernatural beings. he upholds too the authenticity of the notorious drummer of tedworth, whose escapades are described in chapbooks and in glanvill's _sadducismus triumphatus_ ( ), a book in which he was keenly interested. in his journal (may th, ) he remarks: "it is true that the english in general, and indeed most of the men of learning in europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions, as mere old wives' fables. i am sorry for it; and i willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the bible pay to those who do not believe it." the cock lane ghost gained very general credit, and was considered by mrs. nickleby a personage of some importance, when she boasted to miss la creevy that her great-grandfather went to school with him--or her grandmother with the thirsty woman of tutbury. the appearance of lord lyttleton's ghost in was described by dr. johnson, who was also disposed to believe in the cock lane ghost, as the most extraordinary thing that had happened in his day.[ ] there is abundant evidence that the people of the eighteenth century were extremely credulous, yet, in literature, there is a tendency to look askance at the supernatural as at something wild and barbaric. such ghosts as presume to steal into poetry are amazingly tame, and even elegant, in their speech and deportment. in mallet's _william and margaret_ ( ). which was founded on a scrap of an old ballad out of _the knight of the burning pestle_, margaret's wraith rebukes her false lover in a long and dignified oration. but spirits were shy of appearing in an age when they were more likely to be received with banter than with dread. dr. johnson expresses the attitude of his age when, in referring to gray's poem, _the bard_, he remarks: "to select a singular event and swell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions has little difficulty, for he that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous. and it has little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as we find something to be imitated or declined." ( .) the dictum that we are affected only as we believe is open to grave doubt. we are often thrown into a state of trepidation simply through the power of the imagination. we are wise after the event, like partridge at the play: "no, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as that neither... and if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much company; and yet, if i was frightened, i am not the only person."[ ] the supernatural which persisted always in legends handed down from one generation to another on the lips of living people, had not lost its power to thrill and alarm, and gradually worked its way back into literature. although gray and collins do not venture far beyond the bounds of the natural, they were in sympathy with the popular feelings of superstitious terror, and realised how effective they would be in poetry. collins, in his _ode on the superstitions of the scottish highlands_, adjures home, the author of _douglas_, to sing: "how, framing hideous spells, in sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer lodged in the wintry cave with fate's fell spear or in the depths of uist's dark forests dwells, how they whose sight such dreary dreams engross with their own vision oft astonished droop when o'er the wintry strath or quaggy moss they see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop." burns, in the foreword to _halloween_ ( ), writes in the "enlightened" spirit of the eighteenth century, but in the poem itself throws himself whole-heartedly into the hopes and fears that agitate the lovers. he owed much to an old woman who lived in his home in infancy: "she had ... the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons and other trumpery. this cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, i sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors."[ ] _tam o' shanter_, written for captain grose, was perhaps based on a scottish legend, learnt at the inglenook in childhood, from this old wife, or perhaps "by some auld houlet-haunted biggin or kirk deserted by its riggin," from captain grose himself, who made to quake: "ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chamer, ye gipsy-gang that deal in glamor, and you, deep-read in hell's black grammar, warlocks and witches." in it burns reveals with lively reality the terrors that assail the reveller on his homeward way through the storm: "past the birks and meikle stane where drunken charlie brak's neck-bane; and through the whins, and by the cairn where hunters fand the murdered bairn and near the thorn, aboon the well where mungo's mither hanged hersell." for sheer terror the wild, fantastic witch-dance, seen through a gothic window in the ruins of kirk-alloway, with the light of humour strangely glinting through, has hardly been surpassed. the ballad-collections, beginning with percy's _reliques of ancient english poetry_ ( ), brought poets back to the original sources of terror in popular tradition, and helped to revive the latent feelings of awe, wonder and fear. in coleridge's _ancient manner_ the skeleton-ship with its ghastly crew--the spectre-woman and her deathmate--the sensations of the mariner, alone on a wide, wide sea, seize on our imagination with irresistible power. the very substance of the poem is woven of the supernatural. the dream imagery is thrown into relief by occasional touches of reality--the lighthouse, the church on the cliff, the glimpses of the wedding, the quiet song of the hidden brook in the leafy month of june. we, like the mariner, after loneliness so awful that "god himself scarce seemèd there to be," welcome the firm earth beneath our feet, and the homely sound of the vesper bell. in _christabel_ we float dreamily through scenes as unearthly and ephemeral as the misty moonlight, and the words in which coleridge conjures up his vision fall into music of magic beauty. the opening of the poem creates a sense of foreboding, and the horror of the serpent-maiden is subtly suggested through her effect on christabel. coleridge hints at the terrible with artistic reticence. in _kubla khan_ the chasm is: "a savage place! as holy and enchanted as e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted by woman wailing for her demon-lover." the poetry of keats is often mysterious and suggestive of terror. the description of the gothic hall in _the eve of st. agnes_: "in all the house was heard no human sound; a chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door; the arras, rich with horseman, hawk and hound, fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar; and the long carpets rose along the gusty floor;" the serpent-maiden, lamia, who "seemed at once some penanced lady elf, some demon's mistress, or the demon's self;" the grim story in _isabella_ of lorenzo's ghost, who "moaned a ghostly undersong like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briers along." all lead us over the borderland. in a rejected stanza of the _ode on melancholy_, he abandons the horrible: "though you should build a bark of dead men's bones and rear a phantom gibbet for a mast, stitch shrouds together for a sail, with groans to fill it out, blood-stained and aghast; although your rudder be a dragon's tail long severed, yet still hard with agony, your cordage, large uprootings from the skull of bald medusa, certes you would fail to find the melancholy--" keats's melancholy is not to be found amid images of horror: "she dwells with beauty--beauty that must die, and joy, whose hand is ever at his lips bidding adieu." in _la belle dame sans merci_ he conveys with delicate touch the memory of the vision which haunts the knight, alone and palely loitering. we see it through his eyes: "i saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all: they cried--'la belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall!' "i saw their starv'd lips in the gloam with horrid warning gaped wide, and i awoke and found me here, on the cold hill's side." from effects so exquisitely wrought as these it seems almost profane to turn to the crude attempts of such poets as "monk" lewis or southey to sound the note of terror. yet they too, in their fashion, played a part in the "renascence of wonder." coleridge, fascinated by the spirit of "gramarye" in bürger's _lenore_, etherealised and refined it. scott and lewis gloried in the gruesome details and spirited rhythm of the ballad, and in their supernatural poems wish to startle and terrify, not to awe, their readers. those who revel in phosphorescent lights and in the rattle of the skeleton are apt to o'erleap themselves; and scott's _glenfinlas_, lewis's _alonzo the brave and the fair imogene_ and southey's _old woman of berkeley_ fall into the category of the grotesque. hogg intentionally mingles the comic and the terrible in his poem, _the witch of fife_, but his prose-stories reveal his power of creating an atmosphere of _diablerie_, undisturbed by intrusive mockery. in the poem _kilmeny_, he handles an uncanny theme with dreamy beauty. from the earliest times to the present day, writers of fiction have realised the force of supernatural terror. in the _babylonica_ of iamblichus, the lovers evade their pursuers by passing as spectres; the scene of the romance is laid in tombs, caverns, and robbers' dens, a setting remarkably like that of gothic story. into the english novel of the first half of the eighteenth century, however, the ghost dares not venture. the innate desire for the marvellous was met at this period not by the novel, but by oral tradition and by such works as galland's translation of _the arabian nights_, the countess d'aulnoy's collection of fairy tales, perrault's _contes de ma mère oie_. chapbooks setting forth mediaeval legends of "the wandering jew," the "demon frigate," or "dr. faustus," and interspersed with anecdotes of freaks, monsters and murderers, satisfied the craving for excitement among humbler readers.[ ] smollett, who, in his _adventures of ferdinand, count fathom_ ( ), seems to have been experimenting with new devices for keeping alive the interest of a _picaresque_ novel, anticipates the methods of mrs. radcliffe. although he sedulously avoids introducing the supernatural, he hovers perilously on the threshold. the publication of _the castle of otranto_ in was not so wild an adventure as walpole would have his readers believe. the age was ripe for the reception of the marvellous. the supernatural had, as we have seen, begun to find its way back into poetry, in the work of gray and collins. in macpherson's _ossian_, which was received with acclamation in - , the mountains, heaths and lakes are haunted by shadowy, superstitious fears. dim-seen ghosts wail over the wastes. there is abundant evidence that "authentic" stories of ghostly appearances were heard with respect. those who eagerly explored walpole's gothic castle and who took pleasure in miss reeve's well-trained ghost, had previously enjoyed the thrill of chimney corner legends. the idea of the gigantic apparition was derived, no doubt, from the old legend of the figure seen by wallace on the field of battle. the limbs, strewn carelessly about the staircase and the gallery of the castle, belong to a giant, very like those who are worsted by the heroes of popular story. godwin, in an unusual flight of fancy, amused himself by tracing a certain similitude between _caleb williams_ and _bluebeard_, between _cloudesley_ and _the babes in the wood_,[ ] and planned a story, on the analogy of the sleeping beauty, in which the hero was to have the faculty of unexpectedly falling asleep for twenty, thirty, or a hundred years.[ ] mrs. radcliffe, who, so far as we may judge, did not draw her characters from the creatures of flesh and blood around her, seems to have adopted some of the familiar figures of old story. emily's guardian, montoni, in _the mysteries of udolpho_, like the unscrupulous uncle in godwin's _cloudesley_, may well have been descended from the wicked uncle of the folk tale. the cruel stepmother is disguised as a haughty, scheming marchioness in _the sicilian romance_. the ogre drops his club, assumes a veneer of polite refinement and relies on the more gentlemanlike method of the dagger and stiletto for gaining his ends. the banditti and robbers who infest the countryside in gothic fiction are time honoured figures. travellers in thessaly in apuleius' _golden ass_, like the fugitives in shelley's _zastrozzi_ and _st. irvyne_, find themselves in robbers' caves. the gothic castle, suddenly encountered in a dark forest, is boldly transported from fairyland and set down in italy, sicily or spain. the chamber of horrors, with its alarming array of scalps or skeletons, is civilised beyond recognition and becomes the deserted wing of an abbey, concealing nothing worse than one discarded wife, emaciated and dispirited, but still alive. the ghost-story, which ludovico reads in the haunted chamber of udolpho, is described by mrs. radcliffe as a provençal tale, but is in reality common to the folklore of all countries. the restless ghost, who yearns for the burial of his corpse, is as ubiquitous as the wandering jew. in the _iliad_ he appears as the shade of patroclus, pleading with achilles for his funeral rites. according to a letter of the younger pliny,[ ] he haunts a house in athens, clanking his chains. he is found in every land, in every age. his feminine counterpart presented herself to dickens' nurse requiring her bones, which were under a glass-case, to be "interred with every undertaking solemnity up to twenty-four pound ten, in another particular place."[ ] melmoth the wanderer, when he becomes the wooer of immalee, seems almost like a reincarnation of the demon lover. the wandering ball of fire that illuminates the dusky recesses of so many gothic abbeys is but another manifestation of the fate-moon, which shines, foreboding death, after thorgunna's funeral, in the icelandic saga. the witchcraft and demonology that attracted scott and "monk" lewis, may be traced far beyond sinclair's _satan's invisible world discovered_ ( ), bovet's _pandemonium or the devil's cloyster opened_ ( ), or reginald scot's _discovery of witchcraft_ ( ) to ulysses' invocation of the spirits of the dead,[ ] to the idylls of theocritus and to the hebrew narrative of saul's visit to the cave of endor. there are incidents in _the golden ass_ as "horrid" as any of those devised by the writers of gothic romance. it would, indeed, be no easy task to fashion scenes more terrifying than the mutilation of socrates in _the golden ass_, by the witch, who tears out his heart and stops the wound with a sponge which falls out when he stoops to drink at a river, or than the strange apparition of a ragged, old woman who vanishes after leading the way to the room, where the baker's corpse hangs behind the door. though the title assumes a special literary significance at the close of the eighteenth century, the tale of terror appeals to deeply rooted instincts, and belongs, therefore, to every age and clime. chapter ii - the beginnings of gothic romance. to horace walpole, whose _castle of otranto_ was published on christmas eve, , must be assigned the honour of having introduced the gothic romance and of having made it fashionable. diffident as to the success of so "wild" a story in an age devoted to good sense and reason, he sent forth his mediaeval tale disguised as a translation from the italian of "onuphrio muralto," by william marshall. it was only after it had been received with enthusiasm that he confessed the authorship. as he explained frankly in a letter to his friend mason: "it is not everybody that may in this country play the fool with impunity."[ ] that walpole regarded his story merely as a fanciful, amusing trifle is clear from the letter he wrote to miss hannah more reproving her for putting so frantic a thing into the hands of a bristol milkwoman who wrote poetry in her leisure hours.[ ] _the castle of otranto_ was but another manifestation of that admiration for the gothic which had found expression fourteen years earlier in his miniature castle at strawberry hill, with its old armour and "lean windows fattened with rich saints."[ ] the word "gothic" in the early eighteenth century was used as a term of reproach. to addison, siena cathedral was but a "barbarous" building, which might have been a miracle of architecture, had our forefathers "only been instructed in the right way."[ ] pope in his _preface to shakespeare_ admits the strength and majesty of the gothic, but deplores its irregularity. in _letters on chivalry and romance_, published two years before _the castle of otranto_, hurd pleads that spenser's _faerie queene_ should be read and criticised as a gothic, not a classical, poem. he clearly recognises the right of the gothic to be judged by laws of its own. when the nineteenth century is reached the epithet has lost all tinge of blame, and has become entirely one of praise. from the time when he began to build his castle, in , walpole's letters abound in references to the gothic, and he confesses once: "in the heretical corner of my heart i adore the gothic building."[ ] at strawberry hill the hall and staircase were his special delight and they probably formed the background of that dream in which he saw a gigantic hand in armour on the staircase of an ancient castle. when dr. burney visited walpole's home in he remarked on the striking recollections of _the castle of otranto_, brought to mind by "the deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed and the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which they were hung."[ ] we know how in idle moments walpole loved to brood on the picturesque past, and we can imagine his falling asleep, after the arrival of a piece of armour for his collection, with his head full of plans for the adornment of his cherished castle. his story is but an expansion of this dilettante's nightmare. his interest in things mediaeval was not that of an antiquary, but rather that of an artist who loves things old because of their age and beauty. in a delightfully gay letter to his friend, george montagu, referring flippantly to his appointment as deputy ranger of rockingham forest, he writes, after drawing a vivid picture of a "robin hood reformé": "visions, you know, have always been my pasture; and so far from growing old enough to quarrel with their emptiness, i almost think there is no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging what is called the realities of life for dreams. old castles, old pictures, old histories and the babble of old people make one live back into centuries that cannot disappoint one. one holds fast and surely what is past. the dead have exhausted their power of deceiving--one can trust catherine of medicis now. in short, you have opened a new landscape to my fancy; and my lady beaulieu will oblige me as much as you, if she puts the long bow into your hands. i don't know, but the idea may produce some other _castle of otranto_."[ ] so walpole came near to anticipating the greenwood scenes of _ivanhoe_. the decking and trappings of chivalry filled him with boyish delight, and he found in the glitter and colour of the middle ages a refuge from the prosaic dullness of the eighteenth century. a visit from "a luxembourg, a lusignan and a montfort" awoke in his whimsical fancy a mental image of himself in the guise of a mediaeval baron: "i never felt myself so much in _the castle of otranto_. it sounded as if a company of noble crusaders were come to sojourn with me before they embarked for the holy land";[ ] and when he heard of the marvellous adventures of a large wolf who had caused a panic in lower languedoc, he was reminded of the enchanted monster of old romance and declared that, had he known of the creature earlier, it should have appeared in _the castle of otranto_.[ ] "i have taken to astronomy," he declares on another occasion, "now that the scale is enlarged enough to satisfy my taste, who love gigantic ideas--do not be afraid; i am not going to write a second part to _the castle of otranto_, nor another account of the patagonians who inhabit the new brobdingnag planet."[ ] these unstudied utterances reveal, perhaps more clearly than walpole's deliberate confessions about his book, the mood of irresponsible, light-hearted gaiety in which he started on his enterprise. if we may rely on walpole's account of its composition, _the castle of otranto_ was fashioned rapidly in a white heat of excitement, but the creation of the story probably cost him more effort than he would have us believe. the result, at least, lacks spontaneity. we never feel for a moment that we are living invisible amidst the characters, but we sit aloof like puck, thinking: "lord, what fools these mortals be!" his supernatural machinery is as undignified as the pantomime properties of jack the giant-killer. the huge body scattered piecemeal about the castle, the unwieldy sabre borne by a hundred men, the helmet "tempestuously agitated," and even the "skeleton in a hermit's cowl" are not only unalarming but mildly ridiculous. yet to the readers of his day the story was captivating and entrancing. it satisfied a real craving for the romantic and marvellous. the first edition of five hundred copies was sold out in two months, and others followed rapidly. the story was dramatised by robert jephson and produced at covent garden theatre under the title of _the count of narbonne_, with an epilogue by malone. it was staged again later in dublin, kemble playing the title rôle. it was translated into french, german and italian. in england its success was immediate, though several years elapsed before it was imitated. gray, to whom the story was first attributed, wrote of it in march, : "it engages our attention here (at cambridge), makes some of us cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights." mason praised it, and walpole's letters refer repeatedly to the vogue it enjoyed. this widespread popularity is an indication of the eagerness with which readers of desired to escape from the present and to revel for a time in strange, bygone centuries. although walpole regarded the composition of his gothic story as a whim, his love of the past was shared by others of his generation. of this macpherson's _ossian_ ( - ), kurd's _letters on chivalry and romance_ ( ), and percy's _reliques_ ( ), are, each in its fashion, a sufficient proof. the half-century from to showed remarkably definite signs of a renewed interest in things written between and , which had been neglected for a century or more. _the castle of otranto_, which was "an attempt to blend the marvellous of old story with the natural of modern novels" is an early symptom of this revulsion to the past; and it exercised a charm on scott as well as on mrs. radcliffe and her school. _the castle of otranto_ is significant, not because of its intrinsic merit, but because of its power in shaping the destiny of the novel. the outline of the plot is worth recording for the sake of tracing ancestral likenesses when we reach the later romances. the only son of manfred--the villain of the piece--is discovered on his wedding morning dashed to pieces beneath an enormous helmet. determined that his line shall not become extinct, manfred decides to divorce hippolyta and marry isabella, his son's bride. to escape from her pursuer, isabella takes flight down a "subterraneous passage," where she is succoured by a "peasant" theodore, who bears a curious resemblance to a portrait of the "good alfonso" in the gallery of the castle. the servants of the castle are alarmed at intervals by the sudden appearance of massive pieces of armour in different parts of the building. a clap of thunder, which shakes the castle to its foundations, heralds the culmination of the story. a hundred men bear in a huge sabre; and an apparition of the illustrious alfonso--whose portrait in the gallery once walks straight out of its frame[ ]--appears, "dilated to an immense magnitude,"[ ] and demands that manfred shall surrender otranto to the rightful heir, theodore, who has been duly identified by the mark of a "bloody arrow." alfonso, thus pacified, ascends into heaven, where he is received into glory by st. nicholas. as matilda, who was beloved of theodore, has incidentally been slain by her father, theodore consoles himself with isabella. manfred and his wife meekly retire to neighbouring convents. with this anti-climax the story closes. to present the "dry bones" of a romantic story is often misleading, but the method is perhaps justifiable in the case of _the castle of otranto_, because walpole himself scorned embellishments and declared in his grandiloquent fashion: "if this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader will find nothing else unworthy of his perusal. there is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions or unnecessary descriptions. everything tends directly to the catastrophe."[ ] but with all its faults _the castle of otranto_ did not fall fruitless on the earth. the characters are mere puppets, yet we meet the same types again and again in later gothic romances. though clara reeve renounced such "obvious improbabilities" as a ghost in a hermit's cowl and a walking picture, she was an acknowledged disciple of walpole, and, like him, made an "interesting peasant" the hero of her story, _the old english baron_. jerome is the prototype of many a count disguised as father confessor, bianca the pattern of many a chattering servant. the imprisoned wife reappears in countless romances, including mrs. radcliffe's _sicilian romance_ ( ), and mrs. roche's _children of the abbey_ ( ). the tyrannical father--no new creation, however--became so inevitable a figure in fiction that jane austen had to assure her readers that mr. morland "was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters," and miss martha buskbody, the mantua-maker of gandercleugh, whom jedediah cleishbotham ingeniously called to his aid in writing the conclusion of _old mortality_, assured him, as the fruit of her experience in reading through the stock of three circulating libraries that, in a novel, young people may fall in love without the countenance of their parents, "because it is essential to the necessary intricacy of the story." but apart from his characters, who are so colourless that they hardly hold our attention, walpole bequeathed to his successors a remarkable collection of useful "properties." the background of his story is a gothic castle, singularly unenchanted it is true, but capable of being invested by mrs. radcliffe with mysterious grandeur. otranto contains underground vaults, ill-fitting doors with rusty hinges, easily extinguished lamps and a trap-door--objects trivial and insignificant in walpole's hands, but fraught with terrible possibilities. otranto would have fulfilled admirably the requirements of barrett's cherubina, who, when looking for lodgings demanded--to the indignation of a maidservant, who came to the door--old pictures, tapestry, a spectre and creaking hinges. scott, writing in , remarks: "the apparition of the skeleton-hermit to the prince of vicenza was long accounted a masterpiece of the horrible; but of late the valley of jehosaphat could hardly supply the dry bones necessary for the exhibition of similar spectres." but cherubina, whose palate was jaded by a surfeit of the pungent horrors of walpole's successors, would probably have found _the castle of otranto_ an insipid romance and would have lamented that he did not make more effective use of his supernatural machinery. his story offered hints and suggestions to those whose greater gifts turned the materials he had marshalled to better account, and he is to be honoured rather for what he instigated others to perform than for what he actually accomplished himself. _the castle of otranto_ was not intended as a serious contribution to literature, but will always survive in literary history as the ancestor of a thriving race of romances. more than ten years before the publication of _the castle of otranto_, smollett, in his _adventures of ferdinand, count fathom_, had chanced upon the devices employed later in the tale of terror. the tremors of fear to which his rascally hero is subjected lend the spice of alarm to what might have been but a monotonous record of villainy. smollett depicts skilfully the imaginary terrors created by darkness and solitude. as the count travels through the forest: "the darkness of the night, the silence and solitude of the place, the indistinct images of the trees that appeared on every side, stretching their extravagant arms athwart the gloom, conspired, with the dejection of spirits occasioned by his loss, to disturb his fancy and raise strange phantoms in his imagination. although he was not naturally superstitious, his mind began to be invaded with an awful horror that gradually prevailed over all the consolations of reason and philosophy; nor was his heart free from the terrors of assassination. in order to dissipate these agreeable reveries, he had recourse to the conversation of his guide, by whom he was entertained with the history of divers travellers who had been robbed and murdered by ruffians, whose retreat was in the recesses of that very wood."[ ] the sighing of the trees, thunder and sudden flashes of lightning add to the horror of a journey, which resembles mrs. radcliffe's description of emily's approach to udolpho. when count fathom takes refuge in a robber's hut, he discovers in his room, which has no bolt on the inside of the door, the body of a recently murdered man, concealed beneath some bundles of straw. effecting his escape by placing the corpse in his own bed to deceive the robbers, the count is mistaken for a phantom by the old woman who waits upon him. in carrying out his designs upon celinda, the count aggravates her natural timidity by relating dismal stories of omens and apparitions, and then groans piteously outside her door and causes the mysterious music of an Æolian harp to sound upon the midnight air. celinda sleeps, too, like the ill-starred heroine of the novel of terror, "at the end of a long gallery, scarce within hearing of any other inhabited part of the house."[ ] the scene in _count fathom_, in which renaldo, at midnight, visits, as he thinks, the tomb of monimia, is surrounded with circumstances of gloom and mystery: "the uncommon darkness of the night, the solemn silence and lonely situation of the place, conspired with the occasion of his coming and the dismal images of his fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy expectation... the clock struck twelve, the owl screeched from the ruined battlement, the door was opened by the sexton, who, by the light of a glimmering taper, conducted the despairing lover to a dreary aisle." as he watches again on a second night: "his ear was suddenly invaded with the sound of some few, solemn notes, issuing from the organ which seemed to feel the impulse of an invisible hand ... reason shrunk before the thronging ideas of his fancy, which represented this music as the prelude to something strange and supernatural."[ ] the figure of a woman, arrayed in a flowing robe and veil, approaches--and proves to be monimia in the flesh. although smollett precedes walpole, in point of time, he is, in these scenes, nearer in spirit to udolpho than otranto. his use of terror, however, is merely incidental; he strays inadvertently into the history of gothic romance. the suspicions and forebodings, with which smollett plays occasionally upon the nerves of his readers, become part of the ordinary routine in the tale of terror. clara reeve's gothic story, first issued under the title of _the champion of virtue_, but later as _the old english baron_, was published in --twelve years after walpole's _castle of otranto_, of which, as she herself asserted, it was the "literary offspring." by eliminating all supernatural incidents save one ghost, she sought to bring her story "within the utmost verge of probability." walpole, perhaps displeased by the slighting references in the preface to some of the more extraordinary incidents in his novel, received _the old english baron_ with disdain, describing it as "totally void of imagination and interest."[ ] his strictures are unjust. there are certainly no wild flights of fancy in clara reeve's story, but an even level of interest is maintained throughout. her style is simple and refreshingly free from affectation. the plot is neither rapid nor exhilarating, but it never actually stagnates. like walpole's gothic story, _the old english baron_ is supposed to be a transcript from an ancient manuscript. the period, we are assured, is that of the minority of henry vi., but despite an elaborately described tournament, we never really leave eighteenth century england. edmund twyford, the reputed son of a cottager, is befriended by a benevolent baron fitzowen, but, through his good fortune and estimable qualities, excites the envy of fitzowen's nephews and his eldest son. to prove the courage of edmund, who has been basely slandered by his enemies, the baron asks him to spend three nights in the haunted apartment of the castle. up to this point, there has been nothing to differentiate the story from an uneventful domestic novel. the ghost is of the mechanical variety and does not inspire awe when he actually appears, but miss reeve tries to prepare our minds for the shock, before she introduces him. the rusty locks and the sudden extinction of the lamp are a heritage from walpole, but the "hollow, rustling noise" and the glimmering light, naturally explained later by the approach of a servant with a faggot, anticipate mrs. radcliffe. like adeline later, in _the romance of the forest_, edmund is haunted by prophetic dreams. the second night the ghost violently clashes his armour, but still remains concealed. the third night dismal groans are heard. the ghost does not deign to appear in person until the baron's nephews watch, and then: "all the doors flew open, a pale glimmering light appeared at the door from the staircase, and a man in complete armour entered the room: he stood with one hand extended pointing to the outward door." it is to vindicate the rights of this departed spirit that sir ralph harclay challenges sir walter lovel to a "mediaeval" tournament. before the story closes, edmund is identified as the owner of castle lovel, and is married to lady emma, fitzowen's daughter. the narration of the unusual circumstances connected with his birth takes some time, as the foster parents suffer from what is described by writers on psychology as "total recall," and are unable to select the salient details. the characters are rather dim and indistinct, the shadowiest of all being emma, who has no personality at all, and is a mere complement to the immaculate edmund's happiness. the good and bad are sharply distinguished. there are no "doubtful cases," and consequently there is no difficulty in distributing appropriate rewards and punishments at the close of the story--the whole "furnishing a striking lesson to posterity of the overruling hand of providence and the certainty of retribution." clara reeve was fifty-two years of age when she published her gothic story, and she writes in the spirit of a maiden aunt striving to edify as well as to entertain the younger generation. when edmund takes fitzowen to view the fatal closet and the bones of his murdered father, he considers the scene "too solemn for a lady to be present at"; and his love-making is as frigid as the supernatural scenes. the hero is young in years, but has no youthful ardour. the very ghost is manipulated in a half-hearted fashion and fails to produce the slightest thrill. the natural inclination of the authoress was probably towards domestic fiction with a didactic intention, and she attempted a "mediaeval" setting as a _tour de force_, in emulation of walpole's _castle of otranto_. the hero, whose birth is enshrouded in mystery, the restless ghost groaning for the vindication of rights, the historical background, the archaic spelling of the challenge, are all ineffective fumblings towards the romantic. _the old english baron_ is an unambitious work, but it has a certain hold upon our attention because of its limpidity of style. it can be read without discomfort and even with a mild degree of interest simply as a story, while _the castle of otranto_ is only tolerable as a literary curiosity. a tragedy, _edmond_, _orphan of the castle_ ( ), was founded upon the story, which was translated into french in . miss reeve informs the public in a preface to a late edition of _the old english baron_ that, in compliance with the suggestion of a friend, she had composed _castle connor, an irish story_, in which apparitions were introduced. the manuscript of this tale was unfortunately lost. not even a mouldering fragment has been rescued from an ebony cabinet in the deserted chamber of an ancient abbey, and we are left wondering whether the ghosts spoke with a brogue. when walpole wrote disparagingly of clara reeve's imitation of his gothic story, he singled out for praise a fragment which he attributes to mrs. barbauld. the story to which he alludes is evidently the unfinished _sir bertrand_, which is contained in one of the volumes entitled _miscellaneous pieces in prose_, published jointly by j. and a.l. aikin in , and preceded by an essay _on the pleasure derived from objects of terror_. leigh hunt, who reprinted _sir bertrand_, which had impressed him very strongly in his boyhood, in his _book for a corner_ ( ) ascribes the authorship of the tale to dr. aikin, commenting on the fact that he was "a writer from whom this effusion was hardly to have been looked for." it is probably safe to assume that walpole, who was a contemporary of the aikins and who took a lively interest in the literary gossip of the day, was right in assigning _sir bertrand_ to miss aikin,[ ] afterwards mrs. barbauld, though the story is not included in _the works of anne letitia barbauld_, edited by miss lucy aikin in . that the minds of the aikins were exercised about the sources of pleasure in romance, especially when connected with horror and distress, is clear not only from this essay and the illustrative fragment but also from other essays and stories in the same collection--_on romances, an imitation_, and _an enquiry into those kinds of distress which excite agreeable sensations_. in the preliminary essay to _sir bertrand_ an attempt is made to explain why terrible scenes excite pleasurable emotions and to distinguish between two different types of horror, as illustrated by _the castle of otranto_, which unites the marvellous and the terrible, and by a scene of mere natural horror in smollett's _count fathom_. the story _sir bertrand_ is an attempt to combine the two kinds of horror in one composition. a knight, wandering in darkness on a desolate and dreary moor, hears the tolling of a bell, and, guided by a glimmering light, finds "an antique mansion" with turrets at the corners. as he approaches the porch, the light glides away. all is dark and still. the light reappears and the bell tolls. as sir bertrand enters the castle, the door closes behind him. a bluish flame leads him up a staircase till he comes to a wide gallery and a second staircase, where the light vanishes. he grasps a dead-cold hand which he severs from the wrist with his sword. the blue flame now leads him to a vault, where he sees the owner of the hand "completely armed, thrusting forwards the bloody stump of an arm, with a terrible frown and menacing gesture and brandishing a sword in the remaining hand." when attacked, the figure vanishes, leaving behind a massive, iron key which unlocks a door leading to an apartment containing a coffin, and statues of black marble, attired in moorish costume, holding enormous sabres in their right hands. as the knight enters, each of them rears an arm and advances a leg and at the same moment the lid of the coffin opens and the bell tolls. sir bertrand, guided by the flames, approaches the coffin from which a lady in a shroud and a black veil arises. when he kisses her, the whole building falls asunder with a crash. sir bertrand is thrown into a trance and awakes in a gorgeous room, where he sees a beautiful lady who thanks him as her deliverer. at a banquet, nymphs place a laurel wreath on his head, but as the lady is about to address him the fragment breaks off. the architecture of the castle, with its gallery, staircase and subterranean vaults, closely resembles that of walpole's gothic structure. the "enormous sabres" too are familiar to readers of _the castle of otranto_. the gliding light, disquieting at the outset of the story but before the close familiar grown, is doomed to be the guide of many a distressed wanderer through the gothic labyrinths of later romances. mrs. barbauld chose her properties with admirable discretion, but lacked the art to use them cunningly. a tolling bell, heard in the silence and darkness of a lonely moor, will quicken the beatings of the heart, but employed as a prompter's signal to herald the advance of a group of black statues is only absurd. after the grimly suggestive opening, the story gradually loses in power as it proceeds and the happy ending, which wings our thoughts back to the sleeping beauty of childhood, is wholly incongruous. if the fragment had ended abruptly at the moment when the lady arises in her shroud from the coffin, _sir bertrand_ would have been a more effective tale of terror. from the historical point of view mrs. barbauld's curious patchwork is full of interest. she seems to be reaching out wistfully towards the mysterious and the unknown. genuinely anxious to awaken a thrill of excitement in the breast of her reader, she is hesitating and uncertain as to the best way of winning her effect. she is but a pioneer in the art of freezing the blood and it were idle to expect that she should rush boldly into a forest of horrors. naturally she prefers to follow the tracks trodden by walpole and smollett; but with intuitive foresight she seems to have realised the limitations of walpole's marvellous machinery, and to have attempted to explore the regions of the fearful unknown. her opening scene works on that instinctive terror of the dark and the unseen, upon which mrs. radcliffe bases many of her most moving incidents. among the _poetical sketches_ of blake, written between and , and published in , there appears an extraordinary poem written in blank verse, but divided into quatrains, and entitled _fair elenor_. this juvenile production seems to indicate that blake was familiar with walpole's gothic story.[ ] the heroine, wandering disconsolately by night in the castle vaults--a place of refuge first rendered fashionable by isabella in _the castle of otranto_--faints with horror, thinking that she beholds her husband's ghost, but soon: "fancy returns, and now she thinks of bones and grinning skulls and corruptible death wrapped in his shroud; and now fancies she hears deep sighs and sees pale, sickly ghosts gliding." a reality more horrible than her imaginings awaits her. a bleeding head is abruptly thrust into her arms by an assassin in the employ of a villainous and anonymous "duke." fair elenor retires to her bed and gives utterance to an outburst of similes in praise of her dead lord. thus encouraged, the bloody head of her murdered husband describes its lurid past, and warns elenor to beware of the duke's dark designs. elenor wisely avoids the machinations of the villain, and brings an end to the poem, by breathing her last. blake's story is faintly reminiscent of the popular legend of anne boleyn, who, with her bleeding head in her lap, is said to ride down the avenue of blickling park once a year in a hearse drawn by horsemen and accompanied by attendants, all headless out of respect to their mistress. blake's youthful excursion into the murky gloom of gothic vaults resulted in a poem so crude that even "monk" lewis, who was no connoisseur, would have declined it regretfully as a contribution to his _tales of terror_, but _fair elenor_ is worthy of remembrance as an early indication of walpole's influence, which was to become so potent on the history of gothic romance. the gothic experiments of dr. nathan drake, published in his _literary hours_ ( ), are extremely instructive as indicating the critical standpoint of the time. drake, like mrs. barbauld and her brother, was deeply interested in the sources of the pleasure derived from tales of terror, and wrote his gothic stories to confirm and illustrate the theories propounded in his essays. he discusses gravely and learnedly the kinds of fictitious horror that excite agreeable sensations, and then proceeds to arrange carefully calculated effects, designed to alarm his readers, but not to outrage their sense of decorum. he has none of the reckless daring of "monk" lewis, who flung restraint to the winds and raced in mad career through an orgy of horrors. in his enchanted castles we are disturbed by an uneasy suspicion that the inhabitants are merely allegorical characters, and that the spectre of a moral lurks in some dim recess ready to spring out upon us suddenly. dr. drake's mind was as a house divided against itself: he was a moralist, emulating the "sage and serious spenser" in his desire to exalt virtue and abase vice, he was a critic working out, with calm detachment, practical illustrations of the theories he had formulated, and he was a romantic enthusiast, imbued with a vague but genuine admiration for the wild superstitions of a bygone age. his stories exhibit painful evidence of the conflict which waged between the three sides of his nature. in the essay prefixed to _henry fitzowen, a gothic tale_, he distinguishes between the two species of gothic superstition, the gloomy and the sportive, and addresses an ode to the two goddesses of superstition--one the offspring of fear and midnight, the other of hesper and the moon. in his story the spectres of darkness are put to flight by a troop of aerial spirits. dr. drake knew the gothic stories of walpole, mrs. barbauld, clara reeve and mrs. radcliffe; and traces of the influence of each may be found in his work. henry fitzowen loves adeline de montfort, but has a powerful and diabolical rival--walleran--whose character combines the most dangerous qualities of mrs. radcliffe's villains with the magical gifts of a wizard. fitzowen, not long before the day fixed for his wedding, is led astray, while hunting, by an elusive stag, a spectral monk and a "wandering fire," and arrives home in a thunderstorm to find his castle enveloped in total darkness and two of his servants stretched dead at his feet. he learns from his mother and sister, who are shut in a distant room, that adeline has been carried off by armed ruffians. believing walleran to be responsible for this outrage, fitzowen sets out the next day in search of him. after weary wanderings he is beguiled into a gothic castle by a foul witch, who resembles one of spenser's loathly hags, and on his entrance hears peals of diabolical laughter. he sees spectres, blue lights, and the corpse of horror herself. when he slays walleran the enchantments disappear. at the end of a winding passage he finds a cavern illuminated by a globe of light, and discovers adeline asleep on a couch. he awakes her with a kiss. thunder shakes the earth, a raging whirlwind tears the castle from its foundations, and the lovers awake from their trance in a beautiful, moonlit vale where they hear enchanting music and see knights, nymphs and spirits. a beauteous queen tells them that the spirits of the blest have freed them from horror's dread agents. the music dies away, the spirits flee and the lovers find themselves in a country road. a story of the same type is told by de la motte fouqué in _the field of terror_.[ ] before the steadfast courage of the labourer who strives to till the field, diabolical enchantments disappear. it is an ancient legend turned into moral allegory. in the essay on _objects of terror_, which precedes _montmorenci, a fragment_, drake discusses that type of terror, which is "excited by the interference of a simple, material causation," and which "requires no small degree of skill and arrangement to prevent its operating more pain than pleasure." he condemns walpole's _mysterious mother_ on the ground that the catastrophe is only productive of horror and aversion, and regards the old ballad, _edward_, as intolerable to any person of sensibility, but praises dante and shakespeare for keeping within the "bounds of salutary and grateful pleasure." the scene in _the italian_, where schedoni, about to plunge a dagger into ellena's bosom, recoils, in the belief that he has discovered her to be his own daughter, is commended as "appalling yet delighting the reader." in the productions of mrs. radcliffe, "the shakespeare of romance writers, who to the wild landscape of salvator rosa has added the softer graces of a claude," he declares, "may be found many scenes truly terrific in their conception, yet so softened down, and the mind so much relieved, by the intermixture of beautiful description, or pathetic incident, that the impression of the whole never becomes too strong, never degenerates into horror, but pleasurable emotion is ever the predominating result." the famous scene in _ferdinand, count fathom_, the description of danger in collins' _ode to fear_, the scottish ballad of _hardyknute_ are mentioned as admirable examples of the fear excited by natural causes. in the fragment called _montmorenci_, drake aims at combining "picturesque description with some of those objects of terror which are independent of supernatural agency." as the curfew tolls sullenly, henry de montmorenci and his two attendants rush from a castle into the darkness of a stormy night. they hurry through a savage glen, in which a swollen torrent falls over a precipice. after hearing the crash of falling armour, they suddenly come upon a dying knight on whose pale features every mark of horror is depicted. led by frightful screams of distress, montmorenci and his men find a maiden, who has been captured by banditti. montmorenci slays the leader, but is seized by the rest of the banditti and bound to a tree overlooking a stupendous chasm into which he is to be hurled. by almost superhuman struggles he effects his escape, when suddenly--there at this terror-fraught moment, the fragment wisely ends. in _the abbey of clunedale_ drake experiments feebly and ineffectively with the "explained supernatural" in which mrs. radcliffe was an adept. the ruined abbey, deemed to be haunted, is visited at night as an act of penance by a man named clifford who, in a fit of unfounded jealousy, has slain his wife's brother. clifford, accompanied by his sister, and bearing a light, kneels at his wife's tomb, and is mistaken for a spectral being. the gothic tale entitled _sir egbert_ is based on an ancient legend associated with one of the turrets of rochester castle. sir egbert, searching for his friend, conrad, who had disappeared in suspicious circumstances, hears from the knights templars, that the wicked constable is believed to hold two lovers in a profound and deathlike sleep. he resolves to make an attempt to draw from its sheath the sword which separates them and so restore them to life and liberty. undismayed by the fate of those who have fallen in the quest, sir egbert enters the castle, where he is entertained at a gorgeous feast. when the festivities are at their height, and sir egbert has momentarily forgotten his enterprise, a terrible shriek is heard. the revellers vanish, and sir egbert is left alone to face a spectral corpse, which beckons him onward to a vault, where in flaming characters are inscribed the words: "death to him who violates the mysteries of gundulph's tower." nothing daunted, sir egbert amid execrations of fiends, encounters delusive horrors and at last unsheathes the sword. the lovers awake, and the whole apparatus of enchantment vanishes. conrad tells how he and bertha, six years before, had been lured by a wandering fire to a luxurious cavern, where they drank a magic potion. the story closes with the marriage of conrad and bertha, and of egbert and matilda, a sister of one of the other victims of the same enchanter. in dr. drake's stories are patiently collected all the heirlooms necessary for the full equipment of a gothic castle. massive doors, which sway ponderously on their hinges or are forcibly burst open and which invariably close with a resounding crash, dark, eerie galleries, broken staircases, decayed apartments, mouldering floors, tolling bells, skeletons, corpses, howling spectres--all are there; but the possessor, overwhelmed by the very profusion which surrounds him, is at a loss how to make use of them. he does not realise the true significance of a half-stifled groan or an unearthly yell heard in the darkness. each new horror indeed seems but to put new life into the heart of the redoubtable sir egbert, who, like spenser's gallant knights, advances from triumph to triumph vanquishing evil at every step. it is impossible to become absorbed in his personages, who have less body than his spectres, and whose adventures take the form of a walk through an exhibition of horrors, mechanically set in motion to prove their prowess. dr. drake seems happier when the hideous beings are put to rout, and the transformation-scene, which places fairyland before us, suddenly descends on the stage. yet the bungling attempts of dr. drake are interesting as showing that grave and critical minds were prepared to consider the tale of terror as a legitimate form of literature, obeying certain definite rules of its own and aiming at the excitement of a pleasurable fear. the seed of gothic story, sown at random by horace walpole, had by taken firm root in the soil. drake's enthusiasm for gothic story was associated with his love for older english poetry and with his interest in scandinavian mythology. he was a genuine admirer of spenser and attempted imitations, in modern diction, of old ballads. it is for his bent towards the romantic, rather than for his actual accomplishments, that drake is worthy of remembrance. chapter iii - "the novel of suspense." mrs. radcliffe. the enthusiasm which greeted walpole's enchanted castle and miss reeve's carefully manipulated ghost, indicated an eager desire for a new type of fiction in which the known and familiar were superseded by the strange and supernatural. to meet this end mrs. radcliffe suddenly came forward with her attractive store of mysteries, and it was probably her timely appearance that saved the gothic tale from an early death. the vogue of the novel of terror, though undoubtedly stimulated by german influence, was mainly due to her popularity and success. the writers of the first half of the nineteenth century abound in references to her works,[ ] and she thus still enjoys a shadowy, ghost-like celebrity. many who have never had the curiosity to explore the labyrinths of the underground passages, with which her castles are invariably honeycombed, or who have never shuddered with apprehension before the "black veil," know of their existence through _northanger abbey_, and have probably also read how thackeray at school amused himself and his friends by drawing illustrations of mrs. radcliffe's novels. of mrs. radcliffe's life few facts are known, and christina rossetti, one of her many admirers, was obliged, in , to relinquish the plan of writing her biography, because the materials were so scanty.[ ] from the memoir prefixed to the posthumous volumes, published in , containing _gaston de blondeville_, and various poems, we learn that she was born in , the very year in which walpole issued _the castle of otranto_, and that her maiden name was ann ward. in she married william radcliffe, an oxford graduate and a student of law, who became editor of a weekly newspaper, _the english chronicle_. her life was so secluded that biographers did not hesitate to invent what they could not discover. the legend that she was driven frantic by the horrors that she had conjured up was refuted after her death. it may have been the publication of _the recess_ by sophia lee in that inspired mrs. radcliffe to try her fortune with a historical novel. _the recess_ is a story of languid interest, circling round the adventures of the twin daughters of mary queen of scots and the duke of norfolk. yet as we meander gently through its mazes we come across an abbey "of gothic elegance and magnificence," a swooning heroine who plays the lute, thunderstorms, banditti and even an escape in a coffin--items which may well have attracted the notice of mrs. radcliffe, whose first novel, _the castles of athlin and dunbayne_,[ ] appeared in . considered historically, this immature work is full of interest, for, with the notable exception of the supernatural, it contains in embryo nearly all the elements of mrs. radcliffe's future novels. the scene is laid in scotland, and the period, we are assured, is that of the "dark ages"; but almost at the outset we are startled rudely from our dreams of the mediaeval by the statement that "the wrongfully imprisoned earl, when the sweet tranquillity of evening threw an air of tender melancholy over his mind ... composed the following sonnet, which, having committed it to paper, he, the next evening dropped upon the terrace." the sonnet consists of four heroic quatrains somewhat curiously resembling the manner of gray. from this episode it may be gathered that mrs. radcliffe did not aim at, or certainly did not achieve, historical accuracy, but evolved most of her descriptions, not from original sources in ancient documents, but from her own inner consciousness. it was only in her last novel--_gaston de blondeville_--that she made use of old chronicles. within the scottish castle we meet a heroine with an "expression of pensive melancholy" and a "smile softly clouded with sorrow," a noble lord deprived of his rights by a villain "whose life is marked with vice and whose death with the bitterness of remorse." but these grey and ghostly shadows, who flit faintly through our imagination, are less prophetic of coming events than the properties with which the castle is endowed, a secret but accidently discovered panel, a trap-door, subterranean vaults, an unburied corpse, a suddenly extinguished lamp and a soft-toned lute--a goodly heritage from _the castle of otranto_. the situations which a villain of baron malcolm's type will inevitably create are dimly shadowed forth and involve, ere the close, the hairbreadth rescue of a distressed maiden, the reinstatement of the lord in his rights, and the identification of the long-lost heir by the convenient and time-honoured "strawberry mark." these promising materials are handled in a childish fashion. the faintly pencilled outlines, the characterless figures, the nerveless structure, give little presage of the boldly effective scenery, the strong delineations and the dexterously managed plots of the later novels. the gradual, steady advance in skill and power is one of the most interesting features of mrs. radcliffe's work. few could have guessed from the slight sketch of baron malcolm, a merely slavish copy of the traditional villain, that he was to be the ancestor of such picturesque and romantic creatures as montoni and schedoni. this tentative beginning was quickly followed by the more ambitious _sicilian romance_ ( ), in which we are transported to the palace of ferdinand, fifth marquis of mazzini, on the north coast of sicily. this time the date is fixed officially at . the marquis has one son and two daughters, the children of his first wife, who has been supplanted by a beautiful but unscrupulous successor. the first wife is reputed dead, but is, in reality, artfully and maliciously concealed in an uninhabited wing of the abbey. it is her presence which leads to disquieting rumours of the supernatural. ferdinand, the son, vainly tries to solve the enigma of certain lights, which wander elusively about the deserted wing, and finds himself perilously suspended, like david balfour in _kidnapped_, on a decayed staircase, of which the lower half has broken away. in this hazardous situation, ferdinand accidentally drops his lamp and is left in total darkness. an hour later he is rescued by the ladies of the castle, who, alarmed by his long absence, boldly come in search of him with a light. during another tour of exploration he hears a hollow groan, which, he is told, proceeds from a murdered spirit underground, but which is eventually traced to the unhappy marchioness. these two incidents plainly reveal that mrs. radcliffe has now discovered the peculiar vein of mystery towards which she was groping in _the castles of athlin and dunbayne_. from the very first she explained away her marvels by natural means. if we scan her romances with a coldly critical eye--an almost criminal proceeding--obvious improbabilities start into view. for instance, the oppressed marchioness, who has not seen her daughter julia since the age of two, recognises her without a moment's hesitation at the age of seventeen, and faints in a transport of joy. it is no small tribute to mrs. radcliffe's gifts that we often accept such incidents as these without demur. so unnerved are we by the lurking shadows, the flickering lights, the fluttering tapestry and the unaccountable groans with which she lowers our vitality, that we tremble and start at the wagging of a straw, and have not the spirit, once we are absorbed into the atmosphere of her romance, to dispute anything she would have us believe. the interest of the _sicilian romance_, which is far greater than that of her first novel, arises entirely out of the situations. there is no gradual unfolding of character and motive. the high-handed marquis, the jealous marchioness, the imprisoned wife, the vapid hero, the two virtuous sisters, the leader of the banditti, the respectable, prosy governess, are a set of dolls fitted ingeniously into the framework of the plot. they have more substance than the tenuous shadows that glide through the pages of mrs. radcliffe's first story, but they move only as she deftly pulls the strings that set them in motion. in her third novel, _the romance of the forest_, published in , mrs. radcliffe makes more attempt to discuss motive and to trace the effect of circumstances on temperament. the opening chapter is so alluring that callous indeed would be the reader who felt no yearning to pluck out the heart of the mystery. la motte, a needy adventurer fleeing from justice, takes refuge on a stormy night in a lonely, sinister-looking house. with startling suddenness, a door bursts open, and a ruffian, putting a pistol to la motte's breast with one hand, and, with the other, dragging along a beautiful girl, exclaims ferociously, "you are wholly in our power, no assistance can reach you; if you wish to save your life, swear that you will convey this girl where i may never see her more... if you return within an hour you will die." the elucidation of this remarkable occurrence is long deferred, for mrs. radcliffe appreciates fully the value of suspense in luring on her readers, but our attention is distracted in the meantime by a series of new events. treasuring the unfinished adventure in the recesses of our memory, we follow the course of the story. when la motte decides impulsively to reside in a deserted abbey, "not," as he once remarks, "in all respects strictly gothic," but containing a trap-door and a human skeleton in a chest, we willingly take up our abode there and wait patiently to see what will happen. our interest is inclined to flag when life at the abbey seems uneventful, but we are ere long rewarded by a visit from a stranger, whose approach flings la motte into so violent a state of alarm that he vanishes with remarkable abruptness beneath a trapdoor. it proves, however, that the intruder is merely la motte's son, and the timid marquis is able to emerge. meanwhile, la motte's wife, suspicious of her husband's morose habits and his secret visits to a gothic sepulchre, becomes jealous of adeline, the girl they have befriended. it later transpires that la motte has turned highwayman and stores his booty in this secluded spot. the visits are so closely shrouded in obscurity, and we have so exhausted our imagination in picturing dark possibilities, that the simple solution falls disappointingly short of our expectations. the next thrill is produced by the arrival of two strangers, the wicked marquis and the noble hero, without whom the tale of characters in a novel of terror would scarcely be complete. the emotion la motte betrays at the sight of the marquis is due, we are told eventually, to the fact that montalt was the victim of his first robbery. adeline, meanwhile, in a dream sees a beckoning figure in a dark cloak, a dying man imprisoned in a darkened chamber, a coffin and a bleeding corpse, and hears a voice from the coffin. the disjointed episodes and bewildering incoherence of a nightmare are suggested with admirable skill, and effectually prepare our minds for adeline's discoveries a few nights later. passing through a door, concealed by the arras of her bedroom, into a chamber like that she had seen in her sleep, she stumbles over a rusty dagger and finds a roll of mouldering manuscripts. this incident is robbed of its effect for readers of _northanger abbey_ by insistent reminiscences of catherine morland's discovery of the washing bills. but adeline, by the uncertain light of a candle, reads, with the utmost horror and consternation, the harrowing life-story of her father, who has been foully done to death by his brother, already known to us as the unprincipled marquis montalt. la motte weakly aids and abets montalt's designs against adeline, and she is soon compelled to take refuge in flight. she is captured and borne away to an elegant villa, whence she escapes, only to be overtaken again. finally, theodore arrives, as heroes will, in the nick of time, and wounds his rival. adeline finds a peaceful home in the chateau of m. la luc, who proves to be theodore's father. here the reader awaits impatiently the final solution of the plot. once we have been inmates of a gothic abbey, life in a swiss chateau, however idyllic, is apt to seem monotonous. in time mrs. radcliffe administers justice. the marquis takes poison; la motte is banished but reforms; and adeline, after dutifully burying her father's skeleton in the family vault, becomes mistress of the abbey, but prefers to reside in a _châlet_ on the banks of lake geneva. although the _romance of the forest_ is considerably shorter than the later novels, the plot, which is full of ingenious complications, is unfolded in the most leisurely fashion. mrs. radcliffe's tantalising delays quicken our curiosity as effectively as the deliberate calm of a _raconteur_, who, with a view to heightening his artistic effect, pauses to light a pipe at the very climax of his story. suspense is the key-note of the romance. the characters are still subordinate to incident, but la motte and his wife claim our interest because they are exhibited in varying moods. la motte has his struggles and, like macbeth, is haunted by compunctious visitings of nature. unlike the thorough-paced villain, who glories in his misdeeds, he is worried and harassed, and takes no pleasure in his crimes. madame la motte is not a jealous woman from beginning to end like the marchioness in the _sicilian romance_. her character is moulded to some extent by environment. she changes distinctly in her attitude to adeline after she has reason to suspect her husband. mrs. radcliffe's psychology is neither subtle nor profound, but the fact that psychology is there in the most rudimentary form is a sign of her progress in the art of fiction. theodore is as insipid as the rest of mrs. radcliffe's heroes, who are distinguishable from one another only by their names, and adeline is perhaps a shade more emotional and passionless than emily and ellena in _the mysteries of udolpho_ and _the italian_. the lachrymose maiden in _the castles of athlin and dunbayne_, who can assume at need "an air of offended dignity," is a preliminary sketch of julia, emily and ellena in the later novels. mrs. radcliffe's heroines resemble nothing more than a composite photograph in which all distinctive traits are merged into an expressionless "type." they owe something no doubt to richardson's _clarissa harlowe_, but their feelings are not so minutely analysed. their lady-like accomplishments vary slightly. in reflective mood one may lightly throw off a sonnet to the sunset or to the nocturnal gale, while another may seek refuge in her water-colours or her lute. they are all dignified and resolute in the most distressing situations, yet they weep and faint with wearisome frequency. their health and spirits are as precarious as their easily extinguished candles. yet these exquisitely sensitive, well-bred heroines alienate our sympathy by their impregnable self-esteem, a disconcerting trait which would certainly have exasperated heroes less perfect and more human than mrs. radcliffe's theodores and valancourts. their sorrows never rise to tragic heights, because they are only passive sufferers, and the sympathy they would win as pathetic figures is obliterated by their unfailing consciousness of their own rectitude. in describing adeline, mrs. radcliffe attempts an unusually acute analysis: "for many hours she busied herself upon a piece of work which she had undertaken for madame la motte, but this she did without the least intention of conciliating her favour, but because she felt there was something in thus repaying unkindness, which was suited to her own temper, her sentiments and her pride. self-love may be the centre around which human affections move, for whatever motive conduces to self-gratification may be resolved into self-love, yet, some of these affections are in their nature so refined that, though we cannot deny their origin, they almost deserve the name of virtue: of this species was that of adeline." it is characteristic of mrs. radcliffe's tendency to overlook the obvious in searching for the subtle, that the girl who feels these recondite emotions expresses slight embarrassment when unceremoniously flung on the protection of strangers. emily, in _the mysteries of udolpho_, possesses the same protective armour as adeline. when she is abused by montoni, "her heart swelled with the consciousness of having deserved praise instead of censure, and was proudly silent"; or again, in _the italian_, "ellena was the more satisfied with herself because she had never for an instant forgotten her dignity so far as to degenerate into the vehemence of passion or to falter with the weakness of fear." her father, m. st. aubert, on his deathbed, bids emily beware of "priding herself on the gracefulness of sensibility." fortunately the heroine is merely a figurehead in _the mysteries of udolpho_ ( ). the change of title is significant. the two previous works have been romances, but it is now mrs. radcliffe's intention to let herself go further in the direction of wonder and suspense than she had hitherto ventured. she is like scythrop in _nightmare abbey_, of whom it was said: "he had a strong tendency to love of mystery for its own sake; that is to say, he would employ mystery to serve a purpose, but would first choose his purpose by its capability of mystery." yet mrs. radcliffe, at the opening of her story, is sparing in her use of supernatural elements. we live by faith, and are drawn forward by the hope of future mystifications. in the first volume we saunter through idyllic scenes of domestic happiness in the chateau le vert and wander with emily and her dying father through the apennines, with only faint suggestions of excitement to come. the second volume plunges us _in medias res_. the aunt, to whose care emily is entrusted, has imprudently married a tempestuous tyrant, montoni, who, to further his own ends, hurries his wife and niece from the gaiety of venice to the gloom of udolpho. after a journey fraught with terror, amid rugged, lowering mountains and through dusky woods, we reach the castle of udolpho at nightfall. the sombre exterior and the shadow haunted hall are so ominous that we are prepared for the worst when we enter its portals. the anticipation is half pleasurable, half fearful, as we shudder at the thought of what may befall us within its walls. at every turn something uncanny shakes our overwrought nerves; the sighing of the wind, the echo of distant footsteps, lurking shadows, gliding forms, inexplicable groans, mysterious music torture the sensitive imagination of emily, who is mercilessly doomed to sleep in a deserted apartment with a door, which, as so often in the novel of terror, bolts only on the outside. more nerve wracking than the unburied corpse or even than the ineffable horror concealed behind the black veil are the imaginary, impalpable terrors that seize on emily's tender fancy as she crosses the hall on her way to solve the riddle of her aunt's disappearance: "emily, deceived by the long shadows of the pillars and by the catching lights between, often stopped, imagining that she saw some person moving in the distant obscurity...and as she passed these pillars she feared to turn her eyes towards them, almost expecting to see a figure start from behind their broad shaft." torn from the context, this passage no longer congeals us with terror, but in its setting it conveys in a wonderfully vivid manner the tricks of a feverish imagination. so exhaustive--and exhausting--are the mysteries of udolpho that it was a mistake to introduce another haunted castle, le blanc, as an appendix. mrs. radcliffe's long deferred explanations of what is apparently supernatural have often been adversely criticised. her method varies considerably. sometimes we are enlightened almost immediately. when the garrulous servant, annette, is relating to emily what she knows of the story of laurentina, who had once lived in the castle, both mistress and servant are wrought up to a state of nervous tension: "emily, whom now annette had infected with her own terrors, listened attentively, but everything was still, and annette proceeded... 'there again,' cried annette, suddenly, 'i heard it again.' 'hush!' said emily, trembling. they listened and continued to sit quite still. emily heard a slow knocking against the wall. it came repeatedly. annette then screamed loudly, and the chamber door slowly opened--it was caterina, come to tell annette that her lady wanted her." it is seldom that the rude awakening comes thus swiftly. more often we are left wondering uneasily and fearfully for a prolonged stretch of time. the extreme limit of human endurance is reached in the episode of the black veil. early in the second volume, emily, for whom the concealed picture had a fatal fascination, determined to gaze upon it. "emily passed on with faltering steps and, having paused a moment at the door before she attempted to open it, she then hastily entered the chamber and went towards the picture, which appeared to be enclosed in a frame of uncommon size, that hung in a dark part of the room. she paused again and then, with a timid hand, lifted the veil, but instantly let it fall--perceiving that, what it had concealed was no picture and, before she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless on the floor." in time emily recovers, but the horror of the black veil preys on her mind until, near the close of the third volume, mrs. radcliffe mercifully consents to tell us not only what emily thought that she beheld, but what was actually there. "there appeared, instead of the picture she had expected, within the recess of the wall, a human figure of ghastly paleness, stretched at its length, and dressed in the habiliments of the grave. what added to the horror of the spectacle was that the face appeared partly decayed and disfigured by worms, which were visible on the features and hands... had she dared to look again, her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have perceived that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax... a member of the house of udolpho, having committed some offence against the prerogative of the church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen image made to resemble a human body in the state to which it is reduced after death ... he had made it a condition in his will that his descendants should preserve the image." mrs. radcliffe, realising that the secret she had so jealously guarded is of rather an amazing character, asserts that it is "not without example in the records of the fierce severity which monkish superstition has sometimes inflicted on mankind." but the explanation falls so ludicrously short of our expectations and is so improbable a possibility, that mrs. radcliffe would have been wise not to defraud catherine morland and other readers of the pleasure of guessing aright. few enjoy being baffled and thwarted in so unexpected a fashion. the skeleton of signora laurentina was the least that could be expected as a reward for suspense so patiently endured. but long ere this disclosure, we have learnt by bitter experience to distrust mrs. radcliffe's secrets and to look for ultimate disillusionment. the uncanny voice that ominously echoes montoni's words is not the cry of a bodiless visitant striving to awaken "that blushing, shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom," but belongs to an ordinary human being, the prisoner du pont, who has discovered one of mrs. radcliffe's innumerable concealed passages. the bed with the black velvet pall in the haunted chamber contains, not the frightful apparition that flashed upon the inward eye of emily and of annette, but a stalwart pirate who shrinks from discovery. the gliding forms which steal furtively along the ramparts and disappear at the end of dark passages become eventually, like the nun in charlotte bronte's _villette_, sensible to feeling as to sight. the unearthly music which is heard in the woods at midnight proceeds, not from the inhabitants of another sphere, but from a conscience stricken nun with a lurid past. the corpse, which emily believed to be that of her aunt, foully done to death by a pitiless husband, is the body of a man killed in a bandit's affray. here mrs. radcliffe seems eager to show that she was not afraid of a corpse, but is careful that it shall not be the corpse which the reader anticipates. she deliberately excites trembling apprehensions in order that she may show how absurd they are. we are befooled that she may enjoy a quietly malicious triumph. the result is that we become wary and cautious. the genuine ghost story, read by ludovico to revive his fainting spirits when he is keeping vigil in the "haunted" chamber, is robbed of its effect because we half expect to be disillusioned ere the close. it is far more impressive if read as a separate story apart from its setting. the idea of explaining away what is apparently supernatural may have occurred to mrs. radcliffe after reading schiller's popular romance, _der geisterseher_ ( ), in which the elaborately contrived marvels of the armenian, who was modelled on cagliostro, are but the feats of a juggler and have a physical cause. but more probably mrs. radcliffe's imagination was held in check by a sensitive conscience, which would not allow her to trade on the credulity of simple-minded readers. it is noteworthy that mrs. radcliffe's last work--_the italian_, published in --is more skilfully constructed, and possesses far greater unity and concentration than _the mysteries of udolpho_. the inquisition scenes towards the end of the book are unduly prolonged, but the story is coherent and free from digressions. the theme is less fanciful and far fetched than those of _the romance of the forest_ and _udolpho_. it seldom strays far beyond the bounds of the probable, nor overstrains our capacity for belief. the motive of the story is the marchesa di vivaldi's opposition to her son's marriage on account of ellena's obscure birth. the marchesa's far reaching designs are forwarded by the ambitious monk, schedoni, who, for his own ends, undertakes to murder ellena. _the italian_ abounds in dramatic, haunting scenes. the strangely effective overture, which describes the confessional of the black penitents, the midnight watch of vivaldi and his lively, impulsive servant, paulo, amid the ruins of paluzzi, the melodramatic interruption of the wedding ceremony, the meeting of ellena and schedoni on the lonely shore, the trial in the halls of the inquisition, are all remarkably vivid. the climax of the story when schedoni, about to slay ellena, is arrested in the very act by her beauty and innocence, and then by the glimpse of the portrait which leads him to believe she is his daughter, is finely conceived and finely executed. afterwards, ellena proves only to be his niece, but we have had our thrill and nothing can rob us of it. _the italian_ depends for its effect on natural terror, rather than on supernatural suggestions. the monk, who haunts the ruins of paluzzi, and who reappears in the prison of the inquisition, speaks and acts like a being from the world of spectres, but in the fulness of time mrs. radcliffe ruthlessly exposes his methods and kills him by slow poison. she never completely explains his behaviour in the halls of the inquisition nor accounts satisfactorily for the ferocity of his hatred of schedoni. we are unintentionally led on false trails. the character of schedoni is undeniably mrs. radcliffe's masterpiece. no one would claim that his character is subtle study, but in his interviews with the marchesa, mrs. radcliffe reveals unexpected gifts tor probing into human motives. he is an imposing figure, theatrical sometimes, but wrought of flesh and blood. in fiction, as in life, the villain has always existed, but it was mrs. radcliffe who first created the romantic villain, stained with the darkest crimes, yet dignified and impressive withal. zeluco in dr. john moore's novel of that name ( ) is a powerful conception, but he has no redeeming features to temper our repulsion with pity. the sinister figures of mrs. radcliffe, with passion-lined faces and gleaming eyes, stalk--or, if occasion demand it, glide--through all her romances, and as she grows more familiar with the type, her delineations show increased power and vigour. when the villain enters, or shortly afterwards, a descriptive catalogue is displayed, setting forth, in a manner not unlike that of the popular _feuilleton_ of to-day, the qualities to be expected, and with this he is let loose into the story to play his part and act up to his reputation. in the _sicilian romance_ there is the tyrannical marquis who would force an unwelcome marriage on his daughter and who immures his wife in a remote corner of the castle, visiting her once a week with a scanty pittance of coarse food. in _the romance of the forest_ we find a conventional but thorough villain in montalt and a half-hearted, poor-spirited villain in la motte, whose "virtue was such that it could not stand the pressure of occasion." montoni, the desperate leader of the condottieri in _the mysteries of udolpho_, is endued with so vigorous a vitality that we always rejoice inwardly at his return to the forefront of the story. his abundant energy is refreshing after a long sojourn with his garrulous wife and tearful niece. "he delighted in the energies of the passions, the difficulties and tempests of life which wreck the happiness of others roused and strengthened all the powers of his mind, and afforded him the highest enjoyment... the fire and keenness of his eye, its proud exaltation, its bold fierceness, its sudden watchfulness as occasion and even slight occasion had called forth the latent soul, she had often observed with emotion, while from the usual expression of his countenance she had always shrunk." schedoni is undoubtedly allied to this desperado, but his methods are quieter and more subtle: "there was something terrible in his air, something almost superhuman. the cowl, too, as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face increased its severe character and gave an effect to his large, melancholy eye which approached to horror ... his physiognomy ... bore the traces of many passions which seemed to have fixed the features they no longer animated. an habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance, and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate at a single glance into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts--few persons could endure their scrutiny or even endure to meet them twice ... he could adapt himself to the tempers and passions of persons, whom he wished to conciliate, with astonishing facility." the type undoubtedly owes something to milton's satan. like lucifer, he is proud and ambitious, and like him he retains traces of his original grandeur. hints from shakespeare helped to fashion him. like cassius, seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort "as if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit that could be moved to smile at anything." like king john, "the image of a wicked heinous fault lives in his eye: that close aspect of his does show the mood of a much-troubled breast." by the enormity of his crimes he inspires horror and repulsion, but by his loneliness he appeals, for a moment, like the consummate villain richard iii., to our pity: "there is no creature loves me and if i die, no soul will pity me. nay, wherefore should they, since that i myself find in myself no pity to myself?" karl von moor, the famous hero of schiller's _die räuber_ ( ), is allied to this desperado. he is thus described in the advertisement of the edition: "the picture of a great, misguided soul, endowed with every gift of excellence, yet lost in spite of all its gifts. unbridled passions and bad companionship corrupt his heart, urge him on from crime to crime, until at last he stands at the head of a band of murderers, heaps horror upon horror, and plunges from precipice to precipice in the lowest depths of despair. great and majestic in misfortune, by misfortune reclaimed and led back to the paths of virtue. such a man shall you pity and hate, abhor yet love in the robber moor." among the direct progeny of these grandiose villains are to be included those of lewis and maturin, and the heroes of scott and byron. we know them by their world-weariness, as well as by their piercing eyes and passion-marked faces, their "verra wrinkles gothic." in _the giaour_ we are told: "dark and unearthly is the scowl that glares beneath his dusky cowl: "the flash of that dilating eye reveals too much of times gone by. though varying, indistinct its hue oft will his glance the gazer rue." of the corsair, it is said: "there breathe but few whose aspect might defy the full encounter of his searching eye." lara is drawn from the same model: "that brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last and spoke of passions, but of passions past; the pride but not the fire of early days, coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise; a high demeanour and a glance that took their thoughts from others by a single look." the feminine counterpart of these bold impersonations of evil is the tyrannical abbess who plays a part in _the romance of the forest_ and in _the italian_, and who was adopted and exaggerated by lewis, but her crimes are petty and malicious, not daring and ambitious, like the schemes of montoni and schedoni. one of mrs. radcliffe's contemporaries is said to have suggested that if she wished to transcend the horror of the inquisition scenes in _the italian_ she would have to visit hell itself. like her own heroines, mrs. radcliffe had too elegant and refined an imagination and too fearful a heart to undertake so desperate a journey. she would have recoiled with horror from the impious suggestion. in _gaston de blondeville_, written in , but published posthumously with a memoir by noon talfourd, she ventures to make one or two startling innovations. her hero is no longer a pale, romantic young man of gentle birth, but a stolid, worthy merchant. here, at last, she indulges in a substantial spectre, who cannot be explained away as the figment of a disordered imagination, since he seriously alarms, not a solitary heroine or a scared lady's-maid, but henry iii. himself and his assembled barons. yet apart from this daring escapade, it is timidity rather than the spirit of valorous enterprise that is urging mrs. radcliffe into new and untried paths. her happy, courageous disregard for historical accuracy in describing far-off scenes and bygone ages has deserted her. she searches painfully in ancient records, instead of in her imagination, for mediaeval atmosphere. her story is grievously overburdened with elaborate descriptions of customs and ceremonies, and she adds laborious notes, citing passages from learned authorities, such as leland's _collectanea_, pegge's dissertation on the obsolete office of esquire of the king's body, sir george bulke's account of the coronation of richard iii., mador's _history of the exchequer_, etc. we are transported from the eighteenth century, not actually to mediaeval england, but to a carefully arranged pageant displaying mediaeval costumes, tournaments and banquets. the actors speak in antique language to accord with the picturesque background against which they stand. _gaston de blondeville_, which is noteworthy as an early attempt to shadow forth the days of chivalry, has far more colour than leland's _longsword_ ( ), miss reeve's _old english baron_ ( ), or miss sophia lee's _recess_ ( ), from which rather than from mrs. radcliffe's earlier romances its descent may be traced. the attempt to avoid glaring anachronisms and to reproduce an accurate picture of a former age points forward to scott. strutt's _queenhoo hall_, which scott completed, was a revolt against the unscrupulous inventions of romance-writers, and was crammed full of archaeological lore. the story of _gaston de blondeville_ is tedious, the characters are shadowy and unreal, and we become, as the ettric shepherd remarked, in _noctes ambrosianae_, "somewhat too hand and glove with his ghostship"; yet, regarded simply as a spectacular effect, it is not without indications of skill and power. miss mitford based a drama on it, but it never attained the popularity of mrs. radcliffe's other novels. it was published when her reputation was on the wane. of the materials on which mrs. radcliffe drew in fashioning her romances it is impossible to speak with any certainty. doubtless she had studied certain old chronicles, and she was deeply read in shakespeare, especially in the tragedies. much of her leisure, we are told, was spent in reading the literary productions of the day, especially poetry and novels. at the head of her chapters she often quotes milton as well as the poets of her own century--mason, gray, collins, and once "ossian"--choosing almost inevitably passages which deal with the terrible or the ghostly. she must have known _the castle of otranto_, and in _the italian_ she quotes several passages from walpole's melodrama _the mysterious mother_. but often she may have been dependent on the oral legends clustering round ancient abbeys for the background of her stories. ghostly legends would always appeal to her, and she probably amassed a hoard of traditions when she visited english castles during her tours with her husband. the background of _gaston de blondeville_ is kenilworth castle. that ancient ruins stirred her imagination profoundly is clear from passages in her notes on the journeys. in furness abbey she sees in her mind's eye "a midnight procession of monks," and at brougham castle: "one almost saw the surly keeper descending through this door-case and heard him rattle the keys of the chamber above, listening with indifference to the clank of chains and to the echo of that groan below which seemed to rend the heart it burst from," or again: "slender saplings of ash waved over the deserted door cases, where at the transforming hour of twilight, the superstitious eye might mistake them for spectres of some early possessor of the castle, restless from guilt, or of some sufferer persevering for vengeance." mrs. radcliffe's style compares favourably with that of many of her contemporaries, with that of mrs. roche, for instance, who wrote _the children of the abbey_ and an array of other forgotten romances, but she is too fond of long, imperfectly balanced sentences, with as many awkward twists and turns as the winding stairways of her ancient turrets. nobody in the novels, except the talkative, comic servant, who is meant to be vulgar and ridiculous, ever condescends to use colloquial speech. even in moments of extreme peril the heroines are very choice in their diction. dialogue in mrs. radcliffe's world is as stilted and unnatural as that of prim, old-fashioned school books. in her earliest novel she uses very little conversation, clearly finding the indirect form of narrative easier. sometimes, in the more highly wrought passages of description, she slips unawares into a more daring phrase, _e.g._ in _udolpho_, the track of blood "glared" upon the stairs, where the word suggests not the actual appearance of the bloodstain, but rather its effect on emily's inflamed and disordered imagination. dickens might have chosen the word deliberately in this connection, but he would have used it, not once, but several times to ensure his result and to emphasise the impression. this is not mrs. radcliffe's way. her attention to style is mainly subconscious, her chief interest being in situation. her descriptions of scenery have often been praised. crabb robinson declared in his diary that he preferred them to those of _waverley_. when byron visited venice he found no better words to describe its beauty than those of mrs. radcliffe, who had never seen it: "i saw from out the wave her structures rise as from the stroke of an enchanted wand." in mrs. radcliffe and her husband made a journey through holland and west germany, of which she wrote an account, including with it observations made during a tour of the english lakes. all her novels, except _the italian_ and _gaston de blondeville_, had been written before she went abroad, and in describing foreign scenery she relied on her imagination, aided perhaps by pictures and descriptions as well as by her recollections of english mountains and lakes. the attempt to blend into a single picture a landscape actually seen and a landscape only known at second-hand may perhaps account for the lack of distinctness in her pictures. her descriptions of scenery are elaborate, and often prolix, but it is often difficult to form a clear image of the scene. in her novels she cares for landscape only as an effective background, and paints with the broad, careless sweep of the theatrical scene-painter. in the _journeys_, where she depicts scenery for its own sake, her delineation is more definite and distinct. she reveals an unusual feeling for colour and for the lights and tones of a changing sea or sky: "it is most interesting to watch the progress of evening and its effect on the waters; streaks of light scattered among the dark, western clouds after the sun had set, and gleaming in long reflection on the sea, while a grey obscurity was drawing over the east, as the vapours rose gradually from the ocean. the air was breathless, the tall sails of the vessel were without motion, and her course upon the deep scarcely perceptible; while above the planet burned with steady dignity and threw a tremulous line of light upon the sea, whose surface flowed in smooth, waveless expanse. then other planets appeared and countless stars spangled the dark waters. twilight now pervaded air and ocean, but the west was still luminous where one solemn gleam of dusky red edged the horizon from under heavy vapours."[ ] sometimes her scenes are disappointingly vague. she describes ingleborough as "rising from elegantly swelling ground," and attempts to convey a stretch of country by enumerating a list of its features in generalised terms: "gentle swelling slopes, rich in verdure, thick enclosures, woods, bowery hop-grounds, sheltered mansions announcing the wealth, and substantial farms with neat villages, the comfort of the country." yet she notices tiny mosses whose hues were "pea green and primrose," and sometimes reveals flashes of imaginative insight into natural beauty like "the dark sides of mountains marked only by the blue smoke of weeds driven in circles near the ground." these personal, intimate touches of detail are very different from the highly coloured sunrises and sunsets that awaken the raptures of her heroines. with all her limitations, mrs. radcliffe is a figure whom it is impossible to ignore in the history of the novel. her influence was potent on lewis and on maturin as well as on a host of forgotten writers. scott admired her works and probably owed something in his craftsmanship to his early study of them. she appeals most strongly in youth. the ettrick shepherd, who was by nature and education "just excessive superstitious," declares: "had i read _udolpho_ and her other romances in my boyish days my hair would have stood on end like that o' other folk ... but afore her volumes fell into my hauns, my soul had been frichtened by a' kinds of traditionary terrors, and many hunder times hae i maist swarfed wi' fear in lonesome spots in muir and woods at midnight when no a leevin thing was movin but mysel' and the great moon."[ ] there are dull stretches in all her works, but, as hazlitt justly claims, "in harrowing up the soul with imaginary horrors, and making the flesh creep and the nerves thrill with fond hopes and fears, she is unrivalled among her countrymen."[ ] chapter iv - the novel of terror. lewis and maturin. to pass from the work of mrs. radcliffe to that of matthew gregory lewis is to leave "the novel of suspense," which depends for part of its effect on the human instinct of curiosity, for "the novel of terror," which works almost entirely on the even stronger and more primitive instinct of fear. those who find mrs. radcliffe's unruffled pace leisurely beyond endurance, or who dislike her coldly reasonable methods of accounting for what is only apparently supernatural, or who sometimes feel stifled by the oppressive air of gentility that broods over her romantic world, will find ample reparation in the melodramatic pages of "monk" lewis. here, indeed, may those who will and dare sup full with horrors. lewis, in reckless abandonment, throws to the winds all restraint, both moral and artistic, that had bound his predecessor. the incidents, which follow one another in kaleidoscopic variety, are like the disjointed phases of a delirium or nightmare, from which there is no escape. we are conscious that his story is unreal or even ludicrous, yet lewis has a certain dogged power of driving us unrelentingly through it, regardless of our own will. literary historians have tended to over-emphasise the connection between mrs. radcliffe and lewis. their purposes and achievement are so different that it is hardly accurate to speak of them as belonging to the same school. it is true that in one of his letters lewis asserts that he was induced to go on with his romance, _the monk_, by reading _the mysteries of udolpho_, "one of the most interesting books that has (sic) ever been written," and that he was struck by the resemblance of his own character to that of montoni;[ ] but his literary debt to mrs. radcliffe is comparatively insignificant. his depredations on german literature are much more serious and extensive. lewis, indeed, is one of the dick turpins of fiction and seizes his booty where he will in a high-handed and somewhat unscrupulous fashion, but for many of mrs. radcliffe's treasures he could find no use. her picturesque backgrounds, her ingenious explanations of the uncanny, her uneventful interludes and long deferred but happy endings were outside his province. the moments in her novels which lewis admired and strove to emulate were those during which the reader with quickened pulse breathlessly awaits some startling development. of these moments, there are, it must be frankly owned, few in mrs. radcliffe's novels. lewis's mistake lay in trying to induce a more rapid palpitation, and to prolong it almost uninterruptedly throughout his novel. by attempting a physical and mental impossibility he courts disaster. mrs. radcliffe's skeletons are decently concealed in the family cupboard, lewis's stalk abroad in shameless publicity. in mrs. radcliffe's stories, the shadow fades and disappears just when we think we are close upon the substance; for, after we have long been groping in the twilight of fearful imaginings, she suddenly jerks back the shutter to admit the clear light of reason. in lewis's wonder-world there are no elusive shadows; he hurls us without preparation or initiation into a daylight orgy of horrors. lewis was educated at westminster and christ church, but a year spent in weimar ( - ), where he zealously studied german, and incidentally, met goethe, seems to have left more obvious marks on his literary career. to lewis, goethe is pre-eminently the author of _the sorrows of werther_; and schiller, he remarks casually, "has, written several other plays besides _the robbers."_[ ] he probably read heinse's _ardinghello_( ), tieck's _abdallah_ ( - ), and _william lovell_ ( - ), many of the innumerable dramas of kotzebue, the romances of weit weber, and other specimens of what carlyle describes as "the bowl and dagger department," where "black forests and lubberland, sensuality and horror, the spectre nun and the charmed moonshine, shall not be wanting. boisterous outlaws also, with huge whiskers, and the most cat o' mountain aspect; tear-stained sentimentalists, the grimmest man-eaters, ghosts and the like suspicious characters will be found in abundance."[ ] throughout his life he seems to have made a hobby of the literature that arouses violent emotion and mental excitement, or lacerates the nerves, or shocks and startles. the lifelike and the natural are not powerful enough for his taste, though some of his _romantic tales_( ), such as _my uncle's garret window_, are uncommonly tame. like the painter of a hoarding who must at all costs arrest attention, he magnifies, exaggerates and distorts. once when rebuked for introducing black guards into a country where they did not exist, he is said to have declared that he would have made them sky-blue if he thought they would produce any more effect.[ ] referring to _the monk_, he confesses: "unluckily, in working it up, i thought that the stronger my colours, the more effect would my picture produce."[ ] one of his early attempts at fiction was a romance which he later converted into his popular drama, _the castle spectre_. this play was staged in , and was reconverted by miss sarah wilkinson in into a romance. lewis spreads his banquet with a lavish hand, and crudities and absurdities abound, but he has a knack of choosing situations well adapted for stage effect. the play, aptly described by coleridge as a "peccant thing of noise, froth and impermanence,"[ ] would offer a happy hunting ground to those who delight in the pursuit of "parallel passages." at the age of twenty, during his residence at the hague as _attaché_ to the british embassy, in the summer of , he composed in ten weeks, his notorious romance, _the monk_. on its publication in it was attacked on the grounds of profanity and indecency. _the monk_, despite its cleverness, is essentially immature, yet it is not a childish work. it is much less youthful, for instance, than shelley's _zastrozzi_ and _st. irvyne_. the inflamed imagination, the violent exaggeration of emotion and of character, the jeering cynicism and lack of tolerance, the incoherent formlessness, are all indications of adolescence. in _the monk_ there are two distinct stories, loosely related. the story of raymond and agnes, into which the legends of the bleeding nun and wandering jew are woven with considerable skill, was published more than once as a detached and separate work. it is concerned with the fate of two unhappy lovers, who are parted by the tyranny of their parents and of the church, and who endure manifold agonies. the physical torture of agnes is described in revolting detail, for lewis has no scruple in carrying the ugly far beyond the limits within which it is artistic. the happy ending of their harrowing story is incredible. by making ambrosio, on the verge of his hideous crimes, harshly condemn agnes for a sin of the same nature as that which he is about to commit, lewis forges a link between the two stories. but the connection is superficial, and the novel suffers through the distraction of our interest. in the story of ambrosio, antonia plays no part in her own downfall. she is as helpless as a plaster statue demolished by an earthquake. the figure of matilda has more vitality, though lewis changes his mind about her character during the course of the book, and fails to make her early history consistent with the ending of his story. she is certainly not in league with the devil, when, in a passionate soliloquy, she cries to ambrosio, whom she believes to be asleep: "the time will come when you will be convinced that my passion is pure and disinterested. then you will pity me and feel the whole weight of my sorrows." but when the devil appears, he declares to ambrosio: "i saw that you were virtuous from vanity, not principle, and i seized the fit moment for your seduction. i observed your blind idolatry of the madonna's picture. i bade a subordinate but crafty spirit assume a similar form, and you eagerly yielded to the blandishments of matilda." the discrepancy is obvious, but this blemish is immaterial, for the whole story is unnatural. the deterioration in ambrosio's character--though lewis uses all his energy in striving to make it appear probable by discussing the effect of environment--is too swift. lewis is at his best when he lets his youthful, high spirits have full play. his boyish exaggeration makes leonella, antonia's aunt, seem like a pantomime character, who has inadvertently stepped into a melodrama, but the caricature is amusing by its very crudity. she writes in red ink to express "the blushes of her cheek," when she sends a message of encouragement to the conde d'ossori. this and other puerile jests are more tolerable than lewis's attempts to depict passion or describe character. bold, flaunting splashes of colour, strongly marked, passionate faces, exaggerated gestures start from every page, and his style is as extravagant as his imagery. sometimes he uses a short, staccato sentence to enforce his point, but more often we are engulfed in a swirling welter of words. he delights in the declamatory language of the stage, and all his characters speak as if they were behind the footlights, shouting to the gallery. a cold-blooded reviewer, in whom the detective instinct was strong, indicated the sources of _the monk_ so mercilessly, that lewis appears in his critique[ ] rather as the perpetrator of a series of ingenious thefts than as the creator of a novel: "the outline of the monk ambrosio's story was suggested by that of the santon barissa [barsisa] in the _guardian_:[ ] the form of temptation is borrowed from _the devil in love_ of canzotte [cazotte], and the catastrophe is taken from _the sorcerer_. the adventures of raymond and agnes are less obviously imitations, yet the forest scene near strasburg brings to mind an incident in smollett's _count fathom_; the bleeding nun is described by the author as a popular tale of the germans,[ ] and the convent prison resembles the inflictions of mrs. radcliffe." the industrious reviewer overlooks the legend of the wandering jew, which might have been added to the list of lewis's "borrowings." it must be admitted that lewis transforms, or at least remodels, what he borrows. addison's story relates how a sage of reputed sanctity seduces and slays a maiden brought to him for cure, and later sells his soul. lewis abandons the oriental setting, converts the santon into a monk and embroiders the story according to his fancy. scott alludes to a scottish version of what is evidently a widespread legend.[ ] the resemblance of the catastrophe--presumably the appearance of satan in the form of lucifer--to the scene in mickle's _sorcerer_, which was published among lewis's _tales of wonder_ ( ), is vague enough to be accidental. there are blue flames and sorcery, and an apparition in both, but that is all the two scenes have in common. the tyrannical abbess may be a heritage from _the romance of the forest_, but, if so she is exaggerated almost beyond recognition. in fashioning as the villain of her latest novel, _the italian_, a monk, whose birth is wrapt in obscurity, mrs. radcliffe may have been influenced by lewis's _monk_ which had appeared two years before. both schedoni and ambrosio are reputed saints, both are plunged into the blackest guilt, and both are victims of the inquisition. mrs. radcliffe, it is true, recoils from introducing the enemy of mankind, but, before the secrets are finally revealed, we almost suspect schedoni of having dabbled in the black arts, and his actual crime falls short of our expectations. the "explained supernatural" plays a less prominent part in _the italian_ than in the previous novels, and mrs. radcliffe relies for her effect rather on sheer terror. the dramatic scene where schedoni stealthily approaches the sleeping ellena at midnight recalls the more highly coloured, but less impressive scene in antonia's bedchamber. the fate of bianchi, ellena's aunt, is strangely reminiscent of that of elvira, antonia's mother. the convent scenes and the overbearing abbess had been introduced into mrs. radcliffe's earlier novels; but in _the italian_, the anti-roman feeling is more strongly emphasised than usual. this may or may not have been due to the influence of lewis. there is no direct evidence that mrs. radcliffe had read _the monk_, but the book was so notorious that a fellow novelist would be almost certain to explore its pages. hoffmann's romance, _elixir des teufels_ ( ), is manifestly written under its inspiration. coincidence could not account for the remarkable resemblances to incidents in the story of ambrosio. the far-famed collection of _tales of terror_ appeared in , _the tales of wonder_ in . the rest of lewis's work consists mainly of translations and adaptations from the german. he revelled in the horrific school of melodrama. he delighted in the kind of german romance parodied by meredith in _farina_, where aunt lisbeth tells margarita of spectres, smelling of murder and the charnel-breath of midnight, who "uttered noises that wintered the blood and revealed sights that stiffened hair three feet long; ay, and kept it stiff." _the bravo of venice_ ( ) is a translation of zschokke's _abellino, der grosse bandit_, but lewis invented a superfluous character, monaldeschi, rosabella's destined bridegroom, apparently with the object that abellino might slay him early in the story--and added a concluding chapter. at the outset of the story, rosalvo, a man after lewis's own heart, declares: "to astonish is my destiny: rosalvo knows no medium: rosalvo can never act like common men," and thereupon proceeds to prove by his extraordinary actions that this is no idle vaunt. he lives a double life: in the guise of abellino, he joins the banditti, and by inexplicable methods rids venice of her enemies; in the guise of a noble florentine, flodoardo, he woos the doge's daughter, rosabella. the climax of the story is reached when flodoardo, under oath to deliver up the bandit abellino, appears before the doge at the appointed hour and reveals his double identity. he is hailed as the saviour of hungary, and wins rosabella as his bride. in the second edition of _the bravo of venice_, a romance in four volumes by m. g. lewis, _legends of the nunnery_, is announced as in the press. there seems to be no record of it elsewhere. _feudal tyrants_ ( ), a long romance from the german, connected with the story of william tell, consists of a series of memoirs loosely strung together, in which the most alarming episode is the apparition of the pale spectre of an aged monk. in _blanche and osbright, or mistrust_ ( ),[ ] which is not avowedly a translation, lewis depicts an even more revolting portrait than that of abellino in his bravo's disguise. he adds detail after detail without considering the final effect on the eye: "every muscle in his gigantic form seemed convulsed by some horrible sensation; the deepest gloom darkened every feature; the wind from the unclosed window agitated his raven locks, and every hair appeared to writhe itself. his eyeballs glared, his teeth chattered, his lips trembled; and yet a smile of satisfied vengeance played horribly around them. his complexion seemed suddenly to be changed to the dark tincture of an african; the expression of his countenance was dreadful, was diabolical. magdalena, as she gazed upon his face, thought that she gazed upon a demon." here, to quote the lady hysterica belamour, we have surely the "horrid, horrible, horridest horror." but in _königsmark the robber, or the terror of bohemia_ ( ), lewis's caste includes an enormous yellow-eyed spider, a wolf who changes into a peasant and disappears amid a cloud of sulphur, and a ghost who sheds three ominous drops of boiling blood. it was probably such stories as this that peacock had in mind when he declared, through mr. flosky, that the devil had become "too base and popular" for the surfeited appetite of readers of fiction. yet, as carlyle once exclaimed of the german terror-drama, as exemplified in kotzebue, grillparzer and klingemann, whose stock-in-trade is similar to that of lewis: "if any man wish to amuse himself irrationally, here is the ware for his money."[ ] byron, who had himself attempted in _oscar and alva_ (_hours of idleness_, ) a ballad in the manner of lewis, describes with irony the triumphs of terror: "oh! wonderworking lewis! monk or bard, who fain would make parnassus a churchyard! lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow, thy muse a sprite, apollo's sexton thou; whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, by gibbering spectres hailed, thy kindred band; or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page to please the females of our modest age; all hail, m.p., from whose infernal brain thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train; at whose command 'grim women' throng in crowds and kings of fire, of water, and of clouds with small grey men--wild yagers and what not, to crown with honour thee and walter scott; again, all hail! if tales like thine may please, st. luke alone can vanquish the disease. even satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, and in thy skull discern a deeper hell!"[ ] scott's delightfully discursive review of _the fatal revenge or the family of montorio_ ( ), not only forms a fitting introduction to the romances of maturin, but presents a lively sketch of the fashionable reading of the day. it has been insinuated that the _quarterly review_ was too heavy and serious, that it contained, to quote scott's own words, "none of those light and airy articles which a young lady might read while her hair was papering." to redeem the reputation of the journal, scott gallantly undertook to review some of the "flitting and evanescent productions of the times." after a laborious inspection of the contents of a hamper full of novels, he arrived at the painful conclusion that "spirits and patience may be as completely exhausted in perusing trifles as in following algebraical calculations." he condemns the authors of the gothic romance, not for their extravagance, a venial offence, but for their monotony, a deadly sin. "we strolled through a variety of castles, each of which was regularly called il castello; met with as many captains of condottieri, heard various ejaculations of santa maria and diabolo; read by a decaying lamp and in a tapestried chamber dozens of legends as stupid as the main history; examined such suites of deserted apartments as might set up a reasonable barrack, and saw as many glimmering lights as would make a respectable illumination." it was no easy task to bore sir walter scott, and an excursion into the byeways of early nineteenth century fiction proves abundantly the justice of his satire. such novelists as miss sarah wilkinson or mrs. eliza parsons, whose works were greedily devoured by circulating library readers a hundred years ago, deliberately concocted an unappetising gallimaufry of earlier stories and practised the harmless deception of serving their insipid dishes under new and imposing names. a writer in the _annual review_, so early as , complains in criticising _tales of superstition and chivalry_: "it is not one of the least objections against these fashionable fictions that the imagery of them is essentially monstrous. hollow winds, clay-cold hands, clanking chains and clicking clocks, with a few similar etcetera are continually tormenting us." tales of terror were often issued in the form of sixpenny chapbooks, enlivened by woodcuts daubed in yellow, blue, red and green. embellished with these aids to the imagination, they were sold in thousands. to the readers of a century ago, a "blue book" meant, as medwin explains in his life of shelley, not a pamphlet filled with statistics, but "a sixpenny shocker."[ ] the notorious minerva press catered for wealthier patrons, and, it is said, sold two thousand copies of mrs. bennett's _beggar girl and her benefactors_ on the day of publication, at thirty-six shillings for the seven volumes. samuel rogers recalled lane, the head of the firm, riding in a carriage and pair with two footmen, wearing gold cockades.[ ] scott was careful not to disclose the names of the novelists he derided, but his hamper probably contained a selection of mrs. parsons' sixty works, and perhaps two of miss wilkinson's, with their alluring titles, _the priory of st. clair, or the spectre of the murdered nun_; _the convent of the grey penitents, or the apostate nun_. perchance, he found there mrs. henrietta rouvière's romance, (published in the same year as _montorio_,) _a peep at our ancestors_ ( ), describing the reign of king stephen. mrs. rouvière, in her preface, "flatters herself that, aided by records and documents, she may have succeeded in a correct though faint sketch of the times she treats, and in affording, if through a dim yet not distorted nor discoloured glass, a peep at our ancestors"; but her story is entirely devoid of the colour with which mrs. radcliffe, her model, contrived to decorate the past. it is, moreover, written in a style so opaque that it obscures her images from view as effectually as a piece of ground glass. to describe the approach of twilight--an hour beloved by writers of romance--she attempts a turgid paraphrase of gray's elegy: "the grey shades of an autumnal evening gradually stole over the horizon, progressively throwing a duskier hue on the surrounding objects till glimmering confusion encompassing the earth shut from the accustomed eye the well-known view, leaving conjecture to mark its boundaries." the adventures of adelaide and her lover, walter of gloucester, are so insufferably tedious that scott doubtless decided to "leave to conjecture" their interminable vicissitudes. the names of other novels, whose pages he may impatiently have scanned, may be garnered by those who will, from such works as _living authors_ ( ), or from the four volumes of watts' elaborate compilation, the _bibliotheca britannica_ ( ). the titles are, indeed, lighter and more entertaining reading than the books themselves. anyone might reasonably expect to read _midnight horrors, or the bandit's daughter_, as henry tilney vows he read _the mysteries of udolpho_, with "hair on end all the time"; but the actual story, notwithstanding a wandering ball of fire, that acts as guide through the labyrinths of a gothic castle, is conducive of sleep rather than shudders. the notoriety of lewis's monk may be estimated by the procession of monks who followed in his train. there were, to select a few names at random, _the new monk_, by one r.s., esq.; _the monk of madrid_, by george moore ( ); _the bloody monk of udolpho_, by t.j. horsley curties; _manfroni, the one-handed monk_, whose history was borrowed, together with those of abellino, the terrific bravo, and rinaldo rinaldini,[ ] by "j.j." from miss flinders' library;[ ] and lastly, as a counter-picture, a monk without a scowl, _the benevolent monk_, by theodore melville ( ). the nuns, including "rosa matilda's" _nun of st. omer's_, miss sophia francis's _nun of misericordia_ ( ) and miss wilkinson's _apostate nun_, would have sufficed to people a convent. perhaps _the convent of the grey penitents_ would have been a suitable abode for them; but most of them were, to quote crabbe, "girls no nunnery can tame." lewis's venetian bravo was boldly transported to other climes. we find him in scotland in _the mysterious bravo_, or _the shrine of st. alstice, a caledonian legend_, and in austria in _the bravo of bohemia or the black forest_. no country is safe from the raids of banditti. _the caledonian banditti_ or _the banditti of the forest_, or _the bandit of florence_--all very much alike in their manners and morals--make the heroine's journey a perilous enterprise. the romances of mrs. radcliffe were rifled unscrupulously by the snappers-up of unconsidered trifles, and many of the titles are variations on hers. in emulation of _the romance of the forest_ we find george walker's _romance of the cavern_ ( ) and miss eleanor sleath's _mysteries of the forest_. novelists appreciated the magnetic charm of the word "mystery" on a title-page, and after _the mysteries of udolpho_ we find such seductive names as _mysterious warnings_ and _mysterious visits_, by mrs. parsons; _horrid mysteries_, translated from the german of the marquis von grosse, by r. will ( ); _the mystery of the black tower_ and _the mystic sepulchre_, by john palmer, a schoolmaster of bath; _the mysterious wanderer_ ( ), by miss sophia reeve; _the mysterious hand or subterranean horrors_ ( ), by a.j. randolph; and _the mysterious freebooter_ ( ), by francis lathom. castles and abbeys were so persistently haunted that mrs. rachel hunter, a severely moral writer, advertises one of her stories as _letitia: a castle without a spectre_. mystery slips, almost unawares, into the domestic story. there are, for instance, vague hints of it in charlotte smith's _old manor house_ ( ). the author of _the ghost_ and of _more ghosts_ adopts the pleasing pseudonym of felix phantom. the gloom of night broods over many of the stories, for we know: "affairs that walk, as they say spirits do, at midnight, have in them a wilder nature than the business that seeks despatch by day," and we are confronted with titles like _midnight weddings_, by mrs. meeke, one of macaulay's favourite "bad-novel writers," _the midnight bell_, awakening memories of duncan's murder, by george walker, or _the nocturnal minstrel_ ( ), by miss sleath. these "dismal treatises" abound in reminiscences of mrs. radcliffe and of "monk" lewis, and many of them hark back as far as _the castle of otranto_ for some of their situations. the novels of miss wilkinson may perhaps serve as well as those of any of her contemporaries to show that scott was not unduly harsh in his condemnation of the romances fashionable in the first decade of the nineteenth century, when "tales of terror jostle on the road."[ ] the sleeping potion, a boon to those who weave the intricate pattern of a gothic romance, is one of miss wilkinson's favourite devices, and is employed in at least three of her stories. in _the chateau de montville_ ( ) it is administered to the amiable louisa to aid augustine in his sinister designs, but she ultimately escapes, and is wedded by octavius, who has previously been borne off by a party of pirates. he "finds the past unfortunate vicissitudes of his life amply recompensed by her love." in _the convent of the grey penitents_, rosalthe happily avoids the opiate, as she overhears the plans of her unscrupulous husband, who, it seems, has "an unquenchable thirst of avarice," and desires to win a wealthier bride. she flees to a "cottage ornée" on finchley common, the home, it may be remembered, of thackeray's washerwoman; and the thrills we expect from a novel of terror are reserved for the second volume, and arise out of the adventures of the next generation. after rosalthe's death, spectres, blue flames, corpses, thunderstorms and hairbreadth escapes are set forth in generous profusion. in _the priory of st. clair_ ( ), julietta, who has been forced into a convent against her will, like so many other heroines, is drugged and conveyed as a corpse to the count de valvé's gothic castle. she comes to life only to be slain before the high altar, and revenges herself after death by haunting the count regularly every night. _the fugitive countess or convent of st. ursula_ ( ) contains three spicy ingredients--a mock burial, a concealed wife and a mouldering manuscript. the social status of miss wilkinson's characters is invariably lofty, for no self-respecting ghost ever troubles the middle classes; and her manner is as ambitious as her matter. her personages, in _lopez and aranthe_, behave and talk thus: "heavenly powers!" exclaimed aranthe, "it is dorimont, or else my eyes deceive me!" overpowered with surprise and almost breathless, she sunk on the carpet. lopez stood aghast, his countenance was of a deadly pale, a glass of wine he had in his hand he let fall to the floor, while he articulated: "what an alteration in that once beauteous countenance!" miss wilkinson's sentences stagger and lurch uncertainly, but she delights in similes and other ornaments of style: "adeline barnett was fair as a lily, tall as the pine, her fine dark eyes sparkling as diamonds, and she moved with the majestic air of a goddess, but pride and ambition appeared on the brow of this famed maiden, and destroying the effect of her charms." she is, in fact, more addicted to "gramarye" than to "grammar"--the fault with which byron, in a note to _english bards and scotch reviewers_, charged the hero and heroine of scott's _lay of the last minstrel_. her heroes do not merely love, they are "enamoured to a romantic degree." her arbours are "composed of jasmine, white rose, and other odoriferous sweets of flora." she sprinkles french phrases with an airy nonchalance worthy of the lady hysterica belamour, whose memoirs are included in barrett's _heroine_. her duchesses "figure away with _éclat_"--"a party _quarrie_ assemble at their _dejeune_." it is noteworthy that by even miss wilkinson had learnt to despise the spectres in whom she had gloried during her amazing career. in _the spectre of lanmere abbey_ ( ) the ghost is ignominiously exposed, and proved to be "a tall figure dressed in white, and a long, transparent veil flowing over her whole figure," while the heroine amelia speaks almost in the accents of catherine morland: "my governess has been affirming that there are gothic buildings without spectres or legends of a ghostly nature attached to them; now, what is a castle or abbey worth without such appendage?; do tell me candidly, are none of the turrets of your old family mansion in monmouth rendered thus terrific by some unquiet, wandering spirit?, dare the peasantry pass it after twilight, or if they are forced into that temerity, do not their teeth chatter, their hair stand erect and their poor knees knock together?" that miss wilkinson, who, for twenty years, had conscientiously striven to chill her readers' blood, should be compelled at last to turn round and gibe at her own spectres, reveals into what a piteous plight the novel of terror had fallen. when even the enchantress disavowed her belief in them, the ghosts must surely have fled shrieking and affrighted and thought never more to raise their diminished heads. from a medley of novels, similar to those of miss wilkinson, scott singled out for commendation _the fatal revenge or the family of montorio_, by "jasper denis murphy," or the rev. charles robert maturin. amid the chaos of horror into which maturin hurls his readers, scott shrewdly discerned the spirit and animation which, though often misdirected, pervade his whole work. the story is but a grotesque distortion of life, yet scott found himself "insensibly involved in the perusal and at times impressed with no common degree of respect for the powers of the author." his generous estimate of maturin's gifts and his prediction of future success is the more impressive, because _the fatal revenge_ undeniably belongs to the very class of novels he was ridiculing. maturin was an eccentric irish clergyman, who diverted himself by weaving romances and constructing tragedies. he loved to mingle with the gay and frivolous; he affected foppish attire, and prided himself on his exceptional skill in dancing. his indulgence in literary work was probably but another expression of his longing to escape from the strait and narrow way prescribed for a protestant clergyman. wild anecdotes are told of his idiosyncrasies.[ ] he preferred to compose his stories in a room full of people, and he found a noisy argument especially invigorating. to prevent himself from taking part in the conversation, he used to cover his mouth with paste composed of flour and water. sometimes, we are told, he would wear a red wafer upon his brow, as a signal that he was enduring the throes of literary composition and expected forbearance and consideration. it is said that he once missed preferment in the church because he absentmindedly interviewed his prospective vicar with his head bristling with quills like a porcupine. he is said to have insisted on his wife's using rouge though she had naturally a high colour, and to have gone fishing in a resplendent blue coat and silk stockings. such was the flamboyant personality of the man whose first novel attracted the kindly attention of scott. his oddities, which would have rejoiced the heart of dickens, are not without significance in a study of his literary work, for his love of emphasis and exaggeration are reflected in both the substance and style of his novels. maturin's writings fall into three periods. of his three early novels, _the fatal revenge or the family of montorio_ ( ), _the wild irish boy_ ( ) and _the milesian chief_ ( ), the first only is a tale of horror. _the wild irish boy_ is a domestic story, and forms a suitable companion for lady morgan's _wild irish girl_. _the milesian chief_ is a historical novel, and is now chiefly remembered on account of the likeness of the opening chapters to scott's _bride of lammermoor_ ( ). after the publication of these novels, maturin turned his attention to the stage. his first tragedy, _bertram_ ( ), received the encouragement of scott and byron. the character of bertram is modelled on that of schiller's robber-chief, karl von moor, who captivated the imagination of coleridge himself, and who is reflected in _osorio_ and perhaps in mrs. radcliffe's villains. the action of the melodrama moves swiftly, and abounds in the "moving situations" maturin loved to handle. _bertram_ was succeeded in by _manuel_, and in by _fredolfo_. meanwhile maturin had returned to novel-writing. _women, or pour et contre_, with its lifelike sketches of puritanical society and clever characterisation, appeared in , and was favourably reviewed by scott.[ ] _melmoth the wanderer_, maturin's masterpiece, was published in , and was succeeded in by his last work, _the albigenses_, a historical romance, following scott's design rather than that of mrs. radcliffe. in reviewing _the family of montorio_, scott prudently attempted only a brief survey of the plot, and forsook maturin's sequence of events. in his sketch the outline of the story is comparatively clear. in the novel itself we wander, bewildered, baffled and distracted through labyrinthine mazes. no ariadne awaits on the threshold with the magic ball of twine to guide us through the complicated windings. we stumble along blind alleys desperately retracing our weary steps, and, after stumbling alone and unaided to the very end, reach the darkly concealed clue when it has ceased to be either of use or of interest to us. many an adventurer must have lain down, dispirited and exhausted, without ever reaching his distant and elusive goal. disentangled and simplified almost beyond recognition, the story runs thus: in , count orazio and his younger brother are the sole representatives of the family of montorio. orazio has married erminia di vivaldi, whom he loves devotedly. she does not return his love. the younger brother determines to take advantage of this circumstance to gain the title and estates for himself, and succeeds in arousing orazio's jealousy against a young officer, verdoni, to whom erminia had formerly been deeply attached. in a violent passion orazio slays verdoni before the eyes of erminia, who falls dead at his feet. this part of his design accomplished, the younger brother plots to murder orazio himself, who, however, discovers the innocence of his wife and the hideous perfidy of his brother. temporarily bereft of reason, orazio sojourns alone on a desert island. when his senses are restored, he resolves to devote the rest of his life to vengeance. for fifteen years he buries himself in occult studies, and when his diabolical schemes have matured, returns, disguised as the monk schemoli, to the scene of the murder. he becomes confessor to his brother, who has assumed the title and estates. it is his intention to compel the count's sons, annibal and ippolito, to murder their father. death at the hands of parricides seems to him the only appropriate catastrophe for the count's career of infamy. to reconcile the two victims--annibal and ippolito--to their task, he "relies mainly on the doctrine of fatalism." the most complex and ingenious "machinery" is used to work upon their superstitious feelings. no device is too tortuous if it aid his purpose. even the pressure of the inquisition is brought to bear on one of the brothers. each, after protracted agony, submits to his destiny, and the swords of the two brothers meet in the count's body. when the murder is safely accomplished, it is proved that annibal and ippolito are the sons, not of the count, but of schemoli and erminia. by the irony of fate the knowledge comes too late for schemoli to save his children from the crime. at the close of a lengthy trial the two brothers are released, but deprived of their lands. ultimately they die fighting in the siege of barcelona. schemoli perishes, in the approved gothic manner, by self-administered poison. intertwined with the main theme of schemoli's fatal revenge are the love-stories of the two brothers. rosolia, a nun, who seems to have been acquainted with shakespeare's comedies, disguises herself as a page, and devotes her life to the service of ippolito and to the composition of sentimental verses. she only reveals her sex just before her death, though we have guessed it from her first appearance. ildefonsa, who is beloved of annibal, has been forced into a convent against her will--a fate almost inevitable in the realm of gothic romance. when letters are received authorising her release from the vows, a pitiless mother-superior reports that she is dead. she is immured, but an earthquake sets her free, for maturin will move heaven and earth to effect his purposes. the ill-fated maiden dies shortly afterwards. ere the close it proves that ildefonsa was the daughter of erminia, who had been secretly married to verdoni before her union with orazio. such is the skeleton of maturin's story, when its scattered members have been patiently collected and fitted together. the impressive figure of schemoli, with his unholy power of fascinating his reluctant accomplices, lends to the book the only sort of unity it possesses. but even he fails to arouse a sense of fear strong enough to fix our attention to so wandering a story. like the doomed brothers, we drift dejectedly through inexplicable terrors, and we re-echo with fervour annibal's dolorous cry: "why should i be shut up in this house of horrors to deal with spirits and damned things and the secrets of the infernal world while there are so many paths open to pleasure, the varieties of human intercourse and the enjoyment of life?" maturin, a disciple of mrs. radcliffe, feels it his duty to explain away the apparently miraculous incidents in his story, but he lacks the persevering ingenuity that partly compensates for her frauds. on a single page he calmly discloses secrets which have harassed us for four volumes, and his long-deferred explanations are paltry and incredible. the bleeding figures that wrought so painfully on the sensitive nerves of ippolito are merely waxen images that spout blood automatically. disappearances and reappearances, which seemed supernatural, are simply effected by private exits and entrances. other startling phenomena are accounted for in the same trivial fashion. maturin seems to have crowded into his story nearly every character and incident that had been employed in earlier gothic romances. schemoli is a remarkably faithful portrait of mrs. radcliffe's schedoni. from beneath his cowl flash the piercing eyes, whose very glance will daunt the bravest heart; his sallow visage is furrowed with the traces of bygone passions; he shuns society, and is dreaded by his associates. the oppressed maiden, driven into a nunnery, drugged and immured, the ambitious countess, the devoted, loquacious servant, the inhuman abbess--all play their accustomed parts. the background shifts from the robber's den to the ruined chapel, from the castle vault to the dungeon of the inquisition, each scene being admirably suited to the situation contrived, or the emotion displayed. maturin had accurately inspected the passages and trap-doors of otranto. no item, not a rusty lock, not a creaking hinge, had escaped his vigilant eye. he knew intimately every nook and cranny of mrs. radcliffe's gothic abbeys. he had viewed with trepidation their blood-stained floors, their skeletons and corpses, and had carefully calculated the psychological effect of these properties. he had gazed with starting eye on the lurid horrors of "monk" lewis, and had carried away impressions so distinct that he, perhaps unwittingly, transferred them to the pages of his own story. but maturin's reading was not strictly confined to the school of terror. he had studied shakespeare's tragedies, and these may have suggested to him the idea of enhancing the interest of his story by dissecting human motive and describing passionate feeling. in depicting the remorse of the count and his wife zenobia, who had committed a murder to gratify their ambition, and who are tormented by ugly dreams, maturin inevitably draws from _macbeth_. zenobia, the stronger character, reviles her husband for indulging in sickly fancies and strives to embolden him: "like a child you run from a mask you have yourself painted." he replies in a free paraphrase of _hamlet_: "it is this cursed domestic sensibility of guilt that makes cowards of us all." maturin is distinguished from the incompetent horde of romance-writers, whom scott condemned, by the powerful eloquence of his style and by his ability to analyse emotion, to write as if he himself were swayed by the feeling he describes. his insane extravagances have at least the virtue that they come flaming hot from an excited imagination. the passage quoted by scott--orazio's attempt to depict his state of mind after he had heard of his brother's perfidy--may serve to illustrate the force and vigour of his language: "oh! that midnight darkness of the soul in which it seeks for something whose loss has carried away every sense but one of utter and desolate deprivation; in which it traverses leagues in motion and worlds in thought without consciousness of relief, yet with a dread of pausing. i had nothing to seek, nothing to recover; the whole world could not restore me an atom, could not show me again a glimpse of what i had been or lost, yet i rushed on as if the next step would reach shelter and peace." _melmoth the wanderer_ has found many admirers. it fascinated rossetti,[ ] thackeray[ ] and miss mitford.[ ] it was praised by balzac, who wrote a satirical sequel--_melmoth reconcilié à l'eglise_ ( ), and by baudelaire, and exercised a considerable influence on french literature.[ ] it consists of a series of tales, strung together in a complicated fashion. in each tale the wanderer, who has bartered his soul in return for prolonged life, may, if he can, persuade someone to take the bargain off his hands.[ ] he visits those who are plunged in despair. his approach is heralded by strange music, and his eyes have a preternatural lustre that terrifies his victims. no one will agree to his "incommunicable condition." the bird's-eye view of an edinburgh reviewer who described _melmoth_ as "the sacrifice of genius in the temple of false taste," will give some idea of the bewildering variety of its contents: "his hero is a modern faustus, who has bartered his soul with the powers of darkness for protracted life and unlimited worldly enjoyment; his heroine, a species of insular goddess, a virgin calypso of the indian ocean, who, amid flowers and foliage, lives upon figs and tamarinds, associates with peacocks and monkeys, is worshipped by the occasional visitants of her island, finds her way into spain where she is married to the aforesaid hero by the hand of a dead hermit, the ghost of a murdered domestic being the witness of her nuptials; and finally dies in a dungeon of the inquisition at madrid. to complete this phantasmagoric exhibition, we are presented with sybils and misers, parricides, maniacs in abundance, monks with scourges pursuing a naked youth streaming with blood; subterranean jews surrounded by the skeletons of their wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning, irish hags, spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, donna claras and donna isidoras--all exposed to each other in violent and glaring contrast and all their adventures narrated with the same undeviating display of turgid, vehement, and painfully elaborated language."[ ] this breathless sentence gives some conception of the delirious imagery of maturin's romance, but the book is worthy of a more respectful, unhurried survey. _melmoth_ shows a distinct advance on _montorio_ in constructive power. each separate story is perfectly clear and easy to follow, in spite of the elaborate interlacing. the romance opens with the death of a miser in a desolate irish farmstead, with harpies clustering at his bedside. his nephew and heir, john melmoth, is adjured to destroy a certain manuscript and a portrait of an ancestor with eyes "such as one feels they wish they had never seen and feels they can never forget." alone at midnight, john melmoth reads the manuscript, which is reputed to have been written by stanton, an english traveller in spain, about . the document relates a startling story of a mysterious englishman who appears at a spanish wedding with disastrous consequences, and reappears before stanton in a madhouse offering release on dreadful conditions. after reading it, john melmoth decides to burn the family portrait. he is visited by a sinister form, who proves that he is no figment of the imagination by leaving black and blue marks on his relative's wrist. the next night a ship is wrecked in a storm. the wanderer appears, and mocks the victims with fiendish mirth. the sole survivor, don alonzo monçada, unfolds his story to john melmoth. the son of a great duke, he has been forced to become a monk to save his mother's honour. he dwells with the excruciating detail in which maturin is inclined to revel, on the horrors of spanish monasteries. escaping through a subterranean passage, he is guided by a parricide, who incidentally tells him a loathsome story of two immured lovers. his plan of flight is foiled, and he is borne off to the dungeons of the inquisition. here the wanderer, who has a miraculous power to enter where he will, offers, on the ineffable condition, to procure his freedom. monçada repudiates the temptation, effects his own escape during a great fire, and catches sight of the stranger on the summit of a burning building. he takes refuge with a jew, but, to evade the vigilance of the inquisitors, disappears suddenly down an underground passage, where he finds adonijah, another jew, who obligingly employs him as an amanuensis, and sets him to copy a manuscript. this gives maturin the opportunity, for which he has been waiting, to introduce his "tale of the indian." the story of immalee, who is visited on her desert island by the wanderer in the guise of a lover as well as a tempter, forms the most memorable part of _melmoth_. in the other stories the stranger has been a taciturn creature, relying on the lustre of his eyes rather than on his powers of eloquence to win over his victims. to immalee he pours forth floods of rhetoric on the sins and follies of mankind. had she not been one of rousseau's children of nature, and so innocent alike of a knowledge of shakespeare and of the fault of impatience, she would surely have exclaimed: "if thou hast news, i prithee deliver them like a man of this world." when immalee is transported to spain and reassumes her baptismal name of isidora, melmoth follows her and their conversations are continued at dead of night through the lattice. here they discourse on the real nature of love. at length the gloomy lover persuades isidora to marry him. their midnight nuptials take place against a weird background. by a narrow, precipitous path they approach the ruined chapel, and are united by a hand "as cold as that of death." meanwhile, don francisco, isidora's father, on his way home, spends the night at an inn, where a stranger insists on telling him "the tale of guzman." in this tale the tempter visits a father whose family is starving, but who resists the lure of wealth. maturin portrays with extraordinary power the deterioration in the character of an old man walberg, through the effects of poverty. at the close of the narration don francisco falls into a deep slumber, but is sternly awakened by a stranger with an awful eye, who insists on becoming his fellow traveller, and on telling, in defiance of protests, yet another story. the prologue to the lover's tale is almost chaucerian in its humour: "it was with the utmost effort of his mixed politeness and fear that he prepared himself to listen to the tale, which the stranger had frequently amid their miscellaneous conversation, alluded to, and showed an evident anxiety to relate. these allusions were attended with unpleasant reminiscences to the hearer--but he saw that it was to be, and armed himself as best he might with courage to hear. 'i would not intrude on you, senhor,' says the stranger, 'with a narrative in which you can feel but little interest, were i not conscious that its narration may operate as a warning, the most awful, salutary and efficacious to yourself.'" at this veiled hint don francisco discharges a volley of oaths, but he is silenced completely by the smile of the stranger--"that spoke bitterer and darker things than the fiercest frown that ever wrinkled the features of man." after this he cannot choose but hear, and the stranger seizes his opportunity to begin an uncommonly dull story, connected with a shropshire family and intermingled with historical events. in this tale the wanderer appears to a girl whose lover has lost his reason, and offers to restore him if she will accept his conditions. once more the tempter is foiled. the story meanders so sluggishly that our sympathies are with don francisco, and we cannot help wishing that he had adopted more drastic measures to quieten the insistent stranger. at the conclusion francisco mutters indignantly: "it is inconceivable to me how this person forces himself on my company, harasses me with tales that have no more application to me than the legend of the cid, and may be as apocryphal as the ballad of roncesvalles--" but yet the stranger has not finished. he proceeds to tell him a tale in which he will feel a peculiar interest, that of isidora, his own daughter, and finally urges him to hasten to her rescue. don francisco wanders by easy stages to madrid, and, on his arrival, marries isidora against her will to montilla. melmoth, according to promise, appears at the wedding. the bridegroom is slain. isidora, with melmoth's child, ends her days in the dungeons of the inquisition, murmuring: "paradise! will he be there?" so far as one may judge from the close of the story, it seems not. monçada and john melmoth, whom we left, at the beginning of the romance, in ireland, are revisited by the wanderer, whose time on earth has at last run out. he confesses his failure: "i have traversed the world in the search, and no one to gain that world, would lose his own soul." his words remind us of the text of the sermon which suggested to maturin the idea of the romance. like the companions of dr. faustus, melmoth and monçada hear terrible sounds from the room of the wanderer in the last throes of agony. the next morning the room is empty; but, following a track to the sea-cliffs, they see, on a crag beneath, the kerchief the wanderer had worn about his neck. "melmoth and monçada exchanged looks of silent and unutterable horror, and returned slowly home." this extraordinary romance, like _montorio_, clearly owes much to the novels of mrs. radcliffe, and "monk" lewis. immalee, as her name implies, is but a glorified emily with a loxia on her shoulder instead of a lute in her hand. the monastic horrors are obviously a heritage from _the monk_. the rosicrucian legend, as handled in _st. leon_, may have offered hints to maturin, whose treatment is, however, far more imaginative and impressive than that of godwin. the resemblance to the legend of the wandering jew need not be laboured. marlowe's _dr. faustus_ and the first part of goethe's _faust_ left their impression on the story. the closing scenes inevitably remind us of the last act of marlowe's tragedy. but, when all these debts are acknowledged they do but serve to enhance the success of maturin, who out of these varied strands could weave so original a romance. _melmoth_ is not an ingenious patchwork of previous stories. it is the outpouring of a morbid imagination that has long brooded on the fearful and the terrific. imbued with the grandeur and solemnity of his theme, maturin endeavours to write in dignified, stately language. there are frequent lapses into bombast, but occasionally his rhetoric is splendidly effective: "it was now the latter end of autumn; heavy clouds had all day been passing laggingly and gloomily along the atmosphere, as the hours pass over the human mind and life. not a drop of rain fell; the clouds went portentously off, like ships of war reconnoitring a strong fort, to return with added strength and fury." he takes pleasure in coining unusual, striking phrases, such as: "all colours disappear in the night, and despair has no diary," or "minutes are hours in the _noctuary_ of terror," or "the secret of silence is the only secret. words are a blasphemy against that taciturn and invisible god whose presence enshrouds us in our last extremity." maturin chooses his similes with discrimination, to heighten the effect he aims at producing: "the locks were so bad and the keys so rusty that it was like the cry of the dead in the house when the keys were turned," or: "with all my care, however, the lamp declined, quivered, flashed a pale light, like the smile of despair, on me, and was extinguished ... i had watched it like the last beatings of an expiring heart, like the shiverings of a spirit about to depart for eternity." there are no quiet scenes or motionless figures in _melmoth_. everything is intensified, exaggerated, distorted. the very clouds fly rapidly across the sky, and the moon bursts forth with the "sudden and appalling effulgence of lightning." a shower of rain is perhaps "the most violent that was ever precipitated on the earth." when melmoth stamps his foot "the reverberation of his steps on the hollow and loosened stones almost contended with the thunder." maturin's use of words like "callosity," "induration," "defecated," "evanition," and his fondness for italics are other indications of his desire to force an impression by fair means or foul. the gift of psychological insight that distinguishes _montorio_ reappears in a more highly developed form in _melmoth the wanderer_. "emotions," maturin declares, "are my events," and he excels in depicting mental as well as physical torture. the monotony of a "timeless day" is suggested with dreary reality in the scene where monçada and his guide await the approach of night to effect their escape from the monastery. the gradual surrender of resolution before slight, reiterated assaults is cunningly described in the analysis of isidora's state of mind, when a hateful marriage is forced upon her. occasionally maturin astonishes us by the subtlety of his thought: "while people think it worth while to torment us we are never without some dignity, though painful and imaginary." it is his faculty for describing intense, passionate feeling, his power of painting wild pictures of horror, his gifts for conveying his thoughts in rolling, rhythmical periods of eloquence, that make _melmoth_ a memory-haunting book. with all his faults maturin was the greatest as well as the last of the goths. chapter v - the oriental tale of terror. beckford. beckford's _history of the caliph vathek_, which was written in french, was translated by the rev. samuel henley, who had the temerity to publish the english version--described as a translation from the arabic--in , before the original had appeared. the french version was published in lausanne and in paris in . an interest in oriental literature had been awakened early in the eighteenth century by galland's epoch-making versions of _the arabian nights_ ( - ), _the turkish tales_ ( ) and _the persian tales_ ( ), which were all translated into english during the reign of queen anne. many of the pseudo-translations of french authors, such as gueulette, who compiled _the chinese tales_, _mogul tales_, _tartarian tales_, and _peruvian tales_, and jean-paul bignon, who presented _the adventures of abdallah_, were quickly turned into english; and the oriental story became so fashionable a form that didactic writers eagerly seized upon it as a disguise for moral or philosophical reflection. the eastern background soon lost its glittering splendour and colour, and became a faded, tarnished tapestry, across which shadowy figures with outlandish names and english manners and morals flit to and fro. addison's _vision of mirza_ ( ), johnson's _rasselas_ ( ), and various essays in _the rambler_, dr. hawkesworth's _almoran and hamet_ ( ), langhorne's _solyman and almena_ ( ), ridley's _tales of the genii_ ( ), and mrs. sheridan's _history of nourjahad_ ( ) were among the best and most popular of the anglo-oriental stories that strove to inculcate moral truths. in their oppressive air of gravity, beckford, with his implacable hatred of bores, could hardly have breathed. one of the most amazing facts about his wild fantasy is that it was the creation of an english brain. the idea of _vathek_ was probably suggested to beckford by the witty oriental tales of count antony hamilton and of voltaire. the character of the caliph, who desired to know everything, even the sciences which did not exist, is sketched in the spirit of the french satirists, who turned oriental extravagance into delightful mockery. awed into reverence ere the close by the sombre grandeur of his own conception of the halls of eblis, beckford cast off the flippant mood in which he had set out and rose to an exalted solemnity. beckford's mind was so richly stored with the jewels of eastern legend that it was inevitable he should shower from his treasury things new and old, but everything which passes through the alembic of his imagination is transmuted almost beyond recognition. the episode of the sinners with the flaming hearts has been traced[ ] to a scene in the _mogul tales_, where aboul assam saw three men standing mute in postures of sorrow before a book on which were inscribed the words: "let no man touch this divine treatise who is not perfectly pure." when aboul assam enquired of their fate they unbuttoned their waistcoats, and through their skin, which appeared like crystal, he saw their hearts encompassed with fire. in beckford's story this grotesque scene assumes an awful and moving dignity. from _the adventure of abdallah, son of hanif_, beckford derived the conception of a visit to the regions of eblis, whom, however, by a wave of his wand, he transforms from a revolting ogre to a stately prince.[ ] to read _vathek_ is like falling asleep in a huge oriental palace after wandering alone through great, echoing halls resplendent with a gorgeous arras, on which are displayed the adventures of the caliph who built the palaces of the five senses. in our dream the caliph and his courtiers come to life, and we awake dazzled with the memory of a myriad wonders. there throng into our mind a crowd of unearthly forms--aged astrologers, hideous giaours, gibbering negresses, graceful boys and maidens, restless, pacing figures with their hands on their hearts, and a formidable prince--whose adventures are woven into a fantastic but distinct and definite pattern around the three central personages, the caliph vathek, his exquisitely wicked mother carathis, and the bewitching nouronihar. the fatal palace of eblis, with its lofty columns and gloomy towers of an architecture unknown in the annals of the earth, looms darkly in our imagination. beckford alludes, with satisfaction, to _vathek_ as a "story so horrid that i tremble while relating it, and have not a nerve in my frame but vibrates like an aspen,"[ ] and in the _episodes_ leads us with an unhallowed pleasure into other abodes of horror--a temple adorned with pyramids of skulls festooned with human hair, a cave inhabited by reptiles with human faces, and an apartment whose walls were hung with carpets of a thousand kinds and a thousand hues, which moved slowly to and fro as if stirred by human creatures stifling beneath their weight. but beckford passes swiftly from one mood to another, and was only momentarily fascinated by terror. so infinite is the variety of _vathek_ in scenery and in temper that it seems like its wealthy, eccentric, author secluded in fonthill abbey, to dwell apart in defiant, splendid isolation. it is impossible to understand or appreciate _vathek_ apart from beckford's life and character, which contain elements almost as grotesque and fantastic as those of his romance. he was no visionary dreamer, content to build his pleasure-domes in air. he revelled in the golden glories of good haroun-alraschid,[ ] but he craved too for solid treasures he could touch and handle, for precious jewels, for rare, beautiful volumes, for curious, costly furniture. the scenes of splendour portrayed in _vathek_ were based on tangible reality.[ ] beckford's schemes in later life--his purchase of gibbon's entire library, his twice-built tower on lansdown hill, were as grandiose and ambitious as those of an eastern caliph. the whimsical, puckish humour, which helped to counteract the strain of gloomy bitterness in his nature, was early revealed in his _biographical memoirs of extraordinary painters_ and in his burlesques of the sentimental novels of the day, which were accepted by the compiler of _living authors_ ( ) as a serious contribution to fiction by one miss jacquetta agneta mariana jenks. moore,[ ] in his _journal_, october , remarks: "the two mock novels, _azemia_ and _the elegant enthusiast_, were written to ridicule the novels written by his sister, mrs. harvey (i think), who read these parodies on herself quite innocently." even in the gloomy regions of eblis, beckford will not wholly repress his sense of the ridiculous. carathis, unawed by the effulgence of his infernal majesty, behaves like a buffoon, shouting at the dives and actually attempting to thrust a soliman from his throne, before she is finally whirled away with her heart aflame. the calm politeness with which the dastardly barkiaroukh consents to a blood-curdling murder, the sardonic dialogue between vathek on the edge of the precipice and the giaour concealed in the abyss, the buoyantly high-spirited description of the plump indian kicked and pursued like "an invulnerable football," the oppressive horror of the subterranean recesses, the mischievous pleasantry of the gulchenrouz idyll reveal different facets of beckford's ever-varying temper. in _vathek_, beckford found expression not only for his devotion to the eastern outlook on life, but also for his own strangely coloured, vehement personality. the interpreter walks ever at our elbow whispering into our ear his human commentary on vathek's astounding adventures. beckford's pictures are remarkable for definite precision of outline. there are no vague hints and suggestions, no lurking shadows concealing untold horrors. the quaint dwarfs perched on vathek's shoulders, the children chasing blue butterflies, nouronihar and her maidens on tiptoe, with their hair floating in the breeze, stand out in clear relief, as if painted on a fresco. the imagery is so lucid that we are able to follow with effortless pleasure the intricate windings of a plot which at beckford's whim twists and turns through scenes of wonderful variety. amid his wild, erratic excursions he never loses sight of the end in view; the story, with all its vagaries, is perfectly coherent. this we should expect from one who "loved to bark a tough understanding."[ ] it is the intellectual strength and exuberant vitality behind beckford's oriental scenes that lend them distinction and power. _the history of the caliph vathek_ did not set a fashion. it is true that the orient sometimes formed the setting of nineteenth century novels, as in disraeli's _alvoy_ ( ), where for a brief moment, when the hero's torch is extinguished by bats on his entry into subterranean portals, we find ourselves in the abode of wonder and terror; but not till meredith's _shaving of shagpal_ ( ) do we meet again beckford's kinship with the east, and his gift for fantastic burlesque. chapter vi - godwin and the rosicrucian novel. when miss austen was asked to write a historical romance "illustrative of the house of coburg," she airily dismissed the suggestion, pleading mirthfully: "i could not sit down seriously to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life, and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people i am sure i should be hung before i had finished the first chapter."[ ] if godwin had been confronted with the same offer, he would have settled himself promptly to plot out a scheme, and within a few months a historical romance on the house of coburg, accompanied perchance by a preface setting forth the evils of monarchy, would have been in the hands of the publisher. unlike miss austen, godwin had neither a sense of humour nor a fastidious artistic conscience to save him from undertaking incongruous tasks. he seems never even to have suspected the humour of life, and would have perceived nothing ludicrous in the spectacle of the author of _political justice_ embarking on such a piece of work. those disquieting flashes of self-revelation that more imaginative men catch in the mirror of their own minds and that awaken sometimes laughter and sometimes tears, never disturbed godwin's serenity. he brooded earnestly over his speculations, quietly ignoring inconvenient facts and never shrinking from absurd conclusions. in theory he aimed at disorganising the whole of human society, yet in actual life he was content to live unobtrusively, publishing harmless books for children; and though he abhorred the principle of aristocracy, he did not scruple to accept a sinecure from government through lord grey. notwithstanding his stolid inconsistency and his deficiency in humour, godwin is a figure whom it is impossible to ignore or to despise. he was not a frothy orator who made his appeal to the masses, but the leader of the trained thinkers of the revolutionary party, a political rebel who, instead of fulminating wildly and impotently after the manner of his kind, expressed his theories in clear, reasonable and logical form. it is easy, but unprofitable, to sneer at the futility of some of godwin's conclusions or to complain of the aridity of his style. his _political justice_ remains, nevertheless, a lucidly written, well-ordered piece of intellectual reasoning. shelley spoke of godwin's _mandeville_ in the same breath with plato's _symposium_[ ] and the ideas expressed in _political justice_ inspired him to write not merely _queen mab_ but the _revolt of islam_ and _prometheus unbound_. godwin's plea for the freedom of the individual and his belief in the perfectibility of man through reason had a far-reaching effect that cannot be readily estimated, but, as his theories only concern us here in so far as they affect two of his novels, it is unnecessary to pursue the trail of his influence further. that the readers of fiction in the last decade of the eighteenth century eagerly desired the mysterious and the terrible, mrs. radcliffe's widespread popularity proved unmistakably. to satisfy this craving, godwin, who was ever on the alert to discover a subject which promised swift and adequate financial return, turned to novel-writing, and supplied a tale of mystery, _the adventures of caleb williams_ ( ), and a supernatural, historical romance, _st. leon_ ( ). as he was a political philosopher by nature and a novelist only by profession, he artfully inveigled into his romances the theories he wished to promote. the second title of _caleb williams_ is significant. _things as they are_ to godwin's mind was synonymous with "things as they ought not to be." he frankly asserts: "_caleb williams_ was the offspring of that temper of mind in which the composition of my _political justice_ left me"[ ]--a guileless confession that may well have deterred many readers who recoil shuddering from political treatises decked out in the guise of fiction. but alarm is needless; for, although _caleb williams_ attempts to reveal the oppressions that a poor man may endure under existing conditions, and the perversion of the character of an aristocrat through the "poison of chivalry," the story may be enjoyed for its own sake. we can read it, if we so desire, purely for the excitement of the plot, and quietly ignore the underlying theories, just as it is possible to enjoy spenser's sensuous imagery without troubling about his allegorical meaning. the secret of godwin's power seems to be that he himself was so completely fascinated by the intricate structure of his story that he succeeds in absorbing the attention of his readers. he bestowed infinite pains on the composition of _caleb williams_, and conceived the lofty hope that it "would constitute an epoch in the mind of every reader."[ ] a friend to whom he submitted two-thirds of his manuscript advised him to throw it into the fire and so safeguard his reputation. the result of this criticism on a character less determined or less phlegmatic than godwin's would have been a violent reaction from hope to despair. but godwin, who seems to have been independent of external stimulus, was not easily startled from his projects, and plodded steadily forward until his story was complete. he would have scorned not to execute what his mind had conceived. godwin's businesslike method of planning the story backwards has been adopted by conan doyle and other writers of the detective story. the deliberate, careful analysis of his mode of procedure, so characteristic of his mind and temper, is full of interest: "i bent myself to the conception of a series of adventures of flight and pursuit: the fugitive in perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the worst calamities and the pursuer by his ingenuity and resources keeping the victim in a state of the most fearful alarm. this was the project of my third volume. i was next called upon to conceive a dramatic and impressive situation adequate to account for the impulse that the pursuer should feel incessantly to alarm and harass his victim, with an inextinguishable resolution never to allow him the least interval of peace and security. this i apprehended could best be effected by a secret murder, to the investigation of which the innocent victim should be impelled by an unconquerable spirit of curiosity. the murderer would thus have a sufficient motive to persecute the unhappy discoverer that he might deprive him of peace, character and credit, and have him for ever in his power. this constituted the outline of my second volume... to account for the fearful events of the third it was necessary that the pursuer should be invested with every advantage of fortune, with a resolution that nothing could defeat or baffle and with extraordinary resources of intellect. nor could my purpose of giving an overpowering interest to my tale be answered without his appearing to have been originally endowed with a mighty store of amiable dispositions and virtues, so that his being driven to the first act of murder should be judged worthy of the deepest regret, and should be seen in some measure to have arisen out of his virtues themselves. it was necessary to make him ... the tenant of an atmosphere of romance, so that every reader should feel prompted almost to worship him for his high qualities. here were ample materials for a first volume."[ ] godwin hoped that an "entire unity of plot" would be the infallible result of this ingenious method of constructing his story, and only wrote in a high state of excitement when the "afflatus" was upon him. so far as we may judge from his description, he seems to have realised his story first as a complex psychological situation, not as a series of disconnected pictures. he thought in abstractions not in visual images, and he had next to make his abstractions concrete by inventing figures whose actions should be the result of the mental and moral conflict he had conceived. godwin's attitude to his art forms a striking contrast to that of mrs. radcliffe. she has her set of marionettes, appropriately adorned, ready to move hither and thither across her picturesque background as soon as she has deftly manipulated the machinery which is to set them in motion. godwin, on the other hand, first constructs his machinery, and afterwards, with laborious effort, carves the figures who are to be attached to the wires. he cares little for costume or setting, but much for the complicated mechanism that controls the destiny of his characters. the effect of this difference in method is that we soon forget the details of mrs. radcliffe's plots, but remember isolated pictures. after reading _caleb williams_ we recollect the outline of the story in so far as it relates to the psychology of falkland and his secretary; but of the actual scenes and people only vague images drift through our memory. godwin's point of view was not that of an artist but of a scientist, who, after patiently investigating and analysing mental and emotional phenomena, chose to embody his results in the form of a novel. he spared no pains to make his narrative arresting and convincing. the story is told by caleb williams himself, who, in describing his adventures, revives the passions and emotions that had stirred him in the past. by this device godwin trusted to lend energy and vitality to his story. caleb williams, a raw country youth, becomes secretary to falkland, a benevolent country gentleman, who has come to settle in england after spending some years in italy. collins, the steward, tells williams his patron's history. falkland has always been renowned for the nobility of his character. in italy, where he inspired the love and devotion of an italian lady, he avoided, by "magnanimity," a duel with her lover. on falkland's return to england, tyrrel, a brutal squire who was jealous of his popularity, conceived a violent hatred against him. when miss melville, tyrrel's ill-used ward, fell in love with falkland, who had rescued her from a fire, her guardian sought to marry her to a boorish, brutal farm-labourer. though falkland's timely intervention saved her in this crisis, the girl eventually died as the result of tyrrel's cruelty. as she was the victim of tyranny, falkland felt it his duty at a public assembly to denounce tyrrel as her murderer. the squire retaliated by making a personal assault on his antagonist. as falkland "had perceived the nullity of all expostulation with mr. tyrrel," and as duelling according to the godwinian principles was "the vilest of all egotism," he was deprived of the natural satisfaction of meeting his assailant in physical or even mental combat. yet "he was too deeply pervaded with the idle and groundless romances of chivalry ever to forget the situation"--as godwin seems to think a "man of reason" might have done in these circumstances. tyrrel was stabbed in the dark, and falkland, on whom suspicion naturally fell, was tried, but eventually acquitted without a stain on his character. two men--a father and son called hawkins--whom falkland had befriended against the overbearing tyrrel, were condemned and executed for the crime. this is the state of affairs when caleb williams enters falkland's service and takes up the thread of the narrative. on hearing the story of the murder, williams, who has been perplexed by the gloomy moods of his master, allows his suspicions to rest on falkland, and to gratify his overmastering passion of curiosity determines to spy incessantly until he has solved the problem. one day, after having heard a groan of anguish, williams peers through the half-open door of a closet, and catches sight of falkland in the act of opening the lid of a chest. this incident fans his smouldering curiosity into flame, and he is soon after detected by his master in an attempt to break open the chest in the "bluebeard's chamber." not without cause, falkland is furiously angry, but for some inexplicable reason confesses to the murder, at the same time expressing his passionate determination at all costs to preserve his reputation. he is tortured, not by remorse for his crime, but by the fear of being found out, and seeks to terrorise williams into silence by declaring: "to gratify a foolishly inquisitive humour you have sold yourself. you shall continue in my service, but can never share my affection. if ever an unguarded word escape from your lips, if ever you excite my jealousy or suspicion, expect to pay for it by your death or worse." from this moment williams is helpless. turn where he will, the toils of falkland encompass him. forester, falkland's half-brother, tries to persuade williams to enter his service. williams endeavours to flee from his master, who prevents his escape by accusing him, in the presence of forester, of stealing some jewellery and bank-notes which have disappeared in the confusion arising from an alarm of fire. the plunder has been placed in williams' boxes, and the evidence against him is overwhelming. he is imprisoned, and the sordid horror of his life in the cells gives godwin an opportunity of showing "how man becomes the destroyer of man." he escapes, and is sheltered by a gang of thieves, whose leader, raymond, a godwinian theorist, listens with eager sympathy to his tale, which he regards as "only one fresh instance of the tyranny and perfidiousness exercised by the powerful members of the community against those who are less privileged than themselves." when a reward is offered for the capture of williams, the thieves are persuaded that they must not deliver the lamb to the wolf. after an old hag, whose animosity he has aroused, has made a bloodthirsty attack on him with a hatchet, williams feels obliged to leave their habitation "abruptly without leave-taking." he then assumes beggar's attire and an irish brogue, but is soon compelled to seek a fresh disguise. in wales as in london, he comes across someone who has known falkland, and is reviled for his treachery to so noble a master, and cast forth with ignominy. he discovers that falkland has hired an unscrupulous villain, gines, to follow him from place to place, blackening his reputation. finally desperation drives him to accuse falkland openly, though, after doing so, he praises the murderer, and loathes himself for his betrayal: "mr. falkland is of a noble nature ... a man worthy of affection and kindness ... i am myself the basest and most odious of mankind." the inexorable persecutor in return cries at last: "williams, you have conquered! i see too late the greatness and elevation of your mind. i confess that it is to my fault and not yours that i owe my ruin ... i am the most execrable of all villains... as reputation was the blood that warmed my heart, so i feel that death and infamy must seize me together." three days later falkland dies, but instead of experiencing relief at the death of his persecutor, williams becomes the victim of remorse, regarding himself as the murderer of a noble spirit, who had been inevitably ruined by the corruption of human society: "thou imbibedst the poison of chivalry with thy earliest youth, and the base and low-minded envy that met thee on thy return to thy native seats, operated with this poison to hurry thee into madness." at the conclusion of the story, godwin has not succeeded in making his moral very clear. the "wicked aristocrat" who figures in the preface as "carrying into private life the execrable principles of kings and ministers" emerges at last almost as a saintly figure, who through a false notion of honour has unfortunately become the victim of a brutal squire. but, if the story does not "rouse men to a sense of the evils of slavery," or "constitute an epoch in the mind of every reader," it has compensating merits and may be read with unfailing interest either as a study of morbid psychology or as a spirited detective story. godwin's originality in his dissection of human motive has hardly yet been sufficiently emphasised, perhaps because he is so scrupulous in acknowledging literary debts.[ ] from mrs. radcliffe, whose _romance of the forest_ was published the year before _caleb williams_, he borrowed the mysterious chest, the nature of whose contents is hinted at but never actually disclosed; but godwin was no wizard, and had neither the gift nor the inclination to conjure with gothic properties. in leaving imperfectly explained the incident of the discovery of the heart in _the monastery_, scott shielded himself behind godwin's iron chest, which gave its name to colman's drama.[ ] godwin's peculiar interest was in criminal psychology, and he concentrates on the dramatic conflict between the murderer and the detective. an unusual turn is given to the story by the fact that the criminal is the pursuer instead of the pursued. godwin intended later in life to write a romance based on the story of eugene aram, the philosophical murderer; and his careful notes on the scheme are said to have been utilised by his friend, bulwer lytton, in his novel of that name.[ ] _caleb williams_ helped to popularise the criminal in fiction, and _paul clifford_, the story of the chivalrous highwayman, is one of its literary descendants. godwin was a pioneer breaking new ground in fiction; and, as he was a man of talent rather than of genius, it is idle to expect perfection of workmanship. the story is full of improbabilities, but they are described in so matter-of-fact a style that we "soberly acquiesce." after an hour of godwin's grave society an effervescent sense of humour subsides. a mind open to suggestion is soon infected by his imperturbable seriousness, which effectually stills "obstinate questionings." even the brigands who live with their philanthropic leader are accepted without demur. after all, raymond is only robin hood turned political philosopher. the ingenious resources of _caleb williams_ when he strives to elude his pursuer are part of the legitimate stock-in-trade of the hero of a novel of adventure. he is not as other men are, and comes through perilous escapades with miraculous success. it is at first difficult to see why falkland does not realise that his plan of ceaselessly harassing his victim is likely to force williams to accuse him publicly, but gradually we begin to regard his mental obliquity as one of the decrees of fate. falkland's obtuseness is of the same nature as that of the sleeper who undertakes a voyage to australia to deliver a letter which anywhere but in a dream would have been dropped in the nearest pillar-box. the obvious solution that would occur to a waking mind is persistently evasive. the plot of _caleb williams_ hinges on an improbability, but so does that of _king lear_; and if it had not been for falkland's stupidity, the story would have ended with the first volume. godwin excels in the analysis of mental conditions, but fails when he attempts to transmute passionate feeling into words. we are conscious that he is a cold-blooded spectator _ab extra_ striving to describe what he has never felt for himself. it is not even "emotion recollected in tranquillity." men of this world, who are carried away by scorn and anger, utter their feelings simply and directly. godwin's characters pause to cull their words from dictionaries. forester's invective, when he believes that williams has basely robbed his master is astonishingly elegant: "vile calumniator! you are the abhorrence of nature, the opprobrium of the human species and the earth can only be freed from an insupportable burthen by your being exterminated."[ ] the diction is so elaborately dignified that the contempt which was meant almost to annihilate caleb williams, lies effectually concealed behind a blinding veil of rhetoric. when he has leisure to adorn, he translates the simplest, most obvious reflections into the "jargon" of political philosophy, but, driven impetuously forward by the excitement of his theme, he throws off jerky, spasmodic sentences containing but a single clause. his style is a curious mixture of these two manners. the aim of _st. leon: a tale of the sixteenth century_, is to show that "boundless wealth, freedom from disease, weakness and death are as nothing in the scale against domestic affection and the charities of private life."[ ] for four years godwin had desired to modify what he had said on the subject of private affections in _political justice_, while he asserted his conviction of the general truth of his system. godwin had argued that private affections resulted in partiality, and therefore injustice.[ ] if a house were on fire, reason would urge a man to save fénelon in preference to his valet; but if the rescuer chanced to be the brother or father of the valet, private feeling would intervene, unreasonably urging him to save his relative and abandon fénelon. lest he should be regarded as a wrecker of homes, godwin wished to show that domestic happiness should not be despised by the man of reason. instead of expressing his views on this subject in a succinct pamphlet, godwin, elated by the success of _caleb williams_, decided to embody them in the form of a novel. he at first despaired of finding a theme so rich in interest as that of his first novel, but ultimately decided that "by mixing human feelings and passions with incredible situations he might conciliate the patience even of the severest judges."[ ] the phrase, "mixing human feelings," betrays in a flash godwin's mechanical method of constructing a story. he makes no pretence that _st. leon_ grew naturally as a work of art. he imposed upon himself an unsuitable task, and, though he doggedly accomplished it, the result is dull and laboured. the plot of _st. leon_ was suggested by dr. john campbell's _hermippus redivivus_,[ ] and centres round the theories of the rosicrucians. the first volume describes the early life of the knight st. leon, his soldiering, his dissipations, and his happy marriage to marguerite, whose character is said to have been modelled on that of mary wollstonecraft. in paris he is tempted into extravagance and into playing for high stakes, with the result that he retires to switzerland the "prey of poverty and remorse." misfortunes pursue him for some time, but he at last enjoys six peaceful years, at the end of which he is visited by a mysterious old man, whom he conceals in a summer-house, and whom he refuses to betray to the inquisitors in search of him. in return the old man reveals to him the secret of the elixir vitæ, and of the philosopher's stone. marguerite becomes suspicious of the source of her husband's wealth: "for a soldier you present me with a projector and a chemist, a cold-blooded mortal raking in the ashes of a crucible for a selfish and solitary advantage." his son, charles, unable to endure the aspersions cast upon his father's honour during their travels together in germany, deserts him. st. leon is imprisoned because he cannot account for the death of the stranger and for his own sudden acquisition of wealth, but contrives his escape by bribing the jailor. he travels to italy, but is unable to escape from misfortune. suspected of black magic, he becomes an object of hatred to the inhabitants of the town where he lives. his house is burnt down, his servant and his favourite dog are killed, and he soon hears of the death of his unhappy wife. he is imprisoned in the dungeons of the inquisition, but escapes, and takes refuge with a jew, whom he compels to shelter him, until another dose of the elixir restores his youthful appearance, and he sets forth again, this time disguised as a wealthy spanish cavalier. he visits his own daughters, representing himself as the executor under their father's will. he decides to devote himself to the service of others, and is revered as the saviour of hungary, until disaffection, caused by a shortage of food, renders him unpopular. he makes a friend of bethlem gabor, whose wife and children have been savagely murdered by a band of marauders. st. leon, we are told, "found an inexhaustible and indescribable pleasure in examining the sublime desolation of a mighty soul." but gabor soon conceives a bitter hatred against him, and entraps him in a subterranean vault, where he languishes for many months, refusing to yield up his secret. at length the castle is besieged, and gabor before his death gives st. leon his liberty. the leader of the expedition proves to be st. leon's long-lost son, charles, who has assumed the name of de damville. st. leon, without at first revealing his identity, cultivates the friendship of his son, but charles, on learning of his dealings with the supernatural, repudiates his father. finally the marriage of his son to pandora proves to st. leon that despite his misfortunes "there is something in this world worth living for." the inquisition scenes of _st. leon_ were undoubtedly coloured faintly by those of lewis's _monk_ ( ) and mrs. radcliffe's _italian_ ( ); but it is characteristic of godwin that instead of trying to portray the terror of the shadowy hall, he chooses rather to present the argumentative speeches of st. leon and the inquisitor. the aged stranger, who bestows on st. leon the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, has the piercing eye so familiar to readers of the novel of terror: "you wished to escape from its penetrating power, but you had not the strength to move. i began to feel as if it were some mysterious and superior being in human form;"[ ] but apart from this trait he is not an impressive figure. the only character who would have felt perfectly at home in the realm of mrs. radcliffe and "monk" lewis is bethlem gabor, who appears for the first time in the fourth volume of _st. leon_. he is akin to schedoni and his compeers in his love of solitude, his independence of companionship, and his superhuman aspect, but he is a figure who inspires awe and pity as well as terror. beside this personage the other characters pale into insignificance: "he was more than six feet in stature ... and he was built as if it had been a colossus, destined to sustain the weight of the starry heavens. his voice was like thunder ... his head and chin were clothed with a thick and shaggy hair, in colour a dead-black. he had suffered considerable mutilation in the services through which he had passed ... bethlem gabor, though universally respected for the honour and magnanimity of a soldier, was not less remarkable for habits of reserve and taciturnity... seldom did he allow himself to open his thoughts but when he did, great god! what supernatural eloquence seemed to inspire and enshroud him... bethlem gabor's was a soul that soared to a sightless distance above the sphere of pity."[ ] the superstitions of bygone ages, which had fired the imagination of so many writers of romance, left godwin cold. he was mildly interested in the supernatural as affording insight into the "credulity of the human mind," and even compiled a treatise on _the lives of the necromancers_ ( ).[ ] but the hints and suggestions, the gloom, the weird lights and shades which help to create that romantic atmosphere amid which the alchemist's dream seems possible of realisation are entirely lacking in godwin's story. he displays everything in a high light. the transference of the gifts takes place not in the darkness of a subterranean vault, but in the calm light of a summer evening. no unearthly groans, no phosphorescent lights enhance the horror and mystery of the scene. godwin is coolly indifferent to historical accuracy, and fails to transport us back far beyond the end of the eighteenth century. rousseau's theories were apparently disseminated widely in . _st. leon_ is remembered now rather for its position in the history of the novel than for any intrinsic charm. godwin was the first to embody in a romance the ideas of the rosicrucians which inspired bulwer lytton's _zicci_, _zanoni_ and _a strange story_. _st. leon_ was travestied, the year after it appeared, in a work called _st. godwin: a tale of the th, th and th century_, by "count reginald de st. leon," which gives a scathing survey of the plot, with all its improbabilities exposed. the bombastic style of _st. leon_ is imitated and only slightly exaggerated, and the author finally satirises godwin bitterly: "thinking from my political writings that i was a good hand at fiction, i turned my thoughts to novel-writing. these i wrote in the same pompous, inflated style as i had used in my other publications, hoping that my fine high-sounding periods would assist to make the unsuspecting reader swallow all the insidious reasoning, absurdity and nonsense i could invent."[ ] the parodist takes godwin almost as seriously as he took himself, and his attack is needlessly savage. godwin's political opinions may account for the brutality of his assailant who doubtless belonged to the other camp. when godwin attempts the supernatural in his other novels, he always fails to create an atmosphere of mystery. the apparition in _cloudesley_ appears, fades, and reappears in a manner so undignified as to remind us of the cheshire cat in _alice in wonderland_: "i suddenly saw my brother's face looking out from among the trees as i passed. i saw the features as distinctly as if the meridian sun had beamed upon them... it was by degrees that the features showed themselves thus out of what had been a formless shadow. i gazed upon it intently. presently it faded away by as insensible degrees as those by which it had become agonisingly clear. after a short time it returned." godwin describes a ghost as deliberately and exactly as he would describe a house, and his delineation causes not the faintest tremor. having little imagination himself, he leaves nothing to the imagination of the reader. in his _lives of the necromancers_, he shows that he is interested in discovering the origin of a belief in natural magic; but the life stories of the magicians suggest no romantic pictures to his imagination. in dealing with the mysterious and the uncanny, godwin was attempting something alien to his mind and temper. in godwin's _st. leon_ the elixir of life is quietly bestowed on the hero in a summer-house in his own garden. the poet, thomas moore, in his romance, _the epicurean_ ( ), sends forth a greek adventurer to seek it in the secret depths of the catacombs beneath the pyramids of egypt. he originally intended to tell his story in verse, but after writing a fragment, _alciphron_, abandoned this design and decided to begin again in prose. his story purports to be a translation of a recently discovered manuscript buried in the time of diocletian. inspired by a dream, in which an ancient and venerable man bids him seek the nile if he wishes to discover the secret of eternal life, alciphron, a young epicurean philosopher of the second century, journeys to egypt. at memphis he falls in love with a beautiful priestess, alethe, whom he follows into the catacombs. bearing a glimmering lamp, he passes through a gallery, where the eyes of a row of corpses, buried upright, glare upon him, into a chasm peopled by pale, phantom-like forms. he braves the terrors of a blazing grove and of a dark stream haunted by shrieking spectres, and finds himself whirled round in chaos like a stone shot in a sling. having at length passed safely through the initiation of fire, water and air, he is welcomed into a valley of "unearthly sadness," with a bleak, dreary lake lit by a "ghostly glimmer of sunshine." he gazes with awe on the image of the god osiris, who presides over the silent kingdom of the dead. watching within the temple of isis, he suddenly sees before him the priestess, alethe, who guides him back to the realms of day. at the close of the story, after alethe has been martyred for the christian faith, alciphron himself becomes a christian. in _the epicurean_, moore shows a remarkable power of describing scenes of gloomy terror, which he throws into relief by occasional glimpses of light and splendour. the journey of alciphron inevitably challenges comparison with that of _vathek_, but the spirit of mockery that animates beckford's story is wholly absent. moore paints a theatrical panorama of effective scenes, but his figures are mere shadows. the miseries of an existence, prolonged far beyond the allotted span, are depicted not only in stories of the elixir of life, but in the legends centring round the wandering jew. croly's _salathiel_ ( ), like eugene sue's lengthy romance, _le juif errant_, won fame in its own day, but is now forgotten. some of croly's descriptions, such as that of the burning trireme, have a certain dazzling magnificence, but the colouring is often crude and startling. the figure of the deathless jew is apt to be lost amid the mazes of the author's rhetoric. the conception of a man doomed to wander eternally in expiation of a curse is in itself an arresting theme likely to attract a romantic writer, but the record of his adventures may easily become monotonous. the "novel of terror" has found few more ardent admirers than the youthful shelley, who saw in it a way of escape from the harsh realities and dull routine of ordinary existence. from his childhood the world of ideas seems to have been at least as real and familiar to him as the material world. the fabulous beings of whom he talked to his young sisters--the great tortoise in warnham pond, the snake three hundred years old in the garden at field place, the grey-bearded alchemist in his garret[ ]--had probably for him as much meaning and interest as the living people around him. urged by a restless desire to evade the natural and encounter the supernatural, he wandered by night under the "perilous moonshine," haunted graveyards in the hope of "high talk with the departed dead," dabbled in chemical experiments and pored over ancient books of magic. it was to be expected that an imagination reaching out so eagerly towards the unknown should find refuge from the uncongenial life of sion house school in the soul-stirring region of romance. transported by sixpenny "blue books" and the many volumed novels in the brentford circulating library, shelley's imagination fled joyously to that land of unlikelihood, where the earth yawns with bandits' caverns inhabited by desperadoes with bloody daggers, where the air continually resounds with the shrieks and groans of melancholy spectres, and where the pale moon ever gleams on dark and dreadful deeds. he had reached that stage of human development when fairies, elves, witches and dragons begin to lose their charm, when the gentle quiver of fear excited by an ogre, who is inevitably doomed to be slain at the last, no longer suffices. at the approach of adolescence with its surging emotions and quickening intellectual life, there awakens a demand for more thrilling incidents, for wilder passions and more desperate crimes, and it is at this period that the "novel of terror" is likely to make its strongest appeal. youth, with its inexperience, is seldom tempted to bring fiction to the test of reality, or to scorn it on the ground of its improbability, and we may be sure that shelley and his cousin, medwin, as they hung spellbound over such treasures as _the midnight groan, the mysterious freebooter_, or _subterranean horrors_ did not pause to consider whether the characters and adventures were true to life. they desired, indeed, not to criticise but to create, and in the winter of - united to produce a terrific romance, with the title _nightmare_, in which a gigantic and hideous witch played a prominent part. after reading schubert's _der ewige jude_, they began a narrative poem dealing with the legend of the wandering jew,[ ] who lingered in shelley's imagination in after years, and whom he introduced into _queen mab, prometheus unbound_, and _hellas_. the grim and ghastly legends included in "monk" lewis's _tales of terror_ ( ) and _tales of wonder_ ( ) fascinated shelley;[ ] and the suggestive titles _revenge_;[ ] _ghasta, or the avenging demon_;[ ] _st. edmund's eve_;[ ] _the triumph of conscience_ from the _poems by victor and cazire_ ( ), and _the spectral horseman_ from _the posthumous poems of margaret nicholson_ ( ), all prove his preoccupation with the supernatural. that shelley's enthusiasm for the gruesome and uncanny was not merely morbid and hysterical, the mad, schoolboyish letter, written while he was in the throes of composing _st. irvyne_, is sufficient indication. in a mood of grotesque fantasy and wild exhilaration, shelley invites his friend graham to field place. the postscript is in his handwriting, but is signed by his sister elizabeth: "the avenue is composed of vegetable substances moulded in the form of trees called by the multitude elm trees. stalk along the road towards them and mind and keep yourself concealed as my mother brings a blood-stained stiletto which she purposes to make you bathe in the lifeblood of your enemy. never mind the death-demons and skeletons dripping with the putrefaction of the grave, that occasionally may blast your straining eyeballs. persevere even though hell and destruction should yawn beneath your feet. "think of all this at the frightful hour of midnight, when the hell-demon leans over your sleeping form, and inspires those thoughts which eventually will lead you to the gates of destruction... the fiend of the sussex solitudes shrieked in the wilderness at midnight--he thirsts for thy detestable gore, impious fergus. but the day of retribution will arrive. h + d=hell devil."[ ] that shelley could jest thus lightly in the mock-terrific vein shows that his mind was fundamentally sane and well-balanced, and that he only regarded "fiendmongering" as a pleasantly thrilling diversion. his _zastrozzi_ ( ) and _st. irvyne_ ( ) were probably written with the same zest and spirit as his harrowing letter to "impious fergus." they are the outcome of a boyish ambition to practise the art of freezing the blood, and their composition was a source of pride and delight to their author. a letter to peacock (nov. , ) from italy re-echoes the note of child-like enjoyment in weaving romances: "we went to see heaven knows how many more palaces--ranuzzi, marriscalchi, aldobrandi. if you want italian names for any purpose, here they are; i should be glad of them if i was writing a novel." _zastrozzi_ was published in april, , while shelley was still at eton, and with the £ paid for the romance, he is said to have given a banquet to eight of his friends. though the story is little more than a _réchauffé_ of previous tales of terror, it evidently attained some measure of popularity. it was reprinted in _the romancist and novelist's library_ in . like godwin, shelley contrived to smuggle a little contraband theory into his novels, but his stock-in-trade is mainly that of the terrormongers. the book to which shelley was chiefly indebted was _zofloya or the moor_ ( ), by the notorious charlotte dacre or "rosa matilda," but there are many reminiscences of mrs. radcliffe and of "monk" lewis. the sources of _zastrozzi_ and _st. irvyne_ have been investigated in the _modern language review_ (jan. ), by mr. a. m. d. hughes, who gives a complete analysis of the plot of _zofloya_, and indicates many parallels with shelley's novels. the heroine of _zofloya_ is clearly a lineal descendant of lewis's matilda, though victoria di loredani, with all her vices, never actually degenerates into a fiend. victoria, it need hardly be stated, is nobly born, but she has been brought up amid frivolous society by a worthless mother, and: "the wildest passions predominated in her bosom; to gratify them she possessed an unshrinking, relentless soul that would not startle at the darkest crime." zofloya, who spurs her on, is the devil himself. the plot is highly melodramatic, and contains a headlong flight, an earthquake and several violent deaths. in _zastrozzi_, shelley draws upon the characters and incidents of this story very freely. his lack of originality is so obvious as to need no comment. the very names he chooses are borrowed. julia is the name of the pensive heroine in mrs. radcliffe's _sicilian romance_. matilda carries with it ugly memories of the lady in lewis's _monk_; verezzi occurs in _the mysteries of udolpho_; zastrozzi is formed by prefixing an extra syllable to the name strozzi from _zofloya_. the incidents are those which happen every day in the realm of terror. the villain, the hero, the melancholy heroine, and her artful rival, develop no new traits, but act strictly in accordance with tradition. they never infringe the rigid code of manners and morals laid down for them by previous generations. the scenery is invariably appropriate as a setting to the incidents, and even the weather may be relied on to act in a thoroughly conventional manner. the characters are remarkable for their violent emotions and their marvellously expressive eyes. when verezzi's senses are "chilled with the frigorific torpidity of despair," his eyes "roll horribly in their sockets." when "direst revenge swallows up every other feeling" in the soul of matilda, her eyes "scintillate with a fiend-like expression." incidents follow one another with a wild and stupefying rapidity. every moment is a crisis. the style is startlingly abrupt, and the short, disconnected paragraphs are fired off like so many pistol shots. the sequence of events is mystifying--zastrozzi's motive for persecuting verezzi is darkly concealed until the end of the story, for reasons known only to writers of the novel of terror. shelley's romance, in short, is no better and perhaps even worse than that of the other disciples of mrs. radcliffe and "monk" lewis. _st. irvyne: or the rosicrucian_ ( ), though it was written by a "gentleman of the university of oxford" and not by a schoolboy, shows slight advance on _zastrozzi_ either in matter or manner. the plot indeed is more bewildering and baffling than that of _zastrozzi_. the action of the story is double and alternate, the scene shifts from place to place, and the characters appear and disappear in an unaccountable and disconcerting fashion. this time godwin's _st. leon_ has to be added to the list of shelley's sources. ginotti, whose name is stolen from a brigand in _zofloya_, is not the devil but one of his sworn henchmen, who has discovered and tasted the elixir vitae. like zofloya, he is surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery. so that he may himself die, ginotti, like the old stranger in _st. leon_, is anxious to impart his secret to another. he chooses as his victim, wolfstein, a young noble who, like leonardo in _zofloya_, has allied himself with a band of brigands. the bandit, ginotti, aids wolfstein to escape with a beautiful captive maiden, for whom shelley adopts the name megalena from _zofloya_. while the lovers are in genoa, megalena, discovering wolfstein with a lady named olympia, whose "character has been ruined by a false system of education," makes him promise to murder her rival. in olympia's bedchamber wolfstein's hand is stayed for a moment by the sight of her beauty--a picture which recalls the powerful scene in mrs. radcliffe's _italian_, when schedoni bends over the sleeping ellena. after olympia's suicide, megalena and wolfstein flee together from genoa. in the tale of terror, as in the modern film-play, a flight of some kind is almost indispensable. ginotti, whose habit of disappearing and reappearing reminds us of the ghostly monk in the ruins of paluzzi, tells his history to wolfstein, and, at the destined hour, bestows the prescription for the elixir, and appoints a meeting in st. irvyne's abbey, where wolfstein stumbles over the corpse of megalena. wolfstein refuses to deny god. both ginotti and his victim are blasted by lightning, amid which the "frightful prince of terror, borne on the pinions of hell's sulphurous whirlwind," stands before them. "on a sudden ginotti's frame, mouldered to a gigantic skeleton, yet two pale and ghastly flames glared in his eyeless sockets. blackened in terrible convulsions, wolfstein expired; over him had the power of hell no influence. yes, endless existence is thine, ginotti--a dateless and hopeless eternity of horror." interspersed with this somewhat inconsequent story are the adventures of eloise, who is first introduced on her return home, disconsolate, to a ruined abbey. we are given to understand that the story is to unfold the misfortunes which have led to her downfall, but she is happily married ere the close. she accompanies her dying mother on a journey, as emily in _the mysteries of udolpho_ accompanied her father, and meets a mysterious stranger, nempère, at a lonely house, where they take refuge. nempère proves to be a less estimable character than valancourt, who fell to emily's lot in similar circumstances. he sells her to an english noble, mountfort, at whose house she meets fitzeustace, who, like vivaldi in _the italian_, overhears her confession of love for himself. nempère is killed in a duel by mountfort. at the close, shelley states abruptly that nempère is ginotti, and eloise is wolfstein's sister. in springing a secret upon us suddenly on the last page, shelley was probably emulating lewis's _bravo of venice_; but the conclusion, which is intended to forge a connecting link between the tales, is unsatisfying. it is not surprising that the publisher, stockdale, demanded some further elucidation of the mystery. ginotti, apparently, dies twice, and shelley's letters fail to solve the problem. he wrote to stockdale: "ginotti, as you will see, did _not_ die by wolfstein's hand, but by the influence of that natural magic, which, when the secret was imparted to the latter, destroyed him."[ ] a few days later he wrote again, evidently in reply to further questions: "on a re-examination you will perceive that mountfort physically did kill ginotti, which must appear from the latter's paleness." the truth seems to be that shelley was weary of his puppets, and had no desire to extricate them from the tangle in which they were involved, though he was impatient to see _st. irvyne_ in print, and spoke hopefully of its "selling mechanically to the circulating libraries." shelley took advantage of the privilege of writers of romance to palm off on the public some of his earliest efforts at versification. these poems, distributed impartially among the various characters, are introduced with the same laborious artlessness as the songs in a musical comedy. megalena, though suffering from excruciating mental agony, finds leisure to scratch several verses on the walls of her cell. it would indeed be a poor-spirited heroine who could not deftly turn a sonnet to night or to the moon, however profound her woes. superhuman strength and courage is an endowment necessary to all who would dwell in the realms of terror and survive the fierce struggle for existence. peacock, in _nightmare abbey_, paints the shelley of in scythrop, who devours tragedies and german romances, and is troubled with a "passion for reforming the world." "he slept with _horrid mysteries_ under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions in subterranean caves... he had a certain portion of mechanical genius which his romantic projects tended to develop. he constructed models of cells and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, that would have baffled the skill of the parisian police." his bearing was that of a romantic villain: "he stalked about like the grand inquisitor, and the servants flitted past him like familiars." although shelley outgrew his youthful taste for horrors, his early reading left traces on the imagery and diction of his poetry. there is an unusual profusion in his vocabulary of such words as ghosts, shades, charnel, tomb, torture, agony, etc., and supernatural similes occur readily to his mind. in _alastor_ he compares himself to "an inspired and desperate alchymist staking his very life on some dark hope," and cries: "o that the dream of dark magician in his visioned cave raking the cinders of a crucible for life and power, even when his feeble hand shakes in its last decay, were the true law of this so lonely world." in the _ode to the west wind_ his memories of an older and finer kind of romance suggested the fantastic comparison of the dead leaves to "ghosts from an enchanter fleeing," and in _prometheus unbound_ panthea sees "unimaginable shapes such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deeps." the poem _ginevra_, which describes an enforced wedding and the death of the bride at the sight of her real lover, may well have been inspired by reading the romances of terror, where such events are an everyday occurrence. the gruesome descriptions in _the revolt of islam_, the decay of the garden in _the sensitive plant_, the tortures of prometheus, all show how shelley strove to work on the instinctive emotion of fear. in _the cenci_ he touches the profoundest depths of human passion, and shows his power of finding words, terrible in their simple grandeur, for a soul in agony. in the tragedies of shakespeare and of his followers--ford, webster and tourneur--shelley had heard the true language of anguish and despair. the futile, frenzied shrieking of matilda and her kind is forgotten in the passionate nobility or fearful calm of the speeches of beatrice cenci. chapter vii - satires on the novel of terror. a conflict between "sense and sensibility" was naturally to be expected; and, the year after mrs. radcliffe published _the italian_, jane austen had completed her _northanger abbey_, ridiculing the "horrid" school of fiction. it is noteworthy that for the _mysteries of udolpho_ mrs. radcliffe received £ , and for _the italian_ £ ; while for the manuscript of _northanger abbey_, the bookseller paid jane austen the ungenerous sum of £ , selling it again later to henry austen for the same amount. the contrast in market value is significant. the publisher, who, it may be added, was not necessarily a literary critic, probably realised that if the mock romance were successful, its tendency would be to endanger the popularity of the prevailing mode in fiction. hence for many years it was concealed as effectively as if it had lain in the haunted apartment of one of mrs. radcliffe's gothic abbeys. among jane austen's early unpublished writings were "burlesques ridiculing the improbable events and exaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry silly romances"; but her spirited defence of the novelist's art in _northanger abbey_ is clear evidence that her raillery is directed not against fiction in general, but rather against such "horrid" stories as those included in the list supplied to isabella thorpe by "a miss andrews, one of the sweetest creatures in the world." it has sometimes been supposed that the more fantastic titles in this catalogue were figments of jane austen's imagination, but the identity of each of the seven stories may be established beyond question. two of the stories--_the necromancer of the black forest_, a translation from the german, and _the castle of wolfenbach_, by mrs. eliza parsons (who was also responsible for _mysterious warnings_)--may still be read in _the romancist and novelist's library_ ( - ), a treasure-hoard of forgotten fiction. _clermont_ ( ) was published by mrs. regina maria roche, the authoress of _the children of the abbey_ ( ), a story almost as famous in its day as _udolpho_. the author of _the midnight bell_ was one george walker of bath, whose record, like that of miss eleanor sleath, who wrote the moving history of _the orphan of the rhine_ ( ) in four volumes, may be found in watts' _bibliotheca britannica_. _horrid mysteries_, perhaps the least credible of the titles, was a translation from the german of the marquis von grosse by r. will. jane austen's attack has no tinge of bitterness or malice. john thorpe, who declared all novels, except _tom jones_ and _the monk_, "the stupidest things in creation," admitted, when pressed by catherine, that mrs. radcliffe's were "amusing enough" and "had some fun and nature in them"; and henry tilney, a better judge, owned frankly that he had "read all her works, and most of them with great pleasure." from this we may assume that miss austen herself was perhaps conscious of their charm as well as their absurdity. sheridan's lydia languish ( ) and colman's polly honeycombe ( ) were both demoralised by the follies of sentimental fiction, as biddy tipkin, in steele's _tender husband_ ( ), had been by romances. it was miss austen's purpose in creating catherine morland to present a maiden bemused by gothic romance: "no one who had ever seen catherine morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine." in almost every detail she is a refreshing contrast to the traditional type. two long-lived conventions--the fragile mother, who dies at the heroine's birth, and the tyrannical father--are repudiated at the very outset; and catherine is one of a family of seven. we cannot conceive that mrs. radcliffe's heroines even at the age of ten would "love nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house." her accomplishments lack the brilliance and distinction of those of adela and julia, but, "though she could not write sonnets she brought herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte, she could listen to other people's performances with very little fatigue. her greatest deficiency was in the pencil--she had no notion of drawing, not enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover's profile, that she might be detected in the design. there she fell miserably short of the true heroic height...not one started with rapturous wonder on beholding her...nor was she once called a divinity by anybody." she had no lover at the age of seventeen, "because there was not a lord in the neighbourhood--not even a baronet. there was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door--not one whose origin was unknown." nor is catherine aided in her career by those "improbable events," so dear to romance, that serve to introduce a hero--a robber's attack, a tempest, or a carriage accident. with a sly glance at such dangerous characters as lady greystock in _the children of the abbey_ ( ), miss austen creates the inert, but good-natured mrs. alien as catherine's chaperone in bath: "it is now expedient to give some description of mrs. alien that the reader may be able to judge in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work and how she will probably contribute to reduce poor catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable, whether by her imprudence, vulgarity or jealousy--whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character or turning her out of doors." amid all the diversions of the gay and beautiful city of bath, miss austen does not lose sight entirely of her satirical aim, though she turns aside for a time. catherine's confusion of mind is suggested with exquisite art in a single sentence. as she drives with john thorpe she "meditates by turns on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, tilneys and trapdoors." this prepares us for the delightful scene in which tilney, on the way to the abbey, foretells what catherine may expect on her arrival. the hall dimly lighted by the expiring embers of a wood fire, the deserted bedchamber "never used since some cousin or kin had died in it about twenty years before," the single lamp, the tapestry, the funereal bed, the broken lute, the ponderous chest, the secret door, the vaulted room, the rusty dagger, the cabinet of ebony and gold with its roll of manuscripts, prove his intimacy with _the romance of the forest_, as well as with _the mysteries of udolpho_. the black chest and the cabinet are there in startling fulfilment of his prophecies, and when, just as with beating heart catherine is about to decipher the roll of paper she has discovered in the cabinet drawer, she accidentally extinguishes her candle: "a lamp could not have expired with more awful effect... darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room. a violent gust of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment... human nature could support no more ... groping her way to the bed she jumped hastily in, and sought some suspension of agony by creeping far beneath the clothes... the storm still raged... hour after hour passed away, and the wearied catherine had heard three proclaimed by all the clocks in the house before the tempest subsided, and she, unknowingly, fell fast asleep. she was awakened the next morning at eight o'clock by the housemaid's opening her window-shutter. she flew to the mysterious manuscript, if the evidence of sight might be trusted she held a washing bill in her hands ... she felt humbled to the dust." even this bitter humiliation does not sweep away the cobwebs of romance from catherine's imaginative mind, but the dark suspicions she harbours about general tilney are not altogether inexplicable. he is so much less natural and so much more stagey than the other characters that he might reasonably be expected to dabble in the sinister. this time catherine is misled by memories of the _sicilian romance_ into weaving a mystery around the fate of mrs. tilney, whom she pictures receiving from the hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food. she watches in vain for "glimmering lights," like those in the palace of mazzini, and determines to search for "a fragmented journal continued to the last gasp," like that of adeline's father in _the romance of the forest_. in this search she encounters tilney, who has returned unexpectedly from woodston. he dissipates once and for all her nervous fancies, and catherine decides: "among the alps and pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed characters. there, such as were not spotless as an angel, might have the dispositions of a fiend. but in england it was not so." miss austen's novel is something more than a mock-romance, and catherine is not a mere negative of the traditional heroine, but a human and attractive girl, whose fortunes we follow with the deepest interest. at the close, after catherine's ignominious journey home, we are back again in the cool world of reality. the abbey is abandoned, after it has served its purpose in disciplining the heroine, in favour of the unromantic country parsonage. in _northanger abbey_, jane austen had deftly turned the novels of mrs. radcliffe to comedy; but, even if her parody had been published in , when we are assured that it was completed, her satirical treatment was too quiet and subtle, too delicately mischievous, to have disturbed seriously the popularity of the novel of terror. we can imagine the isabella thorpes and lydia bennets of the day dismissing _northanger abbey_ with a yawn as "an amazing dull book," and returning with renewed zest to more stimulating and "horrid" stories. maria edgeworth too had aimed her shaft at the sentimental heroine in one of her _moral tales--angelina or l'amie inconnue_ ( ). miss sarah green, in _romance readers and romance writers_ ( ) had displayed the extravagant folly of a clergyman's daughter whose head was turned by romances. ridicule of a more blatant and boisterous kind was needed, and this was supplied by eaton stannard barrett, who, in --five years before _northanger abbey_ appeared--published _the heroine or the adventures of cherubina_. in this farcical romance it is clearly barrett's intention to make so vigorous an onslaught that "the selinas, evelinas, and malvinas who faint and blush and weep through four half-bound octavos" shall be, like catherine morland, "humbled to the dust." sometimes, indeed, his farce verges on brutality. to expose the follies of cherubina it was hardly necessary to thrust her good-humoured father into a madhouse, and this grim incident sounds an incongruous, jarring note in a rollicking high-spirited farce. the plights into which cherubina is plunged are so needlessly cruel, that, while only intending to make her ridiculous, barrett succeeds rather in making her pitiable. but many of her adventures are only a shade more absurd than those in the romances at which he tilts. regina maria roche's _children of the abbey_ ( ) would take the wind from the sails of any parodist. in protracting _the heroine_ almost to wearisome length, barrett probably acted deliberately in mimicry of this and a horde of other tedious romances. certainly the unfortunate stuart waits no longer for the fulfilment of his hopes than lord mortimer, the long-suffering hero of _the children of the abbey_, who early in the first volume demands of amanda fitzalan, what he calls an "éclaircissement," but does not win it until the close of the fourth. barrett does not scruple to mention the titles of the books he derides. the following catalogue will show how widely he casts his net: _mysteries of udolpho, romance of the forest, children of the abbey, sir charles grandison, pamela, clarissa harlowe, evelina, camilla, cecilia, la nouvelle heloïse, rasselas, the delicate distress, caroline of lichfield_,[ ] _the knights of the swan_,[ ] _the beggar girl, the romance of the highlands_.[ ] besides these novels, which he actually names, barrett alludes indirectly to several others, among them _tristram shandy_ and _amelia_. from this enumeration it is evident that barrett was satirising the heroine, not merely of the "novel of terror," but of the "sentimental novel" from which she traced her descent. he organises a masquerade, mindful that it is always the scene of the heroine's "best adventure," with fielding's _amelia_ and miss burney's _cecilia_ and probably other novels in view. the precipitate flight of cherubina, "dressed in a long-skirted red coat stiff with tarnished lace, a satin petticoat, satin shoes and no stockings," and with hair streaming like a meteor, described in letter xx, is clearly a cruel mockery of cecilia's distressful plight in miss burney's novel. even scott is not immune from barrett's barbed arrows, and byron is glanced at in the bogus antique language of "eftsoones." barrett, indeed, jeers at the mediaeval revival in its various manifestations and even at "romanticism" generally, not merely at the new school of fiction represented by mrs. radcliffe, her followers and rivals. not content with reaching his aim, as he does again and again in _the heroine_, barrett, like many another parodist, sometimes over-reaches it, and sneers at what is not in itself ridiculous. nominally cherubina is the butt of barrett's satire, but the permanent interest of the book lies in the skilful stage-managing of her lively adventures. there is hardly an attempt at characterisation. the people are mere masqueraders, who amuse us by their costume and mannerisms, but reveal no individuality. the plot is a wild extravaganza, crammed with high-flown, mock-romantic episodes. cherry wilkinson, as the result of a surfeit of romances, perhaps including _the misanthropic parent or the guarded secret_ ( ), by miss smith, deserts her real father--a worthy farmer--to look for more aristocratic parents. as he is not picturesque enough for a villain, she repudiates him with scorn: "have you the gaunt ferocity of famine in your countenance? can you darken the midnight with a scowl? have you the quivering lip and the schedoniac contour? in a word, are you a picturesque villain full of plot and horror and magnificent wickedness? ah! no, sir, you are only a sleek, good-humoured, chuckle-headed, old gentleman." in the course of her search she meets with amazing adventures, which she describes in a series of letters to her governess. she changes her name to cherubina de willoughby, and journeys to london, where, mistaking covent garden theatre for an ancient castle, she throws herself on the protection of a third-rate actor, grundy. he readily falls in with her humour, assuming the name of montmorenci, and a suit of tin armour and a plumed helmet for her delight. later, cherubina is entertained by lady gwyn, who, for the amusement of her guests, heartlessly indulges her propensity for the romantic, and poses as her aunt. she is introduced in a gruesome scene, which recalls the fate of agnes in lewis's _monk_, to her supposed mother, lady hysterica belamour, whose memoirs, under the title _il castello di grimgothico_, are inserted, after the manner of mrs. radcliffe and m.g. lewis, who love an inset tale, into the midst of the heroine's adventures. cherubina determines to live in an abandoned castle, and gathers a band of vassals. these include jerry, the lively retainer, inherited from a long line of comic servants, of whom sancho panza is a famous example, and higginson, a struggling poet, who in virtue of his office of minstrel, addresses the mob, beginning his harangue with the time-honoured apology: "unaccustomed as i am to public speaking." the story ends with the return of cherubina to real life, where she is eventually restored to her father and to stuart. the incidents, which follow one another in rapid succession, are foolish and extravagant, but the reminiscences they awaken lend them piquancy. the trappings and furniture of a dozen gothic castles are here accumulated in generous profusion. mouldering manuscripts, antique beds of decayed damask, a four-horsed barouche, and fluttering tapestry rejoice the heart of cherubina, for each item in this curious medley revives moving associations in a mind nourished on the radcliffe school. when cherubina visits a shop she buys a diamond cross, which at once turns our thoughts to _the sicilian romance_. in westminster abbey she is disappointed to find "no cowled monks with scapulars"--a phrase which flashes across our memory the sinister figure of schedoni in _the italian_. at the masquerade she plans to wear a tuscan dress from _the mysteries of udolpho_, and, when furnishing monkton castle she bids jerry, the irish comic servant, bring "flags stained with the best old blood--feudal, if possible, an old lute, lyre or harp, black hangings, curtains, and a velvet pall." even the banditti and condottieri, who enliven so many novels of terror, cannot be ignored, and are represented by a troop of irish ruffians. barrett lets nothing escape him. rousseau's theories are irreverently travestied. the thunder rolls "in an awful and ossianly manner"; the sun, "that well-known gilder of eastern turrets," rises in empurpled splendour; the hero utters tremendous imprecations, ejaculates superlatives or frames elaborately poised, johnsonian periods; the heroine excels in cheap but glittering repartee, wears "spangled muslin," and has "practised tripping, gliding, flitting, and tottering, with great success." shreds and patches torn with a ruthless, masculine hand from the flimsy tapestry of romance, fitted together in a new and amusing pattern, are exhibited for our derision. the caricature is entertaining in itself, and would probably be enjoyed by those who are unfamiliar with the romances ridiculed; but the interest of identifying the booty, which barrett rifles unceremoniously from his victims, is a fascinating pastime. miss austen, with her swift stiletto, and barrett, with his brutal bludgeon--to use a metaphor of "terror"--had each delivered an attack; and in , if we may judge by peacock's _nightmare abbey_, there is a change of fashion in fiction. how far this change is due to the satirists it is impossible to determine. mr. flosky, "who has seen too many ghosts himself to believe in their external appearance," through whose lips peacock reviles "that part of the reading public which shuns the solid food of reason," probably gives the true cause for the waning popularity of the novel of terror: "it lived upon ghosts, goblins and skeletons till even the devil himself ... became too base, common and popular for its surfeited appetite. the ghosts have therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into outer darkness." the novel of terror has been destroyed not by its enemies but by its too ardent devotees. the horrid banquet, devoured with avidity for so many years, has become so highly seasoned that the jaded palate at last cries out for something different, and, according to peacock, finds what it desires in "the vices and blackest passions of our nature tricked out in a masquerade dress of heroism and disappointed benevolence"--an uncomplimentary description of the byronic hero. yet sensational fiction has lingered on side by side with other forms of fiction all through the nineteenth century, because it supplies a human and natural craving for excitement. it may not be the dominant type, but it will always exist, and will produce its thrill by ever-varying devices. those who scoff may be taken unawares, like the company in _nightmare abbey_. the conversation turned on the subject of ghosts, and mr. larynx related his delightfully compact ghost story: "i once saw a ghost myself in my study, which is the last place any one but a ghost would look for me. i had not been in it for three months and was going to consult tillotson, when, on opening the door, i saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing-gown, sitting in my armchair, reading my jeremy taylor. it vanished in a moment, and so did i, and what it was and what it wanted, i have never been able to ascertain" --a quieter, more inoffensive ghost than that described by defoe in his _essay on the history and reality of apparitions_: "a grave, ancient man, with a full-bottomed wig and a rich brocaded gown, who changed into the most horrible monster that ever was seen, with eyes like two fiery daggers red-hot." mr. flosky and mr. hilary have hardly declared their disbelief in ghosts when: "the door silently opened, and a ghastly figure, shrouded in white drapery with the semblance of a bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly up the apartment. mr. flosky was not prepared for this apparition, and made the best of his way out at the opposite door. mr. hilary and marionetta followed screaming. the honourable mr. listless, by two turns of his body, first rolled off the sofa and then under it. rev. mr. larynx leaped up and fled with so much precipitation that he overturned the table on the foot of mr. glowry. mr. glowry roared with pain in the ears of mr. toobad. mr. toobad's alarm so bewildered his senses that missing the door he threw up one of the windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head and ears in the moat. mr. asterias and his son, who were on the watch for their mermaid, were attracted by the splashing, threw a net over him, and dragged him to land." in melincourt castle a very spacious wing was left free to the settlement of a colony of ghosts, and the rev. mr. portpipe often passed the night in one of the dreaded apartments over a blazing fire, with the same invariable exorcising apparatus of a large venison pasty, a little prayer-book, and three bottles of madeira. yet despite this excellent mockery, peacock in _gryll grange_ devotes a chapter to tales of terror and wonder, singling out the works of charles brockden brown for praise, especially his _wieland_, "one of the few tales in which the final explanation of the apparently supernatural does not destroy or diminish the original effect." the title _nightmare abbey_ in a catalogue would undoubtedly have caught the eye of isabella thorp or her friend miss andrews, searching eagerly for "horrid mysteries," but they would perhaps have detected the note of mockery in the name. they would, however, have been completely deceived by the title, _the mystery of the abbey_, published in liverpool in by t.b. johnson, and we can imagine their consternation and disgust on the arrival of the book from the circulating library. the abbey is "haunted" by the proprietors of a distillery; and the spectre, described in horrible detail, proves to be a harmless idiot, with a red handkerchief round her neck. apart from these gibes, there is not a hint of the supernatural in the whole book. it is a _picaresque_ novel, written by a sportsman. the title is merely a hoax. belinda waters, the heroine of one of crabbe's tales, who was "by nature negatively good," is a portrait after miss austen's own heart. languidly reclining on her sofa with "half a shelf of circulating books" on a table at her elbow, belinda tosses wearily aside a half-read volume of _clarissa_, commended by her maid, "who had _clarissa_ for her heart's dear friend." "give me," she said, "for i would laugh or cry, 'scenes from the life,' and 'sensibility,' 'winters at bath': i would that i had one! 'the constant lover,' 'the discarded son,'[ ] "'the rose of raby,'[ ] 'delmore,' or 'the nun'[ ]-- these promise something, and may please, perhaps, like 'ethelinda'[ ] and the dear 'relapse.'[ ] to these her heart the gentle maid resigned and such the food that fed the gentle mind." but even the "delicate distress" of heroines, like niobe, all tears, palls at last, and belinda, having wept her fill, craves now for "sterner stuff." "yet tales of terror are her dear delight, all in the wintry storm to read at night." in _the preceptor husband_,[ ] the pretty wife, whose notions of botany are delightfully vague, and who, in english history, light-heartedly confuses the reformation and the revolution, has tastes similar to those of belinda. pursued by an instructive husband, she turns at bay, and tells her priggish preceptor what kind of books she really enjoys: "well, if i must, i will my studies name, blame if you please--i know you love to blame-- when all our childish books were set apart, the first i read was 'wanderings of the heart.'[ ] it was a story where was done a deed so dreadful that alone i feared to read. the next was 'the confessions of a nun'-- 'twas quite a shame such evils should be done. nun of--no matter for the creature's name, for there are girls no nunnery can tame. then was the story of the haunted hall, when the huge picture nodded from the wall, "when the old lord looked up with trembling dread, and i grew pale and shuddered as i read. then came the tales of winters, summers, springs at bath and brighton--they were pretty things! no ghosts or spectres there were heard or seen, but all was love and flight to gretna-green. perhaps your greater learning may despise what others like--and there your wisdom lies." to this attractive catalogue the preceptor husband, no doubt, listened with the expression of crabbe's _old bachelor_: "that kind of cool, contemptuous smile of witty persons overcharged with bile," but she at least succeeds in interrupting his flow of information for the time being. he retires routed. crabbe's close acquaintance with "the flowery pages of sublime distress," with "vengeful monks who play unpriestly tricks," with banditti "who, in forest wide or cavern vast, indignant virgins hide," was, as he confesses, a relic of those unregenerate days, when "to the heroine's soul-distracting fears i early gave my sixpences and tears."[ ] he could have groped his way through a gothic castle without the aid of a talkative housekeeper: "i've watched a wintry night on castle-walls, i've stalked by moonlight through deserted halls, and when the weary world was sunk to rest i've had such sights--as may not be expressed. lo! that chateau, the western tower decayed, the peasants shun it--they are all afraid; for there was done a deed--could walls reveal or timbers tell it, how the heart would feel! "most horrid was it--for, behold, the floor has stain of blood--and will be clean no more. hark to the winds! which through the wide saloon and the long passage send a dismal tune, music that ghosts delight in--and now heed yon beauteous nymph, who must unmask the deed. see! with majestic sweep she swims alone through rooms, all dreary, guided by a groan, though windows rattle and though tap'stries shake and the feet falter every step they take. mid groans and gibing sprites she silent goes to find a something which will soon expose the villainies and wiles of her determined foes, and having thus adventured, thus endured, fame, wealth, and lover, are for life secured."[ ] crabbe's ellen orford in _the borough_ ( ) is drawn from life, and in grim and bitter irony is intended as a contrast to these timorous and triumphant creatures "borrowed and again conveyed, from book to book, the shadows of a shade." ellen's adventures are sordid and gloomy, without a hint of the picturesque, her distresses horrible actualities, not the "air-drawn" fancies that torture the sensitive angelinas of gothic fiction: "but not like them has she been laid in ruined castle sore dismayed, where naughty man and ghostly sprite fill'd her pure mind with awe and dread, stalked round the room, put out the light and shook the curtains round the bed. no cruel uncle kept her land, no tyrant father forced her hand; she had no vixen virgin aunt without whose aid she could not eat and yet who poisoned all her meat with gibe and sneer and taunt." though crabbe showed scant sympathy with the delicate sensibilities of girls who hung enraptured over the high-pitched heroics and miraculous escapes of clementina and her kindred, he found pleasure in a robuster school of romance--the adventures of mighty hickathrift, jack the giant-killer, and robin hood, as set forth and embellished in the chapbooks which cottagers treasured "on the deal shelf beside the cuckoo-clock."[ ] and in his poem, _sir eustace grey_, he presents with subtle art a mind tormented by terror. chapter viii - scott and the novel of terror. in we find miss lydia languish's maid ransacking the circulating libraries of bath, and concealing under her cloak novels of sensibility and of fashionable scandal. some twenty years later, in the self-same city, catherine morland is "lost from all worldly concerns of dressing or dinner over the pages of _udolpho_," and isabella thorpe is collecting in her pocket-book the "horrid" titles of romances from the german. in , apparently, the vogue of the sentimental, the scandalous, the mysterious, and the horrid still persisted. scott, in the introductory chapter to _waverley_, disrespectfully passes in review the modish novels, which, as it proved, were doomed to be supplanted by the series of romances he was then beginning: "had i announced in my frontispiece, 'waverley, a tale of other days,' must not every novel reader have anticipated a castle scarce less than that of udolpho, of which the eastern wing has been long uninhabited, and the keys either lost or consigned to the care of some aged butler or housekeeper, whose trembling steps about the middle of the second volume were doomed to guide the hero or heroine to the ruinous precincts? would not the owl have shrieked and the cricket cried in my very title page? and could it have been possible to me with a moderate attention to decorum to introduce any scene more lively than might be produced by the jocularity of a clownish but faithful valet or the garrulous narrative of the heroine's _fille-de-chambre_, when rehearsing the stories of blood and horror which she had heard in the servant's hall? again, had my title borne 'waverley, a romance from the german,' what head so obtuse as not to image forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secret and mysterious association of rosycrucians and illuminati, with all their properties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electrical machines, trap-doors and dark lanterns? or, if i had rather chosen to call my work, 'a sentimental tale,' would it not have been a sufficient presage of a heroine with a profusion of auburn hair, and a harp, the soft solace of her solitary hours, which she fortunately always finds means of transporting from castle to cottage, though she herself be sometimes obliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window and is more than once bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without any guide but a blowsy peasant girl, whose jargon she can scarcely understand? or again, if my _waverley_ had been entitled 'a tale of the times,' wouldst thou not, gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal ... a heroine from grosvenor square, and a hero from the barouche club or the four in hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of queen anne street, east, or the dashing heroes of the bow street office?" yet scott himself had once trodden in these well-worn paths of romance. in the general preface to the collected edition of , wherein he seeks to "ravel out his weaved-up follies," he refers to "a tale of chivalry planned thirty years earlier in the style of _the castle of otranto_, with plenty of border characters and supernatural incident." his outline of the plot and a fragment of the story, which was to be entitled _thomas the rhymer_, are printed as an appendix to the preface. scott intended to base his story on an ancient legend, found in reginald scot's _discovery of witchcraft_, concerning the horn and sword of thomas of hercildoune. cannobie dick, a jolly horse-cowper, was led by a mysterious stranger through an opening in a hillside into a long range of stables. in every stall stood a coal-black horse, and by every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn sword in his hand. all were as still and silent as if hewn out of marble. at the far end of a gloomy hall, illuminated, like the halls of eblis, only by torches, there lay, upon an ancient table, a horn and a sword. a voice bade dick try his courage, warning him that much depended upon his first choosing either the horn or the sword. dick, whose stout heart quailed before the supernatural terrors of the hall, attempted to blow the horn before unsheathing the sword. at the first feeble blast the warriors and their steeds started to life, the knights fiercely brandishing their weapons and clashing their armour. dick made a fruitless attempt to snatch the sword. after a mysterious voice had pronounced his doom he was hurled out of the hall by a whirlwind of irresistible fury. he told his story to the shepherds, who found him dying on the cold hill side. regarding this legend as "an unhappy foundation for a prose story," scott did not complete his fragment, which in style and treatment is not unlike the gothic experiments of mrs. barbauld and dr. nathan drake. such a story as that of the magic horn and sword might have been told in the simple words that occur naturally to a shepherd, "warmed to courage over his third tumbler," like the old peasant to whom stevenson entrusts the terrible tale of _thrawn janet_, or to wandering willie, who declared: "i whiles mak a tale serve the turn among the country bodies, and i have some fearsome anes, that mak the auld carlines shake on the settle, and bits o' bairns skirl on their minnies out frae their beds." the personality of the narrator, swayed by the terror of his tale, would have cast the spell that scott's carefully framed sentences fail to create. another of scott's _disjecta membra_, composed at the end of the eighteenth century, is the opening of a story called _the lord of ennerdale_, in which the family of ratcliffe settle down before the fire to listen to a story "savouring not a little of the marvellous." as lady ratcliffe and her daughters "had heard every groan and lifted every trapdoor in company with the noted heroine of udolpho, had valorously mounted _en croupe_ behind the horseman of prague through all his seven translators, had followed the footsteps of moor through the forests of bohemia," and were even suspected of an acquaintance with lewis's _monk_, scott was setting himself no easy task when he undertook to thrill these seasoned adventurers. after this prologue, which leads one to expect a banquet of horrors, only a very brief fragment of the story is forthcoming. though he gently derides lady ratcliffe's literary tastes, scott, too, was an admirer of mrs. radcliffe's novels, and had been so entranced by burger's _lenore_ that he attempted an english version.[ ] it was after hearing taylor's translation of this ballad read aloud that he uttered his dismal ejaculation: "i wish to heaven i could get a skull and two crossbones"--a whim that was speedily gratified. he, too, like lady ratcliffe, had read _die räuber_; and he translated goethe's _gëtz von berlichingen_. he delighted in lewis's _tales of wonder_ ( ) where the verse gallops through horrors so fearful that the "lights in the chamber burn blue," and himself contributed to the collection. he wrote "goblin dramas"[ ] as terrific in intention, but not in performance, as lewis's _castle spectre_ and maturin's _bertram_. his latin call-thesis dealt with the kind of subject "monk" lewis or harrison ainsworth or poe might have chosen--the disposal of the dead bodies of persons legally executed. scott continually added to his store of quaint and grisly learning both from popular tradition and from a library of such works as bovet's _pandemonium, or the devil's cloyster opened_, sinclair's _satan's invisible world discovered_, whence he borrowed the name of the jackanapes in _wandering willie's tale_, and the horse-shoe frown for the brow of the redgauntlets, heywood's _hierarchy of the blessed angels_, joseph taylor's _history of apparitions_, from which he quotes in _woodstock_. he was familiar with all the niceties of ghostly etiquette; he could distinguish at a glance the various ranks and orders of demons and spirits; he was versed in charms and spells; he knew exactly how a wizard ought to be dressed. this lore not only stood him in good stead when he compiled his _letters on demonology and witchcraft_ ( ), but served to adorn his poems and novels. there was nothing unhealthy in his attitude towards the spectral world. at an inn he slept soundly in one bed of a double room, while a dead man occupied the other. twice in his life he confessed to having felt "eerie"--once at glamis castle, which was said to be haunted by a presence in a secret chamber, and once when he believed that he saw an apparition on his way home in the twilight; but he usually jests cheerfully when he speaks of the supernatural. he was interested in tracing the sources of terror and in studying the mechanism of ghost stories. the axioms which he lays down are sound and suggestive: "ghosts should not appear too often or become too chatty. the magician shall evoke no spirits, whom he is not capable of endowing with manners and language corresponding to their supernatural character. perhaps, to be circumstantial and abundant in minute detail and in one word ... to be somewhat prosy, is the secret mode of securing a certain necessary degree of credulity from the hearers of a ghost story... the chord which vibrates and sounds at a touch remains in silent tension under continued pressure."[ ] scott's ghost story, _the tapestried chamber, or the lady in the sacque_[ ] which he heard from miss anna seward, who had an unexpected gift for recounting such things at country house parties, gives the impression of being carefully planned according to rule. as a human being the lady in the sacque had a black record, but, considered dispassionately as a ghost, her manners and deportment are irreproachable. the ghost-seer's independence of character are so firmly insisted upon that it seems impertinent to doubt the veracity of his story. _my aunt margaret's mirror_ was told to scott in childhood by an ancient spinster, whose pleasing fancy it was to read alone in her chamber by the light of a taper fixed in a candlestick which she had formed out of a human skull, and who was learned in superstitious lore. she describes accurately the mood, when "the female imagination is in due temperature to enjoy a ghost story": "all that is indispensable for the enjoyment of the milder feeling of supernatural awe is that you should be susceptible of the slight shuddering which creeps over you when you hear a tale of terror--that well-vouched tale which the narrator, having first expressed his general disbelief of all such legendary lore, selects and produces, as having something in it which he has been always obliged to give up as inexplicable. another symptom is a momentary hesitation to look round you, when the interest of the narrative is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid looking into a mirror, when you are alone, in your chamber, for the evening."[ ] in her story "aunt margaret" describes how, in a magic mirror belonging to dr. baptista damiotti, lady bothwell and her sister lady forester see the wedding ceremony of sir philip forester and a young girl in a foreign city interrupted by lady forester's brother, who is slain in the duel that ensues. scott regarded these two stories as trifles designed to while away a leisure hour. on _wandering willie's tale_--a masterpiece of supernatural terror--he bestowed unusual care. the ill fa'urd, fearsome couple--sir robert with his face "gash and ghastly as satan's," and "major weir," the jackanape, in his red-laced coat and wig--steenie's eerie encounter with the "stranger" on horseback, the ribald crew of feasters in the hall are described so faithfully and in such vivid phrases that it is no wonder willie should remark at one point of the story: "i almost think i was there mysell, though i couldna be born at the same time." the power of the tale, which fascinates us from beginning to end and which can be read again and again with renewed pleasure, depends partly on wandering willie's gifts as a narrator, partly on the emotions that stir him as he talks. with unconscious art, he always uses the right word in his descriptions, and chooses those details that help us to fix the rapidly changing imagery of his scenes; and he reproduces exactly the natural dialogue of the speakers. he begins in a tone of calm, unhurried narration, with only a hint of fear in his voice, but, at the death of sir robert, grows breathless with horror and excitement. the uncanny incident of the silver whistle that sounds from the dead man's chamber is skilfully followed by a matter-of-fact account of steenie's dealings with the new laird. the emotion culminates in the terror of the hall of ghastly revellers, whose wild shrieks "made willie's gudesire's very nails grow blue and chilled the marrow in his banes." so lifelike is the scene, so full of colour and movement, that steenie's descendants might well believe that their gudesire, like dante, had seen hell. the notes, introductions and appendices to scott's works are stored with material for novels of terror. the notes to _marmion_, for instance, contain references to a necromantic priest whose story "much resembles that of ambrosio in the _monk_," to an "elfin" warrior and to a chest of treasure jealously guarded for a century by the devil in the likeness of a huntsman. in _the lady of the lake_ there is a note on the ancient legend of the phantom sire, in _rokeby_ there is an allusion to the demon frigate wandering under a curse from harbour to harbour. to scott "bogle-wark" was merely a diversion. he did not choose to make it the mainspring either of his poems or his romances. in _the lay of the last minstrel_ he had, indeed, intended to make the goblin page play a leading part, but the imp, as scott remarked to miss seward, "by the natural baseness of his propensities contrived to slink downstairs into the kitchen." the white lady of avenel, who appears in _the monastery_ ( )--a boisterous creature who rides on horseback, splashes through streams and digs a grave--was wisely withdrawn in the sequel, _the abbot_. in the introduction scott states: "the white lady is scarcely supposed to have possessed either the power or the inclination to do more than inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is always subjected by those mortals who ... could assert superiority over her." the only apology scott could offer to the critics who derided his wraith was that the readers "ought to allow for the capriccios of what is after all but a better sort of goblin." she was suggested by the undine of de la motte fouqué. in his next novel, _the fortunes of nigel_, scott formally renounced the mystic and the magical: "not a cock lane scratch--not one bounce on the drum of tedworth--not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch in the wainscot." but scott cannot banish spectres so lightly from his imagination. apparitions--such as the bodach glas who warns fergus m'ivor of his approaching death in _waverley_, or the wraith of a highlander in a white cockade who is seen on the battlefield in _the legend of montrose_--had appeared in his earlier novels, and others appear again and again later. in _the bride of lammermoor_--the only one of scott's novels which might fitly be called a "tale of terror"--the atmosphere of horror and the sense of overhanging calamity effectually prepare our minds for the supernatural, and the wraith of old alice who appears to the master of ravenswood is strangely solemn and impressive. but even more terrible is the description of the three hags laying out her corpse. the appearance of vanda with the bloody finger in the haunted chamber of the saxon manor in _the betrothed_ is skilfully arranged, and eveline's terror is described with convincing reality. in _woodstock_, scott adopted the method of explaining away the apparently supernatural, although in his _lives of the novelists_ he expressly disapproves of what he calls the "precaution of snug the joiner." charged by ballantyne with imitating mrs. radcliffe, scott defended himself by asserting: "my object is not to excite fear of supernatural things in my reader, but to show the effect of such fear upon the agents of the story--one a man in sense and firmness, one a man unhinged by remorse, one a stupid, unenquiring clown, one a learned and worthy but superstitious divine."[ ] as scott in his introduction quotes the passage from a treatise entitled _the secret history of the good devil of woodstock_, which reveals that the mysteries were performed by one joseph collins with the aid of two friends, a concealed trap-door and a pound of gunpowder, he cannot justly be accused of deceiving his readers. there are suggestions of mrs. radcliffe's method in others of his novels. in _the antiquary_, before lovel retires to the green room at monkbar, he is warned by miss griselda oldbuck of a "well-fa'urd auld gentleman in a queer old-fashioned dress with whiskers turned upward on his upper lip as long as baudrons," who is wont to appear at one's bedside. he falls into an uneasy slumber, and in the middle of the night is startled to see a green huntsman leave the tapestry and turn into the "well-fa'urd auld gentleman" before his very eyes. in _old mortality_, edith bellenden mistakes her lover for his apparition, just as one of mrs. radcliffe's heroines might have done. in _peveril of the peak_, fenella's communications with the hero in his prison, when he mistakes her voice for that of a spirit, have an air of gothic mystery. the awe-inspiring villain, who appears in _marmion_ and _rokeby_, may be distinguished by his scowl, his passion-lined face and gleaming eye. rashleigh, in _rob roy_, who, understanding greek, latin and hebrew, "need not care for ghaist or barghaist, devil or dobbie," and whose sequestered apartment the servants durst not approach at nightfall for "fear of bogles and brownies and lang-nebbit things frae the neist world," is of the same lineage. sir robert redgauntlet, too, might have stepped out of one of mrs. radcliffe's romances. his niece is not unlike one of her heroines. she speaks in the very accents of emily when she says: "now i have still so much of our family spirit as enables me to be as composed in danger as most of my sex, and upon two occasions in the course of our journey--a threatened attack by banditti, and the overturn of our carriage--i had the fortune so to conduct myself as to convey to my uncle a very favourable idea of my intrepidity." jeanie deans, the most admirable and the most skilfully drawn of scott's women, is a daring contrast to the traditional heroine of romance. the "delicate distresses" of persecuted emilies shrink into insignificance amid the tragedy and comedy of actual life portrayed in the waverley novels. the tyrannical marquises, vindictive stepmothers, dark-browed villains, scheming monks, chattering domestics and fierce banditti are thrust aside by a motley crowd of living beings--soldiers, lawyers, smugglers, gypsies, shepherds, outlaws and beggars. the wax-work figures, guaranteed to thrill with nervous suspense or overflow with sensibility at the appropriate moments, are replaced by real folk like "old mortality," andrew fairservice, dugald dalgetty and peter peebles, whose humour and pathos are those of our own world. the historical background, faint, misty and unreal in mrs. radcliffe's novels, becomes, in those of scott, arresting and substantial. the grave, artificial dialogue in which mrs. radcliffe's characters habitually discourse descends to some of scott's personages, but is often exchanged for the natural idiom of simple people. the gothic abbey, dropped down in an uncertain, haphazard fashion, in some foreign land, is deserted for huts, barns inns, cottages and castles, solidly built on scottish soil. we leave the mouldy air of the subterranean vault for the keen winds of the moorland. the terrors of the invisible world only fill the stray corners of his huge scene. he creates romance out of the stuff of real life. chapter ix - later developments of the tale of terror. as the novel of terror passes from the hands of mrs. radcliffe to those of "monk" lewis, maturin and their imitators, there is a crashing crescendo of emotion. the villain's sardonic smile is replaced by wild outbursts of diabolical laughter, his scowl grows darker and darker, and as his designs become more bloody and more dangerous, his victims no longer sigh plaintively, but give utterance to piercing shrieks and despairing yells; tearful amandas are unceremoniously thrust into the background by vindictive matildas, whose passions rage in all their primitive savagery; the fearful ghost "fresh courage takes," and stands forth audaciously in the light of day; the very devil stalks shamelessly abroad in manifold disguises. we are caught up from first to last in the very tempest, torrent and whirlwind of passion. when the novel of terror thus throws restraint to the winds, outrageously o'ersteps the modesty of nature and indulges in a farrago of frightfulness, it begins to defeat its own purposes and to fail in its object of freezing the blood. the limit of human endurance has been reached--and passed. emphasis and exaggeration have done their worst. battle, murder, and sudden death--even spectres and fiends--can appal no more. if the old thrill is to be evoked again, the application of more ingenious methods is needed. such novels as maturin's _family of montorio_, though "full of sound and fury," fail piteously to vibrate the chords of terror, which had trembled beneath mrs. radcliffe's gentle fingers. the instrument, smitten forcibly, repeatedly, desperately, resounds not with the answering note expected, but with an ugly, metallic jangle. _melmoth the wanderer_, maturin's extraordinary masterpiece, was to prove--as late as --that there were chords in the orchestra of horror as yet unsounded; but in , when mary shelley and her companions set themselves to compose supernatural stories, it was wise to dispense with the shrieking chorus of malevolent abbesses, diabolical monks, intriguing marquises, wandering jews or bleeding spectres, who had been so grievously overworked in previous performances. dr. polidori's skull-headed lady, byron's vampire-gentleman, mrs. shelley's man-created monster--a grotesque and gruesome trio--had at least the attraction of novelty. it is indeed remarkable that so young and inexperienced a writer as mary shelley, who was only nineteen when she wrote _frankenstein_, should betray so slight a dependence on her predecessors. it is evident from the records of her reading that the novel of terror in all its guises was familiar to her. she had beheld the majestic horror of the halls of eblis; she had threaded her way through mrs. radcliffe's artfully constructed gothic castles; she had braved the terrors of the german ritter-, räuber- und schauer-romane; she had assisted, fearful, at lewis's midnight diablerie; she had patiently unravelled the "mystery" novels of godwin and of charles brockden brown.[ ] yet, despite this intimate knowledge of the terrible and supernatural in fiction, mrs. shelley's theme and her way of handling it are completely her own. in an "acute mental vision," as real as the visions of blake and of shelley, she beheld her monster and the "pale student of unhallowed arts" who had created him, and then set herself to reproduce the thrill of horror inspired by her waking dream. _frankenstein_ has, indeed, been compared to godwin's _st. leon_, but the resemblance is so vague and superficial, and _frankenstein_ so immeasurably superior, that mrs. shelley's debt to her father is negligible. st. leon accepts the gift of immortality, frankenstein creates a new life, and in both novels the main interest lies in tracing the effect of the experiment on the soul of the man, who has pursued scientific inquiry beyond legitimate limits. but apart from this, there is little resemblance. godwin chose the supernatural, because it chanced to be popular, and laboriously built up a cumbrous edifice, completing it by a sheer effort of will-power. his daughter, with an imagination naturally more attuned to the gruesome and fantastic, writes, when once she has wound her way into the heart of the story, in a mood of breathless excitement that drives the reader forward with feverish apprehension. the name of mrs. shelley's _frankenstein_ is far-famed; but the book itself, overshadowed perhaps by its literary associations, seems to have withdrawn into the vast library of famous works that are more often mentioned than read. the very fact that the name is often bestowed on the monster instead of his creator seems to suggest that many are content to accept mrs. shelley's "hideous phantom" on hearsay evidence rather than encounter for themselves the terrors of his presence. the story deserves a happier fate, for, if it be read in the spirit of willing surrender that a theme so impossible demands, it has still power momentarily "to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood and to quicken the beatings of the heart." the record of the composition of _frankenstein_ has been so often reiterated that it is probably better known than the tale itself. in the summer of --when the shelleys were the neighbours of byron near lake geneva--byron, shelley, mary shelley and dr. polidori, after reading some volumes of ghost stories[ ] and discussing the supernatural and its manifestations, each agreed to write a ghost story. it has been asserted that an interest in spectres was stimulated by a visit from "monk" lewis, but we have evidence that mrs. shelley was already writing her story in june,[ ] and that lewis did not arrive at the villa diodati till august th.[ ] the conversation with him about ghosts took place four days later. shelley's story, based on the experiences of his early youth, was never completed. byron's fragment formed the basis of dr. polidori's _vampyre_. dr. polidori states that his supernatural novel, _ernestus berchtold_, was begun at this time; but the skull-headed lady, alluded to by mary shelley as figuring in polidori's story, is disappointingly absent. it was an argument between byron and shelley about erasmus darwin's theories that brought before mary shelley's sleepless eyes the vision of the monster miraculously infused by its creator with the spark of life. _frankenstein_ was begun immediately, completed in may, , and published in . mrs. shelley has been censured for setting her tale in a clumsy framework, but she tells us in her preface that she began with the words: "it was on a dreary night of november." this sentence now stands at the opening of chapter iv., where the plot begins to grip our imagination; and it seems not unfair to assume that the introductory letters and the first four chapters, which contain a tedious and largely unnecessary account of frankenstein's early life, were written in deference to shelley's plea that the idea should be developed at greater length, and did not form part of her original plan. the uninteresting student, robert walton, to whom frankenstein, discovered dying among icebergs, tells his story, is obviously an afterthought. if mrs. shelley had abandoned the awkward contrivance of putting the narrative into the form of a dying man's confession, reported verbatim in a series of letters, and had opened her story, as she apparently intended, at the point where frankenstein, after weary years of research, succeeds in creating a living being, her novel would have gained in force and intensity. from that moment it holds us fascinated. it is true that the tension relaxes from time to time, that the monster's strange education and the godwinian precepts that fall so incongruously from his lips tend to excite our mirth, but, though we are mildly amused, we are no longer merely bored. even the protracted descriptions of domestic life assume a new and deeper meaning, for the shadow of the monster broods over them. one by one those whom frankenstein loves fall victims to the malice of the being he has endowed with life. unceasingly and unrelentingly the loathsome creature dogs our imagination, more awful when he lurks unseen than when he stands actually before us. with hideous malignity he slays frankenstein's young brother, and by a fiendish device causes justine, an innocent girl, to be executed for the crime. yet ere long our sympathy, which has hitherto been entirely with frankenstein, is unexpectedly diverted to the monster who, it would seem, is wicked only because he is eternally divorced from human society. amid the magnificent scenery of the valley of chamounix he appears before his creator, and tells the story of his wretched life, pleading: "everywhere i see bliss from which i alone am irrevocably excluded. i was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. make me happy, and i shall again be virtuous." he describes how his physical ugliness repels human beings, who fail to realise his benevolent intentions. a father snatches from his arms the child he has rescued from death; the virtuous family, whom he admires and would fain serve, flee affrighted from his presence. to educate the monster, so that his thoughts and emotions may become articulate, and, incidentally, to accentuate his isolation from society, mrs. shelley inserts a complicated story about an arabian girl, sofie, whose lover teaches her to read from plutarch's _lives_, volney's _ruins of empire, the sorrows of werther_, and _paradise lost_. the monster overhears the lessons, and ponders on this unique library, but, as he pleads his own cause the more eloquently because he knows satan's passionate outbursts of defiance and self-pity, who would cavil at the method by which he is made to acquire his knowledge? "the cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their branches above me; now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. all save i were at rest or in enjoyment. i, like the arch fiend, bore a hell within me." and later, near the close of the book: "the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. yet even that enemy of god and man had friends and associates in his desolation; i am alone," his fate reminds us of that of _alastor, the spirit of solitude_, who: "over the world wanders for ever lone as incarnate death." after the long and moving recital of his woes, even the obdurate frankenstein cannot resist the justice of his demand for a partner like himself. yet when the student recoils with horror from his half-accomplished task and sees the creature maliciously peering through the window, our hatred leaps to life once more and burns fiercely as the monster adds to his crimes the murder of clerval, frankenstein's dearest friend, and of elizabeth on her wedding night. we follow with shuddering anticipation the long pursuit of the monster, expectant of a last, fearful encounter which shall decide the fate of the demon and his maker. amid the region of eternal ice, frankenstein catches sight of him; but fails to reach him. at last, beside the body of his last victim--frankenstein himself--the creature is filled with remorse at the "frightful catalogue" of his sins, and makes a final bid for our sympathy in the farewell speech to walton, before climbing on an ice-raft to be "borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance." like _alastor_, _frankenstein_ was a plea for human sympathy, and was, according to shelley's preface, intended "to exhibit the amiableness of domestic affection and the excellence of universal virtue." the monster has the perception and desire of goodness, but, by the circumstances of his abnormal existence, is delivered over to evil. it is this dual nature that prevents him from being a mere automaton. the monster indeed is far more real than the shadowy beings whom he pursues. frankenstein is less an individual than a type, and only interests us through the emotions which his conflict with the monster arouses. clerval, elizabeth and frankenstein's relatives are passive sufferers whose psychology does not concern us. mrs. shelley rightly lavishes her skill on the central figure of the book, and succeeds, as effectually as frankenstein himself, in infusing into him the spark of life. mrs. shelley's aim is to "awaken thrilling horror," and, incidentally, to "exhibit the excellence of domestic virtue," and for her purpose the demon is of paramount importance. the involved, complex plot of a novel seemed to pass beyond mrs. shelley's control. a short tale she could handle successfully, and shelley was unwise in inciting her to expand _frankenstein_ into a long narrative. so long as she is completely carried away by her subject mrs. shelley writes clearly, but when she pauses to regard the progress of her story dispassionately, she seems to be overwhelmed by the wealth of her resources and to have no power of selecting the relevant details. the laborious introductory letters, the meticulous record of frankenstein's education, the story of felix and sofie, the description of the tour through england before the creation of the second monster is attempted, are all connected with the main theme by very frail links and serve to distract our attention in an irritating fashion from what really interests us. in the novel of mystery a tantalising delay may be singularly effective. in a novel which depends chiefly for its effect on sheer horror, delays are merely dangerous. by resting her terrors on a pseudo-scientific basis and by placing her story in a definite locality, mrs. shelley waives her right to an entire suspension of disbelief. if it be reduced to its lowest terms, the plot of frankenstein, with its bewildering confusion of the prosaic and the fantastic, sounds as crude, disjointed and inconsequent as that of a nightmare. mrs. shelley's timid hesitation between imagination and reality, her attempt to reconcile incompatible things and to place a creature who belongs to no earthly land in familiar surroundings, prevents _frankenstein_ from being a wholly satisfactory and alarming novel of terror. she loves the fantastic, but she also fears it. she is weighted down by commonsense, and so flutters instead of soaring, unwilling to trust herself far from the material world. but the fact that she was able to vivify her grotesque skeleton of a plot with some degree of success is no mean tribute to her gifts. the energy and vigour of her style, her complete and serious absorption in her subject, carry us safely over many an absurdity. it is only in the duller stretches of the narrative, when her heart is not in her work, that her language becomes vague, indeterminate and blurred, and that she muffles her thoughts in words like "ascertain," "commencement," "peruse," "diffuse," instead of using their simpler saxon equivalents. stirred by the excitement of the events she describes, she can write forcibly in simple, direct language. she often frames short, hurried sentences such as a man would naturally utter when breathless with terror or with recollections of terror. the final impression that _frankenstein_ leaves with us is not easy to define, because the book is so uneven in quality. it is obviously the shapeless work of an immature writer who has had no experience in evolving a plot. sometimes it is genuinely moving and impressive, but it continually falls abruptly and ludicrously short of its aim. yet when all its faults have been laid bare, the fact remains that few readers would abandon the story half-way through. mrs. shelley is so thoroughly engrossed in her theme that she impels her readers onward, even though they may think but meanly of her story as a work of art. mrs. shelley's second novel, _valperga, or the life and adventures of castruccio, prince of lucca_, published in , was a work on which she bestowed much care and labour, but the result proves that she writes best when the urgency of her imagination leaves her no leisure either to display her learning or adorn her style. she herself calls _valperga_ a "child of mighty slow growth," and shelley adds that it was "raked out of fifty old books." mrs. shelley, always an industrious student, made a conscientious survey of original sources before fashioning her story of mediaeval italy, and she is hampered by the exuberance of her knowledge. the novel is not a romance of terror; but castruccio, though his character is sketched from authentic documents, seems towards the end of the story to resemble the picturesque villain who numbered among his ancestry milton's satan. he has "a majestic figure and a countenance beautiful but sad, and tarnished by the expression of pride that animated it." beatrice, the gifted prophetess who falls deep in love with castruccio, ends her days in the dungeons of the inquisition. mrs. shelley's aim, however, is not to arouse fear, but to trace the gradual deterioration of castruccio's character from an open-hearted youth to a crafty tyrant. the blunt remarks of godwin, who revised the manuscript, are not unjust, but fall with an ill grace from the pen of the author of _st. leon_: "it appears in reading, that the first rule you prescribed was: 'i will let it be long.' it contains the quantity of four volumes of _waverley_. no hard blow was ever hit with a woodsaw."[ ] in _the last man_, which appeared in , mrs. shelley attempted a stupendous theme, no less then a picture of the devastation of the human race by plague and pestilence. she casts her imagination forward into the twenty-first century, when the last king of england has abdicated the throne and a republic is established. very wisely, she narrows the interest by concentrating on the pathetic fate of a group of friends who are among the last survivors, and the story becomes an idealised record of her own sufferings. the description of the loneliness of the bereft has a personal note, and reminds us of her journal, where she expresses the sorrow of being herself the last survivor, and of feeling like a "cloud from which the light of sunset has passed."[ ] raymond, who dies in an attempt to place the standard of greece in stamboul, is a portrait of byron; and adrian, the late king's son, who finally becomes protector, is clearly modelled on shelley. yet in spite of these personal reminiscences, their characters lack distinctness. idris, clara and perdita are faintly etched, but evadne, the greek artist, who cherishes a passion for raymond, and dies fighting against the turks, has more colour and body than the other women, though she is somewhat theatrical. mrs. shelley conveys emotion more faithfully than character, and the overwrought sensibilities and dark forebodings of the diminished party of survivors who leave england to distract their minds by foreign travel are artfully suggested. the leaping, gesticulating figure, whom their jaded nerves and morbid fancy transform into a phantom, is a delirious ballet-dancer; and the black spectre, mistaken for death incarnate, proves only to be a plague-stricken noble, who lurks near the party for the sake of human society. these "reasonable" solutions of the apparently supernatural remind us of mrs. radcliffe's method, and mrs. shelley shows keen psychological insight in her delineation of the state of mind which readily conjures up imaginary terrors. when lionel verney is left alone in the universe, her power seems to flag, and instead of the final crescendo of horror, which we expect at the end of the book, we are left with an ineffective picture of the last man in rome in deciding to explore the countries he has not yet viewed. as he wanders amid the ruins he recalls not only "the buried cæsars," but also the monk in _the italian_, of whom he had read in childhood--a striking proof of mrs. shelley's faith in the permanence of mrs. radcliffe's fame. though the style of _the last man_ is often tediously prolix and is disfigured by patches of florid rhetoric and by inappropriate similes scattered broadcast, occasional passages of wonderful beauty recall shelley's imagery; and, in conveying the pathos of loneliness, personal feeling lends nobility and eloquence to her style. with so ambitious a subject, it was natural that she should only partially succeed in carrying her readers with her. though there are oases, the story is a somewhat tedious and dreary stretch of narrative that can only be traversed with considerable effort. mrs. shelley's later works--_perkin warbeck_ ( ), a historical novel; _lodore_ ( ), which describes the early life of shelley and harriet; _falkner_ ( ), which was influenced by _caleb williams_--do not belong to the history of the novel of terror; but some of her short tales, contributed to periodicals and collected in , have gruesome and supernatural themes. _a tale of the passions, or the death of despina_[ ] a story based on the struggles of the guelphs and the ghibellines, contains a perfect specimen of the traditional villain of the novel of terror: "every feature of his countenance spoke of the struggle of passions and the terrible egotism of one who would sacrifice himself to the establishment of his will: his black eyebrows were scattered, his grey eyes deep-set and scowling, his look at once stern and haggard. a smile seemed never to have disturbed the settled scorn which his lips expressed; his high forehead was marked by a thousand contradictory lines." this terrific personage spends the last years of his life in orthodox fashion as an austere saint in a monastery. _the mortal immortal_, a variation on the theme of _st. leon_, is the record of a pupil of cornelius agrippa, who drank half of the elixir his master had compounded in the belief that it was a potion to destroy love. it is written on his three hundred and twenty-third birthday. _transformation_, like _frankenstein_, dwells on the pathos of ugliness and deformity, but the subject is treated rather in the spirit of an eastern fairy tale than in that of a novel of terror. the dwarf, in return for a chest of treasure, borrows a beautiful body, and, thus disguised, wins the love of juliet, and all ends happily. mrs. shelley's short stories[ ] reveal a stronger sense of proportion than her novels, and are written in a more graceful, fluent style than the books on which she expended great labour. the literary history of byron's fragmentary novel and of polidori's short story, _the vampyre_, is somewhat tangled, but the solution is to be found in the diary of dr. john william polidori, edited and elucidated by william michael rossetti. the day after that on which polidori states that all the competitors, except himself, had begun their stories, he records the simple fact: "began my ghost-story after tea." he gives no hint as to the subject of his tale, but mrs. shelley tells us that polidori had some idea of a "skull-headed lady, who was so punished for looking through a key-hole, and who was finally buried in the tomb of the capulets." in the introduction to _ernestus berchtold, or the modern oedipus_, he states definitely: "the tale here presented to the public is one i began at coligny, when _frankenstein_ was planned, and when a noble author, having determined to descend from his lofty range, gave up a few hours to a tale of terror, and wrote the fragment published at the end of mazeppa." as no skull-headed lady appears in _ernestus berchtold_, it is probable that her career was only suggested to the rest of the party as an entrancing possibility, and never actually took shape. this theme would certainly have proved more frightful and possibly more interesting than the one which polidori eventually adopted in _ernestus berchtold_, a rambling, leisurely account of the adventures of a swiss soldier, whose wife afterwards proves to be his own sister. their father has accepted from a malignant spirit the gift of wealth, but each time that the gift is bestowed some great affliction follows. this secret is not divulged until we are quite near the close of the story, and have waited so long that our interest has begun to wane. _ernestus berchtold_ is, as a matter of fact, not a novel of terror at all. the supernatural agency, which should have been interlaced with the domestic story from beginning to end, is only dragged in because it was one of the conditions of the competition, as indeed polidori frankly confesses in his introduction: "many readers will think that the same moral and the same colouring might have been given to characters acting under the ordinary agencies of life. i believe it, but i agreed to write a supernatural tale, and that does not allow of a completely everyday narrative." the candour of this admission forestalls criticism. strangely enough, polidori adds that he has thrown the "superior agency" into the background, because "a tale that rests upon improbabilities must generally disgust a rational mind." with so decided a preference for the reasonable and probable, it is remarkable that polidori should treat the vampire legend successfully. it has frequently been stated that byron's story was completed by polidori; but this assertion is not precisely accurate. polidori made no use of the actual fragment, but based his story upon the groundwork on which the fragment was to have been continued. byron's story describes the arrival of two friends amid the ruins of ephesus. one of them, darvell, who, like most of byron's heroes, is enshrouded in mystery, and is a prey to some cureless disquiet, falls ill and dies. before his death he demands that his companion shall on a certain day throw a ring into the salt springs that run into the bay of eleusis. if we may trust polidori's account, byron intended that the survivor, on his return to england, should be startled to behold his companion moving in society, and making love to his sister. on this foundation polidori constructed _the vampyre_. the story opens with the description of a nobleman, lord ruthven, whose appearance and character excite great interest in london society. his face is remarkable for its deadly pallor, and he has a "dead, grey eye, which, fixing upon the object's face, did not seem to penetrate and at one glance to pierce through to the inward workings of the heart, but fell upon the cheek with a leaden ray that laid (_sic_) upon the skin it could not pass." a young man named aubrey, who arrives in london about the same time, becomes deeply interested in the study of ruthven's character. when he joins him on a tour abroad he discovers that his companion takes a fiendish delight in ruining the innocent at the gaming-table; and, after receiving a warning of ruthven's reputation, decides to leave him, but to continue to watch him closely. he succeeds in foiling his designs against a young italian girl in rome. aubrey next travels to greece, where he falls in love with ianthe. one day, in spite of warnings that the place he purposes to visit is frequented by vampires, aubrey sets off on an excursion. benighted in a lonely forest, he hears the terror-stricken cries of a woman in a hovel, and, on attempting to rescue her, finds himself in the grasp of a being of superhuman strength, who cries: "again baffled!" when light dawns, aubrey makes the terrible discovery that ianthe has become the prey of a vampire. he carries away from the spot a blood-stained dagger. in the delirious fever, which ensues on his discovery of ianthe's fate, aubrey is nursed by lord ruthven. while they are travelling in greece, ruthven is shot in the shoulder by a robber, and, before dying, exacts from aubrey a solemn oath that he will not reveal for a year and a day what he knows of his crimes or death. in accordance with a promise made to ruthven, his body is conveyed to a mountain to be exposed to the rays of the moon. the corpse disappears. among ruthven's possessions aubrey finds a sheath, into which the dagger he has found in the hovel fits exactly. on passing through rome he learns that the girl he had once saved from ruthven has vanished. when he returns to london, aubrey is horrified to behold the figure of lord ruthven almost on the very spot where he had first seen him. he dare not break his oath, and soon becomes almost demented. the news of his sister's marriage seems to rouse him momentarily from his lethargy, and when he discovers that ruthven is to be the bridegroom he urges her to delay the marriage. his warnings are disregarded, and the ceremony takes place. aubrey relates to his sister's guardians all that he knows of ruthven, but it is too late. ruthven has disappeared, and she has "glutted the thirst of a vampyre." polidori's manner of telling the story is curiously matter of fact and restrained. he relates the incidents as they occur, and leaves the reader to form his own conclusions. if lewis had been handling the theme he would have wallowed in gory details, and would have expatiated on the agonies of his victims. polidori wisely keeps his story in a quiet key, depending for his effect on the terror of the bare facts. he realises that he is on the verge of the unspeakable. polidori's story set a fashion in vampires, who appear as characters in fiction all through the nineteenth century. a writer in the _dublin university magazine_ tells of a vampire who plays an admirable game of whist! there is an "explained" vampire in one of george macdonald's stories, _adela cathcart_. the prince of vampires is, however, bram stoker's _dracula_, round whom centres a story of absorbing interest. de quincey, who might have selected from the novel of terror many admirable illustrations for his essay on _murder, considered as one of the fine arts_, and who seems to have been attracted by the german type of horrific story, shows some facility in sensational fiction. in _klosterheim_, a one-volumed novel published in , the interest circles round the machinations of an elusive, ubiquitous "masque," eventually revealed to be none other than the son of the late landgrave, who, like many a man before him in the tale of terror, has been done to death by a usurper. disappearances through trap-doors, and escapes down subterranean passages are effected with a dexterity suggestive of mrs. radcliffe's methods; and the inexplicable murders, with the exception of that of an aged seneschal accidentally betrayed, are not real. in certain of his moods and habits, the masque bears a likeness to lewis's "bravo," but the setting of de quincey's story is very different. the adventures of the masque and of the lady pauline are cast in germany amid the confusion of the thirty years' war. in _the household wreck_, published in _blackwood's magazine_, january , de quincey shows his power of conveying a sense of foreboding, that anticipation of horror which is often more harrowing than the reality. another tale of terror, _the avenger_, published in the same year, describes a series of bloodcurdling murders which baffle the skill of the police, but which eventually prove to have been committed by a son to avenge dishonour done to his jewish mother. for a collection of _popular tales and romances of the northern nations_, published in , de quincey translated _der freischütz_ from the german of j.a. apel, under the title of _the fatal marksman_. by means of ill-gotten magic bullets the marksman wins his bride, but by one of those little ironies in which the devil delights to indulge, she is slain on the wedding-day by a bullet, which is aimed straight, but goes askew. in _the dice_, another short story from the german, de quincey once again exploits the old theme of a bargain with the devil. de quincey's contributions to the tale of terror shrink into unimportance beside the rest of his work, and are not in themselves remarkable. they are of interest as showing the widespread and long-enduring vogue of the species. it is noteworthy how many writers, whose main business lay elsewhere, have found time to make erratic excursions into the realms of the supernatural. so late as --more than a decade after the appearance of _melmoth_--harrison ainsworth, whose imagination was steeped in terror, sought once more to revive the "feeble and fluttering pulses of old romance." among his earliest experiments were tales obviously fashioned in the gothic manner. his imperishable one, the hero of a tale first published in the _european magazine_ for , bemoans the burden of immortality in the listless tones of godwin's st. leon, and is tempted by the fallen angel in the self-same guise in which he appeared to lewis's notorious monk. in _the test of affection_ (_european magazine_, ) a wealthy man avails himself of mrs. radcliffe's supernatural trickery to test the loyalty of his friends, whom he succeeds in alarming by noises and a skeleton apparition. in _arliss's pocket magazine_ ( ) there appeared _the spectre bride_; and in the _european magazine_ ( ) ainsworth attempted a theme that would have attracted poe in _the half hangit_. _the boeotian_ for contained _a tale of mystery_, and the _literary souvenir_ for _the fortress of saguntum_, a story in the style of lewis. ainsworth's first novel, _rookwood_ ( ), was inspired by a visit to cuckfield place, an old manor house which had reminded shelley of "bits of mrs. radcliffe": "wishing to describe somewhat minutely the trim gardens, the picturesque domains, the rook-haunted groves, the gloomy chambers and gloomier galleries of an ancient hall with which i was acquainted, i resolved to attempt a story in the bygone style of mrs. radcliffe, substituting an old english squire, an old manorial residence and an old english highwayman for the italian marchise, the castle and the brigand of that great mistress of romance... the attempt has succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectation. romance, if i am not mistaken, is destined shortly to undergo an important change. modified by the german and french writers--hoffmann, tieck, victor hugo, alexander dumas, balzac and paul lacroix--the structure commenced in our land by horace walpole, 'monk' lewis, mrs. radcliffe and maturin, but, left imperfect and inharmonious, requires, now that the rubbish which choked up its approach is removed, only the hand of the skilful architect to its entire renovation and perfection." in _rookwood_, ainsworth disdains mrs. radcliffe's reasonable elucidations of the supernatural, and introduces spectres whose existence it would be impossible to deny. once, however, a supposed ghost becomes substantial, and proves to be none other than a human being called jack palmer. the sexton, luke bradley, _alias_ alan rookwood, has inherited two of the wanderer's traits--the fear-impelling eyes of intolerable lustre, and the habit of indulging in wild, screaming laughter on the most inauspicious occasions. gothic properties are scattered with indiscriminate extravagance--skeleton hands, suddenly extinguished candles, sliding panels, sepulchral vaults. the plot of _rookwood_ is too complicated and too overcrowded with incident to keep our attention. the terrors are so unremitting that they fail to strike home. the only part of the book which holds us enthralled is the famous description of dick turpin's ride to york. here we forget ainsworth's slip-shod style in the excitement of the chase. in his later novels ainsworth abandoned the manner of mrs. radcliffe, but did not fail to make use of the motive of terror and mystery. the scenes of horror which he strove to convey in words were often more admirably depicted in the illustrations of cruikshank. the sorcerer's sabbath in _crichton_, the historical scenes of horror in _the tower of london_, the masque of the dance of death in _old st. paul's_, the appearance of herne the hunter, heralded by phosphoric lights, in _windsor castle_, the terrible orgies of _the lancashire witches_, are described with more striking effect because of ainsworth's early reading in the school of terror. in _auriol_, which was first published in _ainsworth's magazine_ ( - ) under the title _revelations of london_, was issued in as a gratuitous supplement to the _new monthly_, and greeted with derision,[ ] ainsworth handled once again the theme that fascinated lytton. the prologue ( ) describes the death of dr. lamb, whose elixir is seized by his great-grandson. in london is haunted by a stranger, who involves auriol in wildly fantastic and frightful adventures. the book closes in dr. lamb's laboratory; the intervening scenes are but dream imagery. phiz's sketch of the ruined house is the most lasting memory left by the book. captain marryat, whose mind was well stored with sailors' yarns, retells in _the phantom ship_ ( ) the old legend of the flying dutchman. at one time the doomed vessel is an unsubstantial vision, which can pass clean through the utrecht; at another she is a real craft, whose deck can be boarded by mortal men. the one-eyed pilot, schriften, with his malignant hatred of the hero, philip, is a terrifying figure. the story is embroidered by the invention of a wife of arab extraction, who is constantly attempting to recall the half-forgotten magical arts which her mother had practised. marryat makes an opportunity in the history of krantz, the second mate of the _vrou katerina_, to introduce the scandinavian legend of the werewolf, which is related with grisly detail. the novel of terror, with all its faults, had seldom been guilty of demanding intellectual strain or of overburdening itself with erudition. it was the dignified task of lord lytton to rationalise and elevate the novel of terror, to evolve the "man of reason" from the "child of nature." although time has tarnished the brilliance of his reputation, george edward bulwer was an imposing figure in the history of nineteenth century fiction. throughout his life, in spite of political and social distractions and of matrimonial disaster, he continued to engage with unwearying industry in literary work. he was not a man of genius in whom the creative impulse found its own expression, but a versatile and accomplished gentleman who could direct his talents into any channel he pleased. essays, translations, verses, plays, novels flowed from his pen in rapid succession, and he won his meed of applause and fame, as well as his share of execration and derision, in his own lifetime. quick to discern the popular taste of the hour, and eager to gratify it, lytton, with the resourceful agility of a lightning impersonator, turns in his novels from wertherism to dandyism, from criminal psychology to fairy folk-lore, from historical romance to domestic romance, from pseudo-philosophic occultism to pseudo-scientific fantasy. he ranges at will in the past, the present or the future, consorting indifferently with impalpable wraiths, vrilya or mysterious sages. it is to his credit that this unusual gift of adaptability does not result in incompetency. though he attempts a variety of manners, it must in justice be acknowledged that he does most of them well. he constructs his plots with laborious art, and pays a deliberate, if sometimes misguided, attention to style. when he fails, it is less from lack of effort than from over-elaboration and excess of zeal. bulwer lytton's predilection for the supernatural was neither a theatrical pose nor a passing folly excited by the fashionable craze for psychical research, but a genuine and enduring interest, inherited, it may be, from his ancestor, the learned, eccentric savant, dr. bulwer, who studied the black art and dabbled in astrology and palmistry. he was a member of the society of rosicrucians, and, to quote the words of his grandson, "he certainly did not study magic for the sake of writing about it, still less did he write about it, without having studied it, merely for the sake of making his readers' flesh creep." from his early years lytton seems to have been keenly interested in supernatural manifestations. he was inspired by the deserted rooms at the end of a long gallery in knebworth house to set down the story of the ghost, jenny spinner, who was said to haunt them; and the concealed chamber in _the haunted and the haunters_ may have been a revived memory of the trap-door down which lytton as a boy had "peeped with bristling hair into the shadowy abysses of hellhole." in _glenallan_,[ ] an early fragment, we find promising material for a tale of mystery--a villain with a "strange and sinister expression," a boy who, like the youthful shelley, steals forth by night to graveyards, hoping to attain to fearful secrets, and an aged servant, a living chronicle of horrors, who relates the doings of an irish wizard, morshed tyrone, of such awful power that the spirits of the earth, air and ocean ministered to him. in _godolphin_ ( ) there is an astrologer with the furrowed brow and awful eye, so common among the people of terror, and a strangely gifted girl, lucilla, who turns soothsayer. but when bulwer lytton attempts a supernatural romance he leaves far behind him the sphere of gothic terrors and soars into rarefied, exalted regions that inspire awe rather than horror. the dweller of the threshold in _zanoni_ is no red-cloaked, demoniacal figure springing from a trap-door with a deafening clap of thunder, but a "colossal shadow" brooding over the crater of vesuvius. the romance, _zanoni_ ( ), which lytton considered the greatest of his works and which carlyle praised with what now seems extravagant fervour, was based on an earlier sketch, _zicci_ ( ), and embodies a complicated theory which he had conceived several years earlier after reading some mediaeval treatises on astrology and the occult sciences. while his mind was occupied with these studies, the character of mejnour and the main outlines of the story were inspired by a dream, which he related to his son. according to lytton's theory, the air is peopled with intelligences, of whom some are favourable, others hostile to man. the earth contains certain plants, which, rightly used, have power to arrest the decay of the human body, and to enable man, by quickening his physical senses and mental gifts, to perceive the aerial beings and to discover the secrets of nature. this supernatural knowledge is in possession of a brotherhood of whom two only, mejnour and his pupil zanoni, are in existence. the initiation involves the surrender of all violent passions and emotions, and the neophyte must be brought into contact with the powerful and malignant being called the dweller of the threshold: "whose form of giant mould no mortal eye can fixed behold," mejnour and zanoni are supposed to have been initiated--the former in old age, the latter in youth--more than five thousand years before the story opens. thus mejnour remains for ever a vigorous old man; while zanoni, his pupil, enjoys perpetual youth. mejnour is purely intellectual, and spends his life in contemplation; while zanoni, though he must avoid love and friendship which are unknown to the passionless intelligences, feels sympathy with human beings. zanoni, who spends his life in the pursuit of pleasure, after fifty centuries at last falls in love with viola, an italian opera-singer. like melmoth the wanderer, zanoni is reluctant to bind the woman he loves to his own fate. he tries to renounce viola to an englishman, glyndon, who eventually chooses to relinquish love for the sake of achieving the unearthly knowledge of mejnour. glyndon, however, fails in the trial, and is consequently haunted by the horror of the dweller of the threshold. meanwhile zanoni is united to viola; and because he has succumbed to the force of love, his peculiar powers begin to fail. he can no longer see the beautiful, aerial intelligence, adon-ai. to save from death viola and the child who is born to them, zanoni ere long yields to the dweller of the threshold his gift of communion with the inhabitants of heaven. later viola, who incidentally typifies superstition deserting faith, leaves zanoni at the call of glyndon, and in paris, during the reign of terror, is doomed to die. zanoni invokes the aid of the mysterious intelligences, and his courage at length brings adon-ai again to his side. he wins a day's reprieve for viola, and is executed in her stead. the death of robespierre releases the prisoners, but viola dies the next day. the compact between zanoni and the dweller of the threshold is a renovation of the time-worn legend of the bargain with an evil spirit, but lytton transforms it almost beyond recognition. zanoni is no criminal. he has attained his secrets through will-power, self-conquest, and the subordination of the flesh to the spirit, and he surrenders his gifts willingly for the sake of another. both mejnour and zanoni disclaim miraculous powers, yet zanoni is ready to stake his mistress on a cast of the dice, and can cause the death of three sanguinary marauders without stirring from the apartment in which he ordinarily pursues his chemical studies. from such incidents as these it would seem as if lytton, for the actual craftsmanship of _zanoni_, may have gleaned stray hints from the novel of terror; but the spirit and intention of the book are entirely different. though lytton expressly declares that his _zanoni_ is not an allegory, he confesses that it has symbolical meanings. zanoni is apt to assume the superior pose of a lecturer elucidating an abstruse subject to an unenlightened audience. the impression of artifice that the book makes upon us is probably due to the fact that lytton first conceived his theories and then created personages to illustrate them. his characters have no power to act of their own volition or to do unexpected things, but must move along the lines laid down for them. in _the haunted and the haunters, or the house and the brain_, which appeared in _blackwood's magazine_ in , bulwer lytton lays aside the sin of over-elaboration and ornamentation that so easily besets him, and relies for his effect on the impalpable horror of his story. the calm, business-like overture, the accurate description of the position of the house in a street off the north side of oxford street, the insistence on the matter-of-fact attitude of the watcher, and on the cool courage of his servant, the abject fear of the dog, who dies in agony, all tend to create an atmosphere of grave conviction. the eerie child's footfall, the moving of the furniture by unseen hands, the wrinkled fingers that clutch the old letters, the faintly outlined wraiths of the man and woman in old-world garb with ruffles, lace, and buckles, the hideous phantom of the drowned man, the dark figure with malignant serpent eyes, shadow forth the story hinted at in the letters found in an old drawer. haunted by loathly presences, the watcher experiences a sensation of almost intolerable horror, but saves himself at the worst by opposing his will to that of the haunters. he rightly surmises that the evil influences, which seem in some way to emanate from a small empty room, really proceed from a living being. his interpretation is skilful and subtle enough not to detract from the simple horror of the tale. a miniature, certain volatile essences, a compass, a lodestone and other properties are found in a room below that which appeared to be the source of the horrors. it proves that the man, whose face is portrayed on the miniature has been able through the exertion of will-power to prolong his life for two centuries, and to preserve a curse in a magical vessel. he is actually interviewed by the watcher, to whom he unfolds his remarkable history, and whom he mesmerises into silence on the subject of his experiences in the haunted house for a space of three months. lytton realises that it is not only what is told but what is left unsaid that requires consideration in a ghost story. his reticence and the entire absence of any note of mockery or doubt secure the "willing suspension of disbelief" necessary to the appreciation of the apparently supernatural. in _a strange story_, which, at dickens's invitation, appeared in _all the year round_ ( - ), bulwer lytton further elaborates his theories of mesmerism and willpower. he explains his purpose in the preface: "when the reader lays down this strange story, perhaps he will detect, through all the haze of romance, the outlines of these images suggested to his reason: firstly, the image of sensuous, soulless nature, such as the materialist had conceived it. secondly, the image of intellect, obstinately separating all its inquiries from the belief in the spiritual essence and destiny of man, and incurring all kinds of perplexity and resorting to all kinds of visionary speculation before it settles at last into the simple faith which unites the philosopher and the infant. and thirdly, the image of the erring but pure-thoughted visionary, seeking overmuch on this earth to separate soul from mind, till innocence itself is led astray by a phantom and reason is lost in the space between earth and the stars." these three conceptions are embodied in margrave, who has renewed his life far beyond the limits allotted to man; a young doctor, fenwick, who represents the intellectual divorced from the spiritual; and lilian ashleigh, a clairvoyante girl, who typifies the spiritual divorced from the intellectual. the interest of the story turns on the struggle of fenwick to gain his bride, and to wrest her from the influence of margrave. the plot, intricately tangled, is unravelled with patient skill. in spite of the wearisome explanations of dr. faber, who is lucid but verbose, there is a fascination about the book which compels us to go forward. in lytton's hands the barbarity of the novel of terror has been gracefully smoothed away. it has, indeed, become almost unrecognisably refined and elevated, and something of its native vigour is lost in the process. amid all the amenities of vrilya and intelligences, we miss the vulgar blatancy of an honest, old-fashioned spectre. chapter x - short tales of terror. for the readers of their own day the gothic romances of walpole, miss reeve and mrs. radcliffe possessed the charm of novelty. before the close of the century we may trace, in the conversations of isabella thorpe and catherine morland in _northanger abbey_, symptoms of a longing for more poignant excitement. it was at this time that mrs. radcliffe, after the publication of _the italian_ in , retired quietly from the field. from her obscurity she viewed no doubt with some disdain the vulgar achievements of "monk" lewis and a tribe of imitators, who compounded a farrago of horrors as thick and slab as the contents of a witch's cauldron. until the appearance in of maturin's _melmoth_, which was redeemed by its psychological insight and its vigorous style, the gothic romance maintained a disreputable existence in the hands of those who looked upon fiction as a lucrative trade, not as an art. in the meantime, however, an easy device had been discovered for pandering to the popular craving for excitement. ingenious authors realised that it was possible to compress into the five pages of a short story as much sensation as was contained in the five volumes of a gothic romance. for the brevity of the tales, which were issued in chapbooks, readers were compensated by gaudily coloured illustrations and by double-barrelled titles. an anthology called "wild roses" (published by anne lemoine, coleman street, n.d.) included: _twelve o'clock or the three robbers, the monks of cluny, or castle acre monastery, the tomb of aurora, or the mysterious summons, the mysterious spaniard, or the ruins of st. luke's abbey_, and lastly, as a _bonne bouche_, _barbastal, or the magician of the forest of the bloody ash_.[ ] there are many collections of this kind, some of them dating back to , among the chapbooks in the british museum. it is in these brief, blood-curdling romances that we may find the origin of the short tale of terror, which became so popular a form of literature in the nineteenth century. the taste for these delicious morsels has lingered long. dante gabriel rossetti delighted in _brigand tales, tales of chivalry, tales of wonder, legends of terror_; and it was in search of such booty, "a penny plain and twopence coloured" that, more than fifty years later, robert louis stevenson and his companions ransacked the stores of a certain secluded stationer's shop in edinburgh. it was probably the success of the chapbook that encouraged the editors of periodicals early in the nineteenth century to enliven their pages with sensational fiction. the literary hack, who, if he had lived a century earlier, would have been glad to turn a turkish tale for half-a-crown, now cheerfully furnished a "fireside horror" for the christmas number. in his search after novelty he was often driven to wild and desperate expedients. leigh hunt, who showed scant sympathy with lewis's bleeding nun and scoffed mercilessly at his "little grey men who sit munching hearts," was bound to admit: "a man who does not contribute his quota of grim story, now-a-days, seems hardly to be free of the republic of letters." accordingly, so that he too might wear a death's head as part of his _insignia_, he included in _the indicator_ ( - ) a supernatural story, entitled _a tale for a chimney corner_. scorning to "measure talents with a leg of veal or a german sausage," he unfortunately dismissed from his imagination the nightmarish hordes of "haunting old women and knocking ghosts, and solitary lean hands, and empusas on one leg, and ladies growing longer and longer, and horrid eyes meeting us through keyholes; and plaintive heads and shrieking statues and shocking anomalies of shape and things, which, when seen, drove people mad," and in their place he conjured up a placid, ladylike ghost from a legend quoted in sandys' commentary on ovid. leigh hunt's story has the air of having been written by one who cared for none of these things; but there were others who wrote with more gusto. many of the tales in such collections as _the story-teller_ ( ) or _the romancist and novelist's library_ ( - ) show the persistence of gothic story. in these periodicals the grave and the gay are intermingled, and when we are weary of dark intrigues and impenetrable secrets we may turn to lighter reading. yet it is significant of the taste of our ancestors that we cannot venture far without encountering a spectre of some sort, or a villain with the baleful eye, disguised, it may be, as a spanish gipsy, a german necromancer or a russian count. many of the stories are gothic novels, reduced in size, but with room for all the old machinery: "a novel now is nothing more than an old castle, and a creaking door, a distant hovel, clanking of chains--a galley--a light-- old armour, and a phantom all in white, and there's a novel." in _the story-teller_, a magazine which reprinted many popular tales, we find german legends like _the three students of göttingen_, a "true story very strange and very pitiful"; _the wood demon; the wehr-wolf; the sexton of cologne, or lucifer_, a striking story of an italian artist who was haunted by a terrible figure he had painted in the church at arezzo. yet the first tale in the collection, _the story-haunted_, which describes the sad fate of a youth brought up in a solitary library reading romances to his mother, was intended, like _the spectre-smitten_, in _passages from the diary of a late physician_,[ ] as a solemn warning against over-indulgence in fictitious terrors. the mother dies in an agony of horror, as her son reads aloud the account of the gentleman of florence, who was pursued by a spectre of himself, which vanished with him finally into the earth, as the priest endeavoured to bless him. the son, left alone, enters the world, and judges the people around him by the standard of books. the story-haunted youth falls in love with the phantom of his own imagination, whom he endows with all the graces of the heroines of romance. he finds her embodied at last, but she dies before they are united. _the romancist and novelist's library_, in ten volumes, contains a comprehensive selection of tales of terror by the "best authors." walpole, miss reeve, mrs. radcliffe, "monk" lewis, maturin, mrs. shelley, and charles brockden brown are all represented; and there are many translations of tales by french and german authors. we may take our choice of _the spectre barber_ or _the spectre bride_, or, if we are inclined to incredulity, see _the spectre unmasked_. the entertainment offered is of bewildering variety. some of the stories, such as d.f. hayne's _romance of the castle_, seem like familiar, well-tried friends, and conceal no surprises for the readers of gothic romance. others, like _the sleepless woman_, by w. jerdan, are more piquant. the hero is warned by his dying uncle to beware of women's bright eyes. in spite of this he marries a lady, whose eyes unite the qualities of the robin and the falcon. after the wedding he makes the awful discovery that she is of too noble a lineage ever to sleep. turn where he may, her eyes are always upon him. at last, we find him pallid, haggard, and emaciated, wandering alone in an avenue of cedar trees beside a silent lake: "at this moment a breath of wind blew a branch aside--a sunbeam fell upon the baron's face; he took it for the eyes of his wife. alas! his remedy lay temptingly before him, the still, the profound, the shadowy lake. de launaye took one plunge--it was into eternity." the writer foolishly ruins the effect of this climax by super-imposing an allegorical interpretation. like the _story-teller, the romancist and novelist's library_ should be read "at night when doors are shut, and the wood-worm pricks, and the death-watch ticks, and the bar has a flag of smut,-- and the cat's in the water-butt-- and the socket floats and flares, and the housebeams groan, and a foot unknown is surmised on the garret stairs, and the locks slip unawares." but "tales of terror" lose some of their power when read one after another; they are most effective read singly in periodicals. _blackwood's magazine_ was especially famous for its tales, the best of which have been collected and published separately. the editor of the _dublin university magazine_ shows a marked preference for tales of a supernatural or sensational cast. le fanu, who claimed that his stories, like those of sir walter scott, belonged to the "legitimate school of english tragic romance," was one of the best-known contributors. _all the year round_ and _household words_, under the editorship of dickens, often found room for the occult and the uncanny. wilkie collins' fascinating serial, _the moonstone_, was published in _all the year round_ in ; _the woman in white_ had appeared six years earlier in _blackwood_. the stories included in these magazines are of various types. the old-fashioned spook gradually declines in popularity. he is ousted in a scientific age by more recondite forms of terror. before , with a few belated exceptions: "ghosts, wandering here and there troop home to churchyards, damned spirits all, that in crossways and floods have burial, already to their wormy beds are gone." the "explained supernatural" is skilfully improved and developed. le fanu's _green tea_ is a story from the diary of a german doctor, concerning a patient who was dogged by a black monkey. the creature, "whose green eyes glow with an expression of unfathomable malignity," is medically explained to be an illusion; but it is so vividly presented that it fastens on our imagination with remarkable tenacity. wilkie collins' short story, _the yellow mask_, included in the series called _after dark_, is another experiment in the same kind. a jealous woman appears among the dancers at a ball, wearing a waxen cast of the face of the man's dead wife. the short story, in which the author deliberately shakes our nerves and then soothes away our fears by accounting naturally for startling phenomena, is an amazingly popular type. it reappears continually in different guises. occasionally it merges into pleasant buffoonery. _die geistertodtenglocke_, for instance, a story in the _dublin university magazine_ ( ), is a burlesque, in which the mysterious tolling of a bell is explained by the discovery that a cow strolled into the ruin to eat the hay with which the rope was mended. but, judiciously handled, this type of story makes a strong appeal to human beings who like to know how much of the terrible and painful they can endure, and who yet must ultimately be reassured. another group of short tales of terror consists of those which purport to be faithful renderings of the beliefs of simple people. to this category belong allan cunningham's _traditional tales of the english and scottish peasantry_, which first appeared, with one exception, in the _london magazine_ ( - ). cunningham has the tact to preserve the legends of elves, fairies, ghosts and bogles, as they were passed down from one generation to another on the lips of living beings. later he attempted, in a novel, _sir michael scott_ ( ), a kind of gothic romance; but there is no trace in the _traditional tales_ of the influence of the terrormongers with whose works he was familiar. perhaps the finest story of the collection is _the haunted ships_, in which are embodied the traditions associated with two black and decayed hulls, half immersed in the quicksands of the solway. lewis would have dragged us on board ship, and would have shown us the devil in his own person. cunningham wisely keeps ashore, and repeats the tales that are told concerning the fiendish mirth and revelry to be heard, when, at certain seasons of the year, they arise in their former beauty, with forecastle and deck, with sail and pennon and shroud. james hogg, the ettrick shepherd, who was a friend of cunningham, was steeped in the same folk-lore. _the mysterious bride_, printed among his _tales and sketches_, tells of a beautiful spirit-lady, dressed in white and green, who appears three times on st. lawrence's eve to the laird of birkendelly. on the morning, after the night on which she had promised to wed him, he is found, a blackened corpse, on birky brow. _mary burnet_ is the story of a maiden who is drowned when keeping tryst with her lover. she returns to earth, like kilmeny, and assures her parents of her welfare. a demon woman, whose form resembles that of mary, haunts her lover, and entices him to evil. since hogg can give to his legends a "local habitation and a name," pointing to the very stretch of road on which the elfin lady first appeared, it seems ungracious to doubt his veracity. the ettrick shepherd's most memorable achievement, however, is his _confessions of a fanatic_ ( ), a terribly impressive account of a man afflicted with religious mania, who believes himself urged into crime by a mysterious being. the story abounds in frightful situations and weird scenes, one of the most striking being the reflection, seen at daybreak on arthur's seat, of a human head and shoulders, dilated to twenty times its natural size. professor saintsbury has suggested that lockhart probably had the principal hand in this story. "christopher north" was another member of the _noctes_ confraternity who came sometimes under the spell of the unearthly. the supernatural tales of mrs. gaskell, whose gift for story-telling made dickens call her his scheherazade, were, like those of cunningham, based directly on tradition. she was always attracted by the subject of witchcraft; and she had collected a store of "creepy" legends of the kind which made the nervous ladies of cranford bid their sedan-chairmen hasten rapidly down darkness lane at nights. the best of mrs. gaskell's short tales is perhaps _the nurse's story_, which appeared in the christmas number of _household words_ in . mrs. gaskell has a happy gift for preserving the natural aroma of a tale of bygone days. _the nurse's story_ has a hint of the old-world grace of lamb's _dream children_. the carefully disposed tableau of ghosts--the unforgiving old man, and the vindictive sister, spurning the lady and her child from the hall--is too definite and distinct, but the conception of the wraith of the dead child outside the manor, pleading piteously to be let in, and luring away the living child, is delicately wrought. the tale is told in the rambling, circumstantial style, suitable to the fireside and the long leisure of a winter's evening. dickens tells a very different nurse's story in one of the chapters of _an uncommercial traveller_. the tone of mrs. gaskell's nurse is kindly and protective; that of dickens' nurse severe, admonitory and emphatic. she, who told the grim legend of captain murderer, meant, clearly, to scare as well as to entertain her hearer. she leads up to the climax of her story, the deadly revenge of the dark twin's poisoned pie, with admirable art. the nurse's name was mercy, but, as dickens remarks, she showed none to him. though dickens shrank timorously in childhood from her frightful stories, he himself, like the fat boy in _pickwick_, sometimes "wants to make our flesh creep." it seems, indeed, an odd trait of the humorist that he can at will wholly discard his gaiety, and, like the pied piper, pipe to another measure. w.w. jacobs, besides his humorous sailor yarns, has given us _the monkey's paw_; and barry pain's gruesome stories, _told in the dark_, are as forcible as any of his humours to be read in the daylight. dickens, in his excursions into the supernatural, does not, however, always cast off his mood of jocularity. his treatment of marley's ghost lacks dignity and decorum. clanking its chains in a remote cellar of the silent, empty house, it has the power to disturb us, but we lose our respect for the shade when we gaze upon it eye to eye. applied to the spirit world, there is much truth in the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. the account of the thirteenth juryman, in _dr. marigold's prescriptions_, is much more alarming. the story of the signalman, no. branch line, in _mugby junction_, is indefinably horrible. the signalman's anguish of mind, his exact description of the appearance, his sense of overhanging calamity, are all strangely disquieting. the coincidence of the manner of his death, with which the story closes, is wisely left to make its own inevitable impression. some of the stories in _blackwood_ are the more striking because they depend for their effect on natural, not supernatural, horror. we may feel we are immune from the visits of ghosts, but the accident in _the man in the bell_ ( ) is one which might happen to anyone. the maddening clangour of sound, the frightful images that crowd into the reeling brain of the man suspended in the belfry, are described with an unflinching realism that reminds us of _the pit and the pendulum_. to the same class belongs the skilfully constructed _iron shroud_ ( ), by william mudford, an author who, as scott remarks in his journal, "loves to play at cherry-pit with satan." the suspense is ingeniously maintained as, one by one, the windows of the iron dungeon disappear, until, at last, the massive walls and ponderous roof contract into the victim's iron shroud. wilkie collins' story, _a terribly strange bed_, which describes the stratagem of a gang of cardsharpers for getting rid of those who happen to win money from them, is in the same vein. the canopy slowly descends during the night, and smothers its victim. a similar motive is used, with immeasurably finer effect, by joseph conrad in his story of the disappearance of the sailor at the lonely inn in the mountains of spain. the experience of byrne in _the inn of the two witches_[ ] is a masterpiece in the psychology of terror. the dense darkness, in which the young naval officer "steers his course only by the feel of the wind," the scene when the door of the inn bursts open and reveals in the candlelight the savage beauty of the gipsy girl with evil, slanting eyes, and the inhuman ugliness of the old hags, are a fitting prelude to the horrors of the chamber, where the corpse of the missing sailor is found in the wardrobe. we pass with byrne through the different stages of suspicion and dread until, completely baffled in his attempt to account for the manner in which tom corbin was done to death, we feel "the hot terror that plays upon the heart like a tongue of flame that touches and withdraws before it turns a thing to ashes." in the short stories of the latter half of the nineteenth century, it is hard to escape from the terrible. we light upon it suddenly, here, there and everywhere. we find it in stevenson's _new arabian nights_, in his _merry men_, and his stories of the south seas, as indeed we should expect, when we recall the tapping of the blind man's stick in _treasure island_, the scene with the candles in the snow after the duel between the two brothers in _the master of ballantrae_, or david balfour's perilous adventure on the broken staircase in _kidnapped_. kipling is another expert in the art of eeriness, and has a wide range. his indian backgrounds are peculiarly adapted for tales of terror. the loathsome horror of _the mark of the beast_, with its intangible suggestion of mystery, the quiet restraint of _the return of imray_, in which so much is left unsaid, are two admirable illustrations of his gift. the tale of terror wins its effect by ever-varying means. scientific discoveries open up new vistas, and the twentieth century will evolve many fresh devices for torturing the nerves. the telephone set ringing by a ghostly hand, the aeroplane with a phantom pilot, will replace the gothic machinery of ruined abbeys and wandering lights. the possibilities of terror are manifold, and it is impracticable here to do more than pick up a few threads in the tangled skein. terror becomes inextricably interwoven with other motives according to the bent of the author. it is allied with psychology in james' sinister _turn of the screw_, with scientific phantasy in wells' _invisible man_. it may enhance the excitement of a spy story, add zest to the study of crime, or act as a foil to a romantic love interest. chapter xi - american tales of terror. in we are told that in america "the dairymaid and hired man no longer weep over the ballad of the cruel stepmother, but amuse themselves into an agreeable terror with the haunted houses and hobgoblins of mrs. radcliffe."[ ] in _the asylum, or alonzo and melissa_, published in ploughkeepsie in , the gothic castle, with its full equipment of "explained ghosts," has been safely conveyed across the atlantic and set up in south carolina; and _the sicilian pirate or the pillar of mystery: a terrific romance_, is, if we may trust its title, a hair-raising story, in the style of "monk" lewis. charles brockden brown, one of the earliest american novelists, prides himself on "calling forth the passions and engaging the sympathy of the reader by means not hitherto employed by preceding authors," and speaks slightingly of "puerile superstitions and exploded manners, gothic castles and chimeras."[ ] brown, who, like shelley, was an enthusiastic admirer of godwin, sought to embody the theories of _political justice_ in romances describing american life. the works, which are said by peacock to have taken deepest root in shelley's mind and to have had the strongest influence in the formation of his character, are schiller's _robbers_, goethe's _faust_, and four novels--_wieland, ormond, edgar huntly_, and _mervyn_--by c.b. brown.[ ] notwithstanding his lofty scorn for "gothic castles and chimeras," even brown himself condescended to take over from the despised mrs. radcliffe the device of introducing apparently supernatural occurrences which are ultimately traced to natural causes. like mrs. radcliffe he is at the mercy of a conscience which forbids him to thrust upon his readers spectres in which he himself does not believe. he lacks lewis's reckless mendacity. in _wieland_ mysterious voices are heard at intervals by various members of the family. to the hero, who has inherited a tendency to religious fanaticism, they seem to be of divine origin, and when a voice bids him sacrifice those who are dearest to him, he obeys implicitly. he slays his wife and children, and his sister only escapes death by accident. after this catastrophe it proves that the voices are produced by a skilled ventriloquist, carwin, who has been admitted as an intimate friend of the family. realising that this explanation may seem somewhat incredible, brown seeks to make it appear more plausible by dwelling on wieland's abnormal state of mind, which would render him peculiarly open to suggestion. carwin's motive for thus persecuting the wieland family with his accursed gift is never satisfactorily explained. his attitude is apparently that of an obtuse psychologist, who does not realise how serious the consequence of his experiments may be. in _ormond_ and _arthur mervyn_, brown describes the ravages of the yellow fever, of which he had personal experience in new york and philadelphia. the hero of _ormond_ is a member of a society similar to that of the illuminati, whose ceremonies and beliefs are set forth in _horrid mysteries_ ( ). the heroine, constantia dudley, who was shelley's ideal feminine character, is the embodiment of a theory, not a human being. she "walks always in the light of reason," and decides that "to marry in extreme youth would be a proof of pernicious and opprobrious temerity." the most memorable of brown's novels is _edgar huntly_, which bears an obvious resemblance to _caleb williams_. like godwin, brown is deeply interested in morbid psychology. he finds pleasure in tracing the workings of the brain in times of emotional stress. the description of a sleepwalker digging a grave--a picture which captivated shelley's imagination--is the starting-point of the book. edgar huntly is impelled by curiosity to track him down. the somnambulist, clithero, has, in self-defence, killed the twin-brother of his patron, mrs, lorimer, to whom he is deeply attached. obsessed by the idea of the misery his deed will arouse in her mind, he attempts, in a moment of frenzy, to slay her. believing that mrs. lorimer has died after hearing of the murder, clithero flees to america. when he disappears from his home, huntly resolves to follow him, and in his search loses himself amid wild and desolate country. he is attacked by indians, and after frightful adventures at length reaches his home. clithero, whom he believed dead, has been rescued. mrs. lorimer is still alive, and is married to a former lover. this news, however, fails to restore clithero, who, in a fit of insanity, flings himself overboard when he is in a ship in charge of huntly. brown's plots, which often open well, are spoilt by hasty, careless conclusions. it was his habit to write two or three novels simultaneously. he was beset by the problem that exercised even scott's brain: "the devil of a difficulty is that one puzzles the skein in order to excite curiosity, and then cannot disentangle it for the satisfaction of the prying fiend they have raised." brown takes very little trouble over his dénouements, but his characters leave so faint an impression on our minds that we are not deeply concerned in their fates. he is interested rather in conveying states of mind than in portraying character. we search the windings of clithero's tormented conscience without realising him as an individual. the background of rugged scenery, though it is described in vague, turgid language, is more definite and distinct than the human figures. we feel that brown is struggling through the obscurity of his latinised diction to depict something he has actually seen. an air of dreadful solemnity hangs heavily over each story. every being is in deadly earnest. brown has godwin's power of hypnotising us by his serious persistence, and of reducing us to a mood of awestruck gravity by the sonority of his pompous periods. from the oppressive gloom of brown's "novels with a purpose," it is a relief to turn to the irresponsible gaiety of "geoffrey crayon," whose tales of terror, published some twenty years later, are usually fashioned in a jovial spirit, only faintly tinged with awe and dread. in _the spectre bridegroom_, included in _the sketch book_ ( ), the ghostly rider of bürger's far-famed ballad is set amid new surroundings and pleasantly turned to ridicule. the "supernatural" wooer, who now and again arouses a genuine thrill of fear, is merely playing a practical joke on the princess by impersonating the dead bridegroom, and all ends happily. the story of the headless horseman of sleepy hollow is set against so picturesque a background that we are almost inclined to quarrel with those who laughed and said that ichabod crane was still alive, and that bram jones, the lovely katrina's bridegroom, knew more of the spectre than he chose to tell. the drowsy atmosphere of sleepy hollow makes us see visions and dream dreams. the group of "strange stories by a nervous gentleman" in _tales of a traveller_ ( ) prove that washington irving was well versed in ghostly lore. he, as well as any, can call spirits from the vasty deep, but, when they appear in answer to his summons, he can seldom refrain from receiving them in a jocose, irreverent mood, ill befitting the solemn, dignified spectre of a german legend. even the highly qualified, irrepressibly loquacious ghost of lewis carroll's _phantasmagoria_ would have resented his genial familiarity. the strange stories are told at a hunting-party in a country-house, a cheerful, comfortable background for ghost stories. a hoary, one-eyed gentleman, "the whole side of whose head was dilapidated and seemed like the wing of a house shut up and haunted," sets the ball rolling with the old story of a spectre who glides into the room, wringing her hands, and is later identified, like scott's lady in the sacque, by her resemblance to an ancestral portrait in the gallery. the "knowing" gentleman tells of a picture that winked in a startling and alarming fashion, and immediately explains away this phenomenon by the presence of a thief who has cut a spy-hole in the canvas. _the bold dragoon_ is a spirited, riotous nightmare in which the furniture dances to the music of the bellows played by an uncanny musician in a long flannel gown and a nightcap. the _story of the german student_ is in a different key. here irving strikes a note of real horror. the student falls in love with an imaginary lady, woven out of his dreams. he finds her in distress one night in the streets of paris, takes her home, only to find her a corpse in the morning. a police-officer informs him that the lady was guillotined the day before, and the student discovers the truth of this statement when he unrolls a bandage and her head falls to the floor. the young man loses his reason, and is tormented by the belief that an evil spirit has reanimated a dead body to ensnare him. the morning after the recital of this gruesome story, the host reads aloud to his guests a manuscript entrusted to him, together with a portrait, by a young italian. this youth, it chances, learnt painting with a monk, who, as a penance, drew pictures, or modelled waxen images, representing death and corruption, a detail which reminds us of what was concealed by the black veil in _udolpho_. he later falls in love with his model, bianca, who, during his absence abroad, marries his friend filippo. in a jealous rage the young italian slays his rival, and is unceasingly haunted by his phantom. washington irving has no desire to endure for long the atmosphere of mystery and horror his story has created, and quickly relieves the tension by a return to ordinary life. the host promises to show the picture, which is said to affect all beholders in an extraordinary fashion, to each of his guests in turn. they all profess themselves remarkably affected by it, until the host confesses that he has too sincere a regard for the feelings of the young italian to reveal the actual picture to any of them; with this moment of disillusionment the strange stories come to an end. the title, _tales of a traveller_, under which irving placed his tales of terror, indicates the mood in which he fashioned them. he regarded them much as he would regard the wonderful adventures of baron munchausen. they were to be taken, like one of dr. marigold's prescriptions, with a grain of salt. the idea of blending levity with horror, suggested perhaps by german influence, was very popular in england and france at this period. balzac's _l'auberge rouge_ and _l'elixir de la longue vie_ are written in a similar mood. it is not always the boldest and most adventurous beings who elect to dwell amid "calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire." the "virtuous mind," whom supernatural horrors may "startle well but not astound," sometimes finds a melancholy pleasure in beguiling weaker mortals into haunted ruins to watch their firm nerves tremble. sometimes too, though a man be wholly innocent of the desire to alarm, he is led astray, whether he will or not, among the terrors of the invisible world. grey ghosts steal into his imagination unawares. it was so that they came to nathaniel hawthorne, who speaks sorrowfully of "gaily dressed fantasies turning to ghostly and black-clad images of themselves." he would gladly have written a "sunshiny" book, but was capriciously fated to live ever in the twilight, haunted by spectres and by "dark ideas." he fashions his tales of terror delicately and reluctantly, not riotously and shamelessly like lewis and maturin. an innate reticence and shyness of temper held hawthorne, as if by a spell, somewhat aloof from life, and no one realised more clearly than he the limitations that his detachment from humanity imposed upon his art. of _twice-told tales_ he writes regretfully: "they have the pale tint of flowers that blossomed in too retired a shade... instead of passion there is sentiment and even in what purport to be pictures of actual life we have allegory, not always so warmly dressed in its habiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken into the reader's mind without a shiver. whether from lack of power or an inconquerable reserve, the author's touches have often an effect of tameness. the book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages"; and in his _notebook_ ( ) he confesses: "i used to think i could imagine all the passions, all feelings and states of the heart and mind, but how little did i know! indeed we are but shadows, we are not endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is but the thinnest shadow of a dream--till the heart be touched." whether he is threading the labyrinths of his imagination or watching the human shadows come and go, hawthorne lingers longer in the shadow than in the sunshine. he was not a man of morose and gloomy temper, disenchanted with life and driven by distress or thwarted passion to brood in solitude. an irresistible, inexplicable impulse drives him towards the sombre and the gloomy. the delicacy and wistful charm of the words in which hawthorne criticises his own work and character reveal how impossible it would have been for him to force his wayward genius. his imagination hovers with curious persistence round eerie, fantastic themes: "an old looking-glass. somebody finds out the secret of making all the images reflected in it pass again across its surface"--a hint skilfully introduced into the history of old esther dudley in _the legends of the province house_, or: "a dreadful secret to be communicated to several persons of various character--grave or gay--and they all to become insane, according to their characters, by the influence of the secret" --an idea modified and adapted in _the marble faun_. "an ice-cold hand--which people ever afterwards remember when once they have grasped it"--is bestowed on the wandering jew, the owner of the marvellous _virtuoso's collection_, whose treasures include the blood-encrusted pen with which dr. faustus signed away his salvation, peter schlemihl's shadow, the elixir of life, and the philosopher's stone. the form of a vampire, who apparently never took shape on paper, flitted through the twilight of hawthorne's imagination: "stories to be told of a certain person's appearance in public, of his having been seen in various situations, and his making visits in private circles; but finally on looking for this person, to come upon his old grave and mossy tombstone." with so many alluring suggestions floating shadowwise across his mind, it is not wonderful that hawthorne should have been fascinated by the dream of a human life prolonged far beyond the usual span--a dream, which, if realised, would have enabled him to capture in words more of those "shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses." although among the sketches collected in _twice-told tales_ (vol. i. , vol. ii. ) some are painted in gay and lively hues, the prevailing tone of the book is sad and mournful. the light-hearted philosophy of the wanderers in _the seven vagabonds_, the pretty, brightly coloured vignettes in _little annie's rambles_, the quiet cheerfulness of _sunday at home_ or _the rill from the town pump_, only serve to throw into darker relief gloomy legends like that of _ethan brand_, the man who went in search of the unpardonable sin, or dreary stories like that of _edward fane's rosebud_, or the ghostly _white old maid_. one of the most carefully wrought sketches in _twice-told tales_ is the weird story of _the hollow of the three hills_. by means of a witch's spell, a lady hears the far-away voices of her aged parents--her mother querulous and tearful, her father calmly despondent--and amid the fearful mirth of a madhouse distinguishes the accents and footstep of the husband she has wronged. at last she listens to the death-knell tolled for the child she has left to die. the solemn rhythm of hawthorne's skilfully ordered sentences is singularly haunting and impressive: "the golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon the hills, but deep shades obscured the hollow and the pool, as if sombre night were rising thence to overspread the world. again that evil woman began to weave her spell. long did it proceed unanswered, till the knolling of a bell stole in among the intervals of her words, like a clang that had travelled far over valley and rising ground and was just ready to die in the air... stronger it grew, and sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death-bell, knolling dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower, and bearing tidings of mortality and woe to the cottage, to the hall and to the solitary wayfarer that all might weep for the doom appointed in turn to them. then came a measured tread, passing slowly, slowly on as of mourners with a coffin, their garments trailing the ground so that the ear could measure the length of their melancholy array. before them went the priest reading the burial-service, while the leaves of his book were rustling in the breeze. and though no voice but his was heard to speak aloud, still here were revilings and anathemas whispered, but distinct, from women and from men... the sweeping sound of the funeral train faded away like a thin vapour and the wind that just before had seemed to shake the coffin-pall moaned sadly round the verge of the hollow between three hills." in a later collection of hawthorne's short stories, _mosses from an old manse_, the grave and the gay, the terrific and the sportive, are once more intermingled. side by side with a forlorn attempt at humorous allegory, mrs. _bullfrog_, we find the serious moral allegories of _the birthmark_ and _the bosom-serpent_, the wild, mysterious forest-revels in _goodman brown_, and the evil, sinister beauty of _dr. rappacini's daughter_, a modern rehandling of the ancient legend of the poison-maiden, who was perhaps the prototype of oliver wendell holmes' heroine in _elsie venner_ ( ). the quiet grace and natural ease of hawthorne's style lend even to his least ambitious tales a distinctive charm. if he chooses a slight and simple theme, his touch is deft and sure. _dr. heidegger's experiment_, in which hawthorne's delicate, whimsical fancy plays round the idea of the elixir of life, is almost like a series of miniature pictures, distinct and lifelike in form and colour, seen through the medium of an old-fashioned magic-lantern. yet even in this fantastic trifle we can discern the feeling for words and the sense of proportion that characterise hawthorne's longer works. _the scarlet letter_ ( ) was originally intended to be one of several short stories, but hawthorne was persuaded to expand it into a novel. he felt some misgivings as to the success of the work: "keeping so close to the point as the tale does, and diversified in no otherwise than by turning different sides of the same dark idea to the reader's eye, it will weary very many people and disgust some." the plot bears a remarkable resemblance to that of lockhart's striking novel, _adam blair_. the "dark idea" that fascinates hawthorne is the psychological state of hester prynne and her lover, arthur dimmesdale, in the long years that follow their lawless passion. their love story hardly concerns him at all. the interest of the novel does not depend on the development of the plot. no attempt is made to complicate the story by concealing the identity of hester's lover or of her husband. the action takes place within the souls and minds of the characters, not in their outward circumstances. the central chapter of the book is named significantly: "the interior of a heart." the moral situation described in _the scarlet letter_ did not present itself to hawthorne abstractly, but as a series of pictures. he habitually thought in images, and he brooded so long over his conceptions that his descriptions are almost as definite in outline and as vivid in colour as things actually seen. his pictures do not waver or fade elusively as the mind seeks to realise them. the prison door, studded with pikes, before which hester prynne first stands with the letter on her breast, the pillory where dimmesdale keeps vigil at midnight, the forest-trees with pale, fitful gleams of sunshine glinting through their leaves, are so distinct that we almost put out our hands to touch them. hawthorne's dream-imagery has the same convincing reality. the phantasmagoric visions which float through hester's consciousness--the mirrored reflection of her own face in girlhood, her husband's thin, scholar-like visage, the grey houses of the cathedral city where she had spent her early years--are more real to her and to us than the blurred faces of the puritans who throng the marketplace to gaze on her ignominy. although the moral tone of the book is one of almost unrelieved gloom, the actual scenes are full of colour and light. pearl's scarlet frock with its fantastic embroideries, the magnificent velvet gown and white ruff of the old dame who rides off by night to the witch-revels in the forest, the group of red indians in their deer-skin robes and wampum belts of red and yellow ochre, the bronzed faces and gaudy attire of the spanish pirates, all stand out in bold relief among the sober greys and browns of the puritans. the tense, emotional atmosphere is heightened by the festive brightness of the outer world. the light of hawthorne's imagination is directed mainly on three characters--hester, arthur, and the elf-like child pearl, the living symbol of their union. further in the background lurks the malignant figure of roger chillingworth, contriving his fiendish scheme of vengeance, "violating in cold blood the sanctity of a human heart." the blaze of the scarlet letter compels us by a strange magnetic power to follow hester prynne wherever she goes, but her suffering is less acute and her character less intricate than her lover's. she bears the outward badge of shame, but after "wandering without a clue in the dark labyrinth of mind," wins a dull respite from anguish as she glides "like a grey and sober shadow" over the threshold of those who are visited by sorrow. at the last, when dimmesdale's spirit is "so shattered and subdued that it could hardly hold itself erect," hester has still energy to plan and to act. his character is more twisted and tortuous than hers, and to understand him we must visit him apart. the sensitive nature that can endure physical pain but shrinks piteously from moral torture, the capacity for deep and passionate feeling, the strange blending of pride and abject self-loathing, of cowardice and resolve, are portrayed with extraordinary skill. the different strands of his character are "intertwined in an inextricable knot." his is a living soul, complicated and varying in its moods, but ever pursued by a sense of sin. by one of hawthorne's swift, uncanny flashes of insight, as dimmesdale goes home after the forest-meeting, we hear nothing of the wild beatings of hope and dreary revulsions to despair, but only of foul, grotesque temptations that assail him, just as earlier--on the pillory--it is the grim humour and not the frightful shame of the situation that strikes him, when by an odd trick of his imagination he suddenly pictures a "whole tribe of decorous personages starting into view with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects," to look upon their minister. hawthorne's delineation of character and motive is as scrupulously accurate and scientific as godwin's, but there is none of godwin's inhumanity in his attitude. his complete understanding of human weakness makes pity superfluous and undignified. he pronounces no judgment and offers no plea for mercy. his instinct is to present the story as it appeared through the eyes of those who enacted the drama or who witnessed it. stern and inexorable as one of his own witch-judging ancestors, hawthorne foils the lovers' plan of escape across the sea, lets the minister die as soon as he has made the revelation that gives him his one moment of victory, and in the conclusion brings hester back to take up her long-forsaken symbol of shame. pearl alone hawthorne sets free, the spell which bound her human sympathies broken by the kiss she bestows on her guilty father. there are few passionate outbursts of feeling, save when hester momentarily unlocks her heart in the forest--and even here hawthorne's language is extraordinarily restrained: "'what we did had a consecration of its own. we felt it so! we said so to each other. hast thou forgotten it?' 'hush, hester!' said arthur dimmesdale, rising from the ground. 'no; i have not forgotten.'" or again, after dimmesdale has confessed that he has neither strength nor courage left him to venture into the world: "'thou shalt not go alone!' answered she, in a deep whisper. then all was spoken." in _the house of the seven gables_ ( ), as in _the scarlet letter_, hawthorne again presents his scenes in the light of a single, pervading idea, this time an ancestral curse, symbolised by the portrait of colonel pyncheon, who condemned an innocent man for witchcraft. "to the thoughtful man there will be no tinge of superstition in what we figuratively express, by affirming that the ghost of a dead progenitor--perhaps as a portion of his own punishment--is often doomed to become the evil genius of his family." hawthorne wins his effect by presenting the idea to our minds from different points of view, until we are obsessed by the curse that broods heavily over the old house. even the aristocratic breed of fowls, of "queer, rusty, withered aspect," are an emblem of the decay of the pyncheon family. the people are apt to be merged into the dense shadows that lurk in the gloomy passages, but when the sun shines on them they stand out with arresting distinctness. the heroic figure of hepzibah pyncheon, a little ridiculous and a little forbidding of aspect, but cherishing through weary years a passionate devotion to her brother, is described with a gentle blending of humour and pathos. clifford pyncheon--the sybarite made for happiness and hideously cheated of his destiny--is delineated with curious insight and sympathy. it is judge jaffery pyncheon, with his "sultry" smile of "elaborate benevolence"--unrelenting and crafty as his infamous ancestor--who lends to _the house of seven gables_ the element of terror. hour after hour, hawthorne, with grim and bitter irony, mocks and taunts the dead body of the hypocritical judge until the ghostly pageantry of dead pyncheons--including at last judge jaffery himself with the fatal crimson stain on his neckcloth--fades away with the oncoming of daylight. hawthorne's mind was richly stored with "wild chimney-corner legends," many of them no doubt gleaned from an old woman mentioned in one of his _tales and sketches_. he takes over the fantastic superstitions in which his ancestors had believed, and uses them as the playthings of his fancy, picturing with malicious mirth the grey shadows of his stern, dark-browed forefathers sadly lamenting his lapse from grace and saying one to the other: "a writer of story-books! what kind of a business in life, what manner of glorifying god, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation may that be? why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler." the story of alice pyncheon, the maiden under the dreadful power of a wizard, who, to wreak his revenge, compelled her to surrender her will to his and to do whatsoever he list, the legends of ghosts and spectres in the _twice-told tales_, the allusions to the elixir of life in his _notebooks_, the introduction of witches into _the scarlet letter_, of mesmerism into _the blithedale romance_, show how often hawthorne was pre-occupied with the terrors of magic and of the invisible world. he handles the supernatural in a half-credulous, half-sportive spirit, neither affirming nor denying his belief. one of his artful devices is wilfully to cast doubt upon his fancies, and so to pique us into the desire to be momentarily at least one of the foolish and imaginative. after writing _the blithedale romance_, in which he embodied his experiences at brook farm, and his italian romance, _transformation, or the marble faun_, hawthorne, when his health was failing, strove to find expression for the theme of immortality, which had always exercised a strange fascination upon him. in august, , during his consulate in liverpool, he visited smithell's hall, near bolton, and heard the legend of the bloody footstep. he thought of uniting this story with that of the elixir of life, but ultimately decided to treat the story of the footstep in _dr. grimshawe's secret_, of which only a fragment was written, and to embody the elixir idea in a separate work, _septimius felton_, of which two unfinished versions exist. septimius felton, a young man living in concord at the time of the war of the revolution, tries to brew the potion of eternity by adding to a recipe, which his aunt has derived from the indians, the flowers which spring from the grave of a man whom he has slain. in _dr. dolliver's romance_, hawthorne, so far as we may judge from the fragment which remains, seems to be working out an idea jotted down in his notebook several years earlier: "a man arriving at the extreme point of old age grows young again at the same pace at which he had grown old, returning upon his path throughout the whole of life, and thus taking the reverse view of matters. methinks it would give rise to some odd concatenations." the story, which opens with a charming description of dr. dolliver and his great-grandchild, pansie, breaks off so abruptly that it is impossible to forecast the "odd concatenations" that had flashed through hawthorne's mind. although hawthorne is preoccupied continually with the thought of death, his outlook is melancholy, not morbid. he recoils fastidiously from the fleshly and loses himself in the spiritual. he is concerned with mournful reflections, not frightful events. it is the mystery of death, not its terror, that fascinates him. sensitive and susceptible himself, he never startles us with physical horrors. he does not search with curious ingenuity for recondite terrors. he was compelled as if by some wizard's strange power, to linger in earth's shadowed places; but the scenes that throng his memory are reflected in quiet, subdued tones. his pictures are never marred by harsh lines or crude colours. while hawthorne in his _twice-told tales_ was toying pensively with spectral forms and "dark ideas," edgar allan poe was penetrating intrepidly into trackless regions of terror. where hawthorne would have shrunk back, repelled and disgusted, poe, wildly exhilarated by the anticipation of a new and excruciating thrill, forced his way onwards. he sought untiringly for unusual situations, inordinately gloomy or terrible, and made them the starting point for excursions into abnormal psychology. just as hawthorne harps with plaintive insistence on the word "sombre," poe again and again uses the epithet "novel." his tales are never, as hawthorne's often are, pathetic. his instinct is always towards the dramatic. sometimes he rises to tragic heights, sometimes he is merely melodramatic. he rejoices in theatrical effects, like the death-throes of william wilson, the return of the lady ligeia, or the entry, awaited with torturing suspense, of the "lofty" and enshrouded figure of the lady madeline of usher. like hawthorne, poe was fascinated by the thought of death, "the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed him night and day," but he describes death accompanied by its direst physical and mental agonies. hawthorne broods over the idea of sin, but poe probes curiously into the psychology of crime. the one is detached and remote, the other inhuman and passionless. the contrast in style between hawthorne and poe reflects clearly their difference in temper. hawthorne writes always with easy, finished perfection, choosing the right word unerringly, poe experiments with language, painfully acquiring a conscious, studied form of expression which is often remarkably effective, but which almost invariably suggests a sense of artifice. in reading _the scarlet letter_ we do not think of the style; in reading _the masque of the red death_ we are forcibly impressed by the skilful arrangement of words, the alternation of long and short sentences, the device of repetition and the deliberate choice of epithets. hawthorne uses his own natural form of expression. poe, with laborious art, fashions an instrument admirably adapted to his purposes. poe's earliest published story, _a manuscript found in a bottle_--the prize tale for the _baltimore saturday visitor_, --proves that he soon recognised his peculiar vein of talent. he straightway takes the tale of terror for his own. the experiences of a sailor, shipwrecked in the simoom and hurled on the crest of a towering billow into a gigantic ship manned by a hoary crew who glide uneasily to and fro "like the ghosts of buried centuries," forecast the more frightful horrors of _a descent into the maelstrom_ ( ). poe's method in both stories is to induce belief by beginning with a circumstantial narrative of every-day events, and by proceeding to relate the most startling phenomena in the same calm, matter-of-fact manner. the whirling abyss of the maelstrom in which the tiny boat is engulfed, and the sensations of the fishermen--awe, wonder, horror, curiosity, hope, alternating or intermingled--are described with the same quiet precision as the trivial preliminary adventures. the man's dreary expectation of incredulity seals our conviction of the truth of his story. in _the manuscript found in a bottle_, too, we may trace the first suggestion of that idea which finds its most complete and memorable expression in _ligeia_ ( ). the antique ship, with its preternaturally aged crew "doomed to hover continually upon the brink of eternity, without taking a final plunge into the abyss," is an early foreshadowing of the fulfilment of joseph glanvill's declaration so strikingly illustrated in the return of ligeia: "man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." in _ligeia_, poe concentrates on this idea with singleness of purpose. he had striven to embody it in his earlier sketches, in _morella_, where the beloved is reincarnated in the form of her own child, in the musical, artificial _eleonora_ and in the gruesome _berenice_. in _ligeia_, at last, it finds its appropriate setting in the ebony bridal-chamber, hung with gold tapestries grotesquely embroidered with fearful shapes and constantly wafted to and fro, like those in one of the _episodes of vathek_. in _the fall of the house of usher_ he adapts the theme which he had approached in the sketch entitled _premature burial_, and unites with it a subtler conception, the sentience of the vegetable world. like the guest of roderick usher, as we enter the house we fall immediately beneath the overmastering sway of its irredeemable, insufferable gloom. the melancholy building, usher's wild musical improvisations, his vague but awful paintings, his mystical reading and his eerie verses with the last haunting stanza: "and travellers now within that valley through the red-litten windows, see vast forms that move fantastically to a discordant melody; while, like a rapid, ghastly river, through the pale door, a hideous throng rush out forever and laugh--but smile no more," are all in harmony with the fate that broods over the family of usher. poe's gift for avoiding all impressions alien to his effect lends to his tales extraordinary unity of tone and colour. he leads up to his crisis with a gradual crescendo of emotion. the climax, hideous and terrifying, relieves the intensity of our feelings, and once it is past poe rapidly hastens to the only possible conclusion. the dreary house with its vacant, eye-like windows reflected at the outset in the dark, unruffled tarn, disappears for ever beneath its surface. in _the masque of the red death_ the imagery changes from moment to moment, each scene standing out clear in colour and sharp in outline; but from first to last the perspective of the whole is kept steadily in view. no part is disproportionate or inappropriate. the arresting overture describing the swift and sudden approach of the red death, the gay, thoughtless security of prince prospero and his guests within the barricaded abbey, the voluptuous masquerade held in a suite of seven rooms of seven hues, the disconcerting chime of the ebony clock that momentarily stills the grotesque figures of the dancers, prepare us for the dramatic climax, the entry of the audacious guest, the red death, and his struggle with prince prospero. the story closes as it began with the triumph of the red death. poe achieves his powerful effect with rigid economy of effort. he does not add an unnecessary touch. in _the cask of amontillado_--perhaps the most terrible and the most perfectly executed of all poe's tales--the note of grim irony is sustained throughout. the jingling of the bells and the devilish profanity of the last three words--_requiescat in pace_--add a final touch of horror to a revenge, devised and carried out with consummate artistry. poe, like hawthorne, loved to peer curiously into the dim recesses of conscience. hawthorne was concerned with the effect of remorse on character. poe often exhibits a conscience possessed by the imp of the perverse, and displays no interest in the character of his victim. he chooses no ordinary crimes. he considers, without de quincey's humour, murder as a fine art. in _the black cat_ the terrors are calculated with cold-blooded nicety. every device is used to deepen the impression and to intensify the agony. in _the tell-tale heart_, so unremitting is the suspense, as the murderer slowly inch by inch projects his head round the door in the darkness, that it is well-nigh intolerable. the close of the story, which errs on the side of the melodramatic, is less cunningly contrived than poe's endings usually are. in _william wilson_, poe handles the subject of conscience in an allegorical form, a theme essayed by bulwer lytton in one of his sketches in _the student, monos and daimonos_. he probably influenced stevenson's _dr. jekyll and mr. hyde_. in _the pit and the pendulum_, poe seems to start from the very border-line of the most hideous nightmare that the human mind can conceive, yet there is nothing hazy or indefinite in his analysis of the feelings of his victim. he speaks as one who has experienced the sensations himself, not as one who is making a wild surmise. to read is, indeed, to endure in some measure the torture of the prisoner; but our pain is alleviated not only by the realisation that we at least may win respite when we will, but by our appreciation of poe's subtle technique. he notices the readiness of the mind, when racked unendurably, to concentrate on frivolous trifles--the exact shape and size of the dungeon; or the sound of the scythe cutting through cloth. mental and physical agonies are interchanged with careful art. poe's constructive power fitted him admirably to write the detective story. in _the mystery of m. roget_ he adopts a dull plot without sufficient vigour and originality to rivet our attention, but _the murders of the rue morgue_ secures our interest from beginning to end. as in the case of godwin's _caleb williams_, the end was conceived first and the plot was carefully woven backwards. no single thread is left loose. dupin's methods of ratiocination are similar to those of conan doyle's sherlock holmes. poe never shirks a gory detail, but the train of reasoning not the imagery absorbs us in his detective stories. in his treasure story--_the gold bug_, which may have suggested stevenson's _treasure island_--he compels our interest by the intricacy and elaboration of his problem. the works of mrs. radcliffe, lewis, and maturin were not unknown to poe, and he refers more than once to the halls of vathek. from gothic romance he may perhaps vivid that they make the senses ache. like maturin, he even resorts to italics to enforce his effect. he crashes down heavily on a chord which would resound at a touch. he is liable too to descend into vulgarity in his choice of phrases. his tales consequently gain in style in the translations of baudelaire. but these aberrations occur mainly in his inferior work. in his most highly wrought stories, such as _amontillado_, _the house of usher_, or _the masque of the red death_, the execution is flawless. in these, poe never lost sight of the ideal, which, in his admirable review of hawthorne's _twice-told tales_ and _mosses from an old manse_, he set before the writer of short stories: "a skilful literary artist has constructed a tale ... having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents--he then combines such events--as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. if his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, he has failed in the first step. in the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency direct or indirect is not to the one pre-established design." while he was writing, poe did not for a moment let his imagination run riot. the outline of the story was so distinctly conceived, its atmosphere so familiar to him, that he had leisure to choose his words accurately, and to dispose his sentences harmoniously, with the final effect ever steadily in view. the impression that he swiftly flashes across our minds is deep and enduring. chapter xii - conclusion. this book is an attempt to trace in outline the origin and development of the gothic romance and the tale of terror. such a survey is necessarily incomplete. for more than fifty years after the publication of _the castle of otranto_ the gothic romance remained a definitely recognised kind of fiction; but, as the scope of the novel gradually came to include the whole range of human expression, it lost its individuality, and was merged into other forms. to follow every trail of its influence would lead us far afield. the tale of terror, if we use the term in its wider sense, may be said to include the magnificent story of the writing on the wall at belshazzar's feast, the book of job, the legends of the deluge and of the tower of babel, and saul's visit to the witch of endor, which byron regarded as the best ghost story in the world. in the hebrew writings fear is used to endow a hero with superhuman powers or to instil a moral truth. the sun stands still in the heavens that joshua may prevail over his enemies. in modern days the tale of terror is told for its own sake. it has become an end in itself, and is probably appreciated most fully by those who are secure from peril. it satisfies the human desire to experience new emotions and sensations, without actual danger. there is little doubt that the gothic romance primarily made its appeal to women readers, though we know that mrs. radcliffe had many men among her admirers, and that cherubina of _the heroine_ had a companion in folly, the story-haunted youth. it is remotely allied, as its name implies, to the mediaeval romances, at which cervantes tilts in _don quixote_. it was more closely akin, however, to the heroic romances satirised in mrs. charlotte lennox's _female quixote_ ( ). when the voluminous works of le calprenède and of mademoiselle de scudéry were translated into english, they found many imitators and admirers, and their vogue outlasted the seventeenth century. _artamène ou le grand cyrus_, out of which mrs. pepys told her husband long stories, "though nothing to the purpose, nor in any good manner," is to be found, with a pin stuck through one of the middle leaves, in the lady's library described by addison in the _spectator_, mrs. aphra behn, in _oroonoko_ and _the fair jilt_, had made some attempt to bring romance nearer to real life; but it was not until the middle of the eighteenth century, when the novel, with the rise of richardson, fielding, smollett and sterne, took firm root on english soil, that the popularity of cassandra, parthenissa and aretina was superseded. then, if we may trust the evidence of colman's farce, _polly honeycombe_, first acted in , pamela, clarissa harlowe and sophia western reigned in their stead. for the reader who had patiently followed the eddying, circling course of the heroic romance, with its high-flown language and marvellous adventures, richardson's novel of sentiment probably held more attraction than fielding's novel of manners. fielding, on his broad canvas, paints the life of his day on the highway, in coaches, taverns, sponging-houses or at vauxhall masquerades. every class of society is represented, from the vagabond to the noble lord. richardson, in describing the shifts and subterfuges of mr. b--and the elaborate intrigue of lovelace, moves within a narrow circle, devoting himself, not to the portrayal of character, but to the minute analysis of a woman's heart. the sentiment of richardson descends to mrs. radcliffe. her heroines are fashioned in the likeness of clarissa harlowe; her heroes inherit many of the traits of the immaculate grandison. she adds zest to her plots by wafting her heroines to distant climes and bygone centuries, and by playing on their nerves with superstitious fears. since human nature often looks to fiction for a refuge from the world, there is always room for the illusion of romance side by side with the picture of actual life. fanny burney's spirited record of evelina's visit to her vulgar, but human, relatives, the branghtons, in london, is not enough. we need too the sojourn of emily, with her thick-coming fancies, in the castle of udolpho. the gothic romance did not reflect real life, or reveal character, or display humour. its aim was different. it was full of sentimentality, and it stirred the emotions of pity and fear. the ethereal, sensitive heroine, suffering through no fault of her own, could not fail to win sympathy. the hero was pale, melancholy, and unfortunate enough to be attractive. the villain, bold and desperate in his crimes, was secretly admired as well as feared. hairbreadth escapes and wicked intrigues in castles built over beetling precipices were sufficiently outside the reader's own experience to produce a thrill. ghosts, and rumours of ghosts, touched nearly the eighteenth century reader, who had often listened, with bated breath, to winter's tales of spirits seen on halloween in the churchyard, or white-robed spectres encountered in dark lanes and lonely ruins. in country houses like those described in miss austen's novels, where life was diversified only by paying calls, dining out, taking gentle exercise or playing round games like "commerce" or "word-making and work-taking," the gothic romances must have proved a welcome source of pleasurable excitement. mr. woodhouse, with his melancholy views on the effects of wedding cake and muffin, would have condemned them, no doubt, as unwholesome; lady catherine de bourgh would have been too impatient to read them; but lydia bennet, elinor dashwood and isabella thorpe must have found in them an inestimable solace. their fame was soon overshadowed by that of the waverley novels, but they had served their turn in providing an entertaining interlude before the arrival of sir walter scott. even at the very height of his vogue, they probably enjoyed a surreptitious popularity, not merely in the servants' hall, but in the drawing room. nineteenth century literature abounds in references to the vogue of this school of fiction. there were spasmodic attempts at a revival in an anonymous work called _forman_ ( ), dedicated to scott, and in ainsworth's _rookwood_ ( ); and terror has never ceased to be used as a motive in fiction. in _villette_, lucy snowe, whose nerves ginevra describes as "real iron and bend leather," gazes steadily for the space of five minutes at the spectral "nun." this episode indicates a change of fashion; for the lady of gothic romance could not have submitted to the ordeal for five seconds without fainting. a more robust heroine, who thinks clearly and yet feels strongly, has come into her own. in _jane eyre_ many of the situations are fraught with terror, but it is the power of human passion, transcending the hideous scenes, that grips our imagination. terror is used as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. in _wuthering heights_ the windswept yorkshire moors are the background for elemental feelings. we no longer "tremble with delicious dread" or "snatch a fearful joy." the gloom never lightens. we live ourselves beneath the shadow of heathcliff's awe-inspiring personality, and there is no escape from a terror, which passes almost beyond the bounds of speech. the brontës do not trifle with emotion or use supernatural elements to increase the tension. theirs are the terrors of actual life. other novelists, contemporary with the brontës, revel in terror for its own sake. wilkie collins weaves elaborate plots of hair-raising events. the charm of _the moonstone_ and the _woman in white_ is independent of character or literary finish. it consists in the unravelling of a skilfully woven fabric. le fanu, who resented the term "sensational" which was justly applied to his works, plays pitilessly on our nerves with both real and fictitious horrors. he, like wilkie collins, made a cult of terror. their literary descendants may perhaps be found in such authors as richard marsh or bram stoker, or sax rohmer. in bram stoker's _dracula_ the old vampire legend is brought up to date, and we are held from beginning to end in a state of frightful suspense. no one who has read the book will fail to remember the picture of dracula climbing up the front of the castle in transylvania, or the scene in the tomb when a stake is driven through the heart of the vampire who has taken possession of lucy's form. the ineffable horror of the "un-dead" would repel us by its painfulness, if it were not made endurable by the love, hope and faith of the living characters, particularly of the old dutch doctor, van helsing. the matter-of-fact style of the narrative, which is compiled of letters, diaries and journals, and the mention of such familiar places as whitby and hampstead, help to enhance the illusion. the motive of terror has often been mingled with other motives in the novel as well as in the short tale. in unwinding the complicated thread of the modern detective story, which follows the design originated by godwin and perfected by poe, we are frequently kept to our task by the force of terror as well as of curiosity. in _the sign of four_ and in _the hound of the baskervilles_, to choose two entirely different stories, conan doyle realises that darkness and loneliness place us at the mercy of terror, and he works artfully on our fears of the unknown. phillips oppenheim and william le queux, in romances which have sometimes a background of international politics, maintain our interest by means of mystifications, which screw up our imagination to the utmost pitch, and then let us down gently with a natural but not too obvious explanation. a certain amount of terror is almost essential to heighten the interest of a novel of costume and adventure, like _the prisoner of zenda_ or _rupert of hentzau_, or of the fantastic, exciting romances of jules verne. rider haggard's african romances, _she_ and _king solomon's mines_, belong to a large group of supernatural tales with a foreign setting. they combine strangeness, wonder, mystery and horror. the ancient theme of bartering souls is given a new twist in robert hichens' novel, _the flames_. e.f. benson, in _the image in the sand_, experiments with oriental magic. the investigations of the society for psychical research gave a new impulse to stories of the occult and the uncanny. algernon blackwood is one of the most ingenious exponents of this type of story. by means of psychical explanations, he succeeds in revivifying many ancient superstitions. in _dr. john silence_, even the werewolf, whom we believed extinct, manifests himself in modern days among a party of cheerful campers on a lonely island, and brings unspeakable terror in his trail. sometimes terror is used nowadays, as bulwer lytton used it, to serve a moral purpose. oscar wilde's _picture of dorian gray_ is intended to show that sin must ultimately affect the soul; and the sorrows of satan, in miss corelli's novel, are caused by the wickedness of the world. but apart from any ulterior motive there is still a desire for the unusual, there is still pleasure to be found in a thrill, and so long as this human instinct endures devices will be found for satisfying it. of the making of tales of terror there is no end; and almost every novelist of note has, at one time or another, tried his hand at the art. early in his career arnold bennett fashioned a novelette, _hugo_, which may be read as a modernised version of the gothic romance. instead of subterranean vaults in a deserted abbey, we have the strong rooms of an enterprising sloane street emporium. the coffin, containing an image of the heroine, is buried not in a mouldering chapel, but in a suburban cemetery. the lovely but harassed heroine has fallen, indeed, from her high estate, for camilla earns her living as a milliner. there are, it is true, no sonnets and no sunsets, but the excitement of the plot, which is partially unfolded by means of a phonographic record, renders them superfluous. h.g. wells makes excursions into quasi-scientific, fantastic realms of grotesque horror in his _first men in the moon_, and in some of his sketches and short stories. joseph conrad has the power of fear ever at the command of his romantic imagination. in _the nigger of the narcissus_, in _typhoon_, and, above all, in _the shadow-line_, he shows his supreme mastery over inexpressible mystery and nameless terror. the voyage of the schooner, doomed by the evil influence of her dead captain, is comparable only in awe and horror to that of _the ancient mariner_. conrad touches unfathomable depths of human feelings, and in his hands the tale of terror becomes a finished work of art. the future of the tale of terror it is impossible to predict; but the experiments of living authors, who continually find new outlets with the advance of science and of psychological enquiry, suffice to prove that its powers are not yet exhausted. those who make the 'moving accident' their trade will no doubt continue to assail us with the shock of startling and sensational events. others with more insidious art, will set themselves to devise stories which evoke subtler refinements of fear. the interest has already been transferred from 'bogle-wark' to the effect of the inexplicable, the mysterious and the uncanny on human thought and emotion. it may well be that this track will lead us into unexplored labyrinths of terror. notes: [ : frazer, _folklore of the old testament_, i. iv. § .] [ : _cock lane and common sense_, .] [ : _spectator_, no. .] [ : _spectator_, no. .] [ : boswell, _life of johnson_, june th, .] [ : _tom jones_, bk. xvi. ch. v.] [ : letter to dr. moore, aug. , .] [ : ashton, _chapbooks of the eighteenth century_, .] [ : advertisement to _cloudesley_, .] [ : preface to _mandeville_, oct. , .] [ : letters, vii. .] [ : _the uncommercial traveller_.] [ : _odyssey_, xi.] [ : april , .] [ : nov. , .] [ : june , .] [ : _remarks on italy_.] [ : aug. , .] [ : _diary and letters of madame d'arblay_, vol. ii. appendix ii.: _a visit to strawberry hill in _.] [ : jan. , .] [ : july , .] [ : march , .] [ : nov. , .] [ : it has been pointed out (scott, _lives of the novelists_, note) that in lope de vega's _jerusalem_ the picture of noradine stalks from its panel and addresses saladine.] [ : cf. wallace, _blind harry_.] [ : _preface_, .] [ : ch. xx.] [ : ch. xxxiv.] [ : ch. lxii.] [ : jan. , .] [ : _letters_, april , , and jan. , .] [ : _poetical works_, ed. sampson, p. .] [ : translated _blackwood's magazine_, (nov.). cf. scott, _bridal of triermain_.] [ : _e.g. diary and letters of madame d'arblay_, june , ; mathias, _pursuits of literature_, th ed. , p. ; scott, _lives of the novelists_; extracts from the _diary of a lover of literature_ ( ); byron, _childe harold_, iv. xviii.; thackeray, _newcomes_, chs. xi., xxviii.; brontë, _shirley_, ch. xxvii; trollope, _barchester towers_, ch. xv., etc.] [ : family letters, .] [ : reprinted, romancist and novelist's library.] [ : _journeys of mrs. radcliffe_, nd ed., , vol. ii. p. .] [ : _noctes ambrosianae_, ed. , vol. i. p. .] [ : lecture on _the english novelists_.] [ : _life and correspondence of m. g. lewis_, , i. .] [ : _life and correspondence_, july nd, .] [ : essay on _the state of german literature_.] [ : southey, preface to _madoc_.] [ : _life and correspondence_, feb. , .] [ : letter to john murray, aug. rd, .] [ : _monthly review_, june, .] [ : no. .] [ : cf. musaeus: _die entführung_.] [ : _marmion_, canto ii. intro.] [ : reprinted, romancist and novelist's library, vol. i. .] [ : _essay on german playwrights_.] [ : _english bards and scotch reviewers_ ( ).] [ : many of these were issued by b. crosby, stationers' court.] [ : _recollections of the table-talk of samuel rogers_, , p. .] [ : trans. from the german of christian august vulpius.] [ : cf. thackeray, "tunbridge toys" (roundabout papers).] [ : _english bards and scotch reviewers_.] [ : _gentleman's magazine_, ; and memoir prefixed to the edition of _melmoth the wanderer_, published in .] [ : prose works, , vol. xviii.] [ : _letters and memoir_, , vol. i. p. .] [ : _life_ (melville), , vol. i. p. .] [ : _letters_, nd series, , vol. i. p. .] [ : gustave planche, _portraits littéraires_.] [ : cf. stevenson's _bottle-imp._] [ : _edinburgh review_, july .] [ : conant, _the oriental tale in england_, pp. - .] [ : conant, _the oriental tale in england_, pp. - .] [ : letter to henley, jan. , .] [ : _life and letters_, melville, , p. .] [ : _life and letters_, , p. .] [ : _memoirs, journal and correspondence of thomas moore_, , vol. ii. p. .] [ : nov. , , _life and letters_, p. .] [ : austen leigh, _memoir of jane austen_.] [ : letter to william godwin, dec. , .] [ : _william godwin: his friends and contemporaries_. kegan paul, , vol. i. p. .] [ : preface to _fleetwood_, .] [ : preface to _fleetwood_, .] [ : preface to _fleetwood_, , p. xi: "i read over a little old book entitled _the adventures of mme. de st. phale_, i turned over the pages of a tremendous compilation entitled _god's revenge against murder_, where the beam of the eye of omniscience was represented as perpetually pursuing the guilty... i was extremely conversant with _the newgate calendar_ and _the lives of the pirates_. i rather amused myself with tracing a certain similitude between the story of _caleb williams_ and the tale of _bluebeard_;" and preface to _cloudesley_: "the present publication may in the same sense be denominated a paraphrase of the old ballad of the children in the wood."] [ : scott, introduction to _the abbot_, .] [ : _william godwin: his friends and contemporaries_, , vol. ii. p. .] [ : _caleb williams_, ch. x.] [ : _william godwin: his friends and contemporaries_, vol. i. pp. - .] [ : _political justice_, bk. ii, ch. ii.] [ : _william godwin: his friends and contemporaries_, vol. i. pp. - ; preface to st edition, .] [ : _hermippus redivivus_; or _the sage's triumph over old age and the grave_ (translated from the latin of cohausen, with annotations), . dr. johnson pronounced the volume "very entertaining as an account of the hermetic philosophy and as furnishing a curious history of the extravagancies of the human mind," adding "if it were merely imaginary it would be nothing at all."] [ : _st. leon_, vol. iv. ch, xiii.] [ : _st. leon_, bk. iv, ch. v.] [ : _lives of the necromancers_, , preface. "the main purpose of this book is to exhibit a fair delineation of the credulity of the human mind. such an exhibition cannot fail to be productive of the most salutary lessons."] [ : _st. godwin: a tale of the th, th and th century_, by count reginald de st. leon, , p. .] [ : dowden, _life of shelley_, vol. i. p. .] [ : dowden, _life of shelley_, vol. i. p. .] [ : hogg, _life of shelley_, vol. i. p. .] [ : cf. castle of lindenberg story in _the monk_, and ballad of alonzo the brave.] [ : a versification of the story of the wandering jew, bleeding nun and don raymond in _the monk_.] [ : this poem was borrowed from lewis's _tales of terror_ (without shelley's knowledge), where it is entitled _the black canon of elmham, or st. edmond's eve_.] [ : letter to edward fergus graham, ap. , (_letters_, ed. ingpen, , vol. i, pp. - ).] [ : letter to john joseph stockdale, nov. , .] [ : mme. de montolieu, _caroline de lichfield_, translated by thos. holcroft, .] [ : mme. de genlis, translated by rev. beresford, .] [ : peter middleton darling, _romance of the highlands_, .] [ : regina maria roche, _the discarded son, or the haunt of the banditti_, .] [ : agnes musgrave, _cicely, or the rose of raby_.] [ : aphra behn, _the nun_.] [ : charlotte smith, _ethelinde, or the recluse of the lake_, .] [ : _the relapse: a novel_, .] [ : _tales of the hall_.] [ : crébillon, _les Égarements du coeur et de l'esprit_.] [ : _the borough_, ellen orford, letter xx.] [ : _the borough_, xx, ll. _seqq._] [ : _parish register_.] [ : _william and helen_, .] [ : _house of aspen_, (keepsake, ). _doom of devorgoil_, (keepsake, ).] [ : scott, _lives of the novelists_ (on clara reeve and mrs. radcliffe and maturin).] [ : keepsake, .] [ : keepsake, .] [ : _journal_, feb. , .] [ : list of books read - .] [ : _fantasmagoriana: ou recueil d'histoires d'apparitions, de spectres, de revenans, trad. d'allemand par un amateur_. paris, .] [ : _diary of john william polidori_, june , .] [ : byron, _letters and journals_, , iii. . mary shelley, _life and letters_, , i. . extract from mary shelley's _diary_, aug. , .] [ : nov. , , _life and letters of mary wollstonecraft shelley_ (marshall), ii. .] [ : _life and letters_, ii. . ] [ : _romancist and novelist's library_.] [ : reprinted in _treasure house of tales by great authors_, ed. garnett, .] [ : _punch_, vol. x. p. : "says ainsworth to colburn a plan in my pate is to give my romance, as a supplement gratis. says colburn to ainsworth 'twill do very nicely, for that will be charging its value precisely."] [ : _life, letters and literary remains_, , vol. ii. pp. _seqq_.] [ : _dublin university magazine_, . "forgotten novels."] [ : _blackwood's magazine_, - .] [ : _within the tides_, .] [ : preface to _the algerine captive_ (walpole, vermont, ) quoted loshe, _early american novel_, n.y. .] [ : preface to _edgar huntly_.] [ : peacock, _memoirs of shelley_.] index _abbey of clunedale_, drake's, . _abbot_, scott's, note, . _abdallah_, tieck's, . _abellino_, zschokke's, . _adam blair_, lockhart's, . addison, joseph, , , , , . _adela cathcart_, macdonald's, . _adventures of abdallah_, bignon's, , . _adventures of mme. de st. phale_, note. _after dark_, wilkie collins', . aikin, a.l. (see barbauld, mrs. a.l.). aikin, dr. j., . aikin, lucy, . ainsworth, harrison, , - . _alastor_, shelley's, , . _albigenses_, maturin's, . _alciphron_, moore's, . _algerine captive_, note. _alice in wonderland_, lewis carroll's, . _all the year round_, , . _almoran and hamet_, hawkesworth's, . _alonzo and melissa_, . _alonzo the brave_, lewis's, n, note. _amadas, sir_, . _amelia_, fielding's, , . _ancient mariner_, coleridge's, , . _angelina_, maria edgeworth's, . _annual review_, . _antiquary_, scott's, . apel, j.a., . _apostate nun_ (see _convent of grey penitents)_. _apparitions, history and reality of_, defoe's, , . _apparitions, history of_, taylor's, . apuleius, . _arabian nights_, , . _ardinghello_, heinse's, . _arliss's pocket magazine_, . _arlamène ou le grand cyrus_, mme. de scudéry's, . _arthur mervyn_, c.b. brown's, . _asylum or alonzo and melissa_, . _auberge rouge_, balzac's, . _auriol_, ainsworth's, - . austen, jane, , - , , , . _avenger_, de quincey's, . _avenging demon_, shelley's, . _azemia_, beckford's, . babel, tower of, . _babes in the wood_, , note. _babylonica_, iamblichus', . ballad collections, . _baltimore saturday visitor_, . balzac, honoré de, , . _bandit of florence_, . _banditti of the forest_, . _barbastal, or the magician of the forest of the bloody ash_, . barbauld, mrs. a.l., - , , , . _barchester towers_, trollope's, note. _bard_, gray's, . barrett, e.s., , , - , . baudelaire, charles, , . beckford, william, - , . beggar girl and her benefactors, mrs. bennett's, , . behn, mrs. aphra, note, . _benevolent monk_, melville's, . bennett, mrs. a.m., . bennett, arnold, . benson, e.f., . _beowulf_, . _berenice_, poe's, . _bertram_, maturin's, , . _betrothed_, scott's, . _bibliotheca britannica_, watt's, , . bignon, jean-paul, . _biographical memoirs of extraordinary painters_, beckford's, . _black canon of elmham (tales of terror_), note. _black cat_, poe's, . _black forest_, . blackwood, algernon, . _blackwood's magazine_, note, , , , , . blake, william, - . _blanche and osbright_, lewis's, . "blind harry," note. _blithedale romance_, hawthorne's, . _bloody monk of udolpho_, horsley curteis', . _bluebeard_, , , note. _boeotian_, . _bold dragoon_, irving's, . boleyn, anne, . _book for a corner_, leigh hunt's, . _borough_, crabbe's, , . _bosom-serpent_, hawthorne's, . _bottle-imp_, stevenson's, note. bovet, , . _bravo of bohemia_ or _black forest_, . _bravo of venice_, lewis's, , , . _bridal of triermain_, scott's, note. _bride of lammermoor_, scott's, , . _brigand tales_, . brontë, charlotte, note, , . bronté, emily, - . brown, charles brockden, , , - . browne, sir thomas, . bulke, sir george, . _bullfrog, mrs_., hawthorne's, . bunyan, john, . bürger, gottfried, ii, , . burney, dr. charles, . burney, fanny, note, , . burns, robert, , . burton, robert, . byron, lord, note, , , , , , , , , , , , . _caleb williams_, godwin's, , - , , , . _caledonian banditti_, . _camilla_, fanny burney's, . campbell, dr. john, . carlyle, thomas, , . _caroline of lichfield_, mme. de montolieu's, . carroll, lewis, . _cask of amontillado_, poe's, , . _castle connor_, clara reeve's, . _castle of otranto_, walpole's, , - , , , , , , , , , , , , . _castle of wolfenbach_, mrs. parson's, . _castles of athlin and dunbayne_, mrs. radcliffe's, - , . _castle spectre_, lewis's, , . _castle without a spectre_, mrs. hunter's, . cazotte, jacques, . _cecilia_, fanny burney's, , . _cenci_, shelley's, . cervantes, . _chateau de montville_, sarah wilkinson's, . _cherubina, adventures of_ (see _heroine_). _childe harold_, byron's, note. _children of the abbey_, mrs. roche's, , , , , . _chinese tales_, gueulette's, . _christabel_, coleridge's, , . "christopher north" (wilson, john), . _cicely or the rose of raby_, miss agnes musgrave's, note. _clarissa harlowe_, richardson's, , , . _clerk saunders_, . _clermont_, mrs. roche's, . _cock lane and commonsense_, andrew lang's, note. "cock lane ghost," . coleridge, s.t., , , , . _collectanea_, leland's, . collins, wilkie, , , . collins, william, , , , , . colman, george, the younger, . colman, george, the elder, , . conant, martha, note. _confessions of a fanatic_, hogg's, . conrad, joseph, , , . _contes de ma mère oie_, perrault's, . _convent of st. ursula_, miss wilkinson's, . _convent of the grey penitents_, miss wilkinson's, , , - . corelli, marie, . _corsair_, byron's, . _count of narbonne_, jephson's, . "count reginald de st. leon," . coverley, sir roger de, . crabbe, george, , - . crébillon, c.p.j., note. _crichton_, ainsworth's, . croly, george, . cruikshank, . cunningham, allan, - . curteis, t.j. horsley, . dacre, charlotte ("rosa matilda"), , . d'arblay, mme. (see burney, fanny). darwin, erasmus, . d'aulnoy, countess, . david, . _death of despina_, mrs. shelley's, . defoe, daniel, , , . _delicate distress_, . "demon frigate," . "demon lover," , . _demonology and witchcraft, letters on_, scott's, . _demonology, treatise on_, james i.'s, . de quincey, - . de scudéry, mme., . _descent into the maelstrom_, poe's, . _devil in love_, cazotte's, . _diary of a lover of literature_, green's, note. _dice_, de quincey's, . dickens, charles, , , , , , . _discarded son_, mrs. roche's, note. _discovery of witchcraft_, scot's, , . disraeli, benjamin, . _distress, kinds of, which excite agreeable sensations_, barbauld's, . _dr. dolliver's romance_, hawthorne's, - . _dr. grimshawe's secret_, hawthorne's, . _dr. heidegger's experiment_, hawthorne's, . _dr. jekyll and mr. hyde_, stevenson's, . _dr. marigold's prescriptions_, dickens', . _don quixote_, cervantes', . _doom of devorgoil_, scott's, note. _douglas_, home's, . doyle, sir a. conan, , , . _dracula_, bram stoker's, , , . drake, dr. nathan, - , . _dream children_, lamb's, . _dublin university magazine_, , note, , . dumas, alexandre, . _edgar huntly_, c.b. brown's, , , - . edgeworth, maria, . _edinburgh review_, note. _edmond, orphan of the castle_, . _edward_, . _edward fane's rosebud_, hawthorne's, . _egarements du coeur et de l'esprit_, crébillon's, note. _elegant enthusiast_, beckford's, . _eleanora_, poe's, . _elixir de la longue vie_, balzac's, . _elixir des teufels_, hoffmann's, . _elsie venner_, holmes', . endor, witch of, , . _english bards and scotch reviewers_, byron's, note, . _english chronicle_, . _english novelists, lectures on_, hazlitt's, . _entführung_, musaeus', note. _epicurean_, moore's, , . _ernestus berchtold_, polidori's, , - . _ethan brand_, hawthorne's, . _ethelinde_, charlotte smith's, . "ettrick shepherd" (see hogg, james). _european magazine_, . _evelina_, fanny burney's, . _eve of st. agnes_, keats', . _ewige jude_, schubart's, . _facts in the case of m. valdemar_, poe's, . _faerie queene_, spenser's, . _fair elenor_, blake's, - . _fair jilt_, mrs. aphra behn's, . _falkner_, godwin's, . _fall of the house of usher_, poe's, , . _family of montorio_, , , , , - , , , , . _fantasmagoriana_, note. _farina_, meredith's, . _fatal marksman_, de quincey's, . _fatal revenge_ (see _family of montorio_). _faust_, goethe's, , . _faustus, dr._, marlowe's, , , , . _fear, ode to_, collins', . "felix phantom," . _female quixote_, mrs. lennox's, . _ferdinand, count fathom, adventures of_, smollett's, , - , , , . _feudal tyrants_, lewis's, . fielding, henry, . _field of terror_, de la motte fouqué's, . _first men in the moon_, wells', . _flames_, hichens', . _fleetwood_, godwin's, note, note, note. flood, story of, , . ford, john, . _forman_, . _fortress of saguntum_, ainsworth's, . _fortunes of nigel_, scott's, . fouqué, de la motte, , . francis, sophia, . _frankenstein_, mrs. shelley's, - , . frazer, note. _fredolfo_, maturin's, . _freischütz_, apel's, . _fugitive countess_, miss wilkinson's, . galland, antoine, , . gaskell, mrs., - . _gaston de blondeville_, mrs. radcliffe's, , , - , . _geisterseher_, schiller's, . _geistertodtenglocke_, . "geoffrey crayon" (see irving, washington). _german literature, essay on_, carlyle's, . _german playwrights, essay on_, carlyle's, note. _german student, story of a_, . _ghasta_, shelley's, . _ghost_, "felix phantom's," . _giaour_, byron's, . gilgamesh epic, - . _ginevra_, shelley's, . glanvill, joseph, , . _glenallan_, lytton's, . _glenfinlas_, scott's, . _godolphin_, lytton's, . _god's revenge against murder_, note. godwin, william, , , - , , , , , , , , , , . goethe, johann wolfgang, , , , . _golden ass_, apuleius', , , . _goodman brown_, hawthorne's, . _götz van berlichingen_, goethe's, . _grand cyrus_, mme. de scudéry's, . _grandison, sir charles_, richardson's, . green, sarah, . _green tea_, le fanu's, . gray, thomas, , , , , , . grillparzer, franz, . grosse, marquis von, , . _guardian_, . gueulette, . haggard, rider, . _half hangit_, ainsworth's, . _halloween_, burns', . hamilton, count antony, . _hamlet_, shakespeare's, . _hardyknute_, . _haunted and the haunters_, lytton's, , - . _haunted ships_, cunningham's, . hawkesworth, dr. john, . hawthorne, nathaniel, - , , , . hayne, d.f., . hazlitt, william, . heinse, wilhelm, . _hellas_, shelley's, . henley, rev. s., . _henry fitzowen_, drake's, . _hermippus redivivus_, campbell's, . _heroine_, barrett's, , - . heywood, thomas, . _hierarchy of the blessed angels_, heywood's, . _history of nourjahad_, mrs. sheridan's, . _history of the exchequer_, mador's, . hobson, elizabeth, . hoffmann, e.t.a., , . hogg, james, , , , , . _hollow of the three hills_, hawthorne's, . holmes, oliver wendell, , home, john, . _horrid mysteries_, marquis von grosse's, , , , . _hound of the baskervilles_, . _hours of idleness_, byron's, . _household words_, , . _household wreck_, de quincey's, . _house of aspen_, scott, note. _house of the seven gables_, hawthorne's, - . hughes, a.m.d., . _hugo_, bennett's, . hugo, victor, . hunt, leigh, , . hunter, mrs. rachel, . hurd, bishop, , . iamblichus, . icelandic saga, , . _iliad_, . _image in the sand_, benson's, . _indicator_, leigh hunt's, . _inn of the two witches_, conrad's, . _invisible man_, wells', . _iron shroud_, mudford's, . irving, washington, - . _isabella_, keats', . _italian_, mrs. radcliffe's, , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , . _ivanhoe_, scott's, . _jack the giant-killer_, . jacobs, w.w., . james i., . james, henry, . _jane eyre_, charlotte brontë's, . _jekyll and hyde_, stevenson's, . "jenny spinner," . jephson, robert, . jerdan, w., . _jerusalem_, lope de vega's, note. _job, book of_, . _john silence_, blackwood's, . johnson, samuel, , , . johnson, t.b., . jonson, ben, . _journal_, moore's, . _journeys of mrs. radcliffe_, - . _juif errant_, sue's, . keats, john, . _keepsake_, note, note, note. kemble, john, . _kidnapped_, stevenson, , . _kilmeny_, hogg's, . _king john_, shakespeare's, . _king lear_, shakespeare's, , . _king solomon's mines_, haggard's, . kipling, rudyard, . klingemann, . _klosterheim_, de quincey's, . _knight of the burning pestle_, beaumont and fletcher's, . _knights of the swan_, mme. de genlis', . _königsmark the robber_, lewis's, . kotzebue, august von, , . _kubla khan_, . _la belle dame sans merci_, keats', . lacroix, paul, . _lady in the sacque_, scott's, , . _lady of the lake_, scott's, . lamb, charles, . _lamia_, keats', . _lancashire witches_, ainsworth's, . lang, andrew, . langhorne, john, . _lara_, byron's, . _last man_, mrs. shelley's, - . lathom, francis, . _lay of the last minstrel_, scott's, , . le calprenède, . lee, sophia, , . le fanu, sheridan, , . _legend of montrose_, scott's, . _legends of a nunnery_, lewis's, . _legends of terror_, . _legends of the province house_, hawthorne's, . leland, john, . lemoine, anne, . lennox, mrs. charlotte, . _lenore_, bürger's, , . le queux, william, . _letitia_, mrs. rachel hunter's, . _letters on chivalry and romance_, hurd's, , . lewis, m.g. ("monk"), , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . _ligeia_, poe's, . _literary hours_, drake's, . _literary souvenir_, . _little annie's rambles_, hawthorne's, . _lives of the necromancers_, godwin's, , . _lives of the novelists_, scott's, note, note, note, . _lives of the pirates_, note. _lives_, plutarch's, . lockhart, john, , . _lodore_, mrs. shelley's, . _london magazine_, . _longsword_, leland's, . lope de vega, note. _lopez and aranthe_, miss sarah wilkinson's, . _lord of ennerdale_, scott's, . loshe, . _lucifer_, . lyttleton, lord, . lytton, bulwer, , , - , . macaulay, lord, . _macbeth_, shakespeare's, , . macpherson, james, , . _madoc_, southey's, note. mador, . _magician of the forest of the bloody ash_, . _malfi, duchess of_, webster's, . mallet, david, . malone, edmund, . malory, sir thomas, . _manuscript found in a bottle_, poe's, , . _mandeville_, godwin's, . _manfroni_, . _manuel_, maturin's, . _man in the bell_, . _marble faun_, hawthorne's, , . _margaret nicholson, posthumous poems of_, . _mark of the beast_, kipling's, . marlowe, christopher, , . _marmion_, scott's, note. marryat, captain, , . marsh, richard, . _mary burnet_, hogg's, . mason, , , . _masque of queens_, ben jonson's, . _masque of the red death_, poe's, , , , . _master of ballantrae_, stevenson's, . mathias, t.j., note. maturin, c.r., , , , - , note, , , , , , , , . medwin, thomas, , . meeke, mrs., . _melancholy, ode on_, keats', . _melmoth reconcilié à l'Église_, balzac's, . _melmoth the wanderer_, maturin's, , note, , - , , , . melville, theodore, . meredith, george, , . _merry men_, stevenson's, . mickle, william julius, . _midnight bell_, george walker's, , . _midnight groan_, . _midnight horrors_, . _midnight weddings_, mrs. meeke's, . _milesian chief_, maturin's, . milton, john, , . minerva press, . _misanthropic parent_, miss smith's, . mitford, miss mary russell, , . _modern language review_, . _modern oedipus_, polidori's, , - . _mogul tales_, gueulette's, , . _monastery_, scott's, , . _monk_, lewis's, , , - , , , note, , , , , . _monk of madrid_, george moore's, . _monkey's paw_, jacobs', . _monks of cluny or castle acre monastery_, . _monos and daimonos_, lytton's, . montagu, george, . _monthly review_, note. _montmorenci_, drake's, , . _moonstone_, wilkie collins', , . moore, george, . moore, dr. john, . moore, thomas, , , . _moral tales_, maria edgeworth's, . _more ghosts_, "felix phantom's," . more, hannah, . _morella_, poe's, . morgan, lady, . _mortal immortal_, mrs. shelley's, . _morte d'arthur_, malory's, . _mosses from an old manse_, hawthorne's, , . mudford, william, . _mugby junction_, dickens', . _murder, considered as one of the fine arts_, de quincey's, . _murders of the rue morgue_, poe's, . musaeus, johann, note. musgrave, agnes, note. _my aunt margaret's mirror_, scott's, . _mysteries of the forest_, miss eleanor sleath's, . _mysteries of udolpho_ (see _udolpho, mysteries of_). _mysterious bravo_, . _mysterious bride_, james hogg's, . _mysterious freebooter_, lathom's, , . _mysterious hand_, randolph's, , . _mysterious mother_, walpole's, , . _mysterious spaniard_, . _mysterious summons_, . _mysterious visits_, mrs. parson's, . _mysterious wanderer_, miss sophia reeve's, . _mysterious warnings_, mrs. parson's, , . _mystery of m. roget_, poe's, . _mystery of the abbey_, t.b. johnson's, . _mystery of the black tower_, palmer's, . _mystic sepulchre_, palmer's, . _my uncle's garret window_, lewis's, . _necromancer of the black forest_, . _new arabian nights_, stevenson's, . _newcomes_, thackeray's, note. _newgate calendar_, note. _new monk_, "r.s.'s" . _new monthly_, . _nigger of the narcissus_, conrad's, . _nightmare_, shelley's, . _nightmare abbey_, peacock's, , , , . _noctes ambrosianae_, , note, . _nocturnal minstrel_, miss sleath's, . _northanger abbey_, jane austen's, , , - , . _notebooks_, hawthorne's, , , . _nouvelle heloïse_, rousseau's, . _nun_, mrs. aphra behn's, . _nun of misericordia_, miss sophia francis's, . _nun of st. omer's_, "rosa matilda's," . _nurse's story_, mrs. gaskell's, , . _objects of terror_, drake's essay on, . _oblong box_, poe's, . _old bachelor_, crabbe's, . _old english baron_, clara reeve's, , - , . "old jeffrey," . _old manor house_, charlotte smith's, . _old mortality_, scott's, , . _old st. paul's_, ainsworth's, . _old woman of berkeley_, southey's, . oppenheim, phillips, . _oriental tale in england_, conant's, note, note. _ormond_, t.b. brown's, . _oroonoko_, mrs. aphra behn's, . _orphan of the rhine_, miss sleath's, . _oscar and alva_, byron's, . _osorio_, coleridge's, . _ossian_, macpherson's, , , . _oval portrait_, poe's, . pain, barry, . palmer, john, . _pamela_, richardson's, . _pandemonium or the devil's cloyster opened_, bovet's, , . _paradise lost_, milton's, . _parish register_, crabbe's, note. parsons, mrs. eliza, , , , . _passages from the diary of a late physician_, warren's, . _paul clifford_, lytton's, . peacock, t.l., , , - , . _peep at our ancestors_, mrs. rouvière's, , . pegge, samuel, . pepys, mrs., . percy, bishop, , . _perkin warbeck_, mrs. shelley's, . perrault, charles, . _persian tales_, galland's, . _peruvian tales_, gueulette's, . petronius, . _peveril of the peak_, scott's, . _phantasmagoria_, lewis carroll's, . _phantom ship_, marryat's, , . _pickwick_, dickens', . _picture of dorian gray_, oscar wilde's, . _pilgrim's progress_, bunyan's, . _pillar of mystery_, . _pit and the pendulum_, poe's, , . planche, gustave, note. plato, . _pleasure derived from objects of terror_, mrs. barbauld's essay on, . pliny, . plutarch, . poe, edgar allan, , , - , . _poetical sketches_, blake's, . polidori, dr., , , - . _political justice_, godwin's, , , , , . _polly honeycombe_, colman's, . polyphemus, . pope, alexander, . _popular tales and romances of the northern nations_, . _portraits littèraires_, planche's, note. _pour et contre_, maturin's, . _preceptor husband_, crabbe's, . _preface to shakespeare_, pope's, . _premature burial_, poe's, . _priory of st. clair_, miss wilkinson's, , . _prisoner of zenda_, hope's, . _prometheus unbound_, shelley's, , , . _pursuits of literature_, mathias', note. _quarterly review_, . _queenhoo hall_, strutt's, . _queen mab_, , . radcliffe, mrs. anne, , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , note, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . _rambler_, johnson's, . randolph, a.j., . _rappacini's daughter, dr._, hawthorne's, . _rasselas_, johnson's, , . _räuber_, schiller's, , , , . _raven_, poe's, . _recess_, sophia lee's, , . reeve, clara, , , - , , , , note. reeve, sophia, . _relapse_, . _reliques of ancient english poetry_, percy's, , . _return of imray_, kipling's, . _revelations of london_ (see _auriol_). _revenge_ (poems of victor and cazire), . _revolt of islam_, shelley's, , . _richard iii._, shakespeare's, . richardson, samuel, , , . ridley, james, . _rill from the town pump_, hawthorne's, . _robber bridegroom_, . _robbers_ (see _räuber_). robinson, crabb, . _rob roy_, scott's, . roche, mrs. regina maria, , , , , note. rogers, samuel, . rohmer, sax, . _rokeby_, scott's, , . _romance of the castle_, d.f. hayne's, . _romance of the cavern_, george walker's, . _romance of the forest_, mrs. radcliffe's, , - , , , , , , , , , . _romance of the highlands_, peter darling's, . _romance readers and romance writers_, sarah green's, . _romances_, an imitation, . _romancist and novelist's library_, note, , , note, , , . _rookwood_, ainsworth's, - , . "rosa matilda" (see dacre). _rose of raby_, miss agnes musgrave's, . rossetti, christina, . rossetti, d.g., , . rossetti, w.m., . _roundabout papers_, thackeray's, note. rousseau, jean jacques, , , . rouvière, mrs. henrietta, , . _ruins of empire_, volney's, . _ruins of st. luke's abbey_, . _sadducismus triumphatus_, glanvill's, . _st. edmond's eve_ (tales of terror), note. _st. edmund's eve_ (poems by victor and cazire), . _st. godwin_, . _st. irvyne_, shelley's, , , , , , - . _st. leon_, godwin's, , , - , , , , . saintsbury, george, . _salathiel_, croly's, . _satan's invisible world discovered_, sinclair's, , . _scarlet letter_, hawthorne's, - , . schiller, friedrich, , . schubart, . scot, reginald, , . scott, sir walter, , , , note, , note, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , . _secret history of the good devil of woodstock_, . _sensitive plant_, shelley's, . _septimius felton_, hawthorne's, . _seven vagabonds_, hawthorne's, . seward, anna, . _sexton of cologne_, . _shadow line_, conrad's, . shakespeare, , , , , , . _shaving of shagpat_, meredith's, . _she_, rider haggard's, . shelley, mary, - , . shelley, p.b., , , , , - , , , , , , , . sheridan, mrs. frances, . sheridan, r.b., . _shirley_, charlotte brontë's, note. _shrine of st. alstice_, . _sicilian pirate_, . _sicilian romance_, mrs. radcliffe's, , , - , , , , , . _sign of four_, conan doyle's, . sinclair, george, , . _sir bertrand_, mrs. barbauld's, - . _sir egbert_, drake's, . _sir eustace grey_, crabbe's, . _sir michael scott_, cunningham's, . _sketch book_, irving's, . sleath, eleanor, , , . _sleepless woman_, jerdan's, . smith, mrs. charlotte, , note. smollett, tobias, , - , , , , . _solyman and almena_, langhorne's, . _sorcerer_, mickle's, , . southey, robert, , . _spectator_, , . _spectral horseman_, . _spectre barber_, . _spectre bride_, , . _spectre bridegroom_, . _spectre of lanmere abbey_, miss wilkinson's, . _spectre of the murdered nun_, miss wilkinson's, , . _spectre-smitten_, . _spectre unmasked_, . spenser, edmund, , , , , , , . steele, richard, . sterne, laurence, . stevenson, r.l., note, , , , . stoker, bram, , . _story-haunted_, , . _story teller_, , , . _strange story_, lytton's, , - . strutt, joseph, . _student_, . _subterranean horrors_, randolph's, , . sue, eugène, . _sunday at home_, hawthorne's, . _superstitions of the scottish highlands, ode on the_, collins', . _sweet william's ghost_, . _symposium_, plato's, . _tales for a chimney corner_, leigh hunt's, . _tale of mystery_, . _tale of the passions_, mrs. shelley's, . _tales and sketches_, hogg's, . _tales and sketches_, hawthorne's, . _tales of a traveller_, irving's, - . _tales of chivalry_, . _tales of superstition and chivalry_, . _tales of terror_, lewis's, , , . _tales of the genii_, ridley's, . _tales of the hall_, crabbe's, . _tales of wonder_, lewis's, , , , , . _tam lin_, . _tam o' shanter_, burns', . _tapestried chamber_, scott's, , . _tartarian tales_, gueulette's, . taylor, joseph, . taylor, william (of norwich), . tedworth, drummer of, , . _tell-tale heart_, poe's, . _tender husband_, steele's, . _terribly strange bed_, wilkie collins', . _test of affection_, ainsworth's, . thackeray, w.m., note, , note, , . theocritus, . _thomas the rhymer_, . thorgunna, . _thrawn janet_, stevenson's, . _three students of göttingen_, . tieck, ludwig, , . _told in the dark_, barry pain's, . _tomb of aurora_, . _tom jones_, fielding's, note, note. tourneur, cyril, . _tower of london_, ainsworth's, . _traditional tales of the english and scottish peasantry_, cunningham's, . _transformation_, hawthorne's (see _marble faun_). _transformation_, mrs. shelley's, . _treasure house of tales by great authors_, garnett's, note. _treasure island_, stevenson's, , . _trimalchio, supper of_, petronius', . _tristram shandy_, sterne's, . _triumph of conscience_, shelley's, . trollope, anthony, note. _true thomas_, . _tunbridge toys_, thackeray's, note. _turkish tales_, galland's, . _turn of the screw_, james', . _twelve o'clock, or the three robbers_, . _twice-told tales_, hawthorne's, , - , , , . _typhoon_, conrad's, . _udolpho, mysteries of_, mrs. radcliffe's, , , , , - , , . , , , , , , , , , , , , , . ulysses, , . _uncommercial traveller_, dickens', . _usher's well, wife of_, . _valperga_, mrs. shelley's, - . _vampyre_, polidori's, , - . _vathek, episodes of_, beckford's, , . _vathek, history of the caliph_, beckford's, - , . _veal, mrs._, defoe's, . verne, jules, . _victor and cazire, poems by_, shelley's, . _villette_, charlotte brontë's, , . _virtuoso's collection_, hawthorne's, . _vision of mirza_, addison's, . volney, count de, . voltaire, . walker, george, , , . wallace, sir william, , note. walpole, horace, , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , . wandering jew, , , , , , , . _wandering willie's tale_, scott's, , , , - . watt, robert, , . _waverley_, scott's, , , , , . webster, john, , . _wehr-wolf_, . weit weber, . wells, h.g., , . _werther, sorrows of_, goethe's, , . wesley, john, . _west wind, ode to the_, shelley's, . _white old maid_, hawthorne's, _wieland_, c.b. brown's, , . wilde, oscar, . _wild irish boy_, maturin's, . _wild irish girl_, lady morgan's, . "wild roses," . wilkinson, miss sarah, , , , , - . will, r., , . _william and margaret_, mallet's, . _william lovell_, tieck's, . _william wilson_, poe's, . _windsor castle_, ainsworth's, . _witch of fife_, hogg's, . _woman in white_, wilkie collins', , . _women_, maturin's, . _wood-demon_, . _woodstock_, scott's, , , . "writing on the wall," . _wuthering heights_, emily brontë's, . _yellow mask_, wilkie collins', . _zanoni_, lytton's, , , - . _zastrozzi_, shelley's, , , , - . _zeluco_, dr. john moore's, . _zicci_, lytton's, , . _zofloya_, miss charlotte dacre's, - , . zschokke, heinrich, . glasgow: printed at the university press by robert maclehose and co. ltd. none studies in love and in terror by mrs. belloc lowndes (marie adelaide belloc lowndes) _short story index reprint series_ books for libraries press freeport, new york first published printed in the united states of america contents page price of admiralty the child st. catherine's eve the woman from purgatory why they married price of admiralty "o mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre! ce pays nous ennuie, o mort! appareillons!" i claire de wissant, wife of jacques de wissant, mayor of falaise, stood in the morning sunlight, graceful with a proud, instinctive grace of poise and gesture, on a wind-blown path close to the edge of the cliff. at some little distance to her left rose the sloping, mansard roofs of the pavillon de wissant, the charming country house to which her husband had brought her, a seventeen year old bride, ten long years ago. she was now gazing eagerly out to sea, shielding her grey, heavy-lidded eyes with her right hand. from her left hand hung a steel chain, to which was attached a small key. a hot haze lay heavily over the great sweep of deep blue waters. it blotted out the low grey line on the horizon which, on the majority of each year's days, reminds the citizens of falaise how near england is to france. jacques de wissant had rejoiced in the _entente cordiale_, if only because it brought such a stream of tourists to the old seaport town of which he was now mayor. but his beautiful wife thought of the english as gallant foes rather than as friends. was she not great-granddaughter to that admiral who at trafalgar, when both his legs were shattered by chain-shot, bade his men place him in a barrel of bran that he might go on commanding, in the hour of defeat, to the end? and yet as claire stood there, her eyes sweeping the sea for an as yet invisible craft, her heart seemed to beat rhythmically to the last verse of a noble english poem which the governess of her twin daughters had made them recite to her that very morning. how did it run? aloud she murmured: "yet this inconstancy is such, as you too shall adore--" and then she stopped, her quivering lips refusing to form the two concluding lines. to claire de wissant, that moving cry from a man's soul was not dulled by familiarity, or hackneyed by common usage, and just now it found an intolerably faithful echo in her sad, rebellious heart, intensifying the anguish born of a secret and very bitter renunciation. with an abrupt, restless movement she turned and walked on till her way along the path was barred by a curious obstacle. this was a small red-brick tower, built within a few feet of the edge of the cliff. it was an ugly blot on the beautiful stretch of down, all the uglier that the bricks and tiles had not yet had time to lose their hardness of line and colour in the salt wind. on the cliff side, the small circular building, open to wind, sky and sea, formed the unnatural apex of a natural stairway which led steeply, almost vertically, down to a deep land-locked cove below. the irregular steps carved by nature out of the chalk had been strengthened, and a rough protection added by means of knotted ropes fixed on either side of the dangerous descent. in the days when the steps had started sheer from a cleft in the cliff path, jacques de wissant had never used this way of reaching a spot which till last year had been his property, and his favourite bathing-place; and he had also, in those same quiet days which now seemed so long ago, forbidden his daughters to use that giddy way. but claire was a fearless woman; and she had always preferred the dangerous, ladder-like stairs which seemed, when gazed at from below, to hang 'twixt sky and sea. now, however, she rarely availed herself of the right retained by her husband of using one of the two keys which unlocked the door set in the new brick tower, for the cove--only by courtesy could it be called a bay--had been chosen, owing to its peculiar position, naturally remote and yet close to a great maritime port, to be the quarters of the northern submarine flotilla. jacques de wissant--and it was perhaps the only time in their joint life that his wife had entirely understood and sympathized with any action of her husband's--had refused the compensation his government had offered him; more, in his cold, silent way, he had shown himself a patriot in a sense comparatively few modern men have the courage to be, namely, in that which affected both his personal comfort and his purse. * * * * * after standing for a moment on the perilously small and narrow platform which made the floor of the tower, claire grasped firmly a strand of the knotted rope and began descending the long steps cut in the cliff side. she no longer gazed out to sea, instead she looked straight down into the pale green, sun-flecked waters of the little bay, where seven out of the nine submarines which composed the flotilla were lying half-submerged, as is their wont in harbour. a landsman, coming suddenly upon the cliff-locked pool, might have thought that the centuries had rolled back, and that the strange sight before him was a school of saurians lazily sunning themselves in the placid waters of a sea inlet where time had stood still. but no such vision came to claire de wissant. as she went down the cliff-side her lovely eyes rested on these sinister, man-created monsters with a feeling of sisterly, possessive affection. she had become so familiarly acquainted with each and all of them in the last few months; she knew with such a curious, intimate knowledge where they differed, both from each other and also from other submarine craft, not only here, in these familiar waters, but in the waters of france's great rival on the sea.... it ever gave her a thrill of pride to remember that it was france which first led the way in this, the most dangerous as also the most adventurous new arm of naval warfare: and she rejoiced as fiercely, as exultantly as any of her sea-fighting forbears would have done in the terrible potentialities of destruction which each of these strange, grotesque-looking craft bore in their narrow flanks. it was now the hour of the crews' midday meal; there were fewer men standing about than usual; and so, after she had stepped down on the sandy strip of shore, and climbed the ladder leading to the old napoleonic hulk which served as workshop and dwelling-place of the officers of the flotilla, madame de wissant for a few moments stood solitary, and looked musingly down into the waters of the bay. each submarine, its long, fish-like shape lying prone in the almost still, transparent water, differed not only in size, but in make, from its fellows, and no two conning towers even were alike. lying apart, as if sulking in a corner, was an example of the old "gymnote" type of under-sea boat. she went by the name of the _carp_, and she was very squat, small and ugly, her telescopic conning tower being of hard canvas. to claire, the _carp_ always recalled an old breton woman she had known as a girl. that woman had given thirteen sons to france, and of the thirteen five had died while serving with the colours--three at sea and two in tonkin--and a grateful country had given her a pension of ten francs a week, two francs for each dead son. like that breton woman, the ugly, sturdy little _carp_ had borne heroes in her womb, and like her, too, she had paid terrible toll of her sons to death. occasionally, but very seldom now, the _carp_ was taken out to sea, and the men, strange to say, liked being in her, for they regarded her as a lucky boat; she had never had what they called a serious accident. sunk deeper in the water was the broad-backed _abeille_, significantly named "la pétroleuse," the heroine of four explosions, no favourite with either crews or commanders; and, cradled in a low dock on the farther strip of beach, was stretched the _triton_, looking like a huge fish which had panted itself to death. the _triton_ also was not a lucky boat; she had been the theatre of a terrible mishap when, for some inexplicable cause, the conning tower had failed to close. claire was always glad to see her safe in dock. out in the middle of the bay was _la glorieuse_, a submarine of the latest type. had she not lain so low, little more than her flying bridge being above the water, she would have put her elder sisters to shame, so exquisitely shaped was she. everything about _la glorieuse_ was made delicately true to scale, and she could carry a crew of over twenty men. but somehow claire de wissant did not care for this miniature leviathan as she did for the older kind of submarine, and, with more reason for his prejudice, the officer in charge of the flotilla shared her feeling. commander dupré thought _la glorieuse_ difficult to handle under water. but he had had the same opinion of the _neptune_, one of the two submarines which were out this fine august morning.... an eager "bonjour, madame," suddenly sounded in claire de wissant's ear, and she turned quickly to find one of the younger officers at her elbow. "the _neptune_ is a few minutes late," he said smiling. "i hope your sister has enjoyed her cruise!" he was looking with admiring and grateful eyes at the young wife of the mayor of falaise, for claire de wissant and her widowed sister, madeleine baudoin, were very kind and hospitable to the officers of the submarine flotilla. the life of both officers and men who volunteer for this branch of the service is grim and arduous. and if this is generally true of them all, it was specially so of those who served under commander dupré. by a tacit agreement with their chief, they took no part in the summer gaieties of the watering-place which has grown up round the old port of falaise, and out of duty hours they would have led dull lives indeed had it not been for the hospitality shown them by the owners of the pavillon de wissant, and for the welcome which awaited them in the freer, gayer atmosphere of madame baudoin's villa, the châlet des dunes. madeleine baudoin was a lively, cheerful woman, younger in nature if not in years than her beautiful sister, and so she was naturally more popular with the younger officers. they had felt especially flattered when madame baudoin had allowed herself to be persuaded to go out for a couple of hours in the _neptune_; till this morning neither of the sisters had ever ventured out to sea in a submarine. and now 'twas true that the _neptune_ had been out longer than her commander had said she would be, but no touch of fear brushed claire de wissant; she would have trusted what she held most precious in the world--her children--to commander dupré's care, and a few moments after her companion had spoken she suddenly saw the little tricolor, for which her keen eyes had for long swept the sea, bravely riding the waves, and making straight for the bay. the flag moving swiftly over the surface of the blue water was a curious, almost an uncanny sight; one which never failed to fill claire with a kind of spiritual exaltation. for the tiny strip of waving colour was a symbol of the gallantry, of the carelessness of danger, lying under the dancing, sun-flecked ripples which alone proved that the tricolor was not some illusion of sorcery. and then, as if the submarine had been indeed a sentient, living thing, the _neptune_ lifted her great shield-like back up out of the sea and glided through the narrow neck of the bay, and so close under the long deck on which madame de wissant and her companion were standing. the eager, busy hum of work slackened--discipline is not perhaps quite so taut in the french as it is in the british navy--for both men and officers were one and all eager to see the lady who had ventured out in the _neptune_ with their commander. only those actually on board had seen madame baudoin embark; there was a long, rough jetty close to her house, the lonely châlet des dunes, and it was from there the submarine had picked up her honoured passenger. but when commander dupré's stern, sun-burnt face suddenly appeared above the conning tower, the men vanished as if by enchantment, while the eager, busy hum began again, much as if a lever, setting this human machinery in motion, had been touched by some titanic finger. the officers naturally held their ground. there was a look of strain in the commander's blue eyes, and his mouth was set in hard lines; a thoughtful onlooker would have suspected that the exciting, dangerous life he led was trying his nerves. his men knew better; still, though they had no clue to the cause which had changed him, they all knew he had changed greatly of late; to them individually he had become kinder, more human, and that heightened their regret that he was now quitting the northern flotilla. commander dupré had asked to be transferred to the toulon submarine station; some experiments were being made there which he was anxious to watch. he was leaving falaise on the morrow. claire de wissant reddened, and a gleam leapt into her eyes as she met the naval officer's grave, measuring glance. but very soon he looked away from her, for now he was bending down, putting out a hand to help his late passenger to step from the conning tower. smiling, breathless, a little dishevelled, her grey linen skirt crumpled, madame baudoin looked round her, dazed for the moment by the bright sunlight. then she called out gaily: "well, claire! here i am--alive and very, very hot!" and as she jumped off the slippery flank of the _neptune_, she gave herself and her crumpled gown a little shake, and made a slight, playful grimace. the bright young faces round her broke into broad grins--those officers who volunteer for the submarine services of the world are chosen young, and they are merry boys. "you may well laugh, messieurs,"--she threw them all a lively challenging glance--"when i tell you that to-day, for the first time in my life, i acknowledge masculine supremacy! i think that you will admit that we women are not afraid of pain, but the discomfort, the--the stuffiness? ah, no--i could not have borne much longer the horrible discomfort and stuffiness of that dreadful little _neptune_ of yours!" protesting voices rose on every side. the _neptune_ was not uncomfortable! the _neptune_ was not stuffy! "and i understand"--again she made a little grimace--"that it is quite an exceptional thing for the crew to be consoled, as i was to-day, by an ice-pail!" "a most exceptional thing," said the youngest lieutenant, with a sigh. his name was paritot, and he also had been out with the _neptune_ that morning. "in fact, it only happens in that week which sees four thursdays--or when we have a lady on board, madame!" "what a pity it is," said another, "that the old woman who left a legacy to the inventor who devises a submarine life-saving apparatus didn't leave us instead a cream-ice allowance! it would have been a far more practical thing to do." madame baudoin turned quickly to commander dupré, who now stood silent, smileless, at her sister's side. "surely you're going to try for this extraordinary prize?" she cried. "i'm sure that you could easily devise something which would gain the old lady's legacy." "i, madame?" he answered with a start, almost as if he were wrenching himself free from some deep abstraction. "i should not think of trying to do such a thing! it would be a mere waste of time. besides, there is no real risk--no risk that we are not prepared to run." he looked proudly round at the eager, laughing faces of the youngsters who were, till to-morrow night, still under his orders. "the old lady meant very well," he went on, and for the first time since he had stepped out of the conning tower commander dupré smiled. "and i hope with all my heart that some poor devil will get her money! but i think i may promise you that it will not be an officer in the submarine service. we are too busy, we have too many really important things to do, to worry ourselves about life-saving appliances. why, the first thing we should do if pressed for room would be to throw our life-helmets overboard!" "has one of the life-helmets ever saved a life?" it was claire who asked the question in her low, vibrating voice. commander dupré turned to her, and he flushed under his sunburn. it was the first time she had spoken to him that day. "no, never," he answered shortly. and then, after a pause, he added, "the conditions in which these life-helmets could be utilized only occur in one accident in a thousand----" "still, they would have saved our comrades in the _lutin_," objected lieutenant paritot. the _lutin_? there was a moment's silence. the evocation of that tricksy sprite, the ariel of french mythology, whose name, by an ironical chance, had been borne by the most ill-fated of all submarine craft, seemed to bring the shadow of death athwart them all. madeleine baudoin felt a sudden tremor of retrospective fear. she was glad she had not remembered the _lutin_ when she was sitting, eating ices, and exchanging frivolous, chaffing talk with lieutenant paritot in that chamber of little ease, the drum-like interior of the _neptune_, where not even she, a small woman, could stand upright. "well, well! we must not keep you from your _déjeuner_!" she cried, shaking off the queer, disturbing sensation. "i have to thank you for--shall i say a very interesting experience? i am too honest to say an agreeable one!" she shook hands with commander dupré and lieutenant paritot, the officers who had accompanied her on what had been, now that she looked back on it, perhaps a more perilous adventure than she had realized. "you're coming with me, claire?" she looked at her sister--it was a tender, anxious, loving look; madeleine baudoin had been the eldest, and claire de wissant the youngest, of a breton admiral's family of three daughters and four sons; they two were devoted to one another. claire shook her head. "i came to tell you that i can't lunch with you to-day," she said slowly. "i promised i would be back by half-past twelve." "then we shall not meet till to-morrow?" claire repeated mechanically, "no, not till to-morrow, dear madeleine." "may i row you home, madame?" lieutenant paritot asked madeleine eagerly. "certainly, _mon ami_." and so, a very few minutes later, claire de wissant and commander dupré were left alone together--alone, that is, save for fifty inquisitive, if kindly, pairs of eyes which saw them from every part of the bay. at last she held out her hand. "good-bye, then, till to-morrow," she said, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible. "no, not good-bye yet!" he cried imperiously. "you must let me take you up the cliff to-day. it may be--i suppose it is--the last time i shall be able to do so." hardly waiting for her murmured word of assent, he led the way up the steep, ladder-like stairway cut in the cliff side; half-way up there were some very long steps, and it was from above that help could best be given. he longed with a fierce, aching longing that she would allow him to take her two hands in his and draw her up those high, precipitous steps. but of late claire had avoided accepting from him, her friend, this simple, trifling act of courtesy. and now twice he turned and held out a hand, and twice she pretended not to see it. at last, within ten feet of the top of the cliff, they came to the steepest, rudest step of all--a place some might have thought very dangerous. commander dupré bent down and looked into claire's uplifted face. "let me at least help you up here," he said hoarsely. she shook her head obstinately--but suddenly he felt her tremulous lips touch his lean, sinewy hand, and her hot tears fall upon his fingers. he gave a strangled cry of pain and of pride, of agony and of rapture, and for a long moment he battled with an awful temptation. how easy it would be to gather her into his arms, and, with her face hidden on his breast, take a great leap backwards into nothingness.... but he conquered the persuasive devil who had been raised--women do not know how easy it is to rouse this devil--by claire's moment of piteous self-revelation. and at last they stood together on the narrow platform where she, less than an hour ago, had stood alone. sheltered by the friendly, ugly red walls of the little tower, they were as remote from their kind as if on a rock in the midst of the sea. more, she was in his power in a sense she had never been before, for she had herself broken down the fragile barrier with which she had hitherto known how to keep him at bay. but he felt rather than saw that it was herself she would despise if now, at the eleventh hour, he took advantage of that tremulous kiss of renunciation, of those hot tears of anguished parting--and so--"then at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning?" he said, and he felt as if it was some other man, not he himself, who was saying the words. he took her hand in farewell--so much he could allow himself--and all unknowing crushed her fingers in his strong, convulsive grasp. "yes," she said, "at eleven to-morrow morning madeleine and i will be waiting out on the end of the jetty." he thought he detected a certain hesitancy in her voice. "are you sure you still wish to come?" he said gravely. "i would not wish you to do anything that would cause you any fear--or any discomfort. your sister evidently found it a very trying experience to-day----" claire smiled. her hand no longer hurt her; her fingers had become quite numb. "afraid?" she said, and there was a little scorn in her voice. and then, "ah me! i only wish that there were far more risk than there is about that which we are going to do together to-morrow." she was in a dangerous mood, poor soul--the mood that raises a devil in men. but perhaps her good angel came to help her, for suddenly, "forgive me," she said humbly. "you know i did not mean that! only cowards wish for death." and then, looking at him, she averted her eyes, for they showed her that, if that were so, dupré was indeed a craven. "_au revoir_," she whispered; "_au revoir_ till to-morrow morning." when half-way through the door, leading on to the lonely stretch of down, she turned round suddenly. "i do not want you to bring any ices for me to-morrow." "i never thought of doing so," he said simply. and the words pleased claire as much as anything just then could pleasure her, for they proved that her friend did not class her in his mind with those women who fear discomfort more than danger. it had been her own wish to go out with commander dupré for his last cruise in northern waters. she had not had the courage to deny herself this final glimpse of him--they were never to meet again after to-morrow--in his daily habit as he lived. ii at nine o'clock the next morning jacques de wissant stood in his wife's boudoir. it was a strange and beautiful room, likely to linger in the memory of those who knew its strange and beautiful mistress. the walls were draped with old persian shawls, the furniture was of red chinese lacquer, a set acquired in the east by some norman sailing man unnumbered years ago, and bought by claire de wissant out of her own slender income not long after her marriage. pale blue and faded yellow silk cushions softened the formal angularity of the wide cane-seated couch and low, square chairs. there was a deep crystal bowl of midsummer flowering roses on the table, laden with books, by which claire often sat long hours reading poetry and volumes written by modern poets and authors of whom her husband had only vaguely heard and of whom he definitely disapproved. the window was wide open, and there floated in from the garden, which sloped away to the edge and indeed over the crumbling cliff, fragrant, salt-laden odours, dominated by the clean, sharp scent thrown from huge shrubs of red and white geraniums. the balls of blossom set against the belt of blue sea, formed a band of waving tricolor. but jacques de wissant was unconscious, uncaring of the beauty round him, either in the room or without, and when at last he walked forward to the window, his face hardened as his eyes instinctively sought out the spot where, if hidden from his sight, he knew there lay the deep transparent waters of the little bay which had been selected as providing ideal quarters for the submarine flotilla. he had eagerly assented to the sacrifice of his land, and, what meant far more to him, of his privacy; but now he would have given much--and he was a careful man--to have had the submarine station swept away, transferred to the other side of falaise. down there, out of sight of the pavillon, and yet but a few minutes away (if one used the dangerous cliff-stairway), dwelt jacques de wissant's secret foe, for the man of whom he was acutely, miserably jealous was commander dupré, of whose coming departure he as yet knew nothing. the owner of the pavillon de wissant seldom entered the room where he now stood impatiently waiting for his wife, and he never did so without looking round him with distaste, and remembering with an odd, wistful feeling what it had been like in his mother's time. then "le boudoir de madame" had reflected the tastes and simple interests of an old-fashioned provincial lady born in the year that louis philippe came to the throne. greatly did the man now standing there prefer the room as it had been to what it was now! the heavy, ugly furniture which had been there in the days of his lonely youth, for he had been an only child, was now in the schoolroom where the twin daughters of the house, clairette and jacqueline, did their lessons with miss doughty, their english governess. clairette and jacqueline? jacques de wissant's lantern-jawed, expressionless face quickened into feeling as he thought of his two little girls. they were the pride, as well as the only vivid pleasure, of his life. all that he dispassionately admired in his wife was, so he sometimes told himself with satisfaction, repeated in his daughters. clairette and jacqueline had inherited their mother's look of race, her fastidiousness and refinement of bearing, while fortunately lacking claire's dangerous personal beauty, her touch of eccentricity, and her discontent with life--or rather with the life which jacques de wissant, in spite of a gnawing ache and longing that nothing could still or assuage, yet found good. the mayor of falaise looked strangely out of keeping with his present surroundings, at least so he would have seemed to the eye of any foreigner, especially of any englishman, who had seen him standing there. he was a narrowly built man, forty-three years of age, and his clean-shaven, rather fleshy face was very pale. on this hot august morning he was dressed in a light grey frock-coat, under which he wore a yellow waistcoat, and on his wife's writing-table lay his tall hat and lemon-coloured gloves. as mayor of his native town--a position he owed to an historic name and to his wealth, and not to his very moderate republican opinions--his duties included the celebration of civil marriages, and to-day, it being the th of august, the eve of the assumption, and still a french national fête, there were to be a great many weddings celebrated in the hôtel de ville. jacques de wissant considered that he owed it to himself, as well as to his fellow-citizens, to appear "correctly" attired on such occasions. he had a deep, wordless contempt for those of his acquaintances who dressed on ceremonial occasions "à l'anglaise," that is, in loose lounge suits and straw hats. * * * * * suddenly there broke on his ear the sound of a low, full voice, singing. it came from the next room, his wife's bedroom, and the mournful passionate words of an old sea ballad rang out, full of a desolate pain and sense of bitter loss. the sound irritated him shrewdly, and there came back to him a fragment of conversation he had not thought of for ten years. during a discussion held between his father and mother in this very room about their adored only son's proposed marriage with claire de kergouët, his father had said: "there is one thing i do not much care for; she is, they say, very musical, and jacques, even as a baby, howled like a dog whenever he heard singing!" and his mother had laughed, "_mon ami_, you cannot expect to get perfection, even for our jacques!" and claire, so he now admitted unwillingly to himself, had never troubled him overmuch with her love of music.... he knocked twice, sharply, on his wife's door. the song broke short with an almost cruel suddenness, and yet there followed a perceptible pause before he heard her say, "come in." and then, as jacques de wissant slowly turned the handle of the door, he saw his wife, claire, before she saw him. he had a vision, that is, of her as she appeared when she believed herself to be, if not alone, then in sight of eyes that were indifferent, unwatchful. but jacques' eyes, which his wife's widowed sister, the frivolous parisienne, madeleine baudoin, had once unkindly compared to fishes' eyes, were now filled with a watchful, suspicious light which gave a tragic mask to his pallid, plain-featured face. claire de wissant was standing before a long, narrow mirror placed at right angles to a window looking straight out to sea. her short, narrow, dark blue skirt and long blue silk jersey silhouetted her slender figure, the figure which remained so supple, so--so girlish, in spite of her nine-year-old daughters. there was something shy and wild, untamed and yet beckoning, in the oval face now drawn with pain and sleeplessness, in the grey, almond-shaped eyes reddened with secret tears, and in the firm, delicately modelled mouth. she was engaged in tucking up her dark, curling hair under a grey yachting cap, and, for a few moments, she neither spoke nor looked round to see who was standing framed in the door. but when, at last, she turned away from the mirror and saw her husband, the colour, rushing into her pale face, caused an unbecoming flush to cover it. "i thought it was one of the children," she said, a little breathlessly. and then she waited, assuming, or so jacques thought, an air at once of patience and of surprise which sharply angered him. then her look of strain, nay, of positive illness, gave him an uneasy twinge of discomfort. could it be anxiety concerning her second sister, marie-anne, who, married to an italian officer, was now ill of scarlet fever at mantua? two days ago claire had begged very earnestly to be allowed to go and nurse marie-anne. but he, jacques, had refused, not unkindly, but quite firmly. claire's duty of course lay at falaise, with her husband and children; not at mantua, with her sister. suddenly she again broke silence. "well?" she said. "is there anything you wish to tell me?" they had never used the familiar "thee" and "thou" the one to the other, for at the time of their marriage an absurd whim of fashion had ordained on the part of french wives and husbands a return to eighteenth-century formality, and claire had chosen, in that one instance, to follow fashion. she added, seeing that he still did not speak, "i am lunching with my sister to-day, but i shall be home by three o'clock." she spoke with the chill civility a lady shows a stranger. claire seldom allowed herself to be on the defensive when speaking to her husband. jacques de wissant frowned. he did not like either of his wife's sisters, neither the one who was now lying ill in italy, nor his widowed sister-in-law, madeleine baudoin. in the villa which she had hired for the summer, and which stood on a lonely stretch of beach beyond the bay, madeleine often entertained the officers of the submarine flotilla, and this, from her brother-in-law's point of view, was very far from "correct" conduct on the part of one who could still pass as a young widow. in response to his frown there had come a slight, mocking smile on claire's face. "i suppose you are on your way to some important town function?" she disliked the town of falaise, the town-folk bored her, and she hated the vast old family house in the market place, where she had to spend each winter. "to-day is the fourteenth of august," observed jacques de wissant in his deliberate voice; "and i have a great many marriages to celebrate this morning." "yes, i suppose that is so." and again claire de wissant spoke with the courteous indifference, the lack of interest in her husband's concerns, which she had early schooled him to endure. but all at once there came a change in her voice, in her manner. "why to-day--the fourteenth of august--is our wedding day! how stupid of me to forget! we must tell jacqueline and clairette. it will amuse them----" she uttered the words a little breathlessly, and as she spoke, jacques de wissant walked quickly forward into the room. as he did so his wife moved abruptly away from where she had been standing, thus maintaining the distance between them. but claire de wissant need not have been afraid; her husband had his own strict code of manners, and to this code he ever remained faithful. he possessed a remarkable mastery of his emotions, and he had always showed with regard to herself so singular a power of self-restraint that claire, not unreasonably, doubted if he had any emotions to master, any passionate feeling to restrain. all he now did was to take a shagreen case out of his breast pocket and hold it out towards her. "claire," he said quietly, "i have brought you, in memory of our wedding day, a little gift which i hope you will like. it is a medallion of the children." and as she at last advanced towards him, he pressed a spring, and revealed a dull gold medal on which, modelled in high relief, and superposed the one on the other, were clairette's and jacqueline's childish, delicately pure profiles. a softer, kindlier light came into claire de wissant's sad grey eyes. she held out a hesitating hand--and jacques de wissant, before placing his gift in it, took that soft hand in his, and, bending rather awkwardly, kissed it lightly. in france, even now, a man will often kiss a woman's hand by way of conventional, respectful homage. but to claire the touch of her husband's lips was hateful--so hateful indeed that she had to make an instant effort to hide the feeling of physical repulsion with which that touch had suddenly engulfed her in certain dark recesses of memory and revolt. "it is a charming medallion," she said hurriedly, "quite a work of art, jacques; and i thank you for having thought of it. it gives me great--very great pleasure." and then something happened which was to her so utterly unexpected that she gave a stifled cry of pain--almost it seemed of fear. as she forced herself to look straight into her husband's face, the anguish in her own sore heart unlocked the key to his, and she perceived with the eyes of the soul, which see, when they are not holden, so much that is concealed from the eyes of the body, the suffering, the dumb longing she had never allowed herself to know were there. for the first time since her marriage--since that wedding day of which this was the tenth anniversary--claire felt pity for jacques as well as for herself. for the first time her rebellious heart acknowledged that her husband also was enmeshed in a web of tragic circumstance. "jacques?" she cried. "oh, jacques!" and as she so uttered his name twice, there came a look of acute distress and then of sudden resolution on her face. "i wish you to know," she exclaimed, "that--that--if i were a wicked woman i should perhaps be to you a better wife!" thanks to the language in which she spoke, there was a play on the word--that word which in french signifies woman as well as wife. he stared at her, and uttered no word of answer, of understanding, in response to her strange speech. at one time, not lately, but many years ago, claire had sometimes tried his patience by the odd, unreasonable things she said, and once, stung beyond bearing, he had told her so. remembering those cold, measured words of rebuke, she now caught with quick, exultant relief at the idea that jacques had not understood the half-confession wrung from her by her sudden vision of his pain; and she swung back to a belief she had always held till just now, the belief that he was dull--dull and unperceptive. with a nervous smile she turned again to her mirror, and then jacques de wissant, with his wife's enigmatic words ringing in his ears, abruptly left the room. * * * * * as if pursued by some baneful presence, he hastened through claire's beautiful boudoir, across the dining-room hung with the gobelins tapestries which his wife had brought him as part of her slender dower, and so into the oval hall which formed the centre of the house. and there jacques de wissant waited for a while, trying to still and to co-ordinate his troubled thoughts and impressions. ah yes, he had understood--understood only too well claire's strange, ambiguous utterance! there are subtle, unbreathed temptations which all men and all women, when tortured by jealousy, not only understand but divine before they are actually in being. jacques de wissant now believed that he was justified of the suspicions of which he had been ashamed. his wife--moved by some obscure desire for self-revelation to which he had had no clue--had flung at him the truth. yes, without doubt claire could have made him happy--so little would have contented his hunger for her--had she been one of those light women of whom he sometimes heard, who go from their husbands' kisses to those of their lovers. but if he sometimes, nay, often heard of them, jacques de wissant knew nothing of such women. the men of his race had known how to acquire honest wives, aye, and keep them so. there had never been in the de wissant family any of those ugly scandals which stain other clans, and which are remembered over generations in french provincial towns. those scandals which, if they provoke a laugh and cruel sneer when discussed by the indifferent, are recalled with long faces and anxious whisperings when a young girl's future is being discussed, and which make the honourable marriage of daughters difficult of achievement. jacques de wissant thanked the god of his fathers that claire had nothing in common with such women as those: he thought he did not need her assurance to know that his honour, in the usual, narrow sense of the phrase, was safe in her hands, but still her strange, imprudent words of half-avowal racked him with jealous and, yes, suspicious pain. fortunately for him, he was a man burdened with much business, and so at last he looked at his watch. why, it was getting late--terribly late, and he prided himself on his punctuality. still, if he started now, at once, he would be at the hôtel de ville a few minutes before ten o'clock, the time when the first of the civil marriages he had to celebrate that morning was timed to take place. without passing through the house, he made his way rapidly round by the gardens to the road, winding ribbon-wise behind the cliffs, where his phaeton was waiting for him; for jacques de wissant had as yet resisted the wish of his wife and the advice of those of his friends who considered that he ought to purchase an automobile: driving had been from boyhood one of his few pleasures and accomplishments. but as he drove, keeping his fine black bays well in hand, the five miles into the town, and tried to fix his mind on a commercial problem of great importance with which he would be expected to deal that day, jacques de wissant found it impossible to think of any matter but that which for the moment filled his heart to the exclusion of all else. that matter concerned his own relations to his wife, and his wife's relations to commander dupré. this gentleman of france was typical in more than one sense of his nation and of his class--quite unlike, that is, to the fancy picture which foreigners draw of the average frenchman. reserved and cold in manner; proud, with an intense but never openly expressed pride in his name and of what the bearers of it had achieved for their country; obstinate and narrow as are apt to be all human beings whose judgment is never questioned by those about them, jacques de wissant's fetish was his personal honour and the honour of his name--of the name of wissant. in his distress and disturbance of mind--for his wife's half confession had outraged his sense of what was decorous and fitting--his memory travelled over the map of his past life, aye, and even beyond the boundaries of his own life. before him lay spread retrospectively the story of his parents' uneventful, happy marriage. they had been mated in the good old french way, that is, up to their wedding morning they had never met save in the presence of their respective parents. and yet--and yet how devoted they had been to each other! so completely one in thought, in interest, in sympathy had they grown that when, after thirty-three years of married life, his father had died, jacques' mother had not known how to go on living. she had slipped out of life a few months later, and as she lay dying she had used a very curious expression: "my faithful companion is calling me," she had said to her only child, "and you must not try, dear son, to make me linger on the way." now, to-day, jacques de wissant asked himself with perplexed pain and anger, why it was that his parents had led so peaceful, so dignified, so wholly contented a married life, while he himself----? and yet his own marriage had been a love match--or so those about him had all said with nods and smiles--love marriages having suddenly become the fashion in the rich provincial world of which he had then been one of the heirs-apparent. his old-fashioned mother would have preferred as daughter-in-law any one of half a dozen girls who belonged to her own good town of falaise, and whom she had known from childhood. but jacques had been difficult to please, and he was already thirty-two when he had met, by a mere chance, claire de kergouët at her first ball. she was only seventeen, with but the promise of a beauty which was now in exquisite flower, and he had decided, there and then, in the course of two hours, that this demoiselle de kergouët was alone worthy of becoming madame jacques de wissant. and on the whole his prudent parents had blessed his choice, for the girl was of the best breton stock, and came of a family famed in the naval annals of france. unluckily claire de kergouët had had no dowry to speak of, for her father, the admiral, had been a spendthrift, and, as is still the reckless breton fashion, father of a large family--three daughters and four sons. but jacques de wissant had not allowed his parents to give the matter of claire's fortune more than a regretful thought--indeed, he had done further, he had "recognized" a larger dowry than she brought him to save the pride of her family. but claire--he could not help thinking of it to-day with a sense of bitter injury--had never seemed grateful, had never seemed to understand all that had been done for her.... had he not poured splendid gifts upon her in the beginning of their married life? and, what had been far more difficult, had he not, within reason, contented all her strange whims and fantasies? but nought had availed him to secure even a semblance of that steadfast, warm affection, that sincere interest and pride in his concerns which is all such a frenchman as was jacques de wissant expects, or indeed desires, of his wedded wife. had claire been such a woman, jacques' own passion for her would soon have dulled into a reasonable, comfortable affection. but his wife's cool aloofness had kept alive the hidden fires, the more--so ironic are the tricks which sly dame nature plays--that for many years past he had troubled her but very little with his company. outwardly claire de wissant did her duty, entertaining his friends and relations on such occasions as was incumbent on her, and showing herself a devoted and careful mother to the twin daughters who formed the only vital link between her husband and herself. but inwardly? inwardly they two were strangers. and yet only during the last few months had jacques de wissant ever felt jealous of his wife. there had been times when he had been angered by the way in which her young beauty, her indefinable, mysterious charm, had attracted the very few men with whom she was brought into contact. but claire, so her husband had always acknowledged to himself, was no flirt; she was ever perfectly "correct." correct was a word dear to jacques de wissant. it was one which he used as a synonym for great things--things such as honour, fineness of conduct, loyalty. but fate had suddenly introduced a stranger into the dull, decorous life of the pavillon de wissant, and it was he, jacques himself, who had brought him there. how bitter it was to look back and remember how much he had liked--liked because he had respected--commander dupré! he now hated and feared the naval officer, and he would have given much to have been able to despise him. but that jacques de wissant could not do. commander dupré was still all that he had taken him to be when he first made him free of his house--a brilliant officer, devoted to his profession, already noted in the service as having made several important improvements in submarine craft. from the first it had seemed peculiar, to jacques de wissant's mind unnatural, that such a man as was dupré should be so keenly interested in music and in modern literature. but so it was, and it had been owing to these strange, untoward tastes that commander dupré and claire had become friends. he now reminded himself, for the hundredth time, that he had begun by actually approving of the acquaintance between his wife and the naval officer--an acquaintance which he had naturally supposed would be of the most "correct" nature. then, without warning, there came an hour--nay, a moment, when in that twilight hour which the french call "'twixt dog and wolf," the most torturing and shameful of human passions, jealousy, had taken possession of jacques de wissant, disintegrating, rather than shattering, the elaborate fabric of his house of life, that house in which he had always dwelt so snugly and unquestioningly ensconced. he had come home after a long afternoon spent at the hôtel de ville to learn with tepid pleasure that there was a visitor, commander dupré, in the house, and as he had come hurrying towards his wife's boudoir, jacques had heard claire's low, deep voice and the other's ardent, eager tones mingling together.... and then as he, the husband, had opened the door, they had stopped speaking, their words clipped as if a sword had fallen between them. at the same moment a servant had brought a lamp into the twilit room, and jacques had seen the ravaged face of commander dupré, a fair, tanned face full of revolt and of longing leashed. claire had remained in shadow, but her eyes, or so the interloper thought he perceived, were full of tears. since that spring evening the mayor of falaise had not had an easy moment. while scorning to act the spy upon his wife, he was for ever watching her, and keeping an eager and yet scarcely conscious count of her movements. true, commander dupré had soon ceased to trouble the owner of the pavillon de wissant by his presence. the younger officers came and went, but since that hour, laden with unspoken drama, their commander only came when good breeding required him to pay a formal call on his nearest neighbour and sometime host. but claire saw dupré constantly at the châlet des dunes, her sister's house, and she was both too proud and too indifferent, it appeared, to her husband's view of what a young married woman's conduct should be, to conceal the fact. this openness on his wife's part was at once jacques' consolation and opportunity for endless self-torture. for three long miserable months he had wrestled with those ignoble questionings only the jealous know, now accepting as probable, now rejecting with angry self-rebuke, the thought that his wife suffered, perhaps even returned, dupré's love. and to-day, instead of finding his jealousy allayed by her half-confidence, he felt more wretched than he had ever been. his horses responded to his mood, and going down the steep hill which leads into the town of falaise they shied violently at a heap of stones they had passed sedately a dozen times or more. jacques de wissant struck them several cruel blows with the whip he scarcely ever used, and the groom, looking furtively at his master's set face and blazing eyes, felt suddenly afraid. iii it was one o'clock, and the last of the wedding parties had swept gaily out of the great _salle_ of the falaise town hall and so to the cathedral across the market place. jacques de wissant, with a feeling of relief, took off his tricolor badge of office. with the instinctive love of order which was characteristic of the man, he gathered up the papers that were spread on the large table and placed them in neat piles before him. through the high windows, which by his orders had been prised open, for it was intensely hot, he could hear what seemed an unwonted stir outside. the picturesque town was full of strangers; in addition to the usual holiday-makers from the neighbourhood, crowds of parisians had come down to spend the feast of the assumption by the sea. the mayor of falaise liked to hear this unwonted stir and movement, for everything that affected the prosperity of the town affected him very nearly; but he was constitutionally averse to noise, and just now he felt very tired. the varied emotions which had racked him that morning had drained him of his vitality; and he thought with relief that in a few moments he would be in the old-fashioned restaurant just across the market place, where a table was always reserved for him when his town house happened to be shut up, and where all his tastes and dietetic fads--for m. de wissant had a delicate digestion--were known. he took up his tall hat and his lemon-coloured gloves--and then a look of annoyance came over his weary face, for he heard the swinging of a door. evidently his clerk was coming back to ask some stupid question. he always found it difficult to leave the town hall at the exact moment he wished to do so; for although the officials dreaded his cold reprimands, they were far more afraid of his sudden hot anger if business of any importance were done without his knowledge and sanction. but this time it was not his clerk who wished to intercept the mayor on his way out to _déjeuner_; it was the chief of the employés in the telephone and telegraph department of the building, a forward, pushing young man whom jacques de wissant disliked. "m'sieur le maire?" and then he stopped short, daunted by the mayor's stern look of impatient fatigue. "has m'sieur le maire heard the news?" the speaker gathered up courage; it is exciting to be the bearer of news, especially of ill news. m. de wissant shook his head. "alas! there has been an accident, m'sieur le maire! a terrible accident! one of the submarines--they don't yet know which it is--has been struck by a big private yacht and has sunk in the fairway of the channel, about two miles out!" the mayor of falaise uttered an involuntary exclamation of horror. "when did it happen?" he asked quickly. "about half an hour ago more or less. _i_ said that m'sieur le maire ought to be informed at once of such a calamity. but i was told to wait till the marriages were over." looking furtively at the mayor's pale face, the young man regretted that he had not taken more on himself, for m'sieur le maire looked seriously displeased. there was an old feud between the municipal and the naval authorities of falaise--there often is in a naval port--and the mayor ought certainly to have been among the very first to hear the news of the disaster. the bearer of ill news hoped m'sieur le maire would not blame him for the delay, or cause the fact to postpone his advancement to a higher grade--that advancement which is the perpetual dream of every french government official. "the admiral has only just driven by," he observed insinuatingly, "not five minutes ago----" but still jacques de wissant did not move. he was listening to the increasing stir and tumult going on outside in the market place. the sounds had acquired a sinister significance; he knew now that the tramping of feet, the loud murmur of voices, meant that the whole population belonging to the seafaring portion of the town was emptying itself out and hurrying towards the harbour and the shore. shaking off the bearer of ill news with a curt word of thanks, the mayor of falaise strode out of the town hall into the street and joined the eager crowd, mostly consisting of fisher folk, which grew denser as it swept down the tortuous narrow streets leading to the sea. the people parted with a sort of rough respect to make way for their mayor; many of them, nay the majority, were known by name to jacques de wissant, and the older men and women among them could remember him as a child. rising to the tragic occasion, he walked forward with his head held high, and a look of deep concern on his pale, set face. the men who manned the northern submarine flotilla were almost all men born and bred at falaise--falaise famed for the gallant sailors she has ever given to france. the hurrying crowd--strangely silent in its haste--poured out on to the great stone-paved quays in which is set the harbour so finely encircled on two sides by the cliffs which give the town its name. beyond the harbour--crowded with shipping, and now alive with eager little craft and fishing-boats making ready to start for the scene of the calamity--lay a vast expanse of glistening sea, and on that sun-flecked blue pall every eye was fixed. the end of the harbour jetty was already roped off, only those officially privileged being allowed through to the platform where now stood admiral de saint vilquier impatiently waiting for the tug which was to take him out to the spot where the disaster had taken place. the admiral was a naval officer of the old school--of the school who called their men "my children"--and who detested the republican form of government as being subversive of discipline. as jacques de wissant hurried up to him, he turned and stiffly saluted the mayor of falaise. admiral de saint vilquier had no liking for m. de wissant--a cold prig of a fellow, and yet married to such a beautiful, such a charming young woman, the daughter, too, of one of the admiral's oldest friends, of that admiral de kergouët with whom he had first gone to sea a matter of fifty years ago! the lovely claire de kergouët had been worthy of a better fate than to be wife to this plain, cold-blooded landsman. "do they yet know, admiral, which of the submarines has gone down?" asked jacques de wissant in a low tone. he was full of a burning curiosity edged with a longing and a suspense into whose secret sources he had no wish to thrust a probe. the admiral's weather-beaten face was a shade less red than usual; the bright blue eyes he turned on the younger man were veiled with a film of moisture. "yes, the news has just come in, but it isn't to be made public for awhile. it's the submarine _neptune_ which was struck, with commander dupré, lieutenant paritot, and ten men on board. the craft is lying eighteen fathoms deep----" jacques de wissant uttered an inarticulate cry--was it of horror or only of surprise? and yet, gifted for that once and that once only with a kind of second sight, he had known that it was the _neptune_ and commander dupré which lay eighteen fathoms deep on the floor of the sea. the old seaman, moved by the mayor's emotion, relaxed into a confidential undertone. "poor dupré! i had forgotten that you knew him. he is indeed pursued by a malignant fate. as of course you are aware, he applied a short time ago to be transferred to toulon, and his appointment is in to-day's _gazette_. in fact he was actually leaving falaise this very evening in order to spend a week with his family before taking up his new command!" the mayor of falaise stared at the admiral. "dupré going away?--leaving falaise?" he repeated incredulously. the other nodded. jacques de wissant drew a long, deep breath. god! how mistaken he had been! mistaken as no man, no husband, had ever been mistaken before. he felt overwhelmed, shaken with conflicting emotions in which shame and intense relief predominated. the fact that commander dupré had applied for promotion was to his mind absolute proof that there had been nothing--nothing and less than nothing--between the naval officer and claire. the admiral's words now made it clear that he, jacques de wissant, had built up a huge superstructure of jealousy and base thoughts on the fact that poor dupré and claire had innocently enjoyed certain tastes in common. true, such friendships--friendships between unmarried men and attractive young married women--are generally speaking to be deprecated. still, claire had always been "correct;" of that there could now be no doubt. as he stood there on the pier, staring out, as all those about him and behind him were doing, at the expanse of dark blue sun-flecked sea, there came over jacques de wissant a great lightening of the spirit.... but all too soon his mind, his memory, swung back to the tragic business of the moment. suddenly the admiral burst into speech, addressing himself, rather than the silent man by his side. "the devil of it is," he exclaimed, "that the nearest salvage appliances are at cherbourg! thank god, the ministry of marine are alone responsible for that blunder. dupré and his comrades have, it seems, thirty-six hours' supply of oxygen--if, indeed, they are still living, which i feel tempted to hope they are not. you see, monsieur de wissant, i was at bizerta when the _lutin_ sank. a man doesn't want to remember two such incidents in his career. one is quite bad enough!" "i suppose it isn't yet known how far the _neptune_ is injured?" inquired the mayor of falaise. but he spoke mechanically; he was not really thinking of what he was saying. his inner and real self were still steeped in that strange mingled feeling of shame and relief--shame that he should have suspected his wife, exultant relief that his jealousy should have been so entirely unfounded. "no, as usual no one knows exactly what did happen. but we shall learn something of that presently. the divers are on their way. but--but even if the craft did sustain no injury, what can they do? ants might as well attempt to pierce a cannon-ball"--he shrugged his shoulders, oppressed by the vision his homely simile had conjured up. and then--for no particular reason, save that his wife claire was very present to him--jacques de wissant bethought himself that it was most unlikely that any tidings of the accident could yet have reached the châlet des dunes, the lonely villa on the shore where claire was now lunching with her sister. but at any moment some casual visitor from the town might come out there with the sad news. he told himself uneasily that it would be well, if possible, to save his wife from such a shock. after all, claire and that excellent commander dupré had been good friends--so much must be admitted, nay, now he was eager to admit it. jacques de wissant touched the older man on the arm. "i should be most grateful, admiral, for the loan of your motor-car. i have just remembered that i ought to go home for an hour. this terrible affair made me forget it; but i shall not be long--indeed, i must soon be back, for there will be all sorts of arrangements to be made at the town hall. of course we shall be besieged with inquiries, with messages from paris, with telegrams----" "my car, monsieur, is entirely at your disposal." the admiral could not help feeling, even at so sad and solemn a moment as this, a little satirical amusement. arrangements at the town hall, forsooth! if the end of the world were in sight, the claims of the municipality of falaise would not be neglected or forgotten; in as far as jacques de wissant could arrange it, everything in such a case would be ready at the town hall, if not on the quarter-deck, for the great assize! what had a naval disaster to do with the mayor of falaise, after all? but in this matter the old admiral allowed prejudice to get the better of him; the men now immured in the submarine were, with two exceptions--their commander and his junior officer--all citizens of the town. it was their mothers, wives, children, sweethearts, who were now pressing with wild, agonized faces against the barriers drawn across the end of the pier.... as jacques de wissant made his way through the crowd, his grey frock-coat was pulled by many a horny hand, and imploring faces gazed with piteous questioning into his. but he could give them no comfort. not till he found himself actually in the admiral's car did he give his instructions to the chauffeur. "take me to the châlet des dunes as quickly as you can drive without danger," he said briefly. "you probably know where it is?" the man nodded and looked round consideringly. he had never driven so elegantly attired a gentleman before. why, m. de wissant looked like a bridegroom! the mayor of falaise should be good for a handsome tip. the chauffeur did not need to be told that on such a day time was of importance, and once they were out of the narrow, tortuous streets of the town, the admiral's car flew. and then, for the first time that day, jacques de wissant began to feel pleasantly cool, nay, there even came over him a certain exhilaration. he had been foolish to hold out against motor-cars. there was a great deal to be said for them, after all. he owed his wife reparation for his evil thoughts of her. he resolved that he would get claire the best automobile money could buy. it is always a mistake to economize in such matters.... his mind took a sudden turn--he felt ashamed of his egoism, and the sensation disturbed him, for the mayor of falaise very seldom had occasion to feel ashamed, either of his thoughts or of his actions. how could he have allowed his attention to stray from the subject which should just now be absorbing his whole mind? thirty-six hours' supply of oxygen? well, it might have been worse, for a great deal can be done in thirty-six hours. true, all the salvage appliances, so the admiral had said, were at cherbourg. what a shameful lack of forethought on someone's part! still, there was little doubt but that the _neptune_ would be raised in--in time. the british navy would send her salvage appliances. jacques de wissant had a traditional distrust of the english, but at such moments all men are brothers, and just now the french and the english happened to be allies. he himself felt far more kindly to his little girls' governess, miss doughty, than he would have done five years ago. yes, without doubt the gallant english navy would send salvage appliances.... there would be some hours of suspense--terrible hours for the wives and mothers of the men, but those poor women would be upheld by the universal sympathy shown them. he himself as mayor of the town would do all he could. he would seek these poor women out, say consoling, hopeful things, and claire would help him. she had, as he knew, a very tender heart, especially where seamen were concerned. indeed, it was a terrible thought--that of those brave fellows down there beneath the surface of the waters. terrible, that is, if they were alive--alive in the same measure as he, jacques de wissant, was now alive in the keen, rushing air. alive, and waiting for a deliverance that might never come. the idea made him feel a queer, interior tremor. then his mind, in spite of himself, swung back to its old moorings. how strange that he had not been told that commander dupré had applied for a change of command! doubtless the mediterranean was better suited, being a tideless sea, for submarine experiments. keen, clever dupré, absorbed as he was in his profession, had doubtless thought of that. but, again, how odd of claire not to have mentioned that dupré was leaving falaise! of course it was possible that she also had been ignorant of the fact. she very seldom spoke of other people's affairs, and lately she had been so dreadfully worried about her sister's, marie-anne's, illness. if his wife had known nothing of commander dupré's plans, it proved as hardly anything else could have done how little real intimacy there could have been between them. a man never leaves the woman he loves unless he has grown tired of her--then, as all the world knows, except perchance the poor soul herself, no place is too far for him to make for. such was jacques de wissant's simple, cynical philosophy concerning a subject to which he had never given much thought. the tender passion had always appeared to him in one of two shapes--the one was a grotesque and slightly improper shape, which makes men do silly, absurd things; the other came in the semblance of a sinister demon which wrecks the honour and devastates, as nothing else can do, the happiness of respectable families. it was this second and more hateful form which had haunted him these last few weeks. he recalled with a sick feeling of distaste the state of mind and body he had been in that very morning. why, he had then been in the mood to kill dupré, or, at any rate, to welcome the news of his death with fierce joy! and then, simultaneously with his discovery of how groundless had been his jealousy, he had learnt the awful fact that the man whom he had wrongly accused lay out there, buried and yet alive, beneath the glistening sea, which was stretched out, like a great blue pall, on his left. still, it was only proper that his wife should be spared the shock of hearing in some casual way of this awful accident. claire had always been sensitive, curiously so, to everything that concerned the navy. admiral de saint vilquier had recalled the horrible submarine disaster of bizerta harbour; jacques de wissant now remembered uncomfortably how very unhappy that sad affair had made claire. why, one day he had found her in a passion of tears, mourning over the tragic fate of those poor sailor men, the crew of the _lutin_, of whose very names she was ignorant! at the time he had thought her betrayal of feeling very unreasonable, but now he understood, and even shared to a certain extent, the pain she had shown; but then he knew dupré, knew and liked him, and the men immured in the _neptune_ were men of falaise. these were the thoughts which jostled each other in jacques de wissant's brain as he sat back in the admiral's car. they were now rushing past the pavilion de wissant. what a pity it was that claire had not remained quietly at home to-day! it would have been so much pleasanter--if one could think of anything being pleasant in such a connection--to have gone in and told her the sad news at home. her sister, madeleine baudoin, though older than claire, was foolishly emotional and unrestrained in the expression of her feelings. madeleine was sure to make a scene when she heard of commander dupré's peril, and jacques de wissant hated scenes. he now asked himself whether there was any real necessity for his telling his wife before her sister. all he need do was to send claire a message by the servant who opened the door to him. he would say that she was wanted at home; she would think something had happened to one of the children, and this would be a good thing, for it would prepare her in a measure for ill tidings. from what jacques knew of his wife he believed she would receive the news quietly, and he, her husband, would show her every consideration; again he reminded himself that it would be ridiculous to deny the fact that claire had made a friend, almost an intimate, of commander dupré. it would be natural, nay "correct," for her to be greatly distressed when she heard of the accident. * * * * * there came a familiar cutting in the road, and again the sea lay spread out, an opaque, glistening sheet of steel, before him. he gazed across, with a feeling of melancholy and fearful curiosity, to the swarm of craft great and small collected round the place where the _neptune_ lay, eighteen fathoms deep.... he hoped claire would not ask to go back into the town with him in order to hear the latest news. but if she did so ask, then he would raise no objection. every falaise woman, whatever her rank in life, was now full of suspense and anxiety, and as the mayor's wife claire had a right to share that anxious suspense. the car was now slowing on the sharp decline leading to the shore, and jacques de wissant got up and touched the chauffeur on the shoulder. "stop here," he said. "you needn't drive down to the châlet. i want you to turn and wait for me at the pavillon de wissant. ask my servants to give you some luncheon. i may be half an hour or more, but i want to get back to falaise as soon as i can." the châlet des dunes had been well named. it stood enclosed in rough palings in a sandy wilderness. an attempt had been made to turn the immediate surroundings of the villa into the semblance of a garden; there were wind-blown flowers set in sandy flower-beds, and coarse, luxuriant creepers flung their long, green ropes about the wooden verandah. in front, stretching out into the sea, was a stone pier, built by jacques' father many a year ago. the châlet looked singularly quiet and deserted, for all the shutters had been closed in order to shut out the midday heat. jacques de wissant became vaguely uneasy. he reconsidered his plan of action. if the two sisters were alone together--as he supposed them to be--he would go in and quietly tell them of the accident. it would be making altogether too much of the matter to send for claire to come out to him; she might very properly resent it. for the matter of that, it was quite possible that madeleine baudoin had some little sentiment for dupré. that would explain so much--the officer's constant presence at the châlet des dunes added to his absence from the pavillon. it was odd he had never thought of the possibility before. but this new idea made jacques grow more and more uneasy at the thought of the task which now lay before him. with slow, hesitating steps he walked up to the little front door of the châlet. he pulled the rusty bell-handle. how absurd to have ironwork in such a place! there followed what seemed to him a very long pause. he rang again. there came the sound of light, swift steps; he could hear them in spite of the rhythmical surge of the sea; and then the door was opened by his sister-in-law, madame baudoin, herself. in the midst of his own agitation and unease, jacques de wissant saw that there was a look of embarrassment on the face which madeleine tried to make amiably welcoming. "jacques?" she exclaimed. "forgive me for having made you ring twice! i have sent the servants into falaise to purchase a railway time-table. claire will doubtless have told you that i am starting for italy to-night. our poor marie-anne is worse; and i feel that it is my duty to go to her." she did not step aside to allow him to come in. in fact, doubtless without meaning to do so, she was actually blocking up the door. no, claire had not told jacques that marie-anne was worse. that of course was why she had looked so unhappy this morning. he felt hurt and angered by his wife's reserve. "i am sure you will agree, madeleine," he said stiffly--he was not sorry to gain a little time--"that it would not be wise for claire to accompany you to italy. after all, she is still quite a young woman, and poor marie-anne's disease is most infectious. i have ascertained, too, that there is a regular epidemic raging in mantua." madeleine nodded. then she turned, with an uneasy side-look at her brother-in-law, and began leading the way down the short passage. the door of the dining-room was open; jacques could not help seeing that only one place was laid at the round table, also that madeleine had just finished her luncheon. "isn't claire here?" he asked, surprised. "she said she was going to lunch with you to-day. hasn't she been here this morning?" "no--i mean yes." madeleine spoke confusedly. "she did not stay to lunch. she was only here for a very little while." "but has she gone home again?" "well--she may be home by now; i really don't know"--madeleine was opening the door of the little drawing-room. it was an ugly, common-looking room; the walls were hung with turkey red, and ornamented with cheap coloured prints. there were cane and basket chairs which madame baudoin had striven to make comfortable with the help of cushions and rugs. jacques de wissant told himself that it was odd that claire should like to spend so much of her time here, in the châlet des dunes, instead of asking her sister to join her each morning or afternoon in her own beautiful house on the cliff. "forgive me," he said stiffly, "but i can't stay a moment. i really came for claire. you say i shall find her at home?" he held his top hat and his yellow gloves in his hand, and his sister-in-law thought she had never seen jacques look so plain and unattractive, and--and tiresome as he looked to-day. madame baudoin had a special reason for wishing him away; but she knew the slow, sure workings of his mind. if jacques found that his wife had not gone back to the pavillon de wissant, and that there was no news of her there, he would almost certainly come back to the châlet des dunes for further information. "no," she said reluctantly, "claire has not gone back to the pavillon. i believe that she has gone into the town. she had something important that she wished to do there." she looked so troubled, so--so uncomfortable that jacques de wissant leapt to the sudden conclusion that the tidings he had been at such pains to bring had already been brought to the châlet des dunes. "ah!" he exclaimed, "then i am too late! ill news travels fast." "ill news?" madeleine repeated affrightedly. "is anything the matter? has anything happened to one of the children? don't keep me in suspense, jacques. i am not cold-blooded--like you!" "the children are all right," he said shortly. "but there has been, as you evidently know, an accident. the submarine _neptune_ has met with a serious mishap. she now lies with her crew in eighteen fathoms of water about two miles out." he spoke with cold acerbity. how childishly foolish of madeleine to try and deceive him! but all women of the type to which she belonged make foolish mysteries about nothing. "the submarine _neptune_?" as she stammered out the question which had already been answered, there came over madame baudoin's face a look of measureless terror. twice her lips opened--and twice she closed them again. at last she uttered a few words--words of anguished protest and revolt. "no, no," she cried, "that can't be--it's impossible!" "command yourself!" he said sternly. "remember what would be thought by anyone who saw you in this state." but she went on looking at him with wild, terror-stricken eyes. "my poor claire!" she moaned. "my little sister claire----" all jacques de wissant's jealousy leapt into eager, quivering life. then he had been right after all? his wife loved dupré. her sister's anguished sympathy had betrayed claire's secret as nothing claire herself was ever likely to say or do could have done. "you are a good sister," he said ironically, "to take claire's distress so much to heart. identifying yourself as entirely as you seem to do with her, i am surprised that you did not accompany her into falaise: it was most wrong of you to let her go alone." "claire is not in falaise," muttered madeleine. she was grasping the back of one of the cane chairs with her hand as if glad of even that slight support, staring at him with a dazed look of abject misery which increased his anger, his disgust. "not in falaise?" he echoed sharply. "then where, in god's name, is she?" a most disagreeable possibility had flashed into his mind. was it conceivable that his wife had had herself rowed to the scene of the disaster? if she had done that, if her sister had allowed her to go alone, or accompanied maybe by one or other of the officers belonging to the submarine flotilla, then he told himself with jealous rage that he would find it very difficult ever to forgive claire. there are things a woman with any self-respect, especially a woman who is the mother of daughters, refrains from doing. "well?" he said contemptuously. "well, madeleine? i am waiting to hear the truth. i desire no explanations--no excuses. i cannot, however, withhold myself from telling you that you ought to have accompanied your sister, even if you found it impossible to control her." "i was there yesterday," said madeleine baudoin, with a pinched, white face, "for over two hours." "what do you mean?" he asked suspiciously. "where were you yesterday for over two hours?" "in the _neptune_." she gazed at him, past him, with widely open eyes, as if she were staring, fascinated, at some scene of unutterable horror--and there crept into jacques de wissant's mind a thought so full of shameful dread that he thrust it violently from him. "you were in the _neptune_," he said slowly, "knowing well that it is absolutely forbidden for any officer to take a friend on board a submarine without a special permit from the minister of marine?" "it is sometimes done," she said listlessly. madame baudoin had now sat down on a low chair, and she was plucking at the front of her white serge skirt with a curious mechanical movement of the fingers. "did the submarine actually put out to sea with you on board?" she nodded her head, and then very deliberately added, "yes, i have told you that i was out for two hours. they all knew it--the men and officers of the flotilla. i was horribly frightened, but--but now i am glad indeed that i went. yes, i am indeed glad!" "why are you glad?" he asked roughly--and again a hateful suspicion thrust itself insistently upon him. "i am glad i went, because it will make what claire has done to-day seem natural, a--a simple escapade." there was a moment of terrible silence between them. "then do all the officers and men belonging to the flotilla know that my wife is out there--in the _neptune_?" jacques de wissant asked in a low, still voice. "no," said madeleine, and there was now a look of shame, as well as of terror, on her face. "they none of them know--only those who are on board." she hesitated a moment--"that is why i sent the servants away this morning. we--i mean commander dupré and i--did not think it necessary that anyone should know." "then no one--that is, only a hare-brained young officer and ten men belonging to the town of falaise--were to be aware of the fact that my wife had accompanied her lover on this life-risking expedition? you and dupré were indeed tender of her honour--and mine." "jacques!" she took her hand off the chair, and faced her brother-in-law proudly. "what infamous thing is this that you are harbouring in your mind? my sister is an honest woman, aye, as honest, as high-minded as was your own mother----" he stopped her with a violent gesture. "do not mention claire and my mother in the same breath!" he cried. "ah, but i will--i must! you want the truth--you said just now you wanted only the truth. then you shall hear the truth! yes, it is as you have evidently suspected. louis dupré loves claire, and she"--her voice faltered, then grew firmer--"she may have had for him a little sentiment. who can tell? you have not been at much pains to make her happy. but what is true, what is certain, is that she rejected his love. to-day they were to part--for ever." her voice failed again, then once more it strengthened and hardened. "that is why he in a moment of folly--i admit it was in a moment of folly--asked her to come out on his last cruise in the _neptune_. when you came i was expecting them back any moment. but, jacques, do not be afraid. i swear to you that no one shall ever know. admiral de saint vilquier will do anything for us kergouëts; i myself will go to him, and--and explain." but jacques de wissant scarcely heard the eager, pitiful words. he had thrust his wife from his mind, and her place had been taken by his honour--his honour and that of his children, of happy, light-hearted clairette and jacqueline. for what seemed a long while he said nothing; then, with all the anger gone from his voice, he spoke, uttered a fiat. "no," he said quietly. "you must leave the admiral to me, madeleine. you were going to italy to-night, were you not? that, i take it, _is_ true." she nodded impatiently. what did her proposed journey to italy matter compared with her beloved claire's present peril? "well, you must carry out your plan, my poor madeleine. you must go away to-night." she stared at him, her face at last blotched with tears, and a look of bewildered anguish in her eyes. "you must do this," jacques de wissant went on deliberately, "for claire's sake, and for the sake of claire's children. you haven't sufficient self-control to endure suspense calmly, secretly. you need not go farther than paris, but those whom it concerns will be told that claire has gone with you to italy. there will always be time to tell the truth. meanwhile, the admiral and i will devise a plan. and perhaps"--he waited a moment--"the truth will never be known, or only known to a very few people--people who, as you say, will understand." he had spoken very slowly, as if weighing each of his words, but it was quickly, with a queer catch in his voice, that he added--"i ask you to do this, my sister"--he had never before called madeleine baudoin "my sister"--"because of claire's children, of clairette and jacqueline. their mother would not wish a slur to rest upon them." she looked at him with piteous, hunted eyes. but she knew that she must do what he asked. iv jacques de wissant sat at his desk in the fine old room which is set aside for the mayor's sole use in the town hall of falaise. he was waiting for admiral de saint vilquier, whom he had summoned on the plea of a matter both private and urgent. in his note, of which he had written more than one draft, he had omitted none of the punctilio usual in french official correspondence, and he had asked pardon, in the most formal language, for asking the admiral to come to him, instead of proposing to go to the admiral. the time that had elapsed since he had parted from his sister-in-law had seemed like years instead of hours, and yet every moment of those hours had been filled with action. from the châlet des dunes jacques had made his way straight to the pavillon de wissant, and there his had been the bitter task of lying to his household. they had accepted unquestioningly his statement that their mistress, without waiting even to go home, had left the châlet des dunes with her sister for italy owing to the arrival of sudden worse news from mantua. while claire's luggage was being by his orders hurriedly prepared, he had changed his clothes; and then, overcome with mortal weariness, with sick, sombre suspense, he had returned to falaise, taking the railway station on his way to the town hall, and from there going through the grim comedy of despatching his wife's trunks to paris. since the day war was declared by france on germany, there had never been at the town hall of falaise so busy an afternoon. urgent messages of inquiry and condolence came pouring in from all over the civilized world, and the mayor had to compose suitable answers to them all. to him there also fell the painful duty of officially announcing to the crowd surging impatiently in the market place--though room in front was always made and kept for those of the fisher folk who had relatives in the submarine service--that it was the _neptune_ which had gone down. he had seen the effect of that announcement painted on rough, worn, upturned faces; he had heard the cries of anger, the groans of despair of the few, and had witnessed the relief, the tears of joy of the many. but his heart felt numb, and his cold, stern manner kept the emotions and excitement of those about him in check. at last there had come a short respite. it was publicly announced that owing to the currents the divers had had to suspend their work awhile, but that salvage appliances from england and from cherbourg were on their way to falaise, and that it was hoped by seven that evening active operations would begin. with luck the _neptune_ might be raised before midnight. fortunate people blessed with optimistic natures were already planning a banquet at which the crew of the _neptune_ were to be entertained within an hour of the rescue. * * * * * jacques de wissant rose from the massive first empire table which formed part of the fine suite of furniture presented by the great napoleon just a hundred years ago to the municipality of falaise. with bent head, his hands clasped behind him, the mayor began walking up and down the long room. admiral de saint vilquier might now come at any moment, but the man awaiting him had not yet made up his mind how to word what he had to say--how much to tell, how much to conceal from, his wife's old friend. he was only too well aware that if the desperate attempts which would soon be made to raise the _neptune_ were successful, and if its human freight were rescued alive, the fact that there had been a woman on board could not be concealed. thousands would know to-night, and millions to-morrow morning. not only would the amazing story provide newspaper readers all over the world with a thrilling, unexpected piece of news, but the fact that there had been a woman involved in the disaster would be perpetuated, as long as our civilization endures, in every account of subsequent accidents to submarine craft. more intimately, vividly agonizing was the knowledge that the story, the scandal, would be revived when there arose the all-important question of a suitable marriage for clairette or jacqueline. as he paced up and down the room, longing for and yet dreading the coming of the admiral, he visualized what would happen. he could almost hear the whispered words: "yes, dear friend, the girl is admirably brought up, and has a large fortune, also she and your son have taken quite a fancy for one another, but there is that very ugly story of the mother! don't you remember that she was with her lover in the submarine _neptune_? the citizens of falaise still laugh at the story and point her out in the street. like mother like daughter, you know!" thus the miserable man tortured himself, turning the knife in his wound. but stay---- supposing the salvage appliances failed, as they had failed at bizerta, to raise the _neptune_? then with the help of admiral de saint vilquier the awful truth might be kept secret. * * * * * at last the door opened. jacques de wissant took a step forward, and as his hand rested loosely for a moment in the old seaman's firmer grasp, he would have given many years of his life to postpone the coming interview. "as you asked me so urgently to do so, i have come, m. de wissant, to learn what you have to tell me. but i'm afraid the time i can spare you must be short. as you know, i am to be at the station in half an hour to meet the minister of marine. he will probably wish to go out at once to the scene of the calamity, and i shall have to accompany him." the admiral was annoyed at having been thus sent for to the town hall. it was surely jacques de wissant's place to have come to him. and then, while listening to the other's murmured excuses, the old naval officer happened to look straight into the face of the mayor of falaise, and at once a change came over his manner, even his voice softened and altered. "pardon my saying so, m. de wissant," he exclaimed abruptly, "but you look extremely ill! you mustn't allow this sad business to take such a hold on you. it is tragic no doubt that such things must be, but remember"--he uttered the words solemnly--"they are the price of admiralty." "i know, i know," muttered jacques de wissant. "shall we sit down?" the deadly pallor, the look of strain on the face of the man before him was making the admiral feel more and more uneasy. "it would be very awkward," he thought to himself, "were jacques de wissant to be taken ill, here, now, with me---- ah, i have it!" then he said aloud, "you have doubtless had nothing to eat since the morning?" and as de wissant nodded--"but that's absurd! it's always madness to go without food. believe me, you will want all your strength during the next few days. as for me, i had fortunately lunched before i received the sad news. i keep to the old hours; i do not care for your english _déjeuners_ at one o'clock. midday is late enough for me!" "admiral?" said the wretched man, "admiral----?" "yes, take your time; i am not really in such a hurry. i am quite at your disposal." "it is a question of honour," muttered jacques de wissant, "a question of honour, admiral, or i should not trouble you with the matter." admiral de saint vilquier leant forward, but jacques de wissant avoided meeting the shrewd, searching eyes. "the honour of a naval family is involved." the mayor of falaise was now speaking in a low, pleading voice. the admiral stiffened. "ah!" he exclaimed. "so you have been asked to intercede with me on behalf of some young scapegrace. well, who is it? i'll look into the matter to-morrow morning. i really cannot think of anything to-day but of this terrible business----" "----admiral, it concerns this business." "the loss of the _neptune_? in what way can the honour of a naval family be possibly involved in such a matter?" there was a touch of hauteur as well as of indignant surprise in the fine old seaman's voice. "admiral," said jacques de wissant deliberately, "there was--there is--a woman on board the _neptune_." "a woman in the _neptune_? that is quite impossible!" the admiral got up from his chair. "it is one of our strictest regulations that no stranger be taken on board a submarine without a special permit from the minister of marine, countersigned by an admiral. no such permit has been issued for many months. in no case would a woman be allowed on board. commander dupré is far too conscientious, too loyal, an officer to break such a regulation." "commander dupré," said jacques de wissant in a low, bitter tone, "was not too conscientious or too loyal an officer to break that regulation, for there is, i repeat it, a woman in the _neptune_." the admiral sat down again. "but this is serious--very serious," he muttered. he was thinking of the effect, not only at home but abroad, of such a breach of discipline. he shook his head with a pained, angry gesture--"i understand what happened," he said at last. "the woman was of course poor dupré's"--and then something in jacques de wissant's pallid face made him substitute, for the plain word he meant to have used, a softer, kindlier phrase--"poor dupré's _bonne amie_," he said. "i am advised not," said jacques de wissant shortly. "i am told that the person in question is a young lady." "do you mean an unmarried girl?" asked the admiral. there was great curiosity and sincere relief in his voice. "i beg of you not to ask me, admiral! the family of the lady have implored me to reveal as little of the truth as possible. they have taken their own measures, and they are good measures, to account for her--her disappearance." the unhappy man spoke with considerable agitation. "quite so! quite so! they are right. i have no wish to show indiscreet curiosity." "do you think anything can be done to prevent the fact becoming known?" asked jacques de wissant--and, as the other waited a moment before answering, the suspense became almost more than he could endure. he got up and instinctively stood with his back to the light. "the family of this young lady are willing to make any pecuniary sacrifice----" "it is not a question of pecuniary sacrifice," the admiral said stiffly. "money will never really purchase either secrecy or silence. but honour, m. de wissant, will sometimes, nay, often, do both." "then you think the fact can be concealed?" "i think it will be impossible to conceal it if the _neptune_ is raised"--he hesitated, and his voice sank as he added the poignant words "_in time_. but if that happens, though i fear that it is not likely to happen, then i promise you that i will allow it to be thought that i had given this lady permission, and her improper action will be accepted for what it no doubt was--a foolish escapade. if dupré and little paritot are the men of honour i take them to be, one or other of them will of course marry her!" "and if the _neptune_ is not raised--" the mayor's voice also dropped to a whisper--"_in time_--what then?" "then," said the admiral, "everything will be done by me--so you can assure your unlucky friends--to conceal the fact that commander dupré failed in his duty. not for his sake, you understand--he, i fear, deserves what he has suffered, what he is perhaps still suffering,"--a look of horror stole over his old, weather-roughened face--"but for the sake of the foolish girl and for the sake of her family. you say it is a naval family?" "yes," said jacques de wissant. "a noted naval family." the admiral got up. "and now i, on my side, must exact of you a pledge, m. de wissant--" he looked searchingly at the government official standing before him. "i solemnly implore you, monsieur, to keep this fact you have told me absolutely secret for the time being--secret even from the minister of marine." the mayor of falaise bent his head. "i intend to act," he said slowly, "as if i had never heard it." "i ask it for the honour, the repute, of the service," muttered the old officer. "after all, m. de wissant, the poor fellow did not mean much harm. we sailors have all, at different times of our lives, had some _bonne amie_ whom we found it devilish hard to leave on shore!" the admiral walked slowly towards the door. to-day had aged him years. then he turned and looked benignantly at jacques de wissant; the man before him might be stiff, cold, awkward in manner, but he was a gentleman, a man of honour. and as he drove to the station to meet the minister of marine, admiral de saint vilquier's shrewd, practical mind began to deal with the difficult problem which was now added to his other cares. it was simplified in view of the fact--the awful fact--that according to his private information it was most unlikely that the submarine would be raised within the next few hours. he hoped with all his heart that the twelve men and the woman now lying beneath the sea had met death at the moment of the collision. * * * * * all that summer night the cafés and eating-houses of falaise remained open, and there was a constant coming and going to the beach, where many people, even among those visitors who were not directly interested in the calamity, camped out on the stones. the mayor sent word to the pavillon de wissant that he would sleep in his town house, but though he left the town hall at two in the morning he was back at his post by eight, and he spent there the whole of the next long dragging day. fortunately for him there was little time for thought. in addition to the messages of inquiry and condolence which went on pouring in, important members of the government arrived from paris and the provinces. there also came to falaise the mother of commander dupré, and the father and brother of lieutenant paritot. de wissant made the latter his special care. they, the two men, were granted the relief of tears, but madame dupré's silent agony could not be assuaged. once, when he suddenly came upon her sitting, her chin in her hand, in his room at the town hall, jacques de wissant shrank from her blazing eyes and ravaged face, so vividly did they recall to him the eyes, the face, he had seen that april evening "'twixt dog and wolf," when he had first leapt upon the truth. on the third day all hope that there could be anyone still living in the _neptune_ was being abandoned, and yet at noon there ran a rumour through the town that knocking had been heard in the submarine.... the mayor himself drew up an official proclamation, in which it was pointed out that it was almost certain that all on board had perished at the time of the collision, and that, even if any of them had survived for a few hours, not one could be alive now. and then, as one by one the days of waiting began to wear themselves away, the world, apart from the town which numbered ten of her sons among the doomed men, relaxed its painful interest in the fate of the french submarine. indeed, falaise took on an almost winter stillness of aspect, for the summer visitors naturally drifted away from a spot which was still the heart of an awful tragedy. but jacques de wissant did not relax in his duties or in his efforts on behalf of the families of the men who still lay, eighteen fathoms deep, encased in their steel tomb; and the townspeople were deeply moved by their mayor's continued, if restrained, distress. he even put his children, his pretty twin daughters, jacqueline and clairette, into deep mourning; this touched the seafaring portion of the population very much. it also became known that m. de wissant was suffering from domestic distress of a very sad and intimate kind; his sister-in-law was seriously ill in italy from an infectious disease, and his wife, who had gone away at a moment's notice to help to nurse her, had caught the infection. the mayor of falaise and admiral de saint vilquier did not often have occasion to meet during those days spent by each of them in entertaining official personages and in composing answers to the messages and inquiries which went on dropping in, both by day and by night, at the town hall and at the admiral's quarters. but there came an hour when admiral de saint vilquier at last sought to have a private word with the mayor of falaise. "i think i have arranged everything satisfactorily," he said briefly, "and you can convey the fact to your friends. i do not suppose, as matters are now, that there is much fear that the truth will ever come out." the old man did not look into jacques de wissant's face while he uttered the comforting words. he had become aware of many things--including madeleine baudoin's cruise in the _neptune_ the day before the accident, and of her own and claire de wissant's reported departure for italy. alone, among the people who sometimes had friendly speech of the mayor during those sombre days of waiting, admiral de saint vilquier did not condole with the anxious husband on the fact that he could not yet leave falaise for mantua. v jacques de wissant woke with a start and sat up in bed. he had heard a knock--but, awake or sleeping, his ears were never free of the sound of knocking,--of muffled, regular knocking.... it was the darkest hour of the summer night, but with a sharp sense of relief he became aware that what had wakened him this time was a real sound, not the slow, patient, rhythmical, tapping which haunted him incessantly. but now the knocking had been followed by the opening of his bedroom door, and vaguely outlined before him was the short, squat form of an old woman who had entered his mother's service when he was a little boy, and who always stayed in his town house. "m'sieur l'amiral de saint vilquier desires to see m'sieur jacques on urgent business," she whispered. "i have put him to wait in the great drawing-room. it is fortunate that i took all the covers off the furniture yesterday." then the moment of ordeal, the moment he had begun to think would never come--was upon him? he knew this summons to mean that the _neptune_ had been finally towed into the harbour, and that now, in this still, dark hour before dawn, was about to begin the work of taking out the bodies. every day for a week past it had been publicly announced that the following night would see the final scene of the dread drama, and each evening--even last evening--it had been as publicly announced that nothing could be done for the present. jacques de wissant had put all his trust in the admiral and in the arrangements the admiral was making to avoid discovery. but now, as he got up and dressed himself--strange to say that phantom sound of knocking had ceased--there came over him a frightful sensation of doubt and fear. had he been right to trust wholly to the old naval officer? would it not have been better to have taken the minister of marine into his confidence? how would it be possible for admiral de saint vilquier, unless backed by governmental authority, to elude the vigilance, not only of the admiralty officials and of all those that were directly interested, but also of the journalists who, however much the public interest had slackened in the disaster, still stayed on at falaise in order to be present at the last act of the tragedy? these thoughts jostled each other in jacques de wissant's brain. but whether he had been right or wrong it was too late to alter now. he went into the room where the admiral stood waiting for him. the two men shook hands, but neither spoke till they had left the house. then, as they walked with firm, quick steps across the deserted market-place, the admiral said suddenly, "this is the quietest hour in the twenty-four, and though i anticipate a little trouble with the journalists, i think everything will go off quite well." his companion muttered a word of assent, and the other went on, this time in a gruff whisper: "by the way, i have had to tell dr. tarnier--" and as jacques de wissant gave vent to a stifled exclamation of dismay--"of course i had to tell dr. tarnier! he has most nobly offered to go down into the _neptune_ alone--though in doing so he will run considerable personal risk." admiral de saint vilquier paused a moment, for the quick pace at which his companion was walking made him rather breathless. "i have simply told him that there was a young woman on board. he imagines her to have been a parisienne,--a person of no importance, you understand,--who had come to spend the holiday with poor dupré. but he quite realizes that the fact must never be revealed." he spoke in a dry, matter-of-fact tone. "there will not be room on the pontoon for more than five or six, including ourselves and dr. tarnier. doubtless some of our newspaper friends will be disappointed--if one can speak of disappointment in such a connection--but they will have plenty of opportunities of being present to-morrow and the following nights. i have arranged with the minister of marine for the work to be done only at night." as the two men emerged on the quays, they saw that the news had leaked out, for knots of people stood about, talking in low hushed tones, and staring at the middle of the harbour. apart from the others, and almost dangerously close to the unguarded edge below which was the dark lapping water, stood a line of women shrouded in black, and from them came no sound. as the admiral and his companion approached the little group of officials who were apparently waiting for them, the old naval officer whispered to jacques de wissant, using for the first time the familiar expression, "_mon ami_," "do not forget, _mon ami_, to thank the harbour-master and the pilot. they have had a very difficult task, and they will expect your commendation." jacques de wissant said the words required of him. and then, at the last moment, just as he was on the point of going down the steps leading to the flat-bottomed boat in which they were to be rowed to the pontoon, there arose an angry discussion. the harbour-master had, it seemed, promised the representatives of two paris newspapers that they should be present when the submarine was first opened. but the admiral stiffly asserted his supreme authority. "in such matters i can allow no favouritism! it is doubtful if any bodies will be taken out to-night, gentlemen, for the tide is already turning. i will see if other arrangements can be made to-morrow. if any of you had been in the harbour of bizerta when the _lutin_ was raised, you would now thank me for not allowing you to view the sight which we may be about to see." and the weary, disappointed special correspondents, who had spent long days watching for this one hour, realized that they would have to content themselves with describing what could be seen from the quays. * * * * * it will, however, surprise no one familiar with the remarkable enterprise of the modern press, when it is recorded that by far the most accurate account of what occurred during the hour that followed was written by a cosmopolitan war correspondent, who had had the good fortune of making dr. tarnier's acquaintance during the dull fortnight of waiting. he wrote: none of those who were there will ever forget what they saw last night in the harbour of falaise. the scene, illumined by the searchlight of a destroyer, was at once sinister, sombre, and magnificent. below the high, narrow pontoon, on the floor of the harbour, lay the wrecked submarine; and those who gazed down at the _neptune_ felt as though they were in the presence of what had once been a sentient being done to death by some huge goliath of the deep. dr. tarnier, the chief medical officer of the port--a man who is beloved and respected by the whole population of falaise--stood ready to begin his dreadful task. i had ascertained that he had obtained permission to go down alone into the hold of death--an exploration attended with the utmost physical risk. he was clad in a suit of india-rubber clothing, and over his arm was folded a large tarpaulin sheet lined with carbolic wool, one of half a dozen such sheets lying at his feet. the difficult work of unsealing the conning tower was then proceeded with in the presence of admiral de saint vilquier, whose prowess as a midshipman is still remembered by british crimean veterans--and of the mayor of falaise, m. jacques de wissant. at last there came a guttural exclamation of "_Ça y est!_" and dr. tarnier stepped downwards, to emerge a moment later with the first body, obviously that of the gallant commander dupré, who was found, as it was expected he would be, in the conning tower. once more the doctor's burly figure disappeared, once more he emerged, tenderly bearing a slighter, lighter burden, obviously the boyish form of lieutenant paritot, who was found close to commander dupré. the tide was rising rapidly, but two more bodies--this time with the help of a webbed band cleverly designed by dr. tarnier with a view to the purpose--were lifted from the inner portion of the submarine. the four bodies, rather to the disappointment of the large crowd which had gradually gathered on the quays, were not taken directly to the shore, to the great hall where falaise is to mourn her dead sons; one by one they were reverently conveyed, by the admiral's orders, to a barge which was once used as a hospital ward for sick sailors, and which is close to the mouth of the harbour. thence, when all twelve bodies have been recovered--that is, in three or four days, for the work is only to be proceeded with at night,--they will be taken to the salle d'armes, there to await the official obsequies. on the morning following the night during which the last body was lifted from within the _neptune_, there ran a curious rumour through the fishing quarter of the town. it was said that thirteen bodies--not twelve, as declared the official report--had been taken out of the _neptune_. it was declared on the authority of one of the seamen--a gascon, be it noted--who had been there on that first night, that five, not four, bodies had been conveyed to the hospital barge. but the rumour, though it found an echo in the french press, was not regarded as worth an official denial, and it received its final quietus on the day of the official obsequies, when it was at once seen that the number of ammunition wagons heading the great procession was twelve. * * * * * as long as tradition endures in the life of the town, falaise will remember the _neptune_ funeral procession. not only was every navy in the world represented, but also every strand of that loosely woven human fabric we civilized peoples call a nation. through the long line of soldiers, each man with his arms reversed, walked the official mourners, while from the fortifications there boomed the minute gun. first the president of the french republic, with, to his right, the minister of marine; and close behind them the stiff, still vigorous, figure of old admiral de saint vilquier. by his side walked the mayor of falaise--so mortally pale, so what the french call undone, that the admiral felt fearful lest his neighbour should be compelled to fall out. but jacques de wissant was not minded to fall out. the crowd looking on, especially the wives of those substantial citizens of the town who stood at their windows behind half-closed shutters and drawn blinds, stared down at the mayor with pitying concern. "he has a warm heart though a cold manner," murmured these ladies to one another, "and just now, you know, he is in great anxiety, for his wife--that beautiful claire with whom he doesn't get on very well--is in italy, seriously ill of scarlet fever." "yes, and as soon as this sad ceremony is over, he will leave for the south--i hear that the president has offered him a seat in his saloon as far as paris." as the head of the procession at last stopped on the great parade ground where the last honours were to be rendered to the lowly yet illustrious dead, jacques de wissant straightened himself with an instinctive gesture, and his lips began to move. he was muttering to himself the speech he would soon have to deliver, and which he had that morning, making a great mental effort, committed to memory. and after the president had had his long, emotional, and flowery say; and when the oldest of french admirals had stepped forward and, in a quavering voice, bidden the dead farewell on behalf of the navy, it came to the turn of the mayor of falaise. he was there, he said, simply as the mouth-piece of his fellow-townsmen, and they, bowed as they were by deep personal grief, could say but little--they could indeed only murmur their eternal gratitude for the sympathy they had received, and were now receiving, from their countrymen and from the world. then jacques de wissant gave a brief personal account of each of the ten seamen whom this vast concourse had gathered together to honour. it was noted by the curious in such things that he made no allusion to the two officers, to commander dupré and lieutenant paritot; doubtless he thought that they, after all, had been amply honoured in the preceding speeches. but though his care for the lowly heroes proved the mayor of falaise a good republican, he showed himself in the popular estimation also a scholar, for he wound up with the old tag--the grand old tag which inspired so many noble souls in the proudest of ancient empires and civilizations, and which will retain the power of moving and thrilling generations yet unborn in both the western and the eastern worlds: "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." the child i it was close on eleven o'clock; the july night was airless, and the last of that season's great balls was taking place in grosvenor square. mrs. elwyn's brougham came to a sudden halt in green street. encompassed behind and before with close, intricate traffic, the carriage swung stiffly on its old-fashioned springs, responding to every movement of the fretted horse. hugh elwyn, sitting by his mother's side, wondered a little impatiently why she remained so faithful to the old brougham which he could remember, or so it seemed to him, all his life. but he did not utter his thoughts aloud; he still went in awe of his mother, and he was proud, in a whimsical way, of her old-fashioned austerity of life, of her narrowness of vision, of her dislike of modern ways and new fashions. mrs. elwyn after her husband's death had given up the world. this was the first time since her widowhood that she and her son had dined out together; but then the occasion was a very special one--they had been to dinner with the family of elwyn's fiancée, winifred fanshawe. hugh elwyn turned and looked at his mother. as he saw in the half-darkness the outlines of the delicately pure profile, framed in grey bands of hair covering the ears as it had been worn when mrs. elwyn was a girl upwards of forty years ago, he felt stirred with an unwonted tenderness, added to the respect with which he habitually regarded her. since leaving cavendish square they had scarcely spoken the one to the other. the drive home was a short one, for they lived in south street. it was tiresome that they should be held up in this way within a hundred yards of their own door. suddenly the mother spoke. she put out her frail hand and laid it across her son's strong brown fingers. she gazed earnestly into the good-looking face which was not as radiantly glad as she would have wished to see it--as indeed she had once seen her son's face look, and as she could still very vividly remember her own husband's face had looked during their short formal engagement nearly fifty years ago. "i could not be better pleased, hugh, if i had myself chosen your future wife." elwyn was a little amused as well as touched; he was well aware that his mother, to all intents and purposes, _had_ chosen winifred. true, she had been but slightly acquainted with the girl before the engagement, but she had "known all about her," and had been on terms of friendly acquaintance with winifred's grandmother all her long life. elwyn remembered how his mother had pressed him to accept an invitation to a country house where winifred fanshawe was to be. but mrs. elwyn had never spoken to her son of her wishes until the day he had come and told her that he intended to ask winifred to marry him, and then her unselfish joy had moved him and brought them very near to one another. when hugh elwyn was in london--he had been a great wanderer over the earth--he lived with his mother, and they were outwardly on the closest, most intimate terms of affection. but then mrs. elwyn never interfered with hugh, as he understood his friends' mothers so often interfered with them and with their private affairs. this doubtless was why they were, and remained, on such ideal terms together. suddenly mrs. elwyn again spoke, but she did not turn round and look tenderly at her son as she had done when speaking of his future wife--this time she gazed straight before her: "is not winifred a cousin of mrs. bellair?" "yes, there's some kind of connection between the fanshawes and the bellairs." hugh elwyn tried to make his voice unconcerned, but he failed, and he knew that he had failed. his mother's question had disturbed him, and taken him greatly by surprise. "i wondered whether they are friends?" "i have never heard winifred mention her," he said shortly. "yes, i have--i remember now that she told me the bellairs had sent her a present the very day after our engagement was in the _morning post_." "then i suppose you will have to see something of them after your marriage?" "you mean the bellairs? yes--no. i don't think that follows, mother." "do you see anything of them now?" "no"--he again hesitated, and again ate his word--"that is--yes. i met them some weeks ago. but i don't think we are likely to see much of them after our marriage." he would have given the world to feel that his voice was betraying nothing of the discomfort he was feeling. "i hope not, hugh. mrs. bellair would not be a suitable friend for winifred--or--or for any young married woman." "mother!" elwyn only uttered the one word, but anger, shame, and self-reproach were struggling in the tone in which he uttered that one word. "you are wrong, indeed, you are quite wrong--i mean about fanny bellair." "my dear," she said gently, but her voice quivered, "i do not think i am wrong. indeed, i know i am right." neither had ever seen the other so moved. "my dear," again she said the two quiet words that may mean so much or so little, "you know that i never spoke to you of the matter. i tried never even to think of it, and yet, hugh, it made me very anxious, very unhappy. but to-night, looking at that sweet girl, i felt i must speak." she waited a moment, and then added in a constrained voice, "i do not judge you, hugh." "no!" he cried, "but you judge her! and it's so unfair, mother--so horribly unfair!" he had turned round; he was forcing his mother to look at his now moody, unhappy face. mrs. elwyn shrank back and closed her lips tightly. her expression recalled to her son the look which used to come over her face when, as a petted, over cared-for only child, he asked her for something which she believed it would be bad for him to have. from that look there had been, in old days, no appeal. but now he felt that he must say something more. his manhood demanded it of him. "mother," he said earnestly, "as you have spoken to me of the matter, i feel i must have it out with you! please believe me when i say that you are being unjust--indeed, cruelly so. i was to blame all through--from the very beginning to the very end." "you must allow me," she said in a low tone, "to be the judge of that, hugh." she added deprecatingly, "this discussion is painful, and--and very distasteful to me." her son leant back, and choked down the words he was about to utter. he knew well that nothing he could say would change or even modify his mother's point of view. but oh! why had she done this? why had she chosen to-night, of all nights, to rend the veil which had always hung, so decently, between them. he had felt happy to-night--not madly, foolishly happy, as so many men feel at such moments, but reasonably, decorously pleased with his present and his future. he was making a _mariage de convenance_, but there had been another man on the lists, a younger man than himself, and that had added a most pleasing zest to the pursuit. he, aided of course by winifred fanshawe's prudent parents, had won--won a very pretty, well-bred, well-behaved girl to wife. what more could a man of forty-one, who had lived every moment of his life, ask of that providence which shapes our ends? the traffic suddenly parted, and the horse leapt forward. as they reached their own front door, mrs. elwyn again spoke: "perhaps i ought to add," she said hurriedly, "that i know one thing to mrs. bellair's credit. i am told that she is a most devoted and careful mother to that little boy of hers. i heard to-day that the child is seriously ill, and that she and the child's nurse are doing everything for him." mrs. elwyn's voice had softened, curiously. she had an old-fashioned prejudice against trained nurses. hugh elwyn helped his mother into the house; then, in the hall, he bent down and just touched her cheek with his lips. "won't you come up into the drawing-room? just for a few minutes?" she asked; there was a note of deep, yearning disappointment in her voice, and her face looked grey and tired, very different from the happy, placid air it had worn during the little dinner party. "no, thank you, mother, i won't come up just now. i think i'll go out again for half an hour. i haven't walked at all to-day, and it's so hot--i feel i shouldn't sleep if i turn in now." he was punishing his mother as he had seen other sons punishing their mothers, but as he himself had never before to-night been tempted to punish his. nay, more, as hugh elwyn watched her slow ascent up the staircase, he told himself that she had hurt and angered him past entire forgiveness. he had sometimes suspected that she knew of that fateful episode in his past life, but he had never supposed that she would speak of it to him, especially not now, after years had gone by, and when, greatly to please her, he was about to make what is called a "suitable" marriage. he was just enough to know that his mother had hurt herself by hurting him, but that did not modify his feelings of anger and of surprise at what she had done. of course she thought she knew everything there was to know, but how much there had been that she had never even suspected! those words--that admission--as to fanny bellair being a good mother would never have passed mrs. elwyn's lips--they would never even have been credited by her had she known the truth--the truth, that is, as to the child to whom mrs. bellair was so passionately devoted, and who now, it seemed, was ailing. that secret, and hugh elwyn thanked god, not irreverently, that it was so, was only shared by two human beings, that is by fanny and himself. and perhaps, fanny, like himself, had managed by now almost to forget it.... elwyn swung out of the house, he walked up south street, and so into park lane and over to the park railings. there was still a great deal of traffic in the roadway, but the pavements were deserted. as he began to walk quickly westward, the past came back and overwhelmed him as with a great flood of mingled memories. and it was not, as his mother would probably have visioned it, a muddy spate filled with unclean things. rather was it a flood of exquisite spring waters, instinct with the buoyant head-long rushes of youth, and filled with clear, happy shallows, in which retrospectively he lay and sunned himself in the warmth of what had been a great love--love such as winifred fanshawe, with her thin, complaisant nature, would never bestow. the mother's imprudent words of unnecessary warning had brought back to her son everything she had hoped was now, if not obliterated, then repented of; but elwyn's heart was filled to-night with a vague tenderness for the half-forgotten woman whom he had loved awhile with so passionate and absorbing a love, and to whom, under cover of that poor and wilted thing, his conscience, he had ultimately behaved so ill. hugh elwyn's mind travelled back across the years, to the very beginning of his involved account with honour--that account which he believed to be now straightened out. jim bellair had been elwyn's friend--first college friend and then favourite "pal." when bellair had fallen head over ears in love with a girl still in the schoolroom, a girl not even pretty, but with wonderful auburn hair and dark, startled-looking eyes, and had finally persuaded, cajoled, badgered her into saying "yes," it was hugh elwyn who had been bellair's rather sulky best man. small wonder that the bridegroom had half-jokingly left his young wife in elwyn's charge when he had had to go half across the world on business that could not be delayed, while she stayed behind to nurse her father who was ill. it was then, with mysterious, uncanny suddenness, that the mischief had begun. there had been something wild and untamed in fanny bellair--something which had roused in elwyn the hunter's instinct, an instinct hitherto unslaked by over easy victories. and then chance, that great, cynical goddess which plays so great a part in civilized life, had flung first one opportunity and then another into his eager, grasping hands. fanny's father had died; and she had been lonely and in sorrow. careless friends, however kind, do not care to see much of those who mourn, but he, hugh elwyn, had not been careless, nay, he had been careful to see more, not less, of his friend's wife in this her first great grief, and she had been moved to the heart by his sympathy. it was by elwyn's advice that mrs. bellair had taken a house not far from london that lovely summer. ah, that little house! elwyn could remember every bush, almost every flower that had flowered, in the walled garden during those enchanted weeks. against the background of his mind every ornament, every odd piece of furniture in that old cottage, stood out as having been the silent, it had seemed at the time the kindly, understanding witnesses of what had by then become an exquisite friendship. he, the man, had known almost from the first where they too were drifting, but she, the woman, had slipped into love as a wanderer at night slips suddenly into a deep and hidden pool. in a story book they would both have gone away openly together--but somehow the thought of doing such a thing never seriously occurred to elwyn. he was far too fond of bellair--it seemed absurd to say that now, but the truth, especially the truth of what has been, is often absurd. elwyn had contented himself with stealing bellair's wife; he had no desire to put public shame and ridicule upon his friend. and fortune, favouring him, had prolonged the other man's enforced absence. and then? and then at last bellair had come back,--and trouble began. as to many things, nay, as to most things which have to do with the flesh rather than the spirit, men are more fastidiously delicate than are women. there had come months of misery, of revolt, and, on elwyn's part, of dulling love.... then, once more, chance gave him an unlooked-for opportunity--an opportunity of escape from what had become to him an intolerable position. the war broke out, and hugh elwyn was among the very first of those gallant fellows who volunteered during the dark november of ' . by a curious irony of fate, the troopship that bore him to south africa had bellair also on board, but owing to elwyn's secret decision--he was far the cleverer man of the two--he and his friend were no longer bound together by that wordless intimacy which is the basis of any close tie among men. by the time the two came back from africa they had become little more than cordial acquaintances. marriage, so bellair sometimes told himself ruefully, generally plays the devil with a man's bachelor friendships. he was a kindly, generous hearted soul, who found much comfort in platitudes.... but that, alas! had not been the end. on elwyn's return home there had come to him a violent, overmastering revival of his passion. again he and fanny met--again they loved. then one terrible day she came and told him, with stricken eyes, what he sometimes hoped, even now, had not been true--that she was about to have a child, and that it would be his child. at that moment, as he knew well, mrs. bellair had desired ardently to go away with him, openly. but he had drawn back, assuring himself--and this time honestly--that his shrinking from that course, now surely the only honest course, was not wholly ignoble. were he to do such a thing it would go far to kill his mother--worse, it would embitter every moment of the life which remained to her. for a while elwyn went in deadly fear lest fanny should tell her husband the truth. but the weeks and months drifted by, and she remained silent. and as he had gone about that year, petted and made much of by his friends and acquaintances--for did he not bear on his worn, handsome face that look which war paints on the face of your sensitive modern man?--he heard whispered the delightful news that after five years of marriage kind jim and dear fanny bellair were at last going to be made happy--happy in the good old way. among the other memories of that hateful time, one came back, to-night, with especial vividness. hurrying home across the park one afternoon, seven years ago now, almost to a day, he had suddenly run up against bellair. they had talked for a few moments on indifferent things, and then jim had said shyly, awkwardly, but with a beaming look on his face, "you know about fanny? of course i can't help feeling a bit anxious, but she's so healthy--not like those women who have always something the matter with them!" and he, elwyn, had gripped the other man's hand, and muttered the congratulation which was being asked of him. that meeting, so full of shameful irony, had occurred about a week before the child's birth. elwyn had meant to be away from london--but chance, so carelessly kind a friend to him in the past, at last proved cruel, for surely it was chance and chance alone that led him, on the very eve of the day he was starting for norway, straight across the quiet square, composed of high georgian houses, where the bellairs still lived. to-night, thanks to his mother, every incident of that long, agonizing night came back. he could almost feel the tremor of half fear, half excitement, which had possessed him when he had suddenly become aware that his friends' house was still lit up and astir, and that fresh straw lay heaped up in prodigal profusion in the road where, a little past the door, was drawn up a doctor's one-horse brougham. even then he might have taken another way, but something had seemed to drive him on, past the house,--and there elwyn, staying his deadened footsteps, had heard float down to him from widely opened windows above, certain sounds, muffled moans, telling of a physical extremity which even now he winced to remember. he had waited on and on--longing to escape, and yet prisoned between imaginary bounds within which he paced up and down, filled with an obscure desire to share, in the measure that was possible to him, her torment. at last, in the orange, dust-laden dawn of a london summer morning, the front door of the house had opened, and elwyn had walked forward, every nerve quivering with suspense and fatigue, feeling that he must know.... a great doctor, with whose face he was vaguely acquainted, had stepped out accompanied by bellair--bellair with ruffled hair and red-rimmed eyes, but looking if tired then content, even more, triumphant. elwyn had heard him say the words, "thanks awfully. i shall never forget how kind you have been, sir joseph. yes, i'll go to bed at once. i know you must have thought me rather stupid." and then bellair had suddenly seen elwyn standing on the pavement; he had accepted unquestioningly the halting explanation that he was on his way home from a late party, and had happened, as it were, that way. "it's a boy!" he had said exultantly, although elwyn had asked him no question, and then, "of course i'm awfully pleased, but i'm dog tired! she's had a bad time, poor girl--but it's all right now, thank god! come in and have a drink, hugo." but elwyn had shaken his head. again he had gripped his old friend's hand, as he had done a week before, and again he had muttered the necessary words of congratulation. then, turning on his heel, he had gone home, and spent the rest of the night in desultory packing. * * * * * that was just seven years ago, and elwyn had never seen fanny's child. he had been away from england for over a year, and when he came back he learned that the bellairs were away, living in the country, where they had taken a house for the sake of their boy. as time had gone on, elwyn and his friends had somehow drifted apart, as people are apt to drift apart in the busy idleness of the life led by the fortunate bellairs and elwyns of this world. fanny avoided hugh elwyn, and elwyn avoided fanny, but they two only were aware of this. it was the last of the many secrets which they had once shared. when he and bellair by chance met alone, all the old cordiality and even the old affection seemed to come back, if not to elwyn then to the other man. and now the child, to whom it seemed not only fanny but jim bellair also was so devoted, was ill, and he, hugh elwyn, had been the last to hear of it. he felt vaguely remorseful that this should be so. there had been years when nothing that affected bellair could have left him indifferent, and a time when the slightest misadventure befalling fanny would have called forth his eager, helpful sympathy. how strange it would be--he quickened his footsteps--if this child, with whom he was at once remotely and intimately concerned, were to die! he could not help feeling, deep down in his heart, that this would be, if a tragic, then a natural solution of a painful and unnatural problem--and then, quite suddenly, he felt horribly ashamed of having allowed himself to think this thought, to wish this awful wish. why should he not go now, at once, to manchester square, and inquire as to the little boy's condition? it was not really late, not yet midnight. he could go and leave a message, perhaps even scribble a line to jim bellair explaining that he had come round as soon as he had heard of the child's illness. ii when hugh elwyn reached the familiar turning whence he could see the bellairs' high house, time seemed to have slipped back. the house was all lit up as it had been on that summer night seven years ago. everything was the same--even to the heaped-up straw into which his half-reluctant feet now sank. there was even a doctor's carriage drawn up a little way from the front door, but this time it was a smart electric brougham. he rang the bell, and as the door opened, jim bellair suddenly came into the hall, out of a room which elwyn knew to be the smoking-room--a room in which he and fanny had at one time spent long hours in contented, nay in ecstatic, dual solitude. "i have come to inquire--i only heard to-night--" he began awkwardly, but the other cut him short, "yes, yes, i understand--it's awfully good of you, elwyn! i'm awfully glad to see you. come in here--" and perforce he had to follow. "the doctor's upstairs--i mean sir joseph pixton. fanny was determined to have him, and he very kindly came, though of course he's not a child's doctor. he's annoyed because fanny won't have trained nurses; but i don't suppose anything would make any difference. it's just a fight--a fight for the little chap's life--that's what it is, and we don't know yet who'll win." he spoke in quick, short sentences, staring with widely open eyes at his erstwhile friend as he spoke. "pneumonia--i suppose you don't know anything about it? i thought children never had such things, especially not in hot weather." "i had a frightful illness when i was about your boy's age," said elwyn eagerly. "it's the first thing i can really remember. they called it inflammation of the lungs. i was awfully bad. my mother talks of it now, sometimes." "does she?" bellair spoke wearily. "if only one could _do_ something," he went on. "but you see the worst of it is that i can do nothing--nothing! fanny hates my being up there--she thinks it upsets the boy. he's such a jolly little chap, hugo. you know we called him peter after fanny's father?" elwyn moved towards the door. he felt dreadfully moved by the other's pain. he told himself that after all he could do no good by staying, and he felt so ashamed, such a cur---- "you don't want to go away yet?" there was sharp chagrin, reproachful dismay, in bellair's voice. elwyn remembered that in old days jim had always hated being alone. "won't you stay and hear what pixton says? or--or are you in a hurry?" elwyn turned round. "of course i'll stay," he said briefly. bellair spared him thanks, but he began walking about the room restlessly. at last he went to the door and set it ajar. "i want to hear when sir joseph comes down," he explained, and even as he spoke there came the sound of heavy, slow footsteps on the staircase. bellair went out and brought the great man in. "i've told mrs. bellair that we ought to have bewdley! he knows a great deal more about children than i can pretend to do; and i propose, with your leave, to go off now, myself, and if possible bring him back." the old doctor's keen eyes wandered as he spoke from bellair's fair face to hugh elwyn's dark one. "perhaps," he said, "perhaps, mr. bellair, you would get someone to telephone to dr. bewdley's house to say that i'm coming? it might save a few moments." as bellair left the room, the doctor turned to elwyn and said abruptly, "i hope you'll be able to stay with your brother? all this is very hard on him; mrs. bellair will scarcely allow him into the child's room, and though that, of course, is quite right, i'm sorry for the man. he's wrapped up in the child." and when bellair came back from accompanying the old doctor to his carriage, there was a smile on his face--the first smile which had been there for a long time: "pixton thinks you're my brother! he said, 'i hope your brother will manage to stay with you for a bit.' now i'll go up and see fanny. pixton is certainly more hopeful than the last man we had--" bellair's voice had a confident ring. elwyn remembered with a pang that jim had always been like that--always believed, that is, that the best would come to pass. when left alone, elwyn began walking restlessly up and down, much as his friend had walked up and down a few minutes ago. something of the excitement of the fight going on above had entered into him; he now desired ardently that the child should live, should emerge victor from the grim struggle. at last bellair came back. "fanny believes that this is the night of crisis," he said slowly. all the buoyancy had left his voice. "but--but elwyn, i hope you won't mind--the fact is she's set her heart on your seeing him. i told her what you told me about yourself, i mean your illness as a child, and it's cheered her up amazingly, poor girl! perhaps you could tell her a little bit more about it, though i like to think that if the boy gets through it"--his voice broke suddenly--"she won't remember this--this awful time. but don't let's keep her waiting--" he took elwyn's consent for granted, and quickly the two men walked up the stairs of the high house, on and on and on. "it's a good way up," whispered bellair, "but fanny was told that a child's nursery couldn't be too high. so we had the four rooms at the top thrown into two." they were now on the dimly-lighted landing. "wait one moment--wait one moment, hugo." bellair's voice had dropped to a low, gruff whisper. elwyn remained alone. he could hear slight movements going on in the room into which bellair had just gone; and then there also fell on his ears the deep, regular sound of snoring. who could be asleep in the house at such a moment? the sound disturbed him; it seemed to add a touch of grotesque horror to the situation. suddenly the handle of the door in front of him moved round, and he heard fanny bellair's voice, unnaturally controlled and calm. "i sent nanna to bed, jim. the poor old creature was absolutely worn out. and then i would so much rather be alone when sir joseph brings back the other doctor. he admits--i mean sir joseph does--that to-night _is_ the crisis." the door swung widely open, and elwyn, moving instinctively back, visualized the scene before him very distinctly. there was a screen on the right hand, a screen covered, as had been the one in his own nursery, with a patchwork of pictures varnished over. mrs. bellair stood between the screen and the pale blue wall. her slim figure was clad in some sort of long white garment, and over it she wore an apron, which he noticed was far too large for her. her hair, the auburn hair which had been her greatest beauty, and which he had once loved to praise and to caress, was fastened back, massed up in as small a compass as possible. that, and the fact that her face was expressionless, so altered her in elwyn's eyes as to give him an uncanny feeling that the woman before him was not the woman he had known, had loved, had left,--but a stranger, only bound to him by the slender link of a common humanity. she waited some moments as if listening, then she came out on to the landing, and shut the door behind her very softly. the sentence of conventional sympathy half formed on elwyn's lips died into nothingness; as little could he have offered words of cheer to one who was being tortured; but in the dim light their hands met and clasped tightly. "hugo?" she said, "i want to ask you something. you told jim just now that you were once very ill as a child,--ill like this, ill like my child. i want you to tell me honestly if that is true? i mean, were you very, very ill?" he answered her in the same way, without preamble, baldly: "it is quite true," he said. "i was very ill--so ill that my mother for one moment thought that i was dead. but remember, fanny, that in those days they did not know nearly as much as they do now. your boy has two chances for every one that i had then." "would you mind coming in and seeing him?" her voice faltered, it had become more human, more conventional, in quality. "of course i will see him," he said. "i want to see him,--dear." she had suddenly become to him once more the thing nearest his heart; once more the link between them became of the closest, most intimate nature, and yet, or perhaps because of its intensity, the sense of nearness which had sprung at her touch into being was passionless. the face which had been drained of all expression quickened into agonized feeling. she tried to withdraw her hand from his, but he held it firmly, and it was hand in hand that together they walked into the room. as they came round the screen behind which lay the sick child, bellair went over to the farthest of the three windows and stood there with crossed arms staring out into the night. the little boy lay on his right side, and as they moved round to the edge of the large cot, elwyn, with a sudden tightening of the throat, became aware that the child was neither asleep nor, as he in his ignorance had expected to find him, sunk in stupor or delirium. but the small, dark face, framed by the white pillow, was set in lines of deep, unchildlike gravity, and in the eyes which now gazed incuriously at elwyn there was a strange, watchful light which seemed to illumine that which was within rather than that which was without. as is always the case with a living creature near to death, little peter bellair looked very lonely. then elwyn, moving nearer still, seemed--or so at least fanny bellair will ever believe--to take possession of the moribund child, yielding him as he did so something of his own strength to help him through the crisis then imminent. and indeed the little creature whose forehead, whose clenched left hand lying on the sheet were beginning to glisten with sweat, appeared to become merged in some strange way with himself. merged, not with the man he was to-day, but with the hugh elwyn of thirty years back, who, as a lonely only child, had lived so intensely secret, imaginative a life, peopling the prim alleys of hyde park with fairies, imps, tricksy hobgoblins in whom he more than half believed, and longing even then, as ever after, for the unattainable, never carelessly happy as his father and mother believed him to be.... hugh elwyn stayed with the bellairs all that night. he shared the sick suspense the hour of the crisis brought, and he was present when the specialist said the fateful words, "i think, under god, this child will live." when at last elwyn left the house, clad in an old light coat of bellair's in order that the folk early astir should not see that he was wearing evening clothes, he felt happier, more light-hearted, than he had done for years. his life had been like a crowded lumber-room, full of useless and worn-out things he had accounted precious, while he had ignored the one possession that really mattered and that linked him, not only with the future, but with the greatest reality of his past. the inevitable pain which this suddenly discovered treasure was to bring was mercifully concealed from him, as also the sombre fact that he would henceforth go lonely all his life, perforce obliged to content himself with the crumbs of another man's feast. for peter bellair, high-strung, imaginative, as he will ever be, will worship the strong, kindly, simple man he believes to be his father, but to that dear father's friend he will only yield the careless affection born of gratitude for much kindness. * * * * * in the matter of the broken engagement, hugh elwyn was more fairly treated by the men and women whom the matter concerned, or who thought it concerned them, than are the majority of recusant lovers. "hugh elwyn has never been quite the same since the war, and you know winifred fanshawe really liked the other man the best," so said those who spent an idle moment in discussing the matter, and they generally added, "it's a good thing that he's spending the summer with his old friends, the bellairs. they're living very quietly just now, for their little boy has been dreadfully ill, so it's just the place for poor old hugo to get over it all!" st. catherine's eve i "in this matter of the railway james mottram has proved a false friend, a very traitor to me!" charles nagle's brown eyes shone with anger; he looked loweringly at his companions, and they, a beautiful young woman and an old man dressed in the sober garb of a catholic ecclesiastic of that day, glanced at one another apprehensively. all england was then sharply divided into two camps, the one composed of those who welcomed with enthusiasm the wonderful new invention which obliterated space, the other of those who dreaded and abhorred the coming of the railroads. charles nagle got up and walked to the end of the terrace. he stared down into the wooded combe, or ravine, below, and noted with sullen anger the signs of stir and activity in the narrow strip of wood which till a few weeks before had been so still, so entirely remote from even the quiet human activities of . at last he turned round, pirouetting on his heel with a quick movement, and his good looks impressed anew each of the two who sat there with him. eighty years ago beauty of line and colour were allowed to tell in masculine apparel, and this young dorset squire delighted in fine clothes. though november was far advanced it was a mild day, and charles nagle wore a bright blue coat, cut, as was then the fashion, to show off the points of his elegant figure--of his slender waist and his broad shoulders; as for the elaborately frilled waistcoat, it terminated in an india muslin stock, wound many times round his neck. he looked a foppish londoner rather than what he was--an honest country gentleman who had not journeyed to the capital for some six years, and then only to see a great physician. "'twas a most unneighbourly act on the part of james--he knows it well enough, for we hardly see him now!" he addressed his words more particularly to his wife, and he spoke more gently than before. the old priest--his name was dorriforth--looked uneasily from his host to his hostess. he felt that both these young people, whom he had known from childhood, and whom he loved well, had altered during the few weeks which had gone by since he had last seen them. rather--he mentally corrected himself--it was the wife, catherine, who was changed. charles nagle was much the same; poor charles would never be other, for he belonged to the mysterious company of those who, physically sound, are mentally infirm, and shunned by their more fortunate fellows. but charles nagle's wife, the sweet young woman who for so long had been content, nay glad, to share this pitiful exile, seemed now to have escaped, if not in body then in mind, from the place where her sad, monotonous duty lay. she did not at once answer her husband; but she looked at him fixedly, her hand smoothing nervously the skirt of her pretty gown. mrs. nagle's dress also showed a care and research unusual in that of the country lady of those days. this was partly no doubt owing to her french blood--her grandparents had been _émigrés_--and to the fact that charles liked to see her in light colours. the gown she was now wearing on this mild november day was a french flowered silk, the spoil of a smuggler who pursued his profitable calling on the coast hard by. the short, high bodice and puffed sleeves were draped with a scarf of buckinghamshire lace which left, as was the fashion of those days, the wearer's lovely shoulders bare. "james mottram," she said at last, and with a heightened colour, "believes in progress, charles. it is the one thing concerning which you and your friend will never agree." "friend?" he repeated moodily. "friend! james mottram has shown himself no friend of ours. and then i had rights in this matter--am i not his heir-at-law? i could prevent my cousin from touching a stone, or felling a tree, at the eype. but 'tis his indifference to my feelings that angers me so. why, i trusted the fellow as if he had been my brother!" "and james mottram," said the old priest authoritatively, "has always felt the same to you, charles. never forget that! in all but name you are brothers. were you not brought up together? had i not the schooling of you both as lads?" he spoke with a good deal of feeling; he had noticed--and the fact disturbed him--that charles nagle spoke in the past tense when referring to his affection for the absent man. "but surely, sir, you cannot approve that this iron monster should invade our quiet neighbourhood?" exclaimed charles impatiently. mrs. nagle looked at the priest entreatingly. did she by any chance suppose that he would be able to modify her husband's violent feeling? "if i am to say the truth, charles," said mr. dorriforth mildly, "and you would not have me conceal my sentiments, then i believe the time will come when even you will be reconciled to this marvellous invention. those who surely know declare that, thanks to these railroads, our beloved country will soon be all cultivated as is a garden. nay, perhaps others of our faith, strangers, will settle here----" "strangers?" repeated charles nagle sombrely, "i wish no strangers here. even now there are too many strangers about." he looked round as if he expected those strangers of whom the priest had spoken to appear suddenly from behind the yew hedges which stretched away, enclosing catherine nagle's charming garden, to the left of the plateau on which stood the old manor-house. "nay, nay," he repeated, returning to his grievance, "never had i expected to find james mottram a traitor to his order. as for the folk about here, they're bewitched! they believe that this puffing devil will make them all rich! i could tell them different; but, as you know, there are reasons why i should not." the priest bent his head gravely. the catholic gentry of those days were not on comfortable terms with their neighbours. in spite of the fact that legally they were now "emancipated," any malicious person could still make life intolerable to them. the railway mania was at its beginnings, and it would have been especially dangerous for charles nagle to take, in an active sense, the unpopular side. in other parts of england, far from this dorset countryside, railroads had brought with them a revival of trade. it was hoped that the same result would follow here, and a long strip of james mottram's estate had been selected as being peculiarly suitable for the laying down of the iron track which was to connect the nearest town with the sea. unfortunately the land in question consisted of a wood which formed the boundary-line where charles nagle's property marched with that of his kinsman and co-religionist, james mottram; and nagle had taken the matter very ill indeed. he was now still suffering, in a physical sense, from the effects of the violent fit of passion which the matter had induced, and which even his wife, catherine, had not been able to allay.... as he started walking up and down with caged, impatient steps, she watched him with an uneasy, anxious glance. he kept shaking his head with a nervous movement, and he stared angrily across the ravine to the opposite hill, where against the skyline the large mass of eype castle, james mottram's dwelling-place, stood four-square to the high winds which swept up from the sea. suddenly he again strode over to the edge of the terrace: "i think i'll go down and have a talk to those railroad fellows," he muttered uncertainly. charles knew well that this was among the forbidden things--the things he must not do; yet occasionally catherine, who was, as the poor fellow dimly realized, his mentor and guardian, as well as his outwardly submissive wife, would allow him to do that which was forbidden. but to-day such was not her humour. "oh, no, charles," she said decidedly, "you cannot go down to the wood! you must stay here and talk to mr. dorriforth." "they were making hellish noises all last night; i had no rest at all," nagle went on inconsequently. "they were running their puffing devil up and down, 'the bridport wonder'--that's what they call it, reverend sir," he turned to the priest. catherine again looked up at her husband, and their old friend saw that she bit her lip as if checking herself in impatient speech. was she losing the sweetness of her temper, the evenness of disposition the priest had ever admired in her, and even reverenced? mrs. nagle knew that the steam-engine had been run over the line for the first time the night before, for james mottram and she had arranged that the trial should take place then rather than in the daytime. she also knew that charles had slept through the long dark hours, those hours during which she had lain wide awake by his side listening to the strange new sounds made by the bridport wonder. doubtless one of the servants had spoken of the matter in his hearing. she frowned, then felt ashamed. "charles," she said gently, "would it not be well for me to go down to the wood and discover when these railroad men are going away? they say in the village that their work is now done." "yes," he cried eagerly. "a good idea, love! and if they're going off at once, you might order that a barrel of good ale be sent down to them. i'm informed that that's what james has had done this very day. now i've no wish that james should appear more generous than i!" catherine nagle smiled, the indulgent kindly smile which a woman bestows on a loved child who suddenly betrays a touch of that vanity which is, in a child, so pardonable. she went into the house, and in a few moments returned with a pink scarf wound about her soft dark hair--hair dressed high, turned back from her forehead in the old pre-revolution french mode, and not, as was then the fashion, arranged in stiff curls. the two men watched her walking swiftly along the terrace till she sank out of their sight, for a row of stone steps led down to an orchard planted with now leafless pear and apple trees, and surrounded with a quickset hedge. a wooden gate, with a strong lock to it, was set in this closely clipped hedge. it opened on a steep path which, after traversing two fields, terminated in the beech-wood where now ran the iron track of the new railroad. catherine nagle unlocked the orchard gate, and went through on to the field path. and then she slackened her steps. for hours, nay, for days, she had been longing for solitude, and now, for a brief space, solitude was hers. but, instead of bringing her peace, this respite from the companionship of charles and of mr. dorriforth brought increased tumult and revolt. she had ardently desired the visit of the old priest, but his presence had bestowed, instead of solace, fret and discomfort. when he fixed on her his mild, penetrating eyes, she felt as if he were dragging into the light certain secret things which had been so far closely hidden within her heart, and concerning which she had successfully dulled her once sensitive conscience. the waking hours of the last two days had each been veined with torment. her soul sickened as she thought of the morrow, st. catherine's day, that is, her feast-day. the _émigrés_, mrs. nagle's own people, had in exile jealousy kept up their own customs, and to charles nagle's wife the twenty-fifth day of november had always been a day of days, what her birthday is to a happy englishwoman. even charles always remembered the date, and in concert with his faithful man-servant, collins, sent to london each year for a pretty jewel. the housefolk, all of whom had learnt to love their mistress, and who helped her loyally in her difficult, sometimes perilous, task, also made of the feast a holiday. but now, on this st. catherine's eve, mrs. nagle told herself that she was at the end of her strength. and yet only a month ago--so she now reminded herself piteously--all had been well with her; she had been strangely, pathetically happy a month since; content with all the conditions of her singular and unnatural life.... suddenly she stopped walking. as if in answer to a word spoken by an invisible companion she turned aside, and, stooping, picked a weed growing by the path. she held it up for a moment to her cheek, and then spoke aloud. "were it not for james mottram," she said slowly, and very clearly, "i, too, should become mad." then she looked round in sudden fear. catherine nagle had never before uttered, or permitted another to utter aloud in her presence, that awful word. but she knew that their neighbours were not so scrupulous. one cruel enemy, and, what was especially untoward, a close relation, mrs. felwake, own sister to charles nagle's dead father, often uttered it. this lady desired her son to reign at edgecombe; it was she who in the last few years had spread abroad the notion that charles nagle, in the public interest, should be asylumed. in his own house, and among his own tenants, the slander was angrily denied. when charles was stranger, more suspicious, moodier than usual, those about him would tell one another that "the squire was ill to-day," or that "the master was ailing." that he had a mysterious illness was admitted. had not a famous london doctor persuaded mr. nagle that it would be dangerous for him to ride, even to walk outside the boundary of his small estate,--in brief, to run any risks which might affect his heart? he had now got out of the way of wishing to go far afield; contentedly he would pace up and down for hours on the long terrace which overhung the wood--talking, talking, talking, with catherine on his arm. but he was unselfish--sometimes. "take a walk, dear heart, with james," he would say, and then catherine nagle and james mottram would go out and make their way to some lonely farmhouse or cottage where mottram had estate business. yet during these expeditions they never forgot charles, so catherine now reminded herself sorely,--nay, it was then that they talked of him the most, discussing him kindly, tenderly, as they went.... catherine walked quickly on, her eyes on the ground. with a feeling of oppressed pain she recalled the last time she and mottram had been alone together. bound for a distant spot on the coast, they had gone on and on for miles, almost up to the cliffs below which lay the sea. ah, how happy, how innocent she had felt that day! then they had come to a stile--mottram had helped her up, helped her down, and for a moment her hand had lain and fluttered in his hand.... during the long walk back, each had been very silent; and catherine--she could not answer for her companion--when she had seen charles waiting for her patiently, had felt a pained, shamed beat of the heart. as for james mottram, he had gone home at once, scarce waiting for good-nights. that evening--catherine remembered it now with a certain comfort--she had been very kind to charles; she was ever kind, but she had then been kinder than usual, and he had responded by becoming suddenly clearer in mind than she had known him to be for a long time. for some days he had been the old charles--tender, whimsical, gallant, the charles with whom, at a time when every girl is in love with love, she had alack! fallen in love. then once more the cloud had come down, shadowing a dreary waste of days--dark days of oppression and of silence, alternating with sudden bursts of unreasonable and unreasoning rage. james mottram had come, and come frequently, during that time of misery. but his manner had changed. he had become restrained, as if watchful of himself; he was no longer the free, the happy, the lively companion he had used to be. catherine scarcely saw him out of charles's presence, and when they were by chance alone they talked of charles, only of charles and of his unhappy condition, and of what could be done to better it. and now james mottram had given up coming to edgecombe in the old familiar way; or rather--and this galled catherine shrewdly--he came only sufficiently often not to rouse remark among their servants and humble neighbours. * * * * * catherine nagle was on the edge of the wood, and looking about her she saw with surprise that the railway men she had come down to see had finished work for the day. there were signs of their immediate occupation, a fire was still smouldering, and the door of one of the shanties they occupied was open. but complete stillness reigned in this kingdom of high trees. to the right and left, as far as she could see, stretched the twin lines of rude iron rails laid down along what had been a cart-track, as well as a short cut between edgecombe manor and eype castle. a dun drift, to-day's harvest of dead leaves, had settled on the rails; even now it was difficult to follow their course. as she stood there, about to turn and retrace her steps, catherine suddenly saw james mottram advancing quickly towards her, and the mingled revolt and sadness which had so wholly possessed her gave way to a sudden, overwhelming feeling of security and joy. she moved from behind the little hut near which she had been standing, and a moment later they stood face to face. james mottram was as unlike charles nagle as two men of the same age, of the same breed, and of the same breeding could well be. he was shorter, and of sturdier build, than his cousin; and he was plain, whereas charles nagle was strikingly handsome. also his face was tanned by constant exposure to sun, salt-wind, and rain; his hair was cut short, his face shaven. the very clothes james mottram wore were in almost ludicrous contrast to those which charles nagle affected, for mottram's were always of serviceable homespun. but for the fact that they and he were scrupulously clean, the man now walking by catherine nagle's side might have been a prosperous farmer or bailiff instead of the owner of such large property in those parts as made him, in spite of his unpopular faith, lord of the little world about him. on his plain face and strong, sturdy figure catherine's beautiful eyes dwelt with unconscious relief. she was so weary of charles's absorption in his apparel, and of his interest in the hundred and one fal-lals which then delighted the cosmopolitan men of fashion. a simple, almost childish gladness filled her heart. conscience, but just now so insistent and disturbing a familiar, vanished for a space, nay more, assumed the garb of a meddling busybody who seeks to discover harm where no harm is. was not james mottram charles's friend, almost, as the old priest had said, charles's brother? had she not herself deliberately chosen charles in place of james when both young men had been in ardent pursuit of her--james's pursuit almost wordless, charles's conducted with all the eloquence of the poet he had then set out to be? mottram, seeing her in the wood, uttered a word of surprise. she explained her presence there. their hands scarce touched in greeting, and then they started walking side by side up the field path. mottram carried a stout ash stick. had the priest been there he would perchance have noticed that the man's hand twitched and moved restlessly as he swung his stick about; but catherine only became aware that her companion was preoccupied and uneasy after they had gone some way. when, however, the fact of his unease seemed forced upon her notice, she felt suddenly angered. there was a quality in mrs. nagle that made her ever ready to rise to meet and conquer circumstance. she told herself, with heightened colour, that james mottram should and must return to his old ways--to his old familiar footing with her. anything else would be, nay was, intolerable. "james,"--she turned to him frankly--"why have you not come over to see us lately as often as you did? charles misses you sadly, and so do i. prepare to find him in a bad mood to-day. but just now he distressed mr. dorriforth by his unreasonableness touching the railroad." she smiled and went on lightly, "he said that you were a false friend to him--a traitor!" and then catherine nagle stopped and caught her breath. god! why had she said that? but mottram had evidently not caught the sinister word, and catherine in haste drove back conscience into the lair whence conscience had leapt so suddenly to her side. "maybe i ought, in this matter of the railroad," he said musingly, "to have humoured charles. i am now sorry i did not do so. after all, charles may be right--and all we others wrong. the railroad may not bring us lasting good!" catherine looked at him surprised. james mottram had always been so sure of himself in this matter; but now there was dejection, weariness in his voice; and he was walking quickly, more quickly up the steep incline than mrs. nagle found agreeable. but she also hastened her steps, telling herself, with wondering pain, that he was evidently in no mood for her company. "mr. dorriforth has already been here two days," she observed irrelevantly. "aye, i know that. it was to see him i came to-day; and i will ask you to spare him to me for two or three hours. indeed, i propose that he should walk back with me to the eype. i wish him to witness my new will. and then i may as well go to confession, for it is well to be shriven before a journey, though for my part i feel ever safer on sea than land!" mottram looked straight before him as he spoke. "a journey?" catherine repeated the words in a low, questioning tone. there had come across her heart a feeling of such anguish that it was as though her body instead of her soul were being wrenched asunder. in her extremity she called on pride--and pride, ever woman's most loyal friend, flew to her aid. "yes," he repeated, still staring straight in front of him, "i leave to-morrow for plymouth. i have had letters from my agent in jamaica which make it desirable that i should return there without delay." he dug his stick into the soft earth as he spoke. james mottram was absorbed in himself, in his own desire to carry himself well in his fierce determination to avoid betraying what he believed to be his secret. but catherine nagle knew nothing of this. she almost thought him indifferent. they had come to a steep part of the incline, and catherine suddenly quickened her steps and passed him, so making it impossible that he could see her face. she tried to speak, but the commonplace words she desired to say were strangled, at birth, in her throat. "charles will not mind; he will not miss me as he would have missed me before this unhappy business of the railroad came between us," mottram said lamely. she still made no answer; instead she shook her head with an impatient gesture. her silence made him sorry. after all, he had been a good friend to catherine nagle--so much he could tell himself without shame. he stepped aside on to the grass, and striding forward turned round and faced her. the tears were rolling down her cheeks; but she threw back her head and met his gaze with a cold, almost a defiant look. "you startled me greatly," she said breathlessly, "and took me so by surprise, james! i am grieved to think how charles--nay, how we shall both--miss you. it is of charles i think, james; it is for charles i weep----" as she uttered the lying words, she still looked proudly into his face as if daring him to doubt her. "but i shall never forget--i shall ever think with gratitude of your great goodness to my poor charles. two years out of your life--that's what it's been, james. too much--too much by far!" she had regained control over her quivering heart, and it was with a wan smile that she added, "but we shall miss you, dear, kind friend." her smile stung him. "catherine," he said sternly, "i go because i must--because i dare not stay. you are a woman and a saint, i a man and a sinner. i've been a fool and worse than a fool. you say that charles to-day called me false friend, traitor! catherine--charles spoke more truly than he knew." his burning eyes held her fascinated. the tears had dried on her cheeks. she was thirstily absorbing the words as they fell now slowly, now quickly, from his lips. but what was this he was saying? "catherine, do you wish me to go on?" oh, cruel! cruel to put this further weight on her conscience! but she made a scarcely perceptible movement of assent--and again he spoke. "years ago i thought i loved you. i went away, as you know well, because of that love. you had chosen charles--charles in many ways the better fellow of the two. i went away thinking myself sick with love of you, but it was false--only my pride had been hurt. i did not love you as i loved myself. and when i got clear away, in a new place, among new people"--he hesitated and reddened darkly--"i forgot you! i vow that when i came back i was cured--cured if ever a man was! it was of charles, not of you, catherine, that i thought on my way home. to me charles and you had become one. i swear it!" he repeated: "to me you and charles were one." he waited a long moment, and then, more slowly, he went on, as if pleading with himself--with her: "you know what i found here in place of what i had left? i found charles a----" catherine nagle shrank back. she put up her right hand to ward off the word, and mottram, seizing her hand, held it in his with a convulsive clasp. "'twas not the old feeling that came back to me--that i again swear, catherine. 'twas something different--something infinitely stronger--something that at first i believed to be all noble----" he stopped speaking, and catherine nagle uttered one word--a curious word. "when?" she asked, and more urgently again she whispered, "when?" "long before i knew!" he said hoarsely. "at first i called the passion that possessed me by the false name of 'friendship.' but that poor hypocrisy soon left me! a month ago, catherine, i found myself wishing--i'll say this for myself, it was for the first time--that charles was dead. and then i knew for sure what i had already long suspected--that the time had come for me to go----" he dropped her hand, and stood before her, abased in his own eyes, but one who, if a criminal, had had the strength to be his own judge and pass heavy sentence on himself. "and now, catherine--now that you understand why i go, you will bid me god-speed. nay, more"--he looked at her, and smiled wryly--"if you are kind, as i know you to be kind, you will pray for me, for i go from you a melancholy, as well as a foolish man." she smiled a strange little wavering smile, and mottram was deeply moved by the gentleness with which catherine nagle had listened to his story. he had been prepared for an averted glance, for words of cold rebuke--such words as his own long-dead mother would surely have uttered to a man who had come to her with such a tale. * * * * * they walked on for a while, and catherine again broke the silence by a question which disturbed her companion. "then your agent's letter was not really urgent, james?" "the letters of an honest agent always call for the owner," he muttered evasively. they reached the orchard gate. catherine held the key in her hand, but she did not place it in the lock--instead she paused awhile. "then there is no special urgency?" she repeated. "and james--forgive me for asking it--are you, indeed, leaving england because of this--this matter of which you have just told me?" he bent his head in answer. then she said deliberately: "your conscience, james, is too scrupulous. i do not think that there is any reason why you should not stay. when charles and i were in italy," she went on in a toneless, monotonous voice, "i met some of those young noblemen who in times of pestilence go disguised to nurse the sick and bury the dead. it is that work of charity, dear friend, which you have been performing in our unhappy house. you have been nursing the sick--nay, more, you have been tending"--she waited, then in a low voice she added--"the dead--the dead that are yet alive." mottram's soul leapt into his eyes. "then you bid me stay?" he asked. "for the present," she answered, "i beg you to stay. but only so if it is indeed true that your presence is not really required in jamaica." "i swear, catherine, that all goes sufficiently well there." again he fixed his honest, ardent eyes on her face. and now james mottram was filled with a great exultation of spirit. he felt that catherine's soul, incapable of even the thought of evil, shamed and made unreal the temptation which had seemed till just now one which could only be resisted by flight. catherine was right; he had been over scrupulous. there was proof of it in the blessed fact that even now, already, the poison which had seemed to possess him, that terrible longing for another man's wife, had left him, vanishing in that same wife's pure presence. it was when he was alone--alone in his great house on the hill, that the devil entered into him, whispering that it was an awful thing such a woman as was catherine, sensitive, intelligent, and in her beauty so appealing, should be tied to such a being as was charles nagle--poor charles, whom every one, excepting his wife and one loyal kinsman, called mad. and yet now it was for this very charles that catherine asked him to stay, for the sake of that unhappy, distraught man to whom he, james mottram, recognized the duty of a brother. "we will both forget what you have just told me," she said gently, and he bowed his head in reverence. they were now on the last step of the stone stairway leading to the terrace. mrs. nagle turned to her companion; he saw that her eyes were very bright, and that the rose-red colour in her cheeks had deepened as if she had been standing before a great fire. as they came within sight of charles nagle and of the old priest, catherine put out her hand. she touched mottram on the arm--it was a fleeting touch, but it brought them both, with beating hearts, to a stand. "james," she said, and then she stopped for a moment--a moment that seemed to contain æons of mingled rapture and pain--"one word about mr. dorriforth." the commonplace words dropped them back to earth. "did you wish him to stay with you till to-morrow? that will scarcely be possible, for to-morrow is st. catherine's day." "why, no," he said quickly. "i will not take him home with me to-night. all my plans are now changed. my will can wait"--he smiled at her--"and so can my confession." "no, no!" she cried almost violently. "your confession must not wait, james----" "aye, but it must," he said, and again he smiled. "i am in no mood for confession, catherine." he added in a lower tone, "you've purged me of my sin, my dear--i feel already shriven." shame of a very poignant quality suddenly seared catherine nagle's soul. "go on, you," she said breathlessly, though to his ears she seemed to speak in her usual controlled and quiet tones, "i have some orders to give in the house. join charles and mr. dorriforth. i will come out presently." james mottram obeyed her. he walked quickly forward. "good news, charles," he cried. "these railway men whose presence so offends you go for good to-morrow! reverend sir, accept my hearty greeting." * * * * * catherine nagle turned to the right and went into the house. she hastened through the rooms in which, year in and year out, she spent her life, with charles as her perpetual, her insistent companion. she now longed for a time of recollection and secret communion, and so she instinctively made for the one place where no one, not even charles, would come and disturb her. walking across the square hall, she ran up the broad staircase leading to the gallery, out of which opened the doors of her bedroom and of her husband's dressing-room. but she went swiftly past these two closed doors, and made her way along a short passage which terminated abruptly with a faded red baize door giving access to the chapel. long, low-ceilinged and windowless, the chapel of edgecombe manor had remained unaltered since the time when there were heavy penalties attached both to the celebration of the sacred rites and to the hearing of mass. the chapel depended for what fresh air it had on a narrow door opening straight on to ladder-like stairs leading down directly and out on to the terrace below. it was by this way that the small and scattered congregation gained access to the chapel when the presence of a priest permitted of mass being celebrated there. catherine went up close to the altar rails, and sat down on the arm-chair placed there for her sole use. she felt that now, when about to wrestle with her soul, she could not kneel and pray. since she had been last in the chapel, acting sacristan that same morning, life had taken a great stride forward, dragging her along in its triumphant wake, a cruel and yet a magnificent conqueror. hiding her face in her hands, she lived again each agonized and exquisite moment she had lived through as there had fallen on her ears the words of james mottram's shamed confession. once more her heart was moved to an exultant sense of happiness that he should have said these things to her--of happiness and shrinking shame.... but soon other thoughts, other and sterner memories were thrust upon her. she told herself the bitter truth. not only had she led james mottram into temptation, but she had put all her woman's wit to the task of keeping him there. it was her woman's wit--but catherine nagle called it by a harsher name--which had enabled her to make that perilous rock on which she and james mottram now stood heart to heart together, appear, to him at least, a spot of sanctity and safety. it was she, not the man who had gazed at her with so ardent a belief in her purity and honour, who was playing traitor--and traitor to one at once confiding and defenceless.... then, strangely, this evocation of charles brought her burdened conscience relief. catherine found sudden comfort in remembering her care, her tenderness for charles. she reminded herself fiercely that never had she allowed anything to interfere with her wifely duty. never? alas! she remembered that there had come a day, at a time when james mottram's sudden defection had filled her heart with pain, when she had been unkind to charles. she recalled his look of bewildered surprise, and how he, poor fellow, had tried to sulk--only a few hours later to come to her, as might have done a repentant child, with the words, "have i offended you, dear love?" and she who now avoided his caresses had kissed him of her own accord with tears, and cried, "no, no, charles, you never offend me--you are always good to me!" there had been a moment to-day, just before she had taunted james mottram with being over-scrupulous, when she had told herself that she could be loyal to both of these men she loved and who loved her, giving to each a different part of her heart. but that bargain with conscience had never been struck; while considering it she had found herself longing for some convulsion of the earth which should throw her and mottram in each other's arms. james mottram traitor? that was what she was about to make him be. catherine forced herself to face the remorse, the horror, the loathing of himself which would ensue. it was for mottram's sake, far more than in response to the command laid on her by her own soul, that catherine nagle finally determined on the act of renunciation which she knew was being immediately required of her. * * * * * when mrs. nagle came out on the terrace the three men rose ceremoniously. she glanced at charles, even now her first thought and her first care. his handsome face was overcast with the look of gloomy preoccupation which she had learnt to fear, though she knew that in truth it signified but little. at james mottram she did not look, for she wished to husband her strength for what she was about to do. making a sign to the others to sit down, she herself remained standing behind charles's chair. it was from there that she at last spoke, instinctively addressing her words to the old priest. "i wonder," she said, "if james has told you of his approaching departure? he has heard from his agent in jamaica that his presence is urgently required there." charles nagle looked up eagerly. "this is news indeed!" he exclaimed. "lucky fellow! why, you'll escape all the trouble that you've put on us with regard to that puffing devil!" he spoke more cordially than he had done for a long time to his cousin. mr. dorriforth glanced for a moment up at catherine's face. then quickly he averted his eyes. james mottram rose to his feet. his limbs seemed to have aged. he gave catherine a long, probing look. "forgive me," he said deliberately. "you mistook my meaning. the matter is not as urgent, catherine, as you thought." he turned to charles, "i will not desert my friends--at any rate not for the present. i'll face the puffing devil with those to whom i have helped to acquaint him!" but mrs. nagle and the priest both knew that the brave words were a vain boast. charles alone was deceived; and he showed no pleasure in the thought that the man who had been to him so kind and so patient a comrade and so trusty a friend was after all not leaving england immediately. "i must be going back to the eype now." mottram spoke heavily; again he looked at mrs. nagle with a strangely probing, pleading look. "but i'll come over to-morrow morning--to mass. i've not forgotten that to-morrow is st. catherine's day--that this is st. catherine's eve." charles seemed to wake out of a deep abstraction. "yes, yes," he said heartily. "to-morrow is the great day! and then, after we've had breakfast i shall be able to consult you, james, about a very important matter, that new well they're plaguing me to sink in the village." for the moment the cloud had again lifted; nagle looked at his cousin with all his old confidence and affection, and in response james mottram's face worked with sudden emotion. "i'll be quite at your service, charles," he said, "quite at your service!" catherine stood by. "i will let you out by the orchard gate," she said. "no need for you to go round by the road." they walked, silently, side by side, along the terrace and down the stone steps. when in the leafless orchard, and close to where they were to part, he spoke: "you bid me go--at once?" mottram asked the question in a low, even tone; but he did not look at catherine, instead his eyes seemed to be following the movements of the stick he was digging into the ground at their feet. "i think, james, that would be best." even to herself the words mrs. nagle uttered sounded very cold. "best for me?" he asked. then he looked up, and with sudden passion, "catherine!" he cried. "believe me, i know that i can stay! forget the wild and foolish things i said. no thought of mine shall wrong charles--i swear it solemnly. catherine!--do not bid me leave you. cannot you trust my honour?" his eyes held hers, by turns they seemed to become beseeching and imperious. catherine nagle suddenly threw out her hands with a piteous gesture. "ah! james," she said, "i cannot trust my own----" and as she thus made surrender of her two most cherished possessions, her pride and her womanly reticence, mottram's face--the plain-featured face so exquisitely dear to her--became transfigured. he said no word, he made no step forward, and yet catherine felt as if the whole of his being was calling her, drawing her to him.... suddenly there rang through the still air a discordant cry: "catherine! catherine!" mrs. nagle sighed, a long convulsive sigh. it was as though a deep pit had opened between herself and her companion. "that was charles," she whispered, "poor charles calling me. i must not keep him waiting." "god forgive me," mottram said huskily, "and bless you, catherine, for all your goodness to me." he took her hand in farewell, and she felt the firm, kind grasp to be that of the kinsman and friend, not that of the lover. then came over her a sense of measureless and most woeful loss. she realized for the first time all that his going away would mean to her--of all that it would leave her bereft. he had been the one human being to whom she had been able to bring herself to speak freely. charles had been their common charge, the link as well as the barrier between them. "you'll come to-morrow morning?" she said, and she tried to withdraw her hand from his. his impersonal touch hurt her. "i'll come to-morrow, and rather early, catherine. then i'll be able to confess before mass." he was speaking in his usual voice, but he still held her hand, and she felt his grip on it tightening, bringing welcome hurt. "and you'll leave----?" "for plymouth to-morrow afternoon," he said briefly. he dropped her hand, which now felt numbed and maimed, and passed through the gate without looking back. she stood a moment watching him as he strode down the field path. it had suddenly become, from day, night,--high time for charles to be indoors. forgetting to lock the gate, she turned and retraced her steps through the orchard, and so made her way up to where her husband and the old priest were standing awaiting her. as she approached them, she became aware that something going on in the valley below was absorbing their close attention. she felt glad that this was so. "there it is!" cried charles nagle angrily. "i told you that they'd begin their damned practice again to-night!" slowly through the stretch of open country which lay spread to their right, the bridport wonder went puffing its way. lanterns had been hung in front of the engine, and as it crawled sinuously along it looked like some huge monster with myriad eyes. as it entered the wood below, the dark barrel-like body of the engine seemed to give a bound, a lurch forward, and the men that manned it laughed out suddenly and loudly. the sound of their uncouth mirth floated upwards through the twilight. "james's ale has made them merry!" exclaimed charles, wagging his head. "and he, going through the wood, will just have met the puffing devil. i wish him the joy of the meeting!" ii it was five hours later. mrs. nagle had bidden her reverend guest good night, and she was now moving about her large, barely furnished bedchamber, waiting for her husband to come upstairs. the hours which had followed james mottram's departure had seemed intolerably long. catherine felt as if she had gone through some terrible physical exertion which had left her worn out--stupefied. and yet she could not rest. even now her day was not over; charles often grew restless and talkative at night. he and mr. dorriforth were no doubt still sitting talking together downstairs. mrs. nagle could hear her husband's valet moving about in the next room, and the servant's proximity disturbed her. she waited awhile and then went and opened the door of the dressing-room. "you need not sit up, collins," she said. the man looked vaguely disturbed. "i fear that mr. nagle, madam, has gone out of doors," he said. catherine felt dismayed. the winter before charles had once stayed out nearly all night. "go you to bed, collins," she said. "i will wait up till mr. nagle comes in, and i will make it right with him." he looked at her doubtingly. was it possible that mrs. nagle was unaware of how much worse than usual his master had been the last few days? "i fear mr. nagle is not well to-day," he ventured. "he seems much disturbed to-night." "your master is disturbed because mr. mottram is again leaving england for the indies." catherine forced herself to say the words. she was dully surprised to see how quietly news so momentous to her was received by her faithful servant. "that may be it," said the man consideringly, "but i can't help thinking that the master is still much concerned about the railroad. i fear that he has gone down to the wood to-night." catherine was startled. "oh, surely he would not do that, collins?" she added in a lower tone, "i myself locked the orchard gate." "if that is so," he answered, obviously relieved, "then with your leave, madam, i'll be off to bed." mrs. nagle went back into her room, and sat down by the fire, and then, sooner than she had expected to do so, she heard a familiar sound. it came from the chapel, for charles was fond of using that strange and secret entry into his house. she got up and quietly opened her bedroom door. from the hall below was cast up the dim light of the oil-lamp which always burnt there at night, and suddenly catherine saw her husband emerge from the chapel passage, and begin walking slowly round the opposite side of the gallery. she watched him with languid curiosity. charles nagle was treading softly, his head bent as if in thought. suddenly he stayed his steps by a half-moon table on which stood a large chinese bowl filled with pot-pourri; and into this he plunged his hands, seeming to lave them in the dry rose-leaves. catherine felt no surprise, she was so used to his strange ways; and more than once he had hidden things--magpie fashion--in that great bowl. she turned and closed her door noiselessly; charles much disliked being spied on. at last she heard him go into his dressing-room. then came the sounds of cupboard doors being flung open, and the hurried pouring out of water.... but long before he could have had time to undress, she heard the familiar knock. she said feebly, "come in," and the door opened. it was as she had feared; her husband had no thought, no intention, of going yet to bed. not only was he fully dressed, but the white evening waistcoat he had been wearing had been changed by him within the last few moments for a waistcoat she had not seen before, though she had heard of its arrival from london. it was of cashmere, the latest freak of fashion. she also saw with surprise that his nankeen trousers were stained, as if he had been kneeling on damp ground. he looked very hot, his wavy hair lay damply on his brow, and he appeared excited, oppressively alive. "catherine!" he exclaimed, hurrying up to the place where she was standing near the fire. "you will bear witness that i was always and most positively averse to the railroad being brought here?" he did not wait for her to answer him. "did i not always say that trouble would come of it--trouble to us all? yet sometimes it's an ill thing to be proved right." "indeed it is, charles," she answered gently. "but let us talk of this to-morrow. it's time for bed, my dear, and i am very weary." he was now standing by her, staring down into the fire. suddenly he turned and seized her left arm. he brought her unresisting across the room, then dragged aside the heavy yellow curtains which had been drawn before the central window. "look over there, catherine," he said meaningly. "can you see the eype? the moon gives but little light to-night, but the stars are bright. i can see a glimmer at yon window. they must be still waiting for james to come home." "i see the glimmer you mean," she said dully. "no doubt they leave a lamp burning all night, as we do. james must have got home hours ago, charles." she saw that the cuff of her husband's coat was also covered with dark, damp stains, and again she wondered uneasily what he had been doing out of doors. "catherine?" charles nagle turned her round, ungently, and forced her to look up into his face. "have you ever thought what 'twould be like to live at the eype?" the question startled her. she roused herself to refute what she felt to be an unworthy accusation. "no, charles," she said, looking at him steadily. "god is my witness that at no time did i think of living at the eype! such a wish never came to me----" "nor to me!" he cried, "nor to me, catherine! all the long years that james mottram was in jamaica the thought never once came to me that he might die, and i survive him. after all we were much of an age, he had but two years the advantage of me. i always thought that the boy--my aunt's son, curse him!--would get it all. then, had i thought of it--and i swear i never did think of it--i should have told myself that any day james might bring a wife to the eype----" he was staring through the leaded panes with an intent, eager gaze. "it is a fine house, catherine, and commodious. larger, airier than ours--though perhaps colder," he added thoughtfully. "cold i always found it in winter when i used to stay there as a boy--colder than this house. you prefer edgecombe, catherine? if you were given a choice, is it here that you would live?" he looked at her, as if impatient for an answer. "every stone of edgecombe, our home, is dear to me," she said solemnly. "i have never admired the eype. it is too large, too cold for my taste. it stands too much exposed to the wind." "it does! it does!" there was a note of regret in his voice. he let the curtain fall and looked about him rather wildly. "and now, charles," she said, "shall we not say our prayers and retire to rest." "if i had only thought of it," he said, "i might have said my prayers in the chapel. but there was much to do. i thought of calling you, catherine, for you make a better sacristan than i. then i remembered boney--poor little boney crushed by the miller's dray--and how you cried all night, and that though i promised you a far finer, cleverer dog than that poor old friend had ever been. collins said, 'why, sir, you should have hid the old dog's death from the mistress till the morning!' a worthy fellow, collins. he meant no disrespect to me. at that time, d'you remember, collins had only been in my service a few months?" * * * * * it was an hour later. from where she lay in bed, catherine nagle with dry, aching eyes stared into the fire, watching the wood embers turn from red to grey. by her side, his hand in hers, charles slept the dreamless, heavy slumber of a child. scarcely breathing, in her anxiety lest he should wake, she loosened her hand, and with a quick movement slipped out of bed. the fire was burning low, but catherine saw everything in the room very clearly, and she threw over her night-dress a long cloak, and wound about her head the scarf which she had worn during her walk to the wood. it was not the first time mrs. nagle had risen thus in the still night and sought refuge from herself and from her thoughts in the chapel; and her husband had never missed her from his side. as she crept round the dimly lit gallery she passed by the great bowl of pot-pourri by which charles nagle had lingered, and there came to her the thought that it might perchance be well for her to discover, before the servants should have a chance of doing so, what he had doubtless hidden there. catherine plunged both her hands into the scented rose-leaves, and she gave a sudden cry of pain--for her fingers had closed on the sharp edge of a steel blade. then she drew out a narrow damascened knife, one which her husband, taken by its elegant shape, had purchased long before in italy. mrs. nagle's brow furrowed in vexation--collins should have put the dangerous toy out of his master's reach. slipping the knife into the deep pocket of her cloak, she hurried on into the unlit passage leading to the chapel. * * * * * save for the hanging lamp, which since mr. dorriforth had said mass there that morning signified the presence of the blessed sacrament, the chapel should have been in darkness. but as catherine passed through the door she saw, with sudden, uneasy amazement, the farther end of the chapel in a haze of brightness. below the altar, striking upwards from the floor of the sanctuary, gleamed a corona of light. charles--she could not for a moment doubt that it was charles's doing--had moved the six high, heavy silver candlesticks which always stood on either side of the altar, and had placed them on the ground. there, in a circle, the wax candles blazed, standing sentinel-wise about a dark, round object which was propped up on a pile of altar-linen carefully arranged to support it. fear clutched at catherine's heart--such fear as even in the early days of charles's madness had never clutched it. she was filled with a horrible dread, and a wild, incredulous dismay. what was the thing, at once so familiar and so terribly strange, that charles had brought out of the november night and placed with so much care below the altar? but the thin flames of the candles, now shooting up, now guttering low, blown on by some invisible current of strong air, gave no steady light. staying still close to the door, she sank down on her knees, and desiring to shut out, obliterate, the awful sight confronting her, she pressed both her hands to her eyes. but that availed her nothing. suddenly there rose up before catherine nagle a dreadful scene of that great revolution drama of which she had been so often told as a child. she saw, with terrible distinctness, the severed heads of men and women borne high on iron pikes, and one of these blood-streaked, livid faces was that of james mottram--the wide-open, sightless eyes, his eyes.... there also came back to her as she knelt there, shivering with cold and anguish, the story of a french girl of noble birth who, having bought her lover's head from the executioner, had walked with it in her arms to the village near paris where stood his deserted château. slowly she rose from her knees, and with her hands thrown out before her, she groped her way to the wall and there crept along, as if a precipice lay on her other side. at last she came to the narrow oak door which gave on to the staircase leading into the open air. the door was ajar; it was from there that blew the current of air which caused those thin, fantastic flames to flare and gutter in the awful stillness. she drew the door to, and went on her way, so round to the altar. in the now steadier light catherine saw that the large missal lay open at the office for the dead. she laid her hands with a blind instinct upon the altar, and felt a healing touch upon their palms. henceforth--and catherine nagle was fated to live many long years--she remained persuaded that it was then there had come to her a shaft of divine light piercing the dark recesses of her soul. for it was at that moment that there came to her the conviction, and one which never faltered, that charles nagle had done no injury to james mottram. and there also came to her then the swift understanding of what others would believe, were there to be found in the private chapel of edgecombe manor that which now lay on the ground behind her, close to her feet. so understanding, catherine suddenly saw the way open before her, and the dread thing which she must do if charles were to be saved from a terrible suspicion--one which would undoubtedly lead to his being taken away from her and from all that his poor, atrophied heart held dear, to be asylumed. with steps that did not falter, catherine nagle went behind the altar into the little sacristy, there to seek in the darkness an altar-cloth. holding the cloth up before her face she went back into the lighted chapel, and kneeling down, she uncovered her face and threw the cloth over what lay before her. and then catherine's teeth began to chatter, and a mortal chill overtook her. she was being faced by a new and to her a most dread enemy, for till to-night she and that base physical fear which is the coward's foe had never met. pressing her hands together, she whispered the short, simple prayer for the faithful departed that she had said so often and, she now felt, so unmeaningly. even as she uttered the familiar words, base fear slunk away, leaving in his place her soul's old companion, courage, and his attendant, peace. she rose to her feet, and opening wide her eyes forced herself to think out what must be done by her in order that no trace of charles's handiwork should remain in the chapel. snuffing out the wicks, catherine lifted the candlesticks from the ground and put them back in their accustomed place upon the altar. then, stooping, she forced herself to wrap up closely in the altar-cloth that which must be her burden till she found james mottram's headless body where charles had left it, and placing that same precious burden within the ample folds of her cloak, she held it with her left hand and arm closely pressed to her bosom.... with her right hand she gathered up the pile of stained altar-linen from the ground, and going once more into the sacristy she thrust it into the oak chest in which were kept the lenten furnishings of the altar. having done that, and walking slowly lest she should trip and fall, she made her way to the narrow door charles had left open to the air, and going down the steep stairway was soon out of doors in the dark and windy night. charles had been right, the moon gave but little light; enough, however, so she told herself, for the accomplishment of her task. she sped swiftly along the terrace, keeping close under the house, and then more slowly walked down the stone steps where last time she trod them mottram had been her companion, his living lips as silent as were his dead lips now. the orchard gate was wide open, and as she passed through there came to catherine nagle the knowledge why charles on his way back from the wood had not even latched it; he also, when passing through it, had been bearing a burden.... she walked down the field path; and when she came to the steep place where mottram had told her that he was going away, the tears for the first time began running down catherine's face. she felt again the sharp, poignant pain which his then cold and measured words had dealt her, and the blow this time fell on a bruised heart. with a convulsive gesture she pressed more closely that which she was holding to her desolate breast. at night the woodland is strangely, curiously alive. catherine shuddered as she heard the stuffless sounds, the tiny rustlings and burrowings of those wild, shy creatures whose solitude had lately been so rudely invaded, and who now of man's night made their day. their myriad presence made her human loneliness more intense than it had been in the open fields, and as she started walking by the side of the iron rails, her eyes fixed on the dark drift of dead leaves which dimly marked the path, she felt solitary indeed, and beset with vague and fearsome terrors. at last she found herself nearing the end of the wood. soon would come the place where what remained of the cart-track struck sharply to the left, up the hill towards the eype. it was there, close to the open, that catherine nagle's quest ended; and that she was able to accomplish the task she had set herself, of making that which charles had rendered incomplete, complete as men, considering the flesh, count completeness. within but a few yards of safety, james mottram had met with death; a swift, merciful death, due to the negligence of an engine-driver not only new to his work but made blindly merry by mottram's gift of ale. * * * * * charles nagle woke late on the morning of st. catherine's day, and the pale november sun fell on the fully dressed figures of his wife and mr. dorriforth standing by his bedside. but charles, absorbed as always in himself, saw nothing untoward in their presence. "i had a dream!" he exclaimed. "a most horrible and gory dream this night! i thought i was in the wood; james mottram lay before me, done to death by that puffing devil we saw slithering by so fast. his head nearly severed--_à la guillotine_, you understand, my love?--from his poor body----" there was a curious, secretive smile on charles nagle's pale, handsome face. catherine nagle gave a cry, a stifled shriek of horror. the priest caught her by the arm and led her to the couch which stood across the end of the bed. "charles," he said sternly, "this is no light matter. your dream--there's not a doubt of it--was sent you in merciful preparation for the awful truth. your kinsman, your almost brother, charles, was found this morning in the wood, dead as you saw him in your dream." the face of the man sitting up in bed stiffened--was it with fear or grief? "they found james mottram dead?" he repeated with an uneasy glance in the direction of the couch where crouched his wife. "and his head, most reverend sir--what of his head?" "james mottram's body was terribly mangled. but his head," answered the priest solemnly, "was severed from his body, as you saw it in your dream, charles. a strangely clean cut, it seems----" "ay," said charles nagle. "that was in my dream too; if i said nearly severed, i said wrong." catherine was now again standing by the priest's side. "charles," she said gravely, "you must now get up; mr. dorriforth is only waiting for you, to say mass for james's soul." she made the sign of the cross, and then, with her right hand shading her sunken eyes, she went on, "my dear, i entreat you to tell no one--not even faithful collins--of this awful dream. we want no such tale spread about the place----" she looked at the old priest entreatingly, and he at once responded. "catherine is right, charles. we of the faith should be more careful with regard to such matters than are the ignorant and superstitious." but he was surprised to hear the woman by his side say insistently, "charles, if only to please me, vow that you will keep most secret this dreadful dream. i fear that if it should come to your aunt felwake's ears----" "that i swear it shall not," said charles sullenly. and he kept his word. the woman from purgatory "... not dead, this friend--not dead, but, in the path we mortals tread, got some few, little steps ahead and nearer to the end, so that you, too, once past the bend, shall meet again, as face to face, this friend you fancy dead." i mrs. barlow, the prettiest and the happiest and the best dressed of the young wives of summerfield, was walking toward the catholic church. she was going to consult the old priest as to her duty to an unsatisfactory servant; for agnes barlow was a conscientious as well as a pretty and a happy woman. foolish people are fond of quoting a foolish gibe: "be good, and you may be happy; but you will not have a good time." the wise, however, soon become aware that if, in the course of life's journey, you achieve goodness and happiness, you will almost certainly have a good time too. so, at least, agnes barlow had found in her own short life. her excellent parents had built one of the first new houses in what had then been the pretty, old-fashioned village of summerfield, some fifteen miles from london. there she had been born; there she had spent delightful years at the big convent school over the hill; there she had grown up into a singularly pretty girl; and there, finally--it had seemed quite final to agnes--she had met the clever, fascinating young lawyer, frank barlow. frank had soon become the lover all her girl friends had envied her, and then the husband who was still--so he was fond of saying and of proving in a dozen dear little daily ways--as much in love with her as on the day they were married. they lived in a charming house called the haven, and they were the proud parents of a fine little boy, named francis after his father, who never had any of the tiresome ailments which afflict other people's children. but strange, dreadful things do happen--not often, of course, but just now and again--even in this delightful world! so thought agnes barlow on this pleasant may afternoon; for, as she walked to church, this pretty, happy, good woman found her thoughts dwelling uncomfortably on another woman, her sometime intimate friend and contemporary, who was neither good nor happy. this was teresa maldo, the lovely half-spanish girl who had been her favourite schoolmate at the convent over the hill. poor, foolish, unhappy, wicked teresa! only ten days ago teresa had done a thing so extraordinary, so awful, so unprecedented, that agnes barlow had thought of little else ever since. teresa maldo had eloped, gone right away from her home and her husband, and with a married man! teresa and agnes were the same age; they had had the same upbringing; they were both--in a very different way, however--beautiful, and they had each been married, six years before, on the same day of the month. but how different had been their subsequent fates! teresa had at once discovered that her husband drank. but she loved him, and for a while it seemed as if marriage would reform maldo. unfortunately, this better state of things did not last: he again began to drink: and the matrons of summerfield soon had reason to shake their heads over the way teresa maldo went on. men, you see, were so sorry for this lovely young woman, blessed (or cursed) with what old-fashioned folk call "the come-hither eye," that they made it their business to console her for such a worthless husband as was maldo. no wonder teresa and agnes drifted apart; no wonder frank barlow soon forbade his spotless agnes to accept mrs. maldo's invitations. and agnes knew that her dear frank was right; she had never much enjoyed her visits to teresa's house. but an odd thing had happened about a fortnight ago. and it was to this odd happening that agnes's mind persistently recurred each time she found herself alone. about three days before teresa maldo had done the mad and wicked thing of which all summerfield was still talking, she had paid a long call on agnes barlow. the unwelcome guest had stayed a very long time; she had talked, as she generally did talk now, wildly and rather strangely; and agnes, looking back, was glad to remember that no one else had come in while her old schoolfellow was there. when, at last, teresa maldo had made up her mind to go (luckily, some minutes before frank was due home from town), agnes accompanied her to the gate of the haven, and there the other had turned round and made such odd remarks. "i came to tell you something!" she had exclaimed. "but, now that i see you looking so happy, so pretty, and--forgive me for saying so, agnes--so horribly good, i feel that i can't tell you! but, agnes, whatever happens, you must pity, and--and, if you can, understand me." it was now painfully clear to agnes barlow that teresa had come that day intending to tell her once devoted friend of the wicked thing she meant to do; and more than once pretty and good mrs. barlow had asked herself uneasily whether she could have done anything to stop teresa on her downward course. but no; agnes felt her conscience clear. how would it have been possible for her even to discuss with teresa so shameful a possibility as that of a woman leaving her husband with another man? agnes thought of the two sinners with a touch of fascinated curiosity. they were said to be in paris, and teresa was probably having a very good time--a wildly amusing, exciting time. she even told herself, did this pretty, happy, fortunate young married woman, that it was strange, and not very fair, that vice and pleasure should always go together! it was just a little irritating to know that teresa would never again be troubled by the kind of worries that played quite an important part in agnes's own blameless life. never again, for instance, would teresa's cook give her notice, as agnes's cook had given her notice that morning. it was about that matter she wished to see father ferguson, for it was through the priest she had heard of the impertinent irish girl who cooked so well, but who had such an independent manner, and who would _not_ wear a cap! yes, it certainly seemed unfair that teresa would now be rid of all domestic worries--nay, more, that the woman who had sinned would live in luxurious hotels, motoring and shopping all day, going to the theatre or to a music-hall each night. at last, however, agnes dismissed teresa maldo from her mind. she knew that it is not healthy to dwell overmuch on such people and their doings. the few acquaintances mrs. barlow met on her way smiled and nodded, but, as she was walking rather quickly, no one tried to stop her. she had chosen the back way to the church because it was the prettiest way, and also because it would take her by a house where a friend of hers was living in lodgings. and suddenly the very friend in question--his name was ferrier--came out of his lodgings. he had a tall, slight, active figure; he was dressed in a blue serge suit, and, though it was still early spring, he wore a straw hat. agnes smiled a little inward smile. she was, as we already know, a very good as well as a happy woman. but a woman as pretty as was agnes barlow meets with frequent pleasant occasions of withstanding temptation, of which those about her, especially her dear parents and her kind husband, are often curiously unknowing. and the tall, well-set-up masculine figure now hurrying toward her with such eager steps played a considerable part in agnes's life, if only as constantly providing her with occasions of acquiring merit. agnes knew very well--even the least imaginative woman is always acutely conscious of such a fact--that, had she not been a prudent and a ladylike as well as (of course) a very good woman, this clever, agreeable, interesting young man would have made love to her. as it was, he (of course) did nothing of the kind. he did not even try to flirt with her, as our innocent agnes understood that much-tried verb; and she regarded their friendship as a pleasant interlude in her placid, well-regulated existence, and as a most excellent influence on his more agitated life. mr. ferrier lifted his hat. he smiled down into agnes's blue eyes. what very charming, nay, what beautiful eyes they were! deeply, exquisitely blue, but unshadowed, as innocent of guile, as are a child's eyes. "somehow, i had a kind of feeling that you would be coming by just now," he said in a rather hesitating voice; "so i left my work and came out on chance." now, agnes was very much interested in mr. ferrier's work. mr. ferrier was not only a writer--the only writer she had ever known; he was also a poet. she had been pleasantly thrilled the day he had given her a slim little book, on each page of which was a poem. this gift had been made when they had known each other only two months, and he had inscribed it: "from g. g. f. to a. m. b." mr. ferrier had a charming studio flat in chelsea, that odd, remote place where london artists live, far from the pleasant london of the shops and theatres which was all agnes knew of the great city near which she dwelt. but he always spent the summer in the country, and his summer lasted from the st of may till the st of october. he had already spent two holidays at summerfield, and had been a great deal at the haven. when with mr. ferrier, and they were much together during the long week-days when summerfield is an adamless eden, agnes barlow made a point of often speaking of dear frank and of frank's love for her,--not, of course, in a way that any one could have regarded as silly, but in a natural, happy, simple way. how easy, how very easy, it is to keep this kind of friendship--friendship between a man and a woman--within bounds! and how terribly sad it was to think that teresa maldo had not known how to do that easy thing! but then, teresa's lover had been a married man separated from his wife, and that doubtless made all the difference. agnes barlow could assure herself in all sincerity that, had mr. ferrier been the husband of another woman, she would never have allowed him to become her friend to the extent that he was now. mr. ferrier--agnes never allowed herself to think of him as gerald (although he had once asked her to call him by his christian name)--held an evening paper in his hand. "i was really on my way to the haven," he observed, "for there are a few verses of mine in this paper which i am anxious you should read. shall i go on and leave it at your house, or will you take it now? and then, if i may, i will call for it some time to-morrow. should i be likely to find you in about four o'clock?" "yes, i'll be in about four, and i think i'll take the paper now." and then--for she was walking very slowly, and ferrier, with his hands behind his back, kept pace with her--agnes could not resist the pleasure of looking down at the open sheet, for the newspaper was so turned about that she could see the little set of verses quite plainly. the poem was called "my lady of the snow," and it told in very pretty, complicated language of a beautiful, pure woman whom the writer loved in a desperate but quite respectful way. she grew rather red. "i must hurry on, for i am going to church," she said a little stiffly. "good evening, mr. ferrier. yes, i will keep the paper till to-morrow, if i may. i should like to show it to frank. he hasn't been to the office to-day, for he isn't very well, and he will like to see an evening paper." mr. ferrier lifted his hat with a rather sad look, and turned back toward the house where he lodged. and as agnes walked on she felt disturbed and a little uncomfortable. her clever friend had evidently been grieved by her apparent lack of appreciation of his poem. when she reached the church her parents had helped to build, she went in, knelt down, and said a prayer. then she got up and walked through into the sacristy. father ferguson was almost certain to be there just now. agnes barlow had known the old priest all her life. he had baptized her; he had been chaplain at the convent during the years she had been at school there; and now he had come back to be parish priest at summerfield. when with father ferguson, agnes somehow never felt quite so good as she did when she was by herself or with a strange priest; and yet father ferguson was always very kind to her. as she came into the sacristy he looked round with a smile. "well?" he said. "well, agnes, my child, what can i do for you?" agnes put the newspaper she was holding down on a chair. and then, to her surprise, father ferguson took up the paper and glanced over the front page. he was an intelligent man, and sometimes he found summerfield a rather shut-in, stifling sort of place. but the priest's instinctive wish to know something of what was passing in the great world outside the suburb where it was his duty to dwell did him an ill turn, for something he read in the paper caused him to utter a low, quick exclamation of intense pain and horror. "what's the matter?" cried agnes barlow, frightened out of her usual self-complacency. "whatever has happened, father ferguson?" he pointed with shaking finger to a small paragraph. it was headed "suicide of a lady at dover," and agnes read the few lines with bewildered and shocked amazement. teresa maldo, whom she had visioned, only a few minutes ago, as leading a merry, gloriously careless life with her lover, was dead. she had thrown herself out of a bedroom window in a hotel at dover, and she had been killed instantly, dashed into a shapeless mass on the stones below. agnes stared down at the curt, cold little paragraph with excited horror. she was six-and-twenty, but she had never seen death, and, as far as she knew, the girls with whom she had been at school were all living. teresa--poor unhappy, sinful teresa--had been the first to die, and by her own hand. the old priest's eyes slowly brimmed over with tears. "poor, unhappy child!" he said, with a break in his voice. "poor, unfortunate teresa! i did not think, i should never have believed, that she would seek--and find--this terrible way out." agnes was a little shocked at his broken words. true, teresa had been very unhappy, and it was right to pity her; but she had also been very wicked; and now she had put, as it were, the seal on her wickedness by killing herself. "three or four days before she went away she came and saw me," the priest went on, in a low, pained voice. "i did everything in my power to stop her, but i could do nothing--she had given her word!" "given her word?" repeated agnes wonderingly. "yes," said father ferguson; "she had given that wretched, that wickedly selfish man her promise. she believed that if she broke her word he would kill himself. i begged her to go and see some woman--some kind, pitiful, understanding woman--but i suppose she feared lest such a one would dissuade her to more purpose than i was able to do." agnes looked at him with troubled eyes. "she was very dear to my heart," the priest went on. "she was always a generous, unselfish child, and she was very, very fond of you, agnes." agnes's throat tightened. what father ferguson said was only too true. teresa had always been a very generous and unselfish girl, and very, very fond of her. she wondered remorsefully if she had omitted to do or say anything she could have done or said on the day that poor teresa had come and spoken such strange, wild words----? "it seems so awful," she said in a low voice, "so very, very awful to think that we may not even pray for her soul, father ferguson." "not pray for her soul?" the priest repeated. "why should we not pray for the poor child's soul? i shall certainly pray for teresa's soul every day till i die." "but--but how can you do that, when she killed herself?" he looked at her surprised. "and do you really so far doubt god's mercy? surely we may hope--nay, trust--that teresa had time to make an act of contrition?" and then he muttered something--it sounded like a line or two of poetry--which agnes did not quite catch; but she felt, as she often did feel when with father ferguson, at once rebuked and rebellious. of course there _might_ have been time for teresa to make an act of contrition. but every one knows that to take one's life is a deadly sin. agnes felt quite sure that if it ever occurred to herself to do such a thing she would go straight to hell. still, she was used to obey this old priest, and that even when she did not agree with him. so she followed him into the church, and side by side they knelt down and each said a separate prayer for the soul of teresa maldo. as agnes barlow walked slowly and soberly home, this time by the high road, she tried to remember the words, the lines of poetry, that father ferguson had muttered. they at once haunted and eluded her memory. surely they could not be between the window and the ground, she mercy sought and mercy found. no, agnes was sure that he had not said "window," and yet window seemed the only word that would fit the case. and he had not said, "_she_ mercy found"; he had said, "_he_ mercy sought and mercy found"--of that agnes felt sure, and that, too, was odd. but then, father ferguson was very odd sometimes, and he was fond of quoting in his sermons queer little bits of verse of which no one had ever heard. suddenly she bethought herself, with more annoyance than the matter was worth, that in her agitation she had left mr. ferrier's newspaper in the sacristy. she did not like the thought that father ferguson would probably read those pretty, curious verses, "my lady of the snow." also, agnes had actually forgotten to speak to the old priest of her impertinent cook! ii we find agnes barlow again walking in summerfield; but this time she is hurrying along the straight, unlovely cinder-strewn path which forms a short cut from the back of the haven to summerfield station; and the still, heavy calm of a late november afternoon broods over the rough ground on either side of her. it is nearly six months since teresa maldo's elopement and subsequent suicide, and now no one ever speaks of poor teresa, no one seems to remember that she ever lived, excepting, perhaps, father ferguson.... as for agnes herself, life had crowded far too many happenings into the last few weeks for her to give more than a passing thought to teresa; indeed, the image of her dead friend rose before her only when she was saying her prayers. and as agnes, strange to say, had grown rather careless as to her prayers, the memory of teresa maldo was now very faint indeed. an awful, and to her an incredible, thing had happened to agnes barlow. the roof of her snug and happy house of life had fallen in, and she lay, blinded and maimed, beneath the fragments which had been hurled down on her in one terrible moment. yes, it had all happened in a moment--so she now reminded herself, with the dull ache which never left her. it was just after she had come back from westgate with little francis. the child had been ailing for the first time in his life, and she had taken him to the seaside for six weeks. there, in a day, it had turned from summer to winter, raining as it only rains at the seaside; and suddenly agnes had made up her mind to go back to her own nice, comfortable home a whole week before frank expected her back. agnes sometimes acted like that--on a quick impulse; she did so to her own undoing on that dull, rainy day. when she reached summerfield, it was to find her telegram to her husband lying unopened on the hall table of the haven. frank, it seemed, had slept in town the night before. not that that mattered, so she told herself gleefully, full of the pleasant joy of being again in her own home; the surprise would be the greater and the more welcome when frank did come back. having nothing better to do that first afternoon, agnes had gone up to her husband's dressing-room in order to look over his summer clothes before sending them to the cleaner. in her careful, playing-at-housewifely fashion, she had turned out the pockets of his cricketing coat. there, a little to her surprise, she had found three letters, and idle curiosity as to frank's invitations during her long stay away--frank was deservedly popular with the ladies of summerfield and, indeed, with all women--caused her to take the three letters out of their envelopes. in a moment--how terrible that it should take but a moment to shatter the fabric of a human being's innocent house of life!--agnes had seen what had happened to her--to him. for each of these letters, written in the same sloping woman's hand, was a love letter signed "janey"; and in each the writer, in a plaintive, delicate, but insistent and reproachful way, asked frank for money. even now, though nearly seven weeks had gone by since then, agnes could recall with painful vividness the sick, cold feeling that had come over her--a feeling of fear rather than anger, of fear and desperate humiliation. locking the door of the dressing-room, she had searched eagerly--a dishonourable thing to do, as she knew well. and soon she had found other letters--letters and bills; bills of meals at restaurants, showing that her husband and a companion had constantly dined and supped at the savoy, the carlton, and prince's. to those restaurants where he had taken her, agnes, two or three times a year, laughing and grumbling at the expense, he had taken this--this _person_ again and again in the short time his wife had been away. as to the further letters, all they proved was that frank had first met "janey cartwright" over some law business of hers, connected--even agnes saw the irony of it--in some shameful way with another man; for, tied together, were a few notes signed with the writer's full name, of which the first began: dear mr. barlow: forgive me for writing to your private address [etc., etc.]. the ten days that followed her discovery had seared agnes's soul. frank had been so dreadfully affectionate. he had pretended--she felt sure it was all pretence--to be so glad to see her again, though sometimes she caught him looking at her with cowed, miserable eyes. more than once he had asked her solicitously if she felt ill, and she had said yes, she did feel ill, and the time at the seaside had not done her any good. and then, on the last of those terrible ten days, gerald ferrier had come down to summerfield, and both she and frank had pressed him to stay on to dinner. he had done so, though aware that something was wrong, and he had been extraordinarily kind, sympathetic, unquestioning. but as he was leaving he had said a word to his host: "i feel worried about mrs. barlow"--agnes had heard him through the window. "she doesn't look the thing, somehow! how would it be if i asked her to go with me to a private view? it might cheer her up, and perhaps she would lunch with me afterwards?" frank had eagerly assented. since then agnes had gone up to london, if not every day, very nearly every day, and mr. ferrier had done his best, without much success, to "cheer her up." though they soon became more intimate than they had ever been, agnes never told ferrier what it was that had turned her from a happy, unquestioning child into a miserable woman; but, of course, he guessed. and gradually frank also had come to know that she knew, and, man-like, he spent less and less time in his now uncomfortable home. he would go away in the morning an hour earlier than usual, and then, under pretext of business keeping him late at the office, he would come back after having dined, doubtless with "janey," in town. soon agnes began to draw a terrible comparison between these two men--between the husband who had all she had of heart, and the friend whom she now acknowledged to herself--for hypocrisy had fallen away from her--had lived only for her, and for the hours they were able to spend together, during two long years, and yet who had never told her of his love, or tried to disturb her trust in frank. yes, gerald ferrier was all that was noble--frank barlow all that was ignoble. so she told herself with trembling lip a dozen times a day, taking fierce comfort in the knowledge that ferrier was noble. but she was destined even to lose that comfort; for one day, a week before the day when we find her walking to summerfield station, ferrier's nobility, or what poor agnes took to be such, suddenly broke down. they had been walking together in battersea park, and, after one of those long silences which bespeak true intimacy between a man and a woman, he had asked her if she would come back to his rooms--for tea. she had shaken her head smilingly. and then he had turned on her with a torrent of impetuous, burning words--words of ardent love, of anguished longing, of eager pleading. and agnes had been frightened, fascinated, allured. and that had not been all. more quietly he had gone on to speak as if the code of morality in which his friend had been bred, and which had hitherto so entirely satisfied her, was, after all, nothing but a narrow counsel of perfection, suited to those who were sheltered and happy, but wretchedly inadequate to meet the needs of the greater number of human beings who are, as agnes now was, humiliated and miserable. his words had found an echo in her sore heart, but she had not let him see how much they moved her. on the contrary, she had rebuked him, and for the first time they had quarrelled. "if you ever speak to me like that again," she had said coldly, "i will not come again." and once more he had turned on her violently. "i think you had better not come again! i am but a man after all!" they parted enemies; but the same night ferrier wrote agnes a very piteous letter asking pardon on his knees for having spoken as he had done. and his letter moved her to the heart. her own deep misery--never for one moment did she forget frank, and frank's treachery--made her understand the torment that ferrier was going through. for the first time she realized, what so few of her kind ever realize, that it is a mean thing to take everything and give nothing in exchange. and gradually, as her long, solitary hours wore themselves away, agnes came to believe that if she did what she now knew ferrier desired her to do,--if, casting the past behind her, she started a new life with him--she would not only be doing a generous thing by the man who had loved her silently and faithfully for so long, but she would also be punishing frank--hurting him in his honour, as he had hurt her in hers. and then the stars that fight in their courses for those lovers who are also poets fought for ferrier. the day after they had quarrelled and he had written her his piteous letter of remorse, gerald ferrier fell ill. but he was not too ill to write. and after he had been ill four days, and when agnes was feeling very, very miserable, he wrote and told her of a wonderful vision which had been vouchsafed to him. in this vision ferrier had seen agnes knocking at the narrow front door of the lonely flat where he lived solitary; and through the door had slipped in his angelic visitant, by her mere presence bringing him peace, health, and the happiness he was schooling himself to believe must never come to him through her. the post which brought her the letter in which ferrier told his vision brought also to agnes barlow a little registered parcel containing a pearl-and-diamond pendant from frank. for a few moments the two lay on her knee. then she took up the jewel and looked at it curiously. was it with such a thing as this that her husband thought to purchase her forgiveness? if ferrier's letter had never been written, if frank's gift had never been despatched, it may be doubted whether agnes would have done what we now find her doing--hastening, that is, on her way to make ferrier's dream come true. * * * * * at last she reached the little suburban station of summerfield. one of her father's many kindnesses to her each year was the gift of a season ticket to town; but to-day some queer instinct made her buy a ticket at the booking-office instead. the booking-clerk peered out at her, surprised; then made up his mind that pretty mrs. barlow--she wore to-day a curiously thick veil--had a friend with her. but his long, ruminating stare made her shrink and flush. was it possible that what she was about to do was written on her face? she was glad indeed when the train steamed into the station. she got into an empty carriage, for the rush that goes on each evening londonward from the suburbs had not yet begun. and then, to her surprise, she found that it was the thought of her husband, not of the man to whom she was going to give herself, that filled her sad, embittered heart. old memories--memories connected with frank, his love for her, her love for him--became insistent. she lived again, while tears forced themselves into her closed eyes, through the culminating moment of her marriage day, the start for the honeymoon,--a start made amid a crowd of laughing, cheering friends, from the little station she had just left. she remembered the delicious tremor which had come over her when she had found herself at last alone, really alone, with her three-hour-old bridegroom. how infinitely kind and tender frank had been to her! and then agnes reminded herself, with tightening breath, that men like frank barlow are always kind--too kind--to women. other journeys she and frank had taken together came and mocked her, and especially the journey which had followed a month after little francis's birth. frank had driven with her, the nurse, and the baby, to the station--but only to see them off. he had had a very important case in the courts just then, and it was out of the question that he should go with his wife to littlehampton for the change of air, the few weeks by the sea, that had been ordered by her good, careful doctor. and then at the last moment frank had suddenly jumped into the railway carriage without a ticket, and had gone along with her part of the way! she remembered the surprise of the monthly nurse, the woman's prim remark, when he had at last got out at horsham, that mr. barlow was certainly the kindest husband she, the nurse, had ever seen. but these memories, now so desecrated, did not make her give up her purpose. far from it, for in a queer way they made her think more tenderly of gerald ferrier, whose life had been so lonely, and who had known nothing of the simpler human sanctities and joys, and who had never--so he had told her with a kind of bitter scorn of himself--been loved by any woman whom he himself could love. in her ears there sounded ferrier's quick, hoarsely uttered words: "d'you think i should ever have said a word to you of all this--if you had gone on being happy? d'you think i'd ask you to come to me if i thought you had any chance of being happy with him--now?" and she knew in her soul that he had spoken truly. ferrier would never have tried to disturb her happiness with frank; he had never so tried during those two years when they had seen so much of each other, and when agnes had known, deep down in her heart, that he loved her, though it had suited her conscience to pretend that his love was only "friendship." iii the train glided into the fog-laden london station, and very slowly agnes barlow stepped down out of the railway carriage. she felt oppressed by the fact that she was alone. during the last few weeks ferrier had always been standing on the platform waiting to greet her, eager to hurry her into a cab--to a picture gallery, to a concert, or of late, oftenest of all, to one of those green oases which the great town still leaves her lovers. but now ferrier was not here. ferrier was ill, solitary, in the lonely rooms which he called "home." agnes barlow hurried out of the station. hammer, hammer, hammer went what she supposed was her heart. it was a curious, to agnes a new sensation, bred of the fear that she would meet some acquaintance to whom she would have to explain her presence in town. she could not help being glad that the fog was of that dense, stifling quality which makes every one intent on his own business rather than on that of his neighbours. then something happened which scared agnes. she was walking, now very slowly, out of the station, when a tall man came up to her. he took off his hat and peered insolently into her face. "i think i've had the pleasure of meeting you before," he said. she stared at him with a great, unreasonable fear gripping her heart. no doubt this was some business acquaintance of frank's. "i--i don't think so," she faltered. "oh, yes," he said. "don't you remember, two years ago at the pirola in regent street? i don't _think_ i can be wrong." and then agnes understood. "you are making a mistake," she said breathlessly, and quickened her steps. the man looked after her with a jeering smile, but he made no further attempt to molest her. she was trembling--shaken with fear, disgust, and terror. it was odd, but such a thing had never happened to pretty agnes barlow before. she was not often alone in london; she had never been there alone on such a foggy evening, an evening which invited such approaches as those she had just repulsed. she touched a respectable-looking woman on the arm. "can you tell me the way to flood street, chelsea?" she asked, her voice faltering. "why, yes, miss. it's a good step from here, but you can't mistake it. you've only got to go straight along, and then ask again after you've been walking about twenty minutes. you can't mistake it." and she hurried on, while agnes tried to keep in step behind her, for the slight adventure outside the station became retrospectively terrifying. she thrilled with angry fear lest that--that brute should still be stalking her; but when she looked over her shoulder she saw that the pavement was nearly bare of walkers. at last the broad thoroughfare narrowed to a point where four streets converged. agnes glanced fearfully this way and that. which of those shadowy black-coated figures hurrying past, intent on their business, would direct her rightly? within the last half-hour agnes had grown horribly afraid of men. and then, with more relief than the fact warranted, across the narrow roadway she saw emerge, between two parting waves of fog, the shrouded figure of a woman leaning against a dead wall. agnes crossed the street, but as she stepped up on to the kerb, suddenly there broke from her, twice repeated, a low, involuntary cry of dread. "teresa!" she cried. and then, again, "teresa!" for in the shrouded figure before her she had recognized, with a thrill of incredulous terror, the form and lineaments of teresa maldo. but there came no answering cry; and agnes gave a long, gasping, involuntary sigh of relief as she realized that what had seemed to be her dead friend's dark, glowing face was the face of a little child--a black-haired beggar child, with large startled eyes wide open on a living world. the tall woman whose statuesque figure had so strangely recalled teresa's supple, powerful form was holding up the child, propping it on the wall behind her. still shaking with the chill terror induced by the vision she now believed she had not seen, agnes went up closer to the melancholy group. even now she longed to hear the woman speak. "can you tell me the way to flood street?" she asked. the woman looked at her fixedly. "no, that i can't," she said listlessly. "i'm a stranger here." and then, with a passionate energy which startled agnes, "for god's sake, give me something, lady, to help me to get home! i've walked all the way from essex; it's taken me, oh! so long with the child, though we've had a lift here and a lift there, and i haven't a penny left. i came to find my husband; but he's lost himself--on purpose!" a week ago, agnes barlow would have shaken her head and passed on. she had always held the theory, carefully inculcated by her careful parents, that it is wrong to give money to beggars in the street. but perhaps the queer illusion that she had just experienced made her remember father ferguson. in a flash she recalled a sermon of the old priest's which had shocked and disturbed his prosperous congregation, for in it the preacher had advanced the astounding theory that it is better to give to nine impostors than to refuse the one just man; nay, more, he had reminded his hearers of the old legend that christ sometimes comes, in the guise of a beggar, to the wealthy. she took five shillings out of her purse, and put them, not in the woman's hand, but in that of the little child. "thank you," said the woman dully. "may god bless you!" that was all, but agnes went on, vaguely comforted. * * * * * and now at last, helped on her way by more than one good-natured wayfarer, she reached the quiet, but shabby chelsea street where ferrier lived. the fog had drifted towards the river, and in the lamplight agnes barlow was not long in finding a large open door, above which was inscribed: "the thomas more studios." agnes walked timorously through into the square, empty, gas-lit hall, and looked round her with distaste. the place struck her as very ugly and forlorn, utterly lacking in what she had always taken to be the amenities of flat life--an obsequious porter, a lift, electric light. how strange of ferrier to have told her that he lived in a building that was beautiful! springing in bold and simple curves, rose a wrought-iron staircase, filling up the centre of the narrow, towerlike building. agnes knew that ferrier lived high up, somewhere near the top. she waited a moment at the foot of the staircase. she was gathering up her strength, throwing behind her everything that had meant life, happiness, and--what signified so very much to such a woman as herself--personal repute. but, even so, agnes did not falter in her purpose. she was still possessed, driven onward, by a passion of jealous misery. but, though her spirit was willing, ay, and more than willing, for revenge, her flesh was weak; and as she began slowly walking up the staircase she started nervously at the grotesque shapes cast by her own shadow, and at the muffled sounds of her own footfalls. half-way up the high building the gas-jets burned low, and agnes felt aggrieved. what a mean, stupid economy on the part of the owners of this strange, unnatural dwelling-place. how dreadful it would be if she were to meet any one she knew--any one belonging to what she was already unconsciously teaching herself to call her old, happy life! as if in cruel answer to her fear, a door opened, and an old man, clad in a big shabby fur coat and broad-brimmed hat, came out. agnes's heart gave a bound in her bosom. yes; this was what she had somehow thought would happen. in the half-light she took the old man to be an eccentric acquaintance of her father's. "mr. willis?" she whispered hoarsely. he looked at her, surprised, resentful. "my name's not willis," he said gruffly, as he passed her on his way down, and her heart became stilled. how could she have been so foolish as to take that disagreeable old man for kindly-natured mr. willis? she was now very near the top. only a storey and a half more, and she would be there. her steps were flagging, but a strange kind of peace had fallen on her. in a few moments she would be safe, for ever, in ferrier's arms. how strange and unreal the notion seemed! and then--and then, as if fashioned by some potent incantation from the vaporous fog outside, a tall, grey figure rose out of nothingness, and stood, barring the way, on the steel floor of the landing above her. agnes clutched the iron railing, too oppressed rather than too frightened to speak. out in the fog-laden street she had involuntarily called out the other's name. "teresa?" she had cried, "teresa!" but this time no word broke from her lips, for she feared that if she spoke the other would answer. teresa maldo's love, the sisterly love of which agnes had been so little worthy, had broken down the gateless barrier which stretches its dense length between the living and the dead. what she, the living woman, had not known how to do for teresa, the dead woman had come back to do for her--for now agnes seemed suddenly able to measure the depth of the gulf into which she had been about to throw herself.... she stared with fearful, fascinated eyes at the immobile figure swathed in grey, cere-like garments, and her gaze travelled stealthfully up to the white, passionless face, drained of all expression save that of watchful concern and understanding tenderness.... with a swift movement agnes turned round. clinging to the iron rail, she stumbled down the stairway to the deserted hall, and with swift terror-hastened steps rushed out into the street. through the fog she plunged, not even sparing a moment to look back and up to the dimly lighted window behind which poor ferrier stood,--as a softer, a truer-natured woman might have done. violently she put all thought of her lover from her, and as she hurried along with tightening breath, the instinct of self-preservation alone possessing her, she became more and more absorbed in measuring the fathomless depth of the pit in which she had so nearly fallen. her one wish now was to get home--to get home--to get home--before frank got back. but the fulfilment of that wish was denied her--for as agnes barlow walked, crying softly as she went, in the misty darkness along the road which led from summerfield station to the gate of the haven, there fell on her ear the rhythmical tramp of well-shod feet. she shrank near to the hedge, in no mood to greet or to accept greeting from a neighbour. but the walker was now close to her. he struck a match. "agnes?" it was frank barlow's voice--shamed, eager, questioning. "is that you? i thought--i hoped you would come home by this train." and as she gave no immediate answer, as he missed--god alone knew with what relief--the prim, cold accents to which his wife had accustomed him of late, he hurried forward and took her masterfully in his arms. "oh! my darling," he whispered huskily, "i know i've been a beast--but i've never left off loving you--and i can't stand your coldness, agnes; it's driving me to the devil! forgive me, my pure angel----" and frank barlow's pure angel did forgive him, and with a spontaneity and generous forgetfulness which he will ever remember. nay, more; agnes--and this touched her husband deeply--even gave up her pleasant acquaintance with that writing fellow, ferrier, because ferrier, through no fault of his, was associated, in both their minds, with the terrible time each would have given so much to obliterate from the record of their otherwise cloudless married life. why they married "god doeth all things well, though by what strange, solemn, and murderous contrivances." i john coxeter was sitting with his back to the engine in a first-class carriage in the paris-boulogne night train. not only englishman, but englishman of a peculiarly definite class, that of the london civil servant, was written all over his spare, still active figure. it was late september, and the rush homewards had begun; so coxeter, being a man of precise and careful habit, had reserved a corner seat. then, just before the train had started, a certain mrs. archdale, a young widowed lady with whom he was acquainted, had come up to him on the paris platform, and to her he had given up his seat. coxeter had willingly made the little sacrifice of his personal comfort, but he had felt annoyed when mrs. archdale in her turn had yielded the corner place with foolish altruism to a french lad exchanging vociferous farewells with his parents. when the train started the boy did not give the seat back to the courteous englishwoman to whom it belonged, and coxeter, more vexed by the matter than it was worth, would have liked to punch the boy's head. and yet, as he now looked straight before him, sitting upright in the carriage which was rocking and jolting as only a french railway carriage can rock and jolt, he realized that he himself had gained by the lad's lack of honesty. by having thus given away something which did not belong to her, mrs. archdale was now seated, if uncomfortably hemmed in and encompassed on each side, just opposite to coxeter himself. coxeter was well aware that to stare at a woman is the height of bad breeding, but unconsciously he drew a great distinction between what is good taste to do when one is being observed, and that which one does when no one can catch one doing it. without making the slightest effort, in fact by looking straight before him, nan archdale fell into his direct line of vision, and he allowed his eyes to rest on her with an unwilling sense that there was nothing in the world he had rather they rested on. her appearance pleased his fastidious, rather old-fashioned taste. mrs. archdale was wearing a long grey cloak. on her head was poised a dark hat trimmed with mercury wings; it rested lightly on the pale golden hair which formed so agreeable a contrast to her deep blue eyes. coxeter did not believe in luck; the word which means so much to many men had no place in his vocabulary, or even in his imagination. but, still, the sudden appearance of mrs. archdale in the great paris station had been an agreeable surprise, one of those incidents which, just because of their unexpectedness, make a man feel not only pleased with himself, but at one with the world. before mrs. archdale had come up to the carriage door at which he was standing, several things had contributed to put coxeter in an ill-humour. it had seemed to his critical british phlegm that he was surrounded, immersed against his will, in floods of emotion. among his fellow travellers the french element predominated. heavens! how they talked--jabbered would be the better word--laughed and cried! how they hugged and embraced one another! coxeter thanked god he was an englishman. his feeling of bored disgust was intensified by the conduct of a long-nosed, sallow man, who had put his luggage into the same carriage as that where coxeter's seat had been reserved. strange how the peculiar characteristics common to the jewish race survive, whatever be the accident of nationality. this man also was saying good-bye, his wife being a dark, thin, eager-looking woman of a very common french type. coxeter looked at them critically, he wondered idly if the woman was jewish too. on the whole he thought not. she was half crying, half laughing, her hands now clasping her husband's arm, now travelling, with a gesture of tenderness, up to his fleshy face, while he seemed to tolerate rather than respond to her endearments and extravagant terms of affection. "_adieu, mon petit homme adoré!_" she finally exclaimed, just as the tickets were being examined, and to coxeter's surprise the adored one answered in a very english voice, albeit the utterance was slightly thick, "there, there! that'ull do, my dear girl. it's only for a fortnight after all." coxeter felt a pang of sincere pity for the poor fellow; a cad, no doubt--but an english cad, cursed with an emotional french wife! then his attention had been most happily diverted by the unexpected appearance of mrs. archdale. she had come up behind him very quietly, and he had heard her speak before actually seeing her. "mr. coxeter, are you going back to england, or have you only come to see someone off?" not even then had coxeter--to use a phrase which he himself would not have used, for he avoided the use of slang--"given himself away." over his lantern-shaped face, across his thin, determined mouth, there had still lingered a trace of the supercilious smile with which he had been looking round him. and, as he had helped mrs. archdale into the compartment, as he indicated to her the comfortable seat he had reserved for himself, not even she--noted though she was for her powers of sympathy and understanding--had divined the delicious tremor, the curious state of mingled joy and discomfort into which her sudden presence had thrown the man whom she had greeted a little doubtfully, by no means sure that he would welcome her companionship on a long journey. and, indeed, in spite of the effect she produced upon him, in spite of the fact that she was the only human being who had ever had, or was ever likely to have, the power of making him feel humble, not quite satisfied with himself--coxeter disapproved of mrs. archdale. at the present moment he disapproved of her rather more than usual, for if she meant to give up that corner seat, why had she not so arranged as to sit by him? instead, she was now talking to the french boy who occupied what should have been her seat. but nan archdale, as all her friends called her, was always like that. coxeter never saw her, never met her at the houses to which he went simply in order that he might meet her, without wondering why she wasted so much of the time she might have spent in talking to him, and above all in listening to him, in talking and listening to other people. four years ago, not long after their first acquaintance, he had made her an offer of marriage, impelled by something which had appeared at the time quite outside himself and his usual wise, ponderate view of life. he had been relieved, as well as keenly hurt, when she had refused him. everything that concerned himself appeared to john coxeter of such moment and importance that at the time it had seemed incredible that nan archdale would be able to keep to herself the peculiar honour which had befallen her,--one, by the way, which coxeter had never seriously thought of conferring on any other woman. but as time went on he became aware that she had actually kept the secret which was not hers to betray, and, emboldened by the knowledge that she alone knew of his humiliating bondship, he had again, after a certain interval, written and asked her if she would marry him. again she had refused, in a kind, impersonal little note, and this last time she had gone so far as to declare that in this matter she really knew far better than he did himself what was good for him, and once more something deep in his heart had said "amen." when he thought about it, and he went on thinking about it more than was quite agreeable for his own comfort or peace of mind, coxeter would tell himself, with what he believed to be a vicarious pang of regret, that mrs. archdale had made a sad mistake as regarded her own interest. he felt sure she was not fit to live alone; he knew she ought to be surrounded by the kind of care and protection which only a husband can properly bestow on a woman. he, coxeter, would have known how to detach her from the unsuitable people by whom she was always surrounded. nan archdale, and coxeter was much concerned that it was so, had an instinctive attraction for those poor souls who lead forlorn hopes, and of whom--they being unsuccessful in their fine endeavours--the world never hears. she also had a strange patience and tenderness for those ne'er-do-wells of whom even the kindest grow weary after a time. nan had a mass of queer friends, old protégés for whom she worked unceasingly in a curious, detached fashion, which was quite her own, and utterly apart from any of the myriad philanthropic societies with which the world she lived in, and to which she belonged by birth, interests its prosperous and intelligent leisure. it was characteristic that nan's liking for john coxeter often took the form of asking him to help these queer, unsatisfactory people. why, even in this last week, while he had been in paris, he had come into close relation with one of mrs. archdale's "odd-come-shorts." this time the man was an inventor, and of all unpractical and useless things he had patented an appliance for saving life at sea! nan archdale had given the man a note to coxeter, and it was characteristic of the latter that, while resenting what mrs. archdale had done, he had been at some pains when in paris to see the man in question. the invention--as coxeter had of course known would be the case--was a ridiculous affair, but for nan's sake he had agreed to submit it to the admiralty expert whose business it is to consider and pronounce on such futile things. the queer little model which its maker believed would in time supersede the life-belts now carried on every british ship, had but one merit, it was small and portable: at the present moment it lay curled up, looking like a cross between a serpent's cast skin and a child's spent balloon, in coxeter's portmanteau. even while he had accepted the parcel with a coolly civil word of thanks, he had mentally composed the letter with which he would ultimately dash the poor inventor's hopes. to-night, however, sitting opposite to her, he felt glad that he had been to see the man, and he looked forward to telling her about it. scarcely consciously to himself, it always made coxeter glad to feel that he had given nan pleasure, even pleasure of which he disapproved. and yet how widely apart were these two people's sympathies and interests! putting nan aside, john coxeter was only concerned with two things in life--his work at the treasury and himself--and people only interested him in relation to these two major problems of existence. nan archdale was a citizen of the world--a freewoman of that dear kingdom of romance which still contains so many fragrant byways and sunny oases for those who have the will to find them. but for her freedom of this kingdom she would have been a very sad woman, oppressed by the griefs and sorrows of that other world to which she also belonged, for nan's human circle was ever widening, and in her strange heart there seemed always room for those whom others rejected and despised. she had the power no human being had ever had--that of making john coxeter jealous. this was the harder to bear inasmuch as he was well aware that jealousy is a very ridiculous human failing, and one with which he had no sympathy or understanding when it affected--as it sometimes did--his acquaintances and colleagues. fortunately for himself, he was not retrospectively jealous--jealous that is of the dead man of whom certain people belonging to his and to nan's circle sometimes spoke of as "poor jim archdale." coxeter knew vaguely that archdale had been a bad lot, though never actually unkind to his wife; nay, more, during the short time their married life had lasted, archdale, it seemed, had to a certain extent reformed. although he was unconscious of it, john coxeter was a very material human being, and this no doubt was why this woman had so compelling an attraction for him; for nan archdale appeared to be all spirit, and that in spite of her eager, sympathetic concern in the lives which circled about hers. and yet? yet there was certainly a strong, unspoken link between them, this man and woman who had so little in common the one with the other. they met often, if only because they both lived in marylebone, that most conventional quarter of old georgian london, she in wimpole street, he in a flat in wigmore street. she always was glad to see him, and seemed a little sorry when he left her. coxeter was one of the rare human beings to whom nan ever spoke of herself and of her own concerns. but, in spite of that curious kindliness, she did not do what so many people who knew john coxeter instinctively did--ask his advice, and, what was, of course, more seldom done--take it. in fact he had sometimes angrily told himself that nan attached no weight to his opinion, and as time had gone on he had almost given up offering her unsought advice. john coxeter attached great importance to health. he realized that a perfect physical condition is a great possession, and he took considerable pains to keep himself what he called "fit." now mrs. archdale was recklessly imprudent concerning her health, the health, that is, which was of so great a value to him, her friend. she took her meals at such odd times; she did not seem to mind, hardly to know, what she ate and drank! of the many strange things coxeter had known her to do, by far the strangest, and one which he could scarcely think of without an inward tremor, had happened only a few months ago. nan had been with an ailing friend, and the ailing friend's only son, in the highlands, and this friend, a foolish woman,--when recalling the matter coxeter never omitted to call this lady a foolish woman--on sending her boy back to school, had given him what she had thought to be a dose of medicine out of the wrong bottle, a bottle marked "poison." nothing could be done, for the boy had started on his long railway journey south before the mistake had been discovered, and even coxeter, when hearing the story told, had realized that had he been there he would have been sorry, really sorry, for the foolish mother. but nan's sympathy--and on this point coxeter always dwelt with a special sense of injury--had taken a practical shape. she had poured out a similar dose from the bottle marked "poison" and had calmly drunk it, observing as she did so, "i don't believe it _is_ poison in the real sense of the word, but at any rate we shall soon be able to find out exactly what is happening to dick." nothing, or at least nothing but a bad headache, had followed, and so far had nan been justified of her folly. but to coxeter it was terrible to think of what might have happened, and he had not shared in any degree the mingled amusement and admiration which the story, as told afterwards by the culpable mother, had drawn forth. in fact, so deeply had he felt about it that he had not trusted himself to speak of the matter to mrs. archdale. but mrs. archdale was not only reckless of her health; she was also reckless--perhaps uncaring would be the truer word--of something which john coxeter supposed every nice woman to value even more than her health or appearance, that is the curiously intangible, and yet so easily frayed, human vesture termed reputation. to john coxeter the women of his own class, if worthy, that is, of consideration and respect, went clad in a delicate robe of ermine, and the thought that this ermine should have even a shade cast on its fairness was most repugnant to him. now nan archdale was not as careful in this matter of keeping her ermine unspoiled and delicately white as she ought to have been, and this was the stranger inasmuch as even coxeter realized that there was about his friend a una-like quality which made her unafraid, because unsuspecting, of evil. another of the cardinal points of coxeter's carefully thought-out philosophy of life was that in this world no woman can touch pitch without being defiled. and yet on one occasion, at least, the woman who now sat opposite to him had proved the falsity of this view. nan archdale, apparently indifferent to the opinion of those who wished her well, had allowed herself to be closely associated with one of those unfortunate members of her own sex who, at certain intervals in the history of the civilized world, become heroines of a drama of which each act takes place in the law courts. of these dramas every whispered word, every piece of "business"--to pursue the analogy to its logical end--is overheard and visualized not by thousands but by millions,--in fact by all those of an age to read a newspaper. had the woman in the case been mrs. archdale's sister, coxeter with a groan would have admitted that she owed her a duty, though a duty which he would fain have had her shirk or rather delegate to another. but this woman was no sister, not even a friend, simply an old acquaintance known to nan, 'tis true, over many years. nan had done what she had done, had taken her in and sheltered her, going to the court with her every day, simply because there seemed absolutely no one else willing to do it. when he had first heard of what mrs. archdale was undertaking to do, coxeter had been so dismayed that he had felt called upon to expostulate with her. very few words had passed between them. "is it possible," he had asked, "that you think her innocent? that you believe her own story?" to this mrs. archdale had answered with some distress, "i don't know, i haven't thought about it---- as she says she is--i hope she is. if she's not, i'd rather not know it." it had been a confused utterance, and somehow she had made him feel sorry that he had said anything. afterwards, to his surprise and unwilling relief, he discovered that mrs. archdale had not suffered in reputation as he had expected her to do. but it made him feel, more than ever, that she needed a strong, wise man to take care of her, and to keep her out of the mischief into which her unfortunate good-nature--that was the way coxeter phrased it to himself--was so apt to lead her. it was just after this incident that he had again asked her to marry him, and that she had again refused him. but it was since then that he had become really her friend. * * * * * at last mrs. archdale turned away, or else the french boy had come to an end of his eloquence. perhaps she would now lean a little forward and speak to him--the friend whom she had not seen for some weeks and whom she had seemed so sincerely glad to see half an hour ago? but no; she remained silent, her face full of thought. coxeter leant back; as a rule he never read in a train, for he was aware that it is injurious to the eyesight to do so. but to-night he suddenly told himself that after all he might just as well look at the english paper he had bought at the station. he might at least see what sort of crossing they were going to have to-night. not that he minded for himself. he was a good sailor and always stayed on deck whatever the weather, but he hoped it would be smooth for mrs. archdale's sake. it was so unpleasant for a lady to have a rough passage. again, before opening the paper, he glanced across at her. she did not look strong; that air of delicacy, combined as it was with perfect health--for mrs. archdale was never ill--was one of the things that made her attractive to john coxeter. when he was with a woman, he liked to feel that he was taking care of her, and that she was more or less dependent on his good offices. somehow or other he always felt this concerning nan archdale, and that even when she was doing something of which he disapproved and which he would fain have prevented her doing. coxeter turned round so that the light should fall on the page at which he had opened his newspaper, which, it need hardly be said, was the _morning post_. presently there came to him the murmuring of two voices, mrs. archdale's clear, low utterances, and another's, guttural and full. ah! then he had been right; the fellow sitting there, on nan's other side, was a jew: probably something financial, connected with the stock exchange. coxeter of the treasury looked at the man he took to be a financier with considerable contempt. coxeter prided himself on his knowledge of human beings,--or rather of men, for even his self-satisfaction did not go so far as to make him suppose that he entirely understood women; there had been a time when he had thought so, but that was a long while ago. he began reading his newspaper. there was a most interesting article on education. after having glanced at this, he studied more carefully various little items of social news which reminded him that he had been away from london for some weeks. then, as he read on, the conversation between nan archdale and the man next to her became more audible to him. all the other people in the carriage were french, and so first one, and then the other, window had been closed. his ears had grown accustomed to the muffled, thundering sounds caused by the train, and gradually he became aware that nan archdale was receiving some singular confidences from the man with whom she was now speaking. the fellow was actually unrolling before her the whole of his not very interesting life, and by degrees coxeter began rather to overhear than to listen consciously to what was being said. the jew, though english by birth, now lived in france. as a young man he had failed in business in london, and then he had made a fresh start abroad, apparently impelled thereto by his great affection for his mother. the jewish race, so coxeter reminded himself, are admirable in every relation of private life, and it was apparently in order that his mother might not have to alter her style of living that the person on whom mrs. archdale was now fixing her attention had finally accepted a post in a paris house of business--no, not financial, something connected with the sweetmeat trade. coxeter gathered that the speaker had at last saved enough money to make a start for himself, and that now he was very prosperous. he spoke of what he had done with legitimate pride, and when describing the struggle he had gone through, the fellow used a very odd expression, "it wasn't all jam!" he said. now he was in a big way of business, going over to london every three months, partly in connection with his work, partly to see his old mother. behind his newspaper coxeter told himself that it was amazing any human being should tell so much of his private concerns to a stranger. even more amazing was it that a refined, rather peculiar, woman like nan archdale should care to listen to such a commonplace story. but listening she was, saying a word here and there, asking, too, very quaint, practical questions concerning the sweetmeat trade. why, even coxeter became interested in spite of himself, for the jew was an intelligent man, and as he talked on coxeter learned with surprise that there is a romantic and exciting side even to making sweets. "what a pity it is," he heard nan say at last in her low, even voice, "that you can't now come back to england and settle down there. surely it would make your mother much happier, and you don't seem to like paris so very much?" "that is true," said the man, "but--well, unluckily there's an obstacle to my doing that----" coxeter looked up from his paper. the stranger's face had become troubled, preoccupied, and his eyes were fixed, or so coxeter fancied them to be, on nan archdale's left hand, the slender bare hand on which the only ring was her wedding ring. coxeter once more returned to his paper, but for some minutes he made no attempt to follow the dancing lines of print. "i trust you won't be offended if i ask whether you are, or are not, a married lady?" the sweetmeat man's voice had a curious note of shamed interrogation threading itself through the words. coxeter felt surprised and rather shocked. this was what came of allowing oneself to become familiar with an underbred stranger! but nan had apparently not so taken the impertinent question, for, "i am a widow," coxeter heard her answer gently, in a voice that had no touch of offence in it. and then, after a few moments, staring with frowning eyes at the spread-out sheet of newspaper before him, coxeter, with increasing distaste and revolt, became aware that mrs. archdale was now receiving very untoward confidences--confidences which coxeter had always imagined were never made save under the unspoken seal of secrecy by one man to another. this objectionable stranger was telling nan archdale the story of the woman who had seen him off at the station, and whose absurd phrase, "_adieu, mon petit homme adoré_," had rung so unpleasantly in his, coxeter's, ears. the eavesdropper was well aware that such stories are among the everyday occurrences of life, but his knowledge was largely theoretical; john coxeter was not the sort of man to whom other men are willing to confide their shames, sorrows, or even successes in a field of which the aftermath is generally bitter. in as far as such a tale can be told with decent ambiguity it was so told by this man of whose refinement coxeter had formed so poor an opinion, but still the fact that he was telling it remained--and it was a fact which to such a man as coxeter constituted an outrage on the decencies of life. mrs. archdale, by her foolish good-nature, had placed herself in such a position as to be consulted in a case of conscience concerning a jewish tradesman and his light o' love, and now the man was debating with her as with himself, as to whether he should marry this woman, as to whether he should force on his respectable english mother a french daughter-in-law of unmentionable antecedents! coxeter gathered that the liaison had lasted ten years--that it had begun, in fact, very soon after the man had first come to paris. in addition to his feeling of wrath that nan archdale should become cognisant of so sordid a tale, there was associated a feeling of shame that he, coxeter, had overheard what it had not been meant that he should hear. perforce the story went on to its melancholy and inconclusive end, and then, suddenly, coxeter became possessed with a desire to see nan archdale's face. he glanced across at her. to his surprise her face was expressionless; but her left hand was no longer lying on her knee, it was supporting her chin, and she was looking straight before her. "i suppose," she said at last, "that you have made a proper provision for your--your friend? i mean in case of your death. i hope you have so arranged matters that if anything should happen to you, this poor woman who loves you would not have to go back to the kind of life from which you took her." even coxeter divined that nan had not found it easy to say this thing. "why, no, i haven't done anything of that sort. i never thought of doing it; she's always been the delicate party. i am as strong as a horse!" "still--still, life's very uncertain." mrs. archdale was now looking straight into the face of the stranger on whom she was thrusting unsought advice. "she has no claim on me, none at all----" the man spoke defensively. "i don't think she'd expect anything of that sort. she's had a very good time with me. after all, i haven't treated her badly." "i'm sure you haven't," nan spoke very gently. "i am sure you have been always kind to her. but, if i may use the simile you used just now, life, even to the happiest, the most sheltered, of women, isn't all jam!" the man looked at her with a doubting, shame-faced glance. "i expect you're right," he said abruptly. "i ought to have thought of it. i'll make my will when i'm in england this time--i ought to have done so before." suddenly coxeter leant forward. he felt the time had come when he really must put an end to this most unseemly conversation. "mrs. archdale?" he spoke loudly, insistently. she looked up, startled at the sharpness of the tone, and the man next her, whose eyes had been fixed on her face with so moved and doubting a look, sat back. "i want to tell you that i've seen your inventor, and that i've promised to put his invention before the right quarter at the admiralty." in a moment nan was all eagerness. "it really is a very wonderful thing," she said; "i'm so grateful, mr. coxeter. did you go and see it tried? _i_ did, last time i was in paris; the man took me to a swimming-bath on the seine--such an odd place--and there he tested it before me. i was really very much impressed. i do hope you will say a word for it. i am sure they would value your opinion." coxeter looked at her rather grimly. "no, i didn't see it tested." to think that she should have wasted even an hour of her time in such a foolish manner, and in such a queer place, too! "i didn't see the use of doing so, though of course the man was very anxious i should. i'm afraid the thing's no good. how could it be?" he smiled superciliously, and he saw her redden. "how unfair that is!" she exclaimed. "how can you possibly tell whether it's no good if you haven't seen it tried? now i _have_ seen the thing tried." there was such a tone of protest in her voice that coxeter felt called upon to defend himself. "i daresay the thing's all right in theory," he said quickly, "and i believe what he says about the ordinary life-belts; it's quite true, i mean, that they drown more people than they save: but that's only because people don't know how to put them on. this thing's a toy--not practical at all." he spoke more irritably than he generally allowed himself to speak, for he could see that the jew was listening to all that they were saying. all at once, mrs. archdale actually included the sweetmeat stranger in their conversation, and coxeter at last found himself at her request most unwillingly taking the absurd model out of his bag. "of course you've got to imagine this in a rough sea," he said sulkily, playing the devil's advocate, "and not in a fresh water river bath." "well, _i_ wouldn't mind trying it in a rough sea, mr. coxeter." nan smiled as she spoke. coxeter wondered if she was really serious. sometimes he suspected that mrs. archdale was making fun of him--but that surely was impossible. ii when at last they reached boulogne and went on board the packet, coxeter's ill-humour vanished. it was cold, raw, and foggy, and most of their fellow-passengers at once hurried below, but mrs. archdale decided to stay on the upper deck. this pleased her companion; now at last he would have her to himself. in his precise and formal way he went to a good deal of trouble to make nan comfortable; and she, so accustomed to take thought for others, stood aside and watched him find a sheltered corner, secure with some difficulty a deck chair, and then defend it with grim determination against two or three people who tried to lay hands upon it. at last he beckoned to her to sit down. "where's your rug?" he asked. she answered meekly, "i haven't brought one." he put his own rug,--large, light, warm, the best money could buy--round her knees; and in the pleasure it gave him to wait on her thus he did not utter aloud the reproof which had been on his lips. but she saw him shake his head over a more unaccountable omission--on the journey she had somehow lost her gloves. he took his own off, and with a touch of masterfulness made her put them on, himself fastening the big bone buttons over each of her small, childish wrists; but his manner while he did all these things--he would have scorned himself had it been otherwise--was impersonal, businesslike. there are men whose every gesture in connection with a woman becomes an instinctive caress. such men, as every woman learns in time, are not good "stayers," but they make the time go by very quickly--sometimes. with coxeter every minute lasted sixty seconds. but nan archdale found herself looking at him with unwonted kindliness. at last she said, a little tremulously, and with a wondering tone in her voice, "you're very kind to me, mr. coxeter." those who spend their lives in speeding others on their way are generally allowed to trudge along alone; so at least this woman had found it to be. coxeter made no answer to her words--perhaps he did not hear them. even in the few minutes which had elapsed since they came on board, the fog had deepened. the shadowy figures moving about the deck only took substance when they stepped into the circle of brightness cast by a swinging globe of light which hung just above nan archdale's head. coxeter moved forward and took up his place in front of the deck-chair, protecting its occupant from the jostling of the crowd, for the sheltered place he had found stood but a little way back from the passage between the land gangway and the iron staircase leading to the lower deck. there were more passengers that night than usual. they passed, a seemingly endless procession, moving slowly out of the darkness into the circle of light and then again into the white, engulfing mist. at last the deck became clear of moving figures; the cold, raw fog had driven almost everyone below. but coxeter felt curiously content, rather absurdly happy. this was to him a great adventure.... he took out his watch. if the boat started to time they would be off in another five minutes. he told himself that this was turning out a very pleasant journey; as a rule when crossing the channel one meets tiresome people one knows, and they insist on talking to one. and then, just as he was thinking this, there suddenly surged forward out of the foggy mist two people, a newly married couple named rendel, with whom both he and mrs. archdale were acquainted, at whose wedding indeed they had both been present some six or seven weeks ago. so absorbed in earnest talk with one another were the bride and bridegroom that they did not seem to see where they were going; but when close to mrs. archdale they stopped short, and turned towards one another, still talking so eagerly as to be quite oblivious of possible eavesdroppers. john coxeter, standing back in the shadow, felt a sudden gust of envious pain. they were evidently on their way home from their honeymoon, these happy young people, blessed with good looks, money, health, and love; their marriage had been the outcome of quite a pretty romance. but stay,--what was this they were saying? both he and nan unwillingly heard the quick interchange of words, the wife's shrill, angry utterances, the husband's good-humoured expostulations. "i won't stay on the boat, bob. i don't see why we should risk our lives in order that you may be back in town to-morrow. i know it's not safe--my great-uncle, the admiral, always said that the worst storm at sea was not as bad as quite a small fog!" then the gruff answer: "my dear child, don't be a fool! the boat wouldn't start if there was the slightest danger. you heard what that man told us. the fog was much worse this morning, and the boat was only an hour late!" "well, you can do as you like, but _i_ won't cross to-night. where's the use of taking any risk? mother's uncle, the admiral----" and coxeter heard with shocked approval the man's "damn your great-uncle, the admiral!" there they stood, not more than three yards off, the pretty, angry little spitfire looking up at her indignant, helpless husband. coxeter, if disgusted, was amused; there was also the comfort of knowing that they would certainly pretend not to see him, even if by chance they recognized him, intent as they were on their absurd difference. "i shall go back and spend the night at the station hotel. no, you needn't trouble to find stockton for me--there's no time." coxeter and nan heard the laughing gibe, "then you don't mind your poor maid being drowned as well as your poor husband," but the bride went on as if he hadn't spoken--"i've quite enough money with me; you needn't give me anything--_good-bye_." she disappeared into the fog in the direction of the gangway, and coxeter moved hastily to one side. he wished to save bob rendel the annoyance of recognizing him; but then, with amazing suddenness, something happened which made coxeter realize that after all women were even more inexplicable, unreasonable beings than even he had always known them to be. there came the quick patter of feet over the damp deck, and mrs. rendel was back again, close to where her husband was standing. "i've made up my mind to stay on the boat," she said quietly. "i think you are very unwise, as well as very obstinate, to cross in this fog; but if you won't give way, then i'd rather be with you, and share the danger." bob rendel laughed, not very kindly, and together they went across to the stair leading below. coxeter opened his mouth to speak, then he closed it again. what a scene! what a commentary on married life! and these two people were supposed to be "in love" with one another. the little episode had shocked him, jarred his contentment. "if you don't mind, i'll go and smoke a pipe," he said stiffly. mrs. archdale looked up. "oh yes, please do," and yet she felt suddenly bereft of something warm, enveloping, kindly. the words formed themselves on her lips, "don't go too far away," but she did not speak them aloud. but, as if in answer to her unspoken request, coxeter called out, "i'm just here, close by, if you want anything," and the commonplace words gave her a curious feeling of security,--a feeling, though she herself was unaware of it, which her own care and tenderness for others often afforded to those round whom she threw the sheltering mantle of her kindness. perhaps because he was so near, john coxeter remained in her thoughts. almost alone of those human beings with whom life brought her in contact, he made no demand on her sympathy, and very little on her time. in fact, his first offer of marriage had taken her so much by surprise as to strike her as slightly absurd; she had also felt it, at the time, to be an offence, for she had given him no right to encroach on the inner shrine of her being. trying to account for what he had done, she had supposed that john coxeter, being a man who evidently ordered his life according to some kind of system, had believed himself ripe for the honourable estate of marriage, and had chosen her as being "suitable." when writing her cold letter of refusal, she had expected to hear within a few weeks of his engagement to some "nice" girl. but time had gone by and nothing of the sort had happened. coxeter's second offer, conveyed, as had been the first, in a formal letter, had found her in a very different mood, for it had followed very closely on that done by her of which he, john coxeter, had so greatly disapproved. she had been touched this second time and not at all offended, and gradually they had become friends. it was after his second offer that nan began making use of him, not so much for herself as on behalf of other people. nan archdale led her life without reference to what those about her considered appropriate or desirable; and years had gone by since the boldest busybody among them would have ventured a word of rebuke. her social background was composed of happy, prosperous people. they had but little to do with her, however, save when by some amazing mischance things went wrong with them; when all went well they were apt to forget nan archdale. but john coxeter, though essentially one of them by birth and instinct, and though it had been through them that she had first met him, never forgot her. yet though they had become, in a sense, intimate, he made on her none of those demands which endear a man to a woman. living up on a pleasant tableland of self-approval, he never touched the heights or depths which go to form the relief map of most human beings' lives. he always did his duty and generally enjoyed doing it, and he had no patience, only contempt, for those who shirked theirs. the passion of love, that greatest of the protean riddles set by nature to civilized man and woman, played no part, or so nan archdale believed, in john coxeter's life. at the time she had received the letter in which he had first asked her to marry him, there had come to her, seen through the softening mists of time, a sharp, poignant remembrance of jim archdale's offer, "if you won't have me, nan, i'll do something desperate! you'll be sorry then!" so poor jim archdale had conquered her; and looking back, when she recalled their brief married life, she forgot the selfishness and remembered only the love, the love which had made jim so dependent on her presence and her sympathy. but if john coxeter were incapable of love, she now knew him to be a good friend, and it was the friend--so she believed, and was grateful to him for it,--who had asked her to accept what he had quixotically supposed would be the shelter of his name when she had done that thing of which he had disapproved. to-night nan could not help wondering if he would ever again ask her to marry him. she thought not--she hoped not. she told herself quite seriously that he was one of those men who are far happier unwedded. his standard, not so much of feminine virtue as of feminine behaviour, was too high. take what had happened just now; she had listened indulgently, tenderly, to the quarrel of the newly married couple, but she had seen the effect it had produced on john coxeter. to him it had been a tragedy, and an ugly, ignoble tragedy to boot. * * * * * the deck was now clear of passengers. out in the open sea the fog had become so thick as to be impenetrable, and the boat seemed to be groping its way, heralded by the mournful screaming of the siren. mrs. archdale felt drowsy; she leant back and closed her eyes. coxeter was close by, puffing steadily at his pipe. she felt a pleasant sensation of security. she was roused, rather startled, by a man bending over her, while a voice said gruffly, "i think, ma'am, that you'd better get into shelter. the deck saloon is close by. allow me to lead you to it." nan rose obediently. with the petty officer on one side and coxeter on the other, she made a slow progress across the deck, and so to the large, brilliantly lighted saloon. there the fog had been successfully shut out, and some fifteen to twenty people sat on the velvet benches; among them was the sweetmeat merchant to whom nan had talked in the train. coxeter found a comfortable place for nan rather apart from the others, and sitting down he began to talk to her. the fog-horn, which was trumpeting more loudly, more insistently than ever, did not, he thought, interfere with their conversation as much as it might have done. "we shan't be there till morning," coxeter heard a man say, "till morning doth appear, at this rate!" "i suppose we're all right. there's no _real_ danger in a fog--not in the channel; there never has been an accident on the channel passage--not an accident of any serious kind." "yes, there was--to one of the dieppe boats--a very bad accident!" and then several of those present joined in the discussion. the man who had recalled the dieppe boat accident could be heard, self-assertive, pragmatical, his voice raised above the voices around him. "i've been all over the world in my time, and when i'm caught in a fog at sea i always get up, dress, and go up on deck, however sleepy i may be." coxeter, sitting apart by nan's side, listened with some amusement. his rather thin sense of humour was roused by the fact that the people around him were talking in so absurd a manner. this delay was not pleasant; it might even mean that he would be a few hours late at the treasury, a thing he had never once been after a holiday, for coxeter prided himself on his punctuality in the little as well as the great things of life. but, of course, all traffic in the channel would be delayed by this fog, and his absence would be accounted for by the fact. sitting there, close to mrs. archdale, with no one sufficiently near to attract her attention, or, what was more likely, to appeal to her for sympathy, he felt he could well afford to wait till the fog cleared off. as for the loud, insistent screaming of the siren, that sound which apparently got on the nerves of most of those present in the deck saloon, of course it was a disagreeable noise, but then they all knew it was a necessary precaution, so why make a fuss about it? coxeter turned and looked at his companion, and as he looked at her he felt a little possessive thrill of pride. mrs. archdale alone among the people there seemed content and at ease, indeed she was now smiling, smiling very brightly and sweetly, and, following the direction of her eyes, he saw that they rested on a child lying asleep in its mother's arms.... perhaps after all it was a good thing that nan was so detached from material things. before that burst of foolish talk provoked by the fog, he had been speaking to her about a matter very interesting to himself--something connected with his work, something, by the way, of which he would not have thought of speaking to any other woman; but then mrs. archdale, as coxeter had good reason to know, was exceptionally discreet.... she had evidently been very much interested in all he had told her, and he had enjoyed the conversation. coxeter became dimly conscious of what it would mean to him to have nan to come back to when work, and the couple of hours he usually spent at his club, were over. perhaps if nan were waiting for him, he would not wish to stay as long as two hours at his club. but then of course he would want nan all to himself. jealous? certainly not. he was far too sensible a man to feel jealous, but he would expect his wife to put him first--a very long way in front of anybody else. it might be old-fashioned, but he was that sort of man. * * * * * coxeter's thoughts leapt back into the present with disagreeable abruptness. their jewish fellow-traveller, the man who had thrust on mrs. archdale such unseemly confidences, had got up. he was now heading straight for the place where mrs. archdale was sitting. coxeter quickly decided that the fellow must not be allowed to bore mrs. archdale. she was in his, coxeter's, care to-night, and he alone had a right to her interest and attention. so he got up and walked down the saloon. to his surprise the other, on seeing him come near, stopped dead. "i want to speak to you," he said in a low voice, "mr.--er--coxeter." coxeter looked at him, surprised, then reminded himself that his full name, "john coxeter," was painted on his portmanteau. also that mrs. archdale had called him "mr. coxeter" at least once, when discussing that life-saving toy. still, sharp, observant fellows, jews! one should always be on one's guard with them. "yes?" he said interrogatively. "well, mr. coxeter, i want to ask you to do me a little favour. the truth is i've just made my will--only a few lines--and i want you to be my second witness. i've no objection, none in the world, to your seeing what i want you to witness." he spoke very deliberately, as if he had prepared the form of words in which he made his strange request, and as he spoke he held out a sheet of paper apparently torn out of a notebook. "i asked that gentleman over there"--he jerked his thumb over his shoulder--"to be my first witness, and he kindly consented. i'd be much obliged if you'd sign your name just here. i'll also ask you to take charge of it--only a small envelope, as you see. it's addressed to my mother. i've made her executor and residuary legatee." coxeter felt a strong impulse to refuse. he never mixed himself up with other people's affairs; he always refused to do so on principle. the man standing opposite to him divined what was passing through his mind, and broke in, "only just while we're on this boat. you can tear it up and chuck the pieces away once we're on land again--" he spoke nervously, and with contemptuous amazement coxeter told himself that the fellow was _afraid_. "surely you don't think there's any danger?" he asked. "d'you mean you've made this will because you think something may happen to the boat?" the other nodded, "accidents do happen"; he smiled rather foolishly as he said the words, pronouncing the last one, as coxeter noted with disapproval, "habben." he was holding out a fountain pen; he had an ingratiating manner, and coxeter, to his own surprise, suddenly gave way. "all right," he said, and taking the paper in his hand he glanced over it. he had no desire to pry into any man's private affairs, but he wasn't going to sign anything without first reading it. this odd little will consisted of only two sentences, written in a clear, clerkly hand. the first bequeathed an annuity of £ (six thousand francs) to léonie lenoir, of rue lafayette, paris; the second appointed the testator's mother, mrs. solomon munich, of scott terrace, maida vale, residuary legatee and executor. the will was signed "victor munich." "very well, i'll sign it," said coxeter, at last, "and i'll take charge of it till we're on land. but look here--i won't keep it a moment longer!" then, perhaps a little ashamed of his ungraciousness, "i say, mr. munich, if i were you i'd go below and take a stiffish glass of brandy and water. i once had a fright, i was nearly run over by a brewer's dray at charing cross, and i did that--took some brandy i mean--" he jerked the words out, conscious that the other's sallow face had reddened. then he signed his name at the bottom of the sheet of paper, and busied himself with putting the envelope carefully into his pocketbook. "there," he said, with the slight supercilious smile which was his most marked physical peculiarity, but of which he was quite unconscious, "your will is quite safe now! if we meet at folkestone i'll hand it you back; if we miss one another in the--er--fog i'll destroy it, as arranged." he turned and began walking back to where nan archdale was sitting. what a very odd thing! how extraordinary, how unexpected! then a light broke in on him. why, of course, it was nan who had brought this about! she had touched up the jew fellow's conscience, frightened him about that woman--the woman who had so absurdly termed him her "_petit homme adoré_." that's what came of mixing up in other people's business; but coxeter's eyes nevertheless rested on the sitting figure of his friend with a certain curious indulgence. odd, sentimental, sensitive creatures--women! but brave--not lacking in moral courage anyway. as he came close up to her, mrs. archdale moved a little, making room for him to sit down by her. it was a graceful, welcoming gesture, and john coxeter's pulse began to quicken.... he told himself that this also was an extraordinary thing--this journey with the woman he had wished to make his wife. he felt her to be so tantalizingly near, and yet in a sense so very far away. his eyes fell on her right hand, still encased in his large brown glove. as he had buttoned that glove, he had touched her soft wrist, and a wild impulse had come to him to bend yet a little closer and press his lips to the white triangle of yielding flesh. of course he had resisted the temptation, reminding himself sternly that it was a caddish thing even to have thought of taking advantage of nan's confiding friendliness. yet now he wondered whether he had been a fool not to do it. other men did those things. * * * * * there came a dragging, grating sound, the boat shuddering as if in response. coxeter had the odd sensation that he was being gently but irresistibly pushed round, and yet he sat quite still, with nothing in the saloon changed in relation to himself. someone near him exclaimed in a matter-of-fact voice, "we've struck; we're on a rock." everyone stood up, and he saw an awful look of doubt, of unease, cross the faces of the men and women about him. the fog-horn ceased trumpeting, and there rose confused sounds, loud hoarse shouts and thin shrill cries, accompanying the dull thunder caused by the tramping of feet. then the lights went out, all but the yellow flame of a small oil lamp which none of them had known was there. the glass-panelled door opened widely, and a burly figure holding a torch, which flared up in the still, moist air, was outlined against the steamy waves of fog. "come out of here!" he cried; and then, as some people tried to push past him, "steady, keep cool! there'll be room in the boats for every soul on board," and coxeter, looking at the pale, glistening face, told himself that the man was lying, and that he knew he lied. they stumbled out, one by one, and joined the great company which was now swarming over the upper deck, each man and woman forlorn and lonely as human beings must ever be when individually face to face with death. coxeter's right hand gripped firmly mrs. archdale's arm. she was pressing closely to his side, shrinking back from the rough crowd surging about them, and he was filled with a fierce protective tenderness which left no room in his mind for any thought of self. his one thought was how to preserve his companion from contact with some of those about them; wild-eyed, already distraught creatures, swayed with a terror which set them apart from the mass of quiet, apparently dazed people who stood patiently waiting to do what they were told. close to nan and coxeter two men were talking spanish; they were gesticulating, and seemed to be disagreeing angrily as to what course to pursue. presently one of them suddenly produced a long knife which glittered in the torchlight; with it he made a gesture as if to show the other that he meant to cut his way through the crowd towards the spot, now railed off with rope barriers, where the boats were being got ready for the water. with a quick movement coxeter unbuttoned his cloak and drew nan within its folds; putting his arms round her he held her, loosely and yet how firmly clasped to his breast. "i can't help it," he muttered apologetically. "forgive me!" as only answer she seemed to draw yet closer to him, and then she lay, still and silent, within his sheltering arms,--and at that moment he remembered to be glad he had not kissed her wrist. they two stood there, encompassed by a living wall, and yet how strangely alone. the fog had become less dense, or else the resin torches which flared up all about them cleared the air. from the captain's bridge there whistled every quarter minute a high rocket, and soon from behind the wall of fog came in answer distant signals full of a mingled mockery and hope to the people waiting there. but for john coxeter the drama of his own soul took precedence of that going on round him. had he been alone he would have shared to the full the awful, exasperating feeling of being trapped, of there being nothing to be done, which possessed all the thinking minds about him. but he was not alone---- nan, lying on his breast, seemed to pour virtue into him--to make him extraordinarily alive. never had he felt death, extinction so near, and yet there seemed to be something outside himself, a spirit informing, uplifting, and conquering the flesh. perceptions, sympathies, which had lain dormant during the whole of his thirty-nine years of life, now sprang into being. his imagination awoke. he saw that it was this woman, now standing, with such complete trust in the niceness of his honour, heart to heart with him, who had made the best of that at once solitary and companioned journey which we call life. he had thought her to be a fool; he now saw that, if a fool, she had been a divine fool, ever engaged while on her pilgrimage with the only things that now mattered. how great was the sum of her achievement compared with his. she had been a beacon diffusing light and warmth; he a shadow among shadows. if to-night he were engulfed in the unknown, for so death was visioned by john coxeter, who would miss him, who would feel the poorer for his sudden obliteration? * * * * * coxeter came back into the present; he looked round him, and for the first time he felt the disabling clutch of physical fear. the life-belts were being given out, and there came to him a horrid vision of the people round him as they might be an hour hence, drowned, heads down, legs up, done to death by those monstrous yellow bracelets which they were now putting on with such clumsy, feverish eagerness. he was touched on the arm, and a husky voice, with which he was by now familiar, said urgently, "mr. coxeter--see, i've brought your bag out of the saloon." the man whose name he knew to be victor munich was standing at his elbow. "look here, don't take offence, mr. coxeter, i think better of the----" he hesitated--"the life-saver that you've got in this bag of yours than you do. i'm willing to give you a fancy price for it--what would you say to a thousand pounds? i daresay i shan't have occasion to use it, but of course i take that risk." coxeter, with a quick, unobtrusive movement, released mrs. archdale. he turned and stared, not pleasantly, at the man who was making him so odd an offer. damn the fellow's impudence! "the life-saver is not for sale," he said shortly. nan had heard but little of the quick colloquy. she did not connect it with the fact that the strong protecting arms which had been about her were now withdrawn,--and the tears came into her eyes. she felt both in a physical and in a spiritual sense suddenly alone. john coxeter, the one human being who ever attempted to place himself on a more intimate, personal plane with her, happened, by a strange irony of fate, to be her companion in this awful adventure. but even he had now turned away from her.... nay, that was not quite true. he was again looking down at her, and she felt his hand groping for hers. as he found and clasped it, he made a movement as if he wished again to draw her towards him. gently she resisted, and at once she felt that he responded to her feeling of recoil, and nan, with a confused sense of shame and anger, was now hurt by his submission. most men in his place would have made short work of her resistance,--would have taken her, masterfully, into the shelter of his arms. there came a little stir among the people on the deck. coxeter heard a voice call out in would-be-cheery tones, "now then, ladies! please step out--ladies and children only. look sharp!" a sailor close by whispered gruffly to his mate, "i'll stick to her anyhow. no crowded boats for me! i expect she'll be a good hour settling--perhaps a bit longer." as the first boat-load swung into the water, some of the people about them gave a little cheer. coxeter thought, but he will never be quite sure, that in that cheer nan joined. there was a delay of a minute; then again the captain's voice rang out, this time in a sharper, more peremptory tone, "now, ladies, look sharp! come along, please." coxeter unclasped nan's hand--he did not know how tightly he had been holding it. he loved her. god, how he loved her! and now he must send her away--away into the shrouding fog--away, just as he had found her. if what he had overheard were true, might he not be sending nan to a worse fate than that of staying to take the risk with him? but the very man who had spoken so doubtfully of the boats just now came forward. "you'd best hurry your lady forward, sir. there's no time to lose." there was an anxious, warning note in the rough voice. "you must go now," said coxeter heavily. "i shall be all right, mrs. archdale," for she was making no movement forward. "there'll be plenty of room for the men in the next boat. i'd walk across the deck with you, but i'm afraid they won't allow that." he spoke in his usual matter-of-fact, rather dry tone, and nan looked up at him doubtingly. did he really wish her to leave him? flickering streaks of light fell on his face. it was convulsed with feeling,--with what had become an agony of renunciation. she withdrew her eyes, feeling a shamed, exultant pang of joy. "i'll wait till there's room for you, too, mr. coxeter." she breathed rather than actually uttered the words aloud. another woman standing close by was saying the same thing to her companion, but in far more eager, more vociferous tones. "is it likely that i should go away now and leave you, bob? of course not--don't be ridiculous!" but the rendels pushed forward, and finally both found places in this, the last boat but one. victor munich was still standing close to john coxeter, and mrs. archdale, glancing at his sallow, terror-stricken face, felt a thrill of generous pity for the man. "mr. coxeter," she whispered, "do give him that life-saver! did he not ask you for it just now? we don't want it." coxeter bent down and unstrapped his portmanteau. he handed to nan the odd, toy-like thing by which he had set so little store, but which now he let go with a touch of reluctance. he saw her move close to the man whose name she did not know. "here is the life-saver," she said kindly; "i heard you say you would like it." "but you?"--he stammered--"how about you?" "i don't want it. i shall be all right. i shouldn't put it on in any case." he took it then, avidly; and they saw him go forward with a quick, stealthy movement to the place where the last boat was being got ready for the water. "there's plenty of room for you and the lady now, sir!" coxeter hurried nan across the deck, but suddenly they were pushed roughly back. the rope barriers had been cut, and a hand-to-hand struggle was taking place round the boat,--an ugly scrimmage to which as little reference as possible was made at the wreck inquiry afterwards. to those who looked on it was a horrible, an unnerving sight; and this time coxeter with sudden strength took nan back into his arms. he felt her trembling, shuddering against him,--what she had just seen had loosed fear from its leash. "i'm frightened," she moaned. "oh, mr. coxeter, i'm so horribly frightened of those men! are they all gone?" "yes," he said grimly, "most of them managed to get into the boat. don't be frightened. i think we're safer here than we should be with those ruffians." another man would have found easy terms of endearment and comfort for almost any woman so thrust on his protection and care, but the very depth of coxeter's feeling seemed to make him dumb,--that and his anguished fear lest by his fault, by his own want of quickness, she had perhaps missed her chance of being saved. but what he was lacking another man supplied. this was the captain, and nan, listening to the cheering, commonplace words, felt her nerve, her courage, come back. "stayed with your husband?" he said, coming up to them. "quite right, mum! don't you be frightened. look at me and my men, we're not frightened--not a bit of it! my boat will last right enough for us to be picked off ten times over. i tell you quite fairly and squarely, if i'd my wife aboard i'd 'a kept her with me. i'd rather be on this boat of mine than i would be out there, on the open water, in this fog." but as he walked back to the place where stood the rocket apparatus, coxeter heard him mutter, "the brutes! not all seconds or thirds either. i wish i had 'em here, i'd give 'em what for!" * * * * * later, when reading the narratives supplied by some of the passengers who perforce had remained on the doomed boat, coxeter was surprised to learn how many thrilling experiences he had apparently missed during the long four hours which elapsed before their rescue. and yet the time of waiting and suspense probably appeared as long to him as it did to any of the fifty odd souls who stayed, all close together, on the upper deck waiting with what seemed a stolid resignation for what might next befall them. from the captain, coxeter, leaving mrs. archdale for a moment, had extracted the truth. they had drifted down the french coast. they were on a dangerous reef of rock, and the rising of the wind, the lifting of the fog, for which they all looked so eagerly, might be the signal for the breaking up of the boat. on the other hand, the boat might hold for days. it was all a chance. coxeter kept what he had learnt to himself, but he was filled with a dull, aching sensation of suspense. his remorse that he had not hurried mrs. archdale into one of the first boats became almost intolerable. why had he not placed her in the care even of the jew, victor munich, who was actually seated in the last boat before the scramble round it had begun? more fortunate than he, mrs. archdale found occupation in tending the few forlorn women who had been thrust back. he watched her moving among them with an admiration no longer unwilling; she looked bright, happy, almost gay, and the people to whom she talked, to whom she listened, caught something of her spirit. coxeter would have liked to follow her example, but though he saw that some of the men round him were eager to talk and to discuss the situation, his tongue refused to form words of commonplace cheer. when with the coming of the dawn the fog lifted, nan came up to coxeter as he stood apart, while the other passengers were crowding round a fire which had been lit on the open deck. together in silence they watched the rolling away of the enshrouding mist; together they caught sight of the fleet of french fishing boats from which was to come succour. as he turned and clasped her hand, he heard her say, more to herself than to him, "i did not think we should be saved." iii john coxeter was standing in the library of mrs. archdale's home in wimpole street. two nights had elapsed since their arrival in london, and now he was to see her for the first time since they had parted on the charing cross platform, in the presence of the crowd of people comprised of unknown sympathisers, acquaintances, and friends who had come to meet them. he looked round him with a curious sense of unfamiliarity. the colouring of the room was grey and white, with touches of deep-toned mahogany. it was nan's favourite sitting-room, though it still looked what it had been ever since nan could remember it--a man's room. in his day her father had been a collector of books, medals, and engravings connected with the severer type of eighteenth-century art and letters. in a sense this room always pleased coxeter's fancy, partly because it implied a great many things that money and even modern culture cannot buy. but now, this morning--for it was still early, and he was on his way to his office for the first time since what an aunt of his had called his mysterious preservation from death--he seemed to see everything in this room in another light. everything which had once been to him important had become, if not worthless, then unessential. he had sometimes secretly wondered why mrs. archdale, possessed as she was of considerable means, had not altered the old house, had not made it pretty as her friends' houses and rooms were pretty; but to-day he no longer wondered at this. his knowledge of the fleetingness of life, and of the unimportance of all he had once thought so important, was too vividly present.... she came into the room, and he saw that she was dressed in a more feminine kind of garment than that in which he generally saw her. it was white, and though girdled with a black ribbon, it made her look very young, almost girlish. for a moment they looked at one another in constraint. mrs. archdale also had altered, altered far less than john coxeter, but she was aware, as he was not aware, of the changes which long nearness to death had brought her; and for almost the first time in her life she was more absorbed in her own sensations than in those of the person with her. seeing john coxeter standing there waiting for her, looking so like his old self, so absolutely unchanged, confused her and made her feel desperately shy. she held out her hand, but coxeter scarcely touched it. after having held her so long in his arms, he did not care to take her hand in formal greeting. she mistook his gesture, thought that he was annoyed at having received no word from her since they had parted. the long day in between had been to nan archdale full of nervous horror, for relations, friends, acquaintances had come in troops to see her, and would not be denied. already she had received two or three angry notes from people who thought they loved her, and who were bitterly incensed that she had refused to see them when they had rushed to hear her account of an adventure which might so easily have happened to them. she made the mistake of confusing coxeter with these selfish people. "i am so sorry," she said in a low voice, "that when you called yesterday i was supposed to be asleep. i have been most anxious to see you"--she waited a moment and then added his name--"mr. coxeter. i knew that you would have the latest news, and that you would tell it me." "there is news," he said, "of all the boats; good news--with the exception of the last boat----" his voice sounded strangely to himself. "oh, but that must be all right too, mr. coxeter! the captain said the boats might drift about for a long time." coxeter shook his head. "i'm afraid not," he said. "in fact"--he waited a moment, and she came close up to him. "tell me," she commanded in a low voice, "tell me what you know. they say i ought to put it all out of my mind, but i can think of nothing else. whenever i close my eyes i see the awful struggle that went on round that last boat!" she gave a quick, convulsive sob. coxeter was dismayed. how wildly she spoke, how unlike herself she seemed to-day--how unlike what she had been during the whole of their terrible ordeal. already that ordeal had become, to him, something to be treasured. there is no lack of physical courage in the breed of englishmen to which john coxeter belonged. pain, entirely unassociated with shame, holds out comparatively little terror to such as he. there was something rueful in the look he gave her. "the last boat was run down in the fog," he said briefly. "some of the bodies have been washed up on the french coast." she looked at him apprehensively. "any of the people we had spoken to? any of those who were with us in the railway carriage?" "yes, i'm sorry to say that one of the bodies washed up is that of the person who sat next to you." "that poor french boy?" coxeter shook his head. "no, no--he's all right; at least i believe he's all right. it--the body i mean--was that of your other neighbour;" he added, unnecessarily, "the man who made sweets." and then for the first time coxeter saw nan archdale really moved out of herself. what he had just said had had the power to touch her, to cause her greater anguish than anything which had happened during the long hours of terror they had gone through. she turned and, moving as if blindly, pressed her hand to her face as if to shut out some terrible and pitiful sight. "ah!" she exclaimed in a low voice, "i shall never forgive myself over that! do you know i had a kind of instinct that i ought to ask that man the name, the address"--her voice quivered and broke--"of his friend--of that poor young woman who saw him off at the paris station." till this moment coxeter had not known that nan had been aware of what had, to himself, been so odious, so ridiculous, and so grotesque, a scene. but now he felt differently about this, as about everything else that touched on the quick of life. for the first time he understood, even sympathized with, nan's concern for that majority of human beings who are born to suffering and who are bare to the storm.... "look here," he said awkwardly, "don't be unhappy. it's all right. that man spoke to me on the boat--he did what you wished, he made a will providing for that woman; i took charge of it for him. as a matter of fact i went and saw his old mother yesterday. she behaved splendidly." "then the life-saver was no good after all?" "no good," he said, and he avoided looking at her. "at least so it would seem, but who can tell?" nan's eyes filled with tears; something beckoning, appealing seemed to pass from her to him.... the door suddenly opened. "mrs. eaton, ma'am. she says she only heard what happened, to-day, and she's sure you will see her." before mrs. archdale could answer, a woman had pushed her way past the maid into the room. "nan? poor darling! what an awful thing! i _am_ glad i came so early; now you will be able to tell me all about it!" the visitor, looking round her, saw john coxeter, and seemed surprised. fortunately she did not know him, and, feeling as if, had he stayed, he must have struck the woman, he escaped from the room. * * * * * as coxeter went through the hall, filled with a perplexity and pain very alien from his positive nature, a good-looking, clean-shaven man, who gave him a quick measured glance, passed by. with him there had been no parleying at the door as in coxeter's own case. "who's that?" he asked, with a scowl, of the servant. "the doctor, sir," and he felt absurdly relieved. "we sent for him yesterday, for mrs. archdale seemed very bad last night." the servant dropped her voice, "it's the doctor, sir, as says mrs. archdale oughtn't to see visitors. you see it was in all the papers about the shipwreck, sir, and of course mrs. archdale's friends all come and see her to hear about it. they've never stopped. the doctor, he says that she ought to have stayed in bed and been quite quiet. but what would be the good of that, seeing she don't seem able to sleep? i suppose you've not suffered that way yourself, sir?" the young woman was staring furtively at coxeter, but, noting his cold manner and imperturbable face, she felt that he was indeed a disappointing hero of romance--not at all the sort of gentleman with whom one would care to be shipwrecked, if it came to a matter of choice. "no," he said solemnly, "i can't say that i have." he looked thoughtfully out into what had never been to him a "long unlovely street," and which just now was the only place in the world where he desired to stay. coxeter, always so sure of himself, and of what was the best and wisest thing to do in every circumstance of life, felt for the first time unable to cope with a situation presented to his notice. as he was hesitating, a carriage drove up, and a footman came forward with a card, while the occupant of the carriage called out, making anxious inquiries as to mrs. archdale's condition, and promising to call again the same afternoon. coxeter suddenly told himself that it behoved him to see the doctor, and ascertain from him whether mrs. archdale was really ill. he crossed the street, and began pacing up and down, and unconsciously he quickened his steps as he went over every moment of his brief interview with nan. all that was himself--and there was a good deal more of john coxeter than even he was at all aware of--had gone out to her in a rapture of memory and longing, but she, or so it seemed to him, had purposely made herself remote. at last, after what seemed a very long time, the doctor came out of mrs. archdale's house and began walking quickly down the street. coxeter crossed over and touched him on the arm. "if i may," he said, "i should like a word with you. i want to ask you--i mean i trust that mrs. archdale is recovering from the effect of the terrible experience she went through the other night." he spoke awkwardly, stiffly. "i saw her for a few minutes just before you came, and i was sorry to find her very unlike herself." the doctor went on walking; he looked coldly at coxeter. "it's a great pity that mrs. archdale's friends can't leave her alone! as to being unlike herself, you and i would probably be very unlike ourselves if we had gone through what this poor lady had just gone through!" "you see, i was with her on the boat. we were not travelling together," coxeter corrected himself hastily, "i happened to meet her merely on the journey. my name is coxeter." the other man's manner entirely altered. he slackened in his quick walk. "i beg your pardon," he said; "of course i had no notion who you were. she says you saved her life! that but for you she would have been in that boat--the boat that was lost." coxeter tried to say something in denial of this surprising statement, but the doctor hurried on, "i may tell you that i'm very worried about mrs. archdale--in fact seriously concerned at her condition. if you have any influence with her, i beg you to persuade her to refuse herself to the endless busybodies who want to hear her account of what happened. she won't have a trained nurse, but there ought to be someone on guard--a human watchdog warranted to snarl and bite!" "do you think she ought to go away from london?" asked coxeter in a low voice. "no, i don't think that--at least not for the present," the medical man frowned thoughtfully. "what she wants is to be taken out of herself. if i could prescribe what i believe would be the best thing for her, i should advise that she go away to some other part of london with someone who will never speak to her of what happened, and yet who will always listen to her when she wants to talk about it--some sensible, commonplace person who could distract her mind without tiring her, and who would make her do things she has never done before. if she was an ordinary smart lady, i should prescribe philanthropy"--he made a slight grimace--"make her go and see some of my poorer patients--come into contact with a little _real_ trouble. but that would be no change to mrs. archdale. no; what she wants is someone who will force her to be selfish--who will take her up the monument one day, and to a music-hall the next, motor her out to richmond park, make her take a good long walk, and then sit by the sofa and hold her hand if she feels like crying----" he stopped, a little ashamed of his energy. "thank you," said coxeter very seriously, "i'm much obliged to you for telling me this. i can see the sense of what you say." "you know, in spite of her quiet manner, mrs. archdale's a nervous, sensitive woman"--the doctor was looking narrowly at coxeter as he spoke. "she was perfectly calm and--and very brave at the time----" "that means nothing! pluck's not a matter of nerve--it ought to be, but it isn't! but i admit you're a remarkable example of the presence of the one coupled with the absence of the other. you don't seem a penny the worse, and yet it must have been a very terrible experience." "you see, it came at the end of my holiday," said coxeter gravely, "and, as a matter of fact"--he hesitated--"i feel quite well, in fact, remarkably well. do you see any objection to my calling again, i mean to-day, on mrs. archdale? i might put what you have just said before her." "yes, do! do that by all means! seeing how well you have come through it"--the doctor could not help smiling a slightly satirical smile--"ought to be a lesson to mrs. archdale. it ought to show her that after all she is perhaps making a great deal of fuss about nothing." "hardly that," said coxeter with a frown. they had now come to the corner of queen anne street. he put out his hand hesitatingly. the doctor took it, and, oddly enough, held it for a moment while he spoke. "think over what i've said, mr. coxeter. it's a matter of hours. mrs. archdale ought to be taken in hand at once." then he went off, crossing the street. "pity the man's such a dry stick," he said to himself; "now's his chance, if he only knew it!" john coxeter walked straight on. he had written the day before to say that he would be at his office as usual this morning, but now the fact quite slipped his mind. wild thoughts were surging through his brain; they were running away with him and to such unexpected places! the monument? he had never thought of going up the monument; he would formerly have thought it a sad waste of time, but now the monument became to john coxeter a place of pilgrimage, a spot of secret healing. a man had once told him that the best way to see the city was at night, but that if you were taking a lady you should choose a sunday morning, and go there on the top of a 'bus. he had thought the man who said this very eccentric, but now he remembered the advice and thought it well worth following. by the time coxeter turned into cavendish square he had travelled far further than the monument. he was in richmond park; nan's hand was thrust through his arm, as it had been while they had watched the first boat fill slowly with the women and children. * * * * * to lovers who remember, the streets of a great town, far more than country roads and lanes, hold over the long years precious, poignant memories, for a background of stones and mortar has about it a character of permanence which holds captive and echoes the scenes and words enacted and uttered there. coxeter has not often occasion to go the little round he went that morning, but when some accidental circumstance causes him to do so, he finds himself again in the heart of that kingdom of romance from which he was so long an alien, and of which he has now become a naturalized subject. as most of us know, many ways lead to the kingdom of romance; coxeter found his way there by a water-way. and so it is that when he reaches the turning into queen anne street there seems to rise round him the atmosphere of what londoners call the city--the city as it is at night, uncannily deserted save for the ghosts and lovers who haunt its solitary thoroughfares after the bustle of the day is stilled. it was then that he and nan first learnt to wander there. from there he travels on into golden sunlight; he is again in richmond park as it was during the whole of that beautiful october. walking up the west side of cavendish square, coxeter again becomes absorbed in his great adventure,--a far greater adventure than that with which his friends and acquaintances still associate his name. with some surprise, even perhaps with some discomfiture, he sees himself--for he has not wholly cast out the old adam--he sees himself as he was that memorable morning, carried, that is, wholly out of his usual wise, ponderate self. perhaps he even wonders a little how he could ever have found courage to do what he did--he who has always thought so much, in a hidden way, of the world's opinion and of what people will say. he could still tell you which lamp-post he was striding past when he realized, with a thrill of relief, that in any case nan archdale would not treat him as would almost certainly do one of those women whom he had honoured with his cold approval something less than a week ago. any one of those women would have regarded what he was now going to ask nan to do as an outrage on the conventions of life. but nan archdale would be guided only by what she herself thought right and seemly.... and then, as he turns again into wimpole street, as he comes near to what was once his wife's house, his long steady stride becomes slower. unwillingly he is living again those doubtful moments when he knocked at her door, when he gave the surprised maid the confused explanation that he had a message from the doctor for mrs. archdale. he hears the young woman say, "mrs. archdale is just going out, sir. the doctor thought she ought to take a walk;" and his muttered answer, "i won't keep her a moment...." again he feels the exultant, breathless thrill which seized him when she slipped, neither of them exactly knew how, into his arms, and when the sentences he had prepared, the arguments he meant to use, in his hurried rush up the long street, were all forgotten. he hears himself imploring her to come away with him now, at once. is she not dressed to go out? instinct teaches him for the first time to make to her the one appeal to which she ever responds. he had meant to tell her what the doctor had said--to let that explain his great temerity--but instead he tells her only that he wants her, that he cannot go on living apart from her. is there any good reason why they should not start now, this moment, for doctors' commons, in order to see how soon they can be married? so it is that when john coxeter stands in wimpole street, so typical a londoner belonging to the leisured and conventional class that none of the people passing by even glance his way, he lives again through the immortal moment when she said, "very well." * * * * * to this day, so transforming is the miracle of love, nan coxeter believes that during their curious honeymoon it was she who was taking care of john, not he of her. tales of terror and mystery by sir arthur conan doyle contents tales of terror the horror of the heights the leather funnel the new catacomb the case of lady sannox the terror of blue john gap the brazilian cat tales of mystery the lost special the beetle-hunter the man with the watches the japanned box the black doctor the jew's breastplate tales of terror the horror of the heights the idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the joyce-armstrong fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. the most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragic facts which reinforce the statement. though the assertions contained in it are amazing and even monstrous, it is none the less forcing itself upon the general intelligence that they are true, and that we must readjust our ideas to the new situation. this world of ours appears to be separated by a slight and precarious margin of safety from a most singular and unexpected danger. i will endeavour in this narrative, which reproduces the original document in its necessarily somewhat fragmentary form, to lay before the reader the whole of the facts up to date, prefacing my statement by saying that, if there be any who doubt the narrative of joyce-armstrong, there can be no question at all as to the facts concerning lieutenant myrtle, r. n., and mr. hay connor, who undoubtedly met their end in the manner described. the joyce-armstrong fragment was found in the field which is called lower haycock, lying one mile to the westward of the village of withyham, upon the kent and sussex border. it was on the th september last that an agricultural labourer, james flynn, in the employment of mathew dodd, farmer, of the chauntry farm, withyham, perceived a briar pipe lying near the footpath which skirts the hedge in lower haycock. a few paces farther on he picked up a pair of broken binocular glasses. finally, among some nettles in the ditch, he caught sight of a flat, canvas-backed book, which proved to be a note-book with detachable leaves, some of which had come loose and were fluttering along the base of the hedge. these he collected, but some, including the first, were never recovered, and leave a deplorable hiatus in this all-important statement. the note-book was taken by the labourer to his master, who in turn showed it to dr. j. h. atherton, of hartfield. this gentleman at once recognized the need for an expert examination, and the manuscript was forwarded to the aero club in london, where it now lies. the first two pages of the manuscript are missing. there is also one torn away at the end of the narrative, though none of these affect the general coherence of the story. it is conjectured that the missing opening is concerned with the record of mr. joyce-armstrong's qualifications as an aeronaut, which can be gathered from other sources and are admitted to be unsurpassed among the air-pilots of england. for many years he has been looked upon as among the most daring and the most intellectual of flying men, a combination which has enabled him to both invent and test several new devices, including the common gyroscopic attachment which is known by his name. the main body of the manuscript is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are in pencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible--exactly, in fact, as they might be expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly from the seat of a moving aeroplane. there are, it may be added, several stains, both on the last page and on the outside cover which have been pronounced by the home office experts to be blood--probably human and certainly mammalian. the fact that something closely resembling the organism of malaria was discovered in this blood, and that joyce-armstrong is known to have suffered from intermittent fever, is a remarkable example of the new weapons which modern science has placed in the hands of our detectives. and now a word as to the personality of the author of this epoch-making statement. joyce-armstrong, according to the few friends who really knew something of the man, was a poet and a dreamer, as well as a mechanic and an inventor. he was a man of considerable wealth, much of which he had spent in the pursuit of his aeronautical hobby. he had four private aeroplanes in his hangars near devizes, and is said to have made no fewer than one hundred and seventy ascents in the course of last year. he was a retiring man with dark moods, in which he would avoid the society of his fellows. captain dangerfield, who knew him better than anyone, says that there were times when his eccentricity threatened to develop into something more serious. his habit of carrying a shot-gun with him in his aeroplane was one manifestation of it. another was the morbid effect which the fall of lieutenant myrtle had upon his mind. myrtle, who was attempting the height record, fell from an altitude of something over thirty thousand feet. horrible to narrate, his head was entirely obliterated, though his body and limbs preserved their configuration. at every gathering of airmen, joyce-armstrong, according to dangerfield, would ask, with an enigmatic smile: "and where, pray, is myrtle's head?" on another occasion after dinner, at the mess of the flying school on salisbury plain, he started a debate as to what will be the most permanent danger which airmen will have to encounter. having listened to successive opinions as to air-pockets, faulty construction, and over-banking, he ended by shrugging his shoulders and refusing to put forward his own views, though he gave the impression that they differed from any advanced by his companions. it is worth remarking that after his own complete disappearance it was found that his private affairs were arranged with a precision which may show that he had a strong premonition of disaster. with these essential explanations i will now give the narrative exactly as it stands, beginning at page three of the blood-soaked note-book: "nevertheless, when i dined at rheims with coselli and gustav raymond i found that neither of them was aware of any particular danger in the higher layers of the atmosphere. i did not actually say what was in my thoughts, but i got so near to it that if they had any corresponding idea they could not have failed to express it. but then they are two empty, vainglorious fellows with no thought beyond seeing their silly names in the newspaper. it is interesting to note that neither of them had ever been much beyond the twenty-thousand-foot level. of course, men have been higher than this both in balloons and in the ascent of mountains. it must be well above that point that the aeroplane enters the danger zone--always presuming that my premonitions are correct. "aeroplaning has been with us now for more than twenty years, and one might well ask: why should this peril be only revealing itself in our day? the answer is obvious. in the old days of weak engines, when a hundred horse-power gnome or green was considered ample for every need, the flights were very restricted. now that three hundred horse-power is the rule rather than the exception, visits to the upper layers have become easier and more common. some of us can remember how, in our youth, garros made a world-wide reputation by attaining nineteen thousand feet, and it was considered a remarkable achievement to fly over the alps. our standard now has been immeasurably raised, and there are twenty high flights for one in former years. many of them have been undertaken with impunity. the thirty-thousand-foot level has been reached time after time with no discomfort beyond cold and asthma. what does this prove? a visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. yet tigers exist, and if he chanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. there are jungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers which inhabit them. i believe in time they will map these jungles accurately out. even at the present moment i could name two of them. one of them lies over the pau-biarritz district of france. another is just over my head as i write here in my house in wiltshire. i rather think there is a third in the homburg-wiesbaden district. "it was the disappearance of the airmen that first set me thinking. of course, everyone said that they had fallen into the sea, but that did not satisfy me at all. first, there was verrier in france; his machine was found near bayonne, but they never got his body. there was the case of baxter also, who vanished, though his engine and some of the iron fixings were found in a wood in leicestershire. in that case, dr. middleton, of amesbury, who was watching the flight with a telescope, declares that just before the clouds obscured the view he saw the machine, which was at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularly upwards in a succession of jerks in a manner that he would have thought to be impossible. that was the last seen of baxter. there was a correspondence in the papers, but it never led to anything. there were several other similar cases, and then there was the death of hay connor. what a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air, and what columns in the halfpenny papers, and yet how little was ever done to get to the bottom of the business! he came down in a tremendous vol-plane from an unknown height. he never got off his machine and died in his pilot's seat. died of what? 'heart disease,' said the doctors. rubbish! hay connor's heart was as sound as mine is. what did venables say? venables was the only man who was at his side when he died. he said that he was shivering and looked like a man who had been badly scared. 'died of fright,' said venables, but could not imagine what he was frightened about. only said one word to venables, which sounded like 'monstrous.' they could make nothing of that at the inquest. but i could make something of it. monsters! that was the last word of poor harry hay connor. and he did die of fright, just as venables thought. "and then there was myrtle's head. do you really believe--does anybody really believe--that a man's head could be driven clean into his body by the force of a fall? well, perhaps it may be possible, but i, for one, have never believed that it was so with myrtle. and the grease upon his clothes--'all slimy with grease,' said somebody at the inquest. queer that nobody got thinking after that! i did--but, then, i had been thinking for a good long time. i've made three ascents--how dangerfield used to chaff me about my shot-gun--but i've never been high enough. now, with this new, light paul veroner machine and its one hundred and seventy-five robur, i should easily touch the thirty thousand tomorrow. i'll have a shot at the record. maybe i shall have a shot at something else as well. of course, it's dangerous. if a fellow wants to avoid danger he had best keep out of flying altogether and subside finally into flannel slippers and a dressing-gown. but i'll visit the air-jungle tomorrow--and if there's anything there i shall know it. if i return, i'll find myself a bit of a celebrity. if i don't this note-book may explain what i am trying to do, and how i lost my life in doing it. but no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please. "i chose my paul veroner monoplane for the job. there's nothing like a monoplane when real work is to be done. beaumont found that out in very early days. for one thing it doesn't mind damp, and the weather looks as if we should be in the clouds all the time. it's a bonny little model and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse. the engine is a ten-cylinder rotary robur working up to one hundred and seventy-five. it has all the modern improvements--enclosed fuselage, high-curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, worked by an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the venetian-blind principle. i took a shot-gun with me and a dozen cartridges filled with buck-shot. you should have seen the face of perkins, my old mechanic, when i directed him to put them in. i was dressed like an arctic explorer, with two jerseys under my overalls, thick socks inside my padded boots, a storm-cap with flaps, and my talc goggles. it was stifling outside the hangars, but i was going for the summit of the himalayas, and had to dress for the part. perkins knew there was something on and implored me to take him with me. perhaps i should if i were using the biplane, but a monoplane is a one-man show--if you want to get the last foot of life out of it. of course, i took an oxygen bag; the man who goes for the altitude record without one will either be frozen or smothered--or both. "i had a good look at the planes, the rudder-bar, and the elevating lever before i got in. everything was in order so far as i could see. then i switched on my engine and found that she was running sweetly. when they let her go she rose almost at once upon the lowest speed. i circled my home field once or twice just to warm her up, and then with a wave to perkins and the others, i flattened out my planes and put her on her highest. she skimmed like a swallow down wind for eight or ten miles until i turned her nose up a little and she began to climb in a great spiral for the cloud-bank above me. it's all-important to rise slowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go. "it was a close, warm day for an english september, and there was the hush and heaviness of impending rain. now and then there came sudden puffs of wind from the south-west--one of them so gusty and unexpected that it caught me napping and turned me half-round for an instant. i remember the time when gusts and whirls and air-pockets used to be things of danger--before we learned to put an overmastering power into our engines. just as i reached the cloud-banks, with the altimeter marking three thousand, down came the rain. my word, how it poured! it drummed upon my wings and lashed against my face, blurring my glasses so that i could hardly see. i got down on to a low speed, for it was painful to travel against it. as i got higher it became hail, and i had to turn tail to it. one of my cylinders was out of action--a dirty plug, i should imagine, but still i was rising steadily with plenty of power. after a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and i heard the full, deep-throated purr--the ten singing as one. that's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. we can at last control our engines by ear. how they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! all those cries for help were wasted in the old days, when every sound was swallowed up by the monstrous racket of the machine. if only the early aviators could come back to see the beauty and perfection of the mechanism which have been bought at the cost of their lives! "about nine-thirty i was nearing the clouds. down below me, all blurred and shadowed with rain, lay the vast expanse of salisbury plain. half a dozen flying machines were doing hackwork at the thousand-foot level, looking like little black swallows against the green background. i dare say they were wondering what i was doing up in cloud-land. suddenly a grey curtain drew across beneath me and the wet folds of vapours were swirling round my face. it was clammily cold and miserable. but i was above the hail-storm, and that was something gained. the cloud was as dark and thick as a london fog. in my anxiety to get clear, i cocked her nose up until the automatic alarm-bell rang, and i actually began to slide backwards. my sopped and dripping wings had made me heavier than i thought, but presently i was in lighter cloud, and soon had cleared the first layer. there was a second--opal-coloured and fleecy--at a great height above my head, a white, unbroken ceiling above, and a dark, unbroken floor below, with the monoplane labouring upwards upon a vast spiral between them. it is deadly lonely in these cloud-spaces. once a great flight of some small water-birds went past me, flying very fast to the westwards. the quick whir of their wings and their musical cry were cheery to my ear. i fancy that they were teal, but i am a wretched zoologist. now that we humans have become birds we must really learn to know our brethren by sight. "the wind down beneath me whirled and swayed the broad cloud-plain. once a great eddy formed in it, a whirlpool of vapour, and through it, as down a funnel, i caught sight of the distant world. a large white biplane was passing at a vast depth beneath me. i fancy it was the morning mail service betwixt bristol and london. then the drift swirled inwards again and the great solitude was unbroken. "just after ten i touched the lower edge of the upper cloud-stratum. it consisted of fine diaphanous vapour drifting swiftly from the westwards. the wind had been steadily rising all this time and it was now blowing a sharp breeze--twenty-eight an hour by my gauge. already it was very cold, though my altimeter only marked nine thousand. the engines were working beautifully, and we went droning steadily upwards. the cloud-bank was thicker than i had expected, but at last it thinned out into a golden mist before me, and then in an instant i had shot out from it, and there was an unclouded sky and a brilliant sun above my head--all blue and gold above, all shining silver below, one vast, glimmering plain as far as my eyes could reach. it was a quarter past ten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand eight hundred. up i went and up, my ears concentrated upon the deep purring of my motor, my eyes busy always with the watch, the revolution indicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump. no wonder aviators are said to be a fearless race. with so many things to think of there is no time to trouble about oneself. about this time i noted how unreliable is the compass when above a certain height from earth. at fifteen thousand feet mine was pointing east and a point south. the sun and the wind gave me my true bearings. "i had hoped to reach an eternal stillness in these high altitudes, but with every thousand feet of ascent the gale grew stronger. my machine groaned and trembled in every joint and rivet as she faced it, and swept away like a sheet of paper when i banked her on the turn, skimming down wind at a greater pace, perhaps, than ever mortal man has moved. yet i had always to turn again and tack up in the wind's eye, for it was not merely a height record that i was after. by all my calculations it was above little wiltshire that my air-jungle lay, and all my labour might be lost if i struck the outer layers at some farther point. "when i reached the nineteen-thousand-foot level, which was about midday, the wind was so severe that i looked with some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting momentarily to see them snap or slacken. i even cast loose the parachute behind me, and fastened its hook into the ring of my leathern belt, so as to be ready for the worst. now was the time when a bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid for by the life of the aeronaut. but she held together bravely. every cord and strut was humming and vibrating like so many harp-strings, but it was glorious to see how, for all the beating and the buffeting, she was still the conqueror of nature and the mistress of the sky. there is surely something divine in man himself that he should rise so superior to the limitations which creation seemed to impose--rise, too, by such unselfish, heroic devotion as this air-conquest has shown. talk of human degeneration! when has such a story as this been written in the annals of our race? "these were the thoughts in my head as i climbed that monstrous, inclined plane with the wind sometimes beating in my face and sometimes whistling behind my ears, while the cloud-land beneath me fell away to such a distance that the folds and hummocks of silver had all smoothed out into one flat, shining plain. but suddenly i had a horrible and unprecedented experience. i have known before what it is to be in what our neighbours have called a tourbillon, but never on such a scale as this. that huge, sweeping river of wind of which i have spoken had, as it appears, whirlpools within it which were as monstrous as itself. without a moment's warning i was dragged suddenly into the heart of one. i spun round for a minute or two with such velocity that i almost lost my senses, and then fell suddenly, left wing foremost, down the vacuum funnel in the centre. i dropped like a stone, and lost nearly a thousand feet. it was only my belt that kept me in my seat, and the shock and breathlessness left me hanging half-insensible over the side of the fuselage. but i am always capable of a supreme effort--it is my one great merit as an aviator. i was conscious that the descent was slower. the whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and i had come to the apex. with a terrific wrench, throwing my weight all to one side, i levelled my planes and brought her head away from the wind. in an instant i had shot out of the eddies and was skimming down the sky. then, shaken but victorious, i turned her nose up and began once more my steady grind on the upward spiral. i took a large sweep to avoid the danger-spot of the whirlpool, and soon i was safely above it. just after one o'clock i was twenty-one thousand feet above the sea-level. to my great joy i had topped the gale, and with every hundred feet of ascent the air grew stiller. on the other hand, it was very cold, and i was conscious of that peculiar nausea which goes with rarefaction of the air. for the first time i unscrewed the mouth of my oxygen bag and took an occasional whiff of the glorious gas. i could feel it running like a cordial through my veins, and i was exhilarated almost to the point of drunkenness. i shouted and sang as i soared upwards into the cold, still outer world. "it is very clear to me that the insensibility which came upon glaisher, and in a lesser degree upon coxwell, when, in , they ascended in a balloon to the height of thirty thousand feet, was due to the extreme speed with which a perpendicular ascent is made. doing it at an easy gradient and accustoming oneself to the lessened barometric pressure by slow degrees, there are no such dreadful symptoms. at the same great height i found that even without my oxygen inhaler i could breathe without undue distress. it was bitterly cold, however, and my thermometer was at zero, fahrenheit. at one-thirty i was nearly seven miles above the surface of the earth, and still ascending steadily. i found, however, that the rarefied air was giving markedly less support to my planes, and that my angle of ascent had to be considerably lowered in consequence. it was already clear that even with my light weight and strong engine-power there was a point in front of me where i should be held. to make matters worse, one of my sparking-plugs was in trouble again and there was intermittent misfiring in the engine. my heart was heavy with the fear of failure. "it was about that time that i had a most extraordinary experience. something whizzed past me in a trail of smoke and exploded with a loud, hissing sound, sending forth a cloud of steam. for the instant i could not imagine what had happened. then i remembered that the earth is for ever being bombarded by meteor stones, and would be hardly inhabitable were they not in nearly every case turned to vapour in the outer layers of the atmosphere. here is a new danger for the high-altitude man, for two others passed me when i was nearing the forty-thousand-foot mark. i cannot doubt that at the edge of the earth's envelope the risk would be a very real one. "my barograph needle marked forty-one thousand three hundred when i became aware that i could go no farther. physically, the strain was not as yet greater than i could bear but my machine had reached its limit. the attenuated air gave no firm support to the wings, and the least tilt developed into side-slip, while she seemed sluggish on her controls. possibly, had the engine been at its best, another thousand feet might have been within our capacity, but it was still misfiring, and two out of the ten cylinders appeared to be out of action. if i had not already reached the zone for which i was searching then i should never see it upon this journey. but was it not possible that i had attained it? soaring in circles like a monstrous hawk upon the forty-thousand-foot level i let the monoplane guide herself, and with my mannheim glass i made a careful observation of my surroundings. the heavens were perfectly clear; there was no indication of those dangers which i had imagined. "i have said that i was soaring in circles. it struck me suddenly that i would do well to take a wider sweep and open up a new airtract. if the hunter entered an earth-jungle he would drive through it if he wished to find his game. my reasoning had led me to believe that the air-jungle which i had imagined lay somewhere over wiltshire. this should be to the south and west of me. i took my bearings from the sun, for the compass was hopeless and no trace of earth was to be seen--nothing but the distant, silver cloud-plain. however, i got my direction as best i might and kept her head straight to the mark. i reckoned that my petrol supply would not last for more than another hour or so, but i could afford to use it to the last drop, since a single magnificent vol-plane could at any time take me to the earth. "suddenly i was aware of something new. the air in front of me had lost its crystal clearness. it was full of long, ragged wisps of something which i can only compare to very fine cigarette smoke. it hung about in wreaths and coils, turning and twisting slowly in the sunlight. as the monoplane shot through it, i was aware of a faint taste of oil upon my lips, and there was a greasy scum upon the woodwork of the machine. some infinitely fine organic matter appeared to be suspended in the atmosphere. there was no life there. it was inchoate and diffuse, extending for many square acres and then fringing off into the void. no, it was not life. but might it not be the remains of life? above all, might it not be the food of life, of monstrous life, even as the humble grease of the ocean is the food for the mighty whale? the thought was in my mind when my eyes looked upwards and i saw the most wonderful vision that ever man has seen. can i hope to convey it to you even as i saw it myself last thursday? "conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size--far larger, i should judge, than the dome of st. paul's. it was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. it pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. from it there depended two long, drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. this gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way. "i had half-turned my monoplane, that i might look after this beautiful creature, when, in a moment, i found myself amidst a perfect fleet of them, of all sizes, but none so large as the first. some were quite small, but the majority about as big as an average balloon, and with much the same curvature at the top. there was in them a delicacy of texture and colouring which reminded me of the finest venetian glass. pale shades of pink and green were the prevailing tints, but all had a lovely iridescence where the sun shimmered through their dainty forms. some hundreds of them drifted past me, a wonderful fairy squadron of strange unknown argosies of the sky--creatures whose forms and substance were so attuned to these pure heights that one could not conceive anything so delicate within actual sight or sound of earth. "but soon my attention was drawn to a new phenomenon--the serpents of the outer air. these were long, thin, fantastic coils of vapour-like material, which turned and twisted with great speed, flying round and round at such a pace that the eyes could hardly follow them. some of these ghost-like creatures were twenty or thirty feet long, but it was difficult to tell their girth, for their outline was so hazy that it seemed to fade away into the air around them. these air-snakes were of a very light grey or smoke colour, with some darker lines within, which gave the impression of a definite organism. one of them whisked past my very face, and i was conscious of a cold, clammy contact, but their composition was so unsubstantial that i could not connect them with any thought of physical danger, any more than the beautiful bell-like creatures which had preceded them. there was no more solidity in their frames than in the floating spume from a broken wave. "but a more terrible experience was in store for me. floating downwards from a great height there came a purplish patch of vapour, small as i saw it first, but rapidly enlarging as it approached me, until it appeared to be hundreds of square feet in size. though fashioned of some transparent, jelly-like substance, it was none the less of much more definite outline and solid consistence than anything which i had seen before. there were more traces, too, of a physical organization, especially two vast, shadowy, circular plates upon either side, which may have been eyes, and a perfectly solid white projection between them which was as curved and cruel as the beak of a vulture. "the whole aspect of this monster was formidable and threatening, and it kept changing its colour from a very light mauve to a dark, angry purple so thick that it cast a shadow as it drifted between my monoplane and the sun. on the upper curve of its huge body there were three great projections which i can only describe as enormous bubbles, and i was convinced as i looked at them that they were charged with some extremely light gas which served to buoy up the misshapen and semi-solid mass in the rarefied air. the creature moved swiftly along, keeping pace easily with the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey which is waiting to pounce. its method of progression--done so swiftly that it was not easy to follow--was to throw out a long, glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of the writhing body. so elastic and gelatinous was it that never for two successive minutes was it the same shape, and yet each change made it more threatening and loathsome than the last. "i knew that it meant mischief. every purple flush of its hideous body told me so. the vague, goggling eyes which were turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid hatred. i dipped the nose of my monoplane downwards to escape it. as i did so, as quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle from this mass of floating blubber, and it fell as light and sinuous as a whip-lash across the front of my machine. there was a loud hiss as it lay for a moment across the hot engine, and it whisked itself into the air again, while the huge, flat body drew itself together as if in sudden pain. i dipped to a vol-pique, but again a tentacle fell over the monoplane and was shorn off by the propeller as easily as it might have cut through a smoke wreath. a long, gliding, sticky, serpent-like coil came from behind and caught me round the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. i tore at it, my fingers sinking into the smooth, glue-like surface, and for an instant i disengaged myself, but only to be caught round the boot by another coil, which gave me a jerk that tilted me almost on to my back. "as i fell over i blazed off both barrels of my gun, though, indeed, it was like attacking an elephant with a pea-shooter to imagine that any human weapon could cripple that mighty bulk. and yet i aimed better than i knew, for, with a loud report, one of the great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the puncture of the buck-shot. it was very clear that my conjecture was right, and that these vast, clear bladders were distended with some lifting gas, for in an instant the huge, cloud-like body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find its balance, while the white beak snapped and gaped in horrible fury. but already i had shot away on the steepest glide that i dared to attempt, my engine still full on, the flying propeller and the force of gravity shooting me downwards like an aerolite. far behind me i saw a dull, purplish smudge growing swiftly smaller and merging into the blue sky behind it. i was safe out of the deadly jungle of the outer air. "once out of danger i throttled my engine, for nothing tears a machine to pieces quicker than running on full power from a height. it was a glorious, spiral vol-plane from nearly eight miles of altitude--first, to the level of the silver cloud-bank, then to that of the storm-cloud beneath it, and finally, in beating rain, to the surface of the earth. i saw the bristol channel beneath me as i broke from the clouds, but, having still some petrol in my tank, i got twenty miles inland before i found myself stranded in a field half a mile from the village of ashcombe. there i got three tins of petrol from a passing motor-car, and at ten minutes past six that evening i alighted gently in my own home meadow at devizes, after such a journey as no mortal upon earth has ever yet taken and lived to tell the tale. i have seen the beauty and i have seen the horror of the heights--and greater beauty or greater horror than that is not within the ken of man. "and now it is my plan to go once again before i give my results to the world. my reason for this is that i must surely have something to show by way of proof before i lay such a tale before my fellow-men. it is true that others will soon follow and will confirm what i have said, and yet i should wish to carry conviction from the first. those lovely iridescent bubbles of the air should not be hard to capture. they drift slowly upon their way, and the swift monoplane could intercept their leisurely course. it is likely enough that they would dissolve in the heavier layers of the atmosphere, and that some small heap of amorphous jelly might be all that i should bring to earth with me. and yet something there would surely be by which i could substantiate my story. yes, i will go, even if i run a risk by doing so. these purple horrors would not seem to be numerous. it is probable that i shall not see one. if i do i shall dive at once. at the worst there is always the shot-gun and my knowledge of ..." here a page of the manuscript is unfortunately missing. on the next page is written, in large, straggling writing: "forty-three thousand feet. i shall never see earth again. they are beneath me, three of them. god help me; it is a dreadful death to die!" such in its entirety is the joyce-armstrong statement. of the man nothing has since been seen. pieces of his shattered monoplane have been picked up in the preserves of mr. budd-lushington upon the borders of kent and sussex, within a few miles of the spot where the note-book was discovered. if the unfortunate aviator's theory is correct that this air-jungle, as he called it, existed only over the south-west of england, then it would seem that he had fled from it at the full speed of his monoplane, but had been overtaken and devoured by these horrible creatures at some spot in the outer atmosphere above the place where the grim relics were found. the picture of that monoplane skimming down the sky, with the nameless terrors flying as swiftly beneath it and cutting it off always from the earth while they gradually closed in upon their victim, is one upon which a man who valued his sanity would prefer not to dwell. there are many, as i am aware, who still jeer at the facts which i have here set down, but even they must admit that joyce-armstrong has disappeared, and i would commend to them his own words: "this note-book may explain what i am trying to do, and how i lost my life in doing it. but no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please." the leather funnel my friend, lionel dacre, lived in the avenue de wagram, paris. his house was that small one, with the iron railings and grass plot in front of it, on the left-hand side as you pass down from the arc de triomphe. i fancy that it had been there long before the avenue was constructed, for the grey tiles were stained with lichens, and the walls were mildewed and discoloured with age. it looked a small house from the street, five windows in front, if i remember right, but it deepened into a single long chamber at the back. it was here that dacre had that singular library of occult literature, and the fantastic curiosities which served as a hobby for himself, and an amusement for his friends. a wealthy man of refined and eccentric tastes, he had spent much of his life and fortune in gathering together what was said to be a unique private collection of talmudic, cabalistic, and magical works, many of them of great rarity and value. his tastes leaned toward the marvellous and the monstrous, and i have heard that his experiments in the direction of the unknown have passed all the bounds of civilization and of decorum. to his english friends he never alluded to such matters, and took the tone of the student and virtuoso; but a frenchman whose tastes were of the same nature has assured me that the worst excesses of the black mass have been perpetrated in that large and lofty hall, which is lined with the shelves of his books, and the cases of his museum. dacre's appearance was enough to show that his deep interest in these psychic matters was intellectual rather than spiritual. there was no trace of asceticism upon his heavy face, but there was much mental force in his huge, dome-like skull, which curved upward from amongst his thinning locks, like a snowpeak above its fringe of fir trees. his knowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superior to his character. the small bright eyes, buried deeply in his fleshy face, twinkled with intelligence and an unabated curiosity of life, but they were the eyes of a sensualist and an egotist. enough of the man, for he is dead now, poor devil, dead at the very time that he had made sure that he had at last discovered the elixir of life. it is not with his complex character that i have to deal, but with the very strange and inexplicable incident which had its rise in my visit to him in the early spring of the year ' . i had known dacre in england, for my researches in the assyrian room of the british museum had been conducted at the time when he was endeavouring to establish a mystic and esoteric meaning in the babylonian tablets, and this community of interests had brought us together. chance remarks had led to daily conversation, and that to something verging upon friendship. i had promised him that on my next visit to paris i would call upon him. at the time when i was able to fulfil my compact i was living in a cottage at fontainebleau, and as the evening trains were inconvenient, he asked me to spend the night in his house. "i have only that one spare couch," said he, pointing to a broad sofa in his large salon; "i hope that you will manage to be comfortable there." it was a singular bedroom, with its high walls of brown volumes, but there could be no more agreeable furniture to a bookworm like myself, and there is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book. i assured him that i could desire no more charming chamber, and no more congenial surroundings. "if the fittings are neither convenient nor conventional, they are at least costly," said he, looking round at his shelves. "i have expended nearly a quarter of a million of money upon these objects which surround you. books, weapons, gems, carvings, tapestries, images--there is hardly a thing here which has not its history, and it is generally one worth telling." he was seated as he spoke at one side of the open fire-place, and i at the other. his reading-table was on his right, and the strong lamp above it ringed it with a very vivid circle of golden light. a half-rolled palimpsest lay in the centre, and around it were many quaint articles of bric-a-brac. one of these was a large funnel, such as is used for filling wine casks. it appeared to be made of black wood, and to be rimmed with discoloured brass. "that is a curious thing," i remarked. "what is the history of that?" "ah!" said he, "it is the very question which i have had occasion to ask myself. i would give a good deal to know. take it in your hands and examine it." i did so, and found that what i had imagined to be wood was in reality leather, though age had dried it into an extreme hardness. it was a large funnel, and might hold a quart when full. the brass rim encircled the wide end, but the narrow was also tipped with metal. "what do you make of it?" asked dacre. "i should imagine that it belonged to some vintner or maltster in the middle ages," said i. "i have seen in england leathern drinking flagons of the seventeenth century--'black jacks' as they were called--which were of the same colour and hardness as this filler." "i dare say the date would be about the same," said dacre, "and, no doubt, also, it was used for filling a vessel with liquid. if my suspicions are correct, however, it was a queer vintner who used it, and a very singular cask which was filled. do you observe nothing strange at the spout end of the funnel." as i held it to the light i observed that at a spot some five inches above the brass tip the narrow neck of the leather funnel was all haggled and scored, as if someone had notched it round with a blunt knife. only at that point was there any roughening of the dead black surface. "someone has tried to cut off the neck." "would you call it a cut?" "it is torn and lacerated. it must have taken some strength to leave these marks on such tough material, whatever the instrument may have been. but what do you think of it? i can tell that you know more than you say." dacre smiled, and his little eyes twinkled with knowledge. "have you included the psychology of dreams among your learned studies?" he asked. "i did not even know that there was such a psychology." "my dear sir, that shelf above the gem case is filled with volumes, from albertus magnus onward, which deal with no other subject. it is a science in itself." "a science of charlatans!" "the charlatan is always the pioneer. from the astrologer came the astronomer, from the alchemist the chemist, from the mesmerist the experimental psychologist. the quack of yesterday is the professor of tomorrow. even such subtle and elusive things as dreams will in time be reduced to system and order. when that time comes the researches of our friends on the bookshelf yonder will no longer be the amusement of the mystic, but the foundations of a science." "supposing that is so, what has the science of dreams to do with a large, black, brass-rimmed funnel?" "i will tell you. you know that i have an agent who is always on the look-out for rarities and curiosities for my collection. some days ago he heard of a dealer upon one of the quais who had acquired some old rubbish found in a cupboard in an ancient house at the back of the rue mathurin, in the quartier latin. the dining-room of this old house is decorated with a coat of arms, chevrons, and bars rouge upon a field argent, which prove, upon inquiry, to be the shield of nicholas de la reynie, a high official of king louis xiv. there can be no doubt that the other articles in the cupboard date back to the early days of that king. the inference is, therefore, that they were all the property of this nicholas de la reynie, who was, as i understand, the gentleman specially concerned with the maintenance and execution of the draconic laws of that epoch." "what then?" "i would ask you now to take the funnel into your hands once more and to examine the upper brass rim. can you make out any lettering upon it?" there were certainly some scratches upon it, almost obliterated by time. the general effect was of several letters, the last of which bore some resemblance to a b. "you make it a b?" "yes, i do." "so do i. in fact, i have no doubt whatever that it is a b." "but the nobleman you mentioned would have had r for his initial." "exactly! that's the beauty of it. he owned this curious object, and yet he had someone else's initials upon it. why did he do this?" "i can't imagine; can you?" "well, i might, perhaps, guess. do you observe something drawn a little farther along the rim?" "i should say it was a crown." "it is undoubtedly a crown; but if you examine it in a good light, you will convince yourself that it is not an ordinary crown. it is a heraldic crown--a badge of rank, and it consists of an alternation of four pearls and strawberry leaves, the proper badge of a marquis. we may infer, therefore, that the person whose initials end in b was entitled to wear that coronet." "then this common leather filler belonged to a marquis?" dacre gave a peculiar smile. "or to some member of the family of a marquis," said he. "so much we have clearly gathered from this engraved rim." "but what has all this to do with dreams?" i do not know whether it was from a look upon dacre's face, or from some subtle suggestion in his manner, but a feeling of repulsion, of unreasoning horror, came upon me as i looked at the gnarled old lump of leather. "i have more than once received important information through my dreams," said my companion in the didactic manner which he loved to affect. "i make it a rule now when i am in doubt upon any material point to place the article in question beside me as i sleep, and to hope for some enlightenment. the process does not appear to me to be very obscure, though it has not yet received the blessing of orthodox science. according to my theory, any object which has been intimately associated with any supreme paroxysm of human emotion, whether it be joy or pain, will retain a certain atmosphere or association which it is capable of communicating to a sensitive mind. by a sensitive mind i do not mean an abnormal one, but such a trained and educated mind as you or i possess." "you mean, for example, that if i slept beside that old sword upon the wall, i might dream of some bloody incident in which that very sword took part?" "an excellent example, for, as a matter of fact, that sword was used in that fashion by me, and i saw in my sleep the death of its owner, who perished in a brisk skirmish, which i have been unable to identify, but which occurred at the time of the wars of the frondists. if you think of it, some of our popular observances show that the fact has already been recognized by our ancestors, although we, in our wisdom, have classed it among superstitions." "for example?" "well, the placing of the bride's cake beneath the pillow in order that the sleeper may have pleasant dreams. that is one of several instances which you will find set forth in a small brochure which i am myself writing upon the subject. but to come back to the point, i slept one night with this funnel beside me, and i had a dream which certainly throws a curious light upon its use and origin." "what did you dream?" "i dreamed----" he paused, and an intent look of interest came over his massive face. "by jove, that's well thought of," said he. "this really will be an exceedingly interesting experiment. you are yourself a psychic subject--with nerves which respond readily to any impression." "i have never tested myself in that direction." "then we shall test you tonight. might i ask you as a very great favour, when you occupy that couch tonight, to sleep with this old funnel placed by the side of your pillow?" the request seemed to me a grotesque one; but i have myself, in my complex nature, a hunger after all which is bizarre and fantastic. i had not the faintest belief in dacre's theory, nor any hopes for success in such an experiment; yet it amused me that the experiment should be made. dacre, with great gravity, drew a small stand to the head of my settee, and placed the funnel upon it. then, after a short conversation, he wished me good night and left me. i sat for some little time smoking by the smouldering fire, and turning over in my mind the curious incident which had occurred, and the strange experience which might lie before me. sceptical as i was, there was something impressive in the assurance of dacre's manner, and my extraordinary surroundings, the huge room with the strange and often sinister objects which were hung round it, struck solemnity into my soul. finally i undressed, and turning out the lamp, i lay down. after long tossing i fell asleep. let me try to describe as accurately as i can the scene which came to me in my dreams. it stands out now in my memory more clearly than anything which i have seen with my waking eyes. there was a room which bore the appearance of a vault. four spandrels from the corners ran up to join a sharp, cup-shaped roof. the architecture was rough, but very strong. it was evidently part of a great building. three men in black, with curious, top-heavy, black velvet hats, sat in a line upon a red-carpeted dais. their faces were very solemn and sad. on the left stood two long-gowned men with port-folios in their hands, which seemed to be stuffed with papers. upon the right, looking toward me, was a small woman with blonde hair and singular, light-blue eyes--the eyes of a child. she was past her first youth, but could not yet be called middle-aged. her figure was inclined to stoutness and her bearing was proud and confident. her face was pale, but serene. it was a curious face, comely and yet feline, with a subtle suggestion of cruelty about the straight, strong little mouth and chubby jaw. she was draped in some sort of loose, white gown. beside her stood a thin, eager priest, who whispered in her ear, and continually raised a crucifix before her eyes. she turned her head and looked fixedly past the crucifix at the three men in black, who were, i felt, her judges. as i gazed the three men stood up and said something, but i could distinguish no words, though i was aware that it was the central one who was speaking. they then swept out of the room, followed by the two men with the papers. at the same instant several rough-looking fellows in stout jerkins came bustling in and removed first the red carpet, and then the boards which formed the dais, so as to entirely clear the room. when this screen was removed i saw some singular articles of furniture behind it. one looked like a bed with wooden rollers at each end, and a winch handle to regulate its length. another was a wooden horse. there were several other curious objects, and a number of swinging cords which played over pulleys. it was not unlike a modern gymnasium. when the room had been cleared there appeared a new figure upon the scene. this was a tall, thin person clad in black, with a gaunt and austere face. the aspect of the man made me shudder. his clothes were all shining with grease and mottled with stains. he bore himself with a slow and impressive dignity, as if he took command of all things from the instant of his entrance. in spite of his rude appearance and sordid dress, it was now his business, his room, his to command. he carried a coil of light ropes over his left forearm. the lady looked him up and down with a searching glance, but her expression was unchanged. it was confident--even defiant. but it was very different with the priest. his face was ghastly white, and i saw the moisture glisten and run on his high, sloping forehead. he threw up his hands in prayer and he stooped continually to mutter frantic words in the lady's ear. the man in black now advanced, and taking one of the cords from his left arm, he bound the woman's hands together. she held them meekly toward him as he did so. then he took her arm with a rough grip and led her toward the wooden horse, which was little higher than her waist. on to this she was lifted and laid, with her back upon it, and her face to the ceiling, while the priest, quivering with horror, had rushed out of the room. the woman's lips were moving rapidly, and though i could hear nothing i knew that she was praying. her feet hung down on either side of the horse, and i saw that the rough varlets in attendance had fastened cords to her ankles and secured the other ends to iron rings in the stone floor. my heart sank within me as i saw these ominous preparations, and yet i was held by the fascination of horror, and i could not take my eyes from the strange spectacle. a man had entered the room with a bucket of water in either hand. another followed with a third bucket. they were laid beside the wooden horse. the second man had a wooden dipper--a bowl with a straight handle--in his other hand. this he gave to the man in black. at the same moment one of the varlets approached with a dark object in his hand, which even in my dream filled me with a vague feeling of familiarity. it was a leathern filler. with horrible energy he thrust it--but i could stand no more. my hair stood on end with horror. i writhed, i struggled, i broke through the bonds of sleep, and i burst with a shriek into my own life, and found myself lying shivering with terror in the huge library, with the moonlight flooding through the window and throwing strange silver and black traceries upon the opposite wall. oh, what a blessed relief to feel that i was back in the nineteenth century--back out of that mediaeval vault into a world where men had human hearts within their bosoms. i sat up on my couch, trembling in every limb, my mind divided between thankfulness and horror. to think that such things were ever done--that they could be done without god striking the villains dead. was it all a fantasy, or did it really stand for something which had happened in the black, cruel days of the world's history? i sank my throbbing head upon my shaking hands. and then, suddenly, my heart seemed to stand still in my bosom, and i could not even scream, so great was my terror. something was advancing toward me through the darkness of the room. it is a horror coming upon a horror which breaks a man's spirit. i could not reason, i could not pray; i could only sit like a frozen image, and glare at the dark figure which was coming down the great room. and then it moved out into the white lane of moonlight, and i breathed once more. it was dacre, and his face showed that he was as frightened as myself. "was that you? for god's sake what's the matter?" he asked in a husky voice. "oh, dacre, i am glad to see you! i have been down into hell. it was dreadful." "then it was you who screamed?" "i dare say it was." "it rang through the house. the servants are all terrified." he struck a match and lit the lamp. "i think we may get the fire to burn up again," he added, throwing some logs upon the embers. "good god, my dear chap, how white you are! you look as if you had seen a ghost." "so i have--several ghosts." "the leather funnel has acted, then?" "i wouldn't sleep near the infernal thing again for all the money you could offer me." dacre chuckled. "i expected that you would have a lively night of it," said he. "you took it out of me in return, for that scream of yours wasn't a very pleasant sound at two in the morning. i suppose from what you say that you have seen the whole dreadful business." "what dreadful business?" "the torture of the water--the 'extraordinary question,' as it was called in the genial days of 'le roi soleil.' did you stand it out to the end?" "no, thank god, i awoke before it really began." "ah! it is just as well for you. i held out till the third bucket. well, it is an old story, and they are all in their graves now, anyhow, so what does it matter how they got there? i suppose that you have no idea what it was that you have seen?" "the torture of some criminal. she must have been a terrible malefactor indeed if her crimes are in proportion to her penalty." "well, we have that small consolation," said dacre, wrapping his dressing-gown round him and crouching closer to the fire. "they were in proportion to her penalty. that is to say, if i am correct in the lady's identity." "how could you possibly know her identity?" for answer dacre took down an old vellum-covered volume from the shelf. "just listen to this," said he; "it is in the french of the seventeenth century, but i will give a rough translation as i go. you will judge for yourself whether i have solved the riddle or not. "'the prisoner was brought before the grand chambers and tournelles of parliament, sitting as a court of justice, charged with the murder of master dreux d'aubray, her father, and of her two brothers, mm. d'aubray, one being civil lieutenant, and the other a counsellor of parliament. in person it seemed hard to believe that she had really done such wicked deeds, for she was of a mild appearance, and of short stature, with a fair skin and blue eyes. yet the court, having found her guilty, condemned her to the ordinary and to the extraordinary question in order that she might be forced to name her accomplices, after which she should be carried in a cart to the place de greve, there to have her head cut off, her body being afterwards burned and her ashes scattered to the winds.' "the date of this entry is july , ." "it is interesting," said i, "but not convincing. how do you prove the two women to be the same?" "i am coming to that. the narrative goes on to tell of the woman's behaviour when questioned. 'when the executioner approached her she recognized him by the cords which he held in his hands, and she at once held out her own hands to him, looking at him from head to foot without uttering a word.' how's that?" "yes, it was so." "'she gazed without wincing upon the wooden horse and rings which had twisted so many limbs and caused so many shrieks of agony. when her eyes fell upon the three pails of water, which were all ready for her, she said with a smile, "all that water must have been brought here for the purpose of drowning me, monsieur. you have no idea, i trust, of making a person of my small stature swallow it all."' shall i read the details of the torture?" "no, for heaven's sake, don't." "here is a sentence which must surely show you that what is here recorded is the very scene which you have gazed upon tonight: 'the good abbe pirot, unable to contemplate the agonies which were suffered by his penitent, had hurried from the room.' does that convince you?" "it does entirely. there can be no question that it is indeed the same event. but who, then, is this lady whose appearance was so attractive and whose end was so horrible?" for answer dacre came across to me, and placed the small lamp upon the table which stood by my bed. lifting up the ill-omened filler, he turned the brass rim so that the light fell full upon it. seen in this way the engraving seemed clearer than on the night before. "we have already agreed that this is the badge of a marquis or of a marquise," said he. "we have also settled that the last letter is b." "it is undoubtedly so." "i now suggest to you that the other letters from left to right are, m, m, a small d, a, a small d, and then the final b." "yes, i am sure that you are right. i can make out the two small d's quite plainly." "what i have read to you tonight," said dacre, "is the official record of the trial of marie madeleine d'aubray, marquise de brinvilliers, one of the most famous poisoners and murderers of all time." i sat in silence, overwhelmed at the extraordinary nature of the incident, and at the completeness of the proof with which dacre had exposed its real meaning. in a vague way i remembered some details of the woman's career, her unbridled debauchery, the cold-blooded and protracted torture of her sick father, the murder of her brothers for motives of petty gain. i recollected also that the bravery of her end had done something to atone for the horror of her life, and that all paris had sympathized with her last moments, and blessed her as a martyr within a few days of the time when they had cursed her as a murderess. one objection, and one only, occurred to my mind. "how came her initials and her badge of rank upon the filler? surely they did not carry their mediaeval homage to the nobility to the point of decorating instruments of torture with their titles?" "i was puzzled with the same point," said dacre, "but it admits of a simple explanation. the case excited extraordinary interest at the time, and nothing could be more natural than that la reynie, the head of the police, should retain this filler as a grim souvenir. it was not often that a marchioness of france underwent the extraordinary question. that he should engrave her initials upon it for the information of others was surely a very ordinary proceeding upon his part." "and this?" i asked, pointing to the marks upon the leathern neck. "she was a cruel tigress," said dacre, as he turned away. "i think it is evident that like other tigresses her teeth were both strong and sharp." the new catacomb "look here, burger," said kennedy, "i do wish that you would confide in me." the two famous students of roman remains sat together in kennedy's comfortable room overlooking the corso. the night was cold, and they had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory italian stove which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather than of warmth. outside under the bright winter stars lay the modern rome, the long, double chain of the electric lamps, the brilliantly lighted cafes, the rushing carriages, and the dense throng upon the footpaths. but inside, in the sumptuous chamber of the rich young english archaeologist, there was only old rome to be seen. cracked and timeworn friezes hung upon the walls, grey old busts of senators and soldiers with their fighting heads and their hard, cruel faces peered out from the corners. on the centre table, amidst a litter of inscriptions, fragments, and ornaments, there stood the famous reconstruction by kennedy of the baths of caracalla, which excited such interest and admiration when it was exhibited in berlin. amphorae hung from the ceiling, and a litter of curiosities strewed the rich red turkey carpet. and of them all there was not one which was not of the most unimpeachable authenticity, and of the utmost rarity and value; for kennedy, though little more than thirty, had a european reputation in this particular branch of research, and was, moreover, provided with that long purse which either proves to be a fatal handicap to the student's energies, or, if his mind is still true to its purpose, gives him an enormous advantage in the race for fame. kennedy had often been seduced by whim and pleasure from his studies, but his mind was an incisive one, capable of long and concentrated efforts which ended in sharp reactions of sensuous languor. his handsome face, with its high, white forehead, its aggressive nose, and its somewhat loose and sensual mouth, was a fair index of the compromise between strength and weakness in his nature. of a very different type was his companion, julius burger. he came of a curious blend, a german father and an italian mother, with the robust qualities of the north mingling strangely with the softer graces of the south. blue teutonic eyes lightened his sun-browned face, and above them rose a square, massive forehead, with a fringe of close yellow curls lying round it. his strong, firm jaw was clean-shaven, and his companion had frequently remarked how much it suggested those old roman busts which peered out from the shadows in the corners of his chamber. under its bluff german strength there lay always a suggestion of italian subtlety, but the smile was so honest, and the eyes so frank, that one understood that this was only an indication of his ancestry, with no actual bearing upon his character. in age and in reputation, he was on the same level as his english companion, but his life and his work had both been far more arduous. twelve years before, he had come as a poor student to rome, and had lived ever since upon some small endowment for research which had been awarded to him by the university of bonn. painfully, slowly, and doggedly, with extraordinary tenacity and single-mindedness, he had climbed from rung to rung of the ladder of fame, until now he was a member of the berlin academy, and there was every reason to believe that he would shortly be promoted to the chair of the greatest of german universities. but the singleness of purpose which had brought him to the same high level as the rich and brilliant englishman, had caused him in everything outside their work to stand infinitely below him. he had never found a pause in his studies in which to cultivate the social graces. it was only when he spoke of his own subject that his face was filled with life and soul. at other times he was silent and embarrassed, too conscious of his own limitations in larger subjects, and impatient of that small talk which is the conventional refuge of those who have no thoughts to express. and yet for some years there had been an acquaintanceship which appeared to be slowly ripening into a friendship between these two very different rivals. the base and origin of this lay in the fact that in their own studies each was the only one of the younger men who had knowledge and enthusiasm enough to properly appreciate the other. their common interests and pursuits had brought them together, and each had been attracted by the other's knowledge. and then gradually something had been added to this. kennedy had been amused by the frankness and simplicity of his rival, while burger in turn had been fascinated by the brilliancy and vivacity which had made kennedy such a favourite in roman society. i say "had," because just at the moment the young englishman was somewhat under a cloud. a love-affair, the details of which had never quite come out, had indicated a heartlessness and callousness upon his part which shocked many of his friends. but in the bachelor circles of students and artists in which he preferred to move there is no very rigid code of honour in such matters, and though a head might be shaken or a pair of shoulders shrugged over the flight of two and the return of one, the general sentiment was probably one of curiosity and perhaps of envy rather than of reprobation. "look here, burger," said kennedy, looking hard at the placid face of his companion, "i do wish that you would confide in me." as he spoke he waved his hand in the direction of a rug which lay upon the floor. on the rug stood a long, shallow fruit-basket of the light wicker-work which is used in the campagna, and this was heaped with a litter of objects, inscribed tiles, broken inscriptions, cracked mosaics, torn papyri, rusty metal ornaments, which to the uninitiated might have seemed to have come straight from a dustman's bin, but which a specialist would have speedily recognized as unique of their kind. the pile of odds and ends in the flat wicker-work basket supplied exactly one of those missing links of social development which are of such interest to the student. it was the german who had brought them in, and the englishman's eyes were hungry as he looked at them. "i won't interfere with your treasure-trove, but i should very much like to hear about it," he continued, while burger very deliberately lit a cigar. "it is evidently a discovery of the first importance. these inscriptions will make a sensation throughout europe." "for every one here there are a million there!" said the german. "there are so many that a dozen savants might spend a lifetime over them, and build up a reputation as solid as the castle of st. angelo." kennedy sat thinking with his fine forehead wrinkled and his fingers playing with his long, fair moustache. "you have given yourself away, burger!" said he at last. "your words can only apply to one thing. you have discovered a new catacomb." "i had no doubt that you had already come to that conclusion from an examination of these objects." "well, they certainly appeared to indicate it, but your last remarks make it certain. there is no place except a catacomb which could contain so vast a store of relics as you describe." "quite so. there is no mystery about that. i have discovered a new catacomb." "where?" "ah, that is my secret, my dear kennedy. suffice it that it is so situated that there is not one chance in a million of anyone else coming upon it. its date is different from that of any known catacomb, and it has been reserved for the burial of the highest christians, so that the remains and the relics are quite different from anything which has ever been seen before. if i was not aware of your knowledge and of your energy, my friend, i would not hesitate, under the pledge of secrecy, to tell you everything about it. but as it is i think that i must certainly prepare my own report of the matter before i expose myself to such formidable competition." kennedy loved his subject with a love which was almost a mania--a love which held him true to it, amidst all the distractions which come to a wealthy and dissipated young man. he had ambition, but his ambition was secondary to his mere abstract joy and interest in everything which concerned the old life and history of the city. he yearned to see this new underworld which his companion had discovered. "look here, burger," said he, earnestly, "i assure you that you can trust me most implicitly in the matter. nothing would induce me to put pen to paper about anything which i see until i have your express permission. i quite understand your feeling and i think it is most natural, but you have really nothing whatever to fear from me. on the other hand, if you don't tell me i shall make a systematic search, and i shall most certainly discover it. in that case, of course, i should make what use i liked of it, since i should be under no obligation to you." burger smiled thoughtfully over his cigar. "i have noticed, friend kennedy," said he, "that when i want information over any point you are not always so ready to supply it." "when did you ever ask me anything that i did not tell you? you remember, for example, my giving you the material for your paper about the temple of the vestals." "ah, well, that was not a matter of much importance. if i were to question you upon some intimate thing would you give me an answer, i wonder! this new catacomb is a very intimate thing to me, and i should certainly expect some sign of confidence in return." "what you are driving at i cannot imagine," said the englishman, "but if you mean that you will answer my question about the catacomb if i answer any question which you may put to me i can assure you that i will certainly do so." "well, then," said burger, leaning luxuriously back in his settee, and puffing a blue tree of cigar-smoke into the air, "tell me all about your relations with miss mary saunderson." kennedy sprang up in his chair and glared angrily at his impassive companion. "what the devil do you mean?" he cried. "what sort of a question is this? you may mean it as a joke, but you never made a worse one." "no, i don't mean it as a joke," said burger, simply. "i am really rather interested in the details of the matter. i don't know much about the world and women and social life and that sort of thing, and such an incident has the fascination of the unknown for me. i know you, and i knew her by sight--i had even spoken to her once or twice. i should very much like to hear from your own lips exactly what it was which occurred between you." "i won't tell you a word." "that's all right. it was only my whim to see if you would give up a secret as easily as you expected me to give up my secret of the new catacomb. you wouldn't, and i didn't expect you to. but why should you expect otherwise of me? there's saint john's clock striking ten. it is quite time that i was going home." "no; wait a bit, burger," said kennedy; "this is really a ridiculous caprice of yours to wish to know about an old love-affair which has burned out months ago. you know we look upon a man who kisses and tells as the greatest coward and villain possible." "certainly," said the german, gathering up his basket of curiosities, "when he tells anything about a girl which is previously unknown he must be so. but in this case, as you must be aware, it was a public matter which was the common talk of rome, so that you are not really doing miss mary saunderson any injury by discussing her case with me. but still, i respect your scruples; and so good night!" "wait a bit, burger," said kennedy, laying his hand upon the other's arm; "i am very keen upon this catacomb business, and i can't let it drop quite so easily. would you mind asking me something else in return--something not quite so eccentric this time?" "no, no; you have refused, and there is an end of it," said burger, with his basket on his arm. "no doubt you are quite right not to answer, and no doubt i am quite right also--and so again, my dear kennedy, good night!" the englishman watched burger cross the room, and he had his hand on the handle of the door before his host sprang up with the air of a man who is making the best of that which cannot be helped. "hold on, old fellow," said he; "i think you are behaving in a most ridiculous fashion; but still; if this is your condition, i suppose that i must submit to it. i hate saying anything about a girl, but, as you say, it is all over rome, and i don't suppose i can tell you anything which you do not know already. what was it you wanted to know?" the german came back to the stove, and, laying down his basket, he sank into his chair once more. "may i have another cigar?" said he. "thank you very much! i never smoke when i work, but i enjoy a chat much more when i am under the influence of tobacco. now, as regards this young lady, with whom you had this little adventure. what in the world has become of her?" "she is at home with her own people." "oh, really--in england?" "yes." "what part of england--london?" "no, twickenham." "you must excuse my curiosity, my dear kennedy, and you must put it down to my ignorance of the world. no doubt it is quite a simple thing to persuade a young lady to go off with you for three weeks or so, and then to hand her over to her own family at--what did you call the place?" "twickenham." "quite so--at twickenham. but it is something so entirely outside my own experience that i cannot even imagine how you set about it. for example, if you had loved this girl your love could hardly disappear in three weeks, so i presume that you could not have loved her at all. but if you did not love her why should you make this great scandal which has damaged you and ruined her?" kennedy looked moodily into the red eye of the stove. "that's a logical way of looking at it, certainly," said he. "love is a big word, and it represents a good many different shades of feeling. i liked her, and--well, you say you've seen her--you know how charming she could look. but still i am willing to admit, looking back, that i could never have really loved her." "then, my dear kennedy, why did you do it?" "the adventure of the thing had a great deal to do with it." "what! you are so fond of adventures!" "where would the variety of life be without them? it was for an adventure that i first began to pay my attentions to her. i've chased a good deal of game in my time, but there's no chase like that of a pretty woman. there was the piquant difficulty of it also, for, as she was the companion of lady emily rood, it was almost impossible to see her alone. on the top of all the other obstacles which attracted me, i learned from her own lips very early in the proceedings that she was engaged." "mein gott! to whom?" "she mentioned no names." "i do not think that anyone knows that. so that made the adventure more alluring, did it?" "well, it did certainly give a spice to it. don't you think so?" "i tell you that i am very ignorant about these things." "my dear fellow, you can remember that the apple you stole from your neighbour's tree was always sweeter than that which fell from your own. and then i found that she cared for me." "what--at once?" "oh, no, it took about three months of sapping and mining. but at last i won her over. she understood that my judicial separation from my wife made it impossible for me to do the right thing by her--but she came all the same, and we had a delightful time, as long as it lasted." "but how about the other man?" kennedy shrugged his shoulders. "i suppose it is the survival of the fittest," said he. "if he had been the better man she would not have deserted him. let's drop the subject, for i have had enough of it!" "only one other thing. how did you get rid of her in three weeks?" "well, we had both cooled down a bit, you understand. she absolutely refused, under any circumstances, to come back to face the people she had known in rome. now, of course, rome is necessary to me, and i was already pining to be back at my work--so there was one obvious cause of separation. then, again, her old father turned up at the hotel in london, and there was a scene, and the whole thing became so unpleasant that really--though i missed her dreadfully at first--i was very glad to slip out of it. now, i rely upon you not to repeat anything of what i have said." "my dear kennedy, i should not dream of repeating it. but all that you say interests me very much, for it gives me an insight into your way of looking at things, which is entirely different from mine, for i have seen so little of life. and now you want to know about my new catacomb. there's no use my trying to describe it, for you would never find it by that. there is only one thing, and that is for me to take you there." "that would be splendid." "when would you like to come?" "the sooner the better. i am all impatience to see it." "well, it is a beautiful night--though a trifle cold. suppose we start in an hour. we must be very careful to keep the matter to ourselves. if anyone saw us hunting in couples they would suspect that there was something going on." "we can't be too cautious," said kennedy. "is it far?" "some miles." "not too far to walk?" "oh, no, we could walk there easily." "we had better do so, then. a cabman's suspicions would be aroused if he dropped us both at some lonely spot in the dead of the night." "quite so. i think it would be best for us to meet at the gate of the appian way at midnight. i must go back to my lodgings for the matches and candles and things." "all right, burger! i think it is very kind of you to let me into this secret, and i promise you that i will write nothing about it until you have published your report. good-bye for the present! you will find me at the gate at twelve." the cold, clear air was filled with the musical chimes from that city of clocks as burger, wrapped in an italian overcoat, with a lantern hanging from his hand, walked up to the rendezvous. kennedy stepped out of the shadow to meet him. "you are ardent in work as well as in love!" said the german, laughing. "yes; i have been waiting here for nearly half an hour." "i hope you left no clue as to where we were going." "not such a fool! by jove, i am chilled to the bone! come on, burger, let us warm ourselves by a spurt of hard walking." their footsteps sounded loud and crisp upon the rough stone paving of the disappointing road which is all that is left of the most famous highway of the world. a peasant or two going home from the wine-shop, and a few carts of country produce coming up to rome, were the only things which they met. they swung along, with the huge tombs looming up through the darkness upon each side of them, until they had come as far as the catacombs of st. calistus, and saw against a rising moon the great circular bastion of cecilia metella in front of them. then burger stopped with his hand to his side. "your legs are longer than mine, and you are more accustomed to walking," said he, laughing. "i think that the place where we turn off is somewhere here. yes, this is it, round the corner of the trattoria. now, it is a very narrow path, so perhaps i had better go in front and you can follow." he had lit his lantern, and by its light they were enabled to follow a narrow and devious track which wound across the marshes of the campagna. the great aqueduct of old rome lay like a monstrous caterpillar across the moonlit landscape, and their road led them under one of its huge arches, and past the circle of crumbling bricks which marks the old arena. at last burger stopped at a solitary wooden cow-house, and he drew a key from his pocket. "surely your catacomb is not inside a house!" cried kennedy. "the entrance to it is. that is just the safeguard which we have against anyone else discovering it." "does the proprietor know of it?" "not he. he had found one or two objects which made me almost certain that his house was built on the entrance to such a place. so i rented it from him, and did my excavations for myself. come in, and shut the door behind you." it was a long, empty building, with the mangers of the cows along one wall. burger put his lantern down on the ground, and shaded its light in all directions save one by draping his overcoat round it. "it might excite remark if anyone saw a light in this lonely place," said he. "just help me to move this boarding." the flooring was loose in the corner, and plank by plank the two savants raised it and leaned it against the wall. below there was a square aperture and a stair of old stone steps which led away down into the bowels of the earth. "be careful!" cried burger, as kennedy, in his impatience, hurried down them. "it is a perfect rabbits'-warren below, and if you were once to lose your way there the chances would be a hundred to one against your ever coming out again. wait until i bring the light." "how do you find your own way if it is so complicated?" "i had some very narrow escapes at first, but i have gradually learned to go about. there is a certain system to it, but it is one which a lost man, if he were in the dark, could not possibly find out. even now i always spin out a ball of string behind me when i am going far into the catacomb. you can see for yourself that it is difficult, but every one of these passages divides and subdivides a dozen times before you go a hundred yards." they had descended some twenty feet from the level of the byre, and they were standing now in a square chamber cut out of the soft tufa. the lantern cast a flickering light, bright below and dim above, over the cracked brown walls. in every direction were the black openings of passages which radiated from this common centre. "i want you to follow me closely, my friend," said burger. "do not loiter to look at anything upon the way, for the place to which i will take you contains all that you can see, and more. it will save time for us to go there direct." he led the way down one of the corridors, and the englishman followed closely at his heels. every now and then the passage bifurcated, but burger was evidently following some secret marks of his own, for he neither stopped nor hesitated. everywhere along the walls, packed like the berths upon an emigrant ship, lay the christians of old rome. the yellow light flickered over the shrivelled features of the mummies, and gleamed upon rounded skulls and long, white armbones crossed over fleshless chests. and everywhere as he passed kennedy looked with wistful eyes upon inscriptions, funeral vessels, pictures, vestments, utensils, all lying as pious hands had placed them so many centuries ago. it was apparent to him, even in those hurried, passing glances, that this was the earliest and finest of the catacombs, containing such a storehouse of roman remains as had never before come at one time under the observation of the student. "what would happen if the light went out?" he asked, as they hurried onwards. "i have a spare candle and a box of matches in my pocket. by the way, kennedy, have you any matches?" "no; you had better give me some." "oh, that is all right. there is no chance of our separating." "how far are we going? it seems to me that we have walked at least a quarter of a mile." "more than that, i think. there is really no limit to the tombs--at least, i have never been able to find any. this is a very difficult place, so i think that i will use our ball of string." he fastened one end of it to a projecting stone and he carried the coil in the breast of his coat, paying it out as he advanced. kennedy saw that it was no unnecessary precaution, for the passages had become more complex and tortuous than ever, with a perfect network of intersecting corridors. but these all ended in one large circular hall with a square pedestal of tufa topped with a slab of marble at one end of it. "by jove!" cried kennedy in an ecstasy, as burger swung his lantern over the marble. "it is a christian altar--probably the first one in existence. here is the little consecration cross cut upon the corner of it. no doubt this circular space was used as a church." "precisely," said burger. "if i had more time i should like to show you all the bodies which are buried in these niches upon the walls, for they are the early popes and bishops of the church, with their mitres, their croziers, and full canonicals. go over to that one and look at it!" kennedy went across, and stared at the ghastly head which lay loosely on the shredded and mouldering mitre. "this is most interesting," said he, and his voice seemed to boom against the concave vault. "as far as my experience goes, it is unique. bring the lantern over, burger, for i want to see them all." but the german had strolled away, and was standing in the middle of a yellow circle of light at the other side of the hall. "do you know how many wrong turnings there are between this and the stairs?" he asked. "there are over two thousand. no doubt it was one of the means of protection which the christians adopted. the odds are two thousand to one against a man getting out, even if he had a light; but if he were in the dark it would, of course, be far more difficult." "so i should think." "and the darkness is something dreadful. i tried it once for an experiment. let us try it again!" he stooped to the lantern, and in an instant it was as if an invisible hand was squeezed tightly over each of kennedy's eyes. never had he known what such darkness was. it seemed to press upon him and to smother him. it was a solid obstacle against which the body shrank from advancing. he put his hands out to push it back from him. "that will do, burger," said he, "let's have the light again." but his companion began to laugh, and in that circular room the sound seemed to come from every side at once. "you seem uneasy, friend kennedy," said he. "go on, man, light the candle!" said kennedy impatiently. "it's very strange, kennedy, but i could not in the least tell by the sound in which direction you stand. could you tell where i am?" "no; you seem to be on every side of me." "if it were not for this string which i hold in my hand i should not have a notion which way to go." "i dare say not. strike a light, man, and have an end of this nonsense." "well, kennedy, there are two things which i understand that you are very fond of. the one is an adventure, and the other is an obstacle to surmount. the adventure must be the finding of your way out of this catacomb. the obstacle will be the darkness and the two thousand wrong turns which make the way a little difficult to find. but you need not hurry, for you have plenty of time, and when you halt for a rest now and then, i should like you just to think of miss mary saunderson, and whether you treated her quite fairly." "you devil, what do you mean?" roared kennedy. he was running about in little circles and clasping at the solid blackness with both hands. "good-bye," said the mocking voice, and it was already at some distance. "i really do not think, kennedy, even by your own showing that you did the right thing by that girl. there was only one little thing which you appeared not to know, and i can supply it. miss saunderson was engaged to a poor ungainly devil of a student, and his name was julius burger." there was a rustle somewhere, the vague sound of a foot striking a stone, and then there fell silence upon that old christian church--a stagnant, heavy silence which closed round kennedy and shut him in like water round a drowning man. some two months afterwards the following paragraph made the round of the european press: "one of the most interesting discoveries of recent years is that of the new catacomb in rome, which lies some distance to the east of the well-known vaults of st. calixtus. the finding of this important burial-place, which is exceeding rich in most interesting early christian remains, is due to the energy and sagacity of dr. julius burger, the young german specialist, who is rapidly taking the first place as an authority upon ancient rome. although the first to publish his discovery, it appears that a less fortunate adventurer had anticipated dr. burger. some months ago mr. kennedy, the well-known english student, disappeared suddenly from his rooms in the corso, and it was conjectured that his association with a recent scandal had driven him to leave rome. it appears now that he had in reality fallen a victim to that fervid love of archaeology which had raised him to a distinguished place among living scholars. his body was discovered in the heart of the new catacomb, and it was evident from the condition of his feet and boots that he had tramped for days through the tortuous corridors which make these subterranean tombs so dangerous to explorers. the deceased gentleman had, with inexplicable rashness, made his way into this labyrinth without, as far as can be discovered, taking with him either candles or matches, so that his sad fate was the natural result of his own temerity. what makes the matter more painful is that dr. julius burger was an intimate friend of the deceased. his joy at the extraordinary find which he has been so fortunate as to make has been greatly marred by the terrible fate of his comrade and fellow-worker." the case of lady sannox the relations between douglas stone and the notorious lady sannox were very well known both among the fashionable circles of which she was a brilliant member, and the scientific bodies which numbered him among their most illustrious confreres. there was naturally, therefore, a very widespread interest when it was announced one morning that the lady had absolutely and for ever taken the veil, and that the world would see her no more. when, at the very tail of this rumour, there came the assurance that the celebrated operating surgeon, the man of steel nerves, had been found in the morning by his valet, seated on one side of his bed, smiling pleasantly upon the universe, with both legs jammed into one side of his breeches and his great brain about as valuable as a cap full of porridge, the matter was strong enough to give quite a little thrill of interest to folk who had never hoped that their jaded nerves were capable of such a sensation. douglas stone in his prime was one of the most remarkable men in england. indeed, he could hardly be said to have ever reached his prime, for he was but nine-and-thirty at the time of this little incident. those who knew him best were aware that famous as he was as a surgeon, he might have succeeded with even greater rapidity in any of a dozen lines of life. he could have cut his way to fame as a soldier, struggled to it as an explorer, bullied for it in the courts, or built it out of stone and iron as an engineer. he was born to be great, for he could plan what another man dare not do, and he could do what another man dare not plan. in surgery none could follow him. his nerve, his judgement, his intuition, were things apart. again and again his knife cut away death, but grazed the very springs of life in doing it, until his assistants were as white as the patient. his energy, his audacity, his full-blooded self-confidence--does not the memory of them still linger to the south of marylebone road and the north of oxford street? his vices were as magnificent as his virtues, and infinitely more picturesque. large as was his income, and it was the third largest of all professional men in london, it was far beneath the luxury of his living. deep in his complex nature lay a rich vein of sensualism, at the sport of which he placed all the prizes of his life. the eye, the ear, the touch, the palate, all were his masters. the bouquet of old vintages, the scent of rare exotics, the curves and tints of the daintiest potteries of europe, it was to these that the quick-running stream of gold was transformed. and then there came his sudden mad passion for lady sannox, when a single interview with two challenging glances and a whispered word set him ablaze. she was the loveliest woman in london and the only one to him. he was one of the handsomest men in london, but not the only one to her. she had a liking for new experiences, and was gracious to most men who wooed her. it may have been cause or it may have been effect that lord sannox looked fifty, though he was but six-and-thirty. he was a quiet, silent, neutral-tinted man, this lord, with thin lips and heavy eyelids, much given to gardening, and full of home-like habits. he had at one time been fond of acting, had even rented a theatre in london, and on its boards had first seen miss marion dawson, to whom he had offered his hand, his title, and the third of a county. since his marriage his early hobby had become distasteful to him. even in private theatricals it was no longer possible to persuade him to exercise the talent which he had often showed that he possessed. he was happier with a spud and a watering-can among his orchids and chrysanthemums. it was quite an interesting problem whether he was absolutely devoid of sense, or miserably wanting in spirit. did he know his lady's ways and condone them, or was he a mere blind, doting fool? it was a point to be discussed over the teacups in snug little drawing-rooms, or with the aid of a cigar in the bow windows of clubs. bitter and plain were the comments among men upon his conduct. there was but one who had a good word to say for him, and he was the most silent member in the smoking-room. he had seen him break in a horse at the university, and it seemed to have left an impression upon his mind. but when douglas stone became the favourite all doubts as to lord sannox's knowledge or ignorance were set for ever at rest. there was no subterfuge about stone. in his high-handed, impetuous fashion, he set all caution and discretion at defiance. the scandal became notorious. a learned body intimated that his name had been struck from the list of its vice-presidents. two friends implored him to consider his professional credit. he cursed them all three, and spent forty guineas on a bangle to take with him to the lady. he was at her house every evening, and she drove in his carriage in the afternoons. there was not an attempt on either side to conceal their relations; but there came at last a little incident to interrupt them. it was a dismal winter's night, very cold and gusty, with the wind whooping in the chimneys and blustering against the window-panes. a thin spatter of rain tinkled on the glass with each fresh sough of the gale, drowning for the instant the dull gurgle and drip from the eaves. douglas stone had finished his dinner, and sat by his fire in the study, a glass of rich port upon the malachite table at his elbow. as he raised it to his lips, he held it up against the lamplight, and watched with the eye of a connoisseur the tiny scales of beeswing which floated in its rich ruby depths. the fire, as it spurted up, threw fitful lights upon his bald, clear-cut face, with its widely-opened grey eyes, its thick and yet firm lips, and the deep, square jaw, which had something roman in its strength and its animalism. he smiled from time to time as he nestled back in his luxurious chair. indeed, he had a right to feel well pleased, for, against the advice of six colleagues, he had performed an operation that day of which only two cases were on record, and the result had been brilliant beyond all expectation. no other man in london would have had the daring to plan, or the skill to execute, such a heroic measure. but he had promised lady sannox to see her that evening and it was already half-past eight. his hand was outstretched to the bell to order the carriage when he heard the dull thud of the knocker. an instant later there was the shuffling of feet in the hall, and the sharp closing of a door. "a patient to see you, sir, in the consulting room," said the butler. "about himself?" "no, sir; i think he wants you to go out." "it is too late," cried douglas stone peevishly. "i won't go." "this is his card, sir." the butler presented it upon the gold salver which had been given to his master by the wife of a prime minister. "'hamil ali, smyrna.' hum! the fellow is a turk, i suppose." "yes, sir. he seems as if he came from abroad, sir. and he's in a terrible way." "tut, tut! i have an engagement. i must go somewhere else. but i'll see him. show him in here, pim." a few moments later the butler swung open the door and ushered in a small and decrepit man, who walked with a bent back and with the forward push of the face and blink of the eyes which goes with extreme short sight. his face was swarthy, and his hair and beard of the deepest black. in one hand he held a turban of white muslin striped with red, in the other a small chamois-leather bag. "good evening," said douglas stone, when the butler had closed the door. "you speak english, i presume?" "yes, sir. i am from asia minor, but i speak english when i speak slow." "you wanted me to go out, i understand?" "yes, sir. i wanted very much that you should see my wife." "i could come in the morning, but i have an engagement which prevents me from seeing your wife tonight." the turk's answer was a singular one. he pulled the string which closed the mouth of the chamois-leather bag, and poured a flood of gold on to the table. "there are one hundred pounds there," said he, "and i promise you that it will not take you an hour. i have a cab ready at the door." douglas stone glanced at his watch. an hour would not make it too late to visit lady sannox. he had been there later. and the fee was an extraordinarily high one. he had been pressed by his creditors lately, and he could not afford to let such a chance pass. he would go. "what is the case?" he asked. "oh, it is so sad a one! so sad a one! you have not, perhaps heard of the daggers of the almohades?" "never." "ah, they are eastern daggers of a great age and of a singular shape, with the hilt like what you call a stirrup. i am a curiosity dealer, you understand, and that is why i have come to england from smyrna, but next week i go back once more. many things i brought with me, and i have a few things left, but among them, to my sorrow, is one of these daggers." "you will remember that i have an appointment, sir," said the surgeon, with some irritation; "pray confine yourself to the necessary details." "you will see that it is necessary. today my wife fell down in a faint in the room in which i keep my wares, and she cut her lower lip upon this cursed dagger of almohades." "i see," said douglas stone, rising. "and you wish me to dress the wound?" "no, no, it is worse than that." "what then?" "these daggers are poisoned." "poisoned!" "yes, and there is no man, east or west, who can tell now what is the poison or what the cure. but all that is known i know, for my father was in this trade before me, and we have had much to do with these poisoned weapons." "what are the symptoms?" "deep sleep, and death in thirty hours." "and you say there is no cure. why then should you pay me this considerable fee?" "no drug can cure, but the knife may." "and how?" "the poison is slow of absorption. it remains for hours in the wound." "washing, then, might cleanse it?" "no more than in a snake bite. it is too subtle and too deadly." "excision of the wound, then?" "that is it. if it be on the finger, take the finger off. so said my father always. but think of where this wound is, and that it is my wife. it is dreadful!" but familiarity with such grim matters may take the finer edge from a man's sympathy. to douglas stone this was already an interesting case, and he brushed aside as irrelevant the feeble objections of the husband. "it appears to be that or nothing," said he brusquely. "it is better to lose a lip than a life." "ah, yes, i know that you are right. well, well, it is kismet, and it must be faced. i have the cab, and you will come with me and do this thing." douglas stone took his case of bistouries from a drawer, and placed it with a roll of bandage and a compress of lint in his pocket. he must waste no more time if he were to see lady sannox. "i am ready," said he, pulling on his overcoat. "will you take a glass of wine before you go out into this cold air?" his visitor shrank away, with a protesting hand upraised. "you forget that i am a mussulman, and a true follower of the prophet," said he. "but tell me what is the bottle of green glass which you have placed in your pocket?" "it is chloroform." "ah, that also is forbidden to us. it is a spirit, and we make no use of such things." "what! you would allow your wife to go through an operation without an anaesthetic?" "ah! she will feel nothing, poor soul. the deep sleep has already come on, which is the first working of the poison. and then i have given her of our smyrna opium. come, sir, for already an hour has passed." as they stepped out into the darkness, a sheet of rain was driven in upon their faces, and the hall lamp, which dangled from the arm of a marble caryatid, went out with a fluff. pim, the butler, pushed the heavy door to, straining hard with his shoulder against the wind, while the two men groped their way towards the yellow glare which showed where the cab was waiting. an instant later they were rattling upon their journey. "is it far?" asked douglas stone. "oh, no. we have a very little quiet place off the euston road." the surgeon pressed the spring of his repeater and listened to the little tings which told him the hour. it was a quarter past nine. he calculated the distances, and the short time which it would take him to perform so trivial an operation. he ought to reach lady sannox by ten o'clock. through the fogged windows he saw the blurred gas lamps dancing past, with occasionally the broader glare of a shop front. the rain was pelting and rattling upon the leathern top of the carriage, and the wheels swashed as they rolled through puddle and mud. opposite to him the white headgear of his companion gleamed faintly through the obscurity. the surgeon felt in his pockets and arranged his needles, his ligatures and his safety-pins, that no time might be wasted when they arrived. he chafed with impatience and drummed his foot upon the floor. but the cab slowed down at last and pulled up. in an instant douglas stone was out, and the smyrna merchant's toe was at his very heel. "you can wait," said he to the driver. it was a mean-looking house in a narrow and sordid street. the surgeon, who knew his london well, cast a swift glance into the shadows, but there was nothing distinctive--no shop, no movement, nothing but a double line of dull, flat-faced houses, a double stretch of wet flagstones which gleamed in the lamplight, and a double rush of water in the gutters which swirled and gurgled towards the sewer gratings. the door which faced them was blotched and discoloured, and a faint light in the fan pane above, it served to show the dust and the grime which covered it. above in one of the bedroom windows, there was a dull yellow glimmer. the merchant knocked loudly, and, as he turned his dark face towards the light, douglas stone could see that it was contracted with anxiety. a bolt was drawn, and an elderly woman with a taper stood in the doorway, shielding the thin flame with her gnarled hand. "is all well?" gasped the merchant. "she is as you left her, sir." "she has not spoken?" "no, she is in a deep sleep." the merchant closed the door, and douglas stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. there was no oil-cloth, no mat, no hat-rack. deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. there was no carpet. the bedroom was on the second landing. douglas stone followed the old nurse into it, with the merchant at his heels. here, at least, there was furniture and to spare. the floor was littered and the corners piled with turkish cabinets, inlaid tables, coats of chain mail, strange pipes, and grotesque weapons. a single small lamp stood upon a bracket on the wall. douglas stone took it down, and picking his way among the lumber, walked over to a couch in the corner, on which lay a woman dressed in the turkish fashion, with yashmak and veil. the lower part of the face was exposed, and the surgeon saw a jagged cut which zigzagged along the border of the under lip. "you will forgive the yashmak," said the turk. "you know our views about women in the east." but the surgeon was not thinking about the yashmak. this was no longer a woman to him. it was a case. he stooped and examined the wound carefully. "there are no signs of irritation," said he. "we might delay the operation until local symptoms develop." the husband wrung his hands in uncontrollable agitation. "oh! sir, sir," he cried. "do not trifle. you do not know. it is deadly. i know, and i give you my assurance that an operation is absolutely necessary. only the knife can save her." "and yet i am inclined to wait," said douglas stone. "that is enough," the turk cried, angrily. "every minute is of importance, and i cannot stand here and see my wife allowed to sink. it only remains for me to give you my thanks for having come, and to call in some other surgeon before it is too late." douglas stone hesitated. to refund that hundred pounds was no pleasant matter. but of course if he left the case he must return the money. and if the turk were right and the woman died, his position before a coroner might be an embarrassing one. "you have had personal experience of this poison?" he asked. "i have." "and you assure me that an operation is needful." "i swear it by all that i hold sacred." "the disfigurement will be frightful." "i can understand that the mouth will not be a pretty one to kiss." douglas stone turned fiercely upon the man. the speech was a brutal one. but the turk has his own fashion of talk and of thought, and there was no time for wrangling. douglas stone drew a bistoury from his case, opened it and felt the keen straight edge with his forefinger. then he held the lamp closer to the bed. two dark eyes were gazing up at him through the slit in the yashmak. they were all iris, and the pupil was hardly to be seen. "you have given her a very heavy dose of opium." "yes, she has had a good dose." he glanced again at the dark eyes which looked straight at his own. they were dull and lustreless, but, even as he gazed, a little shifting sparkle came into them, and the lips quivered. "she is not absolutely unconscious," said he. "would it not be well to use the knife while it will be painless?" the same thought had crossed the surgeon's mind. he grasped the wounded lip with his forceps, and with two swift cuts he took out a broad v-shaped piece. the woman sprang up on the couch with a dreadful gurgling scream. her covering was torn from her face. it was a face that he knew. in spite of that protruding upper lip and that slobber of blood, it was a face that he knew, she kept on putting her hand up to the gap and screaming. douglas stone sat down at the foot of the couch with his knife and his forceps. the room was whirling round, and he had felt something go like a ripping seam behind his ear. a bystander would have said that his face was the more ghastly of the two. as in a dream, or as if he had been looking at something at the play, he was conscious that the turk's hair and beard lay upon the table, and that lord sannox was leaning against the wall with his hand to his side, laughing silently. the screams had died away now, and the dreadful head had dropped back again upon the pillow, but douglas stone still sat motionless, and lord sannox still chuckled quietly to himself. "it was really very necessary for marion, this operation," said he, "not physically, but morally, you know, morally." douglas stone stooped for yards and began to play with the fringe of the coverlet. his knife tinkled down upon the ground, but he still held the forceps and something more. "i had long intended to make a little example," said lord sannox, suavely. "your note of wednesday miscarried, and i have it here in my pocket-book. i took some pains in carrying out my idea. the wound, by the way, was from nothing more dangerous than my signet ring." he glanced keenly at his silent companion, and cocked the small revolver which he held in his coat pocket. but douglas stone was still picking at the coverlet. "you see you have kept your appointment after all," said lord sannox. and at that douglas stone began to laugh. he laughed long and loudly. but lord sannox did not laugh now. something like fear sharpened and hardened his features. he walked from the room, and he walked on tiptoe. the old woman was waiting outside. "attend to your mistress when she awakes," said lord sannox. then he went down to the street. the cab was at the door, and the driver raised his hand to his hat. "john," said lord sannox, "you will take the doctor home first. he will want leading downstairs, i think. tell his butler that he has been taken ill at a case." "very good, sir." "then you can take lady sannox home." "and how about yourself, sir?" "oh, my address for the next few months will be hotel di roma, venice. just see that the letters are sent on. and tell stevens to exhibit all the purple chrysanthemums next monday, and to wire me the result." the terror of blue john gap the following narrative was found among the papers of dr. james hardcastle, who died of phthisis on february th, , at , upper coventry flats, south kensington. those who knew him best, while refusing to express an opinion upon this particular statement, are unanimous in asserting that he was a man of a sober and scientific turn of mind, absolutely devoid of imagination, and most unlikely to invent any abnormal series of events. the paper was contained in an envelope, which was docketed, "a short account of the circumstances which occurred near miss allerton's farm in north-west derbyshire in the spring of last year." the envelope was sealed, and on the other side was written in pencil-- dear seaton,-- "it may interest, and perhaps pain you, to know that the incredulity with which you met my story has prevented me from ever opening my mouth upon the subject again. i leave this record after my death, and perhaps strangers may be found to have more confidence in me than my friend." inquiry has failed to elicit who this seaton may have been. i may add that the visit of the deceased to allerton's farm, and the general nature of the alarm there, apart from his particular explanation, have been absolutely established. with this foreword i append his account exactly as he left it. it is in the form of a diary, some entries in which have been expanded, while a few have been erased. april .--already i feel the benefit of this wonderful upland air. the farm of the allertons lies fourteen hundred and twenty feet above sea-level, so it may well be a bracing climate. beyond the usual morning cough i have very little discomfort, and, what with the fresh milk and the home-grown mutton, i have every chance of putting on weight. i think saunderson will be pleased. the two miss allertons are charmingly quaint and kind, two dear little hard-working old maids, who are ready to lavish all the heart which might have gone out to husband and to children upon an invalid stranger. truly, the old maid is a most useful person, one of the reserve forces of the community. they talk of the superfluous woman, but what would the poor superfluous man do without her kindly presence? by the way, in their simplicity they very quickly let out the reason why saunderson recommended their farm. the professor rose from the ranks himself, and i believe that in his youth he was not above scaring crows in these very fields. it is a most lonely spot, and the walks are picturesque in the extreme. the farm consists of grazing land lying at the bottom of an irregular valley. on each side are the fantastic limestone hills, formed of rock so soft that you can break it away with your hands. all this country is hollow. could you strike it with some gigantic hammer it would boom like a drum, or possibly cave in altogether and expose some huge subterranean sea. a great sea there must surely be, for on all sides the streams run into the mountain itself, never to reappear. there are gaps everywhere amid the rocks, and when you pass through them you find yourself in great caverns, which wind down into the bowels of the earth. i have a small bicycle lamp, and it is a perpetual joy to me to carry it into these weird solitudes, and to see the wonderful silver and black effect when i throw its light upon the stalactites which drape the lofty roofs. shut off the lamp, and you are in the blackest darkness. turn it on, and it is a scene from the arabian nights. but there is one of these strange openings in the earth which has a special interest, for it is the handiwork, not of nature, but of man. i had never heard of blue john when i came to these parts. it is the name given to a peculiar mineral of a beautiful purple shade, which is only found at one or two places in the world. it is so rare that an ordinary vase of blue john would be valued at a great price. the romans, with that extraordinary instinct of theirs, discovered that it was to be found in this valley, and sank a horizontal shaft deep into the mountain side. the opening of their mine has been called blue john gap, a clean-cut arch in the rock, the mouth all overgrown with bushes. it is a goodly passage which the roman miners have cut, and it intersects some of the great water-worn caves, so that if you enter blue john gap you would do well to mark your steps and to have a good store of candles, or you may never make your way back to the daylight again. i have not yet gone deeply into it, but this very day i stood at the mouth of the arched tunnel, and peering down into the black recesses beyond, i vowed that when my health returned i would devote some holiday to exploring those mysterious depths and finding out for myself how far the roman had penetrated into the derbyshire hills. strange how superstitious these countrymen are! i should have thought better of young armitage, for he is a man of some education and character, and a very fine fellow for his station in life. i was standing at the blue john gap when he came across the field to me. "well, doctor," said he, "you're not afraid, anyhow." "afraid!" i answered. "afraid of what?" "of it," said he, with a jerk of his thumb towards the black vault, "of the terror that lives in the blue john cave." how absurdly easy it is for a legend to arise in a lonely countryside! i examined him as to the reasons for his weird belief. it seems that from time to time sheep have been missing from the fields, carried bodily away, according to armitage. that they could have wandered away of their own accord and disappeared among the mountains was an explanation to which he would not listen. on one occasion a pool of blood had been found, and some tufts of wool. that also, i pointed out, could be explained in a perfectly natural way. further, the nights upon which sheep disappeared were invariably very dark, cloudy nights with no moon. this i met with the obvious retort that those were the nights which a commonplace sheep-stealer would naturally choose for his work. on one occasion a gap had been made in a wall, and some of the stones scattered for a considerable distance. human agency again, in my opinion. finally, armitage clinched all his arguments by telling me that he had actually heard the creature--indeed, that anyone could hear it who remained long enough at the gap. it was a distant roaring of an immense volume. i could not but smile at this, knowing, as i do, the strange reverberations which come out of an underground water system running amid the chasms of a limestone formation. my incredulity annoyed armitage so that he turned and left me with some abruptness. and now comes the queer point about the whole business. i was still standing near the mouth of the cave turning over in my mind the various statements of armitage, and reflecting how readily they could be explained away, when suddenly, from the depth of the tunnel beside me, there issued a most extraordinary sound. how shall i describe it? first of all, it seemed to be a great distance away, far down in the bowels of the earth. secondly, in spite of this suggestion of distance, it was very loud. lastly, it was not a boom, nor a crash, such as one would associate with falling water or tumbling rock, but it was a high whine, tremulous and vibrating, almost like the whinnying of a horse. it was certainly a most remarkable experience, and one which for a moment, i must admit, gave a new significance to armitage's words. i waited by the blue john gap for half an hour or more, but there was no return of the sound, so at last i wandered back to the farmhouse, rather mystified by what had occurred. decidedly i shall explore that cavern when my strength is restored. of course, armitage's explanation is too absurd for discussion, and yet that sound was certainly very strange. it still rings in my ears as i write. april .--in the last three days i have made several expeditions to the blue john gap, and have even penetrated some short distance, but my bicycle lantern is so small and weak that i dare not trust myself very far. i shall do the thing more systematically. i have heard no sound at all, and could almost believe that i had been the victim of some hallucination suggested, perhaps, by armitage's conversation. of course, the whole idea is absurd, and yet i must confess that those bushes at the entrance of the cave do present an appearance as if some heavy creature had forced its way through them. i begin to be keenly interested. i have said nothing to the miss allertons, for they are quite superstitious enough already, but i have bought some candles, and mean to investigate for myself. i observed this morning that among the numerous tufts of sheep's wool which lay among the bushes near the cavern there was one which was smeared with blood. of course, my reason tells me that if sheep wander into such rocky places they are likely to injure themselves, and yet somehow that splash of crimson gave me a sudden shock, and for a moment i found myself shrinking back in horror from the old roman arch. a fetid breath seemed to ooze from the black depths into which i peered. could it indeed be possible that some nameless thing, some dreadful presence, was lurking down yonder? i should have been incapable of such feelings in the days of my strength, but one grows more nervous and fanciful when one's health is shaken. for the moment i weakened in my resolution, and was ready to leave the secret of the old mine, if one exists, for ever unsolved. but tonight my interest has returned and my nerves grown more steady. tomorrow i trust that i shall have gone more deeply into this matter. april .--let me try and set down as accurately as i can my extraordinary experience of yesterday. i started in the afternoon, and made my way to the blue john gap. i confess that my misgivings returned as i gazed into its depths, and i wished that i had brought a companion to share my exploration. finally, with a return of resolution, i lit my candle, pushed my way through the briars, and descended into the rocky shaft. it went down at an acute angle for some fifty feet, the floor being covered with broken stone. thence there extended a long, straight passage cut in the solid rock. i am no geologist, but the lining of this corridor was certainly of some harder material than limestone, for there were points where i could actually see the tool-marks which the old miners had left in their excavation, as fresh as if they had been done yesterday. down this strange, old-world corridor i stumbled, my feeble flame throwing a dim circle of light around me, which made the shadows beyond the more threatening and obscure. finally, i came to a spot where the roman tunnel opened into a water-worn cavern--a huge hall, hung with long white icicles of lime deposit. from this central chamber i could dimly perceive that a number of passages worn by the subterranean streams wound away into the depths of the earth. i was standing there wondering whether i had better return, or whether i dare venture farther into this dangerous labyrinth, when my eyes fell upon something at my feet which strongly arrested my attention. the greater part of the floor of the cavern was covered with boulders of rock or with hard incrustations of lime, but at this particular point there had been a drip from the distant roof, which had left a patch of soft mud. in the very centre of this there was a huge mark--an ill-defined blotch, deep, broad and irregular, as if a great boulder had fallen upon it. no loose stone lay near, however, nor was there anything to account for the impression. it was far too large to be caused by any possible animal, and besides, there was only the one, and the patch of mud was of such a size that no reasonable stride could have covered it. as i rose from the examination of that singular mark and then looked round into the black shadows which hemmed me in, i must confess that i felt for a moment a most unpleasant sinking of my heart, and that, do what i could, the candle trembled in my outstretched hand. i soon recovered my nerve, however, when i reflected how absurd it was to associate so huge and shapeless a mark with the track of any known animal. even an elephant could not have produced it. i determined, therefore, that i would not be scared by vague and senseless fears from carrying out my exploration. before proceeding, i took good note of a curious rock formation in the wall by which i could recognize the entrance of the roman tunnel. the precaution was very necessary, for the great cave, so far as i could see it, was intersected by passages. having made sure of my position, and reassured myself by examining my spare candles and my matches, i advanced slowly over the rocky and uneven surface of the cavern. and now i come to the point where i met with such sudden and desperate disaster. a stream, some twenty feet broad, ran across my path, and i walked for some little distance along the bank to find a spot where i could cross dry-shod. finally, i came to a place where a single flat boulder lay near the centre, which i could reach in a stride. as it chanced, however, the rock had been cut away and made top-heavy by the rush of the stream, so that it tilted over as i landed on it and shot me into the ice-cold water. my candle went out, and i found myself floundering about in utter and absolute darkness. i staggered to my feet again, more amused than alarmed by my adventure. the candle had fallen from my hand, and was lost in the stream, but i had two others in my pocket, so that it was of no importance. i got one of them ready, and drew out my box of matches to light it. only then did i realize my position. the box had been soaked in my fall into the river. it was impossible to strike the matches. a cold hand seemed to close round my heart as i realized my position. the darkness was opaque and horrible. it was so utter one put one's hand up to one's face as if to press off something solid. i stood still, and by an effort i steadied myself. i tried to reconstruct in my mind a map of the floor of the cavern as i had last seen it. alas! the bearings which had impressed themselves upon my mind were high on the wall, and not to be found by touch. still, i remembered in a general way how the sides were situated, and i hoped that by groping my way along them i should at last come to the opening of the roman tunnel. moving very slowly, and continually striking against the rocks, i set out on this desperate quest. but i very soon realized how impossible it was. in that black, velvety darkness one lost all one's bearings in an instant. before i had made a dozen paces, i was utterly bewildered as to my whereabouts. the rippling of the stream, which was the one sound audible, showed me where it lay, but the moment that i left its bank i was utterly lost. the idea of finding my way back in absolute darkness through that limestone labyrinth was clearly an impossible one. i sat down upon a boulder and reflected upon my unfortunate plight. i had not told anyone that i proposed to come to the blue john mine, and it was unlikely that a search party would come after me. therefore i must trust to my own resources to get clear of the danger. there was only one hope, and that was that the matches might dry. when i fell into the river, only half of me had got thoroughly wet. my left shoulder had remained above the water. i took the box of matches, therefore, and put it into my left armpit. the moist air of the cavern might possibly be counteracted by the heat of my body, but even so, i knew that i could not hope to get a light for many hours. meanwhile there was nothing for it but to wait. by good luck i had slipped several biscuits into my pocket before i left the farm-house. these i now devoured, and washed them down with a draught from that wretched stream which had been the cause of all my misfortunes. then i felt about for a comfortable seat among the rocks, and, having discovered a place where i could get a support for my back, i stretched out my legs and settled myself down to wait. i was wretchedly damp and cold, but i tried to cheer myself with the reflection that modern science prescribed open windows and walks in all weather for my disease. gradually, lulled by the monotonous gurgle of the stream, and by the absolute darkness, i sank into an uneasy slumber. how long this lasted i cannot say. it may have been for an hour, it may have been for several. suddenly i sat up on my rock couch, with every nerve thrilling and every sense acutely on the alert. beyond all doubt i had heard a sound--some sound very distinct from the gurgling of the waters. it had passed, but the reverberation of it still lingered in my ear. was it a search party? they would most certainly have shouted, and vague as this sound was which had wakened me, it was very distinct from the human voice. i sat palpitating and hardly daring to breathe. there it was again! and again! now it had become continuous. it was a tread--yes, surely it was the tread of some living creature. but what a tread it was! it gave one the impression of enormous weight carried upon sponge-like feet, which gave forth a muffled but ear-filling sound. the darkness was as complete as ever, but the tread was regular and decisive. and it was coming beyond all question in my direction. my skin grew cold, and my hair stood on end as i listened to that steady and ponderous footfall. there was some creature there, and surely by the speed of its advance, it was one which could see in the dark. i crouched low on my rock and tried to blend myself into it. the steps grew nearer still, then stopped, and presently i was aware of a loud lapping and gurgling. the creature was drinking at the stream. then again there was silence, broken by a succession of long sniffs and snorts of tremendous volume and energy. had it caught the scent of me? my own nostrils were filled by a low fetid odour, mephitic and abominable. then i heard the steps again. they were on my side of the stream now. the stones rattled within a few yards of where i lay. hardly daring to breathe, i crouched upon my rock. then the steps drew away. i heard the splash as it returned across the river, and the sound died away into the distance in the direction from which it had come. for a long time i lay upon the rock, too much horrified to move. i thought of the sound which i had heard coming from the depths of the cave, of armitage's fears, of the strange impression in the mud, and now came this final and absolute proof that there was indeed some inconceivable monster, something utterly unearthly and dreadful, which lurked in the hollow of the mountain. of its nature or form i could frame no conception, save that it was both light-footed and gigantic. the combat between my reason, which told me that such things could not be, and my senses, which told me that they were, raged within me as i lay. finally, i was almost ready to persuade myself that this experience had been part of some evil dream, and that my abnormal condition might have conjured up an hallucination. but there remained one final experience which removed the last possibility of doubt from my mind. i had taken my matches from my armpit and felt them. they seemed perfectly hard and dry. stooping down into a crevice of the rocks, i tried one of them. to my delight it took fire at once. i lit the candle, and, with a terrified backward glance into the obscure depths of the cavern, i hurried in the direction of the roman passage. as i did so i passed the patch of mud on which i had seen the huge imprint. now i stood astonished before it, for there were three similar imprints upon its surface, enormous in size, irregular in outline, of a depth which indicated the ponderous weight which had left them. then a great terror surged over me. stooping and shading my candle with my hand, i ran in a frenzy of fear to the rocky archway, hastened up it, and never stopped until, with weary feet and panting lungs, i rushed up the final slope of stones, broke through the tangle of briars, and flung myself exhausted upon the soft grass under the peaceful light of the stars. it was three in the morning when i reached the farm-house, and today i am all unstrung and quivering after my terrific adventure. as yet i have told no one. i must move warily in the matter. what would the poor lonely women, or the uneducated yokels here think of it if i were to tell them my experience? let me go to someone who can understand and advise. april .--i was laid up in bed for two days after my incredible adventure in the cavern. i use the adjective with a very definite meaning, for i have had an experience since which has shocked me almost as much as the other. i have said that i was looking round for someone who could advise me. there is a dr. mark johnson who practices some few miles away, to whom i had a note of recommendation from professor saunderson. to him i drove, when i was strong enough to get about, and i recounted to him my whole strange experience. he listened intently, and then carefully examined me, paying special attention to my reflexes and to the pupils of my eyes. when he had finished, he refused to discuss my adventure, saying that it was entirely beyond him, but he gave me the card of a mr. picton at castleton, with the advice that i should instantly go to him and tell him the story exactly as i had done to himself. he was, according to my adviser, the very man who was pre-eminently suited to help me. i went on to the station, therefore, and made my way to the little town, which is some ten miles away. mr. picton appeared to be a man of importance, as his brass plate was displayed upon the door of a considerable building on the outskirts of the town. i was about to ring his bell, when some misgiving came into my mind, and, crossing to a neighbouring shop, i asked the man behind the counter if he could tell me anything of mr. picton. "why," said he, "he is the best mad doctor in derbyshire, and yonder is his asylum." you can imagine that it was not long before i had shaken the dust of castleton from my feet and returned to the farm, cursing all unimaginative pedants who cannot conceive that there may be things in creation which have never yet chanced to come across their mole's vision. after all, now that i am cooler, i can afford to admit that i have been no more sympathetic to armitage than dr. johnson has been to me. april . when i was a student i had the reputation of being a man of courage and enterprise. i remember that when there was a ghost-hunt at coltbridge it was i who sat up in the haunted house. is it advancing years (after all, i am only thirty-five), or is it this physical malady which has caused degeneration? certainly my heart quails when i think of that horrible cavern in the hill, and the certainty that it has some monstrous occupant. what shall i do? there is not an hour in the day that i do not debate the question. if i say nothing, then the mystery remains unsolved. if i do say anything, then i have the alternative of mad alarm over the whole countryside, or of absolute incredulity which may end in consigning me to an asylum. on the whole, i think that my best course is to wait, and to prepare for some expedition which shall be more deliberate and better thought out than the last. as a first step i have been to castleton and obtained a few essentials--a large acetylene lantern for one thing, and a good double-barrelled sporting rifle for another. the latter i have hired, but i have bought a dozen heavy game cartridges, which would bring down a rhinoceros. now i am ready for my troglodyte friend. give me better health and a little spate of energy, and i shall try conclusions with him yet. but who and what is he? ah! there is the question which stands between me and my sleep. how many theories do i form, only to discard each in turn! it is all so utterly unthinkable. and yet the cry, the footmark, the tread in the cavern--no reasoning can get past these i think of the old-world legends of dragons and of other monsters. were they, perhaps, not such fairy-tales as we have thought? can it be that there is some fact which underlies them, and am i, of all mortals, the one who is chosen to expose it? may .--for several days i have been laid up by the vagaries of an english spring, and during those days there have been developments, the true and sinister meaning of which no one can appreciate save myself. i may say that we have had cloudy and moonless nights of late, which according to my information were the seasons upon which sheep disappeared. well, sheep have disappeared. two of miss allerton's, one of old pearson's of the cat walk, and one of mrs. moulton's. four in all during three nights. no trace is left of them at all, and the countryside is buzzing with rumours of gipsies and of sheep-stealers. but there is something more serious than that. young armitage has disappeared also. he left his moorland cottage early on wednesday night and has never been heard of since. he was an unattached man, so there is less sensation than would otherwise be the case. the popular explanation is that he owes money, and has found a situation in some other part of the country, whence he will presently write for his belongings. but i have grave misgivings. is it not much more likely that the recent tragedy of the sheep has caused him to take some steps which may have ended in his own destruction? he may, for example, have lain in wait for the creature and been carried off by it into the recesses of the mountains. what an inconceivable fate for a civilized englishman of the twentieth century! and yet i feel that it is possible and even probable. but in that case, how far am i answerable both for his death and for any other mishap which may occur? surely with the knowledge i already possess it must be my duty to see that something is done, or if necessary to do it myself. it must be the latter, for this morning i went down to the local police-station and told my story. the inspector entered it all in a large book and bowed me out with commendable gravity, but i heard a burst of laughter before i had got down his garden path. no doubt he was recounting my adventure to his family. june .--i am writing this, propped up in bed, six weeks after my last entry in this journal. i have gone through a terrible shock both to mind and body, arising from such an experience as has seldom befallen a human being before. but i have attained my end. the danger from the terror which dwells in the blue john gap has passed never to return. thus much at least i, a broken invalid, have done for the common good. let me now recount what occurred as clearly as i may. the night of friday, may rd, was dark and cloudy--the very night for the monster to walk. about eleven o'clock i went from the farm-house with my lantern and my rifle, having first left a note upon the table of my bedroom in which i said that, if i were missing, search should be made for me in the direction of the gap. i made my way to the mouth of the roman shaft, and, having perched myself among the rocks close to the opening, i shut off my lantern and waited patiently with my loaded rifle ready to my hand. it was a melancholy vigil. all down the winding valley i could see the scattered lights of the farm-houses, and the church clock of chapel-le-dale tolling the hours came faintly to my ears. these tokens of my fellow-men served only to make my own position seem the more lonely, and to call for a greater effort to overcome the terror which tempted me continually to get back to the farm, and abandon for ever this dangerous quest. and yet there lies deep in every man a rooted self-respect which makes it hard for him to turn back from that which he has once undertaken. this feeling of personal pride was my salvation now, and it was that alone which held me fast when every instinct of my nature was dragging me away. i am glad now that i had the strength. in spite of all that is has cost me, my manhood is at least above reproach. twelve o'clock struck in the distant church, then one, then two. it was the darkest hour of the night. the clouds were drifting low, and there was not a star in the sky. an owl was hooting somewhere among the rocks, but no other sound, save the gentle sough of the wind, came to my ears. and then suddenly i heard it! from far away down the tunnel came those muffled steps, so soft and yet so ponderous. i heard also the rattle of stones as they gave way under that giant tread. they drew nearer. they were close upon me. i heard the crashing of the bushes round the entrance, and then dimly through the darkness i was conscious of the loom of some enormous shape, some monstrous inchoate creature, passing swiftly and very silently out from the tunnel. i was paralysed with fear and amazement. long as i had waited, now that it had actually come i was unprepared for the shock. i lay motionless and breathless, whilst the great dark mass whisked by me and was swallowed up in the night. but now i nerved myself for its return. no sound came from the sleeping countryside to tell of the horror which was loose. in no way could i judge how far off it was, what it was doing, or when it might be back. but not a second time should my nerve fail me, not a second time should it pass unchallenged. i swore it between my clenched teeth as i laid my cocked rifle across the rock. and yet it nearly happened. there was no warning of approach now as the creature passed over the grass. suddenly, like a dark, drifting shadow, the huge bulk loomed up once more before me, making for the entrance of the cave. again came that paralysis of volition which held my crooked forefinger impotent upon the trigger. but with a desperate effort i shook it off. even as the brushwood rustled, and the monstrous beast blended with the shadow of the gap, i fired at the retreating form. in the blaze of the gun i caught a glimpse of a great shaggy mass, something with rough and bristling hair of a withered grey colour, fading away to white in its lower parts, the huge body supported upon short, thick, curving legs. i had just that glance, and then i heard the rattle of the stones as the creature tore down into its burrow. in an instant, with a triumphant revulsion of feeling, i had cast my fears to the wind, and uncovering my powerful lantern, with my rifle in my hand, i sprang down from my rock and rushed after the monster down the old roman shaft. my splendid lamp cast a brilliant flood of vivid light in front of me, very different from the yellow glimmer which had aided me down the same passage only twelve days before. as i ran, i saw the great beast lurching along before me, its huge bulk filling up the whole space from wall to wall. its hair looked like coarse faded oakum, and hung down in long, dense masses which swayed as it moved. it was like an enormous unclipped sheep in its fleece, but in size it was far larger than the largest elephant, and its breadth seemed to be nearly as great as its height. it fills me with amazement now to think that i should have dared to follow such a horror into the bowels of the earth, but when one's blood is up, and when one's quarry seems to be flying, the old primeval hunting-spirit awakes and prudence is cast to the wind. rifle in hand, i ran at the top of my speed upon the trail of the monster. i had seen that the creature was swift. now i was to find out to my cost that it was also very cunning. i had imagined that it was in panic flight, and that i had only to pursue it. the idea that it might turn upon me never entered my excited brain. i have already explained that the passage down which i was racing opened into a great central cave. into this i rushed, fearful lest i should lose all trace of the beast. but he had turned upon his own traces, and in a moment we were face to face. that picture, seen in the brilliant white light of the lantern, is etched for ever upon my brain. he had reared up on his hind legs as a bear would do, and stood above me, enormous, menacing--such a creature as no nightmare had ever brought to my imagination. i have said that he reared like a bear, and there was something bear-like--if one could conceive a bear which was ten-fold the bulk of any bear seen upon earth--in his whole pose and attitude, in his great crooked forelegs with their ivory-white claws, in his rugged skin, and in his red, gaping mouth, fringed with monstrous fangs. only in one point did he differ from the bear, or from any other creature which walks the earth, and even at that supreme moment a shudder of horror passed over me as i observed that the eyes which glistened in the glow of my lantern were huge, projecting bulbs, white and sightless. for a moment his great paws swung over my head. the next he fell forward upon me, i and my broken lantern crashed to the earth, and i remember no more. when i came to myself i was back in the farm-house of the allertons. two days had passed since my terrible adventure in the blue john gap. it seems that i had lain all night in the cave insensible from concussion of the brain, with my left arm and two ribs badly fractured. in the morning my note had been found, a search party of a dozen farmers assembled, and i had been tracked down and carried back to my bedroom, where i had lain in high delirium ever since. there was, it seems, no sign of the creature, and no bloodstain which would show that my bullet had found him as he passed. save for my own plight and the marks upon the mud, there was nothing to prove that what i said was true. six weeks have now elapsed, and i am able to sit out once more in the sunshine. just opposite me is the steep hillside, grey with shaly rock, and yonder on its flank is the dark cleft which marks the opening of the blue john gap. but it is no longer a source of terror. never again through that ill-omened tunnel shall any strange shape flit out into the world of men. the educated and the scientific, the dr. johnsons and the like, may smile at my narrative, but the poorer folk of the countryside had never a doubt as to its truth. on the day after my recovering consciousness they assembled in their hundreds round the blue john gap. as the castleton courier said: "it was useless for our correspondent, or for any of the adventurous gentlemen who had come from matlock, buxton, and other parts, to offer to descend, to explore the cave to the end, and to finally test the extraordinary narrative of dr. james hardcastle. the country people had taken the matter into their own hands, and from an early hour of the morning they had worked hard in stopping up the entrance of the tunnel. there is a sharp slope where the shaft begins, and great boulders, rolled along by many willing hands, were thrust down it until the gap was absolutely sealed. so ends the episode which has caused such excitement throughout the country. local opinion is fiercely divided upon the subject. on the one hand are those who point to dr. hardcastle's impaired health, and to the possibility of cerebral lesions of tubercular origin giving rise to strange hallucinations. some idee fixe, according to these gentlemen, caused the doctor to wander down the tunnel, and a fall among the rocks was sufficient to account for his injuries. on the other hand, a legend of a strange creature in the gap has existed for some months back, and the farmers look upon dr. hardcastle's narrative and his personal injuries as a final corroboration. so the matter stands, and so the matter will continue to stand, for no definite solution seems to us to be now possible. it transcends human wit to give any scientific explanation which could cover the alleged facts." perhaps before the courier published these words they would have been wise to send their representative to me. i have thought the matter out, as no one else has occasion to do, and it is possible that i might have removed some of the more obvious difficulties of the narrative and brought it one degree nearer to scientific acceptance. let me then write down the only explanation which seems to me to elucidate what i know to my cost to have been a series of facts. my theory may seem to be wildly improbable, but at least no one can venture to say that it is impossible. my view is--and it was formed, as is shown by my diary, before my personal adventure--that in this part of england there is a vast subterranean lake or sea, which is fed by the great number of streams which pass down through the limestone. where there is a large collection of water there must also be some evaporation, mists or rain, and a possibility of vegetation. this in turn suggests that there may be animal life, arising, as the vegetable life would also do, from those seeds and types which had been introduced at an early period of the world's history, when communication with the outer air was more easy. this place had then developed a fauna and flora of its own, including such monsters as the one which i had seen, which may well have been the old cave-bear, enormously enlarged and modified by its new environment. for countless aeons the internal and the external creation had kept apart, growing steadily away from each other. then there had come some rift in the depths of the mountain which had enabled one creature to wander up and, by means of the roman tunnel, to reach the open air. like all subterranean life, it had lost the power of sight, but this had no doubt been compensated for by nature in other directions. certainly it had some means of finding its way about, and of hunting down the sheep upon the hillside. as to its choice of dark nights, it is part of my theory that light was painful to those great white eyeballs, and that it was only a pitch-black world which it could tolerate. perhaps, indeed, it was the glare of my lantern which saved my life at that awful moment when we were face to face. so i read the riddle. i leave these facts behind me, and if you can explain them, do so; or if you choose to doubt them, do so. neither your belief nor your incredulity can alter them, nor affect one whose task is nearly over. so ended the strange narrative of dr. james hardcastle. the brazilian cat it is hard luck on a young fellow to have expensive tastes, great expectations, aristocratic connections, but no actual money in his pocket, and no profession by which he may earn any. the fact was that my father, a good, sanguine, easy-going man, had such confidence in the wealth and benevolence of his bachelor elder brother, lord southerton, that he took it for granted that i, his only son, would never be called upon to earn a living for myself. he imagined that if there were not a vacancy for me on the great southerton estates, at least there would be found some post in that diplomatic service which still remains the special preserve of our privileged classes. he died too early to realize how false his calculations had been. neither my uncle nor the state took the slightest notice of me, or showed any interest in my career. an occasional brace of pheasants, or basket of hares, was all that ever reached me to remind me that i was heir to otwell house and one of the richest estates in the country. in the meantime, i found myself a bachelor and man about town, living in a suite of apartments in grosvenor mansions, with no occupation save that of pigeon-shooting and polo-playing at hurlingham. month by month i realized that it was more and more difficult to get the brokers to renew my bills, or to cash any further post-obits upon an unentailed property. ruin lay right across my path, and every day i saw it clearer, nearer, and more absolutely unavoidable. what made me feel my own poverty the more was that, apart from the great wealth of lord southerton, all my other relations were fairly well-to-do. the nearest of these was everard king, my father's nephew and my own first cousin, who had spent an adventurous life in brazil, and had now returned to this country to settle down on his fortune. we never knew how he made his money, but he appeared to have plenty of it, for he bought the estate of greylands, near clipton-on-the-marsh, in suffolk. for the first year of his residence in england he took no more notice of me than my miserly uncle; but at last one summer morning, to my very great relief and joy, i received a letter asking me to come down that very day and spend a short visit at greylands court. i was expecting a rather long visit to bankruptcy court at the time, and this interruption seemed almost providential. if i could only get on terms with this unknown relative of mine, i might pull through yet. for the family credit he could not let me go entirely to the wall. i ordered my valet to pack my valise, and i set off the same evening for clipton-on-the-marsh. after changing at ipswich, a little local train deposited me at a small, deserted station lying amidst a rolling grassy country, with a sluggish and winding river curving in and out amidst the valleys, between high, silted banks, which showed that we were within reach of the tide. no carriage was awaiting me (i found afterwards that my telegram had been delayed), so i hired a dogcart at the local inn. the driver, an excellent fellow, was full of my relative's praises, and i learned from him that mr. everard king was already a name to conjure with in that part of the county. he had entertained the school-children, he had thrown his grounds open to visitors, he had subscribed to charities--in short, his benevolence had been so universal that my driver could only account for it on the supposition that he had parliamentary ambitions. my attention was drawn away from my driver's panegyric by the appearance of a very beautiful bird which settled on a telegraph-post beside the road. at first i thought that it was a jay, but it was larger, with a brighter plumage. the driver accounted for its presence at once by saying that it belonged to the very man whom we were about to visit. it seems that the acclimatization of foreign creatures was one of his hobbies, and that he had brought with him from brazil a number of birds and beasts which he was endeavouring to rear in england. when once we had passed the gates of greylands park we had ample evidence of this taste of his. some small spotted deer, a curious wild pig known, i believe, as a peccary, a gorgeously feathered oriole, some sort of armadillo, and a singular lumbering in-toed beast like a very fat badger, were among the creatures which i observed as we drove along the winding avenue. mr. everard king, my unknown cousin, was standing in person upon the steps of his house, for he had seen us in the distance, and guessed that it was i. his appearance was very homely and benevolent, short and stout, forty-five years old, perhaps, with a round, good-humoured face, burned brown with the tropical sun, and shot with a thousand wrinkles. he wore white linen clothes, in true planter style, with a cigar between his lips, and a large panama hat upon the back of his head. it was such a figure as one associates with a verandahed bungalow, and it looked curiously out of place in front of this broad, stone english mansion, with its solid wings and its palladio pillars before the doorway. "my dear!" he cried, glancing over his shoulder; "my dear, here is our guest! welcome, welcome to greylands! i am delighted to make your acquaintance, cousin marshall, and i take it as a great compliment that you should honour this sleepy little country place with your presence." nothing could be more hearty than his manner, and he set me at my ease in an instant. but it needed all his cordiality to atone for the frigidity and even rudeness of his wife, a tall, haggard woman, who came forward at his summons. she was, i believe, of brazilian extraction, though she spoke excellent english, and i excused her manners on the score of her ignorance of our customs. she did not attempt to conceal, however, either then or afterwards, that i was no very welcome visitor at greylands court. her actual words were, as a rule, courteous, but she was the possessor of a pair of particularly expressive dark eyes, and i read in them very clearly from the first that she heartily wished me back in london once more. however, my debts were too pressing and my designs upon my wealthy relative were too vital for me to allow them to be upset by the ill-temper of his wife, so i disregarded her coldness and reciprocated the extreme cordiality of his welcome. no pains had been spared by him to make me comfortable. my room was a charming one. he implored me to tell him anything which could add to my happiness. it was on the tip of my tongue to inform him that a blank cheque would materially help towards that end, but i felt that it might be premature in the present state of our acquaintance. the dinner was excellent, and as we sat together afterwards over his havanas and coffee, which later he told me was specially prepared upon his own plantation, it seemed to me that all my driver's eulogies were justified, and that i had never met a more large-hearted and hospitable man. but, in spite of his cheery good nature, he was a man with a strong will and a fiery temper of his own. of this i had an example upon the following morning. the curious aversion which mrs. everard king had conceived towards me was so strong, that her manner at breakfast was almost offensive. but her meaning became unmistakable when her husband had quitted the room. "the best train in the day is at twelve-fifteen," said she. "but i was not thinking of going today," i answered, frankly--perhaps even defiantly, for i was determined not to be driven out by this woman. "oh, if it rests with you--" said she, and stopped with a most insolent expression in her eyes. "i am sure," i answered, "that mr. everard king would tell me if i were outstaying my welcome." "what's this? what's this?" said a voice, and there he was in the room. he had overheard my last words, and a glance at our faces had told him the rest. in an instant his chubby, cheery face set into an expression of absolute ferocity. "might i trouble you to walk outside, marshall?" said he. (i may mention that my own name is marshall king.) he closed the door behind me, and then, for an instant, i heard him talking in a low voice of concentrated passion to his wife. this gross breach of hospitality had evidently hit upon his tenderest point. i am no eavesdropper, so i walked out on to the lawn. presently i heard a hurried step behind me, and there was the lady, her face pale with excitement, and her eyes red with tears. "my husband has asked me to apologize to you, mr. marshall king," said she, standing with downcast eyes before me. "please do not say another word, mrs. king." her dark eyes suddenly blazed out at me. "you fool!" she hissed, with frantic vehemence, and turning on her heel swept back to the house. the insult was so outrageous, so insufferable, that i could only stand staring after her in bewilderment. i was still there when my host joined me. he was his cheery, chubby self once more. "i hope that my wife has apologized for her foolish remarks," said he. "oh, yes--yes, certainly!" he put his hand through my arm and walked with me up and down the lawn. "you must not take it seriously," said he. "it would grieve me inexpressibly if you curtailed your visit by one hour. the fact is--there is no reason why there should be any concealment between relatives--that my poor dear wife is incredibly jealous. she hates that anyone--male or female--should for an instant come between us. her ideal is a desert island and an eternal tete-a-tete. that gives you the clue to her actions, which are, i confess, upon this particular point, not very far removed from mania. tell me that you will think no more of it." "no, no; certainly not." "then light this cigar and come round with me and see my little menagerie." the whole afternoon was occupied by this inspection, which included all the birds, beasts, and even reptiles which he had imported. some were free, some in cages, a few actually in the house. he spoke with enthusiasm of his successes and his failures, his births and his deaths, and he would cry out in his delight, like a schoolboy, when, as we walked, some gaudy bird would flutter up from the grass, or some curious beast slink into the cover. finally he led me down a corridor which extended from one wing of the house. at the end of this there was a heavy door with a sliding shutter in it, and beside it there projected from the wall an iron handle attached to a wheel and a drum. a line of stout bars extended across the passage. "i am about to show you the jewel of my collection," said he. "there is only one other specimen in europe, now that the rotterdam cub is dead. it is a brazilian cat." "but how does that differ from any other cat?" "you will soon see that," said he, laughing. "will you kindly draw that shutter and look through?" i did so, and found that i was gazing into a large, empty room, with stone flags, and small, barred windows upon the farther wall. in the centre of this room, lying in the middle of a golden patch of sunlight, there was stretched a huge creature, as large as a tiger, but as black and sleek as ebony. it was simply a very enormous and very well-kept black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of light exactly as a cat would do. it was so graceful, so sinewy, and so gently and smoothly diabolical, that i could not take my eyes from the opening. "isn't he splendid?" said my host, enthusiastically. "glorious! i never saw such a noble creature." "some people call it a black puma, but really it is not a puma at all. that fellow is nearly eleven feet from tail to tip. four years ago he was a little ball of black fluff, with two yellow eyes staring out of it. he was sold me as a new-born cub up in the wild country at the head-waters of the rio negro. they speared his mother to death after she had killed a dozen of them." "they are ferocious, then?" "the most absolutely treacherous and bloodthirsty creatures upon earth. you talk about a brazilian cat to an up-country indian, and see him get the jumps. they prefer humans to game. this fellow has never tasted living blood yet, but when he does he will be a terror. at present he won't stand anyone but me in his den. even baldwin, the groom, dare not go near him. as to me, i am his mother and father in one." as he spoke he suddenly, to my astonishment, opened the door and slipped in, closing it instantly behind him. at the sound of his voice the huge, lithe creature rose, yawned and rubbed its round, black head affectionately against his side, while he patted and fondled it. "now, tommy, into your cage!" said he. the monstrous cat walked over to one side of the room and coiled itself up under a grating. everard king came out, and taking the iron handle which i have mentioned, he began to turn it. as he did so the line of bars in the corridor began to pass through a slot in the wall and closed up the front of this grating, so as to make an effective cage. when it was in position he opened the door once more and invited me into the room, which was heavy with the pungent, musty smell peculiar to the great carnivora. "that's how we work it," said he. "we give him the run of the room for exercise, and then at night we put him in his cage. you can let him out by turning the handle from the passage, or you can, as you have seen, coop him up in the same way. no, no, you should not do that!" i had put my hand between the bars to pat the glossy, heaving flank. he pulled it back, with a serious face. "i assure you that he is not safe. don't imagine that because i can take liberties with him anyone else can. he is very exclusive in his friends--aren't you, tommy? ah, he hears his lunch coming to him! don't you, boy?" a step sounded in the stone-flagged passage, and the creature had sprung to his feet, and was pacing up and down the narrow cage, his yellow eyes gleaming, and his scarlet tongue rippling and quivering over the white line of his jagged teeth. a groom entered with a coarse joint upon a tray, and thrust it through the bars to him. he pounced lightly upon it, carried it off to the corner, and there, holding it between his paws, tore and wrenched at it, raising his bloody muzzle every now and then to look at us. it was a malignant and yet fascinating sight. "you can't wonder that i am fond of him, can you?" said my host, as we left the room, "especially when you consider that i have had the rearing of him. it was no joke bringing him over from the centre of south america; but here he is safe and sound--and, as i have said, far the most perfect specimen in europe. the people at the zoo are dying to have him, but i really can't part with him. now, i think that i have inflicted my hobby upon you long enough, so we cannot do better than follow tommy's example, and go to our lunch." my south american relative was so engrossed by his grounds and their curious occupants, that i hardly gave him credit at first for having any interests outside them. that he had some, and pressing ones, was soon borne in upon me by the number of telegrams which he received. they arrived at all hours, and were always opened by him with the utmost eagerness and anxiety upon his face. sometimes i imagined that it must be the turf, and sometimes the stock exchange, but certainly he had some very urgent business going forwards which was not transacted upon the downs of suffolk. during the six days of my visit he had never fewer than three or four telegrams a day, and sometimes as many as seven or eight. i had occupied these six days so well, that by the end of them i had succeeded in getting upon the most cordial terms with my cousin. every night we had sat up late in the billiard-room, he telling me the most extraordinary stories of his adventures in america--stories so desperate and reckless, that i could hardly associate them with the brown little, chubby man before me. in return, i ventured upon some of my own reminiscences of london life, which interested him so much, that he vowed he would come up to grosvenor mansions and stay with me. he was anxious to see the faster side of city life, and certainly, though i say it, he could not have chosen a more competent guide. it was not until the last day of my visit that i ventured to approach that which was on my mind. i told him frankly about my pecuniary difficulties and my impending ruin, and i asked his advice--though i hoped for something more solid. he listened attentively, puffing hard at his cigar. "but surely," said he, "you are the heir of our relative, lord southerton?" "i have every reason to believe so, but he would never make me any allowance." "no, no, i have heard of his miserly ways. my poor marshall, your position has been a very hard one. by the way, have you heard any news of lord southerton's health lately?" "he has always been in a critical condition ever since my childhood." "exactly--a creaking hinge, if ever there was one. your inheritance may be a long way off. dear me, how awkwardly situated you are!" "i had some hopes, sir, that you, knowing all the facts, might be inclined to advance----" "don't say another word, my dear boy," he cried, with the utmost cordiality; "we shall talk it over tonight, and i give you my word that whatever is in my power shall be done." i was not sorry that my visit was drawing to a close, for it is unpleasant to feel that there is one person in the house who eagerly desires your departure. mrs. king's sallow face and forbidding eyes had become more and more hateful to me. she was no longer actively rude--her fear of her husband prevented her--but she pushed her insane jealousy to the extent of ignoring me, never addressing me, and in every way making my stay at greylands as uncomfortable as she could. so offensive was her manner during that last day, that i should certainly have left had it not been for that interview with my host in the evening which would, i hoped, retrieve my broken fortunes. it was very late when it occurred, for my relative, who had been receiving even more telegrams than usual during the day, went off to his study after dinner, and only emerged when the household had retired to bed. i heard him go round locking the doors, as custom was of a night, and finally he joined me in the billiard-room. his stout figure was wrapped in a dressing-gown, and he wore a pair of red turkish slippers without any heels. settling down into an arm-chair, he brewed himself a glass of grog, in which i could not help noticing that the whisky considerably predominated over the water. "my word!" said he, "what a night!" it was, indeed. the wind was howling and screaming round the house, and the latticed windows rattled and shook as if they were coming in. the glow of the yellow lamps and the flavour of our cigars seemed the brighter and more fragrant for the contrast. "now, my boy," said my host, "we have the house and the night to ourselves. let me have an idea of how your affairs stand, and i will see what can be done to set them in order. i wish to hear every detail." thus encouraged, i entered into a long exposition, in which all my tradesmen and creditors from my landlord to my valet, figured in turn. i had notes in my pocket-book, and i marshalled my facts, and gave, i flatter myself, a very businesslike statement of my own unbusinesslike ways and lamentable position. i was depressed, however, to notice that my companion's eyes were vacant and his attention elsewhere. when he did occasionally throw out a remark it was so entirely perfunctory and pointless, that i was sure he had not in the least followed my remarks. every now and then he roused himself and put on some show of interest, asking me to repeat or to explain more fully, but it was always to sink once more into the same brown study. at last he rose and threw the end of his cigar into the grate. "i'll tell you what, my boy," said he. "i never had a head for figures, so you will excuse me. you must jot it all down upon paper, and let me have a note of the amount. i'll understand it when i see it in black and white." the proposal was encouraging. i promised to do so. "and now it's time we were in bed. by jove, there's one o'clock striking in the hall." the tingling of the chiming clock broke through the deep roar of the gale. the wind was sweeping past with the rush of a great river. "i must see my cat before i go to bed," said my host. "a high wind excites him. will you come?" "certainly," said i. "then tread softly and don't speak, for everyone is asleep." we passed quietly down the lamp-lit persian-rugged hall, and through the door at the farther end. all was dark in the stone corridor, but a stable lantern hung on a hook, and my host took it down and lit it. there was no grating visible in the passage, so i knew that the beast was in its cage. "come in!" said my relative, and opened the door. a deep growling as we entered showed that the storm had really excited the creature. in the flickering light of the lantern, we saw it, a huge black mass coiled in the corner of its den and throwing a squat, uncouth shadow upon the whitewashed wall. its tail switched angrily among the straw. "poor tommy is not in the best of tempers," said everard king, holding up the lantern and looking in at him. "what a black devil he looks, doesn't he? i must give him a little supper to put him in a better humour. would you mind holding the lantern for a moment?" i took it from his hand and he stepped to the door. "his larder is just outside here," said he. "you will excuse me for an instant won't you?" he passed out, and the door shut with a sharp metallic click behind him. that hard crisp sound made my heart stand still. a sudden wave of terror passed over me. a vague perception of some monstrous treachery turned me cold. i sprang to the door, but there was no handle upon the inner side. "here!" i cried. "let me out!" "all right! don't make a row!" said my host from the passage. "you've got the light all right." "yes, but i don't care about being locked in alone like this." "don't you?" i heard his hearty, chuckling laugh. "you won't be alone long." "let me out, sir!" i repeated angrily. "i tell you i don't allow practical jokes of this sort." "practical is the word," said he, with another hateful chuckle. and then suddenly i heard, amidst the roar of the storm, the creak and whine of the winch-handle turning and the rattle of the grating as it passed through the slot. great god, he was letting loose the brazilian cat! in the light of the lantern i saw the bars sliding slowly before me. already there was an opening a foot wide at the farther end. with a scream i seized the last bar with my hands and pulled with the strength of a madman. i was a madman with rage and horror. for a minute or more i held the thing motionless. i knew that he was straining with all his force upon the handle, and that the leverage was sure to overcome me. i gave inch by inch, my feet sliding along the stones, and all the time i begged and prayed this inhuman monster to save me from this horrible death. i conjured him by his kinship. i reminded him that i was his guest; i begged to know what harm i had ever done him. his only answers were the tugs and jerks upon the handle, each of which, in spite of all my struggles, pulled another bar through the opening. clinging and clutching, i was dragged across the whole front of the cage, until at last, with aching wrists and lacerated fingers, i gave up the hopeless struggle. the grating clanged back as i released it, and an instant later i heard the shuffle of the turkish slippers in the passage, and the slam of the distant door. then everything was silent. the creature had never moved during this time. he lay still in the corner, and his tail had ceased switching. this apparition of a man adhering to his bars and dragged screaming across him had apparently filled him with amazement. i saw his great eyes staring steadily at me. i had dropped the lantern when i seized the bars, but it still burned upon the floor, and i made a movement to grasp it, with some idea that its light might protect me. but the instant i moved, the beast gave a deep and menacing growl. i stopped and stood still, quivering with fear in every limb. the cat (if one may call so fearful a creature by so homely a name) was not more than ten feet from me. the eyes glimmered like two disks of phosphorus in the darkness. they appalled and yet fascinated me. i could not take my own eyes from them. nature plays strange tricks with us at such moments of intensity, and those glimmering lights waxed and waned with a steady rise and fall. sometimes they seemed to be tiny points of extreme brilliancy--little electric sparks in the black obscurity--then they would widen and widen until all that corner of the room was filled with their shifting and sinister light. and then suddenly they went out altogether. the beast had closed its eyes. i do not know whether there may be any truth in the old idea of the dominance of the human gaze, or whether the huge cat was simply drowsy, but the fact remains that, far from showing any symptom of attacking me, it simply rested its sleek, black head upon its huge forepaws and seemed to sleep. i stood, fearing to move lest i should rouse it into malignant life once more. but at least i was able to think clearly now that the baleful eyes were off me. here i was shut up for the night with the ferocious beast. my own instincts, to say nothing of the words of the plausible villain who laid this trap for me, warned me that the animal was as savage as its master. how could i stave it off until morning? the door was hopeless, and so were the narrow, barred windows. there was no shelter anywhere in the bare, stone-flagged room. to cry for assistance was absurd. i knew that this den was an outhouse, and that the corridor which connected it with the house was at least a hundred feet long. besides, with the gale thundering outside, my cries were not likely to be heard. i had only my own courage and my own wits to trust to. and then, with a fresh wave of horror, my eyes fell upon the lantern. the candle had burned low, and was already beginning to gutter. in ten minutes it would be out. i had only ten minutes then in which to do something, for i felt that if i were once left in the dark with that fearful beast i should be incapable of action. the very thought of it paralysed me. i cast my despairing eyes round this chamber of death, and they rested upon one spot which seemed to promise i will not say safety, but less immediate and imminent danger than the open floor. i have said that the cage had a top as well as a front, and this top was left standing when the front was wound through the slot in the wall. it consisted of bars at a few inches' interval, with stout wire netting between, and it rested upon a strong stanchion at each end. it stood now as a great barred canopy over the crouching figure in the corner. the space between this iron shelf and the roof may have been from two or three feet. if i could only get up there, squeezed in between bars and ceiling, i should have only one vulnerable side. i should be safe from below, from behind, and from each side. only on the open face of it could i be attacked. there, it is true, i had no protection whatever; but at least, i should be out of the brute's path when he began to pace about his den. he would have to come out of his way to reach me. it was now or never, for if once the light were out it would be impossible. with a gulp in my throat i sprang up, seized the iron edge of the top, and swung myself panting on to it. i writhed in face downwards, and found myself looking straight into the terrible eyes and yawning jaws of the cat. its fetid breath came up into my face like the steam from some foul pot. it appeared, however, to be rather curious than angry. with a sleek ripple of its long, black back it rose, stretched itself, and then rearing itself on its hind legs, with one forepaw against the wall, it raised the other, and drew its claws across the wire meshes beneath me. one sharp, white hook tore through my trousers--for i may mention that i was still in evening dress--and dug a furrow in my knee. it was not meant as an attack, but rather as an experiment, for upon my giving a sharp cry of pain he dropped down again, and springing lightly into the room, he began walking swiftly round it, looking up every now and again in my direction. for my part i shuffled backwards until i lay with my back against the wall, screwing myself into the smallest space possible. the farther i got the more difficult it was for him to attack me. he seemed more excited now that he had begun to move about, and he ran swiftly and noiselessly round and round the den, passing continually underneath the iron couch upon which i lay. it was wonderful to see so great a bulk passing like a shadow, with hardly the softest thudding of velvety pads. the candle was burning low--so low that i could hardly see the creature. and then, with a last flare and splutter it went out altogether. i was alone with the cat in the dark! it helps one to face a danger when one knows that one has done all that possibly can be done. there is nothing for it then but to quietly await the result. in this case, there was no chance of safety anywhere except the precise spot where i was. i stretched myself out, therefore, and lay silently, almost breathlessly, hoping that the beast might forget my presence if i did nothing to remind him. i reckoned that it must already be two o'clock. at four it would be full dawn. i had not more than two hours to wait for daylight. outside, the storm was still raging, and the rain lashed continually against the little windows. inside, the poisonous and fetid air was overpowering. i could neither hear nor see the cat. i tried to think about other things--but only one had power enough to draw my mind from my terrible position. that was the contemplation of my cousin's villainy, his unparalleled hypocrisy, his malignant hatred of me. beneath that cheerful face there lurked the spirit of a mediaeval assassin. and as i thought of it i saw more clearly how cunningly the thing had been arranged. he had apparently gone to bed with the others. no doubt he had his witness to prove it. then, unknown to them, he had slipped down, had lured me into his den and abandoned me. his story would be so simple. he had left me to finish my cigar in the billiard-room. i had gone down on my own account to have a last look at the cat. i had entered the room without observing that the cage was opened, and i had been caught. how could such a crime be brought home to him? suspicion, perhaps--but proof, never! how slowly those dreadful two hours went by! once i heard a low, rasping sound, which i took to be the creature licking its own fur. several times those greenish eyes gleamed at me through the darkness, but never in a fixed stare, and my hopes grew stronger that my presence had been forgotten or ignored. at last the least faint glimmer of light came through the windows--i first dimly saw them as two grey squares upon the black wall, then grey turned to white, and i could see my terrible companion once more. and he, alas, could see me! it was evident to me at once that he was in a much more dangerous and aggressive mood than when i had seen him last. the cold of the morning had irritated him, and he was hungry as well. with a continual growl he paced swiftly up and down the side of the room which was farthest from my refuge, his whiskers bristling angrily, and his tail switching and lashing. as he turned at the corners his savage eyes always looked upwards at me with a dreadful menace. i knew then that he meant to kill me. yet i found myself even at that moment admiring the sinuous grace of the devilish thing, its long, undulating, rippling movements, the gloss of its beautiful flanks, the vivid, palpitating scarlet of the glistening tongue which hung from the jet-black muzzle. and all the time that deep, threatening growl was rising and rising in an unbroken crescendo. i knew that the crisis was at hand. it was a miserable hour to meet such a death--so cold, so comfortless, shivering in my light dress clothes upon this gridiron of torment upon which i was stretched. i tried to brace myself to it, to raise my soul above it, and at the same time, with the lucidity which comes to a perfectly desperate man, i cast round for some possible means of escape. one thing was clear to me. if that front of the cage was only back in its position once more, i could find a sure refuge behind it. could i possibly pull it back? i hardly dared to move for fear of bringing the creature upon me. slowly, very slowly, i put my hand forward until it grasped the edge of the front, the final bar which protruded through the wall. to my surprise it came quite easily to my jerk. of course the difficulty of drawing it out arose from the fact that i was clinging to it. i pulled again, and three inches of it came through. it ran apparently on wheels. i pulled again ... and then the cat sprang! it was so quick, so sudden, that i never saw it happen. i simply heard the savage snarl, and in an instant afterwards the blazing yellow eyes, the flattened black head with its red tongue and flashing teeth, were within reach of me. the impact of the creature shook the bars upon which i lay, until i thought (as far as i could think of anything at such a moment) that they were coming down. the cat swayed there for an instant, the head and front paws quite close to me, the hind paws clawing to find a grip upon the edge of the grating. i heard the claws rasping as they clung to the wire-netting, and the breath of the beast made me sick. but its bound had been miscalculated. it could not retain its position. slowly, grinning with rage, and scratching madly at the bars, it swung backwards and dropped heavily upon the floor. with a growl it instantly faced round to me and crouched for another spring. i knew that the next few moments would decide my fate. the creature had learned by experience. it would not miscalculate again. i must act promptly, fearlessly, if i were to have a chance for life. in an instant i had formed my plan. pulling off my dress-coat, i threw it down over the head of the beast. at the same moment i dropped over the edge, seized the end of the front grating, and pulled it frantically out of the wall. it came more easily than i could have expected. i rushed across the room, bearing it with me; but, as i rushed, the accident of my position put me upon the outer side. had it been the other way, i might have come off scathless. as it was, there was a moment's pause as i stopped it and tried to pass in through the opening which i had left. that moment was enough to give time to the creature to toss off the coat with which i had blinded him and to spring upon me. i hurled myself through the gap and pulled the rails to behind me, but he seized my leg before i could entirely withdraw it. one stroke of that huge paw tore off my calf as a shaving of wood curls off before a plane. the next moment, bleeding and fainting, i was lying among the foul straw with a line of friendly bars between me and the creature which ramped so frantically against them. too wounded to move, and too faint to be conscious of fear, i could only lie, more dead than alive, and watch it. it pressed its broad, black chest against the bars and angled for me with its crooked paws as i have seen a kitten do before a mouse-trap. it ripped my clothes, but, stretch as it would, it could not quite reach me. i have heard of the curious numbing effect produced by wounds from the great carnivora, and now i was destined to experience it, for i had lost all sense of personality, and was as interested in the cat's failure or success as if it were some game which i was watching. and then gradually my mind drifted away into strange vague dreams, always with that black face and red tongue coming back into them, and so i lost myself in the nirvana of delirium, the blessed relief of those who are too sorely tried. tracing the course of events afterwards, i conclude that i must have been insensible for about two hours. what roused me to consciousness once more was that sharp metallic click which had been the precursor of my terrible experience. it was the shooting back of the spring lock. then, before my senses were clear enough to entirely apprehend what they saw, i was aware of the round, benevolent face of my cousin peering in through the open door. what he saw evidently amazed him. there was the cat crouching on the floor. i was stretched upon my back in my shirt-sleeves within the cage, my trousers torn to ribbons and a great pool of blood all round me. i can see his amazed face now, with the morning sunlight upon it. he peered at me, and peered again. then he closed the door behind him, and advanced to the cage to see if i were really dead. i cannot undertake to say what happened. i was not in a fit state to witness or to chronicle such events. i can only say that i was suddenly conscious that his face was away from me--that he was looking towards the animal. "good old tommy!" he cried. "good old tommy!" then he came near the bars, with his back still towards me. "down, you stupid beast!" he roared. "down, sir! don't you know your master?" suddenly even in my bemuddled brain a remembrance came of those words of his when he had said that the taste of blood would turn the cat into a fiend. my blood had done it, but he was to pay the price. "get away!" he screamed. "get away, you devil! baldwin! baldwin! oh, my god!" and then i heard him fall, and rise, and fall again, with a sound like the ripping of sacking. his screams grew fainter until they were lost in the worrying snarl. and then, after i thought that he was dead, i saw, as in a nightmare, a blinded, tattered, blood-soaked figure running wildly round the room--and that was the last glimpse which i had of him before i fainted once again. i was many months in my recovery--in fact, i cannot say that i have ever recovered, for to the end of my days i shall carry a stick as a sign of my night with the brazilian cat. baldwin, the groom, and the other servants could not tell what had occurred, when, drawn by the death-cries of their master, they found me behind the bars, and his remains--or what they afterwards discovered to be his remains--in the clutch of the creature which he had reared. they stalled him off with hot irons, and afterwards shot him through the loophole of the door before they could finally extricate me. i was carried to my bedroom, and there, under the roof of my would-be murderer, i remained between life and death for several weeks. they had sent for a surgeon from clipton and a nurse from london, and in a month i was able to be carried to the station, and so conveyed back once more to grosvenor mansions. i have one remembrance of that illness, which might have been part of the ever-changing panorama conjured up by a delirious brain were it not so definitely fixed in my memory. one night, when the nurse was absent, the door of my chamber opened, and a tall woman in blackest mourning slipped into the room. she came across to me, and as she bent her sallow face i saw by the faint gleam of the night-light that it was the brazilian woman whom my cousin had married. she stared intently into my face, and her expression was more kindly than i had ever seen it. "are you conscious?" she asked. i feebly nodded--for i was still very weak. "well; then, i only wished to say to you that you have yourself to blame. did i not do all i could for you? from the beginning i tried to drive you from the house. by every means, short of betraying my husband, i tried to save you from him. i knew that he had a reason for bringing you here. i knew that he would never let you get away again. no one knew him as i knew him, who had suffered from him so often. i did not dare to tell you all this. he would have killed me. but i did my best for you. as things have turned out, you have been the best friend that i have ever had. you have set me free, and i fancied that nothing but death would do that. i am sorry if you are hurt, but i cannot reproach myself. i told you that you were a fool--and a fool you have been." she crept out of the room, the bitter, singular woman, and i was never destined to see her again. with what remained from her husband's property she went back to her native land, and i have heard that she afterwards took the veil at pernambuco. it was not until i had been back in london for some time that the doctors pronounced me to be well enough to do business. it was not a very welcome permission to me, for i feared that it would be the signal for an inrush of creditors; but it was summers, my lawyer, who first took advantage of it. "i am very glad to see that your lordship is so much better," said he. "i have been waiting a long time to offer my congratulations." "what do you mean, summers? this is no time for joking." "i mean what i say," he answered. "you have been lord southerton for the last six weeks, but we feared that it would retard your recovery if you were to learn it." lord southerton! one of the richest peers in england! i could not believe my ears. and then suddenly i thought of the time which had elapsed, and how it coincided with my injuries. "then lord southerton must have died about the same time that i was hurt?" "his death occurred upon that very day." summers looked hard at me as i spoke, and i am convinced--for he was a very shrewd fellow--that he had guessed the true state of the case. he paused for a moment as if awaiting a confidence from me, but i could not see what was to be gained by exposing such a family scandal. "yes, a very curious coincidence," he continued, with the same knowing look. "of course, you are aware that your cousin everard king was the next heir to the estates. now, if it had been you instead of him who had been torn to pieces by this tiger, or whatever it was, then of course he would have been lord southerton at the present moment." "no doubt," said i. "and he took such an interest in it," said summers. "i happen to know that the late lord southerton's valet was in his pay, and that he used to have telegrams from him every few hours to tell him how he was getting on. that would be about the time when you were down there. was it not strange that he should wish to be so well informed, since he knew that he was not the direct heir?" "very strange," said i. "and now, summers, if you will bring me my bills and a new cheque-book, we will begin to get things into order." tales of mystery the lost special the confession of herbert de lernac, now lying under sentence of death at marseilles, has thrown a light upon one of the most inexplicable crimes of the century--an incident which is, i believe, absolutely unprecedented in the criminal annals of any country: although there is a reluctance to discuss the matter in official circles, and little information has been given to the press, there are still indications that the statement of this arch-criminal is corroborated by the facts, and that we have at last found a solution for a most astounding business. as the matter is eight years old, and as its importance was somewhat obscured by a political crisis which was engaging the public attention at the time, it may be as well to state the facts as far as we have been able to ascertain them. they are collated from the liverpool papers of that date, from the proceedings at the inquest upon john slater, the engine-driver, and from the records of the london and west coast railway company, which have been courteously put at my disposal. briefly, they are as follows: on the rd of june, , a gentleman, who gave his name as monsieur louis caratal, desired an interview with mr. james bland, the superintendent of the london and west coast central station in liverpool. he was a small man, middle-aged and dark, with a stoop which was so marked that it suggested some deformity of the spine. he was accompanied by a friend, a man of imposing physique, whose deferential manner and constant attention showed that his position was one of dependence. this friend or companion, whose name did not transpire, was certainly a foreigner, and probably from his swarthy complexion, either a spaniard or a south american. one peculiarity was observed in him. he carried in his left hand a small black, leather dispatch box, and it was noticed by a sharp-eyed clerk in the central office that this box was fastened to his wrist by a strap. no importance was attached to the fact at the time, but subsequent events endowed it with some significance. monsieur caratal was shown up to mr. bland's office, while his companion remained outside. monsieur caratal's business was quickly dispatched. he had arrived that afternoon from central america. affairs of the utmost importance demanded that he should be in paris without the loss of an unnecessary hour. he had missed the london express. a special must be provided. money was of no importance. time was everything. if the company would speed him on his way, they might make their own terms. mr. bland struck the electric bell, summoned mr. potter hood, the traffic manager, and had the matter arranged in five minutes. the train would start in three-quarters of an hour. it would take that time to insure that the line should be clear. the powerful engine called rochdale (no. on the company's register) was attached to two carriages, with a guard's van behind. the first carriage was solely for the purpose of decreasing the inconvenience arising from the oscillation. the second was divided, as usual, into four compartments, a first-class, a first-class smoking, a second-class, and a second-class smoking. the first compartment, which was nearest to the engine, was the one allotted to the travellers. the other three were empty. the guard of the special train was james mcpherson, who had been some years in the service of the company. the stoker, william smith, was a new hand. monsieur caratal, upon leaving the superintendent's office, rejoined his companion, and both of them manifested extreme impatience to be off. having paid the money asked, which amounted to fifty pounds five shillings, at the usual special rate of five shillings a mile, they demanded to be shown the carriage, and at once took their seats in it, although they were assured that the better part of an hour must elapse before the line could be cleared. in the meantime a singular coincidence had occurred in the office which monsieur caratal had just quitted. a request for a special is not a very uncommon circumstance in a rich commercial centre, but that two should be required upon the same afternoon was most unusual. it so happened, however, that mr. bland had hardly dismissed the first traveller before a second entered with a similar request. this was a mr. horace moore, a gentlemanly man of military appearance, who alleged that the sudden serious illness of his wife in london made it absolutely imperative that he should not lose an instant in starting upon the journey. his distress and anxiety were so evident that mr. bland did all that was possible to meet his wishes. a second special was out of the question, as the ordinary local service was already somewhat deranged by the first. there was the alternative, however, that mr. moore should share the expense of monsieur caratal's train, and should travel in the other empty first-class compartment, if monsieur caratal objected to having him in the one which he occupied. it was difficult to see any objection to such an arrangement, and yet monsieur caratal, upon the suggestion being made to him by mr. potter hood, absolutely refused to consider it for an instant. the train was his, he said, and he would insist upon the exclusive use of it. all argument failed to overcome his ungracious objections, and finally the plan had to be abandoned. mr. horace moore left the station in great distress, after learning that his only course was to take the ordinary slow train which leaves liverpool at six o'clock. at four thirty-one exactly by the station clock the special train, containing the crippled monsieur caratal and his gigantic companion, steamed out of the liverpool station. the line was at that time clear, and there should have been no stoppage before manchester. the trains of the london and west coast railway run over the lines of another company as far as this town, which should have been reached by the special rather before six o'clock. at a quarter after six considerable surprise and some consternation were caused amongst the officials at liverpool by the receipt of a telegram from manchester to say that it had not yet arrived. an inquiry directed to st. helens, which is a third of the way between the two cities, elicited the following reply-- "to james bland, superintendent, central l. & w. c., liverpool.--special passed here at : , well up to time.--dowster, st. helens." this telegram was received at six-forty. at six-fifty a second message was received from manchester-- "no sign of special as advised by you." and then ten minutes later a third, more bewildering-- "presume some mistake as to proposed running of special. local train from st. helens timed to follow it has just arrived and has seen nothing of it. kindly wire advices.--manchester." the matter was assuming a most amazing aspect, although in some respects the last telegram was a relief to the authorities at liverpool. if an accident had occurred to the special, it seemed hardly possible that the local train could have passed down the same line without observing it. and yet, what was the alternative? where could the train be? had it possibly been sidetracked for some reason in order to allow the slower train to go past? such an explanation was possible if some small repair had to be effected. a telegram was dispatched to each of the stations between st. helens and manchester, and the superintendent and traffic manager waited in the utmost suspense at the instrument for the series of replies which would enable them to say for certain what had become of the missing train. the answers came back in the order of questions, which was the order of the stations beginning at the st. helens end-- "special passed here five o'clock.--collins green." "special passed here six past five.--earlstown." "special passed here : .--newton." "special passed here : .--kenyon junction." "no special train has passed here.--barton moss." the two officials stared at each other in amazement. "this is unique in my thirty years of experience," said mr. bland. "absolutely unprecedented and inexplicable, sir. the special has gone wrong between kenyon junction and barton moss." "and yet there is no siding, so far as my memory serves me, between the two stations. the special must have run off the metals." "but how could the four-fifty parliamentary pass over the same line without observing it?" "there's no alternative, mr. hood. it must be so. possibly the local train may have observed something which may throw some light upon the matter. we will wire to manchester for more information, and to kenyon junction with instructions that the line be examined instantly as far as barton moss." the answer from manchester came within a few minutes. "no news of missing special. driver and guard of slow train positive no accident between kenyon junction and barton moss. line quite clear, and no sign of anything unusual.--manchester." "that driver and guard will have to go," said mr. bland, grimly. "there has been a wreck and they have missed it. the special has obviously run off the metals without disturbing the line--how it could have done so passes my comprehension--but so it must be, and we shall have a wire from kenyon or barton moss presently to say that they have found her at the bottom of an embankment." but mr. bland's prophecy was not destined to be fulfilled. half an hour passed, and then there arrived the following message from the station-master of kenyon junction-- "there are no traces of the missing special. it is quite certain that she passed here, and that she did not arrive at barton moss. we have detached engine from goods train, and i have myself ridden down the line, but all is clear, and there is no sign of any accident." mr. bland tore his hair in his perplexity. "this is rank lunacy, hood!" he cried. "does a train vanish into thin air in england in broad daylight? the thing is preposterous. an engine, a tender, two carriages, a van, five human beings--and all lost on a straight line of railway! unless we get something positive within the next hour i'll take inspector collins, and go down myself." and then at last something positive did occur. it took the shape of another telegram from kenyon junction. "regret to report that the dead body of john slater, driver of the special train, has just been found among the gorse bushes at a point two and a quarter miles from the junction. had fallen from his engine, pitched down the embankment, and rolled among the bushes. injuries to his head, from the fall, appear to be cause of death. ground has now been carefully examined, and there is no trace of the missing train." the country was, as has already been stated, in the throes of a political crisis, and the attention of the public was further distracted by the important and sensational developments in paris, where a huge scandal threatened to destroy the government and to wreck the reputations of many of the leading men in france. the papers were full of these events, and the singular disappearance of the special train attracted less attention than would have been the case in more peaceful times. the grotesque nature of the event helped to detract from its importance, for the papers were disinclined to believe the facts as reported to them. more than one of the london journals treated the matter as an ingenious hoax, until the coroner's inquest upon the unfortunate driver (an inquest which elicited nothing of importance) convinced them of the tragedy of the incident. mr. bland, accompanied by inspector collins, the senior detective officer in the service of the company, went down to kenyon junction the same evening, and their research lasted throughout the following day, but was attended with purely negative results. not only was no trace found of the missing train, but no conjecture could be put forward which could possibly explain the facts. at the same time, inspector collins's official report (which lies before me as i write) served to show that the possibilities were more numerous than might have been expected. "in the stretch of railway between these two points," said he, "the country is dotted with ironworks and collieries. of these, some are being worked and some have been abandoned. there are no fewer than twelve which have small-gauge lines which run trolly-cars down to the main line. these can, of course, be disregarded. besides these, however, there are seven which have, or have had, proper lines running down and connecting with points to the main line, so as to convey their produce from the mouth of the mine to the great centres of distribution. in every case these lines are only a few miles in length. out of the seven, four belong to collieries which are worked out, or at least to shafts which are no longer used. these are the redgauntlet, hero, slough of despond, and heartsease mines, the latter having ten years ago been one of the principal mines in lancashire. these four side lines may be eliminated from our inquiry, for, to prevent possible accidents, the rails nearest to the main line have been taken up, and there is no longer any connection. there remain three other side lines leading-- (a) to the carnstock iron works; (b) to the big ben colliery; (c) to the perseverance colliery. "of these the big ben line is not more than a quarter of a mile long, and ends at a dead wall of coal waiting removal from the mouth of the mine. nothing had been seen or heard there of any special. the carnstock iron works line was blocked all day upon the rd of june by sixteen truckloads of hematite. it is a single line, and nothing could have passed. as to the perseverance line, it is a large double line, which does a considerable traffic, for the output of the mine is very large. on the rd of june this traffic proceeded as usual; hundreds of men including a gang of railway platelayers were working along the two miles and a quarter which constitute the total length of the line, and it is inconceivable that an unexpected train could have come down there without attracting universal attention. it may be remarked in conclusion that this branch line is nearer to st. helens than the point at which the engine-driver was discovered, so that we have every reason to believe that the train was past that point before misfortune overtook her. "as to john slater, there is no clue to be gathered from his appearance or injuries. we can only say that, so far as we can see, he met his end by falling off his engine, though why he fell, or what became of the engine after his fall, is a question upon which i do not feel qualified to offer an opinion." in conclusion, the inspector offered his resignation to the board, being much nettled by an accusation of incompetence in the london papers. a month elapsed, during which both the police and the company prosecuted their inquiries without the slightest success. a reward was offered and a pardon promised in case of crime, but they were both unclaimed. every day the public opened their papers with the conviction that so grotesque a mystery would at last be solved, but week after week passed by, and a solution remained as far off as ever. in broad daylight, upon a june afternoon in the most thickly inhabited portion of england, a train with its occupants had disappeared as completely as if some master of subtle chemistry had volatilized it into gas. indeed, among the various conjectures which were put forward in the public press, there were some which seriously asserted that supernatural, or, at least, preternatural, agencies had been at work, and that the deformed monsieur caratal was probably a person who was better known under a less polite name. others fixed upon his swarthy companion as being the author of the mischief, but what it was exactly which he had done could never be clearly formulated in words. amongst the many suggestions put forward by various newspapers or private individuals, there were one or two which were feasible enough to attract the attention of the public. one which appeared in the times, over the signature of an amateur reasoner of some celebrity at that date, attempted to deal with the matter in a critical and semi-scientific manner. an extract must suffice, although the curious can see the whole letter in the issue of the rd of july. "it is one of the elementary principles of practical reasoning," he remarked, "that when the impossible has been eliminated the residuum, however improbable, must contain the truth. it is certain that the train left kenyon junction. it is certain that it did not reach barton moss. it is in the highest degree unlikely, but still possible, that it may have taken one of the seven available side lines. it is obviously impossible for a train to run where there are no rails, and, therefore, we may reduce our improbables to the three open lines, namely the carnstock iron works, the big ben, and the perseverance. is there a secret society of colliers, an english camorra, which is capable of destroying both train and passengers? it is improbable, but it is not impossible. i confess that i am unable to suggest any other solution. i should certainly advise the company to direct all their energies towards the observation of those three lines, and of the workmen at the end of them. a careful supervision of the pawnbrokers' shops of the district might possibly bring some suggestive facts to light." the suggestion coming from a recognized authority upon such matters created considerable interest, and a fierce opposition from those who considered such a statement to be a preposterous libel upon an honest and deserving set of men. the only answer to this criticism was a challenge to the objectors to lay any more feasible explanations before the public. in reply to this two others were forthcoming (times, july th and th). the first suggested that the train might have run off the metals and be lying submerged in the lancashire and staffordshire canal, which runs parallel to the railway for some hundred of yards. this suggestion was thrown out of court by the published depth of the canal, which was entirely insufficient to conceal so large an object. the second correspondent wrote calling attention to the bag which appeared to be the sole luggage which the travellers had brought with them, and suggesting that some novel explosive of immense and pulverizing power might have been concealed in it. the obvious absurdity, however, of supposing that the whole train might be blown to dust while the metals remained uninjured reduced any such explanation to a farce. the investigation had drifted into this hopeless position when a new and most unexpected incident occurred. this was nothing less than the receipt by mrs. mcpherson of a letter from her husband, james mcpherson, who had been the guard on the missing train. the letter, which was dated july th, , was posted from new york and came to hand upon july th. some doubts were expressed as to its genuine character but mrs. mcpherson was positive as to the writing, and the fact that it contained a remittance of a hundred dollars in five-dollar notes was enough in itself to discount the idea of a hoax. no address was given in the letter, which ran in this way: my dear wife,-- "i have been thinking a great deal, and i find it very hard to give you up. the same with lizzie. i try to fight against it, but it will always come back to me. i send you some money which will change into twenty english pounds. this should be enough to bring both lizzie and you across the atlantic, and you will find the hamburg boats which stop at southampton very good boats, and cheaper than liverpool. if you could come here and stop at the johnston house i would try and send you word how to meet, but things are very difficult with me at present, and i am not very happy, finding it hard to give you both up. so no more at present, from your loving husband, "james mcpherson." for a time it was confidently anticipated that this letter would lead to the clearing up of the whole matter, the more so as it was ascertained that a passenger who bore a close resemblance to the missing guard had travelled from southampton under the name of summers in the hamburg and new york liner vistula, which started upon the th of june. mrs. mcpherson and her sister lizzie dolton went across to new york as directed and stayed for three weeks at the johnston house, without hearing anything from the missing man. it is probable that some injudicious comments in the press may have warned him that the police were using them as a bait. however, this may be, it is certain that he neither wrote nor came, and the women were eventually compelled to return to liverpool. and so the matter stood, and has continued to stand up to the present year of . incredible as it may seem, nothing has transpired during these eight years which has shed the least light upon the extraordinary disappearance of the special train which contained monsieur caratal and his companion. careful inquiries into the antecedents of the two travellers have only established the fact that monsieur caratal was well known as a financier and political agent in central america, and that during his voyage to europe he had betrayed extraordinary anxiety to reach paris. his companion, whose name was entered upon the passenger lists as eduardo gomez, was a man whose record was a violent one, and whose reputation was that of a bravo and a bully. there was evidence to show, however, that he was honestly devoted to the interests of monsieur caratal, and that the latter, being a man of puny physique, employed the other as a guard and protector. it may be added that no information came from paris as to what the objects of monsieur caratal's hurried journey may have been. this comprises all the facts of the case up to the publication in the marseilles papers of the recent confession of herbert de lernac, now under sentence of death for the murder of a merchant named bonvalot. this statement may be literally translated as follows: "it is not out of mere pride or boasting that i give this information, for, if that were my object, i could tell a dozen actions of mine which are quite as splendid; but i do it in order that certain gentlemen in paris may understand that i, who am able here to tell about the fate of monsieur caratal, can also tell in whose interest and at whose request the deed was done, unless the reprieve which i am awaiting comes to me very quickly. take warning, messieurs, before it is too late! you know herbert de lernac, and you are aware that his deeds are as ready as his words. hasten then, or you are lost! "at present i shall mention no names--if you only heard the names, what would you not think!--but i shall merely tell you how cleverly i did it. i was true to my employers then, and no doubt they will be true to me now. i hope so, and until i am convinced that they have betrayed me, these names, which would convulse europe, shall not be divulged. but on that day ... well, i say no more! "in a word, then, there was a famous trial in paris, in the year , in connection with a monstrous scandal in politics and finance. how monstrous that scandal was can never be known save by such confidential agents as myself. the honour and careers of many of the chief men in france were at stake. you have seen a group of ninepins standing, all so rigid, and prim, and unbending. then there comes the ball from far away and pop, pop, pop--there are your ninepins on the floor. well, imagine some of the greatest men in france as these ninepins and then this monsieur caratal was the ball which could be seen coming from far away. if he arrived, then it was pop, pop, pop for all of them. it was determined that he should not arrive. "i do not accuse them all of being conscious of what was to happen. there were, as i have said, great financial as well as political interests at stake, and a syndicate was formed to manage the business. some subscribed to the syndicate who hardly understood what were its objects. but others understood very well, and they can rely upon it that i have not forgotten their names. they had ample warning that monsieur caratal was coming long before he left south america, and they knew that the evidence which he held would certainly mean ruin to all of them. the syndicate had the command of an unlimited amount of money--absolutely unlimited, you understand. they looked round for an agent who was capable of wielding this gigantic power. the man chosen must be inventive, resolute, adaptive--a man in a million. they chose herbert de lernac, and i admit that they were right. "my duties were to choose my subordinates, to use freely the power which money gives, and to make certain that monsieur caratal should never arrive in paris. with characteristic energy i set about my commission within an hour of receiving my instructions, and the steps which i took were the very best for the purpose which could possibly be devised. "a man whom i could trust was dispatched instantly to south america to travel home with monsieur caratal. had he arrived in time the ship would never have reached liverpool; but alas! it had already started before my agent could reach it. i fitted out a small armed brig to intercept it, but again i was unfortunate. like all great organizers i was, however, prepared for failure, and had a series of alternatives prepared, one or the other of which must succeed. you must not underrate the difficulties of my undertaking, or imagine that a mere commonplace assassination would meet the case. we must destroy not only monsieur caratal, but monsieur caratal's documents, and monsieur caratal's companions also, if we had reason to believe that he had communicated his secrets to them. and you must remember that they were on the alert, and keenly suspicious of any such attempt. it was a task which was in every way worthy of me, for i am always most masterful where another would be appalled. "i was all ready for monsieur caratal's reception in liverpool, and i was the more eager because i had reason to believe that he had made arrangements by which he would have a considerable guard from the moment that he arrived in london. anything which was to be done must be done between the moment of his setting foot upon the liverpool quay and that of his arrival at the london and west coast terminus in london. we prepared six plans, each more elaborate than the last; which plan would be used would depend upon his own movements. do what he would, we were ready for him. if he had stayed in liverpool, we were ready. if he took an ordinary train, an express, or a special, all was ready. everything had been foreseen and provided for. "you may imagine that i could not do all this myself. what could i know of the english railway lines? but money can procure willing agents all the world over, and i soon had one of the acutest brains in england to assist me. i will mention no names, but it would be unjust to claim all the credit for myself. my english ally was worthy of such an alliance. he knew the london and west coast line thoroughly, and he had the command of a band of workers who were trustworthy and intelligent. the idea was his, and my own judgement was only required in the details. we bought over several officials, amongst whom the most important was james mcpherson, whom we had ascertained to be the guard most likely to be employed upon a special train. smith, the stoker, was also in our employ. john slater, the engine-driver, had been approached, but had been found to be obstinate and dangerous, so we desisted. we had no certainty that monsieur caratal would take a special, but we thought it very probable, for it was of the utmost importance to him that he should reach paris without delay. it was for this contingency, therefore, that we made special preparations--preparations which were complete down to the last detail long before his steamer had sighted the shores of england. you will be amused to learn that there was one of my agents in the pilot-boat which brought that steamer to its moorings. "the moment that caratal arrived in liverpool we knew that he suspected danger and was on his guard. he had brought with him as an escort a dangerous fellow, named gomez, a man who carried weapons, and was prepared to use them. this fellow carried caratal's confidential papers for him, and was ready to protect either them or his master. the probability was that caratal had taken him into his counsel, and that to remove caratal without removing gomez would be a mere waste of energy. it was necessary that they should be involved in a common fate, and our plans to that end were much facilitated by their request for a special train. on that special train you will understand that two out of the three servants of the company were really in our employ, at a price which would make them independent for a lifetime. i do not go so far as to say that the english are more honest than any other nation, but i have found them more expensive to buy. "i have already spoken of my english agent--who is a man with a considerable future before him, unless some complaint of the throat carries him off before his time. he had charge of all arrangements at liverpool, whilst i was stationed at the inn at kenyon, where i awaited a cipher signal to act. when the special was arranged for, my agent instantly telegraphed to me and warned me how soon i should have everything ready. he himself under the name of horace moore applied immediately for a special also, in the hope that he would be sent down with monsieur caratal, which might under certain circumstances have been helpful to us. if, for example, our great coup had failed, it would then have become the duty of my agent to have shot them both and destroyed their papers. caratal was on his guard, however, and refused to admit any other traveller. my agent then left the station, returned by another entrance, entered the guard's van on the side farthest from the platform, and travelled down with mcpherson the guard. "in the meantime you will be interested to know what my movements were. everything had been prepared for days before, and only the finishing touches were needed. the side line which we had chosen had once joined the main line, but it had been disconnected. we had only to replace a few rails to connect it once more. these rails had been laid down as far as could be done without danger of attracting attention, and now it was merely a case of completing a juncture with the line, and arranging the points as they had been before. the sleepers had never been removed, and the rails, fish-plates and rivets were all ready, for we had taken them from a siding on the abandoned portion of the line. with my small but competent band of workers, we had everything ready long before the special arrived. when it did arrive, it ran off upon the small side line so easily that the jolting of the points appears to have been entirely unnoticed by the two travellers. "our plan had been that smith, the stoker, should chloroform john slater, the driver, so that he should vanish with the others. in this respect, and in this respect only, our plans miscarried--i except the criminal folly of mcpherson in writing home to his wife. our stoker did his business so clumsily that slater in his struggles fell off the engine, and though fortune was with us so far that he broke his neck in the fall, still he remained as a blot upon that which would otherwise have been one of those complete masterpieces which are only to be contemplated in silent admiration. the criminal expert will find in john slater the one flaw in all our admirable combinations. a man who has had as many triumphs as i can afford to be frank, and i therefore lay my finger upon john slater, and i proclaim him to be a flaw. "but now i have got our special train upon the small line two kilometres, or rather more than one mile, in length, which leads, or rather used to lead, to the abandoned heartsease mine, once one of the largest coal mines in england. you will ask how it is that no one saw the train upon this unused line. i answer that along its entire length it runs through a deep cutting, and that, unless someone had been on the edge of that cutting, he could not have seen it. there was someone on the edge of that cutting. i was there. and now i will tell you what i saw. "my assistant had remained at the points in order that he might superintend the switching off of the train. he had four armed men with him, so that if the train ran off the line--we thought it probable, because the points were very rusty--we might still have resources to fall back upon. having once seen it safely on the side line, he handed over the responsibility to me. i was waiting at a point which overlooks the mouth of the mine, and i was also armed, as were my two companions. come what might, you see, i was always ready. "the moment that the train was fairly on the side line, smith, the stoker, slowed-down the engine, and then, having turned it on to the fullest speed again, he and mcpherson, with my english lieutenant, sprang off before it was too late. it may be that it was this slowing-down which first attracted the attention of the travellers, but the train was running at full speed again before their heads appeared at the open window. it makes me smile to think how bewildered they must have been. picture to yourself your own feelings if, on looking out of your luxurious carriage, you suddenly perceived that the lines upon which you ran were rusted and corroded, red and yellow with disuse and decay! what a catch must have come in their breath as in a second it flashed upon them that it was not manchester but death which was waiting for them at the end of that sinister line. but the train was running with frantic speed, rolling and rocking over the rotten line, while the wheels made a frightful screaming sound upon the rusted surface. i was close to them, and could see their faces. caratal was praying, i think--there was something like a rosary dangling out of his hand. the other roared like a bull who smells the blood of the slaughter-house. he saw us standing on the bank, and he beckoned to us like a madman. then he tore at his wrist and threw his dispatch-box out of the window in our direction. of course, his meaning was obvious. here was the evidence, and they would promise to be silent if their lives were spared. it would have been very agreeable if we could have done so, but business is business. besides, the train was now as much beyond our controls as theirs. "he ceased howling when the train rattled round the curve and they saw the black mouth of the mine yawning before them. we had removed the boards which had covered it, and we had cleared the square entrance. the rails had formerly run very close to the shaft for the convenience of loading the coal, and we had only to add two or three lengths of rail in order to lead to the very brink of the shaft. in fact, as the lengths would not quite fit, our line projected about three feet over the edge. we saw the two heads at the window: caratal below, gomez above; but they had both been struck silent by what they saw. and yet they could not withdraw their heads. the sight seemed to have paralysed them. "i had wondered how the train running at a great speed would take the pit into which i had guided it, and i was much interested in watching it. one of my colleagues thought that it would actually jump it, and indeed it was not very far from doing so. fortunately, however, it fell short, and the buffers of the engine struck the other lip of the shaft with a tremendous crash. the funnel flew off into the air. the tender, carriages, and van were all smashed up into one jumble, which, with the remains of the engine, choked for a minute or so the mouth of the pit. then something gave way in the middle, and the whole mass of green iron, smoking coals, brass fittings, wheels, wood-work, and cushions all crumbled together and crashed down into the mine. we heard the rattle, rattle, rattle, as the debris struck against the walls, and then, quite a long time afterwards, there came a deep roar as the remains of the train struck the bottom. the boiler may have burst, for a sharp crash came after the roar, and then a dense cloud of steam and smoke swirled up out of the black depths, falling in a spray as thick as rain all round us. then the vapour shredded off into thin wisps, which floated away in the summer sunshine, and all was quiet again in the heartsease mine. "and now, having carried out our plans so successfully, it only remained to leave no trace behind us. our little band of workers at the other end had already ripped up the rails and disconnected the side line, replacing everything as it had been before. we were equally busy at the mine. the funnel and other fragments were thrown in, the shaft was planked over as it used to be, and the lines which led to it were torn up and taken away. then, without flurry, but without delay, we all made our way out of the country, most of us to paris, my english colleague to manchester, and mcpherson to southampton, whence he emigrated to america. let the english papers of that date tell how throughly we had done our work, and how completely we had thrown the cleverest of their detectives off our track. "you will remember that gomez threw his bag of papers out of the window, and i need not say that i secured that bag and brought them to my employers. it may interest my employers now, however, to learn that out of that bag i took one or two little papers as a souvenir of the occasion. i have no wish to publish these papers; but, still, it is every man for himself in this world, and what else can i do if my friends will not come to my aid when i want them? messieurs, you may believe that herbert de lernac is quite as formidable when he is against you as when he is with you, and that he is not a man to go to the guillotine until he has seen that every one of you is en route for new caledonia. for your own sake, if not for mine, make haste, monsieur de ----, and general ----, and baron ---- (you can fill up the blanks for yourselves as you read this). i promise you that in the next edition there will be no blanks to fill. "p.s.--as i look over my statement there is only one omission which i can see. it concerns the unfortunate man mcpherson, who was foolish enough to write to his wife and to make an appointment with her in new york. it can be imagined that when interests like ours were at stake, we could not leave them to the chance of whether a man in that class of life would or would not give away his secrets to a woman. having once broken his oath by writing to his wife, we could not trust him any more. we took steps therefore to insure that he should not see his wife. i have sometimes thought that it would be a kindness to write to her and to assure her that there is no impediment to her marrying again." the beetle-hunter a curious experience? said the doctor. yes, my friends, i have had one very curious experience. i never expect to have another, for it is against all doctrines of chances that two such events would befall any one man in a single lifetime. you may believe me or not, but the thing happened exactly as i tell it. i had just become a medical man, but i had not started in practice, and i lived in rooms in gower street. the street has been renumbered since then, but it was in the only house which has a bow-window, upon the left-hand side as you go down from the metropolitan station. a widow named murchison kept the house at that time, and she had three medical students and one engineer as lodgers. i occupied the top room, which was the cheapest, but cheap as it was it was more than i could afford. my small resources were dwindling away, and every week it became more necessary that i should find something to do. yet i was very unwilling to go into general practice, for my tastes were all in the direction of science, and especially of zoology, towards which i had always a strong leaning. i had almost given the fight up and resigned myself to being a medical drudge for life, when the turning-point of my struggles came in a very extraordinary way. one morning i had picked up the standard and was glancing over its contents. there was a complete absence of news, and i was about to toss the paper down again, when my eyes were caught by an advertisement at the head of the personal column. it was worded in this way: "wanted for one or more days the services of a medical man. it is essential that he should be a man of strong physique, of steady nerves, and of a resolute nature. must be an entomologist--coleopterist preferred. apply, in person, at b, brook street. application must be made before twelve o'clock today." now, i have already said that i was devoted to zoology. of all branches of zoology, the study of insects was the most attractive to me, and of all insects beetles were the species with which i was most familiar. butterfly collectors are numerous, but beetles are far more varied, and more accessible in these islands than are butterflies. it was this fact which had attracted my attention to them, and i had myself made a collection which numbered some hundred varieties. as to the other requisites of the advertisement, i knew that my nerves could be depended upon, and i had won the weight-throwing competition at the inter-hospital sports. clearly, i was the very man for the vacancy. within five minutes of my having read the advertisement i was in a cab and on my was to brook street. as i drove, i kept turning the matter over in my head and trying to make a guess as to what sort of employment it could be which needed such curious qualifications. a strong physique, a resolute nature, a medical training, and a knowledge of beetles--what connection could there be between these various requisites? and then there was the disheartening fact that the situation was not a permanent one, but terminable from day to day, according to the terms of the advertisement. the more i pondered over it the more unintelligible did it become; but at the end of my meditations i always came back to the ground fact that, come what might, i had nothing to lose, that i was completely at the end of my resources, and that i was ready for any adventure, however desperate, which would put a few honest sovereigns into my pocket. the man fears to fail who has to pay for his failure, but there was no penalty which fortune could exact from me. i was like the gambler with empty pockets, who is still allowed to try his luck with the others. no. b, brook street, was one of those dingy and yet imposing houses, dun-coloured and flat-faced, with the intensely respectable and solid air which marks the georgian builder. as i alighted from the cab, a young man came out of the door and walked swiftly down the street. in passing me, i noticed that he cast an inquisitive and somewhat malevolent glance at me, and i took the incident as a good omen, for his appearance was that of a rejected candidate, and if he resented my application it meant that the vacancy was not yet filled up. full of hope, i ascended the broad steps and rapped with the heavy knocker. a footman in powder and livery opened the door. clearly i was in touch with the people of wealth and fashion. "yes, sir?" said the footman. "i came in answer to----" "quite so, sir," said the footman. "lord linchmere will see you at once in the library." lord linchmere! i had vaguely heard the name, but could not for the instant recall anything about him. following the footman, i was shown into a large, book-lined room in which there was seated behind a writing-desk a small man with a pleasant, clean-shaven, mobile face, and long hair shot with grey, brushed back from his forehead. he looked me up and down with a very shrewd, penetrating glance, holding the card which the footman had given him in his right hand. then he smiled pleasantly, and i felt that externally at any rate i possessed the qualifications which he desired. "you have come in answer to my advertisement, dr. hamilton?" he asked. "yes, sir." "do you fulfil the conditions which are there laid down?" "i believe that i do." "you are a powerful man, or so i should judge from your appearance. "i think that i am fairly strong." "and resolute?" "i believe so." "have you ever known what it was to be exposed to imminent danger?" "no, i don't know that i ever have." "but you think you would be prompt and cool at such a time?" "i hope so." "well, i believe that you would. i have the more confidence in you because you do not pretend to be certain as to what you would do in a position that was new to you. my impression is that, so far as personal qualities go, you are the very man of whom i am in search. that being settled, we may pass on to the next point." "which is?" "to talk to me about beetles." i looked across to see if he was joking, but, on the contrary, he was leaning eagerly forward across his desk, and there was an expression of something like anxiety in his eyes. "i am afraid that you do not know about beetles," he cried. "on the contrary, sir, it is the one scientific subject about which i feel that i really do know something." "i am overjoyed to hear it. please talk to me about beetles." i talked. i do not profess to have said anything original upon the subject, but i gave a short sketch of the characteristics of the beetle, and ran over the more common species, with some allusions to the specimens in my own little collection and to the article upon "burying beetles" which i had contributed to the journal of entomological science. "what! not a collector?" cried lord linchmere. "you don't mean that you are yourself a collector?" his eyes danced with pleasure at the thought. "you are certainly the very man in london for my purpose. i thought that among five millions of people there must be such a man, but the difficulty is to lay one's hands upon him. i have been extraordinarily fortunate in finding you." he rang a gong upon the table, and the footman entered. "ask lady rossiter to have the goodness to step this way," said his lordship, and a few moments later the lady was ushered into the room. she was a small, middle-aged woman, very like lord linchmere in appearance, with the same quick, alert features and grey-black hair. the expression of anxiety, however, which i had observed upon his face was very much more marked upon hers. some great grief seemed to have cast its shadow over her features. as lord linchmere presented me she turned her face full upon me, and i was shocked to observe a half-healed scar extending for two inches over her right eyebrow. it was partly concealed by plaster, but none the less i could see that it had been a serious wound and not long inflicted. "dr. hamilton is the very man for our purpose, evelyn," said lord linchmere. "he is actually a collector of beetles, and he has written articles upon the subject." "really!" said lady rossiter. "then you must have heard of my husband. everyone who knows anything about beetles must have heard of sir thomas rossiter." for the first time a thin little ray of light began to break into the obscure business. here, at last, was a connection between these people and beetles. sir thomas rossiter--he was the greatest authority upon the subject in the world. he had made it his lifelong study, and had written a most exhaustive work upon it. i hastened to assure her that i had read and appreciated it. "have you met my husband?" she asked. "no, i have not." "but you shall," said lord linchmere, with decision. the lady was standing beside the desk, and she put her hand upon his shoulder. it was obvious to me as i saw their faces together that they were brother and sister. "are you really prepared for this, charles? it is noble of you, but you fill me with fears." her voice quavered with apprehension, and he appeared to me to be equally moved, though he was making strong efforts to conceal his agitation. "yes, yes, dear; it is all settled, it is all decided; in fact, there is no other possible way, that i can see." "there is one obvious way." "no, no, evelyn, i shall never abandon you--never. it will come right--depend upon it; it will come right, and surely it looks like the interference of providence that so perfect an instrument should be put into our hands." my position was embarrassing, for i felt that for the instant they had forgotten my presence. but lord linchmere came back suddenly to me and to my engagement. "the business for which i want you, dr. hamilton, is that you should put yourself absolutely at my disposal. i wish you to come for a short journey with me, to remain always at my side, and to promise to do without question whatever i may ask you, however unreasonable it may appear to you to be." "that is a good deal to ask," said i. "unfortunately i cannot put it more plainly, for i do not myself know what turn matters may take. you may be sure, however, that you will not be asked to do anything which your conscience does not approve; and i promise you that, when all is over, you will be proud to have been concerned in so good a work." "if it ends happily," said the lady. "exactly; if it ends happily," his lordship repeated. "and terms?" i asked. "twenty pounds a day." i was amazed at the sum, and must have showed my surprise upon my features. "it is a rare combination of qualities, as must have struck you when you first read the advertisement," said lord linchmere; "such varied gifts may well command a high return, and i do not conceal from you that your duties might be arduous or even dangerous. besides, it is possible that one or two days may bring the matter to an end." "please god!" sighed his sister. "so now, dr. hamilton, may i rely upon your aid?" "most undoubtedly," said i. "you have only to tell me what my duties are." "your first duty will be to return to your home. you will pack up whatever you may need for a short visit to the country. we start together from paddington station at : this afternoon." "do we go far?" "as far as pangbourne. meet me at the bookstall at : . i shall have the tickets. goodbye, dr. hamilton! and, by the way, there are two things which i should be very glad if you would bring with you, in case you have them. one is your case for collecting beetles, and the other is a stick, and the thicker and heavier the better." you may imagine that i had plenty to think of from the time that i left brook street until i set out to meet lord linchmere at paddington. the whole fantastic business kept arranging and rearranging itself in kaleidoscopic forms inside my brain, until i had thought out a dozen explanations, each of them more grotesquely improbable than the last. and yet i felt that the truth must be something grotesquely improbable also. at last i gave up all attempts at finding a solution, and contented myself with exactly carrying out the instructions which i had received. with a hand valise, specimen-case, and a loaded cane, i was waiting at the paddington bookstall when lord linchmere arrived. he was an even smaller man than i had thought--frail and peaky, with a manner which was more nervous than it had been in the morning. he wore a long, thick travelling ulster, and i observed that he carried a heavy blackthorn cudgel in his hand. "i have the tickets," said he, leading the way up the platform. "this is our train. i have engaged a carriage, for i am particularly anxious to impress one or two things upon you while we travel down." and yet all that he had to impress upon me might have been said in a sentence, for it was that i was to remember that i was there as a protection to himself, and that i was not on any consideration to leave him for an instant. this he repeated again and again as our journey drew to a close, with an insistence which showed that his nerves were thoroughly shaken. "yes," he said at last, in answer to my looks rather than to my words, "i am nervous, dr. hamilton. i have always been a timid man, and my timidity depends upon my frail physical health. but my soul is firm, and i can bring myself up to face a danger which a less-nervous man might shrink from. what i am doing now is done from no compulsion, but entirely from a sense of duty, and yet it is, beyond doubt, a desperate risk. if things should go wrong, i will have some claims to the title of martyr." this eternal reading of riddles was too much for me. i felt that i must put a term to it. "i think it would very much better, sir, if you were to trust me entirely," said i. "it is impossible for me to act effectively, when i do not know what are the objects which we have in view, or even where we are going." "oh, as to where we are going, there need be no mystery about that," said he; "we are going to delamere court, the residence of sir thomas rossiter, with whose work you are so conversant. as to the exact object of our visit, i do not know that at this stage of the proceedings anything would be gained, dr. hamilton, by taking you into my complete confidence. i may tell you that we are acting--i say 'we,' because my sister, lady rossiter, takes the same view as myself--with the one object of preventing anything in the nature of a family scandal. that being so, you can understand that i am loath to give any explanations which are not absolutely necessary. it would be a different matter, dr. hamilton, if i were asking your advice. as matters stand, it is only your active help which i need, and i will indicate to you from time to time how you can best give it." there was nothing more to be said, and a poor man can put up with a good deal for twenty pounds a day, but i felt none the less that lord linchmere was acting rather scurvily towards me. he wished to convert me into a passive tool, like the blackthorn in his hand. with his sensitive disposition i could imagine, however, that scandal would be abhorrent to him, and i realized that he would not take me into his confidence until no other course was open to him. i must trust to my own eyes and ears to solve the mystery, but i had every confidence that i should not trust to them in vain. delamere court lies a good five miles from pangbourne station, and we drove for that distance in an open fly. lord linchmere sat in deep thought during the time, and he never opened his mouth until we were close to our destination. when he did speak it was to give me a piece of information which surprised me. "perhaps you are not aware," said he, "that i am a medical man like yourself?" "no, sir, i did not know it." "yes, i qualified in my younger days, when there were several lives between me and the peerage. i have not had occasion to practise, but i have found it a useful education, all the same. i never regretted the years which i devoted to medical study. these are the gates of delamere court." we had come to two high pillars crowned with heraldic monsters which flanked the opening of a winding avenue. over the laurel bushes and rhododendrons, i could see a long, many-gabled mansion, girdled with ivy, and toned to the warm, cheery, mellow glow of old brick-work. my eyes were still fixed in admiration upon this delightful house when my companion plucked nervously at my sleeve. "here's sir thomas," he whispered. "please talk beetle all you can." a tall, thin figure, curiously angular and bony, had emerged through a gap in the hedge of laurels. in his hand he held a spud, and he wore gauntleted gardener's gloves. a broad-brimmed, grey hat cast his face into shadow, but it struck me as exceedingly austere, with an ill-nourished beard and harsh, irregular features. the fly pulled up and lord linchmere sprang out. "my dear thomas, how are you?" said he, heartily. but the heartiness was by no means reciprocal. the owner of the grounds glared at me over his brother-in-law's shoulder, and i caught broken scraps of sentences--"well-known wishes ... hatred of strangers ... unjustifiable intrusion ... perfectly inexcusable." then there was a muttered explanation, and the two of them came over together to the side of the fly. "let me present you to sir thomas rossiter, dr. hamilton," said lord linchmere. "you will find that you have a strong community of tastes." i bowed. sir thomas stood very stiffly, looking at me severely from under the broad brim of his hat. "lord linchmere tells me that you know something about beetles," said he. "what do you know about beetles?" "i know what i have learned from your work upon the coleoptera, sir thomas," i answered. "give me the names of the better-known species of the british scarabaei," said he. i had not expected an examination, but fortunately i was ready for one. my answers seemed to please him, for his stern features relaxed. "you appear to have read my book with some profit, sir," said he. "it is a rare thing for me to meet anyone who takes an intelligent interest in such matters. people can find time for such trivialities as sport or society, and yet the beetles are overlooked. i can assure you that the greater part of the idiots in this part of the country are unaware that i have ever written a book at all--i, the first man who ever described the true function of the elytra. i am glad to see you, sir, and i have no doubt that i can show you some specimens which will interest you." he stepped into the fly and drove up with us to the house, expounding to me as we went some recent researches which he had made into the anatomy of the lady-bird. i have said that sir thomas rossiter wore a large hat drawn down over his brows. as he entered the hall he uncovered himself, and i was at once aware of a singular characteristic which the hat had concealed. his forehead, which was naturally high, and higher still on account of receding hair, was in a continual state of movement. some nervous weakness kept the muscles in a constant spasm, which sometimes produced a mere twitching and sometimes a curious rotary movement unlike anything which i had ever seen before. it was strikingly visible as he turned towards us after entering the study, and seemed the more singular from the contrast with the hard, steady, grey eyes which looked out from underneath those palpitating brows. "i am sorry," said he, "that lady rossiter is not here to help me to welcome you. by the way, charles, did evelyn say anything about the date of her return?" "she wished to stay in town for a few more days," said lord linchmere. "you know how ladies' social duties accumulate if they have been for some time in the country. my sister has many old friends in london at present." "well, she is her own mistress, and i should not wish to alter her plans, but i shall be glad when i see her again. it is very lonely here without her company." "i was afraid that you might find it so, and that was partly why i ran down. my young friend, dr. hamilton, is so much interested in the subject which you have made your own, that i thought you would not mind his accompanying me." "i lead a retired life, dr. hamilton, and my aversion to strangers grows upon me," said our host. "i have sometimes thought that my nerves are not so good as they were. my travels in search of beetles in my younger days took me into many malarious and unhealthy places. but a brother coleopterist like yourself is always a welcome guest, and i shall be delighted if you will look over my collection, which i think that i may without exaggeration describe as the best in europe." and so no doubt it was. he had a huge, oaken cabinet arranged in shallow drawers, and here, neatly ticketed and classified, were beetles from every corner of the earth, black, brown, blue, green, and mottled. every now and then as he swept his hand over the lines and lines of impaled insects he would catch up some rare specimen, and, handling it with as much delicacy and reverence as if it were a precious relic, he would hold forth upon its peculiarities and the circumstances under which it came into his possession. it was evidently an unusual thing for him to meet with a sympathetic listener, and he talked and talked until the spring evening had deepened into night, and the gong announced that it was time to dress for dinner. all the time lord linchmere said nothing, but he stood at his brother-in-law's elbow, and i caught him continually shooting curious little, questioning glances into his face. and his own features expressed some strong emotion, apprehension, sympathy, expectation: i seemed to read them all. i was sure that lord linchmere was fearing something and awaiting something, but what that something might be i could not imagine. the evening passed quietly but pleasantly, and i should have been entirely at my ease if it had not been for that continual sense of tension upon the part of lord linchmere. as to our host, i found that he improved upon acquaintance. he spoke constantly with affection of his absent wife, and also of his little son, who had recently been sent to school. the house, he said, was not the same without them. if it were not for his scientific studies, he did not know how he could get through the days. after dinner we smoked for some time in the billiard-room, and finally went early to bed. and then it was that, for the first time, the suspicion that lord linchmere was a lunatic crossed my mind. he followed me into my bedroom, when our host had retired. "doctor," said he, speaking in a low, hurried voice, "you must come with me. you must spend the night in my bedroom." "what do you mean?" "i prefer not to explain. but this is part of your duties. my room is close by, and you can return to your own before the servant calls you in the morning." "but why?" i asked. "because i am nervous of being alone," said he. "that's the reason, since you must have a reason." it seemed rank lunacy, but the argument of those twenty pounds would overcome many objections. i followed him to his room. "well," said i, "there's only room for one in that bed." "only one shall occupy it," said he. "and the other?" "must remain on watch." "why?" said i. "one would think you expected to be attacked." "perhaps i do." "in that case, why not lock your door?" "perhaps i want to be attacked." it looked more and more like lunacy. however, there was nothing for it but to submit. i shrugged my shoulders and sat down in the arm-chair beside the empty fireplace. "i am to remain on watch, then?" said i, ruefully. "we will divide the night. if you will watch until two, i will watch the remainder." "very good." "call me at two o'clock, then." "i will do so." "keep your ears open, and if you hear any sounds wake me instantly--instantly, you hear?" "you can rely upon it." i tried to look as solemn as he did. "and for god's sake don't go to sleep," said he, and so, taking off only his coat, he threw the coverlet over him and settled down for the night. it was a melancholy vigil, and made more so by my own sense of its folly. supposing that by any chance lord linchmere had cause to suspect that he was subject to danger in the house of sir thomas rossiter, why on earth could he not lock his door and so protect himself? his own answer that he might wish to be attacked was absurd. why should he possibly wish to be attacked? and who would wish to attack him? clearly, lord linchmere was suffering from some singular delusion, and the result was that on an imbecile pretext i was to be deprived of my night's rest. still, however absurd, i was determined to carry out his injunctions to the letter as long as i was in his employment. i sat, therefore, beside the empty fireplace, and listened to a sonorous chiming clock somewhere down the passage which gurgled and struck every quarter of an hour. it was an endless vigil. save for that single clock, an absolute silence reigned throughout the great house. a small lamp stood on the table at my elbow, throwing a circle of light round my chair, but leaving the corners of the room draped in shadow. on the bed lord linchmere was breathing peacefully. i envied him his quiet sleep, and again and again my own eyelids drooped, but every time my sense of duty came to my help, and i sat up, rubbing my eyes and pinching myself with a determination to see my irrational watch to an end. and i did so. from down the passage came the chimes of two o'clock, and i laid my hand upon the shoulder of the sleeper. instantly he was sitting up, with an expression of the keenest interest upon his face. "you have heard something?" "no, sir. it is two o'clock." "very good. i will watch. you can go to sleep." i lay down under the coverlet as he had done and was soon unconscious. my last recollection was of that circle of lamplight, and of the small, hunched-up figure and strained, anxious face of lord linchmere in the centre of it. how long i slept i do not know; but i was suddenly aroused by a sharp tug at my sleeve. the room was in darkness, but a hot smell of oil told me that the lamp had only that instant been extinguished. "quick! quick!" said lord linchmere's voice in my ear. i sprang out of bed, he still dragging at my arm. "over here!" he whispered, and pulled me into a corner of the room. "hush! listen!" in the silence of the night i could distinctly hear that someone was coming down the corridor. it was a stealthy step, faint and intermittent, as of a man who paused cautiously after every stride. sometimes for half a minute there was no sound, and then came the shuffle and creak which told of a fresh advance. my companion was trembling with excitement. his hand, which still held my sleeve, twitched like a branch in the wind. "what is it?" i whispered. "it's he!" "sir thomas?" "yes." "what does he want?" "hush! do nothing until i tell you." i was conscious now that someone was trying the door. there was the faintest little rattle from the handle, and then i dimly saw a thin slit of subdued light. there was a lamp burning somewhere far down the passage, and it just sufficed to make the outside visible from the darkness of our room. the greyish slit grew broader and broader, very gradually, very gently, and then outlined against it i saw the dark figure of a man. he was squat and crouching, with the silhouette of a bulky and misshapen dwarf. slowly the door swung open with this ominous shape framed in the centre of it. and then, in an instant, the crouching figure shot up, there was a tiger spring across the room and thud, thud, thud, came three tremendous blows from some heavy object upon the bed. i was so paralysed with amazement that i stood motionless and staring until i was aroused by a yell for help from my companion. the open door shed enough light for me to see the outline of things, and there was little lord linchmere with his arms round the neck of his brother-in-law, holding bravely on to him like a game bull-terrier with its teeth into a gaunt deerhound. the tall, bony man dashed himself about, writhing round and round to get a grip upon his assailant; but the other, clutching on from behind, still kept his hold, though his shrill, frightened cries showed how unequal he felt the contest to be. i sprang to the rescue, and the two of us managed to throw sir thomas to the ground, though he made his teeth meet in my shoulder. with all my youth and weight and strength, it was a desperate struggle before we could master his frenzied struggles; but at last we secured his arms with the waist-cord of the dressing-gown which he was wearing. i was holding his legs while lord linchmere was endeavouring to relight the lamp, when there came the pattering of many feet in the passage, and the butler and two footmen, who had been alarmed by the cries, rushed into the room. with their aid we had no further difficulty in securing our prisoner, who lay foaming and glaring upon the ground. one glance at his face was enough to prove that he was a dangerous maniac, while the short, heavy hammer which lay beside the bed showed how murderous had been his intentions. "do not use any violence!" said lord linchmere, as we raised the struggling man to his feet. "he will have a period of stupor after this excitement. i believe that it is coming on already." as he spoke the convulsions became less violent, and the madman's head fell forward upon his breast, as if he were overcome by sleep. we led him down the passage and stretched him upon his own bed, where he lay unconscious, breathing heavily. "two of you will watch him," said lord linchmere. "and now, dr. hamilton, if you will return with me to my room, i will give you the explanation which my horror of scandal has perhaps caused me to delay too long. come what may, you will never have cause to regret your share in this night's work. "the case may be made clear in a very few words," he continued, when we were alone. "my poor brother-in-law is one of the best fellows upon earth, a loving husband and an estimable father, but he comes from a stock which is deeply tainted with insanity. he has more than once had homicidal outbreaks, which are the more painful because his inclination is always to attack the very person to whom he is most attached. his son was sent away to school to avoid this danger, and then came an attempt upon my sister, his wife, from which she escaped with injuries that you may have observed when you met her in london. you understand that he knows nothing of the matter when he is in his sound senses, and would ridicule the suggestion that he could under any circumstances injure those whom he loves so dearly. it is often, as you know, a characteristic of such maladies that it is absolutely impossible to convince the man who suffers from them of their existence. "our great object was, of course, to get him under restraint before he could stain his hands with blood, but the matter was full of difficulty. he is a recluse in his habits, and would not see any medical man. besides, it was necessary for our purpose that the medical man should convince himself of his insanity; and he is sane as you or i, save on these very rare occasions. but, fortunately, before he has these attacks he always shows certain premonitory symptoms, which are providential danger-signals, warning us to be upon our guard. the chief of these is that nervous contortion of the forehead which you must have observed. this is a phenomenon which always appears from three to four days before his attacks of frenzy. the moment it showed itself his wife came into town on some pretext, and took refuge in my house in brook street. "it remained for me to convince a medical man of sir thomas's insanity, without which it was impossible to put him where he could do no harm. the first problem was how to get a medical man into his house. i bethought me of his interest in beetles, and his love for anyone who shared his tastes. i advertised, therefore, and was fortunate enough to find in you the very man i wanted. a stout companion was necessary, for i knew that the lunacy could only be proved by a murderous assault, and i had every reason to believe that that assault would be made upon myself, since he had the warmest regard for me in his moments of sanity. i think your intelligence will supply all the rest. i did not know that the attack would come by night, but i thought it very probable, for the crises of such cases usually do occur in the early hours of the morning. i am a very nervous man myself, but i saw no other way in which i could remove this terrible danger from my sister's life. i need not ask you whether you are willing to sign the lunacy papers." "undoubtedly. but two signatures are necessary." "you forget that i am myself a holder of a medical degree. i have the papers on a side-table here, so if you will be good enough to sign them now, we can have the patient removed in the morning." so that was my visit to sir thomas rossiter, the famous beetle-hunter, and that was also my first step upon the ladder of success, for lady rossiter and lord linchmere have proved to be staunch friends, and they have never forgotten my association with them in the time of their need. sir thomas is out and said to be cured, but i still think that if i spent another night at delamere court, i should be inclined to lock my door upon the inside. the man with the watches there are many who will still bear in mind the singular circumstances which, under the heading of the rugby mystery, filled many columns of the daily press in the spring of the year . coming as it did at a period of exceptional dullness, it attracted perhaps rather more attention than it deserved, but it offered to the public that mixture of the whimsical and the tragic which is most stimulating to the popular imagination. interest drooped, however, when, after weeks of fruitless investigation, it was found that no final explanation of the facts was forthcoming, and the tragedy seemed from that time to the present to have finally taken its place in the dark catalogue of inexplicable and unexpiated crimes. a recent communication (the authenticity of which appears to be above question) has, however, thrown some new and clear light upon the matter. before laying it before the public it would be as well, perhaps, that i should refresh their memories as to the singular facts upon which this commentary is founded. these facts were briefly as follows: at five o'clock on the evening of the th of march in the year already mentioned a train left euston station for manchester. it was a rainy, squally day, which grew wilder as it progressed, so it was by no means the weather in which anyone would travel who was not driven to do so by necessity. the train, however, is a favourite one among manchester business men who are returning from town, for it does the journey in four hours and twenty minutes, with only three stoppages upon the way. in spite of the inclement evening it was, therefore, fairly well filled upon the occasion of which i speak. the guard of the train was a tried servant of the company--a man who had worked for twenty-two years without a blemish or complaint. his name was john palmer. the station clock was upon the stroke of five, and the guard was about to give the customary signal to the engine-driver when he observed two belated passengers hurrying down the platform. the one was an exceptionally tall man, dressed in a long black overcoat with astrakhan collar and cuffs. i have already said that the evening was an inclement one, and the tall traveller had the high, warm collar turned up to protect his throat against the bitter march wind. he appeared, as far as the guard could judge by so hurried an inspection, to be a man between fifty and sixty years of age, who had retained a good deal of the vigour and activity of his youth. in one hand he carried a brown leather gladstone bag. his companion was a lady, tall and erect, walking with a vigorous step which outpaced the gentleman beside her. she wore a long, fawn-coloured dust-cloak, a black, close-fitting toque, and a dark veil which concealed the greater part of her face. the two might very well have passed as father and daughter. they walked swiftly down the line of carriages, glancing in at the windows, until the guard, john palmer, overtook them. "now then, sir, look sharp, the train is going," said he. "first-class," the man answered. the guard turned the handle of the nearest door. in the carriage which he had opened, there sat a small man with a cigar in his mouth. his appearance seems to have impressed itself upon the guard's memory, for he was prepared, afterwards, to describe or to identify him. he was a man of thirty-four or thirty-five years of age, dressed in some grey material, sharp-nosed, alert, with a ruddy, weather-beaten face, and a small, closely cropped, black beard. he glanced up as the door was opened. the tall man paused with his foot upon the step. "this is a smoking compartment. the lady dislikes smoke," said he, looking round at the guard. "all right! here you are, sir!" said john palmer. he slammed the door of the smoking carriage, opened that of the next one, which was empty, and thrust the two travellers in. at the same moment he sounded his whistle and the wheels of the train began to move. the man with the cigar was at the window of his carriage, and said something to the guard as he rolled past him, but the words were lost in the bustle of the departure. palmer stepped into the guard's van, as it came up to him, and thought no more of the incident. twelve minutes after its departure the train reached willesden junction, where it stopped for a very short interval. an examination of the tickets has made it certain that no one either joined or left it at this time, and no passenger was seen to alight upon the platform. at : the journey to manchester was resumed, and rugby was reached at : , the express being five minutes late. at rugby the attention of the station officials was drawn to the fact that the door of one of the first-class carriages was open. an examination of that compartment, and of its neighbour, disclosed a remarkable state of affairs. the smoking carriage in which the short, red-faced man with the black beard had been seen was now empty. save for a half-smoked cigar, there was no trace whatever of its recent occupant. the door of this carriage was fastened. in the next compartment, to which attention had been originally drawn, there was no sign either of the gentleman with the astrakhan collar or of the young lady who accompanied him. all three passengers had disappeared. on the other hand, there was found upon the floor of this carriage--the one in which the tall traveller and the lady had been--a young man fashionably dressed and of elegant appearance. he lay with his knees drawn up, and his head resting against the farther door, an elbow upon either seat. a bullet had penetrated his heart and his death must have been instantaneous. no one had seen such a man enter the train, and no railway ticket was found in his pocket, neither were there any markings upon his linen, nor papers nor personal property which might help to identify him. who he was, whence he had come, and how he had met his end were each as great a mystery as what had occurred to the three people who had started an hour and a half before from willesden in those two compartments. i have said that there was no personal property which might help to identify him, but it is true that there was one peculiarity about this unknown young man which was much commented upon at the time. in his pockets were found no fewer than six valuable gold watches, three in the various pockets of his waist-coat, one in his ticket-pocket, one in his breast-pocket, and one small one set in a leather strap and fastened round his left wrist. the obvious explanation that the man was a pickpocket, and that this was his plunder, was discounted by the fact that all six were of american make and of a type which is rare in england. three of them bore the mark of the rochester watchmaking company; one was by mason, of elmira; one was unmarked; and the small one, which was highly jewelled and ornamented, was from tiffany, of new york. the other contents of his pocket consisted of an ivory knife with a corkscrew by rodgers, of sheffield; a small, circular mirror, one inch in diameter; a readmission slip to the lyceum theatre; a silver box full of vesta matches, and a brown leather cigar-case containing two cheroots--also two pounds fourteen shillings in money. it was clear, then, that whatever motives may have led to his death, robbery was not among them. as already mentioned, there were no markings upon the man's linen, which appeared to be new, and no tailor's name upon his coat. in appearance he was young, short, smooth-cheeked, and delicately featured. one of his front teeth was conspicuously stopped with gold. on the discovery of the tragedy an examination was instantly made of the tickets of all passengers, and the number of the passengers themselves was counted. it was found that only three tickets were unaccounted for, corresponding to the three travellers who were missing. the express was then allowed to proceed, but a new guard was sent with it, and john palmer was detained as a witness at rugby. the carriage which included the two compartments in question was uncoupled and side-tracked. then, on the arrival of inspector vane, of scotland yard, and of mr. henderson, a detective in the service of the railway company, an exhaustive inquiry was made into all the circumstances. that crime had been committed was certain. the bullet, which appeared to have come from a small pistol or revolver, had been fired from some little distance, as there was no scorching of the clothes. no weapon was found in the compartment (which finally disposed of the theory of suicide), nor was there any sign of the brown leather bag which the guard had seen in the hand of the tall gentleman. a lady's parasol was found upon the rack, but no other trace was to be seen of the travellers in either of the sections. apart from the crime, the question of how or why three passengers (one of them a lady) could get out of the train, and one other get in during the unbroken run between willesden and rugby, was one which excited the utmost curiosity among the general public, and gave rise to much speculation in the london press. john palmer, the guard was able at the inquest to give some evidence which threw a little light upon the matter. there was a spot between tring and cheddington, according to his statement, where, on account of some repairs to the line, the train had for a few minutes slowed down to a pace not exceeding eight or ten miles an hour. at that place it might be possible for a man, or even for an exceptionally active woman, to have left the train without serious injury. it was true that a gang of platelayers was there, and that they had seen nothing, but it was their custom to stand in the middle between the metals, and the open carriage door was upon the far side, so that it was conceivable that someone might have alighted unseen, as the darkness would by that time be drawing in. a steep embankment would instantly screen anyone who sprang out from the observation of the navvies. the guard also deposed that there was a good deal of movement upon the platform at willesden junction, and that though it was certain that no one had either joined or left the train there, it was still quite possible that some of the passengers might have changed unseen from one compartment to another. it was by no means uncommon for a gentleman to finish his cigar in a smoking carriage and then to change to a clearer atmosphere. supposing that the man with the black beard had done so at willesden (and the half-smoked cigar upon the floor seemed to favour the supposition), he would naturally go into the nearest section, which would bring him into the company of the two other actors in this drama. thus the first stage of the affair might be surmised without any great breach of probability. but what the second stage had been, or how the final one had been arrived at, neither the guard nor the experienced detective officers could suggest. a careful examination of the line between willesden and rugby resulted in one discovery which might or might not have a bearing upon the tragedy. near tring, at the very place where the train slowed down, there was found at the bottom of the embankment a small pocket testament, very shabby and worn. it was printed by the bible society of london, and bore an inscription: "from john to alice. jan. th, ," upon the fly-leaf. underneath was written: "james. july th, ," and beneath that again: "edward. nov. st, ," all the entries being in the same handwriting. this was the only clue, if it could be called a clue, which the police obtained, and the coroner's verdict of "murder by a person or persons unknown" was the unsatisfactory ending of a singular case. advertisement, rewards, and inquiries proved equally fruitless, and nothing could be found which was solid enough to form the basis for a profitable investigation. it would be a mistake, however, to suppose that no theories were formed to account for the facts. on the contrary, the press, both in england and in america, teemed with suggestions and suppositions, most of which were obviously absurd. the fact that the watches were of american make, and some peculiarities in connection with the gold stopping of his front tooth, appeared to indicate that the deceased was a citizen of the united states, though his linen, clothes and boots were undoubtedly of british manufacture. it was surmised, by some, that he was concealed under the seat, and that, being discovered, he was for some reason, possibly because he had overheard their guilty secrets, put to death by his fellow-passengers. when coupled with generalities as to the ferocity and cunning of anarchical and other secret societies, this theory sounded as plausible as any. the fact that he should be without a ticket would be consistent with the idea of concealment, and it was well known that women played a prominent part in the nihilistic propaganda. on the other hand, it was clear, from the guard's statement, that the man must have been hidden there before the others arrived, and how unlikely the coincidence that conspirators should stray exactly into the very compartment in which a spy was already concealed! besides, this explanation ignored the man in the smoking carriage, and gave no reason at all for his simultaneous disappearance. the police had little difficulty in showing that such a theory would not cover the facts, but they were unprepared in the absence of evidence to advance any alternative explanation. there was a letter in the daily gazette, over the signature of a well-known criminal investigator, which gave rise to considerable discussion at the time. he had formed a hypothesis which had at least ingenuity to recommend it, and i cannot do better than append it in his own words. "whatever may be the truth," said he, "it must depend upon some bizarre and rare combination of events, so we need have no hesitation in postulating such events in our explanation. in the absence of data we must abandon the analytic or scientific method of investigation, and must approach it in the synthetic fashion. in a word, instead of taking known events and deducing from them what has occurred, we must build up a fanciful explanation if it will only be consistent with known events. we can then test this explanation by any fresh facts which may arise. if they all fit into their places, the probability is that we are upon the right track, and with each fresh fact this probability increases in a geometrical progression until the evidence becomes final and convincing. "now, there is one most remarkable and suggestive fact which has not met with the attention which it deserves. there is a local train running through harrow and king's langley, which is timed in such a way that the express must have overtaken it at or about the period when it eased down its speed to eight miles an hour on account of the repairs of the line. the two trains would at that time be travelling in the same direction at a similar rate of speed and upon parallel lines. it is within every one's experience how, under such circumstances, the occupant of each carriage can see very plainly the passengers in the other carriages opposite to him. the lamps of the express had been lit at willesden, so that each compartment was brightly illuminated, and most visible to an observer from outside. "now, the sequence of events as i reconstruct them would be after this fashion. this young man with the abnormal number of watches was alone in the carriage of the slow train. his ticket, with his papers and gloves and other things, was, we will suppose, on the seat beside him. he was probably an american, and also probably a man of weak intellect. the excessive wearing of jewellery is an early symptom in some forms of mania. "as he sat watching the carriages of the express which were (on account of the state of the line) going at the same pace as himself, he suddenly saw some people in it whom he knew. we will suppose for the sake of our theory that these people were a woman whom he loved and a man whom he hated--and who in return hated him. the young man was excitable and impulsive. he opened the door of his carriage, stepped from the footboard of the local train to the footboard of the express, opened the other door, and made his way into the presence of these two people. the feat (on the supposition that the trains were going at the same pace) is by no means so perilous as it might appear. "having now got our young man, without his ticket, into the carriage in which the elder man and the young woman are travelling, it is not difficult to imagine that a violent scene ensued. it is possible that the pair were also americans, which is the more probable as the man carried a weapon--an unusual thing in england. if our supposition of incipient mania is correct, the young man is likely to have assaulted the other. as the upshot of the quarrel the elder man shot the intruder, and then made his escape from the carriage, taking the young lady with him. we will suppose that all this happened very rapidly, and that the train was still going at so slow a pace that it was not difficult for them to leave it. a woman might leave a train going at eight miles an hour. as a matter of fact, we know that this woman did do so. "and now we have to fit in the man in the smoking carriage. presuming that we have, up to this point, reconstructed the tragedy correctly, we shall find nothing in this other man to cause us to reconsider our conclusions. according to my theory, this man saw the young fellow cross from one train to the other, saw him open the door, heard the pistol-shot, saw the two fugitives spring out on to the line, realized that murder had been done, and sprang out himself in pursuit. why he has never been heard of since--whether he met his own death in the pursuit, or whether, as is more likely, he was made to realize that it was not a case for his interference--is a detail which we have at present no means of explaining. i acknowledge that there are some difficulties in the way. at first sight, it might seem improbable that at such a moment a murderer would burden himself in his flight with a brown leather bag. my answer is that he was well aware that if the bag were found his identity would be established. it was absolutely necessary for him to take it with him. my theory stands or falls upon one point, and i call upon the railway company to make strict inquiry as to whether a ticket was found unclaimed in the local train through harrow and king's langley upon the th of march. if such a ticket were found my case is proved. if not, my theory may still be the correct one, for it is conceivable either that he travelled without a ticket or that his ticket was lost." to this elaborate and plausible hypothesis the answer of the police and of the company was, first, that no such ticket was found; secondly, that the slow train would never run parallel to the express; and, thirdly, that the local train had been stationary in king's langley station when the express, going at fifty miles an hour, had flashed past it. so perished the only satisfying explanation, and five years have elapsed without supplying a new one. now, at last, there comes a statement which covers all the facts, and which must be regarded as authentic. it took the shape of a letter dated from new york, and addressed to the same criminal investigator whose theory i have quoted. it is given here in extenso, with the exception of the two opening paragraphs, which are personal in their nature: "you'll excuse me if i'm not very free with names. there's less reason now than there was five years ago when mother was still living. but for all that, i had rather cover up our tracks all i can. but i owe you an explanation, for if your idea of it was wrong, it was a mighty ingenious one all the same. i'll have to go back a little so as you may understand all about it. "my people came from bucks, england, and emigrated to the states in the early fifties. they settled in rochester, in the state of new york, where my father ran a large dry goods store. there were only two sons: myself, james, and my brother, edward. i was ten years older than my brother, and after my father died i sort of took the place of a father to him, as an elder brother would. he was a bright, spirited boy, and just one of the most beautiful creatures that ever lived. but there was always a soft spot in him, and it was like mould in cheese, for it spread and spread, and nothing that you could do would stop it. mother saw it just as clearly as i did, but she went on spoiling him all the same, for he had such a way with him that you could refuse him nothing. i did all i could to hold him in, and he hated me for my pains. "at last he fairly got his head, and nothing that we could do would stop him. he got off into new york, and went rapidly from bad to worse. at first he was only fast, and then he was criminal; and then, at the end of a year or two, he was one of the most notorious young crooks in the city. he had formed a friendship with sparrow maccoy, who was at the head of his profession as a bunco-steerer, green goodsman and general rascal. they took to card-sharping, and frequented some of the best hotels in new york. my brother was an excellent actor (he might have made an honest name for himself if he had chosen), and he would take the parts of a young englishman of title, of a simple lad from the west, or of a college undergraduate, whichever suited sparrow maccoy's purpose. and then one day he dressed himself as a girl, and he carried it off so well, and made himself such a valuable decoy, that it was their favourite game afterwards. they had made it right with tammany and with the police, so it seemed as if nothing could ever stop them, for those were in the days before the lexow commission, and if you only had a pull, you could do pretty nearly everything you wanted. "and nothing would have stopped them if they had only stuck to cards and new york, but they must needs come up rochester way, and forge a name upon a cheque. it was my brother that did it, though everyone knew that it was under the influence of sparrow maccoy. i bought up that cheque, and a pretty sum it cost me. then i went to my brother, laid it before him on the table, and swore to him that i would prosecute if he did not clear out of the country. at first he simply laughed. i could not prosecute, he said, without breaking our mother's heart, and he knew that i would not do that. i made him understand, however, that our mother's heart was being broken in any case, and that i had set firm on the point that i would rather see him in rochester gaol than in a new york hotel. so at last he gave in, and he made me a solemn promise that he would see sparrow maccoy no more, that he would go to europe, and that he would turn his hand to any honest trade that i helped him to get. i took him down right away to an old family friend, joe willson, who is an exporter of american watches and clocks, and i got him to give edward an agency in london, with a small salary and a per cent commission on all business. his manner and appearance were so good that he won the old man over at once, and within a week he was sent off to london with a case full of samples. "it seemed to me that this business of the cheque had really given my brother a fright, and that there was some chance of his settling down into an honest line of life. my mother had spoken with him, and what she said had touched him, for she had always been the best of mothers to him and he had been the great sorrow of her life. but i knew that this man sparrow maccoy had a great influence over edward and my chance of keeping the lad straight lay in breaking the connection between them. i had a friend in the new york detective force, and through him i kept a watch upon maccoy. when, within a fortnight of my brother's sailing, i heard that maccoy had taken a berth in the etruria, i was as certain as if he had told me that he was going over to england for the purpose of coaxing edward back again into the ways that he had left. in an instant i had resolved to go also, and to pit my influence against maccoy's. i knew it was a losing fight, but i thought, and my mother thought, that it was my duty. we passed the last night together in prayer for my success, and she gave me her own testament that my father had given her on the day of their marriage in the old country, so that i might always wear it next my heart. "i was a fellow-traveller, on the steamship, with sparrow maccoy, and at least i had the satisfaction of spoiling his little game for the voyage. the very first night i went into the smoking-room, and found him at the head of a card-table, with a half a dozen young fellows who were carrying their full purses and their empty skulls over to europe. he was settling down for his harvest, and a rich one it would have been. but i soon changed all that. "'gentlemen,' said i, 'are you aware whom you are playing with?' "'what's that to you? you mind your own business!' said he, with an oath. "'who is it, anyway?' asked one of the dudes. "'he's sparrow maccoy, the most notorious card-sharper in the states.' "up he jumped with a bottle in his hand, but he remembered that he was under the flag of the effete old country, where law and order run, and tammany has no pull. gaol and the gallows wait for violence and murder, and there's no slipping out by the back door on board an ocean liner. "'prove your words, you----!' said he. "'i will!' said i. 'if you will turn up your right shirt-sleeve to the shoulder, i will either prove my words or i will eat them.' "he turned white and said not a word. you see, i knew something of his ways, and i was aware of that part of the mechanism which he and all such sharpers use consists of an elastic down the arm with a clip just above the wrist. it is by means of this clip that they withdraw from their hands the cards which they do not want, while they substitute other cards from another hiding place. i reckoned on it being there, and it was. he cursed me, slunk out of the saloon, and was hardly seen again during the voyage. for once, at any rate, i got level with mister sparrow maccoy. "but he soon had his revenge upon me, for when it came to influencing my brother he outweighed me every time. edward had kept himself straight in london for the first few weeks, and had done some business with his american watches, until this villain came across his path once more. i did my best, but the best was little enough. the next thing i heard there had been a scandal at one of the northumberland avenue hotels: a traveller had been fleeced of a large sum by two confederate card-sharpers, and the matter was in the hands of scotland yard. the first i learned of it was in the evening paper, and i was at once certain that my brother and maccoy were back at their old games. i hurried at once to edward's lodgings. they told me that he and a tall gentleman (whom i recognized as maccoy) had gone off together, and that he had left the lodgings and taken his things with him. the landlady had heard them give several directions to the cabman, ending with euston station, and she had accidentally overheard the tall gentleman saying something about manchester. she believed that that was their destination. "a glance at the time-table showed me that the most likely train was at five, though there was another at : which they might have caught. i had only time to get the later one, but found no sign of them either at the depot or in the train. they must have gone on by the earlier one, so i determined to follow them to manchester and search for them in the hotels there. one last appeal to my brother by all that he owed to my mother might even now be the salvation of him. my nerves were overstrung, and i lit a cigar to steady them. at that moment, just as the train was moving off, the door of my compartment was flung open, and there were maccoy and my brother on the platform. "they were both disguised, and with good reason, for they knew that the london police were after them. maccoy had a great astrakhan collar drawn up, so that only his eyes and nose were showing. my brother was dressed like a woman, with a black veil half down his face, but of course it did not deceive me for an instant, nor would it have done so even if i had not known that he had often used such a dress before. i started up, and as i did so maccoy recognized me. he said something, the conductor slammed the door, and they were shown into the next compartment. i tried to stop the train so as to follow them, but the wheels were already moving, and it was too late. "when we stopped at willesden, i instantly changed my carriage. it appears that i was not seen to do so, which is not surprising, as the station was crowded with people. maccoy, of course, was expecting me, and he had spent the time between euston and willesden in saying all he could to harden my brother's heart and set him against me. that is what i fancy, for i had never found him so impossible to soften or to move. i tried this way and i tried that; i pictured his future in an english gaol; i described the sorrow of his mother when i came back with the news; i said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose. he sat there with a fixed sneer upon his handsome face, while every now and then sparrow maccoy would throw in a taunt at me, or some word of encouragement to hold my brother to his resolutions. "'why don't you run a sunday-school?' he would say to me, and then, in the same breath: 'he thinks you have no will of your own. he thinks you are just the baby brother and that he can lead you where he likes. he's only just finding out that you are a man as well as he.' "it was those words of his which set me talking bitterly. we had left willesden, you understand, for all this took some time. my temper got the better of me, and for the first time in my life i let my brother see the rough side of me. perhaps it would have been better had i done so earlier and more often. "'a man!' said i. 'well, i'm glad to have your friend's assurance of it, for no one would suspect it to see you like a boarding-school missy. i don't suppose in all this country there is a more contemptible-looking creature than you are as you sit there with that dolly pinafore upon you.' he coloured up at that, for he was a vain man, and he winced from ridicule. "'it's only a dust-cloak,' said he, and he slipped it off. 'one has to throw the coppers off one's scent, and i had no other way to do it.' he took his toque off with the veil attached, and he put both it and the cloak into his brown bag. 'anyway, i don't need to wear it until the conductor comes round,' said he. "'nor then, either,' said i, and taking the bag i slung it with all my force out of the window. 'now,' said i, 'you'll never make a mary jane of yourself while i can help it. if nothing but that disguise stands between you and a gaol, then to gaol you shall go.' "that was the way to manage him. i felt my advantage at once. his supple nature was one which yielded to roughness far more readily than to entreaty. he flushed with shame, and his eyes filled with tears. but maccoy saw my advantage also, and was determined that i should not pursue it. "'he's my pard, and you shall not bully him,' he cried. "'he's my brother, and you shall not ruin him,' said i. 'i believe a spell of prison is the very best way of keeping you apart, and you shall have it, or it will be no fault of mine.' "'oh, you would squeal, would you?' he cried, and in an instant he whipped out his revolver. i sprang for his hand, but saw that i was too late, and jumped aside. at the same instant he fired, and the bullet which would have struck me passed through the heart of my unfortunate brother. "he dropped without a groan upon the floor of the compartment, and maccoy and i, equally horrified, knelt at each side of him, trying to bring back some signs of life. maccoy still held the loaded revolver in his hand, but his anger against me and my resentment towards him had both for the moment been swallowed up in this sudden tragedy. it was he who first realized the situation. the train was for some reason going very slowly at the moment, and he saw his opportunity for escape. in an instant he had the door open, but i was as quick as he, and jumping upon him the two of us fell off the footboard and rolled in each other's arms down a steep embankment. at the bottom i struck my head against a stone, and i remembered nothing more. when i came to myself i was lying among some low bushes, not far from the railroad track, and somebody was bathing my head with a wet handkerchief. it was sparrow maccoy. "'i guess i couldn't leave you,' said he. 'i didn't want to have the blood of two of you on my hands in one day. you loved your brother, i've no doubt; but you didn't love him a cent more than i loved him, though you'll say that i took a queer way to show it. anyhow, it seems a mighty empty world now that he is gone, and i don't care a continental whether you give me over to the hangman or not.' "he had turned his ankle in the fall, and there we sat, he with his useless foot, and i with my throbbing head, and we talked and talked until gradually my bitterness began to soften and to turn into something like sympathy. what was the use of revenging his death upon a man who was as much stricken by that death as i was? and then, as my wits gradually returned, i began to realize also that i could do nothing against maccoy which would not recoil upon my mother and myself. how could we convict him without a full account of my brother's career being made public--the very thing which of all others we wished to avoid? it was really as much our interest as his to cover the matter up, and from being an avenger of crime i found myself changed to a conspirator against justice. the place in which we found ourselves was one of those pheasant preserves which are so common in the old country, and as we groped our way through it i found myself consulting the slayer of my brother as to how far it would be possible to hush it up. "i soon realized from what he said that unless there were some papers of which we knew nothing in my brother's pockets, there was really no possible means by which the police could identify him or learn how he had got there. his ticket was in maccoy's pocket, and so was the ticket for some baggage which they had left at the depot. like most americans, he had found it cheaper and easier to buy an outfit in london than to bring one from new york, so that all his linen and clothes were new and unmarked. the bag, containing the dust-cloak, which i had thrown out of the window, may have fallen among some bramble patch where it is still concealed, or may have been carried off by some tramp, or may have come into the possession of the police, who kept the incident to themselves. anyhow, i have seen nothing about it in the london papers. as to the watches, they were a selection from those which had been intrusted to him for business purposes. it may have been for the same business purposes that he was taking them to manchester, but--well, it's too late to enter into that. "i don't blame the police for being at fault. i don't see how it could have been otherwise. there was just one little clue that they might have followed up, but it was a small one. i mean that small, circular mirror which was found in my brother's pocket. it isn't a very common thing for a young man to carry about with him, is it? but a gambler might have told you what such a mirror may mean to a card-sharper. if you sit back a little from the table, and lay the mirror, face upwards, upon your lap, you can see, as you deal, every card that you give to your adversary. it is not hard to say whether you see a man or raise him when you know his cards as well as your own. it was as much a part of a sharper's outfit as the elastic clip upon sparrow maccoy's arm. taking that, in connection with the recent frauds at the hotels, the police might have got hold of one end of the string. "i don't think there is much more for me to explain. we got to a village called amersham that night in the character of two gentlemen upon a walking tour, and afterwards we made our way quietly to london, whence maccoy went on to cairo and i returned to new york. my mother died six months afterwards, and i am glad to say that to the day of her death she never knew what happened. she was always under the delusion that edward was earning an honest living in london, and i never had the heart to tell her the truth. he never wrote; but, then, he never did write at any time, so that made no difference. his name was the last upon her lips. "there's just one other thing that i have to ask you, sir, and i should take it as a kind return for all this explanation, if you could do it for me. you remember that testament that was picked up. i always carried it in my inside pocket, and it must have come out in my fall. i value it very highly, for it was the family book with my birth and my brother's marked by my father in the beginning of it. i wish you would apply at the proper place and have it sent to me. it can be of no possible value to anyone else. if you address it to x, bassano's library, broadway, new york, it is sure to come to hand." the japanned box it was a curious thing, said the private tutor; one of those grotesque and whimsical incidents which occur to one as one goes through life. i lost the best situation which i am ever likely to have through it. but i am glad that i went to thorpe place, for i gained--well, as i tell you the story you will learn what i gained. i don't know whether you are familiar with that part of the midlands which is drained by the avon. it is the most english part of england. shakespeare, the flower of the whole race, was born right in the middle of it. it is a land of rolling pastures, rising in higher folds to the westwards, until they swell into the malvern hills. there are no towns, but numerous villages, each with its grey norman church. you have left the brick of the southern and eastern counties behind you, and everything is stone--stone for the walls, and lichened slabs of stone for the roofs. it is all grim and solid and massive, as befits the heart of a great nation. it was in the middle of this country, not very far from evesham, that sir john bollamore lived in the old ancestral home of thorpe place, and thither it was that i came to teach his two little sons. sir john was a widower--his wife had died three years before--and he had been left with these two lads aged eight and ten, and one dear little girl of seven. miss witherton, who is now my wife, was governess to this little girl. i was tutor to the two boys. could there be a more obvious prelude to an engagement? she governs me now, and i tutor two little boys of our own. but, there--i have already revealed what it was which i gained in thorpe place! it was a very, very old house, incredibly old--pre-norman, some of it--and the bollamores claimed to have lived in that situation since long before the conquest. it struck a chill to my heart when first i came there, those enormously thick grey walls, the rude crumbling stones, the smell as from a sick animal which exhaled from the rotting plaster of the aged building. but the modern wing was bright and the garden was well kept. no house could be dismal which had a pretty girl inside it and such a show of roses in front. apart from a very complete staff of servants there were only four of us in the household. these were miss witherton, who was at that time four-and-twenty and as pretty--well, as pretty as mrs. colmore is now--myself, frank colmore, aged thirty, mrs. stevens, the housekeeper, a dry, silent woman, and mr. richards, a tall military-looking man, who acted as steward to the bollamore estates. we four always had our meals together, but sir john had his usually alone in the library. sometimes he joined us at dinner, but on the whole we were just as glad when he did not. for he was a very formidable person. imagine a man six feet three inches in height, majestically built, with a high-nosed, aristocratic face, brindled hair, shaggy eyebrows, a small, pointed mephistophelian beard, and lines upon his brow and round his eyes as deep as if they had been carved with a penknife. he had grey eyes, weary, hopeless-looking eyes, proud and yet pathetic, eyes which claimed your pity and yet dared you to show it. his back was rounded with study, but otherwise he was as fine a looking man of his age--five-and-fifty perhaps--as any woman would wish to look upon. but his presence was not a cheerful one. he was always courteous, always refined, but singularly silent and retiring. i have never lived so long with any man and known so little of him. if he were indoors he spent his time either in his own small study in the eastern tower, or in the library in the modern wing. so regular was his routine that one could always say at any hour exactly where he would be. twice in the day he would visit his study, once after breakfast, and once about ten at night. you might set your watch by the slam of the heavy door. for the rest of the day he would be in his library--save that for an hour or two in the afternoon he would take a walk or a ride, which was solitary like the rest of his existence. he loved his children, and was keenly interested in the progress of their studies, but they were a little awed by the silent, shaggy-browed figure, and they avoided him as much as they could. indeed, we all did that. it was some time before i came to know anything about the circumstances of sir john bollamore's life, for mrs. stevens, the housekeeper, and mr. richards, the land-steward, were too loyal to talk easily of their employer's affairs. as to the governess, she knew no more than i did, and our common interest was one of the causes which drew us together. at last, however, an incident occurred which led to a closer acquaintance with mr. richards and a fuller knowledge of the life of the man whom i served. the immediate cause of this was no less than the falling of master percy, the youngest of my pupils, into the mill-race, with imminent danger both to his life and to mine, since i had to risk myself in order to save him. dripping and exhausted--for i was far more spent than the child--i was making for my room when sir john, who had heard the hubbub, opened the door of his little study and asked me what was the matter. i told him of the accident, but assured him that his child was in no danger, while he listened with a rugged, immobile face, which expressed in its intense eyes and tightened lips all the emotion which he tried to conceal. "one moment! step in here! let me have the details!" said he, turning back through the open door. and so i found myself within that little sanctum, inside which, as i afterwards learned, no other foot had for three years been set save that of the old servant who cleaned it out. it was a round room, conforming to the shape of the tower in which it was situated, with a low ceiling, a single narrow, ivy-wreathed window, and the simplest of furniture. an old carpet, a single chair, a deal table, and a small shelf of books made up the whole contents. on the table stood a full-length photograph of a woman--i took no particular notice of the features, but i remember, that a certain gracious gentleness was the prevailing impression. beside it were a large black japanned box and one or two bundles of letters or papers fastened together with elastic bands. our interview was a short one, for sir john bollamore perceived that i was soaked, and that i should change without delay. the incident led, however, to an instructive talk with richards, the agent, who had never penetrated into the chamber which chance had opened to me. that very afternoon he came to me, all curiosity, and walked up and down the garden path with me, while my two charges played tennis upon the lawn beside us. "you hardly realize the exception which has been made in your favour," said he. "that room has been kept such a mystery, and sir john's visits to it have been so regular and consistent, that an almost superstitious feeling has arisen about it in the household. i assure you that if i were to repeat to you the tales which are flying about, tales of mysterious visitors there, and of voices overheard by the servants, you might suspect that sir john had relapsed into his old ways." "why do you say relapsed?" i asked. he looked at me in surprise. "is it possible," said he, "that sir john bollamore's previous history is unknown to you?" "absolutely." "you astound me. i thought that every man in england knew something of his antecedents. i should not mention the matter if it were not that you are now one of ourselves, and that the facts might come to your ears in some harsher form if i were silent upon them. i always took it for granted that you knew that you were in the service of 'devil' bollamore." "but why 'devil'?" i asked. "ah, you are young and the world moves fast, but twenty years ago the name of 'devil' bollamore was one of the best known in london. he was the leader of the fastest set, bruiser, driver, gambler, drunkard--a survival of the old type, and as bad as the worst of them." i stared at him in amazement. "what!" i cried, "that quiet, studious, sad-faced man?" "the greatest rip and debauchee in england! all between ourselves, colmore. but you understand now what i mean when i say that a woman's voice in his room might even now give rise to suspicions." "but what can have changed him so?" "little beryl clare, when she took the risk of becoming his wife. that was the turning point. he had got so far that his own fast set had thrown him over. there is a world of difference, you know, between a man who drinks and a drunkard. they all drink, but they taboo a drunkard. he had become a slave to it--hopeless and helpless. then she stepped in, saw the possibilities of a fine man in the wreck, took her chance in marrying him though she might have had the pick of a dozen, and, by devoting her life to it, brought him back to manhood and decency. you have observed that no liquor is ever kept in the house. there never has been any since her foot crossed its threshold. a drop of it would be like blood to a tiger even now." "then her influence still holds him?" "that is the wonder of it. when she died three years ago, we all expected and feared that he would fall back into his old ways. she feared it herself, and the thought gave a terror to death, for she was like a guardian angel to that man, and lived only for the one purpose. by the way, did you see a black japanned box in his room?" "yes." "i fancy it contains her letters. if ever he has occasion to be away, if only for a single night, he invariably takes his black japanned box with him. well, well, colmore, perhaps i have told you rather more than i should, but i shall expect you to reciprocate if anything of interest should come to your knowledge." i could see that the worthy man was consumed with curiosity and just a little piqued that i, the newcomer, should have been the first to penetrate into the untrodden chamber. but the fact raised me in his esteem, and from that time onwards i found myself upon more confidential terms with him. and now the silent and majestic figure of my employer became an object of greater interest to me. i began to understand that strangely human look in his eyes, those deep lines upon his care-worn face. he was a man who was fighting a ceaseless battle, holding at arm's length, from morning till night, a horrible adversary who was forever trying to close with him--an adversary which would destroy him body and soul could it but fix its claws once more upon him. as i watched the grim, round-backed figure pacing the corridor or walking in the garden, this imminent danger seemed to take bodily shape, and i could almost fancy that i saw this most loathsome and dangerous of all the fiends crouching closely in his very shadow, like a half-cowed beast which slinks beside its keeper, ready at any unguarded moment to spring at his throat. and the dead woman, the woman who had spent her life in warding off this danger, took shape also to my imagination, and i saw her as a shadowy but beautiful presence which intervened for ever with arms uplifted to screen the man whom she loved. in some subtle way he divined the sympathy which i had for him, and he showed in his own silent fashion that he appreciated it. he even invited me once to share his afternoon walk, and although no word passed between us on this occasion, it was a mark of confidence which he had never shown to anyone before. he asked me also to index his library (it was one of the best private libraries in england), and i spent many hours in the evening in his presence, if not in his society, he reading at his desk and i sitting in a recess by the window reducing to order the chaos which existed among his books. in spite of these close relations i was never again asked to enter the chamber in the turret. and then came my revulsion of feeling. a single incident changed all my sympathy to loathing, and made me realize that my employer still remained all that he had ever been, with the additional vice of hypocrisy. what happened was as follows. one evening miss witherton had gone down to broadway, the neighbouring village, to sing at a concert for some charity, and i, according to my promise, had walked over to escort her back. the drive sweeps round under the eastern turret, and i observed as i passed that the light was lit in the circular room. it was a summer evening, and the window, which was a little higher than our heads, was open. we were, as it happened, engrossed in our own conversation at the moment and we had paused upon the lawn which skirts the old turret, when suddenly something broke in upon our talk and turned our thoughts away from our own affairs. it was a voice--the voice undoubtedly of a woman. it was low--so low that it was only in that still night air that we could have heard it, but, hushed as it was, there was no mistaking its feminine timbre. it spoke hurriedly, gaspingly for a few sentences, and then was silent--a piteous, breathless, imploring sort of voice. miss witherton and i stood for an instant staring at each other. then we walked quickly in the direction of the hall-door. "it came through the window," i said. "we must not play the part of eavesdroppers," she answered. "we must forget that we have ever heard it." there was an absence of surprise in her manner which suggested a new idea to me. "you have heard it before," i cried. "i could not help it. my own room is higher up on the same turret. it has happened frequently." "who can the woman be?" "i have no idea. i had rather not discuss it." her voice was enough to show me what she thought. but granting that our employer led a double and dubious life, who could she be, this mysterious woman who kept him company in the old tower? i knew from my own inspection how bleak and bare a room it was. she certainly did not live there. but in that case where did she come from? it could not be anyone of the household. they were all under the vigilant eyes of mrs. stevens. the visitor must come from without. but how? and then suddenly i remembered how ancient this building was, and how probable that some mediaeval passage existed in it. there is hardly an old castle without one. the mysterious room was the basement of the turret, so that if there were anything of the sort it would open through the floor. there were numerous cottages in the immediate vicinity. the other end of the secret passage might lie among some tangle of bramble in the neighbouring copse. i said nothing to anyone, but i felt that the secret of my employer lay within my power. and the more convinced i was of this the more i marvelled at the manner in which he concealed his true nature. often as i watched his austere figure, i asked myself if it were indeed possible that such a man should be living this double life, and i tried to persuade myself that my suspicions might after all prove to be ill-founded. but there was the female voice, there was the secret nightly rendezvous in the turret-chamber--how could such facts admit of an innocent interpretation. i conceived a horror of the man. i was filled with loathing at his deep, consistent hypocrisy. only once during all those months did i ever see him without that sad but impassive mask which he usually presented towards his fellow-man. for an instant i caught a glimpse of those volcanic fires which he had damped down so long. the occasion was an unworthy one, for the object of his wrath was none other than the aged charwoman whom i have already mentioned as being the one person who was allowed within his mysterious chamber. i was passing the corridor which led to the turret--for my own room lay in that direction--when i heard a sudden, startled scream, and merged in it the husky, growling note of a man who is inarticulate with passion. it was the snarl of a furious wild beast. then i heard his voice thrilling with anger. "you would dare!" he cried. "you would dare to disobey my directions!" an instant later the charwoman passed me, flying down the passage, white-faced and tremulous, while the terrible voice thundered behind her. "go to mrs. stevens for your money! never set foot in thorpe place again!" consumed with curiosity, i could not help following the woman, and found her round the corner leaning against the wall and palpitating like a frightened rabbit. "what is the matter, mrs. brown?" i asked. "it's master!" she gasped. "oh, 'ow 'e frightened me! if you had seen 'is eyes, mr. colmore, sir. i thought 'e would 'ave been the death of me." "but what had you done?" "done, sir! nothing. at least nothing to make so much of. just laid my 'and on that black box of 'is--'adn't even opened it, when in 'e came and you 'eard the way 'e went on. i've lost my place, and glad i am of it, for i would never trust myself within reach of 'im again." so it was the japanned box which was the cause of this outburst--the box from which he would never permit himself to be separated. what was the connection, or was there any connection between this and the secret visits of the lady whose voice i had overheard? sir john bollamore's wrath was enduring as well as fiery, for from that day mrs. brown, the charwoman, vanished from our ken, and thorpe place knew her no more. and now i wish to tell you the singular chance which solved all these strange questions and put my employer's secret in my possession. the story may leave you with some lingering doubts as to whether my curiosity did not get the better of my honour, and whether i did not condescend to play the spy. if you choose to think so i cannot help it, but can only assure you that, improbable as it may appear, the matter came about exactly as i describe it. the first stage in this denouement was that the small room in the turret became uninhabitable. this occurred through the fall of the worm-eaten oaken beam which supported the ceiling. rotten with age, it snapped in the middle one morning, and brought down a quantity of plaster with it. fortunately sir john was not in the room at the time. his precious box was rescued from amongst the debris and brought into the library, where, henceforward, it was locked within his bureau. sir john took no steps to repair the damage, and i never had an opportunity of searching for that secret passage, the existence of which i had surmised. as to the lady, i had thought that this would have brought her visits to an end, had i not one evening heard mr. richards asking mrs. stevens who the woman was whom he had overheard talking to sir john in the library. i could not catch her reply, but i saw from her manner that it was not the first time that she had had to answer or avoid the same question. "you've heard the voice, colmore?" said the agent. i confessed that i had. "and what do you think of it?" i shrugged my shoulders, and remarked that it was no business of mine. "come, come, you are just as curious as any of us. is it a woman or not?" "it is certainly a woman." "which room did you hear it from?" "from the turret-room, before the ceiling fell." "but i heard it from the library only last night. i passed the doors as i was going to bed, and i heard something wailing and praying just as plainly as i hear you. it may be a woman----" "why, what else could it be?" he looked at me hard. "there are more things in heaven and earth," said he. "if it is a woman, how does she get there?" "i don't know." "no, nor i. but if it is the other thing--but there, for a practical business man at the end of the nineteenth century this is rather a ridiculous line of conversation." he turned away, but i saw that he felt even more than he had said. to all the old ghost stories of thorpe place a new one was being added before our very eyes. it may by this time have taken its permanent place, for though an explanation came to me, it never reached the others. and my explanation came in this way. i had suffered a sleepless night from neuralgia, and about midday i had taken a heavy dose of chlorodyne to alleviate the pain. at that time i was finishing the indexing of sir john bollamore's library, and it was my custom to work there from five till seven. on this particular day i struggled against the double effect of my bad night and the narcotic. i have already mentioned that there was a recess in the library, and in this it was my habit to work. i settled down steadily to my task, but my weariness overcame me and, falling back upon the settee, i dropped into a heavy sleep. how long i slept i do not know, but it was quite dark when i awoke. confused by the chlorodyne which i had taken, i lay motionless in a semi-conscious state. the great room with its high walls covered with books loomed darkly all round me. a dim radiance from the moonlight came through the farther window, and against this lighter background i saw that sir john bollamore was sitting at his study table. his well-set head and clearly cut profile were sharply outlined against the glimmering square behind him. he bent as i watched him, and i heard the sharp turning of a key and the rasping of metal upon metal. as if in a dream i was vaguely conscious that this was the japanned box which stood in front of him, and that he had drawn something out of it, something squat and uncouth, which now lay before him upon the table. i never realized--it never occurred to my bemuddled and torpid brain that i was intruding upon his privacy, that he imagined himself to be alone in the room. and then, just as it rushed upon my horrified perceptions, and i had half risen to announce my presence, i heard a strange, crisp, metallic clicking, and then the voice. yes, it was a woman's voice; there could not be a doubt of it. but a voice so charged with entreaty and with yearning love, that it will ring for ever in my ears. it came with a curious faraway tinkle, but every word was clear, though faint--very faint, for they were the last words of a dying woman. "i am not really gone, john," said the thin, gasping voice. "i am here at your very elbow, and shall be until we meet once more. i die happy to think that morning and night you will hear my voice. oh, john, be strong, be strong, until we meet again." i say that i had risen in order to announce my presence, but i could not do so while the voice was sounding. i could only remain half lying, half sitting, paralysed, astounded, listening to those yearning distant musical words. and he--he was so absorbed that even if i had spoken he might not have heard me. but with the silence of the voice came my half articulated apologies and explanations. he sprang across the room, switched on the electric light, and in its white glare i saw him, his eyes gleaming with anger, his face twisted with passion, as the hapless charwoman may have seen him weeks before. "mr. colmore!" he cried. "you here! what is the meaning of this, sir?" with halting words i explained it all, my neuralgia, the narcotic, my luckless sleep and singular awakening. as he listened the glow of anger faded from his face, and the sad, impassive mask closed once more over his features. "my secret is yours, mr. colmore," said he. "i have only myself to blame for relaxing my precautions. half confidences are worse than no confidences, and so you may know all since you know so much. the story may go where you will when i have passed away, but until then i rely upon your sense of honour that no human soul shall hear it from your lips. i am proud still--god help me!--or, at least, i am proud enough to resent that pity which this story would draw upon me. i have smiled at envy, and disregarded hatred, but pity is more than i can tolerate. "you have heard the source from which the voice comes--that voice which has, as i understand, excited so much curiosity in my household. i am aware of the rumours to which it has given rise. these speculations, whether scandalous or superstitious, are such as i can disregard and forgive. what i should never forgive would be a disloyal spying and eavesdropping in order to satisfy an illicit curiosity. but of that, mr. colmore, i acquit you. "when i was a young man, sir, many years younger than you are now, i was launched upon town without a friend or adviser, and with a purse which brought only too many false friends and false advisers to my side. i drank deeply of the wine of life--if there is a man living who has drunk more deeply he is not a man whom i envy. my purse suffered, my character suffered, my constitution suffered, stimulants became a necessity to me, i was a creature from whom my memory recoils. and it was at that time, the time of my blackest degradation, that god sent into my life the gentlest, sweetest spirit that ever descended as a ministering angel from above. she loved me, broken as i was, loved me, and spent her life in making a man once more of that which had degraded itself to the level of the beasts. "but a fell disease struck her, and she withered away before my eyes. in the hour of her agony it was never of herself, of her own sufferings and her own death that she thought. it was all of me. the one pang which her fate brought to her was the fear that when her influence was removed i should revert to that which i had been. it was in vain that i made oath to her that no drop of wine would ever cross my lips. she knew only too well the hold that the devil had upon me--she who had striven so to loosen it--and it haunted her night and day the thought that my soul might again be within his grip. "it was from some friend's gossip of the sick room that she heard of this invention--this phonograph--and with the quick insight of a loving woman she saw how she might use it for her ends. she sent me to london to procure the best which money could buy. with her dying breath she gasped into it the words which have held me straight ever since. lonely and broken, what else have i in all the world to uphold me? but it is enough. please god, i shall face her without shame when he is pleased to reunite us! that is my secret, mr. colmore, and whilst i live i leave it in your keeping." the black doctor bishop's crossing is a small village lying ten miles in a south-westerly direction from liverpool. here in the early seventies there settled a doctor named aloysius lana. nothing was known locally either of his antecedents or of the reasons which had prompted him to come to this lancashire hamlet. two facts only were certain about him; the one that he had gained his medical qualification with some distinction at glasgow; the other that he came undoubtedly of a tropical race, and was so dark that he might almost have had a strain of the indian in his composition. his predominant features were, however, european, and he possessed a stately courtesy and carriage which suggested a spanish extraction. a swarthy skin, raven-black hair, and dark, sparkling eyes under a pair of heavily-tufted brows made a strange contrast to the flaxen or chestnut rustics of england, and the newcomer was soon known as "the black doctor of bishop's crossing." at first it was a term of ridicule and reproach; as the years went on it became a title of honour which was familiar to the whole countryside, and extended far beyond the narrow confines of the village. for the newcomer proved himself to be a capable surgeon and an accomplished physician. the practice of that district had been in the hands of edward rowe, the son of sir william rowe, the liverpool consultant, but he had not inherited the talents of his father, and dr. lana, with his advantages of presence and of manner, soon beat him out of the field. dr. lana's social success was as rapid as his professional. a remarkable surgical cure in the case of the hon. james lowry, the second son of lord belton, was the means of introducing him to county society, where he became a favourite through the charm of his conversation and the elegance of his manners. an absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement, and the distinguished individuality of the handsome doctor was its own recommendation. his patients had one fault--and one fault only--to find with him. he appeared to be a confirmed bachelor. this was the more remarkable since the house which he occupied was a large one, and it was known that his success in practice had enabled him to save considerable sums. at first the local matchmakers were continually coupling his name with one or other of the eligible ladies, but as years passed and dr. lana remained unmarried, it came to be generally understood that for some reason he must remain a bachelor. some even went so far as to assert that he was already married, and that it was in order to escape the consequence of an early misalliance that he had buried himself at bishop's crossing. and, then, just as the matchmakers had finally given him up in despair, his engagement was suddenly announced to miss frances morton, of leigh hall. miss morton was a young lady who was well known upon the country-side, her father, james haldane morton, having been the squire of bishop's crossing. both her parents were, however, dead, and she lived with her only brother, arthur morton, who had inherited the family estate. in person miss morton was tall and stately, and she was famous for her quick, impetuous nature and for her strength of character. she met dr. lana at a garden-party, and a friendship, which quickly ripened into love, sprang up between them. nothing could exceed their devotion to each other. there was some discrepancy in age, he being thirty-seven, and she twenty-four; but, save in that one respect, there was no possible objection to be found with the match. the engagement was in february, and it was arranged that the marriage should take place in august. upon the rd of june dr. lana received a letter from abroad. in a small village the postmaster is also in a position to be the gossip-master, and mr. bankley, of bishop's crossing, had many of the secrets of his neighbours in his possession. of this particular letter he remarked only that it was in a curious envelope, that it was in a man's handwriting, that the postscript was buenos ayres, and the stamp of the argentine republic. it was the first letter which he had ever known dr. lana to have from abroad and this was the reason why his attention was particularly called to it before he handed it to the local postman. it was delivered by the evening delivery of that date. next morning--that is, upon the th of june--dr. lana called upon miss morton, and a long interview followed, from which he was observed to return in a state of great agitation. miss morton remained in her room all that day, and her maid found her several times in tears. in the course of a week it was an open secret to the whole village that the engagement was at an end, that dr. lana had behaved shamefully to the young lady, and that arthur morton, her brother, was talking of horse-whipping him. in what particular respect the doctor had behaved badly was unknown--some surmised one thing and some another; but it was observed, and taken as the obvious sign of a guilty conscience, that he would go for miles round rather than pass the windows of leigh hall, and that he gave up attending morning service upon sundays where he might have met the young lady. there was an advertisement also in the lancet as to the sale of a practice which mentioned no names, but which was thought by some to refer to bishop's crossing, and to mean that dr. lana was thinking of abandoning the scene of his success. such was the position of affairs when, upon the evening of monday, june st, there came a fresh development which changed what had been a mere village scandal into a tragedy which arrested the attention of the whole nation. some detail is necessary to cause the facts of that evening to present their full significance. the sole occupants of the doctor's house were his housekeeper, an elderly and most respectable woman, named martha woods, and a young servant--mary pilling. the coachman and the surgery-boy slept out. it was the custom of the doctor to sit at night in his study, which was next the surgery in the wing of the house which was farthest from the servants' quarters. this side of the house had a door of its own for the convenience of patients, so that it was possible for the doctor to admit and receive a visitor there without the knowledge of anyone. as a matter of fact, when patients came late it was quite usual for him to let them in and out by the surgery entrance, for the maid and the housekeeper were in the habit of retiring early. on this particular night martha woods went into the doctor's study at half-past nine, and found him writing at his desk. she bade him good night, sent the maid to bed, and then occupied herself until a quarter to eleven in household matters. it was striking eleven upon the hall clock when she went to her own room. she had been there about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes when she heard a cry or call, which appeared to come from within the house. she waited some time, but it was not repeated. much alarmed, for the sound was loud and urgent, she put on a dressing-gown, and ran at the top of her speed to the doctor's study. "who's there?" cried a voice, as she tapped at the door. "i am here, sir--mrs. woods." "i beg that you will leave me in peace. go back to your room this instant!" cried the voice, which was, to the best of her belief, that of her master. the tone was so harsh and so unlike her master's usual manner, that she was surprised and hurt. "i thought i heard you calling, sir," she explained, but no answer was given to her. mrs. woods looked at the clock as she returned to her room, and it was then half-past eleven. at some period between eleven and twelve (she could not be positive as to the exact hour) a patient called upon the doctor and was unable to get any reply from him. this late visitor was mrs. madding, the wife of the village grocer, who was dangerously ill of typhoid fever. dr. lana had asked her to look in the last thing and let him know how her husband was progressing. she observed that the light was burning in the study, but having knocked several times at the surgery door without response, she concluded that the doctor had been called out, and so returned home. there is a short, winding drive with a lamp at the end of it leading down from the house to the road. as mrs. madding emerged from the gate a man was coming along the footpath. thinking that it might be dr. lana returning from some professional visit, she waited for him, and was surprised to see that it was mr. arthur morton, the young squire. in the light of the lamp she observed that his manner was excited, and that he carried in his hand a heavy hunting-crop. he was turning in at the gate when she addressed him. "the doctor is not in, sir," said she. "how do you know that?" he asked harshly. "i have been to the surgery door, sir." "i see a light," said the young squire, looking up the drive. "that is in his study, is it not?" "yes, sir; but i am sure that he is out." "well, he must come in again," said young morton, and passed through the gate while mrs. madding went upon her homeward way. at three o'clock that morning her husband suffered a sharp relapse, and she was so alarmed by his symptoms that she determined to call the doctor without delay. as she passed through the gate she was surprised to see someone lurking among the laurel bushes. it was certainly a man, and to the best of her belief mr. arthur morton. preoccupied with her own troubles, she gave no particular attention to the incident, but hurried on upon her errand. when she reached the house she perceived to her surprise that the light was still burning in the study. she therefore tapped at the surgery door. there was no answer. she repeated the knocking several times without effect. it appeared to her to be unlikely that the doctor would either go to bed or go out leaving so brilliant a light behind him, and it struck mrs. madding that it was possible that he might have dropped asleep in his chair. she tapped at the study window, therefore, but without result. then, finding that there was an opening between the curtain and the woodwork, she looked through. the small room was brilliantly lighted from a large lamp on the central table, which was littered with the doctor's books and instruments. no one was visible, nor did she see anything unusual, except that in the farther shadow thrown by the table a dingy white glove was lying upon the carpet. and then suddenly, as her eyes became more accustomed to the light, a boot emerged from the other end of the shadow, and she realized, with a thrill of horror, that what she had taken to be a glove was the hand of a man, who was prostrate upon the floor. understanding that something terrible had occurred, she rang at the front door, roused mrs. woods, the housekeeper, and the two women made their way into the study, having first dispatched the maidservant to the police-station. at the side of the table, away from the window, dr. lana was discovered stretched upon his back and quite dead. it was evident that he had been subjected to violence, for one of his eyes was blackened and there were marks of bruises about his face and neck. a slight thickening and swelling of his features appeared to suggest that the cause of his death had been strangulation. he was dressed in his usual professional clothes, but wore cloth slippers, the soles of which were perfectly clean. the carpet was marked all over, especially on the side of the door, with traces of dirty boots, which were presumably left by the murderer. it was evident that someone had entered by the surgery door, had killed the doctor, and had then made his escape unseen. that the assailant was a man was certain, from the size of the footprints and from the nature of the injuries. but beyond that point the police found it very difficult to go. there were no signs of robbery, and the doctor's gold watch was safe in his pocket. he kept a heavy cash-box in the room, and this was discovered to be locked but empty. mrs. woods had an impression that a large sum was usually kept there, but the doctor had paid a heavy corn bill in cash only that very day, and it was conjectured that it was to this and not to a robber that the emptiness of the box was due. one thing in the room was missing--but that one thing was suggestive. the portrait of miss morton, which had always stood upon the side-table, had been taken from its frame, and carried off. mrs. woods had observed it there when she waited upon her employer that evening, and now it was gone. on the other hand, there was picked up from the floor a green eye-patch, which the housekeeper could not remember to have seen before. such a patch might, however, be in the possession of a doctor, and there was nothing to indicate that it was in any way connected with the crime. suspicion could only turn in one direction, and arthur morton, the young squire, was immediately arrested. the evidence against him was circumstantial, but damning. he was devoted to his sister, and it was shown that since the rupture between her and dr. lana he had been heard again and again to express himself in the most vindictive terms towards her former lover. he had, as stated, been seen somewhere about eleven o'clock entering the doctor's drive with a hunting-crop in his hand. he had then, according to the theory of the police, broken in upon the doctor, whose exclamation of fear or of anger had been loud enough to attract the attention of mrs. woods. when mrs. woods descended, dr. lana had made up his mind to talk it over with his visitor, and had, therefore, sent his housekeeper back to her room. this conversation had lasted a long time, had become more and more fiery, and had ended by a personal struggle, in which the doctor lost his life. the fact, revealed by a post-mortem, that his heart was much diseased--an ailment quite unsuspected during his life--would make it possible that death might in his case ensue from injuries which would not be fatal to a healthy man. arthur morton had then removed his sister's photograph, and had made his way homeward, stepping aside into the laurel bushes to avoid mrs. madding at the gate. this was the theory of the prosecution, and the case which they presented was a formidable one. on the other hand, there were some strong points for the defence. morton was high-spirited and impetuous, like his sister, but he was respected and liked by everyone, and his frank and honest nature seemed to be incapable of such a crime. his own explanation was that he was anxious to have a conversation with dr. lana about some urgent family matters (from first to last he refused even to mention the name of his sister). he did not attempt to deny that this conversation would probably have been of an unpleasant nature. he had heard from a patient that the doctor was out, and he therefore waited until about three in the morning for his return, but as he had seen nothing of him up to that hour, he had given it up and had returned home. as to his death, he knew no more about it than the constable who arrested him. he had formerly been an intimate friend of the deceased man; but circumstances, which he would prefer not to mention, had brought about a change in his sentiments. there were several facts which supported his innocence. it was certain that dr. lana was alive and in his study at half-past eleven o'clock. mrs. woods was prepared to swear that it was at that hour that she had heard his voice. the friends of the prisoner contended that it was probable that at that time dr. lana was not alone. the sound which had originally attracted the attention of the housekeeper, and her master's unusual impatience that she should leave him in peace, seemed to point to that. if this were so then it appeared to be probable that he had met his end between the moment when the housekeeper heard his voice and the time when mrs. madding made her first call and found it impossible to attract his attention. but if this were the time of his death, then it was certain that mr. arthur morton could not be guilty, as it was after this that she had met the young squire at the gate. if this hypothesis were correct, and someone was with dr. lana before mrs. madding met mr. arthur morton, then who was this someone, and what motives had he for wishing evil to the doctor? it was universally admitted that if the friends of the accused could throw light upon this, they would have gone a long way towards establishing his innocence. but in the meanwhile it was open to the public to say--as they did say--that there was no proof that anyone had been there at all except the young squire; while, on the other hand, there was ample proof that his motives in going were of a sinister kind. when mrs. madding called, the doctor might have retired to his room, or he might, as she thought at the time, have gone out and returned afterwards to find mr. arthur morton waiting for him. some of the supporters of the accused laid stress upon the fact that the photograph of his sister frances, which had been removed from the doctor's room, had not been found in her brother's possession. this argument, however, did not count for much, as he had ample time before his arrest to burn it or to destroy it. as to the only positive evidence in the case--the muddy footmarks upon the floor--they were so blurred by the softness of the carpet that it was impossible to make any trustworthy deduction from them. the most that could be said was that their appearance was not inconsistent with the theory that they were made by the accused, and it was further shown that his boots were very muddy upon that night. there had been a heavy shower in the afternoon, and all boots were probably in the same condition. such is a bald statement of the singular and romantic series of events which centred public attention upon this lancashire tragedy. the unknown origin of the doctor, his curious and distinguished personality, the position of the man who was accused of the murder, and the love affair which had preceded the crimes all combined to make the affair one of those dramas which absorb the whole interest of a nation. throughout the three kingdoms men discussed the case of the black doctor of bishop's crossing, and many were the theories put forward to explain the facts; but it may safely be said that among them all there was not one which prepared the minds of the public for the extraordinary sequel, which caused so much excitement upon the first day of the trial, and came to a climax upon the second. the long files of the lancaster weekly with their report of the case lie before me as i write, but i must content myself with a synopsis of the case up to the point when, upon the evening of the first day, the evidence of miss frances morton threw a singular light upon the case. mr. porlock carr, the counsel for the prosecution, had marshalled his facts with his usual skill, and as the day wore on, it became more and more evident how difficult was the task which mr. humphrey, who had been retained for the defence, had before him. several witnesses were put up to swear to the intemperate expressions which the young squire had been heard to utter about the doctor, and the fiery manner in which he resented the alleged ill-treatment of his sister. mrs. madding repeated her evidence as to the visit which had been paid late at night by the prisoner to the deceased, and it was shown by another witness that the prisoner was aware that the doctor was in the habit of sitting up alone in this isolated wing of the house, and that he had chosen this very late hour to call because he knew that his victim would then be at his mercy. a servant at the squire's house was compelled to admit that he had heard his master return about three that morning, which corroborated mrs. madding's statement that she had seen him among the laurel bushes near the gate upon the occasion of her second visit. the muddy boots and an alleged similarity in the footprints were duly dwelt upon, and it was felt when the case for the prosecution had been presented that, however circumstantial it might be, it was none the less so complete and so convincing, that the fate of the prisoner was sealed, unless something quite unexpected should be disclosed by the defence. it was three o'clock when the prosecution closed. at half-past four, when the court rose, a new and unlooked-for development had occurred. i extract the incident, or part of it, from the journal which i have already mentioned, omitting the preliminary observations of the counsel. considerable sensation was caused in the crowded court when the first witness called for the defence proved to be miss frances morton, the sister of the prisoner. our readers will remember that the young lady had been engaged to dr. lana, and that it was his anger over the sudden termination of this engagement which was thought to have driven her brother to the perpetration of this crime. miss morton had not, however, been directly implicated in the case in any way, either at the inquest or at the police-court proceedings, and her appearance as the leading witness for the defence came as a surprise upon the public. miss frances morton, who was a tall and handsome brunette, gave her evidence in a low but clear voice, though it was evident throughout that she was suffering from extreme emotion. she alluded to her engagement to the doctor, touched briefly upon its termination, which was due, she said, to personal matters connected with his family, and surprised the court by asserting that she had always considered her brother's resentment to be unreasonable and intemperate. in answer to a direct question from her counsel, she replied that she did not feel that she had any grievance whatever against dr. lana, and that in her opinion he had acted in a perfectly honourable manner. her brother, on an insufficient knowledge of the facts, had taken another view, and she was compelled to acknowledge that, in spite of her entreaties, he had uttered threats of personal violence against the doctor, and had, upon the evening of the tragedy, announced his intention of "having it out with him." she had done her best to bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind, but he was very headstrong where his emotions or prejudices were concerned. up to this point the young lady's evidence had appeared to make against the prisoner rather than in his favour. the questions of her counsel, however, soon put a very different light upon the matter, and disclosed an unexpected line of defence. mr. humphrey: do you believe your brother to be guilty of this crime? the judge: i cannot permit that question, mr. humphrey. we are here to decide upon questions of fact--not of belief. mr. humphrey: do you know that your brother is not guilty of the death of doctor lana? miss morton: yes. mr. humphrey: how do you know it? miss morton: because dr. lana is not dead. there followed a prolonged sensation in court, which interrupted the examination of the witness. mr. humphrey: and how do you know, miss morton, that dr. lana is not dead? miss morton: because i have received a letter from him since the date of his supposed death. mr. humphrey: have you this letter? miss morton: yes, but i should prefer not to show it. mr. humphrey: have you the envelope? miss morton: yes, it is here. mr. humphrey: what is the post-mark? miss morton: liverpool. mr. humphrey: and the date? miss morton: june the nd. mr. humphrey: that being the day after his alleged death. are you prepared to swear to this handwriting, miss morton? miss morton: certainly. mr. humphrey: i am prepared to call six other witnesses, my lord, to testify that this letter is in the writing of doctor lana. the judge: then you must call them tomorrow. mr. porlock carr (counsel for the prosecution): in the meantime, my lord, we claim possession of this document, so that we may obtain expert evidence as to how far it is an imitation of the handwriting of the gentleman whom we still confidently assert to be deceased. i need not point out that the theory so unexpectedly sprung upon us may prove to be a very obvious device adopted by the friends of the prisoner in order to divert this inquiry. i would draw attention to the fact that the young lady must, according to her own account, have possessed this letter during the proceedings at the inquest and at the police-court. she desires us to believe that she permitted these to proceed, although she held in her pocket evidence which would at any moment have brought them to an end. mr. humphrey. can you explain this, miss morton? miss morton: dr. lana desired his secret to be preserved. mr. porlock carr: then why have you made this public? miss morton: to save my brother. a murmur of sympathy broke out in court, which was instantly suppressed by the judge. the judge: admitting this line of defence, it lies with you, mr. humphrey, to throw a light upon who this man is whose body has been recognized by so many friends and patients of dr. lana as being that of the doctor himself. a juryman: has anyone up to now expressed any doubt about the matter? mr. porlock carr: not to my knowledge. mr. humphrey: we hope to make the matter clear. the judge: then the court adjourns until tomorrow. this new development of the case excited the utmost interest among the general public. press comment was prevented by the fact that the trial was still undecided, but the question was everywhere argued as to how far there could be truth in miss morton's declaration, and how far it might be a daring ruse for the purpose of saving her brother. the obvious dilemma in which the missing doctor stood was that if by any extraordinary chance he was not dead, then he must be held responsible for the death of this unknown man, who resembled him so exactly, and who was found in his study. this letter which miss morton refused to produce was possibly a confession of guilt, and she might find herself in the terrible position of only being able to save her brother from the gallows by the sacrifice of her former lover. the court next morning was crammed to overflowing, and a murmur of excitement passed over it when mr. humphrey was observed to enter in a state of emotion, which even his trained nerves could not conceal, and to confer with the opposing counsel. a few hurried words--words which left a look of amazement upon mr. porlock carr's face--passed between them, and then the counsel for the defence, addressing the judge, announced that, with the consent of the prosecution, the young lady who had given evidence upon the sitting before would not be recalled. the judge: but you appear, mr. humphrey, to have left matters in a very unsatisfactory state. mr. humphrey: perhaps, my lord, my next witness may help to clear them up. the judge: then call your next witness. mr. humphrey: i call dr. aloysius lana. the learned counsel has made many telling remarks in his day, but he has certainly never produced such a sensation with so short a sentence. the court was simply stunned with amazement as the very man whose fate had been the subject of so much contention appeared bodily before them in the witness-box. those among the spectators who had known him at bishop's crossing saw him now, gaunt and thin, with deep lines of care upon his face. but in spite of his melancholy bearing and despondent expression, there were few who could say that they had ever seen a man of more distinguished presence. bowing to the judge, he asked if he might be allowed to make a statement, and having been duly informed that whatever he said might be used against him, he bowed once more, and proceeded: "my wish," said he, "is to hold nothing back, but to tell with perfect frankness all that occurred upon the night of the st of june. had i known that the innocent had suffered, and that so much trouble had been brought upon those whom i love best in the world, i should have come forward long ago; but there were reasons which prevented these things from coming to my ears. it was my desire that an unhappy man should vanish from the world which had known him, but i had not foreseen that others would be affected by my actions. let me to the best of my ability repair the evil which i have done. "to anyone who is acquainted with the history of the argentine republic the name of lana is well known. my father, who came of the best blood of old spain, filled all the highest offices of the state, and would have been president but for his death in the riots of san juan. a brilliant career might have been open to my twin brother ernest and myself had it not been for financial losses which made it necessary that we should earn our own living. i apologize, sir, if these details appear to be irrelevant, but they are a necessary introduction to that which is to follow. "i had, as i have said, a twin brother named ernest, whose resemblance to me was so great that even when we were together people could see no difference between us. down to the smallest detail we were exactly the same. as we grew older this likeness became less marked because our expression was not the same, but with our features in repose the points of difference were very slight. "it does not become me to say too much of one who is dead, the more so as he is my only brother, but i leave his character to those who knew him best. i will only say--for i have to say it--that in my early manhood i conceived a horror of him, and that i had good reason for the aversion which filled me. my own reputation suffered from his actions, for our close resemblance caused me to be credited with many of them. eventually, in a peculiarly disgraceful business, he contrived to throw the whole odium upon me in such a way that i was forced to leave the argentine for ever, and to seek a career in europe. the freedom from his hated presence more than compensated me for the loss of my native land. i had enough money to defray my medical studies at glasgow, and i finally settled in practice at bishop's crossing, in the firm conviction that in that remote lancashire hamlet i should never hear of him again. "for years my hopes were fulfilled, and then at last he discovered me. some liverpool man who visited buenos ayres put him upon my track. he had lost all his money, and he thought that he would come over and share mine. knowing my horror of him, he rightly thought that i would be willing to buy him off. i received a letter from him saying that he was coming. it was at a crisis in my own affairs, and his arrival might conceivably bring trouble, and even disgrace, upon some whom i was especially bound to shield from anything of the kind. i took steps to insure that any evil which might come should fall on me only, and that"--here he turned and looked at the prisoner--"was the cause of conduct upon my part which has been too harshly judged. my only motive was to screen those who were dear to me from any possible connection with scandal or disgrace. that scandal and disgrace would come with my brother was only to say that what had been would be again. "my brother arrived himself one night not very long after my receipt of the letter. i was sitting in my study after the servants had gone to bed, when i heard a footstep upon the gravel outside, and an instant later i saw his face looking in at me through the window. he was a clean-shaven man like myself, and the resemblance between us was still so great that, for an instant, i thought it was my own reflection in the glass. he had a dark patch over his eye, but our features were absolutely the same. then he smiled in a sardonic way which had been a trick of his from his boyhood, and i knew that he was the same brother who had driven me from my native land, and brought disgrace upon what had been an honourable name. i went to the door and i admitted him. that would be about ten o'clock that night. "when he came into the glare of the lamp, i saw at once that he had fallen upon very evil days. he had walked from liverpool, and he was tired and ill. i was quite shocked by the expression upon his face. my medical knowledge told me that there was some serious internal malady. he had been drinking also, and his face was bruised as the result of a scuffle which he had had with some sailors. it was to cover his injured eye that he wore this patch, which he removed when he entered the room. he was himself dressed in a pea-jacket and flannel shirt, and his feet were bursting through his boots. but his poverty had only made him more savagely vindictive towards me. his hatred rose to the height of a mania. i had been rolling in money in england, according to his account, while he had been starving in south america. i cannot describe to you the threats which he uttered or the insults which he poured upon me. my impression is, that hardships and debauchery had unhinged his reason. he paced about the room like a wild beast, demanding drink, demanding money, and all in the foulest language. i am a hot-tempered man, but i thank god that i am able to say that i remained master of myself, and that i never raised a hand against him. my coolness only irritated him the more. he raved, he cursed, he shook his fists in my face, and then suddenly a horrible spasm passed over his features, he clapped his hand to his side, and with a loud cry he fell in a heap at my feet. i raised him up and stretched him upon the sofa, but no answer came to my exclamations, and the hand which i held in mine was cold and clammy. his diseased heart had broken down. his own violence had killed him. "for a long time i sat as if i were in some dreadful dream, staring at the body of my brother. i was aroused by the knocking of mrs. woods, who had been disturbed by that dying cry. i sent her away to bed. shortly afterwards a patient tapped at the surgery door, but as i took no notice, he or she went off again. slowly and gradually as i sat there a plan was forming itself in my head in the curious automatic way in which plans do form. when i rose from my chair my future movements were finally decided upon without my having been conscious of any process of thought. it was an instinct which irresistibly inclined me towards one course. "ever since that change in my affairs to which i have alluded, bishop's crossing had become hateful to me. my plans of life had been ruined, and i had met with hasty judgments and unkind treatment where i had expected sympathy. it is true that any danger of scandal from my brother had passed away with his life; but still, i was sore about the past, and felt that things could never be as they had been. it may be that i was unduly sensitive, and that i had not made sufficient allowance for others, but my feelings were as i describe. any chance of getting away from bishop's crossing and of everyone in it would be most welcome to me. and here was such a chance as i could never have dared to hope for, a chance which would enable me to make a clean break with the past. "there was this dead man lying upon the sofa, so like me that save for some little thickness and coarseness of the features there was no difference at all. no one had seen him come and no one would miss him. we were both clean-shaven, and his hair was about the same length as my own. if i changed clothes with him, then dr. aloysius lana would be found lying dead in his study, and there would be an end of an unfortunate fellow, and of a blighted career. there was plenty of ready money in the room, and this i could carry away with me to help me to start once more in some other land. in my brother's clothes i could walk by night unobserved as far as liverpool, and in that great seaport i would soon find some means of leaving the country. after my lost hopes, the humblest existence where i was unknown was far preferable, in my estimation, to a practice, however successful, in bishop's crossing, where at any moment i might come face to face with those whom i should wish, if it were possible, to forget. i determined to effect the change. "and i did so. i will not go into particulars, for the recollection is as painful as the experience; but in an hour my brother lay, dressed down to the smallest detail in my clothes, while i slunk out by the surgery door, and taking the back path which led across some fields, i started off to make the best of my way to liverpool, where i arrived the same night. my bag of money and a certain portrait were all i carried out of the house, and i left behind me in my hurry the shade which my brother had been wearing over his eye. everything else of his i took with me. "i give you my word, sir, that never for one instant did the idea occur to me that people might think that i had been murdered, nor did i imagine that anyone might be caused serious danger through this stratagem by which i endeavoured to gain a fresh start in the world. on the contrary, it was the thought of relieving others from the burden of my presence which was always uppermost in my mind. a sailing vessel was leaving liverpool that very day for corunna, and in this i took my passage, thinking that the voyage would give me time to recover my balance, and to consider the future. but before i left my resolution softened. i bethought me that there was one person in the world to whom i would not cause an hour of sadness. she would mourn me in her heart, however harsh and unsympathetic her relatives might be. she understood and appreciated the motives upon which i had acted, and if the rest of her family condemned me, she, at least, would not forget. and so i sent her a note under the seal of secrecy to save her from a baseless grief. if under the pressure of events she broke that seal, she has my entire sympathy and forgiveness. "it was only last night that i returned to england, and during all this time i have heard nothing of the sensation which my supposed death had caused, nor of the accusation that mr. arthur morton had been concerned in it. it was in a late evening paper that i read an account of the proceedings of yesterday, and i have come this morning as fast as an express train could bring me to testify to the truth." such was the remarkable statement of dr. aloysius lana which brought the trial to a sudden termination. a subsequent investigation corroborated it to the extent of finding out the vessel in which his brother ernest lana had come over from south america. the ship's doctor was able to testify that he had complained of a weak heart during the voyage, and that his symptoms were consistent with such a death as was described. as to dr. aloysius lana, he returned to the village from which he had made so dramatic a disappearance, and a complete reconciliation was effected between him and the young squire, the latter having acknowledged that he had entirely misunderstood the other's motives in withdrawing from his engagement. that another reconciliation followed may be judged from a notice extracted from a prominent column in the morning post: "a marriage was solemnized upon september th, by the rev. stephen johnson, at the parish church of bishop's crossing, between aloysius xavier lana, son of don alfredo lana, formerly foreign minister of the argentine republic, and frances morton, only daughter of the late james morton, j.p., of leigh hall, bishop's crossing, lancashire." the jew's breastplate my particular friend, ward mortimer, was one of the best men of his day at everything connected with oriental archaeology. he had written largely upon the subject, he had lived two years in a tomb at thebes, while he excavated in the valley of the kings, and finally he had created a considerable sensation by his exhumation of the alleged mummy of cleopatra in the inner room of the temple of horus, at philae. with such a record at the age of thirty-one, it was felt that a considerable career lay before him, and no one was surprised when he was elected to the curatorship of the belmore street museum, which carries with it the lectureship at the oriental college, and an income which has sunk with the fall in land, but which still remains at that ideal sum which is large enough to encourage an investigator, but not so large as to enervate him. there was only one reason which made ward mortimer's position a little difficult at the belmore street museum, and that was the extreme eminence of the man whom he had to succeed. professor andreas was a profound scholar and a man of european reputation. his lectures were frequented by students from every part of the world, and his admirable management of the collection intrusted to his care was a commonplace in all learned societies. there was, therefore, considerable surprise when, at the age of fifty-five, he suddenly resigned his position and retired from those duties which had been both his livelihood and his pleasure. he and his daughter left the comfortable suite of rooms which had formed his official residence in connection with the museum, and my friend, mortimer, who was a bachelor, took up his quarters there. on hearing of mortimer's appointment professor andreas had written him a very kindly and flattering congratulatory letter. i was actually present at their first meeting, and i went with mortimer round the museum when the professor showed us the admirable collection which he had cherished so long. the professor's beautiful daughter and a young man, captain wilson, who was, as i understood, soon to be her husband, accompanied us in our inspection. there were fifteen rooms, but the babylonian, the syrian, and the central hall, which contained the jewish and egyptian collection, were the finest of all. professor andreas was a quiet, dry, elderly man, with a clean-shaven face and an impassive manner, but his dark eyes sparkled and his features quickened into enthusiastic life as he pointed out to us the rarity and the beauty of some of his specimens. his hand lingered so fondly over them, that one could read his pride in them and the grief in his heart now that they were passing from his care into that of another. he had shown us in turn his mummies, his papyri, his rare scarabs, his inscriptions, his jewish relics, and his duplication of the famous seven-branched candlestick of the temple, which was brought to rome by titus, and which is supposed by some to be lying at this instant in the bed of the tiber. then he approached a case which stood in the very centre of the hall, and he looked down through the glass with reverence in his attitude and manner. "this is no novelty to an expert like yourself, mr. mortimer," said he; "but i daresay that your friend, mr. jackson, will be interested to see it." leaning over the case i saw an object, some five inches square, which consisted of twelve precious stones in a framework of gold, with golden hooks at two of the corners. the stones were all varying in sort and colour, but they were of the same size. their shapes, arrangement, and gradation of tint made me think of a box of water-colour paints. each stone had some hieroglyphic scratched upon its surface. "you have heard, mr. jackson, of the urim and thummim?" i had heard the term, but my idea of its meaning was exceedingly vague. "the urim and thummim was a name given to the jewelled plate which lay upon the breast of the high priest of the jews. they had a very special feeling of reverence for it--something of the feeling which an ancient roman might have for the sibylline books in the capitol. there are, as you see, twelve magnificent stones, inscribed with mystical characters. counting from the left-hand top corner, the stones are carnelian, peridot, emerald, ruby, lapis lazuli, onyx, sapphire, agate, amethyst, topaz, beryl, and jasper." i was amazed at the variety and beauty of the stones. "has the breastplate any particular history?" i asked. "it is of great age and of immense value," said professor andreas. "without being able to make an absolute assertion, we have many reasons to think that it is possible that it may be the original urim and thummim of solomon's temple. there is certainly nothing so fine in any collection in europe. my friend, captain wilson, here, is a practical authority upon precious stones, and he would tell you how pure these are." captain wilson, a man with a dark, hard, incisive face, was standing beside his fiancee at the other side of the case. "yes," said he, curtly, "i have never seen finer stones." "and the gold-work is also worthy of attention. the ancients excelled in----"--he was apparently about to indicate the setting of the stones, when captain wilson interrupted him. "you will see a finer example of their gold-work in this candlestick," said he, turning to another table, and we all joined him in his admiration of its embossed stem and delicately ornamented branches. altogether it was an interesting and a novel experience to have objects of such rarity explained by so great an expert; and when, finally, professor andreas finished our inspection by formally handing over the precious collection to the care of my friend, i could not help pitying him and envying his successor whose life was to pass in so pleasant a duty. within a week, ward mortimer was duly installed in his new set of rooms, and had become the autocrat of the belmore street museum. about a fortnight afterwards my friend gave a small dinner to half a dozen bachelor friends to celebrate his promotion. when his guests were departing he pulled my sleeve and signalled to me that he wished me to remain. "you have only a few hundred yards to go," said he--i was living in chambers in the albany. "you may as well stay and have a quiet cigar with me. i very much want your advice." i relapsed into an arm-chair and lit one of his excellent matronas. when he had returned from seeing the last of his guests out, he drew a letter from his dress-jacket and sat down opposite to me. "this is an anonymous letter which i received this morning," said he. "i want to read it to you and to have your advice." "you are very welcome to it for what it is worth." "this is how the note runs: 'sir,--i should strongly advise you to keep a very careful watch over the many valuable things which are committed to your charge. i do not think that the present system of a single watchman is sufficient. be upon your guard, or an irreparable misfortune may occur.'" "is that all?" "yes, that is all." "well," said i, "it is at least obvious that it was written by one of the limited number of people who are aware that you have only one watchman at night." ward mortimer handed me the note, with a curious smile. "have you an eye for handwriting?" said he. "now, look at this!" he put another letter in front of me. "look at the c in 'congratulate' and the c in 'committed.' look at the capital i. look at the trick of putting in a dash instead of a stop!" "they are undoubtedly from the same hand--with some attempt at disguise in the case of this first one." "the second," said ward mortimer, "is the letter of congratulation which was written to me by professor andreas upon my obtaining my appointment." i stared at him in amazement. then i turned over the letter in my hand, and there, sure enough, was "martin andreas" signed upon the other side. there could be no doubt, in the mind of anyone who had the slightest knowledge of the science of graphology, that the professor had written an anonymous letter, warning his successor against thieves. it was inexplicable, but it was certain. "why should he do it?" i asked. "precisely what i should wish to ask you. if he had any such misgivings, why could he not come and tell me direct?" "will you speak to him about it?" "there again i am in doubt. he might choose to deny that he wrote it." "at any rate," said i, "this warning is meant in a friendly spirit, and i should certainly act upon it. are the present precautions enough to insure you against robbery?" "i should have thought so. the public are only admitted from ten till five, and there is a guardian to every two rooms. he stands at the door between them, and so commands them both." "but at night?" "when the public are gone, we at once put up the great iron shutters, which are absolutely burglar-proof. the watchman is a capable fellow. he sits in the lodge, but he walks round every three hours. we keep one electric light burning in each room all night." "it is difficult to suggest anything more--short of keeping your day watches all night." "we could not afford that." "at least, i should communicate with the police, and have a special constable put on outside in belmore street," said i. "as to the letter, if the writer wishes to be anonymous, i think he has a right to remain so. we must trust to the future to show some reason for the curious course which he has adopted." so we dismissed the subject, but all that night after my return to my chambers i was puzzling my brain as to what possible motive professor andreas could have for writing an anonymous warning letter to his successor--for that the writing was his was as certain to me as if i had seen him actually doing it. he foresaw some danger to the collection. was it because he foresaw it that he abandoned his charge of it? but if so, why should he hesitate to warn mortimer in his own name? i puzzled and puzzled until at last i fell into a troubled sleep, which carried me beyond my usual hour of rising. i was aroused in a singular and effective method, for about nine o'clock my friend mortimer rushed into my room with an expression of consternation upon his face. he was usually one of the most tidy men of my acquaintance, but now his collar was undone at one end, his tie was flying, and his hat at the back of his head. i read his whole story in his frantic eyes. "the museum has been robbed!" i cried, springing up in bed. "i fear so! those jewels! the jewels of the urim and thummim!" he gasped, for he was out of breath with running. "i'm going on to the police-station. come to the museum as soon as you can, jackson! good-bye!" he rushed distractedly out of the room, and i heard him clatter down the stairs. i was not long in following his directions, but i found when i arrived that he had already returned with a police inspector, and another elderly gentleman, who proved to be mr. purvis, one of the partners of morson and company, the well-known diamond merchants. as an expert in stones he was always prepared to advise the police. they were grouped round the case in which the breastplate of the jewish priest had been exposed. the plate had been taken out and laid upon the glass top of the case, and the three heads were bent over it. "it is obvious that it has been tampered with," said mortimer. "it caught my eye the moment that i passed through the room this morning. i examined it yesterday evening, so that it is certain that this has happened during the night." it was, as he had said, obvious that someone had been at work upon it. the settings of the uppermost row of four stones--the carnelian, peridot, emerald, and ruby--were rough and jagged as if someone had scraped all round them. the stones were in their places, but the beautiful gold-work which we had admired only a few days before had been very clumsily pulled about. "it looks to me," said the police inspector, "as if someone had been trying to take out the stones." "my fear is," said mortimer, "that he not only tried, but succeeded. i believe these four stones to be skilful imitations which have been put in the place of the originals." the same suspicion had evidently been in the mind of the expert, for he had been carefully examining the four stones with the aid of a lens. he now submitted them to several tests, and finally turned cheerfully to mortimer. "i congratulate you, sir," said he, heartily. "i will pledge my reputation that all four of these stones are genuine, and of a most unusual degree of purity." the colour began to come back to my poor friend's frightened face, and he drew a long breath of relief. "thank god!" he cried. "then what in the world did the thief want?" "probably he meant to take the stones, but was interrupted." "in that case one would expect him to take them out one at a time, but the setting of each of these has been loosened, and yet the stones are all here." "it is certainly most extraordinary," said the inspector. "i never remember a case like it. let us see the watchman." the commissionaire was called--a soldierly, honest-faced man, who seemed as concerned as ward mortimer at the incident. "no, sir, i never heard a sound," he answered, in reply to the questions of the inspector. "i made my rounds four times, as usual, but i saw nothing suspicious. i've been in my position ten years, but nothing of the kind has ever occurred before." "no thief could have come through the windows?" "impossible, sir." "or passed you at the door?" "no, sir; i never left my post except when i walked my rounds." "what other openings are there in the museum?" "there is the door into mr. ward mortimer's private rooms." "that is locked at night," my friend explained, "and in order to reach it anyone from the street would have to open the outside door as well." "your servants?" "their quarters are entirely separate." "well, well," said the inspector, "this is certainly very obscure. however, there has been no harm done, according to mr. purvis." "i will swear that those stones are genuine." "so that the case appears to be merely one of malicious damage. but none the less, i should be very glad to go carefully round the premises, and to see if we can find any trace to show us who your visitor may have been." his investigation, which lasted all the morning, was careful and intelligent, but it led in the end to nothing. he pointed out to us that there were two possible entrances to the museum which we had not considered. the one was from the cellars by a trap-door opening in the passage. the other through a skylight from the lumber-room, overlooking that very chamber to which the intruder had penetrated. as neither the cellar nor the lumber-room could be entered unless the thief was already within the locked doors, the matter was not of any practical importance, and the dust of cellar and attic assured us that no one had used either one or the other. finally, we ended as we began, without the slightest clue as to how, why, or by whom the setting of these four jewels had been tampered with. there remained one course for mortimer to take, and he took it. leaving the police to continue their fruitless researches, he asked me to accompany him that afternoon in a visit to professor andreas. he took with him the two letters, and it was his intention to openly tax his predecessor with having written the anonymous warning, and to ask him to explain the fact that he should have anticipated so exactly that which had actually occurred. the professor was living in a small villa in upper norwood, but we were informed by the servant that he was away from home. seeing our disappointment, she asked us if we should like to see miss andreas, and showed us into the modest drawing-room. i have mentioned incidentally that the professor's daughter was a very beautiful girl. she was a blonde, tall and graceful, with a skin of that delicate tint which the french call "mat," the colour of old ivory, or of the lighter petals of the sulphur rose. i was shocked, however, as she entered the room to see how much she had changed in the last fortnight. her young face was haggard and her bright eyes heavy with trouble. "father has gone to scotland," she said. "he seems to be tired, and has had a good deal to worry him. he only left us yesterday." "you look a little tired yourself, miss andreas," said my friend. "i have been so anxious about father." "can you give me his scotch address?" "yes, he is with his brother, the rev. david andreas, , arran villas, ardrossan." ward mortimer made a note of the address, and we left without saying anything as to the object of our visit. we found ourselves in belmore street in the evening in exactly the same position in which we had been in the morning. our only clue was the professor's letter, and my friend had made up his mind to start for ardrossan next day, and to get to the bottom of the anonymous letter, when a new development came to alter our plans. very early on the following morning i was aroused from my sleep by a tap upon my bedroom door. it was a messenger with a note from mortimer. "do come round," it said; "the matter is becoming more and more extraordinary." when i obeyed his summons i found him pacing excitedly up and down the central room, while the old soldier who guarded the premises stood with military stiffness in a corner. "my dear jackson," he cried, "i am so delighted that you have come, for this is a most inexplicable business." "what has happened, then?" he waved his hand towards the case which contained the breastplate. "look at it," said he. i did so, and could not restrain a cry of surprise. the setting of the middle row of precious stones had been profaned in the same manner as the upper ones. of the twelve jewels eight had been now tampered with in this singular fashion. the setting of the lower four was neat and smooth. the others jagged and irregular. "have the stones been altered?" i asked. "no, i am certain that these upper four are the same which the expert pronounced to be genuine, for i observed yesterday that little discoloration on the edge of the emerald. since they have not extracted the upper stones, there is no reason to think the lower have been transposed. you say that you heard nothing, simpson?" "no, sir," the commissionaire answered. "but when i made my round after daylight i had a special look at these stones, and i saw at once that someone had been meddling with them. then i called you, sir, and told you. i was backwards and forwards all night, and i never saw a soul or heard a sound." "come up and have some breakfast with me," said mortimer, and he took me into his own chambers.--"now, what do you think of this, jackson?" he asked. "it is the most objectless, futile, idiotic business that ever i heard of. it can only be the work of a monomaniac." "can you put forward any theory?" a curious idea came into my head. "this object is a jewish relic of great antiquity and sanctity," said i. "how about the anti-semitic movement? could one conceive that a fanatic of that way of thinking might desecrate----" "no, no, no!" cried mortimer. "that will never do! such a man might push his lunacy to the length of destroying a jewish relic, but why on earth should he nibble round every stone so carefully that he can only do four stones in a night? we must have a better solution than that, and we must find it for ourselves, for i do not think that our inspector is likely to help us. first of all, what do you think of simpson, the porter?" "have you any reason to suspect him?" "only that he is the one person on the premises." "but why should he indulge in such wanton destruction? nothing has been taken away. he has no motive." "mania?" "no, i will swear to his sanity." "have you any other theory?" "well, yourself, for example. you are not a somnambulist, by any chance?" "nothing of the sort, i assure you." "then i give it up." "but i don't--and i have a plan by which we will make it all clear." "to visit professor andreas?" "no, we shall find our solution nearer than scotland. i will tell you what we shall do. you know that skylight which overlooks the central hall? we will leave the electric lights in the hall, and we will keep watch in the lumber-room, you and i, and solve the mystery for ourselves. if our mysterious visitor is doing four stones at a time, he has four still to do, and there is every reason to think that he will return tonight and complete the job." "excellent!" i cried. "we will keep our own secret, and say nothing either to the police or to simpson. will you join me?" "with the utmost pleasure," said i; and so it was agreed. it was ten o'clock that night when i returned to the belmore street museum. mortimer was, as i could see, in a state of suppressed nervous excitement, but it was still too early to begin our vigil, so we remained for an hour or so in his chambers, discussing all the possibilities of the singular business which we had met to solve. at last the roaring stream of hansom cabs and the rush of hurrying feet became lower and more intermittent as the pleasure-seekers passed on their way to their stations or their homes. it was nearly twelve when mortimer led the way to the lumber-room which overlooked the central hall of the museum. he had visited it during the day, and had spread some sacking so that we could lie at our ease, and look straight down into the museum. the skylight was of unfrosted glass, but was so covered with dust that it would be impossible for anyone looking up from below to detect that he was overlooked. we cleared a small piece at each corner, which gave us a complete view of the room beneath us. in the cold white light of the electric lamps everything stood out hard and clear, and i could see the smallest detail of the contents of the various cases. such a vigil is an excellent lesson, since one has no choice but to look hard at those objects which we usually pass with such half-hearted interest. through my little peep hole i employed the hours in studying every specimen, from the huge mummy-case which leaned against the wall to those very jewels which had brought us there, gleaming and sparkling in their glass case immediately beneath us. there was much precious gold-work and many valuable stones scattered through the numerous cases, but those wonderful twelve which made up the urim and thummim glowed and burned with a radiance which far eclipsed the others. i studied in turn the tomb-pictures of sicara, the friezes from karnak, the statues of memphis, and the inscriptions of thebes, but my eyes would always come back to that wonderful jewish relic, and my mind to the singular mystery which surrounded it. i was lost in the thought of it when my companion suddenly drew his breath sharply in, and seized my arm in a convulsive grip. at the same instant i saw what it was which had excited him. i have said that against the wall--on the right-hand side of the doorway (the right-hand side as we looked at it, but the left as one entered)--there stood a large mummy-case. to our unutterable amazement it was slowly opening. gradually, gradually the lid was swinging back, and the black slit which marked the opening was becoming wider and wider. so gently and carefully was it done that the movement was almost imperceptible. then, as we breathlessly watched it, a white thin hand appeared at the opening, pushing back the painted lid, then another hand, and finally a face--a face which was familiar to us both, that of professor andreas. stealthily he slunk out of the mummy-case, like a fox stealing from its burrow, his head turning incessantly to left and to right, stepping, then pausing, then stepping again, the very image of craft and of caution. once some sound in the street struck him motionless, and he stood listening, with his ear turned, ready to dart back to the shelter behind him. then he crept onwards again upon tiptoe, very, very softly and slowly, until he had reached the case in the centre of the room. there he took a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked the case, took out the jewish breastplate, and, laying it upon the glass in front of him, began to work upon it with some sort of small, glistening tool. he was so directly underneath us that his bent head covered his work, but we could guess from the movement of his hand that he was engaged in finishing the strange disfigurement which he had begun. i could realize from the heavy breathing of my companion, and the twitchings of the hand which still clutched my wrist, the furious indignation which filled his heart as he saw this vandalism in the quarter of all others where he could least have expected it. he, the very man who a fortnight before had reverently bent over this unique relic, and who had impressed its antiquity and its sanctity upon us, was now engaged in this outrageous profanation. it was impossible, unthinkable--and yet there, in the white glare of the electric light beneath us, was that dark figure with the bent grey head, and the twitching elbow. what inhuman hypocrisy, what hateful depth of malice against his successor must underlie these sinister nocturnal labours. it was painful to think of and dreadful to watch. even i, who had none of the acute feelings of a virtuoso, could not bear to look on and see this deliberate mutilation of so ancient a relic. it was a relief to me when my companion tugged at my sleeve as a signal that i was to follow him as he softly crept out of the room. it was not until we were within his own quarters that he opened his lips, and then i saw by his agitated face how deep was his consternation. "the abominable goth!" he cried. "could you have believed it?" "it is amazing." "he is a villain or a lunatic--one or the other. we shall very soon see which. come with me, jackson, and we shall get to the bottom of this black business." a door opened out of the passage which was the private entrance from his rooms into the museum. this he opened softly with his key, having first kicked off his shoes, an example which i followed. we crept together through room after room, until the large hall lay before us, with that dark figure still stooping and working at the central case. with an advance as cautious as his own we closed in upon him, but softly as we went we could not take him entirely unawares. we were still a dozen yards from him when he looked round with a start, and uttering a husky cry of terror, ran frantically down the museum. "simpson! simpson!" roared mortimer, and far away down the vista of electric lighted doors we saw the stiff figure of the old soldier suddenly appear. professor andreas saw him also, and stopped running, with a gesture of despair. at the same instant we each laid a hand upon his shoulder. "yes, yes, gentlemen," he panted, "i will come with you. to your room, mr. ward mortimer, if you please! i feel that i owe you an explanation." my companion's indignation was so great that i could see that he dared not trust himself to reply. we walked on each side of the old professor, the astonished commissionaire bringing up the rear. when we reached the violated case, mortimer stopped and examined the breastplate. already one of the stones of the lower row had had its setting turned back in the same manner as the others. my friend held it up and glanced furiously at his prisoner. "how could you!" he cried. "how could you!" "it is horrible--horrible!" said the professor. "i don't wonder at your feelings. take me to your room." "but this shall not be left exposed!" cried mortimer. he picked the breastplate up and carried it tenderly in his hand, while i walked beside the professor, like a policeman with a malefactor. we passed into mortimer's chambers, leaving the amazed old soldier to understand matters as best he could. the professor sat down in mortimer's arm-chair, and turned so ghastly a colour that for the instant all our resentment was changed to concern. a stiff glass of brandy brought the life back to him once more. "there, i am better now!" said he. "these last few days have been too much for me. i am convinced that i could not stand it any longer. it is a nightmare--a horrible nightmare--that i should be arrested as a burglar in what has been for so long my own museum. and yet i cannot blame you. you could not have done otherwise. my hope always was that i should get it all over before i was detected. this would have been my last night's work." "how did you get in?" asked mortimer. "by taking a very great liberty with your private door. but the object justified it. the object justified everything. you will not be angry when you know everything--at least, you will not be angry with me. i had a key to your side door and also to the museum door. i did not give them up when i left. and so you see it was not difficult for me to let myself into the museum. i used to come in early before the crowd had cleared from the street. then i hid myself in the mummy-case, and took refuge there whenever simpson came round. i could always hear him coming. i used to leave in the same way as i came." "you ran a risk." "i had to." "but why? what on earth was your object--you to do a thing like that!" mortimer pointed reproachfully at the plate which lay before him on the table. "i could devise no other means. i thought and thought, but there was no alternate except a hideous public scandal, and a private sorrow which would have clouded our lives. i acted for the best, incredible as it may seem to you, and i only ask your attention to enable me to prove it." "i will hear what you have to say before i take any further steps," said mortimer, grimly. "i am determined to hold back nothing, and to take you both completely into my confidence. i will leave it to your own generosity how far you will use the facts with which i supply you." "we have the essential facts already." "and yet you understand nothing. let me go back to what passed a few weeks ago, and i will make it all clear to you. believe me that what i say is the absolute and exact truth. "you have met the person who calls himself captain wilson. i say 'calls himself' because i have reason now to believe that it is not his correct name. it would take me too long if i were to describe all the means by which he obtained an introduction to me and ingratiated himself into my friendship and the affection of my daughter. he brought letters from foreign colleagues which compelled me to show him some attention. and then, by his own attainments, which are considerable, he succeeded in making himself a very welcome visitor at my rooms. when i learned that my daughter's affections had been gained by him, i may have thought it premature, but i certainly was not surprised, for he had a charm of manner and of conversation which would have made him conspicuous in any society. "he was much interested in oriental antiquities, and his knowledge of the subject justified his interest. often when he spent the evening with us he would ask permission to go down into the museum and have an opportunity of privately inspecting the various specimens. you can imagine that i, as an enthusiast, was in sympathy with such a request, and that i felt no surprise at the constancy of his visits. after his actual engagement to elise, there was hardly an evening which he did not pass with us, and an hour or two were generally devoted to the museum. he had the free run of the place, and when i have been away for the evening i had no objection to his doing whatever he wished here. this state of things was only terminated by the fact of my resignation of my official duties and my retirement to norwood, where i hoped to have the leisure to write a considerable work which i had planned. "it was immediately after this--within a week or so--that i first realized the true nature and character of the man whom i had so imprudently introduced into my family. the discovery came to me through letters from my friends abroad, which showed me that his introductions to me had been forgeries. aghast at the revelation, i asked myself what motive this man could originally have had in practising this elaborate deception upon me. i was too poor a man for any fortune-hunter to have marked me down. why, then, had he come? i remembered that some of the most precious gems in europe had been under my charge, and i remembered also the ingenious excuses by which this man had made himself familiar with the cases in which they were kept. he was a rascal who was planning some gigantic robbery. how could i, without striking my own daughter, who was infatuated about him, prevent him from carrying out any plan which he might have formed? my device was a clumsy one, and yet i could think of nothing more effective. if i had written a letter under my own name, you would naturally have turned to me for details which i did not wish to give. i resorted to an anonymous letter, begging you to be upon your guard. "i may tell you that my change from belmore street to norwood had not affected the visits of this man, who had, i believe, a real and overpowering affection for my daughter. as to her, i could not have believed that any woman could be so completely under the influence of a man as she was. his stronger nature seemed to entirely dominate her. i had not realized how far this was the case, or the extent of the confidence which existed between them, until that very evening when his true character for the first time was made clear to me. i had given orders that when he called he should be shown into my study instead of to the drawing-room. there i told him bluntly that i knew all about him, that i had taken steps to defeat his designs, and that neither i nor my daughter desired ever to see him again. i added that i thanked god that i had found him out before he had time to harm those precious objects which it had been the work of my life-time to protect. "he was certainly a man of iron nerve. he took my remarks without a sign either of surprise or of defiance, but listened gravely and attentively until i had finished. then he walked across the room without a word and struck the bell. "'ask miss andreas to be so kind as to step this way,' said he to the servant. "my daughter entered, and the man closed the door behind her. then he took her hand in his. "'elise,' said he, 'your father has just discovered that i am a villain. he knows now what you knew before.' "she stood in silence, listening. "'he says that we are to part for ever,' said he. "she did not withdraw her hand. "'will you be true to me, or will you remove the last good influence which is ever likely to come into my life?' "'john,' she cried, passionately. 'i will never abandon you! never, never, not if the whole world were against you.' "in vain i argued and pleaded with her. it was absolutely useless. her whole life was bound up in this man before me. my daughter, gentlemen, is all that i have left to love, and it filled me with agony when i saw how powerless i was to save her from her ruin. my helplessness seemed to touch this man who was the cause of my trouble. "'it may not be as bad as you think, sir,' said he, in his quiet, inflexible way. 'i love elise with a love which is strong enough to rescue even one who has such a record as i have. it was but yesterday that i promised her that never again in my whole life would i do a thing of which she should be ashamed. i have made up my mind to it, and never yet did i make up my mind to a thing which i did not do.' "he spoke with an air which carried conviction with it. as he concluded he put his hand into his pocket and he drew out a small cardboard box. "'i am about to give you a proof of my determination,' said he. 'this, elise, shall be the first-fruits of your redeeming influence over me. you are right, sir, in thinking that i had designs upon the jewels in your possession. such ventures have had a charm for me, which depended as much upon the risk run as upon the value of the prize. those famous and antique stones of the jewish priest were a challenge to my daring and my ingenuity. i determined to get them.' "'i guessed as much.' "'there was only one thing that you did not guess.' "'and what is that?' "'that i got them. they are in this box.' "he opened the box, and tilted out the contents upon the corner of my desk. my hair rose and my flesh grew cold as i looked. there were twelve magnificent square stones engraved with mystical characters. there could be no doubt that they were the jewels of the urim and thummim. "'good god!' i cried. 'how have you escaped discovery?' "'by the substitution of twelve others, made especially to my order, in which the originals are so carefully imitated that i defy the eye to detect the difference.' "'then the present stones are false?' i cried. "'they have been for some weeks.' "we all stood in silence, my daughter white with emotion, but still holding this man by the hand. "'you see what i am capable of, elise,' said he. "'i see that you are capable of repentance and restitution,' she answered. "'yes, thanks to your influence! i leave the stones in your hands, sir. do what you like about it. but remember that whatever you do against me, is done against the future husband of your only daughter. you will hear from me soon again, elise. it is the last time that i will ever cause pain to your tender heart,' and with these words he left both the room and the house. "my position was a dreadful one. here i was with these precious relics in my possession, and how could i return them without a scandal and an exposure? i knew the depth of my daughter's nature too well to suppose that i would ever be able to detach her from this man now that she had entirely given him her heart. i was not even sure how far it was right to detach her if she had such an ameliorating influence over him. how could i expose him without injuring her--and how far was i justified in exposing him when he had voluntarily put himself into my power? i thought and thought until at last i formed a resolution which may seem to you to be a foolish one, and yet, if i had to do it again, i believe it would be the best course open to me. "my idea was to return the stones without anyone being the wiser. with my keys i could get into the museum at any time, and i was confident that i could avoid simpson, whose hours and methods were familiar to me. i determined to take no one into my confidence--not even my daughter--whom i told that i was about to visit my brother in scotland. i wanted a free hand for a few nights, without inquiry as to my comings and goings. to this end i took a room in harding street that very night, with an intimation that i was a pressman, and that i should keep very late hours. "that night i made my way into the museum, and i replaced four of the stones. it was hard work, and took me all night. when simpson came round i always heard his footsteps, and concealed myself in the mummy-case. i had some knowledge of gold-work, but was far less skilful than the thief had been. he had replaced the setting so exactly that i defy anyone to see the difference. my work was rude and clumsy. however, i hoped that the plate might not be carefully examined, or the roughness of the setting observed, until my task was done. next night i replaced four more stones. and tonight i should have finished my task had it not been for the unfortunate circumstance which has caused me to reveal so much which i should have wished to keep concealed. i appeal to you, gentlemen, to your sense of honour and of compassion, whether what i have told you should go any farther or not. my own happiness, my daughter's future, the hopes of this man's regeneration, all depend upon your decision. "which is," said my friend, "that all is well that ends well and that the whole matter ends here and at once. tomorrow the loose settings shall be tightened by an expert goldsmith, and so passes the greatest danger to which, since the destruction of the temple, the urim and thummim has been exposed. here is my hand, professor andreas, and i can only hope that under such difficult circumstances i should have carried myself as unselfishly and as well." just one footnote to this narrative. within a month elise andreas was married to a man whose name, had i the indiscretion to mention it, would appeal to my readers as one who is now widely and deservedly honoured. but if the truth were known that honour is due not to him, but to the gentle girl who plucked him back when he had gone so far down that dark road along which few return. the garden of survival by algernon blackwood i it will surprise and at the same time possibly amuse you to know that i had the instinct to tell what follows to a priest, and might have done so had not the man of the world in me whispered that from professional believers i should get little sympathy, and probably less credence still. for to have my experience disbelieved, or attributed to hallucination, would be intolerable to me. psychical investigators, i am told, prefer a medium who takes no cash recompense for his performance, a healer who gives of his strange powers without reward. there are, however, natural-born priests who yet wear no uniform other than upon their face and heart, but since i know of none i fall back upon yourself, my other half, for in writing this adventure to you i almost feel that i am writing it to myself. the desire for confession is upon me: this thing must out. it is a story, though an unfinished one. i mention this at once lest, frightened by the thickness of the many pages, you lay them aside against another time, and so perhaps neglect them altogether. a story, however, will invite your interest, and when i add that it is true, i feel that you will bring sympathy to that interest: these together, i hope, may win your attention, and hold it, until you shall have read the final word. that i should use this form in telling it will offend your literary taste--you who have made your name both as critic and creative writer--for you said once, i remember, that to tell a story in epistolary form is a subterfuge, an attempt to evade the difficult matters of construction and delineation of character. my story, however, is so slight, so subtle, so delicately intimate too, that a letter to some one in closest sympathy with myself seems the only form that offers. it is, as i said, a confession, but a very dear confession: i burn to tell it honestly, yet know not how. to withhold it from you would be to admit a secretiveness that our relationship has never known--out it must, and to you. i may, perhaps, borrow--who can limit the sharing powers of twin brothers like ourselves?--some of the skill your own work spills so prodigally, crumbs from your writing-table, so to speak; and you will forgive the robbery, if successful, as you will accept lie love behind the confession as your due. now, listen, please! for this is the point: that, although my wife is dead these dozen years and more--i have found reunion and i love. explanation of this must follow as best it may. so, please mark tie point which for the sake of emphasis i venture to repeat: that i know reunion and i love. with the jealous prerogative of the twin, you objected to that marriage, though i knew that it deprived you of no jot of my affection, owing to the fact that it was prompted by pity only, leaving the soul in me wholly disengaged. marion, by her steady refusal to accept my honest friendship, by her persistent admiration of me, as also by her loveliness, her youth, her singing, persuaded me somehow finally that i needed her. the cry of the flesh, which her beauty stimulated and her singing increased most strangely, seemed raised into a burning desire that i mistook at the moment for the true desire of the soul. yet, actually, the soul in me remained aloof, a spectator, and one, moreover, of a distinctly lukewarm kind. it was very curious. on looking back, i can hardly understand it even now; there seemed some special power, some special undiscovered tie between us that led me on and yet deceived me. it was especially evident in her singing, this deep power. she sang, you remember, to her own accompaniment on the harp, and her method, though so simple it seemed almost childish, was at the same time charged with a great melancholy that always moved me most profoundly. the sound of her small, plaintive voice, the sight of her slender fingers that plucked the strings in some delicate fashion native to herself, the tiny foot that pressed the pedal--all these, with her dark searching eyes fixed penetratingly upon my own while she sang of love and love's endearments, combined in a single stroke of very puissant and seductive kind. passions in me awoke, so deep, so ardent, so imperious, that i conceived them as born of the need of one soul for another. i attributed their power to genuine love. the following reactions, when my soul held up a finger and bade me listen to her still, small warnings, grew less positive and of ever less duration. the frontier between physical and spiritual passion is perilously narrow, perhaps. my judgment, at any rate, became insecure, then floundered hopelessly. the sound of the harp-strings and of marion's voice could overwhelm its balance instantly. mistaking, perhaps, my lukewarm-ness for restraint, she led me at last to the altar you described as one of sacrifice. and your instinct, more piercing than my own, proved only too correct: that which i held for love declared itself as pity only, the soft, affectionate pity of a weakish man in whom the flesh cried loudly, the pity of a man who would be untrue to himself rather than pain so sweet a girl by rejecting the one great offering life placed within her gift. she persuaded me so cunningly that i persuaded myself, yet was not aware i did so until afterwards. i married her because in some manner i felt, but never could explain, that she had need of me. and, at the wedding, i remember two things vividly: the expression of wondering resignation on your face, and upon hers--chiefly in the eyes and in the odd lines about the mouth--the air of subtle triumph that she wore: that she had captured me for her very own at last, and yet--for there was this singular hint in her attitude and behaviour--that she had taken me, because she had this curious deep need of me. this sharply moving touch was graven into me, increasing the tenderness of my pity, subsequently, a thousandfold. the necessity lay in her very soul. she gave to me all she had to give, and in so doing she tried to satisfy some hunger of her being that lay beyond my comprehension or interpretation. for, note this--she gave herself into my keeping, i remember, with a sigh. it seems as of yesterday the actual moment when, urged by my vehement desires, i made her consent to be my wife; i remember, too, the doubt, the shame, the hesitation that made themselves felt in me before the climax when her beauty overpowered me, sweeping reflection utterly away. i can hear to-day the sigh, half of satisfaction, yet half, it seemed, of pain, with which she sank into my arms at last, as though her victory brought intense relief, yet was not wholly gamed in the way that she had wanted. her physical beauty, perhaps, was the last weapon she had wished to use for my enslavement; she knew quite surely that the appeal to what was highest in me had not succeeded... the party in our mother's house that week in july included yourself; there is no need for me to remind you of its various members, nor of the strong attraction marion, then a girl of twenty-five, exercised upon the men belonging to it. nor have you forgotten, i feel sure, the adroit way in which she contrived so often to find herself alone with me, both in the house and out of it, even to the point of sometimes placing me in a quasi-false position. that she tempted me is, perhaps, an overstatement, though that she availed herself of every legitimate use of feminine magic to entrap me is certainly the truth. opportunities of marriage, it was notorious, had been frequently given to her, and she had as frequently declined them; she was older than her years; to inexperience she certainly had no claim: and from the very first it was clear to me--if conceited, i cannot pretend that i was also blind--that flirtation was not her object and that marriage was. yet it was marriage with a purpose that she desired, and that purpose had to do, i felt, with sacrifice. she burned to give her very best, her all, and for my highest welfare. it was in this sense, i got the impression strangely, that she had need of me. the battle seemed, at first, uneven, since, as a woman, she did not positively attract me. i was first amused at her endeavours and her skill; but respect for her as a redoubtable antagonist soon followed. this respect, doubtless, was the first blood she drew from me, since it gained my attention and fixed my mind upon her presence. from that moment she entered my consciousness as a woman; when she was near me i became more and more aware of her, and the room, the picnic, the game of tennis that included her were entirely different from such occasions when she was absent, i became self-conscious. it was impossible to ignore her as formerly had been my happy case. it was then i first knew how beautiful she was, and that her beauty made a certain difference to my mood. the next step may seem a big one, but, i believe, is very natural: her physical beauty gave me definite pleasure. and the instant this change occurred she was aware of it. the curious fact, however, is that, although aware of this gain of power, she made no direct use of it at first. she did not draw this potent weapon for my undoing; it was ever with her, but was ever sheathed. did she discern my weakness, perhaps, and know that the subtle power would work upon me most effectively if left to itself? did she, rich in experience, deem that its too direct use might waken a reaction in my better self? i cannot say, i do not know.... every feminine art was at her disposal, as every use of magic pertaining to young and comely womanhood was easily within her reach. as you and i might express it bluntly, she knew men thoroughly, she knew every trick; she drew me on, then left me abruptly in the wrong, puzzled, foolish, angry, only to forgive me later with the most enchanting smile or word imaginable. but never once did she deliberately make use of the merciless weapon of her physical beauty although--perhaps because--she knew that it was the most powerful in all her armoury. for listen to this: when at last i took her in my arms with passion that would not be denied, she actually resented it. she even sought to repel me from her touch that had undone me. i repeat what i said before: she did not wish to win me in that way. the sigh of happiness she drew in that moment--i can swear to it--included somewhere, too, the pain of bitter disappointment. the weapon, however, that she did use without hesitation was her singing. there was nothing special either in its quality or skill; it was a voice untrained, i believe, and certainly without ambition; her repertoire was limited; she sang folk-songs mostly, the simple love-songs of primitive people, of peasants and the like, yet sang them with such truth and charm, with such power and conviction, somehow, that i knew enchantment as i listened. this, too, she instantly divined, and that behind my compliments lay hid a weakness of deep origin she could play upon to her sure advantage. she did so without mercy, until gradually i passed beneath her sway. i will not now relate in detail the steps of my descent, or if you like it better, of my capture. this is a summary merely. so let me say in brief that her singing to the harp combined with the revelation of her physical beauty to lead me swiftly to the point where i ardently desired her, and that in this turmoil of desire i sought eagerly to find real love. there were times when i deceived myself most admirably; there were times when i plainly saw the truth. during the former i believed that my happiness lay in marrying her, but in the latter i recognised that a girl who meant nothing to my better self had grown of a sudden painfully yet exquisitely desirable. but even during the ascendancy of the latter physical mood, she had only to seat herself beside the harp and sing, for the former state to usurp its place, i watched, i listened, and i yielded. her voice, aided by the soft plucking of the strings, completed my defeat. now, strangest of all, i must add one other thing, and i will add it without comment. for though sure of its truth, i would not dwell upon it. and it is this: that in her singing, as also in her playing, in the "colour" of her voice as also in the very attitude and gestures of her figure as she sat beside the instrument, there lay, though marvellously hidden, something gross. it woke a response of something in myself, hitherto unrecognized, that was similarly gross.... it was in the empty billiard-room when the climax came, a calm evening of late july, the dusk upon the lawn, and most of the house-party already gone upstairs to dress for dinner. i had been standing beside the open window for some considerable time, motionless, and listening idly to the singing of a thrush or blackbird in the shrubberies--when i heard the faint twanging of the harp-strings in the room behind me, and turning, saw that marion had entered and was there beside the instrument. at the same moment she saw me, rose from the harp and came forward. during the day she had kept me at a distance. i was hungry for her voice and touch; her presence excited me--and yet i was half afraid. "what! already dressed!" i exclaimed, anxious to avoid a talk a deux. "i must hurry then, or i shall be later than usual." i crossed the room towards the door, when she stopped me with her eyes. "do you really mean to say you don't know the difference between an evening frock and--and this," she answered lightly, holding out the skirt in her fingers for me to touch. and in the voice was that hint of a sensual caress that, i admit, bewildered both my will and judgment. she was very close and her fragrance came on me with her breath, like the perfume of the summer garden. i touched the material carelessly; it was of softest smooth white serge. it seemed i touched herself that lay beneath it. and at that touch some fire of lightning ran through every vein. "how stupid of me," i said quickly, making to go past her, "but it's white, you see, and in this dim light i----" "a man's idea of an evening frock is always white, i suppose, or black." she laughed a little. "i'm not coming to dinner to-night," she added, sitting down to the harp. "i've got a headache and thought i might soothe it with a little music. i didn't know any one was here. i thought i was alone." thus, deftly, having touched a chord of pity in me, she began to play; her voice followed; dinner and dressing, the house-party and my mother's guests, were all forgotten. i remember that you looked in, your eyes touched with a suggestive and melancholy smile, and as quickly closed the door again. but even that little warning failed to help me. i sat down on the sofa facing her, the world forgotten. and, as i listened to her singing and to the sweet music of the harp, the spell, it seemed, of some ancient beauty stole upon my spirit. the sound of her soft voice reduced my resistance to utter impotence. an aggressive passion took its place. the desire for contact, physical contact, became a vehement aching that i scarcely could restrain, and my arms were hungry for her. shame and repugnance touched me faintly for a moment, but at once died away again. i listened and i watched. the sensuous beauty of her figure and her movements, swathed in that soft and clinging serge, troubled my judgment; it seemed, as i saw her little foot upon the pedal, that i felt with joy its pressure on my heart and life. something gross and abandoned stirred in me; i welcomed her easy power and delighted in it. i feasted my eyes and ears, the blood rose feverishly to my head. she did not look at me, yet knew that i looked at her, and how. no longer ashamed, but with a fiery pleasure in my heart, i spoke at last. her song had ended. she softly brushed the strings, her eyes turned downwards. "marion," i said, agitation making my voice sound unfamiliar, "marion, dear, i am enthralled; your voice, your beauty----" i found no other words; my voice stopped dead; i stood up, trembling in every limb. i saw her in that instant as a maid of olden time, singing the love-songs of some far-off day beside her native instrument, and of a voluptuous beauty there was no withstanding. the half-light of the dusk set her in a frame of terrible enchantment. and as i spoke her name and rose, she also spoke my own, my christian name, and rose as well. i saw her move towards me. upon her face, in her eyes and on her lips, was a smile of joy i had never seen before, though a smile of conquest, and of something more besides that i must call truly by its rightful name, a smile of lust. god! those movements beneath the clinging dress that fell in lines of beauty to her feet! those little feet that stepped upon my heart, upon my very soul.... for a moment i loathed myself. the next, as she touched me and my arms took her with rough strength against my breast, my repugnance vanished, and i was utterly undone. i believed i loved. that which was gross in me, leaping like fire to claim her glorious beauty, met and merged with that similar, devouring flame in her; but in the merging seemed cunningly transformed into the call of soul to soul: i forgot the pity.... i kissed her, holding her to me so fiercely that she scarcely moved. i said a thousand things. i know not what i said. i loved. then, suddenly, she seemed to free herself; she drew away; she looked at me, standing a moment just beyond my reach, a strange smile on her lips and in her darkened eyes a nameless expression that held both joy and pain. for one second i felt that she repelled me, that she resented my action and my words. yes, for one brief second she stood there, like an angel set in judgment over me, and the next we had come together again, softly, gently, happily; i heard that strange, deep sigh, already mentioned, half of satisfaction, half, it seemed, of pain, as she sank down into my arms and found relief in quiet sobbing on my breast. and pity then returned. i felt unsure of myself again. this was the love of the body only; my soul was silent. yet--somehow, in some strange hidden way, lay this ambushed meaning--that she had need of me, and that she offered her devotion and herself in sacrifice. ii the brief marriage ran its course, depleting rather than enriching me, and i know you realized before the hurried, dreadful end that my tie with yourself was strengthened rather than endangered, and that i took from you nothing that i might give it to her. that death should intervene so swiftly, leaving her but an interval of a month between the altar and the grave, you could foreknow as little as i or she; yet in that brief space of time you learned that i had robbed you of nothing that was your precious due, while she as surely realized that the amazing love she poured so lavishly upon me woke no response--beyond a deep and tender pity, strangely deep and singularly tender i admit, but assuredly very different from love. now this, i think, you already know and in some measure understand; but what you cannot know--since it is a portion of her secret, of that ambushed meaning, as i termed it, given to me when she lay dying--is the pathetic truth that her discovery wrought no touch of disenchantment in her. i think she knew with shame that she had caught me with her lowest weapon, yet still hoped that the highest in her might complete and elevate her victory. she knew, at any rate, neither dismay nor disappointment; of reproach there was no faintest hint. she did not even once speak of it directly, though her fine, passionate face made me aware of the position. of the usual human reaction, that is, there was no slightest trace; she neither chided nor implored; she did not weep. the exact opposite of what i might have expected took place before my very eyes. for she turned and faced me, empty as i was. the soul in her, realizing the truth, stood erect to meet the misery of lonely pain that inevitably lay ahead--in some sense as though she welcomed it already; and, strangest of all, she blossomed, physically as well as mentally, into a fuller revelation of gracious loveliness than before, sweeter and more exquisite, indeed, than anything life had yet shown to me. moreover, having captured me, she changed; the grossness i had discerned, that which had led me to my own undoing, vanished completely as though it were transmuted into desires and emotions of a loftier kind. some purpose, some intention, a hope immensely resolute shone out of her, and of such spiritual loveliness, it seemed to me, that i watched it in a kind of dumb amazement. i watched it--unaware at first of my own shame, emptied of any emotion whatsoever, i think, but that of a startled worship before the grandeur of her generosity. it seemed she listened breathlessly for the beating of my heart, and hearing none, resolved that she would pour her own life into it, regardless of pain, of loss, of sacrifice, that she might make it live. she undertook her mission, that is to say, and this mission, in some mysterious way, and according to some code of conduct undivined by me, yet passionately honoured, was to give--regardless of herself or of response. i caught myself sometimes thinking of a child who would instinctively undo some earlier grievous wrong. she loved me marvellously. i know not how to describe to you the lavish wealth of selfless devotion she bathed me in during the brief torturing and unfulfilled period before the end. it made me aware of new depths and heights in human nature. it taught me a new beauty that even my finest dreams had left unmentioned. into the region that great souls inhabit a glimpse was given me. my own dreadful weakness was laid bare. and an eternal hunger woke in me--that i might love. that hunger remained unsatisfied. i prayed, i yearned, i suffered; i could have decreed myself a deservedly cruel death; it seemed i stretched my little nature to unendurable limits in the fierce hope that the gift of the gods might be bestowed upon me, and that her divine emotion might waken a response within my leaden soul. but all in vain. my attitude, in spite of every prayer, of every effort, remained no more than a searching and unavailing pity, but a pity that held no seed of a mere positive emotion, least of all, of love. the heart in me lay unredeemed; it knew ashamed and very tender gratitude; but it did not beat for her. i could not love. i have told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards marion and her beauty. it is a confession that i give into my own safe keeping. i think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may not despise them utterly, nor too contemptuously misinterpret them. the legend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to me grotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: a man is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtraction from his potentialities. and yet it is true, in our own case, that you have exclusive monopoly of the ethereal qualities, while to me are given chiefly the physical attributes of the vigorous and healthy male--the animal: my six feet three, my muscular system, my inartistic and pedestrian temperament. fairly clean-minded, i hope i may be, but beyond all question i am the male animal incarnate. it was, indeed, the thousand slaveries of the senses, individually so negligible, collectively so overwhelming, that forced me upon my knees before her physical loveliness. i must tell you now that this potent spell, alternating between fiery desire and the sincerest of repugnance, continued to operate. i complete the confession by adding briefly, that after marriage she resented and repelled all my advances. a deep sadness came upon her; she wept; and i desisted. it was my soul that she desired with the fire of her mighty love, and not my body.... and again, since it is to myself and to you alone i tell it, i would add this vital fact: it was this "new beauty which my finest dreams have left unmentioned" that made it somehow possible for me to desist, both against my animal will, yet willingly. i have told you that, when dying, she revealed to me a portion of her "secret." this portion of a sacred confidence lies so safe within my everlasting pity that i may share it with you without the remorse of a betrayal. full understanding we need never ask; the solution, i am convinced, is scarcely obtainable in this world. the message, however, was incomplete because the breath that framed it into broken words failed suddenly; the heart, so strangely given into my unworthy keeping, stopped beating as you shall hear upon the very edge of full disclosure. the ambushed meaning i have hinted at remained--a hint. iii there was, then, you will remember, but an interval of minutes between the accident and the temporary recovery of consciousness, between that recovery again and the moment when the head fell forward on my knee and she was gone. that "recovery" of consciousness i feel bound to question, as you shall shortly hear. among such curious things i am at sea admittedly, yet i must doubt for ever that the eyes which peered so strangely into mine were those of marion herself--as i had always known her. you will, at any rate, allow the confession, and believe it true, that i--did not recognize her quite. consciousness there was, indubitably, but whether it was "recovery" of consciousness is another matter, and a problem that i must for ever question though i cannot ever set it confidently at rest. it almost seemed as though a larger, grander, yet somehow a less personal, soul looked forth through the fading eyes and used the troubled breath. in those brief minutes, at any rate, the mind was clear as day, the faculties not only unobscured, but marvellously enhanced. in the eyes at first shone unveiled fire; she smiled, gazing into my own with love and eager yearning too. there was a radiance in her face i must call glory. her head was in my lap upon the bed of rugs we had improvised inside the field: the broken motor posed in a monstrous heap ten yards away; and the doctor, summoned by a passing stranger, was in the act of administrating the anaesthetic, so that we might bear her without pain to the nearest hospital--when, suddenly, she held up a warning finger, beckoning to me that i should listen closely. i bent my head to catch the words. there was such authority in the gesture, and in the eyes an expression so extraordinarily appealing, and yet so touched with the awe of a final privacy beyond language, that the doctor stepped backwards on the instant, the needle shaking in his hand--while i bent down to catch the whispered words that at once began to pass her lips. the wind in the poplar overhead mingled with the little sentences, as though the breath of the clear blue sky, calmly shining, was mingled with her own. but the words i heard both troubled and amazed me: "help me! for i am in the dark still!" went through me like a sword. "and i do not know how long." i took her face in both my hands; i kissed her. "you are with friends," i said. "you are safe with us, with me--marion!" and i apparently tried to put into my smile the tenderness that clumsy words forswore. her next words shocked me inexpressibly: "you laugh," she said, "but i----" she sighed--"i weep." i stroked her face and hair. no words came to me. "you call me marion," she went on in an eager tone that surely belied her pain and weakness, "but i do not remember that. i have forgotten names." then, as i kissed her, i heard her add in the clearest whisper possible, as though no cloud lay upon her mind: "yet marion will do--if by that you know me now." there came a pause then, but after it such singular words that i could hardly believe i heard aright, although each syllable sank into my brain as with pointed steel: "you come to me again when i lie dying. even in the dark i hear--how long i do not know--i hear your words." she gave me suddenly then a most piercing look, raising her face a little towards my own. i saw earnest entreaty in them. "tell me," i murmured; "you are nearer, closer to me than ever before. tell me what it is?" "music," she whispered, "i want music----" i knew not what to answer, what to say. can you blame me that, in my troubled, aching heart, i found but commonplaces? for i thought of the harp, or of some stringed instrument that seemed part of her. "you shall have it," i said gently, "and very soon. we shall carry you now into comfort, safety. you shall have no pain. another moment and----" "music," she repeated, interrupting, "music as of long ago." it was terrible. i said such stupid things. my mind seemed frozen. "i would hear music," she whispered, "before i go again." "marion, you shall," i stammered. "beethoven, schumann,--what would please you most? you shall have all." "yes, play to me. but those names"--she shook her head--"i do not know." i remember that my face was streaming, my hands so hot that her head seemed more than i could hold. i shifted my knees so that she might lie more easily a little. "god's music!" she cried aloud with startling abruptness; then, lowering her voice again and smiling sadly as though something came back to her that she would fain forget, she added slowly, with something of mournful emphasis: "i was a singer ..." as though a flash of light had passed, some inner darkness was cleft asunder in me. some heaviness shifted from my brain. it seemed the years, the centuries, turned over like a wind-blown page. and out of some hidden inmost part of me involuntary words rose instantly: "you sang god's music then ..." the strange, unbidden sentence stirred her. her head moved slightly; she smiled. gazing into my eyes intently, as though to dispel a mist that shrouded both our minds, she went on in a whisper that yet was startlingly distinct, though with little pauses drawn out between the phrases: "i was a singer... in the temple. i sang--men--into evil. you ... i sang into ... evil." there was a moment's pause, as a spasm of inexplicable pain passed through my heart like fire, and a sense of haunting things whereof no conscious memory remained came over me. the scene about me wavered before my eyes as if it would disappear. "yet you came to me when i lay dying at the last," i caught her thin clear whisper. "you said, 'turn to god!'" the whisper died away. the darkness flowed back upon my mind and thought. a silence followed. i heard the wind in the poplar overhead. the doctor moved impatiently, coming a few steps nearer, then turning away again. i heard the sounds of tinkering with metal that the driver made ten yards behind us. i turned angrily to make a sign--when marion's low voice, again more like the murmur of the wind than a living voice, rose into the still evening air: "i have failed. and i shall try again." she gazed up at me with that patient, generous love that seemed inexhaustible, and hardly knowing what to answer, nor how to comfort her in that afflicting moment, i bent lower--or, rather, she drew my ear closer to her lips. i think her great desire just then was to utter her own thought more fully before she passed. certainly it was no avowal or consolation from myself she sought. "your forgiveness," i heard distinctly, "i need your full forgiveness." it was for me a terrible and poignant moment. the emptiness of my pity betrayed itself too mercilessly for me to bear; yet, before my bewilderment enabled me to frame an answer, she went on hurriedly, though with a faultless certainty: the meaning to her was clear as day: "born of love ... the only true forgiveness..." a film formed slowly. her eyes began to close, her breath died off into a sigh; she smiled, but her head sank lower with her fading strength. and her final words went by me in that sigh: "yet love in you lies unawakened still... and i must try again...." there was one more effort, painful with unexpressed fulfilment. a flicker of awful yearning took her paling eyes. life seemed to stammer, pause, then flush as with this last deep impulse to yield a secret she discerned for the first time fully, in the very act of passing out. the face, with its soft loveliness, turned grey in death. upon the edge of a great disclosure--she was gone. i remember that for a space of time there was silence all about us. the doctor still kept his back to us, the driver had ceased his wretched hammering, i heard the wind in the poplar and the hum of insects. a bird sang loudly on a branch above; it seemed miles away, across an empty world.... then, of a sudden, i became aware that the weight of the head and shoulders had dreadfully increased. i dared not turn my face lest i should look upon her whom i had deeply wronged--the forsaken tenement of this woman whose matchless love now begged with her dying breath for my forgiveness! a cowardly desire to lose consciousness ran through me, to forget myself, to hide my shame with her in death; yet, even while this was so, i sought most desperately through the depths of my anguished pity to find some hint, if only the tiniest seed, of love--and found it not.... the rest belonged to things unrealized.... i remember a hand being laid upon me. i lifted my head which had fallen close against her cheek. the doctor stood beside me, his grave and kindly face bent low. he spoke some gentle words. i saw him replacing the needle in its little leathern case, unused. marion was dead, her deep secret undisclosed. that which she yearned to tell me was something which, in her brief period of devotion, she had lived, had faithfully acted out, yet herself only dimly aware of why it had to be. the solution of this problem of unrequited love lay at last within her grasp; of a love that only asked to give of its unquenched and unquenchable store, undismayed by the total absence of response. she passed from the world of speech and action with this intense desire unsatisfied, and at the very moment--as with a drowning man who sees his past--when the solution lay ready to her hand. she saw clearly, she understood, she burned to tell me. upon the edge of full disclosure, she was gone, leaving me alone with my aching pity and with my shame of unawakened love. "i have failed, but i shall try again...." iv that, as you know, took place a dozen years ago and more, when i was thirty-two, and time, in the interval, has wrought unexpected ends out of the material of my life. my trade as a soldier has led me to an administrative post in a distant land where, apparently, i have deserved well of my king and country, as they say in the obituaries. at any rate, the cryptic letters following my name, bear witness to some kind of notoriety attained. you were the first to welcome my success, and your congratulations were the first i looked for, as surely as they were more satisfying than those our mother sent. you knew me better, it seems, than she did. for you expressed the surprise that i, too, felt, whereas mother assured me she had "always known you would do well, my boy, and you have only got your deserts in this tardy recognition." to her, of course, even at forty-five, i was still her "little boy." you, however, guessed shrewdly that luck had played strong cards in bringing me this distinction, and i will admit at once that it was, indeed, due to little born in me, but, rather, to some adventitious aid that, curiously, seemed never lacking at the opportune moment. and this adventitious aid was new. this is the unvarnished truth. a mysterious power dealt the cards for me with unfailing instinct; a fortunate combination of events placing in my hands, precisely at the moment of their greatest value, clear opportunities that none but a hopeless blunderer could have disregarded. what men call chance operated in my favour as though with superb calculation, lifting me to this miniature pinnacle i could never have reached by my own skill and judgment. so, at least, you and i, knowing my limited abilities, consent to attribute my success to luck, to chance, to fate, or to any other name for the destiny that has placed me on a height my talent never could have reached alone. you, and i, too, for that matter, are as happy over the result as our mother is; only you and i are surprised, because we judge it, with some humour, out of greater knowledge. more--you, like myself, are a little puzzled, i think. we ask together, if truth were told: whose was the unerring, guiding hand? amid this uncertainty i give you now another curious item, about which you have, of course, been uninformed. for none could have detected it but myself: namely, that apart from these opportunities chance set upon my path, an impulse outside myself--and an impulse that was new--drove me to make use of them. sometimes even against my personal inclination, a power urged me into decided, and it so happened, always into faultless action. amazed at myself, i yet invariably obeyed. how to describe so elusive a situation i hardly know, unless by telling you the simple truth: i felt that somebody would be pleased. and, with the years, i learned to recognize this instinct that never failed when a choice, and therefore an element of doubt, presented itself. invariably i was pushed towards the right direction. more singular still, there rose in me unbidden at these various junctures, a kind of inner attention which bade me wait and listen for the guiding touch. i am not fanciful, i heard no voice, i was aware of nothing personal by way of guidance or assistance; and yet the guidance, the assistance, never failed, though often i was not conscious that they had been present until long afterwards. i felt, as i said above, that somebody would be pleased. for it was a consistent, an intelligent guidance; operating, as it were, out of some completer survey of the facts at a given moment than my own abilities could possibly have compassed; my mediocre faculties seemed gathered together and perfected--with the result, in time, that my "intuition," as others called it, came to be regarded with a respect that in some cases amounted to half reverence. the adjective "uncanny" was applied to me. the natives, certainly, were aware of awe. i made no private use of this unearned distinction; there is nothing in me of the charlatan that claimed mysterious power; but my subordinates, ever in growing numbers as my promotions followed, held me in greater respect, apparently, on that very account. the natives, especially, as i mentioned, attributed semi-deific properties to my poor personality. certainly my prestige increased out of all proportion to anything my talents deserved with any show of justice. i have said that, so far as i was concerned, there lay nothing personal in this growth of divining intuition. i must now qualify that a little. nothing persuaded me that this guidance, so infallible, so constant, owed its origin to what men call a being; i certainly found no name for it; exactness, i think, might place its truest description in some such term as energy, inner force or inspiration; yet i must admit that, with its steady repetition, there awoke in me an attitude towards it that eluded somewhere also an emotion. and in this emotion, in its quality and character, hid remotely a personal suggestion: each time it offered itself, that is, i was aware of a sharp quiver of sensitive life within me, and of that sensation, extraordinarily sweet and wonderful, which constitutes a genuine thrill. i came to look for this "thrill," to lie in wait with anticipatory wonder for its advent; and in a sense this pause in me, that was both of expectancy and hope, grew slowly into what i may almost call a habit. there was an emptiness in my heart before it came, a sense of peace and comfort when it was accomplished. the emptiness and then the satisfaction, as first and last conditions, never failed, and that they took place in my heart rather than in my mind i can affirm with equal certainty. the habit, thus, confirmed itself. i admitted the power. let me be frank--i sought it, even longing for it when there was no decision to be made, no guidance therefore needed: i longed for it because of the great sweetness that it left within my heart. it was when i needed it, however, that its effect was most enduring. the method became quite easy to me. when a moment of choice between two courses of action presented itself, i first emptied my heart of all personal inclination, then, pausing upon direction, i knew--or rather felt--which course to take. my heart was filled and satisfied with an intention that never wavered. some energy that made the choice for me had been poured in. i decided upon this or that line of action. the thrill, always of an instantaneous nature, came and went--and somebody was pleased. moreover--and this will interest you more particularly--the emotion produced in me was, so far as positive recognition went, a new emotion; it was, at any rate, one that had lain so feebly in me hitherto that its announcement brought the savour of an emotion before unrealized. i had known it but once, and that long years before, but the man's mind in me increased and added to it. for it seemed a development of that new perception which first dawned upon me during my brief period of married life, and had since lain hidden in me, potential possibly, but inactive beyond all question, if not wholly dead. i will now name it for you, and for myself, as best i may. it was the thrill of beauty. i became, in these moments, aware of beauty, and to a degree, while it lasted, approaching revelation. chords, first faintly struck long years before when my sense of marion's forgiveness and generosity stirred worship in me, but chords that since then had lain, apparently, unresponsive, were swept into resonance again. possibly they had been vibrating all these intervening years, unknown to me, unrecognized. i cannot say. i only know that here was the origin of the strange energy that now moved me to the depths. some new worship of beauty that had love in it, of which, indeed, love was the determining quality, awoke in the profoundest part of me, and even when the "thrill" had gone its way, left me hungry and yearning for its repetition. here, then, is the "personal" qualification that i mentioned. the yearning and the hunger were related to my deepest needs. i had been empty, but i would be filled. for a passionate love, holding hands with a faith and confidence as passionate as itself, poured flooding into me and made this new sense of beauty seem a paramount necessity of my life. will you be patient now, if i give you a crude instance of what i mean? it is one among many others, but i choose it because its very crudeness makes my meaning clear. in this fevered and stricken african coast, you may know, there is luxuriance in every natural detail, an exuberance that is lavish to excess. yet beauty lies somewhat coyly hid--as though suffocated by over-abundance of crowding wonder. i detect, indeed, almost a touch of the monstrous in it all, a super-expression, as it were, that bewilders, and occasionally even may alarm. delicacy, subtlety, suggestion in any form, have no part in it. during the five years of my exile amid this tropical extravagance i can recall no single instance of beauty "hinting" anywhere. nature seems, rather, audaciously abandoned; she is without restraint. she shows her all, tells everything--she shouts, she never whispers. you will understand me when i tell you that this wholesale lack of reticence and modesty involves all absence in the beholder of--surprise. a sudden ravishment of the senses is impossible. one never can experience that sweet and troubling agitation to which a breathless amazement properly belongs. you may be stunned; you are hardly ever "thrilled." now, this new sensitiveness to beauty i have mentioned has opened me to that receptiveness which is aware of subtlety and owns to sharp surprise. the thrill is of its very essence. it is unexpected. out of the welter of prolific detail nature here glories in, a delicate hint of wonder and surprise comes stealing. the change, of course, is in myself, not otherwise. and on the particular "crude" occasion i will briefly mention, it reached me from the most obvious and banal of conditions--the night sky and the moon. here, then, is how it happened: there had arisen a situation of grave difficulty among the natives of my province, and the need for taking a strong, authoritative line was paramount. the reports of my subordinates from various parts of the country pointed to very vigorous action of a repressing, even of a punitive, description. it was not, in itself, a complicated situation, and no governor, who was soldier too, need have hesitated for an instant. the various stations, indeed, anticipating the usual course of action indicated by precedent, had automatically gone to their posts, prepared for the "official instructions" it was known that i should send, wondering impatiently (as i learned afterwards) at the slight delay. for delay there was, though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by my uncomfortable new habit--pausing for the guidance and the "thrill." intuition, waiting upon the thrill of beauty that guided it, at first lay inactive. my behaviour seemed scarcely of the orthodox, official kind, soldierly least of all. there was uneasiness, there was cursing, probably; there were certainly remarks not complimentary. prompt, decisive action was the obvious and only course... while i sat quietly in the headquarters bungalow, a sensitive youth again, a dreamer, a poet, hungry for the inspiration of beauty that the gorgeous tropical night concealed with her excess of smothering abundance. this incongruity between my procedure and the time-honoured methods of "strong" governors must have seemed exasperating to those who waited, respectful, but with nerves on edge, in the canvassed and tented regions behind the headquarters clearing. indeed, the foreign office, could it have witnessed my unpardonable hesitation, might well have dismissed me on the spot, i think. for i sat there, dreaming in my deck-chair on the verandah, smoking a cigarette, safe within my net from the countless poisonous mosquitoes, and listening to the wind in the palms that fringed the heavy jungle round the building. smoking quietly, dreaming, listening, waiting, i sat there in this mood of inner attention and expectancy, knowing that the guidance i anticipated must surely come. a few clouds sprawled in their beds of silver across the sky; the heat, the perfume, were, as always, painfully, excessive; the moonlight bathed the huge trees and giant leaves with that habitual extravagance which made it seem ordinary, almost cheap and wonderless. very silent the wooden house lay all about me, there were no footsteps, there was no human voice. i heard only the wash of the heavy-scented wind through the colossal foliage that hardly stirred, and watched, as a hundred times before, the immense heated sky, drenched in its brilliant and intolerable moonlight. all seemed a riot of excess, an orgy. then, suddenly, the shameless night drew on some exquisite veil, as the moon, between three-quarters and the full, slid out of sight behind a streaky cloud. a breath, it seemed, of lighter wind woke all the perfume of the burdened forest leaves. the shouting splendour hushed; there came a whisper and, at last--a hint. i watched with relief and gratitude the momentary eclipse, for in the half-light i was aware of that sharp and tender mood which was preparatory to the thrill. slowly sailing into view again from behind that gracious veil of cloud-- "the moon put forth a little diamond peak, no bigger than an unobserved star, or tiny point of fairy scimitar; bright signal that she only stooped to tie her silver sandals, ere deliciously she bowed into the heavens her timid head." and then it came. the thrill stole forth and touched me, passing like a meteor through my heart, but in that lightning passage, cleaving it open to some wisdom that seemed most near to love. for power flowed in along the path that beauty cleft for it, and with the beauty came that intuitive guidance i had waited for. the inspiration operated like a flash. there was no reasoning; i was aware immediately that another and a better way of dealing with the situation was given me. i need not weary you with details. it seemed contrary to precedent, advice, against experience too, yet it was the right, the only way. it threatened, i admit, to destroy the prestige so long and laboriously established, since it seemed a dangerous yielding to the natives that must menace the white life everywhere and render trade in the colony unsafe. yet i did not hesitate.... there was bustle at once within that bungalow; the orders went forth; i saw the way and chose it--to the dismay, outspoken, of every white man whose welfare lay in my official hands. and the results, i may tell you now without pride, since, as we both admit, no credit attaches to myself--the results astonished the entire colony.... the chiefs came to me, in due course, bringing fruit and flowers and presents enough to bury all headquarters, and with a reverential obedience that proved the rising scotched to death--because its subtle psychological causes had been marvellously understood. full comprehension, as i mentioned earlier in this narrative, we cannot expect to have. its origin, i may believe, lies hid in the nature of that beauty which is truth and love--in the source of our very life, perhaps, which lies hid again with beauty very far away.... but i may say this much at least: that it seemed, my inspired action had co-operated with the instinctive beliefs of these mysterious tribes--cooperated with their primitive and ancient sense of beauty. it had, inexplicably to myself, fulfilled their sense of right, which my subordinates would have outraged. i had acted with, instead of against, them. more i cannot tell you. you have the "crude instance," and you have the method. the instances multiplied, the method became habit. there grew in me this personal attitude towards an impersonal power i hardly understood, and this attitude included an emotion--love. with faith and love i consequently obeyed it. i loved the source of my guidance and assistance, though i dared attach no name to it. simple enough the matter might have been, could i have referred its origin to some name--to our mother or to you, to my chief in london, to an impersonal foreign office that has since honoured me with money and a complicated address upon my envelopes, or even, by a stretch of imagination, to that semi-abstract portion of my being some men call a higher self. to none of these, however, could i honestly or dishonestly ascribe it. yet, as in the case of those congratulatory telegrams from our mother and yourself, i was aware--and this feeling never failed with each separate occurrence--aware that somebody, other than ourselves individually or collectively--was pleased. v what i have told you so far concerns a growth chiefly of my inner life that was almost a new birth. my outer life, of event and action, was sufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from me during the ten years, broken by three periods of long-leave at home, i spent in that sinister and afflicted land. this record, however, deals principally with the essential facts of my life, the inner; the outer events and actions are of importance only in so far as they interpret these, since that which a man feels and thinks alone is real, and thought and feeling, of course, precede all action. i have told you of the thrill, of its genesis and development; and i chose an obvious and rather banal instance, first of all to make myself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of so delicate a nature as to render their description extremely difficult. the point is that the emotion was, for me, a new one. i may honestly describe it as a birth. i must now tell you that it first stirred in me some five years after i left england, and that during those years i had felt nothing but what most other men feel out here. whether its sudden birth was due to the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparation that had been going forward in me secretly all that time, i cannot tell. no proof, at any rate, offered itself of either. it came suddenly. i do know, however, that from its first occurrence it has strengthened and developed until it has now become a dominating influence of a distinctly personal kind. my character has been affected, perhaps improved. you have mentioned on several occasions that you noted in my letters a new tenderness, a new kindness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and more of sympathy, a new love; the "birth of my poetic sense" you also spoke of once; and i myself have long been aware of a thousand fresh impulses towards charity and tolerance that had, hitherto, at any rate, lain inactive in my being. i need not flatter myself complacently, yet a change there is, and it may be an improvement. whether big or small, however, i am sure of one thing: i ascribe it entirely to this sharper and more extended sensitiveness to beauty, this new and exquisite receptiveness that has established itself as a motive-power in my life. i have changed the poet's line, using prose of course: there is beauty everywhere and therefore joy. and i will explain briefly, too, how it is that this copybook maxim is now for me a practical reality. for at first, with my growing perception, i was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste, the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. the loss seemed so extravagant. not only that a million flowers waste their sweetness on the desert air, but that such prodigal stores of human love and tenderness remain unemployed, their rich harvest all ungathered--because, misdirected and misunderstood, they find no receptacle into which they may discharge. it has now come to me, though only by & slow and almost imperceptible advance, that these stores of apparently unremunerative beauty, this harvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered--prepare yourself, please, for an imaginative leap--ore used, are gathered, are employed. by whom? i can only answer: by some one who is pleased; and probably by many such. how, why, and wherefore--i catch your crowd of questions in advance--we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answer of no uncertain kind, i hear within the stillness of a heart that has learned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before. those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives, follow that same ideal with increasing power and passion afterwards--and for ever. the shutter of black iron we call death hides the truth with terror and resentment; but what if that shutter were, after all, transparent? a glorious dream, i hear you cry. now listen to my answer. it is, for me, a definite assurance and belief, because--i know. long before you have reached this point you will, i know, have reached also the conclusion (with a sigh) that i am embarked upon some commonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumous communication. perhaps i wrong you here, but in any case i would at once correct the inference, if it has been drawn. you remember our adventures with the seance-mongers years ago? ... i have not changed my view so far as their evidential value is concerned. be sure of that. the dead, i am of opinion, do not return; for, while individuals may claim startling experiences that seem to them of an authentic and convincing kind, there has been no instance that can persuade us all--in the sense that thunderstorm convinces us all. such individual experiences i have always likened to the auto-suggestion of those few who believe the advertisements of the hair-restorers--you will forgive the unpoetic simile for the sake of its exactitude--as against the verdict of the world that a genuine discovery of such a remedy would leave no single doubter in europe or america, nor even in the london clubs! yet each time i read the cunning article (i have less hair than when i ran away from sandhurst that exciting july night and met you in the strand!), and look upon the picture of the man, john henry smith, "before and after using," i admit the birth of an unreasonable belief that there may be something in it after all. of such indubitable proof, however, there is, alas, as yet no sign. and so with the other matter--the dead do not "return." my story, therefore, be comforted, has no individual instance to record. it may, on the other hand, be held to involve a thread of what might be called--at a stretch--posthumous communication, yet a thread so tenuous that the question of personal direction behind it need hardly be considered at all. for let me confess at once that, the habit of the "thrill" once established, i was not long in asking myself point blank this definite question: dared i trace its origin to my own unfruitful experience of some years before?--and, discovering no shred of evidence, i found this positive answer: honestly i could not. that "somebody was pleased" each time beauty offered a wisdom i accepted, became an unanswerable conviction i could not argue about; but that the guidance--waking a responsive emotion in myself of love--was referable to any particular name i could not, by any stretch of desire or imagination, bring myself to believe. marion, i must emphasise, had been gone from me five years at least before the new emotion gave the smallest hint of its new birth; and my feeling, once the first keen shame and remorse subsided--i confess to the dishonouring truth--was one of looking back upon a painful problem that had found an unexpected solution. it was chiefly relief, although a sad relief, i felt.... and with the absorbing work of the next following years (i took up my appointment within six months of her death) her memory, already swiftly fading, entered an oblivion whence rarely, and at long intervals only, it emerged at all. in the ordinary meaning of the phrase, i had forgotten her. you will see, therefore, that there was no desire in me to revive an unhappy memory, least of all to establish any fancied communication with one before whose generous love i had felt myself dishonoured, if not actually disgraced. even the remorse and regret had long since failed to disturb my peace of mind, causing me no anxiety, much less pain. sic transit was the epitaph, if any. acute sensation i had none at all. this, then, plainly argues against the slightest predisposition on my part to imagine that the loving guidance so strangely given owned a personal origin i could recognize. that it involved a "personal emotion" is quite another matter. the more remarkable, therefore, is the statement truth now compels me to confess to you--namely, that this origin is recognizable, and that i have traced in part the name it owns to. my next sentence you divine already; you at once suspect the name i mean. i hear you say to yourself with a smile--"so, after all...!" please, wait a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to your suspicion, i can give neither full affirmation or full denial. yet an answer of a certain kind is ready: i have stated my firm conviction that the dead do not return; i do not modify it one iota; but i mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because i know. so now let me supplement these two statements with a third: the dead, though they do not return, are active; and those who lived beauty in their lives are--benevolently active. this may prepare you for a further assurance, yet one less easy to express intelligibly. be patient while i make the difficult attempt. the origin of the wisdom that now seeks to shape and guide my life through beauty is, indeed, not marion, but a power that stands behind her, and through which, with which, the energy of her being acts. it stood behind her while she lived. it stands behind not only her, but equally behind all those peerless, exquisite manifestations of self-less love that give bountifully of their best without hope or expectation of reward in kind. no human love of this description, though it find no object to receive it, nor one single flower that "wastes" its sweetness on the desert air, but acknowledges this inexhaustible and spendthrift source. its evidence lies strewn so thick, so prodigally, about our world, that not one among us, whatever his surroundings and conditions, but sooner or later must encounter at least one marvellous instance of its uplifting presence. some at once acknowledge the exquisite flash and are aware; others remain blind and deaf, till some experience, probably of pain, shall have prepared and sensitized their receptive quality. to all, however, one day, comes the magical appeal. as in my own case, there was apparently some kind of preparation before i grew conscious of that hunger for beauty which, awakening intuition, opened the heart to truth and so to wisdom. it then came softly, delicately, whispering like the dawn, yet rich with a promise i could, at first, not easily fathom, though as sure of fulfilment as that promise of day that steals upon the world when night is passing. i have tried to tell you something of this mystery. i cannot add to that. i was lifted, as it were, towards some region or some state of being, wherein i was momentarily aware of a vaster outlook upon life, of a deeper insight into the troubles of my fellow-creatures, where, indeed, there burst upon me a comprehension of life's pains and difficulties so complete that i may best describe it as that full understanding which involves also full forgiveness, and that sympathy which is love, god's love. this exaltation passed, of course, with the passing of the thrill that made it possible; it was truly instantaneous; a point of ecstasy, perhaps, in some category not of time at all, but of some state of consciousness that lifted me above, outside of, self. but it was real, as a thunderstorm is real. for, with this glimpse of beauty that i call the "thrill," i touched, for an instant so brief that it seemed timeless in the sense of having no duration, a pinnacle of joy, of vision, beyond anything attainable by desire or by. intellect alone. i stood aware of power, wisdom, love; and more, this power, wisdom, love were mine to draw upon and use, not in some future heaven, but here and now. vi i returned to england with an expectant hunger born of this love of beauty that was now ingrained in me. i came home with the belief that my yearning would be satisfied in a deeper measure; and more--that, somehow, it would be justified and explained. i may put it plainly, if only to show how difficult this confession would have been to any one but yourself; it sounds so visionary from a mere soldier and man of action such as i am. for my belief included a singular dream that, in the familiar scenes i now revisited, some link, already half established, would be strengthened, and might probably be realized, even proved. in africa, as you know, i had been set upon the clue at home in england. among the places and conditions where this link had been first established in the flesh, must surely come a fuller revelation. beauty, the channel of my inspiration, but this time the old sweet english beauty, so intimate, so woven through with the fresh wonder of earliest childhood days, would reveal the cause of my first failure to respond, and so, perhaps, the intention of those final pathetic sentences that still haunted me with their freight of undelivered meaning. in england, t believed, my "thrill" must bring authentic revelation. i came back, that precarious entity, a successful man. i was to be that thing we used to laugh about together in your cambridge days, a distinguished personality; i should belong to the breed of little lions. yet, during the long, tedious voyage, i realized that this held no meaning for me; i did not feel myself a little lion, the idea only proved that the boy in me was not yet dead. my one desire, though inarticulate until this moment of confessing it, was to renew the thrills, and so to gather from an intenser, sweeter beauty some measure of greater understanding they seemed to promise. it was a personal hope, a personal desire; and, deep at the heart of it, memory, passionate though elusive, flashed her strange signal of a personal love. in this dream that mocked at time, this yearning that forgot the intervening years, i nursed the impossible illusion that, somehow or other, i should become aware of marion. now, i have treated you in this letter as though you were a woman who reads a novel, for in my first pages i have let you turn to the end and see that the climax is a happy one, lest you should faint by the way and close my story with a yawn. you need not do that, however, since you already know this in advance. you will bear with me, too, when i tell you that my return to england was in the nature of a failure that, at first, involved sharpest disappointment. i was unaware, as a whole, of the thrills i had anticipated with such longing. the sweet picture of english loveliness i had cherished with sentimental passion during my long exile hardly materialized. that i was not a lion, but an insignificant quasi-colonial adventurer among many others, may have sprinkled acid upon my daily diet of sensation, but you will do me the justice to believe that this wounded vanity was the smallest item in my disenchantment. ten years, especially in primitive, godforsaken africa, is a considerable interval; i found the relationship between myself and my beloved home-land changed, and in an unexpected way. i was not missed for one thing, i had been forgotten. except from our mother and yourself, i had no welcome. but, apart from this immediate circle, and apart from the deep, comfortable glow experienced at the first sight of the "old country," i found england and the english dull, conventional, and uninspired. there was no poignancy. the habits and the outlook stood precisely where i had left them. the english had not moved. they played golf as of yore, they went to the races at the appointed time and in the appointed garb, they gave heavy dinner-parties, they wrote letters to the times, and ignored an outside world beyond their island. their estimate of themselves and of foreigners remained unaltered, their estimate of rich or influential neighbours was what it always had been, there were many more motor-cars and a few more peers, it was more difficult than formerly to get into a good club; but otherwise, god bless them, they were worthier than ever. the "dear old country," that which "out there" we had loved and venerated, worked and fought for, was stolid and unshaken; the stream of advancing life that elsewhere rushed, had left england complaisantly unmoved and unresponsive. you have no idea how vividly--and in what curious minor details--the general note of england strikes a traveller returning after an interval of years. later, of course, the single impression is modified and obscured by other feelings. i give it, therefore, before it was forgotten. england had not budged. had it been winter instead of early spring, i might sum up for you what i mean in one short sentence: i travelled to london in a third-class railway carriage that had no heating apparatus. but to all this, and with a touch of something akin to pride in me, i speedily adjusted myself. i had been exiled, i had come home. as our old nurse, aged and withered, but otherwise unaltered, said to me quietly by way of greeting: "well, they didn't kill you, master richard!" i was, therefore, alive. it was for me, the unimportant atom, to recover my place in the parent mass. i did so. i was english. i recovered proportion. i wore the accustomed mask; i hid both my person and my new emotions, as was obviously expected of me. having reported my insignificance to the foreign office.... i came down to the manor house. yet, having changed, and knowing that i had changed, i was aware of a cleft between me and my native stock. something un-english was alive in me and eager to assert itself. another essence in my blood had quickened, a secret yearning that i dared not mention to my kind, a new hunger in my heart that clamoured to be satisfied, yet remained, speaking generally, un-nourished. looking for beauty among my surroundings and among my kith and kin, i found it not; there was no great thrill from england or from home. the slowness, the absence of colour, imagination, rhythm, baffled me, while the ugliness of common things and common usages afflicted my new sensitiveness. not that i am peculiarly alert to beauty, nor claim superior perception--i am no artist, either by virtue of vision or power of expression--but that a certain stagnant obtuseness, a kind of sordid and conservative veneration of the ugly that the english favour, distressed and even tortured me in a way i had never realized formerly. they were so proud to live without perception. an artist was a curiosity, not a leader, far less a prophet. there was no imagination. in little things, as i said, a change was manifest, however. much that tradition had made lovely with the perfume of many centuries i found modernized until the ancient spirit had entirely fled, leaving a shell that was artificial to the point of being false. the sanction of olden time that used to haunt with beauty was deceived by a mockery i found almost hideous. the ancient inns, for instance, adapted to week-end motor traffic, were pretentious and uncomfortable, their "menus" of inferior food written elaborately in french. the courtliness had vanished, and the cost had come. telephones everywhere not only destroyed privacy, but brought dismay into countless gentle intimacies, their nuisance hardly justified by their usefulness. life, it seemed, in a frantic hurry, had been cheapened, not improved; there was no real progress, but only more unrest. england--too solid to go fast, had made ungainly efforts; but she had moved towards ungraciousness where she had moved at all; i found her a cross between a museum and an american mushroom town that advertises all the modern comforts with a violent insistence that is meant to cloak their very absence. this, my first impression, toned down, of course, a little later; but it was my first impression. the people, however, even in the countryside, seemed proud both of mushroom and museum, and commercial ugliness, greedy and unashamed, now distorted every old-world village. the natives were pleased to the point of vanity. for myself, i could not manage this atrocious compromise, and looking for the dear old england of our boyhood days, i found it not. the change, of course, was not in the country only, but in myself. the soul in me, awakened to a new standard, had turned round to face another way. the manor house was very still when i arrived from london--& late may evening between the sunset and the dark. mother, as you know, met me at the station, for they had stopped the down-train by special orders, so that i stepped out upon the deserted platform of the countryside quite alone, a distinguished man, with my rug and umbrella. a strange footman touched his hat, an old, stooping porter stared hard at me, then smiled vaguely, while the guard, eyeing respectfully the individual for whom his train had halted, waved his red flag, and swung himself into the disappearing van with the approved manner we once thought marvellous. i left the empty platform, gave up my ticket to an untidy boy, and crossed the gloomy booking-hall. the mournfulness of the whole place was depressing. i heard a blackbird whistle in a bush against the signal-box. it seemed to scream. mother i first saw, seated in the big barouche. she was leaning back, but sat forwards as i came. she looked into my face across the wide interval of years now ended, and my heart gave a great boyish leap, then sank into stillness again abruptly. she seemed to me exactly the same as usual--only so much smaller. we embraced with a kind of dignity: "so here you are, my boy, at last," i heard her say in a quiet voice, and as though she had seen me a month or two ago, "and very, very tired, i'll be bound." i took my seat beside her. i felt awkward, stiff, self-conscious; there was disappointment somewhere. "oh, i'm all right, mother, thanks," i answered. "but how are you?" and the next moment, it seemed to me, i heard her asking if i was hungry;--whereupon, absurd as it must sound, i was aware of an immense emotion that interfered with my breathing. it broke up through some repressive layer that had apparently concealed it, and made me feel--well, had i been thirty-five years younger, i could have cried--for pleasure. mother, i think, forgot those years perhaps. to her i was still in overalls and wanted food. we drove, then, in comparative silence the four miles behind the big pair of greys, the only remark that memory credits me with being an enquiry about the identity of the coachman whose dim outline i saw looming in the darkness just above me. the lamplight showed one shoulder, one arm, one ear, the rest concealed; but the way he drove was, of course, unmistakeable; slowly, more cautiously, perhaps, but with the same flourish of the whip, the same air of untold responsibility as ever. and, will you believe it, my chief memory of all that scene of anticipated tenderness and home-emotion is the few words he gave in reply to my enquiry and recognition when at length the carriage stopped and i got out: "well, brown, i'm glad to see you again. all well at home, i hope?" followed by something of sympathy about his beloved horses. he looked down sideways at me from the box, touching his cockade with the long yellow whip in his thick, gloved hand. i can hear his warm, respectful answer now; i can see the gleam of proud pleasure in his eye: "yes, sir, thank you, sir richard, and glad to see you back again, sir, and with such success upon you." i moved back to help our mother out. i remember thinking how calm, how solid, how characteristically inarticulate it all was. did i wish it otherwise? i think not. only there was something in me beating its wings impatiently like a wild bird that felt the bars close round it.... mother, i realized, could not have said even what the old coachman had said to save her life, and i remember wondering what would move her into the expression of natural joy. all that half-hour, as the hoofs echoed along the silence of the country road, and the old familiar woods and fields slid past, no sign of deep emotion had escaped her. she had asked if i was hungry.... and then the smells! the sweet, faint garden smell in the english twilight:--of laurels and laurestinus, of lilac, pinks, and the heavy scent of may, wall-flowers and sweet william too--these, with the poignant aroma of the old childhood house, were the background of familiar loveliness against which my subsequent disillusion of the homeland set itself in such afflicting contrast. i remember, as we entered the dim hall, the carriage lamps fell on, the flowering horse-chestnut by the door; the bats were flitting; a big white moth whirred softly against the brilliant glass as though you and i were after it again with nets and killing-bottles... and, helping mother out, i noticed, besides her smallness, how slow and aged her movements were. "mother, let me help you. that's what i've come home for," i said, feeling for her little hand. and she replied so quietly, so calmly it was almost frigid, "thank you, dear boy; your arm, perhaps--a moment. they are so stupid about the lamps in the hall, i've had to speak so often. there, now! it is an awkward step." i felt myself a giant beside her. she seemed so tiny now. there was something very strong in her silence and her calm; and though a portion of me liked it, another portion resented it and felt afraid. her attitude was like a refusal, a denial, a refusal to live, a denial of life almost. a tinge of depression, not far removed from melancholy, stole over my spirit. the change in me, i realized then, indeed, was radical. now, lest this narrative should seem confused, you must understand that my disillusions with regard to england were realized subsequently, when i had moved about the counties, paid many solid visits, and tasted the land and people in some detail. and the disappointment was the keener owing to the fact that very soon after my arrival in the old home place, the "thrill" came to me with a direct appeal that was disconcerting. for coming unexpectedly, as it did, in this familiar scene where yet previously i had never known it, it had the effect of marking the change in me with a certainty from which there was no withdrawal possible. it standardized this change. the new judgment was made uncompromisingly clear; people and places must inevitably stand or fall by it. and the first to fall--since the test lies beyond all control of affection or respect--was our own dear, faithful mother. you share my reverence and devotion, so you will feel no pain that i would dishonour a tie that is sacred to us both in the old bible sense. but, also, you know what a sturdy and typical soul of england she has proved herself, and that a sense of beauty is not, alas, by any stretch of kindliest allowance, a national characteristic. culture and knowledge we may fairly claim, no doubt, but the imaginative sense of beauty is o rare among us that its possession is a peculiarity good form would suppress. it is a pose, an affectation, it is unmanly--it is not english. we are too strong to thrill. and that one so near and dear to me, so honoured and so deeply loved, should prove herself to my new standard thus typically english, while it came as sharpest pain, ought not, i suppose, to have caused me the surprise it did. it made me aware, however, of the importance of my new criterion, while at the same time aware of a lack of sympathy between us that amounted to disenchantment. it was a shock, to put it plainly. a breath of solitude, of isolation, stole on me and, close behind it, melancholy. from the smallest clue imaginable the truth came into me, from a clue so small, indeed, that you may smile to think i dared draw such big deductions from premises so insignificant. you will probably deny me a sense of humour even when you hear. so let me say at once, before you judge me hastily, that the words, and the incident which drew them forth, were admittedly inadequate to the deduction. only, mark this, please--i drew no deduction. reason played no part. cause and effect were unrelated. it was simply that the truth flashed into me. i knew. what did i know? perhaps that the gulf between us lay as wide as that between the earth and sirius; perhaps that we were, individually, of a kind so separate, so different, that mutual understanding was impossible; perhaps that while she was of to-day and proud of it, i was of another time, another century, and proud of that. i cannot say precisely. her words, while they increased my sense of isolation, of solitude, of melancholy, at the same time also made me laugh, as assuredly they will now make you laugh. for, while she was behind me in the morning-room, fingering some letters on the table, i stood six feet away beside the open window, listening to the nightingales--the english nightingales--that sang across the quiet garden in the dusk. the high-pitched clamour of the jungle choruses with their monstrous turmoil, their prolific detail, came back to me in startling contrast. this exquisite and delicious sound i now heard belonged still to england. and it had not changed. "no hungry generations tread thee down..." rose in some forgotten corner of my mind, and my yearning that would be satisfied moved forth to catch the notes. "listen, mother," i said, turning towards her. she raised her head and smiled a little before reading the rest of the letter that she held. "i only pray they won't keep you awake, dear boy," she answered gently. "they give us very little peace, i'm afraid, just now." perhaps she caught some expression in my face, for she added a trifle more quickly: "that's the worst of the spring--our english spring--it is so noisy!" still smiling, she picked up her letter again, while i, though still listening by the window, heard only the harsh scream and rattle of the jungle voices, thousands and thousands of miles away across the world. vii it was some little time after my arrival, as i shall presently relate, that the experience i call the thrill came to me in england--and, like all its predecessors, came through nature. it came, that is, through the only apparatus i possessed as yet that could respond. the point, i think, is of special interest; i note it now, on looking back upon the series as a whole, though at the time i did not note it. for, compared with yourself at any rate, the aesthetic side of me is somewhat raw; of pictures, sculpture, music i am untaught and ignorant; with other philistines, i "know what i like," but nothing more. it is the honest but uncultured point of view. i am that primitive thing, the mere male animal. it was my love of nature, therefore, that showed me beauty, since this was the only apparatus in my temperament able to respond. natural, simple things, as before, were the channel through which beauty appealed to that latent store of love and wisdom in me which, it almost seemed, were being slowly educated. the talks and intimacies with our mother, then, were largely over; the re-knitting of an interrupted relationship was fairly accomplished; she had asked her questions, and listened to my answers. all the dropped threads had been picked up again, so that a pattern, similar to the one laid aside, now lay spread more or less comfortably before us. outwardly, things seemed much as they were when i left home so many years ago. one might have thought the interval had been one of months, since her attitude refused to recognize all change, and change, and growth, was abhorrent to her type. for whereas i had altered, she had remained unmoved. so unsatisfying was this state of things to me, however, that i felt unable to confide my deepest, as now i can do easily to you--so that during these few days of intercourse renewed, we had said, it seemed, all that was to be said with regard to the past. my health was most lovingly discussed, and then my immediate and remoter future. i was aware of this point of view--that i was, of course, her own dear son, but that i was also england's son. she was intensely patriotic in the insular sense; my soul, i mean, belonged to the british empire rather than to humanity and the world at large. doubtless, a very right and natural way to look at things.... she expressed a real desire to "see your photographs, my boy, of those outlandish places where they sent you"; then, having asked certain questions about the few women (officers' wives and so forth) who appeared in some of them, she leaned back in her chair, and gave me her very definite hopes about "my value to the country," my "duty to the family traditions," even to the point, finally, of suggesting parliament, in what she termed with a certain touch of pride and dignity, "the true conservative interest." "men like yourself, richard, are sorely needed now," she added, looking at me with a restrained admiration; "i am sure the party would nominate you for this constituency that your father and your grandfather both represented before you. at any rate, they shall not put you on the shelf!" and before i went to bed--it was my second or third night, i think--she had let me see plainly another hope that was equally dear to her: that i should marry again. there was an ominous reference to my "ample means," a hint of regret that, since you were unavailable, and eva dead, our branch of the family could not continue to improve the eastern counties and the world. at the back of her mind, indeed, i think there hovered definite names, for a garden party in my honour was suggested for the following week, to which the chairman of the local conservatives would come, and where various desirable neighbours would be only too proud to make my acquaintance and press my colonial and distinguished fingers. in the interval between my arrival and the "experience" i shall presently describe, i had meanwhile renewed my acquaintance with the countryside. the emotions, however, i anticipated, had even cherished and eagerly looked forward to, had not materialized. there was a chill of disappointment over me. for the beauty i had longed for seemed here so thickly veiled; and more than once i surprised in my heart a certain regret that i had come home at all. i caught myself thinking of that immense and trackless country i had left; i even craved it sometimes, both physically and mentally, as though, for all its luscious grossness, it held something that nourished and stimulated, something large, free and untamed that was lacking in this orderly land, so neatly fenced and parcelled out at home. the imagined richness of my return, at any rate, was unfulfilled; the tie with our mother, though deep, was uninspiring; while that other more subtle and intangible link i had fondly dreamed might be strengthened, if not wholly proved, was met with a flat denial that seemed to classify it as nonexistent. hope, in this particular connection, returned upon me, blank and unrewarded.... the familiar scenes woke no hint of pain, much less of questing sweetness. the glamour of association did not operate. no personal link was strengthened. and, when i visited the garden we had known together, the shady path beneath the larches; saw, indeed, the very chairs that she and i had used, the framed portrait in the morning-room, the harp itself, now set with its limp and broken strings in my own chamber--i was unaware of any ghostly thrill; least of all could i feel that "somebody was pleased." excursion farther afield deepened the disenchantment. the gorse was out upon the common, that common where we played as boys, thinking it vast and wonderful with the promise of high adventure behind every prickly clump. the vastness, of course, was gone, but the power of suggestion had gone likewise. it was merely a common that deserved its name. for though this was but the close of may, i found it worn into threadbare patches, with edges unravelled like those of some old carpet in a seaside lodging-house. the lanes that fed it were already thick with dust as in thirsty august, and instead of eglantine, wild-roses, and the rest, a smell of petrol hung upon hedges that were quite lustreless. on the crest of the hill, whence we once thought the view included heaven, i stood by those beaten pines we named the fort, counting jagged bits of glass and scraps of faded newspaper that marred the bright green of the sprouting bracken. this glorious spot, once sacred to our dreams, was like a great backyard--the backyard of the county--while the view we loved as the birthplace of all possible adventure, seemed to me now without spaciousness or distinction. the trees and hedges cramped the little fields and broke their rhythm. no great winds ever swept them clean. the landscape was confused: there was no adventure in it, suggestion least of all. everything had already happened there. and on my way home, resentful perhaps yet eager still, i did a dreadful thing. possibly i hoped still for that divine sensation which refused to come. i visited the very field, the very poplar ... i found the scene quite unchanged, but found it also--lifeless. the glamour of association did not operate. i knew no poignancy, desire lay inert. the thrill held stubbornly aloof. no link was strengthened.... i came home slowly, thinking instead of my mother's plans and wishes for me, and of the clear intention to incorporate me in the stolid and conventional formulas of what appeared to me as uninspired english dullness. my disappointment crystallized into something like revolt. a faint hostility even rose in me as we sat together, talking of politics, of the london news just come to hand, of the neighbours, of the weather too. i was conscious of opposition to her stereotyped plans, and of resentment towards the lack of understanding in her. i would shake free and follow beauty. the yearning, for want of sympathy, and the hunger, for lack of sustenance, grew very strong and urgent in me. i longed passionately just then for beauty--and for that revelation of it which included somewhere the personal emotion of a strangely eager love. viii this, then, was somewhat my state of mind, when, after our late tea on the verandah, i strolled out on to the lawn to enjoy my pipe in the quiet of the garden paths. i felt dissatisfied and disappointed, yet knew not entirely perhaps, the reason. i wished to be alone, but was hungry for companionship as well. mother saw me go and watched attentively, but said no word, merely following me a moment with her eyes above the edge of the times she read, as of old, during the hours between tea and dinner. the spectator, her worldly bible, lay ready to her hand when the times should have been finished. they were, respectively, as always, her dictionary of opinion, and her medicine-chest. before i had gone a dozen yards, her head disappeared behind the printed sheet again. the roses flowed between us. i felt her following glance, as i felt also its withdrawal. then i forgot her.... a touch of melancholy stole on me, as the garden took me in its charge. for a garden is a ghostly place, and an old-world garden, above all, leads thought backwards among vanished memories rather than forward among constructive hopes and joys. i yielded, in any case, a little to this subtle pressure from the past, and i must have strolled among the lilac and laburnums for a longer time than i knew, since the gardener who had been trimming the flower-beds with a hand lawn-mower was gone, and dusk already veiled the cedars, when i found myself leaning against the wooden gate that opened into the less formal part beyond the larches. the house was not visible from where i stood. i smelt the may, the lilac, the heavy perfume everywhere of the opening year; it rose about me in waves, as though full-bosomed summer lay breathing her great promises close at hand, while spring, still lingering, with bright eyes of dew,' watched over her. then, suddenly, behind these richer scents, i caught a sweeter, wilder tang than anything they contained, and turning, saw that the pines were closer than i knew. a waft of something purer, fresher, reached my nostrils on a little noiseless wind, as, leaning across the gate, i turned my back upon the cultivated grounds and gazed into a region of more natural, tangled growth. the change was sudden. it was exquisite, sharp and unexpected, too, as with a little touch of wonder. there was surprise in it. for the garden, you will remember, melts here insensibly into a stretch of scattered pines, where heather and bracken cover wide reaches of unreclaimed and useless land. irregular trails of whitish sand gleamed faintly before the shadows swallowed them, and in the open patches i saw young silver-birches that made me think of running children arrested in mid-play. they stood outlined very tenderly against the sky; their slender forms still quivered; their feathery hair fell earthwards as they drew themselves together, bending their wayward little heads before the approaching night. behind them, framed by the darker pines into a glowing frieze, the west still burned with the last fires of the sunset; i could see the heather, rising and falling like a tumbled sea against the horizon, where the dim heave of distant moorland broke the afterglow. and the dusk now held this region in its magic. so strange, indeed, was the contrast between the ebony shadows and the pools and streaks of amberish light, that i looked about me for a moment, almost sharply. there was a touch of the unearthly in this loveliness that bewildered sight a little. extraordinarily still the world was, yet there seemed activity close upon my footsteps, an activity more than of inanimate nature, yet less than of human beings. with solidarity it had nothing to do, though it sought material expression. it was very near. and i was startled, i recognized the narrow frontier between fear and wonder. and then i crossed it. for something stopped me dead. i paused and stared. my heart began to beat more rapidly. then, ashamed of my moment's hesitation, i was about to move forward through the gate, when again i halted. i listened, and caught my breath. i fancied the stillness became articulate, the shadows stirred, the silence was about to break. i remember trying to think; i wanted to relieve the singular tension by finding words, if only inner words,--when, out of the stillness, out of the silence, out of the shadows--something happened. some faculty of judgment, some attitude in which i normally clothed myself, were abruptly stripped away. i was left bare and sensitive. i could almost have believed that my body had dropped aside, that i stood there naked, unprotected, a form-less spirit, stirred and lifted by the passing breeze. and then it came. as with a sword-thrust of blinding sweetness, i was laid open. yet so instant, and of such swiftness, was the stroke, that i can only describe it by saying that, while pierced and wounded, i was also healed again. without hint or warning, beauty swept me with a pain and happiness well nigh intolerable. it drenched me and was gone. no lightning flash could have equalled the swiftness of its amazing passage; something tore in me; the emotion was enveloping but very tender; it was both terrible yet dear. would to god i might crystallize it for you in those few mighty words which should waken in yourself--in every one!--the wonder and the joy. it contained, i felt, both the worship that belongs to awe and the tenderness of infinite love which welcomes tears. some power that was not of this world, yet that used the details of this world to manifest, had visited me. no element of surprise lay in it even. it was too swift for anything but joy, which of all emotions is the most instantaneous: i had been empty, i was filled. beauty that bathes the stars and drowns the very universe had stolen out of this wild morsel of wasted and uncared-for english garden, and dropped its transforming magic into--me. at the very moment, moreover, when i had been ready to deny it altogether. i saw my insignificance, yet, such was the splendour it had wakened in me, knew my right as well. it could be ever thus; some attitude in myself alone prevented.... and--somebody was pleased. this personal ingredient lay secure in the joy that assuredly remained when the first brief intolerable ecstasy had passed. the link i desired to recognize was proved, not merely strengthened. beauty had cleft me open, and a message, if you will, had been delivered. this personal hint persisted; i was almost aware of conscious and intelligent direction. for to you i will make the incredible confession, that i dare phrase the experience in another fashion, equally true: in that flashing instant i stood naked and shelterless to the gaze of some one who had looked upon me. i was aware of sight; of eyes in which "burning memory lights love home." these eyes, this sight had gazed at me, then turned away. for in that blinding sweetness there was light, as with the immediate withdrawal again there was instant darkness. i was first visible, then concealed. i was clothed again and covered. and the thick darkness that followed made it appear as though night, in one brief second, had taken the place of dusk. trembling, i leaned across the wooden gate and waited while the darkness settled closer. i can swear, moreover, that it was neither dream, nor hope, nor any hungry fantasy in me that then recognized a further marvel--i was no longer now alone. a presence faced me, standing breast-high in the bracken. the garden had been empty; somebody now walked there with me. it was, as i mentioned, the still hour between the twilight and the long, cool dark of early summer. the little breeze passed whispering through the pines. i smelt the pungent perfume of dry heather, sand, and bracken. the horizon, low down between the trunks, shone gold and crimson still, but fading rapidly. i stood there for a long time trembling; i was a part of it; i felt that i was shining, as though my inner joy irradiated the world about me. nothing in all my life has been so real, so positive. i was assuredly not alone.... the first sharp magic, the flash that pierced and burned, had gone its way, but beauty still stood so perilously near, so personal, that any moment, i felt, it must take tangible form, betray itself in visible movement of some sort, break possibly into audible sound of actual speech. it would not have surprised me--more, it would have been natural almost--had i felt a touch upon my hands and lips, or caught the murmur of spoken words against my ear. yet from such direct revelation i shrank involuntarily and by instinct. i could not have borne it then. i had the feeling that it must mar and defile a wonder already great enough; there would have lain in it, too, a betrayal of the commonplace, as of something which i could not possibly hold for true. i must have distrusted my own senses even, for the beauty that cleft me open dealt directly with the soul alone, leaving the senses wholly disengaged. the presence was not answerable to any lesser recognition. thus i shrank and turned away, facing the familiar garden and the "wet bird-haunted english lawn," a spiritual tenderness in me still dreading that i might see or hear or feel, destroying thus the reality of my experience. yet there was, thank god, no speech, no touch, no movement, other than the shiver of the birches, the breath of air against my cheek, the droop and bending of the nearer pine boughs. there was no audible or visible expression; i saw no figure breast-high in the bracken. yet sound there was, a moment later. for, as i turned away, a bird upon a larch twig overhead burst into sudden and exultant song. ix now, do not be alarmed lest i shall attempt to describe a list of fanciful unrealities that borrowed life from a passing emotion merely; the emotion was permanent, the results enduring. please believe the honest statement that, with the singing of that bird, the pent-up stress in me became measurably articulate. some bird in my heart, long caged, rang out in answering inner song. it is also true, i think, that there were no words in me at the moment, and certainly no desire for speech. had a companion been with me, i should probably have merely lit my pipe and smoked in silence; if i spoke at all, i should have made some commonplace remark: "it's late; we must be going in to dress for dinner...." as it was, however, the emotion in me, answering the singing of the bird, became, as i said, measurably articulate. i give you simple facts, as though this were my monthly report to the foreign office in days gone by. i spoke no word aloud, of course. it was rather that my feelings found utterance in the rapturous song i listened to, and that my thoughts knew this relief of vicarious expression, though of inner and inaudible expression. the beauty of scene and moment were adequately recorded, and for ever in that song. they were now part of me. unaware of its perfect mission the bird sang, of course because it could not help itself; perhaps some mating thrush, perhaps a common blackbird only; i cannot say; i only realized that no human voice, no human music, even of the most elaborate and inspired kind, could have made this beauty, similarly articulate. and, for a moment i knew my former pain that i could not share this joy, this beauty, with others of my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost and wasted. there was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet spring night was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated, would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition and without reward. then, as i listened, memory, it seemed, took yearning by the hand, and led me towards that inner utterance i have mentioned. there was no voice, least of all that inner voice you surely have anticipated. but there was utterance, as though my whole being combined with nature in its birth. into the mould of familiar sentences of long ago it ran, yet nearer at last to full disclosure, because the pregnant sentences had altered: "i need your forgiveness born of love..." passed through me with the singing of the bird. i listened with the closest inner attention i have ever known. i paused. my heart brimmed with an expectant wonder that was happiness. and the happiness was justified. for the familiar sentence halted before its first sorrowful completion; the poignant close remained unuttered--because it was no longer true. out of deep love in me, new-born, that held the promise of fulfilment, the utterance concluded: "... i have found a better way...." before i could think or question, and almost as though a whisper of the wind went past, there rose in me at once this answering recognition. it seemed authentically convincing; it was glorious; it was full of joy: "that beauty which was marion lives on, and lives for me." it was as though a blaze of light shone through me; somewhere in my body there were tears of welcome; for this recognition was to me reunion. it must seem astonishing for me, a mere soldier and colonial governor, to confess you that i stood there listening to the song for a long interval of what i can only term, with utmost sincerity, communion. beauty and love both visited me; i believe that truth and wisdom entered softly with them. as i wrote above, i saw my own insignificance, yet, such was the splendour in me, i knew my right as well. it could be ever thus. my attitude alone prevented. i was not excluded, not cut off. this beauty lay ready to my hand, always available, for ever, now. it was not unharvested. but more--it could be shared with others; it was become a portion of myself, and that which is part of my being must, inevitably and automatically, be given out. it was, thus, nowhere wasted or unharvested; it offered with prodigal opportunity a vehicle for that inspiration which is love, and being love of purest kind, is surely wisdom too. the dead, indeed, do not return, yet they are active, and those who lived beauty in their lives are still, through that beauty, benevolently active. i will give you now the change instantaneously produced in me: there rose in me another, deeper point of view that dispelled as by magic the disenchantment that had chilled these first days of my return. i stood here in this old-world garden, but i stood also in the heart of that beauty, so carefully hidden, so craftily screened behind the obvious, that strong and virile beauty which is england. within call of my voice, still studying by lamplight now the symbols of her well-established strength, burning, moreover, with the steady faith which does not easily break across restraint, and loving the man as she had loved the little boy, sat one, not wondering perhaps at my unspoken misunderstanding, yet hoping, patiently and in silence, for its removal in due time. in the house of our boyhood, of our earliest play and quarrels, unchanged and unchangeable, knowing simply that i had "come home again to her," our mother waited.... i need not elaborate this for you, you for whom england and our mother win almost a single, undivided love. i had misjudged, but the cause of my misjudgment was thus suddenly removed. a subtler understanding insight, a sympathy born of deeper love, something of greater wisdom, in a word, awoke in me. the thrill had worked its magic as of old, but this time in its slower english fashion, deep, and characteristically sure. to my country (that is, to my first experience of impersonal love) and to my mother (that is, to my earliest acquaintance with personal love) i had been ready, in my impatience, to credit an injustice. unknown to me, thus, there had been need of guidance, of assistance. beauty, having cleared the way, had worked upon me its amazing alchemy. there, in fewest possible words, is what had happened. i remember that for a long time, then, i waited in the hush of my childhood's garden, listening, as it were, with every pore, and conscious that some one who was pleased interpreted the beauty to my soul. it seemed, as i said, a message of a personal kind. it was regenerative, moveover, in so far that life was enlarged and lifted upon a nobler scale; new sources of power were open to me; i saw a better way. irresistibly it came to me again that beauty, far from being wasted, was purposive, that this purpose was of a redeeming kind, and that some one who was pleased co-operated with it for my personal benefit. no figure, thank god, was visible, no voice was audible, but a presence there indubitably was, and, whether i responded or otherwise, would be always there. and the power was such that i felt as though the desire of the planet itself yearned through it for expression. x i watched the little bird against the paling sky, and my thoughts, following the happy singing, went slowly backwards into the half-forgotten past.... they led me again through the maze of gorgeous and mysterious hopes, un-remembered now so many years, that had marked my childhood. few of these, if any, it seemed, had known fulfilment.... i stole back with them, past the long exile in great africa, into the region of my youth and early boyhood.... and, as though a hand uncovered it deliberately, i recalled an earliest dream--strangest, perhaps, of all the mysterious dreams of that far time. it had, i thought, remained unrealized, as, certainly, till this moment, it had lain forgotten--a boyish dream that behind the veils of the future some one waited for me with the patience of a perfect love that was my due. the dream reached forward towards some one who must one day appear, and whose coming would make life sweet and wonderful, fulfilling, even explaining, the purpose of my being. this dream which i had thought peculiarly my own, belongs, i learned later, to many, if not to the race in general, and, with a smile at my own incurable vanity (and probably a grimace at being neatly duped), i had laid it on one side. at any rate, i forgot it, for nothing happened to keep it active, much less revive it. now, however, looking backwards, and listening to the singing in the sky, i recalled what almost seemed to have been its attempt at realization. having recovered its earliest appearance, my thought next leaped forward to the moment that might possibly have been its reappearance. for memory bore me off without an effort on my part, and set me abruptly within a room of the house i had come home to, where marion sat beside me, singing to the harp she loved. the scene rose up before me as of yesterday... the emotions themselves reconstituted. i recalled the deep, half-sad desire to be worthy of her, to persuade myself i loved as she did, even the curious impulse to acknowledge an emotion that came and went before it could be wholly realized--the feeling, namely, that i ought to love her because--no more, no less is the truth--because she needed it: and then the blank dismay that followed my failure, as with a kind of shameful horror before a great purpose that my emptiness left unfulfilled. the very song came back that moved me more than any else she sang--her favourite it was as well. i heard the twanging of the strings her fingers plucked. i heard the words: "about the little chambers of my heart friends have been coming--going--many a year. the doors stand open there. some, lightly stepping, enter; some depart. freely they come and go, at will. the walls give back their laughter; all day long they fill the house with song. one door alone is shut, one chamber still." with each repetition of the song, i remembered, how at that time my boyhood's dream came back to me, as though its fulfilment were at last at hand; as though, somehow, that "door" must open, that "still chamber" welcome the sweetness and the loveliness of her who sang. for i could not listen to the music, nor watch her fingers moving down the strings, her slender wrist and rounded arm, her foot upon the pedal as she held the instrument so close--without this poignant yearning that proved ever vain, or this shame of unshed tears my heart mysteriously acknowledged. to the end, as you know, that door remained unopened, that chamber still. it was the singing of this sweet english bird, making articulate for me the beauty i could not utter, that brought back to memory the scene, the music, and the words.... i looked round me; i looked up. as i did so, the little creature, with one last burst of passionate happiness, flew away into the darkness. and silence followed, so deep that i could hear the murmur of my blood... an exquisite joy ran through me, making me quiver with expectancy from head to foot.... and it was then suddenly i became aware that the long-closed door at last was open, the still chamber occupied. some one who was pleased, stretching a hand across the silence and the beauty, drew me within that chamber of the heart, so that i passed behind the door that was now a veil, and now a mist, and now a shining blaze of light... passed into a remote and inner stillness where that direct communion which is wordless can alone take place. it was, i verily believe, a stillness of the spirit. at the centre of the tempest, of the whirlpool, of the heart's commotion, there is peace. i stood close against that source of our life which lies hid with beauty very far away, and yet so near that it is enclosed in every hope, in every yearning, and in every tear. for the whisper came to me, beyond all telling sure. beauty had touched me, wisdom come to birth; and love, whispering through the silence those marvellous words that sum up all spiritual experience, proved it to me: "be still--and know...." i found myself moving slowly across the lawn again towards the house. i presently heard the wind mousing softly in the limes. the air was fresh and cool. the first stars were out. i saw the laburnum drooping, as though thick clusters of these very stars had drifted earthwards among the branches; i saw the gleam of the lilac; across the dim tangle of the early roses shone the familiar windows, cosy now with the glow of lighted lamps... and i became suddenly, in a very intimate sense, "aware" of the garden. the presence that walked beside me moved abruptly closer. this presence and the garden seemed, as in some divine mysterious way, inseparable. there was a stirring of the dimmest and most primitive associations possible. memory plunged back among ancestral, even racial, shadows. i recalled the sweet and tender legend of the beginnings of the world, when something divine, it was whispered, was intimate with man, and companioning his earliest innocence, walked with him in that happier state those childlike poets called--a garden. that childhood of the world seemed very near. i found again the conditions of innocence and pristine wonder--of simplicity. there was a garden in my heart, and some one walked with me therein. for life in its simplest form--of breathing leaves and growing flowers, of trees and plants and shrubs--glowed all about me in the darkness. the blades of grass, the blossoms hanging in the air, strong stems and hidden roots, fulfilled themselves with patience upon every side, brimming with beauty and stillness did not seek to advertise. and of this simplest form of life--the vegetable kingdom--i became vividly aware, prodigal, mysterious, yet purposive. the outer garden merged with the inner, and the presence walked in both of them.... i was led backwards, far down into my own being. i reached the earliest, simplest functions by which i myself had come to be, the state where the frontier lies between that which is dead and that which is alive. somewhere between the mineral and vegetable worlds, i knew, that frontier lay. for the vegetable kingdom alone possesses the power of converting the mineral or the chemical into the living organism by absorption; and here, among the leaves and roots and flowers, that power was sweetly, irresistibly, at work. it seemed i reached that frontier, and i passed it. beauty came through the most primitive aspect of my being. and so i would tell you, you alone of all the world, that the presence walking beside me in the scented darkness came suddenly so close that i was aware of it in what seemed my earliest and most innocent state of soul. beside me, in that old-world garden, walked the cause of all things. the beauty that in you was truth, in marion tenderness, was harvested: and somebody was pleased. xi all this i have told to you because we have known together the closest intimacy possible to human beings--we have shared beauty. they said, these many days ago, that you had gone away, that you were dead. the wind on the downs, your favourite downs, your favourite southwest wind, received your dust, scattering it like pollen into space. no sign has come to me, no other sign than this i tell you now in my long letter. it is enough. i know. there were thus two loves, one unrecognized till afterwards, the other realized at the time.... in the body there was promise. there is now accomplishment. it is very strange, and yet so simple. beauty, i suppose, opens the heart, extends the consciousness. it is a platitude, of course. you will laugh when i tell you that afterwards i tried to reason it all out. i am not apparently intellectual. the books i read would fill your empty room--on aesthetics, art, and what not. i got no result from any of them, but rather a state of muddle that was, no doubt, congestion. none of the theories and explanations touched the root of the matter. i am evidently not "an artist"--that at any rate i gathered, and yet these learned people seemed to write about something they had never "lived." i could almost believe that the writers of these subtle analyses have never themselves felt beauty--the burn, the rapture, the regenerating fire. they have known, perhaps, a reaction of the physical nerves, but never this light within the soul that lifts the horizons of the consciousness and makes one know that god exists, that death is not even separation, and that eternity is now. metaphysics i studied too. i fooled myself, thirty years after the proper time for doing so, over the old problem whether beauty lies in the object seen or in the mind that sees the object. and in the end i came back hungrily to my simple starting-point--that beauty moved me. it opened my heart to one of its many aspects--truth, wisdom, joy, and love--and what else, in the name of heaven, mattered! i sold the books at miserable prices that made mother question my judgment: coloured plates, costly bindings, rare editions, and all. aesthetics, art, rules and principles might go hang for all i cared or any good they did me. it was intellect that had devised all these. the truth was simpler far. i cared nothing for these scholarly explanations of beauty's genesis and laws of working, because i felt it. hunger needs no analysis, does it? nor does love. could anything be more stultifying? give to the first craving a lump of bread, and to the second a tangible man or woman--and let those who have the time analyse both cravings at their leisure. for the thrill i mean is never physical, and has nothing in common with that acute sensation experienced when the acrobat is seen to miss the rope in mid-air as he swings from bar to bar. there is no shock in it, for shock is of the nerves, arresting life; the thrill i speak of intensifies and sets it rising in a wave that flows. it is of the spirit. it wounds, yet marvellously. it is unearthly. therein, i think, lies its essential quality; by chance, as it were, in writing this intimate confession, i have hit upon the very word: it is unearthly, it contains surprise. yes, beauty wounds marvellously, then follows the new birth, regeneration. there is a ravishment of the entire being into light and knowledge. the element of surprise is certainly characteristic. the thrill comes unheralded--a sudden uprush of convincing joy loosed from some store that is inexhaustible. unlike the effect of a nervous shock which can be lived over and reconstituted, it knows no repetition; its climax is instantaneous, there is neither increase nor declension; it is unrecoverable; it strikes and is gone. breaking across the phantasmagoria of appearances, it comes as a flash of reality, a lightning recognition of something that cannot be travestied. it is not in time. it is eternity. i suspect you know it now with me; in fact i am certain that you do.... i remember how, many years ago--in that delightful period between boyhood and manhood when we felt our wings and argued about the universe--we discovered this unearthly quality in three different things: the song of a bird, the eyes of a child, and a wild-flower come upon unexpectedly in a scene of desolation. for in all three, we agreed, shines that wonder which holds adoration, that joy which is spontaneous and uncalculated, and that surprise which pertains to eternity looking out triumphantly upon ephemeral things. so, at least, in our youthful eagerness, we agreed; and to this day one in particular of the three--a bird's song--always makes me think of god. that divine, ecstatic, simple sound is to me ever both surprising and unearthly. each time it takes me by surprise--that people do not hush their talk to kneel and listen.... and of the eyes of little children--if there is any clearer revelation granted to us of what is unearthly in the sense of divinity brought close, i do not know it. each time my spirit is arrested by surprise, then filled with wondering joy as i meet that strange open look, so stainless, accepting the universe as its rightful toy, and, as with the bird and flower, saying yes to life as though there could not possibly exist a no. the wildflower too: you recall once--it was above igls when the tyrolean snows were melting--how we found a sudden gentian on the dead, pale grass? the sliding snows had left the coarse tufts stroked all one way, white and ugly, thickly streaked with mud, no single blade with any sign of life or greenness yet, when we came upon that star of concentrated beauty, more blue than the blue sky overhead, the whole passion of the earth in each pointed petal. a distant avalanche, as though the hills were settling, the bustle of the torrent, the wind in the pines and larches, only marked by contrast the incredible stillness of the heights--then, suddenly, this star of blue blazing among the desolation. i recall your cry and my own--wonder, joy, as of something unearthly--that took us by surprise. in these three, certainly, lay the authentic thrill i speak of; while it lasts, the actual moment seems but a pedestal from which the eyes of the heart look into heaven, a pedestal from which the soul leaps out into the surrounding garden of limitless possibilities which are its birthright, and immediately accessible. and that, indeed, is the essential meaning of the thrill--that heaven is here and now. the gates of ivory are very tiny; beauty sounds the elfin horns that opens them; smaller than the eye of a needle is that opening--upon the diamond point of the thrill you flash within, and the garden of eternity is yours for ever--now. i am writing this to you, because i know you listen with your heart, not with your nerves; and the garden that i write about you know now better than i do myself. i have but tasted it, you dwell therein, unaged, unageing. and so we share the flowers; we know the light, the fragrance and the birds we know together.... they tell me--even our mother says it sometimes with a sigh--that you are far away, not understanding that we have but recovered the garden of our early childhood, you permanently, i whenever the thrill opens the happy gates. you are as near to me as that. our love was forged inside those ivory gates that guard that childhood state, facing four ways, and if i wandered outside a-while, puzzled and lonely, the thrill of beauty has led me back again, and i, have found your love unchanged, unaged, still growing in the garden of our earliest memories. i did but lose my way for a time.... that childhood state must be amazingly close to god, i suppose, for though no child is consciously aware of beauty, its whole being cries yes to the universe and life as naturally and instinctively as a flower turns to the sun. the universe lies in its overall pocket of alpaca, and beauty only becomes a thing apart when the growing consciousness, hearing the world cry no, steps through the gates to enquire and cannot find the entrance any more. beauty then becomes a signpost showing the way home again. baudelaire, of course, meant god and heaven, instead of "genius" when he said, "le genie n'est que l'enfance retrouvee a volonte...." and so when i write to you, i find myself again within the garden of our childhood, that english garden where our love shared all the light and fragrance and flowers of the world together. "time's but a golden wind that shakes the grass," and since my thought is with you, you are with me now... and now means always or it means nothing. so these relationships are real still among a thousand shadows. your beauty was truth, hers was unselfish love. the important thing is to know you still live, not with regret and selfish grief, but with that joy and sure conviction which makes the so-called separation a temporary test, perhaps, but never a final blow. what are the few years of separation compared to this certainty of co-operation in eternity? we live but a few years together in the flesh, yet if those few are lived with beauty and beautifully, the tie is unalterably forged which fastens us lovingly together for ever. where, how, under what precise conditions it were idle to enquire and unnecessary--the wrong way too. our only knowledge (in the scientific sense) comes to us through our earthly senses. to forecast our future life, constructing it of necessity upon this earthly sensory experience, is an occupation for those who have neither faith nor imagination. all such "heavens" are but clumsy idealizations of the present--"happy hunting grounds" in various forms: whereas we know that if we lived beauty together, we shall live it always--"afterwards," as our poor time-ridden language phrases it. for beauty, once known, cannot exclude us. we cooperated with the power that makes the universe alive. and, knowing this, i do not ask for your "return," or for any so-called evidence that you survive. in beauty you both live now with less hampered hands, less troubled breath, and i am glad. why should you come, indeed, through the gutter of my worn, familiar, personal desires, when the open channel of beauty lies ever at the flood for you to use? coming in this way, you come, besides, for many, not for me alone, since behind every thrill of beauty stand the countless brave souls who lived it in their lives. they have entered the mighty rhythm that floats the spiral nebulae in space, as it turns the little aspiring nautilus in the depths of the sea. having once felt this impersonal worship which is love of beauty, they are linked to the power that drives the universe towards perfection, the power that knocks in a million un-advertised forms at every human heart: and that is god. with that beneficent power you cooperate. i ask no other test. i crave no evidence that you selfishly remember me. in the body we did not know so closely. to see into your physical eyes, and touch your hand, and hear your voice--these were but intermediary methods, symbols, at the best. for you i never saw nor touched nor heard. i felt you--in my heart. the closest intimacy we knew was when together we shared one moment of the same beauty; no other intimacy approaches the reality of that; it is now strengthened to a degree unrealized before. for me that is enough. i have that faith, that certainty, that knowledge. should you come to me otherwise i must disown you. should you stammer through another's earthly lips that you now enjoy a mere idealized repetition of your physical limitations, i should know my love, my memory, my hope degraded, nay, my very faith destroyed. to summon you in that way makes me shudder. it would be to limit your larger uses, your wider mission, merely to numb a selfish grief born of a faithless misunderstanding. come to me instead--or, rather, stay, since you have never left--be with me still in the wonder of dawn and twilight, in the yearning desire of inarticulate black night, in the wind, the sunshine, and the rain. it is then that i am nearest to you and to your beneficent activity, for the same elemental rhythm of beauty includes us both. the best and highest of you are there; i want no lesser assurance, no broken personal revelation. eternal beauty brings you with an intimacy unknown, impossible, indeed, to partial disclosure. i should abhor a halting masquerade, a stammering message less intelligible even than our intercourse of the body. come, then! be with me, your truth and marion's tenderness linked together with what is noblest in myself. be with me in the simple loveliness of an english garden where you and i, as boys together, first heard that voice of wonder, and knew the presence walking with us among the growing leaves. the end three more john silence stories by algernon blackwood to m.l.w. the original of john silence and my companion in many adventures contents case i: secret worship case ii: the camp of the dog case iii: a victim of higher space case i: secret worship harris, the silk merchant, was in south germany on his way home from a business trip when the idea came to him suddenly that he would take the mountain railway from strassbourg and run down to revisit his old school after an interval of something more than thirty years. and it was to this chance impulse of the junior partner in harris brothers of st. paul's churchyard that john silence owed one of the most curious cases of his whole experience, for at that very moment he happened to be tramping these same mountains with a holiday knapsack, and from different points of the compass the two men were actually converging towards the same inn. now, deep down in the heart that for thirty years had been concerned chiefly with the profitable buying and selling of silk, this school had left the imprint of its peculiar influence, and, though perhaps unknown to harris, had strongly coloured the whole of his subsequent existence. it belonged to the deeply religious life of a small protestant community (which it is unnecessary to specify), and his father had sent him there at the age of fifteen, partly because he would learn the german requisite for the conduct of the silk business, and partly because the discipline was strict, and discipline was what his soul and body needed just then more than anything else. the life, indeed, had proved exceedingly severe, and young harris benefited accordingly; for though corporal punishment was unknown, there was a system of mental and spiritual correction which somehow made the soul stand proudly erect to receive it, while it struck at the very root of the fault and taught the boy that his character was being cleaned and strengthened, and that he was not merely being tortured in a kind of personal revenge. that was over thirty years ago, when he was a dreamy and impressionable youth of fifteen; and now, as the train climbed slowly up the winding mountain gorges, his mind travelled back somewhat lovingly over the intervening period, and forgotten details rose vividly again before him out of the shadows. the life there had been very wonderful, it seemed to him, in that remote mountain village, protected from the tumults of the world by the love and worship of the devout brotherhood that ministered to the needs of some hundred boys from every country in europe. sharply the scenes came back to him. he smelt again the long stone corridors, the hot pinewood rooms, where the sultry hours of summer study were passed with bees droning through open windows in the sunshine, and german characters struggling in the mind with dreams of english lawns--and then the sudden awful cry of the master in german-- "harris, stand up! you sleep!" and he recalled the dreadful standing motionless for an hour, book in hand, while the knees felt like wax and the head grew heavier than a cannon-ball. the very smell of the cooking came back to him--the daily _sauerkraut_, the watery chocolate on sundays, the flavour of the stringy meat served twice a week at _mittagessen_; and he smiled to think again of the half-rations that was the punishment for speaking english. the very odour of the milk-bowls,--the hot sweet aroma that rose from the soaking peasant-bread at the six-o'clock breakfast,--came back to him pungently, and he saw the huge _speisesaal_ with the hundred boys in their school uniform, all eating sleepily in silence, gulping down the coarse bread and scalding milk in terror of the bell that would presently cut them short--and, at the far end where the masters sat, he saw the narrow slit windows with the vistas of enticing field and forest beyond. and this, in turn, made him think of the great barnlike room on the top floor where all slept together in wooden cots, and he heard in memory the clamour of the cruel bell that woke them on winter mornings at five o'clock and summoned them to the stone-flagged _waschkammer_, where boys and masters alike, after scanty and icy washing, dressed in complete silence. from this his mind passed swiftly, with vivid picture-thoughts, to other things, and with a passing shiver he remembered how the loneliness of never being alone had eaten into him, and how everything--work, meals, sleep, walks, leisure--was done with his "division" of twenty other boys and under the eyes of at least two masters. the only solitude possible was by asking for half an hour's practice in the cell-like music rooms, and harris smiled to himself as he recalled the zeal of his violin studies. then, as the train puffed laboriously through the great pine forests that cover these mountains with a giant carpet of velvet, he found the pleasanter layers of memory giving up their dead, and he recalled with admiration the kindness of the masters, whom all addressed as brother, and marvelled afresh at their devotion in burying themselves for years in such a place, only to leave it, in most cases, for the still rougher life of missionaries in the wild places of the world. he thought once more of the still, religious atmosphere that hung over the little forest community like a veil, barring the distressful world; of the picturesque ceremonies at easter, christmas, and new year; of the numerous feast-days and charming little festivals. the _beschehr-fest_, in particular, came back to him,--the feast of gifts at christmas,--when the entire community paired off and gave presents, many of which had taken weeks to make or the savings of many days to purchase. and then he saw the midnight ceremony in the church at new year, with the shining face of the _prediger_ in the pulpit,--the village preacher who, on the last night of the old year, saw in the empty gallery beyond the organ loft the faces of all who were to die in the ensuing twelve months, and who at last recognised himself among them, and, in the very middle of his sermon, passed into a state of rapt ecstasy and burst into a torrent of praise. thickly the memories crowded upon him. the picture of the small village dreaming its unselfish life on the mountain-tops, clean, wholesome, simple, searching vigorously for its god, and training hundreds of boys in the grand way, rose up in his mind with all the power of an obsession. he felt once more the old mystical enthusiasm, deeper than the sea and more wonderful than the stars; he heard again the winds sighing from leagues of forest over the red roofs in the moonlight; he heard the brothers' voices talking of the things beyond this life as though they had actually experienced them in the body; and, as he sat in the jolting train, a spirit of unutterable longing passed over his seared and tired soul, stirring in the depths of him a sea of emotions that he thought had long since frozen into immobility. and the contrast pained him,--the idealistic dreamer then, the man of business now,--so that a spirit of unworldly peace and beauty known only to the soul in meditation laid its feathered finger upon his heart, moving strangely the surface of the waters. harris shivered a little and looked out of the window of his empty carriage. the train had long passed hornberg, and far below the streams tumbled in white foam down the limestone rocks. in front of him, dome upon dome of wooded mountain stood against the sky. it was october, and the air was cool and sharp, woodsmoke and damp moss exquisitely mingled in it with the subtle odours of the pines. overhead, between the tips of the highest firs, he saw the first stars peeping, and the sky was a clean, pale amethyst that seemed exactly the colour all these memories clothed themselves with in his mind. he leaned back in his corner and sighed. he was a heavy man, and he had not known sentiment for years; he was a big man, and it took much to move him, literally and figuratively; he was a man in whom the dreams of god that haunt the soul in youth, though overlaid by the scum that gathers in the fight for money, had not, as with the majority, utterly died the death. he came back into this little neglected pocket of the years, where so much fine gold had collected and lain undisturbed, with all his semispiritual emotions aquiver; and, as he watched the mountain-tops come nearer, and smelt the forgotten odours of his boyhood, something melted on the surface of his soul and left him sensitive to a degree he had not known since, thirty years before, he had lived here with his dreams, his conflicts, and his youthful suffering. a thrill ran through him as the train stopped with a jolt at a tiny station and he saw the name in large black lettering on the grey stone building, and below it, the number of metres it stood above the level of the sea. "the highest point on the line!" he exclaimed. "how well i remember it--sommerau--summer meadow. the very next station is mine!" and, as the train ran downhill with brakes on and steam shut off, he put his head out of the window and one by one saw the old familiar landmarks in the dusk. they stared at him like dead faces in a dream. queer, sharp feelings, half poignant, half sweet, stirred in his heart. "there's the hot, white road we walked along so often with the two brüder always at our heels," he thought; "and there, by jove, is the turn through the forest to '_die galgen_,' the stone gallows where they hanged the witches in olden days!" he smiled a little as the train slid past. "and there's the copse where the lilies of the valley powdered the ground in spring; and, i swear,"--he put his head out with a sudden impulse--"if that's not the very clearing where calame, the french boy, chased the swallow-tail with me, and bruder pagel gave us half-rations for leaving the road without permission, and for shouting in our mother tongues!" and he laughed again as the memories came back with a rush, flooding his mind with vivid detail. the train stopped, and he stood on the grey gravel platform like a man in a dream. it seemed half a century since he last waited there with corded wooden boxes, and got into the train for strassbourg and home after the two years' exile. time dropped from him like an old garment and he felt a boy again. only, things looked so much smaller than his memory of them; shrunk and dwindled they looked, and the distances seemed on a curiously smaller scale. he made his way across the road to the little gasthaus, and, as he went, faces and figures of former schoolfellows,--german, swiss, italian, french, russian,--slipped out of the shadowy woods and silently accompanied him. they flitted by his side, raising their eyes questioningly, sadly, to his. but their names he had forgotten. some of the brothers, too, came with them, and most of these he remembered by name--bruder röst, bruder pagel, bruder schliemann, and the bearded face of the old preacher who had seen himself in the haunted gallery of those about to die--bruder gysin. the dark forest lay all about him like a sea that any moment might rush with velvet waves upon the scene and sweep all the faces away. the air was cool and wonderfully fragrant, but with every perfumed breath came also a pallid memory.... yet, in spite of the underlying sadness inseparable from such an experience, it was all very interesting, and held a pleasure peculiarly its own, so that harris engaged his room and ordered supper feeling well pleased with himself, and intending to walk up to the old school that very evening. it stood in the centre of the community's village, some four miles distant through the forest, and he now recollected for the first time that this little protestant settlement dwelt isolated in a section of the country that was otherwise catholic. crucifixes and shrines surrounded the clearing like the sentries of a beleaguering army. once beyond the square of the village, with its few acres of field and orchard, the forest crowded up in solid phalanxes, and beyond the rim of trees began the country that was ruled by the priests of another faith. he vaguely remembered, too, that the catholics had showed sometimes a certain hostility towards the little protestant oasis that flourished so quietly and benignly in their midst. he had quite forgotten this. how trumpery it all seemed now with his wide experience of life and his knowledge of other countries and the great outside world. it was like stepping back, not thirty years, but three hundred. there were only two others besides himself at supper. one of them, a bearded, middle-aged man in tweeds, sat by himself at the far end, and harris kept out of his way because he was english. he feared he might be in business, possibly even in the silk business, and that he would perhaps talk on the subject. the other traveller, however, was a catholic priest. he was a little man who ate his salad with a knife, yet so gently that it was almost inoffensive, and it was the sight of "the cloth" that recalled his memory of the old antagonism. harris mentioned by way of conversation the object of his sentimental journey, and the priest looked up sharply at him with raised eyebrows and an expression of surprise and suspicion that somehow piqued him. he ascribed it to his difference of belief. "yes," went on the silk merchant, pleased to talk of what his mind was so full, "and it was a curious experience for an english boy to be dropped down into a school of a hundred foreigners. i well remember the loneliness and intolerable heimweh of it at first." his german was very fluent. the priest opposite looked up from his cold veal and potato salad and smiled. it was a nice face. he explained quietly that he did not belong here, but was making a tour of the parishes of wurttemberg and baden. "it was a strict life," added harris. "we english, i remember, used to call it _gefängnisleben_--prison life!" the face of the other, for some unaccountable reason, darkened. after a slight pause, and more by way of politeness than because he wished to continue the subject, he said quietly-- "it was a flourishing school in those days, of course. afterwards, i have heard--" he shrugged his shoulders slightly, and the odd look--it almost seemed a look of alarm--came back into his eyes. the sentence remained unfinished. something in the tone of the man seemed to his listener uncalled for--in a sense reproachful, singular. harris bridled in spite of himself. "it has changed?" he asked. "i can hardly believe--" "you have not heard, then?" observed the priest gently, making a gesture as though to cross himself, yet not actually completing it. "you have not heard what happened there before it was abandoned--?" it was very childish, of course, and perhaps he was overtired and overwrought in some way, but the words and manner of the little priest seemed to him so offensive--so disproportionately offensive--that he hardly noticed the concluding sentence. he recalled the old bitterness and the old antagonism, and for a moment he almost lost his temper. "nonsense," he interrupted with a forced laugh, "_unsinn_! you must forgive me, sir, for contradicting you. but i was a pupil there myself. i was at school there. there was no place like it. i cannot believe that anything serious could have happened to--to take away its character. the devotion of the brothers would be difficult to equal anywhere--" he broke off suddenly, realising that his voice had been raised unduly and that the man at the far end of the table might understand german; and at the same moment he looked up and saw that this individual's eyes were fixed upon his face intently. they were peculiarly bright. also they were rather wonderful eyes, and the way they met his own served in some way he could not understand to convey both a reproach and a warning. the whole face of the stranger, indeed, made a vivid impression upon him, for it was a face, he now noticed for the first time, in whose presence one would not willingly have said or done anything unworthy. harris could not explain to himself how it was he had not become conscious sooner of its presence. but he could have bitten off his tongue for having so far forgotten himself. the little priest lapsed into silence. only once he said, looking up and speaking in a low voice that was not intended to be overheard, but that evidently _was_ overheard, "you will find it different." presently he rose and left the table with a polite bow that included both the others. and, after him, from the far end rose also the figure in the tweed suit, leaving harris by himself. he sat on for a bit in the darkening room, sipping his coffee and smoking his fifteen-pfennig cigar, till the girl came in to light the oil lamps. he felt vexed with himself for his lapse from good manners, yet hardly able to account for it. most likely, he reflected, he had been annoyed because the priest had unintentionally changed the pleasant character of his dream by introducing a jarring note. later he must seek an opportunity to make amends. at present, however, he was too impatient for his walk to the school, and he took his stick and hat and passed out into the open air. and, as he crossed before the gasthaus, he noticed that the priest and the man in the tweed suit were engaged already in such deep conversation that they hardly noticed him as he passed and raised his hat. he started off briskly, well remembering the way, and hoping to reach the village in time to have a word with one of the brüder. they might even ask him in for a cup of coffee. he felt sure of his welcome, and the old memories were in full possession once more. the hour of return was a matter of no consequence whatever. it was then just after seven o'clock, and the october evening was drawing in with chill airs from the recesses of the forest. the road plunged straight from the railway clearing into its depths, and in a very few minutes the trees engulfed him and the clack of his boots fell dead and echoless against the serried stems of a million firs. it was very black; one trunk was hardly distinguishable from another. he walked smartly, swinging his holly stick. once or twice he passed a peasant on his way to bed, and the guttural "gruss got," unheard for so long, emphasised the passage of time, while yet making it seem as nothing. a fresh group of pictures crowded his mind. again the figures of former schoolfellows flitted out of the forest and kept pace by his side, whispering of the doings of long ago. one reverie stepped hard upon the heels of another. every turn in the road, every clearing of the forest, he knew, and each in turn brought forgotten associations to life. he enjoyed himself thoroughly. he marched on and on. there was powdered gold in the sky till the moon rose, and then a wind of faint silver spread silently between the earth and stars. he saw the tips of the fir trees shimmer, and heard them whisper as the breeze turned their needles towards the light. the mountain air was indescribably sweet. the road shone like the foam of a river through the gloom. white moths flitted here and there like silent thoughts across his path, and a hundred smells greeted him from the forest caverns across the years. then, when he least expected it, the trees fell away abruptly on both sides, and he stood on the edge of the village clearing. he walked faster. there lay the familiar outlines of the houses, sheeted with silver; there stood the trees in the little central square with the fountain and small green lawns; there loomed the shape of the church next to the gasthof der brüdergemeinde; and just beyond, dimly rising into the sky, he saw with a sudden thrill the mass of the huge school building, blocked castlelike with deep shadows in the moonlight, standing square and formidable to face him after the silences of more than a quarter of a century. he passed quickly down the deserted village street and stopped close beneath its shadow, staring up at the walls that had once held him prisoner for two years--two unbroken years of discipline and homesickness. memories and emotions surged through his mind; for the most vivid sensations of his youth had focused about this spot, and it was here he had first begun to live and learn values. not a single footstep broke the silence, though lights glimmered here and there through cottage windows; but when he looked up at the high walls of the school, draped now in shadow, he easily imagined that well-known faces crowded to the windows to greet him--closed windows that really reflected only moonlight and the gleam of stars. this, then, was the old school building, standing foursquare to the world, with its shuttered windows, its lofty, tiled roof, and the spiked lightning-conductors pointing like black and taloned fingers from the corners. for a long time he stood and stared. then, presently, he came to himself again, and realised to his joy that a light still shone in the windows of the bruderstube. he turned from the road and passed through the iron railings; then climbed the twelve stone steps and stood facing the black wooden door with the heavy bars of iron, a door he had once loathed and dreaded with the hatred and passion of an imprisoned soul, but now looked upon tenderly with a sort of boyish delight. almost timorously he pulled the rope and listened with a tremor of excitement to the clanging of the bell deep within the building. and the long-forgotten sound brought the past before him with such a vivid sense of reality that he positively shivered. it was like the magic bell in the fairy-tale that rolls back the curtain of time and summons the figures from the shadows of the dead. he had never felt so sentimental in his life. it was like being young again. and, at the same time, he began to bulk rather large in his own eyes with a certain spurious importance. he was a big man from the world of strife and action. in this little place of peaceful dreams would he, perhaps, not cut something of a figure? "i'll try once more," he thought after a long pause, seizing the iron bell-rope, and was just about to pull it when a step sounded on the stone passage within, and the huge door slowly swung open. a tall man with a rather severe cast of countenance stood facing him in silence. "i must apologise--it is somewhat late," he began a trifle pompously, "but the fact is i am an old pupil. i have only just arrived and really could not restrain myself." his german seemed not quite so fluent as usual. "my interest is so great. i was here in ' ." the other opened the door wider and at once bowed him in with a smile of genuine welcome. "i am bruder kalkmann," he said quietly in a deep voice. "i myself was a master here about that time. it is a great pleasure always to welcome a former pupil." he looked at him very keenly for a few seconds, and then added, "i think, too, it is splendid of you to come--very splendid." "it is a very great pleasure," harris replied, delighted with his reception. the dimly lighted corridor with its flooring of grey stone, and the familiar sound of a german voice echoing through it,--with the peculiar intonation the brothers always used in speaking,--all combined to lift him bodily, as it were, into the dream-atmosphere of long-forgotten days. he stepped gladly into the building and the door shut with the familiar thunder that completed the reconstruction of the past. he almost felt the old sense of imprisonment, of aching nostalgia, of having lost his liberty. harris sighed involuntarily and turned towards his host, who returned his smile faintly and then led the way down the corridor. "the boys have retired," he explained, "and, as you remember, we keep early hours here. but, at least, you will join us for a little while in the _bruderstube_ and enjoy a cup of coffee." this was precisely what the silk merchant had hoped, and he accepted with an alacrity that he intended to be tempered by graciousness. "and to-morrow," continued the bruder, "you must come and spend a whole day with us. you may even find acquaintances, for several pupils of your day have come back here as masters." for one brief second there passed into the man's eyes a look that made the visitor start. but it vanished as quickly as it came. it was impossible to define. harris convinced himself it was the effect of a shadow cast by the lamp they had just passed on the wall. he dismissed it from his mind. "you are very kind, i'm sure," he said politely. "it is perhaps a greater pleasure to me than you can imagine to see the place again. ah,"--he stopped short opposite a door with the upper half of glass and peered in--"surely there is one of the music rooms where i used to practise the violin. how it comes back to me after all these years!" bruder kalkmann stopped indulgently, smiling, to allow his guest a moment's inspection. "you still have the boys' orchestra? i remember i used to play 'zweite geige' in it. bruder schliemann conducted at the piano. dear me, i can see him now with his long black hair and--and--" he stopped abruptly. again the odd, dark look passed over the stern face of his companion. for an instant it seemed curiously familiar. "we still keep up the pupils' orchestra," he said, "but bruder schliemann, i am sorry to say--" he hesitated an instant, and then added, "bruder schliemann is dead." "indeed, indeed," said harris quickly. "i am sorry to hear it." he was conscious of a faint feeling of distress, but whether it arose from the news of his old music teacher's death, or--from something else--he could not quite determine. he gazed down the corridor that lost itself among shadows. in the street and village everything had seemed so much smaller than he remembered, but here, inside the school building, everything seemed so much bigger. the corridor was loftier and longer, more spacious and vast, than the mental picture he had preserved. his thoughts wandered dreamily for an instant. he glanced up and saw the face of the bruder watching him with a smile of patient indulgence. "your memories possess you," he observed gently, and the stern look passed into something almost pitying. "you are right," returned the man of silk, "they do. this was the most wonderful period of my whole life in a sense. at the time i hated it--" he hesitated, not wishing to hurt the brother's feelings. "according to english ideas it seemed strict, of course," the other said persuasively, so that he went on. "--yes, partly that; and partly the ceaseless nostalgia, and the solitude which came from never being really alone. in english schools the boys enjoy peculiar freedom, you know." bruder kalkmann, he saw, was listening intently. "but it produced one result that i have never wholly lost," he continued self-consciously, "and am grateful for." "_ach! wie so, denn?_" "the constant inner pain threw me headlong into your religious life, so that the whole force of my being seemed to project itself towards the search for a deeper satisfaction--a real resting-place for the soul. during my two years here i yearned for god in my boyish way as perhaps i have never yearned for anything since. moreover, i have never quite lost that sense of peace and inward joy which accompanied the search. i can never quite forget this school and the deep things it taught me." he paused at the end of his long speech, and a brief silence fell between them. he feared he had said too much, or expressed himself clumsily in the foreign language, and when bruder kalkmann laid a hand upon his shoulder, he gave a little involuntary start. "so that my memories perhaps do possess me rather strongly," he added apologetically; "and this long corridor, these rooms, that barred and gloomy front door, all touch chords that--that--" his german failed him and he glanced at his companion with an explanatory smile and gesture. but the brother had removed the hand from his shoulder and was standing with his back to him, looking down the passage. "naturally, naturally so," he said hastily without turning round. "_es ist doch selbstverständlich_. we shall all understand." then he turned suddenly, and harris saw that his face had turned most oddly and disagreeably sinister. it may only have been the shadows again playing their tricks with the wretched oil lamps on the wall, for the dark expression passed instantly as they retraced their steps down the corridor, but the englishman somehow got the impression that he had said something to give offence, something that was not quite to the other's taste. opposite the door of the _bruderstube_ they stopped. harris realised that it was late and he had possibly stayed talking too long. he made a tentative effort to leave, but his companion would not hear of it. "you must have a cup of coffee with us," he said firmly as though he meant it, "and my colleagues will be delighted to see you. some of them will remember you, perhaps." the sound of voices came pleasantly through the door, men's voices talking together. bruder kalkmann turned the handle and they entered a room ablaze with light and full of people. "ah,--but your name?" he whispered, bending down to catch the reply; "you have not told me your name yet." "harris," said the englishman quickly as they went in. he felt nervous as he crossed the threshold, but ascribed the momentary trepidation to the fact that he was breaking the strictest rule of the whole establishment, which forbade a boy under severest penalties to come near this holy of holies where the masters took their brief leisure. "ah, yes, of course--harris," repeated the other as though he remembered it. "come in, herr harris, come in, please. your visit will be immensely appreciated. it is really very fine, very wonderful of you to have come in this way." the door closed behind them and, in the sudden light which made his sight swim for a moment, the exaggeration of the language escaped his attention. he heard the voice of bruder kalkmann introducing him. he spoke very loud, indeed, unnecessarily,--absurdly loud, harris thought. "brothers," he announced, "it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce to you herr harris from england. he has just arrived to make us a little visit, and i have already expressed to him on behalf of us all the satisfaction we feel that he is here. he was, as you remember, a pupil in the year ' ." it was a very formal, a very german introduction, but harris rather liked it. it made him feel important and he appreciated the tact that made it almost seem as though he had been expected. the black forms rose and bowed; harris bowed; kalkmann bowed. every one was very polite and very courtly. the room swam with moving figures; the light dazzled him after the gloom of the corridor, there was thick cigar smoke in the atmosphere. he took the chair that was offered to him between two of the brothers, and sat down, feeling vaguely that his perceptions were not quite as keen and accurate as usual. he felt a trifle dazed perhaps, and the spell of the past came strongly over him, confusing the immediate present and making everything dwindle oddly to the dimensions of long ago. he seemed to pass under the mastery of a great mood that was a composite reproduction of all the moods of his forgotten boyhood. then he pulled himself together with a sharp effort and entered into the conversation that had begun again to buzz round him. moreover, he entered into it with keen pleasure, for the brothers--there were perhaps a dozen of them in the little room--treated him with a charm of manner that speedily made him feel one of themselves. this, again, was a very subtle delight to him. he felt that he had stepped out of the greedy, vulgar, self-seeking world, the world of silk and markets and profit-making--stepped into the cleaner atmosphere where spiritual ideals were paramount and life was simple and devoted. it all charmed him inexpressibly, so that he realised--yes, in a sense--the degradation of his twenty years' absorption in business. this keen atmosphere under the stars where men thought only of their souls, and of the souls of others, was too rarefied for the world he was now associated with. he found himself making comparisons to his own disadvantage,--comparisons with the mystical little dreamer that had stepped thirty years before from the stern peace of this devout community, and the man of the world that he had since become,--and the contrast made him shiver with a keen regret and something like self-contempt. he glanced round at the other faces floating towards him through tobacco smoke--this acrid cigar smoke he remembered so well: how keen they were, how strong, placid, touched with the nobility of great aims and unselfish purposes. at one or two he looked particularly. he hardly knew why. they rather fascinated him. there was something so very stern and uncompromising about them, and something, too, oddly, subtly, familiar, that yet just eluded him. but whenever their eyes met his own they held undeniable welcome in them; and some held more--a kind of perplexed admiration, he thought, something that was between esteem and deference. this note of respect in all the faces was very flattering to his vanity. coffee was served presently, made by a black-haired brother who sat in the corner by the piano and bore a marked resemblance to bruder schliemann, the musical director of thirty years ago. harris exchanged bows with him when he took the cup from his white hands, which he noticed were like the hands of a woman. he lit a cigar, offered to him by his neighbour, with whom he was chatting delightfully, and who, in the glare of the lighted match, reminded him sharply for a moment of bruder pagel, his former room-master. "_es ist wirklich merkwürdig_," he said, "how many resemblances i see, or imagine. it is really _very_ curious!" "yes," replied the other, peering at him over his coffee cup, "the spell of the place is wonderfully strong. i can well understand that the old faces rise before your mind's eye--almost to the exclusion of ourselves perhaps." they both laughed presently. it was soothing to find his mood understood and appreciated. and they passed on to talk of the mountain village, its isolation, its remoteness from worldly life, its peculiar fitness for meditation and worship, and for spiritual development--of a certain kind. "and your coming back in this way, herr harris, has pleased us all so much," joined in the bruder on his left. "we esteem you for it most highly. we honour you for it." harris made a deprecating gesture. "i fear, for my part, it is only a very selfish pleasure," he said a trifle unctuously. "not all would have had the courage," added the one who resembled bruder pagel. "you mean," said harris, a little puzzled, "the disturbing memories--?" bruder pagel looked at him steadily, with unmistakable admiration and respect. "i mean that most men hold so strongly to life, and can give up so little for their beliefs," he said gravely. the englishman felt slightly uncomfortable. these worthy men really made too much of his sentimental journey. besides, the talk was getting a little out of his depth. he hardly followed it. "the worldly life still has _some_ charms for me," he replied smilingly, as though to indicate that sainthood was not yet quite within his grasp. "all the more, then, must we honour you for so freely coming," said the brother on his left; "so unconditionally!" a pause followed, and the silk merchant felt relieved when the conversation took a more general turn, although he noted that it never travelled very far from the subject of his visit and the wonderful situation of the lonely village for men who wished to develop their spiritual powers and practise the rites of a high worship. others joined in, complimenting him on his knowledge of the language, making him feel utterly at his ease, yet at the same time a little uncomfortable by the excess of their admiration. after all, it was such a very small thing to do, this sentimental journey. the time passed along quickly; the coffee was excellent, the cigars soft and of the nutty flavour he loved. at length, fearing to outstay his welcome, he rose reluctantly to take his leave. but the others would not hear of it. it was not often a former pupil returned to visit them in this simple, unaffected way. the night was young. if necessary they could even find him a corner in the great _schlafzimmer_ upstairs. he was easily persuaded to stay a little longer. somehow he had become the centre of the little party. he felt pleased, flattered, honoured. "and perhaps bruder schliemann will play something for us--now." it was kalkmann speaking, and harris started visibly as he heard the name, and saw the black-haired man by the piano turn with a smile. for schliemann was the name of his old music director, who was dead. could this be his son? they were so exactly alike. "if bruder meyer has not put his amati to bed, i will accompany him," said the musician suggestively, looking across at a man whom harris had not yet noticed, and who, he now saw, was the very image of a former master of that name. meyer rose and excused himself with a little bow, and the englishman quickly observed that he had a peculiar gesture as though his neck had a false join on to the body just below the collar and feared it might break. meyer of old had this trick of movement. he remembered how the boys used to copy it. he glanced sharply from face to face, feeling as though some silent, unseen process were changing everything about him. all the faces seemed oddly familiar. pagel, the brother he had been talking with, was of course the image of pagel, his former room-master, and kalkmann, he now realised for the first time, was the very twin of another master whose name he had quite forgotten, but whom he used to dislike intensely in the old days. and, through the smoke, peering at him from the corners of the room, he saw that all the brothers about him had the faces he had known and lived with long ago--röst, fluheim, meinert, rigel, gysin. he stared hard, suddenly grown more alert, and everywhere saw, or fancied he saw, strange likenesses, ghostly resemblances,--more, the identical faces of years ago. there was something queer about it all, something not quite right, something that made him feel uneasy. he shook himself, mentally and actually, blowing the smoke from before his eyes with a long breath, and as he did so he noticed to his dismay that every one was fixedly staring. they were watching him. this brought him to his senses. as an englishman, and a foreigner, he did not wish to be rude, or to do anything to make himself foolishly conspicuous and spoil the harmony of the evening. he was a guest, and a privileged guest at that. besides, the music had already begun. bruder schliemann's long white fingers were caressing the keys to some purpose. he subsided into his chair and smoked with half-closed eyes that yet saw everything. but the shudder had established itself in his being, and, whether he would or not, it kept repeating itself. as a town, far up some inland river, feels the pressure of the distant sea, so he became aware that mighty forces from somewhere beyond his ken were urging themselves up against his soul in this smoky little room. he began to feel exceedingly ill at ease. and as the music filled the air his mind began to clear. like a lifted veil there rose up something that had hitherto obscured his vision. the words of the priest at the railway inn flashed across his brain unbidden: "you will find it different." and also, though why he could not tell, he saw mentally the strong, rather wonderful eyes of that other guest at the supper-table, the man who had overheard his conversation, and had later got into earnest talk with the priest. he took out his watch and stole a glance at it. two hours had slipped by. it was already eleven o'clock. schliemann, meanwhile, utterly absorbed in his music, was playing a solemn measure. the piano sang marvellously. the power of a great conviction, the simplicity of great art, the vital spiritual message of a soul that had found itself--all this, and more, were in the chords, and yet somehow the music was what can only be described as impure--atrociously and diabolically impure. and the piece itself, although harris did not recognise it as anything familiar, was surely the music of a mass--huge, majestic, sombre? it stalked through the smoky room with slow power, like the passage of something that was mighty, yet profoundly intimate, and as it went there stirred into each and every face about him the signature of the enormous forces of which it was the audible symbol. the countenances round him turned sinister, but not idly, negatively sinister: they grew dark with purpose. he suddenly recalled the face of bruder kalkmann in the corridor earlier in the evening. the motives of their secret souls rose to the eyes, and mouths, and foreheads, and hung there for all to see like the black banners of an assembly of ill-starred and fallen creatures. demons--was the horrible word that flashed through his brain like a sheet of fire. when this sudden discovery leaped out upon him, for a moment he lost his self-control. without waiting to think and weigh his extraordinary impression, he did a very foolish but a very natural thing. feeling himself irresistibly driven by the sudden stress to some kind of action, he sprang to his feet--and screamed! to his own utter amazement he stood up and shrieked aloud! but no one stirred. no one, apparently, took the slightest notice of his absurdly wild behaviour. it was almost as if no one but himself had heard the scream at all--as though the music had drowned it and swallowed it up--as though after all perhaps he had not really screamed as loudly as he imagined, or had not screamed at all. then, as he glanced at the motionless, dark faces before him, something of utter cold passed into his being, touching his very soul.... all emotion cooled suddenly, leaving him like a receding tide. he sat down again, ashamed, mortified, angry with himself for behaving like a fool and a boy. and the music, meanwhile, continued to issue from the white and snakelike fingers of bruder schliemann, as poisoned wine might issue from the weirdly fashioned necks of antique phials. and, with the rest of them, harris drank it in. forcing himself to believe that he had been the victim of some kind of illusory perception, he vigorously restrained his feelings. then the music presently ceased, and every one applauded and began to talk at once, laughing, changing seats, complimenting the player, and behaving naturally and easily as though nothing out of the way had happened. the faces appeared normal once more. the brothers crowded round their visitor, and he joined in their talk and even heard himself thanking the gifted musician. but, at the same time, he found himself edging towards the door, nearer and nearer, changing his chair when possible, and joining the groups that stood closest to the way of escape. "i must thank you all _tausendmal_ for my little reception and the great pleasure--the very great honour you have done me," he began in decided tones at length, "but i fear i have trespassed far too long already on your hospitality. moreover, i have some distance to walk to my inn." a chorus of voices greeted his words. they would not hear of his going,--at least not without first partaking of refreshment. they produced pumpernickel from one cupboard, and rye-bread and sausage from another, and all began to talk again and eat. more coffee was made, fresh cigars lighted, and bruder meyer took out his violin and began to tune it softly. "there is always a bed upstairs if herr harris will accept it," said one. "and it is difficult to find the way out now, for all the doors are locked," laughed another loudly. "let us take our simple pleasures as they come," cried a third. "bruder harris will understand how we appreciate the honour of this last visit of his." they made a dozen excuses. they all laughed, as though the politeness of their words was but formal, and veiled thinly--more and more thinly--a very different meaning. "and the hour of midnight draws near," added bruder kalkmann with a charming smile, but in a voice that sounded to the englishman like the grating of iron hinges. their german seemed to him more and more difficult to understand. he noted that they called him "bruder" too, classing him as one of themselves. and then suddenly he had a flash of keener perception, and realised with a creeping of his flesh that he had all along misinterpreted--grossly misinterpreted all they had been saying. they had talked about the beauty of the place, its isolation and remoteness from the world, its peculiar fitness for certain kinds of spiritual development and worship--yet hardly, he now grasped, in the sense in which he had taken the words. they had meant something different. their spiritual powers, their desire for loneliness, their passion for worship, were not the powers, the solitude, or the worship that _he_ meant and understood. he was playing a part in some horrible masquerade; he was among men who cloaked their lives with religion in order to follow their real purposes unseen of men. what did it all mean? how had he blundered into so equivocal a situation? had he blundered into it at all? had he not rather been led into it, deliberately led? his thoughts grew dreadfully confused, and his confidence in himself began to fade. and why, he suddenly thought again, were they so impressed by the mere fact of his coming to revisit his old school? what was it they so admired and wondered at in his simple act? why did they set such store upon his having the courage to come, to "give himself so freely," "unconditionally" as one of them had expressed it with such a mockery of exaggeration? fear stirred in his heart most horribly, and he found no answer to any of his questionings. only one thing he now understood quite clearly: it was their purpose to keep him here. they did not intend that he should go. and from this moment he realised that they were sinister, formidable and, in some way he had yet to discover, inimical to himself, inimical to his life. and the phrase one of them had used a moment ago--"this _last_ visit of his"--rose before his eyes in letters of flame. harris was not a man of action, and had never known in all the course of his career what it meant to be in a situation of real danger. he was not necessarily a coward, though, perhaps, a man of untried nerve. he realised at last plainly that he was in a very awkward predicament indeed, and that he had to deal with men who were utterly in earnest. what their intentions were he only vaguely guessed. his mind, indeed, was too confused for definite ratiocination, and he was only able to follow blindly the strongest instincts that moved in him. it never occurred to him that the brothers might all be mad, or that he himself might have temporarily lost his senses and be suffering under some terrible delusion. in fact, nothing occurred to him--he realised nothing--except that he meant to escape--and the quicker the better. a tremendous revulsion of feeling set in and overpowered him. accordingly, without further protest for the moment, he ate his pumpernickel and drank his coffee, talking meanwhile as naturally and pleasantly as he could, and when a suitable interval had passed, he rose to his feet and announced once more that he must now take his leave. he spoke very quietly, but very decidedly. no one hearing him could doubt that he meant what he said. he had got very close to the door by this time. "i regret," he said, using his best german, and speaking to a hushed room, "that our pleasant evening must come to an end, but it is now time for me to wish you all good-night." and then, as no one said anything, he added, though with a trifle less assurance, "and i thank you all most sincerely for your hospitality." "on the contrary," replied kalkmann instantly, rising from his chair and ignoring the hand the englishman had stretched out to him, "it is we who have to thank you; and we do so most gratefully and sincerely." and at the same moment at least half a dozen of the brothers took up their position between himself and the door. "you are very good to say so," harris replied as firmly as he could manage, noticing this movement out of the corner of his eye, "but really i had no conception that--my little chance visit could have afforded you so much pleasure." he moved another step nearer the door, but bruder schliemann came across the room quickly and stood in front of him. his attitude was uncompromising. a dark and terrible expression had come into his face. "but it was _not_ by chance that you came, bruder harris," he said so that all the room could hear; "surely we have not misunderstood your presence here?" he raised his black eyebrows. "no, no," the englishman hastened to reply, "i was--i am delighted to be here. i told you what pleasure it gave me to find myself among you. do not misunderstand me, i beg." his voice faltered a little, and he had difficulty in finding the words. more and more, too, he had difficulty in understanding _their_ words. "of course," interposed bruder kalkmann in his iron bass, "_we_ have not misunderstood. you have come back in the spirit of true and unselfish devotion. you offer yourself freely, and we all appreciate it. it is your willingness and nobility that have so completely won our veneration and respect." a faint murmur of applause ran round the room. "what we all delight in--what our great master will especially delight in--is the value of your spontaneous and voluntary--" he used a word harris did not understand. he said "_opfer_." the bewildered englishman searched his brain for the translation, and searched in vain. for the life of him he could not remember what it meant. but the word, for all his inability to translate it, touched his soul with ice. it was worse, far worse, than anything he had imagined. he felt like a lost, helpless creature, and all power to fight sank out of him from that moment. "it is magnificent to be such a willing--" added schliemann, sidling up to him with a dreadful leer on his face. he made use of the same word--"_opfer_." "god! what could it all mean?" "offer himself!" "true spirit of devotion!" "willing," "unselfish," "magnificent!" _opfer, opfer, opfer!_ what in the name of heaven did it mean, that strange, mysterious word that struck such terror into his heart? he made a valiant effort to keep his presence of mind and hold his nerves steady. turning, he saw that kalkmann's face was a dead white. kalkmann! he understood that well enough. _kalkmann_ meant "man of chalk": he knew that. but what did "_opfer_" mean? that was the real key to the situation. words poured through his disordered mind in an endless stream--unusual, rare words he had perhaps heard but once in his life--while "_opfer_," a word in common use, entirely escaped him. what an extraordinary mockery it all was! then kalkmann, pale as death, but his face hard as iron, spoke a few low words that he did not catch, and the brothers standing by the walls at once turned the lamps down so that the room became dim. in the half light he could only just discern their faces and movements. "it is time," he heard kalkmann's remorseless voice continue just behind him. "the hour of midnight is at hand. let us prepare. he comes! he comes; bruder asmodelius comes!" his voice rose to a chant. and the sound of that name, for some extraordinary reason, was terrible--utterly terrible; so that harris shook from head to foot as he heard it. its utterance filled the air like soft thunder, and a hush came over the whole room. forces rose all about him, transforming the normal into the horrible, and the spirit of craven fear ran through all his being, bringing him to the verge of collapse. _asmodelius! asmodelius!_ the name was appalling. for he understood at last to whom it referred and the meaning that lay between its great syllables. at the same instant, too, he suddenly understood the meaning of that unremembered word. the import of the word "_opfer_" flashed upon his soul like a message of death. he thought of making a wild effort to reach the door, but the weakness of his trembling knees, and the row of black figures that stood between, dissuaded him at once. he would have screamed for help, but remembering the emptiness of the vast building, and the loneliness of the situation, he understood that no help could come that way, and he kept his lips closed. he stood still and did nothing. but he knew now what was coming. two of the brothers approached and took him gently by the arm. "bruder asmodelius accepts you," they whispered; "are you ready?" then he found his tongue and tried to speak. "but what have i to do with this bruder asm--asmo--?" he stammered, a desperate rush of words crowding vainly behind the halting tongue. the name refused to pass his lips. he could not pronounce it as they did. he could not pronounce it at all. his sense of helplessness then entered the acute stage, for this inability to speak the name produced a fresh sense of quite horrible confusion in his mind, and he became extraordinarily agitated. "i came here for a friendly visit," he tried to say with a great effort, but, to his intense dismay, he heard his voice saying something quite different, and actually making use of that very word they had all used: "i came here as a willing _opfer_," he heard his own voice say, "and _i am quite ready_." he was lost beyond all recall now! not alone his mind, but the very muscles of his body had passed out of control. he felt that he was hovering on the confines of a phantom or demon-world,--a world in which the name they had spoken constituted the master-name, the word of ultimate power. what followed he heard and saw as in a nightmare. "in the half light that veils all truth, let us prepare to worship and adore," chanted schliemann, who had preceded him to the end of the room. "in the mists that protect our faces before the black throne, let us make ready the willing victim," echoed kalkmann in his great bass. they raised their faces, listening expectantly, as a roaring sound, like the passing of mighty projectiles, filled the air, far, far away, very wonderful, very forbidding. the walls of the room trembled. "he comes! he comes! he comes!" chanted the brothers in chorus. the sound of roaring died away, and an atmosphere of still and utter cold established itself over all. then kalkmann, dark and unutterably stern, turned in the dim light and faced the rest. "asmodelius, our _hauptbruder_, is about us," he cried in a voice that even while it shook was yet a voice of iron; "asmodelius is about us. make ready." there followed a pause in which no one stirred or spoke. a tall brother approached the englishman; but kalkmann held up his hand. "let the eyes remain uncovered," he said, "in honour of so freely giving himself." and to his horror harris then realised for the first time that his hands were already fastened to his sides. the brother retreated again silently, and in the pause that followed all the figures about him dropped to their knees, leaving him standing alone, and as they dropped, in voices hushed with mingled reverence and awe, they cried, softly, odiously, appallingly, the name of the being whom they momentarily expected to appear. then, at the end of the room, where the windows seemed to have disappeared so that he saw the stars, there rose into view far up against the night sky, grand and terrible, the outline of a man. a kind of grey glory enveloped it so that it resembled a steel-cased statue, immense, imposing, horrific in its distant splendour; while, at the same time, the face was so spiritually mighty, yet so proudly, so austerely sad, that harris felt as he stared, that the sight was more than his eyes could meet, and that in another moment the power of vision would fail him altogether, and he must sink into utter nothingness. so remote and inaccessible hung this figure that it was impossible to gauge anything as to its size, yet at the same time so strangely close, that when the grey radiance from its mightily broken visage, august and mournful, beat down upon his soul, pulsing like some dark star with the powers of spiritual evil, he felt almost as though he were looking into a face no farther removed from him in space than the face of any one of the brothers who stood by his side. and then the room filled and trembled with sounds that harris understood full well were the failing voices of others who had preceded him in a long series down the years. there came first a plain, sharp cry, as of a man in the last anguish, choking for his breath, and yet, with the very final expiration of it, breathing the name of the worship--of the dark being who rejoiced to hear it. the cries of the strangled; the short, running gasp of the suffocated; and the smothered gurgling of the tightened throat, all these, and more, echoed back and forth between the walls, the very walls in which he now stood a prisoner, a sacrificial victim. the cries, too, not alone of the broken bodies, but--far worse--of beaten, broken souls. and as the ghastly chorus rose and fell, there came also the faces of the lost and unhappy creatures to whom they belonged, and, against that curtain of pale grey light, he saw float past him in the air, an array of white and piteous human countenances that seemed to beckon and gibber at him as though he were already one of themselves. slowly, too, as the voices rose, and the pallid crew sailed past, that giant form of grey descended from the sky and approached the room that contained the worshippers and their prisoner. hands rose and sank about him in the darkness, and he felt that he was being draped in other garments than his own; a circlet of ice seemed to run about his head, while round the waist, enclosing the fastened arms, he felt a girdle tightly drawn. at last, about his very throat, there ran a soft and silken touch which, better than if there had been full light, and a mirror held to his face, he understood to be the cord of sacrifice--and of death. at this moment the brothers, still prostrate upon the floor, began again their mournful, yet impassioned chanting, and as they did so a strange thing happened. for, apparently without moving or altering its position, the huge figure seemed, at once and suddenly, to be inside the room, almost beside him, and to fill the space around him to the exclusion of all else. he was now beyond all ordinary sensations of fear, only a drab feeling as of death--the death of the soul--stirred in his heart. his thoughts no longer even beat vainly for escape. the end was near, and he knew it. the dreadfully chanting voices rose about him in a wave: "we worship! we adore! we offer!" the sounds filled his ears and hammered, almost meaningless, upon his brain. then the majestic grey face turned slowly downwards upon him, and his very soul passed outwards and seemed to become absorbed in the sea of those anguished eyes. at the same moment a dozen hands forced him to his knees, and in the air before him he saw the arm of kalkmann upraised, and felt the pressure about his throat grow strong. it was in this awful moment, when he had given up all hope, and the help of gods or men seemed beyond question, that a strange thing happened. for before his fading and terrified vision there slid, as in a dream of light,--yet without apparent rhyme or reason--wholly unbidden and unexplained,--the face of that other man at the supper table of the railway inn. and the sight, even mentally, of that strong, wholesome, vigorous english face, inspired him suddenly with a new courage. it was but a flash of fading vision before he sank into a dark and terrible death, yet, in some inexplicable way, the sight of that face stirred in him unconquerable hope and the certainty of deliverance. it was a face of power, a face, he now realised, of simple goodness such as might have been seen by men of old on the shores of galilee; a face, by heaven, that could conquer even the devils of outer space. and, in his despair and abandonment, he called upon it, and called with no uncertain accents. he found his voice in this overwhelming moment to some purpose; though the words he actually used, and whether they were in german or english, he could never remember. their effect, nevertheless, was instantaneous. the brothers understood, and that grey figure of evil understood. for a second the confusion was terrific. there came a great shattering sound. it seemed that the very earth trembled. but all harris remembered afterwards was that voices rose about him in the clamour of terrified alarm-- "a man of power is among us! a man of god!" the vast sound was repeated--the rushing through space as of huge projectiles--and he sank to the floor of the room, unconscious. the entire scene had vanished, vanished like smoke over the roof of a cottage when the wind blows. and, by his side, sat down a slight un-german figure,--the figure of the stranger at the inn,--the man who had the "rather wonderful eyes." * * * * * when harris came to himself he felt cold. he was lying under the open sky, and the cool air of field and forest was blowing upon his face. he sat up and looked about him. the memory of the late scene was still horribly in his mind, but no vestige of it remained. no walls or ceiling enclosed him; he was no longer in a room at all. there were no lamps turned low, no cigar smoke, no black forms of sinister worshippers, no tremendous grey figure hovering beyond the windows. open space was about him, and he was lying on a pile of bricks and mortar, his clothes soaked with dew, and the kind stars shining brightly overhead. he was lying, bruised and shaken, among the heaped-up débris of a ruined building. he stood up and stared about him. there, in the shadowy distance, lay the surrounding forest, and here, close at hand, stood the outline of the village buildings. but, underfoot, beyond question, lay nothing but the broken heaps of stones that betokened a building long since crumbled to dust. then he saw that the stones were blackened, and that great wooden beams, half burnt, half rotten, made lines through the general débris. he stood, then, among the ruins of a burnt and shattered building, the weeds and nettles proving conclusively that it had lain thus for many years. the moon had already set behind the encircling forest, but the stars that spangled the heavens threw enough light to enable him to make quite sure of what he saw. harris, the silk merchant, stood among these broken and burnt stones and shivered. then he suddenly became aware that out of the gloom a figure had risen and stood beside him. peering at him, he thought he recognised the face of the stranger at the railway inn. "are _you_ real?" he asked in a voice he hardly recognised as his own. "more than real--i'm friendly," replied the stranger; "i followed you up here from the inn." harris stood and stared for several minutes without adding anything. his teeth chattered. the least sound made him start; but the simple words in his own language, and the tone in which they were uttered, comforted him inconceivably. "you're english too, thank god," he said inconsequently. "these german devils--" he broke off and put a hand to his eyes. "but what's become of them all--and the room--and--and--" the hand travelled down to his throat and moved nervously round his neck. he drew a long, long breath of relief. "did i dream everything--everything?" he said distractedly. he stared wildly about him, and the stranger moved forward and took his arm. "come," he said soothingly, yet with a trace of command in the voice, "we will move away from here. the high-road, or even the woods will be more to your taste, for we are standing now on one of the most haunted--and most terribly haunted--spots of the whole world." he guided his companion's stumbling footsteps over the broken masonry until they reached the path, the nettles stinging their hands, and harris feeling his way like a man in a dream. passing through the twisted iron railing they reached the path, and thence made their way to the road, shining white in the night. once safely out of the ruins, harris collected himself and turned to look back. "but, how is it possible?" he exclaimed, his voice still shaking. "how can it be possible? when i came in here i saw the building in the moonlight. they opened the door. i saw the figures and heard the voices and touched, yes touched their very hands, and saw their damned black faces, saw them far more plainly than i see you now." he was deeply bewildered. the glamour was still upon his eyes with a degree of reality stronger than the reality even of normal life. "was i so utterly deluded?" then suddenly the words of the stranger, which he had only half heard or understood, returned to him. "haunted?" he asked, looking hard at him; "haunted, did you say?" he paused in the roadway and stared into the darkness where the building of the old school had first appeared to him. but the stranger hurried him forward. "we shall talk more safely farther on," he said. "i followed you from the inn the moment i realised where you had gone. when i found you it was eleven o'clock--" "eleven o'clock," said harris, remembering with a shudder. "--i saw you drop. i watched over you till you recovered consciousness of your own accord, and now--now i am here to guide you safely back to the inn. i have broken the spell--the glamour--" "i owe you a great deal, sir," interrupted harris again, beginning to understand something of the stranger's kindness, "but i don't understand it all. i feel dazed and shaken." his teeth still chattered, and spells of violent shivering passed over him from head to foot. he found that he was clinging to the other's arm. in this way they passed beyond the deserted and crumbling village and gained the high-road that led homewards through the forest. "that school building has long been in ruins," said the man at his side presently; "it was burnt down by order of the elders of the community at least ten years ago. the village has been uninhabited ever since. but the simulacra of certain ghastly events that took place under that roof in past days still continue. and the 'shells' of the chief participants still enact there the dreadful deeds that led to its final destruction, and to the desertion of the whole settlement. they were devil-worshippers!" harris listened with beads of perspiration on his forehead that did not come alone from their leisurely pace through the cool night. although he had seen this man but once before in his life, and had never before exchanged so much as a word with him, he felt a degree of confidence and a subtle sense of safety and well-being in his presence that were the most healing influences he could possibly have wished after the experience he had been through. for all that, he still felt as if he were walking in a dream, and though he heard every word that fell from his companion's lips, it was only the next day that the full import of all he said became fully clear to him. the presence of this quiet stranger, the man with the wonderful eyes which he felt now, rather than saw, applied a soothing anodyne to his shattered spirit that healed him through and through. and this healing influence, distilled from the dark figure at his side, satisfied his first imperative need, so that he almost forgot to realise how strange and opportune it was that the man should be there at all. it somehow never occurred to him to ask his name, or to feel any undue wonder that one passing tourist should take so much trouble on behalf of another. he just walked by his side, listening to his quiet words, and allowing himself to enjoy the very wonderful experience after his recent ordeal, of being helped, strengthened, blessed. only once, remembering vaguely something of his reading of years ago, he turned to the man beside him, after some more than usually remarkable words, and heard himself, almost involuntarily it seemed, putting the question: "then are you a rosicrucian, sir, perhaps?" but the stranger had ignored the words, or possibly not heard them, for he continued with his talk as though unconscious of any interruption, and harris became aware that another somewhat unusual picture had taken possession of his mind, as they walked there side by side through the cool reaches of the forest, and that he had found his imagination suddenly charged with the childhood memory of jacob wrestling with an angel,--wrestling all night with a being of superior quality whose strength eventually became his own. "it was your abrupt conversation with the priest at supper that first put me upon the track of this remarkable occurrence," he heard the man's quiet voice beside him in the darkness, "and it was from him i learned after you left the story of the devil-worship that became secretly established in the heart of this simple and devout little community." "devil-worship! here--!" harris stammered, aghast. "yes--here;--conducted secretly for years by a group of brothers before unexplained disappearances in the neighbourhood led to its discovery. for where could they have found a safer place in the whole wide world for their ghastly traffic and perverted powers than here, in the very precincts--under cover of the very shadow of saintliness and holy living?" "awful, awful!" whispered the silk merchant, "and when i tell you the words they used to me--" "i know it all," the stranger said quietly. "i saw and heard everything. my plan first was to wait till the end and then to take steps for their destruction, but in the interest of your personal safety,"--he spoke with the utmost gravity and conviction,--"in the interest of the safety of your soul, i made my presence known when i did, and before the conclusion had been reached--" "my safety! the danger, then, was real. they were alive and--" words failed him. he stopped in the road and turned towards his companion, the shining of whose eyes he could just make out in the gloom. "it was a concourse of the shells of violent men, spiritually developed but evil men, seeking after death--the death of the body--to prolong their vile and unnatural existence. and had they accomplished their object you, in turn, at the death of your body, would have passed into their power and helped to swell their dreadful purposes." harris made no reply. he was trying hard to concentrate his mind upon the sweet and common things of life. he even thought of silk and st. paul's churchyard and the faces of his partners in business. "for you came all prepared to be caught," he heard the other's voice like some one talking to him from a distance; "your deeply introspective mood had already reconstructed the past so vividly, so intensely, that you were _en rapport_ at once with any forces of those days that chanced still to be lingering. and they swept you up all unresistingly." harris tightened his hold upon the stranger's arm as he heard. at the moment he had room for one emotion only. it did not seem to him odd that this stranger should have such intimate knowledge of his mind. "it is, alas, chiefly the evil emotions that are able to leave their photographs upon surrounding scenes and objects," the other added, "and who ever heard of a place haunted by a noble deed, or of beautiful and lovely ghosts revisiting the glimpses of the moon? it is unfortunate. but the wicked passions of men's hearts alone seem strong enough to leave pictures that persist; the good are ever too lukewarm." the stranger sighed as he spoke. but harris, exhausted and shaken as he was to the very core, paced by his side, only half listening. he moved as in a dream still. it was very wonderful to him, this walk home under the stars in the early hours of the october morning, the peaceful forest all about them, mist rising here and there over the small clearings, and the sound of water from a hundred little invisible streams filling in the pauses of the talk. in after life he always looked back to it as something magical and impossible, something that had seemed too beautiful, too curiously beautiful, to have been quite true. and, though at the time he heard and understood but a quarter of what the stranger said, it came back to him afterwards, staying with him till the end of his days, and always with a curious, haunting sense of unreality, as though he had enjoyed a wonderful dream of which he could recall only faint and exquisite portions. but the horror of the earlier experience was effectually dispelled; and when they reached the railway inn, somewhere about three o'clock in the morning, harris shook the stranger's hand gratefully, effusively, meeting the look of those rather wonderful eyes with a full heart, and went up to his room, thinking in a hazy, dream-like way of the words with which the stranger had brought their conversation to an end as they left the confines of the forest-- "and if thought and emotion can persist in this way so long after the brain that sent them forth has crumbled into dust, how vitally important it must be to control their very birth in the heart, and guard them with the keenest possible restraint." but harris, the silk merchant, slept better than might have been expected, and with a soundness that carried him half-way through the day. and when he came downstairs and learned that the stranger had already taken his departure, he realised with keen regret that he had never once thought of asking his name. "yes, he signed the visitors' book," said the girl in reply to his question. and he turned over the blotted pages and found there, the last entry, in a very delicate and individual handwriting-- "_john silence_, london." case ii: the camp of the dog i islands of all shapes and sizes troop northward from stockholm by the hundred, and the little steamer that threads their intricate mazes in summer leaves the traveller in a somewhat bewildered state as regards the points of the compass when it reaches the end of its journey at waxholm. but it is only after waxholm that the true islands begin, so to speak, to run wild, and start up the coast on their tangled course of a hundred miles of deserted loveliness, and it was in the very heart of this delightful confusion that we pitched our tents for a summer holiday. a veritable wilderness of islands lay about us: from the mere round button of a rock that bore a single fir, to the mountainous stretch of a square mile, densely wooded, and bounded by precipitous cliffs; so close together often that a strip of water ran between no wider than a country lane, or, again, so far that an expanse stretched like the open sea for miles. although the larger islands boasted farms and fishing stations, the majority were uninhabited. carpeted with moss and heather, their coast-lines showed a series of ravines and clefts and little sandy bays, with a growth of splendid pine-woods that came down to the water's edge and led the eye through unknown depths of shadow and mystery into the very heart of primitive forest. the particular islands to which we had camping rights by virtue of paying a nominal sum to a stockholm merchant lay together in a picturesque group far beyond the reach of the steamer, one being a mere reef with a fringe of fairy-like birches, and two others, cliff-bound monsters rising with wooded heads out of the sea. the fourth, which we selected because it enclosed a little lagoon suitable for anchorage, bathing, night-lines, and what-not, shall have what description is necessary as the story proceeds; but, so far as paying rent was concerned, we might equally well have pitched our tents on any one of a hundred others that clustered about us as thickly as a swarm of bees. it was in the blaze of an evening in july, the air clear as crystal, the sea a cobalt blue, when we left the steamer on the borders of civilisation and sailed away with maps, compasses, and provisions for the little group of dots in the skägård that were to be our home for the next two months. the dinghy and my canadian canoe trailed behind us, with tents and dunnage carefully piled aboard, and when the point of cliff intervened to hide the steamer and the waxholm hotel we realised for the first time that the horror of trains and houses was far behind us, the fever of men and cities, the weariness of streets and confined spaces. the wilderness opened up on all sides into endless blue reaches, and the map and compasses were so frequently called into requisition that we went astray more often than not and progress was enchantingly slow. it took us, for instance, two whole days to find our crescent-shaped home, and the camps we made on the way were so fascinating that we left them with difficulty and regret, for each island seemed more desirable than the one before it, and over all lay the spell of haunting peace, remoteness from the turmoil of the world, and the freedom of open and desolate spaces. and so many of these spots of world-beauty have i sought out and dwelt in, that in my mind remains only a composite memory of their faces, a true map of heaven, as it were, from which this particular one stands forth with unusual sharpness because of the strange things that happened there, and also, i think, because anything in which john silence played a part has a habit of fixing itself in the mind with a living and lasting quality of vividness. for the moment, however, dr. silence was not of the party. some private case in the interior of hungary claimed his attention, and it was not till later--the th of august, to be exact--that i had arranged to meet him in berlin and then return to london together for our harvest of winter work. all the members of our party, however, were known to him more or less well, and on this third day as we sailed through the narrow opening into the lagoon and saw the circular ridge of trees in a gold and crimson sunset before us, his last words to me when we parted in london for some unaccountable reason came back very sharply to my memory, and recalled the curious impression of prophecy with which i had first heard them: "enjoy your holiday and store up all the force you can," he had said as the train slipped out of victoria; "and we will meet in berlin on the th--unless you should send for me sooner." and now suddenly the words returned to me so clearly that it seemed i almost heard his voice in my ear: "unless you should send for me sooner"; and returned, moreover, with a significance i was wholly at a loss to understand that touched somewhere in the depths of my mind a vague sense of apprehension that they had all along been intended in the nature of a prophecy. in the lagoon, then, the wind failed us this july evening, as was only natural behind the shelter of the belt of woods, and we took to the oars, all breathless with the beauty of this first sight of our island home, yet all talking in somewhat hushed voices of the best place to land, the depth of water, the safest place to anchor, to put up the tents in, the most sheltered spot for the camp-fires, and a dozen things of importance that crop up when a home in the wilderness has actually to be made. and during this busy sunset hour of unloading before the dark, the souls of my companions adopted the trick of presenting themselves very vividly anew before my mind, and introducing themselves afresh. in reality, i suppose, our party was in no sense singular. in the conventional life at home they certainly seemed ordinary enough, but suddenly, as we passed through these gates of the wilderness, i saw them more sharply than before, with characters stripped of the atmosphere of men and cities. a complete change of setting often furnishes a startlingly new view of people hitherto held for well-known; they present another facet of their personalities. i seemed to see my own party almost as new people--people i had not known properly hitherto, people who would drop all disguises and henceforth reveal themselves as they really were. and each one seemed to say: "now you will see me as i am. you will see me here in this primitive life of the wilderness without clothes. all my masks and veils i have left behind in the abodes of men. so, look out for surprises!" the reverend timothy maloney helped me to put up the tents, long practice making the process easy, and while he drove in pegs and tightened ropes, his coat off, his flannel collar flying open without a tie, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was cut out for the life of a pioneer rather than the church. he was fifty years of age, muscular, blue-eyed and hearty, and he took his share of the work, and more, without shirking. the way he handled the axe in cutting down saplings for the tent-poles was a delight to see, and his eye in judging the level was unfailing. bullied as a young man into a lucrative family living, he had in turn bullied his mind into some semblance of orthodox beliefs, doing the honours of the little country church with an energy that made one think of a coal-heaver tending china; and it was only in the past few years that he had resigned the living and taken instead to cramming young men for their examinations. this suited him better. it enabled him, too, to indulge his passion for spells of "wild life," and to spend the summer months of most years under canvas in one part of the world or another where he could take his young men with him and combine "reading" with open air. his wife usually accompanied him, and there was no doubt she enjoyed the trips, for she possessed, though in less degree, the same joy of the wilderness that was his own distinguishing characteristic. the only difference was that while he regarded it as the real life, she regarded it as an interlude. while he camped out with his heart and mind, she played at camping out with her clothes and body. none the less, she made a splendid companion, and to watch her busy cooking dinner over the fire we had built among the stones was to understand that her heart was in the business for the moment and that she was happy even with the detail. mrs. maloney at home, knitting in the sun and believing that the world was made in six days, was one woman; but mrs. maloney, standing with bare arms over the smoke of a wood fire under the pine trees, was another; and peter sangree, the canadian pupil, with his pale skin, and his loose, though not ungainly figure, stood beside her in very unfavourable contrast as he scraped potatoes and sliced bacon with slender white fingers that seemed better suited to hold a pen than a knife. she ordered him about like a slave, and he obeyed, too, with willing pleasure, for in spite of his general appearance of debility he was as happy to be in camp as any of them. but more than any other member of the party, joan maloney, the daughter, was the one who seemed a natural and genuine part of the landscape, who belonged to it all just in the same way that the trees and the moss and the grey rocks running out into the water belonged to it. for she was obviously in her right and natural setting, a creature of the wilds, a gipsy in her own home. to any one with a discerning eye this would have been more or less apparent, but to me, who had known her during all the twenty-two years of her life and was familiar with the ins and outs of her primitive, utterly un-modern type, it was strikingly clear. to see her there made it impossible to imagine her again in civilisation. i lost all recollection of how she looked in a town. the memory somehow evaporated. this slim creature before me, flitting to and fro with the grace of the woodland life, swift, supple, adroit, on her knees blowing the fire, or stirring the frying-pan through a veil of smoke, suddenly seemed the only way i had ever really seen her. here she was at home; in london she became some one concealed by clothes, an artificial doll overdressed and moving by clockwork, only a portion of her alive. here she was alive all over. i forget altogether how she was dressed, just as i forget how any particular tree was dressed, or how the markings ran on any one of the boulders that lay about the camp. she looked just as wild and natural and untamed as everything else that went to make up the scene, and more than that i cannot say. pretty, she was decidedly not. she was thin, skinny, dark-haired, and possessed of great physical strength in the form of endurance. she had, too, something of the force and vigorous purpose of a man, tempestuous sometimes and wild to passionate, frightening her mother, and puzzling her easy-going father with her storms of waywardness, while at the same time she stirred his admiration by her violence. a pagan of the pagans she was besides, and with some haunting suggestion of old-world pagan beauty about her dark face and eyes. altogether an odd and difficult character, but with a generosity and high courage that made her very lovable. in town life she always seemed to me to feel cramped, bored, a devil in a cage, in her eyes a hunted expression as though any moment she dreaded to be caught. but up in these spacious solitudes all this disappeared. away from the limitations that plagued and stung her, she would show at her best, and as i watched her moving about the camp i repeatedly found myself thinking of a wild creature that had just obtained its freedom and was trying its muscles. peter sangree, of course, at once went down before her. but she was so obviously beyond his reach, and besides so well able to take care of herself, that i think her parents gave the matter but little thought, and he himself worshipped at a respectful distance, keeping admirable control of his passion in all respects save one; for at his age the eyes are difficult to master, and the yearning, almost the devouring, expression often visible in them was probably there unknown even to himself. he, better than any one else, understood that he had fallen in love with something most hard of attainment, something that drew him to the very edge of life, and almost beyond it. it, no doubt, was a secret and terrible joy to him, this passionate worship from afar; only i think he suffered more than any one guessed, and that his want of vitality was due in large measure to the constant stream of unsatisfied yearning that poured for ever from his soul and body. moreover, it seemed to me, who now saw them for the first time together, that there was an unnamable something--an elusive quality of some kind--that marked them as belonging to the same world, and that although the girl ignored him she was secretly, and perhaps unknown to herself, drawn by some attribute very deep in her own nature to some quality equally deep in his. this, then, was the party when we first settled down into our two months' camp on the island in the baltic sea. other figures flitted from time to time across the scene, and sometimes one reading man, sometimes another, came to join us and spend his four hours a day in the clergyman's tent, but they came for short periods only, and they went without leaving much trace in my memory, and certainly they played no important part in what subsequently happened. the weather favoured us that night, so that by sunset the tents were up, the boats unloaded, a store of wood collected and chopped into lengths, and the candle-lanterns hung round ready for lighting on the trees. sangree, too, had picked deep mattresses of balsam boughs for the women's beds, and had cleared little paths of brushwood from their tents to the central fireplace. all was prepared for bad weather. it was a cosy supper and a well-cooked one that we sat down to and ate under the stars, and, according to the clergyman, the only meal fit to eat we had seen since we left london a week before. the deep stillness, after that roar of steamers, trains, and tourists, held something that thrilled, for as we lay round the fire there was no sound but the faint sighing of the pines and the soft lapping of the waves along the shore and against the sides of the boat in the lagoon. the ghostly outline of her white sails was just visible through the trees, idly rocking to and fro in her calm anchorage, her sheets flapping gently against the mast. beyond lay the dim blue shapes of other islands floating in the night, and from all the great spaces about us came the murmur of the sea and the soft breathing of great woods. the odours of the wilderness--smells of wind and earth, of trees and water, clean, vigorous, and mighty--were the true odours of a virgin world unspoilt by men, more penetrating and more subtly intoxicating than any other perfume in the whole world. oh!--and dangerously strong, too, no doubt, for some natures! "ahhh!" breathed out the clergyman after supper, with an indescribable gesture of satisfaction and relief. "here there is freedom, and room for body and mind to turn in. here one can work and rest and play. here one can be alive and absorb something of the earth-forces that never get within touching distance in the cities. by george, i shall make a permanent camp here and come when it is time to die!" the good man was merely giving vent to his delight at being under canvas. he said the same thing every year, and he said it often. but it more or less expressed the superficial feelings of us all. and when, a little later, he turned to compliment his wife on the fried potatoes, and discovered that she was snoring, with her back against a tree, he grunted with content at the sight and put a ground-sheet over her feet, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to fall asleep after dinner, and then moved back to his own corner, smoking his pipe with great satisfaction. and i, smoking mine too, lay and fought against the most delicious sleep imaginable, while my eyes wandered from the fire to the stars peeping through the branches, and then back again to the group about me. the rev. timothy soon let his pipe go out, and succumbed as his wife had done, for he had worked hard and eaten well. sangree, also smoking, leaned against a tree with his gaze fixed on the girl, a depth of yearning in his face that he could not hide, and that really distressed me for him. and joan herself, with wide staring eyes, alert, full of the new forces of the place, evidently keyed up by the magic of finding herself among all the things her soul recognised as "home," sat rigid by the fire, her thoughts roaming through the spaces, the blood stirring about her heart. she was as unconscious of the canadian's gaze as she was that her parents both slept. she looked to me more like a tree, or something that had grown out of the island, than a living girl of the century; and when i spoke across to her in a whisper and suggested a tour of investigation, she started and looked up at me as though she heard a voice in her dreams. sangree leaped up and joined us, and without waking the others we three went over the ridge of the island and made our way down to the shore behind. the water lay like a lake before us still coloured by the sunset. the air was keen and scented, wafting the smell of the wooded islands that hung about us in the darkening air. very small waves tumbled softly on the sand. the sea was sown with stars, and everywhere breathed and pulsed the beauty of the northern summer night. i confess i speedily lost consciousness of the human presences beside me, and i have little doubt joan did too. only sangree felt otherwise, i suppose, for presently we heard him sighing; and i can well imagine that he absorbed the whole wonder and passion of the scene into his aching heart, to swell the pain there that was more searching even than the pain at the sight of such matchless and incomprehensible beauty. the splash of a fish jumping broke the spell. "i wish we had the canoe now," remarked joan; "we could paddle out to the other islands." "of course," i said; "wait here and i'll go across for it," and was turning to feel my way back through the darkness when she stopped me in a voice that meant what it said. "no; mr. sangree will get it. we will wait here and cooee to guide him." the canadian was off in a moment, for she had only to hint of her wishes and he obeyed. "keep out from shore in case of rocks," i cried out as he went, "and turn to the right out of the lagoon. that's the shortest way round by the map." my voice travelled across the still waters and woke echoes in the distant islands that came back to us like people calling out of space. it was only thirty or forty yards over the ridge and down the other side to the lagoon where the boats lay, but it was a good mile to coast round the shore in the dark to where we stood and waited. we heard him stumbling away among the boulders, and then the sounds suddenly ceased as he topped the ridge and went down past the fire on the other side. "i didn't want to be left alone with him," the girl said presently in a low voice. "i'm always afraid he's going to say or do something--" she hesitated a moment, looking quickly over her shoulder towards the ridge where he had just disappeared--"something that might lead to unpleasantness." she stopped abruptly. "_you_ frightened, joan!" i exclaimed, with genuine surprise. "this is a new light on your wicked character. i thought the human being who could frighten you did not exist." then i suddenly realised she was talking seriously--looking to me for help of some kind--and at once i dropped the teasing attitude. "he's very far gone, i think, joan," i added gravely. "you must be kind to him, whatever else you may feel. he's exceedingly fond of you." "i know, but i can't help it," she whispered, lest her voice should carry in the stillness; "there's something about him that--that makes me feel creepy and half afraid." "but, poor man, it's not his fault if he is delicate and sometimes looks like death," i laughed gently, by way of defending what i felt to be a very innocent member of my sex. "oh, but it's not that i mean," she answered quickly; "it's something i feel about him, something in his soul, something he hardly knows himself, but that may come out if we are much together. it draws me, i feel, tremendously. it stirs what is wild in me--deep down--oh, very deep down,--yet at the same time makes me feel afraid." "i suppose his thoughts are always playing about you," i said, "but he's nice-minded and--" "yes, yes," she interrupted impatiently, "i can trust myself absolutely with him. he's gentle and singularly pure-minded. but there's something else that--" she stopped again sharply to listen. then she came up close beside me in the darkness, whispering-- "you know, mr. hubbard, sometimes my intuitions warn me a little too strongly to be ignored. oh, yes, you needn't tell me again that it's difficult to distinguish between fancy and intuition. i know all that. but i also know that there's something deep down in that man's soul that calls to something deep down in mine. and at present it frightens me. because i cannot make out what it is; and i know, i _know_, he'll do something some day that--that will shake my life to the very bottom." she laughed a little at the strangeness of her own description. i turned to look at her more closely, but the darkness was too great to show her face. there was an intensity, almost of suppressed passion, in her voice that took me completely by surprise. "nonsense, joan," i said, a little severely; "you know him well. he's been with your father for months now." "but that was in london; and up here it's different--i mean, i feel that it may be different. life in a place like this blows away the restraints of the artificial life at home. i know, oh, i know what i'm saying. i feel all untied in a place like this; the rigidity of one's nature begins to melt and flow. surely _you_ must understand what i mean!" "of course i understand," i replied, yet not wishing to encourage her in her present line of thought, "and it's a grand experience--for a short time. but you're overtired to-night, joan, like the rest of us. a few days in this air will set you above all fears of the kind you mention." then, after a moment's silence, i added, feeling i should estrange her confidence altogether if i blundered any more and treated her like a child-- "i think, perhaps, the true explanation is that you pity him for loving you, and at the same time you feel the repulsion of the healthy, vigorous animal for what is weak and timid. if he came up boldly and took you by the throat and shouted that he would force you to love him--well, then you would feel no fear at all. you would know exactly how to deal with him. isn't it, perhaps, something of that kind?" the girl made no reply, and when i took her hand i felt that it trembled a little and was cold. "it's not his love that i'm afraid of," she said hurriedly, for at this moment we heard the dip of a paddle in the water, "it's something in his very soul that terrifies me in a way i have never been terrified before,--yet fascinates me. in town i was hardly conscious of his presence. but the moment we got away from civilisation, it began to come. he seems so--so _real_ up here. i dread being alone with him. it makes me feel that something must burst and tear its way out--that he would do something--or i should do something--i don't know exactly what i mean, probably,--but that i should let myself go and scream--" "joan!" "don't be alarmed," she laughed shortly; "i shan't do anything silly, but i wanted to tell you my feelings in case i needed your help. when i have intuitions as strong as this they are never wrong, only i don't know yet what it means exactly." "you must hold out for the month, at any rate," i said in as matter-of-fact a voice as i could manage, for her manner had somehow changed my surprise to a subtle sense of alarm. "sangree only stays the month, you know. and, anyhow, you are such an odd creature yourself that you should feel generously towards other odd creatures," i ended lamely, with a forced laugh. she gave my hand a sudden pressure. "i'm glad i've told you at any rate," she said quickly under her breath, for the canoe was now gliding up silently like a ghost to our feet, "and i'm glad you're here, too," she added as we moved down towards the water to meet it. i made sangree change into the bows and got into the steering seat myself, putting the girl between us so that i could watch them both by keeping their outlines against the sea and stars. for the intuitions of certain folk--women and children usually, i confess--i have always felt a great respect that has more often than not been justified by experience; and now the curious emotion stirred in me by the girl's words remained somewhat vividly in my consciousness. i explained it in some measure by the fact that the girl, tired out by the fatigue of many days' travel, had suffered a vigorous reaction of some kind from the strong, desolate scenery, and further, perhaps, that she had been treated to my own experience of seeing the members of the party in a new light--the canadian, being partly a stranger, more vividly than the rest of us. but, at the same time, i felt it was quite possible that she had sensed some subtle link between his personality and her own, some quality that she had hitherto ignored and that the routine of town life had kept buried out of sight. the only thing that seemed difficult to explain was the fear she had spoken of, and this i hoped the wholesome effects of camp-life and exercise would sweep away naturally in the course of time. we made the tour of the island without speaking. it was all too beautiful for speech. the trees crowded down to the shore to hear us pass. we saw their fine dark heads, bowed low with splendid dignity to watch us, forgetting for a moment that the stars were caught in the needled network of their hair. against the sky in the west, where still lingered the sunset gold, we saw the wild toss of the horizon, shaggy with forest and cliff, gripping the heart like the motive in a symphony, and sending the sense of beauty all a-shiver through the mind--all these surrounding islands standing above the water like low clouds, and like them seeming to post along silently into the engulfing night. we heard the musical drip-drip of the paddle, and the little wash of our waves on the shore, and then suddenly we found ourselves at the opening of the lagoon again, having made the complete circuit of our home. the reverend timothy had awakened from sleep and was singing to himself; and the sound of his voice as we glided down the fifty yards of enclosed water was pleasant to hear and undeniably wholesome. we saw the glow of the fire up among the trees on the ridge, and his shadow moving about as he threw on more wood. "there you are!" he called aloud. "good again! been setting the night-lines, eh? capital! and your mother's still fast asleep, joan." his cheery laugh floated across the water; he had not been in the least disturbed by our absence, for old campers are not easily alarmed. "now, remember," he went on, after we had told our little tale of travel by the fire, and mrs. maloney had asked for the fourth time exactly where her tent was and whether the door faced east or south, "every one takes their turn at cooking breakfast, and one of the men is always out at sunrise to catch it first. hubbard, i'll toss you which you do in the morning and which i do!" he lost the toss. "then i'll catch it," i said, laughing at his discomfiture, for i knew he loathed stirring porridge. "and mind you don't burn it as you did every blessed time last year on the volga," i added by way of reminder. mrs. maloney's fifth interruption about the door of her tent, and her further pointed observation that it was past nine o'clock, set us lighting lanterns and putting the fire out for safety. but before we separated for the night the clergyman had a time-honoured little ritual of his own to go through that no one had the heart to deny him. he always did this. it was a relic of his pulpit habits. he glanced briefly from one to the other of us, his face grave and earnest, his hands lifted to the stars and his eyes all closed and puckered up beneath a momentary frown. then he offered up a short, almost inaudible prayer, thanking heaven for our safe arrival, begging for good weather, no illness or accidents, plenty of fish, and strong sailing winds. and then, unexpectedly--no one knew why exactly--he ended up with an abrupt request that nothing from the kingdom of darkness should be allowed to afflict our peace, and no evil thing come near to disturb us in the night-time. and while he uttered these last surprising words, so strangely unlike his usual ending, it chanced that i looked up and let my eyes wander round the group assembled about the dying fire. and it certainly seemed to me that sangree's face underwent a sudden and visible alteration. he was staring at joan, and as he stared the change ran over it like a shadow and was gone. i started in spite of myself, for something oddly concentrated, potent, collected, had come into the expression usually so scattered and feeble. but it was all swift as a passing meteor, and when i looked a second time his face was normal and he was looking among the trees. and joan, luckily, had not observed him, her head being bowed and her eyes tightly closed while her father prayed. "the girl has a vivid imagination indeed," i thought, half laughing, as i lit the lanterns, "if her thoughts can put a glamour upon mine in this way"; and yet somehow, when we said good-night, i took occasion to give her a few vigorous words of encouragement, and went to her tent to make sure i could find it quickly in the night in case anything happened. in her quick way the girl understood and thanked me, and the last thing i heard as i moved off to the men's quarters was mrs. maloney crying that there were beetles in her tent, and joan's laughter as she went to help her turn them out. half an hour later the island was silent as the grave, but for the mournful voices of the wind as it sighed up from the sea. like white sentries stood the three tents of the men on one side of the ridge, and on the other side, half hidden by some birches, whose leaves just shivered as the breeze caught them, the women's tents, patches of ghostly grey, gathered more closely together for mutual shelter and protection. something like fifty yards of broken ground, grey rock, moss and lichen, lay between, and over all lay the curtain of the night and the great whispering winds from the forests of scandinavia. and the very last thing, just before floating away on that mighty wave that carries one so softly off into the deeps of forgetfulness, i again heard the voice of john silence as the train moved out of victoria station; and by some subtle connection that met me on the very threshold of consciousness there rose in my mind simultaneously the memory of the girl's half-given confidence, and of her distress. as by some wizardry of approaching dreams they seemed in that instant to be related; but before i could analyse the why and the wherefore, both sank away out of sight again, and i was off beyond recall. "unless you should send for me sooner." ii whether mrs. maloney's tent door opened south or east i think she never discovered, for it is quite certain she always slept with the flap tightly fastened; i only know that my own little "five by seven, all silk" faced due east, because next morning the sun, pouring in as only the wilderness sun knows how to pour, woke me early, and a moment later, with a short run over soft moss and a flying dive from the granite ledge, i was swimming in the most sparkling water imaginable. it was barely four o'clock, and the sun came down a long vista of blue islands that led out to the open sea and finland. nearer by rose the wooded domes of our own property, still capped and wreathed with smoky trails of fast-melting mist, and looking as fresh as though it was the morning of mrs. maloney's sixth day and they had just issued, clean and brilliant, from the hands of the great architect. in the open spaces the ground was drenched with dew, and from the sea a cool salt wind stole in among the trees and set the branches trembling in an atmosphere of shimmering silver. the tents shone white where the sun caught them in patches. below lay the lagoon, still dreaming of the summer night; in the open the fish were jumping busily, sending musical ripples towards the shore; and in the air hung the magic of dawn--silent, incommunicable. i lit the fire, so that an hour later the clergyman should find good ashes to stir his porridge over, and then set forth upon an examination of the island, but hardly had i gone a dozen yards when i saw a figure standing a little in front of me where the sunlight fell in a pool among the trees. it was joan. she had already been up an hour, she told me, and had bathed before the last stars had left the sky. i saw at once that the new spirit of this solitary region had entered into her, banishing the fears of the night, for her face was like the face of a happy denizen of the wilderness, and her eyes stainless and shining. her feet were bare, and drops of dew she had shaken from the branches hung in her loose-flying hair. obviously she had come into her own. "i've been all over the island," she announced laughingly, "and there are two things wanting." "you're a good judge, joan. what are they?" "there's no animal life, and there's no--water." "they go together," i said. "animals don't bother with a rock like this unless there's a spring on it." and as she led me from place to place, happy and excited, leaping adroitly from rock to rock, i was glad to note that my first impressions were correct. she made no reference to our conversation of the night before. the new spirit had driven out the old. there was no room in her heart for fear or anxiety, and nature had everything her own way. the island, we found, was some three-quarters of a mile from point to point, built in a circle, or wide horseshoe, with an opening of twenty feet at the mouth of the lagoon. pine-trees grew thickly all over, but here and there were patches of silver birch, scrub oak, and considerable colonies of wild raspberry and gooseberry bushes. the two ends of the horseshoe formed bare slabs of smooth granite running into the sea and forming dangerous reefs just below the surface, but the rest of the island rose in a forty-foot ridge and sloped down steeply to the sea on either side, being nowhere more than a hundred yards wide. the outer shore-line was much indented with numberless coves and bays and sandy beaches, with here and there caves and precipitous little cliffs against which the sea broke in spray and thunder. but the inner shore, the shore of the lagoon, was low and regular, and so well protected by the wall of trees along the ridge that no storm could ever send more than a passing ripple along its sandy marges. eternal shelter reigned there. on one of the other islands, a few hundred yards away--for the rest of the party slept late this first morning, and we took to the canoe--we discovered a spring of fresh water untainted by the brackish flavour of the baltic, and having thus solved the most important problem of the camp, we next proceeded to deal with the second--fish. and in half an hour we reeled in and turned homewards, for we had no means of storage, and to clean more fish than may be stored or eaten in a day is no wise occupation for experienced campers. and as we landed towards six o'clock we heard the clergyman singing as usual and saw his wife and sangree shaking out their blankets in the sun, and dressed in a fashion that finally dispelled all memories of streets and civilisation. "the little people lit the fire for me," cried maloney, looking natural and at home in his ancient flannel suit and breaking off in the middle of his singing, "so i've got the porridge going--and this time it's _not_ burnt." we reported the discovery of water and held up the fish. "good! good again!" he cried. "we'll have the first decent breakfast we've had this year. sangree'll clean 'em in no time, and the bo'sun's mate--" "will fry them to a turn," laughed the voice of mrs. maloney, appearing on the scene in a tight blue jersey and sandals, and catching up the frying-pan. her husband always called her the bo'sun's mate in camp, because it was her duty, among others, to pipe all hands to meals. "and as for you, joan," went on the happy man, "you look like the spirit of the island, with moss in your hair and wind in your eyes, and sun and stars mixed in your face." he looked at her with delighted admiration. "here, sangree, take these twelve, there's a good fellow, they're the biggest; and we'll have 'em in butter in less time than you can say baltic island!" i watched the canadian as he slowly moved off to the cleaning pail. his eyes were drinking in the girl's beauty, and a wave of passionate, almost feverish, joy passed over his face, expressive of the ecstasy of true worship more than anything else. perhaps he was thinking that he still had three weeks to come with that vision always before his eyes; perhaps he was thinking of his dreams in the night. i cannot say. but i noticed the curious mingling of yearning and happiness in his eyes, and the strength of the impression touched my curiosity. something in his face held my gaze for a second, something to do with its intensity. that so timid, so gentle a personality should conceal so virile a passion almost seemed to require explanation. but the impression was momentary, for that first breakfast in camp permitted no divided attentions, and i dare swear that the porridge, the tea, the swedish "flatbread," and the fried fish flavoured with points of frizzled bacon, were better than any meal eaten elsewhere that day in the whole world. the first clear day in a new camp is always a furiously busy one, and we soon dropped into the routine upon which in large measure the real comfort of every one depends. about the cooking-fire, greatly improved with stones from the shore, we built a high stockade consisting of upright poles thickly twined with branches, the roof lined with moss and lichen and weighted with rocks, and round the interior we made low wooden seats so that we could lie round the fire even in rain and eat our meals in peace. paths, too, outlined themselves from tent to tent, from the bathing places and the landing stage, and a fair division of the island was decided upon between the quarters of the men and the women. wood was stacked, awkward trees and boulders removed, hammocks slung, and tents strengthened. in a word, camp was established, and duties were assigned and accepted as though we expected to live on this baltic island for years to come and the smallest detail of the community life was important. moreover, as the camp came into being, this sense of a community developed, proving that we were a definite whole, and not merely separate human beings living for a while in tents upon a desert island. each fell willingly into the routine. sangree, as by natural selection, took upon himself the cleaning of the fish and the cutting of the wood into lengths sufficient for a day's use. and he did it well. the pan of water was never without a fish, cleaned and scaled, ready to fry for whoever was hungry; the nightly fire never died down for lack of material to throw on without going farther afield to search. and timothy, once reverend, caught the fish and chopped down the trees. he also assumed responsibility for the condition of the boat, and did it so thoroughly that nothing in the little cutter was ever found wanting. and when, for any reason, his presence was in demand, the first place to look for him was--in the boat, and there, too, he was usually found, tinkering away with sheets, sails, or rudder and singing as he tinkered. 'nor was the "reading" neglected; for most mornings there came a sound of droning voices form the white tent by the raspberry bushes, which signified that sangree, the tutor, and whatever other man chanced to be in the party at the time, were hard at it with history or the classics. and while mrs. maloney, also by natural selection, took charge of the larder and the kitchen, the mending and general supervision of the rough comforts, she also made herself peculiarly mistress of the megaphone which summoned to meals and carried her voice easily from one end of the island to the other; and in her hours of leisure she daubed the surrounding scenery on to a sketching block with all the honesty and devotion of her determined but unreceptive soul. joan, meanwhile, joan, elusive creature of the wilds, became i know not exactly what. she did plenty of work in the camp, yet seemed to have no very precise duties. she was everywhere and anywhere. sometimes she slept in her tent, sometimes under the stars with a blanket. she knew every inch of the island and kept turning up in places where she was least expected--for ever wandering about, reading her books in sheltered corners, making little fires on sunless days to "worship by to the gods," as she put it, ever finding new pools to dive and bathe in, and swimming day and night in the warm and waveless lagoon like a fish in a huge tank. she went bare-legged and bare-footed, with her hair down and her skirts caught up to the knees, and if ever a human being turned into a jolly savage within the compass of a single week, joan maloney was certainly that human being. she ran wild. so completely, too, was she possessed by the strong spirit of the place that the little human fear she had yielded to so strangely on our arrival seemed to have been utterly dispossessed. as i hoped and expected, she made no reference to our conversation of the first evening. sangree bothered her with no special attentions, and after all they were very little together. his behaviour was perfect in that respect, and i, for my part, hardly gave the matter another thought. joan was ever a prey to vivid fancies of one kind or another, and this was one of them. mercifully for the happiness of all concerned, it had melted away before the spirit of busy, active life and deep content that reigned over the island. every one was intensely alive, and peace was upon all. * * * * * meanwhile the effect of the camp-life began to tell. always a searching test of character, its results, sooner or later, are infallible, for it acts upon the soul as swiftly and surely as the hypo bath upon the negative of a photograph. a readjustment of the personal forces takes place quickly; some parts of the personality go to sleep, others wake up: but the first sweeping change that the primitive life brings about is that the artificial portions of the character shed themselves one after another like dead skins. attitudes and poses that seemed genuine in the city drop away. the mind, like the body, grows quickly hard, simple, uncomplex. and in a camp as primitive and close to nature as ours was, these effects became speedily visible. some folk, of course, who talk glibly about the simple life when it is safely out of reach, betray themselves in camp by for ever peering about for the artificial excitements of civilisation which they miss. some get bored at once; some grow slovenly; some reveal the animal in most unexpected fashion; and some, the select few, find themselves in very short order and are happy. and, in our little party, we could flatter ourselves that we all belonged to the last category, so far as the general effect was concerned. only there were certain other changes as well, varying with each individual, and all interesting to note. it was only after the first week or two that these changes became marked, although this is the proper place, i think, to speak of them. for, having myself no other duty than to enjoy a well-earned holiday, i used to load my canoe with blankets and provisions and journey forth on exploration trips among the islands of several days together; and it was on my return from the first of these--when i rediscovered the party, so to speak--that these changes first presented themselves vividly to me, and in one particular instance produced a rather curious impression. in a word, then, while every one had grown wilder, naturally wilder, sangree, it seemed to me, had grown much wilder, and what i can only call unnaturally wilder. he made me think of a savage. to begin with, he had changed immensely in mere physical appearance, and the full brown cheeks, the brighter eyes of absolute health, and the general air of vigour and robustness that had come to replace his customary lassitude and timidity, had worked such an improvement that i hardly knew him for the same man. his voice, too, was deeper and his manner bespoke for the first time a greater measure of confidence in himself. he now had some claims to be called nice-looking, or at least to a certain air of virility that would not lessen his value in the eyes of the opposite sex. all this, of course, was natural enough, and most welcome. but, altogether apart from this physical change, which no doubt had also been going forward in the rest of us, there was a subtle note in his personality that came to me with a degree of surprise that almost amounted to shock. and two things--as he came down to welcome me and pull up the canoe--leaped up in my mind unbidden, as though connected in some way i could not at the moment divine--first, the curious judgment formed of him by joan; and secondly, that fugitive expression i had caught in his face while maloney was offering up his strange prayer for special protection from heaven. the delicacy of manner and feature--to call it by no milder term--which had always been a distinguishing characteristic of the man, had been replaced by something far more vigorous and decided, that yet utterly eluded analysis. the change which impressed me so oddly was not easy to name. the others--singing maloney, the bustling bo'sun's mate, and joan, that fascinating half-breed of undine and salamander--all showed the effects of a life so close to nature; but in their case the change was perfectly natural and what was to be expected, whereas with peter sangree, the canadian, it was something unusual and unexpected. it is impossible to explain how he managed gradually to convey to my mind the impression that something in him had turned savage, yet this, more or less, is the impression that he did convey. it was not that he seemed really less civilised, or that his character had undergone any definite alteration, but rather that something in him, hitherto dormant, had awakened to life. some quality, latent till now--so far, at least, as we were concerned, who, after all, knew him but slightly--had stirred into activity and risen to the surface of his being. and while, for the moment, this seemed as far as i could get, it was but natural that my mind should continue the intuitive process and acknowledge that john silence, owing to his peculiar faculties, and the girl, owing to her singularly receptive temperament, might each in a different way have divined this latent quality in his soul, and feared its manifestation later. on looking back to this painful adventure, too, it now seems equally natural that the same process, carried to its logical conclusion, should have wakened some deep instinct in me that, wholly without direction from my will, set itself sharply and persistently upon the watch from that very moment. thenceforward the personality of sangree was never far from my thoughts, and i was for ever analysing and searching for the explanation that took so long in coming. "i declare, hubbard, you're tanned like an aboriginal, and you look like one, too," laughed maloney. "and i can return the compliment," was my reply, as we all gathered round a brew of tea to exchange news and compare notes. and later, at supper, it amused me to observe that the distinguished tutor, once clergyman, did not eat his food quite as "nicely" as he did at home--he devoured it; that mrs. maloney ate more, and, to say the least, with less delay, than was her custom in the select atmosphere of her english dining-room; and that while joan attacked her tin plateful with genuine avidity, sangree, the canadian, bit and gnawed at his, laughing and talking and complimenting the cook all the while, and making me think with secret amusement of a starved animal at its first meal. while, from their remarks about myself, i judged that i had changed and grown wild as much as the rest of them. in this and in a hundred other little ways the change showed, ways difficult to define in detail, but all proving--not the coarsening effect of leading the primitive life, but, let us say, the more direct and unvarnished methods that became prevalent. for all day long we were in the bath of the elements--wind, water, sun--and just as the body became insensible to cold and shed unnecessary clothing, the mind grew straightforward and shed many of the disguises required by the conventions of civilisation. and in each, according to temperament and character, there stirred the life-instincts that were natural, untamed, and, in a sense--savage. iii so it came about that i stayed with our island party, putting off my second exploring trip from day to day, and i think that this far-fetched instinct to watch sangree was really the cause of my postponement. for another ten days the life of the camp pursued its even and delightful way, blessed by perfect summer weather, a good harvest of fish, fine winds for sailing, and calm, starry nights. maloney's selfish prayer had been favourably received. nothing came to disturb or perplex. there was not even the prowling of night animals to vex the rest of mrs. maloney; for in previous camps it had often been her peculiar affliction that she heard the porcupines scratching against the canvas, or the squirrels dropping fir-cones in the early morning with a sound of miniature thunder upon the roof of her tent. but on this island there was not even a squirrel or a mouse. i think two toads and a small and harmless snake were the only living creatures that had been discovered during the whole of the first fortnight. and these two toads in all probability were not two toads, but one toad. then, suddenly, came the terror that changed the whole aspect of the place--the devastating terror. it came, at first, gently, but from the very start it made me realise the unpleasant loneliness of our situation, our remote isolation in this wilderness of sea and rock, and how the islands in this tideless baltic ocean lay about us like the advance guard of a vast besieging army. its entry, as i say, was gentle, hardly noticeable, in fact, to most of us: singularly undramatic it certainly was. but, then, in actual life this is often the way the dreadful climaxes move upon us, leaving the heart undisturbed almost to the last minute, and then overwhelming it with a sudden rush of horror. for it was the custom at breakfast to listen patiently while each in turn related the trivial adventures of the night--how they slept, whether the wind shook their tent, whether the spider on the ridge pole had moved, whether they had heard the toad, and so forth--and on this particular morning joan, in the middle of a little pause, made a truly novel announcement: "in the night i heard the howling of a dog," she said, and then flushed up to the roots of her hair when we burst out laughing. for the idea of there being a dog on this forsaken island that was only able to support a snake and two toads was distinctly ludicrous, and i remember maloney, half-way through his burnt porridge, capping the announcement by declaring that he had heard a "baltic turtle" in the lagoon, and his wife's expression of frantic alarm before the laughter undeceived her. but the next morning joan repeated the story with additional and convincing detail. "sounds of whining and growling woke me," she said, "and i distinctly heard sniffing under my tent, and the scratching of paws." "oh, timothy! can it be a porcupine?" exclaimed the bo'sun's mate with distress, forgetting that sweden was not canada. but the girl's voice had sounded to me in quite another key, and looking up i saw that her father and sangree were staring at her hard. they, too, understood that she was in earnest, and had been struck by the serious note in her voice. "rubbish, joan! you are always dreaming something or other wild," her father said a little impatiently. "there's not an animal of any size on the whole island," added sangree with a puzzled expression. he never took his eyes from her face. "but there's nothing to prevent one swimming over," i put in briskly, for somehow a sense of uneasiness that was not pleasant had woven itself into the talk and pauses. "a deer, for instance, might easily land in the night and take a look round--" "or a bear!" gasped the bo'sun's mate, with a look so portentous that we all welcomed the laugh. but joan did not laugh. instead, she sprang up and called to us to follow. "there," she said, pointing to the ground by her tent on the side farthest from her mother's; "there are the marks close to my head. you can see for yourselves." we saw plainly. the moss and lichen--for earth there was hardly any--had been scratched up by paws. an animal about the size of a large dog it must have been, to judge by the marks. we stood and stared in a row. "close to my head," repeated the girl, looking round at us. her face, i noticed, was very pale, and her lip seemed to quiver for an instant. then she gave a sudden gulp--and burst into a flood of tears. the whole thing had come about in the brief space of a few minutes, and with a curious sense of inevitableness, moreover, as though it had all been carefully planned from all time and nothing could have stopped it. it had all been rehearsed before--had actually happened before, as the strange feeling sometimes has it; it seemed like the opening movement in some ominous drama, and that i knew exactly what would happen next. something of great moment was impending. for this sinister sensation of coming disaster made itself felt from the very beginning, and an atmosphere of gloom and dismay pervaded the entire camp from that moment forward. i drew sangree to one side and moved away, while maloney took the distressed girl into her tent, and his wife followed them, energetic and greatly flustered. for thus, in undramatic fashion, it was that the terror i have spoken of first attempted the invasion of our camp, and, trivial and unimportant though it seemed, every little detail of this opening scene is photographed upon my mind with merciless accuracy and precision. it happened exactly as described. this was exactly the language used. i see it written before me in black and white. i see, too, the faces of all concerned with the sudden ugly signature of alarm where before had been peace. the terror had stretched out, so to speak, a first tentative feeler toward us and had touched the hearts of each with a horrid directness. and from this moment the camp changed. sangree in particular was visibly upset. he could not bear to see the girl distressed, and to hear her actually cry was almost more than he could stand. the feeling that he had no right to protect her hurt him keenly, and i could see that he was itching to do something to help, and liked him for it. his expression said plainly that he would tear in a thousand pieces anything that dared to injure a hair of her head. we lit our pipes and strolled over in silence to the men's quarters, and it was his odd canadian expression "gee whiz!" that drew my attention to a further discovery. "the brute's been scratching round my tent too," he cried, as he pointed to similar marks by the door and i stooped down to examine them. we both stared in amazement for several minutes without speaking. "only i sleep like the dead," he added, straightening up again, "and so heard nothing, i suppose." we traced the paw-marks from the mouth of his tent in a direct line across to the girl's, but nowhere else about the camp was there a sign of the strange visitor. the deer, dog, or whatever it was that had twice favoured us with a visit in the night, had confined its attentions to these two tents. and, after all, there was really nothing out of the way about these visits of an unknown animal, for although our own island was destitute of life, we were in the heart of a wilderness, and the mainland and larger islands must be swarming with all kinds of four-footed creatures, and no very prolonged swimming was necessary to reach us. in any other country it would not have caused a moment's interest--interest of the kind we felt, that is. in our canadian camps the bears were for ever grunting about among the provision bags at night, porcupines scratching unceasingly, and chipmunks scuttling over everything. "my daughter is overtired, and that's the truth of it," explained maloney presently when he rejoined us and had examined in turn the other paw-marks. "she's been overdoing it lately, and camp-life, you know, always means a great excitement to her. it's natural enough, if we take no notice she'll be all right." he paused to borrow my tobacco pouch and fill his pipe, and the blundering way he filled it and spilled the precious weed on the ground visibly belied the calm of his easy language. "you might take her out for a bit of fishing, hubbard, like a good chap; she's hardly up to the long day in the cutter. show her some of the other islands in your canoe, perhaps. eh?" and by lunch-time the cloud had passed away as suddenly, and as suspiciously, as it had come. but in the canoe, on our way home, having till then purposely ignored the subject uppermost in our minds, she suddenly spoke to me in a way that again touched the note of sinister alarm--the note that kept on sounding and sounding until finally john silence came with his great vibrating presence and relieved it; yes, and even after he came, too, for a while. "i'm ashamed to ask it," she said abruptly, as she steered me home, her sleeves rolled up, her hair blowing in the wind, "and ashamed of my silly tears too, because i really can't make out what caused them; but, mr. hubbard, i want you to promise me not to go off for your long expeditions--just yet. i beg it of you." she was so in earnest that she forgot the canoe, and the wind caught it sideways and made us roll dangerously. "i have tried hard not to ask this," she added, bringing the canoe round again, "but i simply can't help myself." it was a good deal to ask, and i suppose my hesitation was plain; for she went on before i could reply, and her beseeching expression and intensity of manner impressed me very forcibly. "for another two weeks only--" "mr. sangree leaves in a fortnight," i said, seeing at once what she was driving at, but wondering if it was best to encourage her or not. "if i knew you were to be on the island till then," she said, her face alternately pale and blushing, and her voice trembling a little, "i should feel so much happier." i looked at her steadily, waiting for her to finish. "and safer," she added almost in a whisper; "especially--at night, i mean." "safer, joan?" i repeated, thinking i had never seen her eyes so soft and tender. she nodded her head, keeping her gaze fixed on my face. it was really difficult to refuse, whatever my thoughts and judgment may have been, and somehow i understood that she spoke with good reason, though for the life of me i could not have put it into words. "happier--and safer," she said gravely, the canoe giving a dangerous lurch as she leaned forward in her seat to catch my answer. perhaps, after all, the wisest way was to grant her request and make light of it, easing her anxiety without too much encouraging its cause. "all right, joan, you queer creature; i promise," and the instant look of relief in her face, and the smile that came back like sunlight to her eyes, made me feel that, unknown to myself and the world, i was capable of considerable sacrifice after all. "but, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of," i added sharply; and she looked up in my face with the smile women use when they know we are talking idly, yet do not wish to tell us so. "_you_ don't feel afraid, i know," she observed quietly. "of course not; why should i?" "so, if you will just humour me this once i--i will never ask anything foolish of you again as long as i live," she said gratefully. "you have my promise," was all i could find to say. she headed the nose of the canoe for the lagoon lying a quarter of a mile ahead, and paddled swiftly; but a minute or two later she paused again and stared hard at me with the dripping paddle across the thwarts. "you've not heard anything at night yourself, have you?" she asked. "i never hear anything at night," i replied shortly, "from the moment i lie down till the moment i get up." "that dismal howling, for instance," she went on, determined to get it out, "far away at first and then getting closer, and stopping just outside the camp?" "certainly not." "because, sometimes i think i almost dreamed it." "most likely you did," was my unsympathetic response. "and you don't think father has heard it either, then?" "no. he would have told me if he had." this seemed to relieve her mind a little. "i know mother hasn't," she added, as if speaking to herself, "for she hears nothing--ever." * * * * * it was two nights after this conversation that i woke out of deep sleep and heard sounds of screaming. the voice was really horrible, breaking the peace and silence with its shrill clamour. in less than ten seconds i was half dressed and out of my tent. the screaming had stopped abruptly, but i knew the general direction, and ran as fast as the darkness would allow over to the women's quarters, and on getting close i heard sounds of suppressed weeping. it was joan's voice. and just as i came up i saw mrs. maloney, marvellously attired, fumbling with a lantern. other voices became audible in the same moment behind me, and timothy maloney arrived, breathless, less than half dressed, and carrying another lantern that had gone out on the way from being banged against a tree. dawn was just breaking, and a chill wind blew in from the sea. heavy black clouds drove low overhead. the scene of confusion may be better imagined than described. questions in frightened voices filled the air against this background of suppressed weeping. briefly--joan's silk tent had been torn, and the girl was in a state bordering upon hysterics. somewhat reassured by our noisy presence, however,--for she was plucky at heart,--she pulled herself together and tried to explain what had happened; and her broken words, told there on the edge of night and morning upon this wild island ridge, were oddly thrilling and distressingly convincing. "something touched me and i woke," she said simply, but in a voice still hushed and broken with the terror of it, "something pushing against the tent; i felt it through the canvas. there was the same sniffing and scratching as before, and i felt the tent give a little as when wind shakes it. i heard breathing--very loud, very heavy breathing--and then came a sudden great tearing blow, and the canvas ripped open close to my face." she had instantly dashed out through the open flap and screamed at the top of her voice, thinking the creature had actually got into the tent. but nothing was visible, she declared, and she heard not the faintest sound of an animal making off under cover of the darkness. the brief account seemed to exercise a paralysing effect upon us all as we listened to it. i can see the dishevelled group to this day, the wind blowing the women's hair, and maloney craning his head forward to listen, and his wife, open-mouthed and gasping, leaning against a pine tree. "come over to the stockade and we'll get the fire going," i said; "that's the first thing," for we were all shaking with the cold in our scanty garments. and at that moment sangree arrived wrapped in a blanket and carrying his gun; he was still drunken with sleep. "the dog again," maloney explained briefly, forestalling his questions; "been at joan's tent. torn it, by gad! this time. it's time we did something." he went on mumbling confusedly to himself. sangree gripped his gun and looked about swiftly in the darkness. i saw his eyes aflame in the glare of the flickering lanterns. he made a movement as though to start out and hunt--and kill. then his glance fell on the girl crouching on the ground, her face hidden in her hands, and there leaped into his features an expression of savage anger that transformed them. he could have faced a dozen lions with a walking stick at that moment, and again i liked him for the strength of his anger, his self-control, and his hopeless devotion. but i stopped him going off on a blind and useless chase. "come and help me start the fire, sangree," i said, anxious also to relieve the girl of our presence; and a few minutes later the ashes, still growing from the night's fire, had kindled the fresh wood, and there was a blaze that warmed us well while it also lit up the surrounding trees within a radius of twenty yards. "i heard nothing," he whispered; "what in the world do you think it is? it surely can't be only a dog!" "we'll find that out later," i said, as the others came up to the grateful warmth; "the first thing is to make as big a fire as we can." joan was calmer now, and her mother had put on some warmer, and less miraculous, garments. and while they stood talking in low voices maloney and i slipped off to examine the tent. there was little enough to see, but that little was unmistakable. some animal had scratched up the ground at the head of the tent, and with a great blow of a powerful paw--a paw clearly provided with good claws--had struck the silk and torn it open. there was a hole large enough to pass a fist and arm through. "it can't be far away," maloney said excitedly. "we'll organise a hunt at once; this very minute." we hurried back to the fire, maloney talking boisterously about his proposed hunt. "there's nothing like prompt action to dispel alarm," he whispered in my ear; and then turned to the rest of us. "we'll hunt the island from end to end at once," he said, with excitement; "that's what we'll do. the beast can't be far away. and the bo'sun's mate and joan must come too, because they can't be left alone. hubbard, you take the right shore, and you, sangree, the left, and i'll go in the middle with the women. in this way we can stretch clean across the ridge, and nothing bigger than a rabbit can possibly escape us." he was extraordinarily excited, i thought. anything affecting joan, of course, stirred him prodigiously. "get your guns and we'll start the drive at once," he cried. he lit another lantern and handed one each to his wife and joan, and while i ran to fetch my gun i heard him singing to himself with the excitement of it all. meanwhile the dawn had come on quickly. it made the flickering lanterns look pale. the wind, too, was rising, and i heard the trees moaning overhead and the waves breaking with increasing clamour on the shore. in the lagoon the boat dipped and splashed, and the sparks from the fire were carried aloft in a stream and scattered far and wide. we made our way to the extreme end of the island, measured our distances carefully, and then began to advance. none of us spoke. sangree and i, with cocked guns, watched the shore lines, and all within easy touch and speaking distance. it was a slow and blundering drive, and there were many false alarms, but after the best part of half an hour we stood on the farther end, having made the complete tour, and without putting up so much as a squirrel. certainly there was no living creature on that island but ourselves. "i know what it is!" cried maloney, looking out over the dim expanse of grey sea, and speaking with the air of a man making a discovery; "it's a dog from one of the farms on the larger islands"--he pointed seawards where the archipelago thickened--"and it's escaped and turned wild. our fires and voices attracted it, and it's probably half starved as well as savage, poor brute!" no one said anything in reply, and he began to sing again very low to himself. the point where we stood--a huddled, shivering group--faced the wider channels that led to the open sea and finland. the grey dawn had broken in earnest at last, and we could see the racing waves with their angry crests of white. the surrounding islands showed up as dark masses in the distance, and in the east, almost as maloney spoke, the sun came up with a rush in a stormy and magnificent sky of red and gold. against this splashed and gorgeous background black clouds, shaped like fantastic and legendary animals, filed past swiftly in a tearing stream, and to this day i have only to close my eyes to see again that vivid and hurrying procession in the air. all about us the pines made black splashes against the sky. it was an angry sunrise. rain, indeed, had already begun to fall in big drops. we turned, as by a common instinct, and, without speech, made our way back slowly to the stockade, maloney humming snatches of his songs, sangree in front with his gun, prepared to shoot at a moment's notice, and the women floundering in the rear with myself and the extinguished lanterns. yet it was only a dog! really, it was most singular when one came to reflect soberly upon it all. events, say the occultists, have souls, or at least that agglomerate life due to the emotions and thoughts of all concerned in them, so that cities, and even whole countries, have great astral shapes which may become visible to the eye of vision; and certainly here, the soul of this drive--this vain, blundering, futile drive--stood somewhere between ourselves and--laughed. all of us heard that laugh, and all of us tried hard to smother the sound, or at least to ignore it. every one talked at once, loudly, and with exaggerated decision, obviously trying to say something plausible against heavy odds, striving to explain naturally that an animal might so easily conceal itself from us, or swim away before we had time to light upon its trail. for we all spoke of that "trail" as though it really existed, and we had more to go upon than the mere marks of paws about the tents of joan and the canadian. indeed, but for these, and the torn tent, i think it would, of course, have been possible to ignore the existence of this beast intruder altogether. and it was here, under this angry dawn, as we stood in the shelter of the stockade from the pouring rain, weary yet so strangely excited--it was here, out of this confusion of voices and explanations, that--very stealthily--the ghost of something horrible slipped in and stood among us. it made all our explanations seem childish and untrue; the false relation was instantly exposed. eyes exchanged quick, anxious glances, questioning, expressive of dismay. there was a sense of wonder, of poignant distress, and of trepidation. alarm stood waiting at our elbows. we shivered. then, suddenly, as we looked into each other's faces, came the long, unwelcome pause in which this new arrival established itself in our hearts. and, without further speech, or attempt at explanation, maloney moved off abruptly to mix the porridge for an early breakfast; sangree to clean the fish; myself to chop wood and tend the fire; joan and her mother to change their wet garments; and, most significant of all, to prepare her mother's tent for its future complement of two. each went to his duty, but hurriedly, awkwardly, silently; and this new arrival, this shape of terror and distress stalked, viewless, by the side of each. "if only i could have traced that dog," i think was the thought in the minds of all. but in camp, where every one realises how important the individual contribution is to the comfort and well-being of all, the mind speedily recovers tone and pulls itself together. during the day, a day of heavy and ceaseless rain, we kept more or less to our tents, and though there were signs of mysterious conferences between the three members of the maloney family, i think that most of us slept a good deal and stayed alone with his thoughts. certainly, i did, because when maloney came to say that his wife invited us all to a special "tea" in her tent, he had to shake me awake before i realised that he was there at all. and by supper-time we were more or less even-minded again, and almost jolly. i only noticed that there was an undercurrent of what is best described as "jumpiness," and that the merest snapping of a twig, or plop of a fish in the lagoon, was sufficient to make us start and look over our shoulders. pauses were rare in our talk, and the fire was never for one instant allowed to get low. the wind and rain had ceased, but the dripping of the branches still kept up an excellent imitation of a downpour. in particular, maloney was vigilant and alert, telling us a series of tales in which the wholesome humorous element was especially strong. he lingered, too, behind with me after sangree had gone to bed, and while i mixed myself a glass of hot swedish punch, he did a thing i had never known him do before--he mixed one for himself, and then asked me to light him over to his tent. we said nothing on the way, but i felt that he was glad of my companionship. i returned alone to the stockade, and for a long time after that kept the fire blazing, and sat up smoking and thinking. i hardly knew why; but sleep was far from me for one thing, and for another, an idea was taking form in my mind that required the comfort of tobacco and a bright fire for its growth. i lay against a corner of the stockade seat, listening to the wind whispering and to the ceaseless drip-drip of the trees. the night, otherwise, was very still, and the sea quiet as a lake. i remember that i was conscious, peculiarly conscious, of this host of desolate islands crowding about us in the darkness, and that we were the one little spot of humanity in a rather wonderful kind of wilderness. but this, i think, was the only symptom that came to warn me of highly strung nerves, and it certainly was not sufficiently alarming to destroy my peace of mind. one thing, however, did come to disturb my peace, for just as i finally made ready to go, and had kicked the embers of the fire into a last effort, i fancied i saw, peering at me round the farther end of the stockade wall, a dark and shadowy mass that might have been--that strongly resembled, in fact--the body of a large animal. two glowing eyes shone for an instant in the middle of it. but the next second i saw that it was merely a projecting mass of moss and lichen in the wall of our stockade, and the eyes were a couple of wandering sparks from the dying ashes i had kicked. it was easy enough, too, to imagine i saw an animal moving here and there between the trees, as i picked my way stealthily to my tent. of course, the shadows tricked me. and though it was after one o'clock, maloney's light was still burning, for i saw his tent shining white among the pines. it was, however, in the short space between consciousness and sleep--that time when the body is low and the voices of the submerged region tell sometimes true--that the idea which had been all this while maturing reached the point of an actual decision, and i suddenly realised that i had resolved to send word to dr. silence. for, with a sudden wonder that i had hitherto been so blind, the unwelcome conviction dawned upon me all at once that some dreadful thing was lurking about us on this island, and that the safety of at least one of us was threatened by something monstrous and unclean that was too horrible to contemplate. and, again remembering those last words of his as the train moved out of the platform, i understood that dr. silence would hold himself in readiness to come. "unless you should send for me sooner," he had said. * * * * * i found myself suddenly wide awake. it is impossible to say what woke me, but it was no gradual process, seeing that i jumped from deep sleep to absolute alertness in a single instant. i had evidently slept for an hour and more, for the night had cleared, stars crowded the sky, and a pallid half-moon just sinking into the sea threw a spectral light between the trees. i went outside to sniff the air, and stood upright. a curious impression that something was astir in the camp came over me, and when i glanced across at sangree's tent, some twenty feet away, i saw that it was moving. he too, then, was awake and restless, for i saw the canvas sides bulge this way and that as he moved within. the flap pushed forward. he was coming out, like myself, to sniff the air; and i was not surprised, for its sweetness after the rain was intoxicating. and he came on all fours, just as i had done. i saw a head thrust round the edge of the tent. and then i saw that it was not sangree at all. it was an animal. and the same instant i realised something else too--it was _the_ animal; and its whole presentment for some unaccountable reason was unutterably malefic. a cry i was quite unable to suppress escaped me, and the creature turned on the instant and stared at me with baleful eyes. i could have dropped on the spot, for the strength all ran out of my body with a rush. something about it touched in me the living terror that grips and paralyses. if the mind requires but the tenth of a second to form an impression, i must have stood there stockstill for several seconds while i seized the ropes for support and stared. many and vivid impressions flashed through my mind, but not one of them resulted in action, because i was in instant dread that the beast any moment would leap in my direction and be upon me. instead, however, after what seemed a vast period, it slowly turned its eyes from my face, uttered a low whining sound, and came out altogether into the open. then, for the first time, i saw it in its entirety and noted two things: it was about the size of a large dog, but at the same time it was utterly unlike any animal that i had ever seen. also, that the quality that had impressed me first as being malefic was really only its singular and original strangeness. foolish as it may sound, and impossible as it is for me to adduce proof, i can only say that the animal seemed to me then to be--not real. but all this passed through my mind in a flash, almost subconsciously, and before i had time to check my impressions, or even properly verify them, i made an involuntary movement, catching the tight rope in my hand so that it twanged like a banjo string, and in that instant the creature turned the corner of sangree's tent and was gone into the darkness. then, of course, my senses in some measure returned to me, and i realised only one thing: it had been inside his tent! i dashed out, reached the door in half a dozen strides, and looked in. the canadian, thank god! lay upon his bed of branches. his arm was stretched outside, across the blankets, the fist tightly clenched, and the body had an appearance of unusual rigidity that was alarming. on his face there was an expression of effort, almost of painful effort, so far as the uncertain light permitted me to see, and his sleep seemed to be very profound. he looked, i thought, so stiff, so unnaturally stiff, and in some indefinable way, too, he looked smaller--shrunken. i called to him to wake, but called many times in vain. then i decided to shake him, and had already moved forward to do so vigorously when there came a sound of footsteps padding softly behind me, and i felt a stream of hot breath burn my neck as i stooped. i turned sharply. the tent door was darkened and something silently swept in. i felt a rough and shaggy body push past me, and knew that the animal had returned. it seemed to leap forward between me and sangree--in fact, to leap upon sangree, for its dark body hid him momentarily from view, and in that moment my soul turned sick and coward with a horror that rose from the very dregs and depths of life, and gripped my existence at its central source. the creature seemed somehow to melt away into him, almost as though it belonged to him and were a part of himself, but in the same instant--that instant of extraordinary confusion and terror in my mind--it seemed to pass over and behind him, and, in some utterly unaccountable fashion, it was gone. and the canadian woke and sat up with a start. "quick! you fool!" i cried, in my excitement, "the beast has been in your tent, here at your very throat while you sleep like the dead. up, man! get your gun! only this second it disappeared over there behind your head. quick! or joan--!" and somehow the fact that he was there, wide-awake now, to corroborate me, brought the additional conviction to my own mind that this was no animal, but some perplexing and dreadful form of life that drew upon my deeper knowledge, that much reading had perhaps assented to, but that had never yet come within actual range of my senses. he was up in a flash, and out. he was trembling, and very white. we searched hurriedly, feverishly, but found only the traces of paw-marks passing from the door of his own tent across the moss to the women's. and the sight of the tracks about mrs. maloney's tent, where joan now slept, set him in a perfect fury. "do you know what it is, hubbard, this beast?" he hissed under his breath at me; "it's a damned wolf, that's what it is--a wolf lost among the islands, and starving to death--desperate. so help me god, i believe it's that!" he talked a lot of rubbish in his excitement. he declared he would sleep by day and sit up every night until he killed it. again his rage touched my admiration; but i got him away before he made enough noise to wake the whole camp. "i have a better plan than that," i said, watching his face closely. "i don't think this is anything we can deal with. i'm going to send for the only man i know who can help. we'll go to waxholm this very morning and get a telegram through." sangree stared at me with a curious expression as the fury died out of his face and a new look of alarm took its place. "john silence," i said, "will know--" "you think it's something--of that sort?" he stammered. "i am sure of it." there was a moment's pause. "that's worse, far worse than anything material," he said, turning visibly paler. he looked from my face to the sky, and then added with sudden resolution, "come; the wind's rising. let's get off at once. from there you can telephone to stockholm and get a telegram sent without delay." i sent him down to get the boat ready, and seized the opportunity myself to run and wake maloney. he was sleeping very lightly, and sprang up the moment i put my head inside his tent. i told him briefly what i had seen, and he showed so little surprise that i caught myself wondering for the first time whether he himself had seen more going on than he had deemed wise to communicate to the rest of us. he agreed to my plan without a moment's hesitation, and my last words to him were to let his wife and daughter think that the great psychic doctor was coming merely as a chance visitor, and not with any professional interest. so, with frying-pan, provisions, and blankets aboard, sangree and i sailed out of the lagoon fifteen minutes later, and headed with a good breeze for the direction of waxholm and the borders of civilisation. iv although nothing john silence did ever took me, properly speaking, by surprise, it was certainly unexpected to find a letter from stockholm waiting for me. "i have finished my hungary business," he wrote, "and am here for ten days. do not hesitate to send if you need me. if you telephone any morning from waxholm i can catch the afternoon steamer." my years of intercourse with him were full of "coincidences" of this description, and although he never sought to explain them by claiming any magical system of communication with my mind, i have never doubted that there actually existed some secret telepathic method by which he knew my circumstances and gauged the degree of my need. and that this power was independent of time in the sense that it saw into the future, always seemed to me equally apparent. sangree was as much relieved as i was, and within an hour of sunset that very evening we met him on the arrival of the little coasting steamer, and carried him off in the dinghy to the camp we had prepared on a neighbouring island, meaning to start for home early next morning. "now," he said, when supper was over and we were smoking round the fire, "let me hear your story." he glanced from one to the other, smiling. "you tell it, mr. hubbard," sangree interrupted abruptly, and went off a little way to wash the dishes, yet not so far as to be out of earshot. and while he splashed with the hot water, and scraped the tin plates with sand and moss, my voice, unbroken by a single question from dr. silence, ran on for the next half-hour with the best account i could give of what had happened. my listener lay on the other side of the fire, his face half hidden by a big sombrero; sometimes he glanced up questioningly when a point needed elaboration, but he uttered no single word till i had reached the end, and his manner all through the recital was grave and attentive. overhead, the wash of the wind in the pine branches filled in the pauses; the darkness settled down over the sea, and the stars came out in thousands, and by the time i finished the moon had risen to flood the scene with silver. yet, by his face and eyes, i knew quite well that the doctor was listening to something he had expected to hear, even if he had not actually anticipated all the details. "you did well to send for me," he said very low, with a significant glance at me when i finished; "very well,"--and for one swift second his eye took in sangree,--"for what we have to deal with here is nothing more than a werewolf--rare enough, i am glad to say, but often very sad, and sometimes very terrible." i jumped as though i had been shot, but the next second was heartily ashamed of my want of control; for this brief remark, confirming as it did my own worst suspicions, did more to convince me of the gravity of the adventure than any number of questions or explanations. it seemed to draw close the circle about us, shutting a door somewhere that locked us in with the animal and the horror, and turning the key. whatever it was had now to be faced and dealt with. "no one has been actually injured so far?" he asked aloud, but in a matter-of-fact tone that lent reality to grim possibilities. "good heavens, no!" cried the canadian, throwing down his dishcloths and coming forward into the circle of firelight. "surely there can be no question of this poor starved beast injuring anybody, can there?" his hair straggled untidily over his forehead, and there was a gleam in his eyes that was not all reflection from the fire. his words made me turn sharply. we all laughed a little short, forced laugh. "i trust not, indeed," dr. silence said quietly. "but what makes you think the creature is starved?" he asked the question with his eyes straight on the other's face. the prompt question explained to me why i had started, and i waited with just a tremor of excitement for the reply. sangree hesitated a moment, as though the question took him by surprise. but he met the doctor's gaze unflinchingly across the fire, and with complete honesty. "really," he faltered, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "i can hardly tell you. the phrase seemed to come out of its own accord. i have felt from the beginning that it was in pain and--starved, though why i felt this never occurred to me till you asked." "you really know very little about it, then?" said the other, with a sudden gentleness in his voice. "no more than that," sangree replied, looking at him with a puzzled expression that was unmistakably genuine. "in fact, nothing at all, really," he added, by way of further explanation. "i am glad of that," i heard the doctor murmur under his breath, but so low that i only just caught the words, and sangree missed them altogether, as evidently he was meant to do. "and now," he cried, getting on his feet and shaking himself with a characteristic gesture, as though to shake out the horror and the mystery, "let us leave the problem till to-morrow and enjoy this wind and sea and stars. i've been living lately in the atmosphere of many people, and feel that i want to wash and be clean. i propose a swim and then bed. who'll second me?" and two minutes later we were all diving from the boat into cool, deep water, that reflected a thousand moons as the waves broke away from us in countless ripples. we slept in blankets under the open sky, sangree and i taking the outside places, and were up before sunrise to catch the dawn wind. helped by this early start we were half-way home by noon, and then the wind shifted to a few points behind us so that we fairly ran. in and out among a thousand islands, down narrow channels where we lost the wind, out into open spaces where we had to take in a reef, racing along under a hot and cloudless sky, we flew through the very heart of the bewildering and lonely scenery. "a real wilderness," cried dr. silence from his seat in the bows where he held the jib sheet. his hat was off, his hair tumbled in the wind, and his lean brown face gave him the touch of an oriental. presently he changed places with sangree, and came down to talk with me by the tiller. "a wonderful region, all this world of islands," he said, waving his hand to the scenery rushing past us, "but doesn't it strike you there's something lacking?" "it's--hard," i answered, after a moment's reflection. "it has a superficial, glittering prettiness, without--" i hesitated to find the word i wanted. john silence nodded his head with approval. "exactly," he said. "the picturesqueness of stage scenery that is not real, not alive. it's like a landscape by a clever painter, yet without true imagination. soulless--that's the word you wanted." "something like that," i answered, watching the gusts of wind on the sails. "not dead so much, as without soul. that's it." "of course," he went on, in a voice calculated, it seemed to me, not to reach our companion in the bows, "to live long in a place like this--long and alone--might bring about a strange result in some men." i suddenly realised he was talking with a purpose and pricked up my ears. "there's no life here. these islands are mere dead rocks pushed up from below the sea--not living land; and there's nothing really alive on them. even the sea, this tideless, brackish sea, neither salt water nor fresh, is dead. it's all a pretty image of life without the real heart and soul of life. to a man with too strong desires who came here and lived close to nature, strange things might happen." "let her out a bit," i shouted to sangree, who was coming aft. "the wind's gusty and we've got hardly any ballast." he went back to the bows, and dr. silence continued-- "here, i mean, a long sojourn would lead to deterioration, to degeneration. the place is utterly unsoftened by human influences, by any humanising associations of history, good or bad. this landscape has never awakened into life; it's still dreaming in its primitive sleep." "in time," i put in, "you mean a man living here might become brutal?" "the passions would run wild, selfishness become supreme, the instincts coarsen and turn savage probably." "but--" "in other places just as wild, parts of italy for instance, where there are other moderating influences, it could not happen. the character might grow wild, savage too in a sense, but with a human wildness one could understand and deal with. but here, in a hard place like this, it might be otherwise." he spoke slowly, weighing his words carefully. i looked at him with many questions in my eyes, and a precautionary cry to sangree to stay in the fore part of the boat, out of earshot. "first of all there would come callousness to pain, and indifference to the rights of others. then the soul would turn savage, not from passionate human causes, or with enthusiasm, but by deadening down into a kind of cold, primitive, emotionless savagery--by turning, like the landscape, soulless." "and a man with strong desires, you say, might change?" "without being aware of it, yes; he might turn savage, his instincts and desires turn animal. and if"--he lowered his voice and turned for a moment towards the bows, and then continued in his most weighty manner--"owing to delicate health or other predisposing causes, his double--you know what i mean, of course--his etheric body of desire, or astral body, as some term it--that part in which the emotions, passions and desires reside--if this, i say, were for some constitutional reason loosely joined to his physical organism, there might well take place an occasional projection--" sangree came aft with a sudden rush, his face aflame, but whether with wind or sun, or with what he had heard, i cannot say. in my surprise i let the tiller slip and the cutter gave a great plunge as she came sharply into the wind and flung us all together in a heap on the bottom. sangree said nothing, but while he scrambled up and made the jib sheet fast my companion found a moment to add to his unfinished sentence the words, too low for any ear but mine-- "entirely unknown to himself, however." we righted the boat and laughed, and then sangree produced the map and explained exactly where we were. far away on the horizon, across an open stretch of water, lay a blue cluster of islands with our crescent-shaped home among them and the safe anchorage of the lagoon. an hour with this wind would get us there comfortably, and while dr. silence and sangree fell into conversation, i sat and pondered over the strange suggestions that had just been put into my mind concerning the "double," and the possible form it might assume when dissociated temporarily from the physical body. the whole way home these two chatted, and john silence was as gentle and sympathetic as a woman. i did not hear much of their talk, for the wind grew occasionally to the force of a hurricane and the sails and tiller absorbed my attention; but i could see that sangree was pleased and happy, and was pouring out intimate revelations to his companion in the way that most people did--when john silence wished them to do so. but it was quite suddenly, while i sat all intent upon wind and sails, that the true meaning of sangree's remark about the animal flared up in me with its full import. for his admission that he knew it was in pain and starved was in reality nothing more or less than a revelation of his deeper self. it was in the nature of a confession. he was speaking of something that he knew positively, something that was beyond question or argument, something that had to do directly with himself. "poor starved beast" he had called it in words that had "come out of their own accord," and there had not been the slightest evidence of any desire to conceal or explain away. he had spoken instinctively--from his heart, and as though about his own self. and half an hour before sunset we raced through the narrow opening of the lagoon and saw the smoke of the dinner-fire blowing here and there among the trees, and the figures of joan and the bo'sun's mate running down to meet us at the landing-stage. v everything changed from the moment john silence set foot on that island; it was like the effect produced by calling in some big doctor, some great arbiter of life and death, for consultation. the sense of gravity increased a hundredfold. even inanimate objects took upon themselves a subtle alteration, for the setting of the adventure--this deserted bit of sea with its hundreds of uninhabited islands--somehow turned sombre. an element that was mysterious, and in a sense disheartening, crept unbidden into the severity of grey rock and dark pine forest and took the sparkle from the sunshine and the sea. i, at least, was keenly aware of the change, for my whole being shifted, as it were, a degree higher, becoming keyed up and alert. the figures from the background of the stage moved forward a little into the light--nearer to the inevitable action. in a word this man's arrival intensified the whole affair. and, looking back down the years to the time when all this happened, it is clear to me that he had a pretty sharp idea of the meaning of it from the very beginning. how much he knew beforehand by his strange divining powers, it is impossible to say, but from the moment he came upon the scene and caught within himself the note of what was going on amongst us, he undoubtedly held the true solution of the puzzle and had no need to ask questions. and this certitude it was that set him in such an atmosphere of power and made us all look to him instinctively; for he took no tentative steps, made no false moves, and while the rest of us floundered he moved straight to the climax. he was indeed a true diviner of souls. i can now read into his behaviour a good deal that puzzled me at the time, for though i had dimly guessed the solution, i had no idea how he would deal with it. and the conversations i can reproduce almost verbatim, for, according to my invariable habit, i kept full notes of all he said. to mrs. maloney, foolish and dazed; to joan, alarmed, yet plucky; and to the clergyman, moved by his daughter's distress below his usual shallow emotions, he gave the best possible treatment in the best possible way, yet all so easily and simply as to make it appear naturally spontaneous. for he dominated the bo'sun's mate, taking the measure of her ignorance with infinite patience; he keyed up joan, stirring her courage and interest to the highest point for her own safety; and the reverend timothy he soothed and comforted, while obtaining his implicit obedience, by taking him into his confidence, and leading him gradually to a comprehension of the issue that was bound to follow. and sangree--here his wisdom was most wisely calculated--he neglected outwardly because inwardly he was the object of his unceasing and most concentrated attention. under the guise of apparent indifference his mind kept the canadian under constant observation. there was a restless feeling in the camp that evening and none of us lingered round the fire after supper as usual. sangree and i busied ourselves with patching up the torn tent for our guest and with finding heavy stones to hold the ropes, for dr. silence insisted on having it pitched on the highest point of the island ridge, just where it was most rocky and there was no earth for pegs. the place, moreover, was midway between the men's and women's tents, and, of course, commanded the most comprehensive view of the camp. "so that if your dog comes," he said simply, "i may be able to catch him as he passes across." the wind had gone down with the sun and an unusual warmth lay over the island that made sleep heavy, and in the morning we assembled at a late breakfast, rubbing our eyes and yawning. the cool north wind had given way to the warm southern air that sometimes came up with haze and moisture across the baltic, bringing with it the relaxing sensations that produced enervation and listlessness. and this may have been the reason why at first i failed to notice that anything unusual was about, and why i was less alert than normally; for it was not till after breakfast that the silence of our little party struck me and i discovered that joan had not yet put in an appearance. and then, in a flash, the last heaviness of sleep vanished and i saw that maloney was white and troubled and his wife could not hold a plate without trembling. a desire to ask questions was stopped in me by a swift glance from dr. silence, and i suddenly understood in some vague way that they were waiting till sangree should have gone. how this idea came to me i cannot determine, but the soundness of the intuition was soon proved, for the moment he moved off to his tent, maloney looked up at me and began to speak in a low voice. "you slept through it all," he half whispered. "through what?" i asked, suddenly thrilled with the knowledge that something dreadful had happened. "we didn't wake you for fear of getting the whole camp up," he went on, meaning, by the camp, i supposed, sangree. "it was just before dawn when the screams woke me." "the dog again?" i asked, with a curious sinking of the heart. "got right into the tent," he went on, speaking passionately but very low, "and woke my wife by scrambling all over her. then she realised that joan was struggling beside her. and, by god! the beast had torn her arm; scratched all down the arm she was, and bleeding." "joan injured?" i gasped. "merely scratched--this time," put in john silence, speaking for the first time; "suffering more from shock and fright than actual wounds." "isn't it a mercy the doctor was here?" said mrs. maloney, looking as if she would never know calmness again. "i think we should both have been killed." "it has been a most merciful escape," maloney said, his pulpit voice struggling with his emotion. "but, of course, we cannot risk another--we must strike camp and get away at once--" "only poor mr. sangree must not know what has happened. he is so attached to joan and would be so terribly upset," added the bo'sun's mate distractedly, looking all about in her terror. "it is perhaps advisable that mr. sangree should not know what has occurred," dr. silence said with quiet authority, "but i think, for the safety of all concerned, it will be better not to leave the island just now." he spoke with great decision and maloney looked up and followed his words closely. "if you will agree to stay here a few days longer, i have no doubt we can put an end to the attentions of your strange visitor, and incidentally have the opportunity of observing a most singular and interesting phenomenon--" "what!" gasped mrs. maloney, "a phenomenon?--you mean that you know what it is?" "i am quite certain i know what it is," he replied very low, for we heard the footsteps of sangree approaching, "though i am not so certain yet as to the best means of dealing with it. but in any case it is not wise to leave precipitately--" "oh, timothy, does he think it's a devil--?" cried the bo'sun's mate in a voice that even the canadian must have heard. "in my opinion," continued john silence, looking across at me and the clergyman, "it is a case of modern lycanthropy with other complications that may--" he left the sentence unfinished, for mrs. maloney got up with a jump and fled to her tent fearful she might hear a worse thing, and at that moment sangree turned the corner of the stockade and came into view. "there are footmarks all round the mouth of my tent," he said with excitement. "the animal has been here again in the night. dr. silence, you really must come and see them for yourself. they're as plain on the moss as tracks in snow." but later in the day, while sangree went off in the canoe to fish the pools near the larger islands, and joan still lay, bandaged and resting, in her tent, dr. silence called me and the tutor and proposed a walk to the granite slabs at the far end. mrs. maloney sat on a stump near her daughter, and busied herself energetically with alternate nursing and painting. "we'll leave you in charge," the doctor said with a smile that was meant to be encouraging, "and when you want us for lunch, or anything, the megaphone will always bring us back in time." for, though the very air was charged with strange emotions, every one talked quietly and naturally as with a definite desire to counteract unnecessary excitement. "i'll keep watch," said the plucky bo'sun's mate, "and meanwhile i find comfort in my work." she was busy with the sketch she had begun on the day after our arrival. "for even a tree," she added proudly, pointing to her little easel, "is a symbol of the divine, and the thought makes me feel safer." we glanced for a moment at a daub which was more like the symptom of a disease than a symbol of the divine--and then took the path round the lagoon. at the far end we made a little fire and lay round it in the shadow of a big boulder. maloney stopped his humming suddenly and turned to his companion. "and what do you make of it all?" he asked abruptly. "in the first place," replied john silence, making himself comfortable against the rock, "it is of human origin, this animal; it is undoubted lycanthropy." his words had the effect precisely of a bombshell. maloney listened as though he had been struck. "you puzzle me utterly," he said, sitting up closer and staring at him. "perhaps," replied the other, "but if you'll listen to me for a few moments you may be less puzzled at the end--or more. it depends how much you know. let me go further and say that you have underestimated, or miscalculated, the effect of this primitive wild life upon all of you." "in what way?" asked the clergyman, bristling a trifle. "it is strong medicine for any town-dweller, and for some of you it has been too strong. one of you has gone wild." he uttered these last words with great emphasis. "gone savage," he added, looking from one to the other. neither of us found anything to reply. "to say that the brute has awakened in a man is not a mere metaphor always," he went on presently. "of course not!" "but, in the sense i mean, may have a very literal and terrible significance," pursued dr. silence. "ancient instincts that no one dreamed of, least of all their possessor, may leap forth--" "atavism can hardly explain a roaming animal with teeth and claws and sanguinary instincts," interrupted maloney with impatience. "the term is of your own choice," continued the doctor equably, "not mine, and it is a good example of a word that indicates a result while it conceals the process; but the explanation of this beast that haunts your island and attacks your daughter is of far deeper significance than mere atavistic tendencies, or throwing back to animal origin, which i suppose is the thought in your mind." "you spoke just now of lycanthropy," said maloney, looking bewildered and anxious to keep to plain facts evidently; "i think i have come across the word, but really--really--it can have no actual significance to-day, can it? these superstitions of mediaeval times can hardly--" he looked round at me with his jolly red face, and the expression of astonishment and dismay on it would have made me shout with laughter at any other time. laughter, however, was never farther from my mind than at this moment when i listened to dr. silence as he carefully suggested to the clergyman the very explanation that had gradually been forcing itself upon my own mind. "however mediaeval ideas may have exaggerated the idea is not of much importance to us now," he said quietly, "when we are face to face with a modern example of what, i take it, has always been a profound fact. for the moment let us leave the name of any one in particular out of the matter and consider certain possibilities." we all agreed with that at any rate. there was no need to speak of sangree, or of any one else, until we knew a little more. "the fundamental fact in this most curious case," he went on, "is that the 'double' of a man--" "you mean the astral body? i've heard of that, of course," broke in maloney with a snort of triumph. "no doubt," said the other, smiling, "no doubt you have;--that this double, or fluidic body of a man, as i was saying, has the power under certain conditions of projecting itself and becoming visible to others. certain training will accomplish this, and certain drugs likewise; illnesses, too, that ravage the body may produce temporarily the result that death produces permanently, and let loose this counterpart of a human being and render it visible to the sight of others. "every one, of course, knows this more or less to-day; but it is not so generally known, and probably believed by none who have not witnessed it, that this fluidic body can, under certain conditions, assume other forms than human, and that such other forms may be determined by the dominating thought and wish of the owner. for this double, or astral body as you call it, is really the seat of the passions, emotions and desires in the psychical economy. it is the passion body; and, in projecting itself, it can often assume a form that gives expression to the overmastering desire that moulds it; for it is composed of such tenuous matter that it lends itself readily to the moulding by thought and wish." "i follow you perfectly," said maloney, looking as if he would much rather be chopping firewood elsewhere and singing. "and there are some persons so constituted," the doctor went on with increasing seriousness, "that the fluid body in them is but loosely associated with the physical, persons of poor health as a rule, yet often of strong desires and passions; and in these persons it is easy for the double to dissociate itself during deep sleep from their system, and, driven forth by some consuming desire, to assume an animal form and seek the fulfilment of that desire." there, in broad daylight, i saw maloney deliberately creep closer to the fire and heap the wood on. we gathered in to the heat, and to each other, and listened to dr. silence's voice as it mingled with the swish and whirr of the wind about us, and the falling of the little waves. "for instance, to take a concrete example," he resumed; "suppose some young man, with the delicate constitution i have spoken of, forms an overpowering attachment to a young woman, yet perceives that it is not welcomed, and is man enough to repress its outward manifestations. in such a case, supposing his double be easily projected, the very repression of his love in the daytime would add to the intense force of his desire when released in deep sleep from the control of his will, and his fluidic body might issue forth in monstrous or animal shape and become actually visible to others. and, if his devotion were dog-like in its fidelity, yet concealing the fires of a fierce passion beneath, it might well assume the form of a creature that seemed to be half dog, half wolf--" "a werewolf, you mean?" cried maloney, pale to the lips as he listened. john silence held up a restraining hand. "a werewolf," he said, "is a true psychical fact of profound significance, however absurdly it may have been exaggerated by the imaginations of a superstitious peasantry in the days of unenlightenment, for a werewolf is nothing but the savage, and possibly sanguinary, instincts of a passionate man scouring the world in his fluidic body, his passion body, his body of desire. as in the case at hand, he may not know it--" "it is not necessarily deliberate, then?" maloney put in quickly, with relief. "--it is hardly ever deliberate. it is the desires released in sleep from the control of the will finding a vent. in all savage races it has been recognised and dreaded, this phenomenon styled 'wehr wolf,' but to-day it is rare. and it is becoming rarer still, for the world grows tame and civilised, emotions have become refined, desires lukewarm, and few men have savagery enough left in them to generate impulses of such intense force, and certainly not to project them in animal form." "by gad!" exclaimed the clergyman breathlessly, and with increasing excitement, "then i feel i must tell you--what has been given to me in confidence--that sangree has in him an admixture of savage blood--of red indian ancestry--" "let us stick to our supposition of a man as described," the doctor stopped him calmly, "and let us imagine that he has in him this admixture of savage blood; and further, that he is wholly unaware of his dreadful physical and psychical infirmity; and that he suddenly finds himself leading the primitive life together with the object of his desires; with the result that the strain of the untamed wild-man in his blood--" "red indian, for instance," from maloney. "red indian, perfectly," agreed the doctor; "the result, i say, that this savage strain in him is awakened and leaps into passionate life. what then?" he looked hard at timothy maloney, and the clergyman looked hard at him. "the wild life such as you lead here on this island, for instance, might quickly awaken his savage instincts--his buried instincts--and with profoundly disquieting results." "you mean his subtle body, as you call it, might issue forth automatically in deep sleep and seek the object of its desire?" i said, coming to maloney's aid, who was finding it more and more difficult to get words. "precisely;--yet the desire of the man remaining utterly unmalefic--pure and wholesome in every sense--" "ah!" i heard the clergyman gasp. "the lover's desire for union run wild, run savage, tearing its way out in primitive, untamed fashion, i mean," continued the doctor, striving to make himself clear to a mind bounded by conventional thought and knowledge; "for the desire to possess, remember, may easily become importunate, and, embodied in this animal form of the subtle body which acts as its vehicle, may go forth to tear in pieces all that obstructs, to reach to the very heart of the loved object and seize it. _au fond_, it is nothing more than the aspiration for union, as i said--the splendid and perfectly clean desire to absorb utterly into itself--" he paused a moment and looked into maloney's eyes. "to bathe in the very heart's blood of the one desired," he added with grave emphasis. the fire spurted and crackled and made me start, but maloney found relief in a genuine shudder, and i saw him turn his head and look about him from the sea to the trees. the wind dropped just at that moment and the doctor's words rang sharply through the stillness. "then it might even kill?" stammered the clergyman presently in a hushed voice, and with a little forced laugh by way of protest that sounded quite ghastly. "in the last resort it might kill," repeated dr. silence. then, after another pause, during which he was clearly debating how much or how little it was wise to give to his audience, he continued: "and if the double does not succeed in getting back to its physical body, that physical body would wake an imbecile--an idiot--or perhaps never wake at all." maloney sat up and found his tongue. "you mean that if this fluid animal thing, or whatever it is, should be prevented getting back, the man might never wake again?" he asked, with shaking voice. "he might be dead," replied the other calmly. the tremor of a positive sensation shivered in the air about us. "then isn't that the best way to cure the fool--the brute--?" thundered the clergyman, half rising to his feet. "certainly it would be an easy and undiscoverable form of murder," was the stern reply, spoken as calmly as though it were a remark about the weather. maloney collapsed visibly, and i gathered the wood over the fire and coaxed up a blaze. "the greater part of the man's life--of his vital forces--goes out with this double," dr. silence resumed, after a moment's consideration, "and a considerable portion of the actual material of his physical body. so the physical body that remains behind is depleted, not only of force, but of matter. you would see it small, shrunken, dropped together, just like the body of a materialising medium at a seance. moreover, any mark or injury inflicted upon this double will be found exactly reproduced by the phenomenon of repercussion upon the shrunken physical body lying in its trance--" "an injury inflicted upon the one you say would be reproduced also on the other?" repeated maloney, his excitement growing again. "undoubtedly," replied the other quietly; "for there exists all the time a continuous connection between the physical body and the double--a connection of matter, though of exceedingly attenuated, possibly of etheric, matter. the wound _travels_, so to speak, from one to the other, and if this connection were broken the result would be death." "death," repeated maloney to himself, "death!" he looked anxiously at our faces, his thoughts evidently beginning to clear. "and this solidity?" he asked presently, after a general pause; "this tearing of tents and flesh; this howling, and the marks of paws? you mean that the double--?" "has sufficient material drawn from the depleted body to produce physical results? certainly!" the doctor took him up. "although to explain at this moment such problems as the passage of matter through matter would be as difficult as to explain how the thought of a mother can actually break the bones of the child unborn." dr. silence pointed out to sea, and maloney, looking wildly about him, turned with a violent start. i saw a canoe, with sangree in the stern-seat, slowly coming into view round the farther point. his hat was off, and his tanned face for the first time appeared to me--to us all, i think--as though it were the face of some one else. he looked like a wild man. then he stood up in the canoe to make a cast with the rod, and he looked for all the world like an indian. i recalled the expression of his face as i had seen it once or twice, notably on that occasion of the evening prayer, and an involuntary shudder ran down my spine. at that very instant he turned and saw us where we lay, and his face broke into a smile, so that his teeth showed white in the sun. he looked in his element, and exceedingly attractive. he called out something about his fish, and soon after passed out of sight into the lagoon. for a time none of us said a word. "and the cure?" ventured maloney at length. "is not to quench this savage force," replied dr. silence, "but to steer it better, and to provide other outlets. this is the solution of all these problems of accumulated force, for this force is the raw material of usefulness, and should be increased and cherished, not by separating it from the body by death, but by raising it to higher channels. the best and quickest cure of all," he went on, speaking very gently and with a hand upon the clergyman's arm, "is to lead it towards its object, provided that object is not unalterably hostile--to let it find rest where--" he stopped abruptly, and the eyes of the two men met in a single glance of comprehension. "joan?" maloney exclaimed, under his breath. "joan!" replied john silence. * * * * * we all went to bed early. the day had been unusually warm, and after sunset a curious hush descended on the island. nothing was audible but that faint, ghostly singing which is inseparable from a pinewood even on the stillest day--a low, searching sound, as though the wind had hair and trailed it o'er the world. with the sudden cooling of the atmosphere a sea fog began to form. it appeared in isolated patches over the water, and then these patches slid together and a white wall advanced upon us. not a breath of air stirred; the firs stood like flat metal outlines; the sea became as oil. the whole scene lay as though held motionless by some huge weight in the air; and the flames from our fire--the largest we had ever made--rose upwards, straight as a church steeple. as i followed the rest of our party tent-wards, having kicked the embers of the fire into safety, the advance guard of the fog was creeping slowly among the trees, like white arms feeling their way. mingled with the smoke was the odour of moss and soil and bark, and the peculiar flavour of the baltic, half salt, half brackish, like the smell of an estuary at low water. it is difficult to say why it seemed to me that this deep stillness masked an intense activity; perhaps in every mood lies the suggestion of its opposite, so that i became aware of the contrast of furious energy, for it was like moving through the deep pause before a thunderstorm, and i trod gently lest by breaking a twig or moving a stone i might set the whole scene into some sort of tumultuous movement. actually, no doubt, it was nothing more than a result of overstrung nerves. there was no more question of undressing and going to bed than there was of undressing and going to bathe. some sense in me was alert and expectant. i sat in my tent and waited. and at the end of half an hour or so my waiting was justified, for the canvas suddenly shivered, and some one tripped over the ropes that held it to the earth. john silence came in. the effect of his quiet entry was singular and prophetic: it was just as though the energy lying behind all this stillness had pressed forward to the edge of action. this, no doubt, was merely the quickening of my own mind, and had no other justification; for the presence of john silence always suggested the near possibility of vigorous action, and as a matter of fact, he came in with nothing more than a nod and a significant gesture. he sat down on a corner of my ground-sheet, and i pushed the blanket over so that he could cover his legs. he drew the flap of the tent after him and settled down, but hardly had he done so when the canvas shook a second time, and in blundered maloney. "sitting in the dark?" he said self-consciously, pushing his head inside, and hanging up his lantern on the ridge-pole nail. "i just looked in for a smoke. i suppose--" he glanced round, caught the eye of dr. silence, and stopped. he put his pipe back into his pocket and began to hum softly--that underbreath humming of a nondescript melody i knew so well and had come to hate. dr. silence leaned forward, opened the lantern and blew the light out. "speak low," he said, "and don't strike matches. listen for sounds and movements about the camp, and be ready to follow me at a moment's notice." there was light enough to distinguish our faces easily, and i saw maloney glance again hurriedly at both of us. "is the camp asleep?" the doctor asked presently, whispering. "sangree is," replied the clergyman, in a voice equally low. "i can't answer for the women; i think they're sitting up." "that's for the best." and then he added: "i wish the fog would thin a bit and let the moon through; later--we may want it." "it is lifting now, i think," maloney whispered back. "it's over the tops of the trees already." i cannot say what it was in this commonplace exchange of remarks that thrilled. probably maloney's swift acquiescence in the doctor's mood had something to do with it; for his quick obedience certainly impressed me a good deal. but, even without that slight evidence, it was clear that each recognised the gravity of the occasion, and understood that sleep was impossible and sentry duty was the order of the night. "report to me," repeated john silence once again, "the least sound, and do nothing precipitately." he shifted across to the mouth of the tent and raised the flap, fastening it against the pole so that he could see out. maloney stopped humming and began to force the breath through his teeth with a kind of faint hissing, treating us to a medley of church hymns and popular songs of the day. then the tent trembled as though some one had touched it. "that's the wind rising," whispered the clergyman, and pulled the flap open as far as it would go. a waft of cold damp air entered and made us shiver, and with it came a sound of the sea as the first wave washed its way softly along the shores. "it's got round to the north," he added, and following his voice came a long-drawn whisper that rose from the whole island as the trees sent forth a sighing response. "the fog'll move a bit now. i can make out a lane across the sea already." "hush!" said dr. silence, for maloney's voice had risen above a whisper, and we settled down again to another long period of watching and waiting, broken only by the occasional rubbing of shoulders against the canvas as we shifted our positions, and the increasing noise of waves on the outer coast-line of the island. and over all whirred the murmur of wind sweeping the tops of the trees like a great harp, and the faint tapping on the tent as drops fell from the branches with a sharp pinging sound. we had sat for something over an hour in this way, and maloney and i were finding it increasingly hard to keep awake, when suddenly dr. silence rose to his feet and peered out. the next minute he was gone. relieved of the dominating presence, the clergyman thrust his face close into mine. "i don't much care for this waiting game," he whispered, "but silence wouldn't hear of my sitting up with the others; he said it would prevent anything happening if i did." "he knows," i answered shortly. "no doubt in the world about that," he whispered back; "it's this 'double' business, as he calls it, or else it's obsession as the bible describes it. but it's bad, whichever it is, and i've got my winchester outside ready cocked, and i brought this too." he shoved a pocket bible under my nose. at one time in his life it had been his inseparable companion. "one's useless and the other's dangerous," i replied under my breath, conscious of a keen desire to laugh, and leaving him to choose. "safety lies in following our leader--" "i'm not thinking of myself," he interrupted sharply; "only, if anything happens to joan to-night i'm going to shoot first--and pray afterwards!" maloney put the book back into his hip-pocket, and peered out of the doorway. "what is he up to now, in the devil's name, i wonder!" he added; "going round sangree's tent and making gestures. how weird he looks disappearing in and out of the fog." "just trust him and wait," i said quickly, for the doctor was already on his way back. "remember, he has the knowledge, and knows what he's about. i've been with him through worse cases than this." maloney moved back as dr. silence darkened the doorway and stooped to enter. "his sleep is very deep," he whispered, seating himself by the door again. "he's in a cataleptic condition, and the double may be released any minute now. but i've taken steps to imprison it in the tent, and it can't get out till i permit it. be on the watch for signs of movement." then he looked hard at maloney. "but no violence, or shooting, remember, mr. maloney, unless you want a murder on your hands. anything done to the double acts by repercussion upon the physical body. you had better take out the cartridges at once." his voice was stern. the clergyman went out, and i heard him emptying the magazine of his rifle. when he returned he sat nearer the door than before, and from that moment until we left the tent he never once took his eyes from the figure of dr. silence, silhouetted there against sky and canvas. and, meanwhile, the wind came steadily over the sea and opened the mist into lanes and clearings, driving it about like a living thing. it must have been well after midnight when a low booming sound drew my attention; but at first the sense of hearing was so strained that it was impossible exactly to locate it, and i imagined it was the thunder of big guns far out at sea carried to us by the rising wind. then maloney, catching hold of my arm and leaning forward, somehow brought the true relation, and i realised the next second that it was only a few feet away. "sangree's tent," he exclaimed in a loud and startled whisper. i craned my head round the corner, but at first the effect of the fog was so confusing that every patch of white driving about before the wind looked like a moving tent and it was some seconds before i discovered the one patch that held steady. then i saw that it was shaking all over, and the sides, flapping as much as the tightness of the ropes allowed, were the cause of the booming sound we had heard. something alive was tearing frantically about inside, banging against the stretched canvas in a way that made me think of a great moth dashing against the walls and ceiling of a room. the tent bulged and rocked. "it's trying to get out, by jupiter!" muttered the clergyman, rising to his feet and turning to the side where the unloaded rifle lay. i sprang up too, hardly knowing what purpose was in my mind, but anxious to be prepared for anything. john silence, however, was before us both, and his figure slipped past and blocked the doorway of the tent. and there was some quality in his voice next minute when he began to speak that brought our minds instantly to a state of calm obedience. "first--the women's tent," he said low, looking sharply at maloney, "and if i need your help, i'll call." the clergyman needed no second bidding. he dived past me and was out in a moment. he was labouring evidently under intense excitement. i watched him picking his way silently over the slippery ground, giving the moving tent a wide berth, and presently disappearing among the floating shapes of fog. dr. silence turned to me. "you heard those footsteps about half an hour ago?" he asked significantly. "i heard nothing." "they were extraordinarily soft--almost the soundless tread of a wild creature. but now, follow me closely," he added, "for we must waste no time if i am to save this poor man from his affliction and lead his werewolf double to its rest. and, unless i am much mistaken"--he peered at me through the darkness, whispering with the utmost distinctness--"joan and sangree are absolutely made for one another. and i think she knows it too--just as well as he does." my head swam a little as i listened, but at the same time something cleared in my brain and i saw that he was right. yet it was all so weird and incredible, so remote from the commonplace facts of life as commonplace people know them; and more than once it flashed upon me that the whole scene--people, words, tents, and all the rest of it--were delusions created by the intense excitement of my own mind somehow, and that suddenly the sea-fog would clear off and the world become normal again. the cold air from the sea stung our cheeks sharply as we left the close atmosphere of the little crowded tent. the sighing of the trees, the waves breaking below on the rocks, and the lines and patches of mist driving about us seemed to create the momentary illusion that the whole island had broken loose and was floating out to sea like a mighty raft. the doctor moved just ahead of me, quickly and silently; he was making straight for the canadian's tent where the sides still boomed and shook as the creature of sinister life raced and tore about impatiently within. a little distance from the door he paused and held up a hand to stop me. we were, perhaps, a dozen feet away. "before i release it, you shall see for yourself," he said, "that the reality of the werewolf is beyond all question. the matter of which it is composed is, of course, exceedingly attenuated, but you are partially clairvoyant--and even if it is not dense enough for normal sight you will see something." he added a little more i could not catch. the fact was that the curiously strong vibrating atmosphere surrounding his person somewhat confused my senses. it was the result, of course, of his intense concentration of mind and forces, and pervaded the entire camp and all the persons in it. and as i watched the canvas shake and heard it boom and flap i heartily welcomed it. for it was also protective. at the back of sangree's tent stood a thin group of pine trees, but in front and at the sides the ground was comparatively clear. the flap was wide open and any ordinary animal would have been out and away without the least trouble. dr. silence led me up to within a few feet, evidently careful not to advance beyond a certain limit, and then stooped down and signalled to me to do the same. and looking over his shoulder i saw the interior lit faintly by the spectral light reflected from the fog, and the dim blot upon the balsam boughs and blankets signifying sangree; while over him, and round him, and up and down him, flew the dark mass of "something" on four legs, with pointed muzzle and sharp ears plainly visible against the tent sides, and the occasional gleam of fiery eyes and white fangs. i held my breath and kept utterly still, inwardly and outwardly, for fear, i suppose, that the creature would become conscious of my presence; but the distress i felt went far deeper than the mere sense of personal safety, or the fact of watching something so incredibly active and real. i became keenly aware of the dreadful psychic calamity it involved. the realisation that sangree lay confined in that narrow space with this species of monstrous projection of himself--that he was wrapped there in the cataleptic sleep, all unconscious that this thing was masquerading with his own life and energies--added a distressing touch of horror to the scene. in all the cases of john silence--and they were many and often terrible--no other psychic affliction has ever, before or since, impressed me so convincingly with the pathetic impermanence of the human personality, with its fluid nature, and with the alarming possibilities of its transformations. "come," he whispered, after we had watched for some minutes the frantic efforts to escape from the circle of thought and will that held it prisoner, "come a little farther away while i release it." we moved back a dozen yards or so. it was like a scene in some impossible play, or in some ghastly and oppressive nightmare from which i should presently awake to find the blankets all heaped up upon my chest. by some method undoubtedly mental, but which, in my confusion and excitement, i failed to understand, the doctor accomplished his purpose, and the next minute i heard him say sharply under his breath, "it's out! now watch!" at this very moment a sudden gust from the sea blew aside the mist, so that a lane opened to the sky, and the moon, ghastly and unnatural as the effect of stage limelight, dropped down in a momentary gleam upon the door of sangree's tent, and i perceived that something had moved forward from the interior darkness and stood clearly defined upon the threshold. and, at the same moment, the tent ceased its shuddering and held still. there, in the doorway, stood an animal, with neck and muzzle thrust forward, its head poking into the night, its whole body poised in that attitude of intense rigidity that precedes the spring into freedom, the running leap of attack. it seemed to be about the size of a calf, leaner than a mastiff, yet more squat than a wolf, and i can swear that i saw the fur ridged sharply upon its back. then its upper lip slowly lifted, and i saw the whiteness of its teeth. surely no human being ever stared as hard as i did in those next few minutes. yet, the harder i stared the clearer appeared the amazing and monstrous apparition. for, after all, it was sangree--and yet it was not sangree. it was the head and face of an animal, and yet it was the face of sangree: the face of a wild dog, a wolf, and yet his face. the eyes were sharper, narrower, more fiery, yet they were his eyes--his eyes run wild; the teeth were longer, whiter, more pointed--yet they were his teeth, his teeth grown cruel; the expression was flaming, terrible, exultant--yet it was his expression carried to the border of savagery--his expression as i had already surprised it more than once, only dominant now, fully released from human constraint, with the mad yearning of a hungry and importunate soul. it was the soul of sangree, the long suppressed, deeply loving sangree, expressed in its single and intense desire--pure utterly and utterly wonderful. yet, at the same time, came the feeling that it was all an illusion. i suddenly remembered the extraordinary changes the human face can undergo in circular insanity, when it changes from melancholia to elation; and i recalled the effect of hascheesh, which shows the human countenance in the form of the bird or animal to which in character it most approximates; and for a moment i attributed this mingling of sangree's face with a wolf to some kind of similar delusion of the senses. i was mad, deluded, dreaming! the excitement of the day, and this dim light of stars and bewildering mist combined to trick me. i had been amazingly imposed upon by some false wizardry of the senses. it was all absurd and fantastic; it would pass. and then, sounding across this sea of mental confusion like a bell through a fog, came the voice of john silence bringing me back to a consciousness of the reality of it all-- "sangree--in his double!" and when i looked again more calmly, i plainly saw that it was indeed the face of the canadian, but his face turned animal, yet mingled with the brute expression a curiously pathetic look like the soul seen sometimes in the yearning eyes of a dog,--the face of an animal shot with vivid streaks of the human. the doctor called to him softly under his breath-- "sangree! sangree, you poor afflicted creature! do you know me? can you understand what it is you're doing in your 'body of desire'?" for the first time since its appearance the creature moved. its ears twitched and it shifted the weight of its body on to the hind legs. then, lifting its head and muzzle to the sky, it opened its long jaws and gave vent to a dismal and prolonged howling. but, when i heard that howling rise to heaven, the breath caught and strangled in my throat and it seemed that my heart missed a beat; for, though the sound was entirely animal, it was at the same time entirely human. but, more than that, it was the cry i had so often heard in the western states of america where the indians still fight and hunt and struggle--it was the cry of the redskin! "the indian blood!" whispered john silence, when i caught his arm for support; "the ancestral cry." and that poignant, beseeching cry, that broken human voice, mingling with the savage howl of the brute beast, pierced straight to my very heart and touched there something that no music, no voice, passionate or tender, of man, woman or child has ever stirred before or since for one second into life. it echoed away among the fog and the trees and lost itself somewhere out over the hidden sea. and some part of myself--something that was far more than the mere act of intense listening--went out with it, and for several minutes i lost consciousness of my surroundings and felt utterly absorbed in the pain of another stricken fellow-creature. again the voice of john silence recalled me to myself. "hark!" he said aloud. "hark!" his tone galvanised me afresh. we stood listening side by side. far across the island, faintly sounding through the trees and brushwood, came a similar, answering cry. shrill, yet wonderfully musical, shaking the heart with a singular wild sweetness that defies description, we heard it rise and fall upon the night air. "it's across the lagoon," dr. silence cried, but this time in full tones that paid no tribute to caution. "it's joan! she's answering him!" again the wonderful cry rose and fell, and that same instant the animal lowered its head, and, muzzle to earth, set off on a swift easy canter that took it off into the mist and out of our sight like a thing of wind and vision. the doctor made a quick dash to the door of sangree's tent, and, following close at his heels, i peered in and caught a momentary glimpse of the small, shrunken body lying upon the branches but half covered by the blankets--the cage from which most of the life, and not a little of the actual corporeal substance, had escaped into that other form of life and energy, the body of passion and desire. by another of those swift, incalculable processes which at this stage of my apprenticeship i failed often to grasp, dr. silence reclosed the circle about the tent and body. "now it cannot return till i permit it," he said, and the next second was off at full speed into the woods, with myself close behind him. i had already had some experience of my companion's ability to run swiftly through a dense wood, and i now had the further proof of his power almost to see in the dark. for, once we left the open space about the tents, the trees seemed to absorb all the remaining vestiges of light, and i understood that special sensibility that is said to develop in the blind--the sense of obstacles. and twice as we ran we heard the sound of that dismal howling drawing nearer and nearer to the answering faint cry from the point of the island whither we were going. then, suddenly, the trees fell away, and we emerged, hot and breathless, upon the rocky point where the granite slabs ran bare into the sea. it was like passing into the clearness of open day. and there, sharply defined against sea and sky, stood the figure of a human being. it was joan. i at once saw that there was something about her appearance that was singular and unusual, but it was only when we had moved quite close that i recognised what caused it. for while the lips wore a smile that lit the whole face with a happiness i had never seen there before, the eyes themselves were fixed in a steady, sightless stare as though they were lifeless and made of glass. i made an impulsive forward movement, but dr. silence instantly dragged me back. "no," he cried, "don't wake her!" "what do you mean?" i replied aloud, struggling in his grasp. "she's asleep. it's somnambulistic. the shock might injure her permanently." i turned and peered closely into his face. he was absolutely calm. i began to understand a little more, catching, i suppose, something of his strong thinking. "walking in her sleep, you mean?" he nodded. "she's on her way to meet him. from the very beginning he must have drawn her--irresistibly." "but the torn tent and the wounded flesh?" "when she did not sleep deep enough to enter the somnambulistic trance he missed her--he went instinctively and in all innocence to seek her out--with the result, of course, that she woke and was terrified--" "then in their heart of hearts they love?" i asked finally. john silence smiled his inscrutable smile. "profoundly," he answered, "and as simply as only primitive souls can love. if only they both come to realise it in their normal waking states his double will cease these nocturnal excursions. he will be cured, and at rest." the words had hardly left his lips when there was a sound of rustling branches on our left, and the very next instant the dense brushwood parted where it was darkest and out rushed the swift form of an animal at full gallop. the noise of feet was scarcely audible, but in that utter stillness i heard the heavy panting breath and caught the swish of the low bushes against its sides. it went straight towards joan--and as it went the girl lifted her head and turned to meet it. and the same instant a canoe that had been creeping silently and unobserved round the inner shore of the lagoon, emerged from the shadows and defined itself upon the water with a figure at the middle thwart. it was maloney. it was only afterwards i realised that we were invisible to him where we stood against the dark background of trees; the figures of joan and the animal he saw plainly, but not dr. silence and myself standing just beyond them. he stood up in the canoe and pointed with his right arm. i saw something gleam in his hand. "stand aside, joan girl, or you'll get hit," he shouted, his voice ringing horribly through the deep stillness, and the same instant a pistol-shot cracked out with a burst of flame and smoke, and the figure of the animal, with one tremendous leap into the air, fell back in the shadows and disappeared like a shape of night and fog. instantly, then, joan opened her eyes, looked in a dazed fashion about her, and pressing both hands against her heart, fell with a sharp cry into my arms that were just in time to catch her. and an answering cry sounded across the lagoon--thin, wailing, piteous. it came from sangree's tent. "fool!" cried dr. silence, "you've wounded him!" and before we could move or realise quite what it meant, he was in the canoe and half-way across the lagoon. some kind of similar abuse came in a torrent from my lips, too--though i cannot remember the actual words--as i cursed the man for his disobedience and tried to make the girl comfortable on the ground. but the clergyman was more practical. he was spreading his coat over her and dashing water on her face. "it's not joan i've killed at any rate," i heard him mutter as she turned and opened her eyes and smiled faintly up in his face. "i swear the bullet went straight." joan stared at him; she was still dazed and bewildered, and still imagined herself with the companion of her trance. the strange lucidity of the somnambulist still hung over her brain and mind, though outwardly she appeared troubled and confused. "where has he gone to? he disappeared so suddenly, crying that he was hurt," she asked, looking at her father as though she did not recognise him. "and if they've done anything to him--they have done it to me too--for he is more to me than--" her words grew vaguer and vaguer as she returned slowly to her normal waking state, and now she stopped altogether, as though suddenly aware that she had been surprised into telling secrets. but all the way back, as we carried her carefully through the trees, the girl smiled and murmured sangree's name and asked if he was injured, until it finally became clear to me that the wild soul of the one had called to the wild soul of the other and in the secret depths of their beings the call had been heard and understood. john silence was right. in the abyss of her heart, too deep at first for recognition, the girl loved him, and had loved him from the very beginning. once her normal waking consciousness recognised the fact they would leap together like twin flames, and his affliction would be at an end; his intense desire would be satisfied; he would be cured. and in sangree's tent dr. silence and i sat up for the remainder of the night--this wonderful and haunted night that had shown us such strange glimpses of a new heaven and a new hell--for the canadian tossed upon his balsam boughs with high fever in his blood, and upon each cheek a dark and curious contusion showed, throbbing with severe pain although the skin was not broken and there was no outward and visible sign of blood. "maloney shot straight, you see," whispered dr. silence to me after the clergyman had gone to his tent, and had put joan to sleep beside her mother, who, by the way, had never once awakened. "the bullet must have passed clean through the face, for both cheeks are stained. he'll wear these marks all his life--smaller, but always there. they're the most curious scars in the world, these scars transferred by repercussion from an injured double. they'll remain visible until just before his death, and then with the withdrawal of the subtle body they will disappear finally." his words mingled in my dazed mind with the sighs of the troubled sleeper and the crying of the wind about the tent. nothing seemed to paralyse my powers of realisation so much as these twin stains of mysterious significance upon the face before me. it was odd, too, how speedily and easily the camp resigned itself again to sleep and quietness, as though a stage curtain had suddenly dropped down upon the action and concealed it; and nothing contributed so vividly to the feeling that i had been a spectator of some kind of visionary drama as the dramatic nature of the change in the girl's attitude. yet, as a matter of fact, the change had not been so sudden and revolutionary as appeared. underneath, in those remoter regions of consciousness where the emotions, unknown to their owners, do secretly mature, and owe thence their abrupt revelation to some abrupt psychological climax, there can be no doubt that joan's love for the canadian had been growing steadily and irresistibly all the time. it had now rushed to the surface so that she recognised it; that was all. and it has always seemed to me that the presence of john silence, so potent, so quietly efficacious, produced an effect, if one may say so, of a psychic forcing-house, and hastened incalculably the bringing together of these two "wild" lovers. in that sudden awakening had occurred the very psychological climax required to reveal the passionate emotion accumulated below. the deeper knowledge had leaped across and transferred itself to her ordinary consciousness, and in that shock the collision of the personalities had shaken them to the depths and shown her the truth beyond all possibility of doubt. "he's sleeping quietly now," the doctor said, interrupting my reflections. "if you will watch alone for a bit i'll go to maloney's tent and help him to arrange his thoughts." he smiled in anticipation of that "arrangement." "he'll never quite understand how a wound on the double can transfer itself to the physical body, but at least i can persuade him that the less he talks and 'explains' to-morrow, the sooner the forces will run their natural course now to peace and quietness." he went away softly, and with the removal of his presence sangree, sleeping heavily, turned over and groaned with the pain of his broken head. and it was in the still hour just before the dawn, when all the islands were hushed, the wind and sea still dreaming, and the stars visible through clearing mists, that a figure crept silently over the ridge and reached the door of the tent where i dozed beside the sufferer, before i was aware of its presence. the flap was cautiously lifted a few inches and in looked--joan. that same instant sangree woke and sat up on his bed of branches. he recognised her before i could say a word, and uttered a low cry. it was pain and joy mingled, and this time all human. and the girl too was no longer walking in her sleep, but fully aware of what she was doing. i was only just able to prevent him springing from his blankets. "joan, joan!" he cried, and in a flash she answered him, "i'm here--i'm with you always now," and had pushed past me into the tent and flung herself upon his breast. "i knew you would come to me in the end," i heard him whisper. "it was all too big for me to understand at first," she murmured, "and for a long time i was frightened--" "but not now!" he cried louder; "you don't feel afraid now of--of anything that's in me--" "i fear nothing," she cried, "nothing, nothing!" i led her outside again. she looked steadily into my face with eyes shining and her whole being transformed. in some intuitive way, surviving probably from the somnambulism, she knew or guessed as much as i knew. "you must talk to-morrow with john silence," i said gently, leading her towards her own tent. "he understands everything." i left her at the door, and as i went back softly to take up my place of sentry again with the canadian, i saw the first streaks of dawn lighting up the far rim of the sea behind the distant islands. and, as though to emphasise the eternal closeness of comedy to tragedy, two small details rose out of the scene and impressed me so vividly that i remember them to this very day. for in the tent where i had just left joan, all aquiver with her new happiness, there rose plainly to my ears the grotesque sounds of the bo'sun's mate heavily snoring, oblivious of all things in heaven or hell; and from maloney's tent, so still was the night, where i looked across and saw the lantern's glow, there came to me, through the trees, the monotonous rising and falling of a human voice that was beyond question the sound of a man praying to his god. case iii: a victim of higher space "there's a hextraordinary gentleman to see you, sir," said the new man. "why 'extraordinary'?" asked dr. silence, drawing the tips of his thin fingers through his brown beard. his eyes twinkled pleasantly. "why 'extraordinary,' barker?" he repeated encouragingly, noticing the perplexed expression in the man's eyes. "he's so--so thin, sir. i could hardly see 'im at all--at first. he was inside the house before i could ask the name," he added, remembering strict orders. "and who brought him here?" "he come alone, sir, in a closed cab. he pushed by me before i could say a word--making no noise not what i could hear. he seemed to move so soft like--" the man stopped short with obvious embarrassment, as though he had already said enough to jeopardise his new situation, but trying hard to show that he remembered the instructions and warnings he had received with regard to the admission of strangers not properly accredited. "and where is the gentleman now?" asked dr. silence, turning away to conceal his amusement. "i really couldn't exactly say, sir. i left him standing in the 'all--" the doctor looked up sharply. "but why in the hall, barker? why not in the waiting-room?" he fixed his piercing though kindly eyes on the man's face. "did he frighten you?" he asked quickly. "i think he did, sir, if i may say so. i seemed to lose sight of him, as it were--" the man stammered, evidently convinced by now that he had earned his dismissal. "he come in so funny, just like a cold wind," he added boldly, setting his heels at attention and looking his master full in the face. the doctor made an internal note of the man's halting description; he was pleased that the slight signs of psychic intuition which had induced him to engage barker had not entirely failed at the first trial. dr. silence sought for this qualification in all his assistants, from secretary to serving man, and if it surrounded him with a somewhat singular crew, the drawbacks were more than compensated for on the whole by their occasional flashes of insight. "so the gentleman made you feel queer, did he?" "that was it, i think, sir," repeated the man stolidly. "and he brings no kind of introduction to me--no letter or anything?" asked the doctor, with feigned surprise, as though he knew what was coming. the man fumbled, both in mind and pockets, and finally produced an envelope. "i beg pardon, sir," he said, greatly flustered; "the gentleman handed me this for you." it was a note from a discerning friend, who had never yet sent him a case that was not vitally interesting from one point or another. "please see the bearer of this note," the brief message ran, "though i doubt if even you can do much to help him." john silence paused a moment, so as to gather from the mind of the writer all that lay behind the brief words of the letter. then he looked up at his servant with a graver expression than he had yet worn. "go back and find this gentleman," he said, "and show him into the green study. do not reply to his question, or speak more than actually necessary; but think kind, helpful, sympathetic thoughts as strongly as you can, barker. you remember what i told you about the importance of _thinking_, when i engaged you. put curiosity out of your mind, and think gently, sympathetically, affectionately, if you can." he smiled, and barker, who had recovered his composure in the doctor's presence, bowed silently and went out. there were two different reception-rooms in dr. silence's house. one (intended for persons who imagined they needed spiritual assistance when really they were only candidates for the asylum) had padded walls, and was well supplied with various concealed contrivances by means of which sudden violence could be instantly met and overcome. it was, however, rarely used. the other, intended for the reception of genuine cases of spiritual distress and out-of-the-way afflictions of a psychic nature, was entirely draped and furnished in a soothing deep green, calculated to induce calmness and repose of mind. and this room was the one in which dr. silence interviewed the majority of his "queer" cases, and the one into which he had directed barker to show his present caller. to begin with, the arm-chair in which the patient was always directed to sit, was nailed to the floor, since its immovability tended to impart this same excellent characteristic to the occupant. patients invariably grew excited when talking about themselves, and their excitement tended to confuse their thoughts and to exaggerate their language. the inflexibility of the chair helped to counteract this. after repeated endeavours to drag it forward, or push it back, they ended by resigning themselves to sitting quietly. and with the futility of fidgeting there followed a calmer state of mind. upon the floor, and at intervals in the wall immediately behind, were certain tiny green buttons, practically unnoticeable, which on being pressed permitted a soothing and persuasive narcotic to rise invisibly about the occupant of the chair. the effect upon the excitable patient was rapid, admirable, and harmless. the green study was further provided with a secret spy-hole; for john silence liked when possible to observe his patient's face before it had assumed that mask the features of the human countenance invariably wear in the presence of another person. a man sitting alone wears a psychic expression; and this expression is the man himself. it disappears the moment another person joins him. and dr. silence often learned more from a few moments' secret observation of a face than from hours of conversation with its owner afterwards. a very light, almost a dancing, step followed barker's heavy tread towards the green room, and a moment afterwards the man came in and announced that the gentleman was waiting. he was still pale and his manner nervous. "never mind, barker" the doctor said kindly; "if you were not psychic the man would have had no effect upon you at all. you only need training and development. and when you have learned to interpret these feelings and sensations better, you will feel no fear, but only a great sympathy." "yes, sir; thank you, sir!" and barker bowed and made his escape, while dr. silence, an amused smile lurking about the corners of his mouth, made his way noiselessly down the passage and put his eye to the spy-hole in the door of the green study. this spy-hole was so placed that it commanded a view of almost the entire room, and, looking through it, the doctor saw a hat, gloves, and umbrella lying on a chair by the table, but searched at first in vain for their owner. the windows were both closed and a brisk fire burned in the grate. there were various signs--signs intelligible at least to a keenly intuitive soul--that the room was occupied, yet so far as human beings were concerned, it was empty, utterly empty. no one sat in the chairs; no one stood on the mat before the fire; there was no sign even that a patient was anywhere close against the wall, examining the bocklin reproductions--as patients so often did when they thought they were alone--and therefore rather difficult to see from the spy-hole. ordinarily speaking, there was no one in the room. it was undeniable. yet dr. silence was quite well aware that a human being _was_ in the room. his psychic apparatus never failed in letting him know the proximity of an incarnate or discarnate being. even in the dark he could tell that. and he now knew positively that his patient--the patient who had alarmed barker, and had then tripped down the corridor with that dancing footstep--was somewhere concealed within the four walls commanded by his spy-hole. he also realised--and this was most unusual--that this individual whom he desired to watch knew that he was being watched. and, further, that the stranger himself was also watching! in fact, that it was he, the doctor, who was being observed--and by an observer as keen and trained as himself. an inkling of the true state of the case began to dawn upon him, and he was on the verge of entering--indeed, his hand already touched the door-knob--when his eye, still glued to the spy-hole, detected a slight movement. directly opposite, between him and the fireplace, something stirred. he watched very attentively and made certain that he was not mistaken. an object on the mantelpiece--it was a blue vase--disappeared from view. it passed out of sight together with the portion of the marble mantelpiece on which it rested. next, that part of the fire and grate and brass fender immediately below it vanished entirely, as though a slice had been taken clean out of them. dr. silence then understood that something between him and these objects was slowly coming into being, something that concealed them and obstructed his vision by inserting itself in the line of sight between them and himself. he quietly awaited further results before going in. first he saw a thin perpendicular line tracing itself from just above the height of the clock and continuing downwards till it reached the woolly fire-mat. this line grew wider, broadened, grew solid. it was no shadow; it was something substantial. it defined itself more and more. then suddenly, at the top of the line, and about on a level with the face of the clock, he saw a round luminous disc gazing steadily at him. it was a human eye, looking straight into his own, pressed there against the spy-hole. and it was bright with intelligence. dr. silence held his breath for a moment--and stared back at it. then, like some one moving out of deep shadow into light, he saw the figure of a man come sliding sideways into view, a whitish face following the eye, and the perpendicular line he had first observed broadening out and developing into the complete figure of a human being. it was the patient. he had apparently been standing there in front of the fire all the time. a second eye had followed the first, and both of them stared steadily at the spy-hole, sharply concentrated, yet with a sly twinkle of humour and amusement that made it impossible for the doctor to maintain his position any longer. he opened the door and went in quickly. as he did so he noticed for the first time the sound of a german band coming in gaily through the open ventilators. in some intuitive, unaccountable fashion the music connected itself with the patient he was about to interview. this sort of prevision was not unfamiliar to him. it always explained itself later. the man, he saw, was of middle age and of very ordinary appearance; so ordinary, in fact, that he was difficult to describe--his only peculiarity being his extreme thinness. pleasant--that is, good--vibrations issued from his atmosphere and met dr. silence as he advanced to greet him, yet vibrations alive with currents and discharges betraying the perturbed and disordered condition of his mind and brain. there was evidently something wholly out of the usual in the state of his thoughts. yet, though strange, it was not altogether distressing; it was not the impression that the broken and violent atmosphere of the insane produces upon the mind. dr. silence realised in a flash that here was a case of absorbing interest that might require all his powers to handle properly. "i was watching you through my little peep-hole--as you saw," he began, with a pleasant smile, advancing to shake hands. "i find it of the greatest assistance sometimes--" but the patient interrupted him at once. his voice was hurried and had odd, shrill changes in it, breaking from high to low in unexpected fashion. one moment it thundered, the next it almost squeaked. "i understand without explanation," he broke in rapidly. "you get the true note of a man in this way--when he thinks himself unobserved. i quite agree. only, in my case, i fear, you saw very little. my case, as you of course grasp, dr. silence, is extremely peculiar, uncomfortably peculiar. indeed, unless sir william had positively assured me--" "my friend has sent you to me," the doctor interrupted gravely, with a gentle note of authority, "and that is quite sufficient. pray, be seated, mr.--" "mudge--racine mudge," returned the other. "take this comfortable one, mr. mudge," leading him to the fixed chair, "and tell me your condition in your own way and at your own pace. my whole day is at your service if you require it." mr. mudge moved towards the chair in question and then hesitated. "you will promise me not to use the narcotic buttons," he said, before sitting down. "i do not need them. also i ought to mention that anything you think of vividly will reach my mind. that is apparently part of my peculiar case." he sat down with a sigh and arranged his thin legs and body into a position of comfort. evidently he was very sensitive to the thoughts of others, for the picture of the green buttons had only entered the doctor's mind for a second, yet the other had instantly snapped it up. dr. silence noticed, too, that mr. mudge held on tightly with both hands to the arms of the chair. "i'm rather glad the chair is nailed to the floor," he remarked, as he settled himself more comfortably. "it suits me admirably. the fact is--and this is my case in a nutshell--which is all that a doctor of your marvellous development requires--the fact is, dr. silence, i am a victim of higher space. that's what's the matter with me--higher space!" the two looked at each other for a space in silence, the little patient holding tightly to the arms of the chair which "suited him admirably," and looking up with staring eyes, his atmosphere positively trembling with the waves of some unknown activity; while the doctor smiled kindly and sympathetically, and put his whole person as far as possible into the mental condition of the other. "higher space," repeated mr. mudge, "that's what it is. now, do you think you can help me with _that_?" there was a pause during which the men's eyes steadily searched down below the surface of their respective personalities. then dr. silence spoke. "i am quite sure i can help," he answered quietly; "sympathy must always help, and suffering always owns my sympathy. i see you have suffered cruelly. you must tell me all about your case, and when i hear the gradual steps by which you reached this strange condition, i have no doubt i can be of assistance to you." he drew a chair up beside his interlocutor and laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment. his whole being radiated kindness, intelligence, desire to help. "for instance," he went on, "i feel sure it was the result of no mere chance that you became familiar with the terrors of what you term higher space; for higher space is no mere external measurement. it is, of course, a spiritual state, a spiritual condition, an inner development, and one that we must recognise as abnormal, since it is beyond the reach of the world at the present stage of evolution. higher space is a mythical state." "oh!" cried the other, rubbing his birdlike hands with pleasure, "the relief it is to be able to talk to some one who can understand! of course what you say is the utter truth. and you are right that no mere chance led me to my present condition, but, on the other hand, prolonged and deliberate study. yet chance in a sense now governs it. i mean, my entering the condition of higher space seems to depend upon the chance of this and that circumstance. for instance, the mere sound of that german band sent me off. not that all music will do so, but certain sounds, certain vibrations, at once key me up to the requisite pitch, and off i go. wagner's music always does it, and that band must have been playing a stray bit of wagner. but i'll come to all that later. only first, i must ask you to send away your man from the spy-hole." john silence looked up with a start, for mr. mudge's back was to the door, and there was no mirror. he saw the brown eye of barker glued to the little circle of glass, and he crossed the room without a word and snapped down the black shutter provided for the purpose, and then heard barker snuffle away along the passage. "now," continued the little man in the chair, "i can begin. you have managed to put me completely at my ease, and i feel i may tell you my whole case without shame or reserve. you will understand. but you must be patient with me if i go into details that are already familiar to you--details of higher space, i mean--and if i seem stupid when i have to describe things that transcend the power of language and are really therefore indescribable." "my dear friend," put in the other calmly, "that goes without saying. to know higher space is an experience that defies description, and one is obliged to make use of more or less intelligible symbols. but, pray, proceed. your vivid thoughts will tell me more than your halting words." an immense sigh of relief proceeded from the little figure half lost in the depths of the chair. such intelligent sympathy meeting him half-way was a new experience to him, and it touched his heart at once. he leaned back, relaxing his tight hold of the arms, and began in his thin, scale-like voice. "my mother was a frenchwoman, and my father an essex bargeman," he said abruptly. "hence my name--racine and mudge. my father died before i ever saw him. my mother inherited money from her bordeaux relations, and when she died soon after, i was left alone with wealth and a strange freedom. i had no guardian, trustees, sisters, brothers, or any connection in the world to look after me. i grew up, therefore, utterly without education. this much was to my advantage; i learned none of that deceitful rubbish taught in schools, and so had nothing to unlearn when i awakened to my true love--mathematics, higher mathematics and higher geometry. these, however, i seemed to know instinctively. it was like the memory of what i had deeply studied before; the principles were in my blood, and i simply raced through the ordinary stages, and beyond, and then did the same with geometry. afterwards, when i read the books on these subjects, i understood how swift and undeviating the knowledge had come back to me. it was simply memory. it was simply _re-collecting_ the memories of what i had known before in a previous existence and required no books to teach me." in his growing excitement, mr. mudge attempted to drag the chair forward a little nearer to his listener, and then smiled faintly as he resigned himself instantly again to its immovability, and plunged anew into the recital of his singular "disease." "the audacious speculations of bolyai, the amazing theories of gauss--that through a point more than one line could be drawn parallel to a given line; the possibility that the angles of a triangle are together _greater_ than two right angles, if drawn upon immense curvatures--the breathless intuitions of beltrami and lobatchewsky--all these i hurried through, and emerged, panting but unsatisfied, upon the verge of my--my new world, my higher space possibilities--in a word, my disease! "how i got there," he resumed after a brief pause, during which he appeared to be listening intently for an approaching sound, "is more than i can put intelligibly into words. i can only hope to leave your mind with an intuitive comprehension of the possibility of what i say. "here, however, came a change. at this point i was no longer absorbing the fruits of studies i had made before; it was the beginning of new efforts to learn for the first time, and i had to go slowly and laboriously through terrible work. here i sought for the theories and speculations of others. but books were few and far between, and with the exception of one man--a 'dreamer,' the world called him--whose audacity and piercing intuition amazed and delighted me beyond description, i found no one to guide or help. "you, of course, dr. silence, understand something of what i am driving at with these stammering words, though you cannot perhaps yet guess what depths of pain my new knowledge brought me to, nor why an acquaintance with a new development of space should prove a source of misery and terror." mr. racine mudge, remembering that the chair would not move, did the next best thing he could in his desire to draw nearer to the attentive man facing him, and sat forward upon the very edge of the cushions, crossing his legs and gesticulating with both hands as though he saw into this region of new space he was attempting to describe, and might any moment tumble into it bodily from the edge of the chair and disappear form view. john silence, separated from him by three paces, sat with his eyes fixed upon the thin white face opposite, noting every word and every gesture with deep attention. "this room we now sit in, dr. silence, has one side open to space--to higher space. a closed box only _seems_ closed. there is a way in and out of a soap bubble without breaking the skin." "you tell me no new thing," the doctor interposed gently. "hence, if higher space exists and our world borders upon it and lies partially in it, it follows necessarily that we see only portions of all objects. we never see their true and complete shape. we see their three measurements, but not their fourth. the new direction is concealed from us, and when i hold this book and move my hand all round it i have not really made a complete circuit. we only perceive those portions of any object which exist in our three dimensions; the rest escapes us. but, once we learn to see in higher space, objects will appear as they actually are. only they will thus be hardly recognisable! "now, you may begin to grasp something of what i am coming to." "i am beginning to understand something of what you must have suffered," observed the doctor soothingly, "for i have made similar experiments myself, and only stopped just in time--" "you are the one man in all the world who can hear and understand, _and_ sympathise," exclaimed mr. mudge, grasping his hand and holding it tightly while he spoke. the nailed chair prevented further excitability. "well," he resumed, after a moment's pause, "i procured the implements and the coloured blocks for practical experiment, and i followed the instructions carefully till i had arrived at a working conception of four-dimensional space. the tessaract, the figure whose boundaries are cubes, i knew by heart. that is to say, i knew it and saw it mentally, for my eye, of course, could never take in a new measurement, or my hands and feet handle it. "so, at least, i thought," he added, making a wry face. "i had reached the stage, you see, when i could imagine in a new dimension. i was able to conceive the shape of that new figure which is intrinsically different to all we know--the shape of the tessaract. i could perceive in four dimensions. when, therefore, i looked at a cube i could see all its sides at once. its top was not foreshortened, nor its farther side and base invisible. i saw the whole thing out flat, so to speak. and this tessaract was bounded by cubes! moreover, i also saw its content--its insides." "you were not yourself able to enter this new world," interrupted dr. silence. "not then. i was only able to conceive intuitively what it was like and how exactly it must look. later, when i slipped in there and saw objects in their entirety, unlimited by the paucity of our poor three measurements, i very nearly lost my life. for, you see, space does not stop at a single new dimension, a fourth. it extends in all possible new ones, and we must conceive it as containing any number of new dimensions. in other words, there is no space at all, but only a spiritual condition. but, meanwhile, i had come to grasp the strange fact that the objects in our normal world appear to us only partially." mr. mudge moved farther forward till he was balanced dangerously on the very edge of the chair. "from this starting point," he resumed, "i began my studies and experiments, and continued them for years. i had money, and i was without friends. i lived in solitude and experimented. my intellect, of course, had little part in the work, for intellectually it was all unthinkable. never was the limitation of mere reason more plainly demonstrated. it was mystically, intuitively, spiritually that i began to advance. and what i learnt, and knew, and did is all impossible to put into language, since it all describes experiences transcending the experiences of men. it is only some of the results--what you would call the symptoms of my disease--that i can give you, and even these must often appear absurd contradictions and impossible paradoxes. "i can only tell you, dr. silence"--his manner became exceedingly impressive--"that i reached sometimes a point of view whence all the great puzzle of the world became plain to me, and i understood what they call in the yoga books 'the great heresy of separateness'; why all great teachers have urged the necessity of man loving his neighbour as himself; how men are all really one; and why the utter loss of self is necessary to salvation and the discovery of the true life of the soul." he paused a moment and drew breath. "your speculations have been my own long ago," the doctor said quietly. "i fully realise the force of your words. men are doubtless not separate at all--in the sense they imagine--" "all this about the very much higher space i only dimly, very dimly, conceived, of course," the other went on, raising his voice again by jerks; "but what did happen to me was the humbler accident of--the simpler disaster--oh, dear, how shall i put it--?" he stammered and showed visible signs of distress. "it was simply this," he resumed with a sudden rush of words, "that, accidentally, as the result of my years of experiment, i one day slipped bodily into the next world, the world of four dimensions, yet without knowing precisely how i got there, or how i could get back again. i discovered, that is, that my ordinary three-dimensional body was but an expression--a projection--of my higher four-dimensional body! "now you understand what i meant much earlier in our talk when i spoke of chance. i cannot control my entrance or exit. certain people, certain human atmospheres, certain wandering forces, thoughts, desires even--the radiations of certain combinations of colour, and above all, the vibrations of certain kinds of music, will suddenly throw me into a state of what i can only describe as an intense and terrific inner vibration--and behold i am off! off in the direction at right angles to all our known directions! off in the direction the cube takes when it begins to trace the outlines of the new figure! off into my breathless and semi-divine higher space! off, _inside myself_, into the world of four dimensions!" he gasped and dropped back into the depths of the immovable chair. "and there," he whispered, his voice issuing from among the cushions, "there i have to stay until these vibrations subside, or until they do something which i cannot find words to describe properly or intelligibly to you--and then, behold, i am back again. first, that is, i disappear. then i reappear." "just so," exclaimed dr. silence, "and that is why a few--" "why a few moments ago," interrupted mr. mudge, taking the words out of his mouth, "you found me gone, and then saw me return. the music of that wretched german band sent me off. your intense thinking about me brought me back--when the band had stopped its wagner. i saw you approach the peep-hole and i saw barker's intention of doing so later. for me no interiors are hidden. i see inside. when in that state the content of your mind, as of your body, is open to me as the day. oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" mr. mudge stopped and again mopped his brow. a light trembling ran over the surface of his small body like wind over grass. he still held tightly to the arms of the chair. "at first," he presently resumed, "my new experiences were so vividly interesting that i felt no alarm. there was no room for it. the alarm came a little later." "then you actually penetrated far enough into that state to experience yourself as a normal portion of it?" asked the doctor, leaning forward, deeply interested. mr. mudge nodded a perspiring face in reply. "i did," he whispered, "undoubtedly i did. i am coming to all that. it began first at night, when i realised that sleep brought no loss of consciousness--" "the spirit, of course, can never sleep. only the body becomes unconscious," interposed john silence. "yes, we know that--theoretically. at night, of course, the spirit is active elsewhere, and we have no memory of where and how, simply because the brain stays behind and receives no record. but i found that, while remaining conscious, i also retained memory. i had attained to the state of continuous consciousness, for at night i regularly, with the first approaches of drowsiness, entered _nolens volens_ the four-dimensional world. "for a time this happened regularly, and i could not control it; though later i found a way to regulate it better. apparently sleep is unnecessary in the higher--the four-dimensional--body. yes, perhaps. but i should infinitely have preferred dull sleep to the knowledge. for, unable to control my movements, i wandered to and fro, attracted, owing to my partial development and premature arrival, to parts of this new world that alarmed me more and more. it was the awful waste and drift of a monstrous world, so utterly different to all we know and see that i cannot even hint at the nature of the sights and objects and beings in it. more than that, i cannot even remember them. i cannot now picture them to myself even, but can recall only the _memory of the impression_ they made upon me, the horror and devastating terror of it all. to be in several places at once, for instance--" "perfectly," interrupted john silence, noticing the increase of the other's excitement, "i understand exactly. but now, please, tell me a little more of this alarm you experienced, and how it affected you." "it's not the disappearing and reappearing _per se_ that i mind," continued mr. mudge, "so much as certain other things. it's seeing people and objects in their weird entirety, in their true and complete shapes, that is so distressing. it introduces me to a world of monsters. horses, dogs, cats, all of which i loved; people, trees, children; all that i have considered beautiful in life--everything, from a human face to a cathedral--appear to me in a different shape and aspect to all i have known before. i cannot perhaps convince you why this should be terrible, but i assure you that it is so. to hear the human voice proceeding from this novel appearance which i scarcely recognise as a human body is ghastly, simply ghastly. to see inside everything and everybody is a form of insight peculiarly distressing. to be so confused in geography as to find myself one moment at the north pole, and the next at clapham junction--or possibly at both places simultaneously--is absurdly terrifying. your imagination will readily furnish other details without my multiplying my experiences now. but you have no idea what it all means, and how i suffer." mr. mudge paused in his panting account and lay back in his chair. he still held tightly to the arms as though they could keep him in the world of sanity and three measurements, and only now and again released his left hand in order to mop his face. he looked very thin and white and oddly unsubstantial, and he stared about him as though he saw into this other space he had been talking about. john silence, too, felt warm. he had listened to every word and had made many notes. the presence of this man had an exhilarating effect upon him. it seemed as if mr. racine mudge still carried about with him something of that breathless higher-space condition he had been describing. at any rate, dr. silence had himself advanced sufficiently far along the legitimate paths of spiritual and psychic transformations to realise that the visions of this extraordinary little person had a basis of truth for their origin. after a pause that prolonged itself into minutes, he crossed the room and unlocked a drawer in a bookcase, taking out a small book with a red cover. it had a lock to it, and he produced a key out of his pocket and proceeded to open the covers. the bright eyes of mr. mudge never left him for a single second. "it almost seems a pity," he said at length, "to cure you, mr. mudge. you are on the way to discovery of great things. though you may lose your life in the process--that is, your life here in the world of three dimensions--you would lose thereby nothing of great value--you will pardon my apparent rudeness, i know--and you might gain what is infinitely greater. your suffering, of course, lies in the fact that you alternate between the two worlds and are never wholly in one or the other. also, i rather imagine, though i cannot be certain of this from any personal experiments, that you have here and there penetrated even into space of more than four dimensions, and have hence experienced the terror you speak of." the perspiring son of the essex bargeman and the woman of normandy bent his head several times in assent, but uttered no word in reply. "some strange psychic predisposition, dating no doubt from one of your former lives, has favoured the development of your 'disease'; and the fact that you had no normal training at school or college, no leading by the poor intellect into the culs-de-sac falsely called knowledge, has further caused your exceedingly rapid movement along the lines of direct inner experience. none of the knowledge you have foreshadowed has come to you through the senses, of course." mr. mudge, sitting in his immovable chair, began to tremble slightly. a wind again seemed to pass over his surface and again to set it curiously in motion like a field of grass. "you are merely talking to gain time," he said hurriedly, in a shaking voice. "this thinking aloud delays us. i see ahead what you are coming to, only please be quick, for something is going to happen. a band is again coming down the street, and if it plays--if it plays wagner--i shall be off in a twinkling." "precisely. i will be quick. i was leading up to the point of how to effect your cure. the way is this: you must simply learn to _block the entrances_." "true, true, utterly true!" exclaimed the little man, dodging about nervously in the depths of the chair. "but how, in the name of space, is that to be done?" "by concentration. they are all within you, these entrances, although outer cases such as colour, music and other things lead you towards them. these external things you cannot hope to destroy, but once the entrances are blocked, they will lead you only to bricked walls and closed channels. you will no longer be able to find the way." "quick, quick!" cried the bobbing figure in the chair. "how is this concentration to be effected?" "this little book," continued dr. silence calmly, "will explain to you the way." he tapped the cover. "let me now read out to you certain simple instructions, composed, as i see you divine, entirely from my own personal experiences in the same direction. follow these instructions and you will no longer enter the state of higher space. the entrances will be blocked effectively." mr. mudge sat bolt upright in his chair to listen, and john silence cleared his throat and began to read slowly in a very distinct voice. but before he had uttered a dozen words, something happened. a sound of street music entered the room through the open ventilators, for a band had begun to play in the stable mews at the back of the house--the march from _tannhäuser_. odd as it may seem that a german band should twice within the space of an hour enter the same mews and play wagner, it was nevertheless the fact. mr. racine mudge heard it. he uttered a sharp, squeaking cry and twisted his arms with nervous energy round the chair. a piteous look that was not far from tears spread over his white face. grey shadows followed it--the grey of fear. he began to struggle convulsively. "hold me fast! catch me! for god's sake, keep me here! i'm on the rush already. oh, it's frightful!" he cried in tones of anguish, his voice as thin as a reed. dr. silence made a plunge forward to seize him, but in a flash, before he could cover the space between them, mr. racine mudge, screaming and struggling, seemed to shoot past him into invisibility. he disappeared like an arrow from a bow propelled at infinite speed, and his voice no longer sounded in the external air, but seemed in some curious way to make itself heard somewhere within the depths of the doctor's own being. it was almost like a faint singing cry in his head, like a voice of dream, a voice of vision and unreality. "alcohol, alcohol!" it cried, "give me alcohol! it's the quickest way. alcohol, before i'm out of reach!" the doctor, accustomed to rapid decisions and even more rapid action, remembered that a brandy flask stood upon the mantelpiece, and in less than a second he had seized it and was holding it out towards the space above the chair recently occupied by the visible mudge. then, before his very eyes, and long ere he could unscrew the metal stopper, he saw the contents of the closed glass phial sink and lessen as though some one were drinking violently and greedily of the liquor within. "thanks! enough! it deadens the vibrations!" cried the faint voice in his interior, as he withdrew the flask and set it back upon the mantelpiece. he understood that in mudge's present condition one side of the flask was open to space and he could drink without removing the stopper. he could hardly have had a more interesting proof of what he had been hearing described at such length. but the next moment--the very same moment it almost seemed--the german band stopped midway in its tune--and there was mr. mudge back in his chair again, gasping and panting! "quick!" he shrieked, "stop that band! send it away! catch hold of me! block the entrances! block the entrances! give me the red book! oh, oh, oh-h-h-h!!!" the music had begun again. it was merely a temporary interruption. the _tannhäuser_ march started again, this time at a tremendous pace that made it sound like a rapid two-step as though the instruments played against time. but the brief interruption gave dr. silence a moment in which to collect his scattering thoughts, and before the band had got through half a bar, he had flung forward upon the chair and held mr. racine mudge, the struggling little victim of higher space, in a grip of iron. his arms went all round his diminutive person, taking in a good part of the chair at the same time. he was not a big man, yet he seemed to smother mudge completely. yet, even as he did so, and felt the wriggling form underneath him, it began to melt and slip away like air or water. the wood of the arm-chair somehow disentangled itself from between his own arms and those of mudge. the phenomenon known as the passage of matter through matter took place. the little man seemed actually to get mixed up in his own being. dr. silence could just see his face beneath him. it puckered and grew dark as though from some great internal effort. he heard the thin, reedy voice cry in his ear to "block the entrances, block the entrances!" and then--but how in the world describe what is indescribable? john silence half rose up to watch. racine mudge, his face distorted beyond all recognition, was making a marvellous inward movement, as though doubling back upon himself. he turned funnel-wise like water in a whirling vortex, and then appeared to break up somewhat as a reflection breaks up and divides in a distorting convex mirror. he went neither forward nor backwards, neither to the right nor the left, neither up nor down. but he went. he went utterly. he simply flashed away out of sight like a vanishing projectile. all but one leg! dr. silence just had the time and the presence of mind to seize upon the left ankle and boot as it disappeared, and to this he held on for several seconds like grim death. yet all the time he knew it was a foolish and useless thing to do. the foot was in his grasp one moment, and the next it seemed--this was the only way he could describe it--inside his own skin and bones, and at the same time outside his hand and all round it. it seemed mixed up in some amazing way with his own flesh and blood. then it was gone, and he was tightly grasping a draught of heated air. "gone! gone! gone!" cried a thick, whispering voice, somewhere deep within his own consciousness. "lost! lost! lost!" it repeated, growing fainter and fainter till at length it vanished into nothing and the last signs of mr. racine mudge vanished with it. john silence locked his red book and replaced it in the cabinet, which he fastened with a click, and when barker answered the bell he inquired if mr. mudge had left a card upon the table. it appeared that he had, and when the servant returned with it, dr. silence read the address and made a note of it. it was in north london. "mr. mudge has gone," he said quietly to barker, noticing his expression of alarm. "he's not taken his 'at with him, sir." "mr. mudge requires no hat where he is now," continued the doctor, stooping to poke the fire. "but he may return for it--" "and the humbrella, sir." "and the umbrella." "he didn't go out _my_ way, sir, if you please," stuttered the amazed servant, his curiosity overcoming his nervousness. "mr. mudge has his own way of coming and going, and prefers it. if he returns by the door at any time remember to bring him instantly to me, and be kind and gentle with him and ask no questions. also, remember, barker, to think pleasantly, sympathetically, affectionately of him while he is away. mr. mudge is a very suffering gentleman." barker bowed and went out of the room backwards, gasping and feeling round the inside of his collar with three very hot fingers of one hand. it was two days later when he brought in a telegram to the study. dr. silence opened it, and read as follows: "bombay. just slipped out again. all safe. have blocked entrances. thousand thanks. address cooks, london.--mudge." dr. silence looked up and saw barker staring at him bewilderingly. it occurred to him that somehow he knew the contents of the telegram. "make a parcel of mr. mudge's things," he said briefly, "and address them thomas cook & sons, ludgate circus. and send them there exactly a month from to-day and marked 'to be called for.'" "yes, sir," said barker, leaving the room with a deep sigh and a hurried glance at the waste-paper basket where his master had dropped the pink paper. proofreaders part : more ghost stories m.r. james ghost stories of an antiquary _these stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have listened to them._ contents part i: ghost stories of an antiquary canon alberic's scrap-book lost hearts the mezzotint the ash-tree number count magnus 'oh, whistle, and i'll come to you, my lad' the treasure of abbot thomas part : more ghost stories a school story the rose garden the tractate middoth casting the runes the stalls of barchester cathedral martin's close mr humphreys and his inheritance * * * * * the first six of the seven tales were christmas productions, the very first ('a school story') having been made up for the benefit of king's college choir school. 'the stalls of barchester cathedral' was printed in _contemporary review_; 'mr humphreys and his inheritance' was written to fill up the volume. in 'a school story' i had temple grove, east sheen in mind; in 'the tractate middoth', cambridge university library; in 'martin's close', sampford courtenay in devon. the cathedral of barchester is a blend of canterbury, salisbury, and hereford. m.r. james * * * * * a school story two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. 'at _our_ school,' said a., 'we had a ghost's footmark on the staircase. what was it like? oh, very unconvincing. just the shape of a shoe, with a square toe, if i remember right. the staircase was a stone one. i never heard any story about the thing. that seems odd, when you come to think of it. why didn't somebody invent one, i wonder?' 'you never can tell with little boys. they have a mythology of their own. there's a subject for you, by the way--"the folklore of private schools".' 'yes; the crop is rather scanty, though. i imagine, if you were to investigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys at private schools tell each other, they would all turn out to be highly-compressed versions of stories out of books.' 'nowadays the _strand_ and _pearson's_, and so on, would be extensively drawn upon.' 'no doubt: they weren't born or thought of in _my_ time. let's see. i wonder if i can remember the staple ones that i was told. first, there was the house with a room in which a series of people insisted on passing a night; and each of them in the morning was found kneeling in a corner, and had just time to say, "i've seen it," and died.' 'wasn't that the house in berkeley square?' 'i dare say it was. then there was the man who heard a noise in the passage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling towards him on all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. there was besides, let me think--yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with a horseshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered with marks of horseshoes also; i don't know why. also there was the lady who, on locking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice among the bed-curtains say, "now we're shut in for the night." none of those had any explanation or sequel. i wonder if they go on still, those stories.' 'oh, likely enough--with additions from the magazines, as i said. you never heard, did you, of a real ghost at a private school? i thought not; nobody has that ever i came across.' 'from the way in which you said that, i gather that _you_ have.' 'i really don't know; but this is what was in my mind. it happened at my private school thirty odd years ago, and i haven't any explanation of it. 'the school i mean was near london. it was established in a large and fairly old house--a great white building with very fine grounds about it; there were large cedars in the garden, as there are in so many of the older gardens in the thames valley, and ancient elms in the three or four fields which we used for our games. i think probably it was quite an attractive place, but boys seldom allow that their schools possess any tolerable features. 'i came to the school in a september, soon after the year ; and among the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom i took to: a highland boy, whom i will call mcleod. i needn't spend time in describing him: the main thing is that i got to know him very well. he was not an exceptional boy in any way--not particularly good at books or games--but he suited me. 'the school was a large one: there must have been from to boys there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and there were rather frequent changes among them. 'one term--perhaps it was my third or fourth--a new master made his appearance. his name was sampson. he was a tallish, stoutish, pale, black-bearded man. i think we liked him: he had travelled a good deal, and had stories which amused us on our school walks, so that there was some competition among us to get within earshot of him. i remember too--dear me, i have hardly thought of it since then!--that he had a charm on his watch-chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it. it was, i now suppose, a gold byzantine coin; there was an effigy of some absurd emperor on one side; the other side had been worn practically smooth, and he had had cut on it--rather barbarously--his own initials, g.w.s., and a date, july, . yes, i can see it now: he told me he had picked it up in constantinople: it was about the size of a florin, perhaps rather smaller. 'well, the first odd thing that happened was this. sampson was doing latin grammar with us. one of his favourite methods--perhaps it is rather a good one--was to make us construct sentences out of our own heads to illustrate the rules he was trying to make us learn. of course that is a thing which gives a silly boy a chance of being impertinent: there are lots of school stories in which that happens--or anyhow there might be. but sampson was too good a disciplinarian for us to think of trying that on with him. now, on this occasion he was telling us how to express _remembering_ in latin: and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb _memini_, "i remember." well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence such as "i remember my father," or "he remembers his book," or something equally uninteresting: and i dare say a good many put down _memino librum meum_, and so forth: but the boy i mentioned--mcleod--was evidently thinking of something more elaborate than that. the rest of us wanted to have our sentences passed, and get on to something else, so some kicked him under the desk, and i, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to look sharp. but he didn't seem to attend. i looked at his paper and saw he had put down nothing at all. so i jogged him again harder than before and upbraided him sharply for keeping us all waiting. that did have some effect. he started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a couple of lines on his paper, and showed it up with the rest. as it was the last, or nearly the last, to come in, and as sampson had a good deal to say to the boys who had written _meminiscimus patri meo_ and the rest of it, it turned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to mcleod, and mcleod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. there was nothing much going on outside when i got out, so i waited for him to come. he came very slowly when he did arrive, and i guessed there had been some sort of trouble. "well," i said, "what did you get?" "oh, i don't know," said mcleod, "nothing much: but i think sampson's rather sick with me." "why, did you show him up some rot?" "no fear," he said. "it was all right as far as i could see: it was like this: _memento_--that's right enough for remember, and it takes a genitive,--_memento putei inter quatuor taxos_." "what silly rot!" i said. "what made you shove that down? what does it mean?" "that's the funny part," said mcleod. "i'm not quite sure what it does mean. all i know is, it just came into my head and i corked it down. i know what i _think_ it means, because just before i wrote it down i had a sort of picture of it in my head: i believe it means 'remember the well among the four'--what are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them?" "mountain ashes, i s'pose you mean." "i never heard of them," said mcleod; "no, _i'll_ tell you--yews." "well, and what did sampson say?" "why, he was jolly odd about it. when he read it he got up and went to the mantelpiece and stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me. and then he said, without turning round, and rather quiet, 'what do you suppose that means?' i told him what i thought; only i couldn't remember the name of the silly tree: and then he wanted to know why i put it down, and i had to say something or other. and after that he left off talking about it, and asked me how long i'd been here, and where my people lived, and things like that: and then i came away: but he wasn't looking a bit well." 'i don't remember any more that was said by either of us about this. next day mcleod took to his bed with a chill or something of the kind, and it was a week or more before he was in school again. and as much as a month went by without anything happening that was noticeable. whether or not mr sampson was really startled, as mcleod had thought, he didn't show it. i am pretty sure, of course, now, that there was something very curious in his past history, but i'm not going to pretend that we boys were sharp enough to guess any such thing. 'there was one other incident of the same kind as the last which i told you. several times since that day we had had to make up examples in school to illustrate different rules, but there had never been any row except when we did them wrong. at last there came a day when we were going through those dismal things which people call conditional sentences, and we were told to make a conditional sentence, expressing a future consequence. we did it, right or wrong, and showed up our bits of paper, and sampson began looking through them. all at once he got up, made some odd sort of noise in his throat, and rushed out by a door that was just by his desk. we sat there for a minute or two, and then--i suppose it was incorrect--but we went up, i and one or two others, to look at the papers on his desk. of course i thought someone must have put down some nonsense or other, and sampson had gone off to report him. all the same, i noticed that he hadn't taken any of the papers with him when he ran out. well, the top paper on the desk was written in red ink--which no one used--and it wasn't in anyone's hand who was in the class. they all looked at it--mcleod and all--and took their dying oaths that it wasn't theirs. then i thought of counting the bits of paper. and of this i made quite certain: that there were seventeen bits of paper on the desk, and sixteen boys in the form. well, i bagged the extra paper, and kept it, and i believe i have it now. and now you will want to know what was written on it. it was simple enough, and harmless enough, i should have said. '"_si tu non veneris ad me, ego veniam ad te_," which means, i suppose, "if you don't come to me, i'll come to you."' 'could you show me the paper?' interrupted the listener. 'yes, i could: but there's another odd thing about it. that same afternoon i took it out of my locker--i know for certain it was the same bit, for i made a finger-mark on it--and no single trace of writing of any kind was there on it. i kept it, as i said, and since that time i have tried various experiments to see whether sympathetic ink had been used, but absolutely without result. 'so much for that. after about half an hour sampson looked in again: said he had felt very unwell, and told us we might go. he came rather gingerly to his desk and gave just one look at the uppermost paper: and i suppose he thought he must have been dreaming: anyhow, he asked no questions. 'that day was a half-holiday, and next day sampson was in school again, much as usual. that night the third and last incident in my story happened. 'we--mcleod and i--slept in a dormitory at right angles to the main building. sampson slept in the main building on the first floor. there was a very bright full moon. at an hour which i can't tell exactly, but some time between one and two, i was woken up by somebody shaking me. it was mcleod; and a nice state of mind he seemed to be in. "come," he said,--"come! there's a burglar getting in through sampson's window." as soon as i could speak, i said, "well, why not call out and wake everybody up?" "no, no," he said, "i'm not sure who it is: don't make a row: come and look." naturally i came and looked, and naturally there was no one there. i was cross enough, and should have called mcleod plenty of names: only--i couldn't tell why--it seemed to me that there _was_ something wrong--something that made me very glad i wasn't alone to face it. we were still at the window looking out, and as soon as i could, i asked him what he had heard or seen. "i didn't _hear_ anything at all," he said, "but about five minutes before i woke you, i found myself looking out of this window here, and there was a man sitting or kneeling on sampson's window-sill, and looking in, and i thought he was beckoning." "what sort of man?" mcleod wriggled. "i don't know," he said, "but i can tell you one thing--he was beastly thin: and he looked as if he was wet all over: and," he said, looking round and whispering as if he hardly liked to hear himself, "i'm not at all sure that he was alive." 'we went on talking in whispers some time longer, and eventually crept back to bed. no one else in the room woke or stirred the whole time. i believe we did sleep a bit afterwards, but we were very cheap next day. 'and next day mr sampson was gone: not to be found: and i believe no trace of him has ever come to light since. in thinking it over, one of the oddest things about it all has seemed to me to be the fact that neither mcleod nor i ever mentioned what we had seen to any third person whatever. of course no questions were asked on the subject, and if they had been, i am inclined to believe that we could not have made any answer: we seemed unable to speak about it. 'that is my story,' said the narrator. 'the only approach to a ghost story connected with a school that i know, but still, i think, an approach to such a thing.' * * * * * the sequel to this may perhaps be reckoned highly conventional; but a sequel there is, and so it must be produced. there had been more than one listener to the story, and, in the latter part of that same year, or of the next, one such listener was staying at a country house in ireland. one evening his host was turning over a drawer full of odds and ends in the smoking-room. suddenly he put his hand upon a little box. 'now,' he said, 'you know about old things; tell me what that is.' my friend opened the little box, and found in it a thin gold chain with an object attached to it. he glanced at the object and then took off his spectacles to examine it more narrowly. 'what's the history of this?' he asked. 'odd enough,' was the answer. 'you know the yew thicket in the shrubbery: well, a year or two back we were cleaning out the old well that used to be in the clearing here, and what do you suppose we found?' 'is it possible that you found a body?' said the visitor, with an odd feeling of nervousness. 'we did that: but what's more, in every sense of the word, we found two.' 'good heavens! two? was there anything to show how they got there? was this thing found with them?' 'it was. amongst the rags of the clothes that were on one of the bodies. a bad business, whatever the story of it may have been. one body had the arms tight round the other. they must have been there thirty years or more--long enough before we came to this place. you may judge we filled the well up fast enough. do you make anything of what's cut on that gold coin you have there?' 'i think i can,' said my friend, holding it to the light (but he read it without much difficulty); 'it seems to be g.w.s., july, .' the rose garden mr and mrs anstruther were at breakfast in the parlour of westfield hall, in the county of essex. they were arranging plans for the day. 'george,' said mrs anstruther, 'i think you had better take the car to maldon and see if you can get any of those knitted things i was speaking about which would do for my stall at the bazaar.' 'oh well, if you wish it, mary, of course i can do that, but i had half arranged to play a round with geoffrey williamson this morning. the bazaar isn't till thursday of next week, is it?' 'what has that to do with it, george? i should have thought you would have guessed that if i can't get the things i want in maldon i shall have to write to all manner of shops in town: and they are certain to send something quite unsuitable in price or quality the first time. if you have actually made an appointment with mr williamson, you had better keep it, but i must say i think you might have let me know.' 'oh no, no, it wasn't really an appointment. i quite see what you mean. i'll go. and what shall you do yourself?' 'why, when the work of the house is arranged for, i must see about laying out my new rose garden. by the way, before you start for maldon i wish you would just take collins to look at the place i fixed upon. you know it, of course.' 'well, i'm not quite sure that i do, mary. is it at the upper end, towards the village?' 'good gracious no, my dear george; i thought i had made that quite clear. no, it's that small clearing just off the shrubbery path that goes towards the church.' 'oh yes, where we were saying there must have been a summer-house once: the place with the old seat and the posts. but do you think there's enough sun there?' 'my dear george, do allow me _some_ common sense, and don't credit me with all your ideas about summer-houses. yes, there will be plenty of sun when we have got rid of some of those box-bushes. i know what you are going to say, and i have as little wish as you to strip the place bare. all i want collins to do is to clear away the old seats and the posts and things before i come out in an hour's time. and i hope you will manage to get off fairly soon. after luncheon i think i shall go on with my sketch of the church; and if you please you can go over to the links, or--' 'ah, a good idea--very good! yes, you finish that sketch, mary, and i should be glad of a round.' 'i was going to say, you might call on the bishop; but i suppose it is no use my making _any_ suggestion. and now do be getting ready, or half the morning will be gone.' mr anstruther's face, which had shown symptoms of lengthening, shortened itself again, and he hurried from the room, and was soon heard giving orders in the passage. mrs anstruther, a stately dame of some fifty summers, proceeded, after a second consideration of the morning's letters, to her housekeeping. within a few minutes mr anstruther had discovered collins in the greenhouse, and they were on their way to the site of the projected rose garden. i do not know much about the conditions most suitable to these nurseries, but i am inclined to believe that mrs anstruther, though in the habit of describing herself as 'a great gardener', had not been well advised in the selection of a spot for the purpose. it was a small, dank clearing, bounded on one side by a path, and on the other by thick box-bushes, laurels, and other evergreens. the ground was almost bare of grass and dark of aspect. remains of rustic seats and an old and corrugated oak post somewhere near the middle of the clearing had given rise to mr anstruther's conjecture that a summer-house had once stood there. clearly collins had not been put in possession of his mistress's intentions with regard to this plot of ground: and when he learnt them from mr anstruther he displayed no enthusiasm. 'of course i could clear them seats away soon enough,' he said. 'they aren't no ornament to the place, mr anstruther, and rotten too. look 'ere, sir,'--and he broke off a large piece--'rotten right through. yes, clear them away, to be sure we can do that.' 'and the post,' said mr anstruther, 'that's got to go too.' collins advanced, and shook the post with both hands: then he rubbed his chin. 'that's firm in the ground, that post is,' he said. 'that's been there a number of years, mr anstruther. i doubt i shan't get that up not quite so soon as what i can do with them seats.' 'but your mistress specially wishes it to be got out of the way in an hour's time,' said mr anstruther. collins smiled and shook his head slowly. 'you'll excuse me, sir, but you feel of it for yourself. no, sir, no one can't do what's impossible to 'em, can they, sir? i could git that post up by after tea-time, sir, but that'll want a lot of digging. what you require, you see, sir, if you'll excuse me naming of it, you want the soil loosening round this post 'ere, and me and the boy we shall take a little time doing of that. but now, these 'ere seats,' said collins, appearing to appropriate this portion of the scheme as due to his own resourcefulness, 'why, i can get the barrer round and 'ave them cleared away in, why less than an hour's time from now, if you'll permit of it. only--' 'only what, collins?' 'well now, ain't for me to go against orders no more than what it is for you yourself--or anyone else' (this was added somewhat hurriedly), 'but if you'll pardon me, sir, this ain't the place i should have picked out for no rose garden myself. why look at them box and laurestinus, 'ow they reg'lar preclude the light from--' 'ah yes, but we've got to get rid of some of them, of course.' 'oh, indeed, get rid of them! yes, to be sure, but--i beg your pardon, mr anstruther--' 'i'm sorry, collins, but i must be getting on now. i hear the car at the door. your mistress will explain exactly what she wishes. i'll tell her, then, that you can see your way to clearing away the seats at once, and the post this afternoon. good morning.' collins was left rubbing his chin. mrs anstruther received the report with some discontent, but did not insist upon any change of plan. by four o'clock that afternoon she had dismissed her husband to his golf, had dealt faithfully with collins and with the other duties of the day, and, having sent a campstool and umbrella to the proper spot, had just settled down to her sketch of the church as seen from the shrubbery, when a maid came hurrying down the path to report that miss wilkins had called. miss wilkins was one of the few remaining members of the family from whom the anstruthers had bought the westfield estate some few years back. she had been staying in the neighbourhood, and this was probably a farewell visit. 'perhaps you could ask miss wilkins to join me here,' said mrs anstruther, and soon miss wilkins, a person of mature years, approached. 'yes, i'm leaving the ashes to-morrow, and i shall be able to tell my brother how tremendously you have improved the place. of course he can't help regretting the old house just a little--as i do myself--but the garden is really delightful now.' 'i am so glad you can say so. but you mustn't think we've finished our improvements. let me show you where i mean to put a rose garden. it's close by here.' the details of the project were laid before miss wilkins at some length; but her thoughts were evidently elsewhere. 'yes, delightful,' she said at last rather absently. 'but do you know, mrs anstruther, i'm afraid i was thinking of old times. i'm _very_ glad to have seen just this spot again before you altered it. frank and i had quite a romance about this place.' 'yes?' said mrs anstruther smilingly; 'do tell me what it was. something quaint and charming, i'm sure.' 'not so very charming, but it has always seemed to me curious. neither of us would ever be here alone when we were children, and i'm not sure that i should care about it now in certain moods. it is one of those things that can hardly be put into words--by me at least--and that sound rather foolish if they are not properly expressed. i can tell you after a fashion what it was that gave us--well, almost a horror of the place when we were alone. it was towards the evening of one very hot autumn day, when frank had disappeared mysteriously about the grounds, and i was looking for him to fetch him to tea, and going down this path i suddenly saw him, not hiding in the bushes, as i rather expected, but sitting on the bench in the old summer-house--there was a wooden summer-house here, you know--up in the corner, asleep, but with such a dreadful look on his face that i really thought he must be ill or even dead. i rushed at him and shook him, and told him to wake up; and wake up he did, with a scream. i assure you the poor boy seemed almost beside himself with fright. he hurried me away to the house, and was in a terrible state all that night, hardly sleeping. someone had to sit up with him, as far as i remember. he was better very soon, but for days i couldn't get him to say why he had been in such a condition. it came out at last that he had really been asleep and had had a very odd disjointed sort of dream. he never _saw_ much of what was around him, but he _felt_ the scenes most vividly. first he made out that he was standing in a large room with a number of people in it, and that someone was opposite to him who was "very powerful", and he was being asked questions which he felt to be very important, and, whenever he answered them, someone--either the person opposite to him, or someone else in the room--seemed to be, as he said, making something up against him. all the voices sounded to him very distant, but he remembered bits of the things that were said: "where were you on the th of october?" and "is this your handwriting?" and so on. i can see now, of course, that he was dreaming of some trial: but we were never allowed to see the papers, and it was odd that a boy of eight should have such a vivid idea of what went on in a court. all the time he felt, he said, the most intense anxiety and oppression and hopelessness (though i don't suppose he used such words as that to me). then, after that, there was an interval in which he remembered being dreadfully restless and miserable, and then there came another sort of picture, when he was aware that he had come out of doors on a dark raw morning with a little snow about. it was in a street, or at any rate among houses, and he felt that there were numbers and numbers of people there too, and that he was taken up some creaking wooden steps and stood on a sort of platform, but the only thing he could actually see was a small fire burning somewhere near him. someone who had been holding his arm left hold of it and went towards this fire, and then he said the fright he was in was worse than at any other part of his dream, and if i had not wakened him up he didn't know what would have become of him. a curious dream for a child to have, wasn't it? well, so much for that. it must have been later in the year that frank and i were here, and i was sitting in the arbour just about sunset. i noticed the sun was going down, and told frank to run in and see if tea was ready while i finished a chapter in the book i was reading. frank was away longer than i expected, and the light was going so fast that i had to bend over my book to make it out. all at once i became conscious that someone was whispering to me inside the arbour. the only words i could distinguish, or thought i could, were something like "pull, pull. i'll push, you pull." 'i started up in something of a fright. the voice--it was little more than a whisper--sounded so hoarse and angry, and yet as if it came from a long, long way off--just as it had done in frank's dream. but, though i was startled, i had enough courage to look round and try to make out where the sound came from. and--this sounds very foolish, i know, but still it is the fact--i made sure that it was strongest when i put my ear to an old post which was part of the end of the seat. i was so certain of this that i remember making some marks on the post--as deep as i could with the scissors out of my work-basket. i don't know why. i wonder, by the way, whether that isn't the very post itself.... well, yes, it might be: there _are_ marks and scratches on it--but one can't be sure. anyhow, it was just like that post you have there. my father got to know that both of us had had a fright in the arbour, and he went down there himself one evening after dinner, and the arbour was pulled down at very short notice. i recollect hearing my father talking about it to an old man who used to do odd jobs in the place, and the old man saying, "don't you fear for that, sir: he's fast enough in there without no one don't take and let him out." but when i asked who it was, i could get no satisfactory answer. possibly my father or mother might have told me more about it when i grew up, but, as you know, they both died when we were still quite children. i must say it has always seemed very odd to me, and i've often asked the older people in the village whether they knew of anything strange: but either they knew nothing or they wouldn't tell me. dear, dear, how i have been boring you with my childish remembrances! but indeed that arbour did absorb our thoughts quite remarkably for a time. you can fancy, can't you, the kind of stories that we made up for ourselves. well, dear mrs anstruther, i must be leaving you now. we shall meet in town this winter, i hope, shan't we?' etc., etc. the seats and the post were cleared away and uprooted respectively by that evening. late summer weather is proverbially treacherous, and during dinner-time mrs collins sent up to ask for a little brandy, because her husband had took a nasty chill and she was afraid he would not be able to do much next day. mrs anstruther's morning reflections were not wholly placid. she was sure some roughs had got into the plantation during the night. 'and another thing, george: the moment that collins is about again, you must tell him to do something about the owls. i never heard anything like them, and i'm positive one came and perched somewhere just outside our window. if it had come in i should have been out of my wits: it must have been a very large bird, from its voice. didn't you hear it? no, of course not, you were sound asleep as usual. still, i must say, george, you don't look as if your night had done you much good.' 'my dear, i feel as if another of the same would turn me silly. you have no idea of the dreams i had. i couldn't speak of them when i woke up, and if this room wasn't so bright and sunny i shouldn't care to think of them even now.' 'well, really, george, that isn't very common with you, i must say. you must have--no, you only had what i had yesterday--unless you had tea at that wretched club house: did you?' 'no, no; nothing but a cup of tea and some bread and butter. i should really like to know how i came to put my dream together--as i suppose one does put one's dreams together from a lot of little things one has been seeing or reading. look here, mary, it was like this--if i shan't be boring you--' 'i _wish_ to hear what it was, george. i will tell you when i have had enough.' 'all right. i must tell you that it wasn't like other nightmares in one way, because i didn't really _see_ anyone who spoke to me or touched me, and yet i was most fearfully impressed with the reality of it all. first i was sitting, no, moving about, in an old-fashioned sort of panelled room. i remember there was a fireplace and a lot of burnt papers in it, and i was in a great state of anxiety about something. there was someone else--a servant, i suppose, because i remember saying to him, "horses, as quick as you can," and then waiting a bit: and next i heard several people coming upstairs and a noise like spurs on a boarded floor, and then the door opened and whatever it was that i was expecting happened.' 'yes, but what was that?' 'you see, i couldn't tell: it was the sort of shock that upsets you in a dream. you either wake up or else everything goes black. that was what happened to me. then i was in a big dark-walled room, panelled, i think, like the other, and a number of people, and i was evidently--' 'standing your trial, i suppose, george.' 'goodness! yes, mary, i was; but did you dream that too? how very odd!' 'no, no; i didn't get enough sleep for that. go on, george, and i will tell you afterwards.' 'yes; well, i _was_ being tried, for my life, i've no doubt, from the state i was in. i had no one speaking for me, and somewhere there was a most fearful fellow--on the bench i should have said, only that he seemed to be pitching into me most unfairly, and twisting everything i said, and asking most abominable questions.' 'what about?' 'why, dates when i was at particular places, and letters i was supposed to have written, and why i had destroyed some papers; and i recollect his laughing at answers i made in a way that quite daunted me. it doesn't sound much, but i can tell you, mary, it was really appalling at the time. i am quite certain there was such a man once, and a most horrible villain he must have been. the things he said--' 'thank you, i have no wish to hear them. i can go to the links any day myself. how did it end?' 'oh, against me; _he_ saw to that. i do wish, mary, i could give you a notion of the strain that came after that, and seemed to me to last for days: waiting and waiting, and sometimes writing things i knew to be enormously important to me, and waiting for answers and none coming, and after that i came out--' 'ah!' 'what makes you say that? do you know what sort of thing i saw?' 'was it a dark cold day, and snow in the streets, and a fire burning somewhere near you?' 'by george, it was! you _have_ had the same nightmare! really not? well, it is the oddest thing! yes; i've no doubt it was an execution for high treason. i know i was laid on straw and jolted along most wretchedly, and then had to go up some steps, and someone was holding my arm, and i remember seeing a bit of a ladder and hearing a sound of a lot of people. i really don't think i could bear now to go into a crowd of people and hear the noise they make talking. however, mercifully, i didn't get to the real business. the dream passed off with a sort of thunder inside my head. but, mary--' 'i know what you are going to ask. i suppose this is an instance of a kind of thought-reading. miss wilkins called yesterday and told me of a dream her brother had as a child when they lived here, and something did no doubt make me think of that when i was awake last night listening to those horrible owls and those men talking and laughing in the shrubbery (by the way, i wish you would see if they have done any damage, and speak to the police about it); and so, i suppose, from my brain it must have got into yours while you were asleep. curious, no doubt, and i am sorry it gave you such a bad night. you had better be as much in the fresh air as you can to-day.' 'oh, it's all right now; but i think i _will_ go over to the lodge and see if i can get a game with any of them. and you?' 'i have enough to do for this morning; and this afternoon, if i am not interrupted, there is my drawing.' 'to be sure--i want to see that finished very much.' no damage was discoverable in the shrubbery. mr anstruther surveyed with faint interest the site of the rose garden, where the uprooted post still lay, and the hole it had occupied remained unfilled. collins, upon inquiry made, proved to be better, but quite unable to come to his work. he expressed, by the mouth of his wife, a hope that he hadn't done nothing wrong clearing away them things. mrs collins added that there was a lot of talking people in westfield, and the hold ones was the worst: seemed to think everything of them having been in the parish longer than what other people had. but as to what they said no more could then be ascertained than that it had quite upset collins, and was a lot of nonsense. * * * * * recruited by lunch and a brief period of slumber, mrs anstruther settled herself comfortably upon her sketching chair in the path leading through the shrubbery to the side-gate of the churchyard. trees and buildings were among her favourite subjects, and here she had good studies of both. she worked hard, and the drawing was becoming a really pleasant thing to look upon by the time that the wooded hills to the west had shut off the sun. still she would have persevered, but the light changed rapidly, and it became obvious that the last touches must be added on the morrow. she rose and turned towards the house, pausing for a time to take delight in the limpid green western sky. then she passed on between the dark box-bushes, and, at a point just before the path debouched on the lawn, she stopped once again and considered the quiet evening landscape, and made a mental note that that must be the tower of one of the roothing churches that one caught on the sky-line. then a bird (perhaps) rustled in the box-bush on her left, and she turned and started at seeing what at first she took to be a fifth of november mask peeping out among the branches. she looked closer. it was not a mask. it was a face--large, smooth, and pink. she remembers the minute drops of perspiration which were starting from its forehead: she remembers how the jaws were clean-shaven and the eyes shut. she remembers also, and with an accuracy which makes the thought intolerable to her, how the mouth was open and a single tooth appeared below the upper lip. as she looked the face receded into the darkness of the bush. the shelter of the house was gained and the door shut before she collapsed. mr and mrs anstruther had been for a week or more recruiting at brighton before they received a circular from the essex archaeological society, and a query as to whether they possessed certain historical portraits which it was desired to include in the forthcoming work on essex portraits, to be published under the society's auspices. there was an accompanying letter from the secretary which contained the following passage: 'we are specially anxious to know whether you possess the original of the engraving of which i enclose a photograph. it represents sir ---- ----, lord chief justice under charles ii, who, as you doubtless know, retired after his disgrace to westfield, and is supposed to have died there of remorse. it may interest you to hear that a curious entry has recently been found in the registers, not of westfield but of priors roothing to the effect that the parish was so much troubled after his death that the rector of westfield summoned the parsons of all the roothings to come and lay him; which they did. the entry ends by saying: "the stake is in a field adjoining to the churchyard of westfield, on the west side." perhaps you can let us know if any tradition to this effect is current in your parish.' the incidents which the 'enclosed photograph' recalled were productive of a severe shock to mrs anstruther. it was decided that she must spend the winter abroad. mr anstruther, when he went down to westfield to make the necessary arrangements, not unnaturally told his story to the rector (an old gentleman), who showed little surprise. 'really i had managed to piece out for myself very much what must have happened, partly from old people's talk and partly from what i saw in your grounds. of course we have suffered to some extent also. yes, it was bad at first: like owls, as you say, and men talking sometimes. one night it was in this garden, and at other times about several of the cottages. but lately there has been very little: i think it will die out. there is nothing in our registers except the entry of the burial, and what i for a long time took to be the family motto: but last time i looked at it i noticed that it was added in a later hand and had the initials of one of our rectors quite late in the seventeenth century, a. c.--augustine crompton. here it is, you see--_quieta non movere_. i suppose-- well, it is rather hard to say exactly what i do suppose.' the tractate middoth towards the end of an autumn afternoon an elderly man with a thin face and grey piccadilly weepers pushed open the swing-door leading into the vestibule of a certain famous library, and addressing himself to an attendant, stated that he believed he was entitled to use the library, and inquired if he might take a book out. yes, if he were on the list of those to whom that privilege was given. he produced his card--mr john eldred--and, the register being consulted, a favourable answer was given. 'now, another point,' said he. 'it is a long time since i was here, and i do not know my way about your building; besides, it is near closing-time, and it is bad for me to hurry up and down stairs. i have here the title of the book i want: is there anyone at liberty who could go and find it for me?' after a moment's thought the doorkeeper beckoned to a young man who was passing. 'mr garrett,' he said, 'have you a minute to assist this gentleman?' 'with pleasure,' was mr garrett's answer. the slip with the title was handed to him. 'i think i can put my hand on this; it happens to be in the class i inspected last quarter, but i'll just look it up in the catalogue to make sure. i suppose it is that particular edition that you require, sir?' 'yes, if you please; that, and no other,' said mr eldred; 'i am exceedingly obliged to you.' 'don't mention it i beg, sir,' said mr garrett, and hurried off. 'i thought so,' he said to himself, when his finger, travelling down the pages of the catalogue, stopped at a particular entry. 'talmud: tractate middoth, with the commentary of nachmanides, amsterdam, . . . . hebrew class, of course. not a very difficult job this.' mr eldred, accommodated with a chair in the vestibule, awaited anxiously the return of his messenger--and his disappointment at seeing an empty-handed mr garrett running down the staircase was very evident. 'i'm sorry to disappoint you, sir,' said the young man, 'but the book is out.' 'oh dear!' said mr eldred, 'is that so? you are sure there can be no mistake?' 'i don't think there is much chance of it, sir: but it's possible, if you like to wait a minute, that you might meet the very gentleman that's got it. he must be leaving the library soon, and i _think_ i saw him take that particular book out of the shelf.' 'indeed! you didn't recognize him, i suppose? would it be one of the professors or one of the students?' 'i don't think so: certainly not a professor. i should have known him; but the light isn't very good in that part of the library at this time of day, and i didn't see his face. i should have said he was a shortish old gentleman, perhaps a clergyman, in a cloak. if you could wait, i can easily find out whether he wants the book very particularly.' 'no, no,' said mr eldred, 'i won't--i can't wait now, thank you--no. i must be off. but i'll call again to-morrow if i may, and perhaps you could find out who has it.' 'certainly, sir, and i'll have the book ready for you if we--' but mr eldred was already off, and hurrying more than one would have thought wholesome for him. garrett had a few moments to spare; and, thought he, 'i'll go back to that case and see if i can find the old man. most likely he could put off using the book for a few days. i dare say the other one doesn't want to keep it for long.' so off with him to the hebrew class. but when he got there it was unoccupied, and the volume marked . . was in its place on the shelf. it was vexatious to garrett's self-respect to have disappointed an inquirer with so little reason: and he would have liked, had it not been against library rules, to take the book down to the vestibule then and there, so that it might be ready for mr eldred when he called. however, next morning he would be on the look out for him, and he begged the doorkeeper to send and let him know when the moment came. as a matter of fact, he was himself in the vestibule when mr eldred arrived, very soon after the library opened and when hardly anyone besides the staff were in the building. 'i'm very sorry,' he said; 'it's not often that i make such a stupid mistake, but i did feel sure that the old gentleman i saw took out that very book and kept it in his hand without opening it, just as people do, you know, sir, when they mean to take a book out of the library and not merely refer to it. but, however, i'll run up now at once and get it for you this time.' and here intervened a pause. mr eldred paced the entry, read all the notices, consulted his watch, sat and gazed up the staircase, did all that a very impatient man could, until some twenty minutes had run out. at last he addressed himself to the doorkeeper and inquired if it was a very long way to that part of the library to which mr garrett had gone. 'well, i was thinking it was funny, sir: he's a quick man as a rule, but to be sure he might have been sent for by the librarian, but even so i think he'd have mentioned to him that you was waiting. i'll just speak him up on the toob and see.' and to the tube he addressed himself. as he absorbed the reply to his question his face changed, and he made one or two supplementary inquiries which were shortly answered. then he came forward to his counter and spoke in a lower tone. 'i'm sorry to hear, sir, that something seems to have 'appened a little awkward. mr garrett has been took poorly, it appears, and the librarian sent him 'ome in a cab the other way. something of an attack, by what i can hear.' 'what, really? do you mean that someone has injured him?' 'no, sir, not violence 'ere, but, as i should judge, attacked with an attack, what you might term it, of illness. not a strong constitootion, mr garrett. but as to your book, sir, perhaps you might be able to find it for yourself. it's too bad you should be disappointed this way twice over--' 'er--well, but i'm so sorry that mr garrett should have been taken ill in this way while he was obliging me. i think i must leave the book, and call and inquire after him. you can give me his address, i suppose.' that was easily done: mr garrett, it appeared, lodged in rooms not far from the station. 'and one other question. did you happen to notice if an old gentleman, perhaps a clergyman, in a--yes--in a black cloak, left the library after i did yesterday. i think he may have been a--i think, that is, that he may be staying--or rather that i may have known him.' 'not in a black cloak, sir; no. there were only two gentlemen left later than what you done, sir, both of them youngish men. there was mr carter took out a music-book and one of the prefessors with a couple o' novels. that's the lot, sir; and then i went off to me tea, and glad to get it. thank you, sir, much obliged.' * * * * * mr eldred, still a prey to anxiety, betook himself in a cab to mr garrett's address, but the young man was not yet in a condition to receive visitors. he was better, but his landlady considered that he must have had a severe shock. she thought most likely from what the doctor said that he would be able to see mr eldred to-morrow. mr eldred returned to his hotel at dusk and spent, i fear, but a dull evening. on the next day he was able to see mr garrett. when in health mr garrett was a cheerful and pleasant-looking young man. now he was a very white and shaky being, propped up in an arm-chair by the fire, and inclined to shiver and keep an eye on the door. if however, there were visitors whom he was not prepared to welcome, mr eldred was not among them. 'it really is i who owe you an apology, and i was despairing of being able to pay it, for i didn't know your address. but i am very glad you have called. i do dislike and regret giving all this trouble, but you know i could not have foreseen this--this attack which i had.' 'of course not; but now, i am something of a doctor. you'll excuse my asking; you have had, i am sure, good advice. was it a fall you had?' 'no. i did fall on the floor--but not from any height. it was, really, a shock.' 'you mean something startled you. was it anything you thought you saw?' 'not much _thinking_ in the case, i'm afraid. yes, it was something i saw. you remember when you called the first time at the library?' 'yes, of course. well, now, let me beg you not to try to describe it--it will not be good for you to recall it, i'm sure.' 'but indeed it would be a relief to me to tell anyone like yourself: you might be able to explain it away. it was just when i was going into the class where your book is--' 'indeed, mr garrett, i insist; besides, my watch tells me i have but very little time left in which to get my things together and take the train. no--not another word--it would be more distressing to you than you imagine, perhaps. now there is just one thing i want to say. i feel that i am really indirectly responsible for this illness of yours, and i think i ought to defray the expense which it has--eh?' but this offer was quite distinctly declined. mr eldred, not pressing it, left almost at once: not, however, before mr garrett had insisted upon his taking a note of the class-mark of the tractate middoth, which, as he said, mr eldred could at leisure get for himself. but mr eldred did not reappear at the library. * * * * * william garrett had another visitor that day in the person of a contemporary and colleague from the library, one george earle. earle had been one of those who found garrett lying insensible on the floor just inside the 'class' or cubicle (opening upon the central alley of a spacious gallery) in which the hebrew books were placed, and earle had naturally been very anxious about his friend's condition. so as soon as library hours were over he appeared at the lodgings. 'well,' he said (after other conversation), 'i've no notion what it was that put you wrong, but i've got the idea that there's something wrong in the atmosphere of the library. i know this, that just before we found you i was coming along the gallery with davis, and i said to him, "did ever you know such a musty smell anywhere as there is about here? it can't be wholesome." well now, if one goes on living a long time with a smell of that kind (i tell you it was worse than i ever knew it) it must get into the system and break out some time, don't you think?' garrett shook his head. 'that's all very well about the smell--but it isn't always there, though i've noticed it the last day or two--a sort of unnaturally strong smell of dust. but no--that's not what did for me. it was something i _saw_. and i want to tell you about it. i went into that hebrew class to get a book for a man that was inquiring for it down below. now that same book i'd made a mistake about the day before. i'd been for it, for the same man, and made sure that i saw an old parson in a cloak taking it out. i told my man it was out: off he went, to call again next day. i went back to see if i could get it out of the parson: no parson there, and the book on the shelf. well, yesterday, as i say, i went again. this time, if you please--ten o'clock in the morning, remember, and as much light as ever you get in those classes, and there was my parson again, back to me, looking at the books on the shelf i wanted. his hat was on the table, and he had a bald head. i waited a second or two looking at him rather particularly. i tell you, he had a very nasty bald head. it looked to me dry, and it looked dusty, and the streaks of hair across it were much less like hair than cobwebs. well, i made a bit of a noise on purpose, coughed and moved my feet. he turned round and let me see his face--which i hadn't seen before. i tell you again, i'm not mistaken. though, for one reason or another i didn't take in the lower part of his face, i did see the upper part; and it was perfectly dry, and the eyes were very deep-sunk; and over them, from the eyebrows to the cheek-bone, there were _cobwebs_--thick. now that closed me up, as they say, and i can't tell you anything more.' * * * * * what explanations were furnished by earle of this phenomenon it does not very much concern us to inquire; at all events they did not convince garrett that he had not seen what he had seen. * * * * * before william garrett returned to work at the library, the librarian insisted upon his taking a week's rest and change of air. within a few days' time, therefore, he was at the station with his bag, looking for a desirable smoking compartment in which to travel to burnstow-on-sea, which he had not previously visited. one compartment and one only seemed to be suitable. but, just as he approached it, he saw, standing in front of the door, a figure so like one bound up with recent unpleasant associations that, with a sickening qualm, and hardly knowing what he did, he tore open the door of the next compartment and pulled himself into it as quickly as if death were at his heels. the train moved off, and he must have turned quite faint, for he was next conscious of a smelling-bottle being put to his nose. his physician was a nice-looking old lady, who, with her daughter, was the only passenger in the carriage. but for this incident it is not very likely that he would have made any overtures to his fellow-travellers. as it was, thanks and inquiries and general conversation supervened inevitably; and garrett found himself provided before the journey's end not only with a physician, but with a landlady: for mrs simpson had apartments to let at burnstow, which seemed in all ways suitable. the place was empty at that season, so that garrett was thrown a good deal into the society of the mother and daughter. he found them very acceptable company. on the third evening of his stay he was on such terms with them as to be asked to spend the evening in their private sitting-room. during their talk it transpired that garrett's work lay in a library. 'ah, libraries are fine places,' said mrs simpson, putting down her work with a sigh; 'but for all that, books have played me a sad turn, or rather _a_ book has.' 'well, books give me my living, mrs simpson, and i should be sorry to say a word against them: i don't like to hear that they have been bad for you.' 'perhaps mr garrett could help us to solve our puzzle, mother,' said miss simpson. 'i don't want to set mr garrett off on a hunt that might waste a lifetime, my dear, nor yet to trouble him with our private affairs.' 'but if you think it in the least likely that i could be of use, i do beg you to tell me what the puzzle is, mrs simpson. if it is finding out anything about a book, you see, i am in rather a good position to do it.' 'yes, i do see that, but the worst of it is that we don't know the name of the book.' 'nor what it is about?' 'no, nor that either.' 'except that we don't think it's in english, mother--and that is not much of a clue.' 'well, mr garrett,' said mrs simpson, who had not yet resumed her work, and was looking at the fire thoughtfully, 'i shall tell you the story. you will please keep it to yourself, if you don't mind? thank you. now it is just this. i had an old uncle, a dr rant. perhaps you may have heard of him. not that he was a distinguished man, but from the odd way he chose to be buried.' 'i rather think i have seen the name in some guidebook.' 'that would be it,' said miss simpson. 'he left directions--horrid old man!--that he was to be put, sitting at a table in his ordinary clothes, in a brick room that he'd had made underground in a field near his house. of course the country people say he's been seen about there in his old black cloak.' 'well, dear, i don't know much about such things,' mrs simpson went on, 'but anyhow he is dead, these twenty years and more. he was a clergyman, though i'm sure i can't imagine how he got to be one: but he did no duty for the last part of his life, which i think was a good thing; and he lived on his own property: a very nice estate not a great way from here. he had no wife or family; only one niece, who was myself, and one nephew, and he had no particular liking for either of us--nor for anyone else, as far as that goes. if anything, he liked my cousin better than he did me--for john was much more like him in his temper, and, i'm afraid i must say, his very mean sharp ways. it might have been different if i had not married; but i did, and that he very much resented. very well: here he was with this estate and a good deal of money, as it turned out, of which he had the absolute disposal, and it was understood that we--my cousin and i--would share it equally at his death. in a certain winter, over twenty years back, as i said, he was taken ill, and i was sent for to nurse him. my husband was alive then, but the old man would not hear of _his_ coming. as i drove up to the house i saw my cousin john driving away from it in an open fly and looking, i noticed, in very good spirits. i went up and did what i could for my uncle, but i was very soon sure that this would be his last illness; and he was convinced of it too. during the day before he died he got me to sit by him all the time, and i could see there was something, and probably something unpleasant, that he was saving up to tell me, and putting it off as long as he felt he could afford the strength--i'm afraid purposely in order to keep me on the stretch. but, at last, out it came. "mary," he said,--"mary, i've made my will in john's favour: he has everything, mary." well, of course that came as a bitter shock to me, for we--my husband and i--were not rich people, and if he could have managed to live a little easier than he was obliged to do, i felt it might be the prolonging of his life. but i said little or nothing to my uncle, except that he had a right to do what he pleased: partly because i couldn't think of anything to say, and partly because i was sure there was more to come: and so there was. "but, mary," he said, "i'm not very fond of john, and i've made another will in _your_ favour. _you_ can have everything. only you've got to find the will, you see: and i don't mean to tell you where it is." then he chuckled to himself, and i waited, for again i was sure he hadn't finished. "that's a good girl," he said after a time,--"you wait, and i'll tell you as much as i told john. but just let me remind you, you can't go into court with what i'm saying to you, for _you_ won't be able to produce any collateral evidence beyond your own word, and john's a man that can do a little hard swearing if necessary. very well then, that's understood. now, i had the fancy that i wouldn't write this will quite in the common way, so i wrote it in a book, mary, a printed book. and there's several thousand books in this house. but there! you needn't trouble yourself with them, for it isn't one of them. it's in safe keeping elsewhere: in a place where john can go and find it any day, if he only knew, and you can't. a good will it is: properly signed and witnessed, but i don't think you'll find the witnesses in a hurry." 'still i said nothing: if i had moved at all i must have taken hold of the old wretch and shaken him. he lay there laughing to himself, and at last he said: '"well, well, you've taken it very quietly, and as i want to start you both on equal terms, and john has a bit of a purchase in being able to go where the book is, i'll tell you just two other things which i didn't tell him. the will's in english, but you won't know that if ever you see it. that's one thing, and another is that when i'm gone you'll find an envelope in my desk directed to you, and inside it something that would help you to find it, if only you have the wits to use it." 'in a few hours from that he was gone, and though i made an appeal to john eldred about it--' 'john eldred? i beg your pardon, mrs simpson--i think i've seen a mr john eldred. what is he like to look at?' 'it must be ten years since i saw him: he would be a thin elderly man now, and unless he has shaved them off, he has that sort of whiskers which people used to call dundreary or piccadilly something.' '--weepers. yes, that _is_ the man.' 'where did you come across him, mr garrett?' 'i don't know if i could tell you,' said garrett mendaciously, 'in some public place. but you hadn't finished.' 'really i had nothing much to add, only that john eldred, of course, paid no attention whatever to my letters, and has enjoyed the estate ever since, while my daughter and i have had to take to the lodging-house business here, which i must say has not turned out by any means so unpleasant as i feared it might.' 'but about the envelope.' 'to be sure! why, the puzzle turns on that. give mr garrett the paper out of my desk.' it was a small slip, with nothing whatever on it but five numerals, not divided or punctuated in any way: . mr garrett pondered, but there was a light in his eye. suddenly he 'made a face', and then asked, 'do you suppose that mr eldred can have any more clue than you have to the title of the book?' 'i have sometimes thought he must,' said mrs simpson, 'and in this way: that my uncle must have made the will not very long before he died (that, i think, he said himself), and got rid of the book immediately afterwards. but all his books were very carefully catalogued: and john has the catalogue: and john was most particular that no books whatever should be sold out of the house. and i'm told that he is always journeying about to booksellers and libraries; so i fancy that he must have found out just which books are missing from my uncle's library of those which are entered in the catalogue, and must be hunting for them.' 'just so, just so,' said mr garrett, and relapsed into thought. * * * * * no later than next day he received a letter which, as he told mrs simpson with great regret, made it absolutely necessary for him to cut short his stay at burnstow. sorry as he was to leave them (and they were at least as sorry to part with him), he had begun to feel that a crisis, all-important to mrs (and shall we add, miss?) simpson, was very possibly supervening. in the train garrett was uneasy and excited. he racked his brains to think whether the press mark of the book which mr eldred had been inquiring after was one in any way corresponding to the numbers on mrs simpson's little bit of paper. but he found to his dismay that the shock of the previous week had really so upset him that he could neither remember any vestige of the title or nature of the book, or even of the locality to which he had gone to seek it. and yet all other parts of library topography and work were clear as ever in his mind. and another thing--he stamped with annoyance as he thought of it--he had at first hesitated, and then had forgotten, to ask mrs simpson for the name of the place where eldred lived. that, however, he could write about. at least he had his clue in the figures on the paper. if they referred to a press mark in his library, they were only susceptible of a limited number of interpretations. they might be divided into . . , . . , or . . . he could try all these in the space of a few minutes, and if any one were missing he had every means of tracing it. he got very quickly to work, though a few minutes had to be spent in explaining his early return to his landlady and his colleagues. . . . was in place and contained no extraneous writing. as he drew near to class in the same gallery, its association struck him like a chill. but he _must_ go on. after a cursory glance at . . (which first confronted him, and was a perfectly new book) he ran his eye along the line of quartos which fills . . the gap he feared was there: was out. a moment was spent in making sure that it had not been misplaced, and then he was off to the vestibule. 'has . . gone out? do you recollect noticing that number?' 'notice the number? what do you take me for, mr garrett? there, take and look over the tickets for yourself, if you've got a free day before you.' 'well then, has a mr eldred called again?--the old gentleman who came the day i was taken ill. come! you'd remember him.' 'what do you suppose? of course i recollect of him: no, he haven't been in again, not since you went off for your 'oliday. and yet i seem to--there now. roberts'll know. roberts, do you recollect of the name of heldred?' 'not arf,' said roberts. 'you mean the man that sent a bob over the price for the parcel, and i wish they all did.' 'do you mean to say you've been sending books to mr eldred? come, do speak up! have you?' 'well now, mr garrett, if a gentleman sends the ticket all wrote correct and the secketry says this book may go and the box ready addressed sent with the note, and a sum of money sufficient to deefray the railway charges, what would be _your_ action in the matter, mr garrett, if i may take the liberty to ask such a question? would you or would you not have taken the trouble to oblige, or would you have chucked the 'ole thing under the counter and--' 'you were perfectly right, of course, hodgson--perfectly right: only, would you kindly oblige me by showing me the ticket mr eldred sent, and letting me know his address?' 'to be sure, mr garrett; so long as i'm not 'ectored about and informed that i don't know my duty, i'm willing to oblige in every way feasible to my power. there is the ticket on the file. j. eldred, . . . title of work: t-a-l-m--well, there, you can make what you like of it--not a novel, i should 'azard the guess. and here is mr heldred's note applying for the book in question, which i see he terms it a track.' 'thanks, thanks: but the address? there's none on the note.' 'ah, indeed; well, now ... stay now, mr garrett, i 'ave it. why, that note come inside of the parcel, which was directed very thoughtful to save all trouble, ready to be sent back with the book inside; and if i _have_ made any mistake in this 'ole transaction, it lays just in the one point that i neglected to enter the address in my little book here what i keep. not but what i dare say there was good reasons for me not entering of it: but there, i haven't the time, neither have you, i dare say, to go into 'em just now. and--no, mr garrett, i do _not_ carry it in my 'ed, else what would be the use of me keeping this little book here--just a ordinary common notebook, you see, which i make a practice of entering all such names and addresses in it as i see fit to do?' 'admirable arrangement, to be sure--but--all right, thank you. when did the parcel go off?' 'half-past ten, this morning.' 'oh, good; and it's just one now.' garrett went upstairs in deep thought. how was he to get the address? a telegram to mrs simpson: he might miss a train by waiting for the answer. yes, there was one other way. she had said that eldred lived on his uncle's estate. if this were so, he might find that place entered in the donation-book. that he could run through quickly, now that he knew the title of the book. the register was soon before him, and, knowing that the old man had died more than twenty years ago, he gave him a good margin, and turned back to . there was but one entry possible. , august th. _talmud: tractatus middoth cum comm. r. nachmanidae._ amstelod. . given by j. rant, d.d., of bretfield manor. a gazetteer showed bretfield to be three miles from a small station on the main line. now to ask the doorkeeper whether he recollected if the name on the parcel had been anything like bretfield. 'no, nothing like. it was, now you mention it, mr garrett, either bredfield or britfield, but nothing like that other name what you coated.' so far well. next, a time-table. a train could be got in twenty minutes--taking two hours over the journey. the only chance, but one not to be missed; and the train was taken. if he had been fidgety on the journey up, he was almost distracted on the journey down. if he found eldred, what could he say? that it had been discovered that the book was a rarity and must be recalled? an obvious untruth. or that it was believed to contain important manuscript notes? eldred would of course show him the book, from which the leaf would already have been removed. he might, perhaps, find traces of the removal--a torn edge of a fly-leaf probably--and who could disprove, what eldred was certain to say, that he too had noticed and regretted the mutilation? altogether the chase seemed very hopeless. the one chance was this. the book had left the library at . : it might not have been put into the first possible train, at . . granted that, then he might be lucky enough to arrive simultaneously with it and patch up some story which would induce eldred to give it up. it was drawing towards evening when he got out upon the platform of his station, and, like most country stations, this one seemed unnaturally quiet. he waited about till the one or two passengers who got out with him had drifted off, and then inquired of the station-master whether mr eldred was in the neighbourhood. 'yes, and pretty near too, i believe. i fancy he means calling here for a parcel he expects. called for it once to-day already, didn't he, bob?' (to the porter). 'yes, sir, he did; and appeared to think it was all along of me that it didn't come by the two o'clock. anyhow, i've got it for him now,' and the porter flourished a square parcel, which--a glance assured garrett-- contained all that was of any importance to him at that particular moment. 'bretfield, sir? yes--three miles just about. short cut across these three fields brings it down by half a mile. there: there's mr eldred's trap.' a dog-cart drove up with two men in it, of whom garrett, gazing back as he crossed the little station yard, easily recognized one. the fact that eldred was driving was slightly in his favour--for most likely he would not open the parcel in the presence of his servant. on the other hand, he would get home quickly, and unless garrett were there within a very few minutes of his arrival, all would be over. he must hurry; and that he did. his short cut took him along one side of a triangle, while the cart had two sides to traverse; and it was delayed a little at the station, so that garrett was in the third of the three fields when he heard the wheels fairly near. he had made the best progress possible, but the pace at which the cart was coming made him despair. at this rate it _must_ reach home ten minutes before him, and ten minutes would more than suffice for the fulfilment of mr eldred's project. it was just at this time that the luck fairly turned. the evening was still, and sounds came clearly. seldom has any sound given greater relief than that which he now heard: that of the cart pulling up. a few words were exchanged, and it drove on. garrett, halting in the utmost anxiety, was able to see as it drove past the stile (near which he now stood) that it contained only the servant and not eldred; further, he made out that eldred was following on foot. from behind the tall hedge by the stile leading into the road he watched the thin wiry figure pass quickly by with the parcel beneath its arm, and feeling in its pockets. just as he passed the stile something fell out of a pocket upon the grass, but with so little sound that eldred was not conscious of it. in a moment more it was safe for garrett to cross the stile into the road and pick up--a box of matches. eldred went on, and, as he went, his arms made hasty movements, difficult to interpret in the shadow of the trees that overhung the road. but, as garrett followed cautiously, he found at various points the key to them--a piece of string, and then the wrapper of the parcel--meant to be thrown over the hedge, but sticking in it. now eldred was walking slower, and it could just be made out that he had opened the book and was turning over the leaves. he stopped, evidently troubled by the failing light. garrett slipped into a gate-opening, but still watched. eldred, hastily looking around, sat down on a felled tree-trunk by the roadside and held the open book up close to his eyes. suddenly he laid it, still open, on his knee, and felt in all his pockets: clearly in vain, and clearly to his annoyance. 'you would be glad of your matches now,' thought garrett. then he took hold of a leaf, and was carefully tearing it out, when two things happened. first, something black seemed to drop upon the white leaf and run down it, and then as eldred started and was turning to look behind him, a little dark form appeared to rise out of the shadow behind the tree-trunk and from it two arms enclosing a mass of blackness came before eldred's face and covered his head and neck. his legs and arms were wildly flourished, but no sound came. then, there was no more movement. eldred was alone. he had fallen back into the grass behind the tree-trunk. the book was cast into the roadway. garrett, his anger and suspicion gone for the moment at the sight of this horrid struggle, rushed up with loud cries of 'help!' and so too, to his enormous relief, did a labourer who had just emerged from a field opposite. together they bent over and supported eldred, but to no purpose. the conclusion that he was dead was inevitable. 'poor gentleman!' said garrett to the labourer, when they had laid him down, 'what happened to him, do you think?' 'i wasn't two hundred yards away,' said the man, 'when i see squire eldred setting reading in his book, and to my thinking he was took with one of these fits--face seemed to go all over black.' 'just so,' said garrett. 'you didn't see anyone near him? it couldn't have been an assault?' 'not possible--no one couldn't have got away without you or me seeing them.' 'so i thought. well, we must get some help, and the doctor and the policeman; and perhaps i had better give them this book.' it was obviously a case for an inquest, and obvious also that garrett must stay at bretfield and give his evidence. the medical inspection showed that, though some black dust was found on the face and in the mouth of the deceased, the cause of death was a shock to a weak heart, and not asphyxiation. the fateful book was produced, a respectable quarto printed wholly in hebrew, and not of an aspect likely to excite even the most sensitive. 'you say, mr garrett, that the deceased gentleman appeared at the moment before his attack to be tearing a leaf out of this book?' 'yes; i think one of the fly-leaves.' 'there is here a fly-leaf partially torn through. it has hebrew writing on it. will you kindly inspect it?' 'there are three names in english, sir, also, and a date. but i am sorry to say i cannot read hebrew writing.' 'thank you. the names have the appearance of being signatures. they are john rant, walter gibson, and james frost, and the date is july, . does anyone here know any of these names?' the rector, who was present, volunteered a statement that the uncle of the deceased, from whom he inherited, had been named rant. the book being handed to him, he shook a puzzled head. 'this is not like any hebrew i ever learnt.' 'you are sure that it is hebrew?' 'what? yes--i suppose.... no--my dear sir, you are perfectly right--that is, your suggestion is exactly to the point. of course--it is not hebrew at all. it is english, and it is a will.' it did not take many minutes to show that here was indeed a will of dr john rant, bequeathing the whole of the property lately held by john eldred to mrs mary simpson. clearly the discovery of such a document would amply justify mr eldred's agitation. as to the partial tearing of the leaf, the coroner pointed out that no useful purpose could be attained by speculations whose correctness it would never be possible to establish. * * * * * the tractate middoth was naturally taken in charge by the coroner for further investigation, and mr garrett explained privately to him the history of it, and the position of events so far as he knew or guessed them. he returned to his work next day, and on his walk to the station passed the scene of mr eldred's catastrophe. he could hardly leave it without another look, though the recollection of what he had seen there made him shiver, even on that bright morning. he walked round, with some misgivings, behind the felled tree. something dark that still lay there made him start back for a moment: but it hardly stirred. looking closer, he saw that it was a thick black mass of cobwebs; and, as he stirred it gingerly with his stick, several large spiders ran out of it into the grass. * * * * * there is no great difficulty in imagining the steps by which william garrett, from being an assistant in a great library, attained to his present position of prospective owner of bretfield manor, now in the occupation of his mother-in-law, mrs mary simpson. casting the runes _april th, -_ dear sir, i am requested by the council of the ---- association to return to you the draft of a paper on _the truth of alchemy_, which you have been good enough to offer to read at our forthcoming meeting, and to inform you that the council do not see their way to including it in the programme. i am, yours faithfully, --- _secretary._ * * * * * _april th_ dear sir, i am sorry to say that my engagements do not permit of my affording you an interview on the subject of your proposed paper. nor do our laws allow of your discussing the matter with a committee of our council, as you suggest. please allow me to assure you that the fullest consideration was given to the draft which you submitted, and that it was not declined without having been referred to the judgement of a most competent authority. no personal question (it can hardly be necessary for me to add) can have had the slightest influence on the decision of the council. believe me (_ut supra_). * * * * * _april th_ the secretary of the ---- association begs respectfully to inform mr karswell that it is impossible for him to communicate the name of any person or persons to whom the draft of mr karswell's paper may have been submitted; and further desires to intimate that he cannot undertake to reply to any further letters on this subject. * * * * * 'and who _is_ mr karswell?' inquired the secretary's wife. she had called at his office, and (perhaps unwarrantably) had picked up the last of these three letters, which the typist had just brought in. 'why, my dear, just at present mr karswell is a very angry man. but i don't know much about him otherwise, except that he is a person of wealth, his address is lufford abbey, warwickshire, and he's an alchemist, apparently, and wants to tell us all about it; and that's about all--except that i don't want to meet him for the next week or two. now, if you're ready to leave this place, i am.' 'what have you been doing to make him angry?' asked mrs secretary. 'the usual thing, my dear, the usual thing: he sent in a draft of a paper he wanted to read at the next meeting, and we referred it to edward dunning--almost the only man in england who knows about these things--and he said it was perfectly hopeless, so we declined it. so karswell has been pelting me with letters ever since. the last thing he wanted was the name of the man we referred his nonsense to; you saw my answer to that. but don't you say anything about it, for goodness' sake.' 'i should think not, indeed. did i ever do such a thing? i do hope, though, he won't get to know that it was poor mr dunning.' 'poor mr dunning? i don't know why you call him that; he's a very happy man, is dunning. lots of hobbies and a comfortable home, and all his time to himself.' 'i only meant i should be sorry for him if this man got hold of his name, and came and bothered him.' 'oh, ah! yes. i dare say he would be poor mr dunning then.' the secretary and his wife were lunching out, and the friends to whose house they were bound were warwickshire people. so mrs secretary had already settled it in her own mind that she would question them judiciously about mr karswell. but she was saved the trouble of leading up to the subject, for the hostess said to the host, before many minutes had passed, 'i saw the abbot of lufford this morning.' the host whistled. '_did_ you? what in the world brings him up to town?' 'goodness knows; he was coming out of the british museum gate as i drove past.' it was not unnatural that mrs secretary should inquire whether this was a real abbot who was being spoken of. 'oh no, my dear: only a neighbour of ours in the country who bought lufford abbey a few years ago. his real name is karswell.' 'is he a friend of yours?' asked mr secretary, with a private wink to his wife. the question let loose a torrent of declamation. there was really nothing to be said for mr karswell. nobody knew what he did with himself: his servants were a horrible set of people; he had invented a new religion for himself, and practised no one could tell what appalling rites; he was very easily offended, and never forgave anybody; he had a dreadful face (so the lady insisted, her husband somewhat demurring); he never did a kind action, and whatever influence he did exert was mischievous. 'do the poor man justice, dear,' the husband interrupted. 'you forget the treat he gave the school children.' 'forget it, indeed! but i'm glad you mentioned it, because it gives an idea of the man. now, florence, listen to this. the first winter he was at lufford this delightful neighbour of ours wrote to the clergyman of his parish (he's not ours, but we know him very well) and offered to show the school children some magic-lantern slides. he said he had some new kinds, which he thought would interest them. well, the clergyman was rather surprised, because mr karswell had shown himself inclined to be unpleasant to the children--complaining of their trespassing, or something of the sort; but of course he accepted, and the evening was fixed, and our friend went himself to see that everything went right. he said he never had been so thankful for anything as that his own children were all prevented from being there: they were at a children's party at our house, as a matter of fact. because this mr karswell had evidently set out with the intention of frightening these poor village children out of their wits, and i do believe, if he had been allowed to go on, he would actually have done so. he began with some comparatively mild things. red riding hood was one, and even then, mr farrer said, the wolf was so dreadful that several of the smaller children had to be taken out: and he said mr karswell began the story by producing a noise like a wolf howling in the distance, which was the most gruesome thing he had ever heard. all the slides he showed, mr farrer said, were most clever; they were absolutely realistic, and where he had got them or how he worked them he could not imagine. well, the show went on, and the stories kept on becoming a little more terrifying each time, and the children were mesmerized into complete silence. at last he produced a series which represented a little boy passing through his own park--lufford, i mean--in the evening. every child in the room could recognize the place from the pictures. and this poor boy was followed, and at last pursued and overtaken, and either torn to pieces or somehow made away with, by a horrible hopping creature in white, which you saw first dodging about among the trees, and gradually it appeared more and more plainly. mr farrer said it gave him one of the worst nightmares he ever remembered, and what it must have meant to the children doesn't bear thinking of. of course this was too much, and he spoke very sharply indeed to mr karswell, and said it couldn't go on. all _he_ said was: "oh, you think it's time to bring our little show to an end and send them home to their beds? _very_ well!" and then, if you please, he switched on another slide, which showed a great mass of snakes, centipedes, and disgusting creatures with wings, and somehow or other he made it seem as if they were climbing out of the picture and getting in amongst the audience; and this was accompanied by a sort of dry rustling noise which sent the children nearly mad, and of course they stampeded. a good many of them were rather hurt in getting out of the room, and i don't suppose one of them closed an eye that night. there was the most dreadful trouble in the village afterwards. of course the mothers threw a good part of the blame on poor mr farrer, and, if they could have got past the gates, i believe the fathers would have broken every window in the abbey. well, now, that's mr karswell: that's the abbot of lufford, my dear, and you can imagine how we covet _his_ society.' 'yes, i think he has all the possibilities of a distinguished criminal, has karswell,' said the host. 'i should be sorry for anyone who got into his bad books.' 'is he the man, or am i mixing him up with someone else?' asked the secretary (who for some minutes had been wearing the frown of the man who is trying to recollect something). 'is he the man who brought out a _history of witchcraft_ some time back--ten years or more?' 'that's the man; do you remember the reviews of it?' 'certainly i do; and what's equally to the point, i knew the author of the most incisive of the lot. so did you: you must remember john harrington; he was at john's in our time.' 'oh, very well indeed, though i don't think i saw or heard anything of him between the time i went down and the day i read the account of the inquest on him.' 'inquest?' said one of the ladies. 'what has happened to him?' 'why, what happened was that he fell out of a tree and broke his neck. but the puzzle was, what could have induced him to get up there. it was a mysterious business, i must say. here was this man--not an athletic fellow, was he? and with no eccentric twist about him that was ever noticed--walking home along a country road late in the evening--no tramps about--well known and liked in the place--and he suddenly begins to run like mad, loses his hat and stick, and finally shins up a tree--quite a difficult tree--growing in the hedgerow: a dead branch gives way, and he comes down with it and breaks his neck, and there he's found next morning with the most dreadful face of fear on him that could be imagined. it was pretty evident, of course, that he had been chased by something, and people talked of savage dogs, and beasts escaped out of menageries; but there was nothing to be made of that. that was in ' , and i believe his brother henry (whom i remember as well at cambridge, but _you_ probably don't) has been trying to get on the track of an explanation ever since. he, of course, insists there was malice in it, but i don't know. it's difficult to see how it could have come in.' after a time the talk reverted to the _history of witchcraft_. 'did you ever look into it?' asked the host. 'yes, i did,' said the secretary. 'i went so far as to read it.' 'was it as bad as it was made out to be?' 'oh, in point of style and form, quite hopeless. it deserved all the pulverizing it got. but, besides that, it was an evil book. the man believed every word of what he was saying, and i'm very much mistaken if he hadn't tried the greater part of his receipts.' 'well, i only remember harrington's review of it, and i must say if i'd been the author it would have quenched my literary ambition for good. i should never have held up my head again.' 'it hasn't had that effect in the present case. but come, it's half-past three; i must be off.' on the way home the secretary's wife said, 'i do hope that horrible man won't find out that mr dunning had anything to do with the rejection of his paper.' 'i don't think there's much chance of that,' said the secretary. 'dunning won't mention it himself, for these matters are confidential, and none of us will for the same reason. karswell won't know his name, for dunning hasn't published anything on the same subject yet. the only danger is that karswell might find out, if he was to ask the british museum people who was in the habit of consulting alchemical manuscripts: i can't very well tell them not to mention dunning, can i? it would set them talking at once. let's hope it won't occur to him.' however, mr karswell was an astute man. * * * * * this much is in the way of prologue. on an evening rather later in the same week, mr edward dunning was returning from the british museum, where he had been engaged in research, to the comfortable house in a suburb where he lived alone, tended by two excellent women who had been long with him. there is nothing to be added by way of description of him to what we have heard already. let us follow him as he takes his sober course homewards. * * * * * a train took him to within a mile or two of his house, and an electric tram a stage farther. the line ended at a point some three hundred yards from his front door. he had had enough of reading when he got into the car, and indeed the light was not such as to allow him to do more than study the advertisements on the panes of glass that faced him as he sat. as was not unnatural, the advertisements in this particular line of cars were objects of his frequent contemplation, and, with the possible exception of the brilliant and convincing dialogue between mr lamplough and an eminent k.c. on the subject of pyretic saline, none of them afforded much scope to his imagination. i am wrong: there was one at the corner of the car farthest from him which did not seem familiar. it was in blue letters on a yellow ground, and all that he could read of it was a name--john harrington--and something like a date. it could be of no interest to him to know more; but for all that, as the car emptied, he was just curious enough to move along the seat until he could read it well. he felt to a slight extent repaid for his trouble; the advertisement was _not_ of the usual type. it ran thus: 'in memory of john harrington, f.s.a., of the laurels, ashbrooke. died sept. th, . three months were allowed.' the car stopped. mr dunning, still contemplating the blue letters on the yellow ground, had to be stimulated to rise by a word from the conductor. 'i beg your pardon,' he said, 'i was looking at that advertisement; it's a very odd one, isn't it?' the conductor read it slowly. 'well, my word,' he said, 'i never see that one before. well, that is a cure, ain't it? someone bin up to their jokes 'ere, i should think.' he got out a duster and applied it, not without saliva, to the pane and then to the outside. 'no,' he said, returning, 'that ain't no transfer; seems to me as if it was reg'lar _in_ the glass, what i mean in the substance, as you may say. don't you think so, sir?' mr dunning examined it and rubbed it with his glove, and agreed. 'who looks after these advertisements, and gives leave for them to be put up? i wish you would inquire. i will just take a note of the words.' at this moment there came a call from the driver: 'look alive, george, time's up.' 'all right, all right; there's something else what's up at this end. you come and look at this 'ere glass.' 'what's gorn with the glass?' said the driver, approaching. 'well, and oo's 'arrington? what's it all about?' 'i was just asking who was responsible for putting the advertisements up in your cars, and saying it would be as well to make some inquiry about this one.' 'well, sir, that's all done at the company's office, that work is: it's our mr timms, i believe, looks into that. when we put up tonight i'll leave word, and per'aps i'll be able to tell you tomorrer if you 'appen to be coming this way.' this was all that passed that evening. mr dunning did just go to the trouble of looking up ashbrooke, and found that it was in warwickshire. next day he went to town again. the car (it was the same car) was too full in the morning to allow of his getting a word with the conductor: he could only be sure that the curious advertisement had been made away with. the close of the day brought a further element of mystery into the transaction. he had missed the tram, or else preferred walking home, but at a rather late hour, while he was at work in his study, one of the maids came to say that two men from the tramways was very anxious to speak to him. this was a reminder of the advertisement, which he had, he says, nearly forgotten. he had the men in--they were the conductor and driver of the car--and when the matter of refreshment had been attended to, asked what mr timms had had to say about the advertisement. 'well, sir, that's what we took the liberty to step round about,' said the conductor. 'mr timms 'e give william 'ere the rough side of his tongue about that: 'cordin' to 'im there warn't no advertisement of that description sent in, nor ordered, nor paid for, nor put up, nor nothink, let alone not bein' there, and we was playing the fool takin' up his time. "well," i says, "if that's the case, all i ask of you, mr timms," i says, "is to take and look at it for yourself," i says. "of course if it ain't there," i says, "you may take and call me what you like." "right," he says, "i will": and we went straight off. now, i leave it to you, sir, if that ad., as we term 'em, with 'arrington on it warn't as plain as ever you see anythink--blue letters on yeller glass, and as i says at the time, and you borne me out, reg'lar _in_ the glass, because, if you remember, you recollect of me swabbing it with my duster.' 'to be sure i do, quite clearly--well?' 'you may say well, i don't think. mr timms he gets in that car with a light--no, he telled william to 'old the light outside. "now," he says, "where's your precious ad. what we've 'eard so much about?" "'ere it is," i says, "mr timms," and i laid my 'and on it.' the conductor paused. 'well,' said mr dunning, 'it was gone, i suppose. broken?' 'broke!--not it. there warn't, if you'll believe me, no more trace of them letters--blue letters they was--on that piece o' glass, than--well, it's no good _me_ talkin'. _i_ never see such a thing. i leave it to william here if--but there, as i says, where's the benefit in me going on about it?' 'and what did mr timms say?' 'why 'e did what i give 'im leave to--called us pretty much anythink he liked, and i don't know as i blame him so much neither. but what we thought, william and me did, was as we seen you take down a bit of a note about that--well, that letterin'--' 'i certainly did that, and i have it now. did you wish me to speak to mr timms myself, and show it to him? was that what you came in about?' 'there, didn't i say as much?' said william. 'deal with a gent if you can get on the track of one, that's my word. now perhaps, george, you'll allow as i ain't took you very far wrong tonight.' 'very well, william, very well; no need for you to go on as if you'd 'ad to frog's-march me 'ere. i come quiet, didn't i? all the same for that, we 'adn't ought to take up your time this way, sir; but if it so 'appened you could find time to step round to the company orfice in the morning and tell mr timms what you seen for yourself, we should lay under a very 'igh obligation to you for the trouble. you see it ain't bein' called--well, one thing and another, as we mind, but if they got it into their 'ead at the orfice as we seen things as warn't there, why, one thing leads to another, and where we should be a twelvemunce 'ence--well, you can understand what i mean.' amid further elucidations of the proposition, george, conducted by william, left the room. the incredulity of mr timms (who had a nodding acquaintance with mr dunning) was greatly modified on the following day by what the latter could tell and show him; and any bad mark that might have been attached to the names of william and george was not suffered to remain on the company's books; but explanation there was none. mr dunning's interest in the matter was kept alive by an incident of the following afternoon. he was walking from his club to the train, and he noticed some way ahead a man with a handful of leaflets such as are distributed to passers-by by agents of enterprising firms. this agent had not chosen a very crowded street for his operations: in fact, mr dunning did not see him get rid of a single leaflet before he himself reached the spot. one was thrust into his hand as he passed: the hand that gave it touched his, and he experienced a sort of little shock as it did so. it seemed unnaturally rough and hot. he looked in passing at the giver, but the impression he got was so unclear that, however much he tried to reckon it up subsequently, nothing would come. he was walking quickly, and as he went on glanced at the paper. it was a blue one. the name of harrington in large capitals caught his eye. he stopped, startled, and felt for his glasses. the next instant the leaflet was twitched out of his hand by a man who hurried past, and was irrecoverably gone. he ran back a few paces, but where was the passer-by? and where the distributor? it was in a somewhat pensive frame of mind that mr dunning passed on the following day into the select manuscript room of the british museum, and filled up tickets for harley , and some other volumes. after a few minutes they were brought to him, and he was settling the one he wanted first upon the desk, when he thought he heard his own name whispered behind him. he turned round hastily, and in doing so, brushed his little portfolio of loose papers on to the floor. he saw no one he recognized except one of the staff in charge of the room, who nodded to him, and he proceeded to pick up his papers. he thought he had them all, and was turning to begin work, when a stout gentleman at the table behind him, who was just rising to leave, and had collected his own belongings, touched him on the shoulder, saying, 'may i give you this? i think it should be yours,' and handed him a missing quire. 'it is mine, thank you,' said mr dunning. in another moment the man had left the room. upon finishing his work for the afternoon, mr dunning had some conversation with the assistant in charge, and took occasion to ask who the stout gentleman was. 'oh, he's a man named karswell,' said the assistant; 'he was asking me a week ago who were the great authorities on alchemy, and of course i told him you were the only one in the country. i'll see if i can catch him: he'd like to meet you, i'm sure.' 'for heaven's sake don't dream of it!' said mr dunning, 'i'm particularly anxious to avoid him.' 'oh! very well,' said the assistant, 'he doesn't come here often: i dare say you won't meet him.' more than once on the way home that day mr dunning confessed to himself that he did not look forward with his usual cheerfulness to a solitary evening. it seemed to him that something ill-defined and impalpable had stepped in between him and his fellow-men--had taken him in charge, as it were. he wanted to sit close up to his neighbours in the train and in the tram, but as luck would have it both train and car were markedly empty. the conductor george was thoughtful, and appeared to be absorbed in calculations as to the number of passengers. on arriving at his house he found dr watson, his medical man, on his doorstep. 'i've had to upset your household arrangements, i'm sorry to say, dunning. both your servants _hors de combat_. in fact, i've had to send them to the nursing home.' 'good heavens! what's the matter?' 'it's something like ptomaine poisoning, i should think: you've not suffered yourself, i can see, or you wouldn't be walking about. i think they'll pull through all right.' 'dear, dear! have you any idea what brought it on?' 'well, they tell me they bought some shell-fish from a hawker at their dinner-time. it's odd. i've made inquiries, but i can't find that any hawker has been to other houses in the street. i couldn't send word to you; they won't be back for a bit yet. you come and dine with me tonight, anyhow, and we can make arrangements for going on. eight o'clock. don't be too anxious.' the solitary evening was thus obviated; at the expense of some distress and inconvenience, it is true. mr dunning spent the time pleasantly enough with the doctor (a rather recent settler), and returned to his lonely home at about . . the night he passed is not one on which he looks back with any satisfaction. he was in bed and the light was out. he was wondering if the charwoman would come early enough to get him hot water next morning, when he heard the unmistakable sound of his study door opening. no step followed it on the passage floor, but the sound must mean mischief, for he knew that he had shut the door that evening after putting his papers away in his desk. it was rather shame than courage that induced him to slip out into the passage and lean over the banister in his nightgown, listening. no light was visible; no further sound came: only a gust of warm, or even hot air played for an instant round his shins. he went back and decided to lock himself into his room. there was more unpleasantness, however. either an economical suburban company had decided that their light would not be required in the small hours, and had stopped working, or else something was wrong with the meter; the effect was in any case that the electric light was off. the obvious course was to find a match, and also to consult his watch: he might as well know how many hours of discomfort awaited him. so he put his hand into the well-known nook under the pillow: only, it did not get so far. what he touched was, according to his account, a mouth, with teeth, and with hair about it, and, he declares, not the mouth of a human being. i do not think it is any use to guess what he said or did; but he was in a spare room with the door locked and his ear to it before he was clearly conscious again. and there he spent the rest of a most miserable night, looking every moment for some fumbling at the door: but nothing came. the venturing back to his own room in the morning was attended with many listenings and quiverings. the door stood open, fortunately, and the blinds were up (the servants had been out of the house before the hour of drawing them down); there was, to be short, no trace of an inhabitant. the watch, too, was in its usual place; nothing was disturbed, only the wardrobe door had swung open, in accordance with its confirmed habit. a ring at the back door now announced the charwoman, who had been ordered the night before, and nerved mr dunning, after letting her in, to continue his search in other parts of the house. it was equally fruitless. the day thus begun went on dismally enough. he dared not go to the museum: in spite of what the assistant had said, karswell might turn up there, and dunning felt he could not cope with a probably hostile stranger. his own house was odious; he hated sponging on the doctor. he spent some little time in a call at the nursing home, where he was slightly cheered by a good report of his housekeeper and maid. towards lunch-time he betook himself to his club, again experiencing a gleam of satisfaction at seeing the secretary of the association. at luncheon dunning told his friend the more material of his woes, but could not bring himself to speak of those that weighed most heavily on his spirits. 'my poor dear man,' said the secretary, 'what an upset! look here: we're alone at home, absolutely. you must put up with us. yes! no excuse: send your things in this afternoon.' dunning was unable to stand out: he was, in truth, becoming acutely anxious, as the hours went on, as to what that night might have waiting for him. he was almost happy as he hurried home to pack up. his friends, when they had time to take stock of him, were rather shocked at his lorn appearance, and did their best to keep him up to the mark. not altogether without success: but, when the two men were smoking alone later, dunning became dull again. suddenly he said, 'gayton, i believe that alchemist man knows it was i who got his paper rejected.' gayton whistled. 'what makes you think that?' he said. dunning told of his conversation with the museum assistant, and gayton could only agree that the guess seemed likely to be correct. 'not that i care much,' dunning went on, 'only it might be a nuisance if we were to meet. he's a bad-tempered party, i imagine.' conversation dropped again; gayton became more and more strongly impressed with the desolateness that came over dunning's face and bearing, and finally--though with a considerable effort--he asked him point-blank whether something serious was not bothering him. dunning gave an exclamation of relief. 'i was perishing to get it off my mind,' he said. 'do you know anything about a man named john harrington?' gayton was thoroughly startled, and at the moment could only ask why. then the complete story of dunning's experiences came out--what had happened in the tramcar, in his own house, and in the street, the troubling of spirit that had crept over him, and still held him; and he ended with the question he had begun with. gayton was at a loss how to answer him. to tell the story of harrington's end would perhaps be right; only, dunning was in a nervous state, the story was a grim one, and he could not help asking himself whether there were not a connecting link between these two cases, in the person of karswell. it was a difficult concession for a scientific man, but it could be eased by the phrase 'hypnotic suggestion'. in the end he decided that his answer tonight should be guarded; he would talk the situation over with his wife. so he said that he had known harrington at cambridge, and believed he had died suddenly in , adding a few details about the man and his published work. he did talk over the matter with mrs gayton, and, as he had anticipated, she leapt at once to the conclusion which had been hovering before him. it was she who reminded him of the surviving brother, henry harrington, and she also who suggested that he might be got hold of by means of their hosts of the day before. 'he might be a hopeless crank,' objected gayton. 'that could be ascertained from the bennetts, who knew him,' mrs gayton retorted; and she undertook to see the bennetts the very next day. * * * * * it is not necessary to tell in further detail the steps by which henry harrington and dunning were brought together. * * * * * the next scene that does require to be narrated is a conversation that took place between the two. dunning had told harrington of the strange ways in which the dead man's name had been brought before him, and had said something, besides, of his own subsequent experiences. then he had asked if harrington was disposed, in return, to recall any of the circumstances connected with his brother's death. harrington's surprise at what he heard can be imagined: but his reply was readily given. 'john,' he said, 'was in a very odd state, undeniably, from time to time, during some weeks before, though not immediately before, the catastrophe. there were several things; the principal notion he had was that he thought he was being followed. no doubt he was an impressionable man, but he never had had such fancies as this before. i cannot get it out of my mind that there was ill-will at work, and what you tell me about yourself reminds me very much of my brother. can you think of any possible connecting link?' 'there is just one that has been taking shape vaguely in my mind. i've been told that your brother reviewed a book very severely not long before he died, and just lately i have happened to cross the path of the man who wrote that book in a way he would resent.' 'don't tell me the man was called karswell.' 'why not? that is exactly his name.' henry harrington leant back. 'that is final to my mind. now i must explain further. from something he said, i feel sure that my brother john was beginning to believe--very much against his will--that karswell was at the bottom of his trouble. i want to tell you what seems to me to have a bearing on the situation. my brother was a great musician, and used to run up to concerts in town. he came back, three months before he died, from one of these, and gave me his programme to look at--an analytical programme: he always kept them. "i nearly missed this one," he said. "i suppose i must have dropped it: anyhow, i was looking for it under my seat and in my pockets and so on, and my neighbour offered me his, said 'might he give it me, he had no further use for it,' and he went away just afterwards. i don't know who he was--a stout, clean-shaven man. i should have been sorry to miss it; of course i could have bought another, but this cost me nothing." at another time he told me that he had been very uncomfortable both on the way to his hotel and during the night. i piece things together now in thinking it over. then, not very long after, he was going over these programmes, putting them in order to have them bound up, and in this particular one (which by the way i had hardly glanced at), he found quite near the beginning a strip of paper with some very odd writing on it in red and black--most carefully done--it looked to me more like runic letters than anything else. "why," he said, "this must belong to my fat neighbour. it looks as if it might be worth returning to him; it may be a copy of something; evidently someone has taken trouble over it. how can i find his address?" we talked it over for a little and agreed that it wasn't worth advertising about, and that my brother had better look out for the man at the next concert, to which he was going very soon. the paper was lying on the book and we were both by the fire; it was a cold, windy summer evening. i suppose the door blew open, though i didn't notice it: at any rate a gust--a warm gust it was--came quite suddenly between us, took the paper and blew it straight into the fire: it was light, thin paper, and flared and went up the chimney in a single ash. "well," i said, "you can't give it back now." he said nothing for a minute: then rather crossly, "no, i can't; but why you should keep on saying so i don't know." i remarked that i didn't say it more than once. "not more than four times, you mean," was all he said. i remember all that very clearly, without any good reason; and now to come to the point. i don't know if you looked at that book of karswell's which my unfortunate brother reviewed. it's not likely that you should: but i did, both before his death and after it. the first time we made game of it together. it was written in no style at all--split infinitives, and every sort of thing that makes an oxford gorge rise. then there was nothing that the man didn't swallow: mixing up classical myths, and stories out of the _golden legend_ with reports of savage customs of today--all very proper, no doubt, if you know how to use them, but he didn't: he seemed to put the _golden legend_ and the _golden bough_ exactly on a par, and to believe both: a pitiable exhibition, in short. well, after the misfortune, i looked over the book again. it was no better than before, but the impression which it left this time on my mind was different. i suspected--as i told you--that karswell had borne ill-will to my brother, even that he was in some way responsible for what had happened; and now his book seemed to me to be a very sinister performance indeed. one chapter in particular struck me, in which he spoke of "casting the runes" on people, either for the purpose of gaining their affection or of getting them out of the way--perhaps more especially the latter: he spoke of all this in a way that really seemed to me to imply actual knowledge. i've not time to go into details, but the upshot is that i am pretty sure from information received that the civil man at the concert was karswell: i suspect--i more than suspect--that the paper was of importance: and i do believe that if my brother had been able to give it back, he might have been alive now. therefore, it occurs to me to ask you whether you have anything to put beside what i have told you.' by way of answer, dunning had the episode in the manuscript room at the british museum to relate. 'then he did actually hand you some papers; have you examined them? no? because we must, if you'll allow it, look at them at once, and very carefully.' they went to the still empty house--empty, for the two servants were not yet able to return to work. dunning's portfolio of papers was gathering dust on the writing-table. in it were the quires of small-sized scribbling paper which he used for his transcripts: and from one of these, as he took it up, there slipped and fluttered out into the room with uncanny quickness, a strip of thin light paper. the window was open, but harrington slammed it to, just in time to intercept the paper, which he caught. 'i thought so,' he said; 'it might be the identical thing that was given to my brother. you'll have to look out, dunning; this may mean something quite serious for you.' a long consultation took place. the paper was narrowly examined. as harrington had said, the characters on it were more like runes than anything else, but not decipherable by either man, and both hesitated to copy them, for fear, as they confessed, of perpetuating whatever evil purpose they might conceal. so it has remained impossible (if i may anticipate a little) to ascertain what was conveyed in this curious message or commission. both dunning and harrington are firmly convinced that it had the effect of bringing its possessors into very undesirable company. that it must be returned to the source whence it came they were agreed, and further, that the only safe and certain way was that of personal service; and here contrivance would be necessary, for dunning was known by sight to karswell. he must, for one thing, alter his appearance by shaving his beard. but then might not the blow fall first? harrington thought they could time it. he knew the date of the concert at which the 'black spot' had been put on his brother: it was june th. the death had followed on sept. th. dunning reminded him that three months had been mentioned on the inscription on the car-window. 'perhaps,' he added, with a cheerless laugh, 'mine may be a bill at three months too. i believe i can fix it by my diary. yes, april rd was the day at the museum; that brings us to july rd. now, you know, it becomes extremely important to me to know anything you will tell me about the progress of your brother's trouble, if it is possible for you to speak of it.' 'of course. well, the sense of being watched whenever he was alone was the most distressing thing to him. after a time i took to sleeping in his room, and he was the better for that: still, he talked a great deal in his sleep. what about? is it wise to dwell on that, at least before things are straightened out? i think not, but i can tell you this: two things came for him by post during those weeks, both with a london postmark, and addressed in a commercial hand. one was a woodcut of bewick's, roughly torn out of the page: one which shows a moonlit road and a man walking along it, followed by an awful demon creature. under it were written the lines out of the "ancient mariner" (which i suppose the cut illustrates) about one who, having once looked round-- walks on, and turns no more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread. the other was a calendar, such as tradesmen often send. my brother paid no attention to this, but i looked at it after his death, and found that everything after sept. had been torn out. you may be surprised at his having gone out alone the evening he was killed, but the fact is that during the last ten days or so of his life he had been quite free from the sense of being followed or watched.' the end of the consultation was this. harrington, who knew a neighbour of karswell's, thought he saw a way of keeping a watch on his movements. it would be dunning's part to be in readiness to try to cross karswell's path at any moment, to keep the paper safe and in a place of ready access. they parted. the next weeks were no doubt a severe strain upon dunning's nerves: the intangible barrier which had seemed to rise about him on the day when he received the paper, gradually developed into a brooding blackness that cut him off from the means of escape to which one might have thought he might resort. no one was at hand who was likely to suggest them to him, and he seemed robbed of all initiative. he waited with inexpressible anxiety as may, june, and early july passed on, for a mandate from harrington. but all this time karswell remained immovable at lufford. at last, in less than a week before the date he had come to look upon as the end of his earthly activities, came a telegram: 'leaves victoria by boat train thursday night. do not miss. i come to you to-night. harrington.' he arrived accordingly, and they concocted plans. the train left victoria at nine and its last stop before dover was croydon west. harrington would mark down karswell at victoria, and look out for dunning at croydon, calling to him if need were by a name agreed upon. dunning, disguised as far as might be, was to have no label or initials on any hand luggage, and must at all costs have the paper with him. dunning's suspense as he waited on the croydon platform i need not attempt to describe. his sense of danger during the last days had only been sharpened by the fact that the cloud about him had perceptibly been lighter; but relief was an ominous symptom, and, if karswell eluded him now, hope was gone: and there were so many chances of that. the rumour of the journey might be itself a device. the twenty minutes in which he paced the platform and persecuted every porter with inquiries as to the boat train were as bitter as any he had spent. still, the train came, and harrington was at the window. it was important, of course, that there should be no recognition: so dunning got in at the farther end of the corridor carriage, and only gradually made his way to the compartment where harrington and karswell were. he was pleased, on the whole, to see that the train was far from full. karswell was on the alert, but gave no sign of recognition. dunning took the seat not immediately facing him, and attempted, vainly at first, then with increasing command of his faculties, to reckon the possibilities of making the desired transfer. opposite to karswell, and next to dunning, was a heap of karswell's coats on the seat. it would be of no use to slip the paper into these--he would not be safe, or would not feel so, unless in some way it could be proffered by him and accepted by the other. there was a handbag, open, and with papers in it. could he manage to conceal this (so that perhaps karswell might leave the carriage without it), and then find and give it to him? this was the plan that suggested itself. if he could only have counselled with harrington! but that could not be. the minutes went on. more than once karswell rose and went out into the corridor. the second time dunning was on the point of attempting to make the bag fall off the seat, but he caught harrington's eye, and read in it a warning. karswell, from the corridor, was watching: probably to see if the two men recognized each other. he returned, but was evidently restless: and, when he rose the third time, hope dawned, for something did slip off his seat and fall with hardly a sound to the floor. karswell went out once more, and passed out of range of the corridor window. dunning picked up what had fallen, and saw that the key was in his hands in the form of one of cook's ticket-cases, with tickets in it. these cases have a pocket in the cover, and within very few seconds the paper of which we have heard was in the pocket of this one. to make the operation more secure, harrington stood in the doorway of the compartment and fiddled with the blind. it was done, and done at the right time, for the train was now slowing down towards dover. in a moment more karswell re-entered the compartment. as he did so, dunning, managing, he knew not how, to suppress the tremble in his voice, handed him the ticket-case, saying, 'may i give you this, sir? i believe it is yours.' after a brief glance at the ticket inside, karswell uttered the hoped-for response, 'yes, it is; much obliged to you, sir,' and he placed it in his breast pocket. even in the few moments that remained--moments of tense anxiety, for they knew not to what a premature finding of the paper might lead--both men noticed that the carriage seemed to darken about them and to grow warmer; that karswell was fidgety and oppressed; that he drew the heap of loose coats near to him and cast it back as if it repelled him; and that he then sat upright and glanced anxiously at both. they, with sickening anxiety, busied themselves in collecting their belongings; but they both thought that karswell was on the point of speaking when the train stopped at dover town. it was natural that in the short space between town and pier they should both go into the corridor. at the pier they got out, but so empty was the train that they were forced to linger on the platform until karswell should have passed ahead of them with his porter on the way to the boat, and only then was it safe for them to exchange a pressure of the hand and a word of concentrated congratulation. the effect upon dunning was to make him almost faint. harrington made him lean up against the wall, while he himself went forward a few yards within sight of the gangway to the boat, at which karswell had now arrived. the man at the head of it examined his ticket, and, laden with coats he passed down into the boat. suddenly the official called after him, 'you, sir, beg pardon, did the other gentleman show his ticket?' 'what the devil do you mean by the other gentleman?' karswell's snarling voice called back from the deck. the man bent over and looked at him. 'the devil? well, i don't know, i'm sure,' harrington heard him say to himself, and then aloud, 'my mistake, sir; must have been your rugs! ask your pardon.' and then, to a subordinate near him, ''ad he got a dog with him, or what? funny thing: i could 'a' swore 'e wasn't alone. well, whatever it was, they'll 'ave to see to it aboard. she's off now. another week and we shall be gettin' the 'oliday customers.' in five minutes more there was nothing but the lessening lights of the boat, the long line of the dover lamps, the night breeze, and the moon. long and long the two sat in their room at the 'lord warden'. in spite of the removal of their greatest anxiety, they were oppressed with a doubt, not of the lightest. had they been justified in sending a man to his death, as they believed they had? ought they not to warn him, at least? 'no,' said harrington; 'if he is the murderer i think him, we have done no more than is just. still, if you think it better--but how and where can you warn him?' 'he was booked to abbeville only,' said dunning. 'i saw that. if i wired to the hotels there in joanne's guide, "examine your ticket-case, dunning," i should feel happier. this is the st: he will have a day. but i am afraid he has gone into the dark.' so telegrams were left at the hotel office. it is not clear whether these reached their destination, or whether, if they did, they were understood. all that is known is that, on the afternoon of the rd, an english traveller, examining the front of st wulfram's church at abbeville, then under extensive repair, was struck on the head and instantly killed by a stone falling from the scaffold erected round the north-western tower, there being, as was clearly proved, no workman on the scaffold at that moment: and the traveller's papers identified him as mr karswell. only one detail shall be added. at karswell's sale a set of bewick, sold with all faults, was acquired by harrington. the page with the woodcut of the traveller and the demon was, as he had expected, mutilated. also, after a judicious interval, harrington repeated to dunning something of what he had heard his brother say in his sleep: but it was not long before dunning stopped him. the stalls of barchester cathedral this matter began, as far as i am concerned, with the reading of a notice in the obituary section of the _gentleman's magazine_ for an early year in the nineteenth century: on february th, at his residence in the cathedral close of barchester, the venerable john benwell haynes, d.d., aged , archdeacon of sowerbridge and rector of pickhill and candley. he was of ---- college, cambridge, and where, by talent and assiduity, he commanded the esteem of his seniors; when, at the usual time, he took his first degree, his name stood high in the list of _wranglers_. these academical honours procured for him within a short time a fellowship of his college. in the year he received holy orders, and was shortly afterwards presented to the perpetual curacy of ranxton-sub-ashe by his friend and patron the late truly venerable bishop of lichfield.... his speedy preferments, first to a prebend, and subsequently to the dignity of precentor in the cathedral of barchester, form an eloquent testimony to the respect in which he was held and to his eminent qualifications. he succeeded to the archdeaconry upon the sudden decease of archdeacon pulteney in . his sermons, ever conformable to the principles of the religion and church which he adorned, displayed in no ordinary degree, without the least trace of enthusiasm, the refinement of the scholar united with the graces of the christian. free from sectarian violence, and informed by the spirit of the truest charity, they will long dwell in the memories of his hearers. [here a further omission.] the productions of his pen include an able defence of episcopacy, which, though often perused by the author of this tribute to his memory, affords but one additional instance of the want of liberality and enterprise which is a too common characteristic of the publishers of our generation. his published works are, indeed, confined to a spirited and elegant version of the _argonautica_ of valerius flacus, a volume of _discourses upon the several events in the life of joshua_, delivered in his cathedral, and a number of the charges which he pronounced at various visitations to the clergy of his archdeaconry. these are distinguished by etc., etc. the urbanity and hospitality of the subject of these lines will not readily be forgotten by those who enjoyed his acquaintance. his interest in the venerable and awful pile under whose hoary vault he was so punctual an attendant, and particularly in the musical portion of its rites, might be termed filial, and formed a strong and delightful contrast to the polite indifference displayed by too many of our cathedral dignitaries at the present time. the final paragraph, after informing us that dr haynes died a bachelor, says: it might have been augured that an existence so placid and benevolent would have been terminated in a ripe old age by a dissolution equally gradual and calm. but how unsearchable are the workings of providence! the peaceful and retired seclusion amid which the honoured evening of dr haynes' life was mellowing to its close was destined to be disturbed, nay, shattered, by a tragedy as appalling as it was unexpected. the morning of the th of february-- but perhaps i shall do better to keep back the remainder of the narrative until i have told the circumstances which led up to it. these, as far as they are now accessible, i have derived from another source. i had read the obituary notice which i have been quoting, quite by chance, along with a great many others of the same period. it had excited some little speculation in my mind, but, beyond thinking that, if i ever had an opportunity of examining the local records of the period indicated, i would try to remember dr haynes, i made no effort to pursue his case. quite lately i was cataloguing the manuscripts in the library of the college to which he belonged. i had reached the end of the numbered volumes on the shelves, and i proceeded to ask the librarian whether there were any more books which he thought i ought to include in my description. 'i don't think there are,' he said, 'but we had better come and look at the manuscript class and make sure. have you time to do that now?' i had time. we went to the library, checked off the manuscripts, and, at the end of our survey, arrived at a shelf of which i had seen nothing. its contents consisted for the most part of sermons, bundles of fragmentary papers, college exercises, _cyrus_, an epic poem in several cantos, the product of a country clergyman's leisure, mathematical tracts by a deceased professor, and other similar material of a kind with which i am only too familiar. i took brief notes of these. lastly, there was a tin box, which was pulled out and dusted. its label, much faded, was thus inscribed: 'papers of the ven. archdeacon haynes. bequeathed in by his sister, miss letitia haynes.' i knew at once that the name was one which i had somewhere encountered, and could very soon locate it. 'that must be the archdeacon haynes who came to a very odd end at barchester. i've read his obituary in the _gentleman's magazine_. may i take the box home? do you know if there is anything interesting in it?' the librarian was very willing that i should take the box and examine it at leisure. 'i never looked inside it myself,' he said, 'but i've always been meaning to. i am pretty sure that is the box which our old master once said ought never to have been accepted by the college. he said that to martin years ago; and he said also that as long as he had control over the library it should never be opened. martin told me about it, and said that he wanted terribly to know what was in it; but the master was librarian, and always kept the box in the lodge, so there was no getting at it in his time, and when he died it was taken away by mistake by his heirs, and only returned a few years ago. i can't think why i haven't opened it; but, as i have to go away from cambridge this afternoon, you had better have first go at it. i think i can trust you not to publish anything undesirable in our catalogue.' i took the box home and examined its contents, and thereafter consulted the librarian as to what should be done about publication, and, since i have his leave to make a story out of it, provided i disguised the identity of the people concerned, i will try what can be done. the materials are, of course, mainly journals and letters. how much i shall quote and how much epitomize must be determined by considerations of space. the proper understanding of the situation has necessitated a little--not very arduous--research, which has been greatly facilitated by the excellent illustrations and text of the barchester volume in bell's _cathedral series_. when you enter the choir of barchester cathedral now, you pass through a screen of metal and coloured marbles, designed by sir gilbert scott, and find yourself in what i must call a very bare and odiously furnished place. the stalls are modern, without canopies. the places of the dignitaries and the names of the prebends have fortunately been allowed to survive, and are inscribed on small brass plates affixed to the stalls. the organ is in the triforium, and what is seen of the case is gothic. the reredos and its surroundings are like every other. careful engravings of a hundred years ago show a very different state of things. the organ is on a massive classical screen. the stalls are also classical and very massive. there is a baldacchino of wood over the altar, with urns upon its corners. farther east is a solid altar screen, classical in design, of wood, with a pediment, in which is a triangle surrounded by rays, enclosing certain hebrew letters in gold. cherubs contemplate these. there is a pulpit with a great sounding-board at the eastern end of the stalls on the north side, and there is a black and white marble pavement. two ladies and a gentleman are admiring the general effect. from other sources i gather that the archdeacon's stall then, as now, was next to the bishop's throne at the south-eastern end of the stalls. his house almost faces the west front of the church, and is a fine red-brick building of william the third's time. here dr haynes, already a mature man, took up his abode with his sister in the year . the dignity had long been the object of his wishes, but his predecessor refused to depart until he had attained the age of ninety-two. about a week after he had held a modest festival in celebration of that ninety-second birthday, there came a morning, late in the year, when dr haynes, hurrying cheerfully into his breakfast-room, rubbing his hands and humming a tune, was greeted, and checked in his genial flow of spirits, by the sight of his sister, seated, indeed, in her usual place behind the tea-urn, but bowed forward and sobbing unrestrainedly into her handkerchief. 'what--what is the matter? what bad news?' he began. 'oh, johnny, you've not heard? the poor dear archdeacon!' 'the archdeacon, yes? what is it--ill, is he?' 'no, no; they found him on the staircase this morning; it is so shocking.' 'is it possible! dear, dear, poor pulteney! had there been any seizure?' 'they don't think so, and that is almost the worst thing about it. it seems to have been all the fault of that stupid maid of theirs, jane.' dr haynes paused. 'i don't quite understand, letitia. how was the maid at fault?' 'why, as far as i can make out, there was a stair-rod missing, and she never mentioned it, and the poor archdeacon set his foot quite on the edge of the step--you know how slippery that oak is--and it seems he must have fallen almost the whole flight and broken his neck. it _is_ so sad for poor miss pulteney. of course, they will get rid of the girl at once. i never liked her.' miss haynes's grief resumed its sway, but eventually relaxed so far as to permit of her taking some breakfast. not so her brother, who, after standing in silence before the window for some minutes, left the room, and did not appear again that morning. i need only add that the careless maid-servant was dismissed forthwith, but that the missing stair-rod was very shortly afterwards found _under_ the stair-carpet--an additional proof, if any were needed, of extreme stupidity and carelessness on her part. for a good many years dr haynes had been marked out by his ability, which seems to have been really considerable, as the likely successor of archdeacon pulteney, and no disappointment was in store for him. he was duly installed, and entered with zeal upon the discharge of those functions which are appropriate to one in his position. a considerable space in his journals is occupied with exclamations upon the confusion in which archdeacon pulteney had left the business of his office and the documents appertaining to it. dues upon wringham and barnswood have been uncollected for something like twelve years, and are largely irrecoverable; no visitation has been held for seven years; four chancels are almost past mending. the persons deputized by the archdeacon have been nearly as incapable as himself. it was almost a matter for thankfulness that this state of things had not been permitted to continue, and a letter from a friend confirms this view. '[greek: ho katechôn],' it says (in rather cruel allusion to the second epistle to the thessalonians), 'is removed at last. my poor friend! upon what a scene of confusion will you be entering! i give you my word that, on the last occasion of my crossing his threshold, there was no single paper that he could lay hands upon, no syllable of mine that he could hear, and no fact in connexion with my business that he could remember. but now, thanks to a negligent maid and a loose stair-carpet, there is some prospect that necessary business will be transacted without a complete loss alike of voice and temper.' this letter was tucked into a pocket in the cover of one of the diaries. there can be no doubt of the new archdeacon's zeal and enthusiasm. 'give me but time to reduce to some semblance of order the innumerable errors and complications with which i am confronted, and i shall gladly and sincerely join with the aged israelite in the canticle which too many, i fear, pronounce but with their lips.' this reflection i find, not in a diary, but a letter; the doctor's friends seem to have returned his correspondence to his surviving sister. he does not confine himself, however, to reflections. his investigation of the rights and duties of his office are very searching and business-like, and there is a calculation in one place that a period of three years will just suffice to set the business of the archdeaconry upon a proper footing. the estimate appears to have been an exact one. for just three years he is occupied in reforms; but i look in vain at the end of that time for the promised _nunc dimittis_. he has now found a new sphere of activity. hitherto his duties have precluded him from more than an occasional attendance at the cathedral services. now he begins to take an interest in the fabric and the music. upon his struggles with the organist, an old gentleman who had been in office since , i have no time to dwell; they were not attended with any marked success. more to the purpose is his sudden growth of enthusiasm for the cathedral itself and its furniture. there is a draft of a letter to sylvanus urban (which i do not think was ever sent) describing the stalls in the choir. as i have said, these were of fairly late date--of about the year , in fact. 'the archdeacon's stall, situated at the south-east end, west of the episcopal throne (now so worthily occupied by the truly excellent prelate who adorns the see of barchester), is distinguished by some curious ornamentation. in addition to the arms of dean west, by whose efforts the whole of the internal furniture of the choir was completed, the prayer-desk is terminated at the eastern extremity by three small but remarkable statuettes in the grotesque manner. one is an exquisitely modelled figure of a cat, whose crouching posture suggests with admirable spirit the suppleness, vigilance, and craft of the redoubted adversary of the genus _mus_. opposite to this is a figure seated upon a throne and invested with the attributes of royalty; but it is no earthly monarch whom the carver has sought to portray. his feet are studiously concealed by the long robe in which he is draped: but neither the crown nor the cap which he wears suffice to hide the prick-ears and curving horns which betray his tartarean origin; and the hand which rests upon his knee, is armed with talons of horrifying length and sharpness. between these two figures stands a shape muffled in a long mantle. this might at first sight be mistaken for a monk or "friar of orders gray", for the head is cowled and a knotted cord depends from somewhere about the waist. a slight inspection, however, will lead to a very different conclusion. the knotted cord is quickly seen to be a halter, held by a hand all but concealed within the draperies; while the sunken features and, horrid to relate, the rent flesh upon the cheek-bones, proclaim the king of terrors. these figures are evidently the production of no unskilled chisel; and should it chance that any of your correspondents are able to throw light upon their origin and significance, my obligations to your valuable miscellany will be largely increased.' there is more description in the paper, and, seeing that the woodwork in question has now disappeared, it has a considerable interest. a paragraph at the end is worth quoting: 'some late researches among the chapter accounts have shown me that the carving of the stalls was not as was very usually reported, the work of dutch artists, but was executed by a native of this city or district named austin. the timber was procured from an oak copse in the vicinity, the property of the dean and chapter, known as holywood. upon a recent visit to the parish within whose boundaries it is situated, i learned from the aged and truly respectable incumbent that traditions still lingered amongst the inhabitants of the great size and age of the oaks employed to furnish the materials of the stately structure which has been, however imperfectly, described in the above lines. of one in particular, which stood near the centre of the grove, it is remembered that it was known as the hanging oak. the propriety of that title is confirmed by the fact that a quantity of human bones was found in the soil about its roots, and that at certain times of the year it was the custom for those who wished to secure a successful issue to their affairs, whether of love or the ordinary business of life, to suspend from its boughs small images or puppets rudely fashioned of straw, twigs, or the like rustic materials.' so much for the archdeacon's archaeological investigations. to return to his career as it is to be gathered from his diaries. those of his first three years of hard and careful work show him throughout in high spirits, and, doubtless, during this time, that reputation for hospitality and urbanity which is mentioned in his obituary notice was well deserved. after that, as time goes on, i see a shadow coming over him--destined to develop into utter blackness--which i cannot but think must have been reflected in his outward demeanour. he commits a good deal of his fears and troubles to his diary; there was no other outlet for them. he was unmarried and his sister was not always with him. but i am much mistaken if he has told all that he might have told. a series of extracts shall be given: _aug. th _--the days begin to draw in more perceptibly than ever. now that the archdeaconry papers are reduced to order, i must find some further employment for the evening hours of autumn and winter. it is a great blow that letitia's health will not allow her to stay through these months. why not go on with my _defence of episcopacy_? it may be useful. _sept. ._--letitia has left me for brighton. _oct. ._--candles lit in the choir for the first time at evening prayers. it came as a shock: i find that i absolutely shrink from the dark season. _nov. _--much struck by the character of the carving on my desk: i do not know that i had ever carefully noticed it before. my attention was called to it by an accident. during the _magnificat_ i was, i regret to say, almost overcome with sleep. my hand was resting on the back of the carved figure of a cat which is the nearest to me of the three figures on the end of my stall. i was not aware of this, for i was not looking in that direction, until i was startled by what seemed a softness, a feeling as of rather rough and coarse fur, and a sudden movement, as if the creature were twisting round its head to bite me. i regained complete consciousness in an instant, and i have some idea that i must have uttered a suppressed exclamation, for i noticed that mr treasurer turned his head quickly in my direction. the impression of the unpleasant feeling was so strong that i found myself rubbing my hand upon my surplice. this accident led me to examine the figures after prayers more carefully than i had done before, and i realized for the first time with what skill they are executed. _dec. _--i do indeed miss letitia's company. the evenings, after i have worked as long as i can at my _defence_, are very trying. the house is too large for a lonely man, and visitors of any kind are too rare. i get an uncomfortable impression when going to my room that there _is_ company of some kind. the fact is (i may as well formulate it to myself) that i hear voices. this, i am well aware, is a common symptom of incipient decay of the brain--and i believe that i should be less disquieted than i am if i had any suspicion that this was the cause. i have none--none whatever, nor is there anything in my family history to give colour to such an idea. work, diligent work, and a punctual attention to the duties which fall to me is my best remedy, and i have little doubt that it will prove efficacious. _jan. _--my trouble is, i must confess it, increasing upon me. last night, upon my return after midnight from the deanery, i lit my candle to go upstairs. i was nearly at the top when something whispered to me, 'let me wish you a happy new year.' i could not be mistaken: it spoke distinctly and with a peculiar emphasis. had i dropped my candle, as i all but did, i tremble to think what the consequences must have been. as it was, i managed to get up the last flight, and was quickly in my room with the door locked, and experienced no other disturbance. _jan. _--i had occasion to come downstairs last night to my workroom for my watch, which i had inadvertently left on my table when i went up to bed. i think i was at the top of the last flight when i had a sudden impression of a sharp whisper in my ear '_take care_.' i clutched the balusters and naturally looked round at once. of course, there was nothing. after a moment i went on--it was no good turning back--but i had as nearly as possible fallen: a cat--a large one by the feel of it--slipped between my feet, but again, of course, i saw nothing. it _may_ have been the kitchen cat, but i do not think it was. _feb. _--a curious thing last night, which i should like to forget. perhaps if i put it down here i may see it in its true proportion. i worked in the library from about to . the hall and staircase seemed to be unusually full of what i can only call movement without sound: by this i mean that there seemed to be continuous going and coming, and that whenever i ceased writing to listen, or looked out into the hall, the stillness was absolutely unbroken. nor, in going to my room at an earlier hour than usual--about half-past ten--was i conscious of anything that i could call a noise. it so happened that i had told john to come to my room for the letter to the bishop which i wished to have delivered early in the morning at the palace. he was to sit up, therefore, and come for it when he heard me retire. this i had for the moment forgotten, though i had remembered to carry the letter with me to my room. but when, as i was winding up my watch, i heard a light tap at the door, and a low voice saying, 'may i come in?' (which i most undoubtedly did hear), i recollected the fact, and took up the letter from my dressing-table, saying 'certainly: come in.' no one, however, answered my summons, and it was now that, as i strongly suspect, i committed an error: for i opened the door and held the letter out. there was certainly no one at that moment in the passage, but, in the instant of my standing there, the door at the end opened and john appeared carrying a candle. i asked him whether he had come to the door earlier; but am satisfied that he had not. i do not like the situation; but although my senses were very much on the alert, and though it was some time before i could sleep, i must allow that i perceived nothing further of an untoward character. with the return of spring, when his sister came to live with him for some months, dr haynes's entries become more cheerful, and, indeed, no symptom of depression is discernible until the early part of september when he was again left alone. and now, indeed, there is evidence that he was incommoded again, and that more pressingly. to this matter i will return in a moment, but i digress to put in a document which, rightly or wrongly, i believe to have a bearing on the thread of the story. the account-books of dr haynes, preserved along with his other papers, show, from a date but little later than that of his institution as archdeacon, a quarterly payment of £ to j. l. nothing could have been made of this, had it stood by itself. but i connect with it a very dirty and ill-written letter, which, like another that i have quoted, was in a pocket in the cover of a diary. of date or postmark there is no vestige, and the decipherment was not easy. it appears to run: dr sr. i have bin expctin to her off you theis last wicks, and not haveing done so must supose you have not got mine witch was saying how me and my man had met in with bad times this season all seems to go cross with us on the farm and which way to look for the rent we have no knowledge of it this been the sad case with us if you would have the great [liberality _probably, but the exact spelling defies reproduction_] to send fourty pounds otherwise steps will have to be took which i should not wish. has you was the means of me losing my place with dr pulteney i think it is only just what i am asking and you know best what i could say if i was put to it but i do not wish anything of that unpleasant nature being one that always wish to have everything pleasant about me. your obedt servt, jane lee. about the time at which i suppose this letter to have been written there is, in fact, a payment of £ to j.l. we return to the diary: _oct. _--at evening prayers, during the psalms, i had that same experience which i recollect from last year. i was resting my hand on one of the carved figures, as before (i usually avoid that of the cat now), and--i was going to have said--a change came over it, but that seems attributing too much importance to what must, after all, be due to some physical affection in myself: at any rate, the wood seemed to become chilly and soft as if made of wet linen. i can assign the moment at which i became sensible of this. the choir were singing the words (_set thou an ungodly man to be ruler over him and let satan stand at his right hand_.) the whispering in my house was more persistent tonight. i seemed not to be rid of it in my room. i have not noticed this before. a nervous man, which i am not, and hope i am not becoming, would have been much annoyed, if not alarmed, by it. the cat was on the stairs tonight. i think it sits there always. there _is_ no kitchen cat. _nov. _--here again i must note a matter i do not understand. i am much troubled in sleep. no definite image presented itself, but i was pursued by the very vivid impression that wet lips were whispering into my ear with great rapidity and emphasis for some time together. after this, i suppose, i fell asleep, but was awakened with a start by a feeling as if a hand were laid on my shoulder. to my intense alarm i found myself standing at the top of the lowest flight of the first staircase. the moon was shining brightly enough through the large window to let me see that there was a large cat on the second or third step. i can make no comment. i crept up to bed again, i do not know how. yes, mine is a heavy burden. [then follows a line or two which has been scratched out. i fancy i read something like 'acted for the best'.] not long after this it is evident to me that the archdeacon's firmness began to give way under the pressure of these phenomena. i omit as unnecessarily painful and distressing the ejaculations and prayers which, in the months of december and january, appear for the first time and become increasingly frequent. throughout this time, however, he is obstinate in clinging to his post. why he did not plead ill-health and take refuge at bath or brighton i cannot tell; my impression is that it would have done him no good; that he was a man who, if he had confessed himself beaten by the annoyances, would have succumbed at once, and that he was conscious of this. he did seek to palliate them by inviting visitors to his house. the result he has noted in this fashion: _jan. _--i have prevailed on my cousin allen to give me a few days, and he is to occupy the chamber next to mine. _jan. _--a still night. allen slept well, but complained of the wind. my own experiences were as before: still whispering and whispering: what is it that he wants to say? _jan. _--allen thinks this a very noisy house. he thinks, too, that my cat is an unusually large and fine specimen, but very wild. _jan. _--allen and i in the library until . he left me twice to see what the maids were doing in the hall: returning the second time he told me he had seen one of them passing through the door at the end of the passage, and said if his wife were here she would soon get them into better order. i asked him what coloured dress the maid wore; he said grey or white. i supposed it would be so. _jan. _--allen left me today. i must be firm. these words, _i must be firm_, occur again and again on subsequent days; sometimes they are the only entry. in these cases they are in an unusually large hand, and dug into the paper in a way which must have broken the pen that wrote them. apparently the archdeacon's friends did not remark any change in his behaviour, and this gives me a high idea of his courage and determination. the diary tells us nothing more than i have indicated of the last days of his life. the end of it all must be told in the polished language of the obituary notice: the morning of the th of february was cold and tempestuous. at an early hour the servants had occasion to go into the front hall of the residence occupied by the lamented subject of these lines. what was their horror upon observing the form of their beloved and respected master lying upon the landing of the principal staircase in an attitude which inspired the gravest fears. assistance was procured, and an universal consternation was experienced upon the discovery that he had been the object of a brutal and a murderous attack. the vertebral column was fractured in more than one place. this might have been the result of a fall: it appeared that the stair-carpet was loosened at one point. but, in addition to this, there were injuries inflicted upon the eyes, nose and mouth, as if by the agency of some savage animal, which, dreadful to relate, rendered those features unrecognizable. the vital spark was, it is needless to add, completely extinct, and had been so, upon the testimony of respectable medical authorities, for several hours. the author or authors of this mysterious outrage are alike buried in mystery, and the most active conjecture has hitherto failed to suggest a solution of the melancholy problem afforded by this appalling occurrence. the writer goes on to reflect upon the probability that the writings of mr shelley, lord byron, and m. voltaire may have been instrumental in bringing about the disaster, and concludes by hoping, somewhat vaguely, that this event may 'operate as an example to the rising generation'; but this portion of his remarks need not be quoted in full. i had already formed the conclusion that dr haynes was responsible for the death of dr pulteney. but the incident connected with the carved figure of death upon the archdeacon's stall was a very perplexing feature. the conjecture that it had been cut out of the wood of the hanging oak was not difficult, but seemed impossible to substantiate. however, i paid a visit to barchester, partly with the view of finding out whether there were any relics of the woodwork to be heard of. i was introduced by one of the canons to the curator of the local museum, who was, my friend said, more likely to be able to give me information on the point than anyone else. i told this gentleman of the description of certain carved figures and arms formerly on the stalls, and asked whether any had survived. he was able to show me the arms of dean west and some other fragments. these, he said, had been got from an old resident, who had also once owned a figure--perhaps one of those which i was inquiring for. there was a very odd thing about that figure, he said. 'the old man who had it told me that he picked it up in a woodyard, whence he had obtained the still extant pieces, and had taken it home for his children. on the way home he was fiddling about with it and it came in two in his hands, and a bit of paper dropped out. this he picked up and, just noticing that there was writing on it, put it into his pocket, and subsequently into a vase on his mantelpiece. i was at his house not very long ago, and happened to pick up the vase and turn it over to see whether there were any marks on it, and the paper fell into my hand. the old man, on my handing it to him, told me the story i have told you, and said i might keep the paper. it was crumpled and rather torn, so i have mounted it on a card, which i have here. if you can tell me what it means i shall be very glad, and also, i may say, a good deal surprised.' he gave me the card. the paper was quite legibly inscribed in an old hand, and this is what was on it: when i grew in the wood i was water'd w'th blood now in the church i stand who that touches me with his hand if a bloody hand he bear i councell him to be ware lest he be fetcht away whether by night or day, but chiefly when the wind blows high in a night of february. this i drempt, febr. anno . john austin. 'i suppose it is a charm or a spell: wouldn't you call it something of that kind?' said the curator. 'yes,' i said, 'i suppose one might. what became of the figure in which it was concealed?' 'oh, i forgot,' said he. 'the old man told me it was so ugly and frightened his children so much that he burnt it.' martin's close some few years back i was staying with the rector of a parish in the west, where the society to which i belong owns property. i was to go over some of this land: and, on the first morning of my visit, soon after breakfast, the estate carpenter and general handyman, john hill, was announced as in readiness to accompany us. the rector asked which part of the parish we were to visit that morning. the estate map was produced, and when we had showed him our round, he put his finger on a particular spot. 'don't forget,' he said, 'to ask john hill about martin's close when you get there. i should like to hear what he tells you.' 'what ought he to tell us?' i said. 'i haven't the slightest idea,' said the rector, 'or, if that is not exactly true, it will do till lunch-time.' and here he was called away. we set out; john hill is not a man to withhold such information as he possesses on any point, and you may gather from him much that is of interest about the people of the place and their talk. an unfamiliar word, or one that he thinks ought to be unfamiliar to you, he will usually spell--as c-o-b cob, and the like. it is not, however, relevant to my purpose to record his conversation before the moment when we reached martin's close. the bit of land is noticeable, for it is one of the smallest enclosures you are likely to see--a very few square yards, hedged in with quickset on all sides, and without any gate or gap leading into it. you might take it for a small cottage garden long deserted, but that it lies away from the village and bears no trace of cultivation. it is at no great distance from the road, and is part of what is there called a moor, in other words, a rough upland pasture cut up into largish fields. 'why is this little bit hedged off so?' i asked, and john hill (whose answer i cannot represent as perfectly as i should like) was not at fault. 'that's what we call martin's close, sir: 'tes a curious thing 'bout that bit of land, sir: goes by the name of martin's close, sir. m-a-r-t-i-n martin. beg pardon, sir, did rector tell you to make inquiry of me 'bout that, sir?' 'yes, he did.' 'ah, i thought so much, sir. i was tell'n rector 'bout that last week, and he was very much interested. it 'pears there's a murderer buried there, sir, by the name of martin. old samuel saunders, that formerly lived yurr at what we call south-town, sir, he had a long tale 'bout that, sir: terrible murder done 'pon a young woman, sir. cut her throat and cast her in the water down yurr.' 'was he hung for it?' 'yes, sir, he was hung just up yurr on the roadway, by what i've 'eard, on the holy innocents' day, many 'undred years ago, by the man that went by the name of the bloody judge: terrible red and bloody, i've 'eard.' 'was his name jeffreys, do you think?' 'might be possible 'twas--jeffreys--j-e-f--jeffreys. i reckon 'twas, and the tale i've 'eard many times from mr saunders,--how this young man martin--george martin--was troubled before his crule action come to light by the young woman's sperit.' 'how was that, do you know?' 'no, sir, i don't exactly know how 'twas with it: but by what i've 'eard he was fairly tormented; and rightly tu. old mr saunders, he told a history regarding a cupboard down yurr in the new inn. according to what he related, this young woman's sperit come out of this cupboard: but i don't racollact the matter.' this was the sum of john hill's information. we passed on, and in due time i reported what i had heard to the rector. he was able to show me from the parish account-books that a gibbet had been paid for in , and a grave dug in the following year, both for the benefit of george martin; but he was unable to suggest anyone in the parish, saunders being now gone, who was likely to throw any further light on the story. naturally, upon my return to the neighbourhood of libraries, i made search in the more obvious places. the trial seemed to be nowhere reported. a newspaper of the time, and one or more news-letters, however, had some short notices, from which i learnt that, on the ground of local prejudice against the prisoner (he was described as a young gentleman of a good estate), the venue had been moved from exeter to london; that jeffreys had been the judge, and death the sentence, and that there had been some 'singular passages' in the evidence. nothing further transpired till september of this year. a friend who knew me to be interested in jeffreys then sent me a leaf torn out of a second-hand bookseller's catalogue with the entry: jeffreys, judge: _interesting old ms. trial for murder_, and so forth, from which i gathered, to my delight, that i could become possessed, for a very few shillings, of what seemed to be a verbatim report, in shorthand, of the martin trial. i telegraphed for the manuscript and got it. it was a thin bound volume, provided with a title written in longhand by someone in the eighteenth century, who had also added this note: 'my father, who took these notes in court, told me that the prisoner's friends had made interest with judge jeffreys that no report should be put out: he had intended doing this himself when times were better, and had shew'd it to the revd mr glanvil, who incourag'd his design very warmly, but death surpriz'd them both before it could be brought to an accomplishment.' the initials w. g. are appended; i am advised that the original reporter may have been t. gurney, who appears in that capacity in more than one state trial. this was all that i could read for myself. after no long delay i heard of someone who was capable of deciphering the shorthand of the seventeenth century, and a little time ago the typewritten copy of the whole manuscript was laid before me. the portions which i shall communicate here help to fill in the very imperfect outline which subsists in the memories of john hill and, i suppose, one or two others who live on the scene of the events. the report begins with a species of preface, the general effect of which is that the copy is not that actually taken in court, though it is a true copy in regard to the notes of what was said; but that the writer has added to it some 'remarkable passages' that took place during the trial, and has made this present fair copy of the whole, intending at some favourable time to publish it; but has not put it into longhand, lest it should fall into the possession of unauthorized persons, and he or his family be deprived of the profit. the report then begins: this case came on to be tried on wednesday, the th of november, between our sovereign lord the king, and george martin esquire, of (i take leave to omit some of the place-names), at a sessions of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery, at the old bailey, and the prisoner, being in newgate, was brought to the bar. _clerk of the crown._ george martin, hold up thy hand (which he did). then the indictment was read, which set forth that the prisoner, 'not having the fear of god before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, upon the th day of may, in the th year of our sovereign lord king charles the second, with force and arms in the parish aforesaid, in and upon ann clark, spinster, of the same place, in the peace of god and of our said sovereign lord the king then and there being, feloniously, wilfully, and of your malice aforethought did make an assault and with a certain knife value a penny the throat of the said ann clark then and there did cut, of the which wound the said ann clark then and there did die, and the body of the said ann clark did cast into a certain pond of water situate in the same parish (with more that is not material to our purpose) against the peace of our sovereign lord the king, his crown and dignity.' then the prisoner prayed a copy of the indictment. _l.c.j._ (sir george jeffreys). what is this? sure you know that is never allowed. besides, here is as plain indictment as ever i heard; you have nothing to do but to plead to it. _pris._ my lord, i apprehend there may be matter of law arising out of the indictment, and i would humbly beg the court to assign me counsel to consider of it. besides, my lord, i believe it was done in another case: copy of the indictment was allowed. _l.c.j._ what case was that? _pris._ truly, my lord, i have been kept close prisoner ever since i came up from exeter castle, and no one allowed to come at me and no one to advise with. _l.c.j._ but i say, what was that case you allege? _pris._ my lord, i cannot tell your lordship precisely the name of the case, but it is in my mind that there was such an one, and i would humbly desire-- _l.c.j._ all this is nothing. name your case, and we will tell you whether there be any matter for you in it. god forbid but you should have anything that may be allowed you by law: but this is against law, and we must keep the course of the court. _att.-gen._ (sir robert sawyer). my lord, we pray for the king that he may be asked to plead. _cl. of ct._ are you guilty of the murder whereof you stand indicted, or not guilty? _pris._ my lord, i would humbly offer this to the court. if i plead now, shall i have an opportunity after to except against the indictment? _l.c.j._ yes, yes, that comes after verdict: that will be saved to you, and counsel assigned if there be matter of law, but that which you have now to do is to plead. then after some little parleying with the court (which seemed strange upon such a plain indictment) the prisoner pleaded _not guilty_. _cl. of ct._ culprit. how wilt thou be tried? _pris._ by god and my country. _cl. of ct._ god send thee a good deliverance. _l.c.j._ why, how is this? here has been a great to-do that you should not be tried at exeter by your country, but be brought here to london, and now you ask to be tried by your country. must we send you to exeter again? _pris._ my lord, i understood it was the form. _l.c.j._ so it is, man: we spoke only in the way of pleasantness. well, go on and swear the jury. so they were sworn. i omit the names. there was no challenging on the prisoner's part, for, as he said, he did not know any of the persons called. thereupon the prisoner asked for the use of pen, ink, and paper, to which the l. c. j. replied: 'ay, ay, in god's name let him have it.' then the usual charge was delivered to the jury, and the case opened by the junior counsel for the king, mr dolben. the attorney-general followed: may it please your lordship, and you gentlemen of the jury, i am of counsel for the king against the prisoner at the bar. you have heard that he stands indicted for a murder done upon the person of a young girl. such crimes as this you may perhaps reckon to be not uncommon, and, indeed, in these times, i am sorry to say it, there is scarce any fact so barbarous and unnatural but what we may hear almost daily instances of it. but i must confess that in this murder that is charged upon the prisoner there are some particular features that mark it out to be such as i hope has but seldom if ever been perpetrated upon english ground. for as we shall make it appear, the person murdered was a poor country girl (whereas the prisoner is a gentleman of a proper estate) and, besides that, was one to whom providence had not given the full use of her intellects, but was what is termed among us commonly an innocent or natural: such an one, therefore, as one would have supposed a gentleman of the prisoner's quality more likely to overlook, or, if he did notice her, to be moved to compassion for her unhappy condition, than to lift up his hand against her in the very horrid and barbarous manner which we shall show you he used. now to begin at the beginning and open the matter to you orderly: about christmas of last year, that is the year , this gentleman, mr martin, having newly come back into his own country from the university of cambridge, some of his neighbours, to show him what civility they could (for his family is one that stands in very good repute all over that country), entertained him here and there at their christmas merrymakings, so that he was constantly riding to and fro, from one house to another, and sometimes, when the place of his destination was distant, or for other reason, as the unsafeness of the roads, he would be constrained to lie the night at an inn. in this way it happened that he came, a day or two after the christmas, to the place where this young girl lived with her parents, and put up at the inn there, called the new inn, which is, as i am informed, a house of good repute. here was some dancing going on among the people of the place, and ann clark had been brought in, it seems, by her elder sister to look on; but being, as i have said, of weak understanding, and, besides that, very uncomely in her appearance, it was not likely she should take much part in the merriment; and accordingly was but standing by in a corner of the room. the prisoner at the bar, seeing her, one must suppose by way of a jest, asked her would she dance with him. and in spite of what her sister and others could say to prevent it and to dissuade her-- _l.c.j._ come, mr attorney, we are not set here to listen to tales of christmas parties in taverns. i would not interrupt you, but sure you have more weighty matters than this. you will be telling us next what tune they danced to. _att._ my lord, i would not take up the time of the court with what is not material: but we reckon it to be material to show how this unlikely acquaintance begun: and as for the tune, i believe, indeed, our evidence will show that even that hath a bearing on the matter in hand. _l.c.j._ go on, go on, in god's name: but give us nothing that is impertinent. _att._ indeed, my lord, i will keep to my matter. but, gentlemen, having now shown you, as i think, enough of this first meeting between the murdered person and the prisoner, i will shorten my tale so far as to say that from then on there were frequent meetings of the two: for the young woman was greatly tickled with having got hold (as she conceived it) of so likely a sweetheart, and he being once a week at least in the habit of passing through the street where she lived, she would be always on the watch for him; and it seems they had a signal arranged: he should whistle the tune that was played at the tavern: it is a tune, as i am informed, well known in that country, and has a burden, '_madam, will you walk, will you talk with me?_' _l.c.j._ ay, i remember it in my own country, in shropshire. it runs somehow thus, doth it not? [here his lordship whistled a part of a tune, which was very observable, and seemed below the dignity of the court. and it appears he felt it so himself, for he said:] but this is by the mark, and i doubt it is the first time we have had dance-tunes in this court. the most part of the dancing we give occasion for is done at tyburn. [looking at the prisoner, who appeared very much disordered.] you said the tune was material to your case, mr attorney, and upon my life i think mr martin agrees with you. what ails you, man? staring like a player that sees a ghost! _pris._ my lord, i was amazed at hearing such trivial, foolish things as they bring against me. _l.c.j._ well, well, it lies upon mr attorney to show whether they be trivial or not: but i must say, if he has nothing worse than this he has said, you have no great cause to be in amaze. doth it not lie something deeper? but go on, mr attorney. _att._ my lord and gentlemen--all that i have said so far you may indeed very reasonably reckon as having an appearance of triviality. and, to be sure, had the matter gone no further than the humouring of a poor silly girl by a young gentleman of quality, it had been very well. but to proceed. we shall make it appear that after three or four weeks the prisoner became contracted to a young gentlewoman of that country, one suitable every way to his own condition, and such an arrangement was on foot that seemed to promise him a happy and a reputable living. but within no very long time it seems that this young gentlewoman, hearing of the jest that was going about that countryside with regard to the prisoner and ann clark, conceived that it was not only an unworthy carriage on the part of her lover, but a derogation to herself that he should suffer his name to be sport for tavern company: and so without more ado she, with the consent of her parents, signified to the prisoner that the match between them was at an end. we shall show you that upon the receipt of this intelligence the prisoner was greatly enraged against ann clark as being the cause of his misfortune (though indeed there was nobody answerable for it but himself), and that he made use of many outrageous expressions and threatenings against her, and subsequently upon meeting with her both abused her and struck at her with his whip: but she, being but a poor innocent, could not be persuaded to desist from her attachment to him, but would often run after him testifying with gestures and broken words the affection she had to him: until she was become, as he said, the very plague of his life. yet, being that affairs in which he was now engaged necessarily took him by the house in which she lived, he could not (as i am willing to believe he would otherwise have done) avoid meeting with her from time to time. we shall further show you that this was the posture of things up to the th day of may in this present year. upon that day the prisoner comes riding through the village, as of custom, and met with the young woman: but in place of passing her by, as he had lately done, he stopped, and said some words to her with which she appeared wonderfully pleased, and so left her; and after that day she was nowhere to be found, notwithstanding a strict search was made for her. the next time of the prisoner's passing through the place, her relations inquired of him whether he should know anything of her whereabouts; which he totally denied. they expressed to him their fears lest her weak intellects should have been upset by the attention he had showed her, and so she might have committed some rash act against her own life, calling him to witness the same time how often they had beseeched him to desist from taking notice of her, as fearing trouble might come of it: but this, too, he easily laughed away. but in spite of this light behaviour, it was noticeable in him that about this time his carriage and demeanour changed, and it was said of him that he seemed a troubled man. and here i come to a passage to which i should not dare to ask your attention, but that it appears to me to be founded in truth, and is supported by testimony deserving of credit. and, gentlemen, to my judgement it doth afford a great instance of god's revenge against murder, and that he will require the blood of the innocent. [here mr attorney made a pause, and shifted with his papers: and it was thought remarkable by me and others, because he was a man not easily dashed.] _l.c.j._ well, mr attorney, what is your instance? _att._ my lord, it is a strange one, and the truth is that, of all the cases i have been concerned in, i cannot call to mind the like of it. but to be short, gentlemen, we shall bring you testimony that ann clark was seen after this th of may, and that, at such time as she was so seen, it was impossible she could have been a living person. [here the people made a hum, and a good deal of laughter, and the court called for silence, and when it was made]-- _l.c.j._ why, mr attorney, you might save up this tale for a week; it will be christmas by that time, and you can frighten your cook-maids with it [at which the people laughed again, and the prisoner also, as it seemed]. god, man, what are you prating of--ghosts and christmas jigs and tavern company--and here is a man's life at stake! [to the prisoner]: and you, sir, i would have you know there is not so much occasion for you to make merry neither. you were not brought here for that, and if i know mr attorney, he has more in his brief than he has shown yet. go on, mr attorney. i need not, mayhap, have spoken so sharply, but you must confess your course is something unusual. _att._ nobody knows it better than i, my lord: but i shall bring it to an end with a round turn. i shall show you, gentlemen, that ann clark's body was found in the month of june, in a pond of water, with the throat cut: that a knife belonging to the prisoner was found in the same water: that he made efforts to recover the said knife from the water: that the coroner's quest brought in a verdict against the prisoner at the bar, and that therefore he should by course have been tried at exeter: but that, suit being made on his behalf, on account that an impartial jury could not be found to try him in his own country, he hath had that singular favour shown him that he should be tried here in london. and so we will proceed to call our evidence. then the facts of the acquaintance between the prisoner and ann clark were proved, and also the coroner's inquest. i pass over this portion of the trial, for it offers nothing of special interest. sarah arscott was next called and sworn. _att._ what is your occupation? _s._ i keep the new inn at--. _att._ do you know the prisoner at the bar? _s._ yes: he was often at our house since he come first at christmas of last year. _att._ did you know ann clark? _s._ yes, very well. _att._ pray, what manner of person was she in her appearance? _s._ she was a very short thick-made woman: i do not know what else you would have me say. _att._ was she comely? _s._ no, not by no manner of means: she was very uncomely, poor child! she had a great face and hanging chops and a very bad colour like a puddock. _l.c.j._ what is that, mistress? what say you she was like? _s._ my lord, i ask pardon; i heard esquire martin say she looked like a puddock in the face; and so she did. _l.c.j._ did you that? can you interpret her, mr attorney? _att._ my lord, i apprehend it is the country word for a toad. _l.c.j._ oh, a hop-toad! ay, go on. _att._ will you give an account to the jury of what passed between you and the prisoner at the bar in may last? _s._ sir, it was this. it was about nine o'clock the evening after that ann did not come home, and i was about my work in the house; there was no company there only thomas snell, and it was foul weather. esquire martin came in and called for some drink, and i, by way of pleasantry, i said to him, "squire, have you been looking after your sweetheart?" and he flew out at me in a passion and desired i would not use such expressions. i was amazed at that, because we were accustomed to joke with him about her. _l.c.j._ who, her? _s._ ann clark, my lord. and we had not heard the news of his being contracted to a young gentlewoman elsewhere, or i am sure i should have used better manners. so i said nothing, but being i was a little put out, i begun singing, to myself as it were, the song they danced to the first time they met, for i thought it would prick him. it was the same that he was used to sing when he came down the street; i have heard it very often: '_madam, will you walk, will you talk with me?_' and it fell out that i needed something that was in the kitchen. so i went out to get it, and all the time i went on singing, something louder and more bold-like. and as i was there all of a sudden i thought i heard someone answering outside the house, but i could not be sure because of the wind blowing so high. so then i stopped singing, and now i heard it plain, saying, '_yes, sir, i will walk, i will talk with you_,' and i knew the voice for ann clark's voice. _att._ how did you know it to be her voice? _s._ it was impossible i could be mistaken. she had a dreadful voice, a kind of a squalling voice, in particular if she tried to sing. and there was nobody in the village that could counterfeit it, for they often tried. so, hearing that, i was glad, because we were all in an anxiety to know what was gone with her: for though she was a natural, she had a good disposition and was very tractable: and says i to myself, 'what, child! are you returned, then?' and i ran into the front room, and said to squire martin as i passed by, 'squire, here is your sweetheart back again: shall i call her in?' and with that i went to open the door; but squire martin he caught hold of me, and it seemed to me he was out of his wits, or near upon. 'hold, woman,' says he, 'in god's name!' and i know not what else: he was all of a shake. then i was angry, and said i, 'what! are you not glad that poor child is found?' and i called to thomas snell and said, 'if the squire will not let me, do you open the door and call her in.' so thomas snell went and opened the door, and the wind setting that way blew in and overset the two candles that was all we had lighted: and esquire martin fell away from holding me; i think he fell down on the floor, but we were wholly in the dark, and it was a minute or two before i got a light again: and while i was feeling for the fire-box, i am not certain but i heard someone step 'cross the floor, and i am sure i heard the door of the great cupboard that stands in the room open and shut to. then, when i had a light again, i see esquire martin on the settle, all white and sweaty as if he had swounded away, and his arms hanging down; and i was going to help him; but just then it caught my eye that there was something like a bit of a dress shut into the cupboard door, and it came to my mind i had heard that door shut. so i thought it might be some person had run in when the light was quenched, and was hiding in the cupboard. so i went up closer and looked: and there was a bit of a black stuff cloak, and just below it an edge of a brown stuff dress, both sticking out of the shut of the door: and both of them was low down, as if the person that had them on might be crouched down inside. _att._ what did you take it to be? _s._ i took it to be a woman's dress. _att._ could you make any guess whom it belonged to? did you know anyone who wore such a dress? _s._ it was a common stuff, by what i could see. i have seen many women wearing such a stuff in our parish. _att._ was it like ann clark's dress? _s._ she used to wear just such a dress: but i could not say on my oath it was hers. _att._ did you observe anything else about it? _s_. i did notice that it looked very wet: but it was foul weather outside. _l.c.j._ did you feel of it, mistress? _s._ no, my lord, i did not like to touch it. _l.c.j._ not like? why that? are you so nice that you scruple to feel of a wet dress? _s._ indeed, my lord, i cannot very well tell why: only it had a nasty ugly look about it. _l.c.j._ well, go on. _s_. then i called again to thomas snell, and bid him come to me and catch anyone that come out when i should open the cupboard door, 'for,' says i, 'there is someone hiding within, and i would know what she wants.' and with that squire martin gave a sort of a cry or a shout and ran out of the house into the dark, and i felt the cupboard door pushed out against me while i held it, and thomas snell helped me: but for all we pressed to keep it shut as hard as we could, it was forced out against us, and we had to fall back. _l.c.j._ and pray what came out--a mouse? _s._ no, my lord, it was greater than a mouse, but i could not see what it was: it fleeted very swift over the floor and out at the door. _l.c.j._ but come; what did it look like? was it a person? _s._ my lord, i cannot tell what it was, but it ran very low, and it was of a dark colour. we were both daunted by it, thomas snell and i, but we made all the haste we could after it to the door that stood open. and we looked out, but it was dark and we could see nothing. _l.c.j._ was there no tracks of it on the floor? what floor have you there? _s._ it is a flagged floor and sanded, my lord, and there was an appearance of a wet track on the floor, but we could make nothing of it, neither thomas snell nor me, and besides, as i said, it was a foul night. _l.c.j._ well, for my part, i see not--though to be sure it is an odd tale she tells--what you would do with this evidence. _att._ my lord, we bring it to show the suspicious carriage of the prisoner immediately after the disappearance of the murdered person: and we ask the jury's consideration of that; and also to the matter of the voice heard without the house. then the prisoner asked some questions not very material, and thomas snell was next called, who gave evidence to the same effect as mrs arscott, and added the following: _att._ did anything pass between you and the prisoner during the time mrs arscott was out of the room? _th._ i had a piece of twist in my pocket. _att._ twist of what? _th._ twist of tobacco, sir, and i felt a disposition to take a pipe of tobacco. so i found a pipe on the chimney-piece, and being it was twist, and in regard of me having by an oversight left my knife at my house, and me not having over many teeth to pluck at it, as your lordship or anyone else may have a view by their own eyesight-- _l.c.j._ what is the man talking about? come to the matter, fellow! do you think we sit here to look at your teeth? _th._ no, my lord, nor i would not you should do, god forbid! i know your honours have better employment, and better teeth, i would not wonder. _l.c.j._ good god, what a man is this! yes, i _have_ better teeth, and that you shall find if you keep not to the purpose. _th._ i humbly ask pardon, my lord, but so it was. and i took upon me, thinking no harm, to ask squire martin to lend me his knife to cut my tobacco. and he felt first of one pocket and then of another and it was not there at all. and says i, 'what! have you lost your knife, squire?' and up he gets and feels again and he sat down, and such a groan as he gave. 'good god!' he says, 'i must have left it there.' 'but,' says i, 'squire, by all appearance it is _not_ there. did you set a value on it,' says i, 'you might have it cried.' but he sat there and put his head between his hands and seemed to take no notice to what i said. and then it was mistress arscott come tracking back out of the kitchen place. asked if he heard the voice singing outside the house, he said 'no,' but the door into the kitchen was shut, and there was a high wind: but says that no one could mistake ann clark's voice. then a boy, william reddaway, about thirteen years of age, was called, and by the usual questions, put by the lord chief justice, it was ascertained that he knew the nature of an oath. and so he was sworn. his evidence referred to a time about a week later. _att._ now, child, don't be frighted: there is no one here will hurt you if you speak the truth. _l.c.j._ ay, if he speak the truth. but remember, child, thou art in the presence of the great god of heaven and earth, that hath the keys of hell, and of us that are the king's officers, and have the keys of newgate; and remember, too, there is a man's life in question; and if thou tellest a lie, and by that means he comes to an ill end, thou art no better than his murderer; and so speak the truth. _att._ tell the jury what you know, and speak out. where were you on the evening of the rd of may last? _l.c.j._ why, what does such a boy as this know of days. can you mark the day, boy? _w._ yes, my lord, it was the day before our feast, and i was to spend sixpence there, and that falls a month before midsummer day. _one of the jury._ my lord, we cannot hear what he says. _l.c.j._ he says he remembers the day because it was the day before the feast they had there, and he had sixpence to lay out. set him up on the table there. well, child, and where wast thou then? _w._ keeping cows on the moor, my lord. but, the boy using the country speech, my lord could not well apprehend him, and so asked if there was anyone that could interpret him, and it was answered the parson of the parish was there, and he was accordingly sworn and so the evidence given. the boy said: 'i was on the moor about six o'clock, and sitting behind a bush of furze near a pond of water: and the prisoner came very cautiously and looking about him, having something like a long pole in his hand, and stopped a good while as if he would be listening, and then began to feel in the water with the pole: and i being very near the water--not above five yards--heard as if the pole struck up against something that made a wallowing sound, and the prisoner dropped the pole and threw himself on the ground, and rolled himself about very strangely with his hands to his ears, and so after a while got up and went creeping away.' asked if he had had any communication with the prisoner, 'yes, a day or two before, the prisoner, hearing i was used to be on the moor, he asked me if i had seen a knife laying about, and said he would give sixpence to find it. and i said i had not seen any such thing, but i would ask about. then he said he would give me sixpence to say nothing, and so he did.' _l.c.j._ and was that the sixpence you were to lay out at the feast? _w._ yes, if you please, my lord. asked if he had observed anything particular as to the pond of water, he said, 'no, except that it begun to have a very ill smell and the cows would not drink of it for some days before.' asked if he had ever seen the prisoner and ann clark in company together, he began to cry very much, and it was a long time before they could get him to speak intelligibly. at last the parson of the parish, mr matthews, got him to be quiet, and the question being put to him again, he said he had seen ann clark waiting on the moor for the prisoner at some way off, several times since last christmas. _att._ did you see her close, so as to be sure it was she? _w._ yes, quite sure. _l.c.j._ how quite sure, child? _w._ because she would stand and jump up and down and clap her arms like a goose [which he called by some country name: but the parson explained it to be a goose]. and then she was of such a shape that it could not be no one else. _att._ what was the last time that you so saw her? then the witness began to cry again and clung very much to mr matthews, who bid him not be frightened. and so at last he told his story: that on the day before their feast (being the same evening that he had before spoken of) after the prisoner had gone away, it being then twilight and he very desirous to get home, but afraid for the present to stir from where he was lest the prisoner should see him, remained some few minutes behind the bush, looking on the pond, and saw something dark come up out of the water at the edge of the pond farthest away from him, and so up the bank. and when it got to the top where he could see it plain against the sky, it stood up and flapped the arms up and down, and then run off very swiftly in the same direction the prisoner had taken: and being asked very strictly who he took it to be, he said upon his oath that it could be nobody but ann clark. thereafter his master was called, and gave evidence that the boy had come home very late that evening and been chided for it, and that he seemed very much amazed, but could give no account of the reason. _att._ my lord, we have done with our evidence for the king. then the lord chief justice called upon the prisoner to make his defence; which he did, though at no great length, and in a very halting way, saying that he hoped the jury would not go about to take his life on the evidence of a parcel of country people and children that would believe any idle tale; and that he had been very much prejudiced in his trial; at which the l.c.j. interrupted him, saying that he had had singular favour shown to him in having his trial removed from exeter, which the prisoner acknowledging, said that he meant rather that since he was brought to london there had not been care taken to keep him secured from interruption and disturbance. upon which the l.c.j. ordered the marshal to be called, and questioned him about the safe keeping of the prisoner, but could find nothing: except the marshal said that he had been informed by the underkeeper that they had seen a person outside his door or going up the stairs to it: but there was no possibility the person should have got in. and it being inquired further what sort of person this might be, the marshal could not speak to it save by hearsay, which was not allowed. and the prisoner, being asked if this was what he meant, said no, he knew nothing of that, but it was very hard that a man should not be suffered to be at quiet when his life stood on it. but it was observed he was very hasty in his denial. and so he said no more, and called no witnesses. whereupon the attorney-general spoke to the jury. [a full report of what he said is given, and, if time allowed, i would extract that portion in which he dwells on the alleged appearance of the murdered person: he quotes some authorities of ancient date, as st augustine _de cura pro mortuis gerenda_ (a favourite book of reference with the old writers on the supernatural) and also cites some cases which may be seen in glanvil's, but more conveniently in mr lang's books. he does not, however, tell us more of those cases than is to be found in print.] the lord chief justice then summed up the evidence for the jury. his speech, again, contains nothing that i find worth copying out: but he was naturally impressed with the singular character of the evidence, saying that he had never heard such given in his experience; but that there was nothing in law to set it aside, and that the jury must consider whether they believed these witnesses or not. and the jury after a very short consultation brought the prisoner in guilty. so he was asked whether he had anything to say in arrest of judgement, and pleaded that his name was spelt wrong in the indictment, being martin with an i, whereas it should be with a y. but this was overruled as not material, mr attorney saying, moreover, that he could bring evidence to show that the prisoner by times wrote it as it was laid in the indictment. and, the prisoner having nothing further to offer, sentence of death was passed upon him, and that he should be hanged in chains upon a gibbet near the place where the fact was committed, and that execution should take place upon the th december next ensuing, being innocents' day. thereafter the prisoner being to all appearance in a state of desperation, made shift to ask the l.c.j. that his relations might be allowed to come to him during the short time he had to live. _l.c.j._ ay, with all my heart, so it be in the presence of the keeper; and ann clark may come to you as well, for what i care. at which the prisoner broke out and cried to his lordship not to use such words to him, and his lordship very angrily told him he deserved no tenderness at any man's hands for a cowardly butcherly murderer that had not the stomach to take the reward of his deeds: 'and i hope to god,' said he, 'that she _will_ be with you by day and by night till an end is made of you.' then the prisoner was removed, and, so far as i saw, he was in a swound, and the court broke up. i cannot refrain from observing that the prisoner during all the time of the trial seemed to be more uneasy than is commonly the case even in capital causes: that, for example, he was looking narrowly among the people and often turning round very sharply, as if some person might be at his ear. it was also very noticeable at this trial what a silence the people kept, and further (though this might not be otherwise than natural in that season of the year), what a darkness and obscurity there was in the court room, lights being brought in not long after two o'clock in the day, and yet no fog in the town. * * * * * it was not without interest that i heard lately from some young men who had been giving a concert in the village i speak of, that a very cold reception was accorded to the song which has been mentioned in this narrative: '_madam, will you walk?_' it came out in some talk they had next morning with some of the local people that that song was regarded with an invincible repugnance; it was not so, they believed, at north tawton, but here it was reckoned to be unlucky. however, why that view was taken no one had the shadow of an idea. mr humphreys and his inheritance about fifteen years ago, on a date late in august or early in september, a train drew up at wilsthorpe, a country station in eastern england. out of it stepped (with other passengers) a rather tall and reasonably good-looking young man, carrying a handbag and some papers tied up in a packet. he was expecting to be met, one would say, from the way in which he looked about him: and he was, as obviously, expected. the stationmaster ran forward a step or two, and then, seeming to recollect himself, turned and beckoned to a stout and consequential person with a short round beard who was scanning the train with some appearance of bewilderment. 'mr cooper,' he called out,--'mr cooper, i think this is your gentleman'; and then to the passenger who had just alighted, 'mr humphreys, sir? glad to bid you welcome to wilsthorpe. there's a cart from the hall for your luggage, and here's mr cooper, what i think you know.' mr cooper had hurried up, and now raised his hat and shook hands. 'very pleased, i'm sure,' he said, 'to give the echo to mr palmer's kind words. i should have been the first to render expression to them but for the face not being familiar to me, mr humphreys. may your residence among us be marked as a red-letter day, sir.' 'thank you very much, mr cooper,' said humphreys, 'for your good wishes, and mr palmer also. i do hope very much that this change of--er--tenancy--which you must all regret, i am sure--will not be to the detriment of those with whom i shall be brought in contact.' he stopped, feeling that the words were not fitting themselves together in the happiest way, and mr cooper cut in, 'oh, you may rest satisfied of that, mr humphreys. i'll take it upon myself to assure you, sir, that a warm welcome awaits you on all sides. and as to any change of propriety turning out detrimental to the neighbourhood, well, your late uncle--' and here mr cooper also stopped, possibly in obedience to an inner monitor, possibly because mr palmer, clearing his throat loudly, asked humphreys for his ticket. the two men left the little station, and--at humphreys' suggestion--decided to walk to mr cooper's house, where luncheon was awaiting them. the relation in which these personages stood to each other can be explained in a very few lines. humphreys had inherited--quite unexpectedly--a property from an uncle: neither the property nor the uncle had he ever seen. he was alone in the world--a man of good ability and kindly nature, whose employment in a government office for the last four or five years had not gone far to fit him for the life of a country gentleman. he was studious and rather diffident, and had few out-of-door pursuits except golf and gardening. to-day he had come down for the first time to visit wilsthorpe and confer with mr cooper, the bailiff, as to the matters which needed immediate attention. it may be asked how this came to be his first visit? ought he not in decency to have attended his uncle's funeral? the answer is not far to seek: he had been abroad at the time of the death, and his address had not been at once procurable. so he had put off coming to wilsthorpe till he heard that all things were ready for him. and now we find him arrived at mr cooper's comfortable house, facing the parsonage, and having just shaken hands with the smiling mrs and miss cooper. during the minutes that preceded the announcement of luncheon the party settled themselves on elaborate chairs in the drawing-room, humphreys, for his part, perspiring quietly in the consciousness that stock was being taken of him. 'i was just saying to mr humphreys, my dear,' said mr cooper, 'that i hope and trust that his residence among us here in wilsthorpe will be marked as a red-letter day.' 'yes, indeed, i'm sure,' said mrs cooper heartily, 'and many, many of them.' miss cooper murmured words to the same effect, and humphreys attempted a pleasantry about painting the whole calendar red, which, though greeted with shrill laughter, was evidently not fully understood. at this point they proceeded to luncheon. 'do you know this part of the country at all, mr humphreys?' said mrs cooper, after a short interval. this was a better opening. 'no, i'm sorry to say i do _not_,' said humphreys. 'it seems very pleasant, what i could see of it coming down in the train.' 'oh, it _is_ a pleasant part. really, i sometimes say i don't know a nicer district, for the country; and the people round, too: such a quantity always going on. but i'm afraid you've come a little late for some of the better garden parties, mr humphreys.' 'i suppose i have; dear me, what a pity!' said humphreys, with a gleam of relief; and then, feeling that something more could be got out of this topic, 'but after all, you see, mrs cooper, even if i could have been here earlier, i should have been cut off from them, should i not? my poor uncle's recent death, you know--' 'oh dear, mr humphreys, to be sure; what a dreadful thing of me to say!' (and mr and miss cooper seconded the proposition inarticulately.) 'what must you have thought? i _am_ sorry: you must really forgive me.' 'not at all, mrs cooper, i assure you. i can't honestly assert that my uncle's death was a great grief to me, for i had never seen him. all i meant was that i supposed i shouldn't be expected to take part for some little time in festivities of that kind.' 'now, really it's very kind of you to take it in that way, mr humphreys, isn't it, george? and you _do_ forgive me? but only fancy! you never saw poor old mr wilson!' 'never in my life; nor did i ever have a letter from him. but, by the way, you have something to forgive _me_ for. i've never thanked you, except by letter, for all the trouble you've taken to find people to look after me at the hall.' 'oh, i'm sure that was nothing, mr humphreys; but i really do think that you'll find them give satisfaction. the man and his wife whom we've got for the butler and housekeeper we've known for a number of years: such a nice respectable couple, and mr cooper, i'm sure, can answer for the men in the stables and gardens.' 'yes, mr humphreys, they're a good lot. the head gardener's the only one who's stopped on from mr wilson's time. the major part of the employees, as you no doubt saw by the will, received legacies from the old gentleman and retired from their posts, and as the wife says, your housekeeper and butler are calculated to render you every satisfaction.' 'so everything, mr humphreys, is ready for you to step in this very day, according to what i understood you to wish,' said mrs cooper. 'everything, that is, except company, and there i'm afraid you'll find yourself quite at a standstill. only we did understand it was your intention to move in at once. if not, i'm sure you know we should have been only too pleased for you to stay here.' 'i'm quite sure you would, mrs cooper, and i'm very grateful to you. but i thought i had really better make the plunge at once. i'm accustomed to living alone, and there will be quite enough to occupy my evenings--looking over papers and books and so on--for some time to come, i thought if mr cooper could spare the time this afternoon to go over the house and grounds with me--' 'certainly, certainly, mr humphreys. my time is your own, up to any hour you please.' 'till dinner-time, father, you mean,' said miss cooper. 'don't forget we're going over to the brasnetts'. and have you got all the garden keys?' 'are you a great gardener, miss cooper?' said mr humphreys. 'i wish you would tell me what i'm to expect at the hall.' 'oh, i don't know about a _great_ gardener, mr humphreys: i'm very fond of flowers--but the hall garden might be made quite lovely, i often say. it's very old-fashioned as it is: and a great deal of shrubbery. there's an old temple, besides, and a maze.' 'really? have you explored it ever?' 'no-o,' said miss cooper, drawing in her lips and shaking her head. 'i've often longed to try, but old mr wilson always kept it locked. he wouldn't even let lady wardrop into it. (she lives near here, at bentley, you know, and she's a _great_ gardener, if you like.) that's why i asked father if he had all the keys.' 'i see. well, i must evidently look into that, and show you over it when i've learnt the way.' 'oh, thank you so much, mr humphreys! now i shall have the laugh of miss foster (that's our rector's daughter, you know; they're away on their holiday now--such nice people). we always had a joke between us which should be the first to get into the maze.' 'i think the garden keys must be up at the house,' said mr cooper, who had been looking over a large bunch. 'there is a number there in the library. now, mr humphreys, if you're prepared, we might bid goodbye to these ladies and set forward on our little tour of exploration.' * * * * * as they came out of mr cooper's front gate, humphreys had to run the gauntlet--not of an organized demonstration, but of a good deal of touching of hats and careful contemplation from the men and women who had gathered in somewhat unusual numbers in the village street. he had, further, to exchange some remarks with the wife of the lodge-keeper as they passed the park gates, and with the lodge-keeper himself, who was attending to the park road. i cannot, however, spare the time to report the progress fully. as they traversed the half-mile or so between the lodge and the house, humphreys took occasion to ask his companion some question which brought up the topic of his late uncle, and it did not take long before mr cooper was embarked upon a disquisition. 'it is singular to think, as the wife was saying just now, that you should never have seen the old gentleman. and yet--you won't misunderstand me, mr humphreys, i feel confident, when i say that in my opinion there would have been but little congeniality betwixt yourself and him. not that i have a word to say in deprecation--not a single word. i can tell you what he was,' said mr cooper, pulling up suddenly and fixing humphreys with his eye. 'can tell you what he was in a nutshell, as the saying goes. he was a complete, thorough valentudinarian. that describes him to a t. that's what he was, sir, a complete valentudinarian. no participation in what went on around him. i did venture, i think, to send you a few words of cutting from our local paper, which i took the occasion to contribute on his decease. if i recollect myself aright, such is very much the gist of them. but don't, mr humphreys,' continued cooper, tapping him impressively on the chest,--'don't you run away with the impression that i wish to say aught but what is most creditable--_most_ creditable--of your respected uncle and my late employer. upright, mr humphreys--open as the day; liberal to all in his dealings. he had the heart to feel and the hand to accommodate. but there it was: there was the stumbling-block--his unfortunate health--or, as i might more truly phrase it, his _want_ of health.' 'yes, poor man. did he suffer from any special disorder before his last illness--which, i take it, was little more than old age?' 'just that, mr humphreys--just that. the flash flickering slowly away in the pan,' said cooper, with what he considered an appropriate gesture,--'the golden bowl gradually ceasing to vibrate. but as to your other question i should return a negative answer. general absence of vitality? yes: special complaint? no, unless you reckon a nasty cough he had with him. why, here we are pretty much at the house. a handsome mansion, mr humphreys, don't you consider?' it deserved the epithet, on the whole: but it was oddly proportioned--a very tall red-brick house, with a plain parapet concealing the roof almost entirely. it gave the impression of a town house set down in the country; there was a basement, and a rather imposing flight of steps leading up to the front door. it seemed also, owing to its height, to desiderate wings, but there were none. the stables and other offices were concealed by trees. humphreys guessed its probable date as or thereabouts. the mature couple who had been engaged to act as butler and cook-housekeeper were waiting inside the front door, and opened it as their new master approached. their name, humphreys already knew, was calton; of their appearance and manner he formed a favourable impression in the few minutes' talk he had with them. it was agreed that he should go through the plate and the cellar next day with mr calton, and that mrs c. should have a talk with him about linen, bedding, and so on--what there was, and what there ought to be. then he and cooper, dismissing the caltons for the present, began their view of the house. its topography is not of importance to this story. the large rooms on the ground floor were satisfactory, especially the library, which was as large as the dining-room, and had three tall windows facing east. the bedroom prepared for humphreys was immediately above it. there were many pleasant, and a few really interesting, old pictures. none of the furniture was new, and hardly any of the books were later than the seventies. after hearing of and seeing the few changes his uncle had made in the house, and contemplating a shiny portrait of him which adorned the drawing-room, humphreys was forced to agree with cooper that in all probability there would have been little to attract him in his predecessor. it made him rather sad that he could not be sorry--_dolebat se dolere non posse_--for the man who, whether with or without some feeling of kindliness towards his unknown nephew, had contributed so much to his well-being; for he felt that wilsthorpe was a place in which he could be happy, and especially happy, it might be, in its library. and now it was time to go over the garden: the empty stables could wait, and so could the laundry. so to the garden they addressed themselves, and it was soon evident that miss cooper had been right in thinking that there were possibilities. also that mr cooper had done well in keeping on the gardener. the deceased mr wilson might not have, indeed plainly had not, been imbued with the latest views on gardening, but whatever had been done here had been done under the eye of a knowledgeable man, and the equipment and stock were excellent. cooper was delighted with the pleasure humphreys showed, and with the suggestions he let fall from time to time. 'i can see,' he said, 'that you've found your meatear here, mr humphreys: you'll make this place a regular signosier before very many seasons have passed over our heads. i wish clutterham had been here--that's the head gardener--and here he would have been of course, as i told you, but for his son's being horse doover with a fever, poor fellow! i should like him to have heard how the place strikes you.' 'yes, you told me he couldn't be here today, and i was very sorry to hear the reason, but it will be time enough tomorrow. what is that white building on the mound at the end of the grass ride? is it the temple miss cooper mentioned?' 'that it is, mr humphreys--the temple of friendship. constructed of marble brought out of italy for the purpose, by your late uncle's grandfather. would it interest you perhaps to take a turn there? you get a very sweet prospect of the park.' the general lines of the temple were those of the sibyl's temple at tivoli, helped out by a dome, only the whole was a good deal smaller. some ancient sepulchral reliefs were built into the wall, and about it all was a pleasant flavour of the grand tour. cooper produced the key, and with some difficulty opened the heavy door. inside there was a handsome ceiling, but little furniture. most of the floor was occupied by a pile of thick circular blocks of stone, each of which had a single letter deeply cut on its slightly convex upper surface. 'what is the meaning of these?' humphreys inquired. 'meaning? well, all things, we're told, have their purpose, mr humphreys, and i suppose these blocks have had theirs as well as another. but what that purpose is or was [mr cooper assumed a didactic attitude here], i, for one, should be at a loss to point out to you, sir. all i know of them--and it's summed up in a very few words--is just this: that they're stated to have been removed by your late uncle, at a period before i entered on the scene, from the maze. that, mr humphreys, is--' 'oh, the maze!' exclaimed humphreys. 'i'd forgotten that: we must have a look at it. where is it?' cooper drew him to the door of the temple, and pointed with his stick. 'guide your eye,' he said (somewhat in the manner of the second elder in handel's 'susanna'-- far to the west direct your straining eyes where yon tall holm-tree rises to the skies) 'guide your eye by my stick here, and follow out the line directly opposite to the spot where we're standing now, and i'll engage, mr humphreys, that you'll catch the archway over the entrance. you'll see it just at the end of the walk answering to the one that leads up to this very building. did you think of going there at once? because if that be the case, i must go to the house and procure the key. if you would walk on there, i'll rejoin you in a few moments' time.' accordingly humphreys strolled down the ride leading to the temple, past the garden-front of the house, and up the turfy approach to the archway which cooper had pointed out to him. he was surprised to find that the whole maze was surrounded by a high wall, and that the archway was provided with a padlocked iron gate; but then he remembered that miss cooper had spoken of his uncle's objection to letting anyone enter this part of the garden. he was now at the gate, and still cooper came not. for a few minutes he occupied himself in reading the motto cut over the entrance, _secretum meum mihi et filiis domus meae_, and in trying to recollect the source of it. then he became impatient and considered the possibility of scaling the wall. this was clearly not worth while; it might have been done if he had been wearing an older suit: or could the padlock--a very old one--be forced? no, apparently not: and yet, as he gave a final irritated kick at the gate, something gave way, and the lock fell at his feet. he pushed the gate open inconveniencing a number of nettles as he did so, and stepped into the enclosure. it was a yew maze, of circular form, and the hedges, long untrimmed, had grown out and upwards to a most unorthodox breadth and height. the walks, too, were next door to impassable. only by entirely disregarding scratches, nettle-stings, and wet, could humphreys force his way along them; but at any rate this condition of things, he reflected, would make it easier for him to find his way out again, for he left a very visible track. so far as he could remember, he had never been in a maze before, nor did it seem to him now that he had missed much. the dankness and darkness, and smell of crushed goosegrass and nettles were anything but cheerful. still, it did not seem to be a very intricate specimen of its kind. here he was (by the way, was that cooper arrived at last? no!) very nearly at the heart of it, without having taken much thought as to what path he was following. ah! there at last was the centre, easily gained. and there was something to reward him. his first impression was that the central ornament was a sundial; but when he had switched away some portion of the thick growth of brambles and bindweed that had formed over it, he saw that it was a less ordinary decoration. a stone column about four feet high, and on the top of it a metal globe--copper, to judge by the green patina--engraved, and finely engraved too, with figures in outline, and letters. that was what humphreys saw, and a brief glance at the figures convinced him that it was one of those mysterious things called celestial globes, from which, one would suppose, no one ever yet derived any information about the heavens. however, it was too dark--at least in the maze--for him to examine this curiosity at all closely, and besides, he now heard cooper's voice, and sounds as of an elephant in the jungle. humphreys called to him to follow the track he had beaten out, and soon cooper emerged panting into the central circle. he was full of apologies for his delay; he had not been able, after all, to find the key. 'but there!' he said, 'you've penetrated into the heart of the mystery unaided and unannealed, as the saying goes. well! i suppose it's a matter of thirty to forty years since any human foot has trod these precincts. certain it is that i've never set foot in them before. well, well! what's the old proverb about angels fearing to tread? it's proved true once again in this case.' humphreys' acquaintance with cooper, though it had been short, was sufficient to assure him that there was no guile in this allusion, and he forbore the obvious remark, merely suggesting that it was fully time to get back to the house for a late cup of tea, and to release cooper for his evening engagement. they left the maze accordingly, experiencing well-nigh the same ease in retracing their path as they had in coming in. 'have you any idea,' humphreys asked, as they went towards the house, 'why my uncle kept that place so carefully locked?' cooper pulled up, and humphreys felt that he must be on the brink of a revelation. 'i should merely be deceiving you, mr humphreys, and that to no good purpose, if i laid claim to possess any information whatsoever on that topic. when i first entered upon my duties here, some eighteen years back, that maze was word for word in the condition you see it now, and the one and only occasion on which the question ever arose within my knowledge was that of which my girl made mention in your hearing. lady wardrop--i've not a word to say against her--wrote applying for admission to the maze. your uncle showed me the note--a most civil note--everything that could be expected from such a quarter. "cooper," he said, "i wish you'd reply to that note on my behalf." "certainly mr wilson," i said, for i was quite inured to acting as his secretary, "what answer shall i return to it?" "well," he said, "give lady wardrop my compliments, and tell her that if ever that portion of the grounds is taken in hand i shall be happy to give her the first opportunity of viewing it, but that it has been shut up now for a number of years, and i shall be grateful to her if she kindly won't press the matter." that, mr humphreys, was your good uncle's last word on the subject, and i don't think i can add anything to it. unless,' added cooper, after a pause, 'it might be just this: that, so far as i could form a judgement, he had a dislike (as people often will for one reason or another) to the memory of his grandfather, who, as i mentioned to you, had that maze laid out. a man of peculiar teenets, mr humphreys, and a great traveller. you'll have the opportunity, on the coming sabbath, of seeing the tablet to him in our little parish church; put up it was some long time after his death.' 'oh! i should have expected a man who had such a taste for building to have designed a mausoleum for himself.' 'well, i've never noticed anything of the kind you mention; and, in fact, come to think of it, i'm not at all sure that his resting-place is within our boundaries at all: that he lays in the vault i'm pretty confident is not the case. curious now that i shouldn't be in a position to inform you on that heading! still, after all, we can't say, can we, mr humphreys, that it's a point of crucial importance where the pore mortal coils are bestowed?' at this point they entered the house, and cooper's speculations were interrupted. tea was laid in the library, where mr cooper fell upon subjects appropriate to the scene. 'a fine collection of books! one of the finest, i've understood from connoisseurs, in this part of the country; splendid plates, too, in some of these works. i recollect your uncle showing me one with views of foreign towns--most absorbing it was: got up in first-rate style. and another all done by hand, with the ink as fresh as if it had been laid on yesterday, and yet, he told me, it was the work of some old monk hundreds of years back. i've always taken a keen interest in literature myself. hardly anything to my mind can compare with a good hour's reading after a hard day's work; far better than wasting the whole evening at a friend's house--and that reminds me, to be sure. i shall be getting into trouble with the wife if i don't make the best of my way home and get ready to squander away one of these same evenings! i must be off, mr humphreys.' 'and that reminds _me_,' said humphreys, 'if i'm to show miss cooper the maze tomorrow we must have it cleared out a bit. could you say a word about that to the proper person?' 'why, to be sure. a couple of men with scythes could cut out a track tomorrow morning. i'll leave word as i pass the lodge, and i'll tell them, what'll save you the trouble, perhaps, mr humphreys, of having to go up and extract them yourself: that they'd better have some sticks or a tape to mark out their way with as they go on.' 'a very good idea! yes, do that; and i'll expect mrs and miss cooper in the afternoon, and yourself about half-past ten in the morning.' 'it'll be a pleasure, i'm sure, both to them and to myself, mr humphreys. good night!' * * * * * humphreys dined at eight. but for the fact that it was his first evening, and that calton was evidently inclined for occasional conversation, he would have finished the novel he had bought for his journey. as it was, he had to listen and reply to some of calton's impressions of the neighbourhood and the season: the latter, it appeared, was seasonable, and the former had changed considerably--and not altogether for the worse--since calton's boyhood (which had been spent there). the village shop in particular had greatly improved since the year . it was now possible to procure there pretty much anything you liked in reason: which was a conveniency, because suppose anythink was required of a suddent (and he had known such things before now), he (calton) could step down there (supposing the shop to be still open), and order it in, without he borrered it of the rectory, whereas in earlier days it would have been useless to pursue such a course in respect of anything but candles, or soap, or treacle, or perhaps a penny child's picture-book, and nine times out of ten it'd be something more in the nature of a bottle of whisky _you'd_ be requiring; leastways--on the whole humphreys thought he would be prepared with a book in future. the library was the obvious place for the after-dinner hours. candle in hand and pipe in mouth, he moved round the room for some time, taking stock of the titles of the books. he had all the predisposition to take interest in an old library, and there was every opportunity for him here to make systematic acquaintance with one, for he had learned from cooper that there was no catalogue save the very superficial one made for purposes of probate. the drawing up of a _catalogue raisonné_ would be a delicious occupation for winter. there were probably treasures to be found, too: even manuscripts, if cooper might be trusted. as he pursued his round the sense came upon him (as it does upon most of us in similar places) of the extreme unreadableness of a great portion of the collection. 'editions of classics and fathers, and picart's _religious ceremonies_, and the _harleian miscellany_, i suppose are all very well, but who is ever going to read tostatus abulensis, or pineda on job, or a book like this?' he picked out a small quarto, loose in the binding, and from which the lettered label had fallen off; and observing that coffee was waiting for him, retired to a chair. eventually he opened the book. it will be observed that his condemnation of it rested wholly on external grounds. for all he knew it might have been a collection of unique plays, but undeniably the outside was blank and forbidding. as a matter of fact, it was a collection of sermons or meditations, and mutilated at that, for the first sheet was gone. it seemed to belong to the latter end of the seventeenth century. he turned over the pages till his eye was caught by a marginal note: '_a parable of this unhappy condition_,' and he thought he would see what aptitudes the author might have for imaginative composition. 'i have heard or read,' so ran the passage, 'whether in the way of _parable_ or true _relation_ i leave my reader to judge, of a man who, like _theseus_, in the _attick tale_, should adventure himself, into a _labyrinth_ or _maze_: and such an one indeed as was not laid out in the fashion of our _topiary_ artists of this age, but of a wide compass, in which, moreover, such unknown pitfalls and snares, nay, such ill-omened inhabitants were commonly thought to lurk as could only be encountered at the hazard of one's very life. now you may be sure that in such a case the disswasions of friends were not wanting. "consider of such-an-one" says a brother "how he went the way you wot of, and was never seen more." "or of such another" says the mother "that adventured himself but a little way in, and from that day forth is so troubled in his wits that he cannot tell what he saw, nor hath passed one good night." "and have you never heard" cries a neighbour "of what faces have been seen to look out over the _palisadoes_ and betwixt the bars of the gate?" but all would not do: the man was set upon his purpose: for it seems it was the common fireside talk of that country that at the heart and centre of this _labyrinth_ there was a jewel of such price and rarity that would enrich the finder thereof for his life: and this should be his by right that could persever to come at it. what then? _quid multa?_ the adventurer pass'd the gates, and for a whole day's space his friends without had no news of him, except it might be by some indistinct cries heard afar off in the night, such as made them turn in their restless beds and sweat for very fear, not doubting but that their son and brother had put one more to the _catalogue_ of those unfortunates that had suffer'd shipwreck on that voyage. so the next day they went with weeping tears to the clark of the parish to order the bell to be toll'd. and their way took them hard by the gate of the _labyrinth_: which they would have hastened by, from the horrour they had of it, but that they caught sight of a sudden of a man's body lying in the roadway, and going up to it (with what anticipations may be easily figured) found it to be him whom they reckoned as lost: and not dead, though he were in a swound most like death. they then, who had gone forth as mourners came back rejoycing, and set to by all means to revive their prodigal. who, being come to himself, and hearing of their anxieties and their errand of that morning, "ay" says he "you may as well finish what you were about: for, for all i have brought back the jewel (which he shew'd them, and 'twas indeed a rare piece) i have brought back that with it that will leave me neither rest at night nor pleasure by day." whereupon they were instant with him to learn his meaning, and where his company should be that went so sore against his stomach. "o" says he "'tis here in my breast: i cannot flee from it, do what i may." so it needed no wizard to help them to a guess that it was the recollection of what he had seen that troubled him so wonderfully. but they could get no more of him for a long time but by fits and starts. however at long and at last they made shift to collect somewhat of this kind: that at first, while the sun was bright, he went merrily on, and without any difficulty reached the heart of the _labyrinth_ and got the jewel, and so set out on his way back rejoycing: but as the night fell, _wherein all the beasts of the forest do move_, he begun to be sensible of some creature keeping pace with him and, as he thought, _peering and looking upon him_ from the next alley to that he was in; and that when he should stop, this companion should stop also, which put him in some disorder of his spirits. and, indeed, as the darkness increas'd, it seemed to him that there was more than one, and, it might be, even a whole band of such followers: at least so he judg'd by the rustling and cracking that they kept among the thickets; besides that there would be at a time a sound of whispering, which seem'd to import a conference among them. but in regard of who they were or what form they were of, he would not be persuaded to say what he thought. upon his hearers asking him what the cries were which they heard in the night (as was observ'd above) he gave them this account: that about midnight (so far as he could judge) he heard his name call'd from a long way off, and he would have been sworn it was his brother that so call'd him. so he stood still and hilloo'd at the pitch of his voice, and he suppos'd that the _echo_, or the noyse of his shouting, disguis'd for the moment any lesser sound; because, when there fell a stillness again, he distinguish'd a trampling (not loud) of running feet coming very close behind him, wherewith he was so daunted that himself set off to run, and that he continued till the dawn broke. sometimes when his breath fail'd him, he would cast himself flat on his face, and hope that his pursuers might over-run him in the darkness, but at such a time they would regularly make a pause, and he could hear them pant and snuff as it had been a hound at fault: which wrought in him so extream an horrour of mind, that he would be forc'd to betake himself again to turning and doubling, if by any means he might throw them off the scent. and, as if this exertion was in itself not terrible enough, he had before him the constant fear of falling into some pit or trap, of which he had heard, and indeed seen with his own eyes that there were several, some at the sides and other in the midst of the alleys. so that in fine (he said) a more dreadful night was never spent by mortal creature than that he had endur'd in that _labyrinth_; and not that jewel which he had in his wallet, nor the richest that was ever brought out of the _indies_, could be a sufficient recompence to him for the pains he had suffered. 'i will spare to set down the further recital of this man's troubles, inasmuch as i am confident my reader's intelligence will hit the _parallel_ i desire to draw. for is not this jewel a just emblem of the satisfaction which a man may bring back with him from a course of this world's pleasures? and will not the _labyrinth_ serve for an image of the world itself wherein such a treasure (if we may believe the common voice) is stored up?' at about this point humphreys thought that a little patience would be an agreeable change, and that the writer's 'improvement' of his parable might be left to itself. so he put the book back in its former place, wondering as he did so whether his uncle had ever stumbled across that passage; and if so, whether it had worked on his fancy so much as to make him dislike the idea of a maze, and determine to shut up the one in the garden. not long afterwards he went to bed. the next day brought a morning's hard work with mr cooper, who, if exuberant in language, had the business of the estate at his fingers' ends. he was very breezy this morning, mr cooper was: had not forgotten the order to clear out the maze--the work was going on at that moment: his girl was on the tentacles of expectation about it. he also hoped that humphreys had slept the sleep of the just, and that we should be favoured with a continuance of this congenial weather. at luncheon he enlarged on the pictures in the dining-room, and pointed out the portrait of the constructor of the temple and the maze. humphreys examined this with considerable interest. it was the work of an italian, and had been painted when old mr wilson was visiting rome as a young man. (there was, indeed, a view of the colosseum in the background.) a pale thin face and large eyes were the characteristic features. in the hand was a partially unfolded roll of paper, on which could be distinguished the plan of a circular building, very probably the temple, and also part of that of a labyrinth. humphreys got up on a chair to examine it, but it was not painted with sufficient clearness to be worth copying. it suggested to him, however, that he might as well make a plan of his own maze and hang it in the hall for the use of visitors. this determination of his was confirmed that same afternoon; for when mrs and miss cooper arrived, eager to be inducted into the maze, he found that he was wholly unable to lead them to the centre. the gardeners had removed the guide-marks they had been using, and even clutterham, when summoned to assist, was as helpless as the rest. 'the point is, you see, mr wilson--i should say 'umphreys--these mazes is purposely constructed so much alike, with a view to mislead. still, if you'll foller me, i think i can put you right. i'll just put my 'at down 'ere as a starting-point.' he stumped off, and after five minutes brought the party safe to the hat again. 'now that's a very peculiar thing,' he said, with a sheepish laugh. 'i made sure i'd left that 'at just over against a bramble-bush, and you can see for yourself there ain't no bramble-bush not in this walk at all. if you'll allow me, mr humphreys--that's the name, ain't it, sir?--i'll just call one of the men in to mark the place like.' william crack arrived, in answer to repeated shouts. he had some difficulty in making his way to the party. first he was seen or heard in an inside alley, then, almost at the same moment, in an outer one. however, he joined them at last, and was first consulted without effect and then stationed by the hat, which clutterham still considered it necessary to leave on the ground. in spite of this strategy, they spent the best part of three-quarters of an hour in quite fruitless wanderings, and humphreys was obliged at last, seeing how tired mrs cooper was becoming, to suggest a retreat to tea, with profuse apologies to miss cooper. 'at any rate you've won your bet with miss foster,' he said; 'you have been inside the maze; and i promise you the first thing i do shall be to make a proper plan of it with the lines marked out for you to go by.' 'that's what's wanted, sir,' said clutterham, 'someone to draw out a plan and keep it by them. it might be very awkward, you see, anyone getting into that place and a shower of rain come on, and them not able to find their way out again; it might be hours before they could be got out, without you'd permit of me makin' a short cut to the middle: what my meanin' is, takin' down a couple of trees in each 'edge in a straight line so as you could git a clear view right through. of course that'd do away with it as a maze, but i don't know as you'd approve of that.' 'no, i won't have that done yet: i'll make a plan first, and let you have a copy. later on, if we find occasion, i'll think of what you say.' humphreys was vexed and ashamed at the fiasco of the afternoon, and could not be satisfied without making another effort that evening to reach the centre of the maze. his irritation was increased by finding it without a single false step. he had thoughts of beginning his plan at once; but the light was fading, and he felt that by the time he had got the necessary materials together, work would be impossible. next morning accordingly, carrying a drawing-board, pencils, compasses, cartridge paper, and so forth (some of which had been borrowed from the coopers and some found in the library cupboards), he went to the middle of the maze (again without any hesitation), and set out his materials. he was, however, delayed in making a start. the brambles and weeds that had obscured the column and globe were now all cleared away, and it was for the first time possible to see clearly what these were like. the column was featureless, resembling those on which sundials are usually placed. not so the globe. i have said that it was finely engraved with figures and inscriptions, and that on a first glance humphreys had taken it for a celestial globe: but he soon found that it did not answer to his recollection of such things. one feature seemed familiar; a winged serpent--_draco_--encircled it about the place which, on a terrestrial globe, is occupied by the equator: but on the other hand, a good part of the upper hemisphere was covered by the outspread wings of a large figure whose head was concealed by a ring at the pole or summit of the whole. around the place of the head the words _princeps tenebrarum_ could be deciphered. in the lower hemisphere there was a space hatched all over with cross-lines and marked as _umbra mortis_. near it was a range of mountains, and among them a valley with flames rising from it. this was lettered (will you be surprised to learn it?) _vallis filiorum hinnom_. above and below _draco_ were outlined various figures not unlike the pictures of the ordinary constellations, but not the same. thus, a nude man with a raised club was described, not as _hercules_ but as _cain_. another, plunged up to his middle in earth and stretching out despairing arms, was _chore_, not _ophiuchus_, and a third, hung by his hair to a snaky tree, was _absolon_. near the last, a man in long robes and high cap, standing in a circle and addressing two shaggy demons who hovered outside, was described as _hostanes magus_ (a character unfamiliar to humphreys). the scheme of the whole, indeed, seemed to be an assemblage of the patriarchs of evil, perhaps not uninfluenced by a study of dante. humphreys thought it an unusual exhibition of his great-grandfather's taste, but reflected that he had probably picked it up in italy and had never taken the trouble to examine it closely: certainly, had he set much store by it, he would not have exposed it to wind and weather. he tapped the metal--it seemed hollow and not very thick--and, turning from it, addressed himself to his plan. after half an hour's work he found it was impossible to get on without using a clue: so he procured a roll of twine from clutterham, and laid it out along the alleys from the entrance to the centre, tying the end to the ring at the top of the globe. this expedient helped him to set out a rough plan before luncheon, and in the afternoon he was able to draw it in more neatly. towards tea-time mr cooper joined him, and was much interested in his progress. 'now this--' said mr cooper, laying his hand on the globe, and then drawing it away hastily. 'whew! holds the heat, doesn't it, to a surprising degree, mr humphreys. i suppose this metal--copper, isn't it?--would be an insulator or conductor, or whatever they call it.' 'the sun has been pretty strong this afternoon,' said humphreys, evading the scientific point, 'but i didn't notice the globe had got hot. no--it doesn't seem very hot to me,' he added. 'odd!' said mr cooper. 'now i can't hardly bear my hand on it. something in the difference of temperament between us, i suppose. i dare say you're a chilly subject, mr humphreys: i'm not: and there's where the distinction lies. all this summer i've slept, if you'll believe me, practically _in statu quo_, and had my morning tub as cold as i could get it. day out and day in--let me assist you with that string.' 'it's all right, thanks; but if you'll collect some of these pencils and things that are lying about i shall be much obliged. now i think we've got everything, and we might get back to the house.' they left the maze, humphreys rolling up the clue as they went. the night was rainy. most unfortunately it turned out that, whether by cooper's fault or not, the plan had been the one thing forgotten the evening before. as was to be expected, it was ruined by the wet. there was nothing for it but to begin again (the job would not be a long one this time). the clue therefore was put in place once more and a fresh start made. but humphreys had not done much before an interruption came in the shape of calton with a telegram. his late chief in london wanted to consult him. only a brief interview was wanted, but the summons was urgent. this was annoying, yet it was not really upsetting; there was a train available in half an hour, and, unless things went very cross, he could be back, possibly by five o'clock, certainly by eight. he gave the plan to calton to take to the house, but it was not worth while to remove the clue. all went as he had hoped. he spent a rather exciting evening in the library, for he lighted tonight upon a cupboard where some of the rarer books were kept. when he went up to bed he was glad to find that the servant had remembered to leave his curtains undrawn and his windows open. he put down his light, and went to the window which commanded a view of the garden and the park. it was a brilliant moonlight night. in a few weeks' time the sonorous winds of autumn would break up all this calm. but now the distant woods were in a deep stillness; the slopes of the lawns were shining with dew; the colours of some of the flowers could almost be guessed. the light of the moon just caught the cornice of the temple and the curve of its leaden dome, and humphreys had to own that, so seen, these conceits of a past age have a real beauty. in short, the light, the perfume of the woods, and the absolute quiet called up such kind old associations in his mind that he went on ruminating them for a long, long time. as he turned from the window he felt he had never seen anything more complete of its sort. the one feature that struck him with a sense of incongruity was a small irish yew, thin and black, which stood out like an outpost of the shrubbery, through which the maze was approached. that, he thought, might as well be away: the wonder was that anyone should have thought it would look well in that position. * * * * * however, next morning, in the press of answering letters and going over books with mr cooper, the irish yew was forgotten. one letter, by the way, arrived this day which has to be mentioned. it was from that lady wardrop whom miss cooper had mentioned, and it renewed the application which she had addressed to mr wilson. she pleaded, in the first place, that she was about to publish a book of mazes, and earnestly desired to include the plan of the wilsthorpe maze, and also that it would be a great kindness if mr humphreys could let her see it (if at all) at an early date, since she would soon have to go abroad for the winter months. her house at bentley was not far distant, so humphreys was able to send a note by hand to her suggesting the very next day or the day after for her visit; it may be said at once that the messenger brought back a most grateful answer, to the effect that the morrow would suit her admirably. the only other event of the day was that the plan of the maze was successfully finished. this night again was fair and brilliant and calm, and humphreys lingered almost as long at his window. the irish yew came to his mind again as he was on the point of drawing his curtains: but either he had been misled by a shadow the night before, or else the shrub was not really so obtrusive as he had fancied. anyhow, he saw no reason for interfering with it. what he _would_ do away with, however, was a clump of dark growth which had usurped a place against the house wall, and was threatening to obscure one of the lower range of windows. it did not look as if it could possibly be worth keeping; he fancied it dank and unhealthy, little as he could see of it. next day (it was a friday--he had arrived at wilsthorpe on a monday) lady wardrop came over in her car soon after luncheon. she was a stout elderly person, very full of talk of all sorts and particularly inclined to make herself agreeable to humphreys, who had gratified her very much by his ready granting of her request. they made a thorough exploration of the place together; and lady wardrop's opinion of her host obviously rose sky-high when she found that he really knew something of gardening. she entered enthusiastically into all his plans for improvement, but agreed that it would be a vandalism to interfere with the characteristic laying-out of the ground near the house. with the temple she was particularly delighted, and, said she, 'do you know, mr humphreys, i think your bailiff must be right about those lettered blocks of stone. one of my mazes--i'm sorry to say the stupid people have destroyed it now--it was at a place in hampshire--had the track marked out in that way. they were tiles there, but lettered just like yours, and the letters, taken in the right order, formed an inscription--what it was i forget--something about theseus and ariadne. i have a copy of it, as well as the plan of the maze where it was. how people can do such things! i shall never forgive you if you injure _your_ maze. do you know, they're becoming very uncommon? almost every year i hear of one being grubbed up. now, do let's get straight to it: or, if you're too busy, i know my way there perfectly, and i'm not afraid of getting lost in it; i know too much about mazes for that. though i remember missing my lunch--not so very long ago either--through getting entangled in the one at busbury. well, of course, if you _can_ manage to come with me, that will be all the nicer.' after this confident prelude justice would seem to require that lady wardrop should have been hopelessly muddled by the wilsthorpe maze. nothing of that kind happened: yet it is to be doubted whether she got all the enjoyment from her new specimen that she expected. she was interested--keenly interested--to be sure, and pointed out to humphreys a series of little depressions in the ground which, she thought, marked the places of the lettered blocks. she told him, too, what other mazes resembled his most closely in arrangement, and explained how it was usually possible to date a maze to within twenty years by means of its plan. this one, she already knew, must be about as old as , and its features were just what might be expected. the globe, furthermore, completely absorbed her. it was unique in her experience, and she pored over it for long. 'i should like a rubbing of that,' she said, 'if it could possibly be made. yes, i am sure you would be most kind about it, mr humphreys, but i trust you won't attempt it on my account, i do indeed; i shouldn't like to take any liberties here. i have the feeling that it might be resented. now, confess,' she went on, turning and facing humphreys, 'don't you feel--haven't you felt ever since you came in here--that a watch is being kept on us, and that if we overstepped the mark in any way there would be a--well, a pounce? no? _i_ do; and i don't care how soon we are outside the gate.' 'after all,' she said, when they were once more on their way to the house, 'it may have been only the airlessness and the dull heat of that place that pressed on my brain. still, i'll take back one thing i said. i'm not sure that i shan't forgive you after all, if i find next spring that that maze has been grubbed up.' 'whether or no that's done, you shall have the plan, lady wardrop. i have made one, and no later than tonight i can trace you a copy.' 'admirable: a pencil tracing will be all i want, with an indication of the scale. i can easily have it brought into line with the rest of my plates. many, many thanks.' 'very well, you shall have that tomorrow. i wish you could help me to a solution of my block-puzzle.' 'what, those stones in the summer-house? that _is_ a puzzle; they are in no sort of order? of course not. but the men who put them down must have had some directions--perhaps you'll find a paper about it among your uncle's things. if not, you'll have to call in somebody who's an expert in ciphers.' 'advise me about something else, please,' said humphreys. 'that bush-thing under the library window: you would have that away, wouldn't you?' 'which? that? oh, i think not,' said lady wardrop. 'i can't see it very well from this distance, but it's not unsightly.' 'perhaps you're right; only, looking out of my window, just above it, last night, i thought it took up too much room. it doesn't seem to, as one sees it from here, certainly. very well, i'll leave it alone for a bit.' tea was the next business, soon after which lady wardrop drove off; but, half-way down the drive, she stopped the car and beckoned to humphreys, who was still on the front-door steps. he ran to glean her parting words, which were: 'it just occurs to me, it might be worth your while to look at the underside of those stones. they _must_ have been numbered, mustn't they? _good_-bye again. home, please.' * * * * * the main occupation of this evening at any rate was settled. the tracing of the plan for lady wardrop and the careful collation of it with the original meant a couple of hours' work at least. accordingly, soon after nine humphreys had his materials put out in the library and began. it was a still, stuffy evening; windows had to stand open, and he had more than one grisly encounter with a bat. these unnerving episodes made him keep the tail of his eye on the window. once or twice it was a question whether there was--not a bat, but something more considerable--that had a mind to join him. how unpleasant it would be if someone had slipped noiselessly over the sill and was crouching on the floor! the tracing of the plan was done: it remained to compare it with the original, and to see whether any paths had been wrongly closed or left open. with one finger on each paper, he traced out the course that must be followed from the entrance. there were one or two slight mistakes, but here, near the centre, was a bad confusion, probably due to the entry of the second or third bat. before correcting the copy he followed out carefully the last turnings of the path on the original. these, at least, were right; they led without a hitch to the middle space. here was a feature which need not be repeated on the copy--an ugly black spot about the size of a shilling. ink? no. it resembled a hole, but how should a hole be there? he stared at it with tired eyes: the work of tracing had been very laborious, and he was drowsy and oppressed... but surely this was a very odd hole. it seemed to go not only through the paper, but through the table on which it lay. yes, and through the floor below that, down, and still down, even into infinite depths. he craned over it, utterly bewildered. just as, when you were a child, you may have pored over a square inch of counterpane until it became a landscape with wooded hills, and perhaps even churches and houses, and you lost all thought of the true size of yourself and it, so this hole seemed to humphreys for the moment the only thing in the world. for some reason it was hateful to him from the first, but he had gazed at it for some moments before any feeling of anxiety came upon him; and then it did come, stronger and stronger--a horror lest something might emerge from it, and a really agonizing conviction that a terror was on its way, from the sight of which he would not be able to escape. oh yes, far, far down there was a movement, and the movement was upwards--towards the surface. nearer and nearer it came, and it was of a blackish-grey colour with more than one dark hole. it took shape as a face--a human face--a _burnt_ human face: and with the odious writhings of a wasp creeping out of a rotten apple there clambered forth an appearance of a form, waving black arms prepared to clasp the head that was bending over them. with a convulsion of despair humphreys threw himself back, struck his head against a hanging lamp, and fell. there was concussion of the brain, shock to the system, and a long confinement to bed. the doctor was badly puzzled, not by the symptoms, but by a request which humphreys made to him as soon as he was able to say anything. 'i wish you would open the ball in the maze.' 'hardly room enough there, i should have thought,' was the best answer he could summon up; 'but it's more in your way than mine; my dancing days are over.' at which humphreys muttered and turned over to sleep, and the doctor intimated to the nurses that the patient was not out of the wood yet. when he was better able to express his views, humphreys made his meaning clear, and received a promise that the thing should be done at once. he was so anxious to learn the result that the doctor, who seemed a little pensive next morning, saw that more harm than good would be done by saving up his report. 'well,' he said, 'i am afraid the ball is done for; the metal must have worn thin, i suppose. anyhow, it went all to bits with the first blow of the chisel.' 'well? go on, do!' said humphreys impatiently. 'oh! you want to know what we found in it, of course. well, it was half full of stuff like ashes.' 'ashes? what did you make of them?' 'i haven't thoroughly examined them yet; there's hardly been time: but cooper's made up his mind--i dare say from something i said--that it's a case of cremation... now don't excite yourself, my good sir: yes, i must allow i think he's probably right.' the maze is gone, and lady wardrop has forgiven humphreys; in fact, i believe he married her niece. she was right, too, in her conjecture that the stones in the temple were numbered. there had been a numeral painted on the bottom of each. some few of these had rubbed off, but enough remained to enable humphreys to reconstruct the inscription. it ran thus: penetrans ad interiora mortis grateful as humphreys was to the memory of his uncle, he could not quite forgive him for having burnt the journals and letters of the james wilson who had gifted wilsthorpe with the maze and the temple. as to the circumstances of that ancestor's death and burial no tradition survived; but his will, which was almost the only record of him accessible, assigned an unusually generous legacy to a servant who bore an italian name. mr cooper's view is that, humanly speaking, all these many solemn events have a meaning for us, if our limited intelligence permitted of our disintegrating it, while mr calton has been reminded of an aunt now gone from us, who, about the year , had been lost for upwards of an hour and a half in the maze at covent gardens, or it might be hampton court. one of the oddest things in the whole series of transactions is that the book which contained the parable has entirely disappeared. humphreys has never been able to find it since he copied out the passage to send to lady wardrop. carnacki, the ghost finder by william hope hodgson , no. --the gateway of the monster in response to carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, i arrived promptly at , cheyne walk, to find the three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there before me. five minutes later, carnacki, arkright, jessop, taylor, and i were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining. "you've not been long away, this time," i remarked, as i finished my soup; forgetting momentarily carnacki's dislike of being asked even to skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. then he would not stint words. "that's all," he replied, with brevity; and i changed the subject, remarking that i had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which i think showed a genuinely good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation. later, when dinner was finished, carnacki snugged himself comfortably down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with very little circumlocution:-- "as dodgson was remarking just now, i've only been away a short time, and for a very good reason too--i've only been away a short distance. the exact locality i am afraid i must not tell you; but it is less than twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won't spoil the story. and it is a story too! one of the most extraordinary things ever i have run against. "i received a letter a fortnight ago from a man i must call anderson, asking for an appointment. i arranged a time, and when he came, i found that he wished me to investigate and see whether i could not clear up a long-standing and well--too well--authenticated case of what he termed 'haunting.' he gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the case seemed to present something unique, i decided to take it up. "two days later, i drove to the house late in the afternoon. i found it a very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. anderson had left a letter with the butler, i found, pleading excuses for his absence, and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. the butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and i questioned him pretty thoroughly during dinner, which i had in rather lonely state. he is an old and privileged servant, and had the history of the grey room exact in detail. from him i learned more particulars regarding two things that anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. the first was that the door of the grey room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the key on the bunch in his pantry. the second was that the bedclothes would always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner. "but it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. many and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time after time--thud! thud! thud!--so that sleep was impossible. "from anderson, i knew already that the room had a history extending back over a hundred and fifty years. three people had been strangled in it--an ancestor of his and his wife and child. this is authentic, as i had taken very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a feeling i had a striking case to investigate that i went upstairs after dinner to have a look at the grey room. "peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no one had ever entered that room after nightfall. he begged me, in quite a fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger, and then he could accompany me himself. "of course, i smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. i explained that i should do no more than look 'round a bit, and, perhaps, affix a few seals. he need not fear; i was used to that sort of thing. but he shook his head when i said that. "'there isn't many ghosts like ours, sir,' he assured me, with mournful pride. and, by jove! he was right, as you will see. "i took a couple of candles, and peter followed with his bunch of keys. he unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me. he was evidently in a fright, and he renewed his request that i would put off my examination until daylight. of course, i laughed at him again, and told him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out. "'it never comes outside, sir,' he said, in his funny, old, solemn manner. somehow, he managed to make me feel as if i were going to have the 'creeps' right away. anyway, it was one to him, you know. "i left him there, and examined the room. it is a big apartment, and well furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with its head to the end wall. there were two candles on the mantelpiece, and two on each of the three tables that were in the room. i lit the lot, and after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way. "after i had taken a good look 'round, i sealed lengths of baby ribbon across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the fireplace and the wall closets. all the time, as i worked, the butler stood just without the door, and i could not persuade him to enter; though i jested him a little, as i stretched the ribbons, and went here and there about my work. every now and again, he would say:--'you'll excuse me, i'm sure, sir; but i do wish you would come out, sir. i'm fair in a quake for you.' "i told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what he considered his duty. he said he could not go away and leave me all alone there. he apologized; but made it very clear that i did not realize the danger of the room; and i could see, generally, that he was in a pretty frightened state. all the same, i had to make the room so that i should know if anything material entered it; so i asked him not to bother me, unless he really heard or saw something. he was beginning to get on my nerves, and the 'feel' of the room was bad enough, without making it any nastier. "for a time further, i worked, stretching ribbons across the floor, and sealing them, so that the merest touch would have broken them, were anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of playing the fool. all this had taken me far longer than i had anticipated; and, suddenly, i heard a clock strike eleven. i had taken off my coat soon after commencing work; now, however, as i had practically made an end of all that i intended to do, i walked across to the settee, and picked it up. i was in the act of getting into it, when the old butler's voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came sharp and frightened:--'come out, sir, quick! there's something going to happen!' jove! but i jumped, and then, in the same moment, one of the candles on the table to the left went out. now whether it was the wind, or what, i do not know; but, just for a moment, i was enough startled to make a run for the door; though i am glad to say that i pulled up, before i reached it. i simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing there, after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on 'bein' brave, y'know.' so i just turned right 'round, picked up the two candles off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. well, i saw nothing. i blew out the candle that was still alight; then i went to those on the two tables, and blew them out. then, outside of the door, the old man called again:--'oh! sir, do be told! do be told!' "'all right, peter,' i said, and by jove, my voice was not as steady as i should have liked! i made for the door, and had a bit of work not to start running. i took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine. near the door, i had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the room. it was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little. i got to the door, and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of instinctive way. 'collar the candles, peter!' i said, pretty sharply, and shoved them into his hands. i turned, and caught the handle, and slammed the door shut, with a crash. somehow, do you know, as i did so, i thought i felt something pull back on it; but it must have been only fancy. i turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the door. i felt easier then, and set-to and sealed the door. in addition, i put my card over the keyhole, and sealed it there; after which i pocketed the key, and went downstairs--with peter; who was nervous and silent, leading the way. poor old beggar! it had not struck me until that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the last two or three hours. "about midnight, i went to bed. my room lay at the end of the corridor upon which opens the door of the grey room. i counted the doors between it and mine, and found that five rooms lay between. and i am sure you can understand that i was not sorry. then, just as i was beginning to undress, an idea came to me, and i took my candle and sealing wax, and sealed the doors of all five rooms. if any door slammed in the night, i should know just which one. "i returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. i was waked suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage. i sat up in bed, and listened, but heard nothing. then i lit my candle. i was in the very act of lighting it when there came the bang of a door being violently slammed, along the corridor. i jumped out of bed, and got my revolver. i unlocked the door, and went out into the passage, holding my candle high, and keeping the pistol ready. then a queer thing happened. i could not go a step toward the grey room. you all know i am not really a cowardly chap. i've gone into too many cases connected with ghostly things, to be accused of that; but i tell you i funked it; simply funked it, just like any blessed kid. there was something precious unholy in the air that night. i ran back into my bedroom, and shut and locked the door. then i sat on the bed all night, and listened to the dismal thudding of a door up the corridor. the sound seemed to echo through all the house. "daylight came at last, and i washed and dressed. the door had not slammed for about an hour, and i was getting back my nerve again. i felt ashamed of myself; though, in some ways it was silly; for when you're meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go, sometimes. and you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight. sometimes it is more than just cowardice, i fancy. i believe at times it is something warning you, and fighting _for_ you. but, all the same, i always feel mean and miserable, after a time like that. "when the day came properly, i opened my door, and, keeping my revolver handy, went quietly along the passage. i had to pass the head of the stairs, along the way, and who should i see coming up, but the old butler, carrying a cup of coffee. he had merely tucked his nightshirt into his trousers, and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on. "'hullo, peter!' i said, feeling suddenly cheerful; for i was as glad as any lost child to have a live human being close to me. 'where are you off to with the refreshments?' "the old man gave a start, and slopped some of the coffee. he stared up at me, and i could see that he looked white and done-up. he came on up the stairs, and held out the little tray to me. 'i'm very thankful indeed, sir, to see you safe and well,' he said. 'i feared, one time, you might risk going into the grey room, sir. i've lain awake all night, with the sound of the door. and when it came light, i thought i'd make you a cup of coffee. i knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it seems safer if there's two, sir.' "'peter,' i said, 'you're a brick. this is very thoughtful of you.' and i drank the coffee. 'come along,' i told him, and handed him back the tray. 'i'm going to have a look at what the brutes have been up to. i simply hadn't the pluck to in the night.' "'i'm very thankful, sir,' he replied. 'flesh and blood can do nothing, sir, against devils; and that's what's in the grey room after dark.' "i examined the seals on all the doors, as i went along, and found them right; but when i got to the grey room, the seal was broken; though the card, over the keyhole, was untouched. i ripped it off, and unlocked the door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light. i examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. the old butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out:--'the bedclothes, sir!' "i ran up to the bed, and looked over; and, surely, they were lying in the corner to the left of the bed. jove! you can imagine how queer i felt. something _had_ been in the room. i stared for a while, from the bed, to the clothes on the floor. i had a feeling that i did not want to touch either. old peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. he went over to the bed coverings, and was going to pick them up, as, doubtless, he had done every day these twenty years back; but i stopped him. i wanted nothing touched, until i had finished my examination. this, i must have spent a full hour over, and then i let peter straighten up the bed; after which we went out, and i locked the door; for the room was getting on my nerves. "i had a short walk, and then breakfast; after which i felt more my own man, and so returned to the grey room, and, with peter's help, and one of the maids, i had everything taken out of the room, except the bed--even the very pictures. i examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. and i can assure you, i began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible thing had been loose in the room during the past night. i sealed up everything again, and went out, locking and sealing the door, as before. "after dinner, peter and i unpacked some of my stuff, and i fixed up my camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the grey room, with a string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. then, you see, if the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. the last thing i did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens; and after that i went off to my bedroom, and to bed; for i intended to be up at midnight; and to ensure this, i set my little alarm to call me; also i left my candle burning. "the clock woke me at twelve, and i got up and into my dressing gown and slippers. i shoved my revolver into my right side-pocket, and opened my door. then, i lit my darkroom lamp, and withdrew the slide, so that it would give a clear light. i carried it up the corridor, about thirty feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so that it would show me anything that might approach along the dark passage. then i went back, and sat in the doorway of my room, with my revolver handy, staring up the passage toward the place where i knew my camera stood outside the door of the grey room. "i should think i had watched for about an hour and a half, when, suddenly, i heard a faint noise, away up the corridor. i was immediately conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and my hands began to sweat a little. the following instant, the whole end of the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight. there came the succeeding darkness, and i peered nervously up the corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... and then, as i stooped forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door of the grey room. the sound seemed to fill the whole of the large corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. i tell you, i felt horrible--as if my bones were water. simply beastly. jove! how i did stare, and how i listened. and then it came again--thud, thud, thud, and then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for i kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the corridor. and then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and i could not see a yard before me. i realized all at once that i was doing a very silly thing, sitting there, and i jumped up. even as i did so, i _thought_ i heard a sound in the passage, and quite _near_ me. i made one backward spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. i sat on my bed, and stared at the door. i had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an abominably useless thing. i felt that there was something the other side of that door. for some unknown reason i _knew_ it was pressed up against the door, and it was soft. that was just what i thought. most extraordinary thing to think. "presently i got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there i sat in it almost until dawn. and all the time, away up the corridor, the door of the grey room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. it was a miserable, brutal night. "when the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to an end, and, at last, i got hold of my courage, and went along the corridor in the half light to cap the lens of my camera. i can tell you, it took some doing; but if i had not done so my photograph would have been spoilt, and i was tremendously keen to save it. i got back to my room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which i had been sitting. "half an hour later there was a tap at my door. it was peter with my coffee. when i had drunk it, we both went along to the grey room. as we went, i had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were untouched. the seal on the door of the grey room was broken, as also was the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the keyhole was still there. i ripped it off, and opened the door. nothing unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then i saw that, as on the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the left-hand corner, exactly where i had seen them before. i felt very queer; but i did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that not one had been broken. "then i turned and looked at old peter, and he looked at me, nodding his head. "'let's get out of here!' i said. 'it's no place for any living human to enter, without proper protection.' "we went out then, and i locked and sealed the door, again. "after breakfast, i developed the negative; but it showed only the door of the grey room, half opened. then i left the house, as i wanted to get certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps to the spirit; for i intended to spend the coming night in the grey room. "i got back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this, peter and i carried up to the grey room, where i piled it carefully in the center of the floor. when everything was in the room, including a cat which i had brought, i locked and sealed the door, and went toward the bedroom, telling peter i should not be down for dinner. he said, 'yes, sir,' and went downstairs, thinking that i was going to turn in, which was what i wanted him to believe, as i knew he would have worried both me and himself, if he had known what i intended. "but i merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and hurried back to the grey room. i locked and sealed myself in, and set to work, for i had a lot to do before it got dark. "first, i cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then i carried the cat--still fastened in its basket--over toward the far wall, and left it. i returned then to the center of the room, and measured out a space twenty-one feet in diameter, which i swept with a 'broom of hyssop.' about this, i drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the circle. beyond this i smudged, with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right around the chalked circle, and when this was complete, i took from among my stores in the center a small jar of a certain water. i broke away the parchment, and withdrew the stopper. then, dipping my left forefinger in the little jar, i went 'round the circle again, making upon the floor, just within the line of chalk, the second sign of the saaamaaa ritual, and joining each sign most carefully with the left-handed crescent. i can tell you, i felt easier when this was done, and the 'water circle' complete. then, i unpacked some more of the stuff that i had brought, and placed a lighted candle in the 'valley' of each crescent. after that, i drew a pentacle, so that each of the five points of the defensive star touched the chalk circle. in the five points of the star i placed five portions of the bread, each wrapped in linen, and in the five 'vales,' five opened jars of the water i had used to make the 'water circle.' and now i had my first protective barrier complete. "now, anyone, except you who know something of my methods of investigation, might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish superstition; but you all remember the black veil case, in which i believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection, whilst aster, who sneered at it, and would not come inside, died. i got the idea from the sigsand ms., written, so far as i can make out, in the th century. at first, naturally, i imagined it was just an expression of the superstition of his time; and it was not until a year later that it occurred to me to test his 'defense,' which i did, as i've just said, in that horrible black veil business. you know how _that_ turned out. later, i used it several times, and always i came through safe, until that moving fur case. it was only a partial 'defense' therefore, and i nearly died in the pentacle. after that i came across professor garder's 'experiments with a medium.' when they surrounded the medium with a current, in vacuum, he lost his power--almost as if it cut him off from the immaterial. that made me think a lot; and that is how i came to make the electric pentacle, which is a most marvelous 'defense' against certain manifestations. i used the shape of the defensive star for this protection, because i have, personally, no doubt at all but that there is some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. curious thing for a twentieth century man to admit, is it not? but, then, as you all know, i never did, and never will, allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap laughter. i ask questions, and keep my eyes open. "in this last case i had little doubt that i had run up against a supernatural monster, and i meant to take every possible care; for the danger is abominable. "i turned-to now to fit the electric pentacle, setting it so that each of its 'points' and 'vales' coincided exactly with the 'points' and 'vales' of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. then i connected up the battery, and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum tubes shone out. "i glanced about me then, with something of a sigh of relief, and realized suddenly that the dusk was upon me, for the window was grey and unfriendly. then 'round at the big, empty room, over the double barrier of electric and candle light. i had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of weirdness thrust upon me--in the air, you know; as it were, a sense of something inhuman impending. the room was full of the stench of bruised garlic, a smell i hate. "i turned now to the camera, and saw that it and the flashlight were in order. then i tested my revolver, carefully, though i had little thought that it would be needed. yet, to what extent materialization of an ab-natural creature is possible, given favorable conditions, no one can say; and i had no idea what horrible thing i was going to see, or feel the presence of. i might, in the end, have to fight with a materialized monster. i did not know, and could only be prepared. you see, i never forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me, and the fierce slamming of the door i had heard myself. i had no doubt that i was investigating a dangerous and ugly case. "by this time, the night had come; though the room was very light with the burning candles; and i found myself glancing behind me, constantly, and then all 'round the room. it was nervy work waiting for that thing to come. then, suddenly, i was aware of a little, cold wind sweeping over me, coming from behind. i gave one great nerve-thrill, and a prickly feeling went all over the back of my head. then i hove myself 'round with a sort of stiff jerk, and stared straight against that queer wind. it seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed--the place where both times i had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. yet, i could see nothing unusual; no opening--nothing!... "abruptly, i was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that unnatural wind.... i believe i just squatted there and stared in a horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. i shall never be able to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile, cold wind! and then, flick! flick! flick! all the candles 'round the outer barrier went out; and there was i, locked and sealed in that room, and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the electric pentacle. "a time of abominable tenseness passed, and still that wind blew upon me; and then, suddenly, i knew that something stirred in the corner to the left of the bed. i was made conscious of it, rather by some inward, unused sense than by either sight or sound; for the pale, short-radius glare of the pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. yet, as i stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight--a moving shadow, a little darker than the surrounding shadows. i lost the thing amid the vagueness, and for a moment or two i glanced swiftly from side to side, with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. then my attention was directed to the bed. all the covering's were being drawn steadily off, with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. i heard the slow, dragging slither of the clothes; but i could see nothing of the thing that pulled. i was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the 'creep' had come upon me; yet that i was cooler mentally than i had been for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating coldly, and to shift my revolver, half-consciously, whilst i rubbed my right hand dry upon my knee; though never, for an instant, taking my gaze or my attention from those moving clothes. "the faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. yet, immediately afterward, i heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being dragged off the bed. in the midst of my nervous tension i remembered the camera, and reached 'round for it; but without looking away from the bed. and then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were torn off with extraordinary violence, and i heard the flump they made as they were hurled into the corner. "there was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of minutes; and you can imagine how horrible i felt. the bedclothes had been thrown with such savageness! and, then again, the brutal unnaturalness of the thing that had just been done before me! "abruptly, over by the door, i heard a faint noise--a sort of crickling sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. a great nervous thrill swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head; for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. something was there. i could not see the door; at least, i mean to say that it was impossible to say how much i actually saw, and how much my imagination supplied. i made it out, only as a continuation of the grey walls.... and then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered there among the shadows. "abruptly, i was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort i reached again for my camera; but before i could aim it the door was slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of hollow thunder. i jumped, like a frightened child. there seemed such a power behind the noise; as though a vast, wanton force were 'out.' can you understand? "the door was not touched again; but, directly afterward, i heard the basket, in which the cat lay, creak. i tell you, i fairly pringled all along my back. i knew that i was going to learn definitely whether whatever was abroad was dangerous to life. from the cat there rose suddenly a hideous caterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then--too late--i snapped off the flashlight. in the great glare, i saw that the basket had been overturned, and the lid was wrenched open, with the cat lying half in, and half out upon the floor. i saw nothing else, but i was full of the knowledge that i was in the presence of some being or thing that had power to destroy. "during the next two or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable quietness in the room, and you much remember i was half-blinded, for the time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the pentacle. i tell you it was most horrible. i just knelt there in the star, and whirled 'round, trying to see whether anything was coming at me. "my power of sight came gradually, and i got a little hold of myself; and abruptly i saw the thing i was looking for, close to the 'water circle.' it was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. it passed swiftly 'round the circle, and seemed to probe ever toward me; but only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living person if they touched the hot bar of a grate. "'round and 'round it moved, and 'round and 'round i turned. then, just opposite to one of the vales' in the pentacles, it seemed to pause, as though preliminary to a tremendous effort. it retired almost beyond the glow of the vacuum light, and then came straight toward me, appearing to gather form and solidity as it came. there seemed a vast, malign determination behind the movement, that must succeed. i was on my knees, and i jerked back, falling on to my left hand, and hip, in a wild endeavor to get back from the advancing thing. with my right hand i was grabbing madly for my revolver, which i had let slip. the brutal thing came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the 'water circle,' almost to the vale of the pentacle. i believe i yelled. then, just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by some mighty, invisible force. "it must have been some moments before i realized that i was safe; and then i got myself together in the middle of the pentacles, feeling horribly gone and shaken, and glancing 'round and 'round the barrier; but the thing had vanished. yet, i had learnt something, for i knew now that the grey room was haunted by a monstrous hand. "suddenly, as i crouched there, i saw what had so nearly given the monster an opening through the barrier. in my movements within the pentacle i must have touched one of the jars of water; for just where the thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the 'deep' of the 'vale' had been moved to one side, and this had left one of the 'five doorways' unguarded. i put it back, quickly, and felt almost safe again, for i had found the cause, and the 'defense' was still good. and i began to hope again that i should see the morning come in. when i saw that thing so nearly succeed, i had an awful, weak, overwhelming feeling that the 'barriers' could never bring me safe through the night against such a force. you can understand? "for a long time i could not see the hand; but, presently, i thought i saw, once or twice, an odd wavering, over among the shadows near the door. a little later, as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage, the dead body of the cat was picked up, and beaten with dull, sickening blows against the solid floor. that made me feel rather queer. "a minute afterward, the door was opened and slammed twice with tremendous force. the next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart at me, from out of the shadows. instinctively, i started sideways from it, and so plucked my hand from upon the electric pentacle, where--for a wickedly careless moment--i had placed it. the monster was hurled off from the neighborhood of the pentacles; though--owing to my inconceivable foolishness--it had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer barriers. i can tell you, i shook for a time, with sheer funk. i moved right to the center of the pentacles again, and knelt there, making myself as small and compact as possible. "as i knelt, there came to me presently, a vague wonder at the two 'accidents' which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me. was i being _influenced_ to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me? the thought took hold of me, and i watched my every movement. abruptly, i stretched a tired leg, and knocked over one of the jars of water. some was spilled; but, because of my suspicious watchfulness, i had it upright and back within the vale while yet some of the water remained. even as i did so, the vast, black, half-materialized hand beat up at me out of the shadows, and seemed to leap almost into my face; so nearly did it approach; but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether enormous, overmastering force. yet, apart from the dazed fright in which it left me, i had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered, which is felt only upon the too near approach of the ab-human, and is more dreadful, in a strange way, than any physical pain that can be suffered. i knew by this more of the extent and closeness of the danger; and for a long time i was simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that force upon my spirit. i can put it no other way. "i knelt again in the center of the pentacles, watching myself with more fear, almost, than the monster; for i knew now that, unless i guarded myself from every sudden impulse that came to me, i might simply work my own destruction. do you see how horrible it all was? "i spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright, and so tense that i could not make a single movement naturally. i was in such fear that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the influence that i knew was at work on me. and outside of the barrier that ghastly thing went 'round and 'round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at me. twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. the second time, i heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack. and all the time the horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left of the bed. "then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural wind ceased, in a single moment; and i could see no sign of the hand. the dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and made the pale glare of the electric pentacle look more unearthly. yet, it was not until the day had fully come, that i made any attempt to leave the barrier, for i did not know but that there was some method abroad, in the sudden stopping of that wind, to entice me from the pentacles. "at last, when the dawn was strong and bright, i took one last look 'round, and ran for the door. i got it unlocked, in a nervous and clumsy fashion, then locked it hurriedly, and went to my bedroom, where i lay on the bed, and tried to steady my nerves. peter came, presently, with the coffee, and when i had drunk it, i told him i meant to have a sleep, as i had been up all night. he took the tray, and went out quietly, and after i had locked my door i turned in properly, and at last got to sleep. "i woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the grey room. i switched off the current from the pentacle, which i had left on in my hurry; also, i removed the body of the cat. you can understand i did not want anyone to see the poor brute. after that, i made a very careful search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. i made several holes, and probed, and found nothing. then it occurred to me to try with my instrument under the skirting. i did so, and heard my wire ring on metal. i turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing. at the second go, i got it. it was a small object, and i took it to the window. i found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material. the curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon; that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without the 'mounts,' which form the points of the defensive star. it was free from all chasing or engraving. "you will understand that i was excited, when i tell you that i felt sure i held in my hand the famous luck ring of the anderson family; which, indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the history of the haunting. this ring was handed on from father to son through generations, and always--in obedience to some ancient family tradition--each son had to promise never to wear the ring. the ring, i may say, was brought home by one of the crusaders, under very peculiar circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here. "it appears that young sir hulbert, an ancestor of anderson's, made a bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night. he did so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the bed, in the very room in which i stood. many people, it would seem, thought young sir hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night in the room. he also was strangled. since then, as you may imagine, no one has ever spent a night in the grey room, until i did so. the ring had been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you can understand. "it was whilst i stood there, looking at the ring, that i got an idea. supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway--you see what i mean? a sort of gap in the world-hedge. it was a queer idea, i know, and probably was not my own, but came to me from the outside. you see, the wind had come from that part of the room where the ring lay. i thought a lot about it. then the shape--the inside of a pentacle. it had no 'mounts,' and without mounts, as the sigsand ms. has it:--'thee mownts wych are thee five hills of safetie. to lack is to gyve pow'r to thee daemon; and surelie to fayvor the evill thynge.' you see, the very shape of the ring was significant; and i determined to test it. "i unmade the pentacle, for it must be made afresh _and around_ the one to be protected. then i went out and locked the door; after which i left the house, to get certain matters, for neither 'yarbs nor fyre nor waier' must be used a second time. i returned about seven thirty, and as soon as the things i had brought had been carried up to the grey room, i dismissed peter for the night, just as i had done the evening before. when he had gone downstairs, i let myself into the room, and locked and sealed the door. i went to the place in the center of the room where all the stuff had been packed, and set to work with all my speed to construct a barrier about me and the ring. "i do not remember whether i explained it to you. but i had reasoned that, if the ring were in any way a 'medium of admission,' and it were enclosed with me in the electric pentacle, it would be, to express it loosely, insulated. do you see? the force, which had visible expression as a hand, would have to stay beyond the barrier which separates the ab from the normal; for the 'gateway' would be removed from accessibility. "as i was saying, i worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed about me and the ring, for it was already later than i cared to be in that room 'unprotected.' also, i had a feeling that there would be a vast effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. for i had the strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization. you will see whether i was right. "i completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something of the relief i felt when i felt the pale glare of the electric pentacle once more all about me. from then, onward, for about two hours, i sat quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. about eleven o'clock a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing happened for a whole hour after that. then, suddenly, i felt the cold, queer wind begin to blow upon me. to my astonishment, it seemed now to come from behind me, and i whipped 'round, with a hideous quake of fear. the wind met me in the face. it was blowing up from the floor close to me. i stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. what on earth had i done now! the ring was there, close beside me, where i had put it. suddenly, as i stared, bewildered, i was aware that there was something queer about the ring--funny shadowy movements and convolutions. i looked at them, stupidly. and then, abruptly, i knew that the wind was blowing up at me from the ring. a queer indistinct smoke became visible to me, seeming to pour upward through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows. suddenly, i realized that i was in more than any mortal danger; for the convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand was forming _within_ the pentacle. my goodness! do you realize it! i had brought the 'gateway' into the pentacles, and the brute was coming through--pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the mouth of a pipe. "i should think that i knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright. then, with a mad, awkward movement, i snatched at the ring, intending to hurl it out of the pentacle. yet it eluded me, as though some invisible, living thing jerked it hither and thither. at last, i gripped it; yet, in the same instant, it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal force. a great, black shadow covered it, and rose into the air, and came at me. i saw that it was the hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. i gave one crazy yell, and jumped over the pentacle and the ring of burning candles, and ran despairingly for the door. i fumbled idiotically and ineffectually with the key, and all the time i stared, with a fear that was like insanity, toward the barriers. the hand was plunging toward me; yet, even as it had been unable to pass into the pentacle when the ring was without, so, now that the ring was within, it had no power to pass out. the monster was chained, as surely as any beast would be, were chains riveted upon it. "even then, i got a flash of this knowledge; but i was too utterly shaken with fright, to reason; and the instant i managed to get the key turned, i sprang into the passage, and slammed the door with a crash. i locked it, and got to my room somehow; for i was trembling so that i could hardly stand, as you can imagine. i locked myself in, and managed to get the candle lit; then i lay down on my bed, and kept quiet for an hour or two, and so i got steadied. "i got a little sleep, later; but woke when peter brought my coffee. when i had drunk it i felt altogether better, and took the old man along with me whilst i had a look into the grey room. i opened the door, and peeped in. the candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and behind them was the pale, glowing star of the electric pentacle. and there, in the middle, was the ring ... the gateway of the monster, lying demure and ordinary. "nothing in the room was touched, and i knew that the brute had never managed to cross the pentacles. then i went out, and locked the door. "after a sleep of some hours, i left the house. i returned in the afternoon in a cab. i had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet, and two cylinders, containing the gases. i carried the things into the grey room, and there, in the center of the electric pentacle, i erected the little furnace. five minutes later the luck ring, once the 'luck,' but now the 'bane,' of the anderson family, was no more than a little solid splash of hot metal." carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. he passed it to me. i opened it, and found a small circle of greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter. "well?" i asked, at length, after examining it and handing it 'round to the others. "did that stop the haunting?" carnacki nodded. "yes," he said. "i slept three nights in the grey room, before i left. old peter nearly fainted when he knew that i meant to; but by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and ordinary. and, you know, i believe, in his heart, he hardly approved." carnacki stood up and began to shake hands. "out you go!" he said, genially. and presently we went, pondering, to our various homes. no. --the house among the laurels "this is a curious yarn that i am going to tell you," said carnacki, as after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy dining room. "i have just got back from the west of ireland," he continued. "wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy, in the shape of a large estate and manor, about a mile and a half outside of the village of korunton. this place is named gannington manor, and has been empty a great number of years; as you will find is almost always the case with houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed. "it seems that when wentworth went over to take possession, he found the place in very poor repair, and the estate totally uncared for, and, as i know, looking very desolate and lonesome generally. he went through the big house by himself, and he admitted to me that it had an uncomfortable feeling about it; but, of course, that might be nothing more than the natural dismalness of a big, empty house, which has been long uninhabited, and through which you are wandering alone. "when he had finished his look 'round, he went down to the village, meaning to see the one-time agent of the estate, and arrange for someone to go in as caretaker. the agent, who proved by the way to be a scotchman, was very willing to take up the management of the estate once more; but he assured wentworth that they would get no one to go in as caretaker; and that his--the agent's--advice was to have the house pulled down, and a new one built. "this, naturally, astonished my friend, and, as they went down to the village, he managed to get a sort of explanation from the man. it seems that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in the early days was called landru castle, and that within the last seven years there had been two extraordinary deaths there. in each case they had been tramps, who were ignorant of the reputation of the house, and had probably thought the big empty place suitable for a night's free lodging. there had been absolutely no signs of violence to indicate the method by which death was caused, and on each occasion the body had been found in the great entrance hall. "by this time they had reached the inn where wentworth had put up, and he told the agent that he would prove that it was all rubbish about the haunting, by staying a night or two in the manor himself. the death of the tramps was certainly curious; but did not prove that any supernatural agency had been at work. they were but isolated accidents, spread over a large number of years by the memory of the villagers, which was natural enough in a little place like korunton. tramps had to die some time, and in some place, and it proved nothing that two, out of possibly hundreds who had slept in the empty house, had happened to take the opportunity to die under shelter. "but the agent took his remark very seriously, and both he and dennis the landlord of the inn, tried their best to persuade him not to go. for his 'sowl's sake,' irish dennis begged him to do no such thing; and because of his 'life's sake,' the scotchman was equally in earnest. "it was late afternoon at the time, and as wentworth told me, it was warm and bright, and it seemed such utter rot to hear those two talking seriously about the impossible. he felt full of pluck, and he made up his mind he would smash the story of the haunting, at once by staying that very night, in the manor. he made this quite clear to them, and told them that it would be more to the point and to their credit, if they offered to come up along with him, and keep him company. but poor old dennis was quite shocked, i believe, at the suggestion; and though tabbit, the agent, took it more quietly, he was very solemn about it. "it seems that wentworth did go; and though, as he said to me, when the evening began to come on, it seemed a very different sort of thing to tackle. "a whole crowd of the villagers assembled to see him off; for by this time they all knew of his intention. wentworth had his gun with him, and a big packet of candles; and he made it clear to them all that it would not be wise for anyone to play any tricks; as he intended to shoot 'at sight.' and then, you know, he got a hint of how serious they considered the whole thing; for one of them came up to him, leading a great bullmastiff, and offered it to him, to take to keep him company. wentworth patted his gun; but the old man who owned the dog shook his head and explained that the brute might warn him in sufficient time for him to get away from the castle. for it was obvious that he did not consider the gun would prove of any use. "wentworth took the dog, and thanked the man. he told me that, already, he was beginning to wish that he had not said definitely that he would go; but, as it was, he was simply forced to. he went through the crowd of men, and found suddenly that they had all turned in a body and were keeping him company. they stayed with him all the way to the manor, and then went right over the whole place with him. "it was still daylight when this was finished; though turning to dusk; and, for a while, the men stood about, hesitating, as if they felt ashamed to go away and leave wentworth there all alone. he told me that, by this time, he would gladly have given fifty pounds to be going back with them. and then, abruptly, an idea came to him. he suggested that they should stay with him, and keep him company through the night. for a time they refused, and tried to persuade him to go back with them; but finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. he planned that they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen bottles of whisky, a donkey-load of turf and wood, and some more candles. then they would come back, and make a great fire in the big fire-place, light all the candles, and put them 'round the place, open the whisky and make a night of it. and, by jove! he got them to agree. "they set off back, and were soon at the inn, and here, whilst the donkey was being loaded, and the candles and whisky distributed, dennis was doing his best to keep wentworth from going back; but he was a sensible man in his way, for when he found that it was no use, he stopped. you see, he did not want to frighten the others from accompanying wentworth. "'i tell ye, sorr,' he told him, ''tis of no use at all, thryin' ter reclaim ther castle. 'tis curst with innocent blood, an' ye'll be betther pullin' it down, an' buildin' a fine new wan. but if ye be intendin' to shtay this night, kape the big dhoor open whide, an' watch for the bhlood-dhrip. if so much as a single dhrip falls, don't shtay though all the gold in the worrld was offered ye.' "wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood-drip. "'shure,' he said, ''tis the bhlood av thim as ould black mick 'way back in the ould days kilt in their shlape. 'twas a feud as he pretendid to patch up, an' he invited thim--the o'haras they was--siventy av thim. an' he fed thim, an' shpoke soft to thim, an' thim thrustin' him, sthayed to shlape with him. thin, he an' thim with him, stharted in an' mhurdered thim wan an' all as they slep'. 'tis from me father's grandfather ye have the sthory. an' sence thin 'tis death to any, so they say, to pass the night in the castle whin the bhlood-dhrip comes. 'twill put out candle an' fire, an' thin in the darkness the virgin herself would be powerless to protect ye.' "wentworth told me he laughed at this; chiefly because, as he put it:--'one always must laugh at that sort of yarn, however it makes you feel inside.' he asked old dennis whether he expected him to believe it. "'yes, sorr,' said dennis, 'i do mane ye to b'lieve it; an' please god, if ye'll b'lieve, ye may be back safe befor' mornin'.' the man's serious simplicity took hold of wentworth, and he held out his hand. but, for all that, he went; and i must admire his pluck. "there were now about forty men, and when they got back to the manor--or castle as the villagers always call it--they were not long in getting a big fire going, and lighted candles all 'round the great hall. they had all brought sticks; so that they would have been a pretty formidable lot to tackle by anything simply physical; and, of course, wentworth had his gun. he kept the whisky in his own charge; for he intended to keep them sober; but he gave them a good strong tot all 'round first, so as to make things seem cheerful; and to get them yearning. if you once let a crowd of men like that grow silent, they begin to think, and then to fancy things. "the big entrance door had been left wide open, by his orders; which shows that he had taken some notice of dennis. it was a quiet night, so this did not matter, for the lights kept steady, and all went on in a jolly sort of fashion for about three hours. he had opened a second lot of bottles, and everyone was feeling cheerful; so much so that one of the men called out aloud to the ghosts to come out and show themselves. and then, you know a very extraordinary thing happened; for the ponderous main door swung quietly and steadily to, as though pushed by an invisible hand, and shut with a sharp click. "wentworth stared, feeling suddenly rather chilly. then he remembered the men, and looked 'round at them. several had ceased their talk, and were staring in a frightened way at the big door; but the great number had never noticed, and were talking and yarning. he reached for his gun, and the following instant the great bullmastiff set up a tremendous barking, which drew the attention of the whole company. "the hall i should tell you is oblong. the south wall is all windows; but the north and east have rows of doors, leading into the house, whilst the west wall is occupied by the great entrance. the rows of doors leading into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the north wall that the big dog ran; yet he would not go very close; and suddenly the door began to move slowly open, until the blackness of the passage beyond was shown. the dog came back among the men, whimpering, and for a minute there was an absolute silence. "then wentworth went out from the men a little, and aimed his gun at the doorway. "'whoever is there, come out, or i shall fire,' he shouted; but nothing came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark. as though the report had been a signal, all the doors along the north and east walls moved slowly open, and wentworth and his men were staring, frightened into the black shapes of the empty doorways. "wentworth loaded his gun quickly, and called to the dog; but the brute was burrowing away in among the men; and this fear on the dog's part frightened wentworth more, he told me, than anything. then something else happened. three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out; and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. more candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners. "the men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded together. and no one said a word. wentworth told me he felt positively ill with fright. i know the feeling. then, suddenly, something splashed on to the back of his left hand. he lifted it, and looked. it was covered with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. an old irishman near to him, saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice:--'the bhlood-dhrip!' when the old man called out, they all looked, and in the same instant others felt it upon them. there were frightened cries of:--'the bhlood-dhrip! the bhlood-dhrip!' and then, about a dozen candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. the dog let out a great, mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence, with everyone standing rigid. then the tension broke, and there was a mad rush for the main door. they wrenched it open, and tumbled out into the dark; but something slammed it with a crash after them, and shut the dog in; for wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. yet no one had the pluck to go back to let it out, which does not surprise me. "wentworth sent for me the following day. he had heard of me in connection with that steeple monster case. i arrived by the night mail, and put up with wentworth at the inn. the next day we went up to the old manor, which certainly lies in rather a wilderness; though what struck me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house. the place was smothered with them; so that the house seemed to be growing up out of a sea of green laurel. these, and the grim, ancient look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly, even by daylight. "the hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which i was not sorry. you see, i had been rather wound-up by wentworth's yarn. we found one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff with its neck broken. this made me feel very serious; for it showed that whether the cause was supernatural or not, there was present in the house some force exceedingly dangerous to life. "later, whilst wentworth stood guard with his shotgun, i made an examination of the hall. the bottles and mugs from which the men had drunk their whisky were scattered about; and all over the place were the candles, stuck upright in their own grease. but in the somewhat brief and general search, i found nothing; and decided to begin my usual exact examination of every square foot of the place--not only of the hall, in this case, but of the whole interior of the castle. "i spent three uncomfortable weeks, searching; but without result of any kind. and, you know, the care i take at this period is extreme; for i have solved hundreds of cases of so-called 'hauntings' at this early stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a perfectly open mind. but, as i have said, i found nothing. during the whole of the examination, i got wentworth to stand guard with his loaded shotgun; and i was very particular that we were never caught there after dusk. "i decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great hall, of course 'protected.' i spoke about it to wentworth; but his own attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing. however, i thought it well worth the risk, and i managed in the end to persuade him to be present. "with this in view, i went to the neighboring town of gaunt, and by an arrangement with the chief constable i obtained the services of six policemen with their rifles. the arrangement was unofficial, of course, and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment. "when the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, i gave them a good feed; and after that we all set out for the manor. we had four donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters; also two great boarhounds, which one of the police led. when we reached the house, i set the men to unload the donkeys; whilst wentworth and i set-to and sealed all the doors, except the main entrance, with tape and wax; for if the doors were really opened, i was going to be sure of the fact. i was going to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination, or mesmeric influence. "by the time that this was done, the policemen had unloaded the donkeys, and were waiting, looking about them, curiously. i set two of them to lay a fire in the big grate, and the others i used as i required them. i took one of the boarhounds to the end of the hall furthest from the entrance, and there i drove a staple into the floor, to which i tied the dog with a short tether. then, 'round him, i drew upon the floor the figure of a pentacle, in chalk. outside of the pentacle, i made a circle with garlic. i did exactly the same thing with the other hound; but over more in the northeast corner of the big hall, where the two rows of doors make the angle. "when this was done, i cleared the whole center of the hall, and put one of the policemen to sweep it; after which i had all my apparatus carried into the cleared space. then i went over to the main door and hooked it open, so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the hasp, before the door could be closed. after that, i placed lighted candles before each of the sealed doors, and one in each corner of the big room; and then i lit the fire. when i saw that it was properly alight, i got all the men together, by the pile of things in the center of the room, and took their pipes from them; for, as the sigsand ms. has it:--'theyre must noe lyght come from wythin the barryier.' and i was going to make sure. "i got my tape measure then, and measured out a circle thirty-three feet in diameter, and immediately chalked it out. the police and wentworth were tremendously interested, and i took the opportunity to warn them that this was no piece of silly mumming on my part; but done with a definite intention of erecting a barrier between us and any ab-human thing that the night might show to us. i warned them that, as they valued their lives, and more than their lives it might be, no one must on any account whatsoever pass beyond the limits of the barrier that i was making. "after i had drawn the circle, i took a bunch of the garlic, and smudged it right 'round the chalk circle, a little outside of it. when this was complete, i called for candles from my stock of material. i set the police to lighting them, and as they were lit, i took them, and sealed them down on the floor, just within the chalk circle, five inches apart. as each candle measured approximately one inch in diameter, it took sixty-six candles to complete the circle; and i need hardly say that every number and measurement has a significance. "then, from candle to candle i took a 'gayrd' of human hair, entwining it alternately to the left and to the right, until the circle was completed, and the ends of the hair shod with silver, and pressed into the wax of the sixty-sixth candle. "it had now been dark some time, and i made haste to get the 'defense' complete. to this end, i got the men well together, and began to fit the electric pentacle right around us, so that the five points of the defensive star came just within the hair circle. this did not take me long, and a minute later i had connected up the batteries, and the weak blue glare of the intertwining vacuum tubes shone all around us. i felt happier then; for this pentacle is, as you all know, a wonderful 'defense.' i have told you before, how the idea came to me, after reading professor garder's 'experiments with a medium.' he found that a current, of a certain number of vibrations, _in vacuo,_ 'insulated' the medium. it is difficult to suggest an explanation non-technically, and if you are really interested you should read carder's lecture on 'astral vibrations compared with matero-involuted vibrations below the six-billion limit.' "as i stood up from my work, i could hear outside in the night a constant drip from the laurels, which as i have said, come right up around the house, very thick. by the sound, i knew that a 'soft' rain had set in; and there was absolutely no wind, as i could tell by the steady flames of the candles. "i stood a moment or two, listening, and then one of the men touched my arm, and asked me in a low voice, what they should do. by his tone, i could tell that he was feeling something of the strangeness of it all; and the other men, including wentworth, were so quiet that i was afraid they were beginning to get shaky. "i set-to, then, and arranged them with their backs to one common center; so that they were sitting flat upon the floor, with their feet radiating outward. then, by compass, i laid their legs to the eight chief points, and afterward i drew a circle with chalk around them; and opposite to their feet, i made the eight signs of the saaamaaa ritual. the eighth place was, of course, empty; but ready for me to occupy at any moment; for i had omitted to make the sealing sign to that point, until i had finished all my preparations, and could enter the inner star. "i took a last look 'round the great hall, and saw that the two big hounds were lying quietly, with their noses between their paws. the fire was big and cheerful, and the candles before the two rows of doors, burnt steadily, as well as the solitary ones in the corners. then i went 'round the little star of men, and warned them not to be frightened whatever happened; but to trust to the 'defense'; and to let nothing tempt or drive them to cross the barriers. also, i told them to watch their movements, and to keep their feet strictly to their places. for the rest, there was to be no shooting, unless i gave the word. "and now at last, i went to my place, and, sitting down, made the eighth sign just beyond my feet. then i arranged my camera and flashlight handy, and examined my revolver. "wentworth sat behind the first sign, and as the numbering went 'round reversed, that put him next to me on my left. i asked him, in a low voice, how he felt; and he told me, rather nervous; but that he felt confidence in my knowledge and was resolved to go through with the matter, whatever happened. "we settled down to wait. there was no talking, except that, once or twice, the police bent toward one another, and whispered odd remarks concerning the hall, that appeared queerly audible in the intense silence. but in a while there was not even a whisper from anyone, and only the monotonous drip, drip of the quiet rain without the great entrance, and the low, dull sound of the fire in the big fireplace. "it was a queer group that we made sitting there, back to back, with our legs starred outward; and all around us the strange blue glow of the pentacle, and beyond that the brilliant shining of the great ring of lighted candles. outside of the glare of the candles, the large empty hall looked a little gloomy, by contrast, except where the lights shone before the sealed doors, and the blaze of the big fire made a good honest mass of flame. and the feeling of mystery! can you picture it all? "it might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that i was aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the air of the place. not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to happen any moment. "abruptly, there came a slight noise from the east end of the hall, and i felt the star of men move suddenly. 'steady! keep steady!' i shouted, and they quietened. i looked up the hall, and saw that the dogs were upon their feet, and staring in an extraordinary fashion toward the great entrance. i turned and stared, also, and felt the men move as they craned their heads to look. suddenly, the dogs set up a tremendous barking, and i glanced across to them, and found they were still 'pointing' for the big doorway. they ceased their noise just as quickly, and seemed to be listening. in the same instant, i heard a faint chink of metal to my left, that set me staring at the hook which held the great door wide. it moved, even as i looked. some invisible thing was meddling with it. a queer, sickening thrill went through me, and i felt all the men about me, stiffen and go rigid with intensity. i had a certainty of something impending: as it might be the impression of an invisible, but overwhelming, presence. the hall was full of a queer silence, and not a sound came from the dogs. _then i saw the hook slowly raised from out of its hasp, without any visible thing touching it._ then a sudden power of movement came to me. i raised my camera, with the flashlight fixed, and snapped it at the door. there came the great blare of the flashlight, and a simultaneous roar of barking from the two dogs. "the intensity of the flash made all the place seem dark for some moments, and in that time of darkness, i heard a jingle in the direction of the door, and strained to look. the effect of the bright light passed, and i could see clearly again. the great entrance door was being slowly closed. it shut with a sharp snick, and there followed a long silence, broken only by the whimpering of the dogs. "i turned suddenly, and looked at wentworth. he was looking at me. "'just as it did before,' he whispered. "'most extraordinary,' i said, and he nodded and looked 'round, nervously. "the policemen were pretty quiet, and i judged that they were feeling rather worse than wentworth; though, for that matter, you must not think that i was altogether natural; yet i have seen so much that is extraordinary, that i daresay i can keep my nerves steady longer than most people. "i looked over my shoulder at the men, and cautioned them, in a low voice, not to move outside of the barriers, _whatever happened_; not even though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to them; for well i knew what some of the great forces are capable of doing. yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible saiitii manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we kept to our order within the pentacle. "perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way, the dogs would whine distressfully. presently, however, they ceased even from this, and i could see them lying on the floor with their paws over their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly. the sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand. "suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went out. an instant later, wentworth jerked my arm, and i saw that the candle before one of the sealed doors had been put out. i held my camera ready. then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and with such speed and irregularity, that i could never catch one in the actual act of being extinguished. yet, for all that, i took a flashlight of the hall in general. "there was a time in which i sat half-blinded by the great glare of the flash, and i blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of smoked goggles, which i have sometimes used at these times. i had felt the men jump, at the sudden light, and i called out loud to them to sit quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places. my voice, as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great room, and altogether it was a beastly moment. "then, i was able to see again, and i stared here and there about the hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark now over in the corners. "suddenly, i saw that the great fire was blackening. it was going out visibly, as i looked. if i said that some monstrous, invisible, impossible creature sucked the life from it, i could best explain the way the light and flame went out of it. it was most extraordinary to watch. in the time that i watched it, every vestige of fire was gone from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around the pentacle. "the deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than i can make clear to you. it conveyed to me such a sense of a calm deliberate force present in the hall: the steadfast intention to 'make a darkness' was horrible. the _extent_ of the power to affect the material was horrible. the extent of the power to affect the material was now the one constant, anxious questioning in my brain. you can understand? "behind me, i heard the policemen moving again, and i knew that they were getting thoroughly frightened. i turned half 'round, and told them, quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed within the pentacle, in the position in which i had put them. if they once broke, and went outside of the barrier, no knowledge of mine could state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger. "i steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had known, as i knew, that there is no certainty in any 'protection,' they would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the 'defense,' and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety. "another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness. i had a sense of awful strain and oppression, as though i were a little spirit in the company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as yet, was scarcely conscious of us. i leant across to wentworth, and asked him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the room. he looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move. he glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away 'round the hall again. and when i came to think, i was doing the same thing. "abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every candle in the barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the pentacle was too weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall. "i tell you, for a moment, i just sat there as though i had been frozen solid. i felt the 'creep' go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain. i felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the normal. i could hear my own heart thudding most extraordinarily loud. i began, however, to feel better, after a while; but i simply had not the pluck to move. you can understand? "presently, i began to get my courage back. i gripped at my camera and flashlight, and waited. my hands were simply soaked with sweat. i glanced once at wentworth. i could see him only dimly. his shoulders were hunched a little, his head forward; but though it was motionless, i knew that his eyes were not. it is queer how one knows that sort of thing at times. the police were just as silent. and thus a while passed. "a sudden sound broke across the silence. from two sides of the room there came faint noises. i recognized them at once, as the breaking of the sealing-wax. _the sealed doors were opening._ i raised the camera and flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped me to press the button. as the great flare of light lit up the hall i felt the men all about me jump. the darkness fell like a clap of thunder, if you can understand, and seemed tenfold. yet, in the moment of brightness, i had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open. "suddenly, all around us, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, upon the floor of the great hall. i thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion, and a sense of a very real and present danger--_imminent._ the 'blood-drip' had commenced. and the grim question was now whether the barriers could save us from whatever had come into the huge room. "through some awful minutes the 'blood-drip' continued to fall in an increasing rain; and presently some began to fall within the barriers. i saw several great drops splash and star upon the pale glowing intertwining tubes of the electric pentacle; but, strangely enough, i could not trace that any fell among us. beyond the strange horrible noise of the 'drip,' there was no other sound. and then, abruptly, from the boarhound over in the far corner, there came a terrible yelling howl of agony, followed instantly by a sickening, breaking noise, and an immediate silence. if you have ever, when out shooting, broken a rabbit's neck, you will know the sound--in miniature! like lightning, the thought sprang into my brain:--_it has crossed the pentacle._ for you will remember that i had made one about each of the dogs. i thought instantly, with a sick apprehension, of our own barriers. there was something in the hall with us that had passed the barrier of the pentacle about one of the dogs. in the awful succeeding silence, i positively quivered. and suddenly, one of the men behind me, gave out a scream, like any woman, and bolted for the door. he fumbled, and had it open in a moment. i yelled to the others not to move; but they followed like sheep, and i heard them kick the candles flying, in their panic. one of them stepped on the electric pentacle, and smashed it, and there was an utter darkness. in an instant, i realized that i was defenseless against the powers of the unknown world, and with one savage leap i was out of the useless barriers, and instantly through the great doorway, and into the night. i believe i yelled with sheer funk. "the men were a little ahead of me, and i never ceased running, and neither did they. sometimes, i glanced back over my shoulder; and i kept glancing into the laurels which grew all along the drive. the beastly things kept rustling, rustling in a hollow sort of way, as though something were keeping parallel with me, among them. the rain had stopped, and a dismal little wind kept moaning through the grounds. it was disgusting. "i caught wentworth and the police at the lodge gate. we got outside, and ran all the way to the village. we found old dennis up, waiting for us, and half the villagers to keep him company. he told us that he had known in his 'sowl' that we should come back, that is, if we came back at all; which is not a bad rendering of his remark. "fortunately, i had brought my camera away from the house--possibly because the strap had happened to be over my head. yet, i did not go straight away to develop; but sat with the rest of the bar, where we talked for some hours, trying to be coherent about the whole horrible business. "later, however, i went up to my room, and proceeded with my photography. i was steadier now, and it was just possible, so i hoped, that the negatives might show something. "on two of the plates, i found nothing unusual: but on the third, which was the first one that i snapped, i saw something that made me quite excited. i examined it very carefully with a magnifying glass; then i put it to wash, and slipped a pair of rubber overshoes over my boots. "the negative had showed me something very extraordinary, and i had made up my mind to test the truth of what it seemed to indicate, without losing another moment. it was no use telling anything to wentworth and the police, until i was certain; and, also, i believed that i stood a greater chance to succeed by myself; though, for that matter, i do not suppose anything would have taken them up to the manor again that night. "i took my revolver, and went quietly downstairs, and into the dark. the rain had commenced again; but that did not bother me. i walked hard. when i came to the lodge gates, a sudden, queer instinct stopped me from going through, and i climbed the wall into the park. i kept away from the drive, and approached the building through the dismal, dripping laurels. you can imagine how beastly it was. every time a leaf rustled, i jumped. "i made my way 'round to the back of the big house, and got in through a little window which i had taken note of during my search; for, of course, i knew the whole place from roof to cellars. i went silently up the kitchen stairs, fairly quivering with funk; and at the top, i went to the left, and then into a long corridor that opened, through one of the doorways we had sealed, into the big hall. i looked up it, and saw a faint flicker of light away at the end; and i tiptoed silently toward it, holding my revolver ready. as i came near to the open door, i heard men's voices, and then a burst of laughing. i went on, until i could see into the hall. there were several men there, all in a group. they were well dressed, and one, at least, i saw was armed. they were examining my 'barriers' against the supernatural, with a good deal of unkind laughter. i never felt such a fool in my life. "it was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the empty manor, perhaps for years, for some purpose of their own; and now that wentworth was attempting to take possession, they were acting up the traditions of the place, with the view of driving him away, and keeping so useful a place still at their disposal. but what they were, i mean whether coiners, thieves, inventors, or what, i could not imagine. "presently, they left the pentacle, and gathered 'round the living boarhound, which seemed curiously quiet, as though it were half-drugged. there was some talk as to whether to let the poor brute live, or not; but finally they decided it would be good policy to kill it. i saw two of them force a twisted loop of rope into its mouth, and the two bights of the loop were brought together at the back of the hound's neck. then a third man thrust a thick walking-stick through the two loops. the two men with the rope, stooped to hold the dog, so that i could not see what was done; but the poor beast gave a sudden awful howl, and immediately there was a repetition of the uncomfortable breaking sound, i had heard earlier in the night, as you will remember. "the men stood up, and left the dog lying there, quiet enough now, as you may suppose. for my part, i fully appreciated the calculated remorselessness which had decided upon the animal's death, and the cold determination with which it had been afterward executed so neatly. i guessed that a man who might get into the 'light' of those particular men, would be likely to come to quite as uncomfortable an ending. "a minute later, one of the men called out to the rest that they should 'shift the wires.' one of the men came toward the doorway of the corridor in which i stood, and i ran quickly back into the darkness of the upper end. i saw the man reach up, and take something from the top of the door, and i heard the slight, ringing jangle of steel wire. "when he had gone, i ran back again, and saw the men passing, one after another, through an opening in the stairs, formed by one of the marble steps being raised. when the last man had vanished, the slab that made the step was shut down, and there was not a sign of the secret door. it was the seventh step from the bottom, as i took care to count: and a splendid idea; for it was so solid that it did not ring hollow, even to a fairly heavy hammer, as i found later. "there is little more to tell. i got out of the house as quickly and quietly as possible, and back to the inn. the police came without any coaxing, when they knew the 'ghosts' were normal flesh and blood. we entered the park and the manor in the same way that i had done. yet, when we tried to open the step, we failed, and had finally to smash it. this must have warned the haunters; for when we descended to a secret room which we found at the end of a long and narrow passage in the thickness of the walls, we found no one. "the police were horribly disgusted, as you can imagine; but for my part, i did not care either way. i had 'laid the ghost,' as you might say, and that was what i set out to do. i was not particularly afraid of being laughed at by the others; for they had all been thoroughly 'taken in'; and in the end, i had scored, without their help. "we searched right through the secret ways, and found that there was an exit, at the end of a long tunnel, which opened in the side of a well, out in the grounds. the ceiling of the hall was hollow, and reached by a little secret stairway inside of the big staircase. the 'blood-drip' was merely colored water, dropped through the minute crevices of the ornamented ceiling. how the candles and the fire were put out, i do not know; for the haunters certainly did not act quite up to tradition, which held that the lights were put out by the 'blood-drip.' perhaps it was too difficult to direct the fluid, without positively squirting it, which might have given the whole thing away. the candles and the fire may possibly have been extinguished by the agency of carbonic acid gas; but how suspended, i have no idea. "the secret hiding paces were, of course, ancient. there was also, did i tell you? a bell which they had rigged up to ring, when anyone entered the gates at the end of the drive. if i had not climbed the wall, i should have found nothing for my pains; for the bell would have warned them had i gone in through the gateway." "what was on the negative?" i asked, with much curiosity. "a picture of the fine wire with which they were grappling for the hook that held the entrance door open. they were doing it from one of the crevices in the ceiling. they had evidently made no preparations for lifting the hook. i suppose they never thought that anyone would make use of it, and so they had to improvise a grapple. the wire was too fine to be seen by the amount of light we had in the hall; but the flashlight 'picked it out.' do you see? "the opening of the inner doors was managed by wires, as you will have guessed, which they unshipped after use, or else i should soon have found them, when i made my search. "i think i have now explained everything. the hound was killed, of course, by the men direct. you see, they made the place as dark as possible, first. of course, if i had managed to take a flashlight just at that instant, the whole secret of the haunting would have been exposed. but fate just ordered it the other way." "and the tramps?" i asked. "oh, you mean the two tramps who were found dead in the manor," said carnacki. "well, of course it is impossible to be sure, one way or the other. perhaps they happened to find out something, and were given a hypodermic. or it is just as probable that they had come to the time of their dying, and just died naturally. it is conceivable that a great many tramps had slept in the old house, at one time or another." carnacki stood up, and knocked out his pipe. we rose also, and went for our coats and hats. "out you go!" said carnacki, genially, using the recognized formula. and we went out on to the embankment, and presently through the darkness to our various homes. no. --the whistling room carnacki shook a friendly fist at me as i entered, late. then he opened the door into the dining room, and ushered the four of us--jessop, arkright, taylor and myself--in to dinner. we dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, carnacki was pretty silent during the meal. at the end, we took our wine and cigars to our usual positions, and carnacki--having got himself comfortable in his big chair--began without any preliminary:-- "i have just got back from ireland, again," he said. "and i thought you chaps would be interested to hear my news. besides, i fancy i shall see the thing clearer, after i have told it all out straight. i must tell you this, though, at the beginning--up to the present moment, i have been utterly and completely 'stumped.' i have tumbled upon one of the most peculiar cases of 'haunting'--or devilment of some sort--that i have come against. now listen. "i have been spending the last few weeks at iastrae castle, about twenty miles northeast of galway. i got a letter about a month ago from a mr. sid k. tassoc, who it seemed had bought the place lately, and moved in, only to find that he had bought a very peculiar piece of property. "when i got there, he met me at the station, driving a jaunting car, and drove me up to the castle, which, by the way, he called a 'house shanty.' i found that he was 'pigging it' there with his boy brother and another american, who seemed to be half-servant and half-companion. it seems that all the servants had left the place, in a body, as you might say, and now they were managing among themselves, assisted by some day-help. "the three of them got together a scratch feed, and tassoc told me all about the trouble whilst we were at table. it is most extraordinary, and different from anything that i have had to do with; though that buzzing case was very queer, too. "tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'we've got a room in this shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of haunting it. the thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes on until it frightens you. all the servants have gone, as you know. it's not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. wait till you hear it.' "'we're all carrying guns,' said the boy; and slapped his coat pocket. "'as bad as that?' i said; and the older boy nodded. 'it may be soft,' he replied; 'but wait till you've heard it. sometimes i think it's some infernal thing, and the next moment, i'm just as sure that someone's playing a trick on me.' "'why?' i asked. 'what is to be gained?' "'you mean,' he said, 'that people usually have some good reason for playing tricks as elaborate as this. well, i'll tell you. there's a lady in this province, by the name of miss donnehue, who's going to be my wife, this day two months. she's more beautiful than they make them, and so far as i can see, i've just stuck my head into an irish hornet's nest. there's about a score of hot young irishmen been courting her these two years gone, and now that i'm come along and cut them out, they feel raw against me. do you begin to understand the possibilities?' "'yes,' i said. 'perhaps i do in a vague sort of way; but i don't see how all this affects the room?' "'like this,' he said. 'when i'd fixed it up with miss donnehue, i looked out for a place, and bought this little house shanty. afterward, i told her--one evening during dinner, that i'd decided to tie up here. and then she asked me whether i wasn't afraid of the whistling room. i told her it must have been thrown in gratis, as i'd heard nothing about it. there were some of her men friends present, and i saw a smile go 'round. i found out, after a bit of questioning, that several people have bought this place during the last twenty-odd years. and it was always on the market again, after a trial. "'well, the chaps started to bait me a bit, and offered to take bets after dinner that i'd not stay six months in the place. i looked once or twice to miss donnehue, so as to be sure i was "getting the note" of the talkee-talkee; but i could see that she didn't take it as a joke, at all. partly, i think, because there was a bit of a sneer in the way the men were tackling me, and partly because she really believes there is something in this yarn of the whistling room. "'however, after dinner, i did what i could to even things up with the others. i nailed all their bets, and screwed them down hard and safe. i guess some of them are going to be hard hit, unless i lose; which i don't mean to. well, there you have practically the whole yarn.' "'not quite,' i told him. 'all that i know, is that you have bought a castle with a room in it that is in some way "queer," and that you've been doing some betting. also, i know that your servants have got frightened and run away. tell me something about the whistling?' "'oh, that!' said tassoc; 'that started the second night we were in. i'd had a good look 'round the room, in the daytime, as you can understand; for the talk up at arlestrae--miss donnehue's place--had made me wonder a bit. but it seems just as usual as some of the other rooms in the old wing, only perhaps a bit more lonesome. but that may be only because of the talk about it, you know. "'the whistling started about ten o'clock, on the second night, as i said. tom and i were in the library, when we heard an awfully queer whistling, coming along the east corridor--the room is in the east wing, you know. "'that's that blessed ghost!' i said to tom, and we collared the lamps off the table, and went up to have a look. i tell you, even as we dug along the corridor, it took me a bit in the throat, it was so beastly queer. it was a sort of tune, in a way; but more as if a devil or some rotten thing were laughing at you, and going to get 'round at your back. that's how it makes you feel. "'when we got to the door, we didn't wait; but rushed it open; and then i tell you the sound of the thing fairly hit me in the face. tom said he got it the same way--sort of felt stunned and bewildered. we looked all 'round, and soon got so nervous, we just cleared out, and i locked the door. "'we came down here, and had a stiff peg each. then we got fit again, and began to think we'd been nicely had. so we took sticks, and went out into the grounds, thinking after all it must be some of these confounded irishmen working the ghost-trick on us. but there was not a leg stirring. "'we went back into the house, and walked over it, and then paid another visit to the room. but we simply couldn't stand it. we fairly ran out, and locked the door again. i don't know how to put it into words; but i had a feeling of being up against something that was rottenly dangerous. you know! we've carried our guns ever since. "'of course, we had a real turn out of the room next day, and the whole house place; and we even hunted 'round the grounds; but there was nothing queer. and now i don't know what to think; except that the sensible part of me tells me that it's some plan of these wild irishmen to try to take a rise out of me.' "'done anything since?' i asked him. "'yes,' he said--'watched outside of the door of the room at nights, and chased 'round the grounds, and sounded the walls and floor of the room. we've done everything we could think of; and it's beginning to get on our nerves; so we sent for you.' "by this, we had finished eating. as we rose from the table, tassoc suddenly called out:--'ssh! hark!' "we were instantly silent, listening. then i heard it, an extraordinary hooning whistle, monstrous and inhuman, coming from far away through corridors to my right. "'by g--d!' said tassoc; 'and it's scarcely dark yet! collar those candles, both of you, and come along.' "in a few moments, we were all out of the door and racing up the stairs. tassoc turned into a long corridor, and we followed, shielding our candles as we ran. the sound seemed to fill all the passage as we drew near, until i had the feeling that the whole air throbbed under the power of some wanton immense force--a sense of an actual taint, as you might say, of monstrosity all about us. "tassoc unlocked the door; then, giving it a push with his foot, jumped back, and drew his revolver. as the door flew open, the sound beat out at us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard it--with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. to stand there and listen, was to be stunned by realization. it was as if someone showed you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:--that's hell. and you knew that they had spoken the truth. do you get it, even a little bit? "i stepped back a pace into the room, and held the candle over my head, and looked quickly 'round. tassoc and his brother joined me, and the man came up at the back, and we all held our candles high. i was deafened with the shrill, piping hoon of the whistling; and then, clear in my ear, something seemed to be saying to me:--'get out of here--quick! quick! quick!' "as you chaps know, i never neglect that sort of thing. sometimes it may be nothing but nerves; but as you will remember, it was just such a warning that saved me in the 'grey dog' case, and in the 'yellow finger' experiments; as well as other times. well, i turned sharp 'round to the others: 'out!' i said. 'for god's sake, _out_ quick.' and in an instant i had them into the passage. "there came an extraordinary yelling scream into the hideous whistling, and then, like a clap of thunder, an utter silence. i slammed the door, and locked it. then, taking the key, i looked 'round at the others. they were pretty white, and i imagine i must have looked that way too. and there we stood a moment, silent. "'come down out of this, and have some whisky,' said tassoc, at last, in a voice he tried to make ordinary; and he led the way. i was the back man, and i know we all kept looking over our shoulders. when we got downstairs, tassoc passed the bottle 'round. he took a drink, himself, and slapped his glass down on to the table. then sat down with a thud. "'that's a lovely thing to have in the house with you, isn't it!' he said. and directly afterward:--'what on earth made you hustle us all out like that, carnacki?' "'something seemed to be telling me to get out, quick,' i said. 'sounds a bit silly, superstitious, i know; but when you are meddling with this sort of thing, you've got to take notice of queer fancies, and risk being laughed at.' "i told him then about the 'grey dog' business, and he nodded a lot to that. 'of course,' i said, 'this may be nothing more than those would-be rivals of yours playing some funny game; but, personally, though i'm going to keep an open mind, i feel that there is something beastly and dangerous about this thing.' "we talked for a while longer, and then tassoc suggested billiards, which we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later, after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the room on the morrow. "my bedroom was in the newer part of the castle, and the door opened into the picture gallery. at the east end of the gallery was the entrance to the corridor of the east wing; this was shut off from the gallery by two old and heavy oak doors, which looked rather odd and quaint beside the more modern doors of the various rooms. "when i reached my room, i did not go to bed; but began to unpack my instrument trunk, of which i had retained the key. i intended to take one or two preliminary steps at once, in my investigation of the extraordinary whistling. "presently, when the castle had settled into quietness, i slipped out of my room, and across to the entrance of the great corridor. i opened one of the low, squat doors, and threw the beam of my pocket searchlight down the passage. it was empty, and i went through the doorway, and pushed-to the oak behind me. then along the great passageway, throwing my light before and behind, and keeping my revolver handy. "i had hung a 'protection belt' of garlic 'round my neck, and the smell of it seemed to fill the corridor and give me assurance; for, as you all know, it is a wonderful 'protection' against the more usual aeiirii forms of semi-materialization, by which i supposed the whistling might be produced; though, at that period of my investigation, i was quite prepared to find it due to some perfectly natural cause; for it is astonishing the enormous number of cases that prove to have nothing abnormal in them. "in addition to wearing the necklet, i had plugged my ears loosely with garlic, and as i did not intend to stay more than a few minutes in the room, i hoped to be safe. "when i reached the door, and put my hand into my pocket for the key, i had a sudden feeling of sickening funk. but i was not going to back out, if i could help it. i unlocked the door and turned the handle. then i gave the door a sharp push with my foot, as tassoc had done, and drew my revolver, though i did not expect to have any use for it, really. "i shone the searchlight all 'round the room, and then stepped inside, with a disgustingly horrible feeling of walking slap into a waiting danger. i stood a few seconds, waiting, and nothing happened, and the empty room showed bare from corner to corner. and then, you know, i realized that the room was full of an abominable silence; can you understand that? a sort of purposeful silence, just as sickening as any of the filthy noises the things have power to make. do you remember what i told you about that 'silent garden' business? well, this room had just that same _malevolent_ silence--the beastly quietness of a thing that is looking at you and not seeable itself, and thinks that it has got you. oh, i recognized it instantly, and i whipped the top off my lantern, so as to have light over the _whole_ room. "then i set-to, working like fury, and keeping my glance all about me. i sealed the two windows with lengths of human hair, right across, and sealed them at every frame. as i worked, a queer, scarcely perceptible tenseness stole into the air of the place, and the silence seemed, if you can understand me, to grow more solid. i knew then that i had no business there without 'full protection'; for i was practically certain that this was no mere aeiirii development; but one of the worst forms, as the saiitii; like that 'grunting man' case--you know. "i finished the window, and hurried over to the great fireplace. this is a huge affair, and has a queer gallows-iron, i think they are called, projecting from the back of the arch. i sealed the opening with seven human hairs--the seventh crossing the six others. "then, just as i was making an end, a low, mocking whistle grew in the room. a cold, nervous pricking went up my spine, and 'round my forehead from the back. the hideous sound filled all the room with an extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be human--as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly. as i stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, i had no doubt but that i had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of the _inanimate_ reproducing the functions of the _animate_, i made a grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my shoulder, and listening for the thing that i expected. it came, just as i got my hand upon the handle--a squeal of incredible, malevolent anger, piercing through the low hooning of the whistling. i dashed out, slamming the door and locking it. i leant a little against the opposite wall of the corridor, feeling rather funny; for it had been a narrow squeak.... 'theyr be noe sayfetie to be gained bye gayrds of holieness when the monyster hath pow'r to speak throe woode and stoene.' so runs the passage in the sigsand ms., and i proved it in that 'nodding door' business. there is no protection against this particular form of monster, except, possibly, for a fractional period of time; for it can reproduce itself in, or take to its purpose, the very protective material which you may use, and has the power to '_forme_ wythine the pentycle'; though not immediately. there is, of course, the possibility of the unknown last line of the saaamaaa ritual being uttered; but it is too uncertain to count upon, and the danger is too hideous; and even then it has no power to protect for more than 'maybee fyve beats of the harte,' as the sigsand has it. "inside of the room, there was now a constant, meditative, hooning whistling; but presently this ceased, and the silence seemed worse; for there is such a sense of hidden mischief in a silence. "after a little, i sealed the door with crossed hairs, and then cleared off down the great passage, and so to bed. "for a long time i lay awake; but managed eventually to get some sleep. yet, about two o'clock i was waked by the hooning whistling of the room coming to me, even through the closed doors. the sound was tremendous, and seemed to beat through the whole house with a presiding sense of terror. as if (i remember thinking) some monstrous giant had been holding mad carnival with itself at the end of that great passage. "i got up and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering whether to go along and have a look at the seal; and suddenly there came a thump on my door, and tassoc walked in, with his dressing gown over his pajamas. "'i thought it would have waked you, so i came along to have a talk,' he said. '_i_ can't sleep. beautiful! isn't it!' "'extraordinary!' i said, and tossed him my case. "he lit a cigarette, and we sat and talked for about an hour; and all the time that noise went on, down at the end of the big corridor. "suddenly, tassoc stood up:-- "'let's take our guns, and go and examine the brute,' he said, and turned toward the door. "'no!' i said. 'by jove--_no!_ i can't say anything definite, yet; but i believe that room is about as dangerous as it well can be.' "'haunted--_really_ haunted?' he asked, keenly and without any of his frequent banter. "i told him, of course, that i could not say a definite _yes_ or _no_ to such a question; but that i hoped to be able to make a statement, soon. then i gave him a little lecture on the false re-materialization of the animate-force through the inanimate-inert. he began then to see the particular way in the room might be dangerous, if it were really the subject of a manifestation. "about an hour later, the whistling ceased quite suddenly, and tassoc went off again to bed. i went back to mine, also, and eventually got another spell of sleep. "in the morning, i went along to the room. i found the seals on the door intact. then i went in. the window seals and the hair were all right; but the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. this set me thinking. i knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been broken by something else. yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence. "i removed the other hairs, and the seals. then i looked up the chimney. it went up straight, and i could see blue sky at the top. it was a big, open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners. yet, of course, i did not trust to any such casual examination, and after breakfast, i put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding all the way; but i found nothing. "then i came down, and went over the whole of the room--floor, ceiling, and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both hammer and probe. but there was nothing abnormal. "afterward, i made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same thorough way; but found nothing. i went even further, then; for at night, when the whistling commenced, i made a microphone test. you see, if the whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed within the walls. it certainly was an up-to-date method of examination, as you must allow. "of course, i did not think that any of tassoc's rivals had fixed up any mechanical contrivance; but i thought it just possible that there had been some such thing for producing the whistling, made away back in the years, perhaps with the intention of giving the room a reputation that would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. you see what i mean? well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge to play this devil of a prank on tassoc. the microphone test of the walls would certainly have made this known to me, as i have said; but there was nothing of the sort in the castle; so that i had practically no doubt at all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is popularly termed 'haunting.' "all this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the hooning whistling of the room was intolerable. it was as if an intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt. i tell you, it was as extraordinary as it was horrible. time after time, i went along--tiptoeing noiselessly on stockinged feet--to the sealed door (for i always kept the room sealed). i went at all hours of the night, and often the whistling, inside, would seem to change to a brutally malignant note, as though the half-animate monster saw me plainly through the shut door. and all the time the shrieking, hooning whistling would fill the whole corridor, so that i used to feel a precious lonely chap, messing about there with one of hell's mysteries. "and every morning, i would enter the room, and examine the different hairs and seals. you see, after the first week, i had stretched parallel hairs all along the walls of the room, and along the ceiling; but over the floor, which was of polished stone, i had set out little, colorless wafers, tacky-side uppermost. each wafer was numbered, and they were arranged after a definite plan, so that i should be able to trace the exact movements of any living thing that went across the floor. "you will see that no material being or creature could possibly have entered that room, without leaving many signs to tell me about it. but nothing was ever disturbed, and i began to think that i should have to risk an attempt to stay the night in the room, in the electric pentacle. yet, mind you, i knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but i was getting stumped, and ready to do anything. "once, about midnight, i did break the seal on the door, and have a quick look in; but, i tell you, the whole room gave one mad yell, and seemed to come toward me in a great belly of shadows, as if the walls had bellied in toward me. of course, that must have been fancy. anyway, the yell was sufficient, and i slammed the door, and locked it, feeling a bit weak down my spine. you know the feeling. "and then, when i had got to that state of readiness for anything, i made something of a discovery. it was about one in the morning, and i was walking slowly 'round the castle, keeping in the soft grass. i had come under the shadow of the east front, and far above me, i could hear the vile, hooning whistle of the room, up in the darkness of the unlit wing. then, suddenly, a little in front of me, i heard a man's voice, speaking low, but evidently in glee:-- "'by george! you chaps; but i wouldn't care to bring a wife home in that!' it said, in the tone of the cultured irish. "someone started to reply; but there came a sharp exclamation, and then a rush, and i heard footsteps running in all directions. evidently, the men had spotted me. "for a few seconds, i stood there, feeling an awful ass. after all, _they_ were at the bottom of the haunting! do you see what a big fool it made me seem? i had no doubt but that they were some of tassoc's rivals; and here i had been feeling in every bone that i had hit a real, bad, genuine case! and then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds of details, that made me just as much in doubt again. anyway, whether it was natural, or ab-natural, there was a great deal yet to be cleared up. "i told tassoc, next morning, what i had discovered, and through the whole of every night, for five nights, we kept a close watch 'round the east wing; but there was never a sign of anyone prowling about; and all the time, almost from evening to dawn, that grotesque whistling would hoon incredibly, far above us in the darkness. "on the morning after the fifth night, i received a wire from here, which brought me home by the next boat. i explained to tassoc that i was simply bound to come away for a few days; but told him to keep up the watch 'round the castle. one thing i was very careful to do, and that was to make him absolutely promise never to go into the room, between sunset and sunrise. i made it clear to him that we knew nothing definite yet, one way or the other; and if the room were what i had first thought it to be, it might be a lot better for him to die first, than enter it after dark. "when i got here, and had finished my business, i thought you chaps would be interested; and also i wanted to get it all spread out clear in my mind; so i rung you up. i am going over again to-morrow, and when i get back, i ought to have something pretty extraordinary to tell you. by the way, there is a curious thing i forgot to tell you. i tried to get a phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no impression on the wax at all. that is one of the things that has made me feel queer, i can tell you. another extraordinary thing is that the microphone will not magnify the sound--will not even transmit it; seems to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. i am absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. i am a wee bit curious to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. _i_ cannot--not yet." he rose to his feet. "good night, all," he said, and began to usher us out abruptly, but without offence, into the night. a fortnight later, he dropped each of us a card, and you can imagine that i was not late this time. when we arrived, carnacki took us straight into dinner, and when we had finished, and all made ourselves comfortable, he began again, where he had left off:-- "now just listen quietly; for i have got something pretty queer to tell you. i got back late at night, and i had to walk up to the castle, as i had not warned them that i was coming. it was bright moonlight; so that the walk was rather a pleasure, than otherwise. when i got there, the whole place was in darkness, and i thought i would take a walk 'round outside, to see whether tassoc or his brother was keeping watch. but i could not find them anywhere, and concluded that they had got tired of it, and gone off to bed. "as i returned across the front of the east wing, i caught the hooning whistling of the room, coming down strangely through the stillness of the night. it had a queer note in it, i remember--low and constant, queerly meditative. i looked up at the window, bright in the moonlight, and got a sudden thought to bring a ladder from the stable yard, and try to get a look into the room, through the window. "with this notion, i hunted 'round at the back of the castle, among the straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder; though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! and i thought at first that i should never get it reared. i managed at last, and let the ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the larger window. then, going silently, i went up the ladder. presently, i had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with the moonlight. "of course, the queer whistling sounded louder up there; but it still conveyed that peculiar sense of something whistling quietly to itself--can you understand? though, for all the meditative lowness of the note, the horrible, gargantuan quality was distinct--a mighty parody of the human, as if i stood there and listened to the whistling from the lips of a monster with a man's soul. "and then, you know, i saw something. the floor in the middle of the huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. at times, as i watched, i saw the heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction, as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate and pout once more to the incredible melody. and suddenly, as i stared, dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. i was looking at two enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale moonlight.... "abruptly, they bulged out to a vast, pouting mound of force and sound, stiffened and swollen, and hugely massive and clean-cut in the moon-beams. and a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. in the same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note, that seemed to stun me, even where i stood, outside of the window. and then, the following moment, i was staring blankly at the solid, undisturbed floor of the room--smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall to wall; and there was an absolute silence. "you can picture me staring into the quiet room, and knowing what i knew. i felt like a sick, frightened kid, and wanted to slide _quietly_ down the ladder, and run away. but in that very instant, i heard tassoc's voice calling to me from within the room, for help, _help_. my god! but i got such an awful dazed feeling; and i had a vague, bewildered notion that, after all, it was the irishmen who had got him in there, and were taking it out of him. and then the call came again, and i burst the window, and jumped in to help him. i had a confused idea that the call had come from within the shadow of the great fireplace, and i raced across to it; but there was no one there. "'tassoc!' i shouted, and my voice went empty-sounding 'round the great apartment; and then, in a flash, _i knew that tassoc had never called_. i whirled 'round, sick with fear, toward the window, and as i did so, a frightful, exultant whistling scream burst through the room. on my left, the end wall had bellied-in toward me, in a pair of gargantuan lips, black and utterly monstrous, to within a yard of my face. i fumbled for a mad instant at my revolver; not for _it_, but myself; for the danger was a thousand times worse than death. and then, suddenly, the unknown last line of the saaamaaa ritual was whispered quite audibly in the room. instantly, the thing happened that i have known once before. there came a sense as of dust falling continually and monotonously, and i knew that my life hung uncertain and suspended for a flash, in a brief, reeling vertigo of unseeable things. then _that_ ended, and i knew that i might live. my soul and body blended again, and life and power came to me. i dashed furiously at the window, and hurled myself out head-foremost; for i can tell you that i had stopped being afraid of death. i crashed down on to the ladder, and slithered, grabbing and grabbing; and so came some way or other alive to the bottom. and there i sat in the soft, wet grass, with the moonlight all about me; and far above, through the broken window of the room, there was a low whistling. "that is the chief of it. i was not hurt, and i went 'round to the front, and knocked tassoc up. when they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some good whisky--for i was shaken to pieces--and i explained things as much as i could, i told tassoc that the room would have to come down, and every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a pentacle. he nodded. there was nothing to say. then i went to bed. "we turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean. "it was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that i got hold of a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. over the great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, i found that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an old inscription, in ancient celtic, that here in this room was burned dian tiansay, jester of king alzof, who made the song of foolishness upon king ernore of the seventh castle. "when i got the translation clear, i gave it to tassoc. he was tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail. afterward, i found that the incident was well-known about the countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. and no one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old east wing of iastrae castle was the remains of the ancient seventh castle. "from the old parchment, i gathered that there had been a pretty dirty job done, away back in the years. it seems that king alzof and king ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years, until dian tiansay made the song of foolishness upon king ernore, and sang it before king alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that king alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife. "presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so it came at last to king ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but dian tiansay, the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned him in the room in the east wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for her prettiness. "but one night, dian tiansay's wife was not to be found, and in the morning they discovered her lying dead in her husband's arms, and he sitting, whistling the song of foolishness, for he had no longer the power to sing it. "then they roasted dian tiansay, in the great fireplace--probably from that selfsame 'galley-iron' which i have already mentioned. and until he died, dian tiansay ceased not to whistle the song of foolishness, which he could no longer sing. but afterward, 'in that room' there was often heard at night the sound of something whistling; and there 'grew a power in that room,' so that none dared to sleep in it. and presently, it would seem, the king went to another castle; for the whistling troubled him. "there you have it all. of course, that is only a rough rendering of the translation of the parchment. but it sounds extraordinarily quaint. don't you think so?" "yes," i said, answering for the lot. "but how did the thing grow to such a tremendous manifestation?" "one of those cases of continuity of thought producing a positive action upon the immediate surrounding material," replied carnacki. "the development must have been going forward through centuries, to have produced such a monstrosity. it was a true instance of saiitii manifestation, which i can best explain by likening it to a living spiritual fungus, which involves the very structure of the aether-fiber itself, and, of course, in so doing, acquires an essential control over the 'material substance' involved in it. it is impossible to make it plainer in a few words." "what broke the seventh hair?" asked taylor. but carnacki did not know. he thought it was probably nothing but being too severely tensioned. he also explained that they found out that the men who had run away, had not been up to mischief; but had come over secretly, merely to hear the whistling, which, indeed, had suddenly become the talk of the whole countryside. "one other thing," said arkright, "have you any idea what governs the use of the unknown last line of the saaamaaa ritual? i know, of course, that it was used by the ab-human priests in the incantation of raaaee; but what used it on your behalf, and what made it?" "you had better read harzan's monograph, and my addenda to it, on astral and astral co-ordination and interference," said carnacki. "it is an extraordinary subject, and i can only say here that the human vibration may not be insulated from the astral (as is always believed to be the case, in interferences by the ab-human), without immediate action being taken by those forces which govern the spinning of the outer circle. in other words, it is being proved, time after time, that there is some inscrutable protective force constantly intervening between the human soul (not the body, mind you,) and the outer monstrosities. am i clear?" "yes, i think so," i replied. "and you believe that the room had become the material expression of the ancient jester--that his soul, rotten with hatred, had bred into a monster--eh?" i asked. "yes," said carnacki, nodding, "i think you've put my thought rather neatly. it is a queer coincidence that miss donnehue is supposed to be descended (so i have heard since) from the same king ernore. it makes one think some curious thoughts, doesn't it? the marriage coming on, and the room waking to fresh life. if she had gone into that room, ever ... eh? _it_ had waited a long time. sins of the fathers. yes, i've thought of that. they're to be married next week, and i am to be best man, which is a thing i hate. and he won his bets, rather! just think, _if_ ever she had gone into that room. pretty horrible, eh?" he nodded his head, grimly, and we four nodded back. then he rose and took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in friendly fashion on the embankment and into the fresh night air. "good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. if she had, eh? if she had? that is what i kept thinking. no. --the horse of the invisible i had that afternoon received an invitation from carnacki. when i reached his place i found him sitting alone. as i came into the room he rose with a perceptibly stiff movement and extended his left hand. his face seemed to be badly scarred and bruised and his right hand was bandaged. he shook hands and offered me his paper, which i refused. then he passed me a handful of photographs and returned to his reading. now, that is just carnacki. not a word had come from him and not a question from me. he would tell us all about it later. i spent about half an hour looking at the photographs which were chiefly "snaps" (some by flashlight) of an extraordinarily pretty girl; though in some of the photographs it was wonderful that her prettiness was so evident for so frightened and startled was her expression that it was difficult not to believe that she had been photographed in the presence of some imminent and overwhelming danger. the bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or portion of the head or dress included in the photograph. all of these had evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine. near the bottom of the pile, however, i came upon something _definitely_ extraordinary. it was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen. her face was turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some noise. directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof. i examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which carnacki was interested. when jessop, arkright and taylor came in carnacki quietly held out his hand for the photographs which i returned in the same spirit and afterward we all went in to dinner. when we had spent a quiet hour at the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and carnacki began: "i've been north," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs at his pipe. "up to hisgins of east lancashire. it has been a pretty strange business all 'round, as i fancy you chaps will think, when i have finished. i knew before i went, something about the 'horse story,' as i have heard it called; but i never thought of it coming my way, somehow. also i know _now_ that i never considered it seriously--in spite of my rule always to keep an open mind. funny creatures, we humans! "well, i got a wire asking for an appointment, which of course told me that there was some trouble. on the date i fixed old captain hisgins himself came up to see me. he told me a great many new details about the horse story; though naturally i had always known the main points and understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be haunted by the horse during her courtship. "it is, as you can see already, an extraordinary story and though i have always known about it, i have never thought it to be anything more than an old-time legend, as i have already hinted. you see, for seven generations the hisgins family have had men children for their first-born and even the hisginses themselves have long considered the tale to be little more than a myth. "to come to the present, the eldest child of the reigning family is a girl and she has been often teased and warned in jest by her friends and relations that she is the first girl to be the eldest for seven generations and that she would have to keep her men friends at arm's length or go into a nunnery if she hoped to escape the haunting. and this, i think, shows us how thoroughly the tale had grown to be considered as nothing worthy of the least serious thought. don't you think so? "two months ago miss hisgins became engaged to beaumont, a young naval officer, and on the evening of the very day of the engagement, before it was even formally announced, a most extraordinary thing happened which resulted in captain hisgins making the appointment and my ultimately going down to their place to look into the thing. "from the old family records and papers that were entrusted to me i found that there could be no possible doubt that prior to something like a hundred and fifty years ago there were some very extraordinary and disagreeable coincidences, to put the thing in the least emotional way. in the whole of the two centuries prior to that date there were five first-born girls out of a total of seven generations of the family. each of these girls grew up to maidenhood and each became engaged, and each one died during the period of engagement, two by suicide, one by falling from a window, one from a 'broken heart' (presumably heart failure, owing to sudden shock through fright). the fifth girl was killed one evening in the park 'round the house; but just how, there seemed to be no _exact_ knowledge; only that there was an impression that she had been kicked by a horse. she was dead when found. now, you see, all of these deaths might be attributed in a way--even the suicides--to natural causes, i mean as distinct from supernatural. you see? yet, in every case the maidens had undoubtedly suffered some extraordinary and terrifying experiences during their various courtships for in all of the records there was mention either of the neighing of an unseen horse or of the sounds of an invisible horse galloping, as well as many other peculiar and quite inexplicable manifestations. you begin to understand now, i think, just how extraordinary a business it was that i was asked to look into. "i gathered from one account that the haunting of the girls was so constant and horrible that two of the girls' lovers fairly ran away from their ladyloves. and i think it was this, more than anything else, that made me feel that there had been something more in it than a mere succession of uncomfortable coincidences. "i got hold of these facts before i had been many hours in the house and after this i went pretty carefully into the details of the thing that happened on the night of miss hisgins's engagement to beaumont. it seems that as the two of them were going through the big lower corridor, just after dusk and before the lamps had been lighted, there had been a sudden, horrible neighing in the corridor, close to them. immediately afterward beaumont received a tremendous blow or kick which broke his right forearm. then the rest of the family and the servants came running to know what was wrong. lights were brought and the corridor and, afterward, the whole house searched, but nothing unusual was found. "you can imagine the excitement in the house and the half incredulous, half believing talk about the old legend. then, later, in the middle of the night the old captain was waked by the sound of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the house. "several times after this both beaumont and the girl said that they had heard the sounds of hoofs near to them after dusk, in several of the rooms and corridors. "three nights later beaumont was waked by a strange neighing in the nighttime seeming to come from the direction of his sweetheart's bedroom. he ran hurriedly for her father and the two of them raced to her room. they found her awake and ill with sheer terror, having been awakened by the neighing, seemingly close to her bed. "the night before i arrived, there had been a fresh happening and they were all in a frightfully nervy state, as you can imagine. "i spent most of the first day, as i have hinted, in getting hold of details; but after dinner i slacked off and played billiards all the evening with beaumont and miss hisgins. we stopped about ten o'clock and had coffee and i got beaumont to give me full particulars about the thing that had happened the evening before. "he and miss hisgins had been sitting quietly in her aunt's boudoir whilst the old lady chaperoned them, behind a book. it was growing dusk and the lamp was at her end of the table. the rest of the house was not yet lit as the evening had come earlier than usual. "well, it seems that the door into the hall was open and suddenly the girl said: 'h'sh! what's that?' "they both listened and then beaumont heard it--the sound of a horse outside of the front door. "'your father?' he suggested, but she reminded him that her father was not riding. "of course they were both ready to feel queer, as you can suppose, but beaumont made an effort to shake this off and went into the hall to see whether anyone was at the entrance. it was pretty dark in the hall and he could see the glass panels of the inner draft door, clear-cut in the darkness of the hall. he walked over to the glass and looked through into the drive beyond, but there nothing in sight. "he felt nervous and puzzled and opened the inner door and went out on to the carriage-circle. almost directly afterward the great hall door swung to with a crash behind him. he told me that he had a sudden awful feeling of having been trapped in some way--that is how he put it. he whirled 'round and gripped the door handle, but something seemed to be holding it with a vast grip on the other side. then, before he could be fixed in his mind that this was so, he was able to turn the handle and open the door. "he paused a moment in the doorway and peered into the hall, for he had hardly steadied his mind sufficiently to know whether he was really frightened or not. then he heard his sweetheart blow him a kiss out of the greyness of the big, unlit hall and he knew that she had followed him from the boudoir. he blew her a kiss back and stepped inside the doorway, meaning to go to her. and then, suddenly, in a flash of sickening knowledge he knew that it was not his sweetheart who had blown him that kiss. he knew that something was trying to tempt him alone into the darkness and that the girl had never left the boudoir. he jumped back and in the same instant of time he heard the kiss again, nearer to him. he called out at the top of his voice: 'mary, stay in the boudoir. don't move out of the boudoir until i come to you.' he heard her call something in reply from the boudoir and then he had struck a clump of a dozen or so matches and was holding them above his head and looking 'round the hall. there was no one in it, but even as the matches burned out there came the sounds of a great horse galloping down the empty drive. "now you see, both he and the girl had heard the sounds of the horse galloping; but when i questioned more closely i found that the aunt had heard nothing, though it is true she is a bit deaf, and she was further back in the room. of course, both he and miss hisgins had been in an extremely nervous state and ready to hear anything. the door might have been slammed by a sudden puff of wind owing to some inner door being opened; and as for the grip on the handle, that may have been nothing more than the snick catching. "with regard to the kisses and the sounds of the horse galloping, i pointed out that these might have seemed ordinary enough sounds, if they had been only cool enough to reason. as i told him, and as he knew, the sounds of a horse galloping carry a long way on the wind so that what he had heard might have been nothing more than a horse being ridden some distance away. and as for the kiss, plenty of quiet noises--the rustle of a paper or a leaf--have a somewhat similar sound, especially if one is in an overstrung condition and imagining things. "i finished preaching this little sermon on commonsense versus hysteria as we put out the lights and left the billiard room. but neither beaumont nor miss hisgins would agree that there had been any fancy on their parts. "we had come out of the billiard room by this time and were going along the passage and i was still doing my best to make both of them see the ordinary, commonplace possibilities of the happening, when what killed my pig, as the saying goes, was the sound of a hoof in the dark billiard room we had just left. "i felt the 'creep' come on me in a flash, up my spine and over the back of my head. miss hisgins whooped like a child with the whooping cough and ran up the passage, giving little gasping screams. beaumont, however, ripped 'round on his heels and jumped back a couple of yards. i gave back too, a bit, as you can understand. "'there it is,' he said in a low, breathless voice. 'perhaps you'll believe now.' "'there's certainly something,' i whispered, never taking my gaze off the closed door of the billiard room. "'h'sh!' he muttered. 'there it is again.' "there was a sound like a great horse pacing 'round and 'round the billiard room with slow, deliberate steps. a horrible cold fright took me so that it seemed impossible to take a full breath, you know the feeling, and then i saw we must have been walking backward for we found ourselves suddenly at the opening of the long passage. "we stopped there and listened. the sounds went on steadily with a horrible sort of deliberateness, as if the brute were taking a sort of malicious gusto in walking about all over the room which we had just occupied. do you understand just what i mean? "then there was a pause and a long time of absolute quiet except for an excited whispering from some of the people down in the big hall. the sound came plainly up the wide stairway. i fancy they were gathered 'round miss hisgins, with some notion of protecting her. "i should think beaumont and i stood there, at the end of the passage for about five minutes, listening for any noise in the billiard room. then i realized what a horrible funk i was in and i said to him: 'i'm going to see what's there.' "'so'm i,' he answered. he was pretty white, but he had heaps of pluck. i told him to wait one instant and i made a dash into my bedroom and got my camera and flashlight. i slipped my revolver into my right-hand pocket and a knuckle-duster over my left fist, where it was ready and yet would not stop me from being able to work my flashlight. "then i ran back to beaumont. he held out his hand to show me that he had his pistol and i nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all. he had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. then we went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that we were a pretty nervous couple. "all this time there had not been a sound, but abruptly when we were within perhaps a couple of yards of the door we heard the sudden clumping of a hoof on the solid _parquet_ floor of the billiard room. in the instant afterward it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the ponderous hoof falls of some huge thing, _coming toward the door_. both beaumont and i gave back a pace or two, and then realized and hung on to our courage, as you might say, and waited. the great tread came right up to the door and then stopped and there was an instant of absolute silence, except that so far as i was concerned, the pulsing in my throat and temples almost deafened me. "i dare say we waited quite half a minute and then came the further restless clumping of a great hoof. immediately afterward the sounds came right on as if some invisible thing passed through the closed door and the ponderous tread was upon us. we jumped, each of us, to our side of the passage and i know that i spread myself stiff against the wall. the clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage. i heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and i was horribly breathless. i stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that i could see up the passage. i was conscious only that there was a hideous danger abroad. do you understand? "and then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. i was aware that the noise of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. i twisted quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight. immediately afterward, beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage and began to run, shouting: 'it's after mary. run! run!' "he rushed down the passage and i after him. we came out on the main landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that, nothing. and from thence onward, nothing. "down below us in the big hall i could see a number of the household 'round miss hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main landing and no one saying a single word. and about some twenty steps up the stairs was the old captain hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. i think i never saw anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and that infernal thing. "i daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror i had at passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. it was as if the monster were still standing there, invisible. and the peculiar thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or down the stairs. "after they had taken miss hisgins to her room i sent word that i should follow, so soon as they were ready for me. and presently, when a message came to tell me that i could come any time, i asked her father to give me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the girl's bedroom. i had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the room, after which i erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed. "then i directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on no account must any light be made within the pentacle; neither must anyone pass in or out. the girl's mother i had placed within the pentacle and directed that her maid should sit without, ready to carry any message so as to make sure that mrs. hisgins did not have to leave the pentacle. i suggested also that the girl's father should stay the night in the room and that he had better be armed. "when i left the bedroom i found beaumont waiting outside the door in a miserable state of anxiety. i told him what i had done and explained to him that miss hisgins was probably perfectly safe within the 'protection'; but that in addition to her father remaining the night in the room, i intended to stand guard at the door. i told him that i should like him to keep me company, for i knew that he could never sleep, feeling as he did, and i should not be sorry to have a companion. also, i wanted to have him under my own observation, for there was no doubt but that he was actually in greater danger in some ways than the girl. at least, that was my opinion and is still, as i think you will agree later. "i asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle 'round him for the night and got him to agree, but i saw that he did not know whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when i gave him some particulars about the black veil case, when young aster died. you remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed outside. poor devil! "the night passed quietly enough until a little while before dawn when we both heard the sounds of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the house just as old captain hisgins had described it. you can imagine how queer it made me feel and directly afterward, i heard someone stir within the bedroom. i knocked at the door, for i was uneasy, and the captain came. i asked whether everything was right; to which he replied yes, and immediately asked me whether i had heard the galloping, so that i knew he had heard them also. i suggested that it might be well to leave the bedroom door open a little until the dawn came in, as there was certainly something abroad. this was done and he went back into the room, to be near his wife and daughter. "i had better say here that i was doubtful whether there was any value in the 'defense' about miss hisgins, for what i term the 'personal sounds' of the manifestation were so extraordinarily material that i was inclined to parallel the case with that one of harford's where the hand of the child kept materializing within the pentacle and patting the floor. as you will remember, that was a hideous business. "yet, as it chanced, nothing further happened and so soon as daylight had fully come we all went off to bed. "beaumont knocked me up about midday and i went down and made breakfast into lunch. miss hisgins was there and seemed in very fair spirits, considering. she told me that i had made her feel almost safe for the first time for days. she told me also that her cousin, harry parsket, was coming down from london and she knew that he would do anything to help fight the ghost. and after that she and beaumont went out into the grounds to have a little time together. "i had a walk in the grounds myself and went 'round the house, but saw no traces of hoof marks and after that i spent the rest of the day making an examination of the house, but found nothing. "i made an end of my search before dark and went to my room to dress for dinner. when i got down the cousin had just arrived and i found him one of the nicest men i have met for a long time. a chap with a tremendous amount of pluck, and the particular kind of man i like to have with me in a bad case like the one i was on. i could see that what puzzled him most was our belief in the genuineness of the haunting and i found myself almost wanting something to happen, just to show him how true it was. as it chanced, something did happen, with a vengeance. "beaumont and miss hisgins had gone out for a stroll just before the dusk and captain hisgins asked me to come into his study for a short chat whilst parsket went upstairs with his traps, for he had no man with him. "i had a long conversation with the old captain in which i pointed out that the 'haunting' had evidently no particular connection with the house, but only with the girl herself and that the sooner she was married, the better as it would give beaumont a right to be with her at all times and further than this, it might be that the manifestations would cease if the marriage were actually performed. "the old man nodded agreement to this, especially to the first part and reminded me that three of the girls who were said to have been 'haunted' had been sent away from home and met their deaths whilst away. and then in the midst of our talk there came a pretty frightening interruption, for all at once the old butler rushed into the room, most extraordinarily pale: "'miss mary, sir! miss mary, sir!' he gasped. 'she's screaming ... out in the park, sir! and they say they can hear the horse--' "the captain made one dive for a rack of arms and snatched down his old sword and ran out, drawing it as he ran. i dashed out and up the stairs, snatched my camera-flashlight and a heavy revolver, gave one yell at parsket's door: 'the horse!' and was down and into the grounds. "away in the darkness there was a confused shouting and i caught the sounds of shooting, out among the scattered trees. and then, from a patch of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort of neighing. instantly i whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight. the great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but i saw nothing else and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and i heard parsket shouting a little way back to know whether i had seen anything. "the next instant he was beside me and i felt safer for his company, for there was some incredible thing near to us and i was momentarily blind because of the brightness of the flashlight. 'what was it? what was it?' he kept repeating in an excited voice. and all the time i was staring into the darkness and answering, mechanically, 'i don't know. i don't know.' "there was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. we ran toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the darkness and panic there was this danger also. then there came two of the game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house, carried by some of the men-servants. "as the lights came up i saw we had come close to beaumont. he was standing over miss hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand. then i saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead. by him was the captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands. yet there was nothing strange to be seen anywhere. "we got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor. and then the rest of us, with four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lanterns, searched 'round the home park. but we found nothing. "when we got back we found that the doctor had been. he had bound up beaumont's wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered miss hisgins straight to bed. i went upstairs with the captain and found beaumont on guard outside of the girl's door. i asked him how he felt and then, so soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, captain hisgins and i went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again 'round the bed. they had already got lamps about the room and after i had set the same order of watching as on the previous night, i joined beaumont outside of the door. "parsket had come up while i had been in the bedroom and between us we got some idea from beaumont as to what had happened out in the park. it seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of the west lodge. it had got quite dark and suddenly miss hisgins said: 'hush!' and came to a standstill. he stopped and listened, but heard nothing for a little. then he caught it--the sound of a horse, seemingly a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass. he told the girl that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she was not deceived, of course. in less than a minute they heard it quite close to them in the darkness and they started running. then miss hisgins caught her foot and fell. she began to scream and that is what the butler heard. as beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right at him. he stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver right at the sounds. he told us that he was sure he saw something that looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the last flash of his pistol. immediately afterward he was struck a tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the captain and the butler came running up, shouting. the rest, of course, we knew. "about ten o'clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which i was very glad, as the night before i had got rather hungry. i warned beaumont, however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and i also made him give me his pipe and matches. at midnight i drew a pentacle 'round him and parsket and i sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle, for i had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against anyone except beaumont or miss hisgins. "after that we kept pretty quiet. the passage was lit by a big lamp at each end so that we had plenty of light and we were all armed, beaumont and i with revolvers and parsket with a shotgun. in addition to my weapon i had my camera and flashlight. "now and again we talked in whispers and twice the captain came out of the bedroom to have a word with us. about half-past one we had all grown very silent and suddenly, about twenty minutes later, i held up my hand, silently, for there seemed to be a sound of galloping out in the night. i knocked on the bedroom door for the captain to open it and when he came i whispered to him that we thought we heard the horse. for some time we stayed listening, and both parsket and the captain thought they heard it; but now i was not so sure, neither was beaumont. yet afterward, i thought i heard it again. "i told captain hisgins i thought he had better go into the bedroom and leave the door a little open and this he did. but from that time onward we heard nothing and presently the dawn came in and we all went very thankfully to bed. "when i was called at lunchtime i had a little surprise, for captain hisgins told me that they had held a family council and had decided to take my advice and have the marriage without a day's more delay than possible. beaumont was already on his way to london to get a special license and they hoped to have the wedding next day. "this pleased me, for it seemed the sanest thing to be done in the extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile i should continue my investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought was to keep miss hisgins near to me. "after lunch i thought i would take a few experimental photographs of miss hisgins and her _surroundings_. sometimes the camera sees things that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight. "with this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my company as much as possible, i asked miss hisgins to join me in my experiments. she seemed glad to do this and i spent several hours with her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the impulse came i took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which we chanced to be at the moment. "after we had gone right through the house in this fashion, i asked her whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the cellars. she said yes, and so i rooted out captain hisgins and parsket, for i was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial darkness without help and companionship at hand. "when we were ready we went down into the wine cellar, captain hisgins carrying a shotgun and parsket a specially prepared background and a lantern. i got the girl to stand in the middle of the cellar whilst parsket and the captain held out the background behind her. then i fired off the flashlight, and we went into the next cellar where we repeated the experiment. "then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. i had stationed miss hisgins in the center of the place, with her father and parsket holding the background as before. when all was ready and just as i pressed the trigger of the 'flash,' there came in the cellar that dreadful, gobbling neighing that i had heard out in the park. it seemed to come from somewhere above the girl and in the glare of the sudden light i saw that she was staring tensely upward, but at no visible thing. and then in the succeeding comparative darkness, i was shouting to the captain and parsket to run miss hisgins out into the daylight. "this was done instantly and i shut and locked the door afterward making the first and eighth signs of the saaamaaa ritual opposite to each post and connecting them across the threshold with a triple line. "in the meanwhile parsket and captain hisgins carried the girl to her mother and left her there, in a half fainting condition whilst i stayed on guard outside of the cellar door, feeling pretty horrible for i knew that there was some disgusting thing inside, and along with this feeling there was a sense of half ashamedness, rather miserable, you know, because i had exposed miss hisgins to the danger. "i had got the captain's shotgun and when he and parsket came down again they were each carrying guns and lanterns. i could not possibly tell you the utter relief of spirit and body that came to me when i heard them coming, but just try to imagine what it was like, standing outside of that cellar. can you? "i remember noticing, just before i went to unlock the door, how white and ghastly parsket looked and the old captain was grey-looking and i wondered whether my face was like theirs. and this, you know, had its own distinct effect upon my nerves, for it seemed to bring the beastliness of the thing crashing down on to me in a fresh way. i know it was only sheer will power that carried me up to the door and made me turn the key. "i paused one little moment and then with a nervy jerk sent the door wide open and held my lantern over my head. parsket and the captain came one on each side of me and held up their lanterns, but the place was absolutely empty. of course, i did not trust to a casual look of this kind, but spent several hours with the help of the two others in sounding every square foot of the floor, ceiling and walls. "yet, in the end i had to admit that the place itself was absolutely normal and so we came away. but i sealed the door and outside, opposite each doorpost i made the first and last signs of the saaamaaa ritual, joined them as before, with a triple line. can you imagine what it was like, searching that cellar? "when we got upstairs i inquired very anxiously how miss hisgins was and the girl came out herself to tell me that she was all right and that i was not to trouble about her, or blame myself, as i told her i had been doing. "i felt happier then and went off to dress for dinner and after that was done, parsket and i took one of the bathrooms to develop the negatives that i had been taking. yet none of the plates had anything to tell us until we came to the one that was taken in the cellar. parsket was developing and i had taken a batch of the fixed plates out into the lamplight to examine them. "i had just gone carefully through the lot when i heard a shout from parsket and when i ran to him he was looking at a partly-developed negative which he was holding up to the red lamp. it showed the girl plainly, looking upward as i had seen her, but the thing that astonished me was the shadow of an enormous hoof, right above her, as if it were coming down upon her out of the shadows. and you know, i had run her bang into that danger. that was the thought that was chief in my mind. "as soon as the developing was complete i fixed the plate and examined it carefully in a good light. there was no doubt about it at all, the thing above miss hisgins was an enormous, shadowy hoof. yet i was no nearer to coming to any definite knowledge and the only thing i could do was to warn parsket to say nothing about it to the girl for it would only increase her fright, but i showed the thing to her father for i considered it right that he should know. "that night we took the same precaution for miss hisgins's safety as on the two previous nights and parsket kept me company; yet the dawn came in without anything unusual having happened and i went off to bed. "when i got down to lunch i learnt that beaumont had wired to say that he would be in soon after four; also that a message had been sent to the rector. and it was generally plain that the ladies of the house were in a tremendous fluster. "beaumont's train was late and he did not get home until five, but even then the rector had not put in an appearance and the butler came in to say that the coachman had returned without him as he had been called away unexpectedly. twice more during the evening the carriage was sent down, but the clergyman had not returned and we had to delay the marriage until the next day. "that night i arranged the 'defense' 'round the girl's bed and the captain and his wife sat up with her as before. beaumont, as i expected, insisted on keeping watch with me and he seemed in a curiously frightened mood; not for himself, you know, but for miss hisgins. he had a horrible feeling he told me, that there would be a final, dreadful attempt on his sweetheart that night. "this, of course, i told him was nothing but nerves; yet really, it made me feel very anxious; for i have seen too much not to know that under such circumstances a premonitory _conviction_ of impending danger is not necessarily to be put down entirely to nerves. in fact, beaumont was so simply and earnestly convinced that the night would bring some extraordinary manifestation that i got parsket to rig up a long cord from the wire of the butler's bell, to come along the passage handy. "to the butler himself i gave directions not to undress and to give the same order to two of the footmen. if i rang he was to come instantly, with the footmen, carrying lanterns and the lanterns were to be kept ready lit all night. if for any reason the bell did not ring and i blew my whistle, he was to take that as a signal in the place of the bell. "after i had arranged all these minor details i drew a pentacle about beaumont and warned him very particularly to stay within it, whatever happened. and when this was done, there was nothing to do but wait and pray that the night would go as quietly as the night before. "we scarcely talked at all and by about one a.m. we were all very tense and nervous so that at last parsket got up and began to walk up and down the corridor to steady himself a bit. presently i slipped off my pumps and joined him and we walked up and down, whispering occasionally for something over an hour, until in turning i caught my foot in the bell cord and went down on my face; but without hurting myself or making a noise. "when i got up parsket nudged me. "'did you notice that the bell never rang?' he whispered. "'jove!' i said, 'you're right.' "'wait a minute,' he answered. 'i'll bet it's only a kink somewhere in the cord.' he left his gun and slipped along the passage and taking the top lamp, tiptoed away into the house, carrying beaumont's revolver ready in his right hand. he was a plucky chap, i remember thinking then, and again, later. "just then beaumont motioned to me for absolute quiet. directly afterward i heard the thing for which he listened--the sound of a horse galloping, out in the night. i think that i may say i fairly shivered. the sound died away and left a horrible, desolate, eerie feeling in the air, you know. i put my hand out to the bell cord, hoping parsket had got it clear. then i waited, glancing before and behind. "perhaps two minutes passed, full of what seemed like an almost unearthly quiet. and then, suddenly, down the corridor at the lighted end there sounded the clumping of a great hoof and instantly the lamp was thrown with a tremendous crash and we were in the dark. i tugged hard on the cord and blew the whistle; then i raised my snapshot and fired the flashlight. the corridor blazed into brilliant light, but there was nothing, and then the darkness fell like thunder. i heard the captain at the bedroom door and shouted to him to bring out a lamp, _quick_; but instead something started to kick the door and i heard the captain shouting within the bedroom and then the screaming of the women. i had a sudden horrible fear that the monster had got into the bedroom, but in the same instant from up the corridor there came abruptly the vile, gobbling neighing that we had heard in the park and the cellar. i blew the whistle again and groped blindly for the bell cord, shouting to beaumont to stay in the pentacle, whatever happened. i yelled again to the captain to bring out a lamp and there came a smashing sound against the bedroom door. then i had my matches in my hand, to get some light before that incredible, unseen monster was upon us. "the match scraped on the box and flared up dully and in the same instant i heard a faint sound behind me. i whipped 'round in a kind of mad terror and saw something in the light of the match--a monstrous horse-head close to beaumont. "'look out, beaumont!' i shouted in a sort of scream. 'it's behind you!' "the match went out abruptly and instantly there came the huge bang of parsket's double-barrel (both barrels at once), fired evidently single-handed by beaumont close to my ear, as it seemed. i caught a momentary glimpse of the great head in the flash and of an enormous hoof amid the belch of fire and smoke seeming to be descending upon beaumont. in the same instant i fired three chambers of my revolver. there was the sound of a dull blow and then that horrible, gobbling neigh broke out close to me. i fired twice at the sound. immediately afterward something struck me and i was knocked backward. i got on to my knees and shouted for help at the top of my voice. i heard the women screaming behind the closed door of the bedroom and was dully aware that the door was being smashed from the inside, and directly afterward i knew that beaumont was struggling with some hideous thing near to me. for an instant i held back, stupidly, paralyzed with funk and then, blindly and in a sort of rigid chill of goose flesh i went to help him, shouting his name. i can tell you, i was nearly sick with the naked fear i had on me. there came a little, choking scream out of the darkness, and at that i jumped forward into the dark. i gripped a vast, furry ear. then something struck me another great blow knocking me sick. i hit back, weak and blind and gripped with my other hand at the incredible thing. abruptly i was dimly aware of a tremendous crash behind me and a great burst of light. there were other lights in the passage and a noise of feet and shouting. my hand-grips were torn from the thing they held; i shut my eyes stupidly and heard a loud yell above me and then a heavy blow, like a butcher chopping meat and then something fell upon me. "i was helped to my knees by the captain and the butler. on the floor lay an enormous horse-head out of which protruded a man's trunk and legs. on the wrists were fixed great hoofs. it was the monster. the captain cut something with the sword that he held in his hand and stooped and lifted off the mask, for that is what it was. i saw the face then of the man who had worn it. it was parsket. he had a bad wound across the forehead where the captain's sword had bit through the mask. i looked bewilderedly from him to beaumont, who was sitting up, leaning against the wall of the corridor. then i stared at parsket again. "'by jove!' i said at last, and then i was quiet for i was so ashamed for the man. you can understand, can't you? and he was opening his eyes. and you know, i had grown so to like him. "and then, you know, just as parsket was getting back his wits and looking from one to the other of us and beginning to remember, there happened a strange and incredible thing. for from the end of the corridor there sounded suddenly, the clumping of a great hoof. i looked that way and then instantly at parsket and saw a horrible fear in his face and eyes. he wrenched himself 'round, weakly, and stared in mad terror up the corridor to where the sound had been, and the rest of us stared, in a frozen group. i remember vaguely half sobs and whispers from miss hisgins's bedroom, all the while that i stared frightenedly up the corridor. "the silence lasted several seconds and then, abruptly there came again the clumping of the great hoof, away at the end of the corridor. and immediately afterward the clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs coming down the passage toward us. "even then, you know, most of us thought it was some mechanism of parsket's still at work and we were in the queerest mixture of fright and doubt. i think everyone looked at parsket. and suddenly the captain shouted out: "'stop this damned fooling at once. haven't you done enough?' "for my part, i was now frightened for i had a _sense_ that there was something horrible and wrong. and then parsket managed to gasp out: "'it's not me! my god! it's not me! my god! it's not me.' "and then, you know, it seemed to come home to everyone in an instant that there was really some dreadful thing coming down the passage. there was a mad rush to get away and even old captain hisgins gave back with the butler and the footmen. beaumont fainted outright, as i found afterward, for he had been badly mauled. i just flattened back against the wall, kneeling as i was, too stupid and dazed even to run. and almost in the same instant the ponderous hoof falls sounded close to me and seeming to shake the solid floor as they passed. abruptly the great sounds ceased and i knew in a sort of sick fashion that the thing had halted opposite to the door of the girl's bedroom. and then i was aware that parsket was standing rocking in the doorway with his arms spread across, so as to fill the doorway with his body. parsket was extraordinarily pale and the blood was running down his face from the wound in his forehead; and then i noticed that he seemed to be looking at something in the passage with a peculiar, desperate, fixed, incredibly masterful gaze. but there was really nothing to be seen. and suddenly the clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk recommenced and passed onward down the passage. in the same moment parsket pitched forward out of the doorway on to his face. "there were shouts from the huddle of men down the passage and the two footmen and the butler simply ran, carrying their lanterns, but the captain went against the side-wall with his back and put the lamp he was carrying over his head. the dull tread of the horse went past him, and left him unharmed and i heard the monstrous hoof falls going away and away through the quiet house and after that a dead silence. "then the captain moved and came toward us, very slow and shaky and with an extraordinarily grey face. "i crept toward parsket and the captain came to help me. we turned him over and, you know, i knew in a moment that he was dead; but you can imagine what a feeling it sent through me. "i looked at the captain and suddenly he said: "'that--that--that--' and i know that he was trying to tell me that parsket had stood between his daughter and whatever it was that had gone down the passage. i stood up and steadied him, though i was not very steady myself. and suddenly his face began to work and he went down on to his knees by parsket and cried like some shaken child. then the women came out of the doorway of the bedroom and i turned away and left him to them, whilst i over to beaumont. "that is practically the whole story and the only thing that is left to me is to try to explain some of the puzzling parts, here and there. "perhaps you have seen that parsket was in love with miss hisgins and this fact is the key to a good deal that was extraordinary. he was doubtless responsible for some portions of the 'haunting'; in fact i think for nearly everything, but, you know, i can prove nothing and what i have to tell you is chiefly the result of deduction. "in the first place, it is obvious that parsket's intention was to frighten beaumont away and when he found that he could not do this, i think he grew so desperate that he really intended to kill him. i hate to say this, but the facts force me to think so. "i am quite certain that it was parsket who broke beaumont's arm. he knew all the details of the so-called 'horse legend,' and got the idea to work upon the old story for his own end. he evidently had some method of slipping in and out of the house, probably through one of the many french windows, or possibly he had a key to one or two of the garden doors, and when he was supposed to be away, he was really coming down on the quiet and hiding somewhere in the neighborhood. "the incident of the kiss in the dark hall i put down to sheer nervous imaginings on the part of beaumont and miss hisgins, yet i must say that the sound of the horse outside of the front door is a little difficult to explain away. but i am still inclined to keep to my first idea on this point, that there was nothing really unnatural about it. "the hoof sounds in the billiard room and down the passage were done by parsket from the floor below by bumping up against the paneled ceiling with a block of wood tied to one of the window hooks. i proved this by an examination which showed the dents in the woodwork. "the sounds of the horse galloping 'round the house were possibly made also by parsket, who must have had a horse tied up in the plantation nearby, unless, indeed, he made the sounds himself, but i do not see how he could have gone fast enough to produce the illusion. in any case, i don't feel perfect certainty on this point. i failed to find any hoof marks, as you remember. "the gobbling neighing in the park was a ventriloquial achievement on the part of parsket and the attack out there on beaumont was also by him, so that when i thought he was in his bedroom, he must have been outside all the time and joined me after i ran out of the front door. this is almost probable. i mean that parsket was the cause, for if it had been something more serious he would certainly have given up his foolishness, knowing that there was no longer any need for it. i cannot imagine how he escaped being shot, both then and in the last mad action of which i have just told you. he was enormously without fear of any kind for himself as you can see. "the time when parsket was with us, when we thought we heard the horse galloping 'round the house, we must have been deceived. no one was very sure, except, of course, parsket, who would naturally encourage the belief. "the neighing in the cellar is where i consider there came the first suspicion into parsket's mind that there was something more at work than his sham haunting. the neighing was done by him in the same way that he did it in the park; but when i remember how ghastly he looked i feel sure that the sounds must have had some infernal quality added to them which frightened the man himself. yet, later, he would persuade himself that he had been getting fanciful. of course, i must not forget that the effect upon miss hisgins must have made him feel pretty miserable. "then, about the clergyman being called away, we found afterward that it was a bogus errand, or, rather, call and it is apparent that parsket was at the bottom of this, so as to get a few more hours in which to achieve his end and what that was, a very little imagination will show you; for he had found that beaumont would not be frightened away. i hate to think this, but i'm bound to. anyway, it is obvious that the man was temporarily a bit off his normal balance. love's a queer disease! "then, there is no doubt at all but that parsket left the cord to the butler's bell hitched somewhere so as to give him an excuse to slip away naturally to clear it. this also gave him the opportunity to remove one of the passage lamps. then he had only to smash the other and the passage was in utter darkness for him to make the attempt on beaumont. "in the same way, it was he who locked the door of the bedroom and took the key (it was in his pocket). this prevented the captain from bringing a light and coming to the rescue. but captain hisgins broke down the door with the heavy fender curb and it was his smashing the door that sounded so confusing and frightening in the darkness of the passage. "the photograph of the monstrous hoof above miss hisgins in the cellar is one of the things that i am less sure about. it might have been faked by parsket, whilst i was out of the room, and this would have been easy enough, to anyone who knew how. but, you know, it does not look like a fake. yet, there is as much evidence of probability that it was faked, as against; and the thing is too vague for an examination to help to a definite decision so that i will express no opinion, one way or the other. it is certainly a horrible photograph. "and now i come to that last, dreadful thing. there has been no further manifestation of anything abnormal so that there is an extraordinary uncertainty in my conclusions. if we had not heard those last sounds and if parsket had not shown that enormous sense of fear the whole of this case could be explained in the way in which i have shown. and, in fact, as you have seen, i am of the opinion that almost all of it can be cleared up, but i see no way of going past the thing we heard at the last and the fear that parsket showed. "his death--no, that proves nothing. at the inquest it was described somewhat untechnically as due to heart spasm. that is normal enough and leaves us quite in the dark as to whether he died because he stood between the girl and some incredible thing of monstrosity. "the look on parsket's face and the thing he called out when he heard the great hoof sounds coming down the passage seem to show that he had the sudden realization of what before then may have been nothing more than a horrible suspicion. and his fear and appreciation of some tremendous danger approaching was probably more keenly real even than mine. and then he did the one fine, great thing!" "and the cause?" i said. "what caused it?" carnacki shook his head. "god knows," he answered, with a peculiar, sincere reverence. "if that thing was what it seemed to be one might suggest an explanation which would not offend one's reason, but which may be utterly wrong. yet i have thought, though it would take a long lecture on thought induction to get you to appreciate my reasons, that parsket had produced what i might term a kind of 'induced haunting,' a kind of induced simulation of his mental conceptions to his desperate thoughts and broodings. it is impossible to make it clearer in a few words." "but the old story!" i said. "why may not there have been something in _that_?" "there may have been something in it," said carnacki. "but i do not think it had anything to do with this. i have not clearly thought out my reasons, yet; but later i may be able to tell you why i think so." "and the marriage? and the cellar--was there anything found there?" asked taylor. "yes, the marriage was performed that day in spite of the tragedy," carnacki told us. "it was the wisest thing to do considering the things that i cannot explain. yes, i had the floor of that big cellar up, for i had a feeling i might find something there to give me some light. but there was nothing. "you know, the whole thing is tremendous and extraordinary. i shall never forget the look on parsket's face. and afterward the disgusting sounds of those great hoofs going away through the quiet house." carnacki stood up. "out you go!" he said in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula. and we went presently out into the quiet of the embankment, and so to our homes. no. --the searcher of the end house it was still evening, as i remember, and the four of us, jessop, arkright, taylor and i, looked disappointedly at carnacki, where he sat silent in his great chair. we had come in response to the usual card of invitation, which--as you know--we have come to consider as a sure prelude to a good story; and now, after telling us the short incident of the three straw platters, he had lapsed into a contented silence, and the night not half gone, as i have hinted. however, as it chanced, some pitying fate jogged carnacki's elbow, or his memory, and he began again, in his queer level way:-- "the 'straw platters' business reminds me of the 'searcher' case, which i have sometimes thought might interest you. it was some time ago, in fact a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of what i might term 'curious' things was very small at that time. "i was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just outside of appledorn, on the south coast. the house was the last of a row of detached cottage villas, each house standing in its own garden; and very dainty little places they were, very old, and most of them smothered in roses; and all with those quaint old leaded windows, and doors of genuine oak. you must try to picture them for the sake of their complete niceness. "now i must remind you at the beginning that my mother and i had lived in that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had not been a single peculiar happening to worry us. "and then, something happened. "it was about two o'clock one morning, as i was finishing some letters, that i heard the door of my mother's bedroom open, and she came to the top of the stairs, and knocked on the banisters. "'all right, dear,' i called; for i suppose she was merely reminding me that i should have been in bed long ago; then i heard her go back to her room, and i hurried my work, for fear she should lie awake, until she heard me safe up to my room. "when i was finished, i lit my candle, put out the lamp, and went upstairs. as i came opposite the door of my mother's room, i saw that it was open, called good night to her, very softly, and asked whether i should close the door. as there was no answer, i knew that she had dropped off to sleep again, and i closed the door very gently, and turned into my room, just across the passage. as i did so, i experienced a momentary, half-aware sense of a faint, peculiar, disagreeable odor in the passage; but it was not until the following night that i _realized_ i had noticed a smell that offended me. you follow me? it is so often like that--one suddenly knows a thing that really recorded itself on one's consciousness, perhaps a year before. "the next morning at breakfast, i mentioned casually to my mother that she had 'dropped off,' and i had shut the door for her. to my surprise, she assured me she had never been out of her room. i reminded her about the two raps she had given upon the banister; but she still was certain i must be mistaken; and in the end i teased her, saying she had grown so accustomed to my bad habit of sitting up late, that she had come to call me in her sleep. of course, she denied this, and i let the matter drop; but i was more than a little puzzled, and did not know whether to believe my own explanation, or to take the mater's, which was to put the noises down to the mice, and the open door to the fact that she couldn't have properly latched it, when she went to bed. i suppose, away in the subconscious part of me, i had a stirring of less reasonable thoughts; but certainly, i had no real uneasiness at that time. "the next night there came a further development. about two thirty a.m., i heard my mother's door open, just as on the previous night, and immediately afterward she rapped sharply, on the banister, as it seemed to me. i stopped my work and called up that i would not be long. as she made no reply, and i did not hear her go back to bed, i had a quick sense of wonder whether she might not be doing it in her sleep, after all, just as i had said. "with the thought, i stood up, and taking the lamp from the table, began to go toward the door, which was open into the passage. it was then i got a sudden nasty sort of thrill; for it came to me, all at once, that my mother never knocked, when i sat up too late; she always called. you will understand i was not really frightened in any way; only vaguely uneasy, and pretty sure she must really be doing the thing in her sleep. "i went quickly up the stairs, and when i came to the top, my mother was not there; but her door was open. i had a bewildered sense though believing she must have gone quietly back to bed, without my hearing her. i entered her room and found her sleeping quietly and naturally; for the vague sense of trouble in me was sufficiently strong to make me go over to look at her. "when i was sure that she was perfectly right in every way, i was still a little bothered; but much more inclined to think my suspicion correct and that she had gone quietly back to bed in her sleep, without knowing what she had been doing. this was the most reasonable thing to think, as you must see. "and then it came to me, suddenly, that vague, queer, mildewy smell in the room; and it was in that instant i became aware i had smelt the same strange, uncertain smell the night before in the passage. "i was definitely uneasy now, and began to search my mother's room; though with no aim or clear thought of anything, except to assure myself that there was nothing in the room. all the time, you know, i never _expected really_ to find anything; only my uneasiness had to be assured. "in the middle of my search my mother woke up, and of course i had to explain. i told her about her door opening, and the knocks on the banister, and that i had come up and found her asleep. i said nothing about the smell, which was not very distinct; but told her that the thing happening twice had made me a bit nervous, and possibly fanciful, and i thought i would take a look 'round, just to feel satisfied. "i have thought since that the reason i made no mention of the smell, was not only that i did not want to frighten my mother, for i was scarcely that myself; but because i had only a vague half-knowledge that i associated the smell with fancies too indefinite and peculiar to bear talking about. you will understand that i am able _now_ to analyze and put the thing into words; but _then_ i did not even know my chief reason for saying nothing; let alone appreciate its possible significance. "it was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations into words:-- "'what a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment, looking at me. then:--'you feel there's something wrong?' still looking at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning expectancy. "'i don't know,' i said. 'i can't understand it, unless you've really been walking about in your sleep.' "'the smell,' she said. "'yes,' i replied. 'that's what puzzles me too. i'll take a walk through the house; but i don't suppose it's anything.' "i lit her candle, and taking the lamp, i went through the other bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that i was more nervous than i would admit. "then i went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into believing it was nothing. my mother would not agree that she might have been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. as for the knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. the smell was more difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window of my mother's room, from the back garden, or--for that matter--from the little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden. "and so we quietened down, and finally i went to bed, and to sleep. "i think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason could really accept. try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances, and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings really were. "in the morning, when i came down to breakfast, we talked it all over again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we felt half ashamed to admit. this is very strange when you come to look into it; but very human. "and then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just after midnight. i caught up the lamp, and when i reached her door, i found it shut. i opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of the door. but what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room. "whilst i was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. my mother and i looked at one another; and then i lit her candle, and taking the poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel really nervous. the cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was getting hold of me; and all the _apparently_ reasonable explanations seemed futile. "the horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage; also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. i made a very thorough search of the house, and when i had finished, i knew that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. then i went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know, inside of us, we did not believe this. "later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of mind, i said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to get to sleep. "in the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, i was waked by a loud noise. i sat up in bed, and listened. and from downstairs, i heard:--bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least, that is the impression the sounds gave to me. "i jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me; and at the same moment, as i lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly open; i had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite shut off from me. "'who's there?' i shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives one. 'who's there?' "then i heard my mother saying:-- "'it's me, thomas. whatever is happening downstairs?' "she was in the room by this, and i saw she had her bedroom poker in one hand, and her candle in the other. i could have smiled at her, had it not been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs. "i got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the wall; then i picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but i knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had, with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our search. i know, in some ways, i was very glad to have her with me, as you will understand. "by this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house. however, i led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword bayonet very handy. downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. i began to wonder whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. of one thing only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house, beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the taint of that disgusting odor. "of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. there was something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, i set my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, i saw her off by train. "then i set to work to try to clear up the mystery. i went first to the landlord, and told him all the circumstances. from him, i found that twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a captain tobias, on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything peculiar. the landlord's idea--as he told me frankly--was to free the house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it, and then to sell it for the best price he could get. "however, when captain tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was no longer any talk about the house; so when i offered to take it on a five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. this was the whole story; so he gave me to understand. when i pressed him for details of the supposed peculiar happenings in the house, all those years back, he said the tenants had talked about a woman who always moved about the house at night. some tenants never saw anything; but others would not stay out the first month's tenancy. "one thing the landlord was particular to point out, that no tenant had ever complained about knockings, or door slamming. as for the smell, he seemed positively indignant about it; but why, i don't suppose he knew himself, except that he probably had some vague feeling that it was an indirect accusation on my part that the drains were not right. "in the end, i suggested that he should come down and spend the night with me. he agreed at once, especially as i told him i intended to keep the whole business quiet, and try to get to the bottom of the curious affair; for he was anxious to keep the rumor of the haunting from getting about. "about three o'clock that afternoon, he came down, and we made a thorough search of the house, which, however, revealed nothing unusual. afterward, the landlord made one or two tests, which showed him the drainage was in perfect order; after that we made our preparations for sitting up all night. "first, we borrowed two policemen's dark lanterns from the station nearby, and where the superintendent and i were friendly, and as soon as it was really dusk, the landlord went up to his house for his gun. i had the sword bayonet i have told you about; and when the landlord got back, we sat talking in my study until nearly midnight. "then we lit the lanterns and went upstairs. we placed the lanterns, gun and bayonet handy on the table; then i shut and sealed the bedroom doors; afterward we took our seats, and turned off the lights. "from then until two o'clock, nothing happened; but a little after two, as i found by holding my watch near the faint glow of the closed lanterns, i had a time of extraordinary nervousness; and i bent toward the landlord, and whispered to him that i had a queer feeling something was about to happen, and to be ready with his lantern; at the same time i reached out toward mine. in the very instant i made this movement, the darkness which filled the passage seemed to become suddenly of a dull violet color; not, as if a light had been shone; but as if the natural blackness of the night had changed color. and then, coming through this violet night, through this violet-colored gloom, came a little naked child, running. in an extraordinary way, the child seemed not to be distinct from the surrounding gloom; but almost as if it were a concentration of that extraordinary atmosphere; as if that gloomy color which had changed the night, came from the child. it seems impossible to make clear to you; but try to understand it. "the child went past me, running, with the natural movement of the legs of a chubby human child, but in an absolute and inconceivable silence. it was a very small child, and must have passed under the table; but i saw the child through the table, as if it had been only a slightly darker shadow than the colored gloom. in the same instant, i saw that a fluctuating glimmer of violet light outlined the metal of the gun-barrels and the blade of the sword bayonet, making them seem like faint shapes of glimmering light, floating unsupported where the tabletop should have shown solid. "now, curiously, as i saw these things, i was subconsciously aware that i heard the anxious breathing of the landlord, quite clear and labored, close to my elbow, where he waited nervously with his hands on the lantern. i realized in that moment that he saw nothing; but waited in the darkness, for my warning to come true. "even as i took heed of these minor things, i saw the child jump to one side, and hide behind some half-seen object that was certainly nothing belonging to the passage. i stared, intently, with a most extraordinary thrill of expectant wonder, with fright making goose flesh of my back. and even as i stared, i solved for myself the less important problem of what the two black clouds were that hung over a part of the table. i think it very curious and interesting, the double working of the mind, often so much more apparent during times of stress. the two clouds came from two faintly shining shapes, which i knew must be the metal of the lanterns; and the things that looked black to the sight with which i was then seeing, could be nothing else but what to normal human sight is known as light. this phenomenon i have always remembered. i have twice seen a somewhat similar thing; in the dark light case and in that trouble of maetheson's, which you know about. "even as i understood this matter of the lights, i was looking to my left, to understand why the child was hiding. and suddenly, i heard the landlord shout out:--'the woman!' but i saw nothing. i had a disagreeable sense that something repugnant was near to me, and i was aware in the same moment that the landlord was gripping my arm in a hard, frightened grip. then i was looking back to where the child had hidden. i saw the child peeping out from behind its hiding place, seeming to be looking up the passage; but whether in fear i could not tell. then it came out, and ran headlong away, through the place where should have been the wall of my mother's bedroom; but the sense with which i was seeing these things, showed me the wall only as a vague, upright shadow, unsubstantial. and immediately the child was lost to me, in the dull violet gloom. at the same time, i felt the landlord press back against me, as if something had passed close to him; and he called out again, a hoarse sort of cry:--'the woman! the woman!' and turned the shade clumsily from off his lantern. but i had seen no woman; and the passage showed empty, as he shone the beam of his light jerkily to and fro; but chiefly in the direction of the doorway of my mother's room. "he was still clutching my arm, and had risen to his feet; and now, mechanically and almost slowly, i picked up my lantern and turned on the light. i shone it, a little dazedly, at the seals upon the doors; but none were broken; then i sent the light to and fro, up and down the passage; but there was nothing; and i turned to the landlord, who was saying something in a rather incoherent fashion. as my light passed over his face, i noted, in a dull sort of way, that he was drenched with sweat. "then my wits became more handleable, and i began to catch the drift of his words:--'did you see her? did you see her?' he was saying, over and over again; and then i found myself telling him, in quite a level voice, that i had not seen any woman. he became more coherent then, and i found that he had seen a woman come from the end of the passage, and go past us; but he could not describe her, except that she kept stopping and looking about her, and had even peered at the wall, close beside him, as if looking for something. but what seemed to trouble him most, was that she had not seemed to see him at all. he repeated this so often, that in the end i told him, in an absurd sort of way, that he ought to be very glad she had not. what did it all mean? was the question; somehow i was not so frightened, as utterly bewildered. i had seen less then, than since; but what i had seen, had made me feel adrift from my anchorage of reason. "what did it mean? he had seen a woman, searching for something. _i_ had not seen this woman. _i_ had seen a child, running away, and hiding from something or someone. _he_ had not seen the child, or the other things--only the woman. and _i_ had not seen her. what did it all mean? "i had said nothing to the landlord about the child. i had been too bewildered, and i realized that it would be futile to attempt an explanation. he was already stupid with the thing he had seen; and not the kind of man to understand. all this went through my mind as we stood there, shining the lanterns to and fro. all the time, intermingled with a streak of practical reasoning, i was questioning myself, what did it all mean? what was the woman searching for; what was the child running from? "suddenly, as i stood there, bewildered and nervous, making random answers to the landlord, a door below was violently slammed, and directly i caught the horrible reek of which i have told you. "'there!' i said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'the smell! do _you_ smell it?' "he looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, i shook him. "'yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his shaking lantern at the stair head. "'come on!' i said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his gun awkwardly. i think he came, more because he was afraid to be left alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. i never sneer at that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you, it makes rags of your courage. "i led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for i had closed and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so i should know which had been opened. "i saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then i threw the beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat i had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. i got a horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! i paused a couple of seconds, shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my courage, i went down the stairs. "as i came to the bottom step, i saw patches of wet all up and down the passage. i shone my lantern on them. it was the imprint of a wet foot on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer, soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of extraordinary horror. "backward and forward i flashed the light over the impossible marks and saw them everywhere. suddenly i noticed that they led to each of the closed doors. i felt something touch my back, and glanced 'round swiftly, to find the landlord had come close to me, almost pressing against me, in his fear. "'it's all right,' i said, but in a rather breathless whisper, meaning to put a little courage into him; for i could feel that he was shaking through all his body. even then as i tried to get him steadied enough to be of some use, his gun went off with a tremendous bang. he jumped, and yelled with sheer terror; and i swore because of the shock. "'give it to me, for god's sake!' i said, and slipped the gun from his hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the fan light over the front door. then the door was tried, and directly afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman had heard the shot. "i went to the door, and opened it. fortunately the constable knew me, and when i had beckoned him in, i was able to explain matters in a very short time. while doing this, inspector johnstone came up the path, having missed the officer, and seeing lights and the open door. i told him as briefly as possible what had occurred, and did not mention the child or the woman; for it would have seem too fantastic for him to notice. i showed him the queer, wet footprints and how they went toward the closed doors. i explained quickly about the mats, and how that the one against the cellar door was flat, which showed the door had been opened. "the inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the top of the cellar stairs. he then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front room. he paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all 'round; then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room permeated with the horrible odor. "the inspector searched the room carefully, and then went into the middle room, using the same precautions. there was nothing in the middle room, or in the kitchen or pantry; but everywhere went the wet footmarks through all the rooms, showing plainly wherever there were woodwork or oilcloth; and always there was the smell. "the inspector ceased from his search of the rooms, and spent a minute in trying whether the mats would really fall flat when the doors were open, or merely ruckle up in a way as to appear they had been untouched; but in each case, the mats fell flat, and remained so. "'extraordinary!' i heard johnstone mutter to himself. and then he went toward the cellar door. he had inquired at first whether there were windows to the cellar, and when he learned there was no way out, except by the door, he had left this part of the search to the last. "as johnstone came up to the door, the policeman made a motion of salute, and said something in a low voice; and something in the tone made me flick my light across him. i saw then that the man was very white, and he looked strange and bewildered. "'what?' said johnstone impatiently. 'speak up!' "'a woman come along 'ere, sir, and went through this 'ere door,' said the constable, clearly, but with a curious monotonous intonation that is sometimes heard from an unintelligent man. "'speak up!' shouted the inspector. "'a woman come along and went through this 'ere door,' repeated the man, monotonously. "the inspector caught the man by the shoulder, and deliberately sniffed his breath. "'no!' he said. and then sarcastically:--'i hope you held the door open politely for the lady.' "'the door weren't opened, sir,' said the man, simply. "'are you mad--' began johnstone. "'no,' broke in the landlord's voice from the back. speaking steadily enough. 'i saw the woman upstairs.' it was evident that he had got back his control again. "'i'm afraid, inspector johnstone,' i said, 'that there's more in this than you think. i certainly saw some very extraordinary things upstairs.' "the inspector seemed about to say something; but instead, he turned again to the door, and flashed his light down and 'round about the mat. i saw then that the strange, horrible footmarks came straight up to the cellar door; and the last print showed _under_ the door; yet the policeman said the door had not been opened. "and suddenly, without any intention, or realization of what i was saying, i asked the landlord:-- "'what were the feet like?' "i received no answer; for the inspector was ordering the constable to open the cellar door, and the man was not obeying. johnstone repeated the order, and at last, in a queer automatic way, the man obeyed, and pushed the door open. the loathsome smell beat up at us, in a great wave of horror, and the inspector came backward a step. "'my god!' he said, and went forward again, and shone his light down the steps; but there was nothing visible, only that on each step showed the unnatural footprints. "the inspector brought the beam of the light vividly on the top step; and there, clear in the light, there was something small, moving. the inspector bent to look, and the policeman and i with him. i don't want to disgust you; but the thing we looked at was a maggot. the policeman backed suddenly out of the doorway: "'the churchyard,' he said, '... at the back of the 'ouse.' "'silence!' said johnstone, with a queer break in the word, and i knew that at last he was frightened. he put his lantern into the doorway, and shone it from step to step, following the footprints down into the darkness; then he stepped back from the open doorway, and we all gave back with him. he looked 'round, and i had a feeling that he was looking for a weapon of some kind. "'your gun,' i said to the landlord, and he brought it from the front hall, and passed it over to the inspector, who took it and ejected the empty shell from the right barrel. he held out his hand for a live cartridge, which the landlord brought from his pocket. he loaded the gun and snapped the breech. he turned to the constable:-- "'come on,' he said, and moved toward the cellar doorway. "'i ain't comin', sir,' said the policeman, very white in the face. "with a sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward, screaming. the inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the gun; and i after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. behind me, i heard the landlord. "at the bottom of the stairs, the inspector was helping the policeman to his feet, where he stood swaying a moment, in a bewildered fashion; then the inspector went into the front cellar, and his man followed him in stupid fashion; but evidently no longer with any thought of running away from the horror. "we all crowded into the front cellar, flashing our lights to and fro. inspector johnstone was examining the floor, and i saw that the footmarks went all 'round the cellar, into all the corners, and across the floor. i thought suddenly of the child that was running away from something. do you see the thing that i was seeing vaguely? "we went out of the cellar in a body, for there was nothing to be found. in the next cellar, the footprints went everywhere in that queer erratic fashion, as of someone searching for something, or following some blind scent. "in the third cellar the prints ended at the shallow well that had been the old water supply of the house. the well was full to the brim, and the water so clear that the pebbly bottom was plainly to be seen, as we shone the lights into the water. the search came to an abrupt end, and we stood about the well, looking at one another, in an absolute, horrible silence. "johnstone made another examination of the footprints; then he shone his light again into the clear shallow water, searching each inch of the plainly seen bottom; but there was nothing there. the cellar was full of the dreadful smell; and everyone stood silent, except for the constant turning of the lamps to and fro around the cellar. "the inspector looked up from his search of the well, and nodded quietly across at me, with his sudden acknowledgment that our belief was now his belief, the smell in the cellar seemed to grow more dreadful, and to be, as it were, a menace--the material expression that some monstrous thing was there with us, invisible. "'i think--' began the inspector, and shone his light toward the stairway; and at this the constable's restraint went utterly, and he ran for the stairs, making a queer sound in his throat. "the landlord followed, at a quick walk, and then the inspector and i. he waited a single instant for me, and we went up together, treading on the same steps, and with our lights held backward. at the top, i slammed and locked the stair door, and wiped my forehead, and my hands were shaking. "the inspector asked me to give his man a glass of whisky, and then he sent him on his beat. he stayed a short while with the landlord and me, and it was arranged that he would join us again the following night and watch the well with us from midnight until daylight. then he left us, just as the dawn was coming in. the landlord and i locked up the house, and went over to his place for a sleep. "in the afternoon, the landlord and i returned to the house, to make arrangements for the night. he was very quiet, and i felt he was to be relied on, now that he had been 'salted,' as it were, with his fright of the previous night. "we opened all the doors and windows, and blew the house through very thoroughly; and in the meanwhile, we lit the lamps in the house, and took them into the cellars, where we set them all about, so as to have light everywhere. then we carried down three chairs and a table, and set them in the cellar where the well was sunk. after that, we stretched thin piano wire across the cellar, about nine inches from the floor, at such a height that it should catch anything moving about in the dark. "when this was done, i went through the house with the landlord, and sealed every window and door in the place, excepting only the front door and the door at the top of the cellar stairs. "meanwhile, a local wire-smith was making something to my order; and when the landlord and i had finished tea at his house, we went down to see how the smith was getting on. we found the thing complete. it looked rather like a huge parrot's cage, without any bottom, of very heavy gage wire, and stood about seven feet high and was four feet in diameter. fortunately, i remembered to have it made longitudinally in two halves, or else we should never have got it through the doorways and down the cellar stairs. "i told the wire-smith to bring the cage up to the house so he could fit the two halves rigidly together. as we returned, i called in at an ironmonger's, where i bought some thin hemp rope and an iron rack pulley, like those used in lancashire for hauling up the ceiling clothes racks, which you will find in every cottage. i bought also a couple of pitchforks. "'we shan't want to touch it," i said to the landlord; and he nodded, rather white all at once. "as soon as the cage arrived and had been fitted together in the cellar, i sent away the smith; and the landlord and i suspended it over the well, into which it fitted easily. after a lot of trouble, we managed to hang it so perfectly central from the rope over the iron pulley, that when hoisted to the ceiling and dropped, it went every time plunk into the well, like a candle-extinguisher. when we had it finally arranged, i hoisted it up once more, to the ready position, and made the rope fast to a heavy wooden pillar, which stood in the middle of the cellar. "by ten o'clock, i had everything arranged, with the two pitchforks and the two police lanterns; also some whisky and sandwiches. underneath the table i had several buckets full of disinfectant. "a little after eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the front door, and when i went, i found inspector johnstone had arrived, and brought with him one of his plainclothes men. you will understand how pleased i was to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough, nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one i should have picked to help us with the horrible job i felt pretty sure we should have to do that night. "when the inspector and the detective had entered, i shut and locked the front door; then, while the inspector held the light, i sealed the door carefully, with tape and wax. at the head of the cellar stairs, i shut and locked that door also, and sealed it in the same way. "as we entered the cellar, i warned johnstone and his man to be careful not to fall over the wires; and then, as i saw his surprise at my arrangements, i began to explain my ideas and intentions, to all of which he listened with strong approval. i was pleased to see also that the detective was nodding his head, as i talked, in a way that showed he appreciated all my precautions. "as he put his lantern down, the inspector picked up one of the pitchforks, and balanced it in his hand; he looked at me, and nodded. "'the best thing,' he said. 'i only wish you'd got two more.' "then we all took our seats, the detective getting a washing stool from the corner of the cellar. from then, until a quarter to twelve, we talked quietly, whilst we made a light supper of whisky and sandwiches; after which, we cleared everything off the table, excepting the lanterns and the pitchforks. one of the latter, i handed to the inspector; the other i took myself, and then, having set my chair so as to be handy to the rope which lowered the cage into the well, i went 'round the cellar and put out every lamp. "i groped my way to my chair, and arranged the pitchfork and the dark lantern ready to my hand; after which i suggested that everyone should keep an absolute silence throughout the watch. i asked, also, that no lantern should be turned on, until i gave the word. "i put my watch on the table, where a faint glow from my lantern made me able to see the time. for an hour nothing happened, and everyone kept an absolute silence, except for an occasional uneasy movement. "about half-past one, however, i was conscious again of the same extraordinary and peculiar nervousness, which i had felt on the previous night. i put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around the pillar. the inspector seemed aware of the movement; for i saw the faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken hold of it, in readiness. "a minute later, i noticed there was a change in the color of the night in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. i glanced to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as i looked, i was conscious that the violet color deepened. in the direction of the well, but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come from a great space, almost in a single moment. it came near, and i saw again that it was a little naked child, running, and seeming to be of the violet night in which it ran. "the child came with a natural running movement, exactly as i described it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it brought the silence with it. about half-way between the well and the table, the child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, i mean, of our world. "i could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock. someway i knew that none of the others saw what i was seeing. "abruptly, the landlord, who was next to me, let out his breath with a little hissing sound; i knew then that something was visible to him. there came a creak from the table, and i had a feeling that the inspector was leaning forward, looking at something that i could not see. the landlord reached out his hand through the darkness, and fumbled a moment to catch my arm:-- "'the woman!' he whispered, close to my ear. 'over by the well.' "i stared hard in that direction; but saw nothing, except that the violet color of the cellar seemed a little duller just there. "i looked back quickly to the vague place where the child was hiding. i saw it was peering back from its hiding place. suddenly it rose and ran straight for the middle of the table, which showed only as vague shadow half-way between my eyes and the unseen floor. as the child ran under the table, the steel prongs of my pitchfork glimmered with a violet, fluctuating light. a little way off, there showed high up in the gloom, the vaguely shining outline of the other fork, so i knew the inspector had it raised in his hand, ready. there was no doubt but that he saw something. on the table, the metal of the five lanterns shone with the same strange glow; and about each lantern there was a little cloud of absolute blackness, where the phenomenon that is light to our natural eyes, came through the fittings; and in this complete darkness, the metal of each lantern showed plain, as might a cat's-eye in a nest of black cotton wool. "just beyond the table, the child paused again, and stood, seeming to oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment, another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and forces that i was unable to comprehend. "the child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. i stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley which i had screwed into the ceiling. "i stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly i remembered the piano wire that the landlord and i had stretched. but there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. i remember a sort of subconscious satisfaction, as i settled the point in a queer automatic fashion. on the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless collection of the light; and this i knew, after an instant's consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch. "i had looked several times at the child, and 'round at the cellar, whilst i was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that attitude of hiding from something. but now, suddenly, it ran clear away into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere. "the landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me, as if to avoid something. from the inspector there came a sharp breathing sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. then suddenly the violet color went out of the night, and i was conscious of the nearness of something monstrous and repugnant. "there was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the table. then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. in the same instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell. "i gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope. there came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water; and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, i opened the shutter of my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to do the same. "as my light struck the cage, i saw that about two feet of it projected from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of the water, into the cage. i stared, with a feeling that i recognized the thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, i saw that it was a leg of mutton. the thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out of the water. i stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was coming. in a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that i felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. then the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. another big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights. "from the detective there came a sudden shout:-- "'captain tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and instantly burst into loud roars of laughter. "the inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and i followed, still bewildered. the man in the cage was holding the leg of mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose. "'lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went dancing all over the place. "'quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and trying to speak plainly. "then johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage. the man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and had him out in a twinkling. whilst they held him, dripping upon the floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks, ran with it upstairs and so into the open air. "meanwhile, i had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had been so much water. "as you will remember, it was a captain tobias who had been the previous tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. in the course of the talk that followed, i learned the reason for captain tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for smuggling. he had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a couple of weeks earlier. "he had returned to find new tenants in his old home. he had entered the house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the bottom (this i will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my mother's bedroom. this panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became unlatched, in the process of opening the panel. "the captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. this had been evidently what i mistook for raps. he would not give his reason for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden something, which he wanted to get. however, as he found it impossible to get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own artistic efforts as a ghost. i must say he succeeded. he intended then to rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of time to get whatever he had hidden. the house suited him admirably; for there was a passage--as he showed me afterward--connecting the dummy well with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn, were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the beach beyond the church. "in the course of his talk, captain tobias offered to take the house off my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for i was about stalled with it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be hushed up. "i asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the house; whether he had ever seen anything. he said yes, that he had twice seen a woman going about the house. we all looked at one another, when the captain said that. he told us she never bothered him, and that he had only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape from the revenue people. "captain tobias was an observant man; he had seen how i had placed the mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as he found them. "the maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. he was hugely delighted to learn how it had affected us. "the moldy smell i had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when the captain opened the panel. the door slamming was also another of his contributions. "i come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty of trying to explain the other peculiar things. in the first place, it was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which made itself manifest as a woman. many different people had seen this woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that i should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the policeman saw the woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her. "i can only surmise that _fear_ was in every case the key, as i might say, which opened the senses to the presence of the woman. the policeman was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see the woman. the same reasoning applies all 'round. _i_ saw nothing, until i became really frightened; then i saw, not the woman; but a child, running away from something or someone. however, i will touch on that later. in short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one was affected by the force which made itself evident, as a woman. my theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in the house, whilst others left immediately. the more sensitive they were, the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the force present in the house. "the peculiar shining of all the metal objects in the cellar, had been visible only to me. the cause, naturally i do not know; neither do i know why i, alone, was able to see the shining." "the child," i asked. "can you explain that part at all? why _you_ didn't see the woman, and why _they_ didn't see the child. was it merely the same force, appearing differently to different people?" "no," said carnacki, "i can't explain that. but i am quite sure that the woman and the child were not only two complete and different entities; but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence. "to give you a root idea, however, it is held in the sigsand ms. that a child '_still_born' is 'snatyched back bye thee haggs.' this is crude; but may yet contain an elemental truth. yet, before i make this clearer, let me tell you a thought that has often been made. it may be that physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the possibility, the mother spirit searches for, until it finds, the small element--the primal ego or child's soul. it may be that a certain waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the mother spirit. it may have been such a thing as this, that i saw. i have always tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion that i felt when the unseen woman went past me. this repulsion carries forward the idea suggested in the sigsand ms., that a stillborn child is thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'hags.' in other words, by certain of the monstrosities of the outer circle. the thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is so fragmentary. it leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift half-way between two lives, and running through eternity from something incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses. "the thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so fragmentary as this. there is one thought, which is often mine. perhaps there is a mother spirit--" "and the well?" said arkwright. "how did the captain get in from the other side?" "as i said before," answered carnacki. "the side walls of the well did not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water, and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor, and so climb into the passage. of course, the water was the same height on both sides of the walls. don't ask me who made the well entrance or the little stairway; for i don't know. the house was very old, as i have told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days." "and the child," i said, coming back to the thing which chiefly interested me. "you would say that the birth must have occurred in that house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become _en rapport_, if i can use the word in that way, with the forces that produced the tragedy?" "yes," replied carnacki. "this is, supposing we take the suggestion of the sigsand ms., to account for the phenomenon." "there may be other houses--" i began. "there are," said carnacki; and stood up. "out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. and in five minutes we were on the embankment, going thoughtfully to our various homes. no. --the thing invisible carnacki had just returned to cheyne walk, chelsea. i was aware of this interesting fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard which i was rereading, and by which i was requested to present myself at his house not later than seven o'clock on that evening. mr. carnacki had, as i and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends knew, been away in kent for the past three weeks; but beyond that, we had no knowledge. carnacki was genially secretive and curt, and spoke only when he was ready to speak. when this stage arrived, i and his three other friends--jessop, arkright, and taylor--would receive a card or a wire, asking us to call. not one of us ever willingly missed, for after a thoroughly sensible little dinner carnacki would snuggle down into his big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks. then he would begin to talk. upon this particular night i was the first to arrive and found carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper. he stood up, shook me firmly by the hand, pointed to a chair, and sat down again, never having uttered a word. for my part, i said nothing either. i knew the man too well to bother him with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette. presently the three others turned up and after that we spent a comfortable and busy hour at dinner. dinner over, carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair, as i have said was his habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze directed thoughtfully at the fire. the rest of us, if i may so express it, made ourselves cozy, each after his own particular manner. a minute or so later carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary remarks, and going straight to the subject of the story we knew he had to tell: "i have just come back from sir alfred jarnock's place at burtontree, in south kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "most extraordinary things have been happening down there lately and mr. george jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over and see whether i could help to clear matters up a bit. i went. "when i got there, i found that they have an old chapel attached to the castle which has had quite a distinguished reputation for being what is popularly termed 'haunted.' they have been rather proud of this, as i managed to discover, until quite lately when something very disagreeable occurred, which served to remind them that family ghosts are not always content, as i might say, to remain purely ornamental. "it sounds almost laughable, i know, to hear of a long-respected supernatural phenomenon growing unexpectedly dangerous; and in this case, the tale of the haunting was considered as little more than an old myth, except after nightfall, when possibly it became more plausible seeming. "but however this may be, there is no doubt at all but that what i might term the haunting essence which lived in the place, had become suddenly dangerous--deadly dangerous too, the old butler being nearly stabbed to death one night in the chapel, with a peculiar old dagger. "it is, in fact, this dagger which is popularly supposed to 'haunt' the chapel. at least, there has been always a story handed down in the family that this dagger would attack any enemy who should dare to venture into the chapel, after nightfall. but, of course, this had been taken with just about the same amount of seriousness that people take most ghost tales, and that is not usually of a worryingly _real_ nature. i mean that most people never quite know how much or how little they believe of matters ab-human or ab-normal, and generally they never have an opportunity to learn. and, indeed, as you are all aware, i am as big a skeptic concerning the truth of ghost tales as any man you are likely to meet; only i am what i might term an unprejudiced skeptic. i am not given to either believing or disbelieving things 'on principle,' as i have found many idiots prone to be, and what is more, some of them not ashamed to boast of the insane fact. i view all reported 'hauntings' as unproven until i have examined into them, and i am bound to admit that ninety-nine cases in a hundred turn out to be sheer bosh and fancy. but the hundredth! well, if it were not for the hundredth, i should have few stories to tell you--eh? "of course, after the attack on the butler, it became evident that there was at least 'something' in the old story concerning the dagger, and i found everyone in a half belief that the queer old weapon did really strike the butler, either by the aid of some inherent force, which i found them peculiarly unable to explain, or else in the hand of some invisible thing or monster of the outer world! "from considerable experience, i knew that it was much more likely that the butler had been 'knifed' by some vicious and quite material human! "naturally, the first thing to do, was to test this probability of human agency, and i set to work to make a pretty drastic examination of the people who knew most about the tragedy. "the result of this examination, both pleased and surprised me, for it left me with very good reasons for belief that i had come upon one of those extraordinary rare 'true manifestations' of the extrusion of a force from the outside. in more popular phraseology--a genuine case of haunting. "these are the facts: on the previous sunday evening but one, sir alfred jarnock's household had attended family service, as usual, in the chapel. you see, the rector goes over to officiate twice each sunday, after concluding his duties at the public church about three miles away. "at the end of the service in the chapel, sir alfred jarnock, his son mr. george jarnock, and the rector had stood for a couple of minutes, talking, whilst old bellett the butler went 'round, putting out the candles. "suddenly, the rector remembered that he had left his small prayer book on the communion table in the morning; he turned, and asked the butler to get it for him before he blew out the chancel candles. "now i have particularly called your attention to this because it is important in that it provides witnesses in a most fortunate manner at an extraordinary moment. you see, the rector's turning to speak to bellett had naturally caused both sir alfred jarnock and his son to glance in the direction of the butler, and it was at this identical instant and whilst all three were looking at him, that the old butler was stabbed--there, full in the candlelight, before their eyes. "i took the opportunity to call early upon the rector, after i had questioned mr. george jarnock, who replied to my queries in place of sir alfred jarnock, for the older man was in a nervous and shaken condition as a result of the happening, and his son wished him to avoid dwelling upon the scene as much as possible. "the rector's version was clear and vivid, and he had evidently received the astonishment of his life. he pictured to me the whole affair--bellett, up at the chancel gate, going for the prayer book, and absolutely alone; and then the _blow_, out of the void, he described it; and the _force_ prodigious--the old man being driven headlong into the body of the chapel. like the kick of a great horse, the rector said, his benevolent old eyes bright and intense with the effort he had actually witnessed, in defiance of all that he had hitherto believed. "when i left him, he went back to the writing which he had put aside when i appeared. i feel sure that he was developing the first unorthodox sermon that he had ever evolved. he was a dear old chap, and i should certainly like to have heard it. "the last man i visited was the butler. he was, of course, in a frightfully weak and shaken condition, but he could tell me nothing that did not point to there being a power abroad in the chapel. he told the same tale, in every minute particle, that i had learned from the others. he had been just going up to put out the altar candles and fetch the rector's book, when something struck him an enormous blow high up on the left breast and he was driven headlong into the aisle. "examination had shown that he had been stabbed by the dagger--of which i will tell you more in a moment--that hung always above the altar. the weapon had entered, fortunately some inches above the heart, just under the collarbone, which had been broken by the stupendous force of the blow, the dagger itself being driven clean through the body, and out through the scapula behind. "the poor old fellow could not talk much, and i soon left him; but what he had told me was sufficient to make it unmistakable that no living person had been within yards of him when he was attacked; and, as i knew, this fact was verified by three capable and responsible witnesses, independent of bellett himself. "the thing now was to search the chapel, which is small and extremely old. it is very massively built, and entered through only one door, which leads out of the castle itself, and the key of which is kept by sir alfred jarnock, the butler having no duplicate. "the shape of the chapel is oblong, and the altar is railed off after the usual fashion. there are two tombs in the body of the place; but none in the chancel, which is bare, except for the tall candlesticks, and the chancel rail, beyond which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end. "above the altar hangs the 'waeful dagger,' as i had learned it was named. i fancy the term has been taken from an old vellum, which describes the dagger and its supposed abnormal properties. i took the dagger down, and examined it minutely and with method. the blade is ten inches long, two inches broad at the base, and tapering to a rounded but sharp point, rather peculiar. it is double-edged. "the metal sheath is curious for having a crosspiece, which, taken with the fact that the sheath itself is continued three parts up the hilt of the dagger (in a most inconvenient fashion), gives it the appearance of a cross. that this is not unintentional is shown by an engraving of the christ crucified upon one side, whilst upon the other, in latin, is the inscription: 'vengeance is mine, i will repay.' a quaint and rather terrible conjunction of ideas. upon the blade of the dagger is graven in old english capitals: i watch. i strike. on the butt of the hilt there is carved deeply a pentacle. "this is a pretty accurate description of the peculiar old weapon that has had the curious and uncomfortable reputation of being able (either of its own accord or in the hand of something invisible) to strike murderously any enemy of the jarnock family who may chance to enter the chapel after nightfall. i may tell you here and now, that before i left, i had very good reason to put certain doubts behind me; for i tested the deadliness of the thing myself. "as you know, however, at this point of my investigation, i was still at that stage where i considered the existence of a supernatural force unproven. in the meanwhile, i treated the chapel drastically, sounding and scrutinizing the walls and floor, dealing with them almost foot by foot, and particularly examining the two tombs. "at the end of this search, i had in a ladder, and made a close survey of the groined roof. i passed three days in this fashion, and by the evening of the third day i had proved to my entire satisfaction that there is no place in the whole of that chapel where any living being could have hidden, and also that the only way of ingress and egress to and from the chapel is through the doorway which leads into the castle, the door of which was always kept locked, and the key kept by sir alfred jarnock himself, as i have told you. i mean, of course, that this doorway is the only entrance practicable to material people. "yes, as you will see, even had i discovered some other opening, secret or otherwise, it would not have helped at all to explain the mystery of the incredible attack, in a normal fashion. for the butler, as you know, was struck in full sight of the rector, sir jarnock and his son. and old bellett himself knew that no living person had touched him.... _'out of the void,'_ the rector had described the inhumanly brutal attack. 'out of the void!' a strange feeling it gives one--eh? "and this is the thing that i had been called in to bottom! "after considerable thought, i decided on a plan of action. i proposed to sir alfred jarnock that i should spend a night in the chapel, and keep a constant watch upon the dagger. but to this, the old knight--a little, wizened, nervous man--would not listen for a moment. he, at least, i felt assured had no doubt of the reality of some dangerous supernatural force a roam at night in the chapel. he informed me that it had been his habit every evening to lock the chapel door, so that no one might foolishly or heedlessly run the risk of any peril that it might hold at night, and that he could not allow me to attempt such a thing after what had happened to the butler. "i could see that sir alfred jarnock was very much in earnest, and would evidently have held himself to blame had he allowed me to make the experiment and any harm come to me; so i said nothing in argument; and presently, pleading the fatigue of his years and health, he said goodnight, and left me; having given me the impression of being a polite but rather superstitious, old gentleman. "that night, however, whilst i was undressing, i saw how i might achieve the thing i wished, and be able to enter the chapel after dark, without making sir alfred jarnock nervous. on the morrow, when i borrowed the key, i would take an impression, and have a duplicate made. then, with my private key, i could do just what i liked. "in the morning i carried out my idea. i borrowed the key, as i wanted to take a photograph of the chancel by daylight. when i had done this i locked up the chapel and handed the key to sir alfred jarnock, having first taken an impression in soap. i had brought out the exposed plate--in its slide--with me; but the camera i had left exactly as it was, as i wanted to take a second photograph of the chancel that night, from the same position. "i took the dark slide into burtontree, also the cake of soap with the impress. the soap i left with the local ironmonger, who was something of a locksmith and promised to let me have my duplicate, finished, if i would call in two hours. this i did, having in the meanwhile found out a photographer where i developed the plate, and left it to dry, telling him i would call next day. at the end of the two hours i went for my key and found it ready, much to my satisfaction. then i returned to the castle. "after dinner that evening, i played billiards with young jarnock for a couple of hours. then i had a cup of coffee and went off to my room, telling him i was feeling awfully tired. he nodded and told me he felt the same way. i was glad, for i wanted the house to settle as soon as possible. "i locked the door of my room, then from under the bed--where i had hidden them earlier in the evening--i drew out several fine pieces of plate armor, which i had removed from the armory. there was also a shirt of chain mail, with a sort of quilted hood of mail to go over the head. "i buckled on the plate armor, and found it extraordinarily uncomfortable, and over all i drew on the chain mail. i know nothing about armor, but from what i have learned since, i must have put on parts of two suits. anyway, i felt beastly, clamped and clumsy and unable to move my arms and legs naturally. but i knew that the thing i was thinking of doing called for some sort of protection for my body. over the armor i pulled on my dressing gown and shoved my revolver into one of the side pockets--and my repeating flash-light into the other. my dark lantern i carried in my hand. "as soon as i was ready i went out into the passage and listened. i had been some considerable time making my preparations and i found that now the big hall and staircase were in darkness and all the house seemed quiet. i stepped back and closed and locked my door. then, very slowly and silently i went downstairs to the hall and turned into the passage that led to the chapel. "i reached the door and tried my key. it fitted perfectly and a moment later i was in the chapel, with the door locked behind me, and all about me the utter dree silence of the place, with just the faint showings of the outlines of the stained, leaded windows, making the darkness and lonesomeness almost the more apparent. "now it would be silly to say i did not feel queer. i felt very queer indeed. you just try, any of you, to imagine yourself standing there in the dark silence and remembering not only the legend that was attached to the place, but what had really happened to the old butler only a little while gone, i can tell you, as i stood there, i could believe that something invisible was coming toward me in the air of the chapel. yet, i had got to go through with the business, and i just took hold of my little bit of courage and set to work. "first of all i switched on my light, then i began a careful tour of the place; examining every corner and nook. i found nothing unusual. at the chancel gate i held up my lamp and flashed the light at the dagger. it hung there, right enough, above the altar, but i remember thinking of the word 'demure,' as i looked at it. however, i pushed the thought away, for what i was doing needed no addition of uncomfortable thoughts. "i completed the tour of the place, with a constantly growing awareness of its utter chill and unkind desolation--an atmosphere of cold dismalness seemed to be everywhere, and the quiet was abominable. "at the conclusion of my search i walked across to where i had left my camera focused upon the chancel. from the satchel that i had put beneath the tripod i took out a dark slide and inserted it in the camera, drawing the shutter. after that i uncapped the lens, pulled out my flashlight apparatus, and pressed the trigger. there was an intense, brilliant flash, that made the whole of the interior of the chapel jump into sight, and disappear as quickly. then, in the light from my lantern, i inserted the shutter into the slide, and reversed the slide, so as to have a fresh plate ready to expose at any time. "after i had done this i shut off my lantern and sat down in one of the pews near to my camera. i cannot say what i expected to happen, but i had an extraordinary feeling, almost a conviction, that something peculiar or horrible would soon occur. it was, you know, as if i knew. "an hour passed, of absolute silence. the time i knew by the far-off, faint chime of a clock that had been erected over the stables. i was beastly cold, for the whole place is without any kind of heating pipes or furnace, as i had noticed during my search, so that the temperature was sufficiently uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. i felt like a kind of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate and frozen with cold and funk. and, you know, somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against my face. i cannot say whether any of you have ever had the feeling, but if you have, you will know just how disgustingly unnerving it is. and then, all at once, i had a horrible sense that something was moving in the place. it was not that i could hear anything but i had a kind of intuitive knowledge that something had stirred in the darkness. can you imagine how i felt? "suddenly my courage went. i put up my mailed arms over my face. i wanted to protect it. i had got a sudden sickening feeling that something was hovering over me in the dark. talk about fright! i could have shouted if i had not been afraid of the noise.... and then, abruptly, i heard something. away up the aisle, there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it might be the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle. i sat immovable. i was fighting with all my strength to get back my courage. i could not take my arms down from over my face, but i knew that i was getting hold of the gritty part of me again. and suddenly i made a mighty effort and lowered my arms. i held my face up in the darkness. and, i tell you, i respect myself for the act, because i thought truly at that moment that i was going to die. but i think, just then, by the slow revulsion of feeling which had assisted my effort, i was less sick, in that instant, at the thought of having to die, than at the knowledge of the utter weak cowardice that had so unexpectedly shaken me all to bits, for a time. "do i make myself clear? you understand, i feel sure, that the sense of respect, which i spoke of, is not really unhealthy egotism; because, you see, i am not blind to the state of mind which helped me. i mean that if i had uncovered my face by a sheer effort of will, unhelped by any revulsion of feeling, i should have done a thing much more worthy of mention. but, even as it was, there were elements in the act, worthy of respect. you follow me, don't you? "and, you know, nothing touched me, after all! so that, in a little while, i had got back a bit to my normal, and felt steady enough to go through with the business without any more funking. "i daresay a couple of minutes passed, and then, away up near the chancel, there came again that clang, as though an armored foot stepped cautiously. by jove! but it made me stiffen. and suddenly the thought came that the sound i heard might be the rattle of the dagger above the altar. it was not a particularly sensible notion, for the sound was far too heavy and resonant for such a cause. yet, as can be easily understood, my reason was bound to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a time. i remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing becoming animate, and attacking me, did not occur to me with any sense of possibility or reality. i thought rather, in a vague way, of some invisible monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger. i remembered the old rector's description of the attack on the butler.... _of the void_. and he had described the stupendous force of the blow as being 'like the kick of a great horse.' you can see how uncomfortably my thoughts were running. "i felt 'round swiftly and cautiously for my lantern. i found it close to me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement, i switched on the light. i flashed it up the aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but i could see nothing to frighten me. i turned quickly, and sent the jet of light darting across and across the rear end of the chapel; then on each side of me, before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put me in fear, not a thing that need have set my flesh thrilling; just the quiet chapel, cold, and eternally silent. you know the feeling. "i had been standing, whilst i sent the light about the chapel, but now i pulled out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort of will, switched off the light, and sat down again in the darkness, to continue my constant watch. "it seemed to me that quite half an hour, or even more, must have passed, after this, during which no sound had broken the intense stillness. i had grown less nervously tense, for the flashing of the light 'round the place had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal--it had given me something of that unreasoned sense of safety that a nervous child obtains at night, by covering its head up with the bedclothes. this just about illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the workings of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever creature, thing, or being it was that had made that extraordinary and horrible attack on the old butler, it had certainly not been visible. "and so you must picture me sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor, and with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern, ready, with the other. and then it was, after this little time of partial relief from intense nervousness, that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere in the utter quiet of the chapel, i thought i heard something. i listened, tense and rigid, my heart booming just a little in my ears for a moment; then i thought i heard it again. i felt sure that something had moved at the top of the aisle. i strained in the darkness, to hark; and my eyes showed me blackness within blackness, wherever i glanced, so that i took no heed of what they told me; for even if i looked at the dim loom of the stained window at the top of the chancel, my sight gave me the shapes of vague shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly. there was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible to me, as i felt just then. and suddenly i seemed to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and repeated, infinitely stealthy. it was as if a vast, soft tread were coming slowly down the aisle. "can you imagine how i felt? i do not think you can. i did not move, any more than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but sat there, _stiffened_. i fancied now, that i heard the tread all about the chapel. and then, you know, i was just as sure in a moment that i could not hear it--that i had never heard it. "some particularly long minutes passed, about this time; but i think my nerves must have quieted a bit; for i remember being sufficiently aware of my feelings, to realize that the muscles of my shoulders _ached_, with the way that they must have been contracted, as i sat there, hunching myself, rigid. mind you, i was still in a disgusting funk; but what i might call the 'imminent sense of danger' seemed to have eased from around me; at any rate, i felt, in some curious fashion, that there was a respite--a temporary cessation of malignity from about me. it is impossible to word my feelings more clearly to you, for i cannot see them more clearly than this, myself. "yet, you must not picture me as sitting there, free from strain; for the nerve tension was so great that my heart action was a little out of normal control, the blood beat making a dull booming at times in my ears, with the result that i had the sensation that i could not hear acutely. this is a simply beastly feeling, especially under such circumstances. "i was sitting like this, listening, as i might say with body and soul, when suddenly i got that hideous conviction again that something was moving in the air of the place. the feeling seemed to stiffen me, as i sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown _tense_. this was so real, that i suffered an actual pain, most peculiar and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. i had a fierce desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but i fought it off. if i had given way then to that, i should simply have bunked straight out of the place. i sat and sweated coldly (that's the bald truth), with the 'creep' busy at my spine.... "and then, abruptly, once more i thought i heard the sound of that huge, soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. there was an awful little silence, during which i had the feeling that something enormous was bending over toward me, from the aisle.... and then, through the booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the place where my camera stood--a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and then a sharp tap. i had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now i snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for i had a conviction that there was something there. but i saw nothing. immediately i flashed the light at the camera, and along the aisle, but again there was nothing visible. i wheeled 'round, shooting the beam of light in a great circle about the place; to and fro i shone it, jerking it here and there, but it showed me nothing. "i had stood up the instant that i had seen that there was nothing in sight over me, and now i determined to visit the chancel, and see whether the dagger had been touched. i stepped out of the pew into the aisle, and here i came to an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance was fighting me back from the upper part of the chapel. a constant, queer prickling went up and down my spine, and a dull ache took me in the small of the back, as i fought with myself to conquer this sudden new feeling of terror and horror. i tell you, that no one who has not been through these kinds of experiences, has any idea of the sheer, actual physical pain attendant upon, and resulting from, the intense nerve strain that ghostly fright sets up in the human system. i stood there feeling positively ill. but i got myself in hand, as it were, in about half a minute, and then i went, walking, i expect, as jerky as a mechanical tin man, and switching the light from side to side, before and behind, and over my head continually. and the hand that held my revolver sweated so much, that the thing fairly slipped in my fist. does not sound very heroic, does it? "i passed through the short chancel, and reached the step that led up to the small gate in the chancel rail. i threw the beam from my lantern upon the dagger. yes, i thought, it's all right. abruptly, it seemed to me that there was something wanting, and i leaned forward over the chancel gate to peer, holding the light high. my suspicion was hideously correct. _the dagger had gone._ only the cross-shaped sheath hung there above the altar. "in a sudden, frightened flash of imagination, i pictured the thing adrift in the chapel, moving here and there, as though of its own volition; for whatever force wielded it, was certainly beyond visibility. i turned my head stiffly over to the left, glancing frightenedly behind me, and flashing the light to help my eyes. in the same instant i was struck a tremendous blow over the left breast, and hurled backward from the chancel rail, into the aisle, my armor clanging loudly in the horrible silence. i landed on my back, and slithered along on the polished marble. my shoulder struck the corner of a pew front, and brought me up, half stunned. i scrambled to my feet, horribly sick and shaken; but the fear that was on me, making little of that at the moment. i was minus both revolver and lantern, and utterly bewildered as to just where i was standing. i bowed my head, and made a scrambling run in the complete darkness and dashed into a pew. i jumped back, staggering, got my bearings a little, and raced down the center of the aisle, putting my mailed arms over my face. i plunged into my camera, hurling it among the pews. i crashed into the font, and reeled back. then i was at the exit. i fumbled madly in my dressing gown pocket for the key. i found it and scraped at the door, feverishly, for the keyhole. i found the keyhole, turned the key, burst the door open, and was into the passage. i slammed the door and leant hard against it, gasping, whilst i felt crazily again for the keyhole, this time to lock the door upon what was in the chapel. i succeeded, and began to feel my way stupidly along the wall of the corridor. presently i had come to the big hall, and so in a little to my room. "in my room, i sat for a while, until i had steadied down something to the normal. after a time i commenced to strip off the armor. i saw then that both the chain mail and the plate armor had been pierced over the breast. and, suddenly, it came home to me that the thing had struck for my heart. "stripping rapidly, i found that the skin of the breast over the heart had just been cut sufficiently to allow a little blood to stain my shirt, nothing more. only, the whole breast was badly bruised and intensely painful. you can imagine what would have happened if i had not worn the armor. in any case, it is a marvel that i was not knocked senseless. "i did not go to bed at all that night, but sat upon the edge, thinking, and waiting for the dawn; for i had to remove my litter before sir alfred jarnock should enter, if i were to hide from him the fact that i had managed a duplicate key. "so soon as the pale light of the morning had strengthened sufficiently to show me the various details of my room, i made my way quietly down to the chapel. very silently, and with tense nerves, i opened the door. the chill light of the dawn made distinct the whole place--everything seeming instinct with a ghostly, unearthly quiet. can you get the feeling? i waited several minutes at the door, allowing the morning to grow, and likewise my courage, i suppose. presently the rising sun threw an odd beam right in through the big, east window, making colored sunshine all the length of the chapel. and then, with a tremendous effort, i forced myself to enter. "i went up the aisle to where i had overthrown my camera in the darkness. the legs of the tripod were sticking up from the interior of a pew, and i expected to find the machine smashed to pieces; yet, beyond that the ground glass was broken, there was no real damage done. "i replaced the camera in the position from which i had taken the previous photography; but the slide containing the plate i had exposed by flashlight i removed and put into one of my side pockets, regretting that i had not taken a second flash picture at the instant when i heard those strange sounds up in the chancel. "having tidied my photographic apparatus, i went to the chancel to recover my lantern and revolver, which had both--as you know--been knocked from my hands when i was stabbed. i found the lantern lying, hopelessly bent, with smashed lens, just under the pulpit. my revolver i must have held until my shoulder struck the pew, for it was lying there in the aisle, just about where i believe i cannoned into the pew corner. it was quite undamaged. "having secured these two articles, i walked up to the chancel rail to see whether the dagger had returned, or been returned, to its sheath above the altar. before, however, i reached the chancel rail, i had a slight shock; for there on the floor of the chancel, about a yard away from where i had been struck, lay the dagger, quiet and demure upon the polished marble pavement. i wonder whether you will, any of you, understand the nervousness that took me at the sight of the thing. with a sudden, unreasoned action, i jumped forward and put my foot on it, to hold it there. can you understand? do you? and, you know, i could not stoop down and pick it up with my hands for quite a minute, i should think. afterward, when i had done so, however, and handled it a little, this feeling passed away and my reason (and also, i expect, the daylight) made me feel that i had been a little bit of an ass. quite natural, though, i assure you! yet it was a new kind of fear to me. i'm taking no notice of the cheap joke about the ass! i am talking about the curiousness of learning in that moment a new shade or quality of fear that had hitherto been outside of my knowledge or imagination. does it interest you? "i examined the dagger, minutely, turning it over and over in my hands and never--as i suddenly discovered--holding it loosely. it was as if i were subconsciously surprised that it lay quiet in my hands. yet even this feeling passed, largely, after a short while. the curious weapon showed no signs of the blow, except that the dull color--of the blade was slightly brighter on the rounded point that had cut through the armor. "presently, when i had made an end of staring at the dagger, i went up the chancel step and in through the little gate. then, kneeling upon the altar, i replaced the dagger in its sheath, and came outside of the rail again, closing the gate after me and feeling awarely uncomfortable because the horrible old weapon was back again in its accustomed place. i suppose, without analyzing my feelings very deeply, i had an unreasoned and only half-conscious belief that there was a greater probability of danger when the dagger hung in its five century resting place than when it was out of it! yet, somehow i don't think this is a very good explanation, when i remember the _demure_ look the thing seemed to have when i saw it lying on the floor of the chancel. only i know this, that when i had replaced the dagger i had quite a touch of nerves and i stopped only to pick up my lantern from where i had placed it whilst i examined the weapon, after which i went down the quiet aisle at a pretty quick walk, and so got out of the place. "that the nerve tension had been considerable, i realized, when i had locked the door behind me. i felt no inclination now to think of old sir alfred as a hypochondriac because he had taken such hyperseeming precautions regarding the chapel. i had a sudden wonder as to whether he might not have some knowledge of a long prior tragedy in which the dagger had been concerned. "i returned to my room, washed, shaved and dressed, after which i read awhile. then i went downstairs and got the acting butler to give me some sandwiches and a cup of coffee. "half an hour later i was heading for burtontree, as hard as i could walk; for a sudden idea had come to me, which i was anxious to test. i reached the town a little before eight thirty, and found the local photographer with his shutters still up. i did not wait, but knocked until he appeared with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing with his breakfast. in a few words i made clear that i wanted the use of his dark room immediately, and this he at once placed at my disposal. "i had brought with me the slide which contained the plate that i had used with the flashlight, and as soon as i was ready i set to work to develop. yet, it was not the plate which i had exposed, that i first put into the solution, but the second plate, which had been ready in the camera during all the time of my waiting in the darkness. you see, the lens had been uncapped all that while, so that the whole chancel had been, as it were, under observation. "you all know something of my experiments in 'lightless photography,' that is, appreciating light. it was x-ray work that started me in that direction. yet, you must understand, though i was attempting to develop this 'unexposed' plate, i had no definite idea of results--nothing more than a vague hope that it might show me something. "yet, because of the possibilities, it was with the most intense and absorbing interest that i watched the plate under the action of the developer. presently i saw a faint smudge of black appear in the upper part, and after that others, indistinct and wavering of outline. i held the negative up to the light. the marks were rather small, and were almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but as i have said, lacked definiteness. yet, such as they were, they were sufficient to make me very excited and i shoved the thing quickly back into the solution. "for some minutes further i watched it, lifting it out once or twice to make a more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the markings might represent, until suddenly it occurred to me that in one of two places they certainly had shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. yet, the shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me careful not to let myself be overimpressed by the uncomfortable resemblance, though i must confess, the very thought was sufficient to set some odd thrills adrift in me. "i carried development a little further, then put the negative into the hypo, and commenced work upon the other plate. this came up nicely, and very soon i had a really decent negative that appeared similar in every respect (except for the difference of lighting) to the negative i had taken during the previous day. i fixed the plate, then having washed both it and the 'unexposed' one for a few minutes under the tap, i put them into methylated spirits for fifteen minutes, after which i carried them into the photographer's kitchen and dried them in the oven. "whilst the two plates were drying the photographer and i made an enlargement from the negative i had taken by daylight. then we did the same with the two that i had just developed, washing them as quickly as possible, for i was not troubling about the permanency of the prints, and drying them with spirits. "when this was done i took them to the window and made a thorough examination, commencing with the one that appeared to show shadowy daggers in several places. yet, though it was now enlarged, i was still unable to feel convinced that the marks truly represented anything abnormal; and because of this, i put it on one side, determined not to let my imagination play too large a part in constructing weapons out of the indefinite outlines. "i took up the two other enlargements, both of the chancel, as you will remember, and commenced to compare them. for some minutes i examined them without being able to distinguish any difference in the scene they portrayed, and then abruptly, i saw something in which they varied. in the second enlargement--the one made from the flashlight negative--the dagger was not in its sheath. yet, i had felt sure it was there but a few minutes before i took the photograph. "after this discovery i began to compare the two enlargements in a very different manner from my previous scrutiny. i borrowed a pair of calipers from the photographer and with these i carried out a most methodical and exact comparison of the details shown in the two photographs. "suddenly i came upon something that set me all tingling with excitement. i threw the calipers down, paid the photographer, and walked out through the shop into the street. the three enlargements i took with me, making them into a roll as i went. at the corner of the street i had the luck to get a cab and was soon back at the castle. "i hurried up to my room and put the photographs away; then i went down to see whether i could find sir alfred jarnock; but mr. george jarnock, who met me, told me that his father was too unwell to rise and would prefer that no one entered the chapel unless he were about. "young jarnock made a half apologetic excuse for his father; remarking that sir alfred jarnock was perhaps inclined to be a little over careful; but that, considering what had happened, we must agree that the need for his carefulness had been justified. he added, also, that even before the horrible attack on the butler his father had been just as particular, always keeping the key and never allowing the door to be unlocked except when the place was in use for divine service, and for an hour each forenoon when the cleaners were in. "to all this i nodded understandingly; but when, presently, the young man left me i took my duplicate key and made for the door of the chapel. i went in and locked it behind me, after which i carried out some intensely interesting and rather weird experiments. these proved successful to such an extent that i came out of the place in a perfect fever of excitement. i inquired for mr. george jarnock and was told that he was in the morning room. "'come along,' i said, when i had found him. 'please give me a lift. i've something exceedingly strange to show you.' "he was palpably very much puzzled, but came quickly. as we strode along he asked me a score of questions, to all of which i just shook my head, asking him to wait a little. "i led the way to the armory. here i suggested that he should take one side of a dummy, dressed in half plate armor, whilst i took the other. he nodded, though obviously vastly bewildered, and together we carried the thing to the chapel door. when he saw me take out my key and open the way for us he appeared even more astonished, but held himself in, evidently waiting for me to explain. we entered the chapel and i locked the door behind us, after which we carted the armored dummy up the aisle to the gate of the chancel rail where we put it down upon its round, wooden stand. "'stand back!' i shouted suddenly as young jarnock made a movement to open the gate. 'my god, man! you mustn't do that!' "do what?" he asked, half-startled and half-irritated by my words and manner. "one minute," i said. "just stand to the side a moment, and watch." he stepped to the left whilst i took the dummy in my arms and turned it to face the altar, so that it stood close to the gate. then, standing well away on the right side, i pressed the back of the thing so that it leant forward a little upon the gate, which flew open. in the same instant, the dummy was struck a tremendous blow that hurled it into the aisle, the armor rattling and clanging upon the polished marble floor. "good god!" shouted young jarnock, and ran back from the chancel rail, his face very white. "come and look at the thing," i said, and led the way to where the dummy lay, its armored upper limbs all splayed adrift in queer contortions. i stooped over it and pointed. there, driven right through the thick steel breastplate, was the 'waeful dagger.' "good god!" said young jarnock again. "good god! it's the dagger! the thing's been stabbed, same as bellett!" "yes," i replied, and saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of the chapel. but i will do him the justice to say that he never budged an inch. "come and see how it was done," i said, and led the way back to the chancel rail. from the wall to the left of the altar i took down a long, curiously ornamented, iron instrument, not unlike a short spear. the sharp end of this i inserted in a hole in the left-hand gatepost of the chancel gateway. i lifted hard, and a section of the post, from the floor upward, bent inward toward the altar, as though hinged at the bottom. down it went, leaving the remaining part of the post standing. as i bent the movable portion lower there came a quick click and a section of the floor slid to one side, showing a long, shallow cavity, sufficient to enclose the post. i put my weight to the lever and hove the post down into the niche. immediately there was a sharp clang, as some catch snicked in, and held it against the powerful operating spring. i went over now to the dummy, and after a few minute's work managed to wrench the dagger loose out of the armor. i brought the old weapon and placed its hilt in a hole near the top of the post where it fitted loosely, the point upward. after that i went again to the lever and gave another strong heave, and the post descended about a foot, to the bottom of the cavity, catching there with another clang. i withdrew the lever and the narrow strip of floor slid back, covering post and dagger, and looking no different from the surrounding surface. then i shut the chancel gate, and we both stood well to one side. i took the spear-like lever, and gave the gate a little push, so that it opened. instantly there was a loud thud, and something sang through the air, striking the bottom wall of the chapel. it was the dagger. i showed jarnock then that the other half of the post had sprung back into place, making the whole post as thick as the one upon the right-hand side of the gate. "there!" i said, turning to the young man and tapping the divided post. "there's the 'invisible' thing that used the dagger, but who the deuce is the person who sets the trap?" i looked at him keenly as i spoke. "my father is the only one who has a key," he said. "so it's practically impossible for anyone to get in and meddle." i looked at him again, but it was obvious that he had not yet reached out to any conclusion. "see here, mr. jarnock," i said, perhaps rather curter than i should have done, considering what i had to say. "are you quite sure that sir alfred is quite balanced--mentally?" "he looked at me, half frightenedly and flushing a little. i realized then how badly i put it. "'i--i don't know,' he replied, after a slight pause and was then silent, except for one or two incoherent half remarks. "'tell the truth,' i said. 'haven't you suspected something, now and again? you needn't be afraid to tell me.' "'well,' he answered slowly, 'i'll admit i've thought father a little--a little strange, perhaps, at times. but i've always tried to think i was mistaken. i've always hoped no one else would see it. you see, i'm very fond of the old guvnor.' "i nodded. "'quite right, too,' i said. 'there's not the least need to make any kind of scandal about this. we must do something, though, but in a quiet way. no fuss, you know. i should go and have a chat with your father, and tell him we've found out about this thing.' i touched the divided post. "young jarnock seemed very grateful for my advice and after shaking my hand pretty hard, took my key, and let himself out of the chapel. he came back in about an hour, looking rather upset. he told me that my conclusions were perfectly correct. it was sir alfred jarnock who had set the trap, both on the night that the butler was nearly killed, and on the past night. indeed, it seemed that the old gentleman had set it every night for many years. he had learnt of its existence from an old manuscript book in the castle library. it had been planned and used in an earlier age as a protection for the gold vessels of the ritual, which were, it seemed, kept in a hidden recess at the back of the altar. "this recess sir alfred jarnock had utilized, secretly, to store his wife's jewelry. she had died some twelve years back, and the young man told me that his father had never seemed quite himself since. "i mentioned to young jarnock how puzzled i was that the trap had been set _before_ the service, on the night that the butler was struck; for, if i understood him aright, his father had been in the habit of setting the trap late every night and unsetting it each morning before anyone entered the chapel. he replied that his father, in a fit of temporary forgetfulness (natural enough in his neurotic condition), must have set it too early and hence what had so nearly proved a tragedy. "that is about all there is to tell. the old man is not (so far as i could learn), really insane in the popularly accepted sense of the word. he is extremely neurotic and has developed into a hypochondriac, the whole condition probably brought about by the shock and sorrow resultant on the death of his wife, leading to years of sad broodings and to overmuch of his own company and thoughts. indeed, young jarnock told me that his father would sometimes pray for hours together, alone in the chapel." carnacki made an end of speaking and leant forward for a spill. "but you've never told us just _how_ you discovered the secret of the divided post and all that," i said, speaking for the four of us. "oh, that!" replied carnacki, puffing vigorously at his pipe. "i found--on comparing the--photos, that the one--taken in the--daytime, showed a thicker left-hand gatepost, than the one taken at night by the flashlight. that put me on to the track. i saw at once that there might be some mechanical dodge at the back of the whole queer business and nothing at all of an abnormal nature. i examined the post and the rest was simple enough, you know. "by the way," he continued, rising and going to the mantelpiece, "you may be interested to have a look at the so-called 'waeful dagger.' young jarnock was kind enough to present it to me, as a little memento of my adventure." he handed it 'round to us and whilst we examined it, stood silent before the fire, puffing meditatively at his pipe. "jarnock and i made the trap so that it won't work," he remarked after a few moments. "i've got the dagger, as you see, and old bellett's getting about again, so that the whole business can be hushed up, decently. all the same i fancy the chapel will never lose its reputation as a dangerous place. should be pretty safe now to keep valuables in." "there's two things you haven't explained yet," i said. "what do you think caused the two clangey sounds when you were in the chapel in the dark? and do you believe the soft tready sounds were real, or only a fancy, with your being so worked up and tense?" "don't know for certain about the clangs," replied carnacki. "i've puzzled quite a bit about them. i can only think that the spring which worked the post must have 'given' a trifle, slipped you know, in the catch. if it did, under such a tension, it would make a bit of a ringing noise. and a little sound goes a long way in the middle of the night when you're thinking of 'ghostesses.' you can understand that--eh?" "yes," i agreed. "and the other sounds?" "well, the same thing--i mean the extraordinary quietness--may help to explain these a bit. they may have been some usual enough sound that would never have been noticed under ordinary conditions, or they may have been only fancy. it is just impossible to say. they were disgustingly real to me. as for the slithery noise, i am pretty sure that one of the tripod legs of my camera must have slipped a few inches: if it did so, it may easily have jolted the lens cap off the baseboard, which would account for that queer little tap which i heard directly after." "how do you account for the dagger being in its place above the altar when you first examined it that night?" i asked. "how could it be there, when at that very moment it was set in the trap?" "that was my mistake," replied carnacki. "the dagger could not possibly have been in its sheath at the time, though i thought it was. you see, the curious cross-hilted sheath gave the appearance of the complete weapon, as you can understand. the hilt of the dagger protrudes very little above the continued portion of the sheath--a most inconvenient arrangement for drawing quickly!" he nodded sagely at the lot of us and yawned, then glanced at the clock. "out you go!" he said, in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula. "i want a sleep." we rose, shook him by the hand, and went out presently into the night and the quiet of the embankment, and so to our homes. the lady of the barge and other stories by w. w. jacobs the well two men stood in the billiard-room of an old country house, talking. play, which had been of a half-hearted nature, was over, and they sat at the open window, looking out over the park stretching away beneath them, conversing idly. "your time's nearly up, jem," said one at length, "this time six weeks you'll be yawning out the honeymoon and cursing the man--woman i mean-- who invented them." jem benson stretched his long limbs in the chair and grunted in dissent. "i've never understood it," continued wilfred carr, yawning. "it's not in my line at all; i never had enough money for my own wants, let alone for two. perhaps if i were as rich as you or croesus i might regard it differently." there was just sufficient meaning in the latter part of the remark for his cousin to forbear to reply to it. he continued to gaze out of the window and to smoke slowly. "not being as rich as croesus--or you," resumed carr, regarding him from beneath lowered lids, "i paddle my own canoe down the stream of time, and, tying it to my friends' door-posts, go in to eat their dinners." "quite venetian," said jem benson, still looking out of the window. "it's not a bad thing for you, wilfred, that you have the doorposts and dinners--and friends." carr grunted in his turn. "seriously though, jem," he said, slowly, "you're a lucky fellow, a very lucky fellow. if there is a better girl above ground than olive, i should like to see her." "yes," said the other, quietly. "she's such an exceptional girl," continued carr, staring out of the window. "she's so good and gentle. she thinks you are a bundle of all the virtues." he laughed frankly and joyously, but the other man did not join him. "strong sense--of right and wrong, though," continued carr, musingly. "do you know, i believe that if she found out that you were not----" "not what?" demanded benson, turning upon him fiercely, "not what?" "everything that you are," returned his cousin, with a grin that belied his words, "i believe she'd drop you." "talk about something else," said benson, slowly; "your pleasantries are not always in the best taste." wilfred carr rose and taking a cue from the rack, bent over the board and practiced one or two favourite shots. "the only other subject i can talk about just at present is my own financial affairs," he said slowly, as he walked round the table. "talk about something else," said benson again, bluntly. "and the two things are connected," said carr, and dropping his cue he half sat on the table and eyed his cousin. there was a long silence. benson pitched the end of his cigar out of the window, and leaning back closed his eyes. "do you follow me?" inquired carr at length. benson opened his eyes and nodded at the window. "do you want to follow my cigar?" he demanded. "i should prefer to depart by the usual way for your sake," returned the other, unabashed. "if i left by the window all sorts of questions would be asked, and you know what a talkative chap i am." "so long as you don't talk about my affairs," returned the other, restraining himself by an obvious effort, "you can talk yourself hoarse." "i'm in a mess," said carr, slowly, "a devil of a mess. if i don't raise fifteen hundred by this day fortnight, i may be getting my board and lodging free." "would that be any change?" questioned benson. "the quality would," retorted the other. "the address also would not be good. seriously, jem, will you let me have the fifteen hundred?" "no," said the other, simply. carr went white. "it's to save me from ruin," he said, thickly. "i've helped you till i'm tired," said benson, turning and regarding him, "and it is all to no good. if you've got into a mess, get out of it. you should not be so fond of giving autographs away." "it's foolish, i admit," said carr, deliberately. "i won't do so any more. by the way, i've got some to sell. you needn't sneer. they're not my own." "whose are they?" inquired the other. "yours." benson got up from his chair and crossed over to him. "what is this?" he asked, quietly. "blackmail?" "call it what you like," said carr. "i've got some letters for sale, price fifteen hundred. and i know a man who would buy them at that price for the mere chance of getting olive from you. i'll give you first offer." "if you have got any letters bearing my signature, you will be good enough to give them to me," said benson, very slowly. "they're mine," said carr, lightly; "given to me by the lady you wrote them to. i must say that they are not all in the best possible taste." his cousin reached forward suddenly, and catching him by the collar of his coat pinned him down on the table. "give me those letters," he breathed, sticking his face close to carr's. "they're not here," said carr, struggling. "i'm not a fool. let me go, or i'll raise the price." the other man raised him from the table in his powerful hands, apparently with the intention of dashing his head against it. then suddenly his hold relaxed as an astonished-looking maid-servant entered the room with letters. carr sat up hastily. "that's how it was done," said benson, for the girl's benefit as he took the letters. "i don't wonder at the other man making him pay for it, then," said carr, blandly. "you will give me those letters?" said benson, suggestively, as the girl left the room. "at the price i mentioned, yes," said carr; "but so sure as i am a living man, if you lay your clumsy hands on me again, i'll double it. now, i'll leave you for a time while you think it over." he took a cigar from the box and lighting it carefully quitted the room. his cousin waited until the door had closed behind him, and then turning to the window sat there in a fit of fury as silent as it was terrible. the air was fresh and sweet from the park, heavy with the scent of new-mown grass. the fragrance of a cigar was now added to it, and glancing out he saw his cousin pacing slowly by. he rose and went to the door, and then, apparently altering his mind, he returned to the window and watched the figure of his cousin as it moved slowly away into the moonlight. then he rose again, and, for a long time, the room was empty. * * * * * it was empty when mrs. benson came in some time later to say good-night to her son on her way to bed. she walked slowly round the table, and pausing at the window gazed from it in idle thought, until she saw the figure of her son advancing with rapid strides toward the house. he looked up at the window. "good-night," said she. "good-night," said benson, in a deep voice. "where is wilfred?" "oh, he has gone," said benson. "gone?" "we had a few words; he was wanting money again, and i gave him a piece of my mind. i don't think we shall see him again." "poor wilfred!" sighed mrs. benson. "he is always in trouble of some sort. i hope that you were not too hard upon him." "no more than he deserved," said her son, sternly. "good night." ii. the well, which had long ago fallen into disuse, was almost hidden by the thick tangle of undergrowth which ran riot at that corner of the old park. it was partly covered by the shrunken half of a lid, above which a rusty windlass creaked in company with the music of the pines when the wind blew strongly. the full light of the sun never reached it, and the ground surrounding it was moist and green when other parts of the park were gaping with the heat. two people walking slowly round the park in the fragrant stillness of a summer evening strayed in the direction of the well. "no use going through this wilderness, olive," said benson, pausing on the outskirts of the pines and eyeing with some disfavour the gloom beyond. "best part of the park," said the girl briskly; "you know it's my favourite spot." "i know you're very fond of sitting on the coping," said the man slowly, "and i wish you wouldn't. one day you will lean back too far and fall in." "and make the acquaintance of truth," said olive lightly. "come along." she ran from him and was lost in the shadow of the pines, the bracken crackling beneath her feet as she ran. her companion followed slowly, and emerging from the gloom saw her poised daintily on the edge of the well with her feet hidden in the rank grass and nettles which surrounded it. she motioned her companion to take a seat by her side, and smiled softly as she felt a strong arm passed about her waist. "i like this place," said she, breaking a long silence, "it is so dismal --so uncanny. do you know i wouldn't dare to sit here alone, jem. i should imagine that all sorts of dreadful things were hidden behind the bushes and trees, waiting to spring out on me. ugh!" "you'd better let me take you in," said her companion tenderly; "the well isn't always wholesome, especially in the hot weather. "let's make a move." the girl gave an obstinate little shake, and settled herself more securely on her seat. "smoke your cigar in peace," she said quietly. "i am settled here for a quiet talk. has anything been heard of wilfred yet?" "nothing." "quite a dramatic disappearance, isn't it?" she continued. "another scrape, i suppose, and another letter for you in the same old strain; 'dear jem, help me out.'" jem benson blew a cloud of fragrant smoke into the air, and holding his cigar between his teeth brushed away the ash from his coat sleeves. "i wonder what he would have done without you," said the girl, pressing his arm affectionately. "gone under long ago, i suppose. when we are married, jem, i shall presume upon the relationship to lecture him. he is very wild, but he has his good points, poor fellow." "i never saw them," said benson, with startling bitterness. "god knows i never saw them." "he is nobody's enemy but his own," said the girl, startled by this outburst. "you don't know much about him," said the other, sharply. "he was not above blackmail; not above ruining the life of a friend to do himself a benefit. a loafer, a cur, and a liar!" the girl looked up at him soberly but timidly and took his arm without a word, and they both sat silent while evening deepened into night and the beams of the moon, filtering through the branches, surrounded them with a silver network. her head sank upon his shoulder, till suddenly with a sharp cry she sprang to her feet. "what was that?" she cried breathlessly. "what was what?" demanded benson, springing up and clutching her fast by the arm. she caught her breath and tried to laugh. "you're hurting me, jem." his hold relaxed. "what is the matter?" he asked gently. "what was it startled you?" "i was startled," she said, slowly, putting her hands on his shoulder. "i suppose the words i used just now are ringing in my ears, but i fancied that somebody behind us whispered 'jem, help me out.'" "fancy," repeated benson, and his voice shook; "but these fancies are not good for you. you--are frightened--at the dark and the gloom of these trees. let me take you back to the house." "no, i'm not frightened," said the girl, reseating herself. "i should never be really frightened of anything when you were with me, jem. i'm surprised at myself for being so silly." the man made no reply but stood, a strong, dark figure, a yard or two from the well, as though waiting for her to join him. "come and sit down, sir," cried olive, patting the brickwork with her small, white hand, "one would think that you did not like your company." he obeyed slowly and took a seat by her side, drawing so hard at his cigar that the light of it shone upon his fare at every breath. he passed his arm, firm and rigid as steel, behind her, with his hand resting on the brickwork beyond. "are you warm enough?" he asked tenderly, as she made a little movement. "pretty fair," she shivered; "one oughtn't to be cold at this time of the year, but there's a cold, damp air comes up from the well." as she spoke a faint splash sounded from the depths below, and for the second time that evening, she sprang from the well with a little cry of dismay. "what is it now?" he asked in a fearful voice. he stood by her side and gazed at the well, as though half expecting to see the cause of her alarm emerge from it. "oh, my bracelet," she cried in distress, "my poor mother's bracelet. i've dropped it down the well." "your bracelet!" repeated benson, dully. "your bracelet? the diamond one?" "the one that was my mother's," said olive. "oh, we can get it back surely. we must have the water drained off." "your bracelet!" repeated benson, stupidly. "jem," said the girl in terrified tones, "dear jem, what is the matter?" for the man she loved was standing regarding her with horror. the moon which touched it was not responsible for all the whiteness of the distorted face, and she shrank back in fear to the edge of the well. he saw her fear and by a mighty effort regained his composure and took her hand. "poor little girl," he murmured, "you frightened me. i was not looking when you cried, and i thought that you were slipping from my arms, down--down--" his voice broke, and the girl throwing herself into his arms clung to him convulsively. "there, there," said benson, fondly, "don't cry, don't cry." "to-morrow," said olive, half-laughing, half-crying, "we will all come round the well with hook and line and fish for it. it will be quite a new sport." "no, we must try some other way," said benson. "you shall have it back." "how?" asked the girl. "you shall see," said benson. "to-morrow morning at latest you shall have it back. till then promise me that you will not mention your loss to anyone. promise." "i promise," said olive, wonderingly. "but why not?" "it is of great value, for one thing, and--but there--there are many reasons. for one thing it is my duty to get it for you." "wouldn't you like to jump down for it?" she asked mischievously. "listen." she stooped for a stone and dropped it down. "fancy being where that is now," she said, peering into the blackness; "fancy going round and round like a mouse in a pail, clutching at the slimy sides, with the water filling your mouth, and looking up to the little patch of sky above." "you had better come in," said benson, very quietly. "you are developing a taste for the morbid and horrible." the girl turned, and taking his arm walked slowly in the direction of the house; mrs. benson, who was sitting in the porch, rose to receive them. "you shouldn't have kept her out so long," she said chidingly. "where have you been?" "sitting on the well," said olive, smiling, "discussing our future." "i don't believe that place is healthy," said mrs. benson, emphatically. "i really think it might be filled in, jem." "all right," said her son, slowly. "pity it wasn't filled in long ago." he took the chair vacated by his mother as she entered the house with olive, and with his hands hanging limply over the sides sat in deep thought. after a time he rose, and going upstairs to a room which was set apart for sporting requisites selected a sea fishing line and some hooks and stole softly downstairs again. he walked swiftly across the park in the direction of the well, turning before he entered the shadow of the trees to look back at the lighted windows of the house. then having arranged his line he sat on the edge of the well and cautiously lowered it. he sat with his lips compressed, occasionally looking about him in a startled fashion, as though he half expected to see something peering at him from the belt of trees. time after time he lowered his line until at length in pulling it up he heard a little metallic tinkle against the side of the well. he held his breath then, and forgetting his fears drew the line in inch by inch, so as not to lose its precious burden. his pulse beat rapidly, and his eyes were bright. as the line came slowly in he saw the catch hanging to the hook, and with a steady hand drew the last few feet in. then he saw that instead of the bracelet he had hooked a bunch of keys. with a faint cry he shook them from the hook into the water below, and stood breathing heavily. not a sound broke the stillness of the night. he walked up and down a bit and stretched his great muscles; then he came back to the well and resumed his task. for an hour or more the line was lowered without result. in his eagerness he forgot his fears, and with eyes bent down the well fished slowly and carefully. twice the hook became entangled in something, and was with difficulty released. it caught a third time, and all his efforts failed' to free it. then he dropped the line down the well, and with head bent walked toward the house. he went first to the stables at the rear, and then retiring to his room for some time paced restlessly up and down. then without removing his clothes he flung himself upon the bed and fell into a troubled sleep. iii. long before anybody else was astir he arose and stole softly downstairs. the sunlight was stealing in at every crevice, and flashing in long streaks across the darkened rooms. the dining-room into which he looked struck chill and cheerless in the dark yellow light which came through the lowered blinds. he remembered that it had the same appearance when his father lay dead in the house; now, as then, everything seemed ghastly and unreal; the very chairs standing as their occupants had left them the night before seemed to be indulging in some dark communication of ideas. slowly and noiselessly he opened the hall door and passed into the fragrant air beyond. the sun was shining on the drenched grass and trees, and a slowly vanishing white mist rolled like smoke about the grounds. for a moment he stood, breathing deeply the sweet air of the morning, and then walked slowly in the direction of the stables. the rusty creaking of a pump-handle and a spatter of water upon the red-tiled courtyard showed that somebody else was astir, and a few steps farther he beheld a brawny, sandy-haired man gasping wildly under severe self-infliction at the pump. "everything ready, george?" he asked quietly. "yes, sir," said the man, straightening up suddenly and touching his forehead. "bob's just finishing the arrangements inside. it's a lovely morning for a dip. the water in that well must be just icy." "be as quick as you can," said benson, impatiently. "very good, sir," said george, burnishing his face harshly with a very small towel which had been hanging over the top of the pump. "hurry up, bob." in answer to his summons a man appeared at the door of the stable with a coil of stout rope over his arm and a large metal candlestick in his hand. "just to try the air, sir," said george, following his master's glance, "a well gets rather foul sometimes, but if a candle can live down it, a man can." his master nodded, and the man, hastily pulling up the neck of his shirt and thrusting his arms into his coat, followed him as he led the way slowly to the well. "beg pardon, sir," said george, drawing up to his side, "but you are not looking over and above well this morning. if you'll let me go down i'd enjoy the bath." "no, no," said benson, peremptorily. "you ain't fit to go down, sir," persisted his follower. "i've never seen you look so before. now if--" "mind your business," said his master curtly. george became silent and the three walked with swinging strides through the long wet grass to the well. bob flung the rope on the ground and at a sign from his master handed him the candlestick. "here's the line for it, sir," said bob, fumbling in his pockets. benson took it from him and slowly tied it to the candlestick. then he placed it on the edge of the well, and striking a match, lit the candle and began slowly to lower it. "hold hard, sir," said george, quickly, laying his hand on his arm, "you must tilt it or the string'll burn through." even as he spoke the string parted and the candlestick fell into the water below. benson swore quietly. "i'll soon get another," said george, starting up. "never mind, the well's all right," said benson. "it won't take a moment, sir," said the other over his shoulder. "are you master here, or am i?" said benson hoarsely. george came back slowly, a glance at his master's face stopping the protest upon his tongue, and he stood by watching him sulkily as he sat on the well and removed his outer garments. both men watched him curiously, as having completed his preparations he stood grim and silent with his hands by his sides. "i wish you'd let me go, sir," said george, plucking up courage to address him. "you ain't fit to go, you've got a chill or something. i shouldn't wonder it's the typhoid. they've got it in the village bad." for a moment benson looked at him angrily, then his gaze softened. "not this time, george," he said, quietly. he took the looped end of the rope and placed it under his arms, and sitting down threw one leg over the side of the well. "how are you going about it, sir?" queried george, laying hold of the rope and signing to bob to do the same. "i'll call out when i reach the water," said benson; "then pay out three yards more quickly so that i can get to the bottom." "very good, sir," answered both. their master threw the other leg over the coping and sat motionless. his back was turned toward the men as he sat with head bent, looking down the shaft. he sat for so long that george became uneasy. "all right, sir?" he inquired. "yes," said benson, slowly. "if i tug at the rope, george, pull up at once. lower away." the rope passed steadily through their hands until a hollow cry from the darkness below and a faint splashing warned them that he had reached the water. they gave him three yards more and stood with relaxed grasp and strained ears, waiting. "he's gone under," said bob in a low voice. the other nodded, and moistening his huge palms took a firmer grip of the rope. fully a minute passed, and the men began to exchange uneasy glances. then a sudden tremendous jerk followed by a series of feebler ones nearly tore the rope from their grasp. "pull!" shouted george, placing one foot on the side and hauling desperately. "pull! pull! he's stuck fast; he's not coming; pull!" in response to their terrific exertions the rope came slowly in, inch by inch, until at length a violent splashing was heard, and at the same moment a scream of unutterable horror came echoing up the shaft. "what a weight he is !" panted bob. "he's stuck fast or something. keep still, sir; for heaven's sake, keep still." for the taut rope was being jerked violently by the struggles of the weight at the end of it. both men with grunts and sighs hauled it in foot by foot. "all right, sir," cried george, cheerfully. he had one foot against the well, and was pulling manfully; the burden was nearing the top. a long pull and a strong pull, and the face of a dead man with mud in the eyes and nostrils came peering over the edge. behind it was the ghastly face of his master; but this he saw too late, for with a great cry he let go his hold of the rope and stepped back. the suddenness overthrew his assistant, and the rope tore through his hands. there was a frightful splash. "you fool!" stammered bob, and ran to the well helplessly. "run!" cried george. "run for another line." he bent over the coping and called eagerly down as his assistant sped back to the stables shouting wildly. his voice re-echoed down the shaft, but all else was silence. m. r. james ghost stories of an antiquary * * * * * _these stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have listened to them._ * * * * * contents part : ghost stories of an antiquary canon alberic's scrap-book lost hearts the mezzotint the ash-tree number count magnus 'oh, whistle, and i'll come to you, my lad' the treasure of abbot thomas part : more ghost stories a school story the rose garden the tractate middoth casting the runes the stalls of barchester cathedral martin's close mr humphreys and his inheritance * * * * * part : ghost stories of an antiquary * * * * * if anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that st bertrand de comminges and viborg are real places: that in 'oh, whistle, and i'll come to you' i had felixstowe in mind. as for the fragments of ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages, hardly anything in them is not pure invention; there never was, naturally, any such book as that which i quote in 'the treasure of abbot thomas'. 'canon alberic's scrap-book' was written in and printed soon after in the _national review_, 'lost hearts' appeared in the _pall mall magazine_; of the next five stories, most of which were read to friends at christmas-time at king's college, cambridge, i only recollect that i wrote 'number ' in , while 'the treasure of abbot thomas' was composed in the summer of . m. r. james * * * * * canon alberic's scrap-book st bertrand de comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the pyrenees, not very far from toulouse, and still nearer to bagnères-de-luchon. it was the site of a bishopric until the revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. in the spring of an englishman arrived at this old-world place--i can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. he was a cambridge man, who had come specially from toulouse to see st bertrand's church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. half an hour at the church would satisfy _them_, and all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of auch. but our englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of comminges. in order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. the verger or sacristan (i prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the chapeau rouge; and when he came, the englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. it was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other church-guardians in france, but in a curious furtive or rather hunted and oppressed air which he had. he was perpetually half glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. the englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. the probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife. however, the englishman (let us call him dennistoun) was soon too deep in his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an occasional glance to the sacristan. whenever he did look at him, he found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man from his _déjeuner_, that he was regarded as likely to make away with st bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font, began to torment him. 'won't you go home?' he said at last; 'i'm quite well able to finish my notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. i shall want at least two hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn't it?' 'good heavens!' said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw into a state of unaccountable terror, 'such a thing cannot be thought of for a moment. leave monsieur alone in the church? no, no; two hours, three hours, all will be the same to me. i have breakfasted, i am not at all cold, with many thanks to monsieur.' 'very well, my little man,' quoth dennistoun to himself: 'you have been warned, and you must take the consequences.' before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of bishop john de mauléon, the remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a large empty building fell on his ear. curious noises they were, sometimes. 'once,' dennistoun said to me, 'i could have sworn i heard a thin metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. i darted an inquiring glance at my sacristan. he was white to the lips. "it is he--that is--it is no one; the door is locked," was all he said, and we looked at each other for a full minute.' another little incident puzzled dennistoun a good deal. he was examining a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series illustrating the miracles of st bertrand. the composition of the picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a latin legend below, which runs thus: _qualiter s. bertrandus liberavit hominem quem diabolus diu volebat strangulare_. (how st bertrand delivered a man whom the devil long sought to strangle.) dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks. dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question would not go away from him,'why should a daub of this kind affect anyone so strongly?' he seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day: the man must be a monomaniac; but what was his monomania? it was nearly five o'clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises--the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all day--seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent. the sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and impatience. he heaved a sigh of relief when camera and note-book were finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned dennistoun to the western door of the church, under the tower. it was time to ring the angelus. a few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell bertrande, high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up among the pines and down to the valleys, loud with mountain-streams, calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the salutation of the angel to her whom he called blessed among women. with that a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon the little town, and dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the church. on the doorstep they fell into conversation. 'monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the sacristy.' 'undoubtedly. i was going to ask you if there were a library in the town.' 'no, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the chapter, but it is now such a small place--' here came a strange pause of irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on: 'but if monsieur is _amateur des vieux livres_, i have at home something that might interest him. it is not a hundred yards.' at once all dennistoun's cherished dreams of finding priceless manuscripts in untrodden corners of france flashed up, to die down again the next moment. it was probably a stupid missal of plantin's printing, about . where was the likelihood that a place so near toulouse would not have been ransacked long ago by collectors? however, it would be foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he refused. so they set off. on the way the curious irresolution and sudden determination of the sacristan recurred to dennistoun, and he wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be made away with as a supposed rich englishman. he contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the next morning. to his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him. 'that is well,' he said quite brightly--'that is very well. monsieur will travel in company with his friends: they will be always near him. it is a good thing to travel thus in company--sometimes.' the last word appeared to be added as an afterthought and to bring with it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man. they were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its neighbours, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield of alberic de mauléon, a collateral descendant, dennistoun tells me, of bishop john de mauléon. this alberic was a canon of comminges from to . the upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole place bore, as does the rest of comminges, the aspect of decaying age. arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment. 'perhaps,' he said, 'perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?' 'not at all--lots of time--nothing to do till tomorrow. let us see what it is you have got.' the door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. plainly the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter; and, but for the expression i have described, she was a handsome girl enough. she brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an able-bodied stranger. a few remarks passed between father and daughter of which dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan: 'he was laughing in the church,' words which were answered only by a look of terror from the girl. but in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. something of the character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural colours, the cross was black. under this stood a chest of some age and solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing excitement and nervousness, as dennistoun thought, a large book, wrapped in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread. even before the wrapping had been removed, dennistoun began to be interested by the size and shape of the volume. 'too large for a missal,' he thought, 'and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may be something good, after all.' the next moment the book was open, and dennistoun felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good. before him lay a large folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth century, with the arms of canon alberic de mauléon stamped in gold on the sides. there may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in the book, and on almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript. such a collection dennistoun had hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments. here were ten leaves from a copy of genesis, illustrated with pictures, which could not be later than a.d. . further on was a complete set of pictures from a psalter, of english execution, of the very finest kind that the thirteenth century could produce; and, perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of uncial writing in latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at once, must belong to some very early unknown patristic treatise. could it possibly be a fragment of the copy of papias 'on the words of our lord', which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at nimes?[ ] in any case, his mind was made up; that book must return to cambridge with him, even if he had to draw the whole of his balance from the bank and stay at st. bertrand till the money came. he glanced up at the sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for sale. the sacristan was pale, and his lips were working. [ ] we now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy of it. 'if monsieur will turn on to the end,' he said. so monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf; and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much more recent date than anything he had seen yet, which puzzled him considerably. they must be contemporary, he decided, with the unprincipled canon alberic, who had doubtless plundered the chapter library of st bertrand to form this priceless scrap-book. on the first of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly recognizable by a person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and cloisters of st bertrand's. there were curious signs looking like planetary symbols, and a few hebrew words in the corners; and in the north-west angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. below the plan were some lines of writing in latin, which ran thus: _responsa (mi) dec. . interrogatum est: inveniamne? responsum est: invenies. fiamne dives? fies. vivamne invidendus? vives. moriarne in lecto meo? ita._ (answers of the th of december, . it was asked: shall i find it? answer: thou shalt. shall i become rich? thou wilt. shall i live an object of envy? thou wilt. shall i die in my bed? thou wilt.) 'a good specimen of the treasure-hunter's record--quite reminds one of mr minor-canon quatremain in _old st paul's_,' was dennistoun's comment, and he turned the leaf. what he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him. and, though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a photograph of it (which i possess) which fully bears out that statement. the picture in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a biblical scene; for the architecture (the picture represented an interior) and the figures had that semi-classical flavour about them which the artists of two hundred years ago thought appropriate to illustrations of the bible. on the right was a king on his throne, the throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overhead, soldiers on either side--evidently king solomon. he was bending forward with outstretched sceptre, in attitude of command; his face expressed horror and disgust, yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident power. the left half of the picture was the strangest, however. the interest plainly centred there. on the pavement before the throne were grouped four soldiers, surrounding a crouching figure which must be described in a moment. a fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his neck distorted, and his eye-balls starting from his head. the four surrounding guards were looking at the king. in their faces, the sentiment of horror was intensified; they seemed, in fact, only restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their master. all this terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their midst. i entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression which this figure makes upon anyone who looks at it. i recollect once showing the photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on morphology--a person of, i was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind. he absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told me afterwards that for many nights he had not dared to put out his light before going to sleep. however, the main traits of the figure i can at least indicate. at first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. the hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. the eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the throned king with a look of beast-like hate. imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of south america translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. one remark is universally made by those to whom i have shown the picture: 'it was drawn from the life.' as soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided, dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. the sacristan's hands were pressed upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was telling her beads feverishly. at last the question was asked: 'is this book for sale?' there was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination that he had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer: 'if monsieur pleases.' 'how much do you ask for it?' 'i will take two hundred and fifty francs.' this was confounding. even a collector's conscience is sometimes stirred, and dennistoun's conscience was tenderer than a collector's. 'my good man!' he said again and again, 'your book is worth far more than two hundred and fifty francs. i assure you--far more.' but the answer did not vary: 'i will take two hundred and fifty francs--not more.' there was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. the money was paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction, and then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. he stood upright, he ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him, he actually laughed or tried to laugh. dennistoun rose to go. 'i shall have the honour of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?' said the sacristan. 'oh, no, thanks! it isn't a hundred yards. i know the way perfectly, and there is a moon.' the offer was pressed three or four times and refused as often. 'then, monsieur will summon me if--if he finds occasion; he will keep the middle of the road, the sides are so rough.' 'certainly, certainly,' said dennistoun, who was impatient to examine his prize by himself; and he stepped out into the passage with his book under his arm. here he was met by the daughter; she, it appeared, was anxious to do a little business on her own account; perhaps, like gehazi, to 'take somewhat' from the foreigner whom her father had spared. 'a silver crucifix and chain for the neck; monsieur would perhaps be good enough to accept it?' well, really, dennistoun hadn't much use for these things. what did mademoiselle want for it? 'nothing--nothing in the world. monsieur is more than welcome to it.' the tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine, so that dennistoun was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to have the chain put round his neck. it really seemed as if he had rendered the father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. as he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after him, and they were still looking when he waved them a last good night from the steps of the chapeau rouge. dinner was over, and dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with his acquisition. the landlady had manifested a particular interest in him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and bought an old book from him. he thought, too, that he had heard a hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage outside the _salle à manger_; some words to the effect that 'pierre and bertrand would be sleeping in the house' had closed the conversation. all this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over him--nervous reaction, perhaps, after the delight of his discovery. whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the wall. all this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the obvious value of the collection he had acquired. and now, as i said, he was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of canon alberic's treasures, in which every moment revealed something more charming. 'bless canon alberic!' said dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of talking to himself. 'i wonder where he is now? dear me! i wish that landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one feel as if there was someone dead in the house. half a pipe more, did you say? i think perhaps you are right. i wonder what that crucifix is that the young woman insisted on giving me? last century, i suppose. yes, probably. it is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one's neck--just too heavy. most likely her father has been wearing it for years. i think i might give it a clean up before i put it away.' he had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his left elbow. two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brain with their own incalculable quickness. a penwiper? no, no such thing in the house. a rat? no, too black. a large spider? i trust to goodness not--no. good god! a hand like the hand in that picture! in another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. pale, dusky skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, grey, horny, and wrinkled. he flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at his heart. the shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his scalp. there was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair covered it as in the drawing. the lower jaw was thin--what can i call it?--shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips; there was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy life which shone there, were the most horrifying features in the whole vision. there was intelligence of a kind in them--intelligence beyond that of a beast, below that of a man. the feelings which this horror stirred in dennistoun were the intensest physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. what did he do? what could he do? he has never been quite certain what words he said, but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous pain. pierre and bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in, saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed out between them, and found dennistoun in a swoon. they sat up with him that night, and his two friends were at st bertrand by nine o'clock next morning. he himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan. almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretence, and had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the landlady. he showed no surprise. 'it is he--it is he! i have seen him myself,' was his only comment; and to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: 'deux fois je l'ai vu: mille fois je l'ai senti.' he would tell them nothing of the provenance of the book, nor any details of his experiences. 'i shall soon sleep, and my rest will be sweet. why should you trouble me?' he said.[ ] [ ] he died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at st papoul. she never understood the circumstances of her father's 'obsession'. we shall never know what he or canon alberic de mauléon suffered. at the back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may be supposed to throw light on the situation: _contradictio salomonis cum demonio nocturno. albericus de mauléone delineavit. v. deus in adiutorium. ps. qui habitat. sancte bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo. primum uidi nocte (mi) dec. : uidebo mox ultimum. peccaui et passus sum, plura adhuc passurus. dec. , _.[ ] [ ] _i.e._, the dispute of solomon with a demon of the night. drawn by alberic de mauléon. _versicle_. o lord, make haste to help me. _psalm_. whoso dwelleth xci. saint bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy. i saw it first on the night of dec. , : soon i shall see it for the last time. i have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet. dec. , . the 'gallia christiana' gives the date of the canon's death as december , , 'in bed, of a sudden seizure'. details of this kind are not common in the great work of the sammarthani. i have never quite understood what was dennistoun's view of the events i have narrated. he quoted to me once a text from ecclesiasticus: 'some spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay on sore strokes.' on another occasion he said: 'isaiah was a very sensible man; doesn't he say something about night monsters living in the ruins of babylon? these things are rather beyond us at present.' another confidence of his impressed me rather, and i sympathized with it. we had been, last year, to comminges, to see canon alberic's tomb. it is a great marble erection with an effigy of the canon in a large wig and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. i saw dennistoun talking for some time with the vicar of st bertrand's, and as we drove away he said to me: 'i hope it isn't wrong: you know i am a presbyterian--but i--i believe there will be "saying of mass and singing of dirges" for alberic de mauléon's rest.' then he added, with a touch of the northern british in his tone, 'i had no notion they came so dear.' * * * * * the book is in the wentworth collection at cambridge. the drawing was photographed and then burnt by dennistoun on the day when he left comminges on the occasion of his first visit. lost hearts it was, as far as i can ascertain, in september of the year that a post-chaise drew up before the door of aswarby hall, in the heart of lincolnshire. the little boy who was the only passenger in the chaise, and who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the keenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door. he saw a tall, square, red-brick house, built in the reign of anne; a stone-pillared porch had been added in the purer classical style of ; the windows of the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes and thick white woodwork. a pediment, pierced with a round window, crowned the front. there were wings to right and left, connected by curious glazed galleries, supported by colonnades, with the central block. these wings plainly contained the stables and offices of the house. each was surmounted by an ornamental cupola with a gilded vane. an evening light shone on the building, making the window-panes glow like so many fires. away from the hall in front stretched a flat park studded with oaks and fringed with firs, which stood out against the sky. the clock in the church-tower, buried in trees on the edge of the park, only its golden weather-cock catching the light, was striking six, and the sound came gently beating down the wind. it was altogether a pleasant impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the mind of the boy who was standing in the porch waiting for the door to open to him. the post-chaise had brought him from warwickshire, where, some six months before, he had been left an orphan. now, owing to the generous offer of his elderly cousin, mr abney, he had come to live at aswarby. the offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of mr abney looked upon him as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going household the advent of a small boy would import a new and, it seemed, incongruous element. the truth is that very little was known of mr abney's pursuits or temper. the professor of greek at cambridge had been heard to say that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of the later pagans than did the owner of aswarby. certainly his library contained all the then available books bearing on the mysteries, the orphic poems, the worship of mithras, and the neo-platonists. in the marble-paved hall stood a fine group of mithras slaying a bull, which had been imported from the levant at great expense by the owner. he had contributed a description of it to the _gentleman's magazine_, and he had written a remarkable series of articles in the _critical museum_ on the superstitions of the romans of the lower empire. he was looked upon, in fine, as a man wrapped up in his books, and it was a matter of great surprise among his neighbours that he should ever have heard of his orphan cousin, stephen elliott, much more that he should have volunteered to make him an inmate of aswarby hall. whatever may have been expected by his neighbours, it is certain that mr abney--the tall, the thin, the austere--seemed inclined to give his young cousin a kindly reception. the moment the front-door was opened he darted out of his study, rubbing his hands with delight. 'how are you, my boy?--how are you? how old are you?' said he--'that is, you are not too much tired, i hope, by your journey to eat your supper?' 'no, thank you, sir,' said master elliott; 'i am pretty well.' 'that's a good lad,' said mr abney. 'and how old are you, my boy?' it seemed a little odd that he should have asked the question twice in the first two minutes of their acquaintance. 'i'm twelve years old next birthday, sir,' said stephen. 'and when is your birthday, my dear boy? eleventh of september, eh? that's well--that's very well. nearly a year hence, isn't it? i like--ha, ha!--i like to get these things down in my book. sure it's twelve? certain?' 'yes, quite sure, sir.' 'well, well! take him to mrs bunch's room, parkes, and let him have his tea--supper--whatever it is.' 'yes, sir,' answered the staid mr parkes; and conducted stephen to the lower regions. mrs bunch was the most comfortable and human person whom stephen had as yet met at aswarby. she made him completely at home; they were great friends in a quarter of an hour: and great friends they remained. mrs bunch had been born in the neighbourhood some fifty-five years before the date of stephen's arrival, and her residence at the hall was of twenty years' standing. consequently, if anyone knew the ins and outs of the house and the district, mrs bunch knew them; and she was by no means disinclined to communicate her information. certainly there were plenty of things about the hall and the hall gardens which stephen, who was of an adventurous and inquiring turn, was anxious to have explained to him. 'who built the temple at the end of the laurel walk? who was the old man whose picture hung on the staircase, sitting at a table, with a skull under his hand?' these and many similar points were cleared up by the resources of mrs bunch's powerful intellect. there were others, however, of which the explanations furnished were less satisfactory. one november evening stephen was sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room reflecting on his surroundings. 'is mr abney a good man, and will he go to heaven?' he suddenly asked, with the peculiar confidence which children possess in the ability of their elders to settle these questions, the decision of which is believed to be reserved for other tribunals. 'good?--bless the child!' said mrs bunch. 'master's as kind a soul as ever i see! didn't i never tell you of the little boy as he took in out of the street, as you may say, this seven years back? and the little girl, two years after i first come here?' 'no. do tell me all about them, mrs bunch--now, this minute!' 'well,' said mrs bunch, 'the little girl i don't seem to recollect so much about. i know master brought her back with him from his walk one day, and give orders to mrs ellis, as was housekeeper then, as she should be took every care with. and the pore child hadn't no one belonging to her--she telled me so her own self--and here she lived with us a matter of three weeks it might be; and then, whether she were somethink of a gipsy in her blood or what not, but one morning she out of her bed afore any of us had opened a eye, and neither track nor yet trace of her have i set eyes on since. master was wonderful put about, and had all the ponds dragged; but it's my belief she was had away by them gipsies, for there was singing round the house for as much as an hour the night she went, and parkes, he declare as he heard them a-calling in the woods all that afternoon. dear, dear! a hodd child she was, so silent in her ways and all, but i was wonderful taken up with her, so domesticated she was--surprising.' 'and what about the little boy?' said stephen. 'ah, that pore boy!' sighed mrs bunch. 'he were a foreigner--jevanny he called hisself--and he come a-tweaking his 'urdy-gurdy round and about the drive one winter day, and master 'ad him in that minute, and ast all about where he came from, and how old he was, and how he made his way, and where was his relatives, and all as kind as heart could wish. but it went the same way with him. they're a hunruly lot, them foreign nations, i do suppose, and he was off one fine morning just the same as the girl. why he went and what he done was our question for as much as a year after; for he never took his 'urdy-gurdy, and there it lays on the shelf.' the remainder of the evening was spent by stephen in miscellaneous cross-examination of mrs bunch and in efforts to extract a tune from the hurdy-gurdy. that night he had a curious dream. at the end of the passage at the top of the house, in which his bedroom was situated, there was an old disused bathroom. it was kept locked, but the upper half of the door was glazed, and, since the muslin curtains which used to hang there had long been gone, you could look in and see the lead-lined bath affixed to the wall on the right hand, with its head towards the window. on the night of which i am speaking, stephen elliott found himself, as he thought, looking through the glazed door. the moon was shining through the window, and he was gazing at a figure which lay in the bath. his description of what he saw reminds me of what i once beheld myself in the famous vaults of st michan's church in dublin, which possesses the horrid property of preserving corpses from decay for centuries. a figure inexpressibly thin and pathetic, of a dusty leaden colour, enveloped in a shroud-like garment, the thin lips crooked into a faint and dreadful smile, the hands pressed tightly over the region of the heart. as he looked upon it, a distant, almost inaudible moan seemed to issue from its lips, and the arms began to stir. the terror of the sight forced stephen backwards and he awoke to the fact that he was indeed standing on the cold boarded floor of the passage in the full light of the moon. with a courage which i do not think can be common among boys of his age, he went to the door of the bathroom to ascertain if the figure of his dreams were really there. it was not, and he went back to bed. mrs bunch was much impressed next morning by his story, and went so far as to replace the muslin curtain over the glazed door of the bathroom. mr abney, moreover, to whom he confided his experiences at breakfast, was greatly interested and made notes of the matter in what he called 'his book'. the spring equinox was approaching, as mr abney frequently reminded his cousin, adding that this had been always considered by the ancients to be a critical time for the young: that stephen would do well to take care of himself, and to shut his bedroom window at night; and that censorinus had some valuable remarks on the subject. two incidents that occurred about this time made an impression upon stephen's mind. the first was after an unusually uneasy and oppressed night that he had passed--though he could not recall any particular dream that he had had. the following evening mrs bunch was occupying herself in mending his nightgown. 'gracious me, master stephen!' she broke forth rather irritably, 'how do you manage to tear your nightdress all to flinders this way? look here, sir, what trouble you do give to poor servants that have to darn and mend after you!' there was indeed a most destructive and apparently wanton series of slits or scorings in the garment, which would undoubtedly require a skilful needle to make good. they were confined to the left side of the chest--long, parallel slits about six inches in length, some of them not quite piercing the texture of the linen. stephen could only express his entire ignorance of their origin: he was sure they were not there the night before. 'but,' he said, 'mrs bunch, they are just the same as the scratches on the outside of my bedroom door: and i'm sure i never had anything to do with making _them_.' mrs bunch gazed at him open-mouthed, then snatched up a candle, departed hastily from the room, and was heard making her way upstairs. in a few minutes she came down. 'well,' she said, 'master stephen, it's a funny thing to me how them marks and scratches can 'a' come there--too high up for any cat or dog to 'ave made 'em, much less a rat: for all the world like a chinaman's finger-nails, as my uncle in the tea-trade used to tell us of when we was girls together. i wouldn't say nothing to master, not if i was you, master stephen, my dear; and just turn the key of the door when you go to your bed.' 'i always do, mrs bunch, as soon as i've said my prayers.' 'ah, that's a good child: always say your prayers, and then no one can't hurt you.' herewith mrs bunch addressed herself to mending the injured nightgown, with intervals of meditation, until bed-time. this was on a friday night in march, . on the following evening the usual duet of stephen and mrs bunch was augmented by the sudden arrival of mr parkes, the butler, who as a rule kept himself rather _to_ himself in his own pantry. he did not see that stephen was there: he was, moreover, flustered and less slow of speech than was his wont. 'master may get up his own wine, if he likes, of an evening,' was his first remark. 'either i do it in the daytime or not at all, mrs bunch. i don't know what it may be: very like it's the rats, or the wind got into the cellars; but i'm not so young as i was, and i can't go through with it as i have done.' 'well, mr parkes, you know it is a surprising place for the rats, is the hall.' 'i'm not denying that, mrs bunch; and, to be sure, many a time i've heard the tale from the men in the shipyards about the rat that could speak. i never laid no confidence in that before; but tonight, if i'd demeaned myself to lay my ear to the door of the further bin, i could pretty much have heard what they was saying.' 'oh, there, mr parkes, i've no patience with your fancies! rats talking in the wine-cellar indeed!' 'well, mrs bunch, i've no wish to argue with you: all i say is, if you choose to go to the far bin, and lay your ear to the door, you may prove my words this minute.' 'what nonsense you do talk, mr parkes--not fit for children to listen to! why, you'll be frightening master stephen there out of his wits.' 'what! master stephen?' said parkes, awaking to the consciousness of the boy's presence. 'master stephen knows well enough when i'm a-playing a joke with you, mrs bunch.' in fact, master stephen knew much too well to suppose that mr parkes had in the first instance intended a joke. he was interested, not altogether pleasantly, in the situation; but all his questions were unsuccessful in inducing the butler to give any more detailed account of his experiences in the wine-cellar. * * * * * we have now arrived at march , . it was a day of curious experiences for stephen: a windy, noisy day, which filled the house and the gardens with a restless impression. as stephen stood by the fence of the grounds, and looked out into the park, he felt as if an endless procession of unseen people were sweeping past him on the wind, borne on resistlessly and aimlessly, vainly striving to stop themselves, to catch at something that might arrest their flight and bring them once again into contact with the living world of which they had formed a part. after luncheon that day mr abney said: 'stephen, my boy, do you think you could manage to come to me tonight as late as eleven o'clock in my study? i shall be busy until that time, and i wish to show you something connected with your future life which it is most important that you should know. you are not to mention this matter to mrs bunch nor to anyone else in the house; and you had better go to your room at the usual time.' here was a new excitement added to life: stephen eagerly grasped at the opportunity of sitting up till eleven o'clock. he looked in at the library door on his way upstairs that evening, and saw a brazier, which he had often noticed in the corner of the room, moved out before the fire; an old silver-gilt cup stood on the table, filled with red wine, and some written sheets of paper lay near it. mr abney was sprinkling some incense on the brazier from a round silver box as stephen passed, but did not seem to notice his step. the wind had fallen, and there was a still night and a full moon. at about ten o'clock stephen was standing at the open window of his bedroom, looking out over the country. still as the night was, the mysterious population of the distant moon-lit woods was not yet lulled to rest. from time to time strange cries as of lost and despairing wanderers sounded from across the mere. they might be the notes of owls or water-birds, yet they did not quite resemble either sound. were not they coming nearer? now they sounded from the nearer side of the water, and in a few moments they seemed to be floating about among the shrubberies. then they ceased; but just as stephen was thinking of shutting the window and resuming his reading of _robinson crusoe_, he caught sight of two figures standing on the gravelled terrace that ran along the garden side of the hall--the figures of a boy and girl, as it seemed; they stood side by side, looking up at the windows. something in the form of the girl recalled irresistibly his dream of the figure in the bath. the boy inspired him with more acute fear. whilst the girl stood still, half smiling, with her hands clasped over her heart, the boy, a thin shape, with black hair and ragged clothing, raised his arms in the air with an appearance of menace and of unappeasable hunger and longing. the moon shone upon his almost transparent hands, and stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long and that the light shone through them. as he stood with his arms thus raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle. on the left side of his chest there opened a black and gaping rent; and there fell upon stephen's brain, rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of those hungry and desolate cries that he had heard resounding over the woods of aswarby all that evening. in another moment this dreadful pair had moved swiftly and noiselessly over the dry gravel, and he saw them no more. inexpressibly frightened as he was, he determined to take his candle and go down to mr abney's study, for the hour appointed for their meeting was near at hand. the study or library opened out of the front-hall on one side, and stephen, urged on by his terrors, did not take long in getting there. to effect an entrance was not so easy. it was not locked, he felt sure, for the key was on the outside of the door as usual. his repeated knocks produced no answer. mr abney was engaged: he was speaking. what! why did he try to cry out? and why was the cry choked in his throat? had he, too, seen the mysterious children? but now everything was quiet, and the door yielded to stephen's terrified and frantic pushing. * * * * * on the table in mr abney's study certain papers were found which explained the situation to stephen elliott when he was of an age to understand them. the most important sentences were as follows: 'it was a belief very strongly and generally held by the ancients--of whose wisdom in these matters i have had such experience as induces me to place confidence in their assertions--that by enacting certain processes, which to us moderns have something of a barbaric complexion, a very remarkable enlightenment of the spiritual faculties in man may be attained: that, for example, by absorbing the personalities of a certain number of his fellow-creatures, an individual may gain a complete ascendancy over those orders of spiritual beings which control the elemental forces of our universe. 'it is recorded of simon magus that he was able to fly in the air, to become invisible, or to assume any form he pleased, by the agency of the soul of a boy whom, to use the libellous phrase employed by the author of the _clementine recognitions_, he had "murdered". i find it set down, moreover, with considerable detail in the writings of hermes trismegistus, that similar happy results may be produced by the absorption of the hearts of not less than three human beings below the age of twenty-one years. to the testing of the truth of this receipt i have devoted the greater part of the last twenty years, selecting as the _corpora vilia_ of my experiment such persons as could conveniently be removed without occasioning a sensible gap in society. the first step i effected by the removal of one phoebe stanley, a girl of gipsy extraction, on march , . the second, by the removal of a wandering italian lad, named giovanni paoli, on the night of march , . the final "victim"--to employ a word repugnant in the highest degree to my feelings--must be my cousin, stephen elliott. his day must be this march , . 'the best means of effecting the required absorption is to remove the heart from the _living_ subject, to reduce it to ashes, and to mingle them with about a pint of some red wine, preferably port. the remains of the first two subjects, at least, it will be well to conceal: a disused bathroom or wine-cellar will be found convenient for such a purpose. some annoyance may be experienced from the psychic portion of the subjects, which popular language dignifies with the name of ghosts. but the man of philosophic temperament--to whom alone the experiment is appropriate--will be little prone to attach importance to the feeble efforts of these beings to wreak their vengeance on him. i contemplate with the liveliest satisfaction the enlarged and emancipated existence which the experiment, if successful, will confer on me; not only placing me beyond the reach of human justice (so-called), but eliminating to a great extent the prospect of death itself.' * * * * * mr abney was found in his chair, his head thrown back, his face stamped with an expression of rage, fright, and mortal pain. in his left side was a terrible lacerated wound, exposing the heart. there was no blood on his hands, and a long knife that lay on the table was perfectly clean. a savage wild-cat might have inflicted the injuries. the window of the study was open, and it was the opinion of the coroner that mr abney had met his death by the agency of some wild creature. but stephen elliott's study of the papers i have quoted led him to a very different conclusion. the mezzotint some time ago i believe i had the pleasure of telling you the story of an adventure which happened to a friend of mine by the name of dennistoun, during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at cambridge. he did not publish his experiences very widely upon his return to england; but they could not fail to become known to a good many of his friends, and among others to the gentleman who at that time presided over an art museum at another university. it was to be expected that the story should make a considerable impression on the mind of a man whose vocation lay in lines similar to dennistoun's, and that he should be eager to catch at any explanation of the matter which tended to make it seem improbable that he should ever be called upon to deal with so agitating an emergency. it was, indeed, somewhat consoling to him to reflect that he was not expected to acquire ancient mss. for his institution; that was the business of the shelburnian library. the authorities of that institution might, if they pleased, ransack obscure corners of the continent for such matters. he was glad to be obliged at the moment to confine his attention to enlarging the already unsurpassed collection of english topographical drawings and engravings possessed by his museum. yet, as it turned out, even a department so homely and familiar as this may have its dark corners, and to one of these mr williams was unexpectedly introduced. those who have taken even the most limited interest in the acquisition of topographical pictures are aware that there is one london dealer whose aid is indispensable to their researches. mr j. w. britnell publishes at short intervals very admirable catalogues of a large and constantly changing stock of engravings, plans, and old sketches of mansions, churches, and towns in england and wales. these catalogues were, of course, the abc of his subject to mr williams: but as his museum already contained an enormous accumulation of topographical pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather looked to mr britnell to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than to supply him with rarities. now, in february of last year there appeared upon mr williams's desk at the museum a catalogue from mr britnell's emporium, and accompanying it was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. this latter ran as follows: dear sir, we beg to call your attention to no. in our accompanying catalogue, which we shall be glad to send on approval. yours faithfully, j. w. britnell. to turn to no. in the accompanying catalogue was with mr. williams (as he observed to himself) the work of a moment, and in the place indicated he found the following entry: .--_unknown._ interesting mezzotint: view of a manor-house, early part of the century. by inches; black frame. £ s. it was not specially exciting, and the price seemed high. however, as mr britnell, who knew his business and his customer, seemed to set store by it, mr williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be sent on approval, along with some other engravings and sketches which appeared in the same catalogue. and so he passed without much excitement of anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day. a parcel of any kind always arrives a day later than you expect it, and that of mr britnell proved, as i believe the right phrase goes, no exception to the rule. it was delivered at the museum by the afternoon post of saturday, after mr williams had left his work, and it was accordingly brought round to his rooms in college by the attendant, in order that he might not have to wait over sunday before looking through it and returning such of the contents as he did not propose to keep. and here he found it when he came in to tea, with a friend. the only item with which i am concerned was the rather large, black-framed mezzotint of which i have already quoted the short description given in mr britnell's catalogue. some more details of it will have to be given, though i cannot hope to put before you the look of the picture as clearly as it is present to my own eye. very nearly the exact duplicate of it may be seen in a good many old inn parlours, or in the passages of undisturbed country mansions at the present moment. it was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent mezzotint is, perhaps, the worst form of engraving known. it presented a full-face view of a not very large manor-house of the last century, with three rows of plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico in the centre. on either side were trees, and in front a considerable expanse of lawn. the legend _a. w. f. sculpsit_ was engraved on the narrow margin; and there was no further inscription. the whole thing gave the impression that it was the work of an amateur. what in the world mr britnell could mean by affixing the price of £ s. to such an object was more than mr williams could imagine. he turned it over with a good deal of contempt; upon the back was a paper label, the left-hand half of which had been torn off. all that remained were the ends of two lines of writing; the first had the letters--_ngley hall_; the second,--_ssex_. it would, perhaps, be just worth while to identify the place represented, which he could easily do with the help of a gazetteer, and then he would send it back to mr britnell, with some remarks reflecting upon the judgement of that gentleman. he lighted the candles, for it was now dark, made the tea, and supplied the friend with whom he had been playing golf (for i believe the authorities of the university i write of indulge in that pursuit by way of relaxation); and tea was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon any non-golfing persons. the conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been better, and that in certain emergencies neither player had experienced that amount of luck which a human being has a right to expect. it was now that the friend--let us call him professor binks--took up the framed engraving and said: 'what's this place, williams?' 'just what i am going to try to find out,' said williams, going to the shelf for a gazetteer. 'look at the back. somethingley hall, either in sussex or essex. half the name's gone, you see. you don't happen to know it, i suppose?' 'it's from that man britnell, i suppose, isn't it?' said binks. 'is it for the museum?' 'well, i think i should buy it if the price was five shillings,' said williams; 'but for some unearthly reason he wants two guineas for it. i can't conceive why. it's a wretched engraving, and there aren't even any figures to give it life.' 'it's not worth two guineas, i should think,' said binks; 'but i don't think it's so badly done. the moonlight seems rather good to me; and i should have thought there _were_ figures, or at least a figure, just on the edge in front.' 'let's look,' said williams. 'well, it's true the light is rather cleverly given. where's your figure? oh, yes! just the head, in the very front of the picture.' and indeed there was--hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge of the engraving--the head of a man or woman, a good deal muffled up, the back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house. williams had not noticed it before. 'still,' he said, 'though it's a cleverer thing than i thought, i can't spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place i don't know.' professor binks had his work to do, and soon went; and very nearly up to hall time williams was engaged in a vain attempt to identify the subject of his picture. 'if the vowel before the _ng_ had only been left, it would have been easy enough,' he thought; 'but as it is, the name may be anything from guestingley to langley, and there are many more names ending like this than i thought; and this rotten book has no index of terminations.' hall in mr williams's college was at seven. it need not be dwelt upon; the less so as he met there colleagues who had been playing golf during the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely bandied across the table--merely golfing words, i would hasten to explain. i suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called common-room after dinner. later in the evening some few retired to williams's rooms, and i have little doubt that whist was played and tobacco smoked. during a lull in these operations williams picked up the mezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from, and the other particulars which we already know. the gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it, then said, in a tone of some interest: 'it's really a very good piece of work, williams; it has quite a feeling of the romantic period. the light is admirably managed, it seems to me, and the figure, though it's rather too grotesque, is somehow very impressive.' 'yes, isn't it?' said williams, who was just then busy giving whisky and soda to others of the company, and was unable to come across the room to look at the view again. it was by this time rather late in the evening, and the visitors were on the move. after they went williams was obliged to write a letter or two and clear up some odd bits of work. at last, some time past midnight, he was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. the picture lay face upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down. what he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now if he had been left in the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. but, as that did not happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. it was indubitable--rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. in the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o'clock that afternoon. it was crawling on all fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back. i do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this kind, i can only tell you what mr williams did. he took the picture by one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms which he possessed. there he locked it up in a drawer, sported the doors of both sets of rooms, and retired to bed; but first he wrote out and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had undergone since it had come into his possession. sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported testimony. evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to his eyes or his mind. this possibility being fortunately precluded, two matters awaited him on the morrow. he must take stock of the picture very carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was represented. he would therefore ask his neighbour nisbet to breakfast with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer. nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about . . his host was not quite dressed, i am sorry to say, even at this late hour. during breakfast nothing was said about the mezzotint by williams, save that he had a picture on which he wished for nisbet's opinion. but those who are familiar with university life can picture for themselves the wide and delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two fellows of canterbury college is likely to extend during a sunday morning breakfast. hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to lawn-tennis. yet i am bound to say that williams was rather distraught; for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite. the morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for which he looked. with very considerable--almost tremulous--excitement he ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture--still face downwards--ran back, and put it into nisbet's hands. 'now,' he said, 'nisbet, i want you to tell me exactly what you see in that picture. describe it, if you don't mind, rather minutely. i'll tell you why afterwards.' 'well,' said nisbet, 'i have here a view of a country-house--english, i presume--by moonlight.' 'moonlight? you're sure of that?' 'certainly. the moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details, and there are clouds in the sky.' 'all right. go on. i'll swear,' added williams in an aside, 'there was no moon when i saw it first.' 'well, there's not much more to be said,' nisbet continued. 'the house has one--two--three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the bottom, where there's a porch instead of the middle one, and--' 'but what about figures?' said williams, with marked interest. 'there aren't any,' said nisbet; 'but--' 'what! no figure on the grass in front?' 'not a thing.' 'you'll swear to that?' 'certainly i will. but there's just one other thing.' 'what?' 'why, one of the windows on the ground-floor--left of the door--is open.' 'is it really so? my goodness! he must have got in,' said williams, with great excitement; and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the matter for himself. it was quite true. there was no figure, and there was the open window. williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the writing-table and scribbled for a short time. then he brought two papers to nisbet, and asked him first to sign one--it was his own description of the picture, which you have just heard--and then to read the other which was williams's statement written the night before. 'what can it all mean?' said nisbet. 'exactly,' said williams. 'well, one thing i must do--or three things, now i think of it. i must find out from garwood'--this was his last night's visitor--'what he saw, and then i must get the thing photographed before it goes further, and then i must find out what the place is.' 'i can do the photographing myself,' said nisbet, 'and i will. but, you know, it looks very much as if we were assisting at the working out of a tragedy somewhere. the question is, has it happened already, or is it going to come off? you must find out what the place is. yes,' he said, looking at the picture again, 'i expect you're right: he has got in. and if i don't mistake, there'll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs.' 'i'll tell you what,' said williams: 'i'll take the picture across to old green' (this was the senior fellow of the college, who had been bursar for many years). 'it's quite likely he'll know it. we have property in essex and sussex, and he must have been over the two counties a lot in his time.' 'quite likely he will,' said nisbet; 'but just let me take my photograph first. but look here, i rather think green isn't up today. he wasn't in hall last night, and i think i heard him say he was going down for the sunday.' 'that's true, too,' said williams; 'i know he's gone to brighton. well, if you'll photograph it now, i'll go across to garwood and get his statement, and you keep an eye on it while i'm gone. i'm beginning to think two guineas is not a very exorbitant price for it now.' in a short time he had returned, and brought mr garwood with him. garwood's statement was to the effect that the figure, when he had seen it, was clear of the edge of the picture, but had not got far across the lawn. he remembered a white mark on the back of its drapery, but could not have been sure it was a cross. a document to this effect was then drawn up and signed, and nisbet proceeded to photograph the picture. 'now what do you mean to do?' he said. 'are you going to sit and watch it all day?' 'well, no, i think not,' said williams. 'i rather imagine we're meant to see the whole thing. you see, between the time i saw it last night and this morning there was time for lots of things to happen, but the creature only got into the house. it could easily have got through its business in the time and gone to its own place again; but the fact of the window being open, i think, must mean that it's in there now. so i feel quite easy about leaving it. and besides, i have a kind of idea that it wouldn't change much, if at all, in the daytime. we might go out for a walk this afternoon, and come in to tea, or whenever it gets dark. i shall leave it out on the table here, and sport the door. my skip can get in, but no one else.' the three agreed that this would be a good plan; and, further, that if they spent the afternoon together they would be less likely to talk about the business to other people; for any rumour of such a transaction as was going on would bring the whole of the phasmatological society about their ears. we may give them a respite until five o'clock. at or near that hour the three were entering williams's staircase. they were at first slightly annoyed to see that the door of his rooms was unsported; but in a moment it was remembered that on sunday the skips came for orders an hour or so earlier than on weekdays. however, a surprise was awaiting them. the first thing they saw was the picture leaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left, and the next thing was williams's skip, seated on a chair opposite, gazing at it with undisguised horror. how was this? mr filcher (the name is not my own invention) was a servant of considerable standing, and set the standard of etiquette to all his own college and to several neighbouring ones, and nothing could be more alien to his practice than to be found sitting on his master's chair, or appearing to take any particular notice of his master's furniture or pictures. indeed, he seemed to feel this himself. he started violently when the three men were in the room, and got up with a marked effort. then he said: 'i ask your pardon, sir, for taking such a freedom as to set down.' 'not at all, robert,' interposed mr williams. 'i was meaning to ask you some time what you thought of that picture.' 'well, sir, of course i don't set up my opinion against yours, but it ain't the pictur i should 'ang where my little girl could see it, sir.' 'wouldn't you, robert? why not?' 'no, sir. why, the pore child, i recollect once she see a door bible, with pictures not 'alf what that is, and we 'ad to set up with her three or four nights afterwards, if you'll believe me; and if she was to ketch a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying off the pore baby, she would be in a taking. you know 'ow it is with children; 'ow nervish they git with a little thing and all. but what i should say, it don't seem a right pictur to be laying about, sir, not where anyone that's liable to be startled could come on it. should you be wanting anything this evening, sir? thank you, sir.' with these words the excellent man went to continue the round of his masters, and you may be sure the gentlemen whom he left lost no time in gathering round the engraving. there was the house, as before under the waning moon and the drifting clouds. the window that had been open was shut, and the figure was once more on the lawn: but not this time crawling cautiously on hands and knees. now it was erect and stepping swiftly, with long strides, towards the front of the picture. the moon was behind it, and the black drapery hung down over its face so that only hints of that could be seen, and what was visible made the spectators profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white dome-like forehead and a few straggling hairs. the head was bent down, and the arms were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly seen and identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not possible to say. the legs of the appearance alone could be plainly discerned, and they were horribly thin. from five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by turns. but it never changed. they agreed at last that it would be safe to leave it, and that they would return after hall and await further developments. when they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the engraving was there, but the figure was gone, and the house was quiet under the moonbeams. there was nothing for it but to spend the evening over gazetteers and guide-books. williams was the lucky one at last, and perhaps he deserved it. at . p.m. he read from murray's _guide to essex_ the following lines: - / miles, _anningley_. the church has been an interesting building of norman date, but was extensively classicized in the last century. it contains the tomb of the family of francis, whose mansion, anningley hall, a solid queen anne house, stands immediately beyond the churchyard in a park of about acres. the family is now extinct, the last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in the year . the father, mr arthur francis, was locally known as a talented amateur engraver in mezzotint. after his son's disappearance he lived in complete retirement at the hall, and was found dead in his studio on the third anniversary of the disaster, having just completed an engraving of the house, impressions of which are of considerable rarity. this looked like business, and, indeed, mr green on his return at once identified the house as anningley hall. 'is there any kind of explanation of the figure, green?' was the question which williams naturally asked. 'i don't know, i'm sure, williams. what used to be said in the place when i first knew it, which was before i came up here, was just this: old francis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and whenever he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it turned off the estate, and by degrees he got rid of them all but one. squires could do a lot of things then that they daren't think of now. well, this man that was left was what you find pretty often in that country--the last remains of a very old family. i believe they were lords of the manor at one time. i recollect just the same thing in my own parish.' 'what, like the man in _tess o' the durbervilles_?' williams put in. 'yes, i dare say; it's not a book i could ever read myself. but this fellow could show a row of tombs in the church there that belonged to his ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit; but francis, they said, could never get at him--he always kept just on the right side of the law--until one night the keepers found him at it in a wood right at the end of the estate. i could show you the place now; it marches with some land that used to belong to an uncle of mine. and you can imagine there was a row; and this man gawdy (that was the name, to be sure--gawdy; i thought i should get it--gawdy), he was unlucky enough, poor chap! to shoot a keeper. well, that was what francis wanted, and grand juries--you know what they would have been then--and poor gawdy was strung up in double-quick time; and i've been shown the place he was buried in, on the north side of the church--you know the way in that part of the world: anyone that's been hanged or made away with themselves, they bury them that side. and the idea was that some friend of gawdy's--not a relation, because he had none, poor devil! he was the last of his line: kind of _spes ultima gentis_--must have planned to get hold of francis's boy and put an end to _his_ line, too. i don't know--it's rather an out-of-the-way thing for an essex poacher to think of--but, you know, i should say now it looks more as if old gawdy had managed the job himself. booh! i hate to think of it! have some whisky, williams!' the facts were communicated by williams to dennistoun, and by him to a mixed company, of which i was one, and the sadducean professor of ophiology another. i am sorry to say that the latter when asked what he thought of it, only remarked: 'oh, those bridgeford people will say anything'--a sentiment which met with the reception it deserved. i have only to add that the picture is now in the ashleian museum; that it has been treated with a view to discovering whether sympathetic ink has been used in it, but without effect; that mr britnell knew nothing of it save that he was sure it was uncommon; and that, though carefully watched, it has never been known to change again. the ash-tree everyone who has travelled over eastern england knows the smaller country-houses with which it is studded--the rather dank little buildings, usually in the italian style, surrounded with parks of some eighty to a hundred acres. for me they have always had a very strong attraction, with the grey paling of split oak, the noble trees, the meres with their reed-beds, and the line of distant woods. then, i like the pillared portico--perhaps stuck on to a red-brick queen anne house which has been faced with stucco to bring it into line with the 'grecian' taste of the end of the eighteenth century; the hall inside, going up to the roof, which hall ought always to be provided with a gallery and a small organ. i like the library, too, where you may find anything from a psalter of the thirteenth century to a shakespeare quarto. i like the pictures, of course; and perhaps most of all i like fancying what life in such a house was when it was first built, and in the piping times of landlords' prosperity, and not least now, when, if money is not so plentiful, taste is more varied and life quite as interesting. i wish to have one of these houses, and enough money to keep it together and entertain my friends in it modestly. but this is a digression. i have to tell you of a curious series of events which happened in such a house as i have tried to describe. it is castringham hall in suffolk. i think a good deal has been done to the building since the period of my story, but the essential features i have sketched are still there--italian portico, square block of white house, older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and mere. the one feature that marked out the house from a score of others is gone. as you looked at it from the park, you saw on the right a great old ash-tree growing within half a dozen yards of the wall, and almost or quite touching the building with its branches. i suppose it had stood there ever since castringham ceased to be a fortified place, and since the moat was filled in and the elizabethan dwelling-house built. at any rate, it had well-nigh attained its full dimensions in the year . in that year the district in which the hall is situated was the scene of a number of witch-trials. it will be long, i think, before we arrive at a just estimate of the amount of solid reason--if there was any--which lay at the root of the universal fear of witches in old times. whether the persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were possessed of unusual power of any kind; or whether they had the will at least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours; or whether all the confessions, of which there are so many, were extorted by the cruelty of the witch-finders--these are questions which are not, i fancy, yet solved. and the present narrative gives me pause. i cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention. the reader must judge for himself. castringham contributed a victim to the _auto-da-fé_. mrs mothersole was her name, and she differed from the ordinary run of village witches only in being rather better off and in a more influential position. efforts were made to save her by several reputable farmers of the parish. they did their best to testify to her character, and showed considerable anxiety as to the verdict of the jury. but what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the evidence of the then proprietor of castringham hall--sir matthew fell. he deposed to having watched her on three different occasions from his window, at the full of the moon, gathering sprigs 'from the ash-tree near my house'. she had climbed into the branches, clad only in her shift, and was cutting off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as she did so she seemed to be talking to herself. on each occasion sir matthew had done his best to capture the woman, but she had always taken alarm at some accidental noise he had made, and all he could see when he got down to the garden was a hare running across the path in the direction of the village. on the third night he had been at the pains to follow at his best speed, and had gone straight to mrs mothersole's house; but he had had to wait a quarter of an hour battering at her door, and then she had come out very cross, and apparently very sleepy, as if just out of bed; and he had no good explanation to offer of his visit. mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of a less striking and unusual kind from other parishioners, mrs mothersole was found guilty and condemned to die. she was hanged a week after the trial, with five or six more unhappy creatures, at bury st edmunds. sir matthew fell, then deputy-sheriff, was present at the execution. it was a damp, drizzly march morning when the cart made its way up the rough grass hill outside northgate, where the gallows stood. the other victims were apathetic or broken down with misery; but mrs mothersole was, as in life so in death, of a very different temper. her 'poysonous rage', as a reporter of the time puts it, 'did so work upon the bystanders--yea, even upon the hangman--that it was constantly affirmed of all that saw her that she presented the living aspect of a mad divell. yet she offer'd no resistance to the officers of the law; onely she looked upon those that laid hands upon her with so direfull and venomous an aspect that--as one of them afterwards assured me--the meer thought of it preyed inwardly upon his mind for six months after.' however, all that she is reported to have said were the seemingly meaningless words: 'there will be guests at the hall.' which she repeated more than once in an undertone. sir matthew fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of the woman. he had some talk upon the matter with the vicar of his parish, with whom he travelled home after the assize business was over. his evidence at the trial had not been very willingly given; he was not specially infected with the witch-finding mania, but he declared, then and afterwards, that he could not give any other account of the matter than that he had given, and that he could not possibly have been mistaken as to what he saw. the whole transaction had been repugnant to him, for he was a man who liked to be on pleasant terms with those about him; but he saw a duty to be done in this business, and he had done it. that seems to have been the gist of his sentiments, and the vicar applauded it, as any reasonable man must have done. a few weeks after, when the moon of may was at the full, vicar and squire met again in the park, and walked to the hall together. lady fell was with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and sir matthew was alone at home; so the vicar, mr crome, was easily persuaded to take a late supper at the hall. sir matthew was not very good company this evening. the talk ran chiefly on family and parish matters, and, as luck would have it, sir matthew made a memorandum in writing of certain wishes or intentions of his regarding his estates, which afterwards proved exceedingly useful. when mr crome thought of starting for home, about half past nine o'clock, sir matthew and he took a preliminary turn on the gravelled walk at the back of the house. the only incident that struck mr crome was this: they were in sight of the ash-tree which i described as growing near the windows of the building, when sir matthew stopped and said: 'what is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash? it is never a squirrel? they will all be in their nests by now.' the vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he could make nothing of its colour in the moonlight. the sharp outline, however, seen for an instant, was imprinted on his brain, and he could have sworn, he said, though it sounded foolish, that, squirrel or not, it had more than four legs. still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision, and the two men parted. they may have met since then, but it was not for a score of years. next day sir matthew fell was not downstairs at six in the morning, as was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet at eight. hereupon the servants went and knocked at his chamber door. i need not prolong the description of their anxious listenings and renewed batterings on the panels. the door was opened at last from the outside, and they found their master dead and black. so much you have guessed. that there were any marks of violence did not at the moment appear; but the window was open. one of the men went to fetch the parson, and then by his directions rode on to give notice to the coroner. mr crome himself went as quick as he might to the hall, and was shown to the room where the dead man lay. he has left some notes among his papers which show how genuine a respect and sorrow was felt for sir matthew, and there is also this passage, which i transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon the course of events, and also upon the common beliefs of the time: 'there was not any the least trace of an entrance having been forc'd to the chamber: but the casement stood open, as my poor friend would always have it in this season. he had his evening drink of small ale in a silver vessel of about a pint measure, and tonight had not drunk it out. this drink was examined by the physician from bury, a mr hodgkins, who could not, however, as he afterwards declar'd upon his oath, before the coroner's quest, discover that any matter of a venomous kind was present in it. for, as was natural, in the great swelling and blackness of the corpse, there was talk made among the neighbours of poyson. the body was very much disorder'd as it laid in the bed, being twisted after so extream a sort as gave too probable conjecture that my worthy friend and patron had expir'd in great pain and agony. and what is as yet unexplain'd, and to myself the argument of some horrid and artfull designe in the perpetrators of this barbarous murther, was this, that the women which were entrusted with the laying-out of the corpse and washing it, being both sad pearsons and very well respected in their mournfull profession, came to me in a great pain and distress both of mind and body, saying, what was indeed confirmed upon the first view, that they had no sooner touch'd the breast of the corpse with their naked hands than they were sensible of a more than ordinary violent smart and acheing in their palms, which, with their whole forearms, in no long time swell'd so immoderately, the pain still continuing, that, as afterwards proved, during many weeks they were forc'd to lay by the exercise of their calling; and yet no mark seen on the skin. 'upon hearing this, i sent for the physician, who was still in the house, and we made as carefull a proof as we were able by the help of a small magnifying lens of crystal of the condition of the skinn on this part of the body: but could not detect with the instrument we had any matter of importance beyond a couple of small punctures or pricks, which we then concluded were the spotts by which the poyson might be introduced, remembering that ring of _pope borgia_, with other known specimens of the horrid art of the italian poysoners of the last age. 'so much is to be said of the symptoms seen on the corpse. as to what i am to add, it is meerly my own experiment, and to be left to posterity to judge whether there be anything of value therein. there was on the table by the beddside a bible of the small size, in which my friend--punctuall as in matters of less moment, so in this more weighty one--used nightly, and upon his first rising, to read a sett portion. and i taking it up--not without a tear duly paid to him wich from the study of this poorer adumbration was now pass'd to the contemplation of its great originall--it came into my thoughts, as at such moments of helplessness we are prone to catch at any the least glimmer that makes promise of light, to make trial of that old and by many accounted superstitious practice of drawing the _sortes;_ of which a principall instance, in the case of his late sacred majesty the blessed martyr king _charles_ and my lord _falkland_, was now much talked of. i must needs admit that by my trial not much assistance was afforded me: yet, as the cause and origin of these dreadfull events may hereafter be search'd out, i set down the results, in the case it may be found that they pointed the true quarter of the mischief to a quicker intelligence than my own. 'i made, then, three trials, opening the book and placing my finger upon certain words: which gave in the first these words, from luke xiii. , _cut it down_; in the second, isaiah xiii. , _it shall never be inhabited_; and upon the third experiment, job xxxix. , _her young ones also suck up blood_.' this is all that need be quoted from mr crome's papers. sir matthew fell was duly coffined and laid into the earth, and his funeral sermon, preached by mr crome on the following sunday, has been printed under the title of 'the unsearchable way; or, england's danger and the malicious dealings of antichrist', it being the vicar's view, as well as that most commonly held in the neighbourhood, that the squire was the victim of a recrudescence of the popish plot. his son, sir matthew the second, succeeded to the title and estates. and so ends the first act of the castringham tragedy. it is to be mentioned, though the fact is not surprising, that the new baronet did not occupy the room in which his father had died. nor, indeed, was it slept in by anyone but an occasional visitor during the whole of his occupation. he died in , and i do not find that anything particular marked his reign, save a curiously constant mortality among his cattle and live-stock in general, which showed a tendency to increase slightly as time went on. those who are interested in the details will find a statistical account in a letter to the _gentleman's magazine_ of , which draws the facts from the baronet's own papers. he put an end to it at last by a very simple expedient, that of shutting up all his beasts in sheds at night, and keeping no sheep in his park. for he had noticed that nothing was ever attacked that spent the night indoors. after that the disorder confined itself to wild birds, and beasts of chase. but as we have no good account of the symptoms, and as all-night watching was quite unproductive of any clue, i do not dwell on what the suffolk farmers called the 'castringham sickness'. the second sir matthew died in , as i said, and was duly succeeded by his son, sir richard. it was in his time that the great family pew was built out on the north side of the parish church. so large were the squire's ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of the building had to be disturbed to satisfy his requirements. among them was that of mrs mothersole, the position of which was accurately known, thanks to a note on a plan of the church and yard, both made by mr crome. a certain amount of interest was excited in the village when it was known that the famous witch, who was still remembered by a few, was to be exhumed. and the feeling of surprise, and indeed disquiet, was very strong when it was found that, though her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or dust. indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying no such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men, and it is difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a body otherwise than for the uses of the dissecting-room. the incident revived for a time all the stories of witch-trials and of the exploits of the witches, dormant for forty years, and sir richard's orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to be rather foolhardy, though they were duly carried out. sir richard was a pestilent innovator, it is certain. before his time the hall had been a fine block of the mellowest red brick; but sir richard had travelled in italy and become infected with the italian taste, and, having more money than his predecessors, he determined to leave an italian palace where he had found an english house. so stucco and ashlar masked the brick; some indifferent roman marbles were planted about in the entrance-hall and gardens; a reproduction of the sibyl's temple at tivoli was erected on the opposite bank of the mere; and castringham took on an entirely new, and, i must say, a less engaging, aspect. but it was much admired, and served as a model to a good many of the neighbouring gentry in after-years. * * * * * one morning (it was in ) sir richard woke after a night of discomfort. it had been windy, and his chimney had smoked persistently, and yet it was so cold that he must keep up a fire. also something had so rattled about the window that no man could get a moment's peace. further, there was the prospect of several guests of position arriving in the course of the day, who would expect sport of some kind, and the inroads of the distemper (which continued among his game) had been lately so serious that he was afraid for his reputation as a game-preserver. but what really touched him most nearly was the other matter of his sleepless night. he could certainly not sleep in that room again. that was the chief subject of his meditations at breakfast, and after it he began a systematic examination of the rooms to see which would suit his notions best. it was long before he found one. this had a window with an eastern aspect and that with a northern; this door the servants would be always passing, and he did not like the bedstead in that. no, he must have a room with a western look-out, so that the sun could not wake him early, and it must be out of the way of the business of the house. the housekeeper was at the end of her resources. 'well, sir richard,' she said, 'you know that there is but the one room like that in the house.' 'which may that be?' said sir richard. 'and that is sir matthew's--the west chamber.' 'well, put me in there, for there i'll lie tonight,' said her master. 'which way is it? here, to be sure'; and he hurried off. 'oh, sir richard, but no one has slept there these forty years. the air has hardly been changed since sir matthew died there.' thus she spoke, and rustled after him. 'come, open the door, mrs chiddock. i'll see the chamber, at least.' so it was opened, and, indeed, the smell was very close and earthy. sir richard crossed to the window, and, impatiently, as was his wont, threw the shutters back, and flung open the casement. for this end of the house was one which the alterations had barely touched, grown up as it was with the great ash-tree, and being otherwise concealed from view. 'air it, mrs chiddock, all today, and move my bed-furniture in in the afternoon. put the bishop of kilmore in my old room.' 'pray, sir richard,' said a new voice, breaking in on this speech, 'might i have the favour of a moment's interview?' sir richard turned round and saw a man in black in the doorway, who bowed. 'i must ask your indulgence for this intrusion, sir richard. you will, perhaps, hardly remember me. my name is william crome, and my grandfather was vicar in your grandfather's time.' 'well, sir,' said sir richard, 'the name of crome is always a passport to castringham. i am glad to renew a friendship of two generations' standing. in what can i serve you? for your hour of calling--and, if i do not mistake you, your bearing--shows you to be in some haste.' 'that is no more than the truth, sir. i am riding from norwich to bury st edmunds with what haste i can make, and i have called in on my way to leave with you some papers which we have but just come upon in looking over what my grandfather left at his death. it is thought you may find some matters of family interest in them.' 'you are mighty obliging, mr crome, and, if you will be so good as to follow me to the parlour, and drink a glass of wine, we will take a first look at these same papers together. and you, mrs chiddock, as i said, be about airing this chamber.... yes, it is here my grandfather died.... yes, the tree, perhaps, does make the place a little dampish.... no; i do not wish to listen to any more. make no difficulties, i beg. you have your orders--go. will you follow me, sir?' they went to the study. the packet which young mr crome had brought--he was then just become a fellow of clare hall in cambridge, i may say, and subsequently brought out a respectable edition of polyaenus--contained among other things the notes which the old vicar had made upon the occasion of sir matthew fell's death. and for the first time sir richard was confronted with the enigmatical _sortes biblicae_ which you have heard. they amused him a good deal. 'well,' he said, 'my grandfather's bible gave one prudent piece of advice--_cut it down_. if that stands for the ash-tree, he may rest assured i shall not neglect it. such a nest of catarrhs and agues was never seen.' the parlour contained the family books, which, pending the arrival of a collection which sir richard had made in italy, and the building of a proper room to receive them, were not many in number. sir richard looked up from the paper to the bookcase. 'i wonder,' says he, 'whether the old prophet is there yet? i fancy i see him.' crossing the room, he took out a dumpy bible, which, sure enough, bore on the flyleaf the inscription: 'to matthew fell, from his loving godmother, anne aldous, september .' 'it would be no bad plan to test him again, mr crome. i will wager we get a couple of names in the chronicles. h'm! what have we here? "thou shalt seek me in the morning, and i shall not be." well, well! your grandfather would have made a fine omen of that, hey? no more prophets for me! they are all in a tale. and now, mr crome, i am infinitely obliged to you for your packet. you will, i fear, be impatient to get on. pray allow me--another glass.' so with offers of hospitality, which were genuinely meant (for sir richard thought well of the young man's address and manner), they parted. in the afternoon came the guests--the bishop of kilmore, lady mary hervey, sir william kentfield, etc. dinner at five, wine, cards, supper, and dispersal to bed. next morning sir richard is disinclined to take his gun with the rest. he talks with the bishop of kilmore. this prelate, unlike a good many of the irish bishops of his day, had visited his see, and, indeed, resided there, for some considerable time. this morning, as the two were walking along the terrace and talking over the alterations and improvements in the house, the bishop said, pointing to the window of the west room: 'you could never get one of my irish flock to occupy that room, sir richard.' 'why is that, my lord? it is, in fact, my own.' 'well, our irish peasantry will always have it that it brings the worst of luck to sleep near an ash-tree, and you have a fine growth of ash not two yards from your chamber window. perhaps,' the bishop went on, with a smile, 'it has given you a touch of its quality already, for you do not seem, if i may say it, so much the fresher for your night's rest as your friends would like to see you.' 'that, or something else, it is true, cost me my sleep from twelve to four, my lord. but the tree is to come down tomorrow, so i shall not hear much more from it.' 'i applaud your determination. it can hardly be wholesome to have the air you breathe strained, as it were, through all that leafage.' 'your lordship is right there, i think. but i had not my window open last night. it was rather the noise that went on--no doubt from the twigs sweeping the glass--that kept me open-eyed.' 'i think that can hardly be, sir richard. here--you see it from this point. none of these nearest branches even can touch your casement unless there were a gale, and there was none of that last night. they miss the panes by a foot.' 'no, sir, true. what, then, will it be, i wonder, that scratched and rustled so--ay, and covered the dust on my sill with lines and marks?' at last they agreed that the rats must have come up through the ivy. that was the bishop's idea, and sir richard jumped at it. so the day passed quietly, and night came, and the party dispersed to their rooms, and wished sir richard a better night. and now we are in his bedroom, with the light out and the squire in bed. the room is over the kitchen, and the night outside still and warm, so the window stands open. there is very little light about the bedstead, but there is a strange movement there; it seems as if sir richard were moving his head rapidly to and fro with only the slightest possible sound. and now you would guess, so deceptive is the half-darkness, that he had several heads, round and brownish, which move back and forward, even as low as his chest. it is a horrible illusion. is it nothing more? there! something drops off the bed with a soft plump, like a kitten, and is out of the window in a flash; another--four--and after that there is quiet again. _thou shall seek me in the morning, and i shall not be._ as with sir matthew, so with sir richard--dead and black in his bed! a pale and silent party of guests and servants gathered under the window when the news was known. italian poisoners, popish emissaries, infected air--all these and more guesses were hazarded, and the bishop of kilmore looked at the tree, in the fork of whose lower boughs a white tom-cat was crouching, looking down the hollow which years had gnawed in the trunk. it was watching something inside the tree with great interest. suddenly it got up and craned over the hole. then a bit of the edge on which it stood gave way, and it went slithering in. everyone looked up at the noise of the fall. it is known to most of us that a cat can cry; but few of us have heard, i hope, such a yell as came out of the trunk of the great ash. two or three screams there were--the witnesses are not sure which--and then a slight and muffled noise of some commotion or struggling was all that came. but lady mary hervey fainted outright, and the housekeeper stopped her ears and fled till she fell on the terrace. the bishop of kilmore and sir william kentfield stayed. yet even they were daunted, though it was only at the cry of a cat; and sir william swallowed once or twice before he could say: 'there is something more than we know of in that tree, my lord. i am for an instant search.' and this was agreed upon. a ladder was brought, and one of the gardeners went up, and, looking down the hollow, could detect nothing but a few dim indications of something moving. they got a lantern, and let it down by a rope. 'we must get at the bottom of this. my life upon it, my lord, but the secret of these terrible deaths is there.' up went the gardener again with the lantern, and let it down the hole cautiously. they saw the yellow light upon his face as he bent over, and saw his face struck with an incredulous terror and loathing before he cried out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder--where, happily, he was caught by two of the men--letting the lantern fall inside the tree. he was in a dead faint, and it was some time before any word could be got from him. by then they had something else to look at. the lantern must have broken at the bottom, and the light in it caught upon dry leaves and rubbish that lay there for in a few minutes a dense smoke began to come up, and then flame; and, to be short, the tree was in a blaze. the bystanders made a ring at some yards' distance, and sir william and the bishop sent men to get what weapons and tools they could; for, clearly, whatever might be using the tree as its lair would be forced out by the fire. so it was. first, at the fork, they saw a round body covered with fire--the size of a man's head--appear very suddenly, then seem to collapse and fall back. this, five or six times; then a similar ball leapt into the air and fell on the grass, where after a moment it lay still. the bishop went as near as he dared to it, and saw--what but the remains of an enormous spider, veinous and seared! and, as the fire burned lower down, more terrible bodies like this began to break out from the trunk, and it was seen that these were covered with greyish hair. all that day the ash burned, and until it fell to pieces the men stood about it, and from time to time killed the brutes as they darted out. at last there was a long interval when none appeared, and they cautiously closed in and examined the roots of the tree. 'they found,' says the bishop of kilmore, 'below it a rounded hollow place in the earth, wherein were two or three bodies of these creatures that had plainly been smothered by the smoke; and, what is to me more curious, at the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the anatomy or skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the bones, having some remains of black hair, which was pronounced by those that examined it to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for a period of fifty years.' number among the towns of jutland, viborg justly holds a high place. it is the seat of a bishopric; it has a handsome but almost entirely new cathedral, a charming garden, a lake of great beauty, and many storks. near it is hald, accounted one of the prettiest things in denmark; and hard by is finderup, where marsk stig murdered king erik glipping on st cecilia's day, in the year . fifty-six blows of square-headed iron maces were traced on erik's skull when his tomb was opened in the seventeenth century. but i am not writing a guide-book. there are good hotels in viborg--preisler's and the phoenix are all that can be desired. but my cousin, whose experiences i have to tell you now, went to the golden lion the first time that he visited viborg. he has not been there since, and the following pages will, perhaps, explain the reason of his abstention. the golden lion is one of the very few houses in the town that were not destroyed in the great fire of , which practically demolished the cathedral, the sognekirke, the raadhuus, and so much else that was old and interesting. it is a great red-brick house--that is, the front is of brick, with corbie steps on the gables and a text over the door; but the courtyard into which the omnibus drives is of black and white wood and plaster. the sun was declining in the heavens when my cousin walked up to the door, and the light smote full upon the imposing façade of the house. he was delighted with the old-fashioned aspect of the place, and promised himself a thoroughly satisfactory and amusing stay in an inn so typical of old jutland. it was not business in the ordinary sense of the word that had brought mr anderson to viborg. he was engaged upon some researches into the church history of denmark, and it had come to his knowledge that in the rigsarkiv of viborg there were papers, saved from the fire, relating to the last days of roman catholicism in the country. he proposed, therefore, to spend a considerable time--perhaps as much as a fortnight or three weeks--in examining and copying these, and he hoped that the golden lion would be able to give him a room of sufficient size to serve alike as a bedroom and a study. his wishes were explained to the landlord, and, after a certain amount of thought, the latter suggested that perhaps it might be the best way for the gentleman to look at one or two of the larger rooms and pick one for himself. it seemed a good idea. the top floor was soon rejected as entailing too much getting upstairs after the day's work; the second floor contained no room of exactly the dimensions required; but on the first floor there was a choice of two or three rooms which would, so far as size went, suit admirably. the landlord was strongly in favour of number , but mr anderson pointed out that its windows commanded only the blank wall of the next house, and that it would be very dark in the afternoon. either number or number would be better, for both of them looked on the street, and the bright evening light and the pretty view would more than compensate him for the additional amount of noise. eventually number was selected. like its neighbours, it had three windows, all on one side of the room; it was fairly high and unusually long. there was, of course, no fireplace, but the stove was handsome and rather old--a cast-iron erection, on the side of which was a representation of abraham sacrificing isaac, and the inscription, 'i bog mose, cap. ,' above. nothing else in the room was remarkable; the only interesting picture was an old coloured print of the town, date about . supper-time was approaching, but when anderson, refreshed by the ordinary ablutions, descended the staircase, there were still a few minutes before the bell rang. he devoted them to examining the list of his fellow-lodgers. as is usual in denmark, their names were displayed on a large blackboard, divided into columns and lines, the numbers of the rooms being painted in at the beginning of each line. the list was not exciting. there was an advocate, or sagförer, a german, and some bagmen from copenhagen. the one and only point which suggested any food for thought was the absence of any number from the tale of the rooms, and even this was a thing which anderson had already noticed half a dozen times in his experience of danish hotels. he could not help wondering whether the objection to that particular number, common as it is, was so widespread and so strong as to make it difficult to let a room so ticketed, and he resolved to ask the landlord if he and his colleagues in the profession had actually met with many clients who refused to be accommodated in the thirteenth room. he had nothing to tell me (i am giving the story as i heard it from him) about what passed at supper, and the evening, which was spent in unpacking and arranging his clothes, books, and papers, was not more eventful. towards eleven o'clock he resolved to go to bed, but with him, as with a good many other people nowadays, an almost necessary preliminary to bed, if he meant to sleep, was the reading of a few pages of print, and he now remembered that the particular book which he had been reading in the train, and which alone would satisfy him at that present moment, was in the pocket of his great-coat, then hanging on a peg outside the dining-room. to run down and secure it was the work of a moment, and, as the passages were by no means dark, it was not difficult for him to find his way back to his own door. so, at least, he thought; but when he arrived there, and turned the handle, the door entirely refused to open, and he caught the sound of a hasty movement towards it from within. he had tried the wrong door, of course. was his own room to the right or to the left? he glanced at the number: it was . his room would be on the left; and so it was. and not before he had been in bed for some minutes, had read his wonted three or four pages of his book, blown out his light, and turned over to go to sleep, did it occur to him that, whereas on the blackboard of the hotel there had been no number , there was undoubtedly a room numbered in the hotel. he felt rather sorry he had not chosen it for his own. perhaps he might have done the landlord a little service by occupying it, and given him the chance of saying that a well-born english gentleman had lived in it for three weeks and liked it very much. but probably it was used as a servant's room or something of the kind. after all, it was most likely not so large or good a room as his own. and he looked drowsily about the room, which was fairly perceptible in the half-light from the street-lamp. it was a curious effect, he thought. rooms usually look larger in a dim light than a full one, but this seemed to have contracted in length and grown proportionately higher. well, well! sleep was more important than these vague ruminations--and to sleep he went. on the day after his arrival anderson attacked the rigsarkiv of viborg. he was, as one might expect in denmark, kindly received, and access to all that he wished to see was made as easy for him as possible. the documents laid before him were far more numerous and interesting than he had at all anticipated. besides official papers, there was a large bundle of correspondence relating to bishop jörgen friis, the last roman catholic who held the see, and in these there cropped up many amusing and what are called 'intimate' details of private life and individual character. there was much talk of a house owned by the bishop, but not inhabited by him, in the town. its tenant was apparently somewhat of a scandal and a stumbling-block to the reforming party. he was a disgrace, they wrote, to the city; he practised secret and wicked arts, and had sold his soul to the enemy. it was of a piece with the gross corruption and superstition of the babylonish church that such a viper and blood-sucking _troldmand_ should be patronized and harboured by the bishop. the bishop met these reproaches boldly; he protested his own abhorrence of all such things as secret arts, and required his antagonists to bring the matter before the proper court--of course, the spiritual court--and sift it to the bottom. no one could be more ready and willing than himself to condemn mag nicolas francken if the evidence showed him to have been guilty of any of the crimes informally alleged against him. anderson had not time to do more than glance at the next letter of the protestant leader, rasmus nielsen, before the record office was closed for the day, but he gathered its general tenor, which was to the effect that christian men were now no longer bound by the decisions of bishops of rome, and that the bishop's court was not, and could not be, a fit or competent tribunal to judge so grave and weighty a cause. on leaving the office, mr anderson was accompanied by the old gentleman who presided over it, and, as they walked, the conversation very naturally turned to the papers of which i have just been speaking. herr scavenius, the archivist of viborg, though very well informed as to the general run of the documents under his charge, was not a specialist in those of the reformation period. he was much interested in what anderson had to tell him about them. he looked forward with great pleasure, he said, to seeing the publication in which mr anderson spoke of embodying their contents. 'this house of the bishop friis,' he added, 'it is a great puzzle to me where it can have stood. i have studied carefully the topography of old viborg, but it is most unlucky--of the old terrier of the bishop's property which was made in , and of which we have the greater part in the arkiv--just the piece which had the list of the town property is missing. never mind. perhaps i shall some day succeed to find him.' after taking some exercise--i forget exactly how or where--anderson went back to the golden lion, his supper, his game of patience, and his bed. on the way to his room it occurred to him that he had forgotten to talk to the landlord about the omission of number from the hotel board, and also that he might as well make sure that number did actually exist before he made any reference to the matter. the decision was not difficult to arrive at. there was the door with its number as plain as could be, and work of some kind was evidently going on inside it, for as he neared the door he could hear footsteps and voices, or a voice, within. during the few seconds in which he halted to make sure of the number, the footsteps ceased, seemingly very near the door, and he was a little startled at hearing a quick hissing breathing as of a person in strong excitement. he went on to his own room, and again he was surprised to find how much smaller it seemed now than it had when he selected it. it was a slight disappointment, but only slight. if he found it really not large enough, he could very easily shift to another. in the meantime he wanted something--as far as i remember it was a pocket-handkerchief--out of his portmanteau, which had been placed by the porter on a very inadequate trestle or stool against the wall at the farthest end of the room from his bed. here was a very curious thing: the portmanteau was not to be seen. it had been moved by officious servants; doubtless the contents had been put in the wardrobe. no, none of them were there. this was vexatious. the idea of a theft he dismissed at once. such things rarely happen in denmark, but some piece of stupidity had certainly been performed (which is not so uncommon), and the _stuepige_ must be severely spoken to. whatever it was that he wanted, it was not so necessary to his comfort that he could not wait till the morning for it, and he therefore settled not to ring the bell and disturb the servants. he went to the window--the right-hand window it was--and looked out on the quiet street. there was a tall building opposite, with large spaces of dead wall; no passers-by; a dark night; and very little to be seen of any kind. the light was behind him, and he could see his own shadow clearly cast on the wall opposite. also the shadow of the bearded man in number on the left, who passed to and fro in shirtsleeves once or twice, and was seen first brushing his hair, and later on in a nightgown. also the shadow of the occupant of number on the right. this might be more interesting. number was, like himself, leaning on his elbows on the window-sill looking out into the street. he seemed to be a tall thin man--or was it by any chance a woman?--at least, it was someone who covered his or her head with some kind of drapery before going to bed, and, he thought, must be possessed of a red lamp-shade--and the lamp must be flickering very much. there was a distinct playing up and down of a dull red light on the opposite wall. he craned out a little to see if he could make any more of the figure, but beyond a fold of some light, perhaps white, material on the window-sill he could see nothing. now came a distant step in the street, and its approach seemed to recall number to a sense of his exposed position, for very swiftly and suddenly he swept aside from the window, and his red light went out. anderson, who had been smoking a cigarette, laid the end of it on the window-sill and went to bed. next morning he was woken by the _stuepige_ with hot water, etc. he roused himself, and after thinking out the correct danish words, said as distinctly as he could: 'you must not move my portmanteau. where is it?' as is not uncommon, the maid laughed, and went away without making any distinct answer. anderson, rather irritated, sat up in bed, intending to call her back, but he remained sitting up, staring straight in front of him. there was his portmanteau on its trestle, exactly where he had seen the porter put it when he first arrived. this was a rude shock for a man who prided himself on his accuracy of observation. how it could possibly have escaped him the night before he did not pretend to understand; at any rate, there it was now. the daylight showed more than the portmanteau; it let the true proportions of the room with its three windows appear, and satisfied its tenant that his choice after all had not been a bad one. when he was almost dressed he walked to the middle one of the three windows to look out at the weather. another shock awaited him. strangely unobservant he must have been last night. he could have sworn ten times over that he had been smoking at the right-hand window the last thing before he went to bed, and here was his cigarette-end on the sill of the middle window. he started to go down to breakfast. rather late, but number was later: here were his boots still outside his door--a gentleman's boots. so then number was a man, not a woman. just then he caught sight of the number on the door. it was . he thought he must have passed number without noticing it. three stupid mistakes in twelve hours were too much for a methodical, accurate-minded man, so he turned back to make sure. the next number to was number , his own room. there was no number at all. after some minutes devoted to a careful consideration of everything he had had to eat and drink during the last twenty-four hours, anderson decided to give the question up. if his eyes or his brain were giving way he would have plenty of opportunities for ascertaining that fact; if not, then he was evidently being treated to a very interesting experience. in either case the development of events would certainly be worth watching. during the day he continued his examination of the episcopal correspondence which i have already summarized. to his disappointment, it was incomplete. only one other letter could be found which referred to the affair of mag nicolas francken. it was from the bishop jörgen friis to rasmus nielsen. he said: 'although we are not in the least degree inclined to assent to your judgement concerning our court, and shall be prepared if need be to withstand you to the uttermost in that behalf, yet forasmuch as our trusty and well-beloved mag nicolas francken, against whom you have dared to allege certain false and malicious charges, hath been suddenly removed from among us, it is apparent that the question for this time falls. but forasmuch as you further allege that the apostle and evangelist st john in his heavenly apocalypse describes the holy roman church under the guise and symbol of the scarlet woman, be it known to you,' etc. search as he might, anderson could find no sequel to this letter nor any clue to the cause or manner of the 'removal' of the _casus belli_. he could only suppose that francken had died suddenly; and as there were only two days between the date of nielsen's last letter--when francken was evidently still in being--and that of the bishop's letter, the death must have been completely unexpected. in the afternoon he paid a short visit to hald, and took his tea at baekkelund; nor could he notice, though he was in a somewhat nervous frame of mind, that there was any indication of such a failure of eye or brain as his experiences of the morning had led him to fear. at supper he found himself next to the landlord. 'what,' he asked him, after some indifferent conversation, 'is the reason why in most of the hotels one visits in this country the number thirteen is left out of the list of rooms? i see you have none here.' the landlord seemed amused. 'to think that you should have noticed a thing like that! i've thought about it once or twice myself, to tell the truth. an educated man, i've said, has no business with these superstitious notions. i was brought up myself here in the high school of viborg, and our old master was always a man to set his face against anything of that kind. he's been dead now this many years--a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with his hands as well as his head. i recollect us boys, one snowy day--' here he plunged into reminiscence. 'then you don't think there is any particular objection to having a number ?' said anderson. 'ah! to be sure. well, you understand, i was brought up to the business by my poor old father. he kept an hotel in aarhuus first, and then, when we were born, he moved to viborg here, which was his native place, and had the phoenix here until he died. that was in . then i started business in silkeborg, and only the year before last i moved into this house.' then followed more details as to the state of the house and business when first taken over. 'and when you came here, was there a number ?' 'no, no. i was going to tell you about that. you see, in a place like this, the commercial class--the travellers--are what we have to provide for in general. and put them in number ? why, they'd as soon sleep in the street, or sooner. as far as i'm concerned myself, it wouldn't make a penny difference to me what the number of my room was, and so i've often said to them; but they stick to it that it brings them bad luck. quantities of stories they have among them of men that have slept in a number and never been the same again, or lost their best customers, or--one thing and another,' said the landlord, after searching for a more graphic phrase. 'then what do you use your number for?' said anderson, conscious as he said the words of a curious anxiety quite disproportionate to the importance of the question. 'my number ? why, don't i tell you that there isn't such a thing in the house? i thought you might have noticed that. if there was it would be next door to your own room.' 'well, yes; only i happened to think--that is, i fancied last night that i had seen a door numbered thirteen in that passage; and, really, i am almost certain i must have been right, for i saw it the night before as well.' of course, herr kristensen laughed this notion to scorn, as anderson had expected, and emphasized with much iteration the fact that no number existed or had existed before him in that hotel. anderson was in some ways relieved by his certainty, but still puzzled, and he began to think that the best way to make sure whether he had indeed been subject to an illusion or not was to invite the landlord to his room to smoke a cigar later on in the evening. some photographs of english towns which he had with him formed a sufficiently good excuse. herr kristensen was flattered by the invitation, and most willingly accepted it. at about ten o'clock he was to make his appearance, but before that anderson had some letters to write, and retired for the purpose of writing them. he almost blushed to himself at confessing it, but he could not deny that it was the fact that he was becoming quite nervous about the question of the existence of number ; so much so that he approached his room by way of number , in order that he might not be obliged to pass the door, or the place where the door ought to be. he looked quickly and suspiciously about the room when he entered it, but there was nothing, beyond that indefinable air of being smaller than usual, to warrant any misgivings. there was no question of the presence or absence of his portmanteau tonight. he had himself emptied it of its contents and lodged it under his bed. with a certain effort he dismissed the thought of number from his mind, and sat down to his writing. his neighbours were quiet enough. occasionally a door opened in the passage and a pair of boots was thrown out, or a bagman walked past humming to himself, and outside, from time to time, a cart thundered over the atrocious cobble-stones, or a quick step hurried along the flags. anderson finished his letters, ordered in whisky and soda, and then went to the window and studied the dead wall opposite and the shadows upon it. as far as he could remember, number had been occupied by the lawyer, a staid man, who said little at meals, being generally engaged in studying a small bundle of papers beside his plate. apparently, however, he was in the habit of giving vent to his animal spirits when alone. why else should he be dancing? the shadow from the next room evidently showed that he was. again and again his thin form crossed the window, his arms waved, and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility. he seemed to be barefooted, and the floor must be well laid, for no sound betrayed his movements. sagförer herr anders jensen, dancing at ten o'clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting subject for a historical painting in the grand style; and anderson's thoughts, like those of emily in the 'mysteries of udolpho', began to 'arrange themselves in the following lines': when i return to my hotel, at ten o'clock p.m., the waiters think i am unwell; i do not care for them. but when i've locked my chamber door, and put my boots outside, i dance all night upon the floor. and even if my neighbours swore, i'd go on dancing all the more, for i'm acquainted with the law, and in despite of all their jaw, their protests i deride. had not the landlord at this moment knocked at the door, it is probable that quite a long poem might have been laid before the reader. to judge from his look of surprise when he found himself in the room, herr kristensen was struck, as anderson had been, by something unusual in its aspect. but he made no remark. anderson's photographs interested him mightily, and formed the text of many autobiographical discourses. nor is it quite clear how the conversation could have been diverted into the desired channel of number , had not the lawyer at this moment begun to sing, and to sing in a manner which could leave no doubt in anyone's mind that he was either exceedingly drunk or raving mad. it was a high, thin voice that they heard, and it seemed dry, as if from long disuse. of words or tune there was no question. it went sailing up to a surprising height, and was carried down with a despairing moan as of a winter wind in a hollow chimney, or an organ whose wind fails suddenly. it was a really horrible sound, and anderson felt that if he had been alone he must have fled for refuge and society to some neighbour bagman's room. the landlord sat open-mouthed. 'i don't understand it,' he said at last, wiping his forehead. 'it is dreadful. i have heard it once before, but i made sure it was a cat.' 'is he mad?' said anderson. 'he must be; and what a sad thing! such a good customer, too, and so successful in his business, by what i hear, and a young family to bring up.' just then came an impatient knock at the door, and the knocker entered, without waiting to be asked. it was the lawyer, in _déshabille_ and very rough-haired; and very angry he looked. 'i beg pardon, sir,' he said, 'but i should be much obliged if you would kindly desist--' here he stopped, for it was evident that neither of the persons before him was responsible for the disturbance; and after a moment's lull it swelled forth again more wildly than before. 'but what in the name of heaven does it mean?' broke out the lawyer. 'where is it? who is it? am i going out of my mind?' 'surely, herr jensen, it comes from your room next door? isn't there a cat or something stuck in the chimney?' this was the best that occurred to anderson to say and he realized its futility as he spoke; but anything was better than to stand and listen to that horrible voice, and look at the broad, white face of the landlord, all perspiring and quivering as he clutched the arms of his chair. 'impossible,' said the lawyer, 'impossible. there is no chimney. i came here because i was convinced the noise was going on here. it was certainly in the next room to mine.' 'was there no door between yours and mine?' said anderson eagerly. 'no, sir,' said herr jensen, rather sharply. 'at least, not this morning.' 'ah!' said anderson. 'nor tonight?' 'i am not sure,' said the lawyer with some hesitation. suddenly the crying or singing voice in the next room died away, and the singer was heard seemingly to laugh to himself in a crooning manner. the three men actually shivered at the sound. then there was a silence. 'come,' said the lawyer, 'what have you to say, herr kristensen? what does this mean?' 'good heaven!' said kristensen. 'how should i tell! i know no more than you, gentlemen. i pray i may never hear such a noise again.' 'so do i,' said herr jensen, and he added something under his breath. anderson thought it sounded like the last words of the psalter, '_omnis spiritus laudet dominum_,' but he could not be sure. 'but we must do something,' said anderson--'the three of us. shall we go and investigate in the next room?' 'but that is herr jensen's room,' wailed the landlord. 'it is no use; he has come from there himself.' 'i am not so sure,' said jensen. 'i think this gentleman is right: we must go and see.' the only weapons of defence that could be mustered on the spot were a stick and umbrella. the expedition went out into the passage, not without quakings. there was a deadly quiet outside, but a light shone from under the next door. anderson and jensen approached it. the latter turned the handle, and gave a sudden vigorous push. no use. the door stood fast. 'herr kristensen,' said jensen, 'will you go and fetch the strongest servant you have in the place? we must see this through.' the landlord nodded, and hurried off, glad to be away from the scene of action. jensen and anderson remained outside looking at the door. 'it _is_ number , you see,' said the latter. 'yes; there is your door, and there is mine,' said jensen. 'my room has three windows in the daytime,' said anderson with difficulty, suppressing a nervous laugh. 'by george, so has mine!' said the lawyer, turning and looking at anderson. his back was now to the door. in that moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. it was clad in ragged, yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long grey hair upon it. anderson was just in time to pull jensen out of its reach with a cry of disgust and fright, when the door shut again, and a low laugh was heard. jensen had seen nothing, but when anderson hurriedly told him what a risk he had run, he fell into a great state of agitation, and suggested that they should retire from the enterprise and lock themselves up in one or other of their rooms. however, while he was developing this plan, the landlord and two able-bodied men arrived on the scene, all looking rather serious and alarmed. jensen met them with a torrent of description and explanation, which did not at all tend to encourage them for the fray. the men dropped the crowbars they had brought, and said flatly that they were not going to risk their throats in that devil's den. the landlord was miserably nervous and undecided, conscious that if the danger were not faced his hotel was ruined, and very loth to face it himself. luckily anderson hit upon a way of rallying the demoralized force. 'is this,' he said, 'the danish courage i have heard so much of? it isn't a german in there, and if it was, we are five to one.' the two servants and jensen were stung into action by this, and made a dash at the door. 'stop!' said anderson. 'don't lose your heads. you stay out here with the light, landlord, and one of you two men break in the door, and don't go in when it gives way.' the men nodded, and the younger stepped forward, raised his crowbar, and dealt a tremendous blow on the upper panel. the result was not in the least what any of them anticipated. there was no cracking or rending of wood--only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been struck. the man dropped his tool with a shout, and began rubbing his elbow. his cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment; then anderson looked at the door again. it was gone; the plaster wall of the passage stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where the crowbar had struck it. number had passed out of existence. for a brief space they stood perfectly still, gazing at the blank wall. an early cock in the yard beneath was heard to crow; and as anderson glanced in the direction of the sound, he saw through the window at the end of the long passage that the eastern sky was paling to the dawn. 'perhaps,' said the landlord, with hesitation, 'you gentlemen would like another room for tonight--a double-bedded one?' neither jensen nor anderson was averse to the suggestion. they felt inclined to hunt in couples after their late experience. it was found convenient, when each of them went to his room to collect the articles he wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the candle. they noticed that both number and number had _three_ windows. * * * * * next morning the same party reassembled in number . the landlord was naturally anxious to avoid engaging outside help, and yet it was imperative that the mystery attaching to that part of the house should be cleared up. accordingly the two servants had been induced to take upon them the function of carpenters. the furniture was cleared away, and, at the cost of a good many irretrievably damaged planks, that portion of the floor was taken up which lay nearest to number . you will naturally suppose that a skeleton--say that of mag nicolas francken--was discovered. that was not so. what they did find lying between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box. in it was a neatly-folded vellum document, with about twenty lines of writing. both anderson and jensen (who proved to be something of a palaeographer) were much excited by this discovery, which promised to afford the key to these extraordinary phenomena. * * * * * i possess a copy of an astrological work which i have never read. it has, by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by hans sebald beham, representing a number of sages seated round a table. this detail may enable connoisseurs to identify the book. i cannot myself recollect its title, and it is not at this moment within reach; but the fly-leaves of it are covered with writing, and, during the ten years in which i have owned the volume, i have not been able to determine which way up this writing ought to be read, much less in what language it is. not dissimilar was the position of anderson and jensen after the protracted examination to which they submitted the document in the copper box. after two days' contemplation of it, jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either latin or old danish. anderson ventured upon no surmises, and was very willing to surrender the box and the parchment to the historical society of viborg to be placed in their museum. i had the whole story from him a few months later, as we sat in a wood near upsala, after a visit to the library there, where we--or, rather, i--had laughed over the contract by which daniel salthenius (in later life professor of hebrew at königsberg) sold himself to satan. anderson was not really amused. 'young idiot!' he said, meaning salthenius, who was only an undergraduate when he committed that indiscretion, 'how did he know what company he was courting?' and when i suggested the usual considerations he only grunted. that same afternoon he told me what you have read; but he refused to draw any inferences from it, and to assent to any that i drew for him. count magnus by what means the papers out of which i have made a connected story came into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from these pages. but it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a statement of the form in which i possess them. they consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of travels, such a volume as was a common product of the forties and fifties. horace marryat's _journal of a residence in jutland and the danish isles_ is a fair specimen of the class to which i allude. these books usually treated of some unknown district on the continent. they were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. they gave details of hotel accommodation and of means of communication, such as we now expect to find in any well-regulated guide-book, and they dealt largely in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers, and garrulous peasants. in a word, they were chatty. begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve, almost, of its termination. the writer was a mr wraxall. for my knowledge of him i have to depend entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these i deduce that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and very much alone in the world. he had, it seems, no settled abode in england, but was a denizen of hotels and boarding-houses. it is probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which never came; and i think it also likely that the pantechnicon fire in the early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would have thrown light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to property of his that was warehoused at that establishment. it is further apparent that mr wraxall had published a book, and that it treated of a holiday he had once taken in brittany. more than this i cannot say about his work, because a diligent search in bibliographical works has convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or under a pseudonym. as to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficial opinion. he must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. it seems that he was near being a fellow of his college at oxford--brasenose, as i judge from the calendar. his besetting fault was pretty clearly that of over-inquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in a traveller, certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the end. on what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book. scandinavia, a region not widely known to englishmen forty years ago, had struck him as an interesting field. he must have alighted on some old books of swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him that there was room for a book descriptive of travel in sweden, interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great swedish families. he procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality in sweden, and set out thither in the early summer of . of his travels in the north there is no need to speak, nor of his residence of some weeks in stockholm. i need only mention that some _savant_ resident there put him on the track of an important collection of family papers belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manor-house in vestergothland, and obtained for him permission to examine them. the manor-house, or _herrgard_, in question is to be called råbäck (pronounced something like roebeck), though that is not its name. it is one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the picture of it in dahlenberg's _suecia antiqua et moderna_, engraved in , shows it very much as the tourist may see it today. it was built soon after , and is, roughly speaking, very much like an english house of that period in respect of material--red-brick with stone facings--and style. the man who built it was a scion of the great house of de la gardie, and his descendants possess it still. de la gardie is the name by which i will designate them when mention of them becomes necessary. they received mr wraxall with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed him to stay in the house as long as his researches lasted. but, preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing in swedish, he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out quite sufficiently comfortable, at any rate during the summer months. this arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the manor-house of something under a mile. the house itself stood in a park, and was protected--we should say grown up--with large old timber. near it you found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood fringing one of the small lakes with which the whole country is pitted. then came the wall of the demesne, and you climbed a steep knoll--a knob of rock lightly covered with soil--and on the top of this stood the church, fenced in with tall dark trees. it was a curious building to english eyes. the nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews and galleries. in the western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily painted, and with silver pipes. the ceiling was flat, and had been adorned by a seventeenth-century artist with a strange and hideous 'last judgement', full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships, crying souls, and brown and smiling demons. handsome brass coronae hung from the roof; the pulpit was like a doll's-house covered with little painted wooden cherubs and saints; a stand with three hour-glasses was hinged to the preacher's desk. such sights as these may be seen in many a church in sweden now, but what distinguished this one was an addition to the original building. at the eastern end of the north aisle the builder of the manor-house had erected a mausoleum for himself and his family. it was a largish eight-sided building, lighted by a series of oval windows, and it had a domed roof, topped by a kind of pumpkin-shaped object rising into a spire, a form in which swedish architects greatly delighted. the roof was of copper externally, and was painted black, while the walls, in common with those of the church, were staringly white. to this mausoleum there was no access from the church. it had a portal and steps of its own on the northern side. past the churchyard the path to the village goes, and not more than three or four minutes bring you to the inn door. on the first day of his stay at råbäck mr wraxall found the church door open, and made these notes of the interior which i have epitomized. into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. he could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time in investigation. the papers he had come to examine at the manor-house proved to be of just the kind he wanted for his book. there were family correspondence, journals, and account-books of the earliest owners of the estate, very carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque detail. the first de la gardie appeared in them as a strong and capable man. shortly after the building of the mansion there had been a period of distress in the district, and the peasants had risen and attacked several châteaux and done some damage. the owner of råbäck took a leading part in supressing trouble, and there was reference to executions of ring-leaders and severe punishments inflicted with no sparing hand. the portrait of this magnus de la gardie was one of the best in the house, and mr wraxall studied it with no little interest after his day's work. he gives no detailed description of it, but i gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that count magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man. on this day mr wraxall took his supper with the family, and walked back in the late but still bright evening. 'i must remember,' he writes, 'to ask the sexton if he can let me into the mausoleum at the church. he evidently has access to it himself, for i saw him tonight standing on the steps, and, as i thought, locking or unlocking the door.' i find that early on the following day mr wraxall had some conversation with his landlord. his setting it down at such length as he does surprised me at first; but i soon realized that the papers i was reading were, at least in their beginning, the materials for the book he was meditating, and that it was to have been one of those quasi-journalistic productions which admit of the introduction of an admixture of conversational matter. his object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of count magnus de la gardie lingered on in the scenes of that gentleman's activity, and whether the popular estimate of him were favourable or not. he found that the count was decidedly not a favourite. if his tenants came late to their work on the days which they owed to him as lord of the manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and branded in the manor-house yard. one or two cases there were of men who had occupied lands which encroached on the lord's domain, and whose houses had been mysteriously burnt on a winter's night, with the whole family inside. but what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper's mind most--for he returned to the subject more than once--was that the count had been on the black pilgrimage, and had brought something or someone back with him. you will naturally inquire, as mr wraxall did, what the black pilgrimage may have been. but your curiosity on the point must remain unsatisfied for the time being, just as his did. the landlord was evidently unwilling to give a full answer, or indeed any answer, on the point, and, being called out for a moment, trotted out with obvious alacrity, only putting his head in at the door a few minutes afterwards to say that he was called away to skara, and should not be back till evening. so mr wraxall had to go unsatisfied to his day's work at the manor-house. the papers on which he was just then engaged soon put his thoughts into another channel, for he had to occupy himself with glancing over the correspondence between sophia albertina in stockholm and her married cousin ulrica leonora at råbäck in the years - . the letters were of exceptional interest from the light they threw upon the culture of that period in sweden, as anyone can testify who has read the full edition of them in the publications of the swedish historical manuscripts commission. in the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes in which they were kept to their places on the shelf, he proceeded, very naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in order to determine which of them had best be his principal subject of investigation next day. the shelf he had hit upon was occupied mostly by a collection of account-books in the writing of the first count magnus. but one among them was not an account-book, but a book of alchemical and other tracts in another sixteenth-century hand. not being very familiar with alchemical literature, mr wraxall spends much space which he might have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various treatises: the book of the phoenix, book of the thirty words, book of the toad, book of miriam, turba philosophorum, and so forth; and then he announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at finding, on a leaf originally left blank near the middle of the book, some writing of count magnus himself headed 'liber nigrae peregrinationis'. it is true that only a few lines were written, but there was quite enough to show that the landlord had that morning been referring to a belief at least as old as the time of count magnus, and probably shared by him. this is the english of what was written: 'if any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he should first go into the city of chorazin, and there salute the prince....' here there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly done, so that mr wraxall felt pretty sure that he was right in reading it as _aeris_ ('of the air'). but there was no more of the text copied, only a line in latin: _quaere reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora_. (see the rest of this matter among the more private things.) it could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light upon the tastes and beliefs of the count; but to mr wraxall, separated from him by nearly three centuries, the thought that he might have added to his general forcefulness alchemy, and to alchemy something like magic, only made him a more picturesque figure, and when, after a rather prolonged contemplation of his picture in the hall, mr wraxall set out on his homeward way, his mind was full of the thought of count magnus. he had no eyes for his surroundings, no perception of the evening scents of the woods or the evening light on the lake; and when all of a sudden he pulled up short, he was astonished to find himself already at the gate of the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his dinner. his eyes fell on the mausoleum. 'ah,' he said, 'count magnus, there you are. i should dearly like to see you.' 'like many solitary men,' he writes, 'i have a habit of talking to myself aloud; and, unlike some of the greek and latin particles, i do not expect an answer. certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, i suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. count magnus, i think, sleeps sound enough.' that same evening the landlord of the inn, who had heard mr wraxall say that he wished to see the clerk or deacon (as he would be called in sweden) of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn parlour. a visit to the de la gardie tomb-house was soon arranged for the next day, and a little general conversation ensued. mr wraxall, remembering that one function of scandinavian deacons is to teach candidates for confirmation, thought he would refresh his own memory on a biblical point. 'can you tell me,' he said, 'anything about chorazin?' the deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village had once been denounced. 'to be sure,' said mr wraxall; 'it is, i suppose, quite a ruin now?' 'so i expect,' replied the deacon. 'i have heard some of our old priests say that antichrist is to be born there; and there are tales--' 'ah! what tales are those?' mr wraxall put in. 'tales, i was going to say, which i have forgotten,' said the deacon; and soon after that he said good night. the landlord was now alone, and at mr wraxall's mercy; and that inquirer was not inclined to spare him. 'herr nielsen,' he said, 'i have found out something about the black pilgrimage. you may as well tell me what you know. what did the count bring back with him?' swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps the landlord was an exception. i am not sure; but mr wraxall notes that the landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him before he said anything at all. then he came close up to his guest, and with a good deal of effort he spoke: 'mr wraxall, i can tell you this one little tale, and no more--not any more. you must not ask anything when i have done. in my grandfather's time--that is, ninety-two years ago--there were two men who said: "the count is dead; we do not care for him. we will go tonight and have a free hunt in his wood"--the long wood on the hill that you have seen behind råbäck. well, those that heard them say this, they said: "no, do not go; we are sure you will meet with persons walking who should not be walking. they should be resting, not walking." these men laughed. there were no forestmen to keep the wood, because no one wished to live there. the family were not here at the house. these men could do what they wished. 'very well, they go to the wood that night. my grandfather was sitting here in this room. it was the summer, and a light night. with the window open, he could see out to the wood, and hear. 'so he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. at first they hear nothing at all; then they hear someone--you know how far away it is--they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of his soul was twisted out of him. all of them in the room caught hold of each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. then they hear someone else, only about three hundred ells off. they hear him laugh out loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and, indeed, they have all of them said that it was not any man at all. after that they hear a great door shut. 'then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the priest. they said to him: '"father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men, anders bjornsen and hans thorbjorn." 'you understand that they were sure these men were dead. so they went to the wood--my grandfather never forgot this. he said they were all like so many dead men themselves. the priest, too, he was in a white fear. he said when they came to him: '"i heard one cry in the night, and i heard one laugh afterwards. if i cannot forget that, i shall not be able to sleep again." 'so they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the wood. hans thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree, and all the time he was pushing with his hands--pushing something away from him which was not there. so he was not dead. and they led him away, and took him to the house at nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but he went on pushing with his hands. also anders bjornsen was there; but he was dead. and i tell you this about anders bjornsen, that he was once a beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh of it was sucked away off the bones. you understand that? my grandfather did not forget that. and they laid him on the bier which they brought, and they put a cloth over his head, and the priest walked before; and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they could. so, as they were singing the end of the first verse, one fell down, who was carrying the head of the bier, and the others looked back, and they saw that the cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of anders bjornsen were looking up, because there was nothing to close over them. and this they could not bear. therefore the priest laid the cloth upon him, and sent for a spade, and they buried him in that place.' the next day mr wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon after his breakfast, and took him to the church and mausoleum. he noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the pulpit, and it occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a second and more private visit to the monuments if there proved to be more of interest among them than could be digested at first. the building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. the monuments, mostly large erections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were dignified if luxuriant, and the epitaphs and heraldry were copious. the central space of the domed room was occupied by three copper sarcophagi, covered with finely-engraved ornament. two of them had, as is commonly the case in denmark and sweden, a large metal crucifix on the lid. the third, that of count magnus, as it appeared, had, instead of that, a full-length effigy engraved upon it, and round the edge were several bands of similar ornament representing various scenes. one was a battle, with cannon belching out smoke, and walled towns, and troops of pikemen. another showed an execution. in a third, among trees, was a man running at full speed, with flying hair and outstretched hands. after him followed a strange form; it would be hard to say whether the artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to give the requisite similitude, or whether it was intentionally made as monstrous as it looked. in view of the skill with which the rest of the drawing was done, mr wraxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea. the figure was unduly short, and was for the most part muffled in a hooded garment which swept the ground. the only part of the form which projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm. mr wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and continues: 'on seeing this, i said to myself, "this, then, which is evidently an allegorical representation of some kind--a fiend pursuing a hunted soul--may be the origin of the story of count magnus and his mysterious companion. let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless it will be a demon blowing his horn.'" but, as it turned out, there was no such sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a hillock, who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude. mr wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks--three in number--which secured the sarcophagus. one of them, he saw, was detached, and lay on the pavement. and then, unwilling to delay the deacon longer or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward to the manor-house. 'it is curious,' he notes, 'how, on retracing a familiar path, one's thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects. tonight, for the second time, i had entirely failed to notice where i was going (i had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the epitaphs), when i suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, i believe, singing or chanting some such words as, "are you awake, count magnus? are you asleep, count magnus?" and then something more which i have failed to recollect. it seemed to me that i must have been behaving in this nonsensical way for some time.' he found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the light began to fail him. 'i must have been wrong,' he writes, 'in saying that one of the padlocks of my counts sarcophagus was unfastened; i see tonight that two are loose. i picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. the remaining one is still firm, and, though i take it to be a spring lock, i cannot guess how it is opened. had i succeeded in undoing it, i am almost afraid i should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. it is strange, the interest i feel in the personality of this, i fear, somewhat ferocious and grim old noble.' the day following was, as it turned out, the last of mr wraxall's stay at råbäck. he received letters connected with certain investments which made it desirable that he should return to england; his work among the papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. he decided, therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his notes, and be off. these finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time than he had expected. the hospitable family insisted on his staying to dine with them--they dined at three--and it was verging on half past six before he was outside the iron gates of råbäck. he dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. and when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. when at last he turned to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to count magnus as well as the rest of the de la gardies. the church was but twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. it was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud: 'you may have been a bit of a rascal in your time, magnus,' he was saying, 'but for all that i should like to see you, or, rather--' 'just at that instant,' he says, 'i felt a blow on my foot. hastily enough i drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. it was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the sarcophagus. i stooped to pick it up, and--heaven is my witness that i am writing only the bare truth--before i had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and i distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. i may have behaved like a coward, but i could not for my life stay for one moment. i was outside that dreadful building in less time than i can write--almost as quickly as i could have said--the words; and what frightens me yet more, i could not turn the key in the lock. as i sit here in my room noting these facts, i ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and i cannot tell whether it did or not. i only know that there was something more than i have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight i am not able to remember. what is this that i have done?' * * * * * poor mr wraxall! he set out on his journey to england on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached england in safety; and yet, as i gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. one of the several small note-books that have come to me with his papers gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. much of his journey was made by canal-boat, and i find not less than six painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. the entries are of this kind: . pastor of village in skane. usual black coat and soft black hat. . commercial traveller from stockholm going to trollhättan. black cloak, brown hat. . man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned. this entry is lined out, and a note added: 'perhaps identical with no. . have not yet seen his face.' on referring to no. , i find that he is a roman priest in a cassock. the net result of the reckoning is always the same. twenty-eight people appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and another a 'short figure in dark cloak and hood'. on the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and the short figure is certainly absent. on reaching england, it appears that mr wraxall landed at harwich, and that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to regard as his pursuers. accordingly he took a vehicle--it was a closed fly--not trusting the railway and drove across country to the village of belchamp st paul. it was about nine o'clock on a moonlight august night when he neared the place. he was sitting forward, and looking out of the window at the fields and thickets--there was little else to be seen--racing past him. suddenly he came to a cross-road. at the corner two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. he had no time to see their faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. yet the horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and mr wraxall sank back into his seat in something like desperation. he had seen them before. arrived at belchamp st paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. his last notes were written on this day. they are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the substance of them is clear enough. he is expecting a visit from his pursuers--how or when he knows not--and his constant cry is 'what has he done?' and 'is there no hope?' doctors, he knows, would call him mad, policemen would laugh at him. the parson is away. what can he do but lock his door and cry to god? people still remember last year at belchamp st paul how a strange gentleman came one evening in august years back; and how the next morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of 'em did, and none of 'em wouldn't speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of god; and how the people as kep' the 'ouse moved out that same week, and went away from that part. but they do not, i think, know that any glimmer of light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. it so happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. it had stood empty since , and there seemed no prospect of letting it; so i had it pulled down, and the papers of which i have given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best bedroom. 'oh, whistle, and i'll come to you, my lad' 'i suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now full term is over, professor,' said a person not in the story to the professor of ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in the hospitable hall of st james's college. the professor was young, neat, and precise in speech. 'yes,' he said; 'my friends have been making me take up golf this term, and i mean to go to the east coast--in point of fact to burnstow--(i dare say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game. i hope to get off tomorrow.' 'oh, parkins,' said his neighbour on the other side, 'if you are going to burnstow, i wish you would look at the site of the templars' preceptory, and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in the summer.' it was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to give his entitlements. 'certainly,' said parkins, the professor: 'if you will describe to me whereabouts the site is, i will do my best to give you an idea of the lie of the land when i get back; or i could write to you about it, if you would tell me where you are likely to be.' 'don't trouble to do that, thanks. it's only that i'm thinking of taking my family in that direction in the long, and it occurred to me that, as very few of the english preceptories have ever been properly planned, i might have an opportunity of doing something useful on off-days.' the professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory could be described as useful. his neighbour continued: 'the site--i doubt if there is anything showing above ground--must be down quite close to the beach now. the sea has encroached tremendously, as you know, all along that bit of coast. i should think, from the map, that it must be about three-quarters of a mile from the globe inn, at the north end of the town. where are you going to stay?' 'well, _at_ the globe inn, as a matter of fact,' said parkins; 'i have engaged a room there. i couldn't get in anywhere else; most of the lodging-houses are shut up in winter, it seems; and, as it is, they tell me that the only room of any size i can have is really a double-bedded one, and that they haven't a corner in which to store the other bed, and so on. but i must have a fairly large room, for i am taking some books down, and mean to do a bit of work; and though i don't quite fancy having an empty bed--not to speak of two--in what i may call for the time being my study, i suppose i can manage to rough it for the short time i shall be there.' 'do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, parkins?' said a bluff person opposite. 'look here, i shall come down and occupy it for a bit; it'll be company for you.' the professor quivered, but managed to laugh in a courteous manner. 'by all means, rogers; there's nothing i should like better. but i'm afraid you would find it rather dull; you don't play golf, do you?' 'no, thank heaven!' said rude mr rogers. 'well, you see, when i'm not writing i shall most likely be out on the links, and that, as i say, would be rather dull for you, i'm afraid.' 'oh, i don't know! there's certain to be somebody i know in the place; but, of course, if you don't want me, speak the word, parkins; i shan't be offended. truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.' parkins was, indeed, scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. it is to be feared that mr rogers sometimes practised upon his knowledge of these characteristics. in parkins's breast there was a conflict now raging, which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer. that interval being over, he said: 'well, if you want the exact truth, rogers, i was considering whether the room i speak of would really be large enough to accommodate us both comfortably; and also whether (mind, i shouldn't have said this if you hadn't pressed me) you would not constitute something in the nature of a hindrance to my work.' rogers laughed loudly. 'well done, parkins!' he said. 'it's all right. i promise not to interrupt your work; don't you disturb yourself about that. no, i won't come if you don't want me; but i thought i should do so nicely to keep the ghosts off.' here he might have been seen to wink and to nudge his next neighbour. parkins might also have been seen to become pink. 'i beg pardon, parkins,' rogers continued; 'i oughtn't to have said that. i forgot you didn't like levity on these topics.' 'well,' parkins said, 'as you have mentioned the matter, i freely own that i do _not_ like careless talk about what you call ghosts. a man in my position,' he went on, raising his voice a little, 'cannot, i find, be too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such subjects. as you know, rogers, or as you ought to know; for i think i have never concealed my views--' 'no, you certainly have not, old man,' put in rogers _sotto voce._ '--i hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all that i hold most sacred. but i'm afraid i have not succeeded in securing your attention.' 'your _undivided_ attention, was what dr blimber actually _said_,'[ ] rogers interrupted, with every appearance of an earnest desire for accuracy. 'but i beg your pardon, parkins: i'm stopping you.' [ ] mr rogers was wrong, _vide dombey and son_, chapter xii. 'no, not at all,' said parkins. 'i don't remember blimber; perhaps he was before my time. but i needn't go on. i'm sure you know what i mean.' 'yes, yes,' said rogers, rather hastily--'just so. we'll go into it fully at burnstow, or somewhere.' in repeating the above dialogue i have tried to give the impression which it made on me, that parkins was something of an old woman--rather henlike, perhaps, in his little ways; totally destitute, alas! of the sense of humour, but at the same time dauntless and sincere in his convictions, and a man deserving of the greatest respect. whether or not the reader has gathered so much, that was the character which parkins had. * * * * * on the following day parkins did, as he had hoped, succeed in getting away from his college, and in arriving at burnstow. he was made welcome at the globe inn, was safely installed in the large double-bedded room of which we have heard, and was able before retiring to rest to arrange his materials for work in apple-pie order upon a commodious table which occupied the outer end of the room, and was surrounded on three sides by windows looking out seaward; that is to say, the central window looked straight out to sea, and those on the left and right commanded prospects along the shore to the north and south respectively. on the south you saw the village of burnstow. on the north no houses were to be seen, but only the beach and the low cliff backing it. immediately in front was a strip--not considerable--of rough grass, dotted with old anchors, capstans, and so forth; then a broad path; then the beach. whatever may have been the original distance between the globe inn and the sea, not more than sixty yards now separated them. the rest of the population of the inn was, of course, a golfing one, and included few elements that call for a special description. the most conspicuous figure was, perhaps, that of an _ancien militaire_, secretary of a london club, and possessed of a voice of incredible strength, and of views of a pronouncedly protestant type. these were apt to find utterance after his attendance upon the ministrations of the vicar, an estimable man with inclinations towards a picturesque ritual, which he gallantly kept down as far as he could out of deference to east anglian tradition. professor parkins, one of whose principal characteristics was pluck, spent the greater part of the day following his arrival at burnstow in what he had called improving his game, in company with this colonel wilson: and during the afternoon--whether the process of improvement were to blame or not, i am not sure--the colonel's demeanour assumed a colouring so lurid that even parkins jibbed at the thought of walking home with him from the links. he determined, after a short and furtive look at that bristling moustache and those incarnadined features, that it would be wiser to allow the influences of tea and tobacco to do what they could with the colonel before the dinner-hour should render a meeting inevitable. 'i might walk home tonight along the beach,' he reflected--'yes, and take a look--there will be light enough for that--at the ruins of which disney was talking. i don't exactly know where they are, by the way; but i expect i can hardly help stumbling on them.' this he accomplished, i may say, in the most literal sense, for in picking his way from the links to the shingle beach his foot caught, partly in a gorse-root and partly in a biggish stone, and over he went. when he got up and surveyed his surroundings, he found himself in a patch of somewhat broken ground covered with small depressions and mounds. these latter, when he came to examine them, proved to be simply masses of flints embedded in mortar and grown over with turf. he must, he quite rightly concluded, be on the site of the preceptory he had promised to look at. it seemed not unlikely to reward the spade of the explorer; enough of the foundations was probably left at no great depth to throw a good deal of light on the general plan. he remembered vaguely that the templars, to whom this site had belonged, were in the habit of building round churches, and he thought a particular series of the humps or mounds near him did appear to be arranged in something of a circular form. few people can resist the temptation to try a little amateur research in a department quite outside their own, if only for the satisfaction of showing how successful they would have been had they only taken it up seriously. our professor, however, if he felt something of this mean desire, was also truly anxious to oblige mr disney. so he paced with care the circular area he had noticed, and wrote down its rough dimensions in his pocket-book. then he proceeded to examine an oblong eminence which lay east of the centre of the circle, and seemed to his thinking likely to be the base of a platform or altar. at one end of it, the northern, a patch of the turf was gone--removed by some boy or other creature _ferae naturae_. it might, he thought, be as well to probe the soil here for evidences of masonry, and he took out his knife and began scraping away the earth. and now followed another little discovery: a portion of soil fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. he lighted one match after another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but the wind was too strong for them all. by tapping and scratching the sides with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an artificial hole in masonry. it was rectangular, and the sides, top, and bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. of course it was empty. no! as he withdrew the knife he heard a metallic clink, and when he introduced his hand it met with a cylindrical object lying on the floor of the hole. naturally enough, he picked it up, and when he brought it into the light, now fast fading, he could see that it, too, was of man's making--a metal tube about four inches long, and evidently of some considerable age. by the time parkins had made sure that there was nothing else in this odd receptacle, it was too late and too dark for him to think of undertaking any further search. what he had done had proved so unexpectedly interesting that he determined to sacrifice a little more of the daylight on the morrow to archaeology. the object which he now had safe in his pocket was bound to be of some slight value at least, he felt sure. bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before starting homeward. a faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on which a few figures moving towards the club-house were still visible, the squat martello tower, the lights of aldsey village, the pale ribbon of sands intersected at intervals by black wooden groynings, the dim and murmuring sea. the wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back when he set out for the globe. he quickly rattled and clashed through the shingle and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groynings which had to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. one last look behind, to measure the distance he had made since leaving the ruined templars' church, showed him a prospect of company on his walk, in the shape of a rather indistinct personage, who seemed to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress. i mean that there was an appearance of running about his movements, but that the distance between him and parkins did not seem materially to lessen. so, at least, parkins thought, and decided that he almost certainly did not know him, and that it would be absurd to wait until he came up. for all that, company, he began to think, would really be very welcome on that lonely shore, if only you could choose your companion. in his unenlightened days he had read of meetings in such places which even now would hardly bear thinking of. he went on thinking of them, however, until he reached home, and particularly of one which catches most people's fancy at some time of their childhood. 'now i saw in my dream that christian had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him.' 'what should i do now,' he thought, 'if i looked back and caught sight of a black figure sharply defined against the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings? i wonder whether i should stand or run for it. luckily, the gentleman behind is not of that kind, and he seems to be about as far off now as when i saw him first. well, at this rate, he won't get his dinner as soon as i shall; and, dear me! it's within a quarter of an hour of the time now. i must run!' parkins had, in fact, very little time for dressing. when he met the colonel at dinner, peace--or as much of her as that gentleman could manage--reigned once more in the military bosom; nor was she put to flight in the hours of bridge that followed dinner, for parkins was a more than respectable player. when, therefore, he retired towards twelve o'clock, he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a satisfactory way, and that, even for so long as a fortnight or three weeks, life at the globe would be supportable under similar conditions--'especially,' thought he, 'if i go on improving my game.' as he went along the passages he met the boots of the globe, who stopped and said: 'beg your pardon, sir, but as i was abrushing your coat just now there was something fell out of the pocket. i put it on your chest of drawers, sir, in your room, sir--a piece of a pipe or somethink of that, sir. thank you, sir. you'll find it on your chest of drawers, sir--yes, sir. good night, sir.' the speech served to remind parkins of his little discovery of that afternoon. it was with some considerable curiosity that he turned it over by the light of his candles. it was of bronze, he now saw, and was shaped very much after the manner of the modern dog-whistle; in fact it was--yes, certainly it was--actually no more nor less than a whistle. he put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, caked-up sand or earth, which would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a knife. tidy as ever in his habits, parkins cleared out the earth on to a piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out. the night was clear and bright, as he saw when he had opened the casement, and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea and note a belated wanderer stationed on the shore in front of the inn. then he shut the window, a little surprised at the late hours people kept at burnstow, and took his whistle to the light again. why, surely there were marks on it, and not merely marks, but letters! a very little rubbing rendered the deeply-cut inscription quite legible, but the professor had to confess, after some earnest thought, that the meaning of it was as obscure to him as the writing on the wall to belshazzar. there were legends both on the front and on the back of the whistle. the one read thus: fla fur bis fle the other: quis est iste qui venit 'i ought to be able to make it out,' he thought; 'but i suppose i am a little rusty in my latin. when i come to think of it, i don't believe i even know the word for a whistle. the long one does seem simple enough. it ought to mean: "who is this who is coming?" well, the best way to find out is evidently to whistle for him.' he blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at the note he had elicited. it had a quality of infinite distance in it, and, soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles round. it was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many scents possess) of forming pictures in the brain. he saw quite clearly for a moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure--how employed, he could not tell. perhaps he would have seen more had not the picture been broken by the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so sudden that it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of a seabird's wing somewhere outside the dark panes. the sound of the whistle had so fascinated him that he could not help trying it once more, this time more boldly. the note was little, if at all, louder than before, and repetition broke the illusion--no picture followed, as he had half hoped it might. "but what is this? goodness! what force the wind can get up in a few minutes! what a tremendous gust! there! i knew that window-fastening was no use! ah! i thought so--both candles out. it is enough to tear the room to pieces." the first thing was to get the window shut. while you might count twenty parkins was struggling with the small casement, and felt almost as if he were pushing back a sturdy burglar, so strong was the pressure. it slackened all at once, and the window banged to and latched itself. now to relight the candles and see what damage, if any, had been done. no, nothing seemed amiss; no glass even was broken in the casement. but the noise had evidently roused at least one member of the household: the colonel was to be heard stumping in his stockinged feet on the floor above, and growling. quickly as it had risen, the wind did not fall at once. on it went, moaning and rushing past the house, at times rising to a cry so desolate that, as parkins disinterestedly said, it might have made fanciful people feel quite uncomfortable; even the unimaginative, he thought after a quarter of an hour, might be happier without it. whether it was the wind, or the excitement of golf, or of the researches in the preceptory that kept parkins awake, he was not sure. awake he remained, in any case, long enough to fancy (as i am afraid i often do myself under such conditions) that he was the victim of all manner of fatal disorders: he would lie counting the beats of his heart, convinced that it was going to stop work every moment, and would entertain grave suspicions of his lungs, brain, liver, etc.--suspicions which he was sure would be dispelled by the return of daylight, but which until then refused to be put aside. he found a little vicarious comfort in the idea that someone else was in the same boat. a near neighbour (in the darkness it was not easy to tell his direction) was tossing and rustling in his bed, too. the next stage was that parkins shut his eyes and determined to give sleep every chance. here again over-excitement asserted itself in another form--that of making pictures. _experto crede_, pictures do come to the closed eyes of one trying to sleep, and are often so little to his taste that he must open his eyes and disperse them. parkins's experience on this occasion was a very distressing one. he found that the picture which presented itself to him was continuous. when he opened his eyes, of course, it went; but when he shut them once more it framed itself afresh, and acted itself out again, neither quicker nor slower than before. what he saw was this: a long stretch of shore--shingle edged by sand, and intersected at short intervals with black groynes running down to the water--a scene, in fact, so like that of his afternoon's walk that, in the absence of any landmark, it could not be distinguished therefrom. the light was obscure, conveying an impression of gathering storm, late winter evening, and slight cold rain. on this bleak stage at first no actor was visible. then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared; a moment more, and it was a man running, jumping, clambering over the groynes, and every few seconds looking eagerly back. the nearer he came the more obvious it was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly frightened, though his face was not to be distinguished. he was, moreover, almost at the end of his strength. on he came; each successive obstacle seemed to cause him more difficulty than the last. 'will he get over this next one?' thought parkins; 'it seems a little higher than the others.' yes; half climbing, half throwing himself, he did get over, and fell all in a heap on the other side (the side nearest to the spectator). there, as if really unable to get up again, he remained crouching under the groyne, looking up in an attitude of painful anxiety. so far no cause whatever for the fear of the runner had been shown; but now there began to be seen, far up the shore, a little flicker of something light-coloured moving to and fro with great swiftness and irregularity. rapidly growing larger, it, too, declared itself as a figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined. there was something about its motion which made parkins very unwilling to see it at close quarters. it would stop, raise arms, bow itself towards the sand, then run stooping across the beach to the water-edge and back again; and then, rising upright, once more continue its course forward at a speed that was startling and terrifying. the moment came when the pursuer was hovering about from left to right only a few yards beyond the groyne where the runner lay in hiding. after two or three ineffectual castings hither and thither it came to a stop, stood upright, with arms raised high, and then darted straight forward towards the groyne. it was at this point that parkins always failed in his resolution to keep his eyes shut. with many misgivings as to incipient failure of eyesight, overworked brain, excessive smoking, and so on, he finally resigned himself to light his candle, get out a book, and pass the night waking, rather than be tormented by this persistent panorama, which he saw clearly enough could only be a morbid reflection of his walk and his thoughts on that very day. the scraping of match on box and the glare of light must have startled some creatures of the night--rats or what not--which he heard scurry across the floor from the side of his bed with much rustling. dear, dear! the match is out! fool that it is! but the second one burnt better, and a candle and book were duly procured, over which parkins pored till sleep of a wholesome kind came upon him, and that in no long space. for about the first time in his orderly and prudent life he forgot to blow out the candle, and when he was called next morning at eight there was still a flicker in the socket and a sad mess of guttered grease on the top of the little table. after breakfast he was in his room, putting the finishing touches to his golfing costume--fortune had again allotted the colonel to him for a partner--when one of the maids came in. 'oh, if you please,' she said, 'would you like any extra blankets on your bed, sir?' 'ah! thank you,' said parkins. 'yes, i think i should like one. it seems likely to turn rather colder.' in a very short time the maid was back with the blanket. 'which bed should i put it on, sir?' she asked. 'what? why, that one--the one i slept in last night,' he said, pointing to it. 'oh yes! i beg your pardon, sir, but you seemed to have tried both of 'em; leastways, we had to make 'em both up this morning.' 'really? how very absurd!' said parkins. 'i certainly never touched the other, except to lay some things on it. did it actually seem to have been slept in?' 'oh yes, sir!' said the maid. 'why, all the things was crumpled and throwed about all ways, if you'll excuse me, sir--quite as if anyone 'adn't passed but a very poor night, sir.' 'dear me,' said parkins. 'well, i may have disordered it more than i thought when i unpacked my things. i'm very sorry to have given you the extra trouble, i'm sure. i expect a friend of mine soon, by the way--a gentleman from cambridge--to come and occupy it for a night or two. that will be all right, i suppose, won't it?' 'oh yes, to be sure, sir. thank you, sir. it's no trouble, i'm sure,' said the maid, and departed to giggle with her colleagues. parkins set forth, with a stern determination to improve his game. i am glad to be able to report that he succeeded so far in this enterprise that the colonel, who had been rather repining at the prospect of a second day's play in his company, became quite chatty as the morning advanced; and his voice boomed out over the flats, as certain also of our own minor poets have said, 'like some great bourdon in a minster tower'. 'extraordinary wind, that, we had last night,' he said. 'in my old home we should have said someone had been whistling for it.' 'should you, indeed!' said perkins. 'is there a superstition of that kind still current in your part of the country?' 'i don't know about superstition,' said the colonel. 'they believe in it all over denmark and norway, as well as on the yorkshire coast; and my experience is, mind you, that there's generally something at the bottom of what these country-folk hold to, and have held to for generations. but it's your drive' (or whatever it might have been: the golfing reader will have to imagine appropriate digressions at the proper intervals). when conversation was resumed, parkins said, with a slight hesitancy: 'a propos of what you were saying just now, colonel, i think i ought to tell you that my own views on such subjects are very strong. i am, in fact, a convinced disbeliever in what is called the "supernatural".' 'what!' said the colonel,'do you mean to tell me you don't believe in second-sight, or ghosts, or anything of that kind?' 'in nothing whatever of that kind,' returned parkins firmly. 'well,' said the colonel, 'but it appears to me at that rate, sir, that you must be little better than a sadducee.' parkins was on the point of answering that, in his opinion, the sadducees were the most sensible persons he had ever read of in the old testament; but feeling some doubt as to whether much mention of them was to be found in that work, he preferred to laugh the accusation off. 'perhaps i am,' he said; 'but--here, give me my cleek, boy!--excuse me one moment, colonel.' a short interval. 'now, as to whistling for the wind, let me give you my theory about it. the laws which govern winds are really not at all perfectly known--to fisherfolk and such, of course, not known at all. a man or woman of eccentric habits, perhaps, or a stranger, is seen repeatedly on the beach at some unusual hour, and is heard whistling. soon afterwards a violent wind rises; a man who could read the sky perfectly or who possessed a barometer could have foretold that it would. the simple people of a fishing-village have no barometers, and only a few rough rules for prophesying weather. what more natural than that the eccentric personage i postulated should be regarded as having raised the wind, or that he or she should clutch eagerly at the reputation of being able to do so? now, take last night's wind: as it happens, i myself was whistling. i blew a whistle twice, and the wind seemed to come absolutely in answer to my call. if anyone had seen me--' the audience had been a little restive under this harangue, and parkins had, i fear, fallen somewhat into the tone of a lecturer; but at the last sentence the colonel stopped. 'whistling, were you?' he said. 'and what sort of whistle did you use? play this stroke first.' interval. 'about that whistle you were asking, colonel. it's rather a curious one. i have it in my--no; i see i've left it in my room. as a matter of fact, i found it yesterday.' and then parkins narrated the manner of his discovery of the whistle, upon hearing which the colonel grunted, and opined that, in parkins's place, he should himself be careful about using a thing that had belonged to a set of papists, of whom, speaking generally, it might be affirmed that you never knew what they might not have been up to. from this topic he diverged to the enormities of the vicar, who had given notice on the previous sunday that friday would be the feast of st thomas the apostle, and that there would be service at eleven o'clock in the church. this and other similar proceedings constituted in the colonel's view a strong presumption that the vicar was a concealed papist, if not a jesuit; and parkins, who could not very readily follow the colonel in this region, did not disagree with him. in fact, they got on so well together in the morning that there was not talk on either side of their separating after lunch. both continued to play well during the afternoon, or at least, well enough to make them forget everything else until the light began to fail them. not until then did parkins remember that he had meant to do some more investigating at the preceptory; but it was of no great importance, he reflected. one day was as good as another; he might as well go home with the colonel. as they turned the corner of the house, the colonel was almost knocked down by a boy who rushed into him at the very top of his speed, and then, instead of running away, remained hanging on to him and panting. the first words of the warrior were naturally those of reproof and objurgation, but he very quickly discerned that the boy was almost speechless with fright. inquiries were useless at first. when the boy got his breath he began to howl, and still clung to the colonel's legs. he was at last detached, but continued to howl. 'what in the world is the matter with you? what have you been up to? what have you seen?' said the two men. 'ow, i seen it wive at me out of the winder,' wailed the boy, 'and i don't like it.' 'what window?' said the irritated colonel. 'come pull yourself together, my boy.' 'the front winder it was, at the 'otel,' said the boy. at this point parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the colonel refused; he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said; it was most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had had, and if it turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer for it in some way. and by a series of questions he made out this story: the boy had been playing about on the grass in front of the globe with some others; then they had gone home to their teas, and he was just going, when he happened to look up at the front winder and see it a-wiving at him. _it_ seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white as far as he knew--couldn't see its face; but it wived at him, and it warn't a right thing--not to say not a right person. was there a light in the room? no, he didn't think to look if there was a light. which was the window? was it the top one or the second one? the seckind one it was--the big winder what got two little uns at the sides. 'very well, my boy,' said the colonel, after a few more questions. 'you run away home now. i expect it was some person trying to give you a start. another time, like a brave english boy, you just throw a stone--well, no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter, or to mr simpson, the landlord, and--yes--and say that i advised you to do so.' the boy's face expressed some of the doubt he felt as to the likelihood of mr simpson's lending a favourable ear to his complaint, but the colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on: 'and here's a sixpence--no, i see it's a shilling--and you be off home, and don't think any more about it.' the youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the colonel and parkins went round to the front of the globe and reconnoitred. there was only one window answering to the description they had been hearing. 'well, that's curious,' said parkins; 'it's evidently my window the lad was talking about. will you come up for a moment, colonel wilson? we ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my room.' they were soon in the passage, and parkins made as if to open the door. then he stopped and felt in his pockets. 'this is more serious than i thought,' was his next remark. 'i remember now that before i started this morning i locked the door. it is locked now, and, what is more, here is the key.' and he held it up. 'now,' he went on, 'if the servants are in the habit of going into one's room during the day when one is away, i can only say that--well, that i don't approve of it at all.' conscious of a somewhat weak climax, he busied himself in opening the door (which was indeed locked) and in lighting candles. 'no,' he said, 'nothing seems disturbed.' 'except your bed,' put in the colonel. 'excuse me, that isn't my bed,' said parkins. 'i don't use that one. but it does look as if someone had been playing tricks with it.' it certainly did: the clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a most tortuous confusion. parkins pondered. 'that must be it,' he said at last. 'i disordered the clothes last night in unpacking, and they haven't made it since. perhaps they came in to make it, and that boy saw them through the window; and then they were called away and locked the door after them. yes, i think that must be it.' 'well, ring and ask,' said the colonel, and this appealed to parkins as practical. the maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she had made the bed in the morning when the gentleman was in the room, and hadn't been there since. no, she hadn't no other key. mr simpson, he kep' the keys; he'd be able to tell the gentleman if anyone had been up. this was a puzzle. investigation showed that nothing of value had been taken, and parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had been played with them. mr and mrs simpson furthermore agreed that neither of them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person whatever during the day. nor could parkins, fair-minded man as he was, detect anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that indicated guilt. he was much more inclined to think that the boy had been imposing on the colonel. the latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout the evening. when he bade goodnight to parkins, he murmured in a gruff undertone: 'you know where i am if you want me during the night.' 'why, yes, thank you, colonel wilson, i think i do; but there isn't much prospect of my disturbing you, i hope. by the way,' he added, 'did i show you that old whistle i spoke of? i think not. well, here it is.' the colonel turned it over gingerly in the light of the candle. 'can you make anything of the inscription?' asked parkins, as he took it back. 'no, not in this light. what do you mean to do with it?' 'oh, well, when i get back to cambridge i shall submit it to some of the archaeologists there, and see what they think of it; and very likely, if they consider it worth having, i may present it to one of the museums.' 'm!' said the colonel. 'well, you may be right. all i know is that, if it were mine, i should chuck it straight into the sea. it's no use talking, i'm well aware, but i expect that with you it's a case of live and learn. i hope so, i'm sure, and i wish you a good night.' he turned away, leaving parkins in act to speak at the bottom of the stair, and soon each was in his own bedroom. by some unfortunate accident, there were neither blinds nor curtains to the windows of the professor's room. the previous night he had thought little of this, but tonight there seemed every prospect of a bright moon rising to shine directly on his bed, and probably wake him later on. when he noticed this he was a good deal annoyed, but, with an ingenuity which i can only envy, he succeeded in rigging up, with the help of a railway-rug, some safety-pins, and a stick and umbrella, a screen which, if it only held together, would completely keep the moonlight off his bed. and shortly afterwards he was comfortably in that bed. when he had read a somewhat solid work long enough to produce a decided wish to sleep, he cast a drowsy glance round the room, blew out the candle, and fell back upon the pillow. he must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter shook him up in a most unwelcome manner. in a moment he realized what had happened: his carefully-constructed screen had given way, and a very bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. this was highly annoying. could he possibly get up and reconstruct the screen? or could he manage to sleep if he did not? for some minutes he lay and pondered over all the possibilities; then he turned over sharply, and with his eyes open lay breathlessly listening. there had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the opposite side of the room. tomorrow he would have it moved, for there must be rats or something playing about in it. it was quiet now. no! the commotion began again. there was a rustling and shaking: surely more than any rat could cause. i can figure to myself something of the professor's bewilderment and horror, for i have in a dream thirty years back seen the same thing happen; but the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty bed. he was out of his own bed in one bound, and made a dash towards the window, where lay his only weapon, the stick with which he had propped his screen. this was, as it turned out, the worst thing he could have done, because the personage in the empty bed, with a sudden smooth motion, slipped from the bed and took up a position, with outspread arms, between the two beds, and in front of the door. parkins watched it in a horrid perplexity. somehow, the idea of getting past it and escaping through the door was intolerable to him; he could not have borne--he didn't know why--to touch it; and as for its touching him, he would sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen. it stood for the moment in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what its face was like. now it began to move, in a stooping posture, and all at once the spectator realized, with some horror and some relief, that it must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms in a groping and random fashion. turning half away from him, it became suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and darted towards it, and bent and felt over the pillows in a way which made parkins shudder as he had never in his life thought it possible. in a very few moments it seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then, moving forward into the area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time what manner of thing it was. parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once describe something of it in my hearing, and i gathered that what he chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face _of crumpled linen._ what expression he read upon it he could not or would not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is certain. but he was not at leisure to watch it for long. with formidable quickness it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and waved, one corner of its draperies swept across parkins's face. he could not, though he knew how perilous a sound was--he could not keep back a cry of disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. it leapt towards him upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way through the window backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and the linen face was thrust close into his own. at this, almost the last possible second, deliverance came, as you will have guessed: the colonel burst the door open, and was just in time to see the dreadful group at the window. when he reached the figures only one was left. parkins sank forward into the room in a faint, and before him on the floor lay a tumbled heap of bed-clothes. colonel wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping everyone else out of the room and in getting parkins back to his bed; and himself, wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed, for the rest of the night. early on the next day rogers arrived, more welcome than he would have been a day before, and the three of them held a very long consultation in the professor's room. at the end of it the colonel left the hotel door carrying a small object between his finger and thumb, which he cast as far into the sea as a very brawny arm could send it. later on the smoke of a burning ascended from the back premises of the globe. exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at the hotel i must confess i do not recollect. the professor was somehow cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium tremens, and the hotel of the reputation of a troubled house. there is not much question as to what would have happened to parkins if the colonel had not intervened when he did. he would either have fallen out of the window or else lost his wits. but it is not so evident what more the creature that came in answer to the whistle could have done than frighten. there seemed to be absolutely nothing material about it save the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. the colonel, who remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in india, was of the opinion that if parkins had closed with it it could really have done very little, and that its one power was that of frightening. the whole thing, he said, served to confirm his opinion of the church of rome. there is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the professor's views on certain points are less clear cut than they used to be. his nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a surplice hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than one sleepless night. the treasure of abbot thomas i _verum usque in praesentem diem multa garriunt inter se canonici de abscondito quodam istius abbatis thomae thesauro, quem saepe, quanquam ahduc incassum, quaesiverunt steinfeldenses. ipsum enim thomam adhuc florida in aetate existentem ingentem auri massam circa monasterium defodisse perhibent; de quo multoties interrogatus ubi esset, cum risu respondere solitus erat: 'job, johannes, et zacharias vel vobis vel posteris indicabunt'; idemque aliquando adiicere se inventuris minime invisurum. inter alia huius abbatis opera, hoc memoria praecipue dignum indico quod fenestram magnam in orientali parte alae australis in ecclesia sua imaginibus optime in vitro depictis impleverit: id quod et ipsius effigies et insignia ibidem posita demonstrant. domum quoque abbatialem fere totam restauravit: puteo in atrio ipsius effosso et lapidibus marmoreis pulchre caelatis exornato. decessit autem, morte aliquantulum subitanea perculsus, aetatis suae anno lxxii(do), incarnationis vero dominicae mdxxix(o)._ 'i suppose i shall have to translate this,' said the antiquary to himself, as he finished copying the above lines from that rather rare and exceedingly diffuse book, the _sertum steinfeldense norbertinum.[ ]_ 'well, it may as well be done first as last,' and accordingly the following rendering was very quickly produced: up to the present day there is much gossip among the canons about a certain hidden treasure of this abbot thomas, for which those of steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. the story is that thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very large quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery. he was often asked where it was, and always answered, with a laugh: 'job, john, and zechariah will tell either you or your successors.' he sometimes added that he should feel no grudge against those who might find it. among other works carried out by this abbot i may specially mention his filling the great window at the east end of the south aisle of the church with figures admirably painted on glass, as his effigy and arms in the window attest. he also restored almost the whole of the abbot's lodging, and dug a well in the court of it, which he adorned with beautiful carvings in marble. he died rather suddenly in the seventy-second year of his age, a.d. . [ ] an account of the premonstratensian abbey of steinfeld, in the eiffel, with lives of the abbots, published at cologne in by christian albert erhard, a resident in the district. the epithet _norbertinum_ is due to the fact that st norbert was founder of the premonstratensian order. the object which the antiquary had before him at the moment was that of tracing the whereabouts of the painted windows of the abbey church at steinfeld. shortly after the revolution, a very large quantity of painted glass made its way from the dissolved abbeys of germany and belgium to this country, and may now be seen adorning various of our parish churches, cathedrals, and private chapels. steinfeld abbey was among the most considerable of these involuntary contributors to our artistic possession (i am quoting the somewhat ponderous preamble of the book which the antiquary wrote), and the greater part of the glass from that institution can be identified without much difficulty by the help, either of the numerous inscriptions in which the place is mentioned, or of the subjects of the windows, in which several well-defined cycles or narratives were represented. the passage with which i began my story had set the antiquary on the track of another identification. in a private chapel--no matter where--he had seen three large figures, each occupying a whole light in a window, and evidently the work of one artist. their style made it plain that that artist had been a german of the sixteenth century; but hitherto the more exact localizing of them had been a puzzle. they represented--will you be surprised to hear it?--job patriarcha, johannes evangelista, zacharias propheta, and each of them held a book or scroll, inscribed with a sentence from his writings. these, as a matter of course, the antiquary had noted, and had been struck by the curious way in which they differed from any text of the vulgate that he had been able to examine. thus the scroll in job's hand was inscribed: _auro est locus in quo absconditur_ (for _conflatur_)[ ]; on the book of john was: _habent in vestimentis suis scripturam quam nemo novit_[ ] (for in _vestimento scriptum_, the following words being taken from another verse); and zacharias had: _super lapidem unum septem oculi sunt_[ ] (which alone of the three presents an unaltered text). [ ] there is a place for gold where it is hidden. [ ] they have on their raiment a writing which no man knoweth. [ ] upon one stone are seven eyes. a sad perplexity it had been to our investigator to think why these three personages should have been placed together in one window. there was no bond of connexion between them, either historic, symbolic, or doctrinal, and he could only suppose that they must have formed part of a very large series of prophets and apostles, which might have filled, say, all the clerestory windows of some capacious church. but the passage from the _sertum_ had altered the situation by showing that the names of the actual personages represented in the glass now in lord d----'s chapel had been constantly on the lips of abbot thomas von eschenhausen of steinfeld, and that this abbot had put up a painted window, probably about the year , in the south aisle of his abbey church. it was no very wild conjecture that the three figures might have formed part of abbot thomas's offering; it was one which, moreover, could probably be confirmed or set aside by another careful examination of the glass. and, as mr. somerton was a man of leisure, he set out on pilgrimage to the private chapel with very little delay. his conjecture was confirmed to the full. not only did the style and technique of the glass suit perfectly with the date and place required, but in another window of the chapel he found some glass, known to have been bought along with the figures, which contained the arms of abbot thomas von eschenhausen. at intervals during his researches mr. somerton had been haunted by the recollection of the gossip about the hidden treasure, and, as he thought the matter over, it became more and more obvious to him that if the abbot meant anything by the enigmatical answer which he gave to his questioners, he must have meant that the secret was to be found somewhere in the window he had placed in the abbey church. it was undeniable, furthermore, that the first of the curiously-selected texts on the scrolls in the window might be taken to have a reference to hidden treasure. every feature, therefore, or mark which could possibly assist in elucidating the riddle which, he felt sure, the abbot had set to posterity he noted with scrupulous care, and, returning to his berkshire manor-house, consumed many a pint of the midnight oil over his tracings and sketches. after two or three weeks, a day came when mr somerton announced to his man that he must pack his own and his master's things for a short journey abroad, whither for the moment we will not follow him. ii mr gregory, the rector of parsbury, had strolled out before breakfast, it being a fine autumn morning, as far as the gate of his carriage-drive, with intent to meet the postman and sniff the cool air. nor was he disappointed of either purpose. before he had had time to answer more than ten or eleven of the miscellaneous questions propounded to him in the lightness of their hearts by his young offspring, who had accompanied him, the postman was seen approaching; and among the morning's budget was one letter bearing a foreign postmark and stamp (which became at once the objects of an eager competition among the youthful gregorys), and addressed in an uneducated, but plainly an english hand. when the rector opened it, and turned to the signature, he realized that it came from the confidential valet of his friend and squire, mr. somerton. thus it ran: honoured sir, has i am in a great anxiety about master i write at is wish to beg you sir if you could be so good as step over. master has add a nastey shock and keeps his bedd. i never have known him like this but no wonder and nothing will serve but you sir. master says would i mintion the short way here is drive to cobblince and take a trap. hopeing i have maid all plain, but am much confused in myself what with anxiatey and weakfulness at night. if i might be so bold sir it will be a pleasure to see a honnest brish face among all these forig ones. i am sir your obed't serv't william brown. p.s.--the village for town i will not turm it is name steenfeld. the reader must be left to picture to himself in detail the surprise, confusion, and hurry of preparation into which the receipt of such a letter would be likely to plunge a quiet berkshire parsonage in the year of grace . it is enough for me to say that a train to town was caught in the course of the day, and that mr gregory was able to secure a cabin in the antwerp boat and a place in the coblenz train. nor was it difficult to manage the transit from that centre to steinfeld. i labour under a grave disadvantage as narrator of this story in that i have never visited steinfeld myself, and that neither of the principal actors in the episode (from whom i derive my information) was able to give me anything but a vague and rather dismal idea of its appearance. i gather that it is a small place, with a large church despoiled of its ancient fittings; a number of rather ruinous great buildings, mostly of the seventeenth century, surround this church; for the abbey, in common with most of those on the continent, was rebuilt in a luxurious fashion by its inhabitants at that period. it has not seemed to me worth while to lavish money on a visit to the place, for though it is probably far more attractive than either mr somerton or mr gregory thought it, there is evidently little, if anything, of first-rate interest to be seen--except, perhaps, one thing, which i should not care to see. the inn where the english gentleman and his servant were lodged is, or was, the only 'possible' one in the village. mr gregory was taken to it at once by his driver, and found mr brown waiting at the door. mr brown, a model when in his berkshire home of the impassive whiskered race who are known as confidential valets, was now egregiously out of his element, in a light tweed suit, anxious, almost irritable, and plainly anything but master of the situation. his relief at the sight of the 'honest british face' of his rector was unmeasured, but words to describe it were denied him. he could only say: 'well, i ham pleased, i'm sure, sir, to see you. and so i'm sure, sir, will master.' 'how is your master, brown?' mr gregory eagerly put in. 'i think he's better, sir, thank you; but he's had a dreadful time of it. i 'ope he's gettin' some sleep now, but--' 'what has been the matter--i couldn't make out from your letter? was it an accident of any kind?' 'well, sir, i 'ardly know whether i'd better speak about it. master was very partickler he should be the one to tell you. but there's no bones broke--that's one thing i'm sure we ought to be thankful--' 'what does the doctor say?' asked mr gregory. they were by this time outside mr somerton's bedroom door, and speaking in low tones. mr gregory, who happened to be in front, was feeling for the handle, and chanced to run his fingers over the panels. before brown could answer, there was a terrible cry from within the room. 'in god's name, who is that?' were the first words they heard. 'brown, is it?' 'yes, sir--me, sir, and mr gregory,' brown hastened to answer, and there was an audible groan of relief in reply. they entered the room, which was darkened against the afternoon sun, and mr gregory saw, with a shock of pity, how drawn, how damp with drops of fear, was the usually calm face of his friend, who, sitting up in the curtained bed, stretched out a shaking hand to welcome him. 'better for seeing you, my dear gregory,' was the reply to the rector's first question, and it was palpably true. after five minutes of conversation mr somerton was more his own man, brown afterwards reported, than he had been for days. he was able to eat a more than respectable dinner, and talked confidently of being fit to stand a journey to coblenz within twenty-four hours. 'but there's one thing,' he said, with a return of agitation which mr gregory did not like to see, 'which i must beg you to do for me, my dear gregory. don't,' he went on, laying his hand on gregory's to forestall any interruption--'don't ask me what it is, or why i want it done. i'm not up to explaining it yet; it would throw me back--undo all the good you have done me by coming. the only word i will say about it is that you run no risk whatever by doing it, and that brown can and will show you tomorrow what it is. it's merely to put back--to keep--something--no; i can't speak of it yet. do you mind calling brown?' 'well, somerton,' said mr gregory, as he crossed the room to the door. 'i won't ask for any explanations till you see fit to give them. and if this bit of business is as easy as you represent it to be, i will very gladly undertake it for you the first thing in the morning.' 'ah, i was sure you would, my dear gregory; i was certain i could rely on you. i shall owe you more thanks than i can tell. now, here is brown. brown, one word with you.' 'shall i go?' interjected mr gregory. 'not at all. dear me, no. brown, the first thing tomorrow morning--(you don't mind early hours, i know, gregory)--you must take the rector to--_there_, you know' (a nod from brown, who looked grave and anxious), 'and he and you will put that back. you needn't be in the least alarmed; it's _perfectly_ safe in the daytime. you know what i mean. it lies on the step, you know, where--where we put it.' (brown swallowed dryly once or twice, and, failing to speak, bowed.) 'and--yes, that's all. only this one other word, my dear gregory. if you _can_ manage to keep from questioning brown about this matter, i shall be still more bound to you. tomorrow evening, at latest, if all goes well, i shall be able, i believe, to tell you the whole story from start to finish. and now i'll wish you good night. brown will be with me--he sleeps here--and if i were you, i should lock my door. yes, be particular to do that. they--they like it, the people here, and it's better. good night, good night.' they parted upon this, and if mr gregory woke once or twice in the small hours and fancied he heard a fumbling about the lower part of his locked door, it was, perhaps, no more than what a quiet man, suddenly plunged into a strange bed and the heart of a mystery, might reasonably expect. certainly he thought, to the end of his days, that he had heard such a sound twice or three times between midnight and dawn. he was up with the sun, and out in company with brown soon after. perplexing as was the service he had been asked to perform for mr somerton, it was not a difficult or an alarming one, and within half an hour from his leaving the inn it was over. what it was i shall not as yet divulge. later in the morning mr somerton, now almost himself again, was able to make a start from steinfeld; and that same evening, whether at coblenz or at some intermediate stage on the journey i am not certain, he settled down to the promised explanation. brown was present, but how much of the matter was ever really made plain to his comprehension he would never say, and i am unable to conjecture. iii this was mr somerton's story: 'you know roughly, both of you, that this expedition of mine was undertaken with the object of tracing something in connexion with some old painted glass in lord d----'s private chapel. well, the starting-point of the whole matter lies in this passage from an old printed book, to which i will ask your attention.' and at this point mr somerton went carefully over some ground with which we are already familiar. 'on my second visit to the chapel,' he went on, 'my purpose was to take every note i could of figures, lettering, diamond-scratchings on the glass, and even apparently accidental markings. the first point which i tackled was that of the inscribed scrolls. i could not doubt that the first of these, that of job--"there is a place for the gold where it is hidden"--with its intentional alteration, must refer to the treasure; so i applied myself with some confidence to the next, that of st john--"they have on their vestures a writing which no man knoweth." the natural question will have occurred to you: was there an inscription on the robes of the figures? i could see none; each of the three had a broad black border to his mantle, which made a conspicuous and rather ugly feature in the window. i was nonplussed, i will own, and, but for a curious bit of luck, i think i should have left the search where the canons of steinfeld had left it before me. but it so happened that there was a good deal of dust on the surface of the glass, and lord d----, happening to come in, noticed my blackened hands, and kindly insisted on sending for a turk's head broom to clean down the window. there must, i suppose, have been a rough piece in the broom; anyhow, as it passed over the border of one of the mantles, i noticed that it left a long scratch, and that some yellow stain instantly showed up. i asked the man to stop his work for a moment, and ran up the ladder to examine the place. the yellow stain was there, sure enough, and what had come away was a thick black pigment, which had evidently been laid on with the brush after the glass had been burnt, and could therefore be easily scraped off without doing any harm. i scraped, accordingly, and you will hardly believe--no, i do you an injustice; you will have guessed already--that i found under this black pigment two or three clearly-formed capital letters in yellow stain on a clear ground. of course, i could hardly contain my delight. 'i told lord d---- that i had detected an inscription which i thought might be very interesting, and begged to be allowed to uncover the whole of it. he made no difficulty about it whatever, told me to do exactly as i pleased, and then, having an engagement, was obliged--rather to my relief, i must say--to leave me. i set to work at once, and found the task a fairly easy one. the pigment, disintegrated, of course, by time, came off almost at a touch, and i don't think that it took me a couple of hours, all told, to clean the whole of the black borders in all three lights. each of the figures had, as the inscription said, "a writing on their vestures which nobody knew". 'this discovery, of course, made it absolutely certain to my mind that i was on the right track. and, now, what was the inscription? while i was cleaning the glass i almost took pains not to read the lettering, saving up the treat until i had got the whole thing clear. and when that was done, my dear gregory, i assure you i could almost have cried from sheer disappointment. what i read was only the most hopeless jumble of letters that was ever shaken up in a hat. here it is: _job_. dreviciopedmoomsmvivlislcav ibasbataovt _st john_. rdiieamrlesipvspodseeirsetta aesgiavnnr _zechariah_. fteeailnqdpvaivmtleeattohioo nvmcaat.h.q.e. 'blank as i felt and must have looked for the first few minutes, my disappointment didn't last long. i realized almost at once that i was dealing with a cipher or cryptogram; and i reflected that it was likely to be of a pretty simple kind, considering its early date. so i copied the letters with the most anxious care. another little point, i may tell you, turned up in the process which confirmed my belief in the cipher. after copying the letters on job's robe i counted them, to make sure that i had them right. there were thirty-eight; and, just as i finished going through them, my eye fell on a scratching made with a sharp point on the edge of the border. it was simply the number xxxviii in roman numerals. to cut the matter short, there was a similar note, as i may call it, in each of the other lights; and that made it plain to me that the glass-painter had had very strict orders from abbot thomas about the inscription and had taken pains to get it correct. 'well, after that discovery you may imagine how minutely i went over the whole surface of the glass in search of further light. of course, i did not neglect the inscription on the scroll of zechariah--"upon one stone are seven eyes," but i very quickly concluded that this must refer to some mark on a stone which could only be found _in situ_, where the treasure was concealed. to be short, i made all possible notes and sketches and tracings, and then came back to parsbury to work out the cipher at leisure. oh, the agonies i went through! i thought myself very clever at first, for i made sure that the key would be found in some of the old books on secret writing. the _steganographia_ of joachim trithemius, who was an earlier contemporary of abbot thomas, seemed particularly promising; so i got that and selenius's _cryptographia_ and bacon's _de augmentis scientiarum_ and some more. but i could hit upon nothing. then i tried the principle of the "most frequent letter", taking first latin and then german as a basis. that didn't help, either; whether it ought to have done so, i am not clear. and then i came back to the window itself, and read over my notes, hoping almost against hope that the abbot might himself have somewhere supplied the key i wanted. i could make nothing out of the colour or pattern of the robes. there were no landscape backgrounds with subsidiary objects; there was nothing in the canopies. the only resource possible seemed to be in the attitudes of the figures. "job," i read: "scroll in left hand, forefinger of right hand extended upwards. john: holds inscribed book in left hand; with right hand blesses, with two fingers. zechariah: scroll in left hand; right hand extended upwards, as job, but with three fingers pointing up." in other words, i reflected, job has one finger extended, john has _two_, zechariah has _three_. may not there be a numerical key concealed in that? my dear gregory,' said mr somerton, laying his hand on his friend's knee, 'that _was_ the key. i didn't get it to fit at first, but after two or three trials i saw what was meant. after the first letter of the inscription you skip _one_ letter, after the next you skip _two_, and after that skip _three_. now look at the result i got. i've underlined the letters which form words: [d]r[e]vi[c]iop[e]d[m]oo[m]smv[i]v[l]is[l]cav [i]b[a]sb[a]tao[v]t [r]di[i]eam[r]l[e]si[p]vsp[o]d[s]ee[i]rse[t]t[a] ae[s]gia[v]n[n]r f[t]eea[i]l[n]qd[p]vai[v]m[t]le[e]att[o]h[i]oo [n]vmc[a]a[t].h.q.e. 'do you see it? "_decem millia auri reposita sunt in puteo in at_ ..." (ten thousand [pieces] of gold are laid up in a well in ...), followed by an incomplete word beginning _at_. so far so good. i tried the same plan with the remaining letters; but it wouldn't work, and i fancied that perhaps the placing of dots after the three last letters might indicate some difference of procedure. then i thought to myself, "wasn't there some allusion to a well in the account of abbot thomas in that book the '_sertum_'?" yes, there was; he built a _puteus in atrio_; (a well in the court). there, of course, was my word _atrio_. the next step was to copy out the remaining letters of the inscription, omitting those i had already used. that gave what you will see on this slip: rviiopdoosmvviscavbsbtaotdie amlsivspdeersetaegianrfeealqd vaimleatthoovmca.h.q.e. 'now, i knew what the three first letters i wanted were--namely, _rio_--to complete the word _atrio_; and, as you will see, these are all to be found in the first five letters. i was a little confused at first by the occurrence of two _i_'s, but very soon i saw that every alternate letter must be taken in the remainder of the inscription. you can work it out for yourself; the result, continuing where the first "round" left off, thus: _rio domus abbatialis de steinfeld a me, thoma, qui posui custodem super ea. gare à qui la touche_. 'so the whole secret was out: "ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court of the abbot's house of steinfeld by me, thomas, who have set a guardian over them. _gare à qui la louche_." 'the last words, i ought to say, are a device which abbot thomas had adopted. i found it with his arms in another piece of glass at lord d----'s, and he drafted it bodily into his cipher, though it doesn't quite fit in point of grammar. 'well, what would any human being have been tempted to do, my dear gregory, in my place? could he have helped setting off, as i did, to steinfeld, and tracing the secret literally to the fountain-head? i don't believe he could. anyhow, i couldn't, and, as i needn't tell you, i found myself at steinfeld as soon as the resources of civilization could put me there, and installed myself in the inn you saw. i must tell you that i was not altogether free from forebodings--on one hand of disappointment, on the other of danger. there was always the possibility that abbot thomas's well might have been wholly obliterated, or else that someone, ignorant of cryptograms, and guided only by luck, might have stumbled on the treasure before me. and then'--there was a very perceptible shaking of the voice here--'i was not entirely easy, i need not mind confessing, as to the meaning of the words about the guardian of the treasure. but, if you don't mind, i'll say no more about that until--until it becomes necessary. 'at the first possible opportunity brown and i began exploring the place. i had naturally represented myself as being interested in the remains of the abbey, and we could not avoid paying a visit to the church, impatient as i was to be elsewhere. still, it did interest me to see the windows where the glass had been, and especially that at the east end of the south aisle. in the tracery lights of that i was startled to see some fragments and coats-of-arms remaining--abbot thomas's shield was there, and a small figure with a scroll inscribed _oculos habent, et non videbunt_ (they have eyes, and shall not see), which, i take it, was a hit of the abbot at his canons. 'but, of course, the principal object was to find the abbot's house. there is no prescribed place for this, so far as i know, in the plan of a monastery; you can't predict of it, as you can of the chapter-house, that it will be on the eastern side of the cloister, or, as of the dormitory, that it will communicate with a transept of the church. i felt that if i asked many questions i might awaken lingering memories of the treasure, and i thought it best to try first to discover it for myself. it was not a very long or difficult search. that three-sided court south-east of the church, with deserted piles of building round it, and grass-grown pavement, which you saw this morning, was the place. and glad enough i was to see that it was put to no use, and was neither very far from our inn nor overlooked by any inhabited building; there were only orchards and paddocks on the slopes east of the church. i can tell you that fine stone glowed wonderfully in the rather watery yellow sunset that we had on the tuesday afternoon. 'next, what about the well? there was not much doubt about that, as you can testify. it is really a very remarkable thing. that curb is, i think, of italian marble, and the carving i thought must be italian also. there were reliefs, you will perhaps remember, of eliezer and rebekah, and of jacob opening the well for rachel, and similar subjects; but, by way of disarming suspicion, i suppose, the abbot had carefully abstained from any of his cynical and allusive inscriptions. 'i examined the whole structure with the keenest interest, of course--a square well-head with an opening in one side; an arch over it, with a wheel for the rope to pass over, evidently in very good condition still, for it had been used within sixty years, or perhaps even later though not quite recently. then there was the question of depth and access to the interior. i suppose the depth was about sixty to seventy feet; and as to the other point, it really seemed as if the abbot had wished to lead searchers up to the very door of his treasure-house, for, as you tested for yourself, there were big blocks of stone bonded into the masonry, and leading down in a regular staircase round and round the inside of the well. 'it seemed almost too good to be true. i wondered if there was a trap--if the stones were so contrived as to tip over when a weight was placed on them; but i tried a good many with my own weight and with my stick, and all seemed, and actually were, perfectly firm. of course, i resolved that brown and i would make an experiment that very night. 'i was well prepared. knowing the sort of place i should have to explore, i had brought a sufficiency of good rope and bands of webbing to surround my body, and cross-bars to hold to, as well as lanterns and candles and crowbars, all of which would go into a single carpet-bag and excite no suspicion. i satisfied myself that my rope would be long enough, and that the wheel for the bucket was in good working order, and then we went home to dinner. 'i had a little cautious conversation with the landlord, and made out that he would not be overmuch surprised if i went out for a stroll with my man about nine o'clock, to make (heaven forgive me!) a sketch of the abbey by moonlight. i asked no questions about the well, and am not likely to do so now. i fancy i know as much about it as anyone in steinfeld: at least'--with a strong shudder--'i don't want to know any more. 'now we come to the crisis, and, though i hate to think of it, i feel sure, gregory, that it will be better for me in all ways to recall it just as it happened. we started, brown and i, at about nine with our bag, and attracted no attention; for we managed to slip out at the hinder end of the inn-yard into an alley which brought us quite to the edge of the village. in five minutes we were at the well, and for some little time we sat on the edge of the well-head to make sure that no one was stirring or spying on us. all we heard was some horses cropping grass out of sight farther down the eastern slope. we were perfectly unobserved, and had plenty of light from the gorgeous full moon to allow us to get the rope properly fitted over the wheel. then i secured the band round my body beneath the arms. we attached the end of the rope very securely to a ring in the stonework. brown took the lighted lantern and followed me; i had a crowbar. and so we began to descend cautiously, feeling every step before we set foot on it, and scanning the walls in search of any marked stone. 'half aloud i counted the steps as we went down, and we got as far as the thirty-eighth before i noted anything at all irregular in the surface of the masonry. even here there was no mark, and i began to feel very blank, and to wonder if the abbot's cryptogram could possibly be an elaborate hoax. at the forty-ninth step the staircase ceased. it was with a very sinking heart that i began retracing my steps, and when i was back on the thirty-eighth--brown, with the lantern, being a step or two above me--i scrutinized the little bit of irregularity in the stonework with all my might; but there was no vestige of a mark. 'then it struck me that the texture of the surface looked just a little smoother than the rest, or, at least, in some way different. it might possibly be cement and not stone. i gave it a good blow with my iron bar. there was a decidedly hollow sound, though that might be the result of our being in a well. but there was more. a great flake of cement dropped on to my feet, and i saw marks on the stone underneath. i had tracked the abbot down, my dear gregory; even now i think of it with a certain pride. it took but a very few more taps to clear the whole of the cement away, and i saw a slab of stone about two feet square, upon which was engraven a cross. disappointment again, but only for a moment. it was you, brown, who reassured me by a casual remark. you said, if i remember right: "'it's a funny cross: looks like a lot of eyes." 'i snatched the lantern out of your hand, and saw with inexpressible pleasure that the cross was composed of seven eyes, four in a vertical line, three horizontal. the last of the scrolls in the window was explained in the way i had anticipated. here was my "stone with the seven eyes". so far the abbot's data had been exact, and as i thought of this, the anxiety about the "guardian" returned upon me with increased force. still i wasn't going to retreat now. 'without giving myself time to think, i knocked away the cement all round the marked stone, and then gave it a prise on the right side with my crowbar. it moved at once, and i saw that it was but a thin light slab, such as i could easily lift out myself, and that it stopped the entrance to a cavity. i did lift it out unbroken, and set it on the step, for it might be very important to us to be able to replace it. then i waited for several minutes on the step just above. i don't know why, but i think to see if any dreadful thing would rush out. nothing happened. next i lit a candle, and very cautiously i placed it inside the cavity, with some idea of seeing whether there were foul air, and of getting a glimpse of what was inside. there _was_ some foulness of air which nearly extinguished the flame, but in no long time it burned quite steadily. the hole went some little way back, and also on the right and left of the entrance, and i could see some rounded light-coloured objects within which might be bags. there was no use in waiting. i faced the cavity, and looked in. there was nothing immediately in the front of the hole. i put my arm in and felt to the right, very gingerly.... 'just give me a glass of cognac, brown. i'll go on in a moment, gregory.... 'well, i felt to the right, and my fingers touched something curved, that felt--yes--more or less like leather; dampish it was, and evidently part of a heavy, full thing. there was nothing, i must say, to alarm one. i grew bolder, and putting both hands in as well as i could, i pulled it to me, and it came. it was heavy, but moved more easily than i had expected. as i pulled it towards the entrance, my left elbow knocked over and extinguished the candle. i got the thing fairly in front of the mouth and began drawing it out. just then brown gave a sharp ejaculation and ran quickly up the steps with the lantern. he will tell you why in a moment. startled as i was, i looked round after him, and saw him stand for a minute at the top and then walk away a few yards. then i heard him call softly, "all right, sir," and went on pulling out the great bag, in complete darkness. it hung for an instant on the edge of the hole, then slipped forward on to my chest, and _put its arms round my neck_. 'my dear gregory, i am telling you the exact truth. i believe i am now acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind. i can only just manage to tell you now the bare outline of the experience. i was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several--i don't know how many--legs or arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. i screamed out, brown says, like a beast, and fell away backward from the step on which i stood, and the creature slipped downwards, i suppose, on to that same step. providentially the band round me held firm. brown did not lose his head, and was strong enough to pull me up to the top and get me over the edge quite promptly. how he managed it exactly i don't know, and i think he would find it hard to tell you. i believe he contrived to hide our implements in the deserted building near by, and with very great difficulty he got me back to the inn. i was in no state to make explanations, and brown knows no german; but next morning i told the people some tale of having had a bad fall in the abbey ruins, which i suppose they believed. and now, before i go further, i should just like you to hear what brown's experiences during those few minutes were. tell the rector, brown, what you told me.' 'well, sir,' said brown, speaking low and nervously, 'it was just this way. master was busy down in front of the 'ole, and i was 'olding the lantern and looking on, when i 'eard somethink drop in the water from the top, as i thought. so i looked up, and i see someone's 'ead lookin' over at us. i s'pose i must ha' said somethink, and i 'eld the light up and run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. that was a bad un, sir, if ever i see one! a holdish man, and the face very much fell in, and larfin', as i thought. and i got up the steps as quick pretty nigh as i'm tellin' you, and when i was out on the ground there warn't a sign of any person. there 'adn't been the time for anyone to get away, let alone a hold chap, and i made sure he warn't crouching down by the well, nor nothink. next thing i hear master cry out somethink 'orrible, and hall i see was him hanging out by the rope, and, as master says, 'owever i got him up i couldn't tell you.' 'you hear that, gregory?' said mr somerton. 'now, does any explanation of that incident strike you?' 'the whole thing is so ghastly and abnormal that i must own it puts me quite off my balance; but the thought did occur to me that possibly the--well, the person who set the trap might have come to see the success of his plan.' 'just so, gregory, just so. i can think of nothing else so--_likely_, i should say, if such a word had a place anywhere in my story. i think it must have been the abbot.... well, i haven't much more to tell you. i spent a miserable night, brown sitting up with me. next day i was no better; unable to get up; no doctor to be had; and if one had been available, i doubt if he could have done much for me. i made brown write off to you, and spent a second terrible night. and, gregory, of this i am sure, and i think it affected me more than the first shock, for it lasted longer: there was someone or something on the watch outside my door the whole night. i almost fancy there were two. it wasn't only the faint noises i heard from time to time all through the dark hours, but there was the smell--the hideous smell of mould. every rag i had had on me on that first evening i had stripped off and made brown take it away. i believe he stuffed the things into the stove in his room; and yet the smell was there, as intense as it had been in the well; and, what is more, it came from outside the door. but with the first glimmer of dawn it faded out, and the sounds ceased, too; and that convinced me that the thing or things were creatures of darkness, and could not stand the daylight; and so i was sure that if anyone could put back the stone, it or they would be powerless until someone else took it away again. i had to wait until you came to get that done. of course, i couldn't send brown to do it by himself, and still less could i tell anyone who belonged to the place. 'well, there is my story; and, if you don't believe it, i can't help it. but i think you do.' 'indeed,' said mr gregory, 'i can find no alternative. i _must_ believe it! i saw the well and the stone myself, and had a glimpse, i thought, of the bags or something else in the hole. and, to be plain with you, somerton, i believe my door was watched last night, too.' 'i dare say it was, gregory; but, thank goodness, that is over. have you, by the way, anything to tell about your visit to that dreadful place?' 'very little,' was the answer. 'brown and i managed easily enough to get the slab into its place, and he fixed it very firmly with the irons and wedges you had desired him to get, and we contrived to smear the surface with mud so that it looks just like the rest of the wall. one thing i did notice in the carving on the well-head, which i think must have escaped you. it was a horrid, grotesque shape--perhaps more like a toad than anything else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the two words, "depositum custodi".'[ ] [ ] 'keep that which is committed to thee.' three john silence stories algernon blackwood to m.l.w. the original of john silence and my companion in many adventures contents case i: a psychical invasion case ii: ancient sorceries case iii: the nemesis of fire case i: a psychical invasion i "and what is it makes you think i could be of use in this particular case?" asked dr. john silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at the swedish lady in the chair facing him. "your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism--" "oh, please--that dreadful word!" he interrupted, holding up a finger with a gesture of impatience. "well, then," she laughed, "your wonderful clairvoyant gift and your trained psychic knowledge of the processes by which a personality may be disintegrated and destroyed--these strange studies you've been experimenting with all these years--" "if it's only a case of multiple personality i must really cry off," interrupted the doctor again hastily, a bored expression in his eyes. "it's not that; now, please, be serious, for i want your help," she said; "and if i choose my words poorly you must be patient with my ignorance. the case i know will interest you, and no one else could deal with it so well. in fact, no ordinary professional man could deal with it at all, for i know of no treatment nor medicine that can restore a lost sense of humour!" "you begin to interest me with your 'case,'" he replied, and made himself comfortable to listen. mrs. sivendson drew a sigh of contentment as she watched him go to the tube and heard him tell the servant he was not to be disturbed. "i believe you have read my thoughts already," she said; "your intuitive knowledge of what goes on in other people's minds is positively uncanny." her friend shook his head and smiled as he drew his chair up to a convenient position and prepared to listen attentively to what she had to say. he closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorb the real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed, for by this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the living thoughts that lay behind the broken words. by his friends john silence was regarded as an eccentric, because he was rich by accident, and by choice--a doctor. that a man of independent means should devote his time to doctoring, chiefly doctoring folk who could not pay, passed their comprehension entirely. the native nobility of a soul whose first desire was to help those who could not help themselves, puzzled them. after that, it irritated them, and, greatly to his own satisfaction, they left him to his own devices. dr. silence was a free-lance, though, among doctors, having neither consulting-room, bookkeeper, nor professional manner. he took no fees, being at heart a genuine philanthropist, yet at the same time did no harm to his fellow-practitioners, because he only accepted unremunerative cases, and cases that interested him for some very special reason. he argued that the rich could pay, and the very poor could avail themselves of organised charity, but that a very large class of ill-paid, self-respecting workers, often followers of the arts, could not afford the price of a week's comforts merely to be told to travel. and it was these he desired to help: cases often requiring special and patient study--things no doctor can give for a guinea, and that no one would dream of expecting him to give. but there was another side to his personality and practice, and one with which we are now more directly concerned; for the cases that especially appealed to him were of no ordinary kind, but rather of that intangible, elusive, and difficult nature best described as psychical afflictions; and, though he would have been the last person himself to approve of the title, it was beyond question that he was known more or less generally as the "psychic doctor." in order to grapple with cases of this peculiar kind, he had submitted himself to a long and severe training, at once physical, mental, and spiritual. what precisely this training had been, or where undergone, no one seemed to know,--for he never spoke of it, as, indeed, he betrayed no single other characteristic of the charlatan,--but the fact that it had involved a total disappearance from the world for five years, and that after he returned and began his singular practice no one ever dreamed of applying to him the so easily acquired epithet of quack, spoke much for the seriousness of his strange quest and also for the genuineness of his attainments. for the modern psychical researcher he felt the calm tolerance of the "man who knows." there was a trace of pity in his voice--contempt he never showed--when he spoke of their methods. "this classification of results is uninspired work at best," he said once to me, when i had been his confidential assistant for some years. "it leads nowhere, and after a hundred years will lead nowhere. it is playing with the wrong end of a rather dangerous toy. far better, it would be, to examine the causes, and then the results would so easily slip into place and explain themselves. for the sources are accessible, and open to all who have the courage to lead the life that alone makes practical investigation safe and possible." and towards the question of clairvoyance, too, his attitude was significantly sane, for he knew how extremely rare the genuine power was, and that what is commonly called clairvoyance is nothing more than a keen power of visualising. "it connotes a slightly increased sensibility, nothing more," he would say. "the true clairvoyant deplores his power, recognising that it adds a new horror to life, and is in the nature of an affliction. and you will find this always to be the real test." thus it was that john silence, this singularly developed doctor, was able to select his cases with a clear knowledge of the difference between mere hysterical delusion and the kind of psychical affliction that claimed his special powers. it was never necessary for him to resort to the cheap mysteries of divination; for, as i have heard him observe, after the solution of some peculiarly intricate problem-- "systems of divination, from geomancy down to reading by tea-leaves, are merely so many methods of obscuring the outer vision, in order that the inner vision may become open. once the method is mastered, no system is necessary at all." and the words were significant of the methods of this remarkable man, the keynote of whose power lay, perhaps, more than anything else, in the knowledge, first, that thought can act at a distance, and, secondly, that thought is dynamic and can accomplish material results. "learn how to _think_," he would have expressed it, "and you have learned to tap power at its source." to look at--he was now past forty--he was sparely built, with speaking brown eyes in which shone the light of knowledge and self-confidence, while at the same time they made one think of that wondrous gentleness seen most often in the eyes of animals. a close beard concealed the mouth without disguising the grim determination of lips and jaw, and the face somehow conveyed an impression of transparency, almost of light, so delicately were the features refined away. on the fine forehead was that indefinable touch of peace that comes from identifying the mind with what is permanent in the soul, and letting the impermanent slip by without power to wound or distress; while, from his manner,--so gentle, quiet, sympathetic,--few could have guessed the strength of purpose that burned within like a great flame. "i think i should describe it as a psychical case," continued the swedish lady, obviously trying to explain herself very intelligently, "and just the kind you like. i mean a case where the cause is hidden deep down in some spiritual distress, and--" "but the symptoms first, please, my dear svenska," he interrupted, with a strangely compelling seriousness of manner, "and your deductions afterwards." she turned round sharply on the edge of her chair and looked him in the face, lowering her voice to prevent her emotion betraying itself too obviously. "in my opinion there's only one symptom," she half whispered, as though telling something disagreeable--"fear--simply fear." "physical fear?" "i think not; though how can i say? i think it's a horror in the psychical region. it's no ordinary delusion; the man is quite sane; but he lives in mortal terror of something--" "i don't know what you mean by his 'psychical region,'" said the doctor, with a smile; "though i suppose you wish me to understand that his spiritual, and not his mental, processes are affected. anyhow, try and tell me briefly and pointedly what you know about the man, his symptoms, his need for help, my peculiar help, that is, and all that seems vital in the case. i promise to listen devotedly." "i am trying," she continued earnestly, "but must do so in my own words and trust to your intelligence to disentangle as i go along. he is a young author, and lives in a tiny house off putney heath somewhere. he writes humorous stories--quite a genre of his own: pender--you must have heard the name--felix pender? oh, the man had a great gift, and married on the strength of it; his future seemed assured. i say 'had,' for quite suddenly his talent utterly failed him. worse, it became transformed into its opposite. he can no longer write a line in the old way that was bringing him success--" dr. silence opened his eyes for a second and looked at her. "he still writes, then? the force has not gone?" he asked briefly, and then closed his eyes again to listen. "he works like a fury," she went on, "but produces nothing"--she hesitated a moment--"nothing that he can use or sell. his earnings have practically ceased, and he makes a precarious living by book-reviewing and odd jobs--very odd, some of them. yet, i am certain his talent has not really deserted him finally, but is merely--" again mrs. sivendson hesitated for the appropriate word. "in abeyance," he suggested, without opening his eyes. "obliterated," she went on, after a moment to weigh the word, "merely obliterated by something else--" "by some one else?" "i wish i knew. all i can say is that he is haunted, and temporarily his sense of humour is shrouded--gone--replaced by something dreadful that writes other things. unless something competent is done, he will simply starve to death. yet he is afraid to go to a doctor for fear of being pronounced insane; and, anyhow, a man can hardly ask a doctor to take a guinea to restore a vanished sense of humour, can he?" "has he tried any one at all--?" "not doctors yet. he tried some clergymen and religious people; but they know so little and have so little intelligent sympathy. and most of them are so busy balancing on their own little pedestals--" john silence stopped her tirade with a gesture. "and how is it that you know so much about him?" he asked gently. "i know mrs. pender well--i knew her before she married him--" "and is she a cause, perhaps?" "not in the least. she is devoted; a woman very well educated, though without being really intelligent, and with so little sense of humour herself that she always laughs at the wrong places. but she has nothing to do with the cause of his distress; and, indeed, has chiefly guessed it from observing him, rather than from what little he has told her. and he, you know, is a really lovable fellow, hard-working, patient--altogether worth saving." dr. silence opened his eyes and went over to ring for tea. he did not know very much more about the case of the humorist than when he first sat down to listen; but he realised that no amount of words from his swedish friend would help to reveal the real facts. a personal interview with the author himself could alone do that. "all humorists are worth saving," he said with a smile, as she poured out tea. "we can't afford to lose a single one in these strenuous days. i will go and see your friend at the first opportunity." she thanked him elaborately, effusively, with many words, and he, with much difficulty, kept the conversation thenceforward strictly to the teapot. and, as a result of this conversation, and a little more he had gathered by means best known to himself and his secretary, he was whizzing in his motor-car one afternoon a few days later up the putney hill to have his first interview with felix pender, the humorous writer who was the victim of some mysterious malady in his "psychical region" that had obliterated his sense of the comic and threatened to wreck his life and destroy his talent. and his desire to help was probably of equal strength with his desire to know and to investigate. the motor stopped with a deep purring sound, as though a great black panther lay concealed within its hood, and the doctor--the "psychic doctor," as he was sometimes called--stepped out through the gathering fog, and walked across the tiny garden that held a blackened fir tree and a stunted laurel shrubbery. the house was very small, and it was some time before any one answered the bell. then, suddenly, a light appeared in the hall, and he saw a pretty little woman standing on the top step begging him to come in. she was dressed in grey, and the gaslight fell on a mass of deliberately brushed light hair. stuffed, dusty birds, and a shabby array of african spears, hung on the wall behind her. a hat-rack, with a bronze plate full of very large cards, led his eye swiftly to a dark staircase beyond. mrs. pender had round eyes like a child's, and she greeted him with an effusiveness that barely concealed her emotion, yet strove to appear naturally cordial. evidently she had been looking out for his arrival, and had outrun the servant girl. she was a little breathless. "i hope you've not been kept waiting--i think it's _most_ good of you to come--" she began, and then stopped sharp when she saw his face in the gaslight. there was something in dr. silence's look that did not encourage mere talk. he was in earnest now, if ever man was. "good evening, mrs. pender," he said, with a quiet smile that won confidence, yet deprecated unnecessary words, "the fog delayed me a little. i am glad to see you." they went into a dingy sitting-room at the back of the house, neatly furnished but depressing. books stood in a row upon the mantelpiece. the fire had evidently just been lit. it smoked in great puffs into the room. "mrs. sivendson said she thought you might be able to come," ventured the little woman again, looking up engagingly into his face and betraying anxiety and eagerness in every gesture. "but i hardly dared to believe it. i think it is really too good of you. my husband's case is so peculiar that--well, you know, i am quite sure any _ordinary_ doctor would say at once the asylum--" "isn't he in, then?" asked dr. silence gently. "in the asylum?" she gasped. "oh dear, no--not yet!" "in the house, i meant," he laughed. she gave a great sigh. "he'll be back any minute now," she replied, obviously relieved to see him laugh; "but the fact is, we didn't expect you so early--i mean, my husband hardly thought you would come at all." "i am always delighted to come--when i am really wanted, and can be of help," he said quickly; "and, perhaps, it's all for the best that your husband is out, for now that we are alone you can tell me something about his difficulties. so far, you know, i have heard very little." her voice trembled as she thanked him, and when he came and took a chair close beside her she actually had difficulty in finding words with which to begin. "in the first place," she began timidly, and then continuing with a nervous incoherent rush of words, "he will be simply delighted that you've really come, because he said you were the only person he would consent to see at all--the only doctor, i mean. but, of course, he doesn't know how frightened i am, or how much i have noticed. he pretends with me that it's just a nervous breakdown, and i'm sure he doesn't realise all the odd things i've noticed him doing. but the main thing, i suppose--" "yes, the main thing, mrs. pender," he said, encouragingly, noticing her hesitation. "--is that he thinks we are not alone in the house. that's the chief thing." "tell me more facts--just facts." "it began last summer when i came back from ireland; he had been here alone for six weeks, and i thought him looking tired and queer--ragged and scattered about the face, if you know what i mean, and his manner worn out. he said he had been writing hard, but his inspiration had somehow failed him, and he was dissatisfied with his work. his sense of humour was leaving him, or changing into something else, he said. there was something in the house, he declared, that"--she emphasised the words--"prevented his feeling funny." "something in the house that prevented his feeling funny," repeated the doctor. "ah, now we're getting to the heart of it!" "yes," she resumed vaguely, "that's what he kept saying." "and what was it he _did_ that you thought strange?" he asked sympathetically. "be brief, or he may be here before you finish." "very small things, but significant it seemed to me. he changed his workroom from the library, as we call it, to the sitting-room. he said all his characters became wrong and terrible in the library; they altered, so that he felt like writing tragedies--vile, debased tragedies, the tragedies of broken souls. but now he says the same of the sitting-room, and he's gone back to the library." "ah!" "you see, there's so little i can tell you," she went on, with increasing speed and countless gestures. "i mean it's only very small things he does and says that are queer. what frightens me is that he assumes there is some one else in the house all the time--some one i never see. he does not actually say so, but on the stairs i've seen him standing aside to let some one pass; i've seen him open a door to let some one in or out; and often in our bedrooms he puts chairs about as though for some one else to sit in. oh--oh yes, and once or twice," she cried--"once or twice--" she paused, and looked about her with a startled air. "yes?" "once or twice," she resumed hurriedly, as though she heard a sound that alarmed her, "i've heard him running--coming in and out of the rooms breathless as if something were after him--" the door opened while she was still speaking, cutting her words off in the middle, and a man came into the room. he was dark and clean-shaven, sallow rather, with the eyes of imagination, and dark hair growing scantily about the temples. he was dressed in a shabby tweed suit, and wore an untidy flannel collar at the neck. the dominant expression of his face was startled--hunted; an expression that might any moment leap into the dreadful stare of terror and announce a total loss of self-control. the moment he saw his visitor a smile spread over his worn features, and he advanced to shake hands. "i hoped you would come; mrs. sivendson said you might be able to find time," he said simply. his voice was thin and needy. "i am very glad to see you, dr. silence. it is 'doctor,' is it not?" "well, i am entitled to the description," laughed the other, "but i rarely get it. you know, i do not practise as a regular thing; that is, i only take cases that specially interest me, or--" he did not finish the sentence, for the men exchanged a glance of sympathy that rendered it unnecessary. "i have heard of your great kindness." "it's my hobby," said the other quickly, "and my privilege." "i trust you will still think so when you have heard what i have to tell you," continued the author, a little wearily. he led the way across the hall into the little smoking-room where they could talk freely and undisturbed. in the smoking-room, the door shut and privacy about them, fender's attitude changed somewhat, and his manner became very grave. the doctor sat opposite, where he could watch his face. already, he saw, it looked more haggard. evidently it cost him much to refer to his trouble at all. "what i have is, in my belief, a profound spiritual affliction," he began quite bluntly, looking straight into the other's eyes. "i saw that at once," dr. silence said. "yes, you saw that, of course; my atmosphere must convey that much to any one with psychic perceptions. besides which, i feel sure from all i've heard, that you are really a soul-doctor, are you not, more than a healer merely of the body?" "you think of me too highly," returned the other; "though i prefer cases, as you know, in which the spirit is disturbed first, the body afterwards." "i understand, yes. well, i have experienced a curious disturbance in--not in my physical region primarily. i mean my nerves are all right, and my body is all right. i have no delusions exactly, but my spirit is tortured by a calamitous fear which first came upon me in a strange manner." john silence leaned forward a moment and took the speaker's hand and held it in his own for a few brief seconds, closing his eyes as he did so. he was not feeling his pulse, or doing any of the things that doctors ordinarily do; he was merely absorbing into himself the main note of the man's mental condition, so as to get completely his own point of view, and thus be able to treat his case with true sympathy. a very close observer might perhaps have noticed that a slight tremor ran through his frame after he had held the hand for a few seconds. "tell me quite frankly, mr. pender," he said soothingly, releasing the hand, and with deep attention in his manner, "tell me all the steps that led to the beginning of this invasion. i mean tell me what the particular drug was, and why you took it, and how it affected you--" "then you know it began with a drug!" cried the author, with undisguised astonishment. "i only know from what i observe in you, and in its effect upon myself. you are in a surprising psychical condition. certain portions of your atmosphere are vibrating at a far greater rate than others. this is the effect of a drug, but of no ordinary drug. allow me to finish, please. if the higher rate of vibration spreads all over, you will become, of course, permanently cognisant of a much larger world than the one you know normally. if, on the other hand, the rapid portion sinks back to the usual rate, you will lose these occasional increased perceptions you now have." "you amaze me!" exclaimed the author; "for your words exactly describe what i have been feeling--" "i mention this only in passing, and to give you confidence before you approach the account of your real affliction," continued the doctor. "all perception, as you know, is the result of vibrations; and clairvoyance simply means becoming sensitive to an increased scale of vibrations. the awakening of the inner senses we hear so much about means no more than that. your partial clairvoyance is easily explained. the only thing that puzzles me is how you managed to procure the drug, for it is not easy to get in pure form, and no adulterated tincture could have given you the terrific impetus i see you have acquired. but, please proceed now and tell me your story in your own way." "this _cannabis indica_," the author went on, "came into my possession last autumn while my wife was away. i need not explain how i got it, for that has no importance; but it was the genuine fluid extract, and i could not resist the temptation to make an experiment. one of its effects, as you know, is to induce torrential laughter--" "yes: sometimes." "--i am a writer of humorous tales, and i wished to increase my own sense of laughter--to see the ludicrous from an abnormal point of view. i wished to study it a bit, if possible, and--" "tell me!" "i took an experimental dose. i starved for six hours to hasten the effect, locked myself into this room, and gave orders not to be disturbed. then i swallowed the stuff and waited." "and the effect?" "i waited one hour, two, three, four, five hours. nothing happened. no laughter came, but only a great weariness instead. nothing in the room or in my thoughts came within a hundred miles of a humorous aspect." "always a most uncertain drug," interrupted the doctor. "we make very small use of it on that account." "at two o'clock in the morning i felt so hungry and tired that i decided to give up the experiment and wait no longer. i drank some milk and went upstairs to bed. i felt flat and disappointed. i fell asleep at once and must have slept for about an hour, when i awoke suddenly with a great noise in my ears. it was the noise of my own laughter! i was simply shaking with merriment. at first i was bewildered and thought i had been laughing in dreams, but a moment later i remembered the drug, and was delighted to think that after all i had got an effect. it had been working all along, only i had miscalculated the time. the only unpleasant thing _then_ was an odd feeling that i had not waked naturally, but had been wakened by some one else--deliberately. this came to me as a certainty in the middle of my noisy laughter and distressed me." "any impression who it could have been?" asked the doctor, now listening with close attention to every word, very much on the alert. pender hesitated and tried to smile. he brushed his hair from his forehead with a nervous gesture. "you must tell me all your impressions, even your fancies; they are quite as important as your certainties." "i had a vague idea that it was some one connected with my forgotten dream, some one who had been at me in my sleep, some one of great strength and great ability--of great force--quite an unusual personality--and, i was certain, too--a woman." "a good woman?" asked john silence quietly. pender started a little at the question and his sallow face flushed; it seemed to surprise him. but he shook his head quickly with an indefinable look of horror. "evil," he answered briefly, "appallingly evil, and yet mingled with the sheer wickedness of it was also a certain perverseness--the perversity of the unbalanced mind." he hesitated a moment and looked up sharply at his interlocutor. a shade of suspicion showed itself in his eyes. "no," laughed the doctor, "you need not fear that i'm merely humouring you, or think you mad. far from it. your story interests me exceedingly and you furnish me unconsciously with a number of clues as you tell it. you see, i possess some knowledge of my own as to these psychic byways." "i was shaking with such violent laughter," continued the narrator, reassured in a moment, "though with no clear idea what was amusing me, that i had the greatest difficulty in getting up for the matches, and was afraid i should frighten the servants overhead with my explosions. when the gas was lit i found the room empty, of course, and the door locked as usual. then i half dressed and went out on to the landing, my hilarity better under control, and proceeded to go downstairs. i wished to record my sensations. i stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth so as not to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics to the entire household." "and the presence of this--this--?" "it was hanging about me all the time," said pender, "but for the moment it seemed to have withdrawn. probably, too, my laughter killed all other emotions." "and how long did you take getting downstairs?" "i was just coming to that. i see you know all my 'symptoms' in advance, as it were; for, of course, i thought i should never get to the bottom. each step seemed to take five minutes, and crossing the narrow hall at the foot of the stairs--well, i could have sworn it was half an hour's journey had not my watch certified that it was a few seconds. yet i walked fast and tried to push on. it was no good. i walked apparently without advancing, and at that rate it would have taken me a week to get down putney hill." "an experimental dose radically alters the scale of time and space sometimes--" "but, when at last i got into my study and lit the gas, the change came horridly, and sudden as a flash of lightning. it was like a douche of icy water, and in the middle of this storm of laughter--" "yes; what?" asked the doctor, leaning forward and peering into his eyes. "--i was overwhelmed with terror," said pender, lowering his reedy voice at the mere recollection of it. he paused a moment and mopped his forehead. the scared, hunted look in his eyes now dominated the whole face. yet, all the time, the corners of his mouth hinted of possible laughter as though the recollection of that merriment still amused him. the combination of fear and laughter in his face was very curious, and lent great conviction to his story; it also lent a bizarre expression of horror to his gestures. "terror, was it?" repeated the doctor soothingly. "yes, terror; for, though the thing that woke me seemed to have gone, the memory of it still frightened me, and i collapsed into a chair. then i locked the door and tried to reason with myself, but the drug made my movements so prolonged that it took me five minutes to reach the door, and another five to get back to the chair again. the laughter, too, kept bubbling up inside me--great wholesome laughter that shook me like gusts of wind--so that even my terror almost made me laugh. oh, but i may tell you, dr. silence, it was altogether vile, that mixture of fear and laughter, altogether vile! "then, all at once, the things in the room again presented their funny side to me and set me off laughing more furiously than ever. the bookcase was ludicrous, the arm-chair a perfect clown, the way the clock looked at me on the mantelpiece too comic for words; the arrangement of papers and inkstand on the desk tickled me till i roared and shook and held my sides and the tears streamed down my cheeks. and that footstool! oh, that absurd footstool!" he lay back in his chair, laughing to himself and holding up his hands at the thought of it, and at the sight of him dr. silence laughed, too. "go on, please," he said, "i quite understand. i know something myself of the hashish laughter." the author pulled himself together and resumed, his face growing quickly grave again. "so, you see, side by side with this extravagant, apparently causeless merriment, there was also an extravagant, apparently causeless terror. the drug produced the laughter, i knew; but what brought in the terror i could not imagine. everywhere behind the fun lay the fear. it was terror masked by cap and bells; and i became the playground for two opposing emotions, armed and fighting to the death. gradually, then, the impression grew in me that this fear was caused by the invasion--so you called it just now--of the 'person' who had wakened me: she was utterly evil; inimical to my soul, or at least to all in me that wished for good. there i stood, sweating and trembling, laughing at everything in the room, yet all the while with this white terror mastering my heart. and this creature was putting--putting her--" he hesitated again, using his handkerchief freely. "putting what?" "--putting ideas into my mind," he went on glancing nervously about the room. "actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the usual current and inject her own. how mad that sounds! i know it, but it's true. it's the only way i can express it. moreover, while the operation terrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished filled me afresh with laughter at the clumsiness of men by comparison. our ignorant, bungling methods of teaching the minds of others, of inculcating ideas, and so on, overwhelmed me with laughter when i understood this superior and diabolical method. yet my laughter seemed hollow and ghastly, and ideas of evil and tragedy trod close upon the heels of the comic. oh, doctor, i tell you again, it was unnerving!" john silence sat with his head thrust forward to catch every word of the story which the other continued to pour out in nervous, jerky sentences and lowered voice. "you saw nothing--no one--all this time?" he asked. "not with my eyes. there was no visual hallucination. but in my mind there began to grow the vivid picture of a woman--large, dark-skinned, with white teeth and masculine features, and one eye--the left--so drooping as to appear almost closed. oh, such a face--!" "a face you would recognise again?" pender laughed dreadfully. "i wish i could forget it," he whispered, "i only wish i could forget it!" then he sat forward in his chair suddenly, and grasped the doctor's hand with an emotional gesture. "i _must_ tell you how grateful i am for your patience and sympathy," he cried, with a tremor in his voice, "and--that you do not think me mad. i have told no one else a quarter of all this, and the mere freedom of speech--the relief of sharing my affliction with another--has helped me already more than i can possibly say." dr. silence pressed his hand and looked steadily into the frightened eyes. his voice was very gentle when he replied. "your case, you know, is very singular, but of absorbing interest to me," he said, "for it threatens, not your physical existence but the temple of your psychical existence--the inner life. your mind would not be permanently affected here and now, in this world; but in the existence after the body is left behind, you might wake up with your spirit so twisted, so distorted, so befouled, that you would be _spiritually insane_--a far more radical condition than merely being insane here." there came a strange hush over the room, and between the two men sitting there facing one another. "do you really mean--good lord!" stammered the author as soon as he could find his tongue. "what i mean in detail will keep till a little later, and i need only say now that i should not have spoken in this way unless i were quite positive of being able to help you. oh, there's no doubt as to that, believe me. in the first place, i am very familiar with the workings of this extraordinary drug, this drug which has had the chance effect of opening you up to the forces of another region; and, in the second, i have a firm belief in the reality of supersensuous occurrences as well as considerable knowledge of psychic processes acquired by long and painful experiment. the rest is, or should be, merely sympathetic treatment and practical application. the hashish has partially opened another world to you by increasing your rate of psychical vibration, and thus rendering you abnormally sensitive. ancient forces attached to this house have attacked you. for the moment i am only puzzled as to their precise nature; for were they of an ordinary character, i should myself be psychic enough to feel them. yet i am conscious of feeling nothing as yet. but now, please continue, mr. pender, and tell me the rest of your wonderful story; and when you have finished, i will talk about the means of cure." pender shifted his chair a little closer to the friendly doctor and then went on in the same nervous voice with his narrative. "after making some notes of my impressions i finally got upstairs again to bed. it was four o'clock in the morning. i laughed all the way up--at the grotesque banisters, the droll physiognomy of the staircase window, the burlesque grouping of the furniture, and the memory of that outrageous footstool in the room below; but nothing more happened to alarm or disturb me, and i woke late in the morning after a dreamless sleep, none the worse for my experiment except for a slight headache and a coldness of the extremities due to lowered circulation." "fear gone, too?" asked the doctor. "i seemed to have forgotten it, or at least ascribed it to mere nervousness. its reality had gone, anyhow for the time, and all that day i wrote and wrote and wrote. my sense of laughter seemed wonderfully quickened and my characters acted without effort out of the heart of true humour. i was exceedingly pleased with this result of my experiment. but when the stenographer had taken her departure and i came to read over the pages she had typed out, i recalled her sudden glances of surprise and the odd way she had looked up at me while i was dictating. i was amazed at what i read and could hardly believe i had uttered it." "and why?" "it was so distorted. the words, indeed, were mine so far as i could remember, but the meanings seemed strange. it frightened me. the sense was so altered. at the very places where my characters were intended to tickle the ribs, only curious emotions of sinister amusement resulted. dreadful innuendoes had managed to creep into the phrases. there was laughter of a kind, but it was bizarre, horrible, distressing; and my attempt at analysis only increased my dismay. the story, as it read then, made me shudder, for by virtue of these slight changes it had come somehow to hold the soul of horror, of horror disguised as merriment. the framework of humour was there, if you understand me, but the characters had turned sinister, and their laughter was evil." "can you show me this writing?" the author shook his head. "i destroyed it," he whispered. "but, in the end, though of course much perturbed about it, i persuaded myself that it was due to some after-effect of the drug, a sort of reaction that gave a twist to my mind and made me read macabre interpretations into words and situations that did not properly hold them." "and, meanwhile, did the presence of this person leave you?" "no; that stayed more or less. when my mind was actively employed i forgot it, but when idle, dreaming, or doing nothing in particular, there she was beside me, influencing my mind horribly--" "in what way, precisely?" interrupted the doctor. "evil, scheming thoughts came to me, visions of crime, hateful pictures of wickedness, and the kind of bad imagination that so far has been foreign, indeed impossible, to my normal nature--" "the pressure of the dark powers upon the personality," murmured the doctor, making a quick note. "eh? i didn't quite catch--" "pray, go on. i am merely making notes; you shall know their purport fully later." "even when my wife returned i was still aware of this presence in the house; it associated itself with my inner personality in most intimate fashion; and outwardly i always felt oddly constrained to be polite and respectful towards it--to open doors, provide chairs and hold myself carefully deferential when it was about. it became very compelling at last, and, if i failed in any little particular, i seemed to know that it pursued me about the house, from one room to another, haunting my very soul in its inmost abode. it certainly came before my wife so far as my attentions were concerned. "but, let me first finish the story of my experimental dose, for i took it again the third night, and underwent a very similar experience, delayed like the first in coming, and then carrying me off my feet when it did come with a rush of this false demon-laughter. this time, however, there was a reversal of the changed scale of space and time; it shortened instead of lengthened, so that i dressed and got downstairs in about twenty seconds, and the couple of hours i stayed and worked in the study passed literally like a period of ten minutes." "that is often true of an overdose," interjected the doctor, "and you may go a mile in a few minutes, or a few yards in a quarter of an hour. it is quite incomprehensible to those who have never experienced it, and is a curious proof that time and space are merely forms of thought." "this time," pender went on, talking more and more rapidly in his excitement, "another extraordinary effect came to me, and i experienced a curious changing of the senses, so that i perceived external things through one large main sense-channel instead of through the five divisions known as sight, smell, touch, and so forth. you will, i know, understand me when i tell you that i _heard_ sights and _saw_ sounds. no language can make this comprehensible, of course, and i can only say, for instance, that the striking of the clock i saw as a visible picture in the air before me. i saw the sounds of the tinkling bell. and in precisely the same way i heard the colours in the room, especially the colours of those books in the shelf behind you. those red bindings i heard in deep sounds, and the yellow covers of the french bindings next to them made a shrill, piercing note not unlike the chattering of starlings. that brown bookcase muttered, and those green curtains opposite kept up a constant sort of rippling sound like the lower notes of a wood-horn. but i only was conscious of these sounds when i looked steadily at the different objects, and thought about them. the room, you understand, was not full of a chorus of notes; but when i concentrated my mind upon a colour, i heard, as well as saw, it." "that is a known, though rarely obtained, effect of _cannabis indica_," observed the doctor. "and it provoked laughter again, did it?" "only the muttering of the cupboard-bookcase made me laugh. it was so like a great animal trying to get itself noticed, and made me think of a performing bear--which is full of a kind of pathetic humour, you know. but this mingling of the senses produced no confusion in my brain. on the contrary, i was unusually clear-headed and experienced an intensification of consciousness, and felt marvellously alive and keen-minded. "moreover, when i took up a pencil in obedience to an impulse to sketch--a talent not normally mine--i found that i could draw nothing but heads, nothing, in fact, but one head--always the same--the head of a dark-skinned woman, with huge and terrible features and a very drooping left eye; and so well drawn, too, that i was amazed, as you may imagine--" "and the expression of the face--?" pender hesitated a moment for words, casting about with his hands in the air and hunching his shoulders. a perceptible shudder ran over him. "what i can only describe as--_blackness_," he replied in a low tone; "the face of a dark and evil soul." "you destroyed that, too?" queried the doctor sharply. "no; i have kept the drawings," he said, with a laugh, and rose to get them from a drawer in the writing-desk behind him. "here is all that remains of the pictures, you see," he added, pushing a number of loose sheets under the doctor's eyes; "nothing but a few scrawly lines. that's all i found the next morning. i had really drawn no heads at all--nothing but those lines and blots and wriggles. the pictures were entirely subjective, and existed only in my mind which constructed them out of a few wild strokes of the pen. like the altered scale of space and time it was a complete delusion. these all passed, of course, with the passing of the drug's effects. but the other thing did not pass. i mean, the presence of that dark soul remained with me. it is here still. it is real. i don't know how i can escape from it." "it is attached to the house, not to you personally. you must leave the house." "yes. only i cannot afford to leave the house, for my work is my sole means of support, and--well, you see, since this change i cannot even write. they are horrible, these mirthless tales i now write, with their mockery of laughter, their diabolical suggestion. horrible? i shall go mad if this continues." he screwed his face up and looked about the room as though he expected to see some haunting shape. "this influence in this house induced by my experiment, has killed in a flash, in a sudden stroke, the sources of my humour, and though i still go on writing funny tales--i have a certain name you know--my inspiration has dried up, and much of what i write i have to burn--yes, doctor, to burn, before any one sees it." "as utterly alien to your own mind and personality?" "utterly! as though some one else had written it--" "ah!" "and shocking!" he passed his hand over his eyes a moment and let the breath escape softly through his teeth. "yet most damnably clever in the consummate way the vile suggestions are insinuated under cover of a kind of high drollery. my stenographer left me of course--and i've been afraid to take another--" john silence got up and began to walk about the room leisurely without speaking; he appeared to be examining the pictures on the wall and reading the names of the books lying about. presently he paused on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and turned to look his patient quietly in the eyes. pender's face was grey and drawn; the hunted expression dominated it; the long recital had told upon him. "thank you, mr. pender," he said, a curious glow showing about his fine, quiet face; "thank you for the sincerity and frankness of your account. but i think now there is nothing further i need ask you." he indulged in a long scrutiny of the author's haggard features drawing purposely the man's eyes to his own and then meeting them with a look of power and confidence calculated to inspire even the feeblest soul with courage. "and, to begin with," he added, smiling pleasantly, "let me assure you without delay that you need have no alarm, for you are no more insane or deluded than i myself am--" pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile. "--and this is simply a case, so far as i can judge at present, of a very singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if you perhaps understand what i mean--" "it's an odd expression; you used it before, you know," said the author wearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis, and deeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at once indicate the lunatic asylum. "possibly," returned the other, "and an odd affliction, too, you'll allow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to those moderns, perhaps, who recognise the freedom of action under certain pathogenic conditions between this world and another." "and you think," asked pender hastily, "that it is all primarily due to the _cannabis_? there is nothing radically amiss with myself--nothing incurable, or--?" "due entirely to the overdose," dr. silence replied emphatically, "to the drug's direct action upon your psychical being. it rendered you ultra-sensitive and made you respond to an increased rate of vibration. and, let me tell you, mr. pender, that your experiment might have had results far more dire. it has brought you into touch with a somewhat singular class of invisible, but of one, i think, chiefly human in character. you might, however, just as easily have been drawn out of human range altogether, and the results of such a contingency would have been exceedingly terrible. indeed, you would not now be here to tell the tale. i need not alarm you on that score, but mention it as a warning you will not misunderstand or underrate after what you have been through. "you look puzzled. you do not quite gather what i am driving at; and it is not to be expected that you should, for you, i suppose, are the nominal christian with the nominal christian's lofty standard of ethics, and his utter ignorance of spiritual possibilities. beyond a somewhat childish understanding of 'spiritual wickedness in high places,' you probably have no conception of what is possible once you break-down the slender gulf that is mercifully fixed between you and that outer world. but my studies and training have taken me far outside these orthodox trips, and i have made experiments that i could scarcely speak to you about in language that would be intelligible to you." he paused a moment to note the breathless interest of pender's face and manner. every word he uttered was calculated; he knew exactly the value and effect of the emotions he desired to waken in the heart of the afflicted being before him. "and from certain knowledge i have gained through various experiences," he continued calmly, "i can diagnose your case as i said before to be one of psychical invasion." "and the nature of this--er--invasion?" stammered the bewildered writer of humorous tales. "there is no reason why i should not say at once that i do not yet quite know," replied dr. silence. "i may first have to make one or two experiments--" "on me?" gasped pender, catching his breath. "not exactly," the doctor said, with a grave smile, "but with your assistance, perhaps. i shall want to test the conditions of the house--to ascertain, impossible, the character of the forces, of this strange personality that has been haunting you--" "at present you have no idea exactly who--what--why--" asked the other in a wild flurry of interest, dread and amazement. "i have a very good idea, but no proof rather," returned the doctor. "the effects of the drug in altering the scale of time and space, and merging the senses have nothing primarily to do with the invasion. they come to any one who is fool enough to take an experimental dose. it is the other features of your case that are unusual. you see, you are now in touch with certain violent emotions, desires, purposes, still active in this house, that were produced in the past by some powerful and evil personality that lived here. how long ago, or why they still persist so forcibly, i cannot positively say. but i should judge that they are merely forces acting automatically with the momentum of their terrific original impetus." "not directed by a living being, a conscious will, you mean?" "possibly not--but none the less dangerous on that account, and more difficult to deal with. i cannot explain to you in a few minutes the nature of such things, for you have not made the studies that would enable you to follow me; but i have reason to believe that on the dissolution at death of a human being, its forces may still persist and continue to act in a blind, unconscious fashion. as a rule they speedily dissipate themselves, but in the case of a very powerful personality they may last a long time. and, in some cases--of which i incline to think this is one--these forces may coalesce with certain non-human entities who thus continue their life indefinitely and increase their strength to an unbelievable degree. if the original personality was evil, the beings attracted to the left-over forces will also be evil. in this case, i think there has been an unusual and dreadful aggrandisement of the thoughts and purposes left behind long ago by a woman of consummate wickedness and great personal power of character and intellect. now, do you begin to see what i am driving at a little?" pender stared fixedly at his companion, plain horror showing in his eyes. but he found nothing to say, and the doctor continued-- "in your case, predisposed by the action of the drug, you have experienced the rush of these forces in undiluted strength. they wholly obliterate in you the sense of humour, fancy, imagination,--all that makes for cheerfulness and hope. they seek, though perhaps automatically only, to oust your own thoughts and establish themselves in their place. you are the victim of a psychical invasion. at the same time, you have become clairvoyant in the true sense. you are also a clairvoyant victim." pender mopped his face and sighed. he left his chair and went over to the fireplace to warm himself. "you must think me a quack to talk like this, or a madman," laughed dr. silence. "but never mind that. i have come to help you, and i can help you if you will do what i tell you. it is very simple: you must leave this house at once. oh, never mind the difficulties; we will deal with those together. i can place another house at your disposal, or i would take the lease here off your hands, and later have it pulled down. your case interests me greatly, and i mean to see you through, so that you have no anxiety, and can drop back into your old groove of work tomorrow! the drug has provided you, and therefore me, with a shortcut to a very interesting experience. i am grateful to you." the author poked the fire vigorously, emotion rising in him like a tide. he glanced towards the door nervously. "there is no need to alarm your wife or to tell her the details of our conversation," pursued the other quietly. "let her know that you will soon be in possession again of your sense of humour and your health, and explain that i am lending you another house for six months. meanwhile i may have the right to use this house for a night or two for my experiment. is that understood between us?" "i can only thank you from the bottom of my heart," stammered pender, unable to find words to express his gratitude. then he hesitated for a moment, searching the doctor's face anxiously. "and your experiment with the house?" he said at length. "of the simplest character, my dear mr. pender. although i am myself an artificially trained psychic, and consequently aware of the presence of discarnate entities as a rule, i have so far felt nothing here at all. this makes me sure that the forces acting here are of an unusual description. what i propose to do is to make an experiment with a view of drawing out this evil, coaxing it from its lair, so to speak, in order that it may _exhaust itself through me_ and become dissipated for ever. i have already been inoculated," he added; "i consider myself to be immune." "heavens above!" gasped the author, collapsing on to a chair. "hell beneath! might be a more appropriate exclamation," the doctor laughed. "but, seriously, mr. pender, this is what i propose to do--with your permission." "of course, of course," cried the other, "you have my permission and my best wishes for success. i can see no possible objection, but--" "but what?" "i pray to heaven you will not undertake this experiment alone, will you?" "oh, dear, no; not alone." "you will take a companion with good nerves, and reliable in case of disaster, won't you?" "i shall bring two companions," the doctor said. "ah, that's better. i feel easier. i am sure you must have among your acquaintances men who--" "i shall not think of bringing men, mr. pender." the other looked up sharply. "no, or women either; or children." "i don't understand. who will you bring, then?" "animals," explained the doctor, unable to prevent a smile at his companion's expression of surprise--"two animals, a cat and a dog." pender stared as if his eyes would drop out upon the floor, and then led the way without another word into the adjoining room where his wife was awaiting them for tea. ii a few days later the humorist and his wife, with minds greatly relieved, moved into a small furnished house placed at their free disposal in another part of london; and john silence, intent upon his approaching experiment, made ready to spend a night in the empty house on the top of putney hill. only two rooms were prepared for occupation: the study on the ground floor and the bedroom immediately above it; all other doors were to be locked, and no servant was to be left in the house. the motor had orders to call for him at nine o'clock the following morning. and, meanwhile, his secretary had instructions to look up the past history and associations of the place, and learn everything he could concerning the character of former occupants, recent or remote. the animals, by whose sensitiveness he intended to test any unusual conditions in the atmosphere of the building, dr. silence selected with care and judgment. he believed (and had already made curious experiments to prove it) that animals were more often, and more truly, clairvoyant than human beings. many of them, he felt convinced, possessed powers of perception far superior to that mere keenness of the senses common to all dwellers in the wilds where the senses grow specially alert; they had what he termed "animal clairvoyance," and from his experiments with horses, dogs, cats, and even birds, he had drawn certain deductions, which, however, need not be referred to in detail here. cats, in particular, he believed, were almost continuously conscious of a larger field of vision, too detailed even for a photographic camera, and quite beyond the reach of normal human organs. he had, further, observed that while dogs were usually terrified in the presence of such phenomena, cats on the other hand were soothed and satisfied. they welcomed manifestations as something belonging peculiarly to their own region. he selected his animals, therefore, with wisdom so that they might afford a differing test, each in its own way, and that one should not merely communicate its own excitement to the other. he took a dog and a cat. the cat he chose, now full grown, had lived with him since kittenhood, a kittenhood of perplexing sweetness and audacious mischief. wayward it was and fanciful, ever playing its own mysterious games in the corners of the room, jumping at invisible nothings, leaping sideways into the air and falling with tiny moccasined feet on to another part of the carpet, yet with an air of dignified earnestness which showed that the performance was necessary to its own well-being, and not done merely to impress a stupid human audience. in the middle of elaborate washing it would look up, startled, as though to stare at the approach of some invisible, cocking its little head sideways and putting out a velvet pad to inspect cautiously. then it would get absent-minded, and stare with equal intentness in another direction (just to confuse the onlookers), and suddenly go on furiously washing its body again, but in quite a new place. except for a white patch on its breast it was coal black. and its name was--smoke. "smoke" described its temperament as well as its appearance. its movements, its individuality, its posing as a little furry mass of concealed mysteries, its elfin-like elusiveness, all combined to justify its name; and a subtle painter might have pictured it as a wisp of floating smoke, the fire below betraying itself at two points only--the glowing eyes. all its forces ran to intelligence--secret intelligence, the wordless incalculable intuition of the cat. it was, indeed, _the_ cat for the business in hand. the selection of the dog was not so simple, for the doctor owned many; but after much deliberation he chose a collie, called flame from his yellow coat. true, it was a trifle old, and stiff in the joints, and even beginning to grow deaf, but, on the other hand, it was a very particular friend of smoke's, and had fathered it from kittenhood upwards so that a subtle understanding existed between them. it was this that turned the balance in its favour, this and its courage. moreover, though good-tempered, it was a terrible fighter, and its anger when provoked by a righteous cause was a fury of fire, and irresistible. it had come to him quite young, straight from the shepherd, with the air of the hills yet in its nostrils, and was then little more than skin and bones and teeth. for a collie it was sturdily built, its nose blunter than most, its yellow hair stiff rather than silky, and it had full eyes, unlike the slit eyes of its breed. only its master could touch it, for it ignored strangers, and despised their pattings--when any dared to pat it. there was something patriarchal about the old beast. he was in earnest, and went through life with tremendous energy and big things in view, as though he had the reputation of his whole race to uphold. and to watch him fighting against odds was to understand why he was terrible. in his relations with smoke he was always absurdly gentle; also he was fatherly; and at the same time betrayed a certain diffidence or shyness. he recognised that smoke called for strong yet respectful management. the cat's circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate pretences perhaps shocked the dog's liking for direct, undisguised action. yet, while he failed to comprehend these tortuous feline mysteries, he was never contemptuous or condescending; and he presided over the safety of his furry black friend somewhat as a father, loving, but intuitive, might superintend the vagaries of a wayward and talented child. and, in return, smoke rewarded him with exhibitions of fascinating and audacious mischief. and these brief descriptions of their characters are necessary for the proper understanding of what subsequently took place. with smoke sleeping in the folds of his fur coat, and the collie lying watchful on the seat opposite, john silence went down in his motor after dinner on the night of november th. and the fog was so dense that they were obliged to travel at quarter speed the entire way. * * * * * it was after ten o'clock when he dismissed the motor and entered the dingy little house with the latchkey provided by pender. he found the hall gas turned low, and a fire in the study. books and food had also been placed ready by the servant according to instructions. coils of fog rushed in after him through the open door and filled the hall and passage with its cold discomfort. the first thing dr. silence did was to lock up smoke in the study with a saucer of milk before the fire, and then make a search of the house with flame. the dog ran cheerfully behind him all the way while he tried the doors of the other rooms to make sure they were locked. he nosed about into corners and made little excursions on his own account. his manner was expectant. he knew there must be something unusual about the proceeding, because it was contrary to the habits of his whole life not to be asleep at this hour on the mat in front of the fire. he kept looking up into his master's face, as door after door was tried, with an expression of intelligent sympathy, but at the same time a certain air of disapproval. yet everything his master did was good in his eyes, and he betrayed as little impatience as possible with all this unnecessary journeying to and fro. if the doctor was pleased to play this sort of game at such an hour of the night, it was surely not for him to object. so he played it, too; and was very busy and earnest about it into the bargain. after an uneventful search they came down again to the study, and here dr. silence discovered smoke washing his face calmly in front of the fire. the saucer of milk was licked dry and clean; the preliminary examination that cats always make in new surroundings had evidently been satisfactorily concluded. he drew an arm-chair up to the fire, stirred the coals into a blaze, arranged the table and lamp to his satisfaction for reading, and then prepared surreptitiously to watch the animals. he wished to observe them carefully without their being aware of it. now, in spite of their respective ages, it was the regular custom of these two to play together every night before sleep. smoke always made the advances, beginning with grave impudence to pat the dog's tail, and flame played cumbrously, with condescension. it was his duty, rather than pleasure; he was glad when it was over, and sometimes he was very determined and refused to play at all. and this night was one of the occasions on which he was firm. the doctor, looking cautiously over the top of his book, watched the cat begin the performance. it started by gazing with an innocent expression at the dog where he lay with nose on paws and eyes wide open in the middle of the floor. then it got up and made as though it meant to walk to the door, going deliberately and very softly. flame's eyes followed it until it was beyond the range of sight, and then the cat turned sharply and began patting his tail tentatively with one paw. the tail moved slightly in reply, and smoke changed paws and tapped it again. the dog, however, did not rise to play as was his wont, and the cat fell to parting it briskly with both paws. flame still lay motionless. this puzzled and bored the cat, and it went round and stared hard into its friend's face to see what was the matter. perhaps some inarticulate message flashed from the dog's eyes into its own little brain, making it understand that the programme for the night had better not begin with play. perhaps it only realised that its friend was immovable. but, whatever the reason, its usual persistence thenceforward deserted it, and it made no further attempts at persuasion. smoke yielded at once to the dog's mood; it sat down where it was and began to wash. but the washing, the doctor noted, was by no means its real purpose; it only used it to mask something else; it stopped at the most busy and furious moments and began to stare about the room. its thoughts wandered absurdly. it peered intently at the curtains; at the shadowy corners; at empty space above; leaving its body in curiously awkward positions for whole minutes together. then it turned sharply and stared with a sudden signal of intelligence at the dog, and flame at once rose somewhat stiffly to his feet and began to wander aimlessly and restlessly to and fro about the floor. smoke followed him, padding quietly at his heels. between them they made what seemed to be a deliberate search of the room. and, here, as he watched them, noting carefully every detail of the performance over the top of his book, yet making no effort to interfere, it seemed to the doctor that the first beginnings of a faint distress betrayed themselves in the collie, and in the cat the stirrings of a vague excitement. he observed them closely. the fog was thick in the air, and the tobacco smoke from his pipe added to its density; the furniture at the far end stood mistily, and where the shadows congregated in hanging clouds under the ceiling, it was difficult to see clearly at all; the lamplight only reached to a level of five feet from the floor, above which came layers of comparative darkness, so that the room appeared twice as lofty as it actually was. by means of the lamp and the fire, however, the carpet was everywhere clearly visible. the animals made their silent tour of the floor, sometimes the dog leading, sometimes the cat; occasionally they looked at one another as though exchanging signals; and once or twice, in spite of the limited space, he lost sight of one or other among the fog and the shadows. their curiosity, it appeared to him, was something more than the excitement lurking in the unknown territory of a strange room; yet, so far, it was impossible to test this, and he purposely kept his mind quietly receptive lest the smallest mental excitement on his part should communicate itself to the animals and thus destroy the value of their independent behaviour. they made a very thorough journey, leaving no piece of furniture unexamined, or unsmelt. flame led the way, walking slowly with lowered head, and smoke followed demurely at his heels, making a transparent pretence of not being interested, yet missing nothing. and, at length, they returned, the old collie first, and came to rest on the mat before the fire. flame rested his muzzle on his master's knee, smiling beatifically while he patted the yellow head and spoke his name; and smoke, coming a little later, pretending he came by chance, looked from the empty saucer to his face, lapped up the milk when it was given him to the last drop, and then sprang upon his knees and curled round for the sleep it had fully earned and intended to enjoy. silence descended upon the room. only the breathing of the dog upon the mat came through the deep stillness, like the pulse of time marking the minutes; and the steady drip, drip of the fog outside upon the window-ledges dismally testified to the inclemency of the night beyond. and the soft crashings of the coals as the fire settled down into the grate became less and less audible as the fire sank and the flames resigned their fierceness. it was now well after eleven o'clock, and dr. silence devoted himself again to his book. he read the words on the printed page and took in their meaning superficially, yet without starting into life the correlations of thought and suggestions that should accompany interesting reading. underneath, all the while, his mental energies were absorbed in watching, listening, waiting for what might come. he was not over-sanguine himself, yet he did not wish to be taken by surprise. moreover, the animals, his sensitive barometers, had incontinently gone to sleep. after reading a dozen pages, however, he realised that his mind was really occupied in reviewing the features of pender's extraordinary story, and that it was no longer necessary to steady his imagination by studying the dull paragraphs detailed in the pages before him. he laid down his book accordingly, and allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the features of the case. speculations as to the meaning, however, he rigorously suppressed, knowing that such thoughts would act upon his imagination like wind upon the glowing embers of a fire. as the night wore on the silence grew deeper and deeper, and only at rare intervals he heard the sound of wheels on the main road a hundred yards away, where the horses went at a walking pace owing to the density of the fog. the echo of pedestrian footsteps no longer reached him, the clamour of occasional voices no longer came down the side street. the night, muffled by fog, shrouded by veils of ultimate mystery, hung about the haunted villa like a doom. nothing in the house stirred. stillness, in a thick blanket, lay over the upper storeys. only the mist in the room grew more dense, he thought, and the damp cold more penetrating. certainly, from time to time, he shivered. the collie, now deep in slumber, moved occasionally,--grunted, sighed, or twitched his legs in dreams. smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm, black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of his sleek sides. it was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head and body joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin nose and a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed the secret. dr. silence watched him, and felt comfortable. the collie's breathing was soothing. the fire was well built, and would burn for another two hours without attention. he was not conscious of the least nervousness. he particularly wished to remain in his ordinary and normal state of mind, and to force nothing. if sleep came naturally, he would let it come--and even welcome it. the coldness of the room, when the fire died down later, would be sure to wake him again; and it would then be time enough to carry these sleeping barometers up to bed. from various psychic premonitions he knew quite well that the night would not pass without adventure; but he did not wish to force its arrival; and he wished to remain normal, and let the animals remain normal, so that, when it came, it would be unattended by excitement or by any straining of the attention. many experiments had made him wise. and, for the rest, he had no fear. accordingly, after a time, he did fall asleep as he had expected, and the last thing he remembered, before oblivion slipped up over his eyes like soft wool, was the picture of flame stretching all four legs at once, and sighing noisily as he sought a more comfortable position for his paws and muzzle upon the mat. * * * * * it was a good deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon his chest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. a soft touch on the cheek woke him. something was patting him. he sat up with a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair of brilliant eyes, half green, half black. smoke's face lay level with his own; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon his chest. the lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet dr. silence saw in a moment that the cat was in an excited state. it kneaded with its front paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. he felt them prodding against him. it lifted a leg very carefully and patted his cheek gingerly. its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its back; the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching sharply. the cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the instant he realised this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and sprang up with a quick turn to face the empty room behind him. by some curious instinct, his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude of defence in front of him, as though to ward off something that threatened his safety. yet nothing was visible. only shapes of fog hung about rather heavily in the air, moving slightly to and fro. his mind was now fully alert, and the last vestiges of sleep gone. he turned the lamp higher and peered about him. two things he became aware of at once: one, that smoke, while excited, was _pleasurably_ excited; the other, that the collie was no longer visible upon the mat at his feet. he had crept away to the corner of the wall farthest from the window, and lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurked plainly something of alarm. something in the dog's behaviour instantly struck dr. silence as unusual, and, calling him by name, he moved across to pat him. flame got up, wagged his tail, and came over slowly to the rug, uttering a low sound that was half growl, half whine. he was evidently perturbed about something, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort when his attention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other four-footed companion, the cat. and what he saw filled him with something like amazement. smoke had jumped down from the back of the arm-chair and now occupied the middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff as ramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrow space, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds of pleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to make expressive of supreme happiness. its stiffened legs and arched back made it appear larger than usual, and the black visage wore a smile of beatific joy. its eyes blazed magnificently; it was in an ecstasy. at the end of every few paces it turned sharply and stalked back again along the same line, padding softly, and purring like a roll of little muffled drums. it behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against the ankles of some one who remained invisible. a thrill ran down the doctor's spine as he stood and stared. his experiment was growing interesting at last. he called the collie's attention to his friend's performance to see whether he too was aware of anything standing there upon the carpet, and the dog's behaviour was significant and corroborative. he came as far as his master's knees and then stopped dead, refusing to investigate closely. in vain dr. silence urged him; he wagged his tail, whined a little, and stood in a half-crouching attitude, staring alternately at the cat and at his master's face. he was, apparently, both puzzled and alarmed, and the whine went deeper and deeper down into his throat till it changed into an ugly snarl of awakening anger. then the doctor called to him in a tone of command he had never known to be disregarded; but still the dog, though springing up in response, declined to move nearer. he made tentative motions, pranced a little like a dog about to take to water, pretended to bark, and ran to and fro on the carpet. so far there was no actual fear in his manner, but he was uneasy and anxious, and nothing would induce him to go within touching distance of the walking cat. once he made a complete circuit, but always carefully out of reach; and in the end he returned to his master's legs and rubbed vigorously against him. flame did not like the performance at all: that much was quite clear. for several minutes john silence watched the performance of the cat with profound attention and without interfering. then he called to the animal by name. "smoke, you mysterious beastie, what in the world are you about?" he said, in a coaxing tone. the cat looked up at him for a moment, smiling in its ecstasy, blinking its eyes, but too happy to pause. he spoke to it again. he called to it several times, and each time it turned upon him its blazing eyes, drunk with inner delight, opening and shutting its lips, its body large and rigid with excitement. yet it never for one instant paused in its short journeys to and fro. he noted exactly what it did: it walked, he saw, the same number of paces each time, some six or seven steps, and then it turned sharply and retraced them. by the pattern of the great roses in the carpet he measured it. it kept to the same direction and the same line. it behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against something solid. undoubtedly, there was something standing there on that strip of carpet, something invisible to the doctor, something that alarmed the dog, yet caused the cat unspeakable pleasure. "smokie!" he called again, "smokie, you black mystery, what is it excites you so?" again the cat looked up at him for a brief second, and then continued its sentry-walk, blissfully happy, intensely preoccupied. and, for an instant, as he watched it, the doctor was aware that a faint uneasiness stirred in the depths of his own being, focusing itself for the moment upon this curious behaviour of the uncanny creature before him. there rose in him quite a new realisation of the mystery connected with the whole feline tribe, but especially with that common member of it, the domestic cat--their hidden lives, their strange aloofness, their incalculable subtlety. how utterly remote from anything that human beings understood lay the sources of their elusive activities. as he watched the indescribable bearing of the little creature mincing along the strip of carpet under his eyes, coquetting with the powers of darkness, welcoming, maybe, some fearsome visitor, there stirred in his heart a feeling strangely akin to awe. its indifference to human kind, its serene superiority to the obvious, struck him forcibly with fresh meaning; so remote, so inaccessible seemed the secret purposes of its real life, so alien to the blundering honesty of other animals. its absolute poise of bearing brought into his mind the opium-eater's words that "no dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with the mysterious"; and he became suddenly aware that the presence of the dog in this foggy, haunted room on the top of putney hill was uncommonly welcome to him. he was glad to feel that flame's dependable personality was with him. the savage growling at his heels was a pleasant sound. he was glad to hear it. that marching cat made him uneasy. finding that smoke paid no further attention to his words, the doctor decided upon action. would it rub against his leg, too? he would take it by surprise and see. he stepped quickly forward and placed himself upon the exact strip of carpet where it walked. but no cat is ever taken by surprise! the moment he occupied the space of the intruder, setting his feet on the woven roses midway in the line of travel, smoke suddenly stopped purring and sat down. if lifted up its face with the most innocent stare imaginable of its green eyes. he could have sworn it laughed. it was a perfect child again. in a single second it had resumed its simple, domestic manner; and it gazed at him in such a way that he almost felt smoke was the normal being, and _his_ was the eccentric behaviour that was being watched. it was consummate, the manner in which it brought about this change so easily and so quickly. "superb little actor!" he laughed in spite of himself, and stooped to stroke the shining black back. but, in a flash, as he touched its fur, the cat turned and spat at him viciously, striking at his hand with one paw. then, with a hurried scutter of feet, it shot like a shadow across the floor and a moment later was calmly sitting over by the window-curtains washing its face as though nothing interested it in the whole world but the cleanness of its cheeks and whiskers. john silence straightened himself up and drew a long breath. he realised that the performance was temporarily at an end. the collie, meanwhile, who had watched the whole proceeding with marked disapproval, had now lain down again upon the mat by the fire, no longer growling. it seemed to the doctor just as though something that had entered the room while he slept, alarming the dog, yet bringing happiness to the cat, had now gone out again, leaving all as it was before. whatever it was that excited its blissful attentions had retreated for the moment. he realised this intuitively. smoke evidently realised it, too, for presently he deigned to march back to the fireplace and jump upon his master's knees. dr. silence, patient and determined, settled down once more to his book. the animals soon slept; the fire blazed cheerfully; and the cold fog from outside poured into the room through every available chink and crannie. for a long time silence and peace reigned in the room and dr. silence availed himself of the quietness to make careful notes of what had happened. he entered for future use in other cases an exhaustive analysis of what he had observed, especially with regard to the effect upon the two animals. it is impossible here, nor would it be intelligible to the reader unversed in the knowledge of the region known to a scientifically trained psychic like dr. silence, to detail these observations. but to him it was clear, up to a certain point--for the rest he must still wait and watch. so far, at least, he realised that while he slept in the chair--that is, while his will was dormant--the room had suffered intrusion from what he recognised as an intensely active force, and might later be forced to acknowledge as something more than merely a blind force, namely, a distinct personality. so far it had affected himself scarcely at all, but had acted directly upon the simpler organisms of the animals. it stimulated keenly the centres of the cat's psychic being, inducing a state of instant happiness (intensifying its consciousness probably in the same way a drug or stimulant intensifies that of a human being); whereas it alarmed the less sensitive dog, causing it to feel a vague apprehension and distress. his own sudden action and exhibition of energy had served to disperse it temporarily, yet he felt convinced--the indications were not lacking even while he sat there making notes--that it still remained near to him, conditionally if not spatially, and was, as it were, gathering force for a second attack. and, further, he intuitively understood that the relations between the two animals had undergone a subtle change: that the cat had become immeasurably superior, confident, sure of itself in its own peculiar region, whereas flame had been weakened by an attack he could not comprehend and knew not how to reply to. though not yet afraid, he was defiant--ready to act against a fear that he felt to be approaching. he was no longer fatherly and protective towards the cat. smoke held the key to the situation; and both he and the cat knew it. thus, as the minutes passed, john silence sat and waited, keenly on the alert, wondering how soon the attack would be renewed, and at what point it would be diverted from the animals and directed upon himself. the book lay on the floor beside him, his notes were complete. with one hand on the cat's fur, and the dog's front paws resting against his feet, the three of them dozed comfortably before the hot fire while the night wore on and the silence deepened towards midnight. it was well after one o'clock in the morning when dr. silence turned the lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. then smoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. it neither stretched, washed nor turned: it listened. and the doctor, watching it, realised that a certain indefinable change had come about that very moment in the room. a swift readjustment of the forces within the four walls had taken place--a new disposition of their personal equations. the balance was destroyed, the former harmony gone. smoke, most sensitive of barometers, had been the first to feel it, but the dog was not slow to follow suit, for on looking down he noted that flame was no longer asleep. he was lying with eyes wide open, and that same instant he sat up on his great haunches and began to growl. dr. silence was in the act of taking the matches to re-light the lamp when an audible movement in the room behind him made him pause. smoke leaped down from his knee and moved forward a few paces across the carpet. then it stopped and stared fixedly; and the doctor stood up on the rug to watch. as he rose the sound was repeated, and he discovered that it was not in the room as he first thought, but outside, and that it came from more directions than one. there was a rushing, sweeping noise against the window-panes, and simultaneously a sound of something brushing against the door--out in the hall. smoke advanced sedately across the carpet, twitching his tail, and sat down within a foot of the door. the influence that had destroyed the harmonious conditions of the room had apparently moved in advance of its cause. clearly, something was about to happen. for the first time that night john silence hesitated; the thought of that dark narrow hall-way, choked with fog, and destitute of human comfort, was unpleasant. he became aware of a faint creeping of his flesh. he knew, of course, that the actual opening of the door was not necessary to the invasion of the room that was about to take place, since neither doors nor windows, nor any other solid barriers could interpose an obstacle to what was seeking entrance. yet the opening of the door would be significant and symbolic, and he distinctly shrank from it. but for a moment only. smoke, turning with a show of impatience, recalled him to his purpose, and he moved past the sitting, watching creature, and deliberately opened the door to its full width. what subsequently happened, happened in the feeble and flickering light of the solitary candle on the mantlepiece. through the opened door he saw the hall, dimly lit and thick with fog. nothing, of course, was visible--nothing but the hat-stand, the african spears in dark lines upon the wall and the high-backed wooden chair standing grotesquely underneath on the oilcloth floor. for one instant the fog seemed to move and thicken oddly; but he set that down to the score of the imagination. the door had opened upon nothing. yet smoke apparently thought otherwise, and the deep growling of the collie from the mat at the back of the room seemed to confirm his judgment. for, proud and self-possessed, the cat had again risen to his feet, and having advanced to the door, was now ushering some one slowly into the room. nothing could have been more evident. he paced from side to side, bowing his little head with great _empressement_ and holding his stiffened tail aloft like a flag-staff. he turned this way and that, mincing to and fro, and showing signs of supreme satisfaction. he was in his element. he welcomed the intrusion, and apparently reckoned that his companions, the doctor and the dog, would welcome it likewise. the intruder had returned for a second attack. dr. silence moved slowly backwards and took up his position on the hearthrug, keying himself up to a condition of concentrated attention. he noted that flame stood beside him, facing the room, with body motionless, and head moving swiftly from side to side with a curious swaying movement. his eyes were wide open, his back rigid, his neck and jaws thrust forward, his legs tense and ready to leap. savage, ready for attack or defence, yet dreadfully puzzled and perhaps already a little cowed, he stood and stared, the hair on his spine and sides positively bristling outwards as though a wind played through it. in the dim firelight he looked like a great yellow-haired wolf, silent, eyes shooting dark fire, exceedingly formidable. it was flame, the terrible. smoke, meanwhile, advanced from the door towards the middle of the room, adopting the very slow pace of an invisible companion. a few feet away it stopped and began to smile and blink its eyes. there was something deliberately coaxing in its attitude as it stood there undecided on the carpet, clearly wishing to effect some sort of introduction between the intruder and its canine friend and ally. it assumed its most winning manners, purring, smiling, looking persuasively from one to the other, and making quick tentative steps first in one direction and then in the other. there had always existed such perfect understanding between them in everything. surely flame would appreciate smoke's intention now, and acquiesce. but the old collie made no advances. he bared his teeth, lifting his lips till the gums showed, and stood stockstill with fixed eyes and heaving sides. the doctor moved a little farther back, watching intently the smallest movement, and it was just then he divined suddenly from the cat's behaviour and attitude that it was not only a single companion it had ushered into the room, but _several_. it kept crossing over from one to the other, looking up at each in turn. it sought to win over the dog to friendliness with them all. the original intruder had come back with reinforcements. and at the same time he further realised that the intruder was something more than a blindly acting force, impersonal though destructive. it was a personality, and moreover a great personality. and it was accompanied for the purposes of assistance by a host of other personalities, minor in degree, but similar in kind. he braced himself in the corner against the mantelpiece and waited, his whole being roused to defence, for he was now fully aware that the attack had spread to include himself as well as the animals, and he must be on the alert. he strained his eyes through the foggy atmosphere, trying in vain to see what the cat and dog saw; but the candlelight threw an uncertain and flickering light across the room and his eyes discerned nothing. on the floor smoke moved softly in front of him like a black shadow, his eyes gleaming as he turned his head, still trying with many insinuating gestures and much purring to bring about the introductions he desired. but it was all in vain. flame stood riveted to one spot, motionless as a figure carved in stone. some minutes passed, during which only the cat moved, and then there came a sharp change. flame began to back towards the wall. he moved his head from side to side as he went, sometimes turning to snap at something almost behind him. they were advancing upon him, trying to surround him. his distress became very marked from now onwards, and it seemed to the doctor that his anger merged into genuine terror and became overwhelmed by it. the savage growl sounded perilously like a whine, and more than once he tried to dive past his master's legs, as though hunting for a way of escape. he was trying to avoid something that everywhere blocked the way. this terror of the indomitable fighter impressed the doctor enormously; yet also painfully; stirring his impatience; for he had never before seen the dog show signs of giving in, and it distressed him to witness it. he knew, however, that he was not giving in easily, and understood that it was really impossible for him to gauge the animal's sensations properly at all. what flame felt, and saw, must be terrible indeed to turn him all at once into a coward. he faced something that made him afraid of more than his life merely. the doctor spoke a few quick words of encouragement to him, and stroked the bristling hair. but without much success. the collie seemed already beyond the reach of comfort such as that, and the collapse of the old dog followed indeed very speedily after this. and smoke, meanwhile, remained behind, watching the advance, but not joining in it; sitting, pleased and expectant, considering that all was going well and as it wished. it was kneading on the carpet with its front paws--slowly, laboriously, as though its feet were dipped in treacle. the sound its claws made as they caught in the threads was distinctly audible. it was still smiling, blinking, purring. suddenly the collie uttered a poignant short bark and leaped heavily to one side. his bared teeth traced a line of whiteness through the gloom. the next instant he dashed past his master's legs, almost upsetting his balance, and shot out into the room, where he went blundering wildly against walls and furniture. but that bark was significant; the doctor had heard it before and knew what it meant: for it was the cry of the fighter against odds and it meant that the old beast had found his courage again. possibly it was only the courage of despair, but at any rate the fighting would be terrific. and dr. silence understood, too, that he dared not interfere. flame must fight his own enemies in his own way. but the cat, too, had heard that dreadful bark; and it, too, had understood. this was more than it had bargained for. across the dim shadows of that haunted room there must have passed some secret signal of distress between the animals. smoke stood up and looked swiftly about him. he uttered a piteous meow and trotted smartly away into the greater darkness by the windows. what his object was only those endowed with the spirit-like intelligence of cats might know. but, at any rate, he had at last ranged himself on the side of his friend. and the little beast meant business. at the same moment the collie managed to gain the door. the doctor saw him rush through into the hall like a flash of yellow light. he shot across the oilcloth, and tore up the stairs, but in another second he appeared again, flying down the steps and landing at the bottom in a tumbling heap, whining, cringing, terrified. the doctor saw him slink back into the room again and crawl round by the wall towards the cat. was, then, even the staircase occupied? did _they_ stand also in the hall? was the whole house crowded from floor to ceiling? the thought came to add to the keen distress he felt at the sight of the collie's discomfiture. and, indeed, his own personal distress had increased in a marked degree during the past minutes, and continued to increase steadily to the climax. he recognised that the drain on his own vitality grew steadily, and that the attack was now directed against himself even more than against the defeated dog, and the too much deceived cat. it all seemed so rapid and uncalculated after that--the events that took place in this little modern room at the top of putney hill between midnight and sunrise--that dr. silence was hardly able to follow and remember it all. it came about with such uncanny swiftness and terror; the light was so uncertain; the movements of the black cat so difficult to follow on the dark carpet, and the doctor himself so weary and taken by surprise--that he found it almost impossible to observe accurately, or to recall afterwards precisely what it was he had seen or in what order the incidents had taken place. he never could understand what defect of vision on his part made it seem as though the cat had duplicated itself at first, and then increased indefinitely, so that there were at least a dozen of them darting silently about the floor, leaping softly on to chairs and tables, passing like shadows from the open door to the end of the room, all black as sin, with brilliant green eyes flashing fire in all directions. it was like the reflections from a score of mirrors placed round the walls at different angles. nor could he make out at the time why the size of the room seemed to have altered, grown much larger, and why it extended away behind him where ordinarily the wall should have been. the snarling of the enraged and terrified collie sounded sometimes so far away; the ceiling seemed to have raised itself so much higher than before, and much of the furniture had changed in appearance and shifted marvellously. it was all so confused and confusing, as though the little room he knew had become merged and transformed into the dimensions of quite another chamber, that came to him, with its host of cats and its strange distances, in a sort of vision. but these changes came about a little later, and at a time when his attention was so concentrated upon the proceedings of smoke and the collie, that he only observed them, as it were, subconsciously. and the excitement, the flickering candlelight, the distress he felt for the collie, and the distorting atmosphere of fog were the poorest possible allies to careful observation. at first he was only aware that the dog was repeating his short dangerous bark from time to time, snapping viciously at the empty air, a foot or so from the ground. once, indeed, he sprang upwards and forwards, working furiously with teeth and paws, and with a noise like wolves fighting, but only to dash back the next minute against the wall behind him. then, after lying still for a bit, he rose to a crouching position as though to spring again, snarling horribly and making short half-circles with lowered head. and smoke all the while meowed piteously by the window as though trying to draw the attack upon himself. then it was that the rush of the whole dreadful business seemed to turn aside from the dog and direct itself upon his own person. the collie had made another spring and fallen back with a crash into the corner, where he made noise enough in his savage rage to waken the dead before he fell to whining and then finally lay still. and directly afterwards the doctor's own distress became intolerably acute. he had made a half movement forward to come to the rescue when a veil that was denser than mere fog seemed to drop down over the scene, draping room, walls, animals and fire in a mist of darkness and folding also about his own mind. other forms moved silently across the field of vision, forms that he recognised from previous experiments, and welcomed not. unholy thoughts began to crowd into his brain, sinister suggestions of evil presented themselves seductively. ice seemed to settle about his heart, and his mind trembled. he began to lose memory--memory of his identity, of where he was, of what he ought to do. the very foundations of his strength were shaken. his will seemed paralysed. and it was then that the room filled with this horde of cats, all dark as the night, all silent, all with lamping eyes of green fire. the dimensions of the place altered and shifted. he was in a much larger space. the whining of the dog sounded far away, and all about him the cats flew busily to and fro, silently playing their tearing, rushing game of evil, weaving the pattern of their dark purpose upon the floor. he strove hard to collect himself and remember the words of power he had made use of before in similar dread positions where his dangerous practice had sometimes led; but he could recall nothing consecutively; a mist lay over his mind and memory; he felt dazed and his forces scattered. the deeps within were too troubled for healing power to come out of them. it was glamour, of course, he realised afterwards, the strong glamour thrown upon his imagination by some powerful personality behind the veil; but at the time he was not sufficiently aware of this and, as with all true glamour, was unable to grasp where the true ended and the false began. he was caught momentarily in the same vortex that had sought to lure the cat to destruction through its delight, and threatened utterly to overwhelm the dog through its terror. there came a sound in the chimney behind him like wind booming and tearing its way down. the windows rattled. the candle flickered and went out. the glacial atmosphere closed round him with the cold of death, and a great rushing sound swept by overhead as though the ceiling had lifted to a great height. he heard the door shut. far away it sounded. he felt lost, shelterless in the depths of his soul. yet still he held out and resisted while the climax of the fight came nearer and nearer.... he had stepped into the stream of forces awakened by pender and he knew that he must withstand them to the end or come to a conclusion that it was not good for a man to come to. something from the region of utter cold was upon him. and then quite suddenly, through the confused mists about him, there slowly rose up the personality that had been all the time directing the battle. some force entered his being that shook him as the tempest shakes a leaf, and close against his eyes--clean level with his face--he found himself staring into the wreck of a vast dark countenance, a countenance that was terrible even in its ruin. for ruined it was, and terrible it was, and the mark of spiritual evil was branded everywhere upon its broken features. eyes, face and hair rose level with his own, and for a space of time he never could properly measure, or determine, these two, a man and a woman, looked straight into each other's visages and down into each other's hearts. and john silence, the soul with the good, unselfish motive, held his own against the dark discarnate woman whose motive was pure evil, and whose soul was on the side of the dark powers. it was the climax that touched the depth of power within him and began to restore him slowly to his own. he was conscious, of course, of effort, and yet it seemed no superhuman one, for he had recognised the character of his opponent's power, and he called upon the good within him to meet and overcome it. the inner forces stirred and trembled in response to his call. they did not at first come readily as was their habit, for under the spell of glamour they had already been diabolically lulled into inactivity, but come they eventually did, rising out of the inner spiritual nature he had learned with so much time and pain to awaken to life. and power and confidence came with them. he began to breathe deeply and regularly, and at the same time to absorb into himself the forces opposed to him, and to _turn them to his own account_. by ceasing to resist, and allowing the deadly stream to pour into him unopposed, he used the very power supplied by his adversary and thus enormously increased his own. for this spiritual alchemy he had learned. he understood that force ultimately is everywhere one and the same; it is the motive behind that makes it good or evil; and his motive was entirely unselfish. he knew--provided he was not first robbed of self-control--how vicariously to absorb these evil radiations into himself and change them magically into his own good purposes. and, since his motive was pure and his soul fearless, they could not work him harm. thus he stood in the main stream of evil unwittingly attracted by pender, deflecting its course upon himself; and after passing through the purifying filter of his own unselfishness these energies could only add to his store of experience, of knowledge, and therefore of power. and, as his self-control returned to him, he gradually accomplished this purpose, even though trembling while he did so. yet the struggle was severe, and in spite of the freezing chill of the air, the perspiration poured down his face. then, by slow degrees, the dark and dreadful countenance faded, the glamour passed from his soul, the normal proportions returned to walls and ceiling, the forms melted back into the fog, and the whirl of rushing shadow-cats disappeared whence they came. and with the return of the consciousness of his own identity john silence was restored to the full control of his own will-power. in a deep, modulated voice he began to utter certain rhythmical sounds that slowly rolled through the air like a rising sea, filling the room with powerful vibratory activities that whelmed all irregularities of lesser vibrations in its own swelling tone. he made certain sigils, gestures and movements at the same time. for several minutes he continued to utter these words, until at length the growing volume dominated the whole room and mastered the manifestation of all that opposed it. for just as he understood the spiritual alchemy that can transmute evil forces by raising them into higher channels, so he knew from long study the occult use of sound, and its direct effect upon the plastic region wherein the powers of spiritual evil work their fell purposes. harmony was restored first of all to his own soul, and thence to the room and all its occupants. and, after himself, the first to recognise it was the old dog lying in his corner. flame began suddenly uttering sounds of pleasure, that "something" between a growl and a grunt that dogs make upon being restored to their master's confidence. dr. silence heard the thumping of the collie's tail against the floor. and the grunt and the thumping touched the depth of affection in the man's heart, and gave him some inkling of what agonies the dumb creature had suffered. next, from the shadows by the window, a somewhat shrill purring announced the restoration of the cat to its normal state. smoke was advancing across the carpet. he seemed very pleased with himself, and smiled with an expression of supreme innocence. he was no shadow-cat, but real and full of his usual and perfect self-possession. he marched along, picking his way delicately, but with a stately dignity that suggested his ancestry with the majesty of egypt. his eyes no longer glared; they shone steadily before him, they radiated, not excitement, but knowledge. clearly he was anxious to make amends for the mischief to which he had unwittingly lent himself owing to his subtle and electric constitution. still uttering his sharp high purrings he marched up to his master and rubbed vigorously against his legs. then he stood on his hind feet and pawed his knees and stared beseechingly up into his face. he turned his head towards the corner where the collie still lay, thumping his tail feebly and pathetically. john silence understood. he bent down and stroked the creature's living fur, noting the line of bright blue sparks that followed the motion of his hand down its back. and then they advanced together towards the corner where the dog was. smoke went first and put his nose gently against his friend's muzzle, purring while he rubbed, and uttering little soft sounds of affection in his throat. the doctor lit the candle and brought it over. he saw the collie lying on its side against the wall; it was utterly exhausted, and foam still hung about its jaws. its tail and eyes responded to the sound of its name, but it was evidently very weak and overcome. smoke continued to rub against its cheek and nose and eyes, sometimes even standing on its body and kneading into the thick yellow hair. flame replied from time to time by little licks of the tongue, most of them curiously misdirected. but dr. silence felt intuitively that something disastrous had happened, and his heart was wrung. he stroked the dear body, feeling it over for bruises or broken bones, but finding none. he fed it with what remained of the sandwiches and milk, but the creature clumsily upset the saucer and lost the sandwiches between its paws, so that the doctor had to feed it with his own hand. and all the while smoke meowed piteously. then john silence began to understand. he went across to the farther side of the room and called aloud to it. "flame, old man! come!" at any other time the dog would have been upon him in an instant, barking and leaping to the shoulder. and even now he got up, though heavily and awkwardly, to his feet. he started to run, wagging his tail more briskly. he collided first with a chair, and then ran straight into a table. smoke trotted close at his side, trying his very best to guide him. but it was useless. dr. silence had to lift him up into his own arms and carry him like a baby. for he was blind. iii it was a week later when john silence called to see the author in his new house, and found him well on the way to recovery and already busy again with his writing. the haunted look had left his eyes, and he seemed cheerful and confident. "humour restored?" laughed the doctor, as soon as they were comfortably settled in the room overlooking the park. "i've had no trouble since i left that dreadful place," returned pender gratefully; "and thanks to you--" the doctor stopped him with a gesture. "never mind that," he said, "we'll discuss your new plans afterwards, and my scheme for relieving you of the house and helping you settle elsewhere. of course it must be pulled down, for it's not fit for any sensitive person to live in, and any other tenant might be afflicted in the same way you were. although, personally, i think the evil has exhausted itself by now." he told the astonished author something of his experiences in it with the animals. "i don't pretend to understand," pender said, when the account was finished, "but i and my wife are intensely relieved to be free of it all. only i must say i should like to know something of the former history of the house. when we took it six months ago i heard no word against it." dr. silence drew a typewritten paper from his pocket. "i can satisfy your curiosity to some extent," he said, running his eye over the sheets, and then replacing them in his coat; "for by my secretary's investigations i have been able to check certain information obtained in the hypnotic trance by a 'sensitive' who helps me in such cases. the former occupant who haunted you appears to have been a woman of singularly atrocious life and character who finally suffered death by hanging, after a series of crimes that appalled the whole of england and only came to light by the merest chance. she came to her end in the year , for it was not this particular house she lived in, but a much larger one that then stood upon the site it now occupies, and was then, of course, not in london, but in the country. she was a person of intellect, possessed of a powerful, trained will, and of consummate audacity, and i am convinced availed herself of the resources of the lower magic to attain her ends. this goes far to explain the virulence of the attack upon yourself, and why she is still able to carry on after death the evil practices that formed her main purpose during life." "you think that after death a soul can still consciously direct--" gasped the author. "i think, as i told you before, that the forces of a powerful personality may still persist after death in the line of their original momentum," replied the doctor; "and that strong thoughts and purposes can still react upon suitably prepared brains long after their originators have passed away. "if you knew anything of magic," he pursued, "you would know that thought is dynamic, and that it may call into existence forms and pictures that may well exist for hundreds of years. for, not far removed from the region of our human life is another region where float the waste and drift of all the centuries, the limbo of the shells of the dead; a densely populated region crammed with horror and abomination of all descriptions, and sometimes galvanised into active life again by the will of a trained manipulator, a mind versed in the practices of lower magic. that this woman understood its vile commerce, i am persuaded, and the forces she set going during her life have simply been accumulating ever since, and would have continued to do so had they not been drawn down upon yourself, and afterwards discharged and satisfied through me. "anything might have brought down the attack, for, besides drugs, there are certain violent emotions, certain moods of the soul, certain spiritual fevers, if i may so call them, which directly open the inner being to a cognisance of this astral region i have mentioned. in your case it happened to be a peculiarly potent drug that did it. "but now, tell me," he added, after a pause, handing to the perplexed author a pencil drawing he had made of the dark countenance that had appeared to him during the night on putney hill--"tell me if you recognise this face?" pender looked at the drawing closely, greatly astonished. he shuddered a little as he looked. "undoubtedly," he said, "it is the face i kept trying to draw--dark, with the great mouth and jaw, and the drooping eye. that is the woman." dr. silence then produced from his pocket-book an old-fashioned woodcut of the same person which his secretary had unearthed from the records of the newgate calendar. the woodcut and the pencil drawing were two different aspects of the same dreadful visage. the men compared them for some moments in silence. "it makes me thank god for the limitations of our senses," said pender quietly, with a sigh; "continuous clairvoyance must be a sore affliction." "it is indeed," returned john silence significantly, "and if all the people nowadays who claim to be clairvoyant were really so, the statistics of suicide and lunacy would be considerably higher than they are. it is little wonder," he added, "that your sense of humour was clouded, with the mind-forces of that dead monster trying to use your brain for their dissemination. you have had an interesting adventure, mr. felix pender, and, let me add, a fortunate escape." the author was about to renew his thanks when there came a sound of scratching at the door, and the doctor sprang up quickly. "it's time for me to go. i left my dog on the step, but i suppose--" before he had time to open the door, it had yielded to the pressure behind it and flew wide open to admit a great yellow-haired collie. the dog, wagging his tail and contorting his whole body with delight, tore across the floor and tried to leap up upon his owner's breast. and there was laughter and happiness in the old eyes; for they were clear again as the day. case ii: ancient sorceries i there are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons, with none of the characteristics that invite adventure, who yet once or twice in the course of their smooth lives undergo an experience so strange that the world catches its breath--and looks the other way! and it was cases of this kind, perhaps, more than any other, that fell into the wide-spread net of john silence, the psychic doctor, and, appealing to his deep humanity, to his patience, and to his great qualities of spiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of the strangest complexity, and of the profoundest possible human interest. matters that seemed almost too curious and fantastic for belief he loved to trace to their hidden sources. to unravel a tangle in the very soul of things--and to release a suffering human soul in the process--was with him a veritable passion. and the knots he untied were, indeed, after passing strange. the world, of course, asks for some plausible basis to which it can attach credence--something it can, at least, pretend to explain. the adventurous type it can understand: such people carry about with them an adequate explanation of their exciting lives, and their characters obviously drive them into the circumstances which produce the adventures. it expects nothing else from them, and is satisfied. but dull, ordinary folk have no right to out-of-the-way experiences, and the world having been led to expect otherwise, is disappointed with them, not to say shocked. its complacent judgment has been rudely disturbed. "such a thing happened to _that_ man!" it cries--"a commonplace person like that! it is too absurd! there must be something wrong!" yet there could be no question that something did actually happen to little arthur vezin, something of the curious nature he described to dr. silence. outwardly or inwardly, it happened beyond a doubt, and in spite of the jeers of his few friends who heard the tale, and observed wisely that "such a thing might perhaps have come to iszard, that crack-brained iszard, or to that odd fish minski, but it could never have happened to commonplace little vezin, who was fore-ordained to live and die according to scale." but, whatever his method of death was, vezin certainly did not "live according to scale" so far as this particular event in his otherwise uneventful life was concerned; and to hear him recount it, and watch his pale delicate features change, and hear his voice grow softer and more hushed as he proceeded, was to know the conviction that his halting words perhaps failed sometimes to convey. he lived the thing over again each time he told it. his whole personality became muffled in the recital. it subdued him more than ever, so that the tale became a lengthy apology for an experience that he deprecated. he appeared to excuse himself and ask your pardon for having dared to take part in so fantastic an episode. for little vezin was a timid, gentle, sensitive soul, rarely able to assert himself, tender to man and beast, and almost constitutionally unable to say no, or to claim many things that should rightly have been his. his whole scheme of life seemed utterly remote from anything more exciting than missing a train or losing an umbrella on an omnibus. and when this curious event came upon him he was already more years beyond forty than his friends suspected or he cared to admit. john silence, who heard him speak of his experience more than once, said that he sometimes left out certain details and put in others; yet they were all obviously true. the whole scene was unforgettably cinematographed on to his mind. none of the details were imagined or invented. and when he told the story with them all complete, the effect was undeniable. his appealing brown eyes shone, and much of the charming personality, usually so carefully repressed, came forward and revealed itself. his modesty was always there, of course, but in the telling he forgot the present and allowed himself to appear almost vividly as he lived again in the past of his adventure. he was on the way home when it happened, crossing northern france from some mountain trip or other where he buried himself solitary-wise every summer. he had nothing but an unregistered bag in the rack, and the train was jammed to suffocation, most of the passengers being unredeemed holiday english. he disliked them, not because they were his fellow-countrymen, but because they were noisy and obtrusive, obliterating with their big limbs and tweed clothing all the quieter tints of the day that brought him satisfaction and enabled him to melt into insignificance and forget that he was anybody. these english clashed about him like a brass band, making him feel vaguely that he ought to be more self-assertive and obstreperous, and that he did not claim insistently enough all kinds of things that he didn't want and that were really valueless, such as corner seats, windows up or down, and so forth. so that he felt uncomfortable in the train, and wished the journey were over and he was back again living with his unmarried sister in surbiton. and when the train stopped for ten panting minutes at the little station in northern france, and he got out to stretch his legs on the platform, and saw to his dismay a further batch of the british isles debouching from another train, it suddenly seemed impossible to him to continue the journey. even _his_ flabby soul revolted, and the idea of staying a night in the little town and going on next day by a slower, emptier train, flashed into his mind. the guard was already shouting "_en voiture_" and the corridor of his compartment was already packed when the thought came to him. and, for once, he acted with decision and rushed to snatch his bag. finding the corridor and steps impassable, he tapped at the window (for he had a corner seat) and begged the frenchman who sat opposite to hand his luggage out to him, explaining in his wretched french that he intended to break the journey there. and this elderly frenchman, he declared, gave him a look, half of warning, half of reproach, that to his dying day he could never forget; handed the bag through the window of the moving train; and at the same time poured into his ears a long sentence, spoken rapidly and low, of which he was able to comprehend only the last few words: "_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_." in reply to dr. silence, whose singular psychic acuteness at once seized upon this frenchman as a vital point in the adventure, vezin admitted that the man had impressed him favourably from the beginning, though without being able to explain why. they had sat facing one another during the four hours of the journey, and though no conversation had passed between them--vezin was timid about his stuttering french--he confessed that his eyes were being continually drawn to his face, almost, he felt, to rudeness, and that each, by a dozen nameless little politenesses and attentions, had evinced the desire to be kind. the men liked each other and their personalities did not clash, or would not have clashed had they chanced to come to terms of acquaintance. the frenchman, indeed, seemed to have exercised a silent protective influence over the insignificant little englishman, and without words or gestures betrayed that he wished him well and would gladly have been of service to him. "and this sentence that he hurled at you after the bag?" asked john silence, smiling that peculiarly sympathetic smile that always melted the prejudices of his patient, "were you unable to follow it exactly?" "it was so quick and low and vehement," explained vezin, in his small voice, "that i missed practically the whole of it. i only caught the few words at the very end, because he spoke them so clearly, and his face was bent down out of the carriage window so near to mine." "'_Ã� cause du sommeil et à cause des chats'?_" repeated dr. silence, as though half speaking to himself. "that's it exactly," said vezin; "which, i take it, means something like 'because of sleep and because of the cats,' doesn't it?" "certainly, that's how i should translate it," the doctor observed shortly, evidently not wishing to interrupt more than necessary. "and the rest of the sentence--all the first part i couldn't understand, i mean--was a warning not to do something--not to stop in the town, or at some particular place in the town, perhaps. that was the impression it made on me." then, of course, the train rushed off, and left vezin standing on the platform alone and rather forlorn. the little town climbed in straggling fashion up a sharp hill rising out of the plain at the back of the station, and was crowned by the twin towers of the ruined cathedral peeping over the summit. from the station itself it looked uninteresting and modern, but the fact was that the mediaeval position lay out of sight just beyond the crest. and once he reached the top and entered the old streets, he stepped clean out of modern life into a bygone century. the noise and bustle of the crowded train seemed days away. the spirit of this silent hill-town, remote from tourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under the autumn sun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. long before he recognised this spell he acted under it. he walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modest demeanour that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the place and disturbing its dream. at first, however, vezin said, he noticed very little of all this. the attempt at analysis came much later. what struck him then was only the delightful contrast of the silence and peace after the dust and noisy rattle of the train. he felt soothed and stroked like a cat. "like a cat, you said?" interrupted john silence, quickly catching him up. "yes. at the very start i felt that." he laughed apologetically. "i felt as though the warmth and the stillness and the comfort made me purr. it seemed to be the general mood of the whole place--then." the inn, a rambling ancient house, the atmosphere of the old coaching days still about it, apparently did not welcome him too warmly. he felt he was only tolerated, he said. but it was cheap and comfortable, and the delicious cup of afternoon tea he ordered at once made him feel really very pleased with himself for leaving the train in this bold, original way. for to him it had seemed bold and original. he felt something of a dog. his room, too, soothed him with its dark panelling and low irregular ceiling, and the long sloping passage that led to it seemed the natural pathway to a real chamber of sleep--a little dim cubby hole out of the world where noise could not enter. it looked upon the courtyard at the back. it was all very charming, and made him think of himself as dressed in very soft velvet somehow, and the floors seemed padded, the walls provided with cushions. the sounds of the streets could not penetrate there. it was an atmosphere of absolute rest that surrounded him. on engaging the two-franc room he had interviewed the only person who seemed to be about that sleepy afternoon, an elderly waiter with dundreary whiskers and a drowsy courtesy, who had ambled lazily towards him across the stone yard; but on coming downstairs again for a little promenade in the town before dinner he encountered the proprietress herself. she was a large woman whose hands, feet, and features seemed to swim towards him out of a sea of person. they emerged, so to speak. but she had great dark, vivacious eyes that counteracted the bulk of her body, and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous and alert. when he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low chair against the sunlight of the wall, and something at once made him see her as a great tabby cat, dozing, yet awake, heavily sleepy, and yet at the same time prepared for instantaneous action. a great mouser on the watch occurred to him. she took him in with a single comprehensive glance that was polite without being cordial. her neck, he noticed, was extraordinarily supple in spite of its proportions, for it turned so easily to follow him, and the head it carried bowed so very flexibly. "but when she looked at me, you know," said vezin, with that little apologetic smile in his brown eyes, and that faintly deprecating gesture of the shoulders that was characteristic of him, "the odd notion came to me that really she had intended to make quite a different movement, and that with a single bound she could have leaped at me across the width of that stone yard and pounced upon me like some huge cat upon a mouse." he laughed a little soft laugh, and dr. silence made a note in his book without interrupting, while vezin proceeded in a tone as though he feared he had already told too much and more than we could believe. "very soft, yet very active she was, for all her size and mass, and i felt she knew what i was doing even after i had passed and was behind her back. she spoke to me, and her voice was smooth and running. she asked if i had my luggage, and was comfortable in my room, and then added that dinner was at seven o'clock, and that they were very early people in this little country town. clearly, she intended to convey that late hours were not encouraged." evidently, she contrived by voice and manner to give him the impression that here he would be "managed," that everything would be arranged and planned for him, and that he had nothing to do but fall into the groove and obey. no decided action or sharp personal effort would be looked for from him. it was the very reverse of the train. he walked quietly out into the street feeling soothed and peaceful. he realised that he was in a _milieu_ that suited him and stroked him the right way. it was so much easier to be obedient. he began to purr again, and to feel that all the town purred with him. about the streets of that little town he meandered gently, falling deeper and deeper into the spirit of repose that characterised it. with no special aim he wandered up and down, and to and fro. the september sunshine fell slantingly over the roofs. down winding alleyways, fringed with tumbling gables and open casements, he caught fairylike glimpses of the great plain below, and of the meadows and yellow copses lying like a dream-map in the haze. the spell of the past held very potently here, he felt. the streets were full of picturesquely garbed men and women, all busy enough, going their respective ways; but no one took any notice of him or turned to stare at his obviously english appearance. he was even able to forget that with his tourist appearance he was a false note in a charming picture, and he melted more and more into the scene, feeling delightfully insignificant and unimportant and unselfconscious. it was like becoming part of a softly coloured dream which he did not even realise to be a dream. on the eastern side the hill fell away more sharply, and the plain below ran off rather suddenly into a sea of gathering shadows in which the little patches of woodland looked like islands and the stubble fields like deep water. here he strolled along the old ramparts of ancient fortifications that once had been formidable, but now were only vision-like with their charming mingling of broken grey walls and wayward vine and ivy. from the broad coping on which he sat for a moment, level with the rounded tops of clipped plane trees, he saw the esplanade far below lying in shadow. here and there a yellow sunbeam crept in and lay upon the fallen yellow leaves, and from the height he looked down and saw that the townsfolk were walking to and fro in the cool of the evening. he could just hear the sound of their slow footfalls, and the murmur of their voices floated up to him through the gaps between the trees. the figures looked like shadows as he caught glimpses of their quiet movements far below. he sat there for some time pondering, bathed in the waves of murmurs and half-lost echoes that rose to his ears, muffled by the leaves of the plane trees. the whole town, and the little hill out of which it grew as naturally as an ancient wood, seemed to him like a being lying there half asleep on the plain and crooning to itself as it dozed. and, presently, as he sat lazily melting into its dream, a sound of horns and strings and wood instruments rose to his ears, and the town band began to play at the far end of the crowded terrace below to the accompaniment of a very soft, deep-throated drum. vezin was very sensitive to music, knew about it intelligently, and had even ventured, unknown to his friends, upon the composition of quiet melodies with low-running chords which he played to himself with the soft pedal when no one was about. and this music floating up through the trees from an invisible and doubtless very picturesque band of the townspeople wholly charmed him. he recognised nothing that they played, and it sounded as though they were simply improvising without a conductor. no definitely marked time ran through the pieces, which ended and began oddly after the fashion of wind through an aeolian harp. it was part of the place and scene, just as the dying sunlight and faintly breathing wind were part of the scene and hour, and the mellow notes of old-fashioned plaintive horns, pierced here and there by the sharper strings, all half smothered by the continuous booming of the deep drum, touched his soul with a curiously potent spell that was almost too engrossing to be quite pleasant. there was a certain queer sense of bewitchment in it all. the music seemed to him oddly unartificial. it made him think of trees swept by the wind, of night breezes singing among wires and chimney-stacks, or in the rigging of invisible ships; or--and the simile leaped up in his thoughts with a sudden sharpness of suggestion--a chorus of animals, of wild creatures, somewhere in desolate places of the world, crying and singing as animals will, to the moon. he could fancy he heard the wailing, half-human cries of cats upon the tiles at night, rising and falling with weird intervals of sound, and this music, muffled by distance and the trees, made him think of a queer company of these creatures on some roof far away in the sky, uttering their solemn music to one another and the moon in chorus. it was, he felt at the time, a singular image to occur to him, yet it expressed his sensation pictorially better than anything else. the instruments played such impossibly odd intervals, and the crescendos and diminuendos were so very suggestive of cat-land on the tiles at night, rising swiftly, dropping without warning to deep notes again, and all in such strange confusion of discords and accords. but, at the same time a plaintive sweetness resulted on the whole, and the discords of these half-broken instruments were so singular that they did not distress his musical soul like fiddles out of tune. he listened a long time, wholly surrendering himself as his character was, and then strolled homewards in the dusk as the air grew chilly. "there was nothing to alarm?" put in dr. silence briefly. "absolutely nothing," said vezin; "but you know it was all so fantastical and charming that my imagination was profoundly impressed. perhaps, too," he continued, gently explanatory, "it was this stirring of my imagination that caused other impressions; for, as i walked back, the spell of the place began to steal over me in a dozen ways, though all intelligible ways. but there were other things i could not account for in the least, even then." "incidents, you mean?" "hardly incidents, i think. a lot of vivid sensations crowded themselves upon my mind and i could trace them to no causes. it was just after sunset and the tumbled old buildings traced magical outlines against an opalescent sky of gold and red. the dusk was running down the twisted streets. all round the hill the plain pressed in like a dim sea, its level rising with the darkness. the spell of this kind of scene, you know, can be very moving, and it was so that night. yet i felt that what came to me had nothing directly to do with the mystery and wonder of the scene." "not merely the subtle transformations of the spirit that come with beauty," put in the doctor, noticing his hesitation. "exactly," vezin went on, duly encouraged and no longer so fearful of our smiles at his expense. "the impressions came from somewhere else. for instance, down the busy main street where men and women were bustling home from work, shopping at stalls and barrows, idly gossiping in groups, and all the rest of it, i saw that i aroused no interest and that no one turned to stare at me as a foreigner and stranger. i was utterly ignored, and my presence among them excited no special interest or attention. "and then, quite suddenly, it dawned upon me with conviction that all the time this indifference and inattention were merely feigned. everybody as a matter of fact was watching me closely. every movement i made was known and observed. ignoring me was all a pretence--an elaborate pretence." he paused a moment and looked at us to see if we were smiling, and then continued, reassured-- "it is useless to ask me how i noticed this, because i simply cannot explain it. but the discovery gave me something of a shock. before i got back to the inn, however, another curious thing rose up strongly in my mind and forced my recognition of it as true. and this, too, i may as well say at once, was equally inexplicable to me. i mean i can only give you the fact, as fact it was to me." the little man left his chair and stood on the mat before the fire. his diffidence lessened from now onwards, as he lost himself again in the magic of the old adventure. his eyes shone a little already as he talked. "well," he went on, his soft voice rising somewhat with his excitement, "i was in a shop when it came to me first--though the idea must have been at work for a long time subconsciously to appear in so complete a form all at once. i was buying socks, i think," he laughed, "and struggling with my dreadful french, when it struck me that the woman in the shop did not care two pins whether i bought anything or not. she was indifferent whether she made a sale or did not make a sale. she was only pretending to sell. "this sounds a very small and fanciful incident to build upon what follows. but really it was not small. i mean it was the spark that lit the line of powder and ran along to the big blaze in my mind. "for the whole town, i suddenly realised, was something other than i so far saw it. the real activities and interests of the people were elsewhere and otherwise than appeared. their true lives lay somewhere out of sight behind the scenes. their busy-ness was but the outward semblance that masked their actual purposes. they bought and sold, and ate and drank, and walked about the streets, yet all the while the main stream of their existence lay somewhere beyond my ken, underground, in secret places. in the shops and at the stalls they did not care whether i purchased their articles or not; at the inn, they were indifferent to my staying or going; their life lay remote from my own, springing from hidden, mysterious sources, coursing out of sight, unknown. it was all a great elaborate pretence, assumed possibly for my benefit, or possibly for purposes of their own. but the main current of their energies ran elsewhere. i almost felt as an unwelcome foreign substance might be expected to feel when it has found its way into the human system and the whole body organises itself to eject it or to absorb it. the town was doing this very thing to me. "this bizarre notion presented itself forcibly to my mind as i walked home to the inn, and i began busily to wonder wherein the true life of this town could lie and what were the actual interests and activities of its hidden life. "and, now that my eyes were partly opened, i noticed other things too that puzzled me, first of which, i think, was the extraordinary silence of the whole place. positively, the town was muffled. although the streets were paved with cobbles the people moved about silently, softly, with padded feet, like cats. nothing made noise. all was hushed, subdued, muted. the very voices were quiet, low-pitched like purring. nothing clamorous, vehement or emphatic seemed able to live in the drowsy atmosphere of soft dreaming that soothed this little hill-town into its sleep. it was like the woman at the inn--an outward repose screening intense inner activity and purpose. "yet there was no sign of lethargy or sluggishness anywhere about it. the people were active and alert. only a magical and uncanny softness lay over them all like a spell." vezin passed his hand across his eyes for a moment as though the memory had become very vivid. his voice had run off into a whisper so that we heard the last part with difficulty. he was telling a true thing obviously, yet something that he both liked and hated telling. "i went back to the inn," he continued presently in a louder voice, "and dined. i felt a new strange world about me. my old world of reality receded. here, whether i liked it or no, was something new and incomprehensible. i regretted having left the train so impulsively. an adventure was upon me, and i loathed adventures as foreign to my nature. moreover, this was the beginning apparently of an adventure somewhere deep within me, in a region i could not check or measure, and a feeling of alarm mingled itself with my wonder--alarm for the stability of what i had for forty years recognised as my 'personality.' "i went upstairs to bed, my mind teeming with thoughts that were unusual to me, and of rather a haunting description. by way of relief i kept thinking of that nice, prosaic noisy train and all those wholesome, blustering passengers. i almost wished i were with them again. but my dreams took me elsewhere. i dreamed of cats, and soft-moving creatures, and the silence of life in a dim muffled world beyond the senses." ii vezin stayed on from day to day, indefinitely, much longer than he had intended. he felt in a kind of dazed, somnolent condition. he did nothing in particular, but the place fascinated him and he could not decide to leave. decisions were always very difficult for him and he sometimes wondered how he had ever brought himself to the point of leaving the train. it seemed as though some one else must have arranged it for him, and once or twice his thoughts ran to the swarthy frenchman who had sat opposite. if only he could have understood that long sentence ending so strangely with "_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_." he wondered what it all meant. meanwhile the hushed softness of the town held him prisoner and he sought in his muddling, gentle way to find out where the mystery lay, and what it was all about. but his limited french and his constitutional hatred of active investigation made it hard for him to buttonhole anybody and ask questions. he was content to observe, and watch, and remain negative. the weather held on calm and hazy, and this just suited him. he wandered about the town till he knew every street and alley. the people suffered him to come and go without let or hindrance, though it became clearer to him every day that he was never free himself from observation. the town watched him as a cat watches a mouse. and he got no nearer to finding out what they were all so busy with or where the main stream of their activities lay. this remained hidden. the people were as soft and mysterious as cats. but that he was continually under observation became more evident from day to day. for instance, when he strolled to the end of the town and entered a little green public garden beneath the ramparts and seated himself upon one of the empty benches in the sun, he was quite alone--at first. not another seat was occupied; the little park was empty, the paths deserted. yet, within ten minutes of his coming, there must have been fully twenty persons scattered about him, some strolling aimlessly along the gravel walks, staring at the flowers, and others seated on the wooden benches enjoying the sun like himself. none of them appeared to take any notice of him; yet he understood quite well they had all come there to watch. they kept him under close observation. in the street they had seemed busy enough, hurrying upon various errands; yet these were suddenly all forgotten and they had nothing to do but loll and laze in the sun, their duties unremembered. five minutes after he left, the garden was again deserted, the seats vacant. but in the crowded street it was the same thing again; he was never alone. he was ever in their thoughts. by degrees, too, he began to see how it was he was so cleverly watched, yet without the appearance of it. the people did nothing _directly_. they behaved _obliquely_. he laughed in his mind as the thought thus clothed itself in words, but the phrase exactly described it. they looked at him from angles which naturally should have led their sight in another direction altogether. their movements were oblique, too, so far as these concerned himself. the straight, direct thing was not their way evidently. they did nothing obviously. if he entered a shop to buy, the woman walked instantly away and busied herself with something at the farther end of the counter, though answering at once when he spoke, showing that she knew he was there and that this was only her way of attending to him. it was the fashion of the cat she followed. even in the dining-room of the inn, the be-whiskered and courteous waiter, lithe and silent in all his movements, never seemed able to come straight to his table for an order or a dish. he came by zigzags, indirectly, vaguely, so that he appeared to be going to another table altogether, and only turned suddenly at the last moment, and was there beside him. vezin smiled curiously to himself as he described how he began to realize these things. other tourists there were none in the hostel, but he recalled the figures of one or two old men, inhabitants, who took their _déjeuner_ and dinner there, and remembered how fantastically they entered the room in similar fashion. first, they paused in the doorway, peering about the room, and then, after a temporary inspection, they came in, as it were, sideways, keeping close to the walls so that he wondered which table they were making for, and at the last minute making almost a little quick run to their particular seats. and again he thought of the ways and methods of cats. other small incidents, too, impressed him as all part of this queer, soft town with its muffled, indirect life, for the way some of the people appeared and disappeared with extraordinary swiftness puzzled him exceedingly. it may have been all perfectly natural, he knew, yet he could not make it out how the alleys swallowed them up and shot them forth in a second of time when there were no visible doorways or openings near enough to explain the phenomenon. once he followed two elderly women who, he felt, had been particularly examining him from across the street--quite near the inn this was--and saw them turn the corner a few feet only in front of him. yet when he sharply followed on their heels he saw nothing but an utterly deserted alley stretching in front of him with no sign of a living thing. and the only opening through which they could have escaped was a porch some fifty yards away, which not the swiftest human runner could have reached in time. and in just such sudden fashion people appeared, when he never expected them. once when he heard a great noise of fighting going on behind a low wall, and hurried up to see what was going on, what should he see but a group of girls and women engaged in vociferous conversation which instantly hushed itself to the normal whispering note of the town when his head appeared over the wall. and even then none of them turned to look at him directly, but slunk off with the most unaccountable rapidity into doors and sheds across the yard. and their voices, he thought, had sounded so like, so strangely like, the angry snarling of fighting animals, almost of cats. the whole spirit of the town, however, continued to evade him as something elusive, protean, screened from the outer world, and at the same time intensely, genuinely vital; and, since he now formed part of its life, this concealment puzzled and irritated him; more--it began rather to frighten him. out of the mists that slowly gathered about his ordinary surface thoughts, there rose again the idea that the inhabitants were waiting for him to declare himself, to take an attitude, to do this, or to do that; and that when he had done so they in their turn would at length make some direct response, accepting or rejecting him. yet the vital matter concerning which his decision was awaited came no nearer to him. once or twice he purposely followed little processions or groups of the citizens in order to find out, if possible, on what purpose they were bent; but they always discovered him in time and dwindled away, each individual going his or her own way. it was always the same: he never could learn what their main interest was. the cathedral was ever empty, the old church of st. martin, at the other end of the town, deserted. they shopped because they had to, and not because they wished to. the booths stood neglected, the stalls unvisited, the little _cafés_ desolate. yet the streets were always full, the townsfolk ever on the bustle. "can it be," he thought to himself, yet with a deprecating laugh that he should have dared to think anything so odd, "can it be that these people are people of the twilight, that they live only at night their real life, and come out honestly only with the dusk? that during the day they make a sham though brave pretence, and after the sun is down their true life begins? have they the souls of night-things, and is the whole blessed town in the hands of the cats?" the fancy somehow electrified him with little shocks of shrinking and dismay. yet, though he affected to laugh, he knew that he was beginning to feel more than uneasy, and that strange forces were tugging with a thousand invisible cords at the very centre of his being. something utterly remote from his ordinary life, something that had not waked for years, began faintly to stir in his soul, sending feelers abroad into his brain and heart, shaping queer thoughts and penetrating even into certain of his minor actions. something exceedingly vital to himself, to his soul, hung in the balance. and, always when he returned to the inn about the hour of sunset, he saw the figures of the townsfolk stealing through the dusk from their shop doors, moving sentry-wise to and fro at the corners of the streets, yet always vanishing silently like shadows at his near approach. and as the inn invariably closed its doors at ten o'clock he had never yet found the opportunity he rather half-heartedly sought to see for himself what account the town could give of itself at night. "--_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_"--the words now rang in his ears more and more often, though still as yet without any definite meaning. moreover, something made him sleep like the dead. iii it was, i think, on the fifth day--though in this detail his story sometimes varied--that he made a definite discovery which increased his alarm and brought him up to a rather sharp climax. before that he had already noticed that a change was going forward and certain subtle transformations being brought about in his character which modified several of his minor habits. and he had affected to ignore them. here, however, was something he could no longer ignore; and it startled him. at the best of times he was never very positive, always negative rather, compliant and acquiescent; yet, when necessity arose he was capable of reasonably vigorous action and could take a strongish decision. the discovery he now made that brought him up with such a sharp turn was that this power had positively dwindled to nothing. he found it impossible to make up his mind. for, on this fifth day, he realised that he had stayed long enough in the town and that for reasons he could only vaguely define to himself it was wiser _and safer_ that he should leave. and he found that he could not leave! this is difficult to describe in words, and it was more by gesture and the expression of his face that he conveyed to dr. silence the state of impotence he had reached. all this spying and watching, he said, had as it were spun a net about his feet so that he was trapped and powerless to escape; he felt like a fly that had blundered into the intricacies of a great web; he was caught, imprisoned, and could not get away. it was a distressing sensation. a numbness had crept over his will till it had become almost incapable of decision. the mere thought of vigorous action--action towards escape--began to terrify him. all the currents of his life had turned inwards upon himself, striving to bring to the surface something that lay buried almost beyond reach, determined to force his recognition of something he had long forgotten--forgotten years upon years, centuries almost ago. it seemed as though a window deep within his being would presently open and reveal an entirely new world, yet somehow a world that was not unfamiliar. beyond that, again, he fancied a great curtain hung; and when that too rolled up he would see still farther into this region and at last understand something of the secret life of these extraordinary people. "is this why they wait and watch?" he asked himself with rather a shaking heart, "for the time when i shall join them--or refuse to join them? does the decision rest with me after all, and not with them?" and it was at this point that the sinister character of the adventure first really declared itself, and he became genuinely alarmed. the stability of his rather fluid little personality was at stake, he felt, and something in his heart turned coward. why otherwise should he have suddenly taken to walking stealthily, silently, making as little sound as possible, for ever looking behind him? why else should he have moved almost on tiptoe about the passages of the practically deserted inn, and when he was abroad have found himself deliberately taking advantage of what cover presented itself? and why, if he was not afraid, should the wisdom of staying indoors after sundown have suddenly occurred to him as eminently desirable? why, indeed? and, when john silence gently pressed him for an explanation of these things, he admitted apologetically that he had none to give. "it was simply that i feared something might happen to me unless i kept a sharp look-out. i felt afraid. it was instinctive," was all he could say. "i got the impression that the whole town was after me--wanted me for something; and that if it got me i should lose myself, or at least the self i knew, in some unfamiliar state of consciousness. but i am not a psychologist, you know," he added meekly, "and i cannot define it better than that." it was while lounging in the courtyard half an hour before the evening meal that vezin made this discovery, and he at once went upstairs to his quiet room at the end of the winding passage to think it over alone. in the yard it was empty enough, true, but there was always the possibility that the big woman whom he dreaded would come out of some door, with her pretence of knitting, to sit and watch him. this had happened several times, and he could not endure the sight of her. he still remembered his original fancy, bizarre though it was, that she would spring upon him the moment his back was turned and land with one single crushing leap upon his neck. of course it was nonsense, but then it haunted him, and once an idea begins to do that it ceases to be nonsense. it has clothed itself in reality. he went upstairs accordingly. it was dusk, and the oil lamps had not yet been lit in the passages. he stumbled over the uneven surface of the ancient flooring, passing the dim outlines of doors along the corridor--doors that he had never once seen opened--rooms that seemed never occupied. he moved, as his habit now was, stealthily and on tiptoe. half-way down the last passage to his own chamber there was a sharp turn, and it was just here, while groping round the walls with outstretched hands, that his fingers touched something that was not wall--something that moved. it was soft and warm in texture, indescribably fragrant, and about the height of his shoulder; and he immediately thought of a furry, sweet-smelling kitten. the next minute he knew it was something quite different. instead of investigating, however,--his nerves must have been too overwrought for that, he said,--he shrank back as closely as possible against the wall on the other side. the thing, whatever it was, slipped past him with a sound of rustling and, retreating with light footsteps down the passage behind him, was gone. a breath of warm, scented air was wafted to his nostrils. vezin caught his breath for an instant and paused, stockstill, half leaning against the wall--and then almost ran down the remaining distance and entered his room with a rush, locking the door hurriedly behind him. yet it was not fear that made him run: it was excitement, pleasurable excitement. his nerves were tingling, and a delicious glow made itself felt all over his body. in a flash it came to him that this was just what he had felt twenty-five years ago as a boy when he was in love for the first time. warm currents of life ran all over him and mounted to his brain in a whirl of soft delight. his mood was suddenly become tender, melting, loving. the room was quite dark, and he collapsed upon the sofa by the window, wondering what had happened to him and what it all meant. but the only thing he understood clearly in that instant was that something in him had swiftly, magically changed: he no longer wished to leave, or to argue with himself about leaving. the encounter in the passage-way had changed all that. the strange perfume of it still hung about him, bemusing his heart and mind. for he knew that it was a girl who had passed him, a girl's face that his fingers had brushed in the darkness, and he felt in some extraordinary way as though he had been actually kissed by her, kissed full upon the lips. trembling, he sat upon the sofa by the window and struggled to collect his thoughts. he was utterly unable to understand how the mere passing of a girl in the darkness of a narrow passage-way could communicate so electric a thrill to his whole being that he still shook with the sweetness of it. yet, there it was! and he found it as useless to deny as to attempt analysis. some ancient fire had entered his veins, and now ran coursing through his blood; and that he was forty-five instead of twenty did not matter one little jot. out of all the inner turmoil and confusion emerged the one salient fact that the mere atmosphere, the merest casual touch, of this girl, unseen, unknown in the darkness, had been sufficient to stir dormant fires in the centre of his heart, and rouse his whole being from a state of feeble sluggishness to one of tearing and tumultuous excitement. after a time, however, the number of vezin's years began to assert their cumulative power; he grew calmer, and when a knock came at length upon his door and he heard the waiter's voice suggesting that dinner was nearly over, he pulled himself together and slowly made his way downstairs into the dining-room. every one looked up as he entered, for he was very late, but he took his customary seat in the far corner and began to eat. the trepidation was still in his nerves, but the fact that he had passed through the courtyard and hall without catching sight of a petticoat served to calm him a little. he ate so fast that he had almost caught up with the current stage of the table d'hôte, when a slight commotion in the room drew his attention. his chair was so placed that the door and the greater portion of the long _salle à manger_ were behind him, yet it was not necessary to turn round to know that the same person he had passed in the dark passage had now come into the room. he felt the presence long before he heard or saw any one. then he became aware that the old men, the only other guests, were rising one by one in their places, and exchanging greetings with some one who passed among them from table to table. and when at length he turned with his heart beating furiously to ascertain for himself, he saw the form of a young girl, lithe and slim, moving down the centre of the room and making straight for his own table in the corner. she moved wonderfully, with sinuous grace, like a young panther, and her approach filled him with such delicious bewilderment that he was utterly unable to tell at first what her face was like, or discover what it was about the whole presentment of the creature that filled him anew with trepidation and delight. "ah, ma'mselle est de retour!" he heard the old waiter murmur at his side, and he was just able to take in that she was the daughter of the proprietress, when she was upon him, and he heard her voice. she was addressing him. something of red lips he saw and laughing white teeth, and stray wisps of fine dark hair about the temples; but all the rest was a dream in which his own emotion rose like a thick cloud before his eyes and prevented his seeing accurately, or knowing exactly what he did. he was aware that she greeted him with a charming little bow; that her beautiful large eyes looked searchingly into his own; that the perfume he had noticed in the dark passage again assailed his nostrils, and that she was bending a little towards him and leaning with one hand on the table at this side. she was quite close to him--that was the chief thing he knew--explaining that she had been asking after the comfort of her mother's guests, and now was introducing herself to the latest arrival--himself. "m'sieur has already been here a few days," he heard the waiter say; and then her own voice, sweet as singing, replied-- "ah, but m'sieur is not going to leave us just yet, i hope. my mother is too old to look after the comfort of our guests properly, but now i am here i will remedy all that." she laughed deliciously. "m'sieur shall be well looked after." vezin, struggling with his emotion and desire to be polite, half rose to acknowledge the pretty speech, and to stammer some sort of reply, but as he did so his hand by chance touched her own that was resting upon the table, and a shock that was for all the world like a shock of electricity, passed from her skin into his body. his soul wavered and shook deep within him. he caught her eyes fixed upon his own with a look of most curious intentness, and the next moment he knew that he had sat down wordless again on his chair, that the girl was already half-way across the room, and that he was trying to eat his salad with a dessert-spoon and a knife. longing for her return, and yet dreading it, he gulped down the remainder of his dinner, and then went at once to his bedroom to be alone with his thoughts. this time the passages were lighted, and he suffered no exciting contretemps; yet the winding corridor was dim with shadows, and the last portion, from the bend of the walls onwards, seemed longer than he had ever known it. it ran downhill like the pathway on a mountain side, and as he tiptoed softly down it he felt that by rights it ought to have led him clean out of the house into the heart of a great forest. the world was singing with him. strange fancies filled his brain, and once in the room, with the door securely locked, he did not light the candles, but sat by the open window thinking long, long thoughts that came unbidden in troops to his mind. iv this part of the story he told to dr. silence, without special coaxing, it is true, yet with much stammering embarrassment. he could not in the least understand, he said, how the girl had managed to affect him so profoundly, and even before he had set eyes upon her. for her mere proximity in the darkness had been sufficient to set him on fire. he knew nothing of enchantments, and for years had been a stranger to anything approaching tender relations with any member of the opposite sex, for he was encased in shyness, and realised his overwhelming defects only too well. yet this bewitching young creature came to him deliberately. her manner was unmistakable, and she sought him out on every possible occasion. chaste and sweet she was undoubtedly, yet frankly inviting; and she won him utterly with the first glance of her shining eyes, even if she had not already done so in the dark merely by the magic of her invisible presence. "you felt she was altogether wholesome and good!" queried the doctor. "you had no reaction of any sort--for instance, of alarm?" vezin looked up sharply with one of his inimitable little apologetic smiles. it was some time before he replied. the mere memory of the adventure had suffused his shy face with blushes, and his brown eyes sought the floor again before he answered. "i don't think i can quite say that," he explained presently. "i acknowledged certain qualms, sitting up in my room afterwards. a conviction grew upon me that there was something about her--how shall i express it?--well, something unholy. it is not impurity in any sense, physical or mental, that i mean, but something quite indefinable that gave me a vague sensation of the creeps. she drew me, and at the same time repelled me, more than--than--" he hesitated, blushing furiously, and unable to finish the sentence. "nothing like it has ever come to me before or since," he concluded, with lame confusion. "i suppose it was, as you suggested just now, something of an enchantment. at any rate, it was strong enough to make me feel that i would stay in that awful little haunted town for years if only i could see her every day, hear her voice, watch her wonderful movements, and sometimes, perhaps, touch her hand." "can you explain to me what you felt was the source of her power?" john silence asked, looking purposely anywhere but at the narrator. "i am surprised that you should ask me such a question," answered vezin, with the nearest approach to dignity he could manage. "i think no man can describe to another convincingly wherein lies the magic of the woman who ensnares him. i certainly cannot. i can only say this slip of a girl bewitched me, and the mere knowledge that she was living and sleeping in the same house filled me with an extraordinary sense of delight. "but there's one thing i can tell you," he went on earnestly, his eyes aglow, "namely, that she seemed to sum up and synthesise in herself all the strange hidden forces that operated so mysteriously in the town and its inhabitants. she had the silken movements of the panther, going smoothly, silently to and fro, and the same indirect, oblique methods as the townsfolk, screening, like them, secret purposes of her own--purposes that i was sure had _me_ for their objective. she kept me, to my terror and delight, ceaselessly under observation, yet so carelessly, so consummately, that another man less sensitive, if i may say so"--he made a deprecating gesture--"or less prepared by what had gone before, would never have noticed it at all. she was always still, always reposeful, yet she seemed to be everywhere at once, so that i never could escape from her. i was continually meeting the stare and laughter of her great eyes, in the corners of the rooms, in the passages, calmly looking at me through the windows, or in the busiest parts of the public streets." their intimacy, it seems, grew very rapidly after this first encounter which had so violently disturbed the little man's equilibrium. he was naturally very prim, and prim folk live mostly in so small a world that anything violently unusual may shake them clean out of it, and they therefore instinctively distrust originality. but vezin began to forget his primness after awhile. the girl was always modestly behaved, and as her mother's representative she naturally had to do with the guests in the hotel. it was not out of the way that a spirit of camaraderie should spring up. besides, she was young, she was charmingly pretty, she was french, and--she obviously liked him. at the same time, there was something indescribable--a certain indefinable atmosphere of other places, other times--that made him try hard to remain on his guard, and sometimes made him catch his breath with a sudden start. it was all rather like a delirious dream, half delight, half dread, he confided in a whisper to dr. silence; and more than once he hardly knew quite what he was doing or saying, as though he were driven forward by impulses he scarcely recognised as his own. and though the thought of leaving presented itself again and again to his mind, it was each time with less insistence, so that he stayed on from day to day, becoming more and more a part of the sleepy life of this dreamy mediaeval town, losing more and more of his recognisable personality. soon, he felt, the curtain within would roll up with an awful rush, and he would find himself suddenly admitted into the secret purposes of the hidden life that lay behind it all. only, by that time, he would have become transformed into an entirely different being. and, meanwhile, he noticed various little signs of the intention to make his stay attractive to him: flowers in his bedroom, a more comfortable arm-chair in the corner, and even special little extra dishes on his private table in the dining-room. conversations, too, with "mademoiselle ilsé" became more and more frequent and pleasant, and although they seldom travelled beyond the weather, or the details of the town, the girl, he noticed, was never in a hurry to bring them to an end, and often contrived to interject little odd sentences that he never properly understood, yet felt to be significant. and it was these stray remarks, full of a meaning that evaded him, that pointed to some hidden purpose of her own and made him feel uneasy. they all had to do, he felt sure, with reasons for his staying on in the town indefinitely. "and has m'sieur not even yet come to a decision?" she said softly in his ear, sitting beside him in the sunny yard before _déjeuner_, the acquaintance having progressed with significant rapidity. "because, if it's so difficult, we must all try together to help him!" the question startled him, following upon his own thoughts. it was spoken with a pretty laugh, and a stray bit of hair across one eye, as she turned and peered at him half roguishly. possibly he did not quite understand the french of it, for her near presence always confused his small knowledge of the language distressingly. yet the words, and her manner, and something else that lay behind it all in her mind, frightened him. it gave such point to his feeling that the town was waiting for him to make his mind up on some important matter. at the same time, her voice, and the fact that she was there so close beside him in her soft dark dress, thrilled him inexpressibly. "it is true i find it difficult to leave," he stammered, losing his way deliciously in the depths of her eyes, "and especially now that mademoiselle ilsé has come." he was surprised at the success of his sentence, and quite delighted with the little gallantry of it. but at the same time he could have bitten his tongue off for having said it. "then after all you like our little town, or you would not be pleased to stay on," she said, ignoring the compliment. "i am enchanted with it, and enchanted with you," he cried, feeling that his tongue was somehow slipping beyond the control of his brain. and he was on the verge of saying all manner of other things of the wildest description, when the girl sprang lightly up from her chair beside him, and made to go. "it is _soupe à l'onion_ to-day!" she cried, laughing back at him through the sunlight, "and i must go and see about it. otherwise, you know, m'sieur will not enjoy his dinner, and then, perhaps, he will leave us!" he watched her cross the courtyard, moving with all the grace and lightness of the feline race, and her simple black dress clothed her, he thought, exactly like the fur of the same supple species. she turned once to laugh at him from the porch with the glass door, and then stopped a moment to speak to her mother, who sat knitting as usual in her corner seat just inside the hall-way. but how was it, then, that the moment his eye fell upon this ungainly woman, the pair of them appeared suddenly as other than they were? whence came that transforming dignity and sense of power that enveloped them both as by magic? what was it about that massive woman that made her appear instantly regal, and set her on a throne in some dark and dreadful scenery, wielding a sceptre over the red glare of some tempestuous orgy? and why did this slender stripling of a girl, graceful as a willow, lithe as a young leopard, assume suddenly an air of sinister majesty, and move with flame and smoke about her head, and the darkness of night beneath her feet? vezin caught his breath and sat there transfixed. then, almost simultaneously with its appearance, the queer notion vanished again, and the sunlight of day caught them both, and he heard her laughing to her mother about the _soupe à l'onion_, and saw her glancing back at him over her dear little shoulder with a smile that made him think of a dew-kissed rose bending lightly before summer airs. and, indeed, the onion soup was particularly excellent that day, because he saw another cover laid at his small table, and, with fluttering heart, heard the waiter murmur by way of explanation that "ma'mselle ilsé would honour m'sieur to-day at _déjeuner_, as her custom sometimes is with her mother's guests." so actually she sat by him all through that delirious meal, talking quietly to him in easy french, seeing that he was well looked after, mixing the salad-dressing, and even helping him with her own hand. and, later in the afternoon, while he was smoking in the courtyard, longing for a sight of her as soon as her duties were done, she came again to his side, and when he rose to meet her, she stood facing him a moment, full of a perplexing sweet shyness before she spoke-- "my mother thinks you ought to know more of the beauties of our little town, and _i_ think so too! would m'sieur like me to be his guide, perhaps? i can show him everything, for our family has lived here for many generations." she had him by the hand, indeed, before he could find a single word to express his pleasure, and led him, all unresisting, out into the street, yet in such a way that it seemed perfectly natural she should do so, and without the faintest suggestion of boldness or immodesty. her face glowed with the pleasure and interest of it, and with her short dress and tumbled hair she looked every bit the charming child of seventeen that she was, innocent and playful, proud of her native town, and alive beyond her years to the sense of its ancient beauty. so they went over the town together, and she showed him what she considered its chief interest: the tumble-down old house where her forebears had lived; the sombre, aristocratic-looking mansion where her mother's family dwelt for centuries, and the ancient market-place where several hundred years before the witches had been burnt by the score. she kept up a lively running stream of talk about it all, of which he understood not a fiftieth part as he trudged along by her side, cursing his forty-five years and feeling all the yearnings of his early manhood revive and jeer at him. and, as she talked, england and surbiton seemed very far away indeed, almost in another age of the world's history. her voice touched something immeasurably old in him, something that slept deep. it lulled the surface parts of his consciousness to sleep, allowing what was far more ancient to awaken. like the town, with its elaborate pretence of modern active life, the upper layers of his being became dulled, soothed, muffled, and what lay underneath began to stir in its sleep. that big curtain swayed a little to and fro. presently it might lift altogether.... he began to understand a little better at last. the mood of the town was reproducing itself in him. in proportion as his ordinary external self became muffled, that inner secret life, that was far more real and vital, asserted itself. and this girl was surely the high-priestess of it all, the chief instrument of its accomplishment. new thoughts, with new interpretations, flooded his mind as she walked beside him through the winding streets, while the picturesque old gabled town, softly coloured in the sunset, had never appeared to him so wholly wonderful and seductive. and only one curious incident came to disturb and puzzle him, slight in itself, but utterly inexplicable, bringing white terror into the child's face and a scream to her laughing lips. he had merely pointed to a column of blue smoke that rose from the burning autumn leaves and made a picture against the red roofs, and had then run to the wall and called her to his side to watch the flames shooting here and there through the heap of rubbish. yet, at the sight of it, as though taken by surprise, her face had altered dreadfully, and she had turned and run like the wind, calling out wild sentences to him as she ran, of which he had not understood a single word, except that the fire apparently frightened her, and she wanted to get quickly away from it, and to get him away too. yet five minutes later she was as calm and happy again as though nothing had happened to alarm or waken troubled thoughts in her, and they had both forgotten the incident. they were leaning over the ruined ramparts together listening to the weird music of the band as he had heard it the first day of his arrival. it moved him again profoundly as it had done before, and somehow he managed to find his tongue and his best french. the girl leaned across the stones close beside him. no one was about. driven by some remorseless engine within he began to stammer something--he hardly knew what--of his strange admiration for her. almost at the first word she sprang lightly off the wall and came up smiling in front of him, just touching his knees as he sat there. she was hatless as usual, and the sun caught her hair and one side of her cheek and throat. "oh, i'm so glad!" she cried, clapping her little hands softly in his face, "so very glad, because that means that if you like me you must also like what i do, and what i belong to." already he regretted bitterly having lost control of himself. something in the phrasing of her sentence chilled him. he knew the fear of embarking upon an unknown and dangerous sea. "you will take part in our real life, i mean," she added softly, with an indescribable coaxing of manner, as though she noticed his shrinking. "you will come back to us." already this slip of a child seemed to dominate him; he felt her power coming over him more and more; something emanated from her that stole over his senses and made him aware that her personality, for all its simple grace, held forces that were stately, imposing, august. he saw her again moving through smoke and flame amid broken and tempestuous scenery, alarmingly strong, her terrible mother by her side. dimly this shone through her smile and appearance of charming innocence. "you will, i know," she repeated, holding him with her eyes. they were quite alone up there on the ramparts, and the sensation that she was overmastering him stirred a wild sensuousness in his blood. the mingled abandon and reserve in her attracted him furiously, and all of him that was man rose up and resisted the creeping influence, at the same time acclaiming it with the full delight of his forgotten youth. an irresistible desire came to him to question her, to summon what still remained to him of his own little personality in an effort to retain the right to his normal self. the girl had grown quiet again, and was now leaning on the broad wall close beside him, gazing out across the darkening plain, her elbows on the coping, motionless as a figure carved in stone. he took his courage in both hands. "tell me, ilsé," he said, unconsciously imitating her own purring softness of voice, yet aware that he was utterly in earnest, "what is the meaning of this town, and what is this real life you speak of? and why is it that the people watch me from morning to night? tell me what it all means? and, tell me," he added more quickly with passion in his voice, "what you really are--yourself?" she turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyelids, her growing inner excitement betraying itself by the faint colour that ran like a shadow across her face. "it seems to me,"--he faltered oddly under her gaze--"that i have some right to know--" suddenly she opened her eyes to the full. "you love me, then?" she asked softly. "i swear," he cried impetuously, moved as by the force of a rising tide, "i never felt before--i have never known any other girl who--" "then you _have_ the right to know," she calmly interrupted his confused confession, "for love shares all secrets." she paused, and a thrill like fire ran swiftly through him. her words lifted him off the earth, and he felt a radiant happiness, followed almost the same instant in horrible contrast by the thought of death. he became aware that she had turned her eyes upon his own and was speaking again. "the real life i speak of," she whispered, "is the old, old life within, the life of long ago, the life to which you, too, once belonged, and to which you still belong." a faint wave of memory troubled the deeps of his soul as her low voice sank into him. what she was saying he knew instinctively to be true, even though he could not as yet understand its full purport. his present life seemed slipping from him as he listened, merging his personality in one that was far older and greater. it was this loss of his present self that brought to him the thought of death. "you came here," she went on, "with the purpose of seeking it, and the people felt your presence and are waiting to know what you decide, whether you will leave them without having found it, or whether--" her eyes remained fixed upon his own, but her face began to change, growing larger and darker with an expression of age. "it is their thoughts constantly playing about your soul that makes you feel they watch you. they do not watch you with their eyes. the purposes of their inner life are calling to you, seeking to claim you. you were all part of the same life long, long ago, and now they want you back again among them." vezin's timid heart sank with dread as he listened; but the girl's eyes held him with a net of joy so that he had no wish to escape. she fascinated him, as it were, clean out of his normal self. "alone, however, the people could never have caught and held you," she resumed. "the motive force was not strong enough; it has faded through all these years. but i"--she paused a moment and looked at him with complete confidence in her splendid eyes--"i possess the spell to conquer you and hold you: the spell of old love. i can win you back again and make you live the old life with me, for the force of the ancient tie between us, if i choose to use it, is irresistible. and i do choose to use it. i still want you. and you, dear soul of my dim past"--she pressed closer to him so that her breath passed across his eyes, and her voice positively sang--"i mean to have you, for you love me and are utterly at my mercy." vezin heard, and yet did not hear; understood, yet did not understand. he had passed into a condition of exaltation. the world was beneath his feet, made of music and flowers, and he was flying somewhere far above it through the sunshine of pure delight. he was breathless and giddy with the wonder of her words. they intoxicated him. and, still, the terror of it all, the dreadful thought of death, pressed ever behind her sentences. for flames shot through her voice out of black smoke and licked at his soul. and they communicated with one another, it seemed to him, by a process of swift telepathy, for his french could never have compassed all he said to her. yet she understood perfectly, and what she said to him was like the recital of verses long since known. and the mingled pain and sweetness of it as he listened were almost more than his little soul could hold. "yet i came here wholly by chance--" he heard himself saying. "no," she cried with passion, "you came here because i called to you. i have called to you for years, and you came with the whole force of the past behind you. you had to come, for i own you, and i claim you." she rose again and moved closer, looking at him with a certain insolence in the face--the insolence of power. the sun had set behind the towers of the old cathedral and the darkness rose up from the plain and enveloped them. the music of the band had ceased. the leaves of the plane trees hung motionless, but the chill of the autumn evening rose about them and made vezin shiver. there was no sound but the sound of their voices and the occasional soft rustle of the girl's dress. he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. he scarcely realised where he was or what he was doing. some terrible magic of the imagination drew him deeply down into the tombs of his own being, telling him in no unfaltering voice that her words shadowed forth the truth. and this simple little french maid, speaking beside him with so strange authority, he saw curiously alter into quite another being. as he stared into her eyes, the picture in his mind grew and lived, dressing itself vividly to his inner vision with a degree of reality he was compelled to acknowledge. as once before, he saw her tall and stately, moving through wild and broken scenery of forests and mountain caverns, the glare of flames behind her head and clouds of shifting smoke about her feet. dark leaves encircled her hair, flying loosely in the wind, and her limbs shone through the merest rags of clothing. others were about her, too, and ardent eyes on all sides cast delirious glances upon her, but her own eyes were always for one only, one whom she held by the hand. for she was leading the dance in some tempestuous orgy to the music of chanting voices, and the dance she led circled about a great and awful figure on a throne, brooding over the scene through lurid vapours, while innumerable other wild faces and forms crowded furiously about her in the dance. but the one she held by the hand he knew to be himself, and the monstrous shape upon the throne he knew to be her mother. the vision rose within him, rushing to him down the long years of buried time, crying aloud to him with the voice of memory reawakened.... and then the scene faded away and he saw the clear circle of the girl's eyes gazing steadfastly into his own, and she became once more the pretty little daughter of the innkeeper, and he found his voice again. "and you," he whispered tremblingly--"you child of visions and enchantment, how is it that you so bewitch me that i loved you even before i saw?" she drew herself up beside him with an air of rare dignity. "the call of the past," she said; "and besides," she added proudly, "in the real life i am a princess--" "a princess!" he cried. "--and my mother is a queen!" at this, little vezin utterly lost his head. delight tore at his heart and swept him into sheer ecstasy. to hear that sweet singing voice, and to see those adorable little lips utter such things, upset his balance beyond all hope of control. he took her in his arms and covered her unresisting face with kisses. but even while he did so, and while the hot passion swept him, he felt that she was soft and loathsome, and that her answering kisses stained his very soul.... and when, presently, she had freed herself and vanished into the darkness, he stood there, leaning against the wall in a state of collapse, creeping with horror from the touch of her yielding body, and inwardly raging at the weakness that he already dimly realised must prove his undoing. and from the shadows of the old buildings into which she disappeared there rose in the stillness of the night a singular, long-drawn cry, which at first he took for laughter, but which later he was sure he recognised as the almost human wailing of a cat. v for a long time vezin leant there against the wall, alone with his surging thoughts and emotions. he understood at length that he had done the one thing necessary to call down upon him the whole force of this ancient past. for in those passionate kisses he had acknowledged the tie of olden days, and had revived it. and the memory of that soft impalpable caress in the darkness of the inn corridor came back to him with a shudder. the girl had first mastered him, and then led him to the one act that was necessary for her purpose. he had been waylaid, after the lapse of centuries--caught, and conquered. dimly he realised this, and sought to make plans for his escape. but, for the moment at any rate, he was powerless to manage his thoughts or will, for the sweet, fantastic madness of the whole adventure mounted to his brain like a spell, and he gloried in the feeling that he was utterly enchanted and moving in a world so much larger and wilder than the one he had ever been accustomed to. the moon, pale and enormous, was just rising over the sea-like plain, when at last he rose to go. her slanting rays drew all the houses into new perspective, so that their roofs, already glistening with dew, seemed to stretch much higher into the sky than usual, and their gables and quaint old towers lay far away in its purple reaches. the cathedral appeared unreal in a silver mist. he moved softly, keeping to the shadows; but the streets were all deserted and very silent; the doors were closed, the shutters fastened. not a soul was astir. the hush of night lay over everything; it was like a town of the dead, a churchyard with gigantic and grotesque tombstones. wondering where all the busy life of the day had so utterly disappeared to, he made his way to a back door that entered the inn by means of the stables, thinking thus to reach his room unobserved. he reached the courtyard safely and crossed it by keeping close to the shadow of the wall. he sidled down it, mincing along on tiptoe, just as the old men did when they entered the _salle à manger_. he was horrified to find himself doing this instinctively. a strange impulse came to him, catching him somehow in the centre of his body--an impulse to drop upon all fours and run swiftly and silently. he glanced upwards and the idea came to him to leap up upon his window-sill overhead instead of going round by the stairs. this occurred to him as the easiest, and most natural way. it was like the beginning of some horrible transformation of himself into something else. he was fearfully strung up. the moon was higher now, and the shadows very dark along the side of the street where he moved. he kept among the deepest of them, and reached the porch with the glass doors. but here there was light; the inmates, unfortunately, were still about. hoping to slip across the hall unobserved and reach the stairs, he opened the door carefully and stole in. then he saw that the hall was not empty. a large dark thing lay against the wall on his left. at first he thought it must be household articles. then it moved, and he thought it was an immense cat, distorted in some way by the play of light and shadow. then it rose straight up before him and he saw that it was the proprietress. what she had been doing in this position he could only venture a dreadful guess, but the moment she stood up and faced him he was aware of some terrible dignity clothing her about that instantly recalled the girl's strange saying that she was a queen. huge and sinister she stood there under the little oil lamp; alone with him in the empty hall. awe stirred in his heart, and the roots of some ancient fear. he felt that he must bow to her and make some kind of obeisance. the impulse was fierce and irresistible, as of long habit. he glanced quickly about him. there was no one there. then he deliberately inclined his head toward her. he bowed. "enfin! m'sieur s'est donc décidé. c'est bien alors. j'en suis contente." her words came to him sonorously as through a great open space. then the great figure came suddenly across the flagged hall at him and seized his trembling hands. some overpowering force moved with her and caught him. "on pourrait faire un p'tit tour ensemble, n'est-ce pas? nous y allons cette nuit et il faut s'exercer un peu d'avance pour cela. ilsé, ilsé, viens donc ici. viens vite!" and she whirled him round in the opening steps of some dance that seemed oddly and horribly familiar. they made no sound on the stones, this strangely assorted couple. it was all soft and stealthy. and presently, when the air seemed to thicken like smoke, and a red glare as of flame shot through it, he was aware that some one else had joined them and that his hand the mother had released was now tightly held by the daughter. ilsé had come in answer to the call, and he saw her with leaves of vervain twined in her dark hair, clothed in tattered vestiges of some curious garment, beautiful as the night, and horribly, odiously, loathsomely seductive. "to the sabbath! to the sabbath!" they cried. "on to the witches' sabbath!" up and down that narrow hall they danced, the women on each side of him, to the wildest measure he had ever imagined, yet which he dimly, dreadfully remembered, till the lamp on the wall flickered and went out, and they were left in total darkness. and the devil woke in his heart with a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid. suddenly they released his hands and he heard the voice of the mother cry that it was time, and they must go. which way they went he did not pause to see. he only realised that he was free, and he blundered through the darkness till he found the stairs and then tore up them to his room as though all hell was at his heels. he flung himself on the sofa, with his face in his hands, and groaned. swiftly reviewing a dozen ways of immediate escape, all equally impossible, he finally decided that the only thing to do for the moment was to sit quiet and wait. he must see what was going to happen. at least in the privacy of his own bedroom he would be fairly safe. the door was locked. he crossed over and softly opened the window which gave upon the courtyard and also permitted a partial view of the hall through the glass doors. as he did so the hum and murmur of a great activity reached his ears from the streets beyond--the sound of footsteps and voices muffled by distance. he leaned out cautiously and listened. the moonlight was clear and strong now, but his own window was in shadow, the silver disc being still behind the house. it came to him irresistibly that the inhabitants of the town, who a little while before had all been invisible behind closed doors, were now issuing forth, busy upon some secret and unholy errand. he listened intently. at first everything about him was silent, but soon he became aware of movements going on in the house itself. rustlings and cheepings came to him across that still, moonlit yard. a concourse of living beings sent the hum of their activity into the night. things were on the move everywhere. a biting, pungent odour rose through the air, coming he knew not whence. presently his eyes became glued to the windows of the opposite wall where the moonshine fell in a soft blaze. the roof overhead, and behind him, was reflected clearly in the panes of glass, and he saw the outlines of dark bodies moving with long footsteps over the tiles and along the coping. they passed swiftly and silently, shaped like immense cats, in an endless procession across the pictured glass, and then appeared to leap down to a lower level where he lost sight of them. he just caught the soft thudding of their leaps. sometimes their shadows fell upon the white wall opposite, and then he could not make out whether they were the shadows of human beings or of cats. they seemed to change swiftly from one to the other. the transformation looked horribly real, for they leaped like human beings, yet changed swiftly in the air immediately afterwards, and dropped like animals. the yard, too, beneath him, was now alive with the creeping movements of dark forms all stealthily drawing towards the porch with the glass doors. they kept so closely to the wall that he could not determine their actual shape, but when he saw that they passed on to the great congregation that was gathering in the hall, he understood that these were the creatures whose leaping shadows he had first seen reflected in the windowpanes opposite. they were coming from all parts of the town, reaching the appointed meeting-place across the roofs and tiles, and springing from level to level till they came to the yard. then a new sound caught his ear, and he saw that the windows all about him were being softly opened, and that to each window came a face. a moment later figures began dropping hurriedly down into the yard. and these figures, as they lowered themselves down from the windows, were human, he saw; but once safely in the yard they fell upon all fours and changed in the swiftest possible second into--cats--huge, silent cats. they ran in streams to join the main body in the hall beyond. so, after all, the rooms in the house had not been empty and unoccupied. moreover, what he saw no longer filled him with amazement. for he remembered it all. it was familiar. it had all happened before just so, hundreds of times, and he himself had taken part in it and known the wild madness of it all. the outline of the old building changed, the yard grew larger, and he seemed to be staring down upon it from a much greater height through smoky vapours. and, as he looked, half remembering, the old pains of long ago, fierce and sweet, furiously assailed him, and the blood stirred horribly as he heard the call of the dance again in his heart and tasted the ancient magic of ilsé whirling by his side. suddenly he started back. a great lithe cat had leaped softly up from the shadows below on to the sill close to his face, and was staring fixedly at him with the eyes of a human. "come," it seemed to say, "come with us to the dance! change as of old! transform yourself swiftly and come!" only too well he understood the creature's soundless call. it was gone again in a flash with scarcely a sound of its padded feet on the stones, and then others dropped by the score down the side of the house, past his very eyes, all changing as they fell and darting away rapidly, softly, towards the gathering point. and again he felt the dreadful desire to do likewise; to murmur the old incantation, and then drop upon hands and knees and run swiftly for the great flying leap into the air. oh, how the passion of it rose within him like a flood, twisting his very entrails, sending his heart's desire flaming forth into the night for the old, old dance of the sorcerers at the witches' sabbath! the whirl of the stars was about him; once more he met the magic of the moon. the power of the wind, rushing from precipice and forest, leaping from cliff to cliff across the valleys, tore him away.... he heard the cries of the dancers and their wild laughter, and with this savage girl in his embrace he danced furiously about the dim throne where sat the figure with the sceptre of majesty.... then, suddenly, all became hushed and still, and the fever died down a little in his heart. the calm moonlight flooded a courtyard empty and deserted. they had started. the procession was off into the sky. and he was left behind--alone. vezin tiptoed softly across the room and unlocked the door. the murmur from the streets, growing momentarily as he advanced, met his ears. he made his way with the utmost caution down the corridor. at the head of the stairs he paused and listened. below him, the hall where they had gathered was dark and still, but through opened doors and windows on the far side of the building came the sound of a great throng moving farther and farther into the distance. he made his way down the creaking wooden stairs, dreading yet longing to meet some straggler who should point the way, but finding no one; across the dark hall, so lately thronged with living, moving things, and out through the opened front doors into the street. he could not believe that he was really left behind, really forgotten, that he had been purposely permitted to escape. it perplexed him. nervously he peered about him, and up and down the street; then, seeing nothing, advanced slowly down the pavement. the whole town, as he went, showed itself empty and deserted, as though a great wind had blown everything alive out of it. the doors and windows of the houses stood open to the night; nothing stirred; moonlight and silence lay over all. the night lay about him like a cloak. the air, soft and cool, caressed his cheek like the touch of a great furry paw. he gained confidence and began to walk quickly, though still keeping to the shadowed side. nowhere could he discover the faintest sign of the great unholy exodus he knew had just taken place. the moon sailed high over all in a sky cloudless and serene. hardly realising where he was going, he crossed the open market-place and so came to the ramparts, whence he knew a pathway descended to the high road and along which he could make good his escape to one of the other little towns that lay to the northward, and so to the railway. but first he paused and gazed out over the scene at his feet where the great plain lay like a silver map of some dream country. the still beauty of it entered his heart, increasing his sense of bewilderment and unreality. no air stirred, the leaves of the plane trees stood motionless, the near details were defined with the sharpness of day against dark shadows, and in the distance the fields and woods melted away into haze and shimmering mistiness. but the breath caught in his throat and he stood stockstill as though transfixed when his gaze passed from the horizon and fell upon the near prospect in the depth of the valley at his feet. the whole lower slopes of the hill, that lay hid from the brightness of the moon, were aglow, and through the glare he saw countless moving forms, shifting thick and fast between the openings of the trees; while overhead, like leaves driven by the wind, he discerned flying shapes that hovered darkly one moment against the sky and then settled down with cries and weird singing through the branches into the region that was aflame. spellbound, he stood and stared for a time that he could not measure. and then, moved by one of the terrible impulses that seemed to control the whole adventure, he climbed swiftly upon the top of the broad coping, and balanced a moment where the valley gaped at his feet. but in that very instant, as he stood hovering, a sudden movement among the shadows of the houses caught his eye, and he turned to see the outline of a large animal dart swiftly across the open space behind him, and land with a flying leap upon the top of the wall a little lower down. it ran like the wind to his feet and then rose up beside him upon the ramparts. a shiver seemed to run through the moonlight, and his sight trembled for a second. his heart pulsed fearfully. ilsé stood beside him, peering into his face. some dark substance, he saw, stained the girl's face and skin, shining in the moonlight as she stretched her hands towards him; she was dressed in wretched tattered garments that yet became her mightily; rue and vervain twined about her temples; her eyes glittered with unholy light. he only just controlled the wild impulse to take her in his arms and leap with her from their giddy perch into the valley below. "see!" she cried, pointing with an arm on which the rags fluttered in the rising wind towards the forest aglow in the distance. "see where they await us! the woods are alive! already the great ones are there, and the dance will soon begin! the salve is here! anoint yourself and come!" though a moment before the sky was clear and cloudless, yet even while she spoke the face of the moon grew dark and the wind began to toss in the crests of the plane trees at his feet. stray gusts brought the sounds of hoarse singing and crying from the lower slopes of the hill, and the pungent odour he had already noticed about the courtyard of the inn rose about him in the air. "transform, transform!" she cried again, her voice rising like a song. "rub well your skin before you fly. come! come with me to the sabbath, to the madness of its furious delight, to the sweet abandonment of its evil worship! see! the great ones are there, and the terrible sacraments prepared. the throne is occupied. anoint and come! anoint and come!" she grew to the height of a tree beside him, leaping upon the wall with flaming eyes and hair strewn upon the night. he too began to change swiftly. her hands touched the skin of his face and neck, streaking him with the burning salve that sent the old magic into his blood with the power before which fades all that is good. a wild roar came up to his ears from the heart of the wood, and the girl, when she heard it, leaped upon the wall in the frenzy of her wicked joy. "satan is there!" she screamed, rushing upon him and striving to draw him with her to the edge of the wall. "satan has come. the sacraments call us! come, with your dear apostate soul, and we will worship and dance till the moon dies and the world is forgotten!" just saving himself from the dreadful plunge, vezin struggled to release himself from her grasp, while the passion tore at his reins and all but mastered him. he shrieked aloud, not knowing what he said, and then he shrieked again. it was the old impulses, the old awful habits instinctively finding voice; for though it seemed to him that he merely shrieked nonsense, the words he uttered really had meaning in them, and were intelligible. it was the ancient call. and it was heard below. it was answered. the wind whistled at the skirts of his coat as the air round him darkened with many flying forms crowding upwards out of the valley. the crying of hoarse voices smote upon his ears, coming closer. strokes of wind buffeted him, tearing him this way and that along the crumbling top of the stone wall; and ilsé clung to him with her long shining arms, smooth and bare, holding him fast about the neck. but not ilsé alone, for a dozen of them surrounded him, dropping out of the air. the pungent odour of the anointed bodies stifled him, exciting him to the old madness of the sabbath, the dance of the witches and sorcerers doing honour to the personified evil of the world. "anoint and away! anoint and away!" they cried in wild chorus about him. "to the dance that never dies! to the sweet and fearful fantasy of evil!" another moment and he would have yielded and gone, for his will turned soft and the flood of passionate memory all but overwhelmed him, when--so can a small thing after the whole course of an adventure--he caught his foot upon a loose stone in the edge of the wall, and then fell with a sudden crash on to the ground below. but he fell towards the houses, in the open space of dust and cobblestones, and fortunately not into the gaping depth of the valley on the farther side. and they, too, came in a tumbling heap about him, like flies upon a piece of food, but as they fell he was released for a moment from the power of their touch, and in that brief instant of freedom there flashed into his mind the sudden intuition that saved him. before he could regain his feet he saw them scrabbling awkwardly back upon the wall, as though bat-like they could only fly by dropping from a height, and had no hold upon him in the open. then, seeing them perched there in a row like cats upon a roof, all dark and singularly shapeless, their eyes like lamps, the sudden memory came back to him of ilsé's terror at the sight of fire. quick as a flash he found his matches and lit the dead leaves that lay under the wall. dry and withered, they caught fire at once, and the wind carried the flame in a long line down the length of the wall, licking upwards as it ran; and with shrieks and wailings, the crowded row of forms upon the top melted away into the air on the other side, and were gone with a great rush and whirring of their bodies down into the heart of the haunted valley, leaving vezin breathless and shaken in the middle of the deserted ground. "ilsé!" he called feebly; "ilsé!" for his heart ached to think that she was really gone to the great dance without him, and that he had lost the opportunity of its fearful joy. yet at the same time his relief was so great, and he was so dazed and troubled in mind with the whole thing, that he hardly knew what he was saying, and only cried aloud in the fierce storm of his emotion.... the fire under the wall ran its course, and the moonlight came out again, soft and clear, from its temporary eclipse. with one last shuddering look at the ruined ramparts, and a feeling of horrid wonder for the haunted valley beyond, where the shapes still crowded and flew, he turned his face towards the town and slowly made his way in the direction of the hotel. and as he went, a great wailing of cries, and a sound of howling, followed him from the gleaming forest below, growing fainter and fainter with the bursts of wind as he disappeared between the houses. vi "it may seem rather abrupt to you, this sudden tame ending," said arthur vezin, glancing with flushed face and timid eyes at dr. silence sitting there with his notebook, "but the fact is--er--from that moment my memory seems to have failed rather. i have no distinct recollection of how i got home or what precisely i did. "it appears i never went back to the inn at all. i only dimly recollect racing down a long white road in the moonlight, past woods and villages, still and deserted, and then the dawn came up, and i saw the towers of a biggish town and so came to a station. "but, long before that, i remember pausing somewhere on the road and looking back to where the hill-town of my adventure stood up in the moonlight, and thinking how exactly like a great monstrous cat it lay there upon the plain, its huge front paws lying down the two main streets, and the twin and broken towers of the cathedral marking its torn ears against the sky. that picture stays in my mind with the utmost vividness to this day. "another thing remains in my mind from that escape--namely, the sudden sharp reminder that i had not paid my bill, and the decision i made, standing there on the dusty highroad, that the small baggage i had left behind would more than settle for my indebtedness. "for the rest, i can only tell you that i got coffee and bread at a café on the outskirts of this town i had come to, and soon after found my way to the station and caught a train later in the day. that same evening i reached london." "and how long altogether," asked john silence quietly, "do you think you stayed in the town of the adventure?" vezin looked up sheepishly. "i was coming to that," he resumed, with apologetic wrigglings of his body. "in london i found that i was a whole week out in my reckoning of time. i had stayed over a week in the town, and it ought to have been september th,--instead of which it was only september th!" "so that, in reality, you had only stayed a night or two in the inn?" queried the doctor. vezin hesitated before replying. he shuffled upon the mat. "i must have gained time somewhere," he said at length--"somewhere or somehow. i certainly had a week to my credit. i can't explain it. i can only give you the fact." "and this happened to you last year, since when you have never been back to the place?" "last autumn, yes," murmured vezin; "and i have never dared to go back. i think i never want to." "and, tell me," asked dr. silence at length, when he saw that the little man had evidently come to the end of his words and had nothing more to say, "had you ever read up the subject of the old witchcraft practices during the middle ages, or been at all interested in the subject?" "never!" declared vezin emphatically. "i had never given a thought to such matters so far as i know--" "or to the question of reincarnation, perhaps?" "never--before my adventure; but i have since," he replied significantly. there was, however, something still on the man's mind that he wished to relieve himself of by confession, yet could only with difficulty bring himself to mention; and it was only after the sympathetic tactfulness of the doctor had provided numerous openings that he at length availed himself of one of them, and stammered that he would like to show him the marks he still had on his neck where, he said, the girl had touched him with her anointed hands. he took off his collar after infinite fumbling hesitation, and lowered his shirt a little for the doctor to see. and there, on the surface of the skin, lay a faint reddish line across the shoulder and extending a little way down the back towards the spine. it certainly indicated exactly the position an arm might have taken in the act of embracing. and on the other side of the neck, slightly higher up, was a similar mark, though not quite so clearly defined. "that was where she held me that night on the ramparts," he whispered, a strange light coming and going in his eyes. * * * * * it was some weeks later when i again found occasion to consult john silence concerning another extraordinary case that had come under my notice, and we fell to discussing vezin's story. since hearing it, the doctor had made investigations on his own account, and one of his secretaries had discovered that vezin's ancestors had actually lived for generations in the very town where the adventure came to him. two of them, both women, had been tried and convicted as witches, and had been burned alive at the stake. moreover, it had not been difficult to prove that the very inn where vezin stayed was built about upon the spot where the funeral pyres stood and the executions took place. the town was a sort of headquarters for all the sorcerers and witches of the entire region, and after conviction they were burnt there literally by scores. "it seems strange," continued the doctor, "that vezin should have remained ignorant of all this; but, on the other hand, it was not the kind of history that successive generations would have been anxious to keep alive, or to repeat to their children. therefore i am inclined to think he still knows nothing about it. "the whole adventure seems to have been a very vivid revival of the memories of an earlier life, caused by coming directly into contact with the living forces still intense enough to hang about the place, and, by a most singular chance, too, with the very souls who had taken part with him in the events of that particular life. for the mother and daughter who impressed him so strangely must have been leading actors, with himself, in the scenes and practices of witchcraft which at that period dominated the imaginations of the whole country. "one has only to read the histories of the times to know that these witches claimed the power of transforming themselves into various animals, both for the purposes of disguise and also to convey themselves swiftly to the scenes of their imaginary orgies. lycanthropy, or the power to change themselves into wolves, was everywhere believed in, and the ability to transform themselves into cats by rubbing their bodies with a special salve or ointment provided by satan himself, found equal credence. the witchcraft trials abound in evidences of such universal beliefs." dr. silence quoted chapter and verse from many writers on the subject, and showed how every detail of vezin's adventure had a basis in the practices of those dark days. "but that the entire affair took place subjectively in the man's own consciousness, i have no doubt," he went on, in reply to my questions; "for my secretary who has been to the town to investigate, discovered his signature in the visitors' book, and proved by it that he had arrived on september th, and left suddenly without paying his bill. he left two days later, and they still were in possession of his dirty brown bag and some tourist clothes. i paid a few francs in settlement of his debt, and have sent his luggage on to him. the daughter was absent from home, but the proprietress, a large woman very much as he described her, told my secretary that he had seemed a very strange, absent-minded kind of gentleman, and after his disappearance she had feared for a long time that he had met with a violent end in the neighbouring forest where he used to roam about alone. "i should like to have obtained a personal interview with the daughter so as to ascertain how much was subjective and how much actually took place with her as vezin told it. for her dread of fire and the sight of burning must, of course, have been the intuitive memory of her former painful death at the stake, and have thus explained why he fancied more than once that he saw her through smoke and flame." "and that mark on his skin, for instance?" i inquired. "merely the marks produced by hysterical brooding," he replied, "like the stigmata of the _religieuses_, and the bruises which appear on the bodies of hypnotised subjects who have been told to expect them. this is very common and easily explained. only it seems curious that these marks should have remained so long in vezin's case. usually they disappear quickly." "obviously he is still thinking about it all, brooding, and living it all over again," i ventured. "probably. and this makes me fear that the end of his trouble is not yet. we shall hear of him again. it is a case, alas! i can do little to alleviate." dr. silence spoke gravely and with sadness in his voice. "and what do you make of the frenchman in the train?" i asked further--"the man who warned him against the place, _à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats?_ surely a very singular incident?" "a very singular incident indeed," he made answer slowly, "and one i can only explain on the basis of a highly improbable coincidence--" "namely?" "that the man was one who had himself stayed in the town and undergone there a similar experience. i should like to find this man and ask him. but the crystal is useless here, for i have no slightest clue to go upon, and i can only conclude that some singular psychic affinity, some force still active in his being out of the same past life, drew him thus to the personality of vezin, and enabled him to fear what might happen to him, and thus to warn him as he did. "yes," he presently continued, half talking to himself, "i suspect in this case that vezin was swept into the vortex of forces arising out of the intense activities of a past life, and that he lived over again a scene in which he had often played a leading part centuries before. for strong actions set up forces that are so slow to exhaust themselves, they may be said in a sense never to die. in this case they were not vital enough to render the illusion complete, so that the little man found himself caught in a very distressing confusion of the present and the past; yet he was sufficiently sensitive to recognise that it was true, and to fight against the degradation of returning, even in memory, to a former and lower state of development. "ah yes!" he continued, crossing the floor to gaze at the darkening sky, and seemingly quite oblivious of my presence, "subliminal up-rushes of memory like this can be exceedingly painful, and sometimes exceedingly dangerous. i only trust that this gentle soul may soon escape from this obsession of a passionate and tempestuous past. but i doubt it, i doubt it." his voice was hushed with sadness as he spoke, and when he turned back into the room again there was an expression of profound yearning upon his face, the yearning of a soul whose desire to help is sometimes greater than his power. case iii: the nemesis of fire i by some means which i never could fathom, john silence always contrived to keep the compartment to himself, and as the train had a clear run of two hours before the first stop, there was ample time to go over the preliminary facts of the case. he had telephoned to me that very morning, and even through the disguise of the miles of wire the thrill of incalculable adventure had sounded in his voice. "as if it were an ordinary country visit," he called, in reply to my question; "and don't forgot to bring your gun." "with blank cartridges, i suppose?" for i knew his rigid principles with regard to the taking of life, and guessed that the guns were merely for some obvious purpose of disguise. then he thanked me for coming, mentioned the train, snapped down the receiver, and left me, vibrating with the excitement of anticipation, to do my packing. for the honour of accompanying dr. john silence on one of his big cases was what many would have considered an empty honour--and risky. certainly the adventure held all manner of possibilities, and i arrived at waterloo with the feelings of a man who is about to embark on some dangerous and peculiar mission in which the dangers he expects to run will not be the ordinary dangers to life and limb, but of some secret character difficult to name and still more difficult to cope with. "the manor house has a high sound," he told me, as we sat with our feet up and talked, "but i believe it is little more than an overgrown farmhouse in the desolate heather country beyond d----, and its owner, colonel wragge, a retired soldier with a taste for books, lives there practically alone, i understand, with an elderly invalid sister. so you need not look forward to a lively visit, unless the case provides some excitement of its own." "which is likely?" by way of reply he handed me a letter marked "private." it was dated a week ago, and signed "yours faithfully, horace wragge." "he heard of me, you see, through captain anderson," the doctor explained modestly, as though his fame were not almost world-wide; "you remember that indian obsession case--" i read the letter. why it should have been marked private was difficult to understand. it was very brief, direct, and to the point. it referred by way of introduction to captain anderson, and then stated quite simply that the writer needed help of a peculiar kind and asked for a personal interview--a morning interview, since it was impossible for him to be absent from the house at night. the letter was dignified even to the point of abruptness, and it is difficult to explain how it managed to convey to me the impression of a strong man, shaken and perplexed. perhaps the restraint of the wording, and the mystery of the affair had something to do with it; and the reference to the anderson case, the horror of which lay still vivid in my memory, may have touched the sense of something rather ominous and alarming. but, whatever the cause, there was no doubt that an impression of serious peril rose somehow out of that white paper with the few lines of firm writing, and the spirit of a deep uneasiness ran between the words and reached the mind without any visible form of expression. "and when you saw him--?" i asked, returning the letter as the train rushed clattering noisily through clapham junction. "i have not seen him," was the reply. "the man's mind was charged to the brim when he wrote that; full of vivid mental pictures. notice the restraint of it. for the main character of his case psychometry could be depended upon, and the scrap of paper his hand has touched is sufficient to give to another mind--a sensitive and sympathetic mind--clear mental pictures of what is going on. i think i have a very sound general idea of his problem." "so there may be excitement, after all?" john silence waited a moment before he replied. "something very serious is amiss there," he said gravely, at length. "some one--not himself, i gather,--has been meddling with a rather dangerous kind of gunpowder. so--yes, there may be excitement, as you put it." "and my duties?" i asked, with a decidedly growing interest. "remember, i am your 'assistant.'" "behave like an intelligent confidential secretary. observe everything, without seeming to. say nothing--nothing that means anything. be present at all interviews. i may ask a good deal of you, for if my impressions are correct this is--" he broke off suddenly. "but i won't tell you my impressions yet," he resumed after a moment's thought. "just watch and listen as the case proceeds. form your own impressions and cultivate your intuitions. we come as ordinary visitors, of course," he added, a twinkle showing for an instant in his eye; "hence, the guns." though disappointed not to hear more, i recognised the wisdom of his words and knew how valueless my impressions would be once the powerful suggestion of having heard his own lay behind them. i likewise reflected that intuition joined to a sense of humour was of more use to a man than double the quantity of mere "brains," as such. before putting the letter away, however, he handed it back, telling me to place it against my forehead for a few moments and then describe any pictures that came spontaneously into my mind. "don't deliberately look for anything. just imagine you see the inside of the eyelid, and wait for pictures that rise against its dark screen." i followed his instructions, making my mind as nearly blank as possible. but no visions came. i saw nothing but the lines of light that pass to and fro like the changes of a kaleidoscope across the blackness. a momentary sensation of warmth came and went curiously. "you see--what?" he asked presently. "nothing," i was obliged to admit disappointedly; "nothing but the usual flashes of light one always sees. only, perhaps, they are more vivid than usual." he said nothing by way of comment or reply. "and they group themselves now and then," i continued, with painful candour, for i longed to see the pictures he had spoken of, "group themselves into globes and round balls of fire, and the lines that flash about sometimes look like triangles and crosses--almost like geometrical figures. nothing more." i opened my eyes again, and gave him back the letter. "it makes my head hot," i said, feeling somehow unworthy for not seeing anything of interest. but the look in his eyes arrested my attention at once. "that sensation of heat is important," he said significantly. "it was certainly real, and rather uncomfortable," i replied, hoping he would expand and explain. "there was a distinct feeling of warmth--internal warmth somewhere--oppressive in a sense." "that is interesting," he remarked, putting the letter back in his pocket, and settling himself in the corner with newspapers and books. he vouchsafed nothing more, and i knew the uselessness of trying to make him talk. following his example i settled likewise with magazines into my corner. but when i closed my eyes again to look for the flashing lights and the sensation of heat, i found nothing but the usual phantasmagoria of the day's events--faces, scenes, memories,--and in due course i fell asleep and then saw nothing at all of any kind. when we left the train, after six hours' travelling, at a little wayside station standing without trees in a world of sand and heather, the late october shadows had already dropped their sombre veil upon the landscape, and the sun dipped almost out of sight behind the moorland hills. in a high dogcart, behind a fast horse, we were soon rattling across the undulating stretches of an open and bleak country, the keen air stinging our cheeks and the scents of pine and bracken strong about us. bare hills were faintly visible against the horizon, and the coachman pointed to a bank of distant shadows on our left where he told us the sea lay. occasional stone farmhouses, standing back from the road among straggling fir trees, and large black barns that seemed to shift past us with a movement of their own in the gloom, were the only signs of humanity and civilisation that we saw, until at the end of a bracing five miles the lights of the lodge gates flared before us and we plunged into a thick grove of pine trees that concealed the manor house up to the moment of actual arrival. colonel wragge himself met us in the hall. he was the typical army officer who had seen service, real service, and found himself in the process. he was tall and well built, broad in the shoulders, but lean as a greyhound, with grave eyes, rather stern, and a moustache turning grey. i judged him to be about sixty years of age, but his movements showed a suppleness of strength and agility that contradicted the years. the face was full of character and resolution, the face of a man to be depended upon, and the straight grey eyes, it seemed to me, wore a veil of perplexed anxiety that he made no attempt to disguise. the whole appearance of the man at once clothed the adventure with gravity and importance. a matter that gave such a man cause for serious alarm, i felt, must be something real and of genuine moment. his speech and manner, as he welcomed us, were like his letter, simple and sincere. he had a nature as direct and undeviating as a bullet. thus, he showed plainly his surprise that dr. silence had not come alone. "my confidential secretary, mr. hubbard," the doctor said, introducing me, and the steady gaze and powerful shake of the hand i then received were well calculated, i remember thinking, to drive home the impression that here was a man who was not to be trifled with, and whose perplexity must spring from some very real and tangible cause. and, quite obviously, he was relieved that we had come. his welcome was unmistakably genuine. he led us at once into a room, half library, half smoking-room, that opened out of the low-ceilinged hall. the manor house gave the impression of a rambling and glorified farmhouse, solid, ancient, comfortable, and wholly unpretentious. and so it was. only the heat of the place struck me as unnatural. this room with the blazing fire may have seemed uncomfortably warm after the long drive through the night air; yet it seemed to me that the hall itself, and the whole atmosphere of the house, breathed a warmth that hardly belonged to well-filled grates or the pipes of hot air and water. it was not the heat of the greenhouse; it was an oppressive heat that somehow got into the head and mind. it stirred a curious sense of uneasiness in me, and i caught myself thinking of the sensation of warmth that had emanated from the letter in the train. i heard him thanking dr. silence for having come; there was no preamble, and the exchange of civilities was of the briefest description. evidently here was a man who, like my companion, loved action rather than talk. his manner was straightforward and direct. i saw him in a flash: puzzled, worried, harassed into a state of alarm by something he could not comprehend; forced to deal with things he would have preferred to despise, yet facing it all with dogged seriousness and making no attempt to conceal that he felt secretly ashamed of his incompetence. "so i cannot offer you much entertainment beyond that of my own company, and the queer business that has been going on here, and is still going on," he said, with a slight inclination of the head towards me by way of including me in his confidence. "i think, colonel wragge," replied john silence impressively, "that we shall none of us find the time hangs heavy. i gather we shall have our hands full." the two men looked at one another for the space of some seconds, and there was an indefinable quality in their silence which for the first time made me admit a swift question into my mind; and i wondered a little at my rashness in coming with so little reflection into a big case of this incalculable doctor. but no answer suggested itself, and to withdraw was, of course, inconceivable. the gates had closed behind me now, and the spirit of the adventure was already besieging my mind with its advance guard of a thousand little hopes and fears. explaining that he would wait till after dinner to discuss anything serious, as no reference was ever made before his sister, he led the way upstairs and showed us personally to our rooms; and it was just as i was finishing dressing that a knock came at my door and dr. silence entered. he was always what is called a serious man, so that even in moments of comedy you felt he never lost sight of the profound gravity of life, but as he came across the room to me i caught the expression of his face and understood in a flash that he was now in his most grave and earnest mood. he looked almost troubled. i stopped fumbling with my black tie and stared. "it is serious," he said, speaking in a low voice, "more so even than i imagined. colonel wragge's control over his thoughts concealed a great deal in my psychometrising of the letter. i looked in to warn you to keep yourself well in hand--generally speaking." "haunted house?" i asked, conscious of a distinct shiver down my back. but he smiled gravely at the question. "haunted house of life more likely," he replied, and a look came into his eyes which i had only seen there when a human soul was in the toils and he was thick in the fight of rescue. he was stirred in the deeps. "colonel wragge--or the sister?" i asked hurriedly, for the gong was sounding. "neither directly," he said from the door. "something far older, something very, very remote indeed. this thing has to do with the ages, unless i am mistaken greatly, the ages on which the mists of memory have long lain undisturbed." he came across the floor very quickly with a finger on his lips, looking at me with a peculiar searchingness of gaze. "are you aware yet of anything--odd here?" he asked in a whisper. "anything you cannot quite define, for instance. tell me, hubbard, for i want to know all your impressions. they may help me." i shook my head, avoiding his gaze, for there was something in the eyes that scared me a little. but he was so in earnest that i set my mind keenly searching. "nothing yet," i replied truthfully, wishing i could confess to a real emotion; "nothing but the strange heat of the place." he gave a little jump forward in my direction. "the heat again, that's it!" he exclaimed, as though glad of my corroboration. "and how would you describe it, perhaps?" he asked quickly, with a hand on the door knob. "it doesn't seem like ordinary physical heat," i said, casting about in my thoughts for a definition. "more a mental heat," he interrupted, "a glowing of thought and desire, a sort of feverish warmth of the spirit. isn't that it?" i admitted that he had exactly described my sensations. "good!" he said, as he opened the door, and with an indescribable gesture that combined a warning to be ready with a sign of praise for my correct intuition, he was gone. i hurried after him, and found the two men waiting for me in front of the fire. "i ought to warn you," our host was saying as i came in, "that my sister, whom you will meet at dinner, is not aware of the real object of your visit. she is under the impression that we are interested in the same line of study--folklore--and that your researches have led to my seeking acquaintance. she comes to dinner in her chair, you know. it will be a great pleasure to her to meet you both. we have few visitors." so that on entering the dining-room we were prepared to find miss wragge already at her place, seated in a sort of bath-chair. she was a vivacious and charming old lady, with smiling expression and bright eyes, and she chatted all through dinner with unfailing spontaneity. she had that face, unlined and fresh, that some people carry through life from the cradle to the grave; her smooth plump cheeks were all pink and white, and her hair, still dark, was divided into two glossy and sleek halves on either side of a careful parting. she wore gold-rimmed glasses, and at her throat was a large scarab of green jasper that made a very handsome brooch. her brother and dr. silence talked little, so that most of the conversation was carried on between herself and me, and she told me a great deal about the history of the old house, most of which i fear i listened to with but half an ear. "and when cromwell stayed here," she babbled on, "he occupied the very rooms upstairs that used to be mine. but my brother thinks it safer for me to sleep on the ground floor now in case of fire." and this sentence has stayed in my memory only because of the sudden way her brother interrupted her and instantly led the conversation on to another topic. the passing reference to fire seemed to have disturbed him, and thenceforward he directed the talk himself. it was difficult to believe that this lively and animated old lady, sitting beside me and taking so eager an interest in the affairs of life, was practically, we understood, without the use of her lower limbs, and that her whole existence for years had been passed between the sofa, the bed, and the bath-chair in which she chatted so naturally at the dinner table. she made no allusion to her affliction until the dessert was reached, and then, touching a bell, she made us a witty little speech about leaving us "like time, on noiseless feet," and was wheeled out of the room by the butler and carried off to her apartments at the other end of the house. and the rest of us were not long in following suit, for dr. silence and myself were quite as eager to learn the nature of our errand as our host was to impart it to us. he led us down a long flagged passage to a room at the very end of the house, a room provided with double doors, and windows, i saw, heavily shuttered. books lined the walls on every side, and a large desk in the bow window was piled up with volumes, some open, some shut, some showing scraps of paper stuck between the leaves, and all smothered in a general cataract of untidy foolscap and loose-half sheets. "my study and workroom," explained colonel wragge, with a delightful touch of innocent pride, as though he were a very serious scholar. he placed arm-chairs for us round the fire. "here," he added significantly, "we shall be safe from interruption and can talk securely." during dinner the manner of the doctor had been all that was natural and spontaneous, though it was impossible for me, knowing him as i did, not to be aware that he was subconsciously very keenly alert and already receiving upon the ultra-sensitive surface of his mind various and vivid impressions; and there was now something in the gravity of his face, as well as in the significant tone of colonel wragge's speech, and something, too, in the fact that we three were shut away in this private chamber about to listen to things probably strange, and certainly mysterious--something in all this that touched my imagination sharply and sent an undeniable thrill along my nerves. taking the chair indicated by my host, i lit my cigar and waited for the opening of the attack, fully conscious that we were now too far gone in the adventure to admit of withdrawal, and wondering a little anxiously where it was going to lead. what i expected precisely, it is hard to say. nothing definite, perhaps. only the sudden change was dramatic. a few hours before the prosaic atmosphere of piccadilly was about me, and now i was sitting in a secret chamber of this remote old building waiting to hear an account of things that held possibly the genuine heart of terror. i thought of the dreary moors and hills outside, and the dark pine copses soughing in the wind of night; i remembered my companion's singular words up in my bedroom before dinner; and then i turned and noted carefully the stern countenance of the colonel as he faced us and lit his big black cigar before speaking. the threshold of an adventure, i reflected as i waited for the first words, is always the most thrilling moment--until the climax comes. but colonel wragge hesitated--mentally--a long time before he began. he talked briefly of our journey, the weather, the country, and other comparatively trivial topics, while he sought about in his mind for an appropriate entry into the subject that was uppermost in the thoughts of all of us. the fact was he found it a difficult matter to speak of at all, and it was dr. silence who finally showed him the way over the hedge. "mr. hubbard will take a few notes when you are ready--you won't object," he suggested; "i can give my undivided attention in this way." "by all means," turning to reach some of the loose sheets on the writing table, and glancing at me. he still hesitated a little, i thought. "the fact is," he said apologetically, "i wondered if it was quite fair to trouble you so soon. the daylight might suit you better to hear what i have to tell. your sleep, i mean, might be less disturbed, perhaps." "i appreciate your thoughtfulness," john silence replied with his gentle smile, taking command as it were from that moment, "but really we are both quite immune. there is nothing, i think, that could prevent either of us sleeping, except--an outbreak of fire, or some such very physical disturbance." colonel wragge raised his eyes and looked fixedly at him. this reference to an outbreak of fire i felt sure was made with a purpose. it certainly had the desired effect of removing from our host's manner the last signs of hesitancy. "forgive me," he said. "of course, i know nothing of your methods in matters of this kind--so, perhaps, you would like me to begin at once and give you an outline of the situation?" dr. silence bowed his agreement. "i can then take my precautions accordingly," he added calmly. the soldier looked up for a moment as though he did not quite gather the meaning of these words; but he made no further comment and turned at once to tackle a subject on which he evidently talked with diffidence and unwillingness. "it's all so utterly out of my line of things," he began, puffing out clouds of cigar smoke between his words, "and there's so little to tell with any real evidence behind it, that it's almost impossible to make a consecutive story for you. it's the total cumulative effect that is so--so disquieting." he chose his words with care, as though determined not to travel one hair's breadth beyond the truth. "i came into this place twenty years ago when my elder brother died," he continued, "but could not afford to live here then. my sister, whom you met at dinner, kept house for him till the end, and during all these years, while i was seeing service abroad, she had an eye to the place--for we never got a satisfactory tenant--and saw that it was not allowed to go to ruin. i myself took possession, however, only a year ago. "my brother," he went on, after a perceptible pause, "spent much of his time away, too. he was a great traveller, and filled the house with stuff he brought home from all over the world. the laundry--a small detached building beyond the servants' quarters--he turned into a regular little museum. the curios and things i have cleared away--they collected dust and were always getting broken--but the laundry-house you shall see tomorrow." colonel wragge spoke with such deliberation and with so many pauses that this beginning took him a long time. but at this point he came to a full stop altogether. evidently there was something he wished to say that cost him considerable effort. at length he looked up steadily into my companion's face. "may i ask you--that is, if you won't think it strange," he said, and a sort of hush came over his voice and manner, "whether you have noticed anything at all unusual--anything queer, since you came into the house?" dr. silence answered without a moment's hesitation. "i have," he said. "there is a curious sensation of heat in the place." "ah!" exclaimed the other, with a slight start. "you _have_ noticed it. this unaccountable heat--" "but its cause, i gather, is not in the house itself--but outside," i was astonished to hear the doctor add. colonel wragge rose from his chair and turned to unhook a framed map that hung upon the wall. i got the impression that the movement was made with the deliberate purpose of concealing his face. "your diagnosis, i believe, is amazingly accurate," he said after a moment, turning round with the map in his hands. "though, of course, i can have no idea how you should guess--" john silence shrugged his shoulders expressively. "merely my impression," he said. "if you pay attention to impressions, and do not allow them to be confused by deductions of the intellect, you will often find them surprisingly, uncannily, accurate." colonel wragge resumed his seat and laid the map upon his knees. his face was very thoughtful as he plunged abruptly again into his story. "on coming into possession," he said, looking us alternately in the face, "i found a crop of stories of the most extraordinary and impossible kind i had ever heard--stories which at first i treated with amused indifference, but later was forced to regard seriously, if only to keep my servants. these stories i thought i traced to the fact of my brother's death--and, in a way, i think so still." he leant forward and handed the map to dr. silence. "it's an old plan of the estate," he explained, "but accurate enough for our purpose, and i wish you would note the position of the plantations marked upon it, especially those near the house. that one," indicating the spot with his finger, "is called the twelve acre plantation. it was just there, on the side nearest the house, that my brother and the head keeper met their deaths." he spoke as a man forced to recognise facts that he deplored, and would have preferred to leave untouched--things he personally would rather have treated with ridicule if possible. it made his words peculiarly dignified and impressive, and i listened with an increasing uneasiness as to the sort of help the doctor would look to me for later. it seemed as though i were a spectator of some drama of mystery in which any moment i might be summoned to play a part. "it was twenty years ago," continued the colonel, "but there was much talk about it at the time, unfortunately, and you may, perhaps, have heard of the affair. stride, the keeper, was a passionate, hot-tempered man but i regret to say, so was my brother, and quarrels between them seem to have been frequent." "i do not recall the affair," said the doctor. "may i ask what was the cause of death?" something in his voice made me prick up my ears for the reply. "the keeper, it was said, from suffocation. and at the inquest the doctors averred that both men had been dead the same length of time when found." "and your brother?" asked john silence, noticing the omission, and listening intently. "equally mysterious," said our host, speaking in a low voice with effort. "but there was one distressing feature i think i ought to mention. for those who saw the face--i did not see it myself--and though stride carried a gun its chambers were undischarged--" he stammered and hesitated with confusion. again that sense of terror moved between his words. he stuck. "yes," said the chief listener sympathetically. "my brother's face, they said, looked as though it had been scorched. it had been swept, as it were, by something that burned--blasted. it was, i am told, quite dreadful. the bodies were found lying side by side, faces downwards, both pointing away from the wood, as though they had been in the act of running, and not more than a dozen yards from its edge." dr. silence made no comment. he appeared to be studying the map attentively. "i did not see the face myself," repeated the other, his manner somehow expressing the sense of awe he contrived to keep out of his voice, "but my sister unfortunately did, and her present state i believe to be entirely due to the shock it gave to her nerves. she never can be brought to refer to it, naturally, and i am even inclined to think that the memory has mercifully been permitted to vanish from her mind. but she spoke of it at the time as a face swept by flame--blasted." john silence looked up from his contemplation of the map, but with the air of one who wished to listen, not to speak, and presently colonel wragge went on with his account. he stood on the mat, his broad shoulders hiding most of the mantelpiece. "they all centred about this particular plantation, these stories. that was to be expected, for the people here are as superstitious as irish peasantry, and though i made one or two examples among them to stop the foolish talk, it had no effect, and new versions came to my ears every week. you may imagine how little good dismissals did, when i tell you that the servants dismissed themselves. it was not the house servants, but the men who worked on the estate outside. the keepers gave notice one after another, none of them with any reason i could accept; the foresters refused to enter the wood, and the beaters to beat in it. word flew all over the countryside that twelve acre plantation was a place to be avoided, day or night. "there came a point," the colonel went on, now well in his swing, "when i felt compelled to make investigations on my own account. i could not kill the thing by ignoring it; so i collected and analysed the stories at first hand. for this twelve acre wood, you will see by the map, comes rather near home. its lower end, if you will look, almost touches the end of the back lawn, as i will show you tomorrow, and its dense growth of pines forms the chief protection the house enjoys from the east winds that blow up from the sea. and in olden days, before my brother interfered with it and frightened all the game away, it was one of the best pheasant coverts on the whole estate." "and what form, if i may ask, did this interference take?" asked dr. silence. "in detail, i cannot tell you, for i do not know--except that i understand it was the subject of his frequent differences with the head keeper; but during the last two years of his life, when he gave up travelling and settled down here, he took a special interest in this wood, and for some unaccountable reason began to build a low stone wall around it. this wall was never finished, but you shall see the ruins tomorrow in the daylight." "and the result of your investigations--these stories, i mean?" the doctor broke in, anxious to keep him to the main issues. "yes, i'm coming to that," he said slowly, "but the wood first, for this wood out of which they grew like mushrooms has nothing in any way peculiar about it. it is very thickly grown, and rises to a clearer part in the centre, a sort of mound where there is a circle of large boulders--old druid stones, i'm told. at another place there's a small pond. there's nothing distinctive about it that i could mention--just an ordinary pine-wood, a very ordinary pine-wood--only the trees are a bit twisted in the trunks, some of 'em, and very dense. nothing more. "and the stories? well, none of them had anything to do with my poor brother, or the keeper, as you might have expected; and they were all odd--such odd things, i mean, to invent or imagine. i never could make out how these people got such notions into their heads." he paused a moment to relight his cigar. "there's no regular path through it," he resumed, puffing vigorously, "but the fields round it are constantly used, and one of the gardeners whose cottage lies over that way declared he often saw moving lights in it at night, and luminous shapes like globes of fire over the tops of the trees, skimming and floating, and making a soft hissing sound--most of 'em said that, in fact--and another man saw shapes flitting in and out among the trees, things that were neither men nor animals, and all faintly luminous. no one ever pretended to see human forms--always queer, huge things they could not properly describe. sometimes the whole wood was lit up, and one fellow--he's still here and you shall see him--has a most circumstantial yarn about having seen great stars lying on the ground round the edge of the wood at regular intervals--" "what kind of stars?" put in john silence sharply, in a sudden way that made me start. "oh, i don't know quite; ordinary stars, i think he said, only very large, and apparently blazing as though the ground was alight. he was too terrified to go close and examine, and he has never seen them since." he stooped and stirred the fire into a welcome blaze--welcome for its blaze of light rather than for its heat. in the room there was already a strange pervading sensation of warmth that was oppressive in its effect and far from comforting. "of course," he went on, straightening up again on the mat, "this was all commonplace enough--this seeing lights and figures at night. most of these fellows drink, and imagination and terror between them may account for almost anything. but others saw things in broad daylight. one of the woodmen, a sober, respectable man, took the shortcut home to his midday meal, and swore he was followed the whole length of the wood by something that never showed itself, but dodged from tree to tree, always keeping out of sight, yet solid enough to make the branches sway and the twigs snap on the ground. and it made a noise, he declared--but really"--the speaker stopped and gave a short laugh--"it's too absurd--" "_please!_" insisted the doctor; "for it is these small details that give me the best clues always." "--it made a crackling noise, he said, like a bonfire. those were his very words: like the crackling of a bonfire," finished the soldier, with a repetition of his short laugh. "most interesting," dr. silence observed gravely. "please omit nothing." "yes," he went on, "and it was soon after that the fires began--the fires in the wood. they started mysteriously burning in the patches of coarse white grass that cover the more open parts of the plantation. no one ever actually saw them start, but many, myself among the number, have seen them burning and smouldering. they are always small and circular in shape, and for all the world like a picnic fire. the head keeper has a dozen explanations, from sparks flying out of the house chimneys to the sunlight focusing through a dewdrop, but none of them, i must admit, convince me as being in the least likely or probable. they are most singular, i consider, most singular, these mysterious fires, and i am glad to say that they come only at rather long intervals and never seem to spread. "but the keeper had other queer stories as well, and about things that are verifiable. he declared that no life ever willingly entered the plantation; more, that no life existed in it at all. no birds nested in the trees, or flew into their shade. he set countless traps, but never caught so much as a rabbit or a weasel. animals avoided it, and more than once he had picked up dead creatures round the edges that bore no obvious signs of how they had met their death. "moreover, he told me one extraordinary tale about his retriever chasing some invisible creature across the field one day when he was out with his gun. the dog suddenly pointed at something in the field at his feet, and then gave chase, yelping like a mad thing. it followed its imaginary quarry to the borders of the wood, and then went in--a thing he had never known it to do before. the moment it crossed the edge--it is darkish in there even in daylight--it began fighting in the most frenzied and terrific fashion. it made him afraid to interfere, he said. and at last, when the dog came out, hanging its tail down and panting, he found something like white hair stuck to its jaws, and brought it to show me. i tell you these details because--" "they are important, believe me," the doctor stopped him. "and you have it still, this hair?" he asked. "it disappeared in the oddest way," the colonel explained. "it was curious looking stuff, something like asbestos, and i sent it to be analysed by the local chemist. but either the man got wind of its origin, or else he didn't like the look of it for some reason, because he returned it to me and said it was neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral, so far as he could make out, and he didn't wish to have anything to do with it. i put it away in paper, but a week later, on opening the package--it was gone! oh, the stories are simply endless. i could tell you hundreds all on the same lines." "and personal experiences of your own, colonel wragge?" asked john silence earnestly, his manner showing the greatest possible interest and sympathy. the soldier gave an almost imperceptible start. he looked distinctly uncomfortable. "nothing, i think," he said slowly, "nothing--er--i should like to rely on. i mean nothing i have the right to speak of, perhaps--yet." his mouth closed with a snap. dr. silence, after waiting a little to see if he would add to his reply, did not seek to press him on the point. "well," he resumed presently, and as though he would speak contemptuously, yet dared not, "this sort of thing has gone on at intervals ever since. it spreads like wildfire, of course, mysterious chatter of this kind, and people began trespassing all over the estate, coming to see the wood, and making themselves a general nuisance. notices of man-traps and spring-guns only seemed to increase their persistence; and--think of it," he snorted, "some local research society actually wrote and asked permission for one of their members to spend a night in the wood! bolder fools, who didn't write for leave, came and took away bits of bark from the trees and gave them to clairvoyants, who invented in their turn a further batch of tales. there was simply no end to it all." "most distressing and annoying, i can well believe," interposed the doctor. "then suddenly, the phenomena ceased as mysteriously as they had begun, and the interest flagged. the tales stopped. people got interested in something else. it all seemed to die out. this was last july. i can tell you exactly, for i've kept a diary more or less of what happened." "ah!" "but now, quite recently, within the past three weeks, it has all revived again with a rush--with a kind of furious attack, so to speak. it has really become unbearable. you may imagine what it means, and the general state of affairs, when i say that the possibility of leaving has occurred to me." "incendiarism?" suggested dr. silence, half under his breath, but not so low that colonel wragge did not hear him. "by jove, sir, you take the very words out of my mouth!" exclaimed the astonished man, glancing from the doctor to me and from me to the doctor, and rattling the money in his pocket as though some explanation of my friend's divining powers were to be found that way. "it's only that you are thinking very vividly," the doctor said quietly, "and your thoughts form pictures in my mind before you utter them. it's merely a little elementary thought-reading." his intention, i saw, was not to perplex the good man, but to impress him with his powers so as to ensure obedience later. "good lord! i had no idea--" he did not finish the sentence, and dived again abruptly into his narrative. "i did not see anything myself, i must admit, but the stories of independent eye-witnesses were to the effect that lines of light, like streams of thin fire, moved through the wood and sometimes were seen to shoot out precisely as flames might shoot out--in the direction of this house. there," he explained, in a louder voice that made me jump, pointing with a thick finger to the map, "where the westerly fringe of the plantation comes up to the end of the lower lawn at the back of the house--where it links on to those dark patches, which are laurel shrubberies, running right up to the back premises--that's where these lights were seen. they passed from the wood to the shrubberies, and in this way reached the house itself. like silent rockets, one man described them, rapid as lightning and exceedingly bright." "and this evidence you spoke of?" "they actually reached the sides of the house. they've left a mark of scorching on the walls--the walls of the laundry building at the other end. you shall see 'em tomorrow." he pointed to the map to indicate the spot, and then straightened himself and glared about the room as though he had said something no one could believe and expected contradiction. "scorched--just as the faces were," the doctor murmured, looking significantly at me. "scorched--yes," repeated the colonel, failing to catch the rest of the sentence in his excitement. there was a prolonged silence in the room, in which i heard the gurgling of the oil in the lamp and the click of the coals and the heavy breathing of our host. the most unwelcome sensations were creeping about my spine, and i wondered whether my companion would scorn me utterly if i asked to sleep on the sofa in his room. it was eleven o'clock, i saw by the clock on the mantelpiece. we had crossed the dividing line and were now well in the movement of the adventure. the fight between my interest and my dread became acute. but, even if turning back had been possible, i think the interest would have easily gained the day. "i have enemies, of course," i heard the colonel's rough voice break into the pause presently, "and have discharged a number of servants---" "it's not that," put in john silence briefly. "you think not? in a sense i am glad, and yet--there are some things that can be met and dealt with--" he left the sentence unfinished, and looked down at the floor with an expression of grim severity that betrayed a momentary glimpse of character. this fighting man loathed and abhorred the thought of an enemy he could not see and come to grips with. presently he moved over and sat down in the chair between us. something like a sigh escaped him. dr. silence said nothing. "my sister, of course, is kept in ignorance, as far as possible, of all this," he said disconnectedly, and as if talking to himself. "but even if she knew she would find matter-of-fact explanations. i only wish i could. i'm sure they exist." there came then an interval in the conversation that was very significant. it did not seem a real pause, or the silence real silence, for both men continued to think so rapidly and strongly that one almost imagined their thoughts clothed themselves in words in the air of the room. i was more than a little keyed up with the strange excitement of all i had heard, but what stimulated my nerves more than anything else was the obvious fact that the doctor was clearly upon the trail of discovery. in his mind at that moment, i believe, he had already solved the nature of this perplexing psychical problem. his face was like a mask, and he employed the absolute minimum of gesture and words. all his energies were directed inwards, and by those incalculable methods and processes he had mastered with such infinite patience and study, i felt sure he was already in touch with the forces behind these singular phenomena and laying his deep plans for bringing them into the open, and then effectively dealing with them. colonel wragge meanwhile grew more and more fidgety. from time to time he turned towards my companion, as though about to speak, yet always changing his mind at the last moment. once he went over and opened the door suddenly, apparently to see if any one were listening at the keyhole, for he disappeared a moment between the two doors, and i then heard him open the outer one. he stood there for some seconds and made a noise as though he were sniffing the air like a dog. then he closed both doors cautiously and came back to the fireplace. a strange excitement seemed growing upon him. evidently he was trying to make up his mind to say something that he found it difficult to say. and john silence, as i rightly judged, was waiting patiently for him to choose his own opportunity and his own way of saying it. at last he turned and faced us, squaring his great shoulders, and stiffening perceptibly. dr. silence looked up sympathetically. "your own experiences help me most," he observed quietly. "the fact is," the colonel said, speaking very low, "this past week there have been outbreaks of fire in the house itself. three separate outbreaks--and all--in my sister's room." "yes," the doctor said, as if this was just what he had expected to hear. "utterly unaccountable--all of them," added the other, and then sat down. i began to understand something of the reason of his excitement. he was realising at last that the "natural" explanation he had held to all along was becoming impossible, and he hated it. it made him angry. "fortunately," he went on, "she was out each time and does not know. but i have made her sleep now in a room on the ground floor." "a wise precaution," the doctor said simply. he asked one or two questions. the fires had started in the curtains--once by the window and once by the bed. the third time smoke had been discovered by the maid coming from the cupboard, and it was found that miss wragge's clothes hanging on the hooks were smouldering. the doctor listened attentively, but made no comment. "and now can you tell me," he said presently, "what your own feeling about it is--your general impression?" "it sounds foolish to say so," replied the soldier, after a moment's hesitation, "but i feel exactly as i have often felt on active service in my indian campaigns: just as if the house and all in it were in a state of siege; as though a concealed enemy were encamped about us--in ambush somewhere." he uttered a soft nervous laugh. "as if the next sign of smoke would precipitate a panic--a dreadful panic." the picture came before me of the night shadowing the house, and the twisted pine trees he had described crowding about it, concealing some powerful enemy; and, glancing at the resolute face and figure of the old soldier, forced at length to his confession, i understood something of all he had been through before he sought the assistance of john silence. "and tomorrow, unless i am mistaken, is full moon," said the doctor suddenly, watching the other's face for the effect of his apparently careless words. colonel wragge gave an uncontrollable start, and his face for the first time showed unmistakable pallor. "what in the world---?" he began, his lip quivering. "only that i am beginning to see light in this extraordinary affair," returned the other calmly, "and, if my theory is correct, each month when the moon is at the full should witness an increase in the activity of the phenomena." "i don't see the connection," colonel wragge answered almost savagely, "but i am bound to say my diary bears you out." he wore the most puzzled expression i have ever seen upon an honest face, but he abhorred this additional corroboration of an explanation that perplexed him. "i confess," he repeated, "i cannot see the connection." "why should you?" said the doctor, with his first laugh that evening. he got up and hung the map upon the wall again. "but i do--because these things are my special study--and let me add that i have yet to come across a problem that is not natural, and has not a natural explanation. it's merely a question of how much one knows--and admits." colonel wragge eyed him with a new and curious respect in his face. but his feelings were soothed. moreover, the doctor's laugh and change of manner came as a relief to all, and broke the spell of grave suspense that had held us so long. we all rose and stretched our limbs, and took little walks about the room. "i am glad, dr. silence, if you will allow me to say so, that you are here," he said simply, "very glad indeed. and now i fear i have kept you both up very late," with a glance to include me, "for you must be tired, and ready for your beds. i have told you all there is to tell," he added, "and tomorrow you must feel perfectly free to take any steps you think necessary." the end was abrupt, yet natural, for there was nothing more to say, and neither of these men talked for mere talking's sake. out in the cold and chilly hall he lit our candles and took us upstairs. the house was at rest and still, every one asleep. we moved softly. through the windows on the stairs we saw the moonlight falling across the lawn, throwing deep shadows. the nearer pine trees were just visible in the distance, a wall of impenetrable blackness. our host came for a moment to our rooms to see that we had everything. he pointed to a coil of strong rope lying beside the window, fastened to the wall by means of an iron ring. evidently it had been recently put in. "i don't think we shall need it," dr. silence said, with a smile. "i trust not," replied our host gravely. "i sleep quite close to you across the landing," he whispered, pointing to his door, "and if you--if you want anything in the night you will know where to find me." he wished us pleasant dreams and disappeared down the passage into his room, shading the candle with his big muscular hand from the draughts. john silence stopped me a moment before i went. "you know what it is?" i asked, with an excitement that even overcame my weariness. "yes," he said, "i'm almost sure. and you?" "not the smallest notion." he looked disappointed, but not half as disappointed as i felt. "egypt," he whispered, "egypt!" ii nothing happened to disturb me in the night--nothing, that is, except a nightmare in which colonel wragge chased me amid thin streaks of fire, and his sister always prevented my escape by suddenly rising up out of the ground in her chair--dead. the deep baying of dogs woke me once, just before the dawn, it must have been, for i saw the window frame against the sky; there was a flash of lightning, too, i thought, as i turned over in bed. and it was warm, for october oppressively warm. it was after eleven o'clock when our host suggested going out with the guns, these, we understood, being a somewhat thin disguise for our true purpose. personally, i was glad to be in the open air, for the atmosphere of the house was heavy with presentiment. the sense of impending disaster hung over all. fear stalked the passages, and lurked in the corners of every room. it was a house haunted, but really haunted; not by some vague shadow of the dead, but by a definite though incalculable influence that was actively alive, and dangerous. at the least smell of smoke the entire household quivered. an odour of burning, i was convinced, would paralyse all the inmates. for the servants, though professedly ignorant by the master's unspoken orders, yet shared the common dread; and the hideous uncertainty, joined with this display of so spiteful and calculated a spirit of malignity, provided a kind of black doom that draped not only the walls, but also the minds of the people living within them. only the bright and cheerful vision of old miss wragge being pushed about the house in her noiseless chair, chatting and nodding briskly to every one she met, prevented us from giving way entirely to the depression which governed the majority. the sight of her was like a gleam of sunshine through the depths of some ill-omened wood, and just as we went out i saw her being wheeled along by her attendant into the sunshine of the back lawn, and caught her cheery smile as she turned her head and wished us good sport. the morning was october at its best. sunshine glistened on the dew-drenched grass and on leaves turned golden-red. the dainty messengers of coming hoar-frost were already in the air, a search for permanent winter quarters. from the wide moors that everywhere swept up against the sky, like a purple sea splashed by the occasional grey of rocky clefts, there stole down the cool and perfumed wind of the west. and the keen taste of the sea ran through all like a master-flavour, borne over the spaces perhaps by the seagulls that cried and circled high in the air. but our host took little interest in this sparkling beauty, and had no thought of showing off the scenery of his property. his mind was otherwise intent, and, for that matter, so were our own. "those bleak moors and hills stretch unbroken for hours," he said, with a sweep of the hand; "and over there, some four miles," pointing in another direction, "lies s---- bay, a long, swampy inlet of the sea, haunted by myriads of seabirds. on the other side of the house are the plantations and pine-woods. i thought we would get the dogs and go first to the twelve acre wood i told you about last night. it's quite near." we found the dogs in the stable, and i recalled the deep baying of the night when a fine bloodhound and two great danes leaped out to greet us. singular companions for guns, i thought to myself, as we struck out across the fields and the great creatures bounded and ran beside us, nose to ground. the conversation was scanty. john silence's grave face did not encourage talk. he wore the expression i knew well--that look of earnest solicitude which meant that his whole being was deeply absorbed and preoccupied. frightened, i had never seen him, but anxious often--it always moved me to witness it--and he was anxious now. "on the way back you shall see the laundry building," colonel wragge observed shortly, for he, too, found little to say. "we shall attract less attention then." yet not all the crisp beauty of the morning seemed able to dispel the feelings of uneasy dread that gathered increasingly about our minds as we went. in a very few minutes a clump of pine trees concealed the house from view, and we found ourselves on the outskirts of a densely grown plantation of conifers. colonel wragge stopped abruptly, and, producing a map from his pocket, explained once more very briefly its position with regard to the house. he showed how it ran up almost to the walls of the laundry building--though at the moment beyond our actual view--and pointed to the windows of his sister's bedroom where the fires had been. the room, now empty, looked straight on to the wood. then, glancing nervously about him, and calling the dogs to heel, he proposed that we should enter the plantation and make as thorough examination of it as we thought worth while. the dogs, he added, might perhaps be persuaded to accompany us a little way--and he pointed to where they cowered at his feet--but he doubted it. "neither voice nor whip will get them very far, i'm afraid," he said. "i know by experience." "if you have no objection," replied dr. silence, with decision, and speaking almost for the first time, "we will make our examination alone--mr. hubbard and myself. it will be best so." his tone was absolutely final, and the colonel acquiesced so politely that even a less intuitive man than myself must have seen that he was genuinely relieved. "you doubtless have good reasons," he said. "merely that i wish to obtain my impressions uncoloured. this delicate clue i am working on might be so easily blurred by the thought-currents of another mind with strongly preconceived ideas." "perfectly. i understand," rejoined the soldier, though with an expression of countenance that plainly contradicted his words. "then i will wait here with the dogs; and we'll have a look at the laundry on our way home." i turned once to look back as we clambered over the low stone wall built by the late owner, and saw his straight, soldierly figure standing in the sunlit field watching us with a curiously intent look on his face. there was something to me incongruous, yet distinctly pathetic, in the man's efforts to meet all far-fetched explanations of the mystery with contempt, and at the same time in his stolid, unswerving investigation of it all. he nodded at me and made a gesture of farewell with his hand. that picture of him, standing in the sunshine with his big dogs, steadily watching us, remains with me to this day. dr. silence led the way in among the twisted trunks, planted closely together in serried ranks, and i followed sharp at his heels. the moment we were out of sight he turned and put down his gun against the roots of a big tree, and i did likewise. "we shall hardly want these cumbersome weapons of murder," he observed, with a passing smile. "you are sure of your clue, then?" i asked at once, bursting with curiosity, yet fearing to betray it lest he should think me unworthy. his own methods were so absolutely simple and untheatrical. "i am sure of my clue," he answered gravely. "and i think we have come just in time. you shall know in due course. for the present--be content to follow and observe. and think, steadily. the support of your mind will help me." his voice had that quiet mastery in it which leads men to face death with a sort of happiness and pride. i would have followed him anywhere at that moment. at the same time his words conveyed a sense of dread seriousness. i caught the thrill of his confidence; but also, in this broad light of day, i felt the measure of alarm that lay behind. "you still have no strong impressions?" he asked. "nothing happened in the night, for instance? no vivid dreamings?" he looked closely for my answer, i was aware. "i slept almost an unbroken sleep. i was tremendously tired, you know, and, but for the oppressive heat--" "good! you still notice the heat, then," he said to himself, rather than expecting an answer. "and the lightning?" he added, "that lightning out of a clear sky--that flashing--did you notice _that_?" i answered truly that i thought i had seen a flash during a moment of wakefulness, and he then drew my attention to certain facts before moving on. "you remember the sensation of warmth when you put the letter to your forehead in the train; the heat generally in the house last evening, and, as you now mention, in the night. you heard, too, the colonel's stories about the appearances of fire in this wood and in the house itself, and the way his brother and the gamekeeper came to their deaths twenty years ago." i nodded, wondering what in the world it all meant. "and you get no clue from these facts?" he asked, a trifle surprised. i searched every corner of my mind and imagination for some inkling of his meaning, but was obliged to admit that i understood nothing so far. "never mind, you will later. and now," he added, "we will go over the wood and see what we can find." his words explained to me something of his method. we were to keep our minds alert and report to each other the least fancy that crossed the picture-gallery of our thoughts. then, just as we started, he turned again to me with a final warning. "and, for your safety," he said earnestly, "imagine _now_--and for that matter, imagine always until we leave this place--imagine with the utmost keenness, that you are surrounded by a shell that protects you. picture yourself inside a protective envelope, and build it up with the most intense imagination you can evoke. pour the whole force of your thought and will into it. believe vividly all through this adventure that such a shell, constructed of your thought, will and imagination, surrounds you completely, and that nothing can pierce it to attack." he spoke with dramatic conviction, gazing hard at me as though to enforce his meaning, and then moved forward and began to pick his way over the rough, tussocky ground into the wood. and meanwhile, knowing the efficacy of his prescription, i adopted it to the best of my ability. the trees at once closed about us like the night. their branches met overhead in a continuous tangle, their stems crept closer and closer, the brambly undergrowth thickened and multiplied. we tore our trousers, scratched our hands, and our eyes filled with fine dust that made it most difficult to avoid the clinging, prickly network of branches and creepers. coarse white grass that caught our feet like string grew here and there in patches. it crowned the lumps of peaty growth that stuck up like human heads, fantastically dressed, thrusting up at us out of the ground with crests of dead hair. we stumbled and floundered among them. it was hard going, and i could well conceive it impossible to find a way at all in the night-time. we jumped, when possible, from tussock to tussock, and it seemed as though we were springing among heads on a battlefield, and that this dead white grass concealed eyes that turned to stare as we passed. here and there the sunlight shot in with vivid spots of white light, dazzling the sight, but only making the surrounding gloom deeper by contrast. and on two occasions we passed dark circular places in the grass where fires had eaten their mark and left a ring of ashes. dr. silence pointed to them, but without comment and without pausing, and the sight of them woke in me a singular realisation of the dread that lay so far only just out of sight in this adventure. it was exhausting work, and heavy going. we kept close together. the warmth, too, was extraordinary. yet it did not seem the warmth of the body due to violent exertion, but rather an inner heat of the mind that laid glowing hands of fire upon the heart and set the brain in a kind of steady blaze. when my companion found himself too far in advance, he waited for me to come up. the place had evidently been untouched by hand of man, keeper, forester or sportsman, for many a year; and my thoughts, as we advanced painfully, were not unlike the state of the wood itself--dark, confused, full of a haunting wonder and the shadow of fear. by this time all signs of the open field behind us were hid. no single gleam penetrated. we might have been groping in the heart of some primeval forest. then, suddenly, the brambles and tussocks and stringlike grass came to an end; the trees opened out; and the ground began to slope upwards towards a large central mound. we had reached the middle of the plantation, and before us stood the broken druid stones our host had mentioned. we walked easily up the little hill, between the sparser stems, and, resting upon one of the ivy-covered boulders, looked round upon a comparatively open space, as large, perhaps, as a small london square. thinking of the ceremonies and sacrifices this rough circle of prehistoric monoliths might have witnessed, i looked up into my companion's face with an unspoken question. but he read my thought and shook his head. "our mystery has nothing to do with these dead symbols," he said, "but with something perhaps even more ancient, and of another country altogether." "egypt?" i said half under my breath, hopelessly puzzled, but recalling his words in my bedroom. he nodded. mentally i still floundered, but he seemed intensely preoccupied and it was no time for asking questions; so while his words circled unintelligibly in my mind i looked round at the scene before me, glad of the opportunity to recover breath and some measure of composure. but hardly had i time to notice the twisted and contorted shapes of many of the pine trees close at hand when dr. silence leaned over and touched me on the shoulder. he pointed down the slope. and the look i saw in his eyes keyed up every nerve in my body to its utmost pitch. a thin, almost imperceptible column of blue smoke was rising among the trees some twenty yards away at the foot of the mound. it curled up and up, and disappeared from sight among the tangled branches overhead. it was scarcely thicker than the smoke from a small brand of burning wood. "protect yourself! imagine your shell strongly," whispered the doctor sharply, "and follow me closely." he rose at once and moved swiftly down the slope towards the smoke, and i followed, afraid to remain alone. i heard the soft crunching of our steps on the pine needles. over his shoulder i watched the thin blue spiral, without once taking my eyes off it. i hardly know how to describe the peculiar sense of vague horror inspired in me by the sight of that streak of smoke pencilling its way upwards among the dark trees. and the sensation of increasing heat as we approached was phenomenal. it was like walking towards a glowing yet invisible fire. as we drew nearer his pace slackened. then he stopped and pointed, and i saw a small circle of burnt grass upon the ground. the tussocks were blackened and smouldering, and from the centre rose this line of smoke, pale, blue, steady. then i noticed a movement of the atmosphere beside us, as if the warm air were rising and the cooler air rushing in to take its place: a little centre of wind in the stillness. overhead the boughs stirred and trembled where the smoke disappeared. otherwise, not a tree sighed, not a sound made itself heard. the wood was still as a graveyard. a horrible idea came to me that the course of nature was about to change without warning, had changed a little already, that the sky would drop, or the surface of the earth crash inwards like a broken bubble. something, certainly, reached up to the citadel of my reason, causing its throne to shake. john silence moved forward again. i could not see his face, but his attitude was plainly one of resolution, of muscles and mind ready for vigorous action. we were within ten feet of the blackened circle when the smoke of a sudden ceased to rise, and vanished. the tail of the column disappeared in the air above, and at the same instant it seemed to me that the sensation of heat passed from my face, and the motion of the wind was gone. the calm spirit of the fresh october day resumed command. side by side we advanced and examined the place. the grass was smouldering, the ground still hot. the circle of burned earth was a foot to a foot and a half in diameter. it looked like an ordinary picnic fireplace. i bent down cautiously to look, but in a second i sprang back with an involuntary cry of alarm, for, as the doctor stamped on the ashes to prevent them spreading, a sound of hissing rose from the spot as though he had kicked a living creature. this hissing was faintly audible in the air. it moved past us, away towards the thicker portion of the wood in the direction of our field, and in a second dr. silence had left the fire and started in pursuit. and then began the most extraordinary hunt of invisibility i can ever conceive. he went fast even at the beginning, and, of course, it was perfectly obvious that he was following something. to judge by the poise of his head he kept his eyes steadily at a certain level--just above the height of a man--and the consequence was he stumbled a good deal over the roughness of the ground. the hissing sound had stopped. there was no sound of any kind, and what he saw to follow was utterly beyond me. i only know, that in mortal dread of being left behind, and with a biting curiosity to see whatever there was to be seen, i followed as quickly as i could, and even then barely succeeded in keeping up with him. and, as we went, the whole mad jumble of the colonel's stories ran through my brain, touching a sense of frightened laughter that was only held in check by the sight of this earnest, hurrying figure before me. for john silence at work inspired me with a kind of awe. he looked so diminutive among these giant twisted trees, while yet i knew that his purpose and his knowledge were so great, and even in hurry he was dignified. the fancy that we were playing some queer, exaggerated game together met the fact that we were two men dancing upon the brink of some possible tragedy, and the mingling of the two emotions in my mind was both grotesque and terrifying. he never turned in his mad chase, but pushed rapidly on, while i panted after him like a figure in some unreasoning nightmare. and, as i ran, it came upon me that he had been aware all the time, in his quiet, internal way, of many things that he had kept for his own secret consideration; he had been watching, waiting, planning from the very moment we entered the shade of the wood. by some inner, concentrated process of mind, dynamic if not actually magical, he had been in direct contact with the source of the whole adventure, the very essence of the real mystery. and now the forces were moving to a climax. something was about to happen, something important, something possibly dreadful. every nerve, every sense, every significant gesture of the plunging figure before me proclaimed the fact just as surely as the skies, the winds, and the face of the earth tell the birds the time to migrate and warn the animals that danger lurks and they must move. in a few moments we reached the foot of the mound and entered the tangled undergrowth that lay between us and the sunlight of the field. here the difficulties of fast travelling increased a hundredfold. there were brambles to dodge, low boughs to dive under, and countless tree trunks closing up to make a direct path impossible. yet dr. silence never seemed to falter or hesitate. he went, diving, jumping, dodging, ducking, but ever in the same main direction, following a clean trail. twice i tripped and fell, and both times, when i picked myself up again, i saw him ahead of me, still forcing a way like a dog after its quarry. and sometimes, like a dog, he stopped and pointed--human pointing it was, psychic pointing, and each time he stopped to point i heard that faint high hissing in the air beyond us. the instinct of an infallible dowser possessed him, and he made no mistakes. at length, abruptly, i caught up with him, and found that we stood at the edge of the shallow pond colonel wragge had mentioned in his account the night before. it was long and narrow, filled with dark brown water, in which the trees were dimly reflected. not a ripple stirred its surface. "watch!" he cried out, as i came up. "it's going to cross. it's bound to betray itself. the water is its natural enemy, and we shall see the direction." and, even as he spoke, a thin line like the track of a water-spider, shot swiftly across the shiny surface; there was a ghost of steam in the air above; and immediately i became aware of an odour of burning. dr. silence turned and shot a glance at me that made me think of lightning. i began to shake all over. "quick!" he cried with excitement, "to the trail again! we must run around. it's going to the house!" the alarm in his voice quite terrified me. without a false step i dashed round the slippery banks and dived again at his heels into the sea of bushes and tree trunks. we were now in the thick of the very dense belt that ran around the outer edge of the plantation, and the field was near; yet so dark was the tangle that it was some time before the first shafts of white sunlight became visible. the doctor now ran in zigzags. he was following something that dodged and doubled quite wonderfully, yet had begun, i fancied, to move more slowly than before. "quick!" he cried. "in the light we shall lose it!" i still saw nothing, heard nothing, caught no suggestion of a trail; yet this man, guided by some interior divining that seemed infallible, made no false turns, though how he failed to crash headlong into the trees has remained a mystery to me ever since. and then, with a sudden rush, we found ourselves on the skirts of the wood with the open field lying in bright sunshine before our eyes. "too late!" i heard him cry, a note of anguish in his voice. "it's out--and, by god, it's making for the house!" i saw the colonel standing in the field with his dogs where we had left him. he was bending double, peering into the wood where he heard us running, and he straightened up like a bent whip released. john silence dashed passed, calling him to follow. "we shall lose the trail in the light," i heard him cry as he ran. "but quick! we may yet get there in time!" that wild rush across the open field, with the dogs at our heels, leaping and barking, and the elderly colonel behind us running as though for his life, shall i ever forget it? though i had only vague ideas of the meaning of it all, i put my best foot forward, and, being the youngest of the three, i reached the house an easy first. i drew up, panting, and turned to wait for the others. but, as i turned, something moving a little distance away caught my eye, and in that moment i swear i experienced the most overwhelming and singular shock of surprise and terror i have ever known, or can conceive as possible. for the front door was open, and the waist of the house being narrow, i could see through the hall into the dining-room beyond, and so out on to the back lawn, and there i saw no less a sight than the figure of miss wragge--running. even at that distance it was plain that she had seen me, and was coming fast towards me, running with the frantic gait of a terror-stricken woman. she had recovered the use of her legs. her face was a livid grey, as of death itself, but the general expression was one of laughter, for her mouth was gaping, and her eyes, always bright, shone with the light of a wild merriment that seemed the merriment of a child, yet was singularly ghastly. and that very second, as she fled past me into her brother's arms behind, i smelt again most unmistakably the odour of burning, and to this day the smell of smoke and fire can come very near to turning me sick with the memory of what i had seen. fast on her heels, too, came the terrified attendant, more mistress of herself, and able to speak--which the old lady could not do--but with a face almost, if not quite, as fearful. "we were down by the bushes in the sun,"--she gasped and screamed in reply to colonel wragge's distracted questionings,--"i was wheeling the chair as usual when she shrieked and leaped--i don't know exactly--i was too frightened to see--oh, my god! she jumped clean out of the chair--_and ran_! there was a blast of hot air from the wood, and she hid her face and jumped. she didn't make a sound--she didn't cry out, or make a sound. she just ran." but the nightmare horror of it all reached the breaking point a few minutes later, and while i was still standing in the hall temporarily bereft of speech and movement; for while the doctor, the colonel and the attendant were half-way up the staircase, helping the fainting woman to the privacy of her room, and all in a confused group of dark figures, there sounded a voice behind me, and i turned to see the butler, his face dripping with perspiration, his eyes starting out of his head. "the laundry's on fire!" he cried; "the laundry building's a-caught!" i remember his odd expression "a-caught," and wanting to laugh, but finding my face rigid and inflexible. "the devil's about again, s'help me gawd!" he cried, in a voice thin with terror, running about in circles. and then the group on the stairs scattered as at the sound of a shot, and the colonel and dr. silence came down three steps at a time, leaving the afflicted miss wragge to the care of her single attendant. we were out across the front lawn in a moment and round the corner of the house, the colonel leading, silence and i at his heels, and the portly butler puffing some distance in the rear, getting more and more mixed in his addresses to god and the devil; and the moment we passed the stables and came into view of the laundry building, we saw a wicked-looking volume of smoke pouring out of the narrow windows, and the frightened women-servants and grooms running hither and thither, calling aloud as they ran. the arrival of the master restored order instantly, and this retired soldier, poor thinker perhaps, but capable man of action, had the matter in hand from the start. he issued orders like a martinet, and, almost before i could realise it, there were streaming buckets on the scene and a line of men and women formed between the building and the stable pump. "inside," i heard john silence cry, and the colonel followed him through the door, while i was just quick enough at their heels to hear him add, "the smoke's the worst part of it. there's no fire yet, i think." and, true enough, there was no fire. the interior was thick with smoke, but it speedily cleared and not a single bucket was used upon the floor or walls. the air was stifling, the heat fearful. "there's precious little to burn in here; it's all stone," the colonel exclaimed, coughing. but the doctor was pointing to the wooden covers of the great cauldron in which the clothes were washed, and we saw that these were smouldering and charred. and when we sprinkled half a bucket of water on them the surrounding bricks hissed and fizzed and sent up clouds of steam. through the open door and windows this passed out with the rest of the smoke, and we three stood there on the brick floor staring at the spot and wondering, each in our own fashion, how in the name of natural law the place could have caught fire or smoked at all. and each was silent--myself from sheer incapacity and befuddlement, the colonel from the quiet pluck that faces all things yet speaks little, and john silence from the intense mental grappling with this latest manifestation of a profound problem that called for concentration of thought rather than for any words. there was really nothing to say. the facts were indisputable. colonel wragge was the first to utter. "my sister," he said briefly, and moved off. in the yard i heard him sending the frightened servants about their business in an excellently matter-of-fact voice, scolding some one roundly for making such a big fire and letting the flues get over-heated, and paying no heed to the stammering reply that no fire had been lit there for several days. then he dispatched a groom on horseback for the local doctor. then dr. silence turned and looked at me. the absolute control he possessed, not only over the outward expression of emotion by gesture, change of colour, light in the eyes, and so forth, but also, as i well knew, over its very birth in his heart, the masklike face of the dead he could assume at will, made it extremely difficult to know at any given moment what was at work in his inner consciousness. but now, when he turned and looked at me, there was no sphinx-expression there, but rather the keen triumphant face of a man who had solved a dangerous and complicated problem, and saw his way to a clean victory. "_now_ do you guess?" he asked quietly, as though it were the simplest matter in the world, and ignorance were impossible. i could only stare stupidly and remain silent. he glanced down at the charred cauldron-lids, and traced a figure in the air with his finger. but i was too excited, or too mortified, or still too dazed, perhaps, to see what it was he outlined, or what it was he meant to convey. i could only go on staring and shaking my puzzled head. "a fire-elemental," he cried, "a fire-elemental of the most powerful and malignant kind--" "a what?" thundered the voice of colonel wragge behind us, having returned suddenly and overheard. "it's a fire-elemental," repeated dr. silence more calmly, but with a note of triumph in his voice he could not keep out, "and a fire-elemental enraged." the light began to dawn in my mind at last. but the colonel--who had never heard the term before, and was besides feeling considerably worked up for a plain man with all this mystery he knew not how to grapple with--the colonel stood, with the most dumfoundered look ever seen on a human countenance, and continued to roar, and stammer, and stare. "and why," he began, savage with the desire to find something visible he could fight--"why, in the name of all the blazes--?" and then stopped as john silence moved up and took his arm. "there, my dear colonel wragge," he said gently, "you touch the heart of the whole thing. you ask 'why.' that is precisely our problem." he held the soldier's eyes firmly with his own. "and that, too, i think, we shall soon know. come and let us talk over a plan of action--that room with the double doors, perhaps." the word "action" calmed him a little, and he led the way, without further speech, back into the house, and down the long stone passage to the room where we had heard his stories on the night of our arrival. i understood from the doctor's glance that my presence would not make the interview easier for our host, and i went upstairs to my own room--shaking. but in the solitude of my room the vivid memories of the last hour revived so mercilessly that i began to feel i should never in my whole life lose the dreadful picture of miss wragge running--that dreadful human climax after all the non-human mystery in the wood--and i was not sorry when a servant knocked at my door and said that colonel wragge would be glad if i would join them in the little smoking-room. "i think it is better you should be present," was all colonel wragge said as i entered the room. i took the chair with my back to the window. there was still an hour before lunch, though i imagine that the usual divisions of the day hardly found a place in the thoughts of any one of us. the atmosphere of the room was what i might call electric. the colonel was positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingering an unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused and ready for action. he hated this mystery. it was poisonous to his nature, and he longed to meet something face to face--something he could gauge and fight. dr. silence, i noticed at once, was sitting before the map of the estate which was spread upon a table. i knew by his expression the state of his mind. he was in the thick of it all, knew it, delighted in it, and was working at high pressure. he recognised my presence with a lifted eyelid, and the flash of the eye, contrasted with his stillness and composure, told me volumes. "i was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot in all this business," he said without looking up, "when he asked that you should join us so that we can all work together." and, while signifying my assent, i caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calm speech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so charged with the strange, virile personality behind it and that seemed to inspire us with his own confidence as by a process of radiation. "mr. hubbard," he went on gravely, turning to the soldier, "knows something of my methods, and in more than one--er--interesting situation has proved of assistance. what we want now"--and here he suddenly got up and took his place on the mat beside the colonel, and looked hard at him--"is men who have self-control, who are sure of themselves, whose minds at the critical moment will emit positive forces, instead of the wavering and uncertain currents due to negative feelings--due, for instance, to fear." he looked at us each in turn. colonel wragge moved his feet farther apart, and squared his shoulders; and i felt guilty but said nothing, conscious that my latent store of courage was being deliberately hauled to the front. he was winding me up like a clock. "so that, in what is yet to come," continued our leader, "each of us will contribute his share of power, and ensure success for my plan." "i'm not afraid of anything i can _see_," said the colonel bluntly. "i'm ready," i heard myself say, as it were automatically, "for anything," and then added, feeling the declaration was lamely insufficient, "and everything." dr. silence left the mat and began walking to and fro about the room, both hands plunged deep into the pockets of his shooting-jacket. tremendous vitality streamed from him. i never took my eyes off the small, moving figure; small yes,--and yet somehow making me think of a giant plotting the destruction of worlds. and his manner was gentle, as always, soothing almost, and his words uttered quietly without emphasis or emotion. most of what he said was addressed, though not too obviously, to the colonel. "the violence of this sudden attack," he said softly, pacing to and fro beneath the bookcase at the end of the room, "is due, of course, partly to the fact that tonight the moon is at the full"--here he glanced at me for a moment--"and partly to the fact that we have all been so deliberately concentrating upon the matter. our thinking, our investigation, has stirred it into unusual activity. i mean that the intelligent force behind these manifestations has realised that some one is busied about its destruction. and it is now on the defensive: more, it is aggressive." "but 'it'--what is 'it'?" began the soldier, fuming. "what, in the name of all that's dreadful, _is_ a fire-elemental?" "i cannot give you at this moment," replied dr. silence, turning to him, but undisturbed by the interruption, "a lecture on the nature and history of magic, but can only say that an elemental is the active force behind the elements,--whether earth, air, water, _or fire_,--it is impersonal in its essential nature, but can be focused, personified, ensouled, so to say, by those who know how--by magicians, if you will--for certain purposes of their own, much in the same way that steam and electricity can be harnessed by the practical man of this century. "alone, these blind elemental energies can accomplish little, but governed and directed by the trained will of a powerful manipulator they may become potent activities for good or evil. they are the basis of all magic, and it is the motive behind them that constitutes the magic 'black' or 'white'; they can be the vehicles of curses or of blessings, for a curse is nothing more than the thought of a violent will perpetuated. and in such cases--cases like this--the conscious, directing will of the mind that is using the elemental stands always behind the phenomena--" "you think that my brother--!" broke in the colonel, aghast. "has nothing whatever to do with it--directly. the fire-elemental that has here been tormenting you and your household was sent upon its mission long before you, or your family, or your ancestors, or even the nation you belong to--unless i am much mistaken--was even in existence. we will come to that a little later; after the experiment i propose to make we shall be more positive. at present i can only say we have to deal now, not only with the phenomenon of attacking fire merely, but with the vindictive and enraged intelligence that is directing it from behind the scenes--vindictive and enraged,"--he repeated the words. "that explains--" began colonel wragge, seeking furiously for words he could not find quickly enough. "much," said john silence, with a gesture to restrain him. he stopped a moment in the middle of his walk, and a deep silence came down over the little room. through the windows the sunlight seemed less bright, the long line of dark hills less friendly, making me think of a vast wave towering to heaven and about to break and overwhelm us. something formidable had crept into the world about us. for, undoubtedly, there was a disquieting thought, holding terror as well as awe, in the picture his words conjured up: the conception of a human will reaching its deathless hand, spiteful and destructive, down through the ages, to strike the living and afflict the innocent. "but what is its object?" burst out the soldier, unable to restrain himself longer in the silence. "why does it come from that plantation? and why should it attack us, or any one in particular?" questions began to pour from him in a stream. "all in good time," the doctor answered quietly, having let him run on for several minutes. "but i must first discover positively what, or who, it is that directs this particular fire-elemental. and, to do that, we must first"--he spoke with slow deliberation--"seek to capture--to confine by visibility--to limit its sphere in a concrete form." "good heavens almighty!" exclaimed the soldier, mixing his words in his unfeigned surprise. "quite so," pursued the other calmly; "for in so doing i think we can release it from the purpose that binds it, restore it to its normal condition of latent fire, and also"--he lowered his voice perceptibly --"also discover the face and form of the being that ensouls it." "the man behind the gun!" cried the colonel, beginning to understand something, and leaning forward so as not to miss a single syllable. "i mean that in the last resort, before it returns to the womb of potential fire, it will probably assume the face and figure of its director, of the man of magical knowledge who originally bound it with his incantations and sent it forth upon its mission of centuries." the soldier sat down and gasped openly in his face, breathing hard; but it was a very subdued voice that framed the question. "and how do you propose to make it visible? how capture and confine it? what d'ye mean, dr. john silence?" "by furnishing it with the materials for a form. by the process of materialisation simply. once limited by dimensions, it will become slow, heavy, visible. we can then dissipate it. invisible fire, you see, is dangerous and incalculable; locked up in a form we can perhaps manage it. we must betray it--to its death." "and this material?" we asked in the same breath, although i think i had already guessed. "not pleasant, but effective," came the quiet reply; "the exhalations of freshly spilled blood." "not human blood!" cried colonel wragge, starting up from his chair with a voice like an explosion. i thought his eyes would start from their sockets. the face of dr. silence relaxed in spite of himself, and his spontaneous little laugh brought a welcome though momentary relief. "the days of human sacrifice, i hope, will never come again," he explained. "animal blood will answer the purpose, and we can make the experiment as pleasant as possible. only, the blood must be freshly spilled and strong with the vital emanations that attract this peculiar class of elemental creature. perhaps--perhaps if some pig on the estate is ready for the market--" he turned to hide a smile; but the passing touch of comedy found no echo in the mind of our host, who did not understand how to change quickly from one emotion to another. clearly he was debating many things laboriously in his honest brain. but, in the end, the earnestness and scientific disinterestedness of the doctor, whose influence over him was already very great, won the day, and he presently looked up more calmly, and observed shortly that he thought perhaps the matter could be arranged. "there are other and pleasanter methods," dr. silence went on to explain, "but they require time and preparation, and things have gone much too far, in my opinion, to admit of delay. and the process need cause you no distress: we sit round the bowl and await results. nothing more. the emanations of blood--which, as levi says, is the first incarnation of the universal fluid--furnish the materials out of which the creatures of discarnate life, spirits if you prefer, can fashion themselves a temporary appearance. the process is old, and lies at the root of all blood sacrifice. it was known to the priests of baal, and it is known to the modern ecstasy dancers who cut themselves to produce objective phantoms who dance with them. and the least gifted clairvoyant could tell you that the forms to be seen in the vicinity of slaughter-houses, or hovering above the deserted battlefields, are--well, simply beyond all description. i do not mean," he added, noticing the uneasy fidgeting of his host, "that anything in our laundry-experiment need appear to terrify us, for this case seems a comparatively simple one, and it is only the vindictive character of the intelligence directing this fire-elemental that causes anxiety and makes for personal danger." "it is curious," said the colonel, with a sudden rush of words, drawing a deep breath, and as though speaking of things distasteful to him, "that during my years among the hill tribes of northern india i came across--personally came across--instances of the sacrifices of blood to certain deities being stopped suddenly, and all manner of disasters happening until they were resumed. fires broke out in the huts, and even on the clothes, of the natives--and--and i admit i have read, in the course of my studies,"--he made a gesture toward his books and heavily laden table,--"of the yezidis of syria evoking phantoms by means of cutting their bodies with knives during their whirling dances--enormous globes of fire which turned into monstrous and terrible forms--and i remember an account somewhere, too, how the emaciated forms and pallid countenances of the spectres, that appeared to the emperor julian, claimed to be the true immortals, and told him to renew the sacrifices of blood 'for the fumes of which, since the establishment of christianity, they had been pining'--that these were in reality the phantoms evoked by the rites of blood." both dr. silence and myself listened in amazement, for this sudden speech was so unexpected, and betrayed so much more knowledge than we had either of us suspected in the old soldier. "then perhaps you have read, too," said the doctor, "how the cosmic deities of savage races, elemental in their nature, have been kept alive through many ages by these blood rites?" "no," he answered; "that is new to me." "in any case," dr. silence added, "i am glad you are not wholly unfamiliar with the subject, for you will now bring more sympathy, and therefore more help, to our experiment. for, of course, in this case, we only want the blood to tempt the creature from its lair and enclose it in a form--" "i quite understand. and i only hesitated just now," he went on, his words coming much more slowly, as though he felt he had already said too much, "because i wished to be quite sure it was no mere curiosity, but an actual sense of necessity that dictated this horrible experiment." "it is your safety, and that of your household, and of your sister, that is at stake," replied the doctor. "once i have _seen_, i hope to discover whence this elemental comes, and what its real purpose is." colonel wragge signified his assent with a bow. "and the moon will help us," the other said, "for it will be full in the early hours of the morning, and this kind of elemental-being is always most active at the period of full moon. hence, you see, the clue furnished by your diary." so it was finally settled. colonel wragge would provide the materials for the experiment, and we were to meet at midnight. how he would contrive at that hour--but that was his business. i only know we both realised that he would keep his word, and whether a pig died at midnight, or at noon, was after all perhaps only a question of the sleep and personal comfort of the executioner. "tonight, then, in the laundry," said dr. silence finally, to clinch the plan; "we three alone--and at midnight, when the household is asleep and we shall be free from disturbance." he exchanged significant glances with our host, who, at that moment, was called away by the announcement that the family doctor had arrived, and was ready to see him in his sister's room. for the remainder of the afternoon john silence disappeared. i had my suspicions that he made a secret visit to the plantation and also to the laundry building; but, in any case, we saw nothing of him, and he kept strictly to himself. he was preparing for the night, i felt sure, but the nature of his preparations i could only guess. there was movement in his room, i heard, and an odour like incense hung about the door, and knowing that he regarded rites as the vehicles of energies, my guesses were probably not far wrong. colonel wragge, too, remained absent the greater part of the afternoon, and, deeply afflicted, had scarcely left his sister's bedside, but in response to my inquiry when we met for a moment at tea-time, he told me that although she had moments of attempted speech, her talk was quite incoherent and hysterical, and she was still quite unable to explain the nature of what she had seen. the doctor, he said, feared she had recovered the use of her limbs, only to lose that of her memory, and perhaps even of her mind. "then the recovery of her legs, i trust, may be permanent, at any rate," i ventured, finding it difficult to know what sympathy to offer. and he replied with a curious short laugh, "oh yes; about that there can be no doubt whatever." and it was due merely to the chance of my overhearing a fragment of conversation--unwillingly, of course--that a little further light was thrown upon the state in which the old lady actually lay. for, as i came out of my room, it happened that colonel wragge and the doctor were going downstairs together, and their words floated up to my ears before i could make my presence known by so much as a cough. "then you must find a way," the doctor was saying with decision; "for i cannot insist too strongly upon that--and at all costs she must be kept quiet. these attempts to go out must be prevented--if necessary, by force. this desire to visit some wood or other she keeps talking about is, of course, hysterical in nature. it cannot be permitted for a moment." "it shall not be permitted," i heard the soldier reply, as they reached the hall below. "it has impressed her mind for some reason--" the doctor went on, by way evidently of soothing explanation, and then the distance made it impossible for me to hear more. at dinner dr. silence was still absent, on the public plea of a headache, and though food was sent to his room, i am inclined to believe he did not touch it, but spent the entire time fasting. we retired early, desiring that the household should do likewise, and i must confess that at ten o'clock when i bid my host a temporary good-night, and sought my room to make what mental preparation i could, i realised in no very pleasant fashion that it was a singular and formidable assignation, this midnight meeting in the laundry building, and that there were moments in every adventure of life when a wise man, and one who knew his own limitations, owed it to his dignity to withdraw discreetly. and, but for the character of our leader, i probably should have then and there offered the best excuse i could think of, and have allowed myself quietly to fall asleep and wait for an exciting story in the morning of what had happened. but with a man like john silence, such a lapse was out of the question, and i sat before my fire counting the minutes and doing everything i could think of to fortify my resolution and fasten my will at the point where i could be reasonably sure that my self-control would hold against all attacks of men, devils, or elementals. iii at a quarter before midnight, clad in a heavy ulster, and with slippered feet, i crept cautiously from my room and stole down the passage to the top of the stairs. outside the doctor's door i waited a moment to listen. all was still; the house in utter darkness; no gleam of light beneath any door; only, down the length of the corridor, from the direction of the sick-room, came faint sounds of laughter and incoherent talk that were not things to reassure a mind already half a-tremble, and i made haste to reach the hall and let myself out through the front door into the night. the air was keen and frosty, perfumed with night smells, and exquisitely fresh; all the million candles of the sky were alight, and a faint breeze rose and fell with far-away sighings in the tops of the pine trees. my blood leaped for a moment in the spaciousness of the night, for the splendid stars brought courage; but the next instant, as i turned the corner of the house, moving stealthily down the gravel drive, my spirits sank again ominously. for, yonder, over the funereal plumes of the twelve acre plantation, i saw the broken, yellow disc of the half-moon just rising in the east, staring down like some vast being come to watch upon the progress of our doom. seen through the distorting vapours of the earth's atmosphere, her face looked weirdly unfamiliar, her usual expression of benignant vacancy somehow a-twist. i slipped along by the shadows of the wall, keeping my eyes upon the ground. the laundry-house, as already described, stood detached from the other offices, with laurel shrubberies crowding thickly behind it, and the kitchen-garden so close on the other side that the strong smells of soil and growing things came across almost heavily. the shadows of the haunted plantation, hugely lengthened by the rising moon behind them, reached to the very walls and covered the stone tiles of the roof with a dark pall. so keenly were my senses alert at this moment that i believe i could fill a chapter with the endless small details of the impression i received--shadows, odour, shapes, sounds--in the space of the few seconds i stood and waited before the closed wooden door. then i became aware of some one moving towards me through the moonlight, and the figure of john silence, without overcoat and bareheaded, came quickly and without noise to join me. his eyes, i saw at once, were wonderfully bright, and so marked was the shining pallor of his face that i could hardly tell when he passed from the moonlight into the shade. he passed without a word, beckoning me to follow, and then pushed the door open, and went in. the chill air of the place met us like that of an underground vault; and the brick floor and whitewashed walls, streaked with damp and smoke, threw back the cold in our faces. directly opposite gaped the black throat of the huge open fireplace, the ashes of wood fires still piled and scattered about the hearth, and on either side of the projecting chimney-column were the deep recesses holding the big twin cauldrons for boiling clothes. upon the lids of these cauldrons stood the two little oil lamps, shaded red, which gave all the light there was, and immediately in front of the fireplace there was a small circular table with three chairs set about it. overhead, the narrow slit windows, high up the walls, pointed to a dim network of wooden rafters half lost among the shadows, and then came the dark vault of the roof. cheerless and unalluring, for all the red light, it certainly was, reminding me of some unused conventicle, bare of pews or pulpit, ugly and severe, and i was forcibly struck by the contrast between the normal uses to which the place was ordinarily put, and the strange and medieval purpose which had brought us under its roof tonight. possibly an involuntary shudder ran over me, for my companion turned with a confident look to reassure me, and he was so completely master of himself that i at once absorbed from his abundance, and felt the chinks of my failing courage beginning to close up. to meet his eye in the presence of danger was like finding a mental railing that guided and supported thought along the giddy edges of alarm. "i am quite ready," i whispered, turning to listen for approaching footsteps. he nodded, still keeping his eyes on mine. our whispers sounded hollow as they echoed overhead among the rafters. "i'm glad you are here," he said. "not all would have the courage. keep your thoughts controlled, and imagine the protective shell round you--round your inner being." "i'm all right," i repeated, cursing my chattering teeth. he took my hand and shook it, and the contact seemed to shake into me something of his supreme confidence. the eyes and hands of a strong man can touch the soul. i think he guessed my thought, for a passing smile flashed about the corners of his mouth. "you will feel more comfortable," he said, in a low tone, "when the chain is complete. the colonel we can count on, of course. remember, though," he added warningly, "he may perhaps become controlled--possessed--when the thing comes, because he won't know how to resist. and to explain the business to such a man--!" he shrugged his shoulders expressively. "but it will only be temporary, and i will see that no harm comes to him." he glanced round at the arrangements with approval. "red light," he said, indicating the shaded lamps, "has the lowest rate of vibration. materialisations are dissipated by strong light--won't form, or hold together--in rapid vibrations." i was not sure that i approved altogether of this dim light, for in complete darkness there is something protective--the knowledge that one cannot be seen, probably--which a half-light destroys, but i remembered the warning to keep my thoughts steady, and forbore to give them expression. there was a step outside, and the figure of colonel wragge stood in the doorway. though entering on tiptoe, he made considerable noise and clatter, for his free movements were impeded by the burden he carried, and we saw a large yellowish bowl held out at arms' length from his body, the mouth covered with a white cloth. his face, i noted, was rigidly composed. he, too, was master of himself. and, as i thought of this old soldier moving through the long series of alarms, worn with watching and wearied with assault, unenlightened yet undismayed, even down to the dreadful shock of his sister's terror, and still showing the dogged pluck that persists in the face of defeat, i understood what dr. silence meant when he described him as a man "to be counted on." i think there was nothing beyond this rigidity of his stern features, and a certain greyness of the complexion, to betray the turmoil of the emotions that were doubtless going on within; and the quality of these two men, each in his own way, so keyed me up that, by the time the door was shut and we had exchanged silent greetings, all the latent courage i possessed was well to the fore, and i felt as sure of myself as i knew i ever could feel. colonel wragge set the bowl carefully in the centre of the table. "midnight," he said shortly, glancing at his watch, and we all three moved to our chairs. there, in the middle of that cold and silent place, we sat, with the vile bowl before us, and a thin, hardly perceptible steam rising through the damp air from the surface of the white cloth and disappearing upwards the moment it passed beyond the zone of red light and entered the deep shadows thrown forward by the projecting wall of chimney. the doctor had indicated our respective places, and i found myself seated with my back to the door and opposite the black hearth. the colonel was on my left, and dr. silence on my right, both half facing me, the latter more in shadow than the former. we thus divided the little table into even sections, and sitting back in our chairs we awaited events in silence. for something like an hour i do not think there was even the faintest sound within those four walls and under the canopy of that vaulted roof. our slippers made no scratching on the gritty floor, and our breathing was suppressed almost to nothing; even the rustle of our clothes as we shifted from time to time upon our seats was inaudible. silence smothered us absolutely--the silence of night, of listening, the silence of a haunted expectancy. the very gurgling of the lamps was too soft to be heard, and if light itself had sound, i do not think we should have noticed the silvery tread of the moonlight as it entered the high narrow windows and threw upon the floor the slender traces of its pallid footsteps. colonel wragge and the doctor, and myself too for that matter, sat thus like figures of stone, without speech and without gesture. my eyes passed in ceaseless journeys from the bowl to their faces, and from their faces to the bowl. they might have been masks, however, for all the signs of life they gave; and the light steaming from the horrid contents beneath the white cloth had long ceased to be visible. then presently, as the moon rose higher, the wind rose with it. it sighed, like the lightest of passing wings, over the roof; it crept most softly round the walls; it made the brick floor like ice beneath our feet. with it i saw mentally the desolate moorland flowing like a sea about the old house, the treeless expanse of lonely hills, the nearer copses, sombre and mysterious in the night. the plantation, too, in particular i saw, and imagined i heard the mournful whisperings that must now be a-stirring among its tree-tops as the breeze played down between the twisted stems. in the depth of the room behind us the shafts of moonlight met and crossed in a growing network. it was after an hour of this wearing and unbroken attention, and i should judge about one o'clock in the morning, when the baying of the dogs in the stableyard first began, and i saw john silence move suddenly in his chair and sit up in an attitude of attention. every force in my being instantly leaped into the keenest vigilance. colonel wragge moved too, though slowly, and without raising his eyes from the table before him. the doctor stretched his arm out and took the white cloth from the bowl. it was perhaps imagination that persuaded me the red glare of the lamps grew fainter and the air over the table before us thickened. i had been expecting something for so long that the movement of my companions, and the lifting of the cloth, may easily have caused the momentary delusion that something hovered in the air before my face, touching the skin of my cheeks with a silken run. but it was certainly not a delusion that the colonel looked up at the same moment and glanced over his shoulder, as though his eyes followed the movements of something to and fro about the room, and that he then buttoned his overcoat more tightly about him and his eyes sought my own face first, and then the doctor's. and it was no delusion that his face seemed somehow to have turned dark, become spread as it were with a shadowy blackness. i saw his lips tighten and his expression grow hard and stern, and it came to me then with a rush that, of course, this man had told us but a part of the experiences he had been through in the house, and that there was much more he had never been able to bring himself to reveal at all. i felt sure of it. the way he turned and stared about him betrayed a familiarity with other things than those he had described to us. it was not merely a sight of fire he looked for; it was a sight of something alive, intelligent, something able to evade his searching; it was _a person_. it was the watch for the ancient being who sought to obsess him. and the way in which dr. silence answered his look--though it was only by a glance of subtlest sympathy--confirmed my impression. "we may be ready now," i heard him say in a whisper, and i understood that his words were intended as a steadying warning, and braced myself mentally to the utmost of my power. yet long before colonel wragge had turned to stare about the room, and long before the doctor had confirmed my impression that things were at last beginning to stir, i had become aware in most singular fashion that the place held more than our three selves. with the rising of the wind this increase to our numbers had first taken place. the baying of the hounds almost seemed to have signalled it. i cannot say how it may be possible to realise that an empty place has suddenly become--not empty, when the new arrival is nothing that appeals to any one of the senses; for this recognition of an "invisible," as of the change in the balance of personal forces in a human group, is indefinable and beyond proof. yet it is unmistakable. and i knew perfectly well at what given moment the atmosphere within these four walls became charged with the presence of other living beings besides ourselves. and, on reflection, i am convinced that both my companions knew it too. "watch the light," said the doctor under his breath, and then i knew too that it was no fancy of my own that had turned the air darker, and the way he turned to examine the face of our host sent an electric thrill of wonder and expectancy shivering along every nerve in my body. yet it was no kind of terror that i experienced, but rather a sort of mental dizziness, and a sensation as of being suspended in some remote and dreadful altitude where things might happen, indeed were about to happen, that had never before happened within the ken of man. horror may have formed an ingredient, but it was not chiefly horror, and in no sense ghostly horror. uncommon thoughts kept beating on my brain like tiny hammers, soft yet persistent, seeking admission; their unbidden tide began to wash along the far fringes of my mind, the currents of unwonted sensations to rise over the remote frontiers of my consciousness. i was aware of thoughts, and the fantasies of thoughts, that i never knew before existed. portions of my being stirred that had never stirred before, and things ancient and inexplicable rose to the surface and beckoned me to follow. i felt as though i were about to fly off, at some immense tangent, into an outer space hitherto unknown even in dreams. and so singular was the result produced upon me that i was uncommonly glad to anchor my mind, as well as my eyes, upon the masterful personality of the doctor at my side, for there, i realised, i could draw always upon the forces of sanity and safety. with a vigorous effort of will i returned to the scene before me, and tried to focus my attention, with steadier thoughts, upon the table, and upon the silent figures seated round it. and then i saw that certain changes had come about in the place where we sat. the patches of moonlight on the floor, i noted, had become curiously shaded; the faces of my companions opposite were not so clearly visible as before; and the forehead and cheeks of colonel wragge were glistening with perspiration. i realised further, that an extraordinary change had come about in the temperature of the atmosphere. the increased warmth had a painful effect, not alone on colonel wragge, but upon all of us. it was oppressive and unnatural. we gasped figuratively as well as actually. "you are the first to feel it," said dr. silence in low tones, looking across at him. "you are in more intimate touch, of course--" the colonel was trembling, and appeared to be in considerable distress. his knees shook, so that the shuffling of his slippered feet became audible. he inclined his head to show that he had heard, but made no other reply. i think, even then, he was sore put to it to keep himself in hand. i knew what he was struggling against. as dr. silence had warned me, he was about to be obsessed, and was savagely, though vainly, resisting. but, meanwhile, a curious and whirling sense of exhilaration began to come over me. the increasing heat was delightful, bringing a sensation of intense activity, of thoughts pouring through the mind at high speed, of vivid pictures in the brain, of fierce desires and lightning energies alive in every part of the body. i was conscious of no physical distress, such as the colonel felt, but only of a vague feeling that it might all grow suddenly too intense--that i might be consumed--that my personality as well as my body, might become resolved into the flame of pure spirit. i began to live at a speed too intense to last. it was as if a thousand ecstasies besieged me-- "steady!" whispered the voice of john silence in my ear, and i looked up with a start to see that the colonel had risen from his chair. the doctor rose too. i followed suit, and for the first time saw down into the bowl. to my amazement and horror i saw that the contents were troubled. the blood was astir with movement. the rest of the experiment was witnessed by us standing. it came, too, with a curious suddenness. there was no more dreaming, for me at any rate. i shall never forget the figure of colonel wragge standing there beside me, upright and unshaken, squarely planted on his feet, looking about him, puzzled beyond belief, yet full of a fighting anger. framed by the white walls, the red glow of the lamps upon his streaming cheeks, his eyes glowing against the deathly pallor of his skin, breathing hard and making convulsive efforts of hands and body to keep himself under control, his whole being roused to the point of savage fighting, yet with nothing visible to get at anywhere--he stood there, immovable against odds. and the strange contrast of the pale skin and the burning face i had never seen before, or wish to see again. but what has left an even sharper impression on my memory was the blackness that then began crawling over his face, obliterating the features, concealing their human outline, and hiding him inch by inch from view. this was my first realisation that the process of materialisation was at work. his visage became shrouded. i moved from one side to the other to keep him in view, and it was only then i understood that, properly speaking, the blackness was not upon the countenance of colonel wragge, but that something had inserted itself between me and him, thus screening his face with the effect of a dark veil. something that apparently rose through the floor was passing slowly into the air above the table and above the bowl. the blood in the bowl, moreover, was considerably less than before. and, with this change in the air before us, there came at the same time a further change, i thought, in the face of the soldier. one-half was turned towards the red lamps, while the other caught the pale illumination of the moonlight falling aslant from the high windows, so that it was difficult to estimate this change with accuracy of detail. but it seemed to me that, while the features--eyes, nose, mouth--remained the same, the life informing them had undergone some profound transformation. the signature of a new power had crept into the face and left its traces there--an expression dark, and in some unexplained way, terrible. then suddenly he opened his mouth and spoke, and the sound of this changed voice, deep and musical though it was, made me cold and set my heart beating with uncomfortable rapidity. the being, as he had dreaded, was already in control of his brain, using his mouth. "i see a blackness like the blackness of egypt before my face," said the tones of this unknown voice that seemed half his own and half another's. "and out of this darkness they come, they come." i gave a dreadful start. the doctor turned to look at me for an instant, and then turned to centre his attention upon the figure of our host, and i understood in some intuitive fashion that he was there to watch over the strangest contest man ever saw--to watch over and, if necessary, to protect. "he is being controlled--possessed," he whispered to me through the shadows. his face wore a wonderful expression, half triumph, half admiration. even as colonel wragge spoke, it seemed to me that this visible darkness began to increase, pouring up thickly out of the ground by the hearth, rising up in sheets and veils, shrouding our eyes and faces. it stole up from below--an awful blackness that seemed to drink in all the radiations of light in the building, leaving nothing but the ghost of a radiance in their place. then, out of this rising sea of shadows, issued a pale and spectral light that gradually spread itself about us, and from the heart of this light i saw the shapes of fire crowd and gather. and these were not human shapes, or the shapes of anything i recognised as alive in the world, but outlines of fire that traced globes, triangles, crosses, and the luminous bodies of various geometrical figures. they grew bright, faded, and then grew bright again with an effect almost of pulsation. they passed swiftly to and fro through the air, rising and falling, and particularly in the immediate neighbourhood of the colonel, often gathering about his head and shoulders, and even appearing to settle upon him like giant insects of flame. they were accompanied, moreover, by a faint sound of hissing--the same sound we had heard that afternoon in the plantation. "the fire-elementals that precede their master," the doctor said in an undertone. "be ready." and while this weird display of the shapes of fire alternately flashed and faded, and the hissing echoed faintly among the dim rafters overhead, we heard the awful voice issue at intervals from the lips of the afflicted soldier. it was a voice of power, splendid in some way i cannot describe, and with a certain sense of majesty in its cadences, and, as i listened to it with quickly beating heart, i could fancy it was some ancient voice of time itself, echoing down immense corridors of stone, from the depths of vast temples, from the very heart of mountain tombs. "i have seen my divine father, osiris," thundered the great tones. "i have scattered the gloom of the night. i have burst through the earth, and am one with the starry deities!" something grand came into the soldier's face. he was staring fixedly before him, as though seeing nothing. "watch," whispered dr. silence in my ear, and his whisper seemed to come from very far away. again the mouth opened and the awesome voice issued forth. "thoth," it boomed, "has loosened the bandages of set which fettered my mouth. i have taken my place in the great winds of heaven." i heard the little wind of night, with its mournful voice of ages, sighing round the walls and over the roof. "listen!" came from the doctor at my side, and the thunder of the voice continued-- "i have hidden myself with you, o ye stars that never diminish. i remember my name--in--the--house--of--fire!" the voice ceased and the sound died away. something about the face and figure of colonel wragge relaxed, i thought. the terrible look passed from his face. the being that obsessed him was gone. "the great ritual," said dr. silence aside to me, very low, "the book of the dead. now it's leaving him. soon the blood will fashion it a body." colonel wragge, who had stood absolutely motionless all this time, suddenly swayed, so that i thought he was going to fall,--and, but for the quick support of the doctor's arm, he probably would have fallen, for he staggered as in the beginning of collapse. "i am drunk with the wine of osiris," he cried,--and it was half with his own voice this time--"but horus, the eternal watcher, is about my path--for--safety." the voice dwindled and failed, dying away into something almost like a cry of distress. "now, watch closely," said dr. silence, speaking loud, "for after the cry will come the fire!" i began to tremble involuntarily; an awful change had come without warning into the air; my legs grew weak as paper beneath my weight and i had to support myself by leaning on the table. colonel wragge, i saw, was also leaning forward with a kind of droop. the shapes of fire had vanished all, but his face was lit by the red lamps and the pale, shifting moonlight rose behind him like mist. we were both gazing at the bowl, now almost empty; the colonel stooped so low i feared every minute he would lose his balance and drop into it; and the shadow, that had so long been in process of forming, now at length began to assume material outline in the air before us. then john silence moved forward quickly. he took his place between us and the shadow. erect, formidable, absolute master of the situation, i saw him stand there, his face calm and almost smiling, and fire in his eyes. his protective influence was astounding and incalculable. even the abhorrent dread i felt at the sight of the creature growing into life and substance before us, lessened in some way so that i was able to keep my eyes fixed on the air above the bowl without too vivid a terror. but as it took shape, rising out of nothing as it were, and growing momentarily more defined in outline, a period of utter and wonderful silence settled down upon the building and all it contained. a hush of ages, like the sudden centre of peace at the heart of the travelling cyclone, descended through the night, and out of this hush, as out of the emanations of the steaming blood, issued the form of the ancient being who had first sent the elemental of fire upon its mission. it grew and darkened and solidified before our eyes. it rose from just beyond the table so that the lower portions remained invisible, but i saw the outline limn itself upon the air, as though slowly revealed by the rising of a curtain. it apparently had not then quite concentrated to the normal proportions, but was spread out on all sides into space, huge, though rapidly condensing, for i saw the colossal shoulders, the neck, the lower portion of the dark jaws, the terrible mouth, and then the teeth and lips--and, as the veil seemed to lift further upon the tremendous face--i saw the nose and cheek bones. in another moment i should have looked straight into the eyes-- but what dr. silence did at that moment was so unexpected, and took me so by surprise, that i have never yet properly understood its nature, and he has never yet seen fit to explain in detail to me. he uttered some sound that had a note of command in it--and, in so doing, stepped forward and intervened between me and the face. the figure, just nearing completeness, he therefore hid from my sight--and i have always thought purposely hid from my sight. "the fire!" he cried out. "the fire! beware!" there was a sudden roar as of flame from the very mouth of the pit, and for the space of a single second all grew light as day. a blinding flash passed across my face, and there was heat for an instant that seemed to shrivel skin, and flesh, and bone. then came steps, and i heard colonel wragge utter a great cry, wilder than any human cry i have ever known. the heat sucked all the breath out of my lungs with a rush, and the blaze of light, as it vanished, swept my vision with it into enveloping darkness. when i recovered the use of my senses a few moments later i saw that colonel wragge with a face of death, its whiteness strangely stained, had moved closer to me. dr. silence stood beside him, an expression of triumph and success in his eyes. the next minute the soldier tried to clutch me with his hand. then he reeled, staggered, and, unable to save himself, fell with a great crash upon the brick floor. after the sheet of flame, a wind raged round the building as though it would lift the roof off, but then passed as suddenly as it came. and in the intense calm that followed i saw that the form had vanished, and the doctor was stooping over colonel wragge upon the floor, trying to lift him to a sitting position. "light," he said quietly, "more light. take the shades off." colonel wragge sat up and the glare of the unshaded lamps fell upon his face. it was grey and drawn, still running heat, and there was a look in the eyes and about the corners of the mouth that seemed in this short space of time to have added years to its age. at the same time, the expression of effort and anxiety had left it. it showed relief. "gone!" he said, looking up at the doctor in a dazed fashion, and struggling to his feet. "thank god! it's gone at last." he stared round the laundry as though to find out where he was. "did it control me--take possession of me? did i talk nonsense?" he asked bluntly. "after the heat came, i remember nothing--" "you'll feel yourself again in a few minutes," the doctor said. to my infinite horror i saw that he was surreptitiously wiping sundry dark stains from the face. "our experiment has been a success and--" he gave me a swift glance to hide the bowl, standing between me and our host while i hurriedly stuffed it down under the lid of the nearest cauldron. "--and none of us the worse for it," he finished. "and fires?" he asked, still dazed, "there'll be no more fires?" "it is dissipated--partly, at any rate," replied dr. silence cautiously. "and the man behind the gun," he went on, only half realising what he was saying, i think; "have you discovered _that?_" "a form materialised," said the doctor briefly. "i know for certain now what the directing intelligence was behind it all." colonel wragge pulled himself together and got upon his feet. the words conveyed no clear meaning to him yet. but his memory was returning gradually, and he was trying to piece together the fragments into a connected whole. he shivered a little, for the place had grown suddenly chilly. the air was empty again, lifeless. "you feel all right again now," dr. silence said, in the tone of a man stating a fact rather than asking a question. "thanks to you--both, yes." he drew a deep breath, and mopped his face, and even attempted a smile. he made me think of a man coming from the battlefield with the stains of fighting still upon him, but scornful of his wounds. then he turned gravely towards the doctor with a question in his eyes. memory had returned and he was himself again. "precisely what i expected," the doctor said calmly; "a fire-elemental sent upon its mission in the days of thebes, centuries before christ, and tonight, for the first time all these thousands of years, released from the spell that originally bound it." we stared at him in amazement, colonel wragge opening his lips for words that refused to shape themselves. "and, if we dig," he continued significantly, pointing to the floor where the blackness had poured up, "we shall find some underground connection--a tunnel most likely--leading to the twelve acre wood. it was made by--your predecessor." "a tunnel made by my brother!" gasped the soldier. "then my sister should know--she lived here with him--" he stopped suddenly. john silence inclined his head slowly. "i think so," he said quietly. "your brother, no doubt, was as much tormented as you have been," he continued after a pause in which colonel wragge seemed deeply preoccupied with his thoughts, "and tried to find peace by burying it in the wood, and surrounding the wood then, like a large magic circle, with the enchantments of the old formulae. so the stars the man saw blazing--" "but burying what?" asked the soldier faintly, stepping backwards towards the support of the wall. dr. silence regarded us both intently for a moment before he replied. i think he weighed in his mind whether to tell us now, or when the investigation was absolutely complete. "the mummy," he said softly, after a moment; "the mummy that your brother took from its resting place of centuries, and brought home--here." colonel wragge dropped down upon the nearest chair, hanging breathlessly on every word. he was far too amazed for speech. "the mummy of some important person--a priest most likely--protected from disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time. for they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it in the tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after ages upon any one who dared to molest it. in this case it was an elemental of fire." dr. silence crossed the floor and turned out the lamps one by one. he had nothing more to say for the moment. following his example, i folded the table together and took up the chairs, and our host, still dazed and silent, mechanically obeyed him and moved to the door. we removed all traces of the experiment, taking the empty bowl back to the house concealed beneath an ulster. the air was cool and fragrant as we walked to the house, the stars beginning to fade overhead and a fresh wind of early morning blowing up out of the east where the sky was already hinting of the coming day. it was after five o'clock. stealthily we entered the front hall and locked the door, and as we went on tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the colonel, peering at us over his candle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready the digging should be begun that very day. then i saw him steal along to his sister's room and disappear. iv but not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect of a revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followed the intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and i slept the sleep of the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. a touch on the shoulder woke me, and i saw dr. silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out. "come," he said, "it's tea-time. you've slept the best part of a dozen hours." i sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat and talked. he looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter than usual. "colonel wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. we're going out to unearth this mummy at once," he said; "and there's no reason we should not get away by the morning train." "i'm ready to go tonight, if you are," i said honestly. but dr. silence shook his head. "i must see this through to the end," he said gravely, and in a tone that made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. he went on talking while i dressed. "this case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and none of them are cases to trifle with," he explained, "for the mummies of important people--kings, priests, magicians--were laid away with profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected, as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against destruction. "the general belief," he went on, anticipating my questions, "held, of course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its ka,--the owner's spirit,--but it is not improbable that the magical embalming was also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful guardian-forces to keep off trespassers. and any one who dared to remove the mummy, or especially to unwind it--well," he added, with meaning, "you have seen--and you will see." i caught his face in the mirror while i struggled with my collar. it was deeply serious. there could be no question that he spoke of what he believed and knew. "the traveller-brother who brought it here must have been haunted too," he continued, "for he tried to banish it by burial in the wood, making a magic circle to enclose it. something of genuine ceremonial he must have known, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the still flaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. only he did not know enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy's guardian was a fire-force. fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, it can be released by it." "then that awful figure in the laundry?" i asked, thrilled to find him so communicative. "undoubtedly the actual ka of the mummy operating always behind its agent, the elemental, and most likely thousands of years old." "and miss wragge--?" i ventured once more. "ah, miss wragge," he repeated with increased gravity, "miss wragge--" a knock at the door brought a servant with word that tea was ready, and the colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down. the thread was broken. dr. silence moved to the door and signed to me to follow. but his manner told me that in any case no real answer would have been forthcoming to my question. "and the place to dig in," i asked, unable to restrain my curiosity, "will you find it by some process of divination or--?" he paused at the door and looked back at me, and with that he left me to finish my dressing. it was growing dark when the three of us silently made our way to the twelve acre plantation; the sky was overcast, and a black wind came out of the east. gloom hung about the old house and the air seemed full of sighings. we found the tools ready laid at the edge of the wood, and each shouldering his piece, we followed our leader at once in among the trees. he went straight forward for some twenty yards and then stopped. at his feet lay the blackened circle of one of the burned places. it was just discernible against the surrounding white grass. "there are three of these," he said, "and they all lie in a line with one another. any one of them will tap the tunnel that connects the laundry--the former museum--with the chamber where the mummy now lies buried." he at once cleared away the burnt grass and began to dig; we all began to dig. while i used the pick, the others shovelled vigorously. no one spoke. colonel wragge worked the hardest of the three. the soil was light and sandy, and there were only a few snake-like roots and occasional loose stones to delay us. the pick made short work of these. and meanwhile the darkness settled about us and the biting wind swept roaring through the trees overhead. then, quite suddenly, without a cry, colonel wragge disappeared up to his neck. "the tunnel!" cried the doctor, helping to drag him out, red, breathless, and covered with sand and perspiration. "now, let me lead the way." and he slipped down nimbly into the hole, so that a moment later we heard his voice, muffled by sand and distance, rising up to us. "hubbard, you come next, and then colonel wragge--if he wishes," we heard. "i'll follow you, of course," he said, looking at me as i scrambled in. the hole was bigger now, and i got down on all-fours in a channel not much bigger than a large sewer-pipe and found myself in total darkness. a minute later a heavy thud, followed by a cataract of loose sand, announced the arrival of the colonel. "catch hold of my heel," called dr. silence, "and colonel wragge can take yours." in this slow, laborious fashion we wormed our way along a tunnel that had been roughly dug out of the shifting sand, and was shored up clumsily by means of wooden pillars and posts. any moment, it seemed to me, we might be buried alive. we could not see an inch before our eyes, but had to grope our way feeling the pillars and the walls. it was difficult to breathe, and the colonel behind me made but slow progress, for the cramped position of our bodies was very severe. we had travelled in this way for ten minutes, and gone perhaps as much as ten yards, when i lost my grasp of the doctor's heel. "ah!" i heard his voice, sounding above me somewhere. he was standing up in a clear space, and the next moment i was standing beside him. colonel wragge came heavily after, and he too rose up and stood. then dr. silence produced his candles and we heard preparations for striking matches. yet even before there was light, an indefinable sensation of awe came over us all. in this hole in the sand, some three feet under ground, we stood side by side, cramped and huddled, struck suddenly with an over whelming apprehension of something ancient, something formidable, something incalculably wonderful, that touched in each one of us a sense of the sublime and the terrible even before we could see an inch before our faces. i know not how to express in language this singular emotion that caught us here in utter darkness, touching no sense directly, it seemed, yet with the recognition that before us in the blackness of this underground night there lay something that was mighty with the mightiness of long past ages. i felt colonel wragge press in closely to my side, and i understood the pressure and welcomed it. no human touch, to me at least, has ever been more eloquent. then the match flared, a thousand shadows fled on black wings, and i saw john silence fumbling with the candle, his face lit up grotesquely by the flickering light below it. i had dreaded this light, yet when it came there was apparently nothing to explain the profound sensations of dread that preceded it. we stood in a small vaulted chamber in the sand, the sides and roof shored with bars of wood, and the ground laid roughly with what seemed to be tiles. it was six feet high, so that we could all stand comfortably, and may have been ten feet long by eight feet wide. upon the wooden pillars at the side i saw that egyptian hieroglyphics had been rudely traced by burning. dr. silence lit three candles and handed one to each of us. he placed a fourth in the sand against the wall on his right, and another to mark the entrance to the tunnel. we stood and stared about us, instinctively holding our breath. "empty, by god!" exclaimed colonel wragge. his voice trembled with excitement. and then, as his eyes rested on the ground, he added, "and footsteps--look--footsteps in the sand!" dr. silence said nothing. he stooped down and began to make a search of the chamber, and as he moved, my eyes followed his crouching figure and noted the queer distorted shadows that poured over the walls and ceiling after him. here and there thin trickles of loose sand ran fizzing down the sides. the atmosphere, heavily charged with faint yet pungent odours, lay utterly still, and the flames of the candles might have been painted on the air for all the movement they betrayed. and, as i watched, it was almost necessary to persuade myself forcibly that i was only standing upright with difficulty in this little sand-hole of a modern garden in the south of england, for it seemed to me that i stood, as in vision, at the entrance of some vast rock-hewn temple far, far down the river of time. the illusion was powerful, and persisted. granite columns, that rose to heaven, piled themselves about me, majestically uprearing, and a roof like the sky itself spread above a line of colossal figures that moved in shadowy procession along endless and stupendous aisles. this huge and splendid fantasy, borne i knew not whence, possessed me so vividly that i was actually obliged to concentrate my attention upon the small stooping figure of the doctor, as he groped about the walls, in order to keep the eye of imagination on the scene before me. but the limited space rendered a long search out of the question, and his footsteps, instead of shuffling through loose sand, presently struck something of a different quality that gave forth a hollow and resounding echo. he stooped to examine more closely. he was standing exactly in the centre of the little chamber when this happened, and he at once began scraping away the sand with his feet. in less than a minute a smooth surface became visible--the surface of a wooden covering. the next thing i saw was that he had raised it and was peering down into a space below. instantly, a strong odour of nitre and bitumen, mingled with the strange perfume of unknown and powdered aromatics, rose up from the uncovered space and filled the vault, stinging the throat and making the eyes water and smart. "the mummy!" whispered dr. silence, looking up into our faces over his candle; and as he said the word i felt the soldier lurch against me, and heard his breathing in my very ear. "the mummy!" he repeated under his breath, as we pressed forward to look. it is difficult to say exactly why the sight should have stirred in me so prodigious an emotion of wonder and veneration, for i have had not a little to do with mummies, have unwound scores of them, and even experimented magically with not a few. but there was something in the sight of that grey and silent figure, lying in its modern box of lead and wood at the bottom of this sandy grave, swathed in the bandages of centuries and wrapped in the perfumed linen that the priests of egypt had prayed over with their mighty enchantments thousands of years before--something in the sight of it lying there and breathing its own spice-laden atmosphere even in the darkness of its exile in this remote land, something that pierced to the very core of my being and touched that root of awe which slumbers in every man near the birth of tears and the passion of true worship. i remember turning quickly from the colonel, lest he should see my emotion, yet fail to understand its cause, turn and clutch john silence by the arm, and then fall trembling to see that he, too, had lowered his head and was hiding his face in his hands. a kind of whirling storm came over me, rising out of i know not what utter deeps of memory, and in a whiteness of vision i heard the magical old chauntings from the book of the dead, and saw the gods pass by in dim procession, the mighty, immemorial beings who were yet themselves only the personified attributes of the true gods, the god with the eyes of fire, the god with the face of smoke. i saw again anubis, the dog-faced deity, and the children of horus, eternal watcher of the ages, as they swathed osiris, the first mummy of the world, in the scented and mystic bands, and i tasted again something of the ecstasy of the justified soul as it embarked in the golden boat of ra, and journeyed onwards to rest in the fields of the blessed. and then, as dr. silence, with infinite reverence, stooped and touched the still face, so dreadfully staring with its painted eyes, there rose again to our nostrils wave upon wave of this perfume of thousands of years, and time fled backwards like a thing of naught, showing me in haunted panorama the most wonderful dream of the whole world. a gentle hissing became audible in the air, and the doctor moved quickly backwards. it came close to our faces and then seemed to play about the walls and ceiling. "the last of the fire--still waiting for its full accomplishment," he muttered; but i heard both words and hissing as things far away, for i was still busy with the journey of the soul through the seven halls of death, listening for echoes of the grandest ritual ever known to men. the earthen plates covered with hieroglyphics still lay beside the mummy, and round it, carefully arranged at the points of the compass, stood the four jars with the heads of the hawk, the jackal, the cynocephalus, and man, the jars in which were placed the hair, the nail parings, the heart, and other special portions of the body. even the amulets, the mirror, the blue clay statues of the ka, and the lamp with seven wicks were there. only the sacred scarabaeus was missing. "not only has it been torn from its ancient resting-place," i heard dr. silence saying in a solemn voice as he looked at colonel wragge with fixed gaze, "but it has been partially unwound,"--he pointed to the wrappings of the breast,--"and--the scarabaeus has been removed from the throat." the hissing, that was like the hissing of an invisible flame, had ceased; only from time to time we heard it as though it passed backwards and forwards in the tunnel; and we stood looking into each other's faces without speaking. presently colonel wragge made a great effort and braced himself. i heard the sound catch in his throat before the words actually became audible. "my sister," he said, very low. and then there followed a long pause, broken at length by john silence. "it must be replaced," he said significantly. "i knew nothing," the soldier said, forcing himself to speak the words he hated saying. "absolutely nothing." "it must be returned," repeated the other, "if it is not now too late. for i fear--i fear--" colonel wragge made a movement of assent with his head. "it shall be," he said. the place was still as the grave. i do not know what it was then that made us all three turn round with so sudden a start, for there was no sound audible to my ears, at least. the doctor was on the point of replacing the lid over the mummy, when he straightened up as if he had been shot. "there's something coming," said colonel wragge under his breath, and the doctor's eyes, peering down the small opening of the tunnel, showed me the true direction. a distant shuffling noise became distinctly audible coming from a point about half-way down the tunnel we had so laboriously penetrated. "it's the sand falling in," i said, though i knew it was foolish. "no," said the colonel calmly, in a voice that seemed to have the ring of iron, "i've heard it for some time past. it is something alive--and it is coming nearer." he stared about him with a look of resolution that made his face almost noble. the horror in his heart was overmastering, yet he stood there prepared for anything that might come. "there's no other way out," john silence said. he leaned the lid against the sand, and waited. i knew by the masklike expression of his face, the pallor, and the steadiness of the eyes, that he anticipated something that might be very terrible--appalling. the colonel and myself stood on either side of the opening. i still held my candle and was ashamed of the way it shook, dripping the grease all over me; but the soldier had set his into the sand just behind his feet. thoughts of being buried alive, of being smothered like rats in a trap, of being caught and done to death by some invisible and merciless force we could not grapple with, rushed into my mind. then i thought of fire--of suffocation--of being roasted alive. the perspiration began to pour from my face. "steady!" came the voice of dr. silence to me through the vault. for five minutes, that seemed fifty, we stood waiting, looking from each other's faces to the mummy, and from the mummy to the hole, and all the time the shuffling sound, soft and stealthy, came gradually nearer. the tension, for me at least, was very near the breaking point when at last the cause of the disturbance reached the edge. it was hidden for a moment just behind the broken rim of soil. a jet of sand, shaken by the close vibration, trickled down on to the ground; i have never in my life seen anything fall with such laborious leisure. the next second, uttering a cry of curious quality, it came into view. and it was far more distressingly horrible than anything i had anticipated. for the sight of some egyptian monster, some god of the tombs, or even of some demon of fire, i think i was already half prepared; but when, instead, i saw the white visage of miss wragge framed in that round opening of sand, followed by her body crawling on all fours, her eyes bulging and reflecting the yellow glare of the candles, my first instinct was to turn and run like a frantic animal seeking a way of escape. but dr. silence, who seemed no whit surprised, caught my arm and steadied me, and we both saw the colonel then drop upon his knees and come thus to a level with his sister. for more than a whole minute, as though struck in stone, the two faces gazed silently at each other: hers, for all the dreadful emotion in it, more like a gargoyle than anything human; and his, white and blank with an expression that was beyond either astonishment or alarm. she looked up; he looked down. it was a picture in a nightmare, and the candle, stuck in the sand close to the hole, threw upon it the glare of impromptu footlights. then john silence moved forward and spoke in a voice that was very low, yet perfectly calm and natural. "i am glad you have come," he said. "you are the one person whose presence at this moment is most required. and i hope that you may yet be in time to appease the anger of the fire, and to bring peace again to your household, and," he added lower still so that no one heard it but myself, "_safety to yourself_." and while her brother stumbled backwards, crushing a candle into the sand in his awkwardness, the old lady crawled farther into the vaulted chamber and slowly rose upon her feet. at the sight of the wrapped figure of the mummy i was fully prepared to see her scream and faint, but on the contrary, to my complete amazement, she merely bowed her head and dropped quietly upon her knees. then, after a pause of more than a minute, she raised her eyes to the roof and her lips began to mutter as in prayer. her right hand, meanwhile, which had been fumbling for some time at her throat suddenly came away, and before the gaze of all of us she held it out, palm upwards, over the grey and ancient figure outstretched below. and in it we beheld glistening the green jasper of the stolen scarabaeus. her brother, leaning heavily against the wall behind, uttered a sound that was half cry, half exclamation, but john silence, standing directly in front of her, merely fixed his eyes on her and pointed downwards to the staring face below. "replace it," he said sternly, "where it belongs." miss wragge was kneeling at the feet of the mummy when this happened. we three men all had our eyes riveted on what followed. only the reader who by some remote chance may have witnessed a line of mummies, freshly laid from their tombs upon the sand, slowly stir and bend as the heat of the egyptian sun warms their ancient bodies into the semblance of life, can form any conception of the ultimate horror we experienced when the silent figure before us moved in its grave of lead and sand. slowly, before our eyes, it writhed, and, with a faint rustling of the immemorial cerements, rose up, and, through sightless and bandaged eyes, stared across the yellow candlelight at the woman who had violated it. i tried to move--her brother tried to move--but the sand seemed to hold our feet. i tried to cry--her brother tried to cry--but the sand seemed to fill our lungs and throat. we could only stare--and, even so, the sand seemed to rise like a desert storm and cloud our vision ... and when i managed at length to open my eyes again, the mummy was lying once more upon its back, motionless, the shrunken and painted face upturned towards the ceiling, and the old lady had tumbled forward and was lying in the semblance of death with her head and arms upon its crumbling body. but upon the wrappings of the throat i saw the green jasper of the sacred scarabaeus shining again like a living eye. colonel wragge and the doctor recovered themselves long before i did, and i found myself helping them clumsily and unintelligently to raise the frail body of the old lady, while john silence carefully replaced the covering over the grave and scraped back the sand with his foot, while he issued brief directions. i heard his voice as in a dream; but the journey back along that cramped tunnel, weighted by a dead woman, blinded with sand, suffocated with heat, was in no sense a dream. it took us the best part of half an hour to reach the open air. and, even then, we had to wait a considerable time for the appearance of dr. silence. we carried her undiscovered into the house and up to her own room. "the mummy will cause no further disturbance," i heard dr. silence say to our host later that evening as we prepared to drive for the night train, "provided always," he added significantly, "that you, and yours, cause it no disturbance." it was in a dream, too, that we left. "you did not see her face, i know," he said to me as we wrapped our rugs about us in the empty compartment. and when i shook my head, quite unable to explain the instinct that had come to me not to look, he turned toward me, his face pale, and genuinely sad. "scorched and blasted," he whispered. [illustration: as it passed him he thought he heard it say in a furious whisper, "still alive!"--page . [_frontispiece._] [illustration] the watcher and other weird stories by j. sheridan le fanu with twenty-one illustrations by brinsley sheridan le fanu [illustration] london downey & co. , york street, covent garden london: printed by gilbert and rivington, ld., st. john's house, clerkenwell, e.c. preface. most of the tales in this volume were written prior to the publication of "uncle silas," which is, perhaps, the novel by which my father is best known. all the stories, with the exception of "the watcher," were included in "the purcell papers," edited by mr. alfred perceval graves after my father's death, and published by messrs. bentley. it may be of interest to point out that the central idea in the story entitled "passage in the secret history of an irish countess" is embodied in "uncle silas." when "the purcell papers" were appearing in _the dublin university magazine_ my father supplied the following note, which was reproduced by mr. graves in his edition of the book:-- "the residuary legatee of the late francis purcell, who has the honour of selecting such of his lamented old friend's manuscripts as may appear fit for publication, in order that the lore which they contain may reach the world before scepticism and utility have robbed our species of the precious gift of credulity, and scornfully kicked before them, or trampled into annihilation those harmless fragments of picturesque superstition which it is our object to preserve, has been subjected to the charge of dealing too largely in the marvellous; and it has been half insinuated that such is his love for _diablerie_, that he is content to wander a mile out of his way in order to meet a fiend or a goblin, and thus to sacrifice all regard for truth and accuracy to the idle hope of affrighting the imagination, and thus pandering to the bad taste of his reader. he begs leave, then, to take this opportunity of asserting his perfect innocence of all the crimes laid to his charge, and to assure his reader that he never pandered to his bad taste, nor went one inch out of his way to introduce witch, fairy, devil, ghost, or any other of the grim fraternity of the redoubted raw-head-and-bloody-bones. his province touching these tales has been attended with no difficulty and little responsibility; indeed, he is accountable for nothing more than an alteration in the names of persons mentioned therein, when such a step seemed necessary, and for an occasional note, whenever he conceived it possible innocently to edge in a word. these tales have been _written down_ by the rev. francis purcell, p.p., of drumcoolagh; and in all the instances, which are many, in which the present writer has had an opportunity of comparing the manuscript of his departed friend with the actual traditions current amongst the families whose fortunes they pretend to illustrate, he has uniformly found that whatever of supernatural occurred in the story, so far from being exaggerated by him, had been rather softened down, and, wherever it could be attempted, accounted for." brinsley le fanu. _london, november, ._ contents. page the watcher passage in the secret history of an irish countess strange event in the life of schalken the painter the fortunes of sir robert ardagh the dream a chapter in the history of a tyrone family [illustration] the watcher. it is now more than fifty years since the occurrences which i am about to relate caused a strange sensation in the gay society of dublin. the fashionable world, however, is no recorder of traditions; the memory of selfishness seldom reaches far; and the events which occasionally disturb the polite monotony of its pleasant and heartless progress, however stamped with the characters of misery and horror, scarcely outlive the gossip of a season, and (except, perhaps, in the remembrance of a few more directly interested in the consequences of the catastrophe) are in a little time lost to the recollection of all. the appetite for scandal, or for horror, has been sated; the incident can yield no more of interest or novelty; curiosity, frustrated by impenetrable mystery, gives over the pursuit in despair; the tale has ceased to be new, grows stale and flat; and so, in a few years, inquiry subsides into indifference. somewhere about the year , the younger brother of a certain baronet, whom i shall call sir james barton, returned to dublin. he had served in the navy with some distinction, having commanded one of his majesty's frigates during the greater part of the american war. captain barton was now apparently some two or three-and-forty years of age. he was an intelligent and agreeable companion, when he chose it, though generally reserved, and occasionally even moody. in society, however, he deported himself as a man of the world and a gentleman. he had not contracted any of the noisy brusqueness sometimes acquired at sea; on the contrary, his manners were remarkably easy, quiet, and even polished. he was in person about the middle size, and somewhat strongly formed; his countenance was marked with the lines of thought, and on the whole wore an expression of gravity and even of melancholy. being, however, as we have said, a man of perfect breeding, as well as of affluent circumstances and good family, he had, of course, ready access to the best society of the metropolis, without the necessity of any other credentials. in his personal habits captain barton was economical. he occupied lodgings in one of the then fashionable streets in the south side of the town, kept but one horse and one servant, and though a reputed free-thinker, he lived an orderly and moral life, indulging neither in gaming, drinking, nor any other vicious pursuit, living very much to himself, without forming any intimacies, or choosing any companions, and appearing to mix in gay society rather for the sake of its bustle and distraction, than for any opportunities which it offered of interchanging either thoughts or feelings with its votaries. barton was therefore pronounced a saving, prudent, unsocial sort of a fellow, who bid fair to maintain his celibacy alike against stratagem and assault, and was likely to live to a good old age, die rich and leave his money to a hospital. it was soon apparent, however, that the nature of captain barton's plans had been totally misconceived. a young lady, whom we shall call miss montague, was at this time introduced into the fashionable world of dublin by her aunt, the dowager lady rochdale. miss montague was decidedly pretty and accomplished, and having some natural cleverness, and a great deal of gaiety, became for a while the reigning toast. her popularity, however, gained her, for a time, nothing more than that unsubstantial admiration which, however pleasant as an incense to vanity, is by no means necessarily antecedent to matrimony, for, unhappily for the young lady in question, it was an understood thing, that, beyond her personal attractions, she had no kind of earthly provision. such being the state of affairs, it will readily be believed that no little surprise was consequent upon the appearance of captain barton as the avowed lover of the penniless miss montague. his suit prospered, as might have been expected, and in a short time it was confidentially communicated by old lady rochdale to each of her hundred and fifty particular friends in succession, that captain barton had actually tendered proposals of marriage, with her approbation, to her niece, miss montague, who had, moreover, accepted the offer of his hand, conditionally upon the consent of her father, who was then upon his homeward voyage from india, and expected in two or three months at furthest. about his consent there could be no doubt. the delay, therefore, was one merely of form; they were looked upon as absolutely engaged, and lady rochdale, with a vigour of old-fashioned decorum with which her niece would, no doubt, gladly have dispensed, withdrew her thenceforward from all further participation in the gaieties of the town. captain barton was a constant visitor as well as a frequent guest at the house, and was permitted all the privileges and intimacy which a betrothed suitor is usually accorded. such was the relation of parties, when the mysterious circumstances which darken this narrative with inexplicable melancholy first began to unfold themselves. lady rochdale resided in a handsome mansion at the north side of dublin, and captain barton's lodgings, as we have already said, were situated at the south. the distance intervening was considerable, and it was captain barton's habit generally to walk home without an attendant, as often as he passed the evening with the old lady and her fair charge. his shortest way in such nocturnal walks lay, for a considerable space, through a line of streets which had as yet been merely laid out, and little more than the foundations of the houses constructed. one night, shortly after his engagement with miss montague had commenced, he happened to remain unusually late, in company only with her and lady rochdale. the conversation had turned upon the evidences of revelation, which he had disputed with the callous scepticism of a confirmed infidel. what were called "french principles" had, in those days, found their way a good deal into fashionable society, especially that portion of it which professed allegiance to whiggism, and neither the old lady nor her charge was so perfectly free from the taint as to look upon captain barton's views as any serious objection to the proposed union. the discussion had degenerated into one upon the supernatural and the marvellous, in which he had pursued precisely the same line of argument and ridicule. in all this, it is but true to state, captain barton was guilty of no affectation; the doctrines upon which he insisted were, in reality, but too truly the basis of his own fixed belief, if so it might be called; and perhaps not the least strange of the many strange circumstances connected with this narrative, was the fact that the subject of the fearful influences we are about to describe was himself, from the deliberate conviction of years, an utter disbeliever in what are usually termed preternatural agencies. it was considerably past midnight when mr. barton took his leave, and set out upon his solitary walk homeward. he rapidly reached the lonely road, with its unfinished dwarf walls tracing the foundations of the projected rows of houses on either side. the moon was shining mistily, and its imperfect light made the road he trod but additionally dreary; that utter silence, which has in it something indefinably exciting, reigned there, and made the sound of his steps, which alone broke it, unnaturally loud and distinct. he had proceeded thus some way, when on a sudden he heard other footsteps, pattering at a measured pace, and, as it seemed, about two score steps behind him. the suspicion of being dogged is at all times unpleasant; it is, however, especially so in a spot so desolate and lonely: and this suspicion became so strong in the mind of captain barton, that he abruptly turned about to confront his pursuers, but, though there was quite sufficient moonlight to disclose any object upon the road he had traversed, no form of any kind was visible. the steps he had heard could not have been the reverberation of his own, for he stamped his foot upon the ground, and walked briskly up and down, in the vain attempt to wake an echo. though by no means a fanciful person, he was at last compelled to charge the sounds upon his imagination, and treat them as an illusion. thus satisfying himself, he resumed his walk, and before he had proceeded a dozen paces, the mysterious footfalls were again audible from behind, and this time, as if with the special design of showing that the sounds were not the responses of an echo, the steps sometimes slackened nearly to a halt, and sometimes hurried for six or eight strides to a run, and again abated to a walk. captain barton, as before, turned suddenly round, and with the same result; no object was visible above the deserted level of the road. he walked back over the same ground, determined that, whatever might have been the cause of the sounds which had so disconcerted him, it should not escape his search; the endeavour, however, was unrewarded. in spite of all his scepticism, he felt something like a superstitious fear stealing fast upon him, and, with these unwonted and uncomfortable sensations, he once more turned and pursued his way. there was no repetition of these haunting sounds, until he had reached the point where he had last stopped to retrace his steps. here they were resumed, and with sudden starts of running, which threatened to bring the unseen pursuer close up to the alarmed pedestrian. captain barton arrested his course as formerly; the unaccountable nature of the occurrence filled him with vague and almost horrible sensations, and, yielding to the excitement he felt gaining upon him, he shouted, sternly, "who goes there?" the sound of one's own voice, thus exerted, in utter solitude, and followed by total silence, has in it something unpleasantly exciting, and he felt a degree of nervousness which, perhaps, from no cause had he ever known before. to the very end of this solitary street the steps pursued him, and it required a strong effort of stubborn pride on his part to resist the impulse that prompted him every moment to run for safety at the top of his speed. it was not until he had reached his lodging, and sat by his own fireside, that he felt sufficiently reassured to arrange and reconsider in his own mind the occurrences which had so discomposed him: so little a matter, after all, is sufficient to upset the pride of scepticism, and vindicate the old simple laws of nature within us. mr. barton was next morning sitting at a late breakfast, reflecting upon the incidents of the previous night, with more of inquisitiveness than awe--so speedily do gloomy impressions upon the fancy disappear under the cheerful influences of day--when a letter just delivered by the postman was placed upon the table before him. there was nothing remarkable in the address of this missive, except that it was written in a hand which he did not know--perhaps it was disguised--for the tall narrow characters were sloped backward; and with the self-inflicted suspense which we so often see practised in such cases, he puzzled over the inscription for a full minute before he broke the seal. when he did so, he read the following words, written in the same hand:-- "mr. barton, late captain of the _dolphin_, is warned of _danger_. he will do wisely to avoid ---- street--(here the locality of his last night's adventure was named)--if he walks there as usual, he will meet with something bad. let him take warning, once for all, for he has good reason to dread "the watcher." captain barton read and re-read this strange effusion; in every light and in every direction he turned it over and over. he examined the paper on which it was written, and closely scrutinized the handwriting. defeated here, he turned to the seal; it was nothing but a patch of wax, upon which the accidental impression of a coarse thumb was imperfectly visible. there was not the slightest mark, no clue or indication of any kind, to lead him to even a guess as to its possible origin. the writer's object seemed a friendly one, and yet he subscribed himself as one whom he had "good reason to dread." altogether, the letter, its author, and its real purpose, were to him an inexplicable puzzle, and one, moreover, unpleasantly suggestive, in his mind, of associations connected with the last night's adventure. in obedience to some feeling--perhaps of pride--mr. barton did not communicate, even to his intended bride, the occurrences which we have just detailed. trifling as they might appear, they had in reality most disagreeably affected his imagination, and he cared not to disclose, even to the young lady in question, what she might possibly look upon as evidences of weakness. the letter might very well be but a hoax, and the mysterious footfall but a delusion of his fancy. but although he affected to treat the whole affair as unworthy of a thought, it yet haunted him pertinaciously, tormenting him with perplexing doubts, and depressing him with undefined apprehensions. certain it is, that for a considerable time afterwards he carefully avoided the street indicated in the letter as the scene of danger. it was not until about a week after the receipt of the letter which i have transcribed, that anything further occurred to remind captain barton of its contents, or to counteract the gradual disappearance from his mind of the disagreeable impressions which he had then received. he was returning one night, after the interval i have stated, from the theatre, which was then situated in crow street, and having there handed miss montague and lady rochdale into their carriage, he loitered for some time with two or three acquaintances. with these, however, he parted close to the college, and pursued his way alone. it was now about one o'clock, and the streets were quite deserted. during the whole of his walk with the companions from whom he had just parted, he had been at times painfully aware of the sound of steps, as it seemed, dogging them on their way. once or twice he had looked back, in the uneasy anticipation that he was again about to experience the same mysterious annoyances which had so much disconcerted him a week before, and earnestly hoping that he might _see_ some form from whom the sounds might naturally proceed. but the street was deserted; no form was visible. proceeding now quite alone upon his homeward way, he grew really nervous and uncomfortable, as he became sensible, with increased distinctness, of the well-known and now absolutely dreaded sounds. by the side of the dead wall which bounded the college park, the sounds followed, recommencing almost simultaneously with his own steps. the same unequal pace, sometimes slow, sometimes, for a score yards or so, quickened to a run, was audible from behind him. again and again he turned, quickly and stealthily he glanced over his shoulder almost at every half-dozen steps; but no one was visible. the horrors of this intangible and unseen persecution became gradually all but intolerable; and when at last he reached his home his nerves were strung to such a pitch of excitement that he could not rest, and did not attempt even to lie down until after the daylight had broken. he was awakened by a knock at his chamber-door, and his servant entering, handed him several letters which had just been received by the early post. one among them instantly arrested his attention; a single glance at the direction aroused him thoroughly. he at once recognized its character, and read as follows:-- "you may as well think, captain barton, to escape from your own shadow as from me; do what you may, i will see you as often as i please, and you shall see me, for i do not want to hide myself, as you fancy. do not let it trouble your rest, captain barton; for, with a _good conscience_, what need you fear from the eye of "the watcher?" it is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the feelings elicited by a perusal of this strange communication. captain barton was observed to be unusually absent and out of spirits for several days afterwards; but no one divined the cause. whatever he might think as to the phantom steps which followed him, there could be no possible illusion about the letters he had received; and, to say the least of it, their immediate sequence upon the mysterious sounds which had haunted him was an odd coincidence. the whole circumstance, in his own mind, was vaguely and instinctively connected with certain passages in his past life, which, of all others, he hated to remember. it so happened that just about this time, in addition to his approaching nuptials, captain barton had fortunately, perhaps, for himself, some business of an engrossing kind connected with the adjustment of a large and long-litigated claim upon certain properties. the hurry and excitement of business had its natural effect in gradually dispelling the marked gloom which had for a time occasionally oppressed him, and in a little while his spirits had entirely resumed their accustomed tone. during all this period, however, he was occasionally dismayed by indistinct and half-heard repetitions of the same annoyance, and that in lonely places, in the day time as well as after nightfall. these renewals of the strange impressions from which he had suffered so much were, however, desultory and faint, insomuch that often he really could not, to his own satisfaction, distinguish between them and the mere suggestions of an excited imagination. one evening he walked down to the house of commons with a mr. norcott, a member. as they walked down together he was observed to become absent and silent, and to a degree so marked as scarcely to consist with good breeding; and this, in one who was obviously in all his habits so perfectly a gentleman, seemed to argue the pressure of some urgent and absorbing anxiety. it was afterwards known that, during the whole of that walk, he had heard the well-known footsteps dogging him as he proceeded. this, however, was the last time he suffered from this phase of the persecution of which he was already the anxious victim. a new and a very different one was about to be presented. of the new series of impressions which were afterwards gradually to work out his destiny, that evening disclosed the first; and but for its relation to the train of events which followed, the incident would scarcely have been remembered by any one. as they were walking in at the passage, a man (of whom his friend could afterwards remember only that he was short in stature, looked like a foreigner, and wore a kind of travelling-cap) walked very rapidly, and, as if under some fierce excitement, directly towards them, muttering to himself fast and vehemently the while. this odd-looking person proceeded straight toward barton, who was foremost, and halted, regarding him for a moment or two with a look of menace and fury almost maniacal; and then turning about as abruptly, he walked before them at the same agitated pace, and disappeared by a side passage. norcott distinctly remembered being a good deal shocked at the countenance and bearing of this man, which indeed irresistibly impressed him with an undefined sense of danger, such as he never felt before or since from the presence of anything human; but these sensations were far from amounting to anything so disconcerting as to flurry or excite him--he had seen only a singularly evil countenance, agitated, as it seemed, with the excitement of madness. he was absolutely astonished, however, at the effect of this apparition upon captain barton. he knew him to be a man of proved courage and coolness in real danger, a circumstance which made his conduct upon this occasion the more conspicuously odd. he recoiled a step or two as the stranger advanced, and clutched his companion's arm in silence, with a spasm of agony or terror; and then, as the figure disappeared, shoving him roughly back, he followed it for a few paces, stopped in great disorder, and sat down upon a form. a countenance more ghastly and haggard it was impossible to fancy. "for god's sake, barton, what is the matter?" said norcott, really alarmed at his friend's appearance. "you're not hurt, are you? nor unwell? what is it?" "what did he say? i did not hear it. what was it?" asked barton, wholly disregarding the question. "tut, tut, nonsense!" said norcott, greatly surprised; "who cares what the fellow said? you are unwell, barton, decidedly unwell; let me call a coach." "unwell! yes, no, not exactly unwell," he said, evidently making an effort to recover his self-possession; "but, to say the truth, i am fatigued, a little overworked, and perhaps over anxious. you know i have been in chancery, and the winding up of a suit is always a nervous affair. i have felt uncomfortable all this evening; but i am better now. come, come, shall we go on?" "no, no. take my advice, barton, and go home; you really do need rest; you are looking absolutely ill. i really do insist on your allowing me to see you home," replied his companion. it was obvious that barton was not himself disinclined to be persuaded. he accordingly took his leave, politely declining his friend's offered escort. notwithstanding the few commonplace regrets which norcott had expressed, it was plain that he was just as little deceived as barton himself by the extempore plea of illness with which he had accounted for the strange exhibition, and that he even then suspected some lurking mystery in the matter. norcott called next day at barton's lodgings, to inquire for him, and learned from the servant that he had not left his room since his return the night before; but that he was not seriously indisposed, and hoped to be out again in a few days. that evening he sent for doctor richards, then in large and fashionable practice in dublin, and their interview was, it is said, an odd one. he entered into a detail of his own symptoms in an abstracted and desultory kind of way, which seemed to argue a strange want of interest in his own cure, and, at all events, made it manifest that there was some topic engaging his mind of more engrossing importance than his present ailment. he complained of occasional palpitations, and headache. doctor richards asked him, among other questions, whether there was any irritating circumstance or anxiety to account for it. this he denied quickly and peevishly; and the physician thereupon declared his opinion, that there was nothing amiss except some slight derangement of the digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a prescription, and was about to withdraw, when mr. barton, with the air of a man who suddenly recollects a topic which had nearly escaped him, recalled him. "i beg your pardon, doctor, but i had really almost forgot; will you permit me to ask you two or three medical questions?--rather odd ones, perhaps, but as a wager depends upon their solution, you will, i hope, excuse my unreasonableness." the physician readily undertook to satisfy the inquirer. barton seemed to have some difficulty about opening the proposed interrogatories, for he was silent for a minute, then walked to his book-case and returned as he had gone; at last he sat down, and said,-- "you'll think them very childish questions, but i can't recover my wager without a decision; so i must put them. i want to know first about lock-jaw. if a man actually has had that complaint, and appears to have died of it--so that in fact a physician of average skill pronounces him actually dead--may he, after all, recover?" doctor richards smiled, and shook his head. "but--but a blunder may be made," resumed barton. "suppose an ignorant pretender to medical skill; may _he_ be so deceived by any stage of the complaint, as to mistake what is only a part of the progress of the disease, for death itself?" "no one who had ever seen death," answered he, "could mistake it in the case of lock-jaw." barton mused for a few minutes. "i am going to ask you a question, perhaps still more childish; but first tell me, are not the regulations of foreign hospitals, such as those of, let us say, lisbon, very lax and bungling? may not all kinds of blunders and slips occur in their entries of names, and so forth?" doctor richards professed his inability to answer that query. "well, then, doctor, here is the last of my questions. you will probably laugh at it; but it must out nevertheless. is there any disease, in all the range of human maladies, which would have the effect of perceptibly contracting the stature, and the whole frame--causing the man to shrink in all his proportions, and yet to preserve his exact resemblance to himself in every particular--with the one exception, his height and bulk; _any_ disease, mark, no matter how rare, how little believed in, generally, which could possibly result in producing such an effect?" the physician replied with a smile, and a very decided negative. "tell me, then," said barton, abruptly, "if a man be in reasonable fear of assault from a lunatic who is at large, can he not procure a warrant for his arrest and detention?" "really, that is more a lawyer's question than one in my way," replied doctor richards; "but i believe, on applying to a magistrate, such a course would be directed." the physician then took his leave; but, just as he reached the hall-door, remembered that he had left his cane upstairs, and returned. his reappearance was awkward, for a piece of paper, which he recognized as his own prescription, was slowly burning upon the fire, and barton sitting close by with an expression of settled gloom and dismay. doctor richards had too much tact to appear to observe what presented itself; but he had seen quite enough to assure him that the mind, and not the body, of captain barton was in reality the seat of his sufferings. a few days afterwards, the following advertisement appeared in the dublin newspapers:-- "if sylvester yelland, formerly a foremast man on board his majesty's frigate _dolphin_, or his nearest of kin, will apply to mr. robery smith, solicitor, at his office, dame street, he or they may hear of something greatly to his or their advantage. admission may be had at any hour up to twelve o'clock at night for the next fortnight, should parties desire to avoid observation; and the strictest secrecy, as to all communications intended to be confidential, shall be honourably observed." the _dolphin_, as we have mentioned, was the vessel which captain barton had commanded; and this circumstance, connected with the extraordinary exertions made by the circulation of hand-bills, etc., as well as by repeated advertisements, to secure for this strange notice the utmost possible publicity, suggested to doctor richards the idea that captain barton's extreme uneasiness was somehow connected with the individual to whom the advertisement was addressed, and he himself the author of it. this, however, it is needless to add, was no more than a conjecture. no information whatsoever, as to the real purpose of the advertisement itself, was divulged by the agent, nor yet any hint as to who his employer might be. mr. barton, although he had latterly begun to earn for himself the character of a hypochondriac, was yet very far from deserving it. though by no means lively, he had yet, naturally, what are termed "even spirits," and was not subject to continual depressions. he soon, therefore, began to return to his former habits; and one of the earliest symptoms of this healthier tone of spirits was his appearing at a grand dinner of the freemasons, of which worthy fraternity he was himself a brother. barton, who had been at first gloomy and abstracted, drank much more freely than was his wont--possibly with the purpose of dispelling his own secret anxieties--and under the influence of good wine, and pleasant company, became gradually (unlike his usual self) talkative, and even noisy. it was under this unwonted excitement that he left his company at about half-past ten o'clock; and as conviviality is a strong incentive to gallantry, it occurred to him to proceed forthwith to lady rochdale's, and pass the remainder of the evening with her and his destined bride. accordingly, he was soon at ---- street, and chatting gaily with the ladies. it is not to be supposed that captain barton had exceeded the limits which propriety prescribes to good fellowship; he had merely taken enough of wine to raise his spirits, without, however, in the least degree unsteadying his mind, or affecting his manners. with this undue elevation of spirits had supervened an entire oblivion or contempt of those undefined apprehensions which had for so long weighed upon his mind, and to a certain extent estranged him from society; but as the night wore away, and his artificial gaiety began to flag, these painful feelings gradually intruded themselves again, and he grew abstracted and anxious as heretofore. he took his leave at length, with an unpleasant foreboding of some coming mischief, and with a mind haunted with a thousand mysterious apprehensions, such as, even while he acutely felt their pressure, he, nevertheless, inwardly strove, or affected to contemn. it was his proud defiance of what he considered to be his own weakness which prompted him upon this occasion to the course which brought about the adventure which we are now about to relate. mr. barton might have easily called a coach, but he was conscious that his strong inclination to do so proceeded from no cause other than what he desperately persisted in representing to himself to be his own superstitious tremors. he might also have returned home by a route different from that against which he had been warned by his mysterious correspondent; but for the same reason he dismissed this idea also, and with a dogged and half desperate resolution to force matters to a crisis of some kind, to see if there were any reality in the causes of his former suffering, and if not, satisfactorily to bring their delusiveness to the proof, he determined to follow precisely the course which he had trodden upon the night so painfully memorable in his own mind as that on which his strange persecution had commenced. though, sooth to say, the pilot who for the first time steers his vessel under the muzzles of a hostile battery never felt his resolution more severely tasked than did captain barton, as he breathlessly pursued this solitary path; a path which, spite of every effort of scepticism and reason, he felt to be, as respected _him_, infested by a malignant influence. he pursued his way steadily and rapidly, scarcely breathing from intensity of suspense; he, however, was troubled by no renewal of the dreaded footsteps, and was beginning to feel a return of confidence, as, more than three-fourths of the way being accomplished with impunity, he approached the long line of twinkling oil lamps which indicated the frequented streets. this feeling of self-congratulation was, however, but momentary. the report of a musket at some two hundred yards behind him, and the whistle of a bullet close to his head, disagreeably and startlingly dispelled it. his first impulse was to retrace his steps in pursuit of the assassin; but the road on either side was, as we have said, embarrassed by the foundations of a street, beyond which extended waste fields, full of rubbish and neglected lime and brick kilns, and all now as utterly silent as though no sound had ever disturbed their dark and unsightly solitude. the futility of attempting, single-handed, under such circumstances, a search for the murderer, was apparent, especially as no further sound whatever was audible to direct his pursuit. with the tumultuous sensations of one whose life had just been exposed to a murderous attempt, and whose escape has been the narrowest possible, captain barton turned, and without, however, quickening his pace actually to a run, hurriedly pursued his way. he had turned, as we have said, after a pause of a few seconds, and had just commenced his rapid retreat, when on a sudden he met the well-remembered little man in the fur cap. the encounter was but momentary. the figure was walking at the same exaggerated pace, and with the same strange air of menace as before; and as it passed him, he thought he heard it say, in a furious whisper, "still alive, still alive!" the state of mr. barton's spirits began now to work a corresponding alteration in his health and looks, and to such a degree that it was impossible that the change should escape general remark. for some reasons, known but to himself, he took no step whatsoever to bring the attempt upon his life, which he had so narrowly escaped, under the notice of the authorities; on the contrary, he kept it jealously to himself; and it was not for many weeks after the occurrence that he mentioned it, and then in strict confidence to a gentleman, the torments of his mind at last compelled him to consult a friend. spite of his blue devils, however, poor barton, having no satisfactory reason to render to the public for any undue remissness in the attentions which his relation to miss montague required, was obliged to exert himself, and present to the world a confident and cheerful bearing. the true source of his sufferings, and every circumstance connected with them, he guarded with a reserve so jealous, that it seemed dictated by at least a suspicion that the origin of his strange persecution was known to himself, and that it was of a nature which, upon his own account, he could not or dare not disclose. the mind thus turned in upon itself, and constantly occupied with a haunting anxiety which it dared not reveal, or confide to any human breast, became daily more excited; and, of course, more vividly impressible, by a system of attack which operated through the nervous system; and in this state he was destined to sustain, with increasing frequency, the stealthy visitations of that apparition, which from the first had seemed to possess so unearthly and terrible a hold upon his imagination. * * * * * it was about this time that captain barton called upon the then celebrated preacher, doctor macklin, with whom he had a slight acquaintance; and an extraordinary conversation ensued. the divine was seated in his chambers in college, surrounded with works upon his favourite pursuit and deep in theology, when barton was announced. there was something at once embarrassed and excited in his manner, which, along with his wan and haggard countenance, impressed the student with the unpleasant consciousness that his visitor must have recently suffered terribly indeed to account for an alteration so striking, so shocking. after the usual interchange of polite greeting, and a few commonplace remarks, captain barton, who obviously perceived the surprise which his visit had excited, and which doctor macklin was unable wholly to conceal, interrupted a brief pause by remarking,-- "this is a strange call, doctor macklin, perhaps scarcely warranted by an acquaintance so slight as mine with you. i should not, under ordinary circumstances, have ventured to disturb you, but my visit is neither an idle nor impertinent intrusion. i am sure you will not so account it, when--" doctor macklin interrupted him with assurances, such as good breeding suggested, and barton resumed,-- "i am come to task your patience by asking your advice. when i say your patience, i might, indeed, say more; i might have said your humanity, your compassion; for i have been, and am a great sufferer." "my dear sir," replied the churchman, "it will, indeed, afford me infinite gratification if i can give you comfort in any distress of mind, but--but--" "i know what you would say," resumed barton, quickly. "i am an unbeliever, and, therefore, incapable of deriving help from religion, but don't take that for granted. at least you must not assume that, however unsettled my convictions may be, i do not feel a deep, a very deep, interest in the subject. circumstances have lately forced it upon my attention in such a way as to compel me to review the whole question in a more candid and teachable spirit, i believe, than i ever studied it in before." "your difficulties, i take it for granted, refer to the evidences of revelation," suggested the clergyman. "why--no--yes; in fact i am ashamed to say i have not considered even my objections sufficiently to state them connectedly; but--but there is one subject on which i feel a peculiar interest." he paused again, and doctor macklin pressed him to proceed. "the fact is," said barton, "whatever may be my uncertainty as to the authenticity of what we are taught to call revelation, of one fact i am deeply and horribly convinced: that there does exist beyond this a spiritual world--a system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden from us--a system which may be, and which is sometimes, partially and terribly revealed. i am sure, i know," continued barton, with increasing excitement, "there is a god--a dreadful god--and that retribution follows guilt. in ways, the most mysterious and stupendous; by agencies, the most inexplicable and terrific; there is a spiritual system--great heavens, how frightfully i have been convinced!--a system malignant, and inexorable, and omnipotent, under whose persecutions i am, and have been, suffering the torments of the damned!--yes, sir--yes--the fires and frenzy of hell!" as barton continued, his agitation became so vehement that the divine was shocked and even alarmed. the wild and excited rapidity with which he spoke, and, above all, the indefinable horror which stamped his features, afforded a contrast to his ordinary cool and unimpassioned self-possession, striking and painful in the last degree. "my dear sir," said doctor macklin, after a brief pause, "i fear you have been suffering much, indeed; but i venture to predict that the depression under which you labour will be found to originate in purely physical causes, and that with a change of air and the aid of a few tonics, your spirits will return, and the tone of your mind be once more cheerful and tranquil as heretofore. there was, after all, more truth than we are quite willing to admit in the classic theories which assigned the undue predominance of any one affection of the mind to the undue action or torpidity of one or other of our bodily organs. believe me, that a little attention to diet, exercise, and the other essentials of health, under competent direction, will make you as much yourself as you can wish." "doctor macklin," said barton, with something like a shudder, "i _cannot_ delude myself with such a hope. i have no hope to cling to but one, and that is, that by some other spiritual agency more potent than that which tortures me, _it_ may be combated, and i delivered. if this may not be, i am lost--now and for ever lost." "but, mr. barton, you must remember," urged his companion, "that others have suffered as you have done, and--" "no, no, no," interrupted he with irritability; "no, sir, i am not a credulous--far from a superstitious man. i have been, perhaps, too much the reverse--too sceptical, too slow of belief; but unless i were one whom no amount of evidence could convince, unless i were to contemn the repeated, the _perpetual_ evidence of my own senses, i am now--now at last constrained to believe i have no escape from the conviction, the overwhelming certainty, that i am haunted and dogged, go where i may, by--by a demon." there was an almost preternatural energy of horror in barton's face, as, with its damp and death-like lineaments turned towards his companion, he thus delivered himself. "god help you, my poor friend!" said doctor macklin, much shocked. "god help you; for, indeed, you _are_ a sufferer, however your sufferings may have been caused." "ay, ay, god help me," echoed barton sternly; "but _will_ he help me? will he help me?" "pray to him; pray in an humble and trusting spirit," said he. "pray, pray," echoed he again; "i can't pray; i could as easily move a mountain by an effort of my will. i have not belief enough to pray; there is something within me that will not pray. you prescribe impossibilities--literal impossibilities." "you will not find it so, if you will but try," said doctor macklin. "try! i _have_ tried, and the attempt only fills me with confusion and terror. i have tried in vain, and more than in vain. the awful, unutterable idea of eternity and infinity oppresses and maddens my brain, whenever my mind approaches the contemplation of the creator; i recoil from the effort, scared, confounded, terrified. i tell you, doctor macklin, if i am to be saved, it must be by other means. the idea of the creator is to me intolerable; my mind cannot support it." "say, then, my dear sir," urged he, "say how you would have me serve you. what you would learn of me. what can i do or say to relieve you?" "listen to me first," replied captain barton, with a subdued air, and an evident effort to suppress his excitement; "listen to me while i detail the circumstances of the terrible persecution under which my life has become all but intolerable--a persecution which has made me fear _death_ and the world beyond the grave as much as i have grown to hate existence." barton then proceeded to relate the circumstances which we have already detailed, and then continued,-- "this has now become habitual--an accustomed thing. i do not mean the actual seeing him in the flesh; thank god, _that_ at least is not permitted daily. thank god, from the unutterable horrors of that visitation i have been mercifully allowed intervals of repose, though none of security; but from the consciousness that a malignant spirit is following and watching me wherever i go, i have never, for a single instant, a temporary respite: i am pursued with blasphemies, cries of despair, and appalling hatred; i hear those dreadful sounds called after me as i turn the corners of streets; they come in the night-time while i sit in my chamber alone; they haunt me everywhere, charging me with hideous crimes, and--great god!--threatening me with coming vengeance and eternal misery! hush! do you hear _that_?" he cried, with a horrible smile of triumph. "there--there, will that convince you?" the clergyman felt the chillness of horror irresistibly steal over him, while, during the wail of a sudden gust of wind, he heard, or fancied he heard, the half articulate sounds of rage and derision mingling in their sough. "well, what do you think of _that_?" at length barton cried, drawing a long breath through his teeth. "i heard the wind," said doctor macklin; "what should i think of it? what is there remarkable about it?" [illustration: "the prince of the powers of the air!" muttered barton.] "the prince of the powers of the air," muttered barton, with a shudder. "tut, tut! my dear sir!" said the student, with an effort to reassure himself; for though it was broad daylight, there was nevertheless something disagreeably contagious in the nervous excitement under which his visitor so obviously suffered. "you must not give way to those wild fancies: you must resist those impulses of the imagination." "ay, ay; 'resist the devil, and he will flee from thee,'" said barton, in the same tone; "but _how_ resist him? ay, there it is: there is the rub. what--_what_ am i to do? what _can_ i do?" "my dear sir, this is fancy," said the man of folios; "you are your own tormentor." "no, no, sir; fancy has no part in it," answered barton, somewhat sternly. "fancy, forsooth! was it that made _you_, as well as me, hear, but this moment, those appalling accents of hell? fancy, indeed! no, no." "but you have seen this person frequently," said the ecclesiastic; "why have you not accosted or secured him? is it not somewhat precipitate, to say no more, to assume, as you have done, the existence of preternatural agency, when, after all, everything may be easily accountable, if only proper means were taken to sift the matter." "there are circumstances connected with this--this _appearance_," said barton, "which it were needless to disclose, but which to _me_ are proofs of its horrible and unearthly nature. i know that the being who haunts me is not _man_. i say i _know_ this; i could prove it to your own conviction." he paused for a minute, and then added, "and as to accosting it, i dare not--i could not! when i see it i am powerless; i stand in the gaze of death, in the triumphant presence of preterhuman power and malignity; my strength, and faculties, and memory all forsake me. oh, god! i fear, sir, you know not what you speak of. mercy, mercy! heaven have pity on me!" he leaned his elbow on the table, and passed his hand across his eyes, as if to exclude some image of horror, muttering the last words of the sentence he had just concluded, again and again. "dr. macklin," he said, abruptly raising himself, and looking full upon the clergyman with an imploring eye, "i know you will do for me whatever may be done. you know now fully the circumstances and the nature of the mysterious agency of which i am the victim. i tell you i cannot help myself; i cannot hope to escape; i am utterly passive. i conjure you, then, to weigh my case well, and if anything may be done for me by vicarious supplication, by the intercession of the good, or by any aid or influence whatsoever, i implore of you, i adjure you in the name of the most high, give me the benefit of that influence, deliver me from the body of this death! strive for me; pity me! i know you will; you cannot refuse this; it is the purpose and object of my visit. send me away with some hope, however little--some faint hope of ultimate deliverance, and i will nerve myself to endure, from hour to hour, the hideous dream into which my existence is transformed." doctor macklin assured him that all he could do was to pray earnestly for him, and that so much he would not fail to do. they parted with a hurried and melancholy valediction. barton hastened to the carriage which awaited him at the door, drew the blinds, and drove away, while dr. macklin returned to his chamber, to ruminate at leisure upon the strange interview which had just interrupted his studies. it was not to be expected that captain barton's changed and eccentric habits should long escape remark and discussion. various were the theories suggested to account for it. some attributed the alteration to the pressure of secret pecuniary embarrassments; others to a repugnance to fulfil an engagement into which he was presumed to have too precipitately entered; and others, again, to the supposed incipiency of mental disease, which latter, indeed, was the most plausible, as well as the most generally received, of the hypotheses circulated in the gossip of the day. from the very commencement of this change, at first so gradual in its advances, miss montague had, of course, been aware of it. the intimacy involved in their peculiar relation, as well as the near interest which it inspired, afforded, in her case, alike opportunity and motive for the successful exercise of that keen and penetrating observation peculiar to the sex. his visits became, at length, so interrupted, and his manner, while they lasted, so abstracted, strange, and agitated, that lady rochdale, after hinting her anxiety and her suspicions more than once, at length distinctly stated her anxiety, and pressed for an explanation. the explanation was given, and although its nature at first relieved the worst solicitudes of the old lady and her niece, yet the circumstances which attended it, and the really dreadful consequences which it obviously threatened as regarded the spirits, and, indeed, the reason, of the now wretched man who made the strange declaration, were enough, upon a little reflection, to fill their minds with perturbation and alarm. general montague, the young lady's father, at length arrived. he had himself slightly known barton, some ten or twelve years previously, and being aware of his fortune and connections, was disposed to regard him as an unexceptionable and indeed a most desirable match for his daughter. he laughed at the story of barton's supernatural visitations, and lost not a moment in calling upon his intended son-in-law. "my dear barton," he continued gaily, after a little conversation, "my sister tells me that you are a victim to blue devils in quite a new and original shape." barton changed countenance, and sighed profoundly. "come, come; i protest this will never do," continued the general; "you are more like a man on his way to the gallows than to the altar. these devils have made quite a saint of you." barton made an effort to change the conversation. "no, no, it won't do," said his visitor, laughing; "i am resolved to say out what i have to say about this magnificent mock mystery of yours. come, you must not be angry; but, really, it is too bad to see you, at your time of life, absolutely frightened into good behaviour, like a naughty child, by a bugaboo, and, as far as i can learn, a very particularly contemptible one. seriously, though, my dear barton, i have been a good deal annoyed at what they tell me; but, at the same time, thoroughly convinced that there is nothing in the matter that may not be cleared up, with just a little attention and management, within a week at furthest." "ah, general, you do not know--" he began. "yes, but i do know quite enough to warrant my confidence," interrupted the soldier. "i know that all your annoyance proceeds from the occasional appearance of a certain little man in a cap and great-coat, with a red vest and bad countenance, who follows you about, and pops upon you at the corners of lanes, and throws you into ague fits. now, my dear fellow, i'll make it my business to _catch_ this mischievous little mountebank, and either beat him into a jelly with my own hands, or have him whipped through the town at the cart's tail." "if _you_ knew what i know," said barton, with gloomy agitation, "you would speak very differently. don't imagine that i am so weak and foolish as to assume, without proof the most overwhelming, the conclusion to which i have been forced. the proofs are here, locked up here." as he spoke, he tapped upon his breast, and with an anxious sigh continued to walk up and down the room. "well, well, barton," said his visitor, "i'll wager a rump and a dozen i collar the ghost, and convince yourself before many days are over." he was running on in the same strain when he was suddenly arrested, and not a little shocked, by observing barton, who had approached the window, stagger slowly back, like one who had received a stunning blow--his arm feebly extended towards the street, his face and his very lips white as ashes--while he uttered, "there--there--there!" general montague started mechanically to his feet, and, from the window of the drawing-room, saw a figure corresponding, as well as his hurry would permit him to discern, with the description of the person whose appearance so constantly and dreadfully disturbed the repose of his friend. the figure was just turning from the rails of the area upon which it had been leaning, and without waiting to see more, the old gentleman snatched his cane and hat, and rushed down the stairs and into the street, in the furious hope of securing the person, and punishing the audacity of the mysterious stranger. he looked around him, but in vain, for any trace of the form he had himself distinctly beheld. he ran breathlessly to the nearest corner, expecting to see from thence the retreating figure, but no such form was visible. back and forward, from crossing to crossing, he ran at fault, and it was not until the curious gaze and laughing countenances of the passers-by reminded him of the absurdity of his pursuit, that he checked his hurried pace, lowered his walking-cane from the menacing altitude which he had mechanically given it, adjusted his hat, and walked composedly back again, inwardly vexed and flurried. he found barton pale and trembling in every joint; they both remained silent, though under emotions very different. at last barton whispered, "you saw it?" "it!--him--someone--you mean--to be sure i did," replied montague, testily. "but where is the good or the harm of seeing him? the fellow runs like a lamplighter. i wanted to _catch_ him, but he had stolen away before i could reach the hall door. however, it is no great matter; next time, i dare say, i'll do better; and, egad, if i once come within reach of him, i'll introduce his shoulders to the weight of my cane, in a way to make him cry _peccavi_." notwithstanding general montague's undertakings and exhortations, however, barton continued to suffer from the self-same unexplained cause. go how, when, or where he would, he was still constantly dogged or confronted by the hateful being who had established over him so dreadful and mysterious an influence; nowhere, and at no time, was he secure against the odious appearance which haunted him with such diabolical perseverance. his depression, misery, and excitement became more settled and alarming every day, and the mental agonies that ceaselessly preyed upon him began at last so sensibly to affect his general health, that lady rochdale and general montague succeeded (without, indeed, much difficulty) in persuading him to try a short tour on the continent, in the hope that an entire change of scene would, at all events, have the effect of breaking through the influences of local association, which the more sceptical of his friends assumed to be by no means inoperative in suggesting and perpetuating what they conceived to be a mere form of nervous illusion. general montague, moreover, was persuaded that the figure which haunted his intended son-in-law was by no means the creation of his own imagination, but, on the contrary, a substantial form of flesh and blood, animated by a spiteful and obstinate resolution, perhaps with some murderous object in perspective, to watch and follow the unfortunate gentleman. even this hypothesis was not a very pleasant one; yet it was plain that if barton could once be convinced that there was nothing preternatural in the phenomenon, which he had hitherto regarded in that light, the affair would lose all its terrors in his eyes, and wholly cease to exercise upon his health and spirits the baneful influence which it had hitherto done. he therefore reasoned, that if the annoyance were actually escaped from by mere change of scene, it obviously could not have originated in any supernatural agency. yielding to their persuasions, barton left dublin for england, accompanied by general montague. they posted rapidly to london, and thence to dover, whence they took the packet with a fair wind for calais. the general's confidence in the result of the expedition on barton's spirits had risen day by day since their departure from the shores of ireland; for, to the inexpressible relief and delight of the latter, he had not, since then, so much as even once fancied a repetition of those impressions which had, when at home, drawn him gradually down to the very abyss of horror and despair. this exemption from what he had begun to regard as the inevitable condition of his existence, and the sense of security which began to pervade his mind, were inexpressibly delightful; and in the exultation of what he considered his deliverance, he indulged in a thousand happy anticipations for a future into which so lately he had hardly dared to look. in short, both he and his companion secretly congratulated themselves upon the termination of that persecution which had been to its immediate victim a source of such unspeakable agony. it was a beautiful day, and a crowd of idlers stood upon the jetty to receive the packet, and enjoy the bustle of the new arrivals. montague walked a few paces in advance of his friend, and as he made his way through the crowd, a little man touched his arm, and said to him, in a broad provincial _patois_,-- "monsieur is walking too fast; he will lose his sick comrade in the throng, for, by my faith, the poor gentleman seems to be fainting." montague turned quickly, and observed that barton did indeed look deadly pale. he hastened to his side. "my poor fellow, are you ill?" he asked anxiously. the question was unheeded, and twice repeated, ere barton stammered,-- "i saw him--by ----, i saw him!" "_him!_--who?--where?--when did you see him?--where is he?" cried montague, looking around him. "i saw him--but he is gone," repeated barton, faintly. "but where--where? for god's sake, speak," urged montague, vehemently. "it is but this moment--_here_," said he. "but what did he look like?--what had he on?--what did he wear?--quick, quick," urged his excited companion, ready to dart among the crowd, and collar the delinquent on the spot. "he touched your arm--he spoke to you--he pointed to me. god be merciful to me, there is no escape!" said barton, in the low, subdued tones of intense despair. montague had already bustled away in all the flurry of mingled hope and indignation; but though the singular _personnel_ of the stranger who had accosted him was vividly and perfectly impressed upon his recollection, he failed to discover among the crowd even the slightest resemblance to him. after a fruitless search, in which he enlisted the services of several of the bystanders, who aided all the more zealously as they believed he had been robbed, he at length, out of breath and baffled, gave over the attempt. "ah, my friend, it won't do," said barton, with the faint voice and bewildered, ghastly look of one who has been stunned by some mortal shock; "there is no use in contending with it; whatever it is, the dreadful association between me and it is now established; i shall never escape--never, never!" "nonsense, nonsense, my dear fellow; don't talk so," said montague, with something at once of irritation and dismay; "you must not; never mind, i say--never mind, we'll jockey the scoundrel yet." it was, however, but lost labour to endeavour henceforward to inspire barton with one ray of hope; he became utterly desponding. this intangible and, as it seemed, utterly inadequate influence was fast destroying his energies of intellect, character, and health. his first object was now to return to ireland, there, as he believed, and now almost hoped, speedily to die. to ireland, accordingly, he came, and one of the first faces he saw upon the shore was again that of his implacable and dreaded persecutor. barton seemed at last to have lost not only all enjoyment and every hope in existence, but all independence of will besides. he now submitted himself passively to the management of the friends most nearly interested in his welfare. with the apathy of entire despair, he implicitly assented to whatever measures they suggested and advised; and, as a last resource, it was determined to remove him to a house of lady rochdale's in the neighbourhood of clontarf, where, with the advice of his medical attendant (who persisted in his opinion that the whole train of impressions resulted merely from some nervous derangement) it was resolved that he was to confine himself strictly to the house, and to make use only of those apartments which commanded a view of an enclosed yard, the gates of which were to be kept jealously locked. these precautions would at least secure him against the casual appearance of any living form which his excited imagination might possibly confound with the spectre which, as it was contended, his fancy recognized in every figure that bore even a distant or general resemblance to the traits with which he had at first invested it. a month or six weeks' absolute seclusion under these conditions, it was hoped, might, by interrupting the series of these terrible impressions, gradually dispel the predisposing apprehension, and effectually break up the associations which had confirmed the supposed disease, and rendered recovery hopeless. cheerful society and that of his friends was to be constantly supplied, and on the whole, very sanguine expectations were indulged in, that under this treatment the obstinate hypochondria of the patient might at length give way. accompanied, therefore, by lady rochdale, general montague, and his daughter--his own affianced bride--poor barton, himself never daring to cherish a hope of his ultimate emancipation from the strange horrors under which his life was literally wasting away, took possession of the apartments whose situation protected him against the dreadful intrusions from which he shrank with such unutterable terror. after a little time, a steady persistence in this system began to manifest its results in a very marked though gradual improvement alike in the health and spirits of the invalid. not, indeed, that anything at all approaching to complete recovery was yet discernible. on the contrary, to those who had not seen him since the commencement of his strange sufferings, such an alteration would have been apparent as might well have shocked them. the improvement, however, such as it was, was welcomed with gratitude and delight, especially by the poor young lady, whom her attachment to him, as well as her now singularly painful position, consequent on his mysterious and protracted illness, rendered an object of pity scarcely one degree less to be commiserated than himself. a week passed--a fortnight--a month--and yet no recurrence of the hated visitation had agitated and terrified him as before. the treatment had, so far, been followed by complete success. the chain of association had been broken. the constant pressure upon the overtasked spirits had been removed, and, under these comparatively favourable circumstances, the sense of social community with the world about him, and something of human interest, if not of enjoyment, began to reanimate his mind. it was about this time that lady rochdale, who, like most old ladies of the day, was deep in family receipts, and a great pretender to medical science, being engaged in the concoction of certain unpalatable mixtures of marvellous virtue, despatched her own maid to the kitchen garden with a list of herbs which were there to be carefully culled and brought back to her for the purpose stated. the hand-maiden, however, returned with her task scarce half-completed, and a good deal flurried and alarmed. her mode of accounting for her precipitate retreat and evident agitation was odd, and to the old lady unpleasantly startling. it appeared that she had repaired to the kitchen garden, pursuant to her mistress's directions, and had there begun to make the specified selection among the rank and neglected herbs which crowded one corner of the enclosure, and while engaged in this pleasant labour she carelessly sang a fragment of an old song, as she said, "to keep herself company." she was, however, interrupted by a sort of mocking echo of the air she was singing; and looking up, she saw through the old thorn hedge, which surrounded the garden, a singularly ill-looking, little man, whose countenance wore the stamp of menace and malignity, standing close to her at the other side of the hawthorn screen. she described herself as utterly unable to move or speak, while he charged her with a message for captain barton, the substance of which she distinctly remembered to have been to the effect that he, captain barton, must come abroad as usual, and show himself to his friends out of doors, or else prepare for a visit in his own chamber. on concluding this brief message, the stranger had, with a threatening air, got down into the outer ditch, and seizing the hawthorn stems in his hands, seemed on the point of climbing through the fence, a feat which might have been accomplished without much difficulty. without, of course, awaiting this result, the girl, throwing down her treasures of thyme and rosemary, had turned and run, with the swiftness of terror, to the house. lady rochdale commanded her, on pain of instant dismissal, to observe an absolute silence respecting all that portion of the incident which related to captain barton; and, at the same time, directed instant search to be made by her men in the garden and fields adjacent. this measure, however, was attended with the usual unsuccess, and filled with fearful and indefinable misgivings, lady rochdale communicated the incident to her brother. the story, however, until long afterwards, went no further, and of course it was jealously guarded from barton, who continued to mend, though slowly and imperfectly. barton now began to walk occasionally in the courtyard which we have mentioned, and which, being surrounded by a high wall, commanded no view beyond its own extent. here he, therefore, considered himself perfectly secure; and, but for a careless violation of orders by one of the grooms, he might have enjoyed, at least for some time longer, his much-prized immunity. opening upon the public road, this yard was entered by a wooden gate, with a wicket in it, which was further defended by an iron gate upon the outside. strict orders had been given to keep them carefully locked; but, in spite of these, it had happened that one day, as barton was slowly pacing this narrow enclosure, in his accustomed walk, and reaching the further extremity, was turning to retrace his steps, he saw the boarded wicket ajar, and the face of his tormentor immovably looking at him through the iron bars. for a few seconds he stood riveted to the earth, breathless and bloodless, in the fascination of that dreaded gaze, and then fell helplessly upon the pavement. there was he found a few minutes afterwards, and conveyed to his room, the apartment which he was never afterwards to leave alive. henceforward, a marked and unaccountable change was observable in the tone of his mind. captain barton was now no longer the excited and despairing man he had been before; a strange alteration had passed upon him, an unearthly tranquillity reigned in his mind; it was the anticipated stillness of the grave. "montague, my friend, this struggle is nearly ended now," he said, tranquilly, but with a look of fixed and fearful awe. "i have, at last, some comfort from that world of spirits, from which my _punishment_ has come. i know now that my sufferings will be soon over." montague pressed him to speak on. "yes," said he, in a softened voice, "my punishment is nearly ended. from sorrow perhaps i shall never, in time or eternity, escape; but my _agony_ is almost over. comfort has been revealed to me, and what remains of my allotted struggle i will bear with submission, even with hope." "i am glad to hear you speak so tranquilly, my dear fellow," said montague; "peace and cheerfulness of mind are all you need to make you what you were." "no, no, i never can be that," said he, mournfully. "i am no longer fit for life. i am soon to die: i do not shrink from death as i did. i am to see _him_ but once again, and then all is ended." "he said so, then?" suggested montague. "_he?_ no, no; good tidings could scarcely come through him; and these were good and welcome; and they came so solemnly and sweetly, with unutterable love and melancholy, such as i could not, without saying more than is needful or fitting, of other long-past scenes and persons, fully explain to you." as barton said this he shed tears. "come, come," said montague, mistaking the source of his emotions, "you must not give way. what is it, after all, but a pack of dreams and nonsense; or, at worst, the practices of a scheming rascal that enjoys his power of playing upon your nerves, and loves to exert it; a sneaking vagabond that owes you a grudge, and pays it off this way, not daring to try a more manly one." "a grudge, indeed, he owes me; you say rightly," said barton, with a sullen shudder; "a grudge as you call it. oh, god! when the justice of heaven permits the evil one to carry out a scheme of vengeance, when its execution is committed to the lost and frightful victim of sin, who owes his own ruin to the man, the very man, whom he is commissioned to pursue; then, indeed, the torments and terrors of hell are anticipated on earth. but heaven has dealt mercifully with me: hope has opened to me at last; and if death could come without the dreadful sight i am doomed to see, i would gladly close my eyes this moment upon the world. but though death is welcome, i shrink with an agony you cannot understand; a maddening agony, an actual frenzy of terror, from the last encounter with that--that demon, who has drawn me thus to the verge of the chasm, and who is himself to plunge me down. i am to see him again, once more, but under circumstances unutterably more terrific than ever." as barton thus spoke, he trembled so violently that montague was really alarmed at the extremity of his sudden agitation, and hastened to lead him back to the topic which had before seemed to exert so tranquillizing an effect upon his mind. "it was not a dream," he said, after a time; "i was in a different state, i felt differently and strangely; and yet it was all as real, as clear and vivid, as what i now see and hear; it was a reality." "and what _did_ you see and hear?" urged his companion. "when i awakened from the swoon i fell into on seeing _him_," said barton, continuing, as if he had not heard the question, "it was slowly, very slowly; i was reclining by the margin of a broad lake, surrounded by misty hills, and a soft, melancholy, rose-coloured light illuminated it all. it was indescribably sad and lonely, and yet more beautiful than any earthly scene. my head was leaning on the lap of a girl, and she was singing a strange and wondrous song, that told, i know not how, whether by words or harmony, of all my life, all that is past, and all that is still to come. and with the song the old feelings that i thought had perished within me came back, and tears flowed from my eyes, partly for the song and its mysterious beauty, and partly for the unearthly sweetness of her voice; yet i know the voice, oh! how well; and i was spell-bound as i listened and looked at the strange and solitary scene, without stirring, almost without breathing, and, alas! alas! without turning my eyes toward the face that i knew was near me, so sweetly powerful was the enchantment that held me. and so, slowly and softly, the song and scene grew fainter, and ever fainter, to my senses, till all was dark and still again. and then i wakened to this world, as you saw, comforted, for i knew that i was forgiven much." barton wept again long and bitterly. from this time, as we have said, the prevailing tone of his mind was one of profound and tranquil melancholy. this, however, was not without its interruptions. he was thoroughly impressed with the conviction that he was to experience another and a final visitation, illimitably transcending in horror all he had before experienced. from this anticipated and unknown agony he often shrunk in such paroxysms of abject terror and distraction, as filled the whole household with dismay and superstitious panic. even those among them who affected to discredit the supposition of preternatural agency in the matter, were often in their secret souls visited during the darkness and solitude of night with qualms and apprehensions which they would not have readily confessed; and none of them attempted to dissuade barton from the resolution on which he now systematically acted, of shutting himself up in his own apartment. the window-blinds of this room were kept jealously down; and his own man was seldom out of his presence, day or night, his bed being placed in the same chamber. this man was an attached and respectable servant; and his duties, in addition to those ordinarily imposed upon _valets_, but which barton's independent habits generally dispensed with, were to attend carefully to the simple precautions by means of which his master hoped to exclude the dreaded intrusion of the "watcher," as the strange letter he had at first received had designated his persecutor. and, in addition to attending to these arrangements, which consisted merely in anticipating the possibility of his master's being, through any unscreened window or opened door, exposed to the dreaded influence, the valet was never to suffer him to be for one moment alone: total solitude, even for a minute, had become to him now almost as intolerable as the idea of going abroad into the public ways; it was an instinctive anticipation of what was coming. it is needless to say, that, under these mysterious and horrible circumstances, no steps were taken toward the fulfilment of that engagement into which he had entered. there was quite disparity enough in point of years, and indeed of habits, between the young lady and captain barton, to have precluded anything like very vehement or romantic attachment on her part. though grieved and anxious, therefore, she was very far from being heart-broken; a circumstance which, for the sentimental purposes of our tale, is much to be deplored. but truth must be told, especially in a narrative whose chief, if not only, pretensions to interest consist in a rigid adherence to facts, or what are so reported to have been. miss montague, nevertheless, devoted much of her time to a patient but fruitless attempt to cheer the unhappy invalid. she read for him, and conversed with him; but it was apparent that whatever exertions he made, the endeavour to escape from the one constant and ever-present fear that preyed upon him was utterly and miserably unavailing. young ladies, as all the world knows, are much given to the cultivation of pets; and among those who shared the favour of miss montague was a fine old owl, which the gardener, who caught him napping among the ivy of a ruined stable, had dutifully presented to that young lady. the caprice which regulates such preferences was manifested in the extravagant favour with which this grim and ill-favoured bird was at once distinguished by his mistress; and, trifling as this whimsical circumstance may seem, i am forced to mention it, inasmuch as it is connected, oddly enough, with the concluding scene of the story. barton, so far from sharing in this liking for the new favourite, regarded it from the first with an antipathy as violent as it was utterly unaccountable. its very vicinity was insupportable to him. he seemed to hate and dread it with a vehemence absolutely laughable, and to those who have never witnessed the exhibition of antipathies of this kind, his dread would seem all but incredible. with these few words of preliminary explanation, i shall proceed to state the particulars of the last scene in this strange series of incidents. it was almost two o'clock one winter's night, and barton was, as usual at that hour, in his bed; the servant we have mentioned occupied a smaller bed in the same room, and a candle was burning. the man was on a sudden aroused by his master, who said,-- "i can't get it out of my head that that accursed bird has escaped somehow, and is lurking in some corner of the room. i have been dreaming of him. get up, smith, and look about; search for him. such hateful dreams!" the servant rose, and examined the chamber, and while engaged in so doing, he heard the well-known sound, more like a long-drawn gasp than a hiss, with which these birds from their secret haunts affright the quiet of the night. this ghostly indication of its proximity, for the sound proceeded from the passage upon which barton's chamber-door opened, determined the search of the servant, who, opening the door, proceeded a step or two forward for the purpose of driving the bird away. he had, however, hardly entered the lobby, when the door behind him slowly swung to under the impulse, as it seemed, of some gentle current of air; but as immediately over the door there was a kind of window, intended in the daytime to aid in lighting the passage, and through which the rays of the candle were then issuing, the valet could see quite enough for his purpose. as he advanced he heard his master (who, lying in a well-curtained bed had not, as it seemed, perceived his exit from the room) call him by name, and direct him to place the candle on the table by his bed. the servant, who was now some way in the long passage, did not like to raise his voice for the purpose of replying, lest he should startle the sleeping inmates of the house, began to walk hurriedly and softly back again, when, to his amazement, he heard a voice in the interior of the chamber answering calmly, and the man actually saw, through the window which over-topped the door, that the light was slowly shifting, as if carried across the chamber in answer to his master's call. palsied by a feeling akin to terror, yet not unmingled with a horrible curiosity, he stood breathless and listening at the threshold, unable to summon resolution to push open the door and enter. then came a rustling of the curtains, and a sound like that of one who in a low voice hushes a child to rest, in the midst of which he heard barton say, in a tone of stifled horror--"oh, god--oh, my god!" and repeat the same exclamation several times. then ensued a silence, which again was broken by the same strange soothing sound; and at last there burst forth, in one swelling peal, a yell of agony so appalling and hideous, that, under some impulse of ungovernable horror, the man rushed to the door, and with his whole strength strove to force it open. whether it was that, in his agitation, he had himself but imperfectly turned the handle, or that the door was really secured upon the inside, he failed to effect an entrance; and as he tugged and pushed, yell after yell rang louder and wilder through the chamber, accompanied all the while by the same hushing sounds. actually freezing with terror, and scarce knowing what he did, the man turned and ran down the passage, wringing his hands in the extremity of horror and irresolution. at the stair-head he was encountered by general montague, scared and eager, and just as they met the fearful sounds had ceased. "what is it?--who--where is your master?" said montague, with the incoherence of extreme agitation. "has anything--for god's sake, is anything wrong?" "lord have mercy on us, it's all over," said the man, staring wildly towards his master's chamber. "he's dead, sir; i'm sure he's dead." without waiting for inquiry or explanation, montague, closely followed by the servant, hurried to the chamber-door, turned the handle, and pushed it open. as the door yielded to his pressure, the ill-omened bird of which the servant had been in search, uttering its spectral warning, started suddenly from the far side of the bed, and flying through the doorway close over their heads, and extinguishing, in its passage, the candle which montague carried, crashed through the skylight that overlooked the lobby, and sailed away into the darkness of the outer space. "there it is, god bless us!" whispered the man, after a breathless pause. "curse that bird!" muttered the general, startled by the suddenness of the apparition, and unable to conceal his discomposure. "the candle was moved," said the man, after another breathless pause; "see, they put it by the bed!" "draw the curtains, fellow, and don't stand gaping there," whispered montague, sternly. the man hesitated. "hold this, then," said montague, impatiently, thrusting the candlestick into the servant's hand; and himself advancing to the bedside, he drew the curtains apart. the light of the candle, which was still burning at the bedside, fell upon a figure huddled together, and half upright, at the head of the bed. it seemed as though it had shrunk back as far as the solid panelling would allow, and the hands were still clutched in the bed-clothes. [illustration: extinguishing in its passage the candle which montague carried.] "barton, barton, barton!" cried the general, with a strange mixture of awe and vehemence. he took the candle, and held it so that it shone full upon his face. the features were fixed, stern and white; the jaw was fallen, and the sightless eyes, still open, gazed vacantly forward toward the front of the bed. "god almighty, he's dead!" muttered the general, as he looked upon this fearful spectacle. they both continued to gaze upon it in silence for a minute or more. "and cold, too," said montague, withdrawing his hand from that of the dead man. "and see, see; may i never have life, sir," added the man, after another pause, with a shudder, "but there was something else on the bed with him! look there--look there; see that, sir!" as the man thus spoke, he pointed to a deep indenture, as if caused by a heavy pressure, near the foot of the bed. montague was silent. "come, sir, come away, for god's sake!" whispered the man, drawing close up to him, and holding fast by his arm, while he glanced fearfully round; "what good can be done here now?--come away, for god's sake!" at this moment they heard the steps of more than one approaching, and montague, hastily desiring the servant to arrest their progress, endeavoured to loose the rigid grip with which the fingers of the dead man were clutched in the bed-clothes, and drew, as well as he was able, the awful figure into a reclining posture. then closing the curtains carefully upon it, he hastened himself to meet those who were approaching. * * * * * it is needless to follow the personages so slightly connected with this narrative into the events of their after lives; it is enough for us to remark that no clue to the solution of these mysterious occurrences was ever afterwards discovered; and so long an interval having now passed, it is scarcely to be expected that time can throw any new light upon their inexplicable obscurity. until the secrets of the earth shall be no longer hidden these transactions must remain shrouded in mystery. the only occurrence in captain barton's former life to which reference was ever made, as having any possible connection with the sufferings with which his existence closed, and which he himself seemed to regard as working out a retribution for some grievous sin of his past life, was a circumstance which not for several years after his death was brought to light. the nature of this disclosure was painful to his relatives and discreditable to his memory. it appeared, then, that some eight years before captain barton's final return to dublin, he had formed, in the town of plymouth, a guilty attachment, the object of which was the daughter of one of the ship's crew under his command. the father had visited the frailty of his unhappy child with extreme harshness, and even brutality, and it was said that she had died heart-broken. presuming upon barton's implication in her guilt, this man had conducted himself towards him with marked insolence, and barton resented this--and what he resented with still more exasperated bitterness, his treatment of the unfortunate girl--by a systematic exercise of those terrible and arbitrary severities with which the regulations of the navy arm those who are responsible for its discipline. the man had at length made his escape, while the vessel was in port at lisbon, but died, as it was said, in an hospital in that town, of the wounds inflicted in one of his recent and sanguinary punishments. whether these circumstances in reality bear or not upon the occurrences of barton's after-life, it is of course impossible to say. it seems, however, more than probable that they were, at least in his own mind, closely associated with them. but however the truth may be as to the origin and motives of this mysterious persecution, there can be no doubt that, with respect to the agencies by which it was accomplished, absolute and impenetrable mystery is like to prevail until the day of doom. [illustration] passage in the secret history of an irish countess. the following paper is written in a female hand, and was no doubt communicated to my much regretted friend by the lady whose early history it serves to illustrate, the countess d----. she is no more--she long since died, a childless and a widowed wife, and, as her letter sadly predicts, none survive to whom the publication of this narrative can prove "injurious, or even painful." strange! two powerful and wealthy families, that in which she was born, and that into which she had married, are utterly extinct. to those who know anything of the history of irish families, as they were less than a century ago, the facts which immediately follow will at once suggest the names of the principal actors; and to others their publication would be useless--to us, possibly, if not probably injurious. i have therefore altered such of the names as might, if stated, get us into difficulty; others, belonging to minor characters in the strange story, i have left untouched. * * * * * my dear friend,--you have asked me to furnish you with a detail of the strange events which marked my early history, and i have, without hesitation, applied myself to the task, knowing that, while i live, a kind consideration for my feelings will prevent you giving publicity to the statement; and conscious that, when i am no more, there will not survive one to whom the narrative can prove injurious, or even painful. my mother died when i was quite an infant, and of her i have no recollection, even the faintest. by her death, my education and habits were left solely to the guidance of my surviving parent; and, so far as a stern attention to my religious instruction, and an active anxiety evinced by his procuring for me the best masters to perfect me in those accomplishments which my station and wealth might seem to require, could avail, he amply discharged the task. my father was what is called an oddity, and his treatment of me, though uniformly kind, flowed less from affection and tenderness than from a sense of obligation and duty. indeed, i seldom even spoke to him except at meal-times, and then his manner was silent and abrupt; his leisure hours, which were many, were passed either in his study or in solitary walks; in short, he seemed to take no further interest in my happiness or improvement than a conscientious regard to the discharge of his own duty would seem to claim. shortly before my birth, a circumstance had occurred which had contributed much to form and to confirm my father's secluded habits--it was the fact that a suspicion of murder had fallen upon his younger brother, a suspicion not sufficiently definite to lead to an indictment, yet strong enough to ruin him in public opinion. this disgraceful and dreadful doubt cast upon the family name my father felt deeply and bitterly, and not the less so that he himself was thoroughly convinced of his brother's innocence. the sincerity and strength of this impression he shortly afterwards proved in a manner which produced the dark events which follow. before, however, i enter upon the statement of them, i ought to relate the circumstances which had awakened the suspicion; inasmuch as they are in themselves somewhat curious, and, in their effects, most intimately connected with my after history. my uncle, sir arthur t----n, was a gay and extravagant man, and, among other vices, was ruinously addicted to gaming; this unfortunate propensity, even after his fortune had suffered so severely as to render inevitable a reduction in his expenses by no means inconsiderable, nevertheless continued to actuate him, almost to the exclusion of all other pursuits. he was a proud, or rather a vain man, and could not bear to make the diminution of his income a matter of gratulation and triumph to those with whom he had hitherto competed; and the consequence was that he frequented no longer the expensive haunts of dissipation, and retired from the gay world, leaving his coterie to discover his reasons as best they might. he did not, however, forego his favourite vice, for, though he could not worship his divinity in the costly temples where it was formerly his wont to take his stand, yet he found it very possible to bring about him a sufficient number of the votaries of chance to answer all his ends. the consequence was that carrickleigh, which was the name of my uncle's residence, was never without one or more of such reckless visitors. it happened that upon one occasion he was visited by one hugh tisdall--a gentleman of loose habits but of considerable wealth--who had, in early youth, travelled with my uncle upon the continent. the period of his visit was winter, and, consequently, the house was nearly deserted except by its regular inmates; mr. tisdall was therefore highly acceptable, particularly as my uncle was aware that his visitor's tastes accorded exactly with his own. both parties seemed determined to avail themselves of their suitability during the brief stay which mr. tisdall had promised; the consequence was that they shut themselves up in sir arthur's private room for nearly all the day and the greater part of the night, during the space of nearly a week. at the end of this period the servant having one morning, as usual, knocked at mr. tisdall's bedroom door repeatedly, received no answer, and, upon attempting to enter, found that it was locked. this appeared suspicious, and the inmates of the house having been alarmed, the door was forced open, and, on proceeding to the bed, they found the body of its occupant perfectly lifeless, and hanging half-way out, the head downwards, and near the floor. one deep wound had been inflicted upon the temple, apparently with some blunt instrument, which had penetrated the brain; and another blow less effective, probably the first aimed, had grazed the head, removing some of the scalp, but leaving the skull untouched. the door had been double-locked upon the inside, in evidence of which the key still lay where it had been placed in the lock. the window, though not secured on the interior, was closed--a circumstance not a little puzzling, as it afforded the only other mode of escape from the room; it looked out, too, upon a kind of courtyard, round which the old buildings stood, formerly accessible by a narrow doorway and passage lying in the oldest side of the quadrangle, but which had since been built up, so as to preclude all ingress or egress. the room was also upon the second story, and the height of the window considerable. near the bed were found a pair of razors belonging to the murdered man, one of them upon the ground and both of them open. the weapon which had inflicted the mortal wound was not to be found in the room, nor were any footsteps or other traces of the murderer discoverable. at the suggestion of sir arthur himself, a coroner was instantly summoned to attend, and an inquest was held; nothing, however, in any degree conclusive was elicited. the walls, ceiling, and floor of the room were carefully examined, in order to ascertain whether they contained a trap-door or other concealed mode of entrance--but no such thing appeared. such was the minuteness of investigation employed that although the grate had contained a large fire during the night, they proceeded to examine even the very chimney, in order to discover whether escape by it were possible; but this attempt, too, was fruitless, for the chimney, built in the old fashion, rose in a perfectly perpendicular line from the hearth to a height of nearly fourteen feet above the roof, affording in its interior scarcely the possibility of ascent, the flue being smoothly plastered, and sloping towards the top like an inverted funnel. even if the summit of the chimney were attained, it promised, owing to its great height, but a precarious descent upon the sharp and steep-ridged roof. the ashes, too, which lay in the grate, and the soot, as far as it could be seen, were undisturbed, a circumstance almost conclusive. sir arthur was of course examined; his evidence was given with a clearness and unreserve which seemed calculated to silence all suspicion. he stated that up to the day and night immediately preceding the catastrophe, he had lost to a heavy amount, but that, at their last sitting, he had not only won back his original loss, but upwards of four thousand pounds in addition; in evidence of which he produced an acknowledgment of debt to that amount in the handwriting of the deceased, and bearing the date of the fatal night. he had mentioned the circumstance to his lady, and in presence of some of the domestics; which statement was supported by their respective evidence. one of the jury shrewdly observed that the circumstance of mr. tisdall's having sustained so heavy a loss might have suggested to some ill-minded persons, accidentally hearing it, the plan of robbing him, after having murdered him, in such a manner as might make it appear that he had committed suicide; a supposition which was strongly supported by the razors having been found thus displaced, and removed from their case. two persons had probably been engaged in the attempt, one watching by the sleeping man, and ready to strike him in case of his awakening suddenly, while the other was procuring the razors and employed in inflicting the fatal gash, so as to make it appear to have been the act of the murdered man himself. it was said that while the juror was making this suggestion sir arthur changed colour. nothing, however, like legal evidence appeared against him, and the consequence was that the verdict was found against a person or persons unknown; and for some time the matter was suffered to rest, until, after about five months, my father received a letter from a person signing himself andrew collis, and representing himself to be the cousin of the deceased. this letter stated that sir arthur was likely to incur not merely suspicion, but personal risk, unless he could account for certain circumstances connected with the recent murder, and contained a copy of a letter written by the deceased, and bearing date--the day of the week, and of the month--upon the night the deed of blood had been perpetrated. tisdall's note ran as follows:-- "dear collis,--i have had sharp work with sir arthur; he tried some of his stale tricks, but soon found that _i_ was yorkshire too; it would not do--you understand me. we went to the work like good ones, head, heart and soul; and, in fact, since i came here, i have lost no time. i am rather fagged, but i am sure to be well paid for my hardship; i never want sleep so long as i can have the music of a dice-box, and wherewithal to pay the piper. as i told you, he tried some of his queer turns, but i foiled him like a man, and, in return, gave him more than he could relish of the genuine _dead knowledge_. "in short, i have plucked the old baronet as never baronet was plucked before; i have scarce left him the stump of a quill; i have got promissory notes in his hand to the amount of--if you like round numbers, say, thirty thousand pounds, safely deposited in my portable strong-box, _alias_ double-clasped pocket-book. i leave this ruinous old rat-hole early on to-morrow, for two reasons--first, i do not want to play with sir arthur deeper than i think his security, that is, his money, or his money's worth, would warrant; and, secondly, because i am safer a hundred miles from sir arthur than in the house with him. look you, my worthy, i tell you this between ourselves--i may be wrong, but, by g----, i am as sure as that i am now living, that sir a---- attempted to poison me last night. so much for old friendship on both sides! "when i won the last stake, a heavy one enough, my friend leant his forehead upon his hands, and you'll laugh when i tell you that his head literally smoked like a hot dumpling. i do not know whether his agitation was produced by the plan which he had against me, or by his having lost so heavily--though it must be allowed that he had reason to be a little funked, whichever way his thoughts went; but he pulled the bell, and ordered two bottles of champagne. while the fellow was bringing them he drew out a promissory note to the full amount, which he signed, and, as the man came in with the bottles and glasses, he desired him to be off; he filled out a glass for me, and, while he thought my eyes were off, for i was putting up his note at the time, he dropped something slyly into it, no doubt to sweeten it; but i saw it all, and when he handed it to me, i said, with an emphasis which he might or might not understand: "'there is some sediment in this; i'll not drink it.' "'is there?' said he, and at the same time snatched it from my hand and threw it into the fire. what do you think of that? have i not a tender chicken to manage? win or lose, i will not play beyond five thousand to-night, and to-morrow sees me safe out of the reach of sir arthur's champagne. so, all things considered, i think you must allow that you are not the last who have found a knowing boy in "yours to command, "hugh tisdall." of the authenticity of this document i never heard my father express a doubt; and i am satisfied that, owing to his strong conviction in favour of his brother, he would not have admitted it without sufficient inquiry, inasmuch as it tended to confirm the suspicions which already existed to his prejudice. now, the only point in this letter which made strongly against my uncle was the mention of the "double-clasped pocket-book" as the receptacle of the papers likely to involve him, for this pocket-book was not forthcoming, nor anywhere to be found, nor had any papers referring to his gaming transactions been found upon the dead man. however, whatever might have been the original intention of this collis, neither my uncle nor my father ever heard more of him; but he published the letter in faulkner's newspaper, which was shortly afterwards made the vehicle of a much more mysterious attack. the passage in that periodical to which i allude appeared about four years afterwards, and while the fatal occurrence was still fresh in public recollection. it commenced by a rambling preface, stating that "a _certain person_ whom _certain_ persons thought to be dead, was not so, but living, and in full possession of his memory, and moreover ready and able to make _great_ delinquents tremble." it then went on to describe the murder, without, however, mentioning names; and in doing so, it entered into minute and circumstantial particulars of which none but an _eye-witness_ could have been possessed, and by implications almost too unequivocal to be regarded in the light of insinuation, to involve the "_titled gambler_" in the guilt of the transaction. my father at once urged sir arthur to proceed against the paper in an action of libel; but he would not hear of it, nor consent to my father's taking any legal steps whatever in the matter. my father, however, wrote in a threatening tone to faulkner, demanding a surrender of the author of the obnoxious article. the answer to this application is still in my possession, and is penned in an apologetic tone: it states that the manuscript had been handed in, paid for, and inserted as an advertisement, without sufficient inquiry, or any knowledge as to whom it referred. no step, however, was taken to clear my uncle's character in the judgment of the public; and as he immediately sold a small property, the application of the proceeds of which was known to none, he was said to have disposed of it to enable himself to buy off the threatened information. however the truth might have been, it is certain that no charges respecting the mysterious murder were afterwards publicly made against my uncle, and, as far as external disturbances were concerned, he enjoyed henceforward perfect security and quiet. a deep and lasting impression, however, had been made upon the public mind, and sir arthur t----n was no longer visited or noticed by the gentry and aristocracy of the county, whose attention and courtesies he had hitherto received. he accordingly affected to despise these enjoyments which he could not procure, and shunned even that society which he might have commanded. this is all that i need recapitulate of my uncle's history, and i now recur to my own. although my father had never, within my recollection, visited, or been visited by, my uncle, each being of sedentary, procrastinating, and secluded habits, and their respective residences being very far apart--the one lying in the county of galway, the other in that of cork--he was strongly attached to his brother, and evinced his affection by an active correspondence, and by deeply and proudly resenting that neglect which had marked sir arthur as unfit to mix in society. when i was about eighteen years of age, my father, whose health had been gradually declining, died, leaving me in heart wretched and desolate, and, owing to his previous seclusion, with few acquaintances, and almost no friends. the provisions of his will were curious, and when i had sufficiently come to myself to listen to or comprehend them, surprised me not a little: all his vast property was left to me, and to the heirs of my body, for ever; and, in default of such heirs, it was to go after my death to my uncle, sir arthur, without any entail. at the same time, the will appointed him my guardian, desiring that i might be received within his house, and reside with his family, and under his care, during the term of my minority; and in consideration of the increased expense consequent upon such an arrangement, a handsome annuity was allotted to him during the term of my proposed residence. the object of this last provision i at once understood: my father desired, by making it the direct, apparent interest of sir arthur that i should die without issue, while at the same time placing me wholly in his power, to prove to the world how great and unshaken was his confidence in his brother's innocence and honour, and also to afford him an opportunity of showing that this mark of confidence was not unworthily bestowed. it was a strange, perhaps an idle scheme; but as i had been always brought up in the habit of considering my uncle as a deeply-injured man, and had been taught, almost as a part of my religion, to regard him as the very soul of honour, i felt no further uneasiness respecting the arrangement than that likely to result to a timid girl of secluded habits from the immediate prospect of taking up her abode for the first time in her life among total strangers. previous to leaving my home, which i felt i should do with a heavy heart, i received a most tender and affectionate letter from my uncle, calculated, if anything could do so, to remove the bitterness of parting from scenes familiar and dear from my earliest childhood, and in some degree to reconcile me to the change. it was during a fine autumn that i approached the old domain of carrickleigh. i shall not soon forget the impression of sadness and of gloom which all that i saw produced upon my mind; the sunbeams were falling with a rich and melancholy tint upon the fine old trees, which stood in lordly groups, casting their long, sweeping shadows over rock and sward. there was an air of desolation and decay about the spot, which amounted almost to desolation; the symptoms of this increased in number as we approached the building itself, near which the ground had been originally more artificially and carefully cultivated than elsewhere, and the neglect consequently more immediately and strikingly betrayed itself. as we proceeded, the road wound near the beds of what had been formerly two fish-ponds--now nothing more than stagnant swamps, overgrown with rank weeds, and here and there encroached upon by the straggling underwood. the avenue itself was much broken, and in many places the stones were almost concealed by grass and nettles; the loose stone walls which had here and there intersected the broad park were, in many places, broken down, so as no longer to answer their original purpose as fences; piers were now and then to be seen, but the gates were gone. and, to add to the general air of dilapidation, some huge trunks were lying scattered through the venerable old trees, either the work of the winter storms, or perhaps the victims of some extensive but desultory scheme of denudation, which the projector had not capital or perseverance to carry into full effect. after the carriage had travelled a mile of this avenue, we reached the summit of rather an abrupt eminence, one of the many which added to the picturesqueness, if not to the convenience of this rude passage. from the top of this ridge the grey walls of carrickleigh were visible, rising at a small distance in front, and darkened by the hoary wood which crowded around them. it was a quadrangular building of considerable extent, and the front which lay towards us, and in which the great entrance was placed, bore unequivocal marks of antiquity; the time-worn, solemn aspect of the old building, the ruinous and deserted appearance of the whole place, and the associations which connected it with a dark page in the history of my family, combined to depress spirits already predisposed for the reception of sombre and dejecting impressions. when the carriage drew up in the grass-grown courtyard before the hall door, two lazy-looking men, whose appearance well accorded with that of the place which they tenanted, alarmed by the obstreperous barking of a great chained dog, ran out from some half-ruinous out-houses, and took charge of the horses; the hall door stood open, and i entered a gloomy and imperfectly lighted apartment, and found no one within. however, i had not long to wait in this awkward predicament, for before my luggage had been deposited in the house--indeed, before i had well removed my cloak and other wraps, so as to enable me to look around--a young girl ran lightly into the hall, and kissing me heartily, and somewhat boisterously, exclaimed: "my dear cousin, my dear margaret, i am so delighted, so out of breath. we did not expect you till ten o'clock; my father is somewhere about the place; he must be close at hand. james, corney--run out and tell your master--my brother is seldom at home, at least at any reasonable hour--you must be so tired, so fatigued, let me show you to your room. see that lady margaret's luggage is all brought up, you must lie down and rest yourself. deborah, bring some coffee-- up these stairs! we are so delighted to see you, you cannot think how lonely i have been. how steep these stairs are, are they not? i am so glad you are come; i could hardly bring myself to believe that you were really coming; how good of you, dear lady margaret." there was real good nature and delight in my cousin's greeting, and a kind of constitutional confidence of manner which placed me at once at ease, and made me feel immediately upon terms of intimacy with her. the room into which she ushered me, although partaking in the general air of decay which pervaded the mansion and all about it, had nevertheless been fitted up with evident attention to comfort, and even with some dingy attempt at luxury; but what pleased me most was that it opened, by a second door, upon a lobby which communicated with my fair cousin's apartment; a circumstance which divested the room, in my eyes, of the air of solitude and sadness which would otherwise have characterized it, to a degree almost painful to one so dejected in spirits as i was. after such arrangements as i found necessary were completed, we both went down to the parlour, a large wainscoted room, hung round with grim old portraits, and, as i was not sorry to see, containing in its ample grate a large and cheerful fire. here my cousin had leisure to talk more at ease; and from her i learned something of the manners and the habits of the two remaining members of her family, whom i had not yet seen. on my arrival i had known nothing of the family among whom i was come to reside, except that it consisted of three individuals, my uncle, and his son and daughter, lady t----n having been long dead. in addition to this very scanty stock of information, i shortly learned from my communicative companion that my uncle was, as i had suspected, completely reserved in his habits, and besides that, having been so far back as she could well recollect, always rather strict (as reformed rakes frequently become), he had latterly been growing more gloomily and sternly religious than heretofore. her account of her brother was far less favourable, though she did not say anything directly to his disadvantage. from all that i could gather from her, i was led to suppose that he was a specimen of the idle, coarse-mannered, profligate, low-minded "squire-archy"--a result which might naturally have flowed from the circumstance of his being, as it were, outlawed from society, and driven for companionship to grades below his own; enjoying, too, the dangerous prerogative of spending much money. however, you may easily suppose that i found nothing in my cousin's communication fully to bear me out in so very decided a conclusion. i awaited the arrival of my uncle, which was every moment to be expected, with feelings half of alarm, half of curiosity--a sensation which i have often since experienced, though to a less degree, when upon the point of standing for the first time in the presence of one of whom i have long been in the habit of hearing or thinking with interest. it was, therefore, with some little perturbation that i heard, first a light bustle at the outer door, then a slow step traverse the hall, and finally witnessed the door open, and my uncle enter the room. he was a striking-looking man; from peculiarities both of person and of garb, the whole effect of his appearance amounted to extreme singularity. he was tall, and when young his figure must have been strikingly elegant; as it was, however, its effect was marred by a very decided stoop. his dress was of a sober colour, and in fashion anterior to anything which i could remember. it was, however, handsome, and by no means carelessly put on. but what completed the singularity of his appearance was his uncut white hair, which hung in long, but not at all neglected curls, even so far as his shoulders, and which combined with his regularly classic features and fine dark eyes, to bestow upon him an air of venerable dignity and pride which i have never seen equalled elsewhere. i rose as he entered, and met him about the middle of the room; he kissed my cheek and both my hands, saying: "you are most welcome, dear child, as welcome as the command of this poor place and all that it contains can make you. i am most rejoiced to see you--truly rejoiced. i trust that you are not much fatigued--pray be seated again." he led me to my chair, and continued: "i am glad to perceive you have made acquaintance with emily already; i see, in your being thus brought together, the foundation of a lasting friendship. you are both innocent, and both young. god bless you--god bless you, and make you all that i could wish!" [illustration: i rose as he entered.] he raised his eyes, and remained for a few moments silent, as if in secret prayer. i felt that it was impossible that this man, with feelings so quick, so warm, so tender, could be the wretch that public opinion had represented him to be. i was more than ever convinced of his innocence. his manner was, or appeared to me, most fascinating; there was a mingled kindness and courtesy in it which seemed to speak benevolence itself. it was a manner which i felt cold art could never have taught; it owed most of its charm to its appearing to emanate directly from the heart; it must be a genuine index of the owner's mind. so i thought. my uncle having given me fully to understand that i was most welcome, and might command whatever was his own, pressed me to take some refreshment; and on my refusing, he observed that previously to bidding me good-night, he had one duty further to perform, one in whose observance he was convinced i would cheerfully acquiesce. he then proceeded to read a chapter from the bible; after which he took his leave with the same affectionate kindness with which he had greeted me, having repeated his desire that i should consider everything in his house as altogether at my disposal. it is needless to say that i was much pleased with my uncle--it was impossible to avoid being so; and i could not help saying to myself, if such a man as this is not safe from the assaults of slander, who is? i felt much happier than i had done since my father's death, and enjoyed that night the first refreshing sleep which had visited me since that event. my curiosity respecting my male cousin did not long remain unsatisfied--he appeared the next day at dinner. his manners, though not so coarse as i had expected, were exceedingly disagreeable; there was an assurance and a forwardness for which i was not prepared; there was less of the vulgarity of manner, and almost more of that of the mind, than i had anticipated. i felt quite uncomfortable in his presence; there was just that confidence in his look and tone which would read encouragement even in mere toleration; and i felt more disgusted and annoyed at the coarse and extravagant compliments which he was pleased from time to time to pay me, than perhaps the extent of the atrocity might fully have warranted. it was, however, one consolation that he did not often appear, being much engrossed by pursuits about which i neither knew nor cared anything; but when he did appear, his attentions, either with a view to his amusement or to some more serious advantage, were so obviously and perseveringly directed to me, that young and inexperienced as i was, even _i_ could not be ignorant of his preference. i felt more provoked by this odious persecution than i can express, and discouraged him with so much vigour, that i employed even rudeness to convince him his assiduities were unwelcome; but all in vain. this had gone on for nearly a twelvemonth, to my infinite annoyance, when one day as i was sitting at some needlework with my companion emily, as was my habit, in the parlour, the door opened, and my cousin edward entered the room. there was something, i thought, odd in his manner; a kind of struggle between shame and impudence--a kind of flurry and ambiguity which made him appear, if possible, more than ordinarily disagreeable. "your servant, ladies," he said, seating himself at the same time; "sorry to spoil your _tête-à-tête_, but never mind! i'll only take emily's place for a minute or two; and then we part for a while, fair cousin. emily, my father wants you in the corner turret. no shilly-shally; he's in a hurry." she hesitated. "be off--tramp, march!" he exclaimed, in a tone which the poor girl dared not disobey. she left the room, and edward followed her to the door. he stood there for a minute or two, as if reflecting what he should say, perhaps satisfying himself that no one was within hearing in the hall. at length he turned about, having closed the door, as if carelessly, with his foot; and advancing slowly, as if in deep thought, he took his seat at the side of the table opposite to mine. there was a brief interval of silence, after which he said: "i imagine that you have a shrewd suspicion of the object of my early visit; but i suppose i must go into particulars. must i?" "i have no conception," i replied, "what your object may be." "well, well," said he, becoming more at his ease as he proceeded, "it may be told in a few words. you know that it is totally impossible--quite out of the question--that an off-hand young fellow like me, and a good-looking girl like yourself, could meet continually, as you and i have done, without an attachment--a liking growing up on one side or other; in short, i think i have let you know as plain as if i spoke it, that i have been in love with you almost from the first time i saw you." he paused; but i was too much horrified to speak. he interpreted my silence favourably. "i can tell you," he continued, "i'm reckoned rather hard to please, and very hard to _hit_. i can't say when i was taken with a girl before; so you see fortune reserved me----" here the odious wretch wound his arm round my waist. the action at once restored me to utterance, and with the most indignant vehemence i released myself from his hold, and at the same time said: "i have not been insensible, sir, of your most disagreeable attentions--they have long been a source of much annoyance to me; and you must be aware that i have marked my disapprobation--my disgust--as unequivocally as i possibly could, without actual indelicacy." i paused, almost out of breath from the rapidity with which i had spoken; and, without giving him time to renew the conversation, i hastily quitted the room, leaving him in a paroxysm of rage and mortification. as i ascended the stairs, i heard him open the parlour-door with violence, and take two or three rapid strides in the direction in which i was moving. i was now much frightened, and ran the whole way until i reached my room; and having locked the door, i listened breathlessly, but heard no sound. this relieved me for the present; but so much had i been overcome by the agitation and annoyance attendant upon the scene which i had just gone through, that when emily knocked at my door, i was weeping in strong hysterics. [illustration: leaving him in a paroxysm of rage and mortification.] you will readily conceive my distress, when you reflect upon my strong dislike to my cousin edward, combined with my youth and extreme inexperience. any proposal of such a nature must have agitated me; but that it should have come from the man whom of all others i most loathed and abhorred, and to whom i had, as clearly as manner could do it, expressed the state of my feelings, was almost too overwhelming to be borne. it was a calamity, too, in which i could not claim the sympathy of my cousin emily, which had always been extended to me in my minor grievances. still i hoped that it might not be unattended with good; for i thought that one inevitable and most welcome consequence would result from this painful _eclaircissement_, in the discontinuance of my cousin's odious persecution. when i arose next morning, it was with the fervent hope that i might never again behold the face, or even hear the name, of my cousin edward; but such a consummation, though devoutly to be wished, was hardly likely to occur. the painful impressions of yesterday were too vivid to be at once erased; and i could not help feeling some dim foreboding of coming annoyance and evil. to expect on my suitor's part anything like delicacy or consideration for me was out of the question. i saw that he had set his heart upon my property, and that he was not likely easily to forego such an acquisition--possessing what might have been considered opportunities and facilities almost to compel my compliance. i now keenly felt the unreasonableness of my father's conduct in placing me to reside with a family of all whose members, with one exception, he was wholly ignorant, and i bitterly felt the helplessness of my situation. i determined, however, in case of my cousin's persevering in his addresses, to lay all the particulars before my uncle (although he had never in kindness or intimacy gone a step beyond our first interview), and to throw myself upon his hospitality and his sense of honour for protection against a repetition of such scenes. my cousin's conduct may appear to have been an inadequate cause for such serious uneasiness; but my alarm was caused neither by his acts nor words, but entirely by his manner, which was strange and even intimidating to excess. at the beginning of yesterday's interview there was a sort of bullying swagger in his air, which towards the close gave place to the brutal vehemence of an undisguised ruffian--a transition which had tempted me into a belief that he might seek even forcibly to extort from me a consent to his wishes, or by means still more horrible, of which i scarcely dared to trust myself to think, to possess himself of my property. i was early next day summoned to attend my uncle in his private room, which lay in a corner turret of the old building; and thither i accordingly went, wondering all the way what this unusual measure might prelude. when i entered the room, he did not rise in his usual courteous way to greet me, but simply pointed to a chair opposite to his own. this boded nothing agreeable. i sat down, however, silently waiting until he should open the conversation. "lady margaret," at length he said, in a tone of greater sternness than i had thought him capable of using, "i have hitherto spoken to you as a friend, but i have not forgotten that i am also your guardian, and that my authority as such gives me a right to control your conduct. i shall put a question to you, and i expect and will demand a plain, direct answer. have i rightly been informed that you have contemptuously rejected the suit and hand of my son edward?" i stammered forth with a good deal of trepidation: "i believe--that is, i have, sir, rejected my cousin's proposals; and my coldness and discouragement might have convinced him that i had determined to do so." "madam," replied he, with suppressed, but, as it appeared to me, intense anger, "i have lived long enough to know that coldness and discouragement, and such terms, form the common cant of a worthless coquette. you know to the full, as well as i, that _coldness and discouragement_ may be so exhibited as to convince their object that he is neither distasteful nor indifferent to the person who wears this manner. you know, too, none better, that an affected neglect, when skilfully managed, is amongst the most formidable of the engines which artful beauty can employ. i tell you, madam, that having, without one word spoken in discouragement, permitted my son's most marked attentions for a twelvemonth or more, you have no right to dismiss him with no further explanation than demurely telling him that you had always looked coldly upon him; and neither your wealth nor your _ladyship_" (there was an emphasis of scorn on the word, which would have become sir giles overreach himself) "can warrant you in treating with contempt the affectionate regard of an honest heart." i was too much shocked at this undisguised attempt to bully me into an acquiescence in the interested and unprincipled plan for their own aggrandizement, which i now perceived my uncle and his son to have deliberately entered into, at once to find strength or collectedness to frame an answer to what he had said. at length i replied, with some firmness: "in all that you have just now said, sir, you have grossly misstated my conduct and motives. your information must have been most incorrect as far as it regards my conduct towards my cousin; my manner towards him could have conveyed nothing but dislike; and if anything could have added to the strong aversion which i have long felt towards him, it would be his attempting thus to trick and frighten me into a marriage which he knows to be revolting to me, and which is sought by him only as a means for securing to himself whatever property is mine." as i said this, i fixed my eyes upon those of my uncle, but he was too old in the world's ways to falter beneath the gaze of more searching eyes than mine; he simply said: "are you acquainted with the provisions of your father's will?" i answered in the affirmative; and he continued: "then you must be aware that if my son edward were--which god forbid--the unprincipled, reckless man you pretend to think him"--(here he spoke very slowly, as if he intended that every word which escaped him should be registered in my memory, while at the same time the expression of his countenance underwent a gradual but horrible change, and the eyes which he fixed upon me became so darkly vivid, that i almost lost sight of everything else)--"if he were what you have described him, think you, girl, he could find no briefer means than wedding contracts to gain his ends? 'twas but to gripe your slender neck until the breath had stopped, and lands, and lakes, and all were his." [illustration: "twas but to gripe your slender neck until the breath had stopped."] i stood staring at him for many minutes after he had ceased to speak, fascinated by the terrible serpent-like gaze, until he continued with a welcome change of countenance: "i will not speak again to you upon this topic until one month has passed. you shall have time to consider the relative advantages of the two courses which are open to you. i should be sorry to hurry you to a decision. i am satisfied with having stated my feelings upon the subject, and pointed out to you the path of duty. remember this day month--not one word sooner." he then rose, and i left the room, much agitated and exhausted. this interview, all the circumstances attending it, but most particularly the formidable expression of my uncle's countenance while he talked, though hypothetically, of murder, combined to arouse all my worst suspicions of him. i dreaded to look upon the face that had so recently worn the appalling livery of guilt and malignity. i regarded it with the mingled fear and loathing with which one looks upon an object which has tortured them in a nightmare. in a few days after the interview, the particulars of which i have just related, i found a note upon my toilet-table, and on opening it i read as follows: "my dear lady margaret, "you will be perhaps surprised to see a strange face in your room to-day. i have dismissed your irish maid, and secured a french one to wait upon you--a step rendered necessary by my proposing shortly to visit the continent, with all my family. "your faithful guardian, "arthur t----n." on inquiry, i found that my faithful attendant was actually gone, and far on her way to the town of galway; and in her stead there appeared a tall, raw-boned, ill-looking, elderly frenchwoman, whose sullen and presuming manners seemed to imply that her vocation had never before been that of a lady's maid. i could not help regarding her as a creature of my uncle's, and therefore to be dreaded, even had she been in no other way suspicious. days and weeks passed away without any, even a momentary doubt upon my part, as to the course to be pursued by me. the allotted period had at length elapsed; the day arrived on which i was to communicate my decision to my uncle. although my resolution had never for a moment wavered, i could not shake off the dread of the approaching colloquy; and my heart sank within me as i heard the expected summons. i had not seen my cousin edward since the occurrence of the grand _eclaircissement_; he must have studiously avoided me--i suppose from policy, it could not have been from delicacy. i was prepared for a terrific burst of fury from my uncle, as soon as i should make known my determination; and i not unreasonably feared that some act of violence or of intimidation would next be resorted to. filled with these dreary forebodings, i fearfully opened the study door, and the next minute i stood in my uncle's presence. he received me with a politeness which i dreaded, as arguing a favourable anticipation respecting the answer which i was to give; and after some slight delay, he began by saying: "it will be a relief to both of us, i believe, to bring this conversation as soon as possible to an issue. you will excuse me, then, my dear niece, for speaking with an abruptness which, under other circumstances, would be unpardonable. you have, i am certain, given the subject of our last interview fair and serious consideration; and i trust that you are now prepared with candour to lay your answer before me. a few words will suffice--we perfectly understand one another." he paused, and i, though feeling that i stood upon a mine which might in an instant explode, nevertheless answered with perfect composure: "i must now, sir, make the same reply which i did upon the last occasion, and i reiterate the declaration which i then made, that i never can nor will, while life and reason remain, consent to a union with my cousin edward." this announcement wrought no apparent change in sir arthur, except that he became deadly, almost lividly pale. he seemed lost in dark thought for a minute, and then with a slight effort said: "you have answered me honestly and directly; and you say your resolution is unchangeable. well, would it had been otherwise--would it had been otherwise; but be it as it is, i am satisfied." he gave me his hand--it was cold and damp as death; under an assumed calmness, it was evident that he was fearfully agitated. he continued to hold my hand with an almost painful pressure, while, as if unconsciously, seeming to forget my presence, he muttered: "strange, strange, strange, indeed! fatuity, helpless fatuity!" there was here a long pause. "madness indeed to strain a cable that is rotten to the very heart--it must break--and then--all goes." there was again a pause of some minutes, after which, suddenly changing his voice and manner to one of wakeful alacrity, he exclaimed: "margaret, my son edward shall plague you no more. he leaves this country on to-morrow for france--he shall speak no more upon this subject--never, never more--whatever events depended upon your answer must now take their own course; but, as for this fruitless proposal, it has been tried enough; it can be repeated no more." at these words he coldly suffered my hand to drop, as if to express his total abandonment of all his projected schemes of alliance; and certainly the action, with the accompanying words, produced upon my mind a more solemn and depressing effect than i believed possible to have been caused by the course which i had determined to pursue; it struck upon my heart with an awe and heaviness which _will_ accompany the accomplishment of an important and irrevocable act, even though no doubt or scruple remains to make it possible that the agent should wish it undone. "well," said my uncle, after a little time, "we now cease to speak upon this topic, never to resume it again. remember you shall have no further uneasiness from edward; he leaves ireland for france on to-morrow; this will be a relief to you. may i depend upon your honour that no word touching the subject of this interview shall ever escape you?" i gave him the desired assurance; he said: "it is well--i am satisfied; we have nothing more, i believe, to say upon either side, and my presence must be a restraint upon you, i shall therefore bid you farewell." i then left the apartment, scarcely knowing what to think of the strange interview which had just taken place. on the next day my uncle took occasion to tell me that edward had actually sailed, if his intention had not been interfered with by adverse circumstances; and two days subsequently he actually produced a letter from his son, written, as it said, on board, and despatched while the ship was getting under weigh. this was a great satisfaction to me and as being likely to prove so, it was no doubt communicated to me by sir arthur. during all this trying period, i had found infinite consolation in the society and sympathy of my dear cousin emily. i never in after-life formed a friendship so close, so fervent, and upon which, in all its progress, i could look back with feelings of such unalloyed pleasure, upon whose termination i must ever dwell with so deep, yet so unembittered regret. in cheerful converse with her i soon recovered my spirits considerably, and passed my time agreeably enough, although still in the strictest seclusion. matters went on sufficiently smooth, although i could not help sometimes feeling a momentary, but horrible uncertainty respecting my uncle's character; which was not altogether unwarranted by the circumstances of the two trying interviews whose particulars i have just detailed. the unpleasant impression which these conferences were calculated to leave upon my mind was fast wearing away, when there occurred a circumstance, slight indeed in itself, but calculated irresistibly to awaken all my worst suspicions, and to overwhelm me again with anxiety and terror. i had one day left the house with my cousin emily, in order to take a ramble of considerable length, for the purpose of sketching some favourite views, and she had walked about half a mile, when i perceived that we had forgotten our drawing materials, the absence of which would have defeated the object of our walk. laughing at our own thoughtlessness, we returned to the house, and leaving emily without, i ran upstairs to procure the drawing-books and pencils, which lay in my bedroom. as i ran up the stairs i was met by the tall, ill-looking frenchwoman, evidently a good deal flurried. "que veut, madame?" said she, with a more decided effort to be polite than i had ever known her make before. "no, no--no matter," said i, hastily running by her in the direction of my room. "madame," cried she, in a high key, "restez ici, s'il vous plait; votre chambre n'est pas faite--your room is not ready for your reception yet." i continued to move on without heeding her. she was some way behind me, and feeling that she could not otherwise prevent my entrance, for i was now upon the very lobby, she made a desperate attempt to seize hold of my person: she succeeded in grasping the end of my shawl, which she drew from my shoulders; but slipping at the same time upon the polished oak floor, she fell at full length upon the boards. a little frightened as well as angry at the rudeness of this strange woman, i hastily pushed open the door of my room, at which i now stood, in order to escape from her; but great was my amazement on entering to find the apartment occupied. the window was open, and beside it stood two male figures; they appeared to be examining the fastenings of the casement, and their backs were turned towards the door. one of them was my uncle; they both turned on my entrance, as if startled. the stranger was booted and cloaked, and wore a heavy broad-leafed hat over his brows. he turned but for a moment, and averted his face; but i had seen enough to convince me that he was no other than my cousin edward. my uncle had some iron instrument in his hand, which he hastily concealed behind his back; and, coming towards me, said something as if in an explanatory tone; but i was too much shocked and confounded to understand what it might be. he said something about "repairs--window-frames--cold, and safety." i did not wait, however, to ask or to receive explanations, but hastily left the room. as i went down the stairs i thought i heard the voice of the french woman in all the shrill volubility of excuse, which was met, however, by suppressed but vehement imprecations, or what seemed to me to be such, in which the voice of my cousin edward distinctly mingled. i joined my cousin emily quite out of breath. i need not say that my head was too full of other things to think much of drawing for that day. i imparted to her frankly the cause of my alarms, but at the same time as gently as i could; and with tears she promised vigilance, and devotion, and love. i never had reason for a moment to repent the unreserved confidence which i then reposed in her. she was no less surprised than i at the unexpected appearance of her brother, whose departure for france neither of us had for a moment doubted, but which was now proved by his actual presence to be nothing more than an imposture, practised, i feared, for no good end. the situation in which i had found my uncle had removed completely all my doubts as to his designs. i magnified suspicions into certainties, and dreaded night after night that i should be murdered in my bed. the nervousness produced by sleepless nights and days of anxious fears increased the horrors of my situation to such a degree, that i at length wrote a letter to a mr. jefferies, an old and faithful friend of my father's, and perfectly acquainted with all his affairs, praying him, for god's sake, to relieve me from my present terrible situation, and communicating without reserve the nature and grounds of my suspicions. this letter i kept sealed and directed for two or three days always about my person--for discovery would have been ruinous--in expectation of an opportunity which might be safely trusted, whereby to have it placed in the post-office. as neither emily nor i was permitted to pass beyond the precincts of the demesne itself, which was surrounded by high walls formed of dry stone, the difficulty of procuring such an opportunity was greatly enhanced. at this time emily had a short conversation with her father, which she reported to me instantly. after some indifferent matter, he had asked her whether she and i were upon good terms, and whether i was unreserved in my disposition. she answered in the affirmative; and he then inquired whether i had been much surprised to find him in my chamber on the other day. she answered that i had been both surprised and amused. "and what did she think of george wilson's appearance?" "who?" inquired she. "oh, the architect," he answered, "who is to contract for the repairs of the house; he is accounted a handsome fellow." "she could not see his face," said emily, "and she was in such a hurry to escape that she scarcely noticed him." sir arthur appeared satisfied, and the conversation ended. this slight conversation, repeated accurately to me by emily, had the effect of confirming, if indeed anything was required to do so, all that i had before believed as to edward's actual presence; and i naturally became, if possible, more anxious than ever to despatch the letter to mr. jefferies. an opportunity at length occurred. as emily and i were walking one day near the gate of the demesne, a man from the village happened to be passing down the avenue from the house; the spot was secluded, and as this person was not connected by service with those whose observation i dreaded, i committed the letter to his keeping, with strict injunctions that he should put it without delay into the receiver of the town post-office; at the same time i added a suitable gratuity, and the man, having made many protestations of punctuality, was soon out of sight. he was hardly gone when i began to doubt my discretion in having trusted this person; but i had no better or safer means of despatching the letter, and i was not warranted in suspecting him of such wanton dishonesty as an inclination to tamper with it; but i could not be quite satisfied of its safety until i had received an answer, which could not arrive for a few days. before i did, however, an event occurred which a little surprised me. i was sitting in my bedroom early in the day, reading by myself, when i heard a knock at the door. "come in," said i; and my uncle entered the room. "will you excuse me?" said he. "i sought you in the parlour, and thence i have come here. i desire to say a word with you. i trust that you have hitherto found my conduct to you such as that of a guardian towards his ward should be." i dared not withhold my assent. "and," he continued, "i trust that you have not found me harsh or unjust, and that you have perceived, my dear niece, that i have sought to make this poor place as agreeable to you as may be." i assented again; and he put his hand in his pocket, whence he drew a folded paper, and dashing it upon the table with startling emphasis, he said,-- "did you write that letter?" the sudden and fearful alteration of his voice, manner, and face, but, more than all, the unexpected production of my letter to mr. jefferies, which i at once recognized, so confounded and terrified me that i felt almost choking. i could not utter a word. "did you write that letter?" he repeated, with slow and intense emphasis. "you did, liar and hypocrite! you dared to write this foul and infamous libel; but it shall be your last. men will universally believe you mad, if i choose to call for an inquiry. i can make you appear so. the suspicions expressed in this letter are the hallucinations and alarms of moping lunacy. i have defeated your first attempt, madam; and by the holy god, if ever you make another, chains, straw, darkness, and the keeper's whip shall be your lasting portion!" with these astounding words he left the room, leaving me almost fainting. i was now almost reduced to despair; my last cast had failed; i had no course left but that of eloping secretly from the castle and placing myself under the protection of the nearest magistrate. i felt if this were not done, and speedily, that i should be _murdered_. no one, from mere description, can have an idea of the unmitigated horror of my situation--a helpless, weak, inexperienced girl, placed under the power and wholly at the mercy of evil men, and feeling that she had it not in her power to escape for a moment from the malignant influences under which she was probably fated to fall; and with a consciousness that if violence, if murder were designed, her dying shriek would be lost in void space; no human being would be near to aid her, no human interposition could deliver her. i had seen edward but once during his visit, and, as i did not meet with him again, i began to think that he must have taken his departure--a conviction which was to a certain degree satisfactory, as i regarded his absence as indicating the removal of immediate danger. emily also arrived circuitously at the same conclusion, and not without good grounds, for she managed indirectly to learn that edward's black horse had actually been for a day and part of a night in the castle stables, just at the time of her brother's supposed visit. the horse had gone and, as she argued, the rider must have departed with it. this point being so far settled, i felt a little less uncomfortable; when, being one day alone in my bedroom, i happened to look out from the window, and, to my unutterable horror, i beheld, peering through an opposite casement, my cousin edward's face. had i seen the evil one himself in bodily shape, i could not have experienced a more sickening revulsion. i was too much appalled to move at once from the window, but i did so soon enough to avoid his eye. he was looking fixedly into the narrow quadrangle upon which the window opened. i shrank back unperceived, to pass the rest of the day in terror and despair. i went to my room early that night, but i was too miserable to sleep. at about twelve o'clock, feeling very nervous, i determined to call my cousin emily, who slept, you will remember, in the next room, which communicated with mine by a second door. by this private entrance i found my way into her chamber, and without difficulty persuaded her to return to my room and sleep with me. we accordingly lay down together, she undressed, and i with my clothes on, for i was every moment walking up and down the room, and felt too nervous and miserable to think of rest or comfort. emily was soon fast asleep, and i lay awake, fervently longing for the first pale gleam of morning; reckoning every stroke of the old clock with an impatience which made every hour appear like six. it must have been about one o'clock when i thought i heard a slight noise at the partition-door between emily's room and mine, as if caused by somebody turning the key in the lock. i held my breath, and the same sound was repeated at the second door of my room--that which opened upon the lobby--the sound was here distinctly caused by the revolution of the bolt in the lock, and it was followed by a slight pressure upon the door itself, as if to ascertain the security of the lock. the person, whoever it might be, was probably satisfied, for i heard the old boards of the lobby creak and strain, as if under the weight of somebody moving cautiously over them. my sense of hearing became unnaturally, almost painfully acute. i suppose my imagination added distinctness to sounds vague in themselves. i thought that i could actually hear the breathing of the person who was slowly returning down the lobby. at the head of the staircase there appeared to occur a pause; and i could distinctly hear two or three sentences hastily whispered; the steps then descended the stairs with apparently less caution. i now ventured to walk quickly and lightly to the lobby door, and attempted to open it; it was indeed fast locked upon the outside, as was also the other. i now felt that the dreadful hour was come; but one desperate expedient remained--it was to awaken emily, and by our united strength to attempt to force the partition-door, which was slighter than the other, and through this to pass to the lower part of the house, whence it might be possible to escape to the grounds, and forth to the village. i returned to the bedside and shook emily, but in vain. nothing that i could do availed to produce from her more than a few incoherent words--it was a deathlike sleep. she had certainly drunk of some narcotic, as had i probably also, spite of all the caution with which i had examined everything presented to us to eat or drink. i now attempted, with as little noise as possible, to force first one door, then the other; but all in vain. i believe no strength could have effected my object, for both doors opened inwards. i therefore collected whatever movables i could carry thither, and piled them against the doors, so as to assist me in whatever attempts i should make to resist the entrance of those without. i then returned to the bed and endeavoured again, but fruitlessly, to awaken my cousin. it was not sleep, it was torpor, lethargy, death. i knelt down and prayed with an agony of earnestness; and then seating myself upon the bed, i awaited my fate with a kind of terrible tranquillity. i heard a faint clanking sound from the narrow court which i have already mentioned, as if caused by the scraping of some iron instrument against stones or rubbish. i at first determined not to disturb the calmness which i now felt by uselessly watching the proceedings of those who sought my life; but as the sounds continued, the horrible curiosity which i felt overcame every other emotion, and i determined, at all hazards, to gratify it. i therefore crawled upon my knees to the window, so as to let the smallest portion of my head appear above the sill. the moon was shining with an uncertain radiance upon the antique grey buildings, and obliquely upon the narrow court beneath, one side of which was therefore clearly illuminated, while the other was lost in obscurity; the sharp outlines of the old gables, with their nodding clusters of ivy, being at first alone visible. whoever or whatever occasioned the noise which had excited my curiosity, was concealed under the shadow of the dark side of the quadrangle. i placed my hand over my eyes to shade them from the moonlight, which was so bright as to be almost dazzling, and, peering into the darkness, i first dimly, but afterwards gradually almost with full distinctness, beheld the form of a man engaged in digging what appeared to be a rude hole close under the wall. some implements, probably a shovel and pickaxe, lay beside him, and to these he every now and then applied himself as the nature of the ground required. he pursued his task rapidly, and with as little noise as possible. "so," thought i, as, shovelful after shovelful, the dislodged rubbish mounted into a heap, "they are digging the grave in which, before two hours pass, i must lie, a cold, mangled corpse. i am _theirs_--i cannot escape." i felt as if my reason was leaving me. i started to my feet, and in mere despair i applied myself again to each of the two doors alternately. i strained every nerve and sinew, but i might as well have attempted, with my single strength, to force the building itself from its foundation. i threw myself madly upon the ground, and clasped my hands over my eyes as if to shut out the horrible images which crowded upon me. the paroxysm passed away. i prayed once more, with the bitter, agonized fervour of one who feels that the hour of death is present and inevitable. when i arose, i went once more to the window and looked out, just in time to see a shadowy figure glide stealthily along the wall. the task was finished. the catastrophe of the tragedy must soon be accomplished. i determined now to defend my life to the last; and that i might be able to do so with some effect, i searched the room for something which might serve as a weapon; but either through accident, or from an anticipation of such a possibility, everything which might have been made available for such a purpose had been carefully removed. i must then die tamely, and without an effort to defend myself. a thought suddenly struck me--might it not be possible to escape through the door, which the assassin must open in order to enter the room? i resolved to make the attempt. i felt assured that the door through which ingress to the room would be effected was that which opened upon the lobby. it was the more direct way, besides being, for obvious reasons, less liable to interruption than the other. i resolved, then, to place myself behind a projection of the wall, whose shadow would serve fully to conceal me, and when the door should be opened, and before they should have discovered the identity of the occupant of the bed, to creep noiselessly from the room, and then to trust to providence for escape. in order to facilitate this scheme, i removed all the lumber which i had heaped against the door; and i had nearly completed my arrangements, when i perceived the room suddenly darkened by the close approach of some shadowy object to the window. on turning my eyes in that direction, i observed at the top of the casement, as if suspended from above, first the feet, then the legs, then the body, and at length the whole figure of a man present himself. it was edward t----n. he appeared to be guiding his descent so as to bring his feet upon the centre of the stone block which occupied the lower part of the window; and, having secured his footing upon this, he kneeled down and began to gaze into the room. as the moon was gleaming into the chamber, and the bed-curtains were drawn, he was able to distinguish the bed itself and its contents. he appeared satisfied with his scrutiny, for he looked up and made a sign with his hand, upon which the rope by which his descent had been effected was slackened from above, and he proceeded to disengage it from his waist; this accomplished, he applied his hands to the window-frame, which must have been ingeniously contrived for the purpose, for, with apparently no resistance, the whole frame, containing casement and all, slipped from its position in the wall, and was by him lowered into the room. the cold night wind waved the bed-curtains, and he paused for a moment; all was still again, and he stepped in upon the floor of the room. he held in his hand what appeared to be a steel instrument, shaped something like a hammer, but larger and sharper at the extremities. this he held rather behind him, while, with three long, tip-toe strides, he brought himself to the bedside. i felt that the discovery must now be made, and held my breath in momentary expectation of the execration in which he would vent his surprise and disappointment. i closed my eyes--there was a pause, but it was a short one. i heard two dull blows, given in rapid succession: a quivering sigh, and the long-drawn, heavy breathing of the sleeper was for ever suspended. i unclosed my eyes, and saw the murderer fling the quilt across the head of his victim: he then, with the instrument of death still in his hand, proceeded to the lobby door, upon which he tapped sharply twice or thrice. a quick step was then heard approaching, and a voice whispered something from without. edward answered, with a kind of chuckle, "her ladyship is past complaining; unlock the door, in the devil's name, unless you're afraid to come in, and help me to lift the body out of the window." the key was turned in the lock--the door opened, and my uncle entered the room. i have told you already that i had placed myself under the shade of a projection of the wall, close to the door. i had instinctively shrunk down, cowering towards the ground, on the entrance of edward through the window. when my uncle entered the room, he and his son both stood so very close to me that his hand was every moment upon the point of touching my face. i held my breath, and remained motionless as death. "you had no interruption from the next room?" said my uncle. "no," was the brief reply. "secure the jewels, ned; the french harpy must not lay her claws upon them. you're a steady hand, by g----! not much blood--eh?" "not twenty drops," replied his son, "and those on the quilt." "i'm glad it's over," whispered my uncle again. "we must lift the--the _thing_ through the window and lay the rubbish over it." they then turned to the bedside, and, winding the bed-clothes round the body, carried it between them slowly to the window, and, exchanging a few brief words with some one below, they shoved it over the window-sill, and i heard it fall heavily on the ground underneath. "i'll take the jewels," said my uncle; "there are two caskets in the lower drawer." he proceeded, with an accuracy which, had i been more at ease, would have furnished me with matter of astonishment, to lay his hand upon the very spot where my jewels lay; and having possessed himself of them, he called to his son: "is the rope made fast above?" "i'm not a fool--to be sure it is," replied he. they then lowered themselves from the window. i now rose lightly and cautiously, scarcely daring to breathe, from my place of concealment, and was creeping towards the door, when i heard my cousin's voice, in a sharp whisper, exclaim: "scramble up again! g--d d----n you, you've forgot to lock the room-door!" and i perceived, by the straining of the rope which hung from above, that the mandate was instantly obeyed. not a second was to be lost. i passed through the door, which was only closed, and moved as rapidly as i could, consistently with stillness, along the lobby. before i had gone many yards, i heard the door through which i had just passed double-locked on the inside. i glided down the stairs in terror, lest, at every corner, i should meet the murderer or one of his accomplices. i reached the hall, and listened for a moment, to ascertain whether all was silent around; no sound was audible. the parlour windows opened on the park, and through one of them i might, i thought, easily effect my escape. accordingly, i hastily entered; but, to my consternation, a candle was burning in the room, and by its light i saw a figure seated at the dinner-table, upon which lay glasses, bottles, and the other accompaniments of a drinking-party. two or three chairs were placed about the table irregularly, as if hastily abandoned by their occupants. a single glance satisfied me that the figure was that of my french attendant. she was fast asleep, having probably drunk deeply. there was something malignant and ghastly in the calmness of this bad woman's features, dimly illuminated as they were by the flickering blaze of the candle. a knife lay upon the table, and the terrible thought, struck me--"should i kill this sleeping accomplice, and thus secure my retreat?" nothing could be easier--it was but to draw the blade across her throat--the work of a second. an instant's pause, however, corrected me. "no," thought i, "the god who has conducted me thus far through the valley of the shadow of death, will not abandon me now. i will fall into their hands, or i will escape hence, but it shall be free from the stain of blood. his will be done!" i felt a confidence arising from this reflection, an assurance of protection which i cannot describe. there was no other means of escape, so i advanced, with a firm step and collected mind, to the window. i noiselessly withdrew the bars and unclosed the shutters--i pushed open the casement, and, without waiting to look behind me, i ran with my utmost speed, scarcely feeling the ground under me, down the avenue, taking care to keep upon the grass which bordered it. i did not for a moment slacken my speed, and i had now gained the centre point between the park-gate and the mansion-house. here the avenue made a wider circuit, and in order to avoid delay, i directed my way across the smooth sward round which the pathway wound, intending, at the opposite side of the flat, at a point which i distinguished by a group of old birch-trees, to enter again upon the beaten track, which was from thence tolerably direct to the gate. i had, with my utmost speed, got about half way across this broad flat, when the rapid treading of a horse's hoofs struck upon my ear. my heart swelled in my bosom as though i would smother. the clattering of galloping hoofs approached--i was pursued--they were now upon the sward on which i was running--there was not a bush or a bramble to shelter me--and, as if to render escape altogether desperate, the moon, which had hitherto been obscured, at this moment shone forth with a broad clear light, which made every object distinctly visible. the sounds were now close behind me. i felt my knees bending under me, with the sensation which torments one in dreams. i reeled--i stumbled--i fell--and at the same instant the cause of my alarm wheeled past me at full gallop. it was one of the young fillies which pastured loose about the park, whose frolics had thus all but maddened me with terror. i scrambled to my feet, and rushed on with weak but rapid steps, my sportive companion still galloping round and round me with many a frisk and fling, until, at length, more dead than alive, i reached the avenue-gate, and crossed the stile, i scarce knew how. i ran through the village, in which all was silent as the grave, until my progress was arrested by the hoarse voice of a sentinel, who cried, "who goes there?" i felt that i was now safe. i turned in the direction of the voice, and fell fainting at the soldier's feet. when i came to myself, i was sitting in a miserable hovel, surrounded by strange faces, all bespeaking curiosity and compassion. many soldiers were in it also: indeed, as i afterwards found, it was employed as a guard-room by a detachment of troops quartered for that night in the town. in a few words i informed their officer of the circumstances which had occurred, describing also the appearance of the persons engaged in the murder; and he, without loss of time, proceeded to the mansion-house of carrickleigh, taking with him a party of his men. but the villains had discovered their mistake, and had effected their escape before the arrival of the military. the frenchwoman was, however, arrested in the neighbourhood upon the next day. she was tried and condemned upon the ensuing assizes; and previous to her execution, confessed that "_she had a hand in making hugh tisdall's bed_." she had been a housekeeper in the castle at the time, and a kind of _chère amie_ of my uncle's. she was, in reality, able to speak english like a native, but had exclusively used the french language, i suppose, to facilitate her disguise. she died the same hardened wretch she had lived, confessing her crimes only, as she alleged, that her doing so might involve sir arthur t----n, the great author of her guilt and misery, and whom she now regarded with unmitigated detestation. with the particulars of sir arthur's and his son's escape, as far as they are known, you are acquainted. you are also in possession of their after fate--the terrible, the tremendous retribution which, after long delays of many years, finally overtook and crushed them. wonderful and inscrutable are the dealings of god with his creatures. deep and fervent as must always be my gratitude to heaven for my deliverance, effected by a chain of providential occurrences, the failing of a single link of which must have ensured my destruction, i was long before i could look back upon it with other feelings than those of bitterness, almost of agony. the only being that had ever really loved me, my nearest and dearest friend, ever ready to sympathize, to counsel, and to assist--the gayest, the gentlest, the warmest heart; the only creature on earth that cared for me--_her_ life had been the price of my deliverance; and i then uttered the wish, which no event of my long and sorrowful life has taught me to recall, that she had been spared, and that, in her stead, _i_ were mouldering in the grave, forgotten and at rest. [illustration] strange event in the life of schalken the painter. you will no doubt be surprised, my dear friend, at the subject of the following narrative. what had i to do with schalken, or schalken with me? he had returned to his native land, and was probably dead and buried before i was born; i never visited holland, nor spoke with a native of that country. so much i believe you already know. i must, then, give you my authority, and state to you frankly the ground upon which rests the credibility of the strange story which i am about to lay before you. i was acquainted, in my early days, with a captain vandael, whose father had served king william in the low countries, and also in my own unhappy land during the irish campaigns. i know not how it happened that i liked this man's society, spite of his politics and religion: but so it was; and it was by means of the free intercourse to which our intimacy gave rise that i became possessed of the curious tale which you are about to hear. i had often been struck, while visiting vandael, by a remarkable picture, in which, though no _connoisseur_ myself, i could not fail to discern some very strong peculiarities, particularly in the distribution of light and shade, as also a certain oddity in the design itself, which interested my curiosity. it represented the interior of what might be a chamber in some antique religious building--the foreground was occupied by a female figure, arrayed in a species of white robe, part of which was arranged so as to form a veil. the dress, however, was not strictly that of any religious order. in its hand the figure bore a lamp, by whose light alone the form and face were illuminated; the features were marked by an arch smile, such as pretty women wear when engaged in successfully practising some roguish trick; in the background, and (excepting where the dim red light of an expiring fire serves to define the form) totally in the shade, stood the figure of a man equipped in the old fashion, with doublet and so forth, in an attitude of alarm, his hand being placed upon the hilt of his sword, which he appeared to be in the act of drawing. "there are some pictures," said i to my friend, "which impress one, i know not how, with a conviction that they represent not the mere ideal shapes and combinations which have floated through the imagination of the artist, but scenes, faces, and situations which have actually existed. when i look upon that picture, something assures me that i behold the representation of a reality." vandael smiled, and, fixing his eyes upon the painting musingly, he said,-- "your fancy has not deceived you, my good friend, for that picture is the record, and i believe a faithful one, of a remarkable and mysterious occurrence. it was painted by schalken, and contains, in the face of the female figure which occupies the most prominent place in the design, an accurate portrait of rose velderkaust, the niece of gerard douw, the first and, i believe, the only love of godfrey schalken. my father knew the painter well, and from schalken himself he learned the story of the mysterious drama, one scene of which the picture has embodied. this painting, which is accounted a fine specimen of schalken's style, was bequeathed to my father by the artist's will, and, as you have observed, is a very striking and interesting production." i had only to request vandael to tell the story of the painting in order to be gratified; and thus it is that i am enabled to submit to you a faithful recital of what i heard myself, leaving you to reject or to allow the evidence upon which the truth of the tradition depends--with this one assurance, that schalken was an honest, blunt dutchman, and, i believe, wholly incapable of committing a flight of imagination; and further, that vandael, from whom i heard the story, appeared firmly convinced of its truth. there are few forms upon which the mantle of mystery and romance could seem to hang more ungracefully than upon that of the uncouth and clownish schalken--the dutch boor--the rude and dogged, but most cunning worker in oils, whose pieces delight the initiated of the present day almost as much as his manners disgusted the refined of his own; and yet this man, so rude, so dogged, so slovenly, i had almost said so savage in mien and manner, during his after successes, had been selected by the capricious goddess, in his early life, to figure as the hero of a romance by no means devoid of interest or of mystery. who can tell how meet he may have been in his young days to play the part of the lover or of the hero? who can say that in early life he had been the same harsh, unlicked, and rugged boor that, in his maturer age, he proved? or how far the neglected rudeness which afterwards marked his air, and garb, and manners, may not have been the growth of that reckless apathy not unfrequently produced by bitter misfortunes and disappointments in early life? these questions can never now be answered. we must content ourselves, then, with a plain statement of facts, leaving matters of speculation to those who like them. when schalken studied under the immortal gerard douw, he was a young man; and in spite of the phlegmatic constitution and excitable manner which he shared, we believe, with his countrymen, he was not incapable of deep and vivid impressions, for it is an established fact that the young painter looked with considerable interest upon the beautiful niece of his wealthy master. rose velderkaust was very young, having, at the period of which we speak, not yet attained her seventeenth year; and, if tradition speaks truth, she possessed all the soft dimpling charms of the fair, light-haired flemish maidens. schalken had not studied long in the school of gerard douw when he felt this interest deepening into something of a keener and intenser feeling than was quite consistent with the tranquillity of his honest dutch heart; and at the same time he perceived, or thought he perceived, flattering symptoms of a reciprocal attachment, and this was quite sufficient to determine whatever indecision he might have heretofore experienced, and to lead him to devote exclusively to her every hope and feeling of his heart. in short, he was as much in love as a dutchman could be. he was not long in making his passion known to the pretty maiden herself, and his declaration was followed by a corresponding confession upon her part. schalken, howbeit, was a poor man, and he possessed no counterbalancing advantages of birth or position to induce the old man to consent to a union which must involve his niece and ward in the strugglings and difficulties of a young and nearly friendless artist. he was, therefore, to wait until time had furnished him with opportunity, and accident with success; and then, if his labours were found sufficiently lucrative, it was to be hoped that his proposals might at least be listened to by her jealous guardian. months passed away, and, cheered by the smiles of the little rose, schalken's labours were redoubled, and with such effect and improvement as reasonably to promise the realization of his hopes, and no contemptible eminence in his art, before many years should have elapsed. the even course of this cheering prosperity was, unfortunately, destined to experience a sudden and formidable interruption, and that, too, in a manner so strange and mysterious as to baffle all investigation, and throw upon the events themselves a shadow of almost supernatural horror. schalken had one evening remained in the master's studio considerably longer than his more volatile companions, who had gladly availed themselves of the excuse which the dusk of evening afforded to withdraw from their several tasks, in order to finish a day of labour in the jollity and conviviality of the tavern. but schalken worked for improvement, or rather for love. besides, he was now engaged merely in sketching a design, an operation which, unlike that of colouring, might be continued as long as there was light sufficient to distinguish between canvas and charcoal. he had not then, nor, indeed, until long after, discovered the peculiar powers of his pencil; and he was engaged in composing a group of extremely roguish-looking and grotesque imps and demons, who were inflicting various ingenious torments upon a perspiring and pot-bellied st. anthony, who reclined in the midst of them, apparently in the last stage of drunkenness. the young artist, however, though incapable of executing, or even of appreciating, anything of true sublimity, had nevertheless discernment enough to prevent his being by any means satisfied with his work; and many were the patient erasures and corrections which the limbs and features of saint and devil underwent, yet all without producing in their new arrangement anything of improvement or increased effect. the large, old-fashioned room was silent, and, with the exception of himself, quite deserted by its usual inmates. an hour had passed--nearly two--without any improved result. daylight had already declined, and twilight was fast giving way to the darkness of night. the patience of the young man was exhausted, and he stood before his unfinished production, absorbed in no very pleasing ruminations, one hand buried in the folds of his long dark hair, and the other holding the piece of charcoal which had so ill executed its office, and which he now rubbed, without much regard to the sable streaks which it produced, with irritable pressure upon his ample flemish inexpressibles. "pshaw!" said the young man aloud, "would that picture, devils, saint, and all, were where they should be--in hell!" a short, sudden laugh, uttered startlingly close to his ear, instantly responded to the ejaculation. the artist turned sharply round, and now for the first time became aware that his labours had been overlooked by a stranger. within about a yard and a half, and rather behind him, there stood what was, or appeared to be, the figure of an elderly man: he wore a short cloak, and broad-brimmed hat with a conical crown, and in his hand, which was protected with a heavy, gauntlet-shaped glove, he carried a long ebony walking-stick, surmounted with what appeared, as it glittered dimly in the twilight to be a massive head of gold; and upon his breast, through the folds of the cloak, there shone the links of a rich chain of the same metal. the room was so obscure that nothing further of the appearance of the figure could be ascertained, and the face was altogether overshadowed by the heavy flap of the beaver which overhung it, so that no feature could be clearly discerned. a quantity of dark hair escaped from beneath this sombre hat, a circumstance which, connected with the firm, upright carriage of the intruder, proved that his years could not yet exceed threescore or thereabouts. there was an air of gravity and importance about the garb of this person, and something indescribably odd--i might say awful--in the perfect, stone-like movelessness of the figure, that effectually checked the testy comment which had at once risen to the lips of the irritated artist. he therefore, as soon as he had sufficiently recovered the surprise, asked the stranger, civilly, to be seated, and desired to know if he had any message to leave for his master. "tell gerard douw," said the unknown, without altering his attitude in the smallest degree, "that mynher vanderhausen, of rotterdam, desires to speak with him to-morrow evening at this hour, and, if he please, in this room, upon matters of weight; that is all. good-night." the stranger, having finished this message, turned abruptly, and, with a quick but silent step quitted the room before schalken had time to say a word in reply. the young man felt a curiosity to see in what direction the burgher of rotterdam would turn on quitting the studio, and for that purpose he went directly to the window which commanded the door. a lobby of considerable extent intervened between the inner door of the painter's room and the street entrance, so that schalken occupied the post of observation before the old man could possibly have reached the street. he watched in vain, however. there was no other mode of exit. had the old man vanished, or was he lurking about the recesses of the lobby for some bad purpose? this last suggestion filled the mind of schalken with a vague horror, which was so unaccountably intense as to make him alike afraid to remain in the room alone and reluctant to pass through the lobby. however, with an effort which appeared very disproportioned to the occasion, he summoned resolution to leave the room, and, having double-locked the door, and thrust the key in his pocket, without looking to the right or left, he traversed the passage which had so recently, perhaps still, contained the person of his mysterious visitant, scarcely venturing to breathe till he had arrived in the open street. "mynher vanderhausen," said gerard douw, within himself, as the appointed hour approached; "mynher vanderhausen, of rotterdam! i never heard of the man till yesterday. what can he want of me? a portrait, perhaps, to be painted; or a younger son or a poor relation to be apprenticed; or a collection to be valued; or--pshaw! there's no one in rotterdam to leave me a legacy. well, whatever the business may be, we shall soon know it all." it was now the close of day, and every easel, except that of schalken, was deserted. gerard douw was pacing the apartment with the restless step of impatient expectation, every now and then humming a passage from a piece of music which he was himself composing; for, though no great proficient, he admired the art; sometimes pausing to glance over the work of one of his absent pupils, but more frequently placing himself at the window, from whence he might observe the passengers who threaded the obscure by-street in which his studio was placed. "said you not, godfrey," exclaimed douw, after a long and fruitless gaze from his post of observation, and turning to schalken--"said you not the hour of appointment was at about seven by the clock of the stadhouse?" "it had just told seven when i first saw him, sir," answered the student. "the hour is close at hand, then," said the master, consulting a horologe as large and as round as a full-grown orange. "mynher vanderhausen, from rotterdam--is it not so?" "such was the name." "and an elderly man, richly clad?" continued douw. "as well as i might see," replied his pupil. "he could not be young, nor yet very old neither, and his dress was rich and grave, as might become a citizen of wealth and consideration." at this moment the sonorous boom of the stadhouse clock told, stroke after stroke, the hour of seven; the eyes of both master and student were directed to the door; and it was not until the last peal of the old bell had ceased to vibrate, that douw exclaimed,-- "so, so; we shall have his worship presently--that is, if he means to keep his hour; if not, thou mayst wait for him, godfrey, if you court the acquaintance of a capricious burgomaster. as for me, i think our old leyden contains a sufficiency of such commodities, without an importation from rotterdam." schalken laughed, as in duty bound; and, after a pause of some minutes, douw suddenly exclaimed,-- "what if it should all prove a jest, a piece of mummery got up by vankarp, or some such worthy! i wish you had run all risks, and cudgelled the old burgomaster, stadholder, or whatever else he may be, soundly. i would wager a dozen of rhenish, his worship would have pleaded old acquaintance before the third application." "here he comes, sir," said schalken, in a low, admonitory tone; and instantly, upon turning towards the door, gerard douw observed the same figure which had, on the day before, so unexpectedly greeted the vision of his pupil schalken. there was something in the air and mien of the figure which at once satisfied the painter that there was no mummery in the case, and that he really stood in the presence of a man of worship; and so, without hesitation, he doffed his cap, and courteously saluting the stranger, requested him to be seated. the visitor waved his hand slightly, as if in acknowledgment of the courtesy, but remained standing. "i have the honour to see mynher vanderhausen, of rotterdam?" said gerard douw. "the same," was the laconic reply. "i understand your worship desires to speak with me," continued douw, "and i am here by appointment to wait your commands." "is that a man of trust?" said vanderhausen, turning towards schalken, who stood at a little distance behind his master. "certainly," replied gerard. "then let him take this box and get the nearest jeweller or goldsmith to value its contents, and let him return hither with a certificate of the valuation." at the same time he placed a small case, about nine inches square, in the hands of gerard douw, who was as much amazed at its weight as at the strange abruptness with which it was handed to him. in accordance with the wishes of the stranger, he delivered it into the hands of schalken, and repeating _his_ directions, despatched him upon the mission. schalken disposed his precious charge securely beneath the folds of his cloak, and rapidly traversing two or three narrow streets, he stopped at a corner house, the lower part of which was then occupied by the shop of a jewish goldsmith. schalken entered the shop, and calling the little hebrew into the obscurity of its back recesses, he proceeded to lay before him vanderhausen's packet. on being examined by the light of a lamp, it appeared entirely cased with lead, the outer surface of which was much scraped and soiled, and nearly white with age. this was with difficulty partially removed, and disclosed beneath a box of some dark and singularly hard wood; this, too, was forced, and after the removal of two or three folds of linen, its contents proved to be a mass of golden ingots, close packed, and, as the jew declared, of the most perfect quality. every ingot underwent the scrutiny of the little jew, who seemed to feel an epicurean delight in touching and testing these morsels of the glorious metal; and each one of them was replaced in the box with the exclamation,-- "_mein gott_, how very perfect! not one grain of alloy--beautiful, beautiful!" the task was at length finished, and the jew certified under his hand that the value of the ingots submitted to his examination amounted to many thousand rix-dollars. with the desired document in his bosom, and the rich box of gold carefully pressed under his arm, and concealed by his cloak, he retraced his way, and, entering the studio, found his master and the stranger in close conference. schalken had no sooner left the room, in order to execute the commission he had taken in charge, than vanderhausen addressed gerard douw in the following terms: "i may not tarry with you to-night more than a few minutes, and so i shall briefly tell you the matter upon which i come. you visited the town of rotterdam some four months ago, and then i saw in the church of st. lawrence your niece, rose velderkaust. i desire to marry her, and if i satisfy you as to the fact that i am very wealthy--more wealthy than any husband you could dream of for her--i expect that you will forward my views to the utmost of your authority. if you approve my proposal, you must close with it at once, for i cannot command time enough to wait for calculations and delays." gerard douw was, perhaps, as much astonished as anyone could be by the very unexpected nature of mynher vanderhausen's communication; but he did not give vent to any unseemly expression of surprise. in addition to the motives supplied by prudence and politeness, the painter experienced a kind of chill and oppressive sensation--a feeling like that which is supposed to affect a man who is placed unconsciously in immediate contact with something to which he has a natural antipathy--an undefined horror and dread--while standing in the presence of the eccentric stranger, which made him very unwilling to say anything that might reasonably prove offensive. "i have no doubt," said gerard, after two or three prefatory hems, "that the connection which you propose would prove alike advantageous and honourable to my niece; but you must be aware that she has a will of her own, and may not acquiesce in what _we_ may design for her advantage." "do not seek to deceive me, sir painter," said vanderhausen; "you are her guardian--she is your ward. she is mine if _you_ like to make her so." the man of rotterdam moved forward a little as he spoke, and gerard douw, he scarce knew why, inwardly prayed for the speedy return of schalken. "i desire," said the mysterious gentleman, "to place in your hands at once an evidence of my wealth, and a security for my liberal dealing with your niece. the lad will return in a minute or two with a sum in value five times the fortune which she has a right to expect from a husband. this shall lie in your hands, together with her dowry, and you may apply the united sum as suits her interest best; it shall be all exclusively hers while she lives. is that liberal?" douw assented, and inwardly thought that fortune had been extraordinarily kind to his niece. the stranger, he deemed, must be most wealthy and generous, and such an offer was not to be despised, though made by a humorist, and one of no very prepossessing presence. rose had no very high pretensions, for she was almost without dowry; indeed, altogether so, excepting so far as the deficiency had been supplied by the generosity of her uncle. neither had she any right to raise any scruples against the match on the score of birth, for her own origin was by no means elevated; and as to other objections, gerard resolved, and, indeed, by the usages of the time was warranted in resolving, not to listen to them for a moment. "sir," said he, addressing the stranger, "your offer is most liberal, and whatever hesitation i may feel in closing with it immediately, arises solely from my not having the honour of knowing anything of your family or station. upon these points you can, of course, satisfy me without difficulty?" "as to my respectability," said the stranger, drily, "you must take that for granted at present; pester me with no inquiries; you can discover nothing more about me than i choose to make known. you shall have sufficient security for my respectability--my word, if you are honourable; if you are sordid, my gold." "a testy old gentleman," thought douw; "he must have his own way. but, all things considered, i am justified in giving my niece to him. were she my own daughter, i would do the like by her. i will not pledge myself unnecessarily, however." "you will not pledge yourself unnecessarily," said vanderhausen, strangely uttering the very words which had just floated through the mind of his companion; "but you will do so if it _is_ necessary, i presume; and i will show you that i consider it indispensable. if the gold i mean to leave in your hands satisfies you, and if you desire that my proposal shall not be at once withdrawn, you must, before i leave this room, write your name to this engagement." having thus spoken, he placed a paper in the hands of gerard, the contents of which expressed an engagement entered into by gerard douw, to give to wilken vanderhausen, of rotterdam, in marriage, rose velderkaust, and so forth, within one week of the date hereof. while the painter was employed in reading this covenant, schalken, as we have stated, entered the studio, and having delivered the box and the valuation of the jew into the hands of the stranger, he was about to retire, when vanderhausen called to him to wait; and, presenting the case and the certificate to gerard douw, he waited in silence until he had satisfied himself by an inspection of both as to the value of the pledge left in his hands. at length he said: "are you content?" the painter said "he would fain have another day to consider." "not an hour," said the suitor, coolly. "well, then," said douw, "i am content; it is a bargain." "then sign at once," said vanderhausen; "i am weary." at the same time he produced a small case of writing materials, and gerard signed the important document. "let this youth witness the covenant," said the old man; and godfrey schalken unconsciously signed the instrument which bestowed upon another that hand which he had so long regarded as the object and reward of all his labours. the compact being thus completed, the strange visitor folded up the paper, and stowed it safely in an inner pocket. "i will visit you to-morrow night, at nine of the clock, at your house, gerard douw, and will see the subject of our contract. farewell." and so saying, wilken vanderhausen moved stiffly, but rapidly out of the room. schalken, eager to resolve his doubts, had placed himself by the window in order to watch the street entrance; but the experiment served only to support his suspicions, for the old man did not issue from the door. this was very strange, very odd, very fearful. he and his master returned together, and talked but little on the way, for each had his own subjects of reflection, of anxiety, and of hope. schalken, however, did not know the ruin which threatened his cherished schemes. gerard douw knew nothing of the attachment which had sprung up between his pupil and his niece; and even if he had, it is doubtful whether he would have regarded its existence as any serious obstruction to the wishes of mynher vanderhausen. marriages were then and there matters of traffic and calculation; and it would have appeared as absurd in the eyes of the guardian to make a mutual attachment an essential element in a contract of marriage, as it would have been to draw up his bonds and receipts in the language of chivalrous romance. the painter, however, did not communicate to his niece the important step which he had taken in her behalf, and his resolution arose not from any anticipation of opposition on her part, but solely from a ludicrous consciousness that if his ward were, as she very naturally might do, to ask him to describe the appearance of the bridegroom whom he destined for her, he would be forced to confess that he had not seen his face, and, if called upon, would find it impossible to identify him. upon the next day, gerard douw having dined, called his niece to him, and having scanned her person with an air of satisfaction, he took her hand, and looking upon her pretty, innocent face with a smile of kindness, he said: "rose, my girl, that face of yours will make your fortune." rose blushed and smiled. "such faces and such tempers seldom go together, and, when they do, the compound is a love-potion which few heads or hearts can resist. trust me, thou wilt soon be a bride, girl. but this is trifling, and i am pressed for time, so make ready the large room by eight o'clock to-night, and give directions for supper at nine. i expect a friend to-night; and observe me, child, do thou trick thyself out handsomely. i would not have him think us poor or sluttish." with these words he left the chamber, and took his way to the room to which we have already had occasion to introduce our readers--that in which his pupils worked. when the evening closed in, gerard called schalken, who was about to take his departure to his obscure and comfortless lodgings, and asked him to come home and sup with rose and vanderhausen. the invitation was of course accepted, and gerard douw and his pupil soon found themselves in the handsome and somewhat antique-looking room which had been prepared for the reception of the stranger. a cheerful wood-fire blazed in the capacious hearth; a little at one side an old-fashioned table, with richly-carved legs, was placed--destined, no doubt, to receive the supper, for which preparations were going forward; and ranged with exact regularity stood the tall-backed chairs whose ungracefulness was more than counterbalanced by their comfort. the little party, consisting of rose, her uncle, and the artist, awaited the arrival of the expected visitor with considerable impatience. nine o'clock at length came, and with it a summons at the street-door, which, being speedily answered, was followed by a slow and emphatic tread upon the staircase; the steps moved heavily across the lobby, the door of the room in which the party which we have described were assembled slowly opened, and there entered a figure which startled, almost appalled, the phlegmatic dutchmen, and nearly made rose scream with affright; it was the form, and arrayed in the garb, of mynher vanderhausen; the air, the gait, the height was the same, but the features had never been seen by any of the party before. the stranger stopped at the door of the room, and displayed his form and face completely. he wore a dark-coloured cloth cloak, which was short and full, not falling quite to the knees; his legs were cased in dark purple silk stockings, and his shoes were adorned with roses of the same colour. the opening of the cloak in front showed the under-suit to consist of some very dark, perhaps sable material, and his hands were enclosed in a pair of heavy leather gloves which ran up considerably above the wrist, in the manner of a gauntlet. in one hand he carried his walking-stick and his hat, which he had removed, and the other hung heavily by his side. a quantity of grizzled hair descended in long tresses from his head, and its folds rested upon the plaits of a stiff ruff, which effectually concealed his neck. so far all was well; but the face!--all the flesh of the face was coloured with the bluish leaden hue which is sometimes produced by the operation of metallic medicines administered in excessive quantities; the eyes were enormous, and the white appeared both above and below the iris, which gave to them an expression of insanity, which was heightened by their glassy fixedness; the nose was well enough, but the mouth was writhed considerably to one side, where it opened in order to give egress to two long, discoloured fangs, which projected from the upper jaw, far below the lower lip; the hue of the lips themselves bore the usual relation to that of the face, and was consequently nearly black. the character of the face was malignant, even satanic, to the last degree; and, indeed, such a combination of horror could hardly be accounted for, except by supposing the corpse of some atrocious malefactor, which had long hung blackening upon the gibbet, to have at length become the habitation of a demon--the frightful sport of satanic possession. it was remarkable that the worshipful stranger suffered as little as possible of his flesh to appear, and that during his visit he did not once remove his gloves. having stood for some moments at the door, gerard douw at length found breath and collectedness to bid him welcome, and, with a mute inclination of the head, the stranger stepped forward into the room. there was something indescribably odd, even horrible about all his motions, something undefinable, something unnatural, unhuman--it was as if the limbs were guided and directed by a spirit unused to the management of bodily machinery. the stranger said hardly anything during his visit, which did not exceed half an hour; and the host himself could scarcely muster courage enough to utter the few necessary salutations and courtesies: and, indeed, such was the nervous terror which the presence of vanderhausen inspired, that very little would have made all his entertainers fly bellowing from the room. they had not so far lost all self-possession, however, as to fail to observe two strange peculiarities of their visitor. during his stay he did not once suffer his eyelids to close, nor even to move in the slightest degree; and further, there was a death-like stillness in his whole person, owing to the total absence of the heaving motion of the chest caused by the process of respiration. these two peculiarities, though when told they may appear trifling, produced a very striking and unpleasant effect when seen and observed. vanderhausen at length relieved the painter of leyden of his inauspicious presence; and with no small gratification the little party heard the street door close after him. "dear uncle," said rose, "what a frightful man! i would not see him again for the wealth of the states!" "tush, foolish girl!" said douw, whose sensations were anything but comfortable. "a man may be as ugly as the devil, and yet if his heart and actions are good, he is worth all the pretty-faced, perfumed puppies that walk the mall. rose, my girl, it is very true he has not thy pretty face, but i know him to be wealthy and liberal; and were he ten times more ugly--" "which is inconceivable," observed rose. "these two virtues would be sufficient," continued her uncle, "to counterbalance all his deformity; and if not of power sufficient actually to alter the shape of the features, at least of efficacy enough to prevent one thinking them amiss." "do you know, uncle," said rose, "when i saw him standing at the door, i could not get it out of my head that i saw the old, painted, wooden figure that used to frighten me so much in the church of st. laurence at rotterdam." gerard laughed, though he could not help inwardly acknowledging the justness of the comparison. he was resolved, however, as far as he could, to check his niece's inclination to ridicule the ugliness of her intended bridegroom, although he was not a little pleased to observe that she appeared totally exempt from that mysterious dread of the stranger, which, he could not disguise it from himself, considerably affected him, as it also did his pupil godfrey schalken. early on the next day there arrived from various quarters of the town, rich presents of silks, velvets, jewellery, and so forth, for rose; and also a packet directed to gerard douw, which, on being opened, was found to contain a contract of marriage, formally drawn up, between wilken vanderhausen of the boom-quay, in rotterdam, and rose velderkaust of leyden, niece to gerard douw, master in the art of painting, also of the same city; and containing engagements on the part of vanderhausen to make settlements upon his bride far more splendid than he had before led her guardian to believe likely, and which were to be secured to her use in the most unexceptionable manner possible--the money being placed in the hands of gerard douw himself. i have no sentimental scenes to describe, no cruelty of guardians or magnanimity of wards, or agonies of lovers. the record i have to make is one of sordidness, levity, and interest. in less than a week after the first interview which we have just described, the contract of marriage was fulfilled, and schalken saw the prize which he would have risked anything to secure, carried off triumphantly by his formidable rival. for two or three days he absented himself from the school; he then returned and worked, if with less cheerfulness, with far more dogged resolution than before; the dream of love had given place to that of ambition. months passed away, and, contrary to his expectation, and, indeed, to the direct promise of the parties, gerard douw heard nothing of his niece or her worshipful spouse. the interest of the money, which was to have been demanded in quarterly sums, lay unclaimed in his hands. he began to grow extremely uneasy. mynher vanderhausen's direction in rotterdam he was fully possessed of. after some irresolution he finally determined to journey thither--a trifling undertaking, and easily accomplished--and thus to satisfy himself of the safety and comfort of his ward, for whom he entertained an honest and strong affection. his search was in vain, however. no one in rotterdam had ever heard of mynher vanderhausen. gerard douw left not a house in the boom-quay untried; but all in vain. no one could give him any information whatever touching the object of his inquiry; and he was obliged to return to leyden, nothing wiser than when he had left it. on his arrival he hastened to the establishment from which vanderhausen had hired the lumbering, though, considering the times, most luxurious vehicle which the bridal party had employed to convey them to rotterdam. from the driver of this machine he learned, that having proceeded by slow stages, they had late in the evening approached rotterdam; but that before they entered the city, and while yet nearly a mile from it, a small party of men, soberly clad, and after the old fashion, with peaked beards and moustaches, standing in the centre of the road, obstructed the further progress of the carriage. the driver reined in his horses, much fearing, from the obscurity of the hour, and the loneliness of the road, that some mischief was intended. his fears were, however, somewhat allayed by his observing that these strange men carried a large litter, of an antique shape, and which they immediately set down upon the pavement, whereupon the bridegroom, having opened the coach-door from within, descended, and having assisted his bride to do likewise, led her, weeping bitterly and wringing her hands, to the litter, which they both entered. it was then raised by the men who surrounded it, and speedily carried towards the city, and before it had proceeded many yards the darkness concealed it from the view of the dutch chariot. in the inside of the vehicle he found a purse, whose contents more than thrice paid the hire of the carriage and man. he saw and could tell nothing more of mynher vanderhausen and his beautiful lady. this mystery was a source of deep anxiety and almost of grief to gerard douw. there was evidently fraud in the dealing of vanderhausen with him, though for what purpose committed he could not imagine. he greatly doubted how far it was possible for a man possessing in his countenance so strong an evidence of the presence of the most demoniac feelings to be in reality anything but a villain; and every day that passed without his hearing from or of his niece, instead of inducing him to forget his fears, tended more and more to intensify them. the loss of his niece's cheerful society tended also to depress his spirits; and in order to dispel this despondency, which often crept upon his mind after his daily employment was over, he was wont frequently to prevail upon schalken to accompany him home, and by his presence to dispel, in some degree, the gloom of his otherwise solitary supper. one evening, the painter and his pupil were sitting by the fire, having accomplished a comfortable supper. they had yielded to that silent pensiveness sometimes induced by the process of digestion, when their reflections were disturbed by a loud sound at the street-door, as if occasioned by some person rushing forcibly and repeatedly against it. a domestic had run without delay to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and they heard him twice or thrice interrogate the applicant for admission, but without producing an answer or any cessation of the sounds. they heard him then open the hall door, and immediately there followed a light and rapid tread upon the staircase. schalken laid his hand on his sword, and advanced towards the door. it opened before he reached it, and rose rushed into the room. she looked wild and haggard, and pale with exhaustion and terror; but her dress surprised them as much even as her unexpected appearance. it consisted of a kind of white woollen wrapper, made close about the neck, and descending to the very ground. it was much deranged and travel-soiled. the poor creature had hardly entered the chamber when she fell senseless on the floor. with some difficulty they succeeded in reviving her, and on recovering her senses she instantly exclaimed, in a tone of eager, terrified impatience,-- "wine, wine, quickly, or i'm lost!" much alarmed at the strange agitation in which the call was made, they at once administered to her wishes, and she drank some wine with a haste and eagerness which surprised him. she had hardly swallowed it, when she exclaimed with the same urgency,-- "food, food, at once, or i perish!" a considerable fragment of a roast joint was upon the table, and schalken immediately proceeded to cut some, but he was anticipated; for no sooner had she become aware of its presence than she darted at it with the rapacity of a vulture, and, seizing it in her hands, she tore off the flesh with her teeth and swallowed it. when the paroxysm of hunger had been a little appeased, she appeared suddenly to become aware how strange her conduct had been, or it may have been that other more agitating thoughts recurred to her mind, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her hands. "oh! send for a minister of god," said she; "i am not safe till he comes; send for him speedily." gerard douw despatched a messenger instantly, and prevailed on his niece to allow him to surrender his bedchamber to her use; he also persuaded her to retire to it at once and to rest; her consent was extorted upon the condition that they would not leave her for a moment. "oh that the holy man were here!" she said; "he can deliver me. the dead and the living can never be one--god has forbidden it." with these mysterious words she surrendered herself to their guidance, and they proceeded to the chamber which gerard douw had assigned to her use. "do not--do not leave me for a moment," said she. "i am lost for ever if you do." gerard douw's chamber was approached through a spacious apartment, which they were now about to enter. gerard douw and schalken each carried a wax candle, so that a sufficient degree of light was cast upon all surrounding objects. they were now entering the large chamber, which, as i have said, communicated with douw's apartment, when rose suddenly stopped, and, in a whisper which seemed to thrill with horror, she said,-- "o god! he is here--he is here! see, see--there he goes!" she pointed towards the door of the inner room, and schalken thought he saw a shadowy and ill-defined form gliding into that apartment. he drew his sword, and raising the candle so as to throw its light with increased distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the chamber into which the figure had glided. no figure was there--nothing but the furniture which belonged to the room, and yet he could not be deceived as to the fact that something had moved before them into the chamber. a sickening dread came upon him, and the cold perspiration broke out in heavy drops upon his forehead; nor was he more composed when he heard the increased urgency, the agony of entreaty, with which rose implored them not to leave her for a moment. "i saw him," said she. "he's here! i cannot be deceived--i know him. he's by me--he's with me--he's in the room. then, for god's sake, as you would save, do not stir from beside me!" they at length prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she continued to urge them to stay by her. she frequently uttered incoherent sentences, repeating again and again, "the dead and the living cannot be one--god has forbidden it!" and then again, "rest to the wakeful--sleep to the sleep-walkers." these and such mysterious and broken sentences she continued to utter until the clergyman arrived. gerard douw began to fear, naturally enough, that the poor girl, owing to terror or ill-treatment, had become deranged; and he half suspected, by the suddenness of her appearance, and the unseasonableness of the hour, and, above all, from the wildness and terror of her manner, that she had made her escape from some place of confinement for lunatics, and was in immediate fear of pursuit. he resolved to summon medical advice as soon as the mind of his niece had been in some measure set at rest by the offices of the clergyman whose attendance she had so earnestly desired; and until this object had been attained, he did not venture to put any questions to her, which might possibly, by reviving painful or horrible recollections, increase her agitation. the clergyman soon arrived--a man of ascetic countenance and venerable age--one whom gerard douw respected much, forasmuch as he was a veteran polemic, though one, perhaps, more dreaded as a combatant than beloved as a christian--of pure morality, subtle brain, and frozen heart. he entered the chamber which communicated with that in which rose reclined, and immediately on his arrival she requested him to pray for her, as for one who lay in the hands of satan, and who could hope for deliverance only from heaven. that our readers may distinctly understand all the circumstances of the event which we are about imperfectly to describe, it is necessary to state the relative positions of the parties who were engaged in it. the old clergyman and schalken were in the ante-room of which we have already spoken; rose lay in the inner chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side of the bed, at her urgent desire, stood her guardian; a candle burned in the bedchamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. the old man now cleared his voice, as if about to commence; but before he had time to begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to illuminate the room in which the poor girl lay, and she with hurried alarm, exclaimed: "godfrey, bring in another candle; the darkness is unsafe." gerard douw, forgetting for the moment her repeated injunctions in the immediate impulse, stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in order to supply what she desired. "o god! do not go, dear uncle!" shrieked the unhappy girl; and at the same time she sprang from the bed and darted after him, in order, by her grasp, to detain him. but the warning came too late, for scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter the startling exclamation, when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung to by a strong blast of wind. schalken and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much as to shake it. shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing terror. schalken and douw applied every energy and strained every nerve to force open the door; but all in vain. there was no sound of struggling from within, but the screams seemed to increase in loudness, and at the same time they heard the bolts of the latticed window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill as if thrown open. one last shriek, so long and piercing and agonized as to be scarcely human, swelled from the room, and suddenly there followed a death-like silence. a light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed to the window; and almost at the same instant the door gave way, and yielding to the pressure of the external applicants, they were nearly precipitated into the room. it was empty. the window was open, and schalken sprang to a chair and gazed out upon the street and at the canal below. he saw no form, but he beheld, or thought he beheld, the waters of the broad canal beneath settling ring after ring in heavy circular ripples, as if a moment before disturbed by the immersion of some large and heavy mass. no trace of rose was ever after discovered, nor was anything certain respecting her mysterious wooer detected or even suspected; no clue whereby to trace the intricacies of the labyrinth, and to arrive at a distinct conclusion was to be found. but an incident occurred, which, though it will not be received by our rational readers as at all approaching to evidence upon the matter, nevertheless produced a strong and a lasting impression upon the mind of schalken. [illustration: the waters of the broad canal beneath settling ring after ring in heavy circular ripples.] many years after the events which we have detailed, schalken, then remotely situated, received an intimation of his father's death, and of his intended burial upon a fixed day in the church of rotterdam. it was necessary that a very considerable journey should be performed by the funeral procession, which, as it will readily be believed, was not very numerously attended. schalken with difficulty arrived in rotterdam late in the day upon which the funeral was appointed to take place. the procession had not then arrived. evening closed in, and still it did not appear. schalken strolled down to the church--he found it open; notice of the arrival of the funeral had been given, and the vault in which the body was to be laid had been opened. the official who corresponds to our sexton, on seeing a well-dressed gentleman, whose object was to attend the expected funeral, pacing the aisle of the church, hospitably invited him to share with him the comforts of a blazing wood fire, which as was his custom in winter time upon such occasions, he had kindled on the hearth of a chamber which communicated by a flight of steps with the vault below. in this chamber schalken and his entertainer seated themselves; and the sexton, after some fruitless attempts to engage his guest in conversation, was obliged to apply himself to his tobacco-pipe and can to solace his solitude. in spite of his grief and cares, the fatigues of a rapid journey of nearly forty hours gradually overcame the mind and body of godfrey schalken, and he sank into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened by some one shaking him gently by the shoulder. he first thought that the old sexton had called him, but _he_ was no longer in the room. he roused himself, and as soon as he could clearly see what was around him, he perceived a female form, clothed in a kind of light robe of muslin, part of which was so disposed as to act as a veil, and in her hand she carried a lamp. she was moving rather away from him, and towards the flight of steps which conducted towards the vaults. schalken felt a vague alarm at the sight of this figure, and at the same time an irresistible impulse to follow its guidance. he followed it towards the vaults, but when it reached the head of the stairs, he paused; the figure paused also, and turning gently round, displayed, by the light of the lamp it carried, the face and features of his first love, rose velderkaust. there was nothing horrible, or even sad, in the countenance. on the contrary, it wore the same arch smile which used to enchant the artist long before in his happy days. a feeling of awe and of interest, too intense to be resisted, prompted him to follow the spectre, if spectre it were. she descended the stairs--he followed; and, turning to the left, through a narrow passage she led him, to his infinite surprise, into what appeared to be an old-fashioned dutch apartment, such as the pictures of gerard douw have served to immortalize. abundance of costly antique furniture was disposed about the room, and in one corner stood a four-post bed, with heavy black cloth curtains around it. the figure frequently turned towards him with the same arch smile; and when she came to the side of the bed, she drew the curtains, and by the light of the lamp which she held towards its contents, she disclosed to the horror-stricken painter, sitting bolt upright in the bed, the livid and demoniac form of vanderhausen. schalken had hardly seen him when he fell senseless upon the floor, where he lay until discovered, on the next morning, by persons employed in closing the passages into the vaults. he was lying in a cell of considerable size, which had not been disturbed for a long time, and he had fallen beside a large coffin which was supported upon small stone pillars, a security against the attacks of vermin. to his dying day schalken was satisfied of the reality of the vision which he had witnessed, and he has left behind him a curious evidence of the impression which it wrought upon his fancy, in a painting executed shortly after the event we have narrated, and which is valuable as exhibiting not only the peculiarities which have made schalken's pictures sought after, but even more so as presenting a portrait, as close and faithful as one taken from memory can be, of his early love, rose velderkaust, whose mysterious fate must ever remain matter of speculation. [illustration: she drew the curtains.] the picture represents a chamber of antique masonry, such as might be found in most old cathedrals, and is lighted faintly by a lamp carried in the hand of a female figure, such as we have above attempted to describe; and in the background, and to the left of him who examines the painting, there stands the form of a man apparently aroused from sleep, and by his attitude, his hand being laid upon his sword, exhibiting considerable alarm; this last figure is illuminated only by the expiring glare of a wood or charcoal fire. the whole production exhibits a beautiful specimen of that artful and singular distribution of light and shade which has rendered the name of schalken immortal among the artists of his country. this tale is traditionary, and the reader will easily perceive, by our studiously omitting to heighten many points of the narrative, when a little additional colouring might have added effect to the recital, that we have desired to lay before him, not a figment of the brain, but a curious tradition connected with, and belonging to, the biography of a famous artist. [illustration] the fortunes of sir robert ardagh. "the earth hath bubbles as the water hath-- and these are of them." in the south of ireland, and on the borders of the county of limerick, there lies a district of two or three miles in length, which is rendered interesting by the fact that it is one of the very few spots throughout this country in which some vestiges of aboriginal forests still remain. it has little or none of the lordly character of the american forest, for the axe has felled its oldest and its grandest trees; but in the close wood which survives live all the wild and pleasing peculiarities of nature: its complete irregularity, its vistas, in whose perspective the quiet cattle are browsing; its refreshing glades, where the grey rocks arise from amid the nodding fern; the silvery shafts of the old birch-trees; the knotted trunks of the hoary oak, the grotesque but graceful branches which never shed their honours under the tyrant pruning-hook; the soft green sward; the chequered light and shade; the wild luxuriant weeds; the lichen and the moss--all are beautiful alike in the green freshness of spring or in the sadness and sere of autumn. their beauty is of that kind which makes the heart full with joy--appealing to the affections with a power which belongs to nature only. this wood runs up, from below the base, to the ridge of a long line of irregular hills, having perhaps, in primitive times, formed but the skirting of some mighty forest which occupied the level below. but now, alas! whither have we drifted? whither has the tide of civilization borne us? it has passed over a land unprepared for it--it has left nakedness behind it; we have lost our forests, but our marauders remain; we have destroyed all that is picturesque, while we have retained everything that is revolting in barbarism. through the midst of this woodland there runs a deep gully or glen, where the stillness of the scene is broken in upon by the brawling of a mountain-stream, which, however, in the winter season, swells into a rapid and formidable torrent. there is one point at which the glen becomes extremely deep and narrow; the sides descend to the depth of some hundred feet, and are so steep as to be nearly perpendicular. the wild trees which have taken root in the crannies and chasms of the rock are so intersected and entangled, that one can with difficulty catch a glimpse of the stream which wheels, flashes, and foams below, as if exulting in the surrounding silence and solitude. this spot was not unwisely chosen, as a point of no ordinary strength, for the erection of a massive square tower or keep, one side of which rises as if in continuation of the precipitous cliff on which it is based. originally, the only mode of ingress was by a narrow portal in the very wall which overtopped the precipice, opening upon a ledge of rock which afforded a precarious pathway, cautiously intersected, however, by a deep trench cut out with great labour in the living rock; so that, in its pristine state, and before the introduction of artillery into the art of war, this tower might have been pronounced, and that not presumptuously, impregnable. the progress of improvement and the increasing security of the times had, however, tempted its successive proprietors, if not to adorn, at least to enlarge their premises, and about the middle of the last century, when the castle was last inhabited, the original square tower formed but a small part of the edifice. the castle, and a wide tract of the surrounding country, had from time immemorial belonged to a family which, for distinctness, we shall call by the name of ardagh; and owing to the associations which, in ireland, almost always attach to scenes which have long witnessed alike the exercise of stern feudal authority, and of that savage hospitality which distinguished the good old times, this building has become the subject and the scene of many wild and extraordinary traditions. one of them i have been enabled, by a personal acquaintance with an eye-witness of the events, to trace to its origin; and yet it is hard to say whether the events which i am about to record appear more strange and improbable as seen through the distorting medium of tradition, or in the appalling dimness of uncertainty which surrounds the reality. tradition says that, sometime in the last century, sir robert ardagh, a young man, and the last heir of that family, went abroad and served in foreign armies; and that, having acquired considerable honour and emolument, he settled at castle ardagh, the building we have just now attempted to describe. he was what the country people call a _dark_ man; that is, he was considered morose, reserved, and ill-tempered; and, as it was supposed from the utter solitude of his life, was upon no terms of cordiality with the other members of his family. the only occasion upon which he broke through the solitary monotony of his life was during the continuance of the racing season, and immediately subsequent to it; at which time he was to be seen among the busiest upon the course, betting deeply and unhesitatingly, and invariably with success. sir robert was, however, too well known as a man of honour, and of too high a family, to be suspected of any unfair dealing. he was, moreover, a soldier, and a man of intrepid as well as of a haughty character; and no one cared to hazard a surmise, the consequences of which would be felt most probably by its originator only. gossip, however, was not silent; it was remarked that sir robert never appeared at the race-ground, which was the only place of public resort which he frequented, except in company with a certain strange-looking person, who was never seen elsewhere, or under other circumstances. it was remarked, too, that this man, whose relation to sir robert was never distinctly ascertained, was the only person to whom he seemed to speak unnecessarily; it was observed that while with the country gentry he exchanged no further communication than what was unavoidable in arranging his sporting transactions, with this person he would converse earnestly and frequently. tradition asserts that, to enhance the curiosity which this unaccountable and exclusive preference excited, the stranger possessed some striking and unpleasant peculiarities of person and of garb--though it is not stated, however, what these were--but they, in conjunction with sir robert's secluded habits and extraordinary run of luck--a success which was supposed to result from the suggestions and immediate advice of the unknown--were sufficient to warrant report in pronouncing that there was something _queer_ in the wind, and in surmising that sir robert was playing a fearful and a hazardous game, and that, in short, his strange companion was little better than the devil himself. years rolled quietly away, and nothing very novel occurred in the arrangements of castle ardagh, excepting that sir robert parted with his odd companion, but as nobody could tell whence he came, so nobody could say whither he had gone. sir robert's habits, however, underwent no consequent change; he continued regularly to frequent the race meetings, without mixing at all in the convivialities of the gentry, and immediately afterwards to relapse into the secluded monotony of his ordinary life. it was said that he had accumulated vast sums of money--and, as his bets were always successful and always large, such must have been the case. he did not suffer the acquisition of wealth, however, to influence his hospitality or his house-keeping--he neither purchased land, nor extended his establishment; and his mode of enjoying his money must have been altogether that of the miser--consisting merely in the pleasure of touching and telling his gold, and in the consciousness of wealth. sir robert's temper, so far from improving, became more than ever gloomy and morose. he sometimes carried the indulgence of his evil dispositions to such a height that it bordered upon insanity. during these paroxysms he would neither eat, drink, nor sleep. on such occasions he insisted on perfect privacy, even from the intrusion of his most trusted servants; his voice was frequently heard, sometimes in earnest supplication, sometimes raised, as if in loud and angry altercation with some unknown visitant. sometimes he would for hours together walk to and fro throughout the long oak-wainscoted apartment which he generally occupied, with wild gesticulations and agitated pace, in the manner of one who has been roused to a state of unnatural excitement by some sudden and appalling intimation. these paroxysms of apparent lunacy were so frightful, that during their continuance even his oldest and most faithful domestics dared not approach him; consequently his hours of agony were never intruded upon, and the mysterious causes of his sufferings appeared likely to remain hidden for ever. on one occasion a fit of this kind continued for an unusual time; the ordinary term of their duration--about two days--had been long past, and the old servant who generally waited upon sir robert after these visitations, having in vain listened for the well-known tinkle of his master's hand-bell, began to feel extremely anxious; he feared that his master might have died from sheer exhaustion, or perhaps put an end to his own existence during his miserable depression. these fears at length became so strong, that having in vain urged some of his brother servants to accompany him, he determined to go up alone, and himself see whether any accident had befallen sir robert. he traversed the several passages which conducted from the new to the more ancient parts of the mansion, and having arrived in the old hall of the castle, the utter silence of the hour--for it was very late in the night--the idea of the nature of the enterprise in which he was engaging himself, a sensation of remoteness from anything like human companionship, but, more than all, the vivid but undefined anticipation of something horrible, came upon him with such oppressive weight that he hesitated as to whether he should proceed. real uneasiness, however, respecting the fate of his master, for whom he felt that kind of attachment which the force of habitual intercourse not unfrequently engenders respecting objects not in themselves amiable, and also a latent unwillingness to expose his weakness to the ridicule of his fellow-servants, combined to overcome his reluctance; and he had just placed his foot upon the first step of the staircase which conducted to his master's chamber, when his attention was arrested by a low but distinct knocking at the hall-door. not, perhaps, very sorry at finding thus an excuse even for deferring his intended expedition, he placed the candle upon a stone block which lay in the hall and approached the door, uncertain whether his ears had not deceived him. this doubt was justified by the circumstance that the hall entrance had been for nearly fifty years disused as a mode of ingress to the castle. the situation of this gate also, which we have endeavoured to describe, opening upon a narrow ledge of rock which overhangs a perilous cliff, rendered it at all times, but particularly at night, a dangerous entrance. this shelving platform of rock, which formed the only avenue to the door, was divided, as i have already stated, by a broad chasm, the planks across which had long disappeared, by decay or otherwise; so that it seemed at least highly improbable that any man could have found his way across the passage in safety to the door, more particularly on a night like this, of singular darkness. the old man, therefore, listened attentively, to ascertain whether the first application should be followed by another. he had not long to wait. the same low but singularly distinct knocking was repeated; so low that it seemed as if the applicant had employed no harder or heavier instrument than his hand, and yet, despite the immense thickness of the door, with such strength that the sound was distinctly audible. the knock was repeated a third time, without any increase of loudness; and the old man, obeying an impulse for which to his dying hour he could never account, proceeded to remove, one by one, the three great oaken bars which secured the door. time and damp had effectually corroded the iron chambers of the lock, so that it afforded little resistance. with some effort, as he believed, assisted from without, the old servant succeeded in opening the door; and a low, square-built figure, apparently that of a man wrapped in a large black cloak, entered the hall. the servant could not see much of this visitor with any distinctness; his dress appeared foreign, the skirt of his ample cloak was thrown over one shoulder; he wore a large felt hat, with a very heavy leaf, from under which escaped what appeared to be a mass of long sooty-black hair; his feet were cased in heavy riding-boots. such were the few particulars which the servant had time and light to observe. the stranger desired him to let his master know instantly that a friend had come, by appointment, to settle some business with him. the servant hesitated, but a slight motion on the part of his visitor, as if to possess himself of the candle, determined him; so, taking it in his hand, he ascended the castle stairs, leaving the guest in the hall. [illustration: he paused, but there was no sound.] on reaching the apartment which opened upon the oak-chamber he was surprised to observe the door of that room partly open, and the room itself lit up. he paused, but there was no sound; he looked in, and saw sir robert, his head and the upper part of his body reclining on a table, upon which two candles burned; his arms were stretched forward on either side, and perfectly motionless; it appeared that, having been sitting at the table, he had thus sunk forward, either dead or in a swoon. there was no sound of breathing; all was silent, except the sharp ticking of a watch, which lay beside the lamp. the servant coughed twice or thrice, but with no effect; his fears now almost amounted to certainty, and he was approaching the table on which his master partly lay, to satisfy himself of his death, when sir robert slowly raised his head, and, throwing himself back in his chair, fixed his eyes in a ghastly and uncertain gaze upon his attendant. at length he said, slowly and painfully, as if he dreaded the answer,-- "in god's name, what are you?" "sir," said the servant, "a strange gentleman wants to see you below." at this intimation sir robert, starting to his feet and tossing his arms wildly upwards, uttered a shriek of such appalling and despairing terror that it was almost too fearful for human endurance; and long after the sound had ceased it seemed to the terrified imagination of the old servant to roll through the deserted passages in bursts of unnatural laughter. after a few moments sir robert said,-- "can't you send him away? why does he come so soon? o merciful powers! let him leave me for an hour; a little time. i can't see him now; try to get him away. you see i can't go down now; i have not strength. o god! o god! let him come back in an hour; it is not long to wait. he cannot lose anything by it; nothing, nothing, nothing. tell him that! say anything to him." the servant went down. in his own words, he did not feel the stairs under him till he got to the hall. the figure stood exactly as he had left it. he delivered his master's message as coherently as he could. the stranger replied in a careless tone: "if sir robert will not come down to me; i must go up to him." the man returned, and to his surprise he found his master much more composed in manner. he listened to the message, and though the cold perspiration rose in drops upon his forehead faster than he could wipe it away, his manner had lost the dreadful agitation which had marked it before. he rose feebly, and casting a last look of agony behind him, passed from the room to the lobby, where he signed to his attendant not to follow him. the man moved as far as the head of the staircase, from whence he had a tolerably distinct view of the hall, which was imperfectly lighted by the candle he had left there. he saw his master reel, rather than walk, down the stairs, clinging all the way to the banisters. he walked on, as if about to sink every moment from weakness. the figure advanced as if to meet him, and in passing struck down the light. the servant could see no more; but there was a sound of struggling, renewed at intervals with silent but fearful energy. it was evident, however, that the parties were approaching the door, for he heard the solid oak sound twice or thrice, as the feet of the combatants, in shuffling hither and thither over the floor, struck upon it. after a slight pause, he heard the door thrown open with such violence that the leaf seemed to strike the side-wall of the hall, for it was so dark without that this could only be surmised by the sound. the struggle was renewed with an agony and intenseness of energy that betrayed itself in deep-drawn gasps. one desperate effort, which terminated in the breaking of some part of the door, producing a sound as if the door-post was wrenched from its position, was followed by another wrestle, evidently upon the narrow ledge which ran outside the door, overtopping the precipice. this proved to be the final struggle; it was followed by a crashing sound as if some heavy body had fallen over, and was rushing down the precipice through the light boughs that crossed near the top. all then became still as the grave, except when the moan of the night-wind sighed up the wooded glen. the old servant had not nerve to return through the hall, and to him the darkness seemed all but endless; but morning at length came, and with it the disclosure of the events of the night. near the door, upon the ground, lay sir robert's sword-belt, which had given way in the scuffle. a huge splinter from the massive door-post had been wrenched off by an almost superhuman effort--one which nothing but the gripe of a despairing man could have severed--and on the rocks outside were left the marks of the slipping and sliding of feet. [illustration: at the foot of the precipice.] at the foot of the precipice, not immediately under the castle, but dragged some way up the glen, were found the remains of sir robert, with hardly a vestige of a limb or feature left distinguishable. the right hand, however, was uninjured, and in its fingers were clutched, with the fixedness of death, a long lock of coarse sooty hair--the only direct circumstantial evidence of the presence of a second person. [illustration] the dream. dreams! what age, or what country of the world, has not felt and acknowledged the mystery of their origin and end? i have thought not a little upon the subject, seeing it is one which has been often forced upon my attention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet i have never arrived at anything which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. it does appear that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be wholly without its use. we know, indeed, that in the olden times it has been made the organ of communication between the deity and his creatures; and when a dream produces upon a mind, to all appearance hopelessly reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lasting as to break down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of an abandoned sinner, we see in the result, in the reformation of morals which appeared incorrigible, in the reclamation of a human soul which seemed to be irretrievably lost, something more than could be produced by a mere chimera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could arise from the capricious images of a terrified imagination. and while reason rejects as absurd the superstition which will read a prophecy in every dream, she may, without violence to herself, recognize, even in the wildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering intellect, the evidences and the fragments of a language which may be spoken, which _has_ been spoken, to terrify, to warn and to command. we have reason to believe too, by the promptness of action which in the age of the prophets followed all intimations of this kind, and by the strength of conviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting from certain dreams in latter times--which effects we ourselves may have witnessed--that when this medium of communication has been employed by the deity, the evidences of his presence have been unequivocal. my thoughts were directed to this subject in a manner to leave a lasting impression upon my mind, by the events which i shall now relate, the statement of which, however extraordinary, is nevertheless accurate. about the year --, having been appointed to the living of c----h, i rented a small house in the town which bears the same name: one morning in the month of november, i was awakened before my usual time by my servant, who bustled into my bedroom for the purpose of announcing a sick call. as the catholic church holds her last rites to be totally indispensable to the safety of the departing sinner, no conscientious clergyman can afford a moment's unnecessary delay, and in little more than five minutes i stood ready, cloaked and booted for the road, in the small front parlour in which the messenger, who was to act as my guide, awaited my coming. i found a poor little girl crying piteously near the door, and after some slight difficulty i ascertained that her father was either dead or just dying. "and what may be your father's name, my poor child?" said i. she held down her head as if ashamed. i repeated the question, and the wretched little creature burst into floods of tears still more bitter than she had shed before. at length, almost angered by conduct which appeared to me so unreasonable, i began to lose patience, and i said rather harshly,-- "if you will not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead me, your silence can arise from no good motive, and i might be justified in refusing to go with you at all." "oh, don't say that--don't say that!" cried she. "oh, sir, it was that i was afeard of when i would not tell you--i was afeard, when you heard his name, you would not come with me; but it is no use hidin' it now--it's pat connell, the carpenter, your honour." she looked in my face with the most earnest anxiety, as if her very existence depended upon what she should read there. i relieved the child at once. the name, indeed, was most unpleasantly familiar to me; but, however fruitless my visits and advice might have been at another time, the present was too fearful an occasion to suffer my doubts of their utility, or my reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless task, to weigh even against the lightest chance that a consciousness of his imminent danger might produce in him a more docile and tractable disposition. accordingly i told the child to lead the way, and followed her in silence. she hurried rapidly through the long narrow street which forms the great thoroughfare of the town. the darkness of the hour, rendered still deeper by the close approach of the old-fashioned houses, which lowered in tall obscurity on either side of the way; the damp, dreary chill which renders the advance of morning peculiarly cheerless, combined with the object of my walk--to visit the death-bed of a presumptuous sinner, to endeavour, almost against my own conviction, to infuse a hope into the heart of a dying reprobate--a drunkard but too probably perishing under the consequences of some mad fit of intoxication; all these circumstances served to enhance the gloom and solemnity of my feelings, as i silently followed my little guide, who with quick steps traversed the uneven pavement of the main street. after a walk of about five minutes, she turned off into a narrow lane, of that obscure and comfortless class which is to be found in almost all small old-fashioned towns, chill, without ventilation, reeking with all manner of offensive effluviæ, and lined by dingy, smoky, sickly and pent-up buildings, frequently not only in a wretched but in a dangerous condition. "your father has changed his abode since i last visited him, and, i am afraid, much for the worse," said i. "indeed he has, sir; but we must not complain," replied she. "we have to thank god that we have lodging and food, though it's poor enough, it is, your honour." poor child! thought i. how many an older head might learn wisdom from thee--how many a luxurious philosopher, who is skilled to preach but not to suffer, might not thy patient words put to the blush! the manner and language of my companion were alike above her years and station; and, indeed, in all cases in which the cares and sorrows of life have anticipated their usual date, and have fallen, as they sometimes do, with melancholy prematurity to the lot of childhood, i have observed the result to have proved uniformly the same. a young mind, to which joy and indulgence have been strangers, and to which suffering and self-denial have been familiarized from the first, acquires a solidity and an elevation which no other discipline could have bestowed, and which, in the present case, communicated a striking but mournful peculiarity to the manners, even to the voice, of the child. we paused before a narrow, crazy door, which she opened by means of a latch, and we forthwith began to ascend the steep and broken stairs which led to the sick man's room. as we mounted flight after flight towards the garret-floor, i heard more and more distinctly the hurried talking of many voices. i could also distinguish the low sobbing of a female. on arriving upon the uppermost lobby, these sounds became fully audible. "this way, your honour," said my little conductress; at the same time, pushing open a door of patched and half-rotten plank, she admitted me into the squalid chamber of death and misery. but one candle, held in the fingers of a scared and haggard-looking child, was burning in the room, and that so dim that all was twilight or darkness except within its immediate influence. the general obscurity, however, served to throw into prominent and startling relief the death-bed and its occupant. the light fell with horrible clearness upon the blue and swollen features of the drunkard. i did not think it possible that a human countenance could look so terrific. the lips were black and drawn apart; the teeth were firmly set; the eyes a little unclosed, and nothing but the whites appearing. every feature was fixed and livid, and the whole face wore a ghastly and rigid expression of despairing terror such as i never saw equalled. his hands were crossed upon his breast, and firmly clenched; while, as if to add to the corpse-like effect of the whole, some white cloths, dipped in water, were wound about the forehead and temples. as soon as i could remove my eyes from this horrible spectacle, i observed my friend dr. d----, one of the most humane of a humane profession, standing by the bedside. he had been attempting, but unsuccessfully, to bleed the patient, and had now applied his finger to the pulse. "is there any hope?" i inquired in a whisper. a shake of the head was the reply. there was a pause, while he continued to hold the wrist; but he waited in vain for the throb of life--it was not there: and when he let go the hand, it fell stiffly back into its former position upon the other. "the man is dead," said the physician, as he turned from the bed where the terrible figure lay. dead! thought i, scarcely venturing to look upon the tremendous and revolting spectacle. dead! without an hour for repentance, even a moment for reflection. dead! without the rites which even the best should have. was there a hope for him? the glaring eyeball, the grinning mouth, the distorted brow--that unutterable look in which a painter would have sought to embody the fixed despair of the nethermost hell--these were my answer. the poor wife sat at a little distance, crying as if her heart would break--the younger children clustered round the bed, looking with wondering curiosity upon the form of death, never seen before. when the first tumult of uncontrollable sorrow had passed away, availing myself of the solemnity and impressiveness of the scene, i desired the heart-stricken family to accompany me in prayer, and all knelt down while i solemnly and fervently repeated some of those prayers which appeared most applicable to the occasion. i employed myself thus in a manner which i trusted was not unprofitable, at least to the living, for about ten minutes; and having accomplished my task, i was the first to arise. i looked upon the poor, sobbing, helpless creatures who knelt so humbly around me, and my heart bled for them. with a natural transition i turned my eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay; and, great god! what was the revulsion, the horror which i experienced on seeing the corpse-like, terrific thing seated half upright before me. the white cloths which had been wound about the head had now partly slipped from their position, and were hanging in grotesque festoons about the face and shoulders, while the distorted eyes leered from amid them-- "a sight to dream of, not to tell." i stood actually riveted to the spot. the figure nodded its head and lifted its arm, i thought, with a menacing gesture. a thousand confused and horrible thoughts at once rushed upon my mind. i had often read that the body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the willing creature of every satanic impulse, had been known, after the human tenant had deserted it, to become the horrible sport of demoniac possession. i was roused by the piercing scream of the mother, who now, for the first time, perceived the change which had taken place. she rushed towards the bed, but, stunned by the shock and overcome by the conflict of violent emotions, before she reached it she fell prostrate upon the floor. i am perfectly convinced that had i not been startled from the torpidity of horror in which i was bound by some powerful and arousing stimulant, i should have gazed upon this unearthly apparition until i had fairly lost my senses. as it was, however, the spell was broken--superstition gave way to reason: the man whom all believed to have been actually dead was living! dr. d---- was instantly standing by the bedside, and upon examination he found that a sudden and copious flow of blood had taken place from the wound which the lancet had left; and this, no doubt, had effected his sudden and almost preternatural restoration to an existence from which all thought he had been for ever removed. the man was still speechless, but he seemed to understand the physician when he forbade his repeating the painful and fruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he at once resigned himself quietly into his hands. i left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleeding freely, apparently with little of the drowsiness which accompanies apoplexy. indeed, dr. d---- told me that he had never before witnessed a seizure which seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yet which belonged to none of the recognized classes; it certainly was not apoplexy, catalepsy, nor _delirium tremens_, and yet it seemed, in some degree, to partake of the properties of all. it was strange, but stranger things are coming. during two or three days dr. d---- would not allow his patient to converse in a manner which could excite or exhaust him, with anyone; he suffered him merely as briefly as possible to express his immediate wants. and it was not until the fourth day after my early visit, the particulars of which i have just detailed, that it was thought expedient that i should see him, and then only because it appeared that his extreme importunity and impatience to meet me were likely to retard his recovery more than the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short conversation could possibly do. perhaps, too, my friend entertained some hope that if by holy confession his patient's bosom were eased of the perilous stuff which no doubt oppressed it, his recovery would be more assured and rapid. it was then, as i have said, upon the fourth day after my first professional call, that i found myself once more in the dreary chamber of want and sickness. the man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. on my entering the room he raised himself in the bed, and muttered, twice or thrice,-- "thank god! thank god!" i signed to those of his family who stood by to leave the room, and took a chair beside the bed. so soon as we were alone, he said, rather doggedly,-- "there's no use in telling me of the sinfulness of bad ways--i know it all. i know where they lead to--i have seen everything about it with my own eyesight, as plain as i see you." he rolled himself in the bed, as if to hide his face in the clothes; and then suddenly raising himself, he exclaimed with startling vehemence, "look, sir! there is no use in mincing the matter: i'm blasted with the fires of hell; i have been in hell. what do you think of that? in hell--i'm lost for ever--i have not a chance. i am damned already--damned--damned!" the end of this sentence he actually shouted. his vehemence was perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and laughed, and sobbed hysterically. i poured some water into a tea-cup, and gave it to him. after he had swallowed it, i told him if he had anything to communicate, to do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner as little agitating to himself as possible; threatening at the same time, though i had no intention of doing so, to leave him at once in case he again gave way to such passionate excitement. "it's only foolishness," he continued, "for me to try to thank you for coming to such a villain as myself at all. it's no use for me to wish good to you, or to bless you; for such as me has no blessings to give." i told him that i had but done my duty, and urged him to proceed to the matter which weighed upon his mind. he then spoke nearly as follows:-- "i came in drunk on friday night last, and got to my bed here; i don't remember how. sometime in the night it seemed to me i wakened, and feeling unasy in myself, i got up out of the bed. i wanted the fresh air; but i would not make a noise to open the window, for fear i'd waken the crathurs. it was very dark and throublesome to find the door; but at last i did get it, and i groped my way out, and went down as asy as i could. i felt quite sober, and i counted the steps one after another, as i was going down, that i might not stumble at the bottom. "when i came to the first landing-place--god be about us always!--the floor of it sunk under me, and i went down--down--down, till the senses almost left me. i do not know how long i was falling, but it seemed to me a great while. when i came rightly to myself at last, i was sitting near the top of a great table; and i could not see the end of it, if it had any, it was so far off. and there was men beyond reckoning sitting down all along by it, at each side, as far as i could see at all. i did not know at first was it in the open air; but there was a close smothering feel in it that was not natural. and there was a kind of light that my eyesight never saw before, red and unsteady; and i did not see for a long time where it was coming from, until i looked straight up, and then i seen that it came from great balls of blood-coloured fire that were rolling high overhead with a sort of rushing, trembling sound, and i perceived that they shone on the ribs of a great roof of rock that was arched overhead instead of the sky. when i seen this, scarce knowing what i did, i got up, and i said, 'i have no right to be here; i must go.' and the man that was sitting at my left hand only smiled, and said, 'sit down again; you can _never_ leave this place.' and his voice was weaker than any child's voice i ever heerd; and when he was done speaking he smiled again. "then i spoke out very loud and bold, and i said, 'in the name of god, let me out of this bad place.' and there was a great man that i did not see before, sitting at the end of the table that i was near; and he was taller than twelve men, and his face was very proud and terrible to look at. and he stood up and stretched out his hand before him; and when he stood up, all that was there, great and small, bowed down with a sighing sound; and a dread came on my heart, and he looked at me, and i could not speak. i felt i was his own, to do what he liked with, for i knew at once who he was; and he said, 'if you promise to return, you may depart for a season;' and the voice he spoke with was terrible and mournful, and the echoes of it went rolling and swelling down the endless cave, and mixing with the trembling of the fire overhead; so that when he sat down there was a sound after him, all through the place, like the roaring of a furnace. and i said, with all the strength i had, 'i promise to come back--in god's name let me go!' "and with that i lost the sight and the hearing of all that was there, and when my senses came to me again, i was sitting in the bed with the blood all over me, and you and the rest praying around the room." here he paused, and wiped away the chill drops which hung upon his forehead. i remained silent for some moments. the vision which he had just described struck my imagination not a little, for this was long before vathek and the "hall of eblis" had delighted the world; and the description which he gave had, as i received it, all the attractions of novelty beside the impressiveness which always belongs to the narration of an _eye-witness_, whether in the body or in the spirit, of the scenes which he describes. there was something, too, in the stern horror with which the man related these things, and in the incongruity of his description with the vulgarly received notions of the great place of punishment, and of its presiding spirit, which struck my mind with awe, almost with fear. at length he said, with an expression of horrible, imploring earnestness, which i shall never forget,-- "well, sir, is there any hope; is there any chance at all? or is my soul pledged and promised away for ever? is it gone out of my power? must i go back to the place?" in answering him, i had no easy task to perform; for however clear might be my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his fears, and however strong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had described, i nevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and his humility and terror resulting from it, might be made available as no mean engines in the work of his conversion from profligacy, and of his restoration to decent habits and to religious feeling. i therefore told him that he was to regard his dream rather in the light of a warning than in that of a prophecy; that our salvation depended not upon the word or deed of a moment, but upon the habits of a life; that, in fine, if he at once discarded his idle companions and evil habits, and firmly adhered to a sober, industrious, and religious course of life, the powers of darkness might claim his soul in vain, for that there were higher and firmer pledges than human tongue could utter, which promised salvation to him who should repent and lead a new life. i left him much comforted, and with a promise to return upon the next day. i did so, and found him much more cheerful, and without any remains of the dogged sullenness which i suppose had arisen from his despair. his promises of amendment were given in that tone of deliberate earnestness which belongs to deep and solemn determination; and it was with no small delight that i observed, after repeated visits, that his good resolutions, so far from failing, did but gather strength by time; and when i saw that man shake off the idle and debauched companions whose society had for years formed alike his amusement and his ruin, and revive his long-discarded habits of industry and sobriety, i said within myself, there is something more in all this than the operation of an idle dream. one day, some time after his perfect restoration to health, i was surprised, on ascending the stairs for the purpose of visiting this man, to find him busily employed in nailing down some planks upon the landing-place, through which, at the commencement of his mysterious vision, it seemed to him that he had sunk. i perceived at once that he was strengthening the floor with a view to securing himself against such a catastrophe, and could scarcely forbear a smile as i bid "god bless his work." he perceived my thoughts, i suppose, for he immediately said: "i can never pass over that floor without trembling. i'd leave this house if i could, but i can't find another lodging in the town so cheap, and i'll not take a better till i've paid off all my debts, please god; but i could not be asy in my mind till i made it as safe as i could. you'll hardly believe me, your honour, that while i'm working, maybe a mile away, my heart is in a flutter the whole way back, with the bare thoughts of the two little steps i have to walk upon this bit of a floor. so it's no wonder, sir, i'd thry to make it sound and firm with any idle timber i have." i applauded his resolution to pay off his debts, and the steadiness with which he perused his plans of conscientious economy, and passed on. many months elapsed, and still there appeared no alteration in his resolutions of amendment. he was a good workman, and with his better habits he recovered his former extensive and profitable employment. everything seemed to promise comfort and respectability. i have little more to add, and that shall be told quickly. i had one evening met pat connell, as he returned from his work, and as usual, after a mutual, and on his side respectful salutation, i spoke a few words of encouragement and approval. i left him industrious, active, healthy--when next i saw him, not three days after, he was a corpse. the circumstances which marked the event of his death were somewhat strange--i might say fearful. the unfortunate man had accidentally met an old friend just returned, after a long absence; and in a moment of excitement, forgetting everything in the warmth of his joy, he yielded to his urgent invitation to accompany him into a public house, which lay close by the spot where the encounter had taken place. connell, however, previously to entering the room, had announced his determination to take nothing more than the strictest temperance would warrant. but oh! who can describe the inveterate tenacity with which a drunkard's habits cling to him through life? he may repent, he may reform, he may look with actual abhorrence upon his past profligacy; but amid all this reformation and compunction, who can tell the moment in which the base and ruinous propensity may not recur, triumphing over resolution, remorse, shame, everything, and prostrating its victim once more in all that is destructive and revolting in that fatal vice? the wretched man left the place in a state of utter intoxication. he was brought home nearly insensible, and placed in his bed. the younger part of the family retired to rest much after their usual hour; but the poor wife remained up sitting by the fire, too much grieved and shocked at the occurrence of what she had so little expected, to settle to rest. fatigue, however, at length overcame her, and she sank gradually into an uneasy slumber. she could not tell how long she had remained in this state; but when she awakened, and immediately on opening her eyes, she perceived by the faint red light of the smouldering turf embers, two persons, one of whom she recognized as her husband, noiselessly gliding out of the room. "pat, darling, where are you going?" said she. there was no answer--the door closed after them; but in a moment she was startled and terrified by a loud and heavy crash, as if some ponderous body had been hurled down the stair. [illustration: noiselessly gliding out of the room.] much alarmed, she started up, and going to the head of the staircase, she called repeatedly upon her husband, but in vain. she returned to the room, and with the assistance of her daughter, whom i had occasion to mention before, she succeeded in finding and lighting a candle, with which she hurried again to the head of the staircase. at the bottom lay what seemed to be a bundle of clothes, heaped together, motionless, lifeless--it was her husband. in going down the stairs, for what purpose can never now be known, he had fallen helplessly and violently to the bottom, and coming head foremost, the spine of the neck had been dislocated by the shock, and instant death must have ensued. the body lay upon that landing-place to which his dream had referred. it is scarcely worth endeavouring to clear up a single point in a narrative where all is mystery; yet i could not help suspecting that the second figure which had been seen in the room by connell's wife on the night of his death might have been no other than his own shadow. i suggested this solution of the difficulty; but she told me that the unknown person had been considerably in advance of her husband, and on reaching the door, had turned back as if to communicate something to his companion. it was, then, a mystery. [illustration: at the foot of the stairs.] was the dream verified?--whither had the disembodied spirit sped? who can say? we know not. but i left the house of death that day in a state of horror which i could not describe. it seemed to me that i was scarce awake. i heard and saw everything as if under the spell of a nightmare. the coincidence was terrible. [illustration] a chapter in the history of a tyrone family in the following narrative i have endeavoured to give as nearly as possible the _ipsissima verba_ of the valued friend from whom i received it, conscious that any aberration from _her_ mode of telling the tale of her own life would at once impair its accuracy and its effect. would that, with her words, i could also bring before you her animated gesture, the expressive countenance, the solemn and thrilling air and accent with which she related the dark passages in her strange story; and, above all, that i could communicate the impressive consciousness that the narrator had seen with her own eyes, and personally acted in the scenes which she described. these accompaniments, taken with the additional circumstance that she who told the tale was one far too deeply and sadly impressed with religious principle to misrepresent or fabricate what she repeated as fact, gave to the tale a depth of interest which the recording of the events themselves could hardly have produced. i became acquainted with the lady from whose lips i heard this narrative nearly twenty years since, and the story struck my fancy so much that i committed it to paper while it was still fresh in my mind; and should its perusal afford you entertainment for a listless half hour, my labour shall not have been bestowed in vain. i find that i have taken the story down as she told it, in the first person, and perhaps this is as it should be. she began as follows: my maiden name was richardson, the designation of a family of some distinction in the county of tyrone. i was the younger of two daughters, and we were the only children. there was a difference in our ages of nearly six years, so that i did not, in my childhood, enjoy that close companionship which sisterhood, in other circumstances, necessarily involves; and while i was still a child, my sister was married. the person upon whom she bestowed her hand was a mr. carew, a gentleman of property and consideration in the north of england. i remember well the eventful day of the wedding; the thronging carriages, the noisy menials, the loud laughter, the merry faces, and the gay dresses. such sights were then new to me, and harmonized ill with the sorrowful feelings with which i regarded the event which was to separate me from a sister whose tenderness alone had hitherto more than supplied all that i wanted in my mother's affection. the day soon arrived which was to remove the happy couple from ashtown house. the carriage stood at the hall-door, and my poor sister kissed me again and again, telling me that i should see her soon. the carriage drove away, and i gazed after it until my eyes filled with tears, and, returning slowly to my chamber, i wept more bitterly and, so to speak, more desolately, than ever i had wept before. my father had never seemed to love or to take an interest in me. he had desired a son, and i think he never thoroughly forgave me my unfortunate sex. my having come into the world at all as his child he regarded as a kind of fraudulent intrusion; and as his antipathy to me had its origin in an imperfection of mine too radical for removal, i never even hoped to stand high in his good graces. my mother was, i dare say, as fond of me as she was of anyone; but she was a woman of a masculine and a worldly cast of mind. she had no tenderness or sympathy for the weaknesses, or even for the affections, of woman's nature, and her demeanour towards me was peremptory, and often even harsh. it is not to be supposed, then, that i found in the society of my parents much to supply the loss of my sister. about a year after her marriage, we received letters from mr. carew, containing accounts of my sister's health, which, though not actually alarming, were calculated to make us seriously uneasy. the symptoms most dwelt upon were loss of appetite, and a cough. the letters concluded by intimating that he would avail himself of my father and mother's repeated invitation to spend some time at ashtown, particularly as the physician who had been consulted as to my sister's health had strongly advised a removal to her native air. there were added repeated assurances that nothing serious was apprehended, as it was supposed that a deranged state of the liver was the only source of the symptoms which at first had seemed to intimate consumption. in accordance with this announcement, my sister and mr. carew arrived in dublin, where one of my father's carriages awaited them, in readiness to start upon whatever day or hour they might choose for their departure. it was arranged that mr. carew was, as soon as the day upon which they were to leave dublin was definitely fixed, to write to my father, who intended that the two last stages should be performed by his own horses, upon whose speed and safety far more reliance might be placed than upon those of the ordinary post-horses, which were at that time, almost without exception, of the very worst order. the journey, one of about ninety miles, was to be divided; the larger portion being reserved for the second day. on sunday a letter reached us, stating that the party would leave dublin on monday, and in due course reach ashtown upon tuesday evening. tuesday came: the evening closed in, and yet no carriage; darkness came on, and still no sign of our expected visitors. hour after hour passed away, and it was now past twelve; the night was remarkably calm, scarce a breath stirring, so that any sound, such as that produced by the rapid movement of a vehicle, would have been audible at a considerable distance. for some such sound i was feverishly listening. it was, however, my father's rule to close the house at nightfall, and the window-shutters being fastened, i was unable to reconnoitre the avenue as i would have wished. it was nearly one o'clock, and we began almost to despair of seeing them upon that night, when i thought i distinguished the sound of wheels, but so remote and faint as to make me at first very uncertain. the noise approached; it became louder and clearer; it stopped for a moment. i now heard the shrill screaming of the rusty iron, as the avenue gate revolved on its hinges; again came the sound of wheels in rapid motion. "it is they," said i, starting up; "the carriage is in the avenue." we all stood for a few moments breathlessly listening. on thundered the vehicle with the speed of the whirlwind; crack went the whip, and clatter went the wheels, as it rattled over the uneven pavement of the court. a general and furious barking from all the dogs about the house hailed its arrival. we hurried to the hall in time to hear the steps let down with the sharp clanging noise peculiar to the operation, and the hum of voices exerted in the bustle of arrival. the hall door was now thrown open, and we all stepped forth to greet our visitors. the court was perfectly empty; the moon was shining broadly and brightly upon all around; nothing was to be seen but the tall trees with their long spectral shadows, now wet with the dews of midnight. we stood gazing from right to left as if suddenly awakened from a dream; the dogs walked suspiciously, growling and snuffling about the court, and by totally and suddenly ceasing their former loud barking, expressed the predominance of fear. we stared one upon another in perplexity and dismay, and i think i never beheld more pale faces assembled. by my father's directions, we looked about to find anything which might indicate or account for the noise which we had heard; but no such thing was to be seen--even the mire which lay upon the avenue was undisturbed. we returned to the house, more panic-struck than i can describe. on the next day, we learned by a messenger, who had ridden hard the greater part of the night, that my sister was dead. on sunday evening she had retired to bed rather unwell, and on monday her indisposition declared itself unequivocally to be malignant fever. she became hourly worse, and, on tuesday night, a little after midnight, she expired. i mention this circumstance, because it was one upon which a thousand wild and fantastical reports were founded, though one would have thought that the truth scarcely required to be improved upon; and again, because it produced a strong and lasting effect upon my spirits, and indeed, i am inclined to think, upon my character. i was, for several years after this occurrence, long after the violence of my grief subsided, so wretchedly low-spirited and nervous, that i could scarcely be said to live; and during this time, habits of indecision, arising out of a listless acquiescence in the will of others, a fear of encountering even the slightest opposition, and a disposition to shrink from what are commonly called amusements, grew upon me so strongly, that i have scarcely even yet altogether overcome them. we saw nothing more of mr. carew. he returned to england as soon as the melancholy rites attendant upon the event which i have just mentioned were performed; and not being altogether inconsolable, he married again within two years; after which, owing to the remoteness of our relative situations, and other circumstances, we gradually lost sight of him. i was now an only child; and, as my elder sister had died without issue, it was evident that, in the ordinary course of things, my father's property, which was altogether in his power, would go to me; and the consequence was, that before i was fourteen, ashtown house was besieged by a host of suitors. however, whether it was that i was too young, or that none of the aspirants to my hand stood sufficiently high in rank or wealth, i was suffered by both parents to do exactly as i pleased; and well was it for me, as i afterwards found, that fortune, or rather providence, had so ordained it, that i had not suffered my affections to become in any degree engaged, for my mother would never have suffered any silly fancy of mine, as she was in the habit of styling an attachment, to stand in the way of her ambitious views--views which she was determined to carry into effect in defiance of every obstacle, and in order to accomplish which she would not have hesitated to sacrifice anything so unreasonable and contemptible as a girlish passion. when i reached the age of sixteen, my mother's plans began to develop themselves; and, at her suggestion, we moved to dublin to sojourn for the winter, in order that no time might be lost in disposing of me to the best advantage. i had been too long accustomed to consider myself as of no importance whatever, to believe for a moment that i was in reality the cause of all the bustle and preparation which surrounded me; and being thus relieved from the pain which a consciousness of my real situation would have inflicted, i journeyed towards the capital with a feeling of total indifference. my father's wealth and connection had established him in the best society, and consequently, upon our arrival in the metropolis, we commanded whatever enjoyment or advantages its gaieties afforded. the tumult and novelty of the scenes in which i was involved did not fail considerably to amuse me, and my mind gradually recovered its tone, which was naturally cheerful. it was almost immediately known and reported that i was an heiress, and of course my attractions were pretty generally acknowledged. among the many gentlemen whom it was my fortune to please, one, ere long, established himself in my mother's good graces, to the exclusion of all less important aspirants. however, i had not understood or even remarked his attentions, nor in the slightest degree suspected his or my mother's plans respecting me, when i was made aware of them rather abruptly by my mother herself. we had attended a splendid ball, given by lord m----, at his residence in stephen's green, and i was, with the assistance of my waiting-maid, employed in rapidly divesting myself of the rich ornaments which, in profuseness and value, could scarcely have found their equals in any private family in ireland. i had thrown myself into a lounging-chair beside the fire, listless and exhausted after the fatigues of the evening, when i was aroused from the reverie into which i had fallen by the sound of footsteps approaching my chamber, and my mother entered. "fanny, my dear," said she, in her softest tone, "i wish to say a word or two with you before i go to rest. you are not fatigued, love, i hope?" "no, no, madam, i thank you," said i, rising at the same time from my seat, with the formal respect so little practised now. "sit down, my dear," said she, placing herself upon a chair beside me; "i must chat with you for a quarter of an hour or so. saunders" (to the maid), "you may leave the room; do not close the room door, but shut that of the lobby." this precaution against curious ears having been taken as directed, my mother proceeded: "you have observed, i should suppose, my dearest fanny--indeed, you _must_ have observed lord glenfallen's marked attentions to you?" "i assure you, madam--" i began. "well, well, that is all right," interrupted my mother. "of course, you must be modest upon the matter; but listen to me for a few moments, my love, and i will prove to your satisfaction that your modesty is quite unnecessary in this case. you have done better than we could have hoped, at least, so very soon. lord glenfallen is in love with you. i give you joy of your conquest;" and, saying this, my mother kissed my forehead. "in love with me!" i exclaimed in unfeigned astonishment. "yes, in love with you," repeated my mother; "devotedly, distractedly in love with you. why, my dear, what is there wonderful in it? look in the glass, and look at these," she continued, pointing, with a smile, to the jewels which i had just removed from my person, and which now lay in a glittering heap upon the table. "may there not--" said i, hesitating between confusion and real alarm, "is it not possible that some mistake may be at the bottom of all this?" "mistake, dearest! none," said my mother. "none; none in the world. judge for yourself; read this, my love." and she placed in my hand a letter, addressed to herself, the seal of which was broken. i read it through with no small surprise. after some very fine complimentary flourishes upon my beauty and perfections, as also upon the antiquity and high reputation of our family, it went on to make a formal proposal of marriage, to be communicated or not to me at present, as my mother should deem expedient; and the letter wound up by a request that the writer might be permitted, upon our return to ashtown house, which was soon to take place, as the spring was now tolerably advanced, to visit us for a few days, in case his suit was approved. "well, well, my dear," said my mother, impatiently; "do you know who lord glenfallen is?" "i do, madam," said i, rather timidly; for i dreaded an altercation with my mother. "well, dear, and what frightens you?" continued she. "are you afraid of a title? what has he done to alarm you? he is neither old nor ugly." i was silent, though i might have said, "he is neither young nor handsome." "my dear fanny," continued my mother, "in sober seriousness, you have been most fortunate in engaging the affections of a nobleman such as lord glenfallen, young and wealthy, with first-rate--yes, acknowledged _first-rate_ abilities, and of a family whose influence is not exceeded by that of any in ireland. of course, you see the offer in the same light that i do--indeed, i think you _must_." this was uttered in no very dubious tone. i was so much astonished by the suddenness of the whole communication, that i literally did not know what to say. "you are not in love?" said my mother, turning sharply, and fixing her dark eyes upon me with severe scrutiny. "no, madam," said i, promptly; horrified--what young lady would not have been?--at such a query. "i'm glad to hear it," said my mother, drily. "once, nearly twenty years ago, a friend of mine consulted me as to how he should deal with a daughter who had made what they call a love-match--beggared herself, and disgraced her family; and i said, without hesitation, take no care for her, but cast her off. such punishment i awarded for an offence committed against the reputation of a family not my own; and what i advised respecting the child of another, with full as small compunction i would _do_ with mine. i cannot conceive anything more unreasonable or intolerable than that the fortune and the character of a family should be marred by the idle caprices of a girl." she spoke this with great severity, and paused as if she expected some observation from me. i, however, said nothing. "but i need not explain to you, my dear fanny," she continued, "my views upon this subject; you have always known them well, and i have never yet had reason to believe you are likely to offend me voluntarily, or to abuse or neglect any of those advantages which reason and duty tell you should be improved. come hither, my dear; kiss me, and do not look so frightened. well, now, about this letter--you need not answer it yet; of course, you must be allowed time to make up your mind. in the meantime, i will write to his lordship to give him my permission to visit us at ashtown. good-night, my love." and thus ended one of the most disagreeable, not to say astounding, conversations i had ever had. it would not be easy to describe exactly what were my feelings towards lord glenfallen;--whatever might have been my mother's suspicions, my heart was perfectly disengaged--and hitherto, although i had not been made in the slightest degree acquainted with his real views, i had liked him very much as an agreeable, well-informed man, whom i was always glad to meet in society. he had served in the navy in early life, and the polish which his manners received in his after intercourse with courts and cities had not served to obliterate that frankness of manner which belongs proverbially to the sailor. whether this apparent candour went deeper than the outward bearing, i was yet to learn. however, there was no doubt that, as far as i had seen of lord glenfallen, he was, though perhaps not so young as might have been desired in a lover, a singularly pleasing man; and whatever feeling unfavourable to him had found its way into my mind, arose altogether from the dread, not an unreasonable one, that constraint might be practised upon my inclinations. i reflected, however, that lord glenfallen was a wealthy man, and one highly thought of; and although i could never expect to love him in the romantic sense of the term, yet i had no doubt but that, all things considered, i might be more happy with him than i could hope to be at home. when next i met him it was with no small embarrassment; his tact and good breeding, however, soon reassured me, and effectually prevented my awkwardness being remarked upon. and i had the satisfaction of leaving dublin for the country with the full conviction that nobody, not even those most intimate with me, even suspected the fact of lord glenfallen's having made me a formal proposal. this was to me a very serious subject of self-gratulation, for, besides my instinctive dread of becoming the topic of the speculations of gossip, i felt that if the situation which i occupied in relation to him were made publicly known, i should stand committed in a manner which would scarcely leave me the power of retraction. the period at which lord glenfallen had arranged to visit ashtown house was now fast approaching, and it became my mother's wish to form me thoroughly to her will, and to obtain my consent to the proposed marriage before his arrival, so that all things might proceed smoothly, without apparent opposition or objection upon my part. whatever objections, therefore, i had entertained were to be subdued; whatever disposition to resistance i had exhibited or had been supposed to feel, were to be completely eradicated before he made his appearance; and my mother addressed herself to the task with a decision and energy against which even the barriers her imagination had created could hardly have stood. if she had, however, expected any determined opposition from me, she was agreeably disappointed. my heart was perfectly free, and all my feelings of liking and preference were in favour of lord glenfallen; and i well knew that in case i refused to dispose of myself as i was desired, my mother had alike the power and the will to render my existence as utterly miserable as even the most ill-assorted marriage could possibly have made it. you will remember, my good friend, that i was very young and very completely under the control of my parents, both of whom, my mother particularly, were unscrupulously determined in matters of this kind, and willing, when voluntary obedience on the part of those within their power was withheld, to compel a forced acquiescence by an unsparing use of all the engines of the most stern and rigorous domestic discipline. all these combined, not unnaturally induced me to resolve upon yielding at once, and without useless opposition, to what appeared almost to be my fate. the appointed time was come, and my now accepted suitor arrived; he was in high spirits, and, if possible, more entertaining than ever. i was not, however, quite in the mood to enjoy his sprightliness; but whatever i wanted in gaiety was amply made up in the triumphant and gracious good-humour of my mother, whose smiles of benevolence and exultation were showered around as bountifully as the summer sunshine. i will not weary you with unnecessary details. let it suffice to say, that i was married to lord glenfallen with all the attendant pomp and circumstance of wealth, rank, and grandeur. according to the usage of the times, now humanely reformed, the ceremony was made, until long past midnight, the season of wild, uproarious, and promiscuous feasting and revelry. of all this i have a painfully vivid recollection, and particularly of the little annoyances inflicted upon me by the dull and coarse jokes of the wits and wags who abound in all such places, and upon all such occasions. i was not sorry when, after a few days, lord glenfallen's carriage appeared at the door to convey us both from ashtown; for any change would have been a relief from the irksomeness of ceremonial and formality which the visits received in honour of my newly-acquired titles hourly entailed upon me. [illustration: the season of wild, uproarious, and promiscuous feasting and revelry.] it was arranged that we were to proceed to cahergillagh, one of the glenfallen estates, lying, however, in a southern county; so that, owing to the difficulty of the roads at the time, a tedious journey of three days intervened. i set forth with my noble companion, followed by the regrets of some, and by the envy of many; though god knows i little deserved the latter. the three days of travel were now almost spent, when passing the brow of a wild heathy hill, the domain of cahergillagh opened suddenly upon our view. it formed a striking and a beautiful scene. a lake of considerable extent stretching away towards the west, and reflecting from its broad, smooth waters the rich glow of the setting sun, was overhung by steep hills, covered by a rich mantle of velvet sward, broken here and there by the grey front of some old rock, and exhibiting on their shelving sides and on their slopes and hollows every variety of light and shade. a thick wood of dwarf oak, birch, and hazel skirted these hills, and clothed the shores of the lake, running out in rich luxuriance upon every promontory, and spreading upward considerably upon the side of the hills. "there lies the enchanted castle," said lord glenfallen, pointing towards a considerable level space intervening between two of the picturesque hills which rose dimly around the lake. this little plain was chiefly occupied by the same low, wild wood which covered the other parts of the domain; but towards the centre, a mass of taller and statelier forest trees stood darkly grouped together, and among them stood an ancient square tower, with many buildings of a humbler character, forming together the manor-house, or, as it was more usually called, the court of cahergillagh. as we approached the level upon which the mansion stood, the winding road gave us many glimpses of the time-worn castle and its surrounding buildings; and seen as it was through the long vistas of the fine old trees, and with the rich glow of evening upon it, i have seldom beheld an object more picturesquely striking. i was glad to perceive, too, that here and there the blue curling smoke ascended from stacks of chimneys now hidden by the rich, dark ivy which, in a great measure, covered the building. other indications of comfort made themselves manifest as we approached; and indeed, though the place was evidently one of considerable antiquity, it had nothing whatever of the gloom of decay about it. "you must not, my love," said lord glenfallen, "imagine this place worse than it is. i have no taste for antiquity--at least i should not choose a house to reside in because it is old. indeed, i do not recollect that i was even so romantic as to overcome my aversion to rats and rheumatism, those faithful attendants upon your noble relics of feudalism; and i much prefer a snug, modern, unmysterious bedroom, with well-aired sheets, to the waving tapestry, mildewed cushions, and all the other interesting appliances of romance. however, though i cannot promise you all the discomfort generally belonging to an old castle, you will find legends and ghostly lore enough to claim your respect; and if old martha be still to the fore, as i trust she is, you will soon have a supernatural and appropriate anecdote for every closet and corner of the mansion. but here we are--so, without more ado, welcome to cahergillagh!" we now entered the hall of the castle, and while the domestics were employed in conveying our trunks and other luggage which we had brought with us for immediate use, to the apartments which lord glenfallen had selected for himself and me, i went with him into a spacious sitting-room, wainscoted with finely-polished black oak, and hung round with the portraits of various worthies of the glenfallen family. this room looked out upon an extensive level covered with the softest green sward, and irregularly bounded by the wild wood i have before mentioned, through the leafy arcade formed by whose boughs and trunks the level beams of the setting sun were pouring. in the distance a group of dairy-maids were plying their task, which they accompanied throughout with snatches of irish songs which, mellowed by the distance, floated not unpleasingly to the ear; and beside them sat or lay, with all the grave importance of conscious protection, six or seven large dogs of various kinds. farther in the distance, and through the cloisters of the arching wood, two or three ragged urchins were employed in driving such stray kine as had wandered farther than the rest to join their fellows. as i looked upon the scene which i have described, a feeling of tranquillity and happiness came upon me, which i have never experienced in so strong a degree; and so strange to me was the sensation that my eyes filled with tears. lord glenfallen mistook the cause of my emotion, and taking me kindly and tenderly by the hand, he said: "do not suppose, my love, that it is my intention to _settle_ here. whenever you desire to leave this, you have only to let me know your wish, and it shall be complied with; so i must entreat of you not to suffer any circumstances which i can control to give you one moment's uneasiness. but here is old martha; you must be introduced to her, one of the heirlooms of our family." a hale, good-humoured, erect old woman was martha, and an agreeable contrast to the grim, decrepit hag which my fancy had conjured up, as the depositary of all the horrible tales in which i doubted not this old place was most fruitful. she welcomed me and her master with a profusion of gratulations, alternately kissing our hands and apologizing for the liberty; until at length lord glenfallen put an end to this somewhat fatiguing ceremonial by requesting her to conduct me to my chamber, if it were prepared for my reception. i followed martha up an old-fashioned oak staircase into a long, dim passage, at the end of which lay the door which communicated with the apartments which had been selected for our use; here the old woman stopped, and respectfully requested me to proceed. i accordingly opened the door, and was about to enter, when something like a mass of black tapestry, as it appeared, disturbed by my sudden approach, fell from above the door, so as completely to screen the aperture; the startling unexpectedness of the occurrence, and the rustling noise which the drapery made in its descent, caused me involuntarily to step two or three paces backward. i turned, smiling and half-ashamed, to the old servant, and said,-- "you see what a coward i am." the woman looked puzzled, and, without saying any more, i was about to draw aside the curtain and enter the room, when, upon turning to do so, i was surprised to find that nothing whatever interposed to obstruct the passage. i went into the room, followed by the servant-woman, and was amazed to find that it, like the one below, was wainscoted, and that nothing like drapery was to be found near the door. "where is it?" said i; "what has become of it?" "what does your ladyship wish to know?" said the old woman. "where is the black curtain that fell across the door, when i attempted first to come to my chamber?" answered i. "the cross of christ about us!" said the old woman, turning suddenly pale. "what is the matter, my good friend?" said i; "you seem frightened." "oh no, no, your ladyship," said the old woman, endeavouring to conceal her agitation; but in vain, for tottering towards a chair, she sank into it, looking so deadly pale and horror-struck that i thought every moment she would faint. "merciful god, keep us from harm and danger!" muttered she at length. "what can have terrified you so?" said i, beginning to fear that she had seen something more than had met my eye. "you appear ill, my poor woman!" "nothing, nothing, my lady," said she, rising. "i beg your ladyship's pardon for making so bold. may the great god defend us from misfortune!" "martha," said i, "something _has_ frightened you very much, and i insist on knowing what it is; your keeping me in the dark upon the subject will make me much more uneasy than anything you could tell me. i desire you, therefore, to let me know what agitates you; i command you to tell me." "your ladyship said you saw a black curtain falling across the door when you were coming into the room," said the old woman. "i did," said i; "but though the whole thing appears somewhat strange, i cannot see anything in the matter to agitate you so excessively." "it's for no good you saw that, my lady," said the crone; "something terrible is coming. it's a sign, my lady--a sign that never fails." "explain, explain what you mean, my good woman," said i, in spite of myself, catching more than i could account for, of her superstitious terror. "whenever something--something _bad_ is going to happen to the glenfallen family, some one that belongs to them sees a black handkerchief or curtain just waved or falling before their faces. i saw it myself," continued she, lowering her voice, "when i was only a little girl, and i'll never forget it. i often heard of it before, though i never saw it till then, nor since, praised be god. but i was going into lady jane's room to waken her in the morning; and sure enough when i got first to the bed and began to draw the curtain, something dark was waved across the division, but only for a moment; and when i saw rightly into the bed, there she was lying cold and dead, god be merciful to me! so, my lady, there is small blame to me to be daunted when any one of the family sees it; for it's many the story i heard of it, though i saw it but once." i was not of a superstitious turn of mind, yet i could not resist a feeling of awe very nearly allied to the fear which my companion had so unreservedly expressed; and when you consider my situation, the loneliness, antiquity, and gloom of the place, you will allow that the weakness was not without excuse. in spite of old martha's boding predictions, however, time flowed on in an unruffled course. one little incident, however, though trifling in itself, i must relate, as it serves to make what follows more intelligible. upon the day after my arrival, lord glenfallen of course desired to make me acquainted with the house and domain; and accordingly we set forth upon our ramble. when returning, he became for some time silent and moody, a state so unusual with him as considerably to excite my surprise. i endeavoured by observations and questions to arouse him--but in vain. at length, as we approached the house, he said, as if speaking to himself,-- "'twere madness--madness--madness," repeating the words bitterly; "sure and speedy ruin." there was here a long pause; and at length, turning sharply towards me, in a tone very unlike that in which he had hitherto addressed me, he said,-- "do you think it possible that a woman can keep a secret?" "i am sure," said i, "that women are very much belied upon the score of talkativeness, and that i may answer your question with the same directness with which you put it--i reply that i _do_ think a woman can keep a secret." "but i do not," said he, drily. we walked on in silence for a time. i was much astonished at his unwonted abruptness--i had almost said rudeness. after a considerable pause he seemed to recollect himself, and with an effort resuming his sprightly manner, he said,-- "well, well, the next thing to keeping a secret well is not to desire to possess one; talkativeness and curiosity generally go together. now i shall make test of you, in the first place, respecting the latter of these qualities. i shall be your _bluebeard_--tush, why do i trifle thus? listen to me, my dear fanny; i speak now in solemn earnest. what i desire is intimately, inseparably connected with your happiness and honour as well as my own; and your compliance with my request will not be difficult. it will impose upon you a very trifling restraint during your sojourn here, which certain events which have occurred since our arrival have determined me shall not be a long one. you must promise me, upon your sacred honour, that you will visit _only_ that part of the castle which can be reached from the front entrance, leaving the back entrance and the part of the building commanded immediately by it to the menials, as also the small garden whose high wall you see yonder; and never at any time seek to pry or peep into them, nor to open the door which communicates from the front part of the house through the corridor with the back. i do not urge this in jest or in caprice, but from a solemn conviction that danger and misery will be the certain consequences of your not observing what i prescribe. i cannot explain myself further at present. promise me, then, these things, as you hope for peace here and for mercy hereafter." i did make the promise as desired, and he appeared relieved; his manner recovered all its gaiety and elasticity: but the recollection of the strange scene which i have just described dwelt painfully upon my mind. more than a month passed away without any occurrence worth recording; but i was not destined to leave cahergillagh without further adventure. one day, intending to enjoy the pleasant sunshine in a ramble through the woods, i ran up to my room to procure my hat and cloak. upon entering the chamber i was surprised and somewhat startled to find it occupied. beside the fireplace, and nearly opposite the door, seated in a large, old-fashioned elbow-chair, was placed the figure of a lady. she appeared to be nearer fifty than forty, and was dressed suitably to her age, in a handsome suit of flowered silk; she had a profusion of trinkets and jewellery about her person, and many rings upon her fingers. but although very rich, her dress was not gaudy or in ill taste. but what was remarkable in the lady was, that although her features were handsome, and upon the whole pleasing, the pupil of each eye was dimmed with the whiteness of cataract, and she was evidently stone-blind. i was for some seconds so surprised at this unaccountable apparition, that i could not find words to address her. [illustration: upon entering the chamber, i was surprised and somewhat startled to find it occupied.] "madam," said i, "there must be some mistake here--this is my bedchamber." "marry come up," said the lady, sharply; "_your_ chamber! where is lord glenfallen?" "he is below, madam," replied i; "and i am convinced he will be not a little surprised to find you here." "i do not think he will," said she, "with your good leave; talk of what you know something about. tell him i want him. why does the minx dilly-dally so?" in spite of the awe which this grim lady inspired, there was something in her air of confident superiority which, when i considered our relative situations, was not a little irritating. "do you know, madam, to whom you speak?" said i. "i neither know nor care," said she; "but i presume that you are some one about the house, so again i desire you, if you wish to continue here, to bring your master hither forthwith." "i must tell you, madam," said i, "that i am lady glenfallen." "what's that?" said the stranger, rapidly. "i say, madam," i repeated, approaching her that i might be more distinctly heard, "that i am lady glenfallen." "it's a lie, you trull!" cried she, in an accent which made me start, and at the same time, springing forward, she seized me in her grasp, and shook me violently, repeating, "it's a lie--it's a lie!" with a rapidity and vehemence which swelled every vein of her face. the violence of her action, and the fury which convulsed her face, effectually terrified me, and disengaging myself from her grasp, i screamed as loud as i could for help. the blind woman continued to pour out a torrent of abuse upon me, foaming at the mouth with rage, and impotently shaking her clenched fist towards me. i heard lord glenfallen's step upon the stairs, and i instantly ran out; as i passed him i perceived that he was deadly pale, and just caught the words: "i hope that demon has not hurt you?" i made some answer, i forget what, and he entered the chamber, the door of which he locked upon the inside. what passed within i know not; but i heard the voices of the two speakers raised in loud and angry altercation. i thought i heard the shrill accents of the woman repeat the words, "let her look to herself;" but i could not be quite sure. this short sentence, however, was, to my alarmed imagination, pregnant with fearful meaning. the storm at length subsided, though not until after a conference of more than two long hours. lord glenfallen then returned, pale and agitated. "that unfortunate woman," said he, "is out of her mind. i daresay she treated you to some of her ravings; but you need not dread any further interruption from her: i have brought her so far to reason. she did not hurt you, i trust." "no, no," said i; "but she terrified me beyond measure." "well," said he, "she is likely to behave better for the future; and i dare swear that neither you nor she would desire, after what has passed, to meet again." this occurrence, so startling and unpleasant, so involved in mystery, and giving rise to so many painful surmises, afforded me no very agreeable food for rumination. all attempts on my part to arrive at the truth were baffled; lord glenfallen evaded all my inquiries, and at length peremptorily forbade any further allusion to the matter. i was thus obliged to rest satisfied with what i had actually seen, and to trust to time to resolve the perplexities in which the whole transaction had involved me. lord glenfallen's temper and spirits gradually underwent a complete and most painful change; he became silent and abstracted, his manner to me was abrupt and often harsh, some grievous anxiety seemed ever present to his mind; and under its influence his spirits sank and his temper became soured. i soon perceived that his gaiety was rather that which the stir and excitement of society produce, than the result of a healthy habit of mind; every day confirmed me in the opinion, that the considerate good-nature which i had so much admired in him was little more than a mere manner; and to my infinite grief and surprise, the gay, kind, open-hearted nobleman who had for months followed and flattered me, was rapidly assuming the form of a gloomy, morose, and singularly selfish man. this was a bitter discovery, and i strove to conceal it from myself as long as i could; but the truth was not to be denied, and i was forced to believe that my husband no longer loved me, and that he was at little pains to conceal the alteration in his sentiments. one morning after breakfast, lord glenfallen had been for some time walking silently up and down the room, buried in his moody reflections, when pausing suddenly, and turning towards me, he exclaimed: "i have it--i have it! we must go abroad, and stay there too; and if that does not answer, why--why, we must try some more effectual expedient. lady glenfallen, i have become involved in heavy embarrassments. a wife, you know, must share the fortunes of her husband, for better for worse; but i will waive my right if you prefer remaining here--here at cahergillagh. for i would not have you seen elsewhere without the state to which your rank entitles you; besides, it would break your poor mother's heart," he added, with sneering gravity. "so make up your mind--cahergillagh or france. i will start if possible in a week, so determine between this and then." he left the room, and in a few moments i saw him ride past the window, followed by a mounted servant. he had directed a domestic to inform me that he should not be back until the next day. i was in very great doubt as to what course of conduct i should pursue as to accompanying him in the continental tour so suddenly determined upon. i felt that it would be a hazard too great to encounter; for at cahergillagh i had always the consciousness to sustain me, that if his temper at any time led him into violent or unwarrantable treatment of me, i had a remedy within reach, in the protection and support of my own family, from all useful and effective communication with whom, if once in france, i should be entirely debarred. as to remaining at cahergillagh in solitude, and, for aught i knew, exposed to hidden dangers, it appeared to me scarcely less objectionable than the former proposition; and yet i feared that with one or other i must comply, unless i was prepared to come to an actual breach with lord glenfallen. full of these unpleasing doubts and perplexities, i retired to rest. i was wakened, after having slept uneasily for some hours, by some person shaking me rudely by the shoulder; a small lamp burned in my room, and by its light, to my horror and amazement, i discovered that my visitant was the self-same blind old lady who had so terrified me a few weeks before. i started up in the bed, with a view to ring the bell, and alarm the domestics; but she instantly anticipated me by saying: "do not be frightened, silly girl! if i had wished to harm you, i could have done it while you were sleeping; i need not have wakened you. listen to me, now, attentively and fearlessly, for what i have to say interests you to the full as much as it does me. tell me here, in the presence of god, did lord glenfallen marry you--_actually marry you_? speak the truth, woman." "as surely as i live and speak," i replied, "did lord glenfallen marry me, in presence of more than a hundred witnesses." "well," continued she, "he should have told you _then_, before you married him, that he had a wife living,--that i am his wife. i feel you tremble--tush! do not be frightened. i do not mean to harm you. mark me now--you are _not_ his wife. when i make my story known you will be so neither in the eye of god nor of man. you must leave this house upon to-morrow. let the world know that your husband has another wife living; go you into retirement, and leave him to justice, which will surely overtake him. if you remain in this house after to-morrow, you will reap the bitter fruits of your sin." so saying, she quitted the room, leaving me very little disposed to sleep. here was food for my very worst and most terrible suspicions; still there was not enough to remove all doubt. i had no proof of the truth of this woman's statement. taken by itself, there was nothing to induce me to attach weight to it; but when i viewed it in connection with the extraordinary mystery of some of lord glenfallen's proceedings, his strange anxiety to exclude me from certain portions of the mansion, doubtless lest i should encounter this person--the strong influence, nay, command which she possessed over him, a circumstance clearly established by the very fact of her residing in the very place where, of all others, he should least have desired to find her--her thus acting, and continuing to act in direct contradiction to his wishes; when, i say, i viewed her disclosure in connection with all these circumstances, i could not help feeling that there was at least a fearful verisimilitude in the allegations which she had made. still i was not satisfied, nor nearly so. young minds have a reluctance almost insurmountable to believing, upon anything short of unquestionable proof, the existence of premeditated guilt in anyone whom they have ever trusted; and in support of this feeling i was assured that if the assertion of lord glenfallen, which nothing in this woman's manner had led me to disbelieve, were true, namely that her mind was unsound, the whole fabric of my doubts and fears must fall to the ground. i determined to state to lord glenfallen freely and accurately the substance of the communication which i had just heard, and in his words and looks to seek for its proof or refutation. full of these thoughts, i remained wakeful and excited all night, every moment fancying that i heard the step or saw the figure of my recent visitor, towards whom i felt a species of horror and dread which i can hardly describe. there was something in her face, though her features had evidently been handsome, and were not, at first sight, unpleasing, which, upon a nearer inspection, seemed to indicate the habitual prevalence and indulgence of evil passions, and a power of expressing mere animal anger with an intenseness that i have seldom seen equalled, and to which an almost unearthly effect was given by the convulsive quivering of the sightless eyes. you may easily suppose that it was no very pleasing reflection to me to consider that, whenever caprice might induce her to return, i was within the reach of this violent and, for aught i knew, insane woman, who had, upon that very night, spoken to me in a tone of menace, of which her mere words, divested of the manner and look with which she uttered them, can convey but a faint idea. will you believe me when i tell you that i was actually afraid to leave my bed in order to secure the door, lest i should again encounter the dreadful object lurking in some corner or peeping from behind the window-curtains, so very a child was i in my fears? the morning came, and with it lord glenfallen. i knew not, and indeed i cared not, where he might have been; my thoughts were wholly engrossed by the terrible fears and suspicions which my last night's conference had suggested to me. he was, as usual, gloomy and abstracted, and i feared in no very fitting mood to hear what i had to say with patience, whether the charges were true or false. i was, however, determined not to suffer the opportunity to pass, or lord glenfallen to leave the room, until, at all hazards, i had unburdened my mind. "my lord," said i, after a long silence, summoning up all my firmness, "my lord, i wish to say a few words to you upon a matter of very great importance, of very deep concernment to you and to me." i fixed my eyes upon him to discern, if possible, whether the announcement caused him any uneasiness; but no symptom of any such feeling was perceptible. "well, my dear," said he, "this is no doubt a very grave preface, and portends, i have no doubt, something extraordinary. pray let us have it without more ado." he took a chair, and seated himself nearly opposite to me. "my lord," said i, "i have seen the person who alarmed me so much a short time since, the blind lady, again, upon last night." his face, upon which my eyes were fixed, turned pale; he hesitated for a moment, and then said: "and did you, pray, madam, so totally forget or spurn my express command, as to enter that portion of the house from which your promise, i might say your oath, excluded you? answer me that!" he added fiercely. "my lord," said i, "i have neither forgotten your _commands_, since such they were, nor disobeyed them. i was, last night, wakened from my sleep, as i lay in my own chamber, and accosted by the person whom i have mentioned. how she found access to the room i cannot pretend to say." "ha! this must be looked to," said he, half reflectively. "and pray," added he quickly, while in turn he fixed his eyes upon me, "what did this person say? since some comment upon her communication forms, no doubt, the sequel to your preface." "your lordship is not mistaken," said i; "her statement was so extraordinary that i could not think of withholding it from you. she told me, my lord, that you had a wife living at the time you married me, and that she was that wife." lord glenfallen became ashy pale, almost livid; he made two or three efforts to clear his voice to speak, but in vain, and turning suddenly from me, he walked to the window. the horror and dismay which, in the olden time, overwhelmed the woman of endor when her spells unexpectedly conjured the dead into her presence, were but types of what i felt when thus presented with what appeared to be almost unequivocal evidence of the guilt whose existence i had before so strongly doubted. there was a silence of some moments, during which it were hard to conjecture whether i or my companion suffered most. lord glenfallen soon recovered his self-command; he returned to the table, again sat down, and said: "what you have told me has so astonished me, has unfolded such a tissue of motiveless guilt, and in a quarter from which i had so little reason to look for ingratitude or treachery, that your announcement almost deprived me of speech; the person in question, however, has one excuse, her mind is, as i told you before, unsettled. you should have remembered that, and hesitated to receive as unexceptionable evidence against the honour of your husband, the ravings of a lunatic. i now tell you that this is the last time i shall speak to you upon this subject, and, in the presence of the god who is to judge me, and as i hope for mercy in the day of judgment, i swear that the charge thus brought against me is utterly false, unfounded, and ridiculous. i defy the world in any point to taint my honour; and, as i have never taken the opinion of madmen touching your character or morals, i think it but fair to require that you will evince a like tenderness for me; and now, once for all, never again dare to repeat to me your insulting suspicions, or the clumsy and infamous calumnies of fools. i shall instantly let the worthy lady who contrived this somewhat original device understand fully my opinion upon the matter. good morning." and with these words he left me again in doubt, and involved in all the horrors of the most agonizing suspense. i had reason to think that lord glenfallen wreaked his vengeance upon the author of the strange story which i had heard, with a violence which was not satisfied with mere words, for old martha, with whom i was a great favourite, while attending me in my room, told me that she feared her master had ill-used the poor blind dutchwoman, for that she had heard her scream as if the very life were leaving her, but added a request that i should not speak of what she had told me to any one, particularly to the master. "how do you know that she is a dutchwoman?" inquired i, anxious to learn anything whatever that might throw a light upon the history of this person, who seemed to have resolved to mix herself up in my fortunes. "why, my lady," answered martha, "the master often calls her the dutch hag, and other names you would not like to hear, and i am sure she is neither english nor irish; for, whenever they talk together, they speak some queer foreign lingo, and fast enough, i'll be bound. but i ought not to talk about her at all; it might be as much as my place is worth to mention her, only you saw her first yourself, so there can be no great harm in speaking of her now." "how long has this lady been here?" continued i. "she came early on the morning after your ladyship's arrival," answered she; "but do not ask me any more, for the master would think nothing of turning me out of doors for daring to speak of her at all, much less to _you_, my lady." i did not like to press the poor woman further, for her reluctance to speak on this topic was evident and strong. you will readily believe that upon the very slight grounds which my information afforded, contradicted as it was by the solemn oath of my husband, and derived from what was, at best, a very questionable source, i could not take any very decisive measures whatever; and as to the menace of the strange woman who had thus unaccountably twice intruded herself into my chamber, although, at the moment, it occasioned me some uneasiness, it was not, even in my eyes, sufficiently formidable to induce my departure from cahergillagh. a few nights after the scene which i have just mentioned, lord glenfallen having, as usual, retired early to his study, i was left alone in the parlour to amuse myself as best i might. it was not strange that my thoughts should often recur to the agitating scenes in which i had recently taken a part. the subject of my reflections, the solitude, the silence, and the lateness of the hour, as also the depression of spirits to which i had of late been a constant prey, tended to produce that nervous excitement which places us wholly at the mercy of the imagination. in order to calm my spirits i was endeavouring to direct my thoughts into some more pleasing channel, when i heard, or thought i heard, uttered within a few yards of me, in an odd, half-sneering tone, the words,-- "there is blood upon your ladyship's throat." so vivid was the impression that i started to my feet, and involuntarily placed my hand upon my neck. i looked around the room for the speaker, but in vain. i went then to the room-door, which i opened, and peered into the passage, nearly faint with horror lest some leering, shapeless thing should greet me upon the threshold. when i had gazed long enough to assure myself that no strange object was within sight,-- "i have been too much of a rake lately; i am racking out my nerves," said i, speaking aloud, with a view to reassure myself. i rang the bell, and, attended by old martha, i retired to settle for the night. while the servant was--as was her custom--arranging the lamp which i have already stated always burned during the night in my chamber, i was employed in undressing, and, in doing so, i had recourse to a large looking-glass which occupied a considerable portion of the wall in which it was fixed, rising from the ground to a height of about six feet; this mirror filled the space of a large panel in the wainscoting opposite the foot of the bed. [illustration: something like a black pall was slowly waved.] i had hardly been before it for the lapse of a minute when something like a black pall was slowly waved between me and it. "oh, god! there it is," i exclaimed, wildly. "i have seen it again, martha--the black cloth." "god be merciful to us, then!" answered she, tremulously crossing herself. "some misfortune is over us." "no, no, martha," said i, almost instantly recovering my collectedness; for, although of a nervous temperament, i had never been superstitious. "i do not believe in omens. you know i saw, or fancied i saw, this thing before, and nothing followed." "the dutch lady came the next morning," replied she. "but surely her coming scarcely deserved such a dreadful warning," i replied. "she is a strange woman, my lady," said martha; "and she is not _gone_ yet--mark my words." "well, well, martha," said i, "i have not wit enough to change your opinions, nor inclination to alter mine; so i will talk no more of the matter. good-night," and so i was left to my reflections. after lying for about an hour awake, i at length fell into a kind of doze; but my imagination was very busy, for i was startled from this unrefreshing sleep by fancying that i heard a voice close to my face exclaim as before,-- "there is blood upon your ladyship's throat." the words were instantly followed by a loud burst of laughter. quaking with horror, i awakened, and heard my husband enter the room. even this was a relief. scared as i was, however, by the tricks which my imagination had played me, i preferred remaining silent, and pretending to sleep, to attempting to engage my husband in conversation, for i well knew that his mood was such, that his words would not, in all probability, convey anything that had not better be unsaid and unheard. lord glenfallen went into his dressing-room, which lay upon the right-hand side of the bed. the door lying open, i could see him by himself, at full length upon a sofa, and, in about half an hour, i became aware, by his deep and regularly drawn respiration, that he was fast asleep. when slumber refuses to visit one, there is something peculiarly irritating, not to the temper, but to the nerves, in the consciousness that some one is in your immediate presence, actually enjoying the boon which you are seeking in vain; at least, i have always found it so, and never more than upon the present occasion. a thousand annoying imaginations harassed and excited me; every object which i looked upon, though ever so familiar, seemed to have acquired a strange phantom-like character, the varying shadows thrown by the flickering of the lamplight seemed shaping themselves into grotesque and unearthly forms, and whenever my eyes wandered to the sleeping figure of my husband, his features appeared to undergo the strangest and most demoniacal contortions. hour after hour was told by the old clock, and each succeeding one found me, if possible, less inclined to sleep than its predecessor. it was now considerably past three; my eyes, in their involuntary wanderings, happened to alight upon the large mirror which was, as i have said, fixed in the wall opposite the foot of the bed. a view of it was commanded from where i lay, through the curtains. as i gazed fixedly upon it, i thought i perceived the broad sheet of glass shifting its position in relation to the bed; i riveted my eyes upon it with intense scrutiny; it was no deception, the mirror, as if acting of its own impulse, moved slowly aside, and disclosed a dark aperture in the wall, nearly as large as an ordinary door; a figure evidently stood in this, but the light was too dim to define it accurately. it stepped cautiously into the chamber, and with so little noise, that had i not actually seen it, i do not think i should have been aware of its presence. it was arrayed in a kind of woollen night-dress, and a white handkerchief or cloth was bound tightly about the head; i had no difficulty, spite of the strangeness of the attire, in recognizing the blind woman whom i so much dreaded. she stooped down, bringing her head nearly to the ground, and in that attitude she remained motionless for some moments, no doubt in order to ascertain if any suspicious sounds were stirring. she was apparently satisfied by her observations, for she immediately recommenced her silent progress towards a ponderous mahogany dressing-table of my husband's. when she had reached it, she paused again, and appeared to listen attentively for some minutes; she then noiselessly opened one of the drawers, from which, having groped for some time, she took something, which i soon perceived to be a case of razors. she opened it, and tried the edge of each of the two instruments upon the skin of her hand; she quickly selected one, which she fixed firmly in her grasp. she now stooped down as before, and having listened for a time, she, with the hand that was disengaged, groped her way into the dressing-room where lord glenfallen lay fast asleep. i was fixed as if in the tremendous spell of a nightmare. i could not stir even a finger; i could not lift my voice; i could not even breathe; and though i expected every moment to see the sleeping man murdered, i could not even close my eyes to shut out the horrible spectacle which i had not the power to avert. i saw the woman approach the sleeping figure, she laid the unoccupied hand lightly along his clothes, and having thus ascertained his identity, she, after a brief interval, turned back and again entered my chamber; here she bent down again to listen. i had now not a doubt but that the razor was intended for my throat; yet the terrific fascination which had locked all my powers so long, still continued to bind me fast. i felt that my life depended upon the slightest ordinary exertion, and yet i could not stir one joint from the position in which i lay, nor even make noise enough to waken lord glenfallen. the murderous woman now, with long, silent steps, approached the bed; my very heart seemed turning to ice; her left hand, that which was disengaged, was upon the pillow; she gradually slid it forward towards my head, and in an instant, with the speed of lightning, it was clutched in my hair, while, with the other hand, she dashed the razor at my throat. a slight inaccuracy saved me from instant death; the blow fell short, the point of the razor grazing my throat. in a moment, i know not how, i found myself at the other side of the bed, uttering shriek after shriek; the wretch was however determined, if possible, to murder me. scrambling along by the curtains, she rushed round the bed towards me; i seized the handle of the door to make my escape. it was, however, fastened. at all events, i could not open it. from the mere instinct of recoiling terror, i shrunk back into a corner. she was now within a yard of me. her hand was upon my face. i closed my eyes fast, expecting never to open them again, when a blow, inflicted from behind by a strong arm, stretched the monster senseless at my feet. at the same moment the door opened, and several domestics, alarmed by my cries, entered the apartment. i do not recollect what followed, for i fainted. one swoon succeeded another, so long and death-like, that my life was considered very doubtful. at about ten o'clock, however, i sank into a deep and refreshing sleep, from which i was awakened at about two, that i might swear my deposition before a magistrate, who attended for that purpose. i accordingly did so, as did also lord glenfallen, and the woman was fully committed to stand her trial at the ensuing assizes. i shall never forget the scene which the examination of the blind woman and of the other parties afforded. she was brought into the room in the custody of two servants. she wore a kind of flannel wrapper, which had not been changed since the night before. it was torn and soiled, and here and there smeared with blood, which had flowed in large quantities from a wound in her head. the white handkerchief had fallen off in the scuffle, and her grizzled hair fell in masses about her wild and deadly pale countenance. she appeared perfectly composed, however, and the only regret she expressed throughout, was at not having succeeded in her attempt, the object of which she did not pretend to conceal. on being asked her name, she called herself the countess glenfallen, and refused to give any other title. "the woman's name is flora van-kemp," said lord glenfallen. "it _was_, it _was_, you perjured traitor and cheat!" screamed the woman; and then there followed a volley of words in some foreign language. "is there a magistrate here?" she resumed; "i am lord glenfallen's wife--i'll prove it--write down my words. i am willing to be hanged or burned, so _he_ meets his deserts. i did try to kill that doll of his; but it was he who put it into my head to do it--two wives were too many; i was to murder her, or she was to hang me: listen to all i have to say." here lord glenfallen interrupted. "i think, sir," said he, addressing the magistrate "that we had better proceed to business; this unhappy woman's furious recriminations but waste our time. if she refuses to answer your questions, you had better, i presume, take my depositions." "and are you going to swear away my life, you black-perjured murderer?" shrieked the woman. "sir, sir, sir, you must hear me," she continued, addressing the magistrate; "i can convict him--he bid me murder that girl, and then, when i failed, he came behind me, and struck me down, and now he wants to swear away my life. take down all i say." "if it is your intention," said the magistrate, "to confess the crime with which you stand charged, you may, upon producing sufficient evidence, criminate whom you please." "evidence!--i have no evidence but myself," said the woman. "i will swear it all--write down my testimony--write it down, i say--we shall hang side by side, my brave lord--all your own handy-work, my gentle husband!" this was followed by a low, insolent, and sneering laugh, which, from one in her situation, was sufficiently horrible. "i will not at present hear anything," replied he, "but distinct answers to the questions which i shall put to you upon this matter." "then you shall hear nothing," replied she sullenly, and no inducement or intimidation could bring her to speak again. lord glenfallen's deposition and mine were then given, as also those of the servants who had entered the room at the moment of my rescue. the magistrate then intimated that she was committed, and must proceed directly to gaol, whither she was brought in a carriage of lord glenfallen's, for his lordship was naturally by no means indifferent to the effect which her vehement accusations against himself might produce, if uttered before every chance hearer whom she might meet with between cahergillagh and the place of confinement whither she was despatched. during the time which intervened between the committal and the trial of the prisoner, lord glenfallen seemed to suffer agonies of mind which baffled all description; he hardly ever slept, and when he did, his slumbers seemed but the instruments of new tortures, and his waking hours were, if possible, exceeded in intensity of terror by the dreams which disturbed his sleep. lord glenfallen rested, if to lie in the mere attitude of repose were to do so, in his dressing-room, and thus i had an opportunity of witnessing, far oftener than i wished it, the fearful workings of his mind. his agony often broke out into such fearful paroxysms that delirium and total loss of reason appeared to be impending. he frequently spoke of flying from the country, and bringing with him all the witnesses of the appalling scene upon which the prosecution was founded; then, again, he would fiercely lament that the blow which he had inflicted had not ended all. the assizes arrived, however, and upon the day appointed lord glenfallen and i attended in order to give our evidence. the cause was called on, and the prisoner appeared at the bar. great curiosity and interest were felt respecting the trial, so that the court was crowded to excess. the prisoner, however, without appearing to take the trouble of listening to the indictment, pleaded guilty, and no representations on the part of the court availed to induce her to retract her plea. after much time had been wasted in a fruitless attempt to prevail upon her to reconsider her words, the court proceeded, according to the usual form, to pass sentence. this having been done, the prisoner was about to be removed, when she said, in a low, distinct voice: "a word--a word, my lord!--is lord glenfallen here in the court?" on being told that he was, she raised her voice to a tone of loud menace, and continued: "hardress, earl of glenfallen, i accuse you here in this court of justice of two crimes,--first, that you married a second wife while the first was living; and again, that you prompted me to the murder, for attempting which i am to die. secure him--chain him--bring him here!" there was a laugh through the court at these words, which were naturally treated by the judge as a violent extemporary recrimination, and the woman was desired to be silent. "you won't take him, then?" she said; "you won't try him? you'll let him go free?" it was intimated by the court that he would certainly be allowed "to go free," and she was ordered again to be removed. before, however, the mandate was executed, she threw her arms wildly into the air, and uttered one piercing shriek so full of preternatural rage and despair, that it might fitly have ushered a soul into those realms where hope can come no more. the sound still rang in my ears, months after the voice that had uttered it was for ever silent. the wretched woman was executed in accordance with the sentence which had been pronounced. for some time after this event, lord glenfallen appeared, if possible, to suffer more than he had done before, and altogether his language, which often amounted to half confessions of the guilt imputed to him, and all the circumstances connected with the late occurrences, formed a mass of evidence so convincing that i wrote to my father, detailing the grounds of my fears, and imploring him to come to cahergillagh without delay, in order to remove me from my husband's control, previously to taking legal steps for a final separation. circumstanced as i was, my existence was little short of intolerable, for, besides the fearful suspicions which attached to my husband, i plainly perceived that if lord glenfallen were not relieved, and that speedily, insanity must supervene. i therefore expected my father's arrival, or at least a letter to announce it, with indescribable impatience. about a week after the execution had taken place, lord glenfallen one morning met me with an unusually sprightly air. "fanny," said he, "i have it now for the first time in my power to explain to your satisfaction everything which has hitherto appeared suspicious or mysterious in my conduct. after breakfast come with me to my study, and i shall, i hope, make all things clear." this invitation afforded me more real pleasure than i had experienced for months. something had certainly occurred to tranquillize my husband's mind in no ordinary degree, and i thought it by no means impossible that he would, in the proposed interview, prove himself the most injured and innocent of men. full of this hope, i repaired to his study at the appointed hour. he was writing busily when i entered the room, and just raising his eyes, he requested me to be seated. i took a chair as he desired, and remained silently awaiting his leisure, while he finished, folded, directed, and sealed his letter. laying it then upon the table with the address downward, he said,-- "my dearest fanny, i know i must have appeared very strange to you and very unkind--often even cruel. before the end of this week i will show you the necessity of my conduct--how impossible it was that i should have seemed otherwise. i am conscious that many acts of mine must have inevitably given rise to painful suspicions--suspicions which, indeed, upon one occasion, you very properly communicated to me. i have got two letters from a quarter which commands respect, containing information as to the course by which i may be enabled to prove the negative of all the crimes which even the most credulous suspicion could lay to my charge. i expected a third by this morning's post, containing documents which will set the matter for ever at rest, but owing, no doubt, to some neglect, or perhaps to some difficulty in collecting the papers, some inevitable delay, it has not come to hand this morning, according to my expectation. i was finishing one to the very same quarter when you came in, and if a sound rousing be worth anything, i think i shall have a special messenger before two days have passed. i have been anxiously considering with myself, as to whether i had better imperfectly clear up your doubts by submitting to your inspection the two letters which i have already received, or wait till i can triumphantly vindicate myself by the production of the documents which i have already mentioned, and i have, i think, not unnaturally decided upon the latter course. however, there is a person in the next room whose testimony is not without its value--excuse me for one moment." so saying, he arose and went to the door of a closet which opened from the study; this he unlocked, and half opening the door, he said, "it is only i," and then slipped into the room, and carefully closed and locked the door behind him. i immediately heard his voice in animated conversation. my curiosity upon the subject of the letter was naturally great, so, smothering any little scruples which i might have felt, i resolved to look at the address of the letter which lay, as my husband had left it, with its face upon the table. i accordingly drew it over to me, and turned up the direction. for two or three moments i could scarce believe my eyes, but there could be no mistake--in large characters were traced the words, "to the archangel gabriel in heaven." i had scarcely returned the letter to its original position, and in some degree recovered the shock which this unequivocal proof of insanity produced, when the closet door was unlocked, and lord glenfallen re-entered the study, carefully closing and locking the door again upon the outside. "whom have you there?" inquired i, making a strong effort to appear calm. "perhaps," said he, musingly, "you might have some objection to seeing her, at least for a time." "who is it?" repeated i. "why," said he, "i see no use in hiding it--the blind dutchwoman. i have been with her the whole morning. she is very anxious to get out of that closet; but you know she is odd, she is scarcely to be trusted." a heavy gust of wind shook the door at this moment with a sound as if something more substantial were pushing against it. "ha, ha, ha!--do you hear her?" said he, with an obstreperous burst of laughter. the wind died away in a long howl, and lord glenfallen, suddenly checking his merriment, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered: "poor devil, she has been hardly used." "we had better not tease her at present with questions," said i, in as unconcerned a tone as i could assume, although i felt every moment as if i should faint. "humph! may be so," said he. "well, come back in an hour or two, or when you please, and you will find us here." he again unlocked the door, and entered with the same precautions which he had adopted before, locking the door upon the inside; and as i hurried from the room, i heard his voice again exerted as if in eager parley. i can hardly describe my emotions; my hopes had been raised to the highest, and now, in an instant, all was gone: the dreadful consummation was accomplished--the fearful retribution had fallen upon the guilty man--the mind was destroyed, the power to repent was gone. the agony of the hours which followed what i would still call my awful interview with lord glenfallen, i cannot describe; my solitude was, however, broken in upon by martha, who came to inform me of the arrival of a gentleman, who expected me in the parlour. i accordingly descended, and, to my great joy, found my father seated by the fire. this expedition upon his part was easily accounted for: my communications had touched the honour of the family. i speedily informed him of the dreadful malady which had fallen upon the wretched man. my father suggested the necessity of placing some person to watch him, to prevent his injuring himself or others. i rang the bell, and desired that one edward cooke, an attached servant of the family, should be sent to me. i told him distinctly and briefly the nature of the service required of him, and, attended by him, my father and i proceeded at once to the study. the door of the inner room was still closed, and everything in the outer chamber remained in the same order in which i had left it. we then advanced to the closet-door, at which we knocked, but without receiving any answer. we next tried to open the door, but in vain; it was locked upon the inside. we knocked more loudly, but in vain. seriously alarmed, i desired the servant to force the door, which was, after several violent efforts, accomplished, and we entered the closet. lord glenfallen was lying on his face upon a sofa. "hush!" said i; "he is asleep." we paused for a moment. "he is too still for that," said my father. we all of us felt a strong reluctance to approach the figure. "edward," said i, "try whether your master sleeps." the servant approached the sofa where lord glenfallen lay. he leant his ear towards the head of the recumbent figure, to ascertain whether the sound of breathing was audible. he turned towards us, and said: "my lady, you had better not wait here; i am sure he is dead!" "let me see the face," said i, terribly agitated; "you _may_ be mistaken." the man then, in obedience to my command, turned the body round, and, gracious god! what a sight met my view. the whole breast of the shirt, with its lace frill, was drenched with his blood, as was the couch underneath the spot where he lay. the head hung back, as it seemed, almost severed from the body by a frightful gash, which yawned across the throat. the razor which had inflicted the wound was found under his body. all, then, was over; i was never to learn the history in whose termination i had been so deeply and so tragically involved. the severe discipline which my mind had undergone was not bestowed in vain. i directed my thoughts and my hopes to that place where there is no more sin, nor danger, nor sorrow. thus ends a brief tale whose prominent incidents many will recognize as having marked the history of a distinguished family; and though it refers to a somewhat distant date, we shall be found not to have taken, upon that account, any liberties with the facts. the end. london: printed by gilbert and rivington, ld., st. john's house, clerkenwell, e.c. by the author of "ballybeg junction." the merchant of killogue a munster tale by f. m. allen author of "through green glasses," "a house of tears," "in one town," etc., etc. in three volumes. the world. "an inside and intimate picture of irish life and character, in phases and circumstances which have not, so far as we know, been approached by any other novelist or satirist. the work is not describable, it is not to be indicated by comparison; the very touch of occasional caricature in the election scenes, and in the 'brigand' of the story, o'ruark, which throws out the sheer clear actuality of the people, the places, the 'ways'; the extraordinary humour of the talk; the jarring of small interests and petty ambitions in the town that is all the world to its inhabitants; the swift stroke of fate and sudden investment of the scene with tragic interest--are mr. downey's own. mick moloney's last 'few words with the master' is an incident worthy to be placed beside the famous death scene in the mountain-pass in 'tom burke.'" the daily telegraph. "vivid and convincing sketches of irish provincial life abound in 'the merchant of killogue.'... the story is admirably worked up to a surprising and startling _dénouement_." westminster gazette. "the only fault we have to find with 'the merchant of killogue' is that it is too conscientious.... in depicting his characters he shows rare skill and knowledge as well as a very considerable gift of humour. they are all vivid, distinct, and lifelike.... the workmanship is of quite unusual merit." daily chronicle. "mr. downey's celts are human beings, motived by the ordinary motives, and talking like rational men and women. his central figure, john o'reilly, is an artistic creation." literary world. "natural, strong in local characterisation and colouring, with many touches of quaint humour peculiarly irish and racy, and bright and readable from cover to cover." saturday review. "there is no questioning the ability of mr. edmund downey's munster tale. it is long since a writer has introduced us to a set of characters so fresh, so unlike the usual creations of the novelist." vanity fair. "every character in the book is put down in words so subtle and strong that for yourself you know the people. there is nothing of the new woman in it, and not a line concerning the analyses of soul and body. it is just a picture of irish life which might have been written in shorthand as it happened, and written out afterwards in longhand, so clear and sharp and vital is it. it is an exciting story, with a thrilling winding up." st. james's gazette. "when we say that mr. downey reminds us not a little of his great precursor, lever, we are paying him no idle compliment." guardian. "one of the best descriptions of irish life that we have read since lever." spectator. "a very bright and vivacious book.... the merchant is a very carefully painted portrait, and he is really made to live." the sun. "before you are half-way through the first chapter of this entertaining book you realize that you are here face to face with ireland drawn from the life, that this is fiction not of stale convention but of first-hand observation, and that the story demands more than ordinary attention." athenÃ�um. "it is pleasant for a reviewer to be able to congratulate him on the good account to which he has now turned his extensive acquaintance with irish provincial life." st. paul's. "the humour is neither farcical nor conventional, it is the humour of situation and character.... the dialogue is animated, easy, and natural throughout." lloyds'. "the rich racy humour of irish life bubbles up in many fantastic forms and shapes throughout mr. downey's novel." morning post. "excellent portraits abound in this tale of munster." standard. "the plot acts mainly as a peg on which the author hangs his sketches of irish character, and these are excellently done. the merchant himself ... is a remarkable study.... o'ruark is, in his way, quite a creation, and his perennial flow of irish wit is one of the pleasantest things in the three volumes." truth. "the characters and the scenes are excellently drawn." liverpool mercury. "a story that holds the attention of the reader down to the last page." freeman's journal. "the book has all the interest of a story that we feel derives its life from experience." irish weekly independent. "'the merchant of killogue' is a book in which high spirits predominate. it is no mean compliment to say that two or three chapters read like chapters of 'charles o'malley' or 'harry lorrequer.'" boston (u.s.a.) literary world. "a remarkable novel of irish life is 'the merchant of killogue.' i do not know any novel which paints the life so realistically.... as a portrait of the time and the people the book ought to live." +w. heinemann+, publisher, bedford street, strand, london g. w. appleton's novels. a terrible legacy: a tale of the south downs. "one of the most amusing novels we have ever read. the author revels in a good character, and so the book is filled with grotesque oddities, at which we laugh consumedly.... a novelist who possesses the rare gift of humour. we are grateful for an afternoon of hearty laughter. could we say as much of nine books out of ten?"--_world._ "one of the most amusing novels we have ever read. mr. appleton has done for the south downs what mr. blackmore has done for exmoor."--_st. stephen's review._ "it is not in respect of this rare gift of humour that i alone value the author. this story is a tale of the south downs, and mr. appleton has the power of depicting in words the changing aspects of nature with an absolute fidelity to truth. counties differ, as human faces differ, only more so. mr. appleton has made the south downs his own literary property."--_vanity fair._ "the reader will not be long in discovering that the book is the work of a good and clever writer of no mean dramatic powers--whether in point of conception or of execution--with much drollery and quaintness at command, and a well-developed faculty of dealing with the mysterious, and other admirable gifts."--_illustrated london news._ "laughter-moving from first to last. mr. appleton has written nothing better than this."--_scotsman._ "the readers of this strange romance will be bound to confess that the author has held them captive."--_daily news._ "from first to last absorbs the attention of the reader."--_morning post._ "the novel is a novel in the true sense of the word, and whoever reads it must feel refreshed at finding he is perusing altogether a new style of book."--_observer._ "the novel is a piece of sound workmanship, and distinctly marked off from the ordinary run. it is worthy of its author's high reputation."--_weekly dispatch._ "he has created types that deserve to survive and acquire as much popularity as has fallen to the share of some of those of our most famous humorists."--_echo._ "one of the most original works of fiction we have met with for a long time, as different from the usual feeble imitations of 'ouida' and 'george eliot' as a breezy common or a bright spring day is from the faint, perfume-laden atmosphere of an aristocratic drawing-room."--_london journal._ "mr. appleton's genius seems freer, brighter, and more effective in the lighter moods, and he is able to display a varied cultivation without the slightest obtrusion of learning."--_sunday times._ "'a terrible legacy' is a book of great ability and power. it is a curious tribute to the vast vitality of dickens' genius that a comparatively new and an able writer should openly take him for a model. mr. appleton is not a mere imitator: he does not follow in dickens' footsteps by appropriating his materials, but by adopting his point of view. he has chosen his master wisely, for his own talent is similar in kind."--_new york daily graphic._ frozen hearts: a romance. "there is so much power and pathos in the narrative as to give it an impress of realism, and it is, on the whole, one that most people can read with hearty relish."--_scotsman._ "'frozen hearts' makes high pretensions, and justifies them."--_westminster review._ "good melodrama, such as this is, is a sure panacea against dulness, and implies the possession of that vigour and _élan_ which every novelist should have about him. in some portions, as in the exciting description of the barricade fighting, and in the interview between the unjustly slandered heroine and the mother who is breaking her own heart with her own cruelty, the author rises to real power."--_globe._ "it is full of all kinds of excitement, and in some places reveals evidence of strong dramatic power."--_academy._ "the story is new and striking.... some of the less important characters are amusing, and the light comedy scenes are above the average.... mr. appleton possesses the knack, so useful to a novelist, of getting to his point without any superfluous matter, and is always original and generally correct."--_sunday times._ _victor hugo_ writes: "je trouve grand plaisir à la lecture de ce livre. le chapitre sur les troubles à paris m'a vivement interessé." catching a tartar: a novel. "mr. appleton's new novel is in every way the equal, if it be not positively the superior of 'frozen hearts,' the work which established his just claims to popularity. it is a capital story, written in a most natural and graceful style. the plot is interesting, and all the characters are distinct and realistic creations; some, indeed, are likely to 'live,' and become by reason of their quaint sayings and doings, popular, as were in days of yore some of dickens' and thackeray's personages. notably is this the case with john, a most original and amusing character, whose pithy sayings provoke many a hearty laugh. the intrigue of the story is lively and intricate, but so skilfully contrived that the 'situations' never appear forced or unnatural. 'catching a tartar' is worthy of much praise, and is decidedly one of the cleverest novels we have read or reviewed for a long time. mr. appleton possesses exceptional talent as a novelist, and, above all, the rare quality of getting to his point without encumbering his narrative with superfluous matter. he is always original, and never dull or commonplace. his next venture in the shape of a novel will be looked forward to with much interest."--_morning post._ "many able men have come short of being successful novel writers, simply because they lacked brightness or lightness or smoothness of composition. mr. appleton displays these qualities; his book is therefore easy to read.... a vein of humour throughout, the effect of which is heightened by many a touch of genuine pathos. so marked an advance in the course of a single year is deserving of note."--_athenæum._ "mr. appleton has here achieved a very decided success in the way of a novel of mystery. we must, if we are honest, admit that our attention has been irresistibly enchained throughout the three volumes. the book is one, altogether, to be read, and we may safely predict that no one who masters the first fifty pages will be the least likely to leave it unfinished."--_graphic._ "the story is contrived with great ingenuity, and told with great skill and spirit.... characters firmly and sharply drawn, with a good deal of quiet fun and humour."--_guardian._ "the narrative moves on briskly, and never lets the attention flag."--_spectator._ jack allyn's friends: a novel. "mr. appleton knows how to write novels of absorbing and unflagging interest and of remarkable cleverness, and his latest effort, 'jack allyn's friends,' unmistakably possesses these qualities. much of the peculiar interest of the story is derived from the subtlety with which the catastrophe is brought about. but there is also a brisk, almost boisterous vitality about the book--a sort of vigorous simplicity, resembling that of messrs. besant and rice--with abundant humour and some cleverly-managed love-making under difficulties. with all these characteristics, 'jack allyn's friends' is a novel which even those who may pronounce its condemnation from the serene heights of æstheticism will read and enjoy."--_scotsman._ "mr. appleton has succeeded in writing a novel which combines the merits of miss braddon with those of bret harte. the plot is carefully prepared, and the interest sustained until the very close of the third volume. the stout old american, bill hooker, reminds us of one of bret harte's rocky mountain heroes, whose hearts are of the same sterling metal as the ore from their mines."--_graphic._ "there is no doubt about the interest of this novel. the plot is certainly contrived with no little art. the secret is ingeniously kept. suspicion is skilfully directed, first in one direction, then in another, and the _dénouement_ will probably be unsuspected. a decidedly readable novel."--_spectator._ transcriber's note for this txt-version text in italics has been surrounded with _underscores_, and a spaced-out word with +signs. text in small capitals was changed to all capitals. a few errors in punctuation were silently corrected. also the following corrections were made: in the table of contents " " was changed to " " (the dream ), also on page "behavour" changed to "behaviour" (frightened into good behaviour, like a naughty child) "stange" changed to "strange" (to think of the strange interview which had just) "communciated" changed to "communicated" (it was no doubt communicated to me) / "he" changed to "she" (favourite views, and she had walked) "decrepid" changed to "decrepit" (the grim, decrepit hag which my fancy had) "first" changed to "fist" (shaking her clenched fist to me) "coninued" changed to "continued" (still continued to bind me) otherwise the original text has been preserved, including inconsistent hyphenation, and unusual spelling of foreign words. the three impostors or the transmutations by arthur machen translator of 'l'heptameron' and 'le moyen de parvenir'; author of 'the chronicle of clemendy' and 'the great god pan' boston: roberts bros, london: john lane, vigo st. contents prologue adventure of the gold tiberius the encounter of the pavement novel of the dark valley adventure of the missing brother novel of the black seal incident of the private bar the decorative imagination novel of the iron maid the recluse of bayswater novel of the white powder strange occurrence in clerkenwell history of the young man with spectacles adventure of the deserted residence the three impostors. prologue. "and mr. joseph walters is going to stay the night?" said the smooth clean-shaven man to his companion, an individual not of the most charming appearance, who had chosen to make his ginger-colored mustache merge into a pair of short chin-whiskers. the two stood at the hall door, grinning evilly at each other; and presently a girl ran quickly down, the stairs, and joined them. she was quite young, with a quaint and piquant rather than a beautiful face, and her eyes were of a shining hazel. she held a neat paper parcel in one hand, and laughed with her friends. "leave the door open," said the smooth man to the other, as they were going out. "yes, by----," he went on with an ugly oath. "we'll leave the front door on the jar. he may like to see company, you know." the other man looked doubtfully about him. "is it quite prudent do you think, davies?" he said, pausing with his hand on the mouldering knocker. "i don't think lipsius would like it. what do you say, helen?" "i agree with davies. davies is an artist, and you are commonplace, richmond, and a bit of a coward. let the door stand open, of course. but what a pity lipsius had to go away! he would have enjoyed himself." "yes," replied the smooth mr. davies, "that summons to the west was very hard on the doctor." the three passed out, leaving the hall door, cracked and riven with frost and wet, half open, and they stood silent for a moment under the ruinous shelter of the porch. "well," said the girl, "it is done at last. i shall hurry no more on the track of the young man with spectacles." "we owe a great deal to you," said mr. davies politely; "the doctor said so before he left. but have we not all three some farewells to make? i, for my part, propose to say good-by, here, before this picturesque but mouldy residence, to my friend mr. burton, dealer in the antique and curious," and the man lifted his hat with an exaggerated bow. "and i," said richmond, "bid adieu to mr. wilkins, the private secretary, whose company has, i confess, become a little tedious." "farewell to miss lally, and to miss leicester also," said the girl, making as she spoke a delicious courtesy. "farewell to all occult adventure; the farce is played." mr. davies and the lady seemed full of grim enjoyment, but richmond tugged at his whiskers nervously. "i feel a bit shaken up," he said. "i've seen rougher things in the states, but that crying noise he made gave me a sickish feeling. and then the smell--but my stomach was never very strong." the three friends moved away from the door, and began to walk slowly up and down what had been a gravel path, but now lay green and pulpy with damp mosses. it was a fine autumn evening, and a faint sunlight shone on the yellow walls of the old deserted house, and showed the patches of gangrenous decay, and all the stains, the black drift of rain from the broken pipes, the scabrous blots where the bare bricks were exposed, the green weeping of a gaunt laburnum that stood beside the porch, and ragged marks near the ground where the reeking clay was gaining on the worn foundations. it was a queer rambling old place, the centre perhaps two hundred years old, with dormer windows sloping from the tiled roof, and on each side there were georgian wings; bow windows had been carried up to the first floor, and two dome-like cupolas that had once been painted a bright green were now gray and neutral. broken urns lay upon the path, and a heavy mist seemed to rise from the unctuous clay; the neglected shrubberies, grown all tangled and unshapen, smelt dank and evil, and there was an atmosphere all about the deserted mansion that proposed thoughts of an opened grave. the three friends looked dismally at the rough grasses and the nettles that grew thick over lawn and flower-beds; and at the sad water-pool in the midst of the weeds. there, above green and oily scum instead of lilies, stood a rusting triton on the rocks, sounding a dirge through a shattered horn; and beyond, beyond the sunk fence and the far meadows; the sun slid down and shone red through the bars of the elm trees. richmond shivered and stamped his foot. "we had better be going soon," he said; "there is nothing else to be done here." "no," said davies, "it is finished at last. i thought for some time we should never get hold of the gentleman with the spectacles. he was a clever fellow, but, lord! he broke up badly at last. i can tell you he looked white at me when i touched him on the arm in the bar. but where could he have hidden the thing? we can all swear it was not on him." the girl laughed, and they turned away, when richmond gave a violent start. "ah!" he cried, turning to the girl, "what have you got there? look, davies, look! it's all oozing and dripping." the young woman glanced down at the little parcel she was carrying, and partially unfolded the paper. "yes, look both of you," she said; "it's my own idea. don't you think it will do nicely for the doctor's museum? it comes from the right hand, the hand that took the gold tiberius." mr. davies nodded with a good deal of approbation, and richmond lifted his ugly high-crowned bowler, and wiped his forehead with a dingy handkerchief. "i'm going," he said; "you two can stay if you like." the three went round by the stable path, past the withered wilderness of the old kitchen garden, and struck off by a hedge at the back, making for a particular point in the road. about five minutes later two gentlemen, whom idleness had led to explore these forgotten outskirts of london, came sauntering up the shadowy carriage drive. they had spied the deserted house from the road, and as they observed all the heavy desolation of the place they began to moralize in the great style, with considerable debts to jeremy taylor. "look, dyson," said the one as they drew nearer, "look at those upper windows; the sun is setting, and though the panes are dusty, yet "the grimy sash an oriel burns." "phillipps," replied the elder and (it must be said) the more pompous of the two, "i yield to fantasy, i cannot withstand the influence of the grotesque. here, where all is falling into dimness and dissolution, and we walk in cedarn gloom, and the very air of heaven goes mouldering to the lungs, i cannot remain commonplace. i look at that deep glow on the panes, and the house lies all enchanted; that very room, i tell you, is within all blood and fire." adventure of the gold tiberius. the acquaintance between mr. dyson and mr. charles phillipps arose from one of those myriad chances which are every day doing their work in the streets of london. mr. dyson was a man of letters, and an unhappy instance of talents misapplied. with gifts that might have placed him in the flower of his youth among the most favored of bentley's favorite novelists, he had chosen to be perverse; he was, it is true, familiar with scholastic logic, but he knew nothing of the logic of life, and he flattered himself with the title of artist, when he was in fact but an idle and curious spectator of other men's endeavors. amongst many delusions, he cherished one most fondly, that he was a strenuous worker; and it was with a gesture of supreme weariness that he would enter his favorite resort, a small tobacco shop in great queen street, and proclaim to any one who cared to listen that he had seen the rising and setting of two successive suns. the proprietor of the shop, a middle-aged man of singular civility, tolerated dyson partly out of good nature, and partly because he was a regular customer; he was allowed to sit on an empty cask, and to express his sentiments on literary and artistic matters till he was tired or the time for closing came; and if no fresh customers were attracted, it is believed that none were turned away by his eloquence. dyson, was addicted to wild experiments in tobacco; he never wearied of trying new combinations, and one evening he had just entered the shop and given utterance to his last preposterous formula, when a young fellow, of about his own age, who had come in a moment later, asked the shopman to duplicate the order on his account, smiling politely, as he spoke, to mr. dyson's address. dyson felt profoundly flattered, and after a few phrases the two entered into conversation, and in an hour's time the tobacconist saw the new friends sitting side by side on a couple of casks, deep in talk. "my dear sir," said dyson, "i will give you the task of the literary man in a phrase. he has got to do simply this: to invent a wonderful story, and to tell it in a wonderful manner." "i will grant you that," said mr. phillipps, "but you will allow me to insist that in the hands of the true artist in words all stories are marvellous, and every circumstance has its peculiar wonder. the matter is of little consequence, the manner is everything. indeed, the highest skill is shown in taking matter apparently commonplace and transmuting it by the high alchemy of style into the pure gold of art." "that is indeed a proof of great skill, but it is great skill exerted foolishly, or at least unadvisedly. it is as if a great violinist were to show us what marvellous harmonies he could draw from a child's banjo." "no, no, you are really wrong. i see you take a radically mistaken view of life. but we must thresh this out. come to my rooms; i live not far from here." it was thus that mr. dyson became the associate of mr. charles phillipps, who lived in a quiet square not far from holborn. thenceforth they haunted each other's rooms at intervals, sometimes regular, and occasionally the reverse, and made appointments to meet at the shop in queen street, where their talk robbed the tobacconist's profit of half its charm. there was a constant jarring of literary formulas, dyson exalting the claims of the pure imagination, while phillipps, who was a student of physical science and something of an ethnologist, insisted that all literature ought to have a scientific basis. by the mistaken benevolence of deceased relatives both young men were placed out of reach of hunger, and so, meditating high achievements, idled their time pleasantly away, and revelled in the careless joys of a bohemianism devoid of the sharp seasoning of adversity. one night in june mr. phillipps was sitting in his room in the calm retirement of red lion square. he had opened the window, and was smoking placidly, while he watched the movement of life below. the sky was clear, and the afterglow of sunset had lingered long about it; and the flushing twilight of a summer evening, vying with the gas-lamps in the square, had fashioned a chiaroscuro that had in it something unearthly; and the children, racing to and fro upon the pavement, the lounging idlers by the public, and the casual passers-by rather flickered, and hovered in the play of lights than stood out substantial things. by degrees in the houses opposite one window after another leaped out a square of light, now and again a figure would shape itself against a blind and vanish, and to all this semi-theatrical magic the runs and flourishes of brave italian opera played a little distance off on a piano-organ seemed an appropriate accompaniment, while the deep-muttered bass of the traffic of holborn never ceased. phillipps enjoyed the scene and its effects; the light in the sky faded and turned to darkness, and the square gradually grew silent, and still he sat dreaming at the window, till the sharp peal of the house bell roused him, and looking at his watch he found that it was past ten o'clock. there was a knock at the door, and his friend mr. dyson entered, and, according to his custom, sat down in an armchair and began to smoke in silence. "you know, phillipps," he said at length, "that i have always battled for the marvellous. i remember your maintaining in that chair that one has no business to make use of the wonderful, the improbable, the odd coincidence in literature, and you took the ground that it was wrong to do so, because, as a matter of fact, the wonderful and the improbable don't happen, and men's lives are not really shaped by odd coincidence. now, mind you, if that were so, i would not grant your conclusion, because i think the "criticism-of-life" theory is all nonsense; but i deny your premise. a most singular thing has happened to me to-night." "really, dyson, i am very glad to hear it. of course i oppose your argument, whatever it may be; but if you would be good enough to tell me of your adventure i should be delighted." "well, it came about like this. i have had a very hard day's work; indeed, i have scarcely moved from my old bureau since seven o'clock last night. i wanted to work out that idea we discussed last tuesday, you know, the notion of the fetish-worshipper." "yes, i remember. have you been able to do anything with it?" "yes; it came out better than i expected; but there were great difficulties, the usual agony between the conception and the execution. anyhow i got it done at about seven o'clock to-night, and i thought i should like a little of the fresh air. i went out and wandered rather aimlessly about the streets; my head was full of my tale, and i didn't much notice where i was going. i got into those quiet places to the north of oxford street as you go west, the genteel residential neighborhood of stucco and prosperity. i turned east again without knowing it, and it was quite dark when i passed along a sombre little by-street, ill lighted and empty. i did not know at the time in the least where i was, but i found out afterwards that it was not very far from tottenham court road. i strolled idly along, enjoying the stillness; on one side there seemed to be the back premises of some great shop; tier after tier of dusty windows lifted up into the night, with gibbet-like contrivances for raising heavy goods, and below large doors, fast closed and bolted, all dark and desolate. then there came a huge pantechnicon warehouse; and over the way a grim blank wall, as forbidding as the wall of a jail, and then the headquarters of some volunteer regiment, and afterwards a passage leading to a court where wagons were standing to be hired. it was, one might almost say, a street devoid of inhabitants, and scarce a window showed the glimmer of a light. i was wondering at the strange peace and dimness there, where it must be close to some roaring main artery of london life, when suddenly i heard the noise of dashing feet tearing along the pavement at full speed, and from a narrow passage, a mews or something of that kind, a man was discharged as from a catapult under my very nose and rushed past me, flinging something from him as he ran. he was gone and down another street in an instant, almost before i knew what had happened, but i didn't much bother about him, i was watching something else. i told you he had thrown something away; well, i watched what seemed a line of flame flash through the air and fly quivering over the pavement, and in spite of myself i could not help tearing after it. the impetus lessened, and i saw something like a bright half-penny roll slower and slower, and then deflect towards the gutter, hover for a moment on the edge, and dance down into a drain. i believe i cried out in positive despair, though i hadn't the least notion what i was hunting; and then to my joy i saw that, instead of dropping into the sewer, it had fallen flat across two bars. i stooped down and picked it up and whipped it into my pocket, and i was just about to walk on when i heard again that sound of dashing footsteps. i don't know why i did it, but as a matter of fact i dived down into the mews, or whatever it was, and stood as much in the shadow as possible. a man went by with a rush a few paces from where i was standing, and i felt uncommonly pleased that i was in hiding. i couldn't make out much feature, but i saw his eyes gleaming and his teeth showing, and he had an ugly-looking knife in one hand, and i thought things would be very unpleasant for gentleman number one if the second robber, or robbed, or what you like, caught him up. i can tell you, phillipps, a fox hunt is exciting enough, when the horn blows clear on a winter morning, and the hounds give tongue, and the red-coats charge away, but it's nothing to a man hunt, and that's what i had a slight glimpse of to-night. there was murder in the fellow's eyes as he went by, and i don't think there was much more than fifty seconds between the two. i only hope it was enough." dyson leant back in his armchair and relit his pipe, and puffed thoughtfully. phillipps began to walk up and down the room, musing over the story of violent death fleeting in chase along the pavement, the knife shining in the lamplight, the fury of the pursuer, and the terror of the pursued. "well," he said at last, "and what was it, after all, that you rescued from the gutter?" dyson jumped up, evidently quite startled. "i really haven't a notion. i didn't think of looking. but we shall see." he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and drew out a small and shining object, and laid it on the table. it glowed there beneath the lamp with the radiant glory of rare old gold; and the image and the letters stood out in high relief, clear and sharp, as if it had but left the mint a month before. the two men bent over it, and phillipps took it up and examined it closely. "imp. tiberius cæsar augustus," he read the legend, and then, looking at the reverse of the coin, he stared in amazement, and at last turned to dyson with a look of exultation. "do you know what you have found?" he said. "apparently a gold coin of some antiquity," said dyson, coolly. "quite so, a gold tiberius. no, that is wrong. you have found _the_ gold tiberius. look at the reverse." dyson looked and saw the coin was stamped with the figure of a faun standing amidst reeds and flowing water. the features, minute as they were, stood out in delicate outline; it was a face lovely and yet terrible, and dyson thought of the well-known passage of the lad's playmate, gradually growing with his growth and increasing with his stature, till the air was filled with the rank fume of the goat. "yes," he said, "it is a curious coin. do you know it?" "i know about it. it is one of the comparatively few historical objects in existence; it is all storied like those jewels we have read of. a whole cycle of legend has gathered round the thing; the tale goes that it formed part of an issue struck by tiberius to commemorate an infamous excess. you see the legend on the reverse: 'victoria.' it is said that by an extraordinary accident the whole issue was thrown into the melting pot, and that only this one coin escaped. it glints through history and legend, appearing and disappearing, with intervals of a hundred years in time and continents in place. it was discovered by an italian humanist, and lost and rediscovered. it has not been heard of since , when sir joshua byrde, a turkey merchant, brought it home from aleppo, and vanished with it a month after he had shown it to the virtuosi, no man knew or knows where. and here it is!" "put it into your pocket, dyson," he said, after a pause. "i would not let any one have a glimpse of the thing, if i were you. i would not talk about it. did either of the men you saw see you?" "well, i think not. i don't think the first man, the man who was vomited out of the dark passage, saw anything at all; and i am sure that the second could not have seen me." "and you didn't really see them. you couldn't recognize either the one or the other if you met him in the street to-morrow?" "no, i don't think i could. the street, as i said, was dimly lighted, and they ran like mad-men." the two men sat silent for some time, each weaving his own fancies of the story; but lust of the marvellous was slowly overpowering dyson's more sober thoughts. "it is all more strange than i fancied," he said at last. "it was queer enough what i saw; a man is sauntering along a quiet, sober, every-day london street, a street of gray houses and blank walls, and there, for a moment, a veil seems drawn aside, and the very fume of the pit steams up through the flagstones, the ground glows, red hot, beneath his feet, and he seems to hear the hiss of the infernal caldron. a man flying in mad terror for his life, and furious hate pressing hot on his steps with knife drawn ready; here indeed is horror. but what is all that to what you have told me? i tell you, phillipps, i see the plot thicken, our steps will henceforth be dogged with mystery, and the most ordinary incidents will teem with significance. you may stand out against it, and shut your eyes, but they will be forced open; mark my words, you will have to yield to the inevitable. a clue, tangled if you like, has been placed by chance in our hands; it will be our business to follow it up. as for the guilty person or persons in this strange case, they will be unable to escape us, our nets will be spread far and wide over this great city, and suddenly, in the streets and places of public resort, we shall in some way or other be made aware that we are in touch with the unknown criminal. indeed, i almost fancy i see him slowly approaching this quiet square of yours; he is loitering at street corners, wandering, apparently without aim, down far-reaching thoroughfares, but all the while coming nearer and nearer, drawn by an irresistible magnetism, as ships were drawn to the loadstone rock in the eastern tale." "i certainly think," replied phillipps, "that, if you pull out that coin and flourish it under people's noses as you are doing at the present moment, you will very probably find yourself in touch with the criminal, or a criminal. you will undoubtedly be robbed with violence. otherwise, i see no reason why either of us should be troubled. no one saw you secure the coin, and no one knows you have it. i, for my part, shall sleep peacefully, and go about my business with a sense of security and a firm dependence on the natural order of things. the events of the evening, the adventure in the street, have been odd, i grant you, but i resolutely decline to have any more to do with the matter, and, if necessary, i shall consult the police. i will not be enslaved by a gold tiberius, even though it swims into my ken in a manner which is somewhat melodramatic." "and i for my part," said dyson, "go forth like a knight-errant in search of adventure. not that i shall need to seek; rather adventure will seek me; i shall be like a spider in the midst of his web, responsive to every movement, and ever on the alert." shortly afterwards dyson took his leave, and mr. phillipps spent the rest of the night in examining some flint arrow-heads which he had purchased. he had every reason to believe that they were the work of a modern and not a palæolithic man, still he was far from gratified when a close scrutiny showed him that his suspicions were well founded. in his anger at the turpitude which would impose on an ethnologist, he completely forgot dyson and the gold tiberius; and when he went to bed at first sunlight, the whole tale had faded utterly from his thoughts. the encounter of the pavement. mr. dyson, walking leisurely along oxford. street, and staring with bland inquiry at whatever caught his attention, enjoyed in all its rare flavors the sensation that he was really very hard at work. his observation of mankind, the traffic, and the shop-windows tickled his faculties with an exquisite bouquet; he looked serious, as one looks on whom charges of weight and moment are laid, and he was attentive in his glances to right and left, for fear lest he should miss some circumstance of more acute significance. he had narrowly escaped being run over at a crossing by a charging van, for he hated to hurry his steps, and indeed the afternoon was warm; and he had just halted by a place of popular refreshment, when the astounding gestures of a well dressed individual on the opposite pavement held him enchanted and gasping like a fish. a treble line of hansoms, carriages, vans, cabs, and omnibuses, was tearing east and west, and not the most daring adventurer of the crossings would have cared to try his fortune; but the person who had attracted dyson's attention seemed to rage on the very edge of the pavement, now and then darting forward at the hazard of instant death, and at each repulse absolutely dancing with excitement, to the rich amusement of the passers-by. at last, a gap that would, have tried the courage of a street-boy appeared between the serried lines of vehicles, and the man rushed across in a frenzy, and escaping by a hair's breadth pounced upon dyson as a tiger pounces on her prey. "i saw you looking about you," he said, sputtering out his words in his intense eagerness; "would you mind telling me this? was the man who came out of the aerated bread shop and jumped, into the hansom three minutes ago a youngish looking man with dark whiskers and spectacles? can't you speak, man? for heaven's sake can't you speak? answer me; it's a matter of life and death." the words bubbled and boiled out of the man's mouth in the fury of his emotion, his face went from red to white, and the beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and he stamped his feet as he spoke and tore with his hand at his coat, as if something swelled and choked him, stopping the passage of his breath. "my dear sir," said dyson, "i always like to be accurate. your observation was perfectly correct. as you say, a youngish man, a man, i should say, of somewhat timid bearing, ran rapidly out of the shop here, and bounced into a hansom that must have been waiting for him, as it went eastwards at once. your friend also wore spectacles, as you say. perhaps you would like me to call a hansom for you to follow the gentleman?" "no, thank you; it would be waste of time." the man gulped down something which appeared to rise in his throat, and dyson was alarmed to see him shaking with hysterical laughter, and he clung hard to a lamp-post and swayed and staggered like a ship in a heavy gale. "how shall i face the doctor?" he murmured to himself. "it is too hard to fail at the last moment." then he seemed to recollect himself, and stood straight again, and looked quietly at dyson. i owe you an apology for my violence, he said at last. "many men would not be so patient as you have been. would you mind adding to your kindness by walking with me a little way? i feel a little sick; i think it's the sun." dyson nodded assent, and devoted himself to a quiet scrutiny of this strange personage as they moved on together. the man was dressed in quiet taste, and the most scrupulous observer could find nothing amiss with the fashion or make of his clothes, yet, from his hat to his boots, everything seemed inappropriate. his silk hat, dyson thought, should have been a high bowler of odious pattern worn with a baggy morning-coat, and an instinct told him that the fellow did not commonly carry a clean pocket-handkerchief. the face was not of the most agreeable pattern, and was in no way improved by a pair of bulbous chin-whiskers of a ginger hue, into which mustaches of light color merged imperceptibly. yet in spite of these signals hung out by nature, dyson felt that the individual beside him was something more than compact of vulgarity. he was struggling with himself, holding his feelings in check, but now and again passion would mount black to his face, and it was evidently by a supreme effort that he kept himself from raging like a madman. dyson found something curious and a little terrible in the spectacle of an occult emotion thus striving for the mastery, and threatening to break out at every instant with violence, and they had gone some distance before the person whom he had met by so odd a hazard was able to speak quietly. "you are really very good," he said. "i apologize again; my rudeness was really most unjustifiable. i feel my conduct demands an explanation, and i shall be happy to give it you. do you happen to know of any place near here where one could sit down? i should really be very glad." "my dear sir," said dyson, solemnly, "the only café in london is close by. pray do not consider yourself as bound to offer me any explanation, but at the same time i should be most happy to listen to you. let us turn down here." they walked down a sober street and turned into what seemed a narrow passage past an iron-barred gate thrown back. the passage was paved with flagstones, and decorated with handsome shrubs in pots on either side, and the shadow of the high walls made a coolness which was very agreeable after the hot breath of the sunny street. presently the passage opened out into a tiny square, a charming place, a morsel of france transplanted into the heart of london. high walls rose on either side, covered with glossy creepers, flower-beds beneath were gay with nasturtiums, geraniums, and marigolds, and odorous with mignonette, and in the centre of the square a fountain hidden by greenery sent a cool shower continually plashing into the basin beneath, and the very noise made this retreat delightful. chairs and tables were disposed at convenient intervals, and at the other end of the court broad doors had been thrown back; beyond was a long, dark room, and the turmoil of traffic had become a distant murmur. within the room one or two men were sitting at the tables, writing and sipping, but the courtyard was empty. "you see, we shall be quiet," said dyson. "pray sit down here, mr.--?" "wilkins. my name is henry wilkins." "sit here, mr. wilkins. i think you will find that a comfortable seat. i suppose you have not been here before? this is the quiet time; the place will be like a hive at six o'clock, and the chairs and tables will overflow into that little alley there." a waiter came in response to the bell; and after dyson had politely inquired after the health of m. annibault, the proprietor, he ordered a bottle of the wine of champigny. "the wine of champigny," he observed to mr. wilkins, who was evidently a good deal composed by the influence of the place, "is a tourainian wine of great merit. ah, here it is; let me fill your glass. how do you find it?" "indeed," said mr. wilkins, "i should have pronounced it a fine burgundy. the bouquet is very exquisite. i am fortunate in lighting upon such a good samaritan as yourself. i wonder you did not think me mad. but if you knew the terrors that assailed me, i am sure you would no longer be surprised at conduct which was certainly most unjustifiable." he sipped his wine, and leant back in his chair, relishing the drip and trickle of the fountain, and the cool greenness that hedged in this little port of refuge. "yes," he said at last, "that is indeed an admirable wine. thank you; you will allow me to offer you another bottle?" the waiter was summoned, and descended through a trap-door in the floor of the dark apartment, and brought up the wine. mr. wilkins lit a cigarette, and dyson pulled out his pipe. "now," said mr. wilkins, "i promised to give you an explanation of my strange behavior. it is rather a long story, but i see, sir, that you are no mere cold observer of the ebb and flow of life. you take, i think, a warm and an intelligent interest in the chances of your fellow-creatures, and i believe you will find what i have to tell not devoid of interest." mr. dyson signified his assent to these propositions, and though he thought mr. wilkins's diction a little pompous, prepared to interest himself in his tale. the other, who had so raged with passion half an hour before, was now perfectly cool, and when he had smoked out his cigarette, he began in an even voice to relate the novel of the dark valley. i am the son of a poor but learned clergyman in the west of england,--but i am forgetting, these details are not of special interest. i will briefly state, then, that my father, who was, as i have said, a learned man, had never learnt the specious arts by which the great are flattered, and would never condescend to the despicable pursuit of self-advertisement. though his fondness for ancient ceremonies and quaint customs, combined with a kindness of heart that was unequalled and a primitive and fervent piety, endeared him to his moor-land parishioners, such were not the steps by which clergy then rose in the church, and at sixty my father was still incumbent of the little benefice he had accepted in his thirtieth year. the income of the living was barely sufficient to support life in the decencies which are expected of the anglican parson; and when my father died a few years ago, i, his only child, found myself thrown upon the world with a slender capital of less than a hundred pounds, and all the problem of existence before me. i felt that there was nothing for me to do in the country, and as usually happens in such eases, london drew me like a magnet. one day in august, in the early morning, while the dew still glittered on the turf, and on the high green banks of the lane, a neighbor drove me to the railway station, and i bade good-bye to the land of the broad moors and unearthly battlements of the wild tors. it was six o'clock as we neared london; the faint sickly fume of the brickfields about acton came in puffs through the open window, and a mist was rising from the ground. presently the brief view of successive streets, prim and uniform, struck me with a sense of monotony; the hot air seemed to grow hotter; and when we had rolled beneath the dismal and squalid houses, whose dirty and neglected back yards border the line near paddington, i felt as if i should be stifled in this fainting breath of london. i got a hansom and drove off, and every street increased my gloom; gray houses with blinds drawn down, whole thoroughfares almost desolate, and the foot-passengers who seemed to stagger wearily along rather than walk, all made me feel a sinking at heart. i put up for the night at a small hotel in a street leading from the strand, where my father had stayed on his few brief visits to town; and when i went out after dinner, the real gayety and bustle of the strand and fleet street could cheer me but little, for in all this great city there was no single human being whom i could claim even as an acquaintance. i will not weary you with the history of the next year, for the adventures of a man who sinks are too trite to be worth recalling. my money did not last me long; i found that i must be neatly dressed, or no one to whom i applied would so much as listen to me; and i must live in a street of decent reputation if i wished to be treated with common civility. i applied for various posts, for which, as i now see, i was completely devoid of qualification; i tried to become a clerk without having the smallest notion of business habits, and i found, to my cost, that a general knowledge of literature and an execrable style of penmanship are far from being looked upon with favor in commercial circles. i had read one of the most charming of the works of a famous novelist of the present day, and i frequented the fleet street taverns in the hope of making literary friends, and so getting the introductions which i understood were indispensable in the career of letters. i was disappointed; i once or twice ventured to address gentlemen who were sitting in adjoining boxes, and i was answered, politely indeed, but in a manner that told me my advances were unusual. pound by pound, my small resources melted; i could no longer think of appearances; i migrated to a shy quarter, and my meals became mere observances. i went out at one and returned to my room at two, but nothing but a milk-cake had occurred in the interval. in short, i became acquainted with misfortune; and as i sat amidst slush and ice on a seat in hyde park, munching a piece of bread, i realized the bitterness of poverty, and the feelings of a gentleman reduced to something far below the condition of a vagrant. in spite of all discouragement i did not desist in my efforts to earn a living. i consulted advertisement columns, i kept my eyes open for a chance, i looked in at the windows of stationers' shops, but all in vain. one evening i was sitting in a free library, and i saw an advertisement in one of the papers. it was something like this: "wanted, by a gentleman a person of literary taste and abilities as secretary and amanuensis. must not object to travel." of course i knew that such an advertisement would have answers by the hundred, and i thought my own chances of securing the post extremely small; however, i applied at the address given, and wrote to mr. smith, who was staying at a large hotel at the west end. i must confess that my heart gave a jump when i received a note a couple of days later, asking me to call at the cosmopole at my earliest convenience. i do not know, sir, what your experiences of life may have been, and so i cannot tell whether you have known such moments. a slight sickness, my heart beating rather more rapidly than usual, a choking in the throat, and a difficulty of utterance; such were my sensations as i walked to the cosmopole. i had to mention the name twice before the hall porter could understand me, and as i went upstairs my hands were wet. i was a good deal struck by mr. smith's appearance; he looked younger than i did, and there was something mild and hesitating about his expression. he was reading when i came in, and he looked up when i gave my name. "my dear sir," he said, "i am really delighted to see you. i have read very carefully the letter you were good enough to send me. am i to understand that this document is in your own handwriting?" he showed me the letter i had written, and i told him i was not so fortunate as to be able to keep a secretary myself. "then, sir," he went on, "the post i advertised is at your service. you have no objection to travel, i presume?" as you may imagine, i closed pretty eagerly with the offer he made, and thus i entered the service of mr. smith. for the first few weeks i had no special duties; i had received a quarter's salary, and a handsome allowance was made me in lieu of board and lodging. one morning, however, when i called at the hotel according to instructions, my master informed me that i must hold myself in readiness for a sea-voyage, and, to spare unnecessary detail, in the course of a fortnight we had landed at new york. mr. smith told me that he was engaged on a work of a special nature, in the compilation of which some peculiar researches had to be made; in short, i was given to understand that we were to travel to the far west. after about a week had been spent in new york we took our seats in the cars, and began a journey tedious beyond all conception. day after day, and night after night, the great train rolled on, threading its way through cities the very names of which were strange to me, passing at slow speed over perilous viaducts, skirting mountain ranges and pine forests, and plunging into dense tracts of wood, where mile after mile and hour after hour the same monotonous growth of brushwood met the eye, and all along the continual clatter and rattle of the wheels upon the ill-laid lines made it difficult to hear the voices of our fellow-passengers. we were a heterogeneous and ever-changing company; often i woke up in the dead of night with the sudden grinding jar of the brakes, and looking out found that we had stopped in the shabby street of some frame-built town, lighted chiefly by the flaring windows of the saloon. a few rough-looking fellows would often come out to stare at the cars, and sometimes passengers got down, and sometimes there was a party of two or three waiting on the wooden sidewalk to get on board. many of the passengers were english; humble households torn up from the moorings of a thousand years, and bound for some problematical paradise in the alkali desert or the rockies. i heard the men talking to one another of the great profits to be made on the virgin soil of america, and two or three, who were mechanics, expatiated on the wonderful wages given to skilled labor on the railways and in the factories of the states. this talk usually fell dead after a few minutes, and i could see a sickness and dismay in the faces of these men as they looked at the ugly brush or at the desolate expanse of the prairie, dotted here and there with frame-houses, devoid of garden, or flowers or trees, standing all alone in what might have been a great gray sea frozen into stillness. day after day the waving sky line, and the desolation of a land without form or color or variety, appalled the hearts of such of us as were englishmen, and once in the night as i lay awake i heard a woman weeping and sobbing, and asking what she had done to come to such a place. her husband tried to comfort her in the broad speech of gloucestershire, telling her the ground was so rich that one had only to plough it up and it would grow sunflowers of itself, but she cried for her mother and their old cottage and the beehives, like a little child. the sadness of it all overwhelmed me, and i had no heart to think of other matters; the question of what mr. smith could have to do in such a country, and of what manner of literary research could be carried on in the wilderness, hardly troubled me. now and again my situation struck me as peculiar; i had been engaged as a literary assistant at a handsome salary, and yet my master was still almost a stranger to me; sometimes he would come to where i was sitting in the cars and make a few banal remarks about the country, but for the most part of the journey he sat by himself, not speaking to any one, and so far as i could judge, deep in his thoughts. it was i think on the fifth day from new york when i received, the intimation that we should shortly leave the cars; i had been watching some distant mountains which rose wild and savage before us, and i was wondering if there were human beings so unhappy as to speak of home in connection with those piles of lumbered rock, when mr. smith touched me lightly on the shoulder. "you will be glad to be done with, the cars, i have no doubt, mr. wilkins," he said. "you were looking at the mountains, i think? well, i hope we shall be there to-night. the train stops at reading, and i dare say we shall manage to find our way." a few hours later the brakeman brought the tram to a standstill at the reading depot and we got out. i noticed that the town, though of course built almost entirely of frame-houses, was larger and busier than any we had passed for the last two days. the depot was crowded, and as the bell and whistle sounded, i saw that a number of persons were preparing to leave the cars, while an even greater number were waiting to get on board. besides the passengers, there was a pretty dense crowd of people, some of whom had come to meet or to see off their friends and relatives, while others were mere loafers. several of our english fellow passengers got down at reading, but the confusion was so great that they were lost to my sight almost immediately. mr. smith beckoned to me to follow him, and we were soon in the thick of the mass; and the continual ringing of bells, the hubbub of voices, the shrieking of whistles, and the hiss of escaping steam, confused my senses, and i wondered dimly as i struggled after my employer, where we were going, and how we should be able to find our way through an unknown country. mr. smith had put on a wide-brimmed hat, which he had sloped over his eyes, and as all the men wore hats of the same pattern, it was with some difficulty that i distinguished him in the crowd. we got free at last, and he struck down a side street, and made one or two sharp turns to right and left. it was getting dusk, and we seemed to be passing through a shy portion of the town, there were few people about in the ill-lighted streets, and these few were men of the most unprepossessing pattern. suddenly we stopped before a corner house, a man was standing at the door, apparently on the look-out for some one, and i noticed that he and smith gave sharp glances one to the other. "from new york city, i expect, mister?" "from new york!" "all right; they 're ready, and you can have 'em when you choose. i know my orders, you see, and i mean to run this business through." "very well, mr. evans, that is what we want. our money is good, you know. bring them round." i had stood silent, listening to this dialogue, and wondering what it meant. smith began to walk impatiently up and down the street, and the man evans was still standing at his door. he had given a sharp whistle, and i saw him looking me over in a quiet leisurely way, as if to make sure of my face for another time. i was thinking what all this could mean, when an ugly, slouching lad came up a side passage, leading two raw-boned horses. "get up, mr. wilkins, and be quick about it," said smith. "we ought to be on our way." we rode off together into the gathering darkness, and before long i looked back and saw the far plain behind us, with the lights of the town glimmering faintly; and in front rose the mountains. smith guided his horse on the rough track as surely as if he had been riding along piccadilly, and i followed him as well as i could. i was weary and exhausted, and scarcely took note of anything; i felt that the track was a gradual ascent, and here and there i saw great boulders by the road. the ride made but little impression on me; i have a faint recollection of passing through a dense black pine forest, where our horses had to pick their way among the rocks, and i remember the peculiar effect of the rarefied air as we kept still mounting higher and higher. i think i must have been half asleep for the latter half of the ride, and it was with a shock that i heard smith saying-- "here we are, wilkins. this is blue-rock park. you will enjoy the view to-morrow. to-night we will have something to eat, and then go to bed." a man came out of a rough-looking house and took the horses, and we found some fried steak and coarse whiskey awaiting us inside. i had come to a strange place. there were three rooms,--the room in which we had supper, smith's room and my own. the deaf old man who did the work slept in a sort of shed, and when i woke up the next morning and walked out i found that the house stood in a sort of hollow amongst the mountains; the clumps of pines and some enormous bluish-gray rocks that stood here and there between the trees had given the place the name of blue-rock park. on every side the snow-covered mountains surrounded us, the breath of the air was as wine, and when i climbed the slope and looked down, i could see that, so far as any human fellowship was concerned i might as well have been wrecked on some small island in mid-pacific. the only trace of man i could see was the rough log-house where i had slept, and in my ignorance i did not know that there were similar houses within comparatively easy distance, as distance is reckoned in the rockies. but at the moment, the utter, dreadful loneliness rushed upon me, and the thought of the great plain and the great sea that parted me from the world i knew, caught me by the throat, and i wondered if i should die there in that mountain hollow. it was a terrible instant, and i have not yet forgotten it. of course i managed to conquer my horror; i said i should be all the stronger for the experience, and i made up my mind to make the best of everything. it was a rough life enough, and rough enough board and lodging. i was left entirely to myself. smith i scarcely ever saw, nor did i know when he was in the house. i have often thought he was far away, and have been surprised to see him walking out of his room, locking the door behind him and putting the key in his pocket; and on several occasions when i fancied he was busy in his room, i have seen him come in with his boots covered with dust and dirt. so far as work went i enjoyed a complete sinecure; i had nothing to do but to walk about the valley, to eat, and to sleep. with one thing and another i grew accustomed, to the life, and managed to make myself pretty comfortable, and by degrees i began to venture farther away from the house, and to explore the country. one day i had contrived to get into a neighboring valley, and suddenly i came upon a group of men sawing timber. i went up to them, hoping that perhaps some of them might be englishmen; at all events they were human beings, and i should hear articulate speech, for the old man i have mentioned, besides being half blind and stone deaf, was wholly dumb so far as i was concerned. i was prepared to be welcomed in a rough and ready fashion, without much, of the forms of politeness, but the grim glances and the short gruff answers i received astonished me. i saw the men glancing oddly at each other, and one of them who had stopped work began fingering a gun, and i was obliged to return on my path uttering curses on the fate which had brought me into a land where men were more brutish than the very brutes. the solitude of the life began to oppress me as with a nightmare, and a few days later i determined to walk to a kind of station some miles distant, where a rough inn was kept for the accommodation of hunters and tourists. english gentlemen occasionally stopped there for the night, and i thought i might perhaps fall in with some one of better manners than the inhabitants of the country. i found as i had expected a group of men lounging about the door of the log-house that served as a hotel, and as i came nearer i could see that heads were put together and looks interchanged, and when i walked up the six or seven trappers stared at me in stony ferocity, and with something of the disgust that one eyes a loathsome and venomous snake. i felt that i could bear it no longer, and i called out:-- "is there such a thing as an englishman here, or any one with a little civilization?" one of the men put his hand to his belt, but his neighbor checked him and answered me. "you'll find we've got some of the resources of civilization before very long, mister, and i expect you'll not fancy them extremely. but anyway, there's an englishman tarrying here, and i've no doubt he'll be glad to see you. there you are, that's mr. d'aubernoun." a young man, dressed like an english country squire, came and stood at the door, and looked at me. one of the men pointed to me and said:-- "that's the individual we were talking about last night. thought you might like to have a look at him, squire, and here he is." the young fellow's good-natured english face clouded over, and he glanced sternly at me, and turned away with a gesture of contempt and aversion. "sir," i cried, "i do not know what i have done to be treated in this manner. you are my fellow-countryman, and i expected some courtesy." he gave me a black look and made as if he would go in, but he changed his mind, and faced me. "you are rather imprudent, i think, to behave in this manner. you must be counting on a forbearance which cannot last very long; which may last a very short time, indeed. and let me tell you this, sir, you may call yourself an englishman and drag the name of england through the dirt, but you need not count on any english influence to help you. if i were you, i would not stay here much longer." he went into the inn, and the men quietly watched my face, as i stood there, wondering whether i was going mad. the woman of the house came out and stared at me as if i were a wild beast or a savage, and i turned to her, and spoke quietly. "i am very hungry and thirsty, i have walked a long way. i have plenty of money. will you give me something to eat and drink?" "no, i won't," she said. "you had better quit this." i crawled home like a wounded beast, and lay down on my bed. it was all a hopeless puzzle to me. i knew nothing but rage and shame and terror, and i suffered little more when i passed by a house in an adjacent valley, and some children who were playing outside ran from me shrieking. i was forced to walk to find some occupation. i should have died if i had sat down quietly in blue rock park and looked all day at the mountains; but wherever i saw a human being i saw the same glance of hatred and aversion, and once as i was crossing a thick brake i heard a shot, and the venomous hiss of a bullet close to my ear. one day i heard a conversation which astounded me; i was sitting behind a rock resting, and two men came along the track and halted. one of them had got his feet entangled in some wild vines, and swore fiercely, but the other laughed, and said they were useful things sometimes. "what the hell do you mean?" "oh, nothing much. but they 're uncommon tough, these here vines, and sometimes rope is skerse and dear." the man who had sworn chuckled at this, and i heard them sit down and light their pipes. "have you seen him lately?" asked the humorist. "i sighted him the other day, but the darned bullet went high. he's got his master's luck, i expect, sir, but it can't last much longer. you heard about him going to jinks's and trying his brass, but the young britisher downed him pretty considerable, i can tell you." "what the devil is the meaning of it?" "i don't know, but i believe it'll have to be finished, and done in the old style, too. you know how they fix the niggers?" "yes, sir, i've seen a little of that. a couple of gallons of kerosene'll cost a dollar at brown's store, but i should say it's cheap anyway." they moved off after this, and i lay still behind the rock, the sweat pouring down my face. i was so sick that i could barely stand, and i walked home as slowly as an old man, leaning on my stick. i knew that the two men had been talking about me, and i knew that some terrible death was in store for me. that night i could not sleep. i tossed on the rough bed and tortured myself to find out the meaning of it all. at last in the very dead of night i rose from the bed, and put on my clothes, and went out. i did not care where i went, but i felt that i must walk till i had tired myself out. it was a clear moonlight night, and in a couple of hours i found i was approaching a place of dismal reputation in the mountains, a deep cleft in the rocks, known as black gulf cañon. many years before, an unfortunate party of englishmen and englishwomen had camped here and had been surrounded by indians. they were captured, outraged, and put to death with almost inconceivable tortures, and the roughest of the trappers or woodsmen gave the cañon a wide berth even in the day-time. as i crushed through the dense brushwood which grew above the cañon, i heard voices, and wondering who could be in such a place at such a time, i went on, walking more carefully and making as little noise as possible. there was a great tree growing on the very edge of the rocks, and i lay down and looked out from behind the trunk. black gulf cañon was below me, the moonlight shining bright into its very depths from midheaven, and casting shadows as black as death from the pointed rock, and all the sheer rock on the other side, overhanging the cañon, was in darkness. at intervals a light veil obscured the moonlight, as a filmy cloud fleeted across the moon; and a bitter wind blew shrill across the gulf. i looked down as i have said, and saw twenty men standing in a semicircle round a rock; i counted them one by one, and knew most of them. they were the very vilest of the vile, more vile than any den in london could show, and there was murder and worse than murder on the heads of not a few. facing them and me stood mr. smith with the rock before him, and on the rock was a great pair of scales, such, as are used in the stores. i heard his voice ringing down the cañon as i lay beside the tree, and my heart turned cold as i heard it. "life for gold," he cried, "a life for gold. the blood and the life of an enemy for every pound of gold." a man stepped out and raised one hand, and with the other flung a bright lump of something into the pan of the scales, which clanged down, and smith muttered something in his ear. then he cried again:-- "blood for gold; for a pound of gold, the life of an enemy. for every pound of gold upon the scales, a life." one by one the men came forward, each lifting up his right hand; and the gold was weighed in the scales, and each time smith leaned forward and spoke to each man in his ear. then he cried again:-- "desire and lust, for gold on the scales. for every pound of gold, enjoyment of desire." i saw the same thing happen as before; the uplifted hand, and the metal weighed, and the mouth whispering, and black passion on every face. then, one by one, i saw the men again step up to smith. a muttered conversation seemed to take place; i could see that smith was explaining and directing, and i noticed that he gesticulated a little as one who points out the way, and once or twice he moved his hands quickly as if he would show that the path was clear and could not be missed. i kept my eyes so intently on his figure that i noted little else, and at last it was with a start that i realized that the cañon was empty. a moment before i thought i had seen the group of villainous faces, and the two standing, a little apart by the rock; i had looked down a moment, and when i glanced again into the cañon there was no one there. in dumb terror i made my way home, and i fell asleep in an instant from exhaustion. no doubt i should have slept on for many hours, but when i woke up, the sun was only rising, and the light shone in on my bed. i had started up from sleep with the sensation of having received a violent shock, and as i looked in confusion about me i saw to my amazement that there were three men in the room. one of them had his hand on my shoulder and spoke to me. "come, mister, wake up. your time's up now, i reckon, and the boys are waiting for you outside, and they 're in a big hurry. come on; you can put on your clothes, it's kind of chilly this morning." i saw the other two men smiling sourly at each other, but i understood nothing. i simply pulled on my clothes, and said i was ready. "all right, come on then. you go first, nichols, and jim and i will give the gentleman an arm." they took me out into the sunlight, and then i understood the meaning of a dull murmur that had vaguely perplexed me while i was dressing. there were about two hundred men waiting outside, and some women too, and when they saw me there was a low muttering growl. i did not know what i had done, but that noise made my heart beat and the sweat come out on my face. i saw confusedly, as through a veil, the tumult and tossing of the crowd, discordant voices were speaking, and amongst all those faces there was not one glance of mercy, but a fury of lust that i did not understand. i found myself presently walking in a sort of procession up the slope of the valley, and on every side of me there were men with revolvers in their hands. now and then a voice struck me, and i heard words and sentences of which i could form no connected story. but i understood that there was one sentence of execration; i heard scraps of stories that seemed strange and improbable. some one was talking of men, lured by cunning devices from their homes and murdered with hideous tortures, found writhing like wounded snakes in dark and lonely places, only crying for some one to stab them to the heart, and so end their torments; and i heard another voice speaking of innocent girls who had vanished for a day or two, and then had come back and died, blushing red with shame even in the agonies of death. i wondered what it all meant, and what was to happen, but i was so weary that i walked on in a dream, scarcely longing for anything but sleep. at last we stopped. we had reached the summit of the hill, overlooking blue rock valley, and i saw that i was standing beneath a clump of trees where i had often sat. i was in the midst of a ring of armed men, and i saw that two or three men were very busy with piles of wood, while others were fingering a rope. then there was a stir in the crowd, and a man was pushed forward. his hands and feet were tightly bound with cord, and though his face was unutterably villainous i pitied him for the agony that worked his features and twisted his lips. i knew him; he was amongst those that had gathered round smith in black gulf cañon. in an instant he was unbound, and stripped naked; and borne beneath one of the trees, and his neck encircled by a noose that went around the trunk. a hoarse voice gave some kind of order; there was a rush of feet, and the rope tightened; and there before me i saw the blackened face and the writhing limbs and the shameful agony of death. one after another, half a dozen men, all of whom i had seen in the cañon the night before, were strangled before me, and their bodies were flung forth on the ground. then there was a pause, and the man who had roused me a short while before, came up to me and said:-- "now, mister, it's your turn. we give you five minutes to cast up your accounts, and when that's clocked, by the living god we will burn you alive at that tree." it was then i awoke and understood. i cried out:-- "why, what have i done? why should you hurt me? i am a harmless man, i never did you any wrong." i covered my face with my hands; it seemed so pitiful, and it was such a terrible death. "what have i done?" i cried again. "you must take me for some other man. you cannot know me." "you black-hearted devil," said the man at my side, "we know you well enough. there's not a man within thirty miles of this that won't curse jack smith when you are burning in hell." "my name is not smith," i said, with some hope left in me. "my name is wilkins. i was mr. smith's secretary, but i knew nothing of him." "hark at the black liar," said the man. "secretary be damned! you were clever enough, i dare say, to slink out at night, and keep your face in the dark, but we've tracked you out at last. but your time's up. come along." i was dragged to the tree and bound to it with chains, and i saw the piles of wood heaped all about me, and shut my eyes. then i felt myself drenched all over with some liquid, and looked again, and a woman grinned at me. she had just emptied a great can of petroleum over me and over the wood. a voice shouted, "fire away," and i fainted and knew nothing more. when i opened my eyes i was lying on a bed in a bare comfortless room. a doctor was holding some strong salts to my nostrils, and a gentleman standing by the bed, whom i afterwards found to be the sheriff, addressed me:-- "say, mister," he began, "you've had an uncommon narrow squeak for it. the boys were just about lighting up when i came along with the posse, and i had as much as i could do to bring you off, i can tell you. and, mind you, i don't blame, them; they had made up their minds, you see, that you were the head of the black gulf gang, and at first nothing i could say would persuade them you weren't jack smith. luckily, a man from here named evans, that came along with us, allowed he had seen you with jack smith, and that you were yourself. so we brought you along and jailed you, but you can go if you like, when you're through with this faint turn." i got on the cars the next day, and in three weeks i was in london; again almost penniless. but from that time my fortune seemed to change. i made influential friends in all directions; bank directors courted my company, and editors positively flung themselves into my arms. i had only to choose my career, and after a while i determined that i was meant by nature for a life of comparative leisure. with an ease that seemed almost ridiculous i obtained a well-paid position in connection with a prosperous political club. i have charming chambers in a central neighborhood close to the parks; the club _chef_ exerts himself when i lunch or dine, and the rarest vintages in the cellar are always at my disposal. yet, since my return to london, i have never known a day's security or peace; i tremble when i awake lest smith should be standing at my bed, and every step i take seems to bring me nearer to the edge of the precipice. smith, i knew, had escaped free from the raid of the vigilantes, and i grew faint at the thought that he would in all probability return to london, and that suddenly and unprepared i should meet him face to face. every morning as i left my house, i would peer up and down the street, expecting to see that dreaded figure awaiting me; i have delayed at street corners, my heart in my mouth, sickening at the thought that a few quick steps might bring us together; i could not bear to frequent the theatres or music halls, lest by some bizarre chance he should prove to be my neighbor. sometimes, i have been forced, against my will, to walk out at night, and then in silent squares the shadows have made me shudder, and in the medley of meetings in the crowded thoroughfares, i have said to myself, "it must come sooner or later; he will surely return to town, and i shall see him when i feel most secure." i scanned the newspapers for hint or intimation of approaching danger, and no small type nor report of trivial interest was allowed to pass unread. especially i read and re-read the advertisement columns, but without result. months passed by and i was undisturbed till, though i felt far from safe, i no longer suffered from the intolerable oppression of instant and ever present terror. this afternoon as i was walking quietly along oxford street, i raised my eyes, and looked across the road, and then at last i saw the man who had so long haunted my thoughts. * * * * * mr. wilkins finished his wine, and leaned back in his chair, looking sadly at dyson; and then, as if a thought struck him, fished out of an inner pocket a leather letter case, and handed a newspaper cutting across the table. dyson glanced closely at the slip, and saw that it had been extracted from the columns of an evening paper. it ran as follows:-- wholesale lynching. shocking story. a dalziel telegram from reading (colorado) states that advices received there from blue rock park report a frightful instance of popular vengeance. for some time the neighborhood has been terrorized by the crimes of a gang of desperadoes, who, under the cover of a carefully planned organization, have perpetrated the most infamous cruelties on men and women. a vigilance committee was formed, and it was found that the leader of the gang was a person named smith, living in blue rock park. action was taken, and six of the worst in the band were summarily strangled in the presence of two or three hundred men and women. smith is said to have escaped. * * * * * "this is a terrible story," said dyson; "i can well believe that your days and nights are haunted by such fearful scenes as you have described. but surely you have no need to fear smith? he has much, more cause to fear you. consider, you have only to lay your information before the police, and a warrant would be immediately issued for his arrest. besides, you will, i am sure, excuse me for what i am going to say." "my dear sir," said mr. wilkins, "i hope you will speak to me with perfect freedom." "well, then, i must confess that my impression was that you were rather disappointed at not being able to stop the man before he drove off. i thought you seemed annoyed that you could not get across the street." "sir, i did not know what i was about. i caught sight of the man, but it was only for a moment, and the agony you witnessed was the agony of suspense. i was not perfectly certain of the face; and the horrible thought that smith was again in london overwhelmed me. i shuddered at the idea of this incarnate fiend, whose soul is black with shocking crimes, mingling free and unobserved amongst the harmless crowds, meditating perhaps a new and more fearful cycle of infamies. i tell you, sir, that an awful being stalks through the streets, a being before whom the sunlight itself should blacken, and the summer air grow chill and dank. such thoughts as these rushed upon me with the force of a whirlwind; i lost my senses." "i see. i partly understand your feelings, but i would impress on you that you have nothing really to fear. depend upon it, smith will not molest you in any way. you must remember he himself has had a warning; and indeed from the brief glance i had of him, he seemed to me to be a frightened-looking man. however, i see it is getting late, and if you will excuse me, mr. wilkins, i think i will be going. i dare say we shall often meet here." dyson walked off smartly, pondering the strange story chance had brought him, and finding on cool reflection that there was something a little strange in mr. wilkins's manner, for which not even so weird a catalogue of experiences could altogether account. adventure of the missing brother. mr. charles phillipps was, as has been hinted, a gentleman of pronounced scientific tastes. in his early days he had devoted himself with fond enthusiasm to the agreeable study of biology, and a brief monograph on the embryology of the microscopic holothuria had formed his first contribution to the belles lettres. later, he had somewhat relaxed the severity of his pursuits, and had dabbled in the more frivolous subjects of palæontology and ethnology; he had a cabinet in his sitting-room whose drawers were stuffed with rude flint implements, and a charming fetish from the south seas was the dominant note in the decorative scheme of the apartment. flattering himself with the title of materialist, he was in truth one of the most credulous of men, but he required a marvel to be neatly draped in the robes of science before he would give it any credit, and the wildest dreams took solid shape to him if only the nomenclature were severe and irreproachable; he laughed at the witch, but quailed before the powers of the hypnotist, lifting his eyebrows when christianity was mentioned, but adoring protyle and the ether. for the rest, he prided himself on a boundless scepticism; the average tale of wonder he heard with nothing but contempt, and he would certainly not have credited a word or syllable of dyson's story of the pursuer and pursued unless the gold coin had been produced as visible and tangible evidence. as it was he half suspected that dyson had imposed on him; he knew his friend's disordered fancies, and his habit of conjuring up the marvellous to account for the entirely commonplace; and on the whole he was inclined to think that the so-called facts in the odd adventure had been gravely distorted in the telling. since the evening on which he had listened to the tale, he had paid dyson a visit, and had delivered himself of some serious talk on the necessity of accurate observation, and the folly, as he put it, of using a kaleidoscope instead of a telescope in the view of things, to which remarks his friend had listened with a smile that was extremely sardonic "my dear fellow," dyson had remarked at last, "you will allow me to tell you that i see your drift perfectly. however, you will be astonished to hear that i consider you to be the visionary, while i am a sober and serious spectator of human life. you have gone round the circle, and while you fancy yourself far in the golden land of new philosophies, you are in reality a dweller in a metaphorical clapham; your scepticism has defeated itself and become a monstrous credulity; you are in fact in the position of the bat or owl, i forget which it was, who denied the existence of the sun at noonday, and i shall be astonished if you do not one day come to me full of contrition for your manifold intellectual errors, with a humble resolution to see things in their true light for the future." this tirade had left mr. phillipps unimpressed; he considered dyson as hopeless, and he went home to gloat over some primitive stone implements that a friend had sent him from india. he found that his landlady, seeing them displayed in all their rude formlessness upon the table, had removed the collection to the dustbin, and had replaced it by lunch; and the afternoon was spent in malodorous research. mrs. brown, hearing these stones spoken of as very valuable knives, had called him in his hearing "poor mr. phillipps," and between rage and evil odors he spent a sorry afternoon. it was four o'clock before he had completed his work of rescue; and, overpowered with the flavors of decaying cabbage-leaves, phillipps felt that he must have a walk to gain an appetite for the evening meal. unlike dyson, he walked fast, with his eyes on the pavement, absorbed in his thoughts and oblivious of the life around him; and he could not have told by what streets he had passed, when he suddenly lifted up his eyes and found himself in leicester square. the grass and flowers pleased him, and he welcomed the opportunity of resting for a few minutes, and glancing round, he saw a bench which had only one occupant, a lady, and as she was seated at one end, phillipps took up a position at the other extremity, and began to pass in angry review the events of the afternoon. he had noticed as he came up to the bench that the person already there was neatly dressed, and to all appearance young; her face he could not see, as it was turned away in apparent contemplation of the shrubs, and moreover shielded with her hand; but it would be doing wrong to mr. phillipps to imagine that his choice of a seat was dictated by any hopes of an affair of the heart; he had simply preferred the company of one lady to that of five dirty children, and having seated himself was immersed directly in thoughts of his misfortunes. he had meditated changing his lodgings; but now, on a judicial review of the case in all its bearings, his calmer judgment told him that the race of landladies is like to the race of the leaves, and that there was but little to choose between them. he resolved, however, to talk to mrs. brown, the offender, very coolly and yet severely, to point out the extreme indiscretion of her conduct, and to express a hope for better things in the future. with this decision registered in his mind, phillipps was about to get up from the seat and move off, when he was intensely annoyed to hear a stifled sob, evidently from the lady, who still continued her contemplation of the shrubs and flower-beds. he clutched his stick desperately, and in a moment would have been in full retreat, when the lady turned her face towards him, and with a mute entreaty bespoke his attention. she was a young girl with a quaint and piquant rather than a beautiful face, and she was evidently in the bitterest distress, and mr. phillipps sat down again, and cursed his chances heartily. the young lady looked at him with a pair of charming eyes of a shining hazel, which showed no trace of tears, though a handkerchief was in her hand; she bit her lip, and seemed to struggle with some overpowering grief, and her whole attitude was all beseeching and imploring. phillipps sat on the edge of the bench gazing awkwardly at her, and wondering what was to come next, and she looked at him still without speaking. "well, madam," he said at last, "i understood from your gesture that you wished to speak to me. is there anything i can do for you? though, if you will pardon me, i cannot help saying that that seems highly improbable." "ah, sir," she said in a low murmuring voice, "do not speak harshly to me. i am in sore straits, and i thought from your face that i could safely ask your sympathy, if not your help." "would you kindly tell me what is the matter?" said phillipps. "perhaps you would like some tea?" "i knew i could not be mistaken," the lady replied. "that offer of refreshment bespeaks a generous mind. but tea, alas! is powerless to console me. if you will let me, i will endeavor to explain my trouble." "i should be glad if you would." "i will do so, and i will try and be brief, in spite of the numerous complications which have made me, young as i am, tremble before what seems the profound and terrible mystery of existence. yet the grief which now racks my very soul is but too simple; i have lost my brother." "lost your brother! how on earth can that be?" "i see i must trouble you with a few particulars. my brother, then, who is by some years my elder, is a tutor in a private school in the extreme north of london. the want of means deprived him of the advantages of a university education; and lacking the stamp of a degree, he could not hope for that position which his scholarship and his talents entitled him to claim. he was thus forced to accept the post of classical master at dr. saunderson's highgate academy for the sons of gentlemen, and he has performed his duties with perfect satisfaction to his principal for some years. my personal history need not trouble you; if will be enough if i tell you that for the last month i have been governess in a family residing at tooting. my brother and i have always cherished the warmest mutual affection; and though circumstances into which i need not enter have kept us apart for some time, yet we have never lost sight of one another. we made up our minds that unless one of us was absolutely unable to rise from a bed of sickness, we would never let a week pass by without meeting, and some time ago we chose this square as our rendezvous on account of its central position and its convenience of access. and indeed, after a week of distasteful toil, my brother felt little inclination for much walking, and we have often spent two or three hours on this bench, speaking of our prospects and of happier days, when we were children. in the early spring it was cold and chilly; still we enjoyed the short respite, and i think that we were often taken for a pair of lovers, as we sat close together, eagerly talking. saturday after saturday we have met each other here, and though the doctor told him it was madness, my brother would not allow the influenza to break the appointment. that was some time ago; last saturday we had a long and happy afternoon, and separated more cheerfully than usual, feeling that the coming week would be bearable, and resolving that our next meeting should be if possible still more pleasant. i arrived here at the time agreed upon, four o'clock, and sat down and watched for my brother, expecting every moment to see him advancing towards me from that gate at the north side of the square. five minutes passed by, and he had not arrived; i thought he must have missed his train, and the idea that our interview would be cut short by twenty minutes, or perhaps half an hour, saddened me; i had hoped we should be so happy together to-day. suddenly, moved by i know not what impulse, i turned abruptly round, and how can i describe to you my astonishment when i saw my brother advancing slowly towards me from the southern side of the square, accompanied by another person. my first thought, i remember, had in it something of resentment that this man, whoever he was, should intrude himself into our meeting; i wondered who it could possibly be, for my brother had, i may say, no intimate friends. then as i looked still at the advancing figures, another feeling took possession of me; it was a sensation of bristling fear, the fear of the child in the dark, unreasonable and unreasoning, but terrible, clutching at my heart as with the cold grip of a dead man's hands. yet i overcame the feeling, and looked steadily at my brother, waiting for him to speak, and more closely at his companion. then i noticed that this man was leading my brother rather than walking arm-in-arm with him; he was a tall man, dressed in quite ordinary fashion. he wore a high bowler hat, and, in spite of the warmth of the day, a plain black overcoat, tightly buttoned, and i noticed his trousers, of a quiet black and gray stripe. the face was commonplace too, and indeed i cannot recall any special features, or any trick of expression; for though i looked at him as he came near, curiously enough his face made no impression on me, it was as though i had seen a well-made mask. they passed in front of me, and to my unutterable astonishment i heard my brother's voice speaking to me, though his lips did not move, nor his eyes look into mine. it was a voice i cannot describe, though i knew it, but the words came to my ears as if mingled with plashing water and the sound of a shallow brook flowing amidst stones. i heard, then, the words, 'i cannot stay,' and for a moment the heavens and the earth seemed to rush together with the sound of thunder, and i was thrust forth from the world into a black void without beginning and without end. for, as my brother passed me, i saw the hand that held him by the arm, and seemed to guide him, and in one moment of horror i realized that it was as a formless thing that has mouldered for many years in the grave. the flesh was peeled in strips from the bones, and hung apart dry and granulated, and the fingers that encircled my brother's arm were all unshapen, claw-like things, and one was but a stump from which the end had rotted off. when i recovered my senses i saw the two passing out by that gate. i paused for a moment, and then with a rush as of fire to my heart i knew that no horror could, stay me, but that i must follow my brother and save him, even though all hell rose up against me. i ran out and looked up the pavement, and saw the two figures walking amidst the crowd. i ran across the road, and saw them turn up that side street, and i reached the corner a moment later. in vain i looked to right and left, for neither my brother nor his strange guardian was in sight; two elderly men were coming down arm-in-arm, and a telegraph boy was walking lustily along whistling. i remained there a moment horror-struck, and then i bowed my head and returned to this seat, where you found me. now, sir, do you wonder at my grief? oh, tell me what has happened to my brother, or i feel i shall go mad." mr. phillipps, who had listened with exemplary patience to this tale, hesitated a moment before he spoke. "my dear madam," he said at length, "you have known how to engage me in your service, not only as a man, but as a student of science. as a fellow-creature i pity you most profoundly; you must have suffered extremely from what you saw, or rather from what you fancied you saw. for, as a scientific observer, it is my duty to tell you the plain truth, which, indeed, besides being true, must also console you. allow me to ask you then to describe your brother." "certainly," said the lady, eagerly; "i can describe him accurately. my brother is a somewhat young-looking man; he is pale, has small black whiskers, and wears spectacles. he has rather a timid, almost a frightened expression, and looks about him nervously from side to side. think, think! surely you must have seen him. perhaps you are an _habitué_ of this engaging quarter; you may have met him on some previous saturday. i may have been mistaken in supposing that he turned up that side street; he may have gone on, and you may have passed each other. oh, tell me, sir, whether you have not seen him?" "i am afraid i do not keep a very sharp lookout when i am walking," said phillipps, who would have passed his mother unnoticed; "but i am sure your description is admirable. and now will you describe the person, who, you say, held your brother by the arm?" "i cannot do so. i told you, his face seemed devoid of expression or salient feature. it was like a mask." "exactly; you cannot describe what you have never seen. i need hardly point out to you the conclusion to be drawn; you have been the victim of an hallucination. you expected to see your brother, you were alarmed because you did not see him, and unconsciously, no doubt, your brain went to work, and finally you saw a mere projection of your own morbid thoughts; a vision of your absent brother, and a mere confusion of terrors incorporated in a figure which you can't describe. of course your brother has been in some way prevented from coming to meet you as usual. i expect you will hear from him in a day or two." the lady looked seriously at mr. phillipps, and then for a second there seemed almost a twinkling as of mirth about her eyes, but her face clouded sadly at the dogmatic conclusions to which the scientist was led so irresistibly. "ah," she said, "you do not know. i cannot doubt the evidence of my waking senses. besides, perhaps i have had experiences even more terrible. i acknowledge the force of your arguments, but a woman has intuitions which never deceive her. believe me, i am not hysterical; feel my pulse, it is quite regular." she stretched out her hand with a dainty gesture, and a glance that enraptured phillipps in spite of himself. the hand held out to him was soft and white and warm, and as, in some confusion, he placed his fingers on the purple vein, he felt profoundly touched by the spectacle of love and grief before him. "no," he said, as he released her wrist, "as you say, you are evidently quite yourself. still, you must be aware that living men do not possess dead hands. that sort of thing doesn't happen. it is, of course, barely possible that you did see your brother with another gentleman, and that important business prevented him from stopping. as for the wonderful hand, there may have been some deformity, a finger shot off by accident, or something of that sort." the lady shook her head mournfully. "i see you are a determined rationalist," she said. "did you not hear me say that i have had experiences even more terrible? i too was once a sceptic, but after what i have known i can no longer affect to doubt." "madam," replied mr. phillipps, "no one shall make me deny my faith. i will never believe, nor will i pretend to believe, that two and two make five, nor will i on any pretences admit the existence of two-sided triangles." "you are a little hasty," rejoined the lady. "but may i ask you if you ever heard the name of professor gregg, the authority on ethnology and kindred subjects?" "i have done much more than merely hear of professor gregg," said phillipps. "i always regarded him as one of our most acute and clear-headed observers; and his last publication, the 'text-book of ethnology,' struck me as being quite admirable in its kind. indeed, the book had but come into my hands when i heard of the terrible accident which cut short gregg's career. he had, i think, taken a country house in the west of england for the summer, and is supposed to have fallen into a river. so far as i remember, his body was never recovered." "sir, i am sure that you are discreet. your conversation seems to declare as much, and the very title of that little work of yours which you mentioned, assures me that you are no empty trifler. in a word, i feel that i may depend on you. you appear to be under the impression that professor gregg is dead; i have no reason to believe that that is the case." "what?" cried phillipps, astonished and perturbed. "you do not hint that there was anything disgraceful? i cannot believe it. gregg was a man of clearest character; his private life was one of great benevolence; and though i myself am free from delusions, i believe him to have been a sincere and devout christian. surely you cannot mean to insinuate that some disreputable history forced him to flee the country?" "again you are in a hurry," replied the lady. "i said nothing of all this. briefly, then, i must tell you that professor gregg left his house one morning in full health both of mind and body. he never returned, but his watch and chain, a purse containing three sovereigns in gold and some loose silver, with a ring that he wore habitually, were found three days later on a wild and savage hillside, many miles from the river. these articles were placed beside a limestone rock of fantastic form; they had been wrapped into a parcel with a kind of rough parchment which was secured with gut. the parcel was opened, and the inner side of the parchment bore an inscription done with some red substance; the characters were undecipherable, but seemed to be a corrupt cuneiform." "you interest me intensely," said phillips. "would you mind continuing your story? the circumstance you have mentioned seems to me of the most inexplicable character, and i thirst for an elucidation." the young lady seemed to meditate for a moment, and she then proceeded to relate the novel of the black seal. i must now give you some fuller particulars of my history. i am the daughter of a civil engineer, steven lally by name, who was so unfortunate as to die suddenly at the outset of his career, and before he had accumulated sufficient means to support his wife and her two children. my mother contrived to keep the small household going on resources which must have been incredibly small; we lived in a remote country village, because most of the necessaries of life were cheaper than in a town, but even so we were brought up with the severest economy. my father was a clever and well-read man, and left behind him a small but select collection of books, containing the best greek, latin, and english classics, and these books were the only amusement we possessed. my brother, i remember, learned latin out of descartes' "meditationes," and i, in place of the little tales which children are usually told to read, had nothing more charming than a translation of the "gesta romanorum." we grew up thus, quiet and studious children, and in course of time my brother provided for himself in the manner i have mentioned. i continued to live at home; my poor mother had become an invalid, and demanded my continual care, and about two years ago she died after many months of painful illness. my situation was a terrible one; the shabby furniture barely sufficed to pay the debts i had been forced to contract, and the books i despatched to my brother, knowing how he would value them. i was absolutely alone. i was aware how poorly my brother was paid; and though i came up to london in the hope of finding employment, with the understanding that he would defray my expenses, i swore it should only be for a month, and that if i could not in that time find some work, i would starve rather than deprive him of the few miserable pounds he had laid by for his day of trouble. i took a little room in a distant suburb, the cheapest that i could find. i lived on bread and tea, and i spent my time in vain answering of advertisements, and vainer walks to addresses i had noted. day followed on day, and week on week, and still i was unsuccessful, till at last the term i had appointed drew to a close, and i saw before me the grim prospect of slowly dying of starvation. my landlady was good-natured in her way; she knew the slenderness of my means, and i am sure that she would not have turned me out of doors. it remained for me then to go away, and to try and die in some quiet place. it was winter then, and a thick white fog gathered in the early part of the afternoon, becoming more dense as the day wore on; it was a sunday, i remember, and the people of the house were at chapel. at about three o'clock i crept out and walked away as quickly as i could, for i was weak from abstinence. the white mist wrapped all the streets in silence, and a hard frost had gathered thick upon the bare branches of the trees, and frost crystals glittered on the wooden fences, and on the cold cruel ground beneath my feet. i walked on, turning to right and left in utter haphazard, without caring to look up at the names of the streets, and all that i remember of my walk on that sunday afternoon seems but the broken fragments of an evil dream. in a confused vision i stumbled on, through roads half town and half country; gray fields melting into the cloudy world of mist on one side of me, and on the other comfortable villas with a glow of firelight flickering on the walls; but all unreal, red brick walls, and lighted windows, vague trees, and glimmering country, gas-lamps beginning to star the white shadows, the vanishing perspectives of the railway line beneath high embankments, the green and red of the signal lamps,--all these were but momentary pictures flashed on my tired brain and senses numbed by hunger. now and then i would hear a quick step ringing on the iron road, and men would pass me well wrapped up, walking fast for the sake of warmth, and no doubt eagerly foretasting the pleasures of a glowing hearth, with curtains tightly drawn about the frosted panes, and the welcomes of their friends; but as the early evening darkened and night approached, foot-passengers got fewer and fewer, and i passed through street after street alone. in the white silence i stumbled on, as desolate as if i trod the streets of a buried city; and as i grew more weak and exhausted, something of the horror of death was folding thickly round my heart. suddenly, as i turned a corner, some one accosted me courteously beneath the lamp-post, and i heard a voice asking if i could kindly point the way to avon road. at the sudden shock of human accents i was prostrated and my strength gave way, and i fell all huddled on the side-walk and wept and sobbed and laughed in violent hysteria. i had gone out prepared to die, and as i stepped across the threshold that had sheltered me, i consciously bade adieu to all hopes and all remembrances; the door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder, and i felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the brief passages of my life, and that henceforth i was to walk a little way in a world, of gloom and shadow; i entered on the stage of the first act of death. then came my wandering in the mist, the whiteness wrapping all things, the void streets, and muffled silence, till when that voice spoke to me, it was as if i had died and life returned to me. in a few minutes i was able to compose my feelings, and as i rose i saw that i was confronted by a middle-aged gentleman of specious appearance, neatly and correctly dressed. he looked at me with an expression of great pity, but before i could stammer out my ignorance of the neighborhood, for indeed i had not the slightest notion of where i had wandered, he spoke. "my dear madam," he said, "you seem in some terrible distress. you cannot think how you alarmed me. but may i inquire the nature of your trouble? i assure you that you can safely confide in me." "you are very kind," i replied; "but, i fear there is nothing to be done. my condition seems a hopeless one." "oh, nonsense, nonsense! you are too young to talk like that. come, let us walk down here, and you must tell me your difficulty. perhaps i may be able to help you." there was something very soothing and persuasive in his manner, and as we walked together, i gave him an outline of my story, and told of the despair that had oppressed me almost to death. "you were wrong to give in so completely," he said, when i was silent. "a month is too short a time in which to feel one's way in london. london, let me tell you, miss lally, does not lie open and undefended; it is a fortified place, fossed and double-moated with curious intricacies. as must always happen in large towns, the conditions of life have become hugely artificial; no mere simple palisade is run up to oppose the man or woman who would take the place by storm, but serried lines of subtle contrivances, mines, and pitfalls which it needs a strange skill to overcome. you, in your simplicity, fancied you had only to shout for these walls to sink into nothingness, but the time is gone for such startling victories as these. take courage; you will learn the secret of success before very long." "alas, sir," i replied, "i have no doubt your conclusions are correct, but at the present moment i seem to be in a fair way to die of starvation. you spoke of a secret; for heaven's sake, tell it me, if you have any pity for my distress." he laughed genially. "there lies the strangeness of it all. those who know the secret cannot tell it if they would; it is positively as ineffable as the central doctrine of freemasonry. but i may say this, that you yourself have penetrated at least the outer husk of the mystery," and he laughed again. "pray do not jest with me," i said. "what have i done, _que sais-je_? i am so far ignorant that i have not the slightest idea of how my next meal is to be provided." "excuse me. you ask what you have done? you have met me. come, we will fence no longer. i see you have self-education, the only education which is not infinitely pernicious, and i am in want of a governess for my two children. i have been a widower for some years; my name is gregg. i offer you the post i have named, and shall we say a salary of a hundred a year?" i could only stutter out my thanks, and slipping a card with his address and a bank-note by way of earnest into my hand, mr. gregg bade me good-bye, asking me to call in a day or two. such was my introduction to professor gregg, and can you wonder that the remembrance of despair and the cold blast that had blown from the gates of death upon me, made me regard him as a second father? before the close of the week. i was installed in my new duties; the professor had leased an old brick manor house in a western suburb of london, and here, surrounded by pleasant lawns and orchards, and soothed with the murmur of the ancient elms that rocked their boughs above the roof, the new chapter of my life began. knowing as you do the nature of the professor's occupations, you will not be surprised to hear that the house teemed with books; and cabinets full of strange and even hideous objects filled every available nook in the vast low rooms. gregg was a man whose one thought was for knowledge, and i too before long caught something of his enthusiasm, and strove to enter into his passion for research. in a few months i was perhaps more his secretary than the governess of the two children, and many a night i have sat at the desk in the glow of the shaded lamp while he, pacing up and down in the rich, gloom of the firelight, dictated to me the substance of his "text-book of ethnology." but amidst these more sober and accurate studies i always detected a something hidden, a longing and desire for some object to which he did not allude, and now and then he would break short in what he was saying and lapse into revery, entranced, as it seemed to me, by some distant prospect of adventurous discovery. the text-book was at last finished, and we began to receive proofs from the printers, which were intrusted to me for a first reading, and then underwent the final revision of the professor. all the while his weariness of the actual business he was engaged on increased, and it was with the joyous laugh of a schoolboy when term is over that he one day handed me a copy of the book. "there," he said, "i have kept my word; i promised to write it, and it is done with. now i shall be free to live for stranger things; i confess it, miss lally, i covet the renown of columbus. you will, i hope, see me play the part of an explorer." "surely," i said, "there is little left to explore. you have been born a few hundred years too late for that." "i think you are wrong," he replied; "there are still, depend upon it, quaint undiscovered countries and continents of strange extent. ah, miss lally, believe me, we stand amidst sacraments and mysteries full of awe, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. life, believe me, is no simple thing, no mass of gray matter and congeries of veins and muscles to be laid naked by the surgeon's knife; man is the secret which i am about to explore, and before i can discover him i must cross over weltering seas indeed, and oceans and the mists of many thousand years. you know the myth of the lost atlantis; what if it be true, and i am destined to be called the discoverer of that wonderful land?" i could see excitement boiling beneath his words, and in his face was the heat of the hunter; before me stood a man who believed himself summoned to tourney with the unknown. a pang of joy possessed me when i reflected that i was to be in a way associated with him in the adventure, and i too burned with the lust of the chase, not pausing to consider that i knew not what we were to unshadow. the next morning professor gregg took me into his inner study, where ranged against the wall stood a nest of pigeon-holes, every drawer neatly labelled, and the results of years of toil classified in a few feet of space. "here," he said, "is my life; here are all the facts which i have gathered together with so much pains, and yet it is all nothing. no, nothing to what i am about to attempt. look at this;" and he took me to an old bureau, a piece fantastic and faded, which stood in a corner of the room. he unlocked the front and opened one of the drawers. "a few scraps of paper," he went on, pointing to the drawer, "and a lump of black stone, rudely annotated with queer marks and scratches,--that is all that drawer holds. here you see is an old envelope with the dark red stamp of twenty years ago, but i have pencilled a few lines at the back; here is a sheet of manuscript, and here some cuttings from obscure local journals. and if you ask me the subject matter of the collection, it will not seem extraordinary. a servant girl at a farmhouse, who disappeared from her place and has never been heard of, a child supposed to have slipped down some old working on the mountains, some queer scribbling on a limestone rock, a man murdered with a blow from a strange weapon; such is the scent i have to go upon. yes, as you say, there is a ready explanation for all this; the girl may have run away to london, or liverpool, or new york; the child may be at the bottom of the disused shaft; and the letters on the rock may be the idle whims of some vagrant. yes, yes, i admit all that; but i know i hold the true key. look!" and he held me out a slip of yellow paper. "characters found inscribed on a limestone rock on the gray hills," i read, and then there was a word erased, presumably the name of a county, and a date some fifteen years back. beneath was traced a number of uncouth characters, shaped somewhat like wedges or daggers, as strange and outlandish as the hebrew alphabet. "now the seal," said professor gregg, and he handed me the black stone, a thing about two inches long, and something like an old-fashioned tobacco stopper, much enlarged. i held it up to the light, and saw to my surprise the characters on the paper repeated on the seal. "yes," said the professor, "they are the same. and the marks on the limestone rock were made fifteen years ago, with some red substance. and the characters on the seal are four thousand years old at least. perhaps much more." "is it a hoax?" i said. "no, i anticipated that. i was not to be led to give my life to a practical joke. i have tested the matter very carefully. only one person besides myself knows of the mere existence of that black seal. besides, there are other reasons which i cannot enter into now." "but what does it all mean?" i said. "i cannot understand to what conclusion all this leads." "my dear miss lally, that is a question i would rather leave unanswered for some little time. perhaps i shall never be able to say what secrets are held here in solution; a few vague hints, the outlines of village tragedies, a few marks done with red earth upon a rock, and an ancient seal. a queer set of data to go upon? half-a-dozen pieces of evidence, and twenty years before even so much could be got together; and who knows what mirage or terra incognita may be beyond all this? i look across deep waters, miss lally, and the land beyond may be but a haze after all. but still i believe it is not so, and a few months will show whether i am right or wrong." he left me, and alone i endeavored to fathom the mystery, wondering to what goal such eccentric odds and ends of evidence could lead. i myself am not wholly devoid of imagination, and i had reason to respect the professor's solidity of intellect; yet i saw in the contents of the drawer but the materials of fantasy, and vainly tried to conceive what theory could be founded on the fragments that had been placed before me. indeed, i could discover in what i had heard and seen but the first chapter of an extravagant romance; and yet deep in my heart i burned with curiosity, and day after day i looked eagerly in professor gregg's face for some hint of what was to happen. it was one evening after dinner that the word came. "i hope you can make your preparations without much trouble," he said suddenly to me. "we shall be leaving here in a week's time." "really!" i said in astonishment. "where are we going?" "i have taken a country house in the west of england, not far from caermaen, a quiet little town, once a city, and the headquarters of a roman legion. it is very dull there, but the country is pretty, and the air is wholesome." i detected a glint in his eyes, and guessed that this sudden move had some relation to our conversation of a few days before. "i shall just take a few books with me," said professor gregg, "that is all. everything else will remain here for our return. i have got a holiday," he went on, smiling at me, "and i shan't be sorry to be quit for a time of my old bones and stones and rubbish. do you know," he went on, "i have been grinding away at facts for thirty years; it is time for fancies." the days passed quickly; i could see that the professor was all quivering with suppressed excitement, and i could scarce credit the eager appetence of his glance as we left the old manor house behind us, and began our journey. we set out at mid-day, and it was in the dusk of the evening that we arrived at a little country station. i was tired, and excited, and the drive through, the lanes seems all a dream. first the deserted streets of a forgotten village, while i heard professor gregg's voice talking of the augustan legion and the clash of arms, and all the tremendous pomp that followed the eagles; then the broad river swimming to full tide with the last afterglow glimmering duskily in the yellow water, the wide meadows, and the cornfields whitening, and the deep lane winding on the slope between the hills and the water. at last we began to ascend, and the air grew rarer; i looked down and saw the pure white mist tracking the outline of the river like a shroud, and a vague and shadowy country, imaginations and fantasy of swelling hills and hanging woods, and half-shaped outlines of hills beyond, stand in the distance the glare of the furnace fire on the mountain, growing by turns a pillar of shining flame, and fading to a dull point of red. we were slowly mounting a carriage drive, and then there came to me the cool breath and the scent of the great wood that was above us; i seemed to wander in its deepest depths, and there was the sound of trickling water, the scent of the green leaves, and the breath of the summer night. the carriage stopped at last, and i could scarcely distinguish the form of the house as i waited a moment at the pillared porch; and the rest of the evening seemed a dream of strange things bounded by the great silence of the wood and the valley and the river. the next morning when i awoke and looked out of the bow window of the big old-fashioned bedroom, i saw under a gray sky a country that was still all mystery. the long, lovely valley, with the river winding in and out below, crossed, in mid vision by a mediæval bridge of vaulted and buttressed stone, the clear presence of the rising ground beyond, and the woods that i had only seen in shadow the night before, seemed tinged with enchantment, and the soft breath, of air that sighed in at the opened pane was like no other wind. i looked across the valley, and beyond, hill followed on hill as wave on wave, and here a faint blue pillar of smoke rose still in the morning air from the chimney of an ancient gray farmhouse, there was a rugged height crowned with dark firs, and in the distance i saw the white streak of a road that climbed and vanished into some unimagined country. but the boundary of all was a great wall of mountain, vast in the west, and ending like a fortress with a steep ascent and a domed tumulus clear against the sky. i saw professor gregg walking up and down the terrace path below the windows, and it was evident that he was revelling in the sense of liberty, and the thought that he had, for a while, bidden good-bye to task-work. when i joined him there was exultation in his voice as he pointed out the sweep of valley and the river that wound beneath the lovely hills. "yes," he said, "it is a strangely beautiful country; and to me, at least, it seems full of mystery. you have not forgotten the drawer i showed you, miss lally? no; and you have guessed that i have come here not merely for the sake of the children and the fresh air?" "i think i have guessed as much as that," i replied; "but you must remember i do not know the mere nature of your investigations; and as for the connection between the search and this wonderful valley, it is past my guessing." he smiled queerly at me. "you must not think i am making a mystery for the sake of mystery," he said. "i do not speak out because, so far, there is nothing to be spoken, nothing definite i mean, nothing that can be set down in hard black and white, as dull and sure and irreproachable as any blue book. and then i have another reason: many years ago a chance paragraph in a newspaper caught my attention, and focussed in an instant the vagrant thoughts and half-formed fancies of many idle and speculative hours into a certain hypothesis. i saw at once that i was treading on a thin crust; my theory was wild and fantastic in the extreme, and i would not for any consideration have written a hint of it for publication. but i thought that in the company of scientific men like myself, men who knew the course of discovery, and were aware that the gas that blazes and flares in the gin-palace was once a wild hypothesis; i thought that with such men as these i might hazard my dream--let us say atlantis, or the philosopher's stone, or what you like--without danger of ridicule. i found i was grossly mistaken; my friends looked blankly at me and at one another, and i could see something of pity, and something also of insolent contempt, in the glances they exchanged. one of them called on me next day, and hinted that i must be suffering from overwork and brain exhaustion. 'in plain terms,' i said, 'you think i am going mad. i think not;' and i showed him out with some little appearance of heat. since that day i vowed that i would never whisper the nature of my theory to any living soul; to no one but yourself have i ever shown the contents of that drawer. after all, i may be following a rainbow; i may have been misled by the play of coincidence; but as i stand here in this mystic hush and silence amidst the woods and wild hills, i am more than ever sure that i am hot on the scent. come, it is time we went in." to me in all this there was something both of wonder and excitement; i knew how in his ordinary work professor gregg moved step by step, testing every inch of the way, and never venturing on assertion without proof that was impregnable. yet i divined more from his glance and the vehemence of his tone than from the spoken word that he had in his every thought the vision of the almost incredible continually with him; and i, who was with some share of imagination no little of a sceptic, offended at a hint of the marvellous, could not help asking myself whether he was cherishing a monomania, and barring out from this one subject all the scientific method of his other life. yet, with, this image of mystery haunting my thoughts, i surrendered wholly to the charm of the country. above the faded house on the hillside began the great forest; a long dark line seen from the opposing hills, stretching above the river for many a mile from north to south, and yielding in the north to even wilder country, barren and savage hills, and ragged common land, a territory all strange and unvisited, and more unknown to englishmen than the very heart of africa. the space of a couple of steep fields alone separated the house from the wood, and the children were delighted to follow me up the long alleys of undergrowth, between smooth pleached walls of shining beech, to the highest point in the wood, whence one looked on one side across the river and the rise and fall of the country to the great western mountain wall, and on the other, over the surge and dip of the myriad trees of the forest, over level meadows and the shining yellow sea to the faint coast beyond. i used to sit at this point on the warm sunlit turf which marked the track of the roman road, while the two children raced about hunting for the whinberries that grew here and there on the banks. here beneath the deep blue sky and the great clouds rolling, like olden galleons with sails full-bellied, from the sea to the hills, as i listened to the whispered charm of the great and ancient wood, i lived solely for delight, and only remembered strange things when we would return to the house, and find professor gregg either shut up in the little room he had made his study, or else pacing the terrace with the look, patient and enthusiastic, of the determined seeker. one morning, some eight or nine days after our arrival, i looked out of my window and saw the whole landscape transmuted before me. the clouds had dipped low and hidden the mountain in the west, and a southern wind was driving the rain in shifting pillars up the valley, and the little brooklet that burst the hill below the house now raged, a red torrent, down to the river. we were perforce obliged to keep snug within doors, and when i had attended to my pupils, i sat down in the morning-room where the ruins of a library still encumbered an old-fashioned bookcase. i had inspected the shelves once or twice, but their contents had failed to attract me; volumes of eighteenth century sermons, an old book on farriery, a collection of "poems" by "persons of quality," prideaux's "connection," and an odd volume of pope were the boundaries of the library, and there seemed little doubt that everything of interest or value had been removed. now, however, in desperation, i began to re-examine the musty sheepskin and calf bindings, and found, much to my delight, a fine old quarto printed by the stephani, containing the three books of pomponius mela, "de situ orbis," and other of the ancient geographers. i knew enough of latin to steer my way through an ordinary sentence, and i soon became absorbed in the odd mixture of fact and fancy; light shining on a little of the space of the world, and beyond mist and shadow and awful forms. glancing over the clear-printed pages, my attention was caught by the heading of a chapter in solinus, and i read the words:-- mira de intimis gentibus libyae, de lapide hexecontalitho. "the wonders of the people that inhabit the inner parts of libya, and of the stone called sixtystone." the odd title attracted me and i read on:-- "gens ista avia et secreta habitat, in montibus horrendis foeda mysteria celebrat. de hominibus nihil aliud illi præferunt quam figuram, ab humano ritu prorsus exulant, oderunt deum lucis. stridunt potius quam loquuntur; vox absona nec sine horrore auditur. lapide quodam gloriantur, quem hexecontalithon vocant, dicunt enim hunc lapidem sexaginta notas ostendere. cujus lapidis nomen secretum ineffabile colunt: quod ixaxar." "this folk," i translated to myself, "dwells in remote and secret places, and celebrates foul mysteries on savage hills. nothing have they in common with men save the face, and the customs of humanity are wholly strange to them; and they hate the sun. they hiss rather than speak; their voices are harsh, and not to be heard without fear. they boast of a certain stone, which they call sixtystone; for they say that it displays sixty characters. and this stone has a secret unspeakable name; which is ixaxar." i laughed at the queer inconsequence of all this, and thought it fit for sinbad the sailor or other of the supplementary nights. when i saw professor gregg in the course of the day, i told him of my find in the bookcase, and the fantastic rubbish i had been reading. to my surprise, he looked up at me with an expression of great interest. "that is really very curious," he said. "i have never thought it worth while to look into the old geographers, and i daresay i have missed a good deal. ah, that is the passage, is it. it seems a shame to rob you of your entertainment, but i really think i must carry off the book." the next day the professor called to me to come to the study. i found him sitting at a table in the full light of the window, scrutinizing something very attentively with a magnifying-glass. "ah, miss lally," he began, "i want to use your eyes. this glass is pretty good, but not like my old one that i left in town. would you mind examining the thing yourself, and telling me how many characters are cut on it?" he handed me the object in his hand, and i saw that it was the black seal he had shown me in london, and my heart began to beat with the thought that i was presently to know something. i took the seal, and holding it up to the light checked off the grotesque dagger-shaped characters one by one. "i make sixty-two," i said at last. "sixty-two? nonsense; it's impossible. ah, i see what you have done, you have counted that and that," and he pointed to two marks which i had certainly taken as letters with the rest. "yes, yes," professor gregg went on; "but those are obvious scratches, done accidentally; i saw that at once. yes, then that's quite right. thank you very much, miss lally." i was going away, rather disappointed at my having been called in merely to count a number of marks on the black seal, when suddenly there flashed into my mind what i had read in the morning. "but, professor gregg, i cried, breathless, the seal, the seal. why, it is the stone hexecontalithos that solinus writes of; it is ixaxar." "yes," he said, "i suppose it is. or it maybe a mere coincidence. it never does to be too sure, you know, in these matters. coincidence killed the professor." i went away puzzled by what i had heard, and as much as ever at a loss to find the ruling clew in this maze of strange evidence. for three days the bad weather lasted, changing from driving rain to a dense mist, fine and dripping, and we seemed to be shut up in a white cloud that veiled all the world away from us. all the while professor gregg was darkling in his room, unwilling, it appeared, to dispense confidences or talk of any kind, and i heard him walking to and fro with a quick, impatient step, as if he were in some way wearied of inaction. the fourth morning was fine, and at breakfast the professor said briskly:-- "we want some extra help about the house; a boy of fifteen or sixteen, you know. there are a lot of little odd jobs that take up the maids' time, which a boy could do much better." "the girls have not complained to me in any way," i replied. "indeed, anne said there was much less work than in london, owing to there being so little dust." "ah, yes, they are very good girls. but i think we shall do much better with a boy. in fact, that is what has been bothering me for the last two days." "bothering you?" i said in astonishment, for as a matter of fact the professor never took the slightest interest in the affairs of the house. "yes," he said, "the weather, you know. i really couldn't go out in that scotch mist; i don't know the country very well, and i should have lost my way. but i am going to get the boy this morning." "but how do you know there is such a boy as you want anywhere about?" "oh, i have no doubt as to that. i may have to walk a mile or two at the most, but i am sure to find just the boy i require." i thought the professor was poking, but though his tone was airy enough there was something grim and set about his features that puzzled me. he got his stick, and stood at the door looking meditatively before him, and as i passed through the hall he called to me. "by the way, miss lally, there was one thing i wanted to say to you. i daresay you may have heard that some of these country lads are not over bright; idiotic would be a harsh word to use, and they are usually called 'naturals,' or something of the kind, i hope you won't mind if the boy i am after should turn out not too keen-witted; he will be perfectly harmless, of course, and blacking boots doesn't need much mental effort." with that he was gone, striding up the road that led to the wood; and i remained stupefied, and then for the first time my astonishment was mingled with a sudden note of terror, arising i knew not whence, and all unexplained even to myself, and yet i felt about my heart for an instant something of the chill of death, and that shapeless, formless dread of the unknown that is worse than death itself. i tried to find courage in the sweet air that blew up from the sea, and in the sunlight after rain, but the mystic woods seemed to darken around me; and the vision of the river coiling between the reeds, and the silver gray of the ancient bridge, fashioned in my mind symbols of vague dread, as the mind of a child fashions terror from things harmless and familiar. two hours later professor gregg returned. i met him as he came down the road, and asked quietly if he had been able to find a boy. "oh, yes," he answered; "i found one easily enough. his name is jervase cradock, and i expect he will make himself very useful. his father has been dead for many years, and the mother, whom i saw, seemed very glad at the prospect of a few shillings extra coming in on saturday nights. as i expected, he is not too sharp, has fits at times, the mother said; but as he will not be trusted with the china, that doesn't much matter, does it? and he is not in any way dangerous, you know, merely a little weak." "when is he coming?" "to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. anne will show him what he has to do, and how to do it. at first he will go home every night, but perhaps it may ultimately turn out more convenient for him to sleep here, and only go home for sundays." i found nothing to say to all this. professor gregg spoke in a quiet tone of matter-of-fact, as indeed was warranted by the circumstance; and yet i could not quell my sensation of astonishment at the whole affair. i knew that in reality no assistance was wanted in the housework, and the professor's prediction that the boy he was to engage might prove a little "simple," followed by so exact a fulfilment, struck me as bizarre in the extreme. the next morning i heard from, the housemaid that the boy cradock had come at eight, and that she had been trying to make him useful. "he doesn't seem quite all there, i don't think, miss," was her comment; and later in the day i saw him helping the old man who worked in the garden. he was a youth of about fourteen, with black hair and black eyes, and an olive skin, and i saw at once from the curious vacancy of his expression that he was mentally weak. he touched his forehead awkwardly as i went by, and i heard him answering the gardener in a queer, harsh voice that caught my attention; it gave me the impression of some one speaking deep below under the earth, and there was a strange sibilance, like the hissing of the phonograph as the pointer travels over the cylinder. i heard that he seemed anxious to do what he could, and was quite docile and obedient, and morgan the gardener, who knew his mother, assured me he was perfectly harmless. "he's always been a bit queer," he said, "and no wonder, after what his mother went through before he was born. i did know his father, thomas cradock, well, and a very fine workman he was too, indeed. he got something wrong with his lungs owing to working in the wet woods, and never got over it, and went off quite sudden like. and they do say as how mrs. cradock was quite off her head; anyhow, she was found by mr. hillyer, ty coch, all crouched up on the gray hills, over there, crying and weeping like a lost soul. and jervase he was born about eight months afterwards, and as i was saying, he was a bit queer always; and they do say when he could scarcely walk he would frighten the other children into fits with the noises he would make." a word in the story had stirred up some remembrance within me, and vaguely curious, i asked the old man where the gray hills were. "up there," he said, with the same gesture he had used before; "you go past the fox and hounds, and through the forest, by the old ruins. it's a good five mile from here, and a strange sort of a place. the poorest soil between this and monmouth, they do say, though it's good feed for sheep. yes, it was a sad thing for poor mrs. cradock." the old man turned to his work, and i strolled on down the path between the espaliers, gnarled and gouty with age, thinking of the story i had heard, and groping for the point in it that had some key to my memory. in an instant it came before me; i had seen the phrase "gray hills" on the slip of yellowed paper that professor gregg had taken from the drawer in his cabinet. again i was seized with pangs of mingled curiosity and fear; i remembered the strange characters copied from the limestone rock, and then again their identity with the inscription on the age-old seal, and the fantastic fables of the latin geographer. i saw beyond doubt that, unless coincidence had set all the scene and disposed all these bizarre events with curious art, i was to be a spectator of things far removed from the usual and customary traffic and jostle of life. professor gregg i noted day by day. he was hot on his trail, growing lean with eagerness; and in the evenings, when the sun was swimming on the verge of the mountain, he would pace the terrace to and fro with his eyes on the ground, while the mist grew white in the valley, and the stillness of the evening brought far voices near, and the blue smoke rose a straight column from the diamond-shaped chimney of the gray farmhouse, just as i had seen it on the first morning. i have told you i was of sceptical habit; but though i understood little or nothing, i began to dread, vainly proposing to myself the iterated dogmas of science that all life is material, and that in the system of things there is no undiscovered land even beyond the remotest stars, where the supernatural can find a footing. yet there struck in on this the thought that matter is as really awful and unknown as spirit, that science itself but dallies on the threshold, scarcely gaining more than a glimpse of the wonders of the inner place. there is one day that stands up from amidst the others as a grim red beacon, betokening evil to come. i was sitting on a bench in the garden, watching the boy cradock weeding, when i was suddenly alarmed by a harsh and choking sound, like the cry of a wild beast in anguish, and i was unspeakably shocked to see the unfortunate lad standing in full view before me, his whole body quivering and shaking at short intervals as though shocks of electricity were passing through him, and his teeth grinding, and foam gathering on his lips, and his face all swollen and blackened to a hideous mask of humanity. i shrieked with terror, and professor gregg came running; and as i pointed to cradock, the boy with one convulsive shudder fell face forward, and lay on the wet earth, his body writhing like a wounded blind-worm, and an inconceivable babble of sounds bursting and rattling and hissing from his lips; he seemed to pour forth an infamous jargon, with words, or what seemed words, that might have belonged to a tongue dead since untold ages, and buried deep beneath nilotic mud, or in the inmost recesses of the mexican forest. for a moment the thought passed through my mind, as my ears were still revolted with that infernal clamor, "surely this is the very speech of hell," and then i cried out again and again, and ran away shuddering to my inmost soul. i had seen professor gregg's face as he stooped over the wretched boy and raised him, and i was appalled by the glow of exultation that shone on every lineament and feature. as i sat in my room with drawn blinds, and my eyes hidden in my hands, i heard heavy steps beneath, and i was told afterwards that professor gregg had carried cradock to his study, and had locked the door. i heard voices murmur indistinctly, and i trembled to think of what might be passing within a few feet of where i sat; i longed to escape to the woods and sunshine, and yet i dreaded the sights that might confront me on the way. and at last, as i held the handle of the door nervously, i heard professor gregg's voice calling to me with a cheerful ring: "it's all right now, miss lally," he said. "the poor fellow has got over it, and i have been arranging for him to sleep here after to-morrow. perhaps i may be able to do something for him." "yes," he said later, "it was a very painful sight, and i don't wonder you were alarmed. we may hope that good food will build him up a little, but i am afraid he will never be really cured;" and he affected the dismal and conventional air with which one speaks of hopeless illness, and yet beneath it i detected the delight that leapt up rampant within him, and fought and struggled to find utterance. it was as if one glanced down on the even surface of the sea, clear and immobile, and saw beneath raging depths, and a storm of contending billows. it was indeed to me a torturing and offensive problem that this man, who had so bounteously rescued me from the sharpness of death, and showed himself in all the relations of life full of benevolence and pity and kindly forethought, should so manifestly be for once on the side of the demons, and take a ghastly pleasure in the torments of an afflicted fellow-creature. apart, i struggled with the horned difficulty, and strove to find the solution, but without the hint of a clue; beset by mystery and contradiction, i saw nothing that might help me, and began to wonder whether, after all, i had not escaped from the white mist of the suburb at too dear a rate. i hinted something of my thought to the professor; i said enough to let him know that i was in the most acute perplexity, but the moment after regretted what i had done, when i saw his face contort with a spasm of pain. "my dear miss lally," he said, "you surely do not wish to leave us? no, no, you would not do it. you do not know how i rely on you; how confidently i go forward, assured that you are here to watch over my children. you, miss lally, are my rear-guard; for, let me tell you, that the business in which i am engaged is not wholly devoid of peril. you have not forgotten what i said the first morning here; my lips are shut by an old and firm resolve, till they can open to utter no ingenious hypothesis or vague surmise but irrefragable fact, as certain as a demonstration in mathematics. think over it, miss lally, not for a moment would i endeavor to keep you here against your own instincts, and yet i tell you frankly that i am persuaded that it is here, here amidst the woods, that your duty lies." i was touched by the eloquence of his tone, and by the remembrance that the man, after all, had been my salvation, and i gave him my hand on a promise to serve him loyally and without question. a few days later the rector of our church, a little church, gray and severe and quaint, that hovered on the very banks of the river and watched the tides swim and return, came to see us, and professor gregg easily persuaded him to stay and share our dinner. mr. meyrick was a member of an antique family of squires, whose old manor house stood amongst the hills some seven miles away, and thus rooted in the soil, the rector was a living store of all the old fading customs and lore of the country. his manner, genial with a deal of retired oddity, won on professor gregg; and towards the cheese, when a curious burgundy had begun its incantations, the two men glowed like the wine, and talked of philology with the enthusiasm of a burgess over the peerage. the parson was expounding the pronunciation of the welsh _ll_, and producing sounds like the gurgle of his native brooks, when professor gregg struck in. "by the way," he said, "that was a very odd word i met with the other day. you know my boy, poor jervase cradock. well, he has got the bad habit of talking to himself, and the day before yesterday i was walking in the garden here and heard him; he was evidently quite unconscious of my presence. a lot of what he said i couldn't make out, but one word, struck me distinctly. it was such an odd sound; half-sibilant, half-guttural, and as quaint as those double _ll_'s you have been demonstrating. i do not know whether i can give you an idea of the sound. "ishakshar" is perhaps as near as i can get; but the _k_ ought to be a greek _chi_ or a spanish _j_. now what does it mean in welsh?" "in welsh?" said the parson. "there is no such word in welsh, nor any word remotely resembling it. i know the book-welsh, as they call it, and the colloquial dialects as well as any man, but there's no word like that from anglesea to usk. besides, none of the cradocks speak a word of welsh; it's dying out about here." "really. you interest me extremely, mr. meyrick. i confess the word didn't strike me as having the welsh ring. but i thought it might be some local corruption." "no, i never heard such a word, or anything like it. indeed," he added, smiling whimsically, "if it belongs to any language, i should say it must be that of the fairies,--the tylwydd têg, as we call them." the talk went on to the discovery of a roman villa in the neighborhood; and soon after i left the room, and sat down apart to wonder at the drawing together of such strange clues of evidence. as the professor had spoken of the curious word, i had caught the glint of his eye upon me; and though the pronunciation he gave was grotesque in the extreme, i recognized the name of the stone of sixty characters mentioned by solinus, the black seal shut up in some secret drawer of the study, stamped forever by a vanished race with signs that no man could read, signs that might, for all i knew, be the veils of awful things done long ago, and forgotten before the hills were moulded into form. when, the next morning, i came down, i found professor gregg pacing the terrace in his eternal walk. "look at that bridge," he said when he saw me, "observe the quaint and gothic design, the angles between the arches, and the silvery gray of the stone in the awe of the morning light. i confess it seems to me symbolic; it should illustrate a mystical allegory of the passage from one world to another." "professor gregg," i said quietly, "it is time that i knew something of what has happened, and of what is to happen." for the moment he put me off, but i returned again with the same question in the evening, and then professor gregg flamed with excitement. "don't you understand yet?" he cried. "but i have told you a good deal; yes, and shown you a good deal. you have heard pretty nearly all that i have heard, and seen what i have seen; or at least," and his voice chilled as he spoke, "enough to make a good deal clear as noonday. the servants told you, i have no doubt, that the wretched boy cradock had another seizure the night before last; he awoke me with cries in that voice you heard in the garden, and i went to him, and god forbid you should see what i saw that night. but all this is useless; my time here is drawing to a close; i must be back in town in three weeks, as i have a course of lectures to prepare, and need all my books about me. in a very few days it will be all over, and i shall no longer hint, and no longer be liable to ridicule as a madman and a quack. no, i shall speak plainly, and i shall be heard with such emotions as perhaps no other man has ever drawn from the breasts of his fellows." he paused, and seemed to grow radiant with the joy of great and wonderful discovery. "but all that is for the future, the near future certainly, but still the future," he went on at length. "there is something to be done yet; you will remember my telling you that my researches were not altogether devoid of peril? yes, there is a certain amount of danger to be faced; i did not know how much when i spoke on the subject before, and to a certain extent i am still in the dark. but it will be a strange adventure, the last of all, the last demonstration in the chain." he was walking up and down the room as he spoke, and i could hear in his voice the contending tones of exultation and despondence, or perhaps i should say awe, the awe of a man who goes forth on unknown waters, and i thought of his allusion to columbus on the night he had laid his book before me. the evening was a little chilly, and a fire of logs had been lighted in the study where we were, and the remittent flame and the glow on the walls reminded me of the old days. i was sitting silent in an armchair by the fire, wondering over all i had heard, and still vainly speculating as to the secret springs concealed from me under all the phantasmagoria i had witnessed, when i became suddenly aware of a sensation that change of some sort had been at work in the room, and that there was something unfamiliar in its aspect. for some time i looked about me, trying in vain to localize the alteration that i knew had been made; the table by the window, the chairs, the faded settee were all as i had known them. suddenly, as a sought-for recollection flashes into the mind, i knew what was amiss. i was facing the professor's desk, which stood on the other side of the fire, and above the desk was a grimy looking bust of pitt, that i had never seen there before. and then i remembered the true position of this work of art; in the furthest corner by the door was an old cupboard, projecting into the room, and on the top of the cupboard, fifteen feet from the floor, the bust had been, and there no doubt it had delayed, accumulating dirt since the early years of the century. i was utterly amazed, and sat silent still, in a confusion of thought. there was, so far as i knew, no such thing as a step-ladder in the house, for i had asked for one to make some alterations in the curtains of my room; and a tall man standing on a chair would have found it impossible to take down the bust. it had been placed not on the edge of the cupboard, but far back against the wall; and professor gregg was, if anything, under the average height. "how on earth did you manage to get down pitt?" i said at last. the professor looked curiously at me, and seemed to hesitate a little. "they must have found you a step-ladder, or perhaps the gardener brought in a short ladder from outside." "no, i have had no ladder of any kind. now, miss lally," he went on with an awkward simulation of jest, "there is a little puzzle for you; a problem in the manner of the inimitable holmes; there are the facts, plain and patent; summon your acuteness to the solution of the puzzle. for heaven's sake," he cried with a breaking voice, "say no more about it. i tell you, i never touched the thing," and he went out of the room with horror manifest on his face, and his hand shook and jarred the door behind him. i looked round the room in vague surprise, not at all realizing what had happened, making vain and idle surmises by way of explanation, and wondering at the stirring of black waters by an idle word, and the trivial change of an ornament. "this is some petty business, some whim on which i have jarred," i reflected; "the professor is perhaps scrupulous and superstitious over trifles, and my question may have outraged unacknowledged fears, as though one killed a spider or spilled the salt before the very eyes of a practical scotchwoman." i was immersed in these fond suspicions, and began to plume myself a little on my immunity from such empty fears, when the truth fell heavily as lead upon my heart, and i recognized with cold terror that some awful influence had been at work. the bust was simply inaccessible; without a ladder no one could have touched it. i went out to the kitchen and spoke as quietly as i could to the housemaid. "who moved that bust from the top of the cupboard, anne?" i said to her. "professor gregg says he has not touched it. did you find an old step-ladder in one of the outhouses?" the girl looked at me blankly. "i never touched it," she said. "i found it where it is now the other morning when i dusted the room. i remember now, it, was wednesday morning, because it was the morning after cradock was taken bad in the night. my room is next to his, you know, miss," the girl went on piteously; "and it was awful to hear how he cried and called out names that i couldn't understand. it made me feel all afraid, and then master came, and i heard him speak, and he took down cradock to the study and gave him something." "and you found that bust moved the next morning?" "yes, miss, there was a queer sort of a smell in the study when i came down and opened the windows; a bad smell it was, and i wondered what it could be. do you know, miss, i went a long time ago to the zoo in london with my cousin thomas barker, one afternoon that i had off, when i was at mrs. prince's in stanhope gate, and we went into the snake-house to see the snakes, and it was just the same sort of a smell, very sick it made me feel, i remember, and i got barker to take me out. and it was just the same kind of a smell in the study, as i was saying, and i was wondering what it could be from, when i see that bust with pitt cut in it standing on the master's desk, and i thought to myself, now who has done that, and how have they done it? and when i came to dust the things, i looked at the bust, and i saw a great mark on it where the dust was gone, for i don't think it can have been touched with a duster for years and years, and it wasn't like finger-marks, but a large patch like, broad and spread out. so i passed my hand over it, without thinking what i was doing, and where that patch was it was all sticky and slimy, as if a snail had crawled over it. very strange, isn't it, miss? and i wonder who can have done it, and how that mess was made." the well-meant gabble of the servant touched me to the quick. i lay down upon my bed, and bit my lip that i should not cry out loud in the sharp anguish of my terror and bewilderment. indeed, i was almost mad with dread; i believe that if it had been daylight i should have fled hot foot, forgetting all courage and all the debt of gratitude that was due to professor gregg, not caring whether my fate were that i must starve slowly so long as i might escape from the net of blind and panic fear that every day seemed to draw a little closer round me. if i knew, i thought, if i knew what there were to dread, i could guard against it; but here, in this lonely house, shut in on all sides by the olden woods and the vaulted hills, terror seems to spring inconsequent from every covert, and the flesh is aghast at the half-heard murmurs of horrible things. all in vain i strove to summon scepticism to my aid, and endeavored by cool common-sense to buttress my belief in a world of natural order, for the air that blew in at the open window was a mystic breath, and in the darkness i felt the silence go heavy and sorrowful as a mass of requiem, and i conjured images of strange shapes gathering fast amidst the reeds, beside the wash of the river. in the morning, from the moment that i set foot in the breakfast-room i felt that the unknown plot was drawing to a crisis; the professor's face was firm and set, and he seemed hardly to hear our voices when we spoke. "i am going out for rather a long walk," he said, when the meal was over. "you mustn't be expecting me, now, or thinking anything has happened if i don't turn up to dinner. i have been getting stupid lately, and i dare say a miniature walking tour will do me good. perhaps i may even spend the night in some little inn, if i find any place that looks clean and comfortable." i heard this, and knew by my experience of professor gregg's manner that it was no ordinary business or pleasure that impelled him. i knew not, nor even remotely guessed, where he was bound, nor had i the vaguest notion of his errand, but all the fear of the night before returned; and as he stood, smiling, on the terrace, ready to set out, i implored him to stay, and to forget all his dreams of the undiscovered continent. "no, no, miss lally," he replied, still smiling, "it's too late now. _vestigia nulla retrorsum_, you know, is the device of all true explorers, though i hope it won't be literally true in my ease. but, indeed, you are wrong to alarm yourself so; i look upon my little expedition as quite commonplace; no more exciting than a day with the geological hammers. there is a risk, of course, but so there is on the commonest excursion. i can afford to be jaunty; i am doing nothing so hazardous as 'arry does a hundred times over in the course of every bank holiday. well, then, you must look more cheerfully; and so good-by till to-morrow at latest." he walked briskly up the road, and i saw him open the gate that marks the entrance of the wood, and then he vanished in the gloom of the trees. all the day passed heavily with a strange darkness in the air, and again i felt as if imprisoned amidst the ancient woods, shut in an olden land of mystery and dread, and as if all was long ago and forgotten by the living outside. i hoped and dreaded, and when the dinner-hour came, i waited expecting to hear the professor's step in the hall, and his voice exulting at i knew not what triumph. i composed my face to welcome him gladly, but the night descended dark, and he did not come. in the morning when the maid knocked at my door, i called out to her, and asked if her master had returned; and when she replied that his bedroom stood open and empty, i felt the cold clasp of despair. still, i fancied he might have discovered genial company, and would return for luncheon, or perhaps in the afternoon, and i took the children for a walk in the forest, and tried my best to play and laugh with them, and to shut out the thoughts of mystery and veiled terror. hour after hour i waited, and my thoughts grew darker; again the night came and found me watching, and at last, as i was making much ado to finish my dinner, i heard steps outside and the sound of a man's voice. the maid came in and looked oddly at me. "please, miss," she began, "mr. morgan the gardener wants to speak to you for a minute, if you didn't mind." "show him in, please," i answered, and i set my lips tight. the old man came slowly into the room, and the servant shut the door behind him. "sit down, mr. morgan," i said; "what is it that you want to say to me?" "well, miss, mr. gregg he gave me something for you yesterday morning, just before he went off; and he told me particular not to hand it up before eight o'clock this evening exactly, if so be as he wasn't back again home before, and if he should come home before i was just to return it to him in his own hands. so, you see, as mr. gregg isn't here yet, i suppose i'd better give you the parcel directly." he pulled out something from his pocket, and gave it to me, half rising. i took it silently, and seeing that morgan seemed doubtful as to what he was to do next, i thanked him and bade him good-night, and he went out. i was left alone in the room with the parcel in my hand,--a paper parcel neatly sealed and directed to me, with the instructions morgan had quoted all written in the professor's large loose hand. i broke the seals with a choking at my heart, and found an envelope inside, addressed also, but open, and i took the letter out. * * * * * "my dear miss lally," it began, "to quote the old logic manual, the case of your reading this note is a case of my having made a blunder of some sort, and, i am afraid, a blunder that turns these lines into a farewell. it is practically certain that neither you nor anyone else will ever see me again. i have made my will with provision for this eventuality, and i hope you will consent to accept the small remembrance addressed to you, and my sincere thanks for the way in which you joined your fortunes to mine. the fate which has come upon me is desperate and terrible beyond the remotest dreams of man; but this fate you have a right to know--if you please. if you look in the left-hand drawer of my dressing-table, you will find the key of the escritoire, properly labelled. in the well of the escritoire is a large envelope sealed and addressed to your name. i advise you to throw it forthwith into the fire; you will sleep better of nights if you do so. but if you must know the history of what has happened, it is all written down for you to read." * * * * * the signature was firmly written below, and again i turned the page and read out the words one by one, aghast and white to the lips, my hands cold as ice, and sickness choking me. the dead silence of the room, and the thought of the dark woods and hills closing me in on every side, oppressed me, helpless and without capacity, and not knowing where to turn for counsel. at last i resolved that though knowledge should haunt my whole life and all the days to come, i must know the meaning of the strange terrors that had so long tormented me, rising gray, dim, and awful, like the shadows in the wood at dusk. i carefully carried out professor gregg's directions, and not without reluctance broke the seal of the envelope, and spread out his manuscript before me. that manuscript i always carry with me, and i see that i cannot deny your unspoken request to read it. this, then, was what i read that night, sitting at the desk, with a shaded lamp beside me. the young lady who called herself miss lally then proceeded to recite:-- * * * * * _the statement of william gregg, f.r.s., etc._ it is many years since the first glimmer of the theory which is now almost, if not quite, reduced to fact dawned first on my mind. a somewhat extensive course of miscellaneous and obsolete reading had done a good deal to prepare the way, and, later, when i became somewhat of a specialist and immersed myself in the studies known as ethnological, i was now and then startled by facts that would not square with orthodox scientific opinion, and by discoveries that seemed to hint at something still hidden for all our research. more particularly i became convinced that much of the folk-lore of the world is but an exaggerated account of events that really happened, and i was especially drawn to consider the stories of the fairies, the good folk of the celtic races. here i thought i could detect the fringe of embroidery and exaggeration, the fantastic guise, the little people dressed in green and gold sporting in the flowers, and i thought i saw a distinct analogy between the name given to this race (supposed to be imaginary) and the description of their appearance and manners. just as our remote ancestors called the dreaded beings "fair" and "good" precisely because they dreaded them, so they had dressed them up in charming forms, knowing the truth to be the very reverse. literature, too, had gone early to work, and had lent a powerful hand in the transformation, so that the playful elves of shakespeare are already far removed from the true original, and the real horror is disguised in a form of prankish mischief. but in the older tales, the stories that used to make men cross themselves as they sat round the burning logs, we tread a different stage; i saw a widely opposed spirit in certain histories of children and of men and women who vanished strangely from the earth. they would be seen by a peasant in the fields walking towards some green and rounded hillock, and seen no more on earth; and there are stories of mothers who have left a child quietly sleeping with the cottage door rudely barred with a piece of wood, and have returned, not to find the plump and rosy little saxon, but a thin and wizened creature, with sallow skin and black piercing eyes, the child of another race. then, again, there were myths darker still; the dread of witch and wizard, the lurid evil of the sabbath, and the hint of demons who mingled with the daughters of men. and just as we have turned the terrible "fair folk" into a company of benignant, if freakish, elves, so we have hidden from us the black foulness of the witch and her companions under a popular _diablerie_ of old women and broomsticks and a comic cat with tail on end. so the greeks called the hideous furies benevolent ladies, and thus the northern nations have followed their example. i pursued my investigations, stealing odd hours from other and more imperative labors, and i asked myself the question: supposing these traditions to be true, who were the demons who are reported to have attended the sabbaths? i need not say that i laid aside what i may call the supernatural hypothesis of the middle ages, and came to the conclusion that fairies and devils were of one and the same race and origin; invention, no doubt, and the gothic fancy of old days had done much in the way of exaggeration and distortion; yet i firmly believed that beneath all this imagery there was a black background of truth. as for some of the alleged wonders, i hesitated. while i should be very loth to receive any one specific instance of modern spiritualism as containing even a grain of the genuine, yet i was not wholly prepared to deny that human flesh may now and then, once perhaps in ten million cases, be the veil of powers which seem magical to us; powers which, so far from proceeding from the heights and leading men thither, are in reality survivals from the depths of being. the amoeba and the snail have powers which we do not possess; and i thought it possible that the theory of reversion might explain many things which seem wholly inexplicable. thus stood my position; i saw good reason to believe that much of the tradition, a vast deal of the earliest and uncorrupted tradition of the so-called fairies, represented solid fact, and i thought that the purely supernatural element in these traditions, was to be accounted for on the hypothesis that a race which had fallen out of the grand march of evolution might have retained, as a survival, certain powers which would be to us wholly miraculous. such was my theory as it stood conceived in my mind; and working with, this in view, i seemed to gather confirmation from every side, from the spoils of a tumulus or a barrow, from a local paper reporting an antiquarian meeting in the country, and from general literature of all kinds. amongst other instances, i remember being struck by the phrase "articulate-speaking men" in homer, as if the writer knew or had heard of men whose speech was so rude that it could hardly be termed articulate; and on my hypothesis of a race who had lagged far behind the rest, i could easily conceive that such a folk would speak a jargon but little removed from the inarticulate noises of brute-beasts. thus i stood, satisfied that my conjecture was at all events not far removed from fact, when a chance paragraph in a small country print one day arrested my attention. it was a short account of what was to all appearance the usual sordid tragedy of the village; a young girl unaccountably missing, and evil rumor blatant and busy with her reputation. yet i could read between the lines that all this scandal was purely hypothetical, and in all probability invented to account for what was in any other manner unaccountable. a flight to london or liverpool, or an undiscovered body lying with a weight about its neck in the foul depths of a woodland pool, of perhaps murder,--such were the theories of the wretched girl's neighbors. but as i idly scanned the paragraph, a flash of thought passed through me with the violence of an electric shock: what if the obscure and horrible race of the hills still survived, still remained haunting wild places, and barren hills, and now and then repeating the evil of gothic legend, unchanged and unchangeable as the turanian shelta, or the basques of spain. i have said that the thought came with violence; and indeed i drew in my breath sharply, and clung with both hands to my elbow-chair, in a strange confusion of horror and elation. it was as if one of my _confrères_ of physical science, roaming in a quiet english wood, had been suddenly stricken aghast by the presence of the slimy and loathsome terror of the ichthyosaurus, the original of the stories of the awful worms killed by valorous knights, or had seen the sun darkened by the pterodactyl, the dragon of tradition. yet as a resolute explorer of knowledge, the thought of such a discovery threw me into a passion of joy, and i cut out the slip from the paper, and put it in a drawer in my old bureau, resolved that it should be but the first piece in a collection of the strangest significance. i sat long that evening dreaming of the conclusions i should establish, nor did cooler reflection at first dash my confidence. yet as i began to put the case fairly, i saw that i might be building on an unstable foundation; the facts might possibly be in accordance with local opinion; and i regarded the affair with a mood of some reserve. yet i resolved to remain perched on the look-out, and i hugged to myself the thought that i alone was watching and wakeful, while the great crowd of thinkers and searchers stood heedless and indifferent, perhaps letting the most prerogative facts pass by unnoticed. several years elapsed before i was enabled to add to the contents of the drawer; and the second find was in reality not a valuable one, for it was a mere repetition of the first, with only the variation of another and distant locality. yet i gained something; for in the second case, as in the first, the tragedy took place in a desolate and lonely country, and so far my theory seemed justified. but the third piece was to me far more decisive. again, amongst outland hills, far even from a main road of traffic, an old man was found done to death, and the instrument of execution was left beside him. here, indeed, there was rumor and conjecture, for the deadly tool was a primitive stone axe, bound by gut to the wooden handle, and surmises the most extravagant and improbable were indulged in. yet, as i thought with a kind of glee, the wildest conjectures went far astray; and i took the pains to enter into correspondence with the local doctor, who was called at the inquest. he, a man of some acuteness, was dumfoundered. "it will not do to speak of these things in country places, he wrote to me; but, frankly, professor gregg, there is some hideous mystery here. i have obtained possession of the stone axe, and have been so curious as to test its powers. i took it into the back-garden of my house one sunday afternoon when my family and the servants were all out, and there, sheltered by the poplar hedges, i made my experiments. i found the thing utterly unmanageable. whether there is some peculiar balance, some nice adjustment of weights, which require incessant practice, or whether an effectual blow can be struck only by a certain trick of the muscles, i do not know; but i assure you that i went into the house with but a sorry opinion of my athletic capacities. it was like an inexperienced man trying 'putting the hammer;' the force exerted seemed to return on oneself, and i found myself hurled backwards with violence, while the axe fell harmless to the ground. on another occasion i tried the experiment with a clever woodman of the place; but this man, who had handled his axe for forty years, could do nothing with the stone implement, and missed every stroke most ludicrously. in short, if it were not so supremely absurd, i should say that for four thousand years no one on earth could have struck an effective blow with the tool that undoubtedly was used to murder the old man." this, as may be imagined, was to me rare news; and afterwards, when i heard the whole story, and learned that the unfortunate old man had babbled tales of what might be seen at night on a certain wild hillside, hinting at unheard-of wonders, and that he had been found cold one morning on the very hill in question, my exultation was extreme, for i felt i was leaving conjecture far behind me. but the next step was of still greater importance. i had possessed for many years an extraordinary stone seal,--a piece of dull black stone, two inches long from the handle to the stamp, and the stamping end a rough hexagon an inch and a quarter in diameter. altogether, it presented the appearance of an enlarged tobacco-stopper of an old-fashioned make. it had been sent to me by an agent in the east, who informed me that it had been found near the site of the ancient babylon. but the characters engraved on the seal were to me an intolerable puzzle. somewhat of the cuneiform pattern, there were yet striking differences, which i detected at the first glance, and all efforts to read the inscription on the hypothesis that the rules for deciphering the arrow-headed writing would apply proved futile. a riddle such as this stung my pride, and at odd moments i would take the black seal out of the cabinet, and scrutinize it with so much idle perseverance that every letter was familiar to my mind, and i could have drawn the inscription from memory without the slightest error. judge then of my surprise, when i one day received from a correspondent in the west of england a letter and an enclosure that positively left me thunderstruck. i saw carefully traced on a large piece of paper the very characters of the black seal, without alteration of any kind, and above the inscription my friend had written: _inscription found on a limestone rock on the grey hills, monmouthshire. done in some red earth and quite recent_. i turned to the letter. my friend wrote: "i send you the enclosed inscription with all due reserve. a shepherd who passed by the stone a week ago swears that there was then no mark of any kind. the characters, as i have noted, are formed by drawing some red earth over the stone, and are of an average height of one inch. they look to me like a kind of cuneiform character, a good deal altered, but this of course is impossible. it may be either a hoax or more probably some scribble of the gypsies, who are plentiful enough in this wild country. they have, as you are aware, many hieroglyphics which they use in communicating with one another. i happened to visit the stone in question two days ago in connection with a rather painful incident which has occurred here." as may be supposed, i wrote immediately to my friend, thanking him for the copy of the inscription, and asking him in a casual manner, the history of the incident he mentioned. to be brief, i heard that a woman named cradock, who had lost her husband a day before, had set out to communicate the sad news to a cousin who lived some five miles away. she took a short cut which led by the gray hills. mrs. cradock, who was then quite a young woman, never arrived at her relative's house. late that night a farmer who had lost a couple of sheep, supposed to have wandered from the flock, was walking over the gray hills, with a lantern and his dog. his attention was attracted by a noise, which he described as a kind of wailing, mournful and pitiable to hear; and, guided by the sound, he found the unfortunate mrs. cradock crouched on the ground by the limestone rock, swaying her body to and fro, and lamenting and crying in so heart-rending a manner that the farmer was, as he says, at first obliged to stop his ears, or he would have run away. the woman allowed herself to be taken home, and a neighbor came to see to her necessities. all the night she never ceased her crying, mixing her lament with words of some unintelligible jargon, and when the doctor arrived he pronounced her insane. she lay on her bed for a week, now wailing, as people said, like one lost and damned for eternity, and now sunk in a heavy coma; it was thought that grief at the loss of her husband had unsettled her mind, and the medical man did not at one time expect her to live. i need not say that i was deeply interested in this story, and i made my friend write to me at intervals with all the particulars of the case. i heard then that in the course of six weeks the woman gradually recovered the use of her faculties and some months later she gave birth to a son, christened jervase, who unhappily proved to be of weak intellect. such were the facts known to the village; but to me while i whitened at the suggested thought of the hideous enormities that had doubtless been committed, all this was nothing short of conviction, and i incautiously hazarded a hint of something like the truth to some scientific friends. the moment the words had left my lips i bitterly regretted having spoken, and thus given away the great secret of my life, but with a good deal of relief mixed with indignation, i found my fears altogether misplaced, for my friends ridiculed me to my face, and i was regarded as a madman; and beneath a natural anger i chuckled to myself, feeling as secure amidst these blockheads, as if i had confided what i knew to the desert sands. but now, knowing so much, i resolved i would know all, and i concentrated my efforts on the task of deciphering the inscription on the black seal. for many years i made this puzzle the sole object of my leisure moments; for the greater portion of my time was, of course, devoted to other duties, and it was only now and then that i could snatch a week of clear research. if i were to tell the full history of this curious investigation, this statement would be wearisome in the extreme, for it would contain simply the account of long and tedious failure. by what i knew already of ancient scripts i was well-equipped for the chase, as i always termed it to myself. i had correspondents amongst all the scientific men in europe, and, indeed, in the world, and i could not believe that in these days any character, however ancient and however perplexed, could long resist the search-light i should bring to bear upon it. yet, in point of fact, it was fully fourteen years before i succeeded. with every year my professional duties increased, and my leisure became smaller. this no doubt retarded me a good deal; and yet, when i look back on those years i am astonished at the vast scope of my investigation of the black seal. i made my bureau a centre, and from all the world and from all the ages i gathered transcripts of ancient writing. nothing, i resolved, should pass me unawares, and the faintest hint should be welcomed and followed up. but as one covert after another was tried and proved empty of result, i began in the course of years to despair, and to wonder whether the black seal were the sole relic of some race that had vanished from the world and left no other trace of its existence,--had perished, in fine, as atlantis is said to have done, in some great cataclysm, its secrets perhaps drowned beneath the ocean or moulded into the heart of the hills. the thought chilled my warmth a little, and though i still persevered, it was no longer with the same certainty of faith. a chance came to the rescue. i was staying in a considerable town in the north of england, and took the opportunity of going over the very creditable museum that had for some time been established in the place. the curator was one of my correspondents; and, as we were looking through one of the mineral cases, my attention was struck by a specimen, a piece of black stone some four inches square, the appearance of which reminded me in a measure of the black seal. i took it up carelessly, and was turning it over in my hand, when i saw, to my astonishment, that the under side was inscribed. i said, quietly enough, to my friend the curator that the specimen interested me, and that i should be much obliged if he would allow me to take it with me to my hotel for a couple of days. he, of course, made no objection, and i hurried to my rooms, and found that my first glance had not deceived me. there were two inscriptions; one in the regular cuneiform character, another in the character of the black seal, and i realized that my task was accomplished. i made an exact copy of the two inscriptions; and when i got to my london study, and had the seal before me, i was able seriously to grapple with the great problem. the interpreting inscription on the museum specimen, though in itself curious enough, did not bear on my quest, but the transliteration made me master of the secret of the black seal. conjecture, of course, had to enter into my calculations; there was here and there uncertainty about a particular ideograph, and one sign recurring again and again on the seal baffled me for many successive nights. but at last the secret stood open before me in plain english, and i read the key of the awful transmutation of the hills. the last word was hardly written, when with fingers all trembling and unsteady i tore the scrap of paper into the minutest fragments, and saw them flame and blacken in the red hollow of the fire, and then i crushed the gray films that remained into finest powder. never since then have i written those words; never will i write the phrases which tell me how man can be reduced to the slime from which he came, and be forced to put on the flesh of the reptile and the snake. there was now but one thing remaining. i knew; but i desired to see, and i was after some time able to take a house in the neighborhood of the gray hills, and not far from the cottage where mrs. cradock and her son jervase resided. i need not go into a full and detailed account of the apparently inexplicable events which have occurred here, where i am writing this. i knew that i should find in jervase cradock something of the blood of the "little people," and i found later that he had more than once encountered his kinsmen in lonely places in that lonely land. when i was summoned one day to the garden, and found him in a seizure speaking or hissing the ghastly jargon of the black seal, i am afraid that exultation prevailed over pity. i heard bursting from his lips the secrets of the underworld, and the word of dread, "ishakshar," the signification of which i must be excused from giving. but there is one incident i cannot pass over unnoticed. in the waste hollow of the night i awoke at the sound of those hissing syllables i knew so well; and on going to the wretched boy's room, i found him convulsed and foaming at the mouth, struggling on the bed as if he strove to escape the grasp of writhing demons. i took him down to my room and lit the lamp, while he lay twisting on the floor, calling on the power within his flesh to leave him. i saw his body swell and become distended as a bladder, while the face blackened before my eyes; and then at the crisis i did what was necessary according to the directions on the seal, and putting all scruple on one side, i became a man of science, observant of what was passing. yet the sight i had to witness was horrible, almost beyond the power of human conception and the most fearful fantasy; something pushed out from the body there on the floor, and stretched forth, a slimy wavering tentacle, across the room, and grasped the bust upon the cupboard, and laid it down on my desk. when it was over, and i was left to walk up and down all the rest of the night, white and shuddering, with sweat pouring from my flesh, i vainly tried to reason with myself; i said, truly enough, that i had seen nothing really supernatural, that a snail pushing out his horns and drawing them in was but an instance on a smaller scale of what i had witnessed; and yet horror broke through all such reasonings and left me shattered and loathing myself for the share i had taken in the night's work. there is little more to be said. i am going now to the final trial and encounter; for i have determined that there shall be nothing wanting, and i shall meet the "little people" face to face. i shall have the black seal and the knowledge of its secrets to help me, and if i unhappily do not return from my journey, there is no need to conjure up here a picture of the awfulness of my fate. pausing a little at the end of professor gregg's statement, miss lally continued her tale in the following words:-- such was the almost incredible story that the professor had left behind him. when i had finished reading it, it was late at night, but the next morning i took morgan with me, and we proceeded to search the gray hills for some trace of the lost professor. i will not weary you with a description of the savage desolation of that tract of country, a tract of utterest loneliness, of bare green hills dotted over with gray limestone boulders, worn by the ravage of time into fantastic semblances of men and beasts. finally, after many hours of weary searching, we found what i told you--the watch and chain, the purse, and the ring--wrapped in a piece of coarse parchment. when morgan cut the gut that bound the parcel together, and i saw the professor's property, i burst into tears, but the sight of the dreaded characters of the black seal repeated on the parchment froze me to silent horror, and i think i understood for the first time the awful fate that had come upon my late employer. i have only to add that professor gregg's lawyer treated my account of what had happened as a fairy tale, and refused even to glance at the documents i laid before him. it was he who was responsible for the statement that appeared in the public press, to the effect that professor gregg had been drowned, and that his body must have been swept into the open sea. miss lally stopped speaking and looked at mr. phillipps, with a glance of some enquiry. he, for his part, was sunken in a deep revery of thought; and when he looked up and saw the bustle of the evening gathering in the square, men and women hurrying to partake of dinner, and crowds already besetting the music-halls, all the hum and press of actual life seemed unreal and visionary, a dream in the morning after an awakening. "i thank you," he said at last, "for your most interesting story, interesting to me, because i feel fully convinced of its exact truth." "sir," said the lady, with some energy of indignation, "you grieve and offend me. do you think i should waste my time and yours by concocting fictions on a bench in leicester square?" "pardon me, miss lally, you have a little misunderstood me. before you began i knew that whatever you told would be told in good faith, but your experiences have a far higher value than that of _bona fides_. the most extraordinary circumstances in your account are in perfect harmony with the very latest scientific theories. professor lodge would, i am sure, value a communication from you extremely; i was charmed from the first by his daring hypothesis in explanation of the wonders of spiritualism (so called), but your narrative puts the whole matter out of the range of mere hypothesis." "alas, sir, all this will not help me. you forget, i have lost my brother under the most startling and dreadful circumstances. again, i ask you, did you not see him as you came here? his black whiskers, his spectacles, his timid glance to right and left; think, do not these particulars recall his face to your memory?" "i am sorry to say i have never seen any one of the kind," said phillipps, who had forgotten all about the missing brother. "but let me ask you a few questions. did you notice whether professor gregg--" "pardon me, sir, i have stayed too long. my employers will be expecting me. i thank you for your sympathy. good bye." before mr. phillipps had recovered from his amazement at this abrupt departure, miss lally had disappeared from his gaze, passing into the crowd that now thronged the approaches to the empire. he walked home in a pensive frame of mind, and drank too much tea. at ten o'clock he had made his third brew, and had sketched out the outlines of a little work to be called _protoplasmic reversion_. incident of the private bar. mr. dyson often meditated at odd moments over the singular tale he had listened to at the café de la touraine. in the first place he cherished a profound conviction that the words of truth were scattered with a too niggardly and sparing hand over the agreeable history of mr. smith and the black gulf cañon; and, secondly, there was the undeniable fact of the profound agitation of the narrator, and his gestures on the pavement, too violent to be simulated. the idea of a man going about london haunted by the fear of meeting a young man with spectacles struck dyson as supremely ridiculous; he searched his memory for some precedent in romance, but without success; he paid visits at odd times to the little café, hoping to find mr. wilkins there; and he kept a sharp watch on the great generation of the spectacled men without much doubt that he would remember the face of the individual whom he had seen dart out of the aerated bread shop. all his peregrinations and researches, however, seemed to lead to nothing of value, and dyson needed all his warm conviction of his innate detective powers and his strong scent for mystery to sustain him in his endeavors. in fact, he had two affairs on hand; and every day, as he passed through streets crowded or deserted, and lurked in the obscure districts, and watched at corners, he was more than surprised to find that the affair of the gold coin persistently avoided him; while the ingenious wilkins, and the young man with spectacles whom he dreaded, seemed to have vanished from the pavements. he was pondering these problems one evening in a house of call in the strand, and the obstinacy with which the persons he so ardently desired to meet hung back gave the modest tankard before him an additional touch of bitter. as it happened, he was alone in his compartment, and, without thinking, he uttered aloud the burden of his meditations. "how bizarre it all is!" he said, "a man walking the pavement with the dread of a timid-looking young man with spectacles continually hovering before his eyes. and there was some tremendous feeling at work, i could swear to that." quick as thought, before he had finished the sentence, a head popped round the barrier, and was withdrawn again; and while dyson was wondering what this could mean, the door of the compartment was swung open, and a smooth, clean-shaven, and smiling gentleman entered. "you will excuse me, sir," he said politely, "for intruding on your thoughts, but you made a remark a minute ago." "i did," said dyson; "i have been puzzling over a foolish matter, and i thought aloud. as you heard what i said, and seem interested, perhaps you may be able to relieve my perplexity?" "indeed. i scarcely know; it is an odd coincidence. one has to be cautions. i suppose, sir, that you would have no repulsion in assisting the ends of justice." "justice," replied dyson, "is a term of such wide meaning, that i too feel doubtful about giving an answer. but this place is not altogether fit for such a discussion; perhaps you would come to my rooms?" "you are very kind; my name is burton, but i am sorry to say i have not a card with me. do you live near here?" "within ten minutes' walk." mr. burton took out his watch and seemed to be making a rapid calculation. "i have a train to catch," he said; "but after all, it is a late one. so, if you don't mind, i think i will come with you. i am sure we should have a little talk together. we turn up here?" the theatres were filling as they crossed the strand, the street seemed alive with voices, and dyson looked fondly about him. the glittering lines of gas-lamps, with here and there the blinding radiance of an electric light, the hansoms that flashed to and fro with ringing bells, the laden buses, and the eager hurrying east and west of the foot passengers, made his most enchanting picture; and the graceful spire of st. mary le strand, on the one hand, and the last flush of sunset on the other, were to him a cause of thanksgiving, as the gorse blossom to linnæus. mr. burton caught his look of fondness as they crossed the street. "i see you can find the picturesque in london," he said. "to me this great town is as i see it is to you, the study and the love of life. yet how few there are that can pierce the veils of apparent monotony and meanness! i have read in a paper which is said to have the largest circulation in the world, a comparison between the aspects of london and paris, a comparison which should be positively laureat, as the great masterpiece of fatuous stupidity. conceive if you can a human being of ordinary intelligence preferring the boulevards to our london streets; imagine a man calling for the wholesale destruction of our most charming city, in order that the dull uniformity of that whited sepulchre called paris should be reproduced here in london. is it not positively incredible?" "my dear sir," said dyson, regarding burton with a good deal of interest. "i agree most heartily with your opinions, but i really cannot share your wonder. have you heard how much george eliot received for 'romola'? do you know what the circulation of 'robert elsmere' was? do you read 'tit bits' regularly? to me, on the contrary, it is constant matter both for wonder and thanksgiving that london was not boulevardized twenty years ago. i praise that exquisite jagged sky line that stands up against the pale greens and fading blues and flushing clouds of sunset, but i wonder even more than i praise. as for st. mary le strand, its preservation is a miracle, nothing more or less. a thing of exquisite beauty _versus_ four buses abreast! really, the conclusion is too obvious. didn't you read the letter of the man who proposed that the whole mysterious system, the immemorial plan of computing easter, should, be abolished off-hand because he doesn't like his son having his holidays as early as march th? but shall we be going on?" they had lingered at the corner of a street on the north side of the strand, enjoying the contrasts and the glamour of the scene. dyson pointed the way with a gesture, and they strolled up the comparatively deserted streets, slanting a little to the right, and thus arriving at dyson's lodging on the verge of bloomsbury. mr. burton took a comfortable armchair by the open window, while dyson lit the candles and produced the whiskey and soda and cigarettes. "they tell me these cigarettes are very good," he said, "but i know nothing about it myself. i hold at last that there is only one tobacco, and that is shag. i suppose i could not tempt you to try a pipeful?" mr. burton smilingly refused the offer, and picked out a cigarette from the box. when he had smoked it half through, he said with some hesitation:-- "it is really kind of you to have me here, mr. dyson; the fact is that the interests at issue are far too serious to be discussed in a bar, where, as you found for yourself, there may be listeners, voluntary or involuntary, on each side. i think the remark i heard you make was something about the oddity of an individual going about london in deadly fear of a young man with spectacles." "yes, that was it." "well, would you mind confiding to me the circumstances that gave rise to the reflection?" "not in the least; it was like this." and he ran over in brief outline the adventure in oxford street, dwelling on the violence of mr. wilkins's gestures, but wholly suppressing the tale told in the café. "he told me he lived in constant terror of meeting this man; and i left him when i thought he was cool enough to look after himself," said dyson, ending his narrative. "really," said mr. burton. "and you actually saw this mysterious person." "yes." "and could you describe him?" "well, he looked to me a youngish man, pale and nervous. he had small black side whiskers, and wore rather large spectacles." "but this is simply marvellous! you astonish me. for i must tell you that my interest in the matter is this. i am not in the least in terror of meeting a dark young man with spectacles, but i shrewdly suspect a person of that description would much rather not meet me. and yet the account you give of the man tallies exactly. a nervous glance to right and left--is it not so? and, as you observed, he wears prominent spectacles, and has small black whiskers. there cannot be surely two people exactly identical--one a cause of terror, and the other, i should imagine, extremely anxious to get out of the way. but have you seen this man since?" "no, i have not; and i have been looking out for him pretty keenly. but, of course, he may have left london, and england too for the matter of that." hardly, i think. well, mr. dyson, it is only fair that i should explain my story, now that i have listened, to yours. i must tell you, then, that i am an agent for curiosities and precious things of all kinds. an odd employment, isn't it? of course i wasn't brought up to the business; i gradually fell into it. i have always been fond of things queer and rare, and by the time i was twenty i had made half a dozen collections. it is not generally known how often farm laborers come upon rarities; you would be astonished if i told you what i have seen turned up by the plough. i lived in the country in those days, and i used to buy anything the men on the farms brought me; and i had the queerest set of rubbish, as my friends called my collection. but that's how i got the scent of the business, which means everything; and, later on, it struck me that i might very well turn my knowledge to account and add to my income. since those early days i have been in most quarters of the world, and some very valuable things have passed through my hands, and i have had to engage in difficult and delicate negotiations. you have possibly heard of the khan opal--called in the east 'the stone of a thousand and one colors'? well, perhaps the conquest of that stone was my greatest achievement. i call it myself the stone of the thousand and one lies, for i assure you that i had to invent a cycle of folk-lore before the rajah who owned it would consent to sell the thing. i subsidized wandering story-tellers, who told tales in which the opal played a frightful part; i hired a holy man, a great ascetic, to prophesy against the thing in the language of eastern symbolism; in short, i frightened the rajah out of his wits. so you see there is room for diplomacy in the traffic i am engaged in. i have to be ever on my guard, and i have often been sensible that unless i watched every step and weighed every word my life would not last me much longer. last april i became aware of the existence of a highly valuable antique gem. it was in southern italy, and in the possession of persons who were ignorant of its real value. it has always been my experience that it is precisely the ignorant who are most difficult to deal with. i have met farmers who were under the impression that a shilling of george i. was a find of almost incalculable value; and all the defeats i have sustained have been at the hands of people of this description. reflecting on these facts, i saw that the acquisition of the gem i have mentioned would be an affair demanding the nicest diplomacy; i might possibly have got it by offering a sum approaching its real value, but i need not point out to you that such a proceeding would be most unbusinesslike. indeed, i doubt whether it would have been successful, for the cupidity of such persons is aroused by a sum which seems enormous, and the low cunning which serves them in place of intelligence immediately suggests that the object for which such an amount is offered must be worth at least double. of course, when it is a matter of an ordinary curiosity--an old jug, a carved chest, or a queer brass lantern--one does not much care; the cupidity of the owner defeats its object, the collector laughs, and goes away, for he is aware that such things are by no means unique. but this gem i fervently desired to possess; and as i did not see my way to giving more than a hundredth part of its value, i was conscious that all my, let us say, imaginative and diplomatic powers would have to be exerted. i am sorry to say that i came to the conclusion that i could not undertake to carry the matter through single-handed, and i determined to confide in my assistant, a young man named william robbins, whom i judged to be by no means devoid of capacity. my idea was that robbins should get himself up as a low-class dealer in precious stones; he could patter a little italian, and would go to the town in question and manage to see the gem we were after, possibly by offering some trifling articles of jewelry for sale, but that i left to be decided, then my work was to begin, but i will not trouble you with a tale told twice over. in due course, then, robbins went off to italy with an assortment of uncut stones and a few rings, and some jewelry i bought in birmingham, on purpose for his expedition. a week later i followed him, travelling leisurely, so that i was a fortnight later in arriving at our common destination. there was a decent hotel in the town, and on my inquiring of the landlord whether there were many strangers in the place, he told me very few; he had heard there was an englishman staying in a small tavern, a pedlar he said, who sold beautiful trinkets very cheaply, and wanted to buy old rubbish. for five or six days i took life leisurely, and i must say i enjoyed myself. it was part of my plan to make the people think i was an enormously rich man; and i knew that such items as the extravagance of my meals, and the price of every bottle of wine i drank, would not be suffered, as sancho panza puts it, to rot in the landlord's breast. at the end of the week i was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of signor melini, the owner of the gem i coveted, at the café, and with his ready hospitality and my geniality i was soon established as a friend of the house. on my third or fourth visit i managed to make the italians talk about the english pedlar, who, they said, spoke a most detestable italian. 'but that does not matter,' said the signora melini, 'for he has beautiful things, which he sells very very cheap.' 'i hope you may not find he has cheated you,' i said, 'for i must tell you that english people give these fellows a very wide berth. they usually make a great parade of the cheapness of their goods, which often turn out to be double the price of better articles in the shops,' they would not hear of this, and signora melini insisted on showing me the three rings and the bracelet she had bought of the pedlar. she told me the price she had paid; and after scrutinizing the articles carefully, i had to confess that she had made a bargain, and indeed robbins had sold her the things at about fifty per cent below market value. i admired the trinkets as i gave them back to the lady, and i hinted that the pedlar must be a somewhat foolish specimen of his class. two days later, as i was taking my vermouth at the café with signor melini, he led the conversation back to the pedlar, and mentioned casually that he had shown the man a little curiosity, for which he had made rather a handsome offer. 'my dear sir,' i said, 'i hope you will be careful. i told you that the travelling tradesman does not bear a very high reputation in england; and notwithstanding his apparent simplicity, this fellow may turn out to be an arrant cheat. may i ask you what is the nature of the curiosity you have shown him?' he told me it was a little thing, a pretty little stone with some figures cut on it: people said it was old. 'i should like to examine it,' i replied; 'as it happens i have, seen a good deal of these gems. we have a fine collection of them in our museum at london.' in due course i was shown the article, and i held the gem i so coveted between my fingers. i looked at it coolly, and put it down carelessly on the table. 'would you mind telling me, signor,' i said, 'how much my fellow-countryman offered you for this?' 'well,' he said, 'my wife says the man must be mad; he said he would give me twenty lire for it.' "i looked at him quietly, and took up the gem and pretended to examine it in the light more carefully; i turned it over and over, and finally pulled out a magnifying glass from my pocket, and seemed to search every line in the cutting with minutest scrutiny. 'my dear sir,' i said at last, 'i am inclined to agree with signora melini. if this gem were genuine, it would be worth some money; but as it happens to be a rather bad forgery, it is not worth twenty centesimi. it was sophisticated, i should imagine, some time in the last century, and by a very unskilful hand.' 'then we had better get rid of it,' said melini. 'i never thought it was worth anything myself. of course i am sorry for the pedlar, but one must let a man know his own trade. i shall tell him we will take the twenty lire.' 'excuse me,' i said, 'the man wants a lesson. it would be a charity to give him one. tell him that you will not take anything under eighty lire, and i shall be much surprised if he does not close with you at once. "a day or two later i heard that the english pedlar had gone away, after debasing the minds of the country people with birmingham art jewelry; for i admit that the gold sleeve links like kidney beans, the silver chains made apparently after the pattern of a dog-chain, and the initial brooches, have always been heavy on my conscience. i cannot acquit myself of having indirectly contributed to debauch the taste of a simple folk; but i hope that the end i had in view may finally outbalance this heavy charge. soon afterwards, i paid a farewell visit at the melinis, and the signor informed me with an oily chuckle that the plan i had suggested had been completely successful. i congratulated him on his bargain, and went away after expressing a wish that heaven might send many such pedlars in his path. "nothing of interest occurred on my return journey. i had arranged that robbins was to meet me at a certain place on a certain day, and i went to the appointment full of the coolest confidence; the gem had been conquered, and i had only to reap the fruits of victory. i am sorry to shake that trust in our common human nature which i am sure you possess, but i am compelled to tell you that up to the present date i have never set eyes on my man robbins, or on the antique gem in his custody. i have found out that he actually arrived in london, for he was seen three days before my arrival in england by a pawnbroker of my acquaintance consuming his favorite beverage, four ale, in the tavern where we met to-night. since then he has not been heard of. i hope you will now pardon my curiosity as to the history and adventures of dark young men with spectacles. you will, i am sure, feel for me in my position; the savor of life has disappeared for me; it is a bitter thought that i have rescued one of the most perfect and exquisite specimens of antique art from the hands of ignorant, and indeed unscrupulous persons, only to deliver it into the keeping of a man who is evidently utterly devoid of the very elements of commercial morality." "my dear sir," said dyson, "you will allow me to compliment you on your style; your adventures have interested me exceedingly. but, forgive me, you just now used the word morality; would not some persons take exception to your own methods of business? i can conceive, myself, flaws of a moral kind being found in the very original conception you have described to me. i can imagine the puritan shrinking in dismay from your scheme, pronouncing it unscrupulous, nay, dishonest." mr. burton helped himself, very frankly, to some more whiskey. "your scruples entertain me," he said. "perhaps you have not gone very deeply into these questions of ethics. i have been compelled to do so myself, just as i was forced to master a simple system of book-keeping. without book-keeping, and still more without a system of ethics, it is impossible to conduct a business such as mine. but i assure you that i am often profoundly saddened as i pass through the crowded streets and watch the world at work by the thought of how few amongst all these hurrying individuals, black hatted, well dressed, educated we may presume sufficiently,--how few amongst them have any reasoned system of morality. even you have not weighed the question; although you study life and affairs, and to a certain extent penetrate the veils and masks of the comedy of man, even you judge by empty conventions, and the false money which is allowed to pass current as sterling coin. allow me to play the part of socrates; i shall teach you nothing that you do not know. i shall merely lay aside the wrappings of prejudice and bad logic, and show you the real image which you possess in your soul. come then. do you allow that happiness is anything?" "certainly," said dyson. "and happiness is desirable or undesirable?" "desirable of course." "and what shall we call the man who gives happiness? is he not a philanthropist?" "i think so." "and such a person is praiseworthy, and the more praiseworthy in the proportion of the persons whom he makes happy?" "by all means." "so that he who makes a whole nation happy, is praiseworthy in the extreme, and the action by which he gives happiness is the highest virtue?" "it appears so, o burton," said dyson, who found something very exquisite in the character of his visitor. "quite so; you find the several conclusions inevitable. well, apply them to the story i have told, you. i conferred happiness on myself by obtaining (as i thought) possession of the gem; i conferred happiness on the melinis by getting them eighty lire instead of an object for which they had not the slightest value, and i intended to confer happiness on the whole british nation by selling the thing to the british museum, to say nothing of the happiness a profit of about nine thousand per cent would have conferred on me. i assure you i regard robbins as an interferer with the cosmos and fair order of things. but that is nothing; you perceive that i am an apostle of the very highest morality; you have been forced to yield to argument." "there certainly seems a great deal in what you advance," said dyson. "i admit that i am a mere amateur of ethics, while you, as you say, have brought the most acute scrutiny to bear on these perplexed and doubtful questions. i can well understand your anxiety to meet the fallacious robbins, and i congratulate myself on the chance which has made us acquainted. but you will pardon my seeming inhospitality, i see it is half past eleven, and i think you mentioned a train." "a thousand thanks, mr. dyson, i have just time, i see. i will look you up some evening if i may. good-night." the decorative imagination. in the course of a few weeks dyson became accustomed, to the constant incursions of the ingenious mr. burton, who showed himself ready to drop in at all hours, not averse to refreshment, and a profound guide in the complicated questions of life. his visits at once terrified and delighted dyson, who could no longer seat himself at his bureau secure from interruption while he embarked on literary undertakings, each one of which was to be a masterpiece. on the other hand, it was a vivid pleasure to be confronted with views so highly original; and if here and there mr. burton's reasonings seemed tinged with fallacy, yet dyson freely yielded to the joy of strangeness, and never failed to give his visitor a frank and hearty welcome. mr. burton's first inquiry was always after the unprincipled robbins, and he seemed to feel the stings of disappointment when dyson told him that he had failed to meet this outrage on all morality, as burton styled him, vowing that sooner or later he would take vengeance on such a shameless betrayal of trust. one evening they had sat together for some time discussing the possibility of laying down for this present generation and our modern and intensely complicated order of society, some rules of social diplomacy, such as lord bacon gave to the courtiers of king james i. "it is a book to make," said mr. burton, "but who is there capable of making it? i tell you people are longing for such a book; it would bring fortune to its publisher. bacon's essays are exquisite, but they have now no practical application; the modern strategist can find but little use in a treatise 'de re militari,' written by a florentine in the fifteenth century. scarcely more dissimilar are the social conditions of bacon's time and our own; the rules that he lays down so exquisitely for the courtier and diplomatist of james the first's age will avail us little in the rough-and-tumble struggle of to-day. life, i am afraid, has deteriorated; it gives little play for fine strokes such as formerly advanced men in the state. except in such businesses as mine, where a chance does occur now and then, it has all become, as i said, an affair of rough and tumble; men still desire to attain, it is true, but what is their _moyen de parvenir_? a mere imitation, and not a gracious one, of the arts of the soap-vender and the proprietor of baking powder. when i think of these things, my dear dyson, i confess that i am tempted to despair of my century." "you are too pessimistic, my dear fellow; you set up too high a standard. certainly, i agree with you that the times are decadent in many ways. i admit a general appearance of squalor; it needs much philosophy to extract the wonderful and the beautiful from the cromwell road or the nonconformist conscience. australian wines of fine burgundy character, the novels alike of the old women and the new women, popular journalism,--these things indeed make for depression. yet we have our advantages. before us is unfolded the greatest spectacle the world has ever seen,--the mystery of the innumerable unending streets, the strange adventures that must infallibly arise from so complicated a press of interests. nay, i will say that he who has stood in the ways of a suburb and has seen them stretch before him all shining, void, and desolate at noonday, has not lived in vain. such a sight is in reality more wonderful than any perspective of bagdad or grand cairo. and, to set on one side the entertaining history of the gem which you told me, surely you must have had many singular adventures in your own career?" "perhaps not so many as you would think; a good deal--the larger part--of my business has been as commonplace as linen-drapery. but of course things happen now and then. it is ten years since i have established my agency, and i suppose that a house and estate agent who had been in trade for an equal time could tell you some queer stories. but i must give you a sample of my experiences some night. "why not to-night?" said dyson. "this evening seems to me admirably adapted for an odd chapter. look out into the street; you can catch a view of it, if you crane your neck from that chair of yours. is it not charming? the double row of lamps growing closer in the distance, the hazy outline of the plane-tree in the square, and the lights of the hansoms swimming to and fro, gliding and vanishing; and above, the sky all clear and blue and shining. come, let us have one of your _cent nouvelles nouvelles_." "my dear dyson, i am delighted to amuse you." with these words mr. burton prefaced the novel of the iron maid. i think the most extraordinary event which i can recall took place about five years ago. i was then still feeling my way; i had declared for business, and attended regularly at my office, but i had not succeeded in establishing a really profitable connection, and consequently i had a good deal of leisure time on my hands. i have never thought fit to trouble you with the details of my private life; they would be entirely devoid of interest. i must briefly say, however, that i had a numerous circle of acquaintance, and was never at a loss as to how to spend my evenings. i was so fortunate as to have friends in most of the ranks of the social order; there is nothing so unfortunate, to my mind, as a specialized circle, wherein a certain round of ideas is continually traversed and retraversed. i have always tried to find out new types and persons whose brains contained something fresh to me; one may chance to gain information even from the conversation of city men on an omnibus. amongst my acquaintance i knew a young doctor who lived in a far outlying suburb, and i used often to brave the intolerably slow railway journey, to have the pleasure of listening to his talk. one night we conversed so eagerly together over our pipes and whiskey that the clock passed unnoticed, and when i glanced up i realized with a shock that i had just five minutes in which to catch the last tram. i made a dash for my hat and stick, and jumped out of the house and down the steps, and tore at full speed up the street. it was no good, however; there was a shriek of the engine whistle, and i stood there at the station door and saw far on the long dark line of the embankment a red light shine and vanish, and a porter came down and shut the door with a bang. "how far to london?" i asked him. "a good nine miles to waterloo bridge;" and with that he went off. before me was the long suburban street, its dreary distance marked by rows of twinkling lamps, and the air was poisoned by the faint sickly smell of burning bricks; it was not a cheerful prospect by any means, and i had to walk through nine miles of such streets, deserted as those of pompeii. i knew pretty well what direction to take; so i set out wearily, looking at the stretch of lamps vanishing in perspective; and as i walked, street after street branched off to right and left,--some far reaching to distances that seemed endless, communicating with, other systems of thoroughfare; and some mere protoplasmic streets, beginning in orderly fashion with serried two-storied houses, and ending suddenly in waste, and pits, and rubbish heaps, and fields whence the magic had departed. i have spoken of systems of thoroughfare, and i assure you that, walking alone through these silent places, i felt phantasy growing on me, and some glamour of the infinite. there was here. i felt, an immensity as in the outer void, of the universe. i passed from unknown to unknown, my way marked by lamps like stars, and on either band was an unknown world where myriads of men dwelt and slept, street leading into street, as it seemed to world's end. at first the road by which i was travelling was lined with houses of unutterable monotony,--a wall of gray brick pierced by two stories of windows, drawn close to the very pavement. but by degrees i noticed an improvement: there were gardens, and these grew larger. the suburban builder began to allow himself a wider scope; and for a certain distance each flight of steps was guarded by twin lions of plaster, and scents of flowers prevailed over the fume of heated bricks. the road began to climb a hill, and, looking up a side street, i saw the half moon rise over plane-trees, and there on the other side was as if a white cloud had fallen, and the air around it was sweetened as with incense; it was a may-tree in full bloom. i pressed on stubbornly, listening for the wheels and the clatter of some belated hansom; but into that land of men who go to the city in the morning and return in the evening, the hansom rarely enters, and i had resigned myself once more to the walk, when i suddenly became aware that some one was advancing to meet me along the sidewalk. the man was strolling rather aimlessly; and though the time and the place would have allowed an unconventional style of dress, he was vested in the ordinary frock coat, black tie, and silk hat of civilization. we met each other under the lamp, and, as often happens in this great town, two casual passengers brought face to face found, each in the other an acquaintance. "mr. mathias, i think?" i said. "quite so. and you are frank burton. you know you are a man with a christian name, so i won't apologize for my familiarity. but may i ask where you are going?" i explained the situation to him, saying i had traversed a region as unknown to me as the darkest recesses of africa. "i think i have only about five miles farther," i concluded. "nonsense; you must come home with me. my house is close by; in fact, i was just taking my evening walk when we met. come along; i dare say you will find a makeshift bed easier than a five-mile walk." i let him take my arm and lead me along, though i was a good deal surprised at so much geniality from a man who was, after all, a mere casual club acquaintance. i suppose i had not spoken to mr. mathias half-a-dozen times; he was a man who would sit silent in an armchair for hours, neither reading nor smoking, but now and again moistening his lips with his tongue and smiling queerly to himself. i confess he had never attracted me, and on the whole i should have preferred to continue my walk. but he took my arm and led me up a side street, and stopped at a door in a high wall. we passed through the still moonlit garden, beneath the black shadow of an old cedar, and into an old red brick house with many gables. i was tired enough, and i sighed with relief as i let myself fall into a great leather armchair. you know the infernal grit with which they strew the sidewalk in those suburban districts; it makes walking a penance, and i felt my four-mile tramp had made me more weary than ten miles on an honest country road. i looked about the room with some curiosity. there was a shaded lamp which threw a circle of brilliant light on a heap of papers lying on an old brass-bound secretaire of the last century; but the room was all vague and shadowy, and i could only see that it was long and low, and that it was filled with indistinct objects which might be furniture. mr. mathias sat down in a second armchair, and looked about him with that odd smile of his. he was a queer-looking man, clean-shaven, and white to the lips. i should think his age was something between fifty and sixty. "now i have got you here," he began, "i must inflict my hobby on you. you knew i was a collector? oh, yes, i have devoted many years to collecting curiosities, which i think are really curious. but we must have a better light." he advanced into the middle of the room, and lit a lamp which hung from the ceiling; and as the bright light flashed round the wick, from every corner and space there seemed to start a horror. great wooden frames with complicated apparatus of ropes and pulleys stood against the wall; a wheel of strange shape had a place beside a thing that looked like a gigantic gridiron. little tables glittered with bright steel instruments carelessly put down as if ready for use; a screw and vice loomed out, casting ugly shadows; and in another nook was a saw with cruel jagged teeth. "yes," said mr. mathias; "they are, as you suggest, instruments of torture,--of torture and death. some--many, i may say--have been used; a few are reproductions after ancient examples. those knives were used for flaying; that frame is a rack, and a very fine specimen. look at this; it comes from venice. you see that sort of collar, something like a big horse-shoe? well, the patient, let us call him, sat down quite comfortably, and the horse-shoe was neatly fitted round his neck. then the two ends were joined with a silken band, and the executioner began to turn a handle connected with the band. the horse-shoe contracted very gradually as the band tightened, and the turning continued till the man was strangled. it all took place quietly, in one of those queer garrets under the leads. but these things are all european; the orientals are, of course, much more ingenious. these are the chinese contrivances. you have heard of the 'heavy death'? it is my hobby, this sort of thing. do you know, i often sit here, hour after hour, and meditate over the collection. i fancy i see the faces of the men who have suffered--faces lean with agony and wet with sweats of death--growing distinct out of the gloom, and i hear the echoes of their cries for mercy. but i must show you my latest acquisition. come into the next room." i followed mr. mathias out. the weariness of the walk, the late hour, and the strangeness of it all, made me feel like a man in a dream; nothing would have surprised me very much. the second room was as the first, crowded with ghastly instruments; but beneath the lamp was a wooden platform, and a figure stood on it. it was a large statue of a naked woman, fashioned in green bronze; the arms were stretched out, and there was a smile on the lips; it might well have been intended for a venus, and yet there was about the thing an evil and a deadly look. mr. mathias looked at it complacently. "quite a work of art, isn't it?" he said. "it's made of bronze, as you see, but it has long had the name of the iron maid. i got it from germany, and it was only unpacked this afternoon; indeed, i have not yet had time to open the letter of advice. you see that very small knob between the breasts? well, the victim was bound to the maid, the knob was pressed, and the arms slowly tightened round the neck. you can imagine the result." as mr. mathias talked, he patted the figure affectionately. i had turned away, for i sickened at the sight of the man and his loathsome treasure. there was a slight click, of which i took no notice,--it was not much louder than the tick of a clock; and then i heard a sudden whir, the noise of machinery in motion, and i faced round. i have never forgotten the hideous agony on mathias's face as those relentless arms tightened about his neck; there was a wild struggle as of a beast in the toils, and then a shriek that ended in a choking groan. the whirring noise had suddenly changed into a heavy droning. i tore with all my might at the bronze arms, and strove to wrench them apart, but i could do nothing. the head had slowly bent down, and the green lips were on the lips of mathias. of course i had to attend at the inquest. the letter which had accompanied the figure was found unopened on the study table. the german firm of dealers cautioned their client to be most careful in touching the iron maid, as the machinery had been put in thorough working order. for many revolving weeks mr. burton delighted dyson by his agreeable conversation, diversified by anecdote, and interspersed with the narration of singular adventures. finally, however, he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared, and on the occasion of his last visit he contrived to loot a copy of his namesake's anatomy. dyson, considering this violent attack on the rights of property, and certain glaring inconsistencies in the talk of his late friend, arrived at the conclusion that his stories were fabulous, and that the iron maid only existed in the sphere of a decorative imagination. the recluse of bayswater. amongst the many friends who were favored with the occasional pleasure of mr. dyson's society was mr. edgar russell, realist and obscure struggler, who occupied a small back room on the second floor of a house in abingdon grove, notting hill. turning off from the main street and walking a few paces onward, one was conscious of a certain calm, a drowsy peace, which made the feet inclined to loiter; and this was ever the atmosphere of abingdon grove. the houses stood a little back, with gardens where the lilac and laburnum and blood-red may blossomed gayly in their seasons, and there was a corner where an older house in another street had managed to keep a back garden of real extent; a walled-in garden whence there came a pleasant scent of greenness after the rains of early summer, where old elms held memories of the open fields, where there was yet sweet grass to walk on. the houses in abingdon grove belonged chiefly to the nondescript stucco period of thirty-five years ago, tolerably built with passable accommodation for moderate incomes; they had largely passed into the state of lodgings, and cards bearing the inscription "furnished apartments" were not infrequent over the doors. here, then, in a house of sufficiently good appearance, mr. russell had established himself; for he looked upon the traditional dirt and squalor of grub street as a false and obsolete convention, and preferred, as he said, to live within sight of green leaves. indeed, from his room one had a magnificent view of a long line of gardens, and a screen of poplars shut out the melancholy back premises of wilton street during the summer months. mr. russell lived chiefly on bread and tea, for his means were of the smallest; but when dyson came to see him, he would send out the slavey for six-ale, and dyson was always at liberty to smoke as much of his own tobacco as he pleased. the landlady had been so unfortunate as to have her drawing-room floor vacant for many months; a card had long proclaimed the void within; and dyson, when he walked up the steps one evening in early autumn, had a sense that something was missing, and, looking at the fanlight, saw the appealing card had disappeared. "you have let your first floor, have you?" he said, as he greeted mr. russell. "yes; it was taken about a fortnight ago by a lady." "indeed," said dyson, always curious; "a young lady?" "yes, i believe so. she is a widow, and wears a thick crape veil. i have met her once or twice on the stairs and in the street, but i should not know her face." "well," said dyson, when the beer had arrived, and the pipes were in full blast, "and what have you been doing? do you find the work getting any easier?" "alas!" said the young man, with an expression of great gloom, "the life is a purgatory, and all but a hell. i write, picking out my words, weighing and balancing the force of every syllable, calculating the minutest effects that language can produce, erasing and rewriting, and spending a whole evening over a page of manuscript. and then in the morning when i read what i have written--well, there is nothing to be done but to throw it in the waste-paper basket if the verso has been already written on, or to put it in the drawer if the other side happens to be clean. when i have written a phrase which undoubtedly embodies a happy turn of thought, i find it dressed up in feeble commonplace; and when the style is good, it serves only to conceal the baldness of superannuated fancies. i sweat over my work, dyson,--every finished line means so much agony. i envy the lot of the carpenter in the side street who has a craft which he understands. when he gets an order for a table, he does not writhe with anguish; but if i were so unlucky as to get an order for a book, i think i should go mad." "my dear fellow, you take it all too seriously. you should let the ink flow more readily. above all, firmly believe, when you sit down to write, that you are an artist, and that whatever you are about is a masterpiece. suppose ideas fail you, say; as i heard one of our most exquisite artists say, "it's of no consequence; the ideas are all there, at the bottom of that box of cigarettes." you, indeed, smoke tobacco, but the application is the same. besides, you must have some happy moments, and these should be ample consolation." "perhaps you are right. but such moments are so few; and then there is the torture of a glorious conception matched, with execution beneath the standard of the family story paper. for instance, i was happy for two hours a night or two ago; i lay awake and saw visions. but then the morning!" "what was your idea?" "it seemed to me a splendid one; i thought of balzac and the 'comédie humaine,' of zola and the rougon-macquart family. it dawned upon me that i would write the history of a street. every house should form a volume. i fixed upon the street, i saw each house, and read, as clearly as in letters, the physiology and psychology of each. the little by-way stretched before me in its actual shape,--a street that i know and have passed down a hundred times; with some twenty houses, prosperous and mean, and lilac bushes in purple blossom; and yet it was at the same time a symbol, a _via dolorosa_ of hopes cherished and disappointed, of years of monotonous existence without content or discontent, of tragedies and obscure sorrows; and on the door of one of those houses i saw the red stain of blood, and behind a window two shadows, blackened and faded, on the blind, as they swayed on tightened cords,--the shadows of a man and a woman hanging in a vulgar, gas-lit parlor. these were my fancies; but when pen touched paper, they shrivelled and vanished away," "yes," said. dyson, "there is a lot in that. i envy you the pains of transmuting vision into reality, and still more i envy you the day when you will look at your bookshelf and see twenty goodly books upon the shelves,--the series complete and done forever. let me entreat you to have them bound in solid parchment, with gold lettering. it is the only real cover for a valiant book. when i look in at the windows of some choice shop, and see the bindings of levant morocco, with pretty tools and panellings, and your sweet contrasts of red and green, i say to myself, 'these are not books, but bibelots.' a book bound so--a true book, mind you--is like a gothic statue draped in brocade of lyons." "alas!" said russell, "we need not discuss the binding,--the books are not begun." the talk went on as usual till eleven o'clock, when dyson bade his friend good-night. he knew the way downstairs, and walked down by himself; but greatly to his surprise, as he crossed the first-floor landing, the door opened slightly, and a hand was stretched out, beckoning. dyson was not the man to hesitate under such circumstances. in a moment he saw himself involved in adventure; and, as he told himself, the dysons had never disobeyed a lady's summons. softly, then, with due regard for the lady's honor, he would have entered the room, when a low but clear voice spoke to him,-- "go downstairs and open the door, and shut it again rather loudly. then come up to me; and for heaven's sake, walk softly." dyson obeyed her commands,--not without some hesitation, for he was afraid of meeting the landlady or the maid on his return journey. but walking like a cat, and making each step he trod on crack loudly, he flattered himself that he had escaped observation; and as he gained the top of the stairs, the door opened wide before him, and he found himself in the lady's drawing-room, bowing awkwardly. "pray be seated, sir. perhaps this chair will be the best; it was the favored chair of my landlady's deceased husband. i would ask you to smoke, but the odor would betray me. i know my proceedings must seem to you unconventional; but i saw you arrive this evening, and i do not think you would refuse to help a woman who is so unfortunate as i am." mr. dyson looked shyly at the young lady before him. she was dressed in deep mourning; but the piquant smiling face and charming hazel eyes ill accorded with the heavy garments, and the mouldering surface of the crape. "madam," he said gallantly, "your instinct has served you well. we will not trouble, if you please, about the question of social conventions; the chivalrous gentleman knows nothing of such matters. i hope i may be privileged to serve you." "you are very kind to me, but i knew it would be so. alas, sir, i have had experience of life, and i am rarely mistaken. yet man is too often so vile and so misjudging that i trembled even as i resolved to take this step, which, for all i knew, might prove to be both desperate and ruinous." "with me you have nothing to fear," said dyson. "i was nurtured in the faith of chivalry, and i have always endeavored to remember the proud traditions of my race. confide in me then, and count upon my secrecy, and, if it prove possible, you may rely on my help." "sir, i will not waste your time, which i am sure is valuable, by idle parleyings. learn, then, that i am a fugitive, and in hiding here. i place myself in your power; you have but to describe my features, and i fall into the hands of my relentless enemy." mr. dyson wondered for a passing instant how this could be; but he only renewed his promise of silence, repeating that he would be the embodied spirit of dark concealment. "good," said the lady; "the oriental fervor of your style is delightful. in the first place, i must disabuse your mind of the conviction that i am a widow. these gloomy vestments have been forced on me by strange circumstance; in plain language, i have deemed it expedient to go disguised. you have a friend, i think, in the house,--mr. russell? he seems of a coy and retiring nature." "excuse me, madam," said dyson, "he is not coy, but he is a realist; and perhaps you are aware that no carthusian monk can emulate the cloistral seclusion in which a realistic novelist loves to shroud himself. it is his way of observing human, nature." "well, well," said the lady; "all this, though deeply interesting is not germane to our affair. i must tell you my history." with these words the young lady proceeded to relate the novel of the white powder. my name is leicester; my father. major general wyn leicester, a distinguished officer of artillery, succumbed five years ago to a complicated liver complaint acquired in the deadly climate of india. a year later my only brother, francis, came home after an exceptionally brilliant career at the university, and settled down with the resolution of a hermit to master what has been well called the great legend of the law. he was a man who seemed to live in utter indifference to everything that is called pleasure; and though he was handsomer than most men, and could talk as merrily and wittily as if he were a mere vagabond, he avoided society, and shut himself up in a large room at the top of the house to make himself a lawyer. ten hours a day of hard reading was at first his allotted portion; from the first light in the east to the late afternoon he remained shut up with his books, taking a hasty half-hour's lunch with me as if he grudged the wasting of the moments, and going out for a short walk when it began to grow dusk. i thought that such relentless application must be injurious, and tried to cajole him from the crabbed text-books; but his ardor seemed to grow rather than diminish, and his daily tale of hours increased. i spoke to him seriously, suggesting some occasional relaxation, if it were but an idle afternoon with a harmless novel; but he laughed, and said that he read about feudal tenures when he felt in need of amusement, and scoffed at the notion of theatres, or a month's fresh confessed that he looked well, and seemed not to suffer from his labors; but i knew that such unnatural toil would take revenge at last, and i was not mistaken. a look of anxiety began to lurk about his eyes, and he seemed languid, and at last he avowed that he was no longer in perfect health; he was troubled, he said, with a sensation of dizziness, and awoke now and then of nights from fearful dreams, terrified and cold with icy sweats. "i am taking care of myself," he said; "so you must not trouble. i passed the whole of yesterday afternoon in idleness, leaning back in that comfortable chair you gave me, and scribbling nonsense on a sheet of paper. no, no; i will not overdo my work. i shall be well enough in a week or two, depend upon it." yet, in spite of his assurances, i could see that he grew no better, but rather worse; he would enter the drawing-room with a face all miserably wrinkled and despondent, and endeavor to look gayly when my eyes fell on him, and i thought such symptoms of evil omen, and was frightened sometimes at the nervous irritation of his movements, and at glances which i could not decipher. much against his will, i prevailed on him to have medical advice, and with an ill grace he called in our old doctor. dr. haberden cheered me after his examination of his patient. "there is nothing really much amiss," he said to me. "no doubt he reads too hard, and eats hastily, and then goes back again to his books in too great a hurry; and the natural consequence is some digestive trouble, and a little mischief in the nervous system. but i think--i do, indeed, miss leicester--that we shall be able to set this all right. i have written him a prescription which ought to do great things. so you have no cause for anxiety." my brother insisted on having the prescription made up by a chemist in the neighborhood; it was an odd old-fashioned shop, devoid of the studied coquetry and calculated glitter that make so gay a show on the counters and shelves of the modern apothecary; but francis liked the old chemist, and believed in the scrupulous purity of his drugs. the medicine was sent in due course, and i saw that my brother took it regularly after lunch and dinner. it was an innocent-looking white powder, of which a little was dissolved, in a glass of cold water. i stirred it in, and it seemed to disappear, leaving the water clear and colorless. at first francis seemed to benefit greatly; the weariness vanished from his face, and he became more cheerful than he had ever been since the time when he left school; he talked gayly of reforming himself, and avowed to me that he had wasted his time. "i have given too many hours to law," he said, laughing; "i think you have saved me in the nick of time. come, i shall be lord chancellor yet, but i must not forget life. you and i will have a holiday together before long; we will go to paris and enjoy ourselves, and keep away from the bibliothèque nationale." i confessed myself delighted with the prospect. "when shall we go?" i said. "i can start the day after to-morrow, if you like." "ah, that is perhaps a little too soon; after all, i do not know london yet, and i suppose a man ought to give the pleasures of his own country the first choice. but we will go off together in a week or two, so try and furbish up your french. i only know law french myself, and i am afraid that wouldn't do." we were just finishing dinner, and he quaffed off his medicine with a parade of carousal as if it had been wine from some choicest bin. "has it any particular taste?" i said. "no; i should not know i was not drinking water," and he got up from his chair, and began to pace up and down the room as if he were undecided as to what he should do next. "shall we have coffee in the drawing-room," i said, "or would you like to smoke?" "no; i think i will take a turn, it seems a pleasant evening. look at the afterglow; why, it is as if a great city were burning in flames, and down there between the dark houses it is raining blood fast, fast. yes, i will go out. i may be in soon, but i shall take my key, so good-night, dear, if i don't see you again." the door slammed behind him, and i saw him walk lightly down the street, swinging his malacca cane, and i felt grateful to dr. haberden for such an improvement. i believe my brother came home very late that night; but he was in a merry mood the next morning. "i walked on without thinking where i was going," he said, "enjoying the freshness of the air, and livened by the crowds as i reached more frequented quarters. and then i met an old college friend, orford, in the press of the pavement, and then--well, we enjoyed ourselves. i have felt what it is to be young and a man, i find i have blood in my veins, as other men have. i made an appointment with orford for to-night; there will be a little party of us at the restaurant. yes, i shall enjoy myself for a week or two, and hear the chimes at midnight, and then we will go for our little trip together." such was the transmutation of my brother's character that in a few days he became a lover of pleasure, a careless and merry idler of western pavements, a hunter out of snug restaurants, and a fine critic of fantastic dancing; he grew fat before my eyes, and said no more of paris, for he had clearly found his paradise in london. i rejoiced, and yet wondered a little, for there was, i thought, something in his gayety that indefinitely displeased me, though i could not have defined my feeling. but by degrees there came a change; he returned still in the cold, hours of the morning, but i heard no more about his pleasures, and one morning as we sat at breakfast together, i looked suddenly into his eyes and saw a stranger before me. "oh, francis!" i cried; "oh, francis, francis, what have you done?" and rending sobs cut the words short, and i went weeping out of the room, for though i knew nothing, yet i knew all, and by some odd play of thought i remembered the evening when he first went abroad to prove his manhood, and the picture of the sunset sky glowed before me; the clouds like a city in burning flames, and the rain of blood. yet i did battle with such thoughts, resolving that perhaps, after all, no great harm had been done, and in the evening at dinner i resolved to press him to fix a day for our holiday in paris. we had talked easily enough, and my brother had just taken his medicine, which he had continued all the while. i was about to begin my topic, when the words forming in my mind vanished, and i wondered for a second what icy and intolerable weight oppressed my heart and suffocated me as with the unutterable horror of the coffin-lid nailed down on the living. we had dined without candles, and the room had slowly grown from twilight to gloom, and the walls and corners were indistinct in the shadow. but from where i sat i looked out into the street; and as i thought of what i would say to francis, the sky began to flush and shine, as it had done on a well-remembered evening, and in the gap between two dark masses that were houses an awful pageantry of flame appeared. lurid whorls of writhed cloud, and utter depths burning, and gray masses like the fume blown from a smoking city, and an evil glory blazing far above shot with tongues of more ardent fire, and below as if there were a deep pool of blood. i looked down to where my brother sat facing me, and the words were shaped on my lips, when i saw his hand resting on the table. between the thumb and forefinger of the closed hand, there was a mark, a small patch about the size of a sixpence, and somewhat of the color of a bad bruise. yet, by some sense i cannot define, i knew that what i saw was no bruise at all. oh, if human flesh could burn with flame, and if flame could be black as pitch, such was that before me! without thought or fashioning of words, gray horror shaped within me at the sight, and in an inner cell it was known to be a brand. for a moment the stained sky became dark as midnight, and when the light returned to me, i was alone in the silent room, and soon after i heard my brother go out. late as it was, i put on my bonnet and went to dr. haberden, and in his great consulting-room, ill-lighted by a candle which the doctor brought in with him, with stammering lips, and a voice that would break in spite of my resolve, i told him all; from the day on which my brother began to take the medicine down to the dreadful thing i had seen scarcely half an hour before. when i had done, the doctor looked at me for a minute with an expression of great pity on his face. "my dear miss leicester," he said, "you have evidently been anxious about your brother; you have been worrying over him, i am sure. come, now, is it not so? "i have certainly been anxious," i said. "for the last week or two i have not felt at ease." "quite so; you know, of course, what a queer thing the brain is?" "i understand what you mean; but i was not deceived. i saw what i have told you with my own eyes." "yes, yes, of course. but your eyes had been staring at that very curious sunset we had to-night. that is the only explanation. you will see it in the proper light to-morrow, i am sure. but, remember, i am always ready to give any help that is in my power; do not scruple to come to me, or to send for me if you are in any distress." i went away but little comforted, all confusion and terror and sorrow, not knowing where to turn. when my brother and i met the next day, i looked quickly at him, and noticed, with a sickening at heart, that the right hand, the hand on which i had clearly seen the patch as of a black fire, was wrapped up with a handkerchief. "what is the matter with your hand, francis?" i said in a steady voice. "nothing of consequence. i cut a finger last night, and it bled rather awkwardly, so i did it up roughly to the best of my ability." "i will do it neatly for you, if you like." "no, thank you, dear, this will answer very well. suppose we have breakfast; i am quite hungry." we sat down, and i watched him. he scarcely ate or drank at all, but tossed his meat to the dog when he thought my eyes were turned away; and there was a look in his eyes that i had never yet seen, and the thought fled across my mind that it was a look that was scarcely human. i was firmly convinced that awful and incredible as was the thing i had seen the night before, yet it was no illusion, no glamour of bewildered sense, and in the course of the morning i went again to the doctor's house. he shook his head with an air puzzled and incredulous, and seemed to reflect for a few minutes. "and you say he still keeps up the medicine? but why? as i understand, all the symptoms he complained of have disappeared long ago; why should he go on taking the stuff when he is quite well? and by the bye where did he get it made up? at sayce's? i never send any one there; the old man is getting careless. suppose you come with me to the chemist's; i should like to have some talk with him." we walked together to the shop. old sayce knew dr. haberden, and was quite ready to give any information. "you have been sending that in to mr. leicester for some weeks, i think, on my prescription," said the doctor, giving the old man a pencilled scrap of paper. the chemist put on his great spectacles with trembling uncertainty, and held up the paper with a shaking hand. "oh, yes," he said, "i have very little of it left; it is rather an uncommon drug, and i have had it in stock some time. i must get in some more, if mr. leicester goes on with it." "kindly let me have a look at the stuff," said haberden; and the chemist gave him a glass bottle. he took out the stopper and smelt the contents, and looked strangely at the old man. "where did you get this?" he said, "and what is it? for one thing, mr. sayce, it is not what i prescribed. yes, yes, i see the label is right enough, but i tell you this is not the drug." "i have had it a long time," said the old man, in feeble terror. "i got it from burbage's in the usual way. it is not prescribed often, and i have had it on the shelf for some years. you see there is very little left." "you had better give it to me," said haberden. "i am afraid something wrong has happened." we went out of the shop in silence, the doctor carrying the bottle neatly wrapped in paper under his arm. "dr. haberden," i said when we had walked a little way--"dr. haberden." "yes," he said, looking at me gloomily enough. "i should like you to tell me what my brother has been taking twice a day for the last month or so." "frankly, miss leicester, i don't know. we will speak of this when we get to my house," we walked on quickly without another word till we reached dr. haberden's. he asked me to sit down, and began pacing up and down the room, his face clouded over, as i could see, with no common fears. "well," he said at length, "this is all very strange; it is only natural that you should feel alarmed, and i must confess that my mind is far from easy. we will put aside, if you please, what you told me last night and this morning, but the fact remains that for the last few weeks mr. leicester has been impregnating his system with a drug which is completely unknown to me. i tell you, it is not what i ordered; and what that stuff in the bottle really is remains to be seen." he undid the wrapper, and cautiously tilted a few grains of the white powder on to a piece of paper, and peered curiously at it. "yes," he said, "it is like the sulphate of quinine, as you say; it is flaky. but smell it." he held the bottle to me, and i bent over it. it was a strange sickly smell, vaporous and overpowering, like some strong anæsthetic. "i shall have it analyzed," said haberden. "i have a friend who has devoted his whole life to chemistry as a science. then we shall have something to go upon. no, no, say no more about that other matter; i cannot listen to that, and take my advice and think no more about it yourself." that evening my brother did not go out as usual after dinner. "i have had my fling," he said with a queer laugh; "and i must go back to my old ways. a little law will be quite a relaxation after so sharp a dose of pleasure," and he grinned to himself, and soon after went up to his room. his hand was still all bandaged. dr. haberden called a few days later. "i have no special news to give you," he said. "chambers is out of town, so i know no more about that stuff than you do. but i should like to see mr. leicester if he is in." "he is in his room," i said; "i will tell him you are here." "no, no, i will go up to him; we will have a little quiet talk together. i dare say that we have made a good deal of fuss about very little; for, after all, whatever the white powder may be, it seems to have done him good." the doctor went upstairs, and standing in the hall i heard his knock, and the opening and shutting of the door; and then i waited in the silent house for an hour, and the stillness grew more and more intense as the hands of the clock crept round. then there sounded from above the noise of a door shut sharply, and the doctor was coming down the stairs. his footsteps crossed the hall, and there was a pause at the door. i drew a long sick breath with difficulty, and saw my face white in a little mirror, and he came in and stood at the door. there was an unutterable horror shining in his eyes; he steadied himself by holding the back of a chair with one hand, and his lower lip trembled like a horse's, and he gulped and stammered unintelligible sounds before he spoke. "i have seen that man," he began in a dry whisper. "i have been sitting in his presence for the last hour. my god! and i am alive and in my senses! i, who have dealt with death all my life, and have dabbled with the melting ruins of the earthly tabernacle. but not this! oh, not this," and he covered his face with his hands as if to shut out the sight of something before him. "do not send for me again, miss leicester," he said with more composure. "i can do nothing in this house. good-bye." as i watched him totter down the steps and along the pavement towards his house, it seemed to me that he had aged by ten years since the morning. my brother remained in his room. he called out to me in a voice i hardly recognized, that he was very busy, and would like his meals brought to his door and left there, and i gave the order to the servants. from that day it seemed as if the arbitrary conception we call time had been annihilated for me. i lived in an ever present sense of horror, going through the routine of the house mechanically, and only speaking a few necessary words to the servants. now and then i went out and paced the streets for an hour or two and came home again; but whether i were without or within, my spirit delayed before the closed door of the upper room, and, shuddering, waited for it to open. i have said that i scarcely reckoned time, but i suppose it must have been a fortnight after dr. haberden's visit that i came home from my stroll a little refreshed and lightened. the air was sweet and pleasant, and the hazy form of green leaves, floating cloud-like in the square, and the smell of blossoms, had charmed my senses, and i felt happier and walked more briskly. as i delayed a moment at the verge of the pavement, waiting for a van to pass by before crossing over to the house, i happened to look up at the windows, and instantly there was the rush and swirl of deep cold waters in my ears, and my heart leapt up, and fell down, down as into a deep hollow, and i was amazed with a dread and terror without form or shape. i stretched out a hand blindly through folds of thick darkness, from the black and shadowy valley, and held myself from falling, while the stones beneath my feet rocked and swayed and tilted, and the sense of solid things seemed to sink away from under me. i had glanced up at the window of my brother's study, and at that moment the blind was drawn aside, and something that had life stared out into the world. nay, i cannot say i saw a face or any human likeness; a living thing, two eyes of burning flame glared at me, and they were in the midst of something as formless as my fear, the symbol and presence of all evil and all hideous corruption. i stood shuddering and quaking as with the grip of ague, sick with unspeakable agonies of fear and loathing, and for five minutes i could not summon force or motion to my limbs. when i was within the door, i ran up the stairs to my brother's room, and knocked. "francis, francis," i cried, "for heaven's sake answer me. what is the horrible thing in your room? cast it out, francis, cast it from you!" i heard a noise as of feet shuffling slowly and awkwardly, and a choking, gurgling sound, as if some one was struggling to find utterance, and then the noise of a voice, broken and stifled, and words that i could scarcely understand. "there is nothing here," the voice said, "pray do not disturb me. i am not very well to-day." i turned away, horrified and yet helpless. i could do nothing, and i wondered why francis had lied to me, for i had seen the appearance beyond the glass too plainly to be deceived, though it was but the sight of a moment. and i sat still, conscious that there had been something else, something i had seen in the first flash of terror before those burning eyes had looked at me. suddenly i remembered; as i lifted my face the blind was being drawn back, and i had had an instant's glance of the thing that was moving it, and in my recollection i knew that a hideous image was engraved forever on my brain. it was not a hand: there were no fingers that held the blind, but a black stump pushed it aside; the mouldering outline and the clumsy movement as of a beast's paw had glowed into my senses before the darkling waves of terror had overwhelmed me as i went down quick into the pit. my mind was aghast at the thought of this, and of the awful presence that dwelt with my brother in his room; i went to his door and cried to him again, but no answer came. that night one of the servants came up to me and told me in a whisper that for three days food had been regularly placed at the door and left untouched; the maid had knocked, but had received no answer; she had heard the noise of shuffling feet that i had noticed. day after day went by, and still my brother's meals were brought to his door and left untouched; and though i knocked and called again and again, i could get no answer. the servants began to talk to me; it appeared they were as alarmed as i. the cook said that when my brother first shut himself up in his room, she used to hear him come out at night and go about the house; and once, she said, the hall door had opened and closed again, but for several nights she had heard no sound. the climax came at last. it was in the dusk of the evening, and i was sitting in the darkening dreary room when a terrible shriek jarred and rang harshly out of the silence, and i heard a frightened scurry of feet dashing down the stairs. i waited, and the servant maid staggered into the room and faced me, white and trembling. "o miss helen," she whispered. "oh, for the lord's sake, miss helen, what has happened? look at my hand, miss; look at that hand!" i drew her to the window, and saw there was a black wet stain upon her hand. "i do not understand you," i said. "will you explain to me?" "i was doing your room just now," she began. "i was turning down the bedclothes, and all of a sudden there was something fell upon my hand wet, and i looked up, and the ceiling was black and dripping on me." i looked bard at her, and bit my lip. "come with me," i said. "bring your candle with you." the room i slept in was beneath my brother's, and as i went in i felt i was trembling. i looked up at the ceiling, and saw a patch, all black and wet and a dew of black drops upon it, and a pool of horrible liquor soaking into the white bedclothes. i ran upstairs and knocked loudly. "o francis, francis, my dear brother," i cried, "what has happened to you?" and i listened. there was a sound of choking, and a noise like water bubbling and regurgitating, but nothing else, and i called louder, but no answer came. in spite of what dr. haberden had said, i went to him, and with tears streaming down my cheeks, i told him of all that had happened, and he listened to me with a face set hard and grim. "for your father's sake," he said at last, "i will go with you, though i can do nothing." we went out together; the streets were dark and silent, and heavy with heat and a drought of many weeks. i saw the doctor's face white under the gas-lamps, and when we reached the house his hand was shaking. we did not hesitate, but went upstairs directly. i held the lamp, and he called out in a loud, determined voice:-- "mr. leicester, do you hear me? i insist on seeing you. answer me at once." there was no answer, but we both heard that choking noise i have mentioned. "mr. leicester, i am waiting for you. open the door this instant, or i shall break it down." and he called a third time in a voice that rang and echoed from the walls. "mr. leicester! for the last time i order you to open the door." "ah!" he said, after a pause of heavy silence, "we are wasting time here. will you be so kind as to get me a poker, or something of the kind?" i ran into a little room at the back where odd articles were kept, and found a heavy adze-like tool that i thought might serve the doctor's purpose. "very good," he said, "that will do, i dare say. i give you notice, mr. leicester," he cried loudly at the keyhole, "that i am now about to break into your room." then i heard the wrench of the adze, and the woodwork split and cracked under it, and with a loud crash the door suddenly burst open; and for a moment we started back aghast at a fearful screaming cry, no human voice, but as the roar of a monster, that burst forth inarticulate and struck at us out of the darkness. "hold the lamp," said the doctor, and we went in and glanced quickly round the room. "there it is," said dr. haberden, drawing a quick breath; "look, in that corner." i looked, and a pang of horror seized my heart as with a white-hot iron. there upon the floor was a dark and putrid mass, seething with corruption and hideous rottenness, neither liquid nor solid, but melting and changing before our eyes, and bubbling with unctuous oily bubbles like boiling pitch. and out of the midst of it shone two burning points like eyes, and i saw a writhing and stirring as of limbs, and something moved and lifted up that might have been an arm. the doctor took a step forward, and raised the iron bar and struck at the burning points, and drove in the weapon, and struck again and again in a fury of loathing. at last the thing was quiet. * * * * * a week or two later, when i had to some extent recovered from the terrible shock, dr. haberden came to see me. "i have sold my practice," he began, "and to-morrow i am sailing on a long voyage. i do not know whether i shall ever return to england; in all probability i shall buy a little land in california, and settle there for the remainder of my life. i have brought you this packet, which you may open and read when you feel able to do so. it contains the report of dr. chambers on what i submitted to him. good-bye, miss leicester, good-bye." when he was gone, i opened the envelope; i could not wait, and proceeded to read the papers within. here is the manuscript; and if you will allow me, i will read you the astounding story it contains. "my dear haberden," the letter began, "i have delayed inexcusably in answering your questions as to the white substance you sent me. to tell you the truth, i have hesitated for some time as to what course i should adopt, for there is a bigotry and an orthodox standard in physical science as in theology, and i knew that if i told you the truth i should offend rooted prejudices which i once held dear myself. however, i have determined to be plain with you, and first i must enter into a short personal explanation. "you have known me, haberden, for many years as a scientific man; you and i have often talked of our profession together, and discussed the hopeless gulf that opens before the feet of those who think to attain to truth by any means whatsoever, except the beaten way of experiment and observation, in the sphere of material things. i remember the scorn with which you have spoken to me of men of science who have dabbled a little in the unseen, and have timidly hinted that perhaps the senses are not, after all, the eternal, impenetrable bounds of all knowledge, the everlasting walls beyond which no human being has ever passed. we have laughed together heartily, and i think justly, at the "occult" follies of the day, disguised under various names,--the mesmerisms, spiritualisms, materializations, theosophies, all the rabble rant of imposture, with their machinery of poor tricks and feeble conjuring, the true back-parlor magic of shabby london streets. yet, in spite of what i have said, i must confess to you that i am no materialist, taking the word of course in its usual signification. it is now many years since i have convinced myself, convinced myself a sceptic remember, that the old iron-bound theory is utterly and entirely false. perhaps this confession will not wound you so sharply as it would have done twenty years ago; for i think you cannot have failed to notice that for some time hypotheses have been advanced by men of pure science which are nothing less than transcendental, and i suspect that most modern chemists and biologists of repute would not hesitate to subscribe the _dictum_ of the old schoolman, _omnia exeunt in mysterium_, which means, i take it, that every branch of human knowledge if traced up to its source and final principles vanishes into mystery. i need not trouble you now with a detailed account of the painful steps which led me to my conclusions; a few simple experiments suggested a doubt as to my then standpoint, and a train of thought that rose from circumstances comparatively trifling brought me far. my old conception of the universe has been swept away, and i stand in a world that seems as strange and awful to me as the endless waves of the ocean seen for the first time, shining, from a peak in darien. now i know that the walls of sense that seemed so impenetrable, that seemed to loom up above the heavens and to be founded below the depths, and to shut us in forevermore, are no such everlasting impassable barriers as we fancied, but thinnest and most airy veils that melt away before the seeker, and dissolve as the early mist of the morning about the brooks. i know that you never adopted the extreme materialistic position: you did not go about trying to prove a universal negative, for your logical sense withheld you from that crowning absurdity; yet i am sure that you will find all that i am saying strange and repellent to your habits of thought. yet, haberden, what i tell you is the truth, nay, to adopt our common language, the sole and scientific truth, verified by experience; and the universe is verily more splendid and more awful than we used to dream. the whole universe, my friend, is a tremendous sacrament; a mystic, ineffable force and energy, veiled by an outward form of matter; and man, and the sun and the other stars, and the flower of the grass, and the crystal in the test-tube, are each and every one as spiritual, as material, and subject to an inner working. "you will perhaps wonder, haberden, whence all this tends; but i think a little thought will make it clear. you will understand that from such a standpoint the whole view of things is changed, and what we thought incredible and absurd may be possible enough. in short, we must look at legend and belief with other eyes, and be prepared to accept tales that had become mere fables. indeed, this is no such great demand. after all, modern science will concede as much, in a hypocritical manner. you must not, it is true, believe in witchcraft, but you may credit hypnotism; ghosts are out of date, but there is a good deal to be said for the theory of telepathy. give a superstition a greek name, and believe in it, should almost be a proverb. "so much for my personal explanation. you sent me, haberden, a phial, stoppered and sealed, containing a small quantity of a flaky white powder, obtained from a chemist who has been dispensing it to one of your patients. i am not surprised to hear that this powder refused to yield any results to your analysis. it is a substance which was known to a few many hundred years ago, but which i never expected to have submitted to me from the shop of a modern apothecary. there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the man's tale; he no doubt got, as he says, the rather uncommon salt you prescribed from the wholesale chemist's; and it has probably remained on his shelf for twenty years, or perhaps longer. here what we call chance and coincidence begins to work; during all these years the salt in the bottle was exposed to certain recurring variations of temperature, variations probably ranging from ° to °. and, as it happens, such changes, recurring year after year at irregular intervals, and with varying degrees of intensity and duration, have constituted a process, and a process so complicated and so delicate, that i question whether modern scientific apparatus directed with the utmost precision could produce the same result. the white powder you sent me is something very different from the drug you prescribed; it is the powder from which the wine of the sabbath, the _vinum sabbati_ was prepared. no doubt you have read of the witches' sabbath, and have laughed at the tales which terrified our ancestors; the black cats, and the broomsticks, and dooms pronounced against some old woman's cow. since i have known the truth i have often reflected that it is on the whole a happy thing that such burlesque as this is believed, for it serves to conceal much that it is better should not be known generally. however, if you care to read the appendix to payne knight's monograph, you will find that the true sabbath was something very different, though the writer has very nicely refrained from printing all he knew. the secrets of the true sabbath were the secrets of remote times surviving into the middle ages, secrets of an evil science which existed long before aryan man entered europe. men and women, seduced from their homes on specious pretences, were met by beings well qualified to assume, as they did assume, the part of devils, and taken by their guides to some, desolate and lonely place, known to the initiate by long tradition and unknown to all else. perhaps it was a cave in some bare and wind-swept hill; perhaps some inmost recess of a great forest, and there the sabbath was held. there, in the blackest hour of night, the _vinum sabbati_ was prepared, and this evil graal was poured forth and offered to the neophytes, and they partook of an infernal sacrament; _sumentes calicem principis inferorum,_ as an old author well expresses it. and suddenly, each one that had drunk found himself attended by a companion, a shape of glamour and unearthly allurement, beckoning him apart to share in joys more exquisite, more piercing than the thrill of any dream, to the consummation of the marriage of the sabbath. it is hard to write of such things as these, and chiefly because that shape that allured with loveliness was no hallucination, but, awful as it is to express, the man himself. by the power of that sabbath wine, a few grains of white powder thrown into a glass of water, the house of life was riven asunder, and the human trinity dissolved, and the worm which never dies, that which lies sleeping within us all, was made tangible and an external thing, and clothed with a garment of flesh. and then in the hour of midnight, the primal fall was repeated and represented, and the awful thing veiled in the mythos of the tree in the garden was done anew. such was the _nuptiæ sabbati_. "i prefer to say no more; you, haberden, know as well as i do that the most trivial laws of life are not to be broken with impunity; and for so terrible an act as this, in which the very inmost place of the temple was broken open and defiled, a terrible vengeance followed. what began with corruption ended also with corruption." * * * * * underneath is the following in dr. haberden's writing:-- "the whole of the above is unfortunately strictly and entirely true. your brother confessed all to me on that morning when i saw him in his room. my attention was first attracted to the bandaged hand, and i forced him to show it me. what i saw made me, a medical man of many years standing, grow sick with loathing; and the story i was forced to listen to was infinitely more frightful than i could have believed possible. it has tempted me to doubt the eternal goodness which can permit nature to offer such hideous possibilities; and if you had not with your own eyes seen the end, i should have said to you--disbelieve it all. i have not, i think, many more weeks to live, but you are young, and may forget all this. "joseph haberden, m.d." in the course of two or three months i heard that dr. haberden had died at sea, shortly after the ship left england. miss leicester ceased speaking, and looked pathetically at dyson, who could not refrain from exhibiting some symptoms of uneasiness. he stuttered out some broken phrases expressive of his deep interest in her extraordinary history, and then said with a better grace-- "but, pardon me, miss leicester, i understood you were in some difficulty. you were kind enough to ask me to assist you in some way." "ah," she said, "i had forgotten that. my own present trouble seems of such little consequence in comparison with what i have told you. but as you are so good to me, i will go on. you will scarcely believe it, but i found that certain persons suspected, or rather pretended to suspect that i had murdered my brother. these persons were relatives of mine, and their motives were extremely sordid ones; but i actually found myself subject to the shameful indignity of being watched. yes, sir, my steps were dogged when i went abroad, and at home i found myself exposed to constant if artful observation. with my high spirit this was more than i could brook, and i resolved to set my wits to work and elude the persons who were shadowing me. i was so fortunate as to succeed. i assumed this disguise, and for some time have lain snug and unsuspected. but of late i have reason to believe that the pursuer is on my track; unless i am greatly deceived, i saw yesterday the detective who is charged with the odious duty of observing my movements. you, sir, are watchful and keen-sighted; tell me, did you see any one lurking about this evening?" "i hardly think so," said dyson, "but perhaps you would give me some description of the detective in question." "certainly; he is a youngish man, dark, with dark whiskers. he has adopted spectacles of large size in the hope of disguising himself effectually, but he cannot disguise his uneasy manner, and the quick, nervous glances he casts to right and left." this piece of description was the last straw for the unhappy dyson, who was foaming with impatience to get out of the house, and would gladly have sworn eighteenth century oaths if propriety had not frowned on such a course. "excuse me, miss leicester," he said with cold politeness, "i cannot assist you." "ah!" she said sadly, "i have offended you in some way. tell me what i have done, and i will ask you to forgive me." "you are mistaken," said dyson, grabbing his hat, but speaking with some difficulty; "you have done nothing. but, as i say, i cannot help you. perhaps," he added, with some tinge of sarcasm, "my friend russell might be of service." "thank you," she replied; "i will try him," and the lady went off into a shriek of laughter, which filled up mr. dyson's cup of scandal and confusion. he left the house shortly afterwards, and had the peculiar delight of a five-mile walk, through streets which slowly changed from black to gray, and from gray to shining passages of glory for the sun to brighten. here and there he met or overtook strayed revellers, but he reflected that no one could have spent the night in a more futile fashion than himself; and when he reached his home he had made resolves for reformation. he decided that he would abjure all milesian and arabian methods of entertainment, and subscribe to mudie's for a regular supply of mild and innocuous romance. strange occurrence in clerkenwell. mr. dyson had inhabited for some years a couple of rooms in a moderately quiet street in bloomsbury, where, as he somewhat pompously expressed it, he held his finger on the pulse of life without being deafened with the thousand rumors of the main arteries of london. it was to him a source of peculiar, if esoteric gratification, that from the adjacent corner of tottenham court road a hundred lines of omnibuses went to the four quarters of the town; he would dilate on the facilities for visiting dalston, and dwell on the admirable line that knew extremest ealing and the streets beyond whitechapel. his rooms, which had been originally "furnished apartments," he had gradually purged of their more peccant parts; and though one would not find here the glowing splendors of his old chambers in the street off the strand, there was something of severe grace about the appointments which did credit to his taste. the rugs were old, and of the true faded beauty; the etchings, nearly all of them proofs printed by the artist, made a good show with broad white margins and black frames, and there was no spurious black oak. indeed, there was but little furniture of any kind: a plain and honest table, square and sturdy, stood in one corner; a seventeenth century settle fronted the hearth; and two wooden elbow-chairs, and a bookshelf of the empire made up the equipment, with an exception worthy of note. for dyson cared for none of these things. his place was at his own bureau, a quaint old piece of lacquered-work at which he would sit for hour after hour, with his back to the room, engaged in the desperate pursuit of literature, or, as he termed his profession, the chase of the phrase. the neat array of pigeon-holes and drawers teemed and overflowed with manuscript and note-books, the experiments and efforts of many years; and the inner well, a vast and cavernous receptacle, was stuffed with accumulated ideas. dyson was a craftsman who gloved all the detail and the technique of his work intensely; and if, as has been hinted, he deluded himself a little with the name of artist, yet his amusements were eminently harmless, and, so far as can be ascertained, he (or the publishers) had chosen the good part of not tiring the world with printed matter. here, then, dyson would shut himself up with his fancies, experimenting with words, and striving, as his friend the recluse of bayswater strove, with the almost invincible problem of style, but always with a fine confidence, extremely different from the chronic depression of the realist. he had been almost continuously at work on some scheme that struck him as well-nigh magical in its possibilities since the night of his adventure with the ingenious tenant of the first floor in abingdon grove; and as he laid down the pen with a glow of triumph, he reflected that he had not viewed, the streets for five days in succession. with all the enthusiasm of his accomplished labor still working in his brain, he put away his papers, and went out, pacing the pavement at first in that rare mood of exultation which finds in every stone upon the way the possibilities of a masterpiece. it was growing late, and the autumn evening was drawing to a close amidst veils of haze and mist, and in the stilled air the voices, and the roaring traffic, and incessant feet seemed, to dyson like the noise upon the stage when all the house is silent. in the square, the leaves rippled down as quick as summer rain, and the street beyond was beginning to flare with the lights in the butcher's shops and the vivid illumination of the green-grocer. it was a saturday night, and the swarming populations of the slums were turning out in force; the battered women in rusty black had begun to paw the lumps of cagmag, and others gloated over unwholesome cabbages, and there was a brisk demand for four-ale. dyson passed through these night-fires with some relief; he loved to meditate, but his thoughts were not as de quincey's after his dose; he cared not two straws whether onions were dear or cheap, and would not have exulted if meat had fallen to twopence a pound. absorbed in the wilderness of the tale he had been writing, weighing nicely the points of plot and construction, relishing the recollection of this and that happy phrase, and dreading failure here and there, he left the rush and the whistle of the gas-flares behind him, and began to touch upon pavements more deserted. he had turned, without taking note, to the northward, and was passing through an ancient fallen street, where now notices of floors and offices to let hung out, but still about it there was the grace and the stiffness of the age of wigs; a broad roadway, a broad pavement, and on each side a grave line of houses with long and narrow windows flush with the walls, all of mellowed brick-work. dyson walked with quick steps, as he resolved that short work must be made of a certain episode; but he was in that happy humor of invention, and another chapter rose in the inner chamber of his brain, and he dwelt on the circumstances he was to write down with curious pleasure. it was charming to have the quiet streets to walk in, and in his thought he made a whole district the cabinet of his studies, and vowed he would come again. heedless of his course, he struck off to the east again, and soon found himself involved in a squalid network of gray two-storied houses, and then in the waste void and elements of brick-work, the passages and unmade roads behind great factory walls, encumbered with the refuse of the neighborhood, forlorn, ill-lighted, and desperate. a brief turn, and there rose before him the unexpected, a hill suddenly lifted from the level ground, its steep ascent marked by the lighted lamps, and eager as an explorer dyson found his way to the place, wondering where his crooked paths had brought him. here all was again decorous, but hideous in the extreme. the builder, some one lost in the deep gloom of the early 'twenties, had conceived the idea of twin villas in gray brick, shaped in a manner to recall the outlines of the parthenon, each with its classic form broadly marked with raised bands of stucco. the name of the street was all strange, and for a further surprise, the top of the hill was crowned with an irregular plot of grass and fading trees, called a square, and here again the parthenon-motive had persisted. beyond the streets were curious, wild in their irregularities, here a row of sordid, dingy dwellings, dirty and disreputable in appearance, and there, without warning, stood a house genteel and prim with wire blinds and brazen knocker, as clean and trim as if it had been the doctor's house in some benighted little country town. these surprises and discoveries began to exhaust dyson, and he hailed with delight the blazing windows of a public-house, and went in with the intention of testing the beverage provided for the dwellers in this region, as remote as libya and pamphylia and the parts about mesopotamia. the babble of voices from within warned him that he was about to assist at the true parliament of the london workman, and he looked about him for that more retired entrance called private. when he had settled himself on an exiguous bench, and had ordered some beer, he began to listen to the jangling talk in the public bar beyond; it was a senseless argument, alternately furious and maudlin, with appeals to bill and tom, and mediæval survivals of speech, words that chaucer wrote belched out with zeal and relish, and the din of pots jerked down and coppers rapped smartly on the zinc counter made a thorough bass for it all. dyson was calmly smoking his pipe between the sips of beer, when an indefinite looking figure slid rather than walked into the compartment. the man started violently when he saw dyson placidly sitting in the corner, and glanced keenly about him. he seemed to be on wires, controlled by some electric machine, for he almost bolted out of the door when the barman asked with what he could serve him, and his hand shivered as he took the glass. dyson inspected him with a little curiosity; he was muffled up almost to the lips, and a soft felt hat was drawn down over his eyes; he looked as if he shrank from every glance, and a more raucous voice suddenly uplifted in the public bar seemed to find in him a sympathy that made him shake and quiver like a jelly. it was pitiable to see any one so thrilled with nervousness, and dyson was about to address some trivial remark of casual inquiry to the man, when another person came into the compartment, and, laying a hand on his arm, muttered something in an undertone, and vanished as he came. but dyson had recognized him as the smooth-tongued and smooth-shaven burton, who had displayed so sumptuous a gift in lying; and yet he thought little of it, for his whole faculty of observation was absorbed in the lamentable and yet grotesque spectacle before him. at the first touch of the hand on his arm, the unfortunate man had wheeled round as if spun on a pivot, and shrank back with a low, piteous cry, as if some dumb beast were caught in the toils. the blood fled away from the wretch's face, and the skin became gray as if a shadow of death had passed in the air and fallen on it, and dyson caught a choking whisper-- "mr. davies! for god's sake, have pity on me, mr. davies. on my oath, i say--" and his voice sank to silence as he heard the message, and strove in vain to bite his lip; and summon up to his aid some tinge of manhood. he stood there a moment, wavering as the leaves of an aspen, and then he was gone out into the street, as dyson thought silently, with his doom upon his head. he had not been gone a minute when it suddenly flashed into dyson's mind that he knew the man; it was undoubtedly the young man with spectacles for whom so many ingenious persons were searching; the spectacles indeed were missing, but the pale face, the dark whiskers, and the timid glances were enough to identify him, dyson saw at once that by a succession of hazards he had unawares hit upon the scent of some desperate conspiracy, wavering as the track of a loathsome snake in and out of the highways and byways of the london cosmos; the truth was instantly pictured before him, and he divined that all unconscious and unheeding he had been privileged to see the shadows of hidden forms, chasing and hurrying, and grasping and vanishing across the bright curtain of common life, soundless and silent, or only babbling fables and pretences. for him in an instant the jargoning of voices, the garish splendor, and all the vulgar tumult of the public-house became part of magic; for here before his eyes a scene in this grim mystery play had been enacted, and he had seen human flesh grow gray with a palsy of fear; the very hell of cowardice and terror had gaped wide within an arm's breadth. in the midst of these reflections, the barman came up and stared at him as if to hint that he had exhausted his right to take his ease, and dyson bought another lease of the seat by an order for more beer. as he pondered the brief glimpse of tragedy, he recollected that with his first start of haunted fear the young man with whiskers had drawn his hand swiftly from his great coat pocket, and that he had heard something fall to the ground; and pretending to have dropped his pipe, dyson began to grope in the corner, searching with his fingers. he touched some thing, and drew it gently to him, and with one brief glance, as he put it quietly in his pocket, he saw it was a little old-fashioned note book, bound in faded green morocco. he drank down his beer at a gulp, and left the place, overjoyed at his fortunate discovery, and busy with conjecture as to the possible importance of the find. by turns he dreaded to find perhaps mere blank leaves, or the labored follies of a betting-book, but the faded morocco cover seemed to promise better things, and hint at mysteries. he piloted himself with no little difficulty out of the sour and squalid quarter he had entered with a light heart, and emerging at gray's inn road, struck off down guilford street, and hastened home, only anxious for a lighted candle and solitude. dyson sat down at his bureau, and placed the little book before him; it was an effort to open the leaves and dare disappointment. but in desperation at last he laid his finger between the pages at haphazard, and rejoiced to see a compact range of writing with a margin, and as it chanced, three words caught his glance, and stood out apart from the mass. dyson read: the gold tiberius, and his face flushed with fortune and the lust of the hunter. he turned at once to the first leaf of the pocket-book, and proceeded to read with rapt interest the history of the young man with spectacles from the filthy and obscure lodging, situated, i verily believe, in one of the foulest slums of clerkenwell, i indite this history of a life which, daily threatened, cannot last for very much longer. every day, nay, every hour, i know too well my enemies are drawing their nets closer about me; even now, i am condemned to be a close prisoner in my squalid room, and i know that when i go out i shall go to my destruction. this history, if it chance to fall into good hands, may, perhaps, be of service in warning young men of the dangers and pitfalls that most surely must accompany any deviation from the ways of rectitude. my name is joseph walters. when i came of age i found myself in possession of a small but sufficient income, and i determined that i would devote my life to scholarship. i do not mean the scholarship of these days; i had no intention of associating myself with men whose lives are spent in the unspeakably degrading occupation of "editing" classics, befouling the fair margins of the fairest books with idle and superfluous annotation, and doing their utmost to give a lasting disgust of all that is beautiful. an abbey church turned to the base use of a stable or a bake-house is a sorry sight; but more pitiable still is a masterpiece spluttered over with the commentator's pen, and his hideous mark "cf." for my part i chose the glorious career of scholar in its ancient sense; i longed to possess encyclopædic learning, to grow old amongst books, to distil day by day, and year after year, the inmost sweetness of all worthy writings. i was not rich enough to collect a library, and i was therefore forced to betake myself to the reading-room of the british museum. o dim, far-lifted and mighty dome, mecca of many minds, mausoleum of many hopes, sad house where all desires fail. for there men enter in with hearts uplifted, and dreaming minds, seeing in those exalted stairs a ladder to fame, in that pompous portico the gate of knowledge; and going in, find but vain vanity, and all but in vain. there, when the long streets are ringing, is silence, there eternal twilight, and the odor of heaviness. but there the blood flows thin and cold, and the brain burns adust; there is the hunt of shadows, and the chase of embattled phantoms; a striving against ghosts, and a war that has no victory. o dome, tomb of the quick; surely in thy galleries where no reverberant voice can call, sighs whisper ever, and mutterings of dead hopes; and there men's souls mount like moths towards the flame, and fall scorched and blackened beneath thee, o dim, far-lifted, and mighty dome. bitterly do i now regret the day when i took my place at a desk for the first time, and began my studies. i had not been an habitué of the place for many months, when i became acquainted with a serene and benevolent gentleman, a man somewhat past middle age, who nearly always occupied a desk next to mine. in the reading-room it takes little to make an acquaintance, a casual offer of assistance, a hint as to the search in the catalogue, and the ordinary politeness of men who constantly sit near each other; it was thus i came to know the man calling himself dr. lipsius. by degrees i grew to look for his presence, and to miss him when he was away, as was sometimes the case, and so a friendship sprang up between us. his immense range of learning was placed freely at my service; he would often astonish me by the way in which he would sketch out in a few minutes the bibliography of a given subject, and before long i had confided to him my ambitions. "ah," he said, "you should have been a german. i was like that myself when i was a boy. it is a wonderful resolve, an infinite career. 'i will know all things;' yes, it is a device indeed. but it means this--a life of labor without end, and a desire unsatisfied at last. the scholar has to die, and die saying, 'i know very little.'" gradually, by speeches such as these, lipsius seduced me: he would praise the career, and at the same time hint that it was as hopeless as the search for the philosopher's stone, and so by artful suggestions, insinuated with infinite address, he by degrees succeeded in undermining all my principles. "after all," he used to say, "the greatest of all sciences, the key to all knowledge, is the science and art of pleasure. rabelais was perhaps the greatest of all the encyclopædic scholars; and he, as you know, wrote the most remarkable book that has ever been written. and what does he teach men in this book? surely, the joy of living. i need not remind you of the words, suppressed in most of the editions, the key of all the rabelaisian mythology, of all the enigmas of his grand philosophy, _vivez joyeux_. there you have all his learning; his work is the institutes of pleasure as the fine art; the finest art there is; the art of all arts. rabelais had all science, but he had all life too. and we have gone a long way since his time. you are enlightened, i think; you do not consider all the petty rules and by-laws that a corrupt society has made for its own selfish convenience as the immutable decrees of the eternal." such were the doctrines that he preached; and it was by such insidious arguments, line upon line, here a little and there a little, that he at last succeeded in making me a man at war with the whole social system. i used to long for some opportunity to break the chains and to live a free life, to be my own rule and measure. i viewed existence with the eyes of a pagan, and lipsius understood to perfection the art of stimulating the natural inclinations of a young man hitherto a hermit. as i gazed up at the great dome i saw it flushed with the flames and colors of a world of enticement, unknown to me, my imagination played me a thousand wanton tricks, and the forbidden drew me as surely as a loadstone draws on iron. at last my resolution was taken, and i boldly asked lipsius to be my guide. he told me to leave the museum at my usual hour, half past four, to walk slowly along the northern pavement of great russell street, and to wait at the corner of the street till i was addressed, and then to obey in all things the instructions of the person who came up to me. i carried out these directions, and stood at the corner looking about me anxiously, my heart beating fast, and my breath coming in gasps. i waited there for some time, and had begun to fear i had been made the object of a joke, when i suddenly became conscious of a gentleman who was looking at me with evident amusement from the opposite pavement of tottenham court road. he came over, and raising his hat, politely begged me to follow him, and i did so without a word, wondering where we were going, and what was to happen. i was taken to a house of quiet and respectable aspect in a street lying to the north of oxford street, and my guide rang the bell, and a servant showed us into a large room, quietly furnished, on the ground floor. we sat there in silence for some time, and i noticed that the furniture, though unpretending, was extremely valuable. there were large oak-presses, two book-cases of extreme elegance, and in one corner a carved chest which must have been mediæval. presently dr. lipsius came in and welcomed me with his usual manner, and after some desultory conversation, my guide left the room. then an elderly man dropped in and began talking to lipsius; and from their conversation i understood that my friend was a dealer in antiques; they spoke of the hittite seal, and of the prospects of further discoveries, and later, when two or three more persons had joined us, there was an argument as to the possibility of a systematic exploration of the pre-celtic monuments in england i was; in fact, present at an archæological reception of an informal kind; and at nine o'clock, when the antiquaries were gone, i stared at lipsius in a manner that showed i was puzzled, and sought an explanation. "now," he said, "we will go upstairs." as we passed up the stairs, lipsius lighting the way with a hand-lamp, i heard the sound of a jarring lock and bolts and bars shot on at the front door. my guide drew back a baize door, and we went down a passage, and i began to hear odd sounds, a noise of curious mirth, and then he pushed me through a second door, and my initiation began. i cannot write down what i witnessed that night; i cannot bear to recall what went on in those secret rooms fast shuttered and curtained so that no light should escape into the quiet street; they gave me red wine to drink, and a woman told me as i sipped it that it was wine of the red jar that avallaunius had made. another asked me how i liked the wine of the fauns, and i heard a dozen fantastic names, while the stuff boiled in my veins, and stirred, i think, something that had slept within me from the moment i was born. it seemed as if my self-consciousness deserted me; i was no longer a thinking agent, but at once subject and object. i mingled in the horrible sport and watched the mystery of the greek groves and fountains enacted before me, saw the reeling dance, and heard the music calling as i sat beside my mate, and yet i was outside it all, and viewed my own part an idle spectator. thus with strange rites they made me drink the cup, and when i woke up in the morning i was one of them, and had sworn to be faithful. at first i was shown the enticing side of things. i was bidden to enjoy myself and care for nothing but pleasure, and lipsius himself indicated to me as the acutest enjoyment the spectacle of the terrors of the unfortunate persons who were from time to time decoyed into the evil house. but after a time it was pointed out to me that i must take my share in the work, and so i found myself compelled to be in my turn a seducer; and thus it is on my conscience that i have led many to the depths of the pit. one day lipsius summoned me to his private room, and told me that he had a difficult task to give me. he unlocked a drawer, and gave me a sheet of type-written paper, and had me read it. it was without place, or date, or signature, and ran as follows:-- "mr. james headley, f.s.a., will receive from his agent in armenia, on the th inst., a unique coin, the gold tiberius. it hears on the reverse a faun, with the legend victoria. it is believed that this coin is of immense value. mr. headley will come up to town to show the coin to his friend, professor memys, of chenies street, oxford street, on some date between the th and the th." dr. lipsius chuckled at my face of blank surprise when i laid down this singular communication. "you will have a good chance of showing your discretion," he said. "this is not a common case; it requires great management and infinite tact. i am sure i wish i had a panurge in my service, but we will see what you can do." "but is it not a joke?" i asked him. "how can you know, or rather how can this correspondent of yours know that a coin has been despatched from armenia to mr. headley? and how is it possible to fix the period in which mr. headley will take it into his head to come up to town? it seems to me a lot of guess work." "my dear mr. walters," he replied; "we do not deal in guess work here. it would bore you if i went into all these little details, the cogs and wheels, if i may say so, which move the machine. don't you think it is much more amusing to sit in front of the house and be astonished, than to be behind the scenes and see the mechanism? better tremble at the thunder, believe me, than see the man rolling the cannon ball. but, after all, you needn't bother about the how and why; you have your share to do. of course, i shall give you full instructions, but a great deal depends on the way the thing is carried out. i have often heard very young men maintain that style is everything in literature, and i can assure you that the same maxim holds good in our far more delicate profession. with us style is absolutely everything, and that is why we have friends like yourself." i went away in some perturbation; he had no doubt designedly left everything in mystery, and i did not know what part i should have to play. though i had assisted at scenes of hideous revelry, i was not yet dead to all echo of human feeling, and i trembled lest i should receive the order to be mr. headley's executioner. a week later, it was on the sixteenth of the month, dr. lipsius made me a sign to come into his room. "it is for to-night," he began. "please to attend carefully to what i am going to say, mr. walters, and on peril of your life, for it is a dangerous matter,--on peril of your life i say, follow these instructions to the letter. you understand? well, to-night at about half-past seven you will stroll quietly up the hampstead road till you come to vincent street. turn down here and walk along, taking the third turning to your right, which is lambert terrace. then follow the terrace, cross the road, and go along hertford street, and so into lillington square. the second turning you will come to in the square is called sheen street; but in reality it is more a passage between blank walls than a street. whatever you do, take care to be at the corner of this street at eight o'clock precisely. you will walk along it, and just at the bend, where you lose sight of the square, you will find an old gentleman with white beard and whiskers. he will in all probability be abusing a cabman for having brought him to sheen street instead of chenies street. you will go up to him quietly and offer your services; he will tell you where he wants to go, and you will be so courteous as to offer to show him the way. i may say that professor memys moved, into chenies street a month ago; thus mr. headley has never been to see him there, and moreover he is very short-sighted, and knows little of the topography of london. indeed he has quite lived the life of a learned hermit at audley hall. "well, need i say more to a man of your intelligence? you will bring him to this house; he will ring the bell, and a servant in quiet livery will let him in. then your work will be done, and i am sure done well. you will leave mr. headley at the door, and simply continue your walk, and i shall hope to see you the next day. i really don't think there is anything more i can tell you." these minute instructions i took care to carry out to the letter. i confess that i walked up the tottenham court road by no means blindly, but with an uneasy sense that i was coming to a decisive point in my life. the noise and rumor of the crowded pavements were to me but dumb-show. i revolved again and again in ceaseless iteration the task that had been laid on me, and i questioned myself as to the possible results. as i got near the point of turning, i asked myself whether danger were not about my steps; the cold thought struck me that i was suspected and observed, and every chance foot-passenger who gave me a second glance seemed to me an officer of police. my time was running out, the sky had darkened, and i hesitated, half resolved to go no farther, but to abandon lipsius and his friends forever. i had almost determined to take this course, when the conviction suddenly came to me that the whole thing was a gigantic joke, a fabrication of rank improbability. who could have procured the information about the armenian agent, i asked myself. by what means could lipsius have known the particular day, and the very train that mr. headley was to take? how engage him to enter one special cab amongst the dozens waiting at paddington? i vowed it a mere milesian tale, and went forward merrily, and turned down vincent street, and threaded out the route that lipsius had so carefully impressed upon me. the various streets he had named were all places of silence and an oppressive cheap gentility; it was dark, and i felt alone in the musty squares and crescents, where people pattered by at intervals, and the shadows were growing blacker. i entered sheen street, and found it, as lipsius had said, more a passage than a street; it was a by-way, on one side a low wall and neglected gardens and grim backs of a line of houses, and on the other a timber yard. i turned the corner, and lost sight of the square, and then to my astonishment i saw the scene of which i had been told. a hansom cab had come to a stop beside the pavement, and an old man carrying a handbag was fiercely abusing the cabman, who sat on his perch the image of bewilderment. "yes, but i'm sure you said sheen street, and that's where i brought you," i heard him saying, as i came up, and the old gentleman boiled in a fury, and threatened police and suits at law. the sight gave me a shock; and in an instant i resolved to go through with it. i strolled on, and without noticing the cabman, lifted my hat politely to old mr. headley. "pardon me, sir," i said, "but is there any difficulty? i see you are a traveller; perhaps the cabman has made a mistake. can i direct you?" the old fellow turned to me, and i noticed that he snarled and showed his teeth like an ill-tempered cur as he spoke. "this drunken fool has brought me here," he said. "i told him to drive to chenies street, and he brings me to this infernal place. i won't pay him a farthing, and i meant to have given him a handsome sum. i am going to call for the police and give him in charge." at this threat the cabman seemed to take alarm. he glanced round as if to make sure that no policeman was in sight and drove off grumbling loudly, and mr. headley grinned, savagely with satisfaction at having saved his fare, and put back one and sixpence into his pocket, the "handsome sum" the cabman had lost. "my dear sir," i said, "i am afraid this piece of stupidity has annoyed you a great deal. it is a long way to chenies street, and you will have some difficulty in finding the place unless you know london pretty well." "i know it very little," he replied. "i never come up except on important business, and i've never been to chenies street in my life." "really? i should be happy to show you the way. i have been for a stroll, and it will not at all inconvenience me to take you to your destination." "i want to go to professor memys, at number . it's most annoying to me. i'm short-sighted, and i can never make out the numbers on the doors." "this way if you please," i said, and we set out. i did not find mr. headley an agreeable man; indeed, he grumbled the whole way. he informed me of his name, and i took care to say, "the well-known antiquary?" and thenceforth i was compelled to listen to the history of his complicated squabbles with publishers, who had treated him, as he said, disgracefully. the man was a chapter in the irritability of authors. he told me that he had been on the point of making the fortune of several firms, but had been compelled to abandon the design owing to their rank ingratitude. besides these ancient histories of wrong and the more recent misadventure of the cabman, he had another grievous complaint to make. as he came along in the train, he had been sharpening a pencil, and the sudden jolt of the engine as it drew up at a station had driven the penknife against his face, inflicting a small triangular wound just on the cheek-bone, which he showed me. he denounced the railway company, and heaped imprecations on the head of the driver, and talked of claiming damages. thus he grumbled all the way, not noticing in the least where he was going, and so inamiable did his conduct appear to me that i began to enjoy the trick i was playing on him. nevertheless my heart beat a little faster as we turned into the street where lipsius was waiting. a thousand accidents, i thought, might happen. some chance might bring one of headley's friends to meet us; perhaps, though he knew not chenies street, he might know the street where i was taking him; in spite of his short-sight he might possibly make out the number, or in a sudden fit of suspicion he might make an inquiry of the policeman at the corner. thus every step upon the pavement, as we drew nearer to the goal, was to me a pang and a terror, and every approaching passenger carried a certain threat of danger. i gulped down my excitement with an effort, and made shift to say pretty quietly:-- "no. , i think you said? that is the third house from this. if you will allow me, i will leave you now; i have been delayed a little, and my way lies on the other side of tottenham court road." he snarled out some kind of thanks, and i turned my back and walked swiftly in the opposite direction. a minute or two later, i looked round and saw mr. headley standing on the doorstep, and then the door opened and he went in. for my part i gave a sigh of relief, and hastened to get away from the neighborhood and endeavored to enjoy myself in merry company. the whole of the next day i kept away from lipsius. i felt anxious, but i did not know what had happened or what was happening, and a reasonable regard for my own safety told me that i should do well to remain quietly at home. my curiosity, however, to learn the end of the odd drama in which i had played a part stung me to the quick, and late in the evening i made up my mind to go and see how events had turned out. lipsius nodded when i came in, and asked me if i could give him five minutes' talk. we went into his room, and he began to walk up and down, and i sat waiting for him to speak. "my dear mr. walters," he said at length, "i congratulate you warmly. your work was done in the most thorough and artistic manner. you will go far. look." he went to his escritoire and pressed a secret spring, and a drawer flew out, and he laid something on the table. it was a gold coin, and i took it up and examined it eagerly, and read the legend about the figure of the faun. "victoria," i said, smiling. "yes, it was a great capture, which we owe to you. i had great difficulty in persuading mr. headley that a little mistake had been made; that was how i put it. he was very disagreeable, and indeed ungentlemanly about it; didn't he strike you as a very cross old man?" i held the coin, admiring the choice and rare design, clear cut as if from the mint; and i thought the fine gold glowed and burned like a lamp. "and what finally became of mr. headley?" i said at last. lipsius smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "what on earth does it matter?" he said. "he might be here, or there, or anywhere; but what possible consequence could it be? besides, your question rather surprises me. you are an intelligent man, mr. walters. just think it over, and i'm sure you won't repeat the question." "my dear sir," i said, "i hardly think you are treating me fairly. you have paid me some handsome compliments on my share in the capture, and i naturally wish to know how the matter ended. from what i saw of mr. headley, i should think you must have had some difficulty with him." he gave me no answer for the moment, but began again to walk up and down the room, apparently absorbed in thought. "well," he said at last, "i suppose there is something in what you say. we are certainly indebted to you. i have said, that i have a high opinion of your intelligence, mr. walters. just look here, will you." he opened a door communicating with another room and pointed. there was a great box lying on the floor; a queer coffin-shaped thing. i looked at it and saw it was a mummy case like those in the british museum, vividly painted in the brilliant egyptian colors, with i knew not what proclamation of dignity or hopes of life immortal. the mummy, swathed about in the robes of death, was lying within, and the face had been uncovered. "you are going to send this away?" i said, forgetting the question i had put. "yes; i have an order from a local museum. look a little more closely, mr. walters." puzzled by his manner, i peered into the face, while he held up the lamp. the flesh was black with the passing of the centuries; but as i looked i saw upon the right cheek-bone a small triangular scar, and the secret of the mummy flashed upon me. i was looking at the dead body of the man whom i had decoyed into that house. there was no thought or design of action in my mind. i held the accursed coin in my hand, burning me with a foretaste of hell, and i fled as i would have fled from pestilence and death, and dashed into the street in blind horror, not knowing where i went. i felt the gold coin grasped in my clenched list, and threw it away, i knew not where, and ran on and on through by-streets and dark ways, till at last i issued out into a crowded thoroughfare, and checked myself. then, as consciousness returned, i realized my instant peril, and understood what would happen if i fell into the hands of lipsius. i knew that i had put forth my finger to thwart a relentless mechanism rather than a man; my recent adventure with the unfortunate mr. headley had taught me that lipsius had agents in all quarters, and i foresaw that if i fell into his hands, he would remain true to his doctrine of style, and cause me to die a death of some horrible and ingenious torture. i bent my whole mind to the task of outwitting him and his emissaries, three of whom i knew to have proved their ability for tracking down persons who for various reasons preferred to remain obscure. these servants of lipsius were two men and a woman, and the woman was incomparably the most subtle and the most deadly. yet i considered that i too had some portion of craft, and i took my resolve. since then i have matched myself day by day and hour by hour against the ingenuity of lipsius and his myrmidons. for a time i was successful; though they beat furiously after me in the covert of london, i remained _perdu_, and watched with some amusement their frantic efforts to recover the scent lost in two or three minutes. every lure and wile was put forth to entice me from my hiding-place. i was informed by the medium of the public prints that what i had taken had been recovered, and meetings were proposed in which i might hope to gain a great deal without the slightest risk. i laughed at their endeavors, and began a little to despise the organization i had so dreaded, and ventured more abroad. not once or twice, but several times, i recognized the two men who were charged with my capture, and i succeeded in eluding them easily at close quarters; and a little hastily i decided that i had nothing to dread, and that my craft was greater than theirs. but in the mean while, while i congratulated myself on my cunning, the third of lipsius's emissaries was weaving her nets, and in an evil hour i paid a visit to an old friend, a literary man named russell, who lived in a quiet street in bayswater. the woman, as i found out too late, a day or two ago, occupied rooms in the same house, and i was followed and tracked down. too late, as i have said, i recognized that i had made a fatal mistake, and that i was besieged. sooner or later i shall find myself in the power of an enemy without pity; and so surely as i leave this house i shall go to receive doom. i hardly dare to guess how it will at last fall upon me. my imagination, always a vivid one, paints to me appalling pictures of the unspeakable torture which i shall probably endure; and i know that i shall die with lipsius standing near and gloating over the refinements of my suffering and my shame. hours, nay, minutes, have become very precious to me. i sometimes pause in the midst of anticipating my tortures, to wonder whether even now i cannot hit upon some supreme stroke, some design of infinite subtlety, to free myself from the toils. but i find that the faculty of combination has left me. i am as the scholar in the old myth, deserted by the power which has helped, me hitherto. i do not know when the supreme moment will come, but sooner or later it is inevitable, and before long i shall receive sentence, and from the sentence to execution will not be long. * * * * * i cannot remain here a prisoner any longer. i shall go out to-night when the streets are full of crowds and clamors, and make a last effort to escape. * * * * * it was with profound astonishment that dyson closed the little book, and thought of the strange series of incidents which had brought him into touch with the plots and counterplots connected with the gold tiberius. he had bestowed the coin carefully away, and he shuddered at the bare possibility of its place of deposit becoming known to the evil band who seemed to possess such extraordinary sources of information. it had grown late while he read, and he put the pocket-book away, hoping with all his heart that the unhappy walters might even at the eleventh hour escape the doom he dreaded. adventure of the deserted residence. "a wonderful story, as you say; an extraordinary sequence and play of coincidence. i confess that your expressions when you first showed me the gold tiberius were not exaggerated. but do you think that walters has really some fearful fate to dread?" "i cannot say. who can presume to predict events when life itself puts on the robe of coincidence and plays at drama? perhaps we have not yet reached the last chapter in the queer story. but, look, we are drawing near to the verge of london; there are gaps, you see, in the serried ranks of brick, and a vision of green fields beyond." dyson had persuaded the ingenious mr. phillipps to accompany him on one of those aimless walks to which he was himself so addicted. starting from the very heart of london, they had made their way westward through the stony avenues, and were now just emerging from the red lines of an extreme suburb, and presently the half-finished road ended, a quiet lane began, and they were beneath the shade of elm-trees. the yellow autumn sunlight that had lit up the bare distance of the suburban street now filtered down through the boughs of the trees and shone on the glowing carpet of fallen leaves, and the pools of rain glittered and shot back the gleam of light. over all the broad pastures there was peace and the happy rest of autumn before the great winds begin, and afar off, london lay all vague and immense amidst the veiling mist; here and there a distant window catching the sun and kindling with fire, and a spire gleaming high, and below the streets in shadow, and the turmoil of life. dyson and phillipps walked on in silence beneath the high hedges, till at a turn of the lane they saw a mouldering and ancient gate standing open, and the prospect of a house at the end of a moss-grown carriage drive. "there is a survival for you," said dyson; "it has come to its last days, i imagine. look how the laurels have grown gaunt, and weedy, and black, and bare, beneath; look at the house, covered with yellow wash and patched with green damp. why, the very notice-board which informs all and singular that the place is to be let has cracked and half fallen." "suppose we go in and see it," said phillipps. "i don't think there is anybody about." they turned up the drive, and walked slowly, towards this remnant of old days. it was a large straggling house, with curved wings at either end, and behind a series of irregular roofs and projections, showing that the place had been added to at divers dates; the two wings were roofed in cupola fashion, and at one side, as they came nearer, they could see a stable-yard, and a clock turret with a bell, and the dark masses of gloomy cedars. amidst all the lineaments of dissolution, there was but one note of contrast: the sun was setting beyond the elm-trees, and all the west and the south were in flames, and on the upper windows of the house the glow shone reflected, and it seemed as if blood and fire were mingled. before the yellow front of the mansion, stained, as dyson had remarked, with gangrenous patches, green and blackening, stretched what once had been, no doubt, a well-kept lawn, but it was now rough and ragged, and nettles and great docks, and all manner of coarse weeds, struggled in the places of the flower-beds. the urns had fallen from their pillars beside the walk, and lay broken in shards upon the ground, and everywhere from grass-plot and path a fungoid growth had sprung up and multiplied, and lay dank and slimy like a festering sore upon the earth. in the middle of the rank grass of the lawn was a desolate fountain; the rim of the basin was crumbling and pulverized with decay, and within, the water stood stagnant, with green scum for the lilies that had once bloomed there; and rust had eaten into the bronze flesh of the triton that stood in the middle, and the conch-shell he held was broken. "here," said dyson, "one might moralize over decay and death. here all the stage is decked out with the symbols of dissolution; the cedarn gloom and twilight hangs heavy around us, and everywhere within the pale dankness has found a harbor, and the very air is changed and brought to accord with the scene. to me, i confess, this deserted house is as moral as a graveyard, and i find something sublime in that lonely triton, deserted in the midst of his water-pool. he is the last of the gods; they have left him and he remembers the sound of water falling on water, and the days that were sweet." "i like your reflections extremely," said phillipps, "but i may mention that the door of the house is open.". "let us go in then." the door was just ajar, and they passed into the mouldy hall, and looked in at a room on one side. it was a large room, going far back, and the rich old red flock paper was peeling from the walls in long strips, and blackened with vague patches of rising damp; the ancient clay, the dank reeking earth rising up again, and subduing all the work of men's hands after the conquest of many years. and the floor was thick with the dust of decay, and the painted ceiling fading from all gay colors and light fancies of cupids in a career, and disfigured with sores of dampness, seemed transmuted into other work. no longer the amorini chased one another pleasantly, with limbs that sought not to advance, and hands that merely simulated the act of grasping at the wreathed flowers, but it appeared some savage burlesque of the old careless world and of its cherished conventions, and the dance of the loves had become a dance of death; black pustules and festering sores swelled and clustered on fair limbs, and smiling faces showed corruption, and the fairy blood had boiled with the germs of foul disease; it was a parable of the leaven working, and worms devouring for a banquet the heart of the rose. strangely, under the painted ceiling, against the decaying walls, two old chairs still stood alone, the sole furniture of the empty place. high-backed, with curving arms and twisted legs, covered with faded gold leaf, and upholstered in tattered damask, they too were a part of the symbolism, and struck dyson with surprise. "what have we here?" he said. "who has sat in these chairs? who, clad in peach-bloom satin, with lace ruffles and diamond buckles, all golden, _a conté fleurettes_ to his companion? phillipps, we are in another age. i wish i had some snuff to offer you, but failing that, i beg to offer you a seat, and we will sit and smoke tobacco. a horrid practice, but i am no pedant." they sat down on the queer old chairs, and looked out of the dim and grimy panes to the ruined lawn, and the fallen urns, and the deserted triton. presently dyson ceased his imitation of eighteenth century airs; he no longer pulled forward imaginary ruffles, or tapped a ghostly snuff-box. "it's a foolish fancy," he said at last, "but i keep thinking i hear a noise like some one groaning. listen; no, i can't hear it now. there it is again! did you notice it, phillipps? "no, i can't say i heard anything. but i believe that old places like this are like shells from the shore, ever echoing with noises. the old beams, mouldering piecemeal, yield a little and groan, and such a house as this i can fancy all resonant at night with voices, the voices of matter so slowly and so surely transformed into other shapes; the voice of the worm that gnaws at last the very heart of the oak; the voice of stone grinding on stone, and the voice of the conquest of time." they sat still in the old armchairs and grew graver in the musty ancient air,--the air of a hundred years ago. "i don't like the place," said phillipps, after a long pause. "to me it seems, as if there were a sickly, unwholesome smell about it, a smell of something burning." "you are right; there is an evil odor here. i wonder what it is! hark! did you hear that?" a hollow sound, a noise of infinite sadness and infinite pain broke in upon the silence; and the two men looked fearfully at one another, horror and the sense of unknown things glimmering in their eyes. "come," said dyson, "we must see into this," and they went into the hall and listened in the silence. "do you know," said phillipps, "it seems absurd, but i could almost fancy that the smell is that of burning flesh." they went up the hollow-sounding stairs, and the the odor became thick and noisome, stifling the breath; and a vapor, sickening as the smell of the chamber of death, choked them. a door was open and they entered the large upper room, and clung hard to one another, shuddering at the sight they saw. a naked man was lying on the floor, his arms and legs stretched wide apart, and bound to pegs that had been hammered into the boards. the body was torn and mutilated in the most hideous fashion, scarred with the marks of red-hot irons, a shameful ruin of the human shape. but upon the middle of the body a fire of coals was smouldering; the flesh had been burned through. the man was dead, but the smoke of his torment mounted still, a black vapor. "the young man with spectacles," said mr. dyson. the end. generously made available by the internet archive/american libraries.) day and night stories by algernon blackwood author _of_ "ten minute stories," "julius le vallon," "the wave," etc. [illustration] new york e. p. dutton & co. fifth avenue copyright, , by e. p. dutton & co. printed in the united states of america contents chapter page i. the tryst ii. the touch of pan iii. the wings of horus iv. initiation v. a desert episode vi. the other wing vii. the occupant of the room viii. cain's atonement ix. an egyptian hornet x. by water xi. h. s. h. xii. a bit of wood xiii. a victim of higher space xiv. transition xv. the tradition day and night stories i the tryst "_je suis la première au rendez-vous. je vous attends._" as he got out of the train at the little wayside station he remembered the conversation as if it had been yesterday, instead of fifteen years ago--and his heart went thumping against his ribs so violently that he almost heard it. the original thrill came over him again with all its infinite yearning. he felt it as he had felt it _then_--not with that tragic lessening the interval had brought to each repetition of its memory. here, in the familiar scenery of its birth, he realised with mingled pain and wonder that the subsequent years had not destroyed, but only dimmed it. the forgotten rapture flamed back with all the fierce beauty of its genesis, desire at white heat. and the shock of the abrupt discovery shattered time. fifteen years became a negligible moment; the crowded experiences that had intervened seemed but a dream. the farewell scene, the conversation on the steamer's deck, were clear as of the day before. he saw the hand holding her big hat that fluttered in the wind, saw the flowers on the dress where the long coat was blown open a moment, recalled the face of a hurrying steward who had jostled them; he even heard the voices--his own and hers: "yes," she said simply; "i promise you. you have my word. i'll wait----" "till i come back to find you," he interrupted. steadfastly she repeated his actual words, then added: "here; at home--that is." "i'll come to the garden gate as usual," he told her, trying to smile. "i'll knock. you'll open the gate--as usual--and come out to me." these words, too, she attempted to repeat, but her voice failed, her eyes filled suddenly with tears; she looked into his face and nodded. it was just then that her little hand went up to hold the hat on--he saw the very gesture still. he remembered that he was vehemently tempted to tear his ticket up there and then, to go ashore with her, to stay in england, to brave all opposition--when the siren roared its third horrible warning ... and the ship put out to sea. * * * * * fifteen years, thick with various incident, had passed between them since that moment. his life had risen, fallen, crashed, then risen again. he had come back at last, fortune won by a lucky coup--at thirty-five; had come back to find her, come back, above all, to keep his word. once every three months they had exchanged the brief letter agreed upon: "i am well; i am waiting; i am happy; i am unmarried. yours----." for his youthful wisdom had insisted that no "man" had the right to keep "any woman" too long waiting; and she, thinking that letter brave and splendid, had insisted likewise that he was free--if freedom called him. they had laughed over this last phrase in their agreement. they put five years as the possible limit of separation. by then he would have won success, and obstinate parents would have nothing more to say. but when the five years ended he was "on his uppers" in a western mining town, and with the end of ten in sight those uppers, though changed, were little better, apparently, than patched and mended. and it was just then, too, that the change which had been stealing over him betrayed itself. he realised it abruptly, a sense of shame and horror in him. the discovery was made unconsciously--it disclosed itself. he was reading her letter as a labourer on a californian fruit farm: "funny she doesn't marry--some one else!" he heard himself say. the words were out before he knew it, and certainly before he could suppress them. they just slipped out, startling him into the truth; and he knew instantly that the thought was fathered in him by a hidden wish.... he was older. he had lived. it was a memory he loved. despising himself in a contradictory fashion--both vaguely and fiercely--he yet held true to his boyhood's promise. he did not write and offer to release her, as he knew they did in stories. he persuaded himself that he meant to keep his word. there was this fine, stupid, selfish obstinacy in his character. in any case, she would misunderstand and think he wanted to set free--himself. "besides--i'm still--awfully fond of her," he asserted. and it was true; only the love, it seemed, had gone its way. not that another woman took it; he kept himself clean, held firm as steel. the love, apparently, just faded of its own accord; her image dimmed, her letters ceased to thrill, then ceased to interest him. subsequent reflection made him realise other details about himself. in the interval he had suffered hardships, had learned the uncertainty of life that depends for its continuance on a little food, but that food often hard to come by, and had seen so many others go under that he held it more cheaply than of old. the wandering instinct, too, had caught him, slowly killing the domestic impulse; he lost his desire for a settled place of abode, the desire for children of his own, lost the desire to marry at all. also--he reminded himself with a smile--he had lost other things: the expression of youth _she_ was accustomed to and held always in her thoughts of him, two fingers of one hand, his hair! he wore glasses, too. the gentlemen-adventurers of life get scarred in those wild places where he lived. he saw himself a rather battered specimen well on the way to middle age. there was confusion in his mind, however, _and_ in his heart: a struggling complex of emotions that made it difficult to know exactly what he did feel. the dominant clue concealed itself. feelings shifted. a single, clear determinant did not offer. he was an honest fellow. "i can't quite make it out," he said. "what is it i really feel? and why?" his motive seemed confused. to keep the flame alight for ten long buffeting years was no small achievement; better men had succumbed in half the time. yet something in him still held fast to the girl as with a band of steel that _would_ not let her go entirely. occasionally there came strong reversions, when he ached with longing, yearning, hope; when he loved her again; remembered passionately each detail of the far-off courtship days in the forbidden rectory garden beyond the small, white garden gate. or was it merely the image and the memory he loved "again"? he hardly knew himself. he could not tell. that "again" puzzled him. it was the wrong word surely.... he still wrote the promised letter, however; it was so easy; those short sentences could not betray the dead or dying fires. one day, besides, he would return and claim her. he meant to keep his word. and he had kept it. here he was, this calm september afternoon, within three miles of the village where he first had kissed her, where the marvel of first love had come to both; three short miles between him and the little white garden gate of which at this very moment she was intently thinking, and behind which some fifty minutes later she would be standing, waiting for him.... he had purposely left the train at an earlier station; he would walk over in the dusk, climb the familiar steps, knock at the white gate in the wall as of old, utter the promised words, "i have come back to find you," enter, and--keep his word. he had written from mexico a week before he sailed; he had made careful, even accurate calculations: "in the dusk, on the sixteenth of september, i shall come and knock," he added to the usual sentences. the knowledge of his coming, therefore, had been in her possession seven days. just before sailing, moreover, he had heard from her--though not in answer, naturally. she was well; she was happy; she was unmarried; she was waiting. and now, as by some magical process of restoration--possible to deep hearts only, perhaps, though even by them quite inexplicable--the state of first love had blazed up again in him. in all its radiant beauty it lit his heart, burned unextinguished in his soul, set body and mind on fire. the years had merely veiled it. it burst upon him, captured, overwhelmed him with the suddenness of a dream. he stepped from the train. he met it in the face. it took him prisoner. the familiar trees and hedges, the unchanged countryside, the "field-smells known in infancy," all these, with something subtly added to them, rolled back the passion of his youth upon him in a flood. no longer was he bound upon what he deemed, perhaps, an act of honourable duty; it was love that drove him, as it drove him fifteen years before. and it drove him with the accumulated passion of desire long forcibly repressed; almost as if, out of some fancied notion of fairness to the girl, he had deliberately, yet still unconsciously, said "no" to it; that _she_ had not faded, but that he had decided, "_i_ must forget her." that sentence: "why doesn't she marry--some one else?" had not betrayed change in himself. it surprised another motive: "it's not fair to--her!" his mind worked with a curious rapidity, but worked within one circle only. the stress of sudden emotion was extraordinary. he remembered a thousand things--yet, chief among them, those occasional reversions when he had felt he "loved her again." had he not, after all, deceived himself? had she ever really "faded" at all? had he not felt he ought to let her fade--release her that way? and the change in himself?--that sentence on the californian fruit-farm--what did they mean? which had been true, the fading or the love? the confusion in his mind was hopeless, but, as a matter of fact, he did not think at all: he only _felt_. the momentum, besides, was irresistible, and before the shattering onset of the sweet revival he did not stop to analyse the strange result. he knew certain things, and cared to know no others: that his heart was leaping, his blood running with the heat of twenty, that joy recaptured him, that he must see, hear, touch her, hold her in his arms--and marry her. for the fifteen years had crumbled to a little thing, and at thirty-five he felt himself but twenty, rapturously, deliciously in love. he went quickly, eagerly down the little street to the inn, still feeling only, not thinking anything. the vehement uprush of the old emotion made reflection of any kind impossible. he gave no further thought to those long years "out there," when her name, her letters, the very image of her in his mind, had found him, if not cold, at least without keen response. all that was forgotten as though it had not been. the steadfast thing in him, this strong holding to a promise which had never wilted, ousted the recollection of fading and decay that, whatever caused them, certainly _had_ existed. and this steadfast thing now took command. this enduring quality in his character led him. it was only towards the end of the hurried tea he first received the singular impression--vague, indeed, but undeniably persistent--the strange impression that he was _being_ led. yet, though aware of this, he did not pause to argue or reflect. the emotional displacement in him, of course, had been more than considerable: there had been upheaval, a change whose abruptness was even dislocating, fundamental in a sense he could not estimate--shock. yet he took no count of anything but the one mastering desire to get to her as soon as possible, knock at the small, white garden gate, hear her answering voice, see the low wooden door swing open--take her. there was joy and glory in his heart, and a yearning sweet delight. at this very moment she was expecting him. and he--had come. behind these positive emotions, however, there lay concealed all the time others that were of a negative character. consciously, he was not aware of them, but they were there; they revealed their presence in various little ways that puzzled him. he recognised them absentmindedly, as it were; did not analyse or investigate them. for, through the confusion upon his faculties, rose also a certain hint of insecurity that betrayed itself by a slight hesitancy or miscalculation in one or two unimportant actions. there was a touch of melancholy, too, a sense of something lost. it lay, perhaps, in that tinge of sadness which accompanies the twilight of an autumn day, when a gentler, mournful beauty veils a greater beauty that is past. some trick of memory connected it with a scene of early boyhood, when, meaning to see the sunrise, he overslept, and, by a brief half-hour, was just--too late. he noted it merely, then passed on; he did not understand it; he hurried all the more, this hurry the only sign that it _was_ noted. "i must be quick," flashed up across his strongly positive emotions. and, due to this hurry, possibly, were the slight miscalculations that he made. they were very trivial. he rang for sugar, though the bowl stood just before his eyes, yet when the girl came in he forgot completely what he rang for--and inquired instead about the evening trains to london. and, when the time-table was laid before him, he examined it without intelligence, then looked up suddenly into the maid's face with a question about flowers. were there flowers to be had in the village anywhere? what kind of flowers? "oh, a bouquet or a"--he hesitated, searching for a word that tried to present itself, yet was not the word _he_ wanted to make use of--"or a wreath--of some sort?" he finished. he took the very word he did not want to take. in several things he did and said, this hesitancy and miscalculation betrayed themselves--such trivial things, yet significant in an elusive way that he disliked. there was sadness, insecurity somewhere in them. and he resented them, aware of their existence only because they qualified his joy. there was a whispered "no" floating somewhere in the dusk. almost--he felt disquiet. he hurried, more and more eager to be off upon his journey--the final part of it. moreover, there were other signs of an odd miscalculation--dislocation, perhaps, properly speaking--in him. though the inn was familiar from his boyhood days, kept by the same old couple, too, he volunteered no information about himself, nor asked a single question about the village he was bound for. he did not even inquire if the rector--her father--still were living. and when he left he entirely neglected the gilt-framed mirror above the mantelpiece of plush, dusty pampas-grass in waterless vases on either side. it did not matter, apparently, whether he looked well or ill, tidy or untidy. he forgot that when his cap was off the absence of thick, accustomed hair must alter him considerably, forgot also that two fingers were missing from one hand, the right hand, the hand that she would presently clasp. nor did it occur to him that he wore glasses, which must change his expression and add to the appearance of the years he bore. none of these obvious and natural things seemed to come into his thoughts at all. he was in a hurry to be off. he did not think. but, though his mind may not have noted these slight betrayals with actual sentences, his attitude, nevertheless, expressed them. this was, it seemed, the _feeling_ in him: "what could such details matter to her _now_? why, indeed, should he give to them a single thought? it was himself she loved and waited for, not separate items of his external, physical image." as well think of the fact that she, too, must have altered--outwardly. it never once occurred to him. such details were of to-day.... he was only impatient to come to her quickly, very quickly, instantly, if possible. he hurried. there was a flood of boyhood's joy in him. he paid for his tea, giving a tip that was twice the price of the meal, and set out gaily and impetuously along the winding lane. charged to the brim with a sweet picture of a small, white garden gate, the loved face close behind it, he went forward at a headlong pace, singing "nancy lee" as he used to sing it fifteen years before. with action, then, the negative sensations hid themselves, obliterated by the positive ones that took command. the former, however, merely lay concealed; they waited. thus, perhaps, does vital emotion, overlong restrained, denied, indeed, of its blossoming altogether, take revenge. repressed elements in his psychic life asserted themselves, selecting, as though naturally, a dramatic form. the dusk fell rapidly, mist rose in floating strips along the meadows by the stream; the old, familiar details beckoned him forwards, then drove him from behind as he went swiftly past them. he recognised others rising through the thickening air beyond; they nodded, peered, and whispered; sometimes they almost sang. and each added to his inner happiness; each brought its sweet and precious contribution, and built it into the reconstructed picture of the earlier, long-forgotten rapture. it was an enticing and enchanted journey that he made, something impossibly blissful in it, something, too, that seemed curiously--inevitable. for the scenery had not altered all these years, the details of the country were unchanged, everything he saw was rich with dear and precious association, increasing the momentum of the tide that carried him along. yonder was the stile over whose broken step he had helped her yesterday, and there the slippery plank across the stream where she looked above her shoulder to ask for his support; he saw the very bramble bushes where she scratched her hand, a-blackberrying, the day before ... and, finally, the weather-stained signpost, "to the rectory." it pointed to the path through the dangerous field where farmer sparrow's bull provided such a sweet excuse for holding, leading--protecting her. from the entire landscape rose a steam of recent memory, each incident alive, each little detail brimmed with its cargo of fond association. he read the rough black lettering on the crooked arm--it was rather faded, but he knew it too well to miss a single letter--and hurried forward along the muddy track; he looked about him for a sign of farmer sparrow's bull; he even felt in the misty air for the little hand that he might take and lead her into safety. the thought of her drew him on with such irresistible anticipation that it seemed as if the cumulative drive of vanished and unsated years evoked the tangible phantom almost. he actually felt it, soft and warm and clinging in his own, that was no longer incomplete and mutilated. yet it was not he who led and guided now, but, more and more, he who was being led. the hint had first betrayed its presence at the inn; it now openly declared itself. it had crossed the frontier into a positive sensation. its growth, swiftly increasing all this time, had accomplished itself; he had ignored, somehow, both its genesis and quick development; the result he plainly recognised. she was expecting him, indeed, but it was more than expectation; there was calling in it--she summoned him. her thought and longing reached him along that old, invisible track love builds so easily between true, faithful hearts. all the forces of her being, her very voice, came towards him through the deepening autumn twilight. he had not noticed the curious physical restoration in his hand, but he was vividly aware of this more magical alteration--that _she_ led and guided him, drawing him ever more swiftly towards the little, white garden gate where she stood at this very moment, waiting. her sweet strength compelled him; there was this new touch of something irresistible about the familiar journey, where formerly had been delicious yielding only, shy, tentative advance. he realised it--inevitable. his footsteps hurried, faster and ever faster; so deep was the allurement in his blood, he almost ran. he reached the narrow, winding lane, and raced along it. he knew each bend, each angle of the holly hedge, each separate incident of ditch and stone. he could have plunged blindfold down it at top speed. the familiar perfumes rushed at him--dead leaves and mossy earth and ferns and dock leaves, bringing the bewildering currents of strong emotion in him all together as in a rising wave. he saw, then, the crumbling wall, the cedars topping it with spreading branches, the chimneys of the rectory. on his right bulked the outline of the old, grey church; the twisted, ancient yews, the company of gravestones, upright and leaning, dotting the ground like listening figures. but he looked at none of these. for, on his left, he already saw the five rough steps of stone that led from the lane towards a small, white garden gate. that gate at last shone before him, rising through the misty air. he reached it. he stopped dead a moment. his heart, it seemed, stopped too, then took to violent hammering in his brain. there was a roaring in his mind, and yet a marvellous silence--just behind it. then the roar of emotion died away. there was utter stillness. this stillness, silence, was all about him. the world seemed preternaturally quiet. but the pause was too brief to measure. for the tide of emotion had receded only to come on again with redoubled power. he turned, leaped forward, clambered impetuously up the rough stone steps, and flung himself, breathless and exhausted, against the trivial barrier that stood between his eyes and--hers. in his wild, half violent impatience, however, he stumbled. that roaring, too, confused him. he fell forward, it seemed, for twilight had merged in darkness, and he misjudged the steps, the distances he yet knew so well. for a moment, certainly, he lay at full length upon the uneven ground against the wall; the steps had tripped him. and then he raised himself and knocked. his right hand struck upon the small, white garden gate. upon the two lost fingers he felt the impact. "i am here," he cried, with a deep sound in his throat as though utterance was choked and difficult. "i have come back--to find you." for a fraction of a second he waited, while the world stood still and waited with him. but there was no delay. her answer came at once: "i am well.... i am happy.... i am waiting." and the voice was dear and marvellous as of old. though the words were strange, reminding him of something dreamed, forgotten, lost, it seemed, he did not take special note of them. he only wondered that she did not open instantly that he might see her. speech could follow, but sight came surely first! there was this lightning-flash of disappointment in him. ah, she was lengthening out the marvellous moment, as often and often she had done before. it was to tease him that she made him wait. he knocked again; he pushed against the unyielding surface. for he noticed that it was unyielding; and there was a depth in the tender voice that he could not understand. "open!" he cried again, but louder than before. "i have come back to find you!" and as he said it the mist struck cold and thick against his face. but her answer froze his blood. "i cannot open." and a sudden anguish of despair rose over him; the sound of her voice was strange; in it was faintness, distance--as well as depth. it seemed to echo. something frantic seized him then--the panic sense. "open, open! come out to me!" he tried to shout. his voice failed oddly; there was no power in it. something appalling struck him between the eyes. "for god's sake, open. i'm waiting here! open, and come out to me!" the reply was muffled by distance that already seemed increasing; he was conscious of freezing cold about him--in his heart. "i cannot open. you must come in to me. i'm here and--waiting--always." he knew not exactly then what happened, for the cold grew deeper and the icy mist was in his throat. no words would come. he rose to his knees, and from his knees to his feet. he stooped. with all his force he knocked again; in a blind frenzy of despair he hammered and beat against the unyielding barrier of the small, white garden gate. he battered it till the skin of his knuckles was torn and bleeding--the first two fingers of a hand already mutilated. he remembers the torn and broken skin, for he noticed in the gloom that stains upon the gate bore witness to his violence; it was not till afterwards that he remembered the other fact--that the hand had already suffered mutilation, long, long years ago. the power of sound was feebly in him; he called aloud; there was no answer. he tried to scream, but the scream was muffled in his throat before it issued properly; it was a nightmare scream. as a last resort he flung himself bodily upon the unyielding gate, with such precipitate violence, moreover, that his face struck against its surface. from the friction, then, along the whole length of his cheek he knew that the surface was not smooth. cold and rough that surface was; but also--it was not of wood. moreover, there was writing on it he had not seen before. how he deciphered it in the gloom, he never knew. the lettering was deeply cut. perhaps he traced it with his fingers; his right hand certainly lay stretched upon it. he made out a name, a date, a broken verse from the bible, and the words, "died peacefully." the lettering was sharply cut with edges that were new. for the date was of a week ago; the broken verse ran, "when the shadows flee away ..." and the small, white garden gate was unyielding because it was of--stone. * * * * * at the inn he found himself staring at a table from which the tea things had not been cleared away. there was a railway time-table in his hands, and his head was bent forwards over it, trying to decipher the lettering in the growing twilight. beside him, still fingering a shilling, stood the serving-girl; her other hand held a brown tray with a running dog painted upon its dented surface. it swung to and fro a little as she spoke, evidently continuing a conversation her customer had begun. for she was giving information--in the colourless, disinterested voice such persons use: "we all went to the funeral, sir, all the country people went. the grave was her father's--the family grave...." then, seeing that her customer was too absorbed in the time-table to listen further, she said no more but began to pile the tea things on to the tray with noisy clatter. ten minutes later, in the road, he stood hesitating. the signal at the station just opposite was already down. the autumn mist was rising. he looked along the winding road that melted away into the distance, then slowly turned and reached the platform just as the london train came in. he felt very old--too old to walk six miles.... ii the touch of pan an idiot, heber understood, was a person in whom intelligence had been arrested--instinct acted, but not reason. a lunatic, on the other hand, was some one whose reason had gone awry--the mechanism of the brain was injured. the lunatic was out of relation with his environment; the idiot had merely been delayed _en route_. be that as it might, he knew at any rate that a lunatic was not to be listened to, whereas an idiot--well, the one he fell in love with certainly had the secret of some instinctual knowledge that was not only joy, but a kind of sheer natural joy. probably it was that sheer natural joy of living that reason argues to be untaught, degraded. in any case--at thirty--he married her instead of the daughter of a duchess he was engaged to. they lead to-day that happy, natural, vagabond life called idiotic, unmindful of that world the majority of reasonable people live only to remember. though born into an artificial social clique that made it difficult, heber had always loved the simple things. nature, especially, meant much to him. he would rather see a woodland misty with bluebells than all the châteaux on the loire; the thought of a mountain valley in the dawn made his feet lonely in the grandest houses. yet in these very houses was his home established. not that he under-estimated worldly things--their value was too obvious--but that it was another thing he wanted. only he did not know precisely _what_ he wanted until this particular idiot made it plain. her case was a mild one, possibly; the title bestowed by implication rather than by specific mention. her family did not say that she was imbecile or half-witted, but that she "was not all there" they probably did say. perhaps she saw men as trees walking, perhaps she saw through a glass darkly. heber, who had met her once or twice, though never yet to speak to, did not analyse her degree of sight, for in him, personally, she woke a secret joy and wonder that almost involved a touch of awe. the part of her that was not "all there" dwelt in an "elsewhere" that he longed to know about. he wanted to share it with her. she seemed aware of certain happy and desirable things that reason and too much thinking hide. he just felt this instinctively without analysis. the values they set upon the prizes of life were similar. money to her was just stamped metal, fame a loud noise of sorts, position nothing. of people she was aware as a dog or bird might be aware--they were kind or unkind. her parents, having collected much metal and achieved position, proceeded to make a loud noise of sorts with some success; and since she did not contribute, either by her appearance or her tastes, to their ambitions, they neglected her and made excuses. they were ashamed of her existence. her father in particular justified nietzsche's shrewd remark that no one with a loud voice can listen to subtle thoughts. she was, perhaps, sixteen--for, though she looked it, eighteen or nineteen was probably more in accord with her birth certificate. her mother was content, however, that she should dress the lesser age, preferring to tell strangers that she was childish, rather than admit that she was backward. "you'll never marry at all, child, much less marry as you might," she said, "if you go about with that rabbit expression on your face. that's not the way to catch a nice young man of the sort we get down to stay with us now. many a chorus-girl with less than you've got has caught them easily enough. your sister's done well. why not do the same? there's nothing to be shy or frightened about." "but i'm not shy or frightened, mother. i'm bored. i mean _they_ bore me." it made no difference to the girl; she was herself. the bored expression in the eyes--the rabbit, not-all-there expression--gave place sometimes to another look. yet not often, nor with anybody. it was this other look that stirred the strange joy in the man who fell in love with her. it is not to be easily described. it was very wonderful. whether sixteen or nineteen, she then looked--a thousand. * * * * * the house-party was of that up-to-date kind prevalent in heber's world. husbands and wives were not asked together. there was a cynical disregard of the decent (not the stupid) conventions that savoured of abandon, perhaps of decadence. he only went himself in the hope of seeing the backward daughter once again. her millionaire parents afflicted him, the smart folk tired him. their peculiar affectation of a special language, their strange belief that they were of importance, their treatment of the servants, their calculated self-indulgence, all jarred upon him more than usual. at bottom he heartily despised the whole vapid set. he felt uncomfortable and out of place. though not a prig, he abhorred the way these folk believed themselves the climax of fine living. their open immorality disgusted him, their indiscriminate love-making was merely rather nasty; he watched the very girl he was at last to settle down with behaving as the tone of the clique expected over her final fling--and, bored by the strain of so much "modernity," he tried to get away. tea was long over, the sunset interval invited, he felt hungry for trees and fields that were not self-conscious--and he escaped. the flaming june day was turning chill. dusk hovered over the ancient house, veiling the pretentious new wing that had been added. and he came across the idiot girl at the bend of the drive, where the birch trees shivered in the evening wind. his heart gave a leap. she was leaning against one of the dreadful statues--it was a satyr--that sprinkled the lawn. her back was to him; she gazed at a group of broken pine trees in the park beyond. he paused an instant, then went on quickly, while his mind scurried to recall her name. they were within easy speaking range. "miss elizabeth!" he cried, yet not too loudly lest she might vanish as suddenly as she had appeared. she turned at once. her eyes and lips were smiling welcome at him without pretence. she showed no surprise. "you're the first one of the lot who's said it properly," she exclaimed, as he came up. "everybody calls me elizabeth instead of elspeth. it's idiotic. they don't even take the trouble to get a name right." "it is," he agreed. "quite idiotic." he did not correct her. possibly he had said elspeth after all--the names were similar. her perfectly natural voice was grateful to his ear, and soothing. he looked at her all over with an open admiration that she noticed and, without concealment, liked. she was very untidy, the grey stockings on her vigorous legs were torn, her short skirt was spattered with mud. her nut-brown hair, glossy and plentiful, flew loose about neck and shoulders. in place of the usual belt she had tied a coloured handkerchief round her waist. she wore no hat. what she had been doing to get in such a state, while her parents entertained a "distinguished" party, he did not know, but it was not difficult to guess. climbing trees or riding bareback and astride was probably the truth. yet her dishevelled state became her well, and the welcome in her face delighted him. she remembered him, she was glad. he, too, was glad, and a sense both happy and reckless stirred in his heart. "like a wild animal," he said, "you come out in the dusk----" "to play with my kind," she answered in a flash, throwing him a glance of invitation that made his blood go dancing. he leaned against the statue a moment, asking himself why this young cinderella of a parvenu family delighted him when all the london beauties left him cold. there was a lift through his whole being as he watched her, slim and supple, grace shining through the untidy modern garb--almost as though she wore no clothes. he thought of a panther standing upright. her poise was so alert--one arm upon the marble ledge, one leg bent across the other, the hip-line showing like a bird's curved wing. wild animal or bird, flashed across his mind: something untamed and natural. another second, and she might leap away--or spring into his arms. it was a deep, stirring sensation in him that produced the mental picture. "pure and natural," a voice whispered with it in his heart, "as surely as _they_ are just the other thing!" and the thrill struck with unerring aim at the very root of that unrest he had always known in the state of life to which he was called. she made it natural, clean, and pure. this girl and himself were somehow kin. the primitive thing broke loose in him. in two seconds, while he stood with her beside the vulgar statue, these thoughts passed through his mind. but he did not at first give utterance to any of them. he spoke more formally, although laughter, due to his happiness, lay behind: "they haven't asked you to the party, then? or you don't care about it? which is it?" "both," she said, looking fearlessly into his face. "but i've been here ten minutes already. why were you so long?" this outspoken honesty was hardly what he expected, yet in another sense he was not surprised. her eyes were very penetrating, very innocent, very frank. he felt her as clean and sweet as some young fawn that asks plainly to be stroked and fondled. he told the truth: "i couldn't get away before. i had to play about and----" when she interrupted with impatience: "_they_ don't really want you," she exclaimed scornfully. "i do." and, before he could choose one out of the several answers that rushed into his mind, she nudged him with her foot, holding it out a little so that he saw the shoelace was unfastened. she nodded her head towards it, and pulled her skirt up half an inch as he at once stooped down. "and, anyhow," she went on as he fumbled with the lace, touching her ankle with his hand, "you're going to marry one of them. i read it in the paper. it's idiotic. you'll be miserable." the blood rushed to his head, but whether owing to his stooping or to something else, he could not say. "i only came--i only accepted," he said quickly, "because i wanted to see _you_ again." "of course. i made mother ask you." he did an impulsive thing. kneeling as he was, he bent his head a little lower and suddenly kissed the soft grey stocking--then stood up and looked her in the face. she was laughing happily, no sign of embarrassment in her anywhere, no trace of outraged modesty. she just looked very pleased. "i've tied a knot that won't come undone in a hurry----" he began, then stopped dead. for as he said it, gazing into her smiling face, another expression looked forth at him from the two big eyes of hazel. something rushed from his heart to meet it. it may have been that playful kiss, it may have been the way she took it; but, at any rate, there was a strength in the new emotion that made him unsure of who he was and of whom he looked at. he forgot the place, the time, his own identity and hers. the lawn swept from beneath his feet, the english sunset with it. he forgot his host and hostess, his fellow guests, even his father's name and his own into the bargain. he was carried away upon a great tide, the girl always beside him. he left the shore-line in the distance, already half forgotten, the shore-line of his education, learning, manners, social point of view--everything to which his father had most carefully brought him up as the scion of an old-established english family. this girl had torn up the anchor. only the anchor had previously been loosened a little by his own unconscious and restless efforts.... where was she taking him to? upon what island would they land? "i'm younger than you--a good deal," she broke in upon his rushing mood. "but that doesn't matter a bit, does it? we're about the same age really." with the happy sound of her voice the extraordinary sensation passed--or, rather, it became normal. but that it had lasted an appreciable time was proved by the fact that they had left the statue on the lawn, the house was no longer visible behind them, and they were walking side by side between the massive rhododendron clumps. they brought up against a five-barred gate into the park. they leaned upon the topmost bar, and he felt her shoulder touching his--edging into it--as they looked across to the grove of pines. "i feel absurdly young," he said without a sign of affectation, "and yet i've been looking for you a thousand years and more." the afterglow lit up her face; it fell on her loose hair and tumbled blouse, turning them amber red. she looked not only soft and comely, but extraordinarily beautiful. the strange expression haunted the deep eyes again, the lips were a little parted, the young breast heaving slightly, joy and excitement in her whole presentment. and as he watched her he knew that all he had just felt was due to her close presence, to her atmosphere, her perfume, her physical warmth and vigour. it had emanated directly from her being. "of course," she said, and laughed so that he felt her breath upon his face. he bent lower to bring his own on a level, gazing straight into her eyes that were fixed upon the field beyond. they were clear and luminous as pools of water, and in their centre, sharp as a photograph, he saw the reflection of the pine grove, perhaps a hundred yards away. with detailed accuracy he saw it, empty and motionless in the glimmering june dusk. then something caught his eye. he examined the picture more closely. he drew slightly nearer. he almost touched her face with his own, forgetting for a moment whose were the eyes that served him for a mirror. for, looking intently thus, it seemed to him that there was a movement, a passing to and fro, a stirring as of figures among the trees.... then suddenly the entire picture was obliterated. she had dropped her lids. he heard her speaking--the warm breath was again upon his face: "in the heart of that wood dwell i." his heart gave another leap--more violent than the first--for the wonder and beauty of the sentence caught him like a spell. there was a lilt and rhythm in the words that made it poetry. she laid emphasis upon the pronoun and the nouns. it seemed the last line of some delicious runic verse: "in the _heart_ of the _wood_--dwell _i_...." and it flashed across him: that living, moving, inhabited pine wood was her thought. it was thus she saw it. her nature flung back to a life she understood, a life that needed, claimed her. the ostentatious and artificial values that surrounded her, she denied, even as the distinguished house-party of her ambitious, masquerading family neglected her. of course she was unnoticed by them, just as a swallow or a wild-rose were unnoticed. he knew her secret then, for she had told it to him. it was his own secret too. they were akin, as the birds and animals were akin. they belonged together in some free and open life, natural, wild, untamed. that unhampered life was flowing about them now, rising, beating with delicious tumult in her veins and his, yet innocent as the sunlight and the wind--because it was as freely recognised. "elspeth!" he cried, "come, take me with you! we'll go at once. come--hurry--before we forget to be happy, or remember to be wise again----!" his words stopped half-way towards completion, for a perfume floated past him, born of the summer dusk, perhaps, yet sweet with a penetrating magic that made his senses reel with some remembered joy. no flower, no scented garden bush delivered it. it was the perfume of young, spendthrift life, sweet with the purity that reason had not yet stained. the girl moved closer. gathering her loose hair between her fingers, she brushed his cheeks and eyes with it, her slim, warm body pressing against him as she leaned over laughingly. "in the darkness," she whispered in his ear; "when the moon puts the house upon the statue!" and he understood. her world lay behind the vulgar, staring day. he turned. he heard the flutter of skirts--just caught the grey stockings, swift and light, as they flew behind the rhododendron masses. and she was gone. he stood a long time, leaning upon that five-barred gate.... it was the dressing-gong that recalled him at length to what seemed the present. by the conservatory door, as he went slowly in, he met his distinguished cousin--who was helping the girl he himself was to marry to enjoy her "final fling." he looked at his cousin. he realised suddenly that he was merely vicious. there was no sun and wind, no flowers--there was depravity only, lust instead of laughter, excitement in place of happiness. it was calculated, not spontaneous. his mind was in it. without joy it was. he was not natural. "not a girl in the whole lot fit to look at," he exclaimed with peevish boredom, excusing himself stupidly for his illicit conduct. "i'm off in the morning." he shrugged his blue-blooded shoulders. "these millionaires! their shooting's all right, but their mixum-gatherum week-ends--bah!" his gesture completed all he had to say about this one in particular. he glanced sharply, nastily, at his companion. "_you_ look as if you'd found something!" he added, with a suggestive grin. "or have you seen the ghost that was paid for with the house?" and he guffawed and let his eyeglass drop. "lady hermione will be asking for an explanation--eh?" "idiot!" replied heber, and ran upstairs to dress for dinner. but the word was wrong, he remembered, as he closed his door. it was lunatic he had meant to say, yet something more as well. he saw the smart, modern philanderer somehow as a beast. it was nearly midnight when he went up to bed, after an evening of intolerable amusement. the abandoned moral attitude, the common rudeness, the contempt of all others but themselves, the ugly jests, the horseplay of tasteless minds that passed for gaiety, above all the shamelessness of the women that behind the cover of fine breeding aped emancipation, afflicted him to a boredom that touched desperation. he understood now with a clarity unknown before. as with his cousin, so with these. they took life, he saw, with a brazen effrontery they thought was freedom, while yet it was life that they denied. he felt vampired and degraded; spontaneity went out of him. the fact that the geography of bedrooms was studied openly seemed an affirmation of vice that sickened him. their ways were nauseous merely. he escaped--unnoticed. he locked his door, went to the open window, and looked out into the night--then started. for silver dressed the lawn and park, the shadow of the building lay dark across the elaborate garden, and the moon, he noticed, was just high enough to put the house upon the statue. the chimney-stacks edged the pedestal precisely. "odd!" he exclaimed. "odd that i should come at the very moment----!" then smiled as he realised how his proposed adventure would be misinterpreted, its natural innocence and spirit ruined--if he were seen. "and some one would be sure to see me on a night like this. there are couples still hanging about in the garden." and he glanced at the shrubberies and secret paths that seemed to float upon the warm june air like islands. he stood for a moment framed in the glare of the electric light, then turned back into the room; and at that instant a low sound like a bird-call rose from the lawn below. it was soft and flutey, as though some one played two notes upon a reed, a piping sound. he had been seen, and she was waiting for him. before he knew it, he had made an answering call, of oddly similar kind, then switched the light out. three minutes later, dressed in simpler clothes, with a cap pulled over his eyes, he reached the back lawn by means of the conservatory and the billiard-room. he paused a moment to look about him. there was no one, although the lights were still ablaze. "i am an idiot," he chuckled to himself. "i'm acting on instinct!" he ran. the sweet night air bathed him from head to foot; there was strength and cleansing in it. the lawn shone wet with dew. he could almost smell the perfume of the stars. the fumes of wine, cigars and artificial scent were left behind, the atmosphere exhaled by civilisation, by heavy thoughts, by bodies overdressed, unwisely stimulated--all, all forgotten. he passed into a world of magical enchantment. the hush of the open sky came down. in black and white the garden lay, brimmed full with beauty, shot by the ancient silver of the moon, spangled with the stars' old-gold. and the night wind rustled in the rhododendron masses as he flew between them. in a moment he was beside the statue, engulfed now by the shadow of the building, and the girl detached herself silently from the blur of darkness. two arms were flung about his neck, a shower of soft hair fell on his cheek with a heady scent of earth and leaves and grass, and the same instant they were away together at full speed--towards the pine wood. their feet were soundless on the soaking grass. they went so swiftly that they made a whir of following wind that blew her hair across his eyes. and the sudden contrast caused a shock that put a blank, perhaps, upon his mind, so that he lost the standard of remembered things. for it was no longer merely a particular adventure; it seemed a habit and a natural joy resumed. it was not new. he knew the momentum of an accustomed happiness, mislaid, it may be, but certainly familiar. they sped across the gravel paths that intersected the well-groomed lawn, they leaped the flower-beds, so laboriously shaped in mockery, they clambered over the ornamental iron railings, scorning the easier five-barred gate into the park. the longer grass then shook the dew in soaking showers against his knees. he stooped, as though in some foolish effort to turn up something, then realised that his legs, of course, were bare. _her_ garment was already high and free, for she, too, was barelegged like himself. he saw her little ankles, wet and shining in the moonlight, and flinging himself down, he kissed them happily, plunging his face into the dripping, perfumed grass. her ringing laughter mingled with his own, as she stooped beside him the same instant; her hair hung in a silver cloud; her eyes gleamed through its curtain into his; then, suddenly, she soaked her hands in the heavy dew and passed them over his face with a softness that was like the touch of some scented southern wind. "now you are anointed with the night," she cried. "no one will know you. you are forgotten of the world. kiss me!" "we'll play for ever and ever," he cried, "the eternal game that was old when the world was yet young," and lifting her in his arms he kissed her eyes and lips. there was some natural bliss of song and dance and laughter in his heart, an elemental bliss that caught them together as wind and sunlight catch the branches of a tree. she leaped from the ground to meet his swinging arms. he ran with her, then tossed her off and caught her neatly as she fell. evading a second capture, she danced ahead, holding out one shining arm that he might follow. hand in hand they raced on together through the clean summer moonlight. yet there remained a smooth softness as of fur against his neck and shoulders, and he saw then that she wore skins of tawny colour that clung to her body closely, that he wore them too, and that her skin, like his own, was of a sweet dusky brown. then, pulling her towards him, he stared into her face. she suffered the close gaze a second, but no longer, for with a burst of sparkling laughter again she leaped into his arms, and before he shook her free she had pulled and tweaked the two small horns that hid in the thick curly hair behind, and just above, the ears. and that wilful tweaking turned him wild and reckless. that touch ran down him deep into the mothering earth. he leaped and ran and sang with a great laughing sound. the wine of eternal youth flushed all his veins with joy, and the old, old world was young again with every impulse of natural happiness intensified with the earth's own foaming tide of life. from head to foot he tingled with the delight of spring, prodigal with creative power. of course he could fly the bushes and fling wild across the open! of course the wind and moonlight fitted close and soft about him like a skin! of course he had youth and beauty for playmates, with dancing, laughter, singing, and a thousand kisses! for he and she were natural once again. they were free together of those long-forgotten days when "pan leaped through the roses in the month of june...!" with the girl swaying this way and that upon his shoulders, tweaking his horns with mischief and desire, hanging her flying hair before his eyes, then bending swiftly over again to lift it, he danced to join the rest of their companions in the little moonlit grove of pines beyond.... they rose somewhat pointed, perhaps, against the moonlight, those english pines--more with the shape of cypresses, some might have thought. a stream gushed down between their roots, there were mossy ferns, and rough grey boulders with lichen on them. but there was no dimness, for the silver of the moon sprinkled freely through the branches like the faint sunlight that it really was, and the air ran out to meet them with a heady fragrance that was wiser far than wine. the girl, in an instant, was whirled from her perch on his shoulders and caught by a dozen arms that bore her into the heart of the jolly, careless throng. whisht! whew! whir! she was gone, but another, fairer still, was in her place, with skins as soft and knees that clung as tightly. her eyes were liquid amber, grapes hung between her little breasts, her arms entwined about him, smoother than marble, and as cool. she had a crystal laugh. but he flung her off, so that she fell plump among a group of bigger figures lolling against a twisted root and roaring with a jollity that boomed like wind through the chorus of a song. they seized her, kissed her, then sent her flying. they were happier with their glad singing. they held stone goblets, red and foaming, in their broad-palmed hands. "the mountains lie behind us!" cried a figure dancing past. "we are come at last into our valley of delight. grapes, breasts, and rich red lips! ho! ho! it is time to press them that the juice of life may run!" he waved a cluster of ferns across the air and vanished amid a cloud of song and laughter. "it is ours. use it!" answered a deep, ringing voice. "the valleys are our own. no climbing now!" and a wind of echoing cries gave answer from all sides. "life! life! life! abundant, flowing over--use it, use it!" a troop of nymphs rushed forth, escaped from clustering arms and lips they yet openly desired. he chased them in and out among the waving branches, while she who had brought him ever followed, and sped past him and away again. he caught three gleaming soft brown bodies, then fell beneath them, smothered, bubbling with joyous laughter--next freed himself and, while they sought to drag him captive again, escaped and raced with a leap upon a slimmer, sweeter outline that swung up--only just in time--upon a lower bough, whence she leaned down above him with hanging net of hair and merry eyes. a few feet beyond his reach, she laughed and teased him--the one who had brought him in, the one he ever sought, and who for ever sought him too.... it became a riotous glory of wild children who romped and played with an impassioned glee beneath the moon. for the world was young and they, her happy offspring, glowed with the life she poured so freely into them. all intermingled, the laughing voices rose into a foam of song that broke against the stars. the difficult mountains had been climbed and were forgotten. good! then, enjoy the luxuriant, fruitful valley and be glad! and glad they were, brimful with spontaneous energy, natural as birds and animals that obeyed the big, deep rhythm of a simpler age--natural as wind and innocent as sunshine. yet, for all the untamed riot, there was a lift of beauty pulsing underneath. even when the wildest abandon approached the heat of orgy, when the recklessness appeared excess--there hid that marvellous touch of loveliness which makes the natural sacred. there was coherence, purpose, the fulfilling of an exquisite law: there was worship. the form it took, haply, was strange as well as riotous, yet in its strangeness dreamed innocence and purity, and in its very riot flamed that spirit which is divine. for he found himself at length beside her once again; breathless and panting, her sweet brown limbs aglow from the excitement of escape denied; eyes shining like a blaze of stars, and pulses beating with tumultuous life--helpless and yielding against the strength that pinned her down between the roots. his eyes put mastery on her own. she looked up into his face, obedient, happy, soft with love, surrendered with the same delicious abandon that had swept her for a moment into other arms. "you caught me in the end," she sighed. "i only played awhile." "i hold you for ever," he replied, half wondering at the rough power in his voice. it was here the hush of worship stole upon her little face, into her obedient eyes, about her parted lips. she ceased her wilful struggling. "listen!" she whispered. "i hear a step upon the glades beyond. the iris and the lily open; the earth is ready, waiting; we must be ready too! _he_ is coming!" he released her and sprang up; the entire company rose too. all stood, all bowed the head. there was an instant's subtle panic, but it was the panic of reverent awe that preludes a descent of deity. for a wind passed through the branches with a sound that is the oldest in the world and so the youngest. above it there rose the shrill, faint piping of a little reed. only the first, true sounds were audible--wind and water--the tinkling of the dewdrops as they fell, the murmur of the trees against the air. this was the piping that they heard. and in the hush the stars bent down to hear, the riot paused, the orgy passed and died. the figures waited, kneeling then with one accord. they listened with--the earth. "he comes.... he comes ..." the valley breathed about them. there was a footfall from far away, treading across a world unruined and unstained. it fell with the wind and water, sweetening the valley into life as it approached. across the rivers and forests it came gently, tenderly, but swiftly and with a power that knew majesty. "he comes.... he comes...!" rose with the murmur of the wind and water from the host of lowered heads. the footfall came nearer, treading a world grown soft with worship. it reached the grove. it entered. there was a sense of intolerable loveliness, of brimming life, of rapture. the thousand faces lifted like a cloud. they heard the piping close. and so he came. but he came with blessing. with the stupendous presence there was joy, the joy of abundant, natural life, pure as the sunlight and the wind. he passed among them. there was great movement--as of a forest shaking, as of deep water falling, as of a cornfield swaying to the wind, yet gentle as of a harebell shedding its burden of dew that it has held too long because of love. he passed among them, touching every head. the great hand swept with tenderness each face, lingered a moment on each beating heart. there was sweetness, peace, and loveliness; but above all, there was--life. he sanctioned every natural joy in them and blessed each passion with his power of creation.... yet each one saw him differently: some as a wife or maiden desired with fire, some as a youth or stalwart husband, others as a figure veiled with stars or cloaked in luminous mist, hardly attainable; others, again--the fewest these, not more than two or three--as that mysterious wonder which tempts the heart away from known familiar sweetness into a wilderness of undecipherable magic without flesh and blood.... to two, in particular, he came so near that they could feel his breath of hills and fields upon their eyes. he touched them with both mighty hands. he stroked the marble breasts, he felt the little hidden horns ... and, as they bent lower so that their lips met together for an instant, he took her arms and twined them about the curved, brown neck that she might hold him closer still.... again a footfall sounded far away upon an unruined world ... and he was gone--back into the wind and water whence he came. the thousand faces lifted; all stood up; the hush of worship still among them. there was a quiet as of the dawn. the piping floated over woods and fields, fading into silence. all looked at one another.... and then once more the laughter and the play broke loose. "we'll go," she cried, "and peep upon that other world where life hangs like a prison on their eyes!" and, in a moment, they were across the soaking grass, the lawn and flower-beds, and close to the walls of the heavy mansion. he peered in through a window, lifting her up to peer in with him. he recognised the world to which outwardly he belonged; he understood; a little gasp escaped him; and a slight shiver ran down the girl's body into his own. she turned her eyes away. "see," she murmured in his ear, "it's ugly, it's not natural. they feel guilty and ashamed. there is no innocence!" she saw the men; it was the women that he saw chiefly. lolling ungracefully, with a kind of boldness that asserted independence, the women smoked their cigarettes with an air of invitation they sought to conceal and yet showed plainly. he saw his familiar world in nakedness. their backs were bare, for all the elaborate clothes they wore; they hung their breasts uncleanly; in their eyes shone light that had never known the open sun. hoping they were alluring and desirable, they feigned a guilty ignorance of that hope. they all pretended. instead of wind and dew upon their hair, he saw flowers grown artificially to ape wild beauty, tresses without lustre borrowed from the slums of city factories. he watched them manoeuvring with the men; heard dark sentences; caught gestures half delivered whose meaning should just convey that glimpse of guilt they deemed to increase pleasure. the women were calculating, but nowhere glad; the men experienced, but nowhere joyous. pretended innocence lay cloaked with a veil of something that whispered secretly, clandestine, ashamed, yet with a brazen air that laid mockery instead of sunshine in their smiles. vice masqueraded in the ugly shape of pleasure; beauty was degraded into calculated tricks. they were not natural. they knew not joy. "the forward ones, the civilised!" she laughed in his ear, tweaking his horns with energy. "_we_ are the backward!" "unclean," he muttered, recalling a catchword of the world he gazed upon. they were the civilised! they were refined and educated--advanced. generations of careful breeding, mate cautiously selecting mate, laid the polish of caste upon their hands and faces where gleamed ridiculous, untaught jewels--rings, bracelets, necklaces hanging absurdly from every possible angle. "but--they are dressed up--for fun," he exclaimed, more to himself than to the girl in skins who clung to his shoulders with her naked arms. "_un_dressed!" she answered, putting her brown hand in play across his eyes. "only they have forgotten even that!" and another shiver passed through her into him. he turned and hid his face against the soft skins that touched his cheek. he kissed her body. seizing his horns, she pressed him to her, laughing happily. "look!" she whispered, raising her head again; "they're coming out." and he saw that two of them, a man and a girl, with an interchange of secret glances, had stolen from the room and were already by the door of the conservatory that led into the garden. it was his wife to be--and his distinguished cousin. "oh, pan!" she cried in mischief. the girl sprang from his arms and pointed. "we will follow them. we will put natural life into their little veins!" "or panic terror," he answered, catching the yellow panther skin and following her swiftly round the building. he kept in the shadow, though she ran full into the blaze of moonlight. "but they can't see us," she called, looking over her shoulder a moment. "they can only feel our presence, perhaps." and, as she danced across the lawn, it seemed a moonbeam slipped from a sapling birch tree that the wind curved earthwards, then tossed back against the sky. keeping just ahead, they led the pair, by methods known instinctively to elemental blood yet not translatable--led them towards the little grove of waiting pines. the night wind murmured in the branches; a bird woke into a sudden burst of song. these sounds were plainly audible. but four little pointed ears caught other, wilder notes behind the wind and music of the bird--the cries and ringing laughter, the leaping footsteps and the happy singing of their merry kin within the wood. and the throng paused then amid the revels to watch the "civilised" draw near. they presently reached the trees, halted, looked about them, hesitated a moment--then, with a hurried movement as of shame and fear lest they be caught, entered the zone of shadow. "let's go in here," said the man, without music in his voice. "it's dry on the pine needles, and we can't be seen." he led the way; she picked up her skirts and followed over the strip of long wet grass. "here's a log all ready for us," he added, sat down, and drew her into his arms with a sigh of satisfaction. "sit on my knee; it's warmer for your pretty figure." he chuckled; evidently they were on familiar terms, for though she hesitated, pretending to be coy, there was no real resistance in her, and she allowed the ungraceful roughness. "but are we _quite_ safe? are you sure?" she asked between his kisses. "what does it matter, even if we're not?" he replied, establishing her more securely on his knees. "but, as a matter of fact, we're safer here than in my own house." he kissed her hungrily. "by jove, hermione, but you're divine," he cried passionately, "divinely beautiful. i love you with every atom of my being--with my soul." "yes, dear, i know--i mean, i know you do, but----" "but what?" he asked impatiently. "those detectives----" he laughed. yet it seemed to annoy him. "my wife is a beast, isn't she?--to have me watched like that," he said quickly. "they're everywhere," she replied, a sudden hush in her tone. she looked at the encircling trees a moment, then added bitterly: "i hate her, simply _hate_ her." "i love you," he cried, crushing her to him, "that's all that matters now. don't let's waste time talking about the rest." she contrived to shudder, and hid her face against his coat, while he showered kisses on her neck and hair. and the solemn pine trees watched them, the silvery moonlight fell on their faces, the scent of new-mown hay went floating past. "i love you with my very soul," he repeated with intense conviction. "i'd do anything, give up anything, bear anything--just to give you a moment's happiness. i swear it--before god!" there was a faint sound among the trees behind them, and the girl sat up, alert. she would have scrambled to her feet, but that he held her tight. "what the devil's the matter with you to-night?" he asked in a different tone, his vexation plainly audible. "you're as nervy as if _you_ were being watched, instead of me." she paused before she answered, her finger on her lip. then she said slowly, hushing her voice a little: "watched! that's exactly what i did feel. i've felt it ever since we came into the wood." "nonsense, hermione. it's too many cigarettes." he drew her back into his arms, forcing her head up so that he could kiss her better. "i suppose it is nonsense," she said, smiling. "it's gone now, anyhow." he began admiring her hair, her dress, her shoes, her pretty ankles, while she resisted in a way that proved her practice. "it's not _me_ you love," she pouted, yet drinking in his praise. she listened to his repeated assurances that he loved her with his "soul" and was prepared for any sacrifice. "i feel so safe with you," she murmured, knowing the moves in the game as well as he did. she looked up guiltily into his face, and he looked down with a passion that he thought perhaps was joy. "you'll be married before the summer's out," he said, "and all the thrill and excitement will be over. poor hermione!" she lay back in his arms, drawing his face down with both hands, and kissing him on the lips. "you'll have more of him than you can do with--eh? as much as you care about, anyhow." "i shall be much more free," she whispered. "things will be easier. and i've got to marry some one----" she broke off with another start. there was a sound again behind them. the man heard nothing. the blood in his temples pulsed too loudly, doubtless. "well, what is it this time?" he asked sharply. she was peering into the wood, where the patches of dark shadow and moonlit spaces made odd, irregular patterns in the air. a low branch waved slightly in the wind. "did you hear that?" she asked nervously. "wind," he replied, annoyed that her change of mood disturbed his pleasure. "but something moved----" "only a branch. we're quite alone, quite safe, i tell you," and there was a rasping sound in his voice as he said it. "don't be so imaginative. i can take care of you." she sprang up. the moonlight caught her figure, revealing its exquisite young curves beneath the smother of the costly clothing. her hair had dropped a little in the struggle. the man eyed her eagerly, making a quick, impatient gesture towards her, then stopped abruptly. he saw the terror in her eyes. "oh, hark! what's that?" she whispered in a startled voice. she put her finger up. "oh, let's go back. i don't like this wood. i'm frightened." "rubbish," he said, and tried to catch her by the waist. "it's safer in the house--my room--or yours----" she broke off again. "there it is--don't you hear? it's a footstep!" her face was whiter than the moon. "i tell you it's the wind in the branches," he repeated gruffly. "oh, come on, _do_. we were just getting jolly together. there's nothing to be afraid of. can't you believe me?" he tried to pull her down upon his knee again with force. his face wore an unpleasant expression that was half leer, half grin. but the girl stood away from him. she continued to peer nervously about her. she listened. "you give me the creeps," he exclaimed crossly, clawing at her waist again with passionate eagerness that now betrayed exasperation. his disappointment turned him coarse. the girl made a quick movement of escape, turning so as to look in every direction. she gave a little scream. "that _was_ a step. oh, oh, it's close beside us. i heard it. we're being watched!" she cried in terror. she darted towards him, then shrank back. he did not try to touch her this time. "moonshine!" he growled. "you've spoilt my--spoilt our chance with your silly nerves." but she did not hear him apparently. she stood there shivering as with sudden cold. "there! i saw it again. i'm sure of it. something went past me through the air." and the man, still thinking only of his own pleasure frustrated, got up heavily, something like anger in his eyes. "all right," he said testily; "if you're going to make a fuss, we'd better go. the house _is_ safer, possibly, as you say. you know my room. come along!" even that risk he would not take. he loved her with his "soul." they crept stealthily out of the wood, the girl slightly in front of him, casting frightened backward glances. afraid, guilty, ashamed, with an air as though they had been detected, they stole back towards the garden and the house, and disappeared from view. and a wind rose suddenly with a rushing sound, poured through the wood as though to cleanse it, swept out the artificial scent and trace of shame, and brought back again the song, the laughter, and the happy revels. it roared across the park, it shook the windows of the house, then sank away as quickly as it came. the trees stood motionless again, guarding their secret in the clean, sweet moonlight that held the world in dream until the dawn stole up and sunshine took the earth with joy. iii the wings of horus binovitch had the bird in him somewhere: in his features, certainly, with his piercing eye and hawk-like nose; in his movements, with his quick way of flitting, hopping, darting; in the way he perched on the edge of a chair; in the manner he pecked at his food; in his twittering, high-pitched voice as well; and, above all, in his mind. he skimmed all subjects and picked their heart out neatly, as a bird skims lawn or air to snatch its prey. he had the bird's-eye view of everything. he loved birds and understood them instinctively; could imitate their whistling notes with astonishing accuracy. their one quality he had not was poise and balance. he was a nervous little man; he was neurasthenic. and he was in egypt by doctor's orders. such imaginative, unnecessary ideas he had! such uncommon beliefs! "the old egyptians," he said laughingly, yet with a touch of solemn conviction in his manner, "were a great people. their consciousness was different from ours. the bird idea, for instance, conveyed a sense of deity to them--of bird deity, that is: they had sacred birds--hawks, ibis, and so forth--and worshipped them." and he put his tongue out as though to say with challenge, "ha, ha!" "they also worshipped cats and crocodiles and cows," grinned palazov. binovitch seemed to dart across the table at his adversary. his eyes flashed; his nose pecked the air. almost one could imagine the beating of his angry wings. "because everything alive," he half screamed, "was a symbol of some spiritual power to them. your mind is as literal as a dictionary and as incoherent. pages of ink without connected meaning! verb always in the infinitive! if you were an old egyptian, you--you"--he flashed and spluttered, his tongue shot out again, his keen eyes blazed--"you might take all those words and spin them into a great interpretation of life, a cosmic romance, as they did. instead, you get the bitter, dead taste of ink in your mouth, and spit it over us like that"--he made a quick movement of his whole body as a bird that shakes itself--"in empty phrases." khilkoff ordered another bottle of champagne, while vera, his sister, said half nervously, "let's go for a drive; it's moonlight." there was enthusiasm at once. another of the party called the head waiter and told him to pack food and drink in baskets. it was only eleven o'clock. they would drive out into the desert, have a meal at two in the morning, tell stories, sing, and see the dawn. it was in one of those cosmopolitan hotels in egypt which attract the ordinary tourists as well as those who are doing a "cure," and all these russians were ill with one thing or another. all were ordered out for their health, and all were the despair of their doctors. they were as unmanageable as a bazaar and as incoherent. excess and bed were their routine. they lived, but none of them got better. equally, none of them got angry. they talked in this strange personal way without a shred of malice or offence. the english, french, and germans in the hotel watched them with remote amazement, referring to them as "that russian lot." their energy was elemental. they never stopped. they merely disappeared when the pace became too fast, then reappeared again after a day or two, and resumed their "living" as before. binovitch, despite his neurasthenia, was the life of the party. he was also a special patient of dr. plitzinger, the famous psychiatrist, who took a peculiar interest in his case. it was not surprising. binovitch was a man of unusual ability and of genuine, deep culture. but there was something more about him that stimulated curiosity. there was this striking originality. he said and did surprising things. "i could fly if i wanted to," he said once when the airmen came to astonish the natives with their biplanes over the desert, "but without all that machinery and noise. it's only a question of believing and understanding----" "show us!" they cried. "let's see you fly!" "he's got it! he's off again! one of his impossible moments." these occasions when binovitch let himself go always proved wildly entertaining. he said monstrously incredible things as though he really did believe them. they loved his madness, for it gave them new sensations. "it's only levitation, after all, this flying," he exclaimed, shooting out his tongue between the words, as his habit was when excited; "and what is levitation but a power of the air? none of you can hang an orange in space for a second, with all your scientific knowledge; but the moon is always levitated perfectly. and the stars. d'you think they swing on wires? what raised the enormous stones of ancient egypt? d'you really believe it was heaped-up sand and ropes and clumsy leverage and all our weary and laborious mechanical contrivances? bah! it was levitation. it was the powers of the air. believe in those powers, and gravity becomes a mere nursery trick--true where it is, but true nowhere else. to know the fourth dimension is to step out of a locked room and appear instantly on the roof or in another country altogether. to know the powers of the air, similarly, is to annihilate what you call weight--and fly." "show us, show us!" they cried, roaring with delighted laughter. "it's a question of belief," he repeated, his tongue appearing and disappearing like a pointed shadow. "it's in the heart; the power of the air gets into your whole being. why should i show you? why should i ask my deity to persuade your scoffing little minds by any miracle? for it is deity, i tell you, and nothing else. i _know_ it. follow one idea like that, as i follow my bird idea--follow it with the impetus and undeviating concentration of a projectile--and you arrive at power. you know deity--the bird idea of deity, that is. _they_ knew that. the old egyptians knew it." "oh, show us, show us!" they shouted impatiently, wearied of his nonsense-talk. "get up and fly! levitate yourself, as they did! become a star!" binovitch turned suddenly very pale, and an odd light shone in his keen brown eyes. he rose slowly from the edge of the chair where he was perched. something about him changed. there was silence instantly. "i _will_ show you," he said calmly, to their intense amazement; "not to convince your disbelief, but to prove it to myself. for the powers of the air are with me here. i believe. and horus, great falcon-headed symbol, is my patron god." the suppressed energy in his voice and manner was indescribable. there was a sense of lifting, upheaving power about him. he raised his arms; his face turned upward; he inflated his lungs with a deep, long breath, and his voice broke into a kind of singing cry, half prayer, half chant: "o horus, bright-eyed deity of wind, [ ]feather my soul though earth's thick air, to know thy awful swiftness----" [ ] the russian is untranslatable. the phrase means, "give my life wings." he broke off suddenly. he climbed lightly and swiftly upon the nearest table--it was in a deserted card-room, after a game in which he had lost more pounds than there are days in the year--and leaped into the air. he hovered a second, spread his arms and legs in space, appeared to float a moment, then buckled, rushed down and forward, and dropped in a heap upon the floor, while every one roared with laughter. but the laughter died out quickly, for there was something in his wild performance that was peculiar and unusual. it was uncanny, not quite natural. his body had seemed, as with mordkin and nijinski, literally to hang upon the air a moment. for a second he gave the distressing impression of overcoming gravity. there was a touch in it of that faint horror which appals by its very vagueness. he picked himself up unhurt, and his face was as grave as a portrait in the academy, but with a new expression in it that everybody noticed with this strange, half-shocked amazement. and it was this expression that extinguished the claps of laughter as wind that takes away the sound of bells. like many ugly men, he was an inimitable actor, and his facial repertory was endless and incredible. but this was neither acting nor clever manipulation of expressive features. there was something in his curious russian physiognomy that made the heart beat slower. and that was why the laughter died away so suddenly. "you ought to have flown farther," cried some one. it expressed what all had felt. "icarus didn't drink champagne," another replied, with a laugh; but nobody laughed with him. "you went too near to vera," said palazov, "and passion melted the wax." but his face twitched oddly as he said it. there was something he did not understand, and so heartily disliked. the strange expression on the features deepened. it was arresting in a disagreeable, almost in a horrible, way. the talk stopped dead; all stared; there was a feeling of dismay in everybody's heart, yet unexplained. some lowered their eyes, or else looked stupidly elsewhere; but the women of the party felt a kind of fascination. vera, in particular, could not move her sight away. the joking reference to his passionate admiration for her passed unnoticed. there was a general and individual sense of shock. and a chorus of whispers rose instantly: "look at binovitch! what's happened to his face?" "he's changed--he's changing!" "god! why he looks like a--bird!" but no one laughed. instead, they chose the names of birds--hawk, eagle, even owl. the figure of a man leaning against the edge of the door, watching them closely, they did not notice. he had been passing down the corridor, had looked in unobserved, and then had paused. he had seen the whole performance. he watched binovitch narrowly, now with calm, discerning eyes. it was dr plitzinger, the great psychiatrist. for binovitch had picked himself up from the floor in a way that was oddly self-possessed, and precluded the least possibility of the ludicrous. he looked neither foolish nor abashed. he looked surprised, but also he looked half angry and half frightened. as some one had said, he "ought to have flown farther." that was the incredible impression his acrobatics had produced--incredible, yet somehow actual. this uncanny idea prevailed, as at a séance where nothing genuine is expected to happen, and something genuine, after all, does happen. there was no pretence in this: binovitch had flown. and now he stood there, white in the face--with terror and with anger white. he looked extraordinary, this little, neurasthenic russian, but he looked at the same time half terrific. another thing, not commonly experienced by men, was in him, breaking out of him, affecting _directly_ the minds of his companions. his mouth opened; blood and fury shone in his blazing eyes; his tongue shot out like an ant-eater's, though even in that the comic had no place. his arms were spread like flapping wings, and his voice rose dreadfully: "he failed me, he failed me!" he tried to bellow. "horus, my falcon-headed deity, my power of the air, deserted me! hell take him! hell burn his wings and blast his piercing sight! hell scorch him into dust for his false prophecies! i curse him--i curse horus!" the voice that should have roared across the silent room emitted, instead, this high-pitched, bird-like scream. the added touch of sound, the reality it lent, was ghastly. yet it was marvellously done and acted. the entire thing was a bit of instantaneous inspiration--his voice, his words, his gestures, his whole wild appearance. only--here was the reality that caused the sense of shock--the expression on his altered features was genuine. _that_ was not assumed. there was something new and alien in him, something cold and difficult to human life, something alert and swift and cruel, of another element than earth. a strange, rapacious grandeur had leaped upon the struggling features. the face looked hawk-like. and he came forward suddenly and sharply toward vera, whose fixed, staring eyes had never once ceased watching him with a kind of anxious and devouring pain in them. she was both drawn and beaten back. binovitch advanced on tiptoe. no doubt he still was acting, still pretending this mad nonsense that he worshipped horus, the falcon-headed deity of forgotten days, and that horus had failed him in his hour of need; but somehow there was just a hint of too much reality in the way he moved and looked. the girl, a little creature, with fluffy golden hair, opened her lips; her cigarette fell to the floor; she shrank back; she looked for a moment like some smaller, coloured bird trying to escape from a great pursuing hawk; she screamed. binovitch, his arms wide, his bird-like face thrust forward, had swooped upon her. he leaped. almost he caught her. no one could say exactly what happened. play, become suddenly and unexpectedly too real, confuses the emotions. the change of key was swift. from fun to terror is a dislocating jolt upon the mind. some one--it was khilkoff, the brother--upset a chair; everybody spoke at once; everybody stood up. an unaccountable feeling of disaster was in the air, as with those drinkers' quarrels that blaze out from nothing, and end in a pistol-shot and death, no one able to explain clearly how it came about. it was the silent, watching figure in the doorway who saved the situation. before any one had noticed his approach, there he was among the group, laughing, talking, applauding--between binovitch and vera. he was vigorously patting his patient on the back, and his voice rose easily above the general clamour. he was a strong, quiet personality; even in his laughter there was authority. and his laughter now was the only sound in the room, as though by his mere presence peace and harmony were restored. confidence came with him. the noise subsided; vera was in her chair again. khilkoff poured out a glass of wine for the great man. "the czar!" said plitzinger, sipping his champagne, while all stood up, delighted with his compliment and tact. "and to your opening night with the russian ballet," he added quickly a second toast, "or to your first performance at the moscow théâtre des arts!" smiling significantly, he glanced at binovitch; he clinked glasses with him. their arms were already linked, but it was palazov who noticed that the doctor's fingers seemed rather tight upon the creased black coat. all drank, looking with laughter, yet with a touch of respect, toward binovitch, who stood there dwarfed beside the stalwart austrian, and suddenly as meek and subdued as any mole. apparently the abrupt change of key had taken his mind successfully off something else. "of course--'the fire-bird,'" exclaimed the little man, mentioning the famous russian ballet. "the very thing!" he exclaimed. "for _us_," he added, looking with devouring eyes at vera. he was greatly pleased. he began talking vociferously about dancing and the rationale of dancing. they told him he was an undiscovered master. he was delighted. he winked at vera and touched her glass again with his. "we'll make our début together," he cried. "we'll begin at covent garden, in london. i'll design the dresses and the posters 'the hawk and the dove!' _magnifique!_ i in dark grey, and you in blue and gold! ah, dancing, you know, is sacred. the little self is lost, absorbed. it is ecstasy, it is divine. and dancing in air--the passion of the birds and stars--ah! they are the movements of the gods. you know deity that way--by living it." he went on and on. his entire being had shifted with a leap upon this new subject. the idea of realising divinity by dancing it absorbed him. the party discussed it with him as though nothing else existed in the world, all sitting now and talking eagerly together. vera took the cigarette he offered her, lighting it from his own; their fingers touched; he was as harmless and normal as a retired diplomat in a drawing-room. but it was plitzinger whose subtle manoeuvring had accomplished the change so cleverly, and it was plitzinger who presently suggested a game of billiards, and led him off, full now of a fresh enthusiasm for cannons, balls, and pockets, into another room. they departed arm in arm, laughing and talking together. their departure, it seemed, made no great difference at first. vera's eyes watched him out of sight, then turned to listen to baron minski, who was describing with gusto how he caught wolves alive for coursing purposes. the speed and power of the wolf, he said, was impossible to realise; the force of their awful leap, the strength of their teeth, which could bite through metal stirrup-fastenings. he showed a scar on his arm and another on his lip. he was telling truth, and everybody listened with deep interest. the narrative lasted perhaps ten minutes or more, when minski abruptly stopped. he had come to an end; he looked about him; he saw his glass, and emptied it. there was a general pause. another subject did not at once present itself. sighs were heard; several fidgeted; fresh cigarettes were lighted. but there was no sign of boredom, for where one or two russians are gathered together there is always life. they produce gaiety and enthusiasm as wind produces waves. like great children, they plunge whole-heartedly into whatever interest presents itself at the moment. there is a kind of uncouth gambolling in their way of taking life. it seems as if they are always fighting that deep, underlying, national sadness which creeps into their very blood. "midnight!" then exclaimed palazov, abruptly, looking at his watch; and the others fell instantly to talking about that watch, admiring it and asking questions. for the moment that very ordinary timepiece became the centre of observation. palazov mentioned the price. "it never stops," he said proudly, "not even under water." he looked up at everybody, challenging admiration. and he told how, at a country house, he made a bet that he would swim to a certain island in the lake, and won the bet. he and a girl were the winners, but as it was a horse they had bet, he got nothing out of it for himself, giving the horse to her. it was a genuine grievance in him. one felt he could have cried as he spoke of it. "but the watch went all the time," he said delightedly, holding the gun-metal object in his hand to show, "and i was twelve minutes in the water with my clothes on." yet this fragmentary talk was nothing but pretence. the sound of clicking billiard-balls was audible from the room at the end of the corridor. there was another pause. the pause, however, was intentional. it was not vacuity of mind or absence of ideas that caused it. there was another subject, an unfinished subject that each member of the group was still considering. only no one cared to begin about it till at last, unable to resist the strain any longer, palazov turned to khilkoff, who was saying he would take a "whisky-soda," as the champagne was too sweet, and whispered something beneath his breath; whereupon khilkoff, forgetting his drink, glanced at his sister, shrugged his shoulders, and made a curious grimace. "he's all right now"--his reply was just audible--"he's with plitzinger." he cocked his head sidewise to indicate that the clicking of the billiard-balls still was going on. the subject was out: all turned their heads; voices hummed and buzzed; questions were asked and answered or half answered; eyebrows were raised, shoulders shrugged, hands spread out expressively. there came into the atmosphere a feeling of presentiment, of mystery, of things half understood; primitive, buried instinct stirred a little, the kind of racial dread of vague emotions that might gain the upper hand if encouraged. they shrank from looking something in the face, while yet this unwelcome influence drew closer round them all. they discussed binovitch and his astonishing performance. pretty little vera listened with large and troubled eyes, though saying nothing. the arab waiter had put out the lights in the corridor, and only a solitary cluster burned now above their heads, leaving their faces in shadow. in the distance the clicking of the billiard-balls still continued. "it was not play; it was real," exclaimed minski vehemently. "i can catch wolves," he blurted; "but birds--ugh!--and human birds!" he was half inarticulate. he had witnessed something he could not understand, and it had touched instinctive terror in him. "it was the way he leaped that put the wolf first into my mind, only it was not a wolf at all." the others agreed and disagreed. "it was play at first, but it was reality at the end," another whispered; "and it was no animal he mimicked, but a bird, and a bird of prey at that!" vera thrilled. in the russian woman hides that touch of savagery which loves to be caught, mastered, swept helplessly away, captured utterly and deliciously by the one strong enough to do it thoroughly. she left her chair and sat down beside an older woman in the party, who took her arm quietly at once. her little face wore a perplexed expression, mournful, yet somehow wild. it was clear that binovitch was not indifferent to her. "it's become an _idée fixe_ with him," this older woman said. "the bird idea lives in his mind. he lives it in his imagination. ever since that time at edfu, when he pretended to worship the great stone falcons outside the temple--the horus figures--he's been full of it." she stopped. the way binovitch had behaved at edfu was better left unmentioned at the moment, perhaps. a slight shiver ran round the listening group, each one waiting for some one else to focus their emotion, and so explain it by saying the convincing thing. only no one ventured. then vera abruptly gave a little jump. "hark!" she exclaimed, in a staccato whisper, speaking for the first time. she sat bolt upright. she was listening. "hark!" she repeated. "there it is again, but nearer than before. it's coming closer. i hear it." she trembled. her voice, her manner, above all her great staring eyes, startled everybody. no one spoke for several seconds; all listened. the clicking of the billiard-balls had ceased. the halls and corridors lay in darkness, and gloom was over the big hotel. everybody was in bed. "hear what?" asked the older woman soothingly, yet with a perceptible quaver in her voice, too. she was aware that the girl's arm shook upon her own. "do you not hear it, too?" the girl whispered. all listened without speaking. all watched her paling face. something wonderful, yet half terrible, seemed in the air about them. there was a dull murmur, audible, faint, remote, its direction hard to tell. it had come suddenly from nowhere. they shivered. that strange racial thrill again passed into the group, unwelcome, unexplained. it was aboriginal; it belonged to the unconscious primitive mind, half childish, half terrifying. "_what_ do you hear?" her brother asked angrily--the irritable anger of nervous fear. "when he came at me," she answered very low, "i heard it first. i hear it now again. listen! he's coming." and at that minute, out of the dark mouth of the corridor, emerged two human figures, plitzinger and binovitch. their game was over: they were going up to bed. they passed the open door of the card-room. but binovitch was being half dragged, half restrained, for he was apparently attempting to run down the passage with flying, dancing leaps. he bounded. it was like a huge bird trying to rise for flight, while his companion kept him down by force upon the earth. as they entered the strip of light, plitzinger changed his own position, placing himself swiftly between his companion and the group in the dark corner of the room. he hurried binovitch along as though he sheltered him from view. they passed into the shadows down the passage. they disappeared. and every one looked significantly, questioningly, at his neighbour, though at first saying no word. it seemed that a curious disturbance of the air had followed them audibly. vera was the first to open her lips. "you heard it _then_," she said breathlessly, her face whiter than the ceiling. "damn!" exclaimed her brother furiously. "it was wind against the outside walls--wind in the desert. the sand is driving." vera looked at him. she shrank closer against the side of the older woman, whose arm was tight about her. "it was _not_ wind," she whispered simply. she paused. all waited uneasily for the completion of her sentence. they stared into her face like peasants who expected a miracle. "wings," she whispered. "it was the sound of enormous wings." * * * * * and at four o'clock in the morning, when they all returned exhausted from their excursion into the desert, little binovitch was sleeping soundly and peacefully in his bed. they passed his door on tiptoe. but he did not hear them. he was dreaming. his spirit was at edfu, experiencing with that ancient deity who was master of all flying life those strange enjoyments upon which his own troubled human heart was passionately set. safe with that mighty falcon whose powers his lips had scorned a few hours before, his soul, released in vivid dream, went sweetly flying. it was amazing, it was gorgeous. he skimmed the nile at lightning speed. dashing down headlong from the height of the great pyramid, he chased with faultless accuracy a little dove that sought vainly to hide from his terrific pursuit beneath the palm trees. for what he loved must worship where he worshipped, and the majesty of those tremendous effigies had fired his imagination to the creative point where expression was imperative. then suddenly, at the very moment of delicious capture, the dream turned horrible, becoming awful with the nightmare touch. the sky lost all its blue and sunshine. far, far below him the little dove enticed him into nameless depths, so that he flew faster and faster, yet never fast enough to overtake it. behind him came a great thing down the air, black, hovering, with gigantic wings outstretched. it had terrific eyes, and the beating of its feathers stole his wind away. it followed him, crowding space. he was aware of a colossal beak, curved like a scimitar and pointed wickedly like a tooth of iron. he dropped. he faltered. he tried to scream. through empty space he fell, caught by the neck. the huge spectral falcon was upon him. the talons were in his heart. and in sleep he remembered then that he had cursed. he recalled his reckless language. the curse of the ignorant is meaningless; that of the worshipper is real. this attack was on his soul. he had invoked it. he realised next, with a touch of ghastly horror, that the dove he chased was, after all, the bait that had lured him purposely to destruction, and awoke with a suffocating terror upon him, and his entire body bathed in icy perspiration. outside the open window he heard a sound of wings retreating with powerful strokes into the surrounding darkness of the sky. the nightmare made its impression upon binovitch's impressionable and dramatic temperament. it aggravated his tendencies. he related it next day to mme. de drühn, the friend of vera, telling it with that somewhat boisterous laughter some minds use to disguise less kind emotions. but he received no encouragement. the mood of the previous night was not recoverable; it was already ancient history. russians never make the banal mistake of repeating a sensation till it is exhausted; they hurry on to novelties. life flashes and rushes with them, never standing still for exposure before the cameras of their minds. mme. de drühn, however, took the trouble to mention the matter to plitzinger, for plitzinger, like freud of vienna, held that dreams revealed subconscious tendencies which sooner or later must betray themselves in action. "thank you for telling me," he smiled politely, "but i have already heard it from him." he watched her eyes for a moment, really examining her soul. "binovitch, you see," he continued, apparently satisfied with what he saw, "i regard as that rare phenomenon--a genius without an outlet. his spirit, intensely creative, finds no adequate expression. his power of production is enormous and prolific; yet he accomplishes nothing." he paused an instant. "binovitch, therefore, is in danger of poisoning--himself." he looked steadily into her face, as a man who weighs how much he may confide. "now," he continued, "_if_ we can find an outlet for him, a field wherein his bursting imaginative genius can produce results--above all, _visible_ results"--he shrugged his shoulders--"the man is saved. otherwise"--he looked extraordinarily impressive--"there is bound to be sooner or later----" "madness?" she asked very quietly. "an explosion, let us say," he replied gravely. "for instance, take this horus obsession of his, quite wrong archæologically though it is. _au fond_ it is megalomania of a most unusual kind. his passionate interest, his love, his worship of birds, wholesome enough in itself, finds no satisfying outlet. a man who _really_ loves birds neither keeps them in cages nor shoots them nor stuffs them. what, then, can he do? the commonplace bird-lover observes them through glasses, studies their habits, then writes a book about them. but a man like binovitch, overflowing with this intense creative power of mind and imagination, is not content with that. he wants to know them from within. he wants to feel what they feel, to live their life. he wants to _become_ them. you follow me? not quite. well, he seeks to be identified with the object of his sacred, passionate adoration. all genius seeks to know the thing itself from its own point of view. it desires union. that tendency, unrecognised by himself, perhaps, and therefore subconscious, hides in his very soul." he paused a moment. "and the sudden sight of those majestic figures at edfu--that crystallisation of his _idée fixe_ in granite--took hold of this excess in him, so to speak--and is now focusing it toward some definite act. binovitch sometimes--feels himself a bird! you noticed what occurred last night?" she nodded; a slight shiver passed over her. "a most curious performance," she murmured; "an exhibition i never want to see again." "the most curious part," replied the doctor coolly, "was its truth." "its truth!" she exclaimed beneath her breath. she was frightened by something in his voice and by the uncommon gravity in his eyes. it seemed to arrest her intelligence. she felt upon the edge of things beyond her. "you mean that binovitch did for a moment--hang--in the air?" the other verb, the right one, she could not bring herself to use. the great man's face was enigmatical. he talked to her sympathy, perhaps, rather than to her mind. "real genius," he said smilingly, "is as rare as talent, even great talent, is common. it means that the personality, if only for one second, becomes everything; becomes the universe; becomes the soul of the world. it gets the flash. it is identified with the universal life. being everything and everywhere, all is possible to it--in that second of vivid realisation. it can brood with the crystal, grow with the plant, leap with the animal, fly with the bird: genius unifies all three. that is the meaning of 'creative.' it is faith. knowing it, you can pass through fire and not be burned, walk on water and not sink, move a mountain, fly. because you _are_ fire, water, earth, air. genius, you see, is madness in the magnificent sense of being superhuman. binovitch has it." he broke off abruptly, seeing he was not understood. some great enthusiasm in him he deliberately suppressed. "the point is," he resumed, speaking more carefully, "that we must try to lead this passionate constructive genius of the man into some human channel that will absorb it, and therefore render it harmless." "he loves vera," the woman said, bewildered, yet seizing this point correctly. "but would he marry her?" asked plitzinger at once. "he is already married." the doctor looked steadily at her a moment, hesitating whether he should utter all his thought. "in that case," he said slowly after a pause, "it is better he or she should leave." his tone and manner were exceedingly impressive. "you mean there's danger?" she asked. "i mean, rather," he replied earnestly, "that this great creative flood in him, so curiously focused now upon his horus-falcon-bird idea, may result in some act of violence----" "which would be madness," she said, looking hard at him. "which would be disastrous," he corrected her. and then he added slowly: "because in the mental moment of immense creation he might overlook material laws." * * * * * the costume ball two nights later was a great success. palazov was a bedouin, and khilkoff an apache; mme. de drühn wore a national head-dress; minski looked almost natural as don quixote; and the entire russian "set" was cleverly, if somewhat extravagantly, dressed. but binovitch and vera were the most successful of all the two hundred dancers who took part. another figure, a big man dressed as a pierrot, also claimed exceptional attention, for though the costume was commonplace enough, there was something of dignity in his appearance that drew the eyes of all upon him. but he wore a mask, and his identity was not discoverable. it was binovitch and vera, however, who must have won the prize, if prize there had been, for they not only looked their parts, but acted them as well. the former in his dark grey feather tunic, and his falcon mask, complete even to the brown hooked beak and tufted talons, looked fierce and splendid. the disguise was so admirable, yet so entirely natural, that it was uncommonly seductive. vera, in blue and gold, a charming head-dress of a dove upon her loosened hair, and a pair of little dove-pale wings fluttering from her shoulders, her tiny twinkling feet and slender ankles well visible, too, was equally successful and admired. her large and timid eyes, her flitting movements, her light and dainty way of dancing--all added touches that made the picture perfect. how binovitch contrived his dress remained a mystery, for the layers of wings upon his back were real; the large black kites that haunt the nile, soaring in their hundreds over cairo and the bleak mokattam hills, had furnished them. he had procured them none knew how. they measured four feet across from tip to tip; they swished and rustled as he swept along; they were true falcons' wings. he danced with nautch-girls and egyptian princesses and rumanian gipsies; he danced well, with beauty, grace, and lightness. but with vera he did not dance at all; with her he simply flew. a kind of passionate abandon was in him as he skimmed the floor with her in a way that made everybody turn to watch them. they seemed to leave the ground together. it was delightful, an amazing sight; but it was peculiar. the strangeness of it was on many lips. somehow its queer extravagance communicated itself to the entire ball-room. they became the centre of observation. there were whispers. "there's that extraordinary bird-man! look! he goes by like a hawk. and he's always after that dove-girl. how marvellously he does it! it's rather awful. who is he? i don't envy _her_." people stood aside when he rushed past. they got out of his way. he seemed forever pursuing vera, even when dancing with another partner. word passed from mouth to mouth. a kind of telepathic interest was established everywhere. it was a shade too real sometimes, something unduly earnest in the chasing wildness, something unpleasant. there was even alarm. "it's rowdy; i'd rather not see it; it's quite disgraceful," was heard. "_i_ think it's horrible; you can see she's terrified." and once there was a little scene, trivial enough, yet betraying this reality that many noticed and disliked. binovitch came up to claim a dance, programme clutched in his great tufted claws, and at the same moment the big pierrot appeared abruptly round the corner with a similar claim. those who saw it assert he had been waiting, and came on purpose, and that there was something protective and authoritative in his bearing. the misunderstanding was ordinary enough--both men had written her name against the dance--but "no. , tango" also included the supper interval, and neither hawk nor pierrot would give way. they were very obstinate. both men wanted her. it was awkward. "the dove shall decide between us," smiled the hawk politely, yet his taloned fingers working nervously. pierrot, however, more experienced in the ways of dealing with women, or more bold, said suavely: "i am ready to abide by her decision"--his voice poorly cloaked this aggravating authority, as though he had the right to her--"only i engaged this dance before his majesty horus appeared upon the scene at all, and therefore it is clear that pierrot has the right of way." at once, with a masterful air, he took her off. there was no withstanding him. he meant to have her and he got her. she yielded meekly. they vanished among the maze of coloured dancers, leaving the hawk, disconsolate and vanquished, amid the titters of the onlookers. his swiftness, as against this steady power, was of no avail. it was then that the singular phenomenon was witnessed first. those who saw it affirm that he changed absolutely into the part he played. it was dreadful; it was wicked. a frightened whisper ran about the rooms and corridors: "an extraordinary thing is in the air!" some shrank away, while others flocked to see. there were those who swore that a curious, rushing sound was audible, the atmosphere visibly disturbed and shaken; that a shadow fell upon the spot the couple had vacated; that a cry was heard, a high, wild, searching cry: "horus! bright deity of wind," it began, then died away. one man was positive that the windows had been opened and that something had flown in. it was the obvious explanation. the thing spread horribly. as in a fire-panic, there was consternation and excitement. confusion caught the feet of all the dancers. the music fumbled and lost time. the leading pair of tango dancers halted and looked round. it seemed that everybody pressed back, hiding, shuffling, eager to see, yet more eager not to be seen, as though something dangerous, hostile, terrible, had broken loose. in rows against the wall they stood. for a great space had made itself in the middle of the ball-room, and into this empty space appeared suddenly the pierrot and the dove. it was like a challenge. a sound of applause, half voices, half clapping of gloved hands, was heard. the couple danced exquisitely into the arena. all stared. there was an impression that a set piece had been prepared, and that this was its beginning. the music again took heart. pierrot was strong and dignified, no whit nonplussed by this abrupt publicity. the dove, though faltering, was deliciously obedient. they danced together like a single outline. she was captured utterly. and to the man who needed her the sight was naturally agonizing--the protective way the pierrot held her, the right and strength of it, the mastery, the complete possession. "he's got her!" some one breathed too loud, uttering the thought of all. "good thing it's not the hawk!" and, to the absolute amazement of the throng, this sight was then apparent. a figure dropped through space. that high, shrill cry again was heard: "feather my soul ... to know thy awful swiftness!" its singing loveliness touched the heart, its appealing, passionate sweetness was marvellous, as from the gallery this figure of a man, dressed as a strong, dark bird, shot down with splendid grace and ease. the feathers swept; the swings spread out as sails that take the wind. like a hawk that darts with unerring power and aim upon its prey, this thing of mighty wings rushed down into the empty space where the two danced. observed by all, he entered, swooping beautifully, stretching his wings like any eagle. he dropped. he fixed his point of landing with consummate skill close beside the astonished dancers. he landed. it happened with such swiftness it brought the dazzle and blindness as when lightning strikes. people in different parts of the room saw different details; a few saw nothing at all after the first startling shock, closing their eyes, or holding their arms before their faces as in self-protection. the touch of panic fear caught the entire room. the nameless thing that all the evening had been vaguely felt was come. it had suddenly materialised. for this incredible thing occurred in the full blaze of light upon the open floor. binovitch, grown in some sense formidable, opened his dark, big wings about the girl. the long grey feathers moved, causing powerful draughts of wind that made a rushing sound. an aspect of the terrible was about him, like an emanation. the great beaked head was poised to strike, the tufted claws were raised like fingers that shut and opened, and the whole presentment of his amazing figure focused in an attitude of attack that was magnificent and terrible. no one who saw it doubted. yet there were those who swore that it was not binovitch at all, but that another outline, monstrous and shadowy, towered above him, draping his lesser proportions with two colossal wings of darkness. that some touch of strange divinity lay in it may be claimed, however confused the wild descriptions afterward. for many lowered their heads and bowed their shoulders. there was terror. there was also awe. the onlookers swayed as though some power passed over them through the air. a sound of wings was certainly in the room. then some one screamed; a shriek broke high and clear; and emotion, ordinary human emotion, unaccustomed to terrific things, swept loose. the hawk and vera flew. beaten back against the wall as by a stroke of whirlwind, the pierrot staggered. he watched them go. out of the lighted room they flew, out of the crowded human atmosphere, out of the heat and artificial light, the walled-in, airless halls that were a cage. all this they left behind. they seemed things of wind and air, made free happily of another element. earth held them not. toward the open night they raced with this extraordinary lightness as of birds, down the long corridor and on to the southern terrace, where great coloured curtains were hung suspended from the columns. a moment they were visible. then the fringe of one huge curtain, lifted by the wind, showed their dark outline for a second against the starry sky. there was a cry, a leap. the curtain flapped again and closed. they vanished. and into the ball-room swept the cold draught of night air from the desert. but three figures instantly were close upon their heels. the throng of half-dazed, half-stupefied onlookers, it seemed, projected them as though by some explosive force. the general mass held back, but, like projectiles, these three flung themselves after the fugitives down the corridor at high speed--the apache, don quixote, and, last of them, the pierrot. for khilkoff, the brother, and baron minski, the man who caught wolves alive, had been for some time keenly on the watch, while dr. plitzinger, reading the symptoms clearly, never far away, had been faithfully observant of every movement. his mask tossed aside, the great psychiatrist was now recognised by all. they reached the parapet just as the curtain flapped back heavily into place; the next second all three were out of sight behind it. khilkoff was first, however, urged forward at frantic speed by the warning words the doctor had whispered as they ran. some thirty yards beyond the terrace was the brink of the crumbling cliff on which the great hotel was built, and there was a drop of sixty feet to the desert floor below. only a low stone wall marked the edge. accounts varied. khilkoff, it seems, arrived in time--in the nick of time--to seize his sister, virtually hovering on the brink. he heard the loose stones strike the sand below. there was no struggle, though it appears she did not thank him for his interference at first. in a sense she was beside--outside--herself. and he did a characteristic thing: he not only brought her back into the ball-room, but he _danced_ her back. it was admirable. nothing could have calmed the general excitement better. the pair of them danced in together as though nothing was amiss. accustomed to the strenuous practice of his cossack regiment, this young cavalry officer's muscles were equal to the semi-dead weight in his arms. at most the onlookers thought her tired, perhaps. confidence was restored--such is the psychology of a crowd--and in the middle of a thrilling viennese waltz he easily smuggled her out of the room, administered brandy, and got her up to bed. the absence of the hawk, meanwhile, was hardly noticed; comments were made and then forgotten; it was vera in whom the strange, anxious sympathy had centred. and, with her obvious safety, the moment of primitive, childish panic passed away. don quixote, too, was presently seen dancing gaily as though nothing untoward had happened; supper intervened; the incident was over; it had melted into the general wildness of the evening's irresponsibility. the fact that pierrot did not appear again was noticed by no single person. but dr. plitzinger was otherwise engaged, his heart and mind and soul all deeply exercised. a death-certificate is not always made out quite so simply as the public thinks. that binovitch had died of suffocation in his swift descent through merely sixty feet of air was not conceivable; yet that his body lay so neatly placed upon the desert after such a fall was stranger still. it was not crumpled, it was not torn; no single bone was broken, no muscle wrenched; there was no bruise. there was no indenture in the sand. the figure lay sidewise as though in sleep, no sign of violence visible anywhere, the dark wings folded as a great bird folds them when it creeps away to die in loneliness. beneath the horus mask the face was smiling. it seemed he had floated into death upon the element he loved. and only vera had seen the enormous wings that, hovering invitingly above the dark abyss, bore him so softly into another world. plitzinger, that is, saw them, too, but he said firmly that they belonged to the big black falcons that haunt the mokattam hills and roost upon these ridges, close beside the hotel, at night. both he and vera, however, agreed on one thing: the high, sharp cry in the air above them, wild and plaintive, was certainly the black kite's cry--the note of the falcon that passionately seeks its mate. it was the pause of a second, when she stood to listen, that made her rescue possible. a moment later and she, too, would have flown to death with binovitch. iv initiation a few years ago, on a black sea steamer heading for the caucasus, i fell into conversation with an american. he mentioned that he was on his way to the baku oilfields, and i replied that i was going up into the mountains. he looked at me questioningly a moment. "your first trip?" he asked with interest. i said it was. a conversation followed; it was continued the next day, and renewed the following day, until we parted company at batoum. i don't know why he talked so freely to me in particular. normally, he was a taciturn, silent man. we had been fellow travellers from marseilles, but after constantinople we had the boat pretty much to ourselves. what struck me about him was his vehement, almost passionate, love of natural beauty--in seas and woods and sky, but above all in mountains. it was like a religion in him. his taciturn manner hid deep poetic feeling. and he told me it had not always been so with him. a kind of friendship sprang up between us. he was a new york business man--buying and selling exchange between banks--but was english born. he had gone out thirty years before, and become naturalised. his talk was exceedingly "american," slangy, and almost western. he said he had roughed it in the west for a year or two first. but what he chiefly talked about was mountains. he said it was in the mountains an unusual experience had come to him that had opened his eyes to many things, but principally to the beauty that was now everything to him, and to the--insignificance of death. he knew the caucasus well where i was going. i think that was why he was interested in me and my journey. "up there," he said, "you'll feel things--and maybe find out things you never knew before." "what kind of things?" i asked. "why, for one," he replied with emotion and enthusiasm in his voice, "that living and dying ain't either of them of much account. that if you know beauty, i mean, and beauty is in your life, you live on in it and with it for others--even when you're dead." the conversation that followed is too long to give here, but it led to his telling me the experience in his own life that had opened his eyes to the truth of what he said. "beauty is imperishable," he declared, "and if you live with it, why, you're imperishable too!" the story, as he told it verbally in his curious language, remains vividly in my memory. but he had written it down, too, he said. and he gave me the written account, with the remark that i was free to hand it on to others if i "felt that way." he called it "initiation." it runs as follows. in my own family this happened, for arthur was my nephew. and a remote alpine valley was the place. it didn't seem to me in the least suitable for such occurrences, except that it was catholic, and the "church," i understand--at least, scholars who ought to know have told me so--has subtle pagan origins incorporated unwittingly in its observations of certain saints' days, as well as in certain ceremonials. all this kind of thing is dutch to me, a form of poetry or superstition, for i am interested chiefly in the buying and selling of exchange, with an office in new york city, just off wall street, and only come to europe now occasionally for a holiday. i like to see the dear old musty cities, and go to the opera, and take a motor run through shakespeare's country or round the lakes, get in touch again with london and paris at the ritz hotels--and then back again to the greatest city on earth, where for years now i've been making a good thing out of it. repton and cambridge, long since forgotten, had their uses. they were all right enough at the time. but i'm now "on the make," with a good fat partnership, and have left all that truck behind me. my half-brother, however--he was my senior and got the cream of the family wholesale chemical works--has stuck to the trade in the old country, and is making probably as much as i am. he approved my taking the chance that offered, and is only sore now because his son, arthur, is on the stupid side. he agreed that finance suited my temperament far better than drugs and chemicals, though he warned me that all american finance was speculative and therefore dangerous. "arthur is getting on," he said in his last letter, "and will some day take the director's place you would be in now had you cared to stay. but he's a plodder, rather." that meant, i knew, that arthur was a fool. business, at any rate, was not suited to his temperament. five years ago, when i came home with a month's holiday to be used in working up connections in english banking circles, i saw the boy. he was fifteen years of age at the time, a delicate youth, with an artist's dreams in his big blue eyes, if my memory goes for anything, but with a tangle of yellow hair and features of classical beauty that would have made half the young girls of my new york set in love with him, and a choice of heiresses at his disposal when he wanted them. i have a clear recollection of my nephew then. he struck me as having grit and character, but as being wrongly placed. he had his grandfather's tastes. he ought to have been, like him, a great scholar, a poet, an editor of marvellous old writings in new editions. i couldn't get much out of the boy, except that he "liked the chemical business fairly," and meant to please his father by "knowing it thoroughly" so as to qualify later for his directorship. but i have never forgotten the evening when i caught him in the hall, staring up at his grandfather's picture, with a kind of light about his face, and the big blue eyes all rapt and tender (almost as if he had been crying) and replying, when i asked him what was up: "_that_ was worth living for. he brought beauty back into the world!" "yes," i said, "i guess that's right enough. he did. but there was no money in it to speak of." the boy looked at me and smiled. he twigged somehow or other that deep down in me, somewhere below the money-making instinct, a poet, but a dumb poet, lay in hiding. "you know what i mean," he said. "it's in you too." the picture was a copy--my father had it made--of the presentation portrait given to baliol, and "the grandfather" was celebrated in his day for the translations he made of anacreon and sappho, of homer, too, if i remember rightly, as well as for a number of classical studies and essays that he wrote. a lot of stuff like that he did, and made a name at it too. his _lives of the gods_ went into six editions. they said--the big critics of his day--that he was "a poet who wrote no poetry, yet lived it passionately in the spirit of old-world, classical beauty," and i know he was a wonderful fellow in his way and made the dons and schoolmasters all sit up. we're proud of him all right. after twenty-five years of successful "exchange" in new york city, i confess i am unable to appreciate all that, feeling more in touch with the commercial and financial spirit of the age, progress, development and the rest. but, still, i'm not ashamed of the classical old boy, who seems to have been a good deal of a pagan, judging by the records we have kept. however, arthur peering up at that picture in the dusk, his eyes half moist with emotion, and his voice gone positively shaky, is a thing i never have forgotten. he stimulated my curiosity uncommonly. it stirred something deep down in me that i hardly cared to acknowledge on wall street--something burning. and the next time i saw him was in the summer of , when i came to europe for a two months' look around--my wife at newport with the children--and hearing that he was in switzerland, learning a bit of french to help him in the business, i made a point of dropping in upon him just to see how he was shaping generally and what new kinks his mind had taken on. there was something in arthur i never could quite forget. whenever his face came into my mind i began to think. a kind of longing came over me--a desire for beauty, i guess, it was. it made me dream. i found him at an english tutor's--a lively old dog, with a fondness for the cheap native wines, and a financial interest in the tourist development of the village. the boys learnt french in the mornings, possibly, but for the rest of the day were free to amuse themselves exactly as they pleased and without a trace of supervision--provided the parents footed the bills without demur. this suited everybody all round; and as long as the boys came home with an accent and a vocabulary, all was well. for myself, having learned in new york to attend strictly to my own business--exchange between different countries with a profit--i did not deem it necessary to exchange letters and opinions with my brother--with no chance of profit anywhere. but i got to know arthur, and had a queer experience of my own into the bargain. oh, there was profit in it for me. i'm drawing big dividends to this day on the investment. i put up at the best hotel in the village, a one-horse show, differing from the other inns only in the prices charged for a lot of cheap decoration in the dining-room, and went up to surprise my nephew with a call the first thing after dinner. the tutor's house stood some way back from the narrow street, among fields where there were more flowers than grass, and backed by a forest of fine old timber that stretched up several thousand feet to the snow. the snow at least was visible, peeping out far overhead just where the dark line of forest stopped; but in reality, i suppose, that was an effect of foreshortening, and whole valleys and pastures intervened between the trees and the snow-fields. the sunset, long since out of the valley, still shone on those white ridges, where the peaks stuck up like the teeth of a gigantic saw. i guess it meant five or six hours' good climbing to get up to them--and nothing to do when you got there. switzerland, anyway, seemed a poor country, with its little bit of watch-making, sour wines, and every square yard hanging upstairs at an angle of degrees used for hay. picture postcards, chocolate and cheap tourists kept it going apparently, but i dare say it was all right enough to learn french in--and cheap as hoboken to live in! arthur was out; i just left a card and wrote on it that i would be very pleased if he cared to step down to take luncheon with me at my hotel next day. having nothing better to do, i strolled homewards by way of the forest. now what came over me in that bit of dark pine forest is more than i can quite explain, but i think it must have been due to the height--the village was , feet above sea-level--and the effect of the rarefied air upon my circulation. the nearest thing to it in my experience is rye whisky, the queer touch of wildness, of self-confidence, a kind of whooping rapture and the reckless sensation of being a tin god of sorts that comes from a lot of alcohol--a memory, please understand, of years before, when i thought it a grand thing to own the earth and paint the old town red. i seemed to walk on air, and there was a smell about those trees that made me suddenly--well, that took my mind clean out of its accustomed rut. it was just too lovely and wonderful for me to describe it. i had got well into the forest and lost my way a bit. the smell of an old-world garden wasn't in it. it smelt to me as if some one had just that minute turned out the earth all fresh and new. there was moss and tannin, a hint of burning, something between smoke and incense, say, and a fine clean odour of pitch-pine bark when the sun gets on it after rain--and a flavour of the sea thrown in for luck. that was the first i noticed, for i had never smelt anything half so good since my camping days on the coast of maine. and i stood still to enjoy it. i threw away my cigar for fear of mixing things and spoiling it. "if that could be bottled," i said to myself, "it'd sell for two dollars a pint in every city in the union!" and it was just then, while standing and breathing it in, that i got the queer feeling of some one watching me. i kept quite still. some one was moving near me. the sweat went trickling down my back. a kind of childhood thrill got hold of me. it was very dark. i was not afraid exactly, but i was a stranger in these parts and knew nothing about the habits of the mountain peasants. there might be tough customers lurking around after dark on the chance of striking some guy of a tourist with money in his pockets. yet, somehow, that wasn't the kind of feeling that came to me at all, for, though i had a pocket browning at my hip, the notion of getting at it did not even occur to me. the sensation was new--a kind of lifting, exciting sensation that made my heart swell out with exhilaration. there was happiness in it. a cloud that _weighed_ seemed to roll off my mind, same as that light-hearted mood when the office door is locked and i'm off on a two months' holiday--with gaiety and irresponsibility at the back of it. it was invigorating. i felt youth sweep over me. i stood there, wondering what on earth was coming on me, and half expecting that any moment some one would come out of the darkness and show himself; and as i held my breath and made no movement at all the queer sensation grew stronger. i believe i even resisted a temptation to kick up my heels and dance, to let out a flying shout as a man with liquor in him does. instead of this, however, i just kept dead still. the wood was black as ink all round me, too black to see the tree-trunks separately, except far below where the village lights came up twinkling between them, and the only way i kept the path was by the soft feel of the pine-needles that were thicker than a brussels carpet. but nothing happened, and no one stirred. the idea that i was being watched remained, only there was no sound anywhere except the roar of falling water that filled the entire valley. yet some one was very close to me in the darkness. i can't say how long i might have stood there, but i guess it was the best part of ten minutes, and i remember it struck me that i had run up against a pocket of extra-rarefied air that had a lot of oxygen in it--oxygen or something similar--and that was the cause of my elation. the idea was nonsense, i have no doubt; but for the moment it half explained the thing to me. i realised it was all _natural_ enough, at any rate--and so moved on. it took a longish time to reach the edge of the wood, and a footpath led me--oh, it was quite a walk, i tell you--into the village street again. i was both glad and sorry to get there. i kept myself busy thinking the whole thing over again. what caught me all of a heap was that million-dollar sense of beauty, youth, and happiness. never in my born days had i felt anything to touch it. and it hadn't cost a cent! well, i was sitting there enjoying my smoke and trying to puzzle it all out, and the hall was pretty full of people smoking and talking and reading papers, and so forth, when all of a sudden i looked up and caught my breath with such a jerk that i actually bit my tongue. there was grandfather in front of my chair! i looked into his eyes. i saw him as clear and solid as the porter standing behind his desk across the lounge, and it gave me a touch of cold all down the back that i needn't forget unless i want to. he was looking into my face, and he had a cap in his hand, and he was speaking to me. it was my grandfather's picture come to life, only much thinner and younger and a kind of light in his eyes like fire. "i beg your pardon, but you _are_--uncle jim, aren't you?" and then, with another jump of my nerves, i understood. "you, arthur! well, i'm jiggered. so it is. take a chair, boy. i'm right glad you found me. shake! sit down." and i shook his hand and pushed a chair up for him. i was never so surprised in my life. the last time i set eyes on him he was a boy. now he was a young man, and the very image of his ancestor. he sat down, fingering his cap. he wouldn't have a drink and he wouldn't smoke. "all right," i said, "let's talk then. i've lots to tell you and i've lots to hear. how are you, boy?" he didn't answer at first. he eyed me up and down. he hesitated. he was as handsome as a young greek god. "i say, uncle jim," he began presently, "it _was_ you--just now--in the wood--wasn't it?" it made me start, that question put so quietly. "i _have_ just come through that wood up there," i answered, pointing in the direction as well as i could remember, "if that's what you mean. but why? _you_ weren't there, were you?" it gave me a queer sort of feeling to hear him say it. what in the name of heaven did he mean? he sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief. "oh, that's all right then," he said, "if it _was_ you. did you see," he asked suddenly; "did you see--anything?" "not a thing," i told him honestly. "it was far too dark." i laughed. i fancied i twigged his meaning. but i was not the sort of uncle to come prying on him. life must be dull enough, i remembered, in this mountain village. but he didn't understand my laugh. he didn't mean what i meant. and there came a pause between us. i discovered that we were talking different lingoes. i leaned over towards him. "look here, arthur," i said in a lower voice, "what is it, and what do you mean? i'm all right, you know, and you needn't be afraid of telling me. what d'you mean by--did i see anything?" we looked each other squarely in the eye. he saw he could trust me, and i saw--well, a whole lot of things, perhaps, but i felt chiefly that he liked me and would tell me things later, all in his own good time. i liked him all the better for that too. "i only meant," he answered slowly, "whether you really _saw_--anything?" "no," i said straight, "i didn't see a thing, but, by the gods, i _felt_ something." he started. i started too. an astonishing big look came swimming over his fair, handsome face. his eyes seemed all lit up. he looked as if he'd just made a cool million in wheat or cotton. "i knew--you were that sort," he whispered. "though i hardly remembered what you looked like." "then what on earth was it?" i asked. his reply staggered me a bit. "it was just that," he said--"the earth!" and then, just when things were getting interesting and promising a dividend, he shut up like a clam. he wouldn't say another word. he asked after my family and business, my health, what kind of crossing i'd had, and all the rest of the common stock. it fairly bowled me over. and i couldn't change him either. i suppose in america we get pretty free and easy, and don't quite understand reserve. but this young man of half my age kept me in my place as easily as i might have kept a nervous customer quiet in my own office. he just refused to take me on. he was polite and cool and distant as you please, and when i got pressing sometimes he simply pretended he didn't understand. i could no more get him back again to the subject of the wood than a customer could have gotten me to tell him about the prospects of exchange being cheap or dear--when i didn't know myself but wouldn't let him see i didn't know. he was charming, he was delightful, enthusiastic and even affectionate; downright glad to see me, too, and to chin with me--but i couldn't draw him worth a cent. and in the end i gave up trying. and the moment i gave up trying he let down a little--but only a very little. "you'll stay here some time, uncle jim, won't you?" "that's my idea," i said, "if i can see you, and you can show me round some." he laughed with pleasure. "oh, rather. i've got lots of time. after three in the afternoon i'm free till--any time you like. there's a lot to see," he added. "come along to-morrow then," i said. "if you can't take lunch, perhaps you can come just afterwards. you'll find me waiting for you--right here." "i'll come at three," he replied, and we said good-night. he turned up sharp at three, and i liked his punctuality. i saw him come swinging down the dusty road; tall, deep-chested, his broad shoulders a trifle high, and his head set proudly. he looked like a young chap in training, a thoroughbred, every inch of him. at the same time there was a touch of something a little too refined and delicate for a man, i thought. that was the poetic, scholarly vein in him, i guess--grandfather cropping out. this time he wore no cap. his thick light hair, not brushed back like the london shop-boys, but parted on the side, yet untidy for all that, suited him exactly and gave him a touch of wildness. "well," he asked, "what would you like to do, uncle jim? i'm at your service, and i've got the whole afternoon till supper at seven-thirty." i told him i'd like to go through that wood. "all right," he said, "come along. i'll show you." he gave me one quick glance, but said no more. "i'd like to see if i feel anything this time," i explained. "we'll locate the very spot, maybe." he nodded. "you know where i mean, don't you?" i asked, "because you saw me there?" he just said yes, and then we started. it was hot, and air was scarce. i remember that we went uphill, and that i realised there was considerable difference in our ages. we crossed some fields first--smothered in flowers so thick that i wondered how much grass the cows got out of it!--and then came to a sprinkling of fine young larches that looked as soft as velvet. there was no path, just a wild mountain side. i had very little breath on the steep zigzags, but arthur talked easily--and talked mighty well, too: the light and shade, the colouring, and the effect of all this wilderness of lonely beauty on the mind. he kept all this suppressed at home in business. it was safety valves. i twigged _that_. it was the artist in him talking. he seemed to think there was nothing in the world but beauty--with a big b all the time. and the odd thing was he took for granted that i felt the same. it was cute of him to flatter me that way. "daulis and the lone cephissian vale," i heard; and a few moments later--with a sort of reverence in his voice like worship--he called out a great singing name: "_astarte!_" "day is her face, and midnight is her hair, and morning hours are but the golden stair by which she climbs to night." it was here first that a queer change began to grow upon me too. "steady on, boy! i've forgotten all my classics ages ago," i cried. he turned and gazed down on me, his big eyes glowing, and not a sign of perspiration on his skin. "that's nothing," he exclaimed in his musical, deep voice. "you know it, or you'd never have felt things in this wood last night; and you wouldn't have wanted to come out with me _now_!" "how?" i gasped. "how's that?" "you've come," he continued quietly, "to the only valley in this artificial country that has atmosphere. this valley is _alive_--especially this end of it. there's superstition here, thank god! even the peasants know things." i stared at him. "see here, arthur," i objected. "i'm not a cath. and i don't know a thing--at least it's all dead in me and forgotten--about poetry or classics or your gods and pan--pantheism--in spite of grandfather----" his face turned like a dream face. "hush!" he said quickly. "don't mention _him_. there's a bit of him in you as well as in me, and it was here, you know, he wrote----" i didn't hear the rest of what he said. a creep came over me. i remembered that this ancestor of ours lived for years in the isolation of some swiss forest where he claimed--he used that setting for his writing--he had found the exiled gods, their ghosts, their beauty, their eternal essences--or something astonishing of that sort. i had clean forgotten it till this moment. it all rushed back upon me, a memory of my boyhood. and, as i say, a creep came over me--something as near to awe as ever could be. the sunshine on that field of yellow daisies and blue forget-me-nots turned pale. that warm valley wind had a touch of snow in it. and, ashamed and frightened of my baby mood, i looked at arthur, meaning to choke him off with all this rubbish--and then saw something in his eyes that scared me stiff. i admit it. what's the use? there was an expression on his fine big face that made my blood go curdled. i got cold feet right there. it mastered me. in him, behind him, near him--blest if i know which, _through_ him probably--came an enormous thing that turned me insignificant. it downed me utterly. it was over in a second, the flash of a wing. i recovered instantly. no mere boy should come these muzzy tricks on me, scholar or no scholar. for the change in me was on the increase, and i shrank. "see here, arthur," i said plainly once again, "i don't know what your game is, but--there's something queer up here i don't quite get at. i'm only a business man, with classics and poetry all gone dry in me twenty years ago and more----" he looked at me so strangely that i stopped, confused. "but, uncle jim," he said as quietly as though we talked tobacco brands, "you needn't be alarmed. it's natural you should feel the place. you and i belong to it. we've both got _him_ in us. you're just as proud of him as i am, only in a different way." and then he added, with a touch of disappointment: "i thought you'd like it. you weren't afraid last night. you felt the beauty _then_." flattery is a darned subtle thing at any time. to see him standing over me in that superior way and talking down at my poor business mind--well, it just came over me that i was laying my cards on the table a bit too early. after so many years of city life----! anyway, i pulled myself together. "i was only kidding you, boy," i laughed. "i feel this beauty just as much as you do. only, i guess, you're more accustomed to it than i am. come on now," i added with energy, getting upon my feet, "let's push on and see the wood. i want to find that place again." he pulled me with a hand of iron, laughing as he did so. gee! i wished i had his teeth, as well as the muscles in his arm. yet i felt younger, somehow, too--youth flowed more and more into my veins. i had forgotten how sweet the winds and woods and flowers could be. something melted in me. for it was spring, and the whole world was singing like a dream. beauty was creeping over me. i don't know. i began to feel all big and tender and open to a thousand wonderful sensations. the thought of streets and houses seemed like death.... we went on again, not talking much; my breath got shorter and shorter, and he kept looking about him as though he expected something. but we passed no living soul, not even a peasant; there were no chalets, no cattle, no cattle shelters even. and then i realised that the valley lay at our feet in haze and that we had been climbing at least a couple of hours. "why, last night i got home in twenty minutes at the outside," i said. he shook his head, smiling. "it seemed like that," he replied, "but you really took much longer. it was long after ten when i found you in the hall." i reflected a moment. "now i come to think of it, you're right, arthur. seems curious, though, somehow." he looked closely at me. "i followed you all the way," he said. "you followed me!" "and you went at a good pace too. it was your feelings that made it seem so short--you were singing to yourself and happy as a dancing faun. we kept close behind you for a long way." i think it was "we" he said, but for some reason or other i didn't care to ask. "maybe," i answered shortly, trying uncomfortably to recall what particular capers i had cut. "i guess that's right." and then i added something about the loneliness, and how deserted all this slope of mountain was. and he explained that the peasants were afraid of it and called it no man's land. from one year's end to another no human foot went up or down it; the hay was never cut; no cattle grazed along the splendid pastures; no chalet had even been built within a mile of the wood we slowly made for. "they're superstitious," he told me. "it was just the same a hundred years ago when _he_ discovered it--there was a little natural cave on the edge of the forest where he used to sleep sometimes--i'll show it to you presently--but for generations this entire mountain-side has been undisturbed. you'll never meet a living soul in any part of it." he stopped and pointed above us to where the pine wood hung in mid-air, like a dim blue carpet. "it's just the place for them, you see." and a thrill of power went smashing through me. i can't describe it. it drenched me like a waterfall. i thought of greece--mount ida and a thousand songs! something in me--it was like the click of a shutter--announced that the "change" was suddenly complete. i was another man; or rather a deeper part of me took command. my very language showed it. the calm of halcyon weather lay over all. overhead the peaks rose clear as crystal; below us the village lay in a bluish smudge of smoke and haze, as though a great finger had rubbed them softly into the earth. absolute loneliness fell upon me like a clap. from the world of human beings we seemed quite shut off. and there began to steal over me again the strange elation of the night before.... we found ourselves almost at once against the edge of the wood. it rose in front of us, a big wall of splendid trees, motionless as if cut out of dark green metal, the branches hanging stiff, and the crowd of trunks lost in the blue dimness underneath. i shaded my eyes with one hand, trying to peer into the solemn gloom. the contrast between the brilliant sunshine on the pastures and this region of heavy shadows blurred my sight. "it's like the entrance to another world," i whispered. "it is," said arthur, watching me. "we will go in. you shall pluck asphodel...." and, before i knew it, he had me by the hand. we were advancing. we left the light behind us. the cool air dropped upon me like a sheet. there was a temple silence. the sun ran down behind the sky, leaving a marvellous blue radiance everywhere. nothing stirred. but through the stillness there rose power, power that has no name, power that hides at the foundations somewhere--foundations that are changeless, invisible, everlasting. what do i mean? my mind grew to the dimensions of a planet. we were among the roots of life--whence issues that _one thing_ in infinite guise that seeks so many temporary names from the protean minds of men. "you shall pluck asphodel in the meadows this side of erebus," arthur was chanting. "hermes himself, the psychopomp, shall lead, and malahide shall welcome us." malahide...! to hear him use that name, the name of our scholar-ancestor, now dead and buried close upon a century--the way he half chanted it--gave me the goose-flesh. i stopped against a tree-stem, thinking of escape. no words came to me at the moment, for i didn't know what to say; but, on turning to find the bright green slopes just left behind, i saw only a crowd of trees and shadows hanging thick as a curtain--as though we had walked a mile. and it was a shock. the way out was lost. the trees closed up behind us like a tide. "it's all right," said arthur; "just keep an open mind and a heart alive with love. it has a shattering effect at first, but that will pass." he saw i was afraid, for i shrank visibly enough. he stood beside me in his grey flannel suit, with his brilliant eyes and his great shock of hair, looking more like a column of light than a human being. "it's all quite right and natural," he repeated; "we have passed the gateway, and hecate, who presides over gateways, will let us out again. do not make discord by feeling fear. this is a pine wood, and pines are the oldest, simplest trees; they are true primitives. they are an open channel; and in a pine wood where no human life has ever been you shall often find gateways where hecate is kind to such as us." he took my hand--he must have felt mine trembling, but his own was cool and strong and felt like silver--and led me forward into the depths of a wood that seemed to me quite endless. it felt endless, that is to say. i don't know what came over me. fear slipped away, and elation took its place.... as we advanced over ground that seemed level, or slightly undulating, i saw bright pools of sunshine here and there upon the forest floor. great shafts of light dropped in slantingly between the trunks. there was movement everywhere, though i never could see what moved. a delicious, scented air stirred through the lower branches. running water sang not very far away. figures i did not actually see; yet there were limbs and flowing draperies and flying hair from time to time, ever just beyond the pools of sunlight.... surprise went from me too. i was on air. the atmosphere of dream came round me, but a dream of something just hovering outside the world i knew--a dream wrought in gold and silver, with shining eyes, with graceful beckoning hands, and with voices that rang like bells of music.... and the pools of light grew larger, merging one into another, until a delicate soft light shone equably throughout the entire forest. into this zone of light we passed together. then something fell abruptly at our feet, as though thrown down ... two marvellous, shining sprays of blossom such as i had never seen in all my days before! "asphodel!" cried my companion, stooping to pick them up and handing one to me. i took it from him with a delight i could not understand. "keep it," he murmured; "it is the sign that we are welcome. for malahide has dropped these on our path." and at the use of that ancestral name it seemed that a spirit passed before my face and the hair of my head stood up. there was a sense of violent, unhappy contrast. a composite picture presented itself, then rushed away. what was it? my youth in england, music and poetry at cambridge and my passionate love of greek that lasted two terms at most, when malahide's great books formed part of the curriculum. over against this, then, the drag and smother of solid worldly business, the sordid weight of modern ugliness, the bitterness of an ambitious, over-striving life. and abruptly--beyond both pictures--a shining, marvellous beauty that scattered stars beneath my feet and scarved the universe with gold. all this flashed before me with the utterance of that old family name. an alternative sprang up. there seemed some radical, elemental choice presented to me--to what i used to call my soul. my soul could take or leave it as it pleased.... i looked at arthur moving beside me like a shaft of light. what had come over me? how had our walk and talk and mood, our quite recent everyday and ordinary view, our normal relationship with the things of the world--how had it all slipped into this? so insensibly, so easily, so naturally! "was it worth while?" the question--_i_ didn't ask it--jumped up in me of its own accord. was "what" worth while? why, my present life of commonplace and grubbing toil, of course; my city existence, with its meagre, unremunerative ambitions. ah, it was this new beauty calling me, this shining dream that lay beyond the two pictures i have mentioned.... i did not argue it, even to myself. but i understood. there was a radical change in me. the buried poet, too long hidden, rushed into the air like some great singing bird. i glanced again at arthur moving along lightly by my side, half dancing almost in his brimming happiness. "wait till you see them," i heard him singing. "wait till you hear the call of artemis and the footsteps of her flying nymphs. wait till orion thunders overhead and selene, crowned with the crescent moon, drives up the zenith in her white-horsed chariot. the choice will be beyond all question then...!" a great silent bird, with soft brown plumage, whirred across our path, pausing an instant as though to peep, then disappearing with a muted sound into an eddy of the wind it made. the big trees hid it. it was an owl. the same moment i heard a rush of liquid song come pouring through the forest with a gush of almost human notes, and a pair of glossy wings flashed past us, swerving upwards to find the open sky--blue-black, pointed wings. "his favourites!" exclaimed my companion with clear joy in his voice. "they all are here! athene's bird, procne and philomela too! the owl--the swallow--and the nightingale! tereus and itys are not far away." and the entire forest, as he said it, stirred with movement, as though that great bird's quiet wings had waked the sea of ancient shadows. there were voices too--ringing, laughing voices, as though his words woke echoes that had been listening for it. for i heard sweet singing in the distance. the names he had used perplexed me. yet even i, stranger as i was to such refined delights, could not mistake the passion of the nightingale and the dart of the eager swallow. that wild burst of music, that curve of swift escape, were unmistakable. and i struck a stalwart tree-stem with my open hand, feeling the need of hearing, touching, sensing it. my link with known, remembered things was breaking. i craved the satisfaction of the commonplace. i got that satisfaction; but i got something more as well. for the trunk was round and smooth and comely. it was no dead thing i struck. somehow it brushed me into intercourse with inanimate nature. and next the desire came to hear my voice--my own familiar, high-pitched voice with the twang and accent the new world climate brings, so-called american: "exchange place, noo york city. i'm in that business, buying and selling of exchange between the banks of two civilised countries, one of them stoopid and old-fashioned, the other leading all creation...!" it was an effort; but i made it firmly. it sounded odd, remote, unreal. "sunlit woods and a wind among the branches", followed close and sweet upon my words. but who, in the name of wall street, said it? "england's buying gold," i tried again. "we've had a private wire. cut in quick. first national is selling!" great-faced hephæstus, how ridiculous! it was like saying, "i'll take your scalp unless you give me meat." it was barbaric, savage, centuries ago. again there came another voice that caught up my own and turned it into common syntax. some heady beauty of the earth rose about me like a cloud. "hark! night comes, with the dusk upon her eyelids. she brings those dreams that every dew-drop holds at dawn. daughter of thanatos and hypnos...!" but again--who said the words? it surely was not arthur, my nephew arthur, of to-day, learning french in a swiss mountain village! i felt--well, what did i feel? in the name of the stock exchange and wall street, what was the cash surrender of amazing feelings? and, turning to look at him, i made a discovery. i don't know how to tell it quite; such shadowy marvels have never been my line of goods. he looked several things at once--taller, slighter, sweeter, but chiefly--it sounds so crazy when i write it down--grander is the word, i think. and all spread out with some power that flowed like spring when it pours upon a landscape. eternally young and glorious--young, i mean, in the sense of a field of flowers in the spring looks young; and glorious in the sense the sky looks glorious at dawn or sunset. something big shone through him like a storm, something that would go on for ever just as the earth goes on, always renewing itself, something of gigantic life that in the human sense could never age at all--something the old gods had. but the figure, so far as there was any figure at all, was that old family picture come to life. our great ancestor and arthur were one being, and that one being was vaster than a million people. yet it was malahide i saw.... "they laid me in the earth i loved," he said in a strange, thrilling voice like running wind and water, "and i found eternal life. i live now for ever in their divine existence. i share the life that changes yet can never pass away." i felt myself rising like a cloud as he said it. a roaring beauty captured me completely. if i could tell it in honest newspaper language--the common language used in flats and offices--why, i guess i could patent a new meaning in ordinary words, a new power of expression, the thing that all the churches and poets and thinkers have been trying to say since the world began. i caught on to a fact so fine and simple that it knocked me silly to think i'd never realised it before. i had read it, yes; but now i _knew_ it. the earth, the whole bustling universe, was nothing after all but a visible production of eternal, living powers--spiritual powers, mind you--that just happened to include the particular little type of strutting creature we called mankind. and these powers, as seen in nature, were the gods. it was our refusal of their grand appeal, so wild and sweet and beautiful, that caused "evil." it was this barrier between ourselves and the rest of ... my thoughts and feelings swept away upon the rising flood as the "figure" came upon me like a shaft of moonlight, melting the last remnant of opposition that was in me. i took my brain, my reason, chucking them aside for the futile little mechanism i suddenly saw them to be. in place of them came--oh, god, i hate to say it, for only nursery talk can get within a mile of it, and yet what i need is something simpler even than the words that children use. under one arm i carried a whole forest breathing in the wind, and beneath the other a hundred meadows full of singing streams with golden marigolds and blue forget-me-nots along their banks. upon my back and shoulders lay the clouded hills with dew and moonlight in their brimmed, capacious hollows. thick in my hair hung the unaging powers that are stars and sunlight; though the sun was far away, it sweetened the currents of my blood with liquid gold. breast and throat and face, as i advanced, met all the rivers of the world and all the winds of heaven, their strength and swiftness melting into me as light melts into everything it touches. and into my eyes passed all the radiant colours that weave the cloth of nature as she takes the sun. and this "figure," pouring upon me like a burst of moonlight, spoke: "they all are in you--air, and fire, and water...." "and i--my feet stand--on the _earth_," my own voice interrupted, deep power lifting through the sound of it. "the earth!" he laughed gigantically. he spread. he seemed everywhere about me. he seemed a race of men. my life swam forth in waves of some immense sensation that issued from the mountain and the forest, then returned to them again. i reeled. i clutched at something in me that was slipping beyond control, slipping down a bank towards a deep, dark river flowing at my feet. a shadowy boat appeared, a still more shadowy outline at the helm. i was in the act of stepping into it. for the tree i caught at was only air. i couldn't stop myself. i tried to scream. "you have plucked asphodel," sang the voice beside me, "and you shall pluck more...." i slipped and slipped, the speed increasing horribly. then something caught, as though a cog held fast and stopped me. i remembered my business in new york city. "arthur!" i yelled. "arthur!" i shouted again as hard as i could shout. there was frantic terror in me. i felt as though i should never get back to myself again. death! the answer came in his normal voice: "keep close to me. i know the way...." the scenery dwindled suddenly; the trees came back. i was walking in the forest beside my nephew, and the moonlight lay in patches and little shafts of silver. the crests of the pines just murmured in a wind that scarcely stirred, and through an opening on our right i saw the deep valley clasped about the twinkling village lights. towering in splendour the spectral snowfields hung upon the sky, huge summits guarding them. and arthur took my arm--oh, solidly enough this time. thank heaven, he asked no questions of me. "there's a smell of myrrh," he whispered, "and we are very near the undying, ancient things." i said something about the resin from the trees, but he took no notice. "it enclosed its body in an egg of myrrh," he went on, smiling down at me; "then, setting it on fire, rose from the ashes with its life renewed. once every five hundred years, you see----" "what did?" i cried, feeling that loss of self stealing over me again. and his answer came like a blow between the eyes: "the phoenix. they called it a bird, but, of course, the true ..." "but my life's insured in that," i cried, for he had named the company that took large yearly premiums from me; "and i pay ..." "your life's insured in _this_," he said quietly, waving his arms to indicate the earth. "your love of nature and your sympathy with it make you safe." he gazed at me. there was a marvellous expression in his eyes. i understood why poets talked of stars and flowers in a human face. but behind the face crept back another look as well. there grew about his figure an indeterminate extension. the outline of malahide again stirred through his own. a pale, delicate hand reached out to take my own. and something broke in me. i was conscious of two things--a burst of joy that meant losing myself entirely, and a rush of terror that meant staying as i was, a small, painful, struggling item of individual life. another spray of that awful asphodel fell fluttering through the air in front of my face. it rested on the earth against my feet. and arthur--this weirdly changing arthur--stooped to pick it for me. i kicked it with my foot beyond his reach ... then turned and ran as though the furies of that ancient world were after me. i ran for my very life. how i escaped from that thick wood without banging my body to bits against the trees i can't explain. i ran from something i desired and yet feared. i leaped along in a succession of flying bounds. each tree i passed turned of its own accord and flung after me until the entire forest followed. but i got out. i reached the open. upon the sloping field in the full, clear light of the moon i collapsed in a panting heap. the earth drew back with a great shuddering sigh behind me. there was this strange, tumultuous sound upon the night. i lay beneath the open heavens that were full of moonlight. i was myself--but there were tears in me. beauty too high for understanding had slipped between my fingers. i had lost malahide. i had lost the gods of earth.... yet i had seen ... and felt. i had not lost all. something remained that i could never lose again.... i don't know how it happened exactly, but presently i heard arthur saying: "you'll catch your death of cold if you lie on that soaking grass," and felt his hand seize mine to pull me to my feet. "i feel safer on earth," i believe i answered. and then he said: "yes, but it's such a stupid way to die--a chill!" i got up then, and we went downhill together towards the village lights. i danced--oh, i admit it--i sang as well. there was a flood of joy and power about me that beat anything i'd ever felt before. i didn't think or hesitate; there was no self-consciousness; i just let it rip for all there was, and if there had been ten thousand people there in front of me, i could have made them feel it too. that was the kind of feeling--power and confidence and a sort of raging happiness. i think i know what it was too. i say this soberly, with reverence ... all wool and no fading. there was a bit of god in me, god's power that drives the earth and pours through nature--the imperishable beauty expressed in those old-world nature-deities! and the fear i'd felt was nothing but the little tickling point of losing my ordinary two-cent self, the dread of letting go, the shrinking before the plunge--what a fellow feels when he's falling in love, and hesitates, and tries to think it out and hold back, and is afraid to let the enormous tide flow in and drown him. oh, yes, i began to think it over a bit as we raced down the mountain-side that glorious night. i've read some in my day; my brain's all right; i've heard of dual personality and subliminal uprush and conversion--no new line of goods, all that. but somehow these stunts of the psychologists and philosophers didn't cut any ice with me just then, because i'd _experienced_ what they merely _explained_. and explanation was just a bargain sale. the best things can't be explained at all. there's no real value in a bargain sale. arthur had trouble to keep up with me. we were running due east, and the earth was turning, therefore, with us. we all three ran together at _her_ pace--terrific! the moonlight danced along the summits, and the snow-fields flew like spreading robes, and the forests everywhere, far and near, hung watching us and booming like a thousand organs. there were uncaged winds about; you could hear them whistling among the precipices. but the great thing that i knew was--beauty, a beauty of the common old familiar earth, and a beauty that's stayed with me ever since, and given me joy and strength and a source of power and delight i'd never guessed existed before. * * * * * as we dropped lower into the thicker air of the valley i sobered down. gradually the ecstasy passed from me. we slowed up a bit. the lights and the houses and the sight of the hotel where people were dancing in a stuffy ballroom, all this put blotting-paper on something that had been flowing. now you'll think this an odd thing too--but when we reached the village street, i just took arthur's hand and shook it and said good-night and went up to bed and slept like a two-year-old till morning. and from that day to this i've never set eyes on the boy again. perhaps it's difficult to explain, and perhaps it isn't. i can explain it to myself in two lines--i was afraid to see him. i was afraid he might "explain." i was afraid he might explain "away." i just left a note--he never replied to it--and went off by a morning train. can you understand that? because if you can't you haven't understood this account i've tried to give of the experience arthur gave me. well--anyway--i'll just let it go at that. arthur's a director now in his father's wholesale chemical business, and i--well, i'm doing better than ever in the buying and selling of exchange between banks in new york city as before. but when i said i was still drawing dividends on my swiss investment, i meant it. and it's not "scenery." everybody gets a thrill from "scenery." it's a darned sight more than that. it's those little wayward patches of blue on a cloudy day; those blue pools in the sky just above trinity church steeple when i pass out of wall street into lower broadway; it's the rustle of the sea-wind among the battery trees; the wash of the waves when the ferry's starting for staten island, and the glint of the sun far down the bay, or dropping a bit of pearl into the old east river. and sometimes it's the strip of cloud in the west above the jersey shore of the hudson, the first star, the sickle of the new moon behind the masts and shipping. but usually it's something nearer, bigger, simpler than all or any of these. it's just the certainty that, when i hurry along the hard stone pavements from bank to bank, i'm walking on the--earth. it's just that--_the earth_! v a desert episode "better put wraps on now. the sun's getting low," a girl said. it was the end of a day's expedition in the arabian desert, and they were having tea. a few yards away the donkeys munched their _barsim_; beside them in the sand the boys lay finishing bread and jam. immense, with gliding tread, the sun's rays slid from crest to crest of the limestone ridges that broke the huge expanse towards the red sea. by the time the tea-things were packed the sun hovered, a giant ball of red, above the pyramids. it stood in the western sky a moment, looking out of its majestic hood across the sand. with a movement almost visible it leaped, paused, then leaped again. it seemed to bound towards the horizon; then, suddenly, was gone. "it _is_ cold, yes," said the painter, rivers. and all who heard looked up at him because of the way he said it. a hurried movement ran through the merry party, and the girls were on their donkeys quickly, not wishing to be left to bring up the rear. they clattered off. the boys cried; the thud of sticks was heard; hoofs shuffled through the sand and stones. in single file the picnickers headed for helouan, some five miles distant. and the desert closed up behind them as they went, following in a shadowy wave that never broke, noiseless, foamless, unstreaked, driven by no wind, and of a volume undiscoverable. against the orange sunset the pyramids turned deep purple. the strip of silvery nile among its palm trees looked like rising mist. in the incredible egyptian afterglow the enormous horizons burned a little longer, then went out. the ball of the earth--a huge round globe that bulged--curved visibly as at sea. it was no longer a flat expanse; it turned. its splendid curves were realised. "better put wraps on; it's cold and the sun is low"--and then the curious hurry to get back among the houses and the haunts of men. no more was said, perhaps, than this, yet, the time and place being what they were, the mind became suddenly aware of that quality which ever brings a certain shrinking with it--vastness; and more than vastness: that which is endless because it is also beginningless--eternity. a colossal splendour stole upon the heart, and the senses, unaccustomed to the unusual stretch, reeled a little, as though the wonder was more than could be faced with comfort. not all, doubtless, realised it, though to two, at least, it came with a staggering impact there was no withstanding. for, while the luminous greys and purples crept round them from the sandy wastes, the hearts of these two became aware of certain common things whose simple majesty is usually dulled by mere familiarity. neither the man nor the girl knew for certain that the other felt it, as they brought up the rear together; yet the fact that each _did_ feel it set them side by side in the same strange circle--and made them silent. they realised the immensity of a moment: the dizzy stretch of time that led up to the casual pinning of a veil; to the tightening of a stirrup strap; to the little speech with a companion; the roar of the vanished centuries that have ground mountains into sand and spread them over the floor of africa; above all, to the little truth that they themselves existed amid the whirl of stupendous systems all delicately balanced as a spider's web--that they were _alive_. for a moment this vast scale of reality revealed itself, then hid swiftly again behind the débris of the obvious. the universe, containing their two tiny yet important selves, stood still for an instant before their eyes. they looked at it--realised that they belonged to it. everything moved and had its being, _lived_--here in this silent, empty desert even more actively than in a city of crowded houses. the quiet nile, sighing with age, passed down towards the sea; there loomed the menacing pyramids across the twilight; beneath them, in monstrous dignity, crouched that shadow from whose eyes of battered stone proceeds the nameless thing that contracts the heart, then opens it again to terror; and everywhere, from towering monoliths as from secret tombs, rose that strange, long whisper which, defying time and distance, laughs at death. the spell of egypt, which is the spell of immortality, touched their hearts. already, as the group of picnickers rode homewards now, the first stars twinkled overhead, and the peerless egyptian night was on the way. there was hurry in the passing of the dusk. and the cold sensibly increased. "so you did no painting after all," said rivers to the girl who rode a little in front of him, "for i never saw you touch your sketch-book once." they were some distance now behind the others; the line straggled; and when no answer came he quickened his pace, drew up alongside and saw that her eyes, in the reflection of the sunset, shone with moisture. but she turned her head a little, smiling into his face, so that the human and the non-human beauty came over him with an onset that was almost shock. neither one nor other, he knew, were long for him, and the realisation fell upon him with a pang of actual physical pain. the acuteness, the hopelessness of the realisation, for a moment, were more than he could bear, stern of temper though he was, and he tried to pass in front of her, urging his donkey with resounding strokes. her own animal, however, following the lead, at once came up with him. "you felt it, perhaps, as i did," he said some moments later, his voice quite steady again. "the stupendous, everlasting thing--the--_life_ behind it all." he hesitated a little in his speech, unable to find the substantive that could compass even a fragment of his thought. she paused, too, similarly inarticulate before the surge of incomprehensible feelings. "it's--awful," she said, half laughing, yet the tone hushed and a little quaver in it somewhere. and her voice to his was like the first sound he had ever heard in the world, for the first sound a full-grown man heard in the world would be beyond all telling--magical. "i shall not try again," she continued, leaving out the laughter this time; "my sketch-book is a farce. for, to tell the truth"--and the next three words she said below her breath--"i dare not." he turned and looked at her for a second. it seemed to him that the following wave had caught them up, and was about to break above her, too. but the big-brimmed hat and the streaming veil shrouded her features. he saw, instead, the universe. he felt as though he and she had always, always been together, and always, always would be. separation was inconceivable. "it came so close," she whispered. "it--shook me!" they were cut off from their companions, whose voices sounded far ahead. her words might have been spoken by the darkness, or by some one who peered at them from within that following wave. yet the fanciful phrase was better than any he could find. from the immeasurable space of time and distance men's hearts vainly seek to plumb, it drew into closer perspective a certain meaning that words may hardly compass, a formidable truth that belongs to that deep place where hope and doubt fight their incessant battle. the awe she spoke of was the awe of immortality, of belonging to something that is endless and beginningless. and he understood that the tears and laughter were one--caused by that spell which takes a little human life and shakes it, as an animal shakes its prey that later shall feed its blood and increase its power of growth. his other thoughts--really but a single thought--he had not the right to utter. pain this time easily routed hope as the wave came nearer. for it was the wave of death that would shortly break, he knew, over him, but not over her. him it would sweep with its huge withdrawal into the desert whence it came: her it would leave high upon the shores of life--alone. and yet the separation would somehow not be real. they were together in eternity even now. they were endless as this desert, beginningless as this sky ... immortal. the realisation overwhelmed.... the lights of helouan seemed to come no nearer as they rode on in silence for the rest of the way. against the dark background of the mokattam hills these fairy lights twinkled brightly, hanging in mid-air, but after an hour they were no closer than before. it was like riding towards the stars. it would take centuries to reach them. there were centuries in which to do so. hurry has no place in the desert; it is born in streets. the desert stands still; to go fast in it is to go backwards. now, in particular, its enormous, uncanny leisure was everywhere--in keeping with that mighty scale the sunset had made visible. his thoughts, like the steps of the weary animal that bore him, had no progress in them. the serpent of eternity, holding its tail in its own mouth, rose from the sand, enclosing himself, the stars--and her. behind him, in the hollows of that shadowy wave, the procession of dynasties and conquests, the great series of gorgeous civilisations the mind calls past, stood still, crowded with shining eyes and beckoning faces, still waiting to arrive. there is no death in egypt. his own death stood so close that he could touch it by stretching out his hand, yet it seemed as much behind as in front of him. what man called a beginning was a trick. there was no such thing. he was with this girl--_now_, when death waited so close for him--yet he had never really begun. their lives ran always parallel. the hand he stretched to clasp approaching death caught instead in this girl's shadowy hair, drawing her in with him to the centre where he breathed the eternity of the desert. yet expression of any sort was as futile as it was unnecessary. to paint, to speak, to sing, even the slightest gesture of the soul, became a crude and foolish thing. silence was here the truth. and they rode in silence towards the fairy lights. then suddenly the rocky ground rose up close before them; boulders stood out vividly with black shadows and shining heads; a flat-roofed house slid by; three palm trees rattled in the evening wind; beyond, a mosque and minaret sailed upwards, like the spars and rigging of some phantom craft; and the colonnades of the great modern hotel, standing upon its dome of limestone ridge, loomed over them. helouan was about them before they knew it. the desert lay behind with its huge, arrested billow. slowly, owing to its prodigious volume, yet with a speed that merged it instantly with the far horizon behind the night, this wave now withdrew a little. there was no hurry. it came, for the moment, no farther. rivers knew. for he was in it to the throat. only his head was above the surface. he still could breathe--and speak--and see. deepening with every hour into an incalculable splendour, it waited. in the street the foremost riders drew rein, and, two and two abreast, the long line clattered past the shops and cafés, the railway station and hotels, stared at by the natives from the busy pavements. the donkeys stumbled, blinded by the electric light. girls in white dresses flitted here and there, arabîyehs rattled past with people hurrying home to dress for dinner, and the evening train, just in from cairo, disgorged its stream of passengers. there were dances in several of the hotels that night. voices rose on all sides. questions and answers, engagements and appointments were made, little plans and plots and intrigues for seizing happiness on the wing--before the wave rolled in and caught the lot. they chattered gaily: "you _are_ going, aren't you? you promised----" "of course i am." "then i'll drive you over. may i call for you?" "all right. come at ten." "we shan't have finished our bridge by then. say ten-thirty." and eyes exchanged their meaning signals. the group dismounted and dispersed. arabs standing under the lebbekh trees, or squatting on the pavements before their dim-lit booths, watched them with faces of gleaming bronze. rivers gave his bridle to a donkey-boy, and moved across stiffly after the long ride to help the girl dismount. "you feel tired?" he asked gently. "it's been a long day." for her face was white as chalk, though the eyes shone brilliantly. "tired, perhaps," she answered, "but exhilarated too. i should like to be there now. i should like to go back this minute--if some one would take me." and, though she said it lightly, there was a meaning in her voice he apparently chose to disregard. it was as if she knew his secret. "will you take me--some day soon?" the direct question, spoken by those determined little lips, was impossible to ignore. he looked close into her face as he helped her from the saddle with a spring that brought her a moment half into his arms. "some day--soon. i will," he said with emphasis, "when you are--ready." the pallor in her face, and a certain expression in it he had not known before, startled him. "i think you have been overdoing it," he added, with a tone in which authority and love were oddly mingled, neither of them disguised. "like yourself," she smiled, shaking her skirts out and looking down at her dusty shoes. "i've only a few days more--before i sail. we're both in such a hurry, but you are the worst of the two." "because my time is even shorter," ran his horrified thought--for he said no word. she raised her eyes suddenly to his, with an expression that for an instant almost convinced him she had guessed--and the soul in him stood rigidly at attention, urging back the rising fires. the hair had dropped loosely round the sun-burned neck. her face was level with his shoulder. even the glare of the street lights could not make her undesirable. but behind the gaze of the deep brown eyes another thing looked forth imperatively into his own. and he recognised it with a rush of terror, yet of singular exultation. "it followed us all the way," she whispered. "it came after us from the desert--where it _lives_." "at the houses," he said equally low, "it stopped." he gladly adopted her syncopated speech, for it helped him in his struggle to subdue those rising fires. for a second she hesitated. "you mean, if we had not left so soon--when it turned cold. if we had not hurried--if we had remained a little longer----" he caught at her hand, unable to control himself, but dropped it again the same second, while she made as though she had not noticed, forgiving him with her eyes. "or a great deal longer," she added slowly--"for ever?" and then he was certain that she _had_ guessed--not that he loved her above all else in the world, for that was so obvious that a child might know it, but that his silence was due to his other, lesser secret; that the great executioner stood waiting to drop the hood about his eyes. he was already pinioned. something in her gaze and in her manner persuaded him suddenly that she understood. his exhilaration increased extraordinarily. "i mean," he said very quietly, "that the spell weakens here among the houses and among the--so-called living." there was masterfulness, triumph, in his voice. very wonderfully he saw her smile change; she drew slightly closer to his side, as though unable to resist. "mingled with lesser things we should not understand completely," he added softly. "and that might be a mistake, you mean?" she asked quickly, her face grave again. it was his turn to hesitate a moment. the breeze stirred the hair about her neck, bringing its faint perfume--perfume of young life--to his nostrils. he drew his breath in deeply, smothering back the torrent of rising words he knew were unpermissible. "misunderstanding," he said briefly. "if the eye be single----" he broke off, shaken by a paroxysm of coughing. "you know my meaning," he continued, as soon as the attack had passed; "you feel the difference _here_," pointing round him to the hotels, the shops, the busy stream of people; "the hurry, the excitement, the feverish, blinding child's play which pretends to be alive, but does not know it----" and again the coughing stopped him. this time she took his hand in her own, pressed it very slightly, then released it. he felt it as the touch of that desert wave upon his soul. "the reception must be in complete and utter resignation. tainted by lesser things, the disharmony might be----" he began stammeringly. again there came interruption, as the rest of the party called impatiently to know if they were coming up to the hotel. he had not time to find the completing adjective. perhaps he could not find it ever. perhaps it does not exist in any modern language. eternity is not realised to-day; men have no time to know they are alive for ever; they are too busy.... they all moved in a clattering, merry group towards the big hotel. rivers and the girl were separated. there was a dance that evening, but neither of these took part in it. in the great dining-room their tables were far apart. he could not even see her across the sea of intervening heads and shoulders. the long meal over, he went to his room, feeling it imperative to be alone. he did not read, he did not write; but, leaving the light unlit, he wrapped himself up and leaned out upon the broad window-sill into the great egyptian night. his deep-sunken thoughts, like to the crowding stars, stood still, yet for ever took new shapes. he tried to see behind them, as, when a boy, he had tried to see behind the constellations--out into space--where there is nothing. below him the lights of helouan twinkled like the pleiades reflected in a pool of water; a hum of queer soft noises rose to his ears; but just beyond the houses the desert stood at attention, the vastest thing he had ever known, very stern, yet very comforting, with its peace beyond all comprehension, its delicate, wild terror, and its awful message of immortality. and the attitude of his mind, though he did not know it, was one of prayer.... from time to time he went to lie on the bed with paroxysms of coughing. he had overtaxed his strength--his swiftly fading strength. the wave had risen to his lips. nearer forty than thirty-five, paul rivers had come out to egypt, plainly understanding that with the greatest care he might last a few weeks longer than if he stayed in england. a few more times to see the sunset and the sunrise, to watch the stars, feel the soft airs of earth upon his cheeks; a few more days of intercourse with his kind, asking and answering questions, wearing the old familiar clothes he loved, reading his favourite pages, and then--out into the big spaces--where there is nothing. yet no one, from his stalwart, energetic figure, would have guessed--no one but the expert mind, not to be deceived, to whom in the first attack of overwhelming despair and desolation he went for final advice. he left that house, as many had left it before, knowing that soon he would need no earthly protection of roof and walls, and that his soul, if it existed, would be shelterless in the space behind all manifested life. he had looked forward to fame and position in this world; had, indeed, already achieved the first step towards this end; and now, with the vanity of all earthly aims so mercilessly clear before him, he had turned, in somewhat of a nervous, concentrated hurry, to make terms with the infinite while still the brain was there. and had, of course, found nothing. for it takes a lifetime crowded with experiment and effort to learn even the alphabet of genuine faith; and what could come of a few weeks' wild questioning but confusion and bewilderment of mind? it was inevitable. he came out to egypt wondering, thinking, questioning, but chiefly wondering. he had grown, that is, more childlike, abandoning the futile tool of reason, which hitherto had seemed to him the perfect instrument. its foolishness stood naked before him in the pitiless light of the specialist's decision. for--"who can by searching find out god?" to be exceedingly careful of over-exertion was the final warning he brought with him, and, within a few hours of his arrival, three weeks ago, he had met this girl and utterly disregarded it. he took it somewhat thus: "instead of lingering i'll enjoy myself and go out--a little sooner. i'll _live_. the time is very short." his was not a nature, anyhow, that could heed a warning. he could not kneel. upright and unflinching, he went to meet things as they came, reckless, unwise, but certainly not afraid. and this characteristic operated now. he ran to meet death full tilt in the uncharted spaces that lay behind the stars. with love for a companion now, he raced, his speed increasing from day to day, she, as he thought, knowing merely that he sought her, but had not guessed his darker secret that was now his _lesser_ secret. and in the desert, this afternoon of the picnic, the great thing he sped to meet had shown itself with its familiar touch of appalling cold and shadow, familiar, because all minds know of and accept it; appalling because, until realised close, and with the mental power at the full, it remains but a name the heart refuses to believe in. and he had discovered that its name was--life. rivers had seen the wave that sweeps incessant, tireless, but as a rule invisible, round the great curve of the bulging earth, brushing the nations into the deeps behind. it had followed him home to the streets and houses of helouan. he saw it _now_, as he leaned from his window, dim and immense, too huge to break. its beauty was nameless, undecipherable. his coughing echoed back from the wall of its great sides.... and the music floated up at the same time from the ball-room in the opposite wing. the two sounds mingled. life, which is love, and death, which is their unchanging partner, held hands beneath the stars. he leaned out farther to drink in the cool, sweet air. soon, on this air, his body would be dust, driven, perhaps, against her very cheek, trodden on possibly by her little foot--until, in turn, she joined him too, blown by the same wind loose about the desert. true. yet at the same time they would always be together, always somewhere side by side, continuing in the vast universe, _alive_. this new, absolute conviction was in him now. he remembered the curious, sweet perfume in the desert, as of flowers, where yet no flowers are. it was the perfume of life. but in the desert there is no life. living things that grow and move and utter, are but a protest against death. in the desert they are unnecessary, because death there _is_ not. its overwhelming vitality needs no insolent, visible proof, no protest, no challenge, no little signs of life. the message of the desert is immortality.... he went finally to bed, just before midnight. hovering magnificently just outside his window, death watched him while he slept. the wave crept to the level of his eyes. he called her name.... * * * * * and downstairs, meanwhile, the girl, knowing nothing, wondered where he was, wondered unhappily and restlessly; more--though this she did not understand--wondered motheringly. until to-day, on the ride home, and from their singular conversation together, she had guessed nothing of his reason for being at helouan, where so many come in order to find life. she only knew her own. and she was but twenty-five.... then, in the desert, when that touch of unearthly chill had stolen out of the sand towards sunset, she had realised clearly, astonished she had not seen it long ago, that this man loved her, yet that something prevented his obeying the great impulse. in the life of paul rivers, whose presence had profoundly stirred her heart the first time she saw him, there was some obstacle that held him back, a barrier his honour must respect. he could never tell her of his love. it could lead to nothing. knowing that he was not married, her intuition failed her utterly at first. then, in their silence on the homeward ride, the truth had somehow pressed up and touched her with its hand of ice. in that disjointed conversation at the end, which reads as it sounded, as though no coherent meaning lay behind the words, and as though both sought to conceal by speech what yet both burned to utter, she had divined his darker secret, and knew that it was the same as her own. she understood then it was death that had tracked them from the desert, following with its gigantic shadow from the sandy wastes. the cold, the darkness, the silence which cannot answer, the stupendous mystery which is the spell of its inscrutable presence, had risen about them in the dusk, and kept them company at a little distance, until the lights of helouan had bade it halt. life which may not, cannot end, had frightened her. his time, perhaps, was even shorter than her own. none knew his secret, since he was alone in egypt and was caring for himself. similarly, since she bravely kept her terror to herself, her mother had no inkling of her own, aware merely that the disease was in her system and that her orders were to be extremely cautious. this couple, therefore, shared secretly together the two clearest glimpses of eternity life has to offer to the soul. side by side they looked into the splendid eyes of love and death. life, moreover, with its instinct for simple and terrific drama, had produced this majestic climax, breaking with pathos, at the very moment when it could not be developed--this side of the stars. they stood together upon the stage, a stage emptied of other human players; the audience had gone home and the lights were being lowered; no music sounded; the critics were a-bed. in this great game of consequences it was known where he met her, what he said and what she answered, possibly what they did and even what the world thought. but "what the consequence was" would remain unknown, untold. that would happen in the big spaces of which the desert in its silence, its motionless serenity, its shelterless, intolerable vastness, is the perfect symbol. and the desert gives no answer. it sounds no challenge, for it is complete. life in the desert makes no sign. it _is_. in the hotel that night there arrived by chance a famous international dancer, whose dahabîyeh lay anchored at san giovanni, in the nile below helouan; and this woman, with her party, had come to dine and take part in the festivities. the news spread. after twelve the lights were lowered, and while the moonlight flooded the terraces, streaming past pillar and colonnade, she rendered in the shadowed halls the music of the masters, interpreting with an instinctive genius messages which are eternal and divine. among the crowd of enthralled and delighted guests, the girl sat on the steps and watched her. the rhythmical interpretation held a power that seemed, in a sense, inspired; there lay in it a certain unconscious something that was pure, unearthly; something that the stars, wheeling in stately movements over the sea and desert know; something the great winds bring to mountains where they play together; something the forests capture and fix magically into their gathering of big and little branches. it was both passionate and spiritual, wild and tender, intensely human and seductively non-human. for it was original, taught of nature, a revelation of naked, unhampered life. it comforted, as the desert comforts. it brought the desert awe into the stuffy corridors of the hotel, with the moonlight and the whispering of stars, yet behind it ever the silence of those grey, mysterious, interminable spaces which utter to themselves the wordless song of life. for it was the same dim thing, she felt, that had followed her from the desert several hours before, halting just outside the streets and houses as though blocked from further advance; the thing that had stopped her foolish painting, skilled though she was, because it hides behind colour and not in it; the thing that veiled the meaning in the cryptic sentences she and he had stammered out together; the thing, in a word, as near as she could approach it by any means of interior expression, that the realisation of death for the first time makes comprehensible--immortality. it was unutterable, but it _was_. he and she were indissolubly together. death was no separation. there was no death.... it was terrible. it was--she had already used the word--awful, full of awe. "in the desert," thought whispered, as she watched spellbound, "it is impossible even to conceive of death. the idea is meaningless. it simply is not." the music and the movement filled the air with life which, being there, must continue always, and continuing always can have never had a beginning. death, therefore, was the great revealer of life. without it none could realise that they are alive. others had discovered this before her, but she did not know it. in the desert no one can realise death: it is hope and life that are the only certainty. the entire conception of the egyptian system was based on this--the conviction, sure and glorious, of life's endless continuation. their tombs and temples, their pyramids and sphinxes surviving after thousands of years, defy the passage of time and laugh at death; the very bodies of their priests and kings, of their animals even, their fish, their insects, stand to-day as symbols of their stalwart knowledge. and this girl, as she listened to the music and watched the inspired dancing, remembered it. the message poured into her from many sides, though the desert brought it clearest. with death peering into her face a few short weeks ahead, she thought instead of--life. the desert, as it were, became for her a little fragment of eternity, focused into an intelligible point for her mind to rest upon with comfort and comprehension. her steady, thoughtful nature stirred towards an objective far beyond the small enclosure of one narrow lifetime. the scale of the desert stretched her to the grandeur of its own imperial meaning, its divine repose, its unassailable and everlasting majesty. she looked beyond the wall. eternity! that which is endless; without pause, without beginning, without divisions or boundaries. the fluttering of her brave yet frightened spirit ceased, aware with awe of its own everlastingness. the swiftest motion produces the effect of immobility; excessive light is darkness; size, run loose into enormity, is the same as the minutely tiny. similarly, in the desert, life, too overwhelming and terrific to know limit or confinement, lies undetailed and stupendous, still as deity, a revelation of nothingness because it is all. turned golden beneath its spell that the music and the rhythm made even more comprehensible, the soul in her, already lying beneath the shadow of the great wave, sank into rest and peace, too certain of itself to fear. and panic fled away. "i am immortal ... because i _am_. and what i love is not apart from me. it is myself. we are together endlessly because we _are_." yet in reality, though the big desert brought this, it was love, which, being of similar parentage, interpreted its vast meaning to her little heart--that sudden love which, without a word of preface or explanation, had come to her a short three weeks before.... she went up to her room soon after midnight, abruptly, unexpectedly stricken. some one, it seemed, had called her name. she passed his door. the lights had been turned up. the clamour of praise was loud round the figure of the weary dancer as she left in a carriage for her dahabîyeh on the nile. a low wind whistled round the walls of the great hotel, blowing chill and bitter between the pillars of the colonnades. the girl heard the voices float up to her through the night, and once more, behind the confused sound of the many, she heard her own name called, but more faintly than before, and from very far away. it came through the spaces beyond her open window; it died away again; then--but for the sighing of that bitter wind--silence, the deep silence of the desert. and these two, paul rivers and the girl, between them merely a floor of that stone that built the pyramids, lay a few moments before the wave of sleep engulfed them. and, while they slept, two shadowy forms hovered above the roof of the quiet hotel, melting presently into one, as dreams stole down from the desert and the stars. immortality whispered to them. on either side rose life and death, towering in splendour. love, joining their spreading wings, fused the gigantic outlines into one. the figures grew smaller, comprehensible. they entered the little windows. above the beds they paused a moment, watching, waiting, and then, like a wave that is just about to break, they stooped.... and in the brilliant egyptian sunlight of the morning, as she went downstairs, she passed his door again. she had awakened, but he slept on. he had preceded her. it was next day she learned his room was vacant.... within the month she joined him, and within the year the cool north wind that sweetens lower egypt from the sea blew the dust across the desert as before. it is the dust of kings, of queens, of priests, princesses, lovers. it is the dust no earthly power can annihilate. it, too, lasts for ever. there was a little more of it ... the desert's message slightly added to: immortality. vi the other wing it used to puzzle him that, after dark, some one _would_ look in round the edge of the bedroom door, and withdraw again too rapidly for him to see the face. when the nurse had gone away with the candle this happened: "good night, master tim," she said usually, shading the light with one hand to protect his eyes; "dream of me and i'll dream of you." she went out slowly. the sharp-edged shadow of the door ran across the ceiling like a train. there came a whispered colloquy in the corridor outside, about himself, of course, and--he was alone. he heard her steps going deeper and deeper into the bosom of the old country house; they were audible for a moment on the stone flooring of the hall; and sometimes the dull thump of the baize door into the servants' quarters just reached him, too--then silence. but it was only when the last sound, as well as the last sign of her had vanished, that the face emerged from its hiding-place and flashed in upon him round the corner. as a rule, too, it came just as he was saying, "now i'll go to sleep. i won't think any longer. good night, master tim, and happy dreams." he loved to say this to himself; it brought a sense of companionship, as though there were two persons speaking. the room was on the top of the old house, a big, high-ceilinged room, and his bed against the wall had an iron railing round it; he felt very safe and protected in it. the curtains at the other end of the room were drawn. he lay watching the firelight dancing on the heavy folds, and their pattern, showing a spaniel chasing a long-tailed bird towards a bushy tree, interested and amused him. it was repeated over and over again. he counted the number of dogs, and the number of birds, and the number of trees, but could never make them agree. there was a plan somewhere in that pattern; if only he could discover it, the dogs and birds and trees would "come out right." hundreds and hundreds of times he had played this game, for the plan in the pattern made it possible to take sides, and the bird and dog were against him. they always won, however; tim usually fell asleep just when the advantage was on his own side. the curtains hung steadily enough most of the time, but it seemed to him once or twice that they stirred--hiding a dog or bird on purpose to prevent his winning. for instance, he had eleven birds and eleven trees, and, fixing them in his mind by saying, "that's eleven birds and eleven trees, but only ten dogs," his eyes darted back to find the eleventh dog, when--the curtain moved and threw all his calculations into confusion again. the eleventh dog was hidden. he did not quite like the movement; it gave him questionable feelings, rather, for the curtain did not move of itself. yet, usually, he was too intent upon counting the dogs to feel positive alarm. opposite to him was the fireplace, full of red and yellow coals; and, lying with his head sideways on the pillow, he could see directly in between the bars. when the coals settled with a soft and powdery crash, he turned his eyes from the curtains to the grate, trying to discover exactly which bits had fallen. so long as the glow was there the sound seemed pleasant enough, but sometimes he awoke later in the night, the room huge with darkness, the fire almost out--and the sound was not so pleasant then. it startled him. the coals did not fall of themselves. it seemed that some one poked them cautiously. the shadows were very thick before the bars. as with the curtains, moreover, the morning aspect of the extinguished fire, the ice-cold cinders that made a clinking sound like tin, caused no emotion whatever in his soul. and it was usually while he lay waiting for sleep, tired both of the curtain and the coal games, on the point, indeed, of saying, "i'll go to sleep now," that the puzzling thing took place. he would be staring drowsily at the dying fire, perhaps counting the stockings and flannel garments that hung along the high fender-rail when, suddenly, a person looked in with lightning swiftness through the door and vanished again before he could possibly turn his head to see. the appearance and disappearance were accomplished with amazing rapidity always. it was a head and shoulders that looked in, and the movement combined the speed, the lightness and the silence of a shadow. only it was not a shadow. a hand held the edge of the door. the face shot round, saw him, and withdrew like lightning. it was utterly beyond him to imagine anything more quick and clever. it darted. he heard no sound. it went. but--it had seen him, looked him all over, examined him, noted what he was doing with that lightning glance. it wanted to know if he were awake still, or asleep. and though it went off, it still watched him from a distance; it waited somewhere; it knew all about him. _where_ it waited no one could ever guess. it came probably, he felt, from beyond the house, possibly from the roof, but most likely from the garden or the sky. yet, though strange, it was not terrible. it was a kindly and protective figure, he felt. and when it happened he never called for help, because the occurrence simply took his voice away. "it comes from the nightmare passage," he decided; "but it's _not_ a nightmare." it puzzled him. sometimes, moreover, it came more than once in a single night. he was pretty sure--not _quite_ positive--that it occupied his room as soon as he was properly asleep. it took possession, sitting perhaps before the dying fire, standing upright behind the heavy curtains, or even lying down in the empty bed his brother used when he was home from school. perhaps it played the curtain game, perhaps it poked the coals; it knew, at any rate, where the eleventh dog had lain concealed. it certainly came in and out; certainly, too, it did not wish to be seen. for, more than once, on waking suddenly in the midnight blackness, tim knew it was standing close beside his bed and bending over him. he felt, rather than heard, its presence. it glided quietly away. it moved with marvellous softness, yet he was positive it moved. he felt the difference, so to speak. it had been near him, now it was gone. it came back, too--just as he was falling into sleep again. its midnight coming and going, however, stood out sharply different from its first shy, tentative approach. for in the firelight it came alone; whereas in the black and silent hours, it had with it--others. and it was then he made up his mind that its swift and quiet movements were due to the fact that it had wings. it flew. and the others that came with it in the darkness were "its little ones." he also made up his mind that all were friendly, comforting, protective, and that while positively _not_ a nightmare, it yet came somehow along the nightmare passage before it reached him. "you see, it's like this," he explained to the nurse: "the big one comes to visit me alone, but it only brings its little ones when i'm _quite_ asleep." "then the quicker you get to sleep the better, isn't it, master tim?" he replied: "rather! i always do. only i wonder where they come _from_!" he spoke, however, as though he had an inkling. but the nurse was so dull about it that he gave her up and tried his father. "of course," replied this busy but affectionate parent; "it's either nobody at all, or else it's sleep coming to carry you away to the land of dreams." he made the statement kindly but somewhat briskly, for he was worried just then about the extra taxes on his land, and the effort to fix his mind on tim's fanciful world was beyond him at the moment. he lifted the boy on to his knee, kissed and patted him as though he were a favourite dog, and planted him on the rug again with a flying sweep. "run and ask your mother," he added; "she knows all that kind of thing. then come back and tell me all about it--another time." tim found his mother in an arm-chair before the fire of another room; she was knitting and reading at the same time--a wonderful thing the boy could never understand. she raised her head as he came in, pushed her glasses on to her forehead, and held her arms out. he told her everything, ending up with what his father said. "you see, it's _not_ jackman, or thompson, or any one like that," he exclaimed. "it's some one real." "but nice," she assured him, "some one who comes to take care of you and see that you're all safe and cosy." "oh, yes, i know that. but----" "i think your father's right," she added quickly. "it's sleep, i'm sure, who pops in round the door like that. sleep _has_ got wings, i've always heard." "then the other thing--the little ones?" he asked. "are they just sorts of dozes, you think?" mother did not answer for a moment. she turned down the page of her book, closed it slowly, put it on the table beside her. more slowly still she put her knitting away, arranging the wool and needles with some deliberation. "perhaps," she said, drawing the boy closer to her and looking into his big eyes of wonder, "they're dreams!" tim felt a thrill run through him as she said it. he stepped back a foot or so and clapped his hands softly. "dreams!" he whispered with enthusiasm and belief; "of course! i never thought of that." his mother, having proved her sagacity, then made a mistake. she noted her success, but instead of leaving it there, she elaborated and explained. as tim expressed it she "went on about it." therefore he did not listen. he followed his train of thought alone. and presently, he interrupted her long sentences with a conclusion of his own: "then i know where she hides," he announced with a touch of awe. "where she lives, i mean." and without waiting to be asked, he imparted the information: "it's in the other wing." "ah!" said his mother, taken by surprise. "how clever of you, tim!"--and thus confirmed it. thenceforward this was established in his life--that sleep and her attendant dreams hid during the daytime in that unused portion of the great elizabethan mansion called the other wing. this other wing was unoccupied, its corridors untrodden, its windows shuttered and its rooms all closed. at various places green baize doors led into it, but no one ever opened them. for many years this part had been shut up; and for the children, properly speaking, it was out of bounds. they never mentioned it as a possible place, at any rate; in hide-and-seek it was not considered, even; there was a hint of the inaccessible about the other wing. shadows, dust, and silence had it to themselves. but tim, having ideas of his own about everything, possessed special information about the other wing. he believed it _was_ inhabited. who occupied the immense series of empty rooms, who trod the spacious corridors, who passed to and fro behind the shuttered windows, he had not known exactly. he had called these occupants "they," and the most important among them was "the ruler." the ruler of the other wing was a kind of deity, powerful, far away, ever present yet never seen. and about this ruler he had a wonderful conception for a little boy; he connected her, somehow, with deep thoughts of his own, the deepest of all. when he made up adventures to the moon, to the stars, or to the bottom of the sea, adventures that he lived inside himself, as it were--to reach them he must invariably pass through the chambers of the other wing. those corridors and halls, the nightmare passage among them, lay along the route; they were the first stage of the journey. once the green baize doors swung to behind him and the long dim passage stretched ahead, he was well on his way into the adventure of the moment; the nightmare passage once passed, he was safe from capture; but once the shutters of a window had been flung open, he was free of the gigantic world that lay beyond. for then light poured in and he could see his way. the conception, for a child, was curious. it established a correspondence between the mysterious chambers of the other wing and the occupied, but unguessed chambers of his inner being. through these chambers, through these darkened corridors, along a passage, sometimes dangerous, or at least of questionable repute, he must pass to find all adventures that were _real_. the light--when he pierced far enough to take the shutters down--was discovery. tim did not actually think, much less say, all this. he was aware of it, however. he felt it. the other wing was inside himself as well as through the green baize doors. his inner map of wonder included both of them. but now, for the first time in his life, he knew who lived there and who the ruler was. a shutter had fallen of its own accord; light poured in; he made a guess, and mother had confirmed it. sleep and her little ones, the host of dreams, were the daylight occupants. they stole out when the darkness fell. all adventures in life began and ended by a dream--discoverable by first passing through the other wing. and, having settled this, his one desire now was to travel over the map upon journeys of exploration and discovery. the map inside himself he knew already, but the map of the other wing he had not seen. his mind knew it, he had a clear mental picture of rooms and halls and passages, but his feet had never trod the silent floors where dust and shadows hid the flock of dreams by day. the mighty chambers where sleep ruled he longed to stand in, to see the ruler face to face. he made up his mind to get into the other wing. to accomplish this was difficult; but tim was a determined youngster, and he meant to try; he meant, also, to succeed. he deliberated. at night he could not possibly manage it; in any case, the ruler and her host all left it after dark, to fly about the world; the wing would be empty, and the emptiness would frighten him. therefore he must make a daylight visit; and it was a daylight visit he decided on. he deliberated more. there were rules and risks involved: it meant going out of bounds, the danger of being seen, the certainty of being questioned by some idle and inquisitive grown-up: "where in the world have you been all this time"--and so forth. these things he thought out carefully, and though he arrived at no solution, he felt satisfied that it would be all right. that is, he recognised the risks. to be prepared was half the battle, for nothing then could take him by surprise. the notion that he might slip in from the garden was soon abandoned; the red bricks showed no openings; there was no door; from the courtyard, also, entrance was impracticable; even on tiptoe he could barely reach the broad window-sills of stone. when playing alone, or walking with the french governess, he examined every outside possibility. none offered. the shutters, supposing he could reach them, were thick and solid. meanwhile, when opportunity offered, he stood against the outside walls and listened, his ear pressed against the tight red bricks; the towers and gables of the wing rose overhead; he heard the wind go whispering along the eaves; he imagined tiptoe movements and a sound of wings inside. sleep and her little ones were busily preparing for their journeys after dark; they hid, but they did not sleep; in this unused wing, vaster alone than any other country house he had ever seen, sleep taught and trained her flock of feathered dreams. it was very wonderful. they probably supplied the entire county. but more wonderful still was the thought that the ruler herself should take the trouble to come to his particular room and personally watch over him all night long. that was amazing. and it flashed across his imaginative, inquiring mind: "perhaps they take me with them! the moment i'm asleep! that's why she comes to see me!" yet his chief preoccupation was, how sleep got out. through the green baize doors, of course! by a process of elimination he arrived at a conclusion: he, too, must enter through a green baize door and risk detection. of late, the lightning visits had ceased. the silent, darting figure had not peeped in and vanished as it used to do. he fell asleep too quickly now, almost before jackman reached the hall, and long before the fire began to die. also, the dogs and birds upon the curtains always matched the trees exactly, and he won the curtain game quite easily; there was never a dog or bird too many; the curtain never stirred. it had been thus ever since his talk with mother and father. and so he came to make a second discovery: his parents did not really believe in his figure. she kept away on that account. they doubted her; she hid. here was still another incentive to go and find her out. he ached for her, she was so kind, she gave herself so much trouble--just for his little self in the big and lonely bedroom. yet his parents spoke of her as though she were of no account. he longed to see her, face to face, and tell her that _he_ believed in her and loved her. for he was positive she would like to hear it. she cared. though he had fallen asleep of late too quickly for him to see her flash in at the door, he had known nicer dreams than ever in his life before--travelling dreams. and it was she who sent them. more--he was sure she took him out with her. one evening, in the dusk of a march day, his opportunity came; and only just in time, for his brother jack was expected home from school on the morrow, and with jack in the other bed, no figure would ever care to show itself. also it was easter, and after easter, though tim was not aware of it at the time, he was to say good-bye finally to governesses and become a day-boarder at a preparatory school for wellington. the opportunity offered itself so naturally, moreover, that tim took it without hesitation. it never occurred to him to question, much less to refuse it. the thing was obviously meant to be. for he found himself unexpectedly in front of a green baize door; and the green baize door was--swinging! somebody, therefore, had just passed through it. it had come about in this wise. father, away in scotland, at inglemuir, the shooting place, was expected back next morning; mother had driven over to the church upon some easter business or other; and the governess had been allowed her holiday at home in france. tim, therefore, had the run of the house, and in the hour between tea and bed-time he made good use of it. fully able to defy such second-rate obstacles as nurses and butlers, he explored all manner of forbidden places with ardent thoroughness, arriving finally in the sacred precincts of his father's study. this wonderful room was the very heart and centre of the whole big house; he had been birched here long ago; here, too, his father had told him with a grave yet smiling face: "you've got a new companion, tim, a little sister; you must be very kind to her." also, it was the place where all the money was kept. what he called "father's jolly smell" was strong in it--papers, tobacco, books, flavoured by hunting crops and gunpowder. at first he felt awed, standing motionless just inside the door; but presently, recovering equilibrium, he moved cautiously on tiptoe towards the gigantic desk where important papers were piled in untidy patches. these he did not touch; but beside them his quick eye noted the jagged piece of iron shell his father brought home from his crimean campaign and now used as a letter-weight. it was difficult to lift, however. he climbed into the comfortable chair and swung round and round. it was a swivel-chair, and he sank down among the cushions in it, staring at the strange things on the great desk before him, as if fascinated. next he turned away and saw the stick-rack in the corner--this, he knew, he was allowed to touch. he had played with these sticks before. there were twenty, perhaps, all told, with curious carved handles, brought from every corner of the world; many of them cut by his father's own hand in queer and distant places. and, among them, tim fixed his eye upon a cane with an ivory handle, a slender, polished cane that he had always coveted tremendously. it was the kind he meant to use when he was a man. it bent, it quivered, and when he swished it through the air it trembled like a riding-whip, and made a whistling noise. yet it was very strong in spite of its elastic qualities. a family treasure, it was also an old-fashioned relic; it had been his grandfather's walking stick. something of another century clung visibly about it still. it had dignity and grace and leisure in its very aspect. and it suddenly occurred to him: "how grandpapa must miss it! wouldn't he just love to have it back again!" how it happened exactly, tim did not know, but a few minutes later he found himself walking about the deserted halls and passages of the house with the air of an elderly gentleman of a hundred years ago, proud as a courtier, flourishing the stick like an eighteenth century dandy in the mall. that the cane reached to his shoulder made no difference; he held it accordingly, swaggering on his way. he was off upon an adventure. he dived down through the byways of the other wing, inside himself, as though the stick transported him to the days of the old gentleman who had used it in another century. it may seem strange to those who dwell in smaller houses, but in this rambling elizabethan mansion there were whole sections that, even to tim, were strange and unfamiliar. in his mind the map of the other wing was clearer by far than the geography of the part he travelled daily. he came to passages and dim-lit halls, long corridors of stone beyond the picture gallery; narrow, wainscoted connecting-channels with four steps down and a little later two steps up; deserted chambers with arches guarding them--all hung with the soft march twilight and all bewilderingly unrecognised. with a sense of adventure born of naughtiness he went carelessly along, farther and farther into the heart of this unfamiliar country, swinging the cane, one thumb stuck into the arm-pit of his blue serge suit, whistling softly to himself, excited yet keenly on the alert--and suddenly found himself opposite a door that checked all further advance. it was a green baize door. and it was swinging. he stopped abruptly, facing it. he stared, he gripped his cane more tightly, he held his breath. "the other wing!" he gasped in a swallowed whisper. it was an entrance, but an entrance he had never seen before. he thought he knew every door by heart; but this one was new. he stood motionless for several minutes, watching it; the door had two halves, but one half only was swinging, each swing shorter than the one before; he heard the little puffs of air it made; it settled finally, the last movements very short and rapid; it stopped. and the boy's heart, after similar rapid strokes, stopped also--for a moment. "some one's just gone through," he gulped. and even as he said it he knew who the some one was. the conviction just dropped into him. "it's grandfather; he knows i've got his stick. he wants it!" on the heels of this flashed instantly another amazing certainty. "he sleeps in there. he's having dreams. that's what being dead means." his first impulse, then, took the form of, "i must let father know; it'll make him burst for joy"; but his second was for himself--to finish his adventure. and it was this, naturally enough, that gained the day. he could tell his father later. his first duty was plainly to go through the door into the other wing. he must give the stick back to its owner. he must _hand_ it back. the test of will and character came now. tim had imagination, and so knew the meaning of fear; but there was nothing craven in him. he could howl and scream and stamp like any other person of his age when the occasion called for such behaviour, but such occasions were due to temper roused by a thwarted will, and the histrionics were half "pretended" to produce a calculated effect. there was no one to thwart his will at present. he also knew how to be afraid of nothing, to be afraid without ostensible cause, that is--which was merely "nerves." he could have "the shudders" with the best of them. but, when a real thing faced him, tim's character emerged to meet it. he would clench his hands, brace his muscles, set his teeth--and wish to heaven he was bigger. but he would not flinch. being imaginative, he lived the worst a dozen times before it happened, yet in the final crash he stood up like a man. he had that highest pluck--the courage of a sensitive temperament. and at this particular juncture, somewhat ticklish for a boy of eight or nine, it did not fail him. he lifted the cane and pushed the swinging door wide open. then he walked through it--into the other wing. the green baize door swung to behind him; he was even sufficiently master of himself to turn and close it with a steady hand, because he did not care to hear the series of muffled thuds its lessening swings would cause. but he realised clearly his position, knew he was doing a tremendous thing. holding the cane between fingers very tightly clenched, he advanced bravely along the corridor that stretched before him. and all fear left him from that moment, replaced, it seemed, by a mild and exquisite surprise. his footsteps made no sound, he walked on air; instead of darkness, or the twilight he expected, a diffused and gentle light that seemed like the silver on the lawn when a half-moon sails a cloudless sky, lay everywhere. he knew his way, moreover, knew exactly where he was and whither he was going. the corridor was as familiar to him as the floor of his own bedroom; he recognised the shape and length of it; it agreed exactly with the map he had constructed long ago. though he had never, to the best of his knowledge, entered it before, he knew with intimacy its every detail. and thus the surprise he felt was mild and far from disconcerting. "i'm here again!" was the kind of thought he had. it was _how_ he got here that caused the faint surprise, apparently. he no longer swaggered, however, but walked carefully, and half on tiptoe, holding the ivory handle of the cane with a kind of affectionate respect. and as he advanced, the light closed softly up behind him, obliterating the way by which he had come. but this he did not know, because he did not look behind him. he only looked in front, where the corridor stretched its silvery length towards the great chamber where he knew the cane must be surrendered. the person who had preceded him down this ancient corridor, passing through the green baize door just before he reached it, this person, his father's father, now stood in that great chamber, waiting to receive his own. tim knew it as surely as he knew he breathed. at the far end he even made out the larger patch of silvery light which marked its gaping doorway. there was another thing he knew as well--that this corridor he moved along between rooms with fast-closed doors, was the nightmare corridor; often and often he had traversed it; each room was occupied. "this is the nightmare passage," he whispered to himself, "but i know the ruler--it doesn't matter. none of them can get out or do anything." he heard them, none the less, inside, as he passed by; he heard them scratching to get out. the feeling of security made him reckless; he took unnecessary risks; he brushed the panels as he passed. and the love of keen sensation for its own sake, the desire to feel "an awful thrill," tempted him once so sharply that he raised his stick and poked a fast-shut door with it! he was not prepared for the result, but he gained the sensation and the thrill. for the door opened with instant swiftness half an inch, a hand emerged, caught the stick and tried to draw it in. tim sprang back as if he had been struck. he pulled at the ivory handle with all his strength, but his strength was less than nothing. he tried to shout, but his voice had gone. a terror of the moon came over him, for he was unable to loosen his hold of the handle; his fingers had become a part of it. an appalling weakness turned him helpless. he was dragged inch by inch towards the fearful door. the end of the stick was already through the narrow, crack. he could not see the hand that pulled, but he knew it was terrific. he understood now why the world was strange, why horses galloped furiously, and why trains whistled as they raced through stations. all the comedy and terror of nightmare gripped his heart with pincers made of ice. the disproportion was abominable. the final collapse rushed over him when, without a sign of warning, the door slammed silently, and between the jamb and the wall the cane was crushed as flat as if it were a bulrush. so irresistible was the force behind the door that the solid stick just went flat as a stalk of a bulrush. he looked at it. it _was_ a bulrush. he did not laugh; the absurdity was so distressingly unnatural. the horror of finding a bulrush where he had expected a polished cane--this hideous and appalling detail held the nameless horror of the nightmare. it betrayed him utterly. why had he not always known really that the stick was not a stick, but a thin and hollow reed...? then the cane was safely in his hand, unbroken. he stood looking at it. the nightmare was in full swing. he heard another door opening behind his back, a door he had not touched. there was just time to see a hand thrusting and waving dreadfully, familiarly, at him through the narrow crack--just time to realise that this was another nightmare acting in atrocious concert with the first, when he saw closely beside him, towering to the ceiling, the protective, kindly figure that visited his bedroom. in the turning movement he made to meet the attack, he became aware of her. and his terror passed. it was a nightmare terror merely. the infinite horror vanished. only the comedy remained. he smiled. he saw her dimly only, she was so vast, but he saw her, the ruler of the other wing at last, and knew that he was safe again. he gazed with a tremendous love and wonder, trying to see her clearly; but the face was hidden far aloft and seemed to melt into the sky beyond the roof. he discerned that she was larger than the night, only far, far softer, with wings that folded above him more tenderly even than his mother's arms; that there were points of light like stars among the feathers, and that she was vast enough to cover millions and millions of people all at once. moreover, she did not fade or go, so far as he could see, but spread herself in such a way that he lost sight of her. she spread over the entire wing.... and tim remembered that this was all quite natural really. he had often and often been down this corridor before; the nightmare corridor was no new experience; it had to be faced as usual. once knowing what hid inside the rooms, he was bound to tempt them out. they drew, enticed, attracted him; this was their power. it was their special strength that they could suck him helplessly towards them, and that he was obliged to go. he understood exactly why he was tempted to tap with the cane upon their awful doors, but, having done so, he had accepted the challenge and could now continue his journey quietly and safely. the ruler of the other wing had taken him in charge. a delicious sense of carelessness came on him. there was softness as of water in the solid things about him, nothing that could hurt or bruise. holding the cane firmly by its ivory handle, he went forward along the corridor, walking as on air. the end was quickly reached: he stood upon the threshold of the mighty chamber where he knew the owner of the cane was waiting; the long corridor lay behind him, in front he saw the spacious dimensions of a lofty hall that gave him the feeling of being in the crystal palace, euston station, or st. paul's. high, narrow windows, cut deeply into the wall, stood in a row upon the other side; an enormous open fireplace of burning logs was on his right; thick tapestries hung from the ceiling to the floor of stone; and in the centre of the chamber was a massive table of dark, shining wood, great chairs with carved stiff backs set here and there beside it. and in the biggest of these throne-like chairs there sat a figure looking at him gravely--the figure of an old, old man. yet there was no surprise in the boy's fast-beating heart; there was a thrill of pleasure and excitement only, a feeling of satisfaction. he had known quite well the figure would be there, known also it would look like this exactly. he stepped forward on to the floor of stone without a trace of fear or trembling, holding the precious cane in two hands now before him, as though to present it to its owner. he felt proud and pleased. he had run risks for this. and the figure rose quietly to meet him, advancing in a stately manner over the hard stone floor. the eyes looked gravely, sweetly down at him, the aquiline nose stood out. tim knew him perfectly: the knee-breeches of shining satin, the gleaming buckles on the shoes, the neat dark stockings, the lace and ruffles about neck and wrists, the coloured waistcoat opening so widely--all the details of the picture over father's mantelpiece, where it hung between two crimean bayonets, were reproduced in life before his eyes at last. only the polished cane with the ivory handle was not there. tim went three steps nearer to the advancing figure and held out both his hands with the cane laid crosswise on them. "i've brought it, grandfather," he said, in a faint but clear and steady tone; "here it is." and the other stooped a little, put out three fingers half concealed by falling lace, and took it by the ivory handle. he made a courtly bow to tim. he smiled, but though there was pleasure, it was a grave, sad smile. he spoke then: the voice was slow and very deep. there was a delicate softness in it, the suave politeness of an older day. "thank you," he said; "i value it. it was given to me by my grandfather. i forgot it when i----" his voice grew indistinct a little. "yes?" said tim. "when i--left," the old gentleman repeated. "oh," said tim, thinking how beautiful and kind the gracious figure was. the old man ran his slender fingers carefully along the cane, feeling the polished surface with satisfaction. he lingered specially over the smoothness of the ivory handle. he was evidently very pleased. "i was not quite myself--er--at the moment," he went on gently; "my memory failed me somewhat." he sighed, as though an immense relief was in him. "_i_ forget things, too--sometimes," tim mentioned sympathetically. he simply loved his grandfather. he hoped--for a moment--he would be lifted up and kissed. "i'm _awfully_ glad i brought it," he faltered--"that you've got it again." the other turned his kind grey eyes upon him; the smile on his face was full of gratitude as he looked down. "thank you, my boy. i am truly and deeply indebted to you. you courted danger for my sake. others have tried before, but the nightmare passage--er----" he broke off. he tapped the stick firmly on the stone flooring, as though to test it. bending a trifle, he put his weight upon it. "ah!" he exclaimed with a short sigh of relief, "i can now----" his voice again grew indistinct; tim did not catch the words. "yes?" he asked again, aware for the first time that a touch of awe was in his heart. "--get about again," the other continued very low. "without my cane," he added, the voice failing with each word the old lips uttered, "i could not ... possibly ... allow myself ... to be seen. it was indeed ... deplorable ... unpardonable of me ... to forget in such a way. zounds, sir...! i--i ..." his voice sank away suddenly into a sound of wind. he straightened up, tapping the iron ferrule of his cane on the stones in a series of loud knocks. tim felt a strange sensation creep into his legs. the queer words frightened him a little. the old man took a step towards him. he still smiled, but there was a new meaning in the smile. a sudden earnestness had replaced the courtly, leisurely manner. the next words seemed to blow down upon the boy from above, as though a cold wind brought them from the sky outside. yet the words, he knew, were kindly meant, and very sensible. it was only the abrupt change that startled him. grandfather, after all, was but a man! the distant sound recalled something in him to that outside world from which the cold wind blew. "my eternal thanks to you," he heard, while the voice and face and figure seemed to withdraw deeper and deeper into the heart of the mighty chamber. "i shall not forget your kindness and your courage. it is a debt i can, fortunately, one day repay.... but now you had best return and with dispatch. for your head and arm lie heavily on the table, the documents are scattered, there is a cushion fallen ... and my son is in the house.... farewell! you had best leave me quickly. see! _she_ stands behind you, waiting. go with her! go now...!" the entire scene had vanished even before the final words were uttered. tim felt empty space about him. a vast, shadowy figure bore him through it as with mighty wings. he flew, he rushed, he remembered nothing more--until he heard another voice and felt a heavy hand upon his shoulder. "tim, you rascal! what are you doing in my study? and in the dark, like this!" he looked up into his father's face without a word. he felt dazed. the next minute his father had caught him up and kissed him. "ragamuffin! how did you guess i was coming back to-night?" he shook him playfully and kissed his tumbling hair. "and you've been asleep, too, into the bargain. well--how's everything at home--eh? jack's coming back from school to-morrow, you know, and ..." jack came home, indeed, the following day, and when the easter holidays were over, the governess stayed abroad and tim went off to adventures of another kind in the preparatory school for wellington. life slipped rapidly along with him; he grew into a man; his mother and his father died; jack followed them within a little space; tim inherited, married, settled down into his great possessions--and opened up the other wing. the dreams of imaginative boyhood all had faded; perhaps he had merely put them away, or perhaps he had forgotten them. at any rate, he never spoke of such things now, and when his irish wife mentioned her belief that the old country house possessed a family ghost, even declaring that she had met an eighteenth century figure of a man in the corridors, "an old, old man who bends down upon a stick"--tim only laughed and said: "that's as it ought to be! and if these awful land-taxes force us to sell some day, a respectable ghost will increase the market value." but one night he woke and heard a tapping on the floor. he sat up in bed and listened. there was a chilly feeling down his back. belief had long since gone out of him; he felt uncannily afraid. the sound came nearer and nearer; there were light footsteps with it. the door opened--it opened a little wider, that is, for it already stood ajar--and there upon the threshold stood a figure that it seemed he knew. he saw the face as with all the vivid sharpness of reality. there was a smile upon it, but a smile of warning and alarm. the arm was raised. tim saw the slender hand, lace falling down upon the long, thin fingers, and in them, tightly gripped, a polished cane. shaking the cane twice to and fro in the air, the face thrust forward, spoke certain words, and--vanished. but the words were inaudible; for, though the lips distinctly moved, no sound, apparently, came from them. and tim sprang out of bed. the room was full of darkness. he turned the light on. the door, he saw, was shut as usual. he had, of course, been dreaming. but he noticed a curious odour in the air. he sniffed it once or twice--then grasped the truth. it was a smell of burning! fortunately, he awoke just in time.... he was acclaimed a hero for his promptitude. after many days, when the damage was repaired, and nerves had settled down once more into the calm routine of country life, he told the story to his wife--the entire story. he told the adventure of his imaginative boyhood with it. she asked to see the old family cane. and it was this request of hers that brought back to memory a detail tim had entirely forgotten all these years. he remembered it suddenly again--the loss of the cane, the hubbub his father kicked up about it, the endless, futile search. for the stick had never been found, and tim, who was questioned very closely concerning it, swore with all his might that he had not the smallest notion where it was. which was, of course, the truth. vii the occupant of the room he arrived late at night by the yellow diligence, stiff and cramped after the toilsome ascent of three slow hours. the village, a single mass of shadow, was already asleep. only in front of the little hotel was there noise and light and bustle--for a moment. the horses, with tired, slouching gait, crossed the road and disappeared into the stable of their own accord, their harness trailing in the dust; and the lumbering diligence stood for the night where they had dragged it--the body of a great yellow-sided beetle with broken legs. in spite of his physical weariness the schoolmaster, revelling in the first hours of his ten-guinea holiday, felt exhilarated. for the high alpine valley was marvellously still; stars twinkled over the torn ridges of the dent du midi where spectral snows gleamed against rocks that looked like solid ink; and the keen air smelt of pine forests, dew-soaked pastures, and freshly sawn wood. he took it all in with a kind of bewildered delight for a few minutes, while the other three passengers gave directions about their luggage and went to their rooms. then he turned and walked over the coarse matting into the glare of the hall, only just able to resist stopping to examine the big mountain map that hung upon the wall by the door. and, with a sudden disagreeable shock, he came down from the ideal to the actual. for at the inn--the only inn--there was no vacant room. even the available sofas were occupied.... how stupid he had been not to write! yet it had been impossible, he remembered, for he had come to the decision suddenly that morning in geneva, enticed by the brilliance of the weather after a week of rain. they talked endlessly, this gold-braided porter and the hard-faced old woman--her face was hard, he noticed--gesticulating all the time, and pointing all about the village with suggestions that he ill understood, for his french was limited and their _patois_ was fearful. "_there!_"--he might find a room, "or _there_! but we are, _hélas_ full--more full than we care about. to-morrow, perhaps--if so-and-so give up their rooms----!" and then, with much shrugging of shoulders, the hard-faced old woman stared at the gold-braided porter, and the porter stared sleepily at the schoolmaster. at length, however, by some process of hope he did not himself understand, and following directions given by the old woman that were utterly unintelligible, he went out into the street and walked towards a dark group of houses she had pointed out to him. he only knew that he meant to thunder at a door and ask for a room. he was too weary to think out details. the porter half made to go with him, but turned back at the last moment to speak with the old woman. the houses sketched themselves dimly in the general blackness. the air was cold. the whole valley was filled with the rush and thunder of falling water. he was thinking vaguely that the dawn could not be very far away, and that he might even spend the night wandering in the woods, when there was a sharp noise behind him and he turned to see a figure hurrying after him. it was the porter--running. and in the little hall of the inn there began again a confused three-cornered conversation, with frequent muttered colloquy and whispered asides in _patois_ between the woman and the porter--the net result of which was that, "if monsieur did not object--there _was_ a room, after all, on the first floor--only it was in a sense 'engaged.' that is to say----" but the schoolmaster took the room without inquiring too closely into the puzzle that had somehow provided it so suddenly. the ethics of hotel-keeping had nothing to do with him. if the woman offered him quarters it was not for him to argue with her whether the said quarters were legitimately hers to offer. but the porter, evidently a little thrilled, accompanied the guest up to the room and supplied in a mixture of french and english details omitted by the landlady--and minturn, the schoolmaster, soon shared the thrill with him, and found himself in the atmosphere of a possible tragedy. all who know the peculiar excitement that belongs to high mountain valleys where dangerous climbing is a chief feature of the attractions, will understand a certain faint element of high alarm that goes with the picture. one looks up at the desolate, soaring ridges and thinks involuntarily of the men who find their pleasure for days and nights together scaling perilous summits among the clouds, and conquering inch by inch the icy peaks that for ever shake their dark terror in the sky. the atmosphere of adventure, spiced with the possible horror of a very grim order of tragedy, is inseparable from any imaginative contemplation of the scene; and the idea minturn gleaned from the half-frightened porter lost nothing by his ignorance of the language. this englishwoman, the real occupant of the room, had insisted on going without a guide. she had left just before daybreak two days before--the porter had seen her start--and ... she had not returned! the route was difficult and dangerous, yet not impossible for a skilled climber, even a solitary one. and the englishwoman was an experienced mountaineer. also, she was self-willed, careless of advice, bored by warnings, self-confident to a degree. queer, moreover; for she kept entirely to herself, and sometimes remained in her room with locked doors, admitting no one, for days together: a "crank," evidently, of the first water. this much minturn gathered clearly enough from the porter's talk while his luggage was brought in and the room set to rights; further, too, that the search party had gone out and _might_, of course, return at any moment. in which case---- thus the room was empty, yet still hers. "if monsieur did not object--if the risk he ran of having to turn out suddenly in the night----" it was the loquacious porter who furnished the details that made the transaction questionable; and minturn dismissed the loquacious porter as soon as possible, and prepared to get into the hastily arranged bed and snatch all the hours of sleep he could before he was turned out. at first, it must be admitted, he felt uncomfortable--distinctly uncomfortable. he was in some one else's room. he had really no right to be there. it was in the nature of an unwarrantable intrusion; and while he unpacked he kept looking over his shoulder as though some one were watching him from the corners. any moment, it seemed, he would hear a step in the passage, a knock would come at the door, the door would open, and there he would see this vigorous englishwoman looking him up and down with anger. worse still--he would hear her voice asking him what he was doing in her room--her bedroom. of course, he had an adequate explanation, but still----! then, reflecting that he was already half undressed, the humour of it flashed for a second across his mind, and he laughed--_quietly_. and at once, after that laughter, under his breath, came the sudden sense of tragedy he had felt before. perhaps, even while he smiled, her body lay broken and cold upon those awful heights, the wind of snow playing over her hair, her glazed eyes staring sightless up to the stars.... it made him shudder. the sense of this woman whom he had never seen, whose name even he did not know, became extraordinarily real. almost he could imagine that she was somewhere in the room with him, hidden, observing all he did. he opened the door softly to put his boots outside, and when he closed it again he turned the key. then he finished unpacking and distributed his few things about the room. it was soon done; for, in the first place, he had only a small gladstone and a knapsack, and secondly, the only place where he could spread his clothes was the sofa. there was no chest of drawers, and the cupboard, an unusually large and solid one, was locked. the englishwoman's things had evidently been hastily put away in it. the only sign of her recent presence was a bunch of faded _alpenrosen_ standing in a glass jar upon the washhand stand. this, and a certain faint perfume, were all that remained. in spite, however, of these very slight evidences, the whole room was pervaded with a curious sense of occupancy that he found exceedingly distasteful. one moment the atmosphere seemed subtly charged with a "just left" feeling; the next it was a queer awareness of "still here" that made him turn cold and look hurriedly behind him. altogether, the room inspired him with a singular aversion, and the strength of this aversion seemed the only excuse for his tossing the faded flowers out of the window, and then hanging his mackintosh upon the cupboard door in such a way as to screen it as much as possible from view. for the sight of that big, ugly cupboard, filled with the clothing of a woman who might then be beyond any further need of covering--thus his imagination insisted on picturing it--touched in him a startled sense of the incongruous that did not stop there, but crept through his mind gradually till it merged somehow into a sense of a rather grotesque horror. at any rate, the sight of that cupboard was offensive, and he covered it almost instinctively. then, turning out the electric light, he got into bed. but the instant the room was dark he realised that it was more than he could stand; for, with the blackness, there came a sudden rush of cold that he found it hard to explain. and the odd thing was that, when he lit the candle beside his bed, he noticed that his hand trembled. this, of course, was too much. his imagination was taking liberties and must be called to heel. yet the way he called it to order was significant, and its very deliberateness betrayed a mind that has already admitted fear. and fear, once in, is difficult to dislodge. he lay there upon his elbow in bed and carefully took note of all the objects in the room--with the intention, as it were, of taking an inventory of everything his senses perceived, then drawing a line, adding them up finally, and saying with decision, "that's all the room contains! i've counted every single thing. there is nothing more. _now_--i may sleep in peace!" and it was during this absurd process of enumerating the furniture of the room that the dreadful sense of distressing lassitude came over him that made it difficult even to finish counting. it came swiftly, yet with an amazing kind of violence that overwhelmed him softly and easily with a sensation of enervating weariness hard to describe. and its first effect was to banish fear. he no longer possessed enough energy to feel really afraid or nervous. the cold remained, but the alarm vanished. and into every corner of his usually vigorous personality crept the insidious poison of a _muscular_ fatigue--at first--that in a few seconds, it seemed, translated itself into _spiritual_ inertia. a sudden consciousness of the foolishness, the crass futility, of life, of effort, of fighting--of all that makes life worth living, shot into every fibre of his being, and left him utterly weak. a spirit of black pessimism that was not even vigorous enough to assert itself, invaded the secret chambers of his heart.... every picture that presented itself to his mind came dressed in grey shadows: those bored and sweating horses toiling up the ascent to--nothing! that hard-faced landlady taking so much trouble to let her desire for gain conquer her sense of morality--for a few francs! that gold-braided porter, so talkative, fussy, energetic, and so anxious to tell all he knew! what was the use of them all? and for himself, what in the world was the good of all the labour and drudgery he went through in that preparatory school where he was junior master? what could it lead to? wherein lay the value of so much uncertain toil, when the ultimate secrets of life were hidden and no one knew the final goal? how foolish was effort, discipline, work! how vain was pleasure! how trivial the noblest life!... with a fearful jump that nearly upset the candle minturn pulled himself together. such vicious thoughts were usually so remote from his normal character that the sudden vile invasion produced a swift reaction. yet, only for a moment. instantly, again, the black depression descended upon him like a wave. his work--it could lead to nothing but the dreary labour of a small headmastership after all--seemed as vain and foolish as his holiday in the alps. what an idiot he had been, to be sure, to come out with a knapsack merely to work himself into a state of exhaustion climbing over toilsome mountains that led to nowhere--resulted in nothing. a dreariness of the grave possessed him. life was a ghastly fraud! religion childish humbug! everything was merely a trap--a trap of death; a coloured toy that nature used as a decoy! but a decoy for what? for nothing! there was no meaning in anything. the only _real_ thing was--death. and the happiest people were those who found it soonest. _then why wait for it to come?_ he sprang out of bed, thoroughly frightened. this was horrible. surely mere physical fatigue could not produce a world so black, an outlook so dismal, a cowardice that struck with such sudden hopelessness at the very roots of life? for, normally, he was cheerful and strong, full of the tides of healthy living; and this appalling lassitude swept the very basis of his personality into nothingness and the desire for death. it was like the development of a secondary personality. he had read, of course, how certain persons who suffered shocks developed thereafter entirely different characteristics, memory, tastes, and so forth. it had all rather frightened him. though scientific men vouched for it, it was hardly to be believed. yet here was a similar thing taking place in his own consciousness. he was, beyond question, experiencing all the mental variations of--_some one else_! it was un-moral. it was awful. it was--well, after all, at the same time, it was uncommonly interesting. and this interest he began to feel was the first sign of his returning normal self. for to feel interest is to live, and to love life. he sprang into the middle of the room--then switched on the electric light. and the first thing that struck his eye was--the big cupboard. "hallo! there's that--beastly cupboard!" he exclaimed to himself, involuntarily, yet aloud. it held all the clothes, the swinging skirts and coats and summer blouses of the dead woman. for he knew now--somehow or other--that she _was_ dead.... at that moment, through the open windows, rushed the sound of falling water, bringing with it a vivid realisation of the desolate, snow-swept heights. he saw her--positively _saw_ her!--lying where she had fallen, the frost upon her cheeks, the snow-dust eddying about her hair and eyes, her broken limbs pushing against the lumps of ice. for a moment the sense of spiritual lassitude--of the emptiness of life--vanished before this picture of broken effort--of a small human force battling pluckily, yet in vain, against the impersonal and pitiless potencies of inanimate nature--and he found himself again, his normal self. then, instantly, returned again that terrible sense of cold, nothingness, emptiness.... and he found himself standing opposite the big cupboard where her clothes were. he wanted to see those clothes--things she had used and worn. quite close he stood, almost touching it. the next second he had touched it. his knuckles struck upon the wood. why he knocked is hard to say. it was an instinctive movement probably. something in his deepest self dictated it--ordered it. he knocked at the door. and the dull sound upon the wood into the stillness of that room brought--horror. why it should have done so he found it as hard to explain to himself as why he should have felt impelled to knock. the fact remains that when he heard the faint reverberation inside the cupboard, it brought with it so vivid a realisation of the woman's presence that he stood there shivering upon the floor with a dreadful sense of anticipation: he almost expected to hear an answering knock from within--the rustling of the hanging skirts perhaps--or, worse still, to see the locked door slowly open towards him. and from that moment, he declares that in some way or other he must have partially lost control of himself, or at least of his better judgment; for he became possessed by such an overmastering desire to tear open that cupboard door and see the clothes within, that he tried every key in the room in the vain effort to unlock it, and then, finally, before he quite realised what he was doing--rang the bell! but, having rung the bell for no obvious or intelligent reason at two o'clock in the morning, he then stood waiting in the middle of the floor for the servant to come, conscious for the first time that something outside his ordinary self had pushed him towards the act. it was almost like an internal voice that directed him ... and thus, when at last steps came down the passage and he faced the cross and sleepy chambermaid, amazed at being summoned at such an hour, he found no difficulty in the matter of what he should say. for the same power that insisted he should open the cupboard door also impelled him to utter words over which he apparently had no control. "it's not _you_ i rang for!" he said with decision and impatience, "i want a man. wake the porter and send him up to me at once--hurry! i tell you, hurry----!" and when the girl had gone, frightened at his earnestness, minturn realised that the words surprised himself as much as they surprised her. until they were out of his mouth he had not known what exactly he was saying. but now he understood that some force foreign to his own personality was using his mind and organs. the black depression that had possessed him a few moments before was also part of it. the powerful mood of this vanished woman had somehow momentarily taken possession of him--communicated, possibly, by the atmosphere of things in the room still belonging to her. but even now, when the porter, without coat or collar, stood beside him in the room, he did not understand _why_ he insisted, with a positive fury admitting no denial, that the key of that cupboard must be found and the door instantly opened. the scene was a curious one. after some perplexed whispering with the chambermaid at the end of the passage, the porter managed to find and produce the key in question. neither he nor the girl knew clearly what this excited englishman was up to, or why he was so passionately intent upon opening the cupboard at two o'clock in the morning. they watched him with an air of wondering what was going to happen next. but something of his curious earnestness, even of his late fear, communicated itself to them, and the sound of the key grating in the lock made them both jump. they held their breath as the creaking door swung slowly open. all heard the clatter of that other key as it fell against the wooden floor--within. the cupboard had been locked _from the inside_. but it was the scared housemaid, from her position in the corridor, who first saw--and with a wild scream fell crashing against the bannisters. the porter made no attempt to save her. the schoolmaster and himself made a simultaneous rush towards the door, now wide open. they, too, had seen. there were no clothes, skirts or blouses on the pegs, but, all by itself, from an iron hook in the centre, they saw the body of the englishwoman hanging by the neck, the head bent horribly forwards, the tongue protruding. jarred by the movement of unlocking, the body swung slowly round to face them.... pinned upon the inside of the door was a hotel envelope with the following words pencilled in straggling writing: "tired--unhappy--hopelessly depressed.... i cannot face life any longer.... all is black. i must put an end to it.... i meant to do it on the mountains, but was afraid. i slipped back to my room unobserved. this way is easiest and best...." viii cain's atonement so many thousands to-day have deliberately put self aside, and are ready to yield their lives for an ideal, that it is not surprising a few of them should have registered experiences of a novel order. for to step aside from self is to enter a larger world, to be open to new impressions. if powers of good exist in the universe at all, they can hardly be inactive at the present time.... the case of two men, who may be called jones and smith, occurs to the mind in this connection. whether a veil actually was lifted for a moment, or whether the tension of long and terrible months resulted in an exaltation of emotion, the experience claims significance. smith, to whom the experience came, holds the firm belief that it was real. jones, though it involved him too, remained unaware. it is a somewhat personal story, their peculiar relationship dating from early youth: a kind of unwilling antipathy was born between them, yet an antipathy that had no touch of hate or even of dislike. it was rather in the nature of an instinctive rivalry. some tie operated that flung them ever into the same arena with strange persistence, and ever as opponents. an inevitable fate delighted to throw them together in a sense that made them rivals; small as well as large affairs betrayed this malicious tendency of the gods. it showed itself in earliest days, at school, at cambridge, in travel, even in house-parties and the lighter social intercourse. though distant cousins, their families were not intimate, and there was no obvious reason why their paths should fall so persistently together. yet their paths did so, crossing and recrossing in the way described. sooner or later, in all his undertakings, smith would note the shadow of jones darkening the ground in front of him; and later, when called to the bar in his chosen profession, he found most frequently that the learned counsel in opposition to him was the owner of this shadow, jones. in another matter, too, they became rivals, for the same girl, oddly enough, attracted both, and though she accepted neither offer of marriage (during smith's lifetime!), the attitude between them was that of unwilling rivals. for they were friends as well. jones, it appears, was hardly aware that any rivalry existed; he did not think of smith as an opponent, and as an adversary, never. he did notice, however, the constantly recurring meetings, for more than once he commented on them with good-humoured amusement. smith, on the other hand, was conscious of a depth and strength in the tie that certainly intrigued him; being of a thoughtful, introspective nature, he was keenly sensible of the strange competition in their lives, and sought in various ways for its explanation, though without success. the desire to find out was very strong in him. and this was natural enough, owing to the singular fact that in all their battles he was the one to lose. invariably jones got the best of every conflict. smith always paid; sometimes he paid with interest. occasionally, too, he seemed forced to injure himself while contributing to his cousin's success. it was very curious. he reflected much upon it; he wondered what the origin of their tie and rivalry might be, but especially why it was that he invariably lost, and why he was so often obliged to help his rival to the point even of his own detriment. tempted to bitterness sometimes, he did not yield to it, however; the relationship remained frank and pleasant; if anything, it deepened. he remembered once, for instance, giving his cousin a chance introduction which yet led, a little later, to the third party offering certain evidence which lost him an important case--jones, of course, winning it. the third party, too, angry at being dragged into the case, turned hostile to him, thwarting various subsequent projects. in no other way could jones have procured this particular evidence; he did not know of its existence even. that chance introduction did it all. there was nothing the least dishonourable on the part of jones--it was just the chance of the dice. the dice were always loaded against smith--and there were other instances of similar kind. about this time, moreover, a singular feeling that had lain vaguely in his mind for some years past, took more definite form. it suddenly assumed the character of a conviction, that yet had no evidence to support it. a voice, long whispering in the depths of him, became much louder, grew into a statement that he accepted without further ado: "i'm paying off a debt," he phrased it, "an old, old debt is being discharged. i owe him this--my help and so forth." he accepted it, that is, as just; and this certainty of justice kept sweet his heart and mind, shutting the door on bitterness or envy. the thought, however, though it recurred persistently with each encounter, brought no explanation. when the war broke out both offered their services; as members of the o.t.c., they got commissions quickly; but it was a chance remark of smith's that made his friend join the very regiment he himself was in. they trained together, were in the same retreats and the same advances together. their friendship deepened. under the stress of circumstances the tie did not dissolve, but strengthened. it was indubitably real, therefore. then, oddly enough, they were both wounded in the same engagement. and it was here the remarkable fate that jointly haunted them betrayed itself more clearly than in any previous incident of their long relationship--smith was wounded in the act of protecting his cousin. how it happened is confusing to a layman, but each apparently was leading a bombing-party, and the two parties came together. they found themselves shoulder to shoulder, both brimmed with that pluck which is complete indifference to self; they exchanged a word of excited greeting; and the same second one of those rare opportunities of advantage presented itself which only the highest courage could make use of. neither, certainly, was thinking of personal reward; it was merely that each saw the chance by which instant heroism might gain a surprise advantage for their side. the risk was heavy, but there _was_ a chance; and success would mean a decisive result, to say nothing of high distinction for the man who obtained it--if he survived. smith, being a few yards ahead of his cousin, had the moment in his grasp. he was in the act of dashing forward when something made him pause. a bomb in mid-air, flung from the opposing trench, was falling; it seemed immediately above him; he saw that it would just miss himself, but land full upon his cousin--whose head was turned the other way. by stretching out his hand, smith knew he could field it like a cricket ball. there was an interval of a second and a half, he judged. he hesitated--perhaps a quarter of a second--then he acted. he caught it. it was the obvious thing to do. he flung it back into the opposing trench. the rapidity of thought is hard to realise. in that second and a half smith was aware of many things: he saved his cousin's life unquestionably; unquestionably also jones seized the opportunity that otherwise was his cousin's. but it was neither of these reflections that filled smith's mind. the dominant impression was another. it flashed into actual words inside his excited brain: "i must risk it. i owe it to him--and more besides!" he was, further, aware of another impulse than the obvious one. in the first fraction of a second it was overwhelmingly established. and it was this: that the entire episode was familiar to him. a subtle familiarity was present. all this had happened before. he had already--somewhere, somehow--seen death descending upon his cousin from the air. yet with a difference. the "difference" escaped him; the familiarity was vivid. that he missed the deadly detonators in making the catch, or that the fuse delayed, he called good luck. he only remembers that he flung the gruesome weapon back whence it had come, and that its explosion in the opposite trench materially helped his cousin to find glory in the place of death. the slight delay, however, resulted in his receiving a bullet through the chest--a bullet he would not otherwise have received, presumably. it was some days later, gravely wounded, that he discovered his cousin in another bed across the darkened floor. they exchanged remarks. jones was already "decorated," it seemed, having snatched success from his cousin's hands, while little aware whose help had made it easier.... and once again there stole across the inmost mind of smith that strange, insistent whisper: "i owed it to him ... but, by god, i owe more than that ... i mean to pay it too...!" there was not a trace of bitterness or envy now; only this profound conviction, of obscurest origin, that it was right and absolutely just--full, honest repayment of a debt incurred. some ancient balance of account was being settled; there was no "chance"; injustice and caprice played no role at all.... and a deeper understanding of life's ironies crept into him; for if everything was _just_, there was no room for whimpering. and the voice persisted above the sound of busy footsteps in the ward: "i owe it ... i'll pay it gladly...!" through the pain and weakness the whisper died away. he was exhausted. there were periods of unconsciousness, but there were periods of half-consciousness as well; then flashes of another kind of consciousness altogether, when, bathed in high, soft light, he was aware of things he could not quite account for. he _saw_. it was absolutely real. only, the critical faculty was gone. he did not question what he saw, as he stared across at his cousin's bed. he knew. perhaps the beaten, worn-out body let something through at last. the nerves, over-strained to numbness, lay very still. the physical system, battered and depleted, made no cry. the clamour of the flesh was hushed. he was aware, however, of an undeniable exaltation of the spirit in him, as he lay and gazed towards his cousin's bed.... across the night of time, it seemed to him, the picture stole before his inner eye with a certainty that left no room for doubt. it was not the cells of memory in his brain of to-day that gave up their dead, it was the eternal self in him that remembered and understood--the soul.... with that satisfaction which is born of full comprehension, he watched the light glow and spread about the little bed. thick matting deadened the footsteps of nurses, orderlies, doctors. new cases were brought in, "old" cases were carried out; he ignored them; he saw only the light above his cousin's bed grow stronger. he lay still and stared. it came neither from the ceiling nor the floor; it unfolded like a cloud of shining smoke. and the little lamp, the sheets, the figure framed between them--all these slid cleverly away and vanished utterly. he stood in another place that had lain behind all these appearances--a landscape with wooded hills, a foaming river, the sun just sinking below the forest, and dusk creeping from a gorge along the lonely banks. in the warm air there was a perfume of great flowers and heavy-scented trees; there were fire-flies, and the taste of spray from the tumbling river was on his lips. across the water a large bird, flapped its heavy wings, as it moved down-stream to find another fishing place. for he and his companion had disturbed it as they broke out of the thick foliage and reached the river-bank. the companion, moreover, was his brother; they ever hunted together; there was a passionate link between them born of blood and of affection--they were twins.... it all was as clear as though of yesterday. in his heart was the lust of the hunt; in his blood was the lust of woman; and thick behind these lurked the jealousy and fierce desire of a primitive day. but, though clear as of yesterday, he knew that it was of long, long ago.... and his brother came up close beside him, resting his bloody spear with a clattering sound against the boulders on the shore. he saw the gleaming of the metal in the sunset, he saw the shining glitter of the spray upon the boulders, he saw his brother's eyes look straight into his own. and in them shone a light that was neither the reflection of the sunset, nor the excitement of the hunt just over. "it escaped us," said his brother. "yet i know my first spear struck." "it followed the fawn that crossed," was the reply. "besides, we came down wind, thus giving it warning. our flocks, at any rate, are safer----" the other laughed significantly. "it is not the safety of our flocks that troubles me just now, brother," he interrupted eagerly, while the light burned more deeply in his eyes. "it is, rather, that _she_ waits for me by the fire across the river, and that i would get to her. with your help added to my love," he went on in a trusting voice, "the gods have shown me the favour of true happiness!" he pointed with his spear to a camp-fire on the farther bank, turning his head as he strode to plunge into the stream and swim across. for an instant, then, the other felt his natural love turn into bitter hate. his own fierce passion, unconfessed, concealed, burst into instant flame. that the girl should become his brother's wife sent the blood surging through his veins in fury. he felt his life and all that he desired go down in ashes.... he watched his brother stride towards the water, the deer-skin cast across one naked shoulder--when another object caught his practised eye. in mid-air it passed suddenly, like a shining gleam; it seemed to hang a second; then it swept swiftly forward past his head--and downward. it had leaped with a blazing fury from the overhanging bank behind; he saw the blood still streaming from its wounded flank. it must land--he saw it with a secret, awful pleasure--full upon the striding figure, whose head was turned away! the swiftness of that leap, however, was not so swift but that he could easily have used his spear. indeed, he gripped it strongly. his skill, his strength, his aim--he knew them well enough. but hate and love, fastening upon his heart, held all his muscles still. he hesitated. he was no murderer, yet he paused. he heard the roar, the ugly thud, the crash, the cry for help--too late ... and when, an instant afterwards, his steel plunged into the great beast's heart, the human heart and life he might have saved lay still for ever.... he heard the water rushing past, an icy wind came down the gorge against his naked back, he saw the fire shine upon the farther bank ... and the figure of a girl in skins was wading across, seeking out the shallow places in the dusk, and calling wildly as she came.... then darkness hid the entire landscape, yet a darkness that was deeper, bluer than the velvet of the night alone.... and he shrieked aloud in his remorseful anguish: "may the gods forgive me, for i did not mean it! oh, that i might undo ... that i might repay...!" that his cries disturbed the weary occupants in more than one bed is certain, but he remembers chiefly that a nurse was quickly by his side, and that something she gave him soothed his violent pain and helped him into deeper sleep again. there was, he noticed, anyhow, no longer the soft, clear, blazing light about his cousin's bed. he saw only the faint glitter of the oil-lamps down the length of the great room.... and some weeks later he went back to fight. the picture, however, never left his memory. it stayed with him as an actual reality that was neither delusion nor hallucination. he believed that he understood at last the meaning of the tie that had fettered him and puzzled him so long. the memory of those far-off days of shepherding beneath the stars of long ago remained vividly beside him. he kept his secret, however. in many a talk with his cousin beneath the nearer stars of flanders no word of it ever passed his lips. the friendship between them, meanwhile, experienced a curious deepening, though unacknowledged in any spoken words. smith, at any rate, on his side, put into it an affection that was a brave man's love. he watched over his cousin. in the fighting especially, when possible, he sought to protect and shield him, regardless of his own personal safety. he delighted secretly in the honours his cousin had already won. he himself was not yet even mentioned in dispatches, and no public distinction of any kind had come his way. his v.c. eventually--well, he was no longer occupying his body when it was bestowed. he had already "left." ... he was now conscious, possibly, of other experiences besides that one of ancient, primitive days when he and his brother were shepherding beneath other stars. but the reckless heroism which saved his cousin under fire may later enshrine another memory which, at some far future time, shall reawaken as a "hallucination" from a past that to-day is called the present.... the notion, at any rate, flashed across his mind before he "left." ix an egyptian hornet the word has an angry, malignant sound that brings the idea of attack vividly into the mind. there is a vicious sting about it somewhere--even a foreigner, ignorant of the meaning, must feel it. a hornet is wicked; it darts and stabs; it pierces, aiming without provocation for the face and eyes. the name suggests a metallic droning of evil wings, fierce flight, and poisonous assault. though black and yellow, it sounds scarlet. there is blood in it. a striped tiger of the air in concentrated form! there is no escape--if it attacks. in egypt an ordinary bee is the size of an english hornet, but the egyptian hornet is enormous. it is truly monstrous--an ominous, dying terror. it shares that universal quality of the land of the sphinx and pyramids--great size. it is a formidable insect, worse than scorpion or tarantula. the rev. james milligan, meeting one for the first time, realised the meaning of another word as well, a word he used prolifically in his eloquent sermons--devil. one morning in april, when the heat began to bring the insects out, he rose as usual betimes and went across the wide stone corridor to his bath. the desert already glared in through the open windows. the heat would be afflicting later in the day, but at this early hour the cool north wind blew pleasantly down the hotel passages. it was sunday, and at half-past eight o'clock he would appear to conduct the morning service for the english visitors. the floor of the passage-way was cold beneath his feet in their thin native slippers of bright yellow. he was neither young nor old; his salary was comfortable; he had a competency of his own, without wife or children to absorb it; the dry climate had been recommended to him; and--the big hotel took him in for next to nothing. and he was thoroughly pleased with himself, for he was a sleek, vain, pompous, well-advertised personality, but mean as a rat. no worries of any kind were on his mind as, carrying sponge and towel, scented soap and a bottle of scrubb's ammonia, he travelled amiably across the deserted, shining corridor to the bathroom. and nothing went wrong with the rev. james milligan until he opened the door, and his eye fell upon a dark, suspicious-looking object clinging to the window-pane in front of him. and even then, at first, he felt no anxiety or alarm, but merely a natural curiosity to know exactly what it was--this little clot of an odd-shaped, elongated thing that stuck there on the wooden framework six feet before his aquiline nose. he went straight up to it to see--then stopped dead. his heart gave a distinct, unclerical leap. his lips formed themselves into unregenerate shape. he gasped: "good god! what is it?" for something unholy, something wicked as a secret sin, stuck there before his eyes in the patch of blazing sunshine. he caught his breath. for a moment he was unable to move, as though the sight half fascinated him. then, cautiously and very slowly--stealthily, in fact--he withdrew towards the door he had just entered. fearful of making the smallest sound, he retraced his steps on tiptoe. his yellow slippers shuffled. his dry sponge fell, and bounded till it settled, rolling close beneath the horribly attractive object facing him. from the safety of the open door, with ample space for retreat behind him, he paused and stared. his entire being focused itself in his eyes. it was a hornet that he saw. it hung there, motionless and threatening, between him and the bathroom door. and at first he merely exclaimed--below his breath--"good god! it's an egyptian hornet!" being a man with a reputation for decided action, however, he soon recovered himself. he was well schooled in self-control. when people left his church at the beginning of the sermon, no muscle of his face betrayed the wounded vanity and annoyance that burned deep in his heart. but a hornet sitting directly in his path was a very different matter. he realised in a flash that he was poorly clothed--in a word, that he was practically half naked. from a distance he examined this intrusion of the devil. it was calm and very still. it was wonderfully made, both before and behind. its wings were folded upon its terrible body. long, sinuous things, pointed like temptation, barbed as well, stuck out of it. there was poison, and yet grace, in its exquisite presentment. its shiny black was beautiful, and the yellow stripes upon its sleek, curved abdomen were like the gleaming ornaments upon some feminine body of the seductive world he preached against. almost, he saw an abandoned dancer on the stage. and then, swiftly in his impressionable soul, the simile changed, and he saw instead more blunt and aggressive forms of destruction. the well-filled body, tapering to a horrid point, reminded him of those perfect engines of death that reduce hundreds to annihilation unawares--torpedoes, shells, projectiles, crammed with secret, desolating powers. its wings, its awful, quiet head, its delicate, slim waist, its stripes of brilliant saffron--all these seemed the concentrated prototype of abominations made cleverly by the brain of man, and beautifully painted to disguise their invisible freight of cruel death. "bah!" he exclaimed, ashamed of his prolific imagination. "it's only a hornet after all--an insect!" and he contrived a hurried, careful plan. he aimed a towel at it, rolled up into a ball--but did not throw it. he might miss. he remembered that his ankles were unprotected. instead, he paused again, examining the black and yellow object in safe retirement near the door, as one day he hoped to watch the world in leisurely retirement in the country. it did not move. it was fixed and terrible. it made no sound. its wings were folded. not even the black antennae, blunt at the tips like clubs, showed the least stir or tremble. it breathed, however. he watched the rise and fall of the evil body; it breathed air in and out as he himself did. the creature, he realised, had lungs and heart and organs. it had a brain! its mind was active all this time. it knew it was being watched. it merely waited. any second, with a whiz of fury, and with perfect accuracy of aim, it might dart at him and strike. if he threw the towel and missed--it certainly would. there were other occupants of the corridor, however, and a sound of steps approaching gave him the decision to act. he would lose his bath if he hesitated much longer. he felt ashamed of his timidity, though "pusillanimity" was the word thought selected owing to the pulpit vocabulary it was his habit to prefer. he went with extreme caution towards the bathroom door, passing the point of danger so close that his skin turned hot and cold. with one foot gingerly extended, he recovered his sponge. the hornet did not move a muscle. but--it had seen him pass. it merely waited. all dangerous insects had that trick. it knew quite well he was inside; it knew quite well he must come out a few minutes later; it also knew quite well that he was--naked. once inside the little room, he closed the door with exceeding gentleness, lest the vibration might stir the fearful insect to attack. the bath was already filled, and he plunged to his neck with a feeling of comparative security. a window into the outside passage he also closed, so that nothing could possibly come in. and steam soon charged the air and left its blurred deposit on the glass. for ten minutes he could enjoy himself and pretend that he was safe. for ten minutes he did so. he behaved carelessly, as though nothing mattered, and as though all the courage in the world were his. he splashed and soaped and sponged, making a lot of reckless noise. he got out and dried himself. slowly the steam subsided, the air grew clearer, he put on dressing-gown and slippers. it was time to go out. unable to devise any further reason for delay, he opened the door softly half an inch--peeped out--and instantly closed it again with a resounding bang. he had heard a drone of wings. the insect had left its perch and now buzzed upon the floor directly in his path. the air seemed full of stings; he felt stabs all over him; his unprotected portions winced with the expectancy of pain. the beast knew he was coming out, and was waiting for him. in that brief instant he had felt its sting all over him, on his unprotected ankles, on his back, his neck, his cheeks, in his eyes, and on the bald clearing that adorned his anglican head. through the closed door he heard the ominous, dull murmur of his striped adversary as it beat its angry wings. its oiled and wicked sting shot in and out with fury. its deft legs worked. he saw its tiny waist already writhing with the lust of battle. ugh! that tiny waist! a moment's steady nerve and he could have severed that cunning body from the directing brain with one swift, well-directed thrust. but his nerve had utterly deserted him. human motives, even in the professedly holy, are an involved affair at any time. just now, in the rev. james milligan, they were quite inextricably mixed. he claims this explanation, at any rate, in excuse of his abominable subsequent behaviour. for, exactly at this moment, when he had decided to admit cowardice by ringing for the arab servant, a step was audible in the corridor outside, and courage came with it into his disreputable heart. it was the step of the man he cordially "disapproved of," using the pulpit version of "hated and despised." he had overstayed his time, and the bath was in demand by mr. mullins. mr. mullins invariably followed him at seven-thirty; it was now a quarter to eight. and mr. mullins was a wretched drinking man--"a sot." in a flash the plan was conceived and put into execution. the temptation, of course, was of the devil. mr. milligan hid the motive from himself, pretending he hardly recognised it. the plan was what men call a dirty trick; it was also irresistibly seductive. he opened the door, stepped boldly, nose in the air, right over the hideous insect on the floor, and fairly pranced into the outer passage. the brief transit brought a hundred horrible sensations--that the hornet would rise and sting his leg, that it would cling to his dressing-gown and stab his spine, that he would step upon it and die, like achilles, of a heel exposed. but with these, and conquering them, was one other stronger emotion that robbed the lesser terrors of their potency--that mr. mullins would run precisely the same risks five seconds later, unprepared. he heard the gloating insect buzz and scratch the oil-cloth. but it was behind him. _he_ was safe! "good morning to you, mr. mullins," he observed with a gracious smile. "i trust i have not kept you waiting." "mornin'!" grunted mullins sourly in reply, as he passed him with a distinctly hostile and contemptuous air. for mullins, though depraved, perhaps, was an honest man, abhorring parsons and making no secret of his opinions--whence the bitter feeling. all men, except those very big ones who are supermen, have something astonishingly despicable in them. the despicable thing in milligan came uppermost now. he fairly chuckled. he met the snub with a calm, forgiving smile, and continued his shambling gait with what dignity he could towards his bedroom opposite. then he turned his head to see. his enemy would meet an infuriated hornet--an egyptian hornet!--and might not notice it. he might step on it. he might not. but he was bound to disturb it, and rouse it to attack. the chances were enormously on the clerical side. and its sting meant death. "may god forgive me!" ran subconsciously through his mind. and side by side with the repentant prayer ran also a recognition of the tempter's eternal skill: "i hope the devil it will sting him!" it happened very quickly. the rev. james milligan lingered a moment by his door to watch. he saw mullins, the disgusting mullins, step blithely into the bathroom passage; he saw him pause, shrink back, and raise his arm to protect his face. he heard him swear out aloud: "what's the d----d thing doing here? have i really got 'em again----?" and then he heard him laugh--a hearty, guffawing laugh of genuine relief---- "it's _real_!" the moment of revulsion was overwhelming. it filled the churchly heart with anguish and bitter disappointment. for a space he hated the whole race of men. for the instant mr. mullins realised that the insect was not a fiery illusion of his disordered nerves, he went forward without the smallest hesitation. with his towel he knocked down the flying terror. then he stooped. he gathered up the venomous thing his well-aimed blow had stricken so easily to the floor. he advanced with it, held at arm's length, to the window. he tossed it out carelessly. the egyptian hornet flew away uninjured, and mr. mullins--the mr. mullins who drank, gave nothing to the church, attended no services, hated parsons, and proclaimed the fact with enthusiasm--this same detestable mr. mullins went to his unearned bath without a scratch. but first he saw his enemy standing in the doorway across the passage, watching him--and understood. that was the awful part of it. mullins would make a story of it, and the story would go the round of the hotel. the rev. james milligan, however, proved that his reputation for self-control was not undeserved. he conducted morning service half an hour later with an expression of peace upon his handsome face. he conquered all outward sign of inward spiritual vexation; the wicked, he consoled himself, ever flourish like green bay trees. it was notorious that the righteous never have any luck at all! that was bad enough. but what was worse--and the rev. james milligan remembered for very long--was the superior ease with which mullins had relegated both himself and hornet to the same level of comparative insignificance. mullins ignored them both--which proved that he felt himself superior. infinitely worse than the sting of any hornet in the world: he really _was_ superior. x by water the night before young larsen left to take up his new appointment in egypt he went to the clairvoyante. he neither believed nor disbelieved. he felt no interest, for he already knew his past and did not wish to know his future. "just to please me, jim," the girl pleaded. "the woman is wonderful. before i had been five minutes with her she told me your initials, so there _must_ be something in it." "she read your thought," he smiled indulgently. "even i can do that!" but the girl was in earnest. he yielded; and that night at his farewell dinner he came to give his report of the interview. the result was meagre and unconvincing: money was coming to him, he was soon to make a voyage, and--he would never marry. "so you see how silly it all is," he laughed, for they were to be married when his first promotion came. he gave the details, however, making a little story of it in the way he knew she loved. "but was that all, jim?" the girl asked it, looking rather hard into his face. "aren't you hiding something from me?" he hesitated a moment, then burst out laughing at her clever discernment. "there _was_ a little more," he confessed, "but you take it all so seriously; i----" he had to tell it then, of course. the woman had told him a lot of gibberish about friendly and unfriendly elements. "she said water was unfriendly to me; i was to be careful of water, or else i should come to harm by it. _fresh_ water only," he hastened to add, seeing that the idea of shipwreck was in her mind. "drowning?" the girl asked quickly. "yes," he admitted with reluctance, but still laughing; "she did say drowning, though drowning in no ordinary way." the girl's face showed uneasiness a moment. "what does that mean--drowning in no ordinary way?" she asked, a catch in her breath. but that he could not tell her, because he did not know himself. he gave, therefore, the exact words: "you will drown, but will not know you drown." it was unwise of him. he wished afterwards he had invented a happier report, or had kept this detail back. "i'm safe in egypt, anyhow," he laughed. "i shall be a clever man if i can find enough water in the desert to do me harm!" and all the way from trieste to alexandria he remembered the promise she had extracted--that he would never once go on the nile unless duty made it imperative for him to do so. he kept that promise like the literal, faithful soul he was. his love was equal to the somewhat quixotic sacrifice it occasionally involved. fresh water in egypt there was practically none other, and in any case the natrum works where his duty lay had their headquarters some distance out into the desert. the river, with its banks of welcome, refreshing verdure, was not even visible. months passed quickly, and the time for leave came within measurable distance. in the long interval luck had played the cards kindly for him, vacancies had occurred, early promotion seemed likely, and his letters were full of plans to bring her out to share a little house of their own. his health, however, had not improved; the dryness did not suit him; even in this short period his blood had thinned, his nervous system deteriorated, and, contrary to the doctor's prophecy, the waterless air had told upon his sleep. a damp climate liked him best, and once the sun had touched him with its fiery finger. his letters made no mention of this. he described the life to her, the work, the sport, the pleasant people, and his chances of increased pay and early marriage. and a week before he sailed he rode out upon a final act of duty to inspect the latest diggings his company were making. his course lay some twenty miles into the desert behind el-chobak and towards the limestone hills of guebel haidi, and he went alone, carrying lunch and tea, for it was the weekly holiday of friday, and the men were not at work. the accident was ordinary enough. on his way back in the heat of early afternoon his pony stumbled against a boulder on the treacherous desert film, threw him heavily, broke the girth, bolted before he could seize the reins again, and left him stranded some ten or twelve miles from home. there was a pain in his knee that made walking difficult, a buzzing in his head that troubled sight and made the landscape swim, while, worse than either, his provisions, fastened to the saddle, had vanished with the frightened pony into those blazing leagues of sand. he was alone in the desert, beneath the pitiless afternoon sun, twelve miles of utterly exhausting country between him and safety. under normal conditions he could have covered the distance in four hours, reaching home by dark; but his knee pained him so that a mile an hour proved the best he could possibly do. he reflected a few minutes. the wisest course was to sit down and wait till the pony told its obvious story to the stable, and help should come. and this was what he did, for the scorching heat and glare were dangerous; they were terrible; he was shaken and bewildered by his fall, hungry and weak into the bargain; and an hour's painful scrambling over the baked and burning little gorges must have speedily caused complete prostration. he sat down and rubbed his aching knee. it was quite a little adventure. yet, though he knew the desert might not be lightly trifled with, he felt at the moment nothing more than this--and the amusing description of it he would give in his letter, or--intoxicating thought--by word of mouth. in the heat of the sun he began to feel drowsy. a soft torpor crept over him. he dozed. he fell asleep. it was a long, a dreamless sleep ... for when he woke at length the sun had just gone down, the dusk lay awfully upon the enormous desert, and the air was chilly. the cold had waked him. quickly, as though on purpose, the red glow faded from the sky; the first stars shone; it was dark; the heavens were deep violet. he looked round and realised that his sense of direction had gone entirely. great hunger was in him. the cold already was bitter as the wind rose, but the pain in his knee having eased, he got up and walked a little--and in a moment lost sight of the spot where he had been lying. the shadowy desert swallowed it. "ah," he realised, "this is not an english field or moor. i'm in the desert!" the safe thing to do was to remain exactly where he was; only thus could the rescuers find him; once he wandered he was done for. it was strange the search-party had not yet arrived. to keep warm, however, he was compelled to move, so he made a little pile of stones to mark the place, and walked round and round it in a circle of some dozen yards' diameter. he limped badly, and the hunger gnawed dreadfully; but, after all, the adventure was not so terrible. the amusing side of it kept uppermost still. though fragile in body, his spirit was not unduly timid or imaginative; he _could_ last out the night, or, if the worst came to the worst, the next day as well. but when he watched the little group of stones, he saw that there were dozens of them, scores, hundreds, thousands of these little groups of stones. the desert's face, of course, is thickly strewn with them. the original one was lost in the first five minutes. so he sat down again. but the biting cold, and the wind that licked his very skin beneath the light clothing, soon forced him up again. it was ominous; and the night huge and shelterless. the shaft of green zodiacal light that hung so strangely in the western sky for hours had faded away; the stars were out in their bright thousands; no guide was anywhere; the wind moaned and puffed among the sandy mounds; the vast sheet of desert stretched appallingly upon the world; he heard the jackals cry.... and with the jackals' cry came suddenly the unwelcome realisation that no play was in this adventure any more, but that a bleak reality stared at him through the surrounding darkness. he faced it--at bay. he was genuinely lost. thought blocked in him. "i must be calm and think," he said aloud. his voice woke no echo; it was small and dead; something gigantic ate it instantly. he got up and walked again. why did no one come? hours had passed. the pony had long ago found its stable, or--had it run madly in another direction altogether? he worked out possibilities, tightening his belt. the cold was searching; he never had been, never could be warm again; the hot sunshine of a few hours ago seemed the merest dream. unfamiliar with hardship, he knew not what to do, but he took his coat and shirt off, vigorously rubbed his skin where the dried perspiration of the afternoon still caused clammy shivers, swung his arms furiously like a london cabman, and quickly dressed again. though the wind upon his bare back was fearful, he felt warmer a little. he lay down exhausted, sheltered by an overhanging limestone crag, and took snatches of fitful dog's-sleep, while the wind drove overhead and the dry sand pricked his skin. one face continually was near him; one pair of tender eyes; two dear hands smoothed him; he smelt the perfume of light brown hair. it was all natural enough. his whole thought, in his misery, ran to her in england--england where there were soft fresh grass, big sheltering trees, hemlock and honeysuckle in the hedges--while the hard black desert guarded him, and consciousness dipped away at little intervals under this dry and pitiless egyptian sky.... it was perhaps five in the morning when a voice spoke and he started up with a horrid jerk--the voice of that clairvoyante woman. the sentence died away into the darkness, but one word remained: _water!_ at first he wondered, but at once explanation came. cause and effect were obvious. the clue was physical. his body needed water, and so the thought came up into his mind. he was thirsty. this was the moment when fear first really touched him. hunger was manageable, more or less--for a day or two, certainly. but thirst! thirst and the desert were an evil pair that, by cumulative suggestion gathering since childhood days, brought terror in. once in the mind it could not be dislodged. in spite of his best efforts, the ghastly thing grew passionately--because his thirst grew too. he had smoked much; had eaten spiced things at lunch; had breathed in alkali with the dry, scorched air. he searched for a cool flint pebble to put into his burning mouth, but found only angular scraps of dusty limestone. there were no pebbles here. the cold helped a little to counteract, but already he knew in himself subconsciously the dread of something that was coming. what was it? he tried to hide the thought and bury it out of sight. the utter futility of his tiny strength against the power of the universe appalled him. and then he knew. the merciless sun was on the way, already rising. its return was like the presage of execution to him.... it came. with true horror he watched the marvellous swift dawn break over the sandy sea. the eastern sky glowed hurriedly as from crimson fires. ridges, not noticeable in the starlight, turned black in endless series, like flat-topped billows of a frozen ocean. wide streaks of blue and yellow followed, as the sky dropped sheets of faint light upon the wind-eaten cliffs and showed their under sides. they did not advance; they waited till the sun was up--and then they moved; they rose and sank; they shifted as the sunshine lifted them and the shadows crept away. but in an hour there would be no shadows any more. there would be no shade!... the little groups of stones began to dance. it was horrible. the unbroken, huge expanse lay round him, warming up, twelve hours of blazing hell to come. already the monstrous desert glared, each bit familiar, since each bit was a repetition of the bit before, behind, on either side. it laughed at guidance and direction. he rose and walked; for miles he walked, though how many, north, south, or west, he knew not. the frantic thing was in him now, the fury of the desert; he took its pace, its endless, tireless stride, the stride of the burning, murderous desert that is--waterless. he felt it alive--a blindly heaving desire in it to reduce him to its conditionless, awful dryness. he felt--yet knowing this was feverish and _not_ to be believed--that his own small life lay on its mighty surface, a mere dot in space, a mere heap of little stones. his emotions, his fears, his hopes, his ambition, his love--mere bundled group of little unimportant stones that danced with apparent activity for a moment, then were merged in the undifferentiated surface underneath. he was included in a purpose greater than his own. the will made a plucky effort then. "a night and a day," he laughed, while his lips cracked smartingly with the stretching of the skin, "what is it? many a chap has lasted days and days...!" yes, only he was not of that rare company. he was ordinary, unaccustomed to privation, weak, untrained of spirit, unacquainted with stern resistance. he knew not how to spare himself. the desert struck him where it pleased--all over. it played with him. his tongue was swollen; the parched throat could not swallow. he sank.... an hour he lay there, just wit enough in him to choose the top of a mound where he could be most easily seen. he lay two hours, three, four hours.... the heat blazed down upon him like a furnace.... the sky, when he opened his eyes once, was empty ... then a speck became visible in the blue expanse; and presently another speck. they came from nowhere. they hovered very high, almost out of sight. they appeared, they disappeared, they--reappeared. nearer and nearer they swung down, in sweeping stealthy circles ... little dancing groups of them, miles away but ever drawing closer--the vultures.... he had strained his ears so long for sounds of feet and voices that it seemed he could no longer hear at all. hearing had ceased within him. then came the water-dreams, with their agonising torture. he heard _that_ ... heard it running in silvery streams and rivulets across green english meadows. it rippled with silvery music. he heard it splash. he dipped hands and feet and head in it--in deep, clear pools of generous depth. he drank; with his skin he drank, not with mouth and throat alone. ice clinked in effervescent, sparkling water against a glass. he swam and plunged. water gushed freely over back and shoulders, gallons and gallons of it, bathfuls and to spare, a flood of gushing, crystal, cool, life-giving liquid.... and then he stood in a beech wood and felt the streaming deluge of delicious summer rain upon his face; heard it drip luxuriantly upon a million thirsty leaves. the wet trunks shone, the damp moss spread its perfume, ferns waved heavily in the moist atmosphere. he was soaked to the skin in it. a mountain torrent, fresh from fields of snow, foamed boiling past, and the spray fell in a shower upon his cheeks and hair. he dived--head foremost.... ah, he was up to the neck ... and _she_ was with him; they were under water together; he saw her eyes gleaming into his own beneath the copious flood. the voice, however, was not hers.... "you will drown, yet you will not know you drown...!" his swollen tongue called out a name. but no sound was audible. he closed his eyes. there came sweet unconsciousness.... a sound in that instant _was_ audible, though. it was a voice--voices--and the thud of animal hoofs upon the sand. the specks had vanished from the sky as mysteriously as they came. and, as though in answer to the sound, he made a movement--an automatic, unconscious movement. he did not know he moved. and the body, uncontrolled, lost its precarious balance. he rolled; but he did not know he rolled. slowly, over the edge of the sloping mound of sand, he turned sideways. like a log of wood he slid gradually, turning over and over, nothing to stop him--to the bottom. a few feet only, and not even steep; just steep enough to keep rolling slowly. there was a--splash. but he did not know there was a splash. they found him in a pool of water--one of these rare pools the desert bedouin mark preciously for their own. he had lain within three yards of it for hours. he was drowned ... but he did not know he drowned.... xi h. s. h. in the mountain club hut, to which he had escaped after weeks of gaiety in the capital, delane, young travelling englishman, sat alone, and listened to the wind that beat the pines with violence. the firelight danced over the bare stone floor and raftered ceiling, giving the room an air of movement, and though the solid walls held steady against the wild spring hurricane, the cannonading of the wind seemed to threaten the foundations. for the mountain shook, the forest roared, and the shadows had a way of running everywhere as though the little building trembled. delane watched and listened. he piled the logs on. from time to time he glanced nervously over his shoulder, restless, half uneasy, as a burst of spray from the branches dashed against the window, or a gust of unusual vehemence shook the door. over-wearied with his long day's climb among impossible conditions, he now realised, in this mountain refuge, his utter loneliness; for his mind gave birth to that unwelcome symptom of true loneliness--that he was not, after all, alone. continually he heard steps and voices in the storm. another wanderer, another climber out of season like himself, would presently arrive, and sleep was out of the question until first he heard that knocking on the door. almost--he expected some one. he went for the tenth time to the little window. he peered forth into the thick darkness of the dropping night, shading his eyes against the streaming pane to screen the firelight in an attempt to see if another climber--perhaps a climber in distress--were visible. the surroundings were desolate and savage, well named the devil's saddle. black-faced precipices, streaked with melting snow, rose towering to the north, where the heights were hidden in seas of vapour; waterfalls poured into abysses on two sides; a wall of impenetrable forest pressed up from the south; and the dangerous ridge he had climbed all day slid off wickedly into a sky of surging cloud. but no human figure was, of course, distinguishable, for both the lateness of the hour and the elemental fury of the night rendered it most unlikely. he turned away with a start, as the tempest delivered a blow with massive impact against his very face. then, clearing the remnants of his frugal supper from the table, he hung his soaking clothes at a new angle before the fire, made sure the door was fastened on the inside, climbed into the bunk where white pillows and thick austrian blankets looked so inviting, and prepared finally for sleep. "i must be over-tired," he sighed, after half an hour's weary tossing, and went back to make up the sinking fire. wood is plentiful in these climbers' huts; he heaped it on. but this time he lit the little oil lamp as well, realising--though unwilling to acknowledge it--that it was not over-fatigue that banished sleep, but this unwelcome sense of expecting some one, of being not quite alone. for the feeling persisted and increased. he drew the wooden bench close up to the fire, turned the lamp as high as it would go, and wished unaccountably for the morning. light was a very pleasant thing; and darkness now, for the first time since childhood, troubled him. it was outside; but it might so easily come in and swamp, obliterate, extinguish. the darkness seemed a positive thing. already, somehow, it was established in his mind--this sense of enormous, aggressive darkness that veiled an undesirable hint of personality. some shadow from the peaks or from the forest, immense and threatening, pervaded all his thought. "this can't be entirely nerves," he whispered to himself. "i'm not so tired as all that!" and he made the fire roar. he shivered and drew closer to the blaze. "i'm out of condition; that's part of it," he realised, and remembered with loathing the weeks of luxurious indulgence just behind him. for delane had rather wasted his year of educational travel. straight from oxford, and well supplied with money, he had first saturated his mind in the latest continental thought--the science of france, the metaphysics and philosophy of germany--and had then been caught aside by the gaiety of capitals where the lights are not turned out at midnight by a sunday school police. he had been surfeited, physically, emotionally, and intellectually, till his mind and body longed hungrily for simple living again and simple teaching--above all, the latter. the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom--for certain temperaments (as blake forgot to add), of which delane was one. for there was stuff in the youth, and the reaction had set in with violent abruptness. his system rebelled. he cut loose energetically from all soft delights, and craved for severity, pure air, solitude and hardship. clean and simple conditions he must have without delay, and the tonic of physical battling. it was too early in the year to climb seriously, for the snow was still dangerous and the weather wild, but he had chosen this most isolated of all the mountain huts in order to make sure of solitude, and had come, without guide or companion, for a week's strenuous life in wild surroundings, and to take stock of himself with a view to full recovery. and all day long as he climbed the desolate, unsafe ridge, his mind--good, wholesome, natural symptom--had reverted to his childhood days, to the solid worldly wisdom of his church-going father, and to the early teaching (oh, how sweet and refreshing in its literal spirit!) at his mother's knee. now, as he watched the blazing logs, it came back to him again with redoubled force; the simple, precious, old-world stories of heaven and hell, of a paternal deity, and of a daring, subtle, personal devil---- the interruption to his thoughts came with startling suddenness, as the roaring night descended against the windows with a thundering violence that shook the walls and sucked the flame half-way up the wide stone chimney. the oil lamp flickered and went out. darkness invaded the room for a second, and delane sprang from his bench, thinking the wet snow had loosened far above and was about to sweep the hut into the depths. and he was still standing, trembling and uncertain, in the middle of the room, when a deep and sighing hush followed sharp upon the elemental outburst, and in the hush, like a whisper after thunder, he heard a curious steady sound that, at first, he thought must be a footstep by the door. it was then instantly repeated. but it was not a step. it was some one knocking on the heavy oaken panels--a firm, authoritative sound, as though the new arrival had the right to enter and was already impatient at the delay. the englishman recovered himself instantly, realising with keen relief the new arrival--at last. "another climber like myself, of course," he said, "or perhaps the man who comes to prepare the hut for others. the season has begun." and he went over quickly, without a further qualm, to unbolt the door. "forgive!" he exclaimed in german, as he threw it wide, "i was half asleep before the fire. it is a terrible night. come in to food and shelter, for both are here, and you shall share such supper as i possess." and a tall, cloaked figure passed him swiftly with a gust of angry wind from the impenetrable blackness of the world beyond. on the threshold, for a second, his outline stood full in the blaze of firelight with the sheet of darkness behind it, stately, erect, commanding, his cloak torn fiercely by the wind, but the face hidden by a low-brimmed hat; and an instant later the door shut with resounding clamour upon the hurricane, and the two men turned to confront one another in the little room. delane then realised two things sharply, both of them fleeting impressions, but acutely vivid: first, that the outside darkness seemed to have entered and established itself between him and the new arrival; and, secondly, that the stranger's face was difficult to focus for clear sight, although the covering hat was now removed. there was a blur upon it somewhere. and this the englishman ascribed partly to the flickering effect of firelight, and partly to the lightning glare of the man's masterful and terrific eyes, which made his own sight waver in some curious fashion as he gazed upon him. these impressions, however, were but momentary and passing, due doubtless to the condition of his nerves and to the semi-shock of the dramatic, even theatrical entrance. delane's senses, in this wild setting, were guilty of exaggeration. for now, while helping the man remove his cloak, speaking naturally of shelter, food, and the savage weather, he lost this first distortion and his mind recovered sane proportion. the stranger, after all, though striking, was not of appearance so uncommon as to cause alarm; the light and the low doorway had touched his stature with illusion. he dwindled. and the great eyes, upon calmer subsequent inspection, lost their original fierce lightning. the entering darkness, moreover, was but an effect of the upheaving night behind him as he strode across the threshold. the closed door proved it. and yet, as delane continued his quieter examination, there remained, he saw, the startling quality which had caused that first magnifying in his mind. his senses, while reporting accurately, insisted upon this arresting and uncommon touch: there was, about this late wanderer of the night, some evasive, lofty strangeness that set him utterly apart from ordinary men. the englishman examined him searchingly, surreptitiously, but with a touch of passionate curiosity he could not in the least account for nor explain. there were contradictions of perplexing character about him. for the first presentment had been of splendid youth, while on the face, though vigorous and gloriously handsome, he now discerned the stamp of tremendous age. it was worn and tired. while radiant with strength and health and power, it wore as well this certain signature of deep exhaustion that great experience rather than physical experience brings. moreover, he discovered in it, in some way he could not hope to describe, man, woman, and child. there was a big, sad earnestness about it, yet a touch of humour too; patience, tenderness, and sweetness held the mouth; and behind the high pale forehead intellect sat enthroned and watchful. in it were both love and hatred, longing and despair; an expression of being ever on the defensive, yet hugely mutinous; an air both hunted and beseeching; great knowledge and great woe. delane gave up the search, aware that something unalterably splendid stood before him. solemnity and beauty swept him too. his was never the grotesque assumption that man must be the highest being in the universe, nor that a thing is a miracle merely because it has never happened before. he groped, while explanation and analysis both halted. "a great teacher," thought fluttered through him, "or a mighty rebel! a distinguished personality beyond all question! who can he be?" there was something regal that put respect upon his imagination instantly. and he remembered the legend of the country-side that ludwig of bavaria was said to be about when nights were very wild. he wondered. into his speech and manner crept unawares an attitude of deference that was almost reverence, and with it--whence came this other quality?--a searching pity. "you must be wearied out," he said respectfully, busying himself about the room, "as well as cold and wet. this fire will dry you, sir, and meanwhile i will prepare quickly such food as there is, if you will eat it." for the other carried no knapsack, nor was he clothed for the severity of mountain travel. "i have already eaten," said the stranger courteously, "and, with my thanks to you, i am neither wet nor tired. the afflictions that i bear are of another kind, though ones that you shall more easily, i am sure, relieve." he spoke as a man whose words set troops in action, and delane glanced at him, deeply moved by the surprising phrase, yet hardly marvelling that it should be so. he found no ready answer. but there was evidently question in his look, for the other continued, and this time with a smile that betrayed sheer winning beauty as of a tender woman: "i saw the light and came to it. it is unusual--at this time." his voice was resonant, yet not deep. there was a ringing quality about it that the bare room emphasised. it charmed the young englishman inexplicably. also, it woke in him a sense of infinite pathos. "you are a climber, sir, like myself," delane resumed, lifting his eyes a moment uneasily from the coffee he brewed over a corner of the fire. "you know this neighbourhood, perhaps? better, at any rate, than i can know it?" his german halted rather. he chose his words with difficulty. there was uncommon trouble in his mind. "i know all wild and desolate places," replied the other, in perfect english, but with a wintry mournfulness in his voice and eyes, "for i feel at home in them, and their stern companionship my nature craves as solace. but, unlike yourself, i am no climber." "the heights have no attraction for you?" asked delane, as he mingled steaming milk and coffee in the wooden bowl, marvelling what brought him then so high above the valleys. "it is their difficulty and danger that fascinate me always. i find the loneliness of the summits intoxicating in a sense." and, regardless of refusal, he set the bread and meat before him, the apple and the tiny packet of salt, then turned away to place the coffee pot beside the fire again. but as he did so a singular gesture of the other caught his eyes. before touching bowl or plate, the stranger took the fruit and brushed his lips with it. he kissed it, then set it on the ground and crushed it into pulp beneath his heel. and, seeing this, the young englishman knew something dreadfully arrested in his mind, for, as he looked away, pretending the act was unobserved, a thing of ice and darkness moved past him through the room, so that the pot trembled in his hand, rattling sharply against the hearthstone where he stooped. he could only interpret it as an act of madness, and the myth of the sad, drowned monarch wandering through this enchanted region, pressed into him again unsought and urgent. it was a full minute before he had control of his heart and hand again. the bowl was half emptied, and the man was smiling--this time the smile of a child who implores the comfort of enveloping and understanding arms. "i am a wanderer rather than a climber," he was saying, as though there had been no interval, "for, though the lonely summits suit me well, i now find in them only--terror. my feet lose their sureness, and my head its steady balance. i prefer the hidden gorges of these mountains, and the shadows of the covering forests. my days"--his voice drew the loneliness of uttermost space into its piteous accents--"are passed in darkness. i can never climb again." he spoke this time, indeed, as a man whose nerve was gone for ever. it was pitiable almost to tears. and delane, unable to explain the amazing contradictions, felt recklessly, furiously drawn to this trapped wanderer with the mien of a king yet the air and speech sometimes of a woman and sometimes of an outcast child. "ah, then you have known accidents," delane replied with outer calmness, as he lit his pipe, trying in vain to keep his hand as steady as his voice. "you have been in one perhaps. the effect, i have been told, is----" the power and sweetness in that resonant voice took his breath away as he heard it break in upon his own uncertain accents: "i have--fallen," the stranger replied impressively, as the rain and wind wailed past the building mournfully, "yet a fall that was no part of any accident. for it was no common fall," the man added with a magnificent gesture of disdain, "while yet it broke my heart in two." he stooped a little as he uttered the next words with a crying pathos that an outcast woman might have used. "i am," he said, "engulfed in intolerable loneliness. i can never climb again." with a shiver impossible to control, half of terror, half of pity, delane moved a step nearer to the marvellous stranger. the spirit of ludwig, exiled and distraught, had gripped his soul with a weakening terror; but now sheer beauty lifted him above all personal shrinking. there seemed some echo of lost divinity, worn, wild yet grandiose, through which this significant language strained towards a personal message--for himself. "in loneliness?" he faltered, sympathy rising in a flood. "for my kingdom that is lost to me for ever," met him in deep, throbbing tones that set the air on fire. "for my imperial ancient heights that jealousy took from me----" the stranger paused, with an indescribable air of broken dignity and pain. outside the tempest paused a moment before the awful elemental crash that followed. a bellowing of many winds descended like artillery upon the world. a burst of smoke rushed from the fireplace about them both, shrouding the stranger momentarily in a flying veil. and delane stood up, uncomfortable in his very bones. "what can it be?" he asked himself sharply. "who is this being that he should use such language?" he watched alarm chase pity, aware that the conversation held something beyond experience. but the pity returned in greater and ever greater flood. and love surged through him too. it was significant, he remembered afterwards, that he felt it incumbent upon himself to stand. curious, too, how the thought of that mad, drowned monarch haunted memory with such persistence. some vast emotion that he could not name drove out his subsequent words. the smoke had cleared, and a strange, high stillness held the world. the rain streamed down in torrents, isolating these two somehow from the haunts of men. and the englishman stared then into a countenance grown mighty with woe and loneliness. there stood darkly in it this incommunicable magnificence of pain that mingled awe with the pity he had felt. the kingly eyes looked clear into his own, completing his subjugation out of time. "i would follow you," ran his thought upon its knees, "follow you with obedience for ever and ever, even into a last damnation. for you are sublime. you shall come again into your kingdom, if my own small worship----" then blackness sponged the reckless thought away. he spoke in its place a more guarded, careful thing: "i am aware," he faltered, yet conscious that he bowed, "of standing before a great one of some world unknown to me. who he may be i have but the privilege of wondering. he has spoken darkly of a kingdom that is lost. yet he is still, i see, a monarch." and he lowered his head and shoulders involuntarily. for an instant, then, as he said it, the eyes before him flashed their original terrific lightnings. the darkness of the common world faded before the entrance of an outer darkness. from gulfs of terror at his feet rose shadows out of the night of time, and a passionate anguish as of sudden madness seized his heart and shook it. he listened breathlessly for the words that followed. it seemed some wind of unutterable despair passed in the breath from those non-human lips: "i am still a monarch, yes; but my kingdom is taken from me, for i have no single subject. lost in a loneliness that lies out of space and time, i am become a throneless ruler, and my hopelessness is more than i can bear." the beseeching pathos of the voice tore him in two. the deity himself, it seemed, stood there accused of jealousy, of sin and cruelty. the stranger rose. the power about him brought the picture of a planet, throned in mid-heaven and poised beyond assault. "not otherwise," boomed the startling words as though an avalanche found syllables, "could i now show myself to--you." delane was trembling horribly. he felt the next words slip off his tongue unconsciously. the shattering truth had dawned upon his soul at last. "then the light you saw, and came to----?" he whispered. "was the light in your heart that guided me," came the answer, sweet, beguiling as the music in a woman's tones, "the light of your instant, brief desire that held love in it." he made an opening movement with his arms as he continued, smiling like stars in summer. "for you summoned me; summoned me by your dear and precious belief: how dear, how precious, none can know but i who stand before you." his figure drew up with an imperial air of proud dominion. his feet were set among the constellations. the opening movement of his arms continued slowly. and the music in his tones seemed merged in distant thunder. "for your single, brief belief," he smiled with the grandeur of a condescending emperor, "shall give my vanished kingdom back to me." and with an air of native majesty he held his hand out--to be kissed. the black hurricane of night, the terror of frozen peaks, the yawning horror of the great abyss outside--all three crowded into the englishman's mind with a slashing impact that blocked delivery of any word or action. it was not that he refused, it was not that he withdrew, but that life stood paralysed and rigid. the flow stopped dead for the first time since he had left his mother's womb. the god in him was turned to stone and rendered ineffective. for an appalling instant god was _not_. he realised the stupendous moment. before him, drinking his little soul out merely by his presence, stood one whose habit of mind, not alone his external accidents, was imperial with black prerogative before the first man drew the breath of life. august procedure was native to his inner process of existence. the stars and confines of the universe owned his sway before he fell, to trifle away the dreary little centuries by haunting the minds of feeble men and women, by hiding himself in nursery cupboards, and by grinning with stained gargoyles from the roofs of city churches.... and the lad's life stammered, flickered, threatened to go out before the enveloping terror of the revelation. "i called to you ... but called to you in play," thought whispered somewhere deep below the level of any speech, yet not so low that the audacious sound of it did not crash above the elements outside; "for ... till now ... you have been to me but a ... coated bogy ... that my brain disowned with laughter ... and my heart thought picturesque. if you are here ... _alive_! may god forgive me for my ..." it seemed as though tears--the tears of love and profound commiseration--drowned the very seed of thought itself. a sound stopped him that was like a collapse in heaven. some crashing, as of a ruined world, passed splintering through his little timid heart. he did not yield, but he understood--with an understanding which seemed the delicate first sign of yielding--the seductiveness of evil, the sweet delight of surrendering the will with utter recklessness to those swelling forces which disintegrate the heroic soul in man. he remembered. it was true. in the reaction from excess he _had_ definitely called upon his childhood's teaching with a passing moment of genuine belief. and now that yearning of a fraction of a second bore its awful fruit. the luscious capitals where he had rioted passed in a coloured stream before his eyes; the wine, the woman, and the song stood there before him, clothed in that power which lies insinuatingly disguised behind their little passing show of innocence. their glamour donned this domino of regal and virile grandeur. he felt entangled beyond recovery. the idea of god seemed sterile and without reality. the one real thing, the one desirable thing, the one possible, strong and beautiful thing--was to bend his head and kiss those imperial fingers. he moved noiselessly towards the hand. he raised his own to take it and lift it towards his mouth---- when there rose in his mind with startling vividness a small, soft picture of a child's nursery, a picture of a little boy, kneeling in scanty night-gown with pink upturned soles, and asking ridiculous, audacious things of a shining figure seated on a summer cloud above the kitchen-garden walnut tree. the tiny symbol flashed and went its way, yet not before it had lit the entire world with glory. for there came an absolutely routing power with it. in that half-forgotten instant's craving for the simple teaching of his childhood days, belief had conjured with two immense traditions. this was the second of them. the appearance of the one had inevitably produced the passage of its opposite.... and the hand that floated in the air before him to be kissed sank slowly down below the possible level of his lips. he shrank away. though laughter tempted something in his brain, there still clung about his heart the first aching, pitying terror. but size retreated, dwindling somehow as it went. the wind and rain obliterated every other sound; yet in that bare, unfurnished room of a climber's mountain hut, there was a silence, above the roar, that drank in everything and broke the back of speech. in opposition to this masquerading splendour delane had set up a personal, paternal deity. "i thought of you, perhaps," cried the voice of self-defence, "but i did not call to you with real belief. and, by the name of god, i did not summon you. for your sweetness, as your power, sickens me; and your hand is black with the curses of all the mothers in the world, whose prayers and tears----" he stopped dead, overwhelmed by the cruelty of his reckless utterance. and the other moved towards him slowly. it was like the summit of some peaked and terrible height that moved. he spoke. he changed appallingly. "but _i_ claim," he roared, "your heart. i claim you by that instant of belief you felt. for by that alone you shall restore to me my vanished kingdom. you shall worship me." in the countenance was a sudden awful power; but behind the stupefying roar there was weakness in the voice as of an imploring and beseeching child. again, deep love and searching pity seared the englishman's heart as he replied in the gentlest accents he could find to master: "and i claim _you_," he said, "by my understanding sympathy, and by my sorrow for your god-forsaken loneliness, and by my love. for no kingdom built on hate can stand against the love you would deny----" words failed him then, as he saw the majesty fade slowly from the face, grown small and shadowy. one last expression of desperate energy in the eyes struck lightnings from the smoky air, as with an abandoned movement of the entire figure, he drew back, it seemed, towards the door behind him. delane moved slowly after him, opening his arms. tenderness and big compassion flung wide the gates of love within him. he found strange language, too, although actual, spoken words did not produce them further than his entrails where they had their birth. "toys in the world are plentiful, sire, and you may have them for your masterpiece of play. but you must seek them where they still survive; in the churches, and in isolated lands where thought lies unawakened. for they are the children's blocks of make-believe whose palaces, like your once tremendous kingdom, have no true existence for the thinking mind." and he stretched his hands towards him with the gesture of one who sought to help and save, then paused as he realised that his arms enclosed sheer blackness, with the emptiness of wind and driving rain. for the door of the hut stood open, and delane balanced on the threshold, facing the sheet of night above the abyss. he heard the waterfalls in the valley far below. the forest flapped and tossed its myriad branches. cold draughts swept down from spectral fields of melting snow above; and the blackness turned momentarily into the semblance of towers and bastions of thick beaten gloom. above one soaring turret, then, a space of sky appeared, swept naked by a violent, lost wind--an opening of purple into limitless distance. for one second, amid the vapours, it was visible, empty and untenanted. the next, there sailed across its small diameter a falling star. with an air of slow and endless leisure, yet at the same time with terrific speed, it dived behind the ragged curtain of the clouds, and the space closed up again. blackness returned upon the heavens. and through this blackness, plunging into that abyss of woe whence he had momentarily risen, the figure of the marvellous stranger melted utterly away. delane, for a fleeting second, was aware of the earnestness in the sad, imploring countenance; of its sweetness and its power so strangely mingled; of it mysterious grandeur; and of its pathetic childishness. but, already, it was sunk into interminable distance. a star that would be baleful, yet was merely glorious, passed on its endless wandering among the teeming systems of the universe. behind the fixed and steady stars, secure in their appointed places, it set. it vanished into the pit of unknown emptiness. it was gone. "god help you!" sighed across the sea of wailing branches, echoing down the dark abyss below. "god give you rest at last!" for he saw a princely, nay, an imperial being, homeless for ever, and for ever wandering, hunted as by keen remorseless winds about a universe that held no corner for his feet, his majesty unworshipped, his reign a mockery, his court unfurnished, and his courtiers mere shadows of deep space.... and a thin, grey dawn, stealing up behind clearing summits in the east, crept then against the windows of the mountain hut. it brought with it a treacherous, sharp air that made the sleeper draw another blanket near to shelter him from the sudden cold. for the fire had died out, and an icy draught sucked steadily beneath the doorway. xii a bit of wood he found himself in meran with some cousins who had various slight ailments, but, being rich and imaginative, had gone to a sanatorium to be cured. but for its sanatoria, meran might be a cheerful place; their ubiquity reminds a healthy man too often that the air is really good. being well enough himself, except for a few mental worries, he went to a gasthaus in the neighbourhood. in the sanatorium his cousins complained bitterly of the food, the ignorant "sisters," the inattentive doctors, and the idiotic regulations generally--which proves that people should not go to a sanatorium unless they are really ill. however, they paid heavily for being there, so felt that something was being accomplished, and were annoyed when he called each day for tea, and told them cheerfully how much better they looked--which proved, again, that their ailments were slight and quite curable by the local doctor at home. with one of the ailing cousins, a rich and pretty girl, he believed himself in love. it was a three weeks' business, and he spent his mornings walking in the surrounding hills, his mind reflective, analytical, and ambitious, as with a man in love. he thought of thousands of things. he mooned. once, for instance, he paused beside a rivulet to watch the buttercups dip, and asked himself, "will she be like this when we're married--so anxious to be well that she thinks fearfully all the time of getting ill?" for if so, he felt he would be bored. he knew himself accurately enough to realise that he never could stand _that_. yet money was a wonderful thing to have, and he, already thirty-five, had little enough! "am i influenced by her money, then?" he asked himself ... and so went on to ask and wonder about many things besides, for he was of a reflective temperament and his father had been a minor poet. and doubt crept in. he felt a chill. he was not much of a man, perhaps, thin-blooded and unsuccessful, rather a dreamer, too, into the bargain. he had £ a year of his own and a position in a philanthropic institution (due to influence) with a nominal salary attached. he meant to keep the latter after marriage. he would work just the same. nobody should ever say _that_ of him----! and as he sat on the fallen tree beside the rivulet, idly knocking stones into the rushing water with his stick, he reflected upon those banal truisms that epitomise two-thirds of life. the way little unimportant things can change a person's whole existence was the one his thought just now had fastened on. his cousin's chill and headache, for instance, caught at a gloomy picnic on the campagna three weeks before, had led to her going into a sanatorium and being advised that her heart was weak, that she had a tendency to asthma, that gout was in her system, and that a treatment of x-rays, radium, sun-baths and light baths, violet rays, no meat, complete rest, with big daily fees to experts with european reputations, were imperative. "from that chill, sitting a moment too long in the shadow of a forgotten patrician's tomb," he reflected, "has come all this"--"all this" including his doubt as to whether it was herself or her money that he loved, whether he could stand living with her always, whether he need _really_ keep his work on after marriage, in a word, his entire life and future, and her own as well--"all from that tiny chill three weeks ago!" and he knocked with his stick a little piece of sawn-off board that lay beside the rushing water. upon that bit of wood his mind, his mood, then fastened itself. it was triangular, a piece of sawn-off wood, brown with age and ragged. once it had been part of a triumphant, hopeful sapling on the mountains; then, when thirty years of age, the men had cut it down; the rest of it stood somewhere now, at this very moment, in the walls of the house. this extra bit was cast away as useless; it served no purpose anywhere; it was slowly rotting in the sun. but each tap of the stick, he noticed, turned it sideways without sending it over the edge into the rushing water. it was obstinate. "it doesn't want to go in," he laughed, his father's little talent cropping out in him, "but, by jove, it shall!" and he pushed it with his foot. but again it stopped, stuck end-ways against a stone. he then stooped, picked it up, and threw it in. it plopped and splashed, and went scurrying away downhill with the bubbling water. "even that scrap of useless wood," he reflected, rising to continue his aimless walk, and still idly dreaming, "even that bit of rubbish may have a purpose, and may change the life of someone--somewhere!"--and then went strolling through the fragrant pine woods, crossing a dozen similar streams, and hitting scores of stones and scraps and fir cones as he went--till he finally reached his gasthaus an hour later, and found a note from _her_: "we shall expect you about three o'clock. we thought of going for a drive. the others feel so much better." it was a revealing touch--the way she put it on "the others." he made his mind up then and there--thus tiny things divide the course of life--that he could never be happy with such an "affected creature." he went for that drive, sat next to her consuming beauty, proposed to her passionately on the way back, was accepted before he could change his mind, and is now the father of several healthy children--and just as much afraid of getting ill, or of _their_ getting ill, as she was fifteen years before. the female, of course, matures long, long before the male, he reflected, thinking the matter over in his study once.... and that scrap of wood he idly set in motion out of impulse also went its destined way upon the hurrying water that never dared to stop. proud of its new-found motion, it bobbed down merrily, spinning and turning for a mile or so, dancing gaily over sunny meadows, brushing the dipping buttercups as it passed, through vineyards, woods, and under dusty roads in neat, cool gutters, and tumbling headlong over little waterfalls, until it neared the plain. and so, finally, it came to a wooden trough that led off some of the precious water to a sawmill where bare-armed men did practical and necessary things. at the parting of the ways its angles delayed it for a moment, undecided which way to take. it wobbled. and upon that moment's wobbling hung tragic issues--issues of life and death. unknowing (yet assuredly not unknown), it chose the trough. it swung light-heartedly into the tearing sluice. it whirled with the gush of water towards the wheel, banged, spun, trembled, caught fast in the side where the cogs just chanced to be--and abruptly stopped the wheel. at any other spot the pressure of the water must have smashed it into pulp, and the wheel have continued as before; but it was caught in the _one_ place where the various tensions held it fast immovably. it stopped the wheel, and so the machinery of the entire mill. it jammed like iron. the particular angle at which the double-handed saw, held by two weary and perspiring men, had cut it off a year before just enabled it to fit and wedge itself with irresistible exactitude. the pressure of the tearing water combined with the weight of the massive wheel to fix it tight and rigid. and in due course a workman--it was the foreman of the mill--came from his post inside to make investigations. he discovered the irritating item that caused the trouble. he put his weight in a certain way; he strained his hefty muscles; he swore--and the scrap of wood was easily dislodged. he fished the morsel out, and tossed it on the bank, and spat on it. the great wheel started with a mighty groan. but it started a fraction of a second before he expected it would start. he overbalanced, clutching the revolving framework with a frantic effort, shouted, swore, leaped at nothing, and fell into the pouring flood. in an instant he was turned upside down, sucked under, drowned. he was engaged to be married, and had put by a thousand _kronen_ in the _tiroler sparbank._ he was a sober and hard-working man.... there was a paragraph in the local paper two days later. the englishman, asking the porter of his gasthaus for something to wrap up a present he was taking to his cousin in the sanatorium, used that very issue. as he folded its crumpled and recalcitrant sheets with sentimental care about the precious object his eye fell carelessly upon the paragraph. being of an idle and reflective temperament, he stopped to read it--it was headed "unglücksfall," and his poetic eye, inherited from his foolish, rhyming father, caught the pretty expression "fliessandes wasser." he read the first few lines. some fellow, with a picturesque tyrolese name, had been drowned beneath a mill-wheel; he was popular in the neighbourhood, it seemed; he had saved some money, and was just going to be married. it was very sad. "our readers' sympathy" was with him.... and, being of a reflective temperament, the englishman thought for a moment, while he went on wrapping up the parcel. he wondered if the man had really loved the girl, whether she, too, had money, and whether they would have had lots of children and been happy ever afterwards. and then he hurried out towards the sanatorium. "i shall be late," he reflected. "such little, unimportant things delay one...!" xiii a victim of higher space "there's a hextraordinary gentleman to see you, sir," said the new man. "why 'extraordinary'?" asked dr. silence, drawing the tips of his thin fingers through his brown beard. his eyes twinkled pleasantly. "why 'extraordinary,' barker?" he repeated encouragingly, noticing the perplexed expression in the man's eyes. "he's so--so thin, sir. i could hardly see 'im at all--at first. he was inside the house before i could ask the name," he added, remembering strict orders. "and who brought him here?" "he come alone, sir, in a closed cab. he pushed by me before i could say a word--making no noise not what i could hear. he seemed to move so soft like----" the man stopped short with obvious embarrassment, as though he had already said enough to jeopardise his new situation, but trying hard to show that he remembered the instructions and warnings he had received with regard to the admission of strangers not properly accredited. "and where is the gentleman now?" asked dr. silence, turning away to conceal his amusement. "i really couldn't exactly say, sir. i left him standing in the 'all----" the doctor looked up sharply. "but why in the hall, barker? why not in the waiting-room?" he fixed his piercing though kindly eyes on the man's face. "did he frighten you?" he asked quickly. "i think he did, sir, if i may say so. i seemed to lose sight of him, as it were----" the man stammered, evidently convinced by now that he had earned his dismissal. "he come in so funny, just like a cold wind," he added boldly, setting his heels at attention and looking his master full in the face. the doctor made an internal note of the man's halting description; he was pleased that the slight signs of psychic intuition which had induced him to engage barker had not entirely failed at the first trial. dr. silence sought for this qualification in all his assistants, from secretary to serving man, and if it surrounded him with a somewhat singular crew, the drawbacks were more than compensated for on the whole by their occasional flashes of insight. "so the gentleman made you feel queer, did he?" "that was it, i think, sir," repeated the man stolidly. "and he brings no kind of introduction to me--no letter or anything?" asked the doctor, with feigned surprise, as though he knew what was coming. the man fumbled, both in mind and pockets, and finally produced an envelope. "i beg pardon, sir," he said, greatly flustered; "the gentleman handed me this for you." it was a note from a discerning friend, who had never yet sent him a case that was not vitally interesting from one point or another. "please see the bearer of this note," the brief message ran, "though i doubt if even you can do much to help him." john silence paused a moment, so as to gather from the mind of the writer all that lay behind the brief words of the letter. then he looked up at his servant with a graver expression than he had yet worn. "go back and find this gentleman," he said, "and show him into the green study. do not reply to his question, or speak more than actually necessary; but think kind, helpful, sympathetic thoughts as strongly as you can, barker. you remember what i told you about the importance of _thinking_, when i engaged you. put curiosity out of your mind, and think gently, sympathetically, affectionately, if you can." he smiled, and barker, who had recovered his composure in the doctor's presence, bowed silently and went out. there were two different reception-rooms in dr. silence's house. one (intended for persons who imagined they needed spiritual assistance when really they were only candidates for the asylum) had padded walls, and was well supplied with various concealed contrivances by means of which sudden violence could be instantly met and overcome. it was, however, rarely used. the other, intended for the reception of genuine cases of spiritual distress and out-of-the-way afflictions of a psychic nature, was entirely draped and furnished in a soothing deep green, calculated to induce calmness and repose of mind. and this room was the one in which dr. silence interviewed the majority of his "queer" cases, and the one into which he had directed barker to show his present caller. to begin with, the arm-chair in which the patient was always directed to sit, was nailed to the floor, since its immovability tended to impart this same excellent characteristic to the occupant. patients invariably grew excited when talking about themselves, and their excitement tended to confuse their thoughts and to exaggerate their language. the inflexibility of the chair helped to counteract this. after repeated endeavours to drag it forward, or push it back, they ended by resigning themselves to sitting quietly. and with the futility of fidgeting there followed a calmer state of mind. upon the floor, and at intervals in the wall immediately behind, were certain tiny green buttons, practically unnoticeable, which on being pressed permitted a soothing and persuasive narcotic to rise invisibly about the occupant of the chair. the effect upon the excitable patient was rapid, admirable, and harmless. the green study was further provided with a secret spy-hole; for john silence liked when possible to observe his patient's face before it had assumed that mask the features of the human countenance invariably wear in the presence of another person. a man sitting alone wears a psychic expression; and this expression is the man himself. it disappears the moment another person joins him. and dr. silence often learned more from a few moments' secret observation of a face than from hours of conversation with its owner afterwards. a very light, almost a dancing, step followed barker's heavy tread towards the green room, and a moment afterwards the man came in and announced that the gentleman was waiting. he was still pale and his manner nervous. "never mind, barker," the doctor said kindly; "if you were not psychic the man would have had no effect upon you at all. you only need training and development. and when you have learned to interpret these feelings and sensations better, you will feel no fear, but only a great sympathy." "yes, sir; thank you, sir!" and barker bowed and made his escape, while dr. silence, an amused smile lurking about the corners of his mouth, made his way noiselessly down the passage and put his eye to the spy-hole in the door of the green study. this spy-hole was so placed that it commanded a view of almost the entire room, and, looking through it, the doctor saw a hat, gloves, and umbrella lying on a chair by the table, but searched at first in vain for their owner. the windows were both closed and a brisk fire burned in the grate. there were various signs--signs intelligible at least to a keenly intuitive soul--that the room was occupied, yet so far as human beings were concerned, it was empty, utterly empty. no one sat in the chairs; no one stood on the mat before the fire; there was no sign even that a patient was anywhere close against the wall, examining the böcklin reproductions--as patients so often did when they thought they were alone--and therefore rather difficult to see from the spy-hole. ordinarily speaking, there was no one in the room. it was undeniable. yet dr. silence was quite well aware that a human being _was_ in the room. his psychic apparatus never failed in letting him know the proximity of an incarnate or discarnate being. even in the dark he could tell that. and he now knew positively that his patient--the patient who had alarmed barker, and had then tripped down the corridor with that dancing footstep--was somewhere concealed within the four walls commanded by his spy-hole. he also realised--and this was most unusual--that this individual whom he desired to watch knew that he was being watched. and, further, that the stranger himself was also watching! in fact, that it was he, the doctor, who was being observed--and by an observer as keen and trained as himself. an inkling of the true state of the case began to dawn upon him, and he was on the verge of entering--indeed, his hand already touched the door-knob--when his eye, still glued to the spy-hole, detected a slight movement. directly opposite, between him and the fireplace, something stirred. he watched very attentively and made certain that he was not mistaken. an object on the mantelpiece--it was a blue vase--disappeared from view. it passed out of sight together with the portion of the marble mantelpiece on which it rested. next, that part of the fire and grate and brass fender immediately below it vanished entirely, as though a slice had been taken clean out of them. dr. silence then understood that something between him and these objects was slowly coming into being, something that concealed them and obstructed his vision by inserting itself in the line of sight between them and himself. he quietly awaited further results before going in. first he saw a thin perpendicular line tracing itself from just above the height of the clock and continuing downwards till it reached the woolly fire-mat. this line grew wider, broadened, grew solid. it was no shadow; it was something substantial. it defined itself more and more. then suddenly, at the top of the line, and about on a level with the face of the clock, he saw a round luminous disc gazing steadily at him. it was a human eye, looking straight into his own, pressed there against the spy-hole. and it was bright with intelligence. dr. silence held his breath for a moment--and stared back at it. then, like some one moving out of deep shadow into light, he saw the figure of a man come sliding sideways into view, a whitish face following the eye, and the perpendicular line he had first observed broadening out and developing into the complete figure of a human being. it was the patient. he had apparently been standing there in front of the fire all the time. a second eye had followed the first, and both of them stared steadily at the spy-hole, sharply concentrated, yet with a sly twinkle of humour and amusement that made it impossible for the doctor to maintain his position any longer. he opened the door and went in quickly. as he did so he noticed for the first time the sound of a german band coming in gaily through the open ventilators. in some intuitive, unaccountable fashion the music connected itself with the patient he was about to interview. this sort of prevision was not unfamiliar to him. it always explained itself later. the man, he saw, was of middle age and of very ordinary appearance; so ordinary, in fact, that he was difficult to describe--his only peculiarity being his extreme thinness. pleasant--that is, good--vibrations issued from his atmosphere and met dr. silence as he advanced to greet him, yet vibrations alive with currents and discharges betraying the perturbed and disordered condition of his mind and brain. there was evidently something wholly out of the usual in the state of his thoughts. yet, though strange, it was not altogether distressing; it was not the impression that the broken and violent atmosphere of the insane produces upon the mind. dr. silence realised in a flash that here was a case of absorbing interest that might require all his powers to handle properly. "i was watching you through my little peep-hole--as you saw," he began, with a pleasant smile, advancing to shake hands. "i find it of the greatest assistance sometimes----" but the patient interrupted him at once. his voice was hurried and had odd, shrill changes in it, breaking from high to low in unexpected fashion. one moment it thundered, the next it almost squeaked. "i understand without explanation," he broke in rapidly. "you get the true note of a man in this way--when he thinks himself unobserved. i quite agree. only, in my case, i fear, you saw very little. my case, as you of course grasp, dr. silence, is extremely peculiar, uncomfortably peculiar. indeed, unless sir william had positively assured me----" "my friend has sent you to me," the doctor interrupted gravely, with a gentle note of authority, "and that is quite sufficient. pray, be seated, mr.----" "mudge--racine mudge," returned the other. "take this comfortable one, mr. mudge," leading him to the fixed chair, "and tell me your condition in your own way and at your own pace. my whole day is at your service if you require it." mr. mudge moved towards the chair in question and then hesitated. "you will promise me not to use the narcotic buttons," he said, before sitting down. "i do not need them. also i ought to mention that anything you think of vividly will reach my mind. that is apparently part of my peculiar case." he sat down with a sigh and arranged his thin legs and body into a position of comfort. evidently he was very sensitive to the thoughts of others, for the picture of the green buttons had only entered the doctor's mind for a second, yet the other had instantly snapped it up. dr. silence noticed, too, that mr. mudge held on tightly with both hands to the arms of the chair. "i'm rather glad the chair is nailed to the floor," he remarked, as he settled himself more comfortably. "it suits me admirably. the fact is--and this is my case in a nutshell--which is all that a doctor of your marvellous development requires--the fact is, dr. silence, i am a victim of higher space. that's what's the matter with me--higher space!" the two looked at each other for a space in silence, the little patient holding tightly to the arms of the chair which "suited him admirably," and looking up with staring eyes, his atmosphere positively trembling with the waves of some unknown activity; while the doctor smiled kindly and sympathetically, and put his whole person as far as possible into the mental condition of the other. "higher space," repeated mr. mudge, "that's what it is. now, do you think you can help me with _that_?" there was a pause during which the men's eyes steadily searched down below the surface of their respective personalities. then dr. silence spoke. "i am quite sure i can help," he answered quietly; "sympathy must always help, and suffering always owns my sympathy. i see you have suffered cruelly. you must tell me all about your case, and when i hear the gradual steps by which you reached this strange condition, i have no doubt i can be of assistance to you." he drew a chair up beside his interlocutor and laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment. his whole being radiated kindness, intelligence, desire to help. "for instance," he went on, "i feel sure it was the result of no mere chance that you became familiar with the terrors of what you term higher space; for higher space is no mere external measurement. it is, of course, a spiritual state, a spiritual condition, an inner development, and one that we must recognise as abnormal, since it is beyond the reach of the world at the present stage of evolution. higher space is a mythical state." "oh!" cried the other, rubbing his birdlike hands with pleasure, "the relief it is to be to talk to some one who can understand! of course what you say is the utter truth. and you are right that no mere chance led me to my present condition, but, on the other hand, prolonged and deliberate study. yet chance in a sense now governs it. i mean, my entering the condition of higher space seems to depend upon the chance of this and that circumstance. for instance, the mere sound of that german band sent me off. not that all music will do so, but certain sounds, certain vibrations, at once key me up to the requisite pitch, and off i go. wagner's music always does it, and that band must have been playing a stray bit of wagner. but i'll come to all that later. only, first, i must ask you to send away your man from the spy-hole." john silence looked up with a start, for mr. mudge's back was to the door, and there was no mirror. he saw the brown eye of barker glued to the little circle of glass, and he crossed the room without a word and snapped down the black shutter provided for the purpose, and then heard barker shuffle away along the passage. "now," continued the little man in the chair, "i can begin. you have managed to put me completely at my ease, and i feel i may tell you my whole case without shame or reserve. you will understand. but you must be patient with me if i go into details that are already familiar to you--details of higher space, i mean--and if i seem stupid when i have to describe things that transcend the power of language and are really therefore indescribable." "my dear friend," put in the other calmly, "that goes without saying. to know higher space is an experience that defies description, and one is obliged to make use of more or less intelligible symbols. but, pray, proceed. your vivid thoughts will tell me more than your halting words." an immense sigh of relief proceeded from the little figure half lost in the depths of the chair. such intelligent sympathy meeting him half-way was a new experience to him, and it touched his heart at once. he leaned back, relaxing his tight hold of the arms, and began in his thin, scale-like voice. "my mother was a frenchwoman, and my father an essex bargeman," he said abruptly. "hence my name--racine and mudge. my father died before i ever saw him. my mother inherited money from her bordeaux relations, and when she died soon after, i was left alone with wealth and a strange freedom. i had no guardian, trustees, sisters, brothers, or any connection in the world to look after me. i grew up, therefore, utterly without education. this much was to my advantage; i learned none of that deceitful rubbish taught in schools, and so had nothing to unlearn when i awakened to my true love--mathematics, higher mathematics and higher geometry. these, however, i seemed to know instinctively. it was like the memory of what i had deeply studied before; the principles were in my blood, and i simply raced through the ordinary stages, and beyond, and then did the same with geometry. afterwards, when i read the books on these subjects, i understood how swift and undeviating the knowledge had come back to me. it was simply memory. it was simply _re-collecting_ the memories of what i had known before in a previous existence and required no books to teach me." in his growing excitement, mr. mudge attempted to drag the chair forward a little nearer to his listener, and then smiled faintly as he resigned himself instantly again to its immovability, and plunged anew into the recital of his singular "disease." "the audacious speculations of bolyai, the amazing theories of gauss--that through a point more than one line could be drawn parallel to a given line; the possibility that the angles of a triangle are together _greater_ than two right angles, if drawn upon immense curvatures-the breathless intuitions of beltrami and lobatchewsky--all these i hurried through, and emerged, panting but unsatisfied, upon the verge of my--my new world, my higher space possibilities--in a word, my disease! "how i got there," he resumed after a brief pause, during which he appeared to be listening intently for an approaching sound, "is more than i can put intelligibly into words. i can only hope to leave your mind with an intuitive comprehension of the possibility of what i say. "here, however, came a change. at this point i was no longer absorbing the fruits of studies i had made before; it was the beginning of new efforts to learn for the first time, and i had to go slowly and laboriously through terrible work. here i sought for the theories and speculations of others. but books were few and far between, and with the exception of one man--a 'dreamer,' the world called him--whose audacity and piercing intuition amazed and delighted me beyond description, i found no one to guide or help. "you, of course, dr. silence, understand something of what i am driving at with these stammering words, though you cannot perhaps yet guess what depths of pain my new knowledge brought me to, nor why an acquaintance with a new development of space should prove a source of misery and terror." mr. racine mudge, remembering that the chair would not move, did the next best thing he could in his desire to draw nearer to the attentive man facing him, and sat forward upon the very edge of the cushions, crossing his legs and gesticulating with both hands as though he saw into this region of new space he was attempting to describe, and might any moment tumble into it bodily from the edge of the chair and disappear from view. john silence, separated from him by three paces, sat with his eyes fixed upon the thin white face opposite, noting every word and every gesture with deep attention. "this room we now sit in, dr. silence, has one side open to space--to higher space. a closed box only _seems_ closed. there is a way in and out of a soap bubble without breaking the skin." "you tell me no new thing," the doctor interposed gently. "hence, if higher space exists and our world borders upon it and lies partially in it, it follows necessarily that we see only portions of all objects. we never see their true and complete shape. we see their three measurements, but not their fourth. the new direction is concealed from us, and when i hold this book and move my hand all round it i have not really made a complete circuit. we only perceive those portions of any object which exist in our three dimensions; the rest escapes us. but, once we learn to see in higher space, and objects will appear as they actually are. only they will thus be hardly recognisable! "now, you may begin to grasp something of what i am coming to." "i am beginning to understand something of what you must have suffered," observed the doctor soothingly, "for i have made similar experiments myself, and only stopped just in time----" "you are the one man in all the world who can hear and understand, _and_ sympathise," exclaimed mr. mudge, grasping his hand and holding it tightly while he spoke. the nailed chair prevented further excitability. "well," he resumed, after a moment's pause, "i procured the implements and the coloured blocks for practical experiment, and i followed the instructions carefully till i had arrived at a working conception of four-dimensional space. the tessaract, the figure whose boundaries are cubes, i knew by heart. that is to say, i knew it and saw it mentally, for my eye, of course, could never take in a new measurement, or my hands and feet handle it. "so, at least, i thought," he added, making a wry face. "i had reached the stage, you see, when i could _imagine_ in a new dimension. i was able to conceive the shape of that new figure which is intrinsically different to all we know--the shape of the tessaract. i could perceive in four dimensions. when, therefore, i looked at a cube i could see all its sides at once. its top was not foreshortened, nor its farther side and base invisible. i saw the whole thing out flat, so to speak. and this tessaract was bounded by cubes! moreover, i also saw its content--its insides." "you were not yourself able to enter this new world," interrupted dr. silence. "not then. i was only able to conceive intuitively what it was like and how exactly it must look. later, when i slipped in there and saw objects in their entirety, unlimited by the paucity of our poor three measurements, i very nearly lost my life. for, you see, space does not stop at a single new dimension, a fourth. it extends in all possible new ones, and we must conceive it as containing any number of new dimensions. in other words, there is no space at all, but only a spiritual condition. but, meanwhile, i had come to grasp the strange fact that the objects in our normal world appear to us only partially." mr. mudge moved farther forward till he was balanced dangerously on the very edge of the chair. "from this starting point," he resumed, "i began my studies and experiments, and continued them for years. i had money, and i was without friends. i lived in solitude and experimented. my intellect, of course, had little part in the work, for intellectually it was all unthinkable. never was the limitation of mere reason more plainly demonstrated. it was mystically, intuitively, spiritually that i began to advance. and what i learnt, and knew, and did is all impossible to put into language, since it all describes experiences transcending the experiences of men. it is only some of the results--what you would call the symptoms of my disease--that i can give you, and even these must often appear absurd contradictions and impossible paradoxes. "i can only tell you, dr. silence"--his manner became exceedingly impressive--"that i reached sometimes a point of view whence all the great puzzle of the world became plain to me, and i understood what they call in the yoga books 'the great heresy of separateness'; why all great teachers have urged the necessity of man loving his neighbour as himself; how men are all really _one_; and why the utter loss of self is necessary to salvation and the discovery of the true life of the soul." he paused a moment and drew breath. "your speculations have been my own long ago," the doctor said quietly. "i fully realise the force of your words. men are doubtless not separate at all--in the sense they imagine----" "all this about the very much higher space i only dimly, very dimly, conceived, of course," the other went on, raising his voice again by jerks; "but what did happen to me was the humbler accident of--the simpler disaster--oh, dear, how shall i put it----?" he stammered and showed visible signs of distress. "it was simply this," he resumed with a sudden rush of words, "that, accidentally, as the result of my years of experiment, i one day slipped bodily into the next world, the world of four dimensions, yet without knowing precisely how i got there, or how i could get back again. i discovered, that is, that my ordinary three-dimensional body was but an expression--a projection--of my higher four-dimensional body! "now you understand what i meant much earlier in our talk when i spoke of chance. i cannot control my entrance or exit. certain people, certain human atmospheres, certain wandering forces, thoughts, desires even--the radiations of certain combinations of colour, and above all, the vibrations of certain kinds of music, will suddenly throw me into a state of what i can only describe as an intense and terrific inner vibration--and behold i am off! off in the direction at right angles to all our known directions! off in the direction the cube takes when it begins to trace the outlines of the new figure! off into my breathless and semi-divine higher space! off, _inside myself_, into the world of four dimensions!" he gasped and dropped back into the depths of the immovable chair. "and there," he whispered, his voice issuing from among the cushions, "there i have to stay until these vibrations subside, or until they do something which i cannot find words to describe properly or intelligibly to you--and then, behold, i am back again. first, that is, i disappear. then i reappear." "just so," exclaimed dr. silence, "and that is why a few----" "why a few moments ago," interrupted mr. mudge, taking the words out of his mouth, "you found me gone, and then saw me return. the music of that wretched german band sent me off. your intense thinking about me brought me back--when the band had stopped its wagner. i saw you approach the peep-hole and i saw barker's intention of doing so later. for me no interiors are hidden. i see inside. when in that state the content of your mind, as of your body, is open to me as the day. oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" mr. mudge stopped and again mopped his brow. a light trembling ran over the surface of his small body like wind over grass. he still held tightly to the arms of the chair. "at first," he presently resumed, "my new experiences were so vividly interesting that i felt no alarm. there was no room for it. the alarm came a little later." "then you actually penetrated far enough into that state to experience yourself as a normal portion of it?" asked the doctor, leaning forward, deeply interested. mr. mudge nodded a perspiring face in reply. "i did," he whispered, "undoubtedly i did. i am coming to all that. it began first at night, when i realised that sleep brought no loss of consciousness----" "the spirit, of course, can never sleep. only the body becomes unconscious," interposed john silence. "yes, we know that--theoretically. at night, of course, the spirit is active elsewhere, and we have no memory of where and how, simply because the brain stays behind and receives no record. but i found that, while remaining conscious, i also retained memory. i had attained to the state of continuous consciousness, for at night i regularly, with the first approaches of drowsiness, entered _nolens volens_ the four-dimensional world. "for a time this happened regularly, and i could not control it; though later i found a way to regulate it better. apparently sleep is unnecessary in the higher--the four-dimensional--body. yes, perhaps. but i should infinitely have preferred dull sleep to the knowledge. for, unable to control my movements, i wandered to and fro, attracted, owing to my partial development and premature arrival, to parts of this new world that alarmed me more and more. it was the awful waste and drift of a monstrous world, so utterly different to all we know and see that i cannot even hint at the nature of the sights and objects and beings in it. more than that, i cannot even remember them. i cannot now picture them to myself even, but can recall only the _memory of the impression_ they made upon me, the horror and devastating terror of it all. to be in several places at once, for instance----" "perfectly," interrupted john silence, noticing the increase of the other's excitement, "i understand exactly. but now, please, tell me a little more of this alarm you experienced, and how it affected you." "it's not the disappearing and reappearing _per se_ that i mind," continued mr. mudge, "so much as certain other things. it's seeing people and objects in their weird entirety, in their true and complete shapes, that is so distressing. it introduces me to a world of monsters. horses, dogs, cats, all of which i loved; people, trees, children; all that i have considered beautiful in life--everything, from a human face to a cathedral--appear to me in a different shape and aspect to all i have known before. i cannot perhaps convince you why this should be terrible, but i assure you that it is so. to hear the human voice proceeding from this novel appearance which i scarcely recognise as a human body is ghastly, simply ghastly. to see inside everything and everybody is a form of insight peculiarly distressing. to be so confused in geography as to find myself one moment at the north pole, and the next at clapham junction--or possibly at both places simultaneously--is absurdly terrifying. your imagination will readily furnish other details without my multiplying my experiences now. but you have no idea what it all means, and how i suffer." mr. mudge paused in his panting account and lay back in his chair. he still held tightly to the arms as though they could keep him in the world of sanity and three measurements, and only now and again released his left hand in order to mop his face. he looked very thin and white and oddly unsubstantial, and he stared about him as though he saw into this other space he had been talking about. john silence, too, felt warm. he had listened to every word and had made many notes. the presence of this man had an exhilarating effect upon him. it seemed as if mr. racine mudge still carried about with him something of that breathless higher-space condition he had been describing. at any rate, dr. silence had himself advanced sufficiently far along the legitimate paths of spiritual and psychic transformations to realise that the visions of this extraordinary little person had a basis of truth for their origin. after a pause that prolonged itself into minutes, he crossed the room and unlocked a drawer in a bookcase, taking out a small book with a red cover. it had a lock to it, and he produced a key out of his pocket and proceeded to open the covers. the bright eyes of mr. mudge never left him for a single second. "it almost seems a pity," he said at length, "to cure you, mr. mudge. you are on the way to discovery of great things. though you may lose your life in the process--that is, your life here in the world of three dimensions--you would lose thereby nothing of great value--you will pardon my apparent rudeness, i know--and you might gain what is infinitely greater. your suffering, of course, lies in the fact that you alternate between the two worlds and are never wholly in one or the other. also, i rather imagine, though i cannot be certain of this from any personal experiments, that you have here and there penetrated even into space of more than four dimensions, and have hence experienced the terror you speak of." the perspiring son of the essex bargeman and the woman of normandy bent his head several times in assent, but uttered no word in reply. "some strange psychic predisposition, dating no doubt from one of your former lives, has favoured the development of your 'disease'; and the fact that you had no normal training at school or college, no leading by the poor intellect into the culs-de-sac falsely called knowledge, has further caused your exceedingly rapid movement along the lines of direct inner experience. none of the knowledge you have foreshadowed has come to you through the senses, of course." mr. mudge, sitting in his immovable chair, began to tremble slightly. a wind again seemed to pass over his surface and again to set it curiously in motion like a field of grass. "you are merely talking to gain time," he said hurriedly, in a shaking voice. "this thinking aloud delays us. i see ahead what you are coming to, only please be quick, for something is going to happen. a band is again coming down the street, and if it plays--if it plays wagner--i shall be off in a twinkling." "precisely. i will be quick. i was leading up to the point of how to effect your cure. the way is this: you must simply learn to _block the entrances_." "true, true, utterly true!" exclaimed the little man, dodging about nervously in the depths of the chair. "but how, in the name of space, is that to be done?" "by concentration. they are all within you, these entrances, although outer cases such as colour, music and other things lead you towards them. these external things you cannot hope to destroy, but once the entrances are blocked, they will lead you only to bricked walls and closed channels. you will no longer be able to find the way." "quick, quick!" cried the bobbing figure in the chair. "how is this concentration to be effected?" "this little book," continued dr. silence calmly, "will explain to you the way." he tapped the cover. "let me now read out to you certain simple instructions, composed, as i see you divine, entirely from my own personal experiences in the same direction. follow these instructions and you will no longer enter the state of higher space. the entrances will be blocked effectively." mr. mudge sat bolt upright in his chair to listen, and john silence cleared his throat and began to read slowly in a very distinct voice. but before he had uttered a dozen words, something happened. a sound of street music entered the room through the open ventilators, for a band had begun to play in the stable mews at the back of the house--the march from _tannhäuser_. odd as it may seem that a german band should twice within the space of an hour enter the same mews and play wagner, it was nevertheless the fact. mr. racine mudge heard it. he uttered a sharp, squeaking cry and twisted his arms with nervous energy round the chair. a piteous look that was not far from tears spread over his white face. grey shadows followed it--the grey of fear. he began to struggle convulsively. "hold me fast! catch me! for god's sake, keep me here! i'm on the rush already. oh, it's frightful!" he cried in tones of anguish, his voice as thin as a reed. dr. silence made a plunge forward to seize him, but in a flash, before he could cover the space between them, mr. racine mudge, screaming and struggling, seemed to shoot past him into invisibility. he disappeared like an arrow from a bow propelled at infinite speed, and his voice no longer sounded in the external air, but seemed in some curious way to make itself heard somewhere within the depths of the doctor's own being. it was almost like a faint singing cry in his head, like a voice of dream, a voice of vision and unreality. "alcohol, alcohol!" it cried, "give me alcohol! it's the quickest way. alcohol, before i'm out of reach!" the doctor, accustomed to rapid decisions and even more rapid action, remembered that a brandy flask stood upon the mantelpiece, and in less than a second he had seized it and was holding it out towards the space above the chair recently occupied by the visible mudge. then, before his very eyes, and long ere he could unscrew the metal stopper, he saw the contents of the closed glass phial sink and lessen as though some one were drinking violently and greedily of the liquor within. "thanks! enough! it deadens the vibrations!" cried the faint voice in his interior, as he withdrew the flask and set it back upon the mantelpiece. he understood that in mudge's present condition one side of the flask was open to space and he could drink without removing the stopper. he could hardly have had a more interesting proof of what he had been hearing described at such length. but the next moment--the very same moment it almost seemed--the german band stopped midway in its tune--and there was mr. mudge back in his chair again, gasping and panting! "quick!" he shrieked, "stop that band! send it away! catch hold of me! block the entrances! block the entrances! give me the red book! oh, oh, oh-h-h-h!!!" the music had begun again. it was merely a temporary interruption. the _tannhäuser_ march started again, this time at a tremendous pace that made it sound like a rapid two-step as though the instruments played against time. but the brief interruption gave dr. silence a moment in which to collect his scattering thoughts, and before the band had got through half a bar, he had flung forward upon the chair and held mr. racine mudge, the struggling little victim of higher space, in a grip of iron. his arms went all round his diminutive person, taking in a good part of the chair at the same time. he was not a big man, yet he seemed to smother mudge completely. yet, even as he did so, and felt the wriggling form underneath him, it began to melt and slip away like air or water. the wood of the arm-chair somehow disentangled itself from between his own arms and those of mudge. the phenomenon known as the passage of matter through matter took place. the little man seemed actually to get mixed up in his own being. dr. silence could just see his face beneath him. it puckered and grew dark as though from some great internal effort. he heard the thin, reedy voice cry in his ear to "block the entrances, block the entrances!" and then--but how in the world describe what is indescribable? john silence half rose up to watch. racine mudge, his face distorted beyond all recognition, was making a marvellous inward movement, as though doubling back upon himself. he turned funnel-wise like water in a whirling vortex, and then appeared to break up somewhat as a reflection breaks up and divides in a distorting convex mirror. he went neither forward nor backwards, neither to the right nor the left, neither up nor down. but he went. he went utterly. he simply flashed away out of sight like a vanishing projectile. all but one leg! dr. silence just had the time and the presence of mind to seize upon the left ankle and boot as it disappeared, and to this he held on for several seconds like grim death. yet all the time he knew it was a foolish and useless thing to do. the foot was in his grasp one moment, and the next it seemed--this was the only way he could describe it--inside his own skin and bones, and at the same time outside his hand and all round it. it seemed mixed up in some amazing way with his own flesh and blood. then it was gone, and he was tightly grasping a draught of heated air. "gone! gone! gone!" cried a thick, whispering voice, somewhere deep within his own consciousness. "lost! lost! lost!" it repeated, growing fainter and fainter till at length it vanished into nothing and the last signs of mr. racine mudge vanished with it. john silence locked his red book and replaced it in the cabinet, which he fastened with a click, and when barker answered the bell he inquired if mr. mudge had left a card upon the table. it appeared that he had, and when the servant returned with it, dr. silence read the address and made a note of it. it was in north london. "mr. mudge has gone," he said quietly to barker, noticing his expression of alarm. "he's not taken his 'at with him, sir." "mr. mudge requires no hat where he is now," continued the doctor, stooping to poke the fire. "but he may return for it----" "and the humbrella, sir." "and the umbrella." "he didn't go out _my_ way, sir, if you please," stuttered the amazed servant, his curiosity overcoming his nervousness. "mr. mudge has his own way of coming and going, and prefers it. if he returns by the door at any time remember to bring him instantly to me, and be kind and gentle with him and ask no questions. also, remember, barker, to think pleasantly, sympathetically, affectionately of him while he is away. mr. mudge is a very suffering gentleman." barker bowed and went out of the room backwards, gasping and feeling round the inside of his collar with three very hot fingers of one hand. it was two days later when he brought in a telegram to the study. dr. silence opened it, and read as follows: "bombay. just slipped out again. all safe. have blocked entrances. thousand thanks. address cooks, london.--mudge." dr. silence looked up and saw barker staring at him bewilderingly. it occurred to him that somehow he knew the contents of the telegram. "make a parcel of mr. mudge's things," he said briefly, "and address them thomas cook & sons, ludgate circus. and send them there exactly a month from to-day and marked 'to be called for.'" "yes, sir," said barker, leaving the room with a deep sigh and a hurried glance at the waste-paper basket where his master had dropped the pink paper. xiv transition john mudbury was on his way home from the shops, his arms full of christmas presents. it was after six o'clock and the streets were very crowded. he was an ordinary man, lived in an ordinary suburban flat, with an ordinary wife and four ordinary children. _he_ did not think them ordinary, but everybody else did. he had ordinary presents for each one, a cheap blotter for his wife, a cheap air-gun for the eldest boy, and so forth. he was over fifty, bald, in an office, decent in mind and habits, of uncertain opinions, uncertain politics, and uncertain religion. yet he considered himself a decided, positive gentleman, quite unaware that the morning newspaper determined his opinions for the day. he just lived--from day to day. physically, he was fit enough, except for a weak heart (which never troubled him); and his summer holiday was bad golf, while the children bathed and his wife read "garvice" on the sands. like the majority of men, he dreamed idly of the past, muddled away the present, and guessed vaguely--after imaginative reading on occasions--at the future. "i'd like to survive all right," he said, "provided it's better than this," surveying his wife and children, and thinking of his daily toil. "otherwise----!" and he shrugged his shoulders as a brave man should. he went to church regularly. but nothing in church _convinced_ him that he did survive, just as nothing in church enticed him into hoping that he would. on the other hand, nothing in life persuaded him that he didn't, wouldn't, couldn't. "i'm an evolutionist," he loved to say to thoughtful cronies (over a glass), having never heard that darwinism had been questioned.... and so he came home gaily, happily, with his bunch of christmas presents "for the wife and little ones," stroking himself upon their keen enjoyment and excitement. the night before he had taken "the wife" to see _magic_ at a select london theatre where the intellectuals went--and had been extraordinarily stirred. he had gone questioningly, yet expecting something out of the common. "it's _not_ musical," he warned her, "nor farce, nor comedy, so to speak"; and in answer to her question as to what the critics had said, he had wriggled, sighed, and put his gaudy necktie straight four times in quick succession. for no "man in the street," with any claim to self-respect, could be expected to understand what the critics had said, even if he understood the play. and john had answered truthfully: "oh, they just said things. but the theatre's always full--and that's the only test." and just now, as he crossed the crowded circus to catch his 'bus, it chanced that his mind (having glimpsed an advertisement) was full of this particular play, or, rather, of the effect it had produced upon him at the time. for it had _thrilled_ him--inexplicably: with its marvellous speculative hint, its big audacity, its alert and spiritual beauty.... thought plunged to find something--plunged after this bizarre suggestion of a bigger universe, after this quasi-jocular suggestion that man is not the only--then dashed full-tilt against a sentence that memory thrust beneath his nose: "science does _not_ exhaust the universe"--and at the same time dashed full-tilt against destruction of another kind as well...! how it happened, he never exactly knew. he saw a monster glaring at him with eyes of blazing fire. it was horrible! it rushed upon him. he dodged.... another monster met him round the corner. both came at him simultaneously.... he dodged again--a leap that might have cleared a hurdle easily, but was too late. between the pair of them--his heart literally in his gullet--he was mercilessly caught.... bones crunched.... there was a soft sensation, icy cold and hot as fire. horns and voices roared. battering-rams he saw, and a carapace of iron.... then dazzling light.... "always _face_ the traffic!" he remembered with a frantic yell--and, by some extraordinary luck, escaped miraculously on to the opposite pavement.... there was no doubt about it. by the skin of his teeth he had dodged a rather ugly death. first ... he felt for his presents--all were safe. and then, instead of congratulating himself and taking breath, he hurried homewards--_on foot_, which proved that his mind had lost control a bit!--thinking only how disappointed the wife and children would have been if--if anything had happened.... another thing he realised, oddly enough, was that he no longer really _loved_ his wife, but had only great affection for her. what made him think of that, heaven only knows, but he _did_ think of it. he was an honest man without pretence. this came as a discovery somehow. he turned a moment, and saw the crowd gathered about the entangled taxicabs, policemen's helmets gleaming in the lights of the shop windows ... then hurried on again, his thoughts full of the joy his presents would give ... of the scampering children ... and of his wife--bless her silly heart!--eyeing the mysterious parcels.... and, though he never could explain _how_, he presently stood at the door of the jail-like building that contained his flat, having walked the whole three miles! his thoughts had been so busy and absorbed that he had hardly noticed the length of weary trudge.... "besides," he reflected, thinking of the narrow escape, "i've had a nasty shock. it was a d----d near thing, now i come to think of it...." he did feel a bit shaky and bewildered.... yet, at the same time, he felt extraordinarily jolly and light-hearted.... he counted his christmas parcels ... hugged himself in anticipatory joy ... and let himself in swiftly with his latchkey. "i'm late," he realised, "but when she sees the brown-paper parcels, she'll forget to say a word. god bless the old faithful soul." and he softly used the key a second time and entered his flat on tiptoe.... in his mind was the master impulse of that afternoon--the pleasure these christmas presents would give his wife and children.... he heard a noise. he hung up hat and coat in the pokey vestibule (they never called it "hall") and moved softly towards the parlour door, holding the packages behind him. only of them he thought, not of himself--of his family, that is, not of the packages. pushing the door cunningly ajar, he peeped in slyly. to his amazement, the room was full of people! he withdrew quickly, wondering what it meant. a party? and without his knowing about it! extraordinary!... keen disappointment came over him. but, as he stepped back, the vestibule, he saw, was full of people too. he was uncommonly surprised, yet somehow not surprised at all. people were congratulating him. there was a perfect mob of them. moreover, he knew them all--vaguely remembered them, at least. and they all knew him. "isn't it a game?" laughed some one, patting him on the back. "_they_ haven't the least idea...!" and the speaker--it was old john palmer, the bookkeeper at the office--emphasised the "they." "not the least idea," he answered with a smile, saying something he didn't understand, yet knew was right. his face, apparently, showed the utter bewilderment he felt. the shock of the collision had been greater than he realised evidently. his mind was wandering.... possibly! only the odd thing was--he had never felt so clear-headed in his life. ten thousand things grew simple suddenly. but, how thickly these people pressed about him, and how--familiarly! "my parcels," he said, joyously pushing his way across the throng. "these are christmas presents i've bought for them." he nodded toward the room. "i've saved for weeks--stopped cigars and billiards and--and several other good things--to buy them." "good man!" said palmer with a happy laugh. "it's the heart that counts." mudbury looked at him. palmer had said an amazing truth, only--people would hardly understand and believe him.... would they? "eh?" he asked, feeling stuffed and stupid, muddled somewhere between two meanings, one of which was gorgeous and the other stupid beyond belief. "if you _please_, mr. mudbury, step inside. they are expecting you," said a kindly, pompous voice. and, turning sharply, he met the gentle, foolish eyes of sir james epiphany, a director of the bank where he worked. the effect of the voice was instantaneous from long habit. "they are?" he smiled from his heart, and advanced as from the custom of many years. oh, how happy and gay he felt! his affection for his wife was real. romance, indeed, had gone, but he needed her--and she needed him. and the children--milly, bill, and jean--he deeply loved them. life _was_ worth living indeed! in the room was a crowd, but--an astounding silence. john mudbury looked round him. he advanced towards his wife, who sat in the corner arm-chair with milly on her knee. a lot of people talked and moved about. momentarily the crowd increased. he stood in front of them--in front of milly and his wife. and he spoke--holding out his packages. "it's christmas eve," he whispered shyly, "and i've--brought you something--something for everybody. look!" he held the packages before their eyes. "of course, of course," said a voice behind him, "but you may hold them out like that for a century. they'll _never_ see them!" "of course they won't. but i love to do the old, sweet thing," replied john mudbury--then wondered with a gasp of stark amazement why he said it. "_i_ think----" whispered milly, staring round her. "well, _what_ do you think?" her mother asked sharply. "you're always thinking something queer." "i think," the child continued dreamily, "that daddy's already here." she paused, then added with a child's impossible conviction, "i'm sure he is. i _feel_ him." there was an extraordinary laugh. sir james epiphany laughed. the others--the whole crowd of them--also turned their heads and smiled. but the mother, thrusting the child away from her, rose up suddenly with a violent start. her face had turned to chalk. she stretched her arms out--into the air before her. she gasped and shivered. there was an awful anguish in her eyes. "look!" repeated john, "these are the presents that i brought." but his voice apparently was soundless. and, with a spasm of icy pain, he remembered that palmer and sir james--some years ago--had died. "it's magic," he cried, "but--i love you, jinny--i love you--and--and i have always been true to you--as true as steel. we need each other--oh, can't you see--we go on together--you and i--for ever and ever----" "_think_," interrupted an exquisitely tender voice, "don't shout! _they_ can't hear you--now." and, turning, john mudbury met the eyes of everard minturn, their president of the year before. minturn had gone down with the _titanic_. he dropped his parcels then. his heart gave an enormous leap of joy. he saw her face--the face of his wife--look through him. but the child gazed straight into his eyes. she _saw_ him. the next thing he knew was that he heard something tinkling ... far, far away. it sounded miles below him--inside him--he was sounding himself--all utterly bewildering--like a bell. it _was_ a bell. milly stooped down and picked the parcels up. her face shone with happiness and laughter.... but a man came in soon after, a man with a ridiculous, solemn face, a pencil, and a notebook. he wore a dark blue helmet. behind him came a string of other men. they carried something ... something ... he could not see exactly what it was. but when he pressed forward through the laughing throng to gaze upon it, he dimly made out two eyes, a nose, a chin, a deep red smear, and a pair of folded hands upon an overcoat. a woman's form fell down upon them then, and ... he heard ... soft sounds of children weeping strangely ... and other sounds ... sounds as of familiar voices ... laughing ... laughing gaily. "they'll join us presently. it goes like a flash...." and, turning with great happiness in his heart, he saw that sir james had said it, holding palmer by the arm as with some natural yet unexpected love of sympathetic friendship. "come on," said palmer, smiling like a man who accepts a gift in universal fellowship, "let's help 'em. they'll never understand.... still, we can always try." the entire throng moved up with laughter and amusement. it was a moment of hearty, genuine life at last. delight and joy and peace were everywhere. then john mudbury realised the truth--that he was _dead_. xv the tradition the noises outside the little flat at first were very disconcerting after living in the country. they made sleep difficult. at the cottage in sussex where the family had lived, night brought deep, comfortable silence, unless the wind was high, when the pine trees round the duck-pond made a sound like surf, or if the gale was from the south-west, the orchard roared a bit unpleasantly. but in london it was very different; sleep was easier in the daytime than at night. for after nightfall the rumble of the traffic became spasmodic instead of continuous; the motor-horns startled like warnings of alarm; after comparative silence the furious rushing of a taxi-cab touched the nerves. from dinner till eleven o'clock the streets subsided gradually; then came the army from theatres, parties, and late dinners, hurrying home to bed. the motor-horns during this hour were lively and incessant, like bugles of a regiment moving into battle. the parents rarely retired until this attack was over. if quick about it, sleep was possible then before the flying of the night-birds--an uncertain squadron--screamed half the street awake again. but, these finally disposed of, a delightful hush settled down upon the neighbourhood, profounder far than any peace of the countryside. the deep rumble of the produce wagons, coming in to the big london markets from the farms--generally about three a.m.--held no disturbing quality. but sometimes in the stillness of very early morning, when streets were empty and pavements all deserted, there was a sound of another kind that was startling and unwelcome. for it was ominous. it came with a clattering violence that made nerves quiver and forced the heart to pause and listen. a strange resonance was in it, a volume of sound, moreover, that was hardly justified by its cause. for it was hoofs. a horse swept hurrying up the deserted street, and was close upon the building in a moment. it was audible suddenly, no gradual approach from a distance, but as though it turned a corner from soft ground that muffled the hoofs, on to the echoing, hard paving that emphasised the dreadful clatter. nor did it die away again when once the house was reached. it ceased as abruptly as it came. the hoofs did not go away. it was the mother who heard them first, and drew her husband's attention to their disagreeable quality. "it is the mail-vans, dear," he answered. "they go at four a. m. to catch the early trains into the country." she looked up sharply, as though something in his tone surprised her. "but there's no sound of wheels," she said. and then, as he did not reply, she added gravely, "you have heard it too, john. i can tell." "i have," he said. "i have heard it--twice." and they looked at one another searchingly, each trying to read the other's mind. she did not question him; he did not propose writing to complain in a newspaper; both understood something that neither of them understood. "i heard it first," she then said softly, "the night before jack got the fever. and as i listened, i heard him crying. but when i went in to see he was asleep. the noise stopped just outside the building." there was a shadow in her eyes as she said this, and a hush crept in between her words. "i did not hear it _go_." she said this almost beneath her breath. he looked a moment at the ground; then, coming towards her, he took her in his arms and kissed her. and she clung very tightly to him. "sometimes," he said in a quiet voice, "a mounted policeman passes down the street, i think." "it is a horse," she answered. but whether it was a question or mere corroboration he did not ask, for at that moment the doctor arrived, and the question of little jack's health became the paramount matter of immediate interest. the great man's verdict was uncommonly disquieting. all that night they sat up in the sick room. it was strangely still, as though by one accord the traffic avoided the house where a little boy hung between life and death. the motor-horns even had a muffled sound, and heavy drays and wagons used the wide streets; there were fewer taxicabs about, or else they flew by noiselessly. yet no straw was down; the expense prohibited that. and towards morning, very early, the mother decided to watch alone. she had been a trained nurse before her marriage, accustomed when she was younger to long vigils. "you go down, dear, and get a little sleep," she urged in a whisper. "he's quiet now. at five o'clock i'll come for you to take my place." "you'll fetch me at once," he whispered, "if----" then hesitated as though breath failed him. a moment he stood there staring from her face to the bed. "if you hear anything," he finished. she nodded, and he went downstairs to his study, not to his bedroom. he left the door ajar. he sat in darkness, listening. mother, he knew, was listening, too, beside the bed. his heart was very full, for he did not believe the boy could live till morning. the picture of the room was all the time before his eyes--the shaded lamp, the table with the medicines, the little wasted figure beneath the blankets, and mother close beside it, listening. he sat alert, ready to fly upstairs at the smallest cry. but no sound broke the stillness; the entire neighbourhood was silent; all london slept. he heard the clock strike three in the dining-room at the end of the corridor. it was still enough for that. there was not even the heavy rumble of a single produce wagon, though usually they passed about this time on their way to smithfield and covent garden markets. he waited, far too anxious to close his eyes.... at four o'clock he would go up and relieve her vigil. four, he knew, was the time when life sinks to its lowest ebb.... then, in the middle of his reflections, thought stopped dead, and it seemed his heart stopped too. far away, but coming nearer with extraordinary rapidity, a sharp, clear sound broke out of the surrounding stillness--a horse's hoofs. at first it was so distant that it might have been almost on the high roads of the country, but the amazing speed with which it came closer, and the sudden increase of the beating sound, was such, that by the time he turned his head it seemed to have entered the street outside. it was within a hundred yards of the building. the next second it was before the very door. and something in him blenched. he knew a moment's complete paralysis. the abrupt cessation of the heavy clatter was strangest of all. it came like lightning, it struck, it paused. it did not go away again. yet the sound of it was still beating in his ears as he dashed upstairs three steps at a time. it seemed in the house as well, on the stairs behind him, in the little passage-way, _inside the very bedroom_. it was an appalling sound. yet he entered a room that was quiet, orderly, and calm. it was silent. beside the bed his wife sat, holding jack's hand and stroking it. she was soothing him; her face was very peaceful. no sound but her gentle whisper was audible. he controlled himself by a tremendous effort, but his face betrayed his consternation and distress. "hush," she said beneath her breath; "he's sleeping much more calmly now. the crisis, bless god, is over, i do believe. i dared not leave him." he saw in a moment that she was right, and an untenable relief passed over him. he sat down beside her, very cold, yet perspiring with heat. "you heard----?" he asked after a pause. "nothing," she replied quickly, "except his pitiful, wild words when the delirium was on him. it's passed. it lasted but a moment, or i'd have called you." he stared closely into her tired eyes. "and his words?" he asked in a whisper. whereupon she told him quietly that the little chap had sat up with wide-opened eyes and talked excitedly about a "great, great horse" he heard, but that was not "coming for him." "he laughed and said he would not go with it because he 'was not ready yet.' some scrap of talk he had overheard from us," she added, "when we discussed the traffic once...." "but you heard nothing?" he repeated almost impatiently. no, she had heard nothing. after all, then, he _had_ dozed a moment in his chair.... four weeks later jack, entirely convalescent, was playing a restricted game of hide-and-seek with his sister in the flat. it was really a forbidden joy, owing to noise and risk of breakages, but he had unusual privileges after his grave illness. it was dusk. the lamps in the street were being lit. "quietly, remember; your mother's resting in her room," were the father's orders. she had just returned from a week by the sea, recuperating from the strain of nursing for so many nights. the traffic rolled and boomed along the streets below. "jack! do come on and hide. it's your turn. i hid last." but the boy was standing spellbound by the window, staring hard at something on the pavement. sybil called and tugged in vain. tears threatened. jack would not budge. he declared he saw something. "oh, you're always seeing something. i wish you'd go and hide. it's only because you can't think of a good place, really." "look!" he cried in a voice of wonder. and as he said it his father rose quickly from his chair before the fire. "look!" the child repeated with delight and excitement. "it's a great big horse. and it's perfectly white all over." his sister joined him at the window. "where? where? i can't see it. oh, _do_ show me!" their father was standing close behind them now. "i heard it," he was whispering, but so low the children did not notice him. his face was the colour of chalk. "straight in front of our door, stupid! can't you see it? oh, i do wish it had come for me. it's _such_ a beauty!" and he clapped his hands with pleasure and excitement. "quick, quick! it's going away again!" but while the children stood half-squabbling by the window, their father leaned over a sofa in the adjoining room above a figure whose heart in sleep had quietly stopped its beating. the great white horse had come. but this time he had not only heard its wonderful arrival. he had also heard it go. it seemed he heard the awful hoofs beat down the sky, far, far away, and very swiftly, dying into silence, finally up among the stars. the end. transcriber's note spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been retained as in the original publication except as follows: page in the familar scenery _changed to_ in the familiar scenery page that the search partly had gone _changed to_ that the search party had gone page which disintegrate the herioc soul _changed to_ which disintegrate the heroic soul page where they had their birth: _changed to_ where they had their birth. page this tessaract was bounded _changed to_ this tessaract was bounded